The Harmony of Emotional Sobriety – Herb

My name is Herb, and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our gathering, again, the final gathering of this session, where we've been looking at the 12 concepts in a gentle and light touch way, because I certainly don't have much personal experience with them, but I've had lots of exposure to them over the years, and thought it would be wonderful for us to go through it together to get a sense of what they are certainly and their value as well as and this is my primary focus for myself the personal application not necessarily in the service structure but the personal applications like we do the steps and then we do the traditions. The traditions weren't meant initially for our personal application but they do have a wonderful meaning when we take a look at our own relationships through the eyes of the principles of the traditions and so this is an attempt to experience that same thing although anybody on the call today who has actual knowledge and or experience in the service structure of their respective 12-step fellowships most of the 12- step fellowships have adopted the steps and the traditions and the concepts from AA with very little change in the wording except where necessary so each of the 12-set fellowships has I do believe this uh adopted the 12 concepts for their own structure and their purpose please join me in a prayer to have an open mind and open heart today right now here in this next couple hours that we'll be together uh with regard to our community knowledge and experience with these concepts may we be inspired God, please set aside everything that I think I know about myself, the 12 concepts, my practical application and you, for an open mind and a new experience with myself, the 12 Concepts, my Practical Application, and especially you. Please join me in prayer for serenity. God, grant me the serenety to accept the things that cannot change. courage to change the things i can and wisdom to know the difference i'll give a little bit of orientation and context and then i'll introduce at least my suggestion as to how to proceed for today just a review for some people who may not have been here or who have in fact heard this before seen this before thought about this before but serves as a refresher bill wilson was brilliant in so many different ways a seeker of the truth a seeaker with regard to the resource for his recovery certainly from addiction although he knew very little bit about it until he met dr silkworth then learned a lot about it and as you know he got sober in 1934 December and five years later approximately April of 1939 he published a book based on his and the community's experience one of the things that we really do need to remember I think I think it's really important that he did not write that book by himself well he wrote the majority of it he drafted it there's no question he was the major author there's no question from my standpoint but he took the draft every time he got a revision manuscript and he distributed it to the i'll use a term it's a clunky term but it's leadership there's not leadership in aa but these were the people who had about six months sobriety there weren't many that was long-term sobriety in those days and he had them review the manuscript and make their suggestions and he also sent it out to some institutions the medical society the psychiatric society uh some of the churches etc for review and feedback so that book was written with group conscience i do believe that's why it's it's never been changed and well and and it hangs together from an organic standpoint in terms of the understanding of human nature as well as the step process for transformation later on he saw that the groups themselves that were forming in their local communities because of human nature and the nature of groups needed some principles in order to survive human nature and the group nature of egocentrism. And he created the 12 principles he calls the traditions for group unity. But his brilliance is really manifest. And if you have ever had an opportunity to review the manual, the service manual, you'll see it there. I come from a background in consulting in human resources for 40 years. That was my career. I loved it. And I'm so impressed with his understanding of business and of human nature in the way he structured the 12 principles we call the concepts of service. it's a fancy term until you get underneath it well what's its purpose and what does it mean its purpose is to run a business a spiritual non-profit organization paid staff today i think there's 100 or 120 paid staff members in new york or connected to the general service office but this is the organization that supports carrying the message when i was reviewing this yesterday it became really really very prominent to me that that's the single purpose is to sustain i wrote it down to sustain the integrity and availability of the message to sustain the integrity how does it hold together in terms of the message itself as decades go by and cultures change and the atmosphere changes how do you maintain the integrity of the massage but also the availability that's a question that chronically is on my mind is how to make the message more available i suffered for 43 years because i didn't know i was an addict alcoholic then i discovered that and i suffered again for four more years because i did it no underneath the underneath the underneath that addiction wasn't the problem that unmanageability was the problem the spiritual malady was the problem and i didn't know that i didn it no despite going to a meeting every day talking to a sponsor every day being in step studies and book studies no no no i'm a serious seeker those of you who know me know that and and and it eluded me because the message wasn't visible in the meetings i was going to with the people i was talking to the things i was reading the discussions we were having the steps were not very visible the big book as a textbook was completely invisible to me yeah no that's a huge criticism of aa and the people in aa at that time i think it's a criticism that stands today not not in the negative sense but in the observation that there's been a complete misperception of what the program of recovery is it's not meetings But I'm not going to get on that tangent. Meetings are important, but they're not the program. The program of recovery is captured in the 12 steps. The program of recovery is going to be sustained because of the group cohesion in unity and the traditions and those principles. And the principles that are the guidelines and guardrails, those are my favorite terms as you know who have you had any exposure to me at all about principles it's a fancy word it doesn't have any traction unless you think about it principles what is that it's value proposition it's a truth it's about nature the principle of gravity for instance is a physical law of nature well the principles we're talking about here are the emotional and spiritual and human and universal whatever word you want to use principles for human beings core values in fact bill uses the term principle as a synonym for the steps practice these principles in all our affairs he never gives us a list of principles it's up to us to sort them out to speculate about them the message that's the 12th step isn't it having had a spiritual awakening did just that for a minute that's the promise the ultimate purpose and promise of the 12-step process having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps by the end the ninth step the spiritual awakening guarantees on page 84 that we will be placed in a position of neutrality very overlooked the meetings will not get us sober prayer and meditation won't get us over helping others won't get us silver reading the big book won't give us over i'm writing an article right now it's about three pages i keep changing it every day i touch it on this very sort of basic concept there's only one component to get us over and keep us sober and that's a relationship with power that's it oh but how do we get there well now now we're talking about all the other things i just dismissed i've seen a term and i've adopted it the pre-con conditions the preconditions not that not that it's a formula it feels like it looks like a formula but it's not really a formula because i say preconditions for the mystery i i don't know how that accumulates to produce the alchemic result of sobriety but it does and it and it's promised in the big book there on page 84 when we come out of the ninth step bill says we enter the world of the spirit but we're not cured this is so important you've heard me preach about it i'll use that term not cured a daily reprieve the best kept secret in the rooms because most people don't understand unmanageability most people do not understand the spiritual malady although they and and i'm as guilty as anybody for so long 10 years in recovery having gone through the steps twice the two men who took me through the step those first two times they didn't know about the spiritual malady and unmanageability as described in the big book not structurally as bill uh laid out the big books even bill although he understood it didn't lay it out so that we would get it in sequence he ends his discussion on the first step on page 43 which is the conclusion of the first half of the First Step addiction and then he weaves in the information about unmanageability in the next couple chapters four and five as any of you who have participated in my workshop and we've unpacked unmanagability no page 52 with the bedevilments in pages 60 to 62 with the description of the source of the bedevilments. The bedevilements being the behavior of self-centeredness. We look at behavior first and then we get underneath the behavior to see the exact origin and nature of the resource of why that behavior is so. He concludes on page 62 with regard to self-centredness as the source of unmanageability in the same way he concludes on page 43, addiction as the resource and the source of our problem with alcohol. Page 43, there'll come a time and a place I'm paraphrasing that we'll have no mental defense against the first drink. Then he goes into step two but if you've gone through my workshop you know that we go directly into unmanageability page 52 as the behavior page 60 to 62 as the exact source where bill ends on page 62 that second paragraph talking about our inability to deal effectively with our self-centeredness. We can't even reduce it much by wishing or trying on our own power. The message is steps two and three, help is available. Step two, and we have to ask for help in step three. And we have do some work to demonstrate our willingness, four through nine. And then if we want to sustain the awakening that we will experience, if we wanna sustain it, we need to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not a maintenance program. and this is not a self-help program he says we have to grow in understanding and effectiveness then in step 12 he talks about carrying this message there that's what i just described that's the message i don't have sufficient power sufficient power is available I can have a relationship with sufficient power if I take some actions guaranteed I will have this experience but I will not be able to sustain it not cured I will be not be able to maintain it daily reprieve on my own power the understanding and and the experience that I have is just wonderful but I need to stay connected to the light and I'm currently using that metaphor a lot darkness and light because it's so graphic to clear the obstacles in me those shadows in me with step 10 on a spot check basis when I'm disturbed to fill my channel with light step 11 in the morning and to remove the obstacles at night that i missed during the day with my 10th step and then to practice these principles in all my affairs but to carry this message if you want to deal effectively with your addiction do steps four through nine and then sustain that experience through a daily practice of 10, 11, and 12. That's the message as I'm interpreting it. And these principles are, as I mentioned, to manage a non-profit spiritual business. Non-profit nobody makes any money here spiritual a relationship my my um synonym for spiritual is relationship a relationship with life that that's a a word that covers the entire spectrum of power higher power light nature as we don't understand it But most especially, and more relevantly to each one of us, the thing that should or could motivate each one of us is it's an effective relationship with myself and my true self. I won't unpack that. Most of you have heard me do that. The true self, the core of goodness, as one of my teachers calls it. The first three steps put us in relationship with life, with a capital L. The next four steps with ourselves. And the next two, maybe you could include step 10 in that, a relationship with others. I use the term guidance and guardrails for principles. Both sort of a positive and negative connotation. there. Guidance and guardrails, constantly bumping up against the extremes on both sides. But those principles are guidance. When I'm bumping up against it, the yellow light is on and I'm disturbed. And if I'm awake, I will use the 10th step to course correct guidance because i become conscious and i become more conscious and i've become more cautious like the dimmer switch the more light i have the more conscious i am the more alignment i have with reality and the more quickly i see when i'm out of alignment because i'm aware of my feelings of disturbance and the more effectively i put myself back in alignment using the 10-step formula more quickly more effectively and i make less gross mistakes less often and correct them more effectively more quickly we will always be we're a mistake machine we'll always make mistakes bill says it in step ten when they crop up not if so these principles and the concepts are principles for the structure which is an upside down structure it's counterintuitive and counter-cultural it's the purest purest purest form of democracy the individuals in the 12-step fellowship those are the people that determine the direction now obviously because of human nature we need to have a representative of the group at the smallest level level, at the local level, a representative and then we have a group of representatives and then we have a representative of the group of representatives and eventually we get to an annual meeting. And it's that annual conference that continues the direction, integrity of and availability of the message every year. Hundreds of people gather in committees and all kinds of wonderful structure as we've been talking about to make decisions about the next year and continue to make the message available, visible and effective. It's the constant concern of and purpose of admission of the World Service Conference. Originally, of course, and you know the history, Bill and Bob were the leaders. If there was an issue, the people went to Bill and Bobby. But then Bob died, 1950, and it really got Bill's attention. He knew that he needed to step out of the way and create a structure of authority and leadership, a delegation, and an effective way of communicating. A delegation of authority, a delegation of responsibility, and making sure the authority and the responsibility were correlated. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant understanding of human nature and of the spiritual principles that would guide it in a very clean way. Well, that was longer than I thought. and so i really am going to start and we're going to talk about the message and then i'm going to end some some slides and some comments about the message because that's it struck me yesterday as i was thinking about this and meditating on it that's really the total point i've never been involved in the service structure uh i have reviewed it recently because of this workshop as to whether i'm that's part of my invitation and i don't believe it is to be involved in the service structure i have other competencies that seem to carry the message in a different way than being involved in the actual business of carrying the message at the same time i believe i'll be having some conversations with the people at the highest of levels in the group conference office that are in fact involved in the service structure so that if i can be of service or help i can do it at that level but i use the term alignment a lot it's not in the big book but it's my interpretation of step three made a decision to turn from what to what from my self-centeredness to other centeredness no no it's that simple you've heard me say it it bears repeating i think about it a lot that's the turning to be in alignment with reality that's a wonderful cover net for everything reality with a small r no it's not fancy it's not sophisticated just what is life as it manifests to be in alignment. That's the harmony of emotional sobriety. That's the word that Bill gave us back in 1956 when he wrote the letter. He called it the next frontier. Well, it didn't get any traction. In the last 10 years, it's begun to get some traction to focus on steps 10, 11 and 12 as how to stay in alignment with reality we call it a fancy term perhaps emotional sobriety just means harmony balance homeostasis if i'm thirsty and i take a drink of water i i'm not thirsty any longer that's all i mean by homeostases the satisfaction of our instincts at the basic level the satisfaction of our inclinations at the human and spiritual level and emotional level keeping the channel clear as i mentioned i i use alliteration because i i think it makes it more memorable step 10 being conscience step 11 being consciousness step 12 being compassion yes all c's it's a little artificial but it really helps me understand the dynamic of this way of life. That's what Bill calls it, a way of life. That's the message. Yes, the initial message is that you can recover from your addiction. Guaranteed. I don't mince my words with people anymore at all. No, it's guaranteed. Relapse is not a necessary part of recovery oh it's a frequent part for lots of people it's not my experience but i and my heart goes out to the people that really struggle but i know that if in fact they stay gently pressed up against this process steps four through nine if they if they're willing and they keep showing up and they take the actions not perfect to the best of their ability eventually they'll get the traction I can't explain that that's that grace that is a gift that everybody has but not everybody accesses that's why I called those steps the preconditions but they're not a formula and the message then the message that i'm so appreciative of is about steps 10 11 and 12 that yes you can become awake through steps one through nine but you can stay awake and grow in understanding and effectiveness. That's the secret sauce here for living a life in contrast to restless, irritable, and discontent, happy, joyous, and free. Those are words from the big book. You know them. Restless, irritble, and content in the doctor's opinion. Happy, joyless, and three is part of, I think it's a vision for you. Chapter 11 in the big books. All right, you never know where I'm going. So what I'd like to do today is take a look at the concepts, your experience with them as you've gone through perhaps with us since july and in some discipline perhaps organized way structural way uh look at the first three and then take the next three and then the next tree and the next two people talk about its relevance to you personally or your interpretation of its possible principles in your personal life or in your in the organization and then your exposure and activity in your 12-step fellowship. As I said, I don't have any practical experience with the concepts in the application in the service structure because I've not been involved in the surface structure. And I thought about reading each of the concepts but you have two tools If you've downloaded what I suggested right from the beginning, you have the worksheets, which is what I'm looking at, and you have the checklist. Well, you also have the concepts illustrated, but we've gone through all of that literature, and we've had conversations about it. Kim couldn't join us today. she had a conflict but she was one of the people that had some wonderful experience which she shared with us and she said uh she's with us in spirit today um so i made some notes on the worksheets and i'd like to take them one at a time the concepts and for the next oh 20 minutes or 30 minutes talk about the first three concepts um i have a hard stop at noon my time that's two hours for those of you not in my time zone and um oh that's an hour and a half from now so we'll probably do four in the in the segments of half hour and um they the first concept talks from my standpoint a lot about the purpose of the concepts themselves and that is the structure the management of the structure of the business itself the upside down triangle and making it very clear about responsibility and authority talking about that god is the source that's the power again the steps are about a relationship with god the traditions are about the group conscience that is god manifesting in the group the concepts are about the flow of the spirit in the service structure itself Managed by group conscience at the most basic level, granular. That would be a good word, level. The individuals in each group and then the groups as I mentioned in my opening comments. So that there's always this group conscience at the group level and all the way up into the general service conference. That unity that Bill talks about in the traditions is manifest in the concepts, in the way the service structure operates with respect and tolerance. Later on we'll look at even of the minority opinion, that true democracy. Substantial unanimity. That's a word Bill coined for this purpose here in the management of the structure here. Okay, are there any anytime there are you have questions or comments or an addition from practical experience, or perhaps the even the speculation of how it might apply to your personal life. I was I was thinking about concept one and just overall the whole idea that the groups are ultimately responsible and are the final authority. And to me, it's similar to stockholders in a corporation. And, and those who are in the service structure, including the paid workers have a duty to take care of the business for the groups. And, however, you know, I, I did. um i think i mentioned before i was on the service board for our local service board here in orange county for a number of years and um and we found that we um we realized that uh that we didn't have any insurance on the for the service board no it hadn't been done from when i looked i looked in the past and i don't think they'd ever had insurance and um so that was something that um you know um because it's you know the fact that we have the concepts and all that it doesn't stop the need for following correct business practices and um and even though it's not spelled out specifically in anywhere to do that it's like okay we have to fall you know it's like we realized that um you know something could happen realize the possibility of someone suing one or all of us and even though ideally you know hopefully that would never happen but i know it has you know and so it's very that's very practical we're running a business and business needs insurance but most people who come into the 12-step rooms are not necessarily aware of the business implications of running a business and is that such an important concept tennis thank you for bringing it up go ahead with your comments yeah and you know it's interesting because um at first there was a little bit of like uh i think people were kind of surprised that we would need it or you know then when we brought it to the groups it's like ultimately it's like hey this is what we have and we didn't really bring it to the groups to tell them or to ask them we told them because it's like you know that's leadership no that's leadership no first first you inform them and then you uh you know you implement what you know is the right thing to do that's right right and it's so important to to like provide the information and the reasoning behind it and all this and then people are like oh yeah in fact you know people look you know it's like it's it's really interesting and and then like even i a similar um experience happened a number of years ago through world service where they um uh pulled the they didn't exactly pull the groups but they were they were um asking um all the different areas to come up with uh uh guidelines for for allotine and at the time there was a lot of pushback and everything and people were like oh whatever we don't need that or whatever but little did we know there was like some lawsuits going on at world service that you know they weren't able to let us know all of the details and so they had it pretty much at the same time I felt like they were ramrodding it you know i really had that feeling in fact i i was against some of it you know and then now in in hindsight knowing after things have come out and knowing more it's like they did what they had to do you know yeah and um yeah and it was for for you know for the survival of the fellowship too you know it's a huge lawsuit going on it's right so um yeah there's a lot to do with business and i didn't even you know i didn t realize that you know when i first got involved in service and even when i was on the board this is going to be really easy and you know it wasn't and then even the uh what do you call um you know the paid staff worker that um i was you know chairperson for i think two months and she let me know that she was retiring and i was like oh my god i have to like we have to hire somebody you know and that was a whole thing you know it's like and the employment laws all that stuff that you don't you're not aware of and and um there's just a lot a lot about it so um yeah i'm i i there's so much underneath those concepts you know but well and uh i'm gonna i'm going to take opportunity to also recommend anybody here that might be on a board for a non-profit organization that happens a lot in in our communities um that's the first question i ask that's my background is insurance and that's the first question i asked does the board have insurance on its board members and most of them don't uh because they haven't thought about it they're there to help out and that kind of thing but they need that kind liability protection it's not that expensive but it is really important oh yeah i was shocked that we didn't have it you know i was really right right right right and and one of the things that really impressed me i'm sorry there were so many people before us i was like oh my gosh i can't believe nobody ever noticed that you know but it's you just never know well one of um things i was very impressed with initially becoming exposed to the concepts and the service manual was that a bill of course was a very um brilliant businessman and was very aware that you need competent professionals as guides to the program that's where the trustees come in they're they're brought in as trustees not as a recognition of any type of service but because they need legal advice they need a medical advice they need psychological advice they need financial advice etc etc and so they bring in people with the that have demonstrated leadership and confidence in these various areas to help us run our business yeah anything else uh tennis or paul yeah i quick yeah wonderful i uh yeah i watched her for a number of years engage all that and it's really uh uh many many challenges that she was able to work through there i'm pretty new to the concepts myself but one through three you know it strikes me as a principle of uh group conscience and i guess kind of like you herb i've been in business for you know some time and and out there it's a totally different context i mean we they're not uh like when we're trying to make the numbers for the month they're nichtalking about spiritual principles right their framework and so we're so fortunate to have this to have this as our sort of our guiding guiding light hopefully but like she said it's i i forget where we're in the litter you know it talks about keeping our head in the clouds and our feet on the ground maybe it's in family afterwards somewhere somewhere in there right but yeah just because we're a spiritual entity it doesn't mean we're magically excused from the affairs of the earth either like like insurance stuff like that or a spiritual identity we shouldn't need insurance and but we're in the real world as well so there's that you know very important dynamic and that's why the group conscience has to be informed you know she talked about that that once people understood what was at stake they're you know the right people were on the team and they were able to say okay yeah we need to do this thanks for letting us know well they didn't exactly like that but if they didn t do it it's like they were going to have a board a lot of people on the board quit that's basically you know we alluded to that too well and and paul you mentioned the word informed um i'm not informed about the service structure up until now and i'm Not informed of the conference and the subjects of and the topics of the conference and or the discussion and or of the outcomes and i i mean i've been around now for 38 years and it's never occurred to me to be involved in being aware it's sort of not in my nature i don't watch news and i don't get involved politically outside in other things but i i can see now that i have a desire to be a little bit more responsible because the service structure needs to survive and people are making decisions about it as a member of it i want i want to at least be aware of the headlines you know what i mean yeah i do not want to be involved in the committees and that discussion i know i know that's not my gift at all in fact just the opposite but uh there's yeah to stay informed so that at least at the group my group my home group level i have a meeting i've been going to for 38 plus it was my first meeting and and there's so much lack of i'll just use the word lack of information and or misinformation at the Group level that at Least I Could Be a contributor responsible in at my home group for at least having a modicum of the headlines as to what's going on yeah i that's so true because i've heard people make uh announcements or whatever it's like uh wait a minute no that's not what you know and to try and not say it out loud to that person but to maybe talk to them afterwards not to shame them let them know explain it a little bit have it be like a learning process and then and then suggest to them maybe next the next week for them to you know correct their announcement or whatever you know well i i think that's an important principle here in in human resources is and i learned it in my business environment you never criticize in public right yep you praise in public but you criticize privately like you just said um if you really want to be effective and you're not grandstanding your own ego you follow that principle of respect you respect the individual so that you can give them praise in public that's everybody likes that but if you want to correct information and or somebody's behavior you want do that very privately and very carefully and in prayer yeah that's a very important point thanks i'm sorry and i don't want to take too much time but like i too as a result of this workshop have been intrigued by like what's going on out there their service structure so thanks for that and also you've helped me in terms of like being a leader manager yeah how do you how do not have power other over other people's behaviors but yet need accountability as a manager that's a very that's hard line to walk yeah yeah people do not like accountability and yet in business that's your role as a leader to right and that's where i think the this program of ours really helps us be kind loving tolerant but at the same time objective in the truth yeah i mean you helped me actually discharge someone and i was able to have a clear conscience when that happened so yeah sorry we have a roofer here sorry for the background noise not a problem thank you very much both of you mr bob please hi you can just discount this question if it's off topic or uh oh believe me i will okay good um well you guys said something that mystified me he said uh insurance on a board member yeah and i'm like no what would that be and liability it's called liability insurance board liability insurance in case they in case somebody gets a hair up there whatever about the activities or policies of the board and sues the organization if you're a board member you're liable really no yes i don't know i tend to just try them and and many people who have not been in business certainly don't know yeah yeah it's um and so that's why i brought it to people's attention yeah it's a question to ask i wouldn't serve on a board that didn't have board board of directors liability insurance thank you yeah you're welcome yeah especially here in california i mean we have too many lawyers but oops scored excuse me uh usher please hi i'm lo cher um thank you so much for this opportunity um i just wanted to share some of the insights that i've had um both serving on various national boards i don't live in the u.s and um and also trying to um learn how to apply these principles in my personal affairs and so just looking at some of my notes because i find you know that because we don't um study the concepts as much in meeting that not at all oh my god the eyes would roll over well uh there is a there is an alan on zoom meeting that studies the concepts that they do uh step tradition concept and um i did go through there was a meeting for a while on on zoom where we went through the concepts twice so it was uh really beautiful so they do exist um and you know so for me the what i've been taught is the first concept helps me right size you know um i'm not going to be the authority and i really need that reminder sometimes you know and so whenever i'm looking to myself or to another person as the authority i'm mistaken um and that we have this entire uh process that essentially uh manifests manifests our authority for us and we need to have the patience to go through that process i'm hoping people are hearing what you're saying because that's a very important statement and i'm going to ask you to repeat it now that i'm bringing it to people no no because people need to really hear this it's it's embedded i believe in in the third concept and that is the the to hear listen to and trust the leadership go ahead please right and so we we have an entire process um that has been adapted for in each fellowship that we need to trust that process and allow it to happen um and so i'm not an authority not another human being is not an authority but rather the process manifests the authority for us and so in concept two it brings us this idea of delegating and as a member of al-anon delegation is not my thing i wasn't brought up with delegation um in my alcoholic family and so it's certainly something a new structure that i need to learn um and um and i find that the rest of the concepts essentially for me after concept two explain to me how to delegate they teach me how yep um and I really need that teaching because without it I don't know what that means you know I'm going to delegate to you but then I'm going to tell you exactly how to do it I like to micromanage and then when you don't do it it's yeah delegation is a tricky thing it's not saying do this and then abandoning it expecting it to be done no no no and yet it's in controlling them and telling them how to do it yeah it's that balance isn't it it's quite the balance and and particularly on the national boards you know learning how to let a committee make a decision and defining their their um the scope of their authority um and responsibility from the beginning which is something that we're taught in the in the concepts later on is so important because if not then we kind of come to concept three they don't have a right of decision you know when when a group sends uh a member off to an inner group and then the inner group sends to area or district etc etc it depends on in each country it's different you know what is that person does that person need to go back to the group and ask the group what they want right of decision tells us no that the person gets to make a decision based on their best abilities of using the steps and the traditions and their knowledge of their group and the needs of their groups they may need to go consult with their group for particular needs with that group but in general concept three for me was an eye-opener because i thought in the beginning when i started to to do service as a group rep or an area rep etc was was you know i thought i had to bring everything back to the group but that's not what it tells us that that we need to do um and with regard to the right of decision and and the fourth concept right of participation you know again bringing it back to my personal life that means that i need to let people make their decisions That's not necessarily easy for me to do, particularly if I say to someone within whatever structure I might be in my employment. My friends, my family. Right. I say, to them, please go ahead and do whatever you think is right. I need to actually let that happen, not sit there and ruminate about what they're going to decide going to decide. With the right of participation, I find that a beautiful addition to communication with people. I need to let them participate even if I don't like what they're saying or don't want to hear it or any of the don't-wannas, fill in the blank. Especially because I would like to be able to participate and then there's responsibility there of taking the responsibility of being willing to participate and taking the quote risk although there really is none of participating um and and having an active voice and and so when i take back to groups you know we don't have a rep on our inner group or in our area or whatever what our structure you have it's important that we do because if not we don't have a say and we have a responsibility to have a day and it works both ways we don t have a say but we also don't have an ear we're not hearing what's going on and we're out of the loop and it depends on you know obviously what your sense is of your structure and the importance of aa but quite frankly aaa has saved my life and gave me a life so it's really important to me and i know it's very important to the people around me who want a solution we have a solution yeah building on what you're saying and thank you very much for your contribution um i don't know exactly where it is but there's a clarity in the concepts where it tells you that people need to be clear about what the responsibility is but they also need to understand it the description needs to be clear but the people need to understand it i mean that's not subtle after you understand it it sounds kind of subtle but it's not it's like if you don't have clarity in the document and in the description and people don't actually understand it the way it's intended then you're going to have a lot of misinformation and miscommunication And, and one of the things that we ran into is sometimes people who when we, when you have a small fellowship and a relatively new fellowship, then, then, and it doesn't matter. It could be AA meetings, but it could be newer ABA meetings in, you know, in a place that hasn't had AA for a long time. So it could be an older fellowship at newer in that place. So we found that people who were leaving the service positions didn't realize that they needed to train the next people who came in. right so then we had new people coming in who didn't know who they were supposed to be in touch with what exactly they were suppose to be doing all they had was the written description and so you know kind of i call it teaching but i think that's a harsh word but but no i i think it's i think it's an accurate word i do training or teaching yes yes sharing because you can read something but it doesn't have the same impact as somebody sharing who understands what the writing is but has experience with it that's why this potentially a workshop that we're doing can be important when we have people like yourself who have not only read and understood from the illustration uh but has had a literal experience so that you have a feel for what it all means yeah and if we keep in the simplest forms both in the steps and the traditions and certainly in the concept if we keeps one thing in mind i think it will keep us you use the term right sized and that is i just want to help i just wanna help i i don't wanna necessarily be right although of course we do but uh i i really wanna help and and that takes all of the edge well most of the edges off everything we're doing if we stay in in in our committee in our group in whatever uh service angle we're at if we can hold that attitude of being helpful that'll that'll dissipate the ego that needs to be either right or whatever yeah thanks so much uh usher right is that how you pronounce it what country are you in in israel oh okay well thank you for joining us wonderful um one of our support people norit is from israel yeah wonderful um so uh we've reviewed whether you know it or not the first four and thank you asher for your contribution um i'm gonna pause for just a minute and take and ask is there anybody that has any question or comment experience with or anything to say or ask with regard to those first four concepts and this is sort of the protocol going forward allocating the time at least that I have Okay, so let's take a look at the next four concepts and we'll do it kind of like we just did gently moving from one to the next as I basically turn my pages. I'm using the worksheet that was created with the concepts on it. Concept 5 is about the right of appeal. And that's where, now I see in my notes, that's when I got that real sense of the clarity that people be informed and be involved. It struck me because I'm not informed, even though I'm involved with my group, I'm no involved with the service structure of AA generally, and I know now that there's documentation and newsletters that goes out concerning the discussions and the topics of the General Service Conference, which I'm now subscribed to and will be following on an ongoing basis just to stay informed of the general movement of the topics and the discussion. If anybody has any actual experience with that or comments on how to stay involved and how to stay without too much time because that's i don't want to allocate too much time to it but i do want to like the news i watch about 20 or 30 minutes of news it's all pre-recorded so that i can skip through the things that i'm not that interested in anybody have any comments or suggestions in that area or questions about it i didn't even know that there was this kind of news format but i did make contact with somebody who's very active in the general service structure and they told me about it i forget the name of it but if you're interested you can find that or maybe if you know about it you could bring it to us right now and confirm it i'm such a novice at getting involved with the service structure that i actually don't know the vocabulary all right let's go on to concept six um it's about having an effective business operation we've talked a little bit about it uh already and that is trusting trusting the leadership if you and osher made the comments if you elect somebody to a position and they start giving you information trust i mean obviously trust uh but verify as the saying goes so that if you have any doubt that you do your own research on it but it's also not a personality contest well at least i hope it's not of course many of the voting systems are um but it it's really about competence about getting somebody in the position who actually has competence but and is interested in what they're doing not just checking a box and filling a role and having something to do. That's not going to be a very effective method of transmission as again, Asher said of talking but also of listening in the flow from the group to the general service, the annual general service conference. Hi, can I interject? please i'm inviting them yes yes wait i didn't realize i kind of lost track of what you were saying on concepts four and five if i could go back to that would that be okay oh i'm sure i'm not sure what we were talking about there but yes um well i i didn t follow you quite and then you went to concept six so i wanted to mention that you know the right of participation in concept four and then concept five the right of appeal um you know in al-anon there's um you know we have concepts of service and we have a service manual and all kinds of stuff but um a number of years ago um a group that i was involved in um uh was uh delisted from um the local directory. And at that time, when I was a member of that group, we did an appeal to World Service and a bunch of us wrote in and all this stuff and everything. And and at the time it was like there really what it really wasn't um it hadn't really happened where someone had done an appeal like that I'm sure you know it was seen I maybe it had happened something whatever but it wasn't really concise we had to do a lot of um a lot of research as a group and looking into how to do things or whatever. Let me put it this way, it was really vague in a lot of ways. People picked out pieces of literature that will support their positions and stuff like that. The thing is that then fast forward years later, I left that group and i'm on the other side of it and i was able to see what was going on and you know and and i made some some personal changes in that group but now i i i'm grateful that that that those meetings were delisted you know at the time i was really uh involved in everything but um you know that right of appeal i think is so important that people be able to um to be heard. And, and I really feel that Southern California World Service, they went out of their way to, to make sure that those groups were heard, or that group was heard, it was a multiple meetings, but one group. And so, but like I said, it Was even worlds, even Southern California world service they they had to like set up an actual procedure or whatever to handle it you know and um so we we see this stuff in our literature and everything but then when an actual controversy comes into play okay well what do we do and then no nobody really knows you know and so that was really and then who knows you know i'm and then since then i heard that i guess world service has dealt with other similar maybe not as bad as that but similar things um and so i don't know and i think uh i think aa has dealt with that kind of stuff with rogue rogue groups and stuff like that but uh but anyway i think that right of appeal is uh is so important in the minority opinion And yet, like I said, I got to experience it from both sides of it. And I'm really grateful that we have the service structure we have where I didn't throughout that, I didn t decide to leave Al-Anon. Right, right, yeah. both sides of that it shows the love and tolerance code and also the democracy where everybody is respected even though the majority feel that the minority is wrong they will hear it with literally an open mind and open heart which is and and paul made a comment in business you don't necessarily have we're very invested in our ego in business and whereas um although we all have our ego as human beings in the 12-step structure we try to think of the unity and the group conscience in from a spiritual angle yeah you've said two tennis whether minority you've even asked people who've abstained what what was going on and hasn't it even changed the group conscience yeah i think i mentioned that before in this in one of the works one of these workshops that i had gone to the prosa years ago when i was on the southern california world service board and um one ofthe workshops uh that you know blame flown up by southern california world service with the board you know my name got pulled out of the hat got to go up to alaska to prasa and all that and the one thing that i can remember from that whole trip i've gotten to share a number of time over the times over the years when uh when there's been a group conscience and there's a minor you know someone abstains ask them why you know why are you abstaining because that could really uh flip the vote you know and it and i've seen it happen you know so i think that's just a really important principle um for uh unit unit is the word unanimity yeah yeah well because we want to be informed and when we truly listen to the reasoning of somebody else it's information now we don't have to agree with it but we it's incumbent on us to listen to it to see what they're thinking and where they're coming from in terms of a perspective an attitude and or a principle that we haven't entertained i'm very clear uh in my experience in the steps um that i don't know that i don't know and that continues to baffle me because eventually i begin to know something and it's kind of like well how could i not see that yesterday well that's just what is of course yeah thanks dennis um um concept seven is about the Charter and bylaws of the service it sounds very technical but it's about Authority the legal authority and the traditions that was the thing that fascinated me there the the two aspects of it the legal Authority I mean we have to operate within a society that has laws of course for running a business but then it made the definite distinction of the authority of tradition that there's nothing in writing about it but it's the culture of a 12-step program that has its own traditions and culture and protocols and that needs to be equally as um honored uh in terms of the group conscience and they added that component in there of the power purse so the even though it's they don't have the legal authority in terms of some of the bylaws and etc because of the traditions and the fingers on the purse they do have some real authority anybody have any comments about concept seven perhaps even in its practical applications to our personal lives it's so shared um i don't know specifically about concept 7 although i think concept 7 is about reality right each of us is functioning in a country and and we need to follow the laws there um you know it brings me back to um tradition 10 i may have some opinions about those laws but this is not the place for me to implement those opinions about the laws um i wanted to talk for a moment about uh concept six no concept five i'm sorry um around i'm sorry i lost my uh my place yes concept five and the right of appeal um first of all it helps take you know the issue of personal grievances has been there as well and it helps takes personalities out and leave principles in um and and sometimes you know sometimes even as more than a group in the structure we can get bogged down by personalities and this gives us an opportunity to address that and make sure that um you know we we may need to take an inventory of how we're operating um and and the right of appeal together with the right or participation and the um and the i'm blanking on it the other the other right is um for me it all helps with this substantial unanimity and and substantial unanimity for me has become a euphemism for compromise right we're trying you know and talk about that a little bit and we can spend some time on that because it's a that's a tricky slippery slope so so you know i i i like to use the the um example of you know um what i i know this isn't a group uh that i'm going to talk about as opposed to a larger structure but But let's say the group is trying to decide, you know, whether they want to buy coffee A or coffee B, right? And coffee B is much more expensive than coffee A, you Know. No, that's so practical, by the way. That's so practic- and in the bullseye of most of the 12-step groups. and and then you know and so maybe um uh on a right of appeal we will have an and um a proposal of um one month buying coffee a and one month behind coffee b or buying less of coffee a some of coffee b right in other words sometimes we can find the simplest type of compromise to be able to bring about substantial unanimity and and so that's where I find right of appeal is so helpful because it's not I don't know in if other people have experienced this but sometimes with the right of reveal we just hear the same thing over right you know the words we just had a discussion and and the minority view is exactly what they said before but sometimes it's helpful for even a chairperson to be able to say well are there any um proposals here that could possibly help us compromise and use that word because it's much more understood i think um in in regular life then how can we bring about substantial unanimity here well and it's kind of vague substantial unanimit is really vague on purpose of course uh and the word compromise but it might need a little for instance some people would say that compromise is very unhealthy because it's uh connected to my codependency oh yeah you're right i'm wrong that kind of that's not what we're talking about we're taking about evaluating and coming to some adjustment where you don't get a hundred percent but you're you're personally satisfied with 70 percent all right the one of my uh teachers has said there's only one reason to do anything he paused got my attention herb there's only one to do any thing what's that i didn't know i'd never heard it before he said because you really want to it was so powerful because you really want all right and and that's totally relevant to compromise i really want have a group that has substantial unanimity i wouldn't use the word in the discussion probably but uh and and so i'm okay with not having it a hundred percent my way i mean i'm i'm not giving up and resenting i'm actually going yeah that works for me in balance that's what i mean by compromise it's a healthy adjustment of my expectations not because i'm necessarily lowering my standards but because i am operating within the principle that i want the group to be successful and i don't want to create factions and or animosity yeah absolutely absolutely and i think it's important for us to try here too come back to what we said about concept one which is sometimes it's going to be a process for us work through and we're not necessarily going to be able to in one sitting make a decision that's going to work for everyone just because we got a 60 majority and um 100 100 um that it's a process that needs to be revisited and revisited and revisitated and talked about literally talking it to death and that's the part that probably i couldn't sustain uh an interest in in a committee with there because that's just not my personality but but you've you made a point right at the beginning and i want to again highlight that because we're very glib with the terms and we're very familiar with the context and etc but personalities versus principles is a huge principle personalities versus principals the principles will always lead us to the healthy outcome personalities will hardly ever lead to a healthy outcome whenever i have people come to me and asking for advice the i have some information and some experience but i try to help them find out what is the principle in what you're talking about what is the principle and i my bottom line is always operate on principle always take the high road always be generous i cannot out generous life i can't have a generous life that's my experience now i didn't know that because i thought it was a zero-sum game but it's not yeah I wanted to touch on concepts six and eight. I find them amongst the most difficult concepts to really understand how to implement, and I'd love to hear from other people how they've been able to implement. But the way that I see it is we want to be careful to kind of separate out policy and implementation, particularly when it comes to financial issues. That's how I've understood the concepts, And I find that extremely helpful, particularly in an organization. We recently had in one of the fellowships that I'm a member of in our inner group, someone who was going to be at the same time treasurer and co-chair of the inner group. And this is a worldwide inner group because it's a virtual inner group in one the fellowships and um and you know i brought up this principle that it that the way that i understand these concepts it's not a good idea to have the chairperson also handling the finances of of the uh of the inner group and um in you know we're going to come to it in a moment in the later concepts with regard to in her view you've brought it up a couple of times you know how do we choose the right person for the job and sometimes in small fellowships or in areas that have smaller groups there aren't enough people quote unquote to go around and and then we'll just take anyone who's willing to do the job and um i think it tells us here to be careful it tells it's here to to be mindful that we need to have policy making and implementation and it's important for us to have as much of a conversation between those two bodies as possible but we need to have some separation there um and we need to let each do their thing in other words there's policy and sometimes we don't think through all of the implementation when we're thinking through the policy and so the implementation piece needs to have delegation to be able to have responsibility and authority to make some decisions but then they also need to know where that stops so that if they need to come back to the policy group and ask some questions they can come back the policy making group and say we're not sure how we're supposed to implement this um i can give an example with that as as well you know we we in one of the fellowships that that i serve on uh in in israel we have a convention committee and so you know and they plan two conventions a year so um are they empowered essentially by the national uh committee to to the the national committee is essentially our national board um to go ahead and decide who the caterer should be um and so i would say yes they're making up a budget they'll bring the budget to us that you know will approve the budget and also if they if they know that from the beginning we've approved the budget that they have this amount of money they get to decide how to how to um spend that money so if they're going to have the more expensive caterer it might have to come off of i don't know the coffee stand or something you know and and so um and so there therein lies the the separation for me between the policy and the and the implementation essentially yeah and and of course it can get really tangled and that's where we go right back to what i may comment on earlier and that is that the principles are clear and understood and your question is going back to making sure people really understand what the principles are and what the directions are and what policy is uh and the the key here is checks and balances as you're talking about that that's the real key that one person it's it's just human nature it's inappropriate for them to have too much responsibility and or authority we absolutely need checks and balances i think in terms of the step process the most important uh component of all of the moving components of recovery is accountability because if you have an accountability to somebody who knows what they're doing you will do all the other moving parts accountability that's that checks and balances um and the the i wrote down two words clear and understand those are very very different concepts in connection to authority and responsibility which are two different concepts at the same time yeah i'm not sure that helps but it i i but this is where the personalities and the principles comes in where you're communicating i mean we could you and i could probably have an hour's worth of conversations about all the words we just used yeah exactly yes i have had to use a dictionary sometimes sorry go ahead oh you know that was well thank you for pressing that button in 1988 i met a man who took me through the steps i was four years sober he said get a big book and get a dictionary no no and i have used a dictionary with everything i do from now on even though i've got a great education and a great vocabulary when i look words up that i'm confident i know uh i get a lot more information yeah yeah thank you so much osher um paul and tennis please yeah in answer to usher's uh inquiry about um someone uh being a treasurer and chairperson um you know especially with covid with everything going on um you know i i was involved i'm still involved with the meeting um where uh we originally were about 25 to 30 people. And then we ended up going in, we were on zoom, then we tried going back to in person and ended up being just two of us showing up sometimes one of them me showing up for the in person. And finally, we had to make a decision to go in zoom. And now we've got a a nice little group or whatever but um one of the things that um that we've done in in meetings and and i think we also did this on the service board um you know it's it's important when something like that comes up to have a business meeting and i'm assuming you you know and forgive me you may have already done that in your group but um a business meaning to discuss it so So that if something like that occurs, the group is aware, you know, like everybody's aware of it. And I think if you discuss it in a business meeting, someone else might be willing to step up and take the commitment or whatever. And I do know on the board I was involved with a number of years, we started having a problem getting people volunteering. and um and so I know we there was some discussion on maybe changing the parameters of who could volunteer because there was a limitation on okay if you've served on this board um once already um you can't serve on it again or you can'T be chairperson again you know that kind of stuff well after a while it's like hey you're if you served for what for like um on the board for a couple years and then you you've been gone for a while but and and then there's nobody coming forward why not allow those people who are are you know are really good at service and and have service in their heart why not allowed them well and they're experienced also but that isn't that then the concept and you might want to comment on it please of rotation the concept of rotation i was so i took a tour of the general service office when i was in new york at some point my wife and i did that and they gave us just this gracious tour it was wonderful but what i didn't realize is and i may have heard it but i didn t realize the implications that the staff have a two-year responsibility in their function and then they're given another function and they have to learn it and after two years they give in another function then they have learn it it's kind of like they rotate their responsibilities as staff paid staff members right right like but like when you're in a situation where nobody's volunteering or whatever it's like okay open up the you know open it up and allow others to especially when some of these people are you know showing again again again though isn't it human nature and we have to be very careful here because most people are saying oh yeah they want to do it let them do it they can do it for 10 years who cares yeah and and and so you're enabling people who want to own it and become the bureaucrat and that's what we're trying to avoid here is creating a uh an authority that is a bureaucracy that is this subliminal thing that will crush an organization after a while yeah yeah yeah that's true but but i think from a common sense standpoint and i don't know practically because i haven't been involved uh how that works but if somebody has rotated out and in fact has been gone a year or two or whatever the time frame would be and and can come back and wants to come back it would seem to me that that would be a leg in the spirit of the concepts that would be a legitimate rotation coming back with more experience and and prior experience or at least use yeah or at least utilize them on a committee or something like that and that's the thing is to be open like okay so if you can't get someone to do this maybe you could get two people to do it part-timers you know like and that what we've done with some of our commitments is like we work together you know but then you run into problems with whatever people whatever well we again we have to be careful of human nature and um it's human nature uh to have rules and regulations and then people get rigid about rules and regulation and that's not the spirit here the spirit is a fluid and flexible how can i help how can I help how can i help and um it's not helpful to have rules and regulations and rigidity although again back to the conversation osher and i were having about compromise this is where we need to adjust to reality yeah yeah yes yes yeah because i you know in one of my meetings um we're having a hard time getting people to volunteer for certain things and i've done you know like we're going to be coming up january to to turn over commitments and and the last sec our current secretary she's she's relatively new and we encouraged her when she said she were like oh yeah take it take it um but on the other hand it's like you know i have to be careful because i can do all those commitments but if i what i try to do is i try ta like if it's been announced a number of times or whatever and i wait i wait and then at a certain point i'll i'll decide okay do i want to do this again or or you know or or at some point you know maybe the group needs to um to fold at some point you don't know you know well and that's a point too there are seasons and cycles for groups certainly uh and to try to breathe artificial life into a meeting is not helping anybody let it die yeah right and if nobody steps up let it fold all right if nobody stops up then you move on exactly now i i would assume tennis that in your particular fellowship that could be a real issue couldn't it because you're all you all want to help oh yeah yeah oh yeah and that and that could feed into your potential addiction so i'm assuming that's where really good strong sponsorship comes in in terms of a sounding board uh right yeah creates resentment oh yeah yeah and my sponsor is like whenever i say no to something she says good for you good for yeah yeah yeah well see and that's where that's where bill wilson says there's only two disciplines in alcoholics anonymous i'm assuming it applies to any addiction there's only two disciplines one's god and one's the addiction and and the and the deal breaker from my standpoint the is the sounding board of a sponsor or an experienced person to bounce something off somebody that'll be objective and not just co-sign my feelings and cosign my my instincts but they are really objective and they're willing to hurt my feelings to tell me the truth yeah yeah all right could i comment um oh yeah yeah this is so great this is so cool i love this stuff but i uh you know it may i heard i heard it said that like the programs as this perfect blend of anarchists and control freaks right and this it's it's to try to reconcile those two yeah human principles you know don't tell me what to do when this is what you need to do but right i've got a discussion about compromise that's such a profound i you know spiritual thing i i you no first of politics i heard politics as the art of getting the right things done right and that's what the focus is and that as uh she mentioned uh concept five that that seems to be a big part of that and going to seven and you mentioned that a common business fracture as having responsibility but not the authority right yeah in seven they explicitly carve that out and then the policy versus implementation is you know in business too with that responsibility is you like a roles and responsibility document what's my job do i agree to do it and then i can be held accountable for it and having the right people doing the right things it's like you don't want the people cutting the po to be the same people paying the invoice right that's like a fox thing i guess whatever so it's it's very cool i i look for the relationships and things how all of these things you know connect with each other so really really wonderful discussion i love this well and it it's woven into many of the concepts or i'm looking at concept 10 right now which is really smack on what you were just talking about that balance of authority and responsibility and again it's it says defining the authority and responsibilities and understanding the authority in the responsibility and that might be murky as osher was indicating earlier and when you have practical experience that's where the compromise discussion comes in where people understand we want to help we want to get something done here it's not about being right and rigid you know yes very good thank you yeah thanks very much for stepping up here um concept 11 the highest well that's my one of my favorites the highest level of competence that's what we want to fill and tennis was making that point we want somebody who number one wants the job and number two can do the job i've seen it happen so many times in meetings where people are literally railroaded because the group just somehow nominated them and because they thought it was a good idea and the person actually didn't want the responsibility at all and they'll take because of the group pressure but that's not what we want we want people who number one volunteer really truly because they want to do something but also that they can do it yeah we talked about the regular rotation because that avoids bureaucracy my original home group the secretary was there for 10 years and i mean i didn't know any difference until i did and then there was a movement to uh honor the traditions of rotation and now we have an annual uh rotation of that secretary position which keeps it fresh not that there was anything wrong with it but it gives lots of people also the opportunity for service osher please i am o'share so um i really want to thank everyone for their contributions tonight it's not i i find it to even though we're talking about worldly practices if you will to this for this to be an amazingly spiritual conversation right because it really is truly trying to practice these principles in all our affairs it's it's for me it's you know deeper and deeper and deeper as i go through the traditions and then through the concepts and um i love these last four concepts um it took me so much effort to try and understand concept nine i'm sorry concept 10 with the uh difference between authority and responsibility at first i was like okay two big words you know i'm not sure exactly what we're talking about but sure um and concept 9 and 11 for me are so connected if anyone hasn't read um bill's uh i think it's paragraph on what is leadership in concept nine i highly highly recommend it it's been extremely helpful to me and several people that i've passed it on to um on on how to be you know how to weigh the humanity and being a leader with the necessities, you know, the demands of us, the obligations of being a Leader, the spiritual obligations of Being a Leader. And how do we take criticism? And I can, when we're talking about implementing this in our personal affairs, you all of us get criticized all the time. It's just because we are a member of society and a member of various communities. And how can we take that criticism and do something with it? And it's been extremely helpful to me to learn to implement what Bill says there. I wanted to talk about in young fellowships or in areas where the fellowship is young, And we don't have people who are sober, clean, abstinent, you know, whatever Al-Anon's definition needs to be for a long time. I sometimes find that we can start to lean toward, well, we'll let the treasurer have six months of abstinence or six months of sobriety. And I'm going, yeah, no. And so as much as we want to fill that position and we want to rotate, you know, we need to weigh the different, and that's part of the, I don't want to say difficulty because they don't think it's difficult, but it's the challenge of trying to come to substantial unanimity, right? And how can we best serve the fellowship? And Herb, I hope it's okay if i challenge your use of the word help um i my former sponsor would say al-anon's like to get their help all over people so i'm going to use the word serve and well that's interesting because i dropped the word serv or service no actually actually actually now i'm hearing it i mean i'm here i'm stopping myself i'm hearing what you said was serve you didn't say service, all right? I dropped the word service because it's too sophisticated, it's too vague, and I used the word help. But I like the word serve. I do like it. Thank you for offering it to us because that's really part of what I consider is Concept 12 also is that servant leadership and and that's the humility of of being here not because i have an ego involved in it but that i truly want to help in the sense of healthy and i and i understand and honor the sensitivity to an Al-Anon or codependent or ACOA type person who has help as the core of their answer. That's the problem that they want to help, but it's that unhealthy codependency. So I think that was your sensitivity here, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. You know, I know how to help. You have to listen to me. yeah right yeah what i mean by help is control and manipulation yeah so serve is a good word i'm glad you offered that to us yeah serve is good word yeah and then and then again if anyone hasn't had the chance yet to read the warranties they're just amazing they're just amazing you know talk a little bit about it please so i'm i'm just putting them up on my screen no it's fine great no we're having a this is i'm so glad that you're joining us today me too um you know the first warranty talks about uh the seat of perilous or wealth or power and we talked about that before we we need to be mindful that we don't put you know all of the um uh power and the wealth together there needs to be i wouldn't say necessarily a separation but but it's just i mean we've all seen it if you've been around long enough um and if you haven't if you haven't seen it yet you haven's been around long enough haha that's a joke but um you know someone who well in fact in fact let me just make a comment here the the part of the spirit of it is to avoid wealth not not just to be careful with wealth no no no to avoid it bill uses the term poverty he says saint francis got it right it's it's like no we want to practice poverty here yeah absolutely in the spirit in the spirit of it right go ahead and so i i always take wealth as you know for so many of us even having enough to pay our bills is well so we need to be careful and and even in a personal context right you know i i don't make decisions about big changes in my finances without having a group conscience you know talking to people in program that i trust because and who i trust around wealth and finance because i've seen step two i've seen how they are around their well wealth in their finances and so you know um so i was going to say that that so many of us when you're around long enough have seen you know the the literature person who doesn't answer calls anymore because they're they're you know picking up and and they're no longer you know they're incognito and we can't get the literature because it's at their house and they also have the till that you know we were all buying literature uh and paying for it you know and or the treasurer person who's the only person on the on the bank account for the for the group or for the inner group or per the uh district committee etc etc and uh or national and and so you know thank god for for um understanding and fellowships that it's important to have several people who can have um access to everything and in our day and age with digital ability that's a possibility um easy a very easy possibility yeah national al-anon israel is now going through an issue because we can't open a bank account without becoming a an official ngo and becoming an official NGO takes money and we need to be able to have a place that's the money from the groups that we collect in order to be able to go through the process of becoming an official ngo so there are a few um suggestions on the table of of what we could do with it and one of them is do we open an account and just you know randomly two people's names two servants names and um and and let's see how that goes um national national aa israel just opened our bank account uh 2022 after we're close to 45 years of aaa in israel and and the um the the quote-unquote secret is that you know the money up till then was in a shoebox under somebody's bed for many many years you know it's important to implement these uh these principles the best we can and learn from some of the very thank god it's a funny mistake and not a sad mistake that has been made in the past yeah i don't know enough about uh the rules in the united states as to that i don t believe we've had that issue for a long time yeah it's so funny um but the other warranties are just amazing if we look at the issue of the you know uh prudent finances always having an ample reserve that's where it comes from from us we've all heard it at our meetings but that's where it and um you know unqualified authority what does that mean you know and and in our personal lives i never want to be in a position of unqualified authority when i'm sponsoring someone i don't want to make decisions for them i can barely make decisions for myself why would i want to take over somebody else's life and um in my professional work i have uh been asked to uh um be uh legally authorized as the person who makes decisions for one of my clients who have known for many years and i'm very uncomfortable with the authority because of the principles of this program and i am happy that i'm uncomfortable with that authority because it means that i'll take it seriously and i'll use these principles in order to know how best to serve um and we've talked about the substantial unanimity um i love this the the uh we don't want to be personally punitive or incite to public controversy in our in my personal life that's also how i want to be i do not want tobe punitive that's not you know of course if i'm working my program that'snot how i'm quote unquote supposed to be but here's another reminder you know and taking a look at what our motives are and you guys taught me that i never looked at what my motives were before i came to program and my sponsor would repeatedly say to me what's your motive what's your motive and um um you know incitement into public controversy i i think that that is i think this warranty takes it a little bit further than tradition 10. you know tradition 10 says as a fellowship we don't want to show this and so here i think it it says to us that that the different parts don't wants to start any uh public controversy and and and more and more and more i as a human you know i i may have opinions but it's okay if i keep them to myself or or indicate in all humility this is my opinion about this and these are the reasons i have this opinion what's your opinion about that and we can have a discussion and in the final analysis we can agree to disagree all right we don't we're not disagreeable we just agree to disagree so it's it's that's where it comes back to that word humility and it comes back to that word that you used that i just want to serve in the sense of help thank you for that yeah i'll leave with one last thing about the government i think that's incredibly important um as we do service at higher uh levels we get questions like you know as tanis was talking about the the example that that she gave around you know um a a group being quote unquote thrown out right and so we we've had that in in uh jerusalem intergroup we we um we had the the inner group approach a group and say uh we understand that that jerusalem integrative for aa um that you've been uh permitting non-alcoholics to share in your meetings and um we're gonna we're we're inquiring what's going on and and um you know that led us to write a mission statement for the inner group to to explain what the inner group's purpose is because is the inner groups purpose to police groups and make sure quote unquote that they are following the traditions the way the inner-group understands the traditions to be written um you know there were inquiries to world service office is it okay for a group to do this etc etc and um or is is does in a group have a totally different mission and so taking these kinds of things as an opportunity to look at what is our purpose? What are we as a group? What is our place in the structure? And what was the outcome? The outcome was that the inner group controls, at that time the inner-group was controlling the website that listed all of the meetings. And so the inner group could say we're not going to be, we're going to vote on whether or not we're going to continue to list you as a meeting and we're going to vote on this date and so if you'd like to come and and if you would like to send your group rep to speak, if anyone else would like to speak. And the group ended up changing its policy because it realized that in that particular instance it happened to be the only LGBT AA group in Israel at the time and open to all of course pursuant to tradition three but with an lgbt focus and um and so it was important that it could stay listed um and be able to to serve as many people as possible and if it was a secret group it would have more trouble uh having that access so weighing the difference and and the group itself changed so that non-alcoholics were welcome but they're not able to share now see there's the compromise and we were just talking about that group compromised what they really wanted to do but they saw it in the in the bigger sense of the whole and they were able to well that's a fabulous example i'm so glad that you gave us the specifics on that yeah yeah yeah all right Right. Yeah, in that concept of servant leadership and humility and serve and compromise, the things that came to my mind concerning practical application is, especially maybe it's about men, that might be narrow on my lack of broader experience, but But the majority of men that I'm associated with, it's a worm in the wood. They need to be right. And that's their biggest Achilles heel is to let go of that need to be right and one of the questions I ask them is what are you defending? Not that I want them to give me an answer but I want them to ask the question for this rigid need to be right what are you defending there's something there's a worm in the wood there underneath the underneath the underneath so I think those are also good approaches not confrontational in the sense of either competitive and or argumentative but confrontational in the sense of the individual needs to confront themselves and the possibility that there's ego involved in that need to be right. And why? What are they defending? All right. Wow. All right, so if there's anybody else that has any comments, questions, concerns, I'm going to make a couple comments myself about closing out this discussion. I don't see any hands, but I'll call again when I'm finished with these comments. And so one of the images I use for the 12th step is that through the 11th step, we become a lantern. But the purpose is not for us to be a bright light. The purpose is that we light the path for others. My opening comments were all about the message. The whole point of the concepts is the integrity and visibility of the message. You've probably seen this before from me, who is coming to help them? This is about the message, we are the one they are waiting for. i know from my own personal experience that as a seeker i was energized i didn't know that finding was even possible i was driven not consciously but i was given by something once i did the steps i became a finder and that was so much more important than seeking but I saw over my shoulder that I had not been given information or I was not exposed to information and that's one of the reasons I do the work that I do is I suffered for a long time without information about my alcoholism and then I in the rooms suffered for four years not knowing that I was even suffering from lack of information concerning the spiritual awakening for four years, daily meeting, daily conversations with a sponsor. And it wasn't, I don't blame anybody other than the fact I, as a ferocious seeker, I was not finding because information wasn't being offered and that's one of the things that these concepts talk about the integrity of the message but also the visibility the effectiveness of the message we know and we know that we know and we can be a lantern on the path shining light on the path for others. This is what Bill calls our way of living and I think it was Bob that mentioned comments about head in the clouds and feet on the ground or Paul but I believe it's in a vision for you. This is our role. That's that vertical relationship in consciousness in prayer and meditation a relationship with power a relationship with life a relationship with the God of our not understanding whatever it means to us but then that horizontal walking on earth maybe as Augustine said preaching the good news everywhere we are and if we have to use words in other words be the message by our model of our behavior and our attitude and our contribution and going back to the word that was used earlier to serve that humility of i want to help i want to contribute I want to serve in the healthiest way this is from the cons well there's a phrase coming up that's from the concepts I see Alcoholics Anonymous that AA or any 12-step program it's about the formation of our attitude but the translation into action the man who took me through the steps indicated that willingness without action is fantasy. Willingness to carry the message is wonderful, but without action it's just fantasy. This is the phrase from the concepts themselves. Freedom under God to grow in God's image and likeness will ever be the quest of Alcoholics Anonymous or any 12-step program. Freedom. That's the key. Freedom from addiction, freedom from unmanageability. Our freedom to serve is truly the freedom by which we have our being. I'm emphasizing that. It's not emphasized in the regular language, but I'm emphasizing it. Our freedom to serve is truly the freedom by which we have our being, the freedom in which we have our be, that servant, that service, that helping, that contributing concept. Be the message. Each one of us is invited to have a message and then to be the message. Please join me in this adaptation of the seven-step prayer. Spirit of the universe, I am now willing that you should have all of me, healthy and unhealthy. I ask that the obstacles of my inclinations and behavior be removed from me so that nothing stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my helpfulness to others. Grant me knowledge and strength, understanding and effectiveness, wisdom and courage to live in alignment with reality as it truly is.