Thinking Beyond the Circle of Personal Magic – Tom I.

That was an awfully good session that Donald did this morning, extremely well done. I don't think I've ever heard a men's dealt with in a more sound spiritual kind of way, and that whole process of restoration that comes out of that was good. And it does set up well for where I'd kind of like to lead us toward this morning. You know, what he was talking about was that thing of getting ready to engage in life, and he gave a lot of examples of how to do it. And I'd like to kind of focus around the last three steps of the program, and particularly in terms of how that gets us into the business of living. Some people refer to those steps as maintenance steps. I don't because I think they are tremendous action steps that spell out a real route and a direction for putting the program into maximum use. and let me just stick one little thought in your mind to to to worry around a little bit use it last night in the discussion we had at meeting after the meeting and it sort of has some meaning for me and it's about some people would call it thinking out of the box but but I like to think of the idea is thinking Thinking beyond the circle of my personal magic. Thinking beyond a circle of, you know, so often we look at things in terms of what I believe, what I feel, what I do, how I work with somebody. And if we're going to really be effective in trying to be of maximum service to God and those around us, I believe that we have to get beyond that circle of personal magic of just what I personally do and start seeing how the fellowship as a whole, the group as a whole are part and parcel of what my effectiveness will be about. If I think of it only in terms of what I personally do it'll be an extremely limited thing. And so I have to find ways to get locked in and married in to the things that make that effectiveness grow. And just keep that in mind a little bit as we're going along, and I'm not sure exactly how it is to spell out. I don't have it written up. But I want to get into some tangible issues that have to do with making that stuff happen. You know, I like to just kind of hit the steps, and then we'll get in it. The tenth step to me is it does a number of things. One, I think that one of the basic functions of the tenth step is slip prevention. And it has a way of assuring that I'm on solid ground doing what I'm supposed to do, so that I stay constantly aware of what's happening and don't let those things start cropping up that rob me of my sobriety, of my peace of mind, of well-being. So it has very practical value in that. To me, it also has a tremendous value in terms of taking a look at how I'm plugging this way of life into being a way of life. Like what I do at a practical level is when I review, normally at the end of a day, I review what that day's been. And, you know, the emphasis is looking for places where we were wrong and where we've got some stuff that we need to straighten out. But I think written into that very heavily is the notion of taking stock of what was right as well. And so today, when I do that at the end of my day, it's a rare day when I am not absolutely overwhelmed with the tremendous things that have happened in my life just by practicing the principles. And my buddy Steve back there is probably as much a past master at doing what I'm talking about as anybody I know. up. And it's just simply loosening up and trying to add a little something to the people around us. Don was talking about it a little bit, that when I'm focused on doing things for other people, mine is a given, you know, that I absolutely can't give. I can't give more than I get. Let me tell you just a couple of things of what I'm talking And this is daily stuff. This is not once in a while. This is daily step that comes from just simply being free to be responsive to opportunity to be of service. I start my day normally. I don't have a rote prayer, but I basically start my date by asking God to help me go through the day in a way that would seem worthy of the gift I've been given. Tell me what kind of an attitude I want to have. And then, very importantly, to be sensitive to opportunities to be of service. Because, my God, they're everywhere, but often I don't see them. I don' t look at them. If I see them, I don''t acknowledge them. And so what I want to do is be sensitive to opportunities to be of service and they're everywhere. And I'll tell you one thing that I ran into that just a couple of example there's a place where I use when I was working I'm unemployed now but when I would work it and before started loafing I used to go for lunch I either go full bore or not at all yeah and once in a while I would slip next door to another office building and get some emergency rations, you know, just some little grilled cheese sandwich or something just to sort of keep the wolf out. And one day I went over there and went into the place and there was a little mousy girl that was working and she looked like she had been beaten by every weapon known to man. I mean, she just was a beat-up, disheveled little gal and she needed somebody just to sort of lift it up a little bit. I was there. I figured I'd do it. And so I just started messing with her a little. You know, just playing a little about stuff and I don't know what. It didn't matter what. Just any human interaction was good news to her because it didn't look like she'd had any for a good while. And so we just started doing our thing And she said, well, what do you want? I said, a tuna sandwich. And I like tuna pretty good. And it's a good thing because when she fixed that tuna sandwich, I mean, that sucker was running off the plate. I had tuna on me. I mean she just got carried away with that thing. But that was her way of responding. Now, I'm not looking for an overdose of Tudor. I'm just trying to help a little gal out. But the point is that you can't give away more than you get. And about six months later, I went back over there for another dose. She was still there. And when I walked in the door, you would have thought that the guy from the $10 million sweepstakes walked in because she still starts grinning. And she grabs that bread and starts. I wanted a ham sandwich. But that's what happens, you know, that if I just turn loose and sort of engage in the business of living and try to be of service, just lighten it up for somebody, you Know, whoever it is, amazing what happens. Amazing what happens? that what happens is that the world I live in becomes a different place. If I let myself do it, I could start being anxious about the world I live with because I live on the same world everybody lives in. And most people tend to sense a real hostility and a lack of civility. Now, I know it's there. Once in a while, I'll run into a jerk, but I've got enough sense to get away from him. And most of the time what I run into is incredibly good folks who respond well to decent treatment. Like Donald, I spend a lot of time in airports, and I don't like it one bit. The fun went out of flying for me a little over 30 years ago, and so I have absolutely no joy in that activity. and since the stuff has happened and that security nightmare started to happen I enjoy it even less so it's not a pleasant thing I know the first weekend after the New York thing I went to the airport prepared for the worst and I wasn't prepared enough because it was worse than I expected and so I went in there and it was just pure bedroom I mean, it took an hour to get in the terminal, never mind on the plane. And when I was in line, I was watching a little gal. Well, little gal is not the right term, but she was a lady. And she, if you thought we had trouble, you should have seen what she was doing. This gal was having to handle every passenger who were routinely disgruntled. They were already mad about being marched around with an Uzi. and she had to not only handle the people, then she had to take the suitcase or cases and carry it a considerable distance and search the thing then search the people while there's somebody else getting mad at the counter. And this girl was sweating I mean big time. And so I got up to her and I said, my God girl you look like you're not having a whole lot of fun with this thing. I said, why don't you work on to quitting time and take the rest of the day off? She said, you bet I will. And I ain't going to be here tomorrow either. I'm going on vacation. I said you can go girl. That's exactly what you ought to do. Take some time off. Well, I mean I'm just messing around with her, you know. And so we get through with that. She finally met somebody that wasn't mad. And so, we just had a nice little deal there. And I started walking away. and she called out to me. She said, hey, wait a minute, come back. And I went back. Now, I'm talking about a nuthouse scene. She kicked me to first class. Most people couldn't even get on the plane. Now,I can just imagine whoever this New York businessman was that said, we're full in first class, you've got to move to coach. I didn't look for him at all. But you see, that's not manipulation. It's just what happens when I do things that for no real reason other than to just practice these principles in the way I live. And what a difference it makes. That it's not just squishy kind of stuff waiting for mystical things to happen. happen, that if I put it in place, my God, what a difference it makes in the way I live. And I don't know about you, but that's the kind of world I want to live in. I don'T want to LIVE IN A WORLD THAT'S FULL OF ANGER AND DISTANCE AND COLDNESS. I WANT TO LIVE INA PLACE WHERE THERE'S A GOOD, WARM KIND OF WORKING RELATIONSHIP WITH PEOPLE. AND THAT'S WHAT I FIND EVERYWHERE I GO. You know, people tell me that every city I go in is the worst one in the country. But I swear to God, I can't find out why. People tell me in California you're just at high risk to even get off the plane. And I have never had anything but cordial, helpful interaction with people. Amazing. And the only difference, I'm the same guy who used to have antagonistic relationships with everybody. and so that simple thing of it's not just the 10th step that that you know we talk about these steps being connected it's kind of like I mentioned yesterday this whole process is connected they're not isolated activities that we do mechanically it's a way of life that if practiced as a way of life changes the quality of that life. And so 10th Step is just a way of putting it in place and reviewing whether it's happening or not. And it's enormously gratifying to me to be able to see that. What I have to recognize is that the way I live my life is It's the most important message I'll ever deliver to anybody. Not wisdom, not a whole bunch of knowledge about stuff. It's The Way That I Live My Life. It's amazing how much, certainly as you get older in the program, it's amazing How Much People Watch What You Do. So that's how they evaluate. I was at an assembly a while back and we were voting on something. And it's voting. And Jesus, if you've ever been to a assembly, you know it's not like making sausage. It is not an issue. It's pretty process. And we just have an amazing faculty to take an issue and gum it to death. We'll beat it forever. So we're voting on this goofy issue. And I didn't agree with it. I thought it was dumb, well-intended, but anyway. Anyway, so I was voting against it for about the fourth time. And then I did some math, and I said, shoot, this thing ain't going nowhere, but I'm going to get it off the floor if I can. So the next time it came up, I voted for it. Well, how do you think anybody's going to pay attention to that? I bet you I had at least six or eight people come to me, why'd you change your vote? I got tired of messing with the dumb thing. That's what happened. But people watch that. And so the way I live my life is a tremendous amount of what I'm about. You know, like, I'm kind of careful about where I hang out. My wife's not an alcoholic, and she doesn't do much drinking. She's given up on that. But we'll have company sometimes, and she likes to have some booze for some of her wealthy relatives from up in Canada. and she wants me to go get it. Well, I'm an obedient husband, you know, so I go over there. I swear to God, every time, now I've grown, you know I haven't been carted for a long, long time, but every time I walk in an ABC store I want to sort of put a bag over my head or something. because my thought is, suppose some guy that I just had in a newcomer group last night watches me going in and says, Oh, I see how this works. You don't drink on Tuesday, but on Wednesday you come down here and load up. I've doubted very many are going to say, Oh,I understand his wife sent him on a mission. The way I live, I'm free to do whatever I want to, but I'm responsible to do things that will be attractive to folks if I want to be effective. And so how I live my life is a critically important thing in terms of that thing we're talking about on how to be affective and also how to get the real rewards that come in our college or not. Now, we'll go through this kind of quick like that. The 11th, a lot of time, and when I first started looking at 11th I really thought of it as a go stare at your navel step where you go off and find some secluded place and think great thoughts and all of that and certainly there's a place for that You know, there's truly a place for feeding the soul, you know, for just quietly finding a place. Like I'm a guy that loves water and don't like to get in it all that much, but I just like to be around it. And there's nothing to me more restful or soothing than to get around moving water. You know I just love kind of getting rapids and stuff like that and waterfalls. and I wanted a pond for a number of years and thought about building it but I'm not smart enough and so I finally wound up getting somebody to I wanted it but I didn't want to take that money and so I gave it to my wife for her 33rd wedding anniversary and I thought I was being real slick I've been talking to her for ten years about how much I wanted that thing. And I said, it's yours. She's starting to like it a little bit. But that was something I really wanted. And so my morning deal now where I do a lot of the meditation and stuff like that, I sit out by that pond. The Beast and I sit out there and have a coffee and read the paper and stuff like that. So I like that, you know, there's a great place for just sort of getting spiritually prepared to do stuff. But when I look at 11, I find it now to be one of the most powerful action steps in the program. If I'm really wanting to let this program become the guide for my way of life, Because what it says is that there are a couple of components to that. One certainly is to sit by the pond and think heavy thoughts and to get spiritually connected and to improve that relationship. Very, very important. But for what purpose? And right in the middle of that step it says, praying only for knowledge of his will. When I'm seeking through prayer and meditation, praying only from knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out. And therein lies my purpose. Now, I don't think it comes in just one failed swoop of saying, okay, you're supposed to go do a workshop in Virginia. I don'T think it happens like that. But it does open me up to being willing to serve. And so that step to me becomes a powerful thing where I am now willing, now that I'm able, now thatI've gotten rid of the baggage, now that I've gotten open to be of service, I think this is where it starts to formulate a plan of action. And that I'm responsive to the things that come along. I want to know the knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry that out. And my God, does it ever happen? Does it ever happened? The minute I become willing. And from the time that I became willing, it's been a long long time since I've had an empty agenda, I mean a long long time I've been doing stuff like we're doing here I don't mean workshop but stuff here for 40 years for 40 year I've been doing this first somebody reminded me yesterday the first conference I ever spoke at was the Virginia State Convention and In 1962, at Equality Inn on Highway 64, not that I remember what county. But in 1962, over by Norfolk. And from that time to this, I've done a lot of this kind of thing and a lot of stuff in AABI. I've made it a practice. Don said it this morning, that I never say no. Never say no to a genuine request for service. The way I look at it, these steps help me to get a new manager in my life. And if I'm going to be the guy who's the resident critic of what the directions are that come, what the opportunities to come, if I're going to pick and choose on the basis of what I think fits me best, I'm contradicting the whole process. So I've made it a practice of never saying no and it's a phenomenal thing in a way this stuff of getting on airplanes and doing things in 40 years I have never had to miss one single commitment except one except one and I'm not mystical about stuff but I was out in Tennessee and I was doing a little traditions thing at an assembly assembly. And in the course of it, something brought it up and I mentioned that I had never missed a commitment. I never had to because of illness, weather, broke planes or anything. It's always worked out. And I said, gee whiz, I ought not to have said that because I bet I'll have to miss the next one. Well, next week I'm supposed to go to Florida. And we had two feet of snow in North Carolina. We don't get two feet o' snow in Norcarolina. And when we do, we sure don't know what to do with it. There was absolutely nothing moving in North Carolina. I couldn't get out of my driveway for three days. And that really was an important lesson for me in that thing. I was on the phone with the guy that was my contact in Florida. It was about like the death watch waiting on a call from the governor. And I'm calling down there and I said, I'm trying Amtrak. and then Lillian called back, didn't work, we're going to try this. Well, I tried everything and nothing was there. Finally accepted the fact that I wasn't going. So I called him up like I'm delivering the fact, I'm sorry man, we are going to have to unplug the life support. And I'm just not going to be able to do it, there's nothing smoking getting out of here. And he said, oh what the hell. I thought that was absolutely perfect. It was absolutely appropriate that I was highly concerned about that. It was even more appropriate that it didn't make that much difference. It didn't made much difference to them. In fact, he told me later they already had another speaker lined up. They knew I wasn't coming. But they let me go through all of that stuff to do what I was doing. So that to me is the way I like to look at how I want to be available To carry out God's plans for me So that when I find out what's God's will I don't get in the way of I mentioned yesterday about paying attention to hunches And when I get a hunch about something I have to take it pretty seriously Because it normally has some real weight to it And so being available to service, being available for God's plan. My belief is this. It's just mine. It doesn't make it right. But my belief is that for every one of us who goes through this program of recovery, whether we're AA, Al-Anon, Alateen, whoever, if we work these steps and they become a way of life, I believe an avenue of service will open up. And it may be many things, many things But it'll open up And I personally believe that without any question The quality of my recovery will hinge on how I respond to that If I'm able to just take a look at the avenues of service That open up and walk away I'm the loser I'm a loser And when I do that and walk away, I'm diminished in the process. If I can take a look at a need that needs to be addressed and I'm capable of addressing it and I walk away I lose, I lose. And so it's critical for me in terms of becoming a real functioning, well-rewarded member of the world and member of a that when those those opportunities come that I do it yeah I think everybody in the world has a story if somebody needs to hear you've got a story that somebody needs two years don't need to hear mine they need to hear yours and when I selfishly withhold that I lose big time and so real action step, of finding a way to serve, of being open for those kinds of experiences that bring me out of myself, get you into some deep water. I tell you this, that even though that has been my track record, I have never yet taken taken on an activity that I felt perfectly comfortable to do. Never have. Now, even though I bet you I've talked 10,000 times in AA, I have never done it without a certain level of tension and anxiety. You know, it's not like the first time I did it when I blacked I mean, that's literally the first time I ever spoke. But it's always there, and I personally think it always should. I've sort of got it in the back of my mind. If I ever get to the point that I can just comfortably get up in front of a group and talk with no neurons firing, I think I'm going to sit back down because that means that it's moved to my head instead of my heart. and there's something intimate and personal about what we do in AA or else it loses its meaning. And so I think that's really appropriate. It was also appropriate that when I responded to those things, recognize that I had to step through the fear but recognize the value of stepping through the field. If I live within my comfort zone, I'll never go anywhere. way. And so really important for me to be in the spiritual condition that I'm ready and willing to serve, and I'll become able. Awfully important for me. And in the 12th, we're talking about the stuff of really making this a way of life, where having done these things, there's 200 words in the steps and having done what's laid out there what it says to me is that I'm going to have a spiritual awakening I'll have an awakened spirit I'll be geared a different way this mind of this chronic alcoholic will be geared in a different ways and that to me is a real promise that's embodied in what we do and then having had that happen we do a couple things one is we try to carry this message to other alcoholics by whatever method that we possibly can, no matter what it is. It's like what we're doing here today. I've been watching the stuff that's going on. Don and I have done the visible part of it. But the stuff that's behind this, what a powerful service that is. Now I watched how those things appeared on that table back there. I watched How They Happened Yesterday. Tremendous service involved in that thing. Somebody got this hall. I watch people straightening up these chairs. All of those are really valuable services that help make something happen. So opportunities to serve, opportunities to carry a message go far beyond just what I can personally do. And so I think it opens up. And so our task as laid out in there is to try to carry this message by any method that we can. and then practice the principles in our affairs. You know, that's the kind of thing I was talking about in 10. It sounds easy. Oh, here it is. I thought I lost my coffee. It sounds kind of cliche-like to say that practice these principles in all affairs, and I don't want to skim by that too lightly. And I'll just touch on this thing and then maybe come back to it a little bit when we get into this other part i think it's awfully awfully important for these principles to be engaged in this process to keep from self-destructing we can self-distract in this program if the principles aren't solidly in place and uh there's an important thing that i think was important for me is to understand the difference between real purposeful action in Alcoholics Anonymous and activity. Big difference in that. Purposeful action as opposed to activity. When I was first in the program, and I didn't even know what purposeful action meant, I was a guy who was fantastically active. And I don't second guess that one bit today because it served its purpose. It protected me from myself. It kept me too busy to get in trouble. It kept me getting out of myself and getting acquainted with other people and learning about the program. I don't question it. I know that I was hid in that activity for a while, and it helped me get the muscles to start engaging in life. So nothing wrong with that. But if I see a guy with a good number of years years of sobriety, who's still frantically making seven meetings a week. I'd be about as concerned about that person as it was somebody making one meeting a week because there's something really out of whack with that. The learning the difference between activity and action is tremendously important. Don talked about a thing about how we get trust in the people that we enter or are really really closely related to think about this minute we say sometimes I used to say it but I don't say it now that a has to come first it has to come before everything else I don t say that anymore because I don t believe that anymore. Because when I try to operate under that banner I set set up some real red flag conditions in the life of me and the people who are close to me. If I say to my wife, if she doesn't understand the difference between what I'm committed to and what I am just doing, I've got a lot of trouble. If i say to my wife that well it's Wednesday and I'm going to run over here and I am going to do this Yes, and she's got some trouble with that. And I say, well, you know, AA's got to come first. Well, there'll be a fight at my house. I don't know about your house, but there'll be a fighting because there are other things that are important. What I have to do that's critically important for me, and I am an extremely active member of AA, and it's doubly important for an extremely active memory. And I know some of you are. My family fully understands, everybody who knows me understands, that I have some commitments that are not negotiable. They're not negotiables. My home group is a commitment that's not negotiably. And if I'm not there, it's because I've got some, I either cannot get there or I've Got some service that I'm doing that I think is worth making the move to do. But otherwise, it's an absolute commitment. And like Don was saying, if you want to find Tom Ivester, you go to Moore County and you say, where is that boy? If it's Monday, they'll tell you to go over to the Baptist Church in Southern Pine, and you'll find him. If it're Thursday, they will tell you the same thing. Now, that's important in terms of being trustworthy. My family understands that that's a commitment, and there's absolutely no conflict. That's who I am. And you can trust me that that's exactly what I do. And so the other day my son came to town, and it was a very unique experience. He wanted to take us to dinner. And he's been a struggling medical student for a lot of years, and he's now self-supporting as a young physician out in Tennessee. And he could finally afford to take me to dinner with him. And so he said, Dad, I want to take you guys to dinner, and I said, That's great. and the only thing is that he caught a little look in my eye and he caught himself, I didn't have to say a word he said oh wait a minute this is me tonight he said we'll do it a different time no problem but suppose I'd have said to my young visiting physician I'm sorry son I've got something to do at 8 at night and that's more important to you because that's got to come first you know what I'm talking about Just a simple thing of letting people know who I am and what my commitments are, not what my values are about them as opposed to this. So when I say to somebody, hey, you've got to come first, that's an insult to somebody. And it's a contradiction of practicing principles. There are also principles involved in a marriage. There are principles involved In a parental relationship, in a work relationship. Sometimes we get into a box of trying to compartmentalize our lives. You know, people talk about balance and they'll use some sort of graphic demonstration of so much time for work and so muchtime for play and somuch time for A.A. And it's not real bad thinking, it just sort of misses a very important point. is that if I'm doing it right, if I am practicing these principles as a way of life, AA does not compete with anything in my life. It does not complete with anything in my own life. If it does, I'm not doing it correct. If it doesn't make me a better employee where I work, I'm no doing it wrong. If it don't make a better parent, a better husband, a better employer, I'm not doing it right. Because this is a way of life. It's not an activity. It's nothing that I go do and get what I need and then get on with my life. It undergirds and makes happen everything in my life and so that's what's so important to me about having real commitments about what I do in this program and then having commitments to other things as well there's so that I can have a well-balanced life and so if I do it that way I'm not not running into two opposition and roadblocks and creating friction in things I can resolve that on the basis of the principle and and so i go into that a little bit because it it it lends to to to stuff that when you start thinking beyond your your level of what i call it the circle of your personal magic we start thinking behind that you got to get into broader issues than just how i do my sobriety and how i view my home group and then when we start speaking in those terms it starts looking looking at some expanded kinds of activities, expanded kind of thinking. And awfully important to me to be well-grounded and to understand that difference about committed actions as opposed to just frantic activity. When I look at what I want to get done as an AA member, I guess if I had to identify a mission, and you probably got your own, If I wanted to identify a mission, what is it that I really want to contribute to Alcoholics Anonymous in gratitude for what's been given me? It would be something very much like this. I want to do everything that I possibly can contribute everything that I can to ensuring that the next man woman boy or girl who comes through that door gets as good as was given to me I don't think I can do any less than that and that's what I want to do now that's a tall order certainly what I do in the circle of my own personal magic Magic is a vital part of that. Certainly there's a contribution to be made. Like, I welcome people to Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't care where I am. I guarantee you I do it in my home group. If somebody gets out of my home groups without me arm-wrestling with them, you can bet that they hit because I'm going to get that turkey if he walks in there. Home group members, everybody. I'm gonna make sure that everybody who walks in here knows they're welcome or they're going to know that they've been harassed, one way or the other. That is their choice. So I can do that. I can doing that and that has its value. One of the minimum values that it has is that it makes every meeting I attend a warm and welcoming place because it starts with me. And so I'm not somebody who hides in corners and this kind of stuff. I'm somebody who gets right out into the mainstream of the action, and so I can do that. But that's limited, isn't it? That's limited. That's just one little thing. It's valuable. Like I went in to speak at a little meeting down below where I live. And I just did my usual thing. You know, I'd just walk around shaking hands with folks and all that stuff. And I met some lady I didn't know. And she came over afterward. She said, can I ask you a personal question? I said, sure. What? She said what do you sell? I said well nothing. Well I said wait a minute. You have to. I said I sell recovery and I got one hell of a deal on that thing. And that's true. That's true because if I want to be somebody who contributes to the attraction of alcoholics and non-alcoholics I can do that. I can do that, and it'll have some value. So that's one of the things I can do, but that's a limited thing. And so if I want Alcoholics Anonymous to be a place where somebody can count on getting as good as I was given, that's one little contribution, but it's tiny. So what do I do beyond that? I'm somebody who believes that a home group a home group is a vital not only a vital but the most vital single ingredient in alcoholic synonymous we call it the basic building block and I believe that it absolutely starts with a home group see my personal my circle of personal magic is going to have influence but limited influence and when I meet with somebody whether I'm doing it individually or whatever ever. I can do my thing, but if I don't have a group that delivers on what I promise, I've sold them a bill of goods. And I have to recognize that my personal magic is only going to go so far. And so I've got to have a groove that I can trust to deliver the goods. And so when I take them in there, I want that groove to be a place where alcoholics have have a good chance to get well, a good chance to know that they're in the right place. And so I have to think bigger than just me and my magic. I've got to think about my dependence on a group to get what I need and to be sure that folk get what they need. And I'll tell you what's important. Well, I don't need to tell you. You know what's more important about that. I had a 12-step call one day, and I messed with the fellow all day long, and he was actually agreeing with some stuff. And I got him to a meeting. And I wanted to take him to an newcomer meeting for obvious reasons. And so I remembered a group that had a newcomer meet, and I went over and they had a huge group and they announced how they were going to break up and the newcomer meeting was going to stay where we had convened and then others were going to scatter out to other meetings. Well, I bet 85 people stayed in the newcomers. I said, my God, they've had an epidemic up here. Everybody dropped. Well, all it was was just people hanging out. You know, in an ill-defined newcomer meeting, you'll get a lot of mixed baggage. You get some newcomers, and there were a couple in there, I think. You get a Lot of people that want to hide somewhere to keep from doing anything. And you've got some that want To beat up newcomers if they get an opportunity. And so here we sat, 85 people, and I've got a brand new drunk sitting with me. And they start some almost something like a who's got a problem meeting. And we were just going into some mundane kind of conversation. And I'm sitting there, talk about throwing up, guys. Let's talk about something that made sense to a newcomer. And, I mean, it wasn't nothing happening. Nothing happened. And this guy was more brain dead than I was. And normally, I'm not somebody that just likes to speak up in a meeting. I just don't like that. I learned not to volunteer very much, and so I just Don't Like It a bit. but that time I did I figured if I wanted him to hear it I better say it he'd been listening to me all day I wanted somebody else to say it so he stuck my hand up and I started talking newcomer stuff an amazing thing happened I just said a few words and you could see people turn around looking like where'd this guy come from and started listening because I was not the only guy in there that was totally frustrated by a newcomer meeting that wasn't a newcoming meeting. And such a simple little action can make a difference. Now, it's not going to make a permanent difference, but it made a difference in that meeting. From that point forward, I didn't chew anybody out and say, y'all are misrepresenting. I just started demonstrating what ought to happen in a newcomering meeting. And then people jumped right in. The meeting never went back to what it had been before. Now, that's not a major solution, but at least it's an action and the point is that if I want my group to be effective I've got to be careful that it's a group that has the capacity to be affected if it's a newcomer meeting it needs to be a newcomers meeting that actually does newcomer stuff so that when somebody comes in I can count on that resource being delivered effectively as we're capable of doing And that's part of that thing about thinking beyond just my own limitations, my own personal circle of my own personality. But starting to think about how the group becomes a huge resource. I want to be sure that when somebody comes into my group, they know it's a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't want them to have to guess what we're meeting about. I want them to know. Now, that sounds like a throwaway, but I'll guarantee you I've walked into many meetings in this country that would have defied Bill Wilson to interpret it as a meeting about parking lots. You couldn't tell what it was. Well, I can handle that now. But suppose I'm a brand-new person that's trying to see if there's any hope for me at the last stop on the bus line. And I walk into a meeting that's so ill-defined that you can't tell what it is. And that's a very real issue in this country, a very reality issue. And so part of what I can do is try to be sure that my place talks Alcoholics Anonymous. That it's not Myriad Problems Anonymous, it's AlcoholicsAnonymous. That's what it's about. and recognize that we've got a clear purpose to be served here. Like one of the things that we deal with enormously now and have for a number of years is this thing about, well I guess it all sort of came from time when we started doing wholesale treatment of folks And we started getting just various people sort of shifted into alcoholic synonyms. With the thing of dual addiction or just addiction is an enormous problem around this country. And when I get off an airplane in most any city that I go, there are two problems that are paramount when I start asking how things are. One is the thing of dual addiction, that we just don't have real alcoholics anymore. We've got hybrid types and we've got such an influx of addicts that we don't know how to deal with them. It's a huge, huge problem around the country. There are places where it's no longer an issue. folks have just given up. Just given up and let it become whatever it is. Now I would, I would suggest to you that that is a tremendously piece of bad news. Tremendously piece of the piece of tremendously bad news when we start giving up any pretense of being what we say we are. Some people are tired of fighting and just giving up. I had a good friend, he died a while back, an old-timer that was a, he was just almost the heart and soul of the group in Norfolk and the central group in, in, In Norfolk. And, and he, I was talking with him one day and he said that he was no longer in the central group. And I said, why? My God, man, you've been there there since day one why and he said it got so bad i couldn't stand it and he did that that white flight thing you know like he ran out of the city and hid in the suburbs now i can understand that i can understand getting frustrated with the fight but that's what happens you know when we start to to give up the battle so what happens to folks who go into central group now Now, that kind of issue is the kind of thing where I think it's awfully important for those of us who want to serve effectively to recognize some responsibility in how we deal with this and how do we do it. And so in my home group, I can be sure that we do as much as I'm capable of doing to see that we have a genuine meeting about Christ's name so that when the person walks in who's alcoholic, he can have that sense of trust that he's in a place where folk understand and not walk in and have to guess at what the agenda is. That's like a minor thing. I'll tell you a thing that happened and some of us were chatting about it a little bit last night, that a group I was in, in fact, I think it was one different group now, but Don was talking about it, Now, there was one night, and a guy came to me after the meeting and said, Tom, we need a group inventory. I mean, that's an unusual kind of thing for somebody to say. I said, why? He said, you've got too many addicts in you. And I said what are you talking about? So he told me, and what it turned out, I said let me take a look, see if I see the same thing you do. And so I took a look at what it was. There was an adolescent treatment center there in town that had a bunch of youngsters, and they were herding them up and bringing them over to the group. And people at that point didn't have a clue what they were. They just knew that they were kids in trouble. That's all they knew. And they knew the catchphrases that they'd heard. They didn't know if they were alcoholics, addicts, or outer space martians. So they'd come in, and the problems that happened were mostly created by us. In order to try to make them feel welcome, we would have them get up and read something. Well, you know, that's a little bit of a contradiction when you've got a 16-year-old drug addict doing the presentation, looks like, at an A meeting. And that's what it was. And so we had a little steering committee meeting and said, let's see what we can do about this. Talked about it, and they decided that somebody ought to go over to the facility and talk to people about the problem. They asked me if I'd do it,and I said, yep, be glad to. So I went over and met with the director of the facility. And nice lady, nice lady. She'd never heard of a closed meeting. She just knew it was a place she'd sit at people's problems. And so I explained to her what the problem was. she said oh my gosh yeah we'll take care of that no problem nobody had ever bothered to tell her what we're about we just expected her to magically understand yeah and then we want to get mad at them and go burn their place down because yeah but if i want to do something about it how do i do it and yeah so that was one thing but that was the least important thing problem wasn't them the problem was how we dealt with it and so what we did is we set up a newcomer program that is an open meeting and we don't care what he is when he comes in there because we recognize that when somebody comes out of halfway houses or treatment facilities or jails there's a good chance that they're going to be thoroughly confused about what label fits them and so we don t want to do is have that resolved at the public level by embarrassing them in front of a crowd of people. We think that a person who finds themselves in Alcoholics Anonymous at a minimum ought to get a warm welcome and guidance about where they need to be. They don't need some angry old man like me humiliating them, and that's what happens sometimes. Here we'll We'll try to deal with these things rather than having a responsible way of dealing with it and helping folks figure out how to deal mit their problems. If they can't get a warm welcome from us, it's a pretty bad news message. And so that newcomer program, what a tremendous resource. It's been one of the most valuable additions to our group I'm in now. I doubt that I'll ever be in another group that I don't lobby hard to have that as part of it because it's a way of effectively dealing with that. In all of the years that we've been doing that, with that newcomer deal, there have only been two incidents where there was any kind of an unpleasant exchange, you know, like an argument over something, only two times. Both times it was caused by our member who didn't know how to communicate something been at anything less than negative terms but we precipitated our own problem and that's been a tremendous reason so when i start thinking about certainly i can't go out and and change the world in that regard but i can doggone well change the way i deal with it and i can contribute to how our group deals with it so that there's one place where somebody can come in and they they can clearly understand that this is a program that is for them. And so we have that open thing at every one of our meetings so that we can deal effectively with that. So when I want somebody to get as good as I was given, that's one of the things I can do. And by the way, anybody wants to join in any time or just throw anything up, just have at it. You know I won't try to tease you out of it. It's as if I have to jump on. How I do my group is a tremendous contribution. That isn't enough. It's important for me to recognize that it's a sneaky kind of a thing, but I'm glad that I belong to a strong group. I'm really glad that I belong to a strong group. But it's important for me to recognize that that by itself isn't enough. I have to recognize it is no better than the group next door. I have recognize that most alcoholics in my county will not come to my group, they're going to go somewhere else. So while I value having a sound and solid group, part of what I want to evaluate is what kind of a neighbor are we to the next group? Is our contribution holding ourselves in contrast and saying, geez, you ought to be like us? Is that the way I approach it? Or do I approach It in a way of how can we contribute to this community? How can we Contribute to the groups around Us? The autonomy doesn't mean isolation. Our tradition about that says we're autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or A as a whole. So if all I can do is just sort of pump up with how wonderful we are, does that have a little impact? I suspect it does. I suspect It does. And sometimes those of us who get into good, strong groups like that get carried away with that kind of arrogant sense of self-righteousness or whatever. So it's very important for me to be connected and recognize that I'm a part of Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. And just being one sound member or in one sound group is not going to do it. I've got to be connect to the other thing. another thing that I can do and do is to be connected to Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole I'm the alternate DCM in my district and it's a good job I don't really have any responsibility but I've got a lot of work to do I sponsored the DCM and my job is to make him look good and so we do some stuff you know, we do some stuff at a district level that can help us be a good neighbor to other groups around so I can contribute that way I can try to be a well informed member who's conscientious about what this fellowship is about and I can try to be of service at the various levels that I can contribute I'm the area chair chair, the state chair for corrections in our state. And it's not that I'm not heroic particularly, it's just that it's kind of like I was saying earlier, I saw a contribution that I could make. You probably get it from Don, I had a long career in corrections. And And I retired a year and a half ago. And the day I retired, I had already been elected to be the chair of A&Corrections the day I retired. So it did be legal then. So the only thing I did, I just retired. All I quit doing was getting a paycheck. And I moved to the other side of the fence. There were two reasons I did that. And I hope that you'll think of this in terms of your realm of influence, the realm of where you can have impact. When I retired, I'd been for 39 years dealing with problems that are related to corrections and I had watched what we do in corrections on a daily basis. And if there was anybody in the country that understood the frustrations and difficulties of trying to work with corrections, it had to be this guy. And so when I left, I knew that I was in a unique position to be able to make a contribution. And the system, I was the oldest employee in the system. Knew practically everybody in there. And I'd hired half of them, it seemed like. I swear to God, it seems like most of them were folks that I'd known when they were rookies. And so when I walked out, I knew that I had access to that system like nobody else ever would have. And I knew there were tremendous problems associated with AA members trying to work in corrections. And I thought, my God, man, how can I take a look at that and walk off and not do something about it? And so I took on the job. It's a two-year commitment. I'll finish it up about 150 days from now in December. And there will be two things that I will hope to contribute to getting done in that two-year period, and then I will phase out of that and move on to something else, to whatever I do. But the point is that what I said earlier, if I could have looked at that situation, certainly after 39 years you know that the last thing I wanted to hear was a door slammed behind me you know that but if i could have looked at that level of need and my ability to contribute to it and walked away i doubt that you would have wanted me to be here this weekend because that would say an awful lot about me if i can take a look at a need and then just back away and say gee somebody ought to do something and not step up to the plate i'm the loser in that and so when i look at at at effectiveness and you know how i can do something in this program very important for me to recognize that as it's kind of like i mentioned earlier sometimes we get so locked in to looking for excellence in our personal recovery and we'll get into sort of an endless series of workshops and studies and things like this and if we don't watch it, that can be a real narrow world. A real narrow world where I'm spending my life checking my emotional pulse on a regular basis. And so tremendously important for me, the vision is how can I start thinking bigger than that and how can i start being participant in things that will truly make a difference. And so to me that's a lot of where when I look at effectiveness, that's the kind of things I've got to do. There's a thousand more but But let's stop now and see if any kinds of reactions, questions, comments, or whatever. I'll take a drink of coffee. Yeah? I kind of feel interested in how you said strong mood to go and to be good neighbors. Because that seems to be arrogant. Which I don't like, but I don' t know how to be a good neighbor. And what types of activities would you do to respond to a workshop and ask someone else to join in? Well, being a good neighbor, what she was talking about was this idea of a strong group being a Good Neighbor to the other groups around. And it's just like being a GOOD Neighbor in the neighborhood, you know, being friendly with the folk around and to be kind in our thoughts. You know, a lot of times we want to criticize. Like I was pretty critical of stuff I was saying earlier about meetings that bear little resemblance to AA but if I went there I would try to go with an open mind and make a contribution last Saturday we had something I was scheduled to do cancelled and I wound up not going anywhere and so we got a bunch of folk from from our group and just broke out some groceries and you'll always gather a crowd if you break out groceries so So we had a bunch of folks show up. And so we pigged out and goofed around, went to the swimming pool, chased horses and stuff. Then we bunched up and went to a local meeting. And we just dropped in. We weren't there to tell them how to do anything. We were just there to be a good neighbor. You know, we just sort of went in there. And they were so thrilled that we were there. It doubled the size of their meeting that night. Because we just came in and ate up all the donuts. nuts. But simple things like that, of just being and not getting caught up into that sort of subtle superiority that we're doing it right and they ain't. What I have to keep in mind is that we don't have a quality control department in Alcoholics Anonymous. And nobody can tell you when it's right. We're about as generous as any organization could possibly possibly be, that any time two or more of us bunch up and our purpose is to stay sober, we can call ourselves an AA group. And nobody has to approve that. We can meet for the purpose of trying to get an insurrection against alcoholics not if we want to. Nobody is going to be able to challenge our right to function. So even though I talk about the variations of quality, nobody can say what is or is not a group. From my personal standpoint, some of the things have no semblance to what I think a group is, but that's not my business really. mine is to try to contribute however I can in the ways I describe how I make a good strong group, how I can provide some leadership and helping to tie that in to the groups around us how I contribute overall if I approach it with how to be a good neighbor, how to Be Helpful to Folk the ways come out including folks in you know I won't go into all of it But one of the things we have to do is deliberately avoid taking over our district. We have to avoid that because when we go in, if you don't watch it, we'll have every office whether we intend to or not. And so we haveと deliberately manage so that we don't take over the district. And so things like that are just kind of thoughtful things to do. Anybody else? We have an agenda. We don't throw it up for grabs. We don'T just have a free-for-all, you know, let's all talk and reason together. We have a agenda, and that's not a school, but it's a thing built around introductory stuff. What we asked people to do when we revised it last time was remember when you came in. What did you really need to know? What didyou really needto get? And so our agenda is our memories of what we needed. And so it's got specific things on there. We go for, we repeat it for I think three cycles, I believe that we repeat. We do the thing for a cycle and then we repeat the same thing over. So it's structured that way. We try to involve the folk somewhat in the meeting, but it's not a discussion meeting. It's to give that information and then to engage them just like this. You know, we did a whole bunch of presentations, a little bit of interaction. But that's what it is. It's just introductory material based on what we believe we needed when we came in, and the other folk are not going to be radically different. It really works well. Yeah. Anybody else? The general service office has a package. Say what, Steve? The general surface office has the package. Yeah, it does. It's a good package. We've used it. What Steve was saying is in the literature there's a listing for it. That one is a – we quit using it, not that there's anything wrong with it, but because there were some things that just were not adequately addressed in it. So we use a little something different now. But that's a great package for – if you look at introductory material, The material is right there in print, and it's cheap, too. I always think about that. Yeah, thanks, Steve. Anybody else here? Name it and claim it. What we're talking about, maybe it's the stuff that you need to think about, but what we talked about, to me, it's a tremendously important dimension mention to gain an alcoholics nominee. Just say this and we'll wrap it up. I think there's a lot of tremendous junctures and turning points in the program. For those of you there Friday night, I think I alluded a little bit to one of the juncturs is in going through the steps is when we get through with inventory and there's a real critical decision point of deciding to move forward and do the rest of the program. An awful lot of people never get past that juncture and opt out and wind up seeing Alcoholics Anonymous as just a place to go and get what I need. And you can absolutely go to the bank on it, I believe, that people who make that decision are going to have a time-limited recovery because it's only a matter of time until you start getting saturated if that's all you can see is a place for you to get what you need. And if I don't get to a point where I become an active channel in caringness to other people and into getting those things straightened out in my life, that I'm not going to have a good time in Alcoholics Anonymous. And there's another juncture, and I think it's the one we're talking about right now, where this program has to shift from a me focus to a we focus. A buddy of mine in Raleigh used to say it well, that it's the strangest kind. It is a selfish program, no question about it. Those little examples I gave about the kind of selfish. You give it away and you can't give away more than you get. The guy used to says it's strangest selfishness in the world. It's about 10% gimme and about 90% give. And if I don't learn that, I'm going to have difficulty in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I have to get to a point where I can recognize that my greatest insurance is how well I can actively try to serve others. And in the process, I get more than I could possibly imagine. But if I do not learn it, if my motivation is always on what can I get, I miss the whole spirit of what this thing's about. And that's what it's about this morning. It's about seeing that it's great for me to be a decent sponsor to guys I work with. It's great för mig att göra det bästa jag kan, something like this. But I have to recognize that it has got to be bigger. And if I can't tie in and see how I can contribute to this thing as a whole, I'm not going to get much effect on this stuff. Anybody have any last thoughts? Well, I agree with Donald. You all have been a great bunch. I had a good time here this weekend. Yeah, Sam, Deb. Thank you, Philip. Earlier you were talking about you've had a couple of conflicts that they rooted from members of AA with the income of prison. My question is we've had couple incidents of AA members who are also involved in a religious group, who are taking meetings into training facilities and are representing themselves not only as members of alcoholics and monomies but inviting people to this religious group. and it just came up this past week and I mean it's a concern because we don't, I mean the way I'm raised in AA is we're not affiliated with anything else and so I was wondering how that could be approached in a loving way like I blow things out of proportion I have no problem laughing She's talking about folks that have a whole bunch of agendas different agendas than this it's tricky and there's no real simple kind of response to that other than to say this is. The surest resolution for those kind of conflicts I know is focused on the primary purpose, as stated, you know, that each group has one primary purpose, carries a message to alcoholics still suffering. When you start trying to handle it at the personal belief level, it's always a big fight. But the more you can focus on the principle, the principle of the primary purpose that starts to define what's what moves toward it and what does it and and so I think you got to do it and in the planning it's like that correctional facility thing we're going to do this afternoon now we'll be talking about the primary there if we got into individual fine-tuning about how we do each one doesn't yeah but what we'll try to do is come to that that primary purpose. And so what I'm suggesting is that the personal level is not always the best place to attack that. It's to get it in a neutral ground, like if you've got a treatment facilities committee, is to get that committee to put that on the agenda, and the agenda is the primary purpose, what are we doing to satisfy the primary purposes? If you start trying to do it just on the basis of personal debate, there's always a real sticky wicket. And so that's one of the places I think we have to broaden the agenda a bit. So are you suggesting that we should do workshops within the committees on primary purpose? Or just have the committee meeting around the primary purpose, you know, review what you're doing. Just like we did in newcomer business where we set an agenda on the basis of the collective experience of what achieves the primary. You know, it doesn't need a workshop. I didn't even workshop stuff to death. Sometimes you just take the principle and then try to work around it. How do we get this thing accomplished? That's the way I would go at something like that. You've got to broaden it from just that personal kind of combat thing. Commit it to death. Okay, thanks guys. Thank you very much.