Why You Cannot Transmit Something You Haven’t Got – Bill L.

Hi everybody, my name is Bill. I'm an alcoholic. Hi Bill. I haven't slept good in two nights, so this talk should be interesting. I never do this, but I actually took notes of some things that I might want to talk about. And I thought it was ironic because I wrote the notes on a bar's cocktail napkin. so two weeks ago I talked about trust God, last week I talked about clean house and this week I'm going to talk about or I was asked to talk about help others as far as I'm concerned the most effective way to help others is to first trust God and then clean house later in our book As a matter of fact, on page 164 it talks about that we can't give away something that we don't have. And I think it's interesting that the book mentions that on the last page of the program portion of the big book because it's almost like a, it's not just a reminder, it's Almost Like a, as far as I'm concerned, and it's almost like a little dig because perhaps the authors knew that people might just read through the book, and then when they get to the last page, you know, just read Through the Book and then just start helping people and not actually work steps and not actual work steps with, like, a sponsor or somebody who's familiar with it. And, you now, it throws in that, you can't give away something you don't have, and then somebody might go up, you kno, and then, oh, well, maybe I should do this first. You know what I mean? And the 12-in-12 talks about two-stepping, you know, just taking the first step and the twelfth step and warns heavily against it. And we probably all know people that have tried that theory. Helping others has become... I was going to say it's become a big part of my life, but I think more closely described, helping others has became my life. I see it as a big point in my life part of my program. I see it as a big part of my spiritual growth. I see that something that comes naturally for me now and it didn't in the beginning. I never really saw the point in trying to do something for somebody else unless I could get some benefit out of it. Today, it's not that way. As far as I'm concerned, that's as the result of my awakening that it isn't about the agenda, it isn'T about the manipulation, it's just about being of service. And I'm grateful for the people that emphasize the being of service to other people. But what I'd like to start with is it's interesting that it talks about helping others and in the 12-step it talks It's about trying to carry this message to other alcoholics. But what I've noticed throughout the book is over and over and over and again, it says that we need to be helping people. And I'm going to kind of go through this quickly, so maybe just listen to the recording during the week if you want to actually mark it in your book. But on the bottom of 14, it talks about for an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials in those spots ahead. That is a heavy duty warning right there that we need to perfect and enlargen our spiritual life through work and self sacrifice for others. Then on page 20 it says our very lives as ex-problem drinkers depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. Another really strong statement about being of service and helping others. And then there's some other references, but then on 77, they mentioned something that for me would make for a very interesting topic at a meeting. and that is that some people see the working of the steps could sort of be described as, you know, I'm going to get mine. If you understand because we sort of get results from the working of the stamps but on page 77 it warns us against stopping there and what it says is at the moment we are trying to put our lives in order and this is in the step 8, step 9 part of the book So it's talking about making amends and we just finished doing inventory and sharing with somebody else and sort of trying to look at our shortcomings and asking God to help us with that. So it says that at the moment we are trying to put our lives in order, but this is not an end in itself. Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us. Again, a very strong statement about being of service and helping others. and contained in this sentence for me is a really important direction it doesn't just say you know, you just kind of randomly go around helping people it talks about fitting ourselves to be of maximum service to others so we need to be sort of for lack of a better expression going out of our way to see to fit ourselves to be OF help to other people And then on page 102, it says your job now is to be at a place where you can be of maximum helpfulness to others. So again, it gives us the very strong statement about helping others. and then on 153 I didn't check this one so it may be good or it may not be let me just check it first it talks about escaping disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life you will learn the full meaning of love thy neighbor as thyself and then again on 164 where it talks about it says ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the other person who is still sick the answers will come if your own house is in order but obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got see to it that your relationship with God is right and then great events will come to pass for you and countless others this is the great fact for us great fact, capital G, capital F so you can see there helping others is mentioned again and again in our program as being incredibly important now I'm sure for some of you that were here the last two weeks, this won't be surprising to you, but what I'm about to say I know is not going to be liked by everybody here. And what I believe is that the biggest part of being of service to another human being is the way that we show up. And like the book says, that I can't be of service to another person unless my own house is in order. And how I've come to experience it is that I remember having a conversation with a gentleman because one of the few religions that I haven't really been able to tap into at its mystical level is Judaism. And I remember Having a Conversation with a Hasidic Jew about where's the mystical writings. And since this conversation, I've found some stuff. And of all the religions on the major paths, Judaism remained an intrepid for me because I hadn't been able to tap into its mystical depth. And he shared something with me that kind of blew my mind because he was talking about his religion, and what I was hearing was AA. And what he had said was, he said, well, you see, the reason why Judaism doesn't go around flaunting its mystical teachings for lack of a better expression. He didn't say that but I'm just trying to paraphrase what I internalized by the conversation. And what he had said was that, you See, it isn't just about whatever was written down in regards to the mystical teachings and the mystical literature. what it was about was one person who had taken the mystical teachings and had an experience with it let's call it a sponsor who has had a spiritual awakening for lack of a better expression and a person who is perhaps a new person or someone that was looking for spiritual guidance and he said it isn't just about the literature it's also about the transformation of the person's spiritual awakening to the person who is not yet spiritually awake it isn't just about the literature and what is written about it it is part of the transformation of the person who has awakened spiritually to the person that has not yet awakened spiritually so I agree that on a surface level anybody can be helpful to anybody else but at an ideal level at a transformative level at a at a transformative level. The most important thing that happens between a sponsor and sponsee is the transformation of the awakens, allegedly, sponsor to the one that is seeking. now perhaps that's a little controversial but I want to talk about at surface levels and I also want to talk about at depth and I aussi want to talk about my experience so I have to talk about that in the way that I just did because for me it's really really important because if let's say you know one of the greatest compliments that was ever given me by was by a man who I started working with about 11 years ago. And I met him at the Fellowship of the Spirit in Queens. A guy that I had worked with introduced me to him and said, you know, you've got to get with this guy. And that's not the part that was the compliment. And I was living in Philly at the time, and he lived in Flemington, which was over an hour away. And I had a conversation with this guys And it was really obvious to me that this guy was lost and he was hurting and he Was sick and tired of not finding answers in AA. I'm sorry I'm so emotional today. And after talking to him for a little while, it was Really obvious to Me that he was desperate and that he had been looking for a while in and around AA and he wasn't finding help. He was an extreme case. And after a pretty brief period of time, it was like during a break. It wasn't even like a lunch thing. We had maybe a 20-minute conversation. And I said to him, I said, Listen, this is what I want to do. Are you working right now? And he said, No. Which wasn't surprising to me. And I told him, Listen, I have a job and I have basic control over my schedule and what I want to do is once a week I'm going to drive from Philly to Flemington and I want us to sit with you for a few hours and go through the book. And he was like, you're going to do what? And I said, I'm gonna drive an hour and 15 minutes to your house and we're going sit down and we are going to go through book and I am going to take you through the steps. And I want share with you my experience of what the book is saying and how I've worked with it and each week there will be step work to do and if you are willing to do all this I am willing to drive an hour and 15 minutes to help you and he was just like wow we haven't gotten to the compliment yet now I started working with him and about a month into it my marriage ended that was why I was living in Philly I was leaving with my wife and this is where the compliment came And I still continued, you know, I was still sort of in Philly and I was traveling to see him while all this stuff was happening. And I just shared briefly with him that, you Know, things weren't going very well. And I was trying to really focus on the time that I spent with him was his time. It wasn't about me. And it wasn't by me spewing my problems on him. I was going through heavy stuff at the time. and the compliment that he gave me was that the whole time that I was working with him never once did I put my stuff on him, never once did I seem distracted, never ones did I not give him 100% of my attention and 100% of whatever help I could give him even though it was a struggle for me and he had shared that with me that was just absolutely amazing never once Did more than one minute of the two hours that we spent together have anything to do with you and the problems you were going through? It was always all about me, and it was amazing to him. And I don't always show up like – I don' t always show u p that well. But that was just a compliment that he had given me. And that was because at that time was when I started seeing that how you show up has a whole lot more to do than whatever it is that you're talking about or whatever it ist that you' re going through. That my presence with somebody as a person that, you know, claims to be, you know, on a spiritual path and that claims to describe spirituality as something that's very important. That how it is that I show up and I share this with the person who's new. That, you Know, I'm going to give you my full attention. I'm gonna be completely present when we do this. and you giving the stuff that I ask you to work with and you showing up when I show up, how you show up is more important than whatever it is that you do because I'm telling everybody right now that if you could have full presence cutting your lawn, you will have a spiritual awakening. But of course, we're just everywhere. You know what I mean? Like for instance, right now where are you? Are you thinking about your bills? Are you think about a conversation that you're going to be having when you get out of here? Are you thinking about some situation you got into a half hour ago? Or are you just right here, just listening, not even judging what's happening. Are you just here right now or are you somewhere else? Because in most cases, we're just somewhere else. We're spending time with our kids and we're to somewhere else and believe me, they know it. And for me, it's about the transmission of my presence and the transmission of my awakening with a new person and the way that they show up which for me is the X factor called transformation. And when we begin to compromise that stuff, it just turns into a little bit of a surface change instead of a transformation. See, this isn't about change for me. This is about transformation. This isn't a matter of change. This isnít about relief. This is About Freedom. And then once I get mine, for lack of a better expression, it is absolutely imperative that I help somebody else get theirs. And that's why I've been here for these past three weeks. And that'S why we constantly do step workshops and meditation workshops and whatever else we're invited to go do. For me, it's really important to show up as fully as I can. and I hope that that I touched your heart enough that you noticed that the past few weeks I just went for it because that's what I do because for me it's really important and that's the only way I'll ever make a difference in anyone else's life I believe as fully as I can I'm talking about the full God gift I'm not talking about just going for it now I know that not everybody shares like this I'm extreme, I know that but you have to understand when I drank and used drugs it was an extreme thing and why not be extreme here why not go for the full Monty why not go for The Big Bus here in AA or is 13 Steppin' more important or is What's In It For Me more important or trying to find a job by using somebody at a meeting more important. For some people, that's how it is. As far as I'm concerned, that's misusing AA. Now, in what ways over the years have I been what could be called helpful to others? You know, there's service positions, there's workshops, there's one-on-one conversations. One way that I've been, I haven't had a lot of experience in the last 10 years, but in the first, let's say, 12 years or 11 years, I had experience with somebody who was sort of in the street and they could sleep on my sofa. And how it was of service to them was not that they had a sofa to sleep on that night. How I was of surface with somebody was that you have a sofa TO sleep on, but you must find something else after a week. I'm not going to let you use me. I'm Not Going To Let You Rest On Your Laurels And You're Just Going To Stay Here Indefinitely And Use Me For As Long As You Can And Then Go Use Somebody Else. For Me, In Letting Somebody Sleep On My Sofa Before They're Even In The House They Know What The Time Frame Is That They Must Leave. Because We As Alcoholics Take Advantage Of People. And Non-Alcoholics Do It Too. but I'm just saying that that's something that I think is more of service is to allow the person to be responsible for their own stuff and as a sponsor that's another thing that I try to do for people that as far as I'm concerned now I'm not a parent I have parental relationships with some people but I'm like I'm not a apparent but I see sponsorship the same way that I see parenting and that is that what I'm supposed to do is as quickly as possible make myself unnecessary. Let the person finally grow up. They shouldn't be dependent on me. I see a lot of dependent relationships, sponsor and sponsee in AA. I think that's a little bit, if not way off. I'm supposed to help you find your answers. I'm not supposed to be your answer. What happens when I die? What happens When I move away? What are you left with if you've been dependent on Me? it's time to grow up ladies and gentlemen it's not just about being responsible it's about realizing that we have these answers and we have these resources within us and most of us have not even come close to tapping into it and for me sponsorship and being able to help other people So it's a whole lot more useful to me as a sponsor or as a member of AA that gets a lot of phone calls basically almost even on a daily basis is to not create a dependency. Very important as far as I'm concerned. You need to realize that the answers are within you, and I need to help you find those answers as quickly as possible. And then I'm not getting the phone calls. You found your own answers. What do you need me for? And it doesn't mean that we might not have a conversation. It doesn't means that you can't call me sponsor anymore. It just means that now we just see each other. Now, in the early days, the way sponsorship was practiced was maybe the sponsor was a little bit further along in the path than a new person was. And what your job was was to bring him up to par with everybody else and now we're just all equals. And for me, that's the essence of what I do. And that's the most useful I can be to somebody else is to disconnect our relationship of a dependence as quickly as possible. I feel really strongly about that. Now, over the years, I've been on committees. I was on the Garden State Young People's Conference Committee for about eight years, and I held every position on that, and that was a really rewarding gig. The GSYP conference back then was about 330 people would show up at a really beautiful YMCA camp in Stillwater, New Jersey. And some really beautiful stuff happened there. While I was involved, we tried to introduce a little bit more program kind of stuff as opposed to just like a fellowship weekend. We also tried to introduce some solution stuff, which we were able to do. For about six years I was on the Area 44 Conference Committee. The conference in Somerset is once a year in September. It's upcoming, the Area44 weekend, which is a really beautiful experience. There's a lot of work that goes into that. One of the things that I've discovered about service is something that I had heard a speaker say one time, that it's called a commitment for a reason because you have to be committed to it. There are sacrifices. There are times where you would rather do something else and you have go to a committee meeting. At these service commitments, I began to learn how to sometimes do what I didn't want to do because sometimes it's real easy to watch a television show than to go and get into it with a committee you know a week before the conference or something you know what I mean because you know there's going to be some putting of heads but you go because it's a commitment you go because it's the right thing to do you go because you don't want to go and for me that's a really important practice is to regularly do things that we don't wanna do and regularly not do things that we do wanna do because what I've found is that the mind always leads me to the lowest common denominator. The mind always leads me to isolation and then if it's just me in the mind, I am in a bad neighborhood and you better believe that I am on the relapse fast lane. And being of service is a good way to just get out of my head and is a Good Way to just disregard what I want to do and, you know, I got to go. I'm going to the meeting. We've all experienced, hopefully, the beauty of, you know, like maybe some of you experienced it tonight. You did not want to come to this meeting but you just said, you know what? I don't care if I want to go. I'm just going to go and maybe this meeting isn't a good example of it but we all have an experience of it where, you now, we didn't want to go to the meeting. It was sort of a little bit of a hassle but then we went anyway and the message we heard was so helpful to us it was unbelievable. We heard something that was almost like life changing and we are grateful that we went even though before the meeting we did not wanna go. If you've gone to enough meetings, you know everybody here has experienced that at some point. It's almost like we're rewarded for doing what we didn't want to do even though it was the right thing to do. It's a beautiful experience. Now I'm not currently on any committees. I guess the most recent thing that I did was I was the Area 44 History and Archives Chairperson which was a few years ago. That was a really fun service commitment. I'm really, really heavily into AA history, and something that I did with that committee was every other month we would have just a regular basically boring meeting to talk about boring stuff, and then every other meeting we would Have sort of a quicker meeting, and then I would show sort of an AA history-related video, which I have a pretty large collection of. And basically what I told the committee was is that, you know, listen, this is a two-year commitment for me. And when these two years are up, not only are we going to work together as a committee, but all of us is going to know AA history a whole lot better. And I was committed to not just represent the area as the chairman for the History and Archives Committee, but I wanted to really get out there with what is our history? So many people have so many questions about so many things. And so many people have heard so many half-measured opinions and non-factual things that have nothing to do with AA history, but if you were to ask 100 people, 99 of them would tell you that that's absolutely fact and that's actually AA history. And one of the best examples that I can give to you is that famous statement that allegedly Bill said before he died that he was asked, you know, is there anything in the big book that you would like to change? and that allegedly he stated that he would like to change the word rarely to never at the beginning part of how it works. And I'm still amazed that old-timers still say this thing because, you know, people parrot stuff and, you Know, this guy said it and this guy repeated it and ever since then, you Now, it's almost like AA biblical history that, You Know, This is a fact that Phil wanted to change rarely to Never. it's absolutely non-factual based on nothing probably based on a well intentioned sponsor that was tired of getting questions from a sponsee that he didn't know how to answer and as a matter of fact if you read Pass It On on page 200 it says that Bill himself said that he never considered that change yet I guarantee you in the next year you're going to hear somebody say that at a meeting and now you're armed with the facts about it that's absolutely untrue And you can point in the book where it says it. And Passanon was written after Bill died, so he couldn't have changed his mind after the book came out. Just a small fact. But it's interesting to me because you hear this stuff. One step a year. Where did that come from? Have you ever seen that anywhere in our literature? For me, it's really important to sit down with somebody and share with them word by word what's in this big book. and to share with them about the history. Because you hear stuff at meetings, you know what I mean? That's the interesting thing about our meetings is that anybody can say just about anything. And most of it's well-intentioned and most of its just somebody said something and then, you know, it's that telephone game that we used to play in kindergarten where this person says to this person by the time it gets to the end of the line, it's nothing like what the first person had originally said. And, you Know, a cool example that I can give of somebody that I was working with that fortunately they were familiar with what was in the big book. And this was somebody who was a chronic relapser and had been in AA for 20 years and never had more than three months. Can you imagine being in AA, a quality transformative life-changing program that works if we fully give ourselves to the working of the 12 steps? He had been around AA for over 20 years and never has been in it. He's never had over more than 3 months sober. and I had shared at a group anniversary down in Philadelphia and I quoted something from the third step in the big book it's one of the few lines that I have memorized or at least it's One of the Few Lines That I'll Admit That I Have Memorized and the line goes like this though our decision, which is the third set decision, though our decission was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face and to be rid of the things in ourselves that had been blocking us And at a group anniversary, I was asked to tell my story. And I shared that, that the third step means nothing unless you go on with the rest of the process. And after the meeting was over, he came over to me. And his name was John. And he says, you know, I've been around AA for 20 years. And I just asked somebody to sponsor me. And they told me that, you now, I'll talk to you. You can call me any time you want and we'll go to meetings. But we're not going to get into the steps until after you have a year. And John said to him, I've been here for 20 years and I've never had a year. What makes you think I'm going to get a year this time? And he had just started working. He had just asked that guy to sponsor him a couple of weeks before he heard me share about how the third step means nothing. He had done 1-2-3, 1- 2-3 over and over and over again. Nobody had ever suggested that he go forward. And that's another thing that I've discovered is I love difficult cases. And what I've discovered about chronic relapses in difficult cases is they've never been given the chance to work the program. And if you're in the middle of the... If you've progressed up to the fourth step, and in the midst of their fourth step they go back out, you don't go back to the first step. You review the first three steps and see what they missed, if they missed anything. You fill the gaps, and then you keep going forward. He had never been giving that advice. he's been here for 20 years and never got more than 3 months that was in 2001 and that man is still not drunk to this day because I sat down with him and I kept him going forward and he only relapsed once when we worked together and he has never relapsED since to this date and everybody was like John's been around for like 20 years he's never been sober, what's he doing? and John said to him, some guy sat me down with a book and kept me moving forward in the steps nobody ever did that before and they were like, no you can't do that You can't do that. And John's like, what do you mean you can't do that? It's working! And this is from a lot of experience from working with a lot of people, especially difficult cases. I love difficult cases I wasn't a I didn't have a deep bottom but for some reason I have a way of reaching difficult cases. I love it. I remember one day this guy came up to me and somebody said, go talk to that guy. So this guy, you know, his head down comes walking over to me. And he said, you Know, my sponsor just fired me. And I was like, so what are you telling me that for? He's like, I thought you would help me. I'm like, I'll be happy to help you. But I don't care if your sponsor fired you. And I'm like, why did you sponsor fire you? Obviously, you're trying to talk about something else. And he goes, my sponsor fired me because I'm a card-carrying member of the Atheist Society. So I'm wise-ass. So I said to him, well, can you show me the card? And of course he didn't have a card. And that opened up a conversation because he realized that I don't take no for an answer. And we started going through the book. And major roadblocks with the whole God thing. Major roadblocks with any kind of consideration of anything higher power-ish, let's call it. And then, see, something I've discovered about people like that, and this is an extreme case, but something I discovered about people like this is that you just got to get them talking and eventually they'll give you a piece of information that you can use against them. It's really beautiful. It happens every single time. It's never failed. They will always give you something that you could use against them. Like for instance, I had just heard about this but this is a beautiful story that some guy called up his sponsor, some guy who claimed to be an atheist called up the sponsor and said he was really pissed about God and the sponsor said how can you be pissed about something you don't believe in? The guy gave him information that he could use against him. There it is, you do believe in God. It's probably a negative God, whatever. You do believe en God, you just admitted it. How can you get pissed at something you don't belive in? Let's start there. And what this guy after long conversations with this guy about lots of different stuff and us starting to go through the book, he actually made the mistake of saying to me that he believed in a guardian angel. So I said, That's it. Whenever you see God on a step, you change the word God to guardian angel That's your higher power. You believe in something that's watching over you that has some interest in you. That's God. That's what God is talking about when it's mentioned in a word. It's just pointing to something. for you, how you internalize it is Gordian angel welcome to admitting that you believe in the God that AA talks about and he was pissed because he had this no not me I'm different you know what I mean he wasn't any different none of us are different that's the scary thing I've worked with enough people who know that none of US are any different it's pathetic we're all the same It's scary. The mind is so predictable. You just talk to them long enough to use something against them. It's as simple as that. But we have to be of service. I didn't get to the place where I am now without a lot of study and a lot of work and a whole lot of experience and like I shared last week, I still fall way short. It doesn't have anything to do with anything. But when you make it a priority, it really works it's really beautiful another way that I'm of service is I have a website justloveaudio.com that's justloveaudio.com and on there is free resources and if you click on free resources there's a couple thousand pages worth of information on the steps history, stuff on the traditions stuff on meditation exercises, step work guides everything and anything that I think is substantial in regard to step work transformation, spiritual practice it's all right there for free on my free resources up to 70,000 people a month go to my website and I take no credit for that most of it is not original to me what I've discovered is that my life has become a resource and there's a lot of stuff that I'm into and there is a lot of stuff that I know is just crap and you know I've exposed myself to a lot of stuff spiritually step wise I just you know I mentioned Judaism before I just found this really beautiful book called God is I think it's called God as I understand him or God as you understand him or God as we understand him and the subtitle is Mystical Judaism and the Twelve Steps and it was written by this rabbi it's a really great book I'm so happy to have found it and that's just Judaism there's cool stuff associated with the Christianity there's actually a book called The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius and there's an associated book, not an associated but somebody literally stole the idea from St. Ignazious and then what it is is The Spiritual Exercise of St, Ignatious with a 12-step slant. Christianity and the 12 steps. There's all kinds of mystical writings. if I work with somebody if you're a Buddhist I can turn you on to cool stuff if you are a Christian I can turned you on to cool stuffs if you an Atheist I could turn you on to the cool stuff if you don't believe anything which is the person that I prefer please send me people that don't belive anything because my experience with people who have like strong religious beliefs is that I'm gonna have a lot of work trying to help them unlearn a whole lot of stuff that has not worked for them is not working for them and never will work for them but still keep it in the same ballpark as their religion or whatever you want to call it. This is how I see my life befitting myself to be of service to others. As far as I know, without numbering every single one of them, I've probably worked with over a thousand people and I've listened over 500 fifth steps. Now notice the proportion there. Most people do not get up to their fourth and fifth step. Most people do not want to get better. I'm sorry to say that, but that's my experience. That's not an opinion. That is my experience。 Most people are not willing to go at any lengths. Lina and I do workshops all over the place and we did one here. And I've been doing workshops like that either that workshop or workshops like that for since 1994 non-stop and what I've seen again and again and Again and Again when we did it as a 5 week workshop I saw the same thing when we do it as 10 week workshop I saw the same things and that was that in the first week or 2 90% of the group was gung ho and heavily into it yes we're going to work the steps yes and then by the time the 4th and 5th step came by the the time The work came after that. Well, you know, I don't think I'm going to go to the meeting tonight because I've got a vacuum. And they say that it's a priority and then they show me by their actions that it is not a priority. And I don' t care what anybody says. I'm only looking at your feet. If somebody asks me to work with you, I sort of give a little bit of an overview of what I do and how I do it. And the last thing that I tell you is that if you say yes, you want me to work with you, that yes means nothing to me. I'm only going to be watching your feet. Whatever I ask you to do, I expect you to go. I expect to do more than that. I don't expect you do less. If you do this, then you're showing me by your actions that this is not a priority. And 90% of the time, that's what I see when I work with people. And that's fine. I'm not saying it's bad if you're doing it's bad I'm simply saying that my experience is the same as Anthony DeMello and that is that most people do not want to get better they just want relief they want to do as little as possible and still not drink and that's a contradiction of terms it says in two employers on page 120 that if we relapse we must redouble our spiritual activities it doesn't say we go to more meetings it says we must redouble our spiritual activities now a small part of that might be to go to some more meetings but it's saying specifically what it's all about if we relapse we must redouble our spiritual activity and I can guarantee you almost nobody in this room has ever heard somebody give that as advice at a meeting when somebody raised their hand and said that they had relapsed And I know that that's your experience because that's been my experience because the only person I've ever heard talk about that is me. And I won't stop talking about it because it's important. And yes, I know I'm annoying. But I love you enough to annoy the crap out of you because this is important, ladies and gentlemen. This is really important. This is not don't drink and go to meetings. If you want it to be, that's fine. But when you relapse, don't be surprised. And if you don't relapse and you stay miserable, especially don't being surprised because that's where it goes. And that's my experience. Man, I went from crying to being loud. Let's see where phase three goes. I have to be helpful to other people. And that's why it says it over and over and over and again in the big book and in our literature. It's not just enough for me to get mine. Now let's see what the note says. Also, I send out emails to about 600 people every day. Inspirational emails. Upcoming events in recovery emails. I go through a lot of material I read lots of books and I listen to lots of CDs of great spiritual masters and regularly I hear stuff that blows my mind and I get all excited and I say you know what I got to share that with everybody and then I blast out 600 people get to share it with me and I do that every day and I've been doing it every day since 1998 I think 500 people and then they share with other people and it's been amazing to me the web of where emails that I've sent out have landed and it is always funny to me because every once in a while somebody sends an email that I sent out back to me saying wow this is a really good email and I'm like yeah I know it is I sent it out Another thing I've done over the years is organize events in AA and outside of AA. One of the things that I found lacking in AA is that most people don't really care about AA history very much. And a lot of people don'T know it, but the big book was actually written in Newark, New Jersey. And why would that be news to any of us? It all happened right here and nobody even knows. Nobody even cares. And it's part of the selfishness of the alcoholic as far as I'm concerned. And I'm heavily into AA history. The story of AA history is the most amazing human interest story that I've ever read, ever. These people were not capable of doing what they did. These people did something 77 years ago or something like that and they didn't meet you or me and what they did is still touching all of us. That's a miracle. And I'm the first one to tell you, and Chris would totally agree, these people were not capable of doing what they said and what he did. In many cases, these people weren't the same as you and me and in some cases, not even as good as you or him. And they put together something. the person that had the most amount of time was three years and only a couple of them had three years and the average person who helped contribute to the what ended up in the big book which was about 70 men most of them had a year or less most of em had less than a year now consider this let's say you belong to a home group somewhere around here and your home group had 70 people and it was a relatively new home group and a few people had three years, one or two people had two years and most of the rest of the 70 people had a year or less. Would you trust them to write a transformative spiritual book that you think might touch people 100 years from now? I don't think so. That's what those people did. Humanly impossible. Divinely inspired, no doubt. And then they actually even sold illegal stock certificates to make money for their spiritual book. That's how wonderfully spiritual these people were. Illegal stock certificates. Knowingly sold illegal stock certificate to raise money to publish their spiritual books. I'm not putting these people down. These are great men as far as I'm concerned and in some cases women. But what they did was not possible. And when you read the AA history story, you discover that. And you discover that the hand of God is through all of it because there's 50 examples that I can give that if something didn't happen exactly the way it did, we would not be sitting here tonight. You would either be drunk or you'd be dead. I'd be death. And that message that they wrote down was carried to me. and I put that program into action and my life changed just like their lives changed do you know how many religions could wish that they could do something like that AA did it we see transformations every week many religions can't say that we have a program that works and we can pass it on one to another And you know what? Most people don't even want it because they want to do as little as possible and not drink. And that's an equation for suffering. And suffering and sobriety do not mix. If you're sober and you're suffering, it will not last long. And I'm telling you right now, it's only going to get worse. If you are sober and suffering, if you're lucky, you're going to drink because at least you'll have moments of relief. If you're not lucky, I can tell you right now it's just going to be progressive misery. It's either growing or dying. There's no middle of the road. Any living thing, it's either growing or it's dying. There's no maintaining. So which way are you going? Amen. and that's how it is and that is why it is important to help others but we cannot transfer something that we haven't got so my closing statement to this workshop, this three week workshop is please subject yourself to the process in a quick deep way and I can guarantee you that your whole life is going to change I guarantee you The twelfth step says, having had a spiritual awakening as he resolved his steps. It doesn't say sometimes it happens or that it might happen. It says, having had. But it assumes that you did the steps quickly and in a deep way because if you don't, half measures of bail is nothing. It says it very clearly. And if you think it's too early, you're wrong. Like a sponsor once said, the sponsor came to the sponsor and said, when should I work the steps? And he said, listen, when you stop puking, you're too late. if you read the literature the steps are meant to be done immediately and quickly but we hear all these other theories and I'm not going to judge whether they're useful or not I just know that in doing the steps myself and in passing that information and helping others do the same doing it immediately and quickly works very, very well and it helps us to sooner or later trust God clean house and to help others and that's what this three week workshop was and I hope that I've inspired you in some way I hope I've pissed you off enough to go and do the work I won't have any problems with that I'd rather disturb you than to let you be complacent there's that famous saying that we disturb the... What is it? I can't remember it. Nobody else knows it? Can somebody help me here? I don't remember this saying. But it's just basically... You want to disturb something about your alcoholism? No, no. It's like... I can'T remember the phrase, but it's basically what I'm talking about. Step out there and help somebody. Enjoy the buzz. Get out of your head for a minute. Isn't it crazy in there? It was and can be for me. But not most of the time. Not most ofthe time anymore. Because if it's crazy inthere, then drinking is going to become an option real quick. But it says over and over again in the book that thinking about me is a big part of my problem and thinking about somebody else is a good thing. That's a big parte of my solution. and that's what this week's workshop is about thanks for letting me share