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We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> 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 uh 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 bars cocktail napkin. So, uh, two weeks ago I talked about trust guide.

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. Um, as far as I'm concerned, the the the most effective way to help others is to first trust God and then clean house.

Um, 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 um it's almost like a uh uh it's almost like it's not not just a reminder. It's almost like a uh um as far as I'm concerned, it's almost like a a little dig because uh uh perhaps the authors knew that people might just read through the book and then when they get to the last page uh you know just read through the book and then just start helping people and not actually work steps and not actually work steps with like a sponsor or somebody who's familiar with it.

And uh uh you know uh it throws in that you know you can't give away something you don't have and then somebody might go up you know and then oh well maybe I should do this first you know what I mean um the 12endul talks about two- stepping you know just taking the first step and the 12th step and warren's heavily against it and you probably all know people that have tried that theory um 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 become my life. Um, I see it as a big part of my program. I see it as a big part of my spiritual growth.

Um, I see it as something that comes naturally for for me now and it didn't in the beginning. Uh, I never really saw the point uh in trying to do something for somebody else unless I could get some benefit out of it. Um, today it's not that way.

Um, as far as I'm concerned, that's as the result of my awakening that uh it isn't it isn't about the agenda. It isn't about the manipulation. It's just about being of service.

And I'm grateful for um I'm grateful for the people that uh you know emphasize the the being of service to other people. But what I'd like to start with is you know uh it's interesting that you know it talks about helping others and you know in the 12step it talks about you know uh uh carrying trying to carry this message to other alcoholics. Um but uh what I've noticed throughout the book is over and over and over and over and over again it says that we need to be helping people.

And uh I'm going to kind of go through this quickly. So, uh maybe just listen to the recording during the week if you want to actually mark it in your book. But, um on the bottom of 14, it talks about uh for if 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 uh uh we need to perfect and enlarge our spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others. Then on page 20, uh, it says, "Our very lives as ex-pom 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 uh there's some other references.

But then on 77 um they mentioned something that uh for me would make for a very interesting topic at a meeting. And that is is that um some people uh see the working of the steps could sort of be described as you know I'm going to get mine if you understand cuz we sort of get results from the working of the steps. But on page 77, it warns us against stopping there.

And what it says is at the at the moment, we are trying to put our lives in order. And this is in the step 8, step n part of the book. So it's talking about, you know, 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.

Um, and contained in this sentence uh for me is a really important um 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, uh, uh, 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, um, on page 102, it says, "Your job now is to be at a place where you can be of maximum helpful helpfulness to others." So again, it gives us the the uh very strong statement about uh helping others. And then on 153, I didn't check this one, so it may be good or may not be.

So let me just check. 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 uh on 164 where it talks about um 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.

Um so you can see there uh helping others is is uh mentioned again and again and again in our program as being incredibly important. Now, um I'm sure for some of you that were here the last two weeks, uh this won't be surprising to you, but uh uh what I'm about to say, I know, is not going to be liked by everybody here. And what I believe is is that um the biggest part of uh being of service to another human being is the way that we show up.

And that like the book says that I can't be of service to another person unless my own house is in order. And uh how I've come to experience it is is that you know I remember um having a conversation with a gentleman because uh 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 a hetic Jew about uh you know where's the uh where's the uh the mystical writings and uh uh since this conversation I've uh found some stuff and uh of all the religions on the major paths Judaism remained uh uh an intrepid for me uh because I I hadn't been able to tap into its mystical um depth.

And uh he shared something with me that 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 uh um the reason why um Judaism doesn't go around uh 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 is that you see um it isn't just about whatever was written down in regard to the mystical uh 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's had a spiritual awakening for lack of a better expression. And a person who is perhaps a new person or or you know 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 um at a uh transformative level, the most important thing that happens between a sponsor and sponsor to the one that is seeking Now perhaps that's a little controversial but uh I want to talk about at surface levels and I also want to talk about at depth and I also want to talk about my experience.

So I have to talk about that in the way that I just did cuz for me it's really really important because uh if let's say you know one of the greatest compliments that was ever given me by was by a man who uh I started working with uh about 11 years ago and uh I I I met him at the Fellowship of the Spirit in Queens. one a guy that I had worked with introduced me to him and said, "You know, you you got to get with this guy." And that's not the part, that was the compliment. Um, and uh uh I was living in Philly at the time and he lived in Flemington, which was over an hour away.

And uh I had a conversation with this guy and 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 uh 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 um after a pretty brief period of time, it was, you know, it was like during a break, it wasn't even like a lunch thing. It was like we had maybe a 20-minute conversation.

And I said to him, I said to him, "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 said to him, "Listen, um, I have a job and I have I have I 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 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 going to drive an hour and 15 minutes to your house and we're going to sit down. We're going to go through the book and I'm going to take you through the steps and I want to share with you my experience of what the book is saying and how I've worked with it and and uh uh you know each week there'll be step work to do and and you know if you're willing to do all this I'm willing to drive an hour and 15 minutes to help you. And he was just like he was just like wow we haven't gotten to the compliment yet.

Now uh I started working with him and about a month into it my marriage ended. That was that was why I was living in Philly. I was living with my wife and um this is where the compliment came.

I still continued, you know, I was still sort of in in uh Philly and I was traveling to see him while all this stuff was happening. And I I just shared briefly with him that, you know, things weren't going very well. And um 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 about me spewing my problems on him. I was going through heavy stuff at the time. And uh the compliment that he gave me was that uh 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 once did I um not give him 100% of my attention and 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 he was just like that was just absolutely amazing.

Never once did did you know 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 up that well but uh you know that was just a compliment that he had given me and that was because at that time was when I started seeing that you know how you show up has a whole lot more to do with than whatever it is that you're talking about or whatever it is that you're going through that my presence with somebody as a a a person that that uh you know claims to be uh um you know uh on a spiritual path and that claims to uh to uh 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 that you know I'm going to give you my full attention. I'm going to be completely present when we do this.

Uh 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 uh if you could have full presence cutting your lawn, you will have a spiritual awakening. But of course, you know, we're just everywhere.

You know what I mean? We're like, for instance, right now, where are you? Are you thinking about your bills?

Are you thinking 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 like 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 we're spending time with our kids and we're just 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, the the uh the uh 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 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 3 weeks. And that's why we constantly do step workshops and meditation workshops and 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 cuz 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 talking about just going for it. Now, I know that uh not everybody shares like this. I'm extreme.

I know that. But you have to understand when I 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 buzz here in AA? Or is, you know, 13 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 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 year or 11 years I had experience with uh you know somebody was sort of in the street and you know they could sleep on my sofa and how I was of service to them was not that they had a sofa to sleep on that night.

How I was of service was to somebody was that you have a 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 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 of 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 um now I'm not a parent. I have parental relationships with some people, but uh um I'm not a parent, but I see sponsorship the same way that I see parenting. And that is 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 sponsoring 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 time to grow up. But you see, 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 of help to other people, it's a whole lot more more uh uh uh 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 is to 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 mean that you can't call me sponsor anymore.

It doesn't it it just means that now we just see each other now. Now, you know, in the early days, the way the the way sponsorship was practiced was, you know, 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, uh, o over the years, um, I've been on committees. I was on the, uh, Garden State Young People's Conference Committee for about 8 years.

and I held every position on that and that was a really rewarding gig. Uh the GSYP conference back then was about 330 people would show up at a really beautiful YMC camp YMCA camp in Stillwater, New Jersey. And uh some really beautiful stuff happened uh there.

Um while I was involved, we tried to introduce uh um a little bit more program kind of stuff. um as opposed to just you know just like a fellowship just like a fellowship weekend we also tried to introduce some solution stuff which we were able to do um for about 6 years I was on the area 44 conference committee uh the conference in Somerset is once a year in September it's upcoming the area 44 uh 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 cuz you have to be committed to it. There are sacrifices.

There are times where you would rather do something else and you have to go to a committee meeting. Um, 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, you know, 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. Um, But you go because it's a commitment.

You go because it's the right thing to do. You go because 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 want to do and regularly do and regularly uh not do things that we do want to do.

Because what I found is 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 and 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 it's 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 know, 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 like so helpful to us.

It was unbelievable. We heard something that, you know, was almost like life-changing. Um, and we are grateful that we went, even though before the meeting we did not want to 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. Um, I guess the most recent thing that I did was uh I was the Area 44 uh history and archives chairperson which was a few years ago. Um, that was a really fun um service commitment.

I'm really really heavily into AA history. And uh 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 uh uh basically what I told the committee was is that you know listen this is a 2-year commitment for me and uh when these two years are up uh not only are we going to uh 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 the area as the chairman for the history and archives committee, but I wanted to uh you know, really get out there with what is our history?

You know, so many people have so many questions about so many things and so many people have heard so many halfmeasured opinions and non-factual things that have nothing to do with a history. But if you were to ask 100 people, 99 of them would tell you that that's absolutely fact and that's absolutely a 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 uh he was asked, you know, is there anything in the big book that you would like to change?

And that allegedly he was he stated that he would like to change the word rarely to never at the beginning part of how it works. And I I I'm still amazed that old-timers still say this thing because, you know, people parrot stuff and, you know, this guy told this guy said it and this guy repeated it and ever since then, uh, you know, it's almost like aa biblical history that, uh, that, you know, this is this is a fact that Bill wanted to change, you know, rarely to never. It's it's absolutely non-factual based on nothing.

probably based on a well-intentioned sponsor that was tired of getting questions from a sponsy that he didn't know how to answer. And if as a matter of fact, if you read Pass It On on page 200, it says that uh Bill himself said that he never considered that change. Yet, I guarantee even 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 put in a book where it says it. And uh Pass It On was written after Bill died.

So he couldn't have said it, you know, he couldn't have changed his mind after the book came out. Just a small fact. But it's interesting to me because, you know, you hear this stuff, you know, one step a year.

Where did that come from? Where have you have you ever seen that anywhere in our literature? For me, it's really important to sit down with somebody and uh share with them uh 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 it's just somebody said something and then you know it's that it's that telephone game that we used to play in kindergarten where you know this person says it 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 uh you know uh a cool example that I can give of uh you know somebody that I was working with that uh 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 3 months.

Can you imagine being in AA quality transformative lifechanging 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 had more than three 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 that though our decision which is the third set decision though our decision 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 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, um, I've been around AA for 20 years. And, uh, I just asked somebody to sponsor me.

And they told me that, uh, you know, uh, I'll I'll talk to you. You can call me anytime you want. 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 to work, you know, he had just asked that guy to sponsor him a couple weeks before he heard me share about how the third step means nothing.

He had done 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 over and over and over and over and over again. Nobody had ever suggested that he that he go forward. And that's another thing that I've discovered is is I love difficult cases.

And what I've discovered about chronic relapses in difficult cases is they've never been given a chance to work the program. And if and if you're in the middle of the the if if you've uh pro if you've progressed up to the fourth step and in the middle 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 given that advice.

He's been here for 20 years and never got more than 3 months. That was in in 2001. And that man is still not drank to this day because I sat down with him and I kept him going forward and he only relapsed once and we worked together and he has never relapsed since to this day.

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 the 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 I didn't have 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 uh somebody said, "Go talk to that guy." So this guy, you know, his head down, comes walking over to me and uh he said, "Uh, 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 your 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 a 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 that, you know, I don't take no for an answer. And we and we started and we started going through the book and and you know, major roadblocks with the whole God thing.

Major roadblocks with the any kind of consideration of anything higher power-ish, let's call it, right? And then see something I've discovered about people like that and you know this is an extreme case but something I've discovered by about people like that 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 can use against them.

Like for instance you know I I had just heard about this but this is a beautiful story that you know 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 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 in God. You just admitted it. How can you be pissed at something you don't believe 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 a step, you change the word God to guardian angel. That's that's your higher power. You believe in something that's watching over you that has some 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 guardian angel. Welcome to thank welcome to admitting that you believe in the god that aa talks about. And he was pissed because he had this he had this you know 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 to know that none of us are any different.

It's it's pathetic. We're all the same. It's it's scary.

The mind is so predictable. It's just 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 lot of experience and a and and I and like I shared last week, I still fall away short. It doesn't have anything to do with anything.

But when you make it a priority, it be it it really works. It's really beautiful. Another way that I'm of service is um I have a website uh justlodio.com.

That's justlodio.com. And um on there is free resources. And uh 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 on my on free resources. Up to 70,000 people a month go to my website. And I take no credit for that.

Most of it's not original to me. I just I just 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's a lot of stuff that that I know is just crap.

And uh and you know I've exposed myself to a lot of stuff spiritually stepwise. I just you know I mentioned Judaism before. I just found this really beautiful book called uh 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 uh mystical Judaism and the 12 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 um the spiritual exercises of St.

Ignatius and there's and there's a associated book, not an associated book, but somebody stole the somebody literally stole the idea from St. Ignatius. And then what it is is uh the spiritual exercises of St.

Ignatius with a 12step slant Christianity and the 12 steps. There's all kinds of mystical writings. If I work with somebody, if if you're a Buddhist, I can turn you on to cool stuff.

If you're a Christian, I can turn you on to cool stuff. If if you're an atheist, I can turn you on to cool stuff. If you don't believe anything, which is the person that I prefer, please send me people that don't believe anything because uh my experience with people who have like strong religious beliefs is that I'm going to 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 you know what, you know, their religion or whatever you want to call it.

This is how I see my life. Be pitting 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 to over 500 fifth steps.

Now, notice the 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 to any lens. Lena and I do workshops all over the place. And we did one here.

And uh uh I've been doing workshops like that, either either that workshop or workshops like that for since 1994, non-stop. And what I've seen again and again and again and again and again and again, when we did it as a fiveweek workshop, I saw the same thing. When we did it as a 10-week workshop, I saw the same thing.

And that was that in the first week or two, 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 fourth and fifth step came, by the time the the work came after that, well, you know, I don't think I'm going to go to the meeting tonight because I got a vacuum. M >> and they say that it's a priority and then they show me by their actions that they're not it's 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 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 do more than that. I don't expect you to do less.

If you do less, 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. I'm not saying if you're doing it, it's bad. I'm not saying that.

I'm simply saying that my experience is the same as Anthony Dlo. 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 uh in uh uh 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.

We must redo if we relapse, we must redouble our spiritual activities. 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 be surprised because that's where it goes. And that's my experience. And man, I went from crying to being like loud.

This is like, 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 over and over 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, um 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 get to shared 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 uh the the web of uh of um where uh emails that I've sent out have landed. And it's 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 uh organize events u in AA and outside of AA. Um 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 did. In many cases, these people were the same as you and me, and in some cases, not even as good as you and me.

And they put together something. the 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 them 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 3 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 certificates to raise money to publish their spiritual book.

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 dead. 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're 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? >> Well, you know, busy being born is busy dying. >> Amen.

>> And that's how it is. And that's why it's important to help others. But we cannot transfer something that we haven't got.

So my closing statement to this workshop, this 3-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 12 steps says having had a spiritual awakening as the result of the 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 avail nothing. It says it very clearly. And if you think it's too early, you're wrong.

Like a sponsor once said, uh, this the sponsor, he came to the sponsor and said, you know, when should I work the steps? And he said, listen, when you stop puking, you're too 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 3w weekek 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 the saying, but it's just based something about your alcohol. >> No, no. It's it's like uh I can't remember the phrase, but it's 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 of the time anymore because if it's crazy in there, 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 big part of my solution. And that's what this week's workshop is about. Thanks for letting me share.

Thank you. >> Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message.

Until next time, have a great day.