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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> And uh uh we can see whether you're smiling or or whether you're not.

And uh uh so it's it's uh this is a treat before it gets too dark. And uh >> uh I agree with with Chris and I appreciate that what's been really helpful for me is is while these steps aren't aren't necessarily separate, they do one leads into the other. And it it has been so important for me as he said not to let the the inventory or the eightstep list be influenced by my fear or trepidation around the ninth step.

Because the good news is and and and I tell guys that that I'm not going to make you do anything. I got no authority in AA. So don't be afraid to put something down that you're afraid that I'll see cuz that's going to be your call.

It's our call. We're volunteers in AA. And and uh uh so so dude, don't hold yourself back, right?

Uh it's interesting that in a vision for you there's that conversation uh about that first meeting with uh Bill and Dr. Bob, right? And and as it describes part of that in a vision for you, Dr.

Bob's buying in, right? He's getting this identification in a way that he didn't anticipate. This 15-minute conversation is turning into, you know, a few hours.

and uh uh but he st at one point he pushes back and he and uh uh and says but but he didn't want to let the people know he didn't want to risk his career and his family's well-being and his financial future by going and standing in front of his alcoholism in front of people and and as much as he's buying into everything Bill's saying, he said, "I'll do anything but that." And that of course is when just uh a little bit later he went on that ill- fated uh uh trip to Atlantic City on the medical conference and went on his last deba right he put had the went on the bender of all benders and came back right and Bill takes him in uh uh uh he's got to do that medical procedure after being hung over and Bill gave him a goofball and a beer. Now, not many of us sponsors gave us our last goofball. We've been called a goofball, but not given one.

And uh uh but I think the person most grateful for that was the patient. Uh cuz he he wanted Bob to have a steady hand uh in this proctologology exam he was given. So he says, "I'll do anything." He said, "But that." And what I have to be careful about is in in aa is is the anything but that that I get out there because that is what's going to get me.

That's what I'm going to trip over. Chris read the line in there that says reminding ourselves we we're willing to go to any length. And and what we're remembering what we're being reminded of is all the way back in how it works.

had said if if you've decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it then you're ready to take certain steps and a lot of us have decided we want what we think people in AA have whether that is physical sobriety or whether that's the smiles and stuff we begin to see in people but uh but it's that going to any length part that we kind of trip over I know a guy that when he is uh uh going through the book with somebody and they get to that you to get to that statement and he poses it as a question. Have you decided you want what we have? Are you willing to go to any length to get it?

Are you ready to take certain steps? He says, "Let's sign and date this." And he says, "Cuz I'm going to have to remind you of this later. We're going to get over here and you're going to bulk." I'm going, "No, remember here on Tuesday the 23rd, you said I'm all in." >> That's good.

You know, I was sponsoring a guy one time and and uh when I started sponsoring him, he was uh uh he lived in a gated community. Uh he had a a a wife and and uh and young son. He was driving a Porsche.

And after a year of my sponsorship, uh uh he had lost the house, he had lost the family, he had been to jail, and he was living in the Porsche. And that's what good sponsorship will do for you. And uh and he went to jail yet again.

and he got out and he called me and he said, "Steve, I'm ready, man." He said, "It's not about the the the wife. It's not about the family." He He says he says, "I'm ready. I'll do anything." And I said, "All right." I said, "Come on over." And he went, "Right now?" I hung up on him.

Right now, I'll do anything but that. And boy, this these amends things look like, you know, whoa, this could not possibly be a good idea. And uh uh and we sometimes I hear people say that that there's nothing in AA that will hurt you.

And I will tell you that sometimes it hurts. There's nothing AA's asked me to do that's not in my best interest. You know, sometimes when you go to the doctor and they're going to they're going to, you know, if you go to the dentist and they're going to pull some teeth, they're going to numb you first.

When they give me the numbing shot, they go, "This is going to hurt a little bit. We got to hurt you a little bit to get to the big problem." And so we can really address what's going on. it.

Uh um uh when I'm making that list, as Chris also said, that that my list hasn't been limited to the people that were on that fourstep inventory because uh uh I hurt some people I had absolutely no resentment against. Uh uh some of the people I hurt the most were the people most compliant with me that were most accommodating to me. But the eighth step uh in the 12 and 12 says what do we mean by harms?

And it says in a practical way we could define this as instincts in collision with others that cause spiritual, mental, physical or emotional harm. Now it's it's not lost on me that that in that that what I talked about earlier today in the 12th step it's talking about my relationships with people in specifically in that particular case a romantic relationship but that I will want to have relationship with you in the areas of physical mental spiritual and emotional so that's also the areas in which I am most likely to hurt people because that is how ultimately we all relate to each other in one or more of those ways. And I had given no thought to how I might have hurt people spiritually, mentally or emotionally.

You heard me mention that I I totaled six automobiles. I think I mentioned that here last night. And and and had these multiple DUIs and and and uh uh uh at 34 years old was the last DUI that I got that got me to to treatment a year later.

And uh uh but I was sitting in front of a lawyer that afternoon after getting that that uh last DUI and and he said, "Steve, you think you got a problem with alcohol?" I said, "Pal, what I think I got the legal problem? I I wish you would touch." And I said, "That's why my mama wrote you the check." Right? So when I got sober and and when I get to this part, my mind I owe my mama the money for that check and others.

But I had at when my daughter was 18 years old, maybe 19, she totaled her car out drunk. I called my mom the next day and I said, "Mom, Abby, you know, wrecked her car last night and and uh and my mother said, "Oh, I hope she's okay. You know, is is everybody okay?" I said, "Yes, she's fine, Mom." I said, "But the reason I'm calling you," this was 13 years after I got sober.

I said, "The reason I'm calling you is because I know we talked about that when I did that and I made amends." I says, "But I want you to know today I know how it felt. See, I paid the money, but I know what I did to people." sometimes, but I don't always know what it did to me. >> I don't know the mental and emotional and spiritual harm that happened.

And and so it gave me a it gave me another way to to examine and explore these things. Um and it happens when it says in here that this is the beginning of one of those other lifetime things we go through. I think it means number one I'm always going to have a new amends to make somewhere down the line and that'll fall in the 10th step maybe where I don't care what number we put in front of it when we do it but uh uh but also I've made amends to the same person for the same event but for different reasons more than once as my understanding of that group and I realized how it impacted them in ways that I had not considered.

I hadn't ignored it. I just didn't see it. So, and I think Chris said that awareness grows over time and uh uh so that's been critical.

It it says when we when we start on this, it says that in in the moment we're trying to put our lives in order, but our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and those around us. So on the one hand, I'm trying to clean stuff up, but if you look at everything we're doing in the steps, the endgame is for me to be freer of me so I can be of some use to you, so I can serve God and my fellows. And I don't seem to be able to do that when those things are standing between me and you.

So this is where this eighth and ninth step and is where I'm really kind of taking care of that last piece of business about me. I've done that self-examination. I have said I'm I'm willing to change.

And part of the demonstration of that willingness is to go out and try to set right to the extent that I can the harm I have done to stand in front of it. And then what can I do to make it better? But I don't want to I don't want to let my fear of going in and standing in front of you stop me from putting you on my list.

And I will tell a couple of the men's stories and and uh and and then give it back to Chris for him to talk about the ninth step a little bit too. But I the the two the couple of examples I have about that is that uh uh when I got sober, I'm I'm a compulsive gambler as well. And I and they say gambling is really not my problem.

But if you do it as poorly as I do it, it becomes a financial problem. Pretty sure if I were winning, nobody would have been complaining. >> But it also made me a liar, a cheat, and a thief.

So gambling, I don't have I don't have any position on gambling, but just what it did to me and and how I hurt others with that. And sober. I went on I I went on a gambling binge at 6 months sober and uh I was out in Las Vegas on a work thing and had to borrow a bunch of money to try to cover up this debt that I had run up at the casinos.

And uh I came back and and uh told the little group I was a part of told my sponsor, but I wasn't telling Connie yet. I wasn't that sober. And uh uh and I asked Frank, do I but I did ask him.

I said I said, "Do I you know, do I have to tell Connie?" And he said, "That'll be up to you, Steve." He says, "I think that these steps I said, let's look and see what it says." And we looked and we talked about it and I said, "Thanks. I think I'll wait." And uh uh and then I moved to Richmond, Virginia at a year sober. got a new sponsor over there.

Slate's clean. He doesn't know about that. You don't want to bog him down with old information.

And uh um and uh and it's now a year and a half later since I moved. And I'm loving being in aa. But this little pebble's turning into a to a boulder, you know, and and I just couldn't shake it.

And then finally, I came into some money. My brother I I work in a family business. I'm getting this bonus that Connie doesn't know about.

And uh and so so I'm going to be able to pay this debt off. I've been I'd had to get a post office box. It's before electronic banking.

Obviously, I'm renewing this 90-day note. I'm just doing all the kind of stuff we do to manage that, you know, everything that comes with that. So, finally, I tell my sponsor, I sit down with him and I said, "Joe, here's the deal." I said, "This is what I did." You know, longer story, but I said, "Now I've got this money.

I'm going to pay it off." off and I said I had signed actually a a contract with Connie. She had written a thing out that if I gambled again, she was going to leave that that that you know and that's back when we thought signing a contract might mean something. And uh uh you know that's a solemn oath by the way.

And uh um and I laid it out and I said, "Well, you know, I haven't gambled in this year and a half and she doesn't deserve to to be hit with that." And I was putting in into the accepting to do so would injure them or others category. >> And uh uh and I was very eloquent in in my defense of this and my concern for her. And I got done and I said, "What do you think?" And he said, "Steve, I think you're chicken shit." He said, he said, "I believe you believe everything you said." He said, "In fact, I believe it's true.

You don't want to hurt him." He says, "But I think more than that, you're afraid to stand in front of the consequences of the truth." And he said, "Nay, hey, we don't quit making mistakes. We start standing in front of the mistakes we made." He says, "I don't know whether she's would leave you over that or not." He said, "I don't." He said, he said, "And you're going to do what you're going to do, but again, we just looked at what it said and I I went home and told her and and it was difficult, but uh uh but we're still together." out that she has uh uh she's got all the spiritual maturity in our family, I'll tell you. But uh uh but I also told you and this is where I want to show you the difference in the eighth and ninth step and why I think it's important to really do that eighth step to to not only make the list, but to acquire through prayer the willingness because the freedom's in the willingness.

The freedom is when I'm no longer pushing back. I'll do it. I'm afraid, but I'll do it.

And I told you about those infidelities that were in my marriage before uh uh before I got sober. And my sponsor, Frank, and I went through that in my inventory, the first one I did. and and we talked about it and with prayer and and and and his guidance and and not land in there easily and not to protect myself, but that fell into the category we believed we determined would uh do more harm than good, would be hurtful to her and uh so not to share it, but we but it was on my list.

I was willing to do it and we talked about what that would look like. We we talked in our book gives us some some direction about that type of an amendance. What you don't do what you do.

You don't name other people. You don't bring other people into that. So, we had this whole thing.

Four years later, Connie and I are sitting down having a conversation. It wasn't even an unpleasant conversation. And for the first time ever, she asked me almost out of the blue.

She says, "Have you ever been unfaithful in our marriage? I'm telling you, I wasn't going to be able to pull, you know, I might be capable of the lie just went, "No, you know, I wasn't going to be able to pull it off. My voice is going to go up three octaves, but honestly, intuitively in that moment, in that moment, I knew that the truth was called for." And see what I'm grateful and and and we had that conversation.

And again, all the credit to her for navigating through that cuz it hurt. >> It hurt. But she has never beat me back over the head with that.

But the point for tonight's conversation was that having done that eightstep, having having explored how that conversation might go, how my side of that conversation might go was critically important. If I just said, "No, I'm never going to deal with that." Then in that moment, I wouldn't have known how to handle it. I wouldn't have known what to do.

Maybe I would have done it, but done it more clumsily than I did it. Maybe I wouldn't have done it at all. What I know is it was the thing to do in that moment.

And so that's why I think this eight step is critical to do that. Whether even in the moment as Chris said whether right now that might be one of those I say I'm not ready to make yet or it's not time to make it that uh uh that I want to step back from. So it says in here some of us owe money right check.

Some of us have legal problems check. Some of us have domestic problems. Check.

These are other areas of my life that I want to examine to see where there might be an amends that uh that is old. then determine if it should be made now or if that you know it says in the 12 and 12 that the qualities someone needs to make an amends is uh uh good judgment a careful sense of timing courage and prudence these are the qualities required and what I what I would share with you is that when it's when I'm the one in the barrel I don't have those qualities qualities. So I need those qualities.

So I go to a sponsor who has those qualities. I don't so so that good judgment's probably not mine particularly in the moment. That's careful sense of timing, that courage, that prudence.

I need to get that. So I asked God for power I don't have to do something I can't do. I talked to a sponsor and trusted confidants for their input and their experience about what they have done.

And probably no no no no step have I benefited more from the direction and shared experience of a sponsor than the ninth step. So Chris, so another another thing to watch out for with um with the eighth and especially the ninth step is this. If you want to find somebody who will cosign you as far as not having to do that this immense, you'll find a lot of them in Alcoholics Anonymous.

>> You know, if if you go if you go if you look for that, you will find people who will who will say, "Yeah, I don't I don't make those kind of amends either." You know, I I don't think you need to do that. You'll find those people. The real freedom though is in the actual making of the amends.

The the willingness in the making of the immense. So So when you're looking for a sponsor or a spir spiritual advisor to to give you uh guidance on specific amends, I recommend that you find someone with experience with these amends. and and it's not 100% of the people in Alcoholics Anonymous have experience with this stuff.

So, um so just some some immense stories of mine. How to approach the man we hated. Okay.

I had an experience with this guy. Um I was about 8 8 years sober and I had an experience with this guy and he was an Alcoholics Anonymous member and he he came at me pretty hard. Um There were some confidence that were were broken.

Uh there was some stuff that he shared uh that uh really was inappropriate to share and a number of other things. Now this person is in in my fellowship, right? He's he's in my core he's in my core group and I go ballistic.

I I you know I I come out of you know you know my uh my aggression comes out of retirement for this. Okay. And and I and I've got I'm talking to people about it and I'm you know my sponsies and there's like a team of people for all this all this crap.

It was it was a monster nightmare. And uh and one of the guys that I was sponsoring at that time said, you know, they all had a lot of res respect and and and they they cared for me a lot. But this one guy told me the truth.

And it was one of my sponsors. He said, "Chris, you're going to you're going to need to you're going to need to set this right." Because he'd gone out and done a million events. He's he's looking at me.

you're you're you're going to need to make amends to him. And I'm like, you know, I if I could put the math together, 99% of the problems were this this guy just coming at me. Okay.

I don't I don't know where it even came from, but there was 1% of me like like talking bad about him uh you know uh talking about the situation uh you know getting getting people to to to take my side. And I was mad when this guy told me this, right? I was mad when he told me that I was going to need to set this right.

But it haunted me. Became willing, picked up the telephone, set an appointment, went and met this guy. And you know, you could argue that 99% of the blame was was his.

But that's not what I'm supposed to do in this step. Setting setting putting my putting the wrongs that he has done aside. I resolutely take the bit in my teeth and and go to go to him expressing my former ill feeling and you know I I I did that and it it was not an easy amends.

I really tried to do my job and I I probably would do a better job today but I did I did a good enough job and after the amends I I felt like washing my mouth out with gasoline for doing it. But I but I want to tell you I want to tell you what happened from that moment forth. There was there was no power in what this guy had said or done.

I was free of it. It didn't matter. There was a release that was incredible for doing this.

There was a release and and you know once more I was shown I was show shown that I was wrong and AA was right. You know, I knew this amends would go wrong. It this is not the right thing to do.

And once more, Alcoholics Anonymous showed me these spiritual principles work. And to to this day, listen, we're not best friends. But, you know, I did I did an event with them up in Boston not long not long ago, you know, a and we're okay.

You know, we'll have we'll have coffee together and all that stuff is water over the dam. Most alcoholics owe money. All right.

Um I wasn't really bad with money. I've sponsored people who come in like a million in debt, you know. I I I I was I was more of a small time operator.

But there was one amends that was that I needed to do and it had to do with uh some crazy days in Florida. I lived in Florida for about 5 years. I went down there um to go to to a university.

Friend of mine called me up one day and said, "Oh man, this is a great university. There's a bar in every building and this is where all the drugs come through. You know, we get we get them cut rate." And I'm like the next day I got an application in the mail.

You know, I didn't even know what the school taught and and and I'm I'm on my way down there and and uh I I really applied myself the five years I was there and I came away with a solid six credits over those five years. Uh solid. I'm very very proud of that.

Now, um, now what happened was it was some of the worst years of my life because it was just unchained, Chris, right? And I remember we were renting a house. Um, me, a quaude dealer, and and an another alcoholic on unemployment.

And and we were we were renting this house together. And we got thrown out cuz we were having loud parties till like 4 in the morning. And this one this one time uh uh the landlord calls up and says, "This time you guys are really going to have to go and uh and we got really drunk and we had a house trashing party." >> Has anybody ever had a house trashing party?

It's when you kick in every wallboard, you break every window. Well, I even got up on the roof and kicked the chimney off the house. Any chimney off the house kickers here?

You know, welcome. you know, it was one of those cheap Florida chimneys and and u >> that's a specialty >> and and I mean we we we we took all the doors off and made a bonfire in the backyard. I mean, we made this place permanently uninhabitable and then and then we left like 3 weeks early.

So, this I hadn't even thought about this like until I got sober and then it comes into my consciousness that, you know, I I got to take some care of some stuff in Florida. And then I start to get letters from Florida. Uh what what had happened was uh I'd gotten a DUI.

I I'd blown off the court date. There was community service. I was supposed to do all these ambulance bills because I was one of those guys that, you know, ended up in the ambulance every once in a while uh for one reason or another.

Uh there was there was all all kinds of like real legal troubles and it was it was really piling up on me down there and I did what some of us do. I thought, you know, I think I think mom needs some help around the house back up in New Jersey. You know, I think I'll I think I'll help her out and I'll go up there and paint the house.

And I I went up there and moved in for eight years. >> And I started to get this mail because the computers start to come online, right? So, so I I have to take I have to take care I have to take care of all this stuff.

And uh I spent a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of effort um setting setting these these these things right. And you know sometimes when it's like uh it's a it's criminal you you know you got an extra motivation to to get it over with and get past it and get the get the paper off your back. Uh but uh but there were just a there were just a number of of of those amends.

I I told you about, you know, uh I I I wasn't a big thief or anything and I wasn't the kind of guy who'd borrow a lot of money and I didn't have any credit cards, you know, but but but uh but the money that I owed uh you know, I I I ended up uh I ended up paying back um the domestic trouble. um my wife uh that followed me down to Florida and within a year and a half was out of there, you know what I mean? We we got married and then we got divorced, I think, in about a 12-month period of time.

Uh she took my daughter, she took my dog, and she took my car and and and never never came back. And and so so uh for the longest time, I had a huge resentment, a huge resentment about her, you know. I mean, you know, I can remember sitting at the bar with a triple bourbon.

You know, she left me when I needed her the most. Th those women, you know, and and and if if you were to ask me what my thoughts about women were the day I showed up in Alcoholic Alcoholics Anonymous, I would have said this. You can't trust them.

They're all crazy and they're needs. I mean, I would have had this whole list and I I would have painted all you women with that same brush, right? Because that's that was my experience.

I I start doing these inventories and I start I start to see that that they'd have been crazy to stay with me. And and really the problem in the whole situation was toxic proximity to me is what is what really caused all the problems in these relationships. You can't act like like like I I did and have everything work out fine.

And so, so, you know, I I went out to Colorado. I made uh I I made amends to uh to my ex-wife. There there was just there's just a whole bunch of them.

And there's there's a continuing process to these amends. I want to share just a couple of of uh of current ones, at least one current one, and then I'll uh I'll I'll hand it back to Steve. Um, I had this buddy from about 2000 to about 2010.

We we were we were running buddies in Alcoholics Anonymous, okay? We were road dogs together. Every crazy thing that I got involved with, I would bring this guy along.

We were tight. It was like family. And and you'll have these type of friendships in Alcoholics Anonymous.

They they feel closer to you sometimes than family. Some of these some of these friendships. And uh and all of a sudden there's some distance that starts to happen.

All of a sudden there's some he he's he's not returning my phone calls. Okay. He's real nice to me.

You know, when I see him at a meeting or something, it doesn't feel like there's anything wrong, but there's a distance there. We're not getting together anymore. We're not we're not doing uh holidays together like we used to.

We're not running around. And uh you know and this goes on this goes on about five six years, maybe longer, maybe seven or eight years. And uh and I feel a loss of it was just one of those friendships.

I feel a loss. We were really close. You know what I mean?

I feel a loss. And uh and I'm putting uh I'm putting a a a 10step together this one time and uh and I get this intuitive thought. And the intuitive thought is this.

Make an appointment and make an amends. I I wasn't conscious of any amends that needed to be made. I really wasn't.

But this separation was it felt wrong to me. So I did that. Uh he met me at a Dunkin Donuts and we sat down and uh you know I started off by by basically saying you know there's I just I just don't feel like you you know things are going real well with us and and I want to ask you I want to ask you and I want you to be honest with me.

You know is there anything you need to talk about me with? Is there any harms that I've caused? Cuz I'm really not aware of any.

And he said, "Yeah, there's a harm." He said, he said, "The the Tuesday night meeting, you took it over with a whole new bunch of people." I'm like, "What what are you what are you talking about?" What had happened is the Tuesday night Burnsville meeting uh had had shrunk. you know, we'd moved away and it had gotten really small and it was him and two or three people and a new group of people moved in to the meeting. They saw that that this is a great place to meet.

There's really nobody showing up there anymore. They went and they talked to the to the minister of the church saying that meeting's over. We'd like to move our me.

They're getting kicked out, you know, uh uh not too far away and they want to move their meeting into this church. And the minister said fine. So, one day all of a sudden they show up and I'm like, I I didn't have anything to do with that.

And he goes, "What?" I go I go I go, "That that wasn't me. I I I wasn't going to either one of those meetings." So, it was a misunderstanding that had separated this really tight friendship for like eight years. So, so there's something to be said about about the the principle seeing in the principle of this step being current with people.

You know, my my spiritual lineage uh they they would do this every once in a while. They would just sit with somebody and make sure that they're current. You know, is there anything that we need to talk about?

And uh and we're we're back friends now. You know what I mean? We talk to each other.

It's like nothing ever happened and it was it was a it was a misunderstanding. You know, it's some places some places uh I'm sober a long time now and yet I still have this capacity to not look under certain rocks. And uh and one of the things one of the things that I needed to do for a long long time was to sit with my wife Andrea and get really current with her and and put together a list of of ways I've fallen short and and and sit with her and talk with her about it.

And the crazy thing is I didn't think I needed to do that, you know, cuz we're married and we talk all the time and we're we're together. We sleep in the same bed, you know, do I really need to do that? And I found out by doing it, yes, I really needed to do it, you know, be because things things really really changed in a positive way.

After that, I was as honest as I possibly could be about the ways that I was falling short in the, you know, in the time that that we were married. and and she in really appreciated it, you know. So, so this this immense thing, it it's a it's a way of life, you know.

I I want to see it as an exercise to where I'll do the exercise, you know, I'll I'll muscle through it, you know, I'll be done and and everything will be fine and I'll move on. But but I've I've found that I found that the the the way I really need to live is I need to be responsible for my behavior. I I need to be responsible for it.

And I don't want things to go unressed. I don't I don't want the ways I've fallen short that that could have harmed you. I don't want that to go unressed.

And the thing I've gotten back from these amends is an enormous amount of power, an enormous amount of spiritual power. And it's an enormous amount of freedom. An enormous amount of spiritual freedom.

I really do feel like I can go any place on this earth at any time without having to worry about anything. And I feel that I've got I've got a a renewed ability to do a lot of these things. And I know it comes from the spiritual work.

It does not come from me just trying to fix things myself. It comes from actually taking the action and then getting the results back. Every single action step in this book has a series of unbelievable promises.

Are these extravagant promises? Yes, they are for somebody like me, you know, and so, you know, I'm I'm I'm really grateful to be to be here tonight. I'll I'll pass it.

>> Thanks, Chris. you know that that last thing you were talking about in making that amends to Andrea. I I was uh at an event like this in New York uh uh 3 years ago, a men's retreat, and we were having this eighth and ninth step discussion, and I was talking about the fact and and my wife had shared with me over the years that uh uh uh that there were times and and uh I guess it's maybe uh I think the term today most often used as gaslighting, right?

but that I was gaslighting her long before I knew what it meant. Basically, to protect myself, but I would convince her that what she what she saw that was abs and thought and heard that was absolutely true wasn't accurate. And I would spin it in such a way to make her doubt herself.

If I tell you, when my daughter was was really young, when my daughter was like three, you know, I would come in from work, I would first thing I would do was go upstairs and and smoke a joint and uh and have a drink. And then I would come back down where she was and and maybe, you know, it was about bedtime for her then at that age. And she would say, my wife and I didn't smoke at that time, and she would say, "Daddy, you smell like smoke." And I would go, "No, I don't." and and and not even thinking that I'm already like it's like telling her that a cow is a horse >> that at 3 years old I'm telling her don't trust your instincts, don't trust yourself.

And and I'm now doing that with with my wife when she was an adult. And and we'd had that conversation. I mean, she had told me about it and I kind of nodded like I got it.

But I'm out having this conversation and began to talk to these men about it. And I can't tell you how many came up later and and talked about having a similar experience doing that. It just seems to be kind of a not an uncommon thing.

And and I realized I had never I had acknowledged it, but I had never really owned it with my wife. And I got home that Sunday afternoon and I went back to to our bedroom. She was in the bedroom and I said, "I need to talk to you." And we had that conversation.

And I said, "I get it, man." And when she said, "It was maybe one of the most satisfying experiences, one of the most intimate conversations we've had." And uh uh but I blow by those opportunities all the time. Sometimes not even purposely, just not aware, spiritually asleep. This is, you know, Chris talked about that that at at the end of uh of that chapter after, you know, just just before the promises, there's a line that we hear quoted or a version of it quoted in a lot of AA meetings.

Line here says, "As God's people, we stand on our own feet. We don't crawl before anyone." Well, we sit in meetings and claim that that independence, right? this God's people, we don't crawl before anyone.

But the preceding sentence doesn't get nearly as much press. >> The preceding sentence says, "We are kind, considerate, tactful, and humble without being survile or scrapey." In other words, when I go make these amends, even to the guy that that I hate, even to the guy that he's 99% and I'm 1%. that I want to take an attitude of kindness and courtesy and humility and consideration into that.

Now, I'm not survile or scraping. I don't have to hang my head. I don't have to to to shuffle my feet.

But it's not it it's not in some pound my chest way. It is just how can I just go take this head on straight on and do this. It's not lost on me that it's in this part of the book in the eighth and ninth step where uh uh another line that we reference all the time is plucked from but sometimes I don't put it into the context of where it is in the steps and it says the spiritual life is not a theory we have to live it this is where the rubber this is the first time in my recovery that beyond a sponsor I'm going out in front of other people.

This is when we're taking what has been this inside baseball, right? We're play at the meetings all week, you know, can't wait to get to a meeting to tell you about me. But now I'm going outside the room.

Now I'm going out and and for those people who won't necessarily understand, who who aren't gathered to help pat me on the back and say, "You're a winner and keep coming back." You know, now I'm going and I'm going to stand in front of this stuff. And so the spiritual life's not a theory. We have to live it.

That faith without works is dead. And that's where we go with this there. I'm going to use the next 10 minutes uh that we've got uh to talk about the 10th step and then Chris will pick the 10th step up in the morning when we start so we can uh try to touch all the bases.

But I will tell you this is again my my feeling and I think it's I steps 9 10 11 and 12 as I look at them now actually start simultaneously. Now they don't they almost can't do that exactly because particularly when we're going through the steps and we're trying to you know navigate with a sponsor through there. But this says after the promises, after those extravagant promises that Chris talked about and and with the last line being they will always materialize if we work for them.

This thought brings us to step 10. The thought being that this will materialize if I work for them. Which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along.

we vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. So, as I'm going through this, as I'm getting started with my ninth step, I want to clean up any new mistakes that, you know, if I'm at home and I'm cleaning up a big mess in the den and I and I kick over an ashtray or or or a glass of tea while I'm cleaning up the big mess, I don't go, "Well, I I'll get to that in a few months." Uh, no. I clean it up as I go along.

And so, cuz I can make a new mistake on the way home from my first amends, you know, that that will require, in fact, sometimes my first amends is in itself a mistake that needs some cleaning up. But so, so we start this as we commence cleaning up the past. And now it tells me that this is the continue step, right?

And there's always we can, you know, my sponsor today, Don M in Louisville, Don's a Don's a guy who comes from his sponsorship lineage that Don were here, he would tell you that it is his belief and his experience that you work the first nine steps once and then you live in steps 10, 11, and 12. But to live in steps 10, 11, and 12, you have to be working the first nine steps. So it is a distinction without a difference to me.

I don't get caught up in it. When you hear somebody say in a meeting that as you know that they're doing another fourth step. Well, I don't care if it's a fourth step or a tenth step.

You know what it it again? I don't care what number is in front of the action I'm taking if I'm taking the right action. I want to have an experience.

I'm not a numerologist, right? I am I'm looking for a spiritual experience. And so I don't get too hung up on that stuff, but I do know that that I'm continuing to take personal inventory.

And and it says that uh that now that I have taken these first nine steps or I'm engaged, I've taken the first eight and I'm engaged in this ninth step and beginning this 10th step. As Chris says, I am current as current as I can be. Well, now what's my function?

Now what am I supposed to do? Well, my next function, it says, is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. I've been getting rid of all of that stuff that's in my way to now, let me grow in understanding and effectiveness.

And love and tolerance of others is my code. So now I've got a call to action. I've got a function.

And I've got a code to live by. Love and tolerance of others. And what I've discovered, for me anyway, is that those are inextricably tied together.

this growing in understanding and effectiveness and love and tolerance. I cannot be very understanding and effective if I'm not loving and tolerant. And if I'm not loving and tolerant, I can't be very effective and understanding.

They seem to be interdependent upon one another. And this tolerance has taken a change for me on what that means. There's a guy who get over now in fact guy named Steve A.

He passed away this last week. Uh uh uh but Steve had had given me this little card years ago that uh had a a description or definition of tolerance that I had not seen before. And I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but cuz I tend to view tolerance as I'll tolerate you, right?

I'll sit here and just know what a jackass you are, but I won't say it out loud. We'll just sit here. But this described tolerance as a generosity and bigness of spirit, >> allowing others their particular point of view and peculiarities.

Now, my favorite word there is the peculiarities. He's not a jackass. He's peculiar.

It's a gentler word. He's just peculiar. I'm pretty peculiar.

And this love and tolerance is then begins not me not me having that harsh judgment I tend to have. I still have to assess things. Cliff Roach said years ago he said we say in AA that we don't judge people.

He said we judge but we don't condemn. We make assessments but we don't you know we don't shoot our wounded. We don't kick you out of the club.

If you can't screw up in aa where can you screw up? You know, if I can't make a mistake here and try to learn and grow by that mistake, then I'm out of places to go. We already said it was the last house on the block.

So, this 10th step has me arrive here. And then it says, and I I I alluded to it uh either earlier today or yesterday, it talks about the fact that that by now, so arriving at this place, I will I will be uh uh sane as it pertains to alcohol. And so now this is where typically in my experience is that I'm not resisting a drink.

Cuz when I first got to AA, I don't know about you guys, I thought we were going to spend a lot of time not drinking in AA. I thought not drinking was an actual activity in Alcoholics Anonymous. We'll just get together and not drink.

You know, would you look at him not drink over there, man? Look at the technique on that guy. And he reached for it and pulled back and and and that's what we do.

to get together and and talk each other out of a drink and and I'd be resisting this drink. And I'm going to do it cuz I'm in. I know I need to not drink, but it's going to be a pretty pitiful life.

It's going to be all about where I can't go, what I can't do, who I can't hang out with. You know, got to say, "Hey, Steve, man, we're going to go on a a a ball game, going to go to the game on Sunday. You want to go?" And I go, "But I would love to go, but I am busy on Sunday.

I will be home not drinking." And uh uh and you know and somebody said don't drink even if your ass falls off, right? So I'll be home not drinking, guarding my ass. And uh uh uh and and and I the thing is I believe that because there is a little bit of not drinking early on in aa >> you know a day at a time.

What a pitiful, you know, call to action that sounded like. Can you just not drink today? Can you can you gut it out?

and and and so we don't drink a day at a time. And that's kind of the way it starts for some of us. But what happens over time is that becomes I live a day at a time.

I get to be I get to live in this day. I'm not fighting something off. And it says the problem will have been removed with no thought or action on our part.

As I said, that thought or action is through the steps trying to connect to this pound. Then it says and we get the the reminder that we all need, you know, hey, it's a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of the spiritual condition. >> And uh my sponsor would would make a distinction between my spiritual condition and my work my maintenance on it.

You know, I can be working on the car. I might not be very good at it. It might not be in good running condition, but if I'm working on the car, I probably can't get into any trouble doing anything else.

So if I am if I am working on that spiritual condition through prayer, meditation, going to meetings, being sponsored, sponsoring people, working with others, taking a service commitment, being in the uh in the third legacy, if I've got some combination of those things going on, I might be in goodstead to get through this day without it feeling like I'm not drinking. Cuz 32 years later, AA would be a tough place to do time. It'd be a tough place just to try to not drink.

>> But man, those of us, most of the people here been around a while, you know that that's not why we're here. That's not the experience we're having. We're in this tent step where the problem has been removed in a 24-hour cycle contingent upon my the maintenance of my spiritual condition.

And then it says, "Every day is a day where I must carry the vision of God's will into all my activities." That selfish self-centeredness. Chris even talked about it earlier today where I am viewing everything through the prism of self. How does this affect me?

Now it says I'm looking through through God's eyes. Every day is a day on the division of God's will for me, not what should I do here. What would God have me do?

And that sounds that's a that's a big, you know, too big for me. I mean, I'm not getting direct messages from God, but I tell you how I handled that in AA. I was I would took an inventory, a nonA inventory one time.

I mean, the AA guy wrote it, but it wasn't, you know, we all if we stay sober about 10 years, we all got a book in us, right? that uh that's improves on the one that we that we use daytoday. And this guy had written and and and one uh the first page on this inventory where I was in the safe says, "What do you think about your marriage?" And I wrote some stuff down, you know, honestly wrote it down.

Turned the page and next page went, "No, really, what do you think about your marriage?" And you know, there was some more stuff because it made me think about it in a different way. Right? And then I turned the page and said, "What would God think about your marriage?" Well, when I'm looking for direction from God, and we'll move into that 11th step as well, right?

But when I'm trying to figure out what to do, when I'm trying to to use every day as a day when I must carry the vision of God's will, what's God's will for me into all my activities? Kind of big for me to try to figure out. But what I have decided is that God is not handicapped by my human frailty.

So God would not do or not do anything because he's afraid or she's afraid. God would not do or not do anything out of lust, out of greed, out of fear, out of any of those seven deadly sins, out of those things that hold me bondage. God is not is not bound by those things like I am.

So, so God would wouldn't, you know, so what would I do if I weren't limited by those human qualities and it gives me a better picture and it says that I will take and we'll talk about it in the 12th step tomorrow, right? Practicing these principles in all our affairs. The last thing I'll say, I got two minutes.

You know, I'll be brief and I'll end with this that that it says um cuz this has always been an important one for me in the 10th step right after that spiritual axiom thing that I talked about earlier today. But it says, "What about justifiable anger?" >> You know, isn't there some justifiable anger? and and and the book doesn't say that that that there's not some things that that justify anger that wouldn't be justified.

It just says that I should leave it to those more equipped to handle it. And that's the same advice you give me about alcohol. I can take a drink.

It's legal. I'm grown. I mean that.

But but you guys have said I probably should leave alcohol to those better equipped to handle it. And that for me anger is poison. And I got a right to be angry, but I don't have to be.

And it also says that no people are probably worse at identifying and discerning between justifiable and and unjustifiable anger. So I'm also not good at that. And so it's so that's where you know this anger and and and it's just like I was saying earlier today in that inventory, the resentment inventory, I keep wanting to adjudicate the facts.

I keep wanting to prosecute the case rather than be free of the anger. And today the choice I've made is I prefer to be free of the anger rather than be right. We we all say it flippantly a lot.

You want to be right or you want to be happy. And and of course most of us think being right would make me happy. And really it's not even that.

He got tell me he said he said Steve he says he says I'm just uh uh he says I have a problem you know having to be right all the time. I said I don't believe you man. He said yeah.

He said I I just have to be right. And I said no. I said I just don't think that's the problem.

I said cuz you're right the moment you're right. You're right if you're right. So you're not it's not your need to be right that's your problem.

It's the need for everybody else to know you're right that's your problem. So, see, if I'm right, I'm right. But I need you to know I'm right.

I need to sway the jury. >> I need to I need you to to acknowledge hopefully in a large enough crowd of people, perhaps media, then I'm right. So, this 10th step gives me even more personal freedom, freedom from self, than I've had.

8:45. I hit it on the button. We're done.

Thank you very much. >> All right. Uh thank you, Malcolm.

Uh you know, I I really want to thank BA and and Merryill and all all the people that help out at the Wilson House. It really was a great weekend. Uh you know, for anybody that hasn't been there, it really is it's a destination type of uh retreat or workshop.

And Malcolm, thank you so much for organizing everything. you know, there was there was so many moving parts and uh you just did you just did a a great job and Steve, you know, what a pleasure it was uh do doing this workshop with you that it was really an outstanding uh an outstanding thing for me to be have been a part of. So, so on uh on Saturday night, Steve started to touch a little bit on uh on step 10.

And just quick quick review, you know, we've we've we've fully conceded to ourselves that we're alcoholic and everything that that means. We've come to believe that there's a power that can solve this problem and move us move us forward into some type of of emotional, physical, and mental health. We've made a decision to engage in whatever this alcoholics anonymous thing is going to look like.

you know, place ourselves uh unreservedly under the care and protection of uh God and uh and and wisdom in in Alcoholics Anonymous where we we we make a an inventory uh of uh the manifestations of self, the the major manifestations of self that really have defeated us, our grosser handicaps. We share that uh we share that with a sponsor, a spiritual adviser. Some people use priests.

You know, there's a lot of there's a lot of latitude in that. I prefer, you know, doing it with a sponsor, but uh that's not absolutely essential. But we share it as honestly as we can, holding nothing back.

Uh a and then we take a look at uh the concepts of step six and step seven. you know, we're move we're moving into um a relationship, a working relationship with God. Uh a a as we're doing this, it's if if we've been doing our job, we're becoming aware and we're becoming awake to the fact that there's a there's a power there's a power that we're starting to really get in touch with.

And we look at step six and step seven and and we realize that that these these handicaps, these these difficulties uh that that we've uh discovered uh in the forep and and any anywhere else where we discover them, they're really going to be too large for us to just whittle away ourselves. we're we're we're working on this relationship with God and we become willing to have the the character defects that we really find objectionable. Uh we become willing to have those removed and then we say a prayer for God to take take all the good and the bad.

You know, Steve Steve said on Saturday night uh uh good and bad. Listen, I didn't know the difference between good and bad. The things that I thought were good when I came into AA ended up being bad.

And the things that I thought were bad ended up being good. So I'm a really bad judge of good and bad. So So God, take take all this stuff.

All this stuff. Give me give me the power. Uh give give me the direction.

Uh help me grow uh in effectiveness and grow in understanding and grow in relationship with you and fit me. fit me to be of service to to to my fellows because it's dawning on me by step seven that this whole thing is about uh creating a new Chris who is not just interested in his own plans and designs and how things impact him. But this new Chris is now all of a sudden starting to pay attention to the other people out there in the world and and and there's an awakening to the fact that uh I need I need to help where I can and I need to be of service where I can.

And then then then we look at steps eight and nine. U you know a lot of damage in the past. Some some of us have more damage than others, but it's absolutely essential, I believe, to to to make an effort to try to set right the wrongs.

It it's just it's incumbent to to to become free. I I need to be conscious of the fact that I've done what I could to set right uh the damage in the past. So uh you know I put a list together.

I become willing uh to make these amends and I actually go out and I I I start making them. And by this time a a wholesale transformation is underway you know in in my personality in my behavior uh in in my in my belief systems. It's a a fundamental you know change in perspective.

uh and an abundant amount of power is flowing in uh the the spiritual power that enables me to do uh do the things that I couldn't just do on my own self-centered self-aware you know perspective I you know I'm I'm all of a sudden you know speaking and doing all this crazy stuff uh that that I never would have felt comfortable doing before. So there's this power that's that's coming in and I'm starting to understand a little bit about freedom too. Uh being free of uh the the shame, the guilt, the remorse of the past.

As I start to clean it up, uh I become I become free of the emotional attachment to to to the to that past, you know, that painful past. And then we, you know, we we we move into step 10. Uh this thought brings us to set step 10.

You know you know what thought uh the thought of the promises the the ninstep promises. They're they're they're amazing promises. You know one of my favorite is you I can be alone at perfect peace and ease.

What a what a great promise. You you know there are periods of time in my life where I don't know about anybody else but one of my favorite things to do in between all this service and working and family. You know what I like to do?

Nothing. That's what I like to do. I like to do nothing.

You just be alone at perfect peace and ease and just be in like a a meditative state, you know, sitting on the couch. And my wife will come in and she'll go, "What are you doing?" I'll be like nothing. What do you mean nothing?

But but it's it's one of it's one of my it's one of my favorite promises. So the concepts of these promises, you know, uh bring us uh uh bring us to step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. you know, if if all you do is highlight the instructions in step 10 and step 11, it's it's not a huge heavy lift.

You know, this is this is really this this is really really uh stuff that any of us can do. Now, another thing, you know, I'm going to go off on a little bit of a tangent here. One of the things I've really been discovering in this year, uh, and because this big book really is alive for somebody like me, I gain new perspective every time I go through it.

I learn more about it every every year, every month that goes by. A, and I'm, you know, I'm still in awe of uh, just the the the quality of this writing and the impact that this can have uh, on on the on the alcoholic the solution to alcoholism. But what I'm really seeing these days is I'm seeing the mystical qualities of Bill's writing more and more and more.

You know, we've entered the world of the spirit is in here. That's that's that's a pretty that's a pretty mystical statement. you know, like like this is deep deep stuff that that can be accessed by anyone who's willing to take the action that's that sets it up.

And it, you know, it's it's amazing to me. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. So, it's giving us some instruction.

We've we've entered the world of the spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. uh it should continue for our lifetime.

And then and then there's some uh there's some watch words and these go all the way back to like step the step three information on page 60 to 62, right? It says continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Those those are the major manifestations of the self that had defeated me.

And so so the self doesn't get completely eradicated. We we ha we have to be aware of the manifestations of self. We need to recognize them as such.

And then we need to we need to take action. And the action it says we take is when these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we've harmed anyone.

Now, that's all previous step work that the the ex step exercises that we're we've done. Then we resolutely to turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code.

It even stretches a little bit into step 12. You know, this this the Oxer group, the the Oxer group way back when they understood that sometimes you can get you could get somebody in and you could evangelize the hell out of them. And and they were soapbox standing, come to Jesus people like crazy.

And a year later, they'd burned out. they they'd gone they they you know found other things to do with their time and so that they concentrated on a concept known as continuence and this was this was an Oxford group principle continuence you know I I talked to when I'm talking to my sponses I I emphasize over and over and over again consistency consistency in meeting steps service and sponsorship you know consistency in those four areas is uh uh an equal sign to recover you know uh permanently. If there's permanent consistency there's permanent recovery in these in these uh in these principles and these steps.

So uh love and tolerance of others are our code and we've ceased fighting anything or anyone. Now when I first read that I I was like you've got to be kidding. What about my neighbor?

You know what? You know what about at work? You know, I'm not going to let him step on me.

You know, I had all these reasons why how you know what about the the the the contentious group conscience where you got to stand up, you know? I mean, how do you how do you not fight anything or anyone? And you know, I've got to tell you, I'm at a point today where I can honestly say to you, I don't fight anyone or or anything.

I, you know, maybe I disagree. You know, may maybe I've got another perspective, but I'm not engaged in the fight anymore. You know what I mean?

Here's a good one, especially for the new people. For by this time, sanity will will have returned. And then there's a whole series of of alcohol promises.

The the promises that we we're going to remain separated safely from alcohol. There's probably 10 of them. Uh and and again uh you know people people that relapse I I have a feeling for the most part uh the relapse occurs because they they haven't uh taken the action to get up to uh up to this uh up to this step.

You know, I think I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna bounce it over to Steve now because uh I have a on Zoom I I can keep talking. So, I'm gonna I'm gonna be conscious of that and hand it over to Steve. >> Thanks, Chris.

Good evening, everyone. Steve Lee, Alcoholic. Yeah, I don't suffer from the same self-restraint that Chris does, but uh uh I will do my best.

And uh and I want to start also by saying what a great time I had this past weekend and sorry we had to cut it short, but uh so great to spend time with you guys and so great to spend it at uh uh at the Wilson House. Vera, thank you and and your crew for being such wonderful host. Uh I'm really grateful for that.

And uh uh and I'm I'm going to say a couple of things wrap up on step 10 because it just made me think about it as as Chris was talking and and one of those is is the point he made that that as we get here to the 10th step. It says because we are current not through with the steps but we're current in our efforts in applying those and beginning those amends and and and being current. It says, "I've entered the world of the spirit." But I've entered the world of the spirit in the same way that I enter the foyer of your home.

I I am barely in. You know, I've just stepped in and uh uh and and doing 10, 11, and 12 and adding the prayer and meditation and working with others and practicing these principles in all my affairs gives me access to the rest of the spiritual house, you know. and uh and I want to go deeper and deeper in and uh sit down and and make myself at home and uh to cease fighting anything and anyone.

You know, it says here that we continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. And I will tell you, I I don't when I showed up here at at step 10 the first time, I was absolutely honed in on looking for that resentment, dishonesty, and and fear. I was just looking at it in you rather than in me.

I was noticing it still in in the folks around me. And uh I didn't realize that this is really where I I'm I want to hold that mirror up. And and if I am looking for those things in myself and not in a not in a a selfobsessive way, not in a beat myself up way, not in a be a harsh judge of myself way, but just in the way that uh uh that I look in the mirror before I leave the house in the morning.

You know, I get dressed and I'm going to tell you, you you can't tell it when you run into me during the day, but at some point that morning, I looked in the mirror, checked my outfit out, and said, "All right, this will work. I'm taking this out today. This is the package." And uh uh and sometimes I forget to to look closely enough in that mirror to see that I've got a blemish on my shirt or a tear in my slacks.

uh uh uh you know and and so all through the day and I know you guys do this cuz I know many of the people on here are as uh uh selfcentered as I might tend to be that that several times during the day if you walk by a if you walk by a mirror you're for sure taking a glance and seeing how how you're holding up during the day. And actually, if you're walking down the street, you're liable to look into a window to catch your reflection just to see if this package looks as good as it did when I left this morning. And that's a little bit of what that 10th step is is our version of taking that spiritual look at ourselves, you know, and that's particularly true as I begin to full step 11 into this and I'm preparing myself for my day.

I'm getting grounded and connected with uh uh uh with God and with me so I can go out and be useful to you. And but that can wear off pretty quick. And so I need I need to check in the spiritual mirror several times a day to uh to see if my uh it used I was going to say to see if my hair was still neatly combed, but that hasn't been an issue for quite a while.

But uh uh yeah but so so it's just that's kind of that spot check inventory that the 10step talks about right and uh uh uh so I just kind of wanted to touch base on that and and then when I'm transitioning and as I said Saturday it is my belief now I mean in essence we begin steps 10 11 and actually steps 9 10 11 and 12 kind of all at the same time. Now, it's kind of hard to do all of those same things in one one motion, but there's not I don't wait till I'm done making amends to begin cleaning up my new mistake. It says I do that as I go as I go about cleaning up the past.

and and I certainly don't wait until I'm done with my amends before I begin to em embrace and embark upon that uh prayer and meditation that that effort to uh uh uh become closer and and grow that conscious contact with God. Uh so these things kind of begin at the same time, right? But the transition from as I'm transitioning from 10 to 11, the book says that uh uh uh that we have um we have carefully followed directions, we've begun to sense the flow of his spirit into us.

So obviously when I enter the world of the spirit, I begin to sense the flow of his will into me. And it says I begin to get develop this vital six sense. So I'm I'm you know I've got the I've got the normal five senses.

You know our human senses of of touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing. Now I got to tell you at my age about three of those is pretty uh pretty significantly diminished. Uh, but I've still got them.

But now I'm getting this vital sixth sense, which is a spiritual sense. We talked earlier in the book about the fourth dimension. And and when I'm in that fourth dimension, that's when I have entered the spiritual world.

That's that's the spiritual dimension that's added to the three-dimensional world that I'm living in of height, width, and depth. Now we've added the spiritual component. So I got four dimensions in play and I've got six senses in play.

Man, I'm armed to dangers now, right? I am ready to be out in the world in a new way. I I have I have more at my disposal.

It radically changes my experience of you, my experience of me, my experience of the world at large. I am seeing things differently. I'm feeling things differently.

I have access to things that I did not have access to. They're there. And and I got to tell you, as I mentioned the other day, that that that I'm in and out of that fourth dimension.

And I am I am uh uh off and on with my access to that six sense because uh because self shows back up. And the book will tell me as I'm engaged in this 11th step that I remind myself and self by the way is is my ego my mind. I remind myself many times each day thy will not mine be done.

I have to check in the spiritual mirror to see if I am if if I'm still connected or have I begun to run the show again because in fact that happens so subtly that I don't even always recognize that it's happened. That's what this self-examination is about. I'm encouraged to take a quick peek many times during the day and at the end of the day I'm given a review to kind of see how I'm doing in that.

to to check myself again before I call it a night. And uh uh but but I want to stop and and and tell a couple of stories that many of you on here who who have who I've spent time with before have heard me tell, but they're the only stories I got. Uh I can make some stuff up and I'm prone to, but uh uh these this one's true.

And uh because you heard me talk earlier in the weekend, those of you who were there, was my resistance initially to uh uh the idea of a higher power, to the idea of God, to the idea that I might access this higher power, whether it whether there is such a thing or not, I certainly didn't feel like I had access to it. And this 11th step is encouraging me to seek through prayer and meditation to improve upon to build upon to initiate this conscious contact. See this consciousness I'm walking around spiritually asleep most of the time and this is telling me no let let's get let's make a conscious contact an awareness of this power.

Not only have you stepped in to the foyer of of the spiritual house, but be aware that you're there. Stop, look around, take it in, and then build upon that. And uh uh yet I was uncomfortable with all aspects of prayer and meditation and even the language.

And again, I won't revisit all that. I talked about it. But at about uh at about uh 12 years sober, I began to use a phrase uh regularly that said I was struggling with meditation.

And we we often hear people talk about that, you know, and it's certainly not universal, but many of us will say that meditation is perhaps a little uh a little different for us than prayer. We seem to embrace the prayer aspect of things sometimes a little more quickly than we do meditation. Again, that's not universal, but that certainly was true of me.

And uh uh I I was talking to my friend Danny B who lives in Houston, Texas, or just outside of Houston in Spring, Texas that some of you know. And I'm telling Danny about this. And I was going to a an AA conference that Howard Poland was going to be at.

And Howard was a devoted practitioner of meditation. And Danny said, "You need to go talk to Howard when you get there and talk to Howard about your struggle with meditation." So I I get out there. It was in Oregon.

I go up to Howard and uh uh and I said, "Howard, I'm struggling with meditation." Now, if you know Howard, you can't imagine how excited that made him cuz he just he went, "Oh, Steve." He rubbed his hands together like a praying madness. He went, "Oh, Steve." He said, "Let's go to my room." So, we head off to his hotel room and he said, "What are you doing now?" And I said, "Well, Howard, I'm really not doing anything now." And he just tackled. He went, "Oh, I see your problem's not technique.

It's commitment. You're not struggling with meditation. You're not meditating." He said, 'Are you willing to struggle?' He said, ' Because what you're saying, you're you're not you're not meditating and having a problem with that.

Willingness is your problem. Discipline is your problem. Commitment is your problem.

He said, are you willing to create a space in time where you can struggle with meditation? And uh uh he says, because that's what it's going to take. He said then you'll figure out what happens in that space and time will evolve.

You get you get to do you know it says here in in step 11 that it's an individual adventure right when we talked earlier in the book where it said that each of us in our own language and from our own point of view talks about how he established a relationship with God. It says there may be a wide variation in the way each of us conceives of and approaches that power. So my approach I tend to think of my approach as my approach to prayer and meditation.

That's how I'm trying to get close to this higher power. And so some of us will will you know take that quiet time and and and light some sage or incense and chant and and some of us will you know do guided meditations and some of us will just do some contemplative meditation. It just doesn't matter.

Aa doesn't care. In fact I'm encouraged. It says our libraries are a treasure trove.

And now we would say Google is a treasure trove of of information for us to seek. And I've done a million different things because I don't do any of them well. So I just try them all.

And uh and I do believe that I am I am served well by the effort at least as much and by the commitment and by the discipline than I am by what happens in that time. I can't always determine what happens in that space and time, but I can commit the space and time for it to happen. And and I have found for somebody who resisted the commitment for so long that the commitment itself seems to serve me pretty well in a way that I didn't expect.

So that's phase one of that for me. That's what this 11th step has, you know, my approach to that has has been a little bit. I I I want to tell one more aspect of this 11th step and then give it back to Chris.

Um it talks about the fact that if I if I stay engaged in this prayer meditation, if I constantly throughout the day remind myself many times each day, thy will not mine be done. If when I am uh uh agitated or doubtful, I pause and ask for the right thought or direction. And I'll stop here.

How many times in in your meeting do you hear somebody bring up this part of the 11th step, boy, when agitated, we pause. And they almost always reference the agitated and hardly ever reference the doubtful because we're hard we're often we're hardly ever doubtful. We're often agitated.

And uh uh but I have to stop and and make sure I fold both of those in there and say, "Am I am I many times each day reminding myself? Am I pausing and saying, "Oh man, God, what about now?" Just reminding myself to invite God into these into the circumstances of my day. But after a while this our book suggests that that and in the morning if I ask uh uh you know that on awakening if I ask God to divorce my thinking from selfish self-seeking dishonest motives if that's out of the way I see the world different.

So, can I That's what I'm saying. God, divorce my thinking. Make sure my thinking isn't clouded by those things, by fear, by those seven deadly sins, by pride.

Make sure those things aren't coloring the way I'm seeing the world. And if it moves that out of the way, it says my thought life will be placed on a higher plane. And it even says that that I will begin to get this uh uh intuitive thought and that I begin to rely upon.

Now, that's scary. It follows up by saying I'm going to make some big mistakes doing it. But the story I tell connected to this and again uh some of you have heard it but I was headed up to Marty's part of the world about 15 years ago going to the Ontario regional conference and man I had a a new food and a big head.

I couldn't wait to go. I I was excited and and this was a big deal for me. And I got to the airport in Nashville to uh get on the plane that was going to fly to Detroit and connect to uh to Toronto for this uh uh what I considered this big important thing that made me important.

And uh uh so I'm I go to the gate area in Nashville and there's a woman young woman really holding uh an an infant and and the mother was just sobbing inconsolably and I see this she's talking to the gate agent and and I see this but we go on and board it was a small regional jet you know whatever that has 50 60 people on it and we get on and the flight attendant comes on the plane every seat is filled. And she comes on the plane and she says, "This woman's brother has been critically injured in a car accident in Detroit and she's trying to get to his bedside in the hospital. Would anyone be willing to give up their seat?" Well, intuitively I knew the right thing to do was give up my seat.

I mean immediately I knew that I needed to give up my seat. But I started thinking my mind got involved and it was it was clouded by pride. It was clouded by fear.

And as I thought about it, I thought, well, wait a minute. These people invited me. They paid for this ticket.

If I don't take this flight, I won't be there in time to do what they invited me to do. My god, if I don't get to Toronto, all of AA and Canada, they could crumble. if they don't get to hear my talk.

And uh uh so you know, and as I'm thinking about it and thinking about it, pretty soon they closed the door. Nobody gave up their seat and we took off to Detroit. Later that night, I'm standing up on the stage in front, I don't know, is it Marty?

Couple of thousand people, 2500 people giving a talk, talking about spiritual principles, having missed an opportunity to practice a spiritual principle, giving a talk knowing that the guy they thought they invited would have given up his seat on that airplane. And man, it just it it it just crushed them. And I made a decision then, and I' I've I've done pretty good with this decision.

Since then, I've decided to listen to the intuitive voice. I think I make as many mistakes as I made before, but I'm that's if I'm going to make the mistake today, I'm going to make it listening to the intuitive voice. And it makes me listen more closely when I make mistakes because again, I will confuse God's voice for for, you know, my will for God's voice sometimes.

But but that's okay. That's going to happen on either side of that equation. I'm going to make mistakes.

And I've decided to heir on the side of trying to trust that intuitive voice because when I am the in intuition implies that it's not of me. It's not of my brain. It is from somewhere else.

And that's why we want to get the channel clear. That's why that prayer and meditation is to get me out of the way so that intuition will will present itself in an authentic way and those choices will be made on the truth rather than some fuzzy version of it I give myself. So Chris, I'll give it back to you my friend.

>> Thank thank you Steve. Um, first so early on in in my experience with Alcoholics Anonymous, I I was not a big prayer. Yeah.

So, my my sponsor was kind of encouraging me uh a little bit along the way. And when he finally got me to start to do morning and evening prayers, here's how he locked me in. He said, "Chris, some some days you're going to pray, some days you're not going to pray.

I know you. So, the one thing I want you to do is I want you to pay attention to how the days go when you pray and how the days go when you don't pray." And within three or four weeks, I you know, I've I've had a prayer discipline ever since 30 30 some years. meditation I was more confused about and my my my perception of what meditation was was colored by uh a lot a lot of eastern uh meditative techniques.

Uh you know I started to read read books on on meditation. I I I started to read a lot of uh book books on centering prayer and and really what what what all that stuff did was give me a real good vocabulary. What what what really helped me was when I actually sat and meditated.

You like so much other stuff in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've always wanted to figure it out. I've I've always I've always needed to know why.

Why do I Why do I need to do this? And and the the thing that was more transformative than anything else for me was just just taking taking the action it whether I'm good at meditating or not, whether I'm going to struggle with meditation or not, you know, how about how about how about giving it giving it a a shot? and and you know I absolutely adore my meditative times now you know and it's not just it's not just upon awakening and it's not just in the evening it's it's it's whenever I get an whenever I get an opportunity to do that you know this this realm of the spirit uh that the book talks about is uh is really a comforting place to be now you know the the the basic disciplines in step 11.

Uh when we retire at night, it gives us a number of instructions. Uh constructively reviewing our day, uh you know, look for manifestations of self and how they've screwed you up and try to take action. Uh upon awakening, uh upon awakening is very cool.

It asks me to to to look at what's coming up today. What you know, what am I going to be doing? Is there going to be any challenges?

is do I need to prepare for anything? Uh is there anything that I you know I need to get done? Is there anybody I need to talk to?

You know uh do I owe any of my sponses a call? All you know it's all con this is all constructive stuff. Uh they you know they say u an unexamined life is not worth living.

And I'll say for an alcoholic an unexamined life is difficult to live for an alcoholic. So, so uh so this this examination the questions that they ask us to be aware of and awake to I find are are really really powerful. Um you know there's some other paragraphs in here uh uh that really talk about the morning quiet time in the early Oxra group.

It's it's kind of important to understand that this text uh what they were doing in in the in the Ashra group as this book was being written and they all had morning quiet time and they all got together to do it. It was an Oxford group practice and it was a family practice and and every everyone uh everyone would engage in this as as part of being an Oxford grouper. And I think uh I think Bill uh took took what he thought would fit for the alcoholic and and uh and and left some of the other Oxford group practices aside.

And I'm I'm I'm grateful for that today. Uh but they saw it as absolutely essential. This this you know beginning the day with God brought in brought into everything you know brought brought into to your operational methodology you know and u and I I've got to tell you that I don't I don't go a day without without doing this stuff.

I It would it would be we I'd feel really really weird. Um as we go through the day, Steve was talking about this. We pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action.

You know, um we h we are no longer running the show. And this is a reference all the way back to our lives are unmanageable. We need a new manager.

We we're we're not running the show ourselves. We're we're we're trying to, you know, we're trying to practice principles within our behavior. Uh we're trying to look for guidance from God on ways to act.

It's just a whole different uh a whole different setup as far as how I I live my life. Now, you know, I've said this before, I'll say it again. The good thing is no one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to any of these principles.

You know, I'm glad we don't get picked off because we're not perfect. There wouldn't be very many of us left. Uh but a willingness and a commitment to engage in in this stuff I think I think is is all that's needed.

Um there's always great promises when you're doing action steps. Uh it's it says uh we're much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions, which I'm okay with that. You know, the a reduction in those things is okay with me.

We become much more efficient. And I I I'll tell you that's absolutely true. This one kind of eluded me for a while, but the amount of stuff I get done in a month is is extraordinary.

And it's it's not like cuz I'm working hard cuz I'm not. It's just I'm more efficient in the things that I do. Uh I don't tire so easily because I'm not burning up energy foolishly.

Um we alcoholics are undisiplined. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we just outlined. Now, now step 11, it it it there's there's the instructions in this book, but I also believe that there's a life to this prayer meditation.

There's a life to this guidance. There's a life to this world of the spirit. And I I believe we can embrace many many different faiths, many different philosophies, many different practices.

Uh it's recommended that we we go out and we ask some priests, ministers or rabbis for some good books. I'm a huge reader. I I I I love reading.

But this world of the spirit, this world of the spirit, uh another mystical reference, this world of the spirit is such a cool place to be. It's such a cool thing to engage in, you know. It's it's enormously impacted the quality of of my life.

There's less turbulence. There's less resistance in my life. Uh and and amazingly, you know, uh uh a lot of the things that used to really drive me crazy either don't drive me crazy or I'm not inviting them into my life.

You you know what I mean? So, so this this really really is uh is some cool stuff. And uh you know, I'm just going to touch a little bit on step 12.

Uh Steve, then I'm then I'm going to I'm going to turn it over to you. I'll do like a paragraph here. Practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.

So I think the whole first 11 steps are are building an efficient working with others guy. You you know like like now I' now I've got something to carry to somebody. In the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous, I used to I used to drive people to treatment, drive people to meetings, make coffee.

I'd get all kinds of stuff because I was told to be of service. And that really is allowing the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, to to uh uh to be there to supporting the message of Alcoholics Anonymous. Um but to be able to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, I believe I need experience.

I need to have um gone through these steps, although imperfectly maybe gone through these steps so that I've had an awakening and I can talk about that awakening as a solution to alcoholism to somebody I'm I'm trying to help. Um it works when other activities fail. Like what what are other activities?

How about how about, you know, just going to meetings? You know what I mean? H how about using your willpower?

How how about uh an abuse? I mean, there's a there's a million different ways uh that I could try not to drink. And I did try them.

Uh but working with others is something one of the one of the best sayings that people started to say recently and I wholeheartedly agree with it. You used to hear all the time you got to give it away to keep it. Well, now you're starting to hear you got to give it away to get it.

And and I really believe that's true because when I started working with other alcoholics, you know what? I was a card carrying member in good standing all the way in Alcoholic in Alcoholics Anonymous. And there was something about that particular effort that I was making that locked me in.

You know what I mean? It just locked me into this whole thing. And uh and and I've been continuously sponsoring people uh since I think it was like October uh 1990.

I've I've consistently been sponsoring people and consistently been sponsored. So, uh you can help when no one else can because because we could talk to an alcoholic and the alcoholic's going to know we're telling the truth. A million people would talk to me about my drinking and they'd just, you know, from a place of shame or or or or or a place of, you know, legal consequences or or or or, you know, I'm going to get thrown out of school or whatever.

But but when when an alcoholic talks to me, I know they've been where I've been, and maybe maybe they're maybe they're in a different place right now, and I'm curious about that. How did you get better? And it makes us uniquely uniquely useful.

And uh and with that, I'm going to I'm going to bounce it back to my my friend Steve T. Thanks, Chris. Great stuff.

You know, you you said that you you talked about you got to give it away to keep it and then it, you know, got to give it away to get it. And uh my friend Bill C uh uh us out in Torrance, California says you got to if you don't give it away, you never got it. And uh uh I think that's probably pretty accurate, too.

If I'm not giving it away, I really haven't gotten it because that is the endgame. You know, it's not lost on me that in the 12 and 12, uh the first line of the 12 steps says, "The joy of living is the theme of AA's 12th step." And I think the implication there is is that is that quite uh um uh counterintuitively it is by helping others. It is by giving that we get.

You know, we've been talking about that in ever since we showed up at AA, but but I spent all of my time before getting to Alcoholics Anonymous, not consciously, but all of my time trying to be self-satisfied, trying to satiate self in some way and trying to whatever that whether that was relationships or or or you know, career or or whatever I thought was going to give me what was missing. And it was always external in some way and usually about getting you to tell me I was okay, but it was still me trying to get something for me and there just doesn't seem to be enough for me. Self can't be satiated by self.

But conversely, when I finally surrender and begin to to try to be of use to other people, I find I get what I was looking for all along. you know, the 12th step when we get to it and and it says that having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and practice these principles in all our affairs. That's a that's a declaration with two calls to action, right?

it that having had a spiritual awakening is declares that I have arrived at the 12th step. Having had this spiritual awakening and having had it, I am now called to action. I am called to action to carry this message and to practice these principles.

I'm now ready. That's now we're now we're really in the game. Now it's go out and and uh and and be engaged in life.

And so if I'm going to carry this message to other alcoholics, what is the message I carry? And and today I I you know, we do it a lot of different ways. We do it the way that that Chris and I did over the weekend and are kind of putting a a button on here uh a bow on at the end of this tonight.

But the real message that I carry is that I've had a spiritual awakening and it was the result of these steps. And then I share with you individually or collectively my experience with the steps and and different people that that sounds different coming from different people. Thank goodness.

Thank goodness that that the the same message comes wrapped in a lot of different packages. And uh uh but at its core, the message is the same. I had a spiritual awakening.

Here's how I did it. Here are the steps I took. Here's my experience with those steps.

That's how we're working with others. That's what we're doing. I can't tell somebody how to do something I haven't done.

Well, that's not true. I can cuz I have I can, you know, I can I can pretend I did something, but I'm not very effective with that, you know. And I said in the 10th step that that that growing in understanding and effectiveness was uh was, you know, now where I'm headed.

That that that's now my mission. So this 12th step has me now you know working with others carrying the message telling the good news testifying in a sense but it is all about my experience not you know it says earlier in the book that if you're an alcoholic that wants to get over it you may be you may already be asking what do I have to do and it goes on to say what I think are are two critical things that bolster up what we've said here in the 12 step. It says that's exactly what this book is about.

We will tell you what we have done. So the book has the message, the program of recovery that was written in there. I tell you what I have done.

I got I got the cookbook and I'm going to show you how I prepared the meal. and uh uh somebody else might uh might come at it a little bit differently, but that's uh that's just chance that we get and and we're given some kind of dos and don'ts along the way in working with others. And you know, I have to tell you that and and and I bet I'm not unlike a lot of people on here that have been sober for a while, but maybe I'm I was probably a little more radical than some of you.

At about six years sober, I was gifted to understand Alcoholics Anonymous at a level that perhaps no other human being understood. AA I not only read the book, I understood the book. I not only read what Bill wrote down, I know what Bill meant to say and I was just went through a a Pentecostal stage and uh uh and it was it look I don't ever and I don't ever pour dampen somebody who's going through their Pentecostal stage because I think a lot of times that boy if you're going to make a mistake that's not a bad one to make.

But but but I was I was kind of harsh. I was harsh for a while and and over the years as I read the chapter working with others. It is a gentle chapter.

It is a gentle chapter that gives me and others room to find their way. It's a gentle chapter that doesn't have me beating people up. It's a chapter that says that never talk down to an alcoholic from any moral or spiritual hilltop.

You know, I I have done some of my worst damage when I've been properly armed with the facts and had the moral high ground, but self was in charge. I had lost the third step aspect of this and and I was running the show. So, the information's right, but you know, when Chris talked a minute ago about that the 11th step being more than the information that's on the page, there's an experience.

We're we're here to have an experience. not an academic exercise, not to pass the test, not to get a master's degree in Alcoholics Anonymous, but to have a spiritual experience that frees me up to live in the world in a way that I can't do it when I'm living on self-will alone. And I don't so it's it's gentle.

It says that if he's not interested in my solution or expects me to act only as a banker or for his financial difficulties, I may have to drop him. That doesn't mean I have to finger wag him. It doesn't mean I have to beat him up and go, "You know what, dude?

That's just not what that's not what I'm about. That's not the role I'm here to play." So, uh, so that's not what we're going to talk about. If you're not interested in in this other thing that I bring, my experience with the 12 steps, that's okay.

But that's that's what I'm bringing to this relationship. And uh uh I can tell you when I got my my first sponsor, Frank, he spent the first 20 minutes after I asked him to be my sponsor telling me what he wasn't going to do. Uh it was a long list of stuff he wasn't going to do.

And so uh uh I don't usually lead with that, but I always remember Frank doing it. And it says some stuff that we do. And it says that that we tell them about Alcoholics Anonymous, him or her.

Let me tell you a little bit about AA. Man, have you ever taken somebody to their first meeting? What a cool deal that is.

Now, when somebody wanders in somebody wanders into their first meeting, I don't know about you guys, but I sometimes hope I find them before they go in because they don't know what they're in for. You go into some of the groups that I go to and you identify yourself at being at your first meeting. man, we're going to talk at you for the hour.

We're coming at you. And I'll tell a new guy or or woman coming to their first meeting, I said, "Look, come on in here. Here's here's what's about to happen." At some point, somebody's going to ask, "Is anybody at your first meeting?" You can say yes or not say anything.

You can sit quietly. You don't have to do a thing. At the end of the meeting, if you say you're at your first meeting, at the end of the meeting, they're going to offer up a white chip.

And man, they're going to stare you down waiting on you to get up for that white chip. Uh, and don't worry about it. You can get it or not get it.

It's okay. Relax. Cuz what people told me at my first meetings were, "Come in, sit down, relax.

Relax. You don't have to do a thing to be here." And it is while I was in Alcoholics Anonymous that I learned about Alcoholics Anonymous. You made it so easy for me to leave that it made it easy for me to stay.

And uh trust me, cuz if you lock the door, all I can think about is getting out. But if the doors open and I can leave any time, I'm liable to stay for a little while. Now, and it says we tell the new man exactly what happened to me.

That's why we talk about our stories in Alcoholic Anonymous. I used to kid some of you maybe have heard me say that I used to have a much more exciting story than the one I have today. It wasn't true but it was exciting and uh uh but it also wasn't very useful cuz somehow I felt like you know I my story I didn't have enough AA street cred in my story so I needed to make some stuff up in an effort to be helpful to you.

But what I know is that my story is the thing of primary value that I bring to Alcoholics Anonymous or the next man or woman that I'm talking to. And my story is not going to resonate with everyone, which is why we all tell our stories. At a certain point, we tell them over coffee, we tell them at our home group, we tell them in three minute snippets when we share in a discussion meeting, we tell them from the podium.

But we tell the new man exactly what happened to me and that's going to land where it's supposed to land and your story will land where it's supposed to land. So that has been and it takes the pressure off of just tell about me. Here's what happened that not a big deal.

Here's my story. And I think that's important. It says if he doesn't want to stop drinking, don't waste your time trying to persuade.

Now, we've all got friends and people we care about that we have spent a lot of time trying to persuade them. And I get that because I love them and care about them. But this is not saying we don't care that this isn't kind of that dismissive, hey dude, if you if you're not interested in this, then you know, then you need to go do some more drinking.

It just says don't waste that energy. I I have zeroed in on a guy that I was going to help and walked by a dozen other people that, you know, that wanted help while I'm trying to force feed a guy who is uninterested. And and in general, I'm just I'm just going to try to find those who are interested in getting sober.

And then comes the, you know, after all of this talk about working with others, when I get to the 12 and 12, it says, now comes the toughest question yet. I'm thinking, are you kidding me, man? Dude, are I've been working my ass off here in AA.

I have done some hard stuff. I've gotten all the way back here. I've been working with others.

And now you're saying, "Here's the toughest question yet. What about the practice of these principles in all my affairs? What about my family life?

What about my work life? What about with a as a parent? What about as a husband?

Whoa. Now, now the rubber's meeting the road. Can you practice these principles in all your affairs?" And what are the principles?

You know, Chris told us uh uh when we got started on Friday night, Chris said that AA's 12 steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, if practiced as a way of life, will expel the compulsion to drink and enable the sufferer to live a life that's happily and usefully humble. So the the principles I'm practicing are the 12 steps now in my daily life. Now embedded we have all seen uh uh a full scope of those.

Everybody here I know because we're preaching to the choir somewhere in your AA file. You've got that list that has the principle next to the step, right? First step of what what you know is it oh honesty second step openmindedness.

Nope. Nope. On this list, second step is uh is will it?

You know, everybody's got it and they're and they're different. Here's what I will tell you. I don't think you can put a a a wrong spiritual principle next to one of those steps.

They all fit all of them. This isn't linear. This is a spiritual program.

This is a stew that that that all mixes in together. It's all okay. But the 12 steps themselves are principles.

So now, am I going to practice turning my will and my life under the care of God? Am I going to practice this ongoing self-examination in all my affairs? Am I going to practice this ongoing uh uh restitution and admission of wrongs?

Am I going to regularly go back to God and say, "Man, t take this shortcoming. It's getting in my way of my usefulness to you and my fellows." Am I going to go through that day in the 10th step and and am I going to keep trying to connect with God? Am I going to keep working with others?

Am I going to be engaged on this and an ongoing I I loved what Chris said. Uh uh am I going to be consistent? You know, am I going to work aa on Tuesdays and Thursdays?

It it's my attendance sometimes looks like that. But see, we so often confuse meeting attendance with my engagement in my recovery. Meeting attendance is critically important, but it is not the limit to my the engagement in my recovery.

I have guys that I sponsor that travel a lot whose life circumstances don't allow them to make four or five meetings a week. and and and if we're not careful, some of us folks will make them feel like they're not working a good program. Look, if you're a single mother that's got a job and two kids and and are going to that job and raising those kids and getting to two meetings a week and staying sober and you're practicing these principles in your daily living, man, that's hero status stuff.

the people, guys like me and and and Chris, you know, we get to run around because, you know, first of all, I'm probably being irresponsible in some area of my life. And uh uh but you know what I mean? People people that are that are making this work that that is uh the the podium guys are are certainly not better AA members.

Uh and and it just doing that being in the the grind dayto day. That's the real stuff. And I just have so much respect for people that are doing that.

And then I asked myself, I went to my sponsor Frank, you know, I was about six months sober and I said, Frank, I think practicing these principles in all my affairs is putting me at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace. Uh said, I'm not sure everybody understands that these are the rules we're playing by. And uh and he said, "Well, Steve," he said, "if you're asking me if uh if you're going to not be able to to close a particular deal or get a piece of business because you won't entertain in a certain way or you won't turn a blind eye or you won't shave a corner." He said absolutely anecdotally you're going to lose you're going to not get particular pieces of business in what I was doing.

He said, "But," and he didn't promise me that I was going to be, you know, president of a Fortune 500 company, but he said, "But if you will consistently, to use Chris's term again, says if you will consistently live by by these principles, this way of life, the PE," he said, "you have no idea the number of people who have quietly chosen not to do business with you." He said, "It's probably not even about your drinking. summer about your drinking, but other folks just go, "It's just not my kind of guy. You're just putting off a vibe that is not that doesn't attract them." He says, "If you'll commit to this over time, if you'll play the long game, and that's what we do in AA, we play the long game." He says, "The people that that need to be drawn to you will be drawn to you." And and that's been my experience.

I'm here 32 years later. I am certainly not president of a Fortune 500 company, but I continue to be able to get keep my bills paid and and uh and live a life that I'm happy with and I'm able to sleep 8 hours uh a night without uh having done anything that I am ashamed of or embarrassed about or have uh or or has ethical challenges. And uh uh and if I make a screw if I screw up in one of those areas, then I I and I hang out.

I then you then I I got a 10th step to clean it up with and a sponsor to talk to about it and uh and then make that right. So we just get here this joy of living. We are given this opportunity at the 12th step.

You know, it is at the at the end of the chapter in the 12 and 12 on the 12th step that that it gives me some information that I've taken to heart and that's what I'll close with and give it back to Chris. It talks about it gives a whole list a runon sentence of things. It's the longest sentence in Alcoholics Anonymous and I can't repeat them all, but it talks about you know problems well accepted or solved with God's help.

It talks about love given being surely returned. It talks about not having to be especially distinguished amongst my fellows. Uh it talks about a whole host of wonderful gifts.

And it said these are the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living. Permanent and legitimate satisfactions. which implies and correctly so in my part that that I have unknowingly, unconsciously being spiritually asleep spent all my time seeking the illegitimate gifts of life.

Not permanent and legitimate, but temporary and illegitimate. That, you know, I I'll use this analogy and and and I love a donut. I mean I love a donut and but every time I eat a donut I am enjoying I'm every bite of that donut I enjoy and the moment that donut is gone I god damn it I wish I hadn't eaten that donut you know every time because I go now the donut's gone the pleasure's gone there's no residual value there's no nutritional value there's going to be a price to pay and I traded these permanent and legitimate satisfactions for a temporary relief.

And if you think about it, I did that with a drink and a drug so many times that I'm unwilling to feel uncomfortable for a little while. And I will trade this life that I have for a moment of seeming relief. But today, I want to seek the permanent and legitimate satisfactions of right living.

And then it says, "True ambition isn't what we thought it was. See, true ambition didn't what I thought it was. Those things that I was aiming at, how what I was ambitious about.

True ambition isn't what we thought it was. True ambition is the sincere desire to live usefully and walk humbly under the grace of God. Now, I'm never that that is what I begin to see that I'm really looking for in this world.

And it took all the way from step one to the very end of step 12 for me to get even a glimpse of that. And that is what provides me the permanent and legitimate satisfactions to live humbly, live usefully under the grace of God. Thank you guys so much for having me again tonight.

It was great to be back with everyone. Chris, pick it up, buddy. Take us home.

>> Thank you so much, Steve. Thank you. Yeah, you know, in in this chap that was that was terrific.

In this chapter, uh there's a lot of guidance. There's a lot of instructional material in this chapter for working with others. There's on the first visit, the second visit, you know, just speak to them about alcoholism, you know, become, you know, try to convince become convinced that they're they're alcoholic like you.

And then it says tell them exactly what happened to you. Show the spiritual feature freely. Uh and and then it talks about them.

It talks about how you are to describe the changes in you, the spiritual awakening through the steps, the changes. And I think this is such good guidance. Early on in Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, there's a lot of there was a lot of confusion in in my life.

I wanted to help. I I felt like I needed to help people right out of the gate and uh and and what what I looking back on it, what I was doing was I was encouraging people to stay sober. This book is explaining to us that you can you can walk hand in hand with somebody into recovery.

So, I think that's I I think there's a time and a place to help people stay sober. Uh I I love the f fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And you know, I'm I'm I'm no longer the Pentecostal bang in the big book guy.

You know, I carry, don't get me wrong, I try to carry a message of death and weight, but when I'm in an AA meeting, you know, I'm I'm inclusive. I mean, look, it it takes c some people it takes a certain amount of time, maybe a certain amount of pain uh to get them to a point where they're going to engage in a in a a serious recovery process. It, you know, we need to allow them that time.

But but if but if you're going to be asking me to work with you, if if I'm going to have one-on-one time with you, if you're going to ask me to sponsor you, what I'll usually do is I'll sit down and I'll go over a lot of material that's in this chapter. You know, if if if I'm going to ask you to go to any lengths, I want to offer you the dignity of understanding what any lengths is. You know, if you're gonna if you're going to work with me, the you know, the these are the things these are the things that uh that that we're gonna we're gonna do.

and and uh not everybody that asks me to sponsor him uh gets through the 12 steps and and that's that's fine, too. I don't think I don't think I've ever fired anybody. I think what happens what happens is when I continue to encourage certain certain spiritual exercises that are part of our our 12 steps and and someone is binging or someone is you know uh uh not moving forward you know they've they've come to the conclusion that this particular step or this particular exercise is not going to be necessary in their case.

I I I can't be the person convincing them of that. You know, uh uh alcohol sometimes has to be may maybe they don't need to go through the steps. There's a lot of people that shows up show up in Alcoholics Anonymous that still have what we would describe as power.

And and you know, I I mean, I'm one of these all are welcome guys, you know, a singleness of purpose, but but but you know, I I can't read your mind. I you know, I don't know. I'm not going to make a judgment on on your alcoholism, but if I'm but if I'm working it with you, I'm going to continue to encourage these things as far as as far as practicing the principles in in in all all my affairs.

Never did a perfect job with it. And I'm, you know, I'm glad that Alcoholics Anonymous isn't about making us perfect because I don't know about anybody else. I don't even like perfect people.

You know, you ever have a perfect person come over your house and make you look bad? You know, why why aren't you more like Henry next door? He's in law school.

You know, you know, screw Henry. And you know, I you know, so I've never been a big fan of of perfect, but but certainly it it's helped me to become useful. So when I showed up in Alcoholics Anonymous, I was an electrician.

I was like a bad electrician. Yeah. You know, like like I would blow stuff up.

I would electrocute myself on a daily basis. It was just it it was just the wrong career for somebody that shook like crazy, you know, and and and always was hung over. So, so, you know, I get sober and I and I start, you know, I plotted my way into the practice of the principles.

It wasn't like switch switching a light switch, you know. it it slowly dawned on me that this stuff is in my best interest, you know, but over the over the course of time, you know, I became more honest and I became more dependable and and the the things that that people uh that are hiring you and paying you uh are looking for in an employee. And and and uh you know, I I started to get jobs just better.

every job I got was a better job. You know, I went from a really bad electrician to someone who was uh was was running uh a large department in in pharmaceutical manufacturing and research and development sites, you know, always always waiting for them to figure out the enormity of the mistake they made putting me in charge. But but again, kind of intuitively realizing I wouldn't be in that job if I if I couldn't handle it.

But, you know, there's always there's always that self-esteem stuff and and uh um you know, that's remarkable remarkable to to to me. Um I was always the family member that you didn't want around. So, when I first got sober, I remember telling my sponsor, you know, I come from a family, we're not real close, Phil.

We're really not really a close family. you know, we we eat in different rooms, you know, at Thanksgiving and, you know, I tell them all these stories and uh I'm sober. I'm sober a while and and I start to realize that my family goes on vacation with each other, all of them.

They drive around the country, they go to Europe, they just don't bring me, you know, you know what I mean? And uh and so slowly, it takes family sometimes a longer time than it than it than it takes other people, but you know, slowly I I started to become like the go-to guy for problems or help or you know, hey, you know, hey Chris, what do you you know, I've got this challenge, you know, what do you think? And believe me, that that was, you know, not what they were doing in the 80s.

uh so so the the practice of these principles becomes practical in my life to improve my quality of life. It really does. You know, I want I want to end with this.

Um so I'm I'm working I'm working with a sponsor now and I I love him to death. He's, you know, uh ridiculously spiritual and into all kinds of stuff. Had all kinds of teachers.

You know, those are the kind of guys I like. And uh and he gave me three practices. He gave me three very very simple practices.

And when he gave them to me, I thought they were stupid. Like like I normally think, you know, this stuff is stupid until I try it. And I I actually see the the benefit of it.

You pay the money back. That's stupid. But uh you you actually do it and and then now you get it.

You know, you you learn things in hindsight. So he gave me he gave me basically three spiritual practices and they're they're very very simple. You know one of them was Chris every time you're conscious of it tell yourself what you're doing.

Like what do you what do you mean by that? He goes well you know you know just say just say I am walking out to the car. I am getting in the car.

I am driving to the store. Just just just say that. And I'm like all right.

So I start doing it and and the benefit of this particular exercise is it keeps me present. It keeps me in the now like I like what am I doing now? And it's a very very simple thing and it it changed the way I looked at a lot of things.

another exercise he gave me uh because I c I was talking to him about some challenge, you know, like some stupid thing like, you know, uh uh my wife wants me to do all this stuff. I'm, you know, it's I'm real bad at it. Blah blah blah blah.

He goes, "Well, well, Chris, do what I do." And I go, "What's that?" He goes, he goes, "Ask God for help." So, I go, "Give me an example." He goes, "Well, you know, all right. I'm making my bed. God help me make my bed.

you know, he works out on a horse farm, so he's got, you know, uh, God, help me go get water for the horses. Uh, you know, help me go get hay for the horses. Just is is try to be try to be aware and try to try to ask God for help.

And that sounded stupid, but I started to do it. And the benefit of that was it was an exercise in the consciousness of the presence of God. And so so so I'm God conscious more than I used to be.

And then he gave me a third exercise and I love this one. He goes, "Chris, every time you're outside and every time you become conscious of it, look up." I'm like, "Yeah, and and and what else?" He goes, "No, no, no. Just just look up." And so I started doing it.

I started doing it and and where it led me was I became aware that you know I'm a I'm a biological being having a spiritual awakening on this planet you know in the middle of God's creation in the middle of God's playground and it was an exercise in in gratitude just just every time I looked up I was grateful grateful for having this opportunity of a life with all of you, you know, and so so those those are those are three exercises that I play around with. Remember uh the spiritual life is broad, roomy and all-incclusive and we find our own way and we own we own our own spiritual journey and we we own our own uh uh consciousness of the presence of God in relationship with God and uh and you know that's that's all I have. I absolutely loved the Wilson house.

I loved the Zoom. Steve again thank you. Malcolm again thank you.

Thank you everybody for being here today. 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.