Ron H. on steps 6 & 7

I'm H from Albuquerque, NM

Hi everybody. I'm Ron. I'm an addict and let's just plan something right now just in case Roseanne is the name Roseanne. Just in case Roseanne shows up when she gets up and says my name is Roseanne. I'm a fanatic. All of you in one voice thing clearly.

OK. So don't forget, that's your line. All right?

Clearly.

OK.

It is really good to be here. I am really thrilled to be here today, as I'm sure a lot of you are. Can you believe we're actually here at San Jose? We've been talking about it.

Money. Money can't afford it. You know how many world conventions have come and gone and we're here, You know, we're sitting here. Yeah, that's how I'm feeling about this one. I'm really happy to be here

since I now have an hour and a half. I'm going to, I'm going to start out and tell you a few stories about the old days or something. But I've taken, I really am filled with something as I look at this Convention Center. Thank you. I'm looking at, you know, I went and asked him if there's a place where I could go and kind of get centered and get quiet and is there? There's no like designated meditation room or anything.

You know, there should be. What's in there shouldn't be there. Let's go have a big old ass quiet room where you walk in.

But so they, what they did is they brought me into where the, the, the speaker is going to be tonight in the big room. It is just humongous and it's not, and it's not the big meeting, right? So I go in there and I go like takes me 5 minutes to get to the center of the room. I sit down, as you know, to do my little let's get quiet time in there. And I was thinking about this room, and I remember the first world convention that I ever went to was Wichita, KS, in 1980.

And who's there? Somebody there? Yeah. All right.

Nobody was there and I would guess certainly the room. Well, I was going to say the room that we're in right now, the number of people in this room is more than we're at that Saturday night at that convention. I think that's probably true. I would guess maybe 2-3 hundred people were at that convention and you know, some of the main speakers had hitchhiked to get there. I remember that particular fact and you know,

there was a couple of there was a buzz in the air that about two things that that that convention.

One is there are some people from New York there who attend. We want to have the world convention in New York, although we have one little problem. We don't have meetings in New York. And the and the reason that we don't is it's not legal to have any meetings in New York because if dolphins get together, they're consorting, you know, with other known addicts and they haul them to jail. So NA is illegal in New York City. I remember the buzz about that at that convention. And I remember the buzz about one other thing, which was this little

workshop that was going on the following weekend in Lincoln, NE, right up the street,

where they were gonna finally write a basic text for Narcotics Anonymous. And, you know, there was this Little Dream in the air that maybe someday NA would have a basic text of its own. And two things happened after that. One of them

on the, on the first point, a couple years later, I was at a little convention in New York City. That was a huge convention, the biggest convention I had ever seen, because they I guess, had worked through that little problem. And now NA was just booming in New York City and and the feeling in my heart, in the heart of a lot of people who were there

was just it was just overwhelming to go there and say, you know what, we're taking the barriers down. And because at that time, at that time, you know, there's a lot of people who who got clean and, you know, a smaller town where I was maybe possible at any wasn't going to make it. You ever had that feeling about any unusual town where there's a little kind of NA meeting over here where, you know, we can say the F word and talk about dope without anybody glaring at us, you know, and we we can sort of like, you know, relate to each other. It's like the only meeting of its kind and the rest of

all, you know, have that kind of rarely have we seen a person fail, flare about them.

And so, you know, you go to your little NA meeting, you can all relate to each other, but you're not quite so sure that NA is going to survive. And that's the key. That's the key concept here is you're not so sure that any is even going to survive. You know, you belong there. This is my story anyway. I knew I belonged there and I got I got plain in Fargo, ND

in 1978 as when I walked into my first NA meeting in Fargo and I got cleaned in 79.

It's a it's an amazing thing in order to somewhere out in the middle of Podunk nowhere USA to find a little NA meeting in 1979. You know, I mean, and so I'm sitting in this little meeting and you know, dutifully and I was like my first in a meeting. I I I heard somebody let this a true story. The very first in a meeting. The guy who first got up to the to the podium. You know, it was a little podium. He has twelve of us. He was sitting around the table with a podium on one and

and a good for the guy who first got up to to share, he

talking about how he could not for the life of him stop compulsively masturbating. And, and it was like, you know, I've been to all these meetings where they were saying, you know, and I almost lost my job as the chairman of the board, you know, And so now I'm sitting here in this little meeting where, you know, having a little candlelight meeting and these guys,

you know, and

I found a home not for not for any.

I there was a drug thing, the drug thing,

yeah. But anyway, I was real happy to be home when I in that little NA meeting. But for a while I kind of had, I think of it this way. I was kind of crossing the river with one foot in two different canoes. And I don't know if you've ever had that experience. Not very stable. You know, there's like, I'm not so sure here because I didn't know, you know, if NA

was going to be viable.

And in 1982, something happened after that little other thing in, in Lincoln, NE and some of those other places and the World Service Conference passed a basic text for Narcotics Anonymous. And that was a phenomenal, phenomenal event. I remember I got my basic text, my little red, you know, basic text in the mail. And, you know, I, I knew how to get new good stuff and I, you know, cracked it up and

mailed my book and it will smell like a new book, you know, and I read, I read that book cover to cover.

And this feeling in my heart is like holy

NA is going to make it. Na is real, Na is viable. And you know, back at that point, I picked up my foot out of that other canoe and I sat down in this canoe and I picked up a paddle. And I have not stopped paddling in the in that NA canoe. And I, you know, I look around this room and I sit in that big old meeting over there and I say, man, I am so lucky

if I have found Narcotics Anonymous. Now, what did you do to deserve what you got today? What did you do to deserve sitting in this chair?

I screwed over everybody that ever loved me, you know, you know, I just, I ripped and ran and I tried to be honest and real and true and all that, but I, I was just, I was, you know, I was a loser. What did I do to deserve standing here at this podium? You know, I guess what I did is I breathed in and out and I and I learned to trust the loving God because that's where it comes from. You know, that's where this comes from. It's not about deserving. I, I had to come here and

clean and walk through everything I walk through to come to the simple understanding that this is just a gift that's just freely given. And I like the, the theme of today's workshop because it says, you know, it says putting down the baggage or whatever it is, something like that. Get rid of the baggage, right? It's like what? Letting go of the baggage, OK. And because my experience around here in Narcotics Anonymous is very, very little of value that I've gotten since I've been clean has come from picking up something new.

It's almost always about putting something down. It's almost always about putting things down. And then what happens on a, you know, on a dynamic natural level is what is where the value. And then it comes in,

I, I was reading something recently that

that just really struck me. It said, there's this little village and God knows where this little village and God knows where and, and outside of this village, there's a tree

and there's a fence built around this tree. And whenever people come, you know, the parents tell their children, don't go near that tree. That's a poison tree. You need to avoid that tree in the, in the villages built this fence to protect the children from the tree. And, and after some time of of avoiding the tree, one day, sure enough, some little kid goes in there and, and he ends up getting really, really sick.

And so the villagers say we need to go and cut down that tree.

Why are we leaving that tree even there? You know, why don't we just go cut it down? We've already tried to build a fence around it and that wasn't enough. We need to go cut it down. So they all get together and they go to cut down the tree and they're they get there in the medicine man is standing by the training says, no, you don't want to cut down this tree. This is the medicine tree. This is the tree that my generations of my family have been coming to, to get the medicine

to cure and heal

you people for all these generations. You just said no. You just thought of it as the poetry. And, you know, listening to this and I was thinking, that's a lot like what we're doing here, that I don't know how many of you felt like a poison tree, but I live my life like a poison tree. Mother is telling their sons, don't go by him, you know, Don't. He'll make you sick, you know,

And, you know, people wanting to build a little fence around me, you know,

and

in the end, realizing I had to come to Narcotics Anonymous and I had to work the steps and I had to add this to my life in order to get no, no, that's not poison. That's medicine that can be used to make a difference. Some other people can get healed because of what I used to think was my choice, the sickness inside of me. And that's the power of the 12 steps of NA. You know, that's the power of what we're doing here at this convention is we are a bunch of bunch of damn poison trees

busted down a forest that of poison trees is sitting here and learning how to see ourselves as medicine trees. You know, I mean, that whole thing just really came alive from me. That just the just the realization that it's the poison that's also turned into the medicine. And that's the that's what the step, that's the power and the steps. I used to think I was going to go to the steps and get kind of like

somehow, you know, not have all the

not be who I am. In the end. That was in fact my fear of this death. I won't be who I am. I'll change and I'll be something different. And in fact, what happened is I am who I am. I'm more truly who I am now today than I ever have been, character defects and all, you know, and, and I guess I'm, I'm thinking of times early on when I came to the 6th and 7th step, when I said, you know, God, let's take just take an example that probably a few people can relate to. Let's just take less as the character defective

like I was thinking about that for my workshop is 4:00 at the beginning of the convention and I grew up as a nice little Catholic boy who, you know, in the beginning of the Mass. They always said, let us call to mind our sins at the very beginning. I thought that's perfect. We're going to do a 6th and 7th workshop at the beginning of the convention. Let's call to mind our character. Do you think but anyway, if you take, for example, left. I remember my early relationship with the steps. I would think, OK, God,

remove my lust,

you know, or at least aim it right, you know,

so you just get it like pointed in the right direction. That would be all. That'd be enough, you know, And, and then I would go away from that, you know, and I'd do some amends. And I think

it's not gone, you know, it's not gone. I, you know, so, so apparently the steps don't work. Obviously they don't work because I still have this less thing and it and it don't always want to point in the right direction, you know, And so there's something something wrong here, you know, and I have, you know, I, I had all throughout high school, all throughout, you know, growing up, all throughout my addiction, I always had a girlfriend and I always

cheated, you know, and I always kind of saw myself as one who didn't.

But, you know, if you're loaded enough and the situation and you know, there's circumstances and stuff happens and you end up cheating, you know, end up, you know, just acting out and then hurrying up and getting back to the guy who doesn't do that, you know, and it was a low integrity way to live my life. I did not have integrity.

And so when I when I look back right now from where I'm standing, I'm standing here tonight with 19 years clean. I'm married to thank you

and I echo what Chuck said. I understand what we're applauding there and it feels good to applaud that, that it does work. You know, we you keep coming back. It does work. And anyway,

I'm married to a woman who just celebrated 20 years last last month, and she and I met in Narcotics Anonymous. We've been married for

a while. We've been

we've been married for 16 years

and.

Have I during that 16 year period, been liberated from the from lust? No.

Have I during that 16 year period always had that less aiming right squarely at my wife? No.

Have I cheated on that woman? No,

so you know, and I might have said yes if we're talking about that's why I picked that character defect, by the way, because that because I can say no to that. And the reason I the reason I can say no to that

is not because, you know what I thought I was praying to have removed is now gone, but that's a character. The underlying character problem is shifted for me and I can be a man of my word today. I have that choice today. Now, when I powerless over my addiction and I'm feeding my addiction, I'm living in this drained, disempowered state. I don't have that kind of choice. I, I can think, I do, you know, I can try to and I can, but I what bottom line is I never lived at and when I got

Narcotics Anonymous and learn how to live clean and learn how to work steps, I did find some integrity in life that to me, the word character in that step defects of character. That's a powerful word. I almost didn't notice that word for a long time.

It's something about the way that we're the way that what we're made of. Can we, can a dolphin, can an addict actually learn to live with integrity? You know? Well, it's not that an overnight process. It's not a, you know, instantaneous transformation. But I say the answer is yes,

a dopamine can come to Narcotics Anonymous and learn how to live with integrity.

And that to me is a profound and powerful reality of our lives And, and that, and that doesn't mean that everything's pretty, doesn't mean I come here and just say everything's wonderful and I'm now Mr. you know, good boy and all that. But I can learn here how to live with integrity, and I can do it by learning to have a relationship with the power greater than myself. In order to for me to put the

6th and 7th step in context, let me say something about the steps that come before them. First of all, somebody wants to

a long time ago. This is something that that I never forgot, he said. I came to Narcotics Anonymous and I listened to people talk about this stuff. And he said something became real clear that in terms of my relationship with God, he said one of us is powerless and one of us is all powerful. And now the trick in the steps is figuring out which one is which.

Getting clear, remembering at all times. Poosu at that zoo, you know, 'cause I, I frequently forget

which one I am in that picture.

And

when I look at the first step, we admitted we're powerless over our addiction. That's the phrasing of that step. By the way, much has been said and much will continue to be said about about that.

I say

the fact that that you and I use different drugs. How many different drugs do you suppose are represented in this room right now?

How many different kind of like cultural pockets around using drugs do you think there are in this room? You know, in terms of like we're talking about our diversity is our strength, different ways of using different manners of delivering that drug to the system,

different, you know, this college boys in here who

who were using drugs and college girls, whatever, who were using drugs and were failing in that, you know, and that's what got them to a bottom. There are people here who, you know, were never who were born in poverty and and lived there forever. And there are people who were born to wealth and and didn't never experience poverty. That is those kinds of things are not what we have in common, but we do have in common the disease of addiction. So what if it said we admitted we are powerless over,

you know, pick a drug,

pick a group of drugs, pick a delivery method. You know, it doesn't say that. It says we admitted we're powerless over our addiction. That to me is a very powerful principle I weaken that I can base my recovery on and you and I can base our unity on. And, you know, the first step for me,

my own admission that I'm powerless over the disease of addiction. And, you know, do I have a drug problem? I certainly had a drug problem just before I came into Narcotics Anonymous. And I certainly came to Narcotics Anonymous not because I, I didn't come to NASA.

You know, I have these underlying feelings of disconnect with humanity, you know, and I need to find a program that will awaken my spirit and can magically connect me to the universe. Those thoughts were not in my mind. You know,

I got to figure out how to quit putting drugs in my system one day at a time so that I can learn how to be free from this monster. I mean, I, I, I did not come gently to Narcotics Anonymous. I fought and fought and fought and I wasn't always fighting other people. I was fighting my disease. I did. I I got to the point where I don't want to be an addict anymore, Mr. Wizard, you know?

I, I don't want to be like this anymore. And, and I just couldn't switch that off.

And so it was really, really in a kind of an amazing thing for me to come and sit in a meeting, a Narcotics Anonymous and listen to people share about the same kind of relationship with their drug as I had with mine. In fact, just, you know, last week I was sitting at a meeting and I was listening to a guy, Sherry fairly fairly new and he had some, what he said is he said the insanity for me was my using is that there's only like, you know,

30 seconds

where that drug just really, really, really feels good. You know, there's only like 30 seconds where it hits me and I go, oh, you know, and I got it. That's the most, that's that moment, you know, And then after that, then I'm chasing it, you know, I'm trying to get back there. I'm dumping things on top of it. I'm burying myself underneath it and I can't get back to that point.

And boy, that brought me back. That brought me back 20 years, 25 years. You know, this thinking that was exactly what it was like for me, the insanity of addiction. And and you know, the second step doesn't say we, we came to believe that we could stop using

good because that's really kind of what it is in a way, but it doesn't. It says we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to fantasy. You know, the points right here, it points right where the the problem lies and it points right to the thing I was treated

before with drugs. You know, I've heard a lot of people in NSA foreign addicts who comes to NA, the drugs are not the problem. The drugs are the solution, but they're a solution which sort of creates a problem. You know, there, there's a little circularity to this solution. It kind of gets back around and creates a problem and everything kind of erodes from there. But

really, you know, here's I this, you know, I'm just Paris. Everybody else, like most of us do, and we get up here. Some guys said if drugs have a problem, then I got good news for you. Especially those of you who might be new, who are thinking, I really don't want to be here. Why am I? I don't know. This sucks.

Got great news for you. If drugs are your problem, then you don't need all this because the solution is real simple. Don't use drugs, right? So the drugs are the problem. You don't use drugs, you just remove the problem and now you just go on about your married business. You might need a little medical intervention or something because some drugs are harder to kick than others, but then they're gone, right? You walk on a detox, a new person free. Glad I learned that lesson.

If if drugs are the problem, detoxes turn out winners,

growth of the problem, you know toilet seats are the tools of recovery.

But the steps tell me something else. The steps tell me that my addiction is the problem and drugs

are they like former solutions to this disconnect that I feel that this,

you know, whatever it is that that you guys, you guys know intuitively and I don't have to describe for you. And, and I know intuitively this, this malaise, this sickness, this what's what's wrong with me? What's going on here? And the sense of the sense that I felt anyway of being disconnected to, to humanity. Somehow I just didn't get to go. Whatever both you guys were on, I didn't get to go

and Narcotics Anonymous come, you know, floating by at some point in my life and all these hands are saying, come on, you know, and, and, and I got in the boat, you know, and that that, and I can't tell you that I got in here and said, guess what? I'm in NA now and I feel totally connected to humanity now. Thank you. You know, I came in this part of the meeting that we're in right now. That was the easy part, right? You're all, we're all sitting there and paying attention to someone else. Or maybe when it's our turn, we'll say our little piece and then we can

that part of it's fairly easy. But what about that part when it's all over and you're brand new and now everybody's going to want to hug you and stuff? It's like, for me, it was like somebody inside me knew that I needed all of that kind of stuff, but man, was that painful. Oh, man, it was, you know, I just, we're going to have all our little smallpox now, you know, And then if we're lucky, we're going to go out to Denny's, Right.

Well, what if, you know, I don't know what I would ever do if I got plain. Well, you know, we go to Danny,

we drink coffee, you know, like, sign me up for that.

And it's hard to see from a certain vantage point and it's hard to see just how powerful this thing is. And what's going on here is a little bit hard to see. I'm just so glad that I kept coming back because all those little things are so simple and so true. Just keep coming back And this restoration to sanity in the second step starts to happen. And I start to see it starts to see what NA is and it starts to come home to my to me, to my heart. And it's not up in the head.

I just kept coming back and you know,

the

the third step talks about a decision, doesn't it? If you say what's the what's the kind of core action in the third step, somebody might say turn our will and life over to God, right, But that isn't the core action in the third step. The core action is we made a decision to that's the third step. And then the steps that go beyond it are what it would help us actually get there. We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over. The care of God is going to say, OK, let me see if I show of hands how many people

in this room right now are not from the United States. All right, we got them. Yeah.

Just by way of interest, is there anyone here from England?

From England? I heard that, yeah.

Somebody who? Somebody who doesn't like being the center of attention from England.

Well, some time ago, a long time ago, there was a war between our country and their country. And now trust me on this. I'm going to bring this right back to MA here in a minute. It's not time ago there was a war between our two countries and we and, and we sort of achieved some independence or so the story goes. And now we are a country of our own. OK, here's a little history quiz for you all. Now

Are you ready? I want you to tell me what year we won the Revolutionary War and achieved our independence from Great Britain. What year?

OK, somebody now see, there's two kinds of addicts. There's two kinds of addicts. The kinds that go to school and just want to be the good student and if he doesn't know it all, get it all right. And then there's the other that just say, so this is cool. Screw you.

I don't need that shit right.

So I heard I I heard that the room divide and I heard from both of you just now. Some of you said 1776 and those are the screw you people.

I don't need that kind of because you know what year it was 17891789. So then why what's this thing about July 4th, 1776? Why do we celebrate like this big like independence on July 4th, but that it was 1789 that we won that war. Now I'm going to take it back to the steps. OK,

We declared it so that day and then we had some shit to handle.

We said I am free. I am free right now. And 13 years later after like Valley Forge and all the stores are with it, it happened. It was real. We made it happen. I to me, there's energy like that. In the third step, I made a decision to turn my will and my life over the care of God as I understand God. I my life is in the care of God as I understand God

and now I got some shit to handle.

Thus we have a fourth step

and what is that? What is that stuff we've got to handle? You know, we and and to me, the power in the third step in this decision is not that we're there now, you know, when I did my third step, I wasn't like not basking on some beach of, you know, spiritual recovery. I was like still squirrely as hell, you know, trying to hope that maybe there was something real about all this, but I declared it. So I made I made a decision to turn my will and my life over the care of God as I understand God. And then, you know, the workshop

came before me, they were talking about the 4th and 5th step, which there's many, many good things said there about getting, you know, getting honest with myself and facing, facing it. And then we get to the 6th and 7th step. What's what we're here to talk about. And since I'm in a kind of a teacher mode now, let's, let's go to the English class now, just for a second. Have you ever noticed this? Have you ever noticed that the verb in the sixth step is not an action verb, and it's the only step

not have an action? Bourbon.

We were entirely ready to. It's a verb of being right. We were. We were ready. It does not describe an action. Every other step has an action verb in it.

What's that worth? I don't know,

but I'll tell you what I

it's not. It's not white as powerful as the declaration thing, but it'll do

no. To me, the significance of that is that the 6th, that kind of says we were entirely ready to

have God remove all these defective character. There's the action. Who's doing the action in the sixth step? God is or or we were entirely ready to have God do that. So for me, first of all, if we were

the who's going to be in the World Series this year? I don't pay attention to baseball. The cops, the Braves, the Yankees. OK, if we were on our way to the World Series and we were, now let's say that we were in the World Series, we were a baseball team and we were entirely ready.

And you're playing game one. What does that mean? It means that we've done some things, You know, we've taken some action up to this point. We have gotten entirely ready. So it's a kind of a statement of where we're standing right now. The six step to me is a statement of the ground I'm standing on. I'm standing on this ground. I am entirely ready to have God removed all these defects of character.

That is awesome. You know that is daunting when you think. At least for me it was.

It was daunting. I stood on that ground and said,

God, please don't make me weird. You know,

I'm bad enough. You know, it's like, I don't want to go like hand out pamphlets and be like,

but bottom line is I am ready to have God remove all these defects of character, which means I'm going to change when I, when God, when I humbly ask God to remove these defects of character, I better be ready for some change.

And I don't necessarily get to be the engineer of that change. And that's OK. You know, that's the power in the 6th and 7th step. To me, it's about standing in this posture of surrender. Now learning how to stand in a posture of surrender. It's one thing to surrender and not to be like up against the wall and be, you know, at the end. And you know, I give up, I give up, I give up finally. That's one thing, the act of surrender. But the 6th and 7th step, it seems to me,

say something about standing in a posture of ongoing surrender, and that's all. That's a higher bar for me

because I could surrender when I was using, you know, you get to give me to a certain point and I could, you know, give up and go work, try something else, you know, But to actually get to that point where I'm where the ideal that I'm coming from is to stand here in this surrendered way. That to me is what the 6th step describes. And then the 7th step, the 7th step for me is like, it's this. It's like this sacred kind of holy, personal, private place.

Well, the thing that I do when I'm standing on that spot,

when I first heard the six and seven, I heard, heard the 12th steps. I want to, you know, early meeting to listen to, you know, reading the 12 test night. And I remember this. This is true. This is not just a, a, a cute story you make up later. I remember looking at the 6th step and going, I don't get that one. You know, we were entirely ready to and then we did, you know, it's like they just wanted 12, so they threw one more.

They, they like that number 12, you know, 12 tribes of Israel and like 12 apostles and, you know,

so we're going to have 12. So we say. And you see it in other steps too, like the third step. We made a decision, you know, we came to believe we made a decision. We, you know, that we made a list, we made the amends. Yeah, OK, that's handy. You know, now we get to have 12. So I, I looked at the, I looked at the 6th step and I really said basically an empty step. It's just the thing you say before you do it. I so, so clearly disagree with my earlier perception on that. Now

that's six step is so powerful and it comes right on the right on the heels of the 5th step where I finally for once got on it all the way down to my toes. You know, a Pepe used to say some of you know, or heard tapes are new or you know, Pepe was one of our old timers here. Who, who has he been alive right now would have been here tonight and big in the hearts of a lot of a lot of people here. He was a terrific member of NA who had been around since the late 50s and was just a just

guy. He used to say to hell The Tempest thing.

Actually, I built up my Pepe thing to the point now where I can't remember what it was. Now I remember, I remember it was about honesty, He said. There's an old adage that's as old as the hills. The truth shall set you free. And this is an adage that addicts did not have a good relationship with.

And a lot of us come here and totally, totally not free,

you know, and with the warped idea of what free is, free is I get to do whatever the hell I want to say, whatever the hell I want, whenever the hell I want it. Screw all of you that's free. And coming here and learning this thing about surrender and character and, you know, commitment and some of the things that we learn around here. He says the steps are an exercise in telling the truth. You tell the truth right off the bat. First step, we admitted we were powerless over

that. Our lives have become unmanageable, you know, and there's several points in the steps. 4th and 5th step, humongous exercise in telling the truth,

telling it to myself and then telling it to you. And you know, the 10th step is another one of those I'm just going to learn to tell the truth. The test step, however, just as a slight aside, it's just a little bit wrong. You know, we, we can improve on it just a little bit. And here's how if it was really for addicts, instead of saying, you know, we continue to take personal inventory when we were on promptly admitted, it would say we continue to take personal inventory.

And when we were wrong

and sufficient time had passed

such that

such that we didn't have to eat so much shit, we pleaded guilty to a lesser of Isn't that the attic?

But anyway, it doesn't say that. And I guess we'll have to live with the one we got, you know, and it's about telling the truth and it's about telling the truth promptly. You know, I, I've learned in my own life, this little promptly clause in the 10th step is one of the more powerful things that that the steps offer. You know, you could say that about a lot of things, but that's certainly one of them.

And and the reason for that is like, let's say my wife and I are going at it. We're going at it. You know, I'm right, I know I'm right. And she knows she's right, you know? And so we're so goddamn right. We're about ready to get a divorce, you know,

And there's a little voice in the back of my head saying, you know, Ron, every time you're this God damn right,

you're probably wrong.

And it's probably time to stand right here right now and tell her, you know what, I'm being an asshole. I'm sorry. You know, it's probably time to do that right now. When that little voice whispers back there someplace, the 10th step says promptly, you know, and that step is very powerful. I, I would like to say that I just sort of heroically rose to that. But you know what? My wife heroically rose to that a lot more than I did. And she taught me how to do that. And I learned from her that, you know what, we can, we can drain the juice right out of this foil,

you know, just conflict.

True though, isn't the icky metaphor, but it's real.

But we were talking only moments ago about the 6th and 7th day.

I don't know,

I think I'm going to to wrap this up even though that's going to put us in a in a position where we're I guess done with the workshop unless there's a volunteer to come up and take the other the other shop. But

what I, what I would like, I just want to close this up with a, with a thought on the 6th and 7th step that

the does anybody ever hitchhike?

I used to do a fair amount of hitchhiking in my day. And you know, part of this is about being a I was not an addict from an urban culture. I was an addict from a rural culture. I was an addict from a small town in a, in an area, a small town. I grew up in northern Minnesota, you know,

and, and so I did a fair amount of hitchhiking. And so this, this metaphor really makes some sense to me if

my relationship with God, I'm standing by the side of the road hitchhiking, right? I've got this pack on my back and I'm it's heavy and it's burning its hole in my shoulders and I'm tired and cars are going by and they're going by and they're going by and all of a sudden this old man comes by in a pick up, got his big old hound dog sitting on the seat. You know, he pulls over and he says to me, hop in the back because, you know, the hound dog has got this.

Stuff and he's going back. So I go. I go in the back of the pickup and I'm standing there with my backpack on my back.

Now the wind is blowing and I'm, you know, the guy takes off and I, I'm standing there. I think I can do this. And my backpack is burning its holes in my shoulders and I'm tired and this old man is in the pickup. He's looking back at me and he's going, this guys an idiot, you know, I'm giving him a ride here and he's standing there with his backpack. It looks like he's about ready to die. So he pulls over the side of the road and he says, what's going on with you? He says, why don't you just take that pack off your back and sit down

and I say, Oh no Sir, you've been good enough to give me a ride.

I wouldn't expect you to carry my burden for me. Also,

like, is there a little fly in this logic? How many of us have approached the program that way? I'm going to come here and I'm going to get clean and I'm going to hang around, but I am not going to put down my burden. You know, I am not going to put this shit down. And the 6th, you know what the 6th and 7th test says? It says you can get in that back of that pick up and you can take the pack off your back and set it down.