Steps 10 through 12 at the Road to Recovery convention

I'll have to look over

do you do a a a written inventory when you review your day

now

a lot of people do but people do I don't I don't I do inventory so I do a regular inventory pretty regularly every couple years

and just go through it all see what's how it's changed actually have an inventory that day when I was ten years over there were five hundred nineteen resentments on

more does get revealed

and are more

and I look at it ten years later and the other three possibles at the five hundred eighteen all gone

the path the path the path no I don't a lot of people do a lot of people sponsors highly recommend it I'm all for it I don't do it

how long do you think a person should be sober before taking a newcomer through the steps

I'm

how long does it take you to finish doing all twelve staffs

none of the steps revenue coming

you've got some says you can't give it away and is your own houses in order you do the twelve steps you have the information given away immediately

that day I go to a meeting finally did they do that here and everybody their first thirty days of the newcomers raise their hands they do that you have to take go get em

well I've make the offer presenters are that's what we did we just go get him the new people good

very good

practice these principles in all our affairs how is that possible without going to other twelve step programs working on the rest of our obsessions

I'm interested

question I think

my thought on that is that I mean in a for a while there there wasn't there was a an abundance of twelve step programs there were many many twelve step programs A. A. C. A. cooking animists overeaters anonymous mental health anonymous and on and on lots of programs and I and I saw this curious things start to happen where people would be in a and they would never work the steps so and they would they would go to another program that I think I need to go to adult children of alcoholics now we go to adult children of alcoholics and not really what the steps and then they would go and what I noticed was that people were taking geographic's within the twelve step community and by geographic I mean it's not going well here I'll go over there and it'll be better over there so we moved from California to Maine and Minnesota or Minnesota Reykjavik Reykjavik to New York I think he's gonna get better and and every time I go there there I am and it just doesn't go well there either

that I think if you engage in a twelve step process you engage in a twelve step process I think it Karin alluded to that very well earlier that he says it's not about my alcoholism maybe it's about my selfishness or maybe it's about my sexual conduct now can you go to S. elan addresses specifically there because of the fellowship is available there absolutely I know people that go to different programs for very good reasons they go because they find the fellowship with the steps with their they find the individual who's recovered from sexual addiction or over eating or gambling or debtors anonymous or whatever and they found that I would suggest if you be alcoholic

this stays home

right we go there we gather community and that we come back here we go there we get information we come back here if you want to do that I would respectfully suggest you do that in addition to this not instead up because it would be a terrible things around all the leader go to debtors anonymous and celebrate becoming debt free by getting drunk

in a program of Arsene action where does the phrase fake it till you make it apply

everywhere

the parties everywhere it is a program of arsenic and fake it to make it to me means

going to meetings when I don't want to go to meetings just kind of I'm not faking it with you as much as I'm kind of thinking myself out going to meetings and I don't want to go to meetings and and adopting watching your head changement let's say I'm the kind of person that constantly complains about things that I believe are legitimate complaints but I wake up complaining to myself looking at the negative looking at the negative and my sponsor comes up to me says you communicate such negativity you embrace your negativity with such energy how about the next time I see you you tell me your fine and try to wrap your head around that say fine

and try to wrap your head around that well that would be dishonest yeah yes we all know it's not true so it's not like we're trying to fool anybody here all right let's just start moving in that direction and see what happens all right fine fine one day you may say it may actually mean it but if you're always saying terrible terrible awful your how you gonna get a guy you can get the fine are you gonna get a guarantee that our cost cuts off

prices are like to sort of hated cops awful sorry it's fine I'm fine just start moving knowing we're not fooling anyone we're not trying to convince anybody refined so that we can get something from them we're trying to change south trying to change my attitude my my perception of things

can be that one application

please describe what spirituality is to you in as few words as possible

trying to rein me and are you

it can't be done

all right

taking daily action that moves me in the direction of god

I heard somebody else say that's on

I find it hard to start a routine of meditation prayer every day can you help yes

gauging routine of meditation every day

I mean I'm not being facetious that is ultimately the answer is that you don't have to like it you don't have to think it's a good idea just do it I mean it is amazing how how much we get in our own ways you know we've we've built this disbelief for me that if I don't like it there's something wrong if I don't feel like doing it it's a bad thing

and that's it's it's just the beast whispering in my ear is all that is like a meditation god this is gonna be awful again with the perception of things it's gonna be terrible is terrible in its system recovery talking ten minutes peace and less

endless ten minutes of time sitting still I'll complain about twenty thirty minutes

you know and it's it's the action is it's like Donald Madden said you don't have to like it you don't have to think it's a good idea you just do it yes we know you don't want to sit still we know that that's difficult you know the thought of quieting the mind is a horrifying thought

we know that in and just go ahead you're gonna be okay you're gonna be okay and you just do it you just write it in your book you know to me I said I'm scheduling my day for tomorrow I put down you know six thirty six forty meditate

meditate just do it and it becomes so much less effort than resisting doing it ultimately it is the easier softer way it's about kind of clinging to those little statements that make it possible to just go roll out of bed plop down on the floor open yourself up it might happen

and this is the same question establishments are shipped when you take them into the steps

how do you do your step your ten step on a daily basis and how about eleven and twelve he said I don't do a written transepidermal day I see where I've rows of things that I don't want to arouse and others I clean it up clean it up and move on eleven and twelve eleven I see god in a daily basis through the prayer and meditation as I do that on a daily basis and twelve step twelve that stuff in service to others as a result of the process and I do that on a daily basis I sponsor a lot of guys I have other people call me from the programs up and I'm on the phone every day on the phone or in the presence of other members are calling on us every single that that's one of the great things about living in southern California is that there are so many recovering people that you have access to so much interaction all the time so out of cell phone service daily is really as easy in Los Angeles is that is anywhere to just be in the loop

do you believe in being specific on prayer yes how about when you think about the exact

nature of your wrongs when I've got to move all my defects of character I don't think that I have to be was specifically guy because of course he's got

he knows he knows and I get specific you know

there's a chance I'm leaving stuff out it's just my defects of character all of them

take them as you see fit all of them prefer knowledge of wills god's will for me and the power to carry that out I will not mind be done every time before I get to speak that's my mantra on my mind I will not mind I will not mind I will not mine because I'm self centered I'm afraid to let you know and I get a lot of other stuff going on it's got no business being involved in the process I try to get it off me that I can be the window that ducks

the list

everywhere

you can service be everywhere in life or only in a service is everywhere in life

I am I am a member in good standing of Alcoholics Anonymous I'm also a member of the community I you know I I have friends and family and to better you know and to exclude them would be selling

I going to places of business and engage with other human beings I try to bring the balance in the grace of Alcoholics Anonymous with me the best of my ability when I'm standing in line to check out the check out counter the market and I mean the wrote the line that says ten items or less the lady in front of he's got fifteen in is about and gets there is about to take out a checkbook and write a check

I've learned that it's again perception here I don't have to stand in line to get to

I should be dead a long long time ago certainly in prison if nine jacket and a gray and I'm standing in a market getting upset because the woman got seven items to many in the basket from me please

this is not a problem how much time you spend on meditation how to meditate was a difference in meditation prayer

ten minutes in the morning usually ten fifteen sometimes I meditate in the afternoon not regularly in the evening before I got a bad I haven't I I was at me still for

a few minutes it comes real quick now I mean you do it regularly it

it's just it's gotta do what you gotta do it how do I meditate I sit quietly palms up eyes almost closed my lips slightly apart and read into the nose gently and out through the mouth gently so you almost can't feel it and I have a mantra that I use that is mine get your own

and and I leave that and come back with me that come back to the top of the division for meditation pair I seek god's will in my life I meditate to hear the answers come so the answers can come to me that's no one is out there framing up the others receiving

that makes sense

is there a difference between denial and deception

yes

I am in the Nile can I attempt to deceive you

that was good

have you ever felt like there wasn't enough twelve step left for you now

now there's no such thing

there's not there is absolutely no such thing how deep you want to go you get there it'll be there you wanna go deeper you get there it'll be there it'll be there is there is no hope I ran out

there is and it's it's that's the great nature of it that's a ten step at that one I can't read that

keep that one

is this the one that

and it was fascinating

they were severing on the tents that has turned out to be done I did that although I pray work the steps and moving to forgive myself and my children have forgiven me wholeheartedly and my life today is successful in every way I am filled with pain and self discuss what am I missing here what to do to get rid of the pain

I'm

I have two answers to that one that whoever wrote this I will tell you privately

all right the other answer that I have for that in terms of discussion in a general way in this format I would say that it seems to me that great things have occurred in your life there is a healing that is taking place that healing is taking place within you it's take your forgiving yourself your children have given you whole heartedly there's been healing in your children your family has begun to heal in a very very significant way in your life is successful in every way except that you're filled with pain self discussed I would suggest if you're Philippines I've discussed that you have not forgiven yourself completely that you do regret the past somehow and do wish to shut the door upon it that there is the judgment of self in a very very harsh Mander present in in this

and I think that the healing for a lot of us is a slow one is a very very slow and I as an example I'll I'll I wouldn't dare delve any further into that in a public setting but I will give you this about my I will share this with you about me I was have been so I've been sober twenty two years ten months and seven thirteen days seven days twenty years ten months and seven days and well into that link the sobriety I woke up one morning and experienced profound emotional pain I woke up with a deep cut opened up inside me and it had to do with the death of my little sister in a series of circumstances that I'll talk about tonight and I felt I was in no way responsible for her death had nothing to do with it but I had been her Big Brother and I saw myself as a projector and I saw myself as her guardian it was my job to keep her safe the job no one else gave me but I gave myself we are fifteen months apart I love you like a life

and she died and I watched her die and I knew that I had done nothing my job and I was very very injured in that experience as well and I suffer from a thing they called survivor's guilt and when you suffer from survivor's guilt there's no forgiveness for you you you don't have a problem you are the problem at the very fact that I was alive a shameful to me that I was alive a shameful to me I felt that I had no right to joy I had no right to happiness I had no right to experience the wonderful things that can happen in life and I carry that pain in that belief well into sobriety with me and I keeled slowly over time in sobriety and not that long ago I will I woke up one morning in this pain and I got to the podium expressed that from the podium and I shared that not the specific necessarily that that I was in a great deal of pain and I was suffering and I was going in that that was my problem and my solution to this was going to have to be the the actions that I take in a the fellowship and brotherhood that I have found here and if in a power greater than myself it would heal this and I took the actions and I healed and as a result of that there's been tremendous creativity that's been coming into my life and opportunities to express the creativity that I've always felt and wanted to express but never have I've and I was very involved using clean I was involved in writing I was involved in in a lot of other things much earlier in my life and I shut them down friends of mine there is no need for for fifteen sixteen years had no idea that I had ever been ever in in any way involved in any kind of artistic endeavor because I had taken that away from myself as my penance and what I found is is that if you stay here the truth your truth will calm your truth will come your healing will come if you chop the wouldn't carry the water of Alcoholics Anonymous if you just drop the wouldn't carry the water the human will come when it is time for him to come and I once again have been set just a little bit more free as a result of being here I never but if the wound would not have opened had it not been for this

no one would not have begun to heal had it not been for this right and

now this stuff is happening in my life in this is the healing in a in a

the guy that I I don't have words for that I don't have words for so when you say that you have discussed yourself I understand I've had no right to be alive in my own mind yet I was and I felt that that redemption was something that wasn't available to me and now I believe that redemption is available to all of us and it is a question of how we embrace this path this is not just about not drinking and using this is about becoming whole human beings that experience some semblance of balance that they can bring into the world to find that balance we will deal with the broken heart broken dream the broken arm the dark lost and lonely soul and we feel here this is a magnificent experience we are the dark ones we know the darkness we all know the darkness some of it still carried a bit with this no matter how long you've been sober I'm one of those but we also begin to know the light and the balance comes to us we begin to heal I believe that we have are the people that have been to great depths of pain and suffering we've been in the madness and we're extreme in that sense we come back and we leave the app the abnormal life becomes the normal one for us we get sober and the normal life feels abnormal it's an uncomfortable unsettling place is place of normalcy this balance it's a difficult thing to adjust to I think on the other end of the spectrum for us is that we are given because of who we are and what we must do not to die we are given an opportunity to lead exceptional lives and I mean exceptional lives exceptionally I mean I know that you're here in this place doing the things that you do and having your A. A. meetings and it's just building this one more meeting in just building this one more meeting and getting the yellow house meetings from three weeks to a week to seven week and getting the a lot of love going and doing that and it's the it seems like little things doing that those of us that have been a a for twenty plus years of whatever we come over from America we look at this and we see what what it is really what you do because we have an outside perspective we see that that this little work that you look at the what you that you see is this little work that you do or this little room with

of of a few hundred people what this does is it changes the world

is what it does is change the world what you do what you're doing here changes the world it will change the world how could it not

Dylan barber two sixty eight sixty eight years ago that's it sixty eight years ago look look there were so few of you chose such a short time ago look and I talked to when I walk out and you don't come up to me and say that I was cuter that was funny you come up you say when you discuss the M. step you mean you go right you go right into the heart and soul of it you all y'all coming at me with books your books

pans and flipping the pages in these books are not over one woman came as books in tatters it was just in tatters and she looked at me she said don't go on the phone with your book

when I am in but the point is the woman's in the sauna with a book

it's astonishing what you're doing here this is not a little thing this is exceptional live exceptional lives creating a world in an environment within which our kind can come and find a program of hope

can find hope what greater thing to give to an alcoholic a hopeless variety then hope you know what there was a fight in that restaurant last night and I gotta tell you it's not shut up it was I mean we walked in we sit down the home it's on every guy in our group was on his feet and in right in it we were just in it right because we've all been a been there and we just pull these guys out and tori dot the bloody one over here and these guys got that one over there and we were just but I I was struck by in looking at it again last night we were all quiet they were all shouting and yelling and we were quite we were just there stopping the violence among peace man peace peace peace

right and then we all sat down and not one person at our table set you believe the behavior of those

nobody said that everybody just looked around the room and said you okay okay okay okay concerned about each other concerned about each other you can't get your home phone you know yeah and my heart and even with my blood pressure go up at all it was just fine not fine okay good why am I gonna have lamb

and we were fine no judgment nine because that was us

we're in no position to judge and everybody there knew that had changed we changed as humans and there was no discussion of judgment was just what it was and it was okay and you know

it's a remarkable thing that's going on here in Iceland today independent of us you know check the Americans

independent of us you do this you create this environment you change the world and it's magnificent

it's absolutely magnificent I have nothing I have such respect for you thank you