Bob B. and Linda B. from Minneapolis, MN answering questions on step 10, 11 and 12 at an AA and Al-Anon workshop titled

Some of us are talking about doing 10.

End of.

Each day 10 written at the end of each day and talk about the big revelations in their lives. How do you approach this?

I'm ashamed to admit it. I don't do a daily inventory in a formal way. I do a daily inventory in a

in a general awareness way.

I I continue to take personal inventory, but I do not at the end of each day do a formal inventory.

That step has been incorporated in my consciousness and I do that throughout the day

rather than as a formal act at the end of a day.

Yeah. And I do it both ways. Sometimes I, you know, review the day and when I don't most I probably half and half I do that way. But I also have sort of what I call that spot check inventory when all of a sudden this little light goes on that goes oops, or, you know,

I call him a <profanity>shit</profanity> disturber.

But when that light goes on, you know, and you know, you've sometimes you don't mean to you just let's say I'm talking to you and I was like, look in your eyes. And I know that what I said didn't get the response I was hoping for. I really try to do that inventory every time that happens. And it it happens a lot when I'm off base. So I think anytime you you take a make a decision to do something like that, you're going to gain from it because you're going to become more aware of what you're doing right and more aware of what you're

going wrong and you're going to benefit.

Did your kids go to all a teen? Did your kids go to Al Anon? Do they go to did they go to Allen Ella teen? No, they did not go to Alatin and they did not go to Alanen. Peter,

his sponsor, he's that middle one that we keep talking about. I'm sorry Pete,

he, his sponsor has suggested that he start going to some Ality Al Anon meetings and he is open to that, but I don't know if he has started going to them.

After a certain period of sobriety, God becomes my junior partner and my ego becomes my senior partner. Can you give me some advice on that? Yeah, stop that.

Yeah, yeah, if you're aware of that,

I that's backwards, you know, I understand that my ego often, I think that's the struggle that all of us have, you know, but if that's a pretty regular event and pretty regular structure, it's good that you notice it. And I think the the first thing about change is telling the truth and identifying it. And that may be the first thing you're doing in that question.

We save something to say that the way I can tell and, and you may already know this, but you know that question about how do you know if you're in charge of your egos in charge? I mean, if God's in charge or if your egos in charge, It's so easy for me because when God's in charge, I feel good and I hear good things.

When my ego is in charge, it's always beating me up. I didn't do it right, I didn't say it right. I don't look good enough. I, you know, blah, blah, blah. And when I feel sort of that nurtured feeling, I know that that comes from God.

Do you believe he was standing here today if you could followed your wife's wishes and stayed home more during the weekends that you went away with a A related stuff and do you regret not following her wishes? Would I be sober guy? I think I'd be sober. I don't think you have to be a speaker in a A to be sober.

I think I was an overactive member of alcohol, a synonymous. I would tell you that I thought I needed to be that I wouldn't want to go back and redo any of it. I

I wasn't running away from my wife. I was running towards doing other things. And some of that was eagle. So when I first got got giving talks, it was my ego. But now with the exception of something like this is pretty ego reinforcing. Giving going to South Dakota to give a talk, you know, is not much fun. You know, I mean, it is not thrilling to me what you're. So most of the things you do

are not thrilling. But I think you need to listen

to the requests that show up for you. Not every request is from God, but I think you need to at least interact with what shows up on your doorstep. And you need balance. Some years ago I made a when I I'll talk about it in my talk tonight, but I limited the number of talks I get asked. Maybe 40 * a year. I do 12 to 14. I made a deal with my wife that I do one a month

and I cheat a little bit, you know, OK, but this year I'm going to do 8, you know, or nine so. But most years I've done 14 because someone, a good friend, will call

and lean on me. I think my life, our life has been better because of what I've done in Alcoholics Anonymous. I will tell you that my brothers are better fathers than I was. I was an absent parent regularly because of my activity in a A.

If my kids were here, I think they'd say on balance it has worked out. They're happy that I got my act together

and and was able to make a living and able to provide and able to be in love with Linda and be OK with them. I think they'd say that's a good deal.

Ditto.

Do you recommend praying, meditating, and doing inventory together with your spouse? Hell no or no.

No, except the praying.

Yeah, when we were in trouble with Daniel,

we prayed and we were a couple of times in our marriage we have prayed together. We just and our prayer was

help us. We don't know what to do, you know?

But we made a commitment to pray every day together for our Son.

And that would be critical of each other.

For his well-being and to for the union that we would be able to be the best parents for him.

We started to fight with each other about.

What to do? And then when Bob would travel, he would call and we would still do it over the phone. But we that was very, I think it's what got us through a very difficult time with our Sundance.

How did you carry the message on your way to this date?

My sponsor was one of the most active members of Alcohol Anonymous in our area. I've been doing 12 step work following him. He would take me on 12 step calls. So I I worked at jails, prisons, gave small talks, 5 minute talks, 10 minute talks. I did a lot of sponsoring. I was active in general service. I was a delegate to the general service conference. I have.

I have been on the boards of different treatment facilities and halfway houses, and I've been on the governor's board for different things.

I just did. I was everywhere stark raving sober and I, I just kind of did what I was asked to do.

I started conferences. You know, I very much identify with the people that I see that are trying to get things going here. And I think it's, you know, really good stuff.

There's so many different ways to do service. And I'll call these anonymous. And I've been blessed because of copying my sponsor with doing most of the different ways of service that you can do.

And I haven't been, I haven't done that much. I've been very much involved in my Home group and sponsoring people and working the steps. And I do a lot of

telephone Alan on, you know, throughout the day.

About 15 years ago, we were at some sort of a convention like this. And this lady came up to me and she was really very angry. And she said to me, your husband is just marvelous. He's just wonderful. He does everything so well and he's such a wonderful speaker. And she dropped her voice and looked at me, and she said, what do you do?

And other than wanting to kill her at that moment, I said, I stayed home and took care of our children. So he could be wonderful, delightful, pleasant, witty, charming, sexy to you.

And to this to this day, she really did me a favor because until I took put those that thought into words, I really didn't know that that was also my contribution. So I do that also. They're a little bit big now.

To take care and my children are happy that she was the one that stayed home.

Can you share your experience on dealing with violations of the traditions and should we take action against it or just focus on the unity of the first tradition?

The The traditions are not laws, they are not rules. They are spiritual principles. If we were to take action when people violated the traditions, we should take action when people violate the steps.

Wouldn't that be fun?

We're sorry, Herb. You bought a new car. You have not finished your amends. You need to return the car

but but because they are spiritual principles, they need to be treasured. One of the things that you

we have a great body of experience in Alcoholics Anonymous in the United States,

you are being handed some of that body of experience at a level, at a higher level that you haven't necessarily developed it yourself. You're, you're, you're kind of

being fed a deal. You may well start to take some things for granted. We see in our area the new people coming in and the two traditions that are most under

under stress are the tradition of anonymity and the tradition of self support. And I will tell you that even though some and they, they are misunderstood and undervalued and part of what's happening today, people think they're old fashioned.

They think that that was good and necessary in 1935 and good, necessary 1950. But you know, what? Are you ashamed of your recovery? We need more people to stand up and say, I'm recovered. Well, without getting into a very long story about that, I promise you with every fiber of my body of my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous, that our tradition of anonymity is one of the bedrocks of our program. And we need to maintain that at the level of press, radio, TV and film. We do not need to. And some of that is spiritual,

just don't need to emphasize the individual. We need to emphasize recovery, the program, the principles and self support. Likewise, you can find maybe isolated events that it won't hurt, but over a period of time, the attitude and the degeneration that will follow from not taking care of ourselves and taking money from outside sources will damage us very seriously. We will not be. It's like your children. It's like, what do you want for your children more than anything else? Do you want your children to be self supporting through their own contributions?

You know, we want that for everybody who we know about. And we sometimes take the easier, softer way in our own fellowship because it doesn't look like there's an immediate problem with it. Well, it may be a short term benefit, but over a period of time, I promise you by violating that tradition, you will put in jeopardy some of the some of the great treasures that we have. So if you would, if you air air on the side of safety, you don't have to be negative. The The traditions are not negative.

What I what I don't like about how we use the traditions and Alcoholics Anonymous is we most often use them in a negative application as a criticism of someone else. If we would use them attractively and emphasize like we do with the steps, we never have an argument about the steps.

I don't, you know, very, I don't know if I've ever heard anybody have a great argument about the stuff. We argue about the traditions all the time because they aren't personal.

We know. So we don't fight about the third step because we know that none of us can do the third step perfectly.

But we argue about the tradition because we don't think it's about us. We think it's about it, and we can have an opinion about it because we aren't in on the line the same way we are with the step. But if we would take those at a more personal level and treat them as principles rather than rules, and treat them positively rather than negatively, they will be more powerful.

Thank you.

Thank you.