The chapter "Bill's Story" of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous at the CPH12 v1 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark

Welcome back. I'm Peter. I'm an alcoholic. We're gonna move over to, Bill's story. Bill's story, he'll talk about his discovering liquor and how quickly he goes into the progression of alcoholism and where it takes him to.

You'll also hear about how a gentleman by the name of Ebby shows up at Bill's house, you'll write about that, and sits with Bill while Bill is drinking and passes this message on. Which I think is really indeed miraculous because contrary to what you may hear in Alcoholics Anonymous is, or contrary to this book, what your LianAA often is, don't talk to a drunk while they're drinking. And we can't be around someone after drinking. Eby went all alone. Eby didn't do they strongly suggest you do a 12 step call with 2 people.

Eby went all alone and paid a visit on his friend Bill, and sat down at a table while Bill had a bottle out, and even passed it across to Eby. Ebby was wide awake, spiritually fit and he did things that we normally can't do. Spiritually blocked, he would have been getting drunk with Bill. But he sat with Bill in a very matter of fact way he talked about God to him, talked about what he was up against and let Bill deal with it. He planted the seed.

He sat with Bill while Bill was drinking and walked away without a scratch. That's the power of God. That's what happens in Bill's story shortly after when Bill has this spiritual experience in town's hospital and we're here this weekend. At the beginning of Bill's story, He says, I'm gonna go down 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 sentences. You with me?

Okay. And he says, I discovered liquor. Earlier tonight, I talked about my first drunk. I discovered liquor called 45 beer, and it did for me what I can never do for myself. And what was planted along with that good feeling in my mind was I can go there again when I need to to get to that place again.

And what does Bill say? Go down 3 sentences, it says, I was very lonely and again turned to alcohol. Bill had a solution for his bedevilments, it was called alcohol. On the first page we see Bill discovering liquor and going back to it when things weren't right. That's something on that that just in that paragraph that always sat with me because I totally identified with it.

Page 2, Bill's story. Bill gets a job on Wall Street as a stock speculator, and Bill would go about and and and, later on look look for companies that he thought were good in investing. But he, he's talking about, early on, he said, 3rd sentence, second sentence down, he says, the drive for success was on. I proved to the world I was important. I heard someone say that with people who have to treat it extra special in order just to feel normal.

And when we're untreated, I could totally identify with that. It says that he said, I proved to the world I was important. My work took me about Wall Street, and little by little I became interested in the market. Many people lost money, some became very rich, why not I? One of the first consequences Bill talks about, he says, I studied economics and business as well as law.

Potential alcohol that I was I nearly failed my law course. I wanted the finals. I was too drunk to think or write. Though, wife. So now, not only is it affecting his school, but it's also affecting his wife.

He doesn't think there's a problem. She knows there's a problem. With Bill's story, the way it was shared with me to, and I was given some specific instructions. K. To take page 1 of Bill's story and go all the way to about the middle of page 9.

And that I should highlight 3 separate things. See in those first part of those story, which is pages through 1 through 9, it's basically Bill's drunk log. Okay? What I was like, what you were like. Okay?

The things that I was asked to highlight was to relate to Bill. Did I think like Bill? Did I feel like Bill? Did I drink like Bill? So those were, like, 3 very important things for me to stay focused in this process and do what I had to do.

And I was concerned when I went through it the first time because I I didn't have much room. I was highlighting a heck of a lot, But I didn't know what I was doing. I was just following directions. And then I called up my sponsor, and and he chuckled on the other end of the line. And I didn't know I didn't find this funny at all.

I was asking a specific question. No? And I didn't I didn't understand where he was coming from until I showed up at his house that week. Page 3. Bill's story, first paragraph.

He starts to make money on Wall Street and he says, for the next few years, fortune threw money and applause my way. Three great words, I had arrived. Bill was a big shot and was loving the spotlight. My judgment and ideas were followed by many to the tune of paper millions. The grape boom in the late twenties was seething and swelling.

Drink was taking an important and exhilarating part of my life, so as Bill progressed so did his ill so did his illness, so did his alcoholism. As he became a big shot, drinking wasn't put on his side, drinking was moving along and and little by slowly took his life over. Next paragraph, watch the progression. Remember on the first page he said I discovered liquor? What's the progression here?

My drinking assumed more serious proportions. He's very much aware of it, isn't he? Continuing all day and almost every night. That's not a social. The remonchances, the objections, the pleading of his friends if you will, of my friends terminated in quarrels, in a row, in arguments.

Hey Bill, stop drinking. You're ruining the party. You And I became a lone wolf. There are many unhappy scenes in our sumptuous apartment, So it's even the severity, of his drinking is getting worse. It's it's affecting his wife even more, I should say.

Right in this sumptuous apartment of 182 Clinton in Brooklyn. It's where they live. So now his wife is saying what's coming in the door? I know you're working and making money, but who are you? We've heard those things.

Why don't you stop? Okay. Many unhappy scenes he said in his apartment. It says there had been no real infidelity for loyalty, my wife helped that many times by extreme drunkenness kept me out of scrapes. I like to consider Bill an honest guy except for this statement.

I still have my doubts. I think he go got in the way there. Bottom of page 3, last sentence is way on the bottom. It says golf permitted drinking. He became a golfer every day and every night.

It was fun fun to carom around the exclusive course which had inspired such auras me as a lad. He inquired an impeccable coat of tan as one sees upon the well-to-do. The local banker watched me watch, world fat checks in and out of his till with amused skepticism. The stock market crashes. People are losing money, fortunes.

What does Bill do? Most people are trying to recoup any money they lost, right, trying to figure out something. What Bill does, he goes back to the bar and figures out his life. Let me go back to the bar, have a few drinks and then I'll figure out how I can make money again. What happens?

He says, in the bottom of that paragraph, as I drank, the old fierce determination to win came back. You see how alcohol is now his solution to do everything? He had a drink to get a determination to go out and make money again, to be a success again while everyone was losing money. So Bill takes off. He's He's down in New York.

He's done. He's hit a bottom. So what does Bill do like so many of us do? I think I'll have a change of environment. I'm moving to Montreal.

I got a buddy up there. He'll take care of me for a little while. So he goes up to Montreal, and he figures that'll go ahead and and fix his problem, maybe a little change in the environment. But the last paragraph, second to last sentence says, but drinking caught up with me again, and my generous friend had to let me go. This time, we stayed broke.

Progressively, it got worse. We went to live with my parents. I found a job then lost it as a result of a brawl with a taxi driver. Mercifully, no one could guess that I was to have no real employment for 5 years or hardly draw a sober breath. I can identify with that.

Alcohol was my master already, and I didn't even know it. I didn't even know it. I figured I could control and enjoy it. Page 5. What is Bill Wright?

What's the progression? Liquor ceased to be a luxury. It became a, it became a necessity. Bathtub Gin, that's bootleg booze. 2 bottles a day and often 3 got to be routine.

Sometimes a small deal would net a few hundred dollars, I would pay the bills at the bars and delicatessens. He doesn't pay the rent for electric bill, he pays his supplier first. And I would pay my bills at the bars and delicatessens. This went on endlessly and I began to wake in very early in the morning shaking violently. A tumble full of gin followed by half a dozen bottles of beer would be required if he was to eat breakfast.

I identified with Bill Wilson. Nevertheless, I still thought I could control the situation. Here's the problem of the mind, you know, it's falling down around you. You have to have you have to drink x amount of liquor in order to put food down, and you're still thinking like I did, I can control it. I got it under control.

I'll take care of it starting tomorrow. He says, I still thought I can control the situation and there were periods of sobriety which we knew my wife's hope. My periods of sobriety were my 28 days or 9 weeks in a rehab, which renewed my family's hope. And a few times renewed my hope until I hit the fresh air. And then suddenly the thought crossed my mind that a pint of mister Boston blackberry brandy would be a good idea, would be a good deal.

I just did 28 days in rehab, I'm entitled. And then I'll go to meetings. What does he say? Gradually things got worse. Progression, progression, progression.

Okay. The house was taken over by the mortgage holder, my mother-in-law died, my my wife and father-in-law became ill. He gets a promising business opportunity. Stocks had a low point in 1932 and I somehow formed a group to buy. I wish to share generously in the prophets.

What does he do? He goes on a prodigious bender and that chance vanished. You missed the appointment. He says, I woke up. This had to be stopped.

So Bill now is starting to concede to his innermost self, like I did many times. I'm in trouble. I have to do something about my drinking, my life is in the toilet. Bill says, I woke up this had to be stopped. A desire to stop drinking will not bring us to a place of being recovered though.

It says, I saw he knew he could not take so much as one drink. He knew this. And I was He says, I was through forever. Before then I had written lots of sweet promises, but my wife happily observed that this time I meant business, and so I did. I would sit across the kitchen table from my dad and say, dad, I am done.

It's over. You won't have this to go through anymore. My brothers, I'll be a brother tonight. I'm gonna go to work. I'm done, I'm finished, I know what happens to me.

And then I would hit the fresh air. And suddenly the adult would cross my mind. Girlfriends would tell me, please don't drink, you're ruining this relationship. It's okay, won't I I promise. Starting tomorrow, new guy.

Get a new haircut, grow a beard, buy new clothes, go to the gym and get drunk. Then I would tell her she's a pain in the neck, you know. Shortly afterwards he said I came home drunk. There had been no fight, Where had been my high resolve? Where was his commitment?

He just made a commitment. I simply didn't know. It hadn't even come to mind. Strange mental blank spot maybe? How can we drink how can we think the drink through with a strange mental blank spot that's out there?

You can't, you're drunk. Someone had pushed the drink my way and I had taken it. Was it crazy? I began to wonder for such an appalling lack of perspective seeing near being just that. Renewing my resolve, he does it again, I tried again.

Some time paced passed and confidence became to be replaced by cock shortness. I could laugh at the gym nose. Now I had what it takes. What happens? He says, one day I walked into a cafe to telephone.

In no time, I was beating on the bar bar asking myself how it happened. As the whiskey rose to my head, I told myself I would manage better next time. Tomorrow I'll stop drinking. But I might as well get a good load on now because I'm here, you know. Great power great few sentences here for what we are up against.

It says the remorse, horror, and hopelessness of the next morning are unforgettable. The courage to do battle was not there. My brain raced controllably and there was a terrible sense of impending calamity. I can't tell you how many times I went to bed like that and woke up like that. So Bill is always talking about this, his progression.

And he's talking about now that alcohol is he's starting to become awake to the fact that alcohol is beating him into a state of reasonableness. Well, his reservations going little by little by little. The mind and body, the bottom of that, page 6. The mind and body are marvelous mechanisms for mine endured this agony for 2 more years. Sometimes, I stole from my wife's slender purse when the morning terror and madness were on me.

I start to do things that I never thought I would be doing. I would I I would it would disgust me to hear other people doing something like that, and I find myself doing the same thing. Again, I swayed dizzily before an open window or the with a medicine cabinet where there was poison, cursing myself for being a weakling, for being a coward. There were fights from the city to the country and back as my wife and I swore escape. Sword escape.

As if if I run away from the booze, thinking that the booze was the problem, that I would be safe. Then came the night when the physician and mental torture was so hellish. I feared I would burst through my window sash and all. And the next day, found me drinking both gin and sedative. This combination soon landed me on the rocks.

People feared for my sanity. So did I. I'm sorry. Top of page 7. I could eat little or nothing when drinking, and I was £40 underweight.

But it didn't matter. My life won't it seemed the only normal one. I must drink. I must drink, and I can't stay I I cannot not drink. I don't know how to stop.

My brother-in-law is a physician, and through his kindness and that of my mother, I was placed on nationally known hospital for the mental and physical rehabilitation of alcoholics. Under the so called belladonna treatment, my brain cleared hydrotherapy and mild exercise helped much. Best of all, I met a kind doctor who explained that though certainly selfish and foolish, I had been seriously ill bodily and mentally. Again, God works through people. And in the case of God giving us all grace that's in this room tonight, you know, he gave us a man that shared a message with Bill and knew what he was talking about.

And it relieved me somewhat to learn that in an alcoholic, the will is amazingly weakened when it comes to combating liquor, though it often remains strong in other respects. My incredible behavior in this in the face of a desperate desire to stop was explained. He was talking to him about the phenomena of craving. Once you ingest alcohol, Bill, your body says one thing, more. That's it.

And this mind just takes me to it. I have a mind that under my own power, I can't I can't not drink. I have to drink. Understanding myself now, now Bill's got a bunch of knowledge, I fed forth in high hope. For 3 or 4 months, the goose hung high.

You stayed sober. You got cocky. I went to town regularly and even made a little money. Surely, this was the answer. Self knowledge.

So can self knowledge really fix me? Just knowledge alone, and that alone fix me. But it was not, because a frightful day came when I when I drink when I drank once more. The curve of my declining moral and bodily health fell down like a ski jump. It just got worse.

Yeah. For a time, I returned to the hospital. This was the finish, the curtain, it seemed to me. My weary and despairing wife was informed that it would all end with heart failure during delirium tremors, or I would develop a wet brain perhaps within a year. She would soon have to give me over to the undertaker or the asylum.

Next sentence. They did not need to tell me. Bill Noot. Bill Noot. You know, Chuck Chamberlain, he talks about something like what you came here looking for, you came here looking with.

At this point with Bill, he knew he was done. I knew, he says, and almost welcomed the idea. How many times did I just wanna take myself off this planet? It was a devastating blow to my pride. I went so well of myself and my abilities, of my capacities to surmount obstacles was cornered at last.

Like, I'm the big deal. I'm gonna beat this thing, and I'm trying real hard to beat this thing. The only problem is I'm not the power, and I don't know I'm not the power. No. Now I was to plunge into the dark joining of that endless process procession of sats who had gone on before me.

I thought of my poor wife. There had been much happiness after all. What would I not give to make amends? But now that was over. Powerful words coming up.

He says, no words can tell the loneliness and despair found in a bit of morass of self pity. Quicksand stressed around me in all directions. I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master.

What does he do? Trembling, I stepped from the hospital, broke a man, feared sober me for a bit. You know what's coming, right? Then came the insidious insanity of that first drink, and on Armistice Day 1934, I was off again. Everyone had resigned the certainty that I would have to be shut up somewhere or stumble along to a miserable end.

How dark it is before the dawn, and what's gonna happen now is the beginning of the end of Bill's drinking. It's it's the the the God's intervention here through a gentleman named Eby, which I talked about earlier. And at the top of page 9, we'll get to it. It says, drinkers are like that. Take a look at page 9 for a moment.

Okay. Where it says, Drinkers are like that. You can draw a line underneath that because that's pretty much the split in Bill's story that Tom had talked about earlier. That is where Bill begins to experience a different life. Let's go back to page 8 for a moment.

Next to last paragraph, it says, near the end of that bleak November, I sat drinking in my kitchen. With a certain satisfaction, I reflect there was enough gin concealed about the house to carry me through that night and the next day. Alright. Next paragraph, my musing was interrupted by the telephone. The cheery voice of an old screw friend asked if he might come over.

He was sober. Now Bill and Ebby were drinking buddies. They drank here. Bill knew about Ebby. He knew his deal.

He thought Ebby was committed somewhere for drinking. So he there was some really great things that went on here. He had his best friend, his drinking buddy, who drank just like Bill, and he shows up sober and he shows up with something different going on. It was certainly depth in weight. He knew how he drank and what's up before him was the same person but a different on the inside.

It says, it was years since I can remember, his coming to New York in that condition. I was amazed. Rumor had it, I've been committed for alcohol alcoholic insanity. I wonder how he escaped. Bill isn't going to get drunk with Ebbie as soon as Ebbie gets to the house.

It says, next paragraph, Eby shows up at his house it says, the door opened and he stood there fresh skinned and glowing. There was something about his eyes, he was inexplicably different what had happened. What does Bill do? He pushes a drink across the table, ebbing refuses it. Disappointed, but curious, I wondered what had gotten to this to my friend.

What's up with this? He says, come on, what's all this about? I quit. He looks straight at me and Ebby says, I've got religion. Bill's thinking his friend is completely out of his mind.

You know. I used to drink with this guy, what's with the religion deal, you know. He says I was a guest, so that was it. Last time I'm an alcoholic crap pot, now he's suspected a little crack about religion. He had that starry eye look, yet the old the old boy was on fire alright.

Bless his heart, let him rant, besides my gin will last longer than his preaching. And Eby doesn't do any ranting, any preaching. He just simply, as a matter of fact way, tells what happened to him and how we found this power. Okay. He talks about, in the next paragraph, he uses the word a practical program of action.

Our book uses words like most good ideas are simple. Our book is simple, not easy, simple. Simple set of directions. Last sentence on page 9 he says he had come to pass this experience along to me if I cared to have it. He says, I was shocked but interested.

I have to go to page 11. Just follow me with this now, 3rd paragraph. He says my son my my friend sat before me. He made the point blank blank declaration that God had done for him what he could not do for himself. His human will had failed.

Doctors had pronounced him incurable. Society was about to lock him up. Like myself, Ebbie had admitted complete defeat. He had an experience, if you will, with step 1. Then he had, in effect, been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he had ever known.

Had this power originated in Eby, obviously, it had not. There had been no more power in him in him than there was in me at that minute and this was none at all. So, he's seen his friend sit here, another guy who used to drink with drinking buddy on a diff his roots grasping new soil and he's wondering how did this happen? What is going on? How did this guy get to this place?

He was certainly interested. It said that flawed me. It began to look as though religious people right after all, here was something at work in a human heart which had done the impossible. There's a shift starting to happen in Bill already because he says, my ideas about miracles were drastically revised right then. Last sentence on that page, Bill says, I saw that my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized.

He was on a different footing, his roots, grass, new soil. He was taken from where he was and put somewhere else. Talking about God and Bill gets tight when we talk about God. And Eby says, maybe the most powerful words in this whole in this whole chapter, he says in the second paragraph on page 12, you with me? My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea.

Eppi says to Bill, hey Bill, why don't you choose it's squiggly writing, so it's important. He says, why don't you choose your own conception of God? Later on in chapter diagnostics it says, our own conception, no matter how inadequate was sufficient to make the approach. Choose your own conception, whatever it is. Because Bill thought everybody's gonna show up and say you have to follow this dogma, this this book, do this, don't eat meat on Fridays, go to temple, go to mass, go to whatever.

Choose your own conception. I don't even care what it is. This icy intellectual mountain build refers to starts to melt away. How could you get out of that statement? Choose your own conception, you're done.

And he knew it. It says, that statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered for many years. He says, I stood in the sunlight at last. Very important information.

It was only a matter of willing to believe in a power greater than myself. This whole spiritual experience that we have in our postmaster spiritual awakening begins with a mustard seed of willingness to go forward. Just a willingness. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. I saw that growth could start from that point upon a foundation of complete willingness, I might saw I might build what I saw in my friend.

Would I have it? Of course, I would. So you see the shifts don't happen with Bill in one simple talk in a kid at a kitchen table. And he's half loaded. But we hear, don't talk to him.

He's been drinking. You know, not to get off the subject here, but I love this. Here's a quarter or whatever a phone call calls. Call me when you want to drink. If you're like me, I usually call the sponsor when I was drunk saying I drank again, please help me.

When I'm looking to drink, I'm not calling someone to stop me from drinking. You're gonna ruin it. So right there, Bill is already he sees his friend. Don't ever underestimate the power of God. Bill is experiencing some spirit shifting from Evie to him.

Some power is moving through Evie to Bill. Bill gets drunk again, goes back to the hospital. Top of page 13. At the hospital, I was separated from alcohol for the last time. Treatment seemed wise for I showed signs of delirium tremors.

There in the hospital with the information that Abi shared with him, Bill humbled humbly offered himself to god as he then understood him. Step 3. To do with me as he would. I placed myself unreservedly unreservedly under his care and direction. My life is none of my business anymore.

I admitted for the first time that of myself, I was nothing. My experience is when I think I am something, I'm in trouble. That without him, I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have I ruthlessly faced my sins. Step 4, inventory.

And became willing to have my newfound friend take them away. Root and branch. Step 6 and 7. I have not had a drink since. Right there, Bill's problem was removed.

December 11, 1934. Eddie shows up again. He visits him at the hospital. I fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies. 5.

Step 5. We made a list of the people I had heard or toward whom I felt resentment. Mister Fink. I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals, admitting my wrong. Never was I to be critical of them.

Step 9. I was to write all such matters to the utmost of my ability. I was to test my thinking by the new god consciousness within. Step 10. Common sense would thus become uncommon sense.

I was to sit quietly when in doubt. Step 11. Asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as he would have me. Never was I to pray for myself except as my request were and my usefulness to others than only I might expect to receive. But that great promise here.

But that would be in great measure. Huge promise. My friend promised when things these things were done. Mister 12. I would enter upon a new relationship with my creator that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems.

A way of living which answered all my problems. My friend, Mark and my friends, Mark and Joe, they says, when they said all, do you think they meant all? Believe in the power of God plus enough willingness, honesty, and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things were the essential requirements. Simple but not easy. A price had to be paid.

It meant destruction of self centeredness. I must turn in all things to the father of light who preside over us all. It meant destruction of self centeredness. So if I'm thorough and honest by taking steps 4 through 9, I do something my my friend Mark says, I die the death of self, which takes me to that place what Bill is talking about so he can experience a beautiful place of myself. I am nothing to really experience that.

And like Peter was saying, I'm empty. I'm empty, so I can be awake. So this so I must turn in all things to the father of light who can come in and give me this power. Says these were revolution drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them, the feeling was electric. There was a sense of victory followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known.

There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up as though the great clean wind of a mountaintop blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, because the impact on me was sudden and profound. Bottom of page 14, last paragraph. It says my friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs, not the ones that I want to, or the ones that are convenient, or the ones I look good in.

You know, you're on your way to do an 11 step talk and you cut people off and flip them the bird because you're running late and you walk in and go sound spiritual. Right? All my affairs. Okay. Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me.

Faith without works was dead and how Paulinely true for the alcoholic. For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self sacrifice for others, see, it doesn't say it's a selfish program. You know, you hear that now, folks, now it's a selfish program. It doesn't say that. Just to work and self sacrifice for others, we can he cannot survive the certain trials on low spots ahead.

If he did not work, he would surely drink, and if he drank, he would surely die. Then faith faith would be dead indeed. With us, it is just like that. So do I believe if I did not do this work with others, I would surely drink again? It's vital.

It's that third part of the triangle. I must continually do that. Bottom page 15, it talks about the last sentence. We meet frequently so that newcomers may find the fellowship they seek. It's not talking about me.

It's not talking about me going to meetings so I can share a lot of drama and how I'm feeling. I did that for a lot of years. A lot of years. In and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for 20 years. Just sharing my drama so someone can help me.

But then I found out the opposite be true. So I will at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, you won't hear me sharing about problems. I'm there for a job. My job, and I'm in a life saving business. And I need to help the other person.

Page 16, last paragraph. Most of us here, we look no further for utopia. We have it with us right here and now. Each day my friend simple talk in our kitchen multiplies itself into a widening circle. Look at this room tonight.

I'm a talk in the kitchen. Multiplies itself into a widening circle of peace on earth and goodwill to man. Think about some of the people we meet on this path who aren't even in Alcoholics Anonymous, who have become treasures in our life. Some of the the the, the the jobs we get, our interactions with others, some of the things that come to us because we're on this path. It doesn't mean we're better or worse than anyone, but the opportunities that God is giving us and they're awake too.

Pretty neat. Pretty neat. We're at 9:30, and, we are gonna wrap. Tom wants to make some closing remarks, so thank you for being here me, and I'll turn it over to Tom to wrap. Okay.

Thank you. I just, I was given, at this point, I was given some, instructions to do, and you may wanna consider it tonight when you go home. And if you look on page 58 of our book where the 12 steps are, I was asked to, ask 2 questions on each of those steps. First question is, is this what I want to do? That's the first step.

Admittedly, admittedly, powerless over alcohol that our lives have become unmanageable. The second question was, am I willing to go to any lengths to do this? And take those 2 questions and just go right down the line for each of the 12 steps and ask yourself that question, that consideration. K? And sit with it.

Because when I'm when we're taking I found out I'm taking statements out of this book and just turning them into questions. And I have to apply them to me based on my experience currently and in the past. Am I willing to go to any lens to do this? Thank you.