Steps 11 and 12 at the CPH12 v1 conference in Copenhagen, Denmark

I realized when someone asked me to write down our prayer this morning that we that we use from, time to time that, I didn't I didn't say this prayer this morning. So maybe we can, start right now and, say it once again. God, please lay aside everything I think I know about myself, my disease, this book, meetings, and you, God, for an open mind and a new experience and all these things. Please help me see truth. Okay.

Back to page 86 with step 11, and we talked about our instructions for the evening and what we ought to be doing and what we're looking for. And they now talk about on awakening. And one of the things I've been moved to do is literally on awakening, is thanking God for another day and making prayer with God before I get out of bed. And it's just it's a it's a it's a a contact that I that I just been moved to do before I go actually do my prayer meditation. It says on awakening, let us think about the 24 hours ahead.

We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask god to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self pity, dishonest, and self seeking motives. Because when those motives are are removed, it says under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, because God gave us brains to use. Our thought life will be placed on a much higher plane when when our thinking is clear to wrong motives. So we're looking at our day and, you know, is my thinking full of wrong motives?

Am I thinking clear of wrong motives? Am I asking God to direct my thinking? Am I asking God to direct my thinking in just certain areas and I can handle the rest? It says in thinking about our day, we may face indecision. We may may not be able to determine which course to take.

So what do we do? We ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision. We relax and take it easy. We don't struggle. We're often surprised that our right answers come after we've tried this for a while.

And last night I was talking about something that was happening not too long ago to me, and my first reaction was to, you know, get in there and put my hands on the wheel and, I didn't. I remember while I was interacting with others, I I I made a prayer and I kinda let go of the wheel and it it was things were working very smoothly without me putting any input into the equation. And actually, it turned out to be a very exciting and a promising, evening for me. Top of page 87, it says, what used to be the hunch, occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. And that is the difference between the thinking mind.

The thinking mind is always, you know, badgering you over and over and over again. The working mind is what we're allowed to do as we're inspired by God. It says be being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God it's not probable that we're going to be inspired at all times. We may pay for this presumption also sort of absurd actions and ideas. So sometimes we think, you know, God's moving me to do something and I go do it and it's really not what God wanted me to do.

But I need to take a look at, am I willing to listen to this? Am I willing follow this quiet voice that I think is moving me? Am I willing? And it's really important here that we we're accountable to other people to say, hey. Listen.

I got this this thought, this intuitive thought to do something. What do you think about it? All great spiritual leaders always had people they consulted with. Great teachers confide in others. As a student, I ought to be.

I better be. So I run things by my sponsor or people close to me. What do you think about this? This is what I'm getting. There's some things going on right now personally with me that I'm I'm getting this feeling in my gut of a direction I ought to be taking, instead of the one I thought I had to be on.

That's something I need to sit with and meditate on. Really, where am I going with this? What am I willing to follow and grow along spiritual lines? It says, nevertheless, we find that I think you will will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of, inspiration. We come to rely upon it.

It says what usually, we usually conclude the period of meditation, with the prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be. That we'd be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. Page 164 says we ask, what we can do, in meditation for the man who still suffers. It's one of the things we can do. It says we ask for freedom from self will and are careful to to make no request for ourselves only.

We may ask for ourselves and here's a condition, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have way to waste a lot of time doing that. It doesn't work. You can easily see why.

And, I just wanna backtrack for half a sec here. I was talking to a few people during the break about, inventory. And, what I shared with them is one of the the techniques I do, it's a spiritual tool that I work with with my, inventory work with 10 and 11 is we talk about I I use 4 column inventory, but what I also include with that is a 5th column. When I look at my 4th column with all the all the defects of character, all the manifestations itself, In step 11, it says we inquire what corrective measure should be taken. What I did with that was I took that corrective measure and turned it into a 5th column.

And again, it's just for me something that helps me see the way out of the forest. It's just something for me to see the opposite of the defects, the opposite of the manifestations itself, if you will. I look at my 4th column and I see all the defects showing up. And as a as a tool, what I do is I'll write a 5th column, my corrective measures ought to be should be taken and it's usually just the opposite of what I wrote down in column 4. You see that?

Dishonest, honest. Suspicious, trusting. Lazy, productive. Things like that. And it just allows me to see once again in black and white, maybe what I need to take to God.

Because when we know when we pray about these defects, when we turn things to God, he knows anyway. It's just an a humble offering. This is what I think was revealed to me and I'm offering this to you. He ultimately has the game plan in front of him anyway. But it's my job to shoot up and show up, so I'll use that 5th column.

Been working with it for a long time. Back to page 87, 3rd paragraph. It says if circumstances warrant, we ask our wise or friends to join in join us in morning meditation. If we belong to religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have this been discussing.

I I ought to talk to you about what my current practice is at this point. I work with my 3rd and 7 step prayer every day. I work with the Lord's prayer every day. I work with the serenity prayer every day. There's a couple of the prayers I work with in the morning that are personal to me.

My current practice is, meditation morning evening. I was doing 3 3 3 meditation practices a day for a while. One of the things I learned about in this practice is I don't worship the methodology. There was a time where, you know, we had those those those 24 hour books and all these meditation books, meditation for women, meditation for men, meditation for men over 6 feet tall, meditation God must be going, what are they doing? Oh my God, what are they doing?

But there's all these meditation books. And so I would have, like, this many books, and how to read a page out of every one every day. And if I didn't, I would feel like off balance for the day. Oh, no. I didn't read that one, you know.

And I sought to worship the methodology. And when I found myself, I remember praying, I I'm confused. What do I do? And, what I do now is I do what I move to do. And if I move to read, and there's some religious books I work with and and and some of our AA literature that I work with.

If I move to read in the morning, I read. And I'll go 2 or 3 or 4 months reading every day, and then there's times where I don't read and I don't read. I move not to read, and that's okay. It's about worshiping the power rather than pages in a book. Remember, all these all these things have point us to it.

I'll work with some prayers in the morning and then I'll sit with my meditation. I'll do the same thing at night in this inventory throughout. One of the things we can do is get so tight with this information and the methodology that as a friend of mine says we can 11 step ourselves right out of Alcoholics Anonymous. I always say this, we need to go in in order to go out. If I don't go in, I will go without.

And the third part of that is if I go in too long, I better look out. What do I mean by that? A friend of mine was in meditation, and he hears his wife calling him from the next room. And he's sitting in meditation, he hears her call the 2nd time and the 3rd time and she's getting louder. And in this meditation, he barks back at her, goddamn it.

Can't you see I'm meditating? You see what I mean? So if if if I'm in my house and I'm going down to, you know, to go meditate and, you know, someone needs help with something, and I say, listen, I have to meditate. You're on your own. Or maybe you have children and need to be dressed for school and but you have to meditate, or you get to work 2 hours late because, boss, I was meditating.

Sorry. That's not what we do. We don't that's worshiping the methodology. So I make time for that practice. And it's very private to me.

I usually do it very private on my own. I go into silence like that. Go into silence, go into darkness in in order to be here. There's some other things I do with meditation, other practices outside of alcoholics, honest, that I do along with not instead of. But it's great.

It's just great work. It's great discipline. And it is it is work and it is discipline. I would get to a place where if I didn't sit in a meditation for 40 or 45 minutes, I would think I failed for the day. And I was worshiping that.

I'm at a place where I do so much time in the morning and so much time at night, and I've even gotten to a place free enough where I I I I do the disciplines. But if I do a 10 minute meditation or I do an hour meditation and I've done both, I don't feel like I failed or or succeeded. It's what is. Now if if I'm around here a little while and I'm doing this practice and I'm still meditating 2 or 3 minutes, maybe I need to take a look at that. But if I show up in meditation willing to be taken to wherever I'm gonna be taken, if it's a 10 minute or an hour meditation, that's what it is, and I'm really okay with that.

And I've had neat experiences in meditation where, I found out through certain experiences coming out of a meditation as I shared, I think it was Friday night when I was here to speak, that I realized that God knew me. And that was out of a meditation. I've taken questions into meditation. I've just sat quietly in meditation. I've been taken to places in meditation.

I sought refuge in meditation. And I don't know what I would do without it because it's it's a way of, communing, if that's the right word, with my God. It's us, he and I. Always have this great picture that always comes to me is sitting on one of these little stools, knee to knee with my God. My conception of knee to knee like father and son.

And we we I it's very clear, like, I can see you guys is how I see it very often. And, we're need to need and I sit with him like I would with with a child with his father and asking him questions. Very comforting, very guiding, very warm and loving. And we always ultimately get up and walk. And we walk and we talk.

And I'm this student or this this little guy talking to the teacher or the father. And, I've gotten great experiences. I'm here this morning because of stuff like that. And I I'm allowed to go about in my affairs the way I do, whether I fall short or not, because of that stuff. And I I like to think God has made me a much better person, over the years prior to what I was like when I walked in here in 1988.

Deep down inside, I don't care how sick the drunk is, there's a spirit, but it's just so blocked we become ugly. And I like to think a lot of that stuff's been removed because of this. I know I walk with dignity today. And that that's pretty neat because I I I couldn't bear to look was looking back at me in the mirror at one time. So getting off the subject, I apologize.

Get back to, this stuff here. Page 87 on the bottom, it says I'm sorry, the middle of that third paragraph. It says, if not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. There are many helpful books also and I've sought out these helpful books. Suggestions about these may be obtained from one's priest, minister, or rabbi.

Be quick to see where religious people are right, and I have and still do. Make use of what they offer, I have and I still do. Talks about what to do going through the day. We pause when agitated or doubtful and here's a prayer. We ask God for the right daughter action.

What do I do here? Because I have to constantly remind myself, I, Pete Marinelli, are no longer running the show. Humbly saying to myself many times each day, thy will be done. We are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self pity, or false decisions, and these are all all different manifestations itself. We we become much more efficient.

If I'm not consumed with me, I'm awake to the present moment, I can be efficient. I'm not tired and exhausted. Ask an alcoholic how you doing today? I'm pretty tired. Usually, it's because they've had 80 different roles going on in our mind before we get to the AA meeting.

All those things I was talking about driving down the highway, you get all this stuff hitting you, hitting you, hitting you, you get to the AA meeting. How are you doing? I'm tired. Oh, sure you are. I just had, you know, 20 gun battles on the way to the to the AA meeting.

It says, we do not tire so easily for we're not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we're trying to arrange life to suit ourselves. It works. It really did. It really does. We alcoholics are undisciplined, so we let God discipline us in a simple way we have just outlined.

But this is not all. Again, they're telling us to move, aren't they? There is action and more action. Faith without works is dead. The next chapter is entirely devoted to step 12.

In the discipline of this work, there's great freedom. In the discipline of this work, we get freedom. The more spiritual power I embrace, the less self I rely on. The more self I rely on, the more spiritual power I can embrace. And the last thing I'll leave you with with this is, at at this point when we hit 10, 11, and 12, the road has narrowed.

The road has narrowed. We cannot get away with certain things we used to. But in the narrowing in that road and the disciplines of this work, there's a great amount of freedom. It sounds like we're being cut down, but what we are is being a lot of things are being removed and there's great freedom in that. My name is Tom.

Bottom of page 87, when I first experienced that line, that sentence, it says, as we go through the day, we pause. When agitated or doubtful, the first time I met my friend, Mark, He, he shared what resonated so much in me, and he made the statement when agitated or doubtful. Says that's like a constant state of mind for the alcoholic. So if that be, I should be asking for the right to order an action frequently. And I, I understand that, you know, I understand, today.

I understand when when I work with others, And I, I can appreciate the compassion, you know, that people have had for me and people like Mark that would would would say things like that, that they know where I'm coming from. We're living on this planet. We, you know, like alcohol has beaten us to an into a state of reasonableness, and we're done. And, and the solution has been taken away from us. And how do I operate now in this world?

And we're giving a set of directions. This book talks about things like, we'll get to a place of being happy, joyous, and free promises. Happy, joyous, and free. It's considerations. Am I happy today?

Am I really happy today? Do I have some joy in my life today? Am I free today? Am I stepping out easy today? Considerations for me without the disciplines of this process.

And I fall short, but without the disciplines of these of these steps, this methodology for me. Because I'm a real alcoholic, and I have to tell you, it's the only it's the only methodology that's ever worked for me. And I've gone searching for a lot of methodologies, you know. And, but no one ever sat down and gave me the time to show me. And then someone showed up in my life, and God put this man in my life, and he was used as an instrument to his 12 step became my first step.

And, I can go on about, you know, Peter was talking about we are careful never to pray for our own selfish needs. You know, many of us, we've wasted a lot of time doing that, and it doesn't work. And that's that's basically going back to what I said earlier about, you know, my friend Donnie talks about the alcoholic war cry, you know, where's mine? And, I'm always thinking about me, and I've had a tendency to see, you know, where's mine. And, oh, if I had that, well, yeah, you know, I'll rationalize that, and I'm really doing it for my family, you know.

But I know in the back of my mind it's resonating to me and I'm saying, you know, I don't think it really means that I've got food, shelter, and clothing for my my family, for God's sakes. You know? And what else? You know? I mean, what can I give this man?

What can I give the man that how can I how can I help my wife in other ways? How can I help my boy? I shared, you know, like maybe I think last night or I've experienced, you know, like some fear, in the last couple of months due to situations in my, in my family life with my boy, and the entire family has experienced the same thing. And I can't imagine how it would have been over 9 years ago. That thought of why even, you know, like, imagining or considering how it has really not, like, it was like a little bleep or a glimpse, and it goes right out because, and I think that is because, this is a design, you know, for living that really works.

What's happening here, and, you know, like what I have to do here, and I'll fall short in all of these methodologies at times, but I think God knows that my heart is in the right place. I would hope. Yeah. I think I trust that today. Peter talked about, I think it was last night, that, Peter was talking about the monks, and they were asked the questions, you know, of one guy that goes up to the market.

He says, what are you doing? He says, well, all I see you do is you eat and you walk, but we'd know. And my, when I get up in the morning, like Peter, you know, my my routines basically change. I'm I'm moved to them. I'm not exactly sure what I'm gonna be doing on every any given morning today.

In the beginning, it was very important. In the beginning, I would have to say for a good 3 or 4 years. You know, I started off, or I ended up, I should say, you know, when we retire at night with that review, and I start off in the morning, you know, reading that paragraph when we were awakened. And then I'll read step 10, and then I would sit in meditation. Now it's it's just a matter.

I get up. I ask You know, I know all the words I wrote, and and they've served me well throughout the years. But I sit. I consider, and I like to read, you know, teachers, contemplatives. Like, for example, I read, like, I brought Merton with me to read.

I like Merton, he talks about the human condition, the suffering. Okay? And from there, I have to go out. I have to go out. And, I have to tell you, I fall short, you know, sometimes I get caught up.

Okay? I was gonna ask my friend, Mark, to, well, you know, like, sponsor me, but he Mark is, like, 3000 miles away in Texas. And fortunately for me, Peter comes into my life and then he gets introduced to Mark and, you know, so he's flesh. He's with me. He's here.

And I've got other friends like Peter around that are close to me on this path. It's important to me to, at least, at the very least, to be aware and awake to that triangle. To knock knock myself out, and not to beat myself up. Not to beat myself up, because I don't follow the methodology. I am not a robot.

I'm free, and I trust that he's given me freedom. And the freedom he's given me is to have my constant thought, to help others, to have compassion for others like people have had compassion for me. And I think that's it. I I I think that's the key. You know, my my work and with others, that's where it comes from.

This this contemplative life, this this meditative life. So when I get up and I walk, that I know that I'm walking, that I know that I'm watching, and that I'm not constantly in that agitated state, because I can go there like that in a minute. K? Because I can judge quickly. K?

And I can be asleep to the fact that that man is going through the same thing that I've gone through somewhere along the line. So Chapter 7, working with others, which is our step 12. And if you notice when we go through this, step 12 reads having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. Right? But yet in this chapter they don't talk about having had a spiritual awakening.

They get in right into working with others because by the time you get here you've already had a spiritual awakening. Back in step 10, it says we've entered the world of the spirit. We've had it. What are we gonna do with it? They talked about growing and understanding and effectiveness.

Now we go out and serve. We help others and take these principles into all our affairs. So since practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure has a great promise, by the way, immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. I'd like you to circle the word intensive. Am I working with alcoholics and what type of work am I doing with them?

Intensive work is not saying telling your your prospect, well, give me a call and and we'll talk. We'll meet at the diner next week. Intensive work is about sitting down with another drunk or doing the work over the phone and working with them. On Saturdays, I have, 4 guys I work with call me, and we meet during the week at a meeting. But Saturdays we do a lot of work.

I work with a lot of guys on the phone. That's why it's easy to work with my sponsor on the phone. But we work and I take them through. God moves us through these steps. And anyone who works with me knows it's gonna be work.

I was brought up with boot camp AA and that, you know, it's it's what I do. I I I don't I my experience has not been with the sponsor who you speak to once a month, and talk about your dramas of life. You can do those things, but it never worked for me. It says carry this message to other alcoholics. And you know what message?

The question I have to consider, am I carrying to other alcoholics? It says you can help you can help when no one else can. You can see secure their confidence when others fail. Remember they are very ill. Life will take on new meaning.

To watch loneliness, to watch, people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends. This is an experience you must not miss. We know you want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with and with each other is the bright spot of our lives. It says perhaps you're not acquainted with any drinkers who want to recover.

You can easily find somebody asking a few doctors, ministers, priests, or hospitals. They will only be too glad to assist you. And, we have lots of people coming in to help folks out, who have been here many years who really need our help. One of the things I do when someone comes to me to ask them, for if I can be their sponsor is, I don't sponsor them right from the get go. There's certain things they need to do first like I was asked to do.

And, our book will talk about it. I asked them if they have a copy of the big book. And if they say they do and if they don't, I'll get them 1. I I instruct them to go home and read the first 164 pages of this book, the first portion of this book. And on the second visit, I asked them if they're ready to go through the 12 proposals and ready to tell me their story.

I asked them if they're willing to go to anyone's to recover also. If they think they're an alcoholic, their lives are unmanaged, and they want and do they want help? And, if they're going through that stuff, then I will begin my journey with these people in sponsorship. I also let them know, on my very first visit what they're in for. Some of what any lens is gonna look like.

I don't just spring it on them. I sit with them in a few minutes and sometimes longer depending on who the prospect is. And I let them know what I expect from them and what they need to do out of this book. And I'll do a review of what the 12 steps are gonna look like and some of the the, the techniques we're gonna be using. Some of the tools I ought to say we're gonna be using.

And the importance of them going out to work with others once they wake up. So when I sit with down down with them on a second visit and I hand them their first assignment, it isn't like, well, where is this coming from? Many times people want you to sponsor them just because you may be a little bit popular and then you tell them to go home and read the first 164 pages book and suddenly they don't like you anymore. I let them know that we're gonna be speaking on the phone a few times a week. Are we gonna be meeting at a meeting?

Do they have a home group? Are they serving their home group? You know, what are they what are they doing for others? The thing I've learned over the last couple of years too was the importance of taking this stuff home. And if they're lucky enough to have a home, what are they doing in it?

Are they spending time with their significant other? Are they spending time with their children? If they're not, one of the instructions I give now, because I found how important that is for me, is to spend time at home. My sponsor has a great term about, he calls it, doing the dash. I didn't know what he meant and it's really simple.

When you go to a cemetery on a tombstone or the headstone, there is the date we come into this world and the date we go home to God. And right in the middle of those 2 dates is a little dash. That's our life. What are you doing about it? What do you do?

That little dash is your life. That's it. That you were here with this gift, that I'm here with this gift, that we're here with this gift, what are you doing about it? What legacy are we leaving? That little dash is you.

The before date and the after date aren't too important. What are you doing about it? And my sponsor says, are you doing the dash? And I didn't know what he meant, and now I do. It's really I I will tell you, it's it's a silly little story, but it's a true story.

And I can't tell you how important that has become to me. It has it has moved me to drop belief systems what kept kept me in bonds for so long to do this deal. Not only in here but out there. And I've learned recently how to really do this dash and have a whole lot of neat things happen for me. With all the stuff that's going on in my external world, I've really, I can tell you, I I haven't been happy in in in in I've never been this this this happy.

And if you look at my external world or look at my checking account and say, what are you happy about? You know, things have dwindled a little bit. I'm really having a blast. Good stuff. Okay.

To go over to page 90. It says when you discover a prospect for AquaX anonymous, find out all you can about him. If he does not want to stop drinking, don't waste time trying to persuade him. You wanna stop drinking? And the guy says, well, I don't know or call me when you're ready.

You may spoil a later opportunity. This advice is given for his family also. They should be patient realizing they're dealing with a sick person. Now a book really, gives us guidelines here on how to work with others. You'll see there's a lot of general principles in this chapter on how to work with others.

The message should stay the same. The approach that a drunk can change, that's what I found. Some prospects you bark at and some you can talk very calmly to. But the message is the same. If there is any indication that he wants to stop, have a good talk with the person most interested in him, usually his wife.

Get an idea of his behavior, his problems, his background, the seriousness of his condition, and his religious leanings. You didn't need this information to put yourself in his place to see how you would like to be approached if the tables were turned. It says sometimes just wait till he goes on a binge, the family may object to this, but unless he is in a dangerous physical condition, it's better to risk it. Don't deal with him when he is very drunk unless he's ugly and a family needs your help. What and this is I found to be so true in my life and working with others, wait for the end of a spree or at least a lucid interval.

The neat thing about after a drunk comes off a spree, they're in that place where you can approach them where they're broken down. We we have this so many ingredients that go into having a spiritual experience is first, we need to be broken down, Where everything has to be removed. Where where where our sense of self, if you will, is made very very very small. And we're in that that that place where someone can get in and pull us out. On the second paragraph in, the chapter working with others, it gives us some promises as Peter has already read.

First promise on that page is life will take on new meaning. New meaning. And I got to watch people recover, to see them help others, and to watch the loneliness vanish because those people are helping others. And their lives, like mine, is no longer any of their business, like mine is no longer. My sobriety is for you.

My sobriety is for my wife. My sobriety is for my kids. My sobriety is not for me. We've, both Peter and I have, have had the opportunity to see a fellowship grow up about us on Staten Island. That's a great thing to see, and the excitement, just like the excitement I see here on this weekend with a lot of people.

A lot of people are fired up, and, it's great stuff. One of the great things I found out in in working with those, our book talks about this too, is baiting the drunk. You know, you meet with the guy outside of a meeting and they're going through dramas alive but they're just coming off for drunk. And, you know, in in in your own way, you could say I know how you feel. I was there too and and, I'm no longer in in that place anymore.

And what we do, I found you a beta guy because we want them to say, well, what did you do? Now you got them. You know, well, can you sponsor me? You got them. I found the approach that does not work with most alcoholics is when they come to you and they open up and they empty up and put their cards on the table and say, well you need to do this, that, and the other thing.

Bait them first. Put it out there. I was where you at, and I'm no longer anymore. I'm in a different place. Now listen.

Our friend Joe talks about, well, do anything to a hawk an alcoholic. Do anything. And it's, it's great stuff, you know. It's it's, and and and Peter shared about it, you know, there there are different approaches. Again, you know, like, I trust God.

You know what I mean? You know, like, let me keep me awake to this guy while while he's in front of me here, and, let me see where he's going. Let me see where he's lying. Like Peter said, you know, most likely, if a guy's in that condition, if he's moving his mouth, he's probably lying, you know. So I gotta send something beyond that.

I better have spirit, you know. But there are different ways, you know, and there were different conditions, you know, where this guy is coming from. Does this guy need power now? I mean I mean, we will all need power now. You You know?

The way it was shared with me, you know, I, you know, I was in I I was in tough shape. The man that, carried the message to me, he, he realized, you know, I was 4 days out of jail, and I was about to take myself off the planet. I didn't have time to read a 164 pages. I guess he sensed that. You know?

But he gave me something. And, so there are different approaches. I I sorta like the best approaches, you know, like, being in my home group and the one I'm most comfortable with. You know, like, I'll I'll share something at the meeting or a man I'll see, you know, something in, any one of us. You know?

They want what we have. Just sit down with a man and go to a diner. We have diners in Brooklyn and Staten Island. I don't know if you have them over here in Denmark, but we where you can go for a cup of coffee or a coffee house, you know, cafe. Sit down, have a cup of coffee, and, just try to, make the man feel welcome, and that shouldn't take very long if you'd be a real alcoholic, then you're a real alcoholic, and you're sharing this message, you know, because the book talks about winning the confidence.

You know, just make the connection. I'm very sensitive to the idea that, I come from a a thought like my, Gregor and sponsor Donald say, if if I raise my voice, I'm wrong. I, like to just say, hey. Not taking action, not doing the deal. K?

Like I shared last night, there's a man out in Colorado, he talks about, you know, I care, but I can't care unless you care. And that caring shows up in taking some action and following some directions. And I'm not gonna ask a man to do something that I haven't done. So life takes on no man. Before we continue reading, it's it's I think it's important we talk about our 12 step calls and how we're doing that, and if we've ever done any.

I've had the privilege of being on just a whole bunch of, 12 step calls. I've, taken, with others, guys to detoxes in hospitals where I've gotten sick in my car, just made a shambles in my car. I've gone into homes. You you ever do a 12 step call on a drunk and you go into the home, you walk into the house and the house looks like the drunk. It looks depressed.

It looks dreary. It looks rundown. It looks dirty. And the family is suffering from alcoholism, and they're not even drinking. And usually you take the drunk out to a detox or to a meeting and, the wife is doing 1 or 2 things.

My experience has been is take them, get them out of here. Or the other thing is they're in such fear, she's in such fear, it's back to, is he gonna come home tonight? And she's depending on us to take care of her loved one, who she may be really, really, really angry with at the moment and wondering what happened. Then you work with that drunk and you watch them wake up. And they you go back into that same house just a few months later, not only is the drunk manu, but the house looks different and the wife is different and the children are different.

The house is different. There's a different spirit in the house. You see it. Walk into a drunk's house and walk into a sober house. It's different, 2 different things.

And I've experienced that. And that's been a privilege for me to see in my own eyes how people wake up and when we take this awakened spirit back into the place that we damaged so severely. You know, the wife has a new dress on, the house is painted, the kids are playing. I mean, it's it's just a different deal. They're just going about their business no longer in fear of the old man coming home drunk again.

And what's it gonna be? Who's gonna cover up? Who's gonna patch up? Who's gonna fill in the holes? Great stuff.

I've, also done, many 12 step calls where, you know, I dropped the drunk off at the hospital at 1 o'clock, and 2 o'clock he's back on the corner again. And I wondered how did this happen? I would take a drunk to a detox, and they'd be drunk as soon as they got out. And I always felt like for a long time that I failed. I did something wrong, and I didn't.

We don't. We're doing the deal. We're not responsible for that outcome. We are responsible for what presenting and what we're doing here, but many times, drunks get drunk on us as many people took me away and I got drunk, you know, 20 minutes later. I've even done a, a few 12 step calls all alone in my car because there was no one around.

I made prayer and I took drunks to a car and it was interesting. One guy was afraid of getting violent and I'm not a violent person. I I don't even really walk around angry. I'm That's not my, disposition, I guess is the word. But I I was barking at this guy because I was afraid of him getting violent, taking the wheel going over this bridge in Staten Island and I had to have some discipline in the car.

I had one drunk sitting in my car, insisting on driving on the to the detox. He didn't even he couldn't even hold a cigarette. I told him get rid of the cigarette because he was gonna burn himself, but he insisted on driving and then he wanted me to take for a shrimp dinner before he went into detox. And that got pretty interesting in my car, you know. I've had some some numerous, things happen to me in 12 step calls.

I've even had awkward situations where, I always Anytime I do a 12 step call with a woman, I always take a woman with me if I get a call or I give it out to 2 other women in AA. And I had one experience where, a woman was supposed to meet me at this door and go into this house to get this woman out of there and no one was there. And, the parents invited me in. And I was there alone and this woman was was really fired up. And, you know, she had other intentions of what I was there for.

And that became very awkward for me, and I was very very uncomfortable about it. It's not what I do. Someone else may have taken advantage of that. And, you know, I had to make some calls to AA Intergroup and and sit tight until they got someone down there and take over. So I've been in situations that are kinda sticky like that and uncomfortable.