Steps 10, 11 & 12 Study from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

Hello. My name is Bob s, and I'm a member of the 4th dimension group. We are a group of, AAs who love to put on big book step seminars and, promote, or at least provoke people into starting, new big book step study meetings, however they wanna do it. We'd like to share with you some of the things we do, along the lines of steps 10, 11, and 12 on this particular, tape. So, okay, I hope you have your pen ready now and your yellow marker.

And, we're ready to start off here and launch out, toward this step 10 where we begin to change in such a way that it will be sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism. And after all, isn't that why you came here? Of course. And so this is the important thing. This is what we've been waiting for.

We've been preparing for this all the way to this point since the very beginning. Let's go to page 83, and let's talk about where we are now. Remember, we've not recovered yet. We have not reached that point of being recovered. This is just recovery.

If you're just here now, you're at that point, like they say, to treatment center, we're recovering and that's all you're doing now. You're recovering. You have not recovered. And you can't do those wonderful things it says to do on page a 100, a 101, a102 yet. But you will be able to if you set and do what we say here.

Well, we say doctor Bob and Bill Wilson and those first, 60 or a 100 or whatever there were people who helped write this book. Remember, these are words out of experience. These are not something somebody made up or some theory. That's the reason this thing works so well because they've tried all these things. So don't get the idea you're recovered now because you're doing step 9.

You are not probably. You are still recovering and you have to you're still on the critical list and you still need to go to means every day and you still need to do all the things you've ever done until you get the problem removed. And we found out what that was way back in step 1, didn't we, but not yet. Now, at the bottom of page 83, and here you are, if we are where you are now, if we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we're half way through. Mark the word painstaking.

This is not just that we just just blaze over. We are here we come. We're gonna know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace.

No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience will benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.

Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that god is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Okay. We see we have God helping us now.

Isn't that good? Because it doesn't say you recovered. It doesn't doesn't say that your sanity is returned yet. It doesn't say your problem has been removed yet. It doesn't say you've recovered at all.

It just simply means you've had this personality change. And I doubt if any of these personality changes are the reason you came to Alcoholics Anonymous. You you you came to Alcoholics Anonymous for the same reason as most of us came. You came to have the your alcoholic problem removed. It doesn't say it here at all.

Not at all. It just says you have a personality change. You actually you're having a personality change insufficient to recover from alcoholism. Make sure you understand that. Where you are now is a personality change insufficient.

Some people get these changes like, oops, boy, I got her now. Page a 100, 100 and 1 for me. I'm going to those whoopie parties tonight. No. It doesn't mean that at all.

Not yet. It says, are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.

Mark quickly, what's that sound like? It's like a spiritual experience. Remember that was quick? Sudden, sometimes slowly. That sounds like a spiritual awakening, doesn't it?

Well, that's it. But remember, it is insufficient at this point. Insufficient. Okay. Let's get ready for step 10.

This thought brings us to step 10, which suggest we continue to take personal inventory and set right any new mistakes as we go along. Mark the word new. What does new mean to you? Does that mean that candy bar, you're gonna steal on the way to the, work today? No.

It could. It would mean that. Of course, it would mean that, but it means much more than it. It might mean your attitude about gonna steal that candy bar, thinking about stealing a candy bar, thinking about lying to the boss while you're late to work today, it may include that resentment you work with woke up with this this morning, and here you are angry with something that might have happened 10, 20 years ago and you're still mad about it and you did step 4 and it didn't go away and you still got it, that is a new mistake, my friend. All these things that come out of our past are honest.

Remember in step 4, we only did our grocer handicaps. And, in step 5, we might have told all our life story, and we asked god to take these character defects we found out about us away, but it don't mean that they're all gone by now. They're gonna keep coming back. If you're like the rest of us, they'll come back over and over and over, and they're a new mistake. So you gotta watch for those all the time.

And, so you got why do I watch for it? It says right here, to set them right so you don't have them anymore. You wanna get rid of them. Here, remember, we're faced we were here to face and be rid of the things in ourselves which have been blocking us. That's what it said way back there.

So they're gonna continue to come, and they're gonna continue to block us unless we get rid of them. See? Get rid of them. And that's what we're gonna learn how to do in step 10 and 11 and 12. These three steps all work together and you will see that when we are through.

Next sentence, we vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. Mark the word as. Somebody says, do I have to finish step 9 before I can go to 10, 11, and 12, the maintenance steps? Well, the answer is right here in this sentence. Let's reread this, remembering that in step 9, what we do is clean up the past.

Here we go, we vigorously commence this way of living as we did step 9. So so you can see the big book tells you that as soon as you've done 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 was already done. Remember we did it back and forth, And and start making these demands, you're ready for 10, 11, 12 now. It took me 10 years to get all the things on my list. Men's men's made to all those people.

So, consequently, the very next sentence helps us out a lot. It says, we have entered the world of the spirit. So now, we have God to help us here. God to help us make these amends so we do them right. We don't mess them all up and hurt a bunch of people and and do things like that.

So, so thank god we have all this going on in our lives. We have god with us. We have a good frame of mind, I suppose. We have all those promises we just heard, this personality change, promises to help us. It says it said up there, we will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows, self seeking will slip away.

Well, certainly, if we're in that frame of mind, we wanna get rid of these character defects as they come up, so we could be of what? On page 77, remember maximum service. We wanna be a maximum service, not just some little bit of service, a little bit teeny ditty in the air. We wanna be as much service as God has been to us. He's saving us from getting what we deserve, which is a life of drunken alcoholism.

That's what we set ourselves up for. And here, God's gonna help us, so we wanna be of maximum service to god, and we can't be that if we're full of selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear, can we? So we've entered this world of the spirit, and words changed, and we wanna be of maximum service, and so we want to get these amends made and God's gonna help us do them right. Next sentence. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness.

This is not an overnight manner. It should continue continue for our lifetime. So that's pretty explain self explanatory, isn't it? Then you're gonna do 10, 11, 12, and that's it. You don't go through the steps, and that's it.

I don't even like the expression going through the steps because you don't. This is you learn how to begin living the steps in your life. And as we get to 10, 11, 12, that's all you got left in your life because you're gonna find out something right here that this includes all the rest of them. Why? You say?

Yeah. Well, hang on and we'll show you. We'll show you if you just hang on. It does. It includes and here we start right here.

The first lesson in that is right here. Take your fine line 10 that you hopefully have and put a one right by the word continue, this next word here, because this is the first part of step 10 which says continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Well, where do we hear about that? Well, of course, if you did the 4 step with us, you you have that written on the bottom of page, of page 71. And in that, you can see that we learned how to search for selfish dishonesty, resentment, and fear way back in step 4.

So right so, let's go out to the left hand margin. And at the top up there, the above, where this line is, right up above that, leave yourself a lot of room, we learned how to do this in step, what, step 4. So put a 4 there just like, at the edge the left hand edge, you'll see the two words for selfishness. Draw an arrow out and write a for. Turn your cape off and do that and turn it back on and join me for the second part.

Okay. Back again. The next word we come to is the word when. Put a q up there. That's our second direction.

When these crop up, we ask god at once to remove them. That's a second direction for step 10. Where did we learn to do that? What steps was that in? Well, it doesn't take you long to say 667, does it?

You can see that's when you learn how to do it. So so turn your tape off and go over and write 6 and 7 out in the left hand margin, and turn it on when you're finished. Okay. You're back again. We're ready for the 3rd direction.

The 3rd direction says, we discuss it with someone immediately. Of course, we we learned how to do that the first time in our lives with great sincerity in step 5, didn't we? So put a step 5 up to the side and, turn your tape off and then come back again for the 4th direction. The next step direction is a is a 4th one. Put a 4 where it says and make admins quickly if we harmed anyone.

Of course, we learned how to do that in 8 and 9. Very elementary, my dear Watson, of course. Very, very elementary. And, so we can see that so far in the first four directions of step 10 that we have learned how to do this by doing steps 4, 6, and 7, 5, 8, and 9. They're a little bit off kilter there, aren't they?

Well, there's a good reason for that. And, we're gonna get to that in a few minutes, but there's a reason. Keep in your mind there's a reason for them being off kilter, not 4, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9. 6 and 7 because the 4 or 5 in this particular, way of doing things. The last part comes up to tell us it says that after it says, we make amends quickly who harm thee.

And then it says, let me resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code. That's a 5th direction. Well, can you not see that when we did 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, remember our second dimension of sobriety? Inside.

And then the next dimension, 8 and 9, we cleared things outside. And the reason we did that, so we could be of maximum service to God and the people about us, like I said on page 77. And if we're gonna be of maximum service out there, then and only then can we jump out and resolutely turn our thoughts to people we can help. Because we can't help people too much if we're all full of anger and fear and resentment stuff and and, and being dishonest. No.

We wanna get rid of all that. So so that's the that's the whole idea that we're preparing ourselves to get all out of it. Me me me me me me me me me me. I'm the one inside me. I'm the one.

I'm the one. I am king of the mountain. I'm his majesty, the baby, as Bill Wilson said. Get out of that self into the godscape, which is that on the other side of your nose, doctor. If you're in the real world, in the godscape, and do your part to make the world a better place today.

And you can do that if you do step 10 in your life. And, somebody said, well, I do step 10 before I go to bed at night. Well, gosh. If I did it before I go to bed, I'd have to take a mattress with me all day long and lay down maybe 15, 20 times a day, especially when you're a cab driver out Los Angeles like I was. You you you guys things happen to you all the time, fear and resentment stuff, and you gotta get rid of them.

Now let's notice the pattern in which we get rid of them. Let's suppose the old guy gets in my cab, and he ain't gonna pay me. He's drunk, and he ain't paying him for nothing. And I'm I'm out 10 or $15, and I'm mad. And I'm I'm gonna have to get the police or whatever.

It says search for selfishness, resentment, and fear. Uh-oh. I just see I got a little bit of resentment, a little bit of fear. What am I gonna do about it? Am I gonna call go go to step 5 right away or call somebody up?

No. It says, well, these crop up, we just got it. I want us to remove them. And if I'm fit with my higher power, probably, I can get in connection with god enough that I'll get my nerves, get myself calmed down so I'm not really angry and I'm not real fearful, and I'll handle this situate situation in a very adult manner. And, I'll be able to handle without me me me, taking over and, his majesty the baby, running the show.

Once again, I'll I'll I'll I'll be able to handle the situation in a way that I won't wanna drink when it's over with or I won't end up with a resentment when I go to bed at night. And then it says we discussed it with someone immediately. That's that's if God didn't take it away. If God takes it away, you don't have to discuss it with anybody. You might want to later on, but you don't to call somebody every time something happens like that.

That's the reason they're written in this order. So you first first, you check yourself, and then you go to God. Oops. God gets rid of it. Gone.

Gone. That's the way it goes sometimes, and you don't have to worry about it. But in case it doesn't, then it says you call somebody immediately. But let's say the guy didn't pay me. I got beat out of $15, and, the guy took off running, whatever, got away.

And, so here I am. I'm mad. I'm burned up, man. I tell you, the world ain't treating me right bad, ain't it? So I might I might just park the cab and call up my sponsor or a friend or somebody and tell them what just happened.

You know what I'm saying? That'll help me calm down, it says. And, then it says, we just it says it says then after that that if you've harmed anybody, we make amends quickly. Well, maybe, maybe because of what happened, I was spiteful with my next customer. I could catch myself being that way, and so I'll make amends right away because I've you know, because of what happened, I I realized that's what I was supposed to do.

And I I start getting back in a fit spiritual condition, which maybe I hadn't been a few seconds or a few minutes before. But this is something to work quickly. This is an over and over and over thing all day long, all of your life. That's why I can never understand these people who say AA is not my whole life. Well, did we not, in step 3, make a decision to turn our will and our life over the care of God as we understood it?

What in the world is this doing but turning your will and your life over all day long? No wonder so many of those aren't doing step 10 if they say something like that. They are not doing it, and no wonder they get drunk. And I hope it ain't gonna be you, to be the next one because this is very, very important. People who don't do this usually don't stay in a fit spiritual joyous happy condition in life.

And there are a lot of times irritable, restless in discontent simply because they don't take care of these new mistakes. Remember the new mistakes? We gotta face and get rid of them right away, right here. Not later, not before we go to bed at night, not not when our sponsor tells it to you. Right now, that's our responsibility and nobody else's.

Okay. Maybe it's a little hard to get the information down just from a tape, but if you have it marked correctly, you'll have, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 different directions written in the text. And off to the left of the text, you're gonna have step 4, step 6 and 7, step 5, steps 8 and 9. And up above that, you will have written, we learned how to do this in steps, which, of course, as below, you'll have 4, 5, 6 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 5, 8, and 9. Well, I hope that's clear.

If it's not, call me up and and we'll go over it in in this office. But this is very important that you know how to do this. There's a little flyer we send along with this tape that has this information to you. You can just simply copy a lot of it from that so you'd be sure and get it. Remember, I guess, the main thing is because you're gonna hear the opposite over and over and over, but but you do it once a day or whatever that's about.

But, I don't know anything about that. But just remember, you wake up in the morning, you're mad, you're in a bad mood, dog's sitting there, you kick that dog, poor doggy, and you say and then you say, oh my gosh. What did I do? You know? Search for selfish resentment.

Selfish isn't fair. You search for then you see you did it. Then what do you do next? Well, you go to God and ask him, god, take his hate. Pull this out of my heart.

Please take it and so he does. Maybe maybe he does it. Not right away. And what's but then what do you do then? You call up somebody right away.

You say, you don't wanna check that poor dog. I don't know what in the world I did that for. I did. And then after the day, you start to feel a little bit better. Then the next thing you do, it says, make them hands quickly.

You go get a little glass of milk and then a bone, give it a nice doggy. Nice doggy. And then you handle it. Okay? See?

And now you're feeling good again. At 9 o'clock, you kick the dog. And at 4 minutes or 5 minutes after 9, you've completed all the directions your step in has to do tell you to do, and you're feeling good again. You've got your day happy and joyous. Otherwise, you probably carry that same feeling you have throughout the day.

See? God has a way of working with you to bring you right back to where you ought to be in a fit spiritual condition. And this is so important to be in a pit spiritual condition. And the rewards are fantastic. We heard some rewards, and we just got through reading them a while back here in 83 and 84.

Now we're here for another whole set of rewards. I'm glad we don't get what we deserve, but we're gonna get what god's grace is giving us, and let's see what that is. This is gonna be what it's like to be rocketed into the 4th dimension of sobriety of which we've not even dreamed. And have you ever dreamed of life this wonderful? Let's go to the next paragraph.

For a real alcoholic, this is fantastic. For ordinary people, this wouldn't sound like much at all. But for us, if you especially, you did the way I did, you you'd be thrilled to death over something like this. I know I am. It says we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol.

By this time for by this time, sanity will have returned. Sanity will have returned. What do we mean by sanity? Well, you remember how simple that was way back in step 2. We in step 1, we found out that insanity is an inability to differentiate the true from the false and drink.

And, of course, the sanity mentioned in step 2 simply means to be able to see and act on the truth in the matter of drink. And that's a matter of life and death to you and I. If you are a real alcoholic like I am, you can see how important that is. Isn't that wonderful? Who ever thought we'd be able to do that?

Here we are. We're people. We can always speak the truth and word it out, talk all about it, and just go get drunk again. Didn't do us any good. But we we speak the truth and act on a lie.

But now because of thanks to step 4 and step 10, we are beginning to live in the truth and the truth can see a lie. When we were living in a lie, we couldn't see a lie. Like, the night can't see the night. The day can see the night. Truth can see a lie.

And that's a wonderful promise that sanity will return. We'll be able to see and act on the truth of grace each and every time. Well, a lot of people say, well, I don't know. You know, I wasn't that bad or something like that. Maybe you weren't, you know.

And so it wouldn't mean much to you, but it sure means something to a real alcoholic like me. I hope it does to you. Next sentence. We will seldom be interested in liquor and tempted to recoil from it as from a hot flame. Boy, that's wonderful.

We react sanely and normally, and we will see this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. That's the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation.

We feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We've not even sworn off. Here it comes. Uh-oh. This is the main reason.

Matter of fact, this next sentence, get ready to mark this here, get ready to mark this, this is the main reason and maybe the only reason I ever came to Alcoholics Anonymous and I didn't believe it could happen. It says this, this is what it said, instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. Now that is beyond belief for a real alcoholic. For somebody who thought about nothing but drinking for year in year out, that drinking was a main part of his life like me, and I'd look for it, crave it, take it all.

When I when I started craving and I drink, I crave and I couldn't quit, and and I have this obsession all week long waiting for Saturday night, waiting for Friday night to start over again. That was the main part of life, I thought. And it doesn't exist for me anymore. It's been gone over 16 years now. Whoosh, gone.

And God has done this. See? Because I have done Gone. And God has done this. See?

Because I have done this step 10 over and over and over, and this is beginning to work in my life. It will work in yours. The problem will be removed, and you will become a recovered alcoholic. There is no doubt in my mind and certainly shouldn't be in yours that you are now recovered. You are not recovering, at this point.

The oldest guy in Alcoholics Anonymous is 53 years sober now, and he told one of our 4th dimension well, not a 4th dimension, but, yeah, it was. A 4th dimension member out in California. I can't think of his name right now. But he told him that you owe it to the newcomer to tell him how that you have recovered from alcoholism. Recovering is for people in treatment centers or detoxes or or where you are before you do 10, 11, or 12.

But if you do 10, 11, 12 long enough, you will become recovered. You'll know when that problem has been removed. You'll know. Nobody can tell you. Nobody has to.

You'll know. And if you're where you are right now, it probably ain't been removed. It's probably sitting right there saying, I ain't up there. I ain't up there. The electric station is, no.

I'm not there, but it's there. And really, if you're honest with yourself, you'll know that it is. But if you do these steps, 10, 11, 12 long enough, you will become also a recovered alcoholic like 1,000 of us are today. We're recovered. And these promises we just read are true for us.

They're probably not true for you yet. Don't get cocky and think, oh, boy. I got it now. You don't because it takes months and sometimes years of doing this for some of us to get it. But once you get it, you got it.

K? Big book says a few months. I don't know. I think mostly it is a few months and then but but we learned that step 2 if you recall. But we're not recovering.

We are recovered. The problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. Isn't that wonderful? It says we are neither cocky nor we afraid.

This is our experience. This is how we react so long as we keep in a fit spiritual condition. Uh-oh. Mark's fit spiritual condition. Uh-huh.

Yeah. In In other words, it's a trick, isn't it? It's a trick to all this. And I've written off to the side over here, recovered is a conditional state. It's just like if I had pneumonia last year because I left the window open and snow came in.

I got gave me pneumonia. But I went to hospital. I got over pneumonia and, by by spring, I was feeling wonderful. And, here, I've got through this whole winter now and, still, I have no pneumonia. I have recovered from it, completely recovered.

But if you let me leave that window open, soon as it snows again, let the wind blow in, I'll catch the moon again. I won't be completely recovered. So recovered is a conditional state. We are not ex alcoholics. Alcoholism is something once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic.

We're never gonna get completely cured of alcoholism. It's gonna be a part of our personality. It's gonna be laying in wait out there for us the rest of our lives. We're not like the nonalcoholic. The nonalcoholic doesn't have a little drunken monkey waiting to get him, but we will always have a drunken monkey out there waiting to get us.

It's never gonna go away completely, but it's not gonna be right on top of us. That's what we're talking about. Before that drunken monkey is right up to the first chance it got to get us in a irritable restless discontent, it would do it. It's it was working on us all the time. It got us mad at everybody in AA.

We didn't like this. We didn't like that. We didn't like those old traditions. We didn't like this bull we didn't like that. And so we were we we got drunk again a lot of times because we were irritable, restless, and discontented.

Well, now that we're recovered, we don't have a drunken monkey sitting on top us because we're in a fit spiritual condition and drunken monkeys can't live where the spirit of the Lord lives. It is impossible for it to live there, so it's got a bambooz. It's gotta move out, and it's got way off in its cage out there, off to left or right of you. It's waiting for you. And for you, it's probably on top of you right now.

But but for but for somebody's recovery that's off there, just waiting to come back as soon as it gets a chance. I can't come back while that spiritual condition exists. It's like a great big layer, a firmament, if you will, that it can't get through. And it's out there trying to get through it. But it just can't get through it because it can't live where darkness can't live where there's light.

Lie lies cannot live where there's truth. So once you're living in the truth and it can't get in there anymore, you see how see how simple that is? It's out there and if you stay in a fit spiritual condition, you're gonna be recovered because you're gonna recoil us from a hot flame and you're gonna be sane since you got sanity. See? Alright?

So that's what we mean by recovered. A lot of places don't like that word. A lot of places would and, matter of fact, let's go back to page 20. Somebody okay. Are you back on page 20?

Let's turn your tape off and, and read the first full paragraph that starts with the word you. And, okay. You back again? What we read in that, it said, you may already have asked yourself why all of us have become so very ill from drinking. Doubtless, you are curious to discover how and why, in the face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body.

Okay. I'm sure that you've heard a lot of people discussing recovered and recovering, and you don't you do, you do, you do, and you and you and you and you and you and I'm sure you've heard all of that, but, and I'm sure you've heard a lot of expert opinion, that around that around experts, say you can't today just like they did in the old days. They said, no. You can't. But Bill and Bob and the program of action wrote the only book that can prove that it works in the world of alcoholism, you can count the people to prove it, says that you do.

It explains exactly what we mean by recovered. We really hope you understand what this means. We we if you were with us before, we've explained this to you before way back there in step 1, but, maybe, you've forgotten some of that or maybe, we need to go over it again because we want to make you sure you understand that you don't get recovered and stay recovered. Just because you get to be a recovered alcoholic does not mean you're gonna just be recovered for the rest of your life. I'm a recovered alcoholic right now, but just because I am, doesn't mean I won't be drunk some other time in my life, but what the book tells me, if I stay in a fit spiritual condition, I will never be drunk anytime the rest of my life.

And, doesn't mean I won't think about alcohol either. Remember doctor Bob was a recovered alcoholic, and he always said he was a recovered alcoholic, but nonetheless, he thought of drinking every once in a while. But when he would think of it, we'll go back to the word Santa. He he he he thought about it, and he said that he didn't act on it. So he he could he could see the truth and act on the truth, and that's all we mean by being recovered to be able to see the truth and act on the truth.

K? Recovering, you can, you can see the truth and speak the truth and and act on a line, go get drunk again, but not when you're recovered. That's the difference between recovered and recovery for you. Okay. It's gonna emphasize what we just said again.

It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. We're headed for trouble if we do for alcohol as a subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. Mark this one. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

Once again, recovered is a conditional state. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of god's will into all our activities. How can I best serve thee? Thy will, not mine, be done. These are thoughts which must go with us constantly.

We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish. It's a proper use of the will. Much has already been said about receiving strength and direction from him who has all knowledge and power, But if we have carefully followed suggestions, we have begun to sense, uh-oh, that didn't say suggestions at all, did it? If we have carefully followed directions, marked directions, we have begun to sense the flow of the spirit into us. To some extent, we have become God conscious.

We have begun to develop this vital 6th sense, mark 6th sense, but we must go further and that means more action. Well, in other words, it's telling us here what we just read, we're gonna get our willpower back. It says we can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish. So if we can that means we gave our will up way back on page 63, if you remember. And something happened between page 6385 where we well, that we have changed.

Something's happened between 63 85 and what was it that changed? Well, as Joe and Charlie point out in their wonderful tape, on page 84, we got our sanity back and because we got our sanity back, then we get our will back, not the other way around. The way we like to have it, we get we get our will back and then our sanity later on. No. But we get our sanity before god gives us our will back.

So we get our sanity back on 84 before we get, our our our will power back, but we do have it. If our will is the same as God's will, then we we we we're safe and we're protected because we are in a fit spiritual condition. And, so our will is to do God's work, and in step 10, we found that there is a way indeed to be in a fit spiritual condition so that we can do God's work and really, be of service to God and to others. And, so at this point, we are just about finished with all the information that we have gleaned out of step 10, and I'm sure there's a lot more here for you to find. So don't think that we told you everything there is to know because there's a lot more, and and and but it's still a rather simple, easy way to be close to God, and that means to be close to joy in your life.

The rewards are tremendous for this wonderful, little, simple, 5 part formula. So I hope you avail yourself to it. We have so many people go through the steps with us. And, oh, yes. They've got all the information.

They know it all. And, then the next thing they do is go march right out and get drunk within the next, 2 or 3 months. And upon inquiry when they come back, we always find they have not done step. That they have not done step, 10. So see the gravity and see the importance of this, and don't just glean over it and think, well, I know that.

What's next? But the next thing is, now that you've asked, we're at step 11. Uh-oh. I just remembered something. Let's make sure you got everything marked here on page 84 and 85.

On page 84, mark the word sanity. Page 85 marked, instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. Also, fit spiritual condition, and then what we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition And if you wanna write out the side, this is what it's like to be recovered. Page 84 and 85 shows what it's like to be recovered.

Those are the main promises. The ones they read at the meetings, so far as I am concerned, and most of us in the 4th dimension group are not the main promises. They're the ones for recovering people. This one here is the main promises, on page 84 and 85. This group of congress are the main ones because they're the ones who tell what a recovered alcoholic is is like, and it's much of I mean, that's why we cover, to get recovered, not not to be recovery.

And so, we wanna get, we wanna get on top of this thing. And, this is how we do it. Those other promises are good, but they're not good enough. Bill Wilson always said, the good is often the enemy of the best. And we need the best or we're gonna get drunk.

And that's why it's just that simple. Okay. Let's go to step 11. Bottom of page 85. Step 11 suggests prayer and meditation.

We shouldn't be shy on the matter of prayer. Better men than we are using it constantly. It works if we have the proper attitude and work at it. It would be easy to be vague about this matter, yet we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions. This set of directions is gonna tell us when to pray at night, in the morning, and all day long.

So the first thing it tells us when we go to bed at night, so write night out to the side of the first full paragraph. And then when we retire at night, marked night, we should constructively review our day. Were were we resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid? Mark those 4 words separately. And let's ponder.

Where did we hear them first? Of course, it was in step 4. We first heard those in step 4, and the next time we heard them, it was in step 10 a few minutes ago. And, so here we see them again in step 11. Do you not think that this mistake that's been made around AA from coast to coast, from country to country about doing step 10 before going to bed at night words.

Quakers meditate in words. Eastern meditation is not thoughts, not words. It is a I don't know, but this is a type of meditation and probably more what Bill means when he talks about prayer and meditation. After making our review, we ask God's forgiveness and require what corrective measures should be taken. Well, this is our nightly prayer.

This is our every nightly prayer on page 86 here. So don't forget that. Mark that. After making our review, we ask God's forgiveness. That's real important because how can I forgive myself?

If I forgive myself, who's gonna forgive the me that did the forgiving? That's me too, and and so it doesn't make any sense, but it does make sense for God to forgive. Now I think God can forgive us, and I if I am at peace within myself and I've forgotten emotionally all the guilt and remorse and shame of the past, that is forgiveness. To forget to be able to forget emotionally is what forgiveness amounts to anyway. And, so that's it.

But God does the business. We don't. We are not in charge. We are not in charge. It's God who is to forgive us, not us.

We're not that much of a big shot yet. Even though we are getting recovered, we're not we we we don't take God's place. Our will may be close to God's will sometimes, but we are not God. Okay. And inquire what corrective measures should be taken?

The last part of that sentence always. Bill most Bill's prayers are 2 parts. That's that's very interesting. So that's what we do before we go to bed at night. Let's see what we do in the morning.

Right morning off to the side of the next full paragraph. Upon awakening, Mark 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 that we be it be divorced from self pity, dishonest, or self seeking motives.

Under these conditions, we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all, God gave us brains to use. Mark, God gave us brains to use. Now that we're recovered, we're one of God's servants, and we're thinking along the right lines, God gave us brains to use. We might use our sponsor's brains once in a while, but if we're recovered, we got our will back, and we got our sanity back. We've got brains to use.