Steps 6, 7, 8 and 9 in Richmond, VA

And if we could open this session with the, serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.

There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We are self supporting through our own contributions. AA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution, does not wish to engage in any controversy, neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. In accordant in accordance with our singleness of purpose, only alcoholics will participate in this meeting.

This is an open meeting and all are welcome. Public relations are important. Good public relations save lives. We seek publicity for AA principles, not AA members. Personal anonymity at the public level is the cornerstone of our public relations policy.

The 11th tradition is a constant reminder that personal ambition has no place in AA. And with that, we'll turn it back over to Johnny. Well, I'm still Johnny, and I'm still alcoholic. Well, to the best of my ability, we have, or I have tried to explain to you my beliefs and my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous up to and through the 5th step of this program recovery, plus some of my own personal opinions and things that I believe very deeply in. What I very believe, probably more deeply than anything else, is that I love alcoholics.

And I know, way down deep in my soul, from which I live and breathe most all of my life, Is that alcoholics of my type either go crazy, or they commit suicide, or they get sober in Alcoholics Anonymous. There isn't any options left open for them over a period of time. And so I'm very, very, very, conscious of alcoholics and alcoholism. And based on my experience, in Alcoholics Anonymous, these things that I have seen happen in Alcoholics Anonymous sometimes scar me, sometimes win me. But I believe basically in Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I believe basically that all those other things that are introduced into various programs are fine and dandy. I just believe they don't have anything or any place in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's what I have come to believe, because I've come to believe that alcoholics of my type are always looking for a way out anyhow. I don't believe anybody ever comes to Alcoholics Anonymous and is not looking for the open door. I mean, they're always looking for a way out.

We're always looking for escape route. That I am. I always was. And and the deeper I got into Alcoholics Anonymous, the more I had people around me who were more concerned with saving my life, and they weren't hurting my feelings, or going against what my opinions had been, you know, what I thought was really right, and, you know, in my egotistical concern for other people, which I had none, the more I've come to understand that the more powerful thing upon the face of this earth, the most powerful thing that's on the face of this earth is the God honest truth. And truth, as I understand it, is based on the experiences of the people who have come to Alcoholics Anonymous.

My experience in Alcoholics Anonymous is that I have seen a lot of things come in in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous. A lot of people come in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous that haven't done alcoholics of my type any good whatsoever. Matter of fact, they've killed a lot of alcoholics of my type. I'm not saying that they don't do good for a lot of people and a lot of things. And I'm not saying that compassion doesn't have a place in Alcoholics Anonymous, because I believe truth is compassion.

I believe that if I declare to you that I love you, then I owe you the truth. As I see it and so my experience designates me to explain to you what I believe and what I have seen here. My old sponsor, Norm Alpi, used to tell me what you are speaks so loud, I can't hear a word you say. But sitting around in meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous, not just once in a while, but on an average of 4 or 5 times a week, I sit in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous over all these years. And I have seen many, many things here.

And what I have seen in Alcoholics Anonymous is what my experience brings down, and what these steps come to mean more to me today than they did when I was first going through them. Because I've come to understand that it's a matter of life and death. And another thing I've come to understand in Alcoholics Anonymous is how very complicated people try to make everything in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I understand the reason for that too. Because my ego, being as selfish and self centered as I am, demands, it demands from me credit for everything that happens to me.

Good. It demands that it's something that I have, that I am entitled to because I am so good that I am entitled to all these things. My ego demands these things. My ego also says to me that there must be some course of action Basically, that's what it says. I know people who have spent Basically, that's what it says.

I know people who have spent a lifetime in Alcoholics Anonymous, writing inventories and working on their shortcomings. I mean they just died. And that's where we are right now. We just got through with the 5th step, where I'd bid it to God, and to myself, and to another human being, the very nature of my wrong. It said, at the bottom of page 75, that returning home from the final place where we can be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what we have done.

We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know Him better. Taking this book down from our shelf, we turn to the page which contains the 12 steps. Carefully reading the first five proposals, we ask if we have omitted anything, and this is the heavy stuff here, for we are building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last. We're building something here. We're doing something here.

We're walking this way of life so we'll have an arch that we can walk over into this happy freedom. It says very simply, Have we skimped on the cement put into the foundation? I mean, you can't build a house without a good solid foundation. And so far what we have done, if we're painstaking about this phase of our development, my experience is this, is that we have built a foundation. We haven't got the house yet, and we haven't been sheltered from the storm, but we have the foundation if we had been painstaking about this phase of our development.

We have this solid foundation built on absolute bedrock that we know is right. Have we tried to make mortar without sand? I don't know how many of you ever, because I'm not much of a construction, but I do know that if you're gonna make concrete, you need sand and some other stuff to mix it up. And so you just can't say, Oh, that's part way, or I've taken part of this. And you hear people say, Well, you know, you take it this way, and take it that way.

You know, I hope that by anything else, when I read precisely to you, that you didn't try to think it meant anything but precisely. I probably did for a while. This says on the top of page 6, where you really get into steps 6 and 7, and in our book, Steps 6 and 7 are just 2 paragraphs. And they're just 2 very short little prayers. You see, we look at Step 6, we have emphasized willingness as being indispensable.

Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable? Can He now take them all? And there's a little line in there. Which means, end of one thought, the beginning of another. Everyone.

If we still cling to something, we will not let it go when we ask God to help us be willing. That's all. And then Kim, step 7. Which I think, really, is another one of those funny little things that says what it means, but very few people hear it. It says this, if I can answer, if I'm not ready to have God help us be willing, when ready I say something like this, My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me.

All of me. Not just what I want you to have. I want you to have all of it. I'm willing here here I am. Take with me.

Do with me what you will. Here I am. I pray that you remove from me every single defective character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Now a lot of people read that, I suppose, and I did for a long time. And I thought, god, take away all my defects of character.

Make me as pure snow out there. Yeah. And then I found out a couple years later that he hadn't. Oh, I guess I'm not worthy. He hasn't removed all my defective character, so I better go back and work on them.

I think I'll work on anger. I think I'll work on lust. The harder I work on them, the more angry I become, and the more lustful I become. I just can't work on things. I do not work well on things.

It does not say that. It does not say, take away all my defective character. It does not say that at all. This is what it said. I pray that you remove from me every single defective character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows.

That's all. I don't even know what's supposed to be removed. I haven't got a clue what's supposed to be removed. All I know is that he's gonna take enough of me away from me so I will be useful to him and to my fellows, whatever it may be. Whatever those defects are.

I can't make them go away. I can't understand them and cast them aside. I can't do any of those kind of things. I just have to trust, for the first time in my life, that God is gonna do something for me that I can't do for myself. There's a big difference be saying between saying I believe in God, and then I trust in God.

Big difference. If I ask y'all how many do believe in God, everybody say, Yeah, I believe in God. I believe that. How many that trust in God? There might be a different story there.

You know, I mean, really. Remove from me every one of my defects of character which will stand between me, my usefulness to you, God, and to my fellows you. That's all. Which will make me useful in Alcoholics Anonymous. That's all.

Or useful in my community, or useful in my family, or useful for whatever it is. Not all, not, you know, I to be driven, or be struck clean as a driven snow, it's impossible. I'm a basic human being with wants and likes, dislikes, shortcomings, all these things that I brought into Alcoholics Anonymous with me. I still have them all. I remember one time, one of the funniest things I funniest thing I ever heard of a guy say, I come into Alcoholics Anonymous, and I put the plug in the jug.

I put my seat in that seat in there. And god removed from me anger. God removed from me lust. God removed all my defects of character. God removed from me.

I'm not angry anymore. After me, I over spilled a cup of coffee on him. You'd be surprised how quick God gave him back his anger. I mean, it it it it it I think it's totally egotistical to believe that, that I have the ability to do anything other than show up here and do what I'm asked to do. I believe it's totally, I think, I believe it's totally egotistical to believe that God would do something for me that He won't do for everybody else.

I believe that's totally egotistical. I don't believe that there's a single human being in this world who isn't any more important, is any less important in God's eyes than I am. I don't believe that. And I don't I don't buy any kind of a definition, or any type of a thought process, or anybody who believes that there's anything more special about them than there is anybody else. I couldn't buy that god as a child.

I can't buy it now. I believe that when I act like one of his children, he treats me like one of his children. When I act like a jerk, then I get to take the heat for it. You know, I I cannot play victimization on anything and blame anybody else for any bad actions that I take. I can't.

I heard a guy ask a question. One of the questions you always get asked if you ever do a workshop, an AA workshop where they ask you questions after you give a little talk, is one of the questions they always ask is, how do you deal with anger? I don't deal with anger very well. I don't deal with it at all. I don't deal with anything.

I just try not to place myself in any place where I can become angry. That's all. It doesn't say that I don't get angry, you know. It doesn't mean that, you know, I don't do it. But since the bad thing about getting angry and making an ass out of yourself is, now I'm in a program where I gotta go back and make amends.

I don't like that. I don't I don't like making amends, you know, particularly to my inferiors. You know what I mean? I mean, just people who are beneath me. I mean, Jesus, you know what I mean?

You go out and you, you know, we were talking about it at lunch today about, you know, one of the things that that my sponsor taught me by his actions when I was doing Alcoholics Anonymous is how he treats other people. Not necessarily in Alcoholics Anonymous, but how he treats people out there who can't fight back, you know, like little waitresses and where you have lunch, or little people who are driving cars out there, retail clerks, you know, those type of people. What type of consideration you have for them, I suppose, or, how you do that. He he was very good at that, you know, very good at that. He was very good at being kind to people outside of Alcoholics Anonymous and I noticed that because these people can't strike back.

And and, you know, it's kinda, you know, it's you know, people look at you kind of funny when you have a day later, you walk back into a restaurant and tell the waitress, Jesus, I act like a jerk the other day, I'm sorry. He yelled at you. She'll look at you and say, I don't remember who you were, mister. You know, I never saw you before. And you walk out and say, shit, I could have got away with it this time.

You know, just but you can't. You know, not not if if if you're like me and these things eat at you, and eat at you, and eat at you, and eat at you, which is what we're talking about here. Now we're getting ready. You know, we've had God we've we've become willing to have God remove the defects of character, whatever he's gonna take from us, so we'll be useful to him and to our fellows. Now we gotta come to the real, real test, tie these things together.

It says, we made a list of all the people we'd harmed. And became willing to make amends to them all. Guy said to me, where's the list? I said, you made it when you took inventory. If you took a 4 column inventory the way it's outlined in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, you have a list.

If you have one of those thousands of different type of guides, You know, I mean, you couldn't find the name in there if you wanted to. You're looking through all the weirdo things you're supposed to put down there. But just look, there's a little outline in this book, Alcoholics Anonymous, on how you're supposed to take an inventory. It's just this 4 column inventory, you know, just and then the list is the people that I'm resentful at, why I did it, and all, so on and so forth. Got a list.

And then, now it gives me a real chore. And somewhere in our writing it says, these are the steps to separate the men from the boys. Now I gotta go out and make direct amends. I gotta go out and make direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. And that's tough.

That really is. I mean, you got to go to people and tell them you did things that you shouldn't tell them you did them to. I mean, I mean, you gotta go out and start making amends. You're gonna have to start, I remember one time I was telling my sponsor about making this amends. I said, Jesus, you know, I I haven't, I I don't want to take my money and give it to that guy that ain't your money, it's his money.

You have money you owe him, you ain't got no money. It's his money. I mean, that's sick. And in my way of thinking, what do you mean I ain't got no money for Christ's sake? You got money?

Yeah. Go pay bills. Wait a minute. I wanna go to the dance. I wanna go out to dinner.

Go pay your bills. Then if you got any leftover, then you go to the dance and go to dinner. Oh, that's not my priority. My priority is to amuse myself and be good to me. And then if there's anything left over, you can have it.

But by the time I get through being good to me, there ain't nothing left over, because I want it all. And that's just the nature of the beast. I don't know why that is. But that's the way it is. My father was very, very, very thorough about that, because, for a very specific reason, as he told me, Because it isn't.

Until we get to step 9, which reads like this. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. It says no matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. Self pity is a form of depression, in case you don't know it.

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. It says, are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, but they will always materialize if we work for them. I think it's amazing to me that they put those promises in there at the tail end of step 9.

They did not come until after step 9. There are other promises in this book before you get to these things, promises that most of us don't wanna hear, promises about what will happen to us if we don't do these things. Talk about things like, we may drink again. Somewhere in this book it says that any life based upon anything but spiritual principles is doomed for failure. Doomed for failure.

Alcoholics like me, and I presume like you if you're here, need some type of a spiritual lifestyle. And what is spiritual? I believe that spiritual, to me, As spiritual as you can get, is doing what you say you're gonna do, when you say you're gonna do it. Or else let somebody know why you can't. That's what I believe is spiritual.

You know, spiritual, to me, is not sitting around praying. I don't think that's spiritual, I think that's just praying. I believe that spiritual to me, sometime is ticking your hand out the window to make a left turn. That's what I believe. I believe that spiritual, to me, sometimes, is being concerned about person sitting next to you.

I believe spiritual, sometimes, is being more concerned about other people than I am myself. I believe that's spiritual. I believe that spirituality is an action. I believe that doing things for others without no thought or reward whatsoever is spiritual. And the reason I know that to be true, is because the most spiritual man that I have ever known in my life is a man, a gentleman by the name of Chuck Chamberlain.

Everybody talks about what a great spiritual man he was. All these things. Chuck Chamberlain was a man of action. Chuck Chamberlain went to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and tried to carry this message to alcoholics. And he did it for free and for fun, just because that's what he wanted to do.

Now, if that's spiritual, I do that sometimes. For free and for fun, so that must be spiritual. If that is what some people think is a spiritual giant, Because they thought he was spiritual because he was. It was not because he sit around and prayed a great deal, or because he'd mouthed God every other word out of his mouth. It's because he put into action spiritual principles.

He got out of himself, no matter what it was like out there, he would get out and go. Night after night after night after night, he got in that car, drove down off that mountain, went to meetings of alcoholics now. He worked downtown, he lived way out in the country. He went to Mead's downtown, and then drove way out from the country, came all the way back, worked the next day, stayed at Mead's 1, 2 o'clock in the morning, drove home, night after night after night. He got on he got on before it was popular, parked his car at the airport, got on airplanes, and flew out and talked to people.

Not because he wanted great audiences, because that's what he wanted to do, because they asked him to do it. He didn't sit around and said, Have talk, we'll travel. Hello? He didn't do that. That's spiritual.

My first sponsor, Norm Alpi, was like that. I watch these I see, I watch these people. I watch them like, oh, you wouldn't believe how I watch them. I think sometimes that I watch them just to see if I could pick out their flaws. You know, because I wanted to find some flaw in their character makeup so I could say like a lot of jerks do, You ain't so slick after all, kids.

But I just watched them. And by watching them, I was doing what they were doing. And so I didn't have time to find out what was wrong with them. I was so busy being caught up in what Chuck used to say was, I got lost doing the things in Alcoholics Anonymous that make me feel good. Got lost doing it.

And in the sum total, it found me and God knew. It's amazing to me. By doing these things, I got caught up into this magnificent thing called Alcoholics Anonymous and I got lost in the results. Results aren't mine. I can't sit down and predict to you what will happen to me as a result of doing certain things.

I I can't do that. I I can't sit and tell you when I came to believe in God. I don't know. Just turned around one day and there it did. I believed there was a power greater than myself.

Now I was introduced to a God in a very strange way here. I was told to sit down and shut up and listen. I thought that was cruel. I wanted to visit from time to time with whoever would listen to me, You know? But my sponsor told me, Sit down, shut up.

Tell him, if I didn't want to listen, that was my business, maybe somebody else did. He was teaching me another very spiritual, very spiritual thing, consideration for you. So that is a very spiritual principle, to be concerned about the person sitting next to me. Even though I am bored, and even though I don't like the speaker, or even I don't like the subject, or maybe I don't wanna be there, maybe I'm frustrated, that doesn't mean that I should not respect the person sitting next to me. I should, if I wanted to be, if I claim to have some type of a spiritual program within grasp of my life, I should be willing to forsake my discomfort for the comfort of the person sitting next to me, which is a little thing called common courtesy, which very few self centered, self serving people like me have any glimpse of most of my life.

Get out of my goddamn way. Do you understand? I gotta get there, whatever it is. Like the little kids on this Christmas tree. Yeah.

I know. Look. That's the way I ran through life like that. Get out of my way for on the freeway. Out.

No. I'm out here. Move. No. They don't care.

That's what I'm saying. And so we come into this thing, Alcoholics Anonymous. However, before we got to number 1, and we're given a program of recovery which will build us now that we've got our foundation. Now with 6, 7, 8, and 9, we put up the shelter. Now we're in the house.

Now we're sitting there warmed. But, now we have another dilemma. Were we gonna get the fire for the fireplace? Oh, Jesus. Well, some folks would say, well, I think, I think I'll just pray to God about that.

Okay, God. Bring me a quart of firewood. God, it's getting cold in here. Better hurry up, God. If you listen real careful, god will say to you, get a damned ax and go out and cut it down and carry it in there yourself.

But I wanna be spiritual and very godly, but I believe in God. So I'll just sit there and freeze his death waiting for him to deliver wood to me. I have a little saying that I usually tell people about things like that. Next time you get hungry, go lock yourself up in a closet and pray for a hot dog. When God squirts you one through the keyhole, call me.

I'll take a snowplow to you, whatever. You know, I believe that, I believe that God wants all things good and decent for me and for you. But I also believe that He wants me to go up and try to get them. That's what I believe. I believe that He wants me to go out and take actions, like His children take action, so he can reward me for acting like one of these, like my children.

But my children, I don't have children, some people seem to think that I'm opposed to children. No, I'm not. I love children. I really do. I have little grandchildren.

I just love them little rascals. Even though they put peanut butter in my shoes and break my lamps, blame the other one for it, ride bicycles through my house. God. Little wild person. Run into the wall, passes off.

Oh, grandpa. He did that. I love them. I love them little kids. You know, I just I just I just think that you ought to be able to take care of them.

But that's that's the way I do. When my children, when my children act like my children, I will. But when they're out there getting loaded and running the streets, When you get when you get tired. There's a story about that too. It seemed once upon a time a long long time ago, there were 2 brothers from this very wealthy family.

And one of them was kind of a hip dude, you know, he's kinda slicky, went and told the old man, he said, look. I'm a wait for you to die. I want my money now. I wanna enjoy my money while you're alive, blah blah blah. So the old man gave his inheritance.

He went out and squandered it, Spit all of his dung. Spin it. Just blew it. The book says in riotous living Now we know about riotous living, don't we? If anybody knows about riotous living, it's us.

Well if riotous living, alright, we like that riotous living business. If I get snowed in, I like to have some riotous living, I'll tell you that. But anyhow, he got all through. And and the story so the story says, he came to one day in a pigpen. And he looked up and he was in the pigpen of his father's farm, or wherever it was.

He looked up and he said, My God, the servants in my father's house live better than I do. Tell you what I think I'm gonna do, you know, how we talk to ourselves in our moments, clarity. I think I'll just get up and go knock on daddy's door and say, look, I know I screwed up, Pop. I know I really don't deserve anything. But could I just come and be a servant?

Could I just come in? And I don't want nothing. So he made this decision. And he got up, he started walking towards the house. Now all the time the old man is sitting up there in second story of his house looking at the pigpen.

And seeing his son that he loved crawling around in the pigsty. Eating pig food and stuff, eating pig pens. And all the time he said he'd just sit there and watch him, and probably like me, father who watched his daughter suffer through this thing for 10, 15 years, tears come to his eyes when he saw this pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization of the child that he loved, like all fathers. They sit there, but the great thing about this father, it's like God, he just sit there and watched him. Now you say, well, you know, if he was any kind of a loving father he'd run down and snatch him up out of the pigpen, say, come on home.

No. He didn't do that. He just sit there. When he started coming to the house, the old man ran out the house, met him on the porch and said, to the servants, Bring a robe for my son, sandals for his feet. Kill the fatted calf, my son has come home.

That's what it amounts to. Trying to get back home, the old man's there, he's just waiting for it. That's what God said. God's just waiting for us to say, okay. Now I can't eat any more of this will, baby.

I'm sorry, Pop. You know what I mean? Called pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. I cannot stand any more of this swap. I'll just get up and go ask my father if I can be a servant in his house because I do not deserve to be one of his children.

Now the sad part about that story is this, the other brother, his brother was, his brother was pissed. I mean he said to the old man, Jesus. Hey, what's going on here? Man, I've been standing here toiling in the fields, taking care of the house. Jackass went out there and lived it up, spent all the money.

You ain't never gave me a robe, Sandoval. You never told them to kill a fatted calf. All you did was say, sit down and eat. What is the deal here? And the old man looked at him and said, you don't seem to understand.

My son was lost, but now he's home. But he's still my son. That's the way I think God is. That's my concept of God. I think that's the way.

People want to know why God does all. God doesn't do anything. He does not do anything. He just sits there. Smiles when we're acting like his children, and weeps when we act like what we are, jackasses.

That's what I believe. That's what this thing sells to me. That's the promise here, that you get to go home. You get to quit wandering around in the darkness and the lostness out there. And we come into the house, and we sit by the fire, and they kill the fatted calf, and put a ring on our finger and we just put our feet up on the hearth and get warmed by the fire.

That's what this is. That's what happened to us if we're painstaking about this phase of our development. If we really get into Alcoholics Anonymous, not get sidetracked by all this mish mishmash mishmash mishmash, I don't want to. I don't think I have to. Wait a minute.

Quite old. I got a better idea. We're just painstaking about this phase of our development, we'll be sitting by the fire. And the people who aren't painstaking about this development would be standing out out in the cold looking in the window, wondering what the hell's going on? When am I gonna get mine?

Which I did all my life. I stood out in the cold and peeked through the window all my life and said, Jesus, I wish I could just go in the candy store and have some candy. I didn't realize I had to go over and open up the door and walk in. You know? I just thought I was supposed to stand at the window and pee forever, and God was supposed to give me candy all the time.

Which is kind of a nagatistical idea, but that's the way I live my life. So that's where we should be in Alcoholic Synodamas. We should be at the end of step 9. We should be sitting by the fireplace. We should be in a nice warm place like this.

We should have coffee, and we should have donuts, and we should have sandals for our feet, and robes for our shoulders, and a ring for our finger. Because we're God's children, we'd come home. Now how do we stay here? Well, that's what 10, 11, or 12 are about. We got any more questions?

I hope that's what 10, 11, or 12 are about. It says, why do many AA members look down on or criticize those that are very active? Maybe because they ain't active, I don't know. I really don't know. But I really do, I know this, and this is something I learned from Chuck a long, long time ago.

I learned many things from Chuck. Fathers are supposed to teach their children many things. And Chuck Chamberlain was my father, for all intents and purpose. He never sired me, but he was my father. He said to me one time that nobody, nobody would say anything about me at all to deliberately tear me down.

The only reason anybody would say anything bad about me is to make themselves look better. That's all. You know, if you don't wanna if you don't wanna be criticized in Alcoholics Anonymous, don't believe in anything. Don't stand up for what you believe in. Don't do anything.

Just shoot around here and sit right in the back and don't do nothing. And nobody will ever criticize you. They won't even know you're here. And more importantly, they won't even know when you leave. Because you'll be like one of those nameless faces of people who drift in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous, do nothing, stay for a short while, sit on the porch, maybe have a cup of coffee, and never come in out of the cold and sit by the fire.

I, personally, would rather be the criticizer as the critic, personally. Because I'll tell you one thing, the higher all the water you go, the better targets you make. That's one of Clancy's. Thought I'd give him a little juice before I get carried on there too much. I I don't know why, but I'll tell you I'll tell you something that I that I believe in.

I believe that 95% of the people in Alcoholics Anonymous are perfectly willing to let the other 5% do everything. I'm perfect. But I tell you, there's a statistic that Clancy quotes all the time that really makes me tie 2 things like that together. Do you know that 95% of the people in the world today, with all the help and availability and notoriety of alcoholism and its treatments, that 95% of the alcoholics in the world still die drinking? I don't know how those 2 statistics fit, but it's I wanna be in that 5%.

So I'm gonna just keep moving around here. If I have to be criticized for saving my life, so be it. Can the steps help an alcoholic that was been sexually abused? I don't know. I tell you, I'll work the steps if one of you wanna sexually abuse me.

I don't know. I I don't know. That's one of those that's one of those non answerable questions. Not you, you long haired weirdo. I'll I'll pick out who I wanna be abused by.

I don't know. I know. I there seems to it seems to be a thing that's coming up in Alcoholics Anonymous a lot. You know, I I don't know. You know, I probably abuse people, but I really don't know.

Being, that's a question I can't answer because I have no experience in it. See, I don't what I believe is that was that, that was then, and this is now. I believe that that's part of the amends. I know it sounds kind of sick to say that somebody sexually abused you and you got to go make amends to them. But there's a destructive side to that nature too.

You can't sit and say, if I hadn't been sexually abused as a child, I could have been something better today. That being abused has recessed me and held me down. That's victimization. And the only thing that victimization does for people like me, I suppose people like you, is this, that it automatically relieves me from guilt. Because it's not my fault, it's your fault, you son of a bitch.

If this book is what it says it is, and I believe it to be godly inspired for the alcoholic. The number one offender in alcohol, knowing the number offender and killer to alcoholics is resentments. I cannot live in resentment no matter what the resenter. What would happen to me because I was resentful. I was beaten as a child and as a young teenager, thousands and thousands of times, Indescribable.

Sometimes so bad that they would let my mother see me for days by policemen. Because of my attitude, and because of my nature. I have been shocked with electro therapy programs. I have been dealt with high pressure fire hoses. That might be classified as abuse.

I don't know. But I cannot live tied to those things in my life. I can't live resentful to policemen all my life. 1 of my best friends is a policeman. One of my best friends was a policeman.

I can't live in resentment at the policeman. I can't live in resentment of the people who wheeled me on that gurney and strapped me down and gave me those electroshock treatments either, Or the doctor who diagnosed me that's clinically insane and did those things to me. Who tried to talk me into the lobotomy. I can't live in that type of a thing. I have to be free from that kind of stuff and go on about my business.

I'm in a new world here. I'm in a brand new house, a brand new thing. That's the wreckage of my past. I can't live there. I can't be bound to the past by something that happened in the past that I have no control over.

That doesn't mean video camera for Christ's sakes. You could have a very wealthy speaker talking to you today, I'll tell you that. But I didn't know this thing. So I just I hope it doesn't. I I know it it I know it's a very painful thing, and I know it's a very thing.

I know it's a very degrading thing. I know it's a very humiliating thing. But I pray to God that whoever has this type of a situation does not let it tie them and bind them into a thing that will destroy their lives full of resentment. I hope that they can get on about the business of life and realize that that's something that happened, and there's nothing you can do about it. You can't, I can't I can't go back and change the thing I said an hour ago.

If I said it, I'm sorry maybe, but I can't change it. But I can't say, oh, I always had 2. I'd have been bitter if I understood that. I didn't like it anymore. I can't do that.

I gotta say, god, I'm sorry. I'll try to offend you again tomorrow in a different way. See that's what I'm saying. You know, I I don't mean to make light of it, and I don't mean like to say something. I know to people who are, because I've I've talked to and sponsored people who deeply, sexually abused by members of their family.

And I'm not talking about just women, I'm talking about guys. And I'm talking about all stuff, and I I, and I could I put my arm around them, you know, if they'll let me, you know what I mean, and try to comfort them. See, I I don't understand this kind of situation, but I do know that if you don't rid yourself of it, you're gonna be locked in the bondage of this resentment for the rest of your life and it'll destroy you. You gotta get out of it. I mean it's like looking in the rearview.

Fine. The rearview mirror is fine to look at it, but God you can't just keep your eye back there forever. You gotta gotta do this. So God love you if you if you've had these problems. Believe me, I have plenty of empathy.

Although sometimes I make lie to some things, I have much empathy for all these things that have happened to us before we come to Alcoholics Anonymous. But it could not stun our growth. That's what I wanna get through to you. We have to move on with this thing. That's what that's what this thing is designed to do.

That's what 6, 7, 8, and 9 are designed to do, is to free us from the nightmares of our past so we can live out there in the world today. In sunshine. You stand out there, look at the snow falling. I saw a beautiful sight, I saw a lady standing there. I thought, God, you know, she's praying to the sun god.