Steps 10 & 11 in a workshop called "Catch the buzz with the steps" in New York, NY

Yes, ma'am. I was startled by alright. Here we go again. We have many things to discuss here. I've got new questions.

Also, for Annie. Annie, you're not here, but I wanted to say hello and extend my very best wishes to you personally, and I hope we meet soon. None of you know what just happened and that's just fine. So question, when a says, what happens if I quit and find out later that I didn't have to? May I suggest that a normal man would not ask this question?

Because a normal man would recognize that if that were the case, all you'd missed was a few drinks. In this individual's case, I would suggest if you found that out that you would have missed an awful lot of drinks. So, I would just simply say I wouldn't worry about that. Keep moving. Moral get revealed.

If you're not an alcoholic and you've missed a few drinks, big deal. If you are an alcoholic and have missed a few drinks, big deal. An alternative opinion to what I stated about resentments regarding your sponsor. What if you, do your inventory and when you're finished you realize you still have resentments against your sponsor? An alternative opinion was voiced which I think is very good That what you do is is that you take these resentments in this aspect of your inventory to a third party, an alternate third party possibly with a significant amount of time and that you can read this stuff and when you get to your pardon, you can then go back and make amends to your sponsor.

Yeah. Love that. Thank you, Ava. That came directly from a member of the Bagels and Big Book group, our sponsor. I love that.

Earl Light, sponsored by the big and let's see what this is. So watch with the eyeball to eyeball thing on the 9th step like I can't get to South Dakota to make this amends. Won't a letter do? Help. Okay.

Okay. Send them a letter. Make them a videotape and send them the videotape asking them to burn it immediately after watching it. Kind of a what was that show? Kind of a Mission Impossible thing.

This all is anyway, isn't it? South Dakota, make this yeah. Yeah. If you can go to South Dakota, go to South Dakota. If you can't, give them a phone call.

Read them the letter. Make the amends. Write them the letter. Do what you gotta do. We're willing to go to any lengths to do this stuff.

Alright? So if you tell me you can't go to South Dakota, I'd say, okay. You can't go. But you can get significant communication regarding this matter to that individual, can't you, And be available for their response. Right?

So if they have some need on the other end to say something to you about this, that they have the opportunity to do so. Right? Okay. Here's a good one. In the 8th step, how serious does the harm have to be?

Whoever wrote this, I love you. It's kinda like, you know, I was shooting to kill, but it was only wounded. No amends necessary. You know, I love that. Harm is harm.

If you have harmed someone, we don't we don't have degrees of harm. Right? Harm is harm. If you've harmed someone, make amends. You don't know that the impact this has had on that particular individual.

It's not we don't decide for someone else how much harm we've caused them. We don't know the extenuating circumstances of their lives. We don't know. I mean, I can, be goofing around at a party and push someone into a pool. Right?

And while all I've done is embarrass that person publicly, and that requires an amends. I apologize for embarrassing you publicly. I had no right to treat you that way, and I apologize if there's anything I can do to set this right. Please tell me what it is, and I'll be more than happy to engage in that in that activity to see that this is made right by you. However, I might be at the same party and push another person in the pool.

It's the same action. Right? That person almost drowned as a child and is deathly afraid of water. And this is a terrifying experience for this individual. Brings up a lot of their past.

I mean, it's really, really a remarkably unsettling experience to them that throws them into a semi catatonic state as they sink to the bottom of the pool and someone has to dive in and save them. Did I harm them the same? I did the same thing to them I did to the other person. Is that what it's about? What I did?

I make amends. Right? I make amends. You make amends. You don't sit there and go, well, you know, they got wet.

Big deal. I gotta make amends to the person I traumatized with the other person in the antmire. No. Make amends. Harm's harm.

Set it straight. Set it straight. It's like well, you know, I make amends for all you know, I pay back money in excess of $10. Or I have limited liability in all theft and I only pay up to $10. No.

Set it straight. Alright? What was the other thing? Somebody else mentioned to me something that I say that was pertinent to the 9th step. Speak up.

Where are you? You came up and you shared with me something that I talk about that you said it was pertinent. There you are. Naturally, right in front of me, and I couldn't see you. Yes.

Right. It's like, what's the point in the value of all this stuff? Right? When I came to AA you see, these conceptually, these things all tie together. We may have to go back to the tape and review, but I'm certain that they do.

I came into AA and believed that there was you know, because I was in it for me, the self centered nature of being new. I believed if I came in and I was honest with you, then you would be honest with me. This would be the result of my action. Because for me, it was all about the expectation I had on the back end of the of the action. Do you get what I mean?

I'm not being honest with you because that's a good thing to be. I'm being honest with you so you'll be honest with me. That that's what I'm after. I'm still do you notice here? I am doing the right thing but I'm still attempting to control and manipulate my environment.

You see how I'm doing that? I'm being honest with you only so that you'll be honest with me. I'm trying to get you to give me what I think it is I need from you, that if I love you, then you will love me. What am I what am I in what am I doing this for? I'm doing this so that you'll love me because I need to be loved.

It's about me. I'm just attempting to manipulate the situation. Right? If I show you respect, then you will be respectful of me. And I was completely wrong.

That's selling it he's selling it short way short. If I'm honest with you, the reward is is that I become an honest man. If I love you, then I become a loving man. If I'm respectful of you, then I become a respectful man. But these are the rewards that changes me here.

What you do with my because I was honest with you and you lied through your teeth to me. I showed you respect and you embarrassed me publicly for no reason other than to saying. Though I did find this one question a bit challenging. Kidding. Everybody that put a question up here is going, little shit's talking about me.

Earl. You get what I'm saying? This side of the street, I do this to be this, to become this, not to get from you. What you do is your business. I am powerless over that.

One of the great gifts of sobriety, serenity prayer. Remember that, you know, everybody talks about god grant me the courage to accept the things I cannot change, the courage serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change things that can't the willingness to know there wasn't no difference. Willingness wasn't. This is an example, sir, of, of sleep deprivation. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the willingness to know the difference.

And everybody gets caught up in that you know what remember what the first three words of that prayer are? God grant me. Where I seek this this will all make sense in a minute. Where I seek this. Right?

That's I have to pay attention to that. What can I change? Me. What can't I change? Norman, God I have tried.

To no avail. Norman remains delightfully Norman. Right? It's I gotta I gotta focus my attention on what I can do something about. I can't I can't help it if you lie or you don't lie.

Right? I can be an example for the newcomer that comes in. I can become a part of the human chain, right, that's Alcoholics Anonymous. And I can be a guy who's doing better and better and better and better. I can be an example to that guy.

So when that guy comes in and says, all I hear all is blah blah blah blah blah blah. You know what I'm talking about? I can say, uh-oh, yeah. That's all I heard. But I can feel something here.

I can feel something here. There's something that I can feel. It's palpable. It's tan I can feel it here. You people are doing something different.

What's the key to that? Doing. Doing something different. You people are living a different way. Your your act the action of your day is fundamentally different than mine, and I want that.

How did you get that? This. What keeps me I've worked 1 through 9. What keeps me going? What keeps me in the game?

10, 11, and 12. I think of them all as action steps. People say, well, you know, there are the action steps and then they're well, I think they're all action steps. 10, me. 11, god.

12, you. Nobody else to play with. Right? 45 was me. 10 was me.

6 and 7 was God. 11's God. 89 was you. 12 was you. Nice.

That's kinda tight, isn't it? That kinda covers it, doesn't it? 10? What am I doing with 10? What am I doing?

It's a pop quiz. Come on. Thought you were gonna get to sit there after lunch and just listen to me go on and on and on, didn't you? Come on. What are we doing in 10?

Continuing. Continuing to take personal inventory personal inventory, my inventory, not yours. And when wrong, promptly admitting it. Why promptly? Because I'll develop a resentment towards you and we'll get around to it, June.

Right? I will wrong you and think, oh god. I gotta clean that up. I'll, you know, eventually. I'll make a note of some kind, you know, get to that.

Wrong. I gotta get it done now. Resentment's the number one killer of people like me. I will fester and I will die. I gotta get it out of my head.

I gotta get rid of it. So I review my day. The book, again, very specific. Start the day, review the day. Great stuff.

Great stuff. How did and you know what? It doesn't even have to be a day. That was a very very interesting experience for me. I remember being new, about 2 years sober.

I'd been going to Ohio Street, Monday night no, Tuesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday night. Four nights a week, I've been going to Ohio Street for 2 years. Right behind the podium at Ohio Street is about a 3 foot by 4 foot painting of the serenity prayer. 2 years after having begun to go to Ohio Street, I spotted that painting. And I read it and I thought, you know, that's snappy.

Loving that poem. It's a poem to me. I call up Donald and go, Donald, it's a poem. He goes, you mean a prayer? I go, yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Prayer. Yeah. Prayer. There's this prayer I read at Ohio Street. Incredible.

Shortest prayer I found. Love it. I'm gonna say it now. He said, no. No.

You're not. I said, what are you talking about? It's the shortest makeup on it. He goes, no. Way too much going on there.

You're gonna screw that all up. I said, fine. Then if I'm not allowed yet to say this the the the this prayer, this serenity prayer, what do I gotta say? He goes, here's what I want you to do. Here's your prayers.

You listening? Yeah. I'm listening. Alright. When you wake up every morning before your feet touch the floor, you pull the covers down from your insane little head and you look up and you put your palms up like this and you say, whatever.

I said, I like that. That's good. I said, now when you get in bed at night and you get in the bed and you pull the covers up to your crazy little head, I want you to put your hands up like this and I want you to say, enough. And you go to bed. And I said, got it.

About 3 weeks later 9 AM rolls around and I'm done. I've had it. I called him up and he always answered the phone. Donald Madden. Donald Cyril.

How are you, kid? Donald, I'm doomed. He said, how did you spot that, kid? I said, I'm done. I can't take it.

It's 9 AM. I'm not gonna make it to tonight, man. I'm not gonna make it. I'm done. It's over.

I've had it. Nice effort. Thanks for your help. I'm a dead man. He says, hold it.

I can help. Well, thank god because you're the one and only call I'm making here. He says, alright. I want you to take a deep breath. That was a deep breath for me.

I was a little constricted. Okay. Now take a deep breath. Alright. Now he goes, say enough.

I said enough. He goes, okay. Wait a second. Alright. Take a deep breath.

He said, okay. Now say whatever. Alright. You can do that? It's 9 AM.

He goes, so what? He goes, that day wasn't going well, was it? And he said, no. He goes, then ended. And begin another one.

This was like a spiritual experience for me. I'm looking at the clock going, nope. Not gonna make it. I didn't have to. I just had to let that go and start my day over again.

I can do these things along the way. Right? That are tremendously valuable to me. These little little little ways of getting on through. Just getting from meeting to meeting, getting from sponsor call to sponsor call, getting from opportunities to sit and read the book.

Let it go, take it back. Let it go, take it back. Let it go, take it back. I mean, I I I turned my will in my life. You know how many times I turned my will in my life over the care of God between Los Angeles and New York?

I'm surprised over the loudspeaker we didn't hear, okay. Earl, this is god. Why don't you just keep it till you land and we'll get back to it then. Okay? Because it's back and forth that's driving me crazy.

This is here, god. Bump. Yeah. It's mine. Oh, Jesus.

Here, god. Bump. Yeah. It's mine. Right?

Just a nightmare across the country. Got me. Got me. Got me. All that matters is is that, like Donald used to say, your life is like a tapestry.

Right? That's being that's being sewn. I guess that's what you do with a tapestry. Just sew it. Have I got that right?

No tapestry, people? Woven. Woven. I'm writing that down. Woven.

Nice. As the tapestry of your life is being woven, My job when the needle comes through is to just push the needle back. Right? That's all I do is just push the needle back. There's another way to put it.

If the door opens, walk through it. What's in here? I don't know. Why are you walking through it? Is the door open?

That reason I'm up? Apparently. Had a remarkable life happened as a result of just doing that. Another thing. Oh, I'm losing it.

Another thing. Anyway, even though I've gone quite mad while standing up here. Oh, it went away. Never mind. Yeah, it did.

It went away. Alright. Woven? No. It just it's not gonna help.

I'm sorry. That that fell into the black hole. I just I'm gone. Yes. Bobby a, step 10.

I'm sitting in my first step study meeting with Donald Madsen. We're all being very well behaved. Right? Bobby's tortured by Donald. Bobby has, the most time in the room under Donald.

Right? He sort of sits at the right hand of Donald. Right? Very impressive fellow about that tall. Right?

Mighty fellow. We're all very impressed with Bobby. Very very serious about the steps. Very serious. Working the steps.

Quiet over there. I'm working the steps. Laughing? There is no laughing in steps. No laughing?

Life and death. Steps. We're we're talking about the 10th step. Oh, it is very serious. Very serious.

Nobody's snowscrowing around in air. Get to Bobby. Bobby says, well, I recall the first time I heard the 10th step. I thought it was fascinating. Continue to take personal inventory, and when wrong, promptly admit it.

So I immediately wrote a long letter to a friend of mine pointing out all of his defects of character, and and I apologized for not telling him sooner. All these serious faces, Eyes twitching. You know what I mean? What the hell did he just say? Right?

Donald's like, dah. That's the greatest thing he's ever heard. Right? Now we're all like completely shook up. Bobby's looking at us like, lighten up.

Just lighten up. This is not how I feel about it now. This is a process. This isn't fine. Got it.

Good. Go. It's a process. More is revealed as we go. I don't feel that way about the step now.

I preface this by saying when I first heard it, I saw it as simply an opening to give this guy a hard time. Got it. Have you noticed we've been laughing a lot in here? We've laughed a lot today, haven't we? It's the healing for us.

We gotta have a good time. We gotta play a little bit. We gotta look at the stuff. If we can't laugh at us, we're screwed. Okay?

Because let's face it, ripe for some good jokes around here. All you gotta do is go, hey, I let's listen to one another one of Earl's good ideas when he was drinking. Right? It's, like, it's hysterical. We gotta be able to laugh at this stuff.

Don't get so I can't get so, you know, Jesus Christ. What did he say? What did he say? Slow down. I haven't got every word here.

I'm gonna because when I'm done I'm tearing this crap apart, writing you a long letter, pal. They call central office about you. Get a little AA cease and desist order out on you, pal. Christ the mighty. Right?

Put me in your inventory. Who cares? 10, continue to take personal inventory wrong. Why? Because I didn't get it perfect the first time around.

I'm screwing up all the time. Know why I'm screwing up? Because I'm pushing the envelope. I'm not leading a safe, little, careful life. I'm out there mixing it up with the normies.

You know what I mean? Occasionally, a little bit more of me pops out than they're comfortable with. And you can see it in their eyes. You know, I'll be get I'll get I'll be a little too tired, you know. When I get tired, it's like truth serum for me.

You know what I mean? All the filters just seem to melt and I just start telling the truth. I'll get a little animated or I'll get a little caffeine in me when I'm exhausted and I just start going. And every once in a while I'll be talking to somebody and I'll forget they're not in AA, it's just somebody I know. And all of a sudden you see that look in their face, that just that you know, when you go you're just thinking, whoops.

Right? Went a little too far that time. That sentence is usually ended with I'm just kidding you. Or sometimes it even happens with new people. You gotta be careful around certain new people.

There's been a lot of education in the community over the last 25 years. Okay? A lot of people are getting to AA with higher bottoms. Now a lot of the old timers, you know, seem to take exception to that. I think it's remarkable.

I think it's wonderful. Why should somebody have to suffer as much as I did to have a right to be here? That's crap. If you made it here, congratulations. I don't care if you drop the champagne glass by the pool and went, that's it.

And then you can. None of my business. It's not my business. I mean, all the way to the normie coming in and saying, you know what? This is cool.

I wanna learn from this. Book says, anybody could get a lot out of this. Oh, we got open meetings. Why the hell shouldn't we let them come? Encourage them to stay, encourage them to grow, work with them, share our experience, strengthen hope with them.

But remember some of the new ones that happened the other day. That happened Thursday night. I was sitting in the meeting in the house, step study, little workshop thing you got going on. Right? There's a newcomer girl sitting over there.

She got about 23 days. And I was making a point and mentioned something I'd done, right, while I was drinking and using. That was, to my way of thinking, a rather moderate tale. I just briefly looked to my right and realized she wasn't seeing it that way. She was looking at me with absolute horror on her face.

Just and she looked at my wife, and my wife went I don't know if she's gonna come back. I don't know. Gotta be easy with the new ones. Kinda get a sense of what you know what I mean? We don't want to jump them too hard and too furious.

I believe that this isn't a cookie cutter program. We bring them in. We stamp them this way. We guide them through this. We put them through this stuff and on.

I know a group somewhere in the midwest, they're so serious about this thing and I mean serious that you come into their you get interviewed as to whether or not you're gonna be in their group. If you come into their group, there's a there's an interview process to become a member of their group. If you join their group, you're advised to take the next 30 days off from work. Now, I don't know about you, but to think that if a newcomer's got a job and then to actually ask them to not go to it is that kinda goes against the grain for me. But I mean, and I mean, I actually did damn near an exorcism on a member of that group getting them back out into AA.

Alright? I mean, the pressure that was being put on this woman was horrible, the the manipulation and control that was occurring. But that seems to work for some people. There's other much more moderate groups that have additional aspects to them outside what one would consider the mainstream of AA. Right?

There's people in AA that are incredibly loose. There's a guy I sponsor named Britton. His I he came to me and asked me to sponsor him. I said, well, what's up with your first sponsor? And he said, well, he told me to work the steps unless it was a hassle.

I'm thinking that's not gonna work for me. I'm gonna come to you. And I said, cool. Right? That guy's staying sober.

That guy's still sober. He works the steps unless it's a hassle. God bless him. You know? I figured that that could easily turn into I stay sober unless it's a hassle.

But that's me. That's not him. Find your way. 10, continue to take personal inventory and want wrong, promptly admit it. That allows me to not find myself going into a deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper state of resentment, dis ease, disharmony so that because I'm only gonna do an inventory every 5 years and you know, I that that builds over a period of 5 years until I get some relief.

No. I want us the daily experience of the relief being there, of this working, of being free. I don't want to slowly over time, in sobriety, gradually become tethered once again to the disease of alcoholism. I don't wanna end up with the obsession of the mind returning. Now if there's another guy I know on the program that says, I think I could stay sober and comfortable that way doing half of the things I do.

The only problem is they don't know which half that is, so I just keep doing all the stuff that I do. I'm with that guy. I'm with that guy. I have a great life as a result of what I do. If it works, don't fix it.

I've always gone to lots of meetings. I've always been sponsored. I've been sponsored for every moment of my sobriety except for 3 hours. That's how long after Donald died I had another sponsor. I'm of service.

I sponsor a lot of guys. I sponsor some remarkable people, absolutely remarkable people. I also sponsor knotheads. I sponsor a guy who, he's been around 12 years now. I think he's over 3 weeks again.

I sponsored him for 12 years. Question. If you have someone who continuously relapses, Earl, shouldn't you encourage them to seek another sponsor? Yeah. And if he doesn't go, fine.

It's not my decision. It's not up to me. It's not believe me, I'm not the weak link in his game plan. He has been exposed to everything that is necessary to become comfortably sober and stay that way. He just doesn't choose to do it on a regular basis.

So he regularly gets loaded. And then he gets to the place where he wants to put a gun in his mouth and he calls me and he comes back. And when he wants to tell me how much pain he's in, I don't listen to him. I say, I don't want to hear about the problem, let's talk about the solution. I'm familiar with the pain and the madness.

Let's talk about how we stay sober. Then we'll do that for a while and he'll get relief. And the minute he gets relief, he stops doing it because he's got the relief. And then it goes away because he stopped doing it. That's the part he seems to miss.

You get it because of what you're doing. Then keep doing what you're doing and you'll keep getting it. You stop doing what you're doing, it's going to go away. You with me? That's amazing.

All right. So 11. Oh, we're getting close, aren't we? Getting close. 11.

I seek through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact with God, praying for knowledge, his will for me, and the power to carry that out. I think it's a self explanatory step. What do everybody what do I pray for? What should I be praying for? How about I pray for knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out?

Period. The end. Thank you. Why don't I pray for knowledge and his will for me and the power to carry that out? Now I can pray for world peace.

I can pray for a new bike on Christmas. I can pray too for her. I can pray for all of you. Anything wrong with any of these prayers so far? No.

What could I pray for that kick all that into account? Keep me out of the solution. Keep me out of expectation. As a result, keep me out of everything except my part in this. And align me in a position to be of maximum service to god and my fellows?

What could I do to take all that into consideration? How about I pray for knowledge of God's will for me and the power to carry that out? It's right back. Boom. Nice and simple.

Nice and simple. Pray for that. Can I add stuff? Sure. Can I do stuff instead of that?

Absolutely. Donald had a horrible prayer. He'd get mad at somebody. He'd pray for them to get what they deserve. That was as gracious as he could be.

He used to get a kick out of it. Somebody would say something to him in a meeting or something that he didn't like, we'd all go, oh, he's going to be praying for that guy. Knowledge is his will for me and the power to carry that out. That's what I pray for. That's what the step tells me to do.

I seek God. It's on me. I don't stand there waiting for God to present himself to me. I seek God. It's an action step.

I seek God through prayer and meditation. Now when I went to ALS after Donald, we sat down and we reviewed my program, and he said, Earl, you're firing on all cylinders. You're doing great. You're catching the buzz. You're spreading the word.

You're doing the deal, man. You're doing the deal. Love it. He goes, now about this meditation thing. Do you meditate much?

I said, well, what do you mean by much? I'm coming up on 14 years and actually not yet. No. He says, well, I think you should explore meditation. I said, okay.

Being a good little AA sponsee, I was deferring to the thinking of my sponsor. I called up a friend of mine, said, about this meditation thing I think we need to explore. He said, great. We found a place that was a school for meditation. We took a 6 week course on meditation, and we began to practice meditation on a daily basis.

Why on earth would I, a Westerner, a linear thinker not so much anymore, but at least my culture raises me to be that kind of way, think in a very linear fashion, not to approach this spherically at all. Don't let me get started on that. Okay. Right. I'm here.

Right? I meditate to quiet the mind so that when the answers come, I can hear them. Okay? I don't get letters in the mail from God. God doesn't talk to me through the radio anymore.

But I do get a sense of what the right thing is for me to do when I pray and meditate. The answers come to me in the form of a thought, an idea, an intuition. The book tells me that I'll come to rely upon these things. This 6th sense. It comes to me through meditation.

Meditation is one of the most powerful tools available to an individual like me. It is not the nature of the body to be still. It is not the nature of the mind to be quiet. When I meditate, I sit still and attempt to quiet the mind. And people are always coming up to me and saying, Well, how do you do it?

I mean, give me I say, Well, you want a real simple easy way to meditate? Fine. Sit down on the floor, sit cross legged. And if you're, you know, you got a bad back, you got this, and you can't do the lotus thing, don't worry about it. Sit in the chair.

Just sit down. Sit down. Get comfortable. Spine straight. Relaxed.

Palms up in your lap. Get loose. Get easy. You know, head upright. Get comfortable.

Close your eyes if you want to. If you don't, fine. Mouth slightly open. Breathe in through your nose in a slow and easy motion where there isn't the sense of breathing. So you're not getting that but just and then very slowly, out to the mouth.

Just very slowly. It's working already. 2 guys just went like this. Alright. And you breathe in slowly and you breathe out slowly.

Alright. Very simple meditation. Count from 1 to 4. 1, 2, out with 2. In with 3, out with 4.

And then start again. In with 1, out with 2, in with 3, out with 4. I will guarantee you that the majority of the people in this room, when I just counted from 1 to 4 twice, didn't stay with me. You thought about something else. You found some way to object to that.

You were in conflict on some level with it. Or you simply just started to think about him or her or it or when or how or under what circumstances. You just went into something else because that's what we do. This isn't about getting good at staying on 1, 2, 3, 4 1, 2, 3, 4 for the next 20 minutes. This is about recognizing when you've wandered off, accepting and acknowledging that, and coming back to 1, 2, 3, 4.

It's not about staying at 1, 2, 3, 4. It's about being willing to come back to it. Because you're never gonna stay there. We wander. The body's being still.

The body doesn't like to be still. The brain, subconsciously, while you're counting to 4, will say, tighten up his left butt cheek. And you go, 1, 2. God, my ass hurts. Never mind that.

Back to 1, 2, 3, 4. Back you go. 1, 2. Girl in the 4th row is very attractive. Sorry.

1, 2. The guy over there to the left laughs a lot. I like him. He seems to be pleased with me. That's all that's required for me to like you.

Shit. Alright. Wait. 1, 2. You just right?

It's the nature of the mind to scurry about. The body doesn't want to sit still. Right? When the glute tension didn't do it, right, it'll say, make his left foot cold. What?

Why the hell is my left foot cold? Because your brain is trying to get your ass up out of the chair to go do something. You can't sit still, be quiet. But if you keep coming back to this and just experience your resistance to it, which is fascinating when you think about it, that you can't sit still and be quiet for 5 minutes. That's alarming.

It's absolutely alarming. You start to see the urgent need for the meditation. So you sit and you begin. And this will happen to you. If you do this every morning, it's going to come.

You're going to sit down, and you're going to count the 4 at once. You're going to open your eyes, and it's been 20 minutes. And you're going to feel a lot. You woke up exhausted and you sat there for 20 minutes and you got up and you feel balanced, you feel peaceful, you feel calm, but you feel a great sense of energy, not the caffeine kick. Right?

This steady, smooth, easy energy is there for you. And you're going to go, wow. And you're going to be very, very comfortable with decisions that have to be made that you were really stressing about. Because it's just clear that this is the right thing to do for you, and you can make the decision and then let it go. And not sit there second guessing yourself for the next 2 days.

You can make the decision and move on with your life. Next. Bring it. Next. And it's okay.

It's a remarkably powerful tool, prayer and meditation. I seek God through these things. Why do I do that? Because without god, I'm in charge. Need I say more?

Bad situation. Earl's in charge. Oh, god. We've seen his handiwork. Back to prayer.

Turn it over to God. Give it to God. Give it to God. Whatever. That's a great prayer, by the way.

Whatever. What does it say? Whatever. I surrender. Screw it.

Take it. Up to you. I'm your humble servant. Thy will, not mine, be done. I'm just gonna go out here and attempt to maximize my service to you and to my fellows.

I'm gonna go to these meetings not to take from them, but to see what I can bring to them so that when the newcomer walks in and goes, anybody in here got what I need? Yep. And it has nothing to do with my best thinking. Good news for us all. That's cool.

Right? So that's what I do. I seek God through prayer and meditation to improve, to continually, to constantly, to hopefully, without ceasing, improve my conscious contact, contact awake, conscious here, now, conscious of a contact with a power greater than myself? You bet. You bet.

I have relationships with a few of the people in this room. Right? I can assure you that the nature of those relationships is remarkable to me. Some of the stories I can tell you about things that we've done. Right?

A buddy of mine that I haven't seen in a while, I saw him last Friday 13th when I came here. And I said he walked in today after the break, and I got to see him. And whenever I see this guy, it just lights me up. He's not in the room right now. He's in the back, so I can talk about him.

So when he comes in, his name is Steve. I love this guy. We never talk. We don't have to. He's on the planet.

It's a better place for me. I love him. I just love him. We were sitting on a beach in the Bahamas one day. Right?

First of all, need I say more than that? Right? This maniac and I are sitting on a beach in the Bahamas. Beautiful sands, water, birds, rocks. I mean, we're paradise, 2 pagans in the middle of paradise.

Right? And we're sitting there. This is back when we we smoked, and I and I said, he said, so you've been smoking these Cuban cigars? And I said, yeah. Tasty, Yeah.

I love them. It's great. And we're on a we're we're we're on a little island in the Bahamas and, I think it was called Eleuthra. Right? That sounds like an illness, you know, not an island, but there we were.

Beautiful place. And I said, You think we could get some there's a couple old dope fiends, right? In an hour, we found Cuban cigars. We got up off the beach, got a ride into town, immediately went to the liquor store. Found a couple of guys, do you know a guy that would know a guy that could get us?

Right? We need to tap into the Bahamian Underground. Right? We're tapped in in 8 minutes. We go through a store to the back of the store to meet mama so and so, who knows the guy who says the word to the bartender over at the club so and so owned by the underworld kingpin of this particular island.

We go, we go to the bar, you know, go blue. Great. Box of Cubans comes out. Right. They open it up.

You know, we take 6 or 7 of them, pay the guy back in the cab, back we're back on the beach within an hour smoking Cuban cigars. You gotta love this guy. That's history between us. We're sitting there just laughing at each other. Right?

Old habits die hard, Rob. You know? He just tapped right in and do that. And we had a blessing. And that same guy in the house sat over dinner, and what we talk about is his daughter and how much he loves his daughter and how he's been a good father to his daughter.

Right? How can I not love this man? Right? Do I need to talk to him every day? No.

We're on the same path together. I know what he's doing. He knows what I'm doing. We see each other. The other day, he emailed me for the first time, and it was a picture of him with a very prominent politician.

It's hysterical, standing there with his arm around this politician. Right? Talk about worlds colliding. Right? And I've got this picture, and I just sat there and laughed, and I had tears in my eyes, though, about how the world is our oyster, man, and jump in and can have this thing.

If I continue to take personal inventory, and when I'm wrong, promptly admit it, I stay clean and I can go out there and do anything. If I see God through prayer and meditation to improve my conscious contact, with God praying for knowledge, his will for me, the power to carry that If I'm doing that, I'm cool. I can get out there and jump in the game. Now, I got one thing left. But when you look at that triangle with a circle around it, right, mind, body, and spirit brought together as a whole human being, therein lies the balance that I seek but can't find, drunk or sober.

Right? And that AA adopted that symbol and unity is the body, I bring it here. I must be with my fellows. Recoveries of the mind that work these steps. That 12th step, having had a spiritual awakening is the result of working these steps, having been restored to sanity, soundness of mind, having been relieved of the obsession to drink and use.

Free. 3rd side of the triangle. Spiritual. Service. I can practice these principles in all my affairs.

Right? Which is what we're going to talk about when we come back. Step 12.