Big Book Study on Steps 10 12 in Prescott, AZ

The effect produced by alcohol in a line of cocaine which was instantaneous. I have gone through life expecting everything in my life to produce that kind of effect in that period of time. I go to work for the company on Monday. I'm supposed to be running it the following week. And or in a supervisor capacity and or you should be recognizing my greatness.

I meet her on Friday, and a week later, we're supposed to have an enlightened relationship. I didn't realize I was taking that kind of an attitude into every single area of my life. So when I get to steps 10 11, I'm taking this thing of, well, I'm gonna meditate 2 weeks, and I'm not levitating out of my chair. So I quit. I didn't understand that I have to do this the rest of my life.

I started meditating daily early part of 1992. So I have 11 years. I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface of what meditation can bring to me. But when I first started it, you know, this happens all the time with people I'll work with Or my voice is talking to me all the time. Or I can't stop my mind.

I mean, just I said, really. Yeah. I've had all those experiences. I probably meditated 3 or 4 years before I had a meditation in which I experienced what I call no mind. You know.

I was probably meditating a year before I experienced loss of body awareness in meditation. I was probably 3, 4, 5 years into meditation before I begin to have visions in meditation. But I'm not the kind of person that you you said to me, okay, you're going to start these disciplines and you're going to do them until you die. And the more that you practice them on a daily basis, the more that you'll have an experience with them. Oh, okay.

See, whatever your spiritual practice is, what I've learned is do it every day. Let go of any kind of expectation behind what's supposed to happen even if it's flat lined. We've all had more I've had mornings like that. Alarm goes off. Jeez, upon awakening.

Yee, in this exciting. Morning. God, how you, you know, yeah. Consider your plans. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, I I do it even if I'm flatlined, you know. Dreams I woke up in I call it the brat, you know? He wakes you up and starts talking to you. You know, you haven't had coffee.

Nothing, man. It's not well, that's just a bunch of horse manure. Have a good day. Oh, no. One of those.

Right? Then you get in you get into the meditation and chatter of the 1,000 monkeys is going on. Hi. How are you doing? You know, we've all been in group therapy for years, by the way.

Unfortunately, we didn't have any facilitator. No guidance. You know, you you all have your own group therapy. Trust me. If we got 6 or 7 or 8.

Different facilitator every morning. Yeah. The the good news is as you get as you work with 10, 11 more and more, there's this party you I call it the spiritual man in my case, who more and more gets to lead the group. You know? Thanks for sharing, Brad.

Have a nice day, you know. Oh, mister Sloth, you've showed up again. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah.

Now today, the jock is gonna be prevailing, you know, and you start to have some fun with this stuff, you know, you know, oh, it's mister worthless. I see. I'm glad you're here today too. Thanks for sharing, you know. Those kinds of things.

But it 1011 are are incredibly new new practices that you and I get to bring into our life to experience power, to be of effectiveness, to be of service, to recreate our lives. So you talk about I'll talk about the 10 step for a while. And I and I wanna read some specific lines in here that have been important to me and I wanna share with you how I how I practice that. But I'm on page 84. Talks about this thought, this idea of moving through your amends, making your approaches, brings me to step 10, which suggests that I continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as I go along.

I view that as a spiritual instruction. These are spiritual exercises, for lack of a better word. It says I need to vigorously commence this way of living. There's those three words, a way of living as I clean up my past. So they're telling me there that I get to do 2 things, continue to make my approaches on my amends, and begin and begin to set right any new mistakes as I go along.

And we we will make mistakes. And then this incredible promise, I have entered the world of the spirit. The big book earlier talked about the 4th dimension. You get rocketed into the 4th dimension. What this has come to mean to me is the fact that I now have an awakened spirit and that spirit is one with God and it's vibrating within me and it is alive and it is conscious contact.

That's why I say that steps 10 and 11 are about new language. It's language speaking to that part of me. My next function will be to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It needs to continue for my lifetime.

Now, I get some more spiritual disciplines I can work with. Continue to watch. Watch is a spiritual discipline that you could work with. Awakened spirit. I don't know if you've noticed this, but just this morning, have you noticed that there's a part of you that you'll have this internal dialogue with yourself?

Have you haven't you noticed there's a part of you observing yourself talking to yourself? You had an awareness of that? Or as you move your body, don't you have an awareness? There's a part of you watching you move your body. Or as you talk, don't you have an awareness?

There's a part of you listening to you talk. Don't you have an awareness? There's a part of you listening to you talk? Well, that's your spirit. And the practice of watch is using your spirit to watch your body mind organism go throughout this one act play that God is directing.

And watch yourself for what? Selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. You can take the one word, watch, and work with watch. And when these crop up, what are you gonna do? You're gonna ask.

Ask is another spiritual practice. Ask. Take the word ask. Work with that. Take several months.

Work with the word ask. Work with the word ask. We ask God at once to remove, and we discuss him with someone immediately make amends. Then we turn. Turn is another spiritual practice.

Turn what? Turn my thoughts. The 10th and 11th step are gonna introduce you to your thought life, which you have been asleep to like me. I did not realize my thought life was creative. Very creative.

A single thought that I have 2, 3, 4, 5 years will manifest into reality. Joe and I were talking about this this morning. For years, he's had this idea that he would like to buy land and open a spiritual retreat center. And within 2, 3 months, that the acquisition of that will take place. We've got a friend Scott sitting here, who right now is out in California working at a place, and he's learning how to handle every aspect of a spiritual retreat center, and it's Joe's fault.

You you understand the point I'm making? Joe had a thought many years ago. And what the universe is doing, the more you get connected with this power and free from your ego, the more power you have to manifest those things in your life. And this thought he had is slowly pulling a bunch of people in. So it's Joe's fault, Scott.

You're in California. Blame him. But the 10th and 11th step are gonna you talk to you about your thought life. You better start paying attention to it because the reality that you create comes from that. Give you a simple example of this.

In 1998, I wrote out that I wanted to open up a treatment facility for chronic relapsers on a 20 acre ranch. Wasn't sure where. That was in 1998 and I just kinda kept working with that thought. In December of 1999, I took a position as CEO of an 11 on 1100 acre ranch for chronic relapses. This is powerful stuff.

This is why the book says, Mark, it's not about them. You're here to if your ideals are grounded in a power greater than yourself, you get to recreate your life. What do you want it to look like? Incredible fascinating stuff begins to take place. But it starts to introduce you to this idea of your thought line.

Turn your thoughts. Despicable things was amazing to me. No wonder my life at times was in a toilet. The things I was saying to myself, You know, all these incredible things. You're gonna run a marathon.

Oh, you can't do that. We could smoke. Oh, you can't do that. You're gonna lose weight. Oh, you can't do that.

And you start to wake up to this stuff. You'll lose weight. Oh, you can't do that. And you start to wake up to this stuff. And and then you wonder why you have trouble in personal relationships.

You're having that kind of dialogue with yourself. Right? You know? And so you start to pay attention to this kind of stuff. Talks about the 10 step promises.

Love and tolerance of others becomes a code. Code, a way of life. I have ceased fighting anything or anybody even alcohol. You can't by the way, the ego. I want to give you my definition of ego.

It's just the best one I've ever heard over all the years and it comes from Eckhart Toll. But ego, mind made false sense of self. A mind made false sense of self, In which from birth to a point at which you start to wake up, my mind has created a false sense of self. All these different roles that I think define who I am, that could be taken away from you in a moment's notice and that are responsible for all the inventory and fears that I have in my life. Mind made false sense itself.

Book talks at this time by that sanity is returned. The insanity that the book talked to me in the second step, by the time you get to the 10th step, my sanity. I've been restored to sanity. Sanity means soundness of mind, not just around alcohol. The 10th and 11th step allow you to take every area of your life and ask yourself about sanity.

Now I'll go back to a simple example right now. My own life, smoking. It is insane. Based on all my experiences and knowing what I know, it is insane for me to be smoking, but I'm smoking. Therefore, I have not been restored to sanity in that area.

Right? To not be working out on a daily basis for me is insanity. To not be practicing these disciplines is insanity. Now some of you may relate to this. When you are spending more than what you're making, that is insanity.

1011 allow you to take a look at every single area of your life and ask yourself, would I like to be restored to sanity in this area of my life? Am I willing to go for that? Am I willing to go through what I have to go through? Wow. While I'm talking about that, one of the things that filtered through yesterday.

I want to throw out. Some of you relapsers have become attached to being a relapser. So you don't have to take any responsibility for your life. That means you have a relapse. So you gotta understand the power of your thought life.

You keep telling yourself that long enough, you're gonna have to make that a reality. Aren't you? Heaven forbid you get pulled free from that role. Then you'd have to grow up, wouldn't you? Get a job.

All kinds of stuff. Oh, no. And they always use the term this time. If you're new and you've been a relapser, don't refer to it as this time. And another phenomena I've seen is they'll think that their experience in other periods of sobriety have some relevance is relevant is relevant to this time.

It's not. Don't even refer to this time. This is it. You don't know you have another chance. Yep.

So sanity will be returned. I have I seldom interested liquor. If tempted, I recoils from a hot flame. I react sanely normally. This happens automatically.

Automatically requires no thought. My new attitude toward liquor has been giving me without any thought or effort on my part. What an incredible promise. What's the new attitude? On a plane, would you like something to drink?

No. You don't have enough. New attitude has been given me. I'm not fighting it. I've been placed in a position neutrality.

Think about that. You do this work and you get placed in a position neutrality around alcohol and drugs. I mean, any of you in relapse history, if you look at the book, the book is trying to be clear about something. You've never done probably the work necessary to be placed in a position of neutrality. You are beyond human aid.

Do the work. Get taken and placed into a position of neutrality. We didn't even swear off. What? The problem's been removed.

What problem? The book said I had a spirituality and when the spirituality is removed, I straighten out mentally. Meaning, the obsession to drink or do drugs is removed from me. 4 through 9, remove the spirituality. Therefore, the problem's been removed.

Therefore, there is no choice. See, there's no reason to take a drink anymore. Said, can you imagine at most meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, if you brought up the topic, I would like to hear people share their experience with being restored to sanity and the problem with alcohol being removed? They'd they'd kill you. They'd shoot you.

They'd hang you. See, it's like recovery. I could use recovery as another excuse to never get responsible for my life. Don't you understand? I'm a recovering alcoholic.

Oh, no wonder you strangled your boss today. Oh, that's okay. There's special clauses for us recovering people. Doesn't the IRS on their thing coming up where was that? Was there the other day?

April 1st or whatever? 15th? 15th. Don't they have a special clause for recovering alcoholics who don't have to be responsible? You get like a no?

Get an extension. If you knew you had terminal cancer, you only had a certain amount of time to live, and you weren't in denial of that, and somebody came along and said, if you take 12 of these and 12 of these and 12 of these, what are you gonna do? Take half? It happens all the time in our program. I'm suffering.

Have you taken the necessary steps to recover? No? Then you should be suffering. At least be honest with it. Say, listen.

I made a conscious choice to not work the steps and, and bring suffering into my life. So I just want you to know that's one of them bringing to the meetings from now on. Every other prescription I take more than is necessary, but not with this prescription. I try to get away with less. They said take 2.

I take 8. Right? Not of this. Maybe I don't want maybe there's a part of me that doesn't want me to recover, wants me to be sick. Maybe that's more comfortable.

Maybe it's easier or maybe it'll kill me. It's a gamble. I've been to a lot of groups. I spoke at a CA group not too long ago, and I know them. I know their founders.

And I and I I I I shook it up on purpose. I said, you know, a lot of your founders are here tonight. And they told me that this CA group has turned into a GA group. And everybody's looking at me like this, and they say, how come a GA group? I said, because you're all sitting around gambling with your life.

It's now become a gamblers anonymous meeting. It's a dangerous gamble not to take the treatment. Talks about this is how I react as long as I keep in fit spiritual condition. I wanna talk briefly about fit spiritual condition. It's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action rest on laurels.

If you've never looked up the word laurels, look up the word. Laurels is what Joe and I did yesterday to maintain fit spiritual condition. So I got up this morning and I got to start anew. I hear people talk about, I don't know where this comes from, Something about insurance and it's insurance. Bank account?

My AA bank account. It's inconsistent with the book. I cannot rest on my laurels. Laurels is what I did yesterday. Each day, I begin again to take the course of action necessary to stay in fit spirit to condition today.

Says I'm headed for trouble if I do rest on my laurels, what I did yesterday. For alcohol is a subtle foe. I am not cured of alcoholism. What I am given is a daily reprieve contingent on one thing, the maintenance of my spiritual condition, period. The maintenance of my spiritual condition, and god is not responsible for that.

I had to call the front desk this morning and say, give me a wake up call at 6 so I could spend an hour doing pages 84 through 88, 24 minutes in a meditation. I'm responsible for that. I've watched people die behind this thing of God keeps me sober. If that was all that was necessary, the book would be 1 page. It would say, God keeps you sober.

Have a nice life. It doesn't. There's a 164 pages. About 30 of that has a lot of instructions in a course of action to take. You see what a trap that can be?

See, I there's a spiritual law. You know what it is? God will not do for me what I'm supposed to do for myself. I am responsible for my fit spiritual condition, not God. That's another thing that we wish to avoid, don't we?

Well, I'm in a hurry. I don't have time for prayer. I don't have my time for meditation. And I challenge people on that. Ultimately, what are you gonna have time for then?

A drink? Another trap in that that I'll do with people sometimes, I'll say to them, what's the most important relationship in your life? And they'll lie to me and say, god. And I say, really? Yeah.

So okay. Let's talk about that. How much time did you give the most important relationship in your life this morning? Gotta go, Mark. See, I have to spend time with that relationship that fuels and sustains me.

So I spend time in the morning. I spend time in the evening. I spend a lot of time in solitude. People have accused me of isolating. I don't care what they want to call it.

I know what it is. I need time with my creator, with God. If those of you who have children if you gave your children as much time as you gave God, what kind of relationship would you have? See, the 10th to 11 step practices allow me to have conscious contact all day long. Why?

I get up in the morning. The book very clear. Do prayers and meditation. Be quick to see where religious people are right. I set a timer.

I do that. And then I get these 10 step tools all day long and 11th to to ensure conscious contact. Like what? Watch, ask, turn, vision. What is the vision of God's will before I begin any new activity?

I get a new 6th sense. I'm giving strength, inspiration, direction. I pause when agitated or doubtful. Free me from self will. All day long, I get to have this ongoing conscious contact with this incredible god who guides me, gives me strength, gives me power.

Then the evening, I sit down and I review my day. Review for me has been this. Were you awake today? I've done reviews. Were you selfish indeed?

Nope. Not one time. That's called being asleep. Right? That's what's incredible about all this stuff.

Do you wanna do it? We've said this before. Spiritual living is not easy. If it was easy, they'd have to have an amphitheater and these things would be overrun with people. Little sun means for God.

Right? This is not easy. I don't ever try and soft sell this. But here's what happened to me. The material world as I knew it left me empty, drunk and sober.

Drunk and sober, the material world left me empty and thirsty. There was no sum of money, no woman, no job, sober that could quench my thirst. And I almost died because I wouldn't seek that which would quench my thirst. Sober, I almost did that. And then I committed and begin to seek that which quenches my thirst and low and behold, I begin to have experiences that another book talks about when it says, seek ye first the kingdom and the rest will be added unto you.

I know exactly what that means today. Wear the world like a loose garment. Things that I did not understand. I wear the world like a loose garment today. But incredible stuff can start to happen for you in the 10th and the 11th step and you get to do these practices daily in your life.

How can I best serve thee? Fit spiritual condition. Am I willing to do that? See? And later on, the 10th step, it says, you've been given a lot of direction on how to get strength, inspiration, and direction from this power.

If you have carefully followed the directions, you begin to sense Then they tell you about this incredible new thing that you have, a 6th sense. Joe and I was talking about stirring up a meeting. If you really wanna get drummed out of a meeting when they ask for a topic, ask people to share their experience with their new 6th sense. Of course, they'll think you're doing peyote probably, but that's all I got for now. Book the book promises it.

It's either true or it's not. And if the beginning of the book describes you, why can't the results of the book describe you? If it describes you without power, why can't it describe you with power? And isn't this funny? I just saw this the other day.

The the the depth of of delusion, the depth of denial can be this strong. Remember when you didn't have any power and you were drinking and you thought you did? That's denial. Right? You thought you had some power.

You thought you had some control, and you didn't. Now there's some power in your life, and you try to convince people you don't. Denial and recovery can be as strong as denial during your drinking. The denial of the grace and the power and the love of God. When it wasn't there, I thought it was power, control, choice.

And now that it finally is, I try to convince everybody that it isn't. 20 years sober, still powerless over alcohol with an unmanageable life. But power has come into your life that stands between you and alcohol and you should have a manageable life. That's the promise for a new person. The message is simple.

If you're powerless over alcohol and your life is unmanageable and you come to believe in a power greater than yourself and you make a decision and an inventory and a fist step, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, you will have a conscious contact, a spiritual awakening, and and you will be given the power to manage your life, the power between you and alcohol. There'll be some there'll be power between you and another drink and the power to manage your life which is what proper the use of the will is about. So when I thought I didn't when I thought I had some, I didn't. Now that I finally have some, I want to deny that it's there. The truth of my life is I'm not powerless over alcohol.

I'd be drunk if I was. Now is it my power? No. But as long as I feel separate from it, I'm going to feel separate from it. The power of God has come between me and alcohol for over 20 years.

The power to manage my life, which means live where I wanna live, live how I wanna live, live with who I want to live with. It saddens me when people are with people that they're miserable with. Being with people is about love. Of course, there's pain, loss, grief, hard times, good times, but love is love. Love is a decision.

Love isn't based on emotion. What happens the day when it's not there emotionally? Love isn't based on sex. You're all gonna get older. That's gonna change.

Love is a decision and once you decide to love somebody, they can't do nothing about it. They say to you, I don't love you anymore. Sorry. I still love you because I decided to. Right?

Even if you have to decide that every day. But what I fail to see is, let's say, on a practical level with fear, it asked me to watch. Crops up, you tell God when to remove it, rather than them telling you when to ask God to remove it. A lot of people think it says, continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear when they crop up. Ask God to remove it at once.

That's telling God when to remove it. It says, ask God at once to remove it. Big difference. They're telling you when to ask God, not when to tell God when to remove it. Right?

This is practical stuff that you can use in your life. I wanted to touch on a couple things. Let's look at Bill's experience. Those of us who are on the other side, those of us who have entered the world of the spirit, why don't we use the promises, Bill's description as a checklist rather than carrots? You know those sponsors that kinda hold the promises out for you like a carrot and all of a sudden your work becomes selfish to get those promises?

My sponsor has never used the the promises as carrots. He's used them as a checklist as to my progress or my regression. How did Bill describe his experience? In the beginning, it was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required for me to make a beginning.

He just needed to be convinced that in and of himself, he is nothing and without God, he was lost and be willing to believe. I saw that growth would start from that point. Now, that means to me, now have I grown past that point? Upon a foundation of complete willingness, which I believe is rooted in absolute hopelessness, Of course, I would. I was convinced that God is concerned with us humans when we want him enough.

My sponsor told me, the first spiritual principle of Alcoholics Anonymous is God is not rude. He only comes when he's invited. He only comes when he's invited. At long last, I saw, I felt, I believed scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes. Has that happened?

A new world came into view. Has that happened? The real significant of my experience burst upon me for a brief moment. I had needed and wanted God. Both are essential.

There was a long time I needed God, but I didn't want him. And there was a long time I wanted him, but I didn't need him. There had been a humble willingness to have him with me and he came. But soon the sense of his present was blotted out. You start again or you start from the beginning.

Worldly clamors within myself. I think worldly clamors are out here. I think the unmanageability is out here. I think because I'm having the I like to keep the unmanageability and the problem out here because it's someone else's fault the way they raised me or what they did to me or the unmanageability today. Keep it out here so you don't have to see in here.

I humbly offered myself to God as I then understood him. To do with me as he would. That's an important statement. As I then understood him, not as I would like to have understood him. As I then understood him, you start where you are to do with me as he would.

Have we done that? I placed myself unreservedly under his care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself, I am nothing and that without God, I'm lost. I always mark that phrase because that's the phrase that will start to pull on me when my ego has begun to rebuild. For the that of myself, I am nothing and that without God, I'm lost.

I face my sins and become willing to have my new found friend take them away, root and branch. Not had a drink since. My friend visited me. I acquainted him with my problems and deficiency. We made a list of people I had hurt toward whom I felt resentment.

I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals, admitting my wrong. Never was I to be critical of them. I was to write all such matters with the utmost of my ability. Have you done those things? If you have done those things, then here's what you can start to do.

You can start to test your own thinking with a new God consciousness within. Common sense would become uncommon sense. That's when paradoxes that made no sense when you were new start to make sense. I was to sit quietly when in doubt. That's against my nature.

When I'm in doubt, I have to do something to figure it out, work on it, or make it right. Sit quietly when in doubt. It's a whole new attitude. Asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as he would have me. A lot of people pray to meet their problems as they think they should be met.

Ask God to meet your problems as he would have you meet them. Never was I pray for myself except as my request would bore my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive, but that would be in great measure. Has that happened? My friend promised when these things were done, I would enter upon a new relationship with my creator that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems.

Alcoholics anonymous is not a place you go. When I was in India for the 1st period of time and I didn't have a home group for a while, people actually thought I had left AA because I wasn't going to a room. And I said, no. It's a way of life and I'm surrounded by alcoholics I can help and people I can help all the time. Belief in the power of God plus the willingness, honesty, and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things were the essential requirements.

Simple but not easy. Here's the price you're going to have to pay. Destruction of self centeredness. I was to turn all things into the father of light who presides over us all. These were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them the effect was electric.

There was a sense of victory followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was utter confidence. A lot of people say to me, you seem so arrogant. My confidence is not grounded in what I can do. In and of myself, I make a mess.

My strength and my confidence comes from what's working in my life. Whatever you want to call it. There was utter confidence. I I felt lifted up as though a great clean wind of a mountain top blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but his impact on me was sudden and profound.

It was pretty sudden and profound for me when you consider it was only about 2 years compared to 30 years of suffering before that. It's pretty sudden. Not a lot of people get relief from a terminal progressive fatal illness by just taking some simple actions. So once in a while, it's probably not enough it's probably not a bad idea to check those promises on page 63 and 75 and 83. And if you're in 10, 11, and 12, and you're on the other side of all the amends you're consciously aware of, to really ask yourself what those 10th and 11th step promises that Mark went over, if they're happening in your life.

Can I do this? Can I turn? Can I pause? Can I sit? You know, I know why a lot of you in here have trouble sitting.

You hate what comes up in the silence. And some of you go into fear every time you realize you have the right to remain silent. Because every time you ever heard that, you went into fear. You know what? We have we have more than the right to remain silent.

You know what we have? We have the grace to remain silent. It's not a right. In your early sobriety, when you've done some work, you're gonna, at some point, maybe even down the road later, you're gonna start to play the game, where's mine? I don't deserve this.

Your mind's gonna tell you you don't deserve the great stuff. Your mind's gonna tell you you don't deserve the bad stuff. And always remember, this ain't about justice. If this program was about everyone in this room getting what they deserve based on what they had done, this room would be empty this morning. It's not about justice.

It's about grace and mercy. You haven't earned your seat. Man, I heard a guy the other day who was just adamant about a chair. He said, I've earned this seat. And if anybody sits in my seat, I scowl at them.

But I'm getting a little bitter because I just scowl at them and I wait for them to move out of my seat that I I mean, it was just it was insane. I haven't earned I haven't earned anything that I've been given. And once I realized that, man, I've been given more than I ever even dreamed. What's the old saying? You'll never get what you want but you'll always get what you need.

I bet there's people in this room like myself who has gone way past what you've needed in these last years more than you've ever wanted and beyond your wildest dreams. I've had stuff happen beyond my wildest dreams of what I should have had after the age of 30. So you check those promises once in a while and see where you're at with them in relation to page 52. 52 doesn't go away. The bedevilments don't go away.

We come to peace in the middle of the way they are. Because relationships are gonna go on. There's gonna be ups and downs. Money's gonna have flow up and down. Emotional nature.

Usefulness with working with others. Feeling useful. Feeling useless. But I think a lot of people we're we've been Mark and I have been hearing about a lot of old timers, 30, 40 years, going home and blowing their head off. Not even drinking.

You don't have to drink. A lot of people think you have to drink to die from alcoholism. You don't have to drink again to die of alcoholism. But I do know this. You have a choice.

You can die from alcoholism or you can die with alcoholism. There's a big difference. We get to choose how we want to go. We're living in uncertain times right now. It's a good time to get free.

It's a good time to pay your ticket. Chuck c used to always say, we're not the chosen ones. The chosen ones have gotten free and gone on. We're the ones that haven't paid our ticket yet. Boy.

The eagle loves that. Don't you? Doesn't it? Haven't you heard that before? We in Alcoholics Anonymous are the chosen ones, the special ones.

No. We're the ones that haven't gotten free of alcoholism yet. A lot of people need to die. A A lot of people need to drink again. We always look at somebody drinking again as such a bad thing.

I can't tell you the number of people I've met that drinking again was absolutely necessary, profound, and beneficial. You know? It helped them get to that place where they were ready for the program. I remember this man and I didn't understand it until I had gotten through my first set of amends. But he always used to say to me, if you're doing the work for the first time, enjoy it because you'll never do the work for the first time again.

Now what does that mean to me? You know how the first time through the work it seems like from each step you just get enough to do the next part. You know, like from the first column, you just get enough to do the second column. You don't even know how you're getting through each day. You're you're just you've gotten something from 1, 2, and 3 that's propelled you into 4.

But you get you enter the world of the spirit and doing the work again is never the same. And he started to talk to us about using 10, 11, and 12 to do 1 through 9. I always hear people say, I'm going back through the steps. You'll never be able to go back through the steps and thank God you're not going to start over. You'll never be able to start over.

Even if you drink again, it's not going to be starting over. It's going to be about starting from here and going on. So how do you use 10, 11, and 12 to do 1 through 9? I have a daily practice. I have a morning practice.

I use upon awakening. I have a meditation practice. I do what I do with 10 and 11 throughout the day. Watch, turn, Pause. Be awake.

Fall asleep. Come back. Breathe in. You wanna witness a miracle? Sit quietly and breathe in and breathe out.

And you've just witnessed Let's say you have a favorite prayer. On the first line, breathe in. It's myself to breathe out to build with me and do with me as thou would. You breathe out, and it'll be where it'll be there with you. Try this one.

When you breathe in, say I love you. You're receiving God's love. When you breathe out, say I love you and you're giving it back. And see what kind of insecurities come up. See how insecure you feel about that.

That kind of intimacy. Realizing that with each breath, God is expressing his love to you. And with each outward action and each breath out, you're expressing your love to him. When I when I started to practice that, my prayer life changed. I'd like to read a couple things about meditation.

After 15 years of sobriety, I was hitting bottom with stuff that you all were telling me I should do. And I thought it was the stuff that I was doing to keep myself sober. I went through the work with a guy from Denver who moved out to California. And he he happened to ask me as I was leaving the house the first day, what are you doing currently? And I told him that I was working with people and how much I was speaking.

And he goes, my god. Would you be willing to quit working with others until you're done with this next set of amends and then got up and went to the bathroom? These guys from Denver always know when it's time to get up and go to the bathroom because they leave you with your own mind. And what my mind went through when he went in the bathroom, what would happen to those poor people that I'm working with. Right?

How can I not carry the message? Because I had turned those things into what I was doing to keep myself sober. And when I watched what my mind did while he was in the bathroom, he came back out and my thought was, you know, if I'm not, I'm probably gonna drink again. And he didn't want me to quit doing that stuff to quit doing that stuff. He wanted me to quit doing that stuff for a period of time to see what I had turned that stuff into.

And my ego had turned that stuff very subtly into this the stuff that I do to keep myself sober, rather than the stuff that I get to do to seek a deeper relationship with that which already is. And my whole sense of effort changed. As long as you think there's stuff you can do to keep yourself sober, your sobriety will be really busy and really draining and really tiring because you're doing something. If you realize there's nothing you can do to keep yourself sober and that based on that hopelessness, there's a lot you can do to seek that which is already keeping you sober, the whole focus changes. There's so much with step 10.

It says that, it should continue for a lifetime. I like what Mark said about taking one piece at a time, that you're gonna work with for a period of time until it is incorporated in your life. I think 10 and 11, if you don't enjoy it, it'll be horrible. Make the evening practice something you enjoy because it says there, constructively, Not destructively review your day for what a rotten person you were. Constructively review your day.

See where God was there and where you were asleep. See how much fun that is. And you'll start to see that if you decide if you can decide at any moment out of fear that you're the one that has decided into fear. You're not a victim of fear. Fear doesn't fly around in the sky and say, when am I going to drop on Joe today?

Fear is based on a conscious decision to rely on myself. Then you can decide out of fear. There were some essentials that I needed to begin to practice to find out about meditation. I don't like saying this. I'm not sure if it's true in this area.

It was true in the areas where I've lived. To find out about meditation in Alcoholics Anonymous. Those that have found it will say, follow your heart and go to where you're drawn. Those that haven't found it will tell you about as much as there is is praying is talking to God and meditation is listening. It's so much more.