The mens St. Benedict retreat in McKenzie Bridge, OR

Before I go to bed at night, sometime if I've been out at a meeting and, we're out on a date with Linda or something, I come home at night, I'm probably not inclined, I'm trying to blow this off at bedtime. And he just hit my knees for a quick prayer. So at some inflection point at the end of the day, you know, like before I leave the office, I can sit down and just take a minute and do this little review. And it doesn't have to be the last thing at night is what I'm saying here in my experience. So now that I've cleared that up, I'm in shape to get a good night sleep and awake.

I'm I'm not thinking about that SOB all night that I had the run-in with during the day. I'm a I can I can dream about Linda or something useful here? On awakening, I need to think about the 24 hours ahead. I need to consider my plans for the day. Before I begin, I asked before I start doing all this planning and thinking, I need to ask god to direct my thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self pity, dishonest, or self seeking motives.

Under these conditions, I can employ my mental faculties with assurance for after all, god gave me brains to use. My thought life is placed on a much higher plane when my thinking is clear to wrong motives. My mind my mind is a good tool probably provided I don't misuse it. When I use my mind for its intended purpose, it's a marvelous instrument. When I'm misusing it and I've got bent motives, then it's harmful to myself and all kinds of other people here.

So they're just this is how I engage my mind at the beginning of the day to make sure that we're gonna use it in the right way. Now when I'm thinking about my day, I may face indecision. You know, I may not be able to determine which course to take. Here, I ask god for inspiration in intuitive thought or decision, and then I relax and take it easy. I ask I ask and I relax, ask and I relax.

I, I'm not running the show here. I don't struggle. I'm often surprised how the right answers come after I try this for a while. What used to be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually gradually becomes a working part of the mind. You know, I'm I'm a man, you know, the prob the only problem with instant gratification with me is it takes too long.

And so it's important for me to pay it particularly attention to things like gradually. I mean, I wanna I wanna do this for 3 days and have it all just clicking on all cylinders. Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God, it's not probable that I'm gonna be inspired at all times. You know, my friend that bought the Corvette for his family, you know, thought he had an inspiration, but he hadn't he obviously had taken a shortcut there. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas.

Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will, as time passes, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration, Come to rely rely on it. And he told me here, I usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer. My usual deal was I pray then meditate, and I was told that if I would reverse the order of that and do my meditation first, my quiet time first, that my prayer would be more effective, and that's been my experience. I'm praying that I should be shown all through the day what my next step is to be, and then I'd be given whatever I need to take care of pro such problems. I ask especially for freedom from self will, and I'm careful to make no request for myself only.

I may ask for myself, however, if others will be helped, you know. I'd Lord, I'd I'd like to do a good job with, today and, be able to take care of my creditors at the end of the day. I'm careful never to pray for my own selfish ends. Many of us waste a lot of time doing it, but it just doesn't work. You can easily see why.

You talked last night about Santa Claus and the Pimp and the Hitman, and that's it's easy to see why that doesn't work. If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in more meditation. There are a couple of activities in AA that I go to that one of the sweetest things about them is they'll start with group meditation. Every morning, people will get together and spend time together in extended meditation. And it's I find it very powerful.

One of the changes we made some years ago in our home group that I think probably led us along a lot of the paths that we've traveled was, we all of a sudden realized that, gosh, we tell guys to meditate a lot. We talk a lot about meditation. We talk about the answer, but if a new guy was coming here looking at this, he says, I've never seen anybody doing any meditation. What would that look like? So we decided what we're and we had a lot of reasons why we couldn't do meditation in in in our meeting.

And we went through it and we discovered that what we do is we wait until we've done all our business. We've read what we need to read and the secretary has made his report and everything. But before we select a topic or send the basket around, we have 5 minutes of silent meditation there and all of a sudden that's usually allowed the latecomers time to settle into their chairs, because we spent a few minutes doing our business and we just all of a sudden changed the character of the discussions we were having, just really a striking dramatic difference between the kinds of meetings we had without meditation and once we had meditation, what happened here. And it also our group attracts we moved it some years ago to a location where we could kind of be near several halfway houses and so we attract a lot of new people and a lot of people that are nervous enough, shall we say, that they are not normally inclined toward meditation. And so this is a place for them to start having that experience and so forth.

And it's had a very powerful positive effect on our home group here. So I talked about, while we didn't formally do it along these lines, spending time with my wife holding hands and taking turns talking to God, that's a form of this. In circumstances where we act our wiser friends to join us in morning meditation, if we belong to religious denomination, which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers, which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. Saint Francis prayer would be a good there are many helpful books also.

Suggestions about these may be obtained from one's priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they have to offer. And we've had great results. Not everything is for everybody, but at least parts of what religious people have had to offer have been of great benefit to us.

And then as I go through my day, I do what's absolutely counterintuitive to me. I pause when agitated or doubtful. And the phrase the phrase that we use around, our part of the world was was actually given by a young guy I sponsored. He was a teenager at the time and we were in workshop and we got to the 11th step and we were doing it. And so when we get to 10 and 11, we make a real conscious effort to practice it amongst all the members of the workshop and we come back the next week and report to each other, what our experience with this was.

And young Matt comes back and he goes, wow, man. He says, there's real power in this pause stuff. So around Indianapolis, people talk about the power of the pause And, that's that's the shorthand for, you know, when I when I'm agitated or doubtful, one of the things I'm I'm frightened, and I'm frightened because I'm I I feel I'm I've got power I'm powerless. I've got less power than I need. And when I pause, I get power.

And that's counterintuitive for a lot of us. And so instead of just putting my head down and charging on, I get to exercise this power of the pause. We constantly remind ourselves that we're no longer running the show, humbly saying to myself many times each day, thy will be done. I'm that I'm then in much less danger danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self pity, or foolish decisions. I become much more efficient.

Here here the promise here, I become much more efficient. I don't tire so evil easily for I'm not burning up energy foolishly as I did when I was trained to range life to suit myself. It works. It really does. And one of the one of the things that I missed for a long time is they give me a list of here of things that are dangerous to me as an alcoholic.

Excitement, fear, anger, worry, self pity, or foolish decisions. What's the number one thing on here? Excitement. You know, what do I chase? Excitement, you know, and need to understand.

Why is the excitement dangerous to me? I mean, maybe if we're talking about excitement like jumping out of airplanes without parachutes or something that's dangerous, but normally what happens is that with the excitement, I'm what I can do is I can manage to keep my life just so jazzed up that I miss everything that's going on. My life my life goes by like I'm watching a movie and fast forwarding it. I'm I missed my day, my life, whatever, and it's all run by and I've been so jazzed up on the drug of excitement that I I didn't I didn't get to be present for my own life. And I think that's why the number, that's the number one dangerous thing for me here is this excitement stuff.

Great. Anybody else with an experience around meditation that they'd like to share with us? Okay. Yeah. I like to review my day and see how many times I got to pause through the day.

Yeah. Look at that. Because that's pretty powerful. Yeah. So you've seen repeating this here that he reviews his day and counts the number of pauses in his day to see how effectively he is using that.

Yes, That's a good suggestion. And I just get nuts. So and it doesn't matter where I am. I could be in a wilderness by myself and start going nuts if I do my career on vacation. Now that's an experience I've had.

Yeah. Thank you, Frank. That's a it was well said. Unfortunately, I too long for me to repeat here. I get my memory is not that good, but thank you.

I, my friend Linda has got a marvelous way of putting this, when we are doing workshop. She will say, she is a gorgeous, classy lady and she said, it has never once occurred me to go to the office in the morning without taking a shower putting on my makeup. Now I absolutely thought it has never occurred to me. She said, but I will be crazy enough at times to think I can leave out prayer and meditation. Now how how how insane is that, you know?

And I take that back to myself. Yeah. Am I gonna go to meet a client, disheveled and I haven't shaved or anything else? Well, of course, I'm not. Now why why in the world would I go into an important function in the day and not have taken the time?

I'm going to take time for my grooming, but I'm not going to take time for my meditation here. That's crazy and I've done it. So it's and again, it's you ask me the question the right way and I can come up with the right answer for it. So well, Mike, would you go see a client unprepared? No.

Well, how about going seeing a client without having done your prayer and meditation today that day? Does that make any sense either? So it's an essential part of what makes me effective in life and I need to be doing it. So this brings us to step 12. Yeah.

Go ahead. And I'm trying to do these changes, like, if I'm writing the curriculum itself, and he goes, stop trying to change my discipline. I'm like, oh, how am I supposed to do that? He gave me reading assignments. And one of the things that popped up on the page is I'm doing reading assignments he gave me was that whole view of, Yeah.

And, I got this kind of sense of the way we adjust our mind. Very good. Yes. And, stop trying to change apply this stuff, apply this stuff and start working on you. Yeah.

Absolutely. What he was talking about was that, I've signed the spiritual consent form here. I can't change myself. If I could've changed myself, I would've changed myself, but I can't change myself. And I forget that no matter how good my intentions are, I can't change myself.

And I'm an alcoholic and I'm undisciplined, and I need God to discipline me in the simple way that they outlined for me here. And I don't know about you, but I've I've got a mind that just absolutely bristles when it hears the word discipline. No, no, no, no, not me. But I that's a cold idea. That's an old idea.

It comes from disciple, a follower, and so forth. And so am I am I what if they're really asking me, am I willing to become a student here? Am I willing to be taught? Am I willing to learn? And what I really am talking about here, I can't change myself, but I need to be am I willing to be changed?

When people approach me for sponsorship, one of the we talk about several things, but one of the things is it's not really very important about in the long run whether I'm going to be your sponsor or not. What's important is are you willing to be sponsored. That's what will make the relationship effective here. I believe I love my sponsor, but I believe there are any vast number of people that could sponsor me if I was willing to be sponsored by them. And I've watched guys search around for the perfect sponsor and I said, you can probably pick anybody in this room that's more than 90 days sober.

And the fact is they're not going to tell you anything that's going to get you drunk. If you're willing to do what they tell you to do, and if they've been on the past for 90 days. Now, if you pick your buddy from the halfway house that's as crazy as you are, crazier that may not work, but all wisdom doesn't necessarily reside among those of us with some longevity. So having had a spiritual awakening is the result of these steps. We tried to carry this message to others and practice these principles in all our affairs.

And there's a marvelous this chapter starts with a promise and several of them is this practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. It's gonna work when other activities fail. You know, where my when I can't get my prayer and meditation done for those periods when I've been dry I stayed stayed alive, stayed sober for a number of years doing nothing but 12 step work. It wasn't a good balanced deal for me, but when it's something that worked for me when absolutely nothing else was working. Carry this message to other alcoholics.

You can help when no one else can. You can secure the confidence when others fail. Remember they're very ill. And then here's the promise right upfront, life will take on new meaning to watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends. This is an experience you must not miss.

We know you'll not want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives. I just got to watch this again. There is a man that I've sponsored for a long time that's just had 18 years in January. And he he came he came here and he about 6 months after he got here, he had a terrible thing happened to him.

He inherited $2,500,000 and that's a tough thing for an alcoholic to deal with. And he had a pretty good job anyway. And we've watched him over a period of years that, he would he would come to meetings, come get in a workshop and and work the steps and do all this kind of stuff, and then he'd disappear. And we wouldn't we wouldn't see him for a period of time. And what he'd do is he'd have a he'd come here, he'd get a spiritual awakening and then he'd grab it and run off with it because he really needed to go back to making those dollars multiply and to being at the country club and, all all the other things that were important in his life.

And so, on a very predictable cycle, it turns out about 18 to 24 months later, we'd see him pop up with his butt on fire and the devil chasing him and a whole variety of things from business problems to extramarital affairs, you know, you name it, that, this was and then he'd do the work again, and he'd have an awakening again, and then he'd go leave us. And it just we we were frustrated. We liked him. He's a nice guy, but he kept repeating this pattern, until recently. And what happened to watch the miracle happen with him that after 18 years, he's finally really a full fledged member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

What happened is that a fraternity of brothers of his turned up in a halfway house and, he called this guy for help and he responded. And all of a sudden he got in the middle of it for the first time in his life of genuinely working and caring for somebody else. And now he's expanded that. He's got a he's doing his own workshop. He's got a whole group gathered and, anytime you wanna see him, you won't find him at the country club anymore.

You find him down at the Progress House, and you find him chasing drunks all over the world. And at 18 years, he asked if for the privilege of being he almost wouldn't come to our group unless he was trouble. Now he asked for the privilege if we consider allowing him to be secretary of our group, and he's there on a regular basis. And his life has changed and he can't understand it. And his marriage is on a better footing than it's ever been.

The kids are happier. It just He can't understand why all his years of effort did because he always wanted a happy family, happy wife and all this other stuff. And, trying his hardest, he couldn't make it happen. And when he quit trying to make it happen and started helping others, it changed everything. And so all of us have gotten to see a marvelous demonstration of a guy that we watched over a period of years do a lot of work, wrote a lot of inventory, made a lot of amends, did a lot of good stuff around here, but never really got engaged in this.

And see one of the mistakes that I've made and I see other makes from time to time is start thinking that this 12 step is something we do for extra credit. Well, if I want to be in alpha AA, you know, then, some kind of super a, then I'm going to I'm going to practice this 12 step, you know. And look, there are a lot of people that are a lot better at this than I am, so I'm going to let them do it. I'm not really good at talking to new people or there every one of us has a place where we can play our tune in this deal. Some of us are talented with wet drunks.

Some of us are talented with the maybe the hardest to deal with all of the intellectual jerks that we get in. We, we have we have we have people show up from time to time that are educated way beyond their ability to comprehend anything. And, I Members of the clergy are often the most, you know, interesting. We had one that came to our group who was a Freudian psychologist and he he was really interesting and he was thinking that he was explaining to us why this God business really was probably not a very practical approach for him. And he made he laid out his case in in in one of the old boys leaned over to you and he says, well, you know, so you've heard it now.

He said, what do you think you do I should do? And the old boy leaned over to him and he says, well, if I were you, I'd change my fucking mind. So we have a great deal of fun about it and so forth. And time to time from time to time, my rationalizations for my own comfort overcome what I already know here. But if I'm in the center of the group and I've got a part of a group that's active that's got a lot of people in this, I can't get too far off the path.

And our Chapter 7 here has got one of the most still go back to it, it's one of the most practical approaches for dealing with people at all points in sobriety here. Just if he doesn't waste, don't want to stop drinking, don't waste time trying to persuade him. I sponsor a guy right now. His younger brother is 39 years old and has 25 years. Or excuse me, he's got 24 years.

He got sober when he was 15. This is this guy's younger brother. Both his mother died with 41 years and his dad died earlier than her with 30 odd years. So he comes from AA Central and he was a successful businessman on top of all of this and he just knew way too much about all this stuff. And Bob tried real hard to kill himself.

Bob went to any number of good treatment facilities, private ones, long term inpatient, 3 months, 6 months, all this kind of stuff. Somehow, he always end up back at a he was a real estate developer, he always ended up back in Las Vegas, again, at the real estate convention out there and in trouble. And the last time he ended up out there, he went out there to do business and ended up living behind a 711, and and taking dirty t shirts because he lost his shoes and wrapping around his feet so he could stand to walk in the pavement to go try and hustle a drink. And his brother called me and said, well, should we go get him and so anyway, long story, he came back. But the thing that Bob sober, he will have 2 years this July if he continues on this path.

And the thing that he remembered was that one of the 12 step calls his brother and I made on him, that he wasn't ready, but he was in bad shape. And I said, Bob, you look like you could be going into some DTs or something here. You don't have anything to drink here. I noticed you got some NyQuil. You better have a little bit of that and John and I will go get you something to drink.

And we went out and got him something to drink and left it there with him. And we didn't bang on him because that's one thing I was taught a long time ago. If somebody isn't ready, I've got no right to take away the And frequently, it's that little piece of kindness as much as anything else that he remembered that piece of kindness when he was shaking more than he remembered any of this high flying pictures that we were giving him about Alcoholics Anonymous and little listening. So we didn't waste time trying to talk to him about the steps or anything. I said, Bob, here.

We don't want you to go in DTs. And if we can help you later on, we'd sure be delighted to do it. We love you. And, if he doesn't wanna see you, never force yourself upon him. Practical advice.

If he needs hospitalization, he should have it. Call on him when he's jittery. He may be more receptive, you know. I I was called on when I was jittery and I didn't particularly like it, but I was more attentive than if I could give myself a little take the edge off and be a little comfortable. It feeds in the serious mood, dwell on the troubles liquors caused you, being careful not to moralize or lecture.

If his mood is light, tell him humorous stories of your escapades. Get him talking and telling you some of his stuff. We get a little identification going here. Talk about the mental twist that leads to the first drink, you know. It's not the it's not the 10th drink.

It's not the 5th drink, you know, and it's not even the same time. I I remember one of the times I started drinking again. I hadn't been drinking for a period of time, And, I thought I was doing okay, and, I took this lady out for dinner. And she had a glass of wine and I had when dinner was all over and we left, I noticed that there was a third of the glass of that wine still there, you know, and that's alcohol abuse. And so as we're walking out, I just palm that just casually just palm that and down that on the way down as we're walking out of the restaurant.

And I went on with the rest of the evening and I was waiting because I heard about this craving stuff and I'm I'm waiting I'm waiting for them to be seized by the demon here, and it never happened, but I'd lit the fuse. And a couple days later, I found myself rummaging through my closet looking for those old airline bottles that I'd I I'd saved off some flights. And when I sucked those down, I don't think there was anything but some little bottles of Kahlua there. God, it was awful. And I'm I'm off and running again.

So I, we can talk to him about that. And I, I didn't understand this business of craving, for example. So I wasn't aware of craving. Well, first of all, I stayed loaded most of the time. And one of the guys that got my attention with this, he says, Mike, he says, whether you understand it or not right now at this moment, you're experiencing a craving.

So you're crazy. There's no. And he grabbed a plastic shopping bag and put it over my head and tighten it around my neck. And he says, now are you experiencing a craving for oxygen? And I got it.

See, I was while I had oxygen, I didn't understand that I was craving it cause I was getting all I wanted of it, but cut it off and then I understood. And I got got the concept of the craving here. And, the people that helped me had very little had some great practical ways here. They They I was telling somebody at dinner the other night that I made the mistake of I was newly educated by a fine treatment center, and I went to a meeting and one of our old timers, Red, was there at the time and I Red said something and I kind of condescendingly suggested to him that he was out of date, that there was newer information available than what he had and that he obviously didn't wouldn't be saying that or he didn't realize that he could be damaging my self esteem. And I I went on to explain to him that I was a high bottom drunk.

And he looked at me and he says, well, I reckon you are. It does look like your ass is where your head ought to be. So it tells me here, I'm going to dwell on the helpless feature of the malady and let him draw his own conclusion. Any diagnosis short of a self diagnosis is pretty meaningless here. It's not going to stick.

In fact, I'll put a lot of energy into proving you wrong. So the thing I love here is use everyday language to explain or describe spiritual principles. That's so important because it's so easy to run folk off by diving too fast and too freely into this and getting too complex with the spiritual principles. I, I was working with a man, at another halfway house and, this guy couldn't read. And so I'm reading to him and he doesn't know anything ecclesiastical.

And I'm I'm getting down here and I just read that part, where it talks about God as a new found friend, and I saw his eyes change and I saw him change. He says, oh, do you mean God could be my friend? You know, and a spiritual awakening had occurred. One of the things Don pointed out to me, he says for you, Mike, anytime, anywhere you understand any part of the truth, that will be a spiritual awakening. And so, that was that was the miracle here.

Yeah. It's important for him to realize that your attempt to pass this on plays a vital part in your own recovery. Actually, he may be helping you more than you're helping him. I make sure that comes in the conversation in in bold letters. You know, why are you doing this man?

You know, you're you're here in a suit and you're driving a nice car and you've got other things to do. What what do you what do you what do you want with me? Oh, you're you're very important to me. You're important to me as any client I've got. You know?

You're my lifeline here. And, when I when I look at you, the reason I tell you I love you is because I see myself there. Says also don't wear out my welcome. Don't keep banging on him once he's quit listening. Yeah.

Don't exhibit any passion for crusade. Never talk down to him from a spiritual mountain top, you know. Offer friendship and fellowship, you know. If he's to find God, the desire must come from within him. We've got if he thinks he can do a job some other way, for some other spiritual approach, encourage him to follow his conscience.

We have no monopoly on God. I won't get into a God argument with you. You, you may be right. So that's that's the principles here. There are a lot of countless stories behind this, but don't don't miss.

And I can tell from the way this group is that you're not a group that has has missed all the delight and everything that's here to offer you in this 12 step. And you don't have to wait to become an old timer or a medium timer or anything else. The the 12 step call is often very much more effective with the new guy along with the old timer tag teaming them. My my first sponsor likes to tell the story. We went on a 12 step call and this guy's mother had called us and we got there to her house where, of course, he was a good alcoholic.

He was home living with mommy. And we got there and he was upstairs and we went upstairs to the bedroom and started talking to him. And after a while he agreed that we could take him to down to detox because he needed some detox. And so he got up out of bed and started to get dressed and reached up on the shelf to grab some sweats up there. And he came out from between the sweats with a pistol in his hand.

And fortunately, I had some training and I was close enough to him to know what to do. With those guys, it's important you don't back away from him. You get real close to him so he can't bring the gun down and took that gun away. He took the gun away from him. Okay, Denny, get dressed.

And my sponsor went down to deal with the mother and the mother turned out to be as big a problem as the son did. She was afraid her baby was going to get hurt. And so every point along the way, we got Denny dressed upstairs and then he went downstairs and sat on the couch and I'll be damned if he didn't have another pistol behind the cushion on the couch. So we took another gun away from him. And every step along the way, Denny stand he'd he'd be real compliant and then he'd stand up and he'd whip off his shirt and he wanted to fight.

No, Danny, we're not going to fight you. Put your shirt back on. We're going to get in the car. Get in the car. He's going to get in the car.

It was nice. We we got got him down to detox finally. He whipped off his shirt in the parking lot and started doing that dance again. And and this old gal that was head nurse down there that weighs about 250 came out came out of there and grabbed him by the ear and gave it a twist and dragged him in there. And she did a better job of subduing this than any of us guys did.

Now we thought we'd we thought we'd done a pretty good day's work, but, you know, Denny beat us home. Then it turned out Denny managed to panhandle a dime. It was still a phone call dime for phone call, then panhandled a dime, made a phone call because we thought we did. We took all his money. We took his ID.

We took everything away from him, left him down there. And I'll be damned if he didn't panhandle a dime, in detox. How he did that, I don't know. But made a phone call and told mom, you can't believe the people they've put me in here with and what they're doing to me. And mom came down and rescued him, and and he he literally beat us home, And so and, the last I knew of Denny was that his answer to alcoholism is that he found a wealthy widow and married her.

So I don't know whatever happened there. But as I say, the stories can go on forever, but unfortunately, we're at the end of the trail here. And I want to I want to thank you again and honor you again. This is a very been a very special wonderful group here and, you all have given me a a whole lot to take home. There's been a it's maybe a little dangerous to say, with a group of men, but there's a real sweetness here.

A lot of gentleness, a lot of love. And it's been a real privilege to watch the hearts open over the period of the weekend and watch you with others. And I thank you so much for what you've been kind enough to share with me. Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize that we know only a little.

God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. As Kim in your morning meditation, what you can do each day for the man who is still sick. The answers will come if your own house is in order, But obviously, you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See that to it that your relationship with him is right, and great offense will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us.

Abandon yourself to god as you understand god. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit, and you will surely meet some of us as you troll treads the road of happy destiny.

May God bless and keep you till then. I'm Mike, an alcoholic, and please remember me as loving you.