Steps 10, 11 and 12 in Del Mar, CA

Good evening, San Diego. My name is Mark Houston. I'm an alcoholic. Good morning. It's, it's a pleasure to be with you all.

I, I love to start meetings with meditation because it gets me here. Mind, breath, body, spirit, emotions, the only reality of my life. I've never been here before with any of you in this breath, with this experience. And if you could touch that when you wake up tomorrow morning and you're looking at the loved one in your life or loved ones if you have children, if you could understand that you've never been in that place with them before and that would touch your heart, Think how that would be. And if you went into your job tomorrow and realize you've never been in that breath, in that space, in that time, how could you not love your job?

That's what 10 and 11 did to me. There's no place in my entire world that I would rather be than right here, right now with you because that's where I'm supposed to be as evidenced by the fact that I'm here. But what's really exciting to me is I'm present to that. My mind's not saying I wish we were back in Austin or somewhere else. It's a wonderful thing.

A power greater than myself separated me from alcohol on the morning of October 19, 1982. And what a deal to be out here with with you all celebrating. I wanna read a prayer. It's called the elders meditation of the day. Says peace comes within the souls of men when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells God, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.

Black elf, Ogalagasu. If we're to know peace, we must look within ourselves. In order to do this, we must learn to be still. We must quiet the mind. We must learn to meditate.

Meditation helps us locate and find the center that is within ourselves. The center is where the great one resides. When we start to look for peace, we need to realize where it is within ourselves. When we experience conflict, we need to pause for a moment and ask the power within ourselves, how do you want me to handle this? What would you suggest I do in this situation?

By asking the higher power for help, we will find peace. Creator, help us to find peace this evening. You do this work, take the action in steps 1 through 9, and you get to practice a sentence that's right in the middle of the fear inventory that we don't talk about in the rooms. And it says, I get to let god demonstrate through me what god can do. Wow.

What a deal. I wanna take a few minutes and share a little history with you. Some of you have been exposed to, Dan s in the big book awakening. Some of you have been exposed to, some tapes, of mine that were made 1994. I wanna tell you a little bit how that evolved in the event some of you may think I came into AA wanting to do something like this.

I basically was near death when when this power showed up and separated me from alcohol. And, I had brain damage, kidney damage, and liver damage. And everything I owned, you'd fit in one little duffle bag. And that's how I started this this journey. I went to a detox and a treatment center.

And, I was living in Denver, Colorado, which is where I sobered up. A lot of big book thumpers there. And, recovery, it was easy because in some respects, I feel like I was almost brain dead. And if you're brain dead, that's kind of, you know those of you who are fairly new and might be on a pink cloud, another word I like to use for that is I was brain dead. But, and and really when I look back in the 1st 3 years, it doesn't feel like I did much in hindsight.

And then around, 3 years, I started to wake up. You know, you wake up sober and I don't know what your experience was. It was not very comfortable. And, you know, all these fears started to manifest. And then, you know, all of a sudden the world's coming at me and there's this thing they call a career that guys are supposed to get involved with because women like it if you have a job.

And, you know, then there's things like cars and car payments and insurance. And then there's, you know, rent. And then if you buy a house, there's a mortgage. And they like that paid and just all kinds of stuff I didn't have much experience with, because alcohol took all that away from me long before I got sober. And I was quite frankly very terrified in going to meetings and that kind of stuff.

And then, I met a man named, Don Pritz. I'd been interacting with him a little bit. And, Don sat me down and and took me through the big book starting with the title page. And I remember even at that time thinking to myself, where's this guy go to meetings? Because what he was talking about was like brand new to me.

Taking the title page and drawing the circle and you have unity recovery and service and making me realize that I was in 1 third of a 3 part program expecting the results of the other 2, which was why I was dying of untreated alcoholism. And I knew what he was saying was true because I was going to a lot of meetings. I've done little or nothing with step work. I was doing nothing with 10 or 11. I was doing that, thing that I'll I'll hear in meetings sometime.

Well, I pray to God in the car and I pray in the shower. And then I turn around light and tell you God's the most important thing in my life, but you know, I don't want to give God any time. And I was doing all that and, I really little or nothing in the way of service. So I began that process and I had, I did have a profound experience, with with Don in that process and in the immense process. But I'll tell you when I look back what I didn't do, in some respects, I couldn't I didn't internalize a lot of that experience.

And most of all, I did very little with 1011 other than read 84 through 88. I did nothing with meditation. Absolutely nothing with meditation. Prayer, reading out the book, you know, upon awakening. And, what happened to me, there was also a series of events, things that happened to me and there was some other work that I needed to have done and I ignored that because after a while, I'm a step worker and they'll treat everything.

And, I wound up in a nut house in Houston, Texas between my 9th 10th year. I was having so much fun. And and I needed to be in that place because, I was fixing to, create the ultimate act of self will, which was to, end my life. And that became, came about because I was in so much pain. And, in in in that place, it feels like I had a 3rd step experience at a cellular level and that something really took happened there in that experience, which I said to this power who I don't understand but experience, if that makes sense.

Here's the deal. I ran this as hard as I could drinking, and I ran it as hard as I could sober. And I am in a loony bin in Houston, Texas. I am 44 years old, almost 10 years sober. I quit.

I'm done. Here's my deal with you from this point on. I'm going to do what that book, that blue book says, and I'm gonna do it until I die. And I'll do that and and and the rest of the deal is you have to do everything else. You gotta provide my home, my job.

You get to decide who's in my life. You get to decide all the rest because any attempts I made at any of that shit got me right here. I'm done. I'm just gonna be a little sunbeam seeking your ass because that was a wonderful horrific spirit experience sitting in that nuthouse. Those of you who've gone know what I'm talking about.

So I left there and and I wound up, going to work for the Nuthouse. And that lasted 4 or 5 months, and and then a a pal of mine moved to a fairly small community in Texas called Kerrville. And I I moved up there. And I tell you, I really went into my big book and I looked very hard at the 10th and 11th step. And I got very honest with myself about all the things that I had been unwilling to do.

And I got I'm very honest with myself about my lack of involvement in terms of sponsorship and service and really committing and taking people through this. And I got real honest with myself about the need for more inventory. And I began to see that there were still some amends that needed to make. And I made a firm resolution and it literally from 1991 until 1994 when that set of tapes was made. By the way, this is interesting.

That's the first set As far as I know, that's the first time I was ever recorded. Probably the purest set of work body of work I've ever done. And so from 1991 to 1994, I was working with a strict spiritual disciplines of the 10th and 11th and 12th step and reworked 1 through 9, 4 times. And I was on fire. My feet didn't touch the ground.

I was a zealot and I didn't give a shit about what party line conventionally thought about that. Meaning, I went into meetings and I shared my experience, and I wound up starting workshops, and I wound up taking people through the work, and I wound up starting groups. And my character got assassinated, and I didn't care. I'd had a profound experience. I was very clear on the precise, specific, clear cut instructions.

And anything I heard that didn't fit that as far as I I was concerned was bullshit and killing alcoholics. And I was big enough, I guess, they just left me alone. And out of that whole thing then, along the way, a pal of mine, and Joe h wound up going to Santa Monica, California, and this is where the big book awakening workbook tied in. Those of you who met Dan, what happened is a a whole bunch of people asked him to take him through the work and sponsor and you can't you can only work with so many people 1 on 1. So he started a workshop like I had done going through the steps, and Dan was sitting in there.

And Dan got the idea, wouldn't it be easier turning statements into questions to find your own experience, your own truth, if we've made that in a workbook form? And that was how the workbook came into being. I always laugh to myself. I mean, over the years, well, it's not EE approved. I anything that gets a guy like me in here is wonderful.

Anything. I who cares? What, you know? And that's how the big book awakening came into existence. And what started to happen off that, those of you who have been in here or those of you who've gone through there, you probably have the same experience I did is I had a much deeper, clearer experience with the steps than anything I've done before, and in particular with my first step, and then in particular with my second, and having clarity on my 3rd step decision, And the writing of inventory, seeing what I'm up against, tragedy of the ego, with all those personas that that are hurt, threatened, or interfered with.

And right in the middle of it, fear. And seeing how my life is completely dominated by fear, completely dominated by fear and that fear is the firing mechanism for all my resentments and all my selfish self centered sexual misconduct. 6 and 7, taking that to the power. Disconnecting in the 5th step from ego, disconnecting. Otherwise, you can't experience the 5th step promises.

I mean, think about that. You take this pitiful piece of inventory, your resentments, your fears, your sexual inventory, you read it to another human then you go home and spend this hour. And the book says very profound things. I could be alone at perfect peace and ease. Think about that.

Perfect peace and ease. I can be alone. I can look the world in the eye. My fears fall from me, and it rolls out in that fashion. Very profound things.

Why? Because I disconnect from ego when I do my 5th step. 6 and 7, 8, 9th step is where I connect with you. I connect with you, my fellow brothers and sisters. I've disconnected from ego in 5, now I come up to 9.

The sponsorship lineage I had believed the most important word in the 8th step was the word all, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. You all know what all means? Yes. All. Yeah.

Because if you read the big book, apparently, in your workshop, you've been going up through the 9th step, and the book talks about this thought brings you to the 10th step, what thought amends. So when I work with people and you get to the 9th step and you have your list, you're gonna start working with the disciplines of 10 and 11, but your focus is your 9th step and you use 10 and 11 in the morning, in the quiet time, 10 all day long, 11 again at night, and the whole focus is driving amends, making the amends, paying the money back, cleaning it up with employers, with family, boyfriends, girlfriends, those types of things, continuing to work with 1011. 1011 drive drive the 9th step. I will tell you it took me 17 years to complete all of my amend. It took me 17 years to find the final two people back in Iowa.

I will tell you that with each successive of men, my capacity to practice, experience, and live 10 and 11 grew more profound with every single amend. Now is that what happened? I didn't understand that. Some of you have experience with this. You owe money and you pay back money and money starts to come in.

And maybe maybe, let's say, for example, that that you're a man if you have the experience I had, because I didn't do very well in the male female relationship dynamic. And and as I start to clean that up, all of a sudden, I start to develop friendships with women. Wow. What a deal. And everything starts to get connected.

I clean up some past employment relationship things and I start to get better career moves. They all start to show up and I start to see the connection between all of this stuff. So I would encourage any of you in terms of your list of amends to work off the idea that with god's help, you can move through that list. It's not a sprint contest. I some of you, if you're like me, I'll take a simple one, the Internal Revenue Service.

I had not filed for 6 or 7 years. I was a little nervous. And I went down and filed and, you know, I I we don't like this. You know, it's like, okay. I'll pay a $100 for 900 years, you know.

And what I want to do is put the amend off till I can walk in there with 2 satchels with 300,000 and flop it on the table. You know? And I heaven forbid, I just gotta do this humble thing of $100 a month till I die type stuff. Right? And but I did that.

By the way, the Internal Revenue Service is the most intimate relationship I've ever had. It's also the longest, I think. So there's a lot of benefits in amends. I I I will tell you that one took, fourteen and a half years. And, I'll tell you something else.

I will not get involved with them again. It really isn't necessary. And, but that's how that all my amends process, started to, started to play out. I wanna talk about, the 10th step initially. I remember, there was a time, I heard a gentleman, named Big Frank.

He's been one of my mentors. He's dead now. And, he gave a talk in the 10th and 11th step and, like, the top of my head blew off. I don't know if any of you ever had that experience where you go and some guy's talking about it might be a line of phrase or or whatever. And he started talking about the 10th step.

And I realized at that time, I was, like, probably 14, 15 years sober. I realized I didn't have a clue about the 10th step. I didn't understand that the 10th and 11th step is completely new language, and it is not language that is designed to be processed and or practiced with an awakened spirit. So I I wanna read some things, and then I wanna talk about it. The 10th step, my experience.

The 11th step I do in my house in the morning. You know, I I I like to share this, but I I have 2 cats, Bill and Hobo. And, Bill has worked all the steps and is enlightened. Hobo refuses to write inventory and has made no amends. And they are 2 completely different cats, I'm here to assure you.

And when I'm doing prayer and meditation and I do my disciplines in the morning, of course, Bill's right there. Hobo's just being a pain in the ass because he wants you know, he's still into self will. And And I don't know about the rest of you, but when I'm home and I do upon awakening, I do my meditation books, and I do a little look writing in my journal, then I meditate for 20 minutes, which is what I'm doing now. I'm pretty hooked up. It's a neat deal.

And then I get showered, then I get my clothes on, and then I walk out my door. And, baby, it's on. Right? Normally, find that time for me is like because I get up Monday through Friday at 4 AM. By the way, I wanna mention this.

One of the things I discovered very, very important for me in the use of the 10th 11th step is Monday through Friday getting up at the same time. I got an opportunity over the years to go visit enough monasteries and ask enough questions to realize there's reasons why they do everything at the same time. So I will throw that out to you for your consideration. Now if you're not doing that, then you may only have an opinion on what could happen if you tried it, of which I am not interested in. The spiritual life's not a theory.

I have to live it. So I'm just throwing this out to for your consideration. Take a couple weeks, pick the same time in the morning. You might be amazed what starts to happen. There's a reason for that.

But and then when I come home at night, things quiet down, then I open the big book and there's a whole paragraph with 11 step review questions. So that's the 11 step. The 10th step and all these incredible practices is what I do the minute I walk out that door. So one of the first things I do is I go to Starbucks, and it's a drive in. And the and this is normally the first thing that gets on me, is there's actually another car in the drive in ahead of me.

Now it's 6 AM. It's dark. There's nothing going on. I'm the president of my company. I don't have yeah.

Not late. And this voice starts in. We have to wait. 10th step. Line of the will.

10th step is line of the will. Time I walk my house till I get back. Can I stay aligned in the 10th step? The voice starts. Right?

Shouldn't be any car there. Boom. Back. Line of the will. Thy will.

Thy will. Thy will. Right? Get the coffee, drive out to work, drive in, and the day's on. The phone start people start coming up and it happens and it's on.

Emotional upheavals at times. Turn, pause, ask, thy will not mine be done. Vision, intent. Powerful stuff all day long. All day long.

To do what? Keep me lined aligned to the line of the will. Go home at night. Do the evening review. Now I'm gonna read some stuff.

But I want you to think about something. I want you to think about how your life or your day is gonna be if you're not doing any of the practices I'm talking about. Even more so, I want you to think about what your life's gonna be like if you're not doing the evening review. And I'll tell you based on my nut house experience, this is what it looks like. Some of you might have had this happen today.

You did your prayer and meditation. You felt like you were a good spiritual man and woman, and you got in your car. And then during the course of the day, something happened. And this phone call came, and he didn't do what you wanted. And and so you're here this evening about like this, line of the will.

You've heard very little I said because you're having some cute internal dialogue. You get that? Identified with your mind, not present. Here. You go to bed tonight.

No review. Nothing. Now you get up tomorrow morning, you're already like this. Add 6 more days on top of that. Now we come back around again.

Now add another week, and then add a month, and you wonder why you're batshit crazy. That's my experience. What 1011 do if I do 11 in my home and if I work at 10 all day and I do my review, I lay down and I wake up in the morning and it's clean. Man, it's clean. I've looked at it.

I felt it. I experienced it. If there's anything to clean up, I'm ready to rock and roll. Let's go. There's no I'm not I'm not carrying boxcars of crap behind me.

It's a new day. It's fresh. It's exciting. I've never been here before. The job is not boring.

I love the people I work with. You know why? Because when you're free, you're always present to them, but you've never been with them before. See? This is what 10 and 11 do.

But I want you to think about what happens if you're not doing any of that. I'll tell you what happens. The same thing happens to you. It happens for me when I wasn't doing that. The first voice I hear in the morning, I call it the vulture.

Hi, Mark. Been waiting for your ass to get up. We wanna talk to you about how unappreciated you are in the workplace. Couple it with she isn't treating you with the respect you're deserving. I haven't even had coffee.

My feet haven't even hit the bed, and it's on my ass. Right? And it starts. And the fear comes in. What about?

Boom. Now I'm hooked. I'm tied into my mind. Meditation books, read them, don't don't see a thing. The mind.

What do you think about this? You all do. You all you all do this. You all get up every morning. You got your little table with all your little host of characters around it.

Somebody better be chairing that meeting. And it better be the spiritual man or woman. Right? You you all got you don't know what I'm talking about. They're all talking to you.

They're going just like this. Depending on who's afraid the most, that voice is the loudest. What do 1011 do? They allow you to have fun with all of this stuff. That's what they allow you to do.

So let me read a few things to you, and I wanna talk about it. This thought brings me to step 10. You all know what the thought is. Right? Amends.

Amends. Make your amends. Which suggests that we continue to take personal inventory and we continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. That's the instruction to me that tells me to start working with this the day I start my amends. It says we vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past.

That sentence has some very powerful instructions. It uses the word vigorously, talks about a way of living. We've entered the world of the spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter.

It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, we ask god at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately, and we make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then we're going to resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help, love, and tolerance of others is our code.

Let me talk about some of this stuff. Enter the world of the spirit. In the 5th step, I disconnect from ego. I begin to but in the in the 5th step, there's a line. I thank god from the bottom of my heart that I know god better because I'm not blocked.

Remember, the only reason you wrote inventory was to face and be rid of that which has you blocked. I don't know if you've all experienced this, but you are a part of God whether you know that or not or whether you've experienced it or not. It's like a wave is a part of the ocean. It's not the ocean but it's a part of the ocean. In my experience is the same is true of me, of God.

And the work I do in 4 through 9 allows me to realize that. When it says we've entered the world of the spirit, what does that mean? Experientially, what it means to me is I have an awakened spirit and I'm well aware of the fact that I am connected with God. And this language is about taking that awakened spirit out into the day and into my life and into everything I do. I've entered the world of the spirit.

Now, I wanna go back to something. Imagine there's a door that we opened. There was a door. We did the first nine steps. It allowed us to open a door and we entered.

So imagine 2 things. A, if you don't move forward with your mens or b, you don't work with 1011. My experience is your ass will be shoved back. And that door will be slammed shut and what you get to deal within is self will, sense of separation, completely identified with your mind, afraid, yadayada yada. 1011 allow you and I to stay in the room, ladies and gentlemen, to stay in the room.

I'm gonna make a real bold statement. There's never a waking moment when I don't have conscious contact with god. And god doesn't love me any more than any of you. I have been willing since I had that wonderful psychiatric nuthouse experience to do the things necessary to experience the promises in this book. And one of them is the central fact of my life today is the absolute certainty that god lives within me in conscious contact.

And 1011 is how I get to do that. Wow. So I've entered the world of the spirit. Grow in understanding of effectiveness with what? You go through the day and some of the other tools that this is gonna talk about.

Things like watch. For what? Selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, fear. You're in a situation. Self will versus god's will.

Boom. You watch. You see. You turn. Turn back.

An awakened spirit lets you do that, lets you wake up to do that. Those you've been sober for a while when you start practicing with this may have had this experience. You're right in the middle of some tirade or fear or whatever, and all of a sudden, it stops. And you say, how'd that happen? Right?

Spirit. An awakened spirit. Take my awakened spirit into my day To grow in understanding and effectiveness about taking my awakened spirit into my day, into my automobile, into every single thing that I do. Understanding and effectiveness. Let me give you a simply a way that that this showed up for me in a profound way.

How many of you in the last week have had a, another human do some things that upset you or you had judgments about. And those of you who didn't raise your hand are liars. Having awakening spirit does not stop you from have being a human. You get that? One of the things that started to happen when I really started to work with 10:11 had to do with I finally woke up to the fact one day that these people that I was upset with or making judgments with were not acting that way out of choice.

They, like me, were being driven, And they could do it no different. And here I am getting upset at them. And the reason I'm upset at them was twofold. One is I thought they could act different, but the only way reason I wanted to act different was I needed something from them. And I woke up to that, to grow in understanding and effectiveness.

You see how freeing that could be when you start to realize that people maybe are being driven and not choosing to act in those ways, in those fashions? Some other tools you work with in the 10 step. This is a way I know how to work with things. The word watch, look up by the way, this was another thing. Some of you may have experience with this.

I like to think I know what words mean. Do some of you that same way? What I discovered in the 10 step is a dictionary is incredibly helpful in understanding what it's trying to say. And the word watch is a good one. And when I'm gonna take different practices like watch and ask and turn and seize, I write them out on 3 by 5 cards or 4 by 6 cards, and I'll put them in my car.

And I'll carry them with me. And I'll take one word or phrase, and I work with it. For example, watch. The first time I work with watch, I work with watch somewhere between 3 6 months. One 10 step practice, one 10 step practice only.

Watching myself. Do what? Either get resentful, dishonest, becoming afraid, and practice watching myself and then being able to turn out of that and not act on it. The word ask, looking up the definition so I'm clear on what it means, working with the word ask. One of the things that I heard big Frank say that is that I got, because I was raised on a farm in Iowa.

And he said, when it comes to the 10th and 11th step, he said, I don't care what you're gonna do for a living, but it takes a lot of years to do it well. Well, the same is true of 10 and 11. These are practices, and they will take years before they are incorporated inside you at a cellular level. So hence, the need to practice, practice 10 and 11. So I take different words, the word ask.

And by taking one word at a time in the 10th step and practicing with it pretty soon, it started to become an automatic response. In other words, I'd get in a situation, I would be fearful, and I would automatically ask God to remove the fear, remind me what God would have me be. But I had to practice. This is how we like to practice. I love it particularly when people will talk to me about meditation.

It'll sound like this. Well, I tried it for 3 days. And it didn't work, so I quit. No. No.

No. No. It's got just a little bit more of a commitment to that. So yes. What time is it?

Oh, I need to take a stop, right? Not yet. Not yet? Just a couple of minutes. Just a couple of minutes.

Alright. Well, let's let's do something. Let's Questions. Yeah. Let me stop for a minute and just field any questions you all might have in the 10th step.

What I'm gonna do in the next session is finish up on 10 and then talk a little bit more about 11. I the depth of this is such I could spend an entire weekend on 10 to 11. That's how much is in in here. 10 and 11 are like an abyss. Now, prior to doing the work in 1 through 9, they looked like 4 little pages.

But questions? Anybody have any questions about 10? Let's say the 10th step. Anybody? Don't understand?

That's one of the ways. Yes. To realize Maybe they're not choosing. I'll give you an example. I haven't been out in San Diego that long.

I got in last Sunday. But I wanna tell you something. If you've been born and raised in San Diego, you've been programmed a lot different than if you've been born and raised in Texas. You're going to make some different choices than a Texan would. Not by choice.

Programming, programming, programming. You didn't choose your sex. You didn't choose your name. You didn't choose a single belief system you're probably sitting here living your life on. You get that?

Neither anyone else. I'm Tyler. I'm an alcoholic And it is such an honor to give Mark this 24 years and to have him here because that cake had flames around because he is on fire for Alcoholics Anonymous, and he has passed that enthusiasm on to me. And one thing I wanna say because I know Mark personally, and this man has the most beautiful, loving heart that reaches out continually to the newcomers to the hardcore person no matter what he's doing he said one thing that's so important he said the longer you're sober, the bigger the noose around your neck. Don't forget that.

Because that sobriety will become the most important thing rather than working with that new person. And I just love you and honor you, and thank you so much for everything you've done to help me out. So we're gonna we're gonna take a 15 minute break. Enjoy the cake. These things block us from our power.

The cleaner we are, the more power we move. We must become a hollow bone so the creator can use us to do what he wants us to do. My creator removed from all of us today all resentment anger, fear, guilt, and selfishness. Do not let our weaknesses stand in the way of our usefulness to you. Make us a hollow bone so your power can flow through us.

This program, as far as I can tell, requires that you and I have a direct experience with the power of God with nothing in between. No ministers, no rabbis, no priests, no men, no women, no children. A direct experience with power. A disease so horrific in nature, it requires a direct experience. Boom.

1011 lets you stay hooked to that. 1 through 9 lets you become a hollow bone. 1011 keep you there. You get that? A hollow bone.

There's a little line before you make make your 3rd step decision. It's another line we don't talk about. It says, with God's help, I can be an entirely rid of self. Do you think that's possible? Book says it is.

With god's help, I can be entirely rid of self. Wow. A hollow bone. Do the work face to be rid of that which has you blocked. Now 10 to 11.

Incredible exciting stuff. We're back. Some of you are saying it's the 2nd session. Mark's talking. Guess what?

You've never been here with me. I've never been here with you. It's a new breath. It's a new time. We've never been with each other in this fashion.

How do you not get excited when you understand that? In the time we've been in San Diego, I went to a young people's meeting the other night. I'll tell you, one of the things I loved about it was their enthusiasm. I can tell when people are present to now. They have enthusiasm, and they have a passion.

Then we went to a few other meetings. Colonics could have benefited the meeting. I hear people say, well, I'm bored with AA. No, you're not. You've never done the work to even know what the hell it means.

You see? Bored? My god. You know, you every day, brand new. It's fresh.

See, 10, 11, keep that. I wanna go back to talking more about let me give you an example about understanding effectiveness. I, December 5th, was working for a company and went in. And at at 8 o'clock in the morning and at 10 o'clock, I drove out and no longer work for him. And thank god I did I I've done all the work that I've done because there I was CEO of 2 companies.

And when I drove out that gate, I left the CEO's ass parked right back there because that ain't who I am. And I drove out the gate saying, what exciting shit has God got for me now? Right? It's fabulous to be that present. Drive right out the gate.

Done. Have them look back a second. Woah. What groovy stuff we got. Because I told you when I was in the Nut House what I told god, where I live, who's in my life, what I do, it's none of my business.

My business is do what you showed me to do, to be a hollow bone so you can work through me. What do you want me to do? Right? Grow in understanding and effectiveness. For years, the idea had been coming as is I've worked in the treatment field for years.

I wanted to open a recovery center. No clinical. A recovery center. That idea wouldn't leave me. There was a little problem.

I didn't have the sufficient of funds to do that. So what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? What am I gonna do? Grow in understanding and effectiveness.

And so I put in focus and concentration here. Go into meetings, working with a few men. And then an investor shows up. Spent some time, could have got close to doing it. But through 10 and 11, I got very clear I was not supposed to be doing business with this man.

So I passed. I passed. Not gonna tell you that was easy. Wasn't easy. But you're either gonna trust this or not.

Minifate that courage. They trust their god. I said, no. Thank you. It gets even dicier.

Grow and understand effectiveness. Right? Work with attitude. The 11 step talks about attitude. I I developed an attitude at this time.

I call it drive it hard. You get to work with 10:11, as far as I can tell, based on the circumstances of your life, what would god have me do? So I get a call from another man. He he, actually, he owns 20 treatment centers. And I think he wants to do me to do a little consulting with him.

He doesn't. He wants to hire me as president of his company, and he wants to grow it. And he offered me some nice money to do that. And I go home, and I tell him, I can't answer that question. What do you have to do to answer?

I gotta spend some time in prayer and meditation, seek counsel. He said, cool. He's in recovery. 5 days go by. Call him up.

Keep in mind I got nothing going on. I said to him, I cannot do it. He said, what are you gonna do? I said, I don't have a clue. Within about a week, calls, carts coming in and through a series of events, then I wind up sitting down with another man who is my partner today.

And so starting in about, the end of March, drive it hard. I've been living out of a suitcase basically from right around February up until about 2 weeks ago. Grow in understanding effectiveness. Drive it hard. Going down to Austin.

Staying in a bed and breakfast. Got a storage unit. And I I just turned 60 the other day. This was not my plan. I'm staying in a bed and breakfast, going to a storage unit.

What do I wanna wear today? Right? Having a ball doing it. Just having a ball doing it. Right?

Looked at deal after deal after deal because Mark Mark had his little plans and designs. It was a horrible dilemma for an alcoholic. I had a suitcase full of cash and I couldn't get anyone to take it. Deal after deal and then, you know, okay, what do you want? Go over here.

Okay. Drive on. Boom. That's it. Write a contract 3 weeks later.

I'm living there. Surreal. 54 acres. 5,500 square foot house, farmhouse. Just 3 months before my ass had been parked up in Dallas, Texas in a tiny little 2 bedroom apartment wondering what the hell I was gonna do when I grow up.

Grow in understanding effectiveness. Can I do the disciplines? Can I trust the power? Doing my evening review. I'm afraid.

You see, I'm afraid, god. No. Don't be. Go to bed. Wake up.

Do it again. Do it again. See, all day long. Go to a meeting. Tony, you my pal, Tony, he'd call.

He'd just tell him every time he'd call. He finally said to me one day, he said, do you ever not have a drunk over at your house? And I said, on occasion. You know? But doing doing what god would have me do, Doing my own work, being a hollow bone, doing the 12 step, doing 1011, growing in understanding of effectiveness.

Boom. Been open to 100 100 days. God's blessed us with 19 men to help already. Boom. A hollow bone.

A hollow bone. That's all it is, ladies and gentlemen. It's nothing more. I have a business card, says I'm the president. The only reason it says that is I have a skill set that would bring that title.

Then I have a facility maintenance guy. His title is every bit as important as mine. We're just part of a team, a bunch of hollow bones to help god's kids stop suffering. No more, no less. And to have fun with it.

Grow in understanding of effectiveness. Wow. See? My god. What would I do if I didn't have 10 to 11?