The Willing to grow conferece in Vaud, Switzerland

My name's Chris Raymer, covered alcoholic. The, Before I get started on this, we wanna talk a little bit about sponsorship and the idea of working these steps quickly in a timely manner. I wanna mention something to you. There's a book out there. It's out of print right now.

It's called How it Worked. It's the story of Clarence Snyder. You can download it. If you Google How it Worked, it'll show up. It's written by a guy named Mitchell Kaye out of New York.

He's a buddy of mine. He's an archivist and he got to spend a bunch of time with Clarence Snyder, who was one of the original members of Alcoholics Anonymous. He eventually broke away from AA and did his own thing. But it the the the loop I got absolutely packed with with some clear, concise guidance of what they did in the early days of our folks anonymous when we had a terrific success rate in our fellowships and, and some of the pitfalls that have come our way as a result of watering the message down. Peter talked earlier about this stuff called middle of the road solution.

The book says that won't work for a real alcoholic or the real dope thief. So what we wanna do is try to stay focused on what will work and, unfortunately, what will work sometimes takes a little effort. People always amaze me, you know, this I've never talked to an alcoholic or an addict yet that didn't, Oh, I want to get sober. I want to get sober more than anything in the world, you know. And then and then you start telling them what they have to do and then they start crawfishin' on you, you know.

I want to stay sober right up into the time it starts to get uncomfortable or, you know, or inconvenient, you know. And then and then I'm gonna I'm gonna start rationalizing why I'm not as bad as you and wanna back out and we're gonna be faced with that, folks. Very few of us will will will get to the spot where we will say, I'm willing to go to any link. That's what the book asks us in in how it works. If you've reached a spot where you're ready to do whatever it takes, then you're ready to take certain steps.

This I don't know why it is in our fellowship that these these little terms like easy does it what how many of y'all have heard that in AA? Easy does it? You know, I don't know. That term is taken out of context more than anything else so that we say in AA. I love the term easy does it.

With my wife, easy does it. You know what I'm saying? With with my kid and with with life, you know. I mean, it's in the chapter of Family Afterwards is where it talks about with our family, easy does it. But it's always taken out of context where you easy does it with the steps, you know, like That's not what it's saying.

The book says, We beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. That's always interpreted, Take your time to work the steps. That's not what that says. Fearless and thorough from the very start. That's what I want you guys to see.

Hopefully, after we finish, we're gonna I'm gonna kinda speed through this because I'm gonna kinda give you an overview and let Peter make some comments and we're getting such great questions. There's some of you guys are asking great questions. We wanna try to answer those and this is my last shot at you today so I'll I'll be around tonight. We can visit any of y'all that wanna come up and you'll have to start the conversation. You know me.

So come on up. I I I want to talk to you. I'm just not gonna talk to you. So there but I'm out of here tomorrow and, maybe my head will unplug on the way back. I don't know what this is about.

We talked earlier, all of the original guides in the in the in the textbook about Paul Celanonymous worked the steps rapidly. No. The history book talks about Eddie, Eddie Thatcher, little guy, couldn't stay sober. Roland, who's the Catholic guy with Carl Jung and and and eventually had his spiritual experience, he's working in a mission helping cats down there and he runs across Eddie. He takes him to his house and over the next 2 weeks, he fattens Ebby up a little bit, gets him some food, and then he works him through the 12 steps.

Originally, then, at that point, there were 6 steps but it was all the difference is that they've exploded them into 12. But the same idea was embedded in the 6 steps. And they worked Evie through 2 weeks later, you know, a few weeks later, the book talks about he goes gets on a bus and goes and finds Bill Wilson. You with us? They share a few stories, then he sets the hook, talks about having a spiritual experience, and then shows Bill Wilson how to do it.

Bill gets drunk a few more times afterwards. They go to a mission, he gets squashed, gets up, talks forever. The storybooks are great around it but the long and short, Bill ends up back in detox, finishes doing the work and has his spiritual experience. And they take it to doctor Bob, Bill D, and number 4, and number 5, and number 6. Why is it that we have to try to reinvent the wheel?

Why can't we just walk in those cats' footsteps and get the same results? Because all of those guys were getting sober. Great success rate. I was looking at some, statistics earlier. In Dallas, Texas, some of y'all heard me talk about this, there's a 131 AA groups in Dallas, Texas if if this month.

131 AA Groups. It's close to 1500 meetings a week. With us? 82% of those are open discussion meetings. There's only 8% that are literature based meetings.

And we wonder why our success rates are the 8% we talked about this morning. Because the literature that shows us how to do the work, we're not gonna talk about. So some of you might have heard of an author named Ernie Kurtz. Ernie, is is a prolific writer and he still writes extensively. I I haven't talked to him in a while.

I don't know how his health is now but he's he's a gentleman that wrote, a, a book produced by Hazleton called Not God. It was a it was it was actually his dissertation that he did on the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he got into the nooks and crannies and it wasn't the clean, polished up, AA approved, you know. He got he got to talk about all the problems that we had in the early days, all the all the hassles that these guys went to to come up with this program. It's pretty fascinating stuff.

But Ernie, in some of his literature, he in one particular article, he talks about and I won't use his terms because they're a little vague, but he talks specifically about a little window of opportunity. Nice girl comes in and she's she's she's a drunk and she wants some help and she comes in and she sits in a roof and she starts to flourish. You know, y'all seen it and she starts to catch fire with it and she gets excited about her life. We wanna minimize it. We want we call it a pink cloud.

You know, it's it's I don't know if they do it here in in in America. It's just it's just ruthless, you know. You come in and smile too much, we're talking about you, baby. I'm telling you. You know, she she's just on a pink cloud, you know.

She's people are still waiting 18 years for me to fall off my pink cloud and bust my ass. I mean, that's that's that's there's no such thing as a pink cloud, folks. It's called God's grace and it's documented, folks. Every many of us in this room have experienced it. We didn't do hardly anything when we got here and we started getting some real results really quick.

We started getting excited about recovery. And that's that's this window of opportunity that Ernie says we should take advantage of and do the work. Now, these guys that started Alkaliets Anonymous were a lot stupider than Ernie Kurtz. He this is all hindsight looking back. What what he's explaining is what the original members of Alcoholics Anonymous knew intuitively.

Why do we wait till the obsession to drink returns to her and she starts to come apart at the scene before we jam her in the steps? Why don't we get her when she's happy, joyous and free for that window of opportunity? Y'all understand what I'm saying? I'm in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous for 7 years and can't get sober. But I have little windows where I feel pretty good sitting in those meetings because I'm 90 meetings in 90 days.

I'm going to meetings but I'm not getting the the definite spiritual experience that I need. But then, everybody's not telling me that I need to do that. And I'm looking around the room and I'm seeing what you're doing and you ain't worked the 4th step yet, so why should I? And that's the stuff that kills alcoholics. I said it last night, the newcomer doesn't know what to ask.

The newcomer doesn't understand this. It's our job to teach him. If he's willing, let's help him understand that there is a process to go through. I hear people all the time. Listen, spiritual experiences is not an experience.

It's a process. This is not cussing. It's tough for me. I'm gonna tell you. That's that's absolute rubbish.

That's that's ridiculous. I'm gonna tell you that night that I sat on the tailgate of my truck and looked around and I surrounded by liquor stores and realized that the obsession to drink had lifted from me. And my cocaine dealer lives in the apartment complex where I live and I don't wanna do cocaine. I got money in my pocket, nobody around and I have the obsession is gone. Now, buddy, I wanna tell you that was an event, one that I'll never forget.

We make this sound like this is such a process for the rest of our lives. We're gonna be struggling. Please, you know, one day at a time, going to what what did this is? It's rubbish. It's stupid.

It's an event, folks. You are you you're either placed in a position of neutrality or you're not. You're with us on that? Yeah. A window of opportunity.

And I don't know. Sometimes that window lasts a few weeks. Sometimes that window lasts months. Sometimes it's very short. Sometimes it's long.

I don't know. I don't know. I do know that when I get a guy and he wants me to sponsor him, I get him through the work as quick as possible. Because when the obsession to use returns, he's gonna go use. And I'm not gonna be able to stop it.

Oh, you can't remember your last drink, you probably haven't had it. That's rubbish. The book says on page 24, We're not gonna it's guaranteeing me I won't remember my last drink. When the obsession to use returns, I'll forget that I'm on probation, I'll forget the promise I made to life, I'll forget everything and I will go use. Isn't that your experience?

What we need is the spiritual intervention so that that doesn't come back. That's what a recovered alcoholic and addict is. That's it. But I'm pumped. When I I'm gonna give you a little run down here.

God comes and asks me to sponsor him. I get pretty directional with him pretty quick. First thing is, why do you want me to sponsor him? Because I don't want him to him to do the work with me just because I speak out public a lot. I'm pretty high profile.

I think it's the patch. People don't forget the patch. But I'm not interested in that, with this this ego stuff. What do you want? Well, I want what you got.

You seem excited about your life. You seem to be excited about your life. You seem to be pretty that's the answer I wanna hear. You want what I got? Then I ask him point blank, Are you willing to go to any link to get what I got?

We opened his book and I put it on the front front page of his book. I said, Are you willing to go to any link? And I make him say, I am willing to go to any link and I make him sign it. That's not in the book. That's just my little contract because you know in a couple of weeks, he's gonna crap out.

Well, you know, I can't make that meeting tonight. I've got this and then I said, Excuse me a minute. Would you turn to the front of your book? You with us? Because it's in early sobriety, it is extremely important that we follow some instructions.

It's a narrow path there. We've got it we've got to get on the spiritual path. Ask him point blank, are you willing to work all 12 steps without reservation? He says, yes. I sit down with him.

Let's assume that he's detoxed. Okay? I'm not gonna work with somebody that's still vibrating. Yeah. Excuse me, why go throw up?

No, I'm not gonna do it. Give him a couple of days to get his feet on the ground. With a cocaine addict, I'll tell you this, you know, give him give him a big back, let him sleep for 2 days and they're ready. They're detox. There's detoxes.

That's why this stuff is so deadly. We bounce too quick. Anyway, but with an alcoholic I'll give them a few days. We'll we'll keep him close. Hug him.

Keep him close. I'm gonna sit down with him and I'm gonna qualify. I'm gonna find out for sure what fellowship he needs to be in. Are you an alcoholic? Are you a drug addict?

Are you both? With us? But I don't want the little dope thing hiding out in AA. He needs to be hope of helping some other dope fiend. And they're not in this fellowship, they're in the other fellowship.

It's not personal. I qualify and we go through what we talked about this morning, the physical allergy, the mental obsession, and the spirituality. And if he can identify with that, we immediately go to the 2nd step, not next week we'll cover 2nd step. Immediately. We've established he's got a fatal progressive illness in the first step.

Now, I'm gonna make him wait a week while I get my affairs in order. It's what it really boils down to. That's the bottom line. I mean, somebody tells you that they don't have time to Sit down with him, ask him, what about this spiritual stuff? Do you believe there's a power out there greater than yourself?

If he says yes, we talk about it a minute and we move on to the set third step. Chapter 2, the agnostic says, almost half of us have been agnostic or addict. That means, and we don't ever seem to make this point, that half of us didn't have any problem with God at all. So why do we wanna belabor this? I mean, I hear people in meetings all the time, I'm working on a second step.

I'm working on a second step. Buddy, it's a simple question with one consideration. Are you are you king of the universe? No. We're past second step.

Let's go to the 3rd step. Are you willing to ask for some guidance here? Are you willing to ask a power greater than yourself that you've already chosen to be a part of your life? Yes. We're done with the 3rd step.

Let's get on our knees and do a 3rd step prayer where we ask God to remove our difficulties. So victory over those difficulties can bear witness to God's power. The coolest prayer in the book. Go down with this. I I'm gonna say it again.

I watch you guys, but just I wanna get all of this information about who is God? What does God look like? How does he affect my life? Why did all the Jews have to die in World War 2? I don't know.

Does it is that really important to discuss now while your little butt's in limbo? Let's get focused, folks. The idea is to gain access to and then believe in a power greater than ourselves. What we want to try to do is help you get this access as quick as possible. You're with us?

Stop wasting your time with somebody who wants to fight the God deal. Please. I'm not gonna talk you into wanting this. The booze will talk you into wanting this. Go drink.

This is the guys I sponsor, folks. You follow me? We do a 3rd step prayer. We get up. The book says next, we launched on, of course, the vigorous action.

None of this Next week, we'll start on the flip. Now, notebook, 4 columns. Who you pissed at? And I show them how to I work them through section by section how to finish a 4 step rapidly. 4 step, guys, was never intended to be this long drawn out thing that the treatment centers have bastardized.

Never intended to be this big long life story. I have to list every person up. That's not what this is about. The literature is really specific about it. Early guide in Alcoholics Anonymous didn't even do the writing, the sponsor did.

You just asked them some specific questions. I'd rather see, I'd rather see Julia on her first four step, give me 20 of the biggest resentment she's got and be done with it than to watch her stew in her own juices for 6 months while she comes up with this big, long, 200 name list. Names that she hasn't even When's the last time you thought about that person? Oh, I hadn't thought of him 30 years. Then what?

Why are you writing it down? You're not drinking over that. You're drinking over the idiot at work and your ex and the kids and, you know, few relatives, you follow us. We list the people, institutions, and principles we're pissed at. We do a little crappy 2 column fear inventory, list the fears, why we think we got them.

We do a little sex inventory about our behavior towards the opposite sex. Got nothing to do with pokey pokey. Nothing. It's got I could sit down with this good looking woman right here and listen to her. If she'd done a sex inventory the way the book outlines, I could do her, she could I could do her, she meant.

Sorry. I could I could listen to her fist step and never and never get near as red as I am right now. Never. Never. Because we're talking about behavior.

How do I treat women? It's got nothing to do with all this, all the 4th step is not confession. If all 4 step was was confession, the Catholics would be all sober. No. Isn't that true?

Isn't that true? It's a fact finding mission. It's a fact finding mission. I'm looking at an inventory here. Why is it that my character defects keep backing into a corner and I keep coming out sideways causing the same problems?

I keep having the same problem with women over and over and over. Why? It's not the individual person. It's what I'm doing with them that's the problem. I'm the one that needs to change, not them.

Selfish and self centeredness is the root of the problem. It's what it says on 62. I point this out to the new guy. Alcohol is not the problem. It's a symptom, what the book says.

Selfishness, self centeredness, that's the problem. And that's what I get to see in my 4th step. I'm the little selfish, self centered buckaroo on earth. I dumped this in a fist step with my sponsor. If I'm sponsoring this cat, I'm sitting down and I got 2 pieces of paper.

One of them, I've got character defects on the top and on the back I've got 8 step list. And as he's talking, I'm listening to his character defects. Fear, selfishness. You know what this? Just judgmentfulness.

Anytime you're judging somebody, guys, it's selfish and self centered. That's what it's about. You're with this? And I'm writing this stuff down and every time he's talking about somebody and I think maybe an amends need to be made, I write it on that 8 step list. And that's exactly what the book says.

Right after we finished the 5th step, an hour later, it says, we thought, Peter read it a minute ago, the process of 6 and 7. Guys, it's 2 paragraphs. I don't care how long you wanna talk about it. There's not that much meat there. You look at your your basis of the steps, have you been thorough up to this point, and you've got a list of your character defects and you go to God with it.

God, remove this crap that's blocking me from you, that's keeping me from being useful to you and others. Real simple. That's an hour after the 5th step. With me? I've got my 8th step list already cause we did it while we took the 5th step.

Now I'm gonna sit with the sponsor, he's gonna sit with me and I'm gonna go over that list and show him how to organize that so he can get out, start making amends. Now, the book says, while we're doing this, cleaning up the records of our past, I'm doing 10, 11, and 12. It's what the book said. That's what drives me crazy when we got people sober for year in AA and you're still not sponsoring somebody. If that is not okay, all the 11 steps we do before we get to the 12th step gets us ready to do the 12th step.

If you wanna keep what you Bill Wilson says in in, the chapter, in the front, Bill's all time. The first chapter in the book where it's called Bill's story and it starts popping. He says, We can't possibly survive the certain trials and low spots ahead unless we grow spiritually through work and self sacrifice for others. You little cats that are talking about going back and changing the formats of your group, you're already catching fire. That's what this is about.

Is it gonna be tough? Yes. But that's my responsibility. I didn't get sober so I could just be comfortable in my skin. Complacency is what kills alcoholics and addicts.

We get well, we get comfortable. We get comfortable, we sit on our butt, we let other people do what we should be doing, we don't volunteer. See, those guys in Alcoholics Anonymous, when I got back in 87 after that suicide attempt, knew that if I didn't get busy, I wasn't gonna stay sober. They had me answer the phones on the clean up committee and they had me involved in a little service wherever I could. I couldn't 12 step somebody because I didn't know how.

They showed me how. They showed me how to chair a meeting, exactly what what Peter was saying earlier. If you're around this program for for a few months and you're not chairing meetings and not active, there's there's something wrong. You're gonna struggle with this program because it's by giving that I get to receive. Makes sense?

2 or 3 months, guys. I cannot tell you how many people squirm around this stuff. I was doing a talk in Seattle one time and we we we, went to hear a speaker over at an Indian reservation and there was this old geyser and then it was 50 plus years sober. I mean, he's old. He's like, they had to help him to the podium and I hope they're doing that to me someday, you know.

And he shared and he shared about coming back into Alcoholics Anonymous. This was in the early days, in the late thirties when he came in. And he said, he was sober about 3 or 4 days and he was on the job working and his sponsor drove up on his job site and handed him a notebook, said, It's time to start working on your 4th step. And there was 200 people in the audience and they all busted out laughing. They thought that was the funniest thing they'd ever heard.

Can you imagine working on a 4 step at 4 days sober? And I'm sitting back in the back with the big book numbers and we're just looking and says, Boy, this guy's right off. He's dead off. That's how they stayed sober. Makes sense?

Do the work rapidly, folks. 10, we talked to him about 10, we talked to him about 11, help them with the meditation and then we hit this working with others as hard as possible. You're gonna go work with others. I've got a little group that's called the Mad Dogs. This little guy's just in my sponsorship lineage.

And we meet every other Thursday for an hour. And we have a little accountability group. It's just you I have to be sponsoring you for you to even come to this group. It's not AA. It's not anything else.

But that's what I do in my group. I make sure all these there'll be 30 35 guys in this meeting. I don't sponsor all of those guys. I sponsor guys who sponsor these guys who sponsor these guys. You with it?

We're all on the same page. We're all doing the same thing. We're working with others. You got to introduce yourself, first and last name. None of this anonymous crap.

Because if you get sick, I want to know how to find you. If you get in the jam, if you get arrested, I don't even know your last name. How can I help you? How can I be of service to you if I don't even know how to look you up in the phone book? Guys, the literature is crystal clear.

You can guard your anonymity out there but in these rooms, we're not supposed we're not supposed to do that. You could do it if you want to. We have an accountability. How many how many meetings do you go to? Who's your sponsor?

How many guys do you sponsor? Name your commitment. A weekly commitment that I have 2 Alcoholics Anonymous. What is what is what is my job in AA? You all know what I mean?

My job to make coffee, Wednesday night. My job is to get the greeters ready for Monday night meeting. Whatever it is, that's my job this week, that's what I share at that group. I'm accountable. 18 years sober, I do the same thing that ask the little guys that's 1 month sober to do.

I'm not telling anybody to do something that I'm not gonna do myself. And I work them through the steps and then I show how them how to they do the same thing I did with them to the newcomer. You will not believe how many of these little guys are getting sober and staying home. I'll touch on it. I speak at some place not long ago and a guy came up afterwards and he says, How many guys do you sponsor?

And I said, 22. He said, That is the most arrogant thing I've ever heard. You don't have time to work with 22 people. Y'all need to hear what I'm saying. I don't sponsor by taking you on to raise.

My job as a sponsor is to show you how to have a spiritual experience. I can help you with the rest of your life. You follow us? It does take time. It takes effort.

But but I'm getting you connected to God and God's taking care of you. Makes sense? I don't sponsor 22 men all at once. I sponsor these guys, they get on solid ground, they're out there working with others, all I gotta do is check-in every once in a while. How you doing brother?

How you doing? Everything's cool. And then they're over here with the follow-up and that's how the thing works. Doctor Bob sponsored over 5,000 people in the 15 years of his life. That's documented.

Over 5,000 people. Then I'm gonna come into Alcoholics Anonymous and say I'm sober 2 years and I'm not sponsoring anybody. There's there's something wrong here. Our job, the traditions tell us, is to carry the message of hope back to the New Covenant. Am I doing that effectively or am I just a meeting maker?

Not knocking meetings. That's not my job. I don't go to meetings to hear anything, guys. I know it's in this book. I've had a spiritual experience.

I'm surrounded by men and women that keep me straight on the line. I go to meetings to help others. I watch that meeting and if it starts to go south, I stop it. Excuse me. I thought the topic was the second step.

What are we doing talking about your cat again? The little lady since gets pissed and leaves, so be it. Have a nice life, you and your cat. You'll follow us? But the little guy in the back that just got here, that wants to know about the second step, he's gonna get to hear the rest of that.

I have a responsibility. I didn't get sober just so I could be happy, joyous and freak. I got sober so I could help others. Period. It's the it's it's the greatest thing I've ever done.

You walk into a meeting 1 night and sit across the table across the room and watch a little guy that you're sponsoring sit down at the table. He's got the big book open. He's got his fingers stuck in this guy's face. Now listen here. I want you to pay attention.

It's the best, you know. And it's like, you carried the message to him. Now, he's carrying the message to you. And you get to start to see how this ever widening ring started by Evie and Bill and Doctor. Bob and Bill d and those first cats just continues to grow.

Mark Houston finally carried it to me. Don Smith, my first sponsor. And I carry it to a few guys. It's just that's how it works. You give this away, you get to keep it.

You can't hoard it. And it's tough. For a shy guy like me, it's tough to sponsor. It's tough to force myself sometimes to get out of the apartment, get out of the house and do the things that I don't wanna do. But I I hear people say this from the podium on.

I don't care what people think about me. I think that's a that's a lie. I think we all care, don't we? None of us want to be in resistance to anybody. I don't want to stand up in a meeting and say, Excuse me, the meeting's off topic, bring it back on topic.

I don't want to do that. Hey, buddy. Give us a break. 3 minutes here in my group. Top 3 minutes.

Shut up. No. I don't wanna do that but I'm gonna because people did that for me. Makes sense, guys? Working the steps like this, you shouldn't take more than 30, 40 days max to finish all 12 steps.

And when they're actively working with others, helping others get sober. If my dearest friend within this program, coming in the back door shaking, trying to trying to get sober, I'd rather have one of my one of my 2 month wonders sponsor him than some of the people I see around the fellowship with sober 15 years bone powder dry. Well, let's do some writing around this. Excuse me? My book doesn't talk a lot about writing.

My book talks a lot about action. Get off your butt. You saw the newcomer walk in? Did you get up and go shake his hand or did you just go back to the card game? You follow us?

It's tough. I got a winning hand, you know. Damn. Walk up. Better go shake the hand.

You gotta do what you don't wanna do sometimes. I think that pretty well sums my stuff up. Peter, you wanna add something? Be gentle. Peter, recovered alcoholic.

Just a couple of things on sponsorship. Often, I'd walk into a meeting and and hear someone come up to a newcomer and say, I'm your sponsor. And the newcomer is looking at them like, I didn't ask you. And one of the things I always wanna get from the prospect is something we call spiritual consent. I need to have the prospect ask me to take them to the work because that opens up the door for me, for them being accountable able to call them on things that they may not wanna hear.

Because if the spiritual consent isn't granted, then they have a right to say, I didn't ask for your experience, I didn't ask for your opinion, I don't want feedback on this. But once spiritual consent is given, then it gives me the liberty to go do what I need to do to help the alcoholic and present to him, some of the many and events that they're gonna have to go through. Along with spiritual consent, when they do ask me to sponsor them and I agree, I usually don't agree right away, because there's some things that they need to do. And this will vary depending on if they're brand new or going through the work again. But I'll ask the prospect, to go home and, if it talks about this in working with others.

We loaned them a copy of this book on on a second visit. I'm ready to go through the 12 proposals, and what they do from the first to the second visit is read the first portion of this book to see if they're really willing to do some of the things that the book says to do. And on the second visit, if they're willing to go to any lengths to recover, then I'll work with them. And the very first thing we do is work with something called a lay aside prayer, so they can get any kind of beliefs that they have about themselves, their disease, AA, God, the big book out of the way, you can have an open mind and a new experience. And I do that whether you're here for the first time through step 5, I'll do that, or you're here for the, you know, 50th time and go to the work again.

Make room for new, and we turn to God for that. What what they also do is our book says we alcoholics are undisciplined, so we let God discipline us in the simple way we've just outlined. What can I do as a sponsor to help the prospect get disciplined and get responsible? Well, what I do is, we're gonna meet at my house a couple of days a week till we move through this work, but I'm gonna give each prospect days and times to call me. Go home and read Bill's story.

Call me tomorrow when it's done. Tomorrow, you call me at 9 o'clock in the morning. When they call me at 11 o'clock, I'm probably not gonna be home. And I'm waiting for the other call, whether, well, my cat got sick or my wife got sick, it's usually something. I forgot.

And I always remind them that we never forgot to go to the bar and pay off the bar tab, did we? But suddenly, we forgot to call me. So I'll tell guys, you know, Wednesday Friday at 9 o'clock is your times to call me. This way, you can never say I can't get a hold of my sponsor because I'm gonna be waiting for the phone call. Right?

And then Thursday night is home group, so you're gonna be at my home group, and then you're gonna come to my house maybe on Saturday Sunday and we'll sit down and go through the work. And there's been times where where people are legitimately sick, and will do some work over the phone. I'll work with guys on the phone. I'll work with guys anywhere, but I always prefer my house. And so they're given some things to do, and they'll write out a story.

As I explained earlier, we'll walk through Bill's story and and and doctor's opinion and a little bit of history. And as I was sharing with someone earlier, when I get them through when we're able to get through the 12 step, and by now they're working with others and and, hopefully become upstanding members of of Alcoholics Anonymous, I also take them through the 12 traditions because it's we have to be not only awake, but also informed, and when we know what we belong to, we become, better members, right, rather than AA started when I got here and not being in touch with what our founding members, did and had to go through. And the the the the the unwatered, ungobbled, purified message that was given away and saved so many lives. So, along with the traditions, we'll work through some of our history, and so they can get to appreciate, what this work is about and what AA is about. One thing I learned though through writing a lot of resentment inventory is I get to help others, and if they bail, I don't take it personally.

Some people I'll work with, they'll start working with others and say, I'm gonna go elsewhere. I wanna find a new sponsor. I don't get upset about that. What I'm real clear on is I'm I'm kinda like one of these these little little island floating out there. You get the drunk who shows up, beaten up and drowning from alcohol.

He shows up, I help him, and some stay ashore and some go to another place, and that's okay. I'm just here to be of service. I don't get attached to guys, who either bail or or wanna find other sponsors, And I've caught heat from some of my own prospects, work with some guys. They don't like what I have to offer and leave ugly messages on my voice mail. But, you know, I'd rather have I'd rather be on the firing line working with others than to be complacent hanging around wondering when it's gonna get better.

So, and I try to make use of what I have to offer, not only with with the program, specifically the program, but if I have overcome other challenges in my life, I let the prospect know, because I empty up as well as I want them to ante up. And when I'm here in the 5th step, and they're they're sharing with me about some very uncomfortable, secretive things. I let them know that there's an aim for it. It's been done, and I probably did it, and, or it's happened to me. So I I am the up too.

So if I can be of service with other areas, other other challenges, I will offer that. I can talk to them about, you know, being close to filing bankruptcy. I can talk about being unemployed. I can talk to them about going through a divorce. I can talk about losing everything that was, on the material horizon that was taken from me.

I can talk to them about, you know, going through how do I put this delicately? Being molested by by people when you're a young boy. It's as blunt as I can be. I've gone through that and I've been able to talk to, surprisingly, men who are really, really fearful about sharing that with another man. And by me offering that, I've had lots of men in 5th that share it, and I can and I can tell them how I've gotten past that and found some sort of spirit of forgiveness for that.

So god has made me incredibly useful, not only with this but a lot of other things. And when you hear 5th step, we're gonna hear a lot of stuff. So, I wouldn't have it any other way. One of the things another thing I like to do is, as my sponsor has done with me, is let the prospect know that my job is to get them as independent of me as quick as possible and dependent upon God, to have an experience with God, To have an experience with God, not belief in God, not faith in God. If you do, that's great.

But the the goal here is to experience this power. Because when I experience this power, I have belief in faith. And so let them get independent of me, independent on God. I will challenge all their belief systems, whether they're in AA for the first time or been here a while and have belief systems about even AA. I'll challenge.

I'll do it from a talk, and I'll do it when I'm working with others, challenge belief systems. Because some of the belief systems that we have, or I currently have, may kill me. And the the idea is to uncover, discover, and discard. So get in there and challenge things. Lastly, you want what I have to offer?

The prospect will say, they want what I have to offer. Are you willing to do what I did? Are you willing to do what I asked you? And very often, they want what you have to offer, but not all want to do the work. And beyond that, they have an idea of what this spiritual experience ought to look like.

And I let them know, You have no idea what's going to happen to you. You have no idea what this is going to look like. We know if you follow the instructions in the book, we're we're guaranteed sobriety. Right? We're gonna stay sober.

But what the journey is gonna look like, what it will entail, and when you get to the other side, what that experience is gonna be like, no one has any idea about that. And I try to discourage them from really getting attached to what the outcome would look like, because then we're trying to describe God and we can't do that. And they may want what I have to offer, but I let them know that their journey is their journey. It's going to be glorious, like I'd find mine to be. And so we get the mind out of the way.

We get the thinking mind out of the way with all its limitations and all its attachments because I let them know upfront, we're we're talking about experiencing god. And on our best day, we could be the most well read people, the most worldly people, and we put it all together and amounts to a grain of sand on a beach when we're talking about god. They need to know that going in. And we begin. And as I said earlier, they fire me.

I don't fire them. Sometimes, I have to tell call up a prospect and say, this is not gonna work. I don't doubt you wanna stay sober, maybe you even want the 12 steps, but I'm the wrong teacher. How do you find a sponsor? I hear that a lot.

I'm looking for a sponsor. But you're at the don't treat and go to meetings meeting. You don't wanna look for a sponsor here. You have to put the plug in a jug meeting, the contemporary middle of the road group, you know, what are you doing here? How do I find a sponsor?