Workshop on practicing the 12 steps and traditions in relationships

And I'll tell you what you're going to say when you do it right before you do it. You're going to come to a surrender which you will not surrender to and you're going to say and then you're going to drink. And so this is where step 7 explains that this is a disease of perception. Perception is a surrender that you will not surrender to because you think you have the answer. And this is where I go back to step 1.

People come to this program under 2 conditions. 1 is submission and 1 is surrender. If you come here under submission, that means that you have an idea that you know just as soon as you get things organized, you're going to fix it your way. It means that you come here with the illusion that yes, I have a problem. It has caused some misdirected problems in my life, but just as soon as I get this organized and finish the second half of the first step, I'll get my life organized, then I'll be back in control again.

Surrender is coming here understanding that something kicked your ass and you ain't gonna fight it no more. And how are you gonna keep from fighting it? You're gonna get a sponsor that says don't fight this. Well, I wanna fight it. I'm telling you don't fight it.

Well, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna tell you what you're gonna do. Based on the fact that I have done this before, I'm gonna tell you what to do because you don't know how to miss you've got this obsession that controls your mind, and I'm going to tell you how to break the obsession. And that's step 7. Very simply, it says we had lacked the perspective to see that character building and spiritual values had to come first and that material satisfactions were not the purpose of living.

And who can tell us that but not a sponsor? So by the time you get to step 7, you have done a 4th and 5th. You have somebody in your life that's helping you go in the direction you wanna go that helps you in a relationship complement. Sue had a sponsor one time who's, was very rigid and structured with her program, but hated alcoholics. She hated men.

Hated men. Hated alcoholics. I mean, I had to be around her 15 minutes. The very first 15 minutes I was around that lady. I knew she didn't like men.

She never said nothing good about me. And he's saying, well, I'd like to do this. She oh, he's just an alcoholic. Don't pay any attention to him. You know, everything was he's just an alcoholic.

And I think I may just be an alcoholic, but I'm a human being, woman. See? And, eventually, Sue had to change sponsors because that lady was not directing her in an area in a direction that would put us together. Everything was that's his problem. It's not his problem.

We're married. This is our problem. But I had to grow enough to realize that. Right. I had to grow enough to realize that what I was doing was hurting here more than it was helping me grow in this program.

Then she got a sponsor. Her next sponsor was somebody who had a relationship, a family. And, they were in the program maybe 10 years and so everything it was great. Oh, hey. You know, Christmas.

Oh, family deals, family deals, except they weren't doing nothing in the program. I said, that's great. Except we're a family, except we're sick. But what you gotta realize about that, I used to beat myself up because I'd hear people say that they had the same sponsor for the time they came in the program until, you know, this day. And I think, what's wrong with me?

Am I so sick? And I was. Well, I also know that God has to, you know I've had 8 sponsors and Sue's had about 6 or 7 sponsors and I that, you know, whatever. I ain't that Well, she asked she asked out the chamber to be her sponsor one time, and Elsa said, okay, Beverly. Call me tomorrow.

I guess that don't count. No. That don't count. She never was my sponsor. One of the things that I've learned in that relationship is that we ask people to help us and they helped us.

And we've made some changes so that we change. And if we're changing and we've learned from those experiences then we can help the people that we sponsor based on the mistake. You don't have enough time in your lifetime to make the mistakes you're supposed to make in your lifetime and mine too. See, as a sponsor, I am not so narrow minded that I think you have all the answers. You know, my sponsor supports me in my program.

And if she doesn't have the answers, she sends me to an old timer that she believes in this program is very strong and says, go talk to her about it and then come back to me with the solution. There is no playing games in any area like that at all. My sponsor is, very supportive in every area of my life, and the find is in the search. The find is in the search. I had to search for that and I've had to search for a sponsor and I've had the same sponsor the last 10 years.

The thing that I had to recognize in Step 7 is vitally important is fear. And what I was really afraid of was a relationship, Relationship with you, a relationship well, I mean, with the fellowship, a relationship with the sponsor. I'm really afraid of a relationship. And what does my fear come? My fear comes because there's no God.

So that's why the big book of our colleague's anonymous says that our primary purpose to help us find a power greater than ourselves. So I come here and my relationship, my very first relationship with anything was the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. My sponsor used to say, we will know when Keith is grown by the way he dresses and looks because I'm sure Jim Purcellory, Marilyn Keith always wore cowboy hat and shades. And they said he was hiding because he was afraid. Yeah.

And I remember he gradually stopped doing What I was saying, stay away from me. I'll kick your ass. I just gave you it's like saying beware of dogs. You see beware of dog and you go and pet that dog, well, you you know, you're kinda ignorant. You're crazy.

And so at least I was warning you. I came out of a place where the way I acted and dressed was okay because everybody's like that. It was a dog pen. See? Okay.

And we're not in that big of a hurry. Oh, we're not? No. Oh, okay. The chief activator of our defects has been self centered fear, primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or we would fail to get something we demanded.

Here I come here and I've got to have a relationship. And I'm crazy. I'm drunk, loaded. All my perception is altered. I got the mentality and the the, emotions of a small child.

I want my way. I throw my temper tantrums. I'm making love to my mother. You know, I'm trying to create passion with a woman that treats me like a mother, and I look and I put the responsibilities on her like a mother. You know, fix me, take care of me, bandage me up, bail me out.

You know, How do we feel today? The amazing thing was is when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, I was a bulldozer roaring through the life of trash trying to push it all up in one pile and make it look like a monument to my accomplishment. And it talks about this in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The way I reacted to things with alcohol and narcotics in me is not the same way I react to things once I sober up. I was a violent drunk and I came to Alcoholics Anonymous May 11, 1976, had my first sober day and I have not hit anybody sin.

So where did my emotions go? If I ventilated that anger, if I ventilated all those things through physical violence and then I sober up and then I don't hit anybody anymore where I ventilate. All of a sudden I'm shoving it inside. I go totally Al Anon. Totally Sue said to me, you're not going to wuss out on me, are you?

I married you. I fell in love with you because you were a man, not because you were a wet noodle. You sobered up and turned into a wet noodle, And I didn't know how to deal with those emotions. In a big book of alcoholics, notice it talks about us as like we come in here, we're like a rubber band. And we gradually unwind.

That's why we tell new people don't get emotionally involved in the first period of time. Give it some time because what you're going to do is you're going to wake up one day and the rubber band is unwound a little bit and you're going to say, where the hell did you come from? Then the next day, you're going to say, oh, I gotta have you. The next day, who in the hell is that? The next day is that drives them nuts.

And all of a sudden you wake up here. I've been a guy says, come here, bitch. And I'm a guy, help me. Help me. Help me.

What do we do now? I'm this little boy full of fear, sober. The guy came up to me, so how do you like making love to your mother? I said, what the hell are you talking about? You want me to choke you to death?

I don't do that. And then he said it to me, but it pointed out my character defects. And and in step 7, in the element on 12 and 12, it says to rid ourselves of unwanted shortcomings, we learn to rely on assistance from a spiritual partner. Do you want Number 1 is God. Number 2 is my sponsor and who is better to point out our character defects to us than an alcoholic?

I trust him. He's grown in the program. He's trying to get spiritual, but he can point out my character defects to me and teach me more about myself than anybody else. That's why when I say if you look at step 5, there are all the guidelines to a relationship and where do they come out in step 6 and 7. But the key to sharing with each other in any relationship, whether it's with my sponsor or at work or with Keith or with Simone, my daughter, It is not what I say, but it's how I say it that counts.

I can say, screw you. I don't wanna do that with you today. But you have a good attitude about it. But or or I can say, you know, can we do that some other time because I'd planned so and so. Now didn't that sound better?

I didn't know how to talk like that when I got here. I had to learn how to talk to another person. The bait on step 7 is on page 76 and it says, the chief activator of our defects has been self centered fear. Primarily fear that we could lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded. Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands, which is what we gave up in step 2, which what we gave up in step 3, which is what we saw when we did inventory in step 4, which is what we told another human being that we were gonna give up in step 5, which when we got to step 6 said, I don't know how to do it.

I want to. I'm willing to do it, but I don't know how to do it. And step 7 says, then we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration. I don't want to live in a continual state of disturbance and frustration. Any relationship that has continual frustration and disturbance is not a relationship.

And step 7 tells me, look at this dummy, you didn't come here to live in continual disturbance. You didn't come here to live in constant frustration. You didn't come here to this program to live a way of life that you always have to have your way. You came here so you can have freedom. So this could be what God want you to be.

The l91212 says that this is the step that relieves the painful cancer from our soul. Right. And the key of this thing is on Page 76 at the bottom, restored us to sanity. Isn't it amazing that they talk about being restored to sanity in step 7? And they talked about that in step 2.

The thread runs through here. By the time you get to step 7, you're seeing the things in your in your life of this program life that are insane. What are they? They are the things that continual disturbance and frustration. I got to have my way.

I'm always right. And so what's the next step? Isn't it amazing? What's the next step? 8.

What does 8 have in it? A real human quality, humility. So by the time you're cranking out all your ways and all your character defects are going, they come right along with step 8 and I'm wrong. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. This is a step that is a willingness step.

We need to do something specific, like take pencil in hand and write down the names of certain people, which means the people that we have hurt. It tells us exactly how to do that to become willing. When I sit there with a pencil and paper, I am willing to do this. One of the things in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous that strongly hits this thing, it says, reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any length, even follow sponsor direction, To find a spiritual experience which comes through sponsor people we, humility, we ask that we be given strength and that's where the spirit give me the strength to follow the directions, do the right thing and direct to do the right thing. How do I know what's the right thing?

If I come here and look at 6 and 7, I got all this 6 stuff and I think my misdirected ideas are right, then how do I know what's the right thing? See? And I have to go back to that 8 step and look at the wrong things. I have to look at all the wrong things so I know the right thing. I didn't come here with any right things.

I came here with all wrong things and I've had to learn right things. I learned the right things by seeing the wrong thing. And in step 8, one of the things that was so important to me is that it talks in the 8 step about it wasn't always the wrong things that I did the people that hurt them, but sometimes it was the kindness, the love, the sympathy, the tolerance that I gave people to get my way. And one more time, in the 8th step, I gotta look at how I treated people with my motives. I might have been nice and loving and caring to them, but what was my motives for doing that?

I was wrong. The strength you know, know, when I talk about when I was a physically violent person then I come here and I wuss out and so the rubber band's unwinding. What I want to be is a gentle person. A gentle person can have a lot of strength. I have the strength.

I don't need your approval to feel good about me. And that's what the 8 step teaches us. It says we go we go try to right these wrongs, but it doesn't mean that I can make you accept it. The strength comes from the fact that I've tried to change. And I try to tell you that or show you that.

And what I get is you don't have to give me your approval. God bless the worst things that we go through in all the rest of our sobriety is that needy thing of approval and step 8 breaks that. It tells us we developed this relationship with a sponsor and now my sponsor is no longer my god. My sponsor is my director. My sponsor says this is right, this is wrong based on my experiences or I'll show you.

Then you get the strength. And what does it say? Step 8, it says, we must not shrink at anything that's strong provided I'm going in the right direction. If I take that to say we must not shrink at anything and so I'm going to drive my Harley right up your ass. It's not right.

It says we embrace the all in one program. We could take comfort from all we are learning about acceptance, detachment, understanding and how to love without demanding, conformative from others. This is a step that we tell someone I was wrong and we expect nothing. When we write those names down, we're doing it for ourselves. We're expecting nothing back.

Step 8 says 89 are concerned with the personal relations. First, we take a look backward and try to discover where we have been at fault. I was talking to a guy there's a guy here today that's been in and out of alcoholics anonymous, and he's always followed some sick relationship out and got drunk. Now he's in a relationship where she went off down the road and don't care where he goes. And he's up here today, and he said I'm trying to do the right thing.

The 8th step, one of the most important things for me to put a name on that 8th step was mine. I have to make amends to myself through this program by not doing the things to myself that caused me harm before I got here. So I owe amends to myself and my name goes to the top of the list. The second one on my list was God. I'd offended God for many years by doing the things I did.

And so God's name went on that list. It says in here, at the time we complete step 8, we should have developed the following. Very important in any relationship. Good judgment, careful sense of timing, courage and prudence. These are the qualities we shall need when we take step 9.

Good judgment, a careful sense of timing, courage and prudence. In any relationship, how can I have a relationship with her if I can't you know, when my wife comes home from work and comes down that freeway and runs in that house, she needs several things before she needs me? She usually needs to pee. Oh, God. She needs to change clothes and she needs some quiet time, and then I can talk to her.

That's a very, very important sense of timing because I used to hit her at the front door. I need $50. I got the help. You know, this is going on and all kinds of and she just come in. She needs to pee.

See? Good judgment. Very important thing. Sponsors show you those things. See?

Courage. I have to have the courage and we make this step 89 is an ongoing thing. Step 9 is the thing. One very important thing that I had to recognize in my relationship was in step 9 when I started making these amends, I had no consideration for my family. I'm an alcoholic.

I hit the dock with that thing, made my 8 step list, and I'm gonna take care of crap here and I'm gonna clean this mess up. And it seemed to me like what she's saying is I don't care if you take care of all that, but by God, you're sober and we're not gonna suffer from it. Now that's what I thought I heard. And I thought I heard that because I had a lot of guilt. That is not what they were saying over there.

What they were saying always there, babe, do what you gotta do. Just stay sober. But what I did with that 9th step was I I run out here and everything I did trying to make my 9th step did not have any consideration for my family. I'd run-in there and throw $50 on it and then run out there and pay a 100 to some creditor. I'd run-in there and throw a $100 on it and run out and pay 25.

I started playing all kinds of games. And what the financial amends, I had huge financial amends. What I recognized was I'm making these financial amends. You got a new diamond ring. Don't bitch.

But what I'm doing is I'm doing things in sobriety, working my night step that is constantly keeping that same thing that I had when I was drinking. That is that feast and famine. I never stopped doing the things that I was doing in that area of money and those kind of manipulating things. And my family's looking at me sober trying to work step 9. And every deal I run, I put everything I had on the line.

They never knew if we're gonna lose the house, gonna lose everything. Sober, I'm doing that. Under the guise, I'm making my my night step. And I come home and I try to have a relationship with my family and they have the same fear. They're not worried about me drinking anymore, but they don't know when we're gonna get wasted out of the house, out of the car.

They don't know I mean, I'm out here taking care of these amends without any consideration for my family. One of the most important considerations in any relationship is consistency and and the, Perseverance. Well, to to to have comfort. When I drank, you you I mean, it might take all the house payment money or rent money to get me out of jail. And here I am sober trying to do the 9 step, and I have no rule of consideration with the people that my family.

See? My actions are the same. And when I start looking at these people and they're looking at me with that look of contempt and fear and I'm making my financial amends, I'm supposed to feel good about that. And yet my actions are the same. They don't know they maybe I don't know.

Is he gonna drink? Are we gonna lose the house? Are we gonna lose the car? Is the sheriff coming? I'm doing the same same actions.

I didn't change. And and, the the point of step 9 is to remember that our real purpose is to fit ourselves of maximum service to God and the people about us. The people who are the people about us? The people we're in a relationship with. I took this thing and said, God wants me to hurry up and pay this $250,000 back so I can feel good.

And they didn't feel good. The people I was living with didn't feel good about my man. They didn't feel good about what I was doing. On my amend, Ziketa, this whole thing was direct. God, I hated to go directly to those people and make those amends.

But I knew I had to because it induced more humility and, and it freed me. This is the freedom step. And I had to do it. And my sponsor said it was so important because it says make direct amends to such people wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others. She said what you gotta keep in mind, Sue, is that you might be an other.

If you're gonna go back and stir up old stuff up, you might get hurt again. And if those people have lived this long without you, like I gave a child up for adoption when I was a teenager, I wouldn't gonna go look that kid and her folks up and walk up and knock, knock, knock. I'm your birth mother. I wanna owe you men and stir up their stuff. Do I write to the guy that I got pregnant by and say, hey.

By the way, tell your current wife you don't have to worry about me coming back in your life again because I found a new way of life, and and he's forgotten about me years ago. So if it's ever necessary, God's gonna put him right here, right in front of me. Then I will know that I'm supposed to make those direct demands. It's a very important word in step 9. And even though you can go in Clubhouse and they got it written wrong on the damn steps.

Made direct demands to such people wherever and most people think whenever. And that was one of my fallacies. I thought whenever, so I had to run out with a bag of dimes, hit the phone, call them all up and say I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I wonder why I didn't get any self worth from that. What I had to do is change and say I feel good about my chain.

I want you to understand you don't have to judge the other people in your life by the way I treated you because there's a lot of good people. But I want you to understand too, I'm trying to change and therefore you can expect me to try to do what I'm saying I'm doing because I have a program of living that I'm going to change and therefore I won't treat you the way I used to either. It's important when the bait again comes in 9 and 10 as there's promises here. Everything through here, there's a reason to do it. When you do it for a reason, then you get something from it.

We're selfish, self centered people. The character defect can become an asset. If I'm gonna work this hard to do all this stuff, I want something from it. It. See?

And these promises there I I was listening to the guy my sponsor told this guy one time he's sober 30 years. He said, you're the only guy who knows sober 30 years that all promises have not come true. He said, what do you mean? He said, that one promise self seeking will never leave you or will leave you, whatever it is. And there he said, you still want everything your way after 30 years of sobriety.

The guy ain't married. He hadn't had a relationship with anybody. He uses various things, tools of AA to live off of financially, all kinds of things. And he's over 30 years. That is what I want.

And I think one of the mistakes that people do is that they come here and work the first 9 steps and they put them on the shelf and they try to work 10, 11 and 12. But by the same token, if you have changed as a result of working the first 9 steps, you will never again have to work the first 9 steps like you did when you worked the first 9 steps the first time. So it's it's a paradox there. I will if I have changed as a result of the sobriety and what I've done in the first nine steps, I will never have to work the first nine steps under the the conditions that I work the first 9 steps the first time. So the idea, the philosophy that there's, you know, 3 steps, 10, 11, 12 which are maintenance steps, which I'm gonna you if I'm gonna use 10, 11, and 12 to develop my relationship which is promptly admit where I'm wrong, you know, pray and meditate for the right thing to do in my relationship and then work with others and go down this path, then I have to work my amends daily to do 10.

I have to see my patterns of 45 in order to be able to review 10. I have to have my 4th step done every time I share with another alcoholic because that's my greatest asset. My past is my greatest asset. That's what I share. That's what gets us identity and 12.

I have to recognize that if you don't want what I got, I can't make you do it. My sponsor is telling the story about I can tell you people in here that there's a big hole right out here in the parking lot and half of you are going to go fall in that hole. If you can't find the hole, you're going to come back here and ask me, where is that hole? I gotta fall in that hole because I don't get it any other way. And then there's certain people I can say, look, there's a hole out there.

Go out this door and they'll go out that door. Some people can learn. And I believe by the time that I've done step 9, I don't have to run out and fall in that damn hole again. For the time, if I've done step 9 in the best of my ability and you tell me there's a hole out there, my sponsor says there's a hole out there, I'll go out this door. I have faith in him to believe that I'll go out that door, and I don't have to fall in that hole.

The thing about tips step 10 that's so important for me and why I have to keep doing it all the time is because it's the basics for me of where I keep examining my motives. I keep examining my character defects on a daily basis of where they came up from, and I keep looking at where I'm at today compared to where I used to be or where I came from. And it's the thing that keeps me going straight down this path. It's the thing. It's the one step that's in my life every day that induces humility, that keeps me going on the straight path of recovery to see where I'm swaying, what I'm going, what direction I'm going, what I'm thinking, how I'm feeling.

Am I doing good? Am I not doing good? See, one of the things if you look at step 10, it says continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admit it. If I continue to take personal inventory, what I'm clear what am I what do I wanna do that for? Why would I wanna take personal inventory?

If I'm an obsessive compulsive behavior person when I took my first drink, I am an obsessive compulsive behavior person today. I am more so. It's a progressive disease. The reason I wanna continue to take inventory is so that I don't get locked into an obsession today because, God, you know, I get locked in an obsession. When I came here, it was like looking through a straw.

So when I got in in in locked in an obsession, it was like intense. I've stayed here 19 and a half years. I got peripheral vision. When I get in locked into an obsession at 19 and a half years, I don't wanna control you. I wanna control you.

See? So my perception has changed but my disease hasn't. I still have the disease. I get more frustrated over not being able to control multitudes today than I do over 1. See?

So I need this direction so that I don't try to control because I can get locked into these deals and they were I get so obsessed with good ideas that kill me. And so I need the sponsor direction. I need to look at this today. And when I look at this and I'm going the the reason that you work step 10 or I work step 10 is so it keeps me open. I sponsor people that are days, months, years, sobriety.

I try to keep sponsorship on an even keel in the sense of different lengths of sobriety so that when I'm working the steps with somebody, I'm working with a newcomer and he's he's just trying to stay physically sober. I'm working on a guy with 31 days who wants to stay physically sober and get something to make love to. I'm working on a on a guy that's a year and a half sober who wants to get sober, stay sober today, make love to something, and then get something materially. And then I sponsor guys who are 6 or 7 years who wanna stay sober, get something, make love to something, make something in themselves, become brain surgeons without going to school. They wanna lock in on this.

And when am I gonna get mine? And then I I sponsor people that still wanna stay sober today, and they wanna get laid today and they wanna get a job today and they wanna get a big paycheck today and they wanna sponsor 14 people today. So they've gone from the guy that just wanted to stay sober today to a guy that's trying to you know, just like the guy that puts the plates on the dowels. You ever seen the old guy and they put them plates and spin the plate? And so they're shaking this down.

They're shaking this down. People with 10 years of sobriety got about 10 dowel plates flipping around out there. And you know, at 19 and a half years, I could see with them suckers and he's in that room. Hey, sponsor. Come in here.

I need some help shaking the towel. And you know what? 19 years 10 years, I'd go help a guy. You're right. In 19 years, I said, let them all fall.

No. No. I can't do that. They'll break. Let them break.

If you don't let them break, they'll break you. Ask me how I know. Because this step keeps us it it by the time we get this step, we have the conscious contact with a higher power, a sponsor, and other human beings that we know if we do that again, there are going to be consequences. And this is the step that lets us know on a daily basis. Okay.

If I'm gonna do that, what are the consequences? Am I being stubbornly opinionated and it's my way again? This step keeps me current in my recovery of going on the straight narrow path toward a higher power. Remember in 4 we said we were gonna do a fearless inventory? Fearless.

Well, that's one of the most ridiculous things to ask a newcomer to do. How can you ask a newcomer to do a moral inventory? They don't even know what morals are, especially in algae. We drank, so we had no moral. And you, Al Anon, took the crap from us.

And you learned to to not have morals because we said you don't need them. All you need is me. See? You don't need morals. I'm your moral.

I'll tell you how you feel. Let me show you. That's what I always love. Jeff Liza went over there and got his teeth pulled last night, got 4 impacted wisdom teeth pulled, and he showed up over there. And I said, now do you want me to show you, explain to you the difference between mental pain and physical pain?

And I they're like that. If if I hit you upside the head, you'll have some excruciating physical pain. There's a difference between physical pain and mental pain. And so when I do this inventory step 10, what is one of my guidelines that it taught me in 4? If I do a as it said, continue to take personal inventory.

If there is fear in my 10 step inventory, there's something wrong. There's something wrong. And when I look at my relationship when I look at my relationship with Sue and I did my my 10th step and there's fear in it. There's something wrong. There's something wrong.

Okay. Step 11 says thought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him. Praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry it out. This step for me, the key to this whole step for me is praying for God's knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry it out. There is so much power in these rooms.

Chuck Chamberlain used to say, if we could see the power of God in these rooms, it'd be so bright, it would blind you. And this reason we come to these places and do these things because it plugs us into the power. And then we take it home and we apply it to our personal lives. God, help me. And becomes so simple.

It's a it's a perspective that we get. We by the time we get here, we have a new perspective on things. We're trying to get insight into our lives. We're trying to show people how to do that with their lives. You know?

And we learned that we don't have to figure things out anymore. I still do that from time to time and then I think how stupid. Why didn't I realize that? This step puts discipline in my life. And when I'm on that course of the discipline, I know that I need to make myself a channel for this higher power to work through.

And that's why I love the story about the little boy praying and or getting scared in his room and get in bed with his dad. And he says, I'm afraid. And his daddy said, you didn't have to be afraid in there. He said, but I was alone. And he said, daddy says, no, you weren't.

God was in there with you. And he said, yeah, I know, daddy. But right now I need something with skin on Now, this is where I've learned all of this stuff from my God working through people and they've helped me to the point that when I get to this step, it's me and God. When you get through step 10 and work at step 10 and, you know, and it it implies you do step 10 at night. You can do it anytime you want to.

Anytime you need to. In the morning with your meditation or you don't start your day out right. If you start your day out right jumping up, throwing clothes on, hitting the freeway, running down there, you started your day out with pucky. And you're trying to control something and you're gonna run it through the rest of the day. I get up 30 minutes extra every day to do my meditation.

I put that in my schedule. It's just like me clocking in. I got a boss that I gotta clock in to my work. I clock in, clock out. I had to put that discipline in my life.

I've had to have that relationship with God. I have to clock in. If I don't clock in, I'm running on self will. And it tells us in the book, all our answers are in the book about this. It isn't just our opinion.

Our answers are in the book. The amazing thing with step 11, some of our answers to step 11 is in chapter 11, a vision for you. By the time you do step 11, there's supposed to be an open channel. There's supposed to be an open channel. And to eliminate the choke of the channel, the choke is anger, fear, frustration, and and, you know, misunderstanding.

Amazing thing if you go to vision for you on page 151, a lot of times you don't read that. We read the end of that. It says, sniveling Denise's of the mad realm, the chilling vapor that the loneliness settled down. That's what I every time I meditate, I ask myself about. Do I have that?

How do I know if I have that in an amazing momentarily, we did. Then we could come then would come oblivion, the awful awaiting the faces, the hideous 4 horsemen, terror, bewilderment, frustration, and despair. We When I ask myself about it every time I meditate, I look at this. What it do I have these things in my relationship? If I have terror in my relationship, something's gonna happen here?

Bewilderment because I can't control her? Frustration because she won't listen to me. Despair. It's the consciousness of your contact with your higher power. This is the key to this whole thing.

You have to you can go you can slam dunk your meditation in in the morning. And if you slam dunk your meditation, you're gonna have a slam dunk meditation. But if you make that conscious effort and you think. I mean, I was working with a newcomer here a while back and I said, did you read your books this morning? Because she's going pow pow pow pow pow.

This is wrong. This is wrong. They're doing this and they're doing that. And I go, wait a minute. Did you read your morning meditation?

Did you read your one day at a time? Did you read your courage to change? And she said, yeah, I did. And I said, what does it say? She goes, I don't know.

How long ago did you read it? 5 minutes ago. And I understand that mind because mine's like that a lot and it was definitely that way when I was new. And I and I said, let me get my books. And we did them together.

And as we went through this sentence we said, what does that word mean? What does that sentence mean? And that's the way I do my morning meditation. I sit there and, okay, God. What does this mean for me?

Now, and then the answers will come and it says that in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Because I have my focus into the words that's talking about what me and God need to do for the day. If you do your morning meditation and you do basically, what it says suggest in the big book, you go to page 164 and I use this sometimes, but it's my barometer. Abandon yourself to God. You gotta get up to do that.

You gotta get in the right position to do that. You can make all kinds of excuses, but come on. It's a simple thing, you know. So you abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows, so you say in the morning.

Your fault. You know them. You wake up and your mouth tastes like you've been sucking on a bullet all night long. You know it ain't right. You got that metallic taste.

You got that burnt acid. If you got that wake up, you just got that clenched fit. No. It's not. So it says, when you abandon yourself to God, step 1, 2, and 3, admit your faults to him and your fellows 4, 5, 6, and 7.

Clear away the wreckage of your past. 89. Give freely of what you find with us. 10, 11, or 12, we shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit. Fellowship, there's your fellowship.

After you have done this, you have the fellowship. This is the book. This is the first AA. This is the tool. And then the fellowship.

It says right here, we shall be with you in the fellowship after you work the 12 steps. It doesn't say jump up and get out in the fellowship and rip and tear. It says work 1, 2, and 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12, and we shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit. You gotta be in the spirit or you're not in the fellowship. This is a fellowship.