A 12 Steps & Service Workshop in Richmond, VA

You did pork. Good morning. My name is Dom, and I'm an alcoholic. Hey, Dom. And, this is your fellow.

Tom, I was an alcoholic. We're both members of Alcoholics Anonymous in good standing today. We haven't had a drink. Fix that. Of alcohol.

We've never done this before. Tom and I have never done this before. So we're in for an interesting day. We hope that you will also find something useful here, but we really don't much give a damn. We're in for an interesting day.

Tom hit on it a little bit last night. I won't just lay a little bit of groundwork because there is a tendency in any organization, and that includes this one, And and we don't mean to do that, but that's just the way the human condition presents things. At our noblest, they're not wrong, but I'll give them the right to be wrong. They're not quite right yet either. I'm probably closer to this man than I am my own brother.

In so many ways, it's hard to describe. We're just we're kin. We have worked together both in AA and professionally. Our approaches are different, but they're the same. The easiest way I I've been able to put it is that I came to the fellowship through the big book.

Tom came to the big book through the fellowship, but it's the same thing, the same place. And, one of the concerns I personally have with me doing this over and over is that it's wonderful while I'm here and you hear what I say, but you never hear what I say. And I come back and you tell me what I said. I didn't say that at all. So and it's the same thing with with individual sponsorship.

We're all clear when we're in the room. But when one of us goes home, there's a shift on it. And that's just natural and normal and correct. One of the things that I would like to do this time how many of you been here in a room like this with me sitting in a chair running my mouth before? Haven't you heard me yet?

It's like your favorite song, Don. I know. See, I almost stopped doing these. I've been doing this for 30 years because this is what God called me to do. I I have an ability to open my mouth and stuff comes out and people say, oh, that was wonderful.

I wonder, what did I say? Or if they don't say it's wonderful, at least they stay. The only time I know it's effect that I'm being effective, there's 2 ways I can measure my effectiveness. Somebody gets up and leaves or somebody goes to sleep. And if I can accomplish that, we'll have a good day.

Let's say it, I don't know any more than you already know. Please know that. Probably less than some of you know. I have to keep going over it and over and over. And this is rigorous.

I got up at 3:30 yesterday morning and got on an airplane and went through the stuff you go through now with security. My I caught the fact that my ticket said I was going to Washington DC, which is where my luggage went. And that's as far as it got. I managed to get here. There are some rigors involved.

And then there's the rigorsness of sitting here. I know what I have to do. Tom knows what he has to do. You know what you have to do. So all of this compounds and then I get tired of hearing the same thing.

I only have one story. I have different approaches and different pieces of it. He and I have been around so long, there's a 6 hour talk in each one of us and that's just the beginning. So I've been living in with a sense of where I am, God is for 34 years. And that means every day of my life, something incredible has occurred.

And I'm gonna tell you about all of it. We just don't have that much time. Anyway, I was doing one of these things in New York probably 7 years ago or so. And and I'm a believer of being right out front. There's no levels here.

We're peers. So I will tell a new person exactly the same thing I'll tell him. And if he ain't around, you're gonna get it. So, I was talking to my little one of my spiritual daughters, Ruth. I told her I'm getting ready to quit doing this.

I was also just finishing up interferon treatment for hepatitis. That makes you tired. I just want it out. I'm a private person. My greatest joy is to just be by myself in my little room looking at all the stuff I've got hanging on the wall and listening to Mozart.

I like it. Anyway, I told Ruth I'm I really am thinking you're not doing this anymore. She said, oh, don't stop. When you come, we all get together and it's like having a grandpa or an uncle show up and tell us stories. And that's why I'm here this weekend.

As long as that's all I have to do, we're gonna be okay. In fact, I catch hell and I know you do for not telling some of the stories. Why didn't you talk about that one? True. I come from a family, an intact functional family.

I'm sorry, but I do. I'm the only alcoholic in it. We now have 5 generations in my family living on this planet. Finally gotten a cane. But my sister said that isn't so much for walking.

It's that she's getting cranky. So be careful when she's got her cane in her hand. She has attitude. She has to wear hearing aids and if she's sick listening to you, she just turns them off. That's functional.

But I never fit in that family. Were good modelers. Okay. I didn't feel like him. I didn't act like him.

Good morning, Shelly. Y'all know Shelley? Yeah. Now you do. She's from the old Denver Young People's Group.

We were front pew sitters. That's for sure. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Tom talked about process last night, and part of the process is becoming a member of the family.

Now I see AA as a big family, but as in any family, there's kissing cousins and there's immediate family. And it's the same here in this spiritual family of ours. Immediate family are those folks that you kind of do the same things with. My brother is a professor of music at the University of Colorado and one of the foremost synthesizer musicians in the world. Just got back from Russia.

They take him over there every year to teach in the summer. And I love him dearly, and I'm proud of him, and we're close. But we don't do much together. He has in our talk when we put our lives back together, when I was making amends, He pointed out that he and I do the same thing. Our goals are the same.

We are trying to touch people at a depth that is so deep that when we leave, they have been changed. That's what we're supposed to do here, you know. This isn't about just chatting with each other. This is about profound changes in people's music, and I make mine the way I make mine. But we're both just singing our song.

We're co owners of a cabin in the high country. I never go. That isn't how I do high country. That's how he does high country. But one of the ways I had to make amends is that he wanted that cabin so bad he could taste it.

And I'm one of the 3 of the siblings. We all chipped in and got the cabin. Okay. I can use it anytime I want. I've got people I fish with, and I've got people I bowl with.

And I need to pay close attention that I don't take my bowling partner fishing. It just work. We had, Jackie and I love Epcot. We go every couple years. We're part of a group of people circulating a petition to ban children.

They got your own place next door. So a couple years ago, we had occasion to make a big mistake and didn't know it at the time. Her sister and her husband, Jackie and I, and some dear dear friends from Lafayette, Louisiana, and some very close friends from Houston, Texas. The 4 of us went as couples down there. You know, you can get a villa for a 1,000 a week and when you split that up among 4 people, it's nothing.

And we almost destroyed the friendships. Our rhythms are different. We like one another. But when I'm at Epcot, I don't want to be fooling around. I'm on a mission.

Those damn Cajuns were just way too laid back for me. And I was just way too anyway, you know what I'm trying to say? So our recovery process has some some basis and truth in that. There are different ways of doing the same thing. And I must be I'm I'm a big book person because that I came to AA.

They put me immediately into the big book. We did the steps, and then they immediately took me out of the big book and put me to work. And then they immediately took me out of the big book and put me to work. And then and then they immediately took me out of the big book and put me to work. In 5 weeks we had completed the step work out of the big book.

I personally had a series of spiritual awakenings. Not everybody in my same group did. I caught the fever. In the 6 week, they gave me the next group of people, and it was my job to sit there and do the same thing that had been done with me. And that's still how I do things.

But let me read a piece from this because it's kinda where I'd like to go with some of this this weekend. I use this book because it's a guide. These are people who did certain things, made some bad mistakes and killed some folks, did some things right and other people lived, just like me. But in it they describe not my personality, not my style, but what do I look like? I get a guide here for doing the work.

And please understand I don't think working steps is doing the work. That's preparation for doing the work. The work here is to help others. So on page 18, and I looked it up. I don't memorize this.

He tried to ask me if I was sure that was a page, and I'm sure because I looked at it yesterday. There's a description of when I'm through here or if you're approaching me as a new person, this is kinda how I should look. The ex problem drinker, that's me, who has found this solution, I have, who is properly armed with facts about himself, entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours until such an understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished. Tom hit on that last night. The process of finally identifying I am an alcoholic.

I am one of these. It can take a day or it can take months. And I have a young fellow that I'll tell you about that it took over a year before he felt this identification. So this is what I'm supposed to bring to the table. The man who's making the approach has had the same difficulty, not been the same place.

My first sponsor was doing a natural life sentence for a double murder he'd committed when he was 17 years old in a jewelry store robbery. That's high drama. I'm a sneak thief. I didn't do that. No way I could identify with that.

Don't give me a gun. I know something about guns. If I have one, me a gun. I know something about guns. If I have 1 and you have 1, I might get shot.

Okay. Me? No, I'll throw up on you. I won't When he described the morning that that occurred, he told me what was going on in his head and in his in his emotional state. He said he woke up with a feeling that nobody cared whether he lived or died.

And the pain of that was so great that he started drinking to kill the pain. You can't live with that pain. Only this morning it didn't kill the pain, it intensified the pain. And there's only one honest emotional response to feeling alienated and set apart. That's outrage.

My spirit knows that as good as you are and as bad as I am, I'm as good as you are as bad as I am. I belong here and I know that. So I get outraged. I create the loneliness by the way. It doesn't look that way from in here, but that's where and in that rage, you decided to hell with it.

I'm gonna go get mine. And he went down and robbed a jewelry store and in a shootout with the police, killed some people on the street. 17 years old. So I could identify with, I've had the same difficulty. The drama doesn't define the alcoholism.

I've met people in the penitentiary doing life sentences who are not alcoholic. They're just bad behaviors. I've I've met people who did crimes and weren't even drinking. In fact, I challenge you with this. I came in here thinking at one point, I did what I did because I was drinking.

No. Most of the time I was drinking so I could go do what I did. Because in my sickness, I'm a moral coward. A lazy moral coward. I lived by principles all of my life and my principles were screw you.

That's a principle. Get yours first. Otherwise, you won't get it. And what I did to do that, of course, was get yours. I thought yours was mine.

Anyway, that's the man who's making the approach has had the same difficulty. I listened closely to this man. Did you listen closely? He kept coming back because of the spirit that was there. But the movement to where he's sitting here this morning came as a result of finally understanding, oh, you had the same difficulty.

I may be weird, but so are you. Thank God. Same difficulty. And what are some of those difficulties? Drinking is not a difficulty for me.

It's a way of life. It's something I will do. It's natural. From the first drink, it's natural. What are the difficulties that we have to face?

How about getting out of bed in the morning? Tough one. Tough one. Because the minute I come out of the dream state, which is where I'd rather spend my time because I went in there. My mind go my mind never ever stops ever.

I got a I've got a hunch with my mind that 3 weeks after I'm dead, it's still gonna be working. Trying to figure out, uh-oh, I'm in trouble. So I wake up in the morning, and as I'm waking up, I realize I'm in trouble. I have to go to work. And I don't wanna go to work because I don't like my job.

It's beneath me. Or I don't know how to do it. Or I won't look at any number of a hundred reasons shows up. I don't wanna go. And if I do go, I'm gonna be in trouble anyway because I'm gonna be late.

That damn old car of mine, I'm gonna have trouble with it and then the traffic's gonna be I'm gonna be late. And my boss is gonna give me hell early in the morning. I don't like him anyway. And I know me pretty good. I'm gonna say something dumb and get fired.

So why get out of bed? Sounds funny, but you're laughing because you've all done something something. What are some of the other difficulties? Him. In fact, a good part of my life didn't like him, which is kind of a shame because he was a good man.

He went through changes. My dad and grandpa back in the late twenties early thirties were the head of the Colorado Ku Klux Klan. So we had some kind of funky ideas in the house for a while. They both had spiritual awakenings and put the robes aside and spent the rest of their lives undoing some of that. I never took the robes off of them.

That was part of the problem. That was the separation. I never took the roads off of them after they did. We do that to people. So I missed a good deal.

But one of the things I remember about my dad mostly was that he was there. I didn't always like that, but he was there. I have a model of what I would like to be. I would like to be there for my kids and for my family. And what's my difficulty?

I'm so obsessed with me. I can't be there. Even when I'm in a room with you, I'm somewhere else. And so you, as children knew, you want my attention. You become an aggravation to me.

I'm busy doing something else, Sitting quietly in this chair doing something else. That's a difficulty. How do I over overcome that? Well, first I have to identify with it. And we could go on and on.

The man has the same difficulty. Big difficulty. It's the same. When I start drinking, I can't seem to quit. I had to work around the idea that if when you want to stop, entirely you can't.

Never occurred to me to ever stop entirely. I didn't me to ever stop entirely. I didn't even know I was alcoholic when I got here. One of the reasons I think God put me where he did is because immediately upon entering AA, I was taken to the description of what alcoholism is. Because I was certified as an sociopath type 2 bad stuff.

Don't know what for sure what it is, but you don't want it. Federal man said I was a psychopath. Doctor said I was a manic depressive drug addict because I had learned what keeps folks back. And that'll do it. You're getting a little cramped because there's too many people around you?

Throw a couple little mood swings. Go back up. You gotta get good at it. If you do it too much or too loudly, they'll put you in an institution. And if you don't do it quite enough, they just invite you to the parties because you're the entertainer.

Same difficulty. I'm self centered. I'm spending all my life in here. And this is what they're talking to me about, so I can identify. And if I take a drink, I can't not take another drink.

As as we began to describe that, I found out why I went to the penitentiary when I was 19 years old. I took a drink in Long Beach, California on a 24 hour liberty. And what's described in this book as a phenomenon of craving, which is just a big word for I can't quit, the next drink becomes paramount to all other. And what a relief that was because my sponsor helped me understand that doesn't mean you don't love your children second. Your body is craving something, and your mind is craving something.

And your mind is craving something. David Huff, God bless him. Fuck that. I went in to have a couple of beers. I just changed my mind.

And we just let him keep saying it until he finally heard what he said. I changed my mind. My My mind got changed. And he got it. And I could begin to identify with that.

I'd missed some appointments because of Over the over a 14 year period, I also use a lot of speed and acid, but I'm not a drug addict, so we won't go into that. I'll just look at my alcoholism long before any drugs entered my life. It was 5 years of just drinking. The main reason I started using amphetamines is because it made drinking easier and impossible again. See, drinking wore out for me.

Same difficulty. I want to be like him. The human condition is a wonderful thing. When you find a newfound friend or a peer, you wanna be just like them. What are you laughing Marcy?

Problem is we all have clay feet. I had good sponsors. He didn't want me to be like him. He wanted to be like me. He wanted me to be like me.

Anyway, we made some identification with a number of people. There were 3 of them that I stayed close with. And I began to recognize something even then. There's some fakes in AA. Did you know that?

Yeah. There's some people who sound really, really good. But if you watch how they live, you wonder, this doesn't quite match up. And I bitched about that once. I come from a line of sponsorship that says, if you don't like it, bitch about it.

To me, so I can set you straight. He said, dummy, that was my name. Well, before I met you, I was 389 84. That's a pretty good leap up. So it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference what anyone else is doing.

What are you doing? You know, If I bring a new person to a meeting who's already confused and frightened and who's looking for something new. And it comes from an environment where the f word is every other word. And we're complaining about the state of life is is the conversation piece. And hate is the the motivator and fear is the motivator.

And if I bring him to a meeting and all you're doing is bitching and cussing, complaining about everybody else, when the hell would he stay? I wouldn't. I wouldn't. And I have to create that arena where that will occur only minimally. It's bound to occur.

There's days when I've earned the right to bitch. In fact, I've reached an age, Tom, where I think I'm going to become cranky. And I'm not even gonna have to work it. Very lonely. Yeah.

Yeah. I'd I'd I'd tried it for about 2 weeks. You're right. Yes. But he obviously knows what he's talking about.

I've been continuously sober since December 26, 1967. That statement should tell you something. I know what I'm talking about when I say, simply, if you're alcoholic, you don't ever have to drink again. I can show you a way in which you can live a life that'll make sense to you without alcohol. And I know what I'm talking about.

And I hang around with guys who are 45. And Gail's 51 now. And, you know, if you want to see some examples, we know what we're talking about. Shelley, you're what? 34?

33? Yeah. Well, we come from the old number of young people's group. We were something to be old. About 15 of us.

15. Oh, 15 of us. That's disgusting. We had a meeting on Tuesday night. It was ours.

You were welcome to come if you could stand the heat. You know, young people have confrontation meetings and work steps like their lives depended on it. And on Sunday night, we sponsored a meeting where the whole town was there at York Street. It was a call up speaker meeting. Nobody knew who was going to cheer until they walked in the door and nobody knew who was going to speak until they got there.

We thought that was pretty nifty and it really was. Nobody had time to figure out what the hell they were gonna talk about today. And the rest of the week, we went other places. We came to your meeting. We went to Greeley and Fort Collins and the north side of Denver and hospitals.

We were a very busy involved group. We met at homes back then too. We met at group. We met in homes back then too. I I can remember it clearly.

We had an old dog, big old black dog. We'd meet in our home and the dog would just lay there. And the minute we started the Lord's prayer, the tail would start. We did things together. We know who we're talking about.

Can I meet that? Yeah. I can meet that. Not from here, but in my heart, I can tell you I've been married to the same woman for 25 years. Living in the same house.

I know what I'm talking about. Don't come to me with your relationship problems. I've never figured out how to help. I've never figured out how to help. I've never figured out how to help.

I've never figured out how to help. I've never figured out how to help. I've never figured out how to help. I've never problems. I've never figured out how to help a healthy sick relationship.

So I can't do you any good. But if you don't know how to have a healthy relationship, I can show you how to have a relationship with God, and that'll translate into everything. Anyway, there's a whole department shouts to the new to the new prospect that he's a man with the real answer. He's a man with the real answer. People don't listen much to what we say.

Words are good carriers, but because words in the English language, words mean so much. They don't mean much. So in order to overcome that, we have developed a storytelling Okay? I can show you a technique till it's running out your ears. It won't.

I save that for the really sick ones that come to my house, because it keeps them busy while we try to figure out how we're gonna keep them alive for 1 more week. 1 more week. My deportment, that means how I conduct myself. If I sponsor you, you will show up at my house at 6 in the morning. Although there's a couple of guys since I've retired really had available.

But mainly, I want you to see how a recovered alcoholic in his family prepares for the day. It's the toughest time in any alcoholic's life. We take it's the afternoon. No, it isn't. In afternoon, we're getting ready to drink.

That's the easy time. It's this early morning And, that's what was done for me. And I came out of the prison and had a little hotel room and then I moved into a little apartment with toilet down the hall and then I finally got one that had the toilet in the same room again. Well, it had its own door, but it was in the same same room. And, and I wanted to be a family man.

So I picked a man to sponsor who not only had an answer technically, he had a family. And I just got in Gary's back pocket. But he was better at it than I was. At least his kids talk to him. Had a job.

Let me tell you real wisdom from a sponsor, a big book fanatic, gave me this. Gave me 2 things. First of all, he said, are you tired of being arrested? And I said, yeah. He said, then quit going where there's cops.

Oh, okay. Profound. He said, do you want money? I said, yeah. He said, well, get a job.

Then once you've got it, show up for it kind of regularly and on time if possible. And while you're there, you might even consider doing some work. Use a smart mouth. And at the end of a given period of time, they'll give you money. And it'll never be enough.

But it'll always be enough. But it'll always be enough. Now that'd be smart, Alec, if I hadn't been watching him. He had a job. Even in the penitentiary, he had a job.

And he did that job. And he had another job which was liaison with wandering the tears talking to noodles like me. In fact, that's one of the things that brought me they put you back in your cage so they don't have to worry about you. And, when I was in my cage, he would come by and visit with me. And I realized one day, he can't do that.

Inmates are not allowed to wander the tears. You're either on your job or you're in your cage. I want what he has. He's getting out of his cell whenever he wants to. I want what he has.

And I finally got it. That was his main job was going around talking to the people who were coming along in the process. In the school, we did this. And the rest of the time, it was by example. His deportment, he was clean.

You got 2 kinds of people in the prison in terms of dress. There's the ones that just have the clothes that go to the laundry and come back and they look kind of shabby. We don't have very many tailors there. And then there's the players. And our clothes are always needle sharp pressed.

Avoid them. If you have if you're not through drinking here, you'll end up in a penitentiary. Remember that one. Stay away from tightly pressed closed people. He exhibited the same thing I've seen in my dad.

He was there. So I began by watching examples to understand one of the things that I must develop in me is to be there. My dad gave me a little piece of wisdom. Didn't come out of here. I'm sorry.

It's in here, but you won't find it in these words. So Don, all a man needs is 2 things to live a good life, honor and wisdom. You need enough honor to keep every promise you ever make despite the personal consequences and enough wisdom not to make too many promises like that. It's a principle that suits me. It comes right out of here.

If I get rid of all the self interest and all those things that are going on in my head, and I keep making promises I can't keep because it makes you feel better and you'll like, you know, it's the old con game. If I get rid of all that, I can just show up. I don't have to go through all that stuff in my head about am I pleasing you or not. Don't much care. I know I won't do anything to displease you if I can help it.

But if it does displease you, well, okay. Talk to me about it then. And then get the hell away from me. I think so. He was always there.

Not at my back end call, but he was always there. Somehow he showed up just when he needed to show up. He was always there and he was available. That's another aspect of being there. He was available.

That's another aspect of being there. He was available. Folks who know me know that I'm very easy to reach if you need me. Okay. Is that esoteric, Tom?

Probably emotional. Yeah. So I'm watching and beginning to develop I guess you could call them skills to develop internal I'm beginning to develop I guess you could you could call them skills to develop internal they're not even principles. They're not intellectual things. Ways of being.

If I give you my word, I will keep it. Know that. That's where I stand. Don't ask me for my word unless you intend for me to keep it because I will. And if you don't really want it, we got conflict.

He has no attitude of holier than thou. Today, that concerns me. I must tell you the truth. Lots and lots of places I go have a holier than now attitude. Some of it comes from people who use the big book and some of it comes from the action folks and some of it comes from the who cares folks.

Holier than now. My effectiveness is the fact that I know I am you and you are me. That was my big spirit in the awakening. How can I be holier than you are? Sit around and listen to the war stories.

And it's not the hydromas stuff. It's really chicken shit stuff like stealing a kid's piggy bank because you need a drink. And I know that and I can project that. And I don't come down to your level And I don't raise you to my level. We meet where we are.

And that's good enough for me. I expect also know that whatever you brought to the table today, that's your very best. Okay? I'm not gonna make any judgments on that. Nothing would ever except the sincere desire to be helpful.

Can I fit that? Or do I have an agenda? If I decided that you should be in your 4 step in your 6th week, if I have, I'm not matching this. You need to tell me how to work the steps. I don't need to tell you.

The pacing is different for everybody. I need to be talk quickly about Chuck. Chuck softened me. I I was a big book fanatic of the kind that got rigid for a while. If you weren't doing it exactly this way, you weren't doing it right.

And, oh, God. I cherish those days. I don't want it to turn to a Oh, horse's ass. God sent me Chuck, 5 foot 2, mean as a snake. Dangerous.

So dangerous when he walked in the room. Didn't even have to say anything. People just backed up. It was clear this one would eat you alive if you said the wrong thing and not even use a toothpick afterwards. Just bad to the bone.

He'd been sober 8 years and worked at Hazleton and drank. Had several 2 year periods of sobriety and then he drank. And he was done. And he was trying to drink himself to death and couldn't, and that made him even madder. So they sent him over to our group, in Denver.

When you got one that you just can't do anything with, send him to us. I think it's probably revenge. Anyway, Chuck got right up in my face. He'd been told to talk to me. Got right up in my face.

Just dared me to say anything meaningful. And he said, don't give me a big book crap. I've tried that and it didn't work. What am I gonna say? He tried it.

It didn't work. And I love that because then I pray, which means I get into a state where I understand, I don't know what to say to this guy. You where I understand. I don't know what to say to this guy. Either put some words in my mouth or get me the hell out of here.

And I heard it come out. I said, well, Chuck, what do you think you got? Oh, I hate this son of a bitch. I understand that someday we each get a couple minutes with him and I can't wait for lunch. Tell him what the heck of this shitty deal and I'm going to hell with my friends.

And I said, good. He believes. We have an attitude problem. That's what he believes. This man was so deeply wounded by life and by alcoholism.

And by life, I mean, he came up in a family. He was wounded. This was a wounded animal. And I knew that there's no way I can do anything except nurse this guy if he'll let me. And I did the only thing he needed.

He needed a friend first. He needed to feel somebody on this planet cares about me even though I hate everybody. So I just had him come by my house every day and I was in a business. I traveled around town and he just rolled around with me spewing hate. I don't care.

That just goes right on through. There's nothing to worry about there. Almost a year before we could do anything except ride around. The change occurred in Chuck because of my wife, not me. We stopped by the house one day and she'd made chocolate chip cookies.

And she gave us each one. They're really good, by the way. And Chuck ate his and said, that was good. Which to a cookie maker means, well, here, have a bag. And we got back in the car and it broke my heart because he he described his condition to me.

He said, why would she give me a bag of cookies? I was able to say it's because she thinks you're a member of the family, Chuck. And I watched the change take place. Then we could get into clearing it away. Okay?

There's no fees to pay. I'm gonna challenge you on that one. I'm sorry. I go to a lot of meetings. We're right in the middle of somebody's talk, which is very rude.

Somebody starts passing a basket with no explanation whatsoever. And I got into a new guy's head one day watching that happen and thought, wait a minute now. I'm new here. I'm still shaking. I've got 57¢ in my pocket.

Some other idiot has told me make 90 meetings in 90 days. That's a setup. I'm sorry. I don't believe in that. You should make far more than that.

Don't put a number on people who can't show up anyway for God's sake because that becomes a target. Anyway, I'm listening to you and I'm watching you because I'm suspicious. I've tried a lot of stuff and nothing's working. I probably tried this 4 or 5 times and it didn't work either. And right in the middle of someone sharing something, they start this basket around.

No explanation. And I'm watching the people go into their pockets and come up with a buck and throw them the basket. I I got 57¢. I'm gonna be here for 90 days. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that this thing's gonna cost me $90 when I got 57¢ in my pocket.

And I might not eat tonight. I probably won't come back here. So maybe a little explanation would be appropriate after the person finishes Sharon. No fees to pay. Our done for young people's group.

We used to tell them, if you're new, don't put in that basket. You're not a member yet. We used to tell them to take it, I think. Yeah. We quit that, though.

No axes to grind. I'm sorry. I try to live up to that one, and I just don't do well. Grinding axes is one of the few pleasures I have left, but I'll I'll try not. I'm not gonna grind them with new people.

No people to please. If I sponsor you, you do not have to please me. You don't have to do a damn thing, I say. If you don't, you won't get the results that you came to me for. You don't have to please me.

You do have to show up on time. If you don't, then you don't have that time anymore. I just assume you don't want it. That's all. I don't fire people.

I get fired a lot. Dress a certain way. You don't even have to clean your mouth up to please me. I will suggest you may want to do that if you want to make any friends, somewhere along the way. Well, they did that for us.

It was suggested by my sponsor that I learned to speak English instead of street. And if you're getting into corrections, please don't try to talk. You know, right off the bat, you're fake. And they're not going to listen to the thing you say. And you're not very good at it.

They are. We get tested a lot with that one. No lectures to be endured. Oh, God. Save me from that.

I love lectures. One of the ways that I finally gained the trust of my children is that I stopped raising them. I think raising children the way most of us do it is a criminal activity. It's it's an imposition of my values on you and you will, by God, reflect well on me. And you do that by lecturing.

Remember when you were a kid and all the lectures you got? I don't remember any lectures. I just remember all those I got. Just a minute to start that. Click.

To become effective in my life. I just tripped through. Most alcoholics have that. We really want to be effective. I want to know that somewhere along the way, my being on this planet accounted for something.

That I wasn't just another number that went through here. That somewhere, somebody can say, don't remember exactly who it was, but this happened and my life changed a little bit. It got better. I think we all want that. I've gotta be effective, not right.

That was the way it was put to me. Learn to be effective, not right. Get you out of the debating society. None of us makes the sole vocation of this work nor do we think its effectiveness would be increased if we did. That kept me out of the treatment business for a lot of years.

I'm of the treatment business for a lot of years. I got back into it but in a different role. I applied for a job 3 years sober with Joe Wright out at Fort Logan. His father We practiced as amateurs. Now I was gonna get pro.

She said, Honey, you can do this job very easily, but if you do, you'll lose some of what you've got. So I did not take the job. I want to be effective. Effective is a parent. What does that mean?

What is an effective parent? I'm not gonna define it for you. I just want you to think about it. I can see the results of effective parenting. My 2 year old grandson comes in the house.

He gets a big grin and he runs at me and almost knocks me over. I've done something effective. He trusts me. Anyway, we feel that elimination of our drinking is but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our various in our respective homes, occupations, and affairs.

The implication is that I will have each of those things a home, an occupation, and affairs. I just have to be careful not to have more affairs than I have principles. This is I'm I'm gonna let Tom talk. Now this was just the introduction. It's not that it took so long.

A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our greatest respective occupations, homes, and affairs. How can I take what's in here, out here? Because if it stays in here and I stay in here with it, I'm useless. No use to anybody. How can I take this out?

So even people whose methods may be different, whose style may be different, we can work in brotherly and harmonious action. That's what this is really all about. How do you do it on the job? I've got some stories later about how that plays out. Spiritual lives are very real right now on the Let's get with it life.