Sky Camp Men's Spiritual Retreat in Eugene, OR

Write out the answers to those 9 they told me. And then, when you're done with that, collect all of the answers to question number 9. What should I have done instead? And make a composite paragraph of that those answers. So I had a dozen answers to question number 9 on a dozen pieces of paper.

And on yet another piece of paper, I collected all of that material that was in response to question number 9. What should I have done instead? And I made a paragraph out of it. And I went to it. In this way, we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life.

My ideal. What should I have done instead? Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it. It's our ideal. It's how we really want to be.

Not not what society says we must be. Not what our mother or the church or whoever said it. But what is my ideal in this relationship? And I when I went back to them and I had this down on a piece of paper, I had written out something that looked like this. This was one that I wrote later on.

But I kept this one. Be consistently ready to serve her and do so with enthusiasm. This was what should I have done instead as to one of these women. Be a giver. Be accountable.

Notice my impact and power and never misuse those things. I'm so worried that I'm out power, I forget that I have a powerful position in the relationship too. And I was always mindless of that power and constantly misusing it. Be consistently available, committed, honorable, loyal. Loyal in thought, word, and deed.

Always make the effort to keep communication open and be a true partner. An answer to some relationship, What should I have done instead? Never manipulate. Live in reality and form a relationship with God. Honor her feelings, never obligate her.

Look only to God for power and a sense of aliveness. Seek seek God's will and power daily to be a part of a healthy relationship. Live my life in such a way that God can love her through me, be aware of the long term, and honor it. And that became my ideal for future sex relations. And whatever that ideal is, we have to pray for power to grow toward that.

And that was, and then there was another part of the, inventory. The take to the grave stuff. The stuff that doesn't come up as a resentment. Doesn't come up as a fear. Doesn't come up in the sex inventory.

But we need to disclose this stuff to another human being. Maybe there is never a resentment with it. Maybe there was never any. But it was just one of those things that, whether it was a, homosexual experience when I was a kid and I had a couple of those. And I wasn't terribly shamed by it so much, but I knew I had to disclose that.

I did not want that secret in my life. And there was some money I stole that I had to disclose and this and that. I stole money out of treasury in that Monday night meeting in Glendale when I first got sober. And it just kind of rattles you when you've done that, you know, it just feels so inappropriate. That had to, that went down just a little nickel and dime stuff that makes you crazy, you know, $12 and I'm dying over it.

And I want to be, I want to walk through that arch of free men when I'm done with that inventory. And so I had to take to the grave list that was part of it. And I'm all done with my inventory. And we meet, we meet and we, are ready for a long talk. And that takes us to 5.

Step 5 is, it is important that we pick the right person. It's very important. We have to know that we're picking somebody that really gets it about what we're doing. And it's not hard to find those people in Alcoholics Anonymous. Not at all.

I guess when this book was written it was somewhat difficult and they talk about a clergyman and all of that kind of stuff, but it isn't that so much. Not now. Not now. And usually our sponsor, somebody who's taken us through the steps, is the person that we select. They know what we're about, and they're honored by our confidence, and they will keep it confident.

When I'm with somebody, at the very beginning, we say a prayer and ask for direction and blessing for what we're about to do. We always remind ourselves that it's a disclosure to God, ourselves, and another human being. And we say, God's here. God's here too. This is there's God's here.

And he blesses this. And, I there is some stuff to look in the book. It's also interesting that Wilson, finally after we've done all this work on an inventory, tells us why we've done it. On page 72 at the beginning of into action, he says, having made our personal inventory, what shall we do about it? And now he tells us why we've done it.

He says this, we have been trying to get a new attitude, a new relationship with our creator, and to discover the obstacles in our path. And an awful lot of this stuff is like, I got smack good when I was 5 years old and so I decided to, like a football game, put on a pair of shoulder pads and I never took them off in case I got smacked again. And I got and nothing fit very well after that. I never took my helmet off. I never, you know, I'm just walking around protecting myself.

I got all these reactions. I got all this stuff that I do. And I have, hurt people with it. I have been inappropriate with it. And I have done all of that stuff.

This is all, a lot of it has been simply to protect myself from another jolt, from another terrifying moment. But these are obstacles. When I put on all of that protective gear, it gets in the way. I need to have another attitude toward God. They, somebody told me that, one way to look at the attitude that they use that phrase, that word attitude is, as an aeronautical matter.

If a pilot in a small plane is coming into the the tower, I'll say, what's your attitude? Meaning, what's your relationship with the horizon? Are you climbing, diving, banking left, banking right, climbing out? Whatever you're doing. In that sense, I had an attitude toward God where I was leaning away from God.

And I have to change it so I'm leaning into God. I'm leaning into. And that's what we want to do. We want to be tucked in with a sense of protection and love and care. But with all that stuff I got to protect myself, independent of God, it's an obstacle that's going to get in the way.

He also tells us that mostly we lead a double life. We're very much like the actor. To the outer world, we present our stage character. This is the one I want my fellows to see. I want to enjoy a certain reputation, but on my heart, I don't deserve it.

The inconsistency is made worse by the things I do on my sprees. On my sprees. Sober sprees. What will I do in a temper tantrum? What will I do?

You ever get in a car on the freeway and you're driving down and you're in some imaginary conversation with somebody And you're going good. You're alone in the car but man, you're laying the wood to somebody. Then suddenly you come out of the ether and wonder who saw me? Who watched me pounding on the steering wheel? It's a spree, is what it is.

And if there's another human being there who's taking the brunt of it, that has even more significance. The inconsistency is made worse by the things I do on my sprees. Coming to my senses, I'm revolted at certain things I vaguely remember. These memories are a nightmare. I tremble to think someone might have observed me.

As fast as I can, I push these memories far inside myself? I hope they'll never see the light of day. I'm under constant pure intention and that makes for more sprees. We go down here and read this, page 74 and 75. It says, when we decide who's to hear our story, we waste no time.

We have a written inventory. And they took me to the first p sentence in the next paragraph. We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. And then I started reading what I had written and we went through it. Went through it pretty slowly as I recall it.

That that inventory had, when I was maybe 24 years sober, it was about a day and a half. And, he listened very carefully to what I had to say and occasionally would interrupt with a question. Occasionally would tell me, alright go to column 4 and tell me what your dishonesty on this one was. And we went through that inventory. And at the end of it, the end of that second day, I was given the instruction to simply return home and find a place where I could be quiet for an hour, carefully reviewing what I've done.

I thank God from the bottom of my heart that that I know him better. Turn to the page which contains the 12 steps in this book. Carefully reading the first five proposals, we ask if we've omitted anything for we're building an arch through which we shall walk a free man at last. Is our work solid so far? I was 24 years sober and for the first time in my sobriety in my life, I knew that I had finally done the first five steps.

There was no question I had done that. Never before, but I was through the first five steps and I had done it completely. The stones were properly in place. I had not skipped on the cement put into the foundation. Here Wilson swings back to those, northeastern, stone quarry kind of analogies.

Have I tried to make mortar without sand and so on. I spent an hour looking at that and thinking and going through that inventory. Making notes about where I owed amends. Making notes about the fears. Making notes about the sex relations.

I just I had a red pen, I think, and I was just putting little notes on it to get it, to be alone with it, to do. And I really did thank God oddly enough for some reason or other I felt I knew him better. I really did. I felt like I had left no stone unturned. I mean, like, it's like I was signing up for the solution.

I finally, finally signed on for the solution that's offered here. And I was very clear that I had done that. And that was a remarkable thing. We go to step 6. And for the first time, we're asked to trust our intuitive thought.

Because we've asked ourselves some questions here. Is our work solid so far? And then some related questions. At step 6, if we can answer to our satisfaction, then we look at step 6. My satisfaction for the first time.

I'm trusting intuitive thought in this whole process. And step 6 asked me, are you willing to let go of the traits that you find undesirable, that I find undesirable, that I'm done with? Am I willing to let go of the greed and the fear and the lust and the anger and the rage and the control and the image and all of that stuff? Am I ready? They said, go to the 12 and 12 where it talks about the 7 deadly sins and ask yourself if you're ready to get rid of things like sloth.

What is sloth? I thought it meant lazy. In the dictionary it doesn't mean that. Sloth is in the dictionary. The refusal to accept an opportunity for growth.

I willing to give that up? Yeah. Is there anything I don't want to give up? Sure. Sure.

We're back now to some of these things that are more important to me than a better relationship with God. I ready to give up lust, inappropriate sex. Am I ready to give up dishonesty, deceit, all the rest of that stuff? Some I was, some I wasn't. But there's a couple of other and you don't have to worry about that.

You have to tell the truth about it though. That's critical. There's only 3 questions here. Am I now ready to let God remove from me all the things which I have admitted are objectionable? That's question number 1.

This included old ideas incidentally. Am I ready to have God remove from me the idea that I cannot trust my mother? That I cannot trust my grandma. That I cannot trust the important women in my life. Am I finally done with that notion that has caused so much trouble in my life?

Am I finally done with the idea that I am there's no way that I can have a decent relationship with a male authority figure, a boss, or anybody? Am I finally done with that? Am I finally done with a 100 little old ideas? So number 1, am I ready to have them removed? Number 2, can he now take them all?

Will he do that? And number 3, will he do that for me? In other words, number 1, am I willing to have them removed? Number 2, does he have the power to do that? And number 3, will he do it for me?

And they had me write number 3 in here from, page 60 of the 1212. Will he do that for me? Just as I am. And the sticky one for me was, does he have the power to do it? Do I have a big enough God that he could remove these things I've held onto for so long, if I'm willing to let them go.

And I looked at each one of these things, each one of these character defects, each one of these old ideas, each one of these 7 deadly sins that I got from my inventory. And some of them, I was ready to let go of and some of them, I wasn't. And he said, if you're not willing to let him go, we ask God to take us to that state. And the prayer is, please take me to a place where I'm gladly ready to have you remove this defect. And he does that in a day or 2.

And we want to make sure we are gladly ready. And we go to step 7 and part of the step 7 exercise for me was to do something that replaced the old ideas with what I thought would be more appropriate, new ideas. We don't want too many vacuums in there. And here again, I'm approximating what God's will for me would be. Nature abhors a vacuum.

In a later inventory, I wrote down these old ideas and these new ideas. For me to here's my old idea. For me to improve, disaster must be at hand. I don't get off the dime until that fire is real close to my rear end. The genetic here's another old idea.

This didn't come out in my first inventory like that but in a second one, maybe even when I went back to be with Don that time. The genetic pool is defective. I'm flawed. Here's another one. I don't have the time to make changes.

They take too long. Here's another. I can't have a mentor. Here's another. I can't have money.

Just notions that I've carried all my life that have kind of been submerged and I haven't really been in touch with them, but they come floating up in an inventory. You want to hear the new ideas? Say yes, I'm gonna read them anyway. Here's a new idea for the old idea for me to improve disaster must be at hand. New idea, to kick it up to the next level is a wonderful privilege and I do it with reverence and conviction.

This is my gift to God. This is my opportunity to rejoice, to celebrate, to say thank you. This I will do as my daily prayer and my destiny again and again and again without end. Amen. Here's the old idea, the genetic pool is defective.

I'm flawed. New idea, I'm perfect. The imperfections I've added to protect me are easily allowed to go out of my life. The balance is perfect. Absolutely perfect.

No hiding, no secrets, no refusal to communicate. Old idea, I don't have the time to make changes, they take too long. New idea, the time is now. The place is here. Change is easy.

Do you get the difference in the tone of this? This didn't come from me really. It didn't come from my mind, came someplace else. There's plenty of time, instant change and shift is the way of God and the universe and of me. Old idea, I can't have a mentor.

New idea, I can have all the wisdom men and women that I can ever need or want easily in my life. That these people are there and will come in, I'll see them and ask they will offer, they're incredibly valuable. Old idea, I can't have money. New idea, I easily and quickly learn much about money and have great fun accumulating it and handling it with a great and rare wisdom. Now, if God removes those old ideas because I asked him to and because he has the power to do that and because he loves me, something that approximate those new ideas will come in, especially when I prayerfully asked for the new idea, when I write it down.

Because it's a completely different mind that creates that new idea. That new mind is coming in. That new mind is coming in. And that's the whole point of that drill. And when I get that done, and this is something we have to do carefully and with somebody else, I think.

Because the new ideas are very difficult to write out because they're beyond my belief system. I believe something much more limiting and I've got to go out beyond my belief system to even be able to articulate a new idea. Or said a different way, anything that God has in mind for me is much better than anything I have in mind for myself. And I need somebody that really loves me and carries me and carries for me and understands this process. For me to take that jump out there, leap out there, way out there, amp it up, and start the life I've always wanted to live.

Because at some point along the line, I left the life I really wanted to live. I let it go to to the side of the road and I've been living out my second and third choices ever since. And that's just, that's my will. 2nd best, 3rd best. Don't get too grabby.

Don't jump. Don't play small. Play small. Don't offend anybody. They won't like you if you don't, you know.

And it doesn't who was it? Nelson Mandela said, it doesn't serve the world for us to play small so other people won't be intimidated. That's not the deal. We got to show up present, fully present in a relationship, in our jobs, in AA. Fully present.

Let our light shine because it's there. Not just in some of us, in every one of us. Every one of us. And here's where we begin to get the new mind. And our old mind doesn't even know it for a while.

There's some change in the air, but it doesn't know what. Then suddenly we start acting different. Suddenly people are saying, Wow, what's going on with you? And it's an amazing thing. And that's the way it goes.

And so that's step 7. And my experience of it was remarkable. Remarkable. And the next time I did it, I remarkable. And it gets fine tuned and it gets fine tuned.

But we need those. We need a a wider, deeper life because of what God wants to bring into our lives. And we scan that inventory for one more thing and that is for the people we've harmed. We scan that inventory for all of them. And we go to our address book, and we go to our organ and we go to the and we go to the group list and we go to all of these places.

Every there's high school yearbook, the college yearbooks, the dental school stuff, if I still have it, this and that, and the third thing. Any place there is a list of where I've been participating with other human beings, the Marine Corps, the, officer candidate school group I graduated with, all of those people, scan it because I need to know who's on this list that I am harmed, that I may owe an amends to. And we'll take a break, and we'll come back, and we'll talk about step 8 and 9 until 9 o'clock, and then you'll have your meeting. And if you want to, about step 8 and 9, We are, at a point when we can go through all of the lists and information that we have and make a list of the people that we've harmed. And and there is a, the prayer has remained, let me see the truth, ever since step 4.

And we're still in that prayer. This prayer that I put up here on the wall, the set aside prayer, was good for the first three steps. Let me see the truth. I made a list of people I had harmed. And to jump ahead just a little bit with that list, in at least 4 occasions after I made that list, which I thought was complete and while I was still in amends, I realized, I saw a guy get, take a cake at one of the meetings I go to, a guy in AA.

And I realized, god, that guy should have been on my amends list. He wasn't on the list. And I just realized, I owe that man an amends. I had that same experience with, one of the gals in the group. She just showed up one night, and I'm at a meeting, and I said, man, I gotta talk to you at the coffee break.

And she was very cool about it, but she wasn't on my list. But insofar as possible, we review our past relationships with people and our membership in groups, as I said already, and all of that, and and our inventory, of course, extract and make a list of people we've harmed. We make a list of people that we have harmed. And the step says we became willing, to make amends to the mall. In this age of database managers and all of that stuff, I've heard about making amends by email.

I've heard a woman talk the other day that claimed she came out of a blackout in a chat room, for God's sakes. I just report these things. I don't judge. You you know This seems like a paper and pencil exercise to me, and it as Joe always liked to say, there's here's the sound of an amends being made. Can I talk to you?

Hello. Hi. You may remember me. You do remember. That's right.

They told me to get a set of 3 by 5 cards. After I'd scanned my inventory for the people that I owed an amends to that I had harmed. And we're talking about people that I've harmed. And sometimes we get a little bit off on that. We think that everybody we resented, we should go to and tell them we resented them.

That doesn't really help any. We didn't harm them by resenting them. Sometimes, it's tempting to go to somebody and say, I've come to make an amends to you because I've been bad mouthing you all over AA for the last 6 months. That doesn't help either. I mean, that's not kind.

It doesn't oh, I'm so glad you gave me that information. Thanks. The amends there is something different. It's to start saying good things about that person to whoever you said bad things to about them. But aside from that kind of thing, and where we've made harm have where we've harmed people and we have an a direct amends to make, we have a list of names.

They said, get some 3 by 5 cards, one for each one of those names, and transfer those names to the card. In the upper left hand corner, put the person's, name and phone number or name and address. Their name would go up here in that 3 by 5 card. Over here, you would have down here in the middle, you put the harm that you see that you have done. And in the upper right hand corner, they told me to put either a plus or a minus, a minus if I was not willing to make the amend and a plus if I was.

And on many of them, I started out with a minus. And as I went through the process, I could turn it into a plus, a positive. Yes. Now that I see how this amends thing goes and the freedom and power I get from it, I will make that amends even though I'm scared to death to do that. They had me make these 3 by 5 cards up, and now I have a stack of 3 by 5 cards and the inventory was respectfully disposed of.

All of that. And I'm left with the and whenever I made an amends, I threw the and you sort of we should have a shrinking list of 3 by 5 cards, not a whole jumble of unmanageable page after page. And let's see. Where was that last just 3 by 5 cards. And you toss the card when you've made the amend so that you know.

And the prayer once I've made the list and gone over it with the guy that took and so I'm clear on the harm I have done, there are now some things to do. And the format they gave me for making the amends, moving to step 9, here's what I was to do. I was to make an appointment with the person. Contact them. If they're in AA, you just say, I'm in step 9 and you're on my list and I need to talk to you.

They're not in AA. I've been going through my life and reviewing my life and some of the problems in it. And I've caused some trouble for people, and I've harmed you. And I need to clean it up with you, and I would appreciate it if we could meet in person and talk. Usually approached that way, people will say, sure.

They said, meet in a public place, but not around a meal. Don't be interrupted. Sometimes these amends are very brief, and you don't want a meal going on. You don't want to be interrupted. You can hardly ever get them to pay the check anyway.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. The pistol range. Yeah.

See if you can qualify expert again. Coffee shop is great. A business office seems to work. A private home, not such a good idea. Someplace, a park, park bench, someplace, where you can have, the person's attention, and you can give it your attention, but where, it's not cluttered with a lot of other things.

And you ask them first of all, you thank them for being there. Number 1. I'm here to clean it up with you, and I really appreciate you meeting me. This is eyeball to eyeball. And the second thing is you tell them the harm as you see it.

And the third thing is you ask them if there's any harm that they can think of that you haven't mentioned. And you listen. And sometimes they have a lot to say in response to that question. And the next thing is you say, do you need to tell me how any of that made you feel? And the next thing is you say, what can I do to set this right?

And we listen very carefully to that. And I know when Don was here, he spoke to you about how important it is to listen to what they tell you that you can do to set it right and to do that. I know he told you about how his mother said, well, I just want you to be happy. And he took that as marching orders. And we must take these things as marching orders.

This is serious stuff. And now he goes by to see his mother every week, and he's happy. He's happy. He lets her know that he's happy, because she expressed that wish. Sometimes people say, I just want you to stay in my life.

Where did you go? And we must do that. Sometimes people say, there's nothing that you can do. And believe them when they say that. It's alright to believe that.

And you let it go. The deal is done. It's a it's a intuitive thing, the timing of an amends. There's a stack of cards. We want to absolutely shift our prayer so that every morning, I got on my desk those 3 by 5 cards.

And the prayer is, take me to my next amends and give me the power to make it. We don't want to have done all of this work, run out of power, and start over at step 1. We do not wanna do that. We've got the momentum. We've tapped into the power.

We had the power to make the step 8 list. We have asked God if we're willing to make amends. And we take those that we are willing to do. And we start in. Start in with the easy ones.

Why not? Start in with somebody I'll see at the meeting tonight. Can I see you after the meeting for just a few minutes? You know, a couple of months ago, I was really rude to you when I said, whatever I said, say it again. Let them know exactly what you're talking about.

And they will know. And you you know, I don't know how many times I thought, oh, they won't remember that. They remember. They remember. They remember.

And when you say specifically what they've had on their mind, they know you mean business. They know you're there. And they know you're not sometimes a lot of people in AA, no one has ever made amends to them. And, of course, no one has ever made amends to most of the people that are not in AA. But it's our absolute opportunity to do that.

It's our absolute opportunity to clean it up, to be at peace with our fellow man, to really go to these people. I was married twice when I was drinking, and and twice after I got sober. And I had relationships all around that and in that and in between. And, I'm married now for the 5th time to a lady named Linda. And we've been married coming up 3 years.

And so I had a lot of women on my list. And the women that were on my list were women whose dignity I had taken. I took I brought perfectly wonderful human beings into my life. Decided I couldn't trust them because of that old idea. And discarded them.

And broke the vows of the marriage, and broke their hearts, and broke promises, took their dignity away. And the enormity of that was very much on my mind when I finally was at this point in the inventory. And I knew I had to clean that up. I knew I had to clean that up. Yes, sir.

Yeah. But parents and brothers and sisters want you to be in their lives. Ex wives, I have not been burdened with an ex wife. It really hasn't come up. And I think it's a good question.

And I think I would have to say, one woman did. She said Betty, I I was married to, for 8 or 9 years in AA. And she said, you are not the arrogant son of a bitch I was married to. And what I want you to do is to show me how you got where you are now. And I was single.

And for some months, we would meet and, begin the process of going through the steps. And then she lost interest in it. She really was more interested in getting back with me. And, I guess, because it wasn't about the steps, she kinda lost interest in that process. And she could see I was all fired up about it, but she didn't wanna do it.

But she she said that, but that's the only one that's there that I had been married to that's ever said that. And you're right. I do not want an ex I don't wanna try to be in a relationship with with Linda and have something, no matter how innocent it might look, going on with a former girlfriend or lover or wife. That is bad news in a marriage. And there's just no no way we can paint that that makes it look good to the current lady.

No way. They do not go for that. It cannot happen. Boy, you'll see some thin smiles and lots of distance if you start that, I'll tell you. It's exactly a good point.

And it didn't really come up when I was seriously involved with somebody else or involved at all. But I that's right. That's a good point. Similarly, we don't, of course, discuss stuff that we that they know nothing about. That only causes hurt.

There's no point in doing that. We also know that they have got some neurons firing that they probably know stuff they don't want to even admit they know. You know what I mean? There's a girlfriend in the picture and she knows. She knows that.

She doesn't know who, she doesn't know when, doesn't know why, doesn't know how involved it is, but they know that something's out. They do. They know that. Women that we've been with, that we've slept with, they have psychic information about us. Boy, they are really they can thread the needle on that kind of stuff.

And for us to go in there and make a half hearted demand when they do know is nuts. We really have to let them know that we are very open about all of it, Have looked at it. Are sorry for it. We wanna ask them, did you need to tell me how any of this made you feel? And sometimes they really do, and we have to listen.

And it's at that time that your mind starts going to what they did. You know? And, man, that is it's like, if I haven't forgiven them for it, I better forgive them because that's not my tax. I'm not there. And here's how it goes.

Even let's suppose that somebody that we go to, we figure that there's 75% responsible for the problem, and I only own 25% of it. I better figure this. Of the 25% I own, I'm a 100% responsible for that. And that's where I gotta play this game. That's where I have to be with them.

And when we, ask them if there's any harm that we haven't mentioned, sometimes they really have a lot to say about that. And we again, you listen. You listen. And when we ask him, is there anything I can do to make this right? Sometimes it's, you know, you've done it.

Just come in here. Sometimes I. I got on the plane. I flew to Roanoke and knelt at my father's grave. I made amends to him.

That man terrified me all my life, But I could talk to him from that point of view. From there, I had new power and I talked to him at his grave. Thanked him. You know, when we get to this point, I had always seen my dad as somebody that was never there for me. My dad gave me a lot.

He gave me a respect for authority, a respect for the laws of this country, a respect for our nation. He gave me a great deep sense of patriotism. And he gave me a great sense of a work ethic. That guy would get up and go to work when the only thing that could have been keeping him alive was the hope of dying some mornings, you know. Because he was a drunk and he'd get up and go.

I couldn't believe he was up and going sometimes because I knew how drunk he'd been the night before. And he gave me those things and I had to acknowledge that. We get so focused. We get so focused on the insults and aggravations. Here's my dad.

Here's my relationship with him. Here's the night I'm so angry about that he humiliated me in public. Here's the night I'm so angry about he hit my mom. Here's the night I'm so angry about that he slapped me. Here's the night I'm so angry about that he on and on.

And there's 8 or 9 of those things. When I think of my dad, I think of these things. And all the way along there, we never missed a meal. He's there sending money. When he was overseas, when he wherever he was, he sent the money.

Every day we had food on the table and a roof over our heads because my dad was going to work when he didn't want to go to work. And I had to get in touch with that. The guy is much more than this. But when I'm angry and focused on that, that's all I ever see. I have no appreciation.

None. For what happened here. None. And I gotta begin to look at it a different way. And I knelt at that grave and I thanked him for those things.

And I thanked him for showing me what he showed me about patriotism and about respect for authority and law. And about, this amazing ability to go to work. And I told him how sorry I was that I had, lied to him. That I couldn't get on board the program with him because I was so afraid of him and so much into lying and defending and everything. And I flew to, Denver and met with my sister and her husband.

I I talked a little bit about that earlier. What a shock it was to walk into that home. They have he had 3 kids. She had 2, and they had one between him. So this is like 3 black kids, 2 white kids, and a kid that they had between them.

A color blind home. It was the most amazing thing to see them all loving one another. That kid I told you about that teaches English in high school, do you know where he teaches? Tokyo. He teaches Japanese kids English.

I mean, these are gifted contributors. This is a man that fell in love with my sister and married her because he loved her. And she married him because she loved him. And they had done something I'd never done. They had 25 years of marriage at a time in Denver when it was not easy to be involved in an interracial marriage.

A lot of pressures and they stood there and they hung in. And I flew out of Denver with a new hero. I'll tell you that. God, my little sister, that little snot. What an amazing woman she's come out to be.

She had her masters. She's doing stuff I couldn't do. And I'm looking down at her. Isn't that crazy? I flew to Portland.

I met Carl at the airport in Portland. Made amends to him. I asked him, what do you want me to do to clean this up? He said, stay in my life. Stay in my life.

And he asked me and I said, I want you to, you really wanna know what I want you to do? He said, yeah. I said, take the steps. Do this. Do this.

But it was a healing. The beginning of a healing between he and I. I went to Seattle where my oldest son is with his wife and 2 children. And I sat with him. Said, I'm so sorry.

I wasn't there for you. His mother divorced me and remarried and he was raised by a guy he never liked. And he had some tough times and tough ways to go. But he's a good kid. He's really a good kid.

And he's a good husband and he's a good father. And I didn't have anything to do with it. But he's a sweet guy. And I had to clean it up with him and with his wife because it splashed on her too. Splashed on her.

I had to, go to Tacoma where my middle son is with his wife and 2 kids. And the same process. He had an easier time because he really considered his mother's second husband as his father and he bonded with that guy. Mark was a little too old to do that, but he was Todd was, of an age to be able to do it. But I made amends to him and to his wife.

And I went down to Orange County where my youngest son is and made amends to him. He's the one I'm closest to. He's the one, after sobriety, I paid the child support to every month. He's the one whose mother grabbed him and moved him back to Oregon. And I'm so mad, I'm not gonna do anything.

And thank God, Clancy told me, pay the child support. You may never see him again. Send the check. Send the check. He's a funny guy.

You know, sometimes you go to a sponsor and you think you got a problem. They're not gonna bother you much about it. I go to them and I say, I got a problem. He says, what is that? I got like maybe 2 years apart.

He said, I said, my problem is I hate my ex wife. And I figured, well, what's he gonna do with that? But I think I owed him a problem, you know, because he's my sponsor. I wanna. And so I said, I hate my ex wife.

And he said, he said, You want to do something about that? I thought, uh-oh. I said, so I said, sure. I wouldn't have bothered you with it otherwise. Right?

He said, if you wanna change how you feel about somebody, you gotta change how you treat them. I said, okay. Thanks. See you. He said, how's the child support going?

I said, I'm gonna get to that. He said, you're gonna get to it immediately or you're gonna get another sponsor. He told me exactly what to do. In those days, I didn't have a checking account, but I could get money orders. He said, you get the money order on payday.

You have the envelope there. Don't take it over and give it to her in person. And so I began to do that. And my reward was that 7 or 8 months later, she whisked him out of town in the middle of the night, went to Portland, wrote me a letter and said, you can start sending the money to the PO box here at the bottom of this page. Oh, I was furious.