Steps 10, 11 and 12 at the CPH12 v8 convention in Copenhagen, Denmark

Good morning. I'm Bob Darrell, and I am alcoholic. Good morning. Indulge me for a moment of silence. Know about you, everything I think I know about myself, everything I think I know about others, and everything I think I know about my own recovery, all for a new experience in you, lord.

A new experience in myself, a new experience in my fellows, and a much needed new experience in my own recovery. Amen. Amen. We're gonna talk this morning about our personal experience with step 10, 11, and 12. You know, I I think it's I think unconsciously, my purse, over the years, I've had different perceptions of the steps that I didn't even realize I had.

And when I was new, I looking back at my attitude towards step 10, I think I thought that step 10 said, continue to take personal inventory, and if I was wrong. Like, if someday I know it's hard to believe, but Right? And it doesn't say if. It says when. And there's an implication in that that that you're gonna be wrong a lot.

And I'm wrong a lot. I get off the beam a lot. I get immersed in self a lot. I get judgmental a lot. I get resentful a lot.

I get anxious and afraid and worrying a lot. I get out of the wheelbarrow a lot, and I undo or move away from the the the direction of the decision of step 3 a lot. And my very life depends upon me moving back into that arena continually, so that I don't get so far out that I end up going the way of too many men and women that I've watched. And and there is no there is no arrival in recovery. We never outgrow our humanness.

We never outgrow our character defects. If they do go away, it's really in God's hands. I have a interesting letter here. It was written by Bill Wilson when Bill Wilson was 26 years sober. So here's the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous with over two and a half decades of recovery.

And this letter that he wrote is in response to a group in Chicago that wrote him a letter really taking his inventory. And Bill was a Bill was not a perfect guy. And Bill had made a lot of mistakes in sobriety and and but listen to listen to his response, and I think this is the benchmark, in the attitude that that I found I would like to have about my own shortcomings. He says to this group in Chicago, he says that you you seem disillusioned with me personally may be a new and painful experience for you, but but many members have had that experience with me. Most of their pain has been caused not only by my several shortcomings, but by their own insistence on placing me, a drunk, trying to get along with other folks upon a completely illusionary pedestal, a station which no fallible person could possibly occupy.

I'm sure you will understand that I've never held myself out to anybody as either a saint or a superman. I have repeatedly and truthfully that in some areas of living, I have made some decided gains. That in others, I have seemed to have stood still. And in still others, I may have even gone backwards. I am sorry that you are disillusioned with me, but I am happy that even I have found a life here.

Bill Wilson, 1960. Wow. I mean, that letter is just amazing to me, written by the the the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous at over 26 years of sobriety. And I think it is it is the it's the exposed fallibility of our senior members that has allowed guys like me to be forthright and transparent. There's a there's I came into Alcoholics Anonymous with an unconscious notion that I must be perfect in order just to be equal to the people who aren't.

As if I'm coming from behind. And I had that feeling that as far back as I remember, I remember in school feeling at times like I had to be have equal to the kids that got c's. Like I was always coming from behind. Like I come from a a tremendous to fill it or satisfy it. So step 10 is about being wrong, and it's about being wrong a lot.

And that's the that's not because I'm a bad guy. It's just the nature of alcoholism and the human condition. And on page 84 starts this section on on step 10. And it says this this is right after the 9th step promises. And it says this thought brings us to step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to write any new mistakes as we go along.

We have vigorously commenced this way of living as we've cleaned up the past. We've entered the world of the spirit. Some of you know what it feels like to enter the world in the spirit, and maybe you don't even know that that's what's happened to you. But all of a sudden, you're sober, and you feel lighter and free, and you're not up in here locked up as much, and you find yourself laughing a lot, and you find yourself caring about other people and getting what's going on with other people at times. I mean, getting it.

Being able to go within yourself and go within them at the same time and really get what's going on with people around you. The realm I'm sure that some of you who do a lot of 12 step work know what that feels like, know what it feels like to be relieved, not once and for all, but relieved of the bondage of of self. There's a line in the 12 by 12. It says something that I think is the benchmark of how we how we approach this. And it says that it's a spiritual axiom, which an axiom is supposedly something that's true under all conditions.

It's a spiritual axiom that whenever I'm disturbed at all, no matter what the cause, no matter what the reason, there's something wrong with me. So the the in the realm of the spirit, the the the benchmark becomes, what has disturbed that? What has what has come up on my radar that is preventing me from going through with the flow, preventing me from loving those about me, preventing me from being useful, preventing me from trusting God. What are the things that have come up on the radar that got me locked up here in the control center, trying to run the universe? And there's a there's a little spot check deal here.

It says, we continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Now those are four things that are repeatedly talked about within this book over and over again. Those are probably the 4 major manifestations of self, Selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. I've there's a a line in the 12 by 12 in step 7. It talks about the chief activator of all our character defects is self centered fear.

And that's really true. I've lied a lot in my life. Well, most of the time, it's not really lying. It's creative license with the truth. It's not really lying.

It's just I'm just, like, pumping it up a little bit, you know. But I don't I've lied a lot in my life, but I have never lied because I'm a liar. I lie because I'm afraid. I'm afraid of what you'll think of me. I'm afraid of not measuring up.

And so I'm driven by that form of self centered fear to to old dog. Who I am is not enough. So I feed the old dog and be something more than what I am, which just reaffirms within me. See? You have to be something more than what you are because no one will ever love and accept you as is.

So I feed the old dog. In an alcoholic, anonymous, you're trying to feed a new dog, the dog of the spirit rather than dog of self. So we continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, fear when these crop up, not if, when, when these crop up, we ask god at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we've harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help.

Essentially, that's step 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 12. And why 12? Because that's the whole purpose. That's the primary purpose. When I when I approach god in step 7, I'm not asking him to take away the things that stand in the way of my happiness or spiritual growth or I'm asking him to remove the things in me that stand in the way of my usefulness to him and to my fellows.

So it's it it if you buy that proposition in the primary purpose, then it would be in natural order that you would that step 10, this daily thing we do, would be composed of steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and then 12, being the ultimate goal, so that I can get back to my primary purpose. And then it says love and tolerance of others is our code. I didn't know what tolerance meant. And I didn't know what love meant, but I'm still not sure. But I didn't know what what tolerance meant.

I thought here's what I thought tolerance was. I thought tolerance was to be politely pissed off at someone. You know, like, boy, are they an asshole. But I'm a big guy. I'm not gonna mention it just yet.

You know, I thought that's what tolerance was. That's not what tolerance is. That's how you build an ulcer. What tolerance is is exactly what we start to learn and realize in the 4th step, and this was our course, as we start to change the way we look at at people, and we look at them from an entirely different angle rather than this judgmental playing god self centered angle. I start to look at people and see people the way God sees them.

And that's a different ball game. And as you enter this world of the spirit, you start to see even even people that you've disliked and hated in your life, you start to see them the way that God might see them. And you see the whole picture. You see yourself in them, and your own frailties, and your own fears that drive you, and you realize that's me. Me on a bad day, but that's me.

So tolerance tolerance is is talked about in mechanics. And if there's any I'm not a mechanic, and I don't know a lot about mechanics, but I know that in in engines, and in motors, and things like that, they talk often about tolerances. And what happens sometimes in an engine through friction and heat over the course of time, the tolerances will get off on an engine. And then what happens is you have to take that engine apart, take it to a machine shop, things are shaved down and moved and sanded or whatever the deal is, in order to set reset the tolerances to allow the moving engine eventually blows up. And that's really what what Alcoholics Anonymous has been teaching me in steps 4 through 9, is to change my view of you.

Not to change you, but to change my perception of you so that I freely can allow you freely to turn in this world in your own course. And it doesn't create friction within me. It doesn't I don't have to go home and and spit in my head about how I can straighten you out. You just are exactly the way you're supposed to be. What a tremendous freedom that would be.

I if you could if I could live that way a 100% 7 days a week, I would be a peaceful, serene, and happy man. But I do that pretty good for a while, and then it's like a key turns in my head. And I just start noticing stuff about you. You know, I just I'm I'm not being judgmental, mind you. I can't help it if I see how screwed up you are.

You know, I did it's insidious the way it creeps back in again. I can see. All of a sudden, I can see what an egotistical maniac you are. Yeah. Yeah.

So we go into the 10 step promises. These are fantastic promises. As a matter of fact, I don't know why in AA, we read the 9th step promises so much in meetings. We're we're really Alcoholics Anonymous. We're here for the 10th step promises.

You can get the 9 step promises and still die of alcoholism if you don't get the 10 step promises. This is what I came here for. And it's easy to forget that caught up in seeking serenity and peace and and a new happiness. It's it's easy to miss this. And here's the 10 step promises on the bottom of 84 and the top of 85.

It says, we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. Hot flame hot flame. That, in the light of what alcohol did to me, would be a sane response to alcohol. Like, woah. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically.

We will see that our new attitude towards liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. One of the definitions I've heard around AA for for grace is a free, unmerited gift. It comes automatically. That is the miracle of it.

We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we've been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. If you have a car and it's a standard transmission and you can you put it in neutral, you can rev that engine all you want. You ain't going no where. And I can be around alcohol.

I can be around alcohol with resentments in my engine revving, and 24, or 24 or years of my sobriety. I've had it in my home for probably on and off for 20 years. I, I had a wine cellar in my house at one time for investment. And exactly what it talks about in this book had come true for me, not as a result of me deciding I'm gonna be neutral, as a result of the steps, I was placed in that position of neutrality. I I go to a meeting twice a week at at a at a Skid Row detox, and I've been doing that for over 28 years.

Years ago, I used to tell the patients there's something that I had to stop telling them because I would lose them. And what I would say to them was the my is was the truth based on my personal experience and the experience of 100 and 100 of people that I know. And what I would say to these people is I I can promise you that if you work the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as a way of life, there will come a time where you could be alone in a room with an unlimited amount of your drug of choice, and it will mean no more to you than the furniture. And they would look at me like I was from Pluto. I mean, because they can imagine that.

I mean, they can imagine abstinence. Yeah. Yeah. We just never go around it. No slippery people, and slippery places, and oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But they cannot imagine that type of freedom. Because they're in their mind, they're con signed to a life of abstinence and fighting the bottle and fighting the bag.

That's not what we do here. We don't even we don't even have a step that says quit. We can't quit. We are powerless. Either a power greater than ourselves, either we can move enough of our selves out of the way to access this power that will do for us what we can't do for ourselves, or we're screwed.

There is nowhere else to go. And that's really the miracle of it. Just to kinda reiterate what it says here, the back of the chapter, working with others, there's a couple pages back here that are really very different from a lot of the crap you hear in meetings. And I I mean, you hear some crazy stuff in meetings that really is is not it's not the same as what it's talking about in this book. Matter of fact, after years, after AA was around, a bunch of people got the general service office to approve a book that I just I can't stand this book.

It's called, living sober. And what it is, it's a bunch of tricks in order not to drink and not work the steps. Right? But as long as you're taking that position, you are still part of the problem. And alcoholism is a funny deal.

The more you feed and fight the problem, the stronger it gets. There's a there's a law in the universe. For every action, there's an opposite and equal reaction. The I I spent years fighting the bag and the bottle, and my experience consistently was the harder I fought it, the end up the the drunker I got. It it's like a slingshot effect.

Okay. I'm not gonna drink. I'm not gonna drink. I'm really not gonna drink. I'm not gonna drink.

I'm not drinking. I'm not smoking anything. And I can tell everybody else is screwed up that are, I'm really not drinking. And now I couldn't take it anymore. And some of the worst drunks I've ever been on were after long periods of just willful abstinence.

Because lack of power is my dilemma. The book says, self reliance is good as far as it went, but it couldn't, and wouldn't, and cannot go far enough. It couldn't go far enough. I heard a speaker years ago who talked about he said he said, man, I kept quitting drinking and meaning it. He says, I quit drinking a lot.

Every time I quit drinking, I'd get drunker than ever. And he finally said, you know, this quit drinking is killing me. Boy, did I get that. I thought, yeah, man. Oh, I was tired.

I was worn out quitting drinking. I was worn out quitting drinking. Lack of power is my dilemma. That's the miracle of alcoholics. And here it's it's it says some interesting things.

It says assuming we are in fit spiritual condition. Now I'm not talking about a guy who's 30 days sober and has not worked the steps. Plea please hear that. This is not about that. This is about someone if you're doing the deal here, and you're working with a sponsor through this book, this is this should become your reality.

It says, assuming we can we're spiritually fit, we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do. People have said, we must not go where liquor is served. We must not have it in our homes. We must shun friends who drink. We must avoid moving pictures where they show drinking scenes.

We must not go into bars. Our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses. We mustn't think or be reminded about alcohol at at all. Our experience shows that this is not necessarily so. We meet these conditions every day.

And check this out. An alcoholic who cannot meet them still has an alcoholic mind. There is something the matter with his spiritual status. His only chance for sobriety would be something like the Greenland ice cap, and even there, an Eskimo would turn up with a bottle of Scotch and ruin everything. Ask any woman who has sent her husband to distant places on the theory he would escape his alcohol problem.

In our brief in our belief, any scheme of combating alcoholism which proposes to shield the sick man from temptation is doomed to failure. If the alcoholic tries to shield himself, he may succeed for a time, but he usually winds up with a bigger explosion than ever. We have tried these methods, These attempts to do the impossible have always failed. Boy, I know what they're talking about. You know, I just I'd like a show of hands.

How many people in this room, at some point in your life, have really tried to stay sober and made up your mind you weren't gonna drink again, and then drank again after that? Wow! If you're new, I hope you saw how many hands went up. I hope you understand that we are not this is not a fellowship where we fight the bottle. We have failed fighting the bottle.

I almost died because I was fighting in the wrong arena. I was fighting alcohol when I really need to fight alcoholism, this spiritual illness, this malady of my being. And ever since I stopped fighting the bottle and started dealing with the alcoholism, I've been continuously sober. And I tried for seven and a half years the other way, fighting in the wrong the wrong arena, and I kept getting drunk again over and over again. Or I or I backed myself into a corner, I would have to get on some kind of pills from a doctor because I was just so nuts emotionally.

I was fighting in the wrong arena, and I didn't know it. Because it makes if you're like me, it looks like and people counselors in your family will tell you alcohol's your problem. They always tell you that. You know, every time I ever ended up in a hospital or jail or when you're an alcoholic of my type, people start telling you what's wrong with you after a while. Matter of fact, they just volunteer.

They just show up wanting to tell you what's wrong with you. And no matter who it is, they pretty much say the same thing. And what they say is they'll say they'll get you somewhere, and you're all demoralized. They'll say, Bob, you know, you're really screwed up. And they go, yeah.

I know. You know why you're really screwed up? No, I don't. Well, you're really screwed up because you keep getting screwed up. If you didn't get so screwed up, you wouldn't be screwed up.

So if you'd stop getting screwed up, you wouldn't be screwed up. And I think, wow, I'm pretty screwed up. Maybe I should stop getting screwed up. And I'd stop getting screwed up. And when I stop getting screwed up, I get really screwed up.

I get so screwed up when I'm not getting screwed up. I eventually gotta go get screwed up. And then some guy's saying, Bob, you know you're really screwed up. And I go, yeah, I know. You know why you're screwed up?

Because I keep getting screwed up. Yeah. That's right. Okay. This time I mean it.

I'm not gonna get screwed up no more. I wouldn't get screwed up, and then I get really screwed up because I ain't getting screwed up. And I'd have to go get screwed up because I'm so screwed up when I don't get screwed up. And then when I get screwed up, I really get screwed up. Some guy saying, You know, you're really screwed up.

And I go, Yeah. I know. And that happened for years. And if you understood what I just said, you are an alcoholic because normal people just look at you like a deer in the headlight when you talk about that. Because it doesn't make sense to them, because it looks to them like alcohol's our problem.

Alcohol's not our problem. It never was. But if I stop working this program of Alcoholics Anonymous, what happens is yearning and the obsession to drink? Is it really an obsession with the beverage alcohol, or is it the obsession with the need for an effect? Is it the isn't it the obsession with the need for the medicine that doesn't work anymore, hoping it'll work again?

So this takes us down to the bottom of page 85. And I wanna talk a little bit about step 11. This step was very, very confusing to me. One of my problems I I have this kind of ego that is hideous. It's the kind of ego where I think I know stuff that I don't know.

As a matter of fact, there have been times in my life I knew so much stuff that wasn't true, I had no room to learn anything new. I'm one of those kind of guys that that have a hard time asking for directions. Anybody like that here? Yeah. You just, like, you can't ask for help, because you you think you need to know.

And so I self educate myself and feed all this pomp and all this intellectual stuff because I don't want to ever look like I don't know. I wanna be the guy who knows. So I, in early sobriety, I come to this part of the book on step 11, and I start reading it, and it confuses me because it doesn't match my pre preconceived notion of what step 11 should be. And here's what it says. In italics, it says step 11.

Step 11 suggests prayer and meditation. We shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer. Better men than we are are using it constantly. It works if we have the proper attitude and work at it. It would be easy to be vague about this matter of prayer meditation, yet we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions.

Okay. Buckle up. I'm ready. I want the definite I want you to tell me how to do step 11. And here's what it says.

When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should have been discussed with another person at once? Was I kind and loving towards all?

What could I have done better? Was I thinking of myself most of the time, or was I thinking of what I do for others? I'm reading this, and I'm thinking, wait a minute. This is not prayer and meditation. This is inventory.

This is self examination. This doesn't make any sense to me. Was this a misprint? Should this paragraph have been on the previous page? And it just confused me, and I just thought and I read on further down the page, and at least down in the second paragraph, it talks about a couple prayers, but there's nothing in here that matches my view of meditation.

I know about meditation. I had a mantra at one time for god's sakes. I've chanted in Nam nayoho or ringi kyo with the Buddhist. I've done the yoga, the breathing exercises. I've done the visualizations.

I've done the I've done all of that stuff. I know about I grew up in the sixties seventies, for God's sakes. I know about meditation. I've listened to Ravi Shankar, for God's sakes. I know about meditation.

And nothing in here matches my pre preconceived notion of what meditation is. So I didn't follow the directions. I discarded them because the great I am knows stuff. And so what I went out is I went on a a spiritual journey for my first 15 years or so of sobriety. You know, I want you to understand there's nothing wrong with this.

It matter of fact, further in the book, it says, be quick be quick to see where religious people are right. And so I started doing different chanting, and I started I went to different services, different places. I I started, I started doing some different meditation techniques. And and it's all good in addition to, but not in substitution for. And the mistake I made.

I I didn't do it in addition to what it talks about on page 86 and 87. I threw this away and did all that stuff. And I'm about I'm sober a while, like, I don't 15 or 17 years, I think. And a guy a guy came to me who I sponsored, who was sober a long time, and he said, I need some help with step 11. I don't know what to do.

And by this time, I I had done so many things, and they were they were all good, but not I couldn't really pick anything out and say this is it. I didn't know what to tell the guy. I had done the the prayer of Saint Francis. I I done a lot of stuff, over the years. So I said to him, just as a throwaway line, I said, well, why don't you just do what it talks about in step 10, 11 in the big book?

And that son of a gun started doing it. He actually started doing it. He didn't question it. He just started doing what it talks about on page 86 and 87. And in no time at all, he's doing better than I am.

And I hate that when that happens. I just I just hate that. And and so, I started doing it. I figured, what the heck? I've done everything else.

I started doing this. And after I'd been into it for a while, a guy I sponsor found dictionary from 1913. I have one at home that I've I've found in a bookstore from 1980 or from 18/86. And I think the period from about 18/90 through to about 1920, a dictionary anywhere in that time period, the English language, would give you a pretty good view of the language as it existed at the time that Bill Wilson formed his language skills. And as we looked up the definition of the word meditation, I was astounded.

And I realized that back in those days, it meant something different than what it meant today. Something happened in the English language in America in the 19 sixties early seventies with the advent of the Beatles, j Krishnamurti, Timothy Leary, Alan Watts, Aldous Huxley, some of the great teachers who had explored eastern philosophies and brought them into western culture, all of a sudden, the definition of the word meditation started to take on new meaning. But the example that it used in 1913 was amazing. It said, a general will meditate a war. Now listen to this.

On awakening, let us think about the 24 hours ahead. We consider our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self pity, dishonest, or self seeking motives. Under these conditions, we can employ our mental faculties with assurance, for after all, god gave us brains to use. Our thought life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

I could picture a general rising up early in the morning and looking out over his troops after he'd done what it talks about on the top of 86, after he had done an examination of his assets and liabilities. And calling, as it says in here, we ask God to divorce us from self pity, dishonest, self seeking motives. He's calling in his officers and he's saying, we have to divorce this day's march from these horses because they're lame. Barrels are warped, and these cannons are barrels are warped, and these cannons are warped, and that we can't take them into today's march. They just won't work.

Except in my case, it's not a battle against somebody else. It's a battle against self. And it's a battle against that propensity that is in me to run the show, to play God. And so I ask God because I don't have the power to remove these from today's march. I ask God to divorce my thinking from self pity, dishonest, or self seeking motives.

In the 12 by 12, in step 11, there's a line that when I read it, all of a sudden, I understood why this first paragraph on inventory was part of step 11. And it says in there that self examination, meditation, and prayer, when taken separately, can bring much relief and benefit. And that's true. They can. But then it goes on to say, but when they're logically related and interwoven, the result becomes an unshakable foundation for life.

I don't need relief. I'm a relief junkie. I need something more important. I I need freedom. Freedom from the bondage of self.

And I believe that step 10 and 11, inner locked, is a way of life, is designed to do one thing and one thing only. And that's to better enable me to live a life of someone who is serious about this decision I made in step 3. If I think that step 10 and 11 working together in my life is very similar to the tools that a sailor will use. If you were if you were, to go down to the harbor and you were to buy the best sailboat money could buy, and you were to go to the nautical library and you were to chart a perfect course for, let's say, the island of of of Iceland, and no matter how diligent you were on the first nine steps of navigation, you're gonna set out out of the harbor here, and you're gonna be perfectly on course for Iceland. But every single day, the winds and the tides and the currents are gonna move you off course.

It's not because you have a bad boat. It's not because you play with your tiller too much. It's just the way it is. Every single day, you're gonna be moved off course a little bit. The ocean is not punishing you.

It's just the way it is. And every single day, a sailor, in order to survive, will have to get out his sexton and compass, or maybe today it's his GPS, and take an honest, honest look at where he's gone and where he is. And he can't fully the book says we can't fool ourselves about values. You can't be delusional. You're really you're really somewhere over in Russia, but you think, why are the people in Iceland speaking Russian?

You know, you can't you can't delude yourself and and try to wrap reality into making it match what you think or like would be. You have to be honest about yourself and say to yourself every day, I've been selfish today. I I've been dishonest. I lied to those people. I I, I was thinking of my self most of the time.

I wasn't really thinking about others. I wasn't kind and loving towards all. There is something I should have talked to another person about. I should have talked to my sponsor about this thing that happened at work. Now I don't wanna go back to work.

I feel uncomfortable. And I start to clear away the things that have pulled me off course so that I can get back on course. And and one of the nice things it says here, and this has really been my experience, it says we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse, or morbid reflection for that would diminish our usefulness to others. This is not about beating yourself up for not being perfect. By the time you get to step 10, in your heart, there should be an acceptance of that you are imperfect, that you're gonna get out of line every day, that fear is gonna drive you off course, that you're no longer that you're never gonna ever once and for all have a perfect adherence to these principles, that we are not saints.

But it's my job to realign my course. And what happens if I don't do that is you can get so far out that you can't get back. And I've watched that over the years. I've watched guys that that don't work with a sponsor because maybe they're 5 years sober and they're smart now. Right?

They're smart guys. They don't need anybody to tell them what to do. They don't need accountability. I'm 5 years sober, for God's sakes. I'm a success.

I don't need the accountability. And step 10 is is find for people who are really sick and get out of line. And I'm I know God's there. I I say I I talk to him occasionally. That's enough for right now.

And without ever realizing it, they're moving so far off course that they're not even in the same hemisphere any more. And I've seen this I bet you I've seen it 2 dozen times over the years. There'll be some guy who's backed away from AA, backed away from state, doesn't do step 10, 11. He doesn't work with a sponsor. He's built a house of cards, a tremendous home and family and business, a big, big robust life built on self.

And then something happens. Maybe he catches his wife sleeping with someone else, or maybe the tax guy comes and wants to start taking everything because he hasn't been paying all his taxes, Or maybe he has a big reversal in business, and the whole house of cards starts to collapse. And then in a fear self centered, fear driven mode, he will be driven to an AA meeting, usually a discussion meeting. He will never go to a big book study or a speaker meeting at that point because he needs to share. And he'll run into this discussion meeting.

And the minute the chairman says, anybody have anything they need to talk about? His hand goes up. And he will dump on the room all of these problems that are just eating his lunch as if he's expecting advice from the AA group. If you've ever tried to get advice from an AA group, it's like trying to take a drink of water from a fire hose. I mean, you'll sit there, and all of a sudden, everybody is sharing at you.

And it's like it's like, eventually, you watch these guys about 3 quarters through the meeting. They they can't take it anymore. They'll bolt out of the meeting and leave the meeting spinning on their problem. And some of those guys, they they can't get back. They're too entrenched in themselves, in their judgments, in the things they wanna be right about.

Every every friendly bit of advice is a threat to them because they're in charge. And the sad part is that they don't even know that that's what's going on. It looks to them like everybody around them is attacking them, whether they're trying to be helped or not. They have rendered themselves unhelpable. Too much self.

What happens is is I I'll get too much of me between me and you that you can't help me. I'll get too much of me between me and God, and God can't help me. I'll get too much of me between me and AA, and AA can't help me. And I'm all alone, lost at sea. And so I stay current with my sponsor.

I try to on a regular basis, I I don't know that I I don't do it every day. I I went through periods where I would do it every day. Now it's a little more sporadic, but I don't think there's I don't think there's 2 I don't think there's ever 3 days that go by where I don't take an inventory. I'm I'm reasonably comfortable, and I'll tell you what I do do. The minute I start getting whacked and I start getting really crazy, I get real serious.

I just back in January, I was I took a little vacation, 4 through 9, while I was there. And I will do that, 4 through 9 while I was there. And I will do that periodically. And, the reason I do that is that I I don't beat myself up for this. It's just who I am.

I am the person that is not gonna be a 100% diligent with step 10 and 11 every day. I'm just not. Now if I'm real uncomfortable, I'll get pretty serious about inventory. But what happens to me, and I think this happens to a lot of us, it's you there's some you've been selfish, and you've been a little dishonest over here, and you've had a couple little resentments, but they're no big deal. It's night, you're retiring, you're going to bed, you just say, it's okay.

You sweep it under the bed, and you go to sleep. It's so easy to do that. How many days do you go how many nights have you gone to sleep, and you've never stopped to find out if you've had a resentment? Or maybe you think to yourself, no. I'm fine.

Do you realize that there's never been a day that you've been alive where you haven't been self centered? Really? Could you I I hear people every once in a while meeting say, oh, yeah. I'm no longer self centered. I always wanna look for the lobotomy scars.

I mean, you know, how did you do that? I mean I can't imagine that. Imagine going through a day and never being selfish, never being dishonest? That's so I just not too long ago, I I caught myself in this I catch myself in these lies all the time. I I bought this car that my ego is overly fond of.

Sometimes I feed the wrong dog, I'll tell you. And so and and within one day, I lied twice to 2 different people about what I paid for that car. And and and they were at both extremes. The one person I told I paid more than what I actually paid. I had to tell him the full sticker price.

Oh, I didn't pay the full. I paid a lot less than that. And then the other guy, I told him about 10% below what I paid for it. And the one guy, I told him full sticker price because I I what I didn't I was feeling vacant, and I wanted him to think I was a big shot. And the other guy, I told him I paid less than what I paid, because I wanted him to think I'm smart and know how to get a good deal.

But it's all self grandizing stuff. And why am I why am I lying to these people? Because at that moment, I'm afraid. I am afraid that as is, I am not enough, that I have to enhance self in order to be even. Right?

So I try to make myself and the minute you the minute you do that, you don't feel even, you feel phony. Right? I didn't feel even. I felt like I I felt it was awful. It was awful.

But I'm not gonna clean that up because I think they need to think those things. See? The rationalizations never end. They never end. Oh, man.

Couple points, and then I'm gonna quit. In thinking about our day, we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take. Here we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought or decision. We relax.

We take it easy. We don't struggle. We are often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while, if you relax. That one of the meditations I did years ago was a prayer that I got off a friend of mine who was a a Franciscan, and it was a prayer that he told me that was used for, quadriplegics. And it was simply it was called I am the place.

And I would just every morning, I would say to myself, I am the place where God shines through. Him and I are 1, not 2. I need not worry, fret, or plan. He wants me where and as I am. And if I be And that would just that's a nice prayer.

Just a poem. It just centers me. See, I don't I don't need God's will right now. Relax. Take it easy.

Let it come to you like like jetsamore, floatsamore a river. It always comes. It always comes if you take it easy. I fought the clock, and I fought time all my life. It seemed like I lived on edge of just wanting to nothing was coming quick enough for me quick enough for me.