Step workshop in Grant's Pass, OR

A certain knowledge that I would remain useful in this program. And I told you yesterday of the trouble I had with this feeling that I didn't belong, that it was very strong with me, and I suffered from it. And I just haven't. Well, the 12 and 12 tells me this. Perhaps one of the greatest rewards of meditation and prayer is a sense of belonging that comes to us.

We are no longer live in a completely hostile world. We are no longer lost and frightened and purposeless. The moment we catch even a glimpse of God's will, the moment we begin to see truth, justice, and love as the real and eternal things in life, We are no longer deeply disturbed by all the seeming evidence to the contrary that surrounds us in purely human affairs. We know that god lovingly watches over us. We know that when we return to him, all will be well with us here and hereafter.

And it really isn't so much that Don and and the rest of you do me the the honor, the great honor of being here with you for the weekend. The fact of the matter is I belong here. I'm a member. It's okay for me to be here. It's alright for me to be here.

I fit in here. I'm entitled to be here, god's sake. I'm a member of our house, and I was like, can I be here? Because that sense of belonging has come. When I say my name, as I do, and I tell you that I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and a member of the Miami Men's Group of Alcoholics Anonymous.

What I'm really telling you is who I am and what I am, where I belong. And that's important to me because for many years, I didn't seem to belong anywhere. There's a poem in here in AA comes of comes of age. Very much describes me. I learned this poem when I was in high school.

It was read it's, written by a very well known Catholic poet of 18th century England. His name was Francis Thompson. And Francis, in addition to being a poet, was a failed cleric. He had taken orders in the Catholic church, but he had failed. He was also an opium addict and an alcoholic, and he went from being a cleric to living in the worst worst part of London.

And he was born to a good family, And he writes a poem describing his relationship with God, and the poetic imagery he used is unusual. He pictured God as a large dog, a hound, and he called his poem the hound of heaven. And he pictured himself trying to get away from god, this large dog, and everywhere he went, the dog kept following. And this is what he said, and and this is me. He said, I fled him down the nights and down the days.

I fled him down the arches of the years. I fled him down the labyrinth and ways of my own mind. And in the midst of tears, I hid from him. And under running laughter up visted hopes I sped and shot precipitated down titanic grooms of chasm fears. To avoid those strong feet that followed followed after me.

And he describes God, he says, with unhurrying chase and unprepared pace, with deliberate speed and majestic instant. They beat and a voice beat more instant than the beat. All things betray thee who betray me, and he has this dog following him. It's too long. I can't review the whole thing.

But he finally comes face to face with this hound, And the hound speaks to him and says to him, and this is exactly my case, god says to Francis, all which I took from thee, I did but take, not for your harm, but just that you might seek it in my arm. All which your child's mistake fancies loss I have stored for the at home. Rise. Take take my hand and come. See, I thought that everything I had was lost.

I thought that. I thought everything I had was gone. I thought everything had been taken from me, and it had. You know, my my ability to be a law teacher, my opportunity to to do that, my sweet relationships with my children and my family, my loss of my friends, all the other things. I thought we're gone, and we're gone for all time.

And it wasn't true at all because I got them all back here. And he took them. As it says, he stored them for me at home. And finally, God speaks his last words to Francis because he's got Francis backed into a a position where he can't get away from him. And he looks at Francis, and he says to him, ah, fondest, blindest, weakest.

I am he whom mouth seeketh. And I think that poem very much expresses my experience with prayer and meditation, with the seeking of an understanding to improve my conscious contact with God. I do not understand God. I am not a theologian. I have no knowledge in that area, but I have an an effective understanding, and that is the power that came into my life, came into your life, brought us together for a meeting such as this.

It has guided my life for more than 25 years, has given to me everything that I thought I'd love, has restored me to a place in in the in the scheme of things where I am at home, and I do belong. And my understanding is that this power has brought destiny through you. Through those wonderful old Irishmen that were there at the group, my first one, through my sponsor. Because we, you and I, are the instruments that he uses. It certainly isn't the coffee, not the tables and the chairs.

It's the power, which I read to you yesterday is within us. You have some. I have some. Individually, we have none, but we together are very, very powerful, and it is no less no less than the power of god. And on the 11th step, I leave you with the words of the book.

On the 11th step, at the end of its discussion, our book says this, it works. It really does. Thank I have some announcements in addition to the tapes, which are available here. Of course, everything I've said is is covered in my book, humility and beyond. I also have a 12 volume series as Ray sees it.

Like, yeah. I came in alcohols anonymous, like, all of us, I suppose, to stop drinking. I did not come into alcohols to become a Christ like figure or a spiritual giant. It just sort of worked out that way. In the book Alcoholics Anonymous, it says, see to it that your relationship with him is right, and great events will come to pass for you and countless others.

And before I end all of this, I have to tell you that I consider this weekend to be a great event. That has certainly come to pass for me, and I hope for others. Last night, basically, I think what I was trying to talk about, I never know how it's gonna come out, was a communication with god through prayer, through meditation, Time to get knowledge of God's will for us, I don't suppose, that I will ever know God's will. I don't know God's will, and I don't know who does. I don't even know if it's possible to know God's word.

But I certainly know where I've been all this time. I know what's happened, and I know that, that that saved my life and allowed me to be useful to the program of alcohol. Don and I were talking yesterday. We're both very, very fortunate because we've each found a niche place in life where we really enjoy what we do. My teaching is really just sort of a full time teaching.

It's 6 hours a week. I spend all my time in our colleagues now. We're both allowed to do that, I think. And I consider it to be a great gift because I have really spent this time trying to find out what God's will is. I don't know what that what that is.

But I do know where the power to carry it out is. That's at the meetings of our correspondence. Because in the meetings of our correspondence is the power by which I live my life. It's a very simple thing to come to a meeting of our core. I don't just go around the country and talk.

I go to 7 or 8 meetings a week doing math for a long time because that's where the power is. Today or this morning, we talked about the 12th step, which, of course, is the last and the ultimate step. And it says that the men and women who founded this program had a spiritual awakening as the result of these stuff. This is it. This is the result.

Spiritual awakening. There is no other result. Now when I first came here, I had no interest whatever in spiritual awakening. In fact, I don't think I'd ever heard heard the term. I know the words.

I mean, I know the English language, but I don't think I've ever heard that term. And he said to me very early on that I would have a spiritual awakening. He said that. And I told him I don't need one of those. What I need is money.

And he said, well, you just go to the meetings, and we'll see about that. The 12 and 12 has a a discretion of the spiritual awakening, which I always thought fit me pretty good. In this, it says, maybe there are as many definitions of spiritual awakening as there are people who have had them, but, certainly, each genuine one has something in common with all the others. And these things which they have in common are not too hard to understand. When a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that he has now become able to do, feel, and believe that which he could not do before on his unaided strength and resources alone.

He has been granted a gift, which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being. He's been set on a path which tells him he's really going somewhere. The life is not a dead end, not something to be endured or mastered. In a very real sense, he has been transformed because he has laid hold of a source of strength, which, in one way or the other, he had hitherto denied himself. He finds himself in possession of a degree of honesty, tolerance, unselfishness, peace of mind, and love, of which he had thought himself quite incapable.

What he has received is a free gift, and yet, usually, at least in some small part, he has made himself ready to receive it. And I think that's that was true in my case. In the appendix to the big book when the big book was first published, And it had these steps, and it had the discussion in the book about Bill's experience in hospital room and all of that. After a little time had gone by, and the book was in sort of general circulation, the little office they had in New York began to get letters, and the letters were coming from all over the country. And there was the letter said something like this.

It said, here we are out in Dumpfville, Kansas, and there are 5 of us, and we're meeting twice a week in the church. And the room has not lit up yet. What are we doing wrong? Please advise. You know?

And these letters were considerable. People were waiting for the wind to blow, and the only time the wind blew is when I was in town. And so in the 2nd edition and in the 3rd edition, which I have in front of me, they put in appendix a. Appendix a is in there to show the difference between a spiritual experience and a spiritual awakening. They define a spiritual experience to be exactly what happened to Bill, a sudden, unasked for uncontrollable phenomena.

The room lights up. Wind blows. We have a book in our forex. I'm just quoting came to believe. Many people don't read much about that book.

That whole book is a description of a variety of spiritual experiences that individual members have had over the years. I have had a number of spiritual experience, real ones. When I first the first one I had scared the life out of it, but I've had a lot to. And I really I just don't trust them. You know, they come and they go, it's very nice.

Once you're used to it, it's very nice. You know? I see things. I hear things. I mean, it might be just schizophrenia for all I know, but it doesn't embarrass me to talk about it.

I see things and hear things It's interesting, but it's not what the step is about. The step then go the appendix then goes on to explain the virtual awakening. And they they explain it in educational terms. They say, and they quote James, and they say it's of the educational variety. That is to say, you get it grade by grade as we have been educated.

You and I, we go from 1st grade through to the end. And each year, we learn a little more. And in our context, it's step by step until you get to the very end of them. The result is this. It goes on to say that what they really have in mind is a profound alteration in our reaction to life, How we react, we react differently.

And, you know, they say all the time, he sees things differently. We react differently. Used to in my, you know, drunken days, if you, you didn't like my tie and told me that, I would feel justified burning down your house with your children in it because that's how I'd react there. Right. Son of a bitch.

You know? And I tell you nasty and all. We react. I react differently now. I see it different.

Book says of people who are offensive, they are sick people. Whole different reactions. Like and this is what we get. We don't get, doesn't say a word in here about job, money, or family, lovers, cars, or airplanes. Now I suppose if I when I was new, that's what I wished it had said.

You know? As a result of these steps, we got our jobs back, our families back, the house is back, the mortgage paid off, the partners buy it now. Not it. What we get is this, and, it's really alright too. I don't think I was ever so so bad in the sense that I don't think I was ever evil.

I was just made a lot of mistakes, a lot of errors and judgment, things like that. And I behaved fairly outrageously the way we all did. And what it amounts to is what I I mentioned in the first session we had here, that the good in me, whatever that is, was just covered over with layers of defects. And that good, which is the spirit, which is part of God, I think. As the book says, deep down deep down in every man, child, that basic guy in notion.

And that deep down in me was covered over. And so as I went through this program, I went through the steps with the hub of sponsoring the group, layer by layer, the defects and the shortcomings were exposed and dealt with. The amends were made. Finally, those promises that are in book and the discussion of the night stuff began to flow into my life. So I knew a new freedom and a new happiness.

And in my case, those were brand new because I never had a freedom, and I never had happiness. I had pleasure. Lots of time. Pleasure. Getting laid is pleasure.

Happiness is a different thing. It's an ongoing. Thing. And now I can say to you that I I live a life and, I experience happiness practically. Very happy with my life.

I'm content. There's nothing that I would change. There is no one or any or any institution that has anything I want from them. It. I just don't want I want what I have, and I wanna be a member of our course now.

That's good enough for me. It's good enough for me so long. And oddly enough and and selfishly enough, I found out that by being a member of alcohol, I got all the rest. You know, I was born with nothing. I really was born with nothing.

I came here with nothing. Now I really think I have it. Amazing. That's why every day of my life, I'm conscious of the power, mercy, and gifts of God. Once again, I'm not a religious person.

If anything, I'm a earthy person. I like pleasure. I like good food, good places. Women, gong, don't use wine. And that's all a different attitude than ever I had.

Because now when I have pleasure, when I have happiness, I'm happy to share it. And this is the merit message that we have to carry. It says, carry this This mess. The message of Alcoholics Anonymous is the message of the spiritual awakening and nothing less than that. I have an obligation.

I feel that no one has appointed me. Well, they should to make sure, at least in my case, that there is no dilution of the mess I think, my opinion, that anyone who sponsors someone and tells them they will get a job, that she will come back or he will come back, that the legal difficulties will go away is absolutely full of shit. You don't know that. There's no indication of that in the program. Maybe it will and maybe it won't.

The book is very, very clear on it. In working with others, the book says, job or no job, wife or no wife, let no man say that he will not become sober until his family comes back. Goes on to say, we have seen men whose families came back and they got drunk, and we have seen men who have never regained their families and they. And it starts off by saying, let no man say that. Don't even let him say it.

A woman came up to me. I I I intimidate people. The lady came up to me in Florida before I moved up to Michigan, And she said, do you speak to women? I said, sir, you speak to women. What do you want?

So I like to meet you and talk to you next week. I said, alright. I'll come here early. I'll come here early, and you can talk. I said, well, I wanna tell you something.

You what? I don't wanna hear about your husband, your children, or your job. He said, what else is there to talk about? I said, goodbye. And I came back the next week, and she wasn't let nobody say it.

I don't even let them say it. It wasn't her. It's anybody. My you know, people I sponsor asked on. I hold on my hand like a traffic cop.

Not important. Not important. And you know how to a new person, it is important. I know that. But you see they get this track.

The legal troubles go away and they go I'm off the hook. Bang. Girlfriend comes back. Back in the saddle again. Bang.

No good. And it's difficult. Really, it's a difficult thing in my experience. It's a difficult thing as my sponsor found it with me to carry this message? But the English language is the English language it says.

Exactly what it says. I don't make these words up. This is the message we have to carry, that there will be a change in the reaction to life. That change will enable this new person to live as you and I live without not only the testing, nothing, but to be usefully as a public health care, usefully, happily, whole whole life. And the the step goes on to say we carry this message to our quality.

I know I'm gonna offend somebody too bad the English language. I have no message for someone who's not an alcoholic, nor am I. As carry me to anyone who is not an alcoholic. This program is called Alcoholics Anonymous. The name, I wanna give you a clue as to who gets help here.

A lot of nonalcoholic. A lot of nonalcoholic compound. Usually, in the general case, they are sent here by treatment because alcohol works and most of the other anonymouses are not so affected. Plus the hospitals usually only have the one van. Everybody in the van, here we go.

They go, yeah, Amy. All your overeaters get over here, and the gambler's over there. We only have the one van. They're not running they're not running a fleet. Everybody in the one van belongs to the meeting.

And so we get a lot of nonalcoholics here. And we have a pamphlet on this called problems other than alcohol, which is a reprint of an article written by no less than Bill Wilson. And it's very clear that our program is for alcohol. That is not to say and I'm not an AA hard ass. I'm really not.

I don't stand at the door and give saliva test and, you know, to determine who's a real alcoholic and who isn't. I don't give a shit. Let them all come in here. Well, like, I said before, we're like a big self cleaning oven. Let it all come in.

And you look around a couple years later, and they're all gone away because this is not really the place for them. It will not hurt them. It's like it'll help them. Nobody is hurt if they come and run out of cocaine and, like, you know, the drug addict. This won't hurt them.

It won't help. My experience is they won't stay though. And my experience is that they will not have spiritual awakening the same way I do because this program is for our economy. And the underlying error, and it is a great error, is this is this is a lie. This is a lie.

That treatment center. That one addiction, that's all. It is not true chemically. It is not true medically, Certainly, it's not true in recovery. Talking about different diseases.

If you go out to your local supermarket right now, bring me back a 100 people. 1st 100 you meet, bring them back there. Give me unlimited drugs. Go away. You come back a month later.

I will give you 100 stone who will do anything I tell them in order to get you. You do the same thing. You get the same 100. Give me unlimited alcohol. You come back 30 days later.

I will be lucky if I can give you 8 alcohol. Doctor Jelinek, this disease used to call Jelinek's disease. Jelinek was the head of the Yale School of Alcoholic Studies, which is now at Rutgers. And Jelinek, who was not an alcoholic, told 2 of his associates he was gonna be in order to really study the disease. And Jelenic went out, and he got himself a lifetime supply of booze, and he started to drink it.

He got drunk. He passed out. He blacked out. He's shit in his pants, and he never wanted another drink as long as he lives. He wrote it up.

He didn't write it up that way, but he wrote it up. He never wanted to see alcohol again. Now that's not us. Right? Any more left?

You know? What do you mean it's all gone? Jesus. Get the car. Get somebody.

Get some you know, we gotta get more of this shit. That's not us. You know, we have sticktutiveness. They go up to that bartender in the morning. So you got any more of that shit you sold me last night?

You know that crap that wrecked the car, wrecked my marriage, lost my license to practice law, put me in jail, and say, you got any more of that shit? I'll have I'll have a triple. You know? See, we have a part of our disease that thinks that way, and the addicts do not. They don't happen.

They don't. Anybody can become an alcohol addict, but it takes sick to the business assumption. And the message is for alcohol. That's it. I mean, it's in the English language.

Our tradition say that. Our 5th tradition says our primary purpose is to carry the message through the alcohol. Now it's not as though the founders of this program were not aware of the problem. Doctor Bob was addicted to barbiturate. He called him goofball.

He knew about it. When the first when the first edition of the book were written before it was written, I have a copy of it. It. I don't know if you've ever seen this thing that floats around. It's a mimeograph form that they had before they had a printing.

They had a mimeograph form of the book which circulated around the numbers and it was basically a draft. And the 12th step read, we carry this message to others, comma, including alcoholic, comma, and practices and all. Okay? It was right in there. And we know as lawyers, and you know legislative history in statutory construction.

They had it right in front of him, and they took it out. And Bill said, and he says again in his article in Grapevine and his pamphlet work with others, we have a singleness of my message for the alcohol. I'm believe me. I'm not putting anybody down if you're a drug addict or drug. I wish you well.

I wish you everything. But the fact of the matter is you're not gonna get why that is so? Do not know. Why the other programs are not as effective as this? I do not know.

I've only been to 1 or 2 or 3 of those other kind of meetings. I don't know. But my purpose carries this money. I am not a social worker. I'm not a marital counselor.

I'm not a first aid physician. Not the local bank. Now from time at at time to time, you'll end up to being all of that as we all know, But that's not the purpose of it. It says in the book, well, you know, sometimes you gotta take them in the house. And Don always had somebody's house Besides 8 children, a wife, an English sheepdog, an organ, and a 3 ring circus, and a nanny.

That's an insight. But I'm not a social worker. You know? I'm not. And I don't I don't try to be a hard ass, but people who deal with me in the context of the program, no.

That's all I'm I'm in business. I'm not interested. I forbid them to telephone. I don't know who I am, but they they always ask me to respond. I don't know why.

I don't wanna call me because it's so easy to lie. I got no meaning. If you wanna see me, you can get to the happy. Don't worry. Don't call.

I'm very busy. Very busy reading a book on my phone. But it's so simple, a lie over the phone. Right? My wife is taking jacking.

Me. The the only reason they call me is to tell me why they can't go. Because they know I'm going and now they wanna k? I wanna hear that shit. Either they go and fuck.

They don't wanna go. Fine. I'm with them. I was going someone told him that most of the steps slips and I'm not sure if it takes you. Most of the all of these clips and not go to the occasion might not go to meetings.

Now they're not going to meetings maybe caused by you know, if the guy's got a choice to get him later, go on a meeting. You gotta really think about that one. Oh, there's a meeting tomorrow, isn't it? I mean, I'm like, Jesus. This is now.

This is that requires some operation in the mind. For me, it's meeting meeting meeting. And the book is very clear on this. No conditional sobriety. You know what I mean?

Sobriety with a condition. I'll be sober if I get the job. I'll be sober if I get the girl. I'll be sober if I get the money. I'll be sober if my kids can get a job.

No way. It says you must be willing to go to any and most of us, and I'm certainly included in that, came here with a lot of old ideas. A lot of old ideas. And when you have an ego like mine, I never thought any idea was worthwhile unless I had it first. And since I had covered everything in my mind and everything was settled, I don't wanna hear about what you and it wasn't a question of learning so much.

It was a question of unlearned. And the unlearning, I learned and experienced was because I had a sponsor. And I would go to him with my problem. Oh, family, money, job. You know?

I know I'm no different. I was a great whiner. I went through stages, whining 1 and whining 2. But his answer to me was always the same. And and it was like people would be now.

I don't know why they asked me anything. I told So, well, how you know, I'd like to get a new a better job. How do you do that? You say more spiritual? And the 1212 says, the answer to all of our problems, all of them, is more spiritual.

I'll tell you, well, how do how do I develop more spiritual? He said, why don't you mock that floral? Why don't you go make coffee for the group? Why don't you find somebody to give him a ride to a meeting, ride home? Like, get a pigeon, get a new car.

That's how you develop. Get out. New people. New people all the time. You see me where I live and sort of me she'll tell me by myself.

Always 2, 3. I make them yeah. I make I make them be chauffeurs. Like, drive me around. You'll pick me up.

I'll get the guy with the best. You was the link to that. Oh, it's not an airport. Here he comes. There's method to it all.

More. They're worried about being on an airport plane. I have to worry. Worry about me. Fuck.

Group. They get there early. Get in the inside part of the group. You know? People complain.

That group's full of collective. Of course it is. So the people who do all the work. That's the click. You wanna get in?

Simple. So I grab a mop and stop mopping the goddamn floor. Everybody's gonna love you. Make the coffee and the physical stuff. Set up the chairs and tanks.

This is carrying. K. This is important as what I'm doing right now. Somebody had a set of some somebody had. John did all the work.

John did all the work. You know? Somebody had a ring. Nice coffee. He put the guy to serve him breakfast and wine.

Probably the wrong occupation. We got Hendrickson over there looking like a matrix d. I mean, what the hell is this? We could take the whole world over tomorrow morning. Run it well if if you're.

That's And it is not that's not such a big deal. And the book says we absolutely insist on having good times. Book says we insist on having good times. There's a great deal of humor and fun in it. Because I think it's a 3 ring circuit.

I love it. When I was in New York one time, I took a friend of mine, not an alcoholic, to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous where I was speaking. And I spoke. I gave him the usual stuff. We're on the way out.

He said to the guy, how do you like that? He said, they're laughing in all the wrong places. So it's not with these people. He said, you're you're losing your job and pissing in your bed and throwing up, and they think it's very funny. I said, that's because they all did no.

No. No. Because he's not he hasn't had ours. Then it goes on to say that. We are to practice principle all our What an order.

Go through this. Do not be discouraged. No one among us is able to practice. No one. Bill Wilson, Bob Smith.

Maybe me, but nobody else. No. And, you know, I and I have met 100 and 100 of people who say that say, I was once in a year. I was raised. My parents' church dedicated to be someone.

But I got into the way. All my friends broke the road and stopped doing quality. So I came down, and I've and now I have all my. So I've I've heard very common. In my case, I never had any principles.

Never. I was not raised on principal. I'm not knocking. Mother who raised me, The rest of my family raised me. I we just not I just not operate on.

We operate on need and expedience. Oftentimes when I was young, my mother would say to my brother and I, go get them. She meant go get milk. She did not necessarily mean go purchase. She meant go get it, and my brother and I will go get it.

We We needed the milk. Now we're all good. No milk. It's like like a big problem. I was not raised on on Christmas, and I went through life now.

I went through life on principle of self will That I would get out of that neighborhood, and I would get out of that environment. I would. Oh, yeah. And if I had a license deal to do it, and I did. And I I do alcohol economics with that background, plus the alcohol isn't.

So it was very, very difficult. In the beginning, of course in the beginning of quest I wanted to borrow my sponsor's prints. My sponsor was a fellow princess. He was a gentleman. He was a big time lawyer, and he he was a gentleman.

And I used to think, well, he's gonna live like that because he has a lot of money. It's easy that prints where you got money. Behind it. Uh-huh. I I very rarely ever heard him swear.

He just I kinda regret. I respected him enormously as I still do. And I wanted to have his principles. I told him, you know, give me some principles. He said they were his principles, and he was using them.

So you'll learn something around here. Just we have a way of doing things you'll learn. Of course, he was right. Some of the principles are are so obvious that I I don't even guess them. The ones I read from the 1212, the ones we all know about, they're obvious given honesty, open minded, willing, tolerance, that kind of stuff.

It's, you know, simple. I found out that the the truth is good enough. You know what I mean? The truth is good enough. Somebody asked them tell me the truth.

That's good enough. I have to collaborate on it, give them a lot of horseshit and a lot of lies and a lot of of rationalization. It's telling me to Seems to serve a whole new approach to things. I've discovered and these are my own principles. I don't know whether these would be of ever of any value to you, but they these are things that have just come to me over the time I've been here, and I I I consider them to be principles.

Principle is something as you probably know, principles is something that is always true. Rules change. A principle remains true. Gravity is a principle. When I was a kid going through the Catholic system, we were not allowed to eat meat on Friday.

Then one day, the pope had a dream or something, and he said, there's been a misunderstanding. It's the way the Catholic church does it. He said for the last 1200 years, there's been a misunderstanding. That has never been the rule. It wasn't a question of changing the rule.

He said that never was the rule. So please feel free to leave me there on Friday till the whole world did except for my mother. But that's the rule. They they just changed. Rule changed all they announced.

I was never a real lawyer. You know, here's the rule. The case is reversed. There's a new rule, there's a new doctrine, This is that, depending on the personal report. Principles stay true all the time.

Always. Gravity is true here. Gravity is true on the moon. Einstein was right. That's it.

That's not correct. That's true without. So I I had to develop sort of my own principles, really. And my sponsor would would help. And the first rule I ever got from him, and I consider this to be the greatest principle I've ever encountered, And it's probably not in theology or or lots of areas.

Mind, your own bucket. That is a basic principle. Now we are I am. I drive up to a meeting with him and I see this jerk with parking. See, look look at that.

See that over there? He's parking on the grass. Look at whose car is this? I owe you. Move your car.

My son. What the hell are you scared? That affect the way you live? That's something to do with your life? Mind your own business.

I said, yeah. He's violent. You know, that's against the police. You're not a cop. Nobody appoints me.

I'm gonna charge your partner. Go sit down. Or if you don't like the way they get out here with a flashlight and tell them show them where the fuck don't mind your own Uh-huh. Or some speaker would get up and say something I didn't like. So I wouldn't go up and shake his hand and walk in line.

Okay. You hear what he said? Oh, and we'd be night after night after night. Because that's the way I am. I'm out there to care of everything.

He's violating the entire rules. What's that now? He's got a regular old cut off jeans he needs to shave. Hey, you. Get over here.

You know? Listen, you know, this dog all sound. We don't run around like bombs here. What the hell is this? You know?

There's a chapter in the book on a fire. Who the hell are you to be a police? Little by little. I guess, maybe at the age, you get mellow. But it's a great save me.

It's now it saves us. Really does. And I think it's the basic underlying principle of the trans. I accept things that I connect. That's I mean, that's you.

I I gotta I change what I can. And the difference is just music. Right? Part of my business or your business? Joe, I'm out unless you ask.

I volunteer. We all know his lawyer. You know the status. I haven't. We have a guy in our group in Florida.

He's a very nice fellow, and he goes to one meeting a month. Alright. Sober. You live in the night. Right?

Well, what am I to tell him? You have to go to 7. He likes 1 meeting a month. And I'm like this. When he comes, I'm happy.

And one of the people the other people in the group down there, we're gonna have one of these stupid business. So I don't know if that guy's really a member of this group. I don't know if he can vote here. Well, could he have a birthday here after all? You know?

Say it's alright. You know, an AA business meeting, they start World War 3 over whether they should buy the sweet and low and the packages are in the bulk. I recommend that principle to you. I'll tell you the greatest the greatest principle that that I know. I've already mentioned.

Of course. That is the principle god God, which is a corollary of God. Based on my experience, people are palatable. People have let me down. I have relied on people as have we all for a serious purpose.

And even more sadly, people have relied on me. And I'm sad to say that people have relied on me. And for one reason or the other, omission, omission, whatsoever. I've let them know. I know.

I've tried. And I have learned from experience. People are. And if I depend upon you for my sobriety as I oftentimes do, I'm running contrary to the basic stuff of the book that no human power can relieve me. If I put my sobriety into your hand, I make a great mistake.

I tell a story about a fellow we had Don and I had in our group in New York named Peter. Peter was a low bottom drunk. Little guy had some something wrong with his eyelids. They drooped. He had tried to be a jockey because he was that size.

Buddy got drunk, and they threw him off the racetrack. He was a dishwasher in one of the lower local lousy restaurants. Terrible place. Greasy sandwich. Peter Wash the dish.

And he came to AA. He came that first time. He had 2 black eyes because he explained to the owner of this restaurant that the owner didn't know how to run a restaurant or something, so the owner belted him a couple of times and threw him on the street. And Peter stopped drinking. He stopped drinking.

He lived in this rat hole. We used to call it the house beautiful. All the all the caddies from the golf course live there. And Peter had a room in the shit, but he stopped drinking. And he's so welcoming me because he didn't have any transportation.

So I, off times, would pick him up, take instead of me, take him off. And he got another job. He was working as a maintenance guy. Saved up all his money. And this is in the days when CB was very popular.

So I had one. And Peter bought a portable CB, and he used to walk around talking to in it like he's driving a truck or something. But it was it was very interesting. You see him walk around this town, 10 core, 10 core. And then he saved some more money, and all he wanted really was to be somebody driving the car and talking.

That's why he liked me. I had a car with a filter. He didn't get on Jesus. He'd jump in the car and he'd go crazy with the mic. And he finally got a moped.

That's all the guy could afford. He got a moped, and he got some arrangement. And he put his portable CD on his moped, And Peter was like a pig in shit. And he was going to meetings all the time, but the main interest of Peter's lab was the moped with the radio. He'd bring it in, you know, so he wouldn't put it in the parking lot something to do.