Step 10 and 11 at the CPH12 v9 convention in Copenhagen, Denmark

Okay. We are gonna get started. We've been, Doug and I have been up here for the whole weekend basically talking about, sober living, really, is what we've been talking about. You know, the recovery process and how the recovery process is gonna help us, live a sober life. It says in the book that we're granted a daily contingency.

Our our alcoholism is is is put in remission at on a, based on a daily contingency that we maintain our spiritual condition. Now, one of the questions I've always kind of debated with myself is how much is my part and how much is God's part as far as recovery from alcoholism? What there's there's a I'm always quoting the 12 and 12 this week, and it's pretty bizarre. But there's a quote in this book that basically says, God will not render us white as snow without our cooperation. So if if we're going to get and stay sober, we must cooperate with the recovery process.

God is ultimately responsible for the removal of our obsession of the mind. However, we need to participate in the recovery process. How then shall we participate? Well, well, the 12 steps, certainly give us some guiding principles in how we participate. Steps 10 steps 10, I see as a reactive step.

Step 10 is as we move through the day, how do we react? If we become angry at somebody, if we become fearful, it gives us, it gives us adaptability. It gives us reactivity as far as using the principles of the program. How do we how do we, how do we react? And we need to pay attention to that because, we can get really off the beam by reacting incorrectly to situations in our life.

And when we get off the beam, that causes us suffering. It just really does. So much of our suffering is really self inflicted because we're not practicing or living, spiritual principles in our life. As we, as we gain sobriety and as we move into recovery year by year, I believe that it gets more difficult. Now, I'll give you a couple of reasons for that.

One of them is is I think, I think as we get more and more sober, we pay a larger price for our spiritual transgressions. I I came into AA lying, cheating, and stealing. I mean, I you know, you could you could tell I was being dishonest because I was talking to you. And, that's how you could tell. And and as I started to get more and more sober, I started to become more and more honest.

Now I used to live by the lie. I I'd tell lies when there was no no reason to do it. Well, where were you yesterday? Topeka. I could have said I was home.

It made no difference to anybody, but I had to I had to, like, you know, I was, like, always lying. And then I'd forget my lies, and I'd have to I'd I'd I'd over lie, which is like lie twice and neither one of them can are compatible with each other. And, you know, I'd kinda get caught, and then I'd try to get out of that with a lie. Now that's just the way I was. Now I I get into sobriety, and 6 months into sobriety, if I tell the slightest slightest lie, I I would pay this huge price.

I used to live by the lie. And and so so so I I think the road gets a little bit narrower. Now another thing that you see in Alcoholics Anonymous, and I believe this is because people don't maintain the discipline of practicing these, these principles, especially 10, 11, and 12, is we lose half of the fellowship every 5 years. Now what I've seen, and you can you can do it yourself. Do you give out coins for years of sobriety here?

You do. Okay. Keep track of the coins that you buy. You know, keep track of how many 90 day coins, how many 1 year coins, how many 10 year, how many 20 year coins, and you'll see just how many people you're losing in the fellowship. Now on average, I don't even take into consideration the 1st 5 years because in the 1st 5 years, a lot of heavy drinkers realize that they're they've overreacted to a situation that they actually can have some control in.

And they'll kinda they'll kinda drift away and and, and, you know, go watch TV or, you know, get involved get involved in basketball or, you know, there's a lot of other things you can do. But after 5 years, most of the people more than half of the people with over 5 years have less than 10. Over half more than half of the people with, over 10 years have less than 15. I mean, think about it. Where does half of the fellowship go every 5 years?

Is there a retirement package that they aren't telling us about? You know, you you go to go to go to, what is it? Some kind of sober retirement village. You know, I mean, I don't think so. What I think happens is I think people disappear from the fellowship.

Now another thing that I totally believe in is you have to give enough to Alcoholics Anonymous to get enough back from Alcoholics Anonymous to be able to stay. Now if that doesn't make any sense to you, if you're not participating in enough in Alcoholics Anonymous, you're not getting enough to be able to really to really pull you in enough to stay. So whether you stay in AA or not is really contingent on how much you put into AA. How much you practice the principles, how many people you work with, how how close you are with your home group, You really have to stay close and you really have to continue to participate. I've been lucky.

I mean, I go to, I go to, at a minimum, 4 meetings a week. I sponsor a whole lot of guys. I do a lot of speaking commitments like this. I'm involved in just a lot of wacky stuff that keeps me close to AA. A lot of a lot of people ask me to to speak in the New Jersey area.

I'm always driving around somewhere causing problems, with you know, my message isn't always the most popular one, especially with people who are entrenched in their, their I don't do anything for anybody AA. But anyway, we need a participation level in Alcoholics Anonymous, and we need a participation level in our spiritual condition to be able to maintain our sobriety and our state of mind. So as the years go by, I've actually had to do more in AA and more spiritual work than I did last year. Now you you think it gets easier. That's probably one of the problems why we lose a lot of people.

They think it gets easier. As you get sober, it gets easier to stay sober. That's really not true because of one thing. Your alcoholism always gets worse. It never gets better.

Doesn't matter if you're drinking or not. The alcoholism inside of you, the the physical condition that you have gets worse. Now has anybody had a long period of sobriety and then drank again and found that they were way worse than they ever were when they quit drinking? Anybody in there have that experience? Like like, go 5 years without drinking, and then all of a sudden you're drinking, and now it's it's way worse.

That's your alcohol. Your alcoholism got worse while you were staying sober. Now, I think the spiritual condition, is kind of the same way. It needs more and more food. It needs more and more spiritual practice to be able to really maintain.

So so don't believe that the longer you stay sober, the less you have to do in AA or or the less work you have to do to maintain your spiritual condition. I believe it's the opposite. I believe it's the opposite. And I'm probably right because I'm still around and way more than most of the people I got sober with aren't. So, you know, what I'm doing is, is at least showing some kind of results.

You know, there's a reason, I believe, that I I came in here once. And, the perfect example is Chris told his story when he first came in here, and, he was given the dark tunnel AA'ers, don't drink, go to meetings type of thing. And, how'd that work for you? I managed to just stay sober, like, by this much, but I was insane. After say after say 6 months of sobriety, I would go home and I'd be I'd I'd be at the meeting talking about spirituality.

I'd go home and I'd go, goddamn it. There's no ice in the ice you tried. Who didn't fill the ice? Don't you know I need ice? You know?

I was like I was like insane. And that's the way I that's the way I was acting, you know. Don't you know that you gotta do it for me? And and that's what I got from don't drink and go to AA. So just for the record, I don't think that worked out too well.

I came in and after 90 days, I was planning my escape to that 4 point liquor or 5 point liquor store, the drive thru. You know, I'm running running out the door and I get kidnapped by a big book thumper. So, if he did not kidnap me, I don't think I'd be here today. But there has to be also discipline on my part, and I was very open minded. But the thing when I when I I was sitting in in his in his house, and he said to me, what do you want from me?

And I said, golly. I just I mean, with tears in my eyes and all the conviction that I can muster, I said to him, I just wanna fill this hole. Has anybody ever experienced a hole? Let the record show that everybody is shaking their head. All 500 of them.

We make it we make it sound like there's a lot of people here. This is being recorded, and our p our home group members are gonna hear it. Yeah. So we wanna say hi to to the 5 or 600 people here. Yes.

5 or 600 people in the morning. They'll come out just to see us. I just wanna fill up this hole, and, the only thing that filled that up was liquor. And so, he gave me my 10 year chip a few years ago, and as he gave me the chip, he says, so why don't you tell me about that wish and filling up that hole? And I so undershot what I desired in life by a 1000000%.

I so I so undershot it. I just wanted to fill up a hole and now I got this life that's just unbelievable and I'll get into detail on, on how I got to this life that I have designed with my inner god, my higher power. Balance is everything in life. I've went through some stages where I've had no balance, and now I'm in a stage and I'm in this just this this groove where it's 100% total balance. I've heard people say that, old timers, you know, they go to 10, 20 meetings a week.

I mean, there's got to be a balance in your life. People think that AA is my whole life, and I want them to believe that because I want the newcomers to have that in the beginning. But what happens is I believe I use a circle and a triangle, not just with mind, body, and soul, not just recovery service and unity, but I also do it with work, with love, and with AA. Follow me? Work, love, AA.

Work is my job, which could absolutely consume me in a second. I don't allow it because that's my choice. Love is my family, my wife, my children, and my my immediate family and friends. Okay? And then there's AA.

So AA is just 1 third of my life. I make sure that I don't over consume the AA. Now I have been asked as my tapes have been getting out on the on the worldwide web to to speak more, which is an absolute honor to me, and it takes up a lot more of my time. But I make sure that I don't go crazy on that either. I mean, how can you turn down Denmark?

I mean, please. I mean, I that would be insanity. But, but I'm asked to speak, at a lot of places in the United States, and there's some that I must respectfully, deny because I also am a public speaker in the financial markets in the United States. So I wanna make sure that I spend some quality time and a lot of it with, with my family. And so that's very important.

So you need to look at that in AA. Because if it's all AA, I believe that what Chris is saying is absolutely gonna be true, you're gonna get burnout and you're gonna leave. We don't want that to happen. You could leave a balanced beautiful life. Now, there's 2 things that return back to you in step 10, and we just talked about that.

The first thing it says is that for by this time, sanity will have returned. So your sanity, God gives you your sanity back, and I believe that to be true. That is my experience. The second thing that comes back is your will. God gives you will back because in step 3 it says what?

Well, let's read it. Step 3 it says, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to care of God as we understand him. Now it states this in step 10. After step 10, it reads, we can exercise our willpower along this line as much as we wish. It is the proper use of the will, and the willpower they're talking about there is the spiritual willpower.

The willpower of prayer and meditation. That's on page 85. So you don't just get your sanity back. Also, on step 10 on page 85, you get your will power back because God thinks that you are probably sane enough to take it back and to use the proper use of the will and the proper use of the will is through spiritual means. How can I best serve thee, thy will, not mine be done?

We can exercise our willpower along these lines as much as we wish. It's the proper use of the will. Okay? That's pretty huge. And then what happens is it says here, but we must go further and that means more action.

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

My sponsor had me because he would go out on trips, so he'd have to leave me alone with my me. And I I I didn't know how to live, you know. I'm not crazy, I but I just I really didn't know how to just shopping. You know, shopping, washing clothes, easy stuff. I mean, I was, you know, I was baffled.

And so, really, that was hard stuff for me. And, of course, I was jobless at that time. The the United States Federal Government took away every license including, like, flying a kite. I mean, I I couldn't I couldn't even get a string to fly a kite if I wanted to. It was tough times for Douglas over here.

So, he had me every morning. He highlighted it. It's still highlighted here when we retire at night, and that's on page 86. Then look at the next paragraph on page 86. It says, on awakening.

He He says, I want you to do these two things every day. Every day. Every day. So being the great anal person I am, I got sick and tired of writing it, so I came up with a form. I make out 7 of them, I date them, and then I put it on the side of my bed.

Okay? And so this is what I do, and I'm gonna show you now. I'm gonna bring this all together. You ready? So in recovery, the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, how do I do it?

I take this sheet, and if you look at this sheet, there's steps next to it. This is how I work the steps in my life. It says, were we resentful? Now I break it down into was I resentful, was I selfish, was I dishonest, or afraid? This is right out of page 86, first paragraph.

Okay. How was I dishonest? If I'm thinking I'm in sales now. Everybody's in sales, period. I mean, that's that's just the bottom line.

You're in sales no matter what you do. You're selling something. Whether you're trying to talk, a girl or a guy into going out on a date with you, you're you're it doesn't matter. You're selling something and I just happened to sell my corporation to other other companies. And so, there's sometimes well, I may skew the numbers just a little bit.

You know what I mean? I may just, you know, bump it up a little bit to make me look better. And then I come to back to my cell phone, like, yeah, but that's just sales. No. I think that's just lying.

Right? It's just lying. And and by doing this sheet, you know, I'll write down, talk to x y z company, told them this percentage when really it's this percentage. And then I'll call up the x y z company the next day, and I'll say, you know, it's not actually 70%. I and and now I'm about ready to say, you know, we did a recalculation.

Total lie, but I don't. I said, it's it's, it's it's it's it's like 2%. It's like 58% now. It's like 58. And the guy's like, alright.

Why are you telling me this? And I feel like saying, well, you know, because last night I was doing my 10th step and it said, so try to do that a couple times. Line stops immediately. Right? It's it's way embarrassing.

It's it's really totally embarrassing. So you have 1, how was I resentful? 2, how was I selfish? 3. How was I dishonest?

4. How was I afraid? 5. Do I owe an apology? 6.

What have I wrongly kept a secret? Secrets, folks, will kill you. Secrets will kill you. Elmas killed me with that Tennessee issue that I talked about last month or last night. But it felt like last month in front of all 1,000 people in Denmark.

Yeah. That was a big that was a big sp The whole day. KA community. Okay. There was a few hundred.

We're telling the truth now. Was I unkind? Just unkind. It says it right here in the big book. Was I unkind?

Was I unloving? What could I have done better? That box, I fill every night. Yeah. I I I have high expectations for me, and I fill that box out every night.

Now I've found that a lot of alcoholics lower the bar. They lower the bar because they're afraid of this thing called failure. But if you live in my world, there's really no failure, there's just experiences. So let's say that again. If you live in the world where there's no failure, there's just experiences, then what do you have?

You have no fear because fear is a failure. So I don't fail, I have experience. I had an experience on December 16, 2003. September 11th happened in 2,001. We were struggling.

I own a large, large restaurant. We were doing about a $178,000 a month, and we went to a 114,000 and it held. And I refused to lay off anybody because I live for my workers and they live for me. And I'm sitting in Chris's house, in New Jersey. I just happened to fly in New Jersey.

I was there. It it might even have been, like, 23rd or 24th. I mean, it was close to Christmas, wasn't it? It was cold. And I'm on the phone, and I'm just trying to get investors.

And the last investor from San Francisco, I'm on the phone with him. I'm I'm in Chris's house, Marybeth and Chris are there. I'm on the phone with this guy, I told him the amount of money I need, he says, listen, dude, pack it up. And I hung up the phone and I looked at Chris and I said, I think it's all over. Let's go to a meeting.

And he's looking at me like, you gotta see this monstrosity that I own. It's huge. And I I said, it that peaceful. Right? Little fear.

Maybe a couple tears, but You knew the next door was gonna open. Yeah. And so, we went to a meeting and and anyway, I I revived it. Opened it up, restructured the whole thing, and it's still going to this day, 7 years later. Right?

But I sat in that house knowing that I did the best that I could and I knew I wasn't a failure because if you've seen what I produced out of nothing, it was a total amazement. But then why do we sit here and beat ourselves up for little mistakes that we make when all this greatness we've done for each other? Is that crazy? But I could I could look at a 1,000 people when I'm talking to them and I'll pick out the 1 guy that's looking at me like this. You know?

He's looking at me like he doesn't trust me. And I'll just concentrate on that one person in a crowd of a 1,000. You know? What is he thinking? Am I lying?

Am I do I got something in my what what am I you know? And that guy will bother me when everybody else is going right? Why is that? Why do we do that? I try not to do that anymore.

That's a 6th and 7th thing that I that I work on constantly. But if you don't believe in failure and if you believe in experiences, then there's really no fear and you're just kinda like me here, happy go lucky walk through life and it works. It's my been in my experience. It says, was I thinking of myself most of the time? I'm pretty good at putting no there, probably 98% of the time.

I think of you all a lot. I do. I also besides just helping people in Alcoholics Anonymous, I help List Fortunate, I help the high schools, I help, Salvation Army, I help people in business who wanna start a company. I'll give them my some companies I hope that my phone's not gonna ring off the hook now. Some companies, I give them my my, my my offerings for free and help them get up and going.

Very small amount of the companies I give for free because I believe this. I believe that money is the root of all good. Money is the root of all good because you are able to share that goodness, that energy, if you will, with others. Right? If I'm giving this away for free, then I don't have the energy that I could share with others.

I I couldn't come here. How could I how could I afford to come here? But, since I do charge the energy, the money, I was able to put it to good. So how many people do you think I've touched in the last 3 days? If I didn't charge that money and I didn't put it towards good use of being in Denmark, then I wouldn't have touched as many lives have I had as you have touched mine.

Does that make sense to everybody? Okay. The money is the root of all good, and I believe that. It says here, was I thinking what I could do for others? The answer to that is yes most of the time, and I love this one.

Was I thinking of what I could pack into the stream of life? My life is packed with fullness. Packed with full my alarm on my Palm Pilot is constantly going off all day, every day, and it's just fantastic. It's fantastic. It's a mixture of love.

It's a mixture of business, and it's a mixture of work all day. All day. So this is what I do. How I work this