The steps in Cabo, Mexico

Good evening, everybody. We got that adjusted. My name is Mark Houston. I'm an alcoholic. My heart.

And, I was separated from, alcohol and cocaine in the morning of October 19th of 1982 in Denver, Colorado. And, I'm grateful for that. The world's a better place because of it. That was a tornado roaring through the lives of other people, and, I don't ever wanna forget that. What a, my home group is the Carry This Message group in Austin, Texas.

We're a fundamental AA group. Open to 3 minutes of meditation, and we have a chairperson. And, you can only bring up a topic out of the recovery portion of the big book. That's the doc's opinion through the first 164. And, you can't talk for more than 5 minutes.

We have a timer. If it goes off, we ask that you stop in mid sentence. Part of what we're about is, are you awake? Wake up. Get free of this idea because your eyes are open.

You're awake. See? That almost killed me. But, small little group. I don't like big groups.

I got I sobered up in Denver in small groups. I still like them today. And, we, we laughed the other day. We did a group contest 2 months ago and we most of the time, we'd have between 8 to 10 people there. And someone's several of the groups not going, we realized it's because we weren't telling anybody about it.

So we had a huge turnout last month. We had 15 there, so we but you know how we get. We're selfish people. Right? So if you got something good, you wanna keep it to yourself for a while.

What an experience being down here. What a wonderful thing. I I I love Brad's story. See, that's how it is. That's how my life is.

When I came into the rooms at Alcoholics Anonymous, Little coincidences here and there that begin to manifest. And, here's the other part in the equation. Some of you think you probably chose to be here. None of us chose to be here. We all made a decision in a third step.

We offered ourselves to god to do with us as he willed, and he's got us here together, including me. And just to set the record straight versus this $2,000 that, Brad talked about, When he when he was asking about coming down, he's well, by the way, there's a few other things. You're gonna have to pay your own way. Of course, I didn't know at that time he has about a $500 round trip ticket, but he said, I'll do my best to find a place for you to stay. You're gonna have to buy all your food and all the rest.

You know? But and I said, okay. Alright. Let's do it. Let's come on down and have some, have some fun.

You know? What a what a great deal. One of the things I I would like to do is to take a minute and, I wanna say a prayer for us, and I'll tell you why. Whether you're brand new or whether you've been sober a long time, biggest noose around your neck is the same one that's around mine, and that's what you think you know about what's gonna happen here. And you bring it in your current belief systems and your dogma and your attachment to what you think you know.

See, the truth is none of us have ever been together in this moment, in this time, so nobody here has a clue about what's gonna happen. If I lose sight of that, what I take into all the meetings and when I'm working with somebody is my preconceived ideas about what's gonna happen. Right? What I've learned over time to the disciplines of steps 10, 11, and 12 is to take a beginner's mind to everything, to everything. How do you walk back into your home group day after day, week after week, month after month, and stay plugged into that and stay open unless you have a beginner's mind and understand that, for example, all of you that belong to that home group when you were in there this evening, you've never been together this evening in that group.

Therefore, you've never had that experience. Right? Wake up. Wake up to that. See?

Never been in this moment before. See, I get a little slow in the uptake. Some of you probably have read the book, Chuck Chamberlain, a new pair of glasses. So I'm reading that book, and he's married to the same woman forever. And I don't know if there's any such thing as enlighten people in the rooms.

Hey. Hey. I find that a little hard to believe. But if there was, he's as close as there is. If you ever listen to his tapes and you read and you know anyone that knows him, that guy was devoid of self as far as I could tell.

But I'm sitting here and I'm reading one day, and he's talking about every morning he gets up and he's got a new woman sitting across from him. Now I know he wasn't cheating on his wife. I knew he was talking about his wife. And I'm thinking, what does he mean by that? How can he be married to the same woman like it was 30, 40 years or something like that, but he wakes up every morning, there's a new woman there?

What does he mean by that? About 5 years later, I finally got it. See, he was awake, and he realized that every morning when he woke up and he sat across from that woman he had never been in that moment with that woman before. And I'll bet you that guy's life was juicy, baby. See?

See, you you get present, steps 1011, this other work, if it swoops you into the present like it does me, I mean, I Craig, here's the difference if you're sober for a while, you really work with the disciplines. He and I first get here on on Thursday and and we're going for a walk. And he's got his head down just going like a chihuahua, baby. He's moving. Now I'm a lot more awake, and I had never been here before.

And I'm going in slow motion, and Cabo is swooping in. I mean, I can't even begin to handle He's turned around. What are you doing? Hurry up. And I go, woah, man.

Yep. Just right out of a Cheech and Chong movie, you know. It's just, wow. Did you see that? You know, and the colors and woah.

The ocean away. Woah. You know? This bartender, I know he thinks I'm smoking reefer. You know?

He just just sitting here just looking, you know, and the people and the colors and just swoops in on you. You know? And every day, it's like that. See, what an incredible what an incredible experience that is. Found my tribe.

I was sent to you all. I call it I call the rooms of AA my tribe. I've been looking for a tribe, and, I found 1. And everywhere I go, you know, there there we are. So let's take a minute, and if you'll, join me in a prayer.

This prayer for me came out of We Agnostics. If you've done much work with that chapter, you might have an awareness that the word prejudice is used in there a lot, 6, 7, 8, 9 times. And they finally beg us to lay aside our prejudice. If you look up the word prejudice, it means preconceived thought or opinion. So out of that is I begin to work with a prayer that I use whenever I go to meetings, where I'm sitting down to work with someone, whenever I'm gonna go back to the steps again.

And it goes something like this. Our creator, we thank you for bringing us together in fellowship and love. We understand that we're joined together as a spiritual body, and there's so much more going on here than we realize. Help us to set aside everything we think we know about the big book, the 12 steps, the program, the fellowship, and all spiritual things, especially you, god, so I may have an open mind and a new experience with all these things. Please help us see some new truth.

Amen. I wanna read something from, one of the books I'm currently working with, for you big book dumpers who think I'm doing something sacrilegious. The 11th step says be quick to see where religious people are right, make use of what they offer, and I do. 10th and 11th step gave me freedom to go out in the world and and and spend some time exploring all this incredible stuff out there. These books and Buddhism and monasteries and Christian mystics and all this neat, neat stuff.

See, I do a lot of stuff in 11 step along with, but never instead of. Some of you may know people like I I've known people who like to do religious stuff instead of the rooms, and most of them, based on my experience, get drunk. So some of my teachers got real clear with me. You do this stuff along with, not instead of, so I do. This is one of my teachers, a man named Anthony DeMell.

It's called awareness. Says on waking up, spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, they are asleep. They're born asleep. They live asleep.

They marry in their sleep. They breed children in their sleep. They die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. All mystics, Catholic, Christian, non Christian, no matter what their theology and no matter what their religion are unanimous to one thing, that all is well.

All is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they're asleep. They're having a nightmare.

Waking up is unpleasant. You know? You're nice and comfortable in bed. It's irritating to be woken up. That's the reason the wise guru will not attempt to wake people up.

I hope I'm gonna be wise here and make no attempt whatsoever to wake you up if you're asleep. It's really none of my business even though I say to you at times wake up. My business is to do my thing to dance my dance. If you profit from it, fine. If you don't, too bad.

As the Arabs say, the nature rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the Martian and flowers in the garden. When I was brought into the into the rooms in 1982, I had brain damage, kidney damage, and liver damage, and everything I owned fit in the duffel bag. And that's how I came to you. I ran it as long and as hard as I could. And alcohol was my master.

I joke with people I work with about if you don't wanna do this and I I wanna get clear with you all based on my experience what this is, and it's about a hell of a lot more than going to meetings, by the way. I tell them that, you know, why don't you just go ahead and build an altar to your drug of no choice? Little play on words. I I sit in meetings of AA and hear somebody say my drug of choice is alcohol, and I think to myself, well, then what are you doing in the rooms of AA? If your drug of choice is alcohol, choose not to drink it.

If you're sitting in this room and you're in alky, you're drugged with no choice. It's alcohol. That's why you're in the rooms. My drug of choice is Excedrin. I buy it.

I only take 2. It sits in the cabinet for 6 to 9 months. I don't mortgage the house and lose a relationship because of Excedrin. That's a drug of choice. Alcohol is my drug of no choice, which is why a lot of these slogans that you hear, which, by the way, are not in the book, things like, just don't drink no matter what.

Well, no matter what I drink. Just don't drink, eat if your ass falls off. My ass even hits a falling off I used to drink. But, later I found out none of that's in my book. That those terms refer to expressions of people who are not like me because I'm a real alcoholic.

You know, earlier, this evening, there's a lady that was talking about she was hoping she could remember the shame and remorse behind her drinking to keep her sober. And I don't know about you, but I can't. Book is very clear, I can't. Consequences have never kept me from drinking. Ever.

That's what it means to be a real alcoholic, where you've lost the power of choice. And I was separated from alcohol, and and my story is not one of coming in and out of the rooms, by the way. I was that tornado. I roared through relationships, been married, divorced 4 times, engaged 6 times. Well, toward the end, see, I couldn't do very well at supporting myself.

Somebody had to. So see, nice alcoholics scare me. See, it's inconsistent with the big book. Right? Says the root of my problem is I'm selfish and self centered.

I'm like a tornado roaring through the lives of others. I don't wanna come in the room pretend I'm nice. It's not a roomful of nice people when we get here. Do we get change and transforms? Absolutely.

What's the promise? I have a psychic change. I have a revolutionary spiritual experience. And as far as I can tell, I get to improve and grow using the spiritual disciplines of the 10th and 11th step. Strict spiritual discipline, by the way.

Strict spiritual disciplines. Wanna take a moment and tell you my current experience. Some of you have been sober for a while. By the way, one of the things that I hope I get to do this evening and in the next 2 evenings is disturb some of you about the question of alcoholism, which in the chapter working with others says it's a good thing if I do that. Right?

Because maybe if you'll get disturbed, you may or may not change your course of action, but particularly this is for people who've been sober for a while. You find yourself saying this very often, you're probably headed for trouble. Well, when I came in and when I came in and when I came in, just like my body can't live off the food I ate 2 weeks ago, you can't live off that experience. It's deadly. I got a guy at my rehab right now.

He had 23 years when I came in. When I and then I started asking him. So he picked up a drink. He drank for 2 years straight. Spent almost 2 months in a VA hospital because he had drank himself almost into a wet brain.

So So now his head's clear, and I get to talking to him. He hadn't done anything with the steps in years. Hadn't touched inventory. Wasn't doing anything with the distance of 1011, living off an old experience. And he picked up a drink.

I don't know if he'll ever come back. So what's my current experience? Every morning that I have been down here, I get up and after a little coffee, I open my big book to upon awakening. And I read and I say all of those prayers out of my big book. And then I have a timer, and I'm doing a 10 minute meditation.

I do that meditation. Then all through the day, I work with the 10 step tools. What do I mean by 10 step tools? There's all kinds of them. Ask, turn, cease, 6th sense.

How can I best serve thee? Thy will, not mine, be done. 11 step tool, pause when agitated or doubtful. Many times throughout the day, thy will be done. Then when Craig and I go back and we're sitting in our room tonight, we're gonna go to the big book, and we're gonna do our evening review, and we're gonna answer all those questions about our day.

And I do all this, ladies and gentlemen, for one reason. The only reason I'm standing here up here sober, if you believe the book, and I do, is because I'm in fit spiritual condition, and those are the things that keep Mark Houston in fit spiritual condition, not god. Is god a part of all that? Yes. If staying sober was about god, this book would be 1 page.

It say god keeps you sober. Have a great day. But I find this book to be full of action which I have to take. See, an easier, softer way would be god keeps us sober, wouldn't it? No work associated with that.

See? So I'll I'll just throw this out, little something for y'all to chew on. If you wanna know what you believe and look at your actions so I just described what the big book is very, very clear on how Mark stays in fit spiritual condition. So all of you take some time and just sit and look in the just take the last 7 days and ask yourself, did you do what this book says to do in steps 1011? And if the answer is no, then I think you need to sit with a question.

And here's the question, Are you assuming you're in fit spiritual condition because you've been sober for a while? Right? Are you assuming that? Are you living off an old experience? Does just go into a meeting keep you in fit spiritual condition?

See? Whenever I write inventory, I wanna know what I'm up against. I always look at my actions, what they have, things I'm doing or not doing, and then I look at the subsequent belief systems. So for example, if you're not doing evening review, what do you think the belief system is? Anybody?

Yeah. You don't need it. I'm okay. I don't need to do evening review for a fit spiritual condition, but this book's real clear on that. Is it not?

Right? If you're not doing upon awakening and doing saying those prayers and doing some meditation, what's the belief system? Says upon it says upon awakening, we consider our plans for the day. It goes through all kinds of prayers. Right?

So what do you think the belief system is? I don't have to do it, and I'm okay. Right? As far as I can tell, my book says I'm given a data reprieve contingent on one thing and one thing only, my fit spiritual condition. Now let me tell you some reasons why I'm so adamant about this.

I've worked in the field of chemical dependency now for 18 years, and I've buried a lot of people. And they used to die in their rooms, and they're still dying, but they ain't dying in their rooms no more. They're going to these hospitals and rehabs, then they're dying. They used to die in their rooms. I sobered up in Denver, Colorado my 3rd year.

I remember 90 days, 14 people drank themselves to death. That used to happen in our rooms. Now that didn't happen in our rooms, and there's a real subtle thing going on. You know what it is? If I relapse, I'll make it back.

That is not my experience. Between my 9th 10th year, because I wasn't doing the things that I'm sharing with you that I now do, I wound up at insane asylum in Houston, Texas. Spent 45 days there, almost committed suicide. My mind, sober, drive drove me wacko. Some of you can relate to that.

They wanted to assign all kinds of other labels to why I was in that place, but I know why I was in that place. I was dying of untreated alcoholism. Period. Stone cold said we're going to a lot of meetings, living off an old experience, dying inside from the disease of untreated alcoholism. You know, as far as I can tell, I'm either growing or ongoing.

And there is nothing in between for a guy like me. I gotta come at my spiritual life the same way I came at vodka, and I was a mad dog. I didn't care about anybody or anything, and I did worship vodka. And I mean that. And if you're sitting here, the same is probably true for you.

They would sit and say, oh, I love my children. Really? Did they go to rehab with you? No. You didn't.

See, I you all you gotta do, look at your actions as to what you love. As far as I can tell, there's 3 things I have deeply loved in my life. Myself, viking god. Everything else just fit somewhere in there. 20 years, booze.

Booze, altar. Worshiped at the altar of booze. You know why I know that? I broke the hearts of every human being who ever cared about me because I because I went where booze told me to go. I may as well got up every morning said, oh, king alcohol.

Name of the right? Do with me as you wish because it did. Right? Alcohol didn't care about those wives I had who I loved. I'm not a bad man.

I was born and raised in in Iowa. I was raised with good values, Norwegian people. I know the difference between right and wrong. I know what it's like to honor a relationship. And I took a drink of booze.

You think booze cares about that? Not hardly. She looks good. You think booze cares about career? I don't think so.

They won't find out. Right? Rapacious creditor was the term, but I really realized one time in reading the big book that alcohol was my master, and I got that. I got what I worshiped at the throne at. And then I had those first 9, 9a half years.

And don't get me wrong, I had some good years in there. But I rested my laurels, and I lived off an old experience. If I could save anybody in this room that experience, I'll do it. So I'm tired of burying alkyes, particularly alky's who get some time and pick up a drink. Because what you're up against is the progressive nature of alcoholism.

If you think you're sitting in this room and you get 10 years and pick up a drink, it's like before then, you are wrong. You're up against yourself, big time. Drank for 20 years. Got separated from alcohol by this power, this god. Along the way, I got drafted.

I spent 13 and a half months in Vietnam. Period of years went in the corporate world. I drank all that up. Had a couple brothers back in Colorado. They were entrepreneurs in the drug dealing business.

Since my resume no longer fit in other places, I decided to join forces with them, so I did that for a couple years. That's not what I went to college to learn, by the way, but alcoholism turned me into something I'm not. But it became a normal way of life. I can't separate the true from the false. I think it's normal to carry a gun and a boot, drink and fight, chase women, act almost sociopathic.

Matter of fact, when I when I had my first real first step experience, I got excited to finally found out what was wrong with me, which was I was an alcoholic with a craving of the body and obsession of the mind. The reason I was excited, it finally gave me an answer to behavior that looked very sociopathic, psychopathic. And I don't know if you know, but you can't treat the either one of those conditions. So when I found out and I can give you a lot of examples. I live with a gal in Denver, Colorado.

She has a young child. I go to the store to get milk. I go to Ben Higgins. I take a drink. 7 days later, I wake up at a mobile home in Jack Snell, Wyoming, which is 800 miles away.

That was not where I planned on going when I left Aurora, Colorado. And then it's weird because I didn't have a clue where I was. And I'm looking out this window, there's this woman. I've never seen her before. None of this landscape looks familiar, and I she has mail there, and I see I'm in Jacksonville, Wyoming.

No recall of how I got here. And I had stuff like that happen 100 of times. I'm up in Alaska. My grandmother dies. I wanna go to a funeral, and I get on the plane.

6 days later, I wake up at a hotel in Saint Louis. Missed the funeral. Didn't wanna miss the funeral. I wanted to be there. I love that woman, and I didn't know why.

And you have that stuff happen enough. At some point in time, you really start asking yourself some questions about what is wrong with me. And that big book said, I'll tell you what's wrong with you, Mark. When you take a drink, it takes you. Wow.

That's right. That line in there, it explains many things for which Mark could not otherwise account. Wow. What a great thing. Now I know why I did that.

That didn't make me any feel better about it, but at least I had an explanation. Right? See that incredible first step experience. First 33 pages of the big book are divided to asking one question. When I take a drink, do I lose power, choice, control over how much?

Period. Every year, I rework the first nine steps. I'll tell you why. Because I fall asleep sometimes. I'll do my evening review.

Craig and I did it last night. Were you resentful? Yes. Now here's what I haven't done. I did have a resentment last night.

I haven't written a 4 column inventory on it yet, though, and I haven't done a 5th step, and I haven't done 6 and 7 and 8. And what'll happen in the course of a year's time is I have this stage character I call the spiritual man that likes to think he's so evolved, he hardly ever gets resentful. He's resentful. He's such a good member of AA, and, he shows up sometimes and, you know, oh, you don't you you don't resent him, Mark. Oh, yeah.

I do. Yeah. So once a year, I always find a a a bunch of resentments I need to write on. So January of every year, I take a look at, some of you may even wanna consider doing this. I take a look at what I call my current unmanageability.

Here's what I mean by that. Remember I told you, I'm not interested in when I came in. I'm not interested in last year. Everyone in this room, you have some current, current unmanageability. You have some current spirituality stuff.

It might be your health. It might be finances. It might be relationships. It might be illness. It could be a host of things.

It might be grief. It might be sadness. But you everyone in this room, you've got some current unmanageability. I assure you. That's the stuff we're gonna get drunk over, ladies and gentlemen.

It's not the stuff from back here, back when. And unless some of you become enlightened between now and then, it bothers you. Every one of you in the past week have had the same fears cycling through your mind, that interior dialogue. So I make a list of my current unmanageability. I'll give you an example of some of mine.

One of them is my physical body. Currently not smoking. Thank god. It's been a been a tough one. Serious addiction to nicotine.

I I wanna develop a lifestyle for the next 30 years of my life, and smoking 2 packs of Marlboro Reds a day doesn't fit that, if you know what I mean. Is that something I can drink over? Yeah. I got a guy, a pal of mine I've known for 10 years. One time, he wanted to be a monk.

Got throat cancer. 7 years sobriety. Went on a rip roaring drunk. Drank for 2 months. Just got through doing chemo.

2 months of chemo. Had to bring him down into my rehab. Can you drink behind the illness? You bet you can. Current unmanageability.

Here's another area, current unmanageability. I call it time slash people balance. Start a new business 19 months ago. Got 27 employees already. They need my time.

They're like little piranhas. Then I got like Craig. See? I appreciate his honesty. He told you 9 years sober.

I'm on a trip. Not even, hi, how was it? About me about me about me about me about me about me. Right? And I got 5 just like him.

Get them together, it sounds like a convention, old women. Noise level off the charts. Right? So addition to all these employees, I got 5 proteges like that. See?

Then I get asked to go around and do stuff like that. I only do 6 of these things a year. I had to laugh when I I don't know what a circuit speaker is. I always think of some guy riding a jackass somewhere when I hear that, but, you know, the the the most I can do with you is share my experience and and and share with you some things that I do. And out of that, if you find some stuff you can do and have your experience, there was time well spent.

That's all. If you ever listen to my stuff, trust me, it changes all the time. And the reason it changes, I'm always doing my work. My work. That experience in the Nutter House caught my attention.

You know, the one that I was resting on my laurels? I don't care to go there again. I had great insurance, and they had a key. I pulled a jack. It wouldn't flow over the cuckoo nest.

It was yes, sir, yes, ma'am, anything to get out of there. Boy, I had to fake wellness. See, we're not well. You know? Tribe I belong to, we're not well.

We'll always be on the fringes. Our heads do not look at things right. One of the reasons I I love Anthony de Mello, I'm reading his book, and he says in there, I wanna write a book. And the title of the book is I'm an ass, you're an ass, and it's okay that we're both asses. And I thought that describes the rooms of AA.

See, it's just here. By the way, if if you're new, I wanna help you with something. You're never gonna get well. Now you'll stay sober and have a lot of fun, but you will not get well. I'll sit at home, do my morning disciplines, do my prayer, my meditation, got my cat hobo there, just chilling out.

Man, I'm all hooked up. My little sunbeam forgot. Then I put my hand on the door, and it's on. Go out and get my GMC Yukon, and my head's already who's gonna get in front of me now? 6 o'clock and I wanna go to Starbucks and I got a little old blue haired lady in front of me.

Just had this great love of God in my heart. This voice says, if she don't speed up, I'm gonna ram her. See, that's not right. But that's me. That's your speaker.

Difference between me and a lot of folks, I don't pretend I'm well. We I tell all the guys I work with. You know, don't be laying that well stuff out on me. Right? See?

But you have a lot of fun with it. Have a lot of fun with it. God, I don't know what I'd do without this program. I remember 15 years sober one time, I'm going to grocery store. I'm sitting up, getting ready to go inside, and this fear this overwhelming fear begins to growlse through my body.

It's like, okay. What's going on here? I'm afraid to go in the grocery store, so I had the voice. I had the dialogue. You know, the dialogue we have with ourselves all day the voices.

Right? What are you afraid of? Well, somebody might say, hi. Look you in the eye. Well, that ain't that big a deal.

Yeah. It is. Right? The voice is going 15 years sober. I don't know how old I was then, but and I I'm afraid to go into a grocery store for god's sakes to buy groceries.

So I say a prayer and then I feel okay and then I go in realizing. I I have my own opinion about this. I I have a feeling that I don't know if there's such a thing in a reincarnation or how it is all this stuff happens, but I I like to work with visuals and I sometimes think that God and Saint Peter, when we came down the pike, we're playing poker. And they just like and there's certain things we were supposed to come down here with. And because they were playing poker, not paying attention, we got past them without it.

God says, oh god, we missed a few. They'll become alky's. See, because I was never comfortable till I had that drink, then I was okay. See, it's felt like it always has felt like I straddled the world, straddled both sides. And what I finally came to realize, I when when the book says no middle of the road solution, I either need a lot of whiskey or I need a lot of god, period.

I can't straddle anymore. And, I'll bitch to god about that when I get up there. I don't think that's quite right. But that is the truth. I never felt a part of till I took a drink when I was 16 years old.

Then I had that experience sober, what I called middle of the road middle of the road in sobriety. See? Trust me, ladies and gentlemen. If just going to meetings and not drinking work for me, I'd do it. I really would.

You know? I'm not gonna sit here and tell you I love you know, when I'm in Austin, Texas, Monday through Friday, between 4 and 4:15, my alarm clock goes off, my feet are on the floor. Do I like doing that? No. No.

Why do I do that? I do because I like the effect reduced, and I wanna stay in fit spiritual condition. And I don't wanna ever take a drink alcohol again. Because when I take a drink, the drink takes me, and all bets are off, and I lose all rights. That's why.

That's why I do it. I don't do it to be a nice guy. None of that. I do it because the book says if you do this, I can promise you some great stuff, an awakened 6th sense, an awakened spirit, the ability to grow in understanding effectiveness. You will have recovered and been given the power to help others.

Amazing stuff. You'll walk hand in hand with the spirit of the universe. Wow. Cheats and Chong stuff. You know?

Which, by the way, stuff we don't talk enough about in our meetings. I hope when I leave here, I'll stir up what you bring up for a topic. For example, went to a couple of meetings down here. Everybody have a topic, and I almost did this. I didn't, but maybe I will.

Yes. I'd like you to share your experience with your new 6th sense. That's in the 10th step, by the way. Do the work in the first nine, face and be rid of that which has you blocked from power. You get to the 10th step and 11th step and start working those disciplines.

You do have a new 6th cent. It's called your spirit, your awakened spirit. You start to go through your day and your life, letting that awakened spirit guide you and move you. Fabulous stuff. What's your experience with having entered the world of the spirit?

That's in the 10 step too. That you ever heard that as a topic? Why are we talking about this stuff? Power. This program's about power.

It tells you that we agnostics. The whole purpose of this program is to enable you to develop a relationship with the power which will do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Why aren't we talking about power? Elkies love power. It is.

It's a power. How about right in the middle of fear inventory? It's another topic you'll never hear. It says, I'm gonna let god demonstrate through me what god can do. Why aren't we talking about that?

Why are we talking about what it was like to let god demonstrate to you what god can do? Couple of people say, but what preparation do you do for this? And I said, nothing Except the work in 1 through 9 and the disciplines of 1011. I'm a hollow bone. I've done the work necessary to let god demonstrate through me what god can do.

See, I don't have a clue what you need, but god does. So if you have any problems with anything that comes out of this mouth, it's not my fault. But, see, all this is in this book. Incredible stuff. Oh, you still don't drink?

Go to meetings. No. No. No. No.

No. No. No. A life beyond your wildest dreams. Rocket scientist stuff.

Great stuff. See? You wake up to all that. You take that into your life. Take that into your relationships.

Take that into your careers. Take that into every area of your life. Take that kind of power. Wagnostics, Be an intelligent agent, spearhead of god's ever advancing creation. What does that mean?

Well, I think it means intelligent agent, spearhead of God's ever advancing creation. See? All my troubles are my own making. Most powerful one of the most powerful statements I hope in the big book. Why why would I say that?

Why do you think I would say that? Big book says, all my troubles are my own making. Why is that a great thing? What if your troubles are of somebody else's making? They gotta change in order for you to get well.

Right? I've done a lot of work with the 4th step, 4th 5th steps. Matter of fact, I got some inventory. I'll be reading some of it, 2 or 3 pieces, while I'm down here. I read that to the men I work with.

I'm accountable. See? If you get your sense of self outside yourself, you're in trouble. Because then something outside you has gotta change, get better in order for you to be okay. It's a horrible way to live.

I get my sense of self right here. You can add to me, but you can't take nothing from me. Do you hear what I just said? See, because all my troubles are my own making. Everything in my life is on loan.

It's all a gift. It's on loan. Living in a world of impermanence. Don't know how long it's on loan. And if it turns to me one day and says, I'm gone, god bless you.

Go in peace. Turn to the next one. What a great way to live. From that position, you can love all my troubles are my own making. Wow.

What amazing stuff. I spent years drinking because my troubles were of your making, and I'm trying to arrange my life. If Mark's arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as Mark wished, the show would be great. Right? Listen to some gentleman read some inventory today.

Probably tomorrow night, I wanna spend some time talking about the 4th 5th step. My experience over the years and I've worked with a lot of people, a lot of varying links. Right now, I I, I'm sponsoring a woman. She's 44 years sober. Been sponsoring her for 10 years.

When she came to me, she was one of the doing a lot of speaking, yada yada yada. Nobody would say anything to her, and she was dying of untreated alcoholism. She almost committed suicide, alone with the most sobriety. She heard a tape when I talked about almost taking myself out of here. She called me.

Took her through the steps, right in inventory. Tell you, doing a 5th step with somebody that long sober and I got less time was like dancing with the devil. Unbelievable. Hold her free of that. Hold her free of that.

Incredible. Woman's in her eighties and more vibrant and alive than anyone I know. Fabulous stuff. Doesn't matter how long you're sober, you get trapped by this stuff. See?

So we wanna talk more about the 4th and the 5th step, what that's about. I believe in writing a lot with inventory. Why? Because my ego is mysterious and powerful as god himself as far as I'm concerned, and I can't defeat my ego. Takes the best of us.

So that's why you do 4th 5th steps. I started to tell you my my current reality. I mentioned the unmanageability. You might consider this as an exercise, is make a list of your own current unmanageability, the stuff that's rubbing up against you. Make a list of your current fears.

I'm not talking old stuff. I'm not talking like the fear inventory itself, but all of us in this room, I would say in the last week or 2, you have reoccurring fears running through your mind, don't you? That list may be 6, 7, 8 of them. That's what's rubbing up against you today. Then you walk into the meeting and they say, how you doing?

You go, I do is fine. Wake up. In the one hand, you are. In the other, you're not. Right?

See, I had, 9 fears. You know? 10:30 at night, no one's around. Finished the evening review, all hooked up. This voice, you'll never quit smoking.

You'll die a horrible death. Have a good night. See? Y'all what y'all know what I mean about them voices. Right?

We'll have a little fun. I wanna introduce you to your host of characters if I can. This morning, when you all got up within about 5 or 10 minutes, imagine that you had a table. Imagine there's chairs, and you all had internal dialogue going on this morning. Right?

The voices? Some of you perhaps think that is a singular voice. It is not. I'll introduce you to my voices. You can identify your own.

The voices are a combination of the different things you have going in your life that you think identify who and what you are. So here's some of mine. We have the spiritual guy. We have mister a a. Those are 2 different guys, by the way.

Mister a a, if you don't follow the group conscious, he's gonna be in your face. The spiritual guy, he's all forgiving. Different guys. We have the jock. Right?

Got a jock in me. We have, we have the present owner, my company. He's in there. We have the sponsor. We have the pal.