The 12 Traditions at the Space To Recover conference in Sedalia, CO

My name is David. I'm a sexaholic. How's the body?

I'd like to start with a moment of silence followed by the WE version of the Serenity Career,

Serenity Prayer. God grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the curriers to change, the things we can, and the wisdom to our business.

I always wondered about that we version of the Serenity prayer and

I was taught early on that I had to read every day and I come very close to doing that. And,

and I've been through the 12 and 12 while recovery continues as the quickest book to get through, I was also taught to read a maximum of one or two pages a day. So I adhere to that. And so if it's like it's a half page, it's just a freebie writer at the beginning of the chapters. And,

and so I started and I was also told to start on the title page. So I started the title page and just worked my way through.

And so recovery continues is the quickest to go through and then 12 and 12 is the next quickest. And then the white book and then the AV book. AB book takes about nine months to do a cycle. And and I have been through 12 and 12. Oh, I don't know, half a dozen times maybe when one day I realize the WE version of the Serenity Prayer is right here at the end of step 12,

and the I version is at the end of step. I think it's three if I remember,

and yet I hadn't seen it. And that's been my experience. Not 3 hours, a long step anyway. I have

experienced over and over again the reality that there is stuff in these books after as many times as I've read them, that it's that brand new. Last night we were reading tradition one and I heard something in tradition one. It's been there all along, but I hadn't heard it until last night. And what happens is the words don't change, but I and I change in my willingness and openness of to

hear and understand things and tie them in different ways

to bring pieces of myself together. Changes

and so I keep reading because it's always fun. I used to say for many a long time, remember part of my diseases, hallucinations and delusions. And and I used for a long time, I thought that the a central office in New York City had a way of changing the big book as they would put stuff in there that was not there the last time I read it. And the same with the 12 and 12. And of course, again, the problem is me. I wanted to talk about the traditions

and I can't do that without putting on a tie

because that's what my sponsor Just Layer taught me. He said, David, do you dress up when you go to church? And I said yes. And he said his switch has done more to save your life. Church or SA,

dress up to go to SA, at least when you're a speaker. And now Jess was pretty vain as you know him, know that. And so he dressed up. Not only did he dress up really beautifully, but you have to notice. And if you didn't notice you nature, you did.

We all have our deals. But the fact is kind of really got drummed into me and I don't always do it. And yet I'm always aware of it. And I thought, I'm going to talk about the tradition. It's one of the least things I could do is adhere to tradition because that's what the traditions are for our fellowship. And it's one reason why I want to say something about it and spend a little time on it.

They are the the steps are the path, the program of recovery. That's exactly the words that are in the book.

The traditions are the collective experience of what the early AA starting in 1935 and culminating pretty much about 1951 found that it took to make this work to make it actually be a living continuing functioning program. And so we literally having been, you know, near do wells coming along in 1979,

we are

terribly embedded to

not only AAA and the literature there, but also to what they discovered and what they recorded in those traditions. Because we literally wouldn't have had it if that hadn't happened. And I'm so glad we don't have to find out

what would have happened if we didn't have it, because we do.

And and what the traditions have become for a a, as I understand it, is that model not as they often say, as a series of musts or,

you know, has to be done this way. Shall's, that's the word looking,

but as the sort of this is what's it's going to take to continue the fellowship and equally importantly, and this is really my personal attachment to the traditions that all the traditions must be worked in our own lives just as we must work the steps. And that's what I'd like to talk about for the next few minutes. Lunch is at noon, right?

So I'm going to make, I'd like to end five of and I would like to sort of open everything to questions about 1/4 of. So I'd like about 20 minutes. And if someone around 1/4 of would start doing something gets my attention, I'll wind up and we'll just go to questions and we could do it sooner. Let me say on the traditions, if you have a question that's really just bubbling in here and you want to ask it, that's fine, stop. Otherwise, I'll just talk for 20 minutes.

The,

the traditions

are increasingly, I found over the last 10 years that it's less and less common for me to go to an S80 more. The traditions aren't read that, that people are reading them as part of the meetings. And it's pretty normal now it retreats and, and in international conferences to spend breakout groups and, and that's very much happening here. And you just did what 535 and 11:00 I think.

And and so they are moving up in importance.

One of our old timers, some of you may know or Robin An

has talked at several internationals now about having a tradition sponsored and other people have begun to to do that. And

on blocking on his name. The old timer in Southern California.

It won't come to me, but there's there's a guy there whose his wife founded Essenon. So I should remember Ted, Ted Ted has just been a tremendous power and and insistence on the importance of the traditions. And anytime he's not physically able to do it anymore, but anytime he could physically give a workshop on the traditions, he would would do it in Nashville. One of the Co founders along with Hardy that say in Nashville was Gene P

and Gene was moving from Nashville up to Indiana and before she left did a series of very well attended like 70 people

at session on all 12 steps. She planned her way ahead and then all 12 traditions and it was just wonderful. It was the first real immersion in that that we had. And at the same time, it was a chance to allow the traditions to percolate through, not only in terms of of making the groups work better in the intergroup and all that,

but also to bring them into our lives.

Last night that we had a breakout meeting on tradition one. And I was talking about how for me as a sexaholic, that awareness that are that common welfare is

more important than David's welfare. And I had somewhere around age 3, I can date it solidly from 4 on. So somewhere around age 3 I checked out from that kind of setup and made a decision that David's welfare was more important when I am out of the shadows, when I read Carnes list of characteristics bleeding, that there was something inherently wrong with me. OK, got that one right away.

And that I couldn't trust anybody else to, you know, to meet my needs. OK, got that one right away. And that my primary need was sex. That was certainly true and that I had to have it and I just identified with those. But the thing that kind of kept it all together was that I couldn't trust anybody else. And so every decision, every reaction was made in reference to.

I am separate. The first time I heard Clancy the A a speaker

say, you know, art flag is just this plain colored flag that just has the words on it. But you don't understand I'm different from you,

he said. That's what we all rally under that one.

And again, that was me. And then 12 and 12 and step 12 where it says that the common personality traits that the Yale study found that we have are that were grandiose, overly sensitive and childish. And and that was me, you know, and I thought, wow, somebody understands and, and all of those things are, you know, my stuff 1st and your grandiose, overly sensitive and childish kind of, you know, summarizing it very nicely. And

to have that sense that the common welfare of the group of other people of my life, my kids, of my, you know, people I work with, Co workers and my employer of the community. I remember I was evaluated as part of the hassle around my occupation. I was evaluated

and the evaluator said, well, as long as David has good solid sobriety and as long as he keeps going to meetings and doing the stuff he's doing, he'll probably be no threat whatsoever to anybody. And I was really glad to hear that.

And then he said, and if he does ever act out again, he'll be a perpetrator and should be held accountable for their consequences of that.

In that really hit me. You know, perpetrators like the kind of things we use for kids, right? And but that seems exactly right. And I thanked him

that if and I then I heard it in a different way that once I have come to SA before I knew I was a sexaholic, before somebody with alpha, I was having an alcoholic who was saying this before I knew I was a sexaholic. I was not responsible for my behavior in the there might be consequences for which I'd be held responsible,

but I had a disease and it led me into these situations and I couldn't do anything about it. Once I came to Sex Allies Anonymous and raised my hand and said I am a sexaholic. I am totally responsible because I have been given the solution and if I don't want to pick it up, fine, but I'm a perpetrator if I don't use it. And I didn't like that, but it was true. But the truth is the common welfare is that there doesn't need to be one more sexual perpetrator loose on

and you better do David what you need to do to be sober today. Personal recovery depends on SA unity. That is, I can't have that access to that common welfare unless I have sex and whole life anonymous. I can't live the life I want to lead unless there's a fellowship around me. And that's why I don't trash essay. I don't say negative things, hopefully about SA as a fellowship. You know, sometimes like gossiping people, you know, get on my nerves

and then I have to make an amends. If I've done something bad,

you said something bad. But most of the time I, you know, don't because if I, we don't have this fellowship, I'm dead meat and and I will not have the solution that works for our group purpose. There's been one Oldham authority of loving God as he may express himself in our group conscience again. You know, my group conscience always took place between my ears. I was just I love that mind the first time I read it. Now this I did pick up the first time through

12:00 and 12:00

and when it's talking about Step 5 and it's saying, why do we have to admit to God, to ourselves and another human being, the exact nature of our owns? Why is it another human being? And it says, well, it's because we rapidly get used to the idea that God knows all about us. And, and the first time I read that, I thought, that's exactly it. You know, I'm quite willing to be honest. Of course, I'm not really being honest, but in my mind, I'm being honest to myself, you know, And I years and years ago,

a young man, a colleague

was drunk and mad at me about something. I don't remember what it was. And he said, you know, David, you're very truthful. You always say the truth as you see it, but you're not very honest. And boy, I was ticked off at him for years for saying that because I later didn't realize he was right. But I wasn't very honest. I wasn't honest both, as a matter of fact. He didn't know my secrets. I didn't know my secrets of the fact that I had just

shortly before he said that. As a matter of fact, I tried to seduce a 14 year old and then stopped,

but nonetheless did a lot of damage,

very serious damage to her as it turned out. And, you know, it's terrible. And it was one of the amends that had to make

indirect in that case. But but I was not honest at all. I was truthful. I was really great, you know, different kinds of truth. But being honest was was not easy. And so the loving God who's going to express himself into conscience is going to have to come from outside my ego, from outside my best understanding is my clever interpretations, my sharp, witty observations, or my total befuddlement or my confusion or my, you know, depression or

it doesn't really matter. If the sense begins with I or my I'm in trouble.

If it begins with we, then I have a fighting chance, which is why all 12 steps begin with we because we all need a fighting chance to do this.

So the loving God is he may express himself in a group conscience is that that's where I'm going to hear God. And somewhere early on I realize this and then much later attached to the tradition that well, I heard it from an A, a guy who said he listens hard at every meeting because he knows that there is one person at that meeting who's going to say exactly what it is God needs him to hear that day. The problem is he doesn't know who it is,

and I've very rarely sit in the meeting without

that in my mind. And I know each person who speaks, I certainly haven't hear. Is God talking to me in some way? Now, my ability to get the wax out of my ears or to get the dreams out of my head, that's another story. But I know God's working through that group conscious through each person. Our leaders are the trusted servants. They do not govern. I rely on that one a lot, partly because I've been in a lot of service positions, partly because it's just the perils of being around a while.

And the one thing I know for sure is that I'm the same sexaholic, the same sex drunk I was the day I walked in on the 2nd 1988. And I can share my experience, strength, and hope. But I have no more authority than whatnot gives me the situation that I had today I walked in. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop lusting and become sexually sober. And like AAI think, our desire is to also say at least my desire.

Anyone who

feels they can benefit from essay needs to be here now. That takes real concrete forms. For me. It has nothing to do with, you know, having a sobriety definition. That's what we have. No sex itself, no sex with any partner other than the spouse. That is what we offer. Everything else you can get somewhere else. Only here can you get that. And that's, and it only works for sexahomics doesn't work for other kinds of people. That's what we say. And what is the sexaholic?

But for us, that's, that's our goods. That's what we sell sobriety.

And at the same time, if someone has a desire for it, you know, it'll save their lives and save their marriages, save their jobs, save their kids, save their integrity, whatever. And and it's really, you know, the core of who we are functionally, I think. And that's the step, the tradition you're just talking about. But for me personally, it's this, the reminder that I have to have that desire on a daily basis to surrender lust and have a desire to remain such reservoir to become and remain.

Each group should be autonomous, except in matters affecting other groups or Sexaholics Anonymous as a whole. Again, I can have my opinions, I can have my friends, I can have my favorite meetings. This responsibility to the whole fellowship, though, is always present too. And to take public positions to do things that would be embarrassing to the fellowship, All of those things will not only affect the fellowship, but they'll affect me. And, and I it, I am a part of a larger group,

I'm always responsible for the well-being of that group to the extent that it's in my hands for whatever period of time, in whatever form God wants it there. Each group has what one primary purpose to carry his message to the sexaholic who still suffers.

What occurred to me last night as we were doing the first tradition is that it has always said our common welfare should come first.

But I have never put the emphasis until last night on the word first. That that is, that is the thing that has to happen first for me personally, for the fellowship. And, and as I said last night, it was a dislike. Whoa, you know, and it was just something a couple people said as we were going around the circle. That's what I mean by God speaking through people. It's the same way with Tradition 5. For me,

the primary purpose, the one thing we have to do

is to carry the message to the sexaholic who still suffers. The one thing that I have to do is to carry the message to the sex of all I could still suffers. It does not mean I have to make meetings better or that I have to, you know, judge someone else's sobriety or lack thereof, or that I have to come up with, you know, some clever writings or clever kinds of ways of, you know, organizing program and any of that stuff.

It's the whole thing is this primary purpose, and primary and 1st are basically the same thing.

So we're back again to First things first and common welfare is first and the primary, the first purpose to carry the message. Because not only will that save the fellowship, but more importantly, it'll save me, as it says on page 89. And in the next session, Betty very carefully brought her big book and pencil as I instructed. But it's for the session right after lunch that we'll need it. But for the next session,

anytime we're struggling, as the AAB book says, the most useful, the most important thing I can do is go work with another drunk,

you know? And that's tradition 5 practiced in my my life if I want to keep my life today, which I really, really do.

In whatever way God wants me to have it, then I'm going to have to do that. The other thing too is that, and I think I shared this, it might have been the breakout group that might. I think it was actually when newcomers, this went on for, oh, probably 8-9 years. Newcomers would come to meetings and I would just about crawl out of my skin. I very rarely had to leave the room, but I would be so uncomfortable

getting tight. My head would be starting to spin because they were sharing whatever raw pain they were coming in with.

And I would just, I would just go crazy. And I knew I was being judgmental, which is one of my major character defects. I knew I was being unaccepting. I knew that if I spotted, I got it. When I was being uncomfortable, that was in them was really the stuff in me, like when that guy called me a perpetrator, you know, and

and yet the reality is that I just had to relax and breathe into it and let God be in charge and what happens? And you all have experienced this, I'm sure,

is that over a period of weeks, these newcomers have made me quite a crawl out of my skin get better and their lives stabilize and they learn the lingo, which helps a little bit, but they also, they begin to change and they, and, and frequently the more crazy I felt when they came in, the more I really, really like them as they get healthier. And I just had to translate that 5th tradition in that way that my job is to carry the message they're suffering

as it says in 12 and 12 becomes more and more evidence we go forward that it's pointless to get angry or hurt by people who, like ourselves are suffering from the pains of growing up. And that's what's going on in the 5th tradition is what keeps me in my seat. Essay group never endorsement answer on the essay named any related facility or outside enterprise list pounds of money, property and prestige diverges from our primary purpose that's real practical in terms of the fellowship and we see situations where people try to

around that tradition and it's just a disaster. But more importantly, when I connect my, and I was sharing this with someone during the last hour, when I connect my sexual addiction recovery, my sobriety

to some endorsement, some financial arrangement, someone fairly well known actually in our fellowship really got into selling a particular product that was sort of a pyramid sales thing

and, and started working with people in the fellowship to doing that.

It just drove me nuts personally because it just felt wrong. Well, what it was is a violation of tradition 6, not in terms of SA, that fact they were always very careful about that, but in terms of their relationships to me because they wanted me to sell this product to each other. I watched two people who had been friends their entire time in SA, and this was well over 10 years at that point, just literally blow up so badly they could never repair it.

And one of them died. And that's the way it stands. It's never been repaid. And it's a violation of six tradition because an outside thing, in this case a financial thing, was brought in to their lives, into their recovery. And I'm so grateful to them because there's part of me that wants to do that. You know, I don't need. I'm not attached to money itself, but I can spend it as well as anybody. And,

and I know I could go that way with me, though it's more likely lending the essay name,

you know, lending my, my experience, my sobriety, my recovery, my whatever, whatever, you know. And again, it'd be a violation of 6th tradition for me to do it personally, because it would be a problem of money, property, prestige, diverting me from carrying the message. I might withhold some of the misses like people do. Scientists are starting to do their patenting their work instead of making it available for science. And and it be like needs patenting a piece of essay. So I let it out and move dribs and drabs, you know, lots of six tradition

patient. And there's not going to be any more successful for me than it's never been for anybody else. Every essay group ought to be fully self supporting, declining outside contributions. This is probably the one tradition that I can promise you everyone in this room is going to have a direct experience with because we all have money problems one form or another. At least everybody I've ever met does. And this whole business of being self supporting for our own contributions and coming to terms with that, I've had experience over the years now to see

totally unrelated, they say how devastating. I really believe in Social Security. I believe in Social Security disability payments and all that. And I have also seen it pretty uniformly destroyed people. And it's, it's like, wow, that's a tough one. It really is tough. But that's a situation where they don't have a choice. They really need it. And I'm glad it is. But inside the fellowship, I see people do this all the time and and you find funny examples of it. This a a speaker, Johnny A says you can always tell how an alcoholic

doing. If you want to know you just say hi. Hey, where you living?

And if they say, well, just staying with people, just sort of hanging out, you know, kicking back with folks for a while, just thought they might want me home, you know. And he said, you know, if they don't have a place to live, if they're homeless, in other words, even if they're crashing on, they're doing terribly. And if they have a place to live, they're probably doing okay.

And that's the way the Senate tradition gets worked out in our lives. It's not just money, but it's those things that go to being fully self supported and and all of us personal growth, integrity,

focus. I have a guy and a sponsor right now who it took me a year and a half of him telling you this stuff for me to realize that anytime he talked about money, he was lying. And he wasn't lying lying.

He was telling me a fantasy. So he called me up and say, got this great contract. This is going to ease in advertising. This is going to be really a wonderful $10,000 contract. What that meant was he had lunch with someone who said, you know, there's a $10,000 contract that we're going to be awarding to somewhere. You want to apply for it, you know, and he had spent it and, you know, and his life had been made whole by this. And then of course, he never got the conference. And you know, and and that's going on to this day went on yesterday.

Did we talk yesterday? Day before I guess, but

but The thing is now he says it, he still says the same stuff and I say you're lying. Tell me the truth. What's really going on? So he called me up last week and he said I got this great new job to be editing, proofreading this stuff. And then finally turned out he been told he might get a temp job doing this. And then it later felt through. And that's where that's what fully self supporting their own contributions means. It also means being honest about what we're doing

sexaholics and honest to remain forever nonprofessional. I think I have two minutes here so

get through 8-9 maybe I'll pass forever. Non professional but our service centers may employ special workers.

What that has meant for me is the literal not professionalizing 12 step recovery and how important that is and that we don't do it. And that also we do have service centers, but also in my own life to keep my,

my use and my understanding of spiritual recovery,

to keep it freely available,

to not professionalize it for specializing means of passing it on as an expert and to charge money for it. And I can't do those things safely. I can do them, but not without violating the tradition. And more importantly, I can use others to do that perfectly safely. I can refer people, I can send them to books. I can, you know, we have special workers all over the place. And, and it's my willingness to use them and not think I have to be in the center of every picture for every person, which may seem a little ridiculous when I say it out loud.

My brain works essay As such, I'll never be organized, but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve. This, in some ways, this is the most obscure of all the traditions in some ways. And, and to me, in many ways, it's been one of the most important ones personally. And that's one reason I wanted to talk about it.

And that is in my life, I can be a part of committees, I often AM. I can be a part of projects. I can just have things that are part of my job that I do or family obligations and stuff.

As long as I'm directly responsible to those I'm serving, that my mindset has to be serviced and I have to see myself as responsible, not as the boss, not as the wise guy, not as the expert, or not even as the flake and the guy who doesn't do anything. You know, I have to see it, the service, and I have to be responsible and I have to. I don't have to do it in some rigid, systematic way, planning out my life, planning out my week, whatever. I'm tempted to do that often, but I don't have to do that. I don't have to be

as long as I'm going to serve and be directly responsible. As obscure as that tradition is in many ways, in practical terms for the groups, it's actually become one of the most important. And personally, and, and I was twice surprised by that, I did not expect that. At the same time, it's saving an awful lot of grief.

Let me say on 10 on outside issues it I think having no opinion on outside issues As for a a has turned out to be so important. I have read over the years quite a few articles trashing Alcoholics Anonymous. One way or another,

I've never seen a A respond. I have often wanted to respond for them. Thank you very much.

And I've not done it. And what I've seen overtime is that the critics melt away. In Nashville, we had, we were the leading center of controlled drinking sobriety for a long time. And it was very critical of AA. And I got pretty panicky at one point about all that. And you know what happened? It literally moved out of town and it all melded away. It just doesn't hold up. And the key is, am I going to let God be in charge of outcomes or am I going to try to make David in charge of outcomes?

And that's really what it turns out to be on the outside issues. I think I'll not talk about it 11 and 12, even though they're terribly important after all, in addition to Commonwealth for first primary purpose in Step 5 and 12 says entity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions.

But I'm going to talk more about anonymity and spiritual foundation the next hour, so come back to that. I promised I'd open it up to questions and curiosities and I hadn't done enough that on the first time. So this is yours and we'll wind up around 5 / a couple minutes so we have time to get to lunch. Thanks.

Thanks anybody. I have a question. I'm very self-centered. I took care of personal and said flight. Well, I'm always happy to have, you know, flakes Anonymous, so that's fine. Yeah, it's, you know, I, I use bad language against myself.

One of the things is I have a phrase if I spot it's not original with me at all. It's when I just recite a lot if I spotted I got it and

and one of the reasons it's so important to me is that I will never see anything in someone else that isn't really true in me and 1st and that's why I'm seeing it and then in the 1st place and a long time I thought, well, most of the time that's true. And about five years into the program, I just changed the most to always. It's always been true and I and it's what it's done is it's given me an opportunity. First of all, learn about myself. As soon as I've taken your inventory, I told myself something I probably need to know.

Secondly, it also keeps me from getting knocked off balance when someone says, you know, well, you're a flake, David. Well, as Bill W says, when someone says something like that, you first say, is it true? If it is true, OK, change, maybe it's partly true. If it's partly true, then do something about that part of it. If none of it's true, then just remember they're sick people just like you and love them as they are. And that has allowed me to stay in balance when I remember it, just more

so. So anyway, Flake synonyms, I'll be with you

and I you skipped #11 and I want to hear your comment about it. Doctor Bob wrote very specifically and also spoke very specifically about using our whole names and, and, and Bill Wilson wrote and spoke a lot about the fact that that by not knowing each other within the family

that we kind of become sort of a

cell or a secret organization, which wasn't the purpose of Alcoholics and others. And I noticed you introduce yourself by your whole name as I do too, and I try to encourage that in other people. What could you share with me about that?

Well, I had said I was going to skip on that, that you invited me to share. And I'll be very brief. I think attraction rather than promotion is exactly where it's at. If someone hears, first of all, it's what my sponsor deals, what both my sponsors of that sort did, all of my sponsors except for the first one and actually do it and, and I find it attractive. I find it grounds me in the room. I also know that I have a very strong exhibition of St. And so I have found that I'm I'm

invader by definition. My sponsor taught me that. And one of the boundaries I will invade is to I was talking with some of others during break is to break my anonymity when it's really inappropriate. And and I've had pretty severe consequences for that and have gotten much, much better on that. But I agree with you. I happen to agree with what you said that inside the Fellowship, I want people to be able to look me up in the phone book if they lose my number,

if there's three day that ends, which they're it's not uncommon. I want them to know which one I'm in and

and to know who they are. If guys guys ask me to sponsor pretty regularly, you know, like most of you have learned it, it's fine to say yes because most of them will never call anyway.

But the first thing I'll do is say that's great. What's your last name, Bob?

And then there's this deep silence, you know, then they finally say it. But you know, it's the beginning of for me, it's the beginning of honesty and about who I am. And that's why. And that's the attraction for me. I need that honesty. That's the guy that young man said years ago. And I had trouble with honesty. But not everybody needs that. They may need something else, and they may have other perfectly good reasons for only using their last names. I, I don't judge them. I just do what I do

other people.

How about the you've been involved in a lot of service work and international level. Can you tell us a little bit about I got started doing that would have been some of the challenges you mentioned a little bit about the

yeah,

sponsoring people in service work have certainly

many, many times. I mean, I I said, was it last

this morning, you know, that I had to add to my daily contract. I'm not touching my penis for sexual stimulation because I just had an experience with a month ago that I nearly would have lost my sobriety if I hadn't recoiled. Is it from a hot plane? And I did. But you know, this disease is just as serious and just as deadly and coming baffling and powerful today as it's always been. There have been many occasions when things of that sort, you know, contacts with women, fantasies,

allowing myself to get aroused, whatever, taking in images. If I didn't have the people I sponsor, the service work, I might have gone with it. I don't know. It really has allowed me to stay sober

and specifically in Nashville I got involved initially with we had an international coming and this is actually this is a good example of this. We were doing the international in January of 1990. So about April 1989, we had our first meeting

and we met I was before after our Saturday afternoon meeting and there was so maybe 12/15 of us in a real tiny room. So we're kind of crowded in there. And Harvey was chairing the international and he looked around the room and he said, you know, as we're planning for this international, we have to remember that half of us sitting in this room will not be in the fellowship in January. And so we need to remember that whatever we plan isn't dependent on a particular person. And that really

that shook me up. But I was determined I was going to be there, you know, and in fact, I think only one person wasn't there and was probably partly because he said that. And I think everybody had a similar reaction. Well, darn, it is not going to be me. And and so I at that conference, I sold literature. I did the literature table's and that kind of began in 1991 in Chicago,

Roy in a formal way past the fellowship with no warning

pastor run administration fellowship to the to essay as a whole. So I was a part of a group of I think about 12 of us or ten of us somewhere in there who formed the Central Office oversight Committee and began to manage the central office. And I have actually been on that in that role with central Office since then. So whatever that is,

14 years, I guess

then

and also in the finance role that goes with that. In the mid 1990s I went on the Literature Committee and since the late 1990s have been a chair of that committee, International Literature Committee,

starting in 2001 when Roy 2002, whichever year was 2001, Roy removed our ability to sell the White Book for a period of time. Well, actually we still can't sell it. We removed our access to it

then. We have really been focusing on generating literature for the fellowship and for a number of years. I was editor of the essay, which I passed on a while ago. But so, and all of that was for the purpose of this being sure that Central office was surviving in specific and the essay as a fellowship had literature available to it on a consistent basis.

Things have since they're rectified themselves in terms of its access anyway on the White Book and recovery continues and that's helped a lot. But we're still doing it. So I'm involved in those things

and then locally, you know, I just get involved in helping get meetings going. And certainly as I said, I sponsored probably way too many people. But so that's does that answer your question

other people, maybe one more and more clip if there is one.

How are people here on the 7th step? Print Familiar. Unfamiliar.

Let's close with that. Let's form a circle.

Yeah,

so sexaholic, still suffering in and outside room

seven state prayer, I pray that you now remove from me every single defective character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding of my mind.

He's coming back. It works. It works.

Now I take this tile.

Thanks a lot. Thanks, David.