Workshop on their personal experience with working the steps in Minneapolis, MN

All right,

I've had I've had a really good time here this weekend meeting a lot of you. It's is a great town. You know, you're my kind of people and you know, I'm really, really happy to be here. I Peter was sharing a little bit about the the 4th and the 5th step, and that is so key, I believe in in being able to identify the causes and conditions of my failure at life. It it just really is.

I have one story I can tell you about a fifth step. There was a period of time where

I was just doing way, way too much sponsoring. If he can do such a thing, I'd like 50 guys I was working with and they're all coming through the house. I mean, you know, once and they're all coming through the house. And there was this one guy. I hadn't thought about him in a couple of weeks. And I thought, you know, he owes me a fist up. So I call him up. I say get over my house, bring your first step. We're doing it this Saturday. So he shows up at the house, he walks in

and we go. We go upstairs and he starts reading

and I start to get this feeling a Deja vu, you know, and I realize about 3 resentments in that he'd already done this first step with me. I'd completely forgot. And he's going on and on and on. And I'm thinking, Oh my God. So this is a this is a program that demands rigorous honesty. So I say to him, I say to him, I go, you know, with cases like yours, I like to do this twice,

you know, And yeah, I because I,

I didn't want to look stupid. And

that's not the bad part. He started doing that with all the guys he was working with. So he's doing he's this guys doing double fist steps to this day anyway.

Or can it hurt? I guess right. But

OK, I've, I've recognized that I'm alcoholic and I'm in a real lot of trouble. The whole quality of my life is, is in the toilet. I mean, I, I just can't be happy.

I come to believe that there's a power greater than myself that can restore to me to sanity, not only provide the protection from the first rank, but to to provide direction and care in my life and the power that I need to

be able to really live a really quality life and be able to do the things I want to do. I come to believe in that. After I've come to believe in that, I'm ready to make a decision to seek that. If I can seek that, that that power, if I can enlist that power, if I can participate with that power, I can be safe and protected from the next drinker drug. I can recover from alcoholism and the problems in my life can start to become solved. I can outgrow

fear, I can abandoned my resentment, the guilt and remorse and the shame can be can can disappear depression, anxiety, all that stuff can leave me if, if I make the decision to seek this power. So in in step three, I make, I make a decision to seek the power. I, I, I make a decision to stop playing God. I make a decision that God is going to be my director. He's going to be the principal, He's going to be the father. And I'm going to have to try to

align myself with being directed, being the agent,

being the being the child. And after making that decision, it says we launch into action. We need to launch. Our decision is going to be meaningless unless unless once followed up by a course of vigorous action. So we launch into this vigorous action. I said, I speak sometimes to the guy who's

an airline pilot, my friend Doug, and he was explaining the term launch to me. I said, Doug, what does launch mean? He goes launch means going from zero to 200 miles an hour in a matter of feet, You know, so if we're going to launch, if we're going to immediately and we're going to launch into a vigorous course of action, what does that mean? Does that mean that we can do this Step 3 and then go on vacation to Cancun for a while?

No, we're supposed to. We're supposed to start writing immediately after we get up off of our knees. Basically.

That's the way they did it in the day. That's that's when they had the highest

recovery rates. And that's the way I want to do it because I'll tell you what I would like to have a really good recovery rate chance. So I start writing, I do my inventory, I do the four column resentment. I do the, the fear inventory. I do the harms to others inventory. I develop a sex ideal by looking at the the sex harms on my inventory. You know, it basically says that

US Alcoholics, we're way, way overboard, you know, with our relationships and how we view people and how we maneuver and operate. We're like selfish and self-centered and we get involved in relationships and it's all about us and what can we get? And you know, how can we maneuver? How can we manipulate? How can we get what we want? We'll bring flowers to get what we want or we'll bring threats, but we're going to try to get what we want. And all of this causes a lot of damage and we recognize it in the fourth step.

And at that point in time, we can also see that these are the things that really caused the problems in our lives. These are the things that blocked us off from God. They're the things that kept us from having effective relationships. They're the things that that shot us in the foot every single chance we got. You know, we couldn't finish anything. We, you know, we were expecting people to judge us on our our intentions and not our actions. We were, you know, we were, we were just

at life and we start to recognize all this stuff. So we become willing to have God remove these defects of characters so we can have some kind of quality of life. And back in the day, it was written in the original manuscript that we, that we humbly on our knees ask God to remove our character defects, holding nothing back. So that's like that's the way I like my guys or anybody I'm working with

to do it.

There is a depth to steps, steps 6:00 and 7:00

that over the course of time in your recovery become more meaningful to you. There's more and more levels to the onion. You know what I mean? Like it's very possible for you three days after your last drunk to be, you know, finished with step 6. Does that does that mean you know your life is going to be perfect? No, there's an evolution to to your recovery. So sometimes, and

I do, I to this day, I still do a lot of a lot of work with step 6:00 and 7:00 because

things get subtler things, things go below the radar. You know, I'm not overtly out there causing disasters. I'm not the tornado roaring through everybody's life. But there are still subtle ways that I manipulate or I try to get what I want or I, you know, I'm selfish. And you know, when I recognize those, I inventory them. I ask God to remove, remove these defects of character that are causing me to cause harm in the universe. And over the course of time, you know, this, this

become a process for me. And you know, steps six and seven are really an amazing thing. Bill said. That's this is where we, we separate the, the men from the boys or something in the, in this, in the step up. And I understand a little bit about, about what he's, what he's saying about that. Now just to demonstrate a little bit about the subtle levels of of 6:00 and 7:00,

I heard somebody offer somebody else, this is an exercise.

This is an exercise. Go to the five people who know you best and say to them,

listen, I'm working on a spiritual course of recovery that's going to help save me from alcoholism. And I need you to be brutally honest with me. Write down every single character defect you see in me. You know, tell me exactly how I'm wrong. You know, it's anything that you can think of, you know, and just write that down. Would you do that for me, please? Now, now, let me ask you, how many of you were really going to leave here today and go do that exercise?

Sometimes we don't even want to know what our character defects are. You know what I'm saying?

So there's going to be levels, there's going to be processes that are going to be involved with six and seven. But I believe right after inventory, right after sharing the 5th step with someone, you're about as close as you can be to having the defects of character removed that God is going to show you at that period of time anyway. Now, anybody, anybody in here ever make the mistake of taking some time in between

step 6:00 and 7:00 to do steps 8:00 and 9:00? You know, a little little little breathing room, you know, a couple of months off

now, I don't know about you, but I didn't have any instructions in the steps when I was first getting sober. Somebody would raise their hand in a meeting and say, just how do you do a four step and and some old timer go kick you do a four step with a pencil.

Well, thanks for that. You know, I learned a little bit down the road that they didn't know how to do a four step either. You know, that's why they would say something so stupid. But anyway, there wasn't a lot of of of instruction. There was nobody riding me through the steps. So, you know, I was listening to tapes and you know, I was I was doing this that and I got to a point where I had done my first step. I mean, I felt like I was a part of a, A Now I'm a card carrying a, a member. And, you know, I felt comfortable in the meetings

and I started to have a spiritual experience and I thought now's the time to work on my character defects.

Anybody in here ever work on your character defects yourself? You're gonna you're gonna remove your character defects.

It's ugly, isn't it? You ever see that game whack a mole? You know where you take the mallet and you slam it down on the moles head in another mole pops up and you try to get that one in another more? Well, that that was me trying to work on my character defects. If you're trying to remove your character defects, I'm telling you right now, you're whacking the mole, OK? And if you whack the mole too much, you know what happens?

You go blind now.

So I'm telling you right now, don't do it. It's not pretty, OK?

Let me tell you. Let me tell you the best. Let me tell you the best atmosphere for for the removal of your character defects. The best atmosphere you can be in for the removal of your character defects is becoming willing to make amends where those character defects have harmed other people, and then go out and directly make amends and try to set right the wrongs that you have caused.

You can do that. You can't wish away your your character defects, but what you can do is you can take responsibility for them.

So by taking responsibility for them, you're in the best possible spiritual climate for the removal of your character defects. If you haven't gone out and made amends and your life is still a mess, don't look at the surprise on my face. It won't be there. You know what I'm saying?

I've got some experience with with with the 8th and the 9th step. Here's here's how I do it. And I'm not a slave to, to the mechanics.

If you want to write a list, that's fine. What I do is I do them on index cards and I'll write down on the, on the first part of the index card, the person I harmed and the harm that I'm clear on. And I try to be very specific about the harm. You know, I, I try to, it's got to be the truth, exactly what I did. And you know, I'll put the person's name and, and then what, what I usually use is I'll use a plus and a -. A lot of times when you're assembling your amends, you feel diffident about going

people. In other words, you're you're a little scared about actually going and making direct amendments. You don't feel like you have the power, the spiritual fortitude right at that minute to go out and make amends. Some of these amends are scary. Some of them might cause problems. Some of them you need to discuss them with somebody. But if I don't feel comfortable right that minute going to make the immense, I put a minus. If I feel like I can make that amends right now, I'm clear on it. I'll go, you know, today, whatever, I'll put a plus.

OK, So I'll assemble these cards. Usually I'll sit with a sponsor or spiritual advisor, let them know what the harm is and get some feedback on the approach and what the immense should look like. Now, this is another thing that you know, when you're out there making amends, all kinds of things can happen. It can end up not going the way you want it to. Nine chances out of 10, though, it ends up going better than you think it will. But I want to be clear a little bit on how I could, how I could offer,

set right those wrongs. And I'll put that on the back of the card. Now, our book, our book is very, very clear on on the immense process for criminal amends. It's pretty clear on the man we hated. It's pretty clear on if we've stepped down on the misses. You know, I know that nobody in here has ever done such a thing like that,

but it covers that topic, OK, Domestic troubles, troubles with the family. There's very, very few amends that there aren't instructions in our book.

And it's it's a good idea to get clear on on those instructions prior to making amends. But let's say I've made my list and I have my stack. You know, if it's your first immense stack, I've seen anywhere from 20 to 150 amends. It usually doesn't go go further up than that. There's a men's cards for people that you you can't see anymore. They could be one night stands or they could be somebody you robbed and you don't even know who

where. There can be a lot of events like that, but you have you have a stack of cards about Yay Bing

now.

Nothing will put muscle in your recovery more than step 9.

Step 9 is a transformational experience. But here's what you think before you go into step nine. Oh my God, I can't do that. This will happen or that will happen, or I'll look like a jerk or they'll tell everybody. I mean, your ego is going to come up with every excuse in the world to not do this step. It's going to be a battle between your spirit and your ego. And you know what? You're going to need every bit of enthusiasm, every bit of support you can get,

your sponsors and the people that you're working with to get through this process because it's not easy. It takes a lot of courage. Courage is walking through fear, being afraid and doing it anyway. You know what I mean? And I'm telling you, Alcoholics are courageous people. I have seen the most amazing amends that that you can even imagine done.

You know what I mean? I mean, I sponsor. I sponsor a guy who

who was on his way to a rehab, drunk across the double yellow and hit a nurse coming out of the rehab head on and killed her, you know, and I've seen this guy get free, did his time, he did the best kinds of amends he could do. I mean, I've seen some courageous amends in my day.

Don't shortchange yourself from this experience. It's the most transformational experience in the 12 step process. And it's the one, it's the ones that so many people in Alcoholics Anonymous that they'll try to talk you out of

and they're going to try to talk you out of it because they didn't do it and they don't want you to be a better AA member than them or some crazy crap like that. So go to people with experience to help you get through this. One of the things that I found very, very helpful was a steel on steel format. There's some people that can explain that to you if you want. But basically what it is, it's a tight little support group. It's like you meet in, there's maybe five friends or something that meet in their house once a month

and just get current with where they are in the program. Just hey, tell me where you are in the

in the three areas of the triangle. Tell me how you're doing with your meetings. Tell me how you're doing in your recovery process. Tell me how what you're doing in service. And everybody gets current with each other and we keep each other honest

about this process. And and it's a, it's a very challenging format for amends because in a lot of the steel on steels, I would do, I would go, OK, everybody on the table and unfinished immense put it on a table. I know you guys got one. And everybody would come up with an amends that they were supposed to make. And we would challenge each other. The next time we meet, we want to hear about how that amends went. You need every bit of encouragement you can get to do this because again,

it's so damaging to the ego.

It's it's so damaging to the ego does not want you to do it. Every bit of your alcoholism will be crying out, no, I can't go there. I won't do that with that person.

You know, I mean, I, I sponsor, I sponsored a guy who someone

sexually abused his daughter who was fourteen or something. And I mean, he beat the crap out of this guy. He had him prosecuted because it was a friend of the family. And he had this anger inside him about this. This guy did this to my daughter and he he fuming about it. And he came to me with his cards and he goes, listen, Chris, I'm telling you right now, telling you right now, there's a card in there and I don't want to hear it.

I don't want to hear it. It's I am never making amends to this. Do you know what this guy, I am never making amends to this bastard. I don't care what you say you I don't even know why I wrote the card. I said, I guess that's a minus then, you know? And he goes, you're damn right. It's all it is. Now here's what here's what happened. He had a stack about that high. He got all the way down to the last card

and it was this guy. And he came to me and he goes,

I gotta do it. I can't believe I'm at this point. I can't believe I'm asking you this, but how the hell am I gonna do this? You know? And and we worked it out. He actually met with the guy at a diner and he made amends for his part. You know what his part was? The hate that he had for this guy. I mean, he went after this guy with a vengeance and he needed to get free of that. It was burning him up. It was corroding his spiritual condition.

Who was corroding his spiritual condition? You know, we get a daily reprieve from from, from alcohol based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. If there's something corroding our spiritual condition, important warning sign, you know what I mean? Your sobriety could be in peril. So he did this he got done he was finished with the men's. I, I have never seen a transformation like that in my life He's worked with hundreds of Alcoholics. He gets him through amends. He's carrying the message all over the place and his life is

on fire with quality and spirituality and he's one of the happiest guys I've ever seen in my life. He went from being a resentful, pissed off alcoholic to just being like this, this love Buddha guy, you know? I mean, it was just a unbelievable transformation, you know? And everybody goes to him. He's everybody's spiritual advisor. I want what he has, you know what I mean?

And, and that kind of transformation is possible Now.

Peter talked about this a little bit before. There is opinions and there's experience. If you have not finished your amends, don't come up and want to talk to me about you don't have to or This is why you shouldn't or isn't that silly? You're going to be giving me an opinion based on an experience you've not had.

Get to the other side of a men's finish them to the best of your ability. Some people can't be seen, some people can't be approached because it'll cause more harm and suffering. I understand all that, but when you're working with someone who's got experience with these steps, go as far as you absolutely can. When you get to the other side then come talk to me about what the experience is like

completing every single amends your consciously aware of. At this point in time

there is a new freedom and a new happiness that you have no idea you could have access to. How about the removal of fear? How about being able to go anywhere, anytime, not worrying about seeing anybody.

I mean, Alcoholics, the, the, the damage we do going through life, you know, we're like a tornado. I mean, when you know, we've hurt neighbors and we, we've, we've hurt lovers and we, you know, we've hurt family and we've heard employers. And how about if you've gone to every single one of them? And this is how I suggest it's done,

except maybe in money and men, sometimes you just pay the money back. But this is this is how I suggest to my guys to do it because this is how I've found through my own experience is the best way. There's three questions that's very that are very, very important to ask when you're facing somebody. You, you know, you go, you get clear on here's the harm I've caused you. I was wrong. You don't say you're sorry, you say you're wrong.

I was, you know, I didn't. I was wrong. You know, I caused these harms. And then when you get done with that, there's three questions that I find very, very helpful.

One of them is, have I left anything out? Are there any other harms on? I'm unclear on that. I've caused you and then shut up because they'll usually tell you, okay

after they've told you okay. Another question is do you need, do you need to talk about this and you need to tell me how it made you feel? Do we need to discuss any of this further? And then shut up and listen and they'll tell you. They'll tell you usually. And then the third and most important question is what would you have me do to set right this wrong?

What would you have me do to set right this wrong?

And then if it's if it's, if it's ethical, if it's legal, if it's moral, if it's appropriate and if it's possible, do it, whatever that is. And then you've completed the immense most of the times they don't give you a laundry list of stuff. They'll say, oh, listen, no, this is just great that you're here. You know, I'm really impressed. And you know, just keep doing what you're doing. They tell you to keep doing what you're doing, then keep doing what you're doing. If they tell you just stay sober, then just stay sober.

How you complete the immense All right,

I had this guy he was training for to be an alcoholism counselor and he was in his master's program and I get I get asked to speak every once in a while at colleges and stuff like that. And my main topic is spiritual recovery. A lot of people that are in MSW programs, you know, there's not really a course spiritual recovery. They teach you a whole lot of stuff and they don't teach very much on spiritual recovery, but it's important because there are periods of time when those counselors are not going to be able to help you, when those,

when the clinical psychologists are not going to be able to help you. And it's important for them to understand what Alcoholics Anonymous is, what the 12 steps really is. It's a spiritual recovery program. So I gave this one talk and this guy came, guy followed me out into the hallway and he's, he's given me a hard time. He's going, what about shame? You know, don't you have to learn to live with shame? And I'm like, no.

And he goes, well, how can that be? I I don't understand.

There's got to be a way that you can deal with your shame. And I go, no, not my, I don't deal with any shame. And he's looking really confused. And I asked him this question. I go, listen,

have you, have you ever, have you ever listed out all the people that you have harmed in your life?

And he goes, no. And I go, so then you've never directly made amends to those people and asked them what you needed to do to set right those wrongs. And he goes, no. I go, then how do you know if you're going to have to deal with shame or not? You're giving me an opinion based on an experience you've never had.

And he walked away real confused and headed out to council. All of us, you know, for the next 20 years or something, Unfortunately. But but anyway,

don't cheat yourself. Get to the other side of immense. Don't hastily run out there, you know, get some, get some guidance from some people with some experience because you can actually cause harm making amends that you're going to have to go back and make more amends for, which is, you know, not something that you want to do.

Now, this thought brings us to step 10. The way I view step 10 is step 10 is my operational step. It's, it's my reactive step. How do I react out there in the world? I've been given a bunch of spiritual exercises. I've been given a bunch of spiritual principles that I'm supposed to find guiding. I'm supposed to use them in my life as tools to be able to get along with

myself, my fellow man, and God.

In step 10, it tells us to continue to use personal inventory, to share things, to make amends when we're wrong. You know, to work with another alcoholic, pray, meditate. It basically gives us a laundry list of all of the steps put together. And

it's offering this as a walking around reactive step. How are you going to react tomorrow when the boss lays you off? How how are you going to react when somebody loses their mind and starts yelling at how are you going to react when somebody rear ends you, you know, at a stoplight? All of these things. We don't stop making mistakes just because we get sober and go through the steps

in Word fought indeed. Every single day we're going to fall short.

Falling short isn't what's going to get you drunk. Making those mistakes isn't what's going to deteriorate your spiritual condition. How you how you use the program of recovery is how you're going to make sure your spiritual condition is not going to deteriorate. It's going to help you to keep things from building up in your life. Now I'm someone who promotes

multiple runs through the steps. It's been my experience that

every couple of years going through the steps, once a year, once every six months, whatever you need, you go through the steps. And what I found by doing that is I found that I find a lot of stuff on the 4th step. I find a lot of stuff on the eighth step that I've missed in the 10th step. But my list is a lot shorter these days. When I go through the steps, it doesn't take me long. I don't have a big inventory. I don't have a whole bunch of immense cards. It's, it's a few

and it's because of

my ability to use step 10 as a tool to keep my spiritual life in the best possible way that I, I can. But you're going to miss stuff. It says in the step book of many of us go in for annual or semi annual house cleanings. That's a, a quote right out of the 12:00 and 12:00. What does that mean? What's a house cleaning? I believe the house cleaning is steps 4 through 9

is what a house cleaning is. Get your get your spiritual life in order.

We aren't good at walking around with a lot of unresolved stuff in our lives. Alcoholics it, it interferes with our sobriety. It interferes with with the way we feel about ourselves. We do much better not having any outstanding problems out there. OK,

when I walked into AI, probably owed 100 of men's and, you know, I'd caused all kinds of harm. I was afraid to walk up my street. I was afraid to go to the supermarket because I'd bump into somebody. I mean, I had so much, so much stuff going on. I, I just couldn't, you know, I'm trying to get sober. You know, I, it was, it was, it was rough.

And today, today, you know, I can go anywhere. I don't care who's there. I don't, I'm, I'm not expecting any surprises out of the past

fear really. I really have outgrown the fear of people. And that's a big thing. That's a really good thing. It allows me to do a lot of things in my life that I otherwise would have, would have been too anxious

or or have have way, way too much anxiety to be able to do

so. There's a freedom. There's absolutely a freedom that you can get through this process. So step 10, keep your side of the street as clean as possible. Keep your spiritual condition as clean as possible. Where do we go from here? There's a one thing I hear, I heard early on that still makes sense to me today is the steps are in order for a reason.

Each step gives you the power to do the succeeding step. If you're sitting in this meeting right now and you're thinking about what I had talked about on amends, Oh my God, you know, I'm I'm going to have to do this or they're going to expect me to do that.

Let me tell you right now if, if you're not, if you haven't done step one through step eight, you don't have the power for step 9.

You know, don't worry about thinking that you can't do it now. Each step gives you the power to do the succeeding step. So they're in order for a reason.

All right, you're up. You're up through step nine, Step 10. You're living in a day with step 10. You're in the moment with step 10. What is really going to help to, to maintain and improve and perfect your spiritual life and your spiritual condition?

Prayer and meditation, prayer and meditation have been known for a gazillion years to be very, very beneficial to all of us. It's, it's important for us to do these disciplines. If you don't pray and you don't meditate, you're, you're missing out on something. If you've got a problem with God, pray and meditate anyway. You know, you know what I mean Just do it and after a while you're going to start to see the benefits from it. But

there's three basic parts to Step 11. There's upon awakening. There's as we move through the day

and then there's when we retire at night. OK, Those are three basic disciplines.

Upon awakening, we look at the day. Here's basically what I do. I, I have AI have a prayer ritual that I do every day just to kind of get me centered. And then I go into, then I go into meditation and I've got to tell you, I, I would, I would much, it would be much easier for me to walk out outside my house without my pants on

than to leave the house before I do my prayer meditation. It's become such a habit to me that I've got to stop everything I'm doing. If I realize, Oh my God, I forgot to do the prayer of meditation, which doesn't happen anymore, but it used to. I've got to pull over. You know what I mean? I mean, it's, I've got to bring God into my day. I've got to bring God into my day. The power has to be in me at all times. I need to be present

to the power that's operating in my life. I, I just do.

I just do it. That's the power that's keeping me separated from booze. That's the power that's that's helped me recreate my life. That's the power that's helped me relieve me of the bondage of my character defects. That's the power that has enabled all of the positive things in my life. I enabled all the negative things in my life. So without without becoming awake and aware to that power in the morning, it's very, very difficult for me to feel

throughout the day. One of the early lessons that my sponsor told me, he goes, Chris, you know, I want you to pray in the morning and I want you to sit in the silence and there's going to be days when you forget to do that. I want you to pay attention to the days when you forget and the days when you do it and just compare those days took me like a month to realize my days go terrible if I forget to pray and meditate. And they're pretty much decent when I do. So it became, it became a habit.

It became a habit with me to do that. As we move through the day, there's a lot of disciplines. I'm not going to go through them all, you know, read your own big book on this. But there's practices like like like to watch for selfishness, to watch for dishonesty. When these crop up, we ask God, it wants to remove them. There's a lot of a lot of spiritual directives in as we move through the day. And as we move through the day is directly related to step 10 too.

How do we react out there when we're in the middle of, you know, when all hell is breaking loose? Like most of us can be spiritual and everything's fine, but let a lot of lot of stuff go on, you know, go to a family reunion or, you know, have people show up at your house to stay for a week that you you weren't expecting. There's a lot of things that happened to us. How how spiritual are you? Then you know

and listen, it's it's not about you don't. This isn't this isn't a graded program, you know, get A's, BS and CS. It's a pass fail,

you know what I'm saying?

You need to do. You need to do what you can do. You need to put as much effort as you can put in.

And as I walk through the day, I need to be aware, awake and aware of the spirit inside me awaken, aware of

the way I need to live my life in a spiritual manner. And I need to do that to the best of my ability. Again, over the course of time, you know, I'm, I'm talking, I'm talking 18 years of this for me, I've gotten better and better. There's an evolution to your recovery, but you need to get need to get on the path

today. I caused very little harm in the universe. I really do. I cause very little harm in the universe. But it wasn't long ago when I was causing a lot of harm. You know, one of the things that I found very, very difficult to deal with for many years was judgmentalism, Man, I was judgmental. I that meeting over there, that person, Sharon over here. Oh, no, that their hand is going up again. Or my boss. My boss was always a jerk,

you know, the, the cops were always after me. You know, the wrong political parties in, you know, the economy's going to hell, you know, and, and I was wrapped up, I was wrapped up in a, in a very negative worldview. And over the course of time practicing the spiritual principles here, here's basically what's happened. I've gone from a worldview built on fear to a worldview built on love and service. It's been a shift in perception. You know what a miracle is? A

is a shift in perception. It's seeing something differently. It's seeing something with a new pair of glasses.

What you used to just drive you crazy. Now it doesn't bother you at all when you when you see somebody who's who's acting out and outrageous in a meeting, you know, and you used to think that they shouldn't be there. Now you're seeing there's somebody that needs some help.

You know, it's a shift in perception. You're seeing things differently, all right? This comes from constant attention, I believe, to the Step 11 disciplines. Now

when we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Constructively is an operative word. We want to get better. We don't want to beat ourselves up. We don't want to sit in self pity and say to ourselves, oh, I'm never going to get better. I do. This is all you know.

Don't worry about that. Just recognize. Recognize some of the mistakes you've done. Recognize some of the good things you've done, but recognize some of the mistakes that you've done

and a lot of times this is it's good to do this by writing. OK, I'm not going to tell you that I write every night doing my 11 step. But if something comes up that I need to pay attention to tomorrow, if I need to make an amends tomorrow, if I need to set write something, if I've lied to somebody, if, if, if I've misrepresented a situation to somebody and it

and I catch it in my 11th step, there's a reason I'm catching it in my 11th step. I need, it needs to be dealt with

and I'll do a ten step of men's or something like that the next day or whatever. But what we're trying to do is we're trying to learn how to live a spiritual life to the best of our ability, and we're enlisting God's aid in every way we can

to help us get there because the spiritual life is not for everybody. It is, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a narrow, it's a narrow path. And it takes a lot of a lot of effort, a lot of discipline, a a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of support from a higher power.

All right, I'm going to move into Step 12

having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these 12 steps, All right, What does that say? What does that mean,

having had an awakened spirit as a result of the course of action from steps one through 11?

I don't believe you can have a spiritual awakening as the result of steps you haven't taken.

Now I do, I do a lot of work, you know, in beginners meetings and and rehabs and detoxes and every once in a while somebody raise their hands and I had my spiritual awakening out on the stool out there with Harry. I'm like you're, you're talking about a spiritual experience. A spiritual experience is that is a one shot. It's like we've all had spiritual experiences. If you did any LSD, you probably had some, you know what I mean? We've all had spirit, but the spiritual experience is something that's not going to last very long. It's like a shot in the arm. It's

seeing that beautiful sunset, you know, or the the perfect day. We've all we've all had those spiritual awakening is in awakening. Our spirit has been asleep. Our ego has been running the show and our spirit has been asleep. So once you get through with your amends, you've done some work with your, your learning how to operate in step 10. And as we move through the day and you're doing your disciplines, apparent prayer and meditation morning, eve and evening,

you've got an awakened spirit. You've got a new perspective, a new outlook on life. You see things differently, you operate differently, your relationships are different, you react differently,

all situations OK. You've had a spiritual awakening as the result of the 12 steps. If you haven't done the 12 steps, you can't carry the message to another alcoholic because it says having had the spiritual awakening as the result of the 12 steps, we tried to carry this message to other Alcoholics. What message? What kind of a message are you bringing if you haven't gotten through the 12 steps?

I say, I say it like this.

You can carry

the alcoholic to the message or you can carry the message to the alcoholic. If you haven't had a spiritual awakening, that doesn't mean you can't do still do 12 step work,

but really all you can do is encourage somebody to not drink. It's all you can really do.

If you haven't had a spiritual waking, you're just encouraging somebody to not drink. If you've had a spiritual awakening, you can carry the message of that spiritual awakening to somebody and show them how to get free. There's a big difference between encouraging somebody not to drink and offering them the freedom from the bondage of alcoholism. It's like the difference between night and day.