Steps 10, 11 & 12 at the Spiritual Awakenings group in Bernardsville, NJ

We will have Chris S, so I'll turn the meeting over to Chris.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Chris. I'm an alcoholic.

It's good to be here tonight.

I was not here last week. I had I had some business that I had to be at. But I heard Peter was phenomenal, a lot of talk about some of the things that he said.

And I'm, I'm very, very glad for that.

I'll be sharing my experience and understanding of steps 10:11 and 12:00 tonight a little bit.

And I'll start with saying that if you've identified yourself as an alcoholic and you've come to believe that

you need to engage in the a, a process to get to the power that will relieve you of your alcoholism,

you've made the decision to do that. You've done an inventory. You've done a fist step.

You followed the 6th and 7th step practices,

and you've listed the people and the institutions that you've harmed

with your character defects, and you've gone out and made direct amends to them where wherever possible.

You've pretty much

had a spiritual awakening.

I don't think that you can do those exercises without real serious change taking place in you.

I know, I know. By the time I had gotten to the end of the first list that I actually completed,

some amazing things started to happen in my life. That's the period of time where I started to take other people through the big book. This group kind of developed in my house.

Umm, some just unbelievable things were taking place in my life and it it was so apparent that there was a new power in my life, something that was

fueling me to do some really amazing things, like on my own. I have got to tell you, on my own,

without that power, what happens is I isolate, I get drunk, I get resentful, and my life gets smaller and smaller and smaller.

By coming into Alcoholics Anonymous, being exposed to the recovery program and practicing it very, very imperfectly, I might add, I was exposed to a power that was transformative at all levels of my life. Really just transformative

now in step 10. I was thinking about step 10 a lot today.

I'm the type of person I haven't learned a A and then shut my mind. If if you hear me do a workshop two years from now, I might be talking about completely different things because I allow myself to have an open mind and be open to new experiences. And as I, as I move through some of these spiritual processes, I, I allow myself to, to be able to change my mind.

You know what I mean?

One of the saddest things that I see in a A is, is somebody that comes into a A A

learns what they need to learn in the first six months. And that's it.

They're, they're, they're bigoted toward anything new, anything different, anything that, that Joe Gerbil feather, their sponsor did not tell them. You know, they're not going any further than than that. And it's, it's really, it's really sad to see because I believe that the, the spiritual life is, is something that we, we grow,

we grow in and we broaden and we deepen our experiences. And it's,

it's not something that we want to put the brakes on for. We want to be able to, to, to broaden it deep. And then there's there's a lot in the literature that basically points us toward a lifetime goal of spiritual growth.

No, I was thinking, I've thought different things about Step 10 over the years. Some of the things that I thought were that Bill needed a 12th step and jammed this in somewhere because Step 10 really is talking about other steps and how you practice them. So I thought, you know, he needed a 12 step and he's just, he's doubling up here.

And I thought that for a while, way back when. And

today, I believe that it is so appropriate to have Step 10 right after Step 9, because we've we've just achieved a spiritual awakening. If we've really worked, if we've been painstaking about this course of spiritual action, we've had a spiritual awakening. You can lose a spiritual awakening.

So what's more appropriate than to put a step after step nine that tells us we need to practice these principles and these spiritual exercises on a daily basis? What would be more appropriate than that? There's a there's a subtle genius to these steps that I truly believe that that came from, came from the power that we access, because the more, you know, I've studied the history of a A and there wasn't a there wasn't a wackier dude then,

you know what I mean? As he was moving into his, his upper years of spiritual growth, he would, he would do things with a Ouija boards and LSD and, you know, vitamin B12 to try to achieve spiritual consciousness. I mean, there wasn't a wackier dude than him. And, and for for him to be the principal architect of this text

is just beyond belief. I mean, the guy was like 4 years sober when this book was was written. OK. I worry about leaving people with four years alone in my house, you know what I mean? Or like lending in my car. I think twice about that, you know, so, so for, for somebody with with like four years to be able to have

been basically the, you know, the person assembling all of this information is just remarkable to me.

But here we are, we're at step 10, which asks us to continue a number of things. And I believe that at the heart of this step, it's asking us that all of the lessons, all the exercises that we practice that we got positive results from, let's learn to use them reactively. Let's use, let's learn to use them as we walk through the debt, because as Alcoholics, we are very, very imperfect people. We're going to fall short. And we're thought indeed,

probably from the moment we get up in the morning, you know, if, if we're having relationships with people, we're, we're scrolling them up somehow, you know, that's just us. So

learn how to use these, use these exercises reactively. Let's learn how to OK, I'm disturbed, you know, my boss is driving me crazy. You know, there's way too much stuff going on. I'm losing my mind. I'm starting to, I'm starting to react. I'm starting to say things I don't, I don't, I don't want to say, you know, I'm losing it.

Pause when agitated or doubtful and look for, you know, inventory and a spot check inventory. Let's look what is threat? What is being harm threatened or interfered with in my instincts and ambitions? You know, go right there

and take a look at it. Have I been wrong? If I'm wrong, I need to promptly admit it. I don't need to carry it around. This thing. I, as I've, as I've grown in Alcoholics Anonymous and I've, as I've put the years together, I've learned something about my spiritual condition. Emotionally, I'm more sensitive than I was when I first came in. When I first came in to to to AAI was out of my mind. You know, I I thought like conflict

resolution was like dynamite, you know, and just blow the people up. And that's how you deal with with conflict revel, you know, resolution. So and I was lying, cheating and stealing and hustling and manipulating and using and I was self will run riot. And I'm not saying I was comfortable with it, but I'll tell you this right now. If I acted that way today

for 5 minutes, I probably couldn't take it. I've become,

I've become very emotionally sensitive and for me to to get out of whack, to get off the beam, I really do need these, these these practices to be able to bring me back to some form of serenity or, or to just be at least, you know, have be able to deal with the situation without acting out in a way that I'm going to have to make amends for or a way that's really inappropriate. Now,

there's another thing that I've learned by being an alcoholic synonymous a long time,

and that is we lose a lot of people. I've said this before, even in this workshop, but it bears repeating. I've been around long enough to know that we lose half of the fellowship at least every five years. And I'll, I'll give you for instance, and this, this is a statistic that I can't back up with facts because trying to use accurate statistics in an anonymous program as an effort in futility. But you can this will this. You can bear this out by looking

coin sales. If you come from a large Home group, just see how many coins are being bought

at different intervals. And I'll give you, for instance, I'd say half of the people who have over five years have less than 10. Half the people that have over over 10 years have less than 15. Half the people that have over 15 years have less than 20. You see where I'm going with this? Every five years we lose half of the fellowship for one reason or another. They decide to stop coming. They can go back out and drink. They can. They can retire somewhere, they can back off the meetings. I don't know, but they're leaving, OK? They're not sticking around my Home group.

And what I've learned, what I've, what I've truly learned from working with a lot of people. I happen to sponsor a lot of people and have sponsored a lot of people for 15 years or more now. So I have some combined experience working with others. And here's what I've learned that you have to put enough into a A to get enough back from a A to be able to stay. In other words, if you come in and you sit in the back and you don't work the steps and you don't get a sponsor and you don't share and you don't, you're not

service and you don't do anything. You just want to sit in the osmosis seat and and soak everything up. You're not going to get enough of a chargeback from a A to be able to stay. And somewhere along the line you're going to figure that it's not working, it's not worth it. This isn't happening. I don't I don't see the difference.

The you know, the season finale of Friends is on tonight. I'm not going to the meeting. And you know, you'll stay home and watch Slipper Vision

or something like that, or you know you'll do, you'll find a reason to not be in the meetings. Now, if you're in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous and you're sponsoring people and you're going through the steps and you're practicing Step 10 and you're busy, you're going to be receiving so much from the program of recovery that you're not going to, it's not even going to be an option for you to leave. It's not something that you would want to do.

I heard one of the founding members of the of A A said,

yeah, at first you have to go, then you need to go, then you want to go, then you love to go. And that should be your evolution in Alcoholics Anonymous as far as meeting attendance and participation. You should know in the beginning that you have to, then you need to, then you want to, and then you love to. I'm luckily at a point today where I love participation in Alcoholics Anonymous.

Most of the time, it's the highlight of my day when, when I go to a meeting and, and I get FaceTime with, with, with, with my alcoholic friends. I've, I've really made a life, wrapped my life around Alcoholics Anonymous instead of adding Alcoholics Anonymous as like, you know, in addition, I really have gotten to the point where Alcoholics Anonymous is my life and, and I work when I'm not going to meetings. And, you know, I have relationships when I'm not going to meetings and I have friendships when I'm not at meetings

with other people. And that's, that's just where where I come from. And I think the only way to get there is to be really, really active in Alcoholics and others.

So I believe step 10 without getting into the mechanics, you can read the mechanics yourself or or listen to people who can explain them better than me. I think it's using everything you learn in Alcoholics Anonymous in a reactive way. When something comes up in your life that you need the inventory, inventory when, when you've done something wrong and it, and it requires an immense or a corrective action, use the corrective action

when, when it, when something requires prayer and meditation, you know, do that

when you need to talk to somebody about something you've done, when you need to get current with somebody about an issue in your life, you need to share that you need to have open communication with another alcoholic. And if you continue to do these things, you're going to continue to stay sober. You can kind of continue to grow in Alcoholics Anonymous and you're going to, you're going to want to and love to participate. And that way you're not going anywhere.

You know what I mean? You're not going anywhere. It's not OK

to leave Alcoholics known. I work with a ton of relapsers, OK, And I'll tell you right now, it's not OK to stop going to meetings, go out, relapse, come back and say I did it one more time. That's not acceptable. It's not OK. And I don't think we should applaud the people when they're coming back because it's not OK to go back out. You know, I heard one, I heard one guy share one time. You know, please stop clapping for me every time I come back. My problem is, I think I can.

I think I can keep coming back.

Illness. We have buried a few people from the surrounding meeting area this last year. This this disease will drag you into isolation and murder your ass, murder you in an absolutely ugly, unacceptable way. So it's not OK to leave AI.

The thing that there's one thing in the book Alcoholics Anonymous and says you need to do if you relapse and you come back and that's redouble your effort, redouble your effort. That's the one thing it tells you you need to do. And redoubling your effort would indicate that we need to double up on what you were doing when you know when you failed.

If you if you weren't working the steps, you need to work them, and if you weren't working with the spots, you need to work with a sponsor. If you were working the steps and were working with the sponsor, you weren't doing it fast enough. You need to do it faster.

We need to redouble your efforts, whatever you, whatever efforts you fell short on. And the alcoholic ego is beautiful. It likes to give reasons. It likes to allow you to become convinced that there's a reason that you went back out.

The reason when you went back out is you didn't put enough work into the spiritual program of action. That's the only reason why we go back out. Not because she left or he left or you lost a job or or you know something traumatic happened. That's not the reason many of us have lost jobs. Many of us have have lost her or him and we stayed sober. It's not the outside

circumstances that drive us to drink. It's our lack of participation,

spiritual process and the spiritual life.

So the one thing we I believe, I believe we get enough power to do is to participate in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's very rare, but it's it happens. But it's very rare that that we see somebody who fails.

Rarely have we seen someone who's who's failed, who's thoroughly followed the program in recovery. There are those who cannot or will not engage in the recovery process. And Alcoholics Anonymous. I love how non judgmental Bill was when that was written.

He doesn't say they're stupid. He doesn't say that they're lame. He doesn't. He says they cannot or will not work the program of recovery. I think,

I think we can get the power to work the program and recovery unless we're very, very mentally ill.

So that's good news. Now the bad news is the statistics on Alcoholics Anonymous or abysmal these days. I, I was surfing some websites the other day and there's more and more. There's non 12 step recovery processes that are becoming available out there. And one of the main reasons is, is there's been some successful lawsuits by people who've been in recovery processes that that have mentioned God and had God is a prominent part of the recovery

sets. So, you know, that may sound a little bit crazy to you and me, but they've made the case and successfully that it's religious and so it shouldn't have governmental funding and it shouldn't be backed up by insurance or whatever. And they're making these cases. So more and more there are there are non 12 step alternatives out there now. I don't have a lot of experience with them. Actually, I probably have zero

experience with those,

but what they like to do is they like to use our statistics against us. They like to say that 6% of the people that come into a A will be there in a year sober, and 3% of the people that come into a A will be there sober in five years. And you know, I don't really, again, I don't know where these statistics come from, but they're reasonably accurate. Unfortunately, you know the people that come in and raise their hand and say they're new to a A

keep track of them. If you're, if you're a group officer or something, you'll, you'll see we lose 1 hell of a lot of them.

And those statistics are being used against us now. In the early days of a A, the statistics were 50% of the people who came in and tried. And what I mean by that is they started, they got engaged in the 12 step process. They started to work this. They were taken through the steps with you by either Bill or Bob or Clarence or you know, any of those early knuckleheads and 50% of them that started that stage. So

another 25% after they relapsed and came back and said oops.

I'll really try this time state's over and they said 25% showed improvement. So there was there was a 75% recovery rate in early a a Akron, I'm sorry, Cleveland, OH boasted a 93% recovery rate in the 1st 10 years of Alcoholics Anonymous. That was with Clarence was up there just making you get down on your knees and do the prayers and making you go back and and do the events and making you work with other people. I mean,

you're, you either do that or you're gone. So the people that were there were more likely to do the work of Alcoholics Anonymous and stay. So,

you know, today it's become acceptable to sit in the back of the room and languish, not being held accountable to work the steps,

having only a desire to not drink being your membership requirement. And nobody's going to push up on it. That's really what a A has has turned into. I'm not making a judgment on that. I think Bill Wilson and some of the some of the members in the 50s and later on decided to throw the doors as wide open as they could be to catch everybody, throw the doors wide open, make make only a desire to stop drinking a membership requirement. Well, in the early days of a A, there was more than a lot more than that

involved in being in the meetings of a A. You better be doing the steps, you better be working with other people or you're out,

you know. So what they did was they, they threw open the doors in a in this and during the development of the traditions, good, bad or indifferent. Again, I'm not judging it. I'm just saying that since that time you can come into a A and you can be non participatory.

You can, you can be an Alka, not, you know, you can orbit around a A and never really come in for a landing.

So I think that's where a lot of our, our bum statistics are coming from. You know, there's a lot of people who just aren't buying into the recovery process. You know, there are, there are people who couldn't sit 2 minutes in this meeting tonight that are, that have been in a, a quite a while. They don't want to hear it. They've got, they've got a different perspective on what Alcoholics is Anonymous is like and they don't like to be told that there's work

involved because Joe Gerbil Feather never told him there was work and they just don't buy it, you know, all that newfangled stuff. So

before I run out of time, I'm going to move into step 11. Step 11 has been a wonderful step for me. I've got to tell you, I always was seeking contact with God. I was always seeking contact with God. I did it with drugs, I did it with alcohol, I did it however I needed to do it. But I never felt good enough myself.

I never felt good enough myself. I was never comfortable with myself. I was never comfortable with my environment. I never felt like I fit in. I never felt like I could say what I wanted to say. Crowds made me really nervous. Public speaking. I'd rather shoot myself. I mean, there was just I was, I was repressed, OK? I was repressed and I was using drugs and I was using alcohol to get out there. I couldn't admit,

imagine going to a party without getting some ballast on. You know what I mean? I would get drunk and then go to the party. Most people went to the party and got drunk. I'd go to the I get drunk and then go to the party. That's just the way I was. I needed to feel OK about myself. So I was seeking that relationship with God because I believe that that's what that's really what happens with me when I'm close to God, I am comfortable. That's just the way it works with me. I've got one, I've got the power going on that I've achieved monopolies, anonymous. I'm pretty much OK

for whenever doing whatever I need to do. I'm all right. And I don't have that anxiety, that crippling anxiety that can border on terror. You remember that terror you used to experience the coming 2:00 in the morning wondering, you know, what the hell you did the night before and stuff. So I, I remember I started to read books when I was 18, spiritual books like Alan Watts and Carlos Castaneda. I went for the real wack stuff in in the beginning. You know, like

Charity of the Gods.

Just really looking for first for an answer, for something to make me feel better. I was, I was searching and I

had an uninterrupted

reading schedule since that time back in the back in the mid to late 70s, where I have devoured about a gazillion billion books. I, I, the last house I lived in, there was a library, a library wall to wall books and, and most of my books were still in boxes. You know what I mean? So I mean, I, I've read Christian literature till it's coming out my ears. I've read a Tibetan Buddhism,

American Indian disciplines, Hindu beliefs and practices,

the Taliban, you know, the, the Kabbalah. I mean, I've just soaked all of this stuff up and

because of that

innate desire to be one with my Maker, you know what I mean? Now I'm unorthodox, you know, in my quest, I don't want anybody to listen to what I do and then go do that. I think that I think that the quest for a relationship with God has to be personal and you need to follow your own, your own news with it. You know what I mean? I think that there's a couple of sins that you can be guilty of, an alcoholic synonymous.

One of them is

going after the newcomer predatorily and sexually before they get on their feet and have a chance to integrate into Alcoholics arms. And I think the other is to try to shove your version of God,

your, your understanding of Jesus found somebody else's truck. I mean, I think it's, I think it's absolutely a sin because it is so important for us to have a personal relationship with God. We need to do that personally. You know what I mean? We, we, we really shouldn't, we really shouldn't allow somebody else to do that to us. It's something that

is so important to us. We need to we need to find that ourselves. Now,

you know, with, with the guys that I work with, I'll recommend books, but

I'll recommend diverse books. You know, I won't just recommend, you know, evangelical Christian literature or something. I mean, I'll give them a spectrum. And some of my guys head toward the Buddhist practices. Some of my guys head toward the Christian practices. Some of my guys don't head anywhere. They just, they just have an innate spirituality that they develop and it, they don't need 200 books to do it. You know what I mean? They're, they're just able to able to achieve a relationship,

the power in a way that's personal and that works for them. Now if you're new in alcohol exams, I definitely believe in following the directions in the book Alcoholics not, there's basically 3 disciplines in the 11th step. One of them is upon awakening, the other is as we move through the day and the third is when we retire at night.

Again, I'm not going to go through the mechanics of that. You got to, if you, if you're in this meeting, you got a big book, you probably got six of them.

So go over those mechanics and start to use them. Now, none of us are perfect with this stuff. None of us get up every morning and, you know, have the, and

I guess some of us do, but, you know, have the perfect ritual. I mean, we're human and sometimes we get up late and sometimes we, you know, have, we have, we're, you know, we're not, we're in a hotel on a business trip or, you know, the, the, the kids wake us up. There's a million things that can happen, but

we need to develop a discipline and develop a desire to practice a lot of these concepts. Now, Bill was very, very clear that this was Spirituality 101, the instructions in this book, and that you were to broaden and deepen your belief systems through asking some priests and ministers and rabbis for some some some books, some instructions, maybe some religious practices down the road. It's not at all essential

to go back to church if you're in alcohol extensions. But Wilson never went back to church. But he took religious instructions from, from a bunch of different Catholic and Episcopal clergy. He took, he took the religious instruction just because he wanted to broaden and deepen his discipline. Doctor Bob, on the other hand, became very, very religious. And you could, you would see him in the same Pew at the same church every single Sunday. He became very, very devout,

broad

Ruby and all inclusive is the way it is for our spiritual practices. OK, never exclusive, never forbid it. That's Alcoholics. Notice we do not engage in controversy, nor are we allied with any religious denomination, which is a good thing because this is just me. We all get in here our own way. We all have our own separation experience, separation from alcohol, and we all have our own, our own early newcomer experience.

But if you would have told me the day I walked into a A that God was my only hope and that I would have to develop a personal relationship with God or I was going to die. And that's what Alcoholics Anonymous is. If you would have told me that, I probably would have left. I probably would have walked out of the meeting and said, you know, I'm sorry, that's not going to work for me.

I would have been sure that it wouldn't work for me.

I would have been wrong because that's really when Alcoholics Anonymous is it's it's about developing a relationship with that power that in times of trial and tribulations will keep us sober when we can't keep ourselves sober because we're we're powerless over alcohol.

But we need to be broad, roomy and all inclusive

to get the newcomer, you know what I mean? I'm telling you, I would have walked out. I got sober when Jim and Tammy Faye Baker were selling way too many heavenly ran ranch condos. You know, there was like 300 condos and they sold nine of them, 900 of them, you know, and Jimmy Swaggart was hooking up in the motel with the with the Texas hookers. And these were God's front men. OK, so if you're if you're going to tell me that God is my answer, look at these morons out there. They're his front men. And look,

I'm living a more spiritual life than they are, for God's sake, and I'm drunk out of my mind.

So I mean, I had a lot of prejudice. I had a lot of incorrect thinking going on.

So again, I am very, very careful not to scare somebody away. Yes, this is all about our relationship with God and other people and ourselves, but it's not what you think it is. If you're a newcomer, it's not about selling flowers in airports. It's not about, you know, it's not about singing in the choir, unless that's, you know, where, where you're being LED.

So step 11,

seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God. The meditative disciplines and the prayer disciplines, there's a million of them out there. Crazy as it may sound, I usually recommend the Idiots Guide to Meditation for some of the guys that I sponsor, and only because I haven't found yet yet I haven't found a better introduction to all the different types of not all, but many of the different types of meditative discipline.

You can go through that booking. You can say this is not going to work for me. This will work for me. I'll try this. And this doesn't look too good. You know, it's like, it's like a cafeteria menu of different types of meditative practices. Now, most of the meditative books that that you buy are on a specific discipline, you know, so, so that's a good book to for somebody that doesn't really know anything about meditation. Now,

my own personal practice is I can't even get out of bed without starting this. I, I just, I can't,

I can't even, I can't even get out of bed without starting my prayer and meditative disciplines because one of the lessons I learned from sponsor number one was he said, he said, Chris, I want you to start praying and

every morning I want you to pray.

And he goes, I know you, Chris, you're going to miss a lot of days just because you're enough.

So what I want you to do is I want you to pay attention to the days that you do it and then pay attention to the days you don't and compare those days. And it was so blatant that everything that possibly could screw up would screw up if I miss my prayers. And everything went pretty

satisfactory. When I said him, it was beyond coincidence. It had to have something to do with the way I slid through life, the way I slid through the dead. So, so I became a believer in that type of prayer meditation from from early on.

And I highly recommend anybody to begin this journey. It's a journey without an end. Begin the journey of developing the relationship with with God and broaden and deepen that as the years go by.

12 is really the culmination of everything that we've learned and all of our spiritual disciplines and where we are at as human beings in Alcoholics Anonymous and as spiritual beings.

It is the most natural thing in the world that after you've gone through this process, you are going to want to share this information with somebody else. You're just going to want, it's like finding the cure of cancer and not wanting to tell people. It's just, it's just not really going to happen. If you've done this thing right, you're going to be looking for somebody to work with. Just about everybody that goes through the steps with me, I do not have to push them into sponsorship. It's something they want to do. Chris, how can I find people to work with?

It's not like it's not like I don't want to work with anybody. I'm no good as a sponsor.

If you go through the steps the right way, you're going to want to carry that message to other people. Now

I got to tell a short story about what happened about five years ago. I was asked to speak at the New Jersey convention. I was to do step 12 in the alkaline. There was like a 12 hour period of time where somebody was doing one of the steps and I was to share for 20 minutes. Our friend Vinnie was was chairing me. I was supposed to share for 20 minutes on step 12 and then open the meeting up to discussion.

Now, you know, you're pretty safe in the Burnsville group sharing a conservative recovery agenda. You know, not too many people in this group are going to say you're foolish and like walk out. It's just we're, we're pretty much, we're pretty much on the same page. But when you speak at a convention or something, that's a whole different ball game. Anyway, here's how I handled it and I thought it was pretty appropriate. I shared for 10 minutes on my experience with steps once or nine and how I had gone, I'm sorry, one through 11,

how I'd gone through steps one through 11. And then I shared on 10 minutes on how I take other people through steps one through 11. And this guy raises his hand when it's share time and Mary Beth had shared earlier and he starts starts cutting her down, which I didn't like too much. And then he goes off on me. This is but this is basically what he said. I don't know about all

all that crap that I heard you sharing about up there. You know, you sound like some kind of crazy counselor to me. Yeah, I'll tell you how you how I've been working with newcomers and I take them and I throw them in the back seat of the car and I take them off to a meeting and I love them until they can love themselves. Step crap that you were talking about up there.

Now, I took

exception to this, OK, I'm not a perfect individual. So when he was finally done his, his his tirade, I basically shared, you know, thanks a lot for sharing. You know, there we do have a basic text which really has has laid out kind of the Alcoholics Anonymous process. And there's actually a chapter in there called working with others, believe it or not. And I don't know, I've gone through that chapter a couple times and I don't remember seeing anything in that chapter about throwing them in a car.

Love it until they love themselves. This guy freaked out. He freaked out. He got to be started throwing chairs around. They had to I've never seen the meeting stopped in the middle of a meeting but that. But they called the meeting off and everybody headed toward the exits. It was like a fire drill, I'm telling you. And I'm sitting up there with putting my friend Benny. He's like looking at me like, what the hell did you do? But that was the that was the Alkathon debacle of 2001

at the New Jersey Convention.

And you know, I'm sorry, but I don't think I was inappropriate. You know what I mean? I really felt, I think I think it's kind of important to, to carry the message, carry this message, not the Chuck em in the back of the car message. I'm not saying that there's, there's not, there's not room for for grabbing the really sick people and, you know, holding them by the hand. There's certainly room for that,

but there's a bigger deal here in AN there's a lot more work today.

You know, the difference between what he was talking about and what I was talking about is this. He was simply encouraging the people he worked with to not drink.

What I was talking about is offering them freedom from alcoholism. There's a lot of difference between relief and freedom. There's a lot of difference between encouragement and offering them a program of freedom. There just is. And again, you have to have experienced the freedom to know what I'm talking about.

There's a lot of people that have been Alcoholics Anonymous a long time and have not not experienced that freedom because they haven't worked the steps.

Now, one of the things that we all need to be aware of in alcohol exams today is

in the late 80s, rehabs popped up everywhere. It became a huge business because insurance companies were were were playing ball. I mean, I knew guys that had been in 13 rehabs and every single time the insurance company paid the 28 days. Can you imagine?

So somewhere along the line, the insurance companies got pretty strong about being able to say no. And if you do a lot of wet drunk work, you know what I'm talking about, You can, it's very, very hard to find somebody who doesn't have any money. A 28 day step. It's pretty hard. You have to go to the Salvation Armies, you have to do things like that. There's not a lot of rehabs out there. And there's, even if you have insurance, there's not a lot of rehabs out there that's going to give you 28 days. They don't believe in it anymore. And you know when when that was first happening, I was really upset.

Resentment I had to write, you know, call number one insurance companies call number two, killing alcohol. They're right. OK, these rehabs are not working there. There were citizen rate from these rehabs is just abysmal. Anybody that's been through rehab, there was there was about 80 people in rehab when I went through and I know two of them that are still around. So, you know, can you really blame the insurance companies for not continuing to pay for something that didn't really seem like it

working?

But what they're still doing is they're still getting you to the point where your vital signs are all right. You can go into an emergency, you can take somebody into an emergency room, you can take somebody into a detox. And usually they'll keep you until your vital signs are right and then they'll release you. They may still be buzzed. So what I'm getting at is it's becoming more and more important that we hone our 12 step skills

because otherwise people are going to die. We got lazy and we got soft with all these rehabs

and because the insurance companies are pulling back because there's there's fewer and fewer programs. There was a statistic that over 600 rehabs closed in 1994 alone in America.

I you know, when, when the insurance company started pulling back. It's not a good business anymore. You can't, you can't keep the doors open. So we need to, we need to start honing some of our, some of our real serious 12 step skills.

I'm not advocating detoxing somebody in your house.

We favor hospitalization for the fog. And they said that in 1938, and I think it's still true.

But after that, there may be no place else for these people to go with five or six days, right, right out of alcoholic drinking and Alcoholics Anonymous and to, to hook up with us. Or maybe we're the last house on the left, you know what I mean? So it's becoming more and more of a very, very serious thing that we we work with newcomers in an intense way.

The chapter Working with others starts off nothing so much ensures our immunity from alcohol than intensive work with other Alcoholics like they did in the early days. Intensive work needs intensive work. It doesn't mean here's my phone number. Give me a call

if you feel weird. How many people ever called anybody that gave them phone numbers like that?

You know what I mean? Oh, yeah, sure, I'll call the guy, too. I'm really feeling bad, you know, I'm really, you know, I want to kill people and I'm really depressed and, you know, my life is terrible and I'm a big loser. How are you doing? You know, hey, who's going to who's going to call? I never called anybody that gave me those numbers. I barely called my sponsor because I felt like such such an idiot.

So there's more to working with other people than giving your giving out your phone numbers. I suggest getting their phone numbers

and calling them. You know, they'll be surprised. Who's this? This is Chris for me. Hey, how you doing?

You know, do that. Go to beginners meetings, go to places where you're going to find new Alcoholics. I still do. I still do several rehab commitments because I'll tell you want to find the sick ones. You find them in rehab. They're not, they don't even know they've got a problem yet. Sometimes these people in rehab, you know, I, I speak a lot of the number of places and you know, you guys are in trouble.

You know, alcoholism is, is progressive and it's fatal.