Working the steps at the Down on the Farm in Birmingham, AL

Everybody hear me

better than last night, huh?

Wow, that's pretty cool. I've been trying to save it.

How about that food?

Thank you guys

for that. I appreciate all that hard work on.

You know, I'm glad I got up here to speak because I was about to go to sleep there.

That wouldn't do what it. OK,

let's see where to start. You know, I had my thoughts organized last night because I don't like to dwell too much on the problem. Today. I don't have my thoughts organized because I pretty much love staying in the solution. Love it, Love it. Guys. Told you last night that we didn't have the solution in Dallas and me and a handful other guys

were thinking the same way. And what happened was

I got to thinking, I think, well, how can we get it here? I can, I can, you know, some of us can get together and we do some small group stuff where we can go through the steps kind of sponsoring each other, group sponsorship. Well, you know, again, it's a blind leading the blind. We're not really sure what's going on, what this whole recovery things really what the sponsorship things supposed to look like. Again, I'm asking the ISO. I'm asking my Internet recovery friends what this is supposed to look like. They're giving

stuff. But, you know, again, we're just kind of groped around in the dark. We don't really know what's going on. I'm reading a book or two on sponsorship, and of course, that's revealing to me in my fellowship. Wait, that's not happening here in Dallas. OK, so small group thing is going to be tough and it's going to be long, and I'm not sure I can survive it. But as a weapon of last resort, we can do it.

So I thought about, well, I can go to somebody else's recovery, somebody else, some other city where they're actually doing this thing, maybe go on one of their retreats or something. And so have somebody show me or have someone from a city that's doing a solid job sponsor me long distance and I meet them halfway on a regular basis to take me through these steps.

And I, you know, I can't afford that. And on top of that, if I, if I get recovered, then I'm alone in my fellowship. I'm one voice, you know, upon reflection, what I know now, that's not a bad thing. That means I could sponsor more people. That's a cool thing. But you know what, at the time I was scared. I didn't want to be in this alone. I didn't want to be the only guy in the meeting making sense and everybody throwing rotten apples at me.

So I thought about, well, hey, what if we put on a retreat? We invited somebody who knew what the heck they were doing

to come in and take us through the work. Sure enough, I found a guy over in Phoenix, AZ Good guy, super guy. He came down. He took about 30 of us through all 12 steps in a three day weekend.

We

we knocked him out. We except for going out and making our amends. Except for going out and carrying a message, we did all 12 steps in one weekend.

A lot of people are going. You just can't do that. That's not possible. Guess what? Last month we did it for the San Antonio retreat, my Home group, we went down there and took them through all 12 steps in one weekend. Again, except for going out and making the amends. Except for going out and finding somebody to sponsor.

It's possible, it's doable. So in putting together this retreat, I go to my Home group where they have $8000

in reserve.

Tell me about the 7th tradition.

They've been accumulating funds for years for no stated purpose. Oh my God. And they fought us tooth and nail in that group. Conscience

tell me there was number recovery in Dallas. There wasn't. These guys fought us about it,

one guy said. Well, I kind of thought we'd hold on to the money in case the church needed it. Oh my God, is that such an outside issue, An outside enterprise?

Why aren't we giving that money? The ISO? I don't know. Why are they holding on to it that they can't help us with this retreat? I don't know.

We, we managed to get 3 scholarships out of them. That was it. Guess what? We paid every penny back. I don't need your stinking money. You hold on to it. We're going to go do our thing. So a handful of people from Dallas go to the retreat. People from Arkansas, Wyoming, Kansas, people from New Mexico over here on the East Coast. They all came because I knew this guy from Phoenix.

They all came. We went through the steps. We had 30 people there and I would say there were less than 10 from my local fellowship. That was the participation level.

It was pretty sad.

So the few of us that really got something out of the retreat there in the local fellowship, we say, look, we've seen

disputes over finance tear a group apart. We're not going to be part of that anymore. We're going to go do our own thing. We've been doing it ever since. We haven't looked back,

guys. My Internet friend, the guy that I had come over from Phoenix, I told him where I was and he said, Oh my God, Ken, you've got one of the most incredible resources available to you in Dallas. You need to go down there,

I said, what are you talking about? He says primary purpose, AAI said. I've heard about him. I had been talking to another guy who said yeah, they're the real deal locally. We go down there the first time I walk in,

and the difference between my local meetings, my local SAA meeting and this meeting were incredible.

These guys had something going on. There was something happening in their eyes. And I go, I don't know what's happening here, but I want it in my home fellowship.

I want this.

The first guy that approached us, he knew we were new. He knew he hadn't seen us. He came up to me, introduced himself. He says my name's Rick and I say I'm Ken, I'm a sex addict and chuckling says this worked for you too.

My God guys, I'm not a leper anymore. Any other 12 step fellowship. I walk in and I tell him, a sex editor go this is wrong meeting for you.

These guys embrace me because they're about carrying a message to anybody.

Anyone.

They want people to experience what it means to be in relationship with their higher power. Period. They don't care what your problem is. Their meeting is open all the time. You can come and study the big book with them every one of their meetings. But guys, here's the thing.

Yeah, they meet three times a week. They have two big book studies and a step presentation meeting. Step presentation meeting. One person every Saturday that month gets up and presents the steps. First weeks 123, second three-week is 4 through 6, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Good stuff. But the other two, Tuesday, Thursday, they're studying the big book there guys. It is the largest

a a meeting in Dallas, Fort Worth, OK,

there are over 200 people there on a Tuesday night.

It's incredible. Guys, come see me. I'll take you. There you'll go. I want this in my Home group.

I swear it was amazing.

OK, so I'm I'm listening to these guys study because I'm not an alcoholic. I don't get to share my experience drinking hope, but I get to listen to theirs and I'm learning tons of stuff.

And the

guy who's cheering, you know, we get to the part in a vision for you where it talks about meetings. The one place in the big book it talks about meetings, one meeting a week. How they doing 90 meetings and 90 days on that, Huh. They're not they're doing working steps. OK, so in a vision for you, he's talking about one meeting a week and he's talking. He says, you know, most you guys don't understand. You've never been to sick A A Most of you come straight from the treatment centers, halfway houses and wind up joints.

And it occurred to me, wait a minute,

the largest AA meeting in Dallas, Fort Worth. And most of the people don't come from other meetings. They come straight from the treatment centers, the halfway houses and the wind up joints. What's going on here, guys? This is what happens in Akron, OH, where they have the original A, a meeting. They still have one meeting a night. They never adopted a discussion meeting. They either do big book studies or speaker meetings. That's all they do.

The other six nights of the week, they're out in the treatment centers,

they're out in the halfway houses to jails, and they are carrying a message to the alcoholic that still suffers.

They're not going to sick meetings and say come join our meeting. Those people are discussionized. Forget them. It's going to take a tons of energy. We want that guy who's fresh, who's hamburger from the disease. That's somebody who's willing to do this work. All these other people have been therapies and discussionized. They've got relief. They're happy with relief. Great. Go be happy with relief. I'm going to find some people who want freedom.

You know, right about the time

that we were planning the retreat,

Some of my friends that were,

we're thinking like me said, you know, kin, there's this new guy in the meetings who moved here from out of town and you know, he's saying a lot of the same stuff you are, except he's been sober for a year or two. And so finally I hook up with this guy and I sit down and I talk with him and I and he says, yes, you're exactly right, Ken. This is not recovery. What's going on in these meetings is some sort of pseudo self therapy sort of deal, but it's not 12 step.

And so I,

I talked to him about it and finally asked him to sponsor me. He said, sure, OK, here's what I want to do. I want you to read the doctor's opinion and the first three chapters of the big book. We sat down like two days later, went over it, made some identification stuff about the nature of the disease. He told me about some of his story and how the the phenomenon of craving starts once I begin. And yet that's not the real problem. The real problem is in my mind, if I could just abstain, none of that would be an issue. But I can't abstain because I have a mind. It takes me back to the disease every time,

and finally someone said something that made sense to me.

Holy Michael, now I understand what's going on

now. I thought I was just a weak willed individual guys, when when Doctor Bob had been trying to apply the principles of the of the Oxford groups for years to his alcoholism, but he couldn't do it successfully. He couldn't understand why. He knew the solution was spiritual, but he couldn't understand why he couldn't make it work. Bill WA stock broker

meets with him and explains the disease of alcoholism

to a doctor so that he understands it

and the light switch comes on and he's able to apply the spiritual principles with success.

On top of that, this is the first person that Bill W had tried this with before. He'd been grabbing up each one and say you need to have a spiritual experience and he's scaring him off right and left. This is why we don't talk about religion in our meetings. This is why we keep it focused on the steps.

We

need to grab up these guys that are hamburger and tell them the nature of the disease and how it's going to kill us. And if they're like us, they're going to identify

and then we're going to say, hold on, it's a good thing I'm free of that now. And they're going to go.

What did you do?

Sit there, real man.

That's what we need to be about

South. He goes on the retreat with us and takes me through the first three steps. It was really incredible. I'm getting ahead of myself. First thing, he talks to me about the whole God issue and I said I got no problem with the God thing. I was able to abandon those old ideas and embrace some new ones. I have some some books I can suggest that are just incredible for Step 2. I won't mention them here because it involves some outside issues,

but I'm I'm OK on the God thing, he says. OK, congratulations, you've completed step one and two, correct? Let's move on.

This is what your definition of sobriety. Well, I tell him and he says, Ken, that's a good type definition of sobriety. But you know why you have to abstain from those those things? Do you know why those behaviors are giving you such a problem? I said, well, not really. I don't really understand why this is such a big deal. Why? I mean, healthy people masturbate. Why can't I do that? Because you're not like other people,

he pointed out. He took me to page 62. Selfishness and self centeredness is the root of my trouble

above everything. We sex addicts must be rid of this selfishness or else it kills us. Then he took me to page 69 and says this is a sex inventory. He says we looked at our behavior over the years past, where have we been? Selfish, dishonest and inconsiderate. And I go wait, that's these behaviors. That's why you're addicted to them. They're selfish and dishonest. They're inconsiderate

guys, and I gotta tell you, when we're out there defining our sobriety, we understand that this is a lethal disease.

We got no right to play with that inner circle. Let's get it right from the beginning and get all those selfish behaviors in there because if I make a mistake, it triggers the craving and I go on another spree and I don't know where it's going to end.

We're playing with our lives.

I think that's one of the problems we have in our fellowship today. Let's get with it. Let's get serious about this from the beginning. You're not serious. I don't want to work with you

either. People out there dying, I can help people who are dying, I can't do anything with you. People who are in the middle of the rotors. Good luck. Let me know how that works out for you.

As he pointed out to me that this this long drawn out process of of the formal first step and staying in that first step for months and months is nothing but me staying in the problem.

I need a solution,

he said. The original Alcoholics, what made them so successful was that they worked these steps quickly. Edward, do you have your big book? Why don't you turn to page double X?

Actually, let me get it since in my study edition doesn't have the forwards in it. OK,

let's see public acceptance of a a group by leaps and bounds for this word. 2 principal reasons. The large numbers of recoveries and reunited homes. These made their impressions everywhere of Alcoholics who came to a A and really tried by the way, really tried and I'll connect this later on means quickly

50% got sober at once,

25% sobered up after some relapses and among the remainder those who stayed on with a A showed improvement. Other thousands came to a few a a meetings and at first decided they didn't want the program. But great numbers of these about two out of three begin to return as time passed. Guys, you study any A a archive in the Cleveland area. They were having a 98 plus success rate

guys in Reykjavik Iceland in 2005. They only study the big book. In 2005 they had 100 men come into their group. A year later, 98 of them were there elevating their one year birthday.

All they have is a big book.

We don't see that kind of numbers today. And this is something that's his primary purpose. Group AA pointed out to me they're having that kind of success rate in the 1st 20 years and all they had was a a big book. 1953 they published the 12:00 and 12:00. One man's opinion on the steps.

No instructions on how to work them. But lots of people like it. Why? Because it had no instruction on how to work the steps. I don't have to do anything. All I have to do is theorize and talk about it.

By the early 1960s their success rates had dropped 50%.

1967 ish Global article in the Grapevine talked about this new thing called the topic discussion meeting. What happened is there's a lot of guys coming out of treatment centers where they're doing group therapy,

and they were showing up in the AA meetings and they took a few group consciences and said we want to do something like this group therapy in our meetings. Wait a minute, group therapy, What's missing here? A therapist.

Oh, but our 8th tradition says that we can't have any therapists. If you're a therapist and you walk in here, you're just a sex addict like anybody else.

Your opinion counts no greater or lesser than anyone else. That's our 7th, our 8th tradition.

So OK, great. Now I can talk about anything I want to. Did you hear those words? I want. That's my selfishness. Oh, here's a huge inconsideration guys.

Sorry, I should have silenced that before this started.

So

yeah, I can talk about anything in a meeting I want to.

Why would I selfishly take up valuable recovery time with my own personal problems when I can call my sponsor and have him help me apply these steps to them and solve the problem? Why? Because I'm selfish.

I'm selfish. This meeting is about me. It is not

OK. So late 1960s they have lost their singles of purpose. Instead of talking about how to recover, they're talking about any darn thing they want to.

By 1980, I think their success rate had dropped at 33%. Nowadays a a can't brag fellowship wide more than 5%.

5% somebody who comes in and gets a one day chip out of the 101 day chips they give out,

five of those people will be back for their one year chip

five. You go beyond that, it just it's, it's terrible. It's awful. You know, past few years AA has actually shrunk in size. It's been growing up until that point, but it shrunk in size. OK guys, guys 1919 he disagrees with me. 1976

SAA is formed.

First meetings composed of eight therapists and a judge.

It is based on the model of A, A

that is sick and on the decline.

That's what we're stuck with, guys. That's what we're here. That's what we're here in the middle of.

This is this is, this is the bag of stuff that you've been handed. You got to deal with it now,

guys. We went through all 12 steps in that one weekend. My sponsor sat down with me and we went through an inventory. He did funny thing, you know, in the early days of AA, they got these guys in the hospital and they were detoxing off alcohol. And as soon as their minds were clear, their bodies weren't, but their minds were clear, they sat down, started doing this work. Doctor Bob says, are you alcoholic?

Of course. If they said yes, OK, do you believe in God? Yes. OK, let's get on our knees and say a prayer. 123 Bing. That's as quick as it went, guys. Turn to Doctor Bob's story.

Doctor Bob Stories on page 166.

Yeah, here we go. Here we go. A co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous. The birth of our society dates from his first day of permanent sobriety, June 10th, 1935, June 10th, 1935, to 1950, the year of his death. That's just short of 15 years. OK.

You do the math on that. That's about 5500 days. OK,

he carried a a message to more than 5000 alcoholic men and women.

He wasn't taking weekends off very often.

Guys, these guys are shaking so bad from alcohol withdrawal that they can't write their inventory. Doctor Bob is the first man to take another man's inventory. He's sitting there writing it out for him,

and he does it in one night.

One night.

That's how it works. 123, we're going to write out your inventory. I'm going to leave you for a little bit. You're going to look over your work. You're going to say your six step. Yeah, I'm ready to be done with this. You're going to say your seven step prayer. You're going to ask yourself if you're willing to make amends. I'll be back in a couple hours. We want to talk about 1011 and 12. Boom, we're done.

We're done.

Yeah, He's doing some prep work. His protegees are out there visiting this guy and several days in success and telling their story. And they're going wow, you're free. Wow, you're free. Wow, this must work.

That's what they're doing. That's what they're doing. So where was I for?

So we went through, he sat down and he helped me do my inventory. We wrote my inventory out. And guys, here's this ridiculously long, complicated thing that I've been shown over the years about the steps and how it's supposed to be this, that, and the other thing. How much supposed to be about my family of origin? How about much my air child and all this other stuff that has found its way into our program

and yet he he lines it out so simply. Who are you mad at? Why are you mad at him? How does it affect you?

It's that simple. And then we did the first step and he said, you're being selfish here, here, here. And here I go.

Holy mackerel.

I'm a selfish, self-centered individual.

No wonder everybody's pissed off at me. No wonder I'm pissed off at everyone else.

And all of a sudden pissed off went away

because I saw my part in this. I had power in each one of those situations.

The next thought was,

wait a minute,

I can show other people how to do this.

This, this is simple. It's not easy. It's simple. I can, I can teach this and they can, they can deal with the same. They can be free of this stuff just the same as me.

Oh my goodness, all of a sudden I've been given a purpose. We've been talking about this this weekend. That's the most beautiful gift ever God ever gave to me was a purpose. The depression disappears.

Now I've got meaning in my life,

I can help somebody see what stands in the way of their relationship with God.

Guys, I thought it was really cool to see my part in this stuff. It was very freeing. It's very exhilarating.

It made me happy.

I felt free and happy. But God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free

because it was something missing, you know, got out there, did some amends, got rolling on this stuff. Practicing at 10:11 and 12:00. Good stuff. Keeping an eye on these character defects, searching for God's will in my life. It's good stuff, great stuff,

but guys, there is nothing like it.

There is nothing like it when you're sitting down with your protege and you're doing that fist step and you see the lights come on

it. There's only one thing more beautiful,

and that's when you come in your meeting and you see that knucklehead. You just took through the work and he's got some other little knucklehead

and they're sitting across the table from each other and he's written in the riot act out of that book. And you start to see people's lives come back together. You start to see miracles happen. And you just want to hit your knees and say, God, thank you for letting me be a part of that.

Thank you for letting me witness this.

Can I do it some more please?

It's amazing, utterly amazing.

You know, a vision for you says, well, no, no. Working with others says we are sure you do not want to miss this.

I'm certain of it, guys. I'm absolutely certain of it.

I'm going to talk a little bit about why it's important to get through these steps quickly, something my sponsor showed me early on page 24. The italicized paragraph says

that we're out without defense against the first rank.

Thank you. Page 24

says for

fact is the most sex addicts, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice and acting out or addictive sex or selfish sex. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. We are unable at certain times to bring it to the consciousness with sufficient force. The memory and suffering, the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first trigger

guys. What that says to me is after I've been through a spree, I've got enough pain and remorse and fear

to keep me on the straight and narrow for about a week. When that week is up, the

pain, fear and remorse, they start to dissipate. They're a little less painful. They're not bothering me so much. The next three weeks, I'm going to start entertaining little ideas. Oh, well, I could just look at bikini pictures. I mean, I can see that on the street. It's no big deal. I mean, it's pornography.

Start entertaining these lurking notions and they grow and they grow and they grow and they grow. And if I'm not acting out before the months over, I've got a plan in place. It's just a matter of time. It's just a matter of life looming large on me and giving me an excuse. Well, I deserve it. I've had a rough day,

or I deserve it. I've had a good day

guys. You did Chris. Chris R loves to do this

show of hands.

Not chicosis, you sex addicts. How many of you acted out when things were going really bad on the job?

OK.

How many of you acted out when things were going really good on the job?

It's not my external circumstances

that drive my addictive self guys. The reason for my addiction, and this is the core of my selfishness.

Life brings pain, that's a fact. All the normies out there have resigned themselves to that. All the Earthlings, they understand that they're going to experience pain and loss in life. That's just the way it is.

We had it. We don't want to feel pain. I don't want to feel uncomfortable. Did you hear those words? I don't want. That's my selfishness. So what happens? I don't learn how to deal with this stuff. Guess what? I don't grow into an adult as a result.

I'm still a spiritual 12 year old.

Because guys, if I avoid the growing pain, I'm not going to have the growth.

I've got to grow spiritually every day. To do that, I'm going to have to embrace the pain and God's going to show me how to do it. He's going to tell me I'm right there with you, Ken, it's okay. I still love you and you can do this.

OK, so then Sandy's going to return within a month. OK, That's one reason I need to get through this. You turn to page 118 down at the bottom. It says we didn't like the thought that the work of another alcoholic or sex addict

or a book has done in a few weeks

that for which we have struggled for a lifetime. If they had meant a few months, they would have said a few months, right?

If they had met a year, they would have said a year,

a few weeks.

That ties in. The success rates is the second reason. Guys, if I have a deadly disease, don't you think I want my best chances for getting past this?

I do. Those success rates are incredible. Here's another reason.

I'm a smart guy. I'm a good problem solver. Most of my life I've seen some problems. I'm good at solving them. Good at it.

You give me some time. I'm going to try and apply this brain to these steps and I'm going to try and think my way through a spiritual experience.

Doesn't work. Doesn't work. That's why I have to move faster than my brain is working. With a guy recently and we got up to step 9 and he said we can't, can't wait a minute. I'm being overwhelmed. And I said, good,

keep that brain spinning. We don't want it involved. We want to bypass that sucker. We want it confused

because it's what's keeping you sick.

OK, Ken,

OK, let's all right, OK,

come here. I'm getting a little more lathering today, aren't I? Didn't get any on you this time today. Okay,

so another reason

step 10. Step 10 is supposed to be steps 4 through 9 crunched into something I can do to apply to any problem that pops up in my life. It's not at the end of day inventory, it's a spot check inventory. It's not something I do at night unless something happened at night. It's something I do when I notice my serenity's gone

that step 10. I look at step 10 and say, hey, where have I been selfish, dishonest and concerned? You know, where have I been resentful and fearful? When these pop up, I ask God to remove them at once. I get on the phone with my sponsor and I say, hey, you know, I just had a spot check inventory and this happened. This is what I found in the inventory. And he says, yeah, that's a good inventory. But you know what? There's some self seeking there too in this spot. I look at that and I go, yeah, you're right. There it is. And oh, I see some dishonesty here. Oh,

there is. I didn't see that. Oh, I'm doing that with my boss. Holy mackerel. You know, it's mutually beneficial. Next thing is I look at if I've harmed anyone. I talk to him about it, and he says, yeah, you need to go apologize to this guy. And I go over there and I say I was wrong.

If you have to make that right,

move on. And then I resolutely turn my thoughts to someone I can help.

Resolutely, I'm resolved to go help someone in the 10 step. What's most beneficial to my recovery is to go help another sex addict. The next most beneficial thing to me spiritually is to go help someone I don't care for too much.

The next most beneficial person for me to help is someone that subordinate to me.

So that's stepped in.

It's a compression of four through 9. If I have a model of working the steps that takes me 18 months,

how am I going to compress that down to solve daily problems?

I can't a model that takes 18 months.

I better not have any more than one problem a month, but I have 5 problems a day. I need a model that can help me solve any problem within 15 to 20 minutes. That's why we move through the steps quickly.

OK,

are we talking about this earlier? Page 70 says. You know, if sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others.

It quiets the imperious urge when nothing else will. It takes us out of ourselves.

It says on page 89

that, you know, practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity against addictive sex. Has rigorous work with other sex addicts. OK, if the most effective tool in my arsenal against this addiction is to go help someone else to practice Step 12, don't you think I need that in my pocket while I'm going through withdrawal?

I do. I need it. I gotta have it

S why I must get through these steps quickly.

Quickly. Bill did it in nine days. Doctor Bob got up to step nine in two weeks. Bach got drunk for a week, came back, did his amends in one night.

The next morning he woke up and said, Bill, don't you think we'd better go find another alcoholic to help?

He knew he wanted to stay sober and that was a way to do it.

That's why we have to go through these steps quickly.

Guys

made this joke with Bart earlier,

umm, last night around the campfire

talking about some silly 6° game they play.

So you're not sponsoring enough people.

Did this with Carol Ann at at the convention. We were sitting in there in the the bookstore and she's we're talking recovery stuff and she says to me, can do you follow baseball? And I said, baseball. How do you have time for baseball? I don't have time for baseball. You're not sponsoring enough. People

symbolically throw my stuff down and say you need to sponsor more. People walk down. Everybody's laughing but it's the truth guys.

I'm busier than A1 legged man and a butt kicking contest.

I, I they're coming out of the woodwork at me. I can't stand up here and taste. Face this tidal wave alone. I need you. I need you in the trenches with me.

I need you standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, taking this thing on.

These people need help. They're dying. We need you get through this work and get to work.

The only reason for steps one through 11 is so that I can have a spiritual awakening to show someone else how to have in step 12 the whole program. The purpose of the program is step 12. Program has no other reason for existence. Step 12 is what we do.

And guys, last little bit.

I can't stay sober on an 11 1/2 step program.

I can only stay sober on a 12 step program

now. I've worked with a girl long distance and I thought she had seen what she was supposed to see in the inventory. She'd done the work she'd done some gotten started on her men. She was doing 1011 pretty good. And you know, it's time to start practicing Step 12.

And she'd been talking to her therapist, unfortunately, and her therapist said this is too soon. You need to work on yourself more. You can't practice what step 12 yet guys. It's not quantity of sobriety,

its quality of sobriety guys. There were people in my meetings that had quantity and I didn't want what they had.

If somebody had been through this work and exhibited the fire in their eyes, if they were one week sober, I would have grabbed it up and said, what did you do? Show me. Show what you did.

It's not quantity, it's quality, guys.

You got to get out there. If you expect to get quantitative sobriety, you got to go carry a message.

You're not going to get long term sobriety unless you start carrying a message. And guys, I want to be real clear on this.

We're not in the results business.

The step is really clear. We tried to carry this message.

Doesn't say we sat eat it. We're in the seed sowing business

Gods in the recovery growing business.

We need to remember our row. Our role is to cast the scenes out there.

His jobs take care of rain and sunlight and germination, all those things that only God can handle. Wife.

He makes life grow. He makes spiritual life grow from the seeds we plant

the next thing, And I made this point earlier. It's a little words in these steps that count so much.

Two,

we tried to carry this message

to the sex addict that still suffers.

This is not about sitting in meetings and waiting for him to show up.

This is about getting out there and telling them

we had a problem and we recovered.

If you find you have the same problem too, come see us. We might have a solution for you. That's not promotion, guys. It's not promotion. It's just telling them we're here.

It's given the tools to identify the problem. That's all it is.

Once they identify the problem, we can say, OK, that's great. We found something that works for us. If you want it, come on down. We'll show you how to do it. I show up, sit your ass down, shut up.

OK, maybe a little more gentle and loving than that. But at the same time, somebody speaks out a turn in my meeting almost. I may not single them out right in the meeting and embarrass them and everything, but I might pass them a note or I might grab them up after the meeting and say, you know, you haven't had this experience yet, so you can't really share your experience until you have. So

why don't you listen to those of us who have until you get there?

We'll be happy to hear you when you get there.

Guys, we need you.

You know God didn't give you that spiritual gift so that you could go

do a hobby.

We don't have time for that. God didn't give you that spiritual gift so you could go let your soul sing or play or whatever. No, we got work to do. God gives you the gift of sobriety because He's got a job for you

guys. There are going to be people out there that I can't help. I've had God has given me certain life experiences. We were talking about this. God has given me certain life experiences so that I can help certain people. I often wondered why he made me sit in those sick meetings for four years before I found recovery.

But guess what? I have a message to carry now. I see how my my experience can benefit others.

I thank him for it now. I was miserable then, but now I'm going, wow, you know, this is helpful.

I had those experiences. I can help certain people with certain things, but they're going to be people out there that I can't help because I haven't had those experiences. John here has been given certain life experiences

because God has a plan for him to help this guy over here and this guy over here because they had similar life experiences that I didn't have.

He's going to be able to show them their.

That's why we need all of you.

We need all of you because each of us brings uniqueness to this and we can work with certain people and certain people we can't.

We've been uniquely gifted, each one of us with experiences that can only help certain people,

so that's why we need each and everyone of you to get to this work quickly and get your butt out there on the frontline.

We don't have time. People are dying

if you're bidding your time off. I don't. I feel like I'm going through this too quickly. How selfish of you.

Get your ass do this work and go help someone.

You're struggling and your disease. Guess what? You're not helping someone.

The book is very clear that if we can't meet these conditions, if we are not

in fit spiritual condition, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others.

It's very clear, 'cause there's a couple of promises in the big book that I love. One of them's on the on page 68. It's one of the fear promises. Just so much as we trust and rely upon Him, and do as we think He would have us, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity?