A workshop called "The Work" in Central Valley, CA

We've covered everything from the title page to Into Action.

We're convinced of the Abcs, and this is something I wanted to mention. The next time you're in inventory, try this. Every time you sit down to write and every time you get up from writing, review the first three steps quietly.

You can do that by When you sit down to write, you read from the ABC's up to wherever you are in inventory, and then you'll find you're much more centered 'cause you're reminded of why you're writing inventory. Would I lose sight of sometimes is that I'm writing inventory because I'm powerless over alcohol

and I get lost in that I'm running inventory to manage my life

or my emotions or my circumstance. You're getting a bunch of trouble, right? Inventory gonna make it go away. You're using inventory as a self help tool. I need to remind myself that I'm alcoholic,

that my life is unmanageable, that no human power can relieve my alcoholism, and that God can and will if He is sought. I need to remind myself of the first requirement of the third step, and I mostly need to remind myself that I just what I decided my third step decision.

That's what I go back on sometimes.

I remember when I was new sitting in a meeting at the where these these men cared more about whether you lived or died than how you might feel about what they have to say. And I was saying something about I turned it over and I took it back and I turned it over and I took it back. Like I got that kind of power. I don't have the power to turn it over or take it back.

And this old boy said, why don't you shut up and sit down? Because if you're still thinking you can turn it over and take it back, you haven't turned it over.

So then I asked the great question, how do you turn it over?

Go around a if, go around a A and ask people that,

they'll say, oh, just let go. Well, how do you let go? Oh, just turn it over. Oh, shut up. Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth right, 'cause they don't know how to tell you how to turn it over. But this guy said the way you turn it over is like a chicken and a pig. Because there's a difference between a decision and a commitment. There's a decision at the third step. The commitment is in four through 9. I asked the great question. What do you mean?

He said. Well, it's like a chicken and a pig walking down the road

and they come to a sign on a church that says help feed the poor and the, and the, the chicken is all pumped up with virtue.

And he says to the pig, we ought to feed those poor people. The pig says, well, how can we, what could we feed those poor people? And the chicken says ham and eggs.

The pig says for you that's just a simple decision to lay some eggs. But for me, that's one hell of a commitment.

Took me about a week to figure out what the guy was talking about.

And then I knew the way you turn it over is in four through 9.

So it says here, and I know this, four through nine are directly against my will and contrary to the way I've lived my life. So that's how you turn it over. You turn your will and your life over the care of God by realizing one your life run on your will doesn't work #2 by taking direct actions against your will and contrary to the way you've lived your life.

And I'll tell you, 4 through 9 are against my will and contrary to the way I'm living my life,

or I wouldn't need to be doing 4 through 9.

It says here, having made your personal inventory, what are you going to do about it? You've been writing. You've been doing this to get a new attitude and a new relationship with your Creator and to discover the obstacles in your path. You've admitted certain defects. You've ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is. You've put your finger on some of the weak items in stock. Now these are about to be cast out. This requires action on your part, which, when completed, will mean that you have admitted to God, to yourselves, and to another human being

the exact nature of your defects. This brings us to the fifth step in the program of recovery mentioned in the preceding chapter. Talks about this might be difficult Talks about finding the right person. It talks about what will happen if you skip this vital step.

Time after time, newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts. Invariably, they got drunk. Well, that's as true for newcomers as it is for old timers.

Time after time, old timers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts they couldn't admit to their sponsor and their Home group because they're elevated in their own mind to such a position that they couldn't admit that stuff to their sponsor in their Home group and it kills them.

Um, these sprees they talk about can be drunk or silver self will sprees

talks about being entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world. Do I believe that

now? It says something I missed for many years,

Rightly on page 74, Rightly and naturally, we think well before we choose the person. It's the top three lines. We think well before we choose the person or persons

with whom to take this intimate and confidential step. And that's the line that Paul Martin's group in Chicago took, along with what Harry Tebel and this other psychiatrist shared with them. And they started doing multiple footsteps

and it's a very simple, it's a very simple principle. The more you, the more open you be, the more people you become open with, the more open you become. And they first step with more than one person.

So I saw my grand sponsor after I knew him for 10 years and he was 26 years sober. And his name is Gary, Gary Brown from Indianapolis. And he was different. He was just on fire. He was different than I'd ever known him. And he'd been doing the work for a long time. And I said, Gary, what what's going on with you? He said, well, I've had a pretty amazing experience. After 26 years of sobriety, I took an inventory up to Paul.

I fist stepped with several people

and I went, I saw some stuff with some financial amends that I wasn't clear on. I went home and I spoke to my wife and we sold the house. They had a huge beautiful house and they moved into a trailer and he, he paid off some financial stuff and he was, he was on fire. And I thought, my God,

the willingness of somebody with that much time to do that. So being a good alcoholic, I had to take an inventory to Paul Martin in Chicago and I was going to see my family in Michigan. And I called Paul and he said come on a Thursday and stay till Sunday afternoon. So I saw my family in Battle Creek and I drove to Chicago. I arrived on Thursday, they took me to their Home group. It was a wonderful meeting. They do a step a week and they were on the 10th step and they took me back to the hotel

and Paul hands me a mimograph sheet and it said Friday 9:00, Charlie 1:00, Sam 4:00, Harry Saturday 9:00, Frank 1:00, Charlie 4:00, Tom Sunday, 19 o'clock 11 o'clock 1:00. And I did 9 fish steps with nine different people, the same inventory. And every time I read mine, they read theirs. And they asked for feedback and then I asked for feedback

and I saw when I looked at this sheet of paper, I saw man, this is going to be like a three day retreat.

And I called the front desk and I said turn off my phone and come get the television. And I did an hour meditation before and after each fifth step. So in three days I did 9 fist steps in 18 one hour meditations and I came out of that room changed.

I read to people from it was like one of those movies where they're interviewing babysitters and everyone of them is different and it would go to the next one. But I think halfway through Saturday I wanted to just start screaming and I just wanted to call somebody and I sat through and I sat through it. Now I don't do 9 footsteps every time now, but since then I've always done more than one. I know couples, the people I live with right now, Jaime and Shelly, wonderful couple.

They've read their inventories together. I know couples that do the work together. They don't keep their programs separate. There's a philosophy I don't understand. I'm going to take the most important thing in my life, which is a my relationship with God. I'm going to take the most important person in my life, the person I claim to love, and we're going to keep our program separate.

I think it's fine if you have different meanings you like, but the program should be shared with your family.

Meditation, even the fifth step,

so each time now I've always fist up with a woman, gives you a different perspective. This last one I fist stepped with the guy taking me through the work, which was which is Mark Houston

because he was there in New York when I was done. We were both in New York together. I read to him. I read to a guy in New York I've sponsored for 14 years. I read to a woman I sponsor in New York that I'd only known for six months. She's 17 years sober that I was working on and I fist up with three guys in Los Angeles that I was in a group with

where we were learning about being accountable. Six of us. I read the three of them and everyone is is takes you a little deeper

and it does come from this line. We think well before we choose the right person or persons with whom to take this intermittent confidential step talks about a closed mouth understanding friend. I can't reiterate that enough and I'll tell I'll tell you this. Be friends with your friends,

but know who your friends are, or you'll find yourself blindsided by people that aren't Mark. In my last inventory, Mark Houston kept saying to me, he said. You keep referring to these people as friends, and they're really not. And you find out, and then you're upset.

These betrayal bonds, Betrayal bonds going back to people that repeatedly and repeatedly and repeatedly betray you, expecting a different result.

Be friends with your friends, but know who your friends are, and don't go to someone who's not a friend. And if you hear a first step, honor that. Let the person know you're honored with their confidence. There's as much to hearing a fifth step as there is to reading your own. I like to swap footsteps. Now. You read me yours, I'll read you mine. It's a powerful experience,

can be just as powerful hearing one as it is reading one. I have a guy and I never had heard this. I never had thought it was total intuition.

We were at a retreat center in Arizona, and he had been there for a few weeks finishing an inventory. And I arrived for a week. And during that week we were going to do his first step. And I was reminded when we sat down, he has trouble reading. And when he's reading, he's always thinking. And he's here in his mind when he's reading, trying to figure out the next word. You know what I did that came to me out of the blue? I read his inventory to him. He heard his first step read to him.

He said it was the most powerful fist that he ever had.

He's been doing the work for a long time.

Trust your intuition. I blew someones mind the other day, was something that came to me out of the blue. It's a past relationship, someone I was engaged to. And now she's sober again and she's on fire and she's making amends. And she came down to LA from Seattle and we spent two weeks, we went to my Home group every Tuesday and my other the other meeting I go to on Saturday. And for two weeks we talked, I let her talk about her amends and when she was done,

she had two pages of notes and she had 2-3 by 5 cards and she wanted to go through those and make sure she didn't miss anything. And we took the two pages and the and the two cards and I put them in an ashtray and I lit him on fire and we smudged with her amends cards. It was strange, but it was very healing. We burned them and we did it like Sage with her amends. It was very healing. And I never thought of that before,

you know, and I think at this point that we're coming up to which is after a fifth step. And and remember, there's a very important thing that's part of the 5th step. It's not step six, it's not step four. It's part of your first step. And that's at the bottom of page 75 when you return home. And this is that page where you haven't been. If you haven't been clear about the cement put into the foundation

on the first page of There is a solution,

and you haven't been clear on the cornerstone at the at the second step, your willingness to believe and you haven't been clear on the keystone at the third step, your decision. Think about what this paragraph would mean to you if you hadn't been thorough. Imagine if your sponsor didn't use the book, but after the first step he referred you. He or she referred you the bottom paragraph

and you returned home and you found a place where you can be quiet. Remember, that's not just a physical place.

Find a place where within yourself where you can be quiet.

I know guys that will set a timer for an hour and literally put their book up on a shelf so they can take it down from the shelf.

I bet Dave does that. I just have an idea that Dave probably does that and and my other friend says find a place where you can be quiet. Carefully review what you have done. Look through the inventory.

Now this is confusing if you don't know what inventory is about. How can I thank God from the bottom of my heart that I know Him better if all I've been doing is looking at self for 10 hours? Why? Because I've seen a lot of truth in the inventory. And if I've seen truth, I've seen God. That's how I know God better, because I've seen truth. God is truth.

That's how I thank God that I know Him better. Take the book down, turn to the page which contains the 12 steps and how it works. Read the 1st 5 proposals and ask if you've admitted anything for your building. An arch through which you'll walk a free man at last. Is your work solid so far? Now those questions aren't confusing, but what about the next three questions? Are the stones properly in place?

What are they talking about?

If you haven't been through, they're talking about the cornerstone at the second step. They're talking about the keystone at the third step. Are they in place? Have you skimped on the cement? How could you skimp on the cement in the foundation that's having found a common problem but not a common solution or just a common solution without the common problem? It's that description of cement on page 17. Review That cement.

Is my foundation

strong? Have I found a fellowship where I share in the common problem? And have I found a fellowship where I share in the common solution? Or is it out of balance?

Have you tried to make mortar without sand? Have you tried to create fellowship without recovery? Have you tried to get recovery without fellowship? The two parts to the cement are recovery and the common problem.

Review the stones, review what you've done, review the 1st 5 proposals, and I believe between page 75

and the top of page 76, they make a dramatic shift. Now, how do I say that? If you think of everything that we've covered from from the title page to page 76, it's all kind of been, I don't want to say negative, but it's all kind of been negative about you, your mind, like a power, selfishness, even when your motives are good. Looking at your part, lack of power, lack of power, lack of power.

After the 5th step and after returning home, they make a major assumption. They start to go by on 76 and that is now you've got some power. Now you can begin to trust this power because the next question after 75 is, have I answered to my own satisfaction?

You start to trust. Wasn't there something in there that we didn't get to read? You may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now you begin to have a spiritual experience at Step 5. Because from 76 on, they're going to start to make an assumption that you should make, that you got some power, that you've got some faith, you've done some work. Because now they're going to start to ask you some questions like you should be able to trust

when you've answered to your own satisfaction. So I encourage people to do returning home

as many times in as many days as they need to until they've answered to their own satisfaction. They're asking you to start to trust yourself with God when you've answered those questions and returning home to your own satisfaction. Let's look at step 6. And my mind always goes like this because there's a lot in this paragraph that you don't see. We've emphasized willingness as being indispensable,

and my mind always says, of course I'm willing. Why are they making such a big deal of willingness after all this work?

Well, they're going to show you why,

and they start with the first question. Are you now ready to let God remove from you all the things you have admitted are objectionable?

Yes or no.

Usually after a thorough footstep or a few fish steps, there is nothing I'm not willing to let go.

But then they ask you another question. Can he now take the mall, everyone?

I don't know.

I know that he can. So I add to that. Whenever they ask Kenny, I ask another question there. Will he for me? With all this mud on my face that I've just admitted, Not only can he take them all, I usually don't have any doubt about that. Of course he can. But I need to think about will he for me?

Then they ask, am I still clinging to anything that I'm not willing to let go? How do you know that if you don't look back through and make a list of anything you're still clinging to?

So it's my my. My advice is to go back through the inventory and look for any behavior, beliefs, defects, anything, and just write down the ones that you're not willing to let go of and be honest and stay in that place for a few days. Admit your unwillingness. Admit that there's a few things you're not willing to let go, and then you'll see why they mean by the first statement

that willingness is important here.

Yes, I am willing to let it all go. Some people confuse with clinging to something I love. They use that term clean because that's where all my suffering comes from, which comes from ignorance. Then I start to grasp for things, then I get them, and then I cling to them.

If I'm, if I'm still clinging to something that I'm not willing to let go, I ask God to help me be willing. A lot of people interpret that, that if they go home and write down a few things they're not willing to let go of that it means they need to quit doing it by tomorrow. It doesn't say are there still some things that you can stop doing by tomorrow? It says, are there still some things that you're clinging to that you're not willing to give to God?

I write them down. I sit with my unwillingness

and then I go, yes, I am willing. And then I see what they mean by the first statement. Willingness is indispensable. When I first asked it, before I asked the other questions, it didn't seem important. But when I asked the other wet questions, can he, Will he? Am I still clinging to something? And I get honest, Yeah, there's a couple things here. I'm not willing or I'm willing.

Then you see what what they mean by the 1st sentence. Then they ask you to assume and trust once again because now they make another statement that you should be able to trust

when ready last week, because I, I guess it not last week, last month last actually in July, because my group, one of our formats each month is a step a month. So the 7th month we were on the 7th step. And I said I think the greatest thing to consider with the 7th step, because there's only one paragraph, is when is ready.

What do they mean when they say when ready? We say something like this. When is ready? Write that question down. There is ready when everything straightened out and you're feeling better is ready when you know you can work on all these defects you've just seen, No. So when is ready? Is it based on circumstance? You've waited for all your ducks to be in a row before you go on to step 7? No. You're waiting until your emotional state is all straightened out until you go on to step seven. No,

when is ready, ready is when there's nothing left that I still want to clean to,

that I'm not willing to give to God.

Then you should look at what you're going to say in the prayer before you say it. And then in your own way, however you're guided to do it, you should go somewhere and do the seven step prayer. It's usually a very personal and a very private experience between you and God because that's all you're down to. Why do they say the good and the bad?

Because I don't know. By step seven, what I thought was good is killing me. What I thought was bad is saving my life. My assets have turned into my liabilities. My liabilities have turned into my assets. So I just gotta be willing to give it all. And that's what it says. My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me good and the bad. I don't know the difference.

I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of my character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and to my fellows.

Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. And what's God's bidding after step 7-8?

How do you know when you've completed 7? When you're sitting down with a pen and a piece of paper and you're making an 8 step list and that's the next action

without which we find that faith without works is dead. And I always thought that without my work, God will have no faith in me.

Noon. Without this work, I won't have any faith in Him.

It's not about how he feels about me. He's been there from the beginning.

No one in this room is any closer to God than anybody else in this room. Some of you in this room think you're closer to God than some other people in this room. You're not. No one in this room is any closer to God than the last time they took a drink. The only thing that changes here is our perception of something that's always there. That's the only thing that changes. His love doesn't change. His presence doesn't change,

only our perception of that which has always been there.

So I go through my inventory. It says I have a list. I made it when I took inventory. I make my list. I've got people to make amends to. I've got institutions I've harmed. I've got principles to look at. How do you make amends to principals? Good question. I pray and I pray. Are there any other amends I'm not aware of that belong on this list? And I keep that prayer going until I'm done with every one of them. Show me any amends I'm not aware of every day

and show me the next amends I should make. Some people just set out and make their own agenda for making amends. Some people set out thinking they got to have all the money before they can go back to somebody. That's just ego. It's a lot harder to go back and say this is the best deal I can do. I can pay you 5 bucks a week, agree on the best deal. I think I got to have all 25 grand to go to him. That's just ego.

So you have a list and you keep praying and you keep praying, and then you begin to experience something that I would hope nobody in this room misses, because it's absolutely the most incredible experience I've ever had in my life. Every time I've ever been in Immense, there's probably stories in this room. And I could go on until tomorrow about amazing stories and amends that I thought could never be healed, nor that I could ever find them.

Everyone, probably everyone that's ever been in amends. I know you have stories

about how somebody showed up or you had someone you never had seen in 20 years. You pull up to a stoplight and there they are next to you.

I could go on and on about stories and it's it's like the whole universe opens up for you.

I've known 10/15/20 years spiritual Dharma students you sit with and you mentioned not even like you would with another alcoholic. Could that be selfish or might you owe an apology there? And they look at you like you're just out of your mind because they have no basis for examining themselves and they just get lost in their own world of spiritual make believe.

But we get a system here that to this day is as life altering as anything else I've ever been exposed to,

along with something else we'll get to in a minute.

But Step 9 is really where it started to happen. Step 9 is where a lot of people lose the obsession

that they've lived with in sobriety that God has kept them from drinking starts to be removed. Some of us had the obsession removed the day we walked in, or the day we took the third step, or somewhere in inventory.

But don't become one of these guys that thinks because you haven't thought about alcohol for a long time, that you couldn't drink again. Because you might be the guy that doesn't think at all and finds himself in a bar having not even thought about it. Thinking about drinking doesn't have much to do with whether the obsession is going to come or not.

The obsession is going to come from falling into a unfit spiritual condition by resting on your laurels, by not taking 10 and 11 serious, by not being concerned about working with others or practicing principles in your life. And then one day, there you are. You thought it was just unmanageability. It turned into a dream. There you are. You've come full circle back again. I had people in Denver where they do the work tell me you can't go back to someone who's dead and make amends. I got to tell you,

my two most powerful amends were at the grave of my father and the grave of this man who died in my arms, who I was closer to than my father, my dad. I went to his grave in Battle Creek, MI, and I had had four visits to Battle Creek before I got to Amends. And every visit, because Battle Creeks, a small town, I was like this,

looking over my shoulder wherever I went, that I might run into somebody that I hurt or that was after me.

And I would always visit this one guy who was in a a that I grew up with. I later became a sponsor. And we would always go to a meeting and then we would always go to this nightclub to steal some vicarious pleasure. And I would dread going in there, but he would always want to, that I might see somebody. And then four visits, maybe I saw one or two people from the past when I got to Amends and I went to Battle Creek and I started making amends to my family. I went to a meeting one night with my friend and we went to this nightclub. 12 people walked in that club

that I could make appointments with to see, to make amends. I made those amends in my hometown. And of course, I make the biggest one last. And just as I was going back to the airport to fly back to Denver, I went to my daddy's grave.

And I sat at his grave and I talked to him about what I had done that I thought hurt him. And I'd asked him what I could do to make it right. And I sat there and I left that grave. I left that graveyard different than I'd ever been in my life.

I was guided not to go to the airport, but to take a drive from where I was born to where I grew up, to the bars and the dope houses. And I drove around that city and there wasn't one hook. There wasn't one hook anymore. And I was no longer looking over my shoulder in the town where I grew up. And I was free, but I couldn't go to this man's grave in Las Vegas who died in my arms of drugs that I paid for.

Made amends to him through a letter, read it to my sponsor, made amends to his mother, made amends to his father, made amends to his sister. I made amends to his brother. He put a gun at my head and said, tell me the truth about how my brother died.

Got free. He got free. Second year. I couldn't go to his grave. I was three years sober and it was my a birthday and I had been in Las Vegas probably 7-8 times in those three years and I couldn't get myself to his grave. On my third a birthday, I wake up at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

And my thought was, today you're going to his grave. It's your third a a birthday. The power is there. No resistance. Got a driver, drove to Henderson, NV. Three friends were with me. I walked up to the grave like I knew right where it was. I got down on my knees. I said what I needed to say. And I looked down and I was there on the anniversary of his death and it was my sobriety day. Just different years. I can't plan stuff like that.

I ended up there on the anniversary of his death,

and the anniversary of his death turned out to be my sobriety date.

How do you make amends to a mother you talk to through a plate glass window on a phone in the Michigan State Penitentiary?

And when she died two years ago, she and I were free and clear.

She was so clear. She said to me this will be the last time we see each other. And it was,

it wasn't with drama, It was with clarity. She said goodbye to me 10 minutes before I was leaving for the airport. I went in the bed. I'd been there a week. I went in the bathroom. And I thought, why didn't you tell me this on Monday rather than Sunday? And I got on my knees and I said, is there anything I need to say to my mother? And the answer was, no, you're clear. And why don't you let her do it the way she wants to for once in your life? If this is the day she wants to say goodbye 10 minutes before you're leaving for the airport, let that be OK.

And it was the last time I saw and we were clear for a long time. You can make amends to people that are dead. You can make amends to people you can't find. And you'll find most any situation you have is described in these pages. The practical instructions I was given for my eight step list was to take each name off my eight step list, put it on a three by five card and fill out the card

name, address, phone number, or just the word find. And I know that's when I need to find

the harm that I'm clear on and in the upper right hand corner, plus or minus,

willing or not,

and stay in the eighth step till you're willing to make amends to them all. Don't miss that. My sponsor got sober in the Colorado State Penitentiary. He got to step eight. He didn't get, they didn't let him out 'cause he was hung. Step nine in a A he had to stay a few more years or a year and a half or something. He told me that he got free in the eighth step from his willingness to make amends to them all, and that getting out, it was just like a formality to go to all these people because he was already free.

He got free in prison

and then he went out and started making him. And about 20 years later, he was made the director of the Department of Corrections for the state he was locked up in. And you can't get there from, from from there to from here to there on your own power.

Year and a half sober. I'm halfway through amends. I made the director of a program for the National Council on Alcoholism training kids to work with kids, peer counseling.

A year and a half earlier, you wouldn't have let me near your children. And they were trusting me to work with kids. And my own mother said I wasn't even the same. And the whole universe opened up for me. I'll tell you about two guys because they're so different, but they're so similar. I sponsored a black guy who never left South Central LA for 30 years. He had never been to the beach. He'd never seen the ocean. And that South Central is about 10 miles from the beach.

He lived in a 20 mile radius and he had 350 amends. 200 of them were breaking and entering.

150 were friends and family. He made amends to his friends and family and got so much power from each of those men's. He started making cold calls on neighborhoods where he knew he broke into houses. He used to pray at the top of neighborhoods. Dear God, please show me the homes I broke into. He's got stories you wouldn't believe. He's got stories about family saying it's nice that you're here but we need your help because our son's in trouble. Or will you get on your knees and pray with us? Or.

And he got free and he's free to this day.

The other kid that was around the same time lived in many different countries in his life and we got to amends and he had 350 and we had to put him in piles of continent, North America, South America, England, France and Asia. It came over to my house and with his eight step cards done, we put him in piles of continent

and he said to me, you know what I'm going to do? I said what? He said, I'm going to make all these amends and prove to you the program of Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't work out of spite. I'm going to make these amends. He was half joking, but half not. He started in North America. He went to South America, he went back to England, he went to France, he went to Asia where his mom and dad were. And two weeks after his last amends, his father passed away. He inherited $10 million cash and a multi $1,000,000 corporation that he's been running to this day,

and this kid could not have done that one month earlier.

That's the kind of stuff that starts to happen in amends.

My first fiance, when she moved back to California from Denver, I called her up from Los Angeles. I told her I had five other events in LA and I hadn't even been there for years. I can cause harm long distance without even going there, right? And I called her up and I said, can I make amends? She's in the program. And she says, I don't know if I even want to see you. You really hurt me.

I slept with a woman that she was sponsoring when she went on vacation because we had a little fight on the phone.

That can be healed by me.

And I call her and she says I don't know if I can see you, but let me pray about it. Call me tomorrow. I called her the next day and she said well I called your sponsor

and she called her sponsor and they decided that they that she would see me on her terms and on her turf and I should be at her mother's house at 6:00 the next day.

Then I had another one and I was speaking at a CA meeting that night that I never would have gone to on my own at a rib joint at 11:30 at night in in South Central Los Angeles. And I had one more that I couldn't find and then the one to the X the next day. And I told my story at the CA Mean a woman walks up to me and she said

sober in Denver. I said, yeah. She said, did you know Cindy so and so I said, yeah, she's one of my amends I can't find. She said, here's her phone number and her address. Give her a call that night that I put a question mark by her name and prayed about it. Found her, went to my ex the next day or called my ex the next day and said that she'd prayed about it and spoke to her sponsor and my sponsor that I could come over. Went to her mom's the next day. And I walked in and you could feel it.

You could feel it was thick.

The blame, the shame, the guilt, the pain. And I started.

This is why I'm here.

So this is the format I was given. Once I go to somebody, I explained to them that I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and This is why I'm here. That's really great with exes, so they don't get any misunderstanding of why you're there, that you're not there to get back together. This is why I'm here. I explained that to her. She's in the program. She knew I was there, but I let her know that it was a lot more important to me than just not drinking again. That's pretty selfish. I told her that this relationship was still important to me

and I meant it. And I don't say that when I don't mean that. And then I go to the harm that I'm aware of.

And then I asked the first question,

Do you need to tell me anything else that I ever did that hurt you? It was 630 at 9:45. She took her next breath. She was done telling me the other things I had done that hurt her. And it was still thick. And then I asked the next question. All when all the harm is out on the table, I ask, do you need to tell me how any of that hurt you? Because I might know exactly what I did, but I'm so insensitive. I might not have any idea how that hurt you.

I had some I thought were big deals. The guy didn't even Remember Me. I had some I thought were no big deal at all. And they said, you know, you really hurt me. So I asked. So I tell him why I'm there. The harm that I'm clear on. Is there any other harm I'm not aware of? How did that hurt you? Do you need to tell me? And this healing started to come in the room and you could feel it and it was shifting and when? And it was 12:00 midnight when she got done

telling me how it hurt her.

And then I asked the magic question, Is there anything I can do to? Is there anything I could ever do to make this right?

And she said, yeah, take me on your vacation next week to San Francisco and be in LA twice a month to go to therapy, and we'll see if we can work this out or at least end it in a healthy way. And all I could say was, I'll find a way to do that. And the next day, before we went on vacation as friends, an apartment was put in my lap for $450 a month on the beach in Santa Monica by someone that didn't even know why I was there. And the way to follow through on those amends was put right in my lap.

So I don't know what they're going to ask. I don't know what kind of healing is going on.

I have a sense that I'm going for them to get free as much as me to get free. And I watch amazing things happen. So don't go into men's thinking, you know what? They're going to ask? Oh, they're going to ask me to pay back the money. They might not. They might ask you to give it somewhere else. They might throw you out of their office. But it does say that nine times out of 10 you're going to be amazed and very I can't even remember that if there had been anywhere I was rejected.