Steps 10 & 11 at the Stateline Retreat in Primm, NV

My name is Mike Lorenz. I'm an alcoholic

and wow, what a wonderful weekend this has been. And the level of sharing has been just stunning. And

I, I want to, I want to, it's different be I've attended this conference since the the very first one and it's been a special event every year. And to now to get to participate with a lot of people who have been my heroes and Alcoholics Anonymous is a, is a real privilege and an honor and to share myself with you.

Somebody was asking me as I came in this morning how I was feeling. And I, you know, I thought since I was talking on the 10th and 11th step, I ought to tell the truth. So I said, well, I'm, you know, the fear waves coming and that happens all the time,

but I understand it's just ego. So we'll jump up on the the wave and see where we go this morning.

I,

I need, I guess I'll start with a story.

One of the things, by the way, I want to say thank Bob for doing this because what this is for me is it's a family reunion and I didn't know my family was this big for a lot of years.

I'd I'd go to the people that were I'll, I'll reference some people that have been my teachers along the way and understand I've had one sponsor, but that sponsor allows me to have as many teachers and mentors as I need. Any time I need to learn something new, I don't need to fire my sponsor and get a new one.

I simply have a teacher and my sponsor says if you learn something good please share it with me. And that's worked for us for more than 20 years and I dearly love and honor him. My dry dates September 7th, 1985. That shocked everybody in my area because I was not on the list and most likely to succeed.

I

I have a special passion for what I'm going to talk about today because I'm one of those that nearly died in Alcoholics Anonymous further from a drink than I ever expected to be getting. Getting ready to celebrate my 5th birthday in Alcoholics Anonymous and have on paper having everything I needed, thought I never needed or wanted and everything else and

only one thing missing. I was just completely hollow inside. I was, I was. I was dying of untreated alcohol,

sitting in 10 or 11 meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous a week, and that wasn't the fall of the meetings I went to. What I done is I did an alcoholic synonymous approximately what I did years ago when I went to the University of Iowa. I I went over the field house. I signed up for all my classes, went down to the bookstore and bought my books, joined a fraternity through the Books in the Closet and started partying.

And if you ran into me on campus and asked me what I was doing, I would tell you, Well, I'm a pre law student, Sir,

here at the University of Iowa. And that was technically true, except I rarely went to class. And what I did in Alcoholics Anonymous was I, I went to every meeting I could get to get my hands on. I, I, well, I did what every good junior guru does. I started my own meeting because nobody else's was really adequate. And,

and I, I never missed a dance, I never missed a function, I never missed a party.

What I missed was the recovery program and Alcoholics Anonymous and the Fellowship loved me and held me up so well that I made it five years that just on on that momentum.

But I'm in. I don't the miracle five years. I don't want to drink, but I do want to die.

I'm I'm thinking now here's a spiritual thought. Celebrate your 5th anniversary and a a by trying to figure out how you can kill yourself so it won't embarrass the people you sponsor.

This is

this is not a vision for you.

So, and, and who knew the man I disliked most in Alcoholics Anonymous was the guy that was the channel of the solution that ended up saving my life and, and giving it purpose and meaning and direction.

And like everybody, when I find a solution, I grasp it in I, I go through what I, I go through and evangelical period, you know, and I'm very tightly focused on, on what I've learned in the miracle of all of that.

And if you don't do it my way, you're wrong.

And I spent a period of time and thank God another teacher came along and grabbed me the mic and he said those people aren't wrong. They're successful. What they do, what they have is they have a different style than you and I do. And they're members of our family too. And you need to honor them. And so I love it that I get to come together on a weekend like this where I hear other members of my family, some of them with different styles from mine, and I get to benefit and learn from all of you. So thank you so much for what

given me this weekend.

Mother, I always like to quote from Mother Teresa. Somebody asked her what it was like now that she would had become enlightened. And she says, oh, well, that's simple. She says, before I was enlightened, I looked down on people. And now that I'm enlightened, I look down on people that look down on people and,

and I love that because it lightened it up. It's a reminder to me that I'm not going to arrive and I don't need to worry about arriving. What I need to do is learn to enjoy the journey.

One of the this journey for me has been a constant process of finding and and discarding old ideas. My my friend Clint, I used to love it. He he and his wife had a thing. Honey, why don't we, why don't we just spend a day this day and see if we can find an old idea and get rid of it? When a what a what? A1 What a wonderful way

to

enhance the quality of your life. And

so one of my old ideas is that, well, I've got a whole collection of spiritual awakenings. We're going to feel good.

The problem with spiritual awakening is they they involve the disappointment of my ego. I mean, my, my ego really believes that it could kill me and go on living all by itself. And

it was mentioned yesterday several times by several of our speakers. You know the price I pay for image ego, whatever you want to. If I, if I, if I look at all those stacks of inventory, Gee, if I didn't, if I didn't care about my ego, you know, what would this look like? And so I keep remembering that old Chinese proverb that it's impossible to save face and ass at the same time. You've got to make a choice

and so we do around here.

I was really blessed the first couple years

I didn't find this conference actually my my fiance Sweet Linda did and she was in contact with Bob and heard about this conference and she said, let's let's go there for this weekend. That's a place where neither one of us will have to do anything and we can just sit back and be together and, and have an A, a weekend together.

And so we began coming here

June of 2007. I, I went out to Santa Fe to see some friends and do some AA and, and everything else. And Linda lived, We weren't married. We hadn't gotten married yet. And so she lived over on the West side of town near the airport. And so I took my car over to her place and dropped it off with her in the morning before my flight to Santa Fe. And I parked the car in her garage and she gave me a ride to the

and

I took off for Santa Fe. And

he had a wonderful time in Santa Fe. And while I was down in Santa Fe, my friend Tom took me up into the mountains one day to see a Vietnam Veterans Memorial up by Angel Fire. And I couldn't get it. I was having trouble with the cell signal up there, so I turned my phone off

because it kept looking for a signal and was eating the battery up and everything else. And I got, I got back down later that afternoon and turned my phone back on and I had a real nasty voicemail from Linda. You know,

you don't need to avoid me if you want to go off and play with your friends and, and have to be distracted by me and so on and so forth.

And so I, I examined my behavior and I called her back and,

and we had a conversation in, in, we squared things up because she'd written some inventory in the same time and talked to her sponsor and one of the gals she worked with. And so we both exercised this marvelous 10th step of ours.

And that becomes very important because a couple days later, I, I flew back from Santa Fe and

I'll shorten the story up. Long story short, I get back into Indianapolis and Linda was supposed to pick me up that night at the airport and she was a reliable woman and she wasn't there. And I called her and I didn't get ahold of her. And so I, I waited a period of time and then I eventually I got a cab and had the cab take me over to her house. And

because we're engaged, I had a key to that car house and I I went inside the house and

found her collapsed in the bathroom. She'd collapsed with a stroke that morning while getting ready for work.

And so we got the paramedics there and began a process of five days in neuro intensive care

until the the doctors told us there was number hope left and that we needed to go to Hospice.

I am so grateful. The first thing I could be grateful for in that experience

was that she and I didn't have a bunch of unfinished business between us. That we both practice this principles of this program and that we were clean and that I didn't have to stand by her bed and hold her hand as she was dying going. I wish I'd done this, or I wish I'd said this or everything else because it had been said.

And more than that, I want to thank you because of what you've taught me and the principles you've given me, that I got to be part of the solution there and start of the instead of part of the problem.

Linda was about the only recovering member of her family. So we had people that were in various sides between needon a A and need an al Anon swarming the hospital and intensive care unit.

Instead of being one of the crazy ones, I got to be one of the ones that could support the other family members and help things

happening. Not because of my strength, but because of what you've given me and what you taught me,

my dear friend Don taught me years ago. And one of the greatest gifts I've ever gotten around here is how to be in the presence of death without fear and not without losing my mind.

And I didn't know I even needed to learn that lesson because I'm a, I'm a combat veteran of Vietnam. I, I was in the front edge of that. I was part of the I, I let a platoon of men into the plain of reeds one Sunday afternoon. And three days later, 32 of us went in. Three days later, three of us came out. I thought I knew about death, but I didn't

because in those days what I did is I sat down

and if he'd asked me, I'm sitting next to my friend's body. And if you'd asked me what was going on with me, I'd say, you know, it's OK. It's all cool, man. Don't mean a thing

'cause I was shut down. And what I did is I spent, I found, I spent my life. It's like I had an emotional MasterCard, you know, and I, as I went through life, I had a choice. I could either experience what was going on and pay the price at the time and have the experience, or I could put it on the card.

Hi, and you know what I chose to do? I just put it on the card. Ah,

and I got here and I couldn't even make the minimum payment on the balance anymore.

And so I had people around here that showed me important life skills. See, because sobriety wasn't my solution. Sobriety is my problem. That's what the, the message that I got that saved my life. I because I couldn't understand. I was sitting in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous and you all looked like you were enjoying this and having a good time. And I'm dying inside with a smile pasted on my face.

And I remember when they, when he said to me, he says, oh, Mike, he said, you know,

he says sobriety is not your solution, It's your problem. You've been sober hundreds and thousands of times. He says you can't stand life sobriety sober. That's why you go back to drinking. The idea is how do you get a, a, a meaningful sobriety that sufficiently comfortable and tolerable for you that you can wear it and, and stay in it and live in it. And that's

where we are here. I,

I was so blessed by that woman. I can't, I, I could stand up and take all of my time. I won't telling you about her, but I think probably if I had, I was thinking of what could I tell you in a sentence that would describe Linda.

And we were having a conversation one time and she turned to me. We sometimes did these workshops and retreats together and so forth. And she turned to me with this big smiling face. And she says, Mike, she says, since we have resentments where we refill and re experience anger, she says, do you suppose that it would be possible for us to have relovements where we can re experience the love that we've been given and the love we experience and the love we didn't even that was given to us that I didn't even know was love

time.

And so she was one of my teachers that walked through my life and and I

I miss her. I miss her terribly, but she also gave me the tools to to move on without her. Is is my other teachers have Clinton, Don,

he

I was having a moment

and I heard Linda talking to me and the first time she talked to me, she said I

she says, Mike, you need to know I don't need you to grieve me. I need you to be happy.

And my heart knew that came from her.

And then some weeks later, I in another moment, I, I just do it. I was in anguish and I said, oh God, I'll never love anybody like I loved you. And I heard her laugh. And she says, well, of course not silly, you've already done that.

And so we go on and thank God for the, for the examine. God couldn't would if he were sought. And these are, these are the God, these are God seeking steps. The same way I used to seek out that alcohol or score whatever I was going to do. I, I, I need to be, have that thirst and that hunger for God today.

One of the one of the things I like best about my Home group is that we have what we call, it's not formally structured, but we have 10 step circles in there and we have a real tradition of 10 stepping with each other and there. And part of that tradition is that you 10th step with the new guys.

So they see how the old timers get it done. And one of the guys that changed my life was a man by the name of Gary B. And he was he was the the old guru in the group when I was very new there. And I didn't know what to do. And he grabbed me one day I'd I'd seen him in a group of people for lunch and we were walking away and he grabbed me as I was headed back to my car. And he said, Mike, I need to tell you about something that that I did at work this morning.

And he went ahead and

explained to me that he'd taken credit for a sale that should have gone to another salesman who wasn't there that day

and so forth, and that he was here. I'm, he says, I think I'm going to go see, I'm going to go see the boss. And I'm going to own up with the boss and tell him what's going on. And then I'm going to, you know, he laid out the whole, his whole plan of action. And then he then he said, you know, before the meeting tonight, why don't you, can you meet me down the Salvation Army? Let's see if we can talk to a couple drunks down there.

And he gave me a port. Unless first of all, I didn't hear somebody tell me about how I should live. Alcoholics Anonymous. I had the oldest member of my group go to one of the youngest member of the group and humble himself. And Layout says, look, here's what I did. Here's the mistake I made. Now, he could have gone to his sponsor Paul, or he could have gone to any number of people. But he he went, he went. I was one of the people he went to. And I'll tell you, it made an impact on my life.

And then he also demonstrated that often forgotten part of our ten step,

you know, that we need to turn our thoughts to somebody else. We can help.

And I what I find with this ten step is what I have here is if I, if I choose to, I get to part participate, participate in God's recycling plan. See, I go out here and I'm trying. I'm trying. I'm trying to live life the best I can. I've always had a life full of good intentions. I suspect you did too. We mean well.

But I get caught up in my ends and means and I'm frightened. And so I create up. I take my good intentions and I create garbage. And if I will take them and Simply put them in the into the program process and, and into God's hands, God recycles my garbage back into something that can help somebody else if I will allow it to happen.

So I'll share with you a couple of

few weeks ago, I when the gas prices were still astronomically high, I was, I was at Costco pumping gas and

that the attendant came over and said, Sir, please don't top off your tank. And I turned to him and I said, look, buddy, I said the day you start putting your credit card in that machine, you can tell me how to pump the gas. Until then, by God, I'm pumping it the way I want to.

Yeah. I mean, it's times like these I'm so happy that there is no I'm a friend of Bill W bumper sticker on the back of my car.

See, my anonymity is not for me, it's for you.

And I hadn't even got the pump back on the hook. And of course, because you've awakened me, I knew I was wrong.

It just felt wrong.

And So what I did is I, I immediately went to that gentleman. I said, you know, I had absolutely no right to talk to you that way. That was completely disrespectful. And you're standing out here in this wind and cold and, and, and trying so we can get gas and help us. And I'm, I'm sincerely sorry that I, I, I was disrespectful to you that way. Please accept my apologies. And we, we started a conversation. We did.

I taught I immediately

when I left there, I got on my phone and I called the newest guy that I'm working with and I told him exactly what I, his sponsor had just done.

And that's the way we work. And it turns out to be a very,

a very effective way to do things. See the image that was given to me. See, I, I got here because I, I was picking all my knowledge of Stepworks in our program up out of what I heard in meetings. I hear something in this meeting over here, and I'd repeat it,

you know, over there if I thought it sounded good. And so I didn't have a program. What I had was a collection of sound bites and

I, well, I just lost my train of thought. I don't know.

Oh yes, the

though, so the man that explained this to me in a way, in a way that made sense to me, you know, because I thought 10th step, OK, I, I sit and I do the 10th step at night before I, I go to bed. That's what I do is I'll do my 10th step at the end of the day. And I, I, I review my day and all that kind of stuff. And he said, well, Mike, let me ask you this. He says, suppose I was walking my dog

and I walked past your house and my dog made a deposit on your lawn. He says, would you like? Would you like it if I came up to you and said, well, look,

you'll be happy to know I'm part of a spiritual program and I'm going to think about this later today. And if I decide that I my dog shouldn't have dumped on your lawn, I may come back tomorrow or the next day and clean it up.

How would you feel about that

now? He says. What about if I immediately told you I was sorry about what my dog had done and I cleaned up the mess right on the spot? Would you like that better?

So this whole 10th step business is is about the here and now. The spiritual life is not is is was mentioned yesterday. The spiritual life is happening right here, right now in this moment. It's the only place God and I can can meet together.

And so

I, the adjectives and the 10 stuff, we, you know, we asked God at once, you know, doesn't mean I was told it by the way. It doesn't mean he delivers it at once. But you're my job is to ask it once. So I ask it once, you know, I make amends quickly. I do quickly at once all of this stuff. I do this stuff rapidly. I don't, I don't waste time with it. And then I turn my thoughts to somebody else. I can help

and if I do that, I get to be part of God's recycling program and I don't think it's any action accident that

that are

the 10 step promises are such wonderful set of promises. And I

they tell me by this time, you know, I'm I'm going to seldom think about alcohol

and that I'm going to actually this is where this is the point where a sane life starts to happen for me again. And can't you imagine it, what, what would be a saner life and me going along, Hey,

me out there living with my best intentions. I'm going to make mistakes and I'm going to clean it up right here, right now.

And as I as I told you that

that's born so much fruit in my life.

I

This whole business of self examiner examination and inventory is so important that we get asked to do it in any number of places in our program.

Obviously in the fourth step, the 10th step, the 11th step,

and inventory at all levels is so important that I didn't. I didn't really have a first step that I could hang on to until I got a fourth step.

And I'll share. I'll share with you just quickly where my first step came from, where I really understood it. And maybe it'll be of some use to you.

This is this is a piece of conduct inventory I wrote about the love of my life, the woman, my college sweetheart, the guy, the girl I wanted to marry, and the one that woman I wanted to have my children with.

And it's not long. This is her name was Ellen. Where was I selfish? I wanted to enjoy sex with her regardless of the consequences, whereas I dishonest. I told her not to worry, that I'd always be there for her no matter what. I dishonestly refused to consider my ability and willingness to keep that promise. I was inconsiderate. I gave no consideration of the consequences to her, of of my behavior to her, her family, her faith, her reputation, and her career. I rouse jealousy, Told her if she didn't have sex with me that I'd get it elsewhere.

I paid an undue attention to other women in her presence. I told her how attractive I found them. That's a nice way to treat the woman you love.

I rouse suspicion often spent time alone with other women, and she found me at Holly's apartment. Bitterness When she became pregnant, I told her I doubted that it was my child. Told her that I was too young to get married and didn't want to marry her anyway. And when she was in California having our baby, I made drunken phone calls to her, ring her, and I abandoned her and our child. And because I was back home in the Midwest and she was in California, I was the one that's telling the story. Look at she

in me who or die harm while I harm the baby. Obviously, Ellen, her family, my family and our friends.

What should I have done instead? Don said. Well, almost anything would be an improvement

in the world,

and this became the foundation for the first. I've got others since, but the my my first ideal for my conduct here is that I should have treated sex as a sacred gift that it is. I shouldn't have engaged in behavior that I wasn't willing to be responsible for. I should have honestly faced the consequences my action. I should have been honest with myself and others. My harms were all rooted in dishonesty, particularly about how afraid I was.

Self-reliance will always produce fear and pain.

And see, I got the first step because this is where I got a first step. Because I understood that I loved this woman so much that if I could have treated her any other way, I would have. This was the best I could do with the person I love most on my power, putting everything I had into the effort. This is the mess I could do. And I looked at it and my spiritual awakening at the time was understanding that I could keep trying the rest of my life. But it was, it was always going to be some version of this story as long as

I did this on my will.

Ah, and if all I'd done is just not drink, and if I'd, if you hadn't encouraged me and forced me to pick up a pen, I would have. I would have never. Never

gotten anchored in this. I mean, obviously men's flowed out of that and other things, but that's, that was the foundation years later that allowed me to have a a loving relationship with a woman like Linda

and have that woman look at me and tell me she loved me and she wanted to spend her life with me.

What a gift,

and it all began with the disappointment of my ego.

I,

We move into the talk a bit about step 11 here. I,

I'm not going to try and give you techniques or anything like that here. I'm going to just maybe tell you a few stories about my experience. And one of the, one of the beautiful things that happened here as I approached this is the people that that revolutionized my life in the, in this area. They would they would give me they would give me what seemed like vague outlines

and point point me maybe in different directions and and pick me up when I fell down a little bit. But

they would never. I remember asking Don, I said, you know, well, tell me to get more specific. Tell me about your guy. And he says, no, I'm not going to do that. He says if I do that, he says what you'll do. He says you're a spiritual thief. He says what you no,

if I layout my experience for you in that depth, he says what you'll do is you'll just simply take my experience and you'll never have your own and it never really will be your own.

So I can point to directions and I can give you some guidance and stuff like that. But you had you need to have your own experience. I remember at the one of the one of those moments that we had so much fun together. I'm going, Don, I don't think God's going to work for me. And he looked at me. He says, well, why should he?

And I got another old idea. See, I thought God was supposed to work for me. Hello. You know,

as a matter of fact, Don kind of, he kept smiling more and more, and I kept getting the idea. Oh, you mean it's the other way around, huh? And

that's what that's what a spiritual awakening is like.

And that's, that's what the the sweet teacher is like for me. I

I found I actually found my

conception of God by doing a piece of inventory. And I won't

bore you with all of that, but I'll show you how that process works. Because see, the beginning of the solution of any problem I've got begins with the acknowledgement that I'm powerless in the in, in the, in what mikes bringing to the party to try and fix this isn't working. And I don't need to spend days or weeks or months on that. And likewise, I can very quickly and do I believe spiritual helps available to me with this problem? Am I willing to ask for spiritual help? Am I willing to examine my behavior? You know, am I, you know,

willing to take this and place this in God's hands in and follow the direction that I'm given there. I don't need to spend months or weeks working on this. It's, it happens in a flash. We've had several people with legal educations talk to us this weekend. I mean, every, every profession, every discipline has got their problem solving method. There's a legal problem solving method that the way, the way the lawyer will walk through the problem. Well, that we have a spiritual problem solving method and it's our 12.

And so whether it's in an expanded version or very quickly, we're always operating from this on the same principles here.

This was, this was not my first inventory. And I'll tell you with any of this, if I was writing it again today, I'd write it neater, better. And, you know, with all that kind of stuff, I'm alive because I was willing and people let me write inadequate, bad inventory,

but it was good enough to get me to the next step in the road.

And this was a inventory that I resisted writing because for a whole variety of reasons. But another man named Mickey said, look, if you don't write this inventory, just quit calling me. I don't want to hear about it anymore.

And so I wrote the inventory and the inventory, the reason I wrote it, it was about all the ways at at this time that I was resenting and hating myself.

And I didn't want to write the inventory because I'm a smart guy. I know that means I'm eventually going to have to make amends to myself. And I've heard those guys in the meetings that talk about making them manage themselves. Oh, I hurt myself worse than anybody else. And so I'm going to get myself a new Porsche instead of paying my child support. You know, I, I see, I don't want to be that guy. It's, it's my image. And so I'm not going to write the inventory,

but I write the inventory here because Mickey drew

here I am in the first column, second column, I'm I'm not a I'm only, I'm unable to be a true friend. I gossip. I only pretend to care about you. My minds always fixed on me. Watch your wife or girlfriend around me.

What's this effect? Well, myself esteem because I don't respect my own behavior. Imagine that my security is lacking because assume other people either like me and don't really care, or they're better than I am because they do. I built myself a box where I'm screwed either way

effects my personal sex relations because I'm always looking for my own pleasure in trying to manipulate manipulate other people for my benefit. Even the so-called good things I do are done to impress others or benefit me and manage and control how other people see me. I

my mistakes unwilling to trust God, demand to be the center of attention and it goes on. Found an old idea there. Why was why was I chasing your wife or your girlfriend? I was actually trying to steal some self esteem. If I can be loved by somebody you want, I can steal a little self worth. Not terribly functional, but it I.

I got,

I come from a tradition and because I'm an alcoholic, by the way, anytime I do in the slightest bit of work, I want the maximum benefit out of it. I mean, if, if you want to, if you want to mess with an alcoholic's mind, let him think he may have done some unnecessary work. I mean it, it, it,

it just drives us crazy.

And so I, I 5th stepped that material with Mickey and everything else and, and that was OK. But again, I, I took, I took that back to Don and in, in Don heard something else in there because there was page after page of stuff like that.

And he, he said, Mike, I hear, I hear there in every one of those fourth columns that some version of unable or unwilling to trust God, unable or unwilling to trust God. He says, Mike, since I, I know you a little bit, he says, I believe you're a man who truly like to trust God. So if you're not trusting God, there must be something blocking you. Let's see if we can find out what it is

and what had happened. I I went into some consideration and talked to Don a day or two later and what I gone back at that time, I was operating with the

a vision of God is God the Father.

And as I wrote and thought about this, I realized I I admired my father. My father was my one of my biggest heroes. I love the man,

but what I came to is I came back to a place and I saw myself sitting at the kitchen table with my dad when I'd come back from Vietnam and I'd been back for maybe a six months or a year now, and I was partying because I was entitled to. And my dad, my dad was. I resemble my mom. My dad was a big football player, went to college on a scholarship as a tackle at Drake University and so

tackles in the 30s weren't as big as they are today. But he was a big man. And

there's that big man sitting in front of my, my powerful hero. And he's got, there's a pile of my bad checks between us and my, my dad's got tears in his eyes. And he says, son, I love you more than I can begin to tell you. And he says I would do anything in the world to help you. But it seems like the more I help you, the worse you screw up. What am I going to do with you?

And see, because I was operating with what had been a good conception up to then of God the Father, I heard God saying to me, Mike, look at all I've given to you. I've saved your life in Vietnam. I I've given you careers, I've given you relationships, I've given you money, I've given you this, I've given you that, and you keep screwing up. What am I going to do with you,

She what was perfectly appropriate for my head, my, my earthly father, to tell me with something that blocked me from a real relationship with that power greater than myself. And one of the things I'd gotten taught along the way, by the way, was that conceptions are important conceptions rather than concept, because conceptions can be changed. Concepts can.

So my conception is very important, but I want to hold on to it loosely.

A description a man used it made sense to me. He said he was a man from India. He says if I want to go visit my friend in the next village I I will get on my donkey and ride to the next village. But if I want to go into the my my friends house and visiting my must dismount for my donkey. So the that which carried me on the journey at some point is the thing that prevents me from completing the the journey if I insist on hanging on to it.

So that's part of part of what I need to do and stay fresh around here

and where step 11 becomes so important to me. How do I stay fresh? How do, how do I stay in consciousness of, of what has carried me as far as it's going to carry me now. And I need to dismount and I need to learn something new in order to move on and continue to grow and be a useful in the, in this program of alcoholic synonymous

I.

So that became the vision. What I got is I and I'm a guy that needs things simple. So I, I, I had to come up with, I came up with what I call my 4 pillars, the the four points that my relationship with God sits on today. It's a conception. It may change,

but in a general way, the most important thing for me to have in that conception is that God's not angry.

She,

I don't know about you, but I'm not going to really open myself up to an angry person. Would you?

Would how, how, how intimate are you going to be with somebody where you're never going to be good enough, You're always failing, you're always behind the 8 ball. So it was absolutely vital for me at at the beginning of everything to know that God wasn't angry with me.

And so that's the cornerstone. The next the next piece was that God doesn't think comparatively.

God loved me just as much when I'm standing in a liquor store writing a bad check to buy a bottle of whiskey to go seduce the neighbor's wife

as he does when I'm down at Salvation Army holding out my hand to the newcomer. Now make no mistake, I get different consequences according to which of those things I'm doing.

But that's not God punishing me. That's just me getting the consequences of my actions. You know,

it's, I don't know why I thought God was punishing me all the time. I was just experiencing the natural and normal consequences of my actions.

So God's not angry. God doesn't think imperially. And then one of the questions that revolutionized my life was simply this. Mike, what would your life look like if you took the position that God wants your happiness more than you do yourself?

I don't know about you, but I never thought of God is wanting me to be happy. I thought God wanted me to be good. God wanted me to work hard. God wanted me to help you, everything. I never thought of God primarily as just wanting me to be happy.

Now that's the relationship I'll show up for, you know? Oh, you want me to be? I'll be over at your place in a hurry.

And then finally, on the other side of that, simply

the final pieces. Would it be possible that God might know what would make me happy more than I do myself?

And that's where all these stacks of inventories came in. I looked at that and I said, yeah, here it is. This is if you want to boil this inventory down it it's 40 odd years of me doing the best I can to make me happy

and I failed utterly and I've harmed others. I start out with good intentions and I end up as a man that terrifies children.

I'm going to may I turn into somebody that I can't look at in the mirror.