The day practice, underearning and meditation at the DA Regional Fellowship Day in Minneapolis, MN

So,

well, I guess

unfortunately not terrifying.

I'm actually not used to standing at podiums and so if I fall over, Frank said that he'd catch me, so keep an eye on him.

I'm Michelle. I'm powerless over money and under earning

and I was asked to speak today about structure and under earning and there is a lot I could say about that. But I do want to start out with

the first three things or three things that I heard that really made the program stick with me. Because for years I couldn't really get myself into the program and I kept getting and I kept falling back and I just couldn't get my I couldn't really get any sobriety. And there were three things that I heard. One was that,

and this really helped me because I never really thought like this, but but the first thing I heard was that God works with what we have because God cannot work with what we don't have. And that to me was like a revelation because being a debtor and using charge cards and so forth, I was always working with what I did not have. Whatever I came home with after shopping or whatever I was doing during the day, it wasn't something that God had really.

It wasn't mine. I, I don't know how to explain that other than to say that I was always trying to make something work

by putting things together that weren't mine to to work on. And so I was always kind of struggling to find a way to earn money,

but the whole time I was getting so it wasn't going to come come about. So that that saying God works with what you have and not with what you don't have really stuck with me. And another thing I heard

was never scorn a small beginning. And as a debtor,

you know, it has to be a big beginning. I don't want a little beginning. I want a great big beginning. And I want a guarantee on that beginning. And I want the date that that the guarantee is due. In other words, I want to step into something with No Fear, no apprehension, no risk, no nothing.

And that's what I want. And so for me to, to really take to heart that

never scorn a small beginning has really been helpful to me because I'm self-employed and a lot of times I have to do things that

it really is a small beginning And I don't know where it's going to lead to. But for me just to pick up the phone and be structured is, is a small beginning or to have structure around my work day. That is the beginning for me. The outcome isn't something that I can control, but the but the structure is. And then the last thing that happened is that I was in a meeting. I'll never forget this. I was in a meeting and I was still dating. I still, it was going to be a few years before I stopped getting,

but umm, I heard this saying that was, that was umm or I was in a meeting and I met this person who, and she said I could share this, that she had said to the group that she only had $11.00 to her name. And in my mind I was happy for her. I thought you know what, you have something to work with. I mean I, I was like way down in debt. I had no clue what was going to happen to me. But. But my point in that is that when we go to meetings and we listen to other people and we

into their stories, we never know where we're going to get hope and we never know where that hope is going to come from. And that that incident really gave me hope. I mean, I was like, so you'll make it and, and, and this person did. And

I guess my, my, the one thing that I want to say as a, as a debtor under earner is that for me, it's really important to have structure. It's really important to have discipline and structure

because I can't have any consistency or self-care if I don't have discipline and structure. And as an addict and somebody who's really strong willed,

I that's the first thing I don't want. I really just don't want structure. I want to do what I want to do when I want to write. Everybody knows that that mantra and and you know, it hasn't worked and I've had to surrender that my under earn it. You know, I have had to surrender that that that's

my under earning, that's my strong will, that's my stubbornness. That's my somehow thinking that that I know how to manage my time better than my higher power does. So for me, I really things turned around for me when I admitted that I was an under earner, when I had my under earning crash

and when I had structure, when I developed structure in my life after that. And I really didn't have much to go on. I had a business, but at the time I really only had about, I don't know, $123 to work with and

no, not even that much because I had to pay my car tabs that day in order not to debt. But I had very little money to start with when I started, when I decided to keep going in my own business. But the the three things that I remembered was never scoring a small beginning, which in my mind is to always stay humble. The story about the $11.00, which in my mind is the story of hope and,

and the other one was, is God works with what you have, not with what you don't have, which is

in my mind, you know, you don't need to debt today. One day at a time, you don't need to debt.

So that's really, that's really my story. The structure and the discipline that I developed during those years really gave me a very good abundant life. And as much as this program has been kind of an up and down for me and, and actually kind of a down for me lately, I still have to remember that, you know, the program, the structure and the discipline gave me, I mean, a lot of things that I, I can't even see today. I mean, I was able to get out of about 80,000

debt. I ended up having a very prosperous business. It was life on a whole different level that I was really. It was the first time for me that my life had been that

that peaceful and that I had so many relationships that healed, that I had money in the bank, savings and all of that. It was all because of the working the steps, working with the sponsors and really taking the tools,

the tools seriously and, and then getting all the support that I have

been given NDA and then all the service that I have been willing to give to all of those, I think come to full circle when we're in a 12 step program. And then the last thing I wanted to say is that I read this thing actually last Tuesday night, I went to the Tuesday DA meeting and this is, this is really for me, this is really, really important warning signs for DA midtimers because they're, to be honest, there's been a,

some lacks in my program. I was really on a spending spree last year and a lot of things caught up with me this year. And so it's like that old saying, don't, don't look where you have fallen. Look where you slipped. So I really had to go back and look where I had slipped. And I slipped in a lot of places and, and, you know, shopping and, and not being structured were, were some of them. But it says here that you know, where can you slip for a midtimer?

Not having a sponsor or being closed to letting others give you feedback. Staying vague about spending plans and numbers. I did that.

Spending savings allotment every month or dipping into savings a lot, continuing to under earn and maintain an attitude of self pity and victimhood, Sporadic PRG, erratic completion of PRG tasks. It goes on. But those are a lot of the things that were tiny slips for me. And tiny slips can add to a fall, you know, it can add to a crash. It can add to another round of having to learn everything all over again.

And So what I have learned is I have to have

the same amount of vigilance that I have after having having had success through this program. I have to have the same amount of vigilance that I had as a as when I was at the very bottom. So in other words, like my sponsor said, you know, we're all just one step away from the ditch. And, and when times are good, it's really easy to forget that or a certain kind of

a certain kind of comfort comes in or a certain kind of, you know, this disease is cutting, baffling and powerful. And no matter how much time I have had in the program,

the disease is going to continue to be cunning, baffling and powerful. And the only thing that I have to to sustain my recovery is consistency, discipline and structure. So that's what I wanted to say about under earning and, and and structure. And then I just wanted to close with one thing is that, you know, when I realized that I was an under earner,

first of all, I didn't know that.

But apparently my sponsor did know that. She never told me which. But anyway, I remember calling her and saying, you know, with the realization that I was an under earner. And she said, yeah, I know that. And I'm like, you do. How did you know that?

Anyway, my point is, is that somebody you know, if if you if you think you're an under earner and in that thought, it's going through your mind. Sometimes it's the best thing to do to check in with people that know you and ask, you know, do you think that I'm an under earner? Do you see this in me? Do whatever and and ask for their feedback

because, you know, I think I had kept that hidden for years, but in reality, it was such a relief. It was such a relief to know that about myself. It was like, oh, now I know that I have that information. I can work the steps around it and I and I can go in more toward the healing instead of the hiding. You know, I didn't know that I was hiding that. And so anybody who is really struggling with under earning, what I did

during the first part, you know, step one

was I would ask my higher power to give me information every morning about my under earning. And every morning I wrote like about, you know, for half an hour, 45 minutes about my under earning and, and asked guidance from my higher power. And then after that I was done with it. I was done. I couldn't spend the whole day, I couldn't spend the whole day under earning, writing about my under earning. So

which was the paradox of it, But that's why I had to put a boundary around it. I had to put a limit around it and I actually kind of had to structure my own awarenesses of an of being an under earner. So, but then I think Frank is up here next,

right, Frank?

Hey, ladies. Two guys, three guys. A guy just showed up.

I am frank. I'm irresponsible, incredibly irresponsible with money

for my daily practice is called the Hal program, and I'll tell you a little bit about what that means. For those of you who don't know how stands for the is an acronym for

honesty, open mindedness, and willingness. That's what the HOW stands for. That comes from chapter four of the Big Book, and it describes the attributes that one needs to recover using the 12 step program.

It's a structured plan for working the 12 steps. The object of it being that at the end of a year, more or less, you will have gone through the entire 12 steps. And so it's a very structured program

within our DA program, there are many kinds of sponsors and sponsorship and sponsorship ideas. There's not one that's better than another is there's there's one that's maybe better for you than for me. So it is nothing more than that. It's just sponsorship of a structured kind.

It's one of the choices that we can make do if we want to work that kind of program or if we know someone who we admire and we want to work the kind of program that they do. So it's,

it's simply that

the how form had originally came from OA and since it's been successful in OA, very successful in away, then it has come to DA, AA, GA and whether other as there may be for people who like this kind of program, because the fact is that they're just one set of 12 steps, you know, and it works for works here, it works there.

Just change a few words, but the principles are the same. And so

it is not for everyone. It's a choice a person makes about whether they want to do it or whether they want to do something else, and there's no bad choice there.

I am not a spokesman for how I was asked to speak on this subject, I'm gladly doing it, but what I have to say is my opinion and not necessarily representative someone elses opinion. So please keep that in mind. As a disclaimer, here's what I do daily.

First, I call my sponsor every day. At the same time, he's agreed to set aside 15 minutes of his life to help me recover, and I respect that. And I call him. I never miss a call

and I'm rarely ever late, maybe a minute or two because of that. That respect that I have for His gift to me,

it keeps me at what that call does is it keeps me working the program every day. And I need to do that because I

lack focus.

I I can't stay on a subject for very long. I see something shiny and I wander off

and then I wander back.

I've got a apartment full of unfinished projects. I I cannot remember who I am and what I'm doing without that daily call. It reminds me of who I am and I need that at least once a day, but actually many times more during the course of the day to keep me in in the path of recovery.

I'm an under earner, particularly at the moment. I've been other things at other times, but right now I'm an under earner.

The fog rolls in for me quickly. If I didn't call every day, it would be a week or so and then I would start wandering off and if I month would go by and then I would be completely lost somewhere but pretty much unaware of it and pretty much unaware of what I need to do.

I don't think I could pass a test for I doubt if many of us could.

I record now. We keep it fun. My sponsor and I, we actually Co sponsor each other. One year I call him, the next year he calls me.

Sometimes this is very serious, you know, and sometimes we have confrontations about things, but mainly we keep it pleasant because there's hardly any point in recovering if it isn't fun. He makes up a name each night, a false name when he answers the phone.

For instance, the other night I called up and he says this is Dalai Lama. I said well hello Dolly,

we do that kind of stuff.

We trade jokes each night and it takes a long time to find a joke that I haven't found before. At a large part of my time goes to finding jokes and we have joke slips. You know, if he doesn't think it's a very good joke, then he calls it a slip and then I have to do 2 jokes the next night.

The point is, is recovery's got to be fun. You got it. You got to be have some lightness in your life. You really can't have it all be seriousness and drudgery and Oh my God, I'm a terrible person,

so those phone calls are not drudgery to me. I like my sponsor. He's a great guy and we have fun and we get the stuff done we need to get done. I report my spending every day.

This is not for him. This is for me.

He doesn't care. And as I sponsor people, they report their spending to me. I don't care. You know, they can spend their money on whatever they want to. It is not for me to be the financial policeman for my sponsor or sponses. It is for them to understand how they're spending their money. And there are two issues there. One is that they're afraid, often spot sees to tell me what they want to buy because they're embarrassed by it. And the other thing they're afraid of is telling me what it is because it may be something they think I'll judge them about

out. None of those things are true in that call and reporting the the finances that you do each day. It's a very important to be very honest about that and not expect that you're going to be judged because of it, because that's not a part of the process. One of the things that I used to do is I used to go to Caribou and I have a large Americano every day that was $3 and I tip them a buck and I call that in every day, four dollars cup of coffee. And after a while, I got to thinking,

$4.00 a day, that's $120.00 a month. Do I want to spend that on coffee? That's nuts. And I stopped doing it. I didn't need him to tell me to stop doing it. He didn't. I told me to stop doing it because it was expensive and I couldn't afford it. When I report my expenses, I begin to see a pattern. And when I hear people reporting expenses, I hear a pattern. But what it is, is clarity. Again, it makes me aware.

I used to get $100 and put it in my billfold and two days later I'd look at it, my bill folder would be gone. And I think, oh God, I must have given somebody the wrong changer

or I've lost some money or and I would be very worried about where that money went. Well, I don't do that anymore because I know where the money went. I can look it up and it and because of that, I'm a lot more frugal than I used to be. Now my wife, if she were here, would find that hard to believe that I'm more frugal than I used to be. But I am by my standards.

I write something based on our literature every day. The 1st in the how program, there are 7

seven prepared, pre prepared questions and those questions take you through the first three steps of the program. And so the first question, I don't remember exactly, but it's basically write a history of your financial life. You know what it's been like right from the beginning. Now that can't be done in a day. It usually takes people a week of.

15 minutes increments to write the answer to that question. It was very illuminating once you look at your history and see how young it started and where it came from and all the aspects of it and so on. So you do 7070 questions and at the end of that you are in theory have gone through the third step

and then you move on to the 4th step. So on through the rest of the steps, all the time working either from the Big Book, the 12 and 12 or from the personal stories in the Big Book.

What that does for me again is reminds me every day of who I am, why I'm doing that writing and and what it means to me. And I'm learning a lot about myself and about my recovery as a result of it. I actually have been a 12 step programs more than 28 years

and this, this process is the best thing I've ever done in those programs because in other 12 step programs, as many of you know, no one makes you do anything. And as Michelle's often said, and I love the phrase, you can be a tourist in the program. You don't have to do anything. No one makes you do anything and no one makes you do this program either. But if you choose to,

it's structure and it's discipline. And as Michelle said, and as I say, that's the thing I'm not good at.

It's not the thing I generally want to do, but it is the thing I need to do.

My sponsor rarely comments on my writing and I rarely comment on my sponsees. Writing is not for me, it's for them. And So what they write and what they get out of it is really for them and not for me to decide whether it's been good or bad or whether they got it or didn't get it. It's the process that's important.

I review my 10th step with my sponsor every day. What that does is it keeps me from getting into

and accumulating resentments. It keeps me from keeping secrets. It keeps me from harboring fear because I get it out on the table every night. You know, this is what I felt today. This is what I did today. This is how I reacted today. Now he may say you owe that guy A

and a man or he may say nothing or he may say have you tried the fear prayer?

You know, what are you doing about this isn't just listening when it comes to the 10th staff, He's he's saying, are you applying your program? Are you working it? Are you improving? Are you learning from these experiences?

I make a phone call every day to someone that I don't normally talk to NDA again, what that does or, or else I receive one or I receive several each day actually. And that keeps me again out of myself. So when someone calls, instead of me thinking about poor me, I'm thinking about poor them. And I, I get a chance to think outside myself for a minute and think about how I could help that person,

maybe simply by just listening, or maybe I would have something to say that might, might help them in their, in their day of that particular day. But it's really, again, mainly for me that I get to remember over and over. I'm part of a community of people who are crying hard not to debt, not to be irresponsible, trying hard to stay in the in the clarity, in the light and not in the shadows and the vagueness of which we would normally find ourselves.

I do this every day. I have for the last 5 1/2 years, I think it's been

as I say I I never miss a call

no matter where I'm at. I find a way to make a call and I'm hardly ever late and I expect that from my sponsees. That's just respectful. And sometimes when I have sponsors who can't do that, I tell them they have to try some other way because they'll have to learn to be respectful of my time before I can work with them. Otherwise that isn't a healthy sponsee relationship. That's a codependent relationship.

I think that showing up on time in full is a valuable life lesson, not just for this, but for all life. In order to show up on time in full, be present, be honest, do what you can do, help, be helpful. Those are all good things that that are things that many of us have not yet learned or not learned well enough.

It's not for everybody. This program, I think it's AI. Remember the first time I heard of this process and I thought these people are nuts. This is crazy that no one, no one would do that. And as it points out, you know, in the big book, we find, try to find an easier, softer way. And most people will do that because that's what we always do. Look for an easier, softer way

and better. It is, oddly enough,

come to be my belief that this is the easier soft toy, oddly enough,

because I've had plenty of hardship and I know that if I don't do this, I know what the consequences are. I know where I'll be and what I'll be doing and how painful that'll be for me and for everyone around me.

It's been a great thing for me. I've learned a lot. I've met a lot of neat people, shared a lot, been a part of the human race. I didn't actually used to be part of the human race. I used to be kind of a detached observer, and that's been a great gift of it. And being part of the This How program has really been a great thing too, in that it's become nationally and internationally known.

And people look now to Minnesota

as a place to find sponsors. We get calls all the time from all over the country and all over the world, people looking for Minnesota sponsors because they've come to believe that there is a specialness about this, as I have too. I sponsor a woman in Israel, another one, and a guy in

Syracuse, NY, another one in Hobbs, NM.

I sponsored a guy in England. There's lots of people who want help and they're looking for a way to get it, and this they perceive as a way to do it. So it's neat to be a part of that,

but it's it's not for everybody. It's for me for now. And

with that, I can't think of anything else to say.

Thanks.

Does anybody have any questions? Thank you very much, Michelle and Frank. Hi, Chris.

Does anybody have any questions? Would somebody in mind grabbing all the questions that would be such a huge help?

And then did you guys know about this part?

Did you guys know about this part?

Did you guys know about this part? OK, good.

How do you guys want to

handle this? Do you want me to just read the question and then one of you guys can come up and answer it? Yeah. OK. Oh, this is specifically for you, Frank. What are the seven questions on the first three steps in your Hal program

7070?

Oh, I thought it was seven. I heard seven also.

OK,

it's 70.

Thanks. Yeah, it's 70 questions and you can get them for me. If you got an e-mail, I'll be happy to e-mail them to you or give me your address and I'll send them to you.

I don't think so.

This is the second card I've gotten with this question. Now, what is the fear prayer

in the how program? There's a in the fourth step, there are some forms, one's resentment, one's on harms as I recall, and one's on fear. And on that, on those forms, there's a place to check whether in there, for instance, your resentment of someone, there's a fear associated with that. And with that, on that forum is a little prayer that goes with that that says,

I can't remember exactly what it says, but basically,

am I relying on myself or am I relying on an infinite? That's not the right word. Anybody remember? Is it infinite

finite self or infinite God? And you ask yourself that question in the in the in the form of a prayer. There are some other fear prayers too in the big book. You can go online and find

a search, a big book search site, and if you just type in the word fear, it gives you all kind of references to fear, fear prayers, and how to deal with fear.

This question is asking for a copy of the Warning Signs for Midtimers, and I know Michelle, you were alluding to that and that is on the website. Is that right in the Ways and Means

website? The Ways and Means, It's posted right now on the Ways and Means on DA minnesota.org.

And then regarding the 70 questions, does somebody maybe want to start an e-mail list to put your e-mail on there to get the information from Frank with somebody?

OK, Frank saying that he can, he can. You can come up and see him after the presentation and write down your name and you can get a copy of that

the next.

OH,

OK, Thanks, Anne. The Ways and Means newsletter is on debtorsanonymous.org on the national website.

OK.

The next question is you have a full time job, how do you know you are an under earner?

Let's see, you have a full time job and you don't know if you're an under earner, under earning. I guess the in, in my experience with under earning, whether I knew when I didn't know or, or knew if I was an under earner when I was in that period where I really just didn't know if I was under earning.

I really just had to go to step one and keep asking my higher power to show me if I was under earning in a situation if I wasn't. It's a really, it's kind of an unclear place to be because you are, you do have a job, but it's it's maybe not enough to cover how you would want to live or, or whatever.

I guess what I have done in that situation is I've had to really say to myself that part of my under earning was a picking and choosing

what I thought I should work at and what I turned away. And I had to really be willing,

umm, to show up with my higher power and take things to earn money, even if in my mind it was really humbling. So when I first realized I was an under earner, I was self-employed, but that business wasn't earning any money at the time. So I, I worked part time and I work, I had like three-part time jobs plus my own business. And I guess the only thing

that what I did at that time is I was just really willing to earn.

So I asked my higher power, you know, what do I need to do to earn money or what do I need to do to earn money today? And I waited for the answers. And then I did that. I mean, it was it was very humbling, but that's what I did. And if my higher power would have said, you know, go wash windows, I would have done that. Or, you know, go clean homes, I would have done that. I would have done anything that I needed to do to earn money on that given day. And so I guess when when people say that they're in one, one

catch, I think that we have as under earners as we think we have to have the perfect job or the perfect resume or the perfect interview in order to earn money. So, so basically what we're doing is under earners is we are waiting to earn or we are waiting to earn more money instead of saying, what can I do to earn money today? And so for somebody who has a job that they feel that they're under earning, I would say, you know,

take it to your higher power and step one. And then also ask yourself, what else can I do today to earn money? And my thing was what can I do Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday to earn money when it was really Saturday, you know, so I had a once again, stay in the day and 24 hours that, you know, what am I trying to say 24 hours at a time? What am I trying to one day at a time?

And, and you know, I, I had to learn that I couldn't earn more money.

I couldn't earn more money in the future if I wasn't willing to earn more on a given day. That was a huge revelation for me. It's like I would always put Ernie off into the future. I'll earn more money, oh, on Monday or Tuesday, but I wouldn't be willing to earn money on the day that I woke up. So that's all I have on that.

The next question is how do you report your daily spending and then how can I find a sponsor?

Well, what I did with my daily spending or what I have done is I got a little notebook at Target and it's just a little one that I can keep in my purse and I bring it with me everywhere I go. And every time I spend money, I just write that down. So that's how I, that's how I started recording. It was just with a little notebook that I could keep it. Everything kind of organized in that. And then as far as finding a sponsor,

I think it's, I think it started on the phone list at least in the Saturday morning group or, or they raise their hands as to who's willing to be a sponsor.

And sometimes it takes going to some meetings and some different meetings and just sitting there and see,

you know, whose style or what type of personality or the persons recovery that would resonate with you. I mean, sometimes it does take just kind of sitting and and and watching for the person that you would want to be your sponsor. And you know, that's how I found my sponsors, that I had gone to different meetings. And then I really liked her recovery and I wanted what she had.

And that's what made me find her is that I was observing other people

and trying to see what they had in their recovery that I wanted for myself. And, and that does take a little bit of time and it does take, which is kind of hard when you're first starting in D8. It does take kind of like, I don't want to say pushing, but you have to really kind of make sure you're, you're still showing up and not get discouraged if you don't find that person right away. Because I really do believe that person is there. We just don't always know it until maybe we're ready.

So

but the phone list is also a really good tool and to watch in meetings to see who raises their hands for the sponsorship question.

Thanks, Michelle. And then another question is what other requirements for being a date ADA sponsor? And I guess my understanding is 90 days of not incurring unsecured debt.

Do you have anything else to add to that? OK, So that's the answer to that one. And then there's just a note here for Michelle. So I'm just going to give that to you.

Yeah, someone with a better memory of mine than mine wrote out the fear prayer. God, please remove my fear of whatever and direct my attention to how you would have me be. That's that's one of them. There are several. As I said, I'd like to add a thing about sponsorship fighting sponsor.

I refer to that process as sponsor stalking.

I'd go to meetings and I'd look around and I think, is this the one? Is this the one? Is this the one? And you can get into too much perfectionism about that. You know, there are lots of people who raise their hand and say, I'll be a temporary sponsor, get a temporary sponsor, get started in the program. Don't make a perfect sponsor be the requirement for starting. Just start. You can always find the perfect sponsor as time goes on.

Thank you, Frank and Michelle.

And what we're going to do is take another break and Roger is going to reset the tape again. Make sure to go talk to Roger if you want to, if you want to order a set of the cassette tapes or the CDs or an individual one. And then also there is food going in the back here. Renee is doing an awesome job with that. Cookies and tea and water and coffee and all kinds of good stuff. And then also we're going to send the 7th Tradition basket around again after we meet again

at 2:30. So we've got 20 minutes

of a break.