The OA Big Book Study in Winnipeg, MB, Canada

We're back again, it's Sunday morning and I'm going to, we're on step 11. But I just just a bit back to step 10 just to point out, remember I said that Step 10 was not in the original 6 steps. And there's a, a good reason for it historically. And that is because the Oxford groups, of which all the a Ayers were members, because remember, till the big Book was written,

they they they hadn't named their and and named the Alcoholics Anonymous. No one had named the groups Alcoholics Anonymous. They were just sort of like the drunk portion of the Oxford groups.

What the Oxford Groups did was they always did inventories. They did inventories every week when they'd meet. They do inventories of each other. They do inventories for themselves. And so it was a constant in their lives that they constantly did inventories where they went through their, their lives, their days, their lives and thought about what they could have done better and how they and, and what amends they had to make. Because that was taken for granted.

It wasn't part of the six steps, the original 6 steps, but of course when Bill was writing it for someone who didn't have

the the groups there, they'll have to put down something. So that's what they'll put down in step 10 and was simply the recurring, the ongoing cleaning of the house. But that's not enough. Cleaning house isn't enough. It may give us our spiritual awakening, but it will not keep us spiritually fit. And the Big Book has two other things that we must do to keep spiritually fit and to keep from relapsing.

The first is

sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. That was a tenet of the Oxford Groups that was seeking God's guidance in everything. Now, for an agnostic like me, seeking God's guidance and everything means simply trying to figure out which way lies truth, love, justice, and beauty. But I still pray. I still actually

use word, the words of prayer,

because I find that they work for me. They focus me on these issues. And there are many people who, to whom I've said that, who are more religious than I am, who say, well, fine, and God is answering your prayers and that's OK with me. I mean, I, I, I understand from their perspective that that what that means. It doesn't mean that to me, but that doesn't mean it's not going on. Maybe it is going on it, it just doesn't matter to me. I get answers to my prayers and I, I have my own

psychological reasons for thinking or my own psychological explanations for that, but it's, it's really irrelevant. The fact is that this kind of prayer and meditation works whether you're believe in, in a God or you don't believe in a God. It makes no difference. It works

and because it's practically speaking, one of the most valuable things I do, I do it and it doesn't prove to me one way 1 the existence of God one way or the other, but it may to a a more religious person prove that doesn't matter to me.

If you go to page 85

right in the middle, you recall we we we left off reading here with the words that is our experience that has how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual conditions

and the big book goes on with a tremendous warning. It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels rest on our medals. I mean we have recovered now we no longer want to go to the food. It's a really wonderful thing. We've experienced the the promises of step nine of the past is our great possession self seeking a slipped away. The food is no longer a problem. It's so easy to let up at this point and I know that because I have let out a lot let up at this point.

Life feels great. And especially if you've just joined the program and you've been working these steps and you're in that middle of that of what often people call the pink cloud where just everything's just feeling great. And you've started and you've lost your weight and life is going so well and you work the steps and you're suddenly freed. And this is incredible. It's so easy to say, good, I've reached it. Because of course, we're all used to that diet mentality that says you've reached maintenance and now you can coast.

And with the big book says you can't coast. Because the real purpose that you are here in your life for now is to do God's will. And God's will is to spread the message of the 12 steps, not only to people who still suffer, but the message of the 12 steps throughout your life that you have to live to be an embodiment of what this book stands for, which is helping others. And that's not an easy life, although it happens to be the most fulfilling thing, one of the most fulfilling things you can possibly do in your life. Well, it is the most fulfilling thing

doing your life. You have a meaning in your life. You know now what you can do. It's not just carrying the message to others, although I'm going to be spending most of my time on that, but it's also living this life. Now, how do we live this life? Well, one way we do it is by keeping in touch with our higher power. We do that in, in, in, in three ways. First is step 10. We keep cleaning the passageway, getting rid of the blocks between us and our higher power, between our heart and our mind, if you will,

by continuing to get rid of the things that life deals with, deals us. We have to change our attitude toward life, and life keeps going on, and we have to keep on cleaning that passageway. That's step 10. The second thing is we have to develop a way by which we are closer and act more intuitively rather than thinking it through all the time. I'll give you the simple example.

I have a guy. I mean, for me, the steps provided a way of figuring out what to do. I don't get a lot of cues in this world. I don't think

things that seem so obvious to others are sometimes very complicated to me. Simple example, I once did a legal favor, some legal work for friends of mine at a time that was very important to them. There's nothing to me, but for them it was very important. And one day I came to the office and I discovered a huge

bouquet of flowers. I mean, it was obviously very expensive and very lavish and very, very beautiful.

For 15 minutes I sat in my office and thought to myself, do iPhone them and thank them? Or is that going to start another cycle where they're going to thank me for thanking them? You know, they're thanking me. Do I thank them for thanking me? You know, and, and I go through this whole thing about what do I do? And after 15 minutes, I phoned them and thank them and they said thank you. And that was it. I mean, I mean, that was the end of it, right?

And I came home and I told my wife that this is what I went to this 15 minutes of thinking. And she said, well,

well, of course you phone people if they give you flowers and thank them. And, you know, I mean, it was so obvious to her because she acts intuitively. She's in tune with what she believes. And with me, it's a matter of sort of practice of getting in tune with what I believe in. It's, it's, I don't know if you understand what I'm saying or if you felt that way. I think too much. And what the steps did for me, steps 429 is give me an, A way of thinking two things so that it came out

what I should be doing. You know, I mean, obviously it's led to step 45678 and 9:00. That's exactly what we did. How did we handle situations in the past? How much better could we have handled them? Let's start working that in the future, OK. But it still is a method of working it out. The purpose of step 11 as I read it is to give you a way or give us a way of keeping a a direct contact so things become more intuitive.

And the whole purpose of step 1111, as, as I read it in the big book,

is

to try to learn to act intuitively, try to learn to trust your feelings, because your feelings, you hope and trust will continue to be in line with your higher power. If you're continuing to clean house in step 10 and in step 1111, you're, you're working your, your days too as well as we'll see how it goes.

The Big Book promises us that we will be able to rely on our intuition

and that it will serve us well.

The 3rd way of keeping us clean is to do God's work. Not just to clean up the past as the past continues to accumulate as time goes on. Not just to learn to live in the present and act intuitively, but to act according to God's will, whatever that means to you. And that is to help others. Because the Big Book, as I've pointed out a few times, says our purpose in life, our job description, is now to be a maximum helpfulness to others.

So I'll talk about Step 12 in a moment. I'll just go to Step 11.

So the big Book says it is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest in our laurels. This is on page 85. We are headed for trouble if we do for alcohol. Killer foods are subtle foe. We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve. Now if you look up the definition of reprieve, you will find that a reprieve is a suspension of a death sentence. So what we really have is a daily suspension of a death sentence,

contingent, absolutely conditional on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. In other words, we, the death sentence, will come back if we do not keep up our spiritual condition. Every day is a day where we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. How can I best serve thee? Thy will not mind be done. These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will. We get our will back. Remember we, we gave, we made a decision turn

in our lives over the care of God as we understood them. We gave up our will. Now we find we get it back because our will is now in line with God's will and our will is to do God's will. So we have our will back, but we are exercising along lines that are very different for what they used to be. They used to be. I want what I want. I have my path, I have those 359 other degrees of the compass called Laurie's way that I want to go on. But now my will is to go to north, that one line of the

that One Direction, which is the way for me of truth, love, justice and beauty for other people, the way of their God.

Big book goes on. Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration and direction from him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions. Oh, I'm sorry, I want to go back to we are not cured of alcoholism. One of the trustees of, of of OA always introduces themselves. My name is Charles. We we covered but not cured.

And because, you know, the big book says we're recovered, but we clearly are not cured.

Every day, every minute is a possibility that I could go back, that I could take that next compulsive bite. So I'm not cured and I'll never be cured. I, my body is always waiting there as we talked about doing push-ups in the hallway, waiting to get some of that food that once I start, I can't stop. And, and, and I don't think I ever talked about this, but I mean, there's a physiological, all kinds of physiological explanations to say that that is true. Those of us who have been heavy in our lives have more fat cells in our bodies, no matter how

thin we get, than a person who would be our normal weight. I have more fat cells in my body than someone who grew up weighing as much as I do. So fat. Those fat cells have less fat in them, but they're waiting. They're just waiting to be filled up. And there are other physiological explanations. I've talked to a lot of doctors who there are a lot of theories about

what our bodies are like, but how we metabolize food and, and the, and the thrill that we get with food. But I, I won't go much more into that. So I'm not cured, but I have recovered

to some extent. We become God conscious. The Big Book goes on on page 85. We have, we have begun to develop this vital 6th sense. This is the intuition, the ability to act intuitively. But we must go further and that means more action. Step 11 suggests prayer and meditation and it has been pointed out prayer is asking and meditation is listening. We shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer. Better men than we that were on page 86 are using it constantly.

It works if we have the proper attitude and work at it.

It would be easy to be vague about this matter, yet we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions now. I hardly read this when I first started working the program, and for seven or eight years my idea of prayer and meditation came from my ideas of prayer and meditation. Especially meditation, which in the more modern era, not in 1939, but which these days has the, a whole aura around it from Eastern philosophies of, you know,

candles and, and sitting deep in thought and quietness and stillness. And, and believe me, I've done those things and they're wonderful And I, I don't call them down at all, but that, that is the notion that we have of what meditation means. But if we look at the big book approach to this, we'll see the meditation in the big book is very, very different. And, and I have very good friends in the program who do both with the big books suggest, plus they spend an extra half hour or an hour meditating in a

quiet room, you know, thinking two things. And they are far more spiritual than I am. I practice what I call a good enough program. It's, it's not perfect. It's just good enough to keep me with the personality change sufficient to overcome compulsive eating, which is what I have. That's my definition. That's the definition of recovery. But a lot of people go far more than that and they become much more spiritual people. But the big book provides a minimum. This is the least that we should be doing to keep in fit spiritual condition. There's far more

can be doing and a lot of my friends do that I don't, but a lot of my friends do and I admire them and I and, and, and I think it's wonderful what they do. But the big books approach is very, very practical. You've gone on page 59 of, of, of the book itself that you can download at oabigbook.info or that you've been given copies of here. You've got this wonderful one page that Blaine drew up that lists all the evening, morning and daily prayers

that are, that exist in the big book there. It's just a wonderful page and I'm not going to repeat those. I recommend them to you. What I want to do is talk more and, and, and briefly about what the purpose of each of those times are. There are three moments of prayer. There's the evening prayer or before you go to bed. You may be on a, on a night shift. So of course, that would be the morning prayer, not the evening prayer, but it's before you go to bed, before you go to sleep.

There is the morning prayer or the prayer that you say before you begin your day,

and then there are the prayers you say all the other times whenever you're in trouble or don't know what to do.

So the evening prayer is very, very similar

to Step 10 in the wording.

When we retire at night, the big Book says on page 86, we constructively review our day. In other words, we review the day that has passed with a constructive attitude and and they give us the questions where we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid. Again, the step four kinds of questions. Do we owe an apology?

Step 8:00 and 9:00? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? You can see the hearing of Step 5 in that Were we kind and loving toward all? What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time, or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life?

But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse, or morbid reflection. Why not? Because that's not good for us, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review, we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken at step 6:00 and 7:00. So you can see that there is the measure of steps 45678 and nine in that. But the difference, as I see it, is this.

The purpose of the evening meditation is to review the day that has just passed with the objective of figuring out what we could have done better so that the next day we can do a better job.

That's the purpose, and I think the wording really supports that, that interpretation. So it's a daily review with the purpose of a daily going forward doing a better job. The purpose of a step 10 is to figure out what's going on in our life, not what went on that day. Now, if you did a step 10 every day and wrote down your resentments and your fears and your sex conduct issues, I suppose you might catch it. All

my experiences I wouldn't. And I'll give you this example. I talked about how my mother was sick for three or four years and and and was going through some difficult times with my parents every day. I might review the day with with them in mind and think to myself, did iPhone them? Did I have some contact with them or visit them? Did I give them some love? Was what was my interaction with them like? And I might be view that and say, you know, tomorrow I'll spend a bit more time or I'll go visit them or, or something like that.

What I would not have noticed on the daily review is what was building up in me and what I discovered on my weekly step 10s, which as I was worried about my about the relationship between my father and my mother. And whether the constant care that my father was giving that my mother resented because she was the caregiver in the house and now she had to take care was whether was that harming their entire relationship, which had been so loving. That was something that I wouldn't have noticed on a day-to-day basis. But it's something that in the end, as

discovered, was something that was a recurring concern of mine on a week to week or month to month basis. So for me, the Step 10 is the review of what's going on in my life. Whereas, you know, because in Step 10 I would put down my mother, my father, their relationship, I wouldn't put down. Did I speak well to my mother today? Do you see the difference? That's at least how I see it. There are many people who interpret this as saying that we do a Step 10 every day. And if that works, that's terrific.

And if you find you do something like that every day, plus every six months, you have to do another Step 10, figure out where you are, that's terrific too. You can't do too many inventory, so it doesn't really matter. But that's the difference. I see it. You also notice that in the Step 11 evening meditation, they say, do we have to talk to someone else? Do we perhaps have to make an amend?

Whereas in the step 10, they say we do speak to someone else, we do make amends. So

for me, the step 11 is something I do in bed at night. When I look over the day, that's when I do it. I think about the day. Sometimes I, I notice myself doing it without really thinking about it. I just, it's become relatively automatic with me. I just sort of think about the day. Sometimes I really have to think about, OK, I'm going to do a step 11. I'm going to think about my day. And sometimes I've got to tell you, I forget and I just don't review my day and then life isn't quite as good as it should be until I end up having to do a step 10.

But that's the Step 11 evening meditation.

The step 11 morning meditation is very similar forward-looking.

You plan your day. There's certain prayers you say where you ask God to remove your to forgotten the word you. You ask God to direct your thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self pity, dishonest if self seeking motives. And you plan your day, you think about what you have to do that day. And if you don't know what to do in a particular situation or you don't know what might happen that day is when I as a lawyer, I often don't know who's going to phone me or what what issue might arise during a day.

I mean, I might have some plans for that day, but they have often changed because of what happens in with phone calls or or something or letter I get or something like that. E-mail

you, you just say, OK, I ask that whatever I do be divorced from selfish, dishonest and self seeking motives. If I know that something happens is going to happen, I don't know what to do. For instance, if I have a case, I no longer do cases. But let's say I had a case that I was preparing and I didn't know how to begin my cross examination of a particular witness in the old days before it would take me hours to plan the perfect question. You know, I just, I'd have,

I'd be thinking and thinking and I sometimes mostly what would happen is I wouldn't sleep and then I wouldn't be able to ask any questions of any value because I would be so stressed out about trying to find the perfect question. The big books answer to that is you ask God for intuition, a right thought or a decision, and then you relax and you don't do anything and you just act. And the promise of the big book gives that as time goes on, you will find that your actions work out, that you will be acting intuitively. Now, from my point of view, a psychological

of you, what it means is that I'm relaxed, I'm open and anything now is possible. And, and I and when I look at the cross examination, for instance, there might have been 20 good perfect questions that could have started it. I kept looking for the right one, but really there were twenty of them, so I picked one of them. It just comes to my mind because there's so many possibilities. I ask it and whatever happens, I go with the flow because I'm relaxed. I'm relying on my intuition. And that's what happened when I started working the program this way,

life became a lot easier. I didn't worry about my cases. I didn't worry about what to do. And that's that was true in life generally. I didn't worry about how to talk to my mother or my father or my wife as much. I would plan my day and I would ask God to give me an intuition, a right thought or the action and it would happen. And usually it happened right. And if it didn't, I was relaxed enough and in tune with my higher power enough to be able to go with the flow and make up

any mistakes I had made. Because I'm relaxed, I don't have to think it through. So that's the morning meditation of both. The evening and the morning meditation are very, very short. I mean, they don't take a long time. They're just sort of things you do in your mind. You can do all kinds of other things, but the minimum, the big Book says,

is very action oriented. You review the past to see which how well you did and what you could be doing better. That's in the evening. In the morning you get up and you plan how to do well in the day, during the day. And it's all action oriented, how to act well for other people.

And then there are the wonderful prayers that you say during the day. And by the way, the B book says, by the way, that you finish your period of meditation, your daily one that you ask that you be given whatever you need to take care of such problems. You ask especially for freedom from self will and are careful to make no request for ourselves. Only we aim we may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. So I, I have no right and I do not ask. God help me do a great job in this big book study. So I will be a star

will love me,

but I have every right to say help me do a good job in this big book study so that people can understand the message of the big book. I have no right to say help me win this case. I have every right to say help, help that help me that justice may be done very different issue because sometimes justice may be that I lose the case.

And then the daily meditations, my goodness, they are so simple. And they are those of you who remember the idea of mantras, will, will, will recognize these as just mantras. If you're agitated or doubtful,

you pause, you ask for the right thought or action. God, please give me the right thought or action. Or you remind yourself, you're no longer running the show constantly saying thy will not mind be done. And there are times in my life when I've said I'm no longer running a show. I'm no longer running a show. I'm no longer, I'm no longer, you know, I just thy will not might be done, thy will not, might be done, thy will not. And then suddenly I get to the point of saying, Oh yeah, I'm no longer running the show. I will not mind be done. And I'm feeling better.

So it's, it's real simple stuff and it doesn't take a long time,

but it keeps you focused during the day on what your object in life is to do and that is to do God's will. So very practical. The big books notion of prayer, meditation, the way we read it on the wall, it sometimes sounds much more esoteric and complex and inner directed than what it is in the actual big book. And that is you keep searching for guidance on how to help other people, how to be better for others. It's a very outer director

before. So I'm finished with step 11

because it's all there on this one page and it's really just, I just want to give you the overview before I go on to step 12. I wanted to go back a bit to step 9 and and just say one thing that I had forgotten to say. People often think about, well, what am I going to say? How am I going to, say, find the right words to apologize to someone or to make my amend to another person?

And my experience and the experience of other people with whom I've spoken

is that the less

rehearsing and the more

prayer and opening your heart, the better that if you have faith

that the right words will come, in fact, the right words will come.

And that's been the experience that we, many of us have had

it. It's not that you say the words not meaning them. You mean the words and then you and you and you mean whatever you say and it comes out. But you have to be very careful that you know exactly what the harm that you caused is in order to make the amend appropriately. My experience, I mean, I, I, I tell the story and it's, it, it's, it's got a couple of reasons why I've got a couple of reasons why I tell it. There was a time many, many years ago, I was doing well in the program. About a year into the program and things were just floating. I was feeling just great

and I was, I changed my job again,

changed my job recently, but I changed my job. I I was finally coming into some financial security, not a lot, but things were going very well.

Kids were young and my wife said I just found a property, a house that I really want to buy, but we already owned a house. It was already a wonderful house. We just spent a lot of money on renovating it. I felt really good about the house. And now she wanted to move. And

it was a house that was more expensive. It was a house that was smaller, but it was on a very, very beautiful part of our property.

And

I remember the resentment is rising in the just, you know, I'm filing out of water. I finally got some financial security. We're finally doing OK. And you want to put us further into that? You want to put us further into that,

But I knew that I couldn't. I couldn't live with that.

And so I said to my wife, you know what? I, I, I, if you, if, if you and the girls do we have two daughters, go to bed early. I'll stay up and I will read every piece of OA and a a literature that I have available. I'm a speed reader. So you know the, the Woody Allen joke. I read war and piece in 1/2 an hour. It's about Russia. But I said I'll read every single

OA and a a piece of literature I have and I'll think about it and I'll pray and in the morning I'll tell you what I think.

Well, I did. I was up until 2:00 in the morning. I read the first time I think I'd ever really read the AA12 and 12, which was a, which I think is a masterpiece of the book.

I read all the pamphlets that were available. And this is a long time ago. We didn't have a lot of the OA literature we have now. We had a number of pamphlets and a lot of a A literature as well. I went to sleep. I woke up in the morning. My wife was staring at me.

It's very unnerving.

And she said, well,

and I mean, I, I and out of my mouth, out of my mouth came the words,

I don't know whether we can afford this. I don't know whether the house that we own now can sell for the amount that allows us to buy a house that at a level that I don't know what it's going to be. I don't know if ultimately it is the best decision for us in the long run,

but I'm willing to discuss it with you. And I give you this commitment that if we decide to buy it, it will be our decision, not your decision. I'll never blame you for it. She melted. She really wanted to hear that much more than she wanted to hear whether we'd buy the house. That would be our decision because I was a kind of a guy, I guess, who blamed her for any problems that were going on in our marriage

and, and, and it was so. So there's an example of how

sort of like just letting it go came up with an answer that I would never have thought of on my own. And you, you might say, if you're a religious God was speaking through me And, and, and from whatever perspective I have, that's true. My God was speaking through me. I was now no longer thinking of my own needs. I was thinking of my wife's and my

relationship because that's what the steps had brought me to two other parts of this story to just illustrate completely different aspects of this program.

I told that story at my oh, a meeting on Tuesday evening. The next, whenever it was, maybe it was the next day or two or three days later.

And a very good friend of mine who lived on welfare all of her life, she's passed on now and some of us will remember her. Judy came up to came up to me and she said that

Lori, I know exactly how you feel. She said I was $20 down. I didn't have any money for food until my next check came and I prayed about it. And someone phoned me in the midst of nothing and, and, and wanted to buy some knitting I've done for $20.00. So I know exactly how you feel. And I was bowled over that. I thought, you know, they talk about this is a program we would not normally mix.

Here's a woman who who was for $20, knew exactly how I felt about $100,000.

I felt so humble at that moment that that she wasn't thinking to herself something that I might have thought of, huh, This guy's agonizing over $100,000 and I can't even eat, you know? But instead she was so into, I mean, I was, I was bowled over by that. And it just has nothing to do with step 9. But I just want to talk about to mention that the other thing is to show you how absolutely unsanctly I am, because about all must be 12 years ago now. Maybe. Maybe.

Yeah, about 12 years ago I was driving with my wife

on the highway. We're on our way to Kenora

and I suddenly we bought the house. And I suddenly started to blame her for buying the house. And for 20 minutes I went on about how the house was in albatross around our necks and about how horrible it was and if only we'd stayed in that other house we would be more financially secure. And for 20 minutes I said that and suddenly I realized I'd broken one of the most important promises I'd ever made to my wife. Ever

and I, I made amends, whatever I could do, but they were living amends. They couldn't just be an apology. I did apologize, but

but I have to figure out what was going on in my life. I did a step 10 right after that. I can tell you. So I mean that that story for me is it's sort of like there's so many parts to that story, but I can only tell you that,

that from, from the point of view of, of, of intuition,

you learn to live, you learn to live your life according to intuition, but you have to keep clean. You have to continue to clean your house and watch for restlessness, irritability, discontentedness, and do a step down.

OK, I, I want to go on now to step 12. Now it's 935 and in about an hour, the regular meeting, the regular Sunday morning meeting will be held here. What I'm going to do is talk about step 12 up until about 10:20. Then we'll break and then many more people will be coming in. I'll be distributing, I'll be holding the meeting. The Sunday morning meeting has agreed that I that this big book study continues into the Sunday morning meeting. But

we'll, we'll, we'll do some introductions of each other. I'll turn the tape off and we'll introduce each other. We'll pass the hat. We'll pass the

register the but I'll I'll continue to talk, but I want to make sure that if there are newcomers that what I say is interesting newcomers. So I'm, I've sort of split what I want to talk about in terms of step 12 into something's. Normally I would often talk about them later rather than earlier, but I'm going to talk about them earlier now so that if there are newcomers who come to the meeting at 10:30 that

it's more attuned to them, if that's OK with you. So normally I talk about carrying the message and how to carry the message and what to say to the newcomer earlier. I normally do that around now I'm going to hold that for when the meeting starts. So that will it'll be more in tune with sort of carrying a meeting. But what I will start with is some readings. Yes. I'll turn this off now. Just yeah.

Yeah, no one, no one feels that you, you shouldn't feel that you have to donate all the time because some of the money will goes to this meeting or yeah.