Steps 10, 11 and 12 at the 2nd Annual Stay Sober For Keeps Workshop in Laguna Niguel, CA

Let's do this.

We're, excuse me, we're going to do open it to 84.

And you know, this is the stuff. I mean, you know, by now I'm a recovered alcoholic, you know, and I'm out, I'm out on the I'm out on the path and I'm walking this path and I'm making these amends and my life has changed and it's continuing to change. And it says this stop brings us a step 10, which suggests that we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set and to set right new mistakes as we go along.

We vigorously commence this way of living. We cleaned up the past. So as soon as I started nine, I got to roll into 10. All right, It's pretty self-explanatory there. We vigorously commence this way of living. As we cleaned up the past, we've entered the world and the spirit. Our next function is to grow an understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. I'm not just going to be wack your understanding and effective.

It's not going to happen right. I got to get out in the world and practice these principles in all my affairs and how do I do that by practice these principles and all it to the best of my ability. So this is what we do. It should continue for a lifetime,

right? Here is step 10. Continue to wash for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear, right? No new information here. We know what these look like. Why? Because we've done a step four and a step five. We know what these look like. All right, when they crop up, they're going to crop up, right? So as I go through the day, I'm I'm watchful of these things. When they crop up, they're going to tell me

precisely

what I'm supposed to do.

We ask God that wants to remove it, right? Simple. We discuss it with someone immediately and make amends quickly. If we've harmed anyone, we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Simple, right?

Maybe

as we go through this thing, you know, as I'm growing and understanding and effectiveness and I'm doing this stuff, it all becomes easy. It's like if Peter and I work together right on a day-to-day basis and, and all of a sudden Peter somehow and I, we get crossways during the day, right? And he says some things that I don't particularly like and I just fly off the handle and call him every name in the book. All right. And I walk away from that thing. And as I and I'm walking away and I'm like, God,

what a complete idiot I am. I mean, Peter is my brother and I had no right to treat him that way. And I'll go to the bathroom or whatever and have a little quiet time and I'll hook it back up with God. And I know in my heart that I've got to go clean this up. And I will go to Peter and fall on my sword and say, Peter, I had no right to treat you that way. I, you don't deserve that. And I, I shouldn't treat a brother that way. What can I do to make that right?

And I shut up and let him tell me or whatever,

and that's done. And then I will go to the next guy or go to the next job at work and I will do the best job that I can do right and be cool with it and consider it done.

If you're playing along at home, you notice that I left out a part

and that part was me picking up the 10,000 LB phone

and putting it to my ear and calling my sponsor after I've prayed.

Yep, Cliff, it's John. I did it again,

you know, I imagine, I imagine God is up in the heavens creating vast universes. And when he hears me go through this litany of this, a ten step in my head of, oh, I stepped on some toes and I got to go clean it up. And I rationalize it all and I say a little quickie prayer to God and I go to Peter and do it all and do it. I don't think God misses a beat,

but when God sees me in the middle of the day during this situation, stop down and hook it back up with him and then pick up the phone and call my sponsor and show my belly to my sponsor and let my sponsor know that yes, I am still human. I'm not perfect. I it's an act of humility. And then I go to God's kids and clean up the wreckage that I caused. And then I go to some more of God's kids and try to be helpful. Then God says, that's my boy.

That's a. That is a tense step.

If I'm not doing that, I am not doing a tenth step. It's pretty simple.

I'm either doing it or I'm not doing it. It's like you're either free or you're not free. That's a ten step. Does that mean I call Cliff Bishop 85 times a day? Nope.

But I can assure you I call him every day.

I can assure you when S hits the fan, he's on my call list. Like immediately. The biggest but you and I've had in 12 years of sobriety is 10 step stuff. And it was early on in my sobriety and I had let some stuff pile up. Myers knew about it, Kurt knew about it. Everybody knew about except my sponsor. I finagled my work schedule so I could get out of town to manufacture a weekend on my own so I could spend time with my little nieces who I just adore.

And I get there to my mom's house and all the kids are sick and whiny and it was pathetic and I'm sitting there twisting out. I got work piled up to hear it was not the experience that I had envisioned. And so finally, on a Sunday afternoon, I decided to call Cliff. And of course, he had heard it from my buddies.

So much for buddies, right?

And so I I pled my case to Cliff and he let me get it all out and he let me have it up one side and down the other. Who the hell do you think you are, John K? You think you're like a normal person that can just let this study? I mean,

he gave it to me like nobody's business and I had to take it like a man.

But ever since, that day is a day when I call him and a lot of my days are good and nothing happens, man. I mean, it's pretty hip, slick and cool. A lot of times I'm working by myself and not in anybody's way. Nobody's on my nerves or what. But I still call the old man to check in with him. He's old. He may need my help at something, but when fear, resentment, dishonesty and all that stuff crop up, he's on my list. Because I can guarantee if I call him out of the blue and say Mel's not doing it right or I'm frustrated at work,

he's going to ask me,

have you spent some time with God about this?

If I tell if I haven't and I tell him the truth, no, he'll he's going to say why the hell you calling me?

Go do that, then call me.

I mean, that's a ten step. But look at these promises. This is killer stuff. We read them last night and we've ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. For this time. Sanity will have returned. All right, so the hope of Step 2 has come true. We'll seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from, as it were, a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. I'm not doing it. I'm just bebopping along, living my life. This is all happening. This is all God stuff.

It's not me fighting the drink. It's not me trying not to drink. It's just happened, right? That's cool. We'll see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. That is the miracle of it. We're not fighting it, nor are we avoiding temptation.

How many of you have been spinning around in these rooms trying not to drink and go to meetings?

That sucks,

all right. I feel for you because I was that guy for 11 years.

That's terrible. Where am I going to go to avoid temptation? I mean, I drank from the time I came to to the time I passed out. So waking up was a dilemma every day. Here we go. Got to set the ball rolling again. But let's look,

we're not avoiding temptation. I mean, I got treatments, treatment centers telling me to do trigger lists. Got to change my playmates, play things, play pals, and they're telling me to don't hang around these people, don't hang around these people do this, don't do that. Well, let's think about some stuff in the Big Book.

Bill Wilson walks into a cafe to use the telephone. Drunk cafes and telephones on Bill Wilson's trigger list.

Jim the car salesman stops at A roadside cafe to have some sandwiches and milk.

Ends up drunk, Cafes, sandwiches, milk on his trigger list

and poor Fred.

The end of the perfect day.

Fred unfortunately walks through a doorway

and ends up drunk.

Doorways on the trigger list

and yeah, and perfect day, you know,

I mean, come on people. I think it's not like I'm going to, I get into a situation, I'm going to run out to the trunk of my car and get out my Gorsky relapse prevention manual and go down the checklist.

We feel as though we're in place, in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We've not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. You dig that? Here's what that means. In my life. I don't think about drinking the day. I don't think about not drinking today.

It does not exist. It has been. It does not occur to me. You know what I'm saying? I spent eleven years trying not to drink, even when I wasn't drinking booze on me, 'cause I was thinking about drinking or thinking about not drinking or how am I gonna get through the day without drinking?

What am I going to do if the Cowboys ever win a Super Bowl again?

Those things cross my mind.

I don't have to worry about that. I'm safe and protected, it says. We've not even sworn off where that says yeah does not exist for us. We're neither cocky nor afraid. That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

What's fit's spiritual condition? How about this? How about work and self sacrifice for others? That's that's a good way to stay in fit spiritual condition, right? Get off my butt, get out of my head and go help somebody.

I didn't tell you this story last night because I forgot. But during that first month of my sobriety, I told you I worked in the Design District and I had this little piss and job and they were going to pay me for a certain amount of work. And here I am, new buckaroo, I'm new guy. This stuff is happening in my life. I'm fired up. I talked to Cliff on a Sunday morning. I'm on top of the world. I go to home rebound because I told some guys I'd go help them with doctor's opinion stuff and I go and I help them for an hour or two and I get back home. I'm looking at the TV. The Cowboys were like one in 15 that year. It was terrible

and I and I'm like sitting there and my by myself in my place, not a cloud on the horizon. I'd finished that job on Friday

and now by myself, I start doing the math in my head and I know what I'm going to bill them for and I know how much they're going to try to backtrack on paying me. And and I'm trying to add up all the numbers and I'm looking at a stack of bills and the math is not adding up.

And I mean, my head takes a left and now all of a sudden now

I'm sober. I'm doing what everybody wants me to do. I'm doing this stuff and now I'm gonna be homeless, live in a van down by the river. This sucks. I mean, I am nuts in like a 30 minute span and I'm beside myself. This is not working out. This is not what I signed up for,

said a little prayer. I picked up the phone and called Cliff and I started. He's like, you were in such a good spirits a couple hours. What happened?

And I started telling him this litany of why my life is going in the toilet

and he lets me say it all.

And he says,

John, you have a dollar now. And I'm like, yes, Sir, He said. Great, I'm going to hang up now.

And when I hang up, I need you to get your dollar.

I need you to say a prayer and get your dollar and take your big book and go down to 24 hour club or Homeward bound. Talk to every son of a gun that you see. Tell them your story. Stay there for a couple hours. Call me when you get home. Talk to you later. Click.

And that was the first time that I followed directions and I said the prayer and I got my dollar, got my big one back up to 24 hour home rebound. And I stayed there for a couple hours talking to these knuckleheads when they were out on smoke break. I was giving out little red books.

I don't think my car wheels touch the ground. Work in self sacrifice for others. I called him when I got home and I'm like, you're not going to do this.

He let me get it all out and he said, hey, what happened to that job? I was like, didn't think of the job. He goes there you have it.

Don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, big boy, but you don't. Got to drink today. It's all good,

right? Work and self sacrifice for others. It tells me in the next paragraph what's going to happen if I set on my rear. It's easy to leap on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. Laurels Greek for rear end.

Not really. Somebody looked it up, you know, but it's it's my past accomplishments. It doesn't matter that I've been a big book guy for 12 years. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that I plan to be a big book guy for another 12 years. It doesn't matter. I have today, my job is to do my job today. No matter what happens. It's easy to let up on a spiritual I've got work,

he knows some of my work stuff. I got problems galore. It worked.

My wife has been sick for a long time. It's been rough. I got a 2 year old little boy. He's a handful. I got lots of stuff going on in my little personal life. It would be really easy if I wasn't plugged into kind of want to tap the brakes and say, you know what, why don't we let these knuckleheads do this? Somebody else can do. I've been doing 24 hour club for 12 years in a row on every Sunday. I haven't seen a Super Bowl in 12 years.

It'd be real easy for me to start patting myself on the back and say, well, let's let these other guys do it.

Why? Because it says we're headed for trouble if we do. For alcohol is a subtle foe. Alcohol. Cunning. Baffling and powerful cunning. I love that word. Lying in wait to ensnare through trickery and deception. I love it.

Just alcoholism is just waiting. Waiting for me to get a little too resentful, a little too egotistical, a little too fearful, a little all of the above. Waiting for that one little opportune moment where he can say hey

or suddenly right says what we really have is a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. I used to be one of those meeting auditors. I'd I'd hear, I'd hear somebody at a noon meeting say something really hip, slick and cool, and I take it to another 6:00 meeting and say it. And I'd have people at accolades galore, right? I didn't know what it meant,

right?

I got to carry this vision. Anybody can do that in a a Anybody can come in. Did anybody drink for an hour a day?

OK, I didn't think so. Well, so where do we get the idea that we're going to come in here and be spiritual giants for an hour a day and then go out there for the next 23 and be jackasses?

No, I got to practice this, these principles in all my affairs. That means at my a group, of course, at work, in traffic and more importantly, how about home?

Ah, I when I got sober, I was single and I remember doing vision for you stuff and all this stuff family afterward. And I'm thinking this sobriety stuff is a piece of cake

till you get into a relationship, right? And then it takes on a whole new twist because now I've got another person, you know, I've got one. God's trusted me with one of his little princesses. And I've got to treat her with all the respect that I do everything else. And sometimes it's good and sometimes we get crossways. But I got to practice and now we're married. We got to practice these principles in all of our affairs, right? Got to carry this vision. You know, step 11 is now that now that we've got this day-to-day plan here, what are we going to do? This prayer

meditation stuff, Well, I don't know how to meditate. Some old guy told me. He says, well, you know how to worry. And I said, yeah. He says, then you know how to meditate. Meditate is a little positive, all right?

You know, my sponsor had me reading this stuff every day for like the 1st 30 or 40. He didn't want me to memorize this stuff. He wanted me to get a working plan of action on how I'm going to do this because on page 86, they give me some great instructions on what to do when we retire at night,

right? It's a great catch all. If I've done a thorough 10, these questions on 86 are pretty simple. If I'm not doing a 10, this stuff on 86 is ugly. And you might think, well, why don't they do an awakening? Because we start our days on awakening. I don't know if this is true or not, but let's put into historical context. I already told you back in the day, in 1934 or 35 or whatever, they got you out of the hospital. You did a third step prayer. You did your four step, 5th step, six step, seven step, eight step list all in one afternoon.

When you retire at night, you've had a full day, right? But they asked me these questions and over time I've learned how to do this myself. In the beginning, I asked, I had this written down. I have new guys now I have them make out a little index card just in the beginning to learn how we're going to because we're all going to find our ways to pray and meditate. I mean, some of you cats are getting up at, you know, the crack of dawn and you got your one day at a time books and your daily reflections or whatever you're doing. And I

you for that. I've tried that. That's just not my cup of tea, you know. I mean, if you need a bubble bath and tinkle and tinkle music to do prayer, go for it. Rock on. It's all good. This is a way to get me to start to do it. I found a way that a seemingly comfortable to me and it works, I guess, right? We're cool with it. I'm cool with it Now I'll try something else. If Meyer says, hey, I tried this, I'll try it. I'll try anything, right? But they give me some stuff to do because am I doing a thorough tense up? Am I keeping my side of the street clean? Am I

being is useful to God and his children as I can? And then on the awakening part, Myers mentioned it earlier. I need to get God into the equation right off the bat. Why? Because if I get my feet on the floor and start walking, because the first thing I'm waiting for, the day when I'm spiritually enlightened and the first thing I think of is wow, I wonder how the people in Laguna Niguel are today.

But y'all aren't on my these are the guys at 24 hour club. When I wake up in the morning. You know what I thought of? I'm cold, I got to pee. It's all about me,

right?

So they're asking me, the literature is asking me to get God into the equation at the first opportune moment moment. And so before I even get out of bed, I tell God, thank you, thank you, thank you, God. I didn't wake up with a bottle of vodka next to my head. Thank you that I woke up period. We're all good. I try to get God with it. I take care of my little business and I have a little time to myself. And it tells me what to do because like on facing indecision, I mean, my gosh,

maybe I'm interviewing for jobs, maybe I've got court, maybe I've got a custody hearing. Maybe I've got all

sorts of things on my plate that day. I don't know how to handle them. What they're telling me to do relax, take it easy in the 11 step in the morning. That's the only place that says take it easy. What am I doing? Hooking it back up with God, asking God for guidance as I go through the day. They're telling me to continually get back with God, get back with God, tell God, thank you. You know, I something cool goes something cool goes on in my work. I make a good call or, or I get another lead on on a deal that I'm working on. I

God thanks. I actually told God the other day, thank you for weeding out a a bad deal. It was a very lucrative deal, but wasn't meant to be. It was a tough blow. Obviously that's not what God had in the cards, right? I moved on. I ain't stewing about it. It is water over the dam. Move on. Look for the next one, right?

This is all of me trying to this is all God's glory and how? How

I mean some because somebody asked me one time and said, well, how much time do you spend? And I'm like, well, I don't know. I don't ever put a clock on it. I'm not like spending an hour in the morning praying with God, but throughout the day is. I mean, I get little miracles in my day all day long that I never ever would have seen left to my own devices.

And so I tell God thanks along the way because it was through His grace that I get to experience everything that I'm experiencing, whether it's good, bad or indifferent. And what I think is good one day, maybe bad the next. And you know the drill on that.

Am I almost out of time here? Oh, I got like 10 minutes. I'll do this. Good.

Look at page 89, because the whole tone of the book changes on page 89. Actually, while you're on 89, look, look over at page 88. Look at the words on that. We, we, we. I mean, how many times did they say it on that page? A whole bunch. Because up until this book, up until this point, the book has been, it's a wee thing.

We're doing this, we're doing this. We think this, we think that, right? It's we

page 89 points the finger right back at me. What am I doing? And it says Chapter 7 go into meetings.

I was just seeing if you were on your toes.

I love that. I learned that from Myers a long time ago.

Bill is pretty precise in his writing than he thought the meeting was the solution to all my problems. He would have said Chapter 7 going to meet. They would have told us all about it. But it's not. It's Chapter 7 working with others. And apparently they felt really, really strong about this. Because if you look, I'm going to come back to that page and I'm just going to hit the high points real quick.

But if you look on Roman numeral 16 XVI,

that's also the page with the first must in a big book.

But at the bottom of Roman numeral 16, he says this seems to prove that one alcoholic could affect another is no non alcoholic could. It also indicated that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another was vital, vital means necessary for life, vital to permanent recovery. They felt that it was important. And you flip on, you know, and Bill's story on page 14, they tell you the same thing. It's vital, right? It's necessary. I cannot keep what I don't give away,

Peter Marinelli says. It's addition through subtraction.

The emptier I get, the fuller I get, right? I got to give it away. I can't hug the treasure to myself. I got to give this away. And he says practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other Alcoholics.

Intensive. How did I drink intensively?

My sobriety is no different. It does it. It doesn't matter if the guy or the gal in the group doesn't have to do anything and they stay sober, it more power to them. In my instance, it does not matter what you do, it matters what I do and I drank all day, every day non-stop. My sobriety is no different.

That's what they told me. It says it works. When other activities fell and I'm going to try other activities. I'll go to the store and buy some Nikes. I'll wash my car. I'll do this, I'll do that.

I'll piss and moan and my cornflakes for a while. But when that doesn't work, what do I do? I say a prayer and I go help somebody and it works.

This is our 12th suggestion. Carry this message to other Alcoholics and the message they're talking about is the message that they wrote down in the book.

Not my individual message, not a therapeutic message, not a cognitive development, not a Doctor Phil message. This message, the one they gave us the instructions for, that's the message I I can do. But look at this little paragraph. Life will take on new meaning

life will take on a meaning but to watch people recover, to see them help others, to watch loneliness vanish, to see a fellowship grow up about you, to have a host of friends, this is an experience you must not miss. We know you will not want to miss it. Frequent contact with newcomers and with each other is the bright spot of our lives and they go on in this chapter to tell us how we how we engage the new guy, what we're supposed to say on the first meeting and they do all this stuff. But one of the things that I am so grateful of, and I hope my actions on a day-to-day basis show that one of the things that I'm

so grateful to this for in my life is that there was guys around and gals around in my group at the time that knew the drill.

I'm so grateful for my sponsor for not giving really a rat's rear what I felt or what I thought or how he should love me into sobriety.

He just told me the drill and threw me in the deep end and we did it because see man left him my own devices left to my own. I'm the guy that sits on the backroom and AA and I let the game come to me. And I'm hopeful one of you cats will say something cool enough and witty enough that's going to keep me sober for the next 23 1/2 hours. And I will do that for as long as I can do that till I drink again. And I will continue that process until I drink myself to that. I am sure of that.

And I didn't have an option this time. Clifford told me where to go and what to do. Myers started telling me what to read and what, you know, what I'm supposed to do and how to do it. And they gave me the parameters and they gave me the guidelines and they gave me the opportunity to get out. I'm like Myers, what do I do? You have a name, John. Introduce yourself to these guys, you know? And that was my job and that was my little getting my feet wet. But over time, all of a sudden now I've got a knucklehead to sponsor. And that guy, the coolest thing in AAI.

He could tell you stories. We could alltel stories and sing kumbaya. But until I actually did it the first time,

it's all theory

in that first little knucklehead at the Homer bound asked me to help him and I told him I said, you know, I got like 27 days. And he goes, I've heard part of your story and if you can get 27 days, I'll try anything. I called Cliff. I'm like, Cliff, what do I do? He said, John, you're a very good reader. Read the book. That's why they wrote it. Tell him your story. And that's how I started with this guy. And we went and we went through it word for word, line by line, right? And the next thing you know, I had another guy and another guy.

Pretty soon I had a guy that had let out of prison.

I don't know why they let him out of prison.

Judge Baraka didn't know why they let him out of prison. And Judge, this guy was rough. He hated, he was kind of like Martha. He hated everyone, everyone. And and somehow he was attracted to me. Go figure.

God, he was rough.

And I mean, all these, all this great stuff is happening in my life and I start working with this guy. And this guy could read. He had a real problem with comprehension. So I had to go kind of slow with him and explain these concepts and explain page 30 and explain, you know, and we started doing the deal and he started to change

and he's still in Homer bound and I'm giving him a ride to our meeting. And I remember one night we have done his. We've done his, he'd done his four step. We've done his fifth step, right. We've got his immense list. And he had some God awful amends and some horrible stuff happened to this guy. And

I picked him up and we got into the meeting and we were walking up to the group and we just stayed. We stopped right at the edge of the sidewalk where this cyclone fence is by this kids playground and you still got to walk into the meeting

and we, Ben and I stopped and he's like, why we stop it? I said we're going to be greeters tonight.

I don't want to greet, I said. Exactly, dude.

And we stayed out there with his gruff old voice and we shook. And I mean, it was painful, painful, right? But we made these little steps, right? And we're all a little beehive of activity. And I don't know if it was the following week, it was shortly thereafter.

We go do our little rah rah thing down in the cafeteria and everything and we're back up. Everybody's having a smoke break and we're all kind of gathered around. I'm sure Myers is telling a very spiritual story to me. And as he's telling me, I'm looking over his shoulder and I see Ben and he keeps telling me the story. I find like look, and we look and at the edge of the thing there's been he's got 2 two guys over there cornered up and you could hear him say I'm Ben Woods and I just got this cell phone. Here's my

and he's giving out this number. He's giving out little red books. We're both crying. Michael Kelly's crying,

that is if you want to know what the magic handshake in AA is. That is it. Seen a busted up guy or gal who everyone was done with

and see them grab hold of this thing and in a short journey, God transformed them into a helpful part of society again. That's the best thing in the world. That's the best thing in the world. You can put me anywhere on their God's green earth. I have a big book. I have a God of my understanding and I know how to find drunks and it's my job to go find them. And it's hard at my group to find drunks. Why? Because we got 250 people there and 200 of them are qualified sponsors.

It's hard to get a new guy. He's not joking. You see a guy you don't know, go talk to him because that may be your only shot with this guy. I talked to a bunch of people the other night. They're like, I already got a sponsor. My God. Well, if that doesn't work out, here's my

I'm going to have to resort to like, bad metal. That guy sucks. Why don't you come over here? You know I'm not going to do that. No, it's a good problem to have, but I got to go find you. I got to be on my toes to find these people. But that is the good juju,

right? I don't know how it's all going to play out in the end of time. I don't know what my life is going to be like 50 years from now, but I know what God hasn't planned for me. God has a primary purpose. I went through all of that crap for all of those years to get me to a point to where I was teachable, to where I could be useful to God and serve Him and help others.

And, and like I said last night, I hope God keeps me hungry. I'll let Myers finish her up. Thank you.

There there are milestones in everybody's sobriety. There are, there are times when we, when we when we do things, some of us think, well, the biggest milestone is when I sobered up and and then there's the biggest milestones when I first started sponsoring or Brendan when I did this. When you know, for a lot of us, we never, we never get to the biggest milestone that we can get in a a, which is 12 step work. It's this idea that we would be of service to somebody else. We talk about it, we share about it a little bit. We kind of, but it's a funny thing. It's like, it's like we don't really.

There's so many of us out there

that don't, that don't get involved with it. How do I know? Because it's the very first question I asked people that I sponsor. Brand new guys relapsing or brand new guys coming in that I don't know. That's the first question I asked them. Tell me what you were doing around sponsorship

like this. I mean, it's just kind of an uncomfortable deal like that. Sometimes they'll say, well, I sponsored a guy once. And you've been sober how long? 23 years now. OK. OK, so you got one guy in 23. Listen, I got this, this, this group of guys, this old group of guys that I sponsor right now. I'm not going to tell you what I call them, but

they're all like me and, and they, they collectively, they got over 120 years of sobriety between them collectively. They've sponsored five guys collectively. And, and so one of them hadn't sponsored anybody in the whole time that he's been there. And I'm just going like, why, what do you, what do you? I just, it just doesn't make sense. It's like, but the thing about it's like one of those kind of things where within our fellowship we've downplayed the idea that sponsorship is important.

Depending, there's always somebody who can take care of it and downplay this idea of 12 step work. Now, listen, guys, I held this whole idea at Bay many, many years ago when, when I was at that my original Home group, I was so I was, I was early in the in, in sobriety. Somebody asked me to drive a bus that some guy hadn't showed up and and they wanted me to drive a bus to a treatment center. So I took this van and the, the, the little jitter guys got on the on the van and I drove him to a meeting and then they loaded him back up again like this and I drove him back to the to the deal. And that was my 12 step

and that and I milked it forever. People go, well, do you do 12 step work? Yeah, I know that must that time, you know, I'm saying it's like, it's like what? I mean,

where does this line up with intensive work with other Alcoholics? You know what I'm saying? But I'm but I'm but I guess I got a head full of stuff that says you can't do this. Listen, I've been I've been people have been telling me how stupid I am since I was a little kid. My my mom used to tell me that all the time. Man, you twins just aren't real smart. Your sister now she's the smart one. I mean, it's like I had to give her a noogie when I got older, but I mean it just,

I just, but the truth is I'm not that bright. And so I can buy into this thing and say, you know what, I'm always going to be too stupid to do 12 step work. And so I always, we'd, we'd send these meetings, I'd get smart and I'm learning stuff like this, but I'd, I'd always let somebody else do it. Somebody else would come in and I'd go

look and I'd kind of look the other way and ignore them until I look, oh, I missed that guy. You know, like it's just like I'm just playing games with him. I don't want to, If I actually got the guy, I don't know what I'd do with him. Oh, I don't want, I don't, it's like I'm, I know that I need to sponsor guys to stay sober. So I'm pulling with this hand and I'm just as hard pushing with this hand to try to make sure that I don't get hooked up,

you see? And so that I know, so most of you spiritual giants never would do that. But I mean, I practice that. I had it down to a kind of a science for a while. I was going to write a book on how to avoid proteges, but

because I just want them. I don't want to do it well anyway, So so two years now I'm seven years sober in in in a a hell and I come over here and I get involved with his a a guys and I'm there almost two years.

I'm kind of I'm buddies with some of these guys, but people are kind of walking big circles around me because I don't really have anything to offer and I'm not really a part of what they do. And, and one night we were having this meeting and, and,

and I remember, look, you know how you have these moments of clarity. And so I'm looking at this guy and I'm saying like, I'm just, I'm just different. I mean, he, JK, wasn't there yet. He, he would be there later, but he, but I'm looking at these members and every time I'm looking in their eyes, I'm seeing something that's not reflected back. I'm seeing something different than what I am. And I'm just going, this is not good, man. I'm by now, I'm almost 10 years sober, but I'm still not who you are. I'm still not part of who you are because I'm not doing what you do.

And so after the meeting, I got in with Cliff, we talked a bit, a little bit this last night and, and Clifford's just really frustrated with me by now because he want, he knows what I need to do, but I'm not going to do it. And so anyway, he tells me to go get busy and do some 12 stuff work. I'm not going to get in that story, but I want you to understand that I, I just, everything in me said, you can't do that.

And, and, and I, and I had done such a good job of selling myself that, that it was a real obstacle. And so when people, when people say they're not doing any 12 step work, there's a part of me that would like to jam them up and say, well, you know, you know, the reality is, I get it. I understand why some of us make excuses why we don't want to do 12 step work and why we gravitate to groups where 12 step work is not a big thing.

Now there are some groups like like our group man, if you don't like, if you don't dig 12 step work, you don't buy. See ya, you'll feel so uncomfortable there because that's all we talk about. That's all we talk about is that stuff is is trying to help somebody else. And so

let me read something real quick and then I want to get into some stuff that's important. On the stuff page 14 at the bottom of the page, they're painting this picture that I think is pretty cool. Bill Wilson is in Towns Hospital