The topic of Help Others at the Westfield Big Book Workshop of the Spiritual Awakenings Group in Westfield, NJ

Hi everybody. My name is Bill. I'm an alcoholic. Hi Bill,

I haven't slept good in two nights so this talk should be interesting.

I never do this but I actually took notes of some things that I might want to talk about and I thought it was ironic because I wrote the notes on a bars cocktail napkin.

So 2 weeks ago I talked about trust guide last week I talked about clean house and this week I'm going to talk about, or I was asked to talk about help others.

Um,

as far as I'm concerned, the the, the most effective way to help others is to first trust God and then clean house. I

later in our book, as a matter of fact, on page 164, it talks about that we can't give away something that we don't have.

And I think it's interesting that the

book mentions that on the last page of the program portion of the big book, because it's almost like a, it's almost like it's not just a reminder. It's almost like a,

as far as I'm concerned, it's almost like a a little dig because perhaps the authors knew that

people might just read through the book and then when they get the last page, you know, just read through the book and then just start helping people and not actually work steps and not actually work steps with like a sponsor or somebody who's familiar with it. And, you know, it throws in that, you know, you can't give away something you don't have. And then somebody might go up, you know, and then, oh, well, maybe I should do this first, you know what I mean? It's Rolando talks about two stepping, you know, just taking the first step in the 12th step and warns heavily against it. And

we probably all know people that have tried that theory.

Helping others has become,

I was going to say it's become a big part of my life, but I think more closely described, helping others has become my life.

I see it as a big part of my program. I see it as a big part of my spiritual growth.

Umm, I see that's something that comes naturally for me now, and it didn't in the beginning. I never really saw the point in trying to do something for somebody else unless I could get some benefit out of it. Today, it's not that way.

Umm, as far as I'm concerned, that's as the result of my awakening. That it isn't. It isn't about the agenda, it isn't about the manipulation. It's just about being of service.

And I'm grateful for,

I'm grateful for the people that, you know, emphasize that the being of service to other people. But what I'd like to start with is, you know, it's interesting that, you know, it talks about helping others and, you know, in the 12 step it talks about, you know, carrying, trying to carry this message to other Alcoholics.

But what I've noticed throughout the book is over and over and over and over and over again, it says that we need to be helping people.

And I'm going to kind of go through this quickly. So maybe just listen to the recording during the week if you want to actually market in your book. But on the bottom of 14 it talks about for if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials in most spots ahead.

That is a heavy duty warning right there that we need to perfect and enlarge our spiritual life through work and self sacrifice for others. Then on page 20 it says our very lives as X problem drinkers depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs. Another really strong statement about being of service and helping others.

And then there's some other references, but then on 77,

umm, they mentioned something that for me would make for a very interesting topic at a meeting. And that is, is that some people see the working of the steps could sort of be described as, you know, I'm going to get mine

if you understand, because we sort of get results from the working of the steps. But on page 77, it warns us against stopping there. And what it says is at the at the moment, we are trying to put our lives in order.

And this is in the step eight, step 99 part of the book. So it's talking about, you know, making amends. And we just finished doing inventory and sharing with somebody else and sort of trying to look at our shortcomings and asking God to help us with that. So it says that at the moment we are trying to put our lives in order, but this is not an end in itself. Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us. Again, a very strong statement about being of service and helping others.

And contained in this sentence for me is a really important direction. It doesn't just say, you know, you just kind of randomly go around helping people. It talks about fitting ourselves to be of maximum service to others. So we need to be sort of for lack of a better expression, going out of our way to see, to fit ourselves, to be of help to other people.

And then

on page 102, it says your job now is to be out of place where you can be of maximum helpfulness to others. So again, it gives us the the very strong statement about helping others.

And then on 153, I didn't check this one. So maybe good or may not be. So let me just treat. Let me just check it first

it talks about escaping disaster together and you will commence shoulder to shoulder your common journey. Then you will know what it means to give of yourself that others may survive and rediscover life. You will learn the full meaning of love thy neighbor as thyself.

And then again on 164 where it talks about

UMM,

it says ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the other person who is still sick. The answers will come if your own house is in order, but obviously you cannot transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with God is right, and then great events will come to pass for you and countless others. This is the great fact for us. Great fact. Capital G. Capital F,

so you can see they're helping others. Is is mentioned again and again and again in our program

as being incredibly important.

Now

I'm sure for some of you that were here the last two weeks, this won't be surprising to you. But

what I'm about to say, I know is not going to be liked by everybody here.

And what I believe is, is that

the biggest part of being of service to another human being is the way that we show up.

And that, like the book says that I can't be of service to another person unless my own house is in order. And how I've come to experience it is, is that, you know, I, I remember having a conversation with a gentleman because one of the few religions that I haven't really been able to tap into at its mystical level is Judaism. And I remember having a conversation with a, a Hasidic Jew about,

you know, where's the, where's the, the mystical writings?

And since this conversation, I've found some stuff. And of all the religions of the major paths, Judaism remains

a an intrepid for me because I, I hadn't been able to tap into its mystical

depth. And he shared some with me that that kind of blew my mind because he was talking about his religion and what I was hearing was a A.

And what he had said was he said, well, you see

the reason why

Judaism doesn't go around flaunting its mystical teachings for lack of a better expression, He didn't say that, but I'm just trying to paraphrase what I internalized by the conversation. And what he had said was, is that, you see, it isn't just about whatever was written down in regard to the mystical teachings and the mystical literature. What it was about

was one person who had taken the mystical teachings and had an experience with it. Let's call it a sponsor who's had a spiritual awakening for lack of a better expression, and a person who is perhaps a new person or, or, you know, someone that was looking for spiritual guidance. And he said it isn't just about the literature. It's also about the transformation of the person's spiritual awakening to the person who is not yet spiritually awake.

It isn't just about the literature and what is written about it.

It is part of the transformation of the person who has awakened spiritually to the person that has not yet awakened spiritually.

So I agree that on a surface level, anybody can be helpful to anybody else. But at an ideal level, at a transformative level, at A

at a

transformative level,

the most important thing that happens between a sponsor and sponsor is the transformation of the awakens allegedly sponsor to the one that is seeking.

Now,

perhaps that's a little controversial,

but I want to talk about at surface levels and I also want to talk about at depth, and I also want to talk about my experience. So I have to talk about that in the way that I just did because for me it's really, really important. Because if, let's say, you know, one of the greatest compliments that was ever given me by what was by a man who I started working with

about 11 years ago. And I, I met him at the Fellowship of the Spirit in Queens.

One, a guy that I had worked with introduced me to him and said, you know, you got to get with this guy

and that's not the part that was the compliment.

And I was living in Philly at the time and he lived in Flemington, which was over an hour away. And I had a conversation with this guy and, and it was really obvious to me that this guy was lost and he was hurting and he was sick and tired of not finding answers in a a

I'm sorry I'm so emotional today.

And

after talking to him for a little while, it was really obvious to me that he was desperate

and that he had been looking for a while in and around a A and he wasn't finding help.

He was an extreme case. And umm, after a pretty brief period of time, it was, you know, it's like during a break. It wasn't even like a lunch thing. It was like we had maybe a 20 minute conversation. And I said to him, I said to him, listen, this is what I want to do. Are you working right now? And he said no, which wasn't surprising to me.

And I said to him, listen, I have a job and I have I have I have basic control over my

schedule. And what I want to do is once a week I'm going to drive from Philly to Flemington. And I want to sit with you for a few hours and go through the book.

And he was like, you're going to do what?

And I said, I'm gonna drive an hour and 15 minutes to your house. And we're going to sit down. We're going to go through the book and I'm going to take you through the steps. And I want to share with you my experience of what the book is saying and how I've worked with it. And, and, you know, each week there'll be step work to do. And, and you know, if you're willing to do all this, I'm willing to drive an hour and 15 minutes to help you. And he was just like, he was just like, wow, we haven't gotten to the compliment yet.

Now I started working with him

and about a month into it, my marriage ended.

That was that was why I was living in Philly. I was living with my wife and this is where the compliment came.

I still continued, you know, still sort of in, in Philly. And I was traveling to see him while all this stuff was happening. And I, I just shared briefly with him that, you know, things weren't going very well and

I was trying to really focus on the time that I spent with him was his time. It wasn't about me and it wasn't about me spewing my problems on him, but I was going through heavy stuff at the time. And the compliment that he gave me was that the whole time that I was working with him,

never once did I put my stuff on him. Never once did I seem distracted. Never once did I

not give him a 100% of my attention and and 100% of whatever help I could give him, even though it was a struggle for me and he had shared that with me that he was just like, that was just absolutely amazing. Never once did. Did you know more than one minute of the two hours that we spent together have anything to do with you and the problems you were going through? It was always all about me and it was amazing to him. And I don't always show up, like I don't always show up that well.

But, you know, that was just a compliment that he had given me. And that was because at that time was when I started seeing that, you know, how you show up has a whole lot more to do with than whatever it is that you're talking about or whatever it is you're going through. That my presence with somebody as a, a person that that, you know, claims to be, you know, on a spiritual path and that claims to,

to describe spirituality as something that's very important. That how it is that I show up

and I share this with the person who's new. That, that you know, I'm going to give you my full attention. I'm going to be completely present when we do this. And you giving the stuff that I ask you to work with and you showing up when I show up, how you show up is more important than whatever it is that you do. Because I'm telling everybody right now that if you could have full presence cutting your lawn, you will have a spiritual awakening.

But of course, you know, we're just everywhere. You know what I mean?

Like, for instance, right now, where are you? Are you thinking about your bills? Are you thinking about a conversation that you're going to be having when you get out of here? Are you thinking about some situation you got into 1/2 hour ago? Or are you just right here just listening, not even like judging what's happening? Are you just here right now or are you somewhere else? Because in most cases, we're just somewhere else.

We're spending time with our kids and we're just somewhere else. And believe me, they know it.

And for me, it's about the transmission of my presence and the transmission of my awakening with a new person and the way that they show up, which for me is The X Factor called transformation. And when we begin to compromise that stuff, the the, the, IT just turns into a little bit of a surface change instead of a transformation.

See, this isn't about change for me. This is about transformation. This isn't about relief. This is about freedom.

And then once I get mine, for lack of a better expression, it is absolutely imperative that I help somebody else get theirs.

And that's why I've been here for these past three weeks and that's why we constantly do step workshops and meditation workshops and whatever else were invited to go do.

For me, it's really important to show up as fully as I can,

and I hope that that I touched your heart enough that you noticed that the past few weeks.

I just went for it because that's what I do,

because for me it's really important and that's the only way I'll ever make a difference in anyone elses life.

I believe as fully as I can. I'm talking about the full God gift. I'm talking about just going for it

now, I know that not everybody shares like this. I'm extreme, I know that. But you have to understand when I when I drank and use drugs, it was an extreme thing. And why not be extreme here?

Why not go for the Full

Monty?

Why not go for the big bus here in AA? Or is, you know, 13 step and more important? Or is what's in it for me more important? Or trying to find a job by using somebody at a meeting more important? For some people, that's how it is.

As far as I'm concerned, that's misusing a

now in what ways over the years have I been, what could be called helpful to others? You know their, their service positions, there's workshops, there's one-on-one conversations.

One way that I've been, I haven't had a lot of experience in the last 10 years, but in the first, let's say 12 year or eleven years,

I had experience with, you know, somebody was sort of in the street and you know, they could sleep on my sofa. And how it was of service to them was not

that they had a sofa to sleep on that night. How I was of service was to somebody was that you have a a sofa to sleep on, but you must find something else after a week. I'm not going to let you use me. I'm not going to let you. I'm not going to let you rest on your laurels and you're just going to stay here indefinitely and use me for as long as you can and then go use somebody else. For me, in letting somebody sleep on my sofa before they're even in the house, they know what the time frame is

that they must leave

because we as Alcoholics take advantage of people and non Alcoholics do it too. But I'm just saying that that's something that I think is of more of service is to allow the person to be responsible for their own stuff.

And as a sponsor, that's another thing that I try to do for people that as far as I'm concerned now, I'm, I'm not a parent. I have parental relationships with some people, but

I'm not a parent. But I see sponsorship the same way that I see parenting. And that is, is that what I'm supposed to do Is as quickly as possible, make myself unnecessary? Let the person finally grow up? They shouldn't be dependent on me.

I see a lot of dependent relationships sponsor and sponsor in a I think that's a little bit, if not way off.

I'm supposed to help you find your answers. I'm not supposed to be your answer.

What happens when I die? What happens when I move away? What are you left with if you've been dependent on me?

It's time to grow up. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to grow up.

But you see, it's not just about being responsible, it's about realizing that we have these answers and we have these

resources within us and most of us have not even come close to tapping into it.

And for me, sponsorship and being enough help to other people, it's a whole lot more more useful to me as a sponsor or as a member of a that gets a lot of phone calls basically almost even on a daily basis. Is is to is to not create a dependency very important as far as I'm concerned.

You need to realize that the answers are within you and I need to help you find those answers as quickly as possible. And then I'm not getting the phone calls.

You found your own answers. What do you need me for? And it doesn't mean that we might not have a conversation. It doesn't mean that you can't call me sponsor anymore. It doesn't. It just means that now we just see each other now. Now,

you know, in the early days, the way the the way his father said was practice was, you know, maybe the sponsor was a little bit further along in the path than a new person was. And what your job was, was to bring him up to par with everybody else. And that were just all equals.

And for me, that's the essence of what I do, and that's the most useful I can be to somebody else, is to disconnect our relationship of a dependence as quickly as possible. I feel really strongly about that

now. Over the years

I've been on committees. I was on the

Garden State Young People's Conference Committee for about 8 years and I held every position on that and that was a really rewarding gig. The GS YP conference back then was about 330 people would show up at a really beautiful YMC camp, YMCA camp in Stillwater, NJ, and some really beautiful stuff happened there

while I was involved. We tried to introduce

a little bit more program kind of stuff

as opposed to just, you know, just like a fellowship, just like a fellowship weekend. We also tried to introduce some solution stuff which we were able to do

for about 6 years. I was on the Area 44 conference committee. The conference in Somerset is once a year in September. It's upcoming the Area 44 weekends, which is a really beautiful experience.

There's a lot of work that goes into that.

One of the things that I've discovered about service is something that I had heard a speaker say one time, that it's called a commitment for a reason, because you have to be committed to it. There are sacrifices. There are times where you would rather do something else and you have to go to a committee meeting.

Umm. At these service commitments,

I began to learn how to

sometimes do what I didn't want to do

because sometimes it's real easy to, you know, watch a television show than to go and get into it with a committee, you know, week before the conference or something. You mean because you know there's going to be some flooding of heads,

but you go because it's a commitment.

You go because it's the right thing to do.

You go because because you don't want to go.

And for me, that's really important

practice,

is to regularly do things that we don't want to do and regularly do and regularly not do things that we do want to do.

Because what I found is, is that the mind always leads me to the lowest common denominator.

The mind always leads me to isolation. And then if it's just me in the minds, I am in a bad neighborhood and you better believe that I am on the relapse fast lane.

And being of service is a good way to just get out of my head and is a good way to just disregard what I want to do. And you know, I got to go. I'm going to the meeting.

We've all experienced, hopefully the beauty of, you know, like maybe some of you experience it tonight. You did not want to come to this meeting, but you just said, you know what, I don't care if I want to go, I'm just going to go. And maybe this meeting isn't a good example of it, but we all have an experience of it where, you know, we didn't want to go to the meeting was sort of a little bit of a hassle, but then we went anyway. And the message we heard was like so helpful to us. It was unbelievable. We heard something that, you know, was almost like life changing

and and we are grateful that we went even though before the meeting we did not want to go. If you've gone to enough meetings, you know, everybody here has experienced that at some point. It's almost like we're rewarded for doing what we didn't want to do even though it was the right thing to do. It's a beautiful experience.

Now, I'm not currently on any committees.

I guess the most recent thing that I did was I was the Area 44 History and Archives chairperson, which was a few years ago. That was a really fun

service commitment. I'm really, really heavily into a history and something that I did with that committee was

every other month, we would have just a regular basically boring meeting to talk about boring stuff. And then every other meeting

we would have sort of a quicker meeting. And then I would show sort of an, a, a history related video, which I have a pretty large collection of. And basically what I told the committee was, is that, you know, listen, this is a 2 year commitment for me. And when these two years are up, not only are we going to work together as a committee, but all of us is going to know a history a whole lot better. And I was committed to not just represent the the area as the chairman for the History and Archives Committee,

but I wanted to, you know, really get out there with what is our history? You know, so many people have so many questions about so many things and so many people have heard so many half measured opinions and non factual things that have nothing to do with a history. But if you were to ask 100 people, 99 of them would tell you that that's absolutely fact and that's absolutely a history. And one of the best examples that I can give to you is that famous statement that

allegedly Bill said before he died that

he was asked, you know, is there anything in the big book that you would like to change? And that allegedly he was, he stated that he would like to change the word rarely to never at the beginning part of how it works. And I, I, I'm still amazed that old timers still say this thing because, you know, people pirate stuff and you know, this guy told this guy said in this guy repeated it. And ever since then, you know, it's almost like a a biblical history that that you know, this is that this is a fact that Phil wanted the change in there, you know, rarely to never.

It's it's absolutely non factual, based on nothing, probably based on well-intentioned sponsor that was tired of getting questions from a sponsee that he didn't know how to answer.

And if, as a matter of fact, if you read Pass It On, on page 200, it says that Bill himself said that he never considered that change.

Yeah. They guarantee you in the next year you're going to hear somebody say that at a meeting, and now you're armed with the facts about it. That's absolutely unchecked. And you can point in the book where it says it. And Pass It On was written after Bill died, so he couldn't have said it. You know, he couldn't change his mind after the book came out.

Just a small fact. But it's interesting to me because, you know, you hear this stuff, you know, one step a year. Where did that come from? Where? Where have you? Have you ever seen that anywhere in our literature?

For me, it's really important to sit down with somebody and share with them word by word what's in this big book, and to share with them about the history, because you hear stuff at meetings, you know what I mean? That's the interesting thing about our meetings is that anybody can say just about anything

and most of its well-intentioned and most of it's just somebody said something and then you know it. It's that it's that telephone game that we used to play in kindergarten where, you know, this person says that this person, by the time it gets to the end of the line, it's nothing like what the first person that originally said.

And, you know, a cool example that I can give of, you know, somebody that I was working with that fortunately they were familiar with what was in the big book. And this was somebody who was a chronic relaxer. And I've been in a for 20 years and never had more than three months. Can you imagine being an AA?

A quality, transformative, life changing program that works if we fully give ourselves to the working of the 12 steps? He had been around a for over 20 years and never had more than three months.

And I had shared at a group anniversary down in Philadelphia, and I quoted something from the third step in the Big book.

It's one of the few lines that I have memorized, or at least it's one of the few lines that I'll admit that I have memorized. And the line goes like this, that though our decision, which is the third set decision, though our decision was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face and to be rid of the things in ourselves that have been blocking us. And at a group, at a group anniversary, I was asked to tell my story. And I shared that that the third step means nothing unless you go on with the rest of the process.

And after the meeting was already came over to me and his name was John.

And he says, you know, I've been around a A for 20 years. And I just asked somebody to sponsor me and they told me that, you know, I'll, I'll talk to you. You can call me anytime you want. We'll go to meetings. But we're not going to get into the steps until after you have a year. And John said to him, I've been here for 20 years and I've never had a year. What makes you think I'm going to get a year this time?

And he had just started to work. You know, he had just asked that guy to sponsor him a couple weeks before. He heard me share about how the third step means nothing. He had done 123123123 over and over and over and over and over again. Nobody had ever suggested that he that he go forward.

And that's another thing that I've discovered is, is I love difficult cases.

And what I've discovered about chronic relapses in difficult cases is they've never been given a chance to work the program. And if and if you're in the middle of the the, if, if you've, if you've progressed up to the 4th step and in the middle of their fourth step, they go back out. You don't go back to the first step.

You review the first three steps and see what they missed. If they missed anything, you fill the gaps and then you keep going forward.

He had never been given that advice. He's been here for 20 years and never got more than three months.

That was in in 2001. And that man is still not trying to this day because I sat down with him, I kept them going forward. And he only relapsed once. And we worked together and he has never relapsed since to this day. And everybody was like, John's been around for like 20 years. He's never been sober. What's he doing? And John said to him, some guy sat me down on the book and kept me moving forward in the steps. Nobody ever did that before. And they were like, no, you can't do that. You can't do that. And John's like, what do you mean you can't do that? It's working.

And this is from the water experience, from working with a lot of people, especially difficult cases.

I love difficult cases. I wasn't, I didn't have AI, didn't have a deep bottom. But for some reason

I have a way of reaching difficult cases. I love it. I remember one day this guy came up to me and somebody said, go talk to that guy. So this guy, you know, his head down, comes walking over to me and he said, you know, my sludge has fired me. And I was like, So what are you telling me that for? And he's like, I thought you would help me. I'm like,

I'll be happy to help you, but I don't care if your sponsor fired you. And I'm like, why did you sponsor fire you? Obviously you're trying to talk about something else. And he goes by sponsor fired me because I'm a card carrying member of the Atheist Society.

So I'm a wise ass. So I said to him all can you show me the card?

And of course he didn't have a card. And that opened up a conversation because he realized that that, you know, I don't take no for an answer.

And we, and we started and we started going through the book and, and you know, major roadblocks with the whole God thing, major roadblocks with any kind of consideration of anything higher power ish, let's call it right? And then see something I've discovered about people like that. And, you know, this is an extreme case, but something I've discovered by about people like that is, is that

you just got to get them talking and eventually they'll give you a piece of information that you can use against them. It's really beautiful. It happens every single time. It's never failed. They will always give you something that you can use against them. Like, for instance, you know, I, I had just heard about this, but this is a beautiful story that, you know,

some guy called up his sponsor, some guy who claimed to be an atheist, called the sponsor and said he was really pissed about God. And, and the sponsor said, how could you be pissed about something you don't believe in?

The guy gave him information that he could use against them. There it is. You do believe in God. It's probably a negative God. Whatever you do believe in God, You just admitted it. I can be pissed at something you don't believe in. Let's start there. And what this guy, after long conversations with this guy about lots of different stuff and us starting to go through the book, he actually made the mistake of saying to me that he believed in a guardian Angel. So I said, that's it. Whenever you see God on a step, you change the word God to guardian Angel. That's that's your higher power.

You believe in something that's watching over you, that has some some interest in you.

That's God. That's what God is talking about when it's mentioned in a word. It's just pointing to something for you. How you internalize it is guardian Angel. Welcome to thank you. Welcome to admitting that you believe in the God that a a talks about. And he was pissed because he had this. He had this, you know, no, not me. I'm different. You know what I mean? He wasn't any different,

in other words, are different. That's the scary thing. I've worked with enough people know that none of us are any different.

It's, it's pathetic. We're all the same. It's, it's scary. The mind is so predictable. It's just, you just talk to him long enough to use something against them. It's as simple as that.

But we have to be of service.

I didn't get to the place where I am now without a lot of study and a lot of work and a lot of experience And, and like I shared last week, I still fall away short. Doesn't have anything to do with anything,

but when you make it a priority, it it, it really works.

It's really beautiful.

Another way that I'm of service is I have a website justloveaudio.com that's just level audio.com and

on there is free resources.

And if you click on free resources, there's a couple 1000 pages worth of information on the steps, history stuff on the traditions, stuff on meditation exercises, step work guides, everything and anything that I think is substantial in regard to step work, transformation, spiritual practice, it's all right there for free on my, on my on free resources,

up to 70,000 people a month. Go to my website

and I take no credit for that. Most of it's not original to me. I just,

I, just, what I've discovered is that my life has become a resource and there's a lot of stuff that I'm into and there's a lot of stuff that that I know is just crap. And, and you know,

I've exposed myself to a lot of stuff spiritually, stepwise. I just, you know, I mentioned Judaism before. I just found this really beautiful book called God is, I think it's called God as I understand him or God as you understand him or God as we understand him. And the subtitle is Mystical Judaism in the 12 Steps. And it was written by this rabbi. It's a really great book.

I'm so happy to have found it.

And that's just Judaism. There's cool stuff associated with the Christianity. There's actually a book called The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. And there's and there's a associated book, not an associated book, but somebody stole the somebody literally stole the idea from Saint Ignatius. And then what it is, is the Spiritual Exercises of

Saint Ignatius with a 12 step slant.

Christianity

and the 12 steps,

there's all kinds of mystical writings. If I work with somebody, if, if you're a Buddhist, I can turn you on to cool stuff. If you're a Christian, I can turn you on to cool stuff. If, if you're an atheist, I could turn you on the cool stuff. If you don't believe anything, which is the person that I prefer, please send me people that don't believe anything. Because my experience with people who have like strong religious beliefs is that I'm going to have a lot of work trying to help them unlearn a whole lot of stuff that has not worked for them, is not working for them, and never will work for them.

But still keep it in the same ballpark as you know what, you know their religion or whatever you want to call it.

This is how I see my life befitting myself to be of service to others.

As far as I know, without numbering every single one of them, I've probably worked with over 1000 people and I've listened to over 500 fifth steps. Now notice the the proportion there. Most people do not get up to their 4th and 5th step.

Most people do not want to get better.

I'm sorry to say that, but that's my experience. That's not an opinion, That is my experience. Most people are not willing to go to any lens. Lena and I do workshops all over the place and we did one here

and

I've been doing workshops like that, either either that workshop or workshops like that for since 1994 non-stop.

And what I've seen again and again and again and again and again and again, what we did it as a five week workshop, I saw the same thing. When we did it as a ten week workshop, I saw the same thing. And that was that in the first week or two, 90% of the group was gung ho and heavily into it. Yes, we're going to work the steps, yes.

And then by the time the 4th and 5th step came, by the time the the work came after that, well, you know, I don't think I'm going to the meeting tonight because I got a vacuum.

And they say that it's a priority. And then they show me by their actions that they're not, it's not a priority. And I don't care what anybody says. I'm only looking at your feet.

If somebody asked me to work with you, I sort of give a little bit of an overview of what I do and how I do it.

And the last thing that I tell you is, is that if you say yes, you want me to work with you, that yes means nothing to me. I'm only going to be watching your feet. Whatever I ask you to do, I expect you to do more than that.

I don't expect you to do less. If you do less than you're showing me by your actions that this is not a priority. And 90% of the time, that's what I see when I work with people.

And that's fine. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm not saying if you're doing it, it's bad. I'm not saying that. I'm simply saying that my experience is the same as Anthony Demello, and that is that most people do not want to get better. They just want relief. They want to do as little as possible and still not drink. And that's a contradiction of terms.

It says in in two employers on page 120 that if we relapse, we must redouble our spiritual activities. It doesn't say we go to more meetings.