The 9th Fellowship of the Spirit NY in Queens, NY

I'll give you Chris S

morning, everybody.

Last night was great, wasn't it? Those two speakers were just unbelievable. Doug and Mark, you know, Mark is a such a legend.

Somewhere around 1993 or 1994, I discovered the first workshop with Joe and Mark. Anybody in here familiar with the Mark Houston Joe Hawk workshops? They're absolute. They're absolutely essential workshops. The ones that were done somewhere around 1995, there's maybe eight or nine of them.

And that influenced my, my recovery in such, such a way. It, it shifted my, my perception and my philosophy toward the literature based recovery methodology. And, you know, I, I had been exposed to Joe and Charlie, but when I got exposed to Hawk in Houston, it was a whole another ball game. That's like going from middle school to graduate level college, you know what I mean? And

I, I,

I'm very, very honored to even be part of something where where Mark would be.

I want to start off this morning telling you a Lincoln Tunnel story. All right, coming through the tunnel reminded me of back in the day. I used to go to a lot of concerts in the city in the 70s. And you know, anything goes at those that those concerts. And again, I allowed myself to be convinced to take some hallucinogens at this one concert.

And what happened was basically we went into the bathroom to cop and, you know, we bought them and we ate them. And, you know, it takes a while and, you know, 1520 minutes later, nothings happening. So we go back and we buy more and we eat more and nothings happening, you know, so 1520 minutes later, we go back and we buy more. We're walking out of the concert and it's all of a sudden we feel like we're like a Roger Rabbit movie. I mean, it's just out of our minds. We get in this van and we're going back to New Jersey

and we're headed down to the Lincoln Tunnel. And you know where like, there's about 10 lanes, it goes, chops down to about two. We're heading down there and, you know, we're buzzing like crazy and somebody looks out the front runner and goes, hey, man, we'll never fit. OK,

so, so everybody in the van, we're looking at the way he's right. We're not. It's a mouse hole. So,

so we start backing out. You know, you ever try to back out of the lake guitar. Everyone's a hog baby. You know, it took us like 20 minutes to back out. We took the bridge home that night to be safe. We didn't. We didn't want to get stuck.

Ah, but I think my favorite new Lincoln Tunnel story. Here's my favorite new Lincoln Tunnel story. I sponsored this guy named Ray Man. He's he's just absolutely phenomenal a guys on fire and he tells his story about going into the city. He was at a party and somebody said, hey, does anybody want to go into the city to buy secondals, you know, Downers. And he goes, I'll go, I'll go. And he, you know, he jumps in the car and now he's crashed like every car he's ever had. He gets in the car, he drives into the city and he's buying enough for the parties, buying like this big huge

bag of Downers for the party. Now he figures that he'll he's trying to figure out the timing. So he goes, you know, if I take mine now, I'll start to get off by the time I get back to Jersey.

OK, So he takes his like handfuls of him and he hits rush hour traffic. He's like stuck in rush hour traffic. He finally gets to the Lincoln Tunnel. This is what he tells you. He goes. Chris, I was, I was so out of my mind. I was nodding out and as and it's bumper to bumper when we're going through the tunnel. And I would nod out and hit the guy in front of me and go sorry. And then 10 seconds later, I'd nod out again. I'd hit him again, sorry. He goes Chris, I hit the guy

times.

You imagine this poor. The cops are waiting for him on the other side of the tunnel, he said. That was not good.

Oh had some fun in and around the city. Sorry,

like what did the guy do because it was too scared to get out of the car?

Uh, but today I was talking with Peter earlier. We're going to we're going to cover 1011 and 12 do about an hour each

step 10. I like to think of step 10 as a reactive step. It talks in this book about Doug covered it some of it last night. It talks in this book about using the disciplines of the other steps and using them reactively so that things don't build up, so that we don't, we don't end up building up a lot of

negative emotional

feelings and things like that that we don't, we don't start building up a lot of things that we're going to need to make amends for at at a later time. And I find that with Step 10, if I'm, if I'm on the money, with step 10, my life and my day goes so much better.

These spiritual principles,

when I was first being exposed to them, I,

I didn't understand or believe them. You know, I had this way of living, you know, Chris's way. And when, when I started to be taught that this is how I should react, these are the things I should do. These are the disciplines that I should become familiar with and make make a habit of. I had some resistance to it. Obviously I had the the ego and the self resistance, but I also wasn't convinced that this kind of stuff would work.

I'll give you, I'll give you one. For instance, I was having trouble with my boss. I was sober maybe three or four months and my boss came out to a work site. I'm a foreman of an electrical crew now that I'm sober and my boss came out and I wasn't there. The reason I wasn't there was because he was lame and didn't get us supplies for the job. So we got out to the job and we realized we didn't have the supply. So I had to go to the supply house to get supplies.

So I'm driving back in and he thought I was I was just driving around or something. He started yelling at me in front of my men,

you know, yelling at me, belittling me, making me feel small. So I went back to my sponsor that night and I said, I'm going to blow up his truck. I'm going to blow this guy up. You know, I, I can't, this is what I'm going to do. And you know, sponsors are against things like that. Usually if you have a good sponsor and they'll try to steer you away from explosives,

he said. Chris, here's what I'd like you to do. I'd like you to go in tomorrow morning,

knock on the door, say Anthony, could I have a few words with you, Take him off to the side where you're alone and say I don't really appreciate the way you spoke to me yesterday in front of the guys. If you ever have a problem like that, could you please just take me aside and we'll work it out

and I go, what you want me to do? What? I like the blowing up the truck thing better than that. That's what you got for me.

And now my sponsor had been on like an uninterrupted string of being right about everything, you know, for. So, OK, I'm going to give him the benefit and I'm going to do it. So I go up, I knock on the door. I go, anything. I have to talk with you or, you know, I don't really appreciate the way and I really wish you wouldn't do it anymore. And he looks at me because this is like way out of character for me. He looks at me like, you know what's wrong here?

He laughs a little bit and then he goes, OK,

all right. And he never yelled at me again. I mean, this is, you know, this may not be coming directly off the pages of step 10 here, but I'm, I'm, I'm explaining it so that you get an idea of just how effective and how powerful these, this spiritual way of living is.

Who knows what kind of problems I would have had if I would have blown up his truck. This one this way actually worked, you know, and it was a positive resolution

for that particular difficulty I had. Now another, another instance, I was, you know, I had a job a couple of years ago where a lot of things were going on. I have, I have one of these jobs where there's you have to make split second decisions. You're in charge of outside contractors, there's crews, you have your own people, there's secretaries and you know, there's bosses and there's budgets. I mean, it really is, it really can be stressful.

And there was some things going on at this one school that I was in charge of. And I decided that the easiest way for me to get things done was to do it like this, to do it this way. But to do it this way kind of went around the principle of the school. The person who was in charge of the school, I knew if I got him involved, he just bollocks it all up, you know, he's and so I didn't get him involved and I went and I did this thing and it kind of blew up a little bit because he's in charge of the school. It's his school.

What the hell is all this going on? I don't know about. And you know, it ended up blowing up. And the 10 step basically says to try to take care of these things. You know, when you, when you need to make an amend, make it, make it right away. You know, don't wait for your, your annual or semi annual house cleaning in November. You know, try to take care of this right away so you're not carrying it around.

So I went to him, you know, and I admitted, I admitted I was wrong, which is the best way to do it.

I've found. I'm sorry. Doesn't work that well. Yeah. You're sorry, all right? You know, I used to get, because I used to say that I'm sorry, sorry, you know, bump, bump in the guys car. I was wrong. You know, I was wrong to go around you.

What can I do to straighten this out? Do I need to go to anybody? Do I need to to rearrange this thing in any way so you'd feel more comfortable about it all? And then it's over. You know, the the issues over how many things did we carry around with us,

how many defective relationships, how many fights, how many conflicts? You know, I mean, I had so many of them. I was

I was one of these people who never forgot being wronged. This here's a Here's an example.

Umm this is like 197677. I'm down in Florida. I'm, I'm trying out college

and somebody down in Florida convinces me to invest in some importation that's going on around the islands and I do. And what happens is like thousands of dollars worth of my college tuition money gets disappears because the person importing got arrested somehow importing this stuff. So I was upset with this guy because he said, hey, you know, I couldn't do I can't, I can't give you my money back.

Lost my money too. Well, I thought I am gonna, I'm gonna get this guy. I'm gonna get this is 1970, seven, 1987. I get invited down to to a wedding and he's in the wedding party. All right,

And he's still on my list. This is 10 years later. He's still on my list and I figure how can I get him? Well, he's there with his brand new fiance and, you know, we're all partying prior to the weddings, the night before the wedding.

And I somehow convinced the fiance to take a beer run with me, get in the car and take a beer run. And I, I pretty much strategically made sure that we were gone the whole night, you know, and we came back like the next morning about 9:00. So he breaks up with her and the wedding's off and got him, You know, we're even now. I mean, this is the, this was my mindset. This is the way I worked. I.

Now I had to carry around that wrong for 10 years. I had to carry that thing around. I had to think about it all the time. You know, it would come into my mind. You know, that's right. If I had that money that that guy owes me, I just, I had to carry this around. I was prisoner to this event, this thing that I had made-up in my head. Now

freedom. You learn a lot about freedom with with a recovery experience.

Freedom is about being free of these things, not having to carry them all around,

not having to worry about looking over your shoulder, not having to wake up in the morning with the resentment machine running. Anybody know what I'm talking about? You come to in the morning and you start thinking about those bastards. Those bastards,

you know. I mean that is a waste of a day

truly. I wake up today and you know, the sun is shining and I get that little the little God shot. You know, thank you God for for this wonderful experience called life. I'm really enjoying this. Thank you. I mean, that's how I wake up these days. I used to wake up like I was just out of my mind. It was it was the the bondage of self that it talks about now step step 10 is about keeping it clean. You know, you,

if you've done a really good job from one through 9 and you get up to 10, you can keep it clean. You can, you can keep your, your perspective and your emotional condition in good shape. There's a line in in the book that says we're not cured of alcoholism. What we have is a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

So that means we need to maintain our spiritual condition. I think that we need to have God's help with this,

but we have to participate in the maintenance of our spiritual condition. That's our job to participate in the maintenance of our spiritual condition. And if we do that, everything's going to go better. Everything's going to go better in our lives. There's just, there's just no doubt. If, if you're inexperienced with, with this path, this way of living, please

grab someone, a sponsor, a spiritual advisor, whoever,

and place yourself under their care and direction and learn about this because it truly is the, it's the only way I know that an alcoholic can live without self destructing. You know, like, like the Jim Morrison self destruction, you know, I mean, we're programmed to self destruct when we're running on self. Now

let's say we're, you know, we're,

we've learned the disciplines of one through 9. Now we need to learn

the disciplines that are inherent in Step 11, seek through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God. I believe that by the time you get to step 11, you have a conscious contact with God that may look or feel or manifest in different ways with different people. Again, it's an experience and I've studied a lot of religious, a lot of

spiritual books and, and paths and disciplines and they all pretty much same, say the same thing in many, many different ways.

But they basically say that that experience of God is really indescribable. It's very, very difficult to, to put into words. It's very, very difficult to describe it. It needs to be experienced like how do you, you know, how do you describe something so

so fundamental and so amazing as an experience with God? You can, you can try, but you're never going to do it justice. You're

any description is going to be boxing in something that's unboxable. You know, I mean my my understanding of of God as such. It is has always been altering, always been changing, always been growing. I've always still got questions. I've always,

I know that I can't strictly believe

in anyone concept or attribute because that's subject to change with a new perception and a new perspective. But what's very, very important is the desire and the action to know God, to try to, to try to find this, this connection and then broaden and deepen this connection with God. It's the, it's the most important thing in my life today.

It's where I get comfort. It's where I get life giving sustenance. It just really is. Now there's some basic disciplines in this book that we're supposed to practice as far as as prayer and meditation. And it's a really, really great place to start And, and it's a really, really great place to finish. It's it's something that

that we can do every day and it's something that we can build on.

But again, what I like to what I like to tell the people that I'm working with is before you stop doing this to, you know, try to always continue to practice the disciplines in this book. Don't go so far out to left field that you've lost sight of the center.

And I stay centered by practicing the disciplines out of this book.

Some of the things that that I do is the moment I'm conscious. The moment I'm conscious, I start, I start my prayer regiment. I used to, you know, get up, have coffee, wander around, and then hit my knees. And it's just kind of developed from there into the moment.

I'm conscious, I go, I go to God. I go to God because I know that

my day is going to be really rough if I don't because there was a time it it doesn't happen anymore, but there was a time when I would forget to connect with God and I would forget to do any prayers in the morning. And my first sponsor said Chris, listen, you know, pay attention to the days when you do your prayer disciplines and pray it. Pay attention to the days that you forget.

And just compare those days, it was night and day. I mean, it was a disaster usually

if, if I had forgotten to do, to do my prayers and meditation.

Meditation is a, you know, a little bit trickier of a discipline. You're going to find, you're going to find people talking about all kinds of things. You know, go to an 11 step meeting and listen to what some of the people say about meditating. You're going to, you're going to get confused probably.

Um, when I start, when I start my guys off and they've never really meditated. Now I'm serious about this. I give them the idiots guide to meditation. And the reason I do that is because this, that particular book has, you know, 10 or 15 different kinds of distance. Find what works for you. Try a bunch of different things because there's a lot of, a lot of different techniques. There's a lot of different styles. There's a lot of different ways to do it. Find something that works for you. Find something that you respond to,

you know, you may not respond to sitting in a Lotus position chanting 1 syllable for four hours, You know, you might be better off, you know, doing some deeper contemplate contemplation. Maybe maybe you're, you come from a Christian tradition, so Christian centering exercises might be the way to go. Maybe you tend toward more of a Buddhist path. And man, the Buddhists are, they're insane with different disciplines. You could do a different kind of meditation every day for the rest of

life, following some of those Buddhist schools and different teachers, you know? But find something. Find something that you respond to, Find something that works for you. Find something that gets you closer. You know what I mean.

Get your own experience with this stuff, but practice it. Do it actually. Set aside the time. I know we all live busy lives.

I get up, I get up at 4:45 every morning and jump on a train and I'm in New York City at my desk around 6/30, 6:45 every morning. I, you know, I know what a busy life looks like. I'm in the middle of one,

but without, without the prayer and without the meditation, I never would have been able to do what I'm doing today. It it adds power to every aspect of my life. You know, Mark talked last night about this is about power. The recovery process is about power. Power to be what you can be, power to do what you can do, Power to be able to follow God's will without getting in your own way.

So why would you? Why would you run on empty? Why would you not put gas in the car? It's just doesn't. I'm at a point now where it's

pretty much unthinkable to not engage in these disciplines. It's it's become habit to a point where I'd feel probably more comfortable walking out of the house with no pants on than to not do my prayer and meditation. Now I want to talk this weekend. Really kind of one of the themes of this weekend is

let's get a little more excited than we are, let's get out there and let's try to work with some other people. Let's try to make a difference

in the groups that we all belong to because we're all leaving today. We're going back to our home groups. They're going to think that, you know, they're going to think that the, the, the fanatics got to us because, because you know, we're, we're going to be on fire a little bit with the spirit.

I let's find some people to work with. So I want to talk, I want to talk mostly this morning about step 12 having had a spiritual awakening

as the result of these steps. OK. I don't believe you can have a spiritual awakening as a result of steps you haven't taken.

So I think it's important to actually take these steps. Now, I do a lot of work in rehabs, a lot of work in detoxes and things like that. And every once in a while, somebody raise their hands. I had my spiritual awakening yesterday with Ned, you know, out on the veranda and, you know, I'm thinking,

have you done the steps? What you had was a spiritual experience. The way I describe it is we've all had spiritual experiences, you know, I, I used to have them on hallucinogens all the time. We've all had these spiritual experiences. But the spiritual experience, the spiritual experience is not something that's going to last. It's, it's a shot in the arm, OK. The spiritual awakening, I believe, is something

a little bit more long lasting, a little bit more significant. That's just the semantics that I choose to use for these terms.

So getting through from one side of the steps to the other,

you're going to have a spiritual awakening. Your your spirit is going to be awakened. Your spirit has been asleep. You know another thing that you learn in all of these religious and spiritual traditions are you're already perfect. Everything you need you already have. It's just a matter of waking up, awakening to it,

awakening to what you have inside of yourself. All these spiritual traditions say the same thing. I mean, read any of them that are any good. It's all about, you know, the Buddha sat down under the, under the, the bonsai tree or whatever and said, I ain't getting up until I'm awakened. You know, I haven't, you know, I'm, I'm enlightened. I'm not getting up. And he sat there for a couple of days and, and then realized, Hey, I'm the Buddha. You know, I mean, he, he awakened,

he awakened to, to the fact that

he was living a cyclical existence. And, you know, there was, there was death and there was suffering and that there needed to be recognition of this suffering and they needed to be an escape from it. And there needed to be a way to escape from it. And what do we have in Alcoholics Anonymous? We need to awaken to the fact that we're alcoholic. We need to come to believe that we need to recover from this, this hopeless state of mind and body. And then we need to come to understand the path

toward, toward recovery from that. And at the end of that recovery, they say that we're awakened also. Our spirit gets awakened. Now, what a wonderful, what a wonderful thing. You know, we have probably the best progressively fatal illness on the planet, you know, because the recovery from that, the treatment for that progressively fatal illness brings about a spiritual awakening and a set of promises that's just absolutely remarkable.

So, having had a spiritual awakening,

we tried to carry this message to other Alcoholics. The first writing,

which was came from the original manuscript, says we tried to carry this message to others. You know, they, they included the whole entire world. And I think somebody said, Bill, you know, why don't you just keep it to yourselves? You know, they'll, they'll run around trying to save everybody. You'll look stupid

so

but truly Bills intention was that this was such a powerful method of recovery and you get such an experience at the other end of it that we can be uniquely helpful to everyone.

Umm certainly we can be uniquely helpful to Alcoholics or addicts, anyone of our type. Now I work with I work with addicts, I work with Alcoholics, I'm better with the Alcoholics. But what I will tell someone who goes through the steps with me who say who, who's opiumatic. I'll basically say you need to find your own truth in step one about what your powerless over. If it's not alcohol, you know, I don't care what your powerless over, but you need

your own truth on what you're powerless over. And when you get to the 12th step you need to work with people who have the same powerlessness.

I wouldn't recommend the drug addict working with the alcoholic, you know, going on 12 step goals there's you know it's probably better than nothing. But the thing that really connected with me was the alcoholic talking to the alcohol. So step one and step 12,

you need to understand the truth of what you're powerless over. So anyway, I've got a spiritual awakening. The next logical step,

the next piece of my spiritual evolution is to carry that message to other people. I, I feel the compulsion to do it if I've done the steps and to the best of my ability or to the best of the ability that I had at that period of time. If I've, if I've done these steps, I'm going to have a compulsion to share this with other people. I'm just going to have a compulsion to do that.

How do you most effectively do that?

Like I said, I've been involved in beginners meetings. I've been involved with detoxes, rehabs.

I pay a lot of attention in the meetings that I go to for newcomers that, that, that, that I can relate to and that, you know, truly look like they look, or, you know, I'll do a quick qualification that look like they're, they're powerless over alcohol.

And if I don't start working with them myself, I've got quite a few sponses that are also eager to work with other people and take other people through the steps and we find somebody, we find somebody that's a good fit for that individual and, and we hook them up. Now, does it always work?

A lot of times what's going to happen is the person's really, really willing.

Yeah, man, I'll do anything. I'll do anything, OK? One of the first things I'll do is I'll say

here's the book Alcoholics Anonymous, Go home, read it. And then I'm gonna, I'm gonna want you to answer a few questions. I'm gonna want you to ask answer. Are you willing to go to the links that they talk about in this book? Are you, are you an alcoholic? Did you, did you see that in here? If you did, you know, I'll work with them a little bit when they come back. But I want them to be exposed to the book. Why do I do that? Because it says in this book and working with others that we leave them a copy of Alcoholics Anonymous after the first visit.

So I like to do what the book says. I used to, I used to do 12 step work my way, which was trying to be overbearing about getting them to the next meeting. You know, you got to go Tuesday. I want you to be there too. I mean, I had these crazy ways of doing 12 step work that I really thought was 12 step work and it kind of wasn't.

I believe that it's very important to get somebody to a meeting. There's no doubt about it. But getting somebody to a meeting and getting them through the steps are two completely different things.

So finding the people that need help, all right, you start work with somebody, a lot of them become convinced somewhere in the process that they've kind of overreacted to this thing.

Like you want me to write down what?

Or else they'll take like forever, you know, to the Oh yeah, I'm working on my four step, Working on it. You know how long it takes to do a four step? Takes two weeks and six hours or two months and six hours or two years and six hours take six hours. You know what I mean? You're dying of alcoholism. You can't put six hours aside to do a four step. It's too much for you.

So,

so we try to find ways to encourage the people to continue if we can. I know it was tough for me to because I wasn't totally convinced that the four step was going to be part of the answer for me. I finally did it, I think because there's so much pressure for my sponsor and I really felt like I needed my sponsor to stay sober. That's that was my first step. So, and I thought I was going to lose him. If I didn't, you know, do this four step thing,

he'd start giving me DS.

So I wasn't completely convinced. So we, we have to try to learn techniques of motivating and and cajoling and whatever, you know, because again, the, the alcoholic is a very, very sick individual as they're beginning their steps. They're they're loonier than jaybirds. They just are.

I, I don't like having them, you know, alone in my house usually, you know, if they, if they haven't gotten to the steps yet, I worry a lot. I don't really like driving in cars with them.

I mean, anything could happen.

I really feel a lot more comfortable with somebody who's who's done some of this work anyway,

we need to find them. We need to start working with them.

I've had some experiences with with 12 step work in my area.

I I haven't always been the most popular person in my area. Let me tell you, I think all of you have probably experienced a little of that.

It's, it's just, it's all, it's really funny that talking about Alcoholics Anonymous Anonymous is no longer popular in Alcoholics Anonymous

Phoenix, but that's the way it is. I've had comments like, well, Chris, you've got real, real unique, newfangled way of looking at Alcoholics Anonymous, Like unique, you know, newfangled.

People just don't realize how tweaked Alcoholics Anonymous has become. I was talking with with Mitch

who spoke here yesterday about it a little bit and he's been, he's a real old timer. I mean, he's been around a long time. He said that. He said about in the mid 70s it really started going to hell.

And there's, you know, there's different, there's different theories about that. I think a lot of the well meaning professionals out there who really didn't know what they were doing were sending so many people into Alcoholics Anonymous with, you know, these weird ideas of what works and what doesn't work. You know what I mean?

And I think that the good became the enemy of the best. All right, Sitting around in a circle talking about

what your day was like and the issues that you had is good.

Going into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and hearing about the solution to the recovery of alcoholism is the best,

the good became the enemy of the best. And it just kind of happened. And I think, I think a lot of the, the old timers who'd been around a long time and really had the literature based recovery things, you know, back in the 70s and 60s got tired of going to meetings. I mean, I'm really tired of going into meetings and hearing the same people bitch about the same things. I, I just AM. And, and I've got a Home group where here's what we do. Someone will wander in by mistake because they 'cause we're in the,

you know, and they'll sit down at our discussion meeting and they'll raise their hand and they'll start going.

Well, somebody will go up to him after the meeting and this is what they'll say. They'll say, wow, really Sounds like you're having some problems. Sounds like you really need somebody, a sponsor or somebody to get you through the steps. Oh, I have a sponsor.

Well, it couldn't be a good one if you're sharing all that stuff. Here's my phone number. And, and here's what will happen. They'll either become attracted to the things that they hear in our group and they'll become attracted to the people who are offering them help, or they'll go the hell away. And, and, and, you know, and either one of those is fine with me, you know, because I got to tell you

some, there's got to be Alcoholics Anonymous somewhere,

you know, and I'm not opposed to a lot of these other groups, but

you know, thank God there is a place where you can go and you can hear the solution. And there's a lot of these groups popping up. Peter's group. I mean, there's a lot of these groups popping up. Allison started like, I don't know how many groups that are that really have literature based, you know, I'm looking around the room. I'm sure that many of you have have done your part sharing, sharing what you know about the fundamentals of Alcoholics Anonymous in your group. And things are changing, you know,

things really the tide is starting to turn a little bit back toward toward the conservative, conservative ideology, which it really needs to be. Here's what I am. I'm a liberal in the fellowship almost I almost don't care what goes in the fellowship, but I'm conservative with the recovery process because you need to be because if if you aren't, a lot of people die that don't need to die. You know, another lip flap that I used to hear in meetings was,

you know,

you can never kill somebody in a, you know, if they're going to get it doesn't matter what you say. If they're not going to get it doesn't matter what you say. And that's just not true. You can kill somebody, You can very well kill somebody by not offering them a significant enough solution for their survival. Absolutely, absolutely. There's there's people in my area that should put a notch on their big book for every newcomer they've killed.

They should. And then they don't, you know, they don't know. What do you, how do you know what you don't know? They really think they're helping you because, because they got it this way and they waited 13 years to do a bad four step, They're going to tell their sponsors to wait 13 years to do a bad four step because that's what they know. They don't know. So, you know, there's a place on the back here to put the notches

for everybody that they kill.

Unfortunately.

Look at it this way, our statistics were what, 75 to 93% back in the 30s and 40s And now what are they somebodies responsible for that?

You know what I mean? I'm just trying to make it not be me.

Um, so we've learned a way to carry the message to another alcoholic because we've gone through the steps. We now know how to take somebody else through the steps. We try to get them to the other side of the steps. Is everybody going to go all the way with you? No, no, I find that I've got a pretty high.

Pretty high completion rate with people that ask make because there's not a lot of people stupid enough to ask me unless they're really serious.

You know, because people warn him away for me. We'll stay away from Chris. You'll be making amends in Albuquerque if you get in response, You know, so they they stay away unless they're really serious. But some of my guys sneak up on them and you know, they don't have 100% commit, but they have about 50% of the people that go through that start to work, end up going through. Now here's this is a significant

fact from my experience and my experience with my guys,

the people that make it through the 4th and the 5th step, the people that actually go out and make amends and are actually praying and meditating and actually now starting to work with others. And this can happen in a very short period of time. By the way,

they're all still sober. They're all Alcoholics Anonymous members in good standing, consistent at meetings, working with others. And their quality of life is going this way. All of them. All of them.

Now, wouldn't you think that's a significant bit of information? If you're dying of a progressively fatal illness, wouldn't you want to pay attention to a solution that's almost 100% guaranteed? I would

now here, here we come to

the place where I think I know I do, but I think a lot of us have problems practice these principles and all of our affairs.

Can you bring it into work? You know what I used to hear, because I sponsor a lot of Wall Street hot shots and stuff. I live in an area where it's a big commuting area for, you know, the, the Manhattan business people. And I'm forever getting these, these hotshot people making 4 million a year, you know, and they're dying of alcoholism and they're just, they're just crazy, you know, and,

and they're saying if I get spiritual, they're going to kill me out there. I'm going to get eaten up. You don't understand. It's a dog eat dog world out there. You show weakness for one second. You go and make amends to somebody one time and you're dead. And this is, this is what they think and, and how they believe. Now

we'll start to work together and they'll start to change. They will, they'll, they will start making amends at work where they've cost somebody a job or, you know, ripped off the, the expense accounts or whatever. They'll go back and they'll start because as you start moving through the steps, each step gives you the power to do the next step. If you're doing it right, if somebody good is taking you through, the second step gives you the power for the third and third steps gives you the power for the fourth. Well,

the 6th, 7th, and 8th step give you the power for the 9th. And they'll go back out there and do that and there'll be a shift in their perception. And I'd like to say they even become they, they then can become CEO's. But you know what most likely happens? They downscale their life a little bit. They're in such a high stress, such a high level type of job that once they start practicing a spiritual program of action, they find a way to downsize and live a more comfortable life. And they

more years, you know, because they don't die of a stress related illness. And that's good too. You know, we can't, we can't attach our success to a dollar sign. We really can't. I believe the successful person is the person who's happy with everything they have and happy to be right where they are, right, right at that particular time, you know, and how and somebody that's that's been influential

in the betterment of other people's lives. I think that is a better judge of success

and the size of a bank account. So their their perceptional change from there to here as they go through the steps,

practicing the principles and all of our fairs, bringing it into the family. That's probably one of the most difficult areas of all. You can be an A, a Angel and an at home devil. Anybody ever guilty of that, you know,

tailgate somebody to the meeting? Like, you know, you're in my way. You're doing 30 in a 45.

I gotta get to a meeting, you know, pull into the meeting and go in and share about serenity, you know, for 10 minutes. Get back in a car, drive home and, you know, go in and get ready to make yourself an iced tea and go, there's no ice. Don't you know I need ice in the ice cube tray? Anybody ever do that?

So a lot of times it's hard. I mean, you have to really, really, really apply yourself to practicing these principles. Another thing that I've found that you need to be able to do is you need to lighten up on yourself a little bit.