The Fellowship of the Spirit in Bayside, Queens, NY

OK I got a question here is that how do I overcome crastination to do the four step? How do I pray procrastination with a four step is a first step? Problem is very simple

and I know and I know, I know we make it sound really, really simple, but it goes back to this thing that, you know, if I believe that this is a deadly disease, disease and it's progressive, but I understand the true nature of my illness and I understand that I have two options dying alcoholic death or live in a spiritual basis. Procrastination becomes like really not an issue because you know, if I was shot and I walked into an emergency room and I and I love this analogy and I said, well, you know, I'm going to sit here on the bench for a little bit before you

surgery to save my life because I want to wait till I almost die before you can save me or I can get taken care of the problem right now. So if I'm procrastinating procrastination, if I'm procrastinating on my four step, it's because I don't have the desperation of the dying man. So I really need to take a look at my first step and what I really believe about it. And that's why the book is so clear and it goes back through and he says, look at your personal experience. How is that working for you? So how's procrastinating on your four step working for you?

Where are you on page 52? Where are you with the bedevilments? How's the unmanageability in your life? Are you irritable, restlessness, discontent? If you're having an experience with those things, you have untreated alcoholism and therefore it's likely that you're going to drink again. So when we're procrastinating on any one of the steps, it usually goes back to step one. So a nine step problem is a first step problem, A10 step problem, a first step problem,

an 11 step problem, a first step problem. A 12 step problem is a first step problem

because when I get the full impact, the nature of my illness and I realize that there's a solution to this problem, I go about getting it really quick. But when I'm in delusion and denial that I can control manage my disease, the ISM part of the alcoholism and that somehow I can do that and not drink. And there's this guy, his name is Sandy Vee and I'll just finish it with this. There's this guy named Sandy B and he says that he can he can totally not drink. Like not drinking is not a problem. It's called not drinking and being happy.

That's his problem. So that's the other question too, is some of us have enough power to remain abstinent from alcohol for a period of time. You know, white knuckling in the rooms, being irritable, restless and discontent in general menaces to everyone else around us. And you can see those people because like, they have that unhappy look on their face. You can see the judgment in their eyes. They're the people that sit there and their body language is very close. Their arms are crossed or sitting there. You know, those ones

used to be me when I got that puss.

So here's The thing is how is that working for you? How's procrastinating working for you? Having a good time with it? If you are bought to your drop, go away. If you're not, get right because this is a progressive disease and we die. We die spiritually, we die physically and an alcoholic death is an ugly one. So first step four step problem is a first step problem. How do we pray?

Talk to God. God doesn't care if you give him the middle finger, He just wants you to communicate. Because guess what? God's God. He doesn't really give a crap what you think about him

because he's God. If God cared about what we thought about him, he wouldn't be God. He'd be one of us.

So talk to God. Who cares if you don't like him? God doesn't care if you like him or don't. He just cares that you talk to him. Open the dialogue.

A sponsors job is to keep you busy until you find God. Please discuss.

I like that. I do. I do like that. Listen, listen, there's a, there's, there's an alcoholic synonymous, you know, listen, there's different a, there's different approaches, there's different home groups, there's different people,

but there, there's, there's an AAA out there now that's very, very popular and it has a lot to do with Home group loyalty and sponsorship authority. I believe kind of in the opposite of that. I, I believe, I believe that what we need to do is we do we need to help someone have a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. And then they are now, you know, connected to God and

you know, I'm, I'm no, I'm no longer an authority figure over them that I've sponsored a lot of people over the years, hundreds and, and, and they, they end up getting their experience. If they stay with me, they end up getting their experience and then moving on. You know, whatever, whatever their next job on this planet is, they move on. I don't have a sense of ownership or a sense of attachment to them. And even when they come back to me a second time and want to go through the steps with me a second time,

usually recommend that they go through it with somebody else to get it, get to get a new experience. You know, I, I, you know, I'm, I'm not here to raise them up. You know what I mean? I'm here mainly to point them toward a solution and, and a connection to a power greater than themselves that are going to solve all their problems. I'm not God and I don't know everything and, and the problem is much bigger than something I can help them solve.

What I can do is I can, I can point them in the right, the right direction. And you know, I, I take serious responsibility in that I, you know, I'm, it's important for me to do the absolute best I can. But again, I'm, I'm not that important and I'm certainly not their boss, you know, forever and ever. This is, this is a, this is a spiritual process. It's not a, you know, it's not a

military one. OK, I got one says. How does a person keep an open mind when throughout an entire speaking meeting, the speaker has made you and others very uncomfortable with their choice of words in ways that are not real in the big book? Whatever happened to keeping things simple? OK, there's a couple things. Whoever wrote this is really not going to like what my response is because, one, nobody can make me uncomfortable. I make myself uncomfortable.

Nobody can make me unhappy, nobody can make me angry, nobody can make me feel bad unless I agree with them. So you can call me a dumb blonde. I don't have blonde hair and I'm not dumb. I don't agree with it and therefore it has no impact on me. The only time anybody can bother me is when I choose to allow

and engage with them, when my ego engages with them. So a couple things. The choice of words are the way that somebody presents themselves or So what somebody might say.

If it bothers me, if it disturbs me, I have to go back and ask myself if something disturbs me, what's going on within me. Because almost always when somebody says something that bothers me, it has to do with me, my thoughts, perceptions and actions. I'll give you a quick, quick, quick story. When before I got sober, I had spent some time in and out of the rooms and I walked into a meeting once and there was this guy who came in and he said all the young people should get out of the get out of a A because we were drug addicts and we didn't belong here.

And I got really mad, right? And I was like, how dare you? I actually raised my hand and started sharing Adam saying, how dare you throw us out. You're so mean, how could you do this? I'm going to die, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I ended up drinking anyway after that. But it's really funny because I didn't realize not, you know, I went through the work, I went through the steps and I learned what it meant to be an alcoholic. And I realized what this man was saying, what he was saying, like, you know, if you're not an alcoholic, there are other fellowships for you and you need to go there.

I, my, I heard something entirely different than what he said. Because of my perception, my anger, my fear, I was threatened.

He was telling me a truth that I could not hear at that time. And he really pissed me off. He pissed off the entire room. In fact, half the room, like, fled. It was hilarious. And then, of course, I've sat in meetings where somebody have said the exact same thing. And I'm like, yeah, now, because I have a completely different experience.

So when somebody says something that disturbs me, I have to ask myself, what is it about that thing that's disturbing me? Is it a choice of words, or is it the meaning behind what they're saying? Is what they're saying bothering me? Because there's something about that that might be true for me, and I don't want to look at it.

I don't know how many times somebody like Chris or Mark or Joe or Dave has disturbed me on the question of alcoholism. I don't know how many times I've listened to one of those guys do a workshop and caught them in the parking lot and said, what did you mean by that? And they explained it to me. So when I get uncomfortable when somebody's talking about something, I need to ask myself, why am I uncomfortable? Am I uncomfortable because I'm facing a truth about myself that I don't like?

And as far as choices of words, I've been in meetings where people have said the foulest things.

I've been in meetings where people have talked like angels.

I don't really care about vocabulary. I care about what people mean behind what they say. And if I get stuck on words, I get stuck on choices of words, adjectives, adverbs, these sorts of things. Vocabulary, you know, the lexicon. What I'm doing is my ego is picking up things to separate me so I don't have to listen because one of my favorite speakers is one of the most foul mouthed people you will ever meet. Love them to death,

says crazy stuff. Love them,

love them to death. In fact, the first time I met him, the first thing he said was where are all the crack whores at in New York?

You know, like, I'm like, I love you. You're my new best friend. So the question is, is when somebody is saying something and I'm picking apart what they're saying, it's usually my ego trying to disengage so I don't have to hear it, so I can judge them, so I don't have to face the truth of that question or that statement.

And the other thing. Whatever happened to keeping simple? The biblical big Book was really simple. If you're sitting in a meeting and somebody's saying something that's not in the big book, don't listen. That simple.

If it's out of the Big book, well, there's a thing is we have a suggested program of action, not a program of suggestions. So here's the deal. If you accept Alcoholics Anonymous is a solution to the problem of drinking and that the 12 steps, the common solution is being the solution to problem of alcoholism, then we accept the Big Book in Toto.

I don't edit it. I don't take things out that are inconvenient for me as a sort of all or nothing proposition. It's a suggested program that treats alcoholism, not a program of suggestions. So if somebody saying something in a meeting that doesn't have anything to do with the big book or doesn't have anything to do with 12 steps, feel free to ignore it. People talk about all kinds of crap in their meeting, their cats, their car. Ignore it.

They're talking about something real that has to do with the book, and it comes out of the book. By all means, rock on.

It's that simple. I don't have to pay attention to it.

Here's one. How do you deal with people that have done step work years ago and feel that that is enough? And that really is that really is a good question. I deal with people like that all the time. And then what happens is they end up having not every one of them, but many of them end up having a sober bottom, an emotional bottom. Because what happens is when you rest on your laurels over a course of time, what happens is, you know, you, your, your spiritual condition deteriorates a bit at a time,

either quickly or slowly really. And what will happen is there'll be consequences. It may not be drinking, but what it may be is that emotional hangover that Bill talks about in the, in the, the, the 12 and 12. You know what what happens is

either they're going to become convinced that they need some additional work. You can help by talking about your own experience. Personally, my experience was there's been several times that I haven't done the work as quickly as I probably should have

and suffered, you know, emotionally and spiritually because I took too much time in between my annual or semiannual house cleaning. Sometimes when we share our experience, our strength and our hope, people will identify with it. Sometimes you have to let them, you know, experience the the, the consequences of their, of their own actions. But there's, there's plenty of

plenty of places in the literature that talks about continuing to practice these principles

in all of our affairs. And continuing means just that we need to continue this work. Otherwise, you know, we're we're headed for trouble if we're not.

How can you know if a group, if you are in a group slash with a sponsor that is doing it wrong or if you're the actor who wants to be the director? Oh, that's a good one. So what's doing it wrong?

Well, I, I guess, I guess we would qualify doing it wrong and I'm doing the little air quotes is not applying the 12 stands, you know, being one of those being, you know, being in a 12 step fellowship not working the 12 steps. I would assume that would be the wrong.

So here's The thing is, if your sponsor's telling you something that's not in the big book, feel free to disregard it. When I speak to my sponsors, when I work with my sponsees, I tell them all the time, you know, I'm not going to tell you anything that I haven't done,

and I'm not going to tell you anything that's not in this book. I might suggest spiritual literature later on if they ask,

I don't really give it out unless they ask me. If they say, what book are you reading? I certainly will do that. But in terms of how we work the steps and how we approach it, I stick very closely to the big book. I'm a rabid fundamentalist. I've said this. I think I'm like, I still, I'm still in that state. I really like it. I'm, I'm one of those people. I really need to stick close to the principles because my ego's huge. So for me, if my sponsor is not in the book or practicing the 12 steps out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, and you know, that's probably not the kind of

sponsorship I want to have. I don't want a bubble bath. I don't want a cookie. I don't want you to tell me all girl, oh, you poor thing, your life is so terrible. Here's a cookie. That's not really what I want in terms of sponsorship. So sponsorship, and again, we have to define sponsorship. What is sponsorship? For me, sponsorship is guiding somebody through the 12 steps

when when my sponsees are in and through nine and they're broadening and deepening their experience in 1011 and 12. They are now my fellows.

We're shoulder to shoulder is no longer teacher student. In fact, my sponsee, that's what I told you in the first step. I said my sponsees will often hear my inventory. I have no problem sharing inventory with women that I have sponsored. In fact, I think it's awesome because they get to see how crazy I am makes them feel better. But the other part of that is, is that if you define sponsorship as being calling people up on the phone and telling me all about your drama and let's go out for coffee. I don't hang out with my sponsees. I'm busy sponsoring people.

I don't have time for social calls. Like I'm not that kind of a a lady, you know, like I just don't, you know, I'm busy, you know, doing the 12 steps takes up a bit of my time. So the idea is when we think about sponsorship, if your sponsorship is that fluffy drama late and drama manager and sort of sponsorship, you know, the question is, is that is that really what's good for your recovery? Or is the 12 step based big book state space sponsorship good for your recovery?

So if your sponsors not sponsoring out of the 12 steps or out of the big book, it might be a consideration to get a new sponsor if your spot. But flipping it on the on the head here

is if your sponsor is telling you to do stuff that's directly out of the book and you just don't want to do it, then you're totally being the actor because that's how it works. It's an all or nothing thing. It's a program that is a suggested program of recovery, not a program of suggestions. So if my sponsor saying, you know, Carrie, you know, where's your nightly review? And like, I haven't heard a ten step from you in like a month. And by the way, like, how's that inventory going? Did you make that amends? And I'm going,

how dare you sponsor me in such a fashion, keeping me accountable and telling me what to do. And you know, like, you know,

keeping me from being a lying sack of shit. How dare you do such a thing? Where's my cookie

then? Yeah, being the actor,

as my sponsor used to tell me all the time, I will not shoot you bail. I care more about your life than about your feelings. And I plan to step on your feelings as often as possible until you say uncle. Because for me, and this is just the truth is, I don't care if you like me. I care whether you're breathing.

And my sponsor feels the same way. Doesn't care whether they like whether I like them, cares about whether or not I'm breathing. So if I'm throwing a fit because I don't like that amend, then yeah, I'm being the actor. Make sense to you? OK,

OK, here's one. Please elaborate on how you use prayer meditation to improve your conscious contact with God. All right, let's let's look at any relationship. You know, we're we're we're about to develop a, a closer relationship with God. How do you develop a close relationship with somebody? There's got to be back and forth communication there. You have to spend time with that individual.

You, you, you know, you have to be aware of their presence, etcetera, etcetera.

So prayer and meditation. Prayer is basically talking. Meditation is basically listening. It's one of the ways that we communicate with our higher power. So that's really how we improve our conscious contact with God. Now, a lot of times this particular relationship is, it's an unusual relationship and that, you know, sometimes we don't get direct communication back. Sometimes God works in very mysterious ways. Sometimes God works through other people, through inspired

literature, through spiritual principles. But what we must, what we must do is we must seek,

you know, through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God. God is the key to this whole thing. Alcoholics Anonymous is unapologetically about accessing the power of God to overcome your alcoholism. Unapologetically, you know, read any of any of the early literature, some of the literature that's come like, you know, after the 1960s might lead you to believe that this is some kind of bizarre self help

fellowship.

But you read any of the foundational literature and you'll see that Alcoholics Anonymous is unapologetically about having you develop a relationship with God that will solve your problems.

Here's a question it says Can any life run on self help be a success? And how big is your God

hate mail in here, huh? Not kidding. Can any life run itself? Woke up heart be a success?

I can't answer that because here's the answer. My experience is that it's no. Can I speak for you? Is there a magic person on the face of the earth that maybe ran their life on self will and it was successful? I don't know. I know that my spiritual teachers. I know that the spiritual giants. I know the people who write books, people who have inspired religions. I know people who have performed miracles, turn water to wine, sat under bonsai trees.

No they their life wasn't run on self will,

their life was run on God's will, humility and unselfishness. So for me it I guess it would depend on how I define success. For me, being successful means being one of God's children and being of service to God.

So my spiritual teachers, the people I look up to like you know, the Buddha, the JC, you know, you know these these creatures who have walked the face of the earth lived a life of self sacrifice and service for us

and that we're of service to their respective deities. With that being said,

I want to follow in their example and fail miserably every moment of every day because that's the kind of life that I want to have and that's the way I define success. So if we, if I define success in terms of spiritual living, my life run on self, self, well, could hardly be a success. Is there an exception to that rule? Possibly

I'm not God and I just don't know

how big is my God. I don't have an answer for that one either, because if I had an answer for how big God was, I think my head would have exploded.

Think about that question. Who am I to define the parameters of God? Holy crap,

I really thought that I had the ability to possibly comprehend this. I really hope you'd put me in a straitjacket and put me away

because I think I would think that I would have lost my touch with reality because for me,

I can't, I can't possibly define the parameters of God. But here's the question for you. You ask how big my God is. My question is, is why are you asking how big is yours? And I'm not saying that in a judgmental way. I'm saying God can be as big or little as you want. There's a, there's a, there's a concept in Judaism which I love, which says like basically how close we follow the laws of God on earth is how close we are to God.

There's no heaven or hell. There's proximity. And I love that idea of proximity. So the idea is that if I follow God's will on earth, then I will have proximity to God and death. So when I think about God, when I think about how big or little God is, I think about how close I want that relationship to be. What is my proximity to God? I want to be the fish swimming in the water full and the water being God because that's the way I want to experience God.

I don't want to experience God in dribs and drabs. I want to experience God in all of me. So if you're asking me how big my God is, turn that question around and ask yourself how big is God to you and how big do you want God to be? What's your proximity?

OK, there was a four part question here. Two of the parts I I offloaded on my friend Bill over there because he's really better. He's better able to answer him than I will. Bill, you want to, you want to answer some of those?

He's he's like you son of a gun.

Yeah, it's all about me anyway, so I don't mind at all.

Delegate. All right, so the first question is how many musts are in the Big Book

103?

And what I mean by must is, you know, if it says have to, that's a must. So includes words like that. So there's 103 must in the big book. I remember one time I send out emails to over 700 people every day. And the first e-mail I sent was how many musts are in the Narcotics Anonymous book? And some wise ass A A said, yeah, that's what I love about a A there's no muss in a A and I don't like NA because they have musts. And then the next e-mail I sent was the 103 musts in the big books. So it was just kind of funny to

got Wise asked, I guess you could say. And then the second one is,

did the first drunks, did the first drunks only a, a meeting start in New York or Akron?

I'm sort of, I'm sort of not sure what the question is. Can somebody sort of rephrase it? Whoever put that in

are you, are you asking if the first two meetings were in Akron, in New York? Is that the question or?

I didn't put in the question, but the way I interpret that is I didn't ask who anybody interpreted for me. I asked the person that put the question in. What did they mean?

I mean don't be embarrassed. What were you really asking? I'd like to answer the question if I can.

Maybe they're not here. Yeah. All right. So what do you think the interpretation was?

What's the 1st? A meeting that was drunks only because we know that we met with the Oscars group and non drugs initially in Akron and in New York, right? Cleveland, right?

I think New York, I don't, I don't know that I think they for, for many years, all the meetings were families. So I don't think I've never seen anywhere where, where was the first drunks? Only one. I do know that they started splitting off. I would say it was probably the Akron area, but I don't know where, which was the first one. But just for everybody to know a little more background, all the meetings were, you know, the families came because the families were involved in the alcoholism just like the alcoholic was.

So I personally have a warm spot in my heart where I go to group anniversaries and they allow the family and the kids to come. And that's how it should be. It's kind of it's kind of sad. I'm sure Carrie has some strong opinions about this, but it's really sad. I've heard of people making

group conscience meetings and saying that the the members are not allowed to bring their kids.

That's pathetic. As far as I'm concerned, that's pathetic.

So thank you.

All right, Bill, thank you for that. OK. What do you do if you ask a family member, what can I do to make it right after stealing thousands of dollars? And they say keep doing what you're doing, don't worry about the money. Do I accept that the answer or pay anyway?

You know, we need to set right the wrong. That's really what an amends is. When you look at amends, let's say you're amending the Constitution, you're, you know, you're, you're making a fundamental change in it. Let's say you're, you're amending, you're amending. That means that means to make it right. So of course, family members are a lot of times they're going to say just keep doing what you're doing that you need to just keep doing what you're doing. That's what they're asking you to do, no doubt about it,

but you also have to set right the wrong. Now, I'll tell a story from my, my own experience. You know, I was down in college. We got thrown out of a house. I had two roommates, One was a quaalude dealer and one was just a guy on, on unemployment drinking rum all day long. And we, and we got, we, we were having these parties with loud music at 2:00 in the morning. Finally, you know, the the the landlord said you got to go and we decided we were going to have a house trashing party and then move out early.

And we did that. We trashed and we ripped the doors off of this house and burned them in the backyard. We kicked the chimney off the house. I mean, we destroyed this place and then we left and, and I was, I was too a men's lists in before I even remembered this.

Now, what I did, what I did was there were an elderly couple who owned the home. I, I remembered them and I remembered their last name and I went back to the Tampa area and I called up over 120 people in and around that county with that last name trying to track down these people. I, you know, did, did name searches and title search. I they're gone. They probably have died and there was just no way for me to track that information.

But I owed that money. I mean, it was thousands of dollars that I cost this this poor innocent family who was just renting a house to us. So what I what I decided to do, and this was, I'm not saying that this is the proper way to do an immense. What I decided to do is put the money back out into the universe because I couldn't give it directly to the people. I still needed to get that money back out in the universe. And what I did was I made something like, you know, 400 sets of

Mark Houston and Joe Hawk

Workshop tapes and just started flooding my area of AAA with these tapes. This is about 1994 and it blew many people's minds,

but I felt after I was done with all this, I felt, I felt right, like I had like I had placed that money back out in the universe. Couldn't do it with the right people, but I still had to do it. So if your family says no, don't pay back the money. Don't think that you, you, you skated, you know, don't think that. Wow, boy, I, you know, I, I, I made out on that one. That's not the point of this. The point of this is being right with the universe.

I got one. I love this one. What if you're not willing or can't change the defects? You still your defects, can you? You still make amends, even though you know you'll keep doing it. Well, yeah. Well,

the willingness to, the willingness to give up, the willingness to allow God to come in and change us so that we're different and better and more right. You know, again, I don't get to decide what God gets. I give all of myself to God, and he makes those decisions. He does those things because he's my creator, right?

So I have, if I have a defect of characters, I'm unwilling to give up, I'm unwilling to turn over or got some aspect of myself. One, it tells me to pray until I'm willing, tells me also to keep moving. And the most I like, and I said this earlier that, you know, the 9th step is an instant character defect remover. I'm I, I was a pathological liar. OK, I mean like literally like I was like like a true pathological liar. Like after like I did my first four step, I had to sit down with my husband and be like, by the way, everything you thought you knew about me was like really not true. Like I

tour with the dead. I didn't, you know, I didn't make out with Anthony Kiedis in a bathroom. You know, all of these things. Like I like, like, you know, I just lied. Like it's like I wanted to be whatever you wanted, right? I, I was nothing. I thought I was a worthless piece of shit. So I had to make something up to make you like me. And of course, you know, you could never really know me.

So like, you know, I like created stuff, like I took stuff off of 90210, you know, cut some books I read maybe the outsiders, you know, kind of put it all together. And that was Carrie. And it was I would read, you spot read who? Who do you want me to be? Well, that's who I am. I'm that girl until like, you know, I go crazy and like tear up your stuff and steal stuff from you. And then you realize I'm really not that girl, but hopefully I have trapped you. But before then, you know, before the meltdown happens, you're stuck. So this idea is like, I was a pathological liar. And I

sit down and I had to, like, go over all of the stuff with my husband and say, look, you know, like everything you thought you knew about me, Well, this thing and this thing were true, and everything else was a lie.

Have I told lies since I had that conversation with my husband? Yeah,

totally. I'm human. I have been dishonest in the past 16 years. I'm sorry it happened. Oopsie. Am I not going to make amends for a character defect called dishonesty and the, you know, because I might possibly do it again?

No, I will guarantee you that I will be selfish, dishonest, self seeking and frightened sometime before I go to sleep tonight because I'm breathing, you know. So it's likely that then one of those things are going to happen effectively likely that is going to happen in the next 5 minutes because I'm me, you know. Does that mean I just stopped working a program and, you know, die an alcoholic death because I might fall short? Possibly. But here's this thing

and sometimes we're dug into things. There are things that we feel like we can't get out of. Like sometimes there's behaviours ideas.

I'll give you a couple examples. I sponsor, I sponsored a girl who had a major, major eating disorder, like major one like like Auschwitz eating disorder. Like we're at a point where she was hospitalized a couple times while I was working with her. You know, and I and, and you know, this was something that was beyond character defect. This was a true, you know, another total, total another problem that she needed to seek help for,

you know, So there's this thing, it's like, I think a lot of times people think about it and they think, well, you know,

the 12 steps fix everything.

No, since it will enable me to solve my problems, meaning that if I have problems like a true gambling addiction and eating disorder, you know, if I think that aliens are putting thoughts in my head, you know, or my feelings are transmitting signals from like, you know, Mars or, you know, Internet porn addiction, I'm sorry, Why do I have to be the girl who talks about this stuff? But, you know, this stuff is real. You know, Internet porn addictions, You know, when these problems become problems other than alcoholism,

we have a program that gives us the strength and courage to address them.

So when we're talking about a character defect, what we're talking about is the character defects in the four step. We're talking about selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. OK, well, I think people think about character defects and they think about things like those other compulsive issues and they lump them in with character defects. And what they really are are problems other than alcoholism that need to be addressed in the appropriate fashion.

So we need to separate here what's a character defect and what's a problem other than alcoholism. The beautiful thing is that this program will now enable me to have a way of life, will just solve all my problems. If the toothache, I go to the dentist. If I have high blood pressure, I amend my diet. If I'm a diabetic, I take diabetes, you know, I take insulin or I Med my diet, you know, if I have other problems, character defects that have grown into problems other than alcoholism.

I'm not looking at you, Chris, I'm just looking in your general direction. So kidding. I,

I address them in an appropriate way. Does that make sense to you? So if you're finding that you have something like that going on, such as an eating disorder and other compulsive problem, there are other fellowships for those things. Go there. Come here too and go there because there's an awesome thing. You could be a triple winner dude who says you have to like, you know, work the steps in one fellowship. If you have another problem,

there are other fellowships that are there to deal with it. Go there.

We got time for one more question. We got time for one more. Yeah.

All right, here's a here's an easy one.

Someone actually embezzled over $100,000 for a company that let them get away with it. They never pressed charges. They just wanted to know how I did it. You know that sound,

that sounds crazy, but I can understand, you know, understanding accounting processes and stuff, it would probably cause them more trouble to have the money come back in than it would be just to write it off. I understand that. But again, this is about getting right with the universe. If there's a company that can lose 100 grand and not really worry about it too much,

they probably have a charitable foundation that they support like the United Way or something like that. Start sending some money to the United Way in that companies name. Because it's not about who I don't have to pay that 100 grand back. That's that's not what this is about. This is about getting right with the universe. So look, it can take you the rest of your life. It can be $50.00 a month. You know, nobody's going to complain about the amount. It's the intent that's going to make a difference.

OK, We're going to. We're going to break for dinner, I think.