The Fellowship of the Spirit in Bayside, Queens, NY

OK, OK. You know what we're going to do? Everybody is we're gonna we're gonna try to get you out of here a little early. We'll try to finish before noon.

OK,

OK, I'm going to start on page 92,

it says on page 92, about one paragraph down, it says if you are satisfied he is a real alcoholic to begin to dwell on the hopeless feature of the malady. Show them from your own experience how the queer mental condition surrounding the first drink prevents, prevents normal functioning of willpower. I love this. If you are convinced he's a real alcoholic, again, I think I think we're to be at a place where we can be a maximum benefit to God and God's children.

But what's incumbent upon us is, is being available for the still sick and suffering alcoholic that takes precedence over over anything else. So I need to become, I need to become convinced that the individual is an alcoholic. How do I do that? How do I do that? I talk about

I talk about the mental obsession, the physical allergy and the unmanageability of alcoholism. And I tell that through my own story. I want to, I want to tell, tell of an experience I had that was that what worked out so good. I I should have known it was going to work out great. But here's what it was. I got a call from from one of my ex wives this one time. I I love that. What? What? One of my ex wives right?

And we are not Saints

anyway.

Ain't that for sure? Yeah. OK. So anyway, I get a call. I get a call from one of my ex wives. She goes, listen, my brother is in trouble. My brother is in Hackettstown Hospital. He's dying of alcoholism. It's really a mess. Can you help him? So I go, OK, you know, I find out a little bit about what's going on. He's got, he's been just drinking. I knew he was an alcoholic back in the 70s, you know, I mean, you know, 'cause this guy, all three brothers from, from this, from this wife's family

were unbelievably alcoholic. It was just, yeah, yeah, I look like home, You know, when she saw me. Oh, I'm going to marry this guy. This, this looks, this looks familiar. Anyway, Anyway, so I go, look, I'm, I'm going to do this old school, I'm going to do this, you know, like, like in the first five years of a, a here's here's what I did. I knew I found out what room he was in and I called up about 12 of my guys and I said, all right,

here's what you're going to do. You're going to go in, you're going to be at 2:00 and you're going to stay till 3:00 and you're going to tell this individual your story. If he wants to talk, that's fine. But the main thing is you need to tell your story. And then I had somebody come in at 4:00 and then I had somebody come in at six. Then I had somebody come in at 8. I, I, I had 12 guys lined up to go in and tell their story. This is how they used to do it in the old days. In the old days, they would put you in the hospital even if you didn't need to be in the hospital. And they do it for two reasons. One of them

to show you how much trouble you're in medically, and the other was

to get a captive audience for the 12 step calls. OK, so by the time the ninth guy came in and started to tell his story, he called me up. He goes, OK, OK, stop sending these guys. It's not saying I'm in, I'm in. Okay, I'm a member. And, and as soon as he got out of the hospital, you know, he was our he was our coffee maker. He became a Home group member, like, you know, like that. I mean, he felt so appreciative of all these different people coming and not wanting

from him, but wanting to share their experience, strength and hope with them. And you know, that worked out so well when, when I pay attention to how they did it back in the day, when I pay attention to the actual black part instructions of this book, really, really good things can happen. I, you know, I just, I just love to out think this stuff and say, well, we, you know, we've learned a lot more and there's different ways of doing that. No, go, go back, go back to these basics and apply these principles

for a couple of reasons. One of them is it works. The other is, is when you change this stuff and you do it differently, you're taking on a grave responsibility. You know, you're now you're responsible for the results. If you just do what's in this book, you can basically say, I did it the a, a way, you know, and if they die, they die. If you change all this around, you try to do it your way and you get your hands in there and you muck it all up,

you can be responsible for somebody dying. I do not believe the statement that if somebody is ready, there's nothing you can do wrong. And when somebody's not ready, there's nothing you can do right. I don't believe that statement at all. We can kill people by doing things wrong on our 12 step calls. Absolutely. And you know what, if they're not ready, we can make them ready to get ready. You know, that's, that's basically, that's basically our job.

Talk about alcoholism, speak of it as an illness, a fatal malady. Talk about the conditions of body and mind which accompany it, the mental obsession, the unmanageability. Keep his attention focused mainly on your personal experience. Explain that many are doomed to never realize their predicament. Doctors are rightly loath to tell an alcoholic patient the whole story unless it will serve some good purpose. And most of the time the, the doctors not really well qualified to to do that, you know,

the, the doctors, doctors look for specific symptoms

and then appropriately treat for those specific symptoms. When we have a spiritual malady, how do you appropriately treat for that? You know what I mean? A lot of a lot of times they'll, they'll, you know, they'll, they'll see a psychotic

episode and they won't really understand. It's, it's the guys in the middle of, of detoxing or something, you know, and they'll, they'll, they'll, they'll label it something that it isn't, It's actually situational. They'll label it as something clinical and you know, you can, you can get into trouble. So this is one of the reasons why we it's a real good idea for us to be involved or you for you to send people

you know for the medical attention they need to a place that understands alcoholism.

You will soon have your friend admitting he has many if not all of the traits of the alcoholic. And that's good you when they start to talk to you, you know you're setting the hook. On page 93. Tell him exactly what happened to you. Stress the spiritual feature freely.

You know, they used to say don't talk about God, you'll drive them away. Listen, if if the mention of God is going to drive us somebody somebody away, alcohols powerful enough to bring them back in. You know,

you got to do it with tact and common sense, though you can't you can't be like an evangelical. You know, you got to have God, you got to use it, you got to do it with tact and common sense. Stress to spiritual feature for the If a man be agnostic or atheist, make it emphatic that he does not have to agree with your conception of God.

He can choose any conception he likes, provided it makes sense to him. The main thing is that he'd be willing to believe in a power greater than himself and that he lived by spiritual principles. This is a piece that you need to be able to sell spiritual principles power greater than themselves. If you've done the explanation of the first step, well, you know, it's not going to be out of the question to start to understand that there's a power greater than yourself that can restore you to sanity.

How are you even standing there? You know what I mean? If you're admitting that you had all the traits of the alcoholic and this individual is talking about they have all the traits of the alcoholic, how are you standing there sober? How are you standing there recovered? You need to be able to explain that, that it's, it's living life along spiritual principles, gaining access to a power greater than yourself. You know,

we need to talk about this. Everybody thinks we need to avoid God,

That that's, that's, that's a wrong way to look. That's a wrong way to look. We need to be telling the truth to people. Alcoholics Anonymous is unapologetically about gaining access to the power of God. I know a lot of people don't like that. I know a lot of fellowship members try to avoid it. I know a lot of literature tries to skirt it. But the fact of the matter is, is if you're alcoholic, there is only

your only hope is gaining access to a power greater than yourself because you are powerless on your own unaided will explaining this with tact and common sense to the prospect who's who's sitting there.

You know, your main focus on the 12 step call I think is very, very important when dealing with such a person. You better use everyday language to describe spiritual principles. There's no use arousing any prejudice he may have against certain theological terms or conceptions which he already may be confused. He already may not be confused. He may know more about, you know, religious theology than you do. He may be thinking, you know, who's this guy talking to me? You know, I've got a doctor of Divinity for for God's sake,

sponsored some priests. You basically need to talk about. It's about gaining access to that power greater than yourself, not not being able to describe the attributes or the theology of it's about, it's about the practical application of gaining access to that power greater than yourself. You know, there, there, there are certain, you know, listen, you could have some of the earlier Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. You could have had a had a been a phone booth if it wasn't for the clergy that was showing

up in a, you know, a lot of those Catholic priests tipped, tipped a little bit. You know, you may belong to a religious denomination. Again, that's not necessarily even something that you need to to bring up. But you do have to explain to them that to be vital face faith must be accompanied, accompanied by self sacrifice and unselfish constructive action. That's what our faith is built on

by self sacrifice and unselfish constructive action. And you can explain that's part of what I'm doing right here, right now. You know I'm not. There's nothing I want from you. This is an expression of myself, sacrifice, and my unselfish constructive action. Let them see that you're not there to instruct them in religion.

Call to call to his attention the fact that however deep his faith and knowledge, he could not have applied it or he would not drink. That's the thing. We have a faith that works and it's built on the self sacrifice. It's built on working with others. Our, our faith is strong enough to keep us protected from alcohol. You know, many people have a very, very strong faith, but because of the the way they act and the way they apply their faith, it doesn't protect them against alcoholism or drug addiction.

There's certain things that you need, you need to do. Perhaps your story will help them see where he is failed. Failed to practice the very precepts he know he knows so well.

I'm going to take over top at 94.

So here's The thing

is, this is still all in the first conversation you're having with the alcoholic. And I want to stress this. I mean, this is a conversation. This might be a marathon conversation,

you know, and sometimes it's over a period of time. And this book says, well, this is in the first talk. I mean, I might have had this, you know, first conversation three or four times where somebody was willing to sit down and actually have an honest conversation with me.

It's it, I love this. It says, you know, not to talk down from a spiritual hilltop. Never talk down to an alcoholic from any moral or spiritual hilltop. Simply lay out a kid of spiritual tools for his inspection. Show him how they worked with you, offer him friendship and fellowship, and tell him that if he wants to get well, you'll do anything to help.

This is really important. I mean, that's part of the reason why, you know, look, you know, I'm highly educated. I've read tremendous amounts of spiritual literature.

I'm actually well versed in philosophy. I'm well versed in theology. I'm well versed in a heck of a lot of things, including social science. And when I talk in an alcohol and Alcoholics, an honest meeting, I don't use clinical terms, I don't use theological terms. I use everyday language because I think it's really important because people need to be able to understand what I'm saying.

They also need to not be threatened. You know, like it's hard enough to be shake, rattling, rolling, dying in alcoholic death and lost, you know? And then you have somebody talking about, you know, you know, all these deep, tremendous theological philosophical ideas and they're just looking at you going like, dude, I just don't want to like, you know, spit in the mirror today. And I kind of want to stop throwing up. Like that's as far as I've gotten. So it's important to do that. So it's important to make sure that this person really understands that you were in their shoes.

And that's why that, you know, we let them talk about themselves. We talk about ourselves. It depends on how that conversation goes first, Sometimes this is me talking about where I was at and what happened with me. Sometimes I allow people to kind of run their mouths, set the bear traps, and then I start talking. It's a dynamic thing. And this is where The Sixth Sense is incredibly important. And you know, the, the book tells us that we're going to get the 6th sense. We're going to get intuition. Listen to it. I don't know how many times I'd be talking to somebody and I get really quiet and I close my eyes.

I take this deep breath and then something comes out of my mouth. Because what I'm really saying is, God, what the hell do I say to that one?

Oh, what do I say? And then all of a sudden, boom, it comes. I'm like, wow, I didn't know. I knew that. You know, if he's interested in your solution, you know, and if he expects you to act as a banker for his financial difficulties, their nurse for his breeze, you may have to drop him unless he changes his mind. He may do this after he gets hurt some more. It is not my job to deprive you from of your bottom. It is my job to give you a spit. Spit. A kid of spiritual tools. That was a little Freudian there.

But if he sincerely wants what you know, what is interested and wants to see you again,

ask him to read this book. See, that's one of the instructions I don't do. Because here's The thing is I read this book with them. I'll give them a chapter to read. I'll say please read Bill's story and come back to me, you know, 'cause if I send them off to read this book, Alcoholics were procrastinators a lot of times. Like, you know, I never hear from them again. So we read this book together. That's, that's a little time. I know we're not supposed to change the big book. And I told you I'm fundamentalist and stuff like that, but that's the only thing I do differently in terms of a newcomer,

you know, is I, I give him the book, I say, well, you know, read Bill story. I want you to underline everything you identify with and with how Bill thought, drank and felt and come back.

And then, you know, usually on the second meeting they leave on their 4th step. That's kind of how it works with me,

you know, and it talks about, and I love this if it, if he thinks he could do the job in any other way, he prefers some other spiritual approach. Encourage him to follow his conscience. We have no monopoly on God. And that is the God's honest truth. I was trying to tell you that, you know, the big book is like the McDonald's of spiritual experience. It is not the only game in town. It's the only game in town for me in my experience. My experience is all I have to offer. I am not going to argue philosophical theological

concepts with you. That is not my job. That is above my pay grade. You know what I'm here to do is share my experience, tell you about what I did to get better, and guide you along that process. I am not here to save your soul. I am not here to convince you of anything,

you know, but point out that me that we Alcoholics have much in common that if you would like in any case, you'd be friendly and let it go at that. And that is the truth. I'll tell you. I'll tell you something really funny. Bernards will have like a 10th anniversary like a handful of years ago, right? And there's like the speaker came in and he said I'm a big fan. So of course, whenever he's in town, like I show up like, you know, like a puppy dog and listen and lap it up. So I brought a bunch of my sponsees down right. And I had been at, I had been living in another section of Jersey. And I come into this meeting and I look around and there's, you know, it's a,

it's like standing capacity. And I look around and I realized that about 25 of the women in the room at one point, I had sponsored

handful of them, you know, told me that, you know, to eat shit and die when I said things like, you know all, you know, when I said, can you consider? And they're like, no, eat shouldn't die. Good luck, see you later. And a handful of them I had continued to work with and they had gone through amends and it were, you know, had gone. And I and I'm much like Chris, I don't bring people through the steps multiple times. I want them to have a new experience because I'm limited. I'm human. I only know what I know and I don't want to handicap you by my handicaps. I'm not that egotistical that I feel like

have some claim on your spiritual life. So a lot of times, you know, I'll go through the work with somebody and there and and they're off and they're in the fellowship of the spirit and we'll run into each other and some some people like keep in contact with some. I didn't. I'm looking in this room there 25 women at some point I had cracked a book with and they are still here 10 years later. How cool is that?

How cool is that? I spoke at Icky Pot two weeks ago and like a handful of women came up to me. I'm in Phoenix, AZ, They're from all over the country and they're like, yo, 12 step me, I was in your house meeting. I met a guy who had gotten sober in the Market Street Mission who had been 12 step on my husband sponsee in the big Book study that he got introduced to. The Big Book was the big Book study that my husband and his sponsor started in the Market Street Mission which is still going to this day, 10 years later.

So this man was standing there in Phoenix, AZ in front of me because of a meeting that I had in my house in a sponsee of my husband's who had a great idea.

Ten years later, this man has is breathing today because of that has absolutely nothing to do with me and everything to do with God.

Don't be discouraged. Your prospect doesn't respond at once. I've had people call me back years later and be like Facebook is beautiful. I love Facebook because I don't know how many times I've gotten a message in my inbox from somebody who maybe I sat down. I got through steps one and we were starting to do some work and they were like dude, I'm not about this. I'm not I can't do it, sorry and I'm like no problem, man good luck with it. No hard feelings. I, I've, I have no invested interest in you doing this or not doing this because you are having

experience between you God and alcohol and it's none of my business. All I am is a facilitator. So they, they've inboxed me on Facebook and they're like, by the way, I'm ready. You want to help me, please. It's awesome. It's an incredible thing. So I'm not discouraged. I don't, I, I'm happy to talk to them. I'm happy to, to, you know, to, to hang out, chill, talk with him and smoke after a meeting. You know, a lot of times the funniest things, these women who who have, you know, had a brush with,

but at some point they just petered out and went away. They'll send other people my way. They're like, yeah, I didn't want to do the steps with her because like, man, she's really hardcore. But you need to do the steps with her. So all of a sudden, like sponsees who have like, you know, who have bailed or women that have bailed or whatever are now sending people like, I can't help you because you're really crazy. But I know this, this lady, she's awesome. You need to work with her. I don't know how many times that has happened, you know. So we don't, we don't, we don't take it.

You getting sober, you having experience with God has absolutely nothing to do with me and my ego. And if I'm attached to that, I'm doing you a disservice because like I said, I've had plenty of people who told me to eat shit and die would be happy to send people my way. You know, in fact, it's a joke. And when we lived in Warren County, New Jersey, there was a joke and it was the funniest thing. One of my sponses from out of town came in and

she had shown up at a meeting that I, that I had been doing a big book study at for quite a while.

And she was like, oh, you know, my sponsors, Carrie. And she had two reactions, which is I hate that woman

and Oh my God, I love her. And then there was this other one. I really love her and she really helped me, but she scares the crap out of me. So there were like these three reactions and my and my sponsee was like, what's with that? And I was like, well, that's part of what it is. Is that how other people see me? Whether you like me is irrelevant to this process. I've went, I've sponsored women I've sponsored who hate my guts but would call me if they were on fire.

They don't have to like me. They have to trust me.

You know, they know that I have a solution. They know that I have an answer. They know that I'm speaking from a place of God. Do they do they want to talk to me all the time? No, but they trust me with their lives. And that for me is good enough. You know, it goes on to talk about, you know, a second visit, right? And you know, he's read this volume is prepared to go through with the 12 steps, the program recovery. Now here's what I do is I have that conversation.

I, I, I qualify them. We talk about it, they qualify themselves. We discuss what it means to be an alcoholic. We describe all this stuff and then

I let them think about it. They're willing to sit down and do some work. They call me up and be like care, you know, I'm ready to do some work. I want I want to crack this book, right? We're on the second meeting. What I say to them is, are you willing to go to any lengths for victory over alcoholism? We talked about what alcoholism was. We talked about the homeless feature. We talked about all these things. Are you willing to follow directions? Are you willing to go to any lengths? Yes. OK, let's crack the book. They come to my house 3 hours later. They leave with a pen or sometimes they just sit in my garage and write their inventory. Depends on what's going,

you know, some even sometimes during a family party that's been known to have it. My daughter's graduation, my husband sponsor, he was doing step work in one corner. My husband was doing 12 step in another quarter. I'm in the garage with three women and my daughter is like, my mother asked my daughter where, where my mom where her mom was. You know, my daughter goes, oh, she's just helping those drunks in the garage again.

That's what we do, that it's a family thing. My daughter has done 12 step calls. I swear to God. I I, I kid you not, my daughter's friend's mother said, I hear your parents have that meeting in their house and they help Alcoholics. And my daughter goes, yeah, they, you know, my mom sits down and she reads this book with women and they get better and they're really happy. You might want to come down on a Wednesday night. No lie,

my daughter's in fifth grade. She just did 12 step call. Boom.

It's awesome. But what it says here, and this is the thing, is that, you know, my husband and I, we take people into our house. We totally do. We do that, you know, because yeah, we have a Manny. We call him,

but what we do is like we live in an, in an area that really has a whole lot of not a lot of treatment centres. In fact, my husband works for like the only one in like 30 square miles. People really don't have insurance. We live in an area, it's very rural. People don't have access to a whole lot of things. And

so we get people like where, you know, we bring them to the emergency room, to the local hospital, We have them detox, we pick them up from the psych ward. They spend a week on our couch. They do some 12 step work and we help place them in a, you know, sober living facility or we help them get on their feet. So we're sort of an unofficial halfway house. We've been doing this,

but how long? Yeah, forever 17 years. You know, because I really do believe that if God gave me a dollar, he wants me to give you $0.50. We're poor too. Like we're not wealthy,

we drive shitty cars, we have a 5 bedroom house that is rundown as all shit and you know if I have a dollar you get $0.50. That's the way that I was taught to live. So we have to make that decision as we might take some people into our home, but we don't put our work on a service plane. Meaning that if somebody's not, I am willing to go to any lengths for your recovery. Only if you are, I will meet your effort.

I cannot do it for you and I will not do it for you.

So when you want me to do it for you, that's when I say what are you willing to show me?

So here it goes. And I said we never avoid these responsibilities to be sure that you're doing the right thing if you if you assume them at some page 97 helping others of the foundation stone of our recovery. A kindly act once in a while is not enough. So patting somebody on the head in a meeting and giving them a cookie and saying it's going to be all right is not enough says you have to be willing to act a good Sumerian and every day if need be. That might mean loss of many nights sleep. Yes,

great interference with your pleasures, guys.

Like, seriously. OK, I have a tiny rant with this. I have a couple things. There are a couple little things I wanted to hit in this little this little section here. OK, you ever meet the woman with the Prada purse? The perfectly, the perfectly dyed hair, the perfectly manicured nails? You know, the Manny Petty, you know, sitting in a meeting talking about her Lexus, telling you she doesn't have time to sponsor. Those are women I want to choke

for a couple reasons. One, me and my sponsees have to sponsor like 15 people at a time. Every moment of my waking life is doing some kind of 12 step in service and like, I would like a night off please,

you know? So I kind of want to be like, you know, dude, God saved you from an alcoholic death. You work the steps, you have a solution. How selfish are you to sit in the rooms and be lazy with your 1 sponsee who's been on 9 for the past 15 years? You're too busy,

you know? Like, seriously, you know, like we spent all this time fixing up the outside. I'm just gonna speak for the women. I'm not gonna talk for the men. We spent all this time fixing up the outside, having our wax vaginas and our freaking manicured nails and all this other shit, right? And inside we're ugly as hell because we're not being of service. And we think if we can make the outside look pretty, that nobody will notice that there's nothing left inside.

And I'll tell you what the most beautiful women I've ever seen in the world are. The women are sitting down face to face, eyeball to eyeball, talking about God.

They are the most Beautiful Creatures I have ever seen. So we spent all this time trying to project to the outside world this flawless. You know, I got to look like, you know, like the next supermodel, you know, Victoria's Secret. I'm in the gym 50 hours a week. Guess what? This is amazing thing. I do a ton of 12 step work. I work out totally like four days a week. I do yoga, I run, I do all this shit. You know, I'm a healthy person because my body's a temple, except for I do smoke.

So my somehow I think like the Trent that like all the exercise I do in the vegetables I eat cancel out the smoking.

A little bit of a denial there. I'm totally with you on the delusion on that one. Totally know that,

totally know that. But here's my point. Here's my point. Here's my point on this one is I don't spend 37 hours in the gym. I don't have perfectly manicured nails. I don't have any of those things. And guess what? You know, I, I feel like a child of God and I feel beautiful from the inside out. I don't have to, I don't have to Polish the brass on the Titanic. So when we, you know, and the women are dying because there's nobody out there carrying this message with depth and weight, there's nobody

to piss people off. I will piss you off. You could egg my fucking house if you don't drink today. I did my job. I do not care if you like me. I don't even care if you respect me. But if I said something to you that helped to open up something inside of you that changed your life, then I did my job today because that's what I am here for. I am not here for a popularity contest. I'm not. I'm here to serve God because in serving God, I buy another day

away from the Grim Reaper. Bottom line. So helping others as a foundation stone of our recovery. And I'll tell you something,

I'm gonna, I am. I told you, you know, in when we were talking about the 4th and the 5th step, I told you that, you know, I had a history of sexual abuse and sexual violence. What woman in Alcoholics Anonymous has not Seriously, like you could put you all in a corner. The rest of us, you know, you know, drunk women, we're we're like marks. It says Bing. Anyway, so I spent, I had a lot of a lot of damage and a lot of work I had to do on that. And I'll tell you what, do you know what I did professionally for a really long time?

I worked with developmentally disabled sex offenders.

Let me say that one more time. I worked with developmentally disabled sex offenders professionally. I was, what was I was a victim of a sex offender of a child molester. And God has restored me and healed me to such a degree that I could actually work with sex offenders in a professional level and have absolute compassion and love for them and not see them as being monsters, evil, and see them entirely as being children of God.

Absolutely.

Like not a moment. And my husband, when I took this job, he was like, Are you sure you're going to be OK with that? I'm like, I don't know. God told me to take the job. So I guess I guess I'll find out. And what I found out was that I was absolutely 100% healed.

Healed not a second. I did not feel unsafe for a millisecond. I absolutely had 100% compassion for these people. So how did helping a bunch of drunks, getting my jewelry stolen in my house smashed and getting woken up in the middle might have anything to do with that? Because when you start working with people and the level that Chris and I are talking about when you said eyeball to eyeball, when you when the God in you

connects to the God and other people and you do this on a regular basis, you do this on a daily basis and it comes a part of your daily living. Give us a part of breathing. It comes a part of every single thing that you do, every moment of every day.

You start to see the world in a completely different way. You start to see God in every single thing that you do and every person you meet,

and you begin to see people in terms of being children of God. You experience what it means to be a child of God and you experience other people in terms of them being children of a loving Creator.

And you stop seeing them in terms of labels. And I, I would tell these people and I would tell, you know, these people, I mean, they were literally out of jail, man there. I'm there to patrol and control. They were monitored 24 hours a day at all times, you know, and they would ask me, they would say, you know, how do you work with people like me?

And I would tell them and I would just look them dead in the eye and said, you're a child of God, why wouldn't I? You need my help more than anybody else.

And these men, these grown men would cry.

They couldn't believe that I could see them as anything other than the thing. And I looked at them, I would say I wouldn't want you to judge me by the worst thing I have ever done in my life.

I wouldn't want you to judge me on that. And I won't judge you on the thing, the worst thing you ever did in your life. I will see you as a child of God and I will see you as the person you are now and I will love you accordingly. I will also monitor you at all times in the community and keep all children in pornographic materials away from you because that is my job. But that doesn't mean that I don't see you as being a being. That doesn't mean I don't see you as being a child of God, and doesn't mean that I don't see you as being exactly who you are today and deserving of love no matter what it is that you have done

so. The experience of doing this, having this conversation, the willingness to have our waking moments, the willingness to take people into our lives, the willingness to open ourselves up, the willingness to share

with others. This experience has made me an A person that I don't even recognize in so many ways

and has made me whole in a way that I could never have dreamed. I always believed that there was going to be some broken part of me. I wrote resentment after resentment inventory on why do I have to be broken for what other people did to me and today that is not my truth. I am not broken in any way, shape or form.

It doesn't exist. I woke up to the fact that I was whole. I didn't know that until that moment. And that's the beautiful thing about God's universe and doing this deal.

Do you want to

or did I interrupt your? No, no, I'm. I'm always trying to be prepared.

I mean, you know, I'm going to I'm going to interrupt the flow of this chapter just to read Probably my favorite sentence in Alcoholics Anonymous

ace 12 steps are a groups of principles, spiritual in nature, which if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable to suffer to become happily and usefully whole. That's got to be my favorite sentence ever. And let's look at that really closely that,

oh, I'm sorry, it's a forward from the 12:00 and 12:00. So you're going to be out of luck with the page. This is the

people that we've yeah, we we think you can read our mind and you know all the all the page numbers, the way you just start reading a sentence like all about all of a sudden, like we just pull it up in our brain. So we forget that not sorry, my apologies. Anyway, the 12 steps are a group of principles spiritual in their nature. If when practice is a way of life can expel the obsession to drink and enable you to become happily and usefully whole. That basically says it all there. So what is our job? What is our job? An adequate presentation of the 12 steps

wrote That said basically the sponsors responsibility is an adequate presentation of the 12 steps. Listen, can we, can we, can we drive them to traffic court? You know, can, can you know, can we have invite them over for dinner? Can we be their friend? Can we do all this other stuff? Absolutely. Absolutely. But what do we have to do? What we have to do is adequately present the 12 steps because that is what's going to enable them to become happily and usefully whole and expel the obsession

drink with them. On page 96, we're going back to the book Alcoholic synonymous to not be discouraged, discouraged if your prospect does not respond at once. Here's another thing. You know, we do our best. We do our best with presenting this material. We do our best with the 12 step call, sharing our experience, strength and hope and helping to helping the to identify with the alcoholic.

But sometimes they're just, they're just not ready. They cannot or they will not

give themselves to this simple this program. Now, what I found through my experiences is, is if I've done my job well, there's a real good chance I'm going to get a call sometime in the future. What I don't want to do is get desperate like I have got to get this guy, you know, to to to Happy Hills and you know, and to the meeting. You know,

there really shouldn't be that type of desperation. If someone is not going to work with you, you want to part on a friendly terms. You want to make sure that they have your phone number and make sure that they understand what you're about, you're about you're about the business of helping. And if they call you, you'll, you'll make yourself available,

search out another alcoholic and try again. You're, you're, you're sure to find someone desperate enough to accept the eagerness what you offer. So we are supposed to leave somebody in the dust if they're if they cannot or will not give themselves to this simple program. What we're supposed to do is hand them our phone number and say bye bye and move on to try to find somebody who is going to be willing to go through the steps with you. We're not supposed to waste our time trying to convince somebody

of something that they're unwilling to do. Let let alcohol convince them, you know, that's what alcohol is for. Let alcohol convince them. I don't believe anymore that it's a bad thing that an alcoholic drinks on certain occasions. Sometimes that is exactly what they need to become convinced in the power, in their own personal powerlessness. Sometimes they need to experience one more binge

to, to say to themselves, you know what those a as were right.

You know, I, I, I guess I need to get busy with this stuff. My, my relapse. What happened with me was I relapsed on the way to an AA meeting one time and I talked a little bit about that when I shared on the first step. Do I look when, when I, when I, when I was real close to that experience. It was the absolute worst thing that happened to me. Oh my God, it was seven months of gruesome, pathetic, decadent alcoholic drinking. It was, it was grim.

I mean, I was at a point where I wouldn't even get up to go vomit. I would, I would vomit out my window, you know, and people would be walking by the sidewalk below. And I mean, it was just, it was just gruesome. I mean, you know, I lived

to experience the release of of Oblivion. You know exactly what it talks about in in Bill Wilson's story, you know, a couple more pints and Oblivion. I was looking for Oblivion in those last seven months.

So it was it was grim. It was grim. But what those seven months did was they absolutely convinced me in my own hopelessness and powerlessness. So when I came back into Alcoholics Anonymous, I was willing to listen. I was willing to participate. I was willing to, to believe that maybe you had some information and I should follow some of that information in that and