Q&A on the topic of 'How we met our sponsors' at a workshop called Kitchen Table AA in New Orleans, LA

It's hard to bring it home,

you and A.

So it's 11

go to 11:30

out of the treatment center. Guys had to go, They had to go,

he said. People didn't get up and walk out. They had to go back to their treatment

center.

So as you guys

as as you guys have witnessed, we have a lot of opinions.

All right, Jayden, you got it.

Good job. No, no, he's perfect. He's perfect.

I hope you meet God.

So anyway, we would love to share our experience, strength and hope

with our experience in working with others,

countless people. So anybody got any questions?

You gonna break for lunch already? Come on.

Yes,

the whole God thing. Have you ever experienced just not using the word job deliberately because it's a reaction that provokes as opposed to not?

I'm hung up on the word politics. I'm sorry, I said. I'm hung up when I talk about it. I thought about opening the power instead of opening God, because nobody knows what I mean by and they have lots of preconceptions.

Always seems to be a fairly

simple way of avoiding the.

I'll tell you they use the power X times in the book.

We're higher twice, so it's greater power, not higher. But

I wondered if

I use manager.

I use manager,

repeat the question, yes. Do we use a different word other than God when we're working with people and stuff? Because there's so much baggage that people bring in and put on the table when you say God. And that's my experience personally, and this is just my personal feeling is I react very negatively to that term.

I just autonomically, I just, I don't like it. I think it's stupid and,

and that's where I go with that. And that's just me. So when I work with guys, you know, I talk about,

you know, the essence, the oneness of all things. And just as a short thing, I just talk about the manager.

You know that what's what's going on is, you know, I've, I'm, I'm powerless, you know, over absolutely everything. I need to align myself with the power. That's what the steps are guiding me towards. I'm going to turn my life and will over to what already has it anyway. You know, it's clear to me that I'm no longer separate. You know, that's the illusion, that's the Maya. You know, I can't possibly be separate from nature. So what I'm trying to do is come together with it

to have a consciousness that understands it. And I believe what Alcoholics Anonymous does is it subtracts away from us anything that is blocking us from being able to see the truth of that, that we are all connected, that we are all part of the same thing, all of us. This guru friend of mine, I was talking to him about, you know, there really is no separate separation between people. You know, there's this illusion that there's a stand alone unique entity called Bill Cleveland. He looked at me and laughed. And he says

in the intermediate phase,

and I thought that's, that's pretty good, man. I feel that I'm intermediate, man, you know, I'm not a beginner anymore, you know, And I said, So what he says, well, the real truth seems to be seems to be that there is a, a Bill Cleveland has certain tastes, likes and dislikes and mannerisms. He comes from a certain place. The problem is the attachment we have to that,

and this egoic mind tells us that we are like this and we attempt to become like it is thinking we should be.

There's the essence of the problem is this attachment to this very third dimensional egoic mind that lives in the past or in the future, never in the present moment where there's nothing to do. So once you see that in meditation, you can separate yourself from your thinking mind. It isn't the great benefit that you once thought it was. It's really good adding up columns of figures and reading. But as far as

interpersonal relationships, whoa,

you know, it's not a really good. So evidently there must be this manager, this oneness, this unicity. Something is happening. Is it conscious or anthropomorphic? Does it think and know that? Is it a conscious of me? Well, who the hell knows? You know, true faith, real faith is not knowing and having that be OK,

that everything is just absolutely as it should be all the time. It could not possibly be any different than it is,

and all is well.

Nothing's wrong, ever.

I have difficulty with that, but I have faith in it. I think that's really true.

So math, the alcoholic. Great question. And I, you know, one of the great things about a, a right is that the reason you're responsible to have a message of depth and weight is you're uniquely capable of helping someone that I can't help because I have my experience. And my experience is I went to Catholic school and I thought from my parents paying tuition every month that they were taking that seriously

so that I should fall in line. And I was a pretty open, happy little kid. And

my experience, and I'm not saying this is the Catholic Church, this is my experience. That means this is the way I heard it. This is the way I took it in. I'm not sure they were even saying these things, right? But by the time I was done with that, I felt that God hated me. I felt that for, well, you know, I remember this is a story I tell. This did actually happen. Sister Dennis Ann, who's dead, so I can say her by name now, looked at me in 8th grade when I'm 14, going on 15. And I've got hormones like coming out of my forehead, right?

And she said, you know, if you're even thinking about sex, you're going to hell.

And I was like, oh God, right, Because I brushed my teeth this morning. So there was like 2 minutes where I didn't think about sex.

And then I looked around the room and I said, well, it's going to be crowded, sister. Because I know him and I know him and I know what he's thinking about right now. And

so I had that impression from things I was told about God, right? And then by the time I got to AAI had earned a permanent seat in hell, if there was such a thing as hell. But I think God's always kind of communicating through us. Now, my experience now in this timeless plenty of being, I'm even more wrapped up than most because I have a minor in a religious studies. So I went to Catholic school, actually went to the seminary for a month. They used to give you a little trial memberships of the seminary. I flunked,

but I went home and thought it's not for me. And I got, I really am curious. I don't know if I would be a spiritual seeker as much as I am if I didn't go to Catholic school. But on my father's deathbed, I said, Daddy, you are you. What do you think? You know, you've been going to church almost every day for the last several years. And he goes, you know what I think about God, Matthew, this is while I'm sober at his death. But he said, I think God standing on a mountain, I think there's a railroad that goes around the mountain, one track, and there's a train coming this way.

And there's a train coming this way. And God can see what's about to happen. And he's thinking, that's a hell of a way to run a railroad.

And I said, that's what you believe. After all the crap I've been through at Catholic school, this is what you're leaving me with? And he laughed. So I came with all that. So I am uniquely qualified to help somebody who has that kind of issue, right? But I'll also tell you that I love the way Bill says it. Experience, experience, right? My wife, who's not particularly religious or spiritual,

right, I pray every night. In fact, the first night we spent together, I knew we were going to spend the night together and she went in the bathroom. Well, I'm only a year and a half, two years sober and I've never not prayed since I got sober. So I seen she went to the bathroom. I dropped to my knees by the side of the bed and I'm praying hoping she won't come out. She came out and she put her arm against the doorway and said, are you praying for that which I'm about to receive? Thank you.

And I said, as a matter of fact, I am and

but I pray every night and she sometimes I think we've been married 20 years, 3-4 times. She's reached over the bed and held my hand

in 20 years. But she did say to me once when we were talking about God, some sponses and he said, you know, it seems to me that if there is a God, it certainly can't be contained in a concept. Any concept of God is heretical because it's an insult to something that's omnipresent and omnipotent to fit it into a concept. And I'm like, where did this come from,

Miss? I'll hold your hand four times in 20 years. But so this is what we come to. I mean, Bill tried to describe it. I tried to describe it. And the question was to use a different word.

What I always say is don't worry about right? Like anybody who thinks they work the third step when they did a third step, that's a little crazy, right? I'm going to turn my will of my life over to the Caribbean

because that's where I'm like, I'm just doing this because he told me to. But then I have had moments in my life

where I'll call somebody and I'll say, you know, I got this thing. They're doing a background check on me. Or, you know, my kid, it's got this thing. It just he might be in trouble. And, you know, my wife has got this thing. And they go and occasionally someone will say, I'm sorry. I thought I was talking to somebody who did a third step

and you go, oh, yeah. Or to put it a more clear example, as I was after Philip, I had her stroke and the kids were little, and I had a new job. And I was, you know, trying to keep up with my A, A stuff and my parenting stuff and my husband stuff and my Matthew self-care program, which wasn't going very well. I was on the 710 freeway. And I started realizing my brain started going, You're a crappy father.

People really knew you. They take those kids away.

You're a shitty husband. You want everybody. Thank you, this awesome guy who takes care of his newly disabled wife. But you're, you're crappy. She doesn't feel loved and supported by you. She feels condescended to. You're a terrible employee. God, if they knew the crap you did, the times you knocked off from work, the phone calls you didn't make today, you get fired. So I'm imploding on the 7th and freeway and I call Bill and very rarely does this happen. But Bill didn't answer,

right?

So I called Jay and I explained how terrible I am, but my whole life, right? And he laughs and he says, let's pretend for just a moment that you're not in charge.

And I started laughing, right? And all this stress and he never said the word God to me.

But like Bill says, and another thing, this guy mutual fund of ours says, he goes, you're under the delusion that you're the doer, you know, and I watched this really beautiful film about a silent order of of monks. And one of the quotes they put up is said, if you look at your life and every great gift you've gotten has been given to you, why do you act as if you earned it?

And I look at my life and I walked up to a bus stop and met a woman who blew my mind and changed my horizons and raised my standards and continues to teach me with her disabilities and their shortcomings and her love and her wisdom, right? I had sex because I love to have sex. And I got Rory, who wants to talk at 12:30 in the morning about what he's going to do next year.

You know, I got Sophie, I got Phoebe. I walked into an, A, a meeting because it was close to my house

and I got these guys. Why do I act as if I've earned that? And why do I have to put a concept around that? So when I come to speak to you, to answer your question, I just say, don't worry about it because let's see what happens. Let's pretend this is true. You know, one of the great orders of the steps is like, well, if a guy says, well, I don't want to do a four step to go, well, the third step says you turned your will and your life over to the care of God. Let's write the 4th step as if you actually meant that. Meaning I'm going to risk

daring to tell the whole truth to one other person. That's your first step of proving you're turning your only life over to whatever, to whatever is growing my hair and beating my heart. You know, to whatever is making all these amazing coincidences happen to whatever the stream of life direction is going. Maybe you can risk just enough to tell the truth the one person and see what happens.

Thank you.

I don't change my approach to make somebody comfortable.

That's not my job.

I have to be authentic to who I am and to whom my what my experience is. I don't apologize to anybody and,

and when I

but I'm kind

and I'm patient and I'm intuitive. Now, you heard that I let boy wander off on the third step because he was, you know, he wanted to talk about, you know, deism and all this other stuff, you know, and I, I just didn't have the bandwidth for it And,

and, and I wasn't that interested. And he could talk forever. And I, I just, you know,

and so I skipped it. It was, it was, it was self-care.

The

knowing that if he did the other, if he stayed with the process, that what I would. I knew that he'd done the third step in that he was doing everything that I asked him to do

and that the jousting over the order of this thing was not going to be,

was not going to be productive to anyone.

And so I I honored his experience and his intellectual nonsense.

I don't honor it but I just skipped it.

Stupid and

didn't say you're stupid. I said it's stupid

and

not right now. But so there's there's that part of it now, now in the book. One of the things that now back to my experience with Alcoholics Anonymous

1979 to about 1990,

everybody that I work with generally has had some experience in a classical religious thing. They've been sent to Sunday school, something like that. Post 1990, It's it's we're in the post Christian era

and at least in Southern California. Let's talk about what

and and so those conversations aren't the same anymore. Now,

one of the things that's been most helpful when we get to Step 3, which is where the real God question comes up,

is it says here in the book that

we found a desirable blah, blah, blah. The wording, of course, was quite optional, so long as we express the idea of voicing it without reservation. Now I'm generally speaking to a man who only has is parroting opinions of other people about religion and about God.

They don't have any personal experience.

The only prayer they are familiar with is maybe they were given Now I Lay Me down to sleep by a grandparent

or parroting the prayers in the rooms.

So what I do is I have them write their own third step prayer in their own words, what this does. And then I have them write it in their book what this does. And at the same time, I will write my own, you know, and my owner things like, dude,

it's me again.

I'm under the illusion that I am controlling something.

Please remove from me anything

that I may think

about how things should be so that I may receive what it is that you have for me to perceive and enjoy this day.

And I have them right There's in their book. That may be the first prayer they've ever said

and it's theirs and it's in their words and it's not use, it'll use whatever terminology they wish to use. So that's that's how I do that. Now the other thing is, is that I am also very, very committed to the fact that everybody gets to sit at the table at a A and that there is no

fealty at. One of the things that I, I am is I,

I'm the most fortunate man you've ever met. All of you except yourself.

But my experience is, is that I I have a wonderful relationship with the author of this book. I've read hundreds and hundreds of his personal letters

as research to something that I'm working on.

He talks about the steps being only there to be taken in whatever order and whatever time a person does now. I think that's absolutely embarrassing. Kick that guy out now. Now,

but you know, Bill was an atheist.

He would not create an organization where any atheist or agnostic couldn't be. And I had the good fortune because I still show up where my sponsor says he's going to show up. I showed up at the first ever international conference of

we Agnostics, Atheists and Freethinkers and Alcoholics Anonymous and. And when I went with him, yeah. And we went so that we would have an experience

and not an opinion.

And I.

One of the greatest privileges in this world is having getting a new friend and a colleague on this path.

And one of my dear friend, my my new friends is a guy by the name of Joe C and he wrote a book called Beyond Belief Musings for Atheists and Agnostics on the 12 step path. Get the book,

get the book. It's really good. It's really good.

And,

and he is

a, he's as a committed an, a a member and I'm, I'm very, very proud to have him be a friend of mine. And we, we, we do some stuff together and, and right now they've got a thing in Toronto where they, you know, they, they've kicked him out of the a, a the agnostic meetings and, and it's just hilarious, you know, but the,

we can go into all that. But but,

but back to this thing about

what is it that we have? What are we passing on?

I am not passing on a belief in God.

I passed my experience on,

William, James said. Experience Trump's theology,

OK Experience Trump's anything in the month, OK.

And I've got my experiences and, and I can talk about him using the G word or not using the G word, but I use the G word because that's me,

OK. And that's, that's what I but

it's, it's important for me

to continue to pass on this legacy of a recovery from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.

The consciousness of my awareness of the Presence comes from the action,

not from the belief.

I don't believe. Then I do I do. And then I interpret the experience. This is what I do with people. But I don't, you know, I mean, I'm, we're, we're going through a book that was written in the mid 30s. And I'm not going to, I'm not going to apologize for them, nor am I going to make it easy for you,

you know, I mean, but I also am going to be, I'm going to respond to my own intuition.

Anybody else?

Yes,

something that you say you won't anymore. What is it?

So Bill, I'll start youngest to oldest,

the he's a cute beetle. Sorry, I'm Paul. So I was told that Bill told me not to fire him. But let's take the first part of the sentence. How is sponsorship changed over time? Well, obviously if I'm developing the art of helping other people, it changes quite profoundly. And I'll give you a really short, I always prefer the experiential stories than we launched and we all launched into conceptual thinking, which I love about us. But

I live in an apartment complex, right,

with my wife when we were first together. And at night, I'd come home from the airline sometimes around midnight, and there'd be this glow of a cigarette in the corner by the pool. And I started talking to this guy and he's a drunk guy in his 20s. He lives with his dad, who's a recently born again Christian with the new very young trophy wife. Awesome situation for this kid. And he's a drunk, you know, sitting by the pool every night. And he kept saying to me, you know, I almost was a pro surfer. He brought that up a lot. And yeah, I,

my dad and I and I, you know, he's drunk all the time. And I told him I was sober and he kind of looked at me and then a couple of nights later I said, hey, almost pro surfer, when are you going to do something about it? And he listened to me and said, F you, dude.

And I totally betrayed everything I learned in this book because I would come at this, Hey, I'm with the I'm with the Gestapo of a, a man. I know everything and I'm going to shove it down your throat. So what I learned that is a few months later, he's sitting by the pool again and I came home in a different mood. I actually came home from a meeting.

I said, how you doing? And he goes, I'm all right. And I said, really? I said, do you drink in your bedroom? And he said, yeah. I said, so is your bedroom because his apartment was like, my apartment. Is it at the end of the close to the door? And he goes, it's at the end. I go, see, you got a time when you leave your room to get out the door so they don't know you're drunk. And he goes, yeah. And I go, God, I hate that part. That sucks, huh? And he's like, yeah, that sucks. How do you know?

And I go because that's what I did for years, whether it was with girls I was living with or parents,

college roommates, It's always acting like I wasn't doing what I was doing. And man, it's lonely, isn't he goes, yeah, it's lonely. I said you miss surfing because I really miss surfing. And he went to the meeting with me the next week.

So how I've adjusted a little story, but how I've adjusted in sponsorship is AI learned from Bill. Try not to get involved in their drama. I'm not a marriage counselor. I have pretended to be one. And I don't know if I've helped or hurt. I really don't know. Certainly didn't. It wasn't neutral.

I and you know what? What I constantly try to do is, hey, let's get back to this book. Let's get back to this book. Let's get back to this book. So do I have a line where I don't sponsor people 'cause I'm not comfortable with them? No, I just don't. They don't come do their stuff at my house.

You know what what happened the one time I let a guy go and I asked Bill about it is and and this will happen. People will come to you and say, I want what you have. And then they'll call you and complain about their lives or their wives or their jobs or how everything sucks and you go, hey, well, let's get together and read the book. And then they don't show up. And then they called and claimed about their wives and their lives and their jobs. And then the third or fourth time through training, I say, you know, you approached me because you wanted the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. That's really what

offer you. I'm not interested in listening to you right now. If you want to come to my house and read the book and start on a path where these things take care of themselves, let's do it. If not, I'm not here for that. I'm a sponsor in a a I'm not a free therapist who has to listen to you. I, if you want what I have is what Bill always says to say, do what I do. You don't do what I do and you're not getting what I've got.

So that's one way to thin out the herd. And

but the one time I did let a guy go is he wanted to tell everybody I was a sponsor.

But I said, you know, he'd never done a four step. He was a hoarder. He couldn't stay employed. And I said, look, just write one name down. And for six months he wouldn't write one name down. So I said, I'm giving you seven days to write a name down. If you don't write a name down, get another sponsor. And he said, well, you don't fire people. I said you'd be quitting,

right? And seven days later,

he did not write a name down.

And I said, I'm no longer your sponsor. Please don't tell anybody I'm your sponsor and stop calling me. And he was sober a long time, five or six years.

Well, he has since done a fifth step. He isn't a hoarder anymore. And he made amends to me, which he didn't need to do. But he came to me and said, you know, you were just trying to help me, right? So do you see what I mean? If I'm not involved in their drama, there's nothing to fire them over. Do I feel comfortable with everything people say to me? No, but I don't have. But I feel comfortable with the path on the map. And I know if we walk to the places that are designated on the map and dig,

they will get well. So best match?

I can't take us anywhere.

I have an announcement. My daughter

is in labor. Yeah,

I suspect she's been having sex with her husband.

Her name is Mary.

Yeah. Second grandchild, second boy.

Very exciting.

You don't have to fire them. They just go away.

You know, I have a rule. You never fire them.

That's how you learn patience and tolerance. But that doesn't mean I'm going to be nice to you, you know? I mean, I will tell you things that you may not want to hear. You know, I haven't fallen victim to this lie that goes around a, A, that we don't give advice or express opinions.

If we didn't do those two things, we wouldn't have anything to say to each other, you know, and, and if you asked me for advice, I'll give you some advice. Like, you know, most of it's very simple.

You know, he told me one time I was complaining about my wife and I said we got into this big screaming fight and he goes stop yelling at her.

And he clearly what hadn't been listening to me

and I said, but she said he goes stop yelling at her. He wasn't interested in what she said.

You know, he wanted me to stop yelling at my wife

and and I. That's the kind of stuff we're talking about,

you know, don't yell at her, stop dancing, that kind of thing.

The thing about rejecting certain people,

I had this whole little rant that I do about

people on medication, drug addicts in a A

and I did my little rant one time and this woman came up to me after the meeting and she said

this girl asked me to sponsor her, but she's a cocaine addict and I've never done cocaine. So I told her, no, what do you think? And I said, well, you're never going to learn about cocaine addiction now, you know, because you sent her away. And I think you'd find it quite interesting.

The reason God gave Alcoholics cocaine is so we could drink more.

That's exactly what it's for. People that do it all by itself without drinking, they can go to those other meetings, you know, I don't get those people. You know, second thing is, is I think I told her, I said, and I believe this very strongly, I don't think the girl needs any help with her cocaine addiction. I think she's got that down pretty good, you know, But

you know about recovery, don't you? And I believe that's what she's looking for.

And if she's anything like you, she's probably ended up in a state of incomprehensible demoralization. Who cares what the vehicle was?

OK, now how do I know? Because I'm not in charge of this process. I did not solicit this person to come to me and ask for help. They came voluntarily, walked across the room and asked me for help. I do not believe that is a mistake that needs to be filtered by me.

You know, my thinking is very prejudice narrow, and I will preclude myself from having an experience that may very well change my entire life.

I know about recovery. I don't care what your problem is now. If it doesn't, it isn't going to work out. Maybe you need to hang on to me for a while until you find the right person to be with.

That's happened to me a lot over the years. Somebody will grab a hold of me and come along and all of a sudden they disappear. This guy was showing up at my office real regular for quite a long time and he just disappeared.

Years later, I go to this meeting that I never go to.

And I just popped in there and this guy taps me on the shoulder and he and I turn around and I look at him and he goes, you Remember Me? And I, I remembered his face. Go. I said, well, yeah, I remember you, what happened to you? And he goes, well, ever since I got rid of you and got this other guy, been doing great.

And he laughed. I laughed, we hugged each other. It was just like, and that's exactly what happened, You know, he says that guy's a pain in the ass, find somebody else. And he just wandered off, you know, and mean some people you click with, some you don't.

But I don't need to control the experience.

People on medication,

that's a big one. It's a big one in our area. You'll hear lots of people express opinions that just absolutely screw me into the ceiling. You know, now I've experienced people that are truly bipolar.

I've seen that demon. I've looked it in the eye and seen it. This guy walked across my living room one time, curled up in my lap. He's a 40 year old grown man. Put his head in my neck and just started sobbing and crying

at the pain of just being alive

sober

now. That's not normal.

My wife walked through the living room and saw that she went whoa, and that'll get your attention. People have demons I don't have, and evidently in my arrogance, if I don't have that demon, I somehow believe you're faking it.

Why would you do that

question #1 why would you fake being like that, being in that much pain?

You know, I got this guy to go to a doctor. They checked his blood levels and gave him some medication and

he's better. He's sober today. This was years ago.

People on medication. Are people being over medicated? Oh, absolutely.

They hand it out like candy. And I don't agree. There's a lot of stuff I don't agree with. But in our area, all these young kids that are coming into the recovery industry, they're all medicated, you know, all of them have been on shit since they were 11 or 12 years old. You know, if they stay sober, they'll probably sort that out. So when some kid comes to me and he's 18/19/2020 1:22

when they hit 30I, I make myself stop calling them children

because they're staying sober now for long periods of time.

If they, if they come and they come up to me and they're totally politically incorrect.

They're tweakers, they're crackheads. They maybe did a little drinking. They sent him to a, a what am I supposed to do, weed them out? Am I the filter at the Hermosa Beach Men's tag? You know that. Should we check them at the door and make sure they're correctly alcoholic enough to come to our meeting?

They come and you ask for help and you give them some help. Do the best you can. Tell them how to behave in a A. They're looking for that. They want somebody to take them by the hand. They maybe have never had anybody that they could really look up to feel close to. I tell them you're not broken, you're just fine, man. This is it. Couldn't have been any different than it is.

My experience with that is as time goes by, if they stay sober and they grab ahold of it, which a lot of them have,

they will wean themselves off the medication. They don't want to be on it, they don't want to be on it, they want to be sober. When they wean themselves off, the real problems will present themselves or not

and it'll work itself out.

It I can't work it out for them. I'm not a doctor. Have I learned a lot about medication over the years? Absolutely. I got a couple of guys that are like a physician's desk reference. So I swear to God this is true. A guy will come to me and he goes, they got me and I said what are you taking

guy? Says Risperdal.

And I call Kevin. I go Kevin. What's her spiritual Whoa?

It really goes all that's a bad one. It's a bad one. They give it to schizophrenics, you know, to stop the voices. And I said, well, Kevin, do do you have voices? He goes. Not anymore.

So you learn, you learn. Pay attention, open your ears. Don't be afraid of it. They can't. They can't hurt us. The atheist can't hurt us. The medicated people can't hurt us. The drug, The drug addicts have been destroying Alcoholics Anonymous since 1935.

Any minute, the whole goddamn thing is going to collapse in the sheer weight of the crackheads, you know? You know, it's like they can't hurt us. And this whole idea of identification has gone way off the track to me, as far as I'm concerned, way off the track. I believe in singleness of purpose. I believe in separate programs for separate problems. But how separate are the problems?

We make the decisions to start separate 12 step programs because we so desperately want to be different.

You know, how different is a junkie from an alcoholic really? I mean, if you boil it down, how different are they? Don't they end up in the same place we end up in, You know? I mean, drug addicts are a little hipper, you know, They would never call the police on themselves like I did.

There are some subtle differences, you know, you know they're a little bit more criminal than the alcoholic. Like Matthew says, the Alcoholics always attempting to do something,

the drug addicts actually complete the robbery

because they're wide awake and armed.

But as far as recovery is concerned, you know, I just don't waste a lot of time worrying about the differences.

God never puts two people together

to only help once.

I have no idea why you're in front.

I have no idea.

My only job is to listen,

to give whatever instruction I can, to give whatever instruction I can't. The other thing is that

nowadays what happens is, is when, because I don't get many new people. I mean, I wouldn't talk to anybody over four years sober when I was there, you know, I just wouldn't. And if somebody had over 10, I just, I'd leave the room just because I was afraid I'd mess myself. And

but when a man comes to me now, what I do is, is the first thing I do when he's asking me to sponsor him or we're we're getting into conversation, is I give him a piece of paper and a pencil. And I said, write down your fears. I'll be back in 20 minutes

and then, you know, let's get it out because they're they're coming. You come to me, you're in serious trouble. You know, I mean, and we got to get triage going now. I'm not going to go back and let's get the tourniquet. Let's go. And so that's what I do because they, you know, it's she's going to leave me. They're going to fire me. You know, guys have been sober a while, you know they're going to find out.

And so I mean, that's if you talk about,

you know, practical thing about sponsoring people, how do I folks that are down the line, somebody's approached me, give me your fears. We can go back and start this later, but let's get let's get that out now. It's like Lance and the boil. And so that's a, a real good practical thing that I actually, I think that anybody could do, you know, when you're having that first conversation, because you can let him know,

you know, they're alcoholic males. I mean, come on, how complex is it?

All right, you know, come back. We can deal with that, you know. Oh, you're afraid. Really. We've got a section on that.

No problem, you know,

please. So there's that. The other thing is, is that I,

I trust the evolution of the collective

of the collective. In other words, we're, we're going along and, and it's going to be fine. And, and whatever your path is, what the person that's presented to me, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to do what I can and, and whatever, you know, happens, happens. But I, I,

I give him my best shot.

So I guess that's how it's changed. I mean, it used to be, you know, work the steps or die, you know, get into the book now, you know, I mean, Bang Bang, bang. And that's a really good, best sponsors in the world, 2 to 8 years. If they're still smoking,

you know, then they really are righteous because they didn't really tell you how to do it.

They're still right all the time. They know everything, Everything.

What's your experience in being resentful towards the people? They feeling unaccepted and disliked by them? He's looking right at you, Jay. Take that.

OK, The question. The question is, how do you deal with the fact that people hate you in alcohol,

the old kind of fun, It's better to give a resentment than to get one.

And

I don't stand against anybody.

I'm true to myself

and

and we have a really big and wide life in Alcoholics Anonymous

and we've got this little funny meeting that Hermosa Beach men's tag. And for some reason, God has made it so that they're like seven or eight of us that do this kind of stuff.

It's really quite remarkable. And it's because we're safe to be around and that we won't engage

or tell somebody that their style of a, A is right or

but

Alcoholics Anonymous,

and it may be

more a societal thing is doers get criticized

and they're generally criticized by people that don't do.

And so I, you know, I mean, I,