The second annual Fellowship Of The Spirit convention in Cuyahoga Falls, OH

I hate to interrupt this stuff because the fellowship that goes on between the meetings is really important here too.

So anyway,

I did what he said. I, I, I did take a review of my first step in depth. And when I did that, I, I, I asked myself, is there any possibility that I could drink again?

What could happen with that?

And I wasn't. I wasn't. I was at a point in my life where, even with the misbehavior going on, I don't recall that I ever thought about drinking or ever thought about not drinking. I don't remember those being a conscious part of my thinking. But I knew that I was. I felt like how living hell, living the lie.

And that's the one I called Paul and he had me review those first three steps.

I look at that very hard. And I was easy to review the unmanageable part of my life because I just had 20 years of of, of, of experience behind me where my management skills really showed their butt. And

I can see that that wasn't working with what I was doing at all.

And so then then came the question,

do I now believe or am I willing to believe that God can help me out with this,

with that? And I agree that I knew he could because I had experience with that, with that. And so I, I took the third step of prayer with her own and, and we went on

from there and I sat down to write the inventory.

And

I'd written lots of inventories at that point in time, Don and I and the Demi young people who anytime we thought we needed an inventory, we wrote it down. We didn't call it 10th step. We look, we never found any place in the book where it told us to stop writing inventories.

How you write inventories, you take pad and pencil out and you do it with that. So we were writing and swapping fifth steps often or not swapping them, but but if you will, cheering fists at all. And what we did actually was then I'll go back to that again too, because we took the 10th step literally and did precisely what it says in the book. Very few people do that. But that we thought we'd be unusual.

And

so anyway,

I went home and I can't think

what's going on and help my book and I help my pad and pencil and I think, I wonder where I'm going to start.

I don't know where this came from. I never came as far my story, and I wrote three names down of some kids I knew in high school,

John and Bill and Larry, I think his name was.

And I didn't want to write it down when I started it

'cause I got that old damn feeling going on, honey. I felt what was going on with that,

and the minute I finished it, I knew what it was.

The summer between my freshman year and sophomore year in high school, I grew almost 6 inches.

I went from about 5-6 to six two. And you grow that fast, your body doesn't really catch up to it. I couldn't read across the table to grab the gravy because I'd knock something over on the way and my my ability to run was ugly and and that so I thought I would try out for football,

which in fact helped me very well for a while. But we attended a football camp at a Boy Scout live in the mountains West of Cheyenne, Ohio, Heinz Lodge and and only the Cheyenne high school football team had that whole lot. And we slept in eight or ten man steps and had group showers

and latrines down the way you walk. It's one afternoon after practice.

We had the whole mountain there to ourselves. All we do is wrap a towel around ourselves and walk back and forth to go get our shower. And I'm heading back to my tent to do that when when these guys grabbing and they took me down to a tent down there where there's a whole tent for a guy

and I'm not wanting to go. So mean time on the way down there, my towel disappears

and I I'm tidespread eagle to those old army cots. You've never just the spring with pads on them. And then Kai sled eagle there and blindfolded and, and, and I'm terribly ashamed of my physical shape and every other thing out there. And I like that. And they're dragging wet ropes over me and telling me they're snakes and

and then they let me go and they're all laughing like crazy and talking.

Welli had not remembered

that experience all my way through high school, all my way through drinking, all the way through sobriety. And I was over 16 years sober,

a 20 year old

when that came to me. And that's why I didn't want to write it all down

and put it in the inventory. But what that experience did for me is it made all my other inventory really easy.

And I and I went back through my life and, and I and

I never repeated a resentment in that resentment list from all inventories I've done yesterday. We were a lot of inventory, but I don't think I've ever repeated one. What's that? And my fair inventory. Well, you're always repeating that. That doesn't seem to change that the fear shows up, does it?

So that was that was very much the same. But my conduct inventory, the sex going on, I called a sex inventory, a conduct inventory.

And in this particular case, it was primarily about those partners I'd had and remembered him.

And then there's nine questions in your big book. Yeah,

you don't think they're Trust me, take a book out and count or nine questions.

And of course, the key question in there is was it selfish or not? Was I there?

Of course it was

so anyway, But

you don't have to have a sexual relationship with somebody to examine your conduct with somebody. You can ask those nine questions to anybody that's in there that that you you suspect might need to be on that list for some reason.

You ever run into somebody and feel a little squirmy while it there? And did I do something to them? When was the last time we're together? Write his name down and ask each one of those nine questions or her name.

See where it goes. It could be very, very helpful

with that. And so I,

I finished it, that inventory and I called Paul

and he said, can you be? Oh, he didn't, he didn't say. I said, can you be? He said you have yourself at this motel

in La Grange, IL, which is on the West side of Chicago,

by 4:00 Friday afternoon.

And I drove up to it and I had this time enough to go across and get a cup of gas station coffee and get back to my room. And there's a knock on the door

and a guy, I opened the door

and the guy standing there with a three ring binder

and he says my name is Dennis. Oh, and I wish I could do the Irish accent because it was pretty thick. He says I'm an alcoholic. I have 29 years of sobriety and I'm here to slap the fifth steps with you.

And he walks into my room, takes the only chair in the room

and sits down in the face. He says, I'm going to swap this step to you. He says I'll go first so you know what to do. And he opens up his ring binder and he reads inventory to me. Dennis and I had written lots of inventory.

We're gently pretty brief in inventories because we're not dealing with Adana, the drama, excuse me, we're trying to find a fax and the figures. And we could do that. So he reads his inventory and then I read mine, and then we sat there a minute and we compared notes because I found some stuff he'd missed and he'd found some stuff I'm. But they were incredibly similar.

Two guys, a significant experience in their lives, and Eric Trevison.

But anyway, Dennis gets up and leaves. I run down to that gas station, get another cup of coffee and another dock in the door and it's time. It's Chuck and he's 21 years sober and he's there to do swap fist steps with me and he's going to go first so I know what to do. Takes that chair

and we do the same thing

by 9:00,

10:00 Sunday morning.

I've done that nine different times with nine different. Paul had the more sobriety and at that point in time he was

3435 years sober and the youngest one, Vinay, I did that. We're with three years and 40 now at three years and four years sober. These were people that were out making amends, you know, and they were way beyond anything I've done in at that point. And you could see it, you could look in their eye and there was somebody home that something was changing in them.

And

so that Sunday, I was told to meet meet some of them at a pancake pancake house after I got there. And there was maybe six of us there

and I thought it was over with

and sit down and

we eat breakfast.

And then one of them says, take your pad and pencil out, Gary, we're going to help you with your mentalist.

And they had really good memories.

And so we went through the resentment list, like the book tells you to pick out the immense owl there. And then Paul asked a very important question for those of us who are in this situation. So he says, what about those people that didn't show up on your resentment list that you owe

immense. I know probably as many of those as that were on that. And we owed a lot of people money.

And those guys were sitting in there and they didn't believe

that I stayed sober through all of that. Their experience had been that anybody with significant sobriety that goes back out. I don't know what's significant and I'm not sure. It could be three years,

could be 50 years,

but some they've done some significant work in AAA and they pulled their punches, They quit, but they're convinced that everybody that goes back out in that situation goes out with unmade amends.

Don't know that that's the reason they go back out,

but it kinda keeps it squirmy if you got some amends out there you haven't taken care of yet. So just thought I'd throw that.

Ah. So anyway, we put that together and I left there convinced that we had to say we because I got home

and I sat down with Julie and we went through the immense list,

the part that I let us see about everything that she would be involved in. And we owed a lot of money.

We owed money to parents, to AA friends, to credit card people, to dial finance and

all these places

and Julie looked at that list and ISIS, we got to get all these taken care of, she says. Those are my Amanda as much as your valence with you when we tied into most of those

and so we agreed to get started on that.

So I got home on Sunday. That following Tuesday, I don't know why I didn't start at money, but the following Tuesday I started the list

and

called Julie's parents and we had taken

borrowed money from Benny number of times. With that

her dad was wising up on the second or third trip, I don't remember what it was. He had to sign a promissory note that would pay it back. Made him feel a lot better, but I had no intention to paint it back in that point. But we needed to needed to start with him. Didn't know why but he he did. So when I called the house in Cheyenne, he answered the phone

and he

I said I told him why I was calling. I said,

Alice, I really got to thank you for something and all I know I worried you to death about the way I was treating your daughter, the way I was treating your grandchildren. And I know it bothered you to death. I know you were incredibly angry with me, but you never once said anything to me about it. He didn't

and

so

I at ready go on. But anyway, I I said I want to talk to you about what else I owe you, but first I need to tell you that I love you.

And he said, oh shit, he gave the phone to grandma.

And so

hiya went through pretty much that same routine.

And then I said, have you any idea how much money you've given us

over the years? She said Right down to the last penny.

And so we made arrangements that a payment plan start paying that back.

And there were several other calls like that.

There was a man in a A who lives in St. Paul, MN.

And

I'm sure he's talking Akron any number of times.

And what had happened is he and I had met in

1977. We were both on a program to talk at

back then. It was just the International Conference of Young people in A A in Houston, TX

and we had met there and really became good friends. He just really liked each other.

And

when I'm causing all this harm and all that, he was going to stop in Indianapolis to see me

on the way to conference somewhere, Virginia or something,

and I want to spend, see Julie and I. And so we

met him at the airport and he and I sat down, had a cup of coffee. He looked me in the eye

and he said, what's going on? He said something wrong here. And I said, yeah, it really is. Nobody else knows about this. But they're, they're going to foreclose on the House tomorrow and Julie doesn't know it. And I'm afraid it'll kill her.

And

I hadn't told anybody that that was that bad. The relief is quite a bit when you finally let go of that. And we're driving on out to the house, going past downtown on Interstate 70. And Bob said which, which bank? And I said, what? What's your bank?

And I said, women wish it back. The one has a note on your house right downtown here. Let's go see see them. Let's have a talk with them,

I said, Bob, they're really tired to talk. I promise you they don't want any talking. Well, I don't know. Let's go see. So we went down there and we crawled up park across the street from it. We're jaywalking into the bank.

And I felt like those times when I was a kid walking into the crystal with my dad, you know, And

we walked in and the

this very angry banker come walking out and he's got this stack of my papers in the note. And all Bob said was, how much did it take to get Gary caught up in his house payment? And the guy also changed a hopeful look on his face, and he opened up and he gave Bob a big number and Bob's carrying it. He had it in his pocket and Traveler's checks and cash

and he

and we get up and leave and I'm not sure I feel any better when we're walking out of there and we're jaywalking back to the car and I said, jeez, Bob, I got to pay that back. He said that's your problem.

I still contend Bob's not that smart to say that, but he could be. Anyway, I had no idea what that was. So anyway, Bob was one of those guys. I called on that a man's list,

whatever that was. 2-3 years later

and

I said, Bob, what's your address? Oh, what? I haven't told you that part of the story we made.

We're really struggling at every payday. If you'll sit down and invite you pay the bills as far as they go, you know, make sure you have money for immediate needs in the house. And then we'll next pay this one on for several weeks. One day I'm there again and the money's gone except for gas money and groceries or whatever it takes. And I went downstairs and I said, Julia, I said I have no idea how long stay. I don't think I'm capable

of ever making enough money to pay all this off. All these men got it. I just can't imagine doing. And I thought I'd get a sliver of sympathy. Jack knows how much sympathy I got.

None. And

so I don't know what I did. And the next morning I come downstairs

and she has an idea

and those of you guys that are scary through spouse, if you she has an idea. Pucker up, man, because anything can happen.

Her idea is that we could, we could. We've had Gary, you had the same job for longer. You've ever worked anywhere. You got all this money in the 401K. He says we could cash at him. She's, we've lived in this house longer than we've ever lived in anywhere and all that. We, you know, we could sell that house

and takes money like that. We could pay off all the amends and probably most our current debt and have enough left that we could buy a used trailer house or something.

And I I'm thinking she can't be serious.

God let her not be safe. And but I knew she was, and so I ran out the door to go to work.

When I got back

that night, I said, well, let's call Paul and see what he said.

And so I call Paul and I say,

let me run this by. We got this local idea

that we could sell a house, cash in all my retirement, pay off all the amends and have enough money left to go live

trailer half. I said, how insane is that? And he said, Gary, that's the sanest thing I've heard out of your mouth in 20 years.

Was it your idea?

And I said no, it was Julie. And he said he thought so

and he was still his best fan the whole time up until he died here.

But, and so took a while, but that's what we did,

uh, sold the house and we paid back everybody in order

there. And I called Bob and Saint Paul said, give me your address. I got the money to pay you.

And he laughed. And I said, well, what's so funny? And he said, well, Cowboys like this back then, the business I had made so much money

that my wife and I would tithe because we get nowhere else to spend the money. We'd give all we could, the church and that sort of thing. So I'm traveling on the circuit, and we were looking for people we thought deserves some financial help. And back then, we helped a lot of people, not just you. He says since then, Congress has changed the law

on forming these investment syndicates

and taking advantage of some depreciation laws that they think. He says we own real estate all around the country, but now we can't use any accelerated

depreciation, excuse me, to generate the cash to do that. And I can, I can explain all that given enough time for those of you that aren't accounts, trust me, it generates cash and we can't do that. So the only cash we're bringing in now, so the rents on the

apartments and I have investments that are after me wanting their money and it's really kind of tough for them, he says. I'm not talking about the Napoleon, but I talked to my sponsor every day about it to make sure I'm staying honest about this whole thing.

And he said the reason I laughed, laughed was is because I go down to the mailbox a couple times a week to get our mail.

And like I said, we always look for people we thought could use the money. And as broke as we are and all that going on, some weeks I go down, I'm going to open the mailbox and there'll be a check in there from one of those people repanding from the tithing we gave them to do that and that's why I left. He said. He says you're just part of the deal

and looking back on that look about that, that you kind of get a feel for how big a deal this is,

if you will.

I what's the old line? What goes back around or it goes around always comes back around. And that's what I was watching an Alcoholic Anonymous.

Now don't don't misunderstand, our most important place in A is in our Home group.

And if you think you're a big shot because you're doing other stuff and that sort of thing, speaking for myself and all the other things I've done in A and that sort of thing. The most important thing I do and participate in happens at the dig group, The digs group on Tuesday nights at 7:00

and it goes till 8:15.

I'm going to get back to the steps for just a minute, but there's a couple of things that

they reminded me. I've come in there. She talked about group context

and that and we went on and we read in there about how we were looking for a majority vote in a group conference

and based on RX-5, we find the conscience quips. The minute you call a vote,

you're done examining conscious it just you just shut it down

because somebody's tired to listen to this stuff. And that's right. And the group conscious we're looking, we're listening for it. That time with what God would like us to do as a group. We get some of us get sick of it and all that, try to heard this thing along and make it happen.

Diggs was the Diggs was a stack group called the Dignitary Sympathy Group

and the men that attended in that group really loved their group. I got to tell you

that was most favorite thing and it was. We just really loved it.

And my friend Jim, Jim Ass was his last name. I sponsored him in his life and he'd been talking to our friend Don in Denver and he was bragging on the digs and Don said I can't go to your meeting,

I can't go to your meeting. He says it's not an A group and and and Jim says what the hell, you're crazy. Certainly it is. He says, no, it's not because your message is not available to half the alcoholic out there because of men's stag group. In other words, the women didn't didn't get an opportunity to hear our message

and we've been getting heat from some of our

friends in a a who were big book women and that sort of thing that we would hang with when we were being sociable in that sort of. And so Jim calls, we have an annual group inventory at my Home group. We do it every January

and we don't do it on meeting night, on meeting nights, Tuesday, but we do it on Saturday morning. What we get then are people that are truly their Home group.

So we have this meeting and we go, we go through the group inventory as a Century suggested in the Home group pamphlet. But then Jim says, I think we got to change it to Okat Toyota Group because our, our, our message is not available to everybody.

And boy, the stuff hit the fan. The guys there loved our group. We loved our meeting in that and it really got tough and a big argument was going on

and Robbie's chair in the meeting and it's lunchtime and Les says, Robbie says, let's say the Lord's Prayer, let's go have lunch and come back in an hour and a half.

And so when they came back an hour and a half later and they all came back,

they sat down, but the heat was gone.

You know, something had changed during that during that hour.

And the girls we were talking about, the one we admired the most, I think the best way to phrase it for the right reason. His name was Linda. And

one of the guys stood up and says, does anybody in here really believe that Linda, Linda and the girls will come down to our tree house to play with us if we make this Coed? And everybody says, no, we don't believe that. And so they said the prayer and they broke up. They had a real group conscious.

There was no vote. There was no need for a vote.

And I bring that up for a reason. That's the only existence of my life of all the group conscious meetings and

for conventions, roundup. Anything else I've attended where there was a group conscience, I've never attended another that was all landed by a boat

and somebody always lost a goal. And we did that the next year and we held the vote and we went Coed.

And

the next meeting, Linda and the girls showed up with pink cookies and flowers.

I want you to know we ate the cookies and I took the flowers home to Julie,

but we've been a Coed meeting since.

Probably half the men that were part of that group have never returned.

That's not quite true. Some of them come back because the sponsor's still in there and they'll come in there to get their their tokens or something like that. It's fun. They're welcome. And if my sponsors them, he always makes a cobra for him to eat and passes that around and that. But

so that was.

Maybe five years ago

when we did that and to day it's grown up to a group that has been, it probably has larger, larger probably than what it was before. And it's a Coed meeting. We averaged probably 45 people on a Tuesday night for a discussion meeting.

It's kind of a Red Bull on me. Carmen picks a subject from the 1st 164 pages of the Big Book

and then appoints the first person to speak, who appoints the next person to speak, who points the next person to speak. And that's how we go around the room. I

other group conscience that we had that was pretty close to the last one as we had. We were in a part of town where we got progress House and a Salvation Army nearby and and guys that come in that can't sit still. So we start our meeting with five minutes of meditation.

Let's just keep the let's just keep their butt in the chair for a while and let them think and let, let let them feel a part of a group meditation. And so we do that,

that part of town we were in, we were given getting a lot of heat, we were closing and we're having a lot of problem with with non Alcoholics coming in and being disruptive into me. And, you know, middle of January in a part of town where there's nowhere to send somebody, that's not the time to throw somebody out of your group.

It just isn't OK. How you can look at that?

And so we had a group conscious meet that there was never a need for a vote. And we thought about this carefully. So what we did is we opened the meeting

and then we rewrote our format so if you came to the digs on Tuesday night, you'd be welcome to the digs and you'd be told this is an open meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and all are welcome to attend. However, speaking through Alcoholics only

and if you're a non alcoholic and you inadvertently are called upon, you're expected to pass.

And our trouble stop

and that just stopped it. Most of them don't come anymore because they can't shoot their mouths on. I mean it just stopped. And others that do come are not alcoholic. Respect what we ask

and it doesn't matter whether a Ellen on NA,

MSNBC or whoever heck it is.

And I just kind of throw those things down. I'm counting those things and those kind of events in my life, and I'm not telling you about the disasters I've seen with them.

And I've not done it because I see that as a bigger part of my recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous as a 12 stance. Yeah, we had that first 12 step workshop that we went through it together and we said that the third step prayer together

buried Eddie and

all those things and with we seem to find the right people who got excited about. I've flown back to Denver.

I don't remember why. I think maybe I was just visiting here and I called Don, he said. I'm glad you're town, he said. He says I'm talking at the treatment center out in the out on the West side.

Would you like to go? I certainly see picks me up. Let me go out the West side. And he's got for those of you who saw us saw knew this. So I'm going to tell you about you wouldn't blame me. But he was a tall, blonde younger man in his 30s, and he went out there and he was really attentive to anything we were doing, anything he said.

So Don and I are talking in this

treatment centimeter, and when he and I talk, and we still do it today, we'll quote the big Book. But we aren't telling you we're quoted. It's up to you to hear it and figure it out and say, oh, I see where he got that, and we'll do that. But Joe was listening

and right after we said the Lord's Prayer, that waiting Joseph back down, he said you guys were quoting a big book. And he said I know what you were doing

and took off like that. And he drove separately and Don and I, we went somewhere for a cup of coffee so we could gossip for a while.

That was a pun. That was A and

and I said to Joe, I said we might have started something. We can't stop him, Joe. And he says, well, I kind of hope so. We'll see those you guys who listen to what came out of the young people's go. We've heard about Joe, and you've probably heard the best one of us there is to train people and process with the steps, and he touched lines literally around the world

with that. My friend Bob O was a part of that group

and GAIL likes it because she thinks he's hot and

he does too. So

and he's a part of that group and so I'm not taking as many of these speaking deals as that. It's got to be somebody special to me that invites me to go somewhere, do this because I'm tired of airplane and it wears me out and get tired of listening to myself a lot. Not completely

and

and that, but that's the only deal he and I are taking is when we can do them together. So he and I are out there or four times a year doing that together, so we can belong with that.

But he was a part of that. And if you heard him get up and tell his story from this, he's got different memories.

In other words, he remembers other events that happened during that time that I never think of when I'm up here. She went

with that, but you might want to find some of his thoughts and his experience with that, with that. And there's Joe and there's Mark down in Texas and, and probably the biggest place you'll find what's been going on with this phenomenon is in Texas, in Austin and Dallas and and going into Louisiana. There are primary purpose groups

what there are big book studies

and the smallest one I've ever attended had 175 people

with that and it's a phenomenon. It's fine and

none of it is big book thumping. It's done with happy, joyous and free and it's really a part of that.

Rob and I, today Paul died and

effectively I've been running spontaneous for a while. I buried through sponsor. I'm having a hell time, find somebody, take the job, and not quite sure. I've had a conversation with one of the old group in La Grange. He and I made arrangements that we're gonna start treating that better. But we were looking at the 10th step

and the book is really clear on sense that we get confused with that, if you will. But the 10th step has some wonderful ideas, very simple. You know, it continued to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, exempt fear. And when these crop up, we ask DeAndre move it

quickly. We discuss it with somebody. I got my

Edwards mixed up there quickly and if we caused harm, we make amends quickly. Immediately.

I make a mess clothing. And then we turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Pretty simple. Force that process. And that's all the 10th step in the Big Book asks us to do.

And so that's what Olsen and I will do. And telling GAIL about an event that was created some horrible resentments in me

regularly. And

I got that straightened out and I called Bob and I said, man, I got a resentment. I talked about it. He said just got to remove it. I says no. And he said call me back.

And so I did and I called him back

and I shared the resentment with him

and he said, have you caused any harm with that? And I said, no, not yet. I'd like to cause a great deal of harm, but I haven't done it. Give me a ball that and

and, he says. Have you made the turn?

It was the turn. Return our thoughts to someone we can help now. That's all it says.

And he said he made the turn. So that made me think. I said, well, yeah, yeah, you're right. So and So was coming over to my house to go through the book tonight.

This is OK. Are we done?

And oh, we may gossip about somebody, something. And then a while later,

whatever it was a week or two, I get a call from Bob and he has, he has a business where he, he, he can't, he hires people,

psychologists and psychiatrists to help out inmates in prisons and, and ex inmates and that, and these are highly educated, very qualified people,

but they don't follow rules well. And they're really not employees. They're contract people

and he had he had an exempt going at this one lady psychologist

and that just those words kind of make me look squirmy that make me but he he told me the problem and all that.

He told him, he said, he says I prayed, don't worry about that. And he told me what the event was and,

and he hadn't caused any harm yet. And so I asked him if he'd made the turn. And I'm surprised he had to stop and think about it because he's pretty quick when he's thinking with that, he's well. Yeah, yeah. He says you wouldn't know the guy. I'm having lunch with the man. He says we're great friends. We use it yet other for coaches in business. And he called me wanting to discuss something. So I think I can be of service to him today.

And that was it. 5-10 minute call

and the 10th step was finished.

And so then our book. Well, let's talk about that 10 set. There's some pretty amazing promises in there and I I'm not going to even try to quote it because my mind didn't work on the Feasy stuff.

I think it's like

it's a three-part book.

Which he's fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. That's quite a promise, isn't it?

Did you know it was a promise?

Certainly is a 10 step pump

this time of Sandy will have returned. We will seldom be arrested if 10 intensively recoil from it as from a hot flame. That's happened to me and it's happened to me twice that I recall. The first time I was still in Denver and it was a cold, snowy night and I'm driving home and I went by a neighborhood bar and the windows are kind of steamy in it.

There's maybe three guys in the bar sitting there drinking and I go by and they're looking there. And it wasn't just.

I mean, that was where I knew I needed to be my very next memory

as I'm home

and I'm calling Mickey

and I say you'll never believe what just happened to me.

The 10 step promise just happened because I remember that and that place looked great and that would have been an ideal place to stop. And the next thing I'm home calling you.

And then years later, I'm in Indianapolis and we're living in the mobile Home Park out off a place called Penwood Pike. And there there was one of these pail and pipe bars. There was a hot summer night and it showed a picture of beer sweating with the sweat coming down on it and that. And I looked at that. Next thing I'm home and I'm over home

calling Mike

and telling him the same thing.

That's exactly what happened to me. The promise came out just like it was laid down. Both those times better I call

since we react samely. Normally we'll find that this has happened automatically

and and then let's just read it. We'll see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. That's the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, nor are we avoiding temptation. Frankie used to call people who thought meetings, meetings, meetings, booze fighters because that's all I did was talk about drinking or not drinking.

Here's everything I did today just so I wouldn't take a drink.

They've been fighting the boot if they were just sitting down and participating in this step. You don't think about drinking, you don't think about not

with that. We're not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we have been placed in a position in neutrality, safe and protected. We've not even sworn off, said the problem's been removed, does not exist for us. We are neither cocking nor are we afraid. That is our experience and that is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition. So there's more promises,

I just think so. And then there's a third step prayer

on further down the next paragraph. So we're talking the daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition every day-to-day when we must carry the visions of God willing to all of our activities. How can I best serve the my will not thine be done. So there's your 10th step prayer. I think every step has at least one prayer and I know every step has promising

and that's a fun search.

Uh,

11 step starts at night

per. And the confusing thing about that is build change, change mechanics. When you wrote the quote, didn't he?