The back room meeting in Hamilton, Ontario

I just don't want to clarify anybody here that was coming to see Don and hear Don's message tonight. So unfortunately he couldn't make it. He felt terrible. He got strapped on a red eye on on. He was going to Pittsburgh for a roundup this weekend and he got caught in the air. Now what happened is I got the information that that might happen earlier in the day.

I called my friend Chris. Like Kevin said, he sort of, he set it up like we started this up a couple years ago and Chris was our inaugural speaker for this, for this particular meeting. I asked him then and I asked him now because he has some beautiful working knowledge of these 12 steps, but also genuine and earnest way of carrying the message. It always comes through for me when I ask him. And I'm, I'm looking really forward to to what he's going to talk about tonight because he's been with us almost every night for the last couple of years. And he knows what we've been, we've been doing

what we've been driving that. And he's also got one hell of a sense of human. I'm really happy that he's he's here with us. And I just wanted to let Chris God for a little bit of stuff to himself in this last week or two. Prayer for him. And buddy, thank you for doing this. Let's have Adam, okay, thanks. Recording in progress.

Hi, everybody. My name is Chris. I'm an alcoholic. It's. Yeah, this is really cool. I love this meeting. You know, a lot of times I don't make it all the way through it because I start to fall asleep. But the part that I don't miss is like from 8:30 to 9:00. I really. I try to get that part in at least if I can't stay through the whole meeting. So. So tonight we're talk. We're talking about Step 12 and I want to share a little bit of stuff kind of

kind of before I start talking about about Step 12, a little bit about me.

You know, Bill Wilson got it right when he said selfishness, self centeredness, that is the root of the Alcoholics problem. He had it right. He pinned me to the wall. Now, now I didn't know it for a while. I mean, you know one, one of the things I was taught is how do you know what you don't know? So there was some information I needed to be

presented with before I could really internalize how incredibly toxically selfish I was. There was, there was aspects of my emotional and mental processes that were incredibly selfish, but I to be able to recognize that I, I had to get some distance from them, you know, you know what I mean? So, so looking backward,

I so understand that I was, I was up against the incredible selfishness

and self sinnerness. It had to be about me or I wasn't interested. There had to be something in it for me or I wasn't gonna bother it. It's you know what I mean? So, so that's you don't stay alive as an alcoholic if that doesn't change. So, so I, you know, I show up in Alcoholics Anonymous and it's, it's rough.

It's very difficult for me to sit in the meetings and listen to people talk and then they're talking about themselves.

You know what? Come on. I gotta, I gotta listen to this guy again. You know, I, I mean it, it was really, really difficult for me to, to sit in the meetings. But, but alcohol had ripped me up and, and I tried to separate from alcohol. I tried to control alcohol. I tried to manage alcohol and it was just all a failure and, and my life was just burning down in every way. I, I'd lost

practically everything there is to lose. And, and so I show up in Alcoholics Anonymous and I've got a willingness that's born at desperation. I'm out of plans, you know, I,

you know, I, I can't keep living this way. So, so you know, I show up in Alcoholics Anonymous and, and I show up, you know, the, the selfish newcomer. And I love working with newcomers. Today there's this beginners meeting I go to right? And the format of the beginners meaning is

that there's 1A and 20 people in it, right? And the format is, is the people with less than 90 days share 1st. And it's, it's, it's, I love it because it's unbelievable that the, the selfishness and the self earnest that that emanates off of these people while they're sharing. Blow your hair back. You, you know, like, Oh yeah, my, my parents are mad at me.

I'm luxury girl.

I mean, it's, it's unbelievable. And I sit there with a smile. They must think I'm crazy,

but it's because I'm identifying. I'm identifying and I see one more time what I'm up against.

You know what I mean? So, so, so after the less than 90 day, people share, the people from 90 days to six months share. And, and you start to hear the change already taking place. You start to hear, well, you know, everything sucks, you know, but my sponsor, I'm talking to my sponsor. He's got me doing this inventory thing, you know, and I'm starting to see some patterns. Yeah. And, and you start to see the healing and then, then people from six months to a year share

and, and it's like, yeah, you know, I did my fish step the other day. And I don't think I'm really starting to get. And then after they're done, it's the people, you know, with, with any amount of time sharing their experience, strength and hope and trying to identify with, with what's going on. And, and you, you see this continuum of healing that Alcoholics Anonymous is all about. OK,

now, Now I went through that continuum of healing

and, and, and I, and I, I got, I got inspired by and guided by some people who had real working knowledge of the 12 steps. I mean, it wasn't just the, the shade up on the wall at the meeting. I mean, these people live this stuff

and did this stuff. And if you worked with them, they spent time with you helping you to understand what you know, why you need to do the step, how you do the step and sharing their experience on what the step, how the step changed them and the benefits they got from the step themselves. And, and I got an I got, I got exposed to those to those people and, and I went about the business of going through the steps in a very imperfect way. Here's here's

real good news. You can do a crappy job on the steps. You don't, you know what I mean? Like like it's a pass fail course. And and there's always time, there's always the ability to revisit this stuff. You know, if it if it's not done complete or it's not done perfect, there's always an opportunity, you know, to to take it a little bit further the, you know, the next time

you know, that particular step is available.

So I did, I did not do a great, you know, I was not in the best student of this stuff. I had selfish and self centeredness. It was blocking me off from doing these steps. You know what I mean? Like, like these steps are designed to, to move you from

a foundation of selfishness and self centeredness to a life of service and charity

and compassion. You know, so it's, you know, it's, it's, it's a big piece of work. What these steps are designed for me to do. They're they're, they're to shrink my sense of self and expand my connection to spirit.

That's what these steps do. And, and, and you know, I had what, what you could describe as an educational

variety of spiritual awakening. It happened for me slowly over the course of time, because slowly over the course of time, I went through the 12 steps. And that's why it was slowly over the course of time. But I but I had this, I had this transformation

and things about me changed. I went from the guy who would sit in the meeting and justice and justice hear blow that blow hardest. Can I share again? You know what, God, I'm going to go, I'm going to start going to other meetings. You know, he's always in this meeting. He is always raising his hand. He raises his hand 5 minutes before the meeting's over so he can get the last word on everything. And he's a God damn blow hard. You know, I, I went from that guy to,

you know, I haven't seen blow hard in like 3 weeks. I wonder if he's OK. You know, maybe maybe, you know, hey, could somebody call Blowhard and make sure he's all right? You know, I went so that it was that kind of a transformation, you know, you know what I mean? So, so I, I've experienced this, this stuff, I've experienced these steps, the, the wonderful series of speakers that went over these steps in detail. I'm not going to do that tonight,

you know, like Kurt last week. Oh my God, Kurt, Kurt just Kurt just blows me away. You know, whenever he shares, it's it's it's like the insight and the depth and the weight of the stuff that he shared, you know, but he was just one of a whole series of people that gets booked on this meeting. But here's here's what happens. Here's what happened to me as I went through these steps.

You know, I was driven by alcoholism. I was driven into the alcohol by alcoholism. Now the drive changes and I'm driven into working with others. It's, it's an organic shift. You, you talk to anybody who's gone through these steps and they're available to sponsor now, you know what I mean? Because it's, it's an, it's an organic.

Just just process that and it happens and all and all of a sudden you're, you're, you're not the selfish self-centered guy where it's all about you. You're trying to, you're trying to find somebody to work with and help. And this is an amazing change. It's the. It's a. It's a monstrous transformation

from

of a way of life. So that brings us into step 12.

Now I want to tell, I want to tell a little story. I got in trouble for being a smart ass. Now I'm going to explain to you about this, right? You know, I, I can still be a smart ass, right? Believe, believe it or not, Marty, you know, and, and this and this one guy, this one guy was always like breaking into a meeting like this and asking me to speak. It was, it just was uncomfortable. It was kind of inappropriate. It was like people are trying to have conversations and stuff. And Chris, Chris, you know,

you got to speak of my meeting and, and it, you know, it was annoying me a little bit because, because it was seemed uncomfortable, it seemed inappropriate. And finally pens me to the wall And he goes, he goes, you're going to speak about my meaning. And now I need a topic. You got to give me a topic. He's texting me. I, I need a topic. And so, so I get, I get really, you know, I get, I get really smart ass and I go, OK, here's my topic. Now, not too many people know this, but they've just discovered some unwritten work

by Bill Wilson. You know, he worked on the 12 steps and he worked on the 12 traditions. Then he worked on the 12 concepts. Well, they've just discovered the 12 inconveniences. And so my topic, my topic at your meeting is going to be the 12 inconveniences. I'm just being a smart ass, right? So, so about a week later, I see the flyer. It's like Chris has, you know, 12 inconveniences.

So, so I had to think on my feet a little bit, right?

And, and and we'll move into that, you know, toward, toward the end of my talk, I'll show you what I what I did. But you know, I wanna, I wanna talk about the chapter working with others.

This is one of the most overlooked chapters with the most amount of instructions in it in the in the 1st 164, there's pages of instructions in there for how we work with other people. And, and here's the thing. I show up in Alcoholics Anonymous. I show up in Alcoholics Anonymous and,

and nobody's following this stuff like, like, you know, I got sober in North Northern New Jersey in 1989. And, and, and how you, how you worked with other people was you threw them in the car and you took them to a meeting and you, you, you let the meeting do all the work. That's really the way it was, you know, so, so this chapter, when I really started digging into this chapter, it, it felt

off

it, you know, it felt off it. It's like there's things in this chapter. If someone, if someone is unwilling to go through the steps with you, you may need to drop them for a while. You know, they may, they may need to drink again, you know, and then after they drink, maybe, maybe then they'll be willing to go through the steps and then, then maybe you can work with them. You know, I mean, there's like philosophy like that. And I'm like, Oh my God, you know, that's not, that's not what you do. You know what I mean?

But, but, but I slowly, there's been a slow change in me and I've started to see the wisdom of, of how this chapter lays out my approach to the alcoholic. And, and one of the, one of the biggest benefits was I was the guy who would help anybody.

OK, somebody D hear me share and they'd come up after, he'd be my sponsor, you know, and

yeah. You know, what do you want me to do? You know what I mean? No, I'm not, I, I'm not, I'm not qualifying them. I'm not telling them, you know what, you know what's going to be required, you know, as someone who is, is going to, you know, an experience, have a recovery experience. I'm not doing any of that. I'm just like, here's my phone number, you know, call me anytime. And, and you know,

I, I got, I got to tell you, I, I wish I had a lot of those hours back,

OK? Because, because I was, I was working with lunatics who did not want a recovery experience. They wanted to not go back to jail or they wanted to get back in the big bed or, or they wanted, you know, they wanted to get back with their girlfriend. They, they, they weren't looking for a recovery experience from alcoholism. You know, they, they, they wanted the letters to the judge or something. And, and I'm I'm like working with all these.

And I gotta tell you, they're making me look bad, you know, in the early days. Is Harry yours?

Do you know? He smells like vodka and he's borrowing money and he's hitting on all the new girls. Yeah, Harry's mine. You know, I'll. I'll talk to him, you know, And and so I'm having all these experiences with with all these, these newcomers. Now, if I would follow the chapter working with others,

these, these people would be, you know, disqualified from my personal time in 5 minutes.

You know what I mean? So, and, and I don't want anybody to misunderstand this, you know, when this, when this chapter says, when this chapter says, if they're not willing to go through the steps, you may have to drop them. That's not Alcoholics Anonymous needs to drop them. That means me, you know, spending my personal time doing 12 step work is not required to work with people who are not willing to go through the steps.

You know, I, I'm gonna be friendly. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna say, hey, there's another meeting down the road, you know, and you know, come on in. Yeah, let me give you a cup of coffee. But as, as far as like bringing them over to my house and spending, you know, three hours every Saturday for two months,

you know, there has, there has to be a commitment. There has to be, I have to be able to qualify them and know they're an alcoholic. And I have to, I have to see how the level of willingness they're going to have. And what I normally do is I tell them what it's going to look like for me to sponsor them. You know, this, this is what I'm going to be asking you to do.

And I get that. I get that out of the way, you know, pretty, pretty early on. And and and the book Alcoholics Anonymous asks me to do that.

You know, if I jump into the actual text,

I'm going to just read the first sentence and then move into the first visit. OK, now the first sentence says practical experience shows that nothing well, so much ensure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other Alcoholics. Now,

now unpacking that a little bit, you know, immunity, let's talk about immunity. You know, one of the things that's that's become current in the last 30 or 40 years is and you know, deficiency illnesses, you know, there, there's a, there's a number of them. And what they are is there are certain types of illnesses that break down your immune system so that a common cold can kill you.

You, you, you know your body doesn't have the ability to fight off. You know, the bad things

because

your immunity system is compromised. So ensuring my immunities to stay separated from alcohol is going to have to be paramount, right? I mean, if I show up in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm not coming here, you know, because it's a lousy season on TV, you know, for TV, you know, I'm usually coming here because alcoholism is, has just had its way with me. And, and you know, I'm, I'm just,

I'm just destroyed and I'm coming here. You know, the last thing I do is I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, so, so hopefully I'm going to want some immunity from from taking the first string. And this tells us that this works. This works when other activities fail. What are some of the other activities that can fail going to meetings

that can fail? You know what I mean?

Like like like getting a sponsor in a Home group. Maybe that's not enough, you know, So, so where those other activities fail, if I'm intensively working with other Alcoholics, that's just something that ensures my immunity. And okay, so I want some immunity. Let me start digging in to this chapter.

It's, you know, remember this book was written in 39. There was a couple of meetings

today. You can't shake a stick without hitting a meeting. I, you know, every town has 35 meetings. But back then you, you needed to look for Alcoholics. You need it. You needed to go to priests, you needed to go to the insane asylums. You needed to go to the courts, you know, the, and get them from the judge. You needed to talk to doctors all over the place and have doctors refer people to you. And when I got sober, there were some people who had gotten sober in the 50s.

You know, they were still around. They had like 40 some years. And, and these guys, I'd always ask them, I go, what, what was it like around this area, you know, in AA in the 50s, for God's sake. And they would say, well, it was about six of us. And you know what we did all the time? I, I go, no, what did you do all the time? He goes, well, we had one meeting, you know, over in Myersville, but we went on 12 step calls. We went on a lot of 12 step calls.

So, so,

so you know, only in the modern Alcoholics Anonymous era is it, is it, is it unusual to go on 12 step calls? You know, back in the back in the 1st 30 or 40 years of Alcoholics Anonymous, it was you would go on more 12 step calls than you would go to meetings,

you know, so that's just that that's the way it was. So, so this book is telling us where to find Alcoholics. You know, you're not just going to put an ad in the paper or something. You know, you got to go, you got to go look for him. So you

got to put the work in trying to find them. And then it says when you found a prospect for Alcoholics Anonymous. It's funny that the terms they use in here, when I got sober, it was very, very common to be called a pigeon. If you were, if you were somebody sponsored. Yeah, my one of my pigeons. And you don't hear that much anymore because. Because, listen, we've been insulted enough before we come to Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, we we don't need to be, you know, we don't

don't need to be pigeons, you know, which is like a rat with wings. We don't need to be that, you know, as somebody spots see right, but but there but there were pigeons. The book, the book describes it as a prospect. And that's somebody who, you know, has the capacity is is, you know, has the capacity to be an alcoholic and maybe want help. And then they describe a protege and a protege I believe, is somebody that's working with you, you know, that's going through the steps,

that's following some, some direction and having a recovery experience. And then you know what they call them after that friend, you know what I mean? I, I don't believe in hierarchy in Alcoholics. There's some Alcoholics Anonymous that believes in, you know, the, the grand high muckety muck sponsor is, you know, and charge everything. And, you know, he sends word down from above and everybody's got a step to, you know, I just, I, you know, that's not the type of

synonymous that I've experienced. I've experienced the type where we're on an even playing field. You know, you, you get through the steps. I get through the steps. Let's be friends, you know what I mean? And and that's, that's what this book describes. Now, it says when you discover a prospect for Alcoholics Anonymous, that's on the top of page 90. OK. And then it goes all the way to the middle of page 96. That's the first visit.

OK, This is what this is what you're supposed to cover the first time you sit down with a prospect, you know, someone who might be in need of this Alcoholics Anonymous thing. And there's a ton of material in here and it's serious. And, and the first time I saw it, like, you could talk about God, you know, you, you're talking, you talk about making amends. You talk about, you know, aren't you going to scare them off? You know, if you talk about all this recovery stuff,

well,

you know, if they're an alcoholic, alcohol is going to scare them right back, you know,

and it tells us how to have this conversation. It tells us what kind, what kind of an attitude to have. Don't speak holier than now, you know, don't, don't be an evangelist. You know, try to talk sanely and soundly with a lot of compassion and explain your own personal recovery experience. Explain to them what you've learned about alcoholism.

What have I learned about alcoholism?

Well, I've learned that when I when I take a drink, it asks for the second drink. The second drink insists on the third, the third demands the 4th, and I want the 28th drink more than I wanted the 27th drink. That's what happens within my body. And then when I swear off alcohol, I absolutely mean it. I swear off alcohol.

I change my mind.

And yeah, I swore off alcohol this morning, you know, But

but, you know,

I think I'm just going to, I'm just going to stop at the bar for, you know, seven, you know, or, or I'm going to buy a gallon of vodka, you know, because this whole decision to never drink again is pretty serious. I, you know, I'm, I, I better follow it up with a gallon of vodka, you know,

so I'm not able to separate from alcohol. And it's, and it's, it's, it's insanity. It's insanity. It's not changing my mind. OK, knowing what I know about what alcohol does to me and, and what I've experienced and the consequences I've suffered because of my drinking, It's absolutely insane for me to put alcohol in my body. And it's insane for you to put alcohol in your body. So if you think

you're making the decision

to drink, understand that that's coming from a place of insanity. Oh, and by the way, oh, and by the way, how's your life, you know, emotionally, how you doing? You know, do you get mad? You know, do you have any anxiety? Like, do you feel uncomfortable? You know, in a lot of situations, you know, are you ashamed? Gee, I'm shame about some of the stuff you did. Are you? Are you remorseful?

You know,

is that going? Oh, yeah, Yeah, it is. Yeah, I understand. I've been exactly where you are. That's alcoholism. And here's the thing. We don't have an answer for you. We have something much better. We have a solution

for you. We have a solution for this entire problem. Let me tell you about how I experience the solution

and then it tells you to talk about the decision you made, the third step decision made a decision. I'm going through. I'm all in OK to the, to the absolute best of my ability. I'm going to shove fear behind me and, and I'm going to do what you, you asked me to do. I'm going to, I'm going to do this Alcoholics Anonymous thing, Man, I've run out of options. You know what I mean? Therapy hasn't done it. Medication hasn't done it. You know, the self help books haven't done it.

Church hasn't done it,

you know, so, OK, OK, I'm in, you know, I'm in, I'm in for this thing and I'm, I'm going to come all the way in. I'm going to sit all the way down and, and you explain how you may, you personally made that decision. Many of us, you know, have different experiences with that

and, and how I did an inventory. You know, why did I do an inventory? I discovered, I discovered there was some, some problems in my life. I discovered that there was some pain in my life. I discovered that there was damage and, you know, emotionally and spiritually, I was torn up.

And this particular inventory that they ask us to do asks us to look at the causes and conditions of this damage and, and this emotional turmoil. And I'm going to look at that. And these are manifestations of self that defeated me. You know, resentment is the number one manifestation of self. You know, fear is number 2. You know, the consequences of my behavior. You know, is, is, is is number three. I need the inventory, this stuff. And now I share it. First time in my life

I'm absolutely honest with what I perceive as the real me.

You know, this this is me, warts and all. Yeah, I you know, I screwed. I'm even gonna tell you about Tallahassee 77. You know, which I've never told anybody else about. I'm going to tell you. And, and, and I explain, you know, a little bit about the fist step. And then I explain

what, what we're trying to do is gain access to a power which will work innocent through us and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And I explain a little bit about step six and seven. You know, I, I, I need to go to the divine for help. I need to go to this concept of God that I really don't understand and I'm still a novice with

and ask this power for help. And, and I, I explained to the person, you know, steps 6 and step seven and then, and then listen, here's something I believe today and, and I believe it, okay. I am not responsible for any of the crap that happened when I was drinking, but I need to be accountable,

OK, If I'm driven by alcoholism, if I'm powerless,

how, how is it all my fault? You know what I mean? But, but here, but here's, here's the here's the perfect, the perfect solution for this whole thing is I need to be accountable for it all. I, I need to become willing to make amends to the people and institutions that I've harmed during my alcoholism and maybe even before and maybe even during my sobriety.

And, and I need to actually go out and make amends

to the people in the institutions that I have harmed. You, you know, you know, you know what you hear when you're willing to go and make amends. It's a very distinct sound sounds like this.

Okay, I need to be willing to do that. So so I go. I, I explain to the person who's their eyes are like this when I'm saying I'm going back to the people I've harmed and making amends, their eyes are like this. But but, but then I explained to them the power and the freedom that comes from that step.

I can walk down any St. in the United States with my head held high, not worrying about bumping into, you know, so and so that I robbed or I parked on their cat, you know, and they got mad at me or I set their couch on fire or something. You know, I don't have to worry about any of that because I've actually gone and made amends and I'm, I'm free now. I'm I'm free from from this bondage of self that they talk about in the book alcoholic synonymous. At the end

step, I'm free from this bondage itself. And then I talk about how comforting it is

to continue to do all of these spiritual practices to, you know, to do the do the work of step 10, to do the disciplines of step 11, and to seek through prayer and meditation, a deeper and more effective connection to the divine. Because, you know, the divine has been operating in my life, you know, my whole life. But now I've, I've cleared away a lot of

a lot of the garbage that self is created that's gotten in the way of

the sunlight of the spirit, you know, And so, so now I'm much more, I'm hopping around in the sunlight of the spirit like an idiot. And it's wonderful, you know what I mean? And, and I explain this stuff and now I'm sitting here with you and that's part of my recovery program. I'm sitting here with you. It's part of my recovery program. I'm carrying the message to you and through that experience

that offers me immunity from alcohol

doing what I'm doing with you and for you right right now. So you know, owe me anything. You know, this is a pay it forward program. You know, I'm not going to ask you to wax my car, you know, after I've taken you through the steps, you know, I get more from taking you through the steps then then you know, maybe you get who who knows? OK, that's all on the 1st

visit.

I'm going to jump to the second visit.

It says, suppose now you're making the second visit. He's read this volume because you've left this book with him, right? And he's ready. He's ready to go through with the 12 steps. This is the second visit. When I first read this chapter, it was like, it was like, what are you talking about? You know, don't you have to take him to a meeting and go golfing with them for three or four years?

You know what I mean? It doesn't have to keep it simple for a while. You know,

this is the second visit. He's asking. He's he's telling me he's ready to recover from alcoholism. Now, is everybody I work with going to be the guy who's going to say Chris, okay, you've explained it all to me. We're on the second visit. I'm ready to go through with this thing. Is everybody going to do that? No, but you know who the people are that are not going to do it? The people that would have been wasting my time anyway,

you know, I swear to God, I, I swear to God, the, the amount of people I worked with who, who they weren't even part of the half measure club. You know, I was trying to, I was trying to just coerce them into going back to the meeting. Just please go back to the meeting, you know,

so, so so it's, it's quality. It's not quantity. The the quantity that they ask us for is if someones not willing to go through the 12 steps, look for somebody who is, that's what I'm supposed to spend my time on. I'm supposed to spend my time looking for people who are going to be willing to do this, not wasting my time with somebody that's going to balk on the four step or refuse to do their amends or tell me prayer meditation is lame

or even, you know, not want to work with other people. I, you know, I'm, I'm not supposed I can be a great AA member and I can be very supportive and I can, I could even be your friend. But my personal 12 step time is it's being directed. It's being directed specifically toward people who are going to be willing to have this recovery experience, to have this spiritual awakening, because that's the brass ring. You know, that's the brass ring in this whole thing is, is to have

spirit and start to help other, other people. Now this gets me to the point in my talk where, where I'm going to go over the 12 inconveniences. Okay, this is something that Bill Wilson was working on right before his death. Very few people you know, have, have seen this manuscript, you know, but he, but he was, he was developing the, the 12 inconveniences. And and I'll tell you what, if you aren't inconvenienced

in Alcoholics Anonymous, you're not doing your job.

I'm telling it. There's one thing that still bothers me. I'm not I'm I have not been rendered perfect by this thing called the 12 steps. And I still, I still feel that, you know, I'm being inconvenienced. Try right. And it's okay to feel inconvenienced. It's OK to feel inconvenienced when when it may mean the loss of many nights sleep.

That's inconvenience number one. I can feel very inconvenienced

as long as I lose that night of sleep going on that 12 step call. You know the 2nd inconvenience. It may mean great interference with your pleasures.

You know, that's inconvenient, you know, You know, I want, you know, I want, I had some plans for today, but, you know, the phone rang and I got to go see so and so there's a family that, you know, wants to talk about Joey, you know what I mean? He's, he's gotten out of control. And yeah, it it, it, it's going to interfere with my plans.

Understand that that these things go up against my selfishness and myself centeredness and the things that go up against

my selfishness and myself centeredness are what that's what generates recovery. You know, if I just did what I wanted to do and what felt good to me, I'd be in real trouble. Okay, inconvenience #3 it may mean interruptions to your business. Now, every single place I've I've worked, I've either been able to make up the time that I lose on the phone or, you know, going to visit somebody. I've been able to make up the time most of the places I've let

the deal, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm an, I'm an alcoholic and there's, there's going to be some weird things that are going to happen, you know, and, and all I'm telling you up front, I am not going to rob your time. I'm going to, I'm going to make sure the job gets done. But you know, there's, there's going to be things that might cut them up in the middle of the day. And and they have, you know, I've had to leave work a number of times for one crazy debacle or another

inconvenience #4 it may mean sharing your money and your home. That's

two things that that I've absolutely done. You know that there's there's instructions in this, though, You know, when it when it says sharing your home, there's instructions as you go through this book that I'm not reading, but they basically say don't let somebody stay in your house very long. Make sure that they mean business. May, you know, make, make sure that it's going to be beneficial to them for them to live in your home and not, and they're not just

crashing there, you know, not really looking for a solution to their alcoholism

and and money. You know, I, I've, I've done that quite often there. Listen, we all get, we all get in the barrel and sometimes people I know have have gotten in the barrel. And, you know,

sharing is something that we learn how to do, but we learn how to do it very carefully in Alcoholics Anonymous. And not, not, and not a codependent way in, in, in a, in a way that's beneficial. We, we try to share with other people. OK, inconvenience #5 You may need to counsel frantic wives, husbands and relatives.

Yeah, that's always fun. You know, walking into walking into a crisis situation in somebody'd house where everybody's pointing at the alcoholic, You know, she was just like, just like drove the the car through the garage, you know, and out the other side and everybody's had it.

You know, a lot of, a lot of times, you know, I'll have an Allen on with me, you know, on these, on these calls and, and they'll try to corral the family off to the side. And I'll, I'll deal with, I'll deal with the alcoholic one-on-one because.

There's, you know, there's, there's identification all across the board and I identify best with the alcoholic. So, you know, it says, you know, talk to them alone. That doesn't mean go on a 12 step call alone, but it, it means, you know, don't try to talk to him about the steps in front of, you know, misses,

you know what I mean? Like like get them alone so that there can be a real personal identification.

OK, inconvenience number six. It may mean innumerable trips to police, courts, sanitariums, hospitals, jails and asylums. Now you can change this instead of sanitariums and silence, you can say you can change it to detoxes and treatment centers if you want your IOPS because that's that's our current experience nowadays. But have I gone to all these? Absolutely, absolutely. We favor hospitalization for the befag. There's only been a couple of times I've detoxed people in my

house and that's because there was absolutely no way to get them medical, medically surveilled detox wasn't available, you know, and that's when you buy the little airline bottles, you know, at the liquor store and you give an airline bottle of booze an hour and and then an airline bottle of booze every two hours and you wean, you wean them off. I've done that a couple of times. But but in my area, there's a million detoxes. So it's just not, you know, then and, and most of the hospitals

will take you in and the hospital, the hospitals don't want you. OK, you know, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like Friday night and, and it's the ER and they're like, Oh my God, it's Friday. I don't let drunks are going to be coming in, you know, and they're going to be yelling and puking. You know, they, it's, it's better to take them to, to places that you know, do like professional alcoholism detoxification, but you can take them to an ER and they'll, they'll make sure that they don't, they don't stroke out. You know, they'll, they'll,

they'll keep them at least alive. Inconvenience #7 Your telephone may ring at anytime of the day or night. That's absolutely true. You know, there's very few things I hate more than the telephone. If you know me really well, you know that that's true, right?

The phone rings. God damn it. You know I'm in the middle of some God damn it. Hello.

So, so I, so I can be pissed that it's ringing, but I gotta answer it and I and I gotta be nice when I answer it. You know what I mean? Like this, this stuff can be inconvenient. It doesn't mean that you that doesn't mean you don't have to do it. So yeah, it jangles anytime of the day or night. Your wife or husband may sometimes say they're neglected.

You know, I that's, that's absolutely. I'm going away this weekend,

OK, I'm going away this weekend. And you know, that leaves my wife to have to do everything. And, you know, but I, but I have to, I have to do this stuff. There's a, there's a certain amount of action I need to put into my recovery program for the maintenance of my spiritual condition. And I'm going down to Delaware, you know, to, to a, to a convention thing. And I'm leaving Friday. I'll probably be coming back early Sunday. And she gets it. OK, 'cause we had the talk before

I married her, you know, that this was gonna happen. You know what I mean? And so, so, so there's no surprises. But I also have to be really considerate. I got to be considered. I got a place. I got a place. The, the, the, the needs of the family have to fit into this

and has to fit in first. It really does. I mean, I mean, I got time for all this other stuff. But if I'm not, if I'm not practicing these principles at home, you know, read the, read the chapter, the family afterward, you know, I, I got to be doing this stuff at home too. So I've got to be considered. But are there times when my wife, you know, feels neglected because I'm, I'm off at a meeting, you know, or I'm, I'm on the phone, you know, six hours on a Saturday.