The Woodstock West convention in Los Angeles, CA

Thank you.

My name is Howard and I'm an alcoholic.

Thank you very much, Ralph, for all the work you've done to get this thing going and for inviting me to participate.

I've I'm honored and, and I've been, it's been a good two or three days. So and normality used to talk about coming to these things in order to renew some old friendship with old friendships, which I have done and to make some new ones and that I have done that also. So this in that terms, it will be a success.

Thank you to the speaker Chairman who

kept things moving and kept me informed and, and anyway, thank everybody. Happy birthday to anybody that's having a birthday and all your mothers.

Happy Mother's Day,

men and women.

You still start out getting in trouble. They didn't know you should pay for a man. Just get right in there.

You you guys

some of you have heard me talk for 1000 years and I'm honored that they've asked me to talk again. I was born in Alhambra, CA 1000 years ago and

I grew up in Little Farm community in Wichita, KS. I don't remember anything about California until after I we got out of high school, but

I started out here and, but,

and I learned largely to be the person that I was, as in a practicing alcoholic in this little farm community near Wichita, KS. And what we thought was the Bible Belt. Turns out that Oklahoma thinks it's in the Bible Belt. Texas thinks it is. Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota,

Everybody. Well, that's not true. Everybody don't think they're in the Bible about Los Angeles. People know they are not

in the Bible Belt, and I'm telling you, they're happy about not being in the Bible.

That was one of the great freedoms we found when we came to California was out of the Bible Belt. Now

there's a lot of good things that went on there during the Depression. We had pre movies for the farmers. Now, I've had several requests about the baby elephant story, but I'm going to tell it anyway.

And

I saw this movie as a free movie in this little Kansas town. And it was about partly about training elephants in India. And they took the baby elephants out of the herd and they started their training by putting a rope around the right front leg and and tying them up to a huge tree so that they could not get loose. And they pulled and cut and pulled and cogged until their experience

taught them to come to believe that when that ropes tight, it's futile to pull.

Then they went ahead to the next phase of the training, but each subsequent phase included reinforcing this belief that when the rope is died, it's needed to pull. So at the end of the movie, the big the big elephant was pulling trees out of the forest for harvest. And, and at the lunch break, in order to keep the elephant where they wanted it, they drove a relatively short stake deep enough in the ground that when they put the rope around the stake and the rope,

the elephant's leg, he could walk around. But when he got to the end of the rope and the rope got tight, he couldn't pull against the tightrope. And as far as he was concerned, he was captured.

The state didn't hold the elephant. The rope didn't hold the elephant. What held the elephant was the limiting beliefs they had imposed on him when he was a baby. And

I was in a A

then he knew when Don Gates was talking about why he was the political party that he was with and he had philosophical reasons and all that, but he said that's all BS. The the fact is I'm what I am because my dad told me that's what he wanted me to be. And I, you know, I just, I got it, you know, and on the way home, I got it.

I thought of the baby elephant and

I thought, you know, he came into this outfit with 250,902.

They be elephant beliefs approximately

just like that stuff that that I don't even know I believe, but somehow that's what a basement sense of well-being on. And one of the things was I was separate from God. God was an anthropomorphic being up in heaven. I've seen people from the lectern,

not podium, podiums you stand on, this is electron and we don't get off.

But you know, we say, God help me, you know, and so we're separate from God. That's that's our consciousness is we're separate from God, Chuck C said. That was our ego and that's our basic trouble, that we that our living problem. We have a living problem and that is a conscious feeling of separation from God

and the living answer is a conscious

feeling of unity with God

and in you know we've all heard this all weekend gone. This is what the steps do is is relieve us from total self centeredness to a gradual progressive spiritual awakening so that we're conscious of God in our lives. And

I but I started out separate from God. The only thing I had to do with God was to pray and we prayed for it not to rain and it rained that day, destroyed all the wheat and Sumner County Kansas. And while nobody pointed the finger at me, I knew who thought it was. I knew who wasn't being named so that God would answer your prayer.

If you're four or five years old and you've assumed the entire responsibility for the wiping out the Kansas wheat crop, what you have is an eagle problem.

The old ego, it's going to make things happen that it lacks the power to make happen. In your bait, I am basing my sense of well-being. I'm being able to make it happen. So I don't have that much of A sense of well-being. And there's nothing happening in my religious life that's very helpful. And when I'm 12 or 13 years old, I drink my first drink of whiskey.

And it happened,

you know, I found God. It really, it was in the back of the Big Book.

I just make up stuff and and say that it's in the Big Book and nobody ever checked.

In the 3rd edition, this would be on page 569

and it says

and when it described is a spiritual awakening,

a change of consciousness followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook.

That's the way the book describes a spiritual awakening. Now

you remember your first drink.

Remember what happened?

A change of consciousness, followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. The whole world changed, you know, and, and, and then it goes right back, right back down the tubes and,

and, but that's the only time, you know, that's the only good feeling we knew how to head, how to have. So I started that in junior high school drinking whiskey. And

once in a while I was not, I think I was always an alcoholic, but because I never controlled my drinking, but I wasn't a regular heavy drinker at that time. And

I just drank to feel good, to have fun, to be somebody. And then a little later when Pat and I got married and we had, I got a job as a entry level engineer.

Now I had been a toolmaker. Toolmakers aren't under a lot of stress,

but if you have the right

technical reports and you don't know how to write technical reports, now there's stress. And I discovered that if I drank whiskey, I had a technical vocabulary that they didn't know I had. The fact is, the fact is, whiskey made me smarter, much smarter, so that I could. And I went from a process analyst to an engineer to a senior engineer to an engineering manager.

Progressive series for promotion. Because I drink whiskey

and my speech got slurred and so I added benzodine to my life. If you take Benny's, your speech is never slurred. You say the same things over and over

really fast that.

But then my life came apart.

I I was just in a lot of trouble. Every place, everything. On page 8 it says quicksand stretched out in every direction. That was it. Every place was disintegrating and it was nothing to stop it. And I came to Alcoholics Anonymous and the very first night I found out what an alcoholic was and knew I wasn't one.

But the second-half of this is at the studio group meeting over on Well at this time it was in the Women's Club

which became descendants in Norway who we call the sons of bitches from only because they kick this out.

They bought the building and they wanted Friday for their sons bitches meeting and and they kicked us out. So anyway

anyway I

an overland we had the studio group meeting and 1st week. First meeting in the week was a beginner's meeting. Did a speakers meeting and it was my Home group and

I learned what alcoholism was and I learned I wasn't one. The second-half of the meeting

was about God,

and they read that part on page 94 of the Big Book that says, emphasize to the newcomer that whatever

his belief in God is, that won't work for him, provided to make sense to him. Now that rang my bell and it still rings my bell.

A a let's you have a God that makes sense to you. If it makes sense to you, it will work. That was a big and and the fact is the gods that I had learned about earlier did not make that much sense to me. And I, and of course

you will will yourself to ascend that something is true, even though you know in this lifetime you don't have one opportunity to prove it because if you don't do that, you'll go to hell forever. Well, I'm doing it.

I I believe that I didn't believe and and whiskey was doing it. Now whiskey wasn't doing it and God wasn't going to do it for me either. They talked about fake it till you make it. I thought, hell, I've tried that. That don't work.

And

the doorknob. You know, Little Joe's been sober 95 years and his higher power has always been a doorknob. No kidding.

And then they said, well, they wouldn't call on. They wouldn't call on John. He'd hold his hand up and you could see they ain't calling on him. And so as soon as somebody sat down, John stood up and said, my name's John. I'm an alcoholic. Oh, John,

They also call me John the Baptist. They call me John the Baptist because Jesus Christ is my higher power. Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. And I ask Jesus to keep me sober every morning when I get up and every night when I go to bed. I thank Jesus and Jesus is with me every day throughout the day. And I thank Alcoholic Anonymous for bringing Jesus back into my life.

And I thought, boy, if you could just, you know, if you can con yourself into that fantasy

that it worked.

But, you know, if you make sense to you. But I can't live in that fantasy. I gotta live in the real world, which that day was four half pints of whiskey and lethal dose of injury.

And

on the way out of that meeting, Leo had

John the Baptist in the corner by the he was telling him, I told you, don't bring Jesus into the meeting. You're going to scare away the newcomer. And I didn't go back and tell Leo, but I thought, hey, Leo, if you're not going to scam away with the door knob,

I wouldn't worry about Jesus.

Yeah,

no. Anyway,

I, a week later, I proved to myself I was my, my job a week later was to prove that I'm not an alcoholic.

And I was, I was drunk and could not stop drinking because I was going to drink and not take another one. I was, and I got willpower. I was going to make this work. And for four days I was out of the home on the streets and, and I had a home and I still had a wife and a job which I was about to lose. And

and I when I finally could stop drinking,

I've never wanted a drink since then. This was a very good thing for me. I'm not recommending to anybody, but boy, I'll tell you it sure, sure convinced me. I am an alcoholic.

I know I'm an o'clock and I don't want to drink. And I come here and I hear wisdom and

I

heard the ski from San Diego say he was 36 years and learning that all the people that he hated didn't feel the hate

and it was killing him. Well, I'm going to take that home and I'm going to stop hating people after two days. I hated ski for saying.

And I'm not working the steps. I'm not going to work the steps and time goes by. But things didn't, you know,

I'd stolen some equipment I took back with owed money that Pat didn't know about that I, you know, a lot of things started working early that we got resolved and and so life was getting better, but it wasn't God wasn't in it. And then when I had about a year and I started working the steps, then I first I wasn't going to work the steps at all. Then I was going to work the first Leo

or he was, remember how many years he had. He worked the first step in the 12th step. They worked the 13th too, but we never talked about that.

The he worked the first new 12th and he said that's all, that's all I need. That's all I need. And I thought, well, that makes a lot of sense. You don't stop drinking and and I will set the tables and chairs up. And I'm telling you those are good things. And that's a good start, but it's it's not going to cut it.

And then I'm going to do the 10th step

and the big book that we watch for anger, selfishness,

dishonesty, and fear. And when these pop up, we immediately ask God to take them away and we make amends when necessary, when appropriate. You know how many times I was able to do that?

None. None. I did not do that. I tried and I made amends. She gets sick of that after a little bit. I'm telling you, if you want to make men with her, do not tell her you're sorry.

Stop doing what you're doing. Well, hell, I can't do that. But I can say I'm sorry. And hell, I'm not drinking. I have, you know, what the hell could she still be mad about? I'm not drinking

and

but life is getting better and and

along about a year when I had probably a little less year became important to me.

To tell you if you shared at a meeting about God answering a prayer, I would have to tell you after the meeting, God don't answer prayers for me. I don't pray. My God had the intelligence to create the entire universe

and that creation is still going on

and he doesn't need any input from me about how to create a universe. He don't need any input for me about what the hell I need in life. And and besides that, God doesn't have ears. He's not an man to promote being up in heaven.

He's a spirit that underlies the totality of things and, and nobody cared, you know,

nobody heard whether I prayed or not. And they didn't stop praying because of it. But I told Frank, who was my sponsor, sponsor in the most spiritual man I've ever met.

I don't know if he's the most spiritual, I meant, but he's the most spiritual man I've known. And he said, well, he said, I hear you, Howard. But I never learned to pray effectively until I learned to meditate

well. How do you meditate well? He said there's 1000 public 10,000 books at the Party Tree Bookstore up on Melrose. But he said the best thing I've found for Alcoholics is Chapter 11 in the 12:00 and 12:00.

I said I've read that. You said we read it again.

He said no.

Basically, he said

the Big book tells us

when we should meditate and to some extent tells us how we pray and meditate. To some extent it gives us the third step prayer and 6th the 7th step prayer. But

and and he said,

prayer and medication isn't all that important. NAA.

We only do it when we're working any of the steps

and then on any given day when you awaken

and when you're paying your day or when you're facing indecision or as you go through the day when you're agitated or doubtful.

That will not not mind me that needs are thoughts at my school with us constantly.

Yeah, that's probably 4 or 5% of the time in it

about this matter of prayer. Better men than us are doing it constantly. We constantly remind ourselves we're no longer running the show

and upon retiring at night. Except for that

and prayer, meditation has no major role. I

he told me that on Tuesday and then and on Friday he said, did you read that step 11:00 and 12:00? I said yes, it's, yeah, I read it, Frank. Well, what do you think? Well, it's the Saint Francis of Assisi prayer, which is just what I am not going to do,

he said. He said all you got out of this and I said that's all there is in it, Frank.

He's willing to come over tomorrow morning and let's go through that.

And

years later in 1984, there was a book published called Pass It On. And so let's say long towards the middle of 1985, I got back to page 352

and 300, from 52 to 354. They talked about Bill Wilson having 15 years to watch people come into a a work the steps from the big book,

get sober, stay sober, and remain angry, anxious, depressed and filled with dread long after the high tide of active alcoholism has receded. And Bill wrote Father Dowling, and that's on page 354 is the letter that he wrote the Father Darling, where he said, I've written these essays on the 12 steps in the 12:00 and 12:00,

not to change the step at all,

but to deepen and broaden the experience of the old timer and the newcomer alike.

And

my recent experiences for it to work like the first step from the big book and then work it from the 12:00 and 12:00. And then I'm also,

I go, although I'm not looking to Chuck Chamberlain's description on how to work the steps, on how to work the steps, but but I'm looking for it for spiritual strength. I'm looking to have in my life

what he describes

well, he said. If you guys paid attention, this would this would be on the first page, first paragraph of the second chapter,

Golden Pea. I think it's the name of the chapter, he says. If you paid attention to my talk last night,

you may have the idea that we have a living problem which requires a living answer. But none of us either alcoholic or non alcoholic alike can experience in my opinion, the living answer without a personally satisfactory

conscious partnership with this very God that created this in this entire

business of living

entire probably includes half of it

entire business of living.

Now it is I had no idea when I first heard that and 1st, but that is kind of what I'm that's not kind of that's what I'm shooting for now. That's why I'm going through the steps one more time is to as I get to the experience,

I I want to accept

this conscious partnership with God in his impact. And there's no way I can even come close to that

without working the steps and practicing prayer and meditation the way it's described

in the Big Book and the 12:00 and 12:00. So, Frank said. When that morning we looked at the 12 and 12, the first sentence was

Prayer and meditation are our principal means of being conscious of God's presence.

Now, he said, I know that you believe there is a God whether you think he's in your life or not. If you think he exists, then just being conscious of his existence would be something very important.

Would you want to skip the principal way of being conscious of that? Look at it this way. In the first step, you see that you lack the power that you're powerless on. In the first, in the first step, in the 12 and 12, it says our admissions of our personal powerless nuts becomes firm bedrock upon which we can build happy, comfortable life. So when we have that bedrock, then we can look at the

second step which says we come to believe that some power greater than herself then restores the sanity in the third step.

We decide to trust that in the 5th step it says

we feel the nearness of our Creator. In the seventh step, we surrender our entire lives, good and bad, to God's care

in the night stand and and, and in the night step, we suddenly realize God is doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. If we work the steps, that's what we discovered. If we're diligent about this, this is what we discover and in the Kent Stephens that we have entered the world

of the Spirit.

Now, if you're not going to practice, Frank said. The principal means of being conscious and improving your conscious contact. What the hell did you do the others for?

You know, you're missing the payoff for the program

without the essential prayer and meditation that strengthens our consciousness of this presence.

And he said we go a little bit and it said prayer,

meditation, self examination and prayer take an independent of each other

will add great strength to your life. But if those three things, self examination, meditation and prayer,

are

logically integrated and interwoven, they will form an unshakable foundation for life. Do you feel like your life is unshakable foundation? Well, not exactly well.

And then you go a little further and he says he's talking about the Saint Francis prayer here. And he says you look at each word and idea

and you you consider it, it's deeper meaning. He doesn't say we listen for it, but that's essentially what we're doing is we are listening to see the deeper meaning of each word and phrase.

Now, he said we could do the Saint Francis of Assisi prayer, but I don't want you to do that

because I wasn't going to anyway. But

but he said, I know, you know what the big book, how the big book describes Alcoholics and alcoholism and we'll call meditation, being conscious of what you want to be conscious of.

Now I'm going to read to us this morning

stuff from the big book that describes an alcoholic and the deeper meaning and and alcoholism, not just be conscious, if you will,

of the language used and and and it won't take very long.

So

Alcoholics are men and women who have lost the ability to control their drinking

deeper. The loss of control is carried to right by an insane obsessive belief each time they start to drink, that somehow, someway, this time it's going to be different. And coupled with that insane obsession is a physical reaction to alcohol that manifests itself in the phenomenon of craving for more. Once they start to drink

alcoholic,

our rest is irritable and discontented until they can once again experience the sense of ease and comfort

that comes from picking a few drinks comes at once from picking a few drinks. Drinks which are insane. Obsession convinces us we can take with impunity and when we succumb, as we always did, and the phenomenon of craving develops, we go through the well known stages of a spree, emerging

remorseful with a firm resolve never to do that again. Then we do it again,

and again and again,

and over any considerable period of time. It gets worse. It never gets better. Which leads in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization.

Now, if you were conscious of those descriptions of Alcoholics and alcoholism

in way of

in in way of

if you feel

having listened to that, that that describes your experience with alcohol and alcoholism, we will call that self examination.

And because you found that that description really fits your experience,

we just quietly to the innermost self. I don't know any way to get to the innermost self without meditation

and the animal self we fully conceived,

fully concede to the innermost self that we are Alcoholics. This is the first step in recovery.

And we did that.

And I said, well, what about prayer? If that's medication itself, examination, What about prayer? Well, he said, if you just will sit quietly and be open

to the realization of how your life has changed since you stopped drinking,

you may get a good feeling from that. That in the dictionary, gratitude is described

as a good feeling. That didn't verbatim, but it's described as a good feeling that we get because something bad is taken away or something good is added to our lives now. Yeah, you just sit quietly and feel that. Thank you. God would be a prayer,

but he said

this is not a glass,

this is not a table, and this is not a chair.

Glass, table and chair are words. These things aren't words. They're what they are, but they're not words. Thank you. God is worth

and if you are feeling grateful,

don't leave that real thing to go to a word.

Let God

feel your gratitude. Let that be your prayer.

And from time to time when you do that,

a good feeling will come up your body and leave goosebumps, goosebumps on your shins in the back of your arms and your hands in the back of your neck. And and he said, that will be my higher power telling you I felt your gratitude and you're welcome.

And in that manner,

Frank taught me prayer and meditation. And I'm telling you it worked. You know, you can be very if you get up in the morning and become grateful, just and admit you're an alcoholic and then take the second-half of this step and and see that any problem you had yesterday and any problem you have today is simply going to be you are not having your way. That's it.

There's no other problems around for us. That's it.

We aren't having if if

we also Orient ourselves that that will be acceptable.

Whatever the hell I'm given is acceptable

now. You're ready for it. But that's a that's a way to start the day. And I did that and I felt better. And so I didn't do it anymore.

I stopped it. And then I talked to my sponsor and I talked to Frank and Frank after a little while would say, well, how you doing if you meditation,

I am be damned. I'm not. You're right. I never thought of that.

I'd meditate again

and things would get good. And then I get the old snooze alarm. And I,

I was reading in step seven in the 12 and 12 and I read the paragraph that says sooner or later we have to stop using our higher power as some kind of a Bush league pinch hitter.

That the idea that of myself, I am nothing.

It's the Father within that does the work, becomes our way of life.

And I thought that, you know, I'm doing that. I'm Bruce Lee Pence hitting it with my meditation.

What I'm going to do is on the on the 1st of of August

1974, I made a decision that I'm going to meditate for 30 minutes every day for the rest of my life. That's where I'm going to start my money. When I first get up, I'm going to meditate for 30 minutes.

No big deal, but I'm going to do it for the rest of my life. And therefore I picked a 30 minute period and I picked the meditation, which was going to be 6 months. By this time I've gotten into Ram Dodge, which isn't a bad thing to get into, but I was into Ramdas and I started out with the mantra

Pardon me, Home, Pat Network coming up.

The Grapevine

and she's asleep and I'm

and she wakes up and says something wrong with the car.

I said what's wrong? She said I don't know. It's making a noise

help. We listen and we get here and she said well it gone away and so she laid back to go to sleep and I said

she said there it is again.

OK. After I go to home, then I get rum, rum, rum, rum, rum, rum for 30 minutes a day for six months.

Then I did, I did the believe it or not, the Saint Francis of assisting prayer for 30 minutes a day for six months just to prove I could. And no, because you surrender. Don't even know you're surrendering. And and then

I get my breath

where I was a conscious of my breath coming in and going out,

going in, going out.

You know what? Now you know. And your mind wondered. It isn't if your mind wondered. When your mind wondered,

you go out and you get it and you bring it back to the breath.

Now you wonder why in the hell would anybody be doing that?

And

Pat and I are driving. I'm driving her car

and and I've got it in 3rd gear and I pull and I'm not supposed to drive her car into gear. I'm supposed to drive it in OverDrive 4th gear. Because if you drive in 3rd, you tear up the transmission.

And so I'm driving in 3rd gear and I pull off and I gun it on the freeway and it it spins up a little with RPM. And she said,

got it. They're gear. You're tearing up my transmission.

Actually, Pat, why don't you just shut up?

Oh, I'm funny. Take Me Home.

I'm not riding with you again.

And my head is saying,

why don't you just shut up? You don't know anything about transmissions. I'm the manager of a technical section, the systems engineering department. I have people that work for me

who designed transmissions. I don't know very much about it myself, but these guys,

I mean, I know people that know and you don't know.

Well my mind's going through this litany of BS

and all at once OK on page 88 it says we Alcoholics are in discipline a lot and we let God this one is simple way we just described and I realized my mind is attacking her and I disengage

from that litany and I engaged the lyrics of a love song that describes our relationship from when we were in the 7th grade

and and and the lyrics to the love summer. You gave your hand to me and you said hello and I could hardly speak. My heart was beating so and anyone could tell. You think you know me well,

but you don't know me. No, you don't know the one who dreams of you each night and launch to kiss your lips and launch the holds you tight. But you. I'm just a friend, that's all I've ever been. But you don't know me,

for I never knew the art of making love Though my heart angst with love for you. Afraid and shy, I let my chance go by

the chance that you might love me too.

You gave your hand to me and you said goodbye.

I watched you walk away beside that lucky guy. Oh no, you'll never know the one who loves you so because you don't know me.

And she's broken up with this guy

and she married me. And we have three kids who have the best mother in the world, and I have the best wife in the world, one who without my life is empty

and who I love with all my heart now and then

and all at once. Who cares what she thinks about the transmission

in a Honda Accord?

I mean, who cares?

This is, you know, now that's a tremendous thing. That's a tremendous thing that we did, a discipline

so that we can disengage from things that are not healthy to think about and engage stuff that is

and to believe this stuff that is, for that to be true because we practiced it. Now

some pace along the line, I heard Bob Corwin who was I think it was 8th husband, but he was your last one. She stuck with him till through the thing. I don't know if they did it up some or not, but they stuck together. And

in his talk

Bob had, he was living in this hotel and he was a salesman and he got drunk in the hotel bar. And then while he was drunk, he went over and and held up to

the clerk, the office at the hotel and Bob. And Bob put the gun on him and said give me the money.

He gave me the money. And he went up to his room and went to sleep, passed out.

And our rings are sharp. Los Angeles police found him

and they put him in jail and he was in prison. And he said that that was the best thing that ever happened to me because when I was in prison, I joined a in my Home group in a a practiced love.

Love does not be, he said. I stopped swearing

because love does not behave itself unseemly, I thought. I've heard that. I think that Shakespeare,

No, it's a big book. Well, I'll ask you. So I wait in line and move to the back of line. Move the back of the line. If you want to talk to the speaker, get in the back of the line. And

it's a simple little rule. Anyway, I got to Bob finally and I said, did that love to not be saved yourself and see me? Does that come from the the the big book or or Shakespeare? And he said that comes from the big, big vote.

He could tell from the look on my face that that was, you know,

and he said, well, it wasn't really the Bible.

It's a very tiny book by a guy named Henry Drummond. And it is a valedictory address that he gave to a group of graduating missionaries in which he took for his thesis in this the 1st Corinthians 13 chapter prayer or letter on love.

And as Pat told me that night when you have that book. Well, my mom had given it to me and when I saw it was

biblical I put it away and she said he's still in the drawer. And I went and got it and skipped First Corinthians and read the essay

and I'm telling you it is just something else. It's it's as good as Emmett box on any of em at Fox's stuff. Although Drummond for this. It was just beautiful for me. And,

and then I memorized First Corinthians 13 chapter 30 minutes a day for six months, you know, and, and I got where I could go through it. It's in three sections. And if I made it when I first started that I couldn't even make it, I could through the first section without my mind wandering, but eventually I could go through the first. Now, once you make it through the 1st, that's it for today. You don't have to look at the first again,

then you go through the second. Now if something happens, you can go back to the first of the 2nd and then finally the 3rd. And then I got work. So help me, I could every day go through all three sections without my mind wandering, and then I could go back to the second section.

Love sufferers long and is kind. Love, envy is not. Love wanteth not itself, is not puffed up,

does not behave itself unseemly,

think if it's not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoices not in inequity, but rejoices in truth. Whereas all things believe, it's all things hope, it's all things endureth, all things love never fail.

Now I would then love my life.

I would start loving Pat. Not hard to do. Love Pat, Love my kids,

love the program,

love God. By this time

I can love God and

and then I would say, OK, now what? Drummond says instead of love suffereth home. He says love is patience. Patience is love, Patsy. Patience is love, just waiting in your heart to express itself under some income,

and never is kindness. Kindness is love expressed as you go through the day. If there's some kindness I can show another person, let me do it now because I may not pass this way again.

And, and I'd go through this and this would be the way I planned my day.

I'm going to be loving today and

I'm driving down the freeway and a guy cuts me off.

This is after I've been at this a while, but I'm telling you, he just barely missed me. And my honest to God spontaneous reaction was, man, I've got people off and I didn't mean to you and neither did you.

You know there's been and life just changes so that when anger, selfishness, dishonesty, or fear start popping up, you've got some place to go

other than to anger. You've built new neural pathways

so that you can go to love and patient and any of those nine elements that make up love,

any of those are appropriate

when it hits the fan, you know, and I'm telling you, it isn't if it hits the fan, it's when it hits the fan.

Which brings me quickly

to Page. I look at my irony, what time we started, but it makes me feel a little more secure. If you look at your wife, I felt better when he was showing you the time last night. I thought well

I didn't see you do that really but I see you thinking

so

I

now I forgot where it was. But but

love and tolerance of others is our code.

I don't know how I could have ever found a new pathway to live my life except through the steps and except by developing a discipline

of because I'm automatically spring loaded biochemically. We're in the top 15% in terms of the abundance of the neurotransmitters that activate the fight or flight center in your brain. I mean you are spring loaded biochemically for anger and anxiety. You got a court law as far as dopamine and serotonin are concerned to activate the plaser center.