The Paramount Speaker Group in Paramount CA

I want to welcome you all here. I really want to welcome the newcomers.

I, I've been, I can't imagine anything I would rather be doing today than what we're about to do. Not only my, I get to participate in something that I've fallen in love with called Alcoholics Anonymous, but I get to do it with two guys that are I, I tell you something. If you give me, if you gave me 1000 people to pick with from to do a workshop with, I pick these two guys.

I have a tremendous respect for my know them both personally. I've done step work with Clint. I've known Keith for a lot of years and

there's a lot of people that can talk real well in Alcoholics Anonymous, but the people that always I gravitate to that I aspire to be with and be like or the people that actually do it that go. And they both both these guys get in the trenches. They work with newcomers. They put they try to live these principles. And it's a really an honor and a privilege for me to be here today with them, two of my personal heroes.

We're going to, what we're going to do is we're going to, I'm going to talk a little bit about unity, personal unity, group unity, a little bit about the 12 traditions. And then we're going to have probably 5 to 10 minutes of questions from the floor, a short break. And then

Clint's going to talk about recovery and his experience with that and, and sponsorship and how we pass these things on the legacies on to the people we sponsor, followed by 10,

five to 10 minutes of questions from the floor and a short break. And then Keith is going to talk about the third Legacy service

in his personal experience with that and how and how he ties it in with his sponsorship

unity.

Why does a guy like me drink?

I think in some obscure spiritual sense, I drank for unity.

I drank because alcohol in the early days of my drinking did something for me that I hungered and needed to have done. It connected me to the people around me. And if you're an alcoholic with the spiritual malady of alcoholism like I have it, you have had the experiences that I have had of, of being in a junior high high school dance plastered against the wall. You can't talk to anybody. Not fitting,

having that pint of whiskey and You Can Dance and you can talk to people,

you can come out and play. You get a sense of connectedness to the people around you. It gave me a thing of unity

and the dilemma that I faced in my alcoholism is the disease progressed. My ability to obtain unity and external to become a part of this world through alcohol diminished until at the very end, no matter what I drank, I was just as lonely and depressed and apart from drunk as I was when I was sober. And I was in a trap I couldn't spring.

I needed somehow to obtain unity,

and yet I had a seeming inability, and everything in my basic nature and character worked against that. When I started coming to Alcoholics Anonymous in 1971, one of the greatest obstacles to my own recovery is that you take alcohol away from me. And I don't like people. And a A has a lot of people in it,

right?

And

I wanted to kind of come to AA, find out some kind of you have some kind of Eureka epiphany experience, and then get away from you and go out and do my thing. I didn't want to need you. I didn't want to need Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't want to need anything

and for

seven years from 71 to 78, I was. I lacked. I never got a sense of unity here because I never take took the actions that I'm sure

Clint and Keith are going to touch on that eventually made me a part of here.

And as a result, I know what it's like to sit in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous, in the middle of rooms where people obviously love me, but I feel alone and apart from. I know what it's like to sit in the middle of a A and feel like I'm dying in here

and I can't seem to connect with other people the way they obviously connect with each other.

I didn't want to need you

a tale, a little story that had happened to me after about six, 5 1/2 years of relapsing and I'm I'm by this time I've entered into a phase of alcoholism that is bleak. It's the phase of alcoholism where I'm just full of self pity. When I'm drunk, I'm depressed. I come to facing consequences of things I did that I can't remember. I, I come to sometimes because emotionally it's not fun anymore.

So painful even when I'm drunk that I come to sometimes with broken hands because in enrages and frustration with with what's happening to me. I punch brick walls and stuff and don't even remember it or put my hand through windows. And because I'm just, I'm just, I hate what has happened to me and I desperately wish for the old days and I can't get the old days back and yet I get sober. I continually forced into states of abstinence by running out of money and getting arrested and all the things that happened to people

like me that make me get sober and and sobriety is just as bleak, except that I there's no, there's no oblivion. There's there's no oblivion in sobriety. And I was stuck and I was in AI was in a halfway house in Pennsylvania with a guy and he was my run in partner. I used to like to partner up with people when I would have to be go to a a you got to, if you're going to judge a a, you got to have a friend that can judge you. So

judge properly, right?

And we would go to meetings together, we'd sit in back of the room and whisper and talk through the whole meeting. And by the end of the meeting, we've pretty much figured out how screwed up all you people are. I mean, it's just, it's a great thing we're going to do.

And we we got on marijuana maintenance together because this is Alcoholics Anonymous, right? It's not marijuana. And I got on that because I need something to take the edge off of this abstinence thing that is just awful,

is awful. And as a result of the marijuana maintenance,

the obsession with alcohol returned. And I drank again because I, that's what guys like me do with, with the spiritual malady of alcoholism. If I leave it untreated, my heart aches until I eventually have to satisfy it. And I went back to alcohol and I got thrown out of the halfway house and I'm living in the park. I'm living a homeless guy and I've been out on a run for a while and I'm dirty and I haven't bathed. And I'm I come up to the halfway house to beg Nichols and Dimes and quarters from the guys as they come out to do

their laundry and go to work. And the guy that was my run in partner comes out and he sees me

and he felt sorry for me and gave me a couple bucks and he gave me that look that people like us were the only ones on earth that ever know that look. You know that look. It cuts it down to the core of who you are. The look you we get from our parents and we get from bosses and lovers and friends. It's that pity. I can't stand to be pitied.

And oddly enough, him seeing me like that got him off the marijuana maintenance, got him a sponsor and he started getting into Alcoholics Anonymous.

Months later, I'm in another institution and here he comes and now he's with them. You know who them are? Oh man, he's with them. He's with he's with the the people that are enthusiastic to see people like me when I'm down and out. I

and I'm watching this guy come into the place I'm in and he's driving his own car. He's got two guys with him that are newer than him. He's got the light, he's got the thing, you know,

got the thing in his eyes and he's engaged to be married and he's got a good job and he's got it all. There's a line in our book. It says that

the first thing we ever realized is that we see that it had worked in others, and we come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of our life as we've been living it. You see, I could look at you and discount you because you're different from me. My case is different, but I couldn't do that with this guy. This guy and me, I knew he was like me. He was the first person in Alcoholics Anonymous that I actually knew was not one of them. He was a guy like me

and AAI could see the change in him

and I came off that last run and I was I was broken of spirit

and I wanted to be a part of you. I wanted to have a seat here. I wanted to get with that guy got

and I started to have some hope that it would be for me

and I started to take the actions that would eventually unify me and make me a part of alcoholic synonymous. I bought a principle that it talks about in the first tradition that my personal recovery depends upon a a unity depends upon me being connected to you. Not apart from, not better than, not less than. But I have to join the ranks of Alcoholics Anonymous

in order to survive this disease,

and I didn't want to do that.

I'll be your leader

or I'll sit on the guide, I'll sit on the sidelines and judge you properly. But I don't want to be at just another drunk right? And in the 12th tradition, it talks about something

that it took me probably 18 years here to understand what they really meant by it and its significance in my life.

When it talks about placing principles before personalities,

I thought that what they were talking about is that I had to work the 12 steps and get those principles in my life so I could tolerate your screwed up personalities, right? And I got to tell you, there's only one personality I have to work those principles against,

and it's me. I am the guy. I am the seat of all my judgment and separation. It all starts right in here. And I'll tell you the reason that I that I, I work the principles of Alcoholics honest and I sponsor guys and I have a sponsor and I try to do everything.

At first in AAI thought that I would have to become a part of this fellowship in order to stay here long enough to eventually work the steps

so that I could be OK.

And then after a few years, I thought my my view of a A had changed a little bit where I thought I had to become part of you long enough to work the steps so ultimately so I could help other drunks. And I'll tell you what I think today. I think that I have to come here long enough to find out how to put those steps into my life so that I can go out and help other Alcoholics. And the combination of the principles before my personality and helping you is what secures my seat.

Because I've watched people who were very, very spiritual edge themselves right out of here.

And I need you. I need to be a part of Alcoholics Anonymous. And when I, when I work the principles of a, A against my personality, because I'll tell you, I'll tell you the basic thing about me.

When you're an egomaniac with an inferiority complex like me, it's, it's not, it's not so much that I feel like a piece of whale crap. I'm a very special piece of whale crap,

A piece of whalecraft that is painfully aware of what's wrong with everyone else.

I my basic problem is that I I have a because of the insecurity part. I have an ego that wants to play God

and I, I didn't know that.

I used to go to my sponsor, an early recovery my first couple years and I'd have lists of, of everybody in a that's out of line

and you know, she's, she's just looking for a husband. He doesn't put any money in the basket. He lies in the meetings. He sounds like a Hallmark card and recovery bookstore, you know, on and on, you know, just they're not, he's not even an alcoholic, you know, and I go to my sponsor with these and he'd say the same thing to me over and over again. He says you got to quit playing God,

Not playing God. I'm reporting accurate information here. I'm not playing God. What are you talking about?

But I was playing God. I had created a state of separation between me and the people in AA through my judgment, through my judgment. And when I, I tell you, when I was finally between four and five years, able to go back and do the 4th step as it's outlined in the big book, I discovered something that I never would have imagined when I looked at the exact nature of my wrongs. It was more than the guy I stabbed in the things I robbed.

The great. The real exact nature of my wrongs is I've been so wrong in my judgments of people, of the things that I I was so the fears that I believed so, so adamantly that I never did anything over here because I knew I would fail, right. I believe the fear more than I believed any more than I believed reality

and how I drove myself to be delusional in my sex relations and I would superimpose expectations and other people hoping that they would meet them so I will be better and all. How wrong I had been about everybody and everything in my life

in this quest to play God in this, this over, over compensation for my own inadequacy and my own scent fear. And, and that comes as a result of my own self involvement.

I just, I, and I'm always an overcompensator. You know, I just, I think that's one of the major differences between me and people who don't have this disease. I, I'm the kind of guy that would, before a fishing trip would look for earth, would hunt earthworms with sonar and bazookas. You know, it's like I overkill everything. I over manage everything. I over control everything because I I'm so not enough.

And that's the personality

that I brought to Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's the personality that the principals of AAA

had to work on. So I could be a part of Here.

I,

I'll tell you a little story that talks about it's, I think it has to do with unity. There's a branch of Hinduism. It's called Maya

and Maya means the great illusion. And they have a story of creation that I think is, is very, it's very touching and very significant to me. And the story, their story of creation is very different from the judo Christian story of creation and their story of creation. They they envision God who's just existed forever all by himself. Nothing else. Just God.

And after eons and eons of timelessness, God got bored with just hanging out with him.

So he decided to play a little game. And the game was he was going to fragment himself into an infinite number of pieces, give them all amnesia. And the game was let's let's see which pieces realize their God. And they're part of the whole first,

Einstein said something that I think is very, very relevant. He said. The great illusion of mankind is that there's more than one of us here.

There's more than one of us here.

My ego is what creates a separation in the book. In the part on step three, Bill talks about different examples of He compares us to different examples in society. Talks about the the retired businessman lolling in the Florida sunshine, complaining of the sad state of the nation, the politicians who are reformers, who ensure all would be utopia if the rest of the world would only behave

the

his all these. He gives four or five examples like that and all of those examples

have one thing in common, that the people he's talking about sit in a state of separation through judgment

from the rest from the other pieces of them,

right. And that we are all the same. And if nothing is is brought me more clearly brought that home more clearly. It's been the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous where I I started to obtain my my sense of unity, especially when I went through my resentment list and I looked and I did. This was our course. And the book says you must realize how the people had harmed you were perhaps like you.

And when I could see myself in in them and put myself in their shoes and say and say to myself and really know it and have a sense of it, that if I was afraid like that,

if I was in that guy's spot, if I'd been raised like that, if I was drunk like that, if I was all of what he was going on in him was going on in me, that I would have reacted exactly the same as he did. And I would. And when I could see that, then some of the separation between me and the people I've resented started to dissolve away. And I was able to come back and look at where I'd made decisions based on self that fed the separation. And where was I selfish? Where was I?

Where you know where? Where was I at fault? How did I create the separation

between me and those people?

And Alcoholics Anonymous is, I think is a program that's designed to to create unity in me. And also there's, there's an important aspect of unity in the groups. There's a,

I think one of the dangers in a A is it if we allow too much stuff to come into a A that is outside the principles of this book and our recovery program. The danger is, is that one day you'll go to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and not everybody's going to be on the same page anymore. As a matter of fact, you won't know what page is what.

And the the thing that binds us and unifies us as a fellowship is we have a common problem

and a common solution that we, the book says that we can unanimously agree on. You know, what has happened in Alcoholics Anonymous over the last 20 or 25 years as unfortunately, as a result of our success and notoriety, is that now we're beseeched on one side by religion and on the other side by therapy. They all want a piece of our action. They all want to, they all want to line themselves up with our success. There are our churches around the country

that on their marquees now advertised 12 step workshops. The problem is, is if you ever go to those, they're not what we have.

What they do is they take their particular dogmatic agenda and disguise it as our 12 steps. Their, their treatment centers that do the same thing with their therapeutic modality and they, they altered, they alter it to fit it into the format of our 12 steps and then call that the 12 steps. And it's not.

And what is happening is some of that is bleeding into a, a, it's bleeding in here. And my great fear is that, that we will get so far away from this that in 10 years a guy will come to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, be dying of alcoholism and ask for help. And how do you do the steps? And he'll be showed 47,000 different ways to do them.

And it I think it is.

It is my job as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous to carry this message.

Why? Because I I because I'm convinced that that's the only message. I don't know. I really don't. Am I convinced it's the only way to heal spiritually? I, I don't know,

but it's, it's something that has worked for enough of us that we can unanimously agree on it. And it is the unifying force in Alcoholics Anonymous is that we have a common solution.

And I, as a result of that, I sometimes find myself, I've become in some groups in a, a, I'm the pain in the ass guy, right? And it's hard to do that without creating a state of separation. And what I have to do is do it. So if they want to be separate for me, it's OK, but I'm going to, I'm not, I don't want to. I can love them anyway. I was at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous

about a month ago that frightened me

and I'm not easily scared in a. But this meeting frightened me. It was at one of the clubs in Las Vegas and there was

probably 30 people there. There was 3 newcomers, brand new with less than 30 days. The chairman of the meeting starts the meeting off. He's 15 1/2 years sober. And he was, he said he wanted, he said he wanted to talk about the most important thing he's done in the 15 1/2 years that he's been here.

And he went on to tell us that three months or two months or whatever the period of time was prior, he got on these meds and it's wonderful. And he no longer is pissed, gets pissed at his wife and he no longer gets pissed in traffic. And he's better with his boss. And, and he, he and he said, you know, and I was thinking about getting a sponsor, but this is really a lot better

now. That was not the frightening thing

that I can say. Well, that happens. What was frightening is as they went around the room, with no exaggeration, probably 2/3 of the room chimed right in and talked about the meds they were on and how wonderful their life was it. And there's, there's I'm sitting there and I'm imagining I'm putting myself in the place of the newcomer. OK, here we got getting a sponsor and being told what to do.

Finding a relationship with God, who you secretly suspect has been out to get you.

Writing an inventory which feels like punishment. Making amends. Giving away your money and your exposure of pride

and then spending the rest of your life

your precious time helping others or take a pill.

And I, and don't get me wrong, I am not one who I, I, I, I'm not a doctor. I don't, I, I don't, I'm not an advocate. If, if there are people in Alcoholics, I'm just as there are that legitimately need medication, that's fine. That real. I have. No, I don't have an opinion about that. I have an opinion about Alcoholics Anonymous being a format for anything other than Alcoholics Anonymous

and that's what frightens me here. I I would feel the same way if some guy gave got up in an A a meeting and talked

for 45 minutes about how Amway changed his life. You know, I

right, It's, it's our unity depends upon our common, common deal here.

And the traditions. I am a member, I my Home group, we, we've been getting more and more into the long form of the traditions. And I, I think, and this is my feeling that that we took, we took a hit as a fellowship when we adopted the short form. And I believe that because if you look at the different, if you set down with the long form and the short form side by side and you look at them, there's some great differences. And I understand how we ended up

short form. I understand Bill Wilson's frustration at trying to even get a group to read them. They don't want to read them. They're they're long. I mean, they cut into us talking about our favorite subject, me, right? And groups wouldn't read them. And it got so bad that Bill, who's the founder of Alcoholics, was getting asked to speak. And before they would let him come and speak, they would make him promise that he wouldn't talk about the traditions.

And so members, as my friend Bob Pearson had told me and another guy and is able to figure out as best I could

in tracing the history of the events of the transition that the pressure was on Bill to get these adopted. And he reluctantly conceded to an abbreviated version that we I have never been able to find out who wrote the abbreviated version. I was told that it was the input of several different people. Bob Pearson seems to feel that it was it was some of the members of the newly formed Grapevine staff or people at GSO, along with some input from some other people that whoever it was, even if Bill wrote him himself,

we took a big hit. I want to talk a little bit about some of the traditions that we took a hit and how it affects our unity.

Bill one time said that if a A was ever to be destroyed it would be from within

and the third tradition in the long form as it was originally written had a membership requirement. And this if you go back into AA history, this ties in with how 12 step work was done in the early days. It says membership should include all who suffer from alcoholism. I am a member of Alcoholics Anonymous today because I suffer from alcoholism.

I have a spiritual malady that needs a lot of tweaking and attention

or else I get very weird. The problem is that when I get when I get spiritually sick, I don't think I'm spiritually sick. When I get spiritually sick, it looks like it's you.

It looks like it's you

and I'm capable. I could judge my way right out of here, right out of here. I'm an everyday member of alcoholic zombies, not because of the of the requirement of the third tradition in the short form, a desire not to drink. To be honest with you, I haven't consciously thought about not drinking in a long time. If I would have if, if my membership in a a was was based on a desire not to drink, I think I would have gotten that pretty early in sobriety when they be able to leave here.

But what I, what I've never been able to do is get free of my, from my suffering of alcoholism, my, my natural inclination and propensity to be self involved, to be judgmental to, to get depressed when life isn't, when I'm playing God doesn't go my way. I, I suffer from all of that spiritual sickness that happens in a guy like me.

And I think one of the things that has happened in Alcoholics Anonymous and I think it undermines our, our unity to some degree. And I, I don't know what I, I don't even know if I have an opinion on this. It's just an observation. Is it, There's a large portion of our fellowship today that don't suffer from alcoholism. They have a drinking problem

and there it talks about this on page 20 and 21 of the book. It says that there's there's a type of person, it calls them a hard drinker. And if you look at the description of the hard drinker, he looks like an alcoholic.

It says he it may he may be drinking so heavily that is it is impaired him physically and mentally. It says he's drinking habitually. He has the habit so badly that it impairs him physically and mentally. It may cause him to die a few years before his time. It even says what then it says but if a sufficient reason ill health, falling in love warning from a doctor becomes operative that this guy has an ability

with the help maybe of a doctor says he might even need detox if he's been hit and heavy

as an ability to stop or moderate on his own. He doesn't when he stops drinking and he's been detoxed. He doesn't suffer from alcoholism

now. A A for him, because of our popularity has become a wonderful support group like it to fill the social void in their life that was left when they stopped going to the bars. It's kind of like a is the sober Elks for those people, right?

The problem with that is in 1976, I'm in a halfway house and I'm dying of alcoholism and the first time I ever reached out to a sponsor, I grabbed a guy

that basically he had a three-step program of recovery. Step one, don't drink. Step 2, go to it. Go to at least at one meeting a week

and Step 3, sell Amway.

And the sad part about it is in this experience is that that programmer recovery was adequate and sufficient for him. He was a very happy man. He was very successful,

but he's not enough. I looking back, I am convinced that he didn't have alcoholism, that I have alcoholism. And I'm trying to use him as a sponsor and emulate his program recovery. But his programmer recovery, his, his the Nancy Reagan thing, just say no. It works for him,

but I'm the guy that no matter how much I say no, I can say no, no, no, no, no, no, no. OK.

You see, for an alcoholic of my type, there's a yes in every barrel of nose. I mean, it's in there. It it may be at the top, it may be at the bottom, but it's in there. And it's coming at me with untreated alcoholism. It's coming to the surface. And I that's why I kept drinking again. And I know what it's like to drink

when I had absolutely made-up my mind, I'll never touch that stuff again. What I'm on paper, I take a drink, I'm going to go to prison for two years. I'm not going to drink. And I mean this. And no matter how tremendous my resolve is, the emotions of that are that are incurred from having the spiritual illness of alcoholism untreated will gradually grind away my my resolve. And one day I got to screw it switch in my head

and one day it's just worked on me and it says

screw it.

And all of a sudden the insanity returns and I, I don't fit here. I'm not, I have no connection with God. I have no connection with you and I have no connection with myself. I have lost me. I don't even know who I am. I've been trying to be so many things to so many people and I am separate from myself. I have no integrity. I don't know. I don't have principles in my life. Like do what you say you're going to do when you say you're going to do it. I say one thing and do something else. I'm I'm one thing to you,

to you, I don't know who I am. I am disconnected and separate from myself. I don't even know who I am. I'm disconnected and separate from God or any sense of power, and I'm disconnected and separate from you. I know what it's like to sit in a A and feel the loneliness, to feel the loneliness. On my last drunk, I try to take my own life. And I stood on a bridge with a bottle of Richard's Wild Irish Rose, trying to get up enough courage to jump. And if you'd asked me why I was there

was going to kill myself, I wouldn't have told you alcoholism. If I could have been honest with you, I might have told you I was. I was dying a loneliness,

but it wouldn't have the see. The alcohol didn't occur to me as the problem. The alcohol really was a solution that no longer worked and I couldn't understand why.

All I wanted was to recapture the sense of unity in a part of that I had once obtained in taking a few drinks.

I, I think as an alcoholic, I'm cut out of a different, I'm cut out of a different piece of cloth than normal people.

I think that there are people in this world that unmedicated and undrunk can be by themselves or with people, and they're really okay either way.

And I, I have always hungered for unity. I've always wanted to be a part of. I've always wanted that connection. And I'll tell you something in a A once you taste it,

once you've tasted the connection with God and you've tasted the connection with other people and you've found your center and who you are, when resentments come along and things that block me off, the desolation now is always much more pronounced. I can't the, the, the, the bad side of a A is it once you get it here, the, the loss when you lose it is awful. It is awful

and I know I've had I've I that's why I still come to meetings and work these steps and I try to, I call guys like these when I'm like

in my head and I'm separate and I'm locked up in here. I'm locked up, I'm disconnected, no unity at all. I was in a how's it a treatment center one time and this therapist said this well meaning psychologist said to me, Bob, the problem is you're not in touch with your feelings.

Well, I understand what she what she was talking about. I couldn't identify my feelings, but I if I was any more in touch with them,

I would have slit my throat. The problem is, is that my feelings in my life are on me like that creature, an alien that attaches itself to your faith. And I can't get it off. And I eventually drink because I got to get free of me. I got to get free of meat. And when I take, when alcohol works and I take five shots of Jack Daniels, you hear this is it just falls off and all of a sudden, oh, here I am,

here I am. I can play now. This is good.

I hunger for freedom. I hunger for unity. I can't stand the loneliness. I've never been able to and I was ashamed of myself for being that way. It is one of my greatest treasures. It is the thing that forces me to to clear up the separation between me and you. The thing that forces me to clear up the separation between me and God and and also to be on the same page with myself. So I am but one person rather than a whole bunch of people.

No wonder I had so many. You know, they talk about the committee.

I had a committee in my head. I was so many things to so many people. So often I didn't know who I was.

I I have a one when I'm not in the middle of a lot of fear or resentment, which happens from time to time. I have a sense of oneness. I am, I'm OK. There's a on the newer people as they come in that I could be concerned with you enough that this will fall off of me in my concern and attention of you.

Really when Alcoholics Anonymous works at its best

is when it relieves me of the bondage of self as alcohol did, and alcohol did that tremendously. Would I could walk into a bar with me on me so heavy that I'm so alone, painfully alone. And five shots of whiskey and I was relieved of the bondage of self. Seven shots of whiskey and I could look around the bar and

love everybody,

my people.

Now that's unity. That's unity. Now maybe it's maybe it's a chemically induced unity, but for a guy who's never had it, it's the closest I ever got. It's the closest I ever got,

and I found that in Alcoholics Anonymous. And I found it through what Keith and Clint are going to talk about through the principles of A, A, the things in the steps that are designed to reduce the separation so I can be connected

and ultimately to carry the message and care about somebody and think about somebody other than me.

I, God seems to work the most effectively in my life when I'm not paying much attention to it. And the only way a guy who is basically self obsessed and self involved by nature, it is my propensity is to be involved with you. And if I'm involved with you, I'm not as involved with me. And that's when God seems to work very well in my life.

Very well.

I,

I want to read something and I'm going to, we're going to go do some questions.

And this is from the 12th tradition in the long form.

And finally, we have Alcoholics Anonymous. Believe that the principle of anonymity has an immense spiritual significance

in Alcoholics Anonymous. If I am connected with you, and I'm not better than I'm not less than I'm on, we're all on the same team, then I am Anonymous. Here I am not a personality here I am. I am one of you.

It reminds us that we are to place principles before personalities, that we are actually to practice a genuine humility.

This to the end that our great blessings may never spoil us, that we shall forever live in thankful contemplation of Him who presides over us all.

I believe what Einstein said in my best moments, I know as I look around with the guys I sponsor and the people I've come to love and Alcoholics Anonymous, I know that it is only an illusion that there is more than one of us here. And if you ever been touched by that sense of connectedness to people and I, I think it happens that it's best when you're, when you're listening to a guy that you love and you're connected to him, one of the guys you sponsor, if you've ever known that,

I don't think anything else we'll ever do again. Why don't we, why don't we talk? Why don't we have five to seven to 10 minutes of questions, if there's any questions. And if after that, we'll take a 5 minute break and we'll come back and we'll do segment #2 are there any questions?

You're in a meeting and they're talking outside issues like Med. Do you share

what your feelings are? Yeah, yeah. And I

and there, I, there, I tell you, there have been times where I felt good about how I did that. And there have been times when I did it and I didn't feel good about it. And I,

I don't believe that the traditions were ever designed to step on people's toes. They're designed as a vehicle to actually facilitate more unity and love in AA. And I see if I do it with a resentment, if I sit there during the meeting and now by the end of the meeting, I'll finally share it, now I'm pissed. What I say at that point is not useful. And the problem is not in what's going on in the meeting. The problem at that point is what's in me.

But I say something and I try to say it in a loving, a loving manner.

One of the best lines I think in working with others. When it talks about other Alcoholics, it says that we should try to put ourselves in their place and see how we would like to be approached at the tables were turned. And if I could, if I'm not blocked up with resentment, I can I tell you I can do that real well. I can put myself in their position and and and get a sense of how somebody could say it to me if I was in their shoes and I wouldn't be wouldn't be put off. But if I'm going to place a resentment,

then it what happens is I just, I become, I become, I take an adversarial position towards that person and it's not productive. It's just they're more they, I think I'm right. They think they're right. And

I tell you what, you know something about me when I'm really, really right, I'm wrong. I'm telling you when I'm really right, I'm wrong. And that is,

that is almost a spiritual axiom for me.

Anybody else?

You mentioned something earlier that you can look at someone, you can be in your ear fixed, but you mentioned it's not true. It's them. It's better than that. That's part when they talk about the disease. So cunning that if our disease tells us that we don't have a disease,

you lost me.

I don't think remember saying that it was. It was not me, it was them. I think I did it the other way around,

right? I am the seat of the judgment. I am the seat of the separation. I'm the guy that's got to change. I can't reduce, I can't reduce the separation between me and you by changing you. I can do it by changing me and my position to you. Bill. Bill Wilson said something very important. He said that honesty gets us here, but it is tolerance that keeps us here.