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Source: Rich B – Steel City Woodstock (2022) – Steps 10 and 11 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: rich-b-steel-city-woodstock-2022-steps-10-and-11-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:00:00
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Good morning everybody! It's the best sentence in the book, isn't it? Short and sweet, what else needs to be said, and that's our hope, right, is that at every meeting we go to, and certainly a conference, there's one person here that leaves with one idea that they've never had before, and that's that this thing might work for me too, right? I like that sentence that says rarely have we seen a person fail who's thoroughly followed our path.
I came to my first AA meeting in 1991, court ordered, and a lot of people thinking I should be here, other than me thinking I should be here, right? An interesting phenomenon, I couldn't, from my sobriety date, August 30th of 04, okay, during that period of time from 1991 until August the 30th of 04, I was unable to ever stay sober for one year, and I was unable to ever stay out of your meetings for one year. Isn't that weird? There was something here that I knew was here that kept drawing me back, right? I was drawn to you but not really, right? It's like one of those weird relationships you get in when you're in high school, I like you but stay away, right? And I didn't know what it was but something in me could feel something in you and in the room. And my sponsor said to me when we got to that sentence, he said, hey, I'm just curious, how many of those 24-hour chips do you think you've gotten? And I couldn't even count, right? Like 13 years worth a couple times a year. And he said, are you tired of failing? And I said, I am. And he said, well, why don't we put a circle around that word and that sentence and put a line through it like Ghostbusters, right? So I circled that word fail and I put a line through it and he said, well, now read that sentence back to me, right? Rarely have we seen a person who has thoroughly followed our path. That's what the sentence says when you take the word fail out, right? And he goes, do you think that might be your truth? And that was my truth, right? A.A. didn't fail me. A.A. didn't not work. I didn't even know what A.A. was.
I thought it was coming to meetings and conferences and dances and drinking coffee and going to the diner. All of the support functions, right, of encouraging somebody. So anyways, it's my hope it works. It really does. You know, you got to hear a whole lot of people's lives over the course of this weekend. And I'm hoping that one person that has never done what I had never done, which is the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, leaves here this weekend and goes, you know what? Those guys made those steps sound like they might not be that bad. Maybe I'll give them a try, right? And if one person leaves here and decides to do those 12 steps, all of these people that came from Ohio and Pittsburgh and Maryland and Washington and the committee that worked their butts off to make this happen, it'll all be worth it.
One person decides to go through those 12 steps. Why is that, right? What do they do? Why are we here? Why are we going to continue to practice? Why are we going to, right? So you can often tell what the problem is, right, by the name of the solution. And I started talking about that last night, and God moved me on to another topic, right? It's like ADD. I squirreled. I started chasing something else, right? And that happens when you're standing here, right? And you're like, oh, yeah, I meant to talk about this, but apparently God wanted me to talk about that, right? Sometimes I get in bed at the end of that, right? I always go shower, and I'm like, ooh, and I just feel like tired, like emotionally and spiritually. God just sucked it out of me. And I usually lay there, and I go, thanks, God, you used me up good tonight, right? And what was that thing you had me say, and that was weird, right? But that's also how you know like it was a cool night. And so the 12 steps, what do they do? You can tell what the problem is, right, by the name of the solution. If you need an appendectomy, right, what's the problem? Appendicitis, right?
We know the name. We know the solution. We talked about it last night. There's only one in Alcoholics Anonymous, and it's called a spiritual awakening. That's the end goal.
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For all you people looking for that, like the only thing since recorded history that
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has nipped this thing is a spiritual awakening if we're able to achieve that. Our method, right, in AA is we achieve that by and through the 12 steps. There's many other people on a Sunday morning achieving the exact same thing with other methods, right? The only thing that makes us unique is our method, the 12 steps. And if I suffer, if you can tell what the problem is based on the name of the solution, if what I need is a spiritual awakening, what's the problem? Spiritual asleepening, right? And I talked about many people will be born asleep, get married asleep, go to work asleep, raise a family asleep, and die asleep. And there's lots of famous quotes about the unawakened life, the unexamined life. I'm not going to quote a bunch. You guys read that stuff. But anyways, that's what we're after, right? Is this thing called awakening? We heard really, really well what the real problem for the alcoholic is. It's not the drinking. It's not the alcohol. And I've always thought that that's weird, especially if you're new, that you're sitting in Alcoholics Anonymous and alcohol is not the problem, right? Because we remove that. And if you have what I have, you know that things didn't just get better at about like 10 days without drinking, right? Like the bills are coming in. I'm like getting the mail. I'm looking at them instead of throwing them away. I'm freaking out. People are calling. I can't answer the phone. There's warrants. They might be coming. And now I know they're coming and I'm not high, right? And like, you know, my whole family hates me. And when I'm good and drunk, I can tell myself, you know, who needs a mother anyway? You know, mothers overrate it. Mine was always kind of overbearing and, you know, wanted me to have a good education, right? I'm a sister. I've got one sibling. Who needs them, right? And when I'm drunk enough for long enough, I can pack that down, right? But at about 10 days sober, 20 days sober, 30 days sober, 60 days sober, right? It's like the walls are closing in, right?
And alcoholism for me, a person like me begins when the alcohol stops, right? It's like now the game is on. And we talked about that the alcoholic drinks primarily for the effect produced by alcohol. What is that, right? Nice sentence. You say that to a guy, like, you drink for the effect, yeah, right? Well, what is that effect, right? And I like that sense of ease and comfort, right, that comes at once. And we all describe that so many different ways. My favorite is just the, you know, as soon as I need to go to the bathroom, it's just the, you know, as soon as I sit down at the bar and I take that first pull and I just go, I don't even need to explain that to anybody in this room, right? So, if you have any inquiry at all, right, if you're at all inquisitive, you go, well, what was the problem? Why did I need an, ah, right? Ah, from what? Why is, why am I so bored?
Bound up, right? Like, what is this tension? What is this internal conflict? Why is life on life's terms unbearable, right? You know what I suffer from? Untreated sobriety, right? Like me going through life sober is my biggest problem, right? And for a while, I found something that worked really good, alcohol. And it was, ah, I can do this thing called life. And then I couldn't, because this thing that worked for so long didn't. And now I'm really in a jackpot. And what are these 12 steps do? Because what alcohol does is relieves, fixes, temporary relief, however you want to phrase it, you know what alcohol did for you. It fixed all that was wrong. But, here's my promise, if you're that one person debating alcohol, do I really want to submit to these 12 steps? Does it really work? Here's what steps one through three do. I make some peace with the universe, a god of my understanding. Four, five, six, seven, I get okay with me, the guy in the mirror. Not great, but okay. I'm
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okay with me. Eight and nine, I get okay with most of you. Not all, but most. Seven, eight, certainly my core relationships, I call them the core relationships, mom, sis, immediate family, those that I know really matter to me that I've been lying to myself about that don't matter, that do matter. I get okay. And guess what? If I'm okay with God, if I'm okay with me, and I'm okay with most of you, there's nothing for alcohol to fix. It just goes blah, blah, blah, blah. How about that? Now, what the heck does this have to do with step 10 and 11, Rich? The problem is staying there. I don't know about you, but I was awake yesterday, and I also went to sleep again last night. Do that each night, physically.
And I can do that several times a day, spiritually. And what these steps do for me is to place me at a position where I have a decent shot of staying awake, right? And if steps one through three get me okay with God, four through seven get me okay with the guy I'm looking at in the mirror, and eight and nine get me okay with most of you, the other thing that that enables me to do is we walk around. What's our, like, biggest bumper sticker? One day at a time, right? Tell the new car, just hang in there one day at a time, right? And you know what? A newcomer can't live one day at a time, because they live in the fear of the future and what's coming and the bills and the warrants and the probation officer and the violation and my court date coming up, and you know, what if I run away on Thanksgiving, I'm not going to be invited again, my family still hates me, hates me, hates me, fear, guilt, remorse, shame, past, past, past, shame, remorse, I can't believe I did that, can't believe they did that, I'm totally unemployable, should have never taken my clothes off at the bar, right? I am either in the past or in the future, and I come to AA and some very well-meaning people are going, we just do this one day at a time, right? It is 100% impossible to live one day at a time until I reconcile the past and get something that allows me to get free of the fear of the future, and guess what happens after one through nine?
I have a shot of living in today, right? And maybe somebody could do it, but I have never been able to live in the present day, nonetheless the present moment until I got through the first nine steps. And then steps 10 and 11, say I like what step 10 says, and now that you've done that, that you think is quite an accomplishment, you've made a great start, start, I just made all those amends and ran all over, I was on airplanes paying back money, paying back the IRS, start, yeah. And then it says this great sentence, now you have entered the world of the spirit, okay? I've just stepped through the door, and that this being new, I'm in a new place, I've never been, it's going to be weird, I'm going to screw it up, I'm going to do all kinds of nuts things. What's the first nuts thing we do? Usually somewhere around like a year when they release us from our one year of celibacy AA mandated ban that they do just to be cruel, right? What's the first thing you tell your sponsor? I found him, he's God's will, right? You know, I found her, we're getting married, she likes AA, I like AA, I mean, God's will, right? And it says in the book that we're going to think that it's going to show itself in all kinds of absurd things, right? And how do those usually play out, right? The sponsor's like, okay, hey, check it out, if you guys get married, fall in love and have a great life together, don't drink. If this ends next month badly, don't drink, right? Just, you know, and then we kind of sit back and watch the show. If we're a sponsor, like, this is going to be good.
So step ten tells me I'm engaged in a new spiritual action called watching. Steps one through nine, I proffer to you, are a we program. Something changes after step nine, it becomes a we program. It becomes a we program. It becomes a we program. It becomes a we program.
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You get to take inventory as much as you want, right, and 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, what you guys did was you taught me a design for living. I get to employ that design for living as often or as little as I choose to. A sponsor can't make me do that, a sponsor can't, right, like I get to, Amazon makes these things now called blink cameras. I have them in my office. They run on two AAA batteries and it links to my phone and if somebody walks in my office, I had some police officers on a big drug case go into my office and pour water all over computers and ruin files and to try to sabotage the case.
So after that, I was like, I'm getting cameras in there and I got these blink cameras, they're like $29.99 and they're amazing, they're crystal clear, I can see everything going on in my office right now and if somebody comes in, like breaks the seal, it turns on and records it. So I have also called these things sponsor cams, right, and what you could do with these things, if you ask me right after this weekend, if I say, hey Kent, what is the single most important relationship in your life?
Anybody that's been here for 30 days knows the answer to give their sponsor, oh, my relationship with God, hands down, okay, well good, take this blink camera, do you have a room you meditate in, do you do that in your bedroom, do you have a special spiritual room, a lot of people have a sitting room, just sit this in the corner for me and that'd be great and what we're going to do is watch that for the next six months, right.
Hey Kent, you just told me this was the most important relationship in your life and I noticed that you spend seven minutes each day fostering this relationship and I can't help but notice just this weekend, I've noticed that young lady you're with, you know, you spend roughly, you know, 12, 14 hours making sure she's happy, fed, shopping, you know, hugging her, kissing her, talking with her, being with her, fostering the relationship, talking, listening, talking, listening, I mean that's what builds a relationship, right?
You guys have been sitting together, talking, listening, right? So I got 14 hours here and I got seven minutes on the sponsor cam with God. And you'd see that in my life, I'm teasing Kent because he's right in front of me but I think that's certainly true for me on any given day, right? And you guys taught me that whatever takes up the most of my thought life is my higher power, I can say whatever I want.
But if all day I'm thinking about bills, money, bills, money, bills, money, bills, money, want to know what my higher power is that day? Money, right? If I'm thinking about the wife, got to get her happy, wife, wife, wife, wife, got to love her, love her, got to keep her happy, life, right? Guess who my higher power is that day? The wife. Some days it's my kids, some days it's my job, some days it's a big case, right?
Things run me. And usually when I look at it, which I get to do through step 10, that word brings us to step 10 which suggests we continue to take personal inventory, continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. I like to put the word if, you know, when I read that tense, it's not in there, I mean, I'll go back to how it works, I mean, it's, they knew what was going, continue to take personal inventory and when, right?
We were wrong, promptly admitted it, right? A lot of times even people read it wrong in the meeting, they go, and if we were wrong, promptly admitted it, seldom, you know, if that would happen. I would be willing to make it right if such an event ever occurred, right? And I only know, our book only talks about one way that I know of, somebody could grab me afterwards if you know something different, this book, my sponsor, it outlines one way for me to take inventory.
You taught me one way to do it and I'm either going to keep doing that or I'm going to start thinking I know a little bit better, which I've also done and, you know, John already told you, you're not getting a spiritual guru on Sunday morning, you're getting a highly defected member of Alcoholics Anonymous, right? And I get to watch and you guys taught me, they stole the words at step 10, right, out of step 4.
What am I watching for, selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear, same thing, new day,
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same thing. Are you going to use step 4 today? Or did you get to thinking you know better, right? I'm 5 years sober, I just lay on my back in bed at night and I review my day, I don't write anything, I mean who would write at 5 years sober, 25 years sober, writing, I mean that was like new, when I was new. I do more advanced 10th steps, I'm spiritually advanced. So I kind of combine those with the questions and 10 runs into 11 at a certain point in these steps we heard, I think it was Kent talking about it, how there is a spiritual rhythm and movement and propellant too through these steps and there's all these words that tell us when to do a step, why to do a step, what we're going to get from the step, right, it says things like next we launched, right?
I've watched rockets launch, you know, that doesn't take 2 hours, right? And things like that where you're moving me through these steps with a certain rhythm. Sometimes I'm propelled, you know what my propellant for steps 8 and 9 was? The shame, guilt and remorse and filthiness I felt coming out of 6 and 7, coming out of 4 and 5, you know when I did 6 it tells us when you do 6 and 7, right? Right after step 5 I take this hour, 6 and 7 and then I'm going to get busy fixing some of this stuff so I can get some relief or I'm going to live in shame, guilt, you know when you have to start your amends, there's only one time, you got to do it before you drink or kill yourself, that's it.
But otherwise take your time, you know, take a year off, reflect on it a little, you know, you don't want to jump into something like that. What you really want to do is go through 4 and 5 and 6 and 7 and then just sit in it for a while, right, like good golly. But now what am I doing each day with that? I like to, I combine those with these, the questions in 11 and what I did was I took a sheet of paper because you guys can figure I like to read and I'm kind of dorky, right?
But I just typed, where was I resentful, question mark, space, there's like 3 or 4 lines. Where was I selfish today, question mark, couple of spaces, where was I dishonest, right? This is all on page 86 if anybody wants to engage in my nerd exercise. And you just type them out in a Word document, you know, you print one copy, you go over to Staples or Office and you do, hey, can you make me 365 copies of this, right, with the 3 and they can actually make copies right for you with the 3 hole punch in it, you go over to that 99 cent aisle, you get a 3 ring binder and you put those in there.
And if you came to my house, that sits next to my bed. And each night, I say my evening prayers while I'm on my knees right there, I put that thing on my bed, my wife's usually reading a book and I sit there and I answer those questions each night, right? And you might be thinking to yourself, man, that's a little intense, I mean, geez, every, right? You want to know how long what I just described to you takes about 4 to 6 minutes, right?
And then this amazing thing happens where at the end of the week or month, I look at that and Monday, resentful at my boss, Don, giving me a hard time about leaving at 10 of 5 instead of 5, I had to go pick up the kids, we got soccer practice. Tuesday, resentful with Don. At work, told me I spend more time walking around getting coffee than working at my desk. Wednesday, resentful with Don, right? If you're in there, in my writing, right, for more than like a couple of days, now it's time to go talk to Spons, right?
And it tells me what I could do, right? And that kind of, and I'm not saying, I hope this comes across, I'm not here to tell anybody what to do or suggest, this, I'm sharing my practice. I was asked to talk on step 10, 11, I'm sharing my practice with you, right? And then I go talk to my, I go, man, I keep getting mad at Don over and over and over again, you know, and I really want to like the guy, we got to be together every day and I seem to come up with something here each day that's bugging me about Don and then I go into a full-blown inventory process the same way you taught me and there's like nothing new here, right?
It's just the frequency in which I choose to engage in this practice, right? And how do I? I think the only wrong way to do it, right, is like just not to do it at all. A wrong way for me, got that, for me would be to engage in the practice like once a year
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on retreat with my sponsor, right? Because then I get to be mean, crappy, resentful the other 364 days, right? Well, we're going to do an inventory, we get together once a year and do that, okay, how about the rest of the year, right? So that's a little bit of how I like to engage with step 10 because I know this is, nobody in Pittsburgh is like, I'm wrong a lot, right? You guys probably don't have that.
And I want to die with a few friends. I want to die with some loving relationships. I want to die with some family that I've been attentive and loving towards. And then step 11, this prayer and meditation piece, right? Again, I just told you what's the most important relationship, oh, my relationship with God. Well, how much time do you spend with God? Three, four minutes, you know, on my knees in the morning, dear God, please help me stay sober, let's go buddy, here we go.
And then at night, dear God, thanks for keeping me sober. And that's a great place to start. And I always like telling this story because it's goofy and you guys made the mistake of calling on me when I was in that first year in like a step three meeting. You don't have a really call on newcomers, that's it, this is a tip, right? Because what I think the topic is when you call on me, what I heard was, hey, we're talking about step three, what do you think about God, Rich?
Right? That's what I thought. And I start sharing, you know, I got like two months sober and I'm like, I don't like God, the Jesuits and the school and they kicked me out, which wasn't even true. When I talked to that dean, you know, I said that I understand you guys had to kick me out. She said, we didn't kick you out, Rich, you went to federal prison, you were gone for like a long period of time.
And I'd been telling myself this story that like the Jesuits kicked me out, right? Like I self-eliminated, right? There's the truth of it. You know, I don't even like the word God and in fact, AA says it's not a Christian program but there's all these Christians. I'm like the worst kind of AA member sponsee, right, because I can read and remember just enough to argue with you about everything, right?
And you see, we have no, you know, you just did the preamble and then when you finished that we're in a circle saying the Lord's Prayer, do I look stupid? Told me you weren't affiliated with any of the Lord's Prayer, come on, right? But I'll tell you this, I'm a surfer, I'm sharing, sharing, sharing, hate God, hate God, don't like the word, you guys say this prayer, you know, God's never done anything for me except kill people I love, right, share, share, share, share, share and but I'll tell you this, I'm a surfer and what waves are is energy that travel thousands of miles across the ocean generated by plate tectonic shifting when the ground hits or a windstorm, one of the two ways, only two ways to generate energy, those waves travel thousands of miles at a very specific direction across the ocean, that wave will break when it hits half the size of the height of the wave, eight foot wave will break when it hits four feet of water, the bottom of the wave stops, the top continues to travel, it's like a car crash, right, where the bottom, you go out the window, right, just because the car stopped, you didn't, right, so that wave hits that but the sand on the bottom of the ocean, that sand bar has to be shaped in a very specific direction to make the wave peel from left to right or right to left, you know, right to left, left to right so that you have a direction to ride down the wave, otherwise the wave would just go, if it hit a straight sand bar, there'd be nowhere to surf or a coral reef can also be conveniently shaped in just the right shape at just the right direction that that wave after traveling thousands of miles across the ocean hits that reef at pipeline and goes across that just perfect every single time so it's the best wave in the world and when it hits the channel, the wave stops working but that alone is not good enough.
You also have to have the wind, the wind has to go from the land to the ocean, we call that an offshore breeze, that offshore breeze, what it does is it blows the top of the wave back, it creates that beautiful mist you see in all the surf pictures but what it really does is holds the top of the wave up so that it makes the wave hollow, we call that two brides or barrels, it gives me a place to get inside the wave without the wind going in that direction, the wave would topple, there would be no barrel.
Wave Would Topple, There Would Be No Barrel, and I am willing to concede that I couldn't
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make all those things come together at the same time for a good day surfing. One of you old-timers grabbed me after that meeting and took me out in the hallway. You never embarrassed me in front of the group and you said, hey Rich, that thing you were talking about that makes the waves and the wind and holds the wave up and all that, that was beautiful, and boy do I get that. We have a word for that in Alcoholics Anonymous.
We call that God. It's three letters. It's really short. When you say that, you just wasted 20 minutes of our precious hour describing that thing or trying to describe that thing, and just so you know, you could just shorten that right up and when you say the word God, we'll know that you mean the thing that makes the waves and the wind so that you could go surfing. And I've been saying God ever since, right?
So when I say God, whatever that triggers in you, that's what I'm here to talk about this Sunday morning, and if it means something different to you, rock on. I believe what you believe. If you call it by a different name, right on. I believe what you believe, and that's how I started my 11-step practice. We've heard it said this weekend, and I would share at a meeting because I knew nothing. My starting place, I came off a school bus.
I don't know what grade I was in. We had family dinner every night at 6. I told you I came from a great family, and I got off the school bus, and I said, hey, Dad, some of the kids on the school bus were talking about God. What's God? And my father said, son, you know down in Baltimore City where everybody's shooting each other and everybody's very poor, and it's like survival of the fittest, and it's God is an idea for those people that when they die, things will be better, and it gives them hope, and it gives them something to look forward to, and it makes life bearable.
You don't have to worry about any of that. You come from a very good family, and I said, okay, thanks, Dad, and off I went at about age 9 until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, and that story, you might go, ooh, right? You might have whatever opinion you have right now hearing that, but that turns out to be on my gratitude list because what I was was a blank slate when I got to you folks. You didn't have to do any erasing.
You didn't have to do any undoing. I'm not a recovering anything. Fill in the religion that you were recovering from, right? I was a, you know what I was? I was a true agnostic, right? We agnostics, ag means without. Gnostic means knowledge. I was without spiritual knowledge of any of it, and a great thing that was suggested to me that started my journey in Step 11 was, hey, Rich, why don't you go to the meeting and just, if you get called on, share, hey, if any of you guys, anybody is doing anything spiritual, I'd like to go.
Jewish member of the group said, hey, we got a bat mitzvah at my synagogue coming up. Have you ever been to a bat mitzvah or a bat mitzvah? And, you know, I start doing that. That was pretty cool, right? Can't even say a little bit of it from going to that place. So I went to that place a lot. Baruch atah Adonai Eloheinu melech ha'olam, right? I'm like honorary Jewish guy sitting there. I'm like, it's pretty cool.
They got some good stuff here, right? Somebody else goes, you ever done a Bible study? I did a year-long Bible study like we do a big book study. That was pretty cool. Another member said, hey, out in West Virginia, there's this Buddhist monastery where if you take a five-pound bag of rice, they let you stay for three months. And, you know, those Buddhists, they've been doing this meditation stuff for like a couple thousand years before Christ.
You know, they've, I don't want to say got the market cornered, but they're pretty good at it, these Buddhists, right? And you, you can't sit still without the television on, the radio going, and three other electronic devices, you know, like this might be good. And off I went with a five-pound bag of rice, right? And if you just say yes to Alcoholics Anonymous and say yes, I mean, what a great thing to share.
Hey, if anybody's doing anything spiritually, I'll go with you. And I promise your life will change. And something I've always been embarrassed about was I love diving, like off a diving board, right? And in school, I played soccer, wrestling, and lacrosse because I'm from Maryland and men play those sports. You know who dives? Weenies and like men with like banana hammocks is what we called them, right?
Like nice banana hammock, right?
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And it was during the same season as wrestling. And I was really good at it and it was really fun, bounce onto it all. I could still do lots of pretty cool things off a diving board, right? But I would sneak off days. I was so good, I told the diving coach, I said, I got to wrestle and I don't want any of the guys to know that I'm coming in here in my banana hammock and springing around on a diving board, right?
Like I'll be constantly fighting but I really like this and you want me on the team, right? And I did that. And when you're diving, the approach on a diving board, did you dive? You're nodding your head. All right. It's three steps. You go one, two, three, you hit the end of that board with everything you got and up and out you go. And in Alcoholics Anonymous, the way you make your approach is nine steps, maybe 10 if you see it that way, into step 11 and fostering this relationship.
And after step 10, 10 steps, right? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. And the 12 and 12 has a line in it that says, what we have begun is it's a flyer into the realm of the spirit. I love that line. I imagine like a firework or, you know, like a rock. And that's what you did to me, right? Because I'm taking nine or ten steps and I'm hitting the end of that diving board and off I go into the realm of the spirit wherever this seeking and journey takes me.
And in case you can't tell by looking at my face, that is what this thing is. But that is the most, why isn't AA boring? What's your seeking look like? If you think this is, I mean, spiritual seeking is one of the coolest adventures. Last year, I turned 50, my wife turns 40, we've already got it planned, we're saving our money, she's got it booked. We're doing a 10-day of the Incan trail to the top of Machu Picchu.
The whole thing, we're going to have a Sherpa with prayer and meditation and do this spiritual journey. Like, I can't wait. I can't wait to do this next spiritual adventure, right? And try this. And where are you going Wednesday? What do you do on Wednesdays? You do what? A meditation thing with candles, right? This side of my mind goes weird, weird, weird. This side of my mind goes, because AA taught me, I go, sure, I'll come.
And almost always something happens, right? I get a little bit closer, feel something inside, something moves inside of me. And I just, I think I want to, there's some really good directions in our book for both of these steps. I've never been a fan of people reading to me, so I'm not going to read to you, right? I always think to myself, if I can read it when I get home, do I look stupid, right? That's what I'm thinking, so I'm not going to do that to you.
I guess I'll also say this. What always impresses me about these Woodstock-type weekends, it resembles good sponsorship. A good sponsor will have the ability to impart the information from the big book and the steps to the sponsee through stories and the sharing of their life in a way that the sponsee doesn't even know they're talking about the big book and the steps, right? And I didn't hear anybody this weekend stand here and look at a step and read it to you and da-da-da-da-da, right?
They shared, because that's what we do in AA, stories. And through those stories, I'm crystal clear on how he did steps one, two, three, and four and five, and six and seven, right? And that's the neat part of the journey is how we pass this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous on. So I'm not going to read. I want to tell you before I shut up, because I've got to go get an airplane. I'm in my 18th year.
My typical practice is sitting 20 minutes when I wake up upon awakening. I say the prayer that's in the book. I've never gotten more sophisticated than that, right? Help me not drink today. Please direct my thinking. Please remove any selfish, dishonest, self-seeking motives. Show me where I can be helpful, right? I go sit, do 20 minutes. I call it pillow time on my pillow.
[00:40:00]
That's how I do it. Can I do it sitting in a chair? Yes. You're like, I'm just sharing how I do it, right? At lunchtime, my paralegals, everybody knows, you know, go in Rich's office between 12 and 1, 20 minutes, 20 minutes at the end of the day, before I go to bed. Jump off the cushion, get on my knees, say thanks, fill out my little book, four minutes, right? Go to bed. And with all that said, and everything that I've shared with you, and the journey that you just heard last night, I had the opportunity to go on a sober vacation to the most beautiful place I've ever been about three or four weeks ago.
These islands in the Caribbean called the Turks and Caicos. I had to look on a map, right? Guys from Baltimore don't go to Turks and Caicos, right? We save up and go to places like Ocean City, Maryland. And if we get real crazy, we go to Virginia Beach, right? And here I am with the most crystal clear blue water. I'm on day one of that vacation. My two kids are in that water. There's not a single wave.
And they're playing. And I've never had my feet in sand like this. And I'm holding my wife's hand. And literally, tears of gratitude are going down my face. I'm like, I can't believe we get to come somewhere like this. And at the end of the week, you have to get a brain swab, I call them, where they stick that thing up for COVID before you can come back into the United States right now. It has to be 24 hours prior.
And it was the Friday we were supposed to come back of that big snowstorm. And they canceled all flights into Philly. And that meant that those COVID tests were no good. And everybody on this island, there's a flight off each day is doing the same thing I'm doing, sitting on hold with American Airlines for four to six hours, waiting for an agent to get on to try to get on the next day's flight if the airline opens.
But to do that, you also got to be prepared by the COVID test. How we do this, I have to hold my daughter's ankle while my wife holds their hands. And they scream like they're going through an exorcism while a doctor puts them in. It's awful, right? And you know watching your kid be in pain sucks, right? And so it's no little task like, oh, we're going to go get a little swabbing, right? And the whole resort that we're staying at is trying to do the same thing.
So you stand in line for an hour of that. I had a heart surgery scheduled for that Monday, but now it's Saturday, right? And I got to cancel, you know, it doesn't look like I'm getting out of here, right? And I had five clients coming into the office on Sunday because I knew I was having heart surgery on Monday, and I wasn't going to be able to see any clients that week. And they're starting to call, and I told them at the store, and I'm stuck, and I'm sorry.
And two of the five are getting, people are scared that come to me, right? Nobody comes to me having a good day. It's like coming into AA, right? I've stopped. I used to, when you would call, I would say, Law Office of Rich Bruckner, how can I help you? Hey, how are you today? And I've stopped saying that. Like, I know how you're doing. You're calling me, right? You're scared. It's an awful day, maybe the worst of your life.
And when people are scared, they behave like I behave. And two of these five people go, I paid you. What do you mean you're stuck? We're supposed to do this Sunday, and my case is coming up next week. I'm calling the Bar Association, you know, right? And they're yelling at me. And about a year and a half before this, and that's scary to me, because a year and a half before this, when COVID first started, I was asked to talk at these Zoom conferences.
And there seemed to be like five of those every day. Because all of a sudden, we could go to AA in Poland, Lithuania, Germany, and Africa all in the same day, right? And the time zones are different. I'm not kidding. I mean, ask any of these. It was crazy, right? And of course, when you're trained like me, you feel really weird saying no, like I've already done two conferences this morning, right? Because all you're asking me to do is turn on my computer and sit on my ass.
It ain't heavy lifting, right? Like how do I say no to that? Can you, I mean, really, you're too busy to turn your computer on for me? Can't, thanks, man, right? So I'm doing way too many of these, and things are getting scary. And when I left that state's attorney's office, you know, three years prior, I now go against that state's attorney's office all the time, right? Like that's my job is to beat them up in the courtroom.
And the lady that runs that, the state's attorney, the elected state's attorney does not like me. And she has an investigator, as she does with a lot of defense lawyers, that that investigator's job is to just dig up dirt. Job is to just dig up dirt. And I'm doing that Zoom conference and some well-meaning AA member pushes that record button that you could do on Zoom unless the mediator turns
[00:45:01]
off the record button and they record my face and my voice telling the story that you heard last night. And they posted that on YouTube. And that investigator found that and turned it over and they turned it into the Maryland State Bar Association and followed the paperwork and moved for disbarment. And when you want to take away my law license that I've worked really, really long and in my opinion God helped me to achieve and I really feel like I help a lot of people and my ego by this point, you know, that's kind of who and what I am. I've attached to this and I don't really want to go back to sweeping floors and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, threatened, threatened, scared, scared, right? Had to hire a lawyer, $58,000 in legal fees and about 14 months later I won, right?
It's kind of like when Charlie Sheen would say, I'm winning, right? Like that's not my definition of winning, right? If that's what winning looks like, I'm not interested, right? 58, right? And now I'm in the eye and somebody's threatening the same thing after my family just came through this and we're in the eye and then my heart surgery and I can't get off the island and did it and I'm a logistics guy, right? Like I strive on plane tickets, resorts, this and I got everything lined up. I'm actually the guy the book talks about that I rest a lot of satisfaction out of life by managing well, right? I get, I go to bed, I sleep like an angel, right? If I've got all the ducks in a row, right? And they were not in a row. And I don't know what happened, I still don't know what happened but I at 18 years sober with the story you just heard, all these things are happening, can't get off the island, COVID test, threatening to, your client's pissed, heart surgery canceled, wonder if my heart's going to stop before we get back. I end up in a ball in the bed shaking and sweating through the sheets. My daughters are going, daddy, it's 90 degrees, it's sunny, come play. And I can't get out of that bed. My last two days, we got out of there Monday night. So we stayed Saturday, Sunday, three extra, right? And if I say to anybody here, hey, you want to do three extra days in the islands? You go, woo. I was so up in here and so detached and trying to manage and struggling and, you know, we relax and take it easy. No, no, no, there's too much going on. We'll do relaxing and take it easy. We'll turn to God at some other point. Right now, he needs me to get these kids off this island, right? And that's where that landed me, was in a ball, sweating through the sheets. I did some things that were more embarrassing than that in that bed, crawled up in a ball next to my wife. And I ended up rolling out of that bed naked onto my knees and praying like I hadn't prayed since my first week sober. Dear God, help my heart stop beating. Please help my heart stop beating. Help me get these kids out of here. Help me.
I don't know what to do. I got to stop. Stop my mind. Stop my mind. Stop my heart, right? And the only way that I can describe it is I was praying with the desperation like I did my first month sober. This wasn't high-end seeking and engaging in bowl meditations and all the cool seeking, man, that is bitching in AA. Like I'm totally down with all of it. But God took me back to this place and this set of feelings of, hey, dude, you're not going to wrest satisfaction out of managing well, right? Only satisfaction you're going to get is turning to me. And I knew this. This wasn't new. Because Alcoholics Anonymous, the problem is it's not about knowing. It's how quick can that happen, right? And it wasn't very quick, right? It took a full-blown, like, breakdown. And then my wife suggested that I talk to somebody. She goes, you know, you have two to six clients a day that are all looking at 10 years, 20 years. You have mothers falling out when their kid gets a decade in prison. You know, if I forget one case and one site, right, was that a Supreme Court case or was that Maryland App 3rd, page 237? I forget. I choke for one second.
Somebody gets 40 years in prison. And then I come home each day and my kids go, daddy. And my wife goes, how was work, honey? And I get to go, great, right? And that's a lot day after day when you're trying to do it yourself. And then the sponsees are calling and the two little kids, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait of the world, which is a lot to
[00:50:00]
carry yourself. And you know who goes to counselors? My father taught me. My father worked at Eastern Stainless Steel, Flynn & Emmerich Brick Company. You know who goes and seeks mental health treatment, psychiatrist, psychologist? Wimps, mentally, you know, mental midgets. Can't you get it together, son? I could hear him in the back of my head. He's not even in my life for decades, right? And I can hear that voice, you can't go there. That's for, you know, people that just can't get it together, right? And I called my sponsor and he said, it's Tuesday, you got home last night. Thursday, we've got footprints in the winter sand coming up. We're going to have several hundred people at the big book study Thursday. I don't know what's going on with you, if you need to go run some cold water on your face or what, but you've got a lot of people counting on you being there Thursday. Get it together.
My sponsor saved my butt and said some great things and given me great advice. There's also days when he doesn't. You know what sponsors are? Human aid. And my book tells me that sometimes it's going to take more than human aid. And I went to see that person against everything in my body and I walked in and he was the first person that I've ever talked to. He didn't try to relate to me. He didn't tell me, he goes, wow, all I do is listen to people each day. I don't think I could do your job for a single day. Four to six people every day and whether or not you could remember a certain thing and say it and make the argument correctly and convince twelve people determines where somebody spends the next twenty years in prison and trying to raise two little girls and not bring that home to the family. You know, the only thing that's shocking to me, I think what happened down there is there were so many things in the air and out of your control that you had a little panic attack. And the only thing I find shocking is that this is the first time this has happened. I sure am glad I don't have to do your job. And I walked out and I felt great. And he also said to me at the end of this, hey, if you ever want to come back and talk, I don't know that you need to come here or not, you could come once a month, every two weeks, once a week, if you find this helpful, I'll be here. And he didn't try to sign me up or put me on a course of, you know, because anybody like a chiropractor, I'm just like a, I'm an idiot, I'm a skeptic. Oh, you want me to come back every week so you can adjust me. Does this ever end or is this like an unending source of bleeding?
Right? Like, gee, I can't see the financial benefit in what's in this for you. Right? Like that's just how my mind works. If that guy would have said I want you to come back once a week, I wouldn't have. I would have gone, of course you do. Two hundred and fifty bucks an hour. I bet you do. I bet I should have a two hour appointment. Right? But he didn't say that. And guess where I'm going? Tomorrow at 4.30 when I'm finished work, I'm going to go talk to this guy for my second time and like share some, what is that? Right?
Why did I just tell you that story? Because through this ten and eleven process, I could see where I'm wrong. I could see old ideas. You guys helped point them out to me. I want to be better. I want to be a better man, just a little bit today than I was yesterday. I don't want to necessarily be the guy my dad was or my sponsor or any of you. I just want to be the best version of me that could show up each day. And I don't have a shot of doing that if I'm not wrong. The only way that I can change, the only way that I can get better is if I look at something and go, yeah, I'm wrong about that. These steps, this tenth step, right? This spiritual, I'm wrong. Have you guys ever changed your mind and done something different about something you think you're right? Of course not. Why would you? You're right. You know? And that goes for me spiritually. When I surround myself, you want to know the meeting, take this the way that it's given, the meeting that I grow the least in spiritually is my big book study on Wednesdays. You know why? Because everybody in that meeting loves the big book like I love the big book. We pretty much agree on what every step's asking us to do, right? It's like a think tank full of yes men. When
[00:55:05]
do you think we should do the fourth step? Immediately we launch into action. It says it right here, right? Well, what do you think about the tenth step? Unless you're writing it, it's not a real tenth step. You got to make a book, 365 pages. You put it next to your bed. An unwritten tenth step isn't a tenth step. You don't get to go running around Alcoholics Anonymous saying you have a tenth step practice if you're not writing it down.
You know what it is? Pie in the sky. It's a, right? These guys are saying and thinking the same thing I am. You want to know how much growth there is in that? None. I got one more minute, a huge experience I had at 10 Years Sir. We got a guy in my neck of the woods that loves to share in the meetings. Never read that book. Don't like the big book. We use the 12 and 12 and what we do is it's called the 10 day program and you read step one for 10 days and each day you reflect on it and answer the questions and then you move to step two for 10 days and this guy, I mean it's just like it would trigger a visceral response in me like please stop it, please stop it, please stop it, right? And I'm telling my sponsor about it, right? I'm like yeah, this guy and I'm trying to get these guys I work with through the big book and he's over there telling them they don't need to look at the big book and some other cockamamie 10 day thing he invented. It isn't anywhere in the program, right? And the guy's name is Kurt, right? And he goes yeah, I hear what you're saying. The only problem is you ever watch Kurt? He's sober 38 years. Been married 36 years, really successful, helps a ton of guys. And boy is he happy. What do you think about that? And there's this thing in the law called res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself. That's what that means in Latin, res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself, right? What do I know? He goes you know if I was you, I would go talk to Kurt, tell him you've been resentful towards him, that you don't agree with what he's saying, that when you sit in a meeting and then ask him would he please take you through the steps out of the 12 in 12 his way? Right? And I did that. And there's some really cool questions on steps 4 in the 12. And if you answer every question, and I don't know that a new person needs to be engaged. To me that's part of like 11th step. For me that was part of like spiritual seeking, doing something different, looking to go to the, it's certainly more complicated in my experience than what's in the book. That's my opinion. Somebody here might go no it's way simpler, in which case res ipsa loquitur. If it worked for you and you're happy and you're sober, rock on. Right? And the point of the story is being willing to do something entirely different to have a new experience and to stay in that position of willingness over and over and over and over again through my sobriety so I never become the guy that knows it all, that's done it all. Right? I don't ever want to share back when I got sober we used to. Right? I like to grab those people after me and go and I do it outside quietly. I go hey when you say back when how come you don't do that now? Right? We used to take newcomers out to Denny's every night and you know hang out until the wee hours of the morning. Right? And we would make sure they didn't drink and then we'd drop them off at their house and I'm like why was that cool 30 years ago and you don't do that now? Right? And I want to stay active and engaged and a part of you and grow. You guys have taught me if I'm not growing I'm going and that's what 10 and 11 is about or I could say you know went through the steps and did them back when I got sober 18 years ago and I don't think I'd be standing here. So everyone that spoke this weekend you have introduced me to some new ideas. You have challenged me. You have where's John?
You have disturbed me about my sobriety. Right? The book says that that's a good thing. Right? It's a good thing to disturb someone about their sobriety because it's going to encourage me to keep moving and thank you guys for hanging with me this weekend. Me This Weekend.