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About this recording
- Topic
- Big Book Study Disc 6 Scottsdale Arizona
- Speaker
- Debbie D. and Kent D
- Date
- 2017-03-31
Transcript
Source: Debbie D. and Kent D – Big Book Study Disc 6 Scottsdale Arizona – 2017-03-31.mp3 File: debbie-d-and-kent-d-big-book-study-disc-6-scottsdale-arizona-2017-03-31.mp3 Duration: 01:15:34
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I wanted to finish up a couple of things. When I am working with someone, I think to make, if we don't know what the harm really was, we really don't know what we need to do to make it right. So I have a tendency to say to the guys that you'll take responsibility for the harm done, and if you would like to tell me what that is, I will listen to it. I'll hear it, and I'll take responsibility for whatever it is that you say, and I won't, because I think a lot of people think you're going to disagree with them like you always have, and I don't think we're no longer in that position. And then when they have said what they need to say, I ask the guys to say, Well, what is it I can do?
Is there something that I can do? And then listen very carefully to the words they said, because in those words are your marching orders. And I'll give you an example, because when I went to make amends to my dad, he said, Well, what any father would want of his son, just take responsibility for yourself. And knowing who he is, what he was really saying is, Don't come to me for any more money. And on top of that, It's like, don't look to him for reward.
I'm not going to ask him to tell me I'm doing a good job anymore. I've always done that. I want you to approve of what I'm doing. And he's never done that. And he's not going to start doing that. So then, what I did is I took—and, well, I said I would. I always tell the guys, say, It sounds like a good idea. Let me think about it, because that's the best way to, you know, at least get some clarity. Because there's some things when I went to make amends to my daughter, she was like 30 at the time, she came back and said, $286,000 will call it even. And I told her, You know, it sounds like a good idea, but I don't think I can do that.
So I didn't actually pay my daughter back the amends that she thought I owed her. But with my mother, she said, I knew there was something wrong when you stopped laughing. And she said, You know, all I've ever wanted for you—I've asked her now, Tell me those things that I did that harmed you, and she wouldn't admit to anything. And I said, Well, so what is it that I can do? And she said, Well, I knew something was wrong with you when you quit laughing.
I've always wanted you to be happy. Well, so there's times in your sobriety when something occurs, you leave a meeting, you feel real good and you feel happy. And I would remember those times and I would call my mother. When I was happy. And I'd tell her why I was happy. And she loved it. And it was me making amends to my mother. Thanks, Kent. Well, amends clean up, Step Nine cleans up that history.
And with Ten, I'm going to keep today straight. Now this is at the point where the Big Book kind of has a different take and explanation than the Twelve and Twelve.
[00:05:01]
So in the Big Book, Step Ten is about keeping our day clean. It says, continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. In the Twelve and Twelve, it reflects more about doing that inventory process, gives examples of some do a nightly review, some do go in for annual house cleanings, all of that. Whatever that is is fine. But for the purposes of keeping it simple, my review at night really is in Step Eleven, and I'll explain that when we talk about Eleven.
So I look at Ten as keeping the day clean. And the review at night is my catch basin, step 11, where in anything I was able to justify and rationalize during the day, when I review it in 11 at night, I'm, yeah, okay. So 10 is keeping the day clean and not creating more wreckage. I use the presence of the book, Big Book, because to me that was their recent, their first writing of recent experience, the most freshest, the rawest, the most recent.
So that's why I use it like that. Now, for years, I heard 10, 11, and 12 referred to as the maintenance steps. That made total sense to me. And then maybe 15 years ago, can't sponsor at the time, Tom I, I overheard him say to me, they're not the maintenance steps, they're the growth steps. Huh. I never looked at them like that. So I went back to step 10 in the Big Book, and again, this is heavily marked up. I love these four paragraphs.
But it says our next function is to grow. How? In understanding and effectiveness. Page 84. It follows those promises. Now, we often hear the promises. We didn't really touch on the promises today in specifics. Most of us are familiar with them. Some meetings will even say them at the end sometimes or during the meeting. In my area there, it's very common to read these promises. I do wish they would, however, add, These do follow Step Nine in the Big Book, so that it doesn't imply that, hey, if you're two weeks sober, it's about winning prizes, that all these will come true just because you popped into AA with us. That there is a lot of action you've taken. So it's not that some of them here and there might not come true, but I have found that their staying power is greater having taken the first nine steps. So we move in with Step Ten and continuing.
That's an ongoing word, ongoing action word to me. It's very clear that I need to watch out for some things called selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. It gives me a plan of action. When these crop up, not if they crop up, when, here's my course of action. It says, first of all, again, I'm numbering them, first of all, I ask God at once to remove them. Number two, I discuss them with someone immediately.
Number three, make amends quickly if I've harmed anyone. Four, resolutely turn my thoughts to somebody I can help. Because otherwise I'm going to stay there and start keeping whooping on myself. What a bad person I am. I made a mistake. I really screwed up. I can even make the amends. But I'm still living on it by helping, turning my thoughts to someone I can help moves that negative energy out and positive to come in.
Forgiving of self, I screwed up, clean that up. Now that, to me though, I have seen a few folks use this tenth step business to continue bad behavior, as if making a promptly admitted I was wrong is supposed to make all that
[00:10:02]
harm and hurtful or mean words or mean spirit go away for you only to do it again in a month. No, no. Those bandages are just like when we were drinking, I'm sorries are no longer heard. We're looking for demonstration of change. Your words no longer have value or meaning because there's no backup to it. That's why, again, direct amends have to be followed by living. And so it guides us that, you know, we cease fighting things and we're put in that position of neutrality. But there's a catch at the end of the top paragraph on 85. I feel that way.
It says, That's how I must react so long as I keep in fit spiritual condition. And it leads into that beautiful paragraph that it's a spiritual program of action and that I cannot rest on my laurels, laurels being my past actions. I took those steps again in the thoroughness I had at my ability and knew I had had that spiritual awakening of 12. I was eight years sober, listening to a man at my home group at the time, the Skyland Group in Atlanta.
And he was talking about being sober a number of years, feeling restless, irritable, and discontented. And he says, I realized I was trying to live today on last year's program. Once again, that's the only thing I heard that man say. And it stopped me because I knew I had been feeling a twinge again of restless and dissatisfaction. And when he said that, I realized I was living and resting on my laurels.
Aren't you good that you made those amends that you were long overdue, that you've made your changes. Way to go, good girl. But I wasn't living in this day. And he gave me a very fresh definition of one day at a time, and that this is the day that counts. That by resting on my laurels, I was living in the past. I'm not in the present. God's in the present. Fear's in the future. Guilt is in the past. But God is in the present.
So he gave me that beautiful gift. It reminds me I'm never going to be cured of alcoholism. Mentioned in Step Two, or Chapter Two, there is a solution, not a cure. But we have found a way that works for us. What we really have, what I really have, is a daily, not a monthly, not a weekly, not an every AA birthday, a daily reprieve. Again, not because we're cute. It's contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition.
And that when I, many of us enjoy dictionary lookups and things like that, and it's quite amazing when we look up some words what they, whoa, I thought I knew what that meant, but that puts a new spin on that meaning. Reprieve, a delay of the death sentence. That kind of puts a new spin on that word, doesn't it? If I read it with the definition, what I really have is a daily delay of the death sentence contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition.
That's a pretty good inspiration to keep that spiritual condition active, present, current, and growing. Not just, I want, I want, I want, you know, growth there. When I mentioned, I think it was last night, sometime over the weekend, about being 26 years sober at that luncheon, I'm in the middle and have been for a few decades of Alcoholics Anonymous, and there's pre-poured wine at the table, which really kind of threw me off a little bit.
And what it set up for me was this chemical craving, like this imbalance for drunkenness. I'm 26 years sober, and in the middle of you, how did this get in here? How did this enter? I work really hard on an active present basis for my recovery. The protection plan is in place. How could that get in? And for a while I kept looking at it as— It'll just go away, kind of like coming to out of one of those drunken nightmare drinking dreams we might have, and realizing, oh, this is my…
And realizing, oh, this is my ceiling.
[00:15:00]
Okay, that's great. Oh, thank God, that's my husband. You know, I mean, it's just things like that, right? Relief sets in, you know. Your heart gets back in your chest and you, whoa, where did that, you know, come from and that sort of thing. I kept waiting to wake up and it wasn't happening. This thing, this imbalance, this craving followed me like a buzzard. It just circled around, sometimes heavy, sometimes light.
And I was, it frightened me because I didn't hear anybody from podiums or rooms talking about this kind of thing. And I'm afraid and embarrassed to even, I don't even really know how to find the words to articulate it, let alone, again, ego is a little embarrassed. What if people think I'm not working a good program, right? And I don't know what is going on. I talked to Kent about it. I mean, do you see anything I'm doing or not doing?
And I, believe me, trust me, if I asked that question, I know that he would not hesitate to say, Well, you know, I have noticed recently. I know that he would, and that's why I trust it. I talked to my sponsor, Millie. I'm not getting any insight. I'm demanding God remove this because it's scaring me. I do not want to drink. And the scary was that there were moments I felt that I might go into kind of one of those brownouts and kind of go into a Stepford wife sort of mode and, you know, kind of find myself at the liquor store or the grocery store and be found drunk. It just was the most bizarre thing.
And so, oddly enough, during that time, I was on a lot of wet drunk 12-step calls. It's almost like my reminder, smelling the used booze fragrance on women, the sickness. I went on one that she had the dry heaves so bad, I felt like I had them. You know, my stomach hurt because I remember those times. And six months of this going on, I'm at a meeting one morning. I left the meeting. I'm feeling fine.
I'm driving home, and I am gripped with the terror that I would drink against my will. And I dialed my sponsor. Even though I have a cell phone, I still dial her long hand. I want her number and his number emblazoned in my brain. I dial them both long hand. And she answered the phone, had a lot going on in her life, but God knew I needed her more than anybody else on the planet at that time. And I'm so afraid, I'm crying.
I don't cry on scary or sad things. I cry on happy things, lots of God tears. But this was afraid tears. And I'm feeling like I'm kind of blah, blah, blahing out, but I was just so afraid, and I'm trying as best I can to tell her what's going on. And she simply said, Honey, what we have is alcoholism, not alcoholwasm. And not that it went poof, but it was like this veil had been refreshed in me. I had not taken my sobriety for granted, but two things came to mind. One was that line I just read in Step Ten, is that I have a daily, not a weekly, hourly, or weekly, monthly, or yearly, a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition.
And because I had never let go of God, and it wasn't like when this started happening, I'm thinking, Oh gosh, I better start praying, or I better start going to meetings, or I better start doing such. All solidly in place. That's why it was so baffling. I could understand if I had let weak spots happen, but that wasn't the case. That was the baffling part of it, and that's why her saying, We have alcoholism, was my one more time reminder.
Not that I forgot, but I was smacked in the face with this. My alcoholism did not die when I stopped drinking. It is alive and well and patient. And therefore, the continuation of that maintenance got me through that period of time. That gave me that renewed look on daily reprieve. This is the day that counts. What am I doing today in service to God? Open with prayer, close with prayer. This is the day. And so that daily reprieve became vital to me. And it really, there were times, a few times, I actually felt, you know how
[00:20:05]
when you put the opposite ends of magnets together, you can't, there's just this natural force. I can't technically explain it, but you try and you try and it just can't get them together, right? Well, that's exactly how I felt. It was like there was some weird sort of opposing force that would not let me go forward. It was like God's force field shield for me. And I really felt that power, reminding me that every day, not just Thursdays or Mondays, every day is a day when I must carry the vision of God's will into all my activities. How can I best serve Thee?
Thy will, not mine, be done. And I love in the Twelve and Twelve the beautiful phrase about—I know you know where I'm going—the spiritual axiom, right? That it's a spiritual axiom that—I didn't mark that page. Oh yeah, here we go. It is a spiritual axiom that every time I am disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with me. And in paraphrasing the rest, I like to remind the gals that, aren't there any exceptions?
No. No. That's the good news and the bad news. There are no exceptions, because everything to me will be a justified exception. And it reminds me I can't differentiate between justified and unjustified. When these things occur, when I am spiritually disturbed, and it's because there's something wrong with me, when I take a look in, I really ask myself, so why is this person's choice or statement or action bothering me?
Why is it bothering me? One thing I can ask myself is, is any of my business what they're saying or doing? In most cases, no. But what I have come to also learn is, through the smoke and mirrors, when that's all cleared away, the bottom line will always come down to they're not doing what I want them to do. They're not behaving the way I want them to behave. It always comes down to that one: Why am I disturbed by that person's behavior?
So that's a little for me on step ten. I'm going to let Kent go ahead and talk about ten, then we'll move on to eleven. Thank you, Debbie. On step ten, there was a time where I would go on a retreat every year, and I would do like a yearly update with my sponsor. And so over the years, this way of living has changed for me. I used to be very—I used to have the same book that I read in the same order every single day, no matter what, or the four books or whatever it was at the time. And I knew, and it was like, I am going to do that no matter what, because that is what's got me to where I am today. There came up an awareness that— Well, actually what happened, I'm reading the book 24 Hours a Day, and I'm having a fantasy going in my head while I'm reading something spiritual, and I'm thinking, Oh my God, I can't believe that my head is going off on some kind of fantasy while I'm supposedly doing something spiritual.
And it became my awareness that I can unconsciously checklist items myself. One of my biggest complaints about people in AA is like, Okay, I did three meetings a week, I did what you asked me to do, now I should be getting all the prizes. And I had Tom Ivester as a sponsor, and my life was just going so good, it was like, I'm terribly uncomfortable with my life because it just seems
[00:25:02]
like I've gotten way more than I should get, and there are people who are better than I am who are having struggles that I haven't had to experience. And I said to him that I don't know what to do, and I even brought up the fact that there was a woman I was supposed to make amends to. I did. I went to her. She had given me $65,000 to open up my business in 1974, and what I was supposed to do is pay her.
Interest only until I got on my feet, and then I'd start paying her back. Well, you know, I didn't get sober until '88, so obviously I never paid her the principal, and most of the time I never paid her the interest. And so I'm feeling like, and so my first six months of sobriety, this is just going around in my head, and I'm feeling like a total turd that I've got to do something to clean this up.
And because I just, I've got to. I haven't barely back to work, but I know that I can start paying her at least $300 a month, which was the interest only. So if I could go to her and tell her that, I mean, I could squeeze it out, even though that's about all I had free. I was going to go do it, and I go over to San Francisco and I go into her house and I'm sitting there at the table, and she's off getting me some coffee or something into the kitchen, and I just said, Carmen, I feel so bad that you lent me the money and that I didn't pay it back according to the terms, and I want to make arrangements to start paying back what I can. And she taps me on the head and she says, Sonny, I got more money than I know what to do with.
Don't worry about it. Well, at that time in my sobriety, it's like you can throw any amount of crap at me you want because, like, it's been coming on a regular basis, the, you know, getting booted out and kicked out and arrested and living on— I mean, every bad thing kept coming to me over and over and over, and I got used to handling all the bad things. But when she said that, I'm supposed to show up a mandated meeting that night at 7:30, and I can't find my way out of San Francisco.
I am, like, so, like, blown away because I can't handle the good that came to me. She just told me I don't need to pay it back, and I'm trying to… and I was born in San Francisco. So I show up at the meeting late. Finally I get to the meeting, and they're all angry that I showed up late, and I'm just thinking, wow, I'm glad I just made it, you know? So that was when I was a year sober. When I got Tom as my sponsor at 16 years sober, I'm still thinking, maybe because I'm feeling so uncomfortable, maybe I should be paying her back.
Is that what you think? And Tom says, Well, did you do what she asked you to do? I said, What do you mean? He said, Didn't she ask you not to think about it? And I said, Uh, yeah, I guess. Well, then why don't you just do what she asked you to do? And I said, But Tom, there's so much good coming my way, I don't know how to deal with that. And he said, You can't help but have good come your way if you're doing what God wants you to do.
And it was like, that didn't really make me comfortable. But then he just, without me asking, he threw in another phrase to that, and he said, But if you're doing it for that reason… The outcome will be totally different. So if you're doing what you think God wants you to do so you can get prizes, the outcome is going to be totally different. And I thought, oh, Tom, you are just the—he was just, he was my delight.
He was my hero. I loved him dearly. And he was the one that brought up the fact that in the Step Ten, it hides that statement, and I think Debbie referred to it as where it says, We have entered the world of the spirit. By the time you get to Step Ten, you know, like it or not, you're going to— Like it or not, you're going to have some kind of a weird transformation
[00:30:00]
from when I got here, resistant to anything that even smelled of religion or spirituality or any of that. And now all of a sudden, because of what I've done, you know, I feel as though, you know, there is a God that operates. I mean, I can tell when it happens. I've experienced it. There's no doubt about it. I have entered the world of the spirit. Maybe I've just entered. But then it says, our function now is to grow in understanding and effectiveness.
And the understanding and effectiveness means understanding my wife, understanding why people are bringing me this kind of information, trying to understand the world and what I'm supposed to do in the world, trying to figure out, well, what is it that I need to be aware of, what I need to learn, and effectiveness. So if you are—we have corrections, or what we call hospitals and institutions—if you're trying to carry the message, you know, are you just mimicking it, or are you actually doing something effective?
And so I was going with a guy to county jail, and we would get together before we went to county jail and get in the car together, and on the way to the meeting, we would talk about what are we going to try tonight, and something like— You know, why don't we have them do the reading instead of us do the reading? And then one of the things was, you know, why don't we see if we can get one of them to hold the books and be responsible for the books so they can take a responsibility in putting on the meeting.
And so we're trying to come up with a way that we can get effective in getting people in county jail connected to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's the same thing with my sponsees. Am I just going through the motions or getting them to go through the motions, or am I effective in what I'm doing? I mean, is what I'm doing a talking head, or is there actually some benefit from me spending my time doing this?
Part of that came to a point where I still have a regular job, and yet I had some guys that I was working with that they would take a lot of my time, but they wouldn't do much in the world of AA, which is fine for most people. But if I was going to be what I wanted to be was effective, you know, why wouldn't I work with somebody who's going to take what I'm doing and multiply that and do it with others? So if I was going to be effective, not just that I was going to carry the message. When I first got sober, I would take anybody who said, I want a sponsor.
Sure, go ahead, I'll do it. And after a while, I began to realize that that really was not going to be my most effective way to be in Alcoholics Anonymous. So about six or seven years ago, I'm going to trim that group of guys. I used to have a bunch, and I'm thinking, but some of them was like— I think somebody said it. Well, he called me my sponsor, but I don't know that I ever really sponsored the guy. And it's like, no, no, no, I'm going to get rid of all of that and really stick with the ones that are, you know, in this. I was telling someone earlier that I really gave my life to this program. I gave my life to the program.
I never went to treatment. I gave my life to Alcoholics Anonymous. That's it. And so I'm thinking, well, if I can help someone else who's in that mind frame, and not everybody is, then it will be good for him and for me. I wanted to go back to what I think of what the reason was for doing Step Nine. For me, I don't know if you got aware, but Step Nine was the most powerful transformation for my existence.
It set me free of Kent. It took my past and put my past in the past, and I got to be what I am today instead of what I was then. So when I went to my dad and I created a new relationship and let him be exactly who he was, I was no longer connected to the past person in me who was always dominated or destroyed by whatever he did. So the whole concept of, for me, of Step Nine is do
[00:35:05]
whatever it takes to set yourself free of your past. Now, it does say we make amends for all, and I tell the guys, that's up to you, but I'm going to help you make amends for all those things that have enough power to make you drink. And when I was talking about the fellow who his dad molested him, you know, he's going to drink if he doesn't do something. So there's a direct connection in some things.
But, you know, if you were to know, like I stole a comic book from my neighbor and, you know, I didn't, you know, I mean, there's all sorts of things that I probably should make amends for. And I think that's my responsibility to make amends for all those things. But as a sponsor, I'm going to work with those people that when they make their list, I'm going to look at those that have enough power in there to cause them to drink.
I'm going to walk them through those amends. A lot of people, including my wife, talk about living amends, and I have, you know, I've never seen the instructions on living amends, so I have an opinion about it, obviously. But I still believe that what I'm responsible for is to change my behavior. And if living amends means that I'm going to do things differently, then that's fine. But I think what I really need to focus on is making direct amends.
So my own opinion is when I hear somebody saying, Well, I'm making living amends, my thought is, Yeah, but did you make direct amends? Did you actually make direct amends, or are you just, like, trying to get out of addressing the issue by saying, I'm making living amends? And so if it's somebody I sponsor, they know the difference. Another couple of things, the tenth step brings up, you know. Like repeating the steps, how many times are you going to go through the steps?
And so Debbie's done it three times and I've done it twice. So that's, but both of us continue to go through the steps with every person that we take through the steps. So having someone take us through might be different, but we're still constantly doing that. And when I brought it up to Tom Ivester, he was the one that made it clear that if you go through the steps enough times trying to get something out of it for you, you're probably remaining, you're staying selfish and self-centered.
But if you go through the steps again and again, taking somebody else through, then you'll probably have a spiritual life. And what that, it's back to the same thing. There are people, at least in our area, where they're going to work it harder, longer, faster, deeper to get more blood out of that turnip, by God. I'm going to get something out of it for me if I do it again, with more people or in a different way.
But the other part of that ninth step where I'm getting, I'm not going to make an amends unless I have rehearsed my amends with my sponsor, because I need to know that somebody's going to tell me how to go about it in a way that's going to be beneficial. So I'm not going to suggest to the guys, Oh sure, there's your list. Go make amends. I always have them, you know, rehearse it with me, like they were going to. It just happened the other day, and the guy, it's a good thing he did, because, you know, he didn't have that.
He still has that, you know, I want to hold him responsible for what he did to me. And so he hasn't forgiven that, his dad actually. So again, it's— Working with him in the process of Step Ten is, again, that part of what I call Step Ten is when I call my sponsor on a regular basis, that is my tenth step, because he is going to be the person that I'm going to keep up to date on the things that I need him to be aware of.
So here's how I go about it. First of all, I think about, okay, here's what I've been doing, and I want him to know about all those things I've been doing because I want him to say, Good boy, nice work, congratulations, oh, you are wonderful. And then I think about, okay, here's all these things that I've got coming up. I'm going to go do this, I got this coming up, I got that to do, and oh yeah, and that, and I got a whatever it is, you know.
[00:40:03]
And then I start thinking about, yeah, but what's been going through my head is this, my hygienist and this blow-up that happened, and it's been going on for a couple of weeks. And okay, so now I've got what I've done, what I'm going to do, and what's been eating my lunch. And I say to myself the night before I call him, I say, Ken, you're smart enough to come up with a question for your sponsor. What would you ask your sponsor as far as input or feedback?
So I put him as a resource. I want to use him in a tenth step category to give me information or feedback or experience or observation or direction or suggestion or something. I'm looking for utilizing someone who has more exposure to the program than I, who is not emotionally involved in my decisions, to reflect on what I'm up to. And so I'm going to call him, and I'm thinking, Hmm, I don't have any questions?
Oh, Kent, you're smarter than that. You should be able to come up with one question. I mean, well, I got things handled pretty well. I don't know that I really need to call him. And so I'm going through this process because I think I'm pretty smart. And I think I'm in 28 years sober, you know, by this time, you don't have that many questions. And then I think, but if I could get his, if I could somehow use his time in my life, would I want him to just listen to my diatribe about how wonderful my life is, or would I really like to shorten that amount of time to, Here's what I got going.
Can you give me some input? Can you give me a suggestion or some feedback or experience that you've had with it? Or where can I go with this, or what can I do with it, or what should I do? And so I do. I come up with three, usually I come up with probably half a dozen different questions that I can ask. And in doing that, then I feel like I have grown in understanding and effectiveness in the program.
Thank you very much. Thanks, Kent. Well, keeping our day clear, then for me, is part of that is daily prayer and meditation. Step 11, if I took that step and stated it in the form of a prayer, it would sound a little like this. God, I seek you through prayer and meditation. So that's the how I'm seeking Him. To do what? To improve my conscious contact with you as I understand you. I pray only for the knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry whatever that is out.
That's about as zeroed out and selfless and in service to you as I can create myself. And that is how the goal is to act and be in spiritual fitness each day, is to whatever it is you need me to do, please provide me the power to do that. In the Big Book, it refers to, to me, the three parts of a day: the start, the go through, and the ending. There isn't really much more than three parts of a day.
If you talked to anybody about, if I asked every one of you about, so what's your prayer and meditation look like? You would all have a different answer. The great news is, it evolves. It changes. What I did in my early years to the next years to the next to the last ten to the current has evolved, has shifted, has changed. What I enjoy reading, I've moved in some things, I've moved out some things, some.
Some things I've moved out, some things. Some is conference-approved literature or produced literature by our office. Some is not. There's no yes or no, right or wrong.
[00:45:05]
That's the beauty of it. What sings to me? What draws to me? I might hear somebody else read out of a favorite book. I'm like, wow, I love that. I love that message. I may incorporate it. I may bring it in later on. That's the thing, is I don't want to be in a rigid, only read these books or don't read. But what is important is a conscious and conscientious contact. So what does that mean to me? One of the ways of also Tradition Eleven of being self-supporting is, in a personal way, other than financial, is that I am self-supporting spiritually.
No one else can do my prayers for me, and I wouldn't want them to. I love the development of the relationship I have with the God of my understanding. I love thinking that at night when I close my day, I hope I have pleased you. Thank you for my life. When I get up in the morning, I'm not somebody who wakes up. I come to in levels, in layers. I snooze it a couple of times. I mean, I have a whole routine in order to get up on time.
I'm about 20 minutes early before starting that when I really need to launch out of bed. But I'm still groggy. And I do my personal business, and my drops and my this and thats, and I go get changed for starting, you know, home chores clothes, and I go down and I get coffee for Kent and a beverage for me. This is about 15 minutes now, and now I am awake. I am ready now. I am not awake until about this time, and I don't want to be groggy connecting with God. So that's when I choose to get on my knees.
It's not a religious thing, my choice. It is a choice because I need to start with some humility, to remind myself I'm not in charge. God is. It is a reverence. It's a respect. It's a humility. It's downsizing this ego of mine to start to make the connection. I begin with, Good morning, God, and thank you for another sober day and another day that I can serve you. Please help me to stay sober today.
Still after 41-plus years, I still ask God to help me stay sober. One reason, side note, every person I have ever asked who's relapsed and that I, like, know them, I love to ask the question, just curious, the day you picked up that drink, did you ask God to help you stay sober? And for 41 years, it's been the same answer: no. It's just my current ongoing reminder to me this is not an area that I want to half measure, minimize, forget.
Oh well. It is a solid part of my structure. And so, and then I'll have a little chat with God. I'll ask Him to open up my world, open up my spirit for whatever He needs me to do today. I'll say the third step prayer out loud because sometimes if I'm just thinking it, I, like, too can have that split mind. I'm saying the prayer, but I'm thinking about something else. So I like saying it out loud so I have focus on what I'm saying, the seventh step prayer. And then I'm ready to get up and start my readings as to what is my incoming message from you today.
And then I take a few more minutes, and sometimes I have a few, sometimes I have ten. It just depends upon when my calls begin. But I need to be spiritually set before the first call comes in because I want to give them the best I got. And if all I'm giving them is me without God, that's why I need full ammo. I need full spirit. I need God and all the team on board, you know? And I can go through this day and start my day with, on 86.
When I start working with someone new, regardless of how long they're sober, one of the things I ask them is, What are you doing for prayer and meditation time?
[00:50:00]
And oftentimes they, Well, it's kind of slacked off a little bit, or they're new enough they don't really have anything developed yet. So I say, just to kickstart you, for the next 30 days, why don't you read 86, starting with On Awakening through the balance of that chapter, which is just like one and a half more pages. And then tonight, why don't you start tonight reading with When We Retire at Night, because that gives me another action and questions to ask on how I review my day.
And so it's a great little kickstarter. Now I can add or change that up a little bit, but for 30 days get into that routine to really kickstart your connection with that higher power. And so I can do that. The real power for me is the paragraph on the bottom of 87, the statement, As we go, or as I go through the day, I pause when agitated or doubtful. Now, I'm rarely doubtful. I'm often agitated, let me tell you.
And so this is my good break. My breaks go on. But then the following up is, and ask for the right thought or action. I cannot get that answer with a reaction. I only will get that if I pause and respond. How many times maybe have you gotten an upsetting email or a text? It's a reaction for me to want to, hmm, pause, pause. Why don't you reread that? Slow down. What is it really saying? Maybe this is not a text or email response kind of communication.
Maybe this is a pick up the phone. And get clarification. Because you can't read emotion, or you or I over-read emotion, and all I'm going to do is exacerbate and add fuel to this fire that could be big problems. Pausing has saved me so many amends, I can't even begin to tell you. Once again, as I mentioned in my number one defective character, self-righteousness, how many times I would just launch into telling somebody what to do without invitation, without the full information, and how really that caused more harm than help.
Yes, my intentions were good, but I went where I wasn't invited. I said I'm often agitated and rarely doubtful. When I am doubtful, I find that if I give it a day or two days, usually by that time I've had a little sleep on it, I've gotten to converse with somebody, my sponsor, checked stuff out, and I feel comfortable with the decision that I've come to. It wasn't a reaction, it was a response. But we've recently had something where end of December, Kent got a call from one of his twin daughters, age 42, to let us know that CPS had removed the child from her home, age two years, ten months.
Would we take her? Gulp. I've never had children, made that choice as a girl. have always been fine with that choice. We'd never met the child. She, the mother, had chosen to keep us out of her life, despite our invitations, repeated invitations, to be a part of it. We don't know why except we assume it was because of her alcohol and drug addiction choices. Calls us now. This is time for pause, and I am doubtful.
I mean, this, we have an incredibly full life in AA service. Where does a three-year, almost three-year-old fit into this? The responsibility. What does this look like? We need some more backstory on this. We need more information. This is not a knee-jerk yes reaction. This is a seriously big decision. And it's been one that took over a month to review and think and come to heart within ourselves, with each other, to look
[00:55:06]
at what our resources are. What does this look like legally and in the big picture of preparing for this and ongoing and how long? And, you know, I'm not willing to toss away my AA life for full-time babysitting because that is as important, my service to the women I sponsor and the other things I do. And yet this three-year-old child is important, and the opportunity we get to be a part of her life spiritually and physically and emotionally, to provide the environment we can provide. But it's not an easy decision to make yes or no. And so with lots and lots of prayer and time, we finally came to, again, we both had to be on board with this decision.
This is not a singular decision at all. This is, once we make it, we're committed. And we made the decision to put our name in and have gone through and are continuing the amazing, in-depth, time-consuming process to prepare ourselves for the probability of a three-year-old living with us. And so this is where pause, when doubtful, comes in. Ask for the right thought or action. This did not come right away. It's like you want to be the hero, but don't forget what all along comes with that in responsibility.
And so reminding myself I'm no longer running the show, humbly say to myself many times each day, Thy will be done. What is that? What does that look like? Sometimes it's a little foggy. When I have that kind of thinking, it reminds me I'm in much less danger of, which to me implies these are dangerous, excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. And so prayer and meditation has been vital in making this type of a decision. It says in there, after that paragraph, It works.
It really does. It's the shortest paragraph in the Big Book. And we've often pulled that off the page to use it for lots of things. But when I look at it, I think, well, does it mean it works, referring to the prior paragraph, that pause when agitated or doubtful? Does it mean Step 11, how to start, go through, and end my day? Does it mean the prior 11 steps work? It really does, because we're moving into 12.
All of the above, I believe. All of the above. I don't know what their thinking was upon writing it, but it's one of those things that is all applicable. And then at the end of the day, I get to review it on page 86 about those questions it asks me. And this is where, again, whatever I justified that did not clean up in 10 along the day, here's my catch basin. You know, I really didn't feel right about when I said that.
I really need to make amends for that. Yeah, I need to set this right. And I had that just happen recently, a couple weeks ago. I was at the end of exasperation, and I made a call to someone that had a tone in it. And I chose words and a tone that was inappropriate. It was mean, not cruel, but it was out of line. And they called me on it, and rightly so. I mean, I was embarrassed that they had to, that I didn't wrap that up that day and make amends. I made amends the next day.
And it was not about justifying that. It wasn't about telling him, You had no idea what kind of a morning I had. That did not excuse the tone and the words I chose. I didn't pause long enough. I only paused ten minutes. This one needed longer. So. This one needed longer. So I knew when I hung up that phone, it was like, that was not good. But I didn't make amends right away.
[01:00:00]
I didn't promptly clean that up. So I love Step 11. I love continuing the improvement of my conscious contact with God and its shifts and changes little bits by little bits. And I hope this is part of a favorite part of your day too, as it is for me. I'll turn that over to Kent. Thank you, Debbie. You had said how it evolves, and I had mentioned that I was going right by the book in the same order. And when I became aware that I was not getting that much out of it, it began probably 15 years ago, and I started making a conscious effort to change it.
And part of that was just to talk with other people and see what they do. The one thing that Debbie has, that I got from Debbie, was a word called the nudges. Every now and then, you know, you just get this nudge that you think, ooh, or ooh. And to be aware of, like, the nudges that happen throughout the day. Sometimes, like, I, you know, I try and get to work on time, and something happens on the way to work, and I'm thinking… Well, what is it that makes it so that I'm running late today?
Is there some… So I'm looking for a message in what goes on during the day, or if something does go well or more easier than I expected, you know, what is it that I'm to see in that? So my relationship to that power became a fluid one on a regular basis, and I conscientiously began to try and develop a way to communicate with my higher power. And when I was, I can remember my first 12 years, I went through those times when I would do what I heard somebody do, which is like read those books and say those prayers and do this thing and get on your knees and I'm doing that. And then I would question, you know, is this it?
Is this what it is? And then there came that time when I was 12 years sober. Actually, it was when my wife at the time died. It was, she had no program, but she had a natural way of being. I called it common sense. She just had good common sense. And I never knew how she dealt with trauma or any of the rest of that, and it oftentimes didn't make sense to me, but somehow she would pull that off and do the right thing, and it's like… But when she passed away, coincidentally about that same time was when I got that feeling like, oh my.
So this is what the world of the spirit feels like. So I can remember reading Chuck Chamberlain, and he said until he was five years sober, and when he was five years sober, he had that. And so I'm talking to people a long time sober, well, what happened, or how did you, and what did you, or what does it feel like, or how did you know? And so I would create those dialogues because I would like to do what I can to improve my conscious contact with that power.
So in the process, all sorts of things happened. I was mentioning that, you know, if you were working with somebody and you hear something come out of your mouth, I don't think it's just those times, but there have been times when something would come out of my mouth and I just know that, you know, I did not have that thought. The whole thing that came out of my mouth, and I'm hearing it at the first, at the same time everybody else is hearing it, and I'm thinking, I don't like that.
Now I cannot make that happen. I mean, it would be fun to be able to make that, but it's a part of that conscious contact. So now I'm looking for things that actually fit
[01:05:00]
into my world of the spirit, my world. How do I connect with the spiritual world for Kent? And So, in that, there's the thoughts that come into your head. You know, one of those thoughts I mentioned, you know, I'm saying that terrible prayer for that wife that was falsely accused me and I want to kill her, you know? And yet this thought comes into my head, you know, well, what does she deserve? I believe that if we are consciously aware that we can develop that sense, that you can do that.
You can actually begin to feel like it's happening in just before step 11, where it says, you know, for by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. Now, when I was under that state where the, you know, just on a daily basis, my life was get a drink. I mean, that's the first thought that I had was, how are you going to get loaded today? So to be in that state where, you know, I recoil from it like a hot flame is, it really is, really, it's like I can remember I was at a picnic, and there was a family kind of event.
There were some brand new beers I had never seen before, and I'm seeing them pop those beers. And at one point in my sobriety, I would have thought, Hmm, I wonder how those beers would taste. But this time my reaction to it was like, I'm thinking to go over here and leave those alone. And it was a different way of reacting to the beer, to see the signs that we continually see. At first, they'd all make me, I'd notice them all.
Now I can go days and never even realize that, you know, they're doing the billboard advertising for liquor, or in a magazine or TV or whatever. It's like, so I'm consciously trying to develop a spiritual, consciously trying to figure out, how do I do this? So the nudges, but then those thoughts that come into your head that you cannot explain. I was, a few months ago, six months ago, I think it was, I would wake up in the morning and it was as though God had put some little cute thought in my head. And it was like, one of them I remember clearly, which was a sing-songy, I love you, God.
I love you, God. And that's the way I woke up, and I'm hearing this, and I'm thinking, well, I do love you, God. And so the next morning it would be another thought or something like that. And I know that these are, I'm not, like, creating it, but I do know that I'm enabling it. I am looking for it. I am wanting it. I am trying to make myself available to it so that it can come to me. And in this last year, it's just been astounding.
I mean, I too, I don't wake up or go to bed without a prayer, but I don't always get on my knees and I don't always say the exact prayer, but I can honestly say that it is a way of living. It's a way of life that I have developed, and it came from, I can remember there was a time when I read 86 to 88 every day for years. And that's what I did, because I think that was what I needed to do at the time. And then there was times when, you know, I will admit that I try and read every day.
I try and read the daily reflections, and I probably am hitting that ninety-some percent of the time. And the reason is that it connects me to the worldwide fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. It really, it's like I'm reading what thousands of people around the world are reading, maybe not exactly the same time, but we're all connected through that Alcoholics Anonymous publication on a daily basis, and it feels like that.
This morning, it was this morning, I woke up and said, What did I say to
[01:10:01]
you? Do you remember? No. But again, there was God was in my world as I woke up, and I got to greet the day with the presence of God. I knew when I woke up this morning, I was in the presence of God. I'm listening to what I'm saying, and I'm thinking about the guy who came here 28 years ago. And the guy who came here 28 years ago could never conceive of saying those kind of things. I had a guy the other day just say to me, he says, I want your brand of spirituality.
I want to be as spiritually connected as you are. And I'm thinking, Whoo, do you know who you're talking about? And so there's a little bit of That disbelief, but I can honestly say I humbly rely on Him. And I can give you a perfect example before we wrap this up. And that was that on Thursday, I was supposed to have lunch with my hygienist, and she has gone through the most bizarre behavior. I've known her for seven years, and she's just like on board, and we connected, and it's just been an amazing kind of a relationship.
We, in fact, my whole office is so no drama, no trauma. We all are, you know, get along as good friends. And in fact, I only go in—I don't have to work anymore—I go in because it's so enjoyable to be around these people. And yet two weeks ago, she just like flipped the switch, and I can't even figure it out. And so I've been trying to get together with her and figure out, well, can I—what do we do? And is there something that happened, or what is that?
You know, apply this program to the trauma that's happening in my life so that I can be resolved in a way that feeds what God wants me to do, not only in my office, but in her life and in my life. And I'm fully aware of this, and I'm doing what I can in the prayer. Yet I'm supposed to lunch at one with her, and at about 10:30 in the morning, I get a phone call from a sponsee that presents me With something that I have to deal with that is so overwhelming, it's like, la la la la la la la.
You know, I am now on total overload. I am completely incapable of treating the patients that I have, dealing with this brand new blow-up situation, and go to lunch and think that I can be spiritual and do something in a positive way with my hygienist. And everybody, including my wife, is scared to death of this meeting with the hygienist. And I've talked to my sponsor about it several times, and this is like a big event, and like I am totally incapable of managing it or figuring it out or having a plan or knowing what I'm going to do.
So I'm going to lunch, and all I can tell you is God showed up. I don't know what happened. God showed up and did what he was supposed to do. And if it was for no other reason than to be able to come here and tell you, I know God did whatever he was supposed to do. And I, I mean, I have a couple of inklings of what was going. I think I've got an understanding as to what was actually transpiring with that hygienist, but it wasn't anything I figured out.
And I didn't, like, go to God in prayer and ask him to tell me what to do, and he wrote it down on tablets and presented it to me in an email or something like that. It happened in my world. And so I can tell you that I'm an example. Of someone who has the ability to communicate with a power greater than myself adequately enough to deal with circumstances which would normally have been. Which would normally have been so destructive that that lunch would not have gone well.
There's no way under those conditions could that lunch have turned out unless there was
[01:15:00]
a God that showed up and did for me what I couldn't do for myself. Thank God there is a God, or there'd be no hope for a guy like Kent. Thanks for— Thanks, Kent. We're going to take a break, but remember the ask-it basket bowl. We're going to start with those questions and any you might have from the floor, and then finish with Step Twelve. We'll be back in 15. Thank you. Also, if you are interested in the CD set, please let them know so they can have that ready for you upon departure.
Thank you.