Audio
About this recording
- Topic
- Big Book Study Disc 7 Scottsdale Arizona
- Speaker
- Debbie D. and Kent D
- Date
- 2017-03-31
Transcript
Source: Debbie D. and Kent D – Big Book Study Disc 7 Scottsdale Arizona – 2017-03-31.mp3 File: debbie-d-and-kent-d-big-book-study-disc-7-scottsdale-arizona-2017-03-31.mp3 Duration: 01:10:39
============================================================
I just want to thank everybody for being here. It has been delightful for us to share our experience with you. Hope it's been helpful. And, you know, again, we are no authority on how you do this. There's one way, and it's our way. No, not even close. It's, I love listening to people to add to what I'm already doing, maybe make an adjustment to what I'm doing, to get it fresh, to hear another perspective. That's really what I come to these things for, and hopefully what we've been able to share with you to just enlighten what you already do.
So we have a few questions. Thank you for those, and then we'll answer these that are written down, and we'll then take any from the floor if you wanted to ask us live. So one question that was directed to me was, Debbie, you mentioned a doctor that made a video concerning Silkworth's description of alcoholism. Who was the doctor, and what was the video called? So this was a fellow in our area, the Bay Area, he goes by Doctor Mark, and I will be happy to get you in touch with the taping people that have that video. It's not like on the market, so to speak, like a lot of things are. But like I said, it was incredibly insightful, and I thought it's a three-hour, three-CD, and I thought, Oh, this is going to be a bore.
I personally was riveted and educated, and I saw that maybe five, six years ago, and ever since then, I have looked at the doctor's opinion very differently. So if you want to see me after the meeting, I'll be happy to give you the tapers' information who has that. Oh, sorry. Thank you, Debbie. How do you identify the base character defect? With your sponsor. I really don't. I cannot see myself as clear as other people do.
But if you… and I don't know that I knew what my basic defect of character was, that I knew that all my defects of character emanated from arrogance. I mean, I had a clue about this had happened and, you know, I was embarrassed and like I felt like an idiot, and I oftentimes just wanted to climb into a cardboard box and go find me an overpass. And, you know, so I had all these, but I didn't have a sense of who I was for a long time, probably ten years.
But that didn't, I don't think that, I don't think it was important that I knew right away. I try and work with the guys that I sponsor. I can see them, and oftentimes I wrote something the other day, and it basically said that I can see the God speaking through my sponsees. I can actually sense when they're just talking like as God would want them to say or be. So I can see the God in them, and probably easier, and I can see what their basic defect of character.
But when Debbie identified hers as this critical judgment of others, I mean, as long as I've known her, she's known that. I don't know when she became aware of it. Long time ago. Yeah. How? Long time. Through the inventory process. Yeah, through the inventory process. Seven years. I really saw it. Okay. Hope that answers your question. I would add also, for me, my base defective character is ego. I find so many things when I, again, whittle down to the root, it's my ego.
That is what got me in trouble. That's what made—thought of the entitlement. That's what thought of the judgment based on me. Ego has been my base character defect as well. How do I respond to people that always want to offer a fix? Bless their hearts, right? I was one of those. If you had a problem, I don't have any experience, but I got a solution for you. I've got an opinion. I know how you should handle that, what you should do.
[00:05:02]
And then I would go to, Have you ever tried? Have you thought about? Have you… and did you do this? Did you do that? They're just giving me information, and I'm here trying to lift them up into wellness or into feeling better, or instead of just allowing them to either ask, Do you have any experience? or to let them sit in it if maybe they need to for a while. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I have to talk in order to— Feel like I'm doing something to be helpful, when the helpful thing might be is just listening. And when I have gotten that unsolicited advice, which I know so well, maybe it's from people who I think, you are the weirdest person I've ever come across.
I've learned through Alcoholics Anonymous that I can just politely nod and say, Thank you for sharing. I don't have to say it with attitude like, Thanks for sharing. I find that presentation is 90%. I can say, just like I did the words, Thank you for sharing, with a variety of attitudes that will get a variety of responses on the other person. So that it doesn't complicate or exacerbate things, I can say with a kindness and a respectfulness, Thank you for sharing that.
Maybe I'll add, I'll think about that too, which acknowledges that they were speaking. Doesn't mean I'm going to think about it, but it's a really nice close to that, and hopefully they will stop offering a fix. Did you have something? Well, when it happens in your home group and they come and they're going to fix your home group, then there's a whole other side of that. And, you know, you may end up talking to their sponsor, and maybe that it really is just that that's the kind of person that a group conscience can deal with.
That if you give everyone the opportunity to speak up, including that person, then you hear the entire, you know, everybody speaking on that issue, and that person may grow from that. I think someone who offers a fix is in that category that, in their mind, there is the right way or the answer to do it. And there will always be those people in Alcoholics Anonymous, because there are people who come here who need someone to tell them just exactly what to do and how to do it. So both of those sides are there.
I have a similar way of saying what Debbie said. Mine is, That sounds like a good idea. Let me think about it. That's my way of saying, you know, well, it might be a good idea. You might be right. That's what I say to my wife. And to add to that, let me try to be gracious and think about what they said. Maybe there is some good nuggets, but the person it came from, I might have a personality thing with, so it's harder to hear.
So there's a little bit of all of that in there, but more than anything, I need to be gracious and not do a get out of my face. Okay, that's where I really want to end that one. So be gracious. Do I ever fire a sponsee? How would that come about? As I said five or seven years ago, I came to the conclusion that I was going to work with those people who are on fire. And if you are really into giving yourself to this simple program, and you manifest that like, you know, you've got all my time and all of my ability and everything I can do to help you, if that is not your path, it might be that I would spend very little time with you.
I will keep my commitments on call times and meeting times, but I'm not going to
[00:10:04]
spend a lot of time. Some people who are brand new that ask me to work with them and I don't know where this is going, I'll be very patient and kind with. But along that way, I'm letting people know that I work with sponsors. And if they make that statement, well, I will never sponsor anybody. I will reiterate that I work with sponsors. And it's pretty obvious that I'm not firing them, but like I don't work with people who don't sponsor. I have really one, if you'd like to remain on what's called Kent's list, you have to go to three meetings a week. You have to be sober.
If you don't make three meetings a week, that's fine. I don't, you know, it's up to you. But, you know, I work with people that go to at least three meetings every week. If that is not something you can do, then I'm going to move you off the list unless you want to. You know, up here, I'm not. You can do what you need to do, and I have to do what I need to do. I do also have the, you know, clear statement like, if I haven't heard from you in two weeks, that's probably the best way to change our relationship.
Because, you know, I don't want to be a sponsor in name only. I want to be a sponsor actively in your life, or I would like to be an active participant in those people's lives who want me to sponsor them. So the people I work with, it's a very more intense kind of working relationship. We work together in a living, working environment, so that this is an ongoing, they know about me and I know about them, and we work things out together. It's not like casual, or there's a lot of people in my area that have a long list of sponsees, but, you know, maybe some of them they haven't even heard from in years, but they still are sponsoring all these people. I just make it clear that isn't how I do things.
I mean, I'm in your life and you're in my life, and I expect that you will, you know, include me in every kind of event that's going on in your life so I can know what's going on. If I don't know what's going on in your life, then I can't be of any help to you. So I don't know if that answers it or not. To add a little bit from my experience, I know we, in this note, it's fire is in quotes, so. With the women I work with, we don't use that word, fire, because you never hired me. I know it's a common expression that we use, but it also feels so harsh. And what I'm really looking to do is change the nature of our relationship to friendly, not friends, friendly.
I'm very specific about the word I choose, because I hang out with my friends, I do stuff with them, and more than likely, I'm not going to do that for some reason. But I will always be happy to see you and be kind and courteous and respectful during the meeting. But after that, we're probably not going to have a lot of engagement for outside reasons and purposes. It's always, if someone needs to move on, which is what I describe it as, move on in sponsorship, generally I prefer them to be the one who makes the choice. Even though it's been sagging for a while, hasn't felt very active, like there's much of a heartbeat between us.
It's become too routine. There's no spirit connection in here anymore. But there's been those times when I have, I do not say, This isn't working for me, because it's not my relationship that needs to be working. It's my usefulness to them. And it doesn't seem like there's much effectiveness going on here. And maybe I am no longer the right sponsor for you. Maybe you need to find someone, maybe in your local area, if I'm sponsoring someone in the distance, someone who is Has more experience that you seem to be looking for. I don't know.
Looking for? I don't know, but I don't know that I'm that effective.
[00:15:03]
So I kind of put the blame on me and look at it like it's, you know, I'm not the right one for you versus you're not working for me. So I, but there's some that I suggest that repeatedly, in an attempt to collaborate, I feel I'm the only one in this game. And I'm not going to, the old expression, I'm not going to be more involved in your sobriety than you are. I'm good with my recovery. I'm active in my sponsor, and I'm present for our sponsorship relationship.
But I need you to come to the table fully as well. So, yep. Well, one other thing, near the end of the year, I usually think about each of the sponsees, and I look at the fact, was there any benefit for me being in their life in the last year? If I could have not been there, would their life be just the same as it is now? If that was the case, then I don't need to be there in the next year. So I present that to them in that way.
It doesn't appear to me that I've been able to be of any value to you in the last year. So why don't we think about changing our relationship? And I do like what Debbie calls changing our relationship or character. Next question. Does swearing mask some emotions? It might for that person. I don't use profanity. Certainly from the podium, and 99.9% of the time that I speak, I might in private have a moment of frustration and pop off a few things out of frustration, but it's at a private level.
I'm certainly very capable of that, and do when I get overwhelmed, frustrated, and bam, it's a perfect storm and it happens. But my experience has been that sometimes it's just used for shock value. Sometimes it's used out of laziness. And with the women I sponsor, I want to be that attraction of the lack of profanity. I have a gal that I sponsor that we started working together probably 10 years ago, and very intelligent woman, and her conversations with me would include the F-bomb.
Now, I'm not Little Pollyanna, and I don't have sensitive ears. Didn't like it, but hey, I'm not trying to micromanage her. And if this is the way she feels comfortable in speaking, okay, let me make my adjustments. But one day she called me very upset about a situation, and she talks real fast, and she was going on about this situation, but I swear to God every third or fourth word was an F-bomb, this F-bomb, that, and it was so polluted with F-bombs that when she took a breath, I said to her, You know, I don't exactly know what you've just said.
There was, I've never addressed your choice of using profanity because I respect if that's the way you want to speak. But let me tell you something. You overshot the mark on this one, and I feel like I got to take a shower. It was so abusive of the F-bomb that if you want to maybe call me back and let me know what happened, I understand you're upset. The tone is clear. But I really could not decipher what the problem was because it was so littered with profanity.
Pause. Okay, I'll get back to you. I thought, well, this may be the end of this sponsorship relationship, you know, but it was just enough. And so she called me a couple weeks later, and she had to do some soul searching. One part of her said, and this is what she's telling me, one part of her said that I shouldn't have to filter everything I say, and if that's what I do, that's how I do it, and if I use the F-bomb, I use the F-bomb, and I shouldn't have to pretend and clean up my language for that.
Who is she to tell me what to do? And on the other hand, her mother, who she has tremendous respect and a close relationship for, she's saying this to her, and
[00:20:00]
her mother says, Let me understand this. You are willing to give up your relationship with this woman so you can swear? Really? I want to think about that. The happy news for me is that in the past seven years or whatever, not one F-bomb has been dropped. It's amazing. She could have a full conversation with me without using that. And I appreciate that. It feels we can have a conversation without me weeding it out.
And so, I don't know if it masks some emotions, if it's used for shock value. And I'll tell you what, interesting thing, Kent and I have been together 17 years. When I first started with him the first couple of years, he frequently used the F-bomb in conversation. I never said a word. But what's been fun is to watch him, by maybe example, maybe by our environment, it's rarely used. He rarely uses it.
I've never addressed, Hey, that's offensive to me. I've never said it. It's not. But rarely has it been used. So I do think that we can have a conversation without using it. I've seen it. I do it. My first husband was raised in, you know, spent many years in prisons and things like that, and he also had, you know, nothing but profanity running through his language. And he likes to say that he was taught that cussing is a crutch for conversational cripples. And that's what he took away.
And I never heard him say one profane word in the years I knew him. So that's my take on it. Did you have something? Oh, Tom Ivester said he has never— Been offended by someone not using profanity. Yeah, the lack of profanity. Never been offended by the lack of profanity. Regarding inventory, I was sexually abused age 12, 13 or younger. What was my part? None. There is—where was I at fault or to blame? How do I deal with this?
There are so many corollaries to that. If you were born without a leg, you're not at fault. If you were born with diabetes, you're not at fault. If you were sexually abused as a child, you're not at fault. But if you have one leg and you want to be able to walk, you're going to have to learn how to walk with a leg. And so you're going to have to take responsibility to do what it takes to walk with that leg. Or if you have diabetes, you're going to have to learn how to deal with that part of your life.
It's your responsibility. If you have been abused sexually as a child, you have to take responsibility to deal with—there are people who have expertise in that field that you need to address to deal. It is a god-awful thing that, you know, no one deserves. No one deserves to be sexually abused as a child. Yet at the same time, if we don't take responsibility for our life and quit blaming, you know, so many things I can blame.
I was a master at blaming. I wanted to start Victims Anonymous. Come on. So join me if you want to, but it's not going to solve the problem. The problem is, if I was born with the defect of arrogance and I don't take responsibility for that, it's going to eat my lunch. So it has to do with our sobriety. We do need to stand up and take responsibility. So I hope that answers that. Our last written question is, you mentioned that at any point the disturbances within us with how people behave, but when do we say that behavior is unacceptable and we are highly disturbed and won't accept it?
When is it okay to be disturbed by people's behavior? My goal is to live in spiritual harmony with the world around me. That isn't always easy, but
[00:25:05]
it sure is rewarding. I was involved in my first marriage that ended because my husband was having an arrangement with someone other than me. And so I, quote unquote, had the right to be angry, resentful, victim's anonymous, I was wronged, etc., etc. But you see, again, know that when I share this experience, I'm not saying, Oh, aren't you so wonderful. For myself, I couldn't live with that, quote, justifiable anger. Because Step 10, if whoever wrote this, I would encourage you to read the beautiful passages in Step 10 in the 12 and 12. I want to read a couple things that remind me of the danger of justified resentments over people's behavior. Few people have been more victimized by resentments than we alcoholics.
It mattered little whether our resentments were justified or not. A burst of temper could spoil a day, and a well-nursed grudge could make us miserably ineffective. Nor were we ever skillful in separating justified from unjustified anger. As we saw it, our wrath was always justified. Anger, that occasional luxury of more balanced people, could keep us on an emotional jag indefinitely. These emotional dry benders often led straight to the bottle. Other kinds of disturbances, jealousy, envy, self-pity, or hurt pride, did the same thing. Then it talks about the spot check inventory.
And in all these situations, we need self-restraint, honest analysis of what is involved, and this I love, a willingness to admit when the fault is ours, and an equal willingness to forgive when the fault is elsewhere. There comes that darned forgiveness again. You see, forgiveness doesn't own me anymore. That emotional disturbance no longer owns me when it's forgiven. Now, while I was hurt, yes, I accepted—expected, I should say—monogamy.
I expected honesty. I expected respect. When that did not happen, that wasn't something that I did, but it was something that was involving a dramatic change in my life I wasn't expecting. And therefore, for those next six months, I was the most fragile piece of glass emotionally that I'd ever been before or since. And it just was, I felt if somebody went, I would just shatter. And so I stayed around the people I felt the safest with. I stayed. I would talk to my sponsor and my two closest friends.
The rest of the world, it was not to be. They were not to be troubled or burdened with that. These women kind of signed up and were willing to let me go blah, blah, blah when I needed to. But the healing was to be ongoing. It was important that I make amends to that man for not being the wife that I just wasn't, the kind of wife that I would determine a good wife, and make amends for my actions. Here was the key: without an expectation of amends from him.
I'm free when it's free and clear. I might be very disturbed by the actions of some people. I don't know why they're doing what they're doing. But it is not my master plan. I am not the master planner. How can I get spiritually in harmony with this environment? Can I pray for them? Is there a conversation we can have? Is there a conversation we can have? Do I allow them the journey they're on? Yes. But when I'm disturbed, there is something
[00:30:05]
wrong with me. What is it? They're not doing what I want them to do. They're not doing what I think they should do. They're not doing what I know they can do. I'm back in the judgment game again. So that's what happens for me when I'm disturbed with other people's behavior, what I need to do. Because I find that addressing that, I'm usually wrong in some fashion or don't know the whole story. That's why I can only get it right within myself.
And a lot of that comes with an equal willingness to forgive when the fault is elsewhere. How generous am I in the forgiveness? In Concept Nine, it talks about leadership, and I think a part of that is what we—it says leadership is an essential and necessary part of Alcoholics Anonymous. We always think of, you know, we have no leaders, we have no one to govern us, but we definitely do have people who will guide us and lead us in the right direction, sometimes the wrong direction.
But here it says leaders are often called upon to face heavy and sometimes long-continued criticism. This is an acid fact. There are always the constructive critics, our friends indeed. We ought never fail to give a careful hearing. We should be willing to let them modify our opinions or change them completely. Often, too, we shall have to disagree and then stand fast. Without losing their friendship.
It goes on to say, We ought to listen carefully to what they say. Sometimes they're telling the whole truth, at other times a little truth. More often, though, they are just rationalizing themselves into nonsense. If we are within range, the whole truth, the half truth, or no truth at all can prove equally unpleasant. That is why we have to listen so carefully. If they have got the whole truth or even a little truth, then we'd better thank them and get on with our respective inventories, admitting we were wrong.
If it is nonsense, we can ignore it or we can lay the cards on the table and try to persuade them. Failing this, we can be sorry they are too sick to listen, and we can try to forget the whole business. There are few better means of self-survey, of developing genuine patience, than the workouts these usually well-meaning but erratic brother members afford us. Concept Nine. Beautiful. So when I ran across Debbie in the beginning, and I'm really wondering what she's like, and I said, You know, by the way, do you happen to have a favorite tradition? She goes, Yeah, I have two.
I said, Oh, really? What are they? And she told me, of course, and I said, Well, do you happen to have a favorite concept? She said, Yeah, Concept Nine. And I'm thinking, Ooh, this woman knows her stuff. So we got together because she was impressing me with her knowledge of traditions and concepts. That's all the written questions. Does anybody have any questions from the floor that they wanted to ask, or don't have to?
Just, okay. I don't see any hands. Okay. So what we'll do now, in the time that we have left, we'll look at what Step 12 looks like. Oh, excuse me. We'll take a look at what Step 12 looks like. The very first thing that I say to the women I sponsor is, Do not be sloppy when you read this step's words. Do not be sloppy. It says, Having had a spiritual awakening as, T-H-E, not a. It is not a result, which implies one of many.
It's the, or the, result, singular. So if you rewrote it, it would be, The result of these steps is having a spiritual awakening. So I tell them, Don't be sloppy when you read that. Now, having taken the first 11 steps, I did have a spiritual awakening.
[00:35:01]
And so then what's a spiritual awakening? As it says, we would find a variety of examples asking you, Define a spiritual awakening, as we would people. But I love what it says in the 12 and 12. It says, But certainly each genuine one has something in common with all the others, and these things which they have in common are not too hard to understand. When a man or a woman has a spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that, and I'm going to go to the first person because this is true for me, I have now become able to do, feel, and believe that which I could not do before on my unaided strength and resources alone.
I have been granted a gift which amounts to a new state of consciousness and being. I have been set on a path which tells me I'm really going somewhere, that life is not a dead end, not something to be endured or mastered. In a very real sense, I've been transformed because I've laid hold of a source of strength which, in one way or another, I had hitherto denied myself. I find myself in possession of a degree of honesty, tolerance, unselfishness, peace of mind, and love of which I had thought myself quite incapable.
What I have received is a free gift, and yet, usually, at least in some small part, I have made myself ready to receive it. And we have. We've taken those first 11 steps. We've cleaned up the wreckage of our past. We've tried to keep current with that as best as I, humanly, with all my fallible faults and things, doing the best that I'm able to do today. I have had a spiritual awakening, and this unaided ability has come about.
I've made myself ready to receive it. So there's like these three parts. And it's, have I had a spiritual awakening? Yes. But that won't stay unless I do the remaining two parts, which is, I tried to carry this message to alcoholics. That may be in sponsorship, often, in service somehow. I cannot get it and keep it. I will not be able to keep it unless I give it away. We hear that a lot. And am I practicing the principles that I've learned in all of my affairs?
Many of us can really put on our AA happy face in meetings. We're wonderful. We're great. We're doing great. We pretty much are kind and polite. But what happens when I leave here? Do I take that into the grocery store? Do I take that into the restaurant? What happens when I go home? That's probably the biggest challenge all of us have. Do I treat the members of my home as kindly and generously as I do my home group members? A stranger I meet?
Shouldn't they be the ones I really treat well and not maybe the least and be disrespectful? Well, they love me anyway. They can take it. No, that doesn't mean they don't have feelings. That doesn't mean that I should not be respectful and take these same principles I've learned here. Into the home, especially the home: kindness, patience, tolerance. For me, it's easy to do that with Kent. It's easy to do that with sponsees.
And recently, last May, my mother, who's 80 years old, moved in with us. Kent was gracious enough to, you know, be okay with that to happen. And now my mother and I have had a— she's someone I've known all of my life, but our relationship has never been close, just the way it was. Kent took a look at how his father was raised. My mother was raised by her grandmother, old country school type thing. So there wasn't a lot of hugging and loving and game playing and so forth.
Here's a grandmother raising a young child, no father in the picture, back in the day when that was very unheard of.
[00:40:03]
Had one child, that was me. Whatever tools that she had, she was a very nice lady and always had a clean house and, you know, kind and kept food on the table. But my childhood memories, there's very few. Didn't mean that it was right or wrong. It also is a lot on me that I just also had that independence that— and when I was 12-plus years sober, or about 12, 13 years old, my parents would divorce and I made the choice to live with my father.
She then moved to California. And we would have periodic visits. I don't remember a lot of phone calls on either part. I don't remember cards and letters on either part. But we'd have these visits. My grandmother would pay, I remember she would bring me out to California to visit her. I would later, you know, be on my own. And again, our relationship wasn't that close. I was 14 years sober when I decided, you know, I really, I'm their only child.
I think it's important to have a relationship with my parents. Now remember, there's not an active relationship coming from them. There isn't an active one from me to them. But I'm like, you know, I live in a recovery program. I need to act like that. And so how do people repair the relationship? Activate a relationship. I listened to what you did. You went to visit. You sent them cards. You made phone calls.
Now I knew what I was able to do and what I would not be able to do. So I did not want to set the impossible up and do something like call every day or once a week, but I could call once a month. And in January of 1991, I called my grandparent that was alive, my two, my parents, and I said, I'm going to call you the first Sunday of every month, starting in that time. And for, what's it now, 26 plus years, I have honored that commitment.
I have a sticky note that moves from month to month to remind me, okay? And until I've made all those monthly phone calls to stay in touch with people, You need something? Did you want to tell me something? My turn. We're still 30 minutes. I know. Okay. So, little sidebar here. So, until those calls are done, I don't move that note. And so how do I— so now she, you know, I talk to her every month. So now those last couple of years are, Well, I'll just move out to California with you. I'll just come live with you. And finally I said, Kent, I think this day might be coming where she is going to need to come live with us.
So last May, I went out and finished packing her up. We brought her to California. She lives with us, and it can be a little challenging to have my 80-year-old mother living with us. I had, you know, hoped for some things to happen, but had learned through my experience with her, probably not going to happen. How to be respectful of her opinions, which vary differently from mine in many areas. How to be respectful of not addressing all the sarcasm and criticism that she may give on a topic.
How to just be respectful of that. It has been a daily interesting spiritual growth for me. And that is, you know, again, my opportunity for the living amends and also for practicing these principles in all of my affairs. Thank you. So the— The next chapter, working with others. I have been on the hotline for my whole sobriety, and I still get 12-step calls. One of my sponsees loves to tell the story that I called him in the middle of the night to go on a 12-step call, and I told him to bring his big book. And so I'm driving to the 12-step meeting to meet the fella in the middle of the night, and I told him to open his book to page 89.
Told him to open his book to page 89 and read in there because we need to find out what we're going to do. He assumed that I had never done this before, and so we were going to follow
[00:45:04]
the directions in the book, and I wanted him to read me the directions. And in fact, there are probably as good directions as to anything. And either, I mean, it doesn't mean that we're doing 12-step work like we used to by doing it in their house, because most of the time people will end up in a treatment facility as their first introduction to the separation from alcohol. But it's still that same approach.
You know, if you're going to do that, approach someone new, you know, the instructions are wonderful. So I do take this as a serious part of when I'm walking someone through the Big Book. I want them to experience what it was like, and I do tend to reference the type of 12-step work that we started with. But the fact that we now need to adapt to a different—we're going to 12-step someone who's coming in a van or who's still in some kind of a treatment facility, and we take a meeting to them.
But it's all the same kind of thing in the sense that, you know, it really says we need to find out enough about that man to take the word to him as if he were taking it to us. We would want to know enough about that person. And so the way about going about doing it is— is just so well outlined. Page 89, that first line that says, Practical experience shows that nothing will so much insure immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics.
And I echo back to what I've been saying from the preface, that we're going to be working with other alcoholics. And so I'm not letting up on the fact that we're going to move into this direction, and then how are we going to do it? The way I introduce them to working with others is to get them to call the—get the phone numbers of the people who are less than 30 days sober that hold up their hand in meetings and identify themselves as new.
I say go up and ask them if they can get their number and just say, Do you mind if I give you a phone call? And out of that connection, I also encourage them to see if they need a ride to the meeting, or if they would like to talk about the meeting they were at, or what meetings you go to, or somehow see if there's a way that you can create a meaningful connection, welcoming that person to the program of Alcoholics Anonymous so that they feel that there's a human being in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous who cares about that person.
That being the case, there'll be some people that you cannot stand, and some people—pardon me—there'll be some people that you just connect with as a lifetime relationship, but we don't always know what that is. So that process of doing that. Debbie is one who is just an expert. She's the one that, at her home group, she'll go around and introduce or greet every single person in the meeting. And I just think that's such a delightful.
I get distracted by people asking me questions, and I still have no idea how she pulls it off, but she does a great job of doing that. But the next paragraph starts with, Life will take on new meaning. And the whole idea is that, you know, we are very fortunate that there was a program that we came to. But at some point, you know, prior to 1935, there wasn't the opportunity. But we still think that it's them, or it'll happen, or they'll get sober, or, you know, if they were to…
I can remember my home group at the time was a men's group, and the feelings that they had is if they really want to be sober, they can come here and find us. And I'm thinking, well, there's some truth to that, but I still feel that we are responsible to do that reaching out. And so, you know, moving through the pages of this chapter are going to help somebody try and connect with that human being.
[00:50:02]
See your man alone, if possible, page 91. 92. If you are satisfied he is a real alcoholic. Well, how do you get to that place? Well, you're going to have to talk with that person and find out enough about them. You know, they may not be. Maybe they got sentenced like I did. You know, I got sent to AA and definitely wasn't an alcoholic. I caught it while I was coming to meetings, for God's sake. And, but if you, it doesn't ask him if he's an alcoholic.
It says, Are you convinced that he's a real alcoholic? So, in that sense, when I'm listening to somebody on the hotline was what really kind of tuned up my thinking, because people will call all the time to the hotline, some are wives and friends and parents. But then there'll be other people who, I have three questions and I want them to answer when they're on the hotline. And it's really the introduction that I think that I ask when I'm talking to somebody new in the program.
And the first thing is, do I think I'm talking to somebody who's got a problem with alcohol? You know, if this person I don't think has a problem with alcohol, because, you know, there was one fellow who was coming to the meeting on a consistent basis that a drunk driver killed his sister, and that's why he's coming to meetings. And I'm thinking, really? I don't think, I'm not going to spend my time.
He's welcome at at least the open meetings, but that's not the person I'm going to give my time to. But then the second thing I want to find out from this person is, you know, do I think that they are looking for sobriety? Sometimes you'll get on the phone with somebody and what they're telling you is like, you know, I hate my sponsor. I hate every meeting I go to. It's like this. And so your job, it seems like on the hotline is to listen to them. Describe all the reasons why they hate AA, and I'm thinking, you know, I really, I don't need to listen to this person because I'm not going to be carrying this message to.
Well, there are people who have asked me to sponsor them who have this excuse that, you know, their wife sent them or their job sent them, and they're just doing this to get their card signed, and it's like, and so I'm going to evaluate, do I think this person is coming here because they want sobriety and some indication that they're interested? And of course they'll ask questions, seems like simple, but I want to know, are they really interested in some help from us, from me?
And even though, you know, it's so weird how, no, no, I just need to, I don't need your help. I just need to be here or come here. And what I'm wanting, what I would really like to think is that I could find—I was in a meeting Thursday night, and this guy was describing how he had that craving, and he was going nuts, just—he's brand new, and he's going nuts, and he actually kept having that craving, and he stops at a place, a gambling place, and starts gambling, and he's losing his money, and he's thinking, like, why am I here?
I've never gambled before in my life. And he walked in there really as a do something to get the drinking thinking out of his head, and so he finally leaves there and going crazy, not knowing what to do, and he goes home and he's starting to lift weights, and he said, I lifted weights until I couldn't lift my arms. And I'm thinking, well, that's a good way not to pick up a drink. But you can hear in his voice that here's someone who is willing to go to any length to fight this thing.
I loved listening to that. You know, that's what I'm looking for. I want to see the people— Beginning of the book, it actually says a lot of people come, but not a lot of people stay. And it's true. But I don't need to work with all those people who come. I just need to work with the people who really are looking for sobriety and have
[00:55:03]
got to the place where they need another way. When he sees, on the bottom of 91, when he sees you know all about drinking, game, commence to describe yourself as an alcoholic. Tell him how baffled you were and wait for him to ask, Well, what did you do? Well, my nature isn't always to wait until they ask, you know. But when you're sitting in a 12-step call, and we used to do this where we would have two-hour sessions, we'd go sit with a guy while he was getting sober in two-hour increments. And it was fun for me because I'd set them all up, but the two guys would come, they'd all come and tell him what he's got to do.
You got to do this, got to do that, you got to do this and got to do that. And I'm thinking, man, if I was in his shoes, you know, I just want somebody to say, I'll sit with you and not tell me all these things that I've got to do. You got to get a sponsor, work the steps, get into service. And I'm thinking, oh my God, I don't know that this is really working, because that is not what the instructions in this book are.
It says, you know, wait until, you know, there's an interval and, you know, if he asks how you did it, tell him your story. And so, well, of course, you know, if you can tell a guy brand new what your story is, he'll listen to you. But you start telling what he's got to do and he's going to go, Bye. Thanks very much, but that's more than I want to do. Especially if you tell him you got to go to three meetings a week.
I mean, I was told I had to go to three meetings a week for five years, and I'm thinking, Jesus Christ, you guys are crazy. That's overkill. But then we're not going to get to the entire rest of the book, but I want to hit on a few pages in the book that have been rather instrumental in my sobriety for one reason or another. And I want to go to page—well, let's go to page 96. This is a fun one to explain.
The way it was described to me is if—well, if—never mind. It's a fun story, but do not be discouraged if your prospect does not respond at once. Search out another alcoholic and try again. You are sure to find someone desperate enough to accept with eagerness what you offer. We find it a waste of time to keep chasing a man who cannot or will not work with you. If you leave such a person alone, he may soon become convinced that he cannot recover by himself.
To spend too much time on any one situation is to deny some other alcoholic the opportunity to live and be happy. And that whole thing about firing a sponsee has that same thing, you know. Let's be effective in what we do. Work with those people that we can make a difference in their lives. One of the references that I oftentimes use is on page 98, about halfway down. Some of us have taken very hard knocks to learn the truth: job or no job, wife or no wife, we simply do not stop drinking so long as we place dependence upon other people ahead of dependence upon God. And, you know, I work with guys. I don't work with girls, but guys have a tendency to have this girlfriend that is, you know, their higher power.
And by God, you know, I'll go to a meeting if she'll let me, or if she doesn't have something—well, she had dinner planned, so I can't go to the meeting, and on and on. And there's another place that says on 99, there be divorce or separation, there should be no undue haste for the couple to get together. That's on page 99. Well, that isn't true for any guy I have ever known. There is undue haste to get together, you know, like tonight.
And oftentimes, you know, that thing, stay away from them for a year. Oh, that's not going to work. You know, that's a good idea. It's a great theory, but in actuality, it's not. But I do try and encourage them to consider, you know, how many times… Consider, you know, how many times, how many relationships have they had in their life, and how many of those relationships have been successful, and what is it they're doing different sober that they were not? How different are they brand new sober than they were drinking?
[01:00:05]
They're probably the same person, so wouldn't they more than likely end up with the same? And so let's see if the relationship you're in right now, we can't look at it from a spiritual, you know, see what God is having you do, and I encourage them to, you know, see how successful this is turning out and whether, you know, the next argument or the next blow-up and all the rest of that. I'm thinking, so you're putting the energy into the relationship.
Does that take your energy away from getting sober? And might it take more to get sober than what you are putting into it? And if they continue to do that, I'm not likely to continue to work with them. So then on page 100, this is probably one of my favorite parts of the entire book, and both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress. If you persist, remarkable things will happen.
When you look back, when we look back, we realize that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God's hands were better than anything we could have planned. Follow the dictates of a higher power, and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world. No matter what your present circumstances. When I ran across that paragraph, I was getting ready to die. I had lost my soulmate of 12 years that had gotten me sober, and I hadn't yet met my new soulmate.
And I'm in that land of, I want to die and go be with her. And somehow or other, God put me in front of this paragraph, and it just turned my life around that, you know, if I were to walk day by day on the path of spiritual progress, my life will turn out to be what it is today. Somehow I took heed to what it says here and applied that to my life, and I had no clue that it was going to turn out the way it has.
So, you know, again, this book has been my path. It's been my guide. It's been my life. And so then on page 111, this is in Two Wives. It would seem more appropriate if this happened to be to the men I sponsor, but the first principle of success is that you should never be angry. If you can get a guy to pause and don't be angry, it's good. Then next paragraph: You should never tell her what she must do about her drinking.
And, but of course, he's going to get her to stop too, because he stopped. Next, be determined that your wife's drinking is not going to spoil your relationship with your children or friends. At the bottom of that paragraph, do not set your heart on reforming your wife. And down at the bottom, let her see that you want to be helpful rather than critical, because so many men are so good at being wonderfully critical.
On page 125, this is in the family afterward. I was, I had said my home group was a men's group, and in that men's group we had a pecking order. It was all about testosterone and, and I call it belly bumping. So, so we would make fun of each other and take advantage of whoever we could. And my wife found out, my current wife, was watching my behavior, and she said to me, another principle, this is near the middle of the page, another principle we observe carefully is that we do not relate intimate experiences of another person unless we are sure they would approve. Well, my taking and poking fun at every other guy in the
[01:05:05]
meeting was not necessarily something he would have approved. Then it goes on to say, We find it better, when possible, to stick to our own stories. And it turns out that if I am telling you my experience, no one is offended. But if I give you my opinion or I talk about you, you know, it doesn't always come out that well. You don't have to agree with my opinion, but you have no argument with my own story. No one can argue with my story.
A man may criticize or laugh at himself, and it will affect others favorably. But criticism or ridicule coming from another often produces the contrary effect. And how often have I seen guys get really badly hurt just because somebody else was making fun of them? And that's not the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I try and pass that on. And on page 127, when the guy is going to be working two jobs and can't get to a meeting because he's got to get his life in order financially, I point out that halfway down that page, although financial recovery is on the way for many of us, not all of us, we found we could not place money first.
For us, material well-being always followed spiritual progress. It never preceded. And that was what I wanted to say about some of the book. I'll pass it back to Debbie. Well, as we wrap it up, we've talked about sponsorship and taking the steps, sharing our experience, helping, walking others through the 12 steps. When we get to Step 12, we have the spiritual awakening, but then it doesn't say start over for me doing more analysis, more me, me, me steps.
It's, girl, you got your marching orders. Help somebody else who doesn't know there's a way out. And by doing that, as we've said before, every time I'm walking someone through the steps, I am keeping them fresh in my life. I always have, as Kent does, someone that I'm walking through that legacy of recovery. And we want to thank you for letting us do that for you this weekend. And we want to close with a reading from Concept 9 on sponsorship. If you've never delved into the concepts, I know that they might be a little thick for some, but if you only took one, read Concept 9.
It's the coolest thing on leadership, and oddly enough, talks about sponsorship. And it goes like this. This is particularly true in the area of 12th Step work in which nearly all of us are actively engaged. Every sponsor is necessarily a leader. The stakes are about as big as they could be, a human life and usually the happiness of a whole family hang in the balance. What the sponsor does and says—now I'm going to switch into first person, so what I do or say as a sponsor, how well I estimate the reactions of my prospects, how well I time and make my presentation.
Now we're going to step it up a little bit. How well I handle criticism. They're always watching. And now I'm going to make a big leap, and it says, and how well I lead my prospect on by personal spiritual example. All these things I can look at. How am I doing at that level? These qualities of leadership can make all the difference, often the difference between life and death. Concept Nine. Thank you for being the most amazing audience, and we'll close with—did you want one more thing? I just want one more thing. You know, if I were to leave with one thought, it would be this, that my experience in 28 years is that I have made a commitment to myself that I would keep someone actively working the 12 steps at all times, so that if that person gets through the 12 steps, I will find another person to replace them, so that I know that the program is—I'm current with it.
I'm involved with seeing it work in the lives of others. And the other element that I have is that I continue a relationship with a resource that I call a sponsor, so that I have some input into my life other
[01:10:03]
than my own. I have someone that I invite in to give me advice or suggestion or at least another way of looking at it other than my way. Otherwise, I'm going to easily go back to doing it my way. So those are the two things that I encourage people to look at for long-term sobriety. Thank you. Let's go ahead, circle up and say the responsibility statement together. It's a great way to close. Thank you, everybody.