What Is a Sponsor - Episode 243

0:00Welcome to Relevant Recovery, tune in as we explore the depths of recovery and inspire you to leave your mark on the world with purpose and passion. Now you're your host Heather and Donnie. Do you think that smoking drugs is cool? Do you think that doing alcohol is cool? I think that's going to be like our I like that. You do? Like I can tell. Tag on our intro. Do you think smoking drugs is cool? No, I think it wasted it for the most part. That's just the junkie and me back. Hey everybody, welcome to Relevant Recovery, a podcast relevant to all things recovery.

1:00We dive into topics like addiction, recovery, spiritual challenges, reliance on gaulda and how to overcome life obstacles through spiritual action. Action. Action. Do it live. Do it live. If you enjoy our content, please like or follow us on your preferred listening platform. It does help the channel grow. Be sure to connect with us on Facebook or Instagram. We are at relevant recovery. Don't follow the wrong page. Are you going to say that every week too? Yes, as long as there's another relevant recovery on Facebook, we're in Texas and our logos green and black and so I would have R, so you'll know that that's us. And listen, listen. Listen, Linda. Today's episode is going to have a bit of experience and opinion. Kind of. A little bit. And if you have say more experience than anything. Disagree. That's okay.

2:00But if you have any comments about today's episode, I would love it. If you email Heather at relevant R3 at Gmail and Deid cam. Send me your complaints. That's right. Heather, what you got? What's your normal hold on a second? Let me get the button ready. Let me just do it now. Boring. Go ahead. I hate you. Please hop over and visit our website. It is relevant-recovery.org. You can click the menu at the top right. There's a resource hub. There's an events tab, a giving tab and more. If you click the events tab, it's going to show you that this year, we're going beyond just the podcast into workshops, the community, and so we're living. But the events tab is specifically going to show you all the information about our upcoming spring workshop. Why? So it's for friends of Bill and we're doing a workshop on the fourth step. So this is that. A faux steel. A deep dive into resentments, fear, and sex.

3:04And this is going to be on Saturday, May 9th, from 11 to three. It's a one-day event only. It is free. And when you go to the events tab, there's a click for a event bride. And the reason we're asking people to register is so we have enough food and drinks for everybody. And free stuff. Yeah, yeah. We're providing everything. So everything's free. It's under our non-profit due to donors and supporters. They want to help us do amazing events for you guys. Or grateful to them by the way. For sure. Yeah. And so please, please register now. The registration is open. We're just about two months away from the event. If you are in the hill country area, or in town in Kerville or Ingram, that's great. But also if you're not, and you want to book a whole weekend here, we have a room block at the end of the hills. And so all that information is on our website on the events tab. And we also have a link tree slash relevant recovery. Yeah, we are recording Sunday March 1st. And today is my son Eli's birthday. I can't believe he's

4:1020. You're old. So my youngest child Eli is 20 years old today. So happy birthday Eli. Happy birthday to Bri. They are birthday twins. And happy eight years sober to our friend Jody out in Houston. All right. Lots of birthdays today. It's all it's a birthday day. It's a birthday day. We had a lovely dinner Friday night with my sponsor and her husband. Yeah, that was pretty great. I had a really great time. We did a double date. You know what I want to know if you've seen the change. So I I'll say this prior to 2020, I was a thousand percent extrovert. Always gone. I gathered all my internal energy from others. You're still very much extroverted. But you're home a lot more. You've you've found a better balance. Okay, before you just start

5:14degrading my character. What I was going to say is prior to 2020, I was really, really, really extrovert and then post 2020, I it lessened a bit. I think it was from being home for a year, no real outside source at all. And then it ramped back up a bit and I was doing a lot of cigar lounge and meetings and all that kind of stuff. But I say that to say this when we moved here, there was like a weird sense like I've got to get friends. I got to get friends. I got to have that. And I haven't really done that. I have friends here. We're developing friends here, but I'm not in a rush. It's just a weird thing in my mind because you're introverted. You could just be home on the couch with my book. Facebook in your life. I got to read chaos. I thought we weren't going to get into stuff like that. Hey, this is my podcast. I can say what I want. But you're literally like you home alone on a couch is heaven for you. But I think I'm finding

6:22like the middle of that. I don't know that calibration. I was so introverted that I hated being around people when I moved to Houston with you. Yeah. And by the way, you were not a big go to dinner after the meeting fellowshiper. And you've been all in every Wednesday night. There's no question. We're going to dinner. The reason I really like that is because a bunch of people go. And it's so fast. Like everybody's quick. They eat. They would get our food quick. We eat. And as soon as we're done eating, we get to go. And you got good conversation. Great conversation. But but talk to different people each week. What I didn't like about the fellowship dinners previously is when the restaurant takes two hours, takes forever to get your check. And there's all this talk for out like I'm people out at that point. Yeah. And so the fact that Wednesday night is like this short term thing like timeline. Well, it's like a more in and we're out. And it was fun. And we got to visit with people that's doable for me. Yeah. We would go to capsis on a Tuesday night.

7:22And we would be there three hours, which I love doing that with my friends. But yeah. And so it just always made for a late night. So sometimes it was hard to get everybody to go because people got to work because it was on Tuesday night. We would not get done. So our meeting was over at 830. We would not get out of there till 10, 30 or 11, most times. At least. Yeah. And that's hard on the Tuesday night. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that in 2023, four and five in Houston, we had such a wonderful pocket of fellowship that it was just easy. So whether it was at our house on the weekend or a Tuesday night, I would say the only downside would be how long a restaurant would take. And that was here's what I love is kind of the you got the the newbies that are starting to do the fellowship and they want to like give their input on where we should go. And based on our experience over the years, it's never about the food. Like you got them like I want to go to this posh place or this sushi place. It's like no, it's not about here's how we choose. Can they get

8:2320 people in and seated and feed them? Yeah. In a reasonable, quick time. Yeah. So that's the parameter of it. But it's so it's not about the food. It's about the service and the fellowship. Well, that was what was good about Empire Cafe because you went through the line you ordered and so they didn't take everybody at the table's order at one time. Yeah, you get to go order your own and it would just kind of come out boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And so it wasn't so bad. So we always chose that one. And I won't name the place, but there's a place here in town that we actually all hate the food. And it's not the Wednesday night. So, but there's a different place that we all hate the food. But because they can see any number of people and feed us quickly, sometimes we default to there. And everybody's like, we hate the food, but that's okay. But our every Wednesday night is Takaria Halisco. Yeah, they're great. Oh my god. They like have a room for us when we get there because we will have 20, 25 people like every Wednesday. It's pretty great. But here's what I was going to say about Friday night's dinner. What I really

9:24enjoyed about it is we left a couple that was very similar to us in Houston whom we love and we missed terribly. But we got to have dinner with a couple here that is very much aligned on their marriage journey, their sobriety journey. You know what I mean? It's hard to find. This is the difficulty you and I have always had. If there was like a couple we wanted to hang out with. Like I like to do let's go hang out with them. You may not like mesh with the chick or there's a chick and you want to hang out with them and I may not mesh with the dude. You know what I mean? Like sometimes, but it's hard. No, no, I guess all I'm saying is there's no specific instances. I'm just saying like as a couple, it's hard to find another couple that you groove with. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And so it's exciting that we have found that here so far. Yeah. Yeah.

10:28Yeah. Also, we did a wonderful H&I last night. Yeah, I'm waiting to see if there's any reports on ruffled feathers. I don't think there'll be any ruffled feathers. So I always go into it nervous. You know what you're doing and you are always like because you and I do the H&I's together with a group of others and you'll set something up like here's what we're going to do tonight and here's what we're going to go over and I get nervous and I'm like every time. Every time and I'm like I don't know how cool they're going to be with that. Because here's why here's why you and I feel the same about this and I remember this is where A A gets soft and I don't know why A A's gotten so soft. Back in the day, I'm talking when I first got sober. You had old time. That was back in the day. For me. Yeah. Yeah. Almost 13 years ago. That's back in the day. Okay. You would have old timers who would literally in like a rehab setting or in a meeting with a

11:31bunch of like really, really new newcomers. I'm trying to think of a specific instance but they would just say things like you have no solution to share. Right? Because that's what a meeting is for a meeting is to share experience, strength and emphasis on hope. Right? How did I utilize the triangle recovery, unity and service to change my life? But I also think that when the book talks about sharing what we were like, what happened and what we were like now. The book doesn't say it. It does not say that I'm supposed to share what it was like. It's a weed. Yeah. You hang on that one. Because people, this is going into exactly what you're saying. People misinterpret that. It's what I was like before and after my spiritual awakening as a result of the steps. Emotionally internally. And so that is this experience that I offer. And when the book talks about experiencing the thing of extreme value. Yeah. It's actually talking about my experience with chronic alcoholism

12:34plus the solution. Because I have depth and weight with those two things. But that has changed over the years to just pontificate about all of your random experiences and your random opinions. Right. And so if this won't be the first time, by the way, we ruffled feathers in 2018, 29, we didn't ruffle in feathers. So hold on. Let me finish before you correct me. Hold on. Let me find it. Don't interrupt me, honey. Or rings. You'd do your own sound. I'm going to be my own sound effect machine. In 2018, 2019, we taught, but it was suppo, let me rephrase. Let me start the beginning. It was a meeting that was in a rehab. And historically, it was a big book study. I don't know what it was before we moved there. I do. I went to it. It was a big book study. And

13:35this is again, our experience and opinion based on that experience. But here you go. If I've got 60 to 70 people who are still shaking and baking in their first four weeks of sobriety, brand newbies, what, what could they possibly get out of steps six through 12 through appendix two in a big book study? I mean, let's just be honest. Okay. And so when you and I took that meeting over, we changed the format. And we said, here's what we're going to do. We started every week with a cycle of addiction. And we pretty much stayed in steps one through three. Sometimes four, but yeah. Because that is really what people need to have in their face. And by doing that, you're going to hit everybody one through three at some point in that because they're usually there around four weeks. But I will, I agree with you. But when I moved to Houston, my only previous experience with a a was in the hill country. So I had no idea that there were

14:42people in rehab or with your sober that have never heard of the cycle of addiction. Right. And so yes, sticking with one through three, sometimes four. And obviously there's so many different things and stories within the big book. You know, before page 60, there's so many different things to do in H and I on topic wise. And so that was needed there because there were people that had been in AA for a decade that had never heard of or seen the cycle of addiction. They would approach us after crying like no one has ever showed me this. But here it's a little different because here it's taught. It's taught. Yeah. And so nine times out of 10, they they know already know the basics. And they get really bored with steps one through three. And so how can you still present the basic information without it being boring to the participants in the room? Okay. So here comes the ruffled feathers. We're going to ruffle some today and I'm okay with it. When we would generally go into like a rehab setting, the bottom line is if you're sitting in a rehab,

15:50you're you have counseling sessions, process group, you have plenty of time to talk about your feelings. But if it's an AA meeting being brought in, what solution could you possibly have to offer? And so what you get out of those meetings is you either get, you know, relapse Randy, who's been through the rehab 27 times has memorized the book, but can't stay sober, but wants to pontificate on what he knows about the book. Or you get somebody who wants to share their feelings and all their troubles and all of that. And so the way you and I look at it is when we go into a rehab, let's teach, let's share. Let's, I make it interactive and and get people want to talk. Right. Right. So if we can present information as the panel and I always use a white board, if there's a white board and include them and I include them and they get to yell answers at me and I'm writing answers on the board. And so it's an interactive thing. So they get to participate

16:50and it is not boring, but also they only get to ask questions at the very end. And, and there's the ruffled feathers part because you and I were quite shocked when we moved here and we started participating in some H and I's and we heard their full blown AA meetings, make sure the patience, I'm going to quote finger patients can share. And it's like can share what? What solution do they have? But, you know, I think I don't think feathers were ruffled last night. No, no, here's where the feathers are going to get ruffled. So you and I got sort of mobbed at the end. People loved it. People loved it. But we noticed at the beginning one of the staff sort of hung around and was watching and I don't know what's going to come out of that because we definitely did it differently than they do it. I think in general what what I was shocked about is 10 years ago

17:52when I lived here and I did two to three H and I's a week at different rehabs out here and they were just different. There was different formats. Yeah. The panel could pick from whether it was a Q and A or a panel or a topic and you know, and so I was used to honing my skills with H and I's to make it interactive to make it entertaining and to for the panel to be teaching most of the time with questions at the end. And when we moved to Houston and I realized these people have never even heard most of this information. Right. We had to learn how to change it a little bit to to keep it as simple as possible and not assume that everyone knows the cycle of addiction from the doctor's opinion. Listen, I was shocked at how many people over the two years either patients or alumni would come up to us afterward and go, oh my god. I remember that one girl came up to you like crying crying like I didn't know it was wrong with me and oh my god, I know now. Right. She had never seen that. I think she had eight years sober. Yep. And so anyways, I think that

19:00different formats are a good thing to learn in a general sense when we when people in AA talk about H and I's. Yeah. They generally just think it's a group of people from a group and meeting taking a AA meeting into a rehab. Right. And from a basic standpoint, that is correct and that is what it is. And there's nothing wrong with it. Right. However, a regular meeting would just mean there's a lead or like a topic that gets shared on for five minutes and then everyone gets an opportunity to share. And that's just not generally what I think is most effective or most entertaining to do in H and I. So we kind of do them a little bit differently, which if someone isn't used to that, it can be shocking because you're like, what are these people doing? Why is she at a dry race board? Why are we yelling? Well, because one of the interesting things that I have found is there are rehabs and not specific to here. There are rehabs where you have like relapse Randy who's been through their 10 times. And even though he's sitting in a rehab in a 30 plus day stay,

20:03he can quote the book without opening it. Yeah. And that's I think the importance. And that was one of the things we touched on heavily last night was you can know all of the information, but it doesn't help you. Yeah. How do we apply it? What does this mean? What is this? What are the what does this sentence tell us? Why did the authors of this book include that? What are we supposed to learn and then apply from it? And the other thing too is we have three others with us all within their fantastic. Yeah. In their early days of the first year, their early months, I think we have like eight, nine, and I don't know which months sober and they did great. I loved it. They really really like share their experience, strength and hope well. And it was just it's a lot of fun when you start taking somebody who's newer to H&I's into H&I's and they're like, okay, this is my jammy jam. I like it. It's so great. And then they did so great. And even like Shelby was approach, like all of them were approached after and people wanted to talk to them too. And yeah,

21:07Shelby got asked to hear a fist step, you know, what she's doing right now as we record this. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, how cool. And so that's the excitement. I remember getting my early months sober, what really turned me on to having like fire for this deal. Yeah. A was sponsoring, of course, but be H&I's because you leave feeling like I'm doing God's work. For those of those who listen to this show who maybe are not in AA, what is an H&I? An H&I stands for hospitals and institutions. It's when an independent AA group decides in their group conscience to get a commitment carrying the message on a regular basis into a hospital or an institution like a rehab. So it's a way to introduce the program of alcoholics anonymous to people who are newly sober. And you can connect with them like in town, you could possibly find sponsors that way. Oh, I think like out here, it's the number one way. You want to get somebody quick, you'd be able to grab them before they get out. But also you have to consider you are representing

22:08that specific AA group when you go into this rehab. Yeah. And so you need to be mindful of that and censor yourself or filter yourself in such a way that representing that group. I was proud of you last night. You didn't curse one time. Yeah. Hey, man, we've been doing this podcast for like, I don't know, almost five years this year. And I'm done well. Yeah. Except for your tirade on horny. That wasn't a cuss word. Except for you. I'm explaining the big book. I mean, I'm just saying except for like, okay, you know what? I'm just going to, next time you're horny, I'm going to call it your imperious urge. Sir, shut down your imperious urge. You just made it weird to get. Can we get to the topic finally? This has been a long opening banter. I'm just saying I'm just ready for the feathers today. And we'll see what happens. We'll see what comes out of it. I'm hoping not because you and I loved it. But here's the thing. What I hear is what I'm going to say. Our passion is to educate, help people and give them the tools they need to stay sober. And so

23:13if anybody's excited about this, if anybody's against what we did, they either don't understand it or whatever. But I'm okay if they're against it. But I don't, I think you and I've decided we're not stopping what we do. Never. Never. God got me sober to do exactly this. Yeah. So topic today. Let's preface some more feathers while we're at it. Yeah. Topic today is what is a sponsor? This is episode 243. We're going to be dissecting what is the original idea of the big book blueprint for caring or taking someone through the steps working with another. We're going to dissect what's the watered down version versus the message. Because somewhere along the way, we traded the clear cut urgent life-safing message that's in the big book for different opinions like, oh, wait a year, one step a month. Don't get a sponsor that has five years sober. But none of that is found in our literature or our history.

24:16So we're going to start dissecting it. Usually format problem solution application. We're sorry if this topic pisses you off today. There's a few that it will. And that's okay. And again, relevant, relevant R3 at gmail.com. Heather will field your emails. So I think that the problem, let's just premise one fact because I like literature, right? And we have a friend here that always makes this point that the word sponsor or sponsor is not in the big book. And that is true statement. It is. It didn't come into the 12 and 12. Right. And so the book that a lot of A's hate, which I don't understand, it's got some gold in it. I don't hate it. But my point is, yes, the word sponsor or sponsor is not in the big book, but the ideas behind it are like they use the phrase spiritual advisor when when you're doing a third step or a fifth step or a fifth step. So they, but they use this phrase spiritual advisor specifically in the third step instructions. That is what they would call someone you're doing

25:18that work with. Did the word sponsor come from the original group where you had to be sponsored into a meeting after you would work. Okay. Okay. And so then the book also calls what we would call a sponsor at prospect or a protege or a pigeon. What the book doesn't call it a pigeon. I know. Why why do you call it a pigeon, Donnie? I was taught by my sponsor, my first long-term sponsor. Go ahead. Hold on. I got to find the button. So my first long-term sponsor when he started sponsoring had like 25 years in the program. And he went back like his mentors were, I mean, George for Myrtle Beach died with 50 something years over. This was his mentors, right? And they called him pigeons. And they called him pigeons instead of sponsors because they called him pigeons because at some point in time they are going to on you, right? That's beautiful.

26:19Yeah. So inspiring. They call them pigeons. Anyways, the book calls it a spiritual advisor sponsor and a protege or prospect sponsor. And then like later, as the fellowship developed, when you were a newcomer, you got went upstairs to go through the first three steps with someone or our group. And then you got sponsored into the main meeting. They vouched for you. A sponsor was responsible for you. Meaning you had, meaning you had surrendered and done a third step. And so I think that that's the timeline from the 40s to the 50s is when that phrase really got folded in. And there are people. But the ideas are throughout the book. There are people that love to argue the, listen, I'm not pro sponsor label either. I'm not. When I talk about somebody who I'm taking through the work, that's literally how I that's the verb I use. That's the description I use. I'm taking them through the work.

27:21I'm not a big thing on the labels either. Because in my mind, sponsor, sponsor sort of presents unspoken hierarchy. And I don't believe in that. Yeah, I think it's shoulder to shoulder. I think you're the same way you got a problem with accountability, too, because you're going to problem with authority. That's just your own shit. Wait. You want to hurt me? Go right ahead of it. Make you feel any better. This is your own shit. Work on that. Woman. Anyways, this is my podcast. Okay. I can do what I want. Here's what I'm saying, though. What people have to remember, the people that are hardcore against the word sponsor, here's what they have to remember. When this book was written between 1935 and 1939, there were no meetings. Yeah. You had to find someone to do the work with or take yourself through the work or the book was meant to be literally mailed out to the middle of nowhere where there's no other people around you that are doing this deal,

28:21but it has changed. So some things change with it. Yeah. And I think even if you look for one example, would be like leading up to the fifth step, where they're like, when you're going to decide who is to hear it, you know, they maybe it's your priest or your minister or someone established by an ordained religion or like a little no like, but if it's going to be a family member, don't hurt them. Yeah. Don't tell them about your sex capades. Okay. If it's 1940, you cheated on your wife. You may not want to share that with her. But my point is is they were considering exactly that. They were considering, well, who's going to hear a fifth step because there wasn't meetings and sponsors like we have now 90 years later. That's right. So that's why there's language like that. But it's just what we call it now. Don't have to call it that. You can call it whatever you want. You can have a pigeon, a prospect, a protege, it doesn't matter. But when we're talking about the idea of taking someone through the steps, because having had the experience myself, my my active actions for my step 12 is to take someone else through the

29:27steps. Right. Okay. It says nothing so much ensures immunity from drinking is me intensibly working with another alcoholic. It works when other activities fail. Okay. What are the other activities? All the other stuff. Right. Leading meetings, chairing meetings, giving rides to meetings. Secretary, you know, having a service commitment. All of those are other activities. Okay. But the intents of work is sitting knee to knee with someone and helping reading the book to them and explaining and helping them understand what the steps are and giving them the actions behind working those steps so that they can have an experience themselves. Right. And recover from alcoholism. Right. But let's talk about the watered down message of some things that we hear sometimes that we cannot find anywhere in our literature. I hate to say it, but I heard it a lot in Houston and it used to make my feathers ruffle. I used to bristle with antagonism. With what? The the watered down message go for it. What is that watered down message about sponsorship? And it's not even a water. Here's the thing. There is this weird thing with

30:30thumpers and I don't consider myself a thumper. I do. You're a thumper. You don't like labels because you got a problem. I don't need a label. I love the book and I stick to it. That's a thumper. No, I think there's a difference. Thumpers can be arrogant. They can be, but that's not what what I mean when I say it. Egotistical. Well, judgy, preachy. That's not not me. We're not trying to do that. I'm just saying we're trying to stick to the message, right? But hold on, hold on. Let me finish my thought though before you correct me. I'm not correcting you. Thumpers love to espouse the watered down a, watered down a, milled the road, a complain all the time. This is not about watered down a, this is about a message that got snuck into the fellowship. I don't know where it came from. This is about infiltration. I agree. Because if you look at the wording of step 12, it's having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. We tried

31:34to carry this message. So what is this message? Well, it's the message they just spent the previous 88 pages explaining to us in the book. That's right. Okay. So I'm trying to make sure we stick to that message when we're an alcoholic synonymous. Yeah. If there's other things that work for you, fantastic, but it's not AA. Right. If it's other things, my job is to carry the message of alcoholic synonymous. So one thing that you might hear is, oh, you can't sponsor anyone till you have a year sober. So don't sponsor anyone for a year. Now, why is that a problem, Heather? Well, I doubt very many people, not never, but I doubt very many people will stay sober long enough to achieve that for a few different reasons. All right. So first of all, we know that nothing will so much ensure my immunity from drinking. So I am obligated to go sponsor other people, take them through the steps as a form of me staying sober. What does it do for you on a basic level?

32:35You want me to answer so I can trip you up? What it does for me on a basic level is it allows me to practice self sacrifice. This message of get connected and build a relationship with God, there's no manual to it. Well, the kind of this is called a big book. I swear to God, where's the chapstick passing over here? Okay. I'm just saying from a non-spiritual intellectual level. I'm an intellectual. Remember, so from that level, this idea of building a relationship with something that I can't touch, taste, smell, hear, feel is foreign. Okay. Well, what's the cheat code? Well, the cheat code is that if I practice self sacrifice for others on a weekly basis, every time I get out of me, God has a little more room to come in. And before I know it,

33:39I am beginning to build a relationship and I don't even know how I did it. Right. Well, I would say at the other point, I want to make about the reason the idea that you're not supposed to sponsor anyone until you have a year is the opposite of the message in our program. Completely. It's also just based on our history. We know that Abby had two months sober when he was through the six tenants and took the message to Bill Wilson. We also know from history that Bill Wilson had five and a half months sober. Roll through it from Roland. Roll through it from Roland. Roland had a few years. That's why I'm sure he found Abby. Yeah. Okay. Okay. But so from Abby, he had two months when he carried the message to Bill. Bill had five and a half months. I know he says six in the book, but he was fudging a little bit. Well, we love to do that. So I'm going to get I'm going to get 13 years in April. And by May, I'll be telling you I'm 14. So so Bill had actually five and a half months when he found Dr. Bob. Yeah. But Dr. Bob was not

34:43Bill's first sponsor. He was at least the seventh because the book says he failed with half a dozen before Bob. So we know it five and a half months sober. He had tried with with six other people at least before he got Dr. Bob. And the cool thing and that I was trying to find really quickly in Bill's story is he was saying, so this is something that he's realizing on page 14. He said, my friend emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs, particularly, particularly. It is imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. And so we're looking at that in context. So Bill understood, I'm not going to stay sober. And so when he's having that hard moment at the Mayflower Hotel and he hears the chatter of the bar on one end of the hall and he sees the phone thingy thing at phone directory at the other end. And he hasn't thought, well, I'm just going to go in and get it ginger rail. And then it was quickly supplanted with bro, you know, you ain't get ginger rail. So fear gripped him, right? And

35:44so he goes over to the phone directory and he makes not one, not two, not three, not four, not five, nine phone calls to find another alcoholic to help because he understands at five and a half months sober that this is the only way he's going to stay sober tonight. Yep. So we got that. We also know that Dr. Bob had 16 days sober with a number three Bill Dodson because June 10th, 35 to June 26, 35. So we know, we know how with Bill Dodson's sobriety day. So historically, the people who created our program absolutely did not wait a year to help others. And in fact, throughout our basic text, they're talking about how imperative it is that as soon as you've had an experience with the first 11 steps, the way to keep it is to give it away. There's the whole mind for gold for the rest of your life, but give away the entire product, the gaunt, the gaunt prospector. And so the message of having had this experience and being obligated, if I want to keep my spiritual connection, if I want to keep my sobriety. Please do. Oh my god,

36:48please do. Please don't lose it. But I am obligated. I've heard about you without without that. To go give it away. Yeah, I've heard about you without your spiritual. I don't want it. I don't want nothing to do with it. All right. So all right. So the idea and let me throw this in as well. If I understand, if I fully understand and we'll move on to the next point, but if I fully understand the illness as the book calls it over and over an illness and the treating it is doing this. Okay. But if I understand the illness of alcoholism, if I understand that I have the allergy, this phenomenon of craving that when I put drink or drug in my body, this phenomenon of craving kicks in and I want it more, more, more, more, more. And I have a little to no control over the amount I'm going to take. Okay. There's allergy. The other part of the illness is this insane idea. So my belief is that prior to working the steps, I may have the obsession that I can drink like others. I may have the obsession that I can control and enjoy. But more about alcoholism,

37:54more about alcoholism really hits home the idea that it's really an insane thought. Yeah. It's a mental blank spot. It's a peculiar mental twist. Is this moment at certain times where I don't have a defense against the first day? Okay. So here we go. So if I have the allergy, but the allergy can only be kicked if I put drink number one of my body, but the problem is with the insanity at certain times, I don't have a mental defense, then we are now on a clock. That's right. If I do the 12 steps in an honest and thorough fashion, I'm going to have a spiritual awakening, but the only way to keep it and grow it is by sponsoring on that clock. I got to go. All right. Here you go. All right. So bullet point number two for our watered-down message. Hey, man, you need to get a sponsor with five years or more. Please explain that. I remember the argument. I remember when that happened. I didn't even know. Again, that is coming from clinical. Okay. No, it's real fun. It's come from 90s AA. PSA. I'm not against clinical. I'm not against rehabs.

39:01They serve a wonderful function. The big book says you may need to be physically separated and they serve that function. But, but I've heard it the most coming from clinical and stuff out of rehabs saying, sometimes when you choose your sponsor, get somebody with five plus you. Why? I think that their motive is good. The motive in saying that. I remember when James, James D from our home group had three months out of asked him to sponsor me. That dude was on freaking fire. You know? I'll go ahead. I agree. And I think that the motive in saying it is good, but they don't understand our history and our message of how the what the magic is of this program. Magic is getting busy. And so the motive in where that comes from is good. They're what they're saying is they're hoping that maybe this person's a challenging case. And they're hoping that this person that does going to sponsor them has experience or knowledge that they able to handle the situation. I'll never forget I had I was a careful. I am not going to name

40:01any places. This is years ago, but I remember one time I was a peer support specialist for a rehab in Houston. And part of our recovery support program was helping someone get plugged into a recovery community, whatever they chose. And this one girl that was leaving my place was choosing and she lived in a certain part of town. And she really wanted help finding a sponsor. And which is what I did. And so I had given her a number of a couple people. And so she connected with someone. And it was so cool when they called me because turns out the sponsor years ago had done drugs with the sponsor's sisters. They knew each other. Oh, wow. Those are familiar. A familiarity of, and so the sponsor was blown away at who she was now in this miracle of sobriety. So she could literally see the hope. She could see the hope. And the sponsor had six months sober. She had been through the steps for many months. She was sponsoring other people. This was not her first sponsor.

41:02And, but the woman, the sponsor, who wanted her to sponsor her and was excited about it called me crying one day because her counselor at this play other place she was at said that that lady couldn't be her sponsor because she didn't have enough time. And I was like, let me tell the whole story before you. And I was like, wait, what? And she was like, yeah, she said that I need someone with at least five years or more. And I was like, okay, can you have her call me? Because I'd like to, you know, share the background on this and how you know, so anyways, the counselor does call me. And this phone call does not go well. But I'll say I want to kind of highlight a few things that happened in this conversation. It really disturbed me. I was so sad. But basically I was saying, hey, here's the background. She knew her years ago and can see the mirror and the counselor like, no, no, no, no, no, they were drug buddies. So there's no way

42:03she would be an adequate sponsor because they used to do drugs. And that's going to trigger past behavior. That's ridiculous. And I'm like, what? I'm I hold a hold on. But what I'm saying is is they've met and she's really excited and uncomfortable. And then the counselor was also saying she needs someone with five years. And I'm like, but why explain it? Because the counselor herself claimed to be an AA. And I'm like, explain to me why? Did you say that with quote fingers in the ear? Shamed. I don't know how to show, but she just kept saying to me, I'm old school AA, honey, I'm old school AA. And I said, I don't even know what that means. What do you mean? Is it like Dr. Bob having 16 days with a number three build dots? I don't know what you mean by old school. That's right. Anyway, she was not budging at all. It was a horrible conversation. I'm like literally sitting in the floor shaking because I'm so upset that this woman can't see what God stuff she's blocking with her opinion that's actually contradicting to what's our basic text while claiming to be alcoholics anonymous. Right. It was sad. This is where the feather ruffling

43:09gold star was sad. But here's the thing to this is again, it's not our opinion. You can infer it from the many, many times the book talks about how quickly, historically, they did it. And I don't know where this message infiltrated our fellowship. Because here's the thing. I think if infiltrated is the right word. Yes, because it just contradicts our basic text in our history. Right. And so if Bill and Abby and Dr. Bob and Bill Dodson had had to wait and get a sponsor with five years, this fellowship wouldn't exist. That's right. If they had wait had to wait a year to sponsor, they wouldn't have stayed sober and our fellowship wouldn't even exist. Right. But it's a lack of knowledge. And so I do, I do have a belief that part of what happened. And again, I have to say it. I'm not against therapy counseling and rehab. I'm not. But what did happen is there was the

44:12big 80s rehab boom. I was in it. I was in a rehab for a year girl 365 days. And I wasn't even an alcoholic yet. It was for weed. I was for weed. I don't sad. I'm in danger. Listen, listen, this is what I hear when you speak. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, all I'm saying is that alcoholics anonymous did not, this is on us because we did not police are felt in the police of probably the wrong word. That's the ruffle of others. And you're not a thumper. We did not protect. We did not protect our message. Well, that's what I said to the girl with eight years who had never seen the cycle of addiction before and was crying. And he said, I hugged her. And I said, I'm so sorry that our fellowship has failed you. Yeah. I'm sorry because this should have been done. Right. So water down message number three. You should just work one step a month. What the

45:21You should just work one step. Just take your time, honey. It might take a long time. Okay. So I'm going to go back to what I said. There I go. I'm going back. I'm going to go back because that was a message we heard a lot in Houston. A lot. And I'm like, where did this come from? But you were from Houston. I didn't get sober in Houston. I got sober out here. And I was I was through the step sponsoring it two months sober. And that's just the way they did it out here. And so I had no previous idea that or knowledge that they did it differently anywhere else. And so I just remember being so shocked at hearing that all the time of the one work one step a month. And I'm talking about specifically about the AA program. I know things like in a or regen or they have different cadence to programs. I'm talking about alcoholics anonymous. Okay. As I was out of season. And so I want to make one argument for only one. I want to make one for you for why our literature completely says the opposite. Okay. Go for it.

46:27Okay. Because prior to it, I'm going to say it again. If I have the allergy, and I have the insanity, that means we don't know when the insane thought is going to hit. We're on a clock. Go. So let's pretend for a moment that you fully understand what the insanity symptom is. And top of page 35 says that this is the crux of the problem. The fact that I cannot say no 100 percent of the time to the first drink. That when I have alcoholism that is untreated, I'm guaranteed to touch the hot stove at some time. I'm guaranteed to do sober. What I'd be touching all kinds of hot stuff. What step one literally means is that I'm guaranteed to drink again. And I don't know when that insane moment is coming. So for a moment, please turn with me in your big book to page 59. And read with me step two. Step two is came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

47:31Sanity. Now this assumes in the previous pages, you already know what insanity is in alcoholics anonymous. Insanity is the mental blankspot having no defense against the first drink. It's touching the hot stove. So step two is a promise that later in this process, God's going to restore me to sanity. When does that happen? When am I free? When have I recovered from the hopeless state of mind and body? Please turn with me to page 84. At the bottom of page 84, in the 10th step promises, it says, and we have ceased fighting anything, anyone, even alcohol, for by this time, sanity will have returned. So for what time, the 10th step? What's returned? Sanity. So step two comes to fruition by step 10. And then it goes on to describe that we're in a position of neutrality. We're not fighting the drink idea anymore and yada yada as long as we stay in fit spiritual condition. So people that are sponsors need to understand this information. People that are

48:32sponsors need to understand that when you're trying to work with a new person and you say something like, well, read the whole book and or call me every day for three weeks before we get started. How arrogant of you to assume they have time? Well, the other thing that listen, our third tradition is real clear, right? If you say you're an alcoholic, you're welcome. Yeah. But the other thing that has happened is we've been infiltrated by hard drinkers. And the difference is is when a hard drinker is faced with a consequence, harsh word of a doctor, wife is like that. That's it. You better stop drinking. They can stop or moderate. Yeah. And the thing about, but the thing about a chronic or real alcoholic is I'll drink right through every consequence I have, right? It doesn't matter. I cannot stop on fear, motivation, willpower, none of it. But when the hard drinker puts the drink down, their life gets better. Not so for the chronic alcoholic. When we put the drink down, the restless, the irritable,

49:36the discontented, the bedouvelmance, the unmanageability, all of that. And so we have to treat that with the steps. We have to treat that with a spiritual program of action to get better. And so what I think sponsors need to understand is that I'm the clock is ticking with this new person. And I can't keep them sober. And they can't keep themselves sober. And motivation and consequences can't keep them sober. Only spiritual momentum can keep them sober. And so if they are still insane in step two and three, possibly four and five, you know, it's guaranteed to be restored to sanity by step 10. My job as a sponsor is to help them quickly get there and to understand why, because here's the deal. If I'm drowning in alcoholism, I'm drowning. I'm going to die. It wants to kill me. And it says I'm supposed to seek this solution with the desperation of a drowning man. Well, I need a life raft. I'm not going to be out there treading water going, no, no, you guys

50:36just throw it when you get a minute. Throw it in six months. Throw me the life raft in six months. Thanks. The life raft is step 10. And so I need to help a girl get there. Obviously, there's some nuance depending on who's sitting across from me on if they have time to do certain things with step one or two or three. And sometimes I skip all that and make sure they understand the basic ideas and get them on four because I need to get this person past a fifth step because I need to get them to 10. And by the way, this fifth step promise is that quite often the drink problem has disappeared. Well, if it comes strongly. That's right. So this recovered state where I'm all recovered means is I'm not fighting the drink idea today because I'm connected to God today. So if it says it's likely after a fifth step and then it's guaranteed by a tenth step, a good sponsor understands that timeline and to help them get there. So the next point is just listen, Heather. If you really want to get over this drinking thing, I want you to just go

51:40to meetings and just don't drink. Okay. Just don't drink and go to meetings, you say? That that's just I think that's just as damaging as put the plug in the jug. Just don't drink no matter what. But wait, wait, there is there is a nuance to it. There is in the early days when I was in my first 30 days and I'm beginning to work the steps of the sponsor and I'm beginning to do the work, that's kind of true. Sure. Right. I had to do my very best to not drink. In the first few days of convalescence, you are white knuckling. There's no way around that because you just are correct, you're white knuckling. So in the beginning, you are white knuckling. But your whole sobriety should not be white knuckling. You've missed the whole point of the program in the steps. I mean, for me, for me, by the fifth step, I wasn't white knuckling anymore. But again, this idea of just

52:41don't drink and go to meetings is coming from hard drinkers. It's not coming from a real alcoholic. And I think even like rehabs, I think it's good for counselors say, you know, hey, go to 90 meetings in 90 days. But the misnomer there is thinking that 90 meetings in 90 days somehow treat chronic alcoholism. And that is not true. Right. But the hope is that the person will find a sponsor and get excited and start learning this language and fall into the program. The fellowship is different than the program. Right. There needs to be an asterisk and a caveat there. Go to 90 meetings in 90 days. But in your first week, get a sponsor and start the steps. Right. Yeah. But I think that like I went to 117 meetings in my first 90 days now. I know because I was in sober living had to have my meeting sheet sign. So I'm not against meetings at all at all. And but the the goal is if you work the program, then you'll quickly get to a place where you don't need a meeting anymore. You go to give. Well, I know Heather and working my program. Please don't make me throw chapstick you.

53:43Um, but I also want to say this as we go through this, you and I are not the end all be all. No, no. And I'm not saying people don't stay sober other ways. I saw situations in Houston. There was a specific group that was that there was a real message of a step a month. Don't sponsor for a year. Don't sponsor for a year. And there were people that had gone through that and stayed sober multiple years. How? I don't know. But they did. So we there's a hundred ways to wash the dishes. We're not the end. I'll be all on that. But I'm just trying to compare. I can tell you on my experience. And here's my experience. I want to finish this real quick. My first sponsor, John, when he took me through the steps, we started at the blank page. And we read every page through one, two, through the end of chapter one, three, each end of chapter seven. And it took a long time to get through it. But with that guy, you were already through the steps with the previous guy. I was already through the steps,

54:46but I got through with them. But no, no, this is what I'm going to say. So for the first four, four and a half years, that's how I sponsored is we would sit down every week and we would read a chapter or two, but it took a long time because you're reading the entire books of them, which hey, that's great. But again, we're on a clock. And what I'm going to tell you is that a lot of those people did not stay sober. Now today, I do a much quicker version. I don't read the entire book. I read a very large portion of it. But God's success right with these people is better. If that makes sense. I think that a sponsor is about giving a newcomer or even a re-comer or whatever, an adequate presentation of the program and helping them learn what the steps mean and how to work them. And so yes, I cherry pick from the doctor's opinion to 59. I cherry picked depending on the person who's across from me and all that. But from 60 to 103, I read it line by line to everyone. I'm the same way. The only time I I'll switch it up. If I've got a

55:50relapse Randy and we need to read about staying sober on will or self, you know, like information or a period of sobriety. You know what I'm saying? Like we may hit some stories and more about alcoholism because they're their money. Or if the person is really suffering from like a God blocker, a prejudice, then we're going to hit some stuff and we agnostic. But it's all about finesse and listening to the person I'm sitting across from. For sure. I understand that the original statements that we went through like can't sponsor till you have a year, you need a sponsor with leads five years, one step a month, just don't drink, go to meetings, all that. I'm just saying as far as our basic text in our history, that is not the message of alcoholics anonymous. It's not in the preface. It's not through working with others. It's not in our history. No. The big book says rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. What is the path? Am I comparing what I'm reading, what I'm teaching, what I'm saying to our basic text,

56:52so I don't change it. It says if you've decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any links, then you're ready to take these steps. Let's do that. Let's don't delay. And practical experience shows that nothing will so much ensure my immunity from drinking as intensive work with other alcoholics. So the early members again sponsored immediately after having a spiritual experience. Why? Because they were going to die. This was urgent. This was life or death. And it goes all the way back to the third step. Heather, what is the root of your trouble? Selfishness, self-centeredness. I just waiting for you to admit it. That we think is the root of our trouble. So if that is the root of my trouble and I cannot change, because then that page goes on to say I can't get out of my selfishness on my own will. I also could have a moral and philosophical bar, but I can't change that on my will. It says I have to have God. Well, how do I find God? Well, you work the steps with others, right? When I sacrifice, listen, the most valuable

57:52thing I have on this planet is time. You don't get it back. Once you spend it, it's gone. I'll get money again, cars again, all of the other valuable things with materialistic or whatever on the planet, you, they come and go. But when my time is gone, it's gone. There's nothing I can do about it. So when I sacrifice that for another human being's welfare, I am sacrificing self. Yeah. And I cannot change self with self only with God. So when I sacrifice for others that is pleasing to God and therefore he comes in more and more and more. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Because the whole issue is if I am participating and delaying the steps with someone, I'm delaying their freedom. Oh, yeah. I'm delaying their freedom. So when you get a new prospect, you know, I explain to them, are you willing to go to any links? They always say yes. Well, they always do. Turns out they're always. But I want, I want people to know what a sponsor means by any links. What does our book

58:57mean by any links? It literally just means all 12 steps. It means not four steps and not nine steps. It doesn't mean, you know, sometimes when you're in a meeting and the topic is any links and I was, were you willing to go to any links? And that's the topics. A lot of times you'll hear someone say this. I was so willing to go to any links when I was here knew that if my sponsor had told me to strip naked and run around this building 10 times, I would have done it. People love to say that. And I'm like, really? But were you willing to make all your mints? Did you make all your mints? Yeah. You may just be an exhibitionist because you weren't willing to make your mints. And so what we mean by any links, it just literally means all 12 steps. That would include sponsoring other people for step 12. And there's some uncomfortable stuff to do in them still. Yeah. Yeah. The second thing that we don't want to delay is about taking the steps quickly because it is a race. We've already discussed this. And we're going to discuss that a little further coming up. Okay. And one thing that I ask is that are you willing to focus on just the big book until your steps are done? And I mean, with me sponsoring you, and that means as I'm sponsoring

1:00:00you, you can read whatever you want in your own free time. So don't misunderstand what I'm saying. But when I sit down to sponsor someone and take them through the 12 steps, I am not whipping out the 12 and 12. I am not whipping out the four agreements. I am not whipping out drop the rock. And I hold up my big book. And I say, this big book is kindergarten, spiritual kindergarten. Yeah. And we need to graduate kindergarten and have a foundation of this and understand all the pieces. And I'm nine and a half year sober. And I'm still in kindergarten. I know. I'm still in kindergarten. I'm still mining for gold in this. And it has been sufficient this far. I think it's a great disservice with when you get someone and they're brand new and they don't even know kindergarten yet. They have no idea what's in this. But instead, I'm going to take them through the steps in the 12 and 12. That's a Greek to them. I did. I did. Okay. So I went through the steps in my first 90 days or it only took 60 days. But I went through the steps with the guy who 12 stepped me got me sober. But we had been friends since junior high. I didn't really kind

1:01:04of work out that well. So I got my first long-term sponsor, John. We went through the steps because he wanted me to do it the way he did it. And then like two years later, we did go through the steps in the 12 and 12. But by that point in time, I had like three years sober. Yeah. And situations like that are fine. I'm not saying. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. I'm agreeing with you. I'm not saying what I guess what I'm saying is there's I'm not we're not saying there's not an application for I love the 12 and 12. I absolutely love the traditions. But I don't I don't. Oh, I love it for the four-step. There's money in the four-step. But no one who's new gives a crap about traditions yet. Well, it's advanced. It's Bill wrote it when he had 14, 15 years experience. And so it really is a lot of advanced thought. And so, you know, I remember in Houston, the people that would also lead some of those meetings where we were at when it wasn't our turn for that rehab meeting. You know, they don't know the kindergarten stuff. They don't know the cycle of addiction. Yet people are showing up to read an excerpt from the daily reflections or the four agreements.

1:02:08Four agreements. Yeah. Did I ever sit through one of those? No. Because it anyways. That makes me angry. Just think about it. Another thing I'll ask someone. I think a sponsor is helpful for a sponsor to ask is if you're willing to be completely honest with me now. Because really? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Honestly. You're rolling through this too quick. No, we got a lot to cover, dude. Hold on. No, no, no. See the note I made. You're rolling into your note. Well, then you need to fix your little machine over there. And I told you this in the living room, we're going to stop and pause here. You can elaborate if there's something you want to say. Because I didn't even notice that you were just, this is why I hate your list. You just roll through them without having a legitimate conversation. Let's have a legit conversation. We're going to roll backwards to its erase because this is important. Because there is a nuance to this. There's a finesse that comes with sponsorship that you will learn by doing. You talked about earlier about not putting your hand on the stove. And I said, I will always put my hand on the stove. I am the type of guy that learns and grows

1:03:12by experience, which means I'm going to make a lot of mistakes. And you've made a lot. I can be standing at the socket with a fork ready to put it in the socket to see what happens. And you can show me a video on how it's going to electrocute me. I'm still going to do it. It's just how I learn. I don't have a choice. Okay. That being said, when we say it's a race, what I have seen is that people have taken that idea to an extreme, an extreme. You have on one end of the scale, people taking a year, people taking a year to work the stove. No one's getting sober that way. Right. On the other extreme, you have a meeting with their sponsor, 15 minutes before meeting, throwing some stuff at them and moving on. That's not adequate. It's just not adequate. I'm sorry. It goes back to why I'm doing it. If selfishness, self-centeredness is the root of my trouble and I can't change that, I can't get rid of the defect on my own. The only way to do it is to practice the opposite.

1:04:16Self-sacrifice. I can't get rid of the selfishness, but I can practice the opposite. And the opposite is sacrificing my time for another human being. Now, do you need to spend six hours a week with them? No. That's not what I'm saying. But I typically, and this is what I've gone all up and down the scale. And what typically works for me is an hour to two hours. We are going to meet at my house. Now, not everybody's situated that they can do that. You can meet at a coffee shop. If you're a member of your local club, you can go into the club during a non-meeting time. If you only have coffee shops as an option, you can do a fist up in your car. What I'm saying is, look, I don't read the entire book to somebody, but we read a large chunk. Why? Because I need them to understand what the book is saying. When I got sober, I'm not a dummy. I'm not a dummy. I'm very well read and literate, but the language of the big book is very specific

1:05:21to alcoholics anonymous. Do you know how many years I had sober? When in Bill's story, he talks about his friendships terminated in a row. What does it actually say? A row. Correct. How do I know that? Because you heard someone to read it to you. My sponsor read it to me and said it's not terminated in a row one after the other. It's terminated in a row, which means in a protest. His friends were angry with him. Well, it's the same thing with about a 31 where it says we get out to the list, add infinitum. You always know somebody who has not been through the book with a sponsor because they say add infinitum. And I'm someone who has always mispronounced a lot of things because I've read it to myself. And you're from Oklahoma. So if I never hear someone else say it, then I may pronounce it wrong because I've never heard it before I've only read it. So I'm assuming how it's pronounced. Correct. But that's the same thing. You know a sponsor has sat with him and read

1:06:22the book when they know it's at infinitum. But here's what I'm saying is I believe that getting through the steps honest, thorough and quickly is the way to go. Well, Bill's quote is our chief responsibility to the newcomer is an adequate presentation of this program. Go, girl. Right. And so I need to be sitting and spending time with him to give them an adequate presentation of not just the steps, our history, the literature. What are languages? How do we use agnostic? How do we use insanity? Meeting etiquette. Oh my god. Meeting etiquette traditions. How do we use the word craving? If you, if I don't know, I've just always had wonderful sponsors who sat and read the book to me and taught me. I remember one time. I was sitting with a sponsor. I don't know. I was several months sober. And I thought that the bottom paragraph on 75 was the six step. And I had it written in my margin step six. She saw my book and she goes that step five silly. And I said, huh? She goes that still step five. I said, no, I said, no, this is the hour.

1:07:28She goes, no, no, turn your page. And it says, if you can answer to your satisfaction, we then look at step six. And I answered to your satisfaction, what? Go back and see what they were asking on 75. She's like, that's not step six yet. And so it's because I had sponsors that sat with me and read to me that I was able to learn. Okay. And here's why that's important. The big book gives us two messages on this. Okay. So in the 10th step, it gives us a promise and then a warning. And at the end of the promise, it says, if we what? Which part? 10 step at the end of the promise. It says, if we let up on our spiritual program action and rest on our laurels and heading for trouble, if we do. It says, if we stay in fit spiritual conditioning. And on page 14 and 15, it gives us a definition of fit spiritual condition. What does it say we have to do? The destruction of our self-centeredness. We have. Yes. And it perfected in a larger spiritual life. There it is. Self-sacrifice for others. That's it. That's it right there. So in order to grow my spiritual life, I have to sacrifice time. Correct. Now there's that. Now what does it say all through the book from

1:08:35the doctor's opinion and it's put all the way through there? It talks about my focus should now be others. Okay. So let's pause. Here's why I'm so like, riled up about this. This is why it's important. Because you have one message that says, I am only going to spiritually grow when I sacrifice my time for others. The second reason is because the person I'm sitting across from could die. And I owe it to them to pass on what was given to me so freely and give them an adequate presentation of the program. Does that mean I need to meet with them every Saturday for 11, 10 hours? No. That's not what we're saying. I need to spend enough time with them so they understand. Yes. It's no different. I'm in Britain, Houston once. I was shocked because because here's what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to say is is what we are saying and is what what we're doing. Does it match the book or does it contradict the book? And if it contradicts

1:09:41the book, it's not an A and we shouldn't be doing it. But I remember in Houston once a guy that we were friends with, he went to go to the club to meet a sponsor because he thought he was doing his fist step. He had his inventory written. He had his inventory written. And he was upset later and had called you and came by because he showed up to do his fist step and the sponsor just looked at him and said, Oh, I know you think you're doing your fist step today. But I don't think you're ready. I think you need to go back to three and figure out who God is to you. What? The guy drank that week, by the way. Yeah. I was so upset by that. Like how dare you? How dare you? You mother. Well, and I'll give you another example. You have people's life in your hand. You selfish piece of. But look at what it says. In the fist step, it says we don't avoid. No. Don't use this as an excuse to postpone when you have a written inventory. We're prepared for. I'm gonna fire it up. I need to calm down. I need to breathe. So I'm just saying that advice contradicts the big book. Another thing that I would say is things I've heard of is a girl would be sitting with a sponsor

1:10:46and they're reading and talking or whatever. And exactly when one hour is up, 60 minutes on the dot, the sponsor would close your book. We're done. Even if it was in the middle of the step, there was a guy a very well known guy in Houston that would do that crap too. They would be sitting for a fist step. He gave them one hour. And I want you to think about this for a minute. You have written a four step that is forcing you to look to swallow large chunks of unhappy truth about yourself. You have. You're worried about sharing this with another person. You've opened wounds of years. It's like you've just fileted your chest wide open. You go sit with your sponsor. You ready to get this out and he goes, Oh, hours up. Have a good day. Like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Okay. So let's I'm getting fired up. I need to stop. There's two extremes. Too quickly to take a year. That's ridiculous. It's completely counter to the book. The illness and everything we say about it. So if your sponsor says that to you, run,

1:11:51run. I'm not afraid to say it. And I hope we get an email because I am fully prepared to stand on this hill. It's dangerous. Okay. Number two, I get it. There is a finesse to the race. But if my life depends on self-sacrifice for you and your life depends upon an adequate presentation, am I looking in my watch or am I sitting in my truly sacrificing some time to help you? And here's what I mean by that. When I sit down with somebody for a step zero and we walk through the cycle of addiction and I help them qualify themselves and them to me. Well, we sit down again and we do kind of a recap. I'm asking them questions like, Hey, what are the two qualifying? What are the two qualifiers for alcoholism? And if they can't tell me that tells me they didn't ingest it and we got to go back through that because it's important. It's the most important message we could give. What type of alcoholic is powerless? Do they pick up that it's chronic or real or true? Like yes. And so I think that there are finesse is obviously. Yeah, I am I drank

1:12:53too much coffee and I didn't even drink my cold can come cold made cocaine cold brew though. I did. But let's let's let's move on and I got to calm down because I get upset because people I we've seen too many people die Heather like I've seen too many people die because they did not get an adequate presentation and they don't have to and I think that you know you teach what was taught to you. So sometimes it's not it's definitely not malicious. It's it's adequate inadequate being passed down sometimes. Yeah. And they're just doing what the sponsor did to them. But that's why I think it's important to be in big book studies and be reading the book because if we read something you're like, Oh, my sponsor taught me the opposite. Right. Over 12 years. Over 12 years I have changed the way I sponsor change different things. Yeah, many times because here's what I have to say to be like, Hey, well, I do this and I'll go, Well, that sounds interesting. Can we do that together? And then I'll have an experience and then I introduce it, right? If I find that it really helped me, but here's what I want to say. I am not saying that you and I do it right. So please hear that if you're listening to this and I've ruffled your feathers, I'm not saying

1:13:58that Heather and I do it right. But what I'm telling you is that I've done it many different ways, many different lengths of time and information covered. If I'm taking a brand new shaken abake and guy through the steps, I'm not teaching him about history. We've got work to do and we've got to do it quick because he may relapse. Okay. What I am saying is that every new man or every guy who has time that I take through the steps, you're going to come to my house because we are so situated, we can do that. We don't have kids here. We've got a room for it. We're good. But you're going to come to my house. We're going to spend an hour to two hours together and I'm going to make sure that I give you an adequate presentation because I care about you. I love you and I want you to have what I have. Yeah. And because of that, I have been able to grow. Because of that, other people are getting an adequate presentation, whether they stay sober or not, they have that foundation. Okay. Okay. Let's wrap this part up. The big book does not present recovery as some year-long self-help program, FYI. It does present as a crisis intervention followed by a spiritual

1:15:03awakening due to the spiritual program of action if we follow the clear cut directions. Yeah. So the closer we can stick to exactly what the big book says, the higher our success rate will be. All right. Second problem we're going to jump into is confusion about what a sponsor is. Sometimes sponsors today are often treated or act like they think that were therapists or were financial advisors or were marriage counselors or permission givers. Can I date? Can I move? Can I quit my job? That's not in the description. That's a God description right there. Well, I love, again, I'm going to keep saying the word infiltrated because these ideas infiltrated our fellowship. They were not originated in our fellowship. Don't date for a year. Wait, what about this one? Don't make any important decisions in your first year. Well, I think the third step is a pretty big freaking decision. I got to wait a year to make it.

1:16:05Turn my whole life over to something else. Listen, I have made some huge, huge mistakes that I'll call a synonymous. Like, if there's a mistake we made, I've made it and thank God I have. Yeah. I've learned from every single one of them and thank God I didn't have a sponsor who put his thumb on me and deprived me of that experience. Who was the sponsor and old A.A. folklore that was like known for being at A-hole? Is it Clancy or Clarence's night? Which one was it? Listen, let's let's not name names. No, I mean, he's dead now. It doesn't matter. We're going to get hate mailed. He's very beloved. No, I have the Clarence, but I just can't remember who it is, but it was like this idea that you got to come, break your sponsors yard or take their trash out or like, you know, that was that was the one that's from California. I'm not going to say his name, because we're going to get boy-caughted over that one. I'm just saying like, my sponsors were great. It was like, if I was presenting something to them that A.A. doesn't claim to have a solution for. Like, she would be like, well, it says to utilize outside help. You need a therapist, Heather.

1:17:09Go get a therapist. I agree with her. 100%. Go get a financial advisor. Go get a marriage council. In fact, the big book says that we take care not to participate in the corals, right? And so the big book gives getting, give us clear advice on how to navigate marital problems that your sponsor has that we stay out of it. By the way, I learned that rule the hard way. Yeah, me too. Getting involved in corals. Oh, my God. Worst thing ever. But here's the thing. Why? I don't know if you want to explain, you want me to explain it. Why does can I date? Can I move? Should I quit my job? Like, why does that matter? If a sponsor is coming to me, why does it matter what answer I give and how could I give a wrong answer? What am I depriving them of possibly? Because we're going to get to the solution application later of what a good sponsor does do. But I think that it's important to understand that I'm trying to not create a space where the sponsor is dependent upon me instead of God. I'm not God. So I think a good sponsor oftentimes

1:18:11just asks rhetorical or spiritually leading questions. And you're going to encourage your protégé to go pray about it and see what way God leads them. Because also, like, even with a men's, like within a men's, I'm going to read everything that the big book says so that we know the guidelines generally of how to handle each men's situation and help them write them out and prepare for it. But ultimately, I'm not going to tell a sponsor exactly one specific way to go handle any heart of men's because if it, I'm not God. And if it goes bad, they're going to blame me. Wait a minute. Are you saying I'm not God? You're not God. Son of a... But also think about it. When it comes to job issues or moving issues or dating issues, everybody newly sober has these kind of things. And I have no idea what God means for them to learn. I know that I made a lot of mistakes with my sex conduct and all kinds of stuff when I was newly sober. And I'm so glad I didn't have the one year rule placed on me. Number one, I wouldn't have been able to honor it. Number two, when I deprived you of your experience. It would deprive me of my

1:19:16experience of what I went through with God and came out on the other end so completely different and whole. And that was my complaint about that counselor in Houston that wouldn't let the girl have a sponsor less than five years sober. I'm like, you're blocking what God is trying to do here and you can't even see it. Right. Because it happened sort of generically. I mean, it just happened. But I think that ultimately, you know, we have no monopoly on God. Right. We have a coach. We do have a... We sort of give the same message. I do want someone to try to get through all 12 steps before they did. That's my only advice or experience that I do share. And if I got a guy, he's brand new in, he's in the steps. He's like, man, I saw Susan over there. I'm like, oh my God, Susan. He's like, I saw Susan over there. I'm like, hey, I want to maybe take her out for a coffee. The only thing I will say is my only experience is that you should get through the steps and begin sponsoring before you start dating. It gives you an opportunity to have an

1:20:17experience with God first. Because I think in my experience of being a chronic relapse, sir, I would always get a guy before I got God and the guy would become the higher power and distract me and I never got God. So I'd relapse. So in a general sense, that's a healthy thing to try to do, but that's not a rule. So ultimately, your sponsor is not your manager. Your sponsor does not run your life and your sponsor does not create dependency. They should always be pointing you to God. Yeah. Always. Did you pray about it? Because it doesn't matter what I think, because here's the thing, I have had sponsors make some horrible decisions. And by the way, me too. Yeah. And typically, as long as I don't drink, those horrible decisions have taught me some amazing things. Yeah. Yeah. I have to learn. I'm going to stick the fork in the socket. I just, I can't help it. It's in my DNA right now. No. Oh, okay. So now let's get into some solution. Let's talk about what the big time we're in our 20 in my God. I told you we got to hurry up. This is a

1:21:18lot to cover. So let's talk about what the big book says a sponsor or a spiritual advisor actually isn't actually does. A sponsor is someone who the first meeting should help you qualify yourself as a real or a chronic alcoholic. This is why man. Why should? I mean, my God. Why should you have to qualify yourself to me? Who am I? Can you spy that? Well, number one, I'm working with others. It says that me, I'm supposed to be satisfied with your answers before we proceed. I can find the exact quote if you want. No, no, no, but then, but why? Why is it important? Because you can't admit the first half of step one. If you're not doing that, you don't understand what powerlessness is. You don't understand what type of alcoholic needs a spiritual. What's the danger? I'm sorry. I'm eating a chomps beef. I go here because I'm starving. What's the danger? Okay, Heather, pause for a second. You're looking it up, but pause. Look, look at me. I found it. Your sponsor me. Hi. Hi. Oh, wow. So your sponsor me? I think you need to find a different

1:22:24sponsor. That was a girl. Have you? You know, I'm a girl. Your sponsor me and I'm a hard drinker. And you don't qualify me and just start taking me through the steps. You take me to the steps and you release me a sponsor. What's the danger? Yeah. So I think what was taught to me and what is helpful to do is in order to qualify someone because anyone knew you say, Hey, are you an alcoholic? They're going to say, Oh, yeah, I'm definitely an alcoholic, but we have no basis to explain what that even means. And in AA, it means something very, very, very specific. So I'm going to take the time to show you the cycle of addiction from the doctor's opinion and the allergy of the body symptom that having no control over the amount. I'm going to read 20 to 21, the hard drinker versus the real chronic alcoholic. I'm going to read 24, the italicized paragraph that's explaining the insanity symptom. I'm going to read 34 and 44. So I'm going through this whole process to help you understand what do we mean by chronic alcoholism? And I'm asking you questions along the way to make sure you understand and experience. Because once we get to the end of that, I'm asking that person, do you believe you are chronic alcoholic? Because only that person is going to be able to sponsor

1:23:28other people successful and explain our illness. Only that experience is going to have depth and weight in our program. In other words, in the doctor's opinion, when a silk worth says, frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices, what that literally means is a chronic alcoholic is not going to be able to stay sober based on motivation or consequences or fear or a good reason. You'll help falling in love change of environment. Look at our look at our show a couple of weeks ago. We had Ryan on Ryan was looking at mega bucks. He was going to be a multi millionaire if he could just stay sober and he shared it with us. And we drink anyway. And so those are the experiences of a real alcoholic and real means chronic. It's a specific type having both the allergy of the body and the insanity of the mind. You got to spend time doing that and helping someone understand yes, that's me because if it's not, here's the deal. On page 34, it says for those who are unable to drink moderately, the question is how to stop altogether. We're assuming, of course, that the reader desires to stop. But whether yes, but whether such a person can quit upon a non-spiritual

1:24:29basis depends upon the extent to which he's lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. What that means is if you're a hard drinker, you're not chronic, then you do not need to work these steps to stay sober. That's right. You're going to be able to go choose sobriety. Go choose it. A hard drinker, when they set it down, their life gets better. We used to go to that club in the spring branch area and there was that guy. God, he made me nuts because he had double, double digits. I mean, he was like in the 20, 30 range. And he used to say it all the time, having a bad day, go to meeting, having trouble at work, go to meeting, trouble in your marriage, just go to one another meeting. And I'm like, oh my god, bro, I'm about to kill you. You know, and it's sad because here, wait, wait, I want to explain it real fast. Is lack of power your dilemma? Yes. So how much power do you have on a scale of zero to 100? Zero. Okay. If lack of power is my dilemma, you got zero too. And so if I go into a meeting with 20 or 30 people and all of their power levels are sitting at zero, zero times zero. Then how much power is in that meeting? Zero.

1:25:33What is it going to do for me? But again, it's going to help me with my community. It's going to help me find my people. Again, that's the difference of being carried by the spirit of the fellowship into the fellowship of the spirit capital S, little F. Anyways, similar. I remember I had a guy that I was his peer support specialist for. And he was a chronic relapse. And I am too. So I'm not judging that at all. I was really trying to help give him some advice on how to get on track and not relapse again. And he was sitting on his four step like most people do. Okay. And he wouldn't ride it. And he's never written a four step. He wouldn't sit. He wouldn't ride it. He wouldn't do it. He had a great sponsor. And I remember just checking in with him one week. And I'm like, you were supposed to meet with your sponsor yesterday. How did that go? And he was like, oh, I ended up not meeting with him because I just really needed a meeting. I wasn't doing good mentally. I really needed a meeting. I said, bro, if you'd freaking work the steps you wouldn't be in a place where you need a meeting. I don't need a meeting. You'd be in a place to go to give. Right. To give share experience. You go from taking talks to the newcomers before the meeting.

1:26:36Make them feel welcome. You go from taking to giving once we work this program. But it never clicked. But all right. So yes, a sponsor should help you qualify yourself as a chronic relapse. And the reason that's also important is because I cannot be convinced against my will. I must be self convinced. So therefore I need to present all of the information so that you can looking at your own experience be convinced or not. And it says on page 92. And this is about meeting with the prospect the first time. If you are satisfied, he is a real alcoholic. Then you proceed. Begin to dwell on the hopeless feature of the melody. So that's supposed to be happening. Yep. Point number two, a sponsor should take you through the 12 steps quickly and thoroughly. This isn't a one step a month. This is not endless step one meetings. But it's straight out of the book. Straight as the work is laid out. What happens? What? What happens to you on the inside? When somebody, when you say, hey, what step are you on? Because we're always asked to be like, well, what step are you on? They're like, well, I've been on step three for a month because my sponsor said I'm not ready.

1:27:40I'm sad when that happens. Or step six or something like really obscure, you know? Yeah. I don't know. It's difficult because I don't I don't often talk about exactly how to do the steps with people I don't sponsor because that can cause confusion because people teach different things at different nuances and stuff. I'm just trying to speak in a general sense today on what what is a thing that we hear paratid a lot in the rooms that is contradictory to our basic texts in our history. So I'm trying to lay that out. Right. Okay. So point number three, a sponsor should hold you accountable. The things that you hate, Donald. But I believe that and this is how my sponsor was with me. A sponsor is going to hold me accountable to certain things like that my assignments are done on time that I keep my appointments with her that I'm going to meetings and I have a home group and a service commitment and group conscience and all the basic things. But what does that mean hold them accountable? Do you fire them if they're not? No. What does that mean hold them accountable?

1:28:43berating them? No. Brow beating. See, this is what you think accountability is. But no, no, I'm asking you to clarify. You could wear a handle steal on steal. I'm about to put some steal in your side right now, but go there and stab you with that bell of yours. I mean, I might point it out. I mean, I'd be like, you know, let's say that we go to the same home group and let's say she has a service commitment. And let's say she doesn't show up for a week or two. And next time I talk to her, I'm like, hey, bro, like did you sign up for this? We're supposed to learn integrity with our word. And so if you're able to show up and do your service commitment and follow through with your commitment, that would be great. But if you're not, then you need to come and step down from that position to give it to someone else. Good point. Go ahead. Okay. So there's things like that. Now you and I both hold hold people that were taken through the work. We hold them to the standard of appointments and being on time. Yeah. For instance, when I was in Houston, and I was going to meet with my new sponsor, she was new to me. It was my second meeting ever with her. I did not know her well is the point. And we were driving from Katie to deep heights.

1:29:48And on your motorcycle at that. Which means at some point, we were doing 100 in the H.O.V. most likely. Well, we arrived. I was seven minutes late from our scheduled appointment time. And I remember walking up to her to go greet her and say hi, but she holds her hand up to me. And she looks at her watch and taps it. And then she looks back at me and she goes seven minutes really. Don't let it happen again. It was weird when you hit her in the face. I did not. I was so humiliated. I wanted to justify. I'm like, well, it was Donnie. He was drunk. You know, I said, okay, yes, ma'am. Yes, Captain, right? Yes, Captain. Yeah. And so there was another time when I was sponsoring a girl in Houston. And she showed up for an appointment on time, but as she walked in the door, she's just casually laughing. Oh, by the way, I don't have my assignment done on time. I don't have my assignment done. And does that the one you killed? I didn't. Will you stop interrupting me with jokes and let me tell a story without an interruption? I don't know that I'm capable. And so I said to her, I said, well, then why aren't you here? And we're the four year. And she turns around and looks at me like, what? I said, I'm not

1:30:53sure why you're here. Because if the assignment's not done, we can't go over it and read the next part and move on. So I could have put a different girl in your spot. Somebody willing to do the work. So that's what I mean by accountability. All right. And people don't like to do that because it is uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable. And I remember one I had years ago, we had an appointment at like two. And I'll try to tell this story in the shortest form possible, but not possible. Go ahead. She's supposed to be at my house at two. She did not arrive at two of seven. I'm like, hmm, at two 15, I text her. And when that happens, I'll wait 10 or 15 minutes. And then I'll text them something like, I guess we're not meeting today. Question mark. I guess we're not meeting today. Question mark. And she didn't answer. I tried calling her at two 30. She didn't answer. I call my sponsor. And I'm like, you know, how do I handle this moving forward? And she said, even if she shows up at your house at this point, do not meet with her today. That's right.

1:31:53So the girl actually showed up at the door an hour later at three banging on the door. I did not answer the door. I ignored it, which is super awkward. Okay. So then she calls me so I answer it. And I said, Hey, friendly reminder, your appointment was at two. She gets irate saying how desperately she needs my help. She was in her car right down the street the entire time, but she was arguing with her partner on the phone. She's sorry. She's late. She really needs to meet with me. I said, absolutely not. You are next Thursday now at two. And she goes, but my butts falling off. I said, if that was true, you would have been at my door too. I'll see you next week. Wow. You're a mean person. You cannot teach someone that that behavior's okay. They'll try to sponsor that way. No, I completely agree. I mean, one of the things, the first things that John hammered in. And I mean, hammered into my skull was integrity. Even like, and that's what we're teaching by that accountability is integrity. And what I learned, like, I respected my sponsor so much that if she in Houston, if she had told me to call her at six, that meant call her at six, not 602.

1:32:56I call her at six. She sounds mean. No, she was not mean at all. She was wonderful. But that's how much I respect her. Well, she's acting like her times as valuable as yours. Super. All right. Number four, a good sponsor is going to help smash delusion. Delusion. What is a delusion, Heather? I'm glad you asked. The 1939 definition of a delusion is a psychotic belief. It is a lie that you believe, which is different than denial. Denials, when you know it's a lie, but you lie and say it's not true. But delusion is when you actually believe the lie. And they talk about this heavily on page 60 something. Flip him a book. Flip him a 61 when it says, is he not a victim of the delusion that he can rest satisfaction happiness out of this world, feeling managed as well. So this is a psychotic belief. It's a lie that I believe. They're talking about one specific one. Psychotic psychotic belief. It's what the 1939 definition says. Really? Yes. I was always taught. It's the lie that I believe. That's the lie I told myself that I believe.

1:34:02And so, you know, when we write four-step inventory, fourth column, resentment inventory, the third question is, I was in the delusion that, you know, and so these are lies we tell ourselves like, I'm not good enough. No one loves me. My parents are never proud of me. I'm married the wrong guy. Well, you better examine your life a little bit, but I think that possibly not a delusion for a sponsor though. Oftentimes someone may be in delusion around not being an alcoholic, especially in that first meeting. And so your job is to help smash that to show wait a minute. You had multiple opportunities to get sober and failed. You had multiple times where you had consequences. You had multiple times where you said firm resolution never doing this again, but you drink again. Here's the one. But how do you smash delusion? Show them truth with questions. Questions. So here's what I mean by that. I did it. I did it. I'm not going to say that I've observed this from the guys I'm taking through the work. I did this.

1:35:07I'm going to make some huge decision or do something or maybe it's even about dating. It's about whatever. And my sponsor's like, huh, you pray about that? Yeah. Yeah. Bro, God came down from the heavens. I prayed for 24 hours. He stood in front of me. His glory shone and he said, that's exactly what I want for you. Yeah. Yeah. Never. Never. Because the reason I'm trying to help them, the reason I'm trying to help them is because of the amount of delusion that was in my life. Michael Rios, whom I will love for the rest of my life and always admire. He passed on a couple of years ago. But he used to always say it. I'd be like, blah, blah, blah. He's like, where's God in that, Donnie? Yeah. God, I hated that question. Because I'm sorry, but in my equation, he wasn't a factor. Okay. And I'm tired of you asking me. So I'm just not going to tell you anything anymore. I think that there's some perfect questions for sponsors to ask. Like my

1:36:09old sponsor from when I first got sober in curvil. That's she would ask me that so much. Where are you including God in this? Or where has God in that? Or have you prayed on that? And when I was having relationship issues, and it was probably clear to everyone except me that I'm completely ignoring God. Even when you married me, just don't come by like God. I was like, no, but she never, ever, ever told me what to do. She would ask rhetorically, spiritually leading questions. And she would say things like, Heather, do you think this is the relationship God got you so before? Yeah. Is that what love looks like? That was one of my favorite questions. Heather, is this what love is? Yeah. Heather has unmanageability returned in your life at all. Yeah. And so she would ask questions. She never told me what to do. And what that forced me to do would I'd be like pissed off at her at first because she didn't give me answer. But then I would simmer on that. And I would have to take that to God. And I'd have to really seek God. And that forced me to learn and grow and not only into spiritual maturity, but also in my relationship with God by proxy. So I think that smashing delusion is great. Number five, direct you to God, not themselves.

1:37:14Our real reliance is upon God. Now you and I are perfect. You and I have a lot of opinions. The opinion machine can come on at times. We don't want it to, but it does happen. Yeah. But my goal is to ask the guys that I'm taking through the work, leading questions. I because I want them to wrestle with it. I want them to really think through it. I don't want to give them the answer because now they're relying on me for the answer. Yeah. And so when we're talking about that directing someone to God and making sure their reliance is upon him, not upon us, that a sponsor's job is to get you dependent upon God. So that's from page 98 and multiple times, but 98's the most obvious one. It says it's not the matter of giving that is in question, but when and how to give that often makes the difference between failure and success. Warning, the minute you put your work on a service plane and the alcoholic commences to rely upon your assistance rather than upon God, he clamors for this or that, claiming he cannot master alcohol until his XYZ material needs are met for nonsense. No, I don't skip down. We simply do

1:38:18not stop drinking as long as we place dependence upon people, people ahead of dependence upon God. Okay, so to recap, what a sponsor actually is. Okay, they help you qualify as a real chronic alcoholic. They're going to take you through the steps quickly and thoroughly. Yeah, give them an adequate presentation. This person sitting across from you, their life is in your hands and it's about an adequate presentation. Do they understand allergy and insanity? Do they understand self-reliance? Ask them questions. They're going to hold you accountable. I needed to be held accountable. I needed to learn integrity. Yeah. I needed them to smash delusion and go, is that really what's going on here? And then I needed them to always direct me to God. Always because that's the whole idea. That's what this book is about. Yeah. Finding a relationship with God. That's it. Again, nothing in the book says that I'm going to control my sponsor's dating

1:39:20life. In fact, the book, the book says that we are not the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. That would include my sponsor's. I'm not going to approve their job decisions. I should not become their higher power. The relationship is temporary and intensity, but permanent and principle. The goal is spiritually dependent rooted in God. Let me ask you something. If you go to a meeting, and there's a girl in there, you're sponsoring. And she's been sitting on her four step for three weeks. Do you go chase her down and hound her about it and berator about it? Why? My berating is not going to force create willingness in anyone. That's right. I'm going to be polite and let her float away because I don't know what she for what does she need to learn? What does she need to learn? I'm not going to get on the way of God. So if the willingness to do the work isn't already there, the book is clear that I move on to search out and find another person to do that. Because step one is not in their heart. And for me, I barked at steps and did all that kind of stuff myself. Sure. When I was a chronic relapse or so, I'm understanding of that. And I

1:40:20needed to go relapse a whole bunch more and to get to the end of myself to become willing. Yeah. And so a sponsor can't create willingness. So application. You cannot, John used to say this Houston, Florida, John, he would always say I cannot induce seduce or produce surrender in anyone. Yes. You're either convinced that you have this illness or you are not. You are either convinced that you have to do this program of action to produce solution or you're not. That's right. Okay. Application. Application. How do you find a good sponsor? Well, what kind of car they drive? What do they do for a living? Do they wear a chain wallet? You always hear this in meetings. Well, find a sponsor who has what you want. But they don't explain what the something you want should be. It should be spiritual. It should not be the car, the job, the girl, the trophy wife. Okay. So you might go to meetings. Wait, not the trophy wife. You might go to meetings. You're going to hear people sharing and or talking

1:41:23before or after. And you're just going to fill that conviction that that gut persuasion of being attracted to what they have spiritually that they feel like they're giving you some hope or does they have they book with them? And so you might ask them afterwards like you're not going to ask, well, how much time sober do you have? Because that doesn't matter. It really doesn't. It does not. You're going to ask, are you available for sponsorship? You're going to ask how long does it take you generally to get someone through all 12 steps? And if that, by the way, if their answer is that depends on your willingness, that's a good answer. That is actually a good answer. That depends on your willingness. Generally speaking. I've had guys that I've met with multiple times a week, right? And I feel like we should say this. I have guys that have been sober for a period. And I'm taking them on and we're going to work the steps together. And we've gotten into it. And I realize we need to camp out on a step. They have time. They've been through the steps. The insanity has been removed. We're going to camp out a little bit. But you have a story

1:42:24of a girl that you got through the steps in like 10 days. 10 days? Why? Because she was a chronic relapse or she was in trouble and she had to get busy quick. Yeah. Yeah. She had to get busy quick. And so there's nuance to it. But the quickest one I've ever done was 10 days. The other next one would be the five weeks. Yeah. Generally, it takes six to eight weeks or so. Assuming that they meet with me every week and do their work. Right. And obviously there might be emergencies or cancellations or family vacations. And there's certain ways that it's something's coming. Yes. But generally, if a sponsor says something like, well, it might take a year. That's where you run. I ask them, do you read the big book to your sponsors? I get that there's nuance to that, but we're trying to copy and find the instructions from the literature. And my job is to teach a newcomer the language. And it's important to read the book to them. And I cherry pick the first 52 pages from the doctor's opinion up to the third step because we don't need to read all of that. I need you to understand the two parts of the first step. I need you to understand the allergy

1:43:29insanity. And I need you to understand the unmanageability. And we can typically do that by cherry picking. But once we hit the third step, we'll read it because there's there's money in there. Yeah. And then you might ask them what does the spot again. That's the way we do it. Yeah. There's other nuances to it. What does your sponsor-sponsi relationship look like? Because you want to know what the expectations are. Some sponsors do other things, like call me every night for a week or they will get started or different things like that. You do that. I do not. Why? I'm not trying to teach them to depend upon me. I understand that it's a race. I know that there's no freedom or spiritual connection that they're going to gain from just calling me. Right. And it sets up that hierarchy again. And again, it's all about the dependence. I don't want them calling me every day. I usually tell them call me when you don't want to because that's what you need to. And I also will say that, you know, it left me. Anyways, let me move on. Okay. If someone says something like, well, we'll just see what happens or no rush or just keep coming back. You know, that's not the original message. This is a life

1:44:32and death errand. This is seeking it with a desperation of a drowning man. How quickly can I get you in? When can we meet next? That's where spiritual life will take off. And by the way, I look for the sponsor to drive that because I'm going to match their willingness. And if they're not, if they're going through the steps because they're in a soberhouse and they have to and they're not really about it, I'm going to let them not be about it. They have more to learn. Point two, what to expect as a sponsor? The sponsor may qualify you as a real chronic alcoholic. They might ask you to declare your willingness to work all 12 steps. You should be willing to take the steps quickly, being completely honest with them. Have a home group and a service commitment. At meetings, you should learn how to share solution because meetings are not supposed to be a dumping ground for your problems. It's not group therapy. If you need a therapist, get a therapist. And be prepared to sponsor others after you complete the steps. This is reproduction. Yeah. This is the circle of it.

1:45:32And that being prepared to sponsor others after completion, that's where the magic happens. That's literally where the magic happens. So what to expect as the sponsor? If you're recovered, you sponsor others because it keeps you sober and connected to God. You get to take them through the work and share the experience that you've had yourself. You do not create dependence. You don't delay someone else's spiritual work. You do not add your own opinions in. Try to just stick to the book because you're a guide. Let me say this. I don't know. I don't know if this is a point of pride or if this is a point of my sponsor, beat it into me in the first few years. But in 12 years of consistent sponsoring, I forgot one time. And I did that. I forgot an appointment one time. A guy showed up my house and I wasn't there. I never did it again. Yeah. I felt because what am I showing them? Yeah. And I do not. I mean, and you and I kind of,

1:46:33we talked about it one time. We will hold the bar so high we have to kill ourselves to meet it. But I should be again, I'm not here to promote. I'm here to show it through what I do. And as a sponsor, if I'm constantly canceling, not available and all of that, that's what I'm showing them. That's not the program. The program is that I commit to you. And I'm here. So I met with a girl, a newbie did step zero, qualified, all that stuff. And so at the end, I said, okay, I want you to take tonight to pray about it. And I want you to text me tomorrow. If you want me to be your sponsor. And she was like, well, can I just tell you now? And I said, no, because I'm paid. And I said, why? From the book page 95 at the end of your first meeting with a prospect. It says, unless your friend wants to talk further about himself, don't wear out your welcome. Give him a chance to think it over. If you do stay, let him steer the conversation in any direction he likes. Sometimes a new man is anxious to proceed with the steps at once.

1:47:35And you may be tempted to let him do so. This is sometimes a mistake, because if he has trouble later, he's likely to say you rushed him into it. So that's a warning on page 95, I think. But that's a warning about how quickly to begin the steps with someone, not about how quickly to work the steps with someone. Please understand the difference. And so I want to make sure I said, here's what you're praying about tonight. You're praying if I'm your cup of tea. If all of this is agreeable, if you're willing to do all of this, because I'm agreeing to set time out of my life consistently for you and do this journey with you, knowing their willingness will drop a little bit around the four of the ninth. That's okay. But I need them to know, I'm making a promise to you to walk you through this. I'm to set time out of my life because women did it for me. Right. And that's the beauty of it. So the closing remarks to recap this all is a sponsor is not a life manager. A sponsor is not a therapist or a spiritual guru or a rule enforcer. A sponsor is a recovered alcoholic who has had a spiritual awakening who takes other alcoholics through the 12 steps quickly and thoroughly. Why? So they can find God and do the same for others. That's the

1:48:41original message. That's our history. And that's how this thing has spread across the world. Anything less or more is just opinion. And listen, I fully expect, now I say this a lot and we actually don't get a lot of it. We're going to maybe get some hate mail over this. I'll let you read it. But look, the stats are clear. They had a much higher success rate in the beginning when they did it exactly like this. And then people got involved and start infiltrating and changing the message and our stats are not good today. It's just our history. We can look at it and learn from it. We don't need to beat each other up over. We just need to clean it up. Yeah. My old sponsor in Houston said that she thought she always would say all problems and alcoholics anonymous could be fixed with better sponsorship. I agree with that. And so that's why I said to the girl, our fellowship is failed due. And I'm sorry that there's some basic ideas in our text. The more we stick to that, the better success rate will be at saving people's lives and helping them have rediscovered

1:49:47life and give up themselves. And the last thing I'll say is I hear this a lot. Look, I think again, we are not the arbiter of the way people sponsor. We do it like I've changed many times over the years, different things that I do to try and better help people. Yeah. I know that people's heart is in the right place. For sure. They're retransmitting what they were taught. So there's, I ain't throwing shade. I'm really not. I get, I get rammed up about some of the things, but I'm not throwing shade. Here's what I'm saying. I know that some sponsors are over zealous because they've seen a lot of people die and they don't want you to die. Yeah. I think what you and I have learned over the years is the sad fact is that some people are gonna some people are not meant to get and stay sober for whatever reason or they're not going to and some people are going to die. But would you agree that I can't change the way I do things for that? Because again, I can't convince anyone. Yeah. Yeah. I think that yeah, it's of course

1:50:51horrible that not everybody's meant to get away. I hate it. I wish we didn't have to say that. I wish we could say that we did it exactly the way they did it in 1939 and people come in and they find the solution and their lives change and we just keep doing that. I think two things are at play. The abysmal success rate based on chip sales, okay? But that's just chip sales. If someone doesn't pick up a year chip, that doesn't mean it's because they worked the 12 steps and it didn't work. Usually it's because they didn't work the 12 steps. Right. Right. I know. Okay. And so that's that play here. Yeah. But the other thing that's in play is giving someone an adequate presentation of what our literature says and what the program of recovery outlined is. Anyways, hope this has been helpful. If not or if so, you can email us at relevantr3atgmail.com. Don't forget about the spring workshop. May 9th at the outpost in Ingram. If you want tickets, go to relevant-recovery.org and if your mad call your sponsor or write another an email. Click the events tab and click on get tickets and don't forget those who stand for nothing will fall for anything. Hashtag God though.