The speaker at yesterday's morning meeting made a wonderful point. He said amends need to apply to everyone in our lives, even our families. He spoke of having a child who kept him awake for much of the night. He said staying awake so long had made him irritable. And eventually his irritation spilled over onto his child. He said he was going to make it up to his son after the meeting.

One of the wonderful things I found in the 12 step programs is it helps me learn principles I can apply in every area of my life, not just my "recovery" life. The 10th step deals with this more than any other. In this step we continue to take personal inventory and when we're wrong, promptly admit it. It is a wonderful blessing to have guidance on how to immediately get rid of issues. It is much easier to apologize to someone immediately than to stew on an issue for days. When I don't take care of it immediately, my ego gets involved and it's much more difficult to apologize.

In the 12 steps we can find guidance for nearly every area of our lives. And the beauty of the program is that while everything's in the book, we get to hear examples of how others apply the principles. We learn this when we go to meetings and listen as they share their experience, strength and hope. The speakers and the old-timers in the meetings are living examples of what happens when we use the program. And yesterday I came out of the meeting with one more example of how to apply 12-step principles in my life.

I thank the speaker for taking the time to come across town to spend an hour with us.