Bob D. & Scott L. - Amazing Big Book Step Study (Part 1 of 5) | AA Speaker Audio

Evening. My name is Bob Darrell and I am an alcoholic. Hey, Bob. Only through the grace of a God that I was afraid to believe in that I found out through AA is absolutely crazy about me and has no taste. The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, as they're outlined in this book. Good sponsorship and a consistent commitment to the primary purpose. I haven't had a drink or any mind or emotion.

altering substance since Halloween 1978, and for that I owe you my life and my freedom. I'm delighted to be here. I'd like to start with a little opening prayer that I... It's an extrapolation of something I got from one of my mentors, Don Pritz. If you'd give me a moment of silence. Lord, help me to set aside everything I think I know about you, everything I think I know about myself, everything I think I know about others, and everything I think I know about my own recovery.

All for a new experience in you, Lord. A new experience in myself. A new experience in my fellows. And a much needed new experience in my own recovery. Amen. I am glad to be here. I'm glad to be doing this with my dear friend Scott. It seems like every year we do a little more of these. I think it's a progressive illness. And I do quite a bit of these, and I enjoy doing stuff with him more than anything else. A couple of things, just for my own, for our curiosity.

How many people are within their first 90 days? Anybody in their first 90 days? Not to embarrass you. Just one back here. Okay, great. I'm glad you guys are here. Fantastic. How many people are in their first year? Okay. Anybody in their last 30 days? Every once in a while I get a taker. I can't speak for Scott, even though I think we're so much on the same page about everything. But I don't consider myself a...

an expert on the big book or on any of the three legacies. And we do have three in Alcoholics Anonymous, and they're equally important. And we're going to be covering a lot of one legacy this weekend. And it's like a three-legged stool. It's an important leg, but if it's all you've got, it's a hard juggling act to stand on a one-legged stool. And we're going to be covering the recovery deal.

What I am is I'm a guy who in 1971 as a young kid came to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in an institution and tried. to stay sober with the fellowship, tried to stay sober with the combinations of the fellowship and medications from a psychiatrist, tried to stay sober with combinations of outpatient, AA. I mean, I tried about everything there was to try. And in 1978, I fell into the hands of some people that...

entered me into some actions in my life that I wouldn't have taken if I'd have been in my right mind. And they took advantage of my weakness. in a moment of desperation and got me to do some things I normally would have never done, and I continue to do this to this day. And eventually they helped me to put this process into my life, and I've never been the same since.

And those of you who have worked this, done this deal, put this into your life, it's almost like you feel compelled to try to pass it on to anybody who will take it. You can't help it. It bursts out of you. And it has burst out of me for all these years. And I love talking about this stuff. I'm not a...

I'm not a step technician. Matter of fact, I'm a guy who does exactly what Alcoholics Anonymous tells me to do is share my actual experience. And some of what we're going to talk about this weekend... Don't mistake it for the answer. The steps and the process is not the power. It's the vehicle to the power. And sometimes, I think sometimes in AA we're in danger of creating some sort of new 12-step religion where we worship the process and forget what the point is. And we engage in this.

experientially to describe a path that in our experience we've taken that has led us to the power. Scott. Thanks, Bob. I'm Scott Lee. I'm an alcoholic. Very grateful to be here. Honored to do anything at all that has to do with this fellowship that's touched my life and saved my life and changed my life. I'm deeply grateful and very moved to have the chance to come here and share with you what's been so freely given to me. I also am not an expert on this. I'm a student of it.

I have been blessed to have some pretty fabulous mentors. I would like to open with a couple of things. For those of you who own cell phones, there must be at least one or two. Everybody here would like to look at your cell phone right now. Why don't you get it out and open it up and show it to them that you've either got it turned off or you have it set on stun. If you could do one of those, I think that would be really nice.

Yes. Because we have some space cadets here. They should know about that. I'd also like to open anything that I do with a quotation from Lois Wilson, co-founder of Al-Anon. I was asked one time what she did in the moment of silence, and she said, we have a lot of, I don't know how they do it here, a lot of places around the country that have a moment of silence and then the serenity prayer. Someone asked her what she did in the moment of silence, and she said, I invite God to the meeting.

And it's not that I don't believe God's here. I believe God's here. But I get a special gift when I stop and honor that presence. And that's what I use that moment of silence to do is I literally invite him. Don, that he mentioned, was also my great teacher. And Don told me a lot of years ago that he had learned to treat God like a gentleman. It was his experience that gentlemen didn't go where they weren't invited and they didn't stay where they weren't made welcome.

And so it's my job, I believe, each morning. It's one of the first things I do when I wake up is to invite God in to run my life. Not give me some help, but run it. And then I try to conduct myself during the day in a manner I think will make him welcome. And that really kind of ties it all together. With this many new people, there's a pretty good chance somebody here doesn't have a God, if that's your situation. I'd like to invite you to borrow mine while we're here for this weekend.

You can address him as the God of Scott's limited understanding. Get you off right there on the right foot. And by the way, if you brought a big book with you, you might want to bring it. We're going to do a lot out of the book. So if you've got one in the car, you might want to bring it. Page 46, about...

There's a paragraph that begins at the bottom of page 46 with the word much. And with any luck at all, I will get back to the prayer thing here in a minute. But I'm making kind of an important point. It was for me. Bottom of 46, paragraph begins with the word much. If you count three lines up above that, it says it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that power which is God.

This God as you understand him thing doesn't mean I'm going to understand God. Ms. Linda says that if God were small enough for me to understand, he wouldn't be big enough to handle some of the things I'm going to need for him to handle.

So it's not about me understanding God. It's about I don't have to believe what anybody else ever told me. And that gave me a great freedom. The other thing that I do in the moment of science is I ask God to help me not judge any of the speakers. You don't have to do that.

But I'm going to tell you right now that meetings got better everywhere for me when I started doing that. So if you would, let's take a couple of moments of silence. Let me ask you if you would be willing to just invite your God or borrow mine. to join us and bless us with open hearts. And we'll follow that with a serenity prayer. Serenity prayer. God. Give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can. I can't pray that fast. I'm from the South.

I'm sober since the 28th of June of 1984. And just to kind of qualify a little bit, I'm a member of the Back Room Group in Nashville, Tennessee. We're having AA meetings. We don't do group therapy at all. And our chairperson brings us a topic out of our literature and sets a topic in less than three minutes. And we talk about recovery every time. It's really been fun. And I've been to some open discussion meetings.

It's really been a lot more fun the way we're doing that. Sorry about that. A little spiritual low tide there. I'm being as good as I can. I think if the big book says anything, it's important. I'm a big book guy. If it says it twice, it's really important. If it says it six or seven times...

I think they're really trying to reach me with something that's going to be very important. For those of you who brought your book to class, page 143, and I call this chasing a concept through the book. This is where we're going to find it saying the same thing in different words in a number of places.

Page 143, if your man accepts your offer, it should be pointed out that physical treatment is but a small part of the picture. Though you're providing him with the best possible medical attention, he should understand that he must undergo a change of heart. I'm told there are no musts in the program. I'm sure that's right, and this is one of them. Must undergo a change of heart. So this has got to change. And then it says, to get over drinking will require. I wonder if that's important. Require.

A transformation, that's a total change of thought and attitude. Same concept on page 58 in the most read, least listened to portion of our literature. Don't get ahead of me. Four lines from the bottom of page 58 where it says, some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas. The result was nil until we let go absolutely. Exact same concept. Page 51.

I had to look up the word fetter. I didn't know what it meant. And it means to restrict. On a trail ride, the cowboys will fetter the horses. That means they tie short ropes to their legs so they can stand and walk, but they can't run. That's what fetter is. Middle of the page, 51. In the realm of the material, men's minds were fettered by superstition, tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas. Same concept. Page 42. Eight lines from the bottom.

It meant I would have to throw several. One is one, a couple is two, several is more than two. It meant I would have to throw several lifelong conceptions out of the window. Page 27. This is Carl Jung, arguably the greatest psychologist, psychiatrist of all time, telling Roland Hazard that he's in real trouble. Dead center of the page. Ideas.

Emotions and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. Page 1. When you get to page one, turn two more pages toward the front of the book. So those who have gone third edition, those who are in a fourth, that works every time for both. Bob and I are both carrying fourth editions. Our newcomers have got fourth editions. Many of us get sober on the third.

And the Roman numerals don't match. And the last time I checked, the newcomers were confused enough. They don't need for the Roman numerals. So that's why we're caring for it. Paragraph begins at the top of this page with on the other hand. On the right-hand page, if you count up three lines above that, it says this is repeated over and over. And unless this person can experience an entire, an entire, by the way, is more than half. An entire.

Psychic change. There is very little hope of his recovery. I don't know how many that was. I know there were a couple more places, but that's enough. I think we've made the point. And what that says to me in plain old Tennessee English is, some of what I know for sure ain't so. that it isn't what I don't know that's the problem. When I got here, the problem was what I knew for sure that was actually incorrect. You know, I was seldom right, but never in doubt.

What I needed to do was to release my grip on what I knew for sure. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas. I think everything I've learned through noon yesterday is now an old idea. So I've got to let go of those things. And here's one of my old ideas. Sober coming up.

Real close to a year, and I complained to an old-timer. If they promised you something and you're new and it didn't happen, go complain to them. I recommend it very highly. And I complained to this old-timer. I said, you guys told me that by the time I was sober a year, my sleep patterns leveled out, and they have not. I still don't sleep well. And he said, I just watched you drink two big cups of coffee here at an 8 o'clock at night meeting. And I said, caffeine doesn't affect me.

And he said, if you're pounding out a quart of scotch a day in five or six joints, it won't. And I said, oh. And I've been sleeping really good ever since. So I wonder today. what things I know for sure are actually incorrect. And I'm on a constant search for people who disagree with me. And not to argue, I don't want to argue with anybody, but if somebody disagrees with me, it's a chance for at least one of us to learn something.

So if I say something you disagree with this weekend, please come to me at a break and let's talk about it. That could be very, very helpful to me. I could learn something. So if you would. One of the things that I learned and then had to move to the next level on was surrender.

I got here, I surrendered. Boy, I surrendered a lot of times. And I think of surrender in the military context of the battle and the noise and the broken glass and the blood and the screaming. And we know who's screaming and whose blood that is, right? And I surrendered a number of times. I haven't surrendered a long time. I woke up this morning. I didn't surrender. I volunteered. They're different. The result is very similar, but they come from a different place.

And if I close my mind on surrender like this, you can't build on that. I've got to keep it open so I can go to volunteer. And I've had teachers that were two levels above that, and I don't have time to talk about that. So I've got my mind open on volunteer. I think it goes beyond that, that there's always another level. One of my spiritual teachers said that your spiritual assignment will change. And when it does, you must release your grip on the old one and embrace the new.

And you'll come to learn to love it as much or more than you did the old one. And I picked this up in another place. It's like I'm wearing a spiritual garment. And when I awaken spiritually, which is the great promise. I was wearing this garment. It was magnificent. But you know what? Months later, it was soiled and tattered, and I had to shed that and put on a new one that was more magnificent than the first, and after a few months. And I don't believe that there's an end to that process.

And that's why I'm a student of this thing. It's because I want the next garment. I want to go to the next level. And that's why I'm here. It's because this is a chance for me to do that. I got here suffering from what I call the John Wayne Syndrome. Yeah, at age 11, roughly, I got a mental image of what a man was, right? And I pretended to be that for the next 30 years.

And here's a nutshell on it. Big boys don't cry. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Never let them see your weakness. Never ask a stupid question. Get what you want. It'll make you happy. Never surrender. Never give up. No matter what. Sound familiar to anybody? That's the act approximately 99% of the men and about 96% of the women are doing when they get here.

For me, trying to pretend to be something, knowing that I'm not any good. The only truth I get here with is that I'm not sufficient. Sometime that predates my memory. I do not have memories earlier than I'm not good enough.

I'm one of the defective models, and I'm never going to be good enough, and nothing I can ever do will be sufficient. And I became an actor, a chameleon, as a very small boy, pretending to be the guy that I think you want me to be. And I'm doing it all my life. And when I get to you...

That's the only truth I know is that I'm not good enough. I'm never going to be good enough. And if you can see through this act I'm doing to the real me, you won't want me around. Because a bunch of together people like you wouldn't have a defective like me in the room if you could get out of it. See, that's all I know for sure. You see, I was just wrong. All that John Wayne syndrome is all exactly wrong. It's all perfectly exactly wrong. I just, how many things I have just...

Just 180 degrees were just nuts. And my life has been a series of laying down old ideas. That's what Carl Jung told Roland that he was going to have to do. In the summer of 1984, I zipped through a 28-day treatment program in six weeks flat. And some of them are doing the math. And I came back to Nashville, Tennessee, where the only person I knew in the city.

that I knew was in recovery was one of my customers that I didn't want him to know. You recognize that? That's newcomer thinking, terminal case. Probably going to die from this pretty soon if I don't get some help with it.

I eventually got to the point where I was so crazy. What I looked for, okay, everybody with less than a year, don't try to fill in the blanks here. All right? Because you won't get this. The ones under a year may well not get this. This is a two-word fill in the blank. All right? I'm an insane newcomer.

There's only one characteristic I think I need in a sponsor. I'm looking for a sponsor I can relate to, right? Isn't that insane? Isn't that insane? I mean, I couldn't figure out your good. I thought if you missed a day in meetings, you just missed. I know you could do it.

go to two meetings in a day, right? Who can I relate to? I can relate to the squirrel on the next branch that didn't know his fanny from straight up. That's who I can relate to. Thank God I couldn't find a sponsor I'd relate to. We'd both be dead by now. What I needed was a sponsor I would obey. New concept. I got a 24-year chip in my pocket. I don't need a sponsor I can relate to today. I need a sponsor I will obey. I don't expect them to be perfect.

If I thought he was perfect, I wouldn't be calling him on the phone and be praying to him. I expected him to make mistakes. I expected him to make mistakes, but his betting average with my life is so much better than mine was when I got here. Anyway, so I asked this guy to sponsor me. Finally, because I'm just going nuts. I'm four months without a drink. My brain's rattling around in my head like a BB in a boxcar. I'm just...

My head's on nine radio stations at the same time. Yeah. And I finally said, would you sponsor me? And the guy says, well, we'll see. Here's your first assignment. Assignment? I thought a sponsor, I was wrong about that, too. I thought a sponsor was like a big brother, or a new best friend in the new town. Introduce you around a little bit, show you where the good stuff is, maybe loan you some money, fix your wife, that sort of thing.

Wrong about that, too. Here's your first assignment. It took me a week. I did it. I said, sponsor me. I said, I'll sponsor you my way. I'm nervous now. I said, what does that mean? He said, you are too sick to stay sober on the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. You will need the program also. And I didn't have any idea what the man was talking about.

He outlived the doctor's predictions by about a decade. And he gave me what he claimed was the single best-kept secret in the fellowship. The number two best-kept secret is that the four steps in the big book. Very cleverly concealed right between the covers of this particular book. Very well-kept secret. The other best-kept secret was the definition of the program. The way we keep that secret is we read it at almost every meeting.

It's on page 59 where it says, here are the steps we took where it's suggested as a program of recovery. No steps, no program. Forgive me for being so direct. I've been to too many funerals. Jerry told me that hanging around in a bunch of AA meetings wouldn't any more get me into recovery than moving into the garage turned me into a 57 Chevy. He said, it ain't going to happen. Not going to happen. And you're going to have to do these 12 steps.

He startled me. And so in an unguarded moment, I was honest. Right? Give me a second. I don't have to do that. And I said, I don't want to do the 12 steps. And he said, that's okay. I said, good. He said, as long as you do them. I don't believe we're communicating, Jerry. He said, yeah, we are. That's the definition of willingness.

Willingness is when you do what your sponsor says, whether you want to or not. Did you ever try to get sober on your own? Yes, I did. How many times? Well, I don't know. Well, give me a guess. Well, I don't know. Come on, an estimate of some kind. Well, Jerry, I'm a puker, about 2,000.

Right. Anybody puke? Any pukers? Come on. Where are you? Come on. Come on. We didn't come up here to talk to you. Pukers. That's great. How about nose pukers? Ever out your nose even once? Come on. Come on. I know you're here. Right.

Your nose pukers will quit forever every time they puke out their nose. Is that right? Darn right it is. You bet. Over 2,000, Jerry. He said, and that was doing what you wanted to do and not doing what you didn't want to do? I said, well, yeah. He said that didn't work.

So it must be to get sober, you're going to have to do some things you'd rather not do and not do some things you kind of like to do. Boy, and every time he took a breath, I said, why? That's my Sunday punch, why? When I ask you why, I'm not looking for an answer anyway. I'm looking for a fight. Tell me why.

I'll show you where you're confused, right? You've given me something to argue with, and that's what I want when I ask you why. Yeah. And he said, I don't answer why questions for the men I sponsor. The reason is why is a management question. Excuse me. Step one, section B, says you are not in management. Consequently, all of the why questions, questions begin with the word why, have the same answer. The answer is you don't need to know.

And I hated that. Hated that. Today I love it. It's one of my cornerstones. Because I always thought that it was not knowing that made me crazy. Incorrect. It was needing to know that was making me crazy. When I laid down the need to know. I became at peace not knowing. That's about me not being in management on this thing. And anyway, I said, why? He says, I'm going to give you one free one on why. This is the only why question you get lifetime. This is the last one.

Why do you have to do the 12 steps? And he said, think of yourself as a garbage can. Okay, Jerry, I got that one. He said, what we're going to do with his steps is we're going to dump you out. We're going to scrub the can very clean and stand it back upright. And we're going to fish through your life. Most of it is trash, and we are going to throw it away. But portions are good. We will keep them. For example, do you love your children?

Man, I like kids a lot. He said, great, we'll keep that. When we get finished with this process, you're going to be a big, empty, clean can with just a little good stuff in the bottom. And the reason is because alcohol is not your problem. What?

Alcohol is not your problem. It's your answer. I mean, play with me this time, all right? Get ready. When I started drinking, when that second beer hit bottom the first time I got taller, who got taller? Come on, taller, taller. How about better looking? You want to keep them up? Who got better looking? Come on, did your pimples not fall right off? Mine did. Hmm? Fantastic dancer? Hmm? Some doubles? I got a bad dancer here. Yeah. Yeah. How about this one? Try this.

Expert on many subjects. Oh, yeah. It just all made sense. Now I got it. Yeah. And I can talk to the girls until I get lubricated lips. All of a sudden, I can. But the big one was that for the first time in my life, something inside me went, whew. And it's just okay to be Scott. See, it never had been before. Never had been. And he was right.

And alcohol was never my problem, not for a second. That's why the non-alcoholics can't understand. They look at a guy like me and say alcohol is his problem. They're wrong. It ain't. Never was. I stand by that right now. Alcohol was my answer. And he said,

That's why you can't put it down on your own. You put it down, but you can't leave it down, and the reason is because it's your answer. So when we ask you to lay down that answer, this is the only thing that ever made your life work. This is the lubricant of life. Let's lay that down. That leaves you without an answer.

And you're the kind of guy who needs an answer. You've never been an alcoholic. It is that simple. And what you're going to have to have to lay it down and leave it down is a new answer. And the new answer is going to have to be at least as good as the old answer. And he said, that's what this step process is about. That's exactly what it's about. And he said, our program is a little bit like going to the dentist. We're going to have to drill before we can fill.

And he said, but like the dentist, we got Novocaine. We called it home group. We called it sponsorship. We called it fellowship. We called it love. It's not that hard. It's not as hard as the way you've been living. Guys like us have done it. It wasn't that hard. Not as hard as it looks.

And he said he'd never seen anybody in and out of the program, and I'll be honest with you, I never have either. I've seen a lot of people in and out of this fellowship. I haven't seen anybody in and out of the program.

I have not personally seen anybody do the steps, work the steps, take the steps. I really don't care what the action verb is. It's not learn the steps, understand the steps, or interpret the steps. Save me. But actually do the work in here while being coached by a sponsor who's already done this.

And stay active in the fellowship and drink again. Has anybody seen that? I've asked way over 100,000 AA members that. I speak kind of at a lot of conferences. And I always ask that question. I don't get any hands. Nobody yet has brought me that they've seen that.

It doesn't happen. This is not some get it, some don't. This is some do it, some don't. It's that simple. I've only seen two men that I'm absolutely certain did these 12 steps drink again. I sponsored them both. I know they did the work. One of them married his new higher power, and she was not fond of the amount of time he spent in AA. I wonder how she likes him now.

And the other one's a hotel manager. He got a job managing a dude ranch in Arizona, 40 miles from the nearest A meeting. He was two years without contact with us. And he was two years before he started drinking again, and he's now sober again over 10.

Those are the only two I know that did the work, and they went non-current on step 12. That those of us who do this, he said this is about digging the poison out of your soul, literally. Because, see, I'm stuck up in here. See this? I used to out all the time.

You know what I mean? Go be somebody else. Do it all the time. Now I'm stuck in here. So the first thing I had to do if I was going to live in here all the time was clean it up. And that's what part of the step work is about. That's why I needed the fellowship and the sponsorship to hold my hand while I did this thing.

And he said, the reason that you have to do this, he said, something heavy one day is just going to slam into your heart. He gave an example. He said, your father's going to die. And on that day. If you don't have that big, empty, clean can, little, little clean, good stuff in the bottom, good stuff in the bottom, but big, empty, clean space. If you don't have that to store that pain in while we love you back to spiritual health, you'll escape.

And the only escapes you know are killing you and devastating everyone around you. And I just ran out of why. And I allowed a man named Jerry Crow to coach me through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

And I was rendered unthirsty. That was a piece I could, you know, I used to quit on my own all the time. You know, I can quit forever, which, as you know, is somewhere between 20 minutes and about eight weeks. Don't talk to the earthlings about forever. You would be frightened about how long they think it is. We know it never, you know.

Certainly not more than two months. But is one day at a time one of the things I say? You guys say one day at a time up here, right, Sal? Have they told you the second line on that? What they actually mean is one day at a time in a row. With like no breaks ever. That's really what they're talking about. I know it is. They didn't fool me. So my deal is I can quit, but I can't get unthirsty. So if I'm going to stay here, they've got to get me unthirsty.

I've got to get that one day at a time in a row. I've got to get unthirsty. Because when I was out there and I'd quit and mean it, sometimes I'd go a couple of weeks, feel better, work better, having a better time, all of that.

But something's always coming or I'm going to get thirsty again. I own my own business. To close a big deal, make a lot of money, get thirsty. Lose a big deal, lose a lot of money, get thirsty. Get a new girlfriend. I'm married, by the way. I'm not proud of that. It's just the way it is. Get thirsty. Get a new boat, get thirsty. Get a new convertible, get thirsty. Or the bigger one would hit. Oh, man. The Redskins play the Cowboys on Monday night, man. Yeah, and I get thirsty, right?

So if I'm going to do this one day at a time in a row, they've got to give me this peace I can never find on my own. They've got to get me unthirsty. Page 60. What for me is the most powerful promise in this book, first line 12. Having had a spiritual awakening is the result of these steps. You hear it read, A results, not what it says. A is one of several, one of many. The is singular.

I promise you one thing, a spiritual awakening. It is my experience that spiritually awakened alcoholics do not drink beverage alcohol, and they don't ever get thirsty. Ever get thirsty. That's what happens. I have been continuously unthirsty since sometime in December of 1984. I got to sponsor sometime in October or November and was somewhere in the step process when I had my last urge. If you're new...

And you know what I'm talking about with the double white knuckle grip on the wheel to keep the car from pulling into the liquor store to get you a pint? I'm not living that way. Cooked turnips make me almost sick in my stomach.

I can't eat them. I don't want to be in the house where they're cooking them. I'm having exactly the same amount of trouble staying away from booze I'm having staying away from cooked turnips. It just ain't part of the package for me anymore. It's gone. I have a new answer, and it is, in fact, better than the old answer.

That's the way it had to be. So Jerry explained to me I was going to have to do the steps. And he was very direct. He said, you're going to work the steps the way I lay them out at the pace I set or I'm going to drop you like a bad habit. I do not work with losers. That's what he said. He meant it too. And I needed something like that. I'm not used to taking orders. I am very used to giving them. You'll hear some more of my story. You'll understand that.

I think the definition of that is illuminated on page Roman numeral 22. I'm sober now. I read the Roman numerals, XXII. Forward to the third edition. That's either third or fourth edition. It'll be on XXII. If you can find the doctor's opinion, keep turning toward the front. You'll find it. Forward to the third. Paragraph begins halfway down the page. The basic principles of the AA program, it appears.

hold good for individuals with many different lifestyles, just as the program has brought recovery to those of many different nationalities. My foreign language skills aren't that good, so I'm going to... Kind of ad lib just a little bit, but stay with me because the concept that has come is so important. So it says the 12 steps that summarize the program.

So that tells me that the steps I see on the wall are a summary. Don, who we talk about a lot, said if you take the steps off the wall, you get off the wall program. I believe that. And that's why we don't have a one-page big book. It's because the rest of that's the directions on how to do those things. That's the cliff notes. That's for the folks trying to slide with a C-. Anybody ever get an F trying to slide with a C-? I did. I can't afford to get an F in this. I must win.

Now. I've got to win this time. I cannot afford the price of not winning this time. And I really don't care what the price is. I will pay it. There's nothing in my life. that matters to me that isn't suspended. Here's my recovery. Here's what hangs from it. My sanity. I've been to the insane asylum. I've been in the little rubber room in my underwear with no door on by my side. I bet I'm the only one in here.

I think some of you probably ought to be there now. Sometimes I think I should. My freedom, I should be serving life in a military prison. I flew for the Air Force for five years. I flew a mission classified top secret and some stuff. Real drunk. Not this .10 social drink or DUI drunk. I mean, drunk by our standards, drunk. Not proud of that.

Should be serving life. Should have died that night and several others. So my life is suspended from this thing. My relationship with a spectacular woman that you're going to hear tomorrow night. My wife is one of Alon's best speakers. I guarantee if you listen to her.

You'll make notes. You'll go home and start doing some of the things she talks about. She's got a fabulous story and tells it well. My relationship with her and our children and grandchildren, my job, my house, my car, my peace of mind, there's nothing in my life that matters to me that doesn't hang from my recovery.

Because if I lose that, everything that matters in my life hits the floor and shatters. And I'm not trying to sell that to you. I have no idea what your situation is. That's mine tonight with 24 years. That's where I am right now. Everything that matters to me hangs from this. I don't care what the price is, man. I'm paying. And I thought the price was high when I got here. Price is great fun. Continuing. The 12 steps that summarize the program may be called...

Various things. But they trace exactly the same path to recovery that was blazed by the earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Rarely have we seen a person fail or has thoroughly followed our path. Our path is the 12 steps, according to the 4 to the 3rd edition. One of my teachers told me one time that there were two fellowships, and I think that's a very important point. I think he was right. The first one, the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, is described at the bottom of this page.

It says, in spite of the great increase in the size and the span of this fellowship at its core, it remains simple and personal. Each day, somewhere in the world, recovery begins when one alcoholic shares with another alcoholic, sharing experience, strength, and hope. We'll be doing that this weekend. He said there is another fellowship. It has considerably more stringent entrance requirements. It is described on page 164 in the text.

Last full paragraph at the bottom. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit. Fellowship of the Spirit has dramatically more serious entrance requirements than just saying I'm in. You say you're in the Fellowship of AA. You are. Fellowship of the Spirit, that looks to me like the steps in narrative form.

So the way I get into the fellowship of the Spirit is I actually do the steps. And I needed a sponsor. I've never heard of a great coach in any athletic activity that did not at one time or another play the game. You can't become a good coach just reading it. I needed a player coach.

I needed someone who had actually done this, who had had his own spiritual awakening and would understand me. Because I'm a curveball. I've been nowhere near the strike zone for decades. And he would understand that. and helped me understand how to get from where I was to where he was. I have a single goal for the men that I sponsor. My goal is for them to outgrow me spiritually. I can't think of another worthy goal.

And I believe that's the one he had. Bob. Thanks, Scott. I'm Bob Darrell. I'm an alcoholic. Talking about the 12 steps, we're going to cover a lot of stuff out of the book, but probably, in my view, more importantly, actual experience. Alcoholics Anonymous is... transmitted best when you bring personal experience together with what's in the book. And sometimes in

Helping other alcoholics, I've found that my mistakes and my failures are as valuable, if not more valuable, than the things I've done right. Because people connect to that. They go, oh. I'm that knucklehead, too. I came to my first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1971. I wasn't old enough to take a legal drink yet. And I was in an institution. And I observed some things in AA. And I observed some things from counselors. And I was told some things.

And I concluded that I was an alcoholic because of my obsessive drinking. And I've come to understand that that's not true. I drink obsessively because I'm alcoholic. And it sounds like the same thing, and it's not. Alcoholism doesn't come in bottles and bags. It comes in people. And one of the things that was hard for me to understand is what I was up against. The most horrific, disgusting, painful years of my life.

were after, the seven years after I came to AA for help. I don't think there's anything worse than being in the middle of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings needing what the people there had yet not understanding it or getting that it would help so I don't do it, and consequently I'm dying in the middle of AA trying everything else there is to try except the program. There's nothing worse than that.

And I didn't understand what it was to be powerless over alcohol. I could admit that I was an alcoholic. But truth be told, I don't think I knew what that meant. You know, I knew it had something to do with a drinking problem, and there were some drugs mixed in there, and I knew that that was in trouble sort of as a result of a lot of that stuff. But I didn't get it. And on page XXVIII, in the doctor's opinion, Silkworth starts to describe...

An aspect of alcoholism. It's funny that you could live with it. And it could be part of you. And you don't get it. But I didn't get it. He says. Here we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics, and he's talking about a type of alcoholic. That the action of alcohol on chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy. That the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker.

Well, the first thing that's prevalent to me is I am a chronic alcoholic. I think there's two different types of alcoholics. There's probably more than that. But if you can look across the board in medicine, there's chronic illnesses and there's acute illnesses. An acute illness is very serious. On page 20 and 21 it talks about two different types of drinkers. One is chronic and one is acute.

The acute drinker, it describes him as he drinks habitually. It says he has the habit badly enough to gradually impair him mentally and physically. So here's a guy who's drinking habitually to the... to the point of mental and physical impairment. It goes on to say he may even die a few years before his time. Now here's a guy that most doctors or counselors are going to observe and are going to go, you're an alcoholic.

And maybe he is of sorts. But then it says, but if a sufficiently strong reason, ill health, warning from a doctor, falling in love, the judge says two years are quit. Whatever. That person has within them the ability and the power to stop and be actually all right. And I'm not that guy. The judge says to me, two years? Well...

Six months later, I'm drinking again. I'm thinking how I'm going to fake this UA coming up. You know what I mean? I'm that guy. I'm the guy who the doctor says, Bob, you got... Early signs of pancreatitis, your liver panel is bad. You keep drinking, you're going to die, and I will get a fifth of whiskey on the way home to think about what he said.

I'm a chronic alcoholic, and a chronic illness, unlike, say, pneumonia, which is an acute, which can almost kill you, but if they load you up with enough antibiotics, they can knock that pneumonia out once and for all. I'm like a diabetic, people with certain types of heart disease. The stabilization of my condition is but a beginning in a lifetime of treatment. It's but a beginning.

I am not the acute alcoholic. I'm the chronic alcoholic. And Silkworth says, if you're a chronic alcoholic, then the action of alcohol on me is a manifestation of an allergy. Well, I know a little bit about allergies. I have a mild allergy to cats. I love cats, but if I get around cats in about 45 minutes in a room with cats...

My eyes start to itch and water and my nose starts to fill up. I can even get a little tight feeling in my chest. So the first time in a treatment center in the early 70s that I hear people talk about this. Allergic to reaction alcohol, I don't get it. And they said, they tried to tell me that instead of breaking out in a runny nose or hives, I break out in this phenomenon of craving, but I can't see it.

I can see that I'm in trouble. I can see that I get drunk a lot. I can see I go too far. But I can't see the phenomenon of craving. And the reason why I can't see it... There's a line later on in the book that says the alcoholic's problem lies mainly in his mind. The problem is that when the craving is initiated in me, it uses my mind and all my ability to justify and rationalize and to tell little stories to myself about what's going on in my head to make the...

next drink seem like it's my idea. I don't get that I'm being driven by a phenomenon of craving. And the allergic reaction in me works kind of like this. I'm not going to get drunk tonight, but I'm going to have a couple drinks just to kind of go, just to relax a little bit. Well, there's a point somewhere between the first... The beginning of the first drink and the end of the second drink when a feeling comes over me.

And sometimes if I'm having a really bad day, it can be a very dramatic feeling. Sometimes it's just a kind of subtler, kind of easier feeling. But the allergic reaction is to that feeling. What happens is in me, as I start to feel that feeling, it lights something up inside of me that just goes, oh, yes. Come on. Come on. And I get a feeling that it's like I'm about to become so wonderful that the world won't be able to stand it. Maybe on the next drink.

And so I drink one more, one more. I'm the alcoholic. I was up in Boston on spring break one year. Some guy had a bunch of pills. I didn't even – it's funny. I don't even ask them what they are. Just thank you, right? I don't even care. I don't even know what they are. I was back – I was part of the – I wasn't part of the just say no generation. It was just say thanks, you know, just – right? And –

And it ended up being animal tranquilizer, right? A bad, bad dose of animal tranquilizer. Well, I'm in the party. and I'm laying on the floor, and I can't get up, and my mind's awake, and I'm laying there trying to talk people into bringing me a drink, right? Right? Because if I start drinking and I'm still conscious, I ain't done drinking. You know what I'm saying?

Now, I don't get that that's an allergic reaction to alcohol. And Silkworth says that this phenomenon of craving is limited to us, to this class. And never, ever occurs in the average tempered drinker, and it never does. Have you ever watched a non-alcoholic drink? My girl, um...

I had an ex-girlfriend years, about 15 years ago, that wasn't an alcoholic, and my sister is not an alcoholic. And I've watched, as a matter of fact, just a couple weeks ago, I was out with my daughter and my sister, and my sister had a drink. I like to watch my sister drink. I mean, I'll watch my sister drink like your dog will watch you eat a cheeseburger. You know what I mean?

Hal-Anon, do you hear me calling? I mean, I watch my sister drink. Like, because I look in her eyes. I want to see the thing happen to her, right? And when my sister drinks, I can see it in her eyes when the feeling starts to hit her. It starts to come over her. Right? And in her normal, healthy... Non-alcoholic wiring, when she starts to get that feeling, she goes, whoa. And she shuts her right down. It's inconceivable to Marge to ever get...

knee-walking crybaby drunk. She won't do it. She won't sign up for that. Because she gets a feeling when she drinks like she's starting to lose control. I get a feeling like I'm getting control. It does something for me that it doesn't do for her.

And that's why I'm alcoholic. I react differently to alcohol than other people. And it's a hard thing to see. It's very subtle. I remember one time I was in a... I had this job, and it was actually before I got sober, probably the last job of any consequence that I had. And, you know, like a lot of us, I have this job for one reason, one reason only. I need cash flow to keep the medicine coming. You know what I mean? That's really the bottom line. And I need this job.

It's really a bad job. I was a telemarketer. I know. And I couldn't do it sober, but I was really good at it when I was drunk. And so because I was one of their top salesmen, they made allowances and I could go in there and I'd drink on the job. And when I'm drinking, I mean, I can sell some stuff when I'm drinking.

And one day the boss comes in to me and he says, listen, you're drinking again on the job, which is I'm drinking every day on the job. And he says, I've talked to the owner and you can't do this anymore. That's it. We know you produce a lot, but you can't do it. You come in here one more time after today, because you already knew I was drinking, with alcohol in your breath, or you're under the influence of alcohol, and you're done. Well, the next day...

I get up and I'm not doing too well and I need a drink, but I can't drink. So I go in there and I tough it out. By lunchtime, I am just wound up like a 10-day clock because I can't take the rejection when I'm sober. When I get sober, I'm a little overly sensitive. You know what I mean? And so by noon, I am wound up like my head wants to explode. And I start a conversation with myself. And an alcoholic who's having a conversation with himself is in a lot of trouble.

And the conversation is like, listen, I can't sell like this. It's going to be better. If I want one or two drinks, that's it. It'll be better for everybody. I'll produce more. It'll be better for the company because I am a team player. It'll be better for the company. Better for everybody.

So I go down to the cornered bar in my lunch hour, and I go in there, and I'm going to order vodka and orange juice because you can't smell vodka. Got myself a pack of Hall's cough drops to make sure. I order a double. Vodka and orange juice. I drink that, and I'm sitting at the bar, and I'm thinking to myself, as the effect starts to hit me, this is the United States of America, for God's sakes.

This is the land of the free for guys. Who are they to tell me that I can't drink? Who's the best salesman they got? I am the best salesman they got. I don't get in fights at work. I don't hurt nobody. And I said, I said, I took, I ordered another drink and I'm drinking a second drink and I'm thinking, I don't, I don't get out of line there. I said to the bartender, I said, do I look like I'm drunk? And I walked back and forth in front of the bar and he says, no, give me another drink.

I never made it back to work that day, right? Because every drink of alcohol I've ever taken makes me feel like I'd like to have another drink of alcohol. And that's the phenomenon of craving. And I didn't know I had it. Silkworth says these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. Whatever does something for me.

will do something to me if you're a chronic alcoholic. So you've got to decide for you what's your alcohol. I know people that alcohol comes in a lot of forms. Sugar. slot machines. If it does something for you, it'll do something to you. I can't safely use alcohol in any form. Carl Jung, in a statement to Bill Wilson in a letter he wrote in the early 60s,

he said to Bill that he suspected that the alcoholic's thirst for alcohol wasn't really a thirst for alcohol. It was a low-level thirst of his being for unity, or as expressed in religious or medieval terms, union with God. I look, I thirst for something to light me up and free my spirit. I always have. So.

This is the disease of alcoholism. It touches on this progressive nature. It says we can't safely use alcohol in any form. And once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence. Their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. And that is so true. I think that a lot of people die.

of alcoholism because they're so overwhelmed with the symptoms that they never see what's killing them. To be a practicing alcoholic is very similar to a guy... who's living in a station wagon, partying 24-7. And every time a problem comes up, a court appearance throws it in the back of the station wagon. Somebody dies in his family and he should go to the funeral. He's partying. He can't. Throws it in the back of the station wagon. Children, wives, husbands, family commitments, jobs.

throws it in the back of the station wagon. IRS throws it in the back of the station wagon. Then when he gets sober, it's like running the station wagon into a brick wall and in slow motion out of the back comes all this stuff. And if you're new and you're like me, people keep saying your problem is alcohol. And I think, man, I'm up to here with everything else. I got police problems.

I got emotional problems. I'm a depressive guy full of anxiety. I got don't know how to fit. Now they call it medication. Now they call it social anxiety disorder. I got that. Matter of fact, you give me a medical book, I'll have most of what's in there by the time I'm done reading it. I've got a lot of problems.

And it looks to me like if I solve all these problems, then surely at that point I'll be happy enough and comfortable enough that I'll be able to stay sober. And I'm fighting the wrong dog. And I keep relapsing over and over and over and over again. And I don't understand what's happening to me. And the disease keeps progressing. And every time I get sober again now, the problems are a little bit more.

in here more than anything. You know, when you come off that run and you hate yourself, every time I came off a run, I hated myself a little bit more. I had a little bit more remorse, a little bit more. And the progressive nature of this alcoholism, it's a terminal illness, and it eventually kills the alcoholic. But it's a long, long, tedious process. Dying of alcoholism is like being kicked to death by rabbits. It just takes a long time. Matter of fact.

Way before you're dead, you wished you were. You know what I mean? By the time you're dead, everybody you've ever loved hates you. My mother, when I was a year sober and made my first approach and amends to her, we sat there and she started to tell me something. As she started to tell me something, she started to weep because she was ashamed. She said she used to just wish I would die. My mother loved me. That's what happens in alcoholism. My mother loved me.

I heard a story years ago, and boy, it just nailed this disease, and it wasn't even about alcoholism. This friend of mine had a friend who was diagnosed as terminally ill with stomach cancer. And when they... Diagnosis is terminally ill. What the doctor is really saying is nothing we can do. Get your house in order. You're beyond human aid. And my friend and everybody was very sad. And then about two months came.

went by and he heard that there was a doctor that was going to performed surgery and he got excited he says oh my god they found a doctor who knows what he's doing for god's sakes a doctor that's going to go in there and take this cancer out and he calls up and he said he was excited and he says man they're going to get the cancer they said no they're not well then why are they doing the surgery well they're going to cut out sections of his stomach and intestines and all his internal organs

To make room for the growth of the cancer so his last days on earth aren't excruciatingly painful. And alcoholism is a lot like that. Your job is getting in the way of the progression of disease. I'm telling you, alcoholism will cut your job out of your life. Your children, no matter how much you love them, are getting in the...

way of the progression of this disease, I'm telling you, alcoholism will cut them out of your life. Your mate, no matter how much you need them and love them, alcoholism will cut that out of your life. Your morals? Your self-respect, your values, alcoholism will cut those things out of your life because it has power and it perpetuates itself. I think alcoholism has stronger survival instincts than we do. It's an amazing disease. If you think that's crazy,

What happens to new people when the first time they're told to write an inventory? How heavy does that pencil become? I found myself, I've never, the only time I've ever washed, hand washed my car. by myself since I've been sober was to avoid writing on the inventory. I'd go out and wash my car and I'd be telling myself, well, I'm washing my car. This is good. Where does that come from? It's almost like it's this power into itself. It's crazy. It's crazy. The bottom of the page.

Silkworth starts talking about another aspect of this powerlessness. If... If the phenomenon of craving and the allergic reaction to alcohol was all there was to chronic alcoholism, then treatment centers would turn out winners. Because a treatment center would educate you on the biochemistry. of the phenomenon of craving. You would get it. You would see that you can't take the first drink. And because you're bright and you're not self-destructive, you'd say to yourself, oh my God.

I'm never going to take that first one again. I'm curious. It's just a show of hands. How many people in this room have sincerely swore to themselves they were never going to get high again and then did after that? Anybody? Right? Because there's more to it than that. The knowledge. of the phenomenon of craving and the knowledge that you have this thing. God, if that were only enough. But what is it? What is it about me that drives me back?

to drinking after I've sworn to myself with everything in me and mean it, that I'll never touch it again. After five or six treatment centers, when I got the education, I can lips, I can... You could turn the volume off on a Father Martin movie, and I can do the words. I mean, I've been to so many treatment centers. And even with all of that, well, Silkworth starts to touch on that at the bottom of page XXVII. And this is really the first time in the book that I started to get.

A little bit of a glimpse of what was really killing me. What I've come to understand is this malady of my spirit. Socor says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. That's true for everybody. My sister likes it. That's why she drinks. She likes the effect. She just likes a little bit of it. But I think it's more than that for me. I think I don't just like the effect. I think somewhere I thirst for the effect. I need the effect.

And why would I do that? Well, Silkworth goes on to talk about that further down. But he first says a couple things that are very important. He says, this sensation, this deal that I get from it, is so elusive that while they admit... It is injurious. They cannot after a time differentiate the truth from the false. To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. There's a word that...

that started seeping into Alcoholics Anonymous from therapeutic treatment centers and places like that back in the late 70s. The word is denial. Alcoholics Anonymous does not use the word denial. See, I can't differentiate the true from the false. When the thirst of my being is on me... I can't see that I can't even quench it with alcohol no more. The days of taking five or six drinks and playing with a band and singing and the days of shooting pool and dancing.

having fun and laughing with the guys. I can't see when the thirst is on me that what I do now is I drink and I feel sorry for myself. I drink and I go on Crying Jags. I drink and after a day or so I stop bathing because there's no fun in the party and I don't care about nothing. I drink for oblivion. It's not fun anymore. It's pathetic. It's pathetic. But isn't it funny that I have absolute inability to see that truth when the thirst is on me?

I can't see it. Alcoholism uses your own mind against you. That's why no matter how much determined I was not to drink, I always go back to it eventually. If you're an alcoholic of my type, a chronic alcoholic, and there isn't some sort of major transformation within you to quench that thirst. The question is not if you're going to drink again. The question is simply when. It's an absolute inevitability.

And Silkworth goes to talk about the dynamic that makes that so. And if you can connect the dots within you with this, then you'll start to know a little bit about what you're up against. And he's talking about us when we're sober. And he says... I am restless. This is when I quit drinking. I become restless, irritable, and discontented unless I can again experience that sense of ease and comfort.

I had once, but not anymore, once found in taking a few drinks. Drinks which I will see others taking with impunity, without punishment. So what happens to me is that when I stop drinking, there's a period, you know, not in detox that you're... fight and the withdrawal but there's a after the withdrawal starts there comes a period we start I start feeling a little better physically

And then I get my hopes up of all the things I'm going to do now. I've turned over a new leaf. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to do this. It's going to be great. And I'm like a balloon that you blow up and then let go. It goes like hell for a while.

But it runs out of gas eventually. It always runs out of gas eventually. And I'm like that. And what happens to me is these feelings that come from this... disassociated, sick, depressed, disconnected spirit start to overcome me. The feelings of restlessness. And if you're an alcoholic, you know that feeling. It's a sense that wherever you are, it's not where you need to be.

Now, I don't know where I need to be. It's just not here. You know that feeling? It's just that I can't get settled anywhere. I'm irritable. I don't know that I'm irritable. And I don't believe I'm irritable because I don't like irritable people. And I'm not really irritable. But when I quit drinking, I can't help it if I just see how stupid everybody is.

And because I'm restless, I need to explain it to them, which makes abstinence a lonely business. People rub me the wrong way, and I become really judgmental. I'm the guy who takes everybody's inventory. I'm the guy who can't stop looking at life and people to see what's wrong with them. I can't stop it. And it's a lonely... Alcoholism is a lonely business. I'm a prisoner in a cage, and the problem is the keys on the inside. And I'm begging for people, therapists and priests and...

girlfriends to set me free. The problem is they can't because the key is on the inside. And I'm discontent. And I don't know what's wrong with me, but I'm an upset. kind of an obsessive nature, I guess. I think Alcoholics Anonymous, unbeknownst to me, a therapist told me this. That it has somehow changed me for the most part from a type A to a type B personality. But I was a type A when I, I mean, I was like.

I was the wound-up guy. When I first got sober, I smoked three packs of cigarettes. I used to light a cigarette with a cigarette, right? I couldn't sit still for more than... 10 minutes, really. I was nuts. And because I'm that way and obsessive, I'm always got my crosshairs out looking for stuff that's going to make me better. I mean, I'm always looking for stuff.

And I find stuff all the time. Oh, that motorcycle. Man, if I had a Harley like that, what happens, I get it. Why is it that the shine of it wears off very quickly? I get that relationship with that person that I know that's just going to, man, that's the person I've always wanted to be with. I'm not with that person very long and the shine of it wears off and I just start.

noticing what's wrong with her, you know. I get that job, that big money, buy a house, own a boat and a motorcycle kind of job. I don't have that job very long, and the shine of it wears off, and they're taking advantage of me, and I'm the only one here that's doing it right. Chronic malcontent. I've got this hole inside of me, in the center of my being, and an obsessive nature that's constantly trying to fill it up with stuff.

And no matter what I grab onto, the end result is that disillusionment again. As the bottom falls out and I'm back to being me again. One of my great, great mentors, a guy probably helped me more than anybody, was a guy named Chuck Chamberlain. Chuck used to say, if you're an alcoholic, you will eventually get to a point. where you can no longer put anything between you and you. And there you are. And the shine of everything you've been trying to gratify and fill yourself up with is worn off.

And it's all just, and then you're back to being you again. And if you're like me, when all is said and done, that ain't no good. That's my big secret. It's always been my big secret. It ain't no good. And so this restless, irritable, and discontent starts to work on me. And I enter into a state of abstinence, and I know by now after a couple treatment centers, I can't take the first drink. I can't smoke nothing.

I can't do nothing like that. And so I get into a just say no, I really mean at this time mindset. And if you're an alcoholic of my type, you can say no. I say no a lot. No! No, I'm not smoking anything. No, no pills. No social heroin. No, no, nothing. No, I'm telling you, no. Listen, I'm a grateful alcoholic here, for God's sakes. Don't offer me nothing. No, no. I said no. Well, okay, a little bit. And if you're an alcoholic of my type, there's a yes in every barrel of no's.

It may be at the bottom of the barrel. It may be at the top of the barrel. Sometimes I got high the day I got out of detox. Other times it was 10 or 11 months down the road. But there's a no, there's a yes in every barrel of no's. Unless something in here changes. And Silkworth goes on to talk about that. He says, after they succumb to the desire again as so many do. Because it wears on me. No matter how tremendous my resolve is, untreated alcoholism just wears on me day in and day in.

day out. And this is, and I try to be positive. How do you, how you doing, Bob? Oh, work better, feel better, having a better, you know, I try to think, oh, this is, I love, I'm just so grateful to be sober. Right? You know, right? I try to be positive. But in here where I really live, this ain't no good. And if you're an alcoholic of my type, by the time you get to AA, I mean you've had some people telling you about you.

You've had some people telling you about you. Maybe it's been your mother and father. Maybe it's been your lover. Maybe it's been your boss. Maybe it's been your clergy. Maybe it's been your therapist. Maybe it's been your counselor. Maybe it's been your siblings. Maybe it's been your neighbors. Maybe it's been your drug dealers been telling you there's something wrong with you. Maybe your bartender. Maybe your really bad strangers on the street start telling you about you.

And they're all telling you the same thing, aren't they? Aren't they really saying, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob. Bob, you're really screwed up, Bob. If you catch me on a bad day, I'll go, yeah, I know. Do you know why you're screwed up? No, I don't. Well, Bob, you're screwed up because you keep getting screwed up. If you didn't get so screwed up, you wouldn't be so screwed up. So I'm pretty screwed up, I think. Okay, I'm not going to get screwed up.

And when I don't get screwed up, I am really screwed up. I am so screwed up, when I don't get screwed up, I'm going to eventually go get screwed up. And then some guy's saying, you know, you're really screwed up. And I go, yeah, I know. And I don't understand what's happening to me. But my alcoholism really starts where the bag and the bottle ends. There's no way in all of Alcoholics Anonymous or in this universe to treat the phenomenon of craving.

once it's been unleashed. If you're an alcoholic of my type and you pick up a drink, it's like having sex with a gorilla. You ain't done till the gorilla's done. There's no way to change that. But Alcoholics Anonymous has a process that does something that none of us believe can happen.

It changes me from the inside out into the kind of guy that's thirst is quenched. And I'm okay. Break? Yeah, we're going to take an 18-minute and four-second break. We're going to start on 25 after on that clock. We will be on time. And I'd like to open with a few more. I'd like to first thank Sal.

who I know did a lot of work here, and Bart, who could not attend because of his father's ill health. I'd like to have a few moments of silence, and if you would, send some love to Bart and to his dad. Let's have a few moments of silence. Amen. I'd like to open with a quotation from the noted American philosopher Hank Williams Sr. who once said, there are a lot of good ideas in a pint, not so many in a quart.

That was my experience, right? Oh, man. A couple of kind of interesting points here. Page 61, and we flip around the book a little bit here. There's a very powerful concept here that for me falls under the step one section B, my life's unmanageable, I don't get to run it. Just past halfway down to page 61 says, is he not a victim of the delusion?

That he can rest. That means to take by force. That he can rest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well. That says I'm so nuts that I still think occasionally if I can get what I want it will make me happy. Isn't that crazy? Can you think of anything crazier than that?

Clearly not true. Play with me. I didn't fly in from Nashville to talk to you. I came to talk with you, okay? Play with me. So we're going to do examples here. Who, when you were a kid, wanted a bike? You were certain if you could get a bike, you'd be happy, and you got a bike. Anybody? Thanks. Okay. Are you happy?

No, okay. That didn't work. Let's try something else. Who wanted him or her? Sure, if you're going to be happy and you got them. Come on, admit it. Okay, now you could be sitting next to him. I won't ask the other question. I'll give you a little break there. Makes it pretty good. Who's sure if you get rid of him or her that you...

Yeah, okay, so I've got to look at the great truth, okay? One more thing I know for sure it's wrong. Getting what I want won't make me happy, never did. My problem was that I had happy and pleasure confused. Pleasure is on the physical plane. There's something out there that if I can acquire it, will bring me that pleasure for a limited period of time. Happiness is on the spiritual plane. It's in here.

And it's a side effect of having a healthy relationship with God and with all of you, and that's in part what these 12 steps are about. I want to talk a little bit. We don't seem to have a definition of alcoholism or alcoholic. You can argue with the definition.

But you can't argue with a description. On page 44, here's the one they got me with. If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, like, for example, in the back of a police car. A lot of people really honestly want to in the back of a police car. I'm told. Yeah. Or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take. Did you ever get drunk accidentally? Have you ever drunk by mistake?

Like you maybe caught it from the guy in the next bar stool, maybe he was contagious, and you sort of got it from him. Shamelessly over-served. Yeah, over-served by an irresponsible bartender. Something like that, possibly, yeah. See, I didn't think that should count because I didn't mean to do it. And here I am with this characteristic. Or. It doesn't say and. Or. Either of those. If you honestly want to and can't quit entirely, or.

If when drinking you have little control of the amount, if you get drunk by accident, you are probably alcoholic. I am probably alcoholic. So those are the two characteristics we talk about most often in alcoholism. There's a third characteristic that's only mentioned once.

But it was one of the earmarked ones for me, and it's on page 23. And I don't think we talk about it enough. And it describes me fully in one sentence paragraph in the middle of the page. It says, once in a while he may tell the truth. Once in a while, maybe. I don't spread the truth around too thick. I'm saving it for emergencies. Jack Nicholson has a great line in the movie, As Good As It Gets. He says, I'll always give you some version of the truth.

Tell me one of our boys didn't write that. So there it is. I mean, that's just very simply what happens. So you're going to hear me over the course of the weekend use the phrase, the short form of the step. On page 58 and the top of 59, we have what I call the short form of the step, the cliff notes. And I want to read to you the first step the way I saw it when I first read these steps. We admitted we were powerless of our alcohol, therefore our lives have become unmanageable.

On close examination, I have discovered that the word therefore does not appear in step one. I took it upon myself a number of years ago to look up on the dictionary punctuation, and I found that a hyphen or a dash is, strangely enough, not shorthand for the word therefore.

But it actually connects two separate thoughts. The reason I was confused was that on June the 27th, 1984, the day of my most recent drink, the fact that I was powerless over alcohol, that my life was crashing down around my ears. Those facts were related. On August 1, 2008, I am powerless over alcohol. My life is unmanageable. I'm not playing with you. That's one of the most powerful concepts I ever got. I have actually, to be honest with you, read this book more than once.

I cannot find a place in the book that says congratulations. Having now achieved this lofty spiritual level, your life is now manageable. The keys are in it. The tank's full. Load up. Go get them, Stanley. Can somebody shout out the page number for me on that? I can't find it either. I cannot find it. Now, I'm not playing with you. See, what's happened here is that I have fired me as general manager of my own life based on my performance. A good manager would have fired me decades ago.

And part of what I did this morning is I invited God in to run it. Not give me some help, but run it. And whatever he's got in mind suits me just fine. I signed on. I do find a couple of places, and we maybe get one of them tonight, where it promises me sanity. But I don't find where I get to manage it anymore. And those are very different concepts, and that's just how it is for me. But it's so important.

A lady friend of mine in my home group one time, and she wasn't trying to make a big heavy point. She was laying her heart on the table. It's the only time it's ever happened to me when she said this line, I came up out of my chair. She said, I'm having trouble getting a grip on letting go.

Isn't that it? Isn't that just exactly right? Boy, that's how it was to me. And by the way, if you're new and it looks to you like the steps are designed to punish you, welcome to AA. That's how they look to us, and we were wrong about that, and you are too.

What the steps actually did was they brought me relief. They don't look like it, but that's what they did. And then as my sponsor insisted I not settle for relief but get all the way to recovery, they also brought me a change of spirit and a change of heart. So I have to admit the truth in the first step. I am powerless over alcohol. I can't drink and I can't not drink. And my life's unmanageable and I don't want to run it anymore. I have enjoyed all I can stand.

I don't want what I want anymore. I was getting what I wanted when I qualified to sit here with you. There's serious doubt as to how much more I could survive of what I want. I want what God wants me to have. I don't know what it is. I know how to get it. It's by following these directions and by trying to walk the spiritual path today. And as that happens, it unfolds for me. It's not like I do it. It's like it happens to me.

I want to talk a little bit about the word obsession. I got a phone call from a young man I was sponsoring, and I said, listen, I'm tired of hearing about that woman. You're obsessing about her. He said, I'm not obsessing about her. I just think about her all the time. I stand corrected. I got to get out of the business of thinking that there's something out there that's going to bring this happiness thing to me because it isn't going to happen. You want to talk about one a little bit more?

Are you? You want to start it? Okay. Go for it. We just make this up. We don't know what we're doing. We make it up at the breaks. I'm Bob, an alcoholic. Hey, Bob. I'm in a trap. I cannot spring. I have this allergic reaction to alcohol that every time I go to get high, I can't stop, and I burn my life to the ground, even when I don't want to, and I swear to myself I won't go too far.

And then when I get rendered abstinent by a detox or running out of money or getting arrested, I swear to myself I'll never touch that stuff again, and I always, always go back to it. And I don't have the ability to change either one of those two dynamics. And I've tried, and I think most of us have. I mean, I threw every drug in the mix. I worked out. I did macrobiotics all so I could maybe drink and not get so wacky. I went to therapy. I was hypnotized.

Reparented my inner child. I primal screamed. I got on a train and came up to New York to the Rational Emotive Institute. I went to Gestalt therapy. I did all of this trying to fix me. so that I would be the kind of guy that was comfortable enough sober. And I failed. I couldn't find the power to jumpstart a party that couldn't be jumpstarted, to control and enjoy my drinking.

Or to change me and manage me inside enough that I was okay enough sober that I didn't have to go back to that madness. And I was literally stuck. And on page... The bottom of page 44, it starts – it talks a lot about me. And I explored so many things. Before I ever got sober, I mean, I – I tried Buddhism. I tried all kinds of stuff. But it says if a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago.

But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral. We could wish to be philosophically comforted in fact. We could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn't there. Our human resources, as marshaled by the will, were not sufficient. They failed utterly. Anybody ever get sober and really tried to be good? Anybody did that?

Jared, notice how after a while you kind of out-good yourself? I mean, it's like a slingshot almost. All right, I'm good. I'm really good. Now I'm so good. I'm so good that I'm superior to the people that aren't good. I'm really good. And then I run out of power. Some of the worst, most degrading runs I've ever been on have been after huge periods of abstinence willfully.

There's a principle in the universe for every action, there's an opposite and equal reaction. If I put willpower into that, I give it torque to go the other way, right? Did you get that? Did you get that, right? And it says, and here's the problem, and it sounds so simple, but it's really the whole crux of the matter. Lack of power, that was our dilemma.

Now, here's a point in Alcoholics Anonymous where we lose a lot of people because they misinterpret this as being lack of religion or even lack of faith. And it's not. I've had the occasion to sponsor four men of the cloth over the years. Two of them are sober and doing all right. Two of them are dead. And the one guy, God, he was such a nice guy. And I'm not talking about a... I'm not talking about like a guy with a lot of deviancy. These were good, good men.

And this guy, Frank, he called me up about a week before they found him dead and he'd been back to drinking and he was weeping into the phone because he could not comprehend. Why a guy who's dedicated his whole life to God could beg God not to ever let him drink again, and he was drunk again, and there were... Bums in AA that were staying sober seemingly effortlessly. And he didn't get it.

And I didn't get it either. It blew my mind. When I found out he died, he literally drank himself to death. I couldn't believe it because here's a guy who prayed. probably more in one day than I did in a week, who read spiritual literature every single day of his life for years. And he died of alcoholism, and here I am, a bum. who's staying sober and I'm getting a good life. But Frank's dilemma was not lack of religion. It wasn't even lack of faith. It was lack of power.

And he couldn't get it. I live in a city where in July and August, especially in August, there are days where in Las Vegas, it'll get to be 120. The Chamber of Commerce will tell you it's a dry heat. Yeah, so is hell. It's hot. I mean, it's hot. And if I were to take you in my car outside of Las Vegas, there's a huge...

freshwater lake called Lake Mead, one of the biggest ones in the western United States. And I take you there, drive you right up to the edge of the lake, let you get out, dip your hand in the water, drink some of the water. and then stick you back in my car, drive you about 20 miles out into the desert, drop you off, give you a map showing you on the map where I'm dropping you off, showing you where Lake Mead is.

You can wander around that desert and die of thirst if you don't follow the directions and get to that water, and you will die of thirst with absolute faith that the water's there. And Frank knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was there. The problem was his not a lack of faith. He could not access the power.

He died no when it was there. And I think alcoholics die of alcoholism every day like starving men at a banquet. The food's there, but they can't get at it. The power, they know the power's there. They can't get at it. Matter of fact, I'll tell you something that I believe this with everything in me. I think in the history of the human race, Alcoholics Anonymous is the first process that's come down the pike.

that's designed specifically to connect people who are damaged spiritually to a power greater than themselves that they live in a world that other people seem to be able to connect with so easily. And there's something wrong with us. We have a malady of our spirit. And it goes on later in the book to explain that. And I started to get it. The problem is I got too much of me between me and God. And the ego, the self, is a funny thing. It will take scripture.

It'll take the traditions. It'll take the steps. It'll take the knowledge of God and use it to its own self-grandizement in order to feel superior to other people. The ego doesn't care. Some Christians will tell you the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince you he wasn't there. The greatest trick my ego ever pulls on me on a regular basis is to convince me it's not there. That's not ego. That guy is a jerk.

It's not ego. He doesn't have a good program. Right? Lack of power, not lack of religion. That's the dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live, and it had to be a power... Greater than ourselves, obviously. Obviously. But where and how are we to find that power? Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a power. greater than yourself, which will solve your problem. Page 46. It's a simplistic but realistic and dynamic.

approach to step two. It says something in the middle of page 46 that is so simple, it hardly seems like it's enough until you try it. And it really is the essence of step two. It says, yes, we have agnostic temperament, had these thoughts and experiences. Well, just one on a couple, two paragraphs to talk about our doubts, our prejudices, our fears of God. And everybody's got that.

We all got that to some. Even guys like clergy have old ideas about God. The problem is that the ego tells you your ideas are right. Have you ever had a judgment? in the middle of the judgment, think, you know, that might not be right. Not me. The things I know are so, I just know are so. The adamancy is in the ego. The spirit is free. The ego is like that. So, let us make haste, the book says, to reassure you. He found as soon as we were able to do two things.

The first thing, it sounds so simple, and yet it's so difficult. The first thing it says is to lay aside prejudice. Well... I tell you, I carried prejudices into Alcoholics Anonymous for years that I didn't even know that I had them because my prejudices don't seem like prejudices. It just seems like, well, that's just, that's...

The way it is. It's my emotional reaction to life. It's old ideas that are so entrenched in me, I believe them. Not only do I believe them, there's no room for argument. That's just the way it is. And I will position and conduct myself towards life and towards God and towards you based on those ideas. And I don't even know I'm doing it.

So it doesn't say that they're wrong, these prejudices. It doesn't even say we have to give them up completely. Can I lay them aside? Can I get humble enough to almost be like a child? that knows nothing can I come to the table with God with no preconceived notions no judgments no opinions right or wrong nothing a clean child like Can I do that? It's very hard if you're like me. And I sit with the guys I sponsor and I ask them, I have two guys doing this right now that are brand new.

What are your prejudice? And I want you to sit and think about it. And we talk about it a little bit. And I'll tell you one common one. And it seems to be in every one of us to some degree. And you might verbalize it differently to yourself. But it's that sense, that unconscious feeling. that I really don't measure up to God's help. That feeling of unworthiness. That sense that if there was 5 billion people on the planet and God was going to help 4,499,499,000.

999, he's going to leave a few out. I know what group I'm going to be in. Right? You know, in the pit of your stomach, when you're alone in the middle of the night, you know what group you're in. And so consequently, I can't turn towards the light because I can't believe it would be there for me. I can't turn towards it. Scott and I and Linda.

And a bunch of other AAs and Alinods were over in Europe last summer. And we went to different cities. And one of the places we went to was Florence. And I was kind of there on this mission. There's a statue that I'd heard about that the year before I was over and looked and I went in the wrong museums and didn't find it.

It's a statue by the sculptor Donatelli, and it's called the Magdalena. It's a statue of Mary Magdalena. A friend of mine from L.A. had seen and told me about it. I really wanted to see it. So we do this research. We find out it's at the Opera Museum right behind the Domo. And we get there. And I get a little over-fixated on stuff. Like I get something in my...

crosshairs. I'm going after it. So there's a whole bunch of us show up within two minutes. I've lost everybody else in the group because I'm zipping through this museum on a mission to find this statue of Magdalena of Mary Magdalene. And I'm going up these stairs and I shoot into this one room and there's this huge crucifix on the wall. It's life-size. Yeah, but it's a big, full, big cross for the thing with Christ. Life-size, six foot probably of Christ on the cross.

I turn, and there's the statue of Mary Magdalene. And it almost stopped my heart. It's unlike any depiction of Mary Magdalene you'd ever see. Most of them you see with the very pretty woman with the long reddish brown hair and the flowing robes, and she's gorgeous. This is not like that. This is a statue of a woman who's scarred. She suffers from malnutrition. She's wearing rags. She has an expression of shame.

and self-loathing and hopelessness on her face as if she'd been turning nickel and dime tricks on the back alleys of Jerusalem for years. Her teeth had been kicked out. And you can see the broken stubs of her teeth where somebody kicked them out. And she's standing there and she's not... There's a hesitancy in her hands as if she's afraid to go like this, like she doesn't deserve to go like this. And she's almost bringing her hands together, and her head is cocked.

And she's looking up at something. And I don't know what she's looking up at at first. And I look over and she's looking up at the crucifix. And she has an expression on her face that is saying, this could be for me? For me? And I'm looking at her with her kicked out teeth and her hopelessness and I'm weeping. Because she has captured my soul.

Next thing I know, Scott and Linda and a bunch of other people are standing around. We're all weeping. Scott weeps at dog food commercials. I can try reading the menu. I really can't. And we're all crying, right? We're all sitting around crying.

And this is a public museum where there's tourists from all countries are coming through here. And they're like looking at these old Americans that are standing around weeping, looking at a statue of what looks like an ugly woman. Yeah. But they don't see what we see. Yeah. They don't see what we see. They see a statue of an ugly woman. We see ourselves. I have some pictures of that. If it doesn't do the statue justice, anybody wants to look at it during the break.

And that is a prejudice that was so expressive for me of how my soul reached out. I'm going to tell that in a couple of minutes, that this could be for me, somebody as unworthy as I am, somebody who's done the things that I have done. It could be from me. I got it. Excuse me. So we must lay aside our prejudice. What if you're wrong? Are you willing to be wrong?

I tell you something, if you're one of those kind of people that can't be wrong, you're going to have a hard time with recovery. What if you're wrong about everything? What if you're wrong about you and what you're worth? What if you're wrong about how bad you are or how good you are? What if you're wrong about God? What if you're wrong about life? What if you're wrong about everything?

What if you're wrong about your childhood? What if you're wrong about the people you've been in relationships with? What if you're wrong about everything? Are you humble enough to entertain the fact that once again, and I say once again because you've caught yourself, your perception could be wrong again.

Or can you be humble enough to get that I could be, maybe I'm even wrong about this stuff that, God, if I was wrong about what a piece of crap I am. See, my ego doesn't even want to be wrong about that. It will defend that. It defends everything. So if I can lay aside these prejudices, then the second thing, it says, You're still in 46? Yeah, 46. Lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a power greater than myself. If I can do those two things, the book promises me.

I will commence, which means I will begin, I will move into getting results, even though it's impossible for any of us to understand, fully define, or comprehend that power which is God. So how do you express a willingness? Well, take actions that you don't believe in. I think there's a universal experience in alcoholics. I've never found an exception to this yet.

I had never met a newcomer yet that came to AA in the middle of the hopelessness and despair and self-loathing of another bottom, looks at the 12 steps and went, oh yeah, that would work. I've never met anybody. I don't know where. I've seen a couple of Al-Anons that, yeah, that worked for him, but I've never met an alcoholic that came to AA and looked at the steps and thought that would. Matter of fact, we have a common experience is that we don't even get to do.

works until after we do it. Then we all say the same thing. Oh, I should have done that years ago. Then the ego grabs onto it. Then we feel smugly superior to the people that don't do it. If I can express even a willingness, and the old timers had me do two things. They had me start praying on my knees in the morning. I didn't want to.

As a matter of fact, I did it, but I kind of tried to talk this guy out of it. I had a pretty good case built. I'd heard people in AA talk about they don't pray on their means. They pray laying in bed. I had one guy pray sitting on the crapper. Another guy prays driving the car. I said, those guys don't pray sitting on their knees. How come I do? And he says, well, not everybody has to. Just people with egos like yours. Don't even, if you're new.

Don't even engage with the old-timers. Just do what they say because they've got some kind of spiritual jujitsu. You can't win. You can't win. So I was living in this men's halfway house, and I'm in a room with bunk beds, all these guys. Now, I'm not going to get on my knees in front of a bunch of guys in a halfway house. I've been to jail too much. You don't do that. I mean, you're just...

And that ain't happening. So I go in the bathroom, lock the door, take the throw rug, throw it up under the crack of the door so nobody can peek under the door and see me pray and get down on my knees. And I feel like a hypocrite.

Went and told the guy, I said, you know, I feel like a hypocrite because I don't really believe in God. He says, you've been a hypocrite all your life. What the heck's the difference? And he went there and explained it to me. He says, your whole life you've been a flake. You said one thing, did something else.

Just do it. And then eventually they started getting me into the steps where I would start clearing away the things that would help me to access the power. But what I was engaging in, I didn't know about it. mentioned talks about this sometimes is what you could call a working hypothesis. People in AA are telling me something. Something I don't really believe. Because it is outside my experience. What they're telling me is behind the very veil and fabric of the universe.

There is a power source that is absolutely crazy about me. And that if I will just reach into the veil to access that power, it will change my life. And to reach in goes through here. It's a journey inside. But I don't believe it. And it doesn't matter. I started to take the actions and some amazing things started to happen in my life. And I started to experience an endless series of coincidences. Funny, funny stuff would happen to me.

Like I'd be, I remember in my first year or so of sobriety, crazy stuff. I'd be sinking into a depression and my phone would ring and there'd be some guy in AA who wants to talk to me. Who had him call right at that moment? Who had him call them? I was at work one morning, and I'm ready to quit my job. I went to work, and my boss disrespected me. That's what he did.

And I'm enraged, man. You can't talk to me that way. And I'm ready to quit my job, and I'm working harder there than anybody else. Nobody appreciates me. I'm insane. I want to punch him, but he was a... A boxing commissioner, and I didn't know. An ex-boxing golden gloves guy. I'm not going to punch him, you know. And I didn't take my lunch hour that day, and I just had this. I was this.

compelling idea to go to a noon meeting instead of eating lunch and I got in my car and I rushed across town and I walked into a meeting I normally don't go to and I'm sitting in the meeting and I'll tell you I'm not in that meeting more than five minutes and there's a stranger in there.

who's talking about an incident that happened with his boss and he was going to quit his job and his sponsor turned his head around and he realized he had to go make amends to his boss. And I'm sitting there and I'm going, oh my God. See, he pulled me up for screwing up at work, and I don't take criticism very well. And my ego was hurt, and I wanted to retaliate.

And I heard this guy talking about himself. And because he's not trying to tell me I'm wrong, I'm just listening to him. And the light went on. I thought, oh, my God, that's exactly what happened today. And I went back to work that afternoon. I made amends to my boss, and I didn't have to quit my job. Who made him say that then? Who put the compulsion in me to go to that meeting? Who brought us together by what I consider divine appointment? And I don't know how many...

Dozens of instances have to happen like that before a guy who's even a skeptic like me starts to... It's more than believe. It's like you're overwhelmed. By the reality in your life that something's going on here. We were over in, I was just over in London last month with one of my sponsors. We were doing some AA stuff. We were walking around Hyde Park down near Buckingham Palace, and the streets are lit down there with gas streetlights. And the sides of the poles, there are these little...

doors that are now welded shut. But years ago, before the technology was in place, There was a guy whose job it was to come up and down the streets of London, and he'd open those little doors on the side of the poles, and he'd reach in with a key, and he'd turn the gas on, and then he'd reach up with a pole with a flame on the end and light it.

And at twilight, you could go up to the top of the highest building in London, and no matter how hard you looked, you could not see where that guy was. But you could see where he'd been. And I could sit in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous at two years sober. Truth be told, I couldn't see where God was, but I could see where He'd been. Not only in my life, but in the lives of the new people that I...

I had the privilege of helping and giving rides to meetings. And I got to see them in detox when they were more dead than alive. And I got to see them two years later when the restraining orders have come off and they got their kids back. I got to see the homeless guys, the guys that were living in the bushes. Did you hear he's buying a house? Remember the guy that had the mental illness?

Remember the guy? Remember the guy that was so wacky and depressed? You knew he not only should be on medication, probably going to be on medication all his life. Did you know he's not taking anything? Do you see him with those three guys he sponsors? Did you see the light in his eyes? Did you hear him laughing after the meeting, kidding the guys he sponsors? And I started to see the hand of God. You know, the ego...

And the spirit are in competition and conflict with each other, almost diametrically opposed and connected in some sort of weird tug of war. You know, I have never seen my ego directly, but I see its work. And I've never seen God directly, but I see his work. I read a lot, and there's some authors. I've read every book they've ever written. I've never met them, but I'll tell you something. I feel like I know them because I have studied their creation.

And in Alcoholics Anonymous, we study very diligently the enemy, self-centeredness, and all the manifestations of self. And we open ourselves up very... lovingly and openly to God. I see the manifestations of God in my life continually. And every once in a while, I really get a strong glimpse of it. When I'm not...

Looking intentionally. I'll tell you a little story. This happened to me probably 15 years ago. I was with a bunch of people in AA, and we were at this mall. And in the middle of the mall, there's a kiosk, and they're selling these framed...

Pictures. Weird looking pictures. Looked like Rorschach pictures to me. Kind of weird looking. And the one person says, oh my God, come on, you've got to see these. I went over and I'm looking at these. There's a whole bunch of different ones. I'm looking at them. It's just weird looking stuff to me. He says, don't you see it? I said, no. I don't see nothing. He says, that's a ship. Did you see it popping right out of the picture?

Oh, I don't see no ship. He says, that's planets. That's the solar system. Do you see that? Oh, man, I don't know what you're talking about. It almost felt like when you're a newcomer and people are telling you, oh, God's going to solve all your problems, you go, yeah.

I don't know, you know, come on, come on. Yeah, God and the Tooth Fairy, I bet, you know. Because I can't see it. And they said, just look, they're telling you, these are holographic pictures. Look, you'll see it all of a sudden, it'll just... pop right out at you in three dimensions. And I'm looking. So I'm kind of a determined guy. I want to see what I'm not seeing, so I'm really looking. And all I'm getting is like a headache. I'm just, you know, I'm looking, trying to look.

If I'd done it long enough, I think I'd end up with a headache and hemorrhoids probably. Really, look, I can't. And the harder I look, the less I see it. And this guy says, he says, just relax. Just relax. Be still and know that I am God. And there was a moment when I was looking at one of these pictures and all of a sudden, bam! And it was like...

And I think God's sometimes like that. The problem is if I believe the pictures, if I believe that the guy's kidding me and it's not really there, I won't be able to see the picture. Or if I look through an act of will because I want power or significance, I won't see the picture. I can't approach God. That's why spiritual growth is always, it's never from education and it's never from addition. It's always from subtraction. It's always as a result of letting go.

Letting go of the things that stand between me and God. Let me do it for a minute. Okay. You got something on it? I'd like to get 55 if we have time. Go ahead. Yeah. Okay. I love what you're doing on page 55. Let's do it really fast. Page 55. Page 55 is a vision of what... What will happen to me and what I'll find is a result of steps four through nine. Middle of the page.

Second full paragraph says, actually fooling ourselves for deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental of idea of God. Deep down in me. And it's hard. That's almost hard to believe when you're new, because how could something so powerful and good be inside something that is so weak and bad?

But then old-timers kept saying that. They used to even talk. I watched Chuck Chamberlain after a meeting one time. Some guy said, how do you find God? And Chuck was poking him in the chest saying, he's not lost. He's right in there. When I go inside me, I don't run into God. I run into craziness. I run into a pack of nutcases just chattering nonstop. I run into legion. And the reason is that...

It says in the next sentence, it says, because this portal, this thing inside me to the divine, this piece of the divine, this is obscured, it's blocked by three things, by calamity. We all know calamity. You want to know what calamity sounds like? Imagine a doctor could surgically implant a microphone into your brain on a bad day and through loudspeakers we get to hear what you're thinking. We'd hear the voice of calamity.

I mean, when you think about it, if he had a megaphone, you might not hear him. And then the second thing is pomp, is that I get so full of what I believe is right. Pomp's another word for ego. I just puff up on myself. I get so full of myself. And the last thing is worship of other things. That was a hard one to see. When I was about a year and a half sober, I went through an experience that really was an epiphany for me. I was ending my first sober relationship.

Now, I don't think there's a person on the planet more narcissistically self-involved in an alcoholic ending or relationship. You can go up to a person like that and say, you know, I just came from a doctor. I have terminal cancer, two weeks to live, and he'll go. Do you know what else she said? I mean...

You know, because you just get it, right? It's just right here on you, man. You can't get it off. And I am wacko, man. I am just nuts. And I'm in this meeting and I can't hear nothing because I'm in my head. thinking about if I see her, I'll say this, and then she'll say that, and then I'll say this, and then I'll hit her with that, and she'll realize how wrong she'd been, be properly ashamed of herself, and beg for me to come back.

So if God's trying to talk to me through the people in the meeting, nothing's getting through because the big show's on the inside. And because she's a member of AA and she's not in the meeting, some hideous force is... Planted a spring in the back of my neck connected to the meeting room door. Every time the door opens up, I go, hey. So I'm not getting a lot out of this meeting. Actually, by the end of the meeting, I'm worse. I think the subject was gratitude or something.

So I end up in a coffee shop with a guy who got hostage because he's riding with me. He's got 20-some years of sobriety. He's from California. And I'm telling him about this relationship for 20 or 30 minutes until his eyes have glazed over. And he's a very kind man. He's listening to me, nodding his head.

When I was done, he said some things that blew my mind. He said, kid, you ever thought about the first commandment? And I said, oh, no, I'm not really into that. I'm just into AA. And he says, yeah, I know. He says, you and I are a lot alike. He says, guys like us, we can't get past the thou shalt not. He said, but in my experience, the Ten Commandments were originally written as statements.

A spiritual cause and effect. When they were translated out of the Aramaic through the Greek and then the Latin, by the time they got to English, they had an authoritarian spin put on them. He said, but I don't think that's what they're... The point is, he said the first commandment is, I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt not have false gods before me. He said, it is my experience that God loves you absolutely. There's nothing you can do that will make him stop loving you.

You can put anything you want between you and God, and he'll still love you. The problem is you just put something between you and God. You just block the light. He said when you worship something, it doesn't mean to bow down to. It means simply to obsessively turn your consciousness towards. He says you want to know what you worship? Very simple. The end of your day.

Make a pie graph of everything you've been thinking of, and the thing that owns the pie would obviously be the thing you're obsessively turning your consciousness towards. When he said that I pictured this pie graph with a little sliver for aid and a little sliver for work and the rest of the pie graph was her. And all of a sudden I knew exactly why I was so desolate, why my spirit was disconnected.

and depressed because I put that right on me and it was right between me and God. And why would I do that? Because everything I've ever put in between me and God has always been something that gave me an illusion of power. Like a relationship, the power to validate myself and make myself whole. The illusion if I'm loved the right way, I will be okay. Or money. You know, money is a great illusion of power. I need just enough money so I no longer have to trust God.

How much is that? That's about a dollar more than you'll ever have. That's right. And real quickly, the book goes on to talk about this. We find this down, deep down within us. And then it says we only find it in the last analysis. It is only there that it may be found. That means after I've looked everywhere else.

I came into Alcoholics Anonymous in 1978. My first four years of sobriety, I dabbled with the steps. I wrote two inventories. But it wasn't until I was four years sober that I understood how to put the process exactly in the book in my life. And I stayed sober. literally by 12-step work my first four years. And I'll tell you something, that'll keep you sober. It won't make you happy, but it'll keep you sober. And I went to two hospital institution meetings a week. I did it all.

And I'm screwed up and I'm fighting depression and anxiety. I went through nine jobs in four years. That tells you a lot about my spiritual condition right there. And every day I go to a meeting, at least I was going to two meetings a day, and every day I went to a meeting at Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'd hear them read something they read at every meeting.

And here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. You know, I need a motorcycle. Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. I need a better girlfriend. Here are the steps we took which were suggested as a program recovery. I need a better job. Here are the steps which we took suggested as a program recovery. I need more sponsees. I need to be.

DCM, I need to be conference chairman. I need to go to more meetings. Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program recovery. And I got to the point, Chamberlain said, where you get to that place you can no longer put anything between you and you. Scott? I just love the way you tell that stuff. Thanks. I'm going to tell a story. I flew for the Air Force for five years, and we were in New Zealand.

We did an eight-hour leg back to American Samoa. We took on fuel, took off out of Samoa, going to Honolulu, and there's nothing but water in between. And halfway across, we got into the new fuel, and it had water in it. At our altitude, it's minus 50 centigrade. and the water freezes, and the fuel lines, and jet engines about so big do what we call compressor stall.

and it shakes the whole airplane, terrifies everybody on board, and we get about 90 passengers on this beast. And we can't maintain altitude. When we get down into warmer air, we can run the engines, but we don't have gas to make Hickam at this altitude, and we already can't go back. Jet engine is much more efficient at a higher altitude.

So we climb back up, and we can't get the engines running, and we come back down. The worst thing you can do for gas mileage and a jet is this, and that's what we're doing. And for four hours that afternoon, we thought we were putting a 300,000-pound airplane into the Pacific Ocean. That's not what we filed for. That's not what the paperwork said. I told God if he would get me out of this one, I would quit smoking.

I'm just warming up. You know I am. Quit drinking. Quit visiting ladies I wasn't married to. Go back to church. Might build some churches. I don't leave anything in the bag on this one. I'm telling you, four hours is a long time to think you're going to die today because the numbers say we're not even going to get close.

And we get closer and closer, and we approach, and what we finally decide is if we can make high station for a forced landing. If any pilots in here know what I'm talking about. If we can get to a high station for a forced landing. We can at least crash on dry land so our bodies can be sent home for burial because, you see, you don't put 300,000-pound airplanes down into the ocean and live. That isn't done.

Many of us have thought we were going to die in the next few moments. We looked down gun barrels. We've laid down bikes. We've been in car wrecks. We've done a lot of that stuff. Four hours is a long time. We turned finally to come at 9,000 feet. We put it down on the end of the runway and taxied it in and shot him down.

They dip the tanks like you dip your crankcase. See how much oil you got? We had insufficient fuel left on that plane to start for engines and taxi to the runway. We did not have that much left. I could have walked carrying what we had left in buckets. I didn't even go to the quarters. I went straight to the officer's club, the stag bar, the crazy section in the back. I put my bags on either side of the bar stool. I said, Mai Tai, the big one, pack of smokes.

And I look at it through these eyes that you've given me, and this is what I see. In those days, those times that I prayed, you know, I had the standard pre-AA prayer. See if you recognize any of these. God, please help me pass this test I didn't study for. Anybody? This one can be done for either gender. Please don't let her be pregnant.

And the one that I used to do on the prayer rug, you know the prayer rug? It's that half moon of carpet they put around the commode for you to kneel on. I was invited by one of our boys, you know. His knees were all torn up from that terrazzo.

So I'm in there in the prayer rug, and I'm bringing it up, right? And I would pray what I call the pre-AA prayer. We're going to do it together now. Come on. All right, play with me. I'm going to do the first line. You're going to do the second line. Are you ready? God, get me out of this. I'll never do it again. Which is alcoholic for amen. Right? That's right, Sal.

So that's the kind of prayer. And when I look, I'm back on that airplane now. We're saved. And I look at it. In those days, those few times that I prayed, I was trying to make Him my God. And what you've taught me here is how to make me His man. I found that God's very difficult to train. I try to lie. Big fella, take a knee. Here are your instructions for the day. I'm stealing your line.

I know you've been running the universe for several billion years, but Scott's here now. And I think you've missed some fairly important points. And I'd like to, if you would just, you might want to make some notes here. And when I go to God with a shopping list, that is exactly what I'm trying to do is train God. See, I had it backwards about who's supposed to be in charge. I'm not real quick.

I want to tell a story. I was put in treatment on June 28th of 1984, which was my 41st birthday. My AA and sobriety date are the same. My belly button are the same. I was not happy. I had a senior business partner who said, you're going to treatment right now or you're fired. He was a communicator. You know, he could just make it clear for you. See how a man like that might become a senior partner. He could be able to just crystallize it in your mind for you.

And he put me in treatment for a problem I didn't have, and he wanted me to overcorrect. And that's not why I stayed, but that's how I got there. And I didn't. I believe I need to be there. I also didn't sleep the first three nights I was in treatment. I could afford my addictions.

and I'm laying there the fourth night, and I know I ain't going to sleep again. It's lights out at 11. I've got to stay in that bunk until like 6.30 or 7 in the morning. Short potty breaks, but that's it. I've got to be there. The lights are out. Some of you may recall, if you're not drinking, you ain't sleeping. It stays dark a long time, and man, it goes on and on. And I'm laying there, and I'm going to describe what happened to me, not what I did, but what happened to me.

And I'm laying there, and I saw my life like you might see a series of short movies. Not if you've had a near-death experience I want to hear about. I'm fascinated by those. One of my mentors had three of them. But this was over a long period of time that I saw my life. And I've always given myself credit for my intentions. I may be the best intended person you'll ever meet. I have some magnificent intentions. And my favorite one, I used to do close-up magic.

And I was one of these days, I'm going to get a clown suit. When I'm on the road, instead of running the bars and chasing the women and getting screwed up, I'm going to put on the clown suit and take my magic kit into a children's hospital and do a show.

I think you would admit, take a pretty great guy. I haven't done it yet, by the way. Take a really, really great guy. And one of these days. You know, that's what an intention looks like. Our third step talks about a decision. This, for me, is the difference. Between an intention and a decision. An intention is followed by more intentions. A decision is followed by action. That's the difference. That's the difference.

And this night, I'm laying there in that bunk, and I cannot see my intentions. All I can see are my actions. It's not a pretty story. I got to the place where I began to think about the single worst thing I've ever done. I have one that stands alone. I'd always been able to stop it before, you know. Three jacks will do that. Six-pack, I know how to turn that off. Not laying in a bunk in a treatment center, I don't.

And I reached what for me was bottom. I know guys in prison serving long sentences because of alcoholism that are planning to drink. They are not at bottom. I have been in plenty of kinds of trouble myself. I have puked blood, not just once. None of that was bottom. For me, bottom is not on the physical. I don't see the definition in the literature, so I'm going to give you my experience with it. Bottom ain't on the physical plane. Bottom's in here.

Bottom is when I hate my guts and I'm so repulsed by me and what I've done that I would pay anything for relief from that. For me, that was bottom and that's when I reached it. And at that point, this part of me screamed. This did not happen up here. This part of me screamed, and I cannot explain that to you, to a God I don't think I believed in. And it was, God, forgive me. It was like that, but it was in here.

And what I'm going to tell you now all happened in the next second. Suddenly, there was this magnificent light shining just on me, on my bed. It was illuminating the room, but it was shining on me. There was a physical sensation similar to the one when the dentist finishes taking x-rays of your teeth, and they pick that protective blanket up off of you, that lead line thing, something very heavy.

There was something heavy laying on my body all the way. I'm laying on my back, and it's laying all over me, and I'm not aware of it until in that instant this thing flies off of me. And I feel so light physically that I believe I'm going to float off the bed. That's what it feels like. With my eyes closed, I can look around and see that room in better detail than I can see this one right now. Can't explain any of that.

That's what happened. And I knew in that moment that there was a God, that God has the power to forgive me, and I am forgiven. I used to say he forgave me then, and I hope I don't offend anybody. I may, but I hope I don't. I don't know that God forgave me then. I don't know that he ever judged me. I know that I received the forgiveness then. I don't speak for God and I'm not comfortable around people that do. But I know I received the forgiveness in that moment.

and I lay there in the presence of infinite love, and it felt so good it almost hurt, and I can't explain that either. Behind me, and I'm laying on my back, behind me there was a partition that looked kind of like a stucco wall. went up about six or eight feet, and it was the width maybe five or six feet on either side of me. And there were different colors of glass stuck in it at intervals in different shapes, and the light was coming through them and over it.

And he was right there. And I've come to believe that that wall was there because somebody as sick as me can only stand so much love. And I say it felt so good it hurt. And I think if there had been any more, it might have damaged me. And I can't explain that either. But that's what I believe.

And I lay there in the presence of infinite love. And I think I took the first three steps in that moment. And I don't know how long I lay there in the Master's presence. I've talked to other people who've had experiences similar to this one, and they all agree when I say this. What we call time does not exist in that presence. I see some other people nodding. I'd love to talk about it. And I don't know how long. I was there a couple of seconds or a couple of hours. I do not know.

I'm not aware of anything else that passed between us, but there was a great healing that happened for me there. And after that, I must have slept because the next morning I woke up, and that was the first time I'd had that experience in several days. I'd just been laying there all night the other day.

the other nights. And I woke up wanting to be one of his guys. And that was my first experience, my first spiritual experience. And a lot of people feel like they've been robbed because they didn't have one of those. This is page 12. Bill's story. Bottom of the page. But soon the sense of his presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within myself. I can't tell you what Bill Wilson meant by that, but that reminds me of the truth for me.

And that's that I do not believe that that experience alone would have kept me sober 24 years. I don't believe it. That was just a cornerstone for a last gasper like me. I think I was close to death and nobody knew it. I sure didn't. That was a beginning for me.

The rest of this has been absolutely necessary. For the balance of the time that I have the microphone for this weekend, the perspective I'm going to take is how I take someone through the steps. It's either going to be that or how I was taken, which is the same.

If I sound like I'm telling you what to do, I am not. This is the only way I know how to present it. So this is how I take it. If your sponsor disagrees with me, your sponsor is right and I'm wrong in your case. I believe God bless his sponsorship. So you can't use anything I say to argue with your sponsor. And I mean that. I mean that with all my heart. And what I do is I get up to page 60 and begin with A.

That we were alcoholics, could not manage our own lives. Two-part. Okay, are you an alcoholic? The characteristics we found are that once you start drinking, you have little control. Otherwise, you get drunk accidentally. Or you quit forever and mean it. And don't stay quit. And the third one, of course, is you have occasional minor problem staying tight with the truth, like always.

So I want to hear examples on that. Tell me about when you got drunk the night before you had something important to do. I used to get drunk the night before going to fly acrobatics in a high-performance airplane. The Thunderbirds flew one of the planes that I flew.

for seven years, and we did almost everything they did. I'm going to pull five to seven and a half G's tomorrow morning, start it at 7.30. I don't plan to get drunk the night before. I plan to have one or two beers and hang out with the boys for a couple hours. Right? And I start drinking and, you know.

You know the story, and I'm doing those acrobatics or those god-awful hangovers day after day after day. I want to hear how you got drunk by mistake. I want to hear about when you puked your guts out and quit forever and meant it, or she quit you, or she left you, or she caught you, or you were sick.

sat in the back of the police car. The judge said, I want to know. Tell me about it. And I think for a new guy, the longer he talks on this, the better it is. Because he needs it. What he's doing is setting his own cornerstone. Now I want to hear about your life's unmanageable. A parole officer said what? Divorce will be final when? Fired from what? I mean, talk to me. I want to hear what happens when you manage your life.

Let's talk about it. Let's just talk about it. And I say the longer we go with this, the better. And then B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. Well, who tried? Cops? Courts? Wife. Oh, forgive me. I forgot where I was. Wives. Siblings. Psychologists. Psychiatrists. High school counselor. Who tried? Let's talk about that. And I'll tell you, I can't relieve your alcoholism.

With that history that you just gave me, is it logical to deduce that no human power is going to be able in the future to relieve your alcoholism? Is that true for you? And at this point, I want to go to something I think is one of the most powerful concepts we have. This is page...

12 in Bill's story. And I try to see this scene. Here's Ebi Thatcher. He's got 90 days sober in the Oxford groups. He's talking to Bill Wilson, who's drinking. I'm sure Bill wasn't argumentative as a drunk. Yeah, right. Good chance on that, right? And I can see Ebi mentally throwing up his hands and saying, why don't you choose your own conception of God? I can just hear him saying it that way. What a powerful concept. What an invitation.

Why don't you choose your own conception of God? The concept is so important that they tell us again on page 93. The exact same thing. About four lines down in 93 in the chapter, working with others, stress the spiritual feature freely. If the man be agnostic or atheist, make it emphatic. He does not have to agree with your conception of God. He can choose any conception he likes, provided it makes sense to him. Twice we've invited you to choose your own conception. So I want you to do now.

As I want you to lay down what they told you, and I don't care who they are or how qualified they claim to be. We're putting that away. We're also putting away... Not forgetting it, but we're laying it aside for now. We're going to lay aside also what you believe and what you think you believe because you may not even understand what you believe. Let's put that away.

And let's ask you to choose a concept. We're going to make notes. I want single words and short phrases. What characteristics would you like God to have? Not what do you think, what would you like him to have? So we start talking. He says, okay, I need one that's forgiving.

I say, okay, I'm going to make suggestions. If you like my suggestions, take them. If you don't, don't take them. And I say, forgiving was insufficient for me. I'm too guilty for that. I needed a God that was eager to forgive.

They'll say powerful. I say, yeah, I've got to have one that's all powerful, more powerful than I am. Bill Wilson worked real hard not to use the same words over and over. Most of you know about steps six and seven and all that. Part of what Bob read on page 45, in nine lines, the word power appears six times. Not lack of religion, not lack of intelligence, not lack of knowledge, lack of power. So I've got to have a powerful God. How about one that's gentle? How about one loving?

How about one with a sense of humor? I want a God that laughs, don't you? I mean, look at the duck-billed platypus. Did that work for you? If not, look around the room. How about creative? How about a God that's on my side, a God who wants what's best for me, and by the way, he knows what it is, and I clearly don't. How about one whose will is a good deal? If I got here terrified, there might be a God.

Well, Mama, why did Grandma die? Well, it was God's will. Well, it sounds dangerous to me. In addition to which, I've been told that if I'm even thinking it, I'm going to hell. And I'm not only thinking it. So I've got some things that need to change here.

And I tell them what Bob mentioned before. I'm not going to ask you to believe this. All my life, religious people say, believe this. Well, how? Well, just believe it. Wow. They can't tell me and I can't tell you. Here's a gift from my home group. I can tell you what faith is. Faith is hope with a track record. I can ask you to hope this is true.

Why don't you hope this is true? Guilty as you are, why don't you hope that this God is eager to forgive you, has the power to take over and make it work, is gentle, loving, has a sense of humor, is creative, is on your side, who wants the best for you and knows what it is. Why don't you hope that's true for a while?

And we're going to do what the scientists call a working hypothesis. And that means we have reason to believe something may be true. We are now going to apply it on cases and just see what happens. I didn't ask you to believe it. I asked you to put it on the road. How do you think you'd conduct yourself if you believe that? Well, let's conduct you that way for a while and just see what happens. And the reason we have to believe this may be true is we have bracketed my concept of God.

And my program is working, or at least you think so, or you want to ask me to sponsor you. It's one of the most powerful concepts, I think, in the book. Bob, you want to tell them about the rat? Okay. I was a relapser for seven years. And, you know, oddly enough, my last drunk was not my worst one. I had some prior to that that were horrific. I mean, just... And I think a lot of us function off this delusion that there's some sort of ultimate bottom, that when I hit the ultimate bottom, it'll...

It'll be so horrendous and so horrific that I'll be catapulted into sobriety. Never drink again. And it never happened. And yet after I got sober... Something had changed in me. And I was taking actions that I never took before. I wasn't arguing with the people at AA when they said do something. I just did it. And my life was starting to change. In the book, it talks about getting to a place where we can't imagine life either with alcohol or without it.

I am in a trap. I can't spring. It calls it the jumping off place. It says that we'll know a loneliness such as few do and will wish for the end. In 1978, I tried to take my own life. I try to take my own life for a couple reasons. One is a doctor in a detox had screwed me up. He told me that I was in my 20s. He said I was young enough and healthy enough that maybe I could go on like this for five or ten more years.

And I'm on a bridge with a bottle of Richard's Wild Irish Rose because I'm telling you, that ain't going to happen. I'd rather be dead. And I'm on the bridge not because of the shameful things I did, and I had a wealth of that. I'm on the bridge because I'm stuck. I don't understand what's happened to me, but I can't jumpstart the party, and I know it is over. I know I've wrung every ounce of fun out of it.

And now I drink in abject misery and self-pity. And yet I can't live without it either. Because abstinence is a bleak, long, great tunnel that feels like I'm doing time. And I'm stuck. And I tried to kill myself, and I couldn't, because I'm a coward. I was afraid it might hurt, I guess.

You know, they used to call Alcoholics Anonymous the last house on the block. When drinking is awful and not drinking is awful and you can't kill yourself, there's not much left except AA, really. It really is the last house on the block. A guy gave me, you know, people in AA, I came off the street, so people in AA were very kind to me, and they gave me clothes to wear. One guy gave me a box of old books he'd read because he heard me say I like to read.

I was reading a book one day, and it wasn't a recovery book, not a self-help book, not a psychology book. It was just a novel. And I came across this part of the book that blew my mind. And all of a sudden, I knew exactly what had happened to me. And it's a very similar thing to what William James talks about. I got in the book.

There was a section where these scientists were doing experiments on the human brain, and they found that in the human brain there was a section called the, had a Latin name, but they kept referring to it as the pleasure center. It's the part of the brain.

that allows me to experience the high from alcohol and drugs. And they took these laboratory rats, and they put two tiny wire filaments into the pleasure center of the rat's brain. And then they would pass a mild... barely detectable electric stimulus through those wires and it would stimulate the pleasure center of the rat's brain so the rat would get high so what they did is they hooked up the juice to a pedal in the rat's brain and the rat

to a pedal in the rat's cage, and the rat would learn he could hit the pedal and get high. So you know what happened? The rat just laid on the damn pedal. I mean, he don't do nothing else. He just hits that pedal, man. He don't drink water. He don't eat. He don't have sex. He don't do nothing. He just parties. And he hits the pedal until he dies, usually of dehydration, because he's not even stopping to drink water. Now, I've told that story probably a thousand times in Alcoholics. Thanks a lot.

Good morning. My name is Scott Lee, and I am an alcoholic, and very, very grateful to be here. I thought we might open a little bit of play because my wife says that laughter is the sound effect of recovery, and I believe that. Anyway, on page 31 in the text, we're going to do this together. We're going to do a showing of hands.

Despite all we can say, many who are real alcoholics are not going to believe they're in that class. By every form of self-deception and experimentation, they'll try to prove themselves as exceptions to the rule, therefore non-alcoholic. If anyone who is showing inability to control his drinking can do the right about face, drink like a gentleman I have.

are off to them. Heaven knows we have tried hard enough and long enough to drink like other people. Here are some, not all, some of the methods we have tried. Drinking beer only. Who tried the beer experiment? Drinking the hard stuff ain't smoking none of that either. Whitbeds. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Limiting the number of drinks. I'm only going to have two. That was the worst one, I thought. Never drinking alone. Try that. Never drinking in the morning. Now, hold on. Just a technicality.

Brandy Alexander is actually just being continental. Right? That's not really drinking. Yes, that's drinking. Okay. We'll have to call it by its own name. Drinking only at home. Yeah, I sponsor a cop in Nashville. He said he approached the scene of a one-car wreck. The car's like around a phone pole. By the time he gets past the trunk, he can smell the booze. He gets to the front. The window's down. The guy's laying there. Ron leans in and says, Are you okay? The guy says,

You know what, officer? I've absolutely got to stop driving. That made sense to you, didn't it? Never having it in the house. Did you ever pour it out? Did they ever pour it out? No. Oh, yeah. Okay, never drinking during business hours. Now, technically, lunch is not business hours. And a friend of mine says, anytime I'm defending myself with a technicality, I'm already wrong.

Yeah, he did that. Drinking only at parties. Well, I'm a party hunting a location, aren't you? I'm a mobile. Switching from scotch to brandy. Try to move to something you didn't like so you wouldn't drink too much of it. Yes, sir. Drinking only natural wines. No, that ripple was never anywhere near a grape. No, we're not counting. You know, the problem with the wines is when you puke, it's stringy. You've always got to wipe.

Have you seen the ads on TV for this new Budweiser beer, Budweiser Select? And one of the things I say about it is, finish is clean. You've seen that? I know what that means. That means you put it right where you want it when you puke, and you don't even have to wipe.

So when you see that commercial, you'll know. Finish is clean, right? Agreeing to resign if ever drunk on the job. Anybody ever get trapped on the job? Taking a trip, not taking a trip. Don't you love that? Swearing off forever. Who quit forever? Who quit forever solemn oath on the Bible in front of witnesses at least once? All right, that's pretty good. Who peed in the closet? Did you really? I never did that. I'm so embarrassed for you.

I don't believe I would have told that. There's a big difference between a fifth step and sharing in a meeting. I don't believe I would have told. I will admit my first wife still met about that antique coffee table we used to have in the living room. I will give you that. Who's taking meetings into jails and prisons? Keep them up for a minute. Anybody else, if you're suffering from depression, get with one of these people and take one meeting into the joint.

Just one. It will break a depression faster than anything else I've ever seen. And it won't have a negative impact on your recovery. It's an amazing process. Taking more physical exercise. You ever try that? I was playing tennis stoned one time. Let me tell you something. Running and laughing are a bad combination. You can get hurt doing that. Reading inspirational books. Who's got everything Og Mandino ever wrote? Yes, sir. There we are.

We're the ones that buy all of that stuff, right? Going to health farms and sanitariums. Where do you think you are? Accepting voluntary commitment to asylums. I was actually captured and put in the asylum. I didn't volunteer. We can increase the list ad infinitum. It's Latin. It means forever. I thought it was kind of an interesting point. Page 60.

We talked last night about a God concept, this idea of let's choose one and what those characteristics might be. So, A, he convinces me he's alcoholic and can't manage his own life. B, no human power could have relieved us alcoholism. None did in the past, none can in the future. And before I go to C, I want to establish a God concept that can work. And I think that was so important to do that piece. And it says...

There's an interesting thing actually at the top of page 57. It says, Save for a few brief moments of temptation, the thought of drink has never returned, and at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him. I'll tell you what, that's a sane reaction for a guy with my kind of history. I say I don't see where it promises me manageability, but it sure promises me sanity. And this is one of them.

It says seemingly he could not drink even if he would. God had restored his sanity. Sanity of action. Sanity of action. What is this but a miracle of healing? Its elements are simple. Circumstances made him willing to believe. In a case like mine, it means he worked himself into a crack he could not lie his way out of.

Right? Circumstances made him willing to believe. He humbly offered himself to his maker and then he knew. It doesn't say he said, you know, get me out of this and I'll never do it again. Or God do all of this and I'll... Some of you are old enough to remember it. Praying to the great Monty Hall in the sky. You know, let's make a deal. Remember that show? Let's make a deal. Yeah, I was always trying to do that. But he didn't ask for help here. He said, give me some help. He said, take me.

Carte Blanche means white paper. When I give somebody Carte Blanche, it means I signed the bottom blank and hand it to you and you fill it in any way you want to. That's what this is. Take me. Then he knew. Even so, as God restored us all to our right minds, to this man the revelation was sudden. Some of us go into more slowly. Here's one of the most powerful promises in the book, I think. But he has come to all who have honestly sought him.

When we drew near to him, he disclosed himself to us. A friend of mine says that the analogy is God's a little bit like the mother of a three-year-old playing hide and seek with her child. Where does she hide? She hides where the child can find her. All that child must do is seek. This is my heavenly parent. And I don't have to find him. I just have to seek. Page 60. See that God could and would if he were sought. Well, this God we talked about, we said, was all-powerful. So I say he could.

And would, well, let's see. He loves me. He's gentle. He's eager to forgive. He has a sense of humor. He wants what's best for me. I'd say he would if he were sought, not found. Item one, God is not lost, does not require to be found, but simply sought. And I wish, just for myself, when we read this portion in the meetings, we'd pick up this next phrase. It says, being convinced we are at step three. Convinced of what? A, B, and C. Are you convinced of A, B, and C? Welcome to step three.

which is that we decided to turn our will and life over to God, as we understand. It doesn't say over to the care of God. It says over to God. In the short form of the step, it says over to the care of God. And I don't have an editorial on that, but I do observe it. But I do observe what my sponsor told me.

that step three is clearly not where we turn our will and lives over to God or over to the care of God. If we could do that at step three, we would have a three-step program. What could be left after that? This is where we decide to do that. I learned this from Bob. The word decide comes from the Latin verb scissore, which means to cut. It's the same root word as the word for scissors or incision. A decision, I cut away the other options.

And act upon the one I have decided. That's what the word means. So step three is where I decide to turn my will and life over to the care of God. Or over to God. Pick one. And I think the question then becomes. How do I do that? And I believe the answers are numbered 4 through 12, short form. Having had a spiritual awakening sounds a lot like well in life over to God. Spiritual awakening, in my experience, is a process.

And there was a moment this morning when I was asleep, and the next moment I was awake. But a few seconds later, I was more awake. And when Linda and I finished our morning prayers, I was more awake when I stepped out of the shower. I was more awake. I'm more awake now than I was when I got out of the shower. I think this spiritual awakening thing continues to be that way, that there's not an end to it. It's not a yes or no question. It's a process that if I stay involved in this.

doesn't end. And that's one of the most exciting parts about it. I was sober less than a year, and I heard a speaker who was sober 22 years. No, he was sober 20. Talk about he and his sponsor lived in different cities at this point, and they hadn't been together in about a year.

His sponsor had 22, and they had spent their first two hours together talking about all the new stuff they'd learned and all the growth they'd had since the last time they'd been together. I thought, wow. So there's not an end to that. Continuing on page 60, just what do we mean by that and just what do we do? The first requirement, aha, there are requirements. And if there's a first, there must be more than one.

First requirements, we'd be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. Have you ever seen one? I never have. I've seen a lot of lives run on self-will. I've seen them that were financially successful. I've seen some people I would love to trade wallets with. But I wouldn't trade hearts because I've seen them with a lot of money that don't smile.

I have not seen a life run on self-will that looked like a complete success to me. Have you? I'm saying again, this is how I present this to a new guy in recovery. A new guy is someone I'm sponsoring for the first time, even if he's got more time than I do. He's still new to me.

And this is how I present it. It says, on that basis, we're almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Collision. Bam. Bit metal, broken glass, blood, screaming. That's collision. That's different from like mild disagreement on rare occasion. Collision. And then it says, astoundingly enough, even though our motives are good.

I've been hearing people in meetings for 24 years say, check your motives. And here it says very clearly, that won't work. I hear a lot of popular stuff in the fellowship that seems to be in direct conflict with what the text says.

It does tell me in two places to check my motives. It says if I'm going to bed with somebody, is my motive selfish? It says when I'm going where they serve booze, do I really have a good reason to be? It's the only place it tells me to check my motive. Everywhere else it tells me principle.

This is my perspective on that. When I operate from motive, I'm actually playing God. It's one of the ways I play God. Because with motive, I'm making it come out the way I think it should come out. And that's playing God. When I operate from principle, I'm doing what I think God wants me to do irrespective of result. That's how I turn it over to him is I use his means. It's that simple. And I got this lesson. I'm a commission salesman. I call on major accounts. That's what I do for a living.

I had a customer at a major account who was putting a lot of money in my pocket, and he could have tripled that by adding items. We were close personal friends. This guy was a Lutheran. I still don't know what that means. Because we had spiritual discussions like I had with you guys, but not a religious one. So I really don't know much about that religion, but I know about his spirituality, and he knew about mine. Our wives were friends. We're guests at each other's home. I am close to this guy.

I get a phone call from him, and he says, my wife's just given birth. It's two months early, and the news from the hospital is not good. He says, would you come down here and pray over this child? I said, you bet I would. I got in my car and I drove to Vanderbilt Hospital. I can remember pulling into the parking lot, doing what I've been told, checking my motives, right? And I can't answer the question.

I can't tell you. I can't tell me, honestly. Am I going down there to pray over this child to bring spiritual relief to this family? Or am I going down there to pray over this child to look good to the old man so he'll put another couple of hundred thousand dollars a year in my pocket? I cannot answer the question.

And I believe this. When I can't get an answer, one of two things is in place. I've either asked the wrong question, and the right question on the wrong day is still the wrong question. Or... Or it's okay that I make a mistake here because all of my lessons can't be learned without mistakes. See, I'm not supposed to be perfect. I'm supposed to make mistakes. It's my assignment. We'll talk about that when we get into step four.

And sometimes I have to make a mistake and live with the results so that I can learn. And I volunteered. I gave God the carte blanche. I prayed the third step prayer and I meant it. And that means I've also volunteered to make mistakes and go through things so maybe somebody else can watch it who couldn't have gone through it so that they can get a lesson. You see, I signed on for that too. And I don't know. And so I sit there in that car and I don't have any time.

I know it's the right question. It's the right day. I need to know right now. And I said, Father, I need some help here, please. I'm not going to ask you to believe this came from God. I want you to know that I believe it. And the next thing that came into my mind was a very clear question.

And the question was, does going into a hospital to pray over a sick child violate any of your principles? And the answer was no. Then go ahead and do it because there are no wrong reasons for doing the right thing. There are no wrong reasons for doing the right thing. There are likewise no right reasons for doing the wrong thing. Page 42. Last two lines.

Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. I've got to get out of the motive business. It gets me nothing but trouble. Page 60. Twelve, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we try to carry this message to alcoholics and to have good motives in all our affairs. Not what it says. And motive and principle are frequently opposed.

I have got to get out of the motive business because it makes me crazy. I operate from principle is how I do it his way. I'm blue collar. I'm not in management anymore. I'm not responsible for the result. I'm responsible for my own action. It was a huge lesson for me. Maybe one more example, and I'm going to turn this over to Bob for a few minutes.

Interesting story. These two married people were in good shape financially. They both had great jobs. They had plenty of vacation time. Their kids both played in the high school band. They had band practice that afternoon on a safe ride home. And they decided... to spend an afternoon in a motel because it felt to them like they had lost the spark from the early part of their relationship, and they thought they might regain it that way. Was everybody saying that's a pretty good motive?

We've got to be in good shape with this, right? Did I leave out the detail that they're not married to each other? Did I miss that part? Yeah, details. I am capable. of that kind of thinking, if I go with motive. A fellow I used to sponsor, we were sitting in a meeting one time, and there was a new girl in town in our meeting. She said, I've just moved here from wherever. Gorgeous young lady.

He leans over to me and he says, I think I'm going to get a map of the city and mark some of the better meetings for her and give it to her after the meeting, you know, try to help her get started well in Nashville, AA. And I said, well, I think that's a really good motive. But I noticed there's a guy that just moved here, too. Why don't you give it to him?

and his face just fell. I've got to make sure I'm not giving the map to the new girl. That gets me nothing but trouble. So I do so much better when I operate from principle rather than motive. It's one of the reasons I need a sponsor is to help me differentiate.

Bob? Thank you, Scott. Good morning. I'm Bob Darrell. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Bob. The 12 by 12, it says the effectiveness of the whole AA program rests on what we're... talking about this morning, this ability to or commitment to or being convinced that we must make this decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God. In 1978, my first couple months of sobriety, I was in a meeting. And I...

I was in a meeting, and I shared something at the meeting that got this old-timer's attention. He cornered me after the meeting, and he said to me, he says, Bob, he says, you've got to take step three. And I'm looking at the wall where they have the 12 steps. I'm reading the step, and I said to this guy, Joe, I said, Joe, I can't take step three. And he said, why not? I said, because I don't really know if there's a God or not. He said, you don't have to believe in God to take step three.

I said, Joe, it says we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Not only don't I understand God, I don't even know if there is one. He said, you don't have to believe in God to take step three. I said, I don't get it. He says, listen, kid, he says, I'll make you promise. If you'll turn your will and your life over to this chair, and he points to a chair in the meeting room, he says, I guarantee you an instant miracle.

So I said, okay, I turned my will and my life over the chair. What's the miracle? He says, oh, the miracle would be your life's no longer in the hands of an idiot. When he said that, I didn't even get my feelings hurt. I just thought. Yeah, that'd be right. Because if you'd have followed me around and observed me the last couple years as maybe your family or loved ones or coworkers have observed you.

If they could really see what was going on with you, whoever watched you would easily come to the decision and the conclusion that whoever's making decisions for this person is out to destroy them. And yet... Inside of me, my ego defends everything I've ever done, no matter how self-destructive. And I can't see it.

In 1978, after seven years of relapsing, when he said that to me, there was no defense. I didn't defend myself. My ego had been pushed out of me just enough that I was able to go, yeah, that'd be right. That would be right. I think to move closer to God is not to move closer to God so much as to move away from me. Right? And this whole thing is moving.

My friend Sandy says, his sponsor told him, he says, why don't you just turn your will and your life forward or whatever will take it? You know, just like. There's no prize. Right, there's no right. I mean, if you can find something and take it, you've lucked out, man. I mean, because when you think about it, if you look at your life objectively, if you stand back from it, I mean... The problem I face in the book says the alcoholic's problem lies mainly in his mind. Well, when I'm afraid...

When I'm frustrated, when I'm in conflict with life, I don't know about you guys, what's the first thing you do? It's probably the first thing I do. Think. I turn towards the source of the problem. trying to get an answer, right? Einstein said one time that a mind that creates a problem cannot solve it. And I am the source of all my problems. And I was very lucky to have gotten just enough of me kicked out of me that I could...

I didn't defend myself when people in AA said something. I was the defender, the explainer, the justifier, and the rationalizer. And I was able to stand there when he said that and just go, yeah, you're right. I've had two problems with step three, minor problems, step one and step two, basically. When you've got step one and step two, step three is automatic. There's nowhere else to go.

There is nowhere else to go. You'll turn your will and your life over to a chair, anything, because you're stuck. And you can't fix it. Nobody else can fix it. You've tried everything on the horizon. And here you are. There's nowhere else to go. I think sometimes the ABCs, if you got A, I think A plus B equals C sometimes.

If I really get that I was alcoholic and I could not manage my own life, and I am, as the book says, convinced, being convinced. If I'm convinced of that, and I'm convinced that no human power... If I got both of those things, what's left? Maybe there better be something that could, and I better seek it, whatever it is. There's nowhere else to go.

One of my favorite authors, he says that. I encourage the guys I sponsor. What's to think about? How does a surrendered person act? Get a vision of that. Because there are going to be times when your head's attacking you. You've got to act like that guy, not you. Right? How does a surrendered person conduct himself in life? How would I respond to this scary situation if I really knew that I was in the hands of God? How would I respond?

One of my favorite authors says that I travel a lot. When you travel a lot, it's like... I think the airlines create forced surrenders periodically. I mean, you don't have much choice, right? And Kurt Vonnegut, in one of his books, he said that... Unusual last-minute drastic changes in travel plans or dancing lessons from God. Am I able to go with the flow?

I can measure my distance from my surrender sometimes by how willing I am to change me to fit the things that are occurring that aren't my idea and I don't like. I can measure. If I'm the guy who's angst over that, well, that's a measure of my distance from God and my distance from my own surrender.

I came to Alcoholics Anonymous with this. In our book, it talks about our spiritual kit of tools that have been laid in our feet. And it's laid at our feet because I got one. My toolkit has two tools. I hammer in a crowbar. Right? That's all I got. Maybe some duct tape if you'll sit still. I mean, that's about all I got. And I've had to pick up some different things. It's funny how in 1978...

My abstinence was so much less painful than every time I got sober before. And what I've discovered is that pain... does not come from change. It comes from my resistance to change. That's what pulls at me and hurts me. is that life is moving the flow of life and God's will is moving me in one direction and I'm trying to go to the other. That's very, very painful. Page 62. To me, it was one of the most crucial paragraphs. My sponsor got on a kick for...

a long time in my early sobriety where it seemed like whatever I asked him, he would say, well, just go read page 60 through 63. And now what I learned over the years is I have the guys I sponsored. take a pencil and go through that part of the book and cross out all the plural pronouns and put it a first-person pronoun. So, in other words, in the ABC, it says we were alcoholic. No, I was alcoholic and could not manage.

My own life. And I haven't changed it to first person. Because when I first started reading this. It's all in the third person. So it's like about you. Right? And I could see it was about you. I could see there were people in AA that were self-centered and they were trying to run the whole show. I mean, I could really see that very clearly. I figured my sponsor wanted me to read this so I'd know so I could straighten you out.

And it's funny, there's a line in the 12 by 12 that says that we will be quick to see our defects in others and slow to see them in ourselves. One day... One day some magic happened in my life, and sometimes spiritual magic happens when spiritual principles meet spiritual pain. I was having one of those kind of days where I was getting crazier and crazier by the minute. One of those kind of crazy days where there's nothing really big.

going on to justify the angst that's occurring inside of me. But it's one of those days where I go to work... And the customers are just kind of annoying. You know what I mean? They're all very self-centered. They all want a lot of attention. You know what I mean? And my boss is just very... He doesn't understand all the things I do for him. I'm not really appreciated. I can see him. He's taking advantage of me. I'm working harder than all the other employees there.

And as the day goes on, every little interaction with someone is like a tightening of a spring in the pit of my stomach. A little tighter. A little tighter. I get off work and I'm secretary in a meeting that night. And I have to stop by the grocery store to get some styrofoam cups for the meeting. I'm in a hurry. I'm meeting a new guy at the meeting. So I'm kind of on a mission from God.

And I go to the grocery store. I get the styrofoam cup packet. I get in the 13-item or less line, that express line, and there's a woman in front of me with 15 items. I counted them twice. The second time I'm counting them, I'm pointing at each item, right? Now I want to choke her. But here's what I really want to do. I really want to go back in the office. I want to get the manager. I want to pull him out here. I want to make him count the items.

Point at the sign, right? That's what I really – but I'm in a hurry, so I'll just slow me down, and I just like – it's like the spring, tighter and tighter. I get out of there. I get in traffic. I get behind a woman who is driving five miles an hour below the speed limit. My head is going to explode. I have thoughts of... flooring it, slamming into her, or both die, but she'll realize, right? I mean, I'm insane. I'm insane. I get to the meeting. My new guy's there. He's there waiting for me.

I tell him where to sit. I tell him where to sit. I get the literature all laid out. I wait for the perfect two guys to come in to chair this meeting to give my guy the message of hope he needs. I tell a guy, the one guy, I say, listen, we're not going to read Chapter 5. We've got a new guy here. We're going to read Chapter 3. You know, people in AA, when you're a nutcase, they just shrug their shoulders and go, yeah, whatever, you know, right? So I'm laying this out. I can picture this guy.

Getting a year mentioning my name. The meeting starts and they read chapter 3 and the chairperson... Says, does anybody have anything they want to share? And some guy, evidently just out of treatment, raises his hand and he starts talking about shooting heroin. Another guy in the meeting cuts him off and says, you can't.

Talk about that. This is alcohol exonymous. Somebody else jumps in and says, hey, wait a minute. He can talk about anything he wants to talk about. And it's instantly the meeting from hell. You know what I mean? It's horrible. And I'm sitting there and I'm fuming. After all I've done, right? No one's ever done so much for so many so often for so little. And I am like, I'm ready to quit Alcoholics Anonymous because I'm the only one here that really sees the spiritual truth here. Right? And I'm...

I get the meetings over. I throw the literature in the bag and storm out of the meeting, and I go home, and like Pavlov's dog, I call my sponsor because I've been trained to do that. My sponsor says read page 60 through 63. And listen to what I found. The bottom is page 60. He says, I'm... I'm like the actor who wants to run the whole show, is forever trying to arrange the traffic, the people in the grocery store, the customers, the other employees, the people sharing in AA.

in his own way if his arrangements would only stay put if only people would do as he wished the show would be great everybody including myself would be pleased and life would be wonderful And for the first time in my life, I saw it was me. And I've got to tell you something. Until I could put that on and wear it, Alcoholics Anonymous is just information. It's just academic.

It never gets into here. There's a place in step one where it talks about where this program happens. And it starts out with step one saying, we learned we had to fully concede. not intellectually, to our innermost self. That's why Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 Steps is not an academic process. It's an experiential process.

It has to happen in here. And we all know people who could memorize the book, who could put on fantastic step workshops. They got it up here, but they don't get it down here. And what happens? Well, the ego, if you're like me, the ego chooses its weapons wisely. And the ego will take the big book. It'll take spiritual principles. It'll take the traditions. And it'll use them to feel smugly superior and to be in control. The ego doesn't care what it uses.

And people that do that, they don't know that they're doing that because they know they can back it up. They can show you page numbers. But aren't they really separating themselves from others? Ego cares about its own self-grandizement, and that's it. And this part of the book really starts to talk about the enemy. Because if I'm going to know what I'm moving towards, I need to know what I'm moving away from.

What has been running my life? I remember Chuck Chamberlain one time. It was unbelievable. He stood at the podium in the middle of his talk, and he looked out at the audience, and he's rubbing his hands together, and he's looking everybody in the eyes, and he took about three minutes. He says, what controls you? And he looked at somebody else. He says, what controls you? And when he looked at me, I got chills.

I knew something was driving me. I just didn't know what it was. Because I felt like something had been driving me all my life. What driver am I trying to get away from? I know where I'm supposed to go. I'm supposed to go towards God. And I think the same thing is true in the realm of the spirit that's true in the realm of the fellowship.

In order to stay in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, I've had to learn the roads out of AA. I know what it looks like to leave AA. And you've got to learn how to leave AA in order to stay here. How do you leave AA? One judgment at a time. One compromised principle. One little more inundation of self and one moving away from helping others and moving towards helping yourself.

If I'm going to learn how to stay in the fellowship, I've got to learn how to leave. And if I'm going to learn how to move towards God, I've got to learn how to move away from me. It's a funny deal. And on page 62, it starts to talk about the root, really the root of my problem. And it says selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think is the root of our troubles. It uses the word self a lot in this book. On the bottom of page 61, the first line, in the last paragraph, it equates ego and self.

when it says our actor is self-centered, egocentric. So ego-centered and self-centered, according to the book, they're equating them as being the same thing. So... If selfishness, self-centeredness is the root of my troubles, that means that everything else comes from that. And that's going to prove to be true in the fourth step when we start looking for manifestations of self. defeated us everything that is my problem is connected with self everything the problem with self-righteousness is self

The problem with self-justification is self, is that I got the wrong driver. Selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think is the root of our trouble. I had a hard time seeing that. And I consider, I have always considered myself bright. I had a high IQ. I don't know what, I must have.

Drank it up. Drank it, drugged it, and drank it up or something. Because sometimes I'm a knucklehead, man. I don't know how I could sit in meetings and listen to people talking about self-centeredness and sit there. And honestly, I remember this like yesterday. Sit there and... I think to myself, well, at least I'm glad I don't have a lot of problems, but I'm glad I don't have that one. I mean, geez, I'm not self-centered. I thought self-centered people were confident.

I thought self-centered and self-confident were connected. I thought self-centered people thought they were better than everybody else. And I secretly felt like I was worse than everybody else. I had a wealth of shame within me. And so I don't think I'm self-centered. What I don't realize is that even though I think very poorly of myself, I do it constantly. I am centered on myself.

And I was sitting in a meeting and some woman is sharing. And do you ever sit in a meeting where they go around the room to share? If you've ever been in a meeting like that and you're like me. You don't, you're not really, you're daydreaming, you're not really paying attention until it starts to get close to you, right? Then you start listening. And this woman is sharing and she used the term, she said she went through life totally self-absorbed.

And I'm sitting there and I'm thinking about what I'm going to say, what you're going to think about what I'm going to say, how I should sit while I'm saying it so I look like I know what I'm talking about. I'd been thinking prior to that about my job, my finances, my love life, my feelings, my past, my future.

And when she said self-absorbed, like I got it, I'm totally absorbed in myself. I think underneath the obsession with alcohol, drugs, anything else, there's the grand... daddy of all obsessions aren't I first and foremost obsessed with myself my feelings my security my well-being what you think of me

Me, me, me. I think the theme song of Alcoholics Anonymous should be, I, I, I, I, me, me, me, me, me. You know, it's just like, I don't know about you, I wake up in the morning. What's the first thing I think about? Me, pretty much. I don't wake up wondering about you. Unless it has to do with me. If it has to do with me, I'm wondering about you a lot. I wonder what you can do for me. Yeah, what you can do for me.

So selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think is the root of our troubles. Most of my life, when I wasn't drinking, I felt like I lived in a world that I was disconnected and apart from. Almost at times... Sober and social gatherings where it would seem like there's some sort of invisible yet impenetrable barrier between me and life itself. Something I could not surmount or break through. And everyone else on the other side.

of the window, the barrier is all connected and a part of and intimate and having a wonderful time and then there's me. And there was a time in my life where four shots of tequila and the barrier would go away. and I'd be free, and I'd feel like they look. And then as alcoholism progressed, and I lost the ability to do that, the book says we know a loneliness such as few do, because I can't get out of the box no more.

Alcohol in the later years had stopped relieving me of the bondage of self. And alcohol was a very spiritual tool at one time. And you know the word... Alcohol is referred to as spirits. And the word spirit comes from the Latin. It means the breath of life. Which is when you take your first drink after days of absence. Do you ever have that feeling of... the breath of life. And somehow, in the early days when the hook was set, alcohol relieved me of this self-obsession. It freed me.

And we all remember those times when a guy like me who doesn't really care about anybody, who doesn't fit, cannot connect. And I can't even listen to other people. After five drinks, man, I just love everybody. After about five drinks, man, I'm there for you, man. I'm there for you. Really and truly, I can hear you. I'm right here now. And then I'd sober up, and I'm back in the jail cell again, right? I'm back being a prisoner locked up in me.

So this is the root of our troubles, and then it says we're driven, and oh man, I felt driven most of my life. Driven by a hundred forms of fear. Well, I don't know if there's a hundred. But there's a lot. Remorse is fear. It's fear of retribution, fear of what you think of me, fear of being found out, fear of being caught, guilt's fear. Apprehensions fear. Anxiety is fear. Worry is fear. It's funny how I discount all that stuff. Oh, I'm not afraid.

Anger is always based on fear. That's one of the great things out of the resentment inventory is I find that everything, every resentment came because something was threatened. Something was hurt or threatened. So I'm driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, that psychotic, wishful thinking. Life's not really like this, but I want it to be a certain way so bad I imagine that it is.

Who's the crazy person interacting with people when I expect you to be something you never said you were and then when you're not, I'm pissed? Who's the crazy person in that equation? Self-seeking. Isn't it first and foremost all about me getting what I need? And self-pity. Self-pity is the most hideous aspect of self. I hate self-pity. I liked the word depression. Depression. Now, depression, you can go to your friends and they say, Bob, what's wrong?

I have deep depression. Oh, let me buy you a drink. If you go to your friends, what's wrong, Bob? I'm feeling sorry for myself. It's such an unmanly emotion. Self-pity. It's pathetic, isn't it? I'll tell you the first time I caught myself being driven by self-pity. Early sobriety, there was a guy in my home group who...

I was having a big party up on the hill. Open house party, there were flyers out. I was sitting in my home group. I watched him walk across the room and personally invite somebody. Now, he never did that for me. So Sunday morning of the party, one of my friends calls me up and says, are you going up to so-and-so's house for the party? No, I'm not going to go. Why not? Well, I just don't feel like...

They really want me up there. What are you talking about? It's your home group. It's an open house. No, that's all right. You go ahead. Don't worry about me. I'm going to watch some reruns of Gilligan's Island. Isn't that pathetic? It's squirmy. It's awful. And yet...

How often would I see, even drunk or sober, sit with a bottle of vodka? I had an Alaskan Malmute before I couldn't take care of it anymore. My parents eventually took it off my hands because I couldn't even feed it because I couldn't. That was on the streets. But this dog was so funny. I'd get a bottle of wine, and the dog just loved me. And I'd sit there with Marv around the dog, and I'd drink wine.

And I'd start talking about how I've been mistreated. And I'd start crying. And the dog would start howling. And I'd be crying and the dog's howling. Oh, it was just a pity fest. It was wonderful. I kind of get warm and mushy. Just thinking about it now. Self-pity. Driven by all of these things. Fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, self-pity. I step on the toes of everybody around me.

And what happens? What happens when somebody steps on your toes? Eventually, you might turn the other cheek once or twice. Eventually, you're going to retaliate. Eventually, other people just get it up to here with us. And then they start firing on us. The problem is, I don't know what I've done. I can't see past myself. Alcoholics live in a paradigm of self-destruction, and we don't even get it.

We don't even get it. We feel like victims. We don't know why people are turning on us. And it tells us here exactly why. It says sometimes they hurt us.

seemingly without provocation, seemingly to me, like without any reason. Why, for God's sakes, after all I've done for them, are they doing this to me? But, and this is a vision of what I'll find in step four, But I will invariably, which means almost always, I will invariably find that at some time in the past, I've made decisions based on self, on me, and my security.

and my gratification, and what I want, and protecting what I have, and what you think of me. I made decisions based on me, which later placed me in that position to be hurt. The book says, so our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. I tell the guys I sponsor this, and it's really true. I said, if you do the fourth step as it's outlined in the big book, and Scott and I are going to spend a lot of time on this.

Not only will it change you, but you will go to meetings for the rest of your life and you will know after five minutes of listening to a guy whether he has ever done it or not. Because the people that do it are never the same. And a lot of things change. But one of the basic things that's never the same is you're never able to sell yourself the bill of goods on any occasion that you're a victim. You know the truth.

You know, I'm the guy who put the target on my head. I'm the guy who put the kick me sign on me, right? I'm the guy who did the impersonation of someone who needs to be hurt long enough until somebody hurt me. I'm the guy. Right. Scott, you want to go for a moment? Yeah. I was reminded a friend of mine said, and I thought it was true in my case, there are only two things the alcoholic does not like, the way things are and change.

And I think this process that we're in is to try to get me into a different mindset. I love the way Bob covers this stuff. And I thank you all again for the chance to come sit here next to him and do this. I get so much out of it.

At this point on page 62, my sponsor said to me, how would you like some good news? I said, man, I could go for some good news. He said, I'm not talking about good. He said, how would you like to hear the most fantastic, the very best news you're ever going to hear in your entire life? I said, I'm on for that, Jerry. What is it? He said, it's right here. I said, all right, hit me with it. He says, so our troubles we think are basically our own making. Was that it, Jerry? Yeah, that was it.

I don't get it. He said, that's the best news you're ever going to get. Because if it really is, the cops, the courts, the judges, the wife, the Chinese, the Russians, and the PTA, and the neighbors, and the in-laws. If it really is them, you are cooked. Because we can't do a thing about them. The good news is that you are the problem. And if you'll bring a little willingness to this party, we can work on that. I think he was right. I think it's the best news I ever got. I am the problem. Wow.

Rise out of ourselves. Alcoholics is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he doesn't usually think so. Above everything. I wonder if that's important. Above everything. That's somewhere right along in the middle, right? Above everything! We alcoholics must, there are no musts, here's another one. We alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness above everything. And then here's a simple reason. We must, or it kills us. Oh, well.

That's not very subtle. And it says God makes that possible. And I was offended by that for a while. And I understand it on a different level now. I'll share it just in case you can use it. I believe, this is just red flags, this is just my experience. I was given as part of the gift of this life and this body, the gift of self-will. And that...

God will intervene in a life like mine. A guy like an Air Force pilot with 2,000 hours of flying time, some of it drunk, most of it very hungover, doesn't live. Right? We bury those. Plus all that other stuff I was doing. So he does intervene in some ways. But there's a limit somehow, and I don't know where it is, but I believe there's a limit. But when I pray this third step prayer, when I give the carte blanche, when I say, take me.

I think it opens up that I offer that self-will back to him as a gift. It opens up his coming in to make changes in my life. And I can't explain that. I don't want to defend it. But that is my experience with it. That's part of what this is about, is I had to just enjoy all I could stand of my own self-will. Because a guy like me, a hard-headed guy like me, ain't going to get it any other way. And at that point, then I'm willing for it to be his way.

Fully willing. I'm signing it. I don't have any questions. I'm signing it. That's what this is about. And I believe that he will honor that self-will all the way to death. Because I see it happen. I see... nice people like us, die of this disease, who had this presented to them. And I don't believe that we were chosen and he wasn't. I believe that I got to a point where I was willing to have it God's way, and I don't care what that means anymore.

I can't stand any more of mine. And that was the peace that opened the door for me. There often seems no way of getting entirely rid of self without his aid. This concept is so important that we're going to tell me twice in this paragraph. That self doesn't have the power to push self out of the center. I'm going to talk about that when we get to step six and seven of the beautiful lesson I got from a sponsor. I had moral philosophical convictions galore, but I couldn't live up to them.

Neither could I reduce my self-centeredness by wishing or trying on my own power. I had to have God's help. So there it is twice. I've got to have God's help for this thing. This is the how and the why, but first of all, we had to quit playing God.

I trapped one of my teachers in a hotel lobby for three hours one morning. Literally. And I was firing questions at him and making notes. And I learned so much that morning. At one point, I think he became tired. And he said, let me ask you a question. I thought, all right. Here, I'm going to get a chance to impress him. And he said, on page 62, he agreed to quit playing God. I said, yes. He said, how did you play God? I said, I don't know. And he said, here's how I played God.

I became angry when someone died. And that's me saying I know who should die and how and when. And clearly that is plain God. I tried to manage my own life and the lives around me. And the closer someone was to me, the harder I tried to manage their life playing God. I judged people. And the reason I know that is because I had resentment. The word resent comes from the Latin re means again, like reread. It's something you do another time. And centiri means to feel. So resent means to feel again.

And to get a resentment, I must first judge someone, find them guilty, be angry with them, and then feel that anger again. So that's by definition. Resent means to feel again old anger. And if I've got resentment, I had to start by judging. It's the only way to get one. Those were his. I have added some of my own. One is that I trusted my motive. When operating from motive, I'm playing God, very simply. I know how it should turn out. See, I'm not on the results committee anymore.

I can't be if I'm not going to be in management. So I trusted my motive. Another was that I needed to know. I asked the question, why? Whenever I'm asking why, I'm playing God. That's how it is for me. Trying to sell this to you. That's how it is for me. Because I ask you why. I'm saying if St. Scott can get enough pieces here, he will paste all this together and it will now work. Yeah, my spiritual arrogance knows no bounds. It really doesn't.

Another one was that I was certain that everything that I knew was correct. And if you disagreed with me, you were clearly a fool. And that is playing God. And it, by the way, completely blocks the learning process. And the one I just recently discovered was that I lied. I didn't recently discover that I lied. I have actually suspected it for some time. Let me present that another way for you. I think you just lied. It's my turn.

What I mean was I just realized that lying was one of the ways I played God. Because when I lie, what I'm doing is I'm making the result come out the way I think it should come out. And I get outside of principle by doing that. So when I lie, I'm actually playing God because I'm governing the result. It was big stuff for me. First of all, we had to quit playing God. So I asked him, are you willing? These are some of the ways I did. Are you willing?

Next, we decided here after this drama of life, God was going to be our director. He's the principal. We are his agency. He's the father. We are his children. This is the decision referred to in the short form of the step. Are you prepared to make this decision? And if you need some time, I want you to take it. We're not messing around here. This is not light-duty stuff. These aren't just words. You want some time? Take it. Generally, they say, I'm ready. Say, fine.

give that back to me in the first person singular, and he will say, I have decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God is going to be my director. He is the principal. I am his agent. He is the father. I am his child. And I will say, I believe you have made an excellent decision.

I want to make a pact with you. And the pact is that that decision will stand in your life until such time as you go completely insane and decide to change it. And if that day ever comes, that you will formally change it as you have formally made it. with me or with one of my successors. Do we have a deal? We do. We shake on it. If I bring him through the steps another time, I do not call for a decision at step three. I say, you have a good decision in place. Do we need to talk about it?

then let's leave it. I don't need to keep making this decision. I love what Bob says, that there's a yes in every barrel of no's. I don't want the lid off the barrel. And I love the metaphors, the masonry metaphors. Most good ideas are simple. This concept is the keystone. I wonder if that's important, the keystone. The keystone is the thing that makes the arch work. It's shaped differently from all the others. It's right there in the middle.

And it's the thing that makes it work. Keystone. Above everything. New and triumphant arts through which we pass to freedom. And then we have the... The third step promises, I'm sure you're familiar with them, and because of time constraints, I'm not going to read them all, but I want to make a point about four or five lines down. It says,

Established on such a footing, we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and more, we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. Above everything, we must be rid of this selfishness. So what's happened between above everything and the beginning of this thing I must have, which it just described. And what's happened is I have made the decision that I'm going to quit playing God with his help.

Because I'm going to need it. That's what it told me twice. And that I have decided that he's in charge and that suits me. And those pieces put together are the beginning of the abandonment of selfishness. And I'm not batting 1,000 on it, but I can report tremendous progress. And I think progress is an important thing. And I'm going to give you my own definition. Progress is making the same old mistake a little less often.

or making a new and finer quality of mistake. That's progress. Because anything above that would be perfection. Okay? And then the prayer. And what I like to do is I want him to read the prayer and let's talk about what it means. Let's understand what you're saying here. God, offer myself. Give me some help. Make sure the judge doesn't. Not send her back. Not get me out of this and I'll never do it again. Take me.

I offer myself to thee. To build with me. A lot of times to build somewhere, we're going to have to tear down something that's already standing there. I think we do newcomers a great disservice by not telling them that. Don't mess around with this prayer. You pray this thing, I'll tell you something. probably some things you'd like to keep are leaving, and they are not coming back. And some things you don't like are coming and staying. All right? This is a package deal. All right?

I think about two bowling balls. My will, God's will, pick one. I had my will 41 years of killing me, devastating everybody around me. I was always afraid I'd work God too hard. I'll tell you what, I'm going to cover sex and money. He can get the rest. That's not the package. That's not the package. Two bowling balls, pick one. God's will, my will, pick one. That's what we're asking you here. Because there are going to be some parts you don't like. Overall, it's a spectacular package.

But I don't want what I want anymore. It was killing me. To build me and do as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self. I looked up bondage. It means the exact same thing as slavery. I'm a slave to self. that I may better do thy will, take away my difficulties, one reason. Victory of them may bear witness to those I would help, of thy power, thy love, thy way of life, and I do thy will always. I note that the word amen does not appear here.

The only place I can find it in the basic text is at the end of the seven-step prayer. And I have friends that say they believe that everything from the beginning of that prayer to the end of the seven-step prayer is a prayer. I don't know. It's an interesting observation. And then it suggests, it says, we thought well.

You want some time? Think about this a couple of days. I know guys that require that they think about it a couple of days. I don't do that. I don't think it's a bad idea. Think about it. Are you really serious? And the next paragraph, it suggests that we want to do this with someone. Maybe the wife, friend, spiritual advisor. The guys I sponsor are free to do their third step prayer with anybody they want to. And me. I'm going to be there. I'm going to be there.

I think it's so important for sponsorship to be tight. I have had the experience. Bob and I both, by the way, I speak for both of us. We have permission to tell all the stories you hear us tell. I have had the experience of having a guy do a third-step prayer. who was unable to come up off his knees in tears. Someone who has done this needs to be there when that happens. Someone needs to be there who knows what to do there.

And then it suggests that you can write your own third step prayer. And I invite them to do that. The book says you can do that. The book gives leeway. I give leeway. And I sponsor some songwriters. They won't give you a five-year chip in Nashville if you don't sponsor at least two songwriters. We can't give you one because there are just so many. And someone's got to cover them, and I've got a couple. And the newest one's got two years now.

And we got here and he said, I want to write my own third step prayer. I said, great, go for it. But I'm going to read that prayer before we do the praying part. And it was a beautiful thing. I wouldn't be surprised if you guys heard this on the radio sometime. It rhymed. It was magnificent. Three stanzas.

But it left out the part about God being in charge and that was okay with him. Which I think is relatively significant here in this particular prayer. And so, strangely enough, we wound up using the one in the book. But I've seen some great stuff. The most frequent change I see is they change thy and thou to you kind of thing. And that's fine. People are uncomfortable with the Old English. But most of them say,

You know, everything I touch, let's do what it says there. It suits me just fine. And then, of course, the last thing that you do is to actually pray the prayer. And that completes that step. Forgive me because this is just how I am. It looks to me like this step breaks down into eight or nine pieces. The first one was at the bottom of page 60. The first requirement is that I be convinced.

Then there's some very interesting observations on motive and self and all that stuff. And then the second one is that I had to quit playing God. The third one is this decision. For me, the fourth one is to read and understand the prayer. The fifth one is to think well. The sixth one is to... Slow down. I'm from the south. I'm not too slow for you all now.

You want me to start that again? I don't mean to go that fast. And y'all, please do that to me. I get very excited. Yeah, read and understand the prayer. And then think well. And then decide who is going to witness your third step prayer and select a time and a place. And then... To decide if you're going to write one of your own. If you do to write it. If not, then you acknowledge that you're going to use one in the book. And the last piece is to pray the prayer.

And I find that breaking it down, those little bitty pieces, really makes it quite easy. And we are going to do that with step four. I have such a passion. I believe step four is the easiest step we have. Far and away the easiest. A little bit on the long side. But I'm talking, to be sincere with you, I'm talking about the actual four-step cleverly concealed in this book.

When I got out of treatment, they gave me one of these psychobabble things. And, I mean, God bless them. I think there's some wonderful people with big hearts really trying to help people by taking the short form of the steps and writing around them. And they had all of this. I have to go very slow or I'm going to have to make amends for my language about what I really think about that stuff. But I think they have good motive. But I think they violate principle, which gets me in trouble.

But this thing, I mean, was true, false, multiple choice, fill in the blanks. Do you still hate your mother is one of the questions. I mean, come on. And what happened for me was that I completed this thing. I called back down to the treatment center I'd gone through. to Bernie. Now, Bernie had not been my counselor, but I had selected him after I had my white light experience to hear my fifth step. He was a counselor, but he wasn't mine. But I asked him.

because I knew I was going to have to do a full confession, which is what step five is. And the reason I chose him is you could look at him and tell he was stoned out of his mind. But you know what that looks like. A guy's face is real relaxed. He's got this dumb grin. When he walks, he moves real slow, kind of shovels. This guy's ripped.

I am going to do my fist up with him. Right? Two weeks later, is he going to know what I said? He won't know if I did it. So I thought, right? Makes good sense. So I completed this psychobabble four-step thinking, this alleged four-step. And I called Bernie. He said, sure, I drove.

That was about four hours. I drove down. I took my fifth step with Bernie, which is where I began to get relief. If you're new, I know they don't look like it. But what the steps do is they bring me relief. They put salve on the wounds of my soul. and allow them to start to heal. Some of them have got to have the scabs picked, and that's part of what we're going to talk about. But it's a tremendous cleansing process, and I dumped my bucket with Bernie. I told him the whole thing, all of it.

And it was the beginning of the new freedom for me. It's where I began to get relief. I know it doesn't look that way if you're new, but that's what it does. And just as an aside. Bernie wasn't stoned. Bernie was sober over 20 years. That was serenity. I didn't know what it looked like. I want you to know. That as I do this kind of stuff, that I think that content is far more important than format. Far, far more important. I think there are a lot of really right ways to do.

what we're going to talk about here with a sponsor working out of this book. And I'll talk about several of the others that other people do as we do this. This is just what I've been shown. This is what my lineage passed to me. But we work out of this text, and it changes life. You got something else on three? Go ahead. Yeah, that's about what we got. Thanks, Scott. One of the things that I had to get clear on was that step three is not.

about turning my will and my life over the care of God. Step three is about approaching a process to do that. The rest of the 12 steps is what allows me to... Step three is simply the turning point. It's the rest of the steps that allows to turn. One of the things that I did, and there may be people in this room that are stuck, like I was stuck. In my early sobriety, I got down on my knees. I did exactly what Scott was talking about. I ended up doing the third step prayer.

I was sincere about the desire to turn my will and my life over the care of God. And then I started to destroy myself. Unconsciously. and I didn't know what was going on. And what was happening is every morning I would get down on my knees and I would say the third step prayer. I'd get up off my knees.

Five minutes later, I'm in my head running the universe. And what had happened is I had... tried to give God my life but unbeknownst to me because not out of malice but out of ignorance I've retained my will because I'm blocked from surrendering it because I don't even know what my will is

Years ago, I went to an attorney to make a will. I ended up with a lot of properties and things, and I needed to make a will, a trust. This guy said something to me that caught my attention. He said, do you know what your last will is? I said, well, you're making this a legal document. He said, it's really your last judgment. You're judging these people to be idiots. They don't get nothing. You're judging them to be cool. They're going to get something.

And the problem that I faced is that I'm trying to give God my life, but I've retained my judgment of it. My judgment about me. What's good and bad? My judgment about you, what's good and bad? My judgment about life itself, what's good and bad? And so consequently, I exist in a state of... frantic running the show within me. And the conflicts there, I suffer from depression, lots of anxiety. I build cases against people.

I'd go through one job after another after another, and I don't know what the problem is. I didn't get any relief until I dismantled the judgment machine that is my will in step four. I think that's what it's designed to do. It's designed to break down the ego. When you go through your whole life, because what's your resentment list? All your judgments.

Your fears are really your judgments and your view of life and the things you think are going to happen or afraid are going to happen or whatever. And all the self-gratification stuff in the sex deal. And you look at that and you see how wrong you had been about everything. About everything. And you realize not only I was a wrong judge in those people, I've been wrong about me. I'm wrong about you. I'm wrong about everything. And the ego gets squashed.

I revisited after this, I revisited a lot of the religion of my childhood. What I discovered is if you work the steps and you have an awakening, all of a sudden, all of them make sense. where none of them made sense before. Now they all kind of make sense. And I started looking at the story, the biblical story out of Genesis of creation. And it talks about Adam and Eve.

And God created them, and he put them into the Garden of Eden, which was literally heaven on earth. It was referred to as paradise. And in the Garden of Eden, they were happy. They had everything they ever could need. It was perfect. they were given one suggestion. And the suggestion was, do whatever you want, but don't eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And I think...

Kind of because they were suggested they shouldn't. Sort of like when your sponsor says, don't get involved with that person. You didn't want to until he said that. You know what I mean? And they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And I think that's exactly what they got. They got the judgment. And what had been perfect in paradise in their innocence.

all of a sudden became tainted because the ego is what judges. And all of a sudden, Adam's going, God, there's crabgrass? There's flies? Eve's got cellulite. What are you thinking here? And what had been heaven became tainted and nothing changed except that the ego...

started playing God again. One of my mentors, Chuck Chamberlain, told a story that really affected me. He said he was sitting, he was coming off, it was a couple days dry off of a bad drunk, and he was sitting in this chair in his house. He was sitting in this house married to that woman with those kids working at that place, and he wished he was dead. He felt like he was in hell.

Years later, as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous and the Twelve Steps and the Spiritual Awakening, he sat in the same chair in the same house, married to the same woman with the same kids working in the same place, and he's crying because he knew he was in heaven. And he said, maybe heaven's just a new pair of glasses. What am I surrendering is everything I think I know. I'm surrendering all my judgments. I'm surrendering everything I think I'm right about. Me, you, God, life itself. Scott.

When I was new, I used to say absolutely insane things. One of them was I was constantly either saying I'm having a good day or I'm having a bad day. Is that not crazy? I mean, when I say I'm having a good day, what am I really saying? Scott's will is being done today.

When I say I'm having a bad day, I'm saying Scott's will is not being done today. And Scott's will is one of the biggest problems I've got. There are many mistakes in this book. It's one or the other. I've got to get out of there. If you had asked me my first day sober what kind of day I was having,

It would have taken me 45 minutes to tell you. The air would have been blue for a mile downwind from there by the time I got through. And I can't look back today and say that was a bad day. I don't know. I can tell you I'm enjoying it or I'm not. But I don't know if it's a good day or a bad day. How would I know?

I'm not in management anymore. Tremendous, tremendous stuff. Resentment is when I didn't get my will in the past. Anger and depression are when I'm not getting my will right now. And fear is the concern that I may not get my will in the future. And it always comes back to my will, always. My sponsor told me, step four, that all that garbage in my past is not who I am. That's who I'm not. Because if that's who I am, I'm still out there doing it. It doesn't make me sick to think about it.

What I would be taught here was how to quit doing who I'm not, how to repair the damage for doing who I'm not, how to receive the forgiveness for doing who I'm not, and who I really am would emerge from the ashes like the phoenix. That that's what step four was about. It was about digging poison out of my soul. Because the fact, here's a gift from my home group. I remember when the guy said this, God forgives me for everything I ever did, and he loved me while I was doing it.

My God got bigger that day. And this other piece I'll tell you before the break is that I don't have the power to make a mistake so ugly that God can't turn it into something magnificent. I didn't say fix. Lack of power is my dilemma. I do not have the power to make the mistake so ugly that he can't turn it into something magnificent. That's who I am. That's who he is. That's what we're going to talk about in 16 minutes and 3 seconds. We will be starting on time.