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Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. >> Uh good evening everybody.

My name is Chris. I'm an alcoholic. I am uh I am really excited to be here uh with with my friend Steve.

Um a little bit just a little bit about me. uh grace of God separated me from alcohol somewhere around December 28th, 1989. Uh it was uh it was a period of hazy recollections and hallucin hallucinations and all kinds of other stuff.

So I'm not particularly sure about the date, but that's the one I I claim. Anyway, um I discovered the Wilson house in the mid '9s. We were we were just driving through on a vacation and I remember pulling in.

I remember walking in there and I remember saying, "I'm gonna come back here, you know, there's just something about it. I know I'm not the only one." And so, we started to do some workshops um over the years. We've had some really, really fun ones.

And I'm absolutely looking forward to uh to having uh our friend uh Steve from Nashville join us. So, thank you so much for for making the trip up, Steve. Oh, thank you, Chris.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Steve Lee. I'm an alcoholic.

I'm I'm thrilled to be here. This is just such a treat for me to uh both be at the Wilson house, but uh to be with you guys and uh uh uh it dawns on me that we uh going to have to make a decision here pretty quickly, right? There's uh we're pretty adaptable people and and as a group, we got to decide whether we're going to get all the way in this thing and and and be present despite some of the distractions and and uh uh and things that we're having to do to accommodate uh uh uh good judgment and good health.

And so uh but but you know, that's not hard. That shouldn't be hard for folks like us. We're resistant sometimes.

And I'm certainly one of those folks. But uh uh but gosh, we have faced so much already to get here. The things I'll start complaining about after I get sober.

Pretty remarkable. You know, I I literally got one of my best friends uh uh daughters this past week, helped her get in uh in treatment, and he went and and got her from her apartment. and in her apartment.

>> There was nothing in the room but a blowup mattress. Uh when he dropped her off at treatment and went back and tried to to negotiate his way out of the lease and stuff that was there, he had to buy a refrigerator because there were maggots in the refrigerator. And then I went out to visit her at the treatment facility and she complained about the food being cold.

That's who we are, right? >> But uh uh so I'm right at home with you guys. I'm I'm thrilled to be here.

Uh uh I see it as a just such a wonderful opportunity for me to to, you know, be in it with a group of people and connect over the course of this next two and a half days, whatever we've got, and uh uh and have a conversation. and Chris and I talk. We hope during the course of the weekend, we're going to have an ask it basket and invite some questions and stuff, but uh but I'm just excited to be here.

My sobriety date is June 30th, 1989. And I am from Nashville. And uh my home group is the Recovery on the Row group of Alcoholics Anonymous.

We meet on historic music row in Nashville. So I hope you'll come see us if you get there. And a lot of people do get a chance to visit.

So it's not a idle uh invitation. Please get my information before I leave and call me if you come to town. But uh I'm I'm excited to hang out with you guys and to be with my friend Chris.

I'm grateful he invited me and we'll see what uh what happens. Uh uh we've spent uh we spent countless seconds trying to figure out how we were going to uh uh uh conduct ourselves the balance of the weekend and and we've come up with a plan that couldn't possibly go wrong. And uh so I'll give it back to Chris to get us started tonight.

Yeah, >> thanks Steve. So, so you know what we what we talked about in the first couple of seconds was what were we going to do in this first session and and you know the the decision was basically we you know we want to qualify we want we want to uh make sure that we've convinced you you know that we're alcoholic and we we belong uh in this in this recovery fellowship and uh uh with all of you and we'll do that but but really also to to talk about how we um how we fully embrace the concept of step one. How you know how how did how did we how do we fully concede to our innermost selves that were alcoholic and how did we understand alcoholism?

What did what did what material did we need to to go through to uh to understand what alcoholism was? And you know, you know, I I'll I'll start. I I started I started drinking somewhere around 1969, 1970.

And I from the get-go had a different relationship with alcohol than a lot of the guys that I was drinking with. For uh the first thing that was apparent was when I started drinking, guess what? I you know if there was alcohol available I kept drinking it unless I was somehow separated from it.

I I kept drinking it and that's that's problematic uh in itself but I you know I didn't recognize it as a huge problem. I I I basically would have told you I party man you know like you what are you a lightweight? I party.

So, so my perception on the craving for alcohol right off the get-go was delusional and and and you know I I was I tried to hang out with people who drank like me, you know, like John over here. He he was just like me. So So when we drank together, there was there was no no sore thumbs sticking out, you know, we would we would do the same thing.

So, I started drinking early on and you know, a lot of it was in fields or in people's houses with their parents weren't home. But once once I started to take my drinking out on the road, I started to really suffer some some consequences. Um, I immediately started crashing cars um uh and and ending up in hospitals and and uh having people come up to me the next day at school and say things like this.

do you know what you did last night? And I'm like I'm like no, you know, I don't remember any of that. You know, it got to the point where I told him, just don't tell me, you know, whatever it was, just don't tell me cuz cuz it was usually it became more and more tragic and pathetic my my behavior.

But uh but you know, o over over the course of time, I started to adapt my life and adapt my belief systems to massive amounts of alcohol. I I had to normalize it somehow. Now, the milkman would have noticed that I was drinking too much.

The neighbors all knew I drank too much. But if you were to come up to me and say, "Chris, you drink too much." You know, I I would probably say, "I don't drink enough." You You know, like like I Where do you Where do you get that? It's not your business how I drink.

and I would cut that individual out of my life. You know, I would I would distance myself from anyone who was, you know, raising a red flag on me. And so it got to the point where, you know, most most of the people I was paying attention to were were deeply involved in alcoholism or drug addiction or something and or dysfunctional or crazy.

And and that's that's kind of where I slowly ended up. Now, now alcoholism can be like an evolution, you know, over any considerable period of time. It can get worse.

It can change. Uh we can get more and more deluded. Uh we can face more and more consequences and we you know we can become better at telling ourselves lies uh about this alcoholism.

But but probably for the first 10 years of my drinking, there were periods of time in that drinking where I was having a lot of fun. I mean, I was going to the high school parties and getting really drunk or going We lived we lived right outside of New York City, so we would go and see the best rock bands in the world, you know, in the 1970s. You know, one weekend it'd be Led Zeppelin, you know, the next weekend it'd be Pink Floyd, then it'd be The Grateful Dead, and we would just go in and we would we would party and and just, you know, f somehow find find our way home.

And it all it all kind of seemed fun in the first 10 years. Like like when I look back on it, I'm thinking, "Oh my god, I ruined all those experiences being in a blackout. I ruined all those experiencing experiences being so high I you know I have no memory of them you know but during that period of time I really believed that I needed those substances to make the whole thing work now now because alcoholism is progressive and uh and it it really starts to uh uh how how how the progression looked in in my case basically was over any any given period of time I was putting more ounces of alcohol in my body per week.

You know, like if there was a graph, if there's a graph of alcohol consumption per month, you know, it was it was going like like this. And you know, when that happens, you end up doing a lot of drunk stuff. You end up um getting into a lot of trouble.

And and a lot of things happened in those first 10 years. A lot of DUIs, a lot of hospital stays. And then there was like a turn somewhere around my 10th year of drinking where it became isolation drinking.

Like it became very dangerous for me to go out and drink at bars. It became very dangerous for me to to go out, you know, because I'd be driving or something, right? So probably the last 10 years of my drinking were uh were were it was basically in isolation, you know, drinking by myself in a room and and by this time alcohol had become such a master of my life that my life would look like this.

I would come to in the morning wearing the clothes that I had passed out in the night before. I'd stagger into the bathroom, you know. Uh I was a I was a non-filter cigarette smoker, so I'd have to do a bunch of vomiting when I first got up, you know.

So, I'd get my vomiting over with and and then I'd brush my teeth and I'd go out to my $100 car and I'd go off to a really terrible, you know, uh terrible job with a terrible boss and I'd be completely shattered. Just absolutely completely shattered. And there were times when I would uh when I would basically swear, "This is it.

I'm done. I'm done. I I don't want to feel this bad anymore." Do you remember what it's like?

You know, when you come into the next day and saying, "I never want to feel this bad again." Well, that happened to me for years. And what would happen is I'd go off to my terrible job and somewhere around 2 or 3 o'clock in the afternoon after swearing off alcohol, I'd start to think maybe that maybe that decision was an overreaction, you know, to to quit drinking like forever, you know, that seems very reactionary. Uh, and what would happen is I would change my mind by quitting time and and right from right from leaving work, I would hit the liquor store and I would buy a quart of vodka or a quart of bourbon and I'd take it back to the house and I'd pour it into a giant glass with ice.

I had I had these like 60 oz glasses and and I I'd put about halfway up in ice and I' I'd fill them up to about an inch from the top with bourbon or vodka. And if it was vodka, I'd put some orange juice. If it was bourbon, I'd put some Coca-Cola.

And literally there'd be about 30 shots in each of these glasses and and I'd start and I'd start drinking and it all seemed normal. You know, I had sworn off alcohol that morning and I meant it and I'm drunk as a hoot owl by 6:00 at night on a work night every single time. And then the weekend would come and what the weekend would look like was I would get drunk on Friday night.

I'd come to sometime, you know, or I' uh sometime Saturday morning and I'd start drinking. I'd go right to drinking and I' I'd go into a blackout and I'd pass out and when I when I came to, I'd start drinking again. And I could get drunk four or five times in a two-day period doing that, just like full-time blackout drinking.

And and it just I don't know. I don't know if it's really accurate to say it felt like this was normal, but it was normal for me to do this and and it was it was chewing me up. It was chewing me up.

So So I tried uh I had I had to go to an outpatient IOP in in 1983 to get one one of my driver's licenses back. And what it was was it was a bunch of people sitting around in group talking about how they felt. And and I I had absolutely no clue what that had anything to do with me.

You know what I mean? I hated everybody in this group. And and it was just a bunch of crap.

And and I just did it to get my my ticket so I could get my license back. But one thing I learned was somebody said, "Dude, man, you know, the real hardcore people, they're up they're up on the fifth and sixth floor of the hospital. They they put you inatient.

It's locked down, dude." You know? So I had in the back of my mind since like n since 82 or something that that there was there was a a lockdown ward for alcoholism. So my out my drinking gets worse and worse and worse and and I start to become violent and I start to become crazy and uh I end up one day just just giving up.

Yeah. You know just saying you know I don't know I don't know what it is about alcohol but I'm drinking it every day. maybe if I go to this 28 day treatment center, they'll teach me how to not drink every day.

I, you know, I didn't I didn't know anything. So, I signed myself into a 28 day uh treatment center and I went through it. I participated as best I could, you know, um it was not a pretty sight.

I get out of the treatment center and I states sober a couple of months. And what happened was one day on the on the way to an AA meeting, the thought crossed my mind that I haven't been drunk in almost three months. Matter of fact, I don't even remember what it's like to feel drunk.

I think what I should do is I should buy a gallon of vodka. And if I Now listen, listen. If I if I buy this gallon of vodka and I drink it, it'll remind me what it's like, I'll feel really bad the next day and I'll shoot back to this AA thing and really start to do a good job with it.

And that's what I did. I bought a gallon of vodka to improve my sobriety. And and and I know I know there's people here that get that, you know, that's why we like each other.

we're, you know, we're all crazy. So, so what what happened was it started a it started a seven-month debacle of the worst drinking and and and the worst emotional and and spiritual uh agony I I think I've ever experienced. And when the smoke cleared from that, I went back to Alcoholics Anonymous with an absolute vengeance, you know, just an absolute vengeance.

Uh uh willing to willing to do all the stupid things like, "Oh, get a sponsor. Oh yeah, that's that that yeah, that's that that's not going to work in my case. Uh, you know, get get a home group.

Oh, yeah. Well, I know why most people would get a home group, but that's not going to work in my case. You know, I I got willing to do all the things that I wasn't doing, and I plugged I plugged in to the fellowship, but I still didn't know what alcoholism was.

I I knew that I drank too much. I knew I was addicted to alcohol. I knew I was caught up in a terrible lifestyle, but I didn't know what alcoholism was.

And then somebody handed me a set of 90minute tapes, cassette tapes, and it was a big book workshop. And it was the first time I ever heard an accurate representation of step one, what I was suffering from. I I I was suffering from the phenomenon of craving when alcohol goes in my body.

And how that presented in me was the first drink always wanted the second, the second insisted on the third, the third demanded the fourth, and I wanted the 16th drink more than I wanted the 15th. And that and that's a physiological, spiritual, mental conundrum, you know, that that just there was no fight in me against that. and and and that one was pretty easy to understand.

But the second part was really hard that that I I was susceptible to an obsession that would override all other thoughts and convince me to buy a gallon of vodka to improve my sobriety. You know what I'm talking about? Like like that's the obsession of the mind.

alcohol doesn't care how it gets back in your body, you know, in an unreovered, unprotected state. So, I started to learn a little bit that about that. And then then there was the after the dash uh that I was an absolutely awful manager of my life.

If if you if you looked at how I lived my life, the the belief systems I had, the decisions I was making, the relationships I was in, there's no way you couldn't have given me an F minus, you know, and I really started to look at that and I started to dig into the text Alcoholics Anonymous, which is just gives a beautiful series of examples of step one, Fred, Jim, the man of 30. And and I started I started to get it. I started to get just how much trouble I was in and what I was up against.

And uh I want to pass it over to my friend Steve. >> Steve, thank you, Chris. I had no idea he was that bad.

I would never have come up here if I'd have known that. Uh, man, you know what Chris was talking about so much and and and what I was encouraged to do when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous and I got to Alcoholics Anonymous through a treatment center that I was in under duress and and to fulfill uh uh my obligation to the legal system of Williamson County, Tennessee for the conviction of my sixth DUI a year before. We had done some plea bargain stuff and they cut some I got some jail time and they cut some of that down if I would go to treatment.

that I I I had no intention of stopping drinking. And and you know, over the course of the next uh again, day and a half, two days, whatever we got here, however you count those hours, you'll hear my story, but it will not be in order. And it will be in a series of seemingly unrelated stories that I hope by the time I get on a plane Sunday, you'll forgive me for.

But uh uh but you'll know me better. You'll know at least what my life has been like. But but the first thing they did when I got to that that treatment facility was decide that they wanted to explore my relationship with alcohol.

And when I get to Alcoholics Anonymous, you guys encourage me to explore my relationship with alcohol, but you do that by telling me about your relationship with alcohol. You don't quiz me about my drinking. You share about yours and give me that opportunity for identification, which is the lynch pin of alcoholics anonymous.

It's it's what got me here. It it's what keeps me here. The identification today is less with the problem and more with the solution, but it still is what we have in common and keeps me here.

But man, all the stuff that Chris talked about is stuff I didn't know either. You know, uh there's a great line in uh in our book uh uh back in a vision for you talking about Dr. Bob and it says uh that he was painfully aware of being somehow abnormal for he did not yet fully understand what it meant to be alcoholic.

And I sure spent a lot of time painfully aware I was somehow abnormal but I could not have explained or articulated to you what the abnormality was. And I got here, I got here because I had alcoholrelated problems, which is different than being alcoholic. But I could connect the dots between my drinking and the trouble I got into as a result of my drinking.

I tell you something, at least in my case, you cannot get a DUI if you have not been drinking. Uh, now I did go to a to a beginners meeting in Nashville, a full moon group on Friday nights, and I and and I went back into beginners meeting. I I I love it.

And uh and this guy sat down next to me and I could tell he was not happy to be in this meeting and and I get that he and and and he still kind of he had his arm in a sling, you know, we show up sometimes in actual bandages. And uh uh but I said, "Hey, what brings you here tonight, man?" And he grunted. He said he said, "I got a DUI for having a broken tail light." I said, 'You know, brother, I don't usually call BS right out of the gate, but uh I said, 'Th that's not true.' I said, 'You got pulled over for having a broken tail light.

You got a DUI for being drunk. And I was drunk in all of mine, so I could connect those dots. But but and I didn't spend as much time trying to stop drinking as Chris did.

I spent a lot of time trying to not let that happen again. whatever that was. I want cuz cuz it looks like the way to navigate this is to try harder to do better.

It looks like that if I would really put my mind to it that that that I'll be able to navigate this cuz I didn't want to quit drinking. I I wanted to quit getting DUIs. I never got one on purpose.

I never at the beginning of the evening, you know, I took the top off of that off that bottle and said, you know, if I do everything just right, by around 12 or 1:00 tonight, I I will have uh cheated on my wife, wrecked my car, pissed my pants, be handcuffed in the back of a police car, you know, on the way. Let's get that party started. You know, never was that my plan, but that some version of that happened multiple times and I don't get it.

Right. There's another for me great uh uh passage in our book and it's back in to the employer. And I know I'm with some committed AA members here this weekend, but you got to be full-on committed to read all the way to the to the employer.

Those pages aren't dogeared in your book. I know. But back in there, it says when dealing with an alcoholic, there may be a natural annoyance that someone could be so weak, stupid, and irresponsible.

That's coming from the point of view of the employer who is uninformed about alcoholism. And to the untrained eye, alcoholism looks weak, stupid, and irresponsible. It looks like to those around me, if you loved me, you wouldn't do that.

If you cared about your daughter, Steve, you wouldn't be drunk at the hospital when she was born. If you cared about this job, you'd show up and do it. You know, if you you wouldn't do that if you if you cared enough.

Don't you see? And they would give me good information. We all got a lot of good information before we got here.

Accurate information. But logic, good intentions, and firm resolve proved to be no match for alcoholism. But I didn't get it.

So, not only did the people around me think I was weak, stupid, and irresponsible, I thought I was weak, stupid, and irresponsible. Now, I didn't say it out loud to them. You spend year defending yourself from the charges from other people, but alone with myself and with my thoughts.

What's the matter? I was painfully aware of being somehow abnormal, but I didn't get it. Also couldn't wrap my head around the idea that I had alcoholism when I wasn't drinking.

How can I have this thing called alcoholism if there's no alcohol involved? Now, at the front end, I've got to examine that relationship and I had the one that Chris talked about. It looks a little different on different ones of us.

Uh, uh, I when I got to AA and you guys began to share your stories with me when you began to talk about your alcoholism and I began to read about it in our book, you gave voice to my alcoholism. You gave me a language to talk about it in. You would say something and the moment after you said it, I would know that had been true about me forever.

The moment before you said it, I had no idea. Then you said it and it resonated with me. I'll tell you what I believe that is.

I've come to believe that's the language of the heart. And the language of the heart isn't just kind, sweet, you know, heart music playing in the background. That that the language of the heart resonates somewhere other than intellectually.

It's not the information. It lands somewhere inside. It it hits me in that spiritual malady.

It hits me in a place of knowing and feeling rather than being academic and intellectual and I would have and I would have a feeling about this. And you gave me this language. I'm like, you know, I was never in a bar and after about my third drink, you know, nudged the guy next to me and said, I don't know about you, pal, but that phenomenon of craving is kicking in on me.

Whoa. Lack of power is my dilemma. >> I didn't I didn't have that kind of language.

I'm like I just felt like I changed my mind. I was going to go, you know, and that was usually about not how much I drank. It was usually about, you know, needing to be somewhere I didn't get to.

You know, I tell my wife last, I said, "Baby, I'll be home at 7:00." She said, "You're going to have to be more specific, you know, A.M. or PM." and uh Tuesday or Thursday, August or September. And uh uh and I'm kidding, but I'm not kidding.

And and I meant it when I said it. And the thing that was so baffling was how often I said, "Baby, I'm going to be home at 7." And I was home at 7. And then the next time I wasn't.

Circumstances weren't any different. My intentions weren't any different. My resolve was just as committed.

And it didn't feel like it just all of a sudden after that third, fourth, fifth drink, whatever it is, I just thought, well, I'm a grown man. I'm working. I have to go home.

Nobody going to tell me what to do. >> Or or nothing. Or I just went off into, as our book says, oblivion, awakening to face the hideous four horsemen of terror, bewilderment, persuation, despair.

Often it wasn't a choice. Sometimes I suffered the delusion that it was a choice, like Chris talked about. But I don't understand this relationship I have to alcohol.

They asked me questions when I showed up at that treatment facility that morning. And and you know that was 1989 and it and and it felt like a test but I know it was an assessment now in the language of treatment and and I did a psychosocial workup that had a lot of clinical questions but they also had 30 questions that were a little bit like Jeff Foxworthy you might be a redneck is and they all began with the phrase have you ever boy that's very little wiggle room in that have you ever and they explained that that meant even once and even with a really good reason. Have you ever drank in the morning?

Have you ever drank alone? Have you ever had a blackout? Have you ever had a DUI?

Have you ever had trouble at work because of drinking? Have you ever had trouble at home because of drinking? 30.

Have you ever questions which most of you know just have check yes or check no to what I consider are clearly essay questions. These are questions that beg for an explanation. And you know we laugh here tonight.

I can even see you laughing behind your mask. But we laugh here tonight because you understand the absurdity of that thinking. But I'm telling you that morning I could not make myself check the box cuz people are going to draw conclusions about me.

And how can you do that without the backstory, without context, without the information? In fact, I had questions about the questions. I said, "What do you mean morning?" And I think it's a valid question because part of my problem is I think I know what they're asking.

See, I think they're asking me if I'm that guy that that's got a, you know, a a a bottle of vodka on the nightstand that wakes up at 4:00 a.m. with the shakes and the sweats and has to take a pull off of that just to fight that off just to limp into the bathroom and maybe get into my day. And and I've certainly done that a few times, but you know, not so often I'm going to cop to it on this test.

But uh uh but there's another kind, you know, I said, "What if, by the way, what if I'm out at a very nice establishment at at 1 or 2 in the morning at last call? Is that morning drinking?" And if I don't explain the difference to you, you'll think I'm poor, pitiful, you know, bottle on the nightstand guy rather than cool out at the club guy. And uh uh you know there's uh uh then they said have you ever drank alone?

Said yes, but they left and kept just go whoa. Where'd everybody go? You know, it was a party a while ago and all of a sudden it's me standing.

But again, I think I know what they're asking me, right? I think they're asking me if I'm that guy. I just got to go home, do what Chris talked about, drink in isolation, close the door, dim the lights, unplug the phone back then.

Now put it on silent or vibrate or turn it off. You know, drink in isolation, hide from the world. And I've done that a few times, but I'm I'm not coping to.

But there's another kind of alone drinking that I had to do. I'm a guy that had to drink to go drinking. I see the heads nodding there.

I got to drink to go drinking. Why is that? Why is that?

Our book refers to alcohol as a social lubricant in one place. And man, I get that, you know, that's like oiling up, you know, and then I can move easily amongst you. But without that lubrication, I feel like I'm I'm in fits and starts.

I'm bumping into everything. Now, I don't look like that. I feel like that.

See, I can't tell you again not understanding that relationship that that the root of my problem is selfishness and self-centeredness. This this hyper self involvement with me this hyperfocus on what I feel like on what I think what I think you think. How does that look?

How does that sound? Where do I fit in? I don't think I fit in, but how do I act like I fit in?

How do I find some way not to get discovered in this group of people who who by the way keep telling me I got it going on pretty good yet I know that see the wonderful line in our book for me one of the non-drinking parts of our book that let me know I was at the right place my friend Ben and I talked about it I think it was Ben and I today or maybe it was my uh that girl I took to treatment earlier this week when the book says that the alcoholic more than most is an actor he wears two faces it's a age character that he wants his fellows to see. He wants to be a man of certain reputation, but in his heart, he knows he doesn't deserve it. And when I read that, I said, "Man, that's how I've lived my life.

I I desperately want to be a man of certain reputation, and I'm out to get it. But even when I get the accolade or the acknowledgement or the pat on the back, it leaves me empty because I know you're responding to the actor, because I know that I'm not showing up that that that I am." and and it's exhausting for me. It's exhausting to act that hard, to pretend like you got it together.

And and it's and so that's why I needed to spend a lot of time alone. That's why I would end up in that isolation. It's too hard for me to be with you guys on a regular basis.

You require too much of me. I don't know what it is you require, but it just feels like I I got to give you something. you know, I was 6 months sober uh and sitting in a meeting on a Saturday afternoon and and I was loving being in AA at this point, but it's the first time that I realized I before the meeting, I heard this chatter going on.

I'm sure it had been going on before. You guys hear the chatter in your home groups and when you're there and uh but I heard these people talking to each other and it dawned on me, these folks are talking to each other between meetings. Some of these people have relationships.

>> And I was just going to show, you know, showing up and going home, showing up and going home. And I was loving that hour, but I had no connection to people cuz I was so hyper sensitive, so uncomfortable, so insecure, and I can't let you catch me feeling that way. So somebody said, "Hey, we're all going to lunch." It was 11:30 Saturday meeting.

He said, "We're all going to lunch after the meeting. Everybody's invited. Who wants to go?" Man, I desperately wanted to go.

Desperately. And I got in my car after the meeting and I they identified the restaurant. I started over there and I got about halfway there and I turned off and I and I went home.

I couldn't go. And I did that three weeks in a row. I'd start and I just couldn't go.

And my fear was what what was stopping me was I was unwilling to have what I was afraid would be an awkward or embarrassing moment. I was afraid I would go in there and there would be six people sitting at a table for six and I didn't know whether I'm supposed to ask somebody to scoot over. Did you do you recognize me out of side the room?

Did you mean me? I'm unwilling to to say hey guys. So I just didn't risk it.

I said all I needed was a couple of guys to come over to me after the meeting and go, "Steve, we've been talking, man. We really want you to go to lunch with us and we're just arguing over who gets to sit with you. And if you did that, I would have gone and I would have owned the table.

But I need you to remove every one of those barriers that that are attached to my selfcentered fear that stop me. My friend Lyall says that we would rather be dead than embarrassed. And I will tell you, many of us have suffered that fate.

And I can't tell you how much that self-centered fear that's the root of my trouble controlled me before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous and rears its head on a semi-regular basis today. But I'm aware of it. I see it.

I am freer from it than I have ever been. I'm more aware of it when it shows up than I have ever been. But it but it's there because that's part of that that's part of that human ego that is part of my problem.

But see, I got that relationship with alcohol that doomed me. As as Chris said, see, I think what I've just been talking about and and I'm I'm putting this is from my point of view, so somebody else might view it differently. I'm talking about the unmanageability in my life.

I'm I'm talking about that that hashtag and my life had become unmanageable. And I don't view the unmanageability as the fact that I'm getting arrested and I'm getting in trouble and my wife's pissed at me or whatever the external circumstances that were driven by my drinking cause. That's the chaos of my drinking.

But this unmanageability is I couldn't manage to be okay. I couldn't manage to feel at peace and comfortable when I wasn't drinking. Now, I didn't always attach those two.

I I wasn't consciously going, I'm uncomfortable. I think I'll drink. And you know, there were times I there I mean, I did some angry drinking.

I did some lonely drinking. I did some I'm afraid drinking on purpose. But lots of times I did not know why I was picking up a drink.

And our book says we asked the guy why he went on that last drink. He says, "Hey, he may give any of a hundred reasons. Once in a while he may tell the truth.

We laugh at that line, right? Once in a while he may tell the truth because we are such consumate liars. But in fact, I think part of that once in a while I may tell the truth cuz I'm saying so much stuff that every once in a while it's accurate whether I know it or not.

It's the blind hog finding the acorn theory. I don't know where the truth is but sometimes I tell it, you know, and and so I'm just that's that unmanageability that I didn't know had anything to do with the drinking problem I had. I didn't understand this alcoholism is this relationship with alcohol can't seem to stay stopped.

can't control how much I take. That's that first half of the first step. But that spiritual malady that's embedded in the second half of the first step is what the 12 steps seem to treat in me.

That that connecting with a power greater than myself which solves my problem. I'm going to jump ahead to make a point and then I'll give it back to Chris is is because we get see I spent all my time as I said trying to do better trying not to you know when our book says that the great obsession of every abnormal drinker is that one day he will control and enjoy his drinking don't confuse that with with the other line that says drink like a gentleman we say if somebody can do a right about face and drink like a gentleman we tip our cap to them we don't have any freaking idea how a gentleman drinks What I want to do is drink all I want and be perceived as a gentleman. What I want to do is control and enjoy my drinking, which means to me I want to drink and get everything alcohol does for me without suffering the pains of what it did to me.

I want to get the good times that Chris talked about cuz I had them. I had them. But there were these bad side effects that that that that over time with a progressive illness that I don't have a clue about.

You know, when he talked about not being able to differentiate the true from the false, you know, I'm I look back now and it says our alcoholic life seemed the only normal one. Have you ever I mean, I look back and I go, how could that have ever looked normal to me? What p What must I have had to do to rationalize that behavior?

What story? you know, I'll build a h a wing onto my house to accommodate my alcoholism rather than ask it to move out. Just let me build you a a guest room.

And and so I don't but I don't understand any of that stuff. But I didn't know why on a Tuesday afternoon, stone sober with a wife that loved me and a kid that loved me and a middle class life and a pretty good job and and circumstantially things seeming like they were in place. Why do I feel the way that I feel?

And again, I couldn't have told you how I feel. All I know is I feel different than I think you feel. I'm experiencing life differently than I think you're experiencing.

Chuck Chamberlain said, "Our single problem is that is that that conscious separation from man and God. My single problem is I don't think I'm like anybody else." And and Chuck C would draw that circle with the little dot outside of it and say, "That's me." And I will tell you that's me. Except I don't want to get caught being the dot.

I sneak into the circle and hope you don't figure out that, you know, that I that I've gotten past the velvet rope and I'm at the, you know, I'm in Studio 54. If you're old enough to remember Studio 54, Ben didn't even laugh back there. Far too young.

But, uh, you know what I mean? That's I I don't know any of that stuff. This this alcoholism is baffling.

when it says it's cunning, you know, powerful and baffling. It's baffling because I don't know I got it. I don't understand the components of alcoholism.

I know I get drunk and get in trouble, but why do I feel the way I feel? And the 12 steps seem to feel that way. So, I spend all my time trying to stop trying to do better and I'm exerting all my will.

And I get that a and you guys say, "Steve, that looks like the right." You know, it's reasonable to think that if you're doing something, the thing to do is to try to stop doing that thing. But you guys told me I didn't have the power. I was powerless.

Powerless over that mental obsession and that physical allergy in particular. And you told me quit trying to solve that problem and connect with a power greater than yourself, which will solve your problem. when we get all the way back to the 10th step and and uh and reading on page 85 and 86 when it says that that by now sanity will have returned.

This relationship with alcohol is turned on its ear through the process of those nine steps before the 10th step. Says by now sanity will have returned. Where alcohol is concerned, we'll react sainely and normally.

And it says, "This new attitude toward liquor will be given us with no thought or effort on our part. It just comes." And I read that, I go, "Are you kidding me? I've been working my ass off in aa.

I've been working steps. I've been giving guys rides I don't even like. I've been listening to a sponsor who's clearly confused about what's best for me.

I've been working my butt off in AA." So, what do you mean no thought or effort on my part? But what I've come to learn or believe for me is that there was no thought or effort on my part about gaining a new attitude toward liquor. The thought and effort that we put in in Alcoholics Anonymous is about connecting with a power greater than myself, which will solve my problem.

That new attitude toward liquor is a side effect of the spiritual awakening that that the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous offer me. So, I want to connect through these steps. I want to connect with this power.

And we're going to talk more about how much room I've got to find a power that that I can that I can conceive and identify with and embrace myself. And that does the work. My work is, you know, my work is to get there.

And and it says at the end of of uh uh there is a solution. It says each of us, all of us, and certainly me and Chris this weekend and our own language from our own point of view talks about how he established a relationship with God. That's what we're talking about.

We're not talking about how did I get a new attitude toward liquor. We're talking about how did I establish a relationship with God. And we don't spend a ton of time talking about God.

We talk about how we establish the relationship. You know, I don't know. I'm here in East Dorset and I don't know how the hell I got here and I don't know very much where I am.

But if I asked somebody here, tell me how to get to New York City. Ben and I got a rental car said we're going to head to New York out here on Sunday. Somebody give me directions on how to get to New York.

And you guys go, "Oh, Steve, you are going to love New York, man. And here's here are the restaurants you want to go to. Here are the Broadway shows you want to see.

Here are the museums you want to go to." And I go, "Dude, I I hear you, but I don't know how to get there. I didn't ask you to tell me what to do in New York. I want to know how to get to New York." And CNA, what we share with each other is how do I connect with this power?

And then I get to have if you tell me how to get to New York, I show up in New York and I have whatever relationship I can have. I go I go where I want to go. I have my own experience with New York.

And here you let me have my own experience with that power greater than myself. And that's where we'll head uh during the rest of the weekend. Chris, take us.

You know what? What I'm thinking a lot uh the great examples that Steve is giving that are obviously examples of insanity that I relate to, you know, like like I know exactly what he's talking about because it's very similar things have happened to me. So, you know, here here's a here's a question like what did alcohol treat?

You know, what did alcohol treat? Why did I drink it? Wh why was I drawn to the effects of alcohol?

And and I and I believe it's certainly in the beginning, if not all the way through, it was this toxic expression of selfishness and self-centerness and self-involvement and all and and worrying about everything in the world and just generally being uncomfortable with myself and my environment in a in a sober state. and alcohol alcohol treated that. So the book talks about alcohol being a symptom.

It's certainly a a big symptom, you know, it's a it's a warning sign for alcoholism drinking, but there's something underlying that. There's there's there's the they they describe it in many many different ways. The spiritual malady, you know, we're restless, irritable, and discontented.

We're pray to misery, depression, uh resentment, self-centered fear, you know, uh pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. All these are all these are ways to describe emotional and spiritual states. So I really have to come to an understanding of how deeply ill I am spiritually and how my my my emotional health is just you in a really really sad place.

And as my alcoholism progressed and as I continued to treat, you know, the toxic self with alcohol, it got even it got even worse. There was a progression in this self-consciousness. U they the egocentricness they they give it a million different descriptions in the book alcoholic synonymous, but I believe that that's what alcohol treated.

So it would make sense that really the treatment for alcoholism can begin with the separation from alcohol, but it has to include the the the spiritual illness, the the emotional illness that I'm experiencing. And the the coolest thing in the world is a a stock shyer from New York City that used to live right over there and a failing proctologist from Akran with big hands. Uh came up with came up with you know put together put together the was really Bill Wilson.

He put together the architecture using the Oxford group. He was really deep into new thought. As he got sober and as he stayed sober, he read a lot and he studied a lot of Christian science.

He studied a lot of Catholicism. He learned he learned from an Episcopal priest. He got really really deep.

He was drawn deeply into uh these spiritual studies because I believe intuitively hea he understood our recovery has got to start and has to completely include this this spiritual capacity. We we we must we must become whole. There's a couple of lines in the book that have really resonated with me over the last couple years.

One of them is um that we need to we need to begin to understand that self had defeated us. Now think about that. Self had defeated us.

We're us, right? Self self is a series of belief systems. Self is uh the our way of thinking.

This this self has gotten sick. Our belief about being the only one here and and and making decisions about how everything is going to impact us as is what defeated us. You know, it doesn't say bourbon Chris Bourbon defeated you.

It says selfdefeated you. And the many forms of the way self manifests, the way it man it calls self it the way it manifests. It's amazing that they got so deep into what the real problem was.

It's going to take a it's going to take a personality change. It's going to take a different way of of thinking, of believing, a change in attitude. It it it's going to change it's just gonna completely change the way I am.

And and they talk about in the book after going through a series of steps to reduce this experience of self that we were reborn. There's got to be a rebirth. And all this stuff is in the book Alcoholics Anonymous and it's it's talking about the wholesale miracle that happened when a whole bunch of alcoholics applied these principles and applied these steps.

A wholesale miracle happened and there's been an enormous amounts of recovery. So when I see after the dash in step one, um, yeah, my life is unmanageable. I, you me, managing it is number one, it's really a bad idea.

But it's more of an it's an internal condition. You know, it if you drank the let's say you're not alcoholic and you drank like I did, there's plenty of alcoholics that get drunk out of their mind and cause a lot of trouble. you know, that's not really what they're talking about in alcoholism.

They're talking about uh they're talking about us being spiritually ill. So, a recovery program has got to include something that will help the spirit recover. And it's funny, in step 12, they talk about the awakening of the spirit.

And so, you know, uh, Steve and I are going to be here this weekend. We're going to try to share from our own experience, some of the things we've done, some of the experiences we've had, some of the lessons we've we've learned, and uh, and and and tell some of uh, tell some of these stories. But, you know, I'll tell you one story about this this self uh, from very very early on.

And I'll tell you one story and it's it's something that ingrained itself into my memory when I was 5 years old. All right, I'm 5 years old and my mother comes into the room and she says, "Uh, Chris, uh, today is your first day of kindergarten. Get yourself ready." And I'd heard about this kindergarten stuff, you know, uh wasn't too keen on it, you know, but some of the other kids talked about it and I knew that, you know, she was bigger than me.

So, so I went I went I started to get ready. Uh and I, you know, I got my stuff and we went out to a Packard Clipper. This is how long ago it was, the 1956 57 Packard Clipper.

and she drove me across town and I I remember her opening the door and pointing down at the classroom and saying, "There's there's the classroom. I'll come back later today and I'll pick you up. See you later." And she drove away.

Now I'm 5 years old and I'm standing up on this hill and I'm looking down and this is this is what really screwed me up. All the kids were already friends and they were already having fun. They were playing kickball and tag and and I'm standing up on the hill looking down and an overwhelming anxiety went over me.

You know, self-centered fear on steroids. I'm thinking I'm thinking, who the hell came up with this kindergarten thing? This is not going to this is not going to work for me, you know.

Uh, I'm going to run home and and you know, tell him that this just But I but I knew I I couldn't run home. There would have been a real big to-do. So, what I had to do was really I had to suck it up and act as if I wasn't totally freaking out and I had to walk down and I'd had I had to join that kindergarten class.

Now, you know what? Here's the thing. You know what would have treated that condition?

You know what would have made everything better? A half a pint of vodka. The problem was they weren't serving five year olds.

That was the problem. Because if I would have had a half a pint of vodka, I'd have been the kindergarten kid. You'd have been you'd have been lucky to have me on your team.

You know, you know, you'd have been lucky to pick. So So what alcohol did was alcohol shifted. So, so on one side of the scale is selfishness and self-consciousness and self-centerness and anxiety.

What alcohol did was throw me all the way to the other side of the spectrum where I'm wild with abandoned, you know, no fear, doing crazy, reckless, you know, stupid stuff. And that that alcohol was valuable to me, but I can't use it anymore. It's killing me.

So, I've got I've got to find a way to get somewhere to the center. And and Steve said it, it's in it's in a relationship with divine. It's it's in it's in a it's in the conscious the consciousness of the presence of God.

The conscious contact with God is really the thing that's going to treat that stuff. But I don't know how to get there. You know, I can read an Allen Watts book or a CS Lewis book.

Not gonna cut it. And in Alcoholics Anonymous, I find the solution for this stuff. It's just it's just it's it's it's it's remarkable.

It's remarkable. It's remarkable to me. I got to tell you, Chris told the story about going to school and and uh I'd heard the story about the the dad uh who goes in and is knocking on his son's door saying, "You've got to get up.

It's time to go to school. You got to get up. It's time to go to school." And the son goes, "Dad, I don't want to go." Said the the kids are mean and make fun of me and and pick on me all day.

And he goes, "Yeah, but you're 42 and you're the teacher. You've got to go. And I'm still subject to that, right?

I can still be that. No, I don't want to go. >> No, I don't want to go show up for life in the way that that that it looks like everybody else is.

I tell you what, I you know, like I said, I I I tend to say things when they show up, so they'll be out of context and uh uh without a number on them this weekend. But uh uh uh you know I I never know that feeling of being different, that feeling of getting ready to walk into a door, you know, walking walk through a door into a room to a social situation or a work situation or a family situation and steal myself up to then be ready to show up, right? But I'm having to get myself together.

Uh, have you ever walked up and I know I won't make you, it's rhetorical, you don't have to answer, but uh uh I've gone places where I wasn't sure what uh what was supposed to happen, right? I'm going might be a work situation, a lot of people milling around. Might be something else and I don't quite know my way around yet.

So, have you ever pretended to be on your phone? >> Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That way. Cuz it looks like I'm doing something.

I don't look like that dumbass who doesn't know where where to go. So I'll act like I'm talking to somebody and try to figure this out and and you know metaphorically I have done some version of that in my life a lot and and and what has been this freedom from the bondage of self and and and is it at least a lessening of the bonds you know that is just that is so important what happens for me here you know Ben and I were talking in the car today and I keep calling Ben because I want you guys to talk to him this weekend. Ben, raise your hand.

There you go. >> Cuz he's all the way in the back row, right? He's already there.

But see, we're we're talking coming over here, right? And and what happens in AA is I show up here with one problem and you solve another, right? I show up here with an a problem with alcohol.

And and and then people start saying, "Well, alcohol is not my problem." And you know, I don't argue with that. What I'll tell you is when I drink, I'm a problem. So, so, uh, my sponsor said, you know, when the when the book says that that, uh, uh, the elimination of our drinking is but a beginning, a much greater demonstration of these principles lies before us and our respective homes, affairs, and occupations.

And my sponsor said early on said said, "That's true, Steo." He said, "But that not drinking part's really important." And uh uh cuz I don't seem to be able to benefit from anything else alcoholics anonymous has for me while I'm drinking because I believe I don't know if this is true of the non-alcoholic, but I believe it blocks me off from you and from God. It is it is synthetic. It is man-made.

It gives me some relief, but it's an illusion. It's like pain medication. It hasn't treated the problem.

It has tricked me into thinking the pain is not there. And uh uh so there's also this this story I love. I want to tell it because I'll forget if I don't.

That there was this uh uh uh executive in a Fortune 500 company. And by all accounts a great guy, a little bit like Fred in the book and by all accounts a great producer in the company, well-liked by everybody. He had one real failing.

It seemed that every week when he went to give his report to the CEO of the company, he would wet himself and he wore tacky. So it was a bad look and uh uh and he was horribly embarrassed by that is is understandable and the CEO was a a a kind and compassionate man and he said you know I'm going to connect you with our our company psychiatrist to help you with that. He's grateful.

He goes off and comes back the next week goes in to deliver his report. Sure enough wets himself and the CEO goes well I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to see the psychiatrist. And he said, "No, I saw him." "Well, I'm sorry he couldn't help you with your problem." He went, "No, no, we're good.

He helped me." He go, "Dude, you just pissed yourself, you know." And he said, "Yeah, but I'm no longer embarrassed about it." So, what problem's getting solved here, right? I show up with this drinking problem and this this hyper selfcenteredness is what begins to be treated. What happens with these 12 steps is it makes the alcohol unnecessary.

In fact, it makes it a burden. It takes away what you've given me. See, I'm not here tonight out of desperation.

And if you're new, I want you to understand, I don't think there's too many new people here, but but that's not I I'm absolutely capable of getting drunk again. I I suffer no illusions about that. But I'm not here out of fear of getting drunk.

I'm here. I because I love the life I have today because I've been given this freedom and I don't embrace it all the time. I don't access it all the time because that ego will show back up.

That ego only has bad news for a guy like me. That ego just says you're not enough. There's not enough time.

There's not enough stuff for you. They don't You know, I'm at a meeting one night and and I was about uh uh four or five years sober. It's when I was Sean living in Richmond, Virginia.

And uh um and I spoke about as long as I've spoken tonight. And it was not a speaker meeting. And uh uh uh and uh got home, my sponsor had been there.

I called my sponsor, Joe. You asked some folks about Joe Sullivan. And Joe's passed away now.

But I I asked Joe, I said, uh I said, "Joe, did I sound self-righteous in that meeting tonight?" And he said, "Oh, Steve, you're still asking all the wrong questions." He said, ' Because the question isn't did you sound self-righteous. The question is, were you self-righteous? He said, 'But see, you don't care if you were self-righteous or not.

You're afraid they think you're self-righteous. You're afraid they're driving home going, "Man, that Steve's a self-righteous son." He says, "You're not worried about the defect of character. You're worried about what the defect looks like on you." >> And he said, "Here's the news, Steve." He says, "You're not who you think you are, and you're not who they think you are, and you're especially not who you think they think you are." And I I'm going to tell you that that struck me, and and from that day till this, I become high.

It's not like I'm free of that, but I'm aware of the fact of how often I am impacted by what I think you think. How will this look? How will this sound?

How will this play? How what what you know what and sometimes, you know, it can it can be a whole host of things we say and and then we get to saying stuff around here that that that I don't understand. I need other people to help me understand what it means.

And you guys started saying what other people think of you is none of your business. And I thought that meant that I shouldn't care what anybody thinks about. I care.

I sit up here tonight. I hope I hope you like me. I hope I'd love to be liked and respected and appreciated and all of these things, but what you teach me in AA is while it's okay to to kind of want those things, I can't let that dictate my behavior.

that what I'm supposed to do is embrace these 12 steps and take principle make principled driven decisions and the conclusions you draw about me are out of my hands cuz I don't know what my recovery looks like to somebody else. But I do know that if I keep trying to please individuals here, chase you around, you know, we've all heard the guy that's gives the talk at a conference somewhere and you know, 99 people pat you on the back and one person picks a bone with you and I chase that guy around the rest of the weekend trying to convert him, >> rushing by the people who who appreciate you, rushing by. How many times do I, you know, so I'm just trying to be free of that.

And I don't try, like Chris said, I won't I don't try through force of will. I don't try. Now, now I got about 30 or 40 books at home read about 30 35 pages in.

You've got some of them. I mean, the book jacket looked like it had the answer. And I said, I'll read this and there's some there's going to be something on a page that's going to make the difference.

Or I'm going to go listen to Stephen Chris tonight and that's going to make the difference. I'm going to hear something, read something, see something that's going to make the difference. And it does.

What what we do is here's things that maybe help us change a perspective or a point of view that then turn that that then free me up to go take the actions necessary. What we got to do is take the information and put it into application to bring about the transformation. Nothing happens when if you've liked anything we've said tonight, it won't last till you get back over to the house.

We're like a bad Chinese meal. I mean, you you're going to be spiritually hungry in an hour. But maybe between us, we will identify some things we can do.

We can take these actions. We can reach out to other people. We can sponsor guys.

We can be sponsored. At 32 years sober, I'm finding it hard to be sponsored. And I don't mean somebody to tell me when to turn left and right and everything, but I mean I got to I got to get I got to get on record.

You know, when you get sober a little while and there's some people here sober a little while and all of a sudden there's some problems we're unwilling to have out loud. I can't have that. You kidding?

They might not invite me back up to the Wilson house if I talk about this. I might lose my, you know, I I don't know about I know there's some old enough times here that you got a seat at your home group. You got your seat at the home group.

They might take my seat away. You know, I might lose my standing. You want to know the most dangerous thing a guy like me does in AA is get involved in image management in AA.

What a bunch of losers to try to impress, right? We all had to burn our lives down to get here. And all of a sudden, I start worrying about, you know, cuz my first year sober, man, I'll tell you anything.

I made stuff up. But then after a while, I'll start protecting myself NA. Now I begin to think I got a particular role to play NA.

And you ever gone to a meeting and hope somebody else brings up your topic? I want to hear about it. I just don't want them to know I'm the one with that problem.

Man, I think the best thing we do, what what I've discovered, I'm not always up to the task, but what I've discovered and what I hope we continue to do this weekend is that that when we talk about feeling disconnected, that conscious separation between man and God. It is the secret that separates me. It is the It is that thing.

There's a difference between private and secret. and those things that I'm afraid to let you see. What I've discovered is that when I do let you see it, that turns out to be what we have in common.

And I don't mean a particular behavior necessarily, but that underlying feeling. We are all carrying that underlying feeling. We are, as our book says, we are much more brothers in our defects than in our virtues.

But we only want to show the best side of us. And I I I mean, we should we want to do better, act better, be better. I get that.

But one-on-one when we're talking with each other, when we're in those we have those confidants, it's it's taking that curtain down and letting people know. I I get to tell you when I'm scared to death. I get to tell you when I told the lie at work.

And I don't do I only do it when it's absolutely necessary. You know, I only lie when the truth couldn't possibly work. And that's the manifestation of self.

That's when this shows up and we go AA this AA because we can talk some AA and believe it when we're saying it but then case by case am I up to it when it shows up when our book says all these affairs and would so so when I get the real life in real time opportunity do I do I answer the bell thank God that's you know we we are given an ounce right in how it works so we don't panic you know after we read those steps it's whoa don't panic panic kid. We're not saints. We come nowhere near perfect adherence to these principles.

What's the point? Jesus, if I can't Well, the point is we're willing to grow along spiritual lines. Let's spend the rest of this weekend asking ourselves wherever we are in our recovery journey.

However long we've been here, how how little bit of time, am I willing to grow along spiritual lines still? Or if I hit a spot where I'm ready to coast and not press myself. Am I if I hit a spot where now I'm going to start keeping some stuff over behind the corner.

If I hit a spot where I think I can stay sober, but that bond those bonds of self begin to tighten up around me. I believe that that to tell you the truth, I've said about three things tonight I needed to hear. Now, usually they say you don't learn anything when you're talking.

I hear all the time. Pardon me. that that I go, "Whoa, I might ought to try that." And uh uh uh that was good.

That might actually work. And uh uh but you know, it becomes a challenge. And I think one of the reasons to be honest that maybe God has has has put me sitting up here sometimes is because if I was just a third row AA member, I'm I'm a coaster by nature.

I'm just a C student by nature. I want to do just good enough not to draw attention for doing bad and and just well enough not to have too many expectations put on me. But you guys invite me into the conversation in a bigger way.

When you invite me here, you give me that chance to to learn about me while I'm talking to you. And then when you talk about yourselves, it gives me that chance to to also then take what you share with me. And and I hope we continue to do that the rest of the weekend.

Chris, I didn't Chris as I wanted to and and he thought I wouldn't. Uh so I'm I'm enjoying I'm enjoying every every every bit of it. Uh you one one of the first lessons I got on what really was my problem.

I was about I don't know I was about nine months sober and my sponsor showed up at my house. Now this was really weird. He he'd never shown up unannounced before.

you know, I thought there might be an issue. And and he he comes into the house and he goes upstairs and I've I've always been a big reader. I've always read millions millions of books.

And the first thing he does is, you know, he's looking over my bookshelves and he sees all the self-help books, right? You know, the joy of resentment, you know, when friends through intimidation, you mean every every but you know, humility and beyond. I mean, look, all every single self-help book that ever could exist.

And he's going, "Chris, you got a lot of self-help books here." And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, Phil." Yeah. And he goes, "Could I ask you a question?" And I go, "Sure, sure." He goes, "Where's your help others books?" And and I go, "Um, unfamiliar with that category, Phil." You know, self self can't fix. How selfish is having 75 self-help books, you know?

So, so that was one of the one of the lessons like there's got to there's got to be action. This is a program of of action. I love I love the challenge that that that Steve gave all of us.

Are we willing to stay enthusiastic about this thing? Are are we willing willing to continue to go deeper to go to to to to let's let's mine this gold mine we've found, you know, one more level down. Let's let's see what we can do.

Uh let's see what we can do this weekend about recommitting to uh to some action because it's the action, it's it's not, you know, it's not the thinking, it's the action that really really has helped me. And uh I think uh I think we're done for for tonight. And you got any final thoughts?

>> In the parking lot. >> Okay. All right.

He's got some thoughts in the parking. Thank you, Malcolm. Thank you, uh, Ba.

Thank you very much for being a wonderful host for for all of us here at at the Wilson House. This place really is to some of us, this place is hallowed ground, and we're we're we really appreciate uh appreciate being here. So uh so I was talking earlier uh with Steve.

We're going to start moving through moving through the steps a little bit sharing sharing our experience. But what I' what I'd like to do is I'd like to read a couple of passages from our literature just to kind of set the stage. Last night we were talking about step one re really the the problem.

And my experience with with step one was it really was an evolution. I my my first understanding was alcohol was killing me. But slowly it started to dawn on me just how much trouble I was in.

And and and a lot of that understanding came from moving through the steps. It came from the things that I was hearing in the meetings. It came from my sponsor.

So So it just it it kind of just dawned on me how much trouble I was in. Uh but what I want to do is I want to read u a kind really a kind of seldom read piece. This was buried in tradition 9 but uh I remember the first time I read it I'm like holy mackerel.

So this is on page 174 of tradition 9. It says unless each AA member follows to the best of their ability our suggested 12 steps to recovery they almost certainly sign their own death warrant. You think he meant that?

You, you know, was he maybe being extreme? It's been my experience that the people who really are, you know, real alcoholics that show up in Alcoholics Anonymous, if there isn't some form of of spiritual uh practices that develop and a change in personality, they don't make it, you know. So, so Bill was this prophetic guy who saw problems before they even happened.

and he really understood the nature of of alcoholism. And he understood we can't just get sober and have everything go well uh if if we're the type of alcoholic that this book describes. And then it says their drunkenness and disillusion are not penalties inflicted by people in authority.

They result from their personal disobedience to spiritual principles. So there's not a lot of punishment in AA you you know alcohol is the great punisher. Uh but it's telling us here that our relapse is going to be because we're disobeying spiritual principles.

Don't you feel somewhere inside you that that's true? that we really we really need need to to to to take stock of how we're we're behaving and and the the you know the the ways that that that we're we're thinking and our perceptions and everything and and we really need to need to start to look toward the the spiritual. Uh I I know I know that's true.

So that's a great problem statement for us. um we're going to be in real trouble if we don't up our game. You know, this weekend kind of is about upping our game.

Um so that's the problem statement. There's a great solution statement in the forward to the 12 steps and 12 traditions and I'll read that. AA's 12 steps are a group of principles, spiritual in their nature, which if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.

That's one of my favorite pieces out of our literature. Let's unpack that a little bit. The 12 steps are a group of principles and they're spiritual in their nature.

And if we make an effort to practice them as a way of life, not only will they enable us to stay separated from alcohol because they'll expel that obsession, that obsession that causes us to put alcohol into our body against our own self-interest. It will expel that. But the real good news is our life will change so much that we'll become happily and usefully whole.

I don't know about anybody else, but when I was drinking, I was looking for alcohol to make me happily and usefully whole. I became very useful when I was drinking at the bar. You know, if there was a surgeon sitting next to me, I'd give him some advice.

you know, you know what kind of scalpel you use? You know, what do you use that scapel? It didn't matter if I knew anything about it.

Uh, you know, I I had this drive to be uh to be useful. You know, my ego wanted me to be useful and to be happy. I mean, in between the drinks, I was the exact opposite of happy.

You know, they talk about restless, irritable, discontent. you know, you know that that was on a good day for me. So, I was looking in I was looking for al alcohol to bring me some kind of happiness.

And in my personal experience, like you know, I I did a lot of alone drinking in the last years of my drinking, what would happen is somewhere between drink seven and drink nine, you know, things would just things would go like this. you know, I'd exhale all the way. All the all the emotional pressure and discomfort would kind of flow off of me.

And for a moment or two, I would be happy and then I'd overshoot the mark and become a vomiting pig. But but but what I was looking for was was that sense of ease and comfort that the that the doctor's opinion talks about. I was looking for that.

And this promise basically in the forward to the 12 and 12 is saying that if we if we practice these these 12 steps, these spiritual steps, we will become happily and use whole. And I'm here to testify to all of you today that I've become happily and usefully whole. I I I really have.

My my my life is incredibly useful today and I'm happy. And and and here it is. The big the big mistake I made in my life was trying to get happy uh arranging the externals, arranging where I was living, who I was with, you know, what my job was, what I was driving.

And the happiness that's offered from the spiritual realm is an internal happiness. And I've experienced that. And what that's like is no matter what's going on out there, you know, people die, you lose jobs, you you go bankrupt, states catch up with you because you fled to avoid prosecution.

All those things happen to all of us, right? And uh but but no matter no matter what those things are are generating out there, there can be an internal comfort uh in an an internal happiness and and uh that's just something that just absolutely has to be uh has to be experienced. Now, just a little bit on on on step two and then I'm going to I'm going to pass it over to Steve.

But step two was an evolution for me. I did some coming to believe, you know, over a course of time. Uh my first my first real glimpse of step two was maybe Alcoholics Anonymous has an answer for me.

And then may maybe, you know, getting a sponsor and a home group, maybe that's going to have a real answer for me. And it developed over the course of time. It developed uh over many many different experiences, a lot of sponsorship and step work.

It developed into a personal relationship with the divine, the consciousness of the presence of God. And that's a remarkable experience for somebody like me who who was I I was the most arrogant, judgmental, sarcastic, non-joining person you've ever seen in in your life. I had a problem with things I didn't even have a problem with.

That's how many problems I had. And and and for for for me to be able to move through that evolution is remarkable to me. And I know you all had a lot to do with it.

Me paying attention to what was going on with all of you in the meetings and with your own personal recovery had played a played a real role in it. But I am very glad that walking down into the basement to my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, somebody didn't somebody did not meet me at the door with a list of the steps saying this is what you have to do. You have to do it right now.

this will this will establish a relationship with God for you and that that's what's going to solve your problem because if that would have happened I would have said thank you that's that's great information you know good luck to all of you that's not going to work for me you know I I had to be led by the hand you had to lead me by the hand into this coming to believe but it's It's turned out to be an unbelievable experience for me. Uh th this this coming to believe in a power in a power that can pull me away from the gates of death and insanity of alcoholism. It's a power.

My the things that blocked me off from uh from really believing in this power were my old belief systems. the things that I learned in Sunday school, the things that I just described in my mind, you know, when I when I thought I I I'll say this. When I say God today, something pops into your head that I don't mean, you know what I mean?

Be it's it's really really difficult to describe this power. And when I start to start to put descriptions on it, I put it in a box. It it it it it's it's a power that if I'm living life along certain spiritual principles, I can gain access to.

If I'm living life bas based on selfishness and self-centerness and self-involvement, I'm distant from. So, so these these steps really have the steps and the the sponsorship and the service commitments and everything that Alcoholics Anonymous has told me. It would be a good idea if you did that.

Chris has has changed me to the point where now this now this power is accessible to me and it's it's absolutely, you know, revolutionized my life and I and I see it revolutionizing your lives. You know, the actual power of God can work in you and through you. They don't even say that at church.

You know what I mean? But that's really one of the promises that we have. The actual power of God can work in you and through you and do for you what you cannot do for yourself.

And uh and Steve, I want to I want to hand it over to you, buddy. >> As that uh uh >> maybe I can just hold it here as that unsuspected inner resource. Right.

and and the idea of tapping into it, it, you know, really strikes me because that's like it's like getting an IV, you know, when I get an IV, I don't know exactly why that's h what's happening, but I feel differently, you know, and uh uh and what happens when I get this conscious awareness, this God consciousness, there's an awareness. I experience life differently. I see things differently.

and and uh uh and we'll talk about that more. But also Chris talked about that um that wholeness. You know, how often do we hear someone show up at AA or would you have heard me talk about that hole in the soul, right?

H O L E. But here we get wh that hole is filled. And uh uh and and that's also like we said last night, I got to I got to get sober to get whole for me in AA.

But that's been the gift, you know, and and when uh uh Roland Hazard uh you know went to see Carl Young and uh uh and and and ultimately Young said, "I can't help you." Right? Uh uh after after a year and and uh uh and encouraged him to go get connected with some folks as he did with with the Oxford groups. But when Bill wrote Carl Young, you know, in 196061 and Young wrote back to Bill, you know, almost 30 years later, right?

And he said, and he told Bill, he said, "I couldn't be as as I'm paraphrasing, but I couldn't be as as candid with Mr. Hazard as I might have been given the times." But he says, "What what I really thought he had at a low level was a spiritual thirst for wholeness. In medieval terms, a union with God.

See, I show up here not knowing what's missing. I show up here not recognizing that what I really have is a spiritual thirst. And I've been trying to quench that with alcohol.

I've been trying to I have been bringing about that change a change in me through alcohol rather than this spiritual connection. You know, it says back in a vision for you, uh it talks about what most normal folks get from a few drinks, right? I mean, normal people I I get why they drink.

For most normal folks, drinking means conviviality. You know, I didn't know what that meant for a long time, but I just love saying it. It uh uh it just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?

Conviviality, joyous intimacy with friends, colorful imagination, released from care, boredom, and worry, and a feeling that life is good. A feeling that life is good. It goes on to say that that's not what a guy like me gets in the latter days of his drinking.

What I get, it says maybe momentarily. So, I'll get that feeling as Chris said, maybe it's drink four, five, six, seven, I don't know, maybe it's at 8, 9, 10 at night. But I awaken to face the hideous four horsemen of terrible bewilderment, frustration, despair, and then I give up this drinking and say, "What do you got for me?" You know, it's amazing that a guy like me, everything that alcohol did to me, even when I decide to put it down, it feels like a sacrifice.

You know, I'm in this abusive relationship with alcohol, just like an abusive relationship with someone else. And and I I I never want this to be misinterpreted. I'm not not making line to that.

But you know, when I'm watching that bad TV movie of the week and he or she is going back to him or her and I'm watching and I'm going, "Don't do it. Don't you see this is going to end badly. Do not do it.

I don't get it. I'm watching and they go back." And I got this kind of relationship with alcohol and I would break up with alcohol. And then about two or three days later, I'd get a alcohol booty call.

And alcohol say, "Steve, just let me come over. Let's just hang out. We'll just cuddle." And I go, "Okay, we have a couple of good nights together and then it just beats the hell out of you again, right?" And I get and so it's amazing because what alcohol did for me was was so remarkable and so needed that I was willing to risk what it did to me.

But the the scales had turned dramatically and the price I was paying and perhaps more importantly the price the people around me were paying was going up significantly. So but I don't understand that I've got this search for spiritual wholeness. I didn't even think in those terms.

So when I get here, what the book says, you know, last night we talked about the problem a lot and talked about both the problem with alcohol, that relationship with alcohol and that relationship with me and that relationship with you and that relationship with God. You know, I was in a meeting uh a few years ago and a guy came in late. That's not surprising.

uh he decided to share immediately. That's not surprising. He didn't know what the topic was.

That's not surprising for him or me. And uh and he goes, "But I gather from what I've heard that the topic is relationships." And it wasn't. But what struck me is in fact all of our meetings are about relationships.

All of our meetings are about relationship. How do I relate myself rightly to him? How do I relate myself rightly to you?

How do I relate myself rightly to me? All of this is about relationship. And and but but I show up here with an alcohol problem.

And then I finally come to grips with that problem with alcohol, right? And I finally when we get to we agnostics and and and you know I went through that uh uh uh you know assessment that I took going to treatment with you guys last night. But the men and women of AA let me know right away that how I answered those questions isn't what makes me alcoholic or not alcoholic.

Those are the types of questions that might reveal my alcoholism. That might be a red flag. But but what I could finally grab hold of is what's on page 44 in our book when it says you know when you honestly want to you find you can't stop entirely which you guys explained me to stop and never start again or when drinking you have little control of the amount you take says if so you're probably alcoholic and I finally got where I could lay my life experience honestly over that litmus test with alcohol the first half of the first step and go that's me I got that.

So I was able to concede to my innermost self at least at the level I could understand the problem at the time. I got that. And then the next line said if so you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience can conquer.

I thought, damn, I was hoping for something else. >> Because quite honestly, and the book talks about we've seen many a man's eyes light up, right? When when when finally I'm with people who understand the problem.

And then the solution is really offputting. The solution, number one, I didn't think that that I didn't know if I believed in it. I didn't know if it if it was real.

Was it accessible by me? I I I was a guy who I don't know what I believed or didn't believe, but but I I wouldn't hold hands and and say the Lord's Prayer at the end of meetings for the first six months. I was sober.

I went through my big book with a marker and blacked out everywhere it said spiritual experience or spiritual awakening. Uh I it looked like a CIA redacted volume of the big book. And uh uh and I did that I used to say with my sponsor's approval and he said no you did it with my knowledge but not my approval.

Those are different. But what he had done was taken see I was this language was so offputting to me. >> And like Chris said I wouldn't use the word God.

And I wouldn't say God cuz I didn't want you to think I meant what I thought you meant when you said God. And so I so I I and and I didn't, you know, you could pat me on the head all you want and say, "Oh, you get to, you know, pick what? Oh, power of the universe, whatever.

I get to make stuff up, but but I knew what you meant. Hang around a little while and you'll believe like we believe. We'll bring you into the team." I wouldn't hold hands and say that Lord's prayer.

And a guy came up to me one night after the meeting and guy had been my counselor in treatment. And he said, "Steve, you're still hung up on that." He said, he says, "How come you won't do that?" And by the way, everyone in AA told me it was perfectly okay for me not to hold hands and say the Lord's Prayer. And I'm really grateful for that.

And if you're there, that's perfectly all right. But he was trying to understand what my particular hang-up was. And I said, I don't want to be a hypocrite.

You know, I said, I don't know what I believe, and I'm not just going to hold hands and sing come by y'all with the rest of the campers because that's what you guys are doing. And uh he had heard my my treatment fifth step, which included some of the things you guys heard last night. uh six DUIs.

I had a I hit a car going the wrong way down the interstate that that that injured and hospitalized people. I stole time and money from a family business or infidelities in my marriage. I had uh uh drunk at the hospital when my daughter was born.

But he said he said, "But uh uh hypocrisy, that's where you draw the line, huh?" Yeah. He said, "That's really impressive, man." And uh uh he said, "I got good news for you and bad news for you." And uh I said, "I'll play." And uh I felt condescended to. And uh if you're new to AA and you have ever felt condescended to, it's cuz someone's just been condescending to you.

And uh uh uh I said, "I'll play. What's the bad news?" He said, "The bad news is hypocrisy is way down your list of problems, and you might to ought to address them in the order in which they will kill your ass." And I said, "What's the good news?" He said, "The good news is there's room for another hypocrite in Alcoholics Anonymous." And I will tell you, I'm just grateful for that today, maybe more so than I was then. Right?

But see, he was allowing me, what that allowed me to do, I didn't believe anything any differently, but but it took some of my defenses down. And some of that was just a false bravado. I'm still trying to hold on to my version of my man card, you know, and and I'm not, like the book says, I'm not going to be the hole in the donut.

And I was taking stands and pushing back in places where people weren't even pushing against me. But I was looking for some things to fight about and debate and argue. And and you guys just make it easy.

There's nothing to fight about here. There's nothing to fight about. You know, Chris just see we we've made clear the first step is a description I believe of my problem.

It just describes the problem and I get to decide whether I've got it. That's the identification. The second step describes the solution.

It's not where I get the solution. It describes what can happen to me that ultimately a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity. And I kept thinking something was supposed to happen for me there.

Now, it does happen. Bill had that sudden and vital spiritual experience. But that's why they put appendix 2 in the book that that says, "Hey, we may have given you the misimpression." I mean, that happened at the second printing.

That's how quickly they saw that they might have left this impression with Bill's story. Don't be waiting on that burning bush. Just be willing to take these actions and by the 12th step I will have had this spiritual awakening and what I believe or don't believe that blank will filled in as a result of of the actions I take.

And I will tell you that's in pencil because that continues to evolve 32 years later. This relationship continues to evolve just like my relationship with people. I learn more about you.

We spend more time together. I I I I oh I what I thought was true is not true about you. Uh and this thing I didn't know about you, I now know that happens with this relationship with this power greater than myself.

And as Chris said, no one can fully define or comprehend this power which is God. That's comforting to me. No one can fully define.

Some of you may have heard the story about the blind men and the elephant, right? And it says there were three men from Hindustan to learning much inclined. They went to see an elephant but all of them were blind.

One of them grabbed the elephant by the tail. One of them grabbed the elephant around its big leg and the other one grabbed the elephant by its trunk. They went back to their village and the villagers who also had never uh been around an elephant said, "Tell us about the elephant.

tell us about the elephant. And the one who grabbed the elephant by the tail said it's like a rope. And the one who grabbed it around its big leg said it's like the trunk of a tree.

And the one who grabbed it by its trunk said it's like a snake. And they argued endlessly about what an elephant was. Never realizing that the elephant was big enough to encompass all those traits.

That they had not described the elephant. they had described their touch point, their relationship to the elephant. And see, I think that's what we do.

So, at a time when I was so uncomfortable about what I thought you thought and I heard you describe something and I would go, "Oh, that's that's not my experience. I'm not I'm no longer put off by that at all. And I'm I'm now freely use the word God because I'm unattached to what I think you think that means.

I don't I just I'm I'm I'm just fine with it now. And that used to be something that just made the hair on my neck stand up in a meeting. So you give me so much freedom here where I thought I was trapped at this second step because it says what once I say I've got that problem over alcohol, it says that uh uh that so lack of power is my dilemma.

And see I will tell you this is again another point of view maybe not everyone holds. quote, I I argue with no one, but I don't think lack of power is my problem. I think my problem is I don't know I don't have power.

I think my problem is I keep trying to exert power I don't have to do something I can't do. First of all, in that relationship with alcohol, it says lack of power is my dilemma. And I was 18 years sober before I looked up the word dilemma.

among other things. It says uh doing it says says a problem with two equally unacceptable solutions. The fact that I don't have power presents me with a dilemma and the book calls it out.

Whether to die an alcoholic death or live life on a spiritual basis, whether to accept spiritual help or go on to the bitter end. Well, I I'd like door number three, please. But see all we got in aa you know and Chris said when you know we talk about suggestions and I'm a guy that I believe what decide I'm going to believe what's on one page of the book I decide I believe what's on all the pages of the book.

So I believe they are suggestions. It says in how it works following are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. on 164, right?

It says, "Our our our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little." By the way, just a quick aside, have you met the person who realized they know only a little? He's not in my home group, and I'm not him.

Uh uh. And also, just another quick aside, aren't you glad they waited to page 164 to tell us that if you led with, by the way, you we want you to read this book, but just know up front we we don't know much. Uh, no, they sucked us all the way to 164, but says our book is meant to be suggestive only.

So, while they are suggestions, here's the caveat in AA. It's the only suggestion we got. We don't have a second set of suggestions in Alcoholics Anonymous.

So, Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't claim ownership of the only way to get sober and be sober. Alcoholics Anonymous doesn't doesn't suggest that we've got a monopoly on God. Alcoholics Anonymous, it it says in working with others that if our man wants to try some other uh spiritual approach, we encourage him to follow his conscience, keeping in mind we have much in common as alcoholics.

But if I'm going to be an AA, I might as well do AA. See, there's nothing to argue about here. If I want to do something else, that's fine.

AA is like a steak restaurant. We serve steak. If I go and ask for, you know, sushi.

Well, Steve, you know, we serve steak. Well, I'd rather you serve sushi. Get some sushi.

No, Steve, we serve steak. Now, we we we know a great sushi restaurant down the street. We will make you a reservation.

We will give you a ride down there and and and we hope that you enjoy your meal. And I say that without being a smart alec or anything. We're just saying that.

But if you're NA, this is what we do. So there's nothing to argue about. And what we're trying to do is connect is to find a power to come to believe in a power greater than myself which will solve my problem which will restore me to sanity which will help me see things as they really are rather than my skewed version of things.

So I thought I was stuck at that second step. I can't go forward because I don't believe. But you guys told me I that that that's a that's an evolution as Chris said.

I don't have to buy into this right now. In fact, the only thing of that the second step says to me is, do you now believe or are you even willing to believe that there's a power greater than yourself? If so, we can assure a man he's on his way.

We can say with assurance, if you'll just say, you know what? Yeah, I'm skeptical. I'm cynical, but I'm willing to give it a shot.

And the way we do that is by continuing to move forward. And uh uh because because if I really conceded to that first step as we talked about it, it says over here on on page 43, right, the the very last of of kind of it says once more the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink except in a few rare cases neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a higher power.

When it says once more, it says, "Steve, we've been telling you and telling you and telling you, but once more before you move on, do you buy into the fact that you got a problem you can't solve? You can't outread it. You can't outthink it.

You can't out talk it. You can't out learn it. You're going to have to be, what Chris said, changed from the inside out.

We're not in the information business. We're in the transformation business." And that's an internal transformation. It is an entire psychic change, which is that spiritual awakening, which to me means I begin to see things as they really are.

I'll tell this and then give it back to Chris. By the way, I just want to set the stage for you if you hear this later in in the day. The two most often told lies in Alcoholics Anonymous are I'll be brief and I'll end with this and uh uh you know in your home group when you hear that strap in.

We're going to be here a while, right? So, same warning for me. But uh um uh the when when the movie uh Avatar came out a number of years ago, right, that was sort of the reintroduction of the 3D technology that I had not seen for years and my wife and daughter wanted to go.

And so we go and and we go to the big IMAX theater and and I become fascinated by this 3D technology. Uh because I put these glasses on and take the glasses off and watch the movie. And when the glasses are off, it's two-dimensional, right?

It's height and width and it's kind of fuzzy. And I put the glasses on and oh, now it's clearer. There's depth.

I'm seeing things I could not see without the glasses on. They're there. The movie's the same.

The dialogue is the same. The story is the same. Everything's there.

But until I put the glasses on and add the third dimension, I can't see these things. It enriches my experience. It's it gives clarity.

And now we're here in a three-dimensional world, but I'm looking to be rocketed into a fourth dimension. And when I am connected to that power, when I'm spiritually awakened, I see things. They were there.

I see things in a way I did not see them. I experienced things in a way I was not experiencing. They're there.

I'm just having you've added this fourth dimension and a vital sixth sense. And it just changes the world that I'm in. It doesn't change what's happening.

It change. Oh. Oh, this is what's going on.

Oh, there you are. I didn't see you like that before. I could not see things from that entirely different angle.

Oh, and I don't know that. And the truth is I'm my glasses today are on and off all day long. I'm like that bad lamp in your house that blinks, you know, and you start walking toward it, it comes back on.

You walk away and it goes off. That's my spiritual connection or my awareness of that connection is off and on all day long. Chris, thanks.

Thanks, Steve. That was that was that was great. Um I I wanna I want to tell I want to tell a story uh before I get started here.

So, so Bill Wilson was born in this house and he was born on a on a couch up in the back living room uh back, you know, 19 18 whatever. And so when uh when when Bonnie and Aussie got a hold of this place, one of the first things they did was they put a perpetual light up right in the spot where he was born. You can see that perpetual light.

It's the one with the the big ornate uh uh shade on it. And we were up here, we were up here about 10 years ago, uh, uh, on a workshop. And this light doesn't have a switch.

It's always on. And, and Bonnie comes walking and we're all sitting around. Bonnie comes walking in and she goes, "The lights out.

The perpetual lights out." And we look and one of one of our home group members had unplugged it to charge their phone. Is that Is that great? for for some reason I think Bill would get a kick out of that.

You know what I mean? Uh so you know um God Steve was covering some great great stuff uh great insight into into this uh into this process. So so the the the book is is so beautifully laid out.

Uh, do you believe do you now believe or are you even willing to believe that there's a power that can solve what what our real problem is? And then it starts to really describe it at an even deeper level, you know, what our problem is. And there's there's language between page 60 and 63 that talks about selfishness and selfcenterness.

That is the root of our our problem. We must be rid of this selfishness or it kills us. And it gives some brief descriptions of how selfishness and self-centerness can really be impacting our lives.

Now, now I've been that way forever. So, it was really hard for me to identify with this stuff. Like if you would have come up to me in in, you know, the first six months and said, "Chris, selfishness and self-centerness is going to kill you." I'd be like, "I'm not selfish." I mean, I was so selfish.

I didn't think I was selfish. And really, what it was was it was it was a mind that reacted to the world based on what is going to impact me and how is it going to impact me? and and and this this over this overwhelming selfishness like directed my life and then it talks about um being the actor who wants to run the whole show and and I I was that guy.

I you know I would get really frustrated when things weren't going the way I thought they should go. I had a lot of problems with employment because of that. you I would always know that that this is being run wrong.

The why why did the boss set it up this way? I would have set it up that way. I mean, so it caused a lot of problems in my employment relationships.

In my in my intimate in my romantic relationships, I would go into a a relationship like that thinking, you know, uh uh this is going to make me feel good. this is going to be good for me. You know, I I you know, uh uh she's going to treat me really well and and you know, it would never it would never it would never work out uh just because of the way I'm I'm going in.

I'm going in in a in a selfish way. My friendships my friendships all pretty much all blew up somewhere along the line. I was disrespected.

You know, somewhere along the line, uh, you know, I I was I I was treated poorly. And if you look at if you look at my life, it just it in high school, maybe there was 20 or 30 good friends, as I moved through my alcoholism, it got smaller and smaller and smaller. And the crazy thing is that these guys I think through the Oxford group, but Bill Wilson also was a huge reader.

He read a monstrous amount of of literature. Uh and he talked to some really really smart people. They were able to hone in what on on really what what what our problem is.

It's certainly a disconnection and problems in in in relationships that are based on this selfish and self-centered worldview. But in step three, I you know, my first understandings of step three was let's just say the prayer and let's move on to step four. And a couple of my experiences and unfortunately some of the some of the early sponses that I worked with, that's what we would do.

We would just we'd say the third step prayer. Okay, that's done. That's taken care of.

Let's move into step four. And over the course of time, I've really I've really seen that a thorough a thorowness to the principles of these steps is really of benefit moving through these steps because I think what kills so many of us is lack of enthusiasm certainly, but being somewhere in the process and stalling out, just stalling out, not not moving forward. I I I've worked with a lot of people.

I was the contact person for a lot of the local treatment centers in the '9s and, you know, I've I've worked with a lot of people and not everybody, you know, run, you know, moves through the steps and has a an awakened spirit and is is, you know, in the Wilson house, you know, hanging out with us. There's a lot of people that drop off al along the way. And have you have you ever worked with with with somebody and in the middle of the step work it's almost like they say I'm good now I got this you know I got this sometimes I feel like you know what have I missed what what did I not communicate was you know was it was it some way I fell short in presenting this material or was it just, you know, someone that wasn't ready or was unwilling or or whatever?

But something that's really really beneficial is what they call surrender. You know, surrender. Are are you done?

Are you done with this stuff? that now very very few people I've worked with have been at that point where they would absolutely do anything you know desperate desperate to recover many people come in today uh that don't have that sense of desperation and as a sponsor or a spiritual advisor what I've tried to do over the years is really try to hone my communication skill my ability to transmit an an idea and the base idea was what Steve was talking about. You have a problem you can't solve.

You know that that's the basic uh communication in the very beginning and we have a way out upon which we can all agree and here here it is. But there's something there's something in alcoholism. And I believe it's it's based in self.

It's based in selfishness, self-centerness that makes so many people reluctant to believe, reluctant to participate, reluctant to engage in this recovery process. So, you know, over the over the the course of years, uh, uh, I I've really tried to get better at at at communicating and relating and identifying. Now, in in the early in my early days of u of Alcoholics Anonymous, the the the step work was more enigmatic.

Okay. Okay. In north in North Jersey, when I got sober, it was unheard of for somebody to bring somebody over to their house and take them through the 12 steps.

It it lit literally if someone was doing that, they would have been labeled a pervert. It was it was that unorthodox, you know, to have your sponses come over your house and go through the steps. It was just unheard of.

So, so the experience that people were uh undergoing at that period of time were meetings were step meetings were speaker meetings and their own reading of of the literature. So I went through I went through that period of time and then I I discovered some workshops which really made things much more clear to me. Um, the first was was the Joe and Charlie workshops.

They were really impactful. Um, the the Joe Hawk Salvation Army talks, those were going around. That was really impactful.

Haven't been able to listen to those in a long time. But that that that created the renaissance really of literature-based, big bookbased presentation type of experiences that we're we're somewhat having uh you know here today at the Wilson House. And when I got involved in that, I was um I was I was encouraged by the information I uh I gave some authenticity to the people that were giving these workshops because they they they spoke with such authority and and the truth, you know, it's really hard sometimes to to to deny the the truth of alcoholism if you're really really honest about it.

And so there was there was honesty and there and and and there was authority in these workshops. Uh, and I wanted what they had, you know, I wanted what these people had. Um, so I got started on a very, very imperfect movement through the 12 steps.

Uh, multiple times I've been through the steps and that's a good thing because of the poor job that I did, you know, in in a lot of the early uh attempts through the the 12 steps. But I believe today uh in the third step the step one the problem step two the solution readies us it if we really are clear with this with with this experience that we're having. It readies us for a decision and that decision is to live life along spiritual lines to seek a relationship with God.

uh to to follow to the best of our ability uh the spiritual uh nature of the of the 12 steps and to distance ourselves from this this toxic experience of selfishness and self-centerness and that third step decision when you look back in the at the history of uh in alcoholics anonymous especially in the Akran area there's a there's a lot writings that describe how Dr. Bob took you through the third step. And uh it was abbreviated compared to you know some of the stuff we go through with the big book today.

They didn't really have the big book at that period of time. Uh but it would be on your knees in front of a bunch of guys in Dr. Bob's house.

And if he didn't think you were sincere enough in in this in in expression of turning your will and your life over to the care of God, if he didn't think you were sincere enough, they'd make you do it again. It was and it was a serious decision. The the definitions of words have changed over the years.

A lot of people use period dictionaries now when they're doing the real deep big book studies because the because the definitions of words uh h have a have a tendency to to change you know from the 30s to today. But I believe when they when they called something a decision back then it was really serious. It's like I can I can decide to to to go get a sandwich up at the uh up at the convenience store, right, for lunch, but something could happen and I could not do it.

That wouldn't be the type of decision they're talking they were talking about back in the 30s. When you made a decision, they expected you to now mean business. That's kind of some of the language they would use.

This guy means business. And that's someone who is going to start on the spiritual process of the the 12 steps or the early version of the 12 steps that that came out of uh came out of the auction group. But from a place of sanity, if I've truly conceded to my innermost self that I've got a problem I can't solve, I've come to believe that there's a solution for that problem.

From a place of sanity, I have to be ready to make a decision to move into that solution. But we're alcoholic. You know, there there's sometimes there's some things that really really trip us up.

And I and I think that's where some where good sponsorship uh can can really help. Um that's what I got, Steve. Thanks, Chris.

Uh, you know, it's um, as Chris, I love the way the book is laid out as well, right? I mean, we got the doctor's opinion and, uh, you know, when they got Silkworth to to write that letter, it was really to give credibility to the book, right? They're going to mail this book out.

It's not like they, you know, they're they're sending it out to to clergy and doctors and stuff. They didn't have a list of alcoholics to send it out to. and and and they wanted it to have some credibility and and and when I was first introduced to the book, the first two chapters I read sitting in treatment the first night was the doctor's opinion and there is a solution.

I said we'll get this covered quick and I'll be out of here and uh uh uh and and uh but we get that doctor's opinion then Bill shares gives us that chance for identification by sharing his story, right? And then it uh uh uh then it gives us uh uh uh there's a solution before I panic. And then it says before you get too cocky, here's a little more about alcoholism.

And then now if you're interested, here's how, you know, then we acknowledge go now here's how it works. Here's how this thing works. And I'm encouraged and it's not lost on me the things I see today.

and and as as Chris said, we want to take, you know, I envision taking a step and and moving on. But the truth is, we take these steps with us into the next step. These are not in they're numbered, but they're not independent.

They're not standalone. They're interconnected. Everything about the spiritual threads of of of our program are all connected.

When they're not done, you we we can't go down the buffet line and and do a one and a four and a seven, you know. we they they you can't do one without the context of the others. At least that feels like my experience.

But as I'm moving toward because so we've described the problem and describe the solution and then we're told here's here's how it works. And then for the first time that I see in the book they beg me says we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us tried to hold on to her old ideas and the result was nil till we let go.

Absolutely. And and uh I used to, you know, debate with my sponsor at about three years sober. We're having the debate cuz now and and we can fall guilty this here at about three years sober.

Not only had I read and studied the book, I might have been one of a handful of people that really understood it. And uh uh and I began telling people what Bill meant to say. And we can turn this spiritual, you know, gathering into an intellectual exercise.

And I have to guard against that. We can begin parsing words to a point that that we've lost the spiritual nature of what this is. And we want to have an experience, not get an A on the test, you know, but I still fall back and forth into those things.

But but if I'm going to really move forward and part of that third step is this decision to let go of old ideas and all that means is it doesn't mean because I what the debate with my sponsor was well that sounds like I never had a good idea before I got to AA that everything I ever thought was wrong. And he said that's not true Steve. He said I'm sure you got some good ideas.

He said we've not heard any of them yet but I'm sure you've got some. Uh he said, "But really what you're being asked to do there is is not cling too tightly to to the only ideas you had when you showed up here." Doesn't mean they're all wrong. He said, "You have trouble distinguishing the good ideas from the bad ideas, they're comingled with you." He says, "And if you are just limited to the ideas you showed up at AA with, then you that then there's not room for any new ideas." So said AA is not telling you to throw them away.

It's just said set them down so your hands are free. Open your mind so your mind is free for some new ideas that might serve you better, might help you serve others better. Said if you'll go through the process of these steps, the truth will find its way back.

The good ideas will still be there. and see and I've been running my life based on some beliefs and I couldn't have even told you what they were in many cases. The old ideas that had me, you know, the story about myself.

Part of part of the old ideas is we got to let go of what we think we know and and be open to what might show up. And then I get to this third step, right? And and I love what Chris said about enthusiasm because it's only a few years ago that I paid attention.

I'm about to parse a word but uh uh I'm I paid attention to where it says after this this you know in the midst of this third step when we sincerely took such a position that says when I decide that hereafter in this drama of life God's going to be the director that he's the principal that he's the father I'm the child. Just when we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of things began to happen. And apparently the sincerity of that position is not unimportant.

Uh uh I seem to benefit more when there is sincerity. Later it will say when we enthusiastically embraced certain ideas. So I'm and and through no virtue.

I have to tell you that I've been sincere and I've been enthusiastic since I've been in AA. And that's not virtue or intelligence. Neither of which, thank God, are necessary for sobriety in AA.

But I land here and after deciding I got a I got this problem I can't solve and after becoming open-minded at a minimum in step two to the prospect that perhaps a power other than me, greater than me can can solve that problem. The third step is my decision to seek that solution to that problem and to do so unreservedly. Not my version of that, you know.

And as Chris said, what what those few pages 6 through 62 63 in the big book do is introduce me to the fact as it says that selfishness and self-centeredness are the root of my problem. Now, we're going to go attach the attack the problem at its root. When we, you know, when we move the quit drinking alcohol, that's like uh mowing mowing over some weeds, but not weeding.

You know, it looks better for a little while. Cosmetically, we've made some significant improvements of, you know, the the uh curb appeal of my house just got a lot better because I mowed the grass, but by next week, that stuff's growing back up. I have not removed it.

I've trimmed it a little bit. And so I stopped drinking. And now we're going to get to the root of the problem.

And and and it says that that root is self is self is my problem. Self in its various manifestations. Chris talked about it last night.

It will tell us in a couple of pages. Being convinced that self and its various manifestations is what has defeated us. We looked for its common manifestations.

That's what we're about to do when we go into the fourth step. We're going to inventory to see where self shows up in my resentments, in my fears, in my conduct. Where does self show up?

I was in a meeting at that same beginner's meeting I referenced last night at a a different meeting but at at that particular group and uh uh there was a a young girl in there 16 17 years old and and uh she was trying to get sober and and I knew her and and my wife sponsored her mom but in that meeting all the people with 6 months or less are asked to kind of check in right and it got around to her and she started trying to say something and she was stumbling and bumbling and and and and and finally she just stopped and she said, "I just got to get over myself." And I thought, "Me too, baby. Me too." You know, me too. That's what I'm trying to do is just get over yourself cuz this self I'm trying to to make this this third step is where I you you have encouraged me as part of my recovery to turn away from self toward God to go from a self-centered life to a God- centered life to go from an egocentricdriven life to a God-centric life to a spiritually driven life guided life that oh this is the old idea.

Now I'm changing from the fact that I now I'm encouraged to stop taking actions based on what I think and what I feel and start taking actions based on the principles outlined in Alcoholics Anonymous beginning again with the fourth step and you say to and at the end of that third step prayer right I'm I'm asking in that prayer for you know first of all I'm saying do with me as you will. Yeah. Yeah.

Don't blow by that one. Okay. Yeah.

Do whatever you want to me. Do you really mean that? We're just c We're But please, here's a list of things I hope you won't consider.

And you know what this list is? We we'll we'll see this list in a little while. This list of things that I don't even know I've written down is my fear list in the fourstep inventory.

Things that must happen or things that can't happen. And I and and that's when I break my covenant with this third step is when I've got a list of stuff I don't trust God with. And I still got one, by the way.

It's ever changing, but I get I get, you know, wrapped up in it. But a and and then I'm praying. I'm asking God to relieve me of the bondage of self.

When I first began to read that prayer years ago and pray that prayer, I had this mental picture of of self being held hostage. But in fact, today, I believe that self is the hostage taker. I'm in bondage of self.

And that self shows up in these manifestations in many ways like the seven deadly sins. That self shows up as pride, as lust, as greed, as sloth, as envy, you know, and and uh uh and it's almost like they're holding me hostage, right? And they work in shifts, you know?

Uh lust and greed have me for a while and they do about a four or five hour shift and then they go, "Look, we got to go get something to eat." Hey, uh uh Greed, would you take over for a while and uh drive the boat here? And uh then I'm done with that. And and and then Sloth, I love sloth.

And because me and sloth just hang out and don't do together. And uh uh uh but you know what? But and I don't even know.

See, but that's guiding my life when we begin to look. We're saying, "What are your motives?" What my mo I'm motive is what drives you to action. A motive is what what moves you to action.

And and fear will move me to action. greed, lust, envy, sloth. Those things will dictate what I do.

And you're encouraging me here. This third step is my commitment to with God's help to do what I can't do by myself to live by these principles rather than be driven by those feelings. And at the end of that prayer, it says, which is one of the great bait and switch moments in Alcoholics Anonymous.

If you're new, you just got I'd read ahead if I were you before. >> Uh cuz it's after the prayer that it says we thought well before taking this important step. And I go, you know, it's like take, you know, your buddy ever give you, you know, hey, I just took the pill.

Oh, Steve, let me tell you what that's going to do, right? Cuz I take it and I go, look, dude, am I getting ready to take a nap or we going somewhere? you know but uh uh but I take that prayer and then and then you go oh you should have thought before taking that asking yourself if you are ready to abandon yourself abandon self utterly to him this is where I am I'm abandoning ship I'm saying I'm giving up on me I'm turning away from me toward God I'm abandoning myself utterly utterly.

Not I'm going to kind of not that bush league switch, you know, pinch hitter, but no, utterly. Do with me as you will. That's frightening.

I got to tell you, it's daunting. Do with me as you will. And then I hand God a list of suggestions.

Do with me as you will, except in my marriage. Don't be screwing around with my marriage. I'll handle the banking God, unless you're going to endorse a check.

Uh, I'm all for having more, but not for having less. You know, the biggest joke that alcoholics say all the time, we don't like change. We just want to be in charge of the change.

I got a lot of stuff I'd change if you put me in charge. I'll take a promotion. I don't want a demotion.

I'll take a raise. I don't want you to cut my salary. You know, I'll move to a bigger house.

I don't want to move to the apartment. I'll get a nice, you know, so I got a list. And here is where in its perfect incarnation.

I give up the list making. Later in the 12 and 12, it will say we all know the difference in a simple request and a demand. And I will tell you that I absolutely know the difference in a simple request and a demand.

But I am often not aware when a request has morphed into a demand and I didn't even see it happen. Where that thing I hoped would happen now must happen. Where that thing I hoped does not happen absolutely cannot happen or I won't be okay.

And when I make those definitive uh conclusions for myself, I'm now held hostage to them. I'm a prisoner to what I've decided must or must not happen. The third step has given me some freedom here.

But the third step as as Chris said and as we close here is in its simplest form is me making that decision to embark on the process unreservedly to take the actions that you're outlining that will connect me to this power. It is. I told you last night.

Give me directions to New York. Right now, you've given me the directions and I get about 15 miles down the road and go, "This couldn't be right. I'm not turning left here." Ben and I were coming here yesterday from from Albany and and and you you know, Google turned us down this road and was that just couldn't possibly be right.

And usually when I'm by myself, Ben and I'm sure just, you know, we we followed the directions, but normally I, you know, I'll just turn another direction and and God works just like Google Maps, you know, he just goes, you know, rerouting. Doesn't yell at me or anything. Just goes rerouting, go 1.3 miles and then turn left, you know.

And I get these chances all as I go through and and again, God doesn't get mad at me. I don't get put in the penalty box. I don't get punished for those mistakes.

I get lost on my own. And God's ready the moment I am. The moment I There's not a There's not, oh, I pissed God off, so he's going to put me in the penalty box.

I got a six-month in purgatory before I win my way back in. No, God's ready. This power, however you perceive it, this connection is available the very moment that I am surrendered.

And the way Chris talked about being surrendered, I give up. That's what William James said, right? That the that the single source of all great spiritual experiences is this total deflation of ego, of self.

The book says we're going to we're embarking on this thing, but it says a price must be paid. The price we pay is the total destruction of self-centeredness. Now, it we are never that's why we're always going to be somewhere in the middle.

We're human. That's the humanness of us that we're not absent ego, but we do want to deflate ego. But ego will will reinflate itself untethered if I'm if I'm not staying connected to this power.

And so this third step is where I I'm saying I I'm in Ben and I driving here yesterday and talking about what the weekend is and and uh never been to something like this. And and I was so appreciative. He he said he said, "I'm in.

I don't know what we're going to be doing, but I'm just I'm I'm all the way in. Let's do whatever there is to do. And uh uh then I'm the guy usually with my nose pressed against the window waiting so you know or get in a seat where I can ease out of the room unnoticed, but getting all the way in.

And the third step is my decision to get all the way in and go, "Okay, here we go." Not my version of the 12 steps. Let's go do what's written down here. Let me follow that sponsor.

Let me do those things. And uh and we will jump into that inventory later this afternoon or at 10:30 actually. It's when I'm going to start telling you about my sex life.

And uh that's more that's more a marketing tool to get you back. But it's uh Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message.

Until next time, have a great day.