welcome to sober Sunrise a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience strength and Hope from around the world we bring you several new speakers weekly so be sure to subscribe 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 let’s look at the last three steps not as just maintenance steps not just to keep us sober but to see if we don’t actually continue to grow in our relationship with God with ourselves and with another human with other human beings twice in the book bill has mentioned a fourth dimension of existence Once In His Story Once in Chapter 2 a dimension of living far beyond the normal three you can’t explain it you can’t describe it you can only feel it and that’s what the last three steps do move us into another dimension of living let look at them for just a few minutes and one of the things that we did as a fellowship is we took the steps out of the book and we put them on these little cards put them on the wall and if you look at St 10 on this card or on the wall by the way we left the instructions on how to work the steps in the book people come in AA and look on the wall and try to work the steps Off the Wall without instructions then when do they get in trouble but step 10 off the wall or this card says continue to take personal inventory and when wrong promptly admitted it and it looked like if we just continued to take a little inventory and if we were wrong promptly admitted it we would do be doing the intent of Step 10 and somehow or other we got the idea that we do that at night well the nighttime portion is over in Step 11 it’s not in Step 10 and Charlie and I have discussed this at great detail we don’t get in trouble at night in bed anymore we need a daytime walking around step so let’s look at step 10 in a different light so this thought brings us to step 10 which suggests that we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right new any any new mistakes as we go along we vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past we have entered the world of the spirit we’ve had a spiritual awakening our next function is to grow to grow not maintain not stay where we are but to grow in understanding and Effectiveness now this is not an overnight matter it should continue for our lifetime continue to watch for selfishness dishonesty resentment and fear what step did we use to look at that in the first place anybody remember step four okay and when these crop up we ask God at once to remove them what steps did we use there six and seven all right we discuss them with someone immediately and what step was that five okay and make amends quickly if we’ve harmed anyone what steps did we use there eight and nine then we’ resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help love and tolerance of others is our code it looks to me like if we follow the directions in the book that we will be doing steps four 5 6 7 8 and N every day on a daily basis for the rest of our lives I would defy anybody in this room to do four 5 6 7 8 and n on a daily basis and stay the way you are you absolutely cannot do that I’ve got that little inventory sheet right up here in my head just as plain as day and you do too and what I’ve trained myself to do if I get screwed up at 9:00 in the morning used to I’d wait till I went to bed at night to do something about it well when I do that I’ve wasted another day in anger and worry and depression and Etc I finally train myself and when I get screwed up about 9:00 get off in the corner by myself say Okay Charlie who are you mad at what did they do to you what part of self is affected what did you do if anything to set it in motion which character defect has come back to the surface I can’t get upset unless one of those old Character defects has come back selfish dishonest self-seeking frightened or inconsiderate I can spot it in just just like that I say Okay God you know I don’t want to be this way please take this away from me this selfishness or this dishonesty or whatever it is I try to discuss it with someone immediately preferably my sponsor sometimes I can sometimes I can’t but I try to then I make amends quickly if I hurt anybody in this process 10 15 20 minutes it’s all gone the rest of the day is okay I have wasted all the time that I want to waste in resentments and fear and anger and worry and depression and Etc I don’t have to do that anymore my God I love to feel good I just don’t want to waste any more time what little I’ve got left in that other kind of jazz I’ve got a tool here that works every time and as you continue to take personal inventory as you continue to look and see who you’re mad at and Etc and Etc and Etc you’re going to learn more about yourself as you ask God to take these things away they become less and less as you discuss them with another human being prefer to be our sponsor we know more about ourselves as we make them ends quickly our relationship with the world and everybody in it becomes better and better you can’t do step 10 the way the book says and stay the way you are you just can’t your relationship with God with your yourself and with your fellow man will become better and better and better and better a new dimension of living it we never dreamed existed now be careful this is just like six and seven this is the other changing step and if you stay fouled up you can’t blame it on anybody else any longer because if you’re fouled up and you use step 10 you can get rid of that stuff but if you stay fouled up and stay angry and worried and depressed and selfish and dishonest it’s got to be because that’s the way you want to be I can’t blame it on anybody or God or anything else any longer and once in a great while I like to be screwed up there’s times I like to be mad cuz when I’m mad I can romp and stomp and raise hell with everybody around me all day long and that gives me a comfortable feeling of superiority and once in a while I just love it there’s times I like to be afraid cuz I can use that to rationalize and justify not doing what I should do or just as importantly doing something I shouldn’t do but when I do that anymore I don’t enjoy it like I used to somewhere about the middle of it I catch myself and I say okay idiot you’re doing it to yourself again this thing really does work and you’ll continue to grow now after step 10 you got another set of promises let’s look let’s look at them for just a moment he says and we cease fighting anything or anyone even alcohol for by this time sanity will have returned remember it said we came to believe that a power greater on our would restore us to sanity well we get our sanity back on step 84 on page 84 by the way for by this time sanity will have returned for we we will seldom be interested in liquor if tempted we recoil from it as from a hot flame we react sanely and normally and this when we will find that this has happened automatically we can see that our new attitude toward look had been given us without any thought or effort on our part it just comes that’s the miracle of it we’re not fighting it neither are we avoiding Temptation we feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected we’ve not even sworn off instead the problem has been removed it does not exist for us we are neither cocky nor are we afraid that is our experience that is how we react so long as we keep in K pit spiritual condition and again remember way back on page 45 it said that the main object of this book was to enable me to find a power greater than myself which would solve my problem and somewhere between there and here we have the first nine steps or 10 steps to the program of alcohol is anonymous and one day into six or seven or eight months of sobriety and working these steps I looked up one day and I didn’t I said what happened to that desire of drink that I used to have it’s just gone I mean it was just gone seemingly while without any effort on my part I found the power and the power solved the problem it was just gone that’s the miracle of it now the next to the last paragraph on page 85 much has already been said about receiving strength inspiration and Direction not suggestion from him who has all knowledge and power if we’ve carefully followed directions not suggestions we begun to sense the flow of his Spirit into us to some extent we become God conscious we have begun to develop this vital six sense but we must go further and that means more action in other words what’s happened to us in these steps of 3 through 10 we’ve removed enough self-will that we’re now becoming God conscience and by now we’re beginning to receive some directions from God now if the book says that God has all power and all Direction and and I believe he does the book says so and it says God dwells within each of us and I believe he does the book says so then it really stands to reason that you and I have within ourselves all the knowledge and all the power that we could ever need to handle any situation which comes up in the future it’s called a sixth sense of direction I’ve got five senses everything I know on a conscious level I learn from those I can see and I can hear and I can smell and I can taste and I can touch but what little bit I’ve learned through My Five Senses of direction is just a small amount of knowledge but if God has all knowledge and all power if I can tap into him then I can handle any situation in the future with God’s help whatever it might be it’s long been known we do that you develop the sick sense of direction through prayer and meditation most of us we get here we we I didn’t I didn’t know anything about meditation I thought meditation is when you tried to clear your mind of all thought well I’ve never been able to do that when I wake up in the morning that sucker turns on and it will not clear out I thought maybe it was chanting listening to soft music that’s probably some forms of meditation but I knew nothing about any of it I knew very little about prayer even raised in church I only knew two prayers one went like this now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep and if I die before I wake I’m not into that prayer anymore that’s dealing with death and I don’t want nothing to do with that the other prayer that I used and I bet you used it too went like this God if you get me out of this damn mess I swear I’ll never do this again now I’m going to have to develop a life of prayer and meditation would seem to be impossible wouldn’t it Bill Wilson is faced with a job of teaching people who are spiritually bankrupt how to pray and meditate and Bill Wilson don’t know how to do it either thank God he didn’t CU if he had really been knowledgeable he would have written in such a manner that I could never have understood it but he didn’t know enough about it to be able to do that what he did do is what he’s done all the way through the book he gives us some definite valuable suggestions and he said if we will use those in our lives today we will develop our own life of prayer and meditation he couldn’t tell us how to pray and meditate but he could tell us how to develop our own he starts for just a few moments over on page 86 he tells us what to do when we go to bed at night here it is now in Step 11 he said when we retire at night we constructed believe you are day were we resentful selfish dishonest or afraid I believe that’s step forward again isn’t it yeah do we owe an apology that must be steps eight and nine again have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once I believe that’s step five again were we kind and loving toward all what could could we have done better were we thinking ourselves most of the time or are we thinking what we could do for others of what we could pack into the stream of life but we must be careful not to drift into worry remorse or morbid reflection for that would diminish all usefulness to others after making our review we ask God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures must be taken or should be taken there Step six and seven again so what the book is really suggesting is when we go to bed at night we sit down and kind of take another little inventory step 10 was during the day when we’re Disturbed step 11s before we go to bed at night we made up a little sheet here you could use you can use anything you want to main thing is is do we inventory or not one side of the sheet we took the basic Character defects selfish self-seeking dishonest frightened inconsideration we took all the other defects in the 12 and 12 which are the offshoots of those first four put them on the left hand side of the sheet and call them the personality characteristics of a self-willed person we tried to find the opposite and put them on the right hand side of the sheet call that the personality characteristics of a godwill person now all we’re trying to do is get from the left hand side of the sheet to the right hand side and I can sit down at night with this little sheet and run down through it making a few check marks that shows me where I’ve been that day shows me what I need to continue to work on never do I find myself on either side of the sheet the check marks change locations from time to time but I’m beginning to notice that I’m marking more of them on the right than I am on the left and slowly over a period of time we continue to become a different human being now I’ve learned one thing about my sobriety I am going to inventory I’ve got one or two choices I can put it off and put it off and put it off and put it off until I’m so sick that I’m almost drunk and then I start trying to dig myself out from under that mess or I can take just a few minutes each day and by doing it a few minutes each day I keep myself in reasonably good condition and I’m in much less chance of drinking I find that it takes less energy to do it on a daily basis then it does to wait till I’m almost drunk and then start trying to dig myself out from under it a very definite valuable suggestion okay the next next paragraph tells us what to do in the morning when we get up on awakening let’s think about the 24 hours ahead we consider our plans for the day before we begin we ask God to direct our thinking especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity dishonest or self-seeking motives under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties faculties with Assurance for after all God gave us brains to use our thought life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives most of us get up in the morning first thing we do is go to the bathroom uh one guy told me the first thing he did was get on a treadmill I said man you got a better bladder than I’ve got I go to the bathroom first then we head for the kitchen and we get a cup of coffee and maybe a little food and we feed the body we get the body taken care of we go back to the bathroom again and you ladies fix your hair and we men fix our beards or faces or whatever and we get that part of us done we go to the closet and we begin to pick out the clothes that’s going to cover the body during the day got to make sure they match now we got to make sure they match they’re the right color we spend lots of time on our clothes after we get the body all taken care of we feed the cat or the dog we start out the door we lock the door behind us we don’t want anybody to steal our junk we go out to the car and we check the air and the tires and we check the fuel and the fuel tank we turn the switch on start the motor and we take off down the road but what did we do about our minds that morning we took care of all the material things including our body what did we do about our minds our minds are going to run the whole show all day did we check the air there did we check the fuel level there did we feed the mind a little bit if we would take 5 to 10 minutes in the morning to ask God to direct our thinking throughout the day ask God to give us the right thought and action before we even start thinking about today then chances are our thoughts about the day are going to be in better shape if we spend 5 minutes in the morning there couple with 5 minutes in the evening when we go to bed there’s no telling what we could do with our minds if we spend as much time on our minds as we do on our bodies my God we could become anything couldn’t we if you sent 5 in the morning and 5 in the evening you’ve still got 23 hours and 50 minutes to screw the thing up only takes a little bit of time very definite valuable suggestion and thinking about our day we may face indecision we may not be able to determine which course to take here we ask ask God for inspiration intuitive thought or decision we relax and take it easy we don’t struggle this is a form of meditation for busy people we alcoholics don’t have time to lay down on the floor and listen to soft music we don’t have time for chanting and all that stuff we’re busy people yeah the book says when You Face indecision you can’t decide what to do recognize you don’t have the answer turn to God and ask God for the right thought or decision don’t struggle relax and take it easy I think what it means is get your mind off on something else and the way I get my mind off on something else is I go start mowing the grass painting the house or washing the dishes and quite often my mind goes back to that subject and I’ve got information I didn’t have before it says why don’t you call Bill maybe he know and I call Bill and Bill’s got the answer they used to say I wasn’t it lucky I call Bill no these is a form of tapping into the six sense of direction and if you practice at it practice at it practice at it practice at it it gets to where it becomes a common thing to do it’s amazing how this stuff works very simple suggestions page 87 First full paragraph down there toward the middle of the page tells us how to pray see we usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be that we be given whatever need whatever we need to take care of such problems we ask especially for freedom from self-will and we’ll careful to make no requests for ourselves only we may ask for ourselves however if others will be helped we’re careful never to pray for our own selfish ends many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn’t work you can easily see why as I said I used to use God like an Aaron boy send him out to get this done get that done it didn’t work he never did come back with nothing you know but I but I learned through doing that to start praying only for the knowledge of his will for me and the power to carry that out and today I can’t think of anything that would be better than to have God’s will done in my life only it would be a whole lot better than anything that I could ever dream of because as I said here today I am in places today in many many areas of my life that you can’t get to other than by God’s grace it cannot be done you know I was practicing this thing around and one day I was listening to the radio and I heard a song that I heard all my life and it talks about having a plane of inspiration and I heard this song all my life it’s called in the garden you all know that song and it came to me I said well that’s a song about prayer and meditation isn’t it in the morning while the dude still on the Roses that’s about prayer and meditation and I didn’t know that it just came to me and I can read the these things and I can see see these things today and I know what they mean I mean I really do know what they mean I don’t know where that came from either certainly wasn’t anything for me I think it’s God working in my life I believe that they said to me pray only for knowledge of his will and the power to carry that out I said how in the hell is he going to know what I want and they said he don’t care what you want they said he’s interested in what you need need and he knows more about what you need than you know yourself and that’s turned out to be exactly true if I had written a list of things that I thought I needed when I first came to AA if I had said God give me these things and I will be satisfied for the rest of my life I would have cheated myself God has given me things far far far beyond my dreams could possibly be when I first came to AA absolutely amazing the things that take place in our life by simply simply trying to follow God’s will people who have been self-will like us who have literally destroyed ourselves on self-will we don’t need to be telling God what we want God knows what we need and if we do his will he’s going to see that we get it you know who could ever a dream years and years ago we could be sitting in this room today doing what we’re doing a week ago we were in rovic Iceland the place I’d wanted to visit all my life and by golly I got to tour Iceland hell I’m 69 years old now before I got to do it but I finally got to do it I couldn’t have done that if I’d been drinking year or two ago I got to go through the Chunnel under the English Channel I read something in a magazine when I was a kid about 9 years old it said sooner or later the English and the French would build that thing I said then if they ever build it I’m going to go through it finally finally I got to go through the Chunnel and ride that damn Chunnel train doing 200 M hour yeah 60 years I dreamed that dream finally got to do it oh yeah God knows what we need he not interested in what we want page 87 say if our circumstance go ahead we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation about 15 years ago we were sitting in my living room my wife over there in her chair and me and mine and I’m reading my prayer and meditation stuff and she’s reading her prayer and meditation stuff and she looked over and said Joe would you uh oh she said honey that’s what she said yeah and I said I’m not not not ready for that this morning I said oh know you old silly thing said I want you to read this for me and tell me what it says I said well I can do that so I read that for her and I told her what she what it said and I told her a lot more than she wanted to know about it and the next morning she said would you read this and tell me what this says and I did and we discussed that a little bit and that kind of set up a little deal in our house of praying together and sharing together and our we hadn’t done that before and I’ve heard all my life those people that pray together Stay Together Joe how long has it been since you and Phyllis have had a divorce it’s been 21 years yeah yeah and I have never thought about that she come up with that yeah bottom of page 87 as we go through the day we pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action we constantly remind ourselves we’re no longer running the show humbly saying ourselves many times each day thy will be done we are then in much less danger of excitement fear anger worry self-pity or foolish decisions we become much more efficient we do not tire so easily for we’re not burning up energy foolishly did and we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves it works it really does that’s the full paragraph right there we alcoholics are undisciplined so we let God discipline us in a simple way we’ve just outlined if you’ll follow these definite and valuable suggestions on page 86 87 you will develop your own life of prayer and meditation you’ll make your conscious contact you’ll be able to tap into that six sense of direction and it’s amazing the things that we can learn by doing that okay we’re going to talk now just a little bit about step 12 and then we’ll be done we don’t want to go through this next chapter we don’t have the time but I do want to look at two or three things at it very briefly let’s go to page 92 now this is telling us how to work with other people how to do our 12-step call how to sponsor and Etc the first paragraph says tell it tell him how baffled you were how you finally learned that you were sick give him an account of the struggles you made to stop show him the mental twist which leads to the first drink of a spree we suggest you do this as we’ve done it in the chapter on alcoholism if he was alcoholic he will understand you at once see this is what silkworth told Bill to do he will match your mental inconsistency with some of his own if you’re satisfied that he’s a real alcoholic begin to dwell on the Hopeless feature of the malady show him from your own experience how the queer mental conditions surrounding that first drink prevents normal functioning of the willpower in other words we share our story and we show him our allergy our Obsession of the Mind our hopeless condition of the mind and body and if he’s a real alcoholic he’ll match it immediately we get his attention that way we tell him exactly what’s wrong with him page 93 let him ask you that question if he will tell him exactly what happened to you stress the spiritual feature freely if the man be agnostic or atheist make it emphatic he does not have to agree with your conception of God he can use any conception he likes provided it makes sense to him the main thing is that he be willing to believe in the power greater than himself and that he live by spiritual principles and sharing our story and telling him what happened then we get the idea of the need for the spiritual experience across to him after we got his attention by talking about the problem page 94 outline the program of action explaining how you made a self appraisal how you straighten out your past and why you are now endeavoring to be helpful to him talk to him about the program of action take him by the hand and walk with him through the program of action you see it’s suggesting here that we do the same thing the first 100 did it’s suggesting here we do the same thing the big book does you see the big book was the 12 step in print they could not go call on that person individually so the book had to tell him the problem tell him the solution show him the program of action now it’s just as valid today working with other alcoholics as it was in 1939 we need have no question about how to 12 step we need to have no question about how to sponsor the this chapter tells us exactly how to do it and I said to my sponsor one time I said I’m afraid to to work with another person I’m afraid I’ll hurt them and he said Charlie you can hurt them he said they’re going to die from alcoholism anyhow that there’s no way you can hurt them and you might help yourself so if you’re not working with others yet for God’s sake start the 12st step has three pieces in it very briefly the first part is the greatest promise in the book having had a spiritual awakening is the result of these steps I think that promises to me that if I apply the first 11 steps in my life to the best of my ability I will have a spiritual awakening now what is a spiritual awakening a personality chain sufficient to recover from alcoholism Bill tells us in the 12 and 12 there’s many kind of spiritual Awakenings there are people in AA but they’ve all got certain things in common that is that we’re able to feel believe and do things we can never do before on our own strength unated I feel things I’ve never felt before I Feel Love patience tolerance compassion and Good Will toward my fellow man before AA I could have cared less about you oh yeah you could have some but I always got mine first I don’t feel that way anymore I believe things I’ve never believed before I believe God is a kind and a loving God I believe he stands ready to help any human being anywhere in the world instant they’re ready to give up on self-will and turn to him when I came here I thought he was hell firing Brimstone I thought he was a God of Justice thank God he’s not a God of Justice if he was I wouldn’t be here today would I some of you guys wouldn’t be here either if he was surely surely he’s pure Mercy pure love believe that with all my heart I can do things I never could do before by God I can stay sober I never could do that before and because of the fact I’m sober I’m allowed to do many many many many things that I never dreamed that I could ever do like being here going to Iceland riding under the Chunnel going to Paris France things that I I never could do before so surely I’ve had some kind of Spiritual Awakening now I’m charged though with a responsibility there really are no free rides you do have to pay for what you reive I’m now charged with the responsibility of carrying this message to other alcoholics not a message not the message not some message this message what is this message having had a spiritual awakening is the result of these steps I’m not like I used to be now if you and I today and you’re all screwed up and you don’t feel good if you’ve been doing a little drinking or even thinking about doing a little drinking I know exactly where you’re coming from that’s where I came from too but I applied these first 11 steps and I had a spiritual awakening and I’m not that way anymore and if you don’t want to be that way anymore then you apply the first 11 steps and you won’t be that way anymore either cuz you’ll have a spiritual awakening it’s the only message it aa’s got some of us start fancying ourselves as healers marital advisor spiritual advisers economic advisers God I don’t know of anybody that screwed those things up worse than we have no we just know one thing and let me tell you something the one thing we know we know it better than anybody alive you and I know more about alcoholism than anybody alive we’re the only people that’s ever experienced it we know more about recovery from alcoholism than anybody alive we’re the only people that’s ever done it I think we’re the luckiest people in the world I think surely surely surely God got tired of seeing people like us die back in the 1930s I think he decided to do something about it and he’s always worked with people through people I believe he picked Bill and Bob the first 100 I think he picked EBY Thatcher and Dr Yung and Dr silkworth and the for groupers and that whole bunch and put it together so we could have it today now if that’s true and he picked people then and we’ve got to realize that all those people are dead and gone they’re no longer here if he picked them then then surely he’s still picking them today there’s not an alcoholic in this room it ought to be here every one of us ought to be dead some of us two or three times and we said my wasn’t we lucky last night I don’t think luck had anything to do with it I think God picked you out let you suffer your alcoholism so you would learn what he wants you to know and then when he got ready to use you he removed the obsession to drink that’s the only reason we’re here today to be able to help other alcoholics they tell me that 97 out of 100 of us are going to die never even knowing we’re alcoholic if that’s true 3% of us are stumbling in the doors of AA less than half of us are recovering we’re talking about one out of 100 I used to say God why am I an alcoholic today I say God why am I not one of those dying from alcoholism he’s got a job for me he’s got a job for you and it’s only when you fit into God’s plan for you that you really become happy I think every human being on Earth today God’s got a certain purpose for them and I think ours is to carry this message of recovery to other alcoholics we have the ability to avert death in countless thousands and thousands of people very few people have that opportunity carrying this message is very simple just do it like the book says to do it and it always works for those that want it if they don’t want it we can’t do a thing about that the final thing I have to do is practice these principles in all my Affairs now what are the principles oh we hear arguments about this all the time the principle of one is this and the principle of one two is that and the No No I think he’s referring to the steps he said having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps he already used steps once in Step 12 so he not going to use it twice so this time he’ll call them principles another place he calls them proposal in the front of the 12 and 12 he says the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are a set of principles he’s referring to the steps now it’s easy for me to practice the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous NAA I love you I hope you love me and we’re going to do our best not to hurt each other but I’m only NAA at the most in average of an hour day what do I do the other 23 hours can I practice ice these principles these steps in my home with my spouse can I realize just how powerless I really am with that lady can I realize the insanity of trying to control her knowing full well I can’t can I make a decision and turn her will and her life for the care of God as I understanding can I inventory me and find those defects of character that keep me trying to control can I talk about that to another human being can I become willing to have God remove and ask ask him to do so and take those away can I make amends to her quickly when I’ve harmed her now there’s times I’m ashamed to me there’s times I treat absolute strangers on the street with more courtesy than I treat my own wife in my own home just think if I could practice these principles there with her and she with me while we might pick up 10 12 hours a day where we could be peaceful happy and free in our home if we don’t practice them we don’t stand a chance where each other’s throat continually can I practice them with my children if I can do this with my children what little time I have left with them good times if I don’t I try to control they resist we have no good times at all I might pick up another hour two or three a day there can I do it on the job with my co-workers you if I could do it on the job with my co-workers well I might be peaceful happy been free there for 8 or 9 or 10 hours a day aren’t we really saying that we have a set of tools that if we practice them in all our Affairs we can be peaceful happy free and Serene 24 hours a day 365 days a year if we wish to my sponsor used to say Charlie you can be just as happy as you want to be and I’d say you’ll fart you have no idea what you’re talking about about today I hear myself saying you can be just as happy as you want to be you got the tools to do it with now make no mistake God is not going to do this for you other people are not going to do this for you but you with God’s help and the help of other people can do it for yourself I think we’re the luckiest people in the world I really do Joe now where does all that stuff come from it comes from the best of medicine psychology and religion and there’s a story in that other book about this fellow and he was walking around practicing these principles and carrying this message and one night he told the people there he said the things that I do you can do also and even greater well a couple of guys heard this and they went back to the little village and they had a sick friend there they brought him to the meeting the next night now I like to think they were alcoholics cuz they went up on the roof and they chopped a hole in the roof and they let the guy down in there and he looked at that guy and he looked up at them and he said why it’s by your faith that this man was was healed see it was by the faith of the people in The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous when I arrived that I was able to hang around till I could come to believe so that I could come to take some decisions so that I too could come to have faith The Fellowship of Alcoholics andam is extremely important to me it was by their faith for me later on he was in a little town called cernan and after the meeting that night and he was leading the meeting or speaking at the meeting and after the meeting that night they were standing around smoking cigarettes and drinking wine I guess or coffee or whatever they were doing and they were talking and they told him the fell they had locked in a cave on the side of the hill now this might have been first Treatment Center I don’t know and he said I want to go up and talk to this guy said no you don’t want to talk to this guy this guy is full of resentments and he’s full of fear he’s harmed a lot of people we’ve got him chained to the wall up there so he won’t harm himself or other people you don’t want to go up and talk to him he said yeah I do said what’s his name he said his name is Legions for he is many many defects character you see so he went up there and talked to this guy for a little while and turned him loose Cut Loose of his resentment Cut Loose of his fear Cut Loose of his guilt shame remorse and set him free now he wrode a little step for us right here cuz the other people that he helped those other 12 guys he’d help he took them with him and Legion wanted to go with him he said can I go with you and do what you do and he said no Legions he said I want you to stay here and tell people what happened to you I think they call that pass it on is what Bill Wilson said bar is Barbara in the room Barbara you here where are you H she is yeah stand up I want you all to meet Barbara in case you haven’t got to meet her you can tell by looking at her why I’m in love with her she’s redheaded a okay let’s go to page 164 said our book is meant to be suggestive only we realize we know only a little God will constantly disclose more to you and to us ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who’s still sick the answers will come if your own house is in order but obviously you cannot transmit something you haven’t got see to it that your relationship with him is right that’s the only relationship this book talks about by the way see to it that his that your relationship with him is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others this is a great fact for us abandon yourself to God as you understand God we did that in steps 1 two and three admit you false to him and to your fellows we did that in 45 6 and 7 clear away the records of your past we did that in 8 and nine and give freely what you find and join us we’ll do that in 101 and 12 and we shall be with you in the Fellowship of the spirit and you will surely meet some of us as you TR the road of happy Destiny may God bless you bless keep you until we love you all thanks for letting us be here 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