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 thank God for chapter 4 let’s look at just a little bit of it just before we go to lunch you know Dr Yung told Roland that ideas emotions and attitudes that’s what we’re going to be looking at now on ideas emotions and attitudes which are the guiding force of the lives of these people are suddenly cast to one side and certainly the ideas emotions and attitudes that I had toward God were that of a seven or eight year boy I couldn’t accept it then I couldn’t accept it later and I couldn’t accept it when I got here and I can’t accept it today cuz I need new ideas and emotions and attitudes about this new information is what I’m trying to say this chapter we agnostic just the word agnostic means something to me Gnostic means knowledge you put the a in front of it means without those are us who are without knowledge and that was me and the knowledge that I did have was not good and Bill had the same experiences that we did when when eie presented him with a solution he was a gas at that solution some some of us are a gast at that solution also and Bill said that whenever they talk to to me of a god personal to me he said my mind became irritated and snap shut against such theories and certainly that’s the way that I did later on in the book it says to us that when the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically the spiritual malady the understanding of God of my understanding when that is straightened out we’re straightened out mentally and physically and this chapter here we agnos it is an attempt to do that and as Father Bill Wilson some of you know Father Bill said to us many many times and I love it he said that this chapter is not put here to teach me that there’s any particular type of religion or type of God he said this chapter is simply put here so that I might read and question and wonder and get some ideas emotions and attitudes some new ones and open up my mind to a point that God might prove to me there’s a God now with that understanding of this chapter it means more sense makes more sense to me and becomes extremely valuable in my life in the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism we hope we’ve made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic if when you honestly want to you can find that you cannot quit entirely because the obsession or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take because of the allergy you are probably alcoholic God isn’t that simple isn’t that simple you see how people like to expand on things they took the two questions out of the big book and some years later they made a little pamplet that had 10 questions in it that wasn’t enough they made another one that had 20 questions in it hell I think we’re up to 44 today aren’t we yeah thank God bill or Abby didn’t have the 44 questions with him when he walked into Bill’s kitchen he just said bill has alcohol been bothering your reputation hadn’t had a reputation in years then he was said bill is alcohol been interfering with your sex life is anything like I was he hadn’t had any of that in a long time either there’s a statement in the 44 question it says do you drink alone well think about it if I’m buying yes and if you’re buying M we had an old friend that used to live in Tyler Texas his name was Wo Jo I’ve always felt sorry for everybody in AA that didn’t get to meet WI O Joe he was a real character he’s dead now but WI O Joe had made up his own list to ask yourself to see if you’re alcoholic and the first question on his list was has the roof of your mouth ever been sunburned while drinking he said if it has you probably alcoholic I think the second question was have you ever been arrested for drunk driving from the back seat of somebody else’s car the third one I loved was if you ever been arrested for public drunk while in jail he had a real list of we only need these two I use them all the time people come to me today they say Charlie you think I might be alcoholic I say I have no idea let me ask you a couple questions have you been able to quit drinking entirely left on your own resources if there are real alcoholic to God to say no and then I say do you have any control over the amount you take after you’ve once started drinking if they got if they’re real alcoholic they got to say no and then I say well you’re probably an alcoholic that’s about as simple as you can make it now if that be the case you may be suffering from an illness what which only a spiritual experience will conquer you know we are very unique people we number amongst a few people in the world today who suffer from a two-fold illness that can only be overcome by a spiritual experience we also number amongst a few people in the world today who have a terminal illness that we can come out of it in better shape than we were when we went into it if we can have the this spiritual experience we are unique people now to one who feels is an atheist or agnostic such an experience seems impossible but to continue as he is means disaster especially if he’s an alcoholic of the Hopeless variety to be doomed to an alcoholic death step one or to live on a spiritual basis step two are not always easy alternatives to face but it isn’t so difficult about half our original Fellowship were of exactly that type at first some of us tried to avoid the issue hoping against hope we were not true alcoholics but after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life for else perhaps it’s going to be that way with you but cheer up something like half of us thought we were atheist or agnostics and our experience shows that you need not be disconcerted and I had to stop right here and and and see see what is my belief as far as this God thing is concerned and today we find there’s only one of three ways that you can believe as far as God’s concerned one way is to be an atheist now an atheist says there is no God therefore they have no power greater than human power to turn to the atheist would have to stand on their own two feet run their own show and I said Charlie are you an atheist I said no I’ve always believed believed in some kind of God so I’m not an atheist I said well then maybe you’re an agnostic so I had to go to the dictionary and look that word up and like Joe said the word agnostic means without knowledge an agnostic believes that there is a God but since we’ve never tried to use God’s power in our life we’ve run our own show stood on our own two feet we’ve never received God ‘s power so we don’t know that God exists we believe in some kind of God but we don’t really know whether that’s true or not and I think that’s what most of us are when we get here most of us get here with some belief in a God but we have never turned to that God and we’ve been running our own show and standing our own two feet and doing our own thing even though we believed in God we acted as if we did not believe in them and tic is one without knowledge of God just belief now if you’re an atheist or an agnostic then the question becomes how do you become a True Believer in God a True Believer is one that knows that God exists don’t believe it knows it a True Believer is one who is experience God’s power in their life and God has given them whatever they need to have a successful life I don’t think any of us get here as a True Believer cuz if we knew God and experienced God’s power then we wouldn’t have to come to AA to solve our problem most of us come here as agnostics now whether we be atheist or agnostic the question becomes how do you get from that stage to the stage of one who is a True Believer and can receive God’s power in our life page 45 first paragraph lack of power that was our dilemma you if we wasn’t powerless we wouldn’t be here would we lack of power that was our dilemma we had to find the Power by which we could live and it had to be a power greater than ourselves obviously but where and how will we Define this power well that’s exactly what this book is about its main object is is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem it doesn’t say which will enable you to solve it or without without you solve it it says the main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself and then that power will solve the problem and I find interestingly enough from page 45 on in the big book alcoholic synonymous we don’t talk about alcohol anymore we’re through with that we talk about one thing and one thing only if you are powerless whether you be atheist or agnostic if you are powerless how do you find the power and if you can find the power then the power will solve the problem okay we’re going to go to page 46 in chapter we agnostics and the book says that yes we have agnostic temperament have had these thoughts and experiences let us make haste to reassure you we found as soon as we were able to lay aside Prejudice and express even willingness to believe in a power great than ourselves we commenced to get results even though it was impossible for any of us to fully Define or comprehend that power which is God much to our relief we discovered we did not need to consider another another’s conception of God our own conception however inadequate was sufficient to make the approach and affect the contact with him you know my sponsor at that time George saw that I had a real problem with his idea about God and he asked me about about it and I said yes I am I’m having a hard time trying to understand and he said I’ve noticed that he said why don’t you do something that helped him and maybe it help would help me he said why don’t you go home tonight and write down on a piece of paper what you would like God to be laying aside all that stuff you think that you know and just write down on a piece of paper what you would like God to be and so I went home that night and I wrote down some things and I’m not going to tell you what it is up to you and I wrote down some things I wanted God to be and I showed him to George and he looked at him and he said that’s good Joe so you can begin with that see I didn’t know you could do that and down in the South you go to hell for making up your own God true you had to believe as they believed you had to have faith in what they hadn’t faith in if you didn’t you was going to go to hell but George gave me permission and I needed that permission to sit down and to say I would like God to be these things and he said that’s good you can start with that and you can begin with that and that’s exactly what I did where it says much to our relief we discovered we do not need consider another’s conception of God our own conception however inadequate was sufficient to make the approach and effect a contact with him now here’s where we can cast aside the first old idea the old idea that I had was that you had to believe as they believed and they had me convinced that if you didn’t believe as they believe there’s no way that you’re going to get anything good when it comes to God so I was real pleased to find out that I can cast aside that old idea and then I can have my own conception of God and like we said yesterday or last night you know I find that I’ve never had any problem with my own conception of anything and you let me start believing in God the way I want to then I’ve got an entirely different idea an old idea cast aside replaced with a new idea begins right here yeah and the book says as soon as we admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence a spirit of the universe underly totality of things we begin to be possessed of a new sense of power and Direction provided we took other simple steps we found that God does not make too harder terms with those who seek him to us the realm of spirit is Broad roomy all inclusive never exclusive or forbidding to to those who earnestly seek it is open we believe to all in see all I had to quit doing was saying no there’s not no and start seeking start saying yes maybe and I started seeking I said George you mean I need to find God and he said George God’s not lost said didn’t take me long to figure out who was lost but I mean he said he said it’s just like the book says it’s in the seeking it’s not in the finding all I had to do was seek you know and that’s all this book is asking me to do in this chapter is asking me to seek with an open mind and to wonder and to think and eventually God will disclose himself to me and that’s exactly what’s happened I always Tau as a kid growing up that the way to God was a very narrow path that if you strayed off either side of it you were going to get in a hell of a shape I was taught that God was very very exclusive that only those that believed as they believed would be able to make any contact with God those were old ideas is now my book says we found that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek him to us the realm of the spirit is Broad roomy all inclusive never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek old ideas cast aside replaced with some new ideas beginning to find this power greater than human power by changing of the old ideas to new ideas page 47 so when therefore we speak to you of God we mean your own conception of God this applies too to other spiritual expressions which you find in this book do not let any Prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you Prejudice is nothing more than old ideas do not let any old ideas you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you said at the start this is all that we needed to Comm in spiritual growth to affect our first conscious relation with God as we understood him and then afterward we found ourselves accepting many things within seemed entirely Out Of Reach but that was growth but if we wish to grow we had to begin somewhere so we used our own conception however limited it was and that was a beginning for me I needed a beginning place and that’s where I started now we need to ask ourselves but one short question do I now believe the agnostic has always believed in some kind of God or am I even willing to believe the atheist can become willing to believe that there’s some kind of God that there’s a power greater than myself and as soon as a man can say that he does believe the agnostic or is willing to believe the atheist we in factly assure him that he’s on his way it has been rep repeatedly proven Among Us that upon this simple Cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built and again the acents please be sure to read appendix 2 on spiritual experiences again they want to make real sure that we understand what they mean by those terms he said it’s been repeatedly proven Among Us that upon this simple Cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built Aster bottom of the page referring to the spiritual experience so the Wonder wonderfully effective spiritual structure we’re building is the spiritual experience or the spiritual awakening and he said the Cornerstone of that is to believe or to be willing to believe that there’s a power greater than human power we referred to that once before the foundation of that structure was step one which is willingness now then he tells us the Cornerstone of that structure step two believing so we’ve already put two stones in place if we can say we’re willing and yes we believe or we are willing to believe either one of the the two and he said that was great news for us for we had assumed we could not make use of spiritual principles unless we accepted many things on faith which seem difficult to believe and there has always been one of my great problems with this God thing Faith indicates shity Faith indicates knowledge Faith indicates after the fact information and one of my problems has always been the Minister would say son all you got to do is have faith and everything will be all right well I never could have faith because I had no knowledge of God I didn’t know for sure that God would do anything for me the best I can possibly do is to start with belief and there’s a big difference between belief and Faith believe me there is a good example of that let’s say I moved into this area here and 3 or 4 months later I’ve got a problem with my automobile I don’t know a good mechanic anywhere in this area but we’ll say that you’ve lived here for a long time and I assume you’ll know somebody so I come to you and I say can you recommend a good mechanic for me and you say well sure take your car over there to John he’ll do you a good job and he’ll charge you a reasonable price well I don’t know whether that’s true or not the best I can do with that information is if I believe leave it strong enough I’ll take my car over there to John and sure enough he does a good job he charges me a reasonable price when I leave there I know that he will do that when I went there I believed that he would do that now 6 months from now I have trouble with my car again I don’t ask you anybody else where to take it I take it right back to John this time I took it on faith took it on knowledge you can’t start with faith you can only start with belief and that’s all we have to do we either have to believe or we become willing to believe that there’s a power greater than we are and we’re on the road to spiritual recovery we don’t have to know anything thank God step two says we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity didn’t say we came to know didn’t say we had faith in us that we just came to believe and I came to believe based upon what I’ve read in the book and what you told me that there’s a power greater than I am can restore me to sanity I didn’t know that I just believed that now if I know that the beginning of this thing the finding of the power is just to believe or be willing to believe then the next thing I’m going to have to know is what procedure am I going to follow in order to find that power let’s go over to page 51 for just a moment first paragraph it says this world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than all the millenniums which went before almost everyone knows the reasons students of ancient history tell us that the intellect of men in those days was equal to the best of today yet in ancient times material progress was painfully slow the spirit of modern scientific inquiry research and invention was almost unknown in the realm of the material men’s Minds were FedEd by Superstition tradition and all sorts of fixed ideas and I used to wonder why it is that that we today have cellular phones and TVs and Automobiles and airplanes why those people 100 years or 200 years ago or 500 years ago didn’t have or admit those things they I thought we were just smarter than they were but come to find out they had the same intellect that we did intellect means the capacity to learn they had the same capacity to learn as we do but the only one one thing that kept them in those Dark Ages so to speak it was Superstition tradition and all sorts of fixed ideas that’s why I say I need an open mind more today than I’d ever needed an open mind and I think we as a society have done that right here in the northeast corner of the United States some 225 years ago or so people came over here for Religious Freedom they wanted to practice a religion as they saw as they understood it and as long as you agreed basically with their religion and you practice your religion somewhat like they did you were okay but if you had any thoughts or ideas that were different and you express those thoughts and ideas openly and they didn’t agree with what they had and what they agreed with they would burn you at the stake as a witch right here in America they did that so if you had any ideas like that you certainly didn’t Express them you kept them to yourself so Superstition tradition and all sorts of fixed ideas kept people from growing and I think we as a country has gotten over that today our minds are open to many many things he said some of the contemporaries of Columbus thought around Earth Preposterous you know I think Columbus is one of the greatest examples of what you can do based upon belief if you’re willing to change your belief some 500 years ago most of what they call the Civilized world was situated around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea the Western shores of Europe they had found a place called the East Indies and in the East Indies you could get gold silk and spices lots of goody goodies but it took literally years to get to the East Indies so they were trying to find a new trade route to the East Indies and somebody said is there any possibility that we could sail a ship there and they said well no dummy don’t you know you can only sail to the Northeast end of the Mediterranean Sea and then you have to go by land camel back horse back foot back however they traveled and that trick took literally years to do and they said well what would happen if we sailed in the other direction and they said well idiot don’t you know if you sail out there you’re going to sail off the edge of this sucker you see everybody in those days thought the world was flat and they assumed if you sailed out there you would sail off the edge of it now I don’t know why they beli that I assume some people sailed out there didn’t come back and they thought they had sailed off the edge of it now Joe said the other day wouldn’t it be great if the world was flat we could take all this environmental junk just take it out there and go and push her overboard and be done with it now here comes Columbus and we believe Columbus had to be an alcoholic because if you’re going to believe differently then the world and everybody in it and you’re going to stand there and express that belief you’re going to have to be tougher in hell to do it because many times if you express a belief difference in what everybody else believes they would burn you at the Stak or hang you from a tree or cut your head off or something and Columbus was tough enough and bullheaded enough to be able to stand there and he said I believe that the world is round I do not believe it’s flat what then he made one of the most drunk statements the world has ever heard he said I believe we can get East by sailing west H now if that didn’t drunk thinking I don’t know what is many of his mannerisms indicated he’s alcoholic when he left he didn’t know where he was going when he got there he didn’t know where he was when he got back he didn’t even know where he had been but what really made him an alcoholic is a woman Finance the whole trip for him she did that twice columus followed a little formula you want to write down these key words in in this formula he followed a little formula that the world is always known that if you want to change anything at all there are certain things that have to take place the first thing you have to do in order to change anything is to be willing to do so circumstances are what make us willing trying to find the new trade route to the East Indies is what made him willing to change the second thing you have to do to change anything is to believe you can do so you know he said I believe that the world is round it’s not flat I believe you can get East by sailing west but his belief didn’t do him any good either cuz he’s still standing on the shore of the ocean the day he expressed that belief some days weeks months years later he did the third thing he made a decision he said by goly I’m going to go find out whether this thing is round flat can you really get East by sailing west but his decision didn’t do me any good either cuz he’s still standing on the shore of the ocean the day he expressed that decision some days weeks months years later he did the next thing you have to do he started taking action and the first thing he did he went to the king of Portugal to get the money but the king of Portugal being a very astute businessman said there’s no way I’m going to let you have this money cuz you’ll sail out there and sail right off the edge of this sucker and I’ll lose it all that’s why he ended up with the queen of Spain sweet talked her out of the money on the promise that he would bring back gold silk spices and the goody goodies of life she gave him the money he bought three ships he put Provisions in those three ships he put crew members in those three ships and they begin to go east by sailing west sailing west day after day after day now we don’t know for sure but we have a suspicion that on that first trip he HED a special sailor put him on the bow of the lead ship at night with a lantern whispered in his ear said I believe this thing is round but if you see the edge of this damn thing you holler so we can get turned around in time now after having sailing straight west for several days they got results result s they found land on the other side which was the result of the action that they had taken now we know that he thought it was the East Indies it wasn’t it was the West Indies but he had proven to himself the world is not flat it is round you will not sail off the edge of it turned right around and came right back to Europe went right back to the queen of Spain and she said Columbus where’s the gold silk and spices you promised you would bring me and he said sweetheart I’m sorry but I didn’t find any but he said tell you what I’ll do if you’ll refinance me I’ll go back trust me honey please and this time I’ll find it and she refinanced him and he got some more ships more Provisions more crew members they begin to go east by sailing west with one big difference the second trip he didn’t hire the special sailor put him on a b of the lead ship at night this time he went back on F fath he went back on knowledge the first time he went back on belief you can’t start with faith the only thing you can do is start with belief make the decision take the action get the results and then you’ll have faith now I would love to sit here and tell you today and the decision will do us no good unless we take the action and that’s 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 and 11 as the result result of the action then we will get results too having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps we are now we now have faith we now have knowledge we no longer believe you see I don’t believe today that God will restore me to sanity I know that he will because he has done so now those of us who have been restored to sanity and we have the faith then we can go back and help the next newcomer come to believe they can make a decision and we can take them by the hand and walk with them through the action steps then they will get results they’ll have a spiritual awakening and then they’ll know and then they can go help the next newcomer come to believe now there’s only one thing you and I can’t do for the newcomer we cannot make them willing that’s a job they have to work on themselves now how does an alcoh holic become willing to change very simple drinking lots of whiskey I hear people come to AA and they say I’ve been working on step one for 3 years in AA and I said no you haven’t you don’t work on step one in AA you work on step one out there and when you’ve drunk enough of that whiskey you just can’t stand it any longer then you become willing to change then we can begin to help you by helping helping you come to believe decide act and have a spiritual awakening same formula that the world has always used to change the status of anything now if I know I need the power and if I know the beginning of the fining of the power is just to believe if I know the procedure to follow to find the power then I only need to know one more thing where am I going to find that power and I think we get here just as confused about where God is as we were ever confused about anything else as a kid growing up somewhere I got a picture in my mind now I don’t know whether I dreamed it or saw it but in my mind when I was thinking about God he was a tall elderly gentleman stood on a cloud up in the sky long flowing white robes on long white hair golden halo around his head and Sunray shooting out of that Halo and a big stick in his right hand now I don’t know whether I saw that or whether I dreamed it but one of the reasons I thought God was there is because every time the minister talked about God he always pointed up there so I knew he had to be up there somewhere but then what really confused me I know I noticed every time the minister wanted to talk to God he always looked down here he points up hell no wonder we get confused as kids about where God is and I looked and I looked and I looked and I looked and I never could find God because I never did know where he was and it took the big book alcoholic synonymous to tell me just exactly where I’m going to find him page 55 you know many years ago I was working for not working but I was involved in a halfway house in Tulsa and I was heavily involved and there was this young man there who had asked me to be a sponsor answer and he said well what do you think I ought to do I said well it be probably a good idea if you had a job you know to start somewhere here and uh he said well easy for you to say I don’t have any car and I I can’t get back and forth with no money can’t even ride the bus and I said well I’ll take you around and help you find a job and then if you find a job I’ll take you back and forth till you can get a couple of paychecks and then you can buy a car or do whatever you need to do he said fine so I’m taking you back and forth to work and one morning he told me a story that really helped me a lot and he said and this is the way The Story Goes he said there was a three wise men of the East he said and they took from man the Crown of Life the thing that would make us the happiest and took it away from them and they said well now we took it away from what are we going to do with it said well one of the guys said I’ll tell you what we’ll do we’ll take it to the highest highest crevice on the face of the earth and the highest highest mountain and will hide it up there and he’ll never be able to find it the other two said yeah but you know how they are they’ll hunt and they’ll search and they’ll eventually find it the third one said I’ll tell you what we’ll take it to the deepest deepest crevice of the deepest ocean and hide it there and they’ll never think about looking for it there he said yeah but you know how they are they’ll hunt and they’ll search they’ll eventually find it the third one say I’ll tell you what we’ll do we’ll hide it within himself and he’ll never think about looking for it there page 55 first paragraph said actually we were fooling ourselves for deep down in every man woman and child is the fundamental idea of God it may be obscured by Calamity by P by worship of other things but in some form or other it is there for faith in the power greater than ourselves a miraculous demonstration of the power in human lives are facts as old as man himself we finally saw that faith in some kind of a God was a part of our makeup just as much as the feeling we have for a friend sometimes we had to search fearlessly but he was there he was as much a fact as we were we found the great reality deep down within us in the last analysis is only there that he may be found it was so with us so we can only clear the ground a bit if our testimony helps sweep sweep away Prejudice enables you to think honestly encourages you to search diligently within yourself then if you wish you can join us on the broad highway now with this attitude you cannot fail the consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you yeah a god of your own understanding is sure to come to you with an open mind well it seems as though all human beings are born with some basic knowledge deep down inside themselves probably lying at a subconscious level and that basic knowledge seems to be able to tell us what we should do and what we shouldn’t do seems to be able to tell us how we should live and how we shouldn’t live and I’m sure a lot of people would like to refer to that as just plain old common sense I think others might want to call it innate intelligence some might want to call it the conscience and others might want to call it the soul and I don’t think it really makes any difference what we call it as long as we recognize the fact that it’s there and if you’re anything like I am as far back as I can remember I’ve always been aware of that knowledge there used to be times I would be getting ready to do something and some voice somewhere from with inside me would say Charlie I don’t believe you ought to be doing this and I wouldn’t pay a bit of attention to it I’d go right ahead and do it and I’d just get in one hell of a mess and that same little voice would say see I told you not to do it in the first place now if that’s true and if that’s God then what that means to me today if God dwells within me then I’ve got my own personal God I don’t worry anymore about whether he’s the god of the Baptist Church or not I don’t worry whether he’s a god of the Catholic Church the Hebrew Hebrew religion or anybody else else is God if he dwells within me and he’s my own personal God and he and I can come together in very simple very understandable terms this is one of the greatest pieces of information that I have ever learned is I can have my own God and he dwells within me and my knowledge comes from him and through him I’ll be able to find that power now then am I ready to make a decision you bet you when he was a God of Justice when he was Hellfire and brimstone I wasn’t ready to make that decision but throughout this chapter my concept of God Has Changed entirely and I’m beginning to believe he just might be a kind and a loving God and just maybe he’ll start doing some good things for me not hell far and brimstone and now I’m ready to make a decision and I don’t think it’s by accident that the very next chapter is in titled how it works 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