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. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-onrise.com.

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 Barefoot Bill and Mike L from New Jersey.

Let's give them a little welcome here. And you guys, you guys have to guess which one's Barefoot Bill. This is Barefoot Bill and Mike Al from New Jersey.

>> Hi everybody. My name is Mike. become an alcoholic.

We just thought we would uh start with maybe five minutes of what brings us to uh tonight. My story is is kind of interesting in that I guess I I started drinking almost on a daily basis by age 17, 18, something like that. And I came into AA when I was 30 or 31.

And oh, also by the way, I have a little bit of a cold. I have a sore throat. I didn't sleep last night.

Uh my back is sore. So, uh I have a little bit of a hallucination going. So, uh this should be rather interesting.

>> Thanks for sharing. >> Um and uh I was in AA for three and a half years. And I didn't drink.

I went to a lot of meetings. I went to the diners afterwards. I went to dances.

I went to conferences. I went to conventions. I talked to people pretty regularly.

And on the inside, my life was slowly getting more miserable because although I wasn't drinking and hadn't drank in over 3 years, I wasn't changing and I wasn't doing any kind of inner work. I was just not drinking and going to meetings and not really doing much of anything else. I really didn't think that the steps applied to me.

this whole spirituality thing was way too spooky. And and I came from a religious family and it just doesn't work. It just up until that point just doesn't work for me.

And I had reached a state in aa three and a half years where if this is the way it's going to be, I might as well just drink or I might as well just kill myself because if this is what life is going to be like from now on. At least when I was drinking, I had moments of relief or moments of lackout or moments of just not inside my head seven days a week, 24 hours a day, uh, with my head chewing me up and spitting me out and my emotions in my gut ripping me apart because, you know, I was still stealing, I was still lying, I was still cheating, I was still scamming, I was still manipulating, I was still doing whatever I wanted to do with no concern for anybody else. And to be honest with you, I wouldn't wish it on any on my worst enemy because um again when I drank at least I had moments of relief or moments of blackout or moments of you know alcohol did something for me.

It it at those times when I was drinking it took away that inner unmanageability and that inner uh discomfort. But now I'm not drinking anymore. The only thing that ever helped me with that I am now not doing anymore.

Uh and I hadn't had a drink in three and a half years which is relatively successful in AA. And it was at that point that I realized that there was a little bit more going on here than not drinking in dealing with alcoholism. Uh up until that point, I really thought that alcohol was my problem.

So not drinking was my solution. And what I now believe is that alcohol is not my problem. Alcoholism is my problem.

And there's a whole lot more to leading a contented, useful, peaceful, I'm happy about the fact that I'm not drinking kind of a life than just not drinking, which I had never seen before. And the interesting thing was is that that was the point that I decided to consider another way besides my own because up until that point before I came to AA I could blame alcohol for the things that were happening but now I couldn't. The only thing that I could blame was my best thinking and the way I was living my life and obviously there was something very wrong with that.

And that was when I started getting into the steps. And that was when I started getting into um practicing a spiritual way of life. That then transformed every area of my life for the better.

And that it continues to do that as long as I continue to practice it in all of my affairs. You know, it's interesting because step 10 talks about continue. Step step 11 talks about seeking and improving.

Step 12 talks about practicing and in all of our affairs. So, I don't really see any any room for complacency in our program. um which was the way I was working it.

I wasn't even getting into the steps, but you know, I really just wasn't doing much of anything. I certainly wasn't growing on the inside. So, um today I don't see alcohol as my problem.

As a matter of fact, alcohol was my solution for a period of time. Alcohol helped me deal with that inner state of craziness and discomfort. And now I couldn't drink.

So, that state was still there. And I didn't really deal with the the mental and the emotional and the psychological and the spiritual aspects of alcoholism that uh the steps get into in a really great way. Um, I was supposed to start with a joke and I kind of uh told my story first.

So now let me finish with a joke and then Mike can tell his five minutes of why he's here. So my story inevitably is alcoholism, untreated alcoholism for three and a half years, not drinking but still very much untreated inner condition and then now in recovery and now growing. Um, now pretty much a transformed life.

Pretty much a a person that very much is not capable of doing a lot of the things that I used to do. um and certainly not wanting to head in that direction anymore either. So, this is the joke.

Um there was a married couple driving down the street and a a policeman pulled him over because the husband who was driving wasn't wearing a seat belt. So, after the policeman came up behind him and as he was pulling over, the husband real quickly took the seatelt and put it on. So, when the policeman came up to the window, he had a seatelt on.

So, he rolled his window down and he said, "Officer, you know, why did you pull me over? I certainly wasn't speeding. And the policeman said, "Well, when you passed me a mile back, you didn't have your seatelt on, and that's why I pulled you over." And the husband said, "You know, I'm sorry, sir, but you can see I had my seatelt on.

I had it on before, too." So, the policeman looks over at the wife and says, "Uh, excuse me, ma'am. Uh, was your husband wearing a seatelt before when he drove past me?" And the wife says, "Listen, sir. You know, if he said he was wearing a seat belt, he was wearing a seat belt." And the policeman looked at her and said, "Why did you just say that?

You know, he wasn't wearing a seatelt." And the women looked at the woman looked at him and said, "Uh, officer, I learned years ago not to argue with him when he's been drinking. Boy, this must be a sick group of alcoholics that laugh at that joke, I tell you." Hi everyone, my name is Mike Lawrence and I am an alcoholic. My home group is the carry this message group in West Orange, New Jersey.

And my sobriety date is September 27th, 1993. And for that, I'm very grateful. Um, Bill said that during the next 5 minutes, I was going to tell you a little bit about what brings me here tonight.

And, uh, the reason I'm here is cuz, uh, the bill and and, uh, the committee of the Anonymous Foundation asked me to be. Um sometimes when I look back on the past 9 years, it's just really a big blur, you know. So doing stuff like this is is very beneficial to me and it it reminds me not only the terror, fear, and bewilderment that alcoholism brought me to, but it it's also a wake-up call in regards to my recovery and how far I've actually come.

Um, so I I personally enjoy doing stuff like this and uh my personal mo is if we can't have fun doing little workshops or meetings or or what have you or weekends like this, there's no sense of having them because when I was drinking, I was all about the fun. And then drinking wasn't so fun anymore. And then I came to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and I met up with a group of people that seemed like that they were living pretty satisfying lives and that they were having a good time and they were having some fun.

And uh and that's that's how I try to live my life today. Um, so let's whether you're here just for this evening or if you're coming back tomorrow, uh, let's try to make this thing as fun as possible and not be so heavy or take our, as rule 62 says, uh, to take ourselves too darn seriously cuz, uh, you know, I tend to fall into that trap from time to time. I came into, uh, Alcoholics Anonymous just totally beaten down by by alcohol.

And uh what I had learned years later, I was also beaten down by what our book refers to as the spiritual malady. Um I had found out rather quickly that I had a disease of the of the body and the mind. And and it took me a few more years after I came into Alcoholics Anonymous to really understand and grasp that the main center of my the the main cause of my problem is what page 64 of our big book refers to as the spiritual malady.

And it says once the spiritual malady is overcome then we can straighten out mentally and physically. And I didn't know that for the first few few years of my recovery. Um, Bill said it took took him about three and a half years but before he had any clue of what the steps were.

And uh I guess God likes me a little bit better than barefoot Bill over here because uh somewhere about four and a half five 6 months sober um I got whacked right in the face with the proposition that if Mike if you don't start working some sort of program recovery you're going to go back to drinking or you're going to kill yourself. And I tell you, the second prop proposition looked pretty darn good, you know, because I got taken to a place in sobriety where all I was doing was not drinking and going to meetings. And I wouldn't have known a step if it would have bit me on the face.

And I just got taken to a place where I said, "If this is the way life is going to be without alcohol, if this is the way it is, if when I leave a meeting, you know, cuz I would walk into a meeting and you guys would say, "Mike, how you doing?" And I'm doing great. I'm doing fine. I knew the AA parrot deal, you know, fine.

Good. You know, coffee is great, meetings are good. See you next week.

Don't ask me how I'm doing with the steps, but everything's fine. And then I would go home and punch a wall wall in the hole and and if I could lift the refrigerator, I'd throw that out the window and pick a fight with the old man and and do all kinds of neat stuff like that, you know, that that we can do with untreated alcoholism that us alcoholics can do by just not drinking today. You know, I wondered that why um I wonder that why when I was just not drinking and going to meetings that I mean I was 21 years old when I came into the rooms at Alcoholics Anonymous and I think I had more wrinkles on my face.

I won't say I grew any more hair, but I think I had more wrinkles on my face when I came into the rooms and probably during the first couple years of sobriety than I do today. And you know, I I know exactly what that was all about. That was all about untreated alcoholism.

That was all about a spiritual sickness. That was all about being blocked off spiritually, being selfish and self-centered to the core, not having much of a conception of God. by no means having conscious contact with God and thinking that the deal was just not about drinking.

And somewhere around 4 and a half, 5 months sober, I got taken to a place where I got desperate enough to ask somebody uh to help me with this program recovery and to help me with the steps. And um Bill and I were talking about earlier and the way I look at the steps today for me, my own personal experience is that so far I've had about three surreners in Alcoholics Anonymous in regards to the 12 steps. Um this is just the way I see it today.

If you ask me a year from now or 5 years from now, I may tell you something different. um my experiences are constantly changing and I think that has something to do with the frequency in in which uh I've been taught to to go through the 12 steps. Uh see we've been taught to work and rework the 12 steps on an ongoing basis, not just one time through 1 through 9 and try to live the best you can in 10 11 and 12.

Uh although if that works for you that that's great. That's not been the path that that I brought down and that I've been brought down in AA. Um, that's all I have for now.

I'll bring it back to you. I had a point somewhere around there. I don't know what it was.

By the way, for anyone who's wondering, this is Scooby-Doo. And for anyone who's wondering why Scooby is here, I think Scooby is very symbolic of the newcomer. Because I don't know about you guys, but when in the early days of recovery, when my sponsor would say something to me, I would have the tendency to tilt my head and look up at him and say, "Huh?

So that's Scoop and you thought my joke was bad. When I got real serious about uh making the 12 steps a way of life, um not just a way of not drinking, it was pointed out to me that the solution that AA has to offer for alcoholism has three parts. Um, not only is our problem physical, mental, and spiritual, but our solution is physical, mental, and spiritual.

And that it's encompassed in what used to be all over our literature, which is now gone, which was the circle and triangle. That the base of the triangle, which was recovery, which is the program, which is the 12 steps. The left side of the triangle was unity, which is the fellowship, which is the going to meetings and interacting with other AAS.

And the right side of the triangle was service, which is the giving back unselfishly and lovingly uh not only in AA but in all of our affairs, you know, at home with the average stranger that we pass walking down the street uh at work uh perhaps other places that we frequent. And although um the solution is very much physical which is you know physically we take the body to meetings mentally uh the the steps kind of uh deal with the the psychological mental and kind of awakens us spiritually and then the way we grow uh spiritually is through work and self-sacrifice for others that although the solution is physical mental and spiritual what I've now come to see is that uh our solution is not physical mental and spiritual that our solution is just spiritual that um physically we take our bodies to the meetings. Uh that sense that buzz that we feel when we walk into a meeting perhaps for the first time or even for years after coming into a meeting that unconditional love that uncritical acceptance that sense of wanting to be of service and to help to other people that very much is a spiritual practice and that very much is a spiritual environment that we walk into when we have meetings.

Um the steps awaken us spiritually. Uh they're very much a spiritual set of actions that uh for me one of the coolest things about the steps is that whether we agree with it or not whether we think it's going to work or not if we do it it's going to. Uh the 12step guarantees that it says having had a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps.

It doesn't say some people sometimes do it. So it doesn't say you might. It says you will have a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps.

So for me um the goal of the steps is not recovery. The goal of the steps is to have a spiritual awakening. And a byproduct of the spiritual awakening is that we recover from alcoholism as well as a host of everything that we could ever have problems with.

I don't see this as an alcohol problem. I see it as a spiritual problem. I don't see it as a spending problem.

I see it as a spiritual problem. I don't see it as a relationship problem. I don't see it as a work problem.

I don't see it as uh uh you know a food problem. Whatever. I don't see it as that.

I see it as a spiritual problem. And al uh AA doesn't deal with our alcoholism. It deals with our spiritual condition contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

And that spiritual condition deals with our alcoholism. Like Mike said, when the spiritual mality is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. So that's sort of what the premise of the next two days are going to be.

Um this is very much a spiritual solution. Uh it's kind of one of the reasons why people kind of put down a and say, "You guys don't deal with alcoholism. What are you talking about?" You know, what are you talking about?

You're talking about God. You're talking about making amends. You're talking about inventorying.

You're talking about getting honest. You're talking about acceptance. You're talking about uh dealing with other people in life in a completely different way than a self-centered way that we used to live our lives.

And they don't understand what does that have anything to do with alcoholism, quote unquote. Well, our solution really doesn't apply to alcoholism. It applies to our spiritual condition.

Just like all the 12 steps fellowships that exist in the world, they all deal with the spiritual condition. And when the spiritual condition is dealt with, it deals with our addiction. Whether it's drama, uh whether it's uh gossip, whether it's food, whether it's drugs, whether it's alcohol, whatever it is.

Um so the steps very much are a spiritual set of actions and a spiritual set of principles. And then being of service to other people is very much, you know, faith with works that uh we need to be of service to other people. There's a quote in the big book that for me sort of captures the essence of of that aspect of it.

And it says on page 14 in Bill's story. says, "For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead." That I don't help a new person because they're sick. I help a new person because I'm sick and I need to be helping people.

My being of service to another person is part of my meds to stay away from my next drink and so that I feel good on the inside and that I'm out of my brain for a couple hours and I'm not thinking about me anymore. you know, a big part of my problem is thinking about me and a big part of a solution is thinking about somebody else. So, I don't help somebody because they're sick.

I help somebody because I'm sick and I need to be helping people. And for me, that's the kind of message that I carry to people that I work with because I think it's very important. Also, in the early days, you might have noticed that um Roland Hazard was a gentleman that carried a message to Ebie Thatcher.

Ebie Thatcher didn't ask for help. Roland Hazard showed up in court and started helping him. Um Ebie Thatcher carried the message to Bill Wilson.

Bill Wilson didn't ask for help. He was sitting at home in his kitchen, trashed out of his mind and he showed up and started working with him. Um, Dr.

Bob didn't ask for help. Bill Wilson showed up and started helping him. Uh, AA number three, Bill D, he didn't ask for help.

Bill and Bob showed up at the hospital and started helping them. We don't help people because they need the help. We help people because we need to be helping people.

And that's part of how we move away from our next drink. And that's part of how we um feel better on the inside where we can have a useful, contented life. And drinking just isn't an option anymore.

Um, a couple other quotes from the big book that point toward this just being about spirituality. Um, as a matter of fact, this is from the Came to Believe book. Um, I guess at one time I think it had a black cover, a red cover, and and a white cover.

I'm not sure where it's at now, but I've seen a bunch of different covers on it. This is from page six. It said, "During a meeting one day, I remarked that I was just tickled to death with this AA program, all but the spiritual side of it.

After the meeting, another member came up to me and said, "I'd like that remark you made about how you like the program, all but the spiritual part of it. We've got a little time. Why don't we talk about the other side of it?" That ended the conversation.

Now, in the Roman numerals, it says this. It says, "We work out our solution on a spiritual as well as altruistic plane." Altruism is the giving of ourselves and expecting nothing in return. Altruism is very much a spiritual practice.

So it's basically saying that we work out a solution on the spiritual as well as spiritual plane. Then it says uh that quote I read before that if a alcoholic fails to perfect and enlarge a spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others that he could not survive the the certain trials and low spots ahead. Page 25 it says if you are as seriously alcoholic as we were we believe there is no middle of the road solution.

We were in a position where life was becoming impossible and if we had passed into the region from which there is no return through human aid we had but two alternatives. One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could, and the other was to accept spiritual help. So, he's kind of saying that if you're an alcoholic, that there's only two paths that you can go.

Either a lot of booze or a lot of God. And he says it a second time, too. Um, I don't see it right now.

I I'll cover it because I know it's further in my notes, but I don't see it right away. Um in the gym story on page 35 in u more about alcoholism it says we told him what we knew of alcoholism in the answer we had found he made a beginning all went well for a time but he failed to enlarge his spiritual life to his conernnation he found himself drunk a half dozen times in rapid succession that statement for me he failed to enlarge his spiritual life I would like to suggest that every person in AA that has ever relapsed that it was because of that reason if you ask them if they were doing morning meditation if you ask them if they were doing inventory if you had asked them if they had made amends. Some part of that process they were not doing.

And that's how we grow spiritually is by going through the steps and then carrying the message to other people. When we fail to enlarge our spiritual life, we fail to reach the point where we're comfortable with ourselves, not drinking, and we can just live a decent life here and now. Comfortable in the moment, not worried about tomorrow, not thinking about today, just in the moment.

Here and now, totally comfortable, totally at peace, totally all right right now. You know, I don't know about anybody else here, but I drank because I couldn't get comfortable in my own skin. When I drank, that was the only time that I could feel comfortable in my own skin.

And then after I stopped for three and a half years, I still couldn't achieve that. And it was only when I started working the steps and seeking a spiritual path that I finally reached the point where I was comfortable within myself, no matter where I was, no matter what I was doing, no matter who I was with, I was a right here and now. And for me, that's kind of the goal of everything.

If I can just have peace right now, I'm in heaven. And when I'm not in peace and when I'm in fear and when I'm in self- concern and when I'm in that inner turmoil, I am in heaven in no uncertain terms. I mean, I am in hell in no uncertain terms.

On page 43, it says uh the alcoholic at certain times has no effect of 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.

Page 44. If you if when you honestly want to you find you cannot quit entirely or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.

To one who feels he is an atheist or agnostic such an experience seems impossible. But to continue as he is means disaster especially if he is an alcoholic of the hopeless variety. To be and here's that other one that I was talking about to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face.

But after a while, we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life or else. Again, there's no door number three. Door number one is either a lot of booze or a lot of God.

Um, and and don't get me wrong, I'm not really that comfortable with that. I'm not really that comfortable with that as a solution. I would much rather not do much of anything and just not drink.

But my experience has been that not doing much of anything and not drinking brought me a whole lot more misery and as much misery as when I was drinking because again, now I'm inside my head. Now I'm I'm ripping apart emotionally and mentally and that state was just um not comfortable for me. Page 45 it says lack of power.

That was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live and it had to be a power greater than ourselves obviously. But where and how are we defined that power?

Well, that's exactly what this book is about. They're talking about the big book. Its main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem.

In how it works, it says, "Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help, it is too much for us. But there is one capital O which has all power.

That one is God. May you find him now." And in the original manuscript, which was what the big book looked like before the last changes were made in it, that actually said, "You must find him now." which uh don't get me wrong, I'm kind of happy that they changed that a little bit, but uh for me it kind of captures the essence of where they were coming from. It wasn't as subtle as it ended up the way it is.

Then at the the abs and C's at the end of how it works, it says that probably no you in power could have relieved our alcoholism and that God couldn't if he were sought. Mike mentioned it before when the spirituality is overcome straightened out mentally and physically. Page 77 it says, "But with the alcoholic whose hope, and in the original manuscript that said, whose only hope is the maintenance of growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave, we found that it is fatal.

For when harboring such feelings, we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again." Page 99 it says, "Remind the prospect, which is a new person in AA, that his recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his relationship with God." Then on page 100, it says, "Both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress.

If you persist, remarkable things will happen. When we look back, we realize that things which came to us when we put ourselves in God's hands were better than anything we had planned. Follow the dictates of a higher power, and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world, no matter what your present circumstances." For me, that's one of my favorite promises in the book because there's an incredible sense of freedom and we can live a life where what life is handing us doesn't matter.

If if uh if I keep the job, I can be a right. And if I lose the job, I can be a right. If uh my son acts in a way that is reasonable, I can be a right.

And if he acts in a way that's not reasonable, I can be a right. If the wife stays, I can be all right. And if the wife goes, I can be all right.

And don't get me wrong, you know, I just experienced last year a marriage breakup and an incredible amount of pain. and an incredible amount of bewilderment and an incredible amount of pain. Just an incredible amount of pain.

But through all of it, I still had a sense of I'm nothing more than just sitting in God's hand. And I know that it'll be okay. And I know that I can get through it.

I don't know about you, but even when everything was all right, I never had a sense that everything was going to be all right. I always had a sense of impending calamity. Even when everything was okay, I always had a sense of I know that I'm going to self-sabotage whatever I get myself into and that the other foot's just going to fall.

And that today, even in the middle of extreme life situations, I can be all right within myself. And that's an incredible sense of peace and that's an incredible sense of freedom that I hope that I could pass along to somebody else. Page 120, it says this is this is actually talking about if we have a relapse.

It says, "Though it is infinitely better that we have no relapse at all, as has been true with many of our men, it is by no means a bad thing. In some cases, your husband will see at once that he must redouble his spiritual activities if he expects to survive. You need not remind him of his spiritual deficiency.

He will know it. And then on page 164, which is uh the last page before it gets into the stories, it says, "God will disclose will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your morning meditation what you can do each day from the man who is still sick.

The answers will come if your own house is in order." So there's certain things we need to do. But obviously you cannot tr transmit something you haven't got. See to it that your relationship with him capital H is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others.

This is the great fact for us. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows.

Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny.

So uh those are just some of the quotes out of the big book and uh some other literature that talks about sort of the premise of where we're trying to come from in regard to the next two days is that um yes there's spirit there's physical aspects and mental aspects of our program but uh when the spirituality is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically and uh we're going to share some uh um things that we've come upon that have helped us in trying to seek that kind of a path. Bill read the quote and how it works. There is but one who has all power.

That one is God. May you find him. Now I have kind of a rhetorical question for the group.

And maybe this is a question you want to sit with and not necessarily let your ego answer it right away. But the question is, is it possible for anyone in this room to pick up a drink right now? How about right now?

How about now? Now. You see, when I first got to Alcoholics Anonymous, all people were telling me was stay in the moment.

Take one day at a time. If necessary, one hour at a time. Stay in the now.

Stay in the now. Stay in the moment. Stay in the now.

And I didn't get it. I didn't start to get it until a couple years ago when some other spiritual literature started coming coming into my life and and these and these spiritual teachers and and and just people who've been doing this a heck of a lot longer than I have literally and non-alcoholic people who live their life not just one day at a time, but one moment at a time. >> >> for each and every moment.

I can't get drunk right now. In retrospect, it it makes a world of sense today. You know, just don't drink today.

You can drink tomorrow, but don't pick up that first drink today. And I didn't get it. And I got it now because tomorrow never comes because it's always today.

I don't think there's any coincidence that uh that quote one of the quotes that that Bill read about may you find God now and I just woke up to this recently. I really don't think it's a coincidence that it says may you find God now. It certainly doesn't say may you find God in the past.

May you find God yesterday. I mean, Bill Wilson could have wrote, "May you f may you find God on Wednesday, right?" No, they're telling us, "May you find God now." Cuz that's the only time there is now. This present moment is the only moment.

Anything in the past doesn't count because it's in the past. Anything in the future is not reality because it hasn't occurred yet. It's not now.

I like to look at the process of the 12 steps. What I bring to the process of the 12 steps is a clogged drain. Anyone have clogged drains or clogged pipes at home?

You know, I like to be I know what's going through your head. >> It's called nasal decongestion. I wasn't going there, but uh I'm the clogged pipe.

I'm the clogged drain. And what the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are for me is liquid spiritual draano. It's spiritual draano.

It It cleans out the clog. What the clog is is that I am blocked off from conscious contact. I am blocked from that which is keeping me sober this moment before I go through the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous and I and if I rest on my laurels and I don't continue to do steps 10 11 and 12 on a daily basis and for me if I don't do annual or semianual inventories and if I don't continue along with the process of making amends and if I don't continue to become entirely ready to have God remove all my defects of character.

I really hate that word all. I hate it more today than I did 9 years ago. If I don't continue to do these things, if I don't continue to to keep my drain clean, I'm going to clog up again and I'm going to be blocked off from that which is keeping me sober today.

I'm going to be blocked off from that which keeps me sane. from that which always did, always has, and will continue to point me to truth. The second step says that we get to be restored to sanity.

The 10th step tells us that by the time we've gotten here, we are restored to sanity. Check out these promises. I mean, for years and years, all I heard about was the ninestep promises.

And don't get me wrong, they're great promises and and they've come true in my life. But let's check out these 10step promises that that the big book talks about wherever they are. Uh it says that love and tolerance of others is our code.

You kidding me? Love and tolerance of others is our code. Resentment, hatred, and aggression towards others was my code.

And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone. dash even alcohol. What a concept.

I have ceased fighting anyone or anything. Even alcohol. I mean, I I got the part about cease fighting alcohol.

You I mean that that hap that happened somewhere probably at about a a year where I woke up to the fact that by golly, I haven't thought about drinking in quite a while. So, something's going on here. this AA thing is really working, you know, and I and and I started working the steps and every once in a while I would have that subtle thought of a drink and it would go as quick as it came and I didn't attach to the thought and as soon as the thought came uh I used to say I began to pray and I heard a a gentleman say something similar to this and and and I can relate it to my experiences.

When a thought of a drink comes to mind to me today, I don't begin to pray. Something happens from within me and a prayer begins to come from within me. And there's a subtle difference there.

And drinking is no longer an option. So, I got to deal with alcohol pretty quickly. But cease fighting anyone or anything?

They can't mean the wife. They can't mean traffic. They can't mean the boss.

My employer cease fighting. You got to be kidding me. 10steps promises says that that's a place we can be brought to.

Cease fighting my home group members in business meetings. I know y'all. I know you guys in Albany don't have that problem, but you know, I guess we're a little sicker in Joys.

Um, we will be seldom interested in liquor. My god, what a promise. I've only got to do 10 steps to be taken to that place.

Only like it's easy, right? If tempted, we recoil as from a hot flame. You know, I'm not insane enough today where I where I if I know a burner on the on the stove is been lit and it's hot.

Oh, yeah. I I think I'd like to touch that burner just to see if anything has changed in the past 5 years. No, I noticed that it's hot and boop, I recoil.

It's a hot flame, baby. That's how it is in regards to alcohol. We react sainely and normally.

My sponsor says it hasn't quite happened for me yet, but you know, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes.

I like to add this part with a hell of a lot of work in the steps, but it's true. I didn't start this this step process. Yeah.

I mean, when I was new, yes, I want to have a spiritual experience so I can recoil from alcohol like a hot flame and and and sanity will happen automatically. Man, I just wanted to get the monkey off the back. I just wanted the voices to stop chanting in my head.

Dr. Paul, who wrote a story in in our big book, talked about uh on a lot of his tapes, talked about the the committee in our head. You know, the voices, they start like about 4:30 a.m.

You're a piece of garbage. You're going to have the worst day of your life at work. That woman laying next to you who's snoring, she don't really love you.

Those AA people, what a bunch of quacks. They're not really sober. You know, thoughts like that, like Bill talked about, our our head starts to chew on us.

We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. You know, I get to ask myself today, is that my current experience?

Do I feel like I'm in a safe uh in regards to alcohol? Or how about this one, in regards to any of my character defects or self-will? Do I feel like I'm in a position of neutrality safe and protected where I'm not fighting my own self-will today?

Where I'm not fighting other people in my life today? That'll make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, huh? We have not even sworn off.

Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are not neither cocky nor are we afraid.

This is our experience. This is how we react so long as we Now, that's a condition. This is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition.

I'll turn it back to Bill. Mike had talked about staying in the now. It's kind of interesting the way step 10 throws out the fact that um on page 84 it kind of talks about steps four through nine on a momentby-moment basis.

Um, and on a moment by moment basis in the now, in the moment, right now, if I'm sensing um, selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, or fear, or if I'm sensing that I've gotten off the beam or I've gotten away from being in the moment, there's a way that we can get back on the beam. Um what's interesting with uh the wording that he uses is um first it says in the beginning of step 10 it says we vigorously which means you know pretty pretty effort uh commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. So it's saying that we start the way of life of step 10 and 11 as we start going out to make amends in our ninth step.

So there's no sort of pause or there's no sense of okay now I finished all my nice little amends now I can start doing 10. It's saying that as I start cleaning up the past I start practicing this step 10 and 11 way of life. And notice the wording that it uses.

It says that uh um we have entered the world of the spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness of having entered the world of the spirit. Which is another way of saying of of just being in the moment.

Because you might notice that the big book four step talks about resentments, fears and sex and harms and stuff like that and that um a resentment of is a form of living in the past. You know, it's amazing how we can have a resentment toward people that are dead. You know what I mean?

I mean, think about that for a second. These people aren't even alive anymore and from the grave they're controlling our lives. Uh resentment is a form of living in the past.

A fear is a form of living in the future. And the more we're in the past or we're in the future, the better chances that we are or causing harms right now. So the reason why the first nine steps deal with the past is because after you know at 75% of our program deals with the past and um now uh after we've dealt with the past, we can just be in the moment here and now.

We're not influenced by what people did or people said or all of that. We're just able to respond currently right now in whatever way is appropriate, in whatever way seems perhaps loving to us. whether the person deserves it or not.

That's another form of freedom for me in trying to practice this way of life is that um you know in the past I would only treat you well if I thought you deserved it or if you treated me well or whatever. It doesn't matter to me today. And don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean that I'm supposed to allow somebody to abuse me.

I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about uh if a person acts inappropriately, that does not give me the right to act inappropriately. And the reason why I do that is not for them.

It's for me. You know what I It's sort of like, you know, they pissed me off, so I'm going to punish them by me having negative emotions. That's sort of like, you know, uh, I'm going to take poison and expect you to get sick, you know, which is basically what a resentment is.

It's I'm I'm going to take poison and I'm this, which is this resentment and this this sense of just negative emotion that just eats us up in a response to somebody else that, you know, we think didn't act the way we wanted them to. So it's like, you know, I'm going to take poison so that you know, you get sick, which really just doesn't make sense. So, uh, you know, in the beginning of the first nine steps, it very much deals with the past and it very much clears up all that stuff so we can just kind of be in the moment so that we can just be in the moment, not influenced by the past or the future anymore.

And notice the wording that he uses. It says, "Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear." Right now, I in the moment right now, I I look for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. As soon as I find something that's disturbed my peace of mind or that's taken me off the beam or that's shifted me from just being arrived within myself, I look for that.

And that when these crop up, I ask God at once. I at once ask God to remove them right now. Ask God to help me with this.

It says that uh we discuss them immediately or now uh with someone else. Uh we make amends quickly or right now uh if we have harmed someone and then we resolutely turn right now. we raisely turn towards someone else that we can help because all of a sudden now the focus is on us again because somebody didn't act the way we wanted them to or perhaps uh you know like Mike said, you know, traffic's bothering us or or the boss isn't acting the way we think they should or or uh you know, that's another thing that in hearing a lot of fifth steps, uh the one statement that probably covers 95% of every single resentment that I've ever heard was the following statement.

So basically what you're saying is they're not acting the way you want them to. That covers it right there. every resentment I've ever had, just about 99.9% of every resentment I ever had, if not 100%, is because they're not acting the way I think they should.

And what better form of playing God is there than them not acting the way I want them to, like I know it's best. You know what I mean? And that's the kind of stuff we can be free of as we go through these steps.

So, it's very much talking about in this moment, um, seeing if I've gotten off the beam and in this moment getting back on. Then on the page 85 it says every day is a is a every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. How can I best serve thee?

Thy will thy mind be done. These are thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish.

It is the proper use of the will. Um again in the moment carrying the vision of God's will in all of our activities now. Now now as I go through the day if I've gotten away from that I can get right back to it.

Um, and then in step 11, he kind of does the same thing with um, you know, he talks about as I go through my day, I pause when agitated or doubtful. Agitated is well before pissed off and doubtful is well before we're in deep crap. You know what I mean?

If in the moment I find myself agitated or doubtful, agitated is an emotional disturbance and doubtful is a mental disturbance that as soon as I find myself off the beam, I have a process that can get me back on the beam in the now. the more peace and the more freedom I have and then in more nows, the better I feel about my life. Drinking isn't an option.

I don't need to go back to drinking because drinking helps me with that and I can bring it about within myself with my higher powers help and with the process of the steps and with the techniques that we're talking about and I can grow more and more where you know what most of my day today is very peaceful and it's very comfortable and I just came here to stop drinking. You know what I mean? And it talks about uh notice when it it describes our inner state.

Uh 10-11 very much talks about in the now analyzing where are we currently. And don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean that you know I can't work because I need to to view what's going on inside of me. Um it talks about um we consider our plans for the day.

That's very much an inner thing. It says before we begin we ask God to direct our thinking. It talks about uh being divorced from self-seeking or rather self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives.

motives are an irre thing. It says it talks about our mental faculties. It talks about God giving us brains to use.

It talks about our thinking being cleared of wrong motives. Says that we may face indecision and we can't determine which course to take. All that stuff is very much on the inside.

Um we can ask God for inspiration and intuitive thought or decision. The answers will come after we've tried this for a while. Talks about the hunch or the occasional inspiration but gradually becomes a working part of the mind.

Talks about conscious contact with God in the now. not just a a a conception of God, but a conscious contact with God, a relationship with that power within us. You know, it's sort of like the I I'll get into it in the second session tonight, but um it's sort of like there's two parts within us.

The ego aspect, which is very fearful, selfish, dishonest, uh me, anxious, that's that part of that voice and the characters that that voice sometimes takes on. And Mike mentioned it before with, you know, just how we judge the world as not being okay. And then there's that loving aspect of us that's loving, honest, um not fearful, very unselfish, um very honest in uh you know practicing the principles and and being honest with you know what's really going on in the moment right now.

So, there's these two parts within this, and I'm going to do an exercise later that for me is one of the most powerful things I've ever heard, and uh it's just like a 10-second exercise that we can do in observing uh an aspect of our, you know, being in the moment that for me was very mind-blowing and very uplifting because um I I I read this quote one time. It said that we we all have a Grand Central Station mind, but we don't have to get on every train that comes through the station. I have these thoughts that are just crazy sometimes.

I mean, just moments ago, I had one and it's like, but I don't have to get on that train, you know? Like, I remember one time um um my marriage had just ended. I was going through a lot of pain and a lot of crazy thoughts.

And I called to my friend and I said, "I only have two thoughts. Do I burn the house down when they're home or when they're not home?" And this is a person that tries to practice spiritual principles. I mean, this is and you know, we both laughed and we both realized neither one of those things I was going to respond to.

But, you know, I can have these thoughts, but I don't have to feed into them because I can see that these are these are just not healthy. It's that that ego or that unhealthy voice is driving that aspect of me. And there's another part of me that can override that.

That's the very honest, very loving. You know, with my marriage ending and me going through a lot of pain after I realized that it was over, I never said or did anything that I regretted or that I needed to make amends for. I don't know about any of you, but I'm not capable of that.

My last name is lash and I'm really good at lashing out. And to have the freedom where my mind and my emotions are telling me to do something and me not to do it is one of the greatest experiences I've ever had. I know within me what is right.

You know, some people call it your conscience, your holy spirit, your that you know, your Buddha nature, your the your inner voice, the the you know, for me that's that part within us that is of God. And there's ways of distinguishing that voice compared to the other one that you know is just out there to get everybody. you know, it's the judge, it's the the fearful aspect of it, the the you're not good enough, you know, that that's that ego voice.

And inevitably, the more I follow that voice, the more stuffed I have the inventory in the four step. The 11 step continues. Uh, you know, our thinking will as time passes be more and more on on the plane of inspiration.

Um, so you know, it's very much talking about what is going on within us and it's very much talking about distinguishing between those two voices that are within us and trying to do the next right thing now in the moment. Totally free of the past, totally free of the future, anticipation of it. Just in the moment, just totally right.

Just totally free. Just totally comfortable. And it's strange because you know what does this have anything to do with not drinking?

It has everything to do with not drinking because if I'm comfortable within myself in most moments, drinking just isn't an option anymore. And it's the whole goal of the steps is just to be comfortable here and now where I can bring about that ease and comfort that comes when I take a drink by not taking a drink, just being in the moment after the process of the steps, trying to grow spiritually and to be of service to somebody else. Five more minutes and we'll take a break.

The title of this from from the flyer that I saw is called uh the spiritual life is not a theory. we have to live it. And then uh there was a little blurb about maintaining conscious contact through the holidays.

And uh I got pretty excited and fearful all in the all in about 10 seconds when uh when when Bill had asked if I'd be interested in doing this because first of all, the thought ran through my head, what a neat topic. And the second thing that ran through my head was, man, I really don't do anything differently to maintain my conscious contact during the holidays than I do any other time during the year. So, I'm really going to have very little to talk about, which we know is a lie once you get to know me a little bit.

Uh but I I want to just uh close this session with a few quotes from uh the chapter working with others in our big book because I really think it speaks to to the topic that that we've been sort of charged with. Um on the bottom of page 100 it says assuming we're spiritually fit and I think with a lot of us mainly me that's a big assumption but assuming assuming we're spiritually fit we meaning alcoholics can do all sorts of things uh that people say alcoholics are not supposed to do. Then on the next page it says we meet these conditions every day and they go before that they describe you know we're not supposed to go uh where where there's liquor being served.

God forbid if I see a billboard that advertises Heineken Zema. What is that? They didn't have that when I was drinking, you know.

But the, you know, don't watch a movie that has to do with with drinking or drugs, you know. Mike, you can't watch the Doors movie. My god, I love Jim Morrison.

Um, but these are conditions that that we must meet every day. An alcoholic who cannot meet them still has an alcoholic mind. there is something wrong with his spiritual status.

If I have an alcoholic mind, there's not something wrong with my mental status. There's something wrong with my spiritual status. It goes on to say, so our rule is not to avoid a place where there is drinking if we have a legitimate reason reason for being there.

Um, you will note that we have made an important qualification. Therefore, ask yourself on each occasion, have I any good social, business, or personal reason for going to this place? And these are tools that we can use during the holidays if you feel you're on shaky grounds.

Or am I expecting to steal a little vicarious pleasure from the atmosphere of such places? you know, am I going to am I going to this party or this business function or this family gathering to to go there for me to get what's out of it for me, you know, me me my my national anthem me, you know, and the 12 steps of AA tell me to focus on you, you you you know, so I need to be bringing um I need to be focusing on you. what what can I bring to these events?

Uh if you're if you answer these questions satisfactory, you you need have no apprehension. We get to have a choice now. Either go or stay away, which either seems best, but be sure you're on solid spiritual ground before you start.

And that your motive, this book talks a lot about motives in going is thoroughly good. Do not think of what you can get out of the occasion. Me, me, me, me, me.

Think of what you can bring to it. You, you, you, you. But if you are shaky, you had better work with another alcoholic instead.

They're always telling us to work with others. Get out of myself and get into others. Your job now is to be at a place where you where you may be of maximum helpfulness to others.

So never hesitate to go anywhere if you can be helpful. Uh you should not hesitate to visit the most sorted spot on earth on such an errand. I won't comment.

Keep on the firing line of life when these mo with these motives and God will keep you unharmed. Uh the very last paragraph of page 103 which ends the chapter working with others. It says after all after all our problems were of our own making and this hooks back to the 10step promises.

Bottles were only a symbol. Besides we have stopped fighting anybody or anything we have to. We'll take a break.

Uh 10 minutes. Hi. Welcome back everyone.

My name is Mike and I am an alcoholic. >> Mike, >> there was something on the on the flyer that uh that Jim put out that I wanted to read a little expanded version on from language of the heart. But but before I get in because that's really what we're going to key off of for the next 45 or 50 minutes or so.

I don't think I can p push it any past 50 minutes, but I have an alcoholic ego, so I may try. No, I'm just kidding. Um, but there's something that I want to read to you that that came to me uh just a couple months ago and uh I put pen to paper because uh I got it in meditation.

It was so profound to me. Um, which means it's probably not worth two cents, but I'm going to read it to you anyway. It says, "It seems it sometimes seems that life has a tendency to come straight at us like a speeding bullet.

The problem is that we think we're the target. We are not the target of life's happenings, but we think we are. The truth is is that life just happens.

The bullets are just random firings. But we think the problems in our lives are like a guided missile headed for a target on our forehead. But if the big book is correct when it says our troubles are of our own making, then we're the ones that paint the target.

And sometimes we go out searching for the bullets. In other instances, we are sleeping when the bullets are fired and we're not alert enough to move out of the way. When we awaken spiritually, we sometime when we awaken spiritually, we realize that life is not out to get us.

We are just another energy field that the bullets of life pass through. We are not the targets. on page 240 of Language of the Heart.

And um it was quoted on the flyer, but it was only halfway quoted as far as the full paragraph goes. And I want to read the full paragraph because I think it's really powerful. It says, "The chances are better than even that we shall locate our trouble in our misunderstanding and neglect of AA's step 11, prayer, meditation, and the guidance of God.

The other steps can keep most of us sober and somehow functioning. But step 11 can keep us growing if we try hard and work at it continually. If we if we expend even 5% of the time on step 11 that we habitually and rightly lavish on step 12, the results can be wonderfully farreaching.

That is an almost uniform experience of those who constantly practice step 11. I found it real interesting that it says if we spend just 5% of the time on our conscious contact with God and maintaining our conscious contact with God via the vehicles of prayer and meditation, we're going to be so much for the better. If we spend just 5% of the time that we do with helping other alcoholics, we're just going to skyrocket as far as our spirituality is concerned.

I believe Dr. Bob once quoted that if we spend uh I'm not sure what the actual figure is, but I'll make it up. Um like I do with page numbers in the big book sometimes.

Uh I think he says if we if we expend half the amount of energy after after going after the 12 steps and trying to find a relationship with our heavenly father or God as we understand him. If we expend half of the amount of energy that we did when it comes to spirituality as we did with our drinking, we're not going to fail. We can't fail.

Thanks for sharing. >> My name's Bill. I'm an alcoholic American.

>> Thanks for sharing. I talked about those two voices within us. For me, that's the essence of a conscious contact.

Which voice is leading me in each moment? And when I realized that the wrong voice is leading me, getting off that train and getting back on the beam. Um, I've actually heard it put two ways.

These are two little parables. Uh, it says, "A battle is fearlessly forcing ra a battle of fearless forces rages within me. One side is an eagle which carries me soaring above the valleys of my soul in search for truth on wisdom's peaks.

The other side is a raging wolf. It tears apart my broken wings and drags me to the depths of self-deeat. Which one succeeds?

The one I feed. And then this is an old Cherokee teaching um an old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. A fight is going on inside of us.

He said to the boy, "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil. He is anger, envy, sorry or sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other one is good. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside of you and inside every person, too.

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf wins? The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed." Um, what's interest I used to always refer to that as the two dogs. Um, that I have a good dog and a bad dog.

And what's interesting is is that when I was out there, I could do things that were ruthless and not very nice. And I I very often didn't feel bad about it. I felt you deserved it.

I mean, if it's all about me, you know, I got to do ruthless things. And in coming into AA and in trying to practice, you know, I think it's interesting that in the first paragraph of how it works, it mentions honest or honesty three times. It even says that this is a way of living which demands rigorous honesty.

Uh first of all, I need to ask myself, do I feel that's important? Secondly, I have to ask myself, am I living that type of life? Um and uh now in trying to practice, you know, an honest life or a spiritual life or whatever you want to call it, a godly or loving life, whatever, um today sometimes I can do some small thing that I know is wrong and it just rips me apart.

My consciousness comes against me in no uncertain terms over some little thing. Now I'm feeding that dog a whole lot more. I'm feeding the good dog a whole lot more.

And now my conscience comes against me before it gets to be, you know, way out of hand. You know what I And I can still make mistakes, but well before it's out of hand, I know and and knew even probably before that what I was about to do was wrong. I am so grateful for that.

But the thing is that now I'm feeding that dog. Before I was feeding the bad dog. And it's interesting because neither dog or neither voice ever dies.

You know what I mean? Both of them are always there, but just one very often is stronger because that's the one that I'm feeding more. >> So our question to you is, you know, in each moment, which dog am I feeding inevitably?

For me that's the sort of the the spiritual path or sort of the um the essence of being in the moment and the essence of which voice am I following right now right here right now which voice is the one that's leading me the Oxer group which is where AA got all the steps from and most of the spiritual principles used to have something that bless you used to have something that was called the four absolutes it was love purity unselfishness and honesty uh for me that is a big part of my spiritual walk and my path death. What's interesting is is that in the resentment inventory in the fourth step, it talks about where was I selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, or frightened. That's the opposite of the four absolutes.

Frightened is the opposite of love. Uh dishonest is the opposite of honesty. Selfish is the opposite of unselfishness.

And self-seeking is the opposite of purity. Because not only is purity sort of a sexual thing with our acts and our thoughts, but it's also are our motives pure? you know am I helping somebody because I just want to help them or am I helping them because I want something out of it you know I mean that's also an aspect of of purity and um also in the 10th step it talks about continue to watch for selfishness which is the opposite of unselfishness dishonesty which is the opposite of honesty resentment which is the opposite of purity and fear which is the opposite of love and then the 11th step he mentions it again it talks about uh when we constructively review our day at the end of the day it says was I resentful was I selfish was I dishonest was I afraid again the opposite of the four absolutes although he doesn't mention the the four absolutes in our literature he mentions the opposite of it because the opposite of it is the ways that we're falling short so for me if these are the ways that we're falling short then I need to also look at the other standard am I growing today am I more loving today than I was a year ago that means I'm growing spiritually am I more honest today than I was a year ago that means I'm growing spiritually uh that means I'm on the beam more.

Am I growing in unselfishness? Am I growing in um empathetic listening to other people when people are talking to me? Am I really there just listening to them or am I waiting them for them to stop so I can respond because I can I I've experienced, you know, I can relate to that at times.

You know, am I more reasonable in traffic today? That means that I'm growing spiritually. you know, if growing spiritually is a a a priority or if it's a part of this, what can I how can I tell?

How can I regulate it? How can I see am I growing? You know what I mean?

It's really easy to say, "Oh, yeah, you know, I I pray more. Oh, yeah. Oh, I'm closer to God now than I was a year ago." But what does that mean?

What if I'm talking to somebody who doesn't even know when you use the word God what that means and in some in some cases sort of has a negative definition? Because I've talked with people that God was this negative to be feared kind of a thing. uh and um you know something that for me is really important not only with the four absolutes but you know uh there's ways that I can regulate or there's ways that even sometimes just in the moment I can see you know am I growing spiritually am I able to handle situations today that used to baffle me am I handling situations today that used to cause me to go off you know Mike we had touched upon it before there's usually four areas that I can besides sort of the four absolutes I'm just kind of seeing if I'm growing in certain areas uh spiritually there's four areas that for me is the ultimate test to how am I doing spiritually?

One is spend a week with your parents. How well do you handle that? There's a sign of how you're doing spiritually.

Uh when you're in traffic and you're running late, there's a sign of how I'm I'm doing spiritually, you know. Um the other one was Mike mentioned it. I I whispered in his ear, so I'll take credit for it.

um you know, how am I how am I doing at my home group's business meeting? You know what I mean? Because there's those people that like push our buttons.

And the cool thing is is that the issue isn't that they're pushing our buttons. The issue is is that we have buttons to push. If we can get rid of those buttons, they don't have buttons to push anymore.

And that's a that's a key thing for me in sort of a technique of passing along about the holidays is that these people in our family, they're not pushing our buttons. They're letting us know. They're they're on some level I view that as they're in my life to let me know there's something more that I need to work on and I am grateful for them pushing my buttons because I see that there's something more within me that I need to work on.

It talks about in the 12 and 12 that it's a spiritual axiom that anytime somebody else disturbs us there's something wrong with us. It's not an easy thing. It's not again I don't like that news but in trying to work toward getting more freedom those are things that I found is my truth.

And then the the fourth spot which uh I don't know if we're going to do it but we were thinking about it. Uh the fourth one the ch the test on how am I doing spiritually is how do I do in those moments when I'm just with myself within myself not watching TV not watching the radio just alone inside myself for perhaps a 5minute period of time. What's my inner state during those moments?

Is my mind and my emotions beating me up? Am I comfortable just being alone? Am I comfortable just being in silence just all right just here and now?

Or is there this immense turmoil and this immense uncomfortability? I don't want to, you know, I have to have the radio on. I have to have the TV on.

I have to have the the radio on when I'm driving my car. I just can't be alone with myself. Right?

That's another sign for me on how we're doing spiritually. Um there's a fifth one that Bill usually doesn't talk about, but we talk about it between us. Any dog owners in the house tonight?

Anyone own a dog? All right. So, the dog owns you.

All right. No. If when you come home from work and you come through the door, does your dog growl at you?

You know, that's a pretty good indication of where my spirituality is. I just ran away. >> Well, we have a program of recovery that will work for you, too.

It must not have been going to our dog that was stolen from Cersei. Um, now the 10-second exercise that distinguishes between those two voices within us for me. I've heard it I've heard people do it and I remember the first time that we did it to a group of people.

There was likeund and something people there and it was just amazing. You could feel a shift in the room that everybody just kind of got it. And I hope that happens again.

Um, okay. Now, this is real simple. Just a 10-second exercise.

Just for for now, just kind of get comfortable. Just get comfortable. And for the next 10 seconds, I'd like you to do one thing and one thing only.

For the next 10 seconds, just close your eyes and observe your thoughts. Thank you. Now, what's interesting about that exercise is that usually for those 10 seconds, no thoughts come across our mind.

Now, our ego doesn't want to draw attention to itself. What our ego wants is to run the show without us realizing that it's running the show. Like I said before, we have a grand central station mind.

All these things come flying through. For some people in meditation, when thoughts come by, they're told to just observe their thoughts like a cloud passing by. And then the thought goes by and it's gone.

It doesn't control us. We don't have to buy into it. We don't have to agree with it.

We don't have to um attach to it and say, "Yeah, that's a thought that I want to have as a driving thought." So, it's interesting in that, you know, our ego or that part that kind of just talks to us constant that constant chatter within us that it doesn't want to draw attention to itself. It wants to act as if it's you don't notice, you know, don't notice me. I'm running the show, but don't notice.

But there's another aspect of that exercise that for me is really mind-blowing. What was observing your thoughts? something outside of your thoughts was looking at your thoughts.

That that for me is those two parts within us. There's this constant chatter and there's this ego aspect that's just this constant judge, this constant director, this constant what I would like to call the ego. But there's this other all- knowing, all comfortable, allloving, all reassuring part of us that's there that's kind of observing, wanting us to turn to it, but that we don't that often turn to it.

And that's that's for me what the the goal of meditation is, is to separate ourselves from our thoughts and to tap into that aspect within us that I think is that spark within us, our spiritual essence, that part within us that is of God. Um there are two consciences going on there, but we don't notice it most of the time because the ego is the louder first one to speak most often. But then when it talks about that inspiration, when it talks about an intuitive thought, when it talks about that our our uh that uh we're on a much higher plane, when our motives are clear to wrong thinking, that that's separating from the ego and that's trying to tap into that wisdom, that incredible wisdom, that incredible knowing, that incredible reassurance part of us within us that is always there, but that most often we really don't notice it.

We just hear that one because that's the one that's loudest. But there is this other part of us. And that for me is the goal of the steps is to get you to have conscious contact with that part within you.

Because for me, I don't see God as out there, over there, up there. I see God as within me. My my solution is within me just like my problem is within me.

I call the problem the ego. And I call the solution God or higher power or whatever you want to call it. But it's always right here.

It's always right now. It always wants us to turn to it. It's always there.

But for some reason, we just don't notice it all the time. We always, you know, some people call it your conscience because, you know, there is that part within us that every once in a while says, "Bill, I don't think this is a good idea, but you know, very often we'll just do it anyway." You know what I mean? You can call it whatever you want, but we all have it.

We've all experienced it. We all know exactly what I'm talking about when I describe this stuff about the two parts within us, the two dogs, the ego and the the part which I believe is of God. So, uh, that's another thing that I wanted to throw out because, um, especially with the holidays and especially with family and old issues and all of that, uh, what seems really obvious is to do the work of the steps on these people, which inevitably reaches us to a point where we're free from most of it, if not all of it.

But then when it comes up in the moment, if we can just be loving and honest and a little bit more pure with our motives and unselfish, all of a sudden it just changes the relationship and they don't have to do anything. All of a sudden, the whole relationship changed and they haven't done a thing. Just our perspective toward the relationship has changed.

And our way of treating these people and our way of looking at these people just all of a sudden changes and all of a sudden everything changes and they haven't done a thing. Uh there's uh Anthony Dlo says that you know it's a whole lot easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world back and then how do we get to that place? How do we get to that place when we have conscious contact where we're just able to tap in so to speak?

There's a lot of work that has to be done. For me, the first step that I can say that I really consciously touch that truth that's deep down within us. And I'll talk a little bit more about that before we close.

You see, I I think truth, the great reality, my true inner nature, God, I think all these terms just mean the same thing. I think these terms or words, you know, somebody said it once, when it comes to trying to describe God or spirituality, silence just makes so much more sense. And I believe that to be true today because sometimes I can get trapped in the dogma of what God means.

You know, you may call God Jesus, you may call God Buddha, you may call God higher power. And if I get trapped into the word, if I get trapped in the pointer, that which directs me to the power, if I get trapped in that, um, I'm I'm going to be trapped. I really have a way with words sometimes, as you guys can tell.

So, I try to see what the word is pointing to today. So if you hear me say God, higher power, consciousness, intuition, great reality, my true inner nature, that which that which what I was before I was even here, any crazy kooky stuff like that. To me, it just all means truth.

It's all pointing to truth. I was writing an inventory about I guess it was about a year ago and that's when I discovered the place in the steps that I really hit truth for the first time. For you it may have been your first step.

You may have had such a deep and profound surrender experience in your first step that you just knew truth. And I mean a lot of people have their spiritual experience so to speak right in their first step. Truth began to speak to me or rather I began to hear truth.

I began to hear that still small quiet voice of God within in my first inventory though I didn't know it. And upon subsequent inventories, I I finally began to realize what was going on. And it it struck me about a year ago that in the big book, Bill makes this statement about being catapulted and rocketed into this fourth dimension of existence.

He talks about it on page 8 and he talks about he talks about it again on page 25 about this fourth dimension of existence and I didn't know what that was you know I just thought Bill was oh here he goes being creative and lofty again you know fourth dimension of existence spooky you know and it struck me when I was writing inventory one day anybody body in this room. Well, I hate to embarrass anyone. Um, but I will.

Uh, how many people in the room have written four column inventory as described in the big book? You know, the four columns I'm resentful at, what they did to me, uh, affects my makes me feel like this, and where am I selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and frightened in in the fourth column. That's what I mean by four column inventory.

So I was doing that one day and I realized that that directly reflects the four dimensions, at least to me, that Bill Wilson was talking about when when he talked about being rocketed into and catapulted into the fourth dimension of existence. And I began to ponder in meditation, what are these four dimensions that he's talking about? And I don't know if this is true or not.

I I'm not going to be as bold to say that I could speak for Bill Wilson. Maybe two years ago I would have, but you know, um I don't know if this is true or not, but it helps me. And I really because our big book is just shot through with it.

I really believe that the four dimensions of life are physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Again, here they go again with once the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. If you look at the first column of inventory, I'm resentful at the person, institution or principle.

Usually that resentment I have is towards some physical being. So that's body. That's the physical dimension.

The resentment that I perpetuate is towards what I thought that person did to me. What I thought I heard the Uh-huh. See, we're striking truth already.

I hit it the I hit it a couple months ago. Maybe I'll tell you about that. What I think the other person did to me.

That's my second column on page 65. They call it the cause of my resentment. Uh, I'm resentful at Bill because he spoke for 12 minutes instead of 10.

You know, something uh real petty like that >> again. >> Again, I should be used to it by now. What I think he did to me, second column, the dimension, the mental dimension, the second dimension.

So we have physical and then mental. The third column is how does that resentment how does when Bill did that to me, how does that affect me? Does it affect my self-esteem, my pocketbook, my ambitions, my pride?

On and on and on. Uh I love to call the third column of resentment inventory the victim column. You know, sometimes I love to walk around the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous with a big V on my forehead.

And for and fortunate enough for me, I have people in my life that'll point out that I have that V on my forehead and they won't let me uh continue to be one of the still sick and suffering because when I'm sick and suffering usually means that I'm still and I don't want to be a still sick and suffering. But I call that third column my victim column. And but what it really is is my emotions.

It's my emotional state. When I think so and so did such and such to me, it caused or I think it caused certain feelings and emotions to arise with from within me. I find that out later that that's a lie because of the spiritual axiom in the 10th step that Bill talked about before, but they give us a little time to catch up.

Big book's very generous with that. So to kind of end this long explanation, the fourth column, I finally get to see my part. I finally get to see the truth.

I finally get to see where I start the ball rolling in each and every resentment, fear, misconduct, harm that I've ever had in my life and will continue to have. And I really believe that the fourth column is about truth. And I really believe that for the first time in my life, I get to enter the spiritual dimension of existence.

That fourth column is all about God, folks. It's where I find I mean, anyone in this room start writing inventory and you get to that fourth column and it just comes from left field and boom, it's on the paper and you didn't even have to think about it. It's just there and you know that's the truth and you don't even want to look at it and you know it's true.

I don't want to know that I screwed this person over. I don't want to know that I'm selfish to this person. I don't want to know that I lied to this person.

But yet there it is right on that paper and I can't dispute it. That's truth. Truth comes from within me.

And the big book says that that's the only place that God can be found. Where do talks about in the second step that we have to find a power greater than ourselves that'll solve our problem. Where and how are we to find this problem?

Then 10 pages later they tell us exactly where this power is located. For deep down within every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God. I don't have to go out here looking for it.

I don't have to go to this church, this monastery, this spiritual guru in India. I don't have to go to the Himalayas. It's right here.

Now, funny how we're back to that word again, huh? Deep down within every man, woman and child in this room right now, this very moment is the fundamental idea of God. God is deep down within us.

That is the truth. That is the small, still quiet voice. That is the good dog.

That's our conscience. That's our intuition. That's that part of us that wants to be sober, happy, joyous, free, loving, kind, tolerant, patient.

Yeah. Even to the mother-in-law. That's that part of us that was always there, even when we were drinking and drugging like mad dogs.

That's that part of us that will always continue to be there. for the rest of our lives. So, my concept of a higher power was not one that I would want to turn to for help to be honest with you.

Um, and then I was given an immense amount of respect when I came to AA and they told me, "Bill, you can believe whatever you want." But I think there's a little bit of an asterisk next to step two. And uh, what step two says is that you can believe whatever you want as long as it's not you. Uh, and for me that was really important because I was the ruler and controller of my life.

And for me, you know, Mike said about the surreners, you know, in the first step I needed to surrender to alcohol, but in the third step and I think again in the seventh step, I need to surrender my will to a higher power because my life run on my will was a nightmare even during the three and a half years period of time that I wasn't drinking. So for me uh the 12 steps are really one step with 12 parts and that's from go living that goes out of here to living that goes out of our heart which is where I believe my higher power resides and in experiencing that transition and in experiencing the beauty and freedom of if she stays I can be comfortable and if she goes I can be comfortable and if I have the job I can be comfortable if I don't have the job I can be comfortable and if I have the car, I can be comfortable. If I don't have the car, I can be comfortable.

That life has just completely changed without anything happening out there. Um it it's captured so beautifully in our expression that it's an inner job. You know what I mean?

Um Chuck Chamberlain used to talk about, you know, putting on just cleaning our glasses that we need to put on a spiritual set of glasses now. that I always looked at life from me being the center of the universe and now I need to believe that love or God or others centeredness that needs to be the center of my universe. And in changing from the compass of it's all about me to the compass of I want to do what God wants me to do and I want to be loving and I want to be honest and and all of that that all of a sudden that compass worked and I wasn't crashing into people all the time and I wasn't stepping on everybody's toes and I I was very comfortable within myself and I was right with almost everybody around me and and I just came here to not drink.

Um there was a guru that lived on a hill. There's a story. There was a guru that lived on a hill and below him there was a farmer.

Now, this farmer never liked the guru because he kind of felt that the guru didn't work and that he was a slacker and he was a farmer and he was the real deal cuz he worked hard and he was a man men's man. And uh um one day he had a lot of cattle. He had a lot of cows.

And one day one of the cows broke through the fence and all the whole entire herd of cows left. And this farmer was devastated because his cattle was the biggest part of his crop or the biggest part of his income and now that was just all gone. So he went up to see the guru guy and he said something terrible has happened.

All my cows have left. This is devastating. The cows were the biggest part of my income and now they're all gone.

Isn't this a terrible thing? And the guru looked at him and said, "Good or bad? I really don't know." And the farmer went back down to his farm cursing under his breath cuz he never liked the guru anyway.

He didn't know why he went there. And a couple days later, because there was a hole in the fence, this big huge uh herd of wild horses came onto his land. And he real quickly closed up the fence and now he had these horses and horses are so much better than cows.

And he was totally psyched. And he was totally happy. And he went up to see the guru guy.

And he said, "Something wonderful has happened. Ces have ran on wild horses have ran onto my property. Horses are so much better than cows.

This is a really wonderful thing. Isn't this wonderful?" And the guru guy looked at him and said, "You know, good or bad, I really don't know." And again, he shook his head and he went back down to his farm. And a couple days later, his son was trying to to break one of the horses and the horse threw him off his back and he landed on his leg wrong and he broke his leg.

And the father was devastated because his son was in a lot of pain with a broken leg. And he went back up to see the guru guy and he said, "Something terrible has happened. My son has been thrown from one of the wild horses and he's broken his leg.

This is terrible. Isn't this a terrible thing?" And the guru guy looked at him and said, "Good or bad? I really don't know." And then a couple weeks later, war broke out in the country and soldiers came around recruiting soldiers to uh young people to join the the soldier ranks.

And because his son had a broken leg, the soldiers didn't take him. So now the farmer was totally excited and totally happy his son didn't get taken to war. And he goes back up to see the guru guy and he says to him, "Something wonderful has happened.

The soldiers didn't take my son. Isn't this wonderful?" And the guru guy looked at him and said, "Good or bad? I really don't know." That describes my life.

There have been things in my life that were incredibly wonderful that almost killed me that I would view and that anybody here, if I was to tell you, would say this was a good thing and they almost took me out. And there were things in my life that were incredibly hideous and they were incredibly terrible. And if you were to view them and if you were to judge them and if I was to tell you what happened, you would say, "Wow, that was really bad." And you know what?

Most of the time, if not all the time, those things was where I transformed myself with a higher power and with these steps and with this program to become the person that I'm trying to become that I think was exactly what God wanted me to be in the first place. I have tried to move away and I'd like to pass along trying to move away from good or bad because I do not have the perspective to be able to judge that my addiction and my alcoholism was a ruthless thing. I did things to people that I wish I wouldn't have hap that wish wouldn't happen.

But if those things wouldn't have happened, it wouldn't have gotten to the point where I would have come into AA and it wouldn't have gotten to the point where I would have considered a spiritual way out. So I am incredibly grateful for those things in my life today. Marriages have ended.

Um I went through an incredible amount of pain. It brought me closer to myself and things that I didn't like about myself and brought me closer to my higher power. I am truly grateful for those bad moments in my life today.

I do not view them as bad things in my life anymore. For me, this is the concept of God. For me, this is the concept of my spirituality.

You know, I I've talked with people that married couples that were having two different experiences in their relationship. One of the couple was viewing their relationship as these are opportunities for growth. The differences that we have and the problems that we're having are opportunities for growth.

And the other person in the marriage was saying, "No, this is incompatibility. I want out. That was as the result of where each one of them were coming from spiritually.

Exact situation, two extreme points of view as the result of where the person was coming from spiritually. Incredibly powerful examples and incredibly powerful uh story with the guru and the farmer because I believe that God oversees everything and that he always has my best interest in mind even when I don't think at any one moment. I wish marriages hadn't ended.

I wish I hadn't gone through the pain. I I loved these women and I wouldn't have wanted it to end. But I have become a better person for going through what I went through.

Didn't do anything that I regretted after the marriage broke up and and had to make amends for that. Um I would have never had the opportunity to go through and grown from if that didn't happen to me. Um I'm going to close my aspect of this with a quote which for me describes my concept of God.

This is from a course of miracles. It says the following. What could you not accept if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present, and to come are gently planned by one whose only purpose is your good or perhaps spiritual growth?

What could you not accept if you but knew that everything that happens, all events past, present, and to come are gently planned by one whose only purpose is your good. Bill had mentioned uh a pretty popular AA speaker um in early AA and I guess he passed away somewhere in the 80s by the name of uh Chuck C. Chuck Chamberlain.

And uh one of the things that Chuck always said was what you are looking for you are looking with. what we are looking for, we are looking with. I'll talk more about that in a in a minute.

And I actually have an exercise that that I want to close with. But first, I want to read this quote about meditation. It's from a book called uh meditation and ecstasy.

And by the way, I'm getting closer and closer to the point where uh prayer meditation is no longer a practice for me, but yet it rather it's becoming a way of life. Prayer and meditation, spirituality, our 10th and the 11th step has become a way of life for me today. They're not just spiritual exercises.

They're not just principles that I can practice some of the time. The quote is meditation simply means becoming empty of all the contents of the mind. Memory, imagination, thoughts, desires, expectations, projections, moods.

One has to go on emptying oneself of all the content. The greatest day in life is when you cannot find anything to to throw out. When there is only pure emptiness, in that emptiness you you find your pure consciousness.

Remember I said a lot of these words to me mean the same thing. Pure consciousness, truth, God, higher power, however you want to look at it. I have an exercise that I want to close with.

about two years ago, uh, my spiritual adviser at the time brought me through it and it totally revolutionized my life and and the way I I look and and feel and think about things. And it may seem a little weird in the beginning. And if it doesn't feel comfortable to you, then just don't do it.

You you can just disregard it. What this man asked me to do was find out what I really am. When Bill said, "When we're trying to play God, I believe that's my ego." you know, when when when I want that concept of a higher power to be me.

You know, the old-timers told us, you can you can choose anything you want for God. Just make sure it's not yourself. Well, that part of me that wants to be God, that's my ego.

What I'm going to talk about is the opposite, is something different. The exercise is If we chop off your arms, are you still you? If you lose your legs, are you still you?

If we take out all your organs inside your body and transplant them with new ones, are you still you? If, god forbid, you go into a coma tonight and you don't have any um rationalization of your mental faculties, are you still you? If we strip away any emotions, feelings from the years past and the years to come, are you still you?

Have you ever had the experience where you're in deep inner turmoil? You're crushed. You're so sad.

You're mourning, whether it be the the the death of someone or the death of a relationship like Bill talked about, and you're experiencing so much pain in your life. But yet there's this place deep down within and you know you're going to be okay. Nod your head if you identify if you ever had that experience.

So >> yeah. So if you have this deep sadness and pain and struggle and strife and we remove all that. Are you still you?

What's left? That emptiness that that quote talked about. But somehow within that emptiness, we become more full and our lives become fuller and our spirits become fuller than ever before.

You see, the process of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous I is a process of subtraction, not addition. My whole life I thought more was better. And now I'm comfortable with less is where it's at.

Face and be rid of these obstacles in our path that blocked us off from that one who has all power. So maybe in your meditation, maybe tomorrow morning if you choose to do so and again you can just disregard this but sit down and and find that quiet that quiet place that we all have within us deep down within and ask yourself what was I before today? What was I before last year?

What was I 20 years ago? I'm not talking about the mask that our egos like to put on. I'm not talking about I'm a husband.

I'm I'm I'm a a computer system administrator. I'm not even talking about I'm an AA member. What were you when you were a child?

What were you when you were in the womb? and take it back as your spirit as far back as your spirit allows you to. What were you before that?

What were you before that? What were you before that? See, I believe that I am not the who that my ego likes to tell me I am, but I am the what that I had been searching for my whole life.

I am not God. But I know today that I am everything that is of God. The spiritual life is not a theory.

We have to live it. Am I willing? God bless you and happy holidays.

>> Hi everybody. My name is Barefoot Bill. I am an alcoholic.

>> Hi Bill. Sometimes I think people just show up to these things to see if I really don't wear shoes. I even have little maps for myself today.

Um, just to give you five minutes of of where I come from. I guess sometimes as a joke, I'll affectionately describe what it was like by saying that when I was 17, I went to this party and when I was 30, I came home from that party. Uh, that pretty much covers it to be honest with you.

It was pretty non-stop and it was pretty extreme and it was um very strange. Uh twisted. My friend called it twisted.

I would definitely agree with that. But I had finally reached a point where I realized that um I had to stop and that I couldn't. For me, the definition of an alcoholic is that once I drink, it always goes too far or usually goes too far or I can't really safely predict how much I'm going to drink once I start.

and that when I stop, I can't stay stopped. For me, that pretty much describes powerlessness and alcoholism uh in its surface level. And I came to AA, I was in AA for three and a half years.

I made a lot of coffee. I put away a lot of ashtrays. I put away chairs.

I went to diners. I went to meetings. I went to conferences, conventions, people's houses.

Um I didn't drink and I went to meetings and all those other things. I really thought that alcohol was my problem. So not drinking was my solution.

And for three and a half years, I progressively got more miserable and I progressively was inside my head 24 hours a day except when I slept and I was having problems sleeping again. And my emotions and my mind was beating me up, uh, chewing me up and spitting me out. And I reached a point where if this is what it's going to be like, I might as well just kill myself or I might as well just drink because at least when I drank, I had moments of relief or moments of blackout or moments of just not being inside my head uh chewing me up and spitting me out.

And it was at that point that some people came into my life and they pointed out that um my problem wasn't alcohol and my problem was alcoholism and that there was more going on here to living a happy, contented, useful life than not drinking. That if I wanted to not drink and be happy about it, there was a whole lot of work that I needed to do. And that that's why we had to get into the steps.

And up until that point, I really just didn't think it applied to me. Uh the steps are intellectually insulting. Um they don't apply to what my problem is.

Uh it doesn't seem like it would. Uh I had tried these things, parts of them before. They really didn't make sense to me.

I kind of came from the street. You know, you don't admit to the things that you did wrong. Even if they have video, you do not admit to what you did wrong.

It's as simple as that. And I started to get into the steps because I started seeing there was more going on here. That there were uh emotional, spiritual, and mental levels of alcoholism that I didn't start dealing with yet.

And that that was why I had so much unmanageability on the inside and so much discomfort now three and a half years not drinking. um and in getting into the steps reluctantly not thinking that they would work and also on some level getting into the steps just to prove that they wouldn't work. Um it's interesting about the steps because it really doesn't matter if you believe that they'll work.

It really doesn't matter why you get into it. Uh the amazing thing is that when we do the work as earnestly and as thoroughly as we can and um Yeah. And uh I can't say it was anything like I thought it would be.

Um I mean, you know, last night I kept saying it over and over again, I just came here not to drink, you know, or to learn how to drink maybe even, you know what I mean? But um something happened to me in seeking a spiritual path and in working the steps. Uh I guess at this point I I go through the steps once a year starting at step one again and an amazing transformation occurred for me where every aspect of my life changed for the better and uh I I really can't tell you how that happened.

Uh the only thing that I can come up with is is the X factor called God. uh when I was willing to consider another way besides my own and to do certain simple things which I think are spiritual activities that it opened up something in me and it got rid of something in me that was my it got rid of what was my problem and it opened up what was my solution and what has brought a lot of peace and a lot of happiness and serenity and freedom in my life today. Hi everyone, my name is Mike Lawrence and I am an alcoholic.

My home group is the carry this message group of West Orange, New Jersey and my sobriety date is September the 27th, 1993. And for that I'm very grateful. It's good to be back here again.

Uh last night was an unbelievable experience for Bill and I. I I was so hyped up after leaving here last night. I don't think I fell asleep until around 2:00 a.m.

Um, so probably a lot of what you're going to hear out of me today is caffeine possibly, I don't know, or power aid maybe. I mean, they tell us we need a power greater than ourselves, right? You know, so power aid must be for drunks.

Um, I came to this wonderful fellowship at the ripe bold age of 21. And I really believe that I had hit a bottom. I had hit a state of surrender.

I was willing to admit complete defeat like I was never before in my entire life. Um, I noticed a lot of young people here this morning and I'm really really happy about that because when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, you know, a couple of the old-timers would say things to me like, "Well, young man, I don't know if you're really an alcoholic be because I spilled more alcohol than uh you probably drank in your entire lifetime." And I'm like, "Listen, old man. If you weren't so busy spilling all that alcohol and if you were drinking it, maybe you would have made it here sooner, you know, kind of neat spiritual stuff like that right up in the beginning.

Um, but I am definitely an alcoholic. I have a case history that proves it. I have a body that cannot handle alcohol like normal people, whatever that is.

By the way, just as an aside, not too long ago, I heard a guy uh make this statement. We and Alcoholics Anonymous like to to bring into our meetings stuff like uh you know, us alcoholics inside here and those normal people out there, you know, like like there's really any such thing as a normal person. And what this gentleman said was there is no such thing as normal people.

there are th just just those people that have not shared with you yet, you know. So, I I kind of identify with that. I also have a mind of an alcoholic as if you can't tell already.

Um, I've encountered neat stuff in my drinking like strange mental blank spots. Uh, all of a sudden I'm in a sober blackout and I come out of that blackout drunk, pounding on the bar, not knowing how the heck I got there. I have neat things that go through my head when I'm suffering from untreated alcoholism.

Like, you're just getting out of jail, but don't worry, this time will be different. You can handle that stuff like those other people can. One or two drinks will just take the edge off.

You'll be okay. It won't burn you like it did 2567 times before. But I also have something that our big book on page 64 refers to as the spiritual malady.

And I'm grateful for the stuff that our book and people that have been putting put in my life that really talked to me about this thing called the spiritual malady says in our book that once the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically. And that was kind of a new concept for me because I always thought that you know I come to Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm going to dry out. So my so my body straightens out first.

So physically I'm going to get better and then you know stick around here for about five years and you get your brains back and stick around for 10 and you find out what the heck to do with them, you know. And I always thought that my mind was the second thing to get better and then you know maybe after uh anybody ever hear anything like this just work a step a year. I mean by God I'd be on you know I'd be on my ninth step right now.

Um I wouldn't be on my ninth step. I'd either be dead or in a bar or in the looney bin, you know, but I kind of took it like that at first and and I thought that the last thing that I needed to do was spiritual development. The title of this workshop is called the spiritual life is not a theory.

We have to live it. And uh I was not ready for that. I really believe today that uh the God of my understanding likes me a lot better than he does barefoot Bill because u it took Bill about three and a half years before he got willing to get into the steps.

And uh for me it was somewhere around 5 months where I was just suffering from a part of the disease that I absolutely had no idea that I had and I had had it my entire life. My entire life, I felt like that round peg trying to fit in a square hole or a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. However that thing goes, I felt like it.

I felt like the loneliest person in the world. I I was at the jumping off spot darn near my entire life. And I wished for the end.

And I could not imagine my life with or without alcohol ever. And when you get to that place, there ain't nowhere to go except for God or to get drunk again. But I came to the same place somewhere around four and a half or 5 months dry that Bill did at 3 and 1/2 years.

And I just said, you know, if this is how life is going to be with alcohol, I might as well go get drunk cuz this sucks. I was not having a good time in Alcoholics Anonymous. And that's no reflection on Alcoholics Anonymous.

Alcoholics Anonymous was doing its job just fine. I wouldn't have known a step if it would have bit me on the face. You know, I had some work that needed to be done and around 5 months sober, just not drinking and going to meetings wasn't wasn't helping my internal spiritual condition that was literally killing me.

I had neat stuff that was killing me. you know, stick around here long enough and everything will get better. Oh yeah, it got better for me.

My resentments got better, my fear got better, and my sex conduct got a lot better, you know. Um, but again, I was literally dying from a part of the disease that I absolutely had no idea that I had. And I became willing to take directions from something else other than my own mind.

And somewhere around that time, the big book was introduced to me. And and uh and I had to get busy with this program, recovery, or else I was going to die. Walt kind of threw out before sort of the premise of of uh what we did yesterday and today.

And that's uh something that is rather interesting. And I think it's one of the things that the people who put AA down kind of come from and that's that AA doesn't deal with alcoholism. It says all over our literature and I'm going to read a whole bunch of them from the big book that u when the spiritual malady is overcome that we straighten out mentally and physically.

And the reason why the 12 steps can be used for so many different addictions and so many different compulsions is because it doesn't really deal with let's say alcoholism. It deals with the root of the problem which is where the alcoholism is coming from in the first place. It doesn't deal with the fact that we drink.

It deals with why do we drink? You know these doctors keep trying to come up with pills that you could take to that that would cure an alcoholic or whatever. But bless you.

Something a pill never will deal with is why do we drink in the first place? What am I escaping from? Why is it that my inner condition is so uncomfortable that I'm looking to get away from that?

That I'm always looking outside of myself to do something that I can't do within myself. And what the steps do is it reverses that where we can do something that something is happening inside of us that's bringing about that comfort and that manageability and that freedom and that peace and that drinking and drugging or whatever just isn't really an option because we feel good naturally. We can do it here and now.

So um the premise that we're coming from is that uh you know it says at the beginning of the 12step it talks about having had a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps. So it's saying that the goal of the steps is not recovery. The goal of the steps is to have a spiritual awakening and a byproduct of the spiritual awakening is that we recover from alcoholism.

That seems kind of controversial. It seems kind of contrary but um again aa really doesn't deal with alcoholism. just deals with maintaining our spiritual condition and that's what deals with the alcoholism quote unquote.

We deal with the root of it and then that helps us with our thinking and that helps us with our motivation and our actions and all that. If we get to the root of it that deals with it. Um it's interesting because I've heard people say that, you know, I'm doing the work and and what they would consider doing the work is is the steps.

I'm doing the work. I'm doing the steps. But really the steps are preparation for doing the work.

That doing the work is helping another person. that uh the steps prepare me for being able to help somebody else. Uh which inevitably, like I said, is kind of the goal of the steps is to open us up on the inside where we have something to give to somebody else and help them and reach into their cave and pull them out and to perhaps even go into the cave and show them how to get out.

Um these are some of the things that I've seen in the the big book about the fact that it's not really a drinking problem, it's a spiritual problem. We don't have relationship problems, we have a spiritual problem. We don't have spending problems, we have a spiritual problem.

We don't have a work problem with our boss. We have a spiritual problem. That when I lived my life in a self-centered way, everything clashes with me and everybody I have a problem with mostly.

Um, every resentment I've ever resentment inventory I have ever heard, there's one statement that covers almost all of it, and that's that they're not acting the way I want them to. So, of course, I'm pissed. They're they're not they're not acting the way I think they should.

And therein lies my clash in the way my life is. And therein lies why I have so much inner turmoil and so much inner problems that alcohol becomes an option because alcohol helps me with that. Alcohol brings me ease and comfort when I drink.

What's interesting is that it doesn't do that for a non-alcoholic. A non-alcoholic has a drink or two and then says, you know, I'm feeling the first one I don't want anymore. They have one or two drinks, they have a take it or leave it relationship with alcohol, but once I start drinking alcohol, I go too far.

That I have a I need alcohol to deal with life kind of relationship with alcohol. A non-alcoholic doesn't have that. That's why they look at us and say, "Can't you just not drink?

Don't you remember that the last 10 times that you drank, you got arrested, got into fights, lost your job, lost your wife, you know, broke up with your family, the whole thing. Don't you see that that's happened the last 10 times that you drank?" And we say, "No, we we really didn't even notice that. As a matter of fact, I'm not thinking about the problems that it's causing me when I drank.

I just think about the relief that's going to come once I take that drink. And then once I take the drink, I set up a craving or I want more. And then I go too far.

And then I have a lot of guilt or remorse over other things that I did because I shock me with the things that I do when I'm drinking. And then I try to stop for a while. And then I don't think about the problems that it causes me.

I just think about the ease and comfort because I got all this inner turmoil and all this inner unmanageability. And then I go back to the drink again. And I can't understand why.

And everybody's like, you know, they're just seeing what's going on on the outside of us. They're just seeing the problems that's causing. They're not seeing that.

First of all, we have a lot of discomfort on the inside and unmanageability, but also they're not seeing that when I take a drink, it helps me with that because it doesn't help them with it. They get an out of control beginning of a nauseated I don't like this. I don't want any more kind of a feeling when they drink.

I can't relate to that. When I drank, I got this exhilarating I love this. I want more kind of a feeling.

That's why I went to get more and they were saying no thanks. I'm feeling the first one. They were having a completely different experience than I was having.

I never knew that because I assumed that they were having the same experience I was having. So these are some of the things that I've seen in the in the big book. Um that talks about that really this whole thing is just about spirituality.

Um this is from um the came to believe book. Uh this is on page six. It says during a meeting one day I remarked that I was just tickled to death with the with this AA program all but the spiritual side of it.

After the meeting another member came up to me and said I like the remark you made about how you like the program all but the spiritual part of it. We got a little time. Why don't we talk about the other side of it?

That ended the conversation. On page 14, which is Bill's story, it says, "For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead." In the Roman numerals, it talks about that we work out our solution on the spiritual as well as altruistic plane. Altruism is the giving of yourself and expecting nothing in return.

Altruism is a a very wonderful unselfishly lovingly giving of oursel as in service which is a spiritual activity. So it's saying that our solution is spiritual as well as spiritual. It talks about on page 25 if you are as seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there is no middle-of the road solution.

We were in a position where life was becoming impossible and if we had passed into the region from which there was no return through human aid, we had but two alternatives. One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could. And the other was to accept spiritual health.

But on page 44, he says that again. It says to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face. So it's almost like he's saying that if we're an alcoholic, there's really only two paths we can go down.

Either a lot of booze or a lot of God. Then in the gym story on page 35, it talks about we told him what we knew of alcoholism and the answer we had found. He made a beginning.

All went well for a time, but he failed to enlarge his spiritual life. To his concernation, he found himself drunk a half a dozen times in rapid succession. He failed to enlarge his spiritual life.

As far as I'm concerned, and again, this might be a controversial statement, but every single person that's ever come to AA that relapsed, that was the reason why they failed to enlarge their spiritual life. On some level, there was some aspect of the program that they were not working. On some level, they they didn't make all their amends.

They didn't do their inventory. They weren't doing the prayer meditation thing in the morning and doing an evening review. Um they weren't being of service perhaps to other people.

You know, very often you hear people say, "Well, I just stopped going to meetings because they just didn't feel really feel comfortable there anymore." Um there was some aspect. It's almost like they were working a program or their program, but they're working. We're working all of the AA program that's suggested here in AA.

Page 45 it says lack of power. That was our dilemma. We had to find a power by which we could live and it had to be a power greater than ourselves obviously.

But where and how are we defined this power? Well, that's exactly what this book is about. The big book, its main object is enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problem.

It doesn't say it's going to help us solve our problem. It says that this power when we tap into it will solve our problem. uh during how it works.

It says, "Remember that we deal with alcohol. Cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help, it is too much for us.

But there is one that has all power. That one is God. May you find him now." And the original manuscript, which is what the big book looked like before the last changes were made in it, what that sentence said was that you must find him now.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm happy that they changed that. It would have been a bit uh abrupt and and uh extreme if I had walked in and heard somebody tell me that I must find God now. But it's interesting in seeing where the original writers were coming from just before they made the changes that that you know where they were coming from was that you know this is very important that we need to do.

Step 12 talks about having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. Uh the A and C and how it works talks about that probably no human power could have relieved or alcoholism and that God could and would if he were sought. Uh for me I think the key word there is the word sought.

Page 64 it talks about when the spiritual mality is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically. Page 77 but with the alcoholic whose hope and in the original manuscript that said whose only hope is the maintenance or growth of a spiritual experience. This business of resentment is infinitely grave.

We found that it is fatal for when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And what's interesting there is he's kind of throwing out an equation.

He says that the insanity of alcohol returns and then we drink again. So for me the the sanity that we need to be restored to in the second step is seeing the truth about alcohol that you know I've heard people say that you know the insan my insanity of alcohol was all those DWIs that I got and that I lost my wife and all the crazy things I did when I was drinking. That's just alcoholic behavior.

Anybody that drinks heavily is going to experience some kind of insanity in that regard because alcohol just gets us to do things that we probably shouldn't be doing. But um if I'm what we all have in common and a lot of those things we don't all have in common like I never had a DWI. That doesn't mean that I'm not an alcoholic.

Uh but the one insanity that we have all in common is that for some reason even though according to all of the evidence contrary to the to what I'm about to say, I went back to drinking. That again and again and again and again I went back to drinking. And that was the insanity that we all share if we're an alcoholic.

Then on page 99 it talks about remind the prospect which is the the newcomer that his recovery is not dependent upon people. It is dependent upon his relationship with God. Page 100 both you and the new man must walk day by day in the path of spiritual progress.

If you persist remarkable things will happen. When we look back we realized that the things which came to us when we put ourselves in God God's hands were better than anything we had planned for. Follow the dictates of a higher power and you will presently live in a new and wonderful world no matter what your present circumstances are.

That I've experienced in my life an incredible freedom that if I get the job I can be happy and if I don't get the job I can be happy. If someone acts appropriately, I can be all right. And if someone acts inappropriately, I can be all right.

If the wife leaves, I can be all right. And if the wife stays, I can be all right. If the boss is reasonable, I can be all right.

And if the boss is not reasonable, I can be all right. that my circumstances and my emotions don't drive what happens to me today on my on on an inner level. I am not my emotions.

I am not my thinking. Last night I threw out something that's really very funny and that's the statement that you know we all have a Grand Central Station mind but that we don't have to get on every train that comes through the station. My mind tells me all kinds of weird things.

I don't have to listen to it. I don't have to buy into it. I can know that what my mind is telling me to do is wrong because I think that's the aspect of our disease that sometimes we don't notice is that within us and we'll get into it later that there's these kind of two parts and these two voices that are kind of talking to us.

One is the loving and the peaceful and the unselfish honest voice and the other one is the fearful selfish I'm never enough self-pity kind of a voice and that there's these two aspects within us that we need to distinguish between and I think that's something that the steps helps us do is that we can distinguish between sort of the good voice that I think is of God and the bad voice that I think is of ego or selfishness or or self or whatever you want to call it. One is kind of self with a small s and the other one's self with a large s. Page 100, it talks about um assuming we are spiritually fit, we can do all sorts of things alcoholics perhaps are not supposed to do.

Uh it says people have said that we must not go where liquor is served. You know, we need to we need to shut the TV off because there might be a beer commercial. We can't go see movies because there might be some drinking going on.

Or we can't go to a Christmas party because they're going to have alcohol there. or we can't go to a wedding. Um, and then it says we must meet these conditions every day.

An alcoholic cannot meet them still has an alcoholic mind. There is something to matter with their spiritual status. Then on page 120, it talks about if we've relapsed, what needs to happen for us to perhaps progress this time?

It says, "Though it is infinitely better that he have no relapse at all, as has been true with many of our men, it is by no means a bad thing in some cases. Your husband will see at once that he must redouble his spiritual activities if he expects to survive. You need not remind him of his spiritual deficiency.

He will know it. And then on page 164, it talks about 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 is still sick.

The answers will come if your own house is in order. But obviously, you cannot transmit something you haven't got. So see it to it that your relationship with God is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless other others.

this is the great fact for us. There's sort of another equation there that talks about see to it that your relationship with your higher power is right and then great things will come to pass for you and for other people. But we got to deal with that relationship with our higher power first and the relationship with us you know perhaps second.

Um and we'll get more into uh you know distinguishing perhaps which voice we're listening to. Uh how do you actually do this? You know it's real nice to talk about it but how do you actually do that?

um as we go along today when I found out what um let's say the subtitle of this weekend was about u maintaining conscious contact during the holidays. I was really happy to hear a statement like that and all in the same breath I was a little intimidated to hear a statement like that. Um because I I think it's a topic that's really well needed in Alcoholics Anonymous.

But the opposing thought that ran through my head and it's something that that I shared with Bill over the phone. I said, "You know what? I'm really not going to have a lot to say this weekend because I don't do anything differently as far as my spiritual status.

I don't do anything differently during the holidays than I do uh the other 12 months, the the other 11 months during the year, you know. So, I think what we have to share with you for the next couple hours is what we do on a daily momentby-moment basis. Uh, not just some not just some quick random prayer that I say before I go visit the family.

Although if you guys have a family like I do, uh, you know the rest. um not some uh dear god please keep my memory green when when I go to uh this work- rellated party because uh you know I I mean I I just don't I I guess I've been brought to a state of consciousness where the power that would this power that keeps me sober uh always has and continues to do that and I need to do my job. I know that power is going to keep me sober, but there's a lot of work that I need to be doing which will enable that power to keep me sober, happy, joyous, and free.

Um, a spiritual experience which which is described in step 12 promise me promises me a solution for a problem that I had my entire life. Um, what is this thing that we call a spiritual experience that step 12 talks about? What is a spiritual awakening?

I came across a little parable that um that describes it for me, and I'm going to read it to you. A beggar had been sitting by the side of the road for over 30 years. One day, a stranger walked by.

Spare some change," mumbled the beggar, mechanically, holding on, holding out his old baseball cap. "I have nothing to give you," said the stranger. Then he asked, "What's that you're sitting on?" "Nothing," replied the beggar.

"Just an old box." "I've been sitting on it for as long as I can remember." "Ever looked inside?" asked the stranger. "No," said the beggar. "What's the point?

There's nothing in there." "Have a look inside?" insisted the stranger. The beggar managed to pry open a lid and with a st God deep down inside me, just as our big book says, the fundamental idea is found deep down inside every man, woman, and child. And it's only there that this idea of God can be found.

You see, God just didn't come come into my life, as we like to say, when I entered Alcoholics Anonymous. As a matter of fact, I don't I don't believe today that I'm any closer to God than I was on my last drunk. It's just my awareness is different today.

I'm conscious of that power that's been there my entire life, that's been keeping me alive, that's been keeping blood flowing through these veins. God is just as close to me as my next breath. But I didn't I didn't know that.

I wasn't awake to that fact. I was sleepwalking through life thinking I was awake. And I came to Alcoholics Anonymous, zombified, so to speak.

And then some folks blessed me enough to clobber me over the head with a big book. and I began to wake up. Now, I don't recommend that that you go around the meetings clobbering people in the head with the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

By God, that would be like going into a baby's crib and startling the baby. Wake up. No, you don't.

You don't need to do that to a baby. That's not how we wake up people. There's 12 points to becoming awake.

And it starts with the first step. I came to Alcoholics Anonymous with a clogged drain to God, so to speak. Last night we talked about it.

I gave the analogy of how uh if you have a clogged sink, a good way to unclog that sink is to go get some liquid Drano. And what the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous do for me is they're that spiritual they're that spiritual draano that unblocks the clog that I have to God. And once I pour that spiritual Drano into that drain, the channel, the pipeline so to speak, to God, to conscious contact, to truth, to in inspiration, to intuition, to the great reality deep within, higher power, Jesus, Buddha, whatever you want to call it.

The 12 steps open us up to that power that has always been there. And now the water can flow through the the water can flow freely, easy for me to say through the drain. And it's that that even interchange back and forth.

That's conscious contact. Now, don't get me wrong. You know, sometimes Bill and I like to say that um we are not experts on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Although, today I really do believe I'm an expert because a couple years ago, someone gave me the definition of an expert. X meaning a has been and a spurt meaning a drip under pressure. So, I I believe I qualify.

But we're not gurus on spirituality or anything like that. I mean, I think a good indication of why we're here are the mistakes that we make on a daily basis. But thank God for those mistakes.

Thank God for those character defects that are still alive within me. Thank God for today's selfishness. Thank God for today's honesty.

Thank God for today's self-seeking, today's fear. Something needs to get me back to God. I mean, I don't go through the 12 steps on on practically an annual basis.

Just some out of nice virtuous thing to do. I'm tired of watching the sports channel. I think I'll work the steps this month.

That's not how it works for me. I need to continue along with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, beginning with the first step, getting in touch with today's unmanageability. Where am I at with my spiritual malady today?

What's currently blocking me off from the grace of God? And how is that going to trigger me back to a drink of alcohol? And how is that going to trigger off the phenomena of craving?

And how is that going to get me in the senseless series of sprees? And then my mind is all messed up again and round and round tornado city. And I'm going through the lives.

I'm going through people's lives like the tornado like it talks about in our ninstep and that vicious cycle time and time again. That's going to happen if I don't stay in fit spiritual condition. So, I like to stay current in the steps or in the work of Alcoholics Anonymous.

In my experience, I believe that I've had what I like to call three surreners. One came immediately upon coming in Alcoholics Anonymous. Matter of fact, my first surrender happened before I even came to you guys.

Uh, I was arrested for sexual assault after drinking a a fifth of Southern Comfort and a 12-pack of Kors Light. went into a a a nice state of consciousness called a blackout and uh did some things that I'm not very proud of and uh got arrested and spent about a day in jail and um and came to you guys, Alcoholics Anonymous, uh 3 days later, not knowing if I could live life without with or without alcohol. quite frankly, not wanting to live, wanting to cash in all my chips and just getting out of here.

But yet, there was always that piece that was deep down inside of me that that just that wanted life, that wanted to continue on. And I made a phone call to Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was willing to sit in your stupid meetings night after night.

I was willing to make the coffee. Matter of fact, I was so willing I had three coffee commitments within my first 30 days. I was willing to chair meetings at 90 days, you know, but then like like I talked about several months down the line, I really think I got taken to another state of surrender and that came to me in the form of the third step.

I mean, as far as the second step is concerned, I really didn't have a a concept of God when I got here. I really didn't. And for me, that was that was of great benefit because I heard a lot of stories where people had concepts of God and that maybe they were brought up with a religious background and they had a lot of old ideas and they had this concept of a punishing God and and uh I'm going to get you God and stuff like that.

So they encountered some obstacles. I didn't I mean I wasn't brought up with any particular religion and I just came here an open vessel and uh I just took everything in. Whatever you guys were talking about I was taken to a place where I was taking it I just took it all in.

Didn't have much problems with the second step. My problems with the second step came somewhere about 8 years of sobriety where I realized I had all these concepts of God and now I didn't need any more concepts of God. And I began to get stripped away of all these old ideas and all these belief systems.

And the God that I believe that dwells deep within me today is faceless, nameless, nameless and just is. A guru from India wrote a book called I am that. And in there he describes um that that's what God is.

I am. In other spiritual lit literature, it says that God is the great I am. That is my higher power today.

Just is. I think one of the best questions I've ever asked in Alcoholics Anonymous concerning the second step is where is God? Where is God?

And the best answer I have ever received to that question was where isn't God? It's all around us. It's within us.

It's you. It's you. It's you.

It's even Barefoot Bill over here. It's outside. It's the trees.

It's the air. It's the electricity that flows through this facility. It's the connection that Jim and Bill made to get us here this weekend.

Well, you think all of a sudden one day Jim just came up with the bright idea. I think I'll call Barefoot Bill and Mike L from New Jersey and have them do a spiritual workshop. No, there there's something that happened in there to give Jim that idea, that power which is God.

May you find him now, by the way, not next Tuesday. Right? How it works says there is one who has all power.

That one is God. May you find God now. The third surrender that I've had in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm currently in actually, and I like to call that a sevenstep surrender where I know I have these car I still have these character defects.

I've gotten rid of some of the the some of the more detrimental things, some of the things that were going to kill me early on or bring me back to a drink. I've gotten rid of a lot of that stuff. some of the stuff that was hurting you on a daily basis, the stark raving anger and rage that was just ripping people up and killing my insides.

I got rid of that over the years. But there's some stuff within me today that I'm not quite sure I'm really really really entirely rid of willing to be rid of. And that's the stuff that I need to look at.

And that's the stuff that's going to bring me to the next surrender. How close do I want to be to God? How much of this do I want?

That's the type of questions I need to sit with today. Sorry for 12 and 12 talks about it is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed no matter what the cause there is something wrong with us. If somebody hurt us and we are sore we are in the wrong also.

And then on page 47, he kind of says the same thing. It says that we thought that conditions drove us to drink. And when we tried to correct these conditions and found that we couldn't to our entire satisfaction, our drinking went out of hand and we became alcoholics.

It never occurred to us that we needed to change ourselves to meet conditions, whatever they were. I hate that. that whenever somebody disturbs me, there's something wrong with me.

Intellectually that doesn't make any sense. Um, but you know what? Spiritually it's pretty right on as far as my experience has been.

It's interesting how uh, you know, I I brought up the resentment inventory before. Um, what I've seen in my resentment inventory each time I've done something like a resentment inventory, the stuff that pisses me off about other people are the same things that I struggle with myself and that they are simply just showing me something about myself that I don't like. It's not that I don't like them for doing it.

It's that I don't like me for doing it. And that until I accept within myself those things that I struggle with, then I will always see it with the people around me. And what's interesting is that the the the opposite freedom occurred also that when I started to work on those things within myself, all of a sudden those people didn't act that way anymore and they didn't know what I was doing.

I just didn't see it anymore. You know what I mean? One of the things that uh there's a close relative of mine that's kind of controlling and I it always bugs me whenever I'm around them.

I'm I'm controlling. That's something that I struggle with. It has nothing to do with them whatsoever in regard to um you know some holiday freedom because very often we're around our families a lot and people that we care about will go and visit during the holidays or whatever.

That that has brought me an incredible amount of freedom that um these people that annoy me and these people that just you know sometimes we say you know they're pushing our buttons. The they're not pushing our buttons. They're showing us that we have buttons to push and that there's something within ourselves that we need to work on.

I am so grateful to these people today. To be grateful towards someone that I have a real problem with is an incredible freedom. I can see their role in my life today.

I can be grateful that somebody is showing something within me that I need to work on. I can be grateful for people that I don't like just like I can be grateful people for people that I do like. And again, that's an incredible freedom in my life today.

Another thing that's helped me in writing a lot of inventory pretty much yearly is that I believe that all anger, all rage, and all resentment comes from fear, that when I get pissed off about something that somebody did, if I can step back and say, "Let me disregard what's just happened. Where is the fear?" that 99.9% of the time, if not 100% of the time, there is some of that going on within me that I have some fear that has just kicked up, which again I can be grateful for because it shows me there's something within myself that I need to work on. It's so interesting, you know, I've seen I've seen the term they call it mirroring that uh there's a uh people that believe that, you know, relationships that we have certain relationships just to be a mirror for the things that we need to work on within ourselves.

And I really love that concept because I don't think that life is as random as I thought that it was. That I've seen again and again and again that there are reasons for certain people in my life and there are reasons for certain things that happen. And that if I can use it as an advantage or if I can use it as an opportunity for growth instead of looking at it as a negative thing that it's brought about a lot of growth in my life that that there was a time where if it felt negative it was negative.

Today I don't feel that way anymore. There was a time that if I felt positive, I don't care. I don't care if it's wrong.

I don't care if it's illegal. I'm going to do it. It feels right.

I should do it. And most and and very often that caused me so much pain and that caused me so many problems in my life. I've tried to get away from viewing things as good or bad.

There are things that I could tell you about that have happened in my life that everyone here could say that was a bad thing. But somehow with what had happened to me, it was able I was able to use it in a way that brought about some real deep spiritual growth for me. And that it it it showed me some things within myself that I didn't like.

And if that didn't happen, I wouldn't have been aware of it. And that today, I see those things as very positive. And there were things in my life that were that everybody here could say, "Oh, that was a good thing." And you know what?

In some cases, those things actually almost killed me. Um, so something that, you know, we're kind of talking about spiritual, we're kind of talking about the holidays. That those two things, the mirroring that when people bother me, they're just show bringing up something within me that I need to look at.

In some cases, maybe that's not the case. But I know in my life when I go deeper and deeper I really do find something going on there. And then that aspect of fear and the fact that you know when I'm pissed at somebody if I can step back in the moment because you know in the uh 11 step it talks about uh we pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action.

If I can step back from this emotion or these thoughts that are just not on the beam or not healthy or not feeling very nice that if I can step back from that and see what's really going on before I say or do something that I'm going to regret or that I need to make amends for that there's an incredible freedom in being able to step back and not doing what I want to do in some cases or not doing what I feel like doing in some cases because when I step back there's that aspect within me that we keep talking about that I think is that spark within us that is of God or a higher power or whatever that we can tap into that even in times of incredible anger and even in times of a real mental train that we've gotten ourselves onto to step back and say, you know, this just isn't the direction that I want to go in. This this just isn't worth responding to in the way that I want to or way I feel like and that there is another way. Um, I lived 30 something years of my life not having a choice.

If you push this button, it was like a jukebox. If you push, if you push CX uh C7, this is how I was going to react. I was totally conditioned and I was totally driven by my circumstances and my emotions and it was almost predictable that if this happened, this was how I was going to respond to it.

I didn't have a choice. Today, I am so grateful in using these tools and in trying to head in a certain direction and in in trying to tap into that voice within me that I never really noticed that much. that the more that I'm able to do that, the more freedom and the more and the less damage that I do because, you know, I was a walking apology, you know what I mean?

I constantly said to people that I was sorry for what had happened. It never stopped me from doing it again. As far as I'm concerned, the essence of the words I'm sorry, is that it's not going to happen again.

But see, before coming upon some of this stuff, I didn't have that. I if you had said to me that that's what I'm sorry meant I would have said what are you talking about I no I don't agree you know what I mean today I see that as a spiritual practice in that part of the word amend is change you know when you amend a document you change it so not only is amending setting right the wrong but it's also changing our behavior so we don't do that anymore and don't get me wrong sometimes we go off sometimes we're off the beam sometimes we respond inappropriately and we have a way of dealing with that too and again it shows us that we have some more inner work that we need to deal with and perhaps if we move in that direction that'll put an end to it happening. Um, for me that's kind of an important practice especially with the amends because you know uh I've talked with people that thought that you know amends just means you just say you're sorry.

You know what I mean? They don't talk about you know having to pay the money back you know changing so we don't do that anymore. And I think that's sort of a surface view of amends that yeah, you know, saying I'm sorry is is as far as I'm concerned a small part of it, but setting right the wrong and then changing our behavior is the essence of what's being talked about there.

Um, that's about an hour. Um, do you want to do another one? I think we have about five minutes.

So, >> no, I feel a shortage of nicotine supply in the room. So, let's take a break. >> Yeah.

Why don't we take a break? I'd like to suggest that it's a spiritual practice to be on time. So, we're going to take a 10-minute break only.

Please be back within 10 minutes. Thanks. This morning I was at uh the uh the early morning men's meeting uh right across from Stson and uh one of the one of the guys was talking and the the topic this morning was on fears and and the the guy was uh sharing and and actually was it was um fears around some of the holiday stuff coming up um parties family that kind of thing and one of the guys said uh kind of tongue and cheek he said yeah when I first came into the program I was told this is a three-fold disease, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's.

So, w with that with that in mind, we're going to turn things back over to Barefoot Bill and Mike. This is a quote from Joel Goldsmith. Regardless of how high my concept of God is, it is wrong because it is still just a concept.

Eventually I have to lose all concepts and reach the consciousness that God is and then let go of the subject because with my mind I am never going to know what God is. U for me the steps are really just one step with 12 parts to go from living out of here to go from living out of our heart which is we can't experience God with our mind but we can experience God with our heart. we can get that sense of there's something more going on here than logic or what I can put my finger on that there's something happening it's real obvious that this serendipity or these coincidences occurring they don't make sense but you just know that there's something more going on here um and I think that's what the steps do is that they they have us go from the self-will or the ego or the logic or the my life run on my will theory of living to the uh turning our will in our life over to the care of a higher power.

Step three, when I first went through the steps, Mike kind of touched upon it. When I first went through the steps, it was very much a surface. I'm just dealing with my alcoholism pass through the steps.

Uh it was very intellectual. Um I became aware of certain things that I wasn't aware of before. I never knew how selfish I was.

I never knew how much fear I had. I was very grateful for that. But I can't say that I really awakened spiritually.

I can't say that I even came close to the commitment that I have today where um I don't really see this as a way of not drinking. I see it as a way of life. And also uh when I first went through the steps, it was very much I'll let you guys help me with my alcoholism, but the rest of my life is my deal and I'll just do whatever I want to do.

My sex life, that's I'm just going to do whatever I want to do. the way I work and the dishonest, illegal things that I would do. I'm going to deal with that.

It's none of your business. Um, the way I dealt with people in traffic, um, the way I dealt with my family. Um, I'm I'm looking for number one.

And I'll let you guys help me with alcoholism, but the rest of my life is my deal. And I'll be honest with you, there's only one thing harder than trying to turn your will, all of your will in your life over to God, not just um my alcoholism, quote unquote, or the parts that have to deal with alcohol and some of the obvious parts of my life that are totally out of control. There's only one thing harder than doing all of my life committing to a higher power and trying to move in a certain direction.

And that's not committing all my life to moving in that direction. Because I got to be honest with you, like I had said when I opened, there was an incredible amount of misery and there was an incredible amount of unmanageability and discomfort that was going on inside my head and that was going on inside my gut uh after I stopped and hadn't had a drink in years. So, um, you know, part of the deeper levels of alcoholism, part of the deeper levels of the spiritual unmanageability in trying to move more and more in getting all of those areas as well, that that was when I really found a comfort and really found a freedom that at times really doesn't make sense.

You know, there was a woman in my home group that uh last year when my marriage ended, um, she came to me and she said, you know, so Bill, how you doing? you know, and she asked me some questions and and I kind of, you know, I was going through a lot of pain and I still probably even today have an a great love for my wife, my ex-wife. Uh but um what I was describing to her was sort of a gratitude.

I have a gratitude today for all the pain that I went through and that I'm still going through because you know what? Today I'm capable of loving. I was never capable of loving anybody but myself and even that was questionable whether I really loved myself because I did things that I shouldn't have been doing and I shouldn't have been involved in and if I cared for myself I wouldn't have been doing.

So I am grateful today you know Mike mentioned some things that he was grateful for. I am grateful for today for the amount immense amount of pain that I went through when my marriage ended because today I am capable of loving and I am capable of committing myself fully to a relationship. I never when relationships ended, it really just didn't matter to me because it was all about me anyway.

So, I'll just find somebody else that it will be all about me. It doesn't matter to me. I don't care for you.

I care for you for what I can get. That was what my ethic was in life. Today, I am grateful for the fact that it is no longer that way.

Um, and with the third step, I think there's sort of four points to the third step in that right after the ABCs, it says that the first requirement, it's it introduces step three. And it says the first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. And I'd like to suggest that that's including drunk or sober.

That uh my life run on my will, me doing whatever I want to do can hardly be a success. And then it goes into a story of the actor who was forever trying to run the show, who's always manipulating all the people around him. And you know, they kind of adopt, let me put it this way, I adopted a view of life that, you know, if only you would do what I think that you should do, not only will I be happy, but you'll be happy and the world would be wonderful.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think there's a greater statement of trying to play God than that. You know what I mean? And that was how I lived my life.

That I know what's best for everybody. And if you did what I thought you good, that you should be doing that you'd be happy and life would be wonderful. Besides the fact that I would appreciate it.

And as far as I'm concerned, the greatest word that that describes is manipulation, a form of playing God. And that when I try to do that, inevitably, even when my motives are good, even when I think that, you know, this is what's best for you. I mean, I can't understand why you don't see it.

you know that uh even in my best motives and even when I do the best in manipulating other people that I still step on the toes of the people around me and I cause a lot of pain for them and for me that uh that pretty much this is when the book started to convict me on a level that was much deeper than yeah I drank too much and yeah when I stopped I I always went back to it. Lots of people saw that that was going on in my life. But when you started know when when this book started calling me on my manipulations and my wanting to run the whole universe, there's no way that these gentlemen that weren't even alive anymore that wrote a book in the late 1930s could have known that about me.

These people were talking about alcoholism. They were talking about the inner condition that they were struggling with. And they were calling me on my stuff 60 years from the grave.

These people were convicting me of something that not too many people could have known about. I certainly wasn't talking to people about the fact that I wanted to manipulate the world. There's no way that they could have known that yet.

Here it is in a book. And this was convicting me on a much deeper level than just the surface. Yeah, I drank too much stuff.

Then it talks about on the bottom of page 62, which for me I think is the essence of the decision that we're making in the third step, which is it says here. This is the here. This is the how and why of it.

First of all, I had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Is there anybody here that's had success in playing God?

It says next, and I'm going to I'm going to It uses words like we and our, but I'm going to personalize it because I think it's just talking about me. It says that next I decide that hereafter in the John in this drama of life, God is going to be my director. He is the principal.

I am his agent. He is the father and we are his children. And in the original manuscript, the next line said, "Get that simple relationship straight." No subtlety there.

And then it says most good ideas are simple and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed to freedom. Now the keystone is the the top stone in an arch and it holds the rest of the structure together. So a keystone is something that's incredibly important obviously if it holds the rest of the structure in place.

So it's saying here that God is going to be our director. Um, so I need to be moving in a direction where um I'm being directed by that voice within me that is of love and that is of unselfishness, honesty, uh, purity. I'm going to get into the four absolutes later on.

Um, which for me kind of is a good way of regulating whether I'm doing the right thing, quote unquote, or whether I'm following the right voice within me, quote unquote. It says that he is the principle. We are his agents.

A principal gives the agent the power to represent itself. Sort of like an insurance agent. The company gives the insurance agent the ability to represent itself.

So in going forward, I need to have my higher power as the principle and he gives me the power to sort of represent him in going forward. Uh then it says uh he is the father, we are his children. Uh which is you know since God has no grandchildren.

Um it's sort of saying that we're all brothers and sisters and I need to start acting that way. I need to start moving away from some of the prejudices that I have. I need to start moving away from the kind of relationships that I used to get myself into in that if you acted the way I wanted you to, you were around and you were my friend and and I liked you, you know, but if you didn't act the way I wanted you to, you just weren't in my life.

That I need to move away from the judgment of uh and don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean I'm supposed to stay in sort of an abusive relationship. I need to see people for what they are, but I need to start treating people equally and I need to try start seeing that we're all brothers and sisters and I need to act that way. Then the uh there's the third step prayer which um you know it talks about um uh God I offer myself to you to build with me and to do with me as you will.

Relieve me of the bondage of self. That's kind of an interesting statement because it's almost sort of like saying relieve me of me, you know, relieve me of the bondage of self. Relieve me of the bondage of that voice in my head.

That's that's the wrong voice. You know, relieve me of that ego that's always trying to get me to do things that I know are wrong and that that isn't a nice way to treat people. You know, relieve me of that.

Relieve me of following that voice. Says, "Take away my difficulties that are uh that I may better do your will. Take away my difficulties that victory over.

They may bear witness to those I would help of your power, your love, and your way of life. May I do your will always." And then there's an interesting statement after the prayer. It says we thought well before taking this step.

So it's almost a joke that like he has us do the prayer and then it says you better better mean that you know. And um for me that prayer is just a uh a reflection or it's just a um an affirmation of the decision that we're making on the bottom of page 62 that God's now going to be our director. He's going to be our principal and that he's our father.

That this prayer is just an affirmation of that. And then for me the last part of step three which is pretty important uh as far as I'm concerned it's the one that's probably the most missed and um one of the most that's as far as I'm concerned probably the most important aspect of it. It says that um you know though our decision which is a third-step decision was uh a vital and crucial step that it could have little permanent effect unless at once which means immediately followed by a strenuous effort which means intensely active effort to face and to be rid of the things in ourselves which have been blocking us.

Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions. That those are the the deeper levels of the alcoholism the the psychological mental spiritual aspects of alcoholism that we need to see.

Uh yeah, in the third step, I'm making a decision to turn my wrong life over to God. But what actually prevents me from doing that as I go through life? What actually prevents me from doing the right thing?

What actually prevents me from liking people that piss me off? You know what I mean? Or or treating them nicely.

You know, if a resentment is telling me what to do, then God can't be. And my that inner voice is not going to get me to do the right thing and to perhaps be loving or to be considerate or patient because a resentment is telling me what to do. If fear is telling me what to do, then my higher power can't be.

Because fear is going to get me to do things that I know I shouldn't be doing. And because I have the fear, I have no choice. And if guilt and remorse over things that I've done is telling me what to do, then my higher power can't be.

So, I need to look and see what's blocking me from actually doing this decision and then get rid of it in steps six, seven, eight, and nine because that's where I get rid of, you know, what the character defects are. And then get rid of the guilt or remorse for things I had done. And then that frees me up to just be in the moment, to just be here and now.

Whether someone acts inappropriately, I can still act appropriately. And if someone doesn't, I can I can be all right with it. You know what I mean?

That either way, it doesn't matter what they do. It doesn't matter what they say. It doesn't mean I have to hang out with them a lot, but that I can still act appropriately when the time comes.

And I don't have to be controlled by the inner voice that comes from fear and resentment and guilt or remorse. There's something that's interesting in the third step. It talks about um it talks about that our troubles are basically of our own making.

They arise out of ourselves and that an alcoholic is an extreme example of self-wrun riot though we usually don't think so. That above everything alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. Uh it says I must or it kills me.

Um, if you think about it, self-will and self-nowledge is the only thing outside of God that I have going for me. Um, and what this is saying is that the only thing that I have going for me is the exact thing that wants to lead me back to drinking. That my self-nowledge and my self-will, which is what I've tried to run my life on for my whole life, is the exact thing that inevitably brings me back to drinking.

And if I'm lucky, if I'm not lucky, it just brings me back to more misery and more more progressive uh inner discomfort, that the only thing that I have going for me outside of God is the exact thing that wants me to drink. And for me, that's the big catapult that drives us into doing these steps and that drives us into seeking another way besides our own. Because my best thinking got me drunk more than once.

And my best thinking outside of being driven by that inner voice that is of God is the thing that brought about most of the misery, if not all of it, in my life. And for me, that's sort of the key to the third step. And that's the the desperation that the third step presents us with is that my the only thing that I have going for me, which is self-will and self-nowledge, is the exact thing that wants me either very miserable or very drunk.

that place at the end of the third step that that Bill read and talked about where it says that we have to at once embark upon the program of recovery that's found in steps 4 through nine. That's exactly the position that I mean I didn't choose that position that I had my back against the wall at 5 months sober and that's exactly the position that I was forced into. you know, um I certainly did not have an understanding of the third step at five months sober or even at two years sober, at even 5 years sober that I have today.

And I'm sure my understanding or my experience with it on a spiritual level will be much different from now than it is today. But the way I interpreted the third step when I was five months sober was, hey, I'm making the decision or I'm my back is up against the wall. I'm being forced into a position where I just I'm going to go ahead with the rest of the steps.

I'm going to do four through nine. You folks said it worked for you. I I got nothing better.

I mean, alcohol is not really an well, it was an option, you know. I mean, if alcohol wasn't an an option, then uh why would I want to go ahead and do the rest of the steps? So, I had the fire of alcohol uh practically burning my tail.

And uh I had to do a 4 through9 rather quickly. Um there's something that that I wrote a couple months ago back in October. Um this summer, a couple things um a couple situations occurred in my life and and in my wife's life also.

Um sometimes I don't know the difference between my life and her life. And you know that gets to be real interesting from time to time. uh but these situations that just occur in our lives and I t you know I have the type of ego where I tend to take those things personally and it really gets me in connection with with my third step.

Um it says it sometimes seems that life has a tendency to come straight at us like a speeding bullet. The problem is is that we think we're the target. We are not the target of life's happenings, but we think we are.

The truth is is that life just happens. The bullets are just random firings. But we think the problems in our lives are like a guided missile headed for a target on our forehead.

But if the big book is correct when it says our troubles are of our own making, then we're the ones that paint the target and sometimes we go out searching for the bullets. In other instances, we are sleeping when the bullets are fired and we're not alert enough to move out of the way. But when we awaken spiritually, we realize that life is not out to get us.

We are just another energy field that the bullets of life pass through. We are not the targets. We uh there's a couple third step parables that that I really like.

Uh the one that I'm going to read now we read quite often and there's a second one that that I just came across this morning. Um by the way the third step does say made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand God. The parable is a drunk is staggering along the street and he meets God.

God I can't do this anymore. He says please please will you give me sobriety? Sobriety isn't free says God.

How much money do you have? Drunk reaches in his pocket. 50 bucks.

I'll take it, says God. You're sober. Like a magic wand.

The man stands up straight. Drunk no more. It feels pretty good.

Yeah, but God. Yes. I know I gave you my money willingly, but you see, I need to get gas for my car.

You have a car? Well, yes. You didn't tell me that.

I'll take the car. But But I'll take the car. It's part of the price you pay for your sobriety.

But how will I get to work? You have a job. I'll take the job, too.

But God, how will I pay my mortgage? Mortgage? You have a house?

I'll take that, too. But God, my my family, how will I take care of them? If you have my house and my job, how am I going to take care of my family?

God says to him gently, "In order to keep your sobriety, you must give me these things. But I will let you drive my car as long as you remember it's my car. You can have the job, but remember, you're working for me.

It's my house, but I will let you live in it. And as for the family, they are my family, but I will trust that you will take care of them. The second parable is called the bike ride.

And no, I'm not going to do God's voice again. The bike ride. I first saw at first I saw God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong so as to know whether I merited heaven or hell when I die.

He was out there sort of like the president. I recognized this picture, but when I saw it, but I didn't really know him. But later on, when I recognized my higher power, it seemed as though life was rather like a bike ride.

But it was a tandem bike. And I noticed that God was in the back helping me pedal. I don't know just when it was that he suggested we change places.

Imagine that. But life has not been the same ever since. Life with my higher power, that is.

God makes life exciting. When I had control, I knew the way. It was rather boring, but predictable.

It was the shortest distance between two points. But when he took the lead, he knew delightful long cuts up mountains and through rocky places and at the break neck speeds. It was all I could do to hang on.

Even though it looked like madness, he said, "Pedal." So I lied. I did do God. I worried and I was anxious and asked, "Where are you taking me?" He laughed and didn't answer and I started to trust.

I forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure. And when I'd say, "I'm scared." He'd lean back and touch my hand. He took me to people with gifts that I needed.

Gifts of healing, acceptance, and joy. They gave me their gifts to take on my journey. Our journey, God's mine.

and we were off again. He said, "Give the gifts away. They're extra baggage, too much weight." So I did.

To the people we met, I found that in giving I received and still our burden was light. I did not trust God at first in control of my life. I thought he'd wreck it.

No one in this room can relate. I know that. But he knew bike secrets.

He knew how to make He knew how to make it bend to take sharp corners, jump to clear high places filled with rocks, fly to shorten scary passages. And I'm learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places. And I'm beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion, my higher power.

And when I'm sure I can't do anymore, he just smiles and says, "Pedal those parables and uh what Bill covered in the third step kind of propels us into uh what we're going to be discussing for the next 20 or 25 minutes. And I think it's the the basis of what this workshop was intended for was maintaining conscious contact. Um and I have found no better vehicles to do that than our 10th and the 11th step.

Um there was a quote on the flyer and I really like it and I'll reread it. It comes from um an article that Bill Wilson wrote for the grapevine in 1958. Um I'm actually going to read more than what was just on the flyer.

See if you can identify with this in internal condition presently. Um he says, "We know we aren't doing well enough. We still can't handle life as life is.

There must be a serious flaw somewhere in our spiritual practice and development. What then is it?" The chances are better than even that we shall locate our trouble in our misunderstanding and neglect of AA step 11. Prayer, meditation, and guidance of God.

The other steps can keep most of us sober and somehow functioning. But step 11 can keep us growing if we try hard and work at it continually. If we expend even 5% of the time on step 11 that we habitually and rightly lavish on step 12, the results can be wonderfully farreaching.

That that is an almost uniform experience of those who constantly practice step 11. On page 98 of the 12 and 12, it says there's a direct linkage among self-examination, which we find in our fourth and 10th steps primarily meditation and prayer. Taken separately, these practices can bring much relief and benefit.

But when they are logically related and interwoven, the result is an unshakable foundation for life. Can you imagine the spiritual practices of self-examination, meditation, and prayer found in our 10th, the 11th step? Our co-founder Bill W says that they can provide an unshakable foundation for life, provided that we do them on a day-to-day, momentto- moment basis.

Now and then we may be granted a glimpse of that ultimate reality, which is God's kingdom. And we will be comforted and assured that our own destiny in that realm will be secure for as long as we try, however faltering, to find and do the will of our own creator. Goes on to say on page 101, meditation, which I don't know about you, but we tend to not really hear a lot about meditation in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

We we seem to know a lot about prayer, but there's really not being at least in the meetings I go to. Maybe it's different here in Albany, but I re I I kind of and I hate to say this, but I kind of had to go outside of AA a little bit, but I don't mean outside. Everything I do in my life is along with never instead of the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

anything any type of spirituality or religious practices or the the Native American stuff that I've practiced over the years or the or the eastern philosophies or the Christianity or or what have you. Meditation is something which can always be further developed. It has no boundaries either of width or height.

aid it by such instruction and example as we can find. It is essentially an individual adventure, and I'm grateful for that. Something which each one of us works out in his own way, but its object is always the same.

To improve our conscious contact with God, with God's grace, wisdom, and love. I had been hear I had been hearing the expression uh you know getting back on the beam or being on the beam or whatever for years. And to be honest with you, I always viewed mentally whenever somebody mentioned that a gymnast on a bar uh dancing their their incredible way that they're able to do on the the balance beam.

uh and thinking that when the gymnast fell off that meant that they were off the beam. And then I read something recently uh as a matter of fact it was this year that showed me that I didn't know what I was talking about again. And uh you know again uh it's kind of interesting because um you know sometimes we just have these mental pictures of what something means and then we find out what it really means and it's so completely different.

Uh this is what it said. It says today most commercial flight is done on a radio beam. A directional beam is produced to guide the pilot to his destination.

And as long as he keeps on the beam, he knows that he is safe. Even if he cannot see, he cannot see around him for fog or gets his bearings in any other way. As soon as he gets off the beam in any direction, he is in danger and he immediately tries to get back on the beam.

We all have this same spiritual beam within us upon which to navigate. You are off the beam the moment you get angry or resentful or jealous or frightened or depressed. And when such a condition arises, you should immediately get back on the beam by turning quietly to the higher power within, acknowledging his presence, awakening to the awareness of his love and intelligence that is within you.

You are then back on the beam and you will reach port in safety. Keep on the beam and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Uh that wasn't like the balance beam that I thought it meant.

But I thought that was kind of interesting that you know in some cases in regard to this higher power stuff you know people have such a difficulty in turning their will in our life over at least almost all of it. Um and what gave us our will in our life in the first place is this power that we're now turning back to. Um, I think it's kind of interesting that, you know, these pilots uh turn their will in their life over to this computerized electronic beam to bring them into safety.

And, you know, even perhaps people in the woods have like a little compass that they put their will and their life into to to bring them back to where they need to go. Yet, this loving, all- knowing creator of the universe, we hesitate to turn to. Uh for me it's kind of an interesting thing that what gave us our will in a life in the first place we're hesitating to now give it back to it just seems kind of uh interesting when it's put into those terms and that was something that I struggled with for many years also I had mentioned before about the four absolutes um the four absolutes actually is in the big book but in its reverse uh the four absolutes came from the Oxar group the Oxar group is where all the steps came from and most of the spiritual principles and practices that we use in AA uh came from the Oxer group.

Uh Bill and Bob were members of the Oxer group for the first few years before AA started. And the four absolutes are absolute love, absolute unselfishness, absolute purity, and absolute honesty. And for me, that's one of the tools that I like to use in regard to how do I know which voice I'm listening to within me?

How do I know if this is perhaps an inspired or a correct activity that I'm about to get myself involved in? Or is it not? Am I listening to the ego again?

Am I listening to that negative, unhealthy voice that's within me that's always trying to get me to do things that inevitably is wrong or selfish or or dishonest or whatever? And uh in the first step in the resentment inventory, the fourth column, it talks about the opposite of the four absolutes when it says, you know, where was I dishonest, um selfish, self-seeking, and frightened, which is the opposite of the four absolutes. In the 10th step, it talks about when we've fallen off of the uh when we're headed in the wrong direction.

It talks about continue to watch for selfishness, which is the opposite of unselfishness. Uh dishonesty, which is the opposite of honesty. resentment which is the opposite of uh purity and fear which is the opposite of love and then again in the 11th step it talks about the opposites when it talks about resentful selfish dishonest and afraid so it actually is in our literature but it's actually in reverse where when we've fallen short we look at the the opposite of the four absolutes and something that I like talking about too is that okay if those four things or if things like that are what it's like when we fall off the beam then why don't we also focus on what's what's going to head us in the right direction which for me A big part of my spiritual walk is uh you know is what I'm about to do honest you know would I would I be a little reluctant for a lot of people to know what I'm about to do that's a really good way of saying wait a minute maybe I shouldn't do this you know if if some people that really respect me and my family members perhaps or close friends if they were to find out what I was about to do would they be ashamed of me then maybe that's something I shouldn't be getting myself involved in um and uh you know when it talks about purity not only is that sort of you know sexual activity ity of sexual thought which is what most people think of it also has to do with our motives that you know are our motives pure am I helping somebody because I want to really help them or am I helping somebody because I want something out of it you know what I mean that's that's part of the purity thing too that for me um a part of the path that I try to walk includes those four attributes and yes they are they are a high order you know sometimes I don't want to be loving towards somebody that I don't like but you know what inevitably when I do love somebody that I don't like I don't do it for them I do it for me because I feel good when I come out of a situation like that.

Yeah, maybe I don't think you deserve it, but when I'm reasonable and considerate and and you know, unselfish toward you, I I love the feeling that that produces. I'm able to bring about with inside of me something I was never able to do when I was totally selfish, which for me again is moving away from the next drink and moving away from misery because, you know, now I'm able to by living a certain way of life to bring about that ease and comfort and that nice feeling on the inside of me by the way that I live my life. I don't need alcohol and drugs anymore to do that.

Um, it's interesting with the four absolutes because uh uh sort of where it uh the root of where it came from was that a gentleman uh named Robert Spear wrote a book which I've still not been able to find. And that's kind of unusual because I've pretty much found almost every book that I've tried to to get when it comes to stuff that influenced early AA and and you know some of the religious and and spiritual and practical uh roots of where a lot of our stuff came from. uh this gentleman Robert Spear wrote a book that uh in there what he did was he took uh Christ's most famous talk called the sermon on the mount and he boiled it down to those four absolutes and that was where the Oscar group picked it up and that was where it kind of made its way into aa uh in its opposites um so it's it's you know it's it's there but not as they're written into four absolute form but um and I'm not advocating any specific religion or anything like that I'm just giving some background on where it came from but um for me It it captures the essence of I think what our big book and our spiritual literature is talking about when it's when it's talking about you know how do I know if I'm doing God's will?

I mean God doesn't talk to me. I don't know about anyone else here but uh you know I don't have this finger on my shoulder saying this is the direction you need to go in. And in looking at those four uh looking at those four uh um not necessarily absolutes but those four uh directions let's call it that you know I can if I'm about to do something if I say to myself you know is this is this honest is what I'm about to say or do is it an honest kind of a thing you know is it is it loving is it the next loving thing you know maybe even is it necessary because sometimes I think it's a loving thing but it's not necessary for me to tell somebody that they're you know you know whatever sometimes I I get into that but uh you Is it with a pure motive?

And and is it is it, you know, a loving thing? Is it unselfish that what I'm about to do? And then uh if I'm if I'm really not sure when I balance it with those uh measuring sticks, uh if they still apply, it's still probably a really good idea that that I'm headed in the right direction.

You know, uh it's just something that I try to do. And regulating my thinking and my actions to be coming from a motivation of something that's a little bit more God- directed and uh a little bit more in a healthy direction as opposed to the way I used to live my life. Bill talked about some of the uh practices or for a lack of a better word some of the mechanics of uh step 10.

And um it's interesting as as far as the way the the big book is outlined. Um we're also to be doing some of those same things in step 11. Again, self-examination, meditation, and prayer.

When taken separately, they can produce great beneficial results, but when logically related and interwoven, they can provide an unshakable foundation for life. And um some of the same things that Bill mentioned, this bill, the barefoot one over here, uh mentioned in regards to the tentstep, those are some of the same things that I get to do, I get to do. They're no longer a chore anymore.

I actually have the honor and privilege of sitting down in the evening with a notepad and I get to examine how my actions and behaviors were today. Yippee. I am so thrilled to do that.

But quite often I I come at it from that position. You know, how was I today? I always find it interesting in in the in the 10th step that it when it talks about um resentment, selfishness, dishonesty and and fear, it doesn't say if these crop up.

It says when these crop up because they will. You know, I'm not some enlightened Zen master sitting up here. I'm a human being and I fall short and I make mistakes and I still have character defects that are alive and well within me.

If you don't believe me, I will give you my home number. Speak to Kathy Lawrence. She is my wife.

But I get to take a look in the evening how I was all throughout the day. And I get to go to bed with a clear conscience. If I have amends to make, I can make those tomorrow.

And I can wake up the next morning and I can ask God to guide and direct my thinking. Please divorce my thinking from selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. And then when my thinking is cleared of these wrong motives, I can be a spearhead for God.

I can be that agent for God. that the third step charges us with. I get to be an agent for God.

I get to be a child of God. I get to do God's work. I get to do God's bidding.

And I need to get right with my creator. I need to get right with my deep inner consciousness, my true nature, where I originally came from. that that part of me that is one, that part of me that is whole, that part of me that has been perfect right from the inception, but I'm the one that that clogged up the drain with alcohol and drugs and and in my case, food and inappropriate sex conduct and a lot of other self-will.

But we get to unclog that drain now. We get to clear out that channel. And it's a dayby-day, momentto- moment basis.

And we get to start our day off on the right footing. So we don't so we don't on our way to work, you know, go in the car and drive down the highway like a speeding bullet with our fingers hanging out the window. You know, I had an interesting thing that happened to me.

Uh I guess it was either a month or two. I'm I'm writing inventory on my father of all people, if you can imagine. I'm 9 years sober.

I shouldn't have to write a 10-step inventory on my father. This is ridiculous. And we're engaged in a conver in a phone conversation uh a few months ago and uh he was asking me some questions, questions of which I didn't have answers for.

And uh and he didn't really like that. So, when I was writing this inventory, what I saw come out the other side of my pen was he hung up on me. Well, how dare he?

I'm resentful at my father because he hung up on me. And I didn't even have to get to the fourth column of that resentment inventory to see the truth because I asked myself a question. And it's a question that came from within.

It's not something that came from my mind. And the question was, Mike, your father hung up on you. Do you really know that that's true?

Can you really know that that was the reality of the situation? And I said, "No, I don't know that that's true. The only thing that I know 100% is that he hung up the phone." My ego likes to grab a hold of things because sometimes I I just like living in the third column.

And I I want to walk into meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous with a big V on my forehead for victim because poor me. My father hung up on me. I'm 9 years sober.

I don't deserve this. Poor me. Poor me.

Oh, go pour me a drink. And I found out that he didn't do that to me. He just did what he does.

How dare me? It Why should I expect anything different? He's doing what he does.

I do what what I do. My wife does what she does. And Bill drives like a maniac.

He does what he does. Why should they do things any any different? Just to please me.

And once again, I saw truth. I got in contact with truth. Now, there's a there's a quote that says the truth will set you free.

But what they always forget to tell you is that it's probably going to piss you off at first. You know, but truth is freeing. I find words like truth, higher power, true inner nature, Jesus, Buddha, God, whatever.

I find them all synonymous. I just think they're all the same thing. I think they're just all words and pointers that that point to the same thing.

This thing that we've been talking about all weekend, this thing we call God. Chuck C used to say, "What you are looking for, you are looking with." I think that's a very profound statement. What you were looking for, you are looking with.

What I've been looking for my entire life, even when I was drinking. The same thing that I looked for today in regards to spirituality, I was looking for in a bottle. Because let's face it, booze did for me what I couldn't do for myself.

It produced an inner spiritual experience. Alcohol did. And it rocket rocketed me into a fourth dimension of existence that was beyond my wildest dreams when it worked.

And now I come to Alcoholics Anonymous and I do some work with these 12 steps and I help other people and I give away what was freely given to me and I get to be taken to that same place and even better. And I get to be catapulted into this fourth dimension of existence which the 10th step calls nothing more than the world of the spirit. I'm in the world of the spirit today.

If everyone in this room has done done the work and the steps, we're in the world of the spirit. We're all equals. Like Bill said, we're all brothers and sisters.

We are one. I am you. You are me.

There is no separation. The breath I'm breathing right now, chances are, is a breath that you you you breathed about 7 seconds ago. We are all one.

How dare me, pardon the pun, lash out on one of my brothers and sisters. We'll close and I want to close with the very same story that I opened up with and it's about the beggar sitting on the box of gold. And what I'd like us all to do is just kind of get quiet in our own way cuz I believe there's been a shift of consciousness in this room just over the past two hours.

We saw it last night. We we saw incredible things happened last night. I mean, I got so charged with the spirit last night.

I was ready to come in this morning and offer you guys an altar call, you know, but then I realized that that just may very well be against tradition. So, we better not go there. Besides, I don't have the collar for it.

Um, yeah. Or the religion for that matter. Um, but things happen.

Things happen when I get out of this intellectual mode, this thirst for knowledge. I mean, it says right in our literature that self-nowledge can't suffer from what we have. Self-nowledge can't fix what we suffer from.

So him and I a couple years ago instead of going to things like this trying to get more knowledge and learn more things about myself, we started coming with an open mind for a new experience. And even if it's just five minutes, even if it's just an hour or two hours that we get to spend with you guys, we can all have an experience that we're never ever going to have again. It's never going to be 3:30 on Saturday, December 7th, 2002 ever again.

This same group of people will probably never ever be assembled right here in this very same place ever again. And I cherish this. I cherish this moment.

And I thank you for the experience that we've had together over the past couple hours. A beggar had been sitting by the side of the road for over 30 years. One day, a stranger walked by, spare some change, mumbled the beggar, mechanically holding out his old baseball cap.

I have nothing to give you, said the stranger. Then he asked, "What's that you're sitting on?" "Nothing," replied the beggar. "Just an old box." "I have been sitting on it for as long as I can remember." "Ever looked inside?" asked the stranger.

"No," said the beggar. What's the point? There's nothing in there.

Have a look inside, insisted the stranger. The beggar managed to pry open the lid. With astonishment, disbelief, and elation, he saw that the box was filled with gold.

Where the strangers who have nothing to give you, and who is willing to tell you to look inside, not inside any box, as in the parable, but somewhere even closer, inside yourself. You are sitting on a box of gold and you don't even know it. Now go open it.

May God bless you and happy holidays. 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. >>