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. If you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-rise.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. My name's Chris Brennan.

I'm a recovered alcoholic. >> Like to thank Chris for that opening act that's pretty tough to follow. He was very good.

He gave me a lot to work off of and a lot to think about. Uh if you're of like mind, which I'm sure if you're here today, you probably are. He got you excited.

If not, he got you irritated. So, if that be the case, uh, just hang in there. I'm usually the guy who in my mind is like on that side of things, and he made me look like a choir boy, I guess, today, but that's good.

Uh, my sobriety date is March 2nd, 1994. I've been sober since then. Uh, my home group is called Break Down the Book.

It's a one paragraph at a time big book study, Holy Family University, Northeast Philadelphia. every Friday night 7:00. If you're ever in the area, please come by and join us.

Uh, and that's the particulars. Bats, right, throws right, etc. Uh, that's about all you need to know about me.

Uh, I am a Philly boy. I was born and raised in Philadelphia. Row House, Philadelphia, Rocky, all that good stuff.

I smeared under the fire plugs. Uh, not in Manchester, Vermont like the Wilsons and Ebie and the boys. uh and u I have the uh task today of speaking on the first three steps which I've been studying the big book and like Chris said it's not an intellectual pursuit.

I've been studying it for about I've been sober a little over 17 years so probably for 16 years somewhere in there. I've been studying the book. Uh does that mean I KNOW IT?

YEAH. Does it mean I can do it on any given day? Not really.

But it means that maybe I could help you with it. It might make me a better teacher if you if you will or sponsor. And to me, that's the only time, as Chris was saying, it really has life is when I sit down with somebody and go through this stuff.

Doesn't really do me much good on my own. Knowing a lot of this stuff, all the spiritual books I've ever read, etc. on my own, very limited value.

But when I sit down with a new guy uh at a Dunkin Donuts or a Starbucks somewhere or wherever on the street somewhere, unbelievable value. And uh I think that's what Chris was touching on. That's what you need to get to, right?

That that as we say in step 12, giving it away sponsorship, me having God hopefully work through me and given to you what he gave to me. And that is unbelievable. That's an experience you must not miss as Bill says, but unfortunately the other side of that coin is many of us do miss it because of a lot of the things that Chris talked about.

Um I know my experience with AA and I got sober. Uh, I was in a rehab called Riverside House in Northeast Philadelphia in March of 94. And uh, I met a man in there who was a night counselor, a guy named Bobby C, who um, something about him I related to.

And but, uh, he was one of the few guys early on that was talking about those things hanging on the wall back there and not just group stuff and uh, a lot of that fluff that we add on to it. I was sent to anger group when I was in rehab all the time. And I don't I really to this day, I don't know why I never felt angry, you know what I mean?

Maybe it was because I would say SOMETHING IF I'M NOT ANGRY. WHAT THE HELL are you sending me to anger group for? But I never really felt angry.

I don't know. I said I'm quiet. I'm German.

Maybe you're getting that confused with anger. I don't know. But uh I I did uh when I left 28 days there, one of the hardest things I ever had to do in life, we always say it's like asking another guy to be your Valentine.

Uh I asked that guy to sponsor me. You know what I mean? It's kind of like, I know you're busy, but maybe do you think possibly you could help me out?

And uh it's kind of funny because he did exactly what Chris was alluding to. He said, I noticed you bought a big book when you were in here. Yeah.

I I got to be honest with you. I haven't I haven't read it. I said, I'm not I'm not a I'm not a big reader.

He's like, that's okay. You know how to read, right? I'm like, yeah, yeah, I got that.

And um he said, I also noticed you bought a 12 and 12. Yeah. He said, I'd like you to put that in your drawer for now, and I'll tell you when to take it out.

And 17 years later, he's never told me to take it out. And that is not a shot at the 12 and 12. I love the 12 and 12, but I think it confuses people because, as he said, there are essays on the 12 steps.

That would be me speaking to you on something that's never happened to me. I CAN DO THAT if you give me the opportunity. You know what I mean?

You put one of these in front of me, I'll speak on anything, right? And that's like they said, it's the second worst thing to give an alcoholic is a microphone and uh I'll speak on it hopefully eloquently, but it'll be hollow. It'll be speaking on something I really haven't had an experience with.

And that's unfortunately the only thing that matters in the spiritual world is not learning the 12 steps, not talking about them, but actually taking them and feeling them. One of my AA heroes, if you will, and I'll probably talking about the first three steps, I'll try to keep it to three main non-alcoholic figures. Uh, two doctors and a minister.

That would be a good name of a sitcom, right? Two doctors and a minister. Silkworth, Carl Young, and a guy named Sam Shoemaker.

And one of my favorite spiritual quotes of all time from this guy Shoemaker was uh he was talking about religion, I think, when he wrote it, but you could apply it to AA or anything in the spiritual world. He said it has become the imitation of an example instead of the hearing of a voice. And that's what kind of what AA is trying to teach us.

Stop trying to imitate what Bill or Mary did and experience it for yourself and hear this voice and live by it and learn to trust it and teach other people how to do that. That to me, like when I came into AA, I didn't hear anybody talk about anything like that. I'm also a product of those Arkansas guys, Joe and Charlie.

Um, I got so stepping stones in Northeast Philadelphia, owe my life to that place. I didn't necessarily learn recovery there, but it's uh I heard a friend of mine do a talk once and he said uh the um club houses of AA are like operating rooms, you know what I mean? They'll uh when you're dying, you know what I mean?

If you get shot on a Saturday night, he said, they're very good at putting you back together. He said, if you get shot on a Saturday night in Manhattan, you want to go to Belleview. It's insane, but they can put you back together.

But after a couple weeks, you want to move up up up town a little bit and get a little private room. You know what I mean? You don't want to hang out in Belleview too long.

And that's kind of the way I look at club houses. Great putting you back together, then get into the book, move on, etc. Uh, and that's what's important for people like us that claim to be into the literature is not only to go to literature-based meetings, which I do a lot, but to also take it to other meetings.

Take it to your local clubhouse. It's not easy. I know in your head, it's not hard.

It's all in your head. But, you know, sometimes you think, what are they thinking about me? And nobody wants to hear this.

And, uh, it's not your call really. It's up to God. You just do it and watch what happens.

And if they're not listening to you, no big deal. What's it going to hurt you? And uh I really try to do that.

I go to non-literature-based meetings often to remind me why I go to literature-based meetings. It doesn't take long, believe me. You know what I mean?

I feel like an alien after about 5 minutes in there. But uh it needs to be done and that's where our work part of where our work can be done. uh coming into AA for me at age 33.

Um after about a dozen years on Wall Street, uh coming in there as a young kid, 19 years old, right out of high school, invincible, you know what I mean? Going to take on the world, did well. That's my problem in life.

I do well. I got a lot of that potential they talk about. And uh I test well and uh and I made a good career out of it as a young kid.

I don't know if you're familiar with Wall Street. I worked in Philadelphia. Believe it or not, Philadelphia is part of Wall Street.

I know. Uh we're kind of like a little stepbrother, but it is it's called that. And uh going down there as a young kid, um you it's like a breeding ground for alcoholism and other things.

It's uh not only is it acceptable, it's encouraged and it's just a part of life. But if you're like me growing up in in a in a inner city neighborhood, I mean, everybody drank. Everybody I ever knew drank.

I never sat around wondering why I drink or anything like that. It's like when you get to a certain age, all you can look forward to is hanging on the corner with the older guys and drinking with them. And that was really the only goal I ever had in life.

I'm the son of a marine and he always wanted me you WHEN YOU'RE IN PARIS ISLAND YOU'LL EAT YOUR LIMEMA BEANS AND ALL THAT AND I'd be like yeah right I can go into Paris Island and uh or he wanted me to he his dreams for he had played my dad played a little of minor league baseball he wanted me to be a baseball player but after about sophomore year of high school when you start doing other things practice goes out the window and I really didn't have the time for that or the other thing he always wanted me to be a lawyer and I I just that sounded like a lot of schooling You know what I mean? And I just came through four tough years of high school. And uh I didn't I I can honestly tell you from sophomore year on, I never took a book home.

I never really took anything in life seriously. I don't know, maybe I'm just wired that way. I don't really have a lot of serious bones in my body.

It takes a lot for me to get serious. And I just like to me life is one big lounge act, you know what I mean? And I work with the material that's in front of me and just kind of go through life like that.

Uh, but I did well down there and I I got a reputation for myself and uh over the years uh things got a little bit I never like Chris said I never attributed anything to drinking when it's like uh you know how people say you CAN'T EVEN SEE WHAT'S UNDER YOUR NOSE. WELL, MAYBE THAT'S THE problem with alcoholism. It's so close to us you can't see it.

That would be the last thing you would ever you know attribute to your problems. And it was so close to me that I couldn't see that was the problem. Uh looking back on it, I remember people over the years uh in work offering to send me to rehab, whatever that was.

And I would just laugh it off. Rehab? Are you kidding me?

What are you going with me? You know what I mean? These are people I was drinking with and whatever.

So I thought they were kidding. But they told me years later they were serious. And that's how you know you're bad when the people you know you drink and do other things with are offering to put you away.

That's not a good sign. Uh, I also suffered from that blackout thing. I I never really thought about it.

I just thought I don't remember a lot of stuff. Well, at least that's what a blackout is, you And uh, you know, I mean, I'd go to bed in Philadelphia and wake up in Salt Lake City or over uh, one time I remember coming to walking down the Dallas airport down a hallway. It was like a Monday morning and uh, I called work and they're like, "Where are you at?" I'm like, "I'm in the Dallas airport." And my partner's like, "Why?" I said, "I have no idea.

I'm just I just kind of like came too walking towards these pay phones and that used to happen to me regularly. You know what I mean? And uh I just thought that's part of drinking, you know, you have fun.

It was a badge of courage. YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST NIGHT? NO.

OH MAN. YOU KNOW, AND then as you get older, a little more embarrassing and some of the things you do, you really don't want publicized so much. But, uh, I guess towards the, uh, the the middle of that decade I spent down there, I had a couple, uh, things happen that looking back were a direct result of alcohol, but I didn't see it that way.

And, uh, long story short is, um, I lost the ability to work altogether after about a decade down there. Um, was pretty much asked to leave and not come back and they meant it. And I did one day.

I left my briefcase, sport coat, never went back. U moved in like all heroes at 30 years old with mom and dad. And uh thank God for them, right?

That I came back at 30 and uh tried to get some jobs, you know, because I knew I could wasn't really a I could talk. I COULD I COULD GET A job and do some work, but I wasn't real good at showing up all the time. And uh those intervals got pretty short.

And by by the early 90s, I had lost the ability to work altogether. This kid who was once the pride of the family. I have two older sisters and uh I would show up on holidays in a limousine they tell me with extravagant gifts for everybody and all that stuff.

Uh in the early 90s I um lost the ability to work all together, became a thief and got arrested regularly and uh was just waiting to die. I was on the streets except for I had one set of clothes and I had my father my mother had passed away. I had my father's house so I would go regroup in his basement at night and uh it was just matter of how you were going to read about.

I uh I had been stabbed. I had been beat up with a gun all the things that happened out there and I really never I never wanted to take my own life. I didn't want to leave that legacy on my dad.

I thought he deserved more than that. I didn't mind stealing his money and all that stuff, but I didn't want to embarrass him like that. So, it's a matter of it was just going to happen eventually.

And uh I know some people call it a moment of clarity in aa I don't know if I've ever had a moment of clarity in my life. I like to think God interceded. And uh I woke up uh after getting locked up President's weekend 1994 and asked for help.

To this day, I don't know why I wasn't trying to get sober or anything like that. I uh my my sisters came over and they um they got me into this rehab, this 28 day program, which sounded extreme. And uh I packed like I was going on a cruise, you know what I mean?

I had no idea what sobriety was or AA or anything like that. And um that night, the first night in rehab was what I celebrate. That was the last time I ever had anything uh mood altering, let's say.

And that was March 2nd, 1994. Um, when I got out of that rehab, like I said, I asked that man to sponsor me. I had a little bit of an out, though.

He was sick at the time, so I didn't want to bother him, so I didn't call him. So, I went to the clubhouse meetings three times a day. I I had a love affair with Alcoholics Anonymous from the beginning, the fellowship, and I'm very clear today on the difference between the fellowship and the program.

Two vitally important things, two different powers, you could say. you really need to have both, but they're two completely separate things. And um I didn't know that in the beginning.

And uh I went to three meetings a day and um had a little job. Like Chris said, I worked for a friend of mine that had a landscaping business, so I made a couple dollars. I had a nice tan and I was getting in pretty good shape.

But uh other than that, what are you going to do? What about your past? I don't know.

I I don't really feel like dealing with that right now. What are you going to do with your future? I have no idea.

And I was just kind of hope waiting for that miracle to happen as they say mistakenly as if you just wait for that to happen. And um you know our book tells us later on that you can make that miracle happen by doing some of this work that Chris alluded to earlier. And I didn't know that.

I thought you just came to AA and if you showed up regularly, this miracle just happens to you. But you may die waiting for that. I wouldn't suggest that.

Uh so I I'm I'm in Alcoholics Anonymous. I made all the mistakes everybody makes about 8 months and if I went to a meeting where there was a book on the table the first year it was strictly by accident. I really had no intention of I always thought what is the contents of a book going to tell a smart guy like me cuz hey I don't read.

I mean I I know how to read like I said but I don't I'm not a big reader which is kind of ironic because my dad was the biggest reader I've ever met in my life. He was the smartest, funniest guy I ever met in my life and he tried so hard to pass that on to me and I just rejected it. And uh the ironic thing is I spent the last 16 years studying one book.

So I guess he's smiling somewhere. And um eight months sober, the you know the same mistake, met the woman of my dreams, you know what I mean? And I was mistaken.

And uh and my sponsor would give me when I would ask him good advice, you know what I mean? I did run, this is actually one of the few things I ran by him. I said, "Bob, I'm uh I'm thinking about dating uh a woman from the meeting.

What do you think about that?" And she had been sober for a while. And uh this is the kind of answers he would give me, which was one another reason I never called him. He'd say, "Well, all right, Chris, let's look let's look at this realistically.

Uh let's step back for a minute. You got any money? You do you even really have a job?

Do you have a house? Do you have a car? you can have a driver's license.

And I the answer was no to all those. And he would say, what do you realistically have to offer another person besides the obvious? And you know, you I got you, Bob.

And uh you know, we don't listen. I moved in with her shortly after that. And that ended horribly.

I was totally blind to it. And it really it really was an ugly situation. And um I GUESS ABOUT A YEAR SOBER, a couple things collided.

One was these Arkansas guys and um there was a guy Bob O who spoke in Cherry Hill, New Jersey at a conference and uh somebody just gave me the tape recently and he talked about this group out of Minnesota called the Golden Slippers. There were seven guys from AA that couldn't stay sober, hence the name. And uh they came up with a novel idea.

They had like a little meeting between them and they came up with a novel idea that they were going to stop intellectualizing the book, stop talking about it and they were going to open it up and do what it said and see what happens. >> And none of them ever drank again. >> And the guys that I didn't hear this guy personally, but the guys I was hanging out with at the clubhouse did and I figured if they affected them because they were morons.

If they affected them to that extent, maybe I should listen to this guy. And I did and I kind of got what they were attracted to and he was talking about Joe and Charlie and uh this is mid 90s so those tape meetings were rare but they were around and we started going to them. We incorporated that once or twice a week we would do a a Joe and Charlie meeting.

Of course the 12 and 12 step meeting which the only problem is they're reading out of the wrong book. I mean, other than that, it's a great meeting, but they're trying to make something happen that hasn't happened. And what it will do, in my experience, it'll fill you with a lot of head knowledge.

Uh, like Chris said, working in the steps intellectually. The worst thing you can do in AA, I think, is to agree with the steps. >> That'll kill you, right?

The book says we have a solution, and you ain't going to like it. >> So, if you're sitting there new and agreeing with these steps, you might want to take a look at that. You know what I mean?

You know, see, because I always equated if I agree with what you're talking about, it's kind of like doing it. And it couldn't be further from the truth. That has killed so many people sitting there going, "Well, I do that.

Well, I turn my will over. Well, I I admit when I'm wrong." Uh there's the short version of the steps and there's the long version in our book and a lot of the things we do to study that, etc. And you got to get to know the long version.

There's a lot of good stuff in there. And um I admitted for a year in AA I was an alcoholic but I didn't really mean it. You know what I mean?

I didn't know what that meant. And um you know I said my name's Chris. I'm this or that.

Uh the other thing I would give you dabbling with other substances cuz I kind of kind of felt like I carried more weight. You know what I mean? But uh alcoholic kind of was a bad word.

It's got a little stigma to it. I'm not some old guy laying on a vent somewhere. I'm a slick dude.

I'm a stock broker really. Well, I haven't been in a while, but when I'm working, that's what I do. And uh and until I I really opened that book and started going through the big book uh with my sponsor who kind of came back in.

He had never left. I just brought him back into the mix at the same time. And we uh we kind of formally went through the steps with kind of what we'll talk about now.

and that was um actually taking these steps. Um I didn't even know what it meant to be an alcoholic. I I I'll go out on a limb and say most of the people I in 17 years I've ever met in a have never taken the steps.

And it's not a shot against them. They they wouldn't know how to. They're not taught to.

It's like a foreign idea es especially doing it with any sense of urgency. You know what I mean? which is kind of a necessary thing.

Uh this desperation that you have when you're new, we come into AA and if you slow people down, unfortunately that that urgency goes away. That desperation goes away and it's very hard to get somebody at that point to take the 12 steps. They'll do the intellectual version and they may stay sober for years and years and years, but it's not the same.

It's not the same. And you'll never know what it's like to sit down and really give that to somebody, which is the whole key. Uh we went through the doctor's opinion, this guy Silkworth that I talked about, who basically if you want to break alcoholism into three parts, problem, solution, program of action.

Silkworth is accredited with giving us what the problem is. He was a doctor, not an alcoholic little dude. They about 5'2.

He made me look tall. uh a little guy with blue eyes. Uh the little doctor that loved drunks, a great book on him written by his nephew or something like that.

And he was at a hospital in New York City, which is where Bill Wilson happened to be at the time, Town's Hospital. He had lost all his money in a market crash. Another Wall Street connection.

And he had to take this job there and um for room and board or different stories on how he ended up there. But he was a uh a student of people like us, you could say. Uh one of his jobs, I believe at one point was the government had sent him to China to find a cure for opiate addiction, which we could probably, you know, he did that, but you will never know that.

But um so he studied people like us. He was not one of us, but he was intrigued by us. And he always had this sense in his head that people were like us.

We're not just bad people and not doing this on purpose or not stupid or something like that. That there had to be something else going on. And he came up with this theory.

They called his opinion, right? Uh he didn't sign the original manuscript because it was only some quack doctor's opinion. A lot of people laughed at him, right?

That's why if you get an original version of the big book, it says very truly yours dot dot dot. In the 1950s, like he said when they classified alcoholism as a disease, he wasn't stupid. He said, "Sure, put my name in there." And he got a lot of credit.

But um Silkworth basically is telling us in the doctor's opinion what a definition of what alcoholism is. And uh it wasn't what I thought. It he said it's twofold.

It's physical and it's mental. It's really not rocket science. There's a physical component which you must believe, right?

It's not just mental. Many of us come into AA and we lock so much in on the mental part of it that we completely miss the physical part of it. Which the importance of that is that helps to get somebody when they're new hopeless and scared, which is what we're trying to do.

A lot of times if you're working with or if you share in a meeting something, oh, YOU'RE GOING TO SCARED THE NEWCOMER or something like that. We're trying to, right? You're not going to TAKE THE 12 STEPS UNLESS you're scared, right?

You're not looking for God unless you're scared. So, he came up with this theory that we get an exaggerated effect when we drink alcohol. Abnormal uh he called it an allergy.

If you use another book that goes great with the big book, Webster's Dictionary for smart people. See, I'm so bright. I could never I could never do something like that.

I would have to fake it if you said, "What's this mean?" I kind of know and I might even be close to it. But what I learned is when you look up definitions, there's different connotations of words. And sometimes if you have five or six different definitions, one just stands out at you and changes a whole sentence.

And so I started looking up words and allergy means abnormal reaction to any substance, right? So I looked up, now we're starting to get real good at this. We looked up abnormal.

Abnormal means not in the majority. So apparently allergy means I get a reaction from alcohol that most people don't get. And that fits in because they say one out of 10 gets a different effect than nine out of 10.

One out of 10's alcoholic. 90% of the world's not. I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S ACCURATE, BUT it's probably close.

Most people in the world are not alcoholic. When you're in AA, especially when you're new, it looks like 90% are. And but if you get if you ever get back into the real world and get a real job and all that, you'll find that most people aren't like us.

They may drink and they may drink heavily at times and make a fool with themsel or get a DUI or whatever, but you'll you'll you'll come to agree that those numbers are probably correct. Uh but that's meaningless information unless you know the two different effects. And this is the part that I never heard anybody talk about and it helped me immensely.

And uh one out of 10 gets a different effect from nine out of 10. So what's the nine out of 10 get? The non-alcoholics.

Well, they get a slightly tipsy out of control. They don't like it, right? Alcohol is a poison.

They drink. And by the way, there's nothing wrong with alcohol. It's not your problem.

As the book says, it's selfishness, right? It's just a symptom. uh it's conviviiality and uh loosens you up and if you're at a party, you know what I mean?

There's nothing wrong with alcohol. Stop being mad at alcohol, right? But when I drink it, nine out of 10 people uh slightly tipsy, out of control, don't like the way it makes them feel.

You know what I mean? After a couple drinks, oh no, thank you. You know what I mean?

You want another one? No, no, no, no. Got to go to work.

Work tomorrow, right? Something like drive driving, right? They don't LIKE IT.

ONE OUT OF 10 gets a slightly in control. Instead of a depressant, it's a stimulant. You know, I mean, let's go do something, right?

Like Chris said before, LET'S GO TO THE CITY. You know what I mean? TRUE WORK.

I QUIT. LET'S GET OUT OF SHORE. I'LL GET another job.

I don't get, you know, later on. You know what I mean? Dis I'll drive.

I'll show you how to drive. You know what I mean? And it does something to me.

And I didn't know this when I was a kid starting to drink. I didn't know any of this. But it does something to me, man.

I ain't shy anymore. I ain't afraid to talk in front of people. I ain't afraid to ask a girl to dance like he said.

Even if it's square dancing, I don't care. I I don't even know what it is. I'll do it right.

I could hang out with people. I could be on that corner 57th and grace in a playground. And man, I could be a part of life.

I didn't have to be some shy kid sitting there in the corner in my head, right? Thinking about what everybody's thinking about me and all that. And it just transformed me into something that I had found my aunt.

In fact, Bill Wilson called it the elixir of magic elixir. You know what I mean? It just uh you know what I mean?

Uh Chuck Chamberlain, I think it says it transforms your uh perception of reality. It doesn't really change anything, but it looks different. It really didn't change at all.

If you ever read uh Bill's um first experience with a drink in in the mansion before he went to war, what it did for him, he was a shy, gawky, tall kid. All of a sudden, he has a couple drinks and he's holding court. man, people are listening to them.

And of course, the problem with that effect is you tend to overs serve yourself a little too much. Drink too much, get a little sloppy, some bad things can happen, and that usually backfires. That's right.

So, that's really Silkore saying, you got to believe this. He's telling people like us, you have to believe this. You know what I mean?

And uh I was an AA for a year and never heard anybody talk about that. the phys I mean I heard the word allergy and I heard cute sayings once too many a thousand is not enough BUT THAT DOESN'T THAT I didn't feel that when somebody gave it to ME THIS WAY I WAS LIKE OH MAN yeah well if you put it that way well we're putting it that way somebody told me you know you put it that way I certainly fall into that category of the one out of 10 you know I'm right away I go from a year in AA and I'm not sure what an alcoholic is in 2 minutes well if that's the definition then I'm definely an alcoholic. Well, that's good and bad news.

The good news is you finally figured out your problem in life, right? It says in there, it explains a lot of things for which we could otherwise not account. It explains how a slick guy like me started to get locked up, robbing stores, completely lost his life, etc.

And I didn't question any of that stuff anymore. I just started to think maybe I had this allergy the whole time and it got progressively worse and I drank myself into it and here I am at 33 years old and it made some sense. So that's the physical part of allergy.

What effect do you get from alcohol? I can't answer that for you. Do you get a slightly tipsy or do you get a Right.

It's uh somebody used to say you either get a whoo or a whoo. I don't know which wo you get. You know what I mean?

I know which woe I get and I'm ready to go. You know what I mean? And so that's the physical part of it.

He goes on to say that's good information that will be good and explaining alcoholism to people. Maybe it'll help get a new person a little scared because they'll think they'll have this thing, but there's really not a whole lot you can do about the physical part. You're going to have it.

You're going to be a carrier till the day you die. But you don't recover from that. There's not a pill or anything you can take and your body doesn't grow out of that, right?

You you'll be a carrier of the physical component forever. Now, I said some more good and bad news is there's a whole mental side to it, which is really the crux of the problem. Because the physical part can't hurt you if you don't drink, right?

If alcoholism was only a physical disease, the solution would be simple. Just don't drink. Sound familiar?

Right? That's like AA 101. But if you hear somebody say that from now on, that's a red flag that they're not attuned to the big book, to the literature.

It's you, if you study the book and go to literature meetings for long enough, it's like getting an ear for music. You know what I mean? You hear things and they don't sound the same anymore.

I hear somebody say, "Just don't drink, man. BEFORE I'D BE LIKE, THAT'S BILL OVER THERE. HE'S GOT 40 YEARS, MAN." BUT I HEAR THAT today and I go, "Oh, gez." And there's a lot of things like that.

Think, think, think, play the tapes, right? All that sounds good at one point, but when you really understand alcoholism, you understand that they're dying and that they really have never been taught this stuff. So, he goes on to talk about uh people like us, we drink because we get an effect from alcohol.

No, no big surprise there, right? Everybody gets an effect from alcohol, right? The problem is I get an exaggerated effect.

But never, see, I never knew it. I thought EVERYBODY GOT THAT EFFECT. And that's why I was a little surprised when you weren't taking off Monday with me or you like waking up Thursday with me or what what do you how can you like how could you go to work work?

Screw work. Are you getting another job? The hell doesn't matter.

I could never buy in from a from sophomore year in high school till the day they put me in rehab. I never had a sober day in my life. I never thought of it that way.

But looking back on it, further review, right? I never was sober one. Why?

Why would you want to be sober? Could never fathom that thought unless you had to for some reason. Why would you want to be sober on purpose?

And then when I looked at that, yeah, I was like, "HOLY THAT'S DYSFUNCTIONAL." You know, I DON'T THINK MOST people could say that. But people in here, you say that and I go, "Yeah, me too." They said it ain't no big uh revelation to people in here, but the people out there, they look at you and go, "Okay, you know, tread lightly around you." But Silkworth goes on to say, and there's a mental side of it, and that when people like us get restless, now we're sober, right? We get restless, irritable, discontent, we're emotionally out of whack.

They're they're emotions. You can plug one in. If you want to put another word in there, feel free.

Right? Insert emotion here. When I get out of whack, my mind is going to start scanning for relief.

And if I don't have it away to give it the relief, which I never did in life. I didn't have any spiritual means or anything like that. My mind on its own knows how to get it.

It's called an alcoholic mind. It's called a mental blank spot. Basically, the gist of it is it will block out what alcohol did to me and only allow me to see what it's going to do for me.

I don't care how long you're sober. It'll block it out. And AA, we always say, here's another one.

Don't believe the lie. It's not a lie. It's a delusion.

Right? A delusion. You You don't have any defense against a delusion.

You can't not believe a delusion. You know what I mean? I look at a magician.

It looks real. You know what I mean? I vaguely sense you can't saw a woman in half on the stage there and that pro.

BUT I LOOK AT IT AND GO, "WOW, HOW'D THEY DO THAT?" THAT'S KIND of like how an alcoholic mind works. Apparently, it can block it out and tell you it'll be okay this time. And you'll act on a subtle thought like, "Uh, I'll just do this.

I'll just do that. I'm not going to do this." And um what if you got that going on and you combine that with this allergy, you got a recipe for disaster. And that's what it means to be powerless over alcohol.

You basically can't drink. You can't not drink. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Do you understand that? You can't drink because of this effect you get. It ain't normal.

You can't not drink because of this mental condition. And there ain't nothing you can do about it. Now, if you got anything on the ball, your next thought's going to be, "BUT WHAT DO I DO?" Which kind of brings us to step two, RIGHT?

WHAT DO I DO? THAT'S HOW YOU GO INTO STEP TWO. Not like, "Oh, where's God?" or anything.

It's like, "The only the only way you're going to be openminded to God is if you're FORCED INTO IT, BACK INTO IT. YOU'RE GOING TO DIE. ALL RIGHT.

WHAT DO I DO? OH, GLAD YOU ASKED." RIGHT? And that's how we gently, right, talk about came to believe how, you know what I mean?

We don't lead off with God. We get you to the point where you're scared, get you to squarely see your problem, then we got a shot with you. But this whole mental side, I mean, I didn't know about that.

That if you understand that, especially page 24, it talks about it's not a matter of choice, right? How crazy is that? So, what you're saying, it's not up to me whether I drink or not.

Exactly. It's not a matter of willpower because willpower only works if you see something wrong with what you're about to do. And if your mind can block it out, willpower is not going to save you.

Doesn't even see anything wrong with it, right? And it's not a matter of memory recall. I know you were taught to remember your last load and keep it green or keep it real or whatever the hell else you want to keep it, but it doesn't work like that, right?

At certain times it says you can't remember last week, right? It's called dynamic memory if you want a name for it. And you can't recreate emotional pain to the same extent as when it originally happened.

You know why? Because it ain't happening anymore. I can't get scared of something that happened 10 years ago.

I remember it maybe vividly, but it don't scare me. I don't know. You know what I mean?

When you're new, you got more of a chance of maybe staying sober a little bit on that fear or whatever. But you stay sober six months a year, multiples, that's like another person. You know what I mean?

You tell me. I can remember the things but they won't come into my mind to keep me sober if I get blocked off if I get emotionally out of whack. You know what I mean?

So he's telling us there matter of fact he uses the words there's no effective mental defense. Now keep in mind he says at certain times now here's the dangerous part of that. Maybe there's certain times where you can get to a meeting right?

Uh, what do we tell somebody if they feel like drinking? Get to a meet and share about it. Okay, for argument sake, let's say you can do that.

Let's say you do it three times successfully. Fourth time, metal blank spot, drink, dead. >> Were the other three worth it?

You see how how much of a smoke screen that can be? how dangerous that can be to imply that if I feel like drinking, it's just a matter of me exerting my thinking, my willpower, and coming here and telling on myself or something like that, as we like to say. The book's telling you that that's going to eventually fail you.

It's going to kill you if you don't have another answer, a spiritual answer, right? Talks about we agnostics. It's a spiritual sol uh physical illness with a spiritual solution.

And that's kind of the problem as I see it with alcoholism is it don't look right. A physical illness should have a physical answer, but there's no physical solution to alcoholism. The phys, you know what the physical solution alcoholism is?

Drinking. You want a physical solution? Take a few drinks.

It'll go away temporarily, but it'll backfire on you because it'll set off the allergy, etc., etc. So, there's no mental effective mental defense. And the book's telling me if I don't somehow get spiritual, whatever the hell that is.

I'm pretty much going to drink again and I'm going to die. It's just a matter of time. It's a waiting game.

I may stay sober years in between. I had a guy, I always tell the story, 35 years sober in AA. He was a local guru where I got sober.

kind of I could say maybe good-natured kided each other for years. When I would walk in the clubhouse, he'd be like, "Oh, here comes Bill Wilson's illegitimate son, right?" And I go, "Oh, yeah, pop." His name was Pop Hagerty died. I I would make fun of him, right?

Which wasn't hard to do, by the way. And uh we'd go back and forth and uh I don't know how this happened, but years later, 35 years sober he was, uh the thought came to me, why don't you try tricking him? >> I might have heard it somewhere.

I don't even know. you I think I heard somebody say use their ego in your favor. >> And what does that mean?

I I called him aside and I said, "Pop um we have a big book study by your house. We could use a guy like you. Could you help us out?" And we really did as it turns out.

And he's like all of a sudden instead of fighting, he goes, "What? Where's it at? When boom." And he and he and he came I couldn't believe it.

About 3 weeks into it, pulls me aside crying like a little baby. I'm so sorry. I never learned any of this stuff.

Went through the steps with us. We had him up behind the curtain on stage, kneeling down, taking the third step, etc. He used to go back to the clubhouse and apologize in public to people.

I said, you know, you apologize to me, but he felt the need to do that and he died six years. I mean, six months after that, he got sick and died of something. But he finally heard the message of alcohol.

I knew from that day, even though my sponsor had warned me from the beginning, I knew from that day, I'm responsible to do this type of stuff and I can't worry about whether you like me or you're listening or you agree. That's none of my business. My sponsor said, "IF YOU'VE GONE THROUGH IT AND YOU FEEL SOMETHING, STAND UP, SPEAK UP, AND SHUT up and start helping people and watch what happens to you." He warned me the usual warnings.

You're not going to be popular. And I'm not right. and uh and people will say this or that and maybe it's real, maybe it's not.

Who knows? But you're still, you know, you're still the lucky winner. You still get to do it.

He said, "If you're going to tell ME YOU'VE BEEN THROUGH this and this has happened to you and you're not going to do it, who's going to do it? Who's going to carry the message? Who's going to like Chris eloquently spoke about earlier talk about the difference between the program and the fellowship and the separate powers?

Whose job is it if it's not mine?" Right? I am responsible. I uh the the I heard a story once.

I don't know if it's true or not. Don't sue me. But the woman who made that placard, it was a woman got a bunch of grief for it because she didn't put we.

And her answer was maybe you don't feel responsible. I do. I feel a responsibility to Dr.

Bob and Bill Wilson and Bill Dodson and the boys. Maybe you don't. Well, guess what?

Um, my experience in AA is most people don't even know who Bill Dodson or Clarence Snider are, let alone feel a responsibility to them. So, that's what I'm talking about. Uh, step two, which we kind of slide into after we get you properly scared and you're like, "OH MAN, WHAT YOU'RE TELLING ME I'M GOING TO DIE AND HOPE AND AND SILKWORTH, if you know the AA history, and we love AA history.

If you're into AA history, uh, for me it made me feel much more a part of AA, much more comfortable in AA when I got to know some of the players and who they were. If for no other reason, it just makes sense, right? And uh, Bill Wilson before he went on that business trip to Akran, which is where we directly owe our lives to, uh, met with Silkworth.

He had been working with Silkworth on and off. He, you know, he used to see him once in a while. And Bill was sober five and a half months running around New York pulling guys out of the gutter telling they got to find God and he wasn't successful with anybody, but he stayed sober.

So Lois kind of reminded him of that. Uh but he before he went to Akran, he met with Silkworth and he said, "Uh, I'm getting a little frustrated. I'm sober, but I don't seem to be helping anybody." And Silkworth said, "Can I give you some advice, some criticism?" which is amazing that an alcoholic would take criticism, but I don't know if he meant it or not, but Bill said, "Sure." He said, "I I've been watching you running around New York, uh, telling people to have this white light experience, and that's great for you, but you're scaring the out of them.

Instead of doing that, talk about alcoholism, the disease that I taught you about, the physical allergy, the mental obsession, the hopelessness of the condition. Get them scared and you'll have a lot better success. you'll open their mind a little bit.

Well, it's by coincidence the next person he met was Dr. Bob who happened to be a very spiritual guy already. He had been going to Oxford group meetings for a number of years out in Akran.

This didn't happen in a vacuum. Oxford groups were already out there, Firestones and all that stuff. And he was a Bible scholar.

He knew the Bible inside out, Dr. Bob. So if Bill would have met with him and said, "You got to find God." Dr.

Bob would have said, "Well, you got to find a door. I got to go." He was hung over. He didn't want to meet with him to begin with and we'd all be dead today.

But he didn't. He took Silkorse advice and he talked about alcoholism from in here from drinking experiences. Five and a half hours later, five five hours and 15 minutes if you want to be a real stickler.

Uh they came out, Dr. Dr. Bob went in and said, "I'll give this bum 15 minutes." They came out and Dr.

Bob said, "That's the first person I ever met in my life who talked to me from actual experience, not from up here, not theory, not from something he read in a book." There was no book yet. >> From actual experience, language of the heart, one alcoholic help another level playing field, which is the magic of AA. And one of the beauties of the fellowship is that the guy from the street can sponsor the Harvard MBA, >> right?

and probably do better. You know what I mean? Because it has nothing to do with intelligence or education level or any of that.

That that's all hindrances. We can deprogram you of all that stuff, but it's just doing the stuff, having it happen to you, experiencing the steps and not talking about them or theorizing them, which a lot of us do, reading them at a whole meeting and going around around reading them as if anybody's paying attention to begin with. I don't know about you, I don't have that kind of attention span to read for a half hour or whatever, 20 minutes.

After two paragraphs, I'm gone. You know what I mean? And if you if I read something in the first paragraph, I'd like I forgot it by the second and new thing and and now I'm thoroughly confused.

And then I'm looking around the room. Uh-oh, I think she smiled at me. I think she and and I'm gone.

So, and my experience has been in reality, it's really not a good format. And uh that's why we believe the way we do it is you read a sentence or a paragraph and you stop and you talk about it and you throws the dictionary in there and you explain to people what this means and it seems to take on a life of its own. Step two, we kind of spot you which is not that difficult.

We basically say that if you're powerless obviously the answer has got to be power. And where do you get it at? We can go into we agnostics which is a beautiful chapter on spirituality.

I think there was a Catholic priest I don't know if it was Bishop Sheen somebody said it was the best piece of spiritual writing he ever read in his life. He was including the Bible right and it's in the interest of time it's basically saying you already believe you already have faith you've been living on it your whole life it's just been misguided in other areas. the god of self-sufficiency.

I can relate to that one. Uh Bill talks about the icy intellectual mountain which he lived and shipped for many years, right? Faith in uh the god of money >> or the god of sex.

Do I have to go any further? I'm sure there's others, right? But apparently I've been living on nothing but faith and trust and all this stuff and a worshshiper my whole life.

And it's just trying to point it out to me. And if you got this thing that's going to kill you and we're telling you there's this entity that has all power and can fix you. Does that make a little bit of sense to you?

And we go, "No, not really." You know, cuz that's the problem. And it says in there the solution. There is a solution and you're not going to like it.

Nobody in the history of AA has liked it. And that's inherently there in lies the problem with AA. uh we can explain to you your problem, but you ain't going to like the solution we got.

And and that's where we run into trouble because nobody comes in, you know, you get somebody excited. Okay. You know, wow, you just explained my whole life.

Wow. Uh the answer is God. Man, it's almost like what what else you got?

Anything else? I mean, YOU GOT ANYTHING ELSE NOW? DO ANYTHING ELSE but that.

That's how averse our minds are to the idea of God. It's not real. It's in your head.

It's this it's this conception of God that you drug into AA as a kid. I remember talking to a priest on retreat one year. He said, "Chris, you got a 13-year-old's conception of God.

When's the last time you were at church regularly?" You know what I mean? Come back. You might see it differently.

And and that opened my mind a little bit, but it's so hard uh to open an alcoholic's mind to begin with. But and I think when Bill says it HOW IT WORKS, WE BEG OF YOU. I mean, he's begging you from 1939 to let go of your old ideas, prejudices.

I think above all, he's talking about your ideas on God because whatever they are, they almost killed you. So whether they're good, bad, or indifferent, they have to go. Whether you think you're a believer, an agnostic, an atheist, it had you smoking crack.

You know, it didn't work. So whatever you are, you're not. That's all we know.

We know whatever you are, you're not. And we got to we got to change it. And it's not that hard once you get mentally adjusted a little bit.

We also, like Eie told Bill, we let you choose your own conception of God, right? Think about that one. How can you be struggling with something we're letting you make up, right?

Just change it. How can you go, I'm really having trouble with this God. Then change it.

You know, I mean, how could you have trouble if we're letting you make it up? We basically spot you. step, too.

That's why it probably says came to believe. I don't know what to say. Just put came to believe in there.

I couldn't explain to you when or how it happened, but we know, we all know it happened. I can't tell you when or where. There was no particular moment.

YOU TAKE THE STEPS, IT'LL HAPPEN. GET over it. Get over step two.

As long as you say no. There's nothing greater than me. I'm not going to do this.

I'm not I'm not willing, as it says in step three, to turn my anything over to anything. I think it was Sandy Beach. I heard once say that his sponsor told him, "If you will turn your will and life over to the care of anything tonight, anything, this podium right here, I can guarantee you a wholesale miracle immediately." And he's like, "Oh yeah, well, what's that?

At least it won't be in the hands of an idiot." You can't. That doesn't even insult me hearing something like that. I just laugh at that.

It's so true, right? At least it won't be in the hands of an idiot. You know what I mean?

When you come to grips with the depths of what an idiot you are in life, let alone AA, then you'll you'll get somewhere in here. And then you'll stop struggling, you'll stop all this stuff we do in AA that's counter to what we're trying to teach you. You'll stop doing all of it because you won't take yourself so seriously.

You won't be so stuck up. And you'll just lighten up and realize I'm a Left to my own devices, I will butcher anything. anything.

So, of course, I'm going to kill myself with alcoholism. I can't do what do you think of myself? I'm nothing means.

You twist that. How can you read that and twist that into well, you know, I have some good characteristics. When we got to the fourth step, I didn't I know some pro people have that they're listing their uh assets.

My sponsor said, "Okay, that's fine, Chris. You don't have any. So, it'll it'll be very easy." And we just moved on.

You know what I mean? You don't bring ANYTHING TO THE TABLE. He was the first one to inform me, you're an idiot.

You don't bring anything to the table. You should be dead or in jail. Shut up and listen to me and do what I did and you'll get better.

If you don't, you won't. You can't think your way out of this thing. And and if you're intellectually like me, self-sufficient, or so you think, it'll kill you.

I mean in intellect will do nothing but confuse a man they say unless you can somehow combine it with a sense of purpose and bring it into the spiritual world there's a place for intellect I mean we we read books in AA we study stuff there there is a place for it but it ain't for me to fall in love with AND TRY TO MAKE MYSELF SOMETHING IN LIFE YOU WANT TO DO THAT FEEL FREE but you better be building in here too right the insides got to match the outsides they say which when you're new in AA there's something right about that cuz I got nothing in here and nothing out there. They match perfectly. The problem is you come into AA, you start getting stuff out there, it's parked right there, right?

And I'm wearing it and then you don't build anything in here because you don't know you're supposed to be really or you don't know how to. Doesn't matter why. That divergence will get so big you'll eventually blow your head off or drink.

You would think I I've if I had a million dollars, I'd never drink. I've seen guys with a lot of money that didn't build spiritually and it drove them insane because that gap got so big between the inside and the outside. So, I think the point is if you want things on the outside, pursue it.

You might get it. It's probably up to God, but you better build in here or none of that stuff is going to mean anything. And chances are, if you're like most of us, if you build in here, what's out there won't mean as much.

It'll just look different. It won't mean you don't like nice cars or nice houses or nice boats. It just won't run your life.

They say money is a great servant but a terrible master. It'll start to look like that a little bit. Servant, right?

Sandy Beach always says servant is the highest pay grade in life. You come into AA a big shot and if you're really lucky and work real hard, you work your way all the way up to servant. That's what we're trying to do in here.

Serve God and other people and forget about me. Of myself, I'm nothing. Man, I don't know about you.

The meetings I was going to, that's a foreign concept. EVERYTHING'S ABOUT ME. YOU GOT TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, CHRIS.

YOU GOT TO WORK ON YOU AND I'M READING SPIRITUAL STUFF AND IT'S GOING, "YOU'RE AN IDIOT. Just get away from you and YOU'LL BE FINE. WHICH ONE IS IT?" You know what I mean?

And everybody has to go through that confusion and hopefully you'll come out on the other end of it and not die because of it. Step three says, "Would you like to make a decision?" It's only a decision. And I'm not going to go through all the corny decision analogies, the three frogs on a log and all that crap, but basically a decision, which a decision is only as good as the action that follows.

I don't know why I even made that voice, but I've heard somebody say it that way one time. I DECIDED YEARS AGO WHEN I'm 18 years old, I can't stand the cold weather. I'm moving to Fort Lauderdale.

I knew where I was going. I had it all planned. I never 50 years old.

I've never moved out of Philadelphia. Well, I did, but I moved to New Jersey right across the river. But it's still cold is the point, right?

And I never did anything ABOUT IT. BUT I MEANT IT. I really did.

I meant it. I had friends that did it. They actually got jobs in a truck and moved stuff and put the action behind it.

And that's kind of what step three is like. Would you like to learn how to make a decision? That word will throws everybody off in here.

I just I I believe in substituting the word will with attention or thinking, right? Wherever your attention is, that's where your will is. So turn, make a decision to turn your attention to God.

I could do that. I could try to make myself think about God. Well, that's all it's saying.

Turn your attention and your life. It doesn't say you turn it over to God. We're sticklers on the words.

Over to the care of God. Care means watchful attention. Another definition.

That means I take my thinking and say, "Hey God, here's what I'm thinking." >> Right? When you get over laughing, you know the deal. bring it back to me.

Inspire me. Am I on the right track here? Is this what you want me to do?

Give me an intuitive thought or decision. And we'll get into that in the later steps. How to the process?

How to do that? And learning to get guided through life instead of managing my way through God. Managing your way through life is so cumbersome.

It's so difficult. How do you know when somebody's managing? Talk to them at the meeting.

How you doing, man? They don't ever seem to have a good day. I'm all right, man.

It's tough, but I'm all right. get out of work, our home, it's just always a struggle. You get somebody that's guided through life.

HOW YOU DOING? ALL RIGHT. HEARD YOUR WIFE LEFT?

YEAH, I'M DOING ALL RIGHT. Kids aren't talking to you? Yeah, I'm fine.

Sponsoring got your breeze through life. You know what I mean? And that and but but it's it sounds almost like uh it sounds almost like something you couldn't really do to actually trust something to the extent where you're guided by.

I mean, that's going out on a limb, >> but they are talking about God. So there is a part of me, even though part of me goes, "Nobody does this in real life." There's also a part of me that goes, "Well, I did remember in school and all this, this God's pretty pretty powerful dude. He if ANYBODY COULD DO IT, HE PROBABLY COULD.

MATTER OF FACT, IT'S PROBABLY THE RIGHT WAY TO GO." But it's always that constant struggle. And because it's so ingrained in us, the material world, we're not raised on spirituality. We're raised on pride.

You can do it. COME ON, CHRIS. MY FATHER TOLD ME WHEN I WENT TO REHAB, YOU'RE THE CAPTAIN OF YOUR OWN DESTINY.

THIS IS YOUR BOOT CAMP. YEAH. I MEAN, I'M YEAH.

I GO IN THERE AND I You can't do it. Where'd you get that at? You're an idiot.

You're gonna fail miserably. It's like, which one is it? Am I that which am I that much of an idiot?

And when I finally came to grips with the answer to that question, which by the way was yes. I started to grow cuz I started to get myself out of the way. Selfishness is the problem.

Then obviously self has to go in all forms. It doesn't mean you don't live your life. You don't get dressed in the morning, go to work, etc.

I just get my instructions. I learned how to get guided by this power. It talks about in step three, the first requirement.

Are you convinced that your thinking self-will is your thinking is overrated. It's of no use to you. I don't know about you.

I DON'T REMEMBER. WHO the hell teaches that in life? My dad never sat me down and said, "Son, here's the secret to life.

Don't think about yourself and you'll be okay. Just serve others and you'll be good to go. If I if anybody said that to me in life, I didn't hear it.

I'm not saying they didn't say it. I do have a hearing problem. I'm saying I didn't hear it, right?

But I don't think I was taught it. I wasn't raised by spiritual people. And that's not a shot at my parents or teachers or anybody.

They just didn't know. Just like a lot of people in AA in the fellowship don't know. If it's not up to me, who is it up to?

You know what I mean? back to that. And uh so this idea for smart if you got any kind of schooling or intellect that you god forbid, you know what I mean?

This is telling you they were wrong. And sometime everybody seems to think this way. So you go, how can everybody be wrong?

And if you look throughout history, a lot of times when the masses think one way, often times they're wrong. says, "And we acknowled I talked about Columbus and Galileo. They got laughed at for their ideas.

Everybody thought the opposite and they were all wrong." You know what I mean? They all thought the world was flat. They were all wrong apparently.

I guess I don't know. They tell me. But um so I had to look at that kind of stuff that maybe maybe it's not good to be in with the masses.

Maybe being in the minority is on the right track here. Well, in AA, guess what? I was certainly in the minority.

There weren't a lot of people. I believe if you're going to AA and feel like a complete stranger and these people are I I can't even relate. You're on the right track.

You know, you're definitely on to something. If you're agreeing with the masses, I've never seen anybody on to something doing that unless you happen to be going to strictly big book seminars as your AA or something like that. It just it doesn't happen.

goes on to talk about uh self be selfishness being the problem. Which throws us off because of my definition of selfishness my whole life. I never thought of myself as a selfish guy.

I mean, I really would help you if I if I had it if you wanted money or a ride or something like that. I I I kind of think I'm a nice guy. And it really goes, yeah, well, that's part of selfishness.

I can be nice, kind, or egotistical. And it doesn't have to be a good or bad quality, but I'm I'm consumed with me. My motive is for me and I had to redefine what it means to be selfish.

Selfish just means everything I do in life is geared towards me. Well, who the hell is it supposed to be geared towards you? Yeah.

Say that again. Wait a minute. You're telling me everything I do in life is supposed to be geared towards you?

Yeah. Well, how the hell does that work? Uh, well, apparently the the deal goes like this.

If there is a god, and nobody knows. It's all theoretical. Uh, he's got you covered and he doesn't want you ever worrying about you because that'll block you off from talking to him.

So, if you just concentrate on helping him or her, you'll be good to go. You'll be freed up. You'll have you'll have his attention and you'll be good to go.

Makes sense today. But, you know, where do they teach that stuff? Why don't we teach kids this stuff?

Where'd you come up with this? And like Chris said, it's been sitting in the book since 1937 when they started writing it till now. It's in every AA meeting probably on the shelf somewhere and you talk about it and somebody goes, "Wow, man, that was great.

Where'd you get that at?" It's it's funny is what it is, but it's sad. And so it goes on to expound on different types of selfishness driven by a hundred forms of fear, right? Self-d delusion, self-pity.

I step on your toes. You see the problem with self living on my thinking is everybody has it. And when I exert mine, you're going to exert yours because you're not stupid.

You know what I'm doing. I am out for me. Even though I might be nice, it's cuz I know I'm getting something or whatever.

You're helping me in some way, right? So, you're going to use yours. Constant collision.

Never going to be any peace in my life. So the theory is if you really want peace of mind, which we're talking about, the only way to get it is to voluntarily give up your will, your thinking on your own, let other people use theirs if they think they can, and watch what happens to you. But that is such a leap to do something like that.

I mean, intellectually, you can make the argument and I'll go, "All right, I kind of get you." But you mean people actually do this? And apparently they do. There are some people.

Look around you. You'll find people in life that you believe actually live this way on guidance that I can sit and ask God to inspire me. It's called prayer and meditation.

Prayer is talking to God unselfishly. Not asking for anything. Just offering myself here.

I am God. Chris Brennan reporting for duty. Uh please tell me what you want me to do today.

I don't want none. I'm good. Thanks for asking.

What can I do for you? Right. How can I help you?

Inspire me. Give me some thoughts. this what do you want me to do that kind of an attitude and then meditate and listen for the answers that you can get to the point they tell me where you can rely on that so much it just kind of runs your life you wouldn't think of doing anything else oh don't worry you'll act out there's plenty of room for that and we have steps for that but you'll uh you'll learn to live on this guidance and trust it so much that it just becomes like a six sense like second nature that you'll like a rubber band you'll go back to that and uh it also says in step this selfishness is going to kill me.

Looks like the drinking and the drugs are going to kill you. But if you're really powerless over it and there's nothing you can do about it, then that really can't be your problem, right? Because then basically tell me I'm going to die.

So what's the use? But the book's saying it's really underneath it all at the root of our troubles, what fuels it all, right, is this selfishness. It's me being the center of my life.

Everything centered around me. Self-centeredness versus God- centeredness. You can only be one or the other.

They tell me self-centered or God- centered. Which means everything I do is about me or everything I do is about God. Which one are you?

>> Right? Like the old pie chart thing, right? How much during the day do I think about me?

How much other people and how much God? And you have to make that bigger and bigger the other way in order to be successful in here. So it goes on to talk uh eloquently in step three about that how it's going to kill me, selfishness, self-centerness that you can't wish it away.

This I can wish this microphone away. You can't wish it away. There's nothing you can do about it.

You got to have God's help. It's telling you which to me where is exactly where God comes into aa right smack in the middle of step three. It says, "If you've been following me so far, you got this thing.

It's physical and it's mental and it's going to kill you and there's nothing you can do about it. What are your thoughts on God now?" It'll just kind of sway your attitude into that direction. I don't know anybody that comes in here and just magically becomes spiritual or something like that.

You kind of get gently swayed into it by eliminating the other options. And if you look up the decision, that's basically what you do in a decision. You cut out scissor.

You cut out all the other options. The only thing left is God. So it kind of brings you right into that.

It's kind of a cool thing the way that works. And we slide you right in there. Uh they tell you to take a new attitude towards God.

Watch what this does for you. He's the director, which what's the director do? Tells you what to do.

Right? So the real decision you're making in step three, not this crap on the wall. The real decision you're making in step three is from now on, God, I'm going to ask you to direct me and everything I do.

He's the principle. We're his agents. I work for you.

You don't work for me. I'm going to try to take that attitude. My whole life WHEN I TALKED TO GOD, it would I didn't mean it this way, but it was kind of like he worked for me.

Please do this. Please keep me sober. Please bless my aunt Mary.

Please help me get this job. Well, who's God there? you or the person you're talking to.

If you're coming up with the ideas, you might as well be God. The book says you're playing God. Stop doing it.

We make our minds God at a young age, many of us, and don't even realize it. I have been my God in my life, my whole life while believing in God. So, you can be religious apparently, go to church, AND STILL PLAY GOD AND STILL SUFFER from this whole thing.

And what a concept that we play God. When you make decisions based on what's good for you, you are playing God. The theory is what do you need a God for?

If you're coming up with the ideas, if you're calling the plays, right? Sports analogy. Take the headset off, right?

You haven't made the playoffs in a number of years. STOP CALLING THE PLAYS. YOU SUCK AT IT, RIGHT?

But I come into A NO, NO. I GIVE ME ONE MORE SHOT. LET ME You know what I mean?

And and we just fight that to the death. And all you got to do is gently take the headset off. He's He's the principal.

We're his agents. He's the father. were as children.

EMTT Fox, we love reading on that. He says, "The correct relationship between God and us human beings is that of a loving parent and a child." Where the hell did you come up with that at? I never heard that.

A parent and a child. Uh well, what's the prayer you say at the end of every aa meeting? Our father.

You see a connection there? Well, I don't really think of God as my father. I have a father.

And they Oh, well, how do you what's the relationship with your father? And I started thinking about it. And every time I got in trouble, every time I got locked up in life, every time I at the fan, guess who I called?

My father. I'd burn everybody else out. Guess who's getting the call?

Dad. Why don't you go to God like that? He got me there.

That makes too much sense, I guess, would be the answer. Never thought of that. Well, then stop saying the prayer.

Our father, which makes us all related, right? Why are we fighting with each other? We're all interconnected.

one family, God's kids, back into the servant thing. Uh, he's got me c you makes too much sense. And of course, the famous, it tells you if you will do that, and if you don't do it, nothing's promised to happen.

But if you will do that, amazing things will happen, new power will flow in, some great things, right? You'll be reborn, etc. That's pretty good stuff.

And then they go on to the famous third step prayer. Relieve me of the bondage of alcohol. Crack.

No. Relieve me the bondage of me. Apparently, if I can get away from me for 5 minutes in life, I'll be okay.

So, please get away from yourself. Just get over yourself, right? Scotty always says, uh, he quotes a guy who always says, and I love it, most people can't get over the fact of their own sobriety.

>> And Einstein basically said something similar, that most of us can't get over the fact of our own existence. I just can't get over that I'm here. You know what I mean?

AND AND ALL THIS MUST BE FOR ME, RIGHT? AND I GUESS IT'S WHAT I PLAY WITH AND ALL THAT. AND THE SPIRITUAL world's like, "No, you're here to and it just I don't know." And uh leave me to bond yourself so that I may better do thy will.

Take away my difficulties. Now you're asking God for a big favor. And I'll tell other people about you.

That's the real deal you're making in step three. God, if you will remove me from me and what that means, I promise you, I'll tell other people about you. I'll sign other guys up on the team.

I won't take the credit. However you want to look at it. Me taking the credit would be, "How you doing?" "Uh, hey, I haven't seen you in a while, Chris.

You look good. You're doing good. What are you doing?" "Oh, well, I got my together.

I don't drink anymore." Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That would be me taking the credit. Apparently, I'm supposed to work God into it somehow.

That doesn't mean I, you know, have uh four step sheets ready to go in my trunk or megaphone or I ain't like leading off with God, but if there's an if there's an opening, I always SOME OF THE GUYS I GREW UP WITH, WE'RE OUT hanging out at the bar. They're watching a game. Today's right football.

THEY KNOW I'M IN AA. It's just the way I am. And I'll tell them, "WHERE'D YOU LEARN THAT?" at AA spirituality.

It's a very spiritual program. Yeah, I know. IT TOOK ME BY SURPRISE, TOO.

I didn't know it. I thought it was about not drinking. But actually, it's very spiritual.

Matter of fact, it's all spiritual. It has nothing to do with not drinking. And I try to get their attention a little bit.

Every now and then, I get some calls. If not that, uh, if I if I tell people this, I'll get a call. could you help my uh sister's boss's son?

It's always some kind of connection down the line because they know I'm in AA and they know it's not A DEATH SENTENCE. THIS IS THE THING THEY CAN'T UNDERSTAND. I'M HAPPY TO BE IN AA.

THEY GO, "OH MY GOD." YOU KNOW, YOU'RE GO SOMEBODY'S HOUSE. OH, WE FEEL we look at you like like you got something. You know what I mean?

We we we give you a lot of we that kind of attitude. You know what I mean? They want to give you a liquid right away.

You want We got iced tea. We got soda. I'm like, and I try to explain to them, I drink liquids.

Relax. And it's not don't you don't have don't give me any credit. I don't deserve it.

I should be dead or in jail. But I'm the big winner. And I try to explain to them what I learned in Alcoholics Anonymous and what this whole deal is about.

And we come out of the conversation sometime where they're going, "Geez, you know, they're looking at it like, I WISH I HAD THAT." YOU KNOW WHAT I mean? But you can't buy it. You got to get beaten into it like people like us.

Our dark past is our greatest treasure. Get over yourself. Stop whining.

Get over the fact of your existence and learn this stuff and help people and watch what happens to you. Now, this is all great stuff, but at the end of it, and I'll end with this. It says there's a slight problem.

Slight problem. We just taught you some great stuff. It's really cool.

You're not going to be able to do it because there's blockages, defects, sins, whatever you want to call it, that all humans have or apparently we're born with them. We're wired that way and they're going to stop you from doing all this stuff I just talked about. They're going to stop you on a daily basis and the next few steps we're going to tell you how to deal with that.

Thank you. >> 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.