I Needed All of AA — Not Just the Fellowship: AA Speaker – Chris C. – Alexandria, MN – 2016
AA speaker Chris C. from Alexandria, MN explains why he needed all of AA’s program, not just meetings. Walks through Big Book directions and step work.
Chris C. from Alexandria, Minnesota shares his journey from 10 months on Skid Row to discovering he needed all of AA’s program, not just the fellowship. In this AA speaker meeting, he walks through the Big Book’s clear-cut directions, explaining why following the written instructions precisely made the difference between just going to meetings and actually recovering through the 12 steps.
This AA speaker emphasizes the importance of following the Big Book’s directions exactly as written, not just attending meetings. Chris C. breaks down the first step as a diagnosis, compares AA’s program to following a medical treatment, and explains why he needed the complete 12-step program. He discusses his thorough approach to inventory work, making all amends, and daily spiritual practices that maintain his sobriety.
Episode Summary
Chris C. opens with a simple but powerful analogy about following a chocolate cake recipe. When his friend gave him directions for the best cake he’d ever tasted, Chris decided to modify the recipe — less flour, more sugar, different cooking time and temperature. The result was nothing like the original cake. This story perfectly captures his main message: the importance of following AA’s directions exactly as written in the Big Book.
Coming into AA at 22 after 10 months on Skid Row in Los Angeles, Chris initially thought AA was just the meetings he attended in treatment. He had never heard of Alcoholics Anonymous before and couldn’t distinguish between counseling sessions, AA meetings, sponsors, or counselors. What he discovered changed everything — AA is actually the book, and the meetings got their name from the book, not the other way around.
Chris emphasizes that the Big Book contains “clear-cut directions” showing how to recover, not vague suggestions. He breaks down Step 1 as a self-diagnosis with two parts: physical powerlessness (the allergy described in The Doctor’s Opinion) and mental powerlessness (the obsession). Using vivid personal examples, including a dangerous blackout car accident and subsequent hit-and-run cover-up, he illustrates how his alcoholic mind simply doesn’t work when it comes to alcohol.
The physical allergy concept clicked when Chris realized he has an “abnormal reaction to a common substance.” While normal people might push away a glass of wine that doesn’t taste right, Chris would drink from beer cans with cigarette butts if no fresh beer was available. This isn’t moral failing — it’s a physical reaction he cannot control once alcohol enters his system.
His thorough approach to step work reflects his “all or nothing” personality. His first inventory contained 488 people, leading to 355 formal amends. Chris advocates for reading inventory to multiple people, including his wife, believing this reduces the emotional charge and makes subsequent amends easier. He addresses common objections about making certain amends, sharing how he went to police to confess to his old hit-and-run (though the desk sergeant ultimately sent him away due to the difficulty of finding old records).
One particularly moving amends story involves Patty from third grade, who had pulled his pants down at recess. What seemed like a minor childhood incident had actually contributed to ruining her childhood and sent her to therapy for years. When Chris made amends, she asked him to help her alcoholic husband who had been struggling to get sober — a perfect example of how amends can open unexpected doors for carrying the message.
Chris connects his experience to the broader theme of needing AA Big Book study speaker talks and workshops that emphasize following the written directions precisely. He worries about people in AA who say they don’t know how the program works after years of sobriety, when there’s “a whole chapter on it.” His sponsor took him through the book word by word, answering every question and having him complete every action step.
Daily spiritual maintenance is crucial to Chris’s program. He does a moving inventory every day, watching for selfishness, resentment, and fear. When these crop up, he asks God to remove them immediately. He compares this to pulling weeds from a tomato garden — not because weeds steal nutrients, but because they attract bugs that will eventually eat the tomatoes. Similarly, character defects attract other problems that can lead back to drinking.
His marriage and family life demonstrate the promises in action. Chris has two young children and describes his life as “amazing,” crediting his willingness to work all aspects of the program. He sponsors multiple men intensively, explaining that working with more people actually gives him more time for his life, not less.
The talk addresses a critical concern about watered-down AA. Chris distinguishes between “type one” alcoholics who might get by with less intensive work and “type four” alcoholics like himself who need the complete program. When he sponsors someone who drinks no matter what, he won’t tell them to “just don’t drink no matter what” — that approach failed him repeatedly. His experience aligns with Chris R.’s story about why just going to meetings almost killed him, emphasizing the necessity of thorough step work.
Chris’s passion for precision in working the steps comes through clearly. He insists that inventories should look like the example on page 65 of the Big Book, that amends should be made to everyone on the list (with proper consultation), and that the daily spiritual practices of Steps 10 and 11 are non-negotiable. He’d rather be “effective than liked” in AA, focusing on carrying the message to newcomers who need the complete program.
His understanding of spiritual awakening differs from the common interpretation. Rather than having a spiritual experience somewhere between Steps 1 and 12, Chris describes spiritual awakening as waking up to an experience he already had — God removing his ability to drink on his last drink. Today he cannot get drunk even if he wants to, which he sees as the ultimate powerlessness and complete recovery.
The talk concludes with the classic parable of the man in the hole, seeking help from parents, a priest, and a doctor — all of whom offer advice or medication but leave him trapped. Only the recovered alcoholic jumps in the hole, explaining he’s been there before and knows the way out through the Big Book’s directions. This captures Chris’s approach perfectly: meeting people where they are and showing them the precise path he followed, similar to the thoroughness described in Peter M.’s story of moving from the streets to a life worth living.
Chris’s message is ultimately about completeness — taking all of AA’s program seriously, not picking and choosing which parts to follow. His detailed attention to inventory work, comprehensive amends process, and daily spiritual maintenance created the foundation for a life he almost missed entirely due to drinking.
Notable Quotes
I truly believe what it talks about on page 88 that we alcoholics are disciples. We let God discipline us in the simple way that they’ve outlined.
I used to think that Alcoholics Anonymous was the meeting that I went to when I was new. To find out that AA is this book — the book is AA.
It says clear-cut directions are given showing how we recover. It doesn’t say in a vague roundabout way, we’re going to show you how to do this. No, it says clear-cut.
I have a brain that tells me that I’m not allergic to it. When it comes to alcohol, my brain doesn’t work, right?
I would rather be a truthful man carrying the message behind the walls than a liar sitting in these rooms with you people.
Steps 4 & 5 – Resentments & Inventory
Steps 8 & 9 – Making Amends
Sponsorship
Step 10 – Daily Inventory
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Full Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
All right, with no further ado, I'd like to give a big Minnesota warm welcome to D out of Dallas, Texas. Chris Hawk.
I don't look like a Texan, do I? I'm actually from Long Beach, California by way of Dallas. I'd like to thank Bonnie and all the members of the committee that arranged to have me come out. It's always an honor and privilege to be able to do stuff like this. I pray that I do the God that I have a conscious relationship with as a direct result of working the steps out of this book and the man who I call my sponsor, Ma Meyers. I hope I do them justice.
In the last week, I've been to five meetings. I believe in going through the steps every year and I finished writing an inventory a few months ago. I read it to eight people and I think I have six amends left from that current list. Service-wise, my home group is a Frisco group in Texas. I chair the Friday 7 a.m. morning meeting there and I'm also the group conscience chairperson. The reason why I'm saying all that isn't to tell you what a great wonderful AA member I am. I was taught that this is a spiritual program of action and it doesn't matter what I stand up here and talk about for the next hour. What counts is what I do when I'm not here. When I'm not in a meeting, all the things that go on.
I wish I could take the credit for all this stuff, but I can't. I truly believe what it talks about on page 88, that we alcoholics are disciplined. We let God discipline us in the simple way that they've outlined. I'm the guy who cannot not drink. My drinking history has proved that.
When Bonnie and I were talking about me coming out, I asked what the conference theme was and she said "good orderly direction." I thought, "Oh, that's awesome. I got a lot of stuff I can talk about on that."
I'll start off with a story. About twenty years ago, I went to a buddy of mine's house. Sober guy. Known him a long time. He was making a chocolate cake. Odd, but whatever. I know a lot of odd people. He asked me if I wanted a piece. He finished, pulled it out of the oven. I'm not a dessert guy. I don't have a sweet tooth. I'd rather have fried cheese with marinara sauce on it. But he didn't have any, so I said, "Sure, I'll have a piece of that cake."
He gave it to me, and I got to tell you, it was the best chocolate cake I've ever had in my life. I was like, "Wow, this is awesome. Will you please write down the recipe for me?" He pulls out a 3×5 card and writes down the directions. I'm like, "Awesome. I'm going to make this cake."
So, being the good alcoholic I am, I ran home to make the cake. I'm looking at the instructions and it says two cups of flour, two cups of sugar. I don't like flour, so I'm going to have one cup of flour and three cups of sugar. It says two eggs. I like egg yolks, so I'm going to use four egg whites. Right? Quantity is the same. Why not? It says a bag of chocolate chips. I like chocolate, so I put two and a half bags in.
I'm supposed to cook it in the oven thirty minutes at 350 degrees, but I'm in a hurry, so I decide to broil it for ten minutes. Do you think that the cake that I pulled out of the oven was the same as the cake that he made? Absolutely not. It's the importance of following directions.
When I apply that to my life in AA, where do I find the directions? I'm really glad that I had the men that I had in my life to guide me through this journey who stuck to the directions of AA.
I used to think that Alcoholics Anonymous was the meeting that I went to when I was new. I came into AA through the doors of a treatment center and I had never heard of AA. I was twenty-two years old. I was coming off a ten-month stint on Skid Row in Los Angeles. I just wanted to not be in trouble and I didn't know the difference between a counseling session, an AA meeting, a sponsor, or a counselor. I had no idea. I thought AA was the meeting I was sitting in.
Then I found out that AA is this book, right? The book is AA. The meetings actually got their name after the book. It talks about that in the form of the second edition in the preface. It says the first portion of this volume describing the AA recovery program has been left untouched. So if I want to know what AA's program of recovery is, it's in the first portion of the book. If I hear things that aren't of that, that's great. I like opinions. But what I talk about when I'm in an AA meeting is what AA has to offer.
In a forward to the first edition, it says "To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book." Nobody showed that to me when I first got sober.
But I think the defining page is what it talks about on page 29. It says "Further on, clear-cut directions are given showing how we recover." Wow. It doesn't say in a vague, roundabout way we're going to show you how to do this. No, it says clear-cut. And I'm really glad that I had a sponsor who took me through the book word by word. We answered every question. When it asked me to do something, I did it.
I was thinking about how to relay this not just to new people but to returning people. I like on page 18 where it has this analogy of cancer. It says "If a person has cancer, all are sorry for them. No one is angry or hurt. But not so with the alcoholic illness."
That was my experience. When people had cancer, people were bringing them casseroles and people were crying. They were so upset and there were always people there. I got alcoholism and nobody was bringing me a casserole. Everybody just wanted me to shut up and leave. It's so weird because my life is so different now. When I was drinking, people who knew me told me to shut up and leave. And today I get people who I don't even know call me and ask me to come and talk.
My dad passed away from cancer like twenty years ago. If you have cancer, you've got to go to a doctor and have a diagnosis done, right? And if they say you've got lymphatic cancer, they tell you the solution. The solution is you're going to have to have radiation, chemotherapy. We're going to have to do surgery to remove whatever tumors the chemotherapy doesn't get. And then depending on what happens, you may or may not have to go through chemotherapy again. This process may kill you, but if you don't, you're going to be dead in six months. But if we're successful, the solution we have to offer is you will be able to live a totally normal life.
Then comes the decision. I've got to decide whether I'm going to go through with the treatment or I'm going to live without the treatment. And if I agree to do it, then there's a course of action. That's the exact same thing that happens in the twelve steps.
I look at step one. It's a diagnosis. When you break down the first step in the Big Book, it's a self-diagnosis where I have to admit that I'm powerless over alcohol, that my life's unmanageable. The first half of that step, admitting that I'm powerless, has two halves. It's broken up from "The Doctor's Opinion," page 23, which is all about how I'm powerless physically when it comes to alcohol. It talks about an allergy.
When I first heard this term, I thought, "I'm not allergic to alcohol. I'm allergic to scallops." True story. I eat scallops and my throat swells up. If I eat them at the wrong time of year, I could possibly die unless I've got an EpiPen in my pocket. Most people don't carry that around for me.
So they're talking about this allergy and I'm like, "I can't relate to that." But when I look at what it talks about in the Doctor's Opinion, it says, "We believe a suggestion made a few years ago, the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is the manifestation of an allergy, and the phenomenon of craving is limitless in this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker."
Dr. Silkworth, not an alcoholic, a guy who treated forty-one thousand alcoholics in his lifetime. A lot of people consider him an expert. He knew that there was something more going on with an alcoholic than willpower or a moral issue, and he equated it to an allergy. What he saw is when these people drank, something happened physically where their body had to have more alcohol.
I started to relate to that. When I drink, I get real thirsty. I have to drink more. It's not that I'm drinking because it's a lovely, wonderful thing to do. I'm drinking because I've got to drink. The word allergy is defined as an abnormal reaction to a common substance.
When I look at how I react to alcohol, it's very different from normal people. I was out to dinner recently with some people from work. I watch them drink and I'm like, "What are you doing?" A grown man, a big guy, ordered a glass of wine. He gets this glass of wine and takes a sip of it and makes a face and pushes it away. I'm like, "What's wrong?" He says, "It doesn't taste right." I'm like, "What? You're not going to drink it?" He said, "No, I'm not going to drink it." I'm like, "I don't relate to that."
Normal people, if it doesn't taste right, they don't drink it. I remember I used to wake up—well, I used to come to—after a party and I would literally take beer cans and beer bottles with cigarette butts in them and scream through a t-shirt into a cup because there were no fresh beers. I'll drink whatever it is. I don't care. I will drink it.
That's not normal. I have an abnormal reaction to a common substance. I started to understand that I don't drink like normal people. It explains so many things that I could never explain before—why I don't show up for Christmas, why I let my parents down, why I can't keep my promises. I thought I was a bad guy.
So it started to make sense. This allergy idea. It says, "As lame as in our opinion as it sounds, it may of course mean little, but as ex-problem drinkers we can say that explanation makes good sense. It explains many things that we couldn't otherwise account for."
I can explain to people today why I did what I did when I was drinking because I'm allergic. When I start to drink, I can't stop. So many people go, "What's wrong with you?" And I'm like, "I don't know. I don't care. I don't care about Christmas." It was hard because I did care, but I couldn't show up. People would say, "What's wrong with you?" And I'm like, "I don't know what's wrong with me. What's wrong with you?"
Here's the weird thing about the allergy piece. You know what I don't eat? I don't eat scallops. You know why? Because I'm allergic to it. You know what I do? I drink. I'm allergic to it. I drink it. It just never mattered.
That's where the second half of being powerless comes in, from page 23 to page 43. It switches gears on page 23. It says that the observations about being powerless physically are academic and pointless if a friend never takes the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle into motion. It's academic because it's good to know. I can explain why I do what I do. But it's pointless because if I never take a drink again, I'm never going to experience a craving.
It goes on to say that therefore the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than his body. I have a brain that tells me that I'm not allergic to it.
I think I was about nineteen years old. I went to my friend Gary's house and we were going to pre-drink before we go to a party. I like to drink before I go drink. That's the truth. I was drinking before I went to Gary's house. I get to Gary's house and somewhere along the line, I'm a blackout drinker. I didn't know it was a blackout. People would say, "What?" I'm like, "I don't know what happened. What happened?" People used to tell me and I thought, "Wow, that sounds like fun. I wish I was there."
I like to drive when I'm in a blackout. I don't know why. Don't ask me because I'm in a blackout. I can't tell you, but I drive.
One night, I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but I came out of a blackout and I'm driving. The unfortunate thing is that I came out of a blackout and I'm making a left-hand turn. The very unfortunate thing is I look at my speedometer and I'm going fifty-five mph. That's a sobering experience. I lose control. I'm driving my little Mazda RX7, a little white one, and I fishtail. I missed the car here. But as I swing around, there's this black Supra turbo and I'm going to hit it. I smash it. Nailed the whole left side of his car and the left side of mine. Just boom.
Somehow I got my car home. I don't know if you've ever woken up after what you thought was a horrible nightmare and go, "Thank God it was a nightmare." I grabbed my surfboard and went downstairs and my totaled car was in my driveway. I'm like, "Ah, it wasn't a nightmare. It really happened. What am I going to do?"
I'm freaking out—hit and run. I've been told I have a criminal mind. I'm in my garage and I'm looking around and I see a big red plumber's wrench. I grab the wrench, I grab a Scotchbrite pad, and I clean all the black paint off the side of my car. I take the red wrench and I scrape red paint all over it. I drive to a neighboring city and I said, "Hey, I was at a party last night and when I came out, my car was hit."
The detective comes out and he goes, "Ah, looks like a red car hit you." I said, "Really? What? Man, you shouldn't be a detective. You should be a… Wait, I mean, you shouldn't be a detective? You should be a detective. I don't know how you knew that."
They wrote the report. So in my home city, they're looking for a white car that hit a black Supra turbo. In the neighboring city, they're looking for a red car that hit a white Mazda. Scot-free.
So after I left the police department, I went to my friend Gary's house. And you know what I did when I got there? I drank. Why? I'm an alcoholic. I've got an alcoholic brain.
I like what it talks about on page 37. It says, "Whatever the precise definition the word may be, we call this plain insanity. How can such a lack of proportion of the ability to think straight be called anything else?" When it comes to alcohol, my brain doesn't work.
I used to work on cars a lot growing up. I worked at this shop and one guy brought in a 1971 Camaro. A real cool guy. He had like twenty muscle cars and he was letting some of the installers do burnouts. They brought it in the shop and I got to run some wires from the engine compartment to the back. Being the impatient alcoholic that I am, I thought, "I'll just be careful and I'll run these wires." I got my arm up near the header. It's hot and my arm touched it. I lost some skin.
The next ten years of my mechanic career, I was never burned by an exhaust manifold on a car again. I would not touch a car unless it was cold. If it was slightly warm, I had other installers put fender covers along the whole exhaust manifold because I don't want to burn a little bit of skin.
Why is it that I will go to such great extremes to not be burned by an exhaust manifold, but when it comes to alcohol, I'm burned over and over and over again and my brain doesn't connect this stuff? It's because I have a lack of proportion and ability to think straight. When it comes to booze, my brain does not work. It doesn't think straight.
It explains why I've had so many times where I wake up and point A is, "Today I'm not going to drink. I'm not going to ruin my life. God, I'm not going to do this." As the hangover wears off and 12:00 rolls around, I eat a little lunch and finally get some food in me. Somewhere along the line, I end up at 5:00 leaving work and now I'm thirsty, parched, standing in line at a 7-Eleven with a twelve-pack of Coors Light. I'm not quite sure how I got here, but since I'm in line, it'd be a waste to put it back in the cooler.
My brain just doesn't attach these things and I have no power over that.
Page 43 says, "Once more, the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink, and that neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. That defense must come from a higher power."
That was real different from what I was hearing in treatment. Treatment was just a really bizarre experience. My counselor's name was Willie. He always wore tie-dye shirts and he had rubber bands in his beard, which I thought was really weird. He looked like he walked out of a Grateful Dead show.
One day he made all of the inpatients stand up. There's like forty of us and I'm standing in the back. He said, "If you think of drinking, just think it through." He made all the adults do this "think it through" thing, and I'm in the back going, "I'm not doing that. Are you kidding me? This is what you have—$36,000 for thirty days—and you're telling me to think it through? Don't you think if I could think it through, I would have thought it through before I wound up in this place?"
It talks about on page 24 that I don't have the ability to bring to mind, with sufficient force of memory, a week or month ago. I don't have a defense, right? There are no triggers. "Write down all your triggers." And I didn't understand when he said, "Write down. What are you talking about, triggers? Things that make you drink?" I'm like, "It's Tuesday. I'm breathing. My heart's beating. What are you talking about—make me drink?"
They used to talk about this whole thing—hungry, angry, lonely, tired. But you know what? I also drink when I'm full, happy, with people, and just woke up. The only time it talks about triggers in the Big Book is in "To the Employer," page 137. It says, "Did a guy put his toe on the trigger of a loaded shotgun?" That's the only time it talks about a trigger.
I can relate to that. I don't have triggers. I will drink you. I'm more likely to drink after winning the Powerball than I am after getting fired. You give me $120 million cash? You'd better put some bodyguards on me.
When I start to understand that I'm powerless when it comes to that, right? There's that dash in the first step. I always thought the first step said, "I admit that I'm powerless over alcohol and that's why my life's unmanageable." That my life's unmanageable because of pending court dates, my family won't talk to me, all of these things. But that's not what it's talking about.
It's talking about the unmanageability of my life, not the unmanageability of my drinking. A dash means end of thought, start a new thought. I like how it defines it on page 44 and 45. It says, "If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcohol, most of us would have recovered long ago." That I could wish to be moral. I could wish to be philosophical. I could will these things with all my might, but the needed power isn't there.
I cannot. I used to sit in meetings and people say, "Just do the next right thing." I'm like, "What are you talking about? If I could do the next right thing, I wouldn't be in this room. I would be out there just doing the next right thing and keeping the plug in the jug and stay in the middle of some weird boat balancing on a beam. I don't know what you people mean."
It was so confusing. Then I started to find out that I've got to do what's in the book. I really believe that if you can just not drink no matter what, put the plug in the jug, and do the next right thing, you're in the wrong room. This room is for the people who tried to do the next right thing and tried to just not drink no matter what, and failed at it.
I think the dangerous message is when you tell a new person, "Just do the next right thing and just don't drink no matter what." When he fails at that, he's going to think that's what AA has to offer and never come back. But that's not what AA says. AA says you don't have any power. You can't do this. You need God's help.
It says on page 45, "The lack of power is our dilemma. And I got to find a power by which I can live." It says, "Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable me to find a power myself that's going to solve my problem." I don't have to solve it. If I'm powerless, that means I can't control it. I've got to rely on something that can and will.
I came to believe in this power. It's weird because I used to think that the second step was about fixing my broken relationship with God and I would be able to believe again. I was going to be a Jesuit priest. I had made up my mind as a small child. I love God so much. I can't even express to you how much I love God and how much I wanted to devote my life to that.
But then when you live an alcoholic life and you can't do the next right thing, and people are saying, "What's wrong with you?" I didn't have an answer. By the time I was thirteen, that whole dream got ripped away from me because of the way I was living. What do you do when your dreams are gone? You survive, right? That's all I was doing.
Thank God for the chapter "We Agnostics." It's not "We Used to Be Agnostics" or "We Were Agnostics Until We Did This Program." It says "We Agnostics." We're all agnostics right now sitting here in this room. That's what the chapter "We Agnostics" is trying to draw out in me currently, standing here sober in front of you. It's having me look at where am I deficient in God.
It was difficult because it was hard to set aside these lifelong conceptions around God and begin looking at what you people had, because you people had something going on in your lives that I didn't. Not just sobriety. People were happy and living productive lives.
I started, when I first got sober, going to a lot of meetings at South Central Los Angeles because I was desperate. I was desperate for the message of AA. You guys are familiar with South Central. Asian guys don't hang out in South Central unless you own the liquor store. You don't even go to that neighborhood. But these guys were there to help me and they were the most loving guys I'd ever known.
I came to believe in AA the same way I came to believe in alcohol, right? Growing up, I saw my dad and my brothers drinking, and my friends. They seemed to be having fun. It was this social lubricant that I desperately needed. At the age of fifteen, I went to a drive-in movie theater and I drank three Mickey Mouse liquors in about a half hour.
I got to tell you, I met God. I had a spiritual experience that night in the back of Tom's Volkswagen bus. I can't tell you what it's like to not be able to breathe, drink, and go, "This is what it's like. This is awesome."
It's the exact same thing in AA. I saw these guys that were living these lives and it was so attractive to me. I'm like, "Well, how is this possible?" They said because they were able to find and maintain a relationship with God through working these twelve steps.
Page 52 says, "When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance on the spirit of the universe, we had to stop doubting the power of God. Our ideas didn't work, but the God idea did." I have to start with this simple reliance.
I like the "spirit of the universe" idea. I encounter a lot of people who say, "Well, how can you rely on something you can't explain or don't understand?" And I'm like, "Hey, you're surrounded by it."
I was outside talking about this with one guy, and I pointed up at that big orange-yellow thing in the sky called the sun. I said, "Can you explain that thing?" I've got no idea. Do you know how much you rely on that thing? It's not a light bulb. It's a gigantic nuclear explosion. The size of the sun is a million times bigger than the Earth. It's literally like ninety-three million miles away. If the sun were to explode right now, we wouldn't know it for eight minutes and seventeen seconds. That's how fast light travels—one hundred eighty-six thousand miles per second. We wouldn't know it.
The sun is so important to us. Whether you know it or not, if you don't get sunlight, you become vitamin D deficient. You'll get depressed. You get really sad.
But there's a whole lot more going on around the sun. Did you realize that right now we're going roughly sixty-six thousand mph because the Earth is moving around the sun? Right now we're going sixty-six thousand mph but I feel like I'm sitting still, don't you?
If the sun were gone, we'd be in a lot of trouble, right? It's because of gravity. Gravity is another thing that we all rely on. How many people can explain gravity? I can't. What I like to do is read things that really smart people have written down. It's a big time saver.
Albert Einstein said that gravity is the consequence of the curvature of time and space. Whatever that means. I don't know what that means, but he's smart, right?
But here's the thing about gravity. If we were to jump off of Reunion Arena in Dallas, Texas, or the tallest building in the world in Dubai, it doesn't matter where on Earth you do this, gravity will pull you at a rate of thirty-two feet per second until you reach a terminal velocity of two hundred miles per hour until you hit the ground. You'll probably not live.
Gravity doesn't care how much you know about it. Gravity doesn't care if you can explain it. Gravity doesn't care how you particularly feel about gravity, but we all have a simple reliance upon it. I rely on gravity all the time. I don't think about it. I don't think about gravity any other time than when I'm behind a podium talking about gravity.
It's the same way with God. God is a natural force. It talks about "God is everything or he is nothing. What's my choice to be?" I don't have to be able to explain God. I just have to have a simple reliance. I rely on it. I rely on gravity to be here when I wake up tomorrow morning. I hope to God gravity's still here.
I started to see that I'm not a concept guy. When I hear people go to some of these meetings and want to talk about their concept of God, I'm like, "Who cares?" It says I don't need to consider your concept. My own, however inadequate, is sufficient to make the approach to effect a contact with God. Because what I'm after is a contact with God, not an idea.
I used to think that AA was about blowing up my idea of God so big that it pushes out the idea of a drink. That's not what it's saying. It's saying you start with your concept and through the course of action, you remove the blocks that allow you to have a conscious relationship with him.
In my consciousness, in everything I do, I can tell you about my relationship with God last night, today, in this moment, because I have a conscious relationship with him, not an idea of God. It's something that I carry with me and it moves with me everywhere I go.
I started to see there was so much more going on with this. I just have to have a simple reliance. The concept really doesn't matter in the interest because, like extraterrestrials, right? If we all took out a piece of paper and a pencil and we wrote down our idea of what ET looks like and drew a picture of him, probably not many of our pictures would look alike. He's eight feet tall. They're really small. They've got big eyes. They've got no eyes. They've got ears. They don't have ears. They smell like rose bushes. I don't know.
But we all have all these different ideas. But if a spaceship landed and extraterrestrials walked in, we now have a conscious relationship with them. What you wrote down really doesn't matter anymore.
That's what this process is trying to get me. I've got to start with an idea and it's sufficient to make the approach. I take that belief that I have and I take that into making the decision. I've got to make this decision to turn my will and my life over to God.
It's not my drinking, right? Because what I started to see is that I don't have this power. I'm powerless. I wish it was as simple as turning my drinking over to God, but it's not. I started to see that the lack of power is my dilemma.
I make lots of decisions throughout the day. I've been making a decision for roughly two years to clean up the workbench in my garage. I got to tell you, almost every Friday night as I'm going to bed, I'm thinking tomorrow's the day I'm going to clean that thing up. To be quite honest with you, when I was leaving to come here, I put some stuff out of the car on top of the teetering stuff on the workbench. I'm like, "Oh well."
The thing with these decisions is if I make a decision to do that, but I don't follow it up with some kind of action, it's never going to happen.
Page 62 says, "So I like that after they read the ABCs, it says 'Being convinced, we're at step three. Just what do we mean by that and just what do we do?'" It asks that question a couple pages later and tells me exactly how and why.
It says on page 62, and I'm not kidding, I heard the other day in a meeting a guy with like eighteen years say, "I don't know how it works." I'm like, "There's a whole chapter on it. What do you mean you don't know how it works? What's your weird endgame here? Who are you trying to fool? That's not going to help the newcomer. You're sober eighteen years and you don't know how it works. Buddy, maybe you should get a sponsor."
But it says on the bottom of page 62, "This is the how and why of it." It even says "Here's the how." First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God's going to be the director. He is the principal. We are his agents. He's a father and we are his children.
That's the decision that I'm making. If hereafter from this point forward when I make this decision, I'm going to seek direction from the director, who is God. He is the principal. He's the boss. I'm the agent. I'm supposed to work on behalf of him. That's what an agent does. He's the father and I'm the child. That means I've got to trust him. I've got to trust God. I've got to trust that he has my best interest.
It's hard because new people come in and they think, "I'm going to turn my will and life over to God, and as long as my life is heading towards that pile of money, that girl, that car, that job, it's God's will. As soon as it starts to go this way, oh, they grab hold of it. They muscle it back. 'Oh, see, God's will.' No, that's not what's happening."
I started to look at my idea of what faith is because I always thought faith was this unknowing belief that things are going to go my way. No. Webster says that faith is loyalty. It means I'm going to go through with the process regardless of the outcome.
Thank God that's what it is, because if I would have gotten what I was wanting, I would have sold my life way short.
I make this decision and I have to follow that up with a course of action. Bottom of page 63 says, "After the decision, next we launch on this course of vigorous action. The first of which is a personal house clean." I start on step four.
I love inventory. I write inventory every year. My last inventory I wrote, well, my first inventory I wrote, I had 488 people on it. Seemed like a lot. My buddy had 1,800, right? It says on page 65, "Nothing counts but thoroughness and honesty." It says we go back through our lives. I'm not afraid to inventory. The more God shows me, the freer I get.
It says if I make this decision that hereafter in this drama of life God's meeting is director, I ask him for direction. I've got to remember that inventory isn't Chris writing about Chris so Chris gets well. It's Chris asking God to show me what I need to see to get free.
When I ask God to bring to mind everybody that I've ever been resentful with, oh my God, the floodgates open. Patty, third grade, pulled my pants down. Mrs. Robinson, first grade teacher, she got mad at me. All of these vomitous things came out and I hadn't thought of these names in years.
I write down second