I Didn’t Come to Get Sober — I Came to Be Changed – AA Speaker – Don P. – Camden, ME
AA speaker Don P. from Camden, ME shares 35 years of spiritual awakening in recovery, exploring how complete surrender and relationship with God transforms the alcoholic mind and life.
Don P. from Camden, Maine has been spiritually awake for 35 years in recovery, and in this AA speaker tape, he walks through what it means to move from sobriety into genuine spiritual transformation. Don doesn’t talk about the obsession to drink or white-knuckling through early recovery—he talks about the shift that happens when you stop trying to get sober and start allowing yourself to be changed. His message centers on the foundation of the Big Book: that God revealed himself to Bill W. in a hospital bed, and that same spiritual power is available to everyone who gets willing.
Don P., an AA speaker with 35 years sober, explores spiritual awakening and the distinction between getting sober and being spiritually changed through complete surrender to God’s will. He walks through Bill W.’s story in depth—the hospital experience, the Third Step prayer, and how Bill came to understand that a relationship with God (not just belief in God) is what saves the alcoholic. Don emphasizes that the work of AA is not the steps themselves but the spiritual life lived in service to others, and he shares practical stories about sponsorship, presence, timing, and how to recognize when God’s spirit is moving through you.
Episode Summary
Don P. spent 35 years watching the extraordinary unfold in human lives once they awaken spiritually in recovery. He opens by acknowledging the frustration of having only six to eight hours to share a lifetime of stories—but he’s committed to making them count. This AA speaker tape is essentially a deep dive into the foundation of AA: what spiritual awakening actually is, how it happens, and what it produces in a person’s life.
The core of his message separates sobriety from recovery. Sobriety is not drinking. Recovery is the spiritual transformation that makes a life worth living. Don came to prison in a state of complete defeat—nothing he had tried worked, and he carried only the hopelessness of a man who knew his own thinking had failed him. He met three men in that penitentiary who had been changed. Not just sober. Changed. When he asked them what happened, they said: “God changed me.” Don didn’t care who got the credit. Something real had shifted in them, and he wanted that.
The framework for understanding this shift is Bill W.’s story—not the drunk part, but the spiritual part. Don walks through the hospital scene with precision. Bill arrives barely alive, drinking one to three quarts of gin a day, and his old friend Ebie Thatcher shows up “fresh skinned and glowing.” Even drunk, Bill sees something different. Ebie says simply: “I’ve got religion.” Bill’s first thought is that Ebie’s become a religious crackpot. But Ebie doesn’t preach. He just tells facts. Two men had come to court and convinced a judge to release him to their care. That kind of presence and spiritual power isn’t normal. It changes people.
Don traces Bill’s awakening through the Third Step prayer. Bill humbly offered himself to God as he understood him, placed himself unreservedly under God’s care. He admitted complete defeat—”I am nothing. Without him I am lost.” The spiritual experience that follows isn’t a flash of light for everyone. For Bill, lying in a hospital bed, it was electric and overwhelming. For Don, it came gently over time. But it came the same way it comes to anyone willing: through surrender and the opening of a relationship with something greater than yourself.
A major theme Don develops is the distinction between belief in God and relationship with God. You can believe God exists without ever having a conversation with him. But relationship means exchange, participation, cooperation with something real going on. That’s where the transformation happens. Don emphasizes that once you begin that relationship, the Big Book promises something specific: “You will enter upon a new relationship with your Creator. The elements of a way of living which answered all my problems will be revealed to you.”
Don’s sponsorship philosophy flows directly from this understanding. As a sponsor, he doesn’t fix people. He can’t help with crisis counseling or relationship problems. What he does is help awaken the spirit—because the spirit takes care of its own healing. He doesn’t talk to the sickness. He talks to the person: “I know who you are. You’re one of God’s kids.” This shift changes everything about how he works with people.
Throughout the talk, Don circles back to the practical spiritual life. He shares the story of being in first class on a flight, spiritually fit and at peace, when wine was poured for his seatmate. His mind began its familiar track—”That looks good,” “That will taste good,” “That will make dinner taste better.” But in that moment, a prayer began in him unbidden. The spirit moved. He didn’t have to think his way out of it. The relationship did the work.
He talks about the importance of timing and presence—how when you’re fully present and on time, you begin to notice the rhythm of life. A parking spot opens, a moment of clarity arrives, a person you need to reach calls at exactly the right hour. This isn’t magic or coincidence. It’s alignment with spiritual reality. But it requires that you show up, stay present, and stay out of your own way.
Don also addresses the common fear: that if you really surrender to God, he’ll put you on a street corner handing out religious literature, looking like a fool. His sponsor cut through this with surgical truth. Don feared the humiliation. His sponsor showed him that even that fear was rooted in self-centeredness. What matters is not how you look, but that you’re willing. And then God will direct you toward something that fits who you actually are—not your idea of what spiritual service looks like, but what he has in mind.
The work of AA, Don emphasizes, is not the steps. The steps are preparation. The work is self-sacrifice for others. If you don’t engage in that work, the Big Book warns, you cannot survive the trials ahead. Don has seen this. He’s sponsored people who think working the steps is the end goal, but the steps are just the beginning. Once you’ve done them, you go to the street. You work with another drunk. You show them precisely how you recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. That’s the assignment. And it’s so serious a task that Don knows he can’t do it on his own power. He has to stay spiritually fit so that God’s voice can come through him—so he can be responsive instead of reactive, truthful even when it hurts.
Don closes this section of the talk by returning to Bill’s revelation in the hospital: “Perhaps I could help some of them and they in turn might work with others.” That’s the new idea. Not just personal salvation, but a chain of spiritual awakening that reaches into the future—to people not yet born, to generations of drunks who will find what Bill found because the message stayed clear. And that clarity is Don’s responsibility, and now it’s yours too.
Notable Quotes
I didn’t come to get sober. I came to be changed.
God knows, Don, that in your present state, you probably can’t stand one more big shock anyway. So he will probably come to you gently, as he did with me over a period of time.
Anything at all that God may have in mind for me is better than anything at all that I will ever have in mind for me. Period.
I can’t fix you. There’s too many parts missing. And most of the ones that are still there are warped.
If you want what we have, here’s how we got it. And if you don’t, that’s fine. We really don’t mind. But there’s no secrets.
The steps are not the work of Alcoholics Anonymous. The steps are preparation for the work. The work is work and self-sacrifice for others.
Your lack of good planning does not constitute a crisis for me.
I must have that going. I must keep that relationship such that when I don’t know any better, I’m safe and protected.
Spiritual Awakening
Big Book Study
Sponsorship
Step 12 – Carrying the Message
Topics Covered in This Transcript
- Step 3 – Surrender
- Spiritual Awakening
- Big Book Study
- Sponsorship
- Step 12 – Carrying the Message
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Full AA Speaker Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated and may contain minor errors. For the best experience, listen to the audio above.
Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength, and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-onrise.com.
Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker and get some idea of what you would like to have come out of this weekend. So, I live with a constant frustration.
Since I awoke spiritually 35 years ago, I've been living with a sense that where I am, God is every day. And that means that I have 35 years worth of stories to tell you of the extraordinary that occurs in the human condition when you're spiritually awake. And we've got six, eight hours of actual time on the ground here.
So I'd like to make it effective. And my plan as always, we just start walking through here and I'll share my experience with this with you. But please feel free to chip in.
I made a list of the people I knew one day to find out what is my relationship with them. In most cases, it was drinking. That was the relationship.
Those just had to go because we don't really have anything in common because I don't drink anymore. There were some others where there were other things but I had to limit that. For new people, we will tell you the shift is very simple.
You just go to a lot of meetings. Hang around with us for a while. It doesn't mean you're going to reject them, but hang around with us for a while until the strength that you need is there.
Then you can make a choice. If you have something else going with them, if they're really friends, they will understand that. Most of my old buddies, the one few I've run into on the street, have all said essentially the same thing.
We're really glad you quit drinking. And and I love some of them to this day, but we have nothing in common. One of my dearest friends is a pot smoker to this day.
We can stay friends. I can't go to his house. I've asked him, you know, when I come in here, you're forcing me to smoke, too.
And that puts my life at risk. So, I can't come here. We'll have to go somewhere else.
I won't stop him. That's his business. If we're going to meet, we have to meet somewhere else.
I haven't seen him for years. That was unacceptable. But my life's on the line.
I'm not going to risk it. If you'll stick around long enough, we can help help you walk through that >> because it is tough. >> Yeah.
It seems like >> Well, of course. >> That's your whole Well, that's what you picked. Got to make some new.
Guess who's in this room? Same bunch. Oh yeah.
Same guys. If you get the right sponsor, you'll be so busy you won't have a chance to even think about it. >> I don't know if that helps, but that's that's the only answer I know.
You just change all that. Yes, sir. >> Um, >> me too.
>> Yeah, I was think I've been thinking a lot about what you said yesterday about not needing to relapse and I agree, but you know Oh, thanks. My history's been I came to AA about 10 years ago and had some different t and I also liked how you made the distinction between I I don't I can't quote you exactly but you know being in recovery and just being sober and I've only just been sober until I got sober this time and I feel like I'm finally getting some recovery but I also feel like um I needed to get to the place where I was seven months ago >> in order to finally have willingness this >> and I'm scared because this is the longest I've been sober and I've been without alcohol longer than this before, but this is you know a lot of stuff's going on in my life that um you know I don't want to I don't want to drink again. Um and you know I see relapse around me and it frustrates me because I've done it before myself many times.
Um, and I'm working on a fourep and I feel some freedom from that, but it's also hard a lot of the stuff that I have to look at. And it's frustrating, too, because I see myself doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. Um, and I guess that's it that I It's just that lately I've been feeling a lot of fear around where I'm at.
And it's not like I've been craving a drink cuz I haven't. I feel like that compulsion for now at least has been lifted from me. >> Um, and I feel like if I keep doing what I'm doing that that'll continue to be that way.
But, um, maybe it's that I've set myself up to fail or I don't know what it is. I'm not going to try to understand it. But I just thought I would throw that out there.
>> Our founders made clear two really important things. One is that we have Alcoholics Anonymous are over 100 men and women who have recovered. Then later on they tell us who won't recover.
People who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. And you're right in the middle of it. So you're safe and protected.
It's only when we stop and don't give ourselves completely. This is a complete process. You don't stop at the third step.
You don't stop at the sixth step. As long as you're involved in it, you're accessing spiritual power and you're going to be okay. But it is scary.
The only history I have is that I'm going to screw this up. On my own, I will. Well, you're not on your own anymore.
Completely give yourselves to this simple process. Rarely does anybody fail at that. And thank you for bringing it up.
Talking about it means you're free for now. You get scared this afternoon. >> But but we're here, you know.
Yeah. The day does come when I know I'm not going to sabotage this. It's all part of slowly awakening.
But just stick close because we'll laugh at you. And once you start laughing at yourself, you'll be okay. Well, yeah.
If you can laugh at yourself, you're okay. Yeah. I was about 5 years sober.
This wasn't a thought of a drink, but I was terribly disappointed because I didn't get to go do something I wanted to do. And the depression hit. This was one of those killer depressions that come along.
Fear, terror. This whole AA thing's been a lie because I'm still have that little piece of I've been a good boy. God, how come I don't get to go to the movies?
Steps wouldn't work. Talking to people didn't work. It just made it feel worse.
And intuitively, I went home and literally pulled the covers over my head and went to sleep and I was fine in the morning. Sometimes that's all it takes. Total surrender.
Oh, and this was important. My whole life was ruined because I didn't get to go to Denver and go to the movies. It's like my 5-year-old granddaughter.
What was it? Th Wednesday or Thursday? She's playing with the boys in the backyard, her little brother and some neighborhood kids, and they're playing ball.
And she wanted the green ball. And the kids wouldn't give her the green ball. And she came up on the porch and sat by me and she said, "They've ruined my life.
It just ruined my wife. They won't give me the green ball. >> Well, let's take a break then.
Everybody can talk with each other. We'll see you after lunch about one. >> The whoopy pies will be wide awake for a while.
And those who wait a minute are going to go. One of the things I liked about the Alcoholics Anonymous presentation, if you will. I've been on a spiritual search since I was little.
I have always known my answer would be spiritual, but I was a spiritual thief because I'm lazy. So, I've had a lot of exposure to a lot of different things and almost without exception to get to the truth. You have to go through several degrees.
We'll teach you this much. But there are secrets and mysteries. And then once you get prepared for this one, we'll move you on to the next one.
and you and it's just not true. I rebel at that. I I'll comply, but I'll rever.
It's like school. I'm a reasonably intelligent person, but I didn't want to do all that work and I thought it was silly and I didn't want to be noticed. And you know, I I was an awfully good C student.
Now and then you have to throw a B in there. And if she's cute enough and you're in that class, you'll get an A. But I'm a C student because I don't have to work at that.
I can do that without doing any work at all. And that's the way I would approach. Uh I want an instant answer.
You know, now the other side of that is that in God's world and the and the relationship we're going to to develop here is on easy and understandable terms. All I have to do is be willing. And I look at this and sure enough, there's not a secret in here.
The entire deal is laid out before you even enter into the activities of recovery. It lays out what they're going to be and tells you what an order. I can't go through with it.
That's what a lot of us said. This is a tough path, but there's no secret to it. If you want what we have, here's how we got it.
And if you don't, that's fine. We we really don't mind. But there's no secrets.
And I like that. Okay. I like that very much.
In my working with people, I've discovered something. And when I say discovered, over a period of of years and making some mistakes in the doing of this, I finally come to understand my effectiveness comes from the fact that I do not talk to the sickness anymore. I know who you are.
You're one of God's kids, and that's who I'm talking to. I can't help you with your sickness. All I can do is help awaken your spirit and your spirit will take care of your own healing.
So, as a sponsor, I'm I'm really kind of a poor sponsor if you need a crisis counselor because I'm not. And I'll tell you that I'm not. if that's what you need.
They get a $100 an hour and I have a list of them. That doesn't mean that in a real crisis I won't be there. But God forbid you call me at 2:30 in the morning time after time because you're in a crisis.
Your lack of good planning does not constitute a crisis for me. In fact, there's been funny things happen because of that. This sounds harsh, but it's really not.
The truth is, it's the spirit of God within you waking up and forming a relationship with God that solves the problem. I can't. I'm really bad at relationship problems.
I've never ever been able to figure out how to have a successful sick relationship. So, I can't be of any help to you. I'm sorry.
Okay, I can show you how to develop a relationship with God. And once that one's all right, the rest of them will be too. You might as well understand right now, not everybody's going to like you.
In fact, sometimes the only way I can measure my effectiveness is by the quality of my enemies. And I had some really high quality enemies. Oh, yeah.
Now, they're enemies only in the sense that uh they oppose me. I do not fight back. Okay.
I'm I'm sorry. I'm out of fight. Fought my last battle.
I'm done. I have no more rights. I used them all up.
Discovered that if I demand my rights, what that means is you've got to give up some of yours. I just don't have any. I don't even have a right to be here in terms of a right.
Right's a man-made thing. God says it's for everybody. You're all equal.
Have a ball. I think we're funny. We live on God's Amusement Park planet.
And uh we take it seriously. Oh yeah. If you can't have fun on this planet, there's something really wrong with you.
Uh this this place is filled with amazing interesting funny creatures. Human beings being among the best at being funny and weird and strange. The endless variations on the theme is just amazing to me.
I told Jackie one time, "I'm thinking seriously of coming back one more time, but I think I'll come back rich so I can travel and see more of this planet." She laughed. She says, "You're doing that now on other people's money. What do you mean discover the difference between rich and wealthy?
I'm an extremely wealthy man. I'm wealthy beyond beyond way beyond money. And it's a good thing because I don't know what to do with money except spend it.
I've lived long enough that uh the government sends me $817 a month as long as I promise not to work. You got it. No problem at all.
Work interferes with real life anyway. >> >> had a fellow call me one night. I really do enjoy the 2:30 in the morning calls because you really don't have to wake up.
People who call that time of the morning do not want answers. They just want to talk and and and so you get just enough weight to go, "Oh, yeah. Aha.
Really? I've I've it would be unconscionable, but I have thought about just getting a little loop tape, but this guy called me. They I get the psychopaths.
Uh well, I know who they are. They're frightened children and so I know who they are. Just God bless this guy.
And you can't think of things like this. This is at 2:30 in the morning. I just trust in God.
Whatever you want me to say to this one. He talked to everybody and couldn't get an answer. So, one of them finally said to call me and it was 2:30 in the morning, but he did.
He followed instructions. He was drunk. Had a serious problem.
The next day, he had five DUIs he had to go to court on. And his problem was, "What do I do?" Well, you you go to court. That's what you do.
We talked a little bit and and I just automatically started asking questions like I was taught. And one of them was, would you like to stop drinking? No.
He says, "I don't think so. I I'd like to drink till I'm about 55 and then quit." And I heard this come out of my mouth. Delights me.
I said, "Oh, I'm sorry. You've called the wrong person. Obviously, you don't have a drinking problem.
You have a driving problem. And I still drive. I don't know how to quit.
So, I can't help you. But if you'd ever like to stop drinking, keep my number handy. And I'm thinking, "Wow, did I say that?
If I'd have been all the way awake, I'd have missed that one." Okay, but those are the kind of truths that are there. I couldn't be of any help to him. Not at all.
Because I've made a commitment that my life is no longer my business. Only the conduct of my life is my business. And it is entirely my business, but my life itself is none of my business.
I will go and try to do what I think God would have me do. And the directions in this book say that that means I'm to work with other alcoholics and show them precisely how I've recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. That's all I have to do.
And that is so serious a task that it's beyond me. People come to me and they put their lives in my hands literally. I don't know what to do.
That's a serious deal. So I have to stay spiritually fit so that the voice of God can come through me. so that I can be responsive instead of reactive.
So I can tell the truth even though it may hurt somebody's feelings, the truth must be the truth. And I got an image on that the other day. I want to share with you some of the joys of what goes on in here in my quiet time.
I believe and have believed for years that our job with each other is to pierce each other deep in the heart with the sword of truth. >> Okay. My job is to keep that sword so sharp that it goes in and comes out without leaving a wound.
I thought that's a nice picture of what I believe. Okay. How do I do this in such a way that it's not cruel?
And I'm taught here the way I do that is instead of talking about you, I talk about me. And so when I make a fool of me, you get to see what a fool you are, too. And then we can both laugh at it.
Instead of me calling you a fool, look at this old fool. Doesn't always work. I've had him threaten to kill me in my own driveway.
Sometimes it goes in and out so sharp they don't even feel it. But that's all right. Anyway, I love Bill's story.
Uh let's spend a minute with that. Here's a man who has by drinking alcohol put himself in a position where he truly is of no value. Been in and out of this hospital where Dr.
Silkworth was twice before. So, you know, he had all the information again. I know that whatever information Silkworth gave us here that saved my life, Bill had it.
just didn't get through. And he's drinking quite a bit. According to what I read here, he had at least two quarts of gin at hand and another one stashed off somewhere and was giving thought to maybe getting some more so he could get through the night.
What that tells me is he was drinking somewhere between one and three quarts of gin a day. That's a lot of juice. And he's sitting there drinking that and an old friend of his shows up, Ebie Thatcher.
They've been on some great drunks before. Ebie wanted to come over and visit. Bill thought that's a good idea.
We can drink together and relive the old times. When you got nothing going today, relive the old times. Sounds like some of the meetings I've been to lately.
Ebie shows up and I ask myself when I'm when I'm thinking working with others, would I fit this profile? Okay, if you were looking in and looking at me, would you see this? Here's what Eie looked like to Bill.
And remember, Bill's drinking. He's not sober. He's drinking.
The door opened and he stood there fresh skinned and glowing. Well, now there was something about his eyes. He was inexplicably different.
What had happened? Even in a drinking state, partly drunk, Bill recognized there's something different about my old buddy here. Don't know what it is, but there's something different going on here.
Would you see that in me? I saw that in Bruce and Rowan and Phil. I pushed a drink across the table.
He refused it. Disappointed but curious, I wonder what had gotten into the fellow. He wasn't himself.
What's this about? I inquired. He looked straight at me.
Simply but smilingly. He said, "I've got religion." The key is simply and smilingly. I was a gas, so that was it.
Last summer, an alcoholic crackpot. Now, as I suspected, a little cracked about religion. He had that stareyed look.
Do you have that when you're going to talk to somebody? But bless his heart, let him rant. My jin would last longer than his preaching.
But he did no ranting. See back on page nine of the book alcoholics anonymous were already being taught how to 12step. He did no ranting in a matterof fact way.
He spoke just a facts. This is not extraordinary. Even Bill he told how two men had appeared in court persuading the judge to suspend his commitment.
That tells me something else. The two men who came and got Ebie had such a presence and a power that they convinced a local judge to let them have certain bodies if they asked for them. We still do that.
You know, I don't know if you all know it. We have three guys from they're prisoners. They're inmates at the prison unit out here.
You would you guys just show them who you are? Look at here. These are guys that are doing time.
Somebody went over there, probably Brian, because he's such an articulate little fell, and convinced them that it would be all right to send three of their dangerous criminals to a 4 age camp, okay, for the afternoon. That's funny, isn't it? That's heavy stuff.
If you want to wonder what kind of spirit what spiritual power is about, you're looking at it. Okay. They did certain things to prepare themselves and somebody else did certain things and they're here.
I love that. And that's just matter of fact. That's where they're from.
They get to go back tonight to their hair-legged boyfriends while we go home. But here we are today. I stole that from an old-timer.
Oh god, that was funny. He came out of San Quinton. This was a tough badass.
Got sober. We and he married a lovely, beautiful woman. We ended up getting to take him into our maximum security penitentiary to give a talk one time.
And that's how he finished it up. He said, "I want you guys to know this is the message." and he introduced his wife. She stood up, gorgeous lady.
He said, "I get to go home to that and you get to go back to your cell with your hairlegged boyfriend. Thank you." And he sat down. Just that's the sword of truth.
We're really glad you guys are here. I'm not making fun of you. They are demonstration.
If you're wondering about the power, there it is. That's not supposed to happen. just not supposed to happen.
And that's what happened clear back here. Roland Hazard and another fella got the judge to turn Ebie over them. And Ebie was a lost cause.
They were getting ready to lock him up forever. And what they had was a simple religious idea and a practical program of action. That's what we inherited.
There's a religious idea in our the foundation of Alcoholics Anonymous. came out of a fundamentalist Christian operation, a revival movement. And while we are not religiously tied, that spiritual idea is at the foundation of what we do.
Most spiritual ideas are. They're all about the same. But that's where we came from.
But in addition to that, there was a practical program of action that went along with this deal. He'd come along to pass his experience along to me if I cared to have it. Is that my attitude when I'm going out to work?
Or am I evangelistic about this? And you by God will take what I have to offer. You will get sober.
We'll talk ugly about you or whatever it is. If I cared to have it, we were invited into Alcoholics Anonymous, not forced. When I came into that group, we weren't even given credit for going.
The guys who put together my prison a group took all the incentives away. They talked the administration out of making a list that would be looked at by the parole board. Nobody knew whether we went or not.
Strictly voluntary. He talked for hours. I can do that.
You can do that. One of the most fun times at a speaker meeting is when a new person is allowed to talk for the first time and you'll hear this. I don't have much to say.
Get comfortable. It's going to be a long night. childhood memories raised before me.
Ebie brought out Bill's memories by talking about himself. Uh some of the stories I've told in some people here have raised memories. This is how we identify with each other.
I didn't do that exact thing, but that sure sounds familiar. How many of you stole money from your kid's piggy bank? Yeah.
See, we're not alone. Why not? It's easier to get than robbing a bank.
Brian, if you'd have known that, you wouldn't have had to go to prison. Can you Can you see him robbing a bank? If I were a teller, I'd say, "Oh, have a sucker and go sit down and wait for your mother.
>> >> But he's a fine man. >> Gentle and kind. Yes.
Ask for that crack last night. There's more to come. I had always believed in a power greater than myself.
I had often pondered these things. I was not an atheist. Yeah, we're talking about me now.
Few people really are for that means the blind faith in the strange proposition that this universe originated in a cipher and it aimlessly rushes nowhere. Just a quick glance around tell you there are great forces at work here. There is order in this universe.
Uh there are principles at work. Do this this occurs. Uh there must be some kind of intelligence here and it's beyond my grasp but there must be that that's clear.
Doesn't have anything to do with me but there must be. Despite contrary indications I had little doubt that a mighty purpose and rhythm underlay it all. I know about rhythm.
I I've sensed rhythm since I was little. I come from a musical family. I life is about music.
Everyone is busy singing their song and if we do it right it becomes a chorus and if we do it wrong it's disharmony. I'm not a good singer of music but I do fine with somebody who is good and I'm just adding harmonies to it or in a chorus where you can't really hear me. I'm just blending in.
Okay. But we all we're all singers of a song in one way or another and there is a rhythm. The business of being on time, let me is fun to me.
And it also I'm going to what I'm going to tell you will spark something I hope and you can't learn how to do this. Well, I'm here now. I'm here now.
I'm on time for everything. One of the things I learned from the Salvation Army is that people respond better if they're fed first. A lot of missions make you listen to the preaching first and then feed you.
The Sally always fed us first, then preached at us. So, one of the things I like to do is meet with my guys while we're eating. I meet with a small group every Tuesday morning.
We go over to the Peeps and have breakfast. Good meeting. Anyway, where I worked was about three blocks from a place that was built to serve people who had garlic deficiencies.
It's a little Italian restaurant named Darios. You can smell it for blocks. Oh, yeah.
I have a severe garlic deficiency. I go as often as I can. I also as a result of a missispent ute and and a missispent middle ute is a misspent.
I have neuropathy in my feet. So there are times I can walk okay and there's times I can't walk too good and this place is three blocks away and we usually just walk because there's no place to park. It's so, you know, three blocks is as close as you're ever going to get to it.
And I had this guy come down. We're going to go to lunch. And it was a day I wasn't walking good.
So, we walked over to my van. I told him to get in. He said, "It's only three blocks.
It's just walk." And I did sponsor talk. I said, "Just get in the van. If you're new, that's what don't ask why.
Just get in a damn car, you know." And we drove up there and as we pulled up in front, a car pulled out and we pulled in and parked. Now, I've come to expect that. I really have.
He was amazed. Isn't this wonderful? God got us a place to park.
And I want to slap him. I don't have a parking spot, God. It's better than nothing, but I for me that that's absurd.
What happened is that we were on time. Had we gotten there 30 seconds sooner, we'd have passed it before the other car got out. We' been 30 seconds later, the guy in front of us would have gotten the spot.
We just happened to be on time. And there's a rhythm you get into when you get fully present that that really does occur. Now, I'd rather you believed in a parking lot god than be nothing.
But I will slap you in about six months from now. We got to New York. Oh, this is so funny.
Jackie and I had occasion to go to New York to do one of these deals with our friend Jerry Elkins. Some of you know Jerry. So Jackie and I and Jerry and Gail and I were due in New York to do a thing for Tom Needam.
And uh we go early because we love New York. We don't want to live there, but we just love New York. I mean, we're country folks.
This is a wild place up there in New York. And uh I sponsored a kid from Birmingham, Alabama, who is a writer and a producer of films who moved to New York. And so he has an apartment, so we stay with him.
It's way too expensive to go to New York and not stay with a friend. Anyway, we're going to stay in Brooklyn Heights and Jerry and Gail have a friend down in the East Village and they're going to stay there. And I was down at Myrtle Beach talking with David Russell who came out of New York.
And I asked David if he knew anybody that could pick us up at LaGuardia and drop us off in Brooklyn Heights and down in the East Village. And John Cognatello was there. And David sponsors him.
He looked at John and said, "He will get in a car." John said, "Oh, sure. I'd love to." Sure enough, John picks us up at LaGuardia and we head across the bridge for the East Village to drop Jerry and Gail off. And it becomes apparent John has never driven in New York before.
He doesn't have a clue. We're also headed into the East Village and there's no place to park there until you get up to about 47th Street. We pull up at the corner where Jerry and Gail are supposed to get off and a car pulls up and we pulled right in.
So I told John about being on time and for the rest of the week it was wonderful. He was precise to the moment. Everything worked out just fine.
We had uh dinner at his we stayed overnight out at his his folks place. This is in an Italian enclave in what is it? Hoboken.
I yoners. I get the wrong town every time. 5 and a half hour feeding frenzy.
Uh everybody's busy competing with everybody else as to who can make the best and the most. And the food just keeps arriving. The ordurves were three meals worth themselves.
The Italians are running around screaming out, "I love you. I love you. I love you." in every way that they can.
Just wonderful animated. Oh, great time. We slept there and John was going to pick us up at 5:30 and get us to the airport in the morning.
And at 5, he wasn't there. And 5:15 he wasn't there. So his mother called.
He hadn't gotten out of bed yet. We just barely made our airplane. And on the way, John said, "I got so intrigued with this being on time that I started to try to manage it and almost blew the whole thing." And that's what goes on here.
Don't try to manage this. If you try to be on time, you're going to be either too early or too late. Just be on time.
What would he have me be here? Now, you've all read Bill's story. If you haven't, I suggest you do.
Uh the wars which have been fought, the burnings in chainery that religious dispute have facilitated made me sick. Yeah, me too. I am willing to go anywhere there's a spiritual person talking about spiritual things and have been from the beginning.
We were listening to one of them one time, a truly spiritual man. And one of the guys was angry and he he stopped the guy. He says, "Look, tell me this.
If God's so almighty powerful, why didn't he stop war?" And the answer was simple. He didn't start it. Okay?
Our troubles are of our own making. More little clues as to what going to happen inside of me. Okay.
But my friend sat before me and he made the point blank declaration that God had done for him what he could not do for himself. Is that me? Yeah.
I will tell you right in front of myself. I am nothing. But see what God has done with me.
And that's where the power comes from. No other place. His human will had failed.
Doctors had pronounced him incurable. Sounds familiar. The hospital said, "We can't help this one.
Just lock him up." So, I'm getting identification here. Are you? If you're not, I wonder what the hell you're doing here at the 4 age camp with a bunch of convicts.
A bunch. Well, there's only three of them. We ought to number them, don't worry.
Like myself, he had admitted complete defeat. Then he had in effect been raised from the dead. Suddenly taking the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he had ever known.
Had this power originated in him? Obviously not. There had been no more power in him than there was in me at that minute.
And that was none at all. I saw that my friend was reorganized. He was on a different footing.
His roots grasped a new soil. I suggest to you to remember that while this is going on, Bill's drunk. seriously drunk and yet he's seeing this go on.
It's important in AA today to remember we deal with drunks. So when they show up at the meeting, that's what we're there for. I've been to meetings or heard of meetings where they actually won't let you in if you're drunk.
What the hell are we about anyway? If you're destruct if you're disruptive or try to hurt somebody, I'll help throw you out. But if you're drunk, come on in.
One of my favorite people was an old Indian that used to come to our meeting drunk and he would always we had a long table chairperson here and then down the tables and he'd always sit right next to the chair and as soon as the meeting started he'd go to sleep and then when the meeting was over he'd jog himself awake and hold hands and say the Lord's prayer and go back to the street and some of the members were kind of testy about that but you You know what I saw? For one hour each week, he had a safe place to go for one hour where he didn't have to worry and he could sleep. And twice each week he got to pray and be among some people.
Who knows what he heard while he was sleeping? I don't. Main thing is he had a safe place to go and sleep for an hour a week.
We should have had a meeting every day. If that's all I get out of it, that's all I get out of it. I got a lot out of it.
It's It's those damn cookies. Don't worry about it, Casey. They're making fun of you.
There's the promise that I was looking for. I didn't come to get sober. I came to be changed.
And here we begin to get it. He's on a different foot footing. Inwardly reorganized.
And Bruce was very helpful with that. He says, "We can't fix you. There's too many parts missing.
And most of the ones that are still there are warped." I love warped. I was and am warped. There isn't a box made that I fit into.
You got to put packing in around it and even then I'll find a way out. Okay. Uh the only funny people I know are warped.
I met two adults uh in my life. I didn't want anything they had. Jeez, they were serious about everything.
What I want to be when I grow up, a kid. In fact, I don't ever want to grow up. I uh I think I'll try very hard to die before that happens.
I'm I'm making a good game on it, aren't I, honey? Getting younger and younger. I care less and less about what's going on in the world and uh more and more what's going on in the world.
Bill went in for conceptions such as creative intelligence and all that. Mine was he who there is one he built the all this deal and then he rested and he's still resting. All those conceptions are just dodges the ways for me not have to really get in and find out what's going on.
Ebie said to him, "Why don't you choose your own conception of God?" Bill said that statement suddenly melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow he had looked for years. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.
And that's good because that's all I could do is bring a willingness to believe that there was something. I could see it. And I'm willing to believe there is something.
And I'm also willing to believe that that'll work for me, too. Whatever that is will change me. >> >> And Bill's drunk while this is happening.
Within two weeks, he's had so much to drink, they have to take him to the hospital again. He's getting ready to go into DTS. So, I'm not afraid to work with really wet drugs.
I don't lay the big book out in front of them, but they hear. In fact, sometimes the wet ones are the easiest ones because all their defenses are down. All that's left is the spirit.
Just go for the spirit. Like finding him on the street. I got to tell you the truth.
I believe had you not encountered us on the street in Camden on Thursday, you'd be drunk right now. I really believe that. What do you think?
pass this weekend. >> Yeah, perhaps. Maybe.
Not for sure. But by the grace of God, you're not. I came a long way to talk to you.
So, you pay attention. You hear? I had to fly to Philadelphia just to get here.
I don't know if you've ever been to Philadelphia or not, but you better be worth the trip. Had to go through security twice. That's funny.
Security is funny. When they first started doing this thing, I used to wear a sport coat and look decent. And I got searched every time.
Since I started wearing my tennies and my leather jacket, I haven't been searched since. I must not fit the profile anymore. Do you know who's getting searched these days?
Little old ladies. They're making them take their shoes off and their clothes off and I don't know what's going on. But anyway, I came a long way to talk to you.
But I'm going to give you to Brian. Oh, >> escaped. >> Did he went out to Oh, good.
I was going to swap him again. So, they take Bill to the hospital. And I'd like to get into this.
This is real simple. See if you can be Bill for a minute as I go through this because the whole thing is laid out right here. This is wonderful stuff.
There I humbly offered myself to God as I then understood God to do with me as he would. I placed myself unreservedly under his care and directions. Whatever you have in mind for me is better than whatever I have in mind for me.
I will take this direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself that I was nothing, that without him I was lost. I'd live with the illusion that I must know something.
I can't be can't be totally off base here. I finally admitted yes I am. My very best thinking puts me here.
The best I can do but myself I'm nothing. For me, that was poignant because I was 38,984. That's as close to nothing as you can get.
Okay. One of the nicest things my sponsor ever did to me was to give me a name. I'd gone and complained to him that my third step didn't work.
I didn't get a flash of light. He said, "Well, dummy." I thought, "Whoa, I got a name now." To this day, when God wants to catch my attention, I'll hear Bruce's voice. So, well, dummy.
I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my newfound friend take them away. Root and branch. I've not had a drink since.
So, I had some prejudice against the word sin until I remembered a catechism I took chasing an Apache girl to Cincinnati one time. she'd become Catholic and I figured, well, okay, if that's what it takes. I'm wanting to go to any links.
The priest giving the catechism I know now was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. He admitted he was a recovered alcoholic, but I can remember the lingo. And he he must have been an AA.
And he gave us a definition of sin that even then made sense to me. Anything that separates me from God is a sin. It's not a moral balance sheet deal.
It's about separation. Anything that separates me from God is a sin. And I've learned through other people that anything that separates me from you separates me from God.
So the rest of the program takes care of what's separating me from you. I can't deal with God. It's too big.
If I clean up what's happening between us, then somehow the spirit begins to come alive and it gets real. My schoolmate visited me and I fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies. We made a list of people I had hurt and toward whom I felt resentment.
I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals admitting my wrong. When it came to making amends, I was told that I was to never say, "I'm sorry." He said, "You've been sorry your whole life." What you get to say is, "I was wrong and I harmed you." Never was that to be critical of them. Never.
There's a thing going on on an AA today and we'll talk about it again later where inventory is done where people look for their part. And I'm sorry that doesn't make sense to me. If I'm only looking for my part, that assumes you still have a part.
And this is about me being the one that's wrong, not you. Never am I to be critical of you. I'm to look to where I was wrong.
What's my mistake? Setting aside the wrongs others have done entirely, it says. And it's a little thing I know, but I watched the results of how people do this and you will get certain results.
I've seen people who did thorough inventories, went and made amends, but all they looked at for that was their part. I don't know why they were finished, they waited for the other person to make amends also, and when it didn't happen, they got pissed all over again. Okay?
It's a subtle thing, but we are subtle people. We will any chance at all to say to you and we'll take it. You laugh like I told you the truth.
I was to write all such matters to the utmost of my ability. All such matters. There is no slack in setting right the wrongs of the past.
There's one proviso. If I will cause more harm by so doing, I got to live with it. But otherwise, everything gets taken care of.
We'll cover that. I I'm going to spend a couple hours, I hope, talking about amends because it's the most exciting part of my whole life is uh straightening out the goofy stuff that I caused to happen. I was to test my thinking by the new God consciousness within.
That's very important. That means I have become conscious of the presence of God. If he were here now with me, how would I behave?
I'm going to give you another standard. I've raised the bar for me and I'll give you another standard and then we'll get on. This is just the beginning.
Here's the question. One of the ways we learned to do this was from an old Assembly of God minister who was a genuinely spiritual man. the doctrine I couldn't completely buy, but I bought him entirely.
And I had the illusion that spiritual people were perfect and didn't make mistakes and were sweet and nice, never had any doubts. And he kind of set us straight on that. He was definitely a spiritual man.
And he said he has doubts from time to time. He gets tempted from time to time. And we ask him, "What do you do?" And he said, "Well, when I'm tempted, I take the master by the hand and I say to him, if I go do this, will you go with me?
And if it's yes, I go do it no matter what. And if it's no, I don't do it no matter what." And I do get answers. The thing where I have to be careful is where I don't get a solid answer, I don't go until I'm certain I don't do it.
Good guide. I live in a matriarchy. And you young guys, let me tell you, as soon as possible, find one and let them take you in.
There's nothing finer than living surrounded by women. Truly. Oh man, it's good.
You You must be sure that you let them understand from the very beginning that you are totally incompetent. and that you know that. And then just do whatever they say.
It's a good life. I've exaggerated a little bit, but it is a good life. So part of my measure of my behavior, if you will, my my human experience is governed by the fact that I live in a house and have been living in a house where my wife, two daughters, granddaughter, my sisters, mostly girls, Austin and I, and Nick are grossly outnumbered.
And we like it that way. We all have roles that are properly assigned. But the fact is we are privileged to live in her house.
I am. I belong in a cage. So I started.
My bathroom is bigger than my cell used to be. And I sit there sometimes, I must tell you, and ask myself, could I live in this room for the next 10 years? And I began in my head to design how that could be.
And the answer is, yeah, I could. And then I open the door and I've got a whole house here. even sober.
When when I met Jackie, my boys and I were living at the base of a 14,000 foot mountain in double wide trailer on an acre of ground, which isn't bad for bachelor types. Thoroughly satisfied. I worked six hours a day at the reformatory.
The Arkansas River was only a half a mile away. I mean, we were civilized barbarians. But that's what we pick on on my own.
I'm a tent dweller. I I really enjoy chicken coops. And I mean, what the hell?
I get to live in a home. So, here's the marker. Let me raise the barn and we'll get on because I I could talk too long about this.
The question for me when I'm about to do something where I'm unsure, would I be able to do this if my wife were watching? or my daughters or my granddaughter, it really narrows the path. Okay?
And the thing that'll happen here is that you won't have to ask that question too often once I get spiritually fit. That doesn't come up that often. When it does, it's really serious.
Could I tell her about it? If I can't, don't do it. Or talk to her about it ahead of time and let her laugh at me for being such a doofus.
And we're not talking about sick Well, you are, but sometimes that comes up. We're in a human condition, you know. Sometimes I get a terrible thing happens to me.
I get to thinking I'm good. And you know, goody two shoes boy scout. And immediately I have an overwhelming urge to do something bad.
When I was really really sick one time, you may appreciate this. I decided my thinking that I really needed to just be evil for one day just to find out this back and forth shit's got to stop. So I took some alley's acid and became evil.
And it was a dreadfully disappointing day because everything I could think of to do in my evil state was appropriate. And if it's appropriate, it ain't evil. And even though standing sane and sober, I could say that looks pretty evil.
inside it was but that's appropriate to my nature. If I'm evil, this is what I would do. Set fire to this person, of course.
And it was deadly dull. So, uh, I don't think in those realms anymore. I don't know if that makes any sense, but raise the bar.
You want to If I go do this, will you go with me? It'll change your whole conception of God. The question is a wonderful pre-inventory question because if there's any aspect of God that you wouldn't be able to have him here with you, it's your conception of God, not God.
Be with me anywhere. And I can say that because at my very very worst, God was right there. That's where I got found.
Not at my best, at my worst. Was right there. Anyway, test my consciousness or my thinking by the new God consciousness within.
We even have a system for that calling the 10th and 11th step and that we get certain questions that we're supposed to ask. I mean, we're too dumb to even get it. So, they wrote it out for us.
Here's what you ask. Here's when you ask it. Here's how you ask it.
Don't ask any more than this or anything less than this. Once you've asked it, go to sleep. Yeah.
Ask what correctives measure should be taken and then get out of the game because you're useless. I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as he would have me. Boy, isn't that a way to do it?
My basic nature is when I'm worried or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shell. Create a diversion. Yeah, I love it when I watch them go.
You only do it a little bit. very hard to do if my mind is running because I know I've got problems to solve here and they just keep going. Someone asked more about one thought at a time.
It's very hard to do this when you're thinking. Now later on he talks about when agitated and doubtful we pause and ask for the right thought or action. I've also had to learn that just because I'm doubtful doesn't need mean I need to get agitated.
Doubtful is anytime I have a choice. Do I like white bread or dark bread today? But I've been in a state of being where that would agitate me.
Okay? So I wouldn't eat at all and can't make a choice this profound. Direction and strength.
Once I get direction now I need strength. What I really lack is the strength to do the right thing. I know it's going to be difficult.
sacrifices involved and I need strength because I just a little kid. I am weak and an amazing thing happens. My strength comes from my weakness.
Then I associate with some pretty strong American Indians. I'm I'm part of one of those circles and power comes to me. Symbols of power come to me.
Those of you who have been in my room know that there's some powerful stuff there. And one of my Mohawk friends who's a very strong leader of the well movement and the white bison movement says the same thing. You really draw power to you.
And that's true. And you know why? Because I know I don't have any.
As long as I think I have power, I will not look for new power. Once I understand I don't have any, I just open up and God can't stand a vacuum. So in it comes and all I have to do is ask.
That's called prayer. And then shut up and listen. And that's called meditation.
I have to learn how to do that. Not in the old old I've learned yoga techniques and meditation techniques. What this has taught me is that if you want to be in meditation, it means you want to get quiet.
Well, it means shut this thing off. Don't teach it anything new. Just shut it off.
And it's easy to do if you only have one thought to worry about. It's hard to do if you've got 25 thoughts. And it's really hard to do no matter what.
You know how many of you meditate? Okay. How do you do that?
You don't. You sit down and shut up and get quiet. That's how you meditate.
But there's another form called prayerful contemplation that's also important. And there's a number of practices. Oh, in order I can't go through with it.
Never mind. We'll get to all that. You'd rather go play basketball.
>> Do you play basketball? Yeah. >> Yeah.
Are you good? >> Couldn't say. >> Couldn't say.
Why couldn't you say >> everything? >> What does that mean? >> No.
>> No. You said we're not going there. >> What What is your favorite sport?
You're obviously good at athletics. What do you play? >> Soccer.
H. You good at that? >> Yeah, I guess.
>> Are you? >> How come you're good at that? >> I don't really know.
>> You play it a lot. >> Try hard. Yeah.
>> Yeah. You play it a lot. That's how you get good at anything.
You just play it a lot. >> You play a lot of basketball, you'll get good. You may never be great, but you'll be good if you play a lot.
Well, same thing goes about prayer and meditation. If you do it a lot, you get good at it. gets to be a habit.
May save your life someday. It did mine. Never was I to pray for myself.
Never was I to pray for myself except as my request bore on my usefulness to others. That got me, boy. I I didn't find a way around this.
I found a way to comply with it. The schemer never goes away. Use it.
I got to thinking, what do I need the most? I need to have a sense of the spirit of God here within. That's what I need the most.
I need to just know it. And I can't ask for that for myself. But I will give you my prayer.
You'll learn to pray here. Find your own. This is mine.
You can have it. Dear God, please fill me with your loving spirit and let it flow through me and into the lives of others. Now I can get it.
As long as I'm willing to let it continue to flow, in order to flow through me, I have to be full. Let it flow. Maybe uh Sunday morning I'll tell you the story of the high country beaver and how I came to that.
But doesn't that make sense? Just let it flow through me. Means you can't hang on to anything.
And that gets harder as we get longer sober. You long-term sobriety folks, I bet you're facing that. I had nothing to lose when I got here.
I got a lot to lose now. What do you mean let go? Sheesh.
>> >> My friend friend promised when these things were done I would enter upon a new relationship with my creator. There's a question implied in that. Before we go any further, this is one of the places you can get off this wagon.
Do you want a new relationship with your creator? The whole idea of a relationship with God is different than believing in God or even having faith in God. Well, I want a relationship.
Am I willing to relate to, to have exchanges with, to participate in with, to cooperate with something real going on? Do I want God at hand all the time? Okay, good question.
In my old state of mind, hell no. I don't even know what's going on in here. The Brucey already knows came came to you anyway.
But it's a question. This is about building a relationship with my creator. Do I want that?
Well, if I do, then I'll have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. And here they are. Belief in the power of God.
This is about power. This is about action. We go to the street.
Monks get to live in a monastery. You and I get to carry it to the street. Takes power.
Plus enough willingness, honesty, and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things were the essential requirements. I've heard that there are no musts in a, but I think that qualifies. Requirement sounds like must to me.
If I want this way of life, simple, but not easy. A price has to be paid. It meant the destruction of self-centeredness.
I must turn in all things to the father of light who presides over us all. What a lovely, lovely life it has been for me to practice this in all of my affairs, praying at the bread counter. You know, if I've got an old image of this old man with a beard keeping score, that's just absolutely silly.
We have a relationship. Okay. I fully understand he wants only the best for me and I'm willing to cooperate in that by having him tell me what is best for me.
Oh, we could go on and on and on. And this is when Bill had his spiritual awakening. Now, some people jumped on Bill one time and said, "Bill, you had the advantage of that wampus experience of yours." And Bill said, "You have all had it.
I had mine in a moment, but you've all had the same experience." So, let's take a look and see if you've had this experience. This book is also a book of mercy. as I change spiritually is that my mind changes as I begin to grow like any child I encounter new things and they're a little bit scary and I wonder particularly with a spiritual awakening the first thing that comes is I think I've lost my mind and that comes because I just have uh whatever I was using a few minutes ago I'm not using anymore but I don't know what to do with the new one so throughout here on page 14 is one of them is a description of a spiritual event.
Doc Carl Young gave us one the transforming thing about ideas and conceptions being cast aside. Here's another one. Let me ask you to ask yourself as I read this, has this happened for me in any measure whatsoever?
The moment I fully accepted these revolutionary and drastic proposals, he said the effect was electric. Have you anybody felt a little charge somewhere along the way since you got here? Kind of like a little electric shock.
Yeah. There was a sense of victory. The battle's over.
Has that happened for you? >> Good. Doesn't matter what the measure is.
You have experienced that. I know. You had a victory over yourself to get here.
You were saying, "I'm not sure I can do this." And your spirit was saying, "You are going to do this." And you had a victory. I just want you to be aware of that. What a victory it was for you to be sitting here.
I watched you fight the battle. Your sword is rusty. Put it down.
Followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. Peace and serenity. These are not things that alcoholic minds and systems understand or even want.
Okay? When it gets quiet inside, it's time for me to get up and stir something up. Peace and serenity seem like death.
When I'm sick, when I'm self-centered, I got to be busy busy busy busy busy. There was utter confidence that will scare you, particularly if you've been going to too many meetings. Well, yeah, you're if you go to too many meetings that one of the basic messages in some activities is you got to stay sick forever and if you feel well, you must be sick.
>> That's garbage. I'm sorry. That's just garbage.
Utter confidence. He's laying in bed probably with tubes sticking out of him while this is going on. Okay.
I felt lifted up as though a great clean wind of a mountaintop blew through and through. I've not had that one, but over the years there are moments and I know you've all had them where there are moments of recognition of pure truth and they come along in generally for me when I'm just musing and all of a sudden it's like a banner. There it is and a chill goes over me just like a cold wind just blew.
So I think that may be what he's talking about. Has that happened? Those are spiritual things.
Those are not emotional things. If they've happened, welcome home. Okay.
For a moment, I was alarmed. You bet. Yeah.
Is this DTS or what? So I called my friend the doctor to ask if I were still sane. He listened and wonder as I talked.
Now get a picture of Dr. Silkworth and why we love him so much. Here's this little old non-alcoholic doctor.
He's had Bill this is his third time. At the end of the second time he told Lois, "You might as well get him a keeper because at best he has ear craving mad." Now he's got him back in fighting off the DTS. And Bill tells him about this mountaintop.
Silky said, "Something has happened to you. I don't understand, but you better hang on to it. Anything is better than the way you were." And Bill had such audacity.
He said, "Do you mind if I tell the rest of the guys about this?" Now we put selfworth on the line. What does he really believe? He's got this bad drunk who's had this what could well be DTS.
He doesn't understand it. It's beyond his conception. And he wants to go around his drunk ward and tell all the other guys about it, too.
maybe, you know, one flew over the cuckoo's nest. Okay. And he says, "Yeah, yeah, why don't you go do that?" Because here was Bill's revelation.
And there's a new piece here for you. And I thank God. While I lay in the hospital, the thought came that there were thousands of hopeless alcoholics who might be glad to have what have been so freely given to me.
There's some ego in that. But God uses our ego, too. If God's everything, then ego is part of it.
That's not a new idea to awaken spiritually and then go to help others. Here's the new idea. Perhaps I could help some of them and they in turn might work with others.
That's the new idea. I'm not only to help you personally. I'm to try to help show you how to help others and you're to show them how to help others instill others so that what happened in this hospital that day was there for me when I showed up and will be there for your great grandchildren if they happen to show up here.
We want to keep it that clear, this message that clear so that it happens. And that's my job is to make sure it stays that clear. Ain't that isn't that a trip?
General Motors never offered me anything that appealing, man. I get to get out there in the world and take on the dragons. Oh, they're just drunks.
My friend Abby emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. That does presume I will have some. Uh what I must be cautious of is not to have more affairs than I have principles.
There will be work, there will be a there will be neighborhood, there will be all kinds of activities along the way and I will participate them and these principles apply in all of them. If I can't do and be and behave the same way at home that I am in an AA meeting, I'm not doing this. Okay?
I'm a fake. Uh the ultimate goal is to be the same person wherever I am. And I can't pull that off.
Not by myself. We come close sometimes. Oh yeah.
Do you feel at peace in this room? >> Yeah. That's cuz I'm at peace partly and because you're at peace.
If you come into our home, we One of our new guys is really a new guy. He just graduated from high school last week or two weeks ago. Big old gorgeous kid.
I want to adopt him and move him into the basement. And Jackie said, "We can do that." Just one of those. He said he likes coming into our house cuz he's never walked into any place on the planet where he felt more love and peace.
The grandchildren come and they just run a muck cuz they're not afraid of anything in the house. Okay. The worst that's going to happen is I'm going to lock the back door in the yard so I can get a 5minute break.
And that's only in my head. I haven't done it yet. I wonder I wonder how Well, I know how Gianna would take it.
She'd break in the window. What was it? We got We got robbed one time.
Burglarized. Stupid burglar. One of the neighborhood kids.
It was snowing and the tracks went from his house to mine. My older daughter says, "Oh, you know, we walked in the house and it was clear we've been had." I had to quickly jump past how a burglar feels when he gets burglarized. What goes around comes around.
My older daughter said, "Oh my goodness, de what am I going to tell the kids at school? I have been telling them that God watches over us cuz that's what we teach in our home." And I was able to say to her, "He did, honey. We weren't here.
Jesus got our stuff. We're going to have a yard sale anyway." But it was during that time that we changed our locks. Uh, we put on the kind of things that you have to have a key or you don't get in.
And if you kick it down, the whole hat door has to go down before anything comes out. And this is a secure house. You can't get in.
And the kids forgot their keys. What was she, 13? We come home and they're in the house.
They just figured a way to open the window in the back, break in that way. So if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials in low spots ahead. That's very important to me personally because I've sponsored so many people and big book people, God bless them, sometimes have a problem.
They think that working the steps is the work. I hear it all the time. I'm doing the work.
The steps are not the work of Alcoholics Anonymous. The steps are preparation for the work. The work is work and self-sacrifice for others, not constant work on me.
I do continuing constant work on me. That isn't how I grow spiritually. I grow spiritually by helping you.
And it's on page 15. We've already got it. There's a question.
Is that how you want your life to look? If it isn't, go home. Don't bother with this.
This will produce an experience that will force you to help somebody else. What a Even when you don't want to. It's snowy and it's cold and I'm tired and she's hot and the phone rings and I got to go out and I don't want to go out.
God give me the strength and I go and there's no choice in the matter. Bill had a problem following that. fully awakened spiritually, beginning to be the leader of a movement where he killed innumerable people before he finally found the magic with Dr.
Bob. But at least that's his words. For two years or better, he suffered from deep severe depression.
Serious stuff. Nearly drove him back to drink. He said steps wouldn't work.
nothing would work except when he got like that he would go back down to town's hospital and work with another drunk and it saved the day. Took him out of his cell. That worked when nothing else worked.
He wrote a pamphlet that I commend to you called emotional sobriety. It's in in the grapevine where he talks about his depressions and what he found out about them. Okay?
because he was baffled. If the steps in God could take care of his alcoholism, why couldn't it take care of this depression? And what he discovered was the depression was caused by unhealthy dependencies on outside things, including an unhealthy dependency on AA.
He was getting his strokes from AA. And he said it took every ounce of will to break these and to set him free of that depression, unhealthy dependency. Alcoholism will not catch me here.
It'll catch me at 37,000 ft with no telephone and nobody to talk to. I cannot rely on you. I can trust you.
I can count on you. But I can't rely on you to keep me sober because when it when it creeps up on me, and it will, every one of us will have certain blank spots at certain times, you won't be there. I must have the spirit within me alive and well and working or I'm a dead cookie.
I just know that. And for me to drink is not to die. I'm absolutely certain if I drank again, unfortunately, I would live for a while.
and it would be a horrible life. Just couldn't stand it. So, I don't want to be morbid.
Share one more thing. We'll take a break. These things don't come to me because I think about them.
This actually happened to me about 20 years ago. I'd given a little talk back in New York and was flying home on Sunday. And because I fly so much with United because they're a Denver hub, I get they have status things there.
Premier, Premier Executive, Big Shop, 1K, all kinds of stuff. They now are adding a new one called elite status. Isn't that weird?
Well, that means you don't get any free miles, but you you get elite. You get to board first. Yeah.
Who cares? Anyway, on this particular flight, if they sometimes if they have an empty first class seat, they'll bump me into it because of that premier executive status. And I thought for a while that that's because I was getting some kind of little reward here.
I' done God's work well and I'm important. What I found out from talking to the United people, cuz if you fly with them long enough, you're going to fly with one of them eventually, is that what was going on is that they couldn't sell that expensive first class seat. But they could resell mine.
So, they'll move me up there, then they can sell this one, put somebody else in it. So much for how important I am. They make it look good.
Anyway, I'm up in first class on the way home, evening flight, and I'm in fit spiritual condition and fit emotional condition and fit mental condition. I'm going home to the family I love to the home I love. I know I've I really have done God's work.
I've also had a lot of fun because I like the people. I've got about a three three and a half hour flight. I'm going to get to read a book I've been waiting for a long time to read because I've been busy.
And in first class they serve real food on real plates. Used to have real silverware uh with I find this bizarre since the crisis on September 11th. Now you get a real plate and real spoon and real fork and a plastic knife.
Now I'm warped, but I can do more damage with a fork than I can that stupid knife if that's what I wanted to do. I don't say anything cuz they're paranoid enough without me bringing up. But I'm up there and we're getting ready to eat and the lights, you know, it was just a nice room, if you will.
The lights were fine and things were just cool. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw the flight attendant pouring this burgundy red stuff into my seatmate's glass. Now, understand I am extremely vulnerable to alcohol because I don't see it.
The mental obsession is gone. I don't see it. My attention has to be drawn to it for me to recognize it.
Burgundy red stuff going in. I turned over and looked at it cuz the way the lights were hitting it, my mind said, "That really looks good." I'm convinced that those of us with some significant sobriety are in far more danger of drinking because of the truth than we are lies. You got to come up with a lot of lies over quite a period of time to convince me it's okay for me to drink.
But that really looked good. Then my mind said, "I bet that's going to taste good, too." Well, of course it would. Why else would you give it to him?
Then my mind went into that reservoir about what I know about wine. Still not recognizing wine and said, "I bet that's going to ta make his whole dinner taste better." Of course it would. That's one of the functions of wine, you know, is to clear the pallet of the greases of this course so that this one tastes better.
And at that moment, all I can describe to you is that a prayer began in me. I became aware of the spirit moving in me. And when that happens, I pull in immediately.
I did not start to pray. I didn't know I needed to pray, but I do know I need to listen. So I went inside and got very very still and became aware that my very next thought would have been I should probably have one of those without ever thinking of wine.
That's how vulnerable I am. So I must have that going. I must keep that relationship such that when I don't know any better, I'm safe and protected.
Okay. Later we'll talk about some behavior and some anger things where that same spirit saved me and others from my wrath. Damn, it's 2:35.
Uh, how long a break would you like before we get back together? I'd like to kind of move us in toward the third step and move on into the program itself sometime this afternoon >> and we're close >> 15 minutes 20 minutes 30 >> 15 >> 15 seems to be a consensus. Okay.
Don't want to miss a note of this tune. Oh, there he is. >> Hi, Brian.
>> Huh? >> I know. >> It's one of the better ways that I can respond to looking upon your continent, sir.
That's a very kind man back there. >> You are being so kind to each other. My My wife threw up in the car on the way up.
>> You ain't seen nothing yet. >> He is short though. Did you notice that?
>> I know. >> Oh, >> now I am impressed. >> Yeah.
There's only one decent thing to do and being a decent man. I do it. I surrender.
But you are cute. >> Would you agree with that? >> Tall and cute.
Just what he's always wanted to be. I really wanted what they had. Meaning I could see in the at least these three people, the the three primary ones and some of the ones coming in, I could see change and I could see men who were whether I understood it or not living a very successful life, a peaceful life and a useful life in a difficult environment.
I'd seen Bruce exam do courage. Uh I watched Roy do a funny thing over the over a period of time. Every now and then Roy would get pissed because the the prison politicians would encroach into AA and then the message changes and because AA is a power source.
Uh both the administration and the inmates in any penitentiary battle over AA groups because they are a power source and the administration does not want inmates having any power at all and the inmates already have most of it. So there's a well yeah they do. It's their it's their university.
So there's a constant tension going on there. But I watch these guys kind of sliding through all that. And uh they said when I asked them about the change that they were had taken place, "That's right.
I have been changed." And in essence, they said, "And God changed me." And I really didn't care who changed them. They'd been changed. That's all I knew.
And if it was God, okay. And I remember once in my eagerness, I went back to my cell and said the third step prayer with all the fervor I could muster and had one of the worst experiences of my entire life because nothing happened. I'm geared to something happening.
Nothing. I might as well not have said it. Nothing happened.
This disturbed me, frightened me, and pissed me off, which is my normal response to, and I had learned along the way already, if you do something your sponsor tells you to do and you don't get the results you think you ought to be getting, go complain about it. And I did. Where's mine, Bruce?
Bill had this thing. You had Where's mine? Well, dummy.
He said, "You ought to be grateful you didn't have a flashlight. They nearly killed you your whole life." And we talked about them, the different ones. And he's right.
They had nearly killed me. He said, "And then he got to the truth. He said, "God knows, Don, that in your present state, you probably can't stand one more big shock anyway.
So, he will probably come to you gently, as he did with me over a period of time. >> >> which was kind of good news because I really wasn't up for any more big shops. But I had this illusion that I can only describe as I I think what I probably expected out of that was that my silver door would spring open instantly.
My clothes would go from green to white and the guard would say, "All right, Rich, you can go home now. We don't need you anymore." Nothing happened. And I wanted to know how do I make this real?
I don't want any more of the first day before the first day. This got to be real. And he paraphrased something in the book.
He said, "God will reveal himself to you as you reveal yourself to you." Okay? Then he provided one of the greatest services that has ever been afforded me. He spent some time with me destroying all of my conceptions, my illusions, my delusions concerning God.
he'd ask me something and wipe it out. And I ended up in that discussion where I had nothing more to describe. I just talking about Santa Claus or some mythical magical creature.
It was had no reality at all. Even had to let go of Jesus loves me because it was getting in the way. I had just I'm left with nothing.
And I was truly upset. And uh I can remember hollering at him, "You're you're asking me to turn my life over the car?" Nothing. He said, "Well, why not?
Nothing can run it better than you've been doing it." He he was kind of a smartass. What he really knew is that once I described everything, I had one last real reservation. And we all have one.
Yours may sound like mine over the years. People have said it sounds like theirs. I have never ever been afraid of the unknown.
I love the unknown. That's where the action is. Okay.
What I'm afraid of always is what I think is going to happen. I make it up in my head. And this was one of those deals where if I turn my life over to the care of God, he's got work for me to do.
And I knew what the job was and I didn't want it cuz I had a reference for it. I believed and told him that uh I was afraid that if if I did this total surrender to the service of God that he put me on the corner of Kfax and Broadway in Denver handing out Watchtower magazines and asking strangers, "Have you been saved, brother?" Now, I couldn't see me doing this. I've got this palatial suite and cell B49 right in the Colorado State Penitentiary.
But I couldn't see me doing that. And he said, "Well, let's talk about that." Now, for you new folks, that's sponsor talk. It does not mean let us talk about anything.
It means if you will be still for a minute, I'll bring out the big gun. see it wouldn't get past your head. In a in the most loving way possible, he took out his spiritual sword and he went for my jugular.
See, I had a reference for this. When I was in high school, we had a guy down there on that corner we called the brown man because he wore brown suit and a brown shirt and a brown tie and brown shoes and a brown hat. had a brown attitude and ask strangers, "Have you been saved?" He was a street corner evangelist.
We used to drive by and make fun of him. And that's what I was afraid of. That if I really started doing God's work that you start making fun of me and I would rather die than feel like a fool.
So he said, "Well, let's talk about that." He said, "Don, do you suppose when that guy down there around that corner handing out those watchtowers, do you suppose he had breakfast where he wanted to?" I said, "Well, yeah, sure." He said, "Well, you didn't." "Oh, do you suppose that he's wearing clothes that he picked out to do it in?" I said, "Probably." He says, "You're not." Do you suppose when he's all through making a fool of himself down there that he gets to go home and he had me? Cuz I didn't. And what he did with the sharp sword of truth and the kind of courage it takes to present that lovingly is he led me into my new mind and laid the foundation.
And the foundation of my entire life since that time has been simply this. Anything at all that God may have in mind for me is better than anything at all that I will ever have in mind for me. Period.
And I really do live that way. And I get willful from time to time. But that is how I live.
It's a good life. Anyway, he sent me off to consider that. And I did come to the time this decision.
I can do that. I'm willing to do that. anything's better than what it was.
Went back to him and said, "Okay, I'm ready. I'm I'm quite willing to go down and hand out watchtower." And he laughed at me. He said, "Well, that's noble, but he's already got a guy down there doing that.
Probably got something else in mind for you." And we don't know what it is. Oh, squarely confronted with the issue of faith and reliance upon God. I have no idea what he has in mind for me, but let's go.
Part of my thought process is during that time, I have a mind that will not stop. It goes even when I'm asleep. I finally learned to cherish my dreams cuz they're they're really something.
Full stereo technicolor surround sound real. I just love them. Good, bad, and I don't care.
They're real. I've gotten where anymore if I get interrupted in one, I can get back in and just keep it going for a while. Find out where it's going because those barriers are down.
But I had something really interesting to say and I lost it. You remember what it was, Paul? You've been reading my mind.
>> Okay. >> You noticed that. >> Yeah.
Yeah. No, there's five or six different things I can say. It's really important to me that I say only what you need to hear.
The second part of my prayer is always, please help me tell it like it is and carry the message you would have me carry to this particular group and to me. And sometimes I just get off because I like the funny little sidebars better. don't know what he has in mind for me or for you.
But it gets pretty well simplified here. The one thing I know for sure that God has in mind for me is that each day for the rest of my life, I am to somehow engage an alcoholic who may or may not know if you're alcoholic, you don't ever have to drink again. And together we will do certain things of a spiritual nature that guarantee that neither one of us will ever be useless again.
That's all I know for sure. So life gets pretty simple. The rest of it is playtime.
But I must be ready on any given day. And since I don't get to pick them, I just open myself up to it. People have asked me lately because I'm I'm I've reached the age where I'm a bit opinionated and mouthy.
I mean, I don't have anybody left I need to impress. Uh which, by the way, when I became aware of that was a scary thing because I suddenly got flooded with all the ways in which I try to impress people. How many meetings do you go to?
It's like there's somebody keeping score somewhere. And I got to tell you the truth, I'm down to about 30, some weeks at 40, but I've had to cut way back. I just don't have what it takes anymore.
I attend three formal meetings a week, one of which may stop happening here pretty quick. I have my home group. I have a t Tuesday morning thing I do with the guys.
And Wednesday night, we have a potluck at our house and then a meeting on the traditions and the concepts. And then I'm in touch with probably 30 other people during the week, face to face or on the telephone. And anytime two or more alcoholics are gathered for sobriety, that counts.
That's where my life is. I like meetings, but my life is in the one-toone contacts. Dr.
Bob was asked what he thought about meetings. He said, I think they're important, but there are not vital. What is vital is our daily contact with each other.
And meetings provide a place for us to do that. But the message I got and the message I carry is that this it's this face to face onetoone. This is where it really happens.
And it usually happens when I'm not looking for it. But anyway, how am I going to discover what he has in mind for me? Well, the method I was shown is to find out to get rid of the things that I have in mind for me.
And once those are out of the way, then I can hear what he has in mind for me. You see, God never yells at me. Ever.
Never hits me with a club. Never ever yells at me. If I don't have a quiet mind, I will not hear that we small voice.
Because God is not rude. Comes by invitation only. Comes every time he's invited.
And it's very gentle and quiet from my experience. I mean, it may be loud and noisy for some people, but for me, it's been very quiet. So, I begin to get some guides for my daily life from that.
If I'm going to let God demonstrate through me what he can do, I need to be prepared so that what he does is consistent with me. Comes by invitation only. There's a good God.
I won't bother you unless you invite me. I would never think of dropping by your house without calling first to see if there's time available here. My worst character defect is my rudeness.
So, I need to get rid of that so we can I'll find out are you busy? If I call you on the phone, do you have a minute or two? And then I'll wait for the answer.
I get a lot of them call me and say, do you have a minute? And before I answer, they're talking. That's most of the time that's all right.
To the best of my knowledge, I've never when God's at hand been lied to. So perhaps that's the way I should keep myself. Get rid of my need to lie, which is nothing more than the need to impress.
Lies are so you will take a particular view toward me that I want you to take. That's what lies produce. And when I don't care about your attitude anymore, then I can tell you the truth.
And if I'm letting God work the truth through me, that will be done so gently you don't even know you've been whacked for three days. Or the truth will become acceptable. Okay?
Part of what I'm trying to do with you is make the truth acceptable. See, I know you like I know myself. And that's why I can love you like I do.
And I know that you are at a place where if you don't do something soon, you will die. And I just know that. I also know that you've already done it, so you don't have to die.
Is he talking to me again? I didn't want to come here. You know, I didn't come here to be picked on.
So, I ran off to take my first inventory. And I didn't wait for any instructions. I was ahead of the 12step study school.
Wasn't paying attention. I'd heard somebody say something about uh a list of your rotten stuff. So, I spent two hours making a list of the most rotten things I'd ever done.
Went back to this sponsor who'd been very kind to me, very loving, very patient. He looked at it and he said, "That's garbage. You wrote that to impress me.
Get away from me. Literally just get away. Crushed me.
I had spent two hours in a genuine effort to please him. And by God, somebody's going to listen to this. So I went and found old Leroy.
He was a member of our group. He was one of those who was a showboater but he was one of our group and I had a series of spiritual awakenings. Now for me a spiritual awakening is anytime any alcoholic anywhere understands any part of the truth that's a spiritual awakening.
And Leroy agreed and he sat there listening to my fist and I'd tell him one of these bad things I'd done. He said he would say, "Well, that wasn't that bad." And I'd tell him something else and he say that wasn't that bad. And I began to wake up cuz some of it really was that bad.
And what I woke up to is that once again I had picked somebody who would tell me what I wanted to hear so I didn't have to do anything here. Didn't have to make any changes. And knew immediately if I didn't stop that immediately that I would die a very ugly death.
And I'm not afraid of death. I've not been afraid of death for a long time. But to die an ugly death means that for some period just before that, I'm going to have to live a very ugly life.
And that's beyond my ability to grasp. I can't do that. So I woke up.
The lovely thing about once you surrendered on a spiritual path, even if you do it wrong, it comes out right. It's a We're warned at the third step. Don't take this unless you really mean business cuz you're going to get help whether you want it or not.
You can't change your mind. And old Gera Hannah used I loved I loved her. She was crusty old lady.
She said if you're going to sin enjoy it cuz there is nothing worse than a sniveling sinner. And I've had people who made a serious third step and had a definite experience and then decided to change their mind. Their lives just go to hell.
They can't even be bad anymore. They try and it just doesn't work. Some of them try to drink and circumstances get in the way.
It's just it's awful. And uh and I love it. So I knew that this thing was a lie and that I knew that I needed to do what was correct.
Went back through the study school and through Bruce and finally wrote an inventory the way it's done in this book. Shabby little thing. Didn't have much memory.
I've been living on terror, alcohol, and speed for 14 years. There were some things that burned out and they're still burned. Uh the function that puts labels on things like names, if I'm the least bit tired, it doesn't work.
So if I call you sweetie or honey or kid, just know that I love you anyway, but I don't know who the hell you are. Okay? Your name is gone.
But I'll never forget who you are. I don't remember your name, but I know what your name is. Someday I'll remember it.
Or I'll get honest enough to say, I don't remember what the hell your name is. >> Eric. >> Eric.
>> Eric. I should remember that. I think that's my son's name.
His is Shawn Eric, though. Gave him two powerful names. He's a doofus anyway.
Before I go off into that, Bill continues to remind us how to go about this. He teaches us on page 18 again how to 12step. The uh ex-prom drinker who's found this solution and who is properly armed with facts about himself can generally win the uh confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours.
Until such an understanding is reached, little or nothing can be accomplished. So we have to have an identification. We talk a lot about singleness of purpose here in AA and there's a real reason for that and this is it.
One alcoholic identifying with another alcoholic is the beginning of recovery for one of them. And until that occurs, recovery will not occur either. And while most of everything we know about alcoholism came to us from non-alcoholics, because they really do understand, you know, it's the doctor's opinion.
We got our spiritual stuff from other spiritual people. We got it from non-alcoholics. But because of the nature of the alcoholic mind, as an alcoholic, I don't believe you understand unless you're like me.
So if you present the same information to me, I can hear it and then we can go. If you don't have that little twist in your thinking, I know that and I will reject whatever you say. So we must remain singleness of purpose has a real definite meaning.
I do not want to take a non-alcoholic on an alcoholic 12step call. Okay? There's too great a risk that somebody will die.
Not that I'm going to save him anyway, but there is that risk. The exception to that is one of the best calls we ever made. my sponsor and his wife and myself and my former wife uh went on a 12step call one night.
We were headed for dinner and had a 12step call instead. And we got there and it's this elderly lady in her mid60s. She's dying, drinking herself to death and her place is a mess.
Her her maid had abandoned ship, couldn't stand it anymore. And Gary and I knew what our job was. We also knew it wasn't time for us.
There's some directions in here about the mind clearing a little before we present the message. This lady needed a bath and some comfort. So, we sat aside for an hour or so while our wives gave her a bath.
And Gary and I did the dishes and cleaned the house and made her presentable so she wouldn't be embarrassed when they finally brought her out to where we could talk to her. I'd have been terribly embarrassed if you'd come to my house and seen it in that shape. We worked together and and always have where I grew up in this kind of activity.
Then Gary and I got to talk to her. One alcoholic to another. Age and sex made no difference.
were talking about alcoholism and before it was all over. We spent five or six hours there. Never did get to dinner.
She had been given what's really available here. Love, comfort, understanding, and the truth. She's dead now.
She never drank again. When it was all done, we asked her like Bill and Bob did, you mind if we come back tomorrow? Put her to bed.
can we come back tomorrow? She was glad we came back and we took her to a meeting and began to introduce her to you. I wish they were all that clean and clear, but the principles involved in that are all right here.
Okay, we have found this solution and we just waited for the right time and gave her the truth which is very simple. So anyway, he talks to us about the three different kinds of drinkers. I love this section.
And this goes the average social drinker who can take it or leave it alone. Is that me? Can't take it or leave it alone.
Let me give you one to play with. Scott Lee gave me this. I love this one.
Play with this in your head at 2:30 in the morning when you can't sleep. You ready? I have never had enough, but I have had too much.
Which leads me to conclude that enough is way beyond too much. Ain't that good? Oh, yeah.
Well, he got it anyway. Don't worry about it. Think about it later.
And if you understand it, call Scott because he doesn't understand what he just said. I am not a social drinker. Then we have a certain kind of hard drinker.
Even looks a little like an alcoholic. May may drink enough to gradually impair him and they might even die early. bad drinker, my uncle Walter.
But it's if a sufficient reason comes up like ill health or the warning of a doctor or whatever, given a sufficient reason to quit, this person can stop or moderate. And there's the kicker that kicks me out. I may pretend that I can stop for good enough reasons, but I know I can't moderate.
Alcoholics Anonymous has a lot of those folks in Alcoholics Anonymous today, and I really don't mind if they're here. They came in through treatment. They have good reason to quit and have.
They like our fellowship. They like everything about it, but they tell me the truth. I don't have to do this.
I've already quit. I don't need to get upset with them either. They don't have to do this.
And I certainly don't want them to go anywhere else. If you got this far, you're only one drink away from full-blown alcoholism. Don't take another one.
But the average hard drinker can stop or moderate given a good enough reason. Is that me? If I bring my own memories to the question, the answer is no.
Absolutely not. No way in the world. How about you?
I can trick myself into thinking I can quit because I did once for a little while, four months. My god. But can I moderate?
No. Then there's a real alcoholic. May stay off start out as a moderate drinker, may or may not become a continuous hard drinker.
The biggest inventory list I have ever seen came from a librarian who had never gone anywhere or done anything. Bad drunk, definite alcoholic. This person was mad at the phone book, I think.
I don't know. How much interaction can you have when you're either in the library or home drinking and reading? But at some stage of his drinking career, he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption once he starts to drink.
Is that me? Yep. Is that you?
>> Yep. >> You lose control. Welcome home.
Well, we know you lose control. >> Oh, yeah. And there's nothing I can do about that.
I can't stop that. Neither can you. It's going to take a power greater than me to stop that.
And I don't have it. And you don't have it either. I've been listening to you.
That's what you told me from the beginning. You don't have it. We gathered together seem to form an arena where that can occur.
Isn't that nice? So, we form groups. Anyway, so the main problem the alcoholic center is his mind rather than his body.
I won't go ins alcoholically insane if I don't drink. I won't lose control of my drinking if I don't don't drink. Have you ever had the experience of not wanting to drink again?
>> Yeah. Get drunk and decide I better not do this again. >> Yeah.
Did you drink after that? >> Stay right here. >> Did you do that more than once?
>> Move closer. How do you feel about that? >> I feel better now than I did about it.
>> Does it make you mad? >> Sort of. >> Yeah.
Your friends can still drink and get away with it, huh? >> Yeah. Pretty soon you're going to have to quit hanging around with them.
>> Pretty much. >> Yeah. Cuz they can't drink like you do.
Welcome home. It's really that simple. I've made four 12step calls this morning.
It's really that simple. One to one. Let's talk about this for a minute.
Here's how I drank. How did you drink? Sounds like the same, doesn't it?
Good. Then let's both stay here. We better not go out there.
If you'll point your friends out to me, I'm going to avoid them. also. Here's a book that over the years, what is it, 68 years now, although it hadn't been written that long, 60 some odd years, has been in the hands of millions of us.
And I don't know anybody I've ever talked to that after being here a while doesn't say, "I could write this better than it is. if this would just change here a little bit and we haven't changed a thing essentially. So I kind of figured that whatever is in here must be really important every word of it.
And then every now and then I come up with something in italics that must be really important. So on page 24 there's one of those. The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice and drink.
Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. We are unable at certain times to call into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of either a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink.
That's as true for me today as it was 35 years ago. I do not have the power of choice in drink. Thank God.
When I had the choice, I always made the wrong one. And I am without any personal defense against the first drink. Left to my own devices.
It will look good. It will taste good. I probably ought to have one.
Yeah. No defense at all. I'm powerless.
Wonderful. Forever more. There are people in A who say that A gave them back the power of choice.
I'm glad for them. That is not true for me. Okay.
Nor do I want to play with that. If this is true, this is true. Nowhere in here does it say I get it back.
It says, "Oh, it's gone. Lost the power choice." What a relief. Oh, isn't that a gorgeous baby?
>> >> Is that your baby? You are a blessed man. And this is your wife, >> Sarah.
>> Oh my goodness. I'd get down on my knees and bathe at the moon if I were you. But there is a solution.
Old-timer named Tommo Sullivan out of deep Florida or Mississippi or somewhere down there anyway planted this seed in my head years ago. If you came to AA for answers, you're in trouble because we don't have any answers here. If you want an answer to your problem, just go out on the street of any old town, stop any stranger, tell them what the problem is, and they'll give you an answer.
>> What we have here is a solution. And if you will involve yourself deeply into the solution, you find your own answers. Now, that's a cute way of saying the truth, but isn't that nice?
>> Yeah. If I'm looking for answers to specific crises that I created, I'm going to be crisis centered forever. I need the solution so I can find a way to live where I don't keep creating crisis.
If you don't create them, you don't have to solve them either. Okay? Of course, life gets kind of dull unless you do something else.
So go out and find somebody who's busy in the crisis creating business and play with them for a while. This is the solution. Here's another place where you can get off of this train.
All the way through here, there's ways to get off. Here's one. almost none of us like the self-searching, the leveling of pride and the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its su successful consummation.
All three of those things are going to take place or I won't get any results at all. Half measured bill is nothing. Halfway doesn't get half results.
You either is or you isn't. Uh this is a full-blown deal. The great fact is just this and nothing less.
Please don't settle for anything less than this because this is available here. We have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward our fellows and toward God's universe. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that a created creator has entered into our lives and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous.
He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves. Why would I want to settle for anything less than that? This stirred my soul from the beginning.
It stirs me this moment. I I hope it stirs you. Revolutionized, turned it around, total change.
That's what I'm looking for. I want to be the kind of person who can't do the kind of things that make me ashamed of myself. You notice we don't deal with guilt here.
Isn't that funny? Guilt gets taken care of very easily. Guilt is when you caught me breaking one of your rules or standards and all I have to do is stand still while you tell me what the penalty for that is.
Pay it and it's over. Shame is when I've caught myself violating one of my rules or standards or principles and there's no payoff. There's no punishment.
There's no way I can take care of that. It just eats on me and begins to erode my very principles. Each time I do one of those things, I am less and less able to not do it next time.
So I have to quit living by rules and start living by principles. And this gets to be a because the human condition, the human ego demands rules and regulations and standards. What's the standard here?
You're either sober or you're not. That's a good standard. There is no way to measure that.
you either is or you isn't. A spiritual experience is a simple experience because it's a unifying thing. It's just the understanding that I'm you and you're me.
We're not separated. We're all children of the same God. We're actually kin in in in a very real way.
We're different models. Old Chuck Chamberlain, God love him. One of the things I liked about Chuck is that the way he said things, if I'd have been there first, that's how I would have said it.
Okay? But he got there before I did, so I have to steal from him. And since he's dead, I can do that with impunity.
Okay? He said this one time, stirred my soul. If God had made any two of us the same, one of us would have been unnecessary.
Isn't >> that lovely? That means that I have a contribution to make to life and I'm the only one that can make it. And you have a contribution to make to life and you're the only one that can make it.
I can't make yours and you can't make mine. What a wonderful thing. As far as I know, there's never been another one like this one ever built.
Okay. Completely unique. Same gene pool has produced three different people from my mother and father.
I raised twins once. Same embryo even split made two people. One boy, one girl, both different wondrous thing.
Wondrous thing. The fun thing about it is that if I don't make my if I make my don't make my contribution, life seems to go on anyway. It's not like it was that important a deal.
But if I do make it, somehow the texture of life is enriching some and that's worth doing. My contribution to life I used to think was going to get me in a history book somewhere. No, it's what's my contribution today?
Sometimes is to talk. Sometimes it's to listen. Sometimes just to stay home.
I don't know what it's going to be. We don't know what God has in mind for me yet. We know what he had in mind for me yesterday and today.
No idea what he has in mind for me tomorrow. I mean, I'll check with her first, but he may decide that he needs me on Tahiti or Fiji. I hope.
But you never know. More probably, I'll still be at Tangle Wood in the morning, but I have a backup in case he's needed. You still here?
Okay, Andy, you still here? Okay, don't leave me, baby. So, the question becomes, do you want that?
If what we've learned and felt and seen means anything at all, it means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color, are the children of a living creator with whom we may form a relationship on simple and understandable terms. As soon as we're willing and honest enough to try, there's that damn willing again. All I have to do is be willing.
Those having religious affiliations will find here nothing disturbing to their beliefs or ceremonies. There's no friction among us over that. Uh yeah, I want that.
Don't know what that is, but I want it to uh and it it plays out in different ways. This is an inner experience for me. We're being led to that by Bill.
Uh, somebody's getting tired. See, there's an awful lot of stuff he's going over and over again. So, and I can quote this to you, but I don't want to I want to read it to you so you know where to find it here.
Part of our job as sponsors is not so much to give them the information, is to show them where it is. So, when we're not there, they have a reference. Lack of power.
That's my dilemma. Over on page 50, Bill's talking about the stories that people wrote, our stories, written or not. What we're supposed to do is the people of Alcoholics Anonymous who have recovered flatly state this that since they've come to believe in a power greater than themselves and to take a certain attitude toward that power and to do certain simple things there's been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking revolutionary completely the opposite.
I used to be consumed with acquiring stuff, personalities, money, stuff. Never had anything. My life today is about giving it away as fast as I can.
And my wife will tell you my current frustration is I'm doing my best and it comes in faster than I can get rid of it. It's just gets to be a plague sometimes. keep it coming, but I don't know where to put it.
So, I give it away. And sure enough, more shows up. Someone just gave me a pair of brand new fine H&H cowboy boots.
And because of my neuropathy, I can't wear them. So, I gave them to a cowboy I know. And I didn't think ahead of time.
The son of a lives the same way I do. He's going to bring me back two. Just watch.
He'll bring me back, too. He describes a spiritual experience. Again, since we're going to have one, let's look at it and see if we want it.
In the face of collapse and despair and in the face of total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. When you become spiritually awakened, that is what happens. Those of you who are can testify to that.
That's a simple deal. Have you had a sense of power, a sense of peace, a sense of happiness, and a sense of direction? Then you're already awake.
talk for a second about happiness. There is no such thing as happiness. You're just going to have to learn to be happy without it.
Okay? There's no such thing as happiness. You don't acquire happy.
You either are, or you aren't. Life gets real simple. The consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important fact of our lives.
Now, over on page 53, we're moving toward this thing. I'm skipping a lot, but you're all experts anyway, so I don't have to worry about that. When we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could neither postpone or evade, we had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or nothing.
God either is or isn't. What's our choice to be? Isn't that a beautiful statement of the alcoholic ego?
In utter desperation, I still have to make a choice as to whether God really is or isn't. How egotistical is that? It's also a statement of truth.
Until I make that acknowledgement, it is of no use to me whether God is or isn't. I must make that acknowledgement. And the funny thing is that if God is, there's nothing to worry about.
And if God isn't, there's nothing to worry about. The battle's over. True.
>> Yeah. Nothing to worry about. Grandma used to say, "Never sweat the small stuff.
Everything is small stuff." Of course, she's dead now. So, what does she know? So, what is our choice to be?
Just consider that. Let's take a break. Just consider that.
What's our choice to be? Either everything or nothing. And I can't explain with my mind what everything and nothing is.
This is a departure point. Either is or isn't. What's my choice to be?
You want 15 20 minutes, please? For 11 years, I did an annual retreat at a monastery in Santa Barbara, California, uh with a group group of young lunatics out of Los Angeles and Hollywood and Santa Monica. uh love them dearly but they're wacko.
I remember the first one the sister came in to tell us about the rules of the order. She says we have taken vows of poverty, chastity and hard work. For you guys that means no money, no honey and you don't get your own way.
So, uh, but in reathering sometimes it was difficult. One year we had a couple professional singers that were there. They were sitting off to my right and folks were just chitter chattering and and I don't interrupt that.
I think it's important that they were anxious kind of like Jack is. Let's get this show on the road. So one of them went and as a reflex action the partner and this gorgeous harmony went on over the room and everybody got quiet because they had that kind of voice.
So at the next reathering they just did it again and several people in the group joined in. Lovely. Sounded like a Hawaiian chorus and then I got this horrible picture of what was going to take place here.
They would go back down into the LA area after this retreat with me and say, "See what Dawn taught us." So anyway, so what's your choice to be? I have no choice. God is God is everything.
I don't know what that means, but I can spend the rest of my life now looking for how that how that can be. For instance, in uh I think it was about ' 92, late ' 91 or '92, uh hepatitis took me down. I've had it for probably 50, 60 years, but it got me.
And it was one of those times when uh sometimes I couldn't tie my own shoes. I couldn't move. The There's no way to describe it to you, so I won't bother.
It's a And then they uh put me on interferon to try to treat that. And that makes you sick on top of everything else. And it was one of those times where I was getting the power of God like I've never had it before.
sick most of the time except when I had God's work to do. I had a workshop I did every Tuesday morning at 6:00, 45 minutes across town and I'd wake up about 5 and I'd be fine. And I'd drive out there, we do the workshop, I'm fine.
All the way home, I'm fine. Half hour later, I had talks and these things to do and as long as I was busy at it, I was fine. Sometimes they had to help me to the airplane or I'd stay in the room for a while and have to rest.
But that demonstration was going on and then some idiot came along one day uh said if you were spiritually fit this wouldn't have happened and I bought that for half hour or so. You know what crap? But I did begin to wonder because I know that everything in my life since I showed up here has been a gift in the truest sense.
My very life and everything I have is a gift. I I don't own things anymore. That's why I'm free.
Everything you own owns you, you know. But I and I knew this was part of the gift and I just didn't understand how can this be part of the gift. I was truly baffled.
And while this was kind of all going on at once because it hepatitis brings on depression and interferon compounds with depression and I was in deep deep depression which means little bits of rage and anger here and fatigue here. It's a couldn't feel any emotions. They were gone.
The only emotions available were fear and anger and uh they were quick flash kind of things. Anyhow, I got to the workshop one morning wondering in the back of my mind, how can this be part of the gift and my friend Chuck Maher showed up and I was really amazed cuz Chuck had died two years before, that's what I'd been told, of cancer. This was a very lively looking ghost.
Oh. And after the meeting, he took me aside. He had come to that meeting to 12step me on how to survive interferon.
Didn't know nothing about hepatitis, but he'd had interferon. And he came to show me how to survive that. And in that conversation we had, I got it.
If you have survived any terminal illness, and we have one, you must tell someone about it. There's no choice. You've just got to tell somebody and you can't tell just anybody cuz they're not going to get it.
So that day he was a gift to me, but I also realized I was a gift to him because he needed to tell somebody about this and I was available. So little pieces of that truth about what is everything and nothing come along for the rest of my life as I begin to see how that fits together. There are things that go on on this planet that just stupify me.
I can't grasp them. But I'm willing to accept that somewhere, somehow within me, the spirit of God resides and will work through this. So what's my choice to be?
God's everything. Don't know what that is. See, when I was in school, we only had 16 or 18 recognized galaxies.
Uh now there's billions and billions. This thing is so vast we can't even comprehend it. And yet I I live inside of a creation that I can look out there and I'm fully aware that the light I'm seeing from that star is from something that isn't even there anymore.
It is so far away that it isn't even there where I'm seeing it anymore. It took millions of years to get that light far enough for me to see it. And I marvel at the creation that allows me to see that and then it has a mind that understands what it's seeing.
What a deal. Okay, this just all comes along later. It's not mountaintop stuff, but that's big stuff.
So when I look at the sky, I do not feel smaller. I feel larger than I am. And when I am with you, I am larger than I am.
You make me larger than I am. Because I am you and you are me. And if I am with you, I am larger than I am.
Enough. Well, there's everything that I need to uh associate myself with that. Don't you think since that's what it's going to take to help me overcome alcoholism, I might just want to cooperate here and associate.
So, where am I going to look? I've already failed by looking out here. I've looked out here as far as I can look and I can see it, but I can't relate to it.
I am not a mountain. I can see the mountain, but I'm not a mountain. Well, on page 55, I'm told, if God is everything, and you want to develop a relationship with him on easy and understandable terms, deep down on every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God.
It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things. And I love the calamity. Your calamity is probably my entertainment.
Uh, a good deal of comedy is based on somebody falling on their ass. And as long as it isn't me, it's funny. There are real calamities, and I need to match them with something other than my reaction to me feeling threatened.
A real calamity calls for certainty here, action here, quiet here, the ability to respond to the genuine calamity. And we've had some uh my nephew Jeff, one of my greatest teachers, died when he was 16. For the whole family, that's a calamity.
We knew he was going to. He had a very rare blood disease. Maybe what was it, honey?
One in a million. Get it? But we knew it would take him.
And he knew it would take him before he was 21. This kid lived all the way to 16. He was courage.
He was here all the time. He got every minute out of this deal. And he and I became close.
One of the symptoms of this disease, he had to stay out of the sun. And and because it would do things to his skin. And at the time I was in the specialty roofing business.
I did commercial re-roofing. And that's what he wanted to be. I was one of his heroes.
So we'd get him all buttoned down and take him up on the roof and he just had a ball. And when he left, it was a calamity. And I got to cry for the first time in my life for all the times I hadn't.
They had me do his funeral service. I got to be present for that. His dad didn't like me much.
And that's just a fact. I never did anything to him. He just didn't like me that much.
And all through that funeral, I all I'm doing is crying. But I learned you can talk and cry at the same time. And all I did was tell these people about this kid.
Match calamity with serenity, clarity of thought. Okay. And before it was over, his dad actually came up and thanked me.
He learned things about his son he didn't even know. That's not of my doing. It's of my willingness to be here now and to respond with clarity.
Is that kind of the essence of that, honey? She was there, you know. Kickass little kid.
Sent my medicine bag off with him so he wouldn't have to go along. He really loved that kind of stuff. Anyhow, so there are real calamities, but most calamities are the ones I make up.
This soup just isn't hot enough. They've ruined my life. They wouldn't give me the green ball.
There's a calamity for a 5-year-old. That's a genuine my life is over. Grandpa, they've ruined it.
Well, clarity there is to just sit still until she gets over it. If you tell the boys, give her the ball, then she will use that forever more. Okay?
And by sitting there, one of the boys finally said, "Janna, come on down. I'll give you the ball. She got him.
Pump. Oh, that won't hurt. That was me.
Pump is where you have very little substance. Skinny little old person. And you got to represent yourself as having much more than that.
So you put on great huge robes with lots of fur collar and puffed sleeves and you put on your majesty and you flow and you do motions and you say marvelous things in a marvelous voice. You even grant people the right to be wrong. That's how great I am.
You may kiss my ring. And inside this scrawny little thing just filled with pomp. I love pomp.
I love pompous people. They are one of the few people I can pick on without any guilt whatsoever. You ain't pompous.
You don't have what it takes to be pompous. I thought that's where you were getting at. >> No, no, no.
Pomp pompish, you're not. We have some other things we will talk about later. He's also a good dad.
You notice that? This baby's sleeping next to this trunk for God's sake. This nerd do well.
This Oh my. Anybody else here been pompous? The worst place we display that is at home in the criminal act called raising children.
That's usually a criminal activity the way most of us did it. Forcing my kingdom upon yours. You will do what I say.
You will be what I want you to be. You will behave this way. You are a reflection of me.
blah blah blah blah blah. It's a criminal act. So, we don't do that here anymore.
Neither with the people I sponsor nor with my children and grandchildren. Okay. Did you enjoy being pompous?
That's pompous dismissal of you as a person. I disagree with you, but I don't have any way to counter your argument. So in today's world it says whatever.
Uh oh. Somebody said that just not too long ago, didn't they? Whatever.
It just stops everything. And by worship of other things. Oh my god.
money, power, cars, sex, work, worship. One of the funniest things I have ever seen was somebody who understood this, an Alanon member who played it out on the floor where I worked. I worked for an organization that got jobs for men coming out of prison.
We did job counseling, setting things up, training, all that sort of stuff. So there'd be eight or 10 of them sitting on a bench in the morning. And this little alon named Paula, she she was cute and vivacious and bouncy and irreverent and nearly pornographic in every move.
Just it was just Paula in her natural state. And the boys would sit there and watch and just wonder. And we had a an older Mexican counselor named Mercy Medina.
And Mercy and Paula really genuinely liked each other. And Mercy had a sense of humor. And one morning when all the boys were sitting there, Mercy ran out and kneelled in front of Paula and said, "Thank you, Jesus.
Thank you." and she put her hand on his head and said, "Mercy, honey, I'd make a out of you. Playing pompus is a game." Cuz that's what it is. It's a game.
Have some fun with all this. But those get in the way of my relationship with God. Can't tolerate pomposity.
Can't tolerate worship of other things. And it isn't that there's a rule against it, but if I'm worshiping money, I can't worship the spirit. You can't serve two masters.
That sounds like a rule. That's simply a statement of fact. You can't serve two masters.
This whole deal is about all or nothing. And this is what was given to me. Thank God.
They didn't pussyfoot with me. Okay? It's all or nothing.
We finally uh saw the faith in some kind of a god as a part of our makeup as much as the feeling we have for a friend. What do you think of that? Just as a general idea.
Have you ever worshiped anything? >> Yeah. >> Tattoos.
>> Tattoos. >> Yeah. >> They are demonstrations of who I am >> or how I think.
These are my signs. I worship this to the point where I make a mark on me just to let you know. This is simple.
Good gone. I've been bit by something. Where is it?
I'll bite him back. This is me. Says Don.
Isn't that funny? At 17, I was already le getting to the place where I had to put my name on my arm so I wouldn't forget it. But you understand that worship of some sort.
Yeah. You would >> I worship my daughter. >> Okay.
How does that play out? >> Great. I don't know.
works for me. >> Would you give your life for her? >> Yeah.
>> We make a mistake with that one sometimes. You know, greater love hath no man than to give his life for his brother. I used to think that meant I'd be willing to die for you, which is only one aspect of it.
The real truth of that one is I will give my life for you. I will do my living for you. That's what this is about.
I will live my life as if it were your last day, not as if it were my last day. It's quite a change. So, you'd kind of like to stop drinking then, wouldn't you?
Does that interfere with your worship of your daughter? >> It would. Yeah.
>> Okay. >> I've been sober since she's been born. >> That's good.
How long's that been? >> Two years next week. >> Hallelujah.
Look at that. Somebody told me he was new. He didn't know.
He's an old-timer. No, that and that's good. How about you?
Have you worshiped anything along the way? >> Michigan. >> Drugs and alcohol.
>> Yeah. >> Did you ever pray at the tube when the Wolverines were playing? >> Yeah, a few times.
>> Okay. No, this it isn't as silly as it sounds. Those are the whatever occupies my attention, whatever gives me the power, that is my God.
That's what I'm worshiping. And we all go through that stands in the way. I can only serve one master.
This is a This calls for some serious thought, doesn't it? >> I thought this was going to be easy. Come in, don't drink.
Go to meetings. Sometimes we had to search ferously, but he was there. He was as much a fact as we were.
We found the great reality deep within. In the last analysis, it is only there that he may be found. It was so with us.
What a scary thing to present to somebody like me who had gone deep within and what he found he had to kill it. Thank God for the people who understand that like Bruce said, there's nothing in there that hasn't already killed you. And if we go in and face it and shine the light on it, it will go away.
What a great promise. But God can't stand a vacuum. So as I open up, it will fill me up.
If I get rid of who I'm not, then I'll become who I am. It's automatic. I don't even have to look anymore.
Is that an acceptable idea that this is deep within? It means casting out most of our old ideas. Most of us have been taught it's out here somewhere, some nebulous place called heaven or whatever.
or it doesn't exist at all. Or if it does, I don't want anything to do with it. This casts all those ideas out.
If I'm going to go deep within, would would you like to try that journey? I mean, it's a little rigorous journey. It takes several weeks.
You can awaken immediately, but the journey to the quiet place takes a little bit of time because you got a lot of sludge to clear out of the way. So, okay. Well, I'm I've taken the journey before.
I like it. Uh I like to go back down to the beginning of the road and pick some guy up and bring him along with me and uh make the journey all over again. The journey is most of the fun, is it, Jack?
>> Yes, sir. >> It's the journey. I thought the spiritual awakening meant it's over now.
This is the end of the road. My favorite gospel and I love gospel music. Oh, I didn't know that, but I love to sing those old gospel songs.
Oh, Mahalia Jackson sang one that epitomizes my sense of my spirituality. Rusty old halo, skinny white cloud or skinny white wings and a robe that's so itchy it scratches. A rusty old halo, a skinny old cloud, secondhand wings full of patches, and that's kind of it.
Okay. No more pop, no more man, just a skinny white cloud and a road that's so woolly it scratches. Any of you ever hear Mahelia Jackson sing?
If you ever have the opportunity, just listen. She was the voice of God. It came right through her.
She did to music what Jack does to wood. She carved away everything that didn't belong in a song and then sang whatever was left with power and gusto. Oh my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my.
So that's where we're going to go looking. As Bruce said, when we drew near to him, he disclosed himself to us. How it works is an important chapter that we read so often we've forgotten how important it is.
Its meaning gets lost. It is the approach to the program. Rarely have we seen a person fail and thoroughly followed our path.
Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. It's not a judgment. It's an observation.
People who don't recover simply don't use the recovery process. That's simple. These are usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves.
Do any of you think that? That you're in constitutionally incapable of being honest with yourselves? Do you still think that?
Yeah. I used to think that. I went I went to Phil and told him that.
He says, 'Well, that's the most honest statement you've ever made, so you you're capable. They're not at fault. They seem to have been born that way.
They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Geez, we had a lot of meanings on what is rigorous honesty. We're so funny.
We either spend our meeting time talking about things we don't know anything about or we dissect things that are very simple. Rigorous honesty means rigorous honesty. What does that mean?
Uh rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those too who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders.
But many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. I am one of those grave emotional and mental disorders to the point where competent authorities properly diagnose me. A psychopath is a person that doesn't know the difference between right and wrong.
So you can't help them. A sociopath is a person who does know the difference between right and wrong. They just don't give a damn.
So, you can't help them. And I was that second. A type two, whatever that means.
I don't know what a type one is, but I don't need it. grave emotional and mental disorders, but to recover they have a capacity to be honest. Have you conceded to your innermost self yet that you are alcoholic?
That's as rigorously honest as you need to get to begin the path. That's the first step in recovery to concede to my innermost self that I am indeed alcoholic. And that being the case, there is no treatment for it.
I am doomed to either live a miserable life or drink myself to death without spiritual aid. That's that's the deal. Is that okay with you?
Good. Well, he he just sent you an angel. He sent me three of them.
They were ugly except for Bruce. Then I'm told how to present myself. Again, I'm being taught our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now.
Now, that's pretty clear. Sometimes I hear people talk about what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now. And it confuses me a little bit because it isn't the definition.
The drama is good backdrop for what it is. What was I like? What happened and what I'm like now and and for me and this is not a please not a condemnation but you asked me to share my life with you.
I would never ever think of taking a personal problem to an AA meeting. I can't think of anything sillier for me to do. I go in with a problem and there's 20 of you here.
I leave with 21 problems. Now, what am I going to do? There are people that we sometimes call sponsors or advisors.
They get that because they will show me a solution. They won't try to give me an answer. They'll show me a solution, which is always the same.
Have you prayed about it yet? Jesus, what do I call him? What I do take to meetings is what I was like when I had the problem, what happened to me, and what I'm like now that I don't have the problem.
Because there may be somebody there with that problem. And it takes all three. If all I came to A and heard were war stories, why would I stay here?
I know all about that. I mean, I think they're amusing and I think they're vitally important for identification, but there better be me more than that. I want to know what happened to you.
How come it is you don't drink anymore? And Bruce and Phil and Roy would tell me that. And now, what are you like?
I've changed. What am I like today? Well, you've been with me over the weekend, part of the time.
Uh, I'm a mouthy, opinionated old man, if you want to take that view. Um, Brian thinks I'm cute, but Brian is very astute. So it it goes far beyond that.
Fact number one is that I have been continuously sober, alcohol-f free for a little over 35 years. That's part of who I am. New people need to know that.
You may not want what I have, but you may want that. And that's a possibility. I am living hope.
And so are you. We could have worked him over on the street. Wouldn't be a first time.
More better. We thought, let's bring him here among all of us. Maybe he can gather hope just from seeing the numbers of people living this way that are laughing and eating and having fun and really getting something out of life.
Let me let me offer you something here. This book I I get tickled with this. Bill and Dr.
Bob used to sit down at the kitchen table with some of the boys and count noses because most alcoholics don't make it. And after about three years, they were counting noses one night and realized they had 40 people doing essentially the same thing. They were staying sober for long periods of time like six months and seven months and some of them even two and three years.
This is a big deal. doesn't happen. We better write a book about that.
By the time they got it done, there were about a hundred roughly. I have heard people say, "Well, there were only 77." But Bill liked even numbers. Whatever the hell the truth is, doesn't matter.
The fact is there are more people in this room today than we're in all of Alcoholics Anonymous the night they decide they better write this book. Is that powerful? Just knocks me for a loop.
What a deal. And both of them died sober, by the way. If you decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps.
We had hundreds of meetings on particularly midnight meetings at York Street on what does any lengths mean? It means any lengths. >> >> Okay.
What we spent meetings talking about that was important is what possible lengths are there that we wouldn't go to. But it just means any lengths. Whatever.
You want me to push peanuts down Broadway with my nose? If that'll keep me sober, I'll do it. You're going to have to convince me that'll keep me sober because I don't humiliate myself before anybody.
I'm one of God's kids. But I'm willing. If you can show me a good reason to do it, I'll do it.
If it'll make my granddaughter laugh, I'll do it in the flash. Oh, please protect me from a 5-year-old. She could get me to do anything.
We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. With all the earnestness that I command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, but the result was nil until we let go.
Absolutely. Nil means nothing. You get no results at all by holding on to anything.
Have you noticed that with new people? One of the ways that gets displayed that the sponsors need to watch for is suddenly around the forep you don't hear from them anymore and then six months later they come back for the second time and wonder why it didn't work. Now I used to start them at the beginning and go through assuming we missed something.
The last two I've had that did that, I won't let them do that. They were in the middle of inventory. Finish it.
We're not going to do a one, two, three dance for the next 10 years. Finish this. And when we finish the whole process, if you need to, we'll go back and do the whole thing again.
I haven't heard from either one of them. They don't like that idea. They want somebody to do the dance for them.
One of them called me and this sounds cold and hard, but I think it's loving. Well, I do. I want him here so bad, but I want him to die as soon as possible so he can get here quicker.
If I prop him up, I can keep him alive for years in desperation. I don't want to do that. He drank at 11 years sobriety.
his sponsor had done something that he didn't much like and he got a little resentment toward his sponsor and then his sponsor died before he got it cleared up and he drank. His sponsor was his higher power. Of course he drank and he had a lowgrade resentment that really made him mad.
How dare he die before I get it straightened out. And he drank and he kept drinking and kept drinking. He finally got to me several years later and we kind of looked at his life.
He was a a holistic chiropractor. Now, I want to show you how God works. I went to one once because of the neuropathy.
We're looking at I've got chronic pain and I just I get tired of it sometimes. And we're just looking at solutions and they wanted me to take some adrenal corpex compound. It sounded like a good thing till I read the label, 80% alcohol.
And I looked at all the rest of their little remedies. 80% alcohol. That's the base.
So that's out for me. So he and I discovered something as we chatted. He was taking his own medications for certain problems he had.
The reason he couldn't stop drinking is that he never stopped drinking. Okay? And then pretty soon he'd go to drinking.
But he'd been drinking the whole time. didn't even know it and the craving was on him. Anyway, we we got all that done.
He called me. We We had a good Thursday. He was getting ready to write inventory.
He was actually getting started. Had a list made and got a couple columns written and disappeared and over right after Christmas called me and said, "Uh, I drank over the holidays. What should I do now?" And I pray when I get questions like that.
I don't know what to say. There's no rules on that. What does he need?
And I prayed and I heard myself say to him this. Go drink. Drink until you understand that you cannot not drink.
Then call me back. And he's called me once, but he was drinking. He hasn't discovered yet that he can't not drink.
Sounds harsh, but I'm there. I'm ready. Any anytime he calls, I'm ready.
But until he comes to that, he hasn't conceded to his innermost self that he can't that he's alcoholic. What can I do for him? Nothing.
And I don't want to spoil a future opportunity. The time comes that he finds that he will call me because he can trust me. enough to call me and we'll go to work.
He may die before then. I don't know. I do know that I can kill him if I just keep putting up with him.
Okay, don't take that as a rule. There are other guys that I just nurse and nurse and nurse. I nursed Chuck for over a year before we got anything done.
He was so badly wounded, that's what he needed. Remember, we deal with alcohol. Cunning, baffling, powerful.
Without help, it is too much for us. But there is one who has all power. That one is God.
May you find him now. Right now. Find him.
Right here. Right now. If you'll get right here, right now.
you will find him because that's where he exists and he's everything. >> Okay? And you probably won't fall in your chair.
At one/3 step, we did have an epileptic seizure, but I think that would have happened anyway. This this was a rather uptight person that was getting ready to do it. Anyhow, just pick that time for dramatic effect.
I don't know. Half measures available us nothing. That's a harsh harsh piece of truth.
Half measures don't get me half sober. Half measures avail. There's no need to even start this unless you're going to finish it is what that says to me.
Yeah. Don't even start it unless you're going to finish it. because this is rigorous.
This is not easy. This is really tough stuff we're about. It takes the power of God to get me where I can even look at myself.
For goodness sakes, any kind of honesty, I can't do it alone. I can't get rigorously honest. Then they go through the steps to tell us exactly what we're faced with and our response is automatic.
What an order. I can't go through with that. Making amends looks pretty scary when you're not even sure that you done anything wrong.
After all, it was their fault. One of my favorite things when I'm working with inmates in therapeutic situations is uh to just ask somebody who brought you here, the judge, sheriff, the marshalss. We go through.
Selom have I ever had anyone say, "Oh, I did." But that's where we go. Okay, I won't get through this part because I get tired of this technical stuff and I want to tell more stories. What an order.
I can't go through with it. Well, don't be discouraged. No one among us has been able to achieve anything like perfect in adherence to these principles.
We're not saints. The point is we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The uh principles we have set down here are guides to progress and we claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.
Very important for me to learn that. I thought you go from sick bad guy to spiritual fine guy and it's all then I'd get my little woke coat with the leather patches on the elbow. my little place up on up near Evergreen at the side of Lookout Mountainer.
And I would listen to Mozart and Beethoven during the day out on the patio I had just outside the French doors and dispense a little wisdom to the peasants as they passed by. Beloved by all the crap we think of our description of the alcoholic which we have spent quite some time describing the chapter to the agnostic and our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas. One, we're alcoholic and cannot manage our own lives.
Second, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. And third, that God could and would if he were sought. Now the time to get off the train or to go back when I'm working with people and see what we missed because the next thing says being convinced we were at step three.
If we are not convinced of those three propositions, we need to spend some more time getting convinced. Are you all convinced? Can you run your own life?
>> No. >> Can you not drink? >> Can you run your own life?
>> No. >> No. >> Not while drinking, which is, by the way, what you do best, right?
>> Is that what you do best? Drinking. >> No.
>> No. Is that what you do most? >> No, but I do it really well.
>> You do it really well. Do you ever do it when you don't want to? >> Yes.
Uh >> oh. >> Okay. >> That's good enough for a start.
That's good. >> Do you think you can stop by yourself? >> Actually, I tried once.
I went 10 months in the drinking water. >> Did you? >> Yeah.
>> That's a good strip. >> But I had to live out in the woods and I didn't actually see >> >> Following my peyote vision, I lived in the woods for 4 months. >> That's the only way I could do it, too.
The minute I got to San Francisco, I got drunk. >> Yeah. No wonder I like you.
I'll manage my life. I'll go live with the animals. You think you're alcoholic?
>> Yes. >> Can you manage your own life? >> Not today.
>> Not today. Well, this is the only one you got. >> Do you think any of us can relieve your alcoholism?
>> Relieve it for me? No. >> No.
Good. He's not filled with illusion. You're right.
We can't. Alone or collectively, we can't. The next proposition is the one, >> are you convinced that God could and would if he were sought?
>> Sorry. >> God could and would if he were sought. >> Yeah, that's the more difficult part of the process.
>> Well, it doesn't say found. >> Excuse me. >> Doesn't say found.
It does not say God was found. Says here we leave it in seeking. Are you willing to seek?
>> Yes. That's why I'm here. >> Good.
Good. That's a straight answer. Good.
He's yours now, Brian. >> He's yours now. >> Oh, you poor thing.
No, I we can move forward. We're now at step three. I'm willing to seek.
I understand I can't do it. I understand you can't do it. So, I'm willing to seek deep within myself to see if I can find a power greater than myself within myself that can relieve my alcoholism.
If that's what you want, then we're step three. It's no more complicated than that. Oh, I wish I lived here.
I'd really like to sponsor you, but I don't. So, I'm going to turn you over to Adolf over here. No, actually we're making some fun of that.
Brian's the one that found him right on the street. >> Oh, right on the street in Camden. Brian found him.
>> My first meeting was the night before that. >> Is that right? >> The day two days before.
>> No wonder he looks so scared when we walked up to you. It's them. You've been following me all over town.
Oh, you're dear to my heart. Six years ago, it was Jim. >> Same place.
Wild eyes. Totally psycho. >> Thank you for letting me love you.
>> Thank you. >> Yeah. Well, being convinced we're step three, which is we've decided to turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understood him.
So, what do we mean by that? And just what do we do? Then Bill goes through this wonderful thing about the actor, which really pulled my chain because that's me.
Have any of you run through this piece before briefly as we make this approach and and this is particularly pertinent selfishness and self-centerness that we think is the root of our troubles. Are we convinced of that? Okay.
Our troubles we think are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves. We must be rid of this selfishness.
If we don't, it kills us. Okay? There often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without God's help.
I can't do it. You can't do it. I can't use self to get rid of self.
Can't solve the problem with the problem. Neither could we wish reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing it away. We had to have God's help.
He gives us a couple ideas about images for God, God the Father, the a uh where his agents and all that sort of thing. had a little trouble with the father thing, but I had I had time to run that through. My sponsor encouraged prayerful contemplation as well as meditation.
In here, there's an admonition that don't let your prejudices deter you from asking what spiritual terms mean to you. And I realize most of them don't mean a thing to me. I've been stealing them all my life.
But what does this mean? father. Why am I so upset with my dad?
Because my dad was truly a lovely man. He was not perfect, but he was a good man. He was there all the time.
He provided for the family. He taught us things. Uh he exposed us to life.
He'd pull us out of school sometimes because he thought we'd learn more where we were going than we would in school. when we take our lessons with us and we'd go to Carl'sbad or somewhere where we had an experience. Uh he was fun, he was playful, he was a musician.
He one day he came out, a bunch of us were getting tricky with our bicycles. My dad came out and just as a lark got on it backwards, sat on the handlebars facing the wrong directions and rode off. Incredible.
But I was pissed at him. And I've discovered why in that quietness of my own heart. I know deep within me is the fundamental idea.
I know what father means. Not as a gender thing, but as a principle, God the father. I know what that is.
And my dad didn't match up. No human being can. I'm asking things of him that are beyond his ability to give me.
I was pissed cuz he didn't give me what I needed at five. Well, nobody could have for goodness sakes. I was a demanding little Plus the fact that I'm no longer five and I don't need that anymore anyway.
Got to get off his back. A number of things occurred, but mainly I knew what the truth was and he didn't match it. Shame on me.
My dad and grandpa were the head of the Colorado Klux Clan in the late 20s and early 30s. So, we had some funky ideas in our house for a while and they both awakened spiritually and spent the rest of their lives straightening that up. They took their robes off somewhere in the 30s.
I left their robes on them for years after that. That's what we do. And that's some of the truth that came out of just this basic idea.
>> >> Okay. That he had done the very best he could of what he had. As far as I was concerned, that wasn't enough.
That doesn't matter. He'd done the best he could. And so what I at least mine was there all the time.
I'm in a penitentiary cell and my kids are in a foster home. Maybe I ought to get off his back inside me. And getting off his back got me off of my back.
I've done the very best I could and this is where I am. Maybe I better try something new cuz my way doesn't work. It's a wonderful little thing.
And where is children? Didn't know it then, but what a lovely idea that is. Think about that.
What is it that children are supposed to do most of the time? >> Play. And we take it so seriously.
Play and sleep and eat. Well, if I'm one of God's children, maybe I need to learn how to play. And I have.
I really have learned how to play. And you know where I learned it? Children.
Adults don't know how to play. See, they've forgotten. One of the guys I sponsored, brilliant, brilliant man.
He's now a millionaire. We don't hear much from him because he's just he's out there somewhere. But when we got he's the one that gave me a after 10 hours of listening to his fistep, I'm dying.
He's just the juice is gone. And I said, "Man, we got to stop." So I climbed up on his bed and went to sleep. Woke up two hours later and he's still going at it.
He put a long tent step on my answering machine once. I wasn't there. He didn't care.
But he came to me one day and he said, sadly, he said, "Uh, I need to have you teach me how to play. I don't know how to play." Dad never showed me. I had no brothers.
I've been serious my whole life. Would you show me how to play? So, we took him up to Estus Park and took him go-kart riding to start with.
That's where boys ought to start on a go-kart with a governor on it so nobody can get hurt. What he didn't know is that we'd made arrangements uh cuz we did the roof on this place that if one of us asked, they'd take the governor off of our cart. But we had a lot of fun.
We began to learn to play. Took him fishing. Took him skiing with me.
I didn't go skiing for the first time. Well, the second time. First time I went skiing, I was 16.
Some kid fell down right next to me and I heard his leg go snap. And I went and rode toboggins the rest of the day and didn't go back till I was 50. So, I'm a recreational skier.
I really like green slopes. If there's a mogul on it, I don't want to see it. I just like to, you know, I'm I'm the one that the first three times up was embarrassed because some tiny little voice would go on your left and some tiny little kid would go shing by me.
On your right. I fell down once and this little creature about so big said, "You all right, mister?" >> But I've only fall fallen a couple times. cuz I don't like falling.
My kids took me up there and taught me to ski. They took me to the very top and they said, "Pop, there's only one way down." And then throughout the day, each one of them would trade off hanging with me while I learned how to get down off of that mountain. And they told me, "Use your fear.
I'm afraid I'm going to fall." Well, that's what skiing is. It's falling down a mountain. It's just that you control the fall, but you are falling.
Make no mistake about it. And if you don't control it, you're going to run into a tree or another skier or something. Anyway, I'll learn to ski.
But I'm a recreational skier. Paul got serious about skiing and he stopped playing. He started doing mogul jumps and all this and I lost him as a as a playmate.
So, I had to go find me another one. I've got one now that's a fishing buddy. Uh he's a former well he worked for the parks department in Colorado and he knows all good fishing holes and I'm letting him teach me how to fish.
It's like playing cribage. Just show me where it is. I know how to get it.
We're children. Children live with a sense of awe and so do I. The more the longer I live in with a sense of the presence of God in my life and the more I do spiritual things, the more in awe I am because the less I know.
This is an incredible We spent a good part of Thursday just sitting on Brian's porch. Brian is such a kind man. and he let me sit on his porch just looking at Maine.
Do you know how stunning the place is where you live? You have water. Lots of water and green trees and rolling hills and the earth smells and I just I'm stunned by your state.
I will go back to mine because that's where I belong. But I sure did enjoy this one. I'm in awe.
How can all this be going on here? And I want to develop that sense more and more and more. Part of why I can talk to you is that, you know, I'm not talking down to you.
I know you're scared. I know you're nervous. I know you're baffled.
And so am I. And you know that. And we'll just we'll get through this thing together.
And so we develop that trust because I'm not an adult. I don't know anything he doesn't know. But I know him and he knows me.
And we both have to go to dad one. I I had Let me tell you one thing. We we'll we'll jump.
Do you want to take the third step now or you want to do it later this evening? It'll help me time it. >> Okay.
I want to tell you one last hang-up I had to had to get rid of. My first sponsor became a talking in tongues reborn Christian. My two best friends on the street and my first street sponsor became reborn talking in tongue Christians.
I made myself available to the experience and it just hasn't happened for me. And I went through a period of time where I thought there must be something wrong with me. And one of my best friends made that same shift.
So, I started Bible studies and I followed Dick Grant around and would ask him questions and I truly made myself available. It just didn't happen that way to me. When Jim Ellis and I were doing Bible studies and Jim stopped at the sixth week we got together, he says, "We're going to stop this.
I have come to understand that you love Jesus as much as I do, and I don't want to fool with that." I didn't know what that meant, but I took his word for it. But where I got unconfused, a very dear friend of mine, truly spiritual woman. This woman is on a mission for God and has been for years that manifests this way.
There was a time she had work to do, so she couldn't work and she had no money and she had no gas in her car, but she drove it for four months anyway. People would put a rag in, nothing in there. I don't pretend to understand it.
I just know she had a mission to take care of and she had transportation. Anyway, I was talking to her about this and whether it's Jesus or Buddha or whatever it is, that last piece, I told her how confused I was and how willing I was and what am I doing wrong? She says, "Nothing." She says, "Understand this." And this was a Christian woman.
She says, 'I love Jesus dearly, but there are times when I have to go to him and say, Jesus, honey, I really love you, but I need to talk to dad. And it was consistent with the experience I'd had and put some words on it and freed me up from that. So, whatever it may be, there's freedom in the way we do this.
I suggest that you consider this. This is a viewpoint in all spiritual activities there are some similarities religious ceremonies or whatever the first thing that occurs is an invocation which means somebody invokes the name of God they acknowledge the presence of God I'm disturbed by some things I see in a today where I hear some chairperson say let's invite God in hey he's already here you don't need to do that I need to acknowledge the presence. If I wanted to talk to Jack, I'll say Jack.
And that isn't a demand for his attention. That's my recognition that Jack is here and I am now ready to communicate if you have time. It's an invocation.
Speak the name out loud. Speak the word. Then there is a prayerful ceremony where we say what it is we're here for.
What are we going to do? what what's this activity about? Then we do whatever that is and at the end of all that there's an amen which closes that spiritual activity and we go on to something else.
So I look here to see does that fit here and it certainly does here at the third step. The first thing it says is God. Okay, I'm acknowledging the presence of God.
I'm about to talk to it. Then I ask what I'm here for. I offer myself to thee to do with me and build with me as I will.
Relieve me of the bondage of self. Take away my difficulties. There's some thing I ask for.
And then I look for the amen and it ain't there. And I go on through looking some more and there's some stuff about inventory and house cleaning and willingness. There's all kinds of things.
And then there's another prayer that looks kind of like this one only it seems to have teeth in it. We call it the sevenstep prayer. I'm ready now.
You can have all of me. And at the end of that one is an amen. So I have concluded an act as if everything from the word God here on page 63 to the amen at the end of the sevenstep prayer is all part of the same prayer.
Prayer now becomes action and activity. And I'm involved in it. It becomes a living thing.
It's not just something in my head. Which also means that during this activity, I'm spiritually protected. I have the aid of God.
I offer myself to thee. Take away my difficulties. Well, that's what the inventory helps me do.
Relieve me of the bondage of self. That's what the house cleaning helps me to do. That's a viewpoint that I offer you.
Those who have done it that way with me, and I didn't do it that way the first time. This has come to me since, have been 100% successful because they've been able to go into the deep dark places of the mind without fear because they're going in with light and they trust in their God and they trust that this will actually occur. So, with that in mind, we're going to eat at 6.
Looks like you started already, Dave. >> I love him, too, but I haven't had a chance to pick on him yet this weekend. >> Oh, well, that's all right.
I need that. So, if you wish, then we will say the third step prayer and then we'll take a nice long break and have a lobster pig out. Uh, if you would like, we can get back together later this evening.
Or if you would prefer, we can do it in the morning. What What's your choice? I don't mind.
>> Okay. We're going to eat at 6. What time you going to get back together?
7:30, 8. What's your What's your plan? >> What's your >> 8:00?
Because I've been to this I've been to this lobster pig out before. Uh, it's going to take till damn near eight just to wash up. Let let's say till 8:00.
So we'll take this third step prayer now. Then if you wish. >> Uh I'm ready.
>> She's ready. >> If you're ready, join us. If you're not ready, >> it doesn't matter.
God, >> I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thy will. Relieve me in the bondage of self that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I will help thy way of life.
May I do thy will always see you at 8 or before. Absolutely. >> >> My experience of that third step with the group has always been very gentle.
Did you find that pleasant? That's one of the consistent experiences that I have in the spiritual realm is it's pleasant. There's a gentleness and a kindness about it.
>> >> Tell you what, I'm just supposed this evening to just sit and chat. We got a lot of technical stuff to do and and I'm tired of technical for the moment. We'll do it if that's what you wish, >> but I'd rather just chat and visit and see because we're going to be here in the morning, too.
And this is not the definitive big book study of all time. We have now entered into the realm of the spirit. And uh so I would just like myself to make myself available to you at this moment particularly to you newer people whoever you may be cuz having just entered the world of spirit does it what's it feel like to you at the moment?
>> At the moment. >> Yeah. Intense.
>> That's a good word. >> It's intense. Pleasantly intense for me.
>> Yeah. That's a different experience, isn't it? >> Welcome.
>> Huh? >> A welcome. >> A welcome experience.
Yeah. Yeah, I expect so. Well, I'll tell you a couple stories about that third experience with groups while you figure out what we're going to do next.
I dearly love the Santa Santa Santa Monica bunch at the retreat center up in Santa Barbara because they are consistently looney. They're also lovely lovely people. And one of those we we had a long discussion as we le led up into the third step.
We were a couple hours kind of getting there and I let them run and have their heads so we could make the decision. We we'd had a couple times before that and what was coming out of the group was a certain fanatic, ungentle, uh but intense big book AA and everything had to be just right. And so everybody had to be really ready to take this.
After about two hours, we said the third step prayer together. And as soon as we got up, two of the people said, "Well, that didn't count cuz I didn't really mean it." I thought, "Well, okay." So we played for another hour and we took a break and came back and I said, "I'm going out in the garden and say the third step prayer and if any of you'd like to come join me, do and it was all over. They all came.
It was done." But the most powerful one I've ever experienced was the very first one. This particular monastery retreat center has a silence rule. It's just the rules of the house from 10:00 at night until after breakfast in the morning.
No talking to anybody for any reason whatsoever. It's just silence. And I couldn't have timed it if I had tried.
But on Saturday night, just before 10:00, the group reached the third step prayer. We spent a half hour deciding whether to sit, stand, kneel, you know. Finally, everybody knelt except one guy.
He wouldn't kneel for anybody. Didn't matter. Just as we finished the prayer, the bell rang.
Nobody could even get up and say, "Wow." They'd take that into silence all night with them. And what an incredible experience because these are alcoholics. And they were up most of the night learning new ways to communicate without talking, you know.
meet in the hall and it was wonderful to watch and the brothers loved it and and the group learned some really important things about communication. There are other ways and sometimes it's good just to go into the silence. Had one occasion in North Carolina when we came to the third step as a group.
One fellow said, "This is an intensely private and personal thing for me, and I would rather not join the group." And he stood outside the group and did his own thing. It didn't mess with the energy in the room at all. It really didn't matter.
What I'm trying to say is that I I like to submit to the conditions the big book laid down. Just do it the way it says. But there is no right way.
There's no way to judge. This is a spiritual activity and will occur when it's time for it to occur. No sooner, no later.
All I have to do is submit to it. And that's a word we don't like, you know, submit. Bob White gave us that.
He said, "All we really do here is comply with the conditions." That's all we have to do. Comply with the conditions. The conditions are set forth here for this experience.
If you want a different experience, you do something different. That's all. Bob said, "The last real decision that I ever made was the decision to turn my will in my life over the care of God." And from that point on, all I've had to do is make the choice between whether I like red or green best and open my mind.
I'm talking to you briefly about the people that had profound effect on my life. I come from the brand of AA where it was expected that you have a profound effect on everybody the minute you meet him. Dave David's not in Texas.
That that's still talked about. We should 12step each other every time we meet. Not just a quick how are you, but a genuine how are you?
And none of this. Oh, how are you really? I'll hurt you.
Did you Did you meet Bob dinner? Did you know Bob? I have a letter from our Bob White was one of the early giants of Alcoholics Anonymous.
This man's influence has been felt widespread. gentle big old Texan. Call everybody sugar.
He grabbed me one time after a little talk down at Lake Whitney. Big tall fell. Grabbed me by the shoulders and looked in my eyes and he said, "Sugar, you are a pure D wonder." And I knew at the moment I really was cuz Bob said so.
I have a letter from the Denver, one of the early Denver groups, 1946, a letter written by one of their members to a group in Colorado Springs apologizing for Bob's behavior as he passed out of town. Uh, it seems that the Denver group had had a a meeting with Bob about Bob And it was decided that uh he was no longer an AA member and it was charged because of conduct unbecoming a member of alcohol and >> you haven't lived very long have you? and expressing the hope that their meetings would now be much more peaceful.
And apologizing for Mort Robbins because his Bob left town, he stopped by their group and invited several of the members out for a drink. And later he became one of the finest and most influential AA members ever just cuz he was sweet. When he called you sugar, you knew you really were.
Bob talked about his initial call. Bob was a bad drunk and he ended up in a shack out in the middle of West Texas. Uh something like 350 miles from the nearest help.
And three guys from a group in Dallas, I guess it was somewhere up in there, traveled that entire distance because they had heard he was out there. He didn't call anybody. They knew about Bob and they knew he was out there and he knew he was dying.
And he said all he can remember for several days was he'd come out of his coma and somebody be sitting there with him and all they'd say is, "We understand, Bob. We understand." That's all he did. What he remembers is that they were there and didn't have a drink from that point on.
Struggled. So we learn from that about our heritage. Any any group of people that doesn't remember its heritage probably doesn't have much of a future either.
They will get inventive. Man, this is the last place we ever want to get inventive. Wesley Parish was another one of the old giants.
By the way, any any social movement needs giants at the beginning. These are extraordinary people who are set apart have great personal power and mammoth egos. And they're needed because they're starting a social movement and they just need to move stuff and they face incredible odds.
In God's hands, those eager are just fine. But they all had them. Then a social movement, we are one, no longer needs giants.
We reach a point where we need leaders. No, no more giants. We need leaders now.
People who are of the movement and are willing to lead. And Bill describes those kind of people as the kind of people, AA leaders are the kind of people who can put plans and ideas into action in such a way that the rest of us want to support them and help them because most of their ideas came from listening to us so we can support them and they're presented well. And we're in that time now.
We need strong leadership in Alcoholics Anonymous. We are bordering on the permissive. Instead of open, we're beginning to begin to be permissive, which will lead to disillusion because permissive is unprincipled.
We don't want to close the doors to anybody who really needs help. But there's without some something going on that's real. A real message that can hold these people, it's just permissive.
You've been to some of those meetings. I actually heard a kid. He was profane and talking garbage and an old member stopped him and he said, "Just shut up, old man.
This is a I can talk about anything I want to." And and he got that idea from us, you know. But old West Parish was one of the giants. Wes was probably the second homeliest man I've ever seen in my life.
About about 280 lb, 4'6 in every direction, bald, big ears, and eyes that would make you just fall in love. And a silver tongue devil was West Parish. Did you meet Wes?
No. >> Oh man, I figured David knew everybody. >> Wes touched my heart at depth in a talk he gave one time where he described his first participation in spiritual things.
He was unable to grasp any of that early on. and he was struggling, but he wanted to stay sober. He'd been a a fisherman on the high seas.
He'd done a number of things. He really wanted to stay sober. He was NA.
He wasn't identifying much. But he heard a lady one time give a talk and it was a spiritual talk and something clicked in him and he knew she had something he needed and wanted. So he called her and asked if he could come over and he went over and she was out in the kitchen cooking.
And she said, "Wes, just wait there in the living room for a minute. I'll be through here in just a minute." And he went in and waited and he set up on the wall was that great huge painting, that lovely painting of the fisherman guiding his boat in a gale and uh the great master is standing behind him with a calm look on his face and his hand on his shoulder. Well, it's called the prince of peace.
He said he's looking at that and he'd been in gales and both both of them had a look of utter peace and tranquility in the midst of all this chaos. And uh he said something hit him. He never did talk to the lady.
He was driving a little delivery truck, a little one seat delivery truck. He said he got a little old empty apple crate and put it in the seat next to him or the space next to him. That was where the Prince of Peace would sit and as he drove around town he talked to him about everything he'd never been able to talk to anybody about and began to have his awakening.
And of course then he found out he talked to everybody in the world. But those are the kind of things that uh stirred my soul at the beginning. Here were real people, worldly indeed who talked in depth about talking to the Prince of Peace on an apple crate.
I can get that. I I can't get solemn high mass. I don't I don't get it.
I'm not there with it. I love it, but I don't have the interaction. I didn't do it.
I want to be like them. These were men and I know you've met some. They were a kind of people that when they walked into a room, things changed.
They didn't have to say anything. They'd walk in and things would change and it was generally the room would get peaceful because these men were peaceful. That's who they were.
They were at peace and that's what they brought into the room with them and the room responded to that. You I know we've all met angry people. When they walk in the whole room changes.
Okay. And I want to I would like to be one of those. Not for myself, but because I remember how I felt when I first saw these people.
And it made me feel I'm okay. This is a good planet to be on. This is the kind of beings we can produce.
And those aren't thoughts. I can put words on them today. Those are feelings.
They touched me at a level beyond the level of words or physical touch. I just knew, sugar, you're a purity wonder. Has anybody ever done that for you?
I've been trying to do it all weekend. Sugar, you are a pure D wonder. Look out for this boy.
It's true. Jim Griffin was 26 years sober when I met him. Former trustee and a gentle, gentle man.
Big fella. I don't know why, but the bigger they are, the gentler they seem to get in my experience. Jim took me on a 12step call with him one time.
Classic thing. It was one of those little houses out in North Plat, Nebraska. Little house behind the house.
It was more of a garage converted into a shed and then made into a bedroom. And our prospect was in there and it was a mess. And there was a bullet hole in the wall.
And this guy was classic. He was on the bed cuz he couldn't even get out to go to the toilet. I mean, he was stunned.
And he was just coherent enough that we began to chat with him. And I followed Jim's lead. He kind of made it a chat.
And we talked about alcoholism about ourselves. We spent an hour or so. And Jim said to me, "Keep talking to him.
I'll be right back." and left. And a few minutes later came back in with a pint of whiskey and stopped me and handed the man a bottle of whiskey and said, "We sure do thank you for let us come by today. Would you mind if we stop by again someday?
We have to go now." I'm shocked. And we get we get out and I ask him, "What was this all about?" He said it was pretty clear the man did not want what we had to offer today and he was getting ready to go into severe DTS and convulsions and we have no right to take away the only medicine that might keep him alive until morning. We'll get another shot at him.
I learned about uh love and compassion. These are the kind of things that have moved me in my AE life. H I'm sorry.
>> Yeah. Oh, okay. >> I'm really listening.
>> >> And then there was Reed Edgar. We are people who are normally not mix. Have you noticed?
Not even in the bars most of the time. I mean, there's all kinds of people in this room I wouldn't drink with. There's also a lot I would, but you'd have to be good at it to keep up.
You young ones wouldn't have a chance. It isn't that I drank more than you spilled. It's just I drank.
And when it's time to quit, the hell you say? I have these little yellow tablets here guaranteed to make this drunk last at least two more days. I don't know.
Somebody you could keep up for about a week. Yeah. You'd make me tired, but I'd never let you know that.
Reed used to come down to the penitentiary meeting and uh this was a stock broker type or an advertising man. Three three-piece suit with the best very dignified and polished gentleman. And his wife was also the same.
These were people that had real genuine class. and Reed touched me deeply. At one point, we had a kid come in from the outside and give probably one of the best AA talks I've ever heard.
To this day, I don't remember a word he said, but I know I was moved and touched, but we never saw him again. Reed would come in once a month when it was his turn regularly. And I came to trust Reed because he was regular.
He was demonstrating what I wanted to become on time, able to keep a commitment, just just there. Didn't often talk much except during the break when we just chat with him. And I trusted Reed enough that the chances were pretty good I was not going to get out.
I owed the federal government 5 years and it was a parole violation. And I was pretty sure I was going back to the federal penitentiary. And I didn't mind.
I was now spiritually awake and uh I could save some of those poor wretches down there too. Uh no, the ego still goes to work. I was prepared to go back.
I really didn't mind. But there was a chance. And I asked Reed at my at the last meeting we came to.
I said, Reed, because you guys kept saying on your first night out, come here and you'll probably be able to stay out. Don't hang your AA on the gate on the way out. Make a meeting your first night out.
And I asked Reed, how do you suppose I'm going to be accepted out there? Because I still didn't feel, you know, I'm I'm a year and a half sober now. I've been through the steps.
I've been conducting the 12step study school. I'm pretty fit, but I don't know how to live out there. How am I going to be accepted?
And he said, "Well, why don't you come find out? uh you come to York Street your first night out and I'll promise you this. One of us who's been coming down here will be there to meet you.
That's a pretty wild promise cuz we didn't know when I was going to show up. >> 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. >>