Acceptance of Powerlessness – Women’s Book Study – Part 4 of 13 – Bob A.

Okay. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. What's that? Oh, yeah. You can go ahead and take this chair. I'm going to take that chair. Thank you. Welcome to the Primetime, first Primetime Women's Retreat. And for those of you that came in this morning, welcome. We had a good meeting last night. Let's see. A couple of things. there's coffee there coffee tea and water the restrooms are right outside here um the pads I don't know if everybody got a pad or not but the pads are for any note taking that you guys want to do if you want to take notes we're also collecting questions so at a certain point I'll go around and collect questions and then we'll go ahead and go I'll read them out and Bob will answer them um anything else we'll have a break what time will we have a breakfast 10 o'clock Oh, no, not 10 o'clock. 10.30 maybe. On 10.35? Maybe 10.38. Yeah, because if you want to get up and move, get up иnd move. I know it gets boring sitting there, you know. And we'll keep the air conditioning at a certain level and if you guys get cold, bring something warm to wear. I'm trying to keep it at one temperature so everybody will be comfortable. I think that's basically all. We'll end at 5 o' clock and then we'll have dinner at 6, I guess. Oh, wait a minute, for lunch? Well, for launch from 12 to 1, too. We'll go all the way to lunch. I think we're just offering our sleeping bags and hanging out at a lumber bar. Is that... I mean, true. What else? Is there anything else? Does anybody have any questions well before we start do you guys want to go around the room and introduce yourselves again just for those that didn't get to do it yesterday, yesterday morning no, okay that's fine, whatever okay then oh it's September 9th 1995 okay Beaumont, California Beaumount, California right on now it's for record's sake when you play tapes you're going to hear it hi I'm Bob Good morning. This is, boy, I hope I don't have to cough all day. This is going to be the start of the steps. But you know, a little bit maybe should be said about last night because of what the importance is of learning about the disease of alcoholism and keeping it fresh, and fresh means today, this day, today. Alcoholism is always called an ism because it's alive, it's never dead. I know for myself that as certain days come and go, the day starts out maybe pretty easy, pretty good, and all of a sudden, maybe during the day, maybe an idea or a thought or something happens and it knocks me way out of line as far as the program, as far As recognizing what's wrong or the alcoholism thinking and that. So you see, it isn't like something being on guard. It isn't a question of being ready to handle anything and everything because it's going to get tough or anything like that. To start off, the reason for Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Steps, they're a program of recovery. They are the only program of discovery. Meetings are essential, believe me. I'm not speaking against anything. Everything is relative as far as the life that I live today according to what was there a long time ago and what's there now. The difference lies in the fact of how to learn to live daily so the disease itself is being treated daily. This is not something that you learn to fix problems, to maybe to see situations that you're in, these situations you're in get healed overnight or anything like that. This is strictly an individual program of recovery and the reason I believe it should be presented that way because if you don't do it, if I don't do it we don't have it. In other words the day you're in as smart as you are no matter what walk of life you come from. The disease is still living because you're still living. Until I learned to accept that, and I mean accept it for what it is, I had great difficulty. I had times when I was like a yo-yo. I'd be up and down, up and done. Some days were terrific, other days weren't. And I never could put nothing together. I just couldn't put it together. I thought I was doing everything that was possible to do because I listened carefully. I went to meetings I had a sponsor but the thing about this was that it was always something that I was going to do or it was something that was going to happen and it was something that takes a long time to get there and all of these kind of thoughts kept me in the disease of alcoholism and I didn't even know it I couldn't be I could not be in the day I was in the way I should be I didn' t know what makes that day a day that it should be I could have success, any kind of success. Name it. It doesn't make a difference whether it was a marriage or house buying, cars or clothes or things that you really want to have and you can have too. And to talk about this now, it has to be talked about over and over and again and again. it isn't something where you hear something or you read something or you identify something and then because of the fact that you know that, then you don't have no more trouble. I used to think in terms that if I'd have known what I know today, I wouldn't have done what I did yesterday but that wasn't true, that's what I said but it still wasn't truth what was true is that I had to find a new way of living and this new way OF LIVING was only in this day today Now, that's a concept that I must have heard maybe 5,000 times before I believed it. You know, it seems like that, you know. Because I tried my best each day. And what I considered my best was what brought me here. And what brought мне here is what I was still trying to use. And I still don't know the damn difference. I can read, I can listen, and I can be somewhere in this book. Somewhere. and I believe everything in there and I say man I'm going to do it this way because it says this way but when I got out in the world I was in things moved too fast I did things thinking that that was the right thing to do and I really got mixed up for a long time because I had a sponsor who was a step man and he taught me steps and I knew steps and believe me I knew them I knew every I knew every word in this book big book of the other books I studied I studied they studied but the studying didn't do a thing for me didn't help me a bit and that's why I believe that this message like last night talking about the disease the disease of alcoholism can be talked about right now because you're living right now it can be identified but the thing about that is that if you don't want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it you're going to miss it I know you're gonna miss it But you don't need to miss it. It's not necessary to miss it. The reason why is because as I sat like you're sitting there now, I could only take so much in. My mind would not take much more. It would only take so much and then it would just drift away, man. It would just leave me completely. And I had to start doing things differently and that was this, the listening I talked about last night. To try to be a good listener. Even if it's wrong or right, It doesn't make any difference. This is all about individual, each of us, learning how to live in the day you're in so that the quality of your life will be quality. Quality means that it's at its very best. It's important. It's worthwhile. It's there for a purpose. Use it. Use it all the time. So much of Alcoholics Anonymous going there and then just sitting in meetings and laughing and having a ball. That's part of what's necessary. It certainly is. But there's much more than that that's necessary because meetings are very, very essential. You cannot live without them. I cannot live Without Them. But the meetings by themselves do not treat alcoholism. They are part of the parcel that's here. But that's not the main ingredient. But that' s part of What to Learn to Do because every meeting, every meeting for many, many years that I go to, I go there because I belong there. I go THERE TO LISTEN. I go There NOT TO JUDGE AND CRITICIZE. I had a sponsor that told me from now on every meeting I go TO, every meeting he said listen carefully. Listen carefully to what's being said. Not to judge, not to criticize but to see what you have and where you're at in your life. and when I went to meetings like that then all of a sudden I was there for me and I could see me in them whoever them were and I can see me now before I couldn't see me because self wouldn't show me me but self will show me me through you and this is how I learned in the beginning a long time ago to go to meetings I never walked out on a meeting until it was it was in about 1980 1980 I walked out on a meet over in Mason and Lassen because the leader up there was ripping somebody wide open. You know, just name-calling everything the whole bit. And I thought, my time is more valuable than that. My Lord doesn't want me to sit here and listen to this stuff when there's other things that would be more important to my life when I walked out of my first meeting. But the only reason I tell you that, though, is because of how important this is right now. You're here for a reason. You're hear for a reasons. and the reason is to find out exactly how your mind thinks. What does your mind do to you? Why does it do it? Why does het keep doing certain things that you shouldn't do and you'll keep doing them? Why doesn't it quit? Why doesn' t it stop? Why doesn's time heal everything? Why doesn''t this make it so that after so many meetings that you'll have something now that you can use for your life and be dependent upon? see this year I had to learn for myself what the real reason to come in alcohol is synonymous because like I said last night I didn't know what was the matter with me I didn' t know how it got that way I didn''t know that this here life that I am talking about is a continuation life it does it whether the alcohol is there or it isn' t there it doesn' t make any difference I don' t need alcohol I already have a mind it's damaged it's injured it got hurt a long time ago and it's going to be with me until the day I die so why not learn then why there'd be 12 steps why would they put 12 steps as a program recovery, and it takes 12 and I know that Bill Wilson wrote them, I know of that but I also know that God must have been behind his writing because there's no way even Bill Wilson could live this himself study his history study the words that he says that comes from his mind it's all in here this is all grapevine writings but it's his mind and when he talks in there he tells by dates these dates are important to me because when he talked in 1958 in here and he talks in here about emotional sobriety that he had to go 23 years 23 years before he found a dependence for his life he had dependence before that but it was always the wrong time but that's in steps also so to start off I believe that each one of us as this year the reason I believe in the 12 by 12 so much is that in the big book I started in the Big Book and step 1 is not in the Book step 2 is not in the book step 3 is a prayer step 7 is a prayer I must have more than that I must I don't know about you but I must have more than that because I have to learn what it is I need to know as each step is presented in my life because what's going to happen now there's a change of character going to occur a change of character this is an individual thing now stay away from the collective the pronoun the plural pronoun stay away from it start thinking in terms of I me so that you can be centered in your own life, in your thinking and your reading, no matter what goes on. Because that's the way I read it. I read everything that way. And the reason I did that was a long time ago because it never fit me or it was always something you should do. It was always Something They Do. I don't need to do it and stuff like that until the time came when I had to admit that I was powerless over alcohol, that my life was unmanageable. you see I had to start doing this I'm not telling you to do it but I'm telling you I had to do because I had to find a way of life and the only way I could find it is that I had to go for it and as I went for it I stayed with it and there was times that it didn't make sense there were times I thought it was never working I thought that I was going backwards I thought maybe somebody else had some better answer or solution but I stayed with this and as I stayed with it I started to find a way of life that I was starting to become different. Different inside. One time when I got here, I was mad inside and I was mad outside. You couldn't talk to me. You could not do anything because I thought already anger. Anger was in me something terrible. And then when I talked, I talked with a chip on my shoulder. I was looking for a fight. I Was looking for an argument. I Was Looking to prove you wrong, whoever you were. In this life that I had then, everybody around me was the same way. all these guys that I traveled around with up in San Fernando everyone was just like me everyone did the same thing they went home with a chip on their shoulder they went and told their wife the same thing that they told them when they were drunk and they're sober and what followed nothing but heartaches right now see getting into steps I think it's important to start these steps learning about alcoholism learning why the steps are there Why are they in the order form they're in? You know, they are in a logical order form. You cannot change them. You can't mix them. You can put one ahead of the other. And it goes right on to tell you why. Because there's going to be a character building here. And a character billing is going to be billing the character in the day you live as you live your life today. This is something now, you're not doing this for six months. You're notdoing this for some problem that's coming up in court a month from now. this isn't to get your husband back or your wife back or whatever it's for it's none of them things at all not a bit but what it is about it's about changing the character that I am I came here for me I did not come for you and I had to find out that this meant everything from now on is on a basis of me I this is what I need they wrote this book for me they didn't write it for you they wrote it for me I have to treat it that way I have to read it that way I have the live with it that way and this is these are these are words that might sound strange to you I don't know if they do or they don't maybe they make sense maybe they don' but for myself they made sense for me they showed me a world that I never even knew existed they gave me a life that I know for sure I never could have had no way possible before AA and even during the first part of AA I was still the same man sober as I was drunk I was no different. Everything I did came from a basis of yesteryear's character. I built this character. And now I'm living with this character, and now I'll call it an armless sober. And I must accept that. Now truly accept it inside. Truly know that this is me. And this is pronounced, real pronounced in Step 5, when we get into Step 5. But to know this though, to start off with, in step one, I believe myself that you, any of you working with anybody at all any baby at all if you know step one in principle if you would transmit or if you could carry this message to the ones that are coming then I know for sure that these ones will stand a better chance they won't get out and get drunk again they won' t try to find something out there through a bottle again. They'll get a fair shot. They'll give an idea or they'll give some words that will help them in the day they're in. So it isn't necessary to run to the bottle. I had a sponsor that told me, he said, I'm going to show you a way of living where drinking is not necessary. Man, I didn't even know what he meant. Drinking was necessary in my life at one time. It's the only way I could live. It'sthe only wayI could survive. it's the only way I could get through anything didn't make a difference what it was and he told me that and I had no idea what he was referring to in step one from now on the way I look at this myself personally is that as each word is in this as each page now it starts it starts on step one You know, it starts in step one. It says, I admitted I was powerless over alcohol that my life had become unmanageable. Well, that's a beginning now. See, that is a beginning. But what follows that? The words, what it says, is certainly not going to do anything for your drinking. It isn't going to doing a darn thing for it. But there's going to be principles now. There's going be truths that are going to talked about. There's gonna be words that are gonna be said here. now these words that are in this book starting on this page right now it means that these are going to become principles these are gonna become principles I had to change the word principle into a truth what I'm gonna read now for my life, for me, is a truth now a truth must be lived it must be live or you can't have it a principle you can talk about principles forever and they're still not in your life you can even understand or know what a principle is and it still isn't in your life until the moment that you use the principle as a way of life then it becomes a principle that guides you, directs you you live by that principle that principle might mean don't steal I don't steel no more the principle is I mustn't steal the truth is don't steal that's a principle you see now this language that I was talking about before that we have a vocabulary here in Alcoholics Anonymous. This vocabulary we have is going to come out of the 12 steps and as it comes out of the 12 Steps, it's going to grow. It's going take on more meanings. It's gonna take on application. There will be words that guide you, direct you. There'll be words that will help you sometimes when you're in a moment of excitement or a moment frenzy or worry or something and yet these words will shine through because of what they are. And I have to look at it this way because of the fact of what it says. When I admit something, I admit it. I learned how to admit many, many things a long time ago. I had to admit stuff so my wife wouldn't divorce me, so my boss wouldn't fire me,so the bartender wouldn't kick me out of the joint. I had toadmit things, but I never accepted nothing. I admitted them. I said something, but it was to get off the hook I learned how to do this how to pacify situations and here we're starting off in step one it says I admitted I was powerless over alcohol well I could admit that because I lost everything there was no principle there there was not no truth there at all it was a statement I was making it was very obvious that I didn't have nothing period it was all gone so starting from now as I look down now and as I read down in the step-in-step application, there's a lot to talk about. But what I believe should be talked about in there is about the disease itself, the disease of a twofold nature. I must accept this now. The reason I must except it is because it's a mental obsession and it's physical allergy. Now even the book says that I can do something about the allergy. I can 100%. I don't have to ever drink it again and I'll never be bothered by allergy of alcohol. Never. But the obsession, I had to learn exactly what is an obsession? Just exactly how did it get there? What does it mean? See, my obsession was it wasn't just to drink like my fellow man or anything else like that. My obsession was to drink and stay drunk all the time because that was a world that I lived in. I associated my whole life to alcohol, to the barge. I even made road tests. Somebody's cussing, but I work in your car. I stop in joints here and there, get a couple shots, stay loaded. But the reason I stay loaded like that is because it does something to my mind. I have a mental obsession about this, that the alcohol will take away my problems. The alcohol makes my day a successful day. My alcohol is my mind when it's treated with the alcohol. I live in a world that I like this world. and I could be getting fired and I still like it. This mind I have is such a powerful mind. You know at the bottom of step one in the first page in 21 it says we know that little good can come to any alcoholic who joins AA unless he's first accepted his devastating weaknesses and all of its consequences. Until he so humbles himself his sobriety if any will be precarious. Of real happiness he will find none at all proved beyond doubt by the immense experience this is one of the facts of the AA way of life. Do you see what they're telling me there? These are words I read these words and I read them and I met nothing to me. It was information it was information that I was just like reading a headline on a newspaper it says something I read it doesn't mean a thing to me doesn't means nothing to be in fact they go a block away and I probably can't remember what I read this is the same thing here I read this and when I read this I go out in the world that I'm in and I do the same damn thing and I expect different results or I think maybe the meetings are going to eventually make me okay and stuff like that but what it's telling me here it's showing me here something about until he so humbles himself his sobriety if any will be precarious I had no I had no happiness I had nothing going for me because of the fact I didn't know what was wrong with me I didn' t know that when I admit I'm powerless over alcohol all that is is a statement that's like an acceptance thing that's not that's a qualifying thing to come to Alcoholics Anonymous I thought the moment that you come to Alcoholic Anonymous and program recovery the way of life everything is going to happen it's going to happen because I'm going to AA but I'm not going to AA for that reason I'm gone there for another reason and the other reason I go for it is no more because that's where I can keep my job that's why I keep my wife that's right I can't keep things because I'm going to lose again until a time comes the most important part there's a lot of important every step to me is important but some take on more importance at a certain time because of what they do and what and what they did for me and to me and you know here it says when first challenge admit defeat most of us revolted we had approached AASPEC to be taught self-confidence. Then we've been told that so far as alcohol is concerned, self-confidence was no good, whatever. In fact, it was a total liability. Our sponsors declared that we were the victim of a mental obsession so subtly powerful that no amount of human willpower could break it. Now you see, how many times you read that? How many times did you pay attention to it? I don't know. I must have read that 500 times. And I mean this now because I wore these books out reading. never once did I ever read that for a purpose of what it says never once did that affect my life never once did I go out in the world I was in and remember that as a principle as a truth you see the character that I am I stayed the same character that I brought here I did not change my past was going to be my future now because I didn't change I went to meetings I went to more meetings than anybody went. And I'm still the same man as I've always been. I would accept my behavior in the day I was in. I would except my thoughts as whatever they were, come and go. Never once realizing the reason I'm coming to Alcoholics Anonymous is to find another way of living. To change. To build a new character. To build anew character to live in the day I'm in only today. I'm not building this new character to get ready for the future to get rid of my past to do this to do that that kind of stuff doesn't work I'll guarantee it won't work I'll warranty it because I tried too long too hard everything about me I thought I was following directions but I was following directions under the power of self I was saying this is important that's not important I don't know this I know this I just kept going to me all the time me I'm the authority I'm the one that says it's right or it's wrong and yet though I go at meetings and I hear speakers up there saying they do the same thing but I can't relate my life to their life because they're doing theirs and I'm doing mine and yet we're both doing the same thing I'm here for the same reason any of you are here and this is something that has never wasn't this is an ism this is living right now right now you can be sitting there right now maybe you heard some of what I said, all of what I said. Maybe you argued with all of it, maybe you didn't argue with any of it. But believe me, your mind did something and as quick as you can learn that your mind is what controls you. Your mind is what stops you from having what God wants to give you because it's already there. It's in its fullest form. It''s already there. You don't have to hunt for it. You do not have to search for it but you have to learn how to use it. You have to learn how to live with it. And this is what this is about now, starting in step one. In step one, the part here, this was information I had to have. It said there was no such thing as a personal conquest of this compulsion by the unaided will, relentlessly deepening our dilemma, our sponsors... Now, I always change that. Now, read that the way I read it. There was, they said, no such thing as a personal conquest of this compulsion by the unaided will. Relentlessly deepening my dilemma, my sponsor pointed out my increasing sensitivity to alcohol, an allergy they called it. The tyrant alcohol wielded a double-edged sword over me. First I was smitten by the insane urge that condemned me to go on drinking and then an allergy of the body that ensured that I would ultimately destroy myself in the process. In other words, either one would get me. My thinking or my drinking. Either one's going to kill me and I don't stand a chance but I don' but I do not pay no attention to that. I just do not but you see I believe this I believe that as a sponsor sponsoring someone helping them so they do not have to go and go and drink again to go out in the world again and find themselves so lost and so hurt maybe dead even. To do that, I believe that you must hear this and hear it clear. Because of what's going on. This is my life for me. What it is for you, I have no idea. But I know that my life, for me, I can transmit a message. I can say or I can do or I could help someone. Because the disease is a disease that helped me. It helped me see the disease and then it helped me do something about it through the steps. I could never see the disease of alcoholism I just couldn't see it because I always thought in time I won't do as much I won' drink as much many many stories go but the program recovery is a program recovery we're here not for the yesterdays we have to clear away the yesterday but we're not here to relive yesterday meaning yesterday or years it doesn't make any difference This is a character building that the principle has to be put and kept in mind that you build it today or you don't build it. If your disease isn't treated today, it never gets treated. Now that's something I had to swallow personally, myself. I had a sponsor that showed me. He told me exactly them words that if I didn't start program recovery in the morning when I wake up, I don't have one. And I didn' t know what that meant. I know what it means now and have for years. But you see, my life has to be important to me. That means that I'm not going to do certain things that I normally will do. I'm não vou chegar na manhã e eu não vou ir naquele dia e então de repente encontrar-me em algum lugar na linha e Deus não está comigo. De fato, ele não está com mim o dia todo. Essas são coisas que aconteceram comigo. Essas eram coisas que poderiam acontecer hoje porque eu vivo minha vida hoje. Eu não vou para trás and say, I took God with me for so many years that He's here right now. No, that doesn't work that way. The way it works is the same for me as for all of us. If I don't have a living God with Me now, I don' t have one. Because then He becomes a praying God. He becomes the God of ritual, a God of favors, petition. He becomes God of yesterday. And this disease, I have to be introduced right here in step one. how important it is in step one so that I can carry this message first, I have to learn it in the system, 164 you obviously can't transmit something you don't have but this is something I have the reason I have it is because it's my life if I don't know if I didn't have it today what would I do? where would I go? who would I talk to? how would I look at things? how would i get rid of things? how wouldI do any of these things alone? the same way I was doing before. This is step one. You know, I believe in sponsorship and I talk about sponsorship and sponsorship to me isn't over a telephone. Sponsorship isn't for me to tell you to do something just to get past maybe a certain problem that might be eating you up. That's not sponsorship. Sponsorship is trying, doing, showing a way of life that's guaranteed each one of us it's already in print anything I say I get it right out of print there's nothing that I put in here that I originate I don't have anything either I have exactly what my Lord says I can have I can be I can live I can serve His power and His method His method is living with His will and step three when we get there it says exactly that but now though in step one if one isn't introduced, I believe, if it isn't introduced, how would you talk to somebody? What would you say to somebody when they come here and they're so sick and they get very, very sick? What wouldyou say to them? Go to more meetings, read more, get down on your knees and pray more. They've done that and they've done all that and they'll probably do more of that and they still lost. The reason they're lost is because the message was never delivered. the disease was never shown there is a way to learn how to accept your most devastating weakness and all of its consequences and that's what step one is all about Bob, when you read can you say the page number that you're on and where you're at in this video sure, ok well the first one was on page 17 at the bottom and that was about until I learned to accept my most devastating weakness and all of its consequences. Page 21 at the bottom, right? Page 21. Yeah, 21 is what I meant. What did I say? Oh, I'm back over here. Okay. We're on page 22 right now. Okay, 22. The reason why I started off starting off this way is because in step one step one every one of us have a track record of some type it could be real severe or it doesn't have to be severe because it isn't what you drink where you drink or how much you drink it's what it does to you when you do drink so every one of us we must hit bottom and this is stated in here and this was a requirement I believe too is that the bottom must be talked about because the bottom means a lot to a lot of different alcoholics could mean maybe a divorce that could be a bottom maybe losing possessions that maybe could be a bottom there's all kinds of bottoms but the real bottom that they're talking about is where you lose all self-respect self-worth self-esteem you have no honor of your system of your life the way you think your mind you're not your mind you're proud of your mind at all you're never you're probably not proud of the way it treats people the way it thinks of people the way It looks at people this is hitting bottom this is going to where myself I couldn't even look in the mirror I could look in the mirror and shave myself, but I couldn't look at my eyes. The reason I couldnít, Iíd seen who I was, and I knew who I Was. I knew what I was capable of. And Iíd done a lot of damage, and kept doing damage. And this kind of damage is what was hurting me inside. The bottom I hit. There was no friends left in my life. There was No job, No wife. There was NO money. There was nothing. But that wasnít the bottom. Because I always found a way to get drunk, even with a dime in my pocket. I could stay drunk all day on a dime. That wasn't the bottom. The real bottom I hit was internally. And this here is why when I got here, I was willing to listen. I was unwilling to do anything. That was up to a point. We'll get to that later on. But I had lost everything. And so I was looking at a world now. Somebody else was taking care of me. The bottom I hid was the real bottom. It put me in an alcoholic hospital. It put my strap down on the bed, spread-eagled on my back, filled with chemical and I don't even know why I'm there I have no idea why I am there I'm strapped down I can't move and I do not even know why Iam there and this year Alcoholics Anonymous program the sponsor that I had he talked to me and he talked to me well he told me so many things there is probably many things he told me that I will still have to find out about because there is so much to living there is so much to doing in the day you're in. The hitting bottom part about it is that this is on page 24, and when it says why all this insistence that every A must hit bottom first, the answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the A program unless they have hit bottom. Now what they're talking about now, when you're reading this now, as you start to read, and as you're reading as we go along, don't read just to read words. Don't do it because there's a lot of language here. There's a language here that I had to learn. It's a vocabulary. It'S a way of saying something. It' s a way identifying something. IT's something that when I hear you talk, I can hear you because of the words you use and what you say. This is a different world entirely what I'm talking about. Because of what it is. When they're putting words in here, it says, why all this insistence that every A must hit bottom? There's a purpose there. There's meaning there. There's something there. It's got to be there. If you... It says this, why all this insistence? Why would it be that if I was sponsoring you and I was talking to you and we were going through maybe maybe your family like maybe maybe your husband or your wife or whatever it is and to talk about it I won't let anybody nobody anybody that knows me now talk about anybody else but themselves I work with alcoholics I have for years hundreds and hundreds of them and there's never one what I allow to tell me that his wife is no good, his husband is no good, the boss is no good, or his brother did this, or something went wrong. There's no way I'll let you get away with it because the problem doesn't lie there. The problem isn't there even though you think it is. It still isn't there. So how are you going to learn? Am I going to let you have the same kind of thoughts? Am I gonna let you talk about your same problems? This is a program recovery. This is not a program of failure. This is a program that starts in step one. This does not start when you come to Alcoholics Anonymous, but it does start when your start applying steps for your way of life so the day you're in your disease will be treated and when your disease is being treated your life is being traded. That means now we're starting out with one thing only first, alcohol. That's all. But as we go along there's going to be more and more and more introduced but first though if step one isn't covered if step 1 isn't there for its full purpose there's no way that you'll be able to go into step 2 in character building principle if you don't have the principles in your life from step 1 that you're using in the day you're in in my book there's not a way there's now way you can go any farther it's impossible because of what has to happen and what hasと happen the new character has to be built The old character is always there, but the new character has to be built. And the way the new characters are being built is being built by principles, truths that are already established. But they're for today's life. They're not for five years from now or whatever you say they might be for. It means exactly what I'm talking about now. This has to hammered home for me to sponsor you, whoever you are. I'll pound on you and I'll pound on You. And I'll talk to You and I will talk to You. And I will talk to You about the disease. I will talk to You about Your mind. I will talk to You about the way You think, the way You act. I won't let You talk about anybody else. Your problem doesn't lie outside of You. Your problem lies inside of You. This is something that's got to be considered. This is a primary thing so that you don't get mixed up. knowing how to stop looking outside of me. And this is what it's about right now. And when the talk's in here, on this page right now, I'm 24, it says the answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the AA program unless they have hit bottom. Now see what it says there, and there's a reason they say that there. Them aren't just words. What it says, they're exactly what it says. For practicing AA's remaining 11 steps means the adoption and attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking or thinking, either way you want to put it, can dream of taking. Who wishes to be rigorously honest or tolerant? Who wants to confess his fault to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a higher power, let alone meditation prayer? Who wants the sacrifice, time and energy trying to carry the message to the next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic, self-centered in the extreme, He doesn't care for this prospect unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself. There was a lot of words said there. There's a lot that I can say and a lot a thing said about this, why to hit bottom. Why I have to live daily with a program recovery in God. This is an acceptance. These are principles now. What you just heard me read or what you read them are not just words. Them are not. These must be incorporated in your life. They must be used in your life. Your mind must do what it says to do here because if it doesn't it's going to do the other and the other is what brought you here. You're going to keep that. You're gonna have to live with it. And you're gonna have to go along the day you're in still showing anger and hostility still showing people around you this is exactly who you are you know in step huh somebody getting cold you better turn it down everybody's freezing yeah you better turn it on turn it off they're really getting cold It was too hot before. Yeah, it was good. That might be cold with the jacket on. Right. Time out to Justin Dermot's house. Our minds are on overload. I could tell Joe. Okay, get back on it. In step one, there's only two pages. Imagine just two pages in step one. But there's so much in two pages that goes on and on because these here now, if you stop and think about it, we're talking about principles. We're talking abut principles. Now, principles become a way of life. And the reason I call them truths is because I can see a truth quicker than I can say a principle. I can see it in application. I can See It In What It Means. And so the important thing, I believe what needs to be talked about also here is that in step one where it says I admitted I'm powerless over alcohol and then there's a dash and it says that my life's unmanageable. Now I don't know how many of you look at that or how you consider this. Some of you heard tapes I had or heard me talk before but I never paid any attention to that at one time, a long time ago. I never paid any attention to it because I thought my life was manageable because I wasn't drunk drinking and I was working and paying my bills. But I didn't know what they mean by an unmanageable life. I didn' t know what it was all about. So I had to start really now in principle in step one. Why would step one say what it says? Why do they change the middle of what it says and they're going to go to another part that's going to be a different context of a different sentence, a different phrasing. And it says, dash, my life's unmanageable. My life's Unmanageble. And I had to start going backwards now. And going backwards means only in memory to see what my life was like. And what my wife was like was at times you looked at it or I looked at and it was certainly unmanangeable because I did things and I got hurt and wound up in hospitals and I created scenes. I punched people out and I did many, many things wrong. And that was an unmanageable life because an unMANAGEABLE life I had to find out is an unMAGAGEAble life is a world I live in that I can't live in. And by that I mean everything is wrong. Nothing is satisfying. Nothing is there so that it's there for me and I enjoy it. Everything I get I throw it away. I use it and throw it way. Everything. It doesn't make no difference. You cannot satisfy me. I can have the very best of anything, and the very worst of everything runs out. I don't need it anymore. It doesn'T do anything for me. And this means relationships, this means cars, it means clothes, it means anything at all. You just name it.