The Closed Mind and Application – Church Book Study – Part 3 of 5 – Bob A.

Can we open up with a serenity prayer? God, grant me the serenety to accept the things I cannot change, to carry the things that I can't change, and the wisdom that I need. Last week I started out with talking about alcoholism, and we went kind of steady through the whole meeting. So probably if we can, maybe I could do a little bit of a review on what was like for last week so that I found out for myself in the beginning some years, a lot of years ago that even though I listened well and I studied and I read well and everything else, I couldn't do well because I couldn' keep it alive, I couldn''t continue with it. The moment I got into my life, whatever my life was at the time, then that took over and that became the important thing to think about and act upon and do with no reference to what was wrong with me and why I came here in the first place. And so it isn't something that once I hear it, I'm okay from that moment on. It's nothing like that at all. And the disease of alcoholism, it took me some years really to be aware of the disease as what the disease is and what it does to me and the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous program recovery and so on. So it isn't a question of being marked by intellect, intellect by uh colleges and degrees and or there's the only requirement really is the disease of alcoholism and this is what brought me here and this is why i'm here this is why I stayed here because I had to have something other than what I had and I'm not referring to drunkenness now at all no stage of the drunkenest whatsoever I'm not talking about coming from the bottle at all. I'm talking about living in Alcoholics Anonymous today, meaning today, regardless, without no reference to yesterday or how many meetings I've been to and how good my sponsor is and how much I've studied and how well I know to rehearse the books and everything. It's nothing like that at all! That's part of what happens, but that isn't the thing that's got to be there today, see? But he says, as much as I could soar up back some years as far as the message or as far As my sponsor is talking to me or as Far as hearing the speaker up here or going to book studies and going everywhere there is to go at that time to try to learn something other than what I do know, it's just I couldn't retain it. It just wouldn't stay with me. And I didn't benefit because I would get running scared. Man, I'll tell you, I'd get running afraid so bad and the fears were still there and I'd been sober and I had been to meetings and I have read the book and I hadn't been and I was in a meeting and I didn't know and I haven't been and I've been and I don't know but I had a sponsor that was a step man believe me this man he pounced on me and stayed on me with steps and so see the program recovery as far as I know as far at I what I believe is in an application form of 12 steps and it's no more than that because I found out that you could sit here like tonight you could fit here solid for an hour and a half and listen with the best intentions that you could study go home and study all night long and that doesn't treat your alcoholism because what treats alcoholism is the same thing as what the 12 steps are for why they're written there and why they're in the order form so then to go to meetings like I would go to meeting step study meetings and I would listen real carefully and I would stay on step but you see that was a studying process that was something that was going on that I didn't use for my life there was no change in me because when I went out in the world I looked at the world with the same way I always looked at it I was affected by it the same way hours was affected by and this this is the disease now of alcoholism what I'm talking about now and this isn't something like alcohol wasn't where you come here and You learn 12 steps and you apply them for that day and then they're gone forever and now you don't have to worry again or worry about them anymore. Nothing like that. Because what it is, it's a daily living life. It's page 85 in your book, Big Book, and it says we're not cured of alcoholism. What you really have is a daily free contingent on the maintenance of your spiritual condition. And so this here started to... This one I'm talking about now has started to come around in another way for me because as strong as I was as far as wanting this needing this sincerely going for it the best I could it wasn't good enough my best was never good it still isn't good enough so to have Alcoholics Anonymous dumped on my lap or just give it to you something like that no way it just is not going to happen what has to happen is what has to happen to each every alcoholic before me and my sponsor told me showed me and there's 12 steps which will treat my alcoholism but it has to be in an application form I have to perform the day I'm in guided directed by the 12 steps I didn't understand this I couldn't put this concept together because the power of self the power of me where I come from and what I've been doing up to this time I've, I've I've I've been fighting this world I've been arranging the furniture I've been making things what I believe are right even relationships and everything else I do it my way and I think that that's okay because I'm sober I go in a meeting I read the 12 steps and this is what the 12 sets mean but it's not what it means to get into steps we'll start off maybe tonight like my opinion of steps now is only because this is what happened to me only me I read from the 12 steps. I had a sponsor that talked about 12 steps. And so when I got into the steps the first time, I was without the knowledge of alcoholism, ego and stuff. So that when I got into steps, I thought the step says this, and then you do it this way. Well, you do in a sense. But I forgot about a lot of things that are necessary because lack of power is my dilemma. This is page 45 in your big book. Lack of power, but I didn't understand when they're talking about power. I didn' t know what they mean about power for my life. I didn't know this. I started off in step one. I admit I'm powerless over alcohol and then there's a little hyphen now that my life is unmanageable. And so right away, there's only two pages in the 12 by 12 on step one it's on both sides so it'd be four pages there is no step one in the Bigfoot as an application as a direction as a way there is in the twelve by twelve and it starts out talking about how I must hit bottom and about alcohol how is the disease a twofold nature and so these this to me is not knowledge. This to me isn't going to do anything for me, because I can agree with this. I've got a piece of paper at home that says I'm an alcoholic. I was put in an alcoholic hospital. I was strapped down. See, I've Got a piece Of Paper to prove that, but that don't help me either. Because all that is, is information. All that is is just acknowledging something that's there, and I'll agree with you 100%. That alcohol Had me every way as they had me. But that doesn't help my life at all because I don't have the quarrel, I don' t have the fight, I don''t have the argument with the bottle. I have an argument that I don ''t even know about and it's alcoholism. In the first half, they're mentioning now, they're talking about alcohol and then they're not going to talk about alcohol anymore. But nobody ever told me that. They didn''t say anything to me about that. They just told me to stop drinking. Keep going to meetings. You're going to be all right. I had a head that was a powerful head. I had brain that was already injured. It was damaged. It was strong. But it knew that it wasn't drunk. I knew damn well I wasn't drunk because I wasn' t drinking. But yet though, I kept looking at everything the same way I've always looked at it because I've got a disease of the mind. It's in my mind. The book tells me this. Page 23 in your big book even tells me that it's in my mind and it's not in my body but see in step one step one says that I admit I'm powerless over alcohol gas that my life is unmanageable it's only information it's like an acceptance thing I'll accept it it's there and that's what it says and I leave alone I don't benefit by that until you yourself show me something now that's needed for my life that I don' t know about I can't get from a reading I just can't get nothing from a reading this here now was something that I have to have now is that I have to have help in an application form about steps in steps here they're talking in step one who cares who met complete defeat no practically no one of course and so it goes right on into about alcohol but I'm not drunk and I'm not I'm not thinking about go getting a drink because of this here. And step one to me, the biggest thing about it would be the fact that I got a piece of paper, it says I'm an alcoholic. I know all about alcohol because I loved it. I lived with it. I just couldn't survive without it in the world that I was in out there. I didn't know that my alcohol drinking was treating my alcoholism. I didn' t know that the world I was living in, I could stay in that world if I drank. I could accept that world if i drank and so i don't look at this nobody ever talks about this all they're talking about is don't trust they're not talking about a thinking process the second half of step one where the dash is and it says that my life is unmanageable means to me exactly this they're talking now about alcoholism they're walking about how i am this way whether i am wet or whether I am dry, meaning no alcohol in me. I'm still the same man. My life that I live is affected the same way, whether I have alcohol or I don't have alcohol. But see, I don' t know this. All I think about now is that I've got a disease called alcoholism and it's a left right there and it means no more than just that. And it's an acceptance things in the end of step one and it talks in here about something now that's more important now than anything else at all because it says in this 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 for practice in a remaining 11 steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can dream of taking. Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a higher power, let alone meditation and prayer? Who want to sacrifice time and energy trying to carry the message to the next sufferer? No, the average alcoholic self-centered in the extreme doesn't care for this prospect unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself. This is what I had to know is why the steps are there. This is a beginning now for me, a new beginning because there's no doubt in my mind I hit bottom and I hit bottle many times. When I lost everything, when I lost my job, my wife, any possessions, money, when I wound up in an alcoholic hospital being treated for alcoholism, alcoholism paid for by another man a bottom i did hit but i didn't understand the disease of alcoholism i didn'T know i thought my problem was i drank too much i thought if i just stopped drinking and i'd return to the nice guy the guy that i thought i was and then i could be who i should be just take the alcohol away from me and i'm going to make it and then I get here at Alcoholics Anonymous and I find out I can't make it. That isn't what's wrong. Why should you and I live in a world without alcohol that we can't live in? At least that's the way I look at it. Why should you have to go and fight the world when you're not drunk and you're not living in bars? That's what I was doing. What the hell's the matter with me? What's wrong with me, really? Is it because of booze, maybe? Maybe I drank too much? Went to too many bars or what? What the hell's the matter with me? Why is it that I come down to Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm not drunk, I'm NOT giving the bartender my money and I hate the world that I live in. I can't stand the world I live in. What the hell's a matter with me? Where am I going to blame now? Am I going to blame what? How can I blame? What can I do about this situation? I can' t even have a relationship with another human being. A partnership the way it's put in the steps and that's in step four what's wrong then why is it I get so frustrated out there in the world I live in I get so torn up I don't know where to run I don' t know how to run I don''t know what to run from I got so much wrong all the time Alcoholics Anonymous when I started doing steps I had a sponsor that was a god man a step man but you see he had everything he needed for his life that day. He wasn't running scared. He wasn'T full of frustration and fear. He didn'T look at the world out of my eyes. He looked out of his eyes. Alcoholics Anonymous program recovered. I didn'T know what it meant, how to do it. I went to meetings, and I listened well. I tried to do exactly what this step says, step one. I admitted I was powerless over alcohol, And I admit my life is unmanageable, but that's the best that I could offer and that's the best I could do because I didn't know what else to do. Because everything I looked at, everything I tried, everything that was in my life that day was full of fear, frustration, anger, hostility. I was so envious and jealous and I looked up at everybody else all the time. then I was sober and I don't know what's the matter with me and they you know maybe you hear this I hear it anyway and I hear all I have to do is just go to meetings don't drink get a sponsor and you're going to be alright but how long do you have to go like this how long do I have to go back this is what I was looking I'm not worried about you I didn't come here for you none of you I came here because there was no place else to go and I was dying and yet though the book kept saying to me that just we business us and ours and ourselves and all that I don't know where to go, I don' t know how to act when you confront me, when you divorce me when you steal my money when you accuse me of things when you run me off the highway up there I don't know how to act I really don't know what to do I'm defenseless man I don' t know what to do I have to strike back the only way I know how to do and this is the thing that I'm trying to hide run from not do this is the thing that just tears me up all the time I looked at you whoever you are I looked at my own wife that I took through the drinking years as somebody that was my enemy she wasn't acting right wasn't doing right and it affected me where does this step come in what do you do then what do you say to somebody like me what do you do what do we do about this do you tell that person like me just don't do that do you tell that first and just make more meetings because you're not making enough meeting do you say that to that person like me that's what they told me they'd say turn it over how do you turn me over I don't know how to do that I don t even know what you're referring to to. Step one, they're talked about alcohol only in the first half of it, the beginning of it. The second half, they don't talk about alcohol no more. Not even referred to it no more. They're talking about a disease, about alcoholism. I don't even know how to begin to do step one without help. I had a sponsor that would think for me, act for me. Do for me what needs to be done. But if she wasn't there, I don't know what to do. Take somebody, anybody at all, any alcoholic at all that comes here, that's in here maybe in this room tonight, right now. I don' t know this but maybe there's somebody here like this that's got a drinking problem that comes to Alcoholics Anonymous to get away from all of the preaching, gets away from all of the pressures, all ofthe hurts and everything else like that. What do you do with somebody like this? Do you tell them, just keep coming back, you're going to make it? Do you say to a person like that, just stick it out and you'll eventually make it. That's all I ever heard. That'sall I ever was told. Just don't drink. No matter what happens, don'tdrink. You see, I don't believe in that. I don' t believe that's a message. It wasn't a message for me. because you see in Alcoholics Anonymous there's meetings that go on all the time you go to a meeting some though I don't care what kind of a meeting speaker meeting and step meeting studying discussion meeting with this name of many of them these meetings don't they will not treat my alcoholism if they won't treat mine they won't take the next alcoholic either like me at least with alcoholism so what does treat it what can I do for somebody you know I have a pamphlet here I don't know if you guys read any of this stuff or anything like this this one here and this here to me means a hell of a lot to me and this here is about this is from Bill the best of Bill from the grapevine and so you see in here they're talking in here about what I'm talking about what Bill Bill's talking in hear what I've talked about and I don t know what exactly year this was. It was somewhere around 58, 60, around there. And it's just about faith and it's about these alcoholics. And as it says in here, how to transmit this good news is one of our most challenging problems in communication for which there may be no fast or sweeping answer. And what they're talking about here, he's talking in here about faith and about carrying the message. And, see, I went for two and a half years and I damn near died in that two and a half year. And I almost probably killed more than just myself too, one way or another, whether it would be with your mouth, whether you did it with your fist, whether you didn't with your car, whether you however you did. And it says in here, perhaps our public information services to begin to emphasize this all important aspect of AA more heavily and within our own ranks we might well develop a more sympathetic awareness of the acute plight of those really isolated desperate sufferers now isolated and desperate sufferers means to me someone like me that comes to Alcoholics Anonymous and is in AlcoholicsAnonymous and he lives in his brain and his brain is so damn damaged that he can't find any peace of mind And he can't find anything in the world that he's living in without the alcohol. He's living it in a world that's full of conflict, full of hardship, full of fight, full jealousy, envy, full hurt all the time. Even though he's sober and has been sober. I'm talking about me. And he's talking in here about the same thing now. It says we can also take a fresh look at the problem and no faces that exist right on our own doorstep. Though over 350,000 have recovered in the last 30 years, maybe a half a million more have walked into our midst and then out again. No doubt some were too sick to make even a start. Others couldn't or wouldn't admit their alcoholism. Still others couldn't face up to their underlying personality defects. Numbers departed for still other reasons. Yet we can't well content ourselves with the view that all the recovery failures were entirely the fault of the newcomers themselves. Perhaps a great many didn't receive the kind and amount of sponsorship they sorely needed. We didn't communicate when we might have done so, so we AAs failed them, perhaps more often than we think. We still make no contact at depth with those suffering the dilemma of no faith. The only thing I'm referring to here right now is me, myself, the way I have looked at AA to what I have done in AA and what I've seen in AA when I come here. Because it was always a question of just you're going to be alright. There wasn't no effort put out for people like me that come here because everybody said the same thing. Put the 12 steps in your life. Don't drink. Get the big book. Get a sponsor. You're goingto be alright." That's no message. What does step one say? see in the beginning Alcoholics Anonymous was I was taught and told and shown that we're all alike and this book refers to all of us and that as we go along we go along see never once was that I ever told or shown that I better start they're talking about me in this book here they're not talking about you they're taking they're talking about me but see nobody ever told me that see because I always kept putting the butt off I always kept saying you know they mean you they don't mean me here and I kept looking for help all the time and I don't know how to ask for help I don't know how to go up to another man and ask the man and tell the man that I'm sick I go home and I raise hell and I don't want to raise hell I go home and I hurt my wife and I don't know how to stop hurting her I go to bed and I'm so goddamn guilty about the way I think and act that I can't sleep I'm afraid to tell another man that I think it makes me less a man would you help me understand what it means in here in step one what do I do in step 1 do I just say I admit that I'm an alcoholic and that my life's unmanageable and that's all there is to it that's what it mean and I am going to benefit from that so that'll make me in the day I'm in okay does it mean that there's so much to this see that's why I had to make another beginning the beginning I talk about is the beginning that I do in Alcoholics Anonymous other alcoholics when I work with them but I wonder one and that's to talk about expose look at the disease of alcoholism what I'm doing here why I'm here what happened to me just exactly what's wrong with me what do I need what should i do how do we how the heck do you do this i could admit that i'm powerless over alcohol that's easy but i can't accept that my life's unmanageable i can accept that and i could emit that because everywhere i turn it's just the same thing so what does step one mean to anybody at all as an alcoholic how can i how can I actually benefit from this what does it mean so that we can go on with this step here thank you yes there's no doubt when they're talking in step one here in the beginning of Alcoholics Anonymous when they started Alcoholics Anonymous was that it was a question of just staying sober no more than that it was a question of staying away from the bottle and then finding a life then from being sober but the disease of alcoholism the way I think and act as an alcoholic was never discussed in the beginning them days because of the importance of finding a way of staying sober and that became primary. That became a thing that was only there in other words you go to the AA to learn how to stay sober. And then I find out for myself and they found out too back then and when it talks in here it talks here about in the pioneering time none but the most desperate cases to swallow and digest this impalpable truth of even the last Gaspers they were talking about about how hopeless they were and about the actual the actual bit about not drinking not just not drinking the drunken behavior and then to find out that drunken behaviour isn't my problem at all because I don't have the dranken behaviour but I have everything else that goes with it I have the life that that drunken behaviour produced I have all of the fears all of jealousy all of harm all of punishment even the trips to the hospital and everything else like that is still happening to me and I'm not even I'm miles away from being drunk and that's what this is leading up to right now and what Bill was talking about in here about maybe we failed those them that came in here and couldn't find or couldn't hear because after you tell an alcoholic to come to Alcoholics Anonymous and attend these meetings and he has to walk out of that door out there and he don't have a bed to sleep in he don'T HAVE A WIFE WITH HIM ANYMORE BECAUSE HE EITHER KILLED HER OR THREW HER OUT OR SHE DID THROUGH HIM OUT, WHATEVER HAPPENED AND THEN TO SAY THAT this Alcoholics Anonymous program works, that you're going to be all right. Then you have to go, where do you go from there? If this was a program of recovery, then where do You go from There? I was taught and told and shown in the beginning right from the word go that this is a program Of recovery. This is a sure-fired thing that hits every time. It's not a hit-and-miss deal. This is something now that I need for my life. This is Something that with this program Of recovery, these great events will come to path for you, me, and countless others. It says so on page 83. It tells you about promises and all that. The beginning I had to make is a new beginning. This beginning I have to make now I've done step one I've seen it in the beginning but I've done it by myself. I had no idea about what the disease of alcoholism is, why I was here, anything at all other than just dump me in AA and say here's 12 steps and I'll go to work on them and you're going to make it. You're goingto be alright. that might work for some ALPIs I know there's some ALPs that probably can hear the message over the telephone not me and there's something in this room they're like me too they couldn't hear it either it's so important to try to learn something now different there has to be now something there's going to be something presented so the performance that you if you're an alcoholic like me if you have a brain like I have that has alcoholism in it that's defected, it's got it's aberrated, it've got things about it, you might as well start looking at it right now because in step two is where this here is going to be have to be not only looked at but it's going to have to been accepted because this will mean the life and death proposition for any alcoholic to find a new way of life something that's needed something that will treat alcoholism something that'll change and make you a new a new character man or woman makes no difference except one it's pretty easy I believe to go through step one by saying what I said about hitting bottom about a twofold nature where I got it I got a mental obsession with a physical allergy describing only myself describing something that I admit something that i accept something that I know is there and when the hyphen was in there the hyphens means exactly that set my life unmanageable because whether I am drunk or sober whether I'm wet or dry I'm the same man I think the same I act the same and I am the same step one wet or dry the disease of alcoholism is in me and this means me not we this is book here now is on a new basis. This is all about me, not about you at all. If I must take this now as an individual, I must look at this now only in the context of me. I need this. This was all about me. My life is in jeopardy without this. Not your life. I'm not here for you. I didn't come here for and this is not about . If you think this then it's okay with me but I got to get away from the idea now collectively speaking the we the plural the pronoun of ourselves us so that I can start taking things personal now so that when I go into steps now I won't start turning around thinking that you need this I don't need this you do this I don't do that this is an attitude that Alkies do all Alkie's do this I did it more probably than the next guy until somebody told me this they're speaking of me that's me in this book that ain't we this is the way I behave because when I get in the steps now the steps become a way of life for me not a way not a day not a life for we or us or I ourselves this is important to me to know this I have to keep preaching and pounding it in my brain because it leaves me I think for one minute that I can leave here tonight and I'm okay because I attended a meeting and I can go out there and drive my car any way I want to drive it I can't I'm going to have to start now learning how to benefit how to change so that I could be different from the 12 steps which is the recovery program and this now is what I have to start doing all the time if I don't think this way then I've become the same person I've always been. I go back to self, I go back to the old way. We'll go back some of one but to go into step two. Step two is a step that I missed entirely in the beginning and the reason I miss it because I thought that they said in there, they were referring to insanity. And I didn't think I was insane. I I knew I drank too much. I knew I got in a lot of trouble but I was a smart guy I thought so. I didn't think my brain was damaged. I didn' t think I was insane and I thought they were referring to it. When it says King who believes in a power greater than me can restore me to sanity they wouldn' t buy that. I just wouldn' accept that. I had no I just quarreled with it all the time. I had no way of believing anything about it. I never gave a desperation prayer to know God at no time. I never knew a God. I never tried it. I never got around with people that did. I ran with people. It was a motorcycle crowd. I ran avec a bunch of pub people. They didn't talk that way. They didn' t let you talk that w y. You just wouldn' t be around that way, so when I got here, I had no idea about when you start speaking to God. I had not church. I had non-Bible. I had none of those Sunday school bringing up. I had nothing. Come to believe that a power greater than me can restore me to sanity. they put the word power in there because that was something I could accept that I looked at it but I couldn't buy the last part because I thought it said came to believe that a power greater than me could restore me to sanity because you're insane see and I thought that's what they meant they don't mean that at all see that doesn't know reference there's no even reference to insanity and it says that in a 12 by 12 if this here step 1 and 2 are not in the big book as an application Step seven is not there as an application. Step three is only in a prayer form, and that's the third step prayer in only a prayer. Then it jumps right away into four. So the idea now about this here came to believe in a power greater than me. I could buy the idea that if there is something greater than you, there is a power because my motorcycle was that damn thing that would kill me. It put me in many hospitals. It almost killed me many times. so I know the word power when it comes to horsepower meaning engine power and so I could look at that but I couldn't look at the fact that sanity I thought meant insanity and sanity doesn't mean that see it doesn't say sobriety it doesn'T say came to believe that a power greater than me can restore me to sobriete because they're not talking about sobrieto and they're not going to talk about it because they'RE NOT speaking of being drunk and so this here now was something else as this is building now in me I'M starting to learn how to reject things and kick things out not listen to things not pay attention to things and i could sit at meetings like you're sitting now here and and i could leave the meeting because you're talking about something i don't want to hear so i just go i go somewhere else with my brain and so this year this now step two i had the book i had to come to believe in a power greater than me that restored me to sanity and i had the first thing i had find out when i looked at it was what the hell are talking about insanity and in this 12 by 12 they're talking about soundness of mind now soundness of mind what they're referring to is not the same thing that I thought that they were referring to I thought they were refering to insanity doing crazy things and as far as insanity goes as far as drunkenness would mean a lot of things because for me to know that I'm going to wind up in another hospital with a drink that would be insanity thinking but they're not talking i'm thinking in terms about insanity or about soundness of mind it's about how i think that i can live in this world and be number one how i can live in the world and want to be treated differently than you or anybody else how my brain always keeps referring to me as me first you take care of me and then you can take care yourself but do for me first and then I'll be all right soundness of mind is explained in the in the 12 by 12 a little bit about the sanity or soundness of mind when it talks in here about few indeed are the practice in alcoholics who have any idea how irrational they are seeing their rationality can bear to faces some will be willing to turn themselves problem drinkers but cannot under the suggestion they are in fact mentally ill. They are a better than this blindness of the world which does not understand the difference between sane drinking and alcoholism. Sanity is defined as soundness of mind, yet no alcoholic soberly analyzing his destructive behavior, whether the destruction fell on the dining room furniture or on his own moral fiber can claim soundness to mind for himself. Therefore, step two is a rallying point for all of us, whether agnostic, atheist, or former believer. we can stand together on this step. True humility and an open mind can lead us to faith in every day meeting as an assurance that God will restore us to sanity if we rightly relate ourselves to him. The hardest part about soundness of mind, I think, is to relate my life to me as I think it and live it when I'm sober in the world that I am with no reference to time or meetings, sponsors, or anything else about how I'll I'll use my mind or let myself think in thoughts or terms that are so wacky, so far out, so self-centered, so abstract to whatever the hell is needed or what's going on. And then continue to think that way or to think that I can use my brain for that reason. I have a real difficult time of a mind that's closed. I don't know that I've got a closed mind. I don't know that this mind I have is already programmed from some years of living in a world that I couldn't live in. So I had to make this world happen. I had the, I had create things. I had make things be there. Whether it took lying, it took stealing, it's shoving and pushing, whatever it took, it didn't make a difference. I took out of life and I made life exactly what I tried to make it, the way I wanted it. And I don' t even think that this is wrong. I don't think that this is something that's out of the ordinary or anything else like that. And so when I get here, I've got a mind that's already conditioned to a certain way of being, living, having, and doing. And these things that I'm talking about now are a closed mind. A closed mind means exactly what it says. It shuts off anything and everything other than self. It uses everything about self for self. This is where in step two, The biggest advantage I think that Step 2 could offer any alcoholic at all would be to show self that he's got a preconceived ideas, emotions, ideas, feelings in a mind that's so closed nothing else can get in there. Nothing else can ever get in here. By itself it wants to be by itself, it stays by itself. I had to believe there was a man I met a man an alcoholic at San Fernando on a stag meeting and this here man I kept watching him this alcoholic would be meeting after meeting I would go up to him and say how come you're so damn different than I am how come he talked the way you talk you talk about things I don't even know what the hell you're talking about he's talking about good things he's talking about today he was in he's talking about graduation he's talking about his kids what they did his wife and they're going here and they go in there he's talking about taking cutting grass he's talking about all kinds of things in the day he's in man all i'm talking about is rat races all i've talked about is freeway drivers and the forest how much i lost and just crap all the time that's all i ever talk about i talk about me and i talk about how deep into it i am and this man's talking about something else he's talking about feeling good and having a good life and he's talking about many things I said them have some so damn different than me why are you so different and he told me about he had something going for him today that he never had before and he's talking out about a power and he said a power but he named it he said it was a God in his life doing for him what he couldn't do for himself he said why don't you try my with what I got why should I my god whatever you got doesn't seem to be working you see enough and I have been through steps already and I know step three well I don't know two at all and I don' even know nothing about a power now because it says a power and I don''t refer to power now as God or anything like that but I don ''t look to me as the power either and I dont know the difference now what he's saying and I don'' t know that I'm a power for my life because I go to me for all everything that's needed I'd look to be the supply everything that's needed for my life but I don't consider it a power and so I and I believe me I have to have this now this way for me because if you'd have said you have to know about in your life I would have walked out the door I would have left it here in hell I would've but he didn't do it and they didn't do it to me they talked about a power how I'm a power how I use me to think with act with be with how I run to me for solutions because I'm the power now they want me to believe in a power greater than me something that's outside of me, something that is not me. This man talking now about what he did. He told me how he got on his knees and how he prayed and talked to this power. How he asked this power for help, guidance, direction. He said why don't you try it? He said here I'll show you how to do it. He did. He told him how to it. You see what he was doing to me was something that needed to be done because I only believed in me. I only believe in my power I run to me for all the time I self-talk to me I still self talk to me today but I don't use me as the authority this here was a breakthrough for me I've had a lot of babies in Alcoholics Anonymous that also have had this same problem that they can never get away from self because they're so used to using self for their life that they become the authority so this now with a new beginning for me I started going home I got on my knees I did what he said I said what he says I asked for help the way he said it I had two things wrong with me that kept me get me in trouble that was anger and hostility it kept me really fighting all the time at work especially where I noticed this I started doing I started go into work with asking of power by only the word power not by the word of god i started going there and asking would you help me be with me today with no reference to naming it now i started looking at my watch i say man i've been away for five minutes ten minutes an hour i'm back would you helped me again would you be with what i was doing i was something that i didn't know how to even recognize what was or anything else but yet the same time it was becoming evident to me that there was something going on now. There was something happening to me. I wasn't so mad, I wasn t so angry, I wasn s so retaliating. I was looking at these guys with a little less hostility. I was accepting sometimes a friendship, a kind word or maybe a cup of coffee with them or something like that. I w as coming to believe in something other than self. this was a turnaround this was the start the beginning and it was a piecemeal sometimes it was there sometimes it wasn't certain days I had it certain days I didn't have it but it was happening now I was coming to believe in something other than me because that's what he explained to me something that isn't me you don't go to you for this answer you don' t go to you for this help you come to believe in a power something outside of you something greater than you that can restore you to sanity soundness of mind wholeness of mind a mind that isn't with self only it was like going to school it was like learning something that man I did I never heard nothing like this I never knew there could be something like this and yet though as an alcoholic how could I have anything in my life at all anything in the my life but always if I keep going to what brought me here in the first place me how can I have any other any kind of information if I only stay in my own brain and that's where I went for everything step two came to believe in a power greater than me without even naming it without identifying it my mind started to open up I started to realize what this sponsor was telling his baby is that he took a piecemeal himself and these are only but suggestions and the biggest the only suggestion probably the best one what you truly need is an open mind a mind that isn't captured with stuff and i was doing it and i Was receiving it i was starting to benefit it was starting To pay off in other words i was getting something out of alcoholic synonymous program recovery and i knew it it was self-evident to me you want to have a coffee break Five minutes to go. Oh, boy. . . Oh, yeah.