Control and Surrender – Powerlessness Workshop – Part 2 of 2 – Bob B.

But it's an awesome disease, and after the symptom goes away, it's still awesome. And there comes a time where you stand in front of those issues get to be, where you get grown up enough, I got honest enough, I stopped telling, I just couldn't lie to myself much more, you started to change me, you affected my level of self-honesty. I just could not deny it as much as I used to be able to. At five years of sobriety, my denial mechanisms were less effective than they were in certain areas of my life than they was when I was newly sober. And at some point in my time, I got to a point where I had to deal with it. And once I really started to deal it, that I dealt with it the same way, I had almost the same experience of surrender. When I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I stopped telling lies about it. And I surrendered and I started to say, okay, whatever it is, I'm going to do. Well, I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. I stopped telling lies about it. And I surrendered and I started to say, okay, whatever it is, I'm going to do. And how do you surrender? I mean, you run out of yourself. I mean the reason that I didn't surrender is I still had one more idea. I still have one more thing to do I still wanted to run a rack. I did not want to do it. Whatever, I mean... I either wanted to keep doing what I was doing or I wanted to not do what I wasn't supposed to do One of those two things. And I had to try everything I knew how to try. My commitment was to avoiding it. And, hell, I'm not looking for surrender. I'm looking for control. I mean, the reason that we don't know how to surrender is we're not even... It's not even on our list. I mean it's nice because we're talking about it. But, I mean... It doesn't even show up on our lists. You want to know how to do it. It's just amazing. I mean, it is amazing. Let's have a coffee break. And it's chilly. If you think it's chillier here in Minnesota, there are people in the audience wearing blankets and jumped out of bed this morning and broke my pajamas. I mean, God, it was, that's all cold. When John asked me just before we closed the last session, you know, how do you surrender? And someone else, Roe or someone was talking about we really hang on to our problem. I think we ought to know that our problems are generally not our problem, our problems are our own solution. The things that we call problems are things that мы have put in place the stabilities in our lives to solve other problems. They are not, we don't view them as problems. We view them as answers. That's the reason why primarily I think that we don' So when many of us have spending money issues or gambling issues or sex issues or certain things like that compulsive, especially in the area of compulsive behaviors, those are answers to certain, you know, there's certain issues in life, certain realities we don't want to stand in front of, and those are escapes. There are rewards that come out of that kind of behavior for us. I mean, there's consequences, but we're used to that pattern. Hell, there were rewards and consequences that came out of our drinking. You know, or pieces of it that worked real well and pieces of what didn't work real well. And so we have exactly the same, those arenas of our lives that we often say, how do you get rid of this problem? I mean, all of us need to know that in most cases it's an answer to a previous problem. And it's imperfect, but we're familiar with it and we're really committed to it and that it works at some level. We're still getting some stuff out of it that we don't want to give up. And some of that, we're not aware of it, but very few of us are able to stand in front of our problem without some protection, without just bare naked flat in front the problem. Almost none of us ever were really able to freely stand in front of the question whether we were an alcoholic. People almost had to use a jackhammer to get that one in front of us. We just avoided it at every expense and I think that most of us avoid, in a similar sort of way, standing in frontof our issues and as soon as we're able to say to ourselves yeah, I've got a gambling problem, a serious gambling problem and I need to do something about that and say that in a way that it isn't like a complaint, say it in a ways that it's a real admission and acceptance, something shifts. And most of us don't, in the important areas of our lives, we don't go very public with it. We don't really have those kinds of conversations. We really don't have the... We just don't grow right at it. And the other part of this powerlessness issue that I wanted to discuss or throw out one other idea is, of course, the problem with being powerless is if you're powerless, there better be a power. And if there is a power greater than ourselves, that in some cases creates as many issues as the concept of powerlessness because most of us have a lot of history with concepts of power greater than ourselves and a lot history with God, A lot of history with religions, a lot of history with families, a lof of issues with authority. So we have all the societal sorts of things that tell you that if you're really going to make it in this world you don't want to be a wimp. If you're going to be in business today and you're gonna be a professional, if you are going to be the kind of person we want around this company I mean we don't want people who don't have power and authority and aggressiveness. I mean those are talents that you need. and there's a lot of encouragement not to be how we think we sometimes have to be, number one. Number two is that in order to have a God in our lives, most of us have a historic idea of a God that we don't trust. And I also suggest to us that we cannot have a relationship with, if we don'T trust ourselves and we DON'T trust other people, you can't trust god just flat can't trust god so that our program works in the three areas of our lives just like our a program and the fifth step when we met to god ourselves another human being every area of our life is broken down in relationship with god a relationship with ourselves in relationship with others the steps are broken down on that same category life isbroken down that same category and issues are broken down that same category so when you have trust issues. They're everywhere, and I think to really the issues that is in the way of most of my spiritual growth is my relationship with my God has to do with issues of trust, and in order to trust God, in order to trust my higher power, I have had to increase my relationship with that higher power. When I came to AA, the relationship that I had and the concepts that I had of a God, I was about 14 or 15 years old chronologically or emotionally in that experience. I got to a point in my spiritual and religious background when I was 15 that I couldn't play the game by the rules anymore, and I dropped out. And not totally. I had this love-hate relationship with it all the way through. And when I showed up in AA, I mean, I was so uncomfortable listening to anything that sounded too spiritual. I used to literally switch meetings. We had an upstairs and downstairs meeting in our place, And if they got going too strong on something that I did, I mean, I just literally almost couldn't stay in the room. I would often go downstairs and see how the other group was doing about that time or get a cup of coffee. My blood pressure used to go up about 20 points just driving by a church. I mean I had a lot of unfinished business, a lot unresolved stuff. It was very important to me, and yet I felt like I had been, I don't know I could talk for hours on just the phoniness of what I thought was in the church and yet I'm supposed to go back and try to find my answer and I was angry about a whole bunch of stuff you know it was just all mishmash and I found you people just love me through every bit of that and I find God through you people I found God in your strength I found god in the dignity of your lives I found god it was still clear to me that it's still clear to me. I mean, I am going through a difficult time in my business and I'm in meetings all the time with people who have problems that are many times the size of my problems that have more dignity with the way they're going through them than I have. I mean it's just, I mean I just hate how I am when I'm hooked into my own problem. I meanI just hate it, you know. I'm saying, God, you shouldn't be as upset as you are. I mean you know you're 22 years sober. Why the hell, I mean don't you trust? well yeah I trust Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays Saturdays and part of Sunday but I got Tuesdays and Thursdays I just have a hell of a time with I mean there are just you know and when I get hooked into my issues I mean I'm ineffective it's just crazy and then I know the answers and I can give a lecture on it but the fact is when I'm in the presence of it when I really when my security is being threatened or my business is being threatened or I think the well being and my family's being threatened. I mean, I'm not very objective about it. And so I'm going through all the swings. And those are powerlessness issues. I want control, and I don't control it. And yet there's a hell of a lot of things that I'm in charge of and responsible for I'm supposed to be doing day in and day out in the face of it. I don'T think there's anybody in this room that isn't exactly in the same position I am with their lives, with their families, with their business. I think that's always the issue. I think there are times when we feel more comfortable, but there's times when you feel like we're more in control. And sometimes that's an accurate assessment and sometimes it's just how we happen to feel at the time. And that's, you know, life's going... You know, we go through cycles. And in order to, I think, really, as time goes on, the issue of my relationship with my higher power is a central issue of mine. To the extent that I can rely and participate in that relationship I can put these principles into operation in my life. And I can trust, and I'm, you know. When I'm in a good place, what I want to be is a pipe. I'm not the source. I'm the pipe. And that's what, when things really work in our lives in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, you're not the resource, you're the pipe? The problem is when you're the source, because when you are the source you're going to run out of whatever you got quickly and I really think that it's when the power works through us and I think one of the neatest examples of that is for those of us who sponsor people often you're having a conversation with someone and all of a sudden you tell that person something that you know is true and you know that you didn't know it you have absolutely no idea where you got the piece of information that you gave to that person I mean, you just, literally, no recollection. You didn't remember from anybody. I mean it was just, there's something magical that happens in the process and I think there's Something Magical that happens in rooms like this and in meetings like this. I think collectively, you know, my experience of God, most of the time I experience God through you. So I really think my relationship with you is mostly a spiritual relationship. I think when I'm with you, I know more about who I am and what I am. My identity, you know, I'm more a spiritual being and there's no question about what my business is with you when I're in a room with you. And when I'M in a business room, that's not always true. When I'M IN A BUSINESS ROOM, SOMETIMES I FORGET THAT I'M A SPIRITUAL BEING. I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK TO A ROOM FULL OF BUSINEESSMEN ABOUT ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS OR, YOU KNOW, SPIRitUAL PRINCIPLES, BUT I STILL AM A SPIRITUAL PERSON. STILL, THAT IS MY BUSинess. is still my main identity. Sometimes I forget that and I get real threatened or real concerned about the stuff that I'm going through. But I am strengthened and reinforced by the kind of focus that AAs always bring to things. So when I go around, part of the reason that I am willing to go around a country like this is I do it for 12-step work but I do It because I meet the most active members of Alcoholics Anonymous all over the United States and I am encouraged. When I go home, I'm more willing to practice my program than when I came. I mean, I have a level of enthusiasm. You know? I mean I have great group. I just love my group. But this is an aspect of Alcalis Thomas that I enjoy too. And I go back and I'm, you know, when I'm with 100 or so people or 500 or so in the weekend and when I get to sit down with a couple of other people that have been in the program a long time and we sit down and we say, how's it working? Well, I'm saying, well, an issue is two, three, four, and six. I'm doing okay, you know, and I'm a little bit stuck on issues five and seven, but I'm working on it, and we talk like that. That's the business. There's almost an obligation when you're with someone who you're kind of partners with. That is what we are at some level. I think we're kind of partners. Some of us are coaches. We're partners going through the deal, and part of the issue is when we sit down and talk, what we want to know about the business with each other is how's your life? How's your wife? Is there something I can do to add to your life Is there some encouragement I can give you? Is there anything we can do? How's our life? Isn't that almost what we're doing for each other and with each another in Al-Anon and in Alcali Sonoma? How's Your Life? And life shows up in the funniest places. I mean, you know, it's almost as if, as we go through different periods of time, like the pressure is put on it. When the pressure has increased, it's Almost as if the water pressure increases and we start to find out where the cracks are in the dam. It starts to leak out. And it isn't important. We give so much importance just to the peculiar problems that we have. There are people who have gambling problems and absolutely think that they need to talk to someone who has a gambling problem to find an answer. And I'm not, this is not a diatribe on Gamblers Anonymous. There are people who have financial problems that need to talk to someone who knows exactly that issue. You know how before we came to Alcoholics Anonymous and someone would have said, who do you want for a sponsor? Well, I wanted someone who was 23 years old who did what I did or came from my neighborhood or, you know, I needed a sponsor and I wanted everything as similar as it could get. And what I got, you now, was a 50-year-old mailman who was an outdoorsman, a hunter, you know, as different as he could be. I mean, I wouldn't trade that man in. I mean... You know, because there's something about the differences that teaches you the similarities. There's something about, you know... When the plumber can teach the doctor the principle, he knows it's a principle. You know? When the doctor teaches the doctor principles, sometimes it reinforces some of the weaknesses in the process too, but there's something that when there's two such different people, we know that the power isn't in either one of us. The power is coming from someplace else and we're just kind of passing it on. So we give encouragement in the circumstances that are showing up for each of us if we went around this room and said what are you worried about? God minding me business or my kids or something and someone else's would be X and someone elses would be Y and we'd have 15 different categories in the room. And the categories aren't very important. It just happens to be where life's showing up. And the wonder of it is that we can sit in meetings and we would talk about the principles. I mean, that's why we don't talk about problems in Alcaldes Donovan. That's the most amazing thing in the world. We don't often talk about problem. And why, John? There's just confusion and problems. You just get bogged down in the peculiarities and the uniquenesses of the people and the players and the circumstances. You know, I mean, you get into a problem, you've got yourself a black hole. No, but I mean it is. You literally... I mean that's what's happened to me. It hasn't happened to be in a long time but it just amazes me that I still have that same suck that I get inside of that. You become the problem. I mean you don't have a problem. You are the problem, okay? How are you? Oh, I'm a problem! You know, it literally becomes your identity. It becomes who you are and what you are. It's just you take it with you everywhere you go. You become the problem. But I'm an alcoholic synonymous. I have the best opportunity I've ever had in my life to become the answer. I mean, I just literally ignore the problem... When I first started going through this issue in my wife, I had one particular partnership where I lost enough money to burn a wet elephant. I mean, I lost a lot of money. And you know, no one cared. I mean they were, I mean just, no one gave a damn. And at first, now I didn't discuss the peculiarities, it wasn't, you know I'd say how's it going, oh it's going bad and difficult, oh tell me about it. Well they got about a minute and a half that they're willing, you know what I mean? It's complex. I mean I've got two hours that I, I'm not sure I mean if you really want to know about the problem, it's going to take two hours. Well, Bob, I got three or four minutes. Give me three or five, you know. We don't have much time for the problem. I mean, it's wonderful because what you learn is the problem is not important. I mean I'm glad you don't give me I would be inexhaustible if you had time for my problems. I mean I could just do my problems forever. They've got my answers. But you have no time for my problem. You have just enough time, okay? I've heard it. I care about it. I'm concerned about you. Now what? Well, let's talk about the problem. I don't want to talk about problems. We're done with the problem Well, I'm not done. I mean, I am not nearly done with this problem. I will let you know when we're done. I mean you obviously don't get it. I mean this is a rich problem. I mean, this is not – I mean if you are done with the problem, you do not have a big enough container. I mean you just don't understand the issue. And I'm very glad that you shared the solution to me, with me. I'm glad that at different periods of time – I love to watch golf tournaments. I've just become a golfer, really a golcer in the last couple of years. But I've watched golf tournaments all my life. My dad watched golf tournament, so I got to have the most relaxing thing in the world for me is to build a fire and turn on a golf tournament Sunday afternoon. God, when I do that, I mean, it's just wonderful. And sometimes my son comes in the room and we just kind of loll around in the afternoon and big fire going to watch golf tournament. And these guys and gals are the best golfers in all the world. I mean they are just awesome. What's interesting about it is there's always two or three or four people who kind of dominate during any given period of time. But you run into them at another period of time, and hell, they'll develop a difficulty, and it'll just destroy their game. I mean, they're going to drop off that leaderboard, and you won't see them on the leaderboard for I don't know how long. Now, I think a little bit if we were groups that all kind of like professionals in the business of living our lives and using the 12 steps if we were all like a golf tour, I mean I think there's times when different one of us are kind of in the front of the troop and we're on a roll you know where we're just everything's working we're in a groove and we don't kind of know about it and we're doing that and and i rely often rely every once in a while i'll grab a hold of someone and i'll ask them to look at my putting stroke you know because i'm not on a roll something's going on with me in my life and i need someone who's a pro who's really committed to it and i that's kind of how we operate with each other in their lives and the people who are people give me some encouragement. I get encouragement from both the people who are doing it very well, and I get encouragements from the people sometimes aren't doing it well but are working at it. When they're out in the practice team, you know, hitting a thousand balls a day or something like that, there's something about that that I think there's a lot of dignity in that. There's a lotta people who dealing with issues and the way they're engaged with them is an example for me. And so we're getting back to the issue of powerlessness. If we're powerless and we need a power and we're not the source, we need God. For most of us, the relationship we have with our God is insufficient. And most of use have a bargaining relationship with God we treat you know we have a historical relationship with God. We give them personalities and we don't trust them. Most of us start to learn about our God and reopen up the definition of that in Alcoholics Anonymous and we watch it we experience God through each other because that's what's working in these rooms. That's what that's, what the magic is and then we start to rebuild almost like a consensus opinion of what a higher power is in our life. Bit by bit we just kind of draw that from the different experiences that we have, and I think we reconstruct. We reconstruct the God of our very own understanding. It's like a changing sort of thing. And I want you to know that for me, that that has been... I've had to widen my trust. I've got to widen my relationship with God, widen my definition of God, widen every aspect of it in order to continue to take on the things that come into my life. because the barriers that I've run into in my life at a given time, the reason I'm not able to... I don't want to be in front of them. I don' t want to deal with them because I' m not big enough to deal them. And it' s almost as if up to that time the relationship that I had with my higher power wasn' t big enough for me. And you notice even the way I talk wasn' T big enough for me? It' s just so automatic that I' M going to go take it on. So I think at any given point maybe what we're able to do, maybe what we're unable to take on, maybe how we're able to be in our recovery program is exactly related to how we've developed that relationship and the trust with our higher power. How about a microphone and kind of like some participation from people in the room talking about issues? Nancy. It scares me to death, but there's two experiences talking about surrender is one my kid and one smoking. And I know this isn't Smokers Anonymous, but it was through Bob that, well, I'll start with the kid. My biggest surrender makes me all... was when I surrendered to go to Al-Anon. God. You know, and I remember those old-timers, Nancy Grinning and all them. They said, my God, you've come in Al-Anon. And I thought, my god, I have. But I had this son that's bad drunk and dope addict and all that. And it was while I was going to Al-Alanon and AA that, of course, I knew I couldn't fix them because I'd tried enough. But I remember going to a meeting, and I saw this woman. She's probably 85 years old, and she had a son about 62. And she was coming up there, and the Al-Nans used to say, How old is Tommy? And I'd say, 34, you know. And, you Know, it was my problem, and it dawned on me. The Al- Nans taught me that it was not my problem. It was his problem. But anyway, I saw this woman come in She had a little hat on She was just so sweet And this 62-year-old man She comes in and takes him to a meeting I thought, my God That's going to be me if I keep So I kind of surrendered at that time It took another several years, I think But I'd leave him in jail and then I'd go see him in jail and I'd tell him I loved him enough to allow him to pay the price for his own actions. And that'd make him want to kill, but he was behind bars and he couldn't. And then the last time I left him in prison, I left them in jail. We're not supposed to use these words, but I'm going to use it as quoting him. He really was mad because he had four DWIs and they were going to hang him and I had to get him out and I just said no you have to I love you enough to pay the price for your own actions and he said well I'll tell you one thing mom and my bondsman made me a t-shirt or his and it has PPFM on it and PPFA on the back Because I did Al-Anon, too. But anyway, after that, I was able to surrender him. And every time I'd think of him, you know. And that's when he came into AA. And then he has been sober six years, so enough of that. The other thing I used is when I was... I tried to smoke a hundred times. And I'd get crazy and I'd go back. And I remember I heard Bob's talk at Brazos, I think it was. Or I don't know where in the hell it was, but he was talking about powerlessness and I had this terrible, terrible cough and my chest hurt and I tried to quit and I couldn't and he's talking about defects of character and so I thought well I'll put smoking as a defect of character and I'm still smoking just like a fiend so that night I thought well now if God can remove the compulsion to drink he can damn sure remove the compulsive smoke I'd been praying for the willingness it wasn't working but that night I was smoking a cigarette at the time I said now look god damn it you know and I know that as long as I have this compulsion I'm going to smoke because as long As I had that compulsion I drank even going to AA every night I drank so anyway I said that and I went to had another cigarette of course and went to sleep and the next morning the first thing I said was thanks for removing the compulsions and I haven't had a compulsion since and I can't believe it yet and anyway that's how it worked for me and it's nice when I'll use it thank you she's better off being anonymous We have to get her back to the hospital this afternoon, so we... But what's amazing to me about Nancy's story is it's almost as if we stumble into the power, have these profound miracles happen in our life, and then stumble back out and don't know what the hell's going on. I mean, it just, I mean... You know, so the next week when you show up with the next problem, you know, damn if you know what to do with it. I mean that is the resting position of the marble in the bowl you know I mean we just keep I don't know which I think it was either Nietzsche or Kierkegaard not important some German philosopher that said you know two states a man are asleep or awake and it really is as if we go through life most of the time asleep and every once in a while we wake up and we have this perception of ourselves as spiritual beings I learned I was a spiritual being in Alkali's town I learned from the youngest time that I was a religious person. I knew I was Catholic. I knew it was love and I had a relationship with God. But I really think I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I learned I was spiritual being. I did not know that. And I learned what God had to do with Wednesday in AlcoholicsAnonymous. You taught me about the relationship of God and people, God and life, God and work, God and everything. There is no division. How I thought there was a division in every, you know, I thought my life was compartments. You know, and it's just awesome that there's something about human beings that we don't, that the container in which we seem to put God or the container in which we seem to put self-acceptance, the container in which мы seem to put love is like a bucket with holes in the bottom of it and you pour it in there and for some reason it just seems to kind of drip back out. We need to have that daily source, you know? That you just can't somehow, you know there's a need We need to live in it. We need to be in it. You know, we need to, in some sort of crazy way, it's almost like running on empty. I mean, that's what, you know, we're so used to, like a car, we're going to have our gas tank full. I really think that there's some kind of combination in AA about running on empty, but the car is running and there is no gas and isn't that interesting because I really think that a lot of cases when we're really in the proper relationship with our program, we're not even aware that we have gas. We're driving the car and we're moving along and the power and the source is from someplace else when we're in tune with that. Hi, my name is Al Smith. I'm a grateful member of Al-Anon. I want to come back to something you said earlier, Bob. You were talking about the dichotomy and for me it's a dilemma of trying to understand the difference between surrender and taking action. Remember earlier we talked about that. And I used to get hung up a lot in this program. At what point do I surrender to my higher power, and what part do I take action? And I remember thinking not too long ago meditating on this problem, and I thought to myself, gee, I wish somebody could tell me at what point do I surrender on this issue and what point to I take over? And it occurred to me that somebody could and that the only person that could was my higher power. So I used to try to complicate this thing an awful lot, trying to figure out, I can't figure this thing out. And I thought, well, hell, when I get to the point where I can figure it out, that's God. To try to give me an answer to it. And then if it doesn't come out with any striking voice in my ears and I must be on the right track and I just leave it alone. So I found that if I just try to keep it simple like they say and just do the deal and just shut myself up, you know, and just go through it, it works a lot better for me. I just wanted to share that. I used to have a question I asked myself every time I made a significant decision. They told me when I came in AA that every decision that I made brought me closer to or further away from my next drink. It either promoted my recovery or detracted from my recovery. I thought that's a little excessive, but I really do believe that. And so whenever I got confused or came upon an issue, I ask myself, what's the very best decision I can make to promote my recovery in alcoholism? I have never, ever asked myself that question, but I've not known what to do. I have frequently not asked myselfthat question when I wanted a particular answer, but I havenever asked that question and not knownwhat to do." Teresa? I'm Teresa. I'm an alcoholic. And I've been sober since the 6th of April of 1986. Gee, you really caught me here. I was asking somebody else something I missed. Yeah, I don't know. I got so much out of what you had to say in the earlier session, Bob, and dealing with the lies that we tell ourselves. And it's really the truth for me that, well, I know that we talked about the quitting smoking issue. And on the other side of being successful with that right now, it's easy to talk about. But prior to taking the action, which I needed to take in quitting, prior to that it was not something that I told people that I wanted to quit. But I didn't really mean it. I really didn't want to quit what I wanted was for everybody else to start smoking and stop bugging me and giving me such a hard time about smoking. And that would have been, you know, a satisfactory answer for me. Just get off my back. And, of course, what's the obvious answer is I finally did something about it. And I don't know. I think that once we as alcoholics make that decision, and I guess that that's the surrender, that we're alcoholic or that we are powerless over cigarettes for me. You know, that will go on for the rest of my life. And there'll always be another compulsion for me I don't know what it is today but I know that there will be one whether it's shopping or aerobics there'll be something you know that I will be compelled to I have to kind of walk through the healthy ones and you know see them as for what they are thanks there's a in the chapter the big book There is a Solution, it talks about these observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink. It said, therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic center is in his mind rather than his body. And on page 34, one of the things I like the best, it says, whether such a person can quit on a non-spiritual basis depends upon to the extent that he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not. so when all of us are in the room whether or not we will be able to quit spending money we don't have to buy things we don' t need to impress people we don''t like whether we can quit not being nice to our children and our spouses whether we could quit work issues whether we couldn''t quit all the different problems that everybody in this room has whether or no we can do that on a non-spiritual basis depends upon to the extent that it's developed in our life and it depends upon the relationship of choice that we have. And so there are certain issues. When we came to AA, what's interesting is when we knew absolutely that we had to quit drinking, many of us stopped not only drinking but we stopped one or two behaviors that we couldn't do sober. they were almost non-issues I mean we knew we had to quit drinking and we just literally not everybody but some of us just stopped certain behaviors you know if we stuck up gas stations and we couldn't stick up gas station unless we were drunk you know we stopped sticking up gas stations when we came into Alcoholics Anonymous now there are other issues that I think I'm going to talk more about this in my A talk but I think that we're asked often as we start to walk through the life progressively and we're asking to grow that's what we're doing if we're growing up we're going on spiritually we're gonna bump into issues in our life that were not issues to us when we were one year sober not major issues to use when we're two years sober and they're subtle they're gonna be in relationships they're going to be at work they're gona be honesty issues integrity issues the stuff that never even bothered us. And we're going to be asked to make decisions about that and alter our lives. And if we don't alter our life, our lives will be altered, will be determined by putting those things in place. So when you run into, you know, gambling I think is an interesting one. When you get someone who's really a serious gambler, and at one time in my life I was a serious gambling, I think you get a consistent invitation. If it's damaging your life and damaging all the other things around you, your money issues and maybe your marital issues and some other stuff, you keep getting an invitation to stop. And you keep turning down the invitation. Now there's something about all of us when we engage in our issues, as long as you're engaged and really trying to deal with it, you can continue to fail and you can still grow. But there comes a time I think, in my own experience, where you just flat have to stop You just flat have to stop. Where you run out of being able to work on it and fail and work onit and fail and work onitand gain a little bit and workonitandgain a littlebitandworkonit andfail, and you get to a point where you flat have to do it. And at that point, often that is a choice between continued recovery or not continued recovery. And at that point why often a person who decides to continue the problem all of a sudden starts to hang around exclusively with gamblers. Seeks out people who reinforce, they start to identify. They start to talk, you know, how are you? Oh, I'm a gambler. Yeah, I do, you Know. But they start almost get the message out so that like a protective sort of thing. Like it gets to be their identity. and they start to build their life around and accommodate the issue and it's almost as if it's a second level for an awful lot of us and most of us have themes in our life some of us are generalists where we have problems in lots of areas of our lives but everybody has got a theme everybody has one or two pretty good sized issues that come up in front of them places where the water comes out of, and it isn't very important what the issue is. If I learned anything in the years of sponsoring people in the ears of my own life, we always think the issue is the major importance. The issue isn't the major... It just happens to be where you leak. Everybody's got leaks. The issue is not important. You don't need anybody necessarily who's got a special insight into your leak. You just need to know someone who knows something about leaking. Because the problems may have their own, or it isn't that the problem, the solutions, the symptoms have their own peculiarities. But the causes are the same. And the solution is the same because if the book talks about the experiences that we shared prior, you know, boy they're neat and they help bind us together but the thing that really binds us together is that we share a common solution And we all have a sense of that. I don't know why that we can all walk into a meeting and some people are having problems here, problems there, and some People just got in a car accident and other people... And for some reason we walk into the same meeting and sit down and it has something to do with step three for everybody. And for Some reason that meeting addresses every need in that room if we have an open mind. And that's the nature of spiritual solutions. I mean, they're just so profound. and yet when we're out there I mean if someone tells you we're going to be on step 8 and 9 you're going ot say what in the hell I don't want to go to a meeting on step eight and nine I mean I got no interest in walking in that room and listening to a meet and step eight nine has nothing to do with my carburetor and I don' t want to you know and yet you walk in that meeting David Bob you've had so many insightful points during this workshop but one that I wanted to sort of come back to is something you mentioned this morning which I never ever thought about and that is that we frequently the impediment to surrender is we want to control the answer and I just had never thought of it that way. And what keeps coming to my mind is that when I look back on some of the problems I've had to deal with, it's wanting to control the outcome that really prevents me from being able to let go and surrender. I too went through a tremendous financial crisis, to use an example, back in 85, 86, and 87. And what I remember about that was that I knew how it needed to come out. I knew How Things Need to be Resolved, and I kept pushing and working and massaging and trying to bring that about. And it wasn't until I finally was willing to understand that I didn't know what was best and I didn' t know really what the outcome needed to be, and I reached a level of acceptance that whatever was going to happen was okay, then it began to be resolved. And I think that was my surrender, that I ceased to place conditions on the outcome. I ceased the place conditions on what had to happen. And that's been more and more my experience with what surrender really is. It's that point where I... A lot of words we can use, but it's where I ceased the place i ceased to try to control the outcome but whatever the outcome is it's okay yeah that's wonderful and uh anyway i just wanted to sort of come back to that because i just had never thought of it that way i think what you're saying is very important that's really thank you david that's a big contribution the conditions under which we're willing to play you know that we need to control the outcome the everybody in this room was dealing with a serious problem the main reason that we are still looking for alternate solutions and we don't want to pay any dues we do not want to have consequences that's what we're trying to avoid as a consequence yeah we're amazing i mean we you know we walk into the alcoholic is often so controlling and manipulative and i think it's even from judging from 23 years of being married to one And even Al-Anon sometimes have control issues. And you'll get... But we want the result without the process. Alcoholics want a college degree, don't want to go to school. Now I know what most people do to get a degree. I mean, I understand that. I understand what you go through. But if you just let me, I'm a pretty quick study. If you just, you know, kind of let me know what, I'm sure not everybody goes through, you know. And we just view ourselves as exceptions to the laws of the universe. But we just, we really do. And I really think if we could negotiate with the law of gravity, you know, each one of us would have our own little, you know, conversation about, you know, about it. And almost Clancy, one of the wisest things, Clancy says many interesting things, one of the most interesting things he says, he says change is not painful. You know, first time I heard him say that, or I don't know if that's original by him, but I think it is. He's one of the first men I ever heard say it. Change is not painful. And I thought, you just don't get it. It may not be painful in California, but I want you to know in Minnesota it's a son of a gun. He says resistance to change is pain for eyes. I mean, almost. I mean that's just, that's profound. I mean it is profound. And once we really make up our mind about how to just, you know, you asked the question earlier, John, how do we surrender? I mean, once we make up Our mind that we're going to go through the change. I mean I was going through, I sat down and we did budgets again. I just, I haven't had to have a budget in so long. I mean i just hate it. And I went down there and I have resisted this. I feel like control. I get into it with my wife and it's like she's going to tell me what to do and I don't want anybody to tell Me what to Do. I mean, I just have every complaint about it in the world. And we got into it, and once I get through with it, it's easy. I mean it is, there's a freedom which comes from starting to implement the pieces of it that were, I mean every other time I would, you know, prior to it, I just, you now, the resistance to it was just where most of the pain was. Once I made the decision and started to have the experience of it, It wasn't difficult at all. And then you get tested every so often. You're just going to have about every week or two weeks or something like that, you're just gonna have just a little test to find out whether you're still in the game or not. Hi, I'm Pat, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Pat. I was just thinking a lot of what has been said today has really been insightful, as a lot of people have thought. But the balance that comes from this type of a discussion is absolutely fantastic, because to me it means taking life on life's terms and accepting a lot of responsibility for my choices which the freedom to make a choice and find that you can pay good prices as well as bad prices for it like you were talking about where if it's good for your program but the ability to find the powerlessness amazes me because I never find that unless it's through some other person It's always talking to another person. I cannot do that one by myself. It's Always When I Get Out of Myself that I realize the powerlessness is less effort than me trying to fix it, and I guess that's the biggest issue in life for me is just leave it alone, and it'll be okay. But if I try to fix or fight it or resist it, the issue is the problem, and then I forget that it's me and how I accept it or just leave het alone. Most of our problems live in secrecy. You know, they're only as sick as your secrets? And that's why in conversations, why you almost always find solutions, most of us will not bring out our secrets. We don't want them dealt with. And if we bring them out, we bring the truth out. We bring them to advertising that that's the way we are and keep out of their face. But once we bring dem out into a real conversation, that's when they start to die. They don't like oxygen. You know, they're mushrooms. They like caves and an anaerobic environment. Oxygen is not what problems like. They don't like sunlight. Beverly. My name's Beverly. The thing that I learned through the process of probably the most pain I've ever gone through was about surrender and the knowledge that it doesn't happen in my time, that it happens, for me it happens when all of the lessons got learned about the problem and about myself. And then finally it was like I went, surrender. But a couple of years ago, George's job terminated. And, of course, I felt like, you know, that it was going to be forever and there was goingto be a paycheck every two weeks and I thought that that had to do with us. And I forgot about God being involved in that. And it took the process for me 11 months and two weeks and two days until I learned everything about financial insecurity that there was to learn. And for me, I think it is and probably will be the greatest lesson that I've learned in this program because I didn't even know that I had financial insecurity. And the minute that he came home and said there was no more job, I saw us as poverty-stricken right that moment. But the thing was, you know, once I got caught in a mindset about how it was because of the words that came out of his mouth and not the reality of it is that, you know, I thought no job, no food, no nothing, you know. And the fact was is that we were taken care of for a whole year. You know, there was a, that we, we were given some financial support from his company for almost a year. And, but I thought, you know, just because he spoke the words, there was no job. There was no money. I couldn't hear anything. I couldn' see anything. And I felt this despair about the insecurity of it. And I also learned in that about myself, you know, that what was going on with me and the fact that, you know, I thought that our source, that the financial source was us. And I got to learn about, you know, giving that over to God. And then when he decided that he wasn't going to go back and seek real employment again, that we were going to do self-employment, I mean, that was real fearful for me. And it was all my process. it didn't have to do anything to him but I blamed him for a lot of it but it was my thing he was happy, joyous and free and he had made a decision to set about to do something in his life that he really enjoyed and it was all my problems and finally when all of that stuff and I got a chance to see each one of my own character defects in that and to slowly but surely release all that and let God take over it and then be able to clearly see not what was words but was what was for real, that we are being taken care of and that nothing was different. And I couldn't understand how it couldn't be different, but it stayed the same. And I don't know if I'm making any sense about it, but it was really the most powerful experience that I've ever gone through was to be able to understand about financial insecurity and just being able to understanding how dearly God took care of me and us and to watch the progress of what we've been able to do in the last three years. And, you know, I just feel like that was not only about finances, but it was also about learning about the third step. Thank you, Beverly. We've got about five minutes left. Anybody like to share? i was hoping uh i'm ruby i'm an al-anon i was hoping that um this tape would run out so i wouldn't have to share with this thing but um powerlessness um when i first came in to the al-anan program of course i came in to get my husband and my son sober what else you know and I could see the second part of that first step, that my life was unmanageable. That wasn't a big mystery to me at all. My life was Unmanageble. But the powerlessness, I didn't accept that for quite a long time. I was still going to put my little oar in And even as late as a year ago in 1988 in the Crested Butte Conference, Tom T., I was so impressed with his talk. He had come up from nowhere, I mean absolutely less than nowhere, and he had made such a wonderful recovery and such a Wonderful Life. And I was going to get that tape and send that to my son. And, well, even as while I was hearing that message, I believed my son was already dead. And, you know, I didn't have a chance to give that tape to him, but I thought, well that would have been such an inspiration to Brad because he was really down and I thought... So the powerlessness, it just hit me right now as I was in this particular meeting I would have before I would've thought oh man alive I want so and so to hear this I mean I want my husband to hear that stuff and I don't even know if he's still in here but I don' t even know and I dont care because I don''t have to be responsible for him anymore you know the idea hit me because I dont think it hasn't been terribly long since I would have been in this room for someone else. I want so-and-so to hear this. I'd write it down so I could tell this to so- and-so because they need to hear it. But I guess I finally am in this Room for Myself, and that's kind of a revelation because always I would be concerned about someone else And for the, like someone was in my house a couple days ago, and her son is a crack addict. And she's in and out of Al-Anon. She's just not, but she wants to know what to do about him. And I said, there isn't anything you can do about Him. And she says, but He doesn't do this, and He doesn'T do this. And what do I do when, I mean, we're going to meet for lunch, and he doesn't show up? And I said, have an alternate plan because he probably won't show up all the time. But I just thought, well, it takes us so long. We have to knock our head against the wall for such a long time before we can catch the powerlessness, the real powerlessness. And now I've been really encouraged that my will is not God's will. And therefore, whatever God has in store for me, I hope that I will be able to accept it. Life isn't going to go on beautifully, and I'm not going to have the answers. And it's a real comforting thing to think, okay, God sees that old story of he sees the tapestry from the top and we see it from underneath with all the knots and all that and we wonder why we have to go through all this. But it's really comforting to know that he's got it all in his hand and that all we have do is just let him do. Sure. Thanks, Cheryl. it was a fact in all of our lives as it is in my life that we're powerless and we don't have the power then to whatever extent we rely on our own power we're limiting our lives if all you want to do is accomplish small things just rely on yourself and that is often the trap that I'm caught in you know that's exactly what I do that's when my first instinct this is too important You know, I better take this out of God's hand and handle it personally. And, you know, this is for money, God. I'll take it. And I think I'd like a little action tonight, God, why don't you go on vacation or whatever the message is. And so if you want to limit what we can accomplish in life, run it yourself. so thank you very much for all the participation