Spiritual Malady and Step Two – AA Speaker – Linda R. – Charlottesville, VA – Part 1 of 2 – Linda C.

Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. We hope to always remain an ad-free podcast, so if you'd like to help us remain self-supporting, please visit our website at sober-sunrise.com whether you join us in the morning or at night there's nothing better than a sober sunrise we hope that you enjoy today's speaker told that this is the volume is that good oh yeah okay okay um we had one moment of silence i'd like to uh invite you to share another moment of silence with me please and then i'll i'll offer a prayer okay so if you would just gently close Close your eyes as we settle into the stillness. God, sweet Abba, thank you for bringing us here together today. Help us remember that we are exactly where we are supposed to be. Help Help us let go of all the distractions of the morning, of yesterday. Help us let go of all the distractions of later and tomorrow. And most importantly, help us let go of the distraction of fear. Let us know that we are safe with one another, from one another. And we pray especially God that you open our minds and our hearts so that we can see what we have not seen, hear what we have not heard, and go where we have not gone. We do not invite you in. You need no invitation. Rather, we pray for the ability you to become more aware of your presence. And together we all pray. Amen. Thank you. And I have to thank Allison for inviting me and Al. For those of you who weren't around yesterday, this man can cook. But they've opened their homes to so many of us and made this weekend possible, and I just am so grateful for that. Thank you, and it's so wonderful to see so many faces, so many young faces here today. And that just truly blows me away. I began drinking when I was 15, and if anyone had suggested I had a problem, I would have walked away from that. I didn't even know AA existed until my late 20s. Didn't even Know It Existed. My name is Linda Risley. I am an alcoholic, and my sobriety date is October 17th, 1989. and I was 31 years old when I got sober, or when God got me sober. I almost died getting there. The day, what we're going to do today, I really don't know, but I think what we'RE going to DO today is I'M GOING TO SHARE WITH YOU MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE STEPS. The steps being the program of recovery that Alcoholics Anonymous offers. The steps aren'T all that Alcoholic Anonymous offerS, however. in the front of our books we used to have a circle and a triangle we don't have it right now, we will have it again later but we used To have a Circle and a Triangle do you do tokens in this area? the tokens have the circle and the triangle and we have our three legacies on there recovery, unity and service I feel very blessed to have been introduced to all 36 principles and they are all so important in the way I live today. I absolutely had to have the 12 steps. The 12 steps are what enable me to live because sobriety is painful. Sobriety ist why ich trink. It's very, very painful. The steps give me a way to live sober. The traditions are a set of principles that allow me to live with you happily. And the concepts are a Set of Principles that show me how to serve and how to allow others to serve. And they just, it all blows me away. It just blows me way. And there's so much yet to learn. But we do have, and I heard that most of us are alcoholics. Some of us still don't know, and that's okay. Some of Us may not be alcoholic. And you know what? I think it's just as important to understand if I'm not an alcoholic as it is to understand If I am. It's critical because until I understand the first step, the rest are going to be meaningless. And the first stop is we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. We have four chapters in our basic textbook that address the first step. Four chapters, beginning with the doctor's opinion. And then we've got Bill's story. And then there is a solution. And then мы във got more about алкоголизм. It must be very, very important that they would give us four chapters. The first step is so elusive. I'm sure many people in this room know people who are dying from this disease. You know, we can see it. Others can see it. But the denial is so baffling, so intense that those stricken with it don't see it and I know that was my case. I was dying from the disease of alcoholism and didn't have a problem You had a problem and I had a program with you but I didn't have a program. The first four chapters which include the doctor's opinion helped me understand with the help of people like you just what this disease of mind body and spirit is all about and um the way i understood the way I understood it at the beginning was I just simply didn't uh what I understood at the begining was I came to in my living room and I had been introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous about 18 months earlier trying to help my brother the real alcoholic. Bobby was getting DUIs, Bobby was bringing violence into his home, Bobby was doing all the things that real alcoholics do. I on the other hand my life looked good from the outside. Now it didn't always look good and I got better before I got worse. I mentioned that I started drinking when I was 15 and when I Was 15 getting alcohol was just not an easy thing to do getting drugs was very easy to do and so a lot of the ways that I escaped from life were through drugs and I've always been an escape artist you know when I was very young it was through books and it was Through Good Grades I was the little Miss Goody Two Shoes the honor roll student and I walk with a lot women today and I understand that we're either really really good or really really bad and it's just two sides of the same coin yeah It's just I'm not part of, I'm not equal to, I am not with you. So I've got to be here or I've gotta be there because I need more of something and I was born it seems needing more of something but I started drinking when I was 15 and up to this point I'd been a little miss goody two shoes I'd sought more love more whatever and all sorts of different avenues and the summer that I was fifteen I discovered alcohol, drugs and boys And my life changed. The lives of my parents changed, too, and everybody who cared about me. My parents watched their little honor roll student do a 180 because I didn't need them anymore. I didn' t need honor roll anymore. I didn''t need the approval of adults anymore. I didn ''t need any of the things that I thought I needed because I found what made me feel right. And that's all I ever wanted was just to feel like I was a part of, to have that free-floating anxiety go somewhere, to be able to be comfortable in my own skin. I did not realize then that I suffered from a spiritual malady. Looking back over my shoulder, I understand that I've suffered from the spiritual malty for almost as long as I can remember. One of my favorite examples of this is when I was five years old, I'm the oldest of five children, And when I was five years old, I can remember sitting on my basement steps with my brother Bobby. He's 13 months younger than I am, trying to teach him to tie his shoes because I'm convinced that if I can teach him To Tie His Shoes, my father will stop hitting him in the head and calling him dumbass. And I really need that to happen. Now, Bobby's not complaining about that, and Bobby's não está me pedindo para ensiná-lo a tirar os seus coelhos também, por exemplo. but at five years old I've got it figured out that if I can teach him to tie his shoes my father will behave differently and then guess what I'll feel better there's no way I could have known just how selfish and self-centered that was but that's how I've lived my life everything I've done has ultimately been so that I will feel better and it looked good, it looked like I had a generous spirit a caring heart and when I came into these rooms I would have told you I'm one of the nicest people I know clueless but so that's I've managed I was attempting to manage life early on and I don't spend much time trying to analyze a whole lot of that I just need to know that that's what I was and that's how it happened hasn't gotten me into happy living understanding the solution gets me into happy living and not to say that some awarenesses haven't come they do it's just that if I focus on the solution then God tells me what I need to know so I discovered drugs alcohol and boys that year and my life changed and so did everyone else's and the disease is progressive now what I did not understand at that time because I wasn't really drinking a lot because it wasn't that available to me and it if you had looked at me during those years, it would have looked like I was a drug addict. And when I first came into AA, I used to introduce myself as an alcoholic and a drug attic because I thought I was. And I mean, I didn't use these things recreationally. It was always, you know, to the excess. It was always abuse. And in our book, we have a couple of places where we talk about the moderate drinker, the hard drinker and the real alcoholic. And I looked like a hard drug user. Now, the reason I understand today that I'm not a drug addict is when I was about 21, when I Was 21 years old, by that time, my life was insane. And i had decided that part of my problem or drugs, and our men, the men I was choosing not alcohol. I put down the drugs, and I started looking for a different kind of man. I put down the drugs. I walked away from them. I understand today that alcohol is not the drug of choice. It's not my drug of choose. Alcohol is the drug over which I had no choice. So I could walk away from, you know, the Quaaludes, the acid, everything else I was indulging in. And when I wanted to, many years later, walk away from alcohol, I couldn't. I don't know when or how it happened, but I crossed that line at some point and I was literally powerless to not drink. So the disease of body that I suffer from, that our book talks about, that the doctor's opinion addresses so beautifully, is this phenomenon that happens, that physically happens when I consume alcohol, something happens in me that does not happen in a lot of other people. It doesn't happen in my mother. My mother has a couple of drinks. She starts to feel it. She stops because she starts to feeling it. She starts feeling powerless. I have a coupleof drinks and there's no stopping because I start to get some power. I startto feel in control. I can sit in my own skin. and I can be with you. I can look and be eye to eye. I am part of this world at last. Alcohol does something for me. And what it does for me that I wasn't aware of for a long, long time was the phenomenon of craving. It's a physical reaction that I believe is no different than diabetes or anything else that we are afflicted with physically. When I take a drink, There's a phenomenon of craving that kicks in, and I take another drink. And I take other drink. And I'm unable. Now, I kidded myself because there were times I could control my drinking. But the truth is that eventually I drank beyond my control. I drank more than I wanted to. I did not, trust me, I did NOT want to lose control of my bowels. I did Not want to drink to that excess. I did not want to spend the night in our county jail. I did not want a vomit every time I turned around in the most inappropriate places. And knowing what I knew, I would have stopped before that happened, but I couldn't. So eventually, I drank beyond what I wanted to. And it's progressive and throughout the years, I drank for about 15 years and at the beginning, it was just weekend stuff yeah and then later my weekends started on thursdays you know and later my weekend's lasted a little longer and it just then eventually it was just well i need a few on monday night i need if you want tuesday night i just need a couple on wednesday night and i thought because i was just having a couple of monday tuesday and wednesday nine but i have a problem what i didn't understand was that i had to have a couple and monday Tuesday and Wednesday night the um so i have this phenomenon of craving that is a physical reaction and when i drink i take another drink and i have no control over that that would not be a problem if guess what i didn't take the first drink yeah but i suffer from a disease of mind and and the book talks about this, too, about the mental obsession. And the book talks about how our real problem is really in our mind. Because if the phenomenon... I'm allergic to penicillin, and I discovered this when I was eight years old. I have not once thought I think I'll go take some penicilin and see what happens this time. It just doesn't even enter my mind. But with alcohol, it's a different story. I have the mental obsession, and regardless of my past experience, and I mentioned some of it, and you know, I've got lots of drama and trauma, and my drama and trauma is not what makes me an alcoholic. My drama and, I mean, if a saint drank the quantities I did in any evening, you know that person would run around with a lampshade on their head too, or unbutton their blouse, or whatever it is they need to do. But I've got a mind that tells me, regardless of my past experience, regardless of the fact that I did lose control of my balance, regardless ofthe fact that I did spend a night in jail, regardless ofthetact that I broke the hearts of everyone that cared about me, regardless of the fact that I got into the van with those three men that I didn't know because I needed another drink and I sold my soul for it regardless of my past experience I've got a mind that tells me stone cold sober and here's my insanity sober I've gotta mind that tell me this time it'll be different this time it'll different I take the first drink and I do that sober That's the nature of my insanity. And I have no control over that. I got to a point where I didn't want to drink. I was looking out my living room window every evening watching the happy people walk with their children and their pets up and down the street, and I thought tomorrow I won't drink, and tomorrow I can be like that too. And tomorrow came, and I couldn't not drink. And for those of you who have been there, You know, that's a despair. That's a loneliness. That's a horror that is in and of itself a blessing. The And if I could not drink and go to meetings I would just not drinkand go to meeting. I don't know what it's like in your community but in my community we have a lot of people who are very, very loving and they say many well-intentioned things and they say things like, go to 90 meetings in 90 days and don't drink even if your butt falls off. Well, if I could not drink even if my butt fell off, I would not drink and I probably wouldn't be here, okay? I would just not drink. There were a lot of things in early sobriety I thought I was doing to keep myself sober. If I could keep myself sober, I wouldn't need Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, in my community, we read how it works at every meeting. And at the ABCs, it says no human power could relieve our alcoholism. God couldn't would if he were sought. No human power includes me and my sponsor and my group. And I absolutely believe today that 90 meetings in 90 days won't keep me sober. A sponsor won't Keep Me Sober. A home group won't Keeping Me Sobre. None of that will keep me sober. My help has to come from a power greater than me. And the only way I make myself available to that help is when I get that I am toast. And if we could give people that, this church would be full. This church wouldbe full. It's that surrender that comes for me. It was coming to you that morning knowing that I was dying. Prior to this, lots of horrible things had happened. Um, my life looked good on the outside because I was married to a man who took care of me and I grew to hate him because of it. I didn't know it was self-loathing. I just grew to hide him because of it and um, my life looked really good on the outside but I was dying on the inside and I came to that morning and I knew at any moment my insides were going to burst through my outsides and I asked a God that I hadn't talked to in a long time because I was angry but I asked this God that I haven't talked to in a long time to please help me. And the help came. The help came and I haven't had a drink since and I don't think relapse is a necessary part of recovery. It happens, but it doesn't have to happen. You know, and if you're new, you don't ever have to drink again, not because you have any power to keep yourself sober, but you have access to a power that will keep you sober the um now all this these other suggestions this 90 meetings in 90 days and get us those are all wonderful things and what i believe today is that if i am willing to go to 90 meetings in90 days if i'm willing to get a sponsor if i m willing to wear a blue dress instead of a red dress you know if im willing to do those things then i am manifesting the willingness that suggests I have surrendered and I've got hope. If I'm not willing to do those things, I don't see people without willingness stick around here very long. We're just not done. Surrender is surrender. And with surrender comes willingness. I don' t know how to surrender and then do it my way. and then I have this so I have this disease of mind, body and spirit and I've got 36 principles, I've got the 12 steps that treat my mind gives me a new mind I've Got the 12 traditions that treat my body and by that I mean the phenomenon of craving still there, I don't play around with alcohol um but the body i bring into these rooms yeah the the the 12 traditions teach me about unity and how to live with you and how to be with you not only comfortable in my skin but sitting next to your skin and i didn't know how to do that you guys scared me to death okay the um 12 concepts are the principles that support our service legacy and as i said i'm i'm and i'm just beginning to really meditate upon those and how I might incorporate those into different areas of my life. But I think they're very, very important. But anyway, I'm here today to share with you my experience with the steps. And that first step, I don't know how we get there, but I know that when we get There, we've got hope. You know, and it's the despair, and It's the hopelessness. And it's the willingness, you know, the willingness to say I'm toast, I can't do it. I am powerless over alcohol. Because no matter how I try or what I try, I drink no matter what. I am an alcoholic who drinks no matter What? And what I understand today is that that morning back in 1989, this God that I don't understand answered that prayer. He answered that prayer. The obsession to drink obsession to drink was removed by something bigger than me. But then I'm left with me. I'm just sober and I don't know how to live. I don' t know how to live and when I first started coming around the rooms of AA I was told that, oh keep coming back you'll feel better. What they didn't tell me was that I would feel everything better. The pain, the agony, the isolation I felt it all. And my first six months of sobriety were, oh, they were horrible. I walked around with like all my nerves were on the outside and I'd cry one minute and laugh the next and couldn't tell you why. I went mute. I mean, I couldn't talk in meetings. I couldn'T sleep. I was up practically. I mean I had all the books. That was good. I read them. Didn't remember what I read. Couldn't tell You what I Read. Didn't know what I Read. But I was reading them. And I was just stark raving nuts. And somehow, one day at a time, I came to the meetings and I felt okay for that one hour. And then I went home and I went to my job and I couldn't remember how to do my job. I'd been doing it for years and years and yours, but I just couldn't remember how do do it, what to do, how to to do it. I'd go home and look at this man I'd be married to and think who are you? It was wonderful. I wasn't drinking. One day at a time, I wasn'T drinking. And the first two months that I was in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, I did not ask for a sponsor. I heard pray. I heard get on your knees every morning and get on you knees every night, and I could do that. Go into my bathroom, shut the door, lock the door. I could go into my room, I could be able to do that? I've been doing it ever since. and um but then i i did finally approach uh a gentleman in our meetings uh a beautiful man named armand and i asked him if he'd be my sponsor and bless his heart he looked me straight in the eye said no honey he said i'll be your friend but you need a woman's sponsor and i am so grateful so grateful to him because that's exactly what i needed but i didn't know how to do that and so i started you know watching and there were all reasons well well, I might ask her, but, I might ask here, but I might ask her. But, uh, and there were no, it was fear. It was stark raving fear. I knew how to be with men. That's how I lived. Yeah. I didn't know how to be women. Women scared me to death. I couldn't trust you. You were just like me. You were competitors. Yeah? And to the extent I had girlfriends, I had one girlfriend at a time. And, And it was usually, you know, one of us, it was leader and follower. There was no eye-to-eye anything. So anyway, I got into a lot of pain, and I was at an Alcathon. And, you Know, everything good comes to me with a prayer. And I remember just being two months sober and just in such excruciating pain, and I knew I needed help. And there were five other guys. It was the middle of the night. It was like a 24-hour meeting thing, New Year's Eve. And I just said another prayer. I said, God help me ask the next woman that walks through that door to be my sponsor. And he sent exactly the right woman. He sent exactlythe right woman and when I asked Janet, she didn't say yes, she didn' t say no, she handed me her telephone number and said to give her a call. That was the last thing I wanted to do. Tell me yes, tell me no. Don't make me pick up the phone and call you. It took five days. It took 5 days. I didn' T know what to say. I didn't know whatto say. So I finally said a prayer. I picked up the phone, she knew what to say. So if that telephone's weighing about 2,000 pounds, pick it up anyway. The person on the other end knows what to Say. Janet began to take me through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, our basic text. And we've got a lot of wonderful literature. In fact, when I take ladies through the book, we start literally at the cover page. But there's also a page called Other Books, and it lists all the conference-approved AA, General Service Conference-Approved Literature. And I refer to it as a reading list. I think it's also very important. The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions is a wonderful book. Too often, though, I don't think I know that people get confused and they think that the directions for working the steps are in there, and they're not. In fact, it tells us on this page that it's an interpretive commentary. It's an interpreted commentary on the A program by a co-founder. And I don't even need Webster's to understand what an interpretative commentary is, although I do look a lot of things up. But I could understand the 12 and 12. When I first came in, I read that, and I understood it, andI connected, and I felt that maybe this thing was for me too. But there weren't any directions for me to follow, not really. And so I was so grateful for a sponsor who was willing to take me through the book because I had read this thing. I did a home study program, by the way. Before I came into the rooms of AA, I came to my living room in August. My sobriety date's October. When I came Toom, my livingroom in August, I had started smoking dope again, one more way to manage and control my drinking. And my husband at the time, we had gone away for the weekend and had a miserable weekend. And I had been to meetings of AA earlier with my brother trying to help him. And over the course of that weekend, I'm smoking my dope, and I hear this woman who stood at a podium 18 months earlier, and I heard her talking about how smoking dope with her kids was not sobriety. and her voice just echoed through my mind i had a miserable time but i knew it was true i knew what i'd been doing up to that point i came to my living room and i asked god for help and when i was able to get out of that chair the big book and the 12 and 12 were in my living room they were inmy living room because the man i've been having an affair with had left them there. I'm not proud of any of this, but this is who I was and this is not who I am today and that's the miracle. But who I Was was, um, I was married to a beautiful man, a good man, and a friend of the family, very close friend of the family that was in our home often, was the man who really understood. And he was a good drinking buddy. And I had been trying to get pregnant and I had an ectopic pregnancy and it's all kinds of trauma and drama. But he understood and he was there for me and it was all about me. But he was trying to get sober and had left those books there. And see, God loves us so much. God loves us so much that the moment we turn and ask for help to help us there, he will use everything available. He will use every thing available. That's been my experience. So anyway, I came to him. Those books were there. And I picked the big book up, and it opened to Chapter 3. And I read it, and I understood it. And I knew, I knew that the nature of my insanity had a name, and it was called alcoholism. And even importantly, I new that there was hope and that there is help. And so what I did, I didn't come to meetings or anything like that. I went to our central office because I knew this guy would be coming back for his book. And I went into our central office and I bought the big book, the 12 and 12. I saw they had pamphlets. I bought some of those. I made it very clear that these were for a friend. And I Went home and started my home study program. And what I Did was, I Didn't drink But every night I rolled a joint and I studied. And I worked, I don't recommend this. Please understand, I do not recommend this It was very painful But I started working the steps in my head And every time I had worked one I drew it on some sketch paper with colors And that's how I worked the steps And I got up to the ninth step And I was going to make amends And he and I were going away Charlie and I Were going away for our eighth wedding anniversary and I was going to make amends, which meant I was going to confess. And I knew that by confessing he would see what a horrible person I am and he would leave me, which is what I wanted anyway, and I wouldn't have to take any responsibility for making that decision. Now I didn't get all that at the time, but I get it now. God kept me quiet. Instead, my head was filled with this woman from that AA meeting 18 months earlier talking about smoking dope with your kids isn't sobriety. And I knew she was telling the truth and so I went home I rolled everything I had and the following Monday morning became my sobriete date without anything in my system and then I came to meetings I am a sometime slowly So in October of 89 is when that began. New Year's Eve was when I got a sponsor, and Janet began to take me through the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And like I said at the beginning, all I understood about the first step was that I was toast. I was dying, and I needed help. What I understand today is the first stop is not just for newcomers. There's no question in my mind today that I'm powerless over alcohol, and to tell you the truth, alcohol just really isn't an issue in my life. I am free. I'm free. I'm fee to go anywhere, do anything, and I'm not going to get struck drunk. And that's by the grace of God. However, I still try to manage my life. I still trying to manage me life because I have this spiritual malady. And Janet, my first sponsor, summed it up so beautifully. Early on she said, honey, she always called me honey. You need a name tag that says hello. my name is Linda, not God. What are you talking? I didn't get it. But I understood enough about the first step that I had to surrender and I was willing and I would have done anything that woman said. And I did do anything she said. The second step at the beginning came to believe that a power greater than us could restore us to sanity, I thought that the second step was where I was going to be restored to sanity. And I didn't understand why I still felt so squirrely. And thank goodness for sponsors and folks like you because you helped me understand that I am not restored to insanity at the second step. I'm restored to sanity at the tenth step. You know, and that's where the promise of sanity is. by the time I get to the 10th step it says that sanity will have returned and of course I'm a more child, I want it now there's a beautiful chapter chapter 4, we agnostics that I still it's so rich I still learn so much from it and one of my greatest blessings truly is the beauty and the blessing of being able to walk with other women through these steps because it comes alive every time I open the page. And in Chapter 4, it starts off with one of the best summaries of the first step. It says, if when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely... Entirely, by the way, means entirely. I thought, well, I can quit for a while. No, it doesn't say that. So if when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take. I was only going to have three. You're probably alcoholic. And if that be the case, go to 90 meetings in 90 days. No, it doesn't say that. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. Am I willing to embrace that idea? Now at the beginning I could not have told you, oh yes, I believe that I suffer from an wellness which only is spiritual experience would conquer. I couldn't have told your that. What I could have told was I'm dying and I want help. i cannot live like this any longer please help me and what i you know what i continue to learn is that it is the spiritual experience that i need i am so spiritually thirsty i believe i was born spiritually thirsty you know i've just always needed to be part of something else goes on to talk about how the choices we have to be doomed to an alcoholic death sounds lovely or to live on a spiritual basis are not always easy alternatives to face. Why would that not be an easy alternative? I've held the hands of loved ones who have died And if I had told them, you're going to be doomed to a death from cancer or live on a spiritual basis, do you think they would have hesitated? No. Only people like us will hesitate. It isn't so difficult. But this chapter goes on and on and On about how we have to find a spiritual basis of life. Lack of power is our dilemma. now at the beginning what I needed to know and what my sponsor pointed out to me was that all I needed to make a beginning was to either believe in or be willing to believe in a power greater than myself it doesn't take a lot to just be willing to believe that there's something bigger than me although if you judge it by my actions that's hard to believe at times but if we just ask ourselves are you just willing to believe there's something bigger than you then we can be on our way. We can get on with the rest of the steps, which I did. Now today the second step is huge. The second step ist huge. It was pointed out to me that an agnostic is a doubter. An atheist is certain. An atheist ist certain that God doesn't exist. An agnestic doubts, and that's me. Well, I don't doubt that God exists. I know God exists. But I doubt that God loves me the way he loves you. I doubt that I can have the experience you're having. I doubt that God wants me to really be happy. I doubt that I'm going to get what I need to be happy I doubt, I doubt I doubt. This chapter I think could be titled Doubt and Prejudice. and throughout this chapter it continues to suggest that we set aside prejudice set aside prejudice and it was explained to me that prejudice is a pre-judgment it's an old idea you know i came in here with some really squirrely ideas about god I believe that because when I was 17 I met the first man of my dreams he was 10 years older than me I was in the hospital with hepatitis this is a year after having open heart surgery and I'm in the hospital with hepatitis and I meet Barry and Barry was there with a broken leg Barry was affiliated with a motorcycle club and Barry was exotic. Barry noticed me and that's really all it took and so at 17 when I went home from the hospital I packed my bags, I told my father I was going to spend the night with a girlfriend I left and I never went back. That's what I do to the people who care about me the most and I moved in with Barry and Barry didn't have a typical job very engaged in retail transactions from home. I had arrived. And it was insane. And there was all kinds of drama and trauma. There was abuse of every sort. I didn't know until then what it was like to have a gun pointed at me, my face. I didn'T know what it WAS like until then to be beat with a belt. I'VE GOT SCARS TO PROVE IT, AND YET I KEPT GOING BACK. Tell me about insanity. But what's really important about that period of time is I mentioned I have three brothers and a younger sister. I sold my brother Bobby a large quantity of drugs, believing that he would share them with me, and he didn't. But he had a horribly tragic experience. He overdosed, and she was in bad shape. it tripped a switch in his mind that was pretty severe shortly after that and he had no business driving but shortly after that he and my other brother John got into a truck and they headed north and that night I get a call from my father that there was an accident Bobby had hit an underpass and he had a broken nose and a broken ankle but my brother John was killed instantly his skull was crushed and it took the emergency personnel three hours to saw the truck open and they reported that during that three hours Bobby was conscious and he just kept repeating get my brother, get my Brother well when I hear about this I mean I can go there but I don't know how to feel that I don' t know what to do with that kind of grief with that kinda guilt with that kinda sorrow I don''t know how ta feel and so I did what I''d always done I run and I numb I get a drink and a drug and I shove it down deep well based upon that experience I didn't know for many many years that God's getting me back see I had this idea that God is getting me back and I deserved it I deserved it by the way we buried my brother my parents did the most horrible thing a parent has to do they buried a child and I showed up physically but I was not present I was not present from my parents I was no present from my brothers and this little girl Cindy who was she was my sister child I was not present we buried my brother I did it with a drink and life went on But that was one of the ways, and there were many others. I formed ideas about God based upon my experiences and conclusions I drew. Nobody told me, God's out to get you. Nobody told Me He's going to punish you. chapter 4 talks about the consciousness of your own belief will come to you that deep down within is the final reality and what I've come to believe is that my conception of God and that's what chapter 4 takes me through and there are beautiful exercises there I had a bunch of stuff on disc and I left it at home so I'll email it And I'll share this stuff with anyone who wants it. But I was told to go through this book or this chapter and pick out spiritual terms and ask myself what they mean to me, and there were lots of questions in here to answer and to answer that. But at one point it says that the great reality is deep within. And see, I didn't have a conception of God. I really didn't. I didn'T know what it was. I knew what I thought the church said. I knew what I thought my parents said. I knew What I Thought My Husband Said. I knew what I Thought, based upon nothing other than this mind. You know, this mind that said, It'll be different this time. And what I've discovered and continue to discover with the second step is that the great reality does lie deep within. The conception of God that I am to embrace is already within me. the way I discover that is through the steps I become free of the lies and the old ideas and chapter 4 says over and over again we beg of you set aside the prejudice, set aside the old ideas and I was told that I didn't have to throw them away and I have found that for those there are many of us in the program who grew up in a very organized religious environment. And that can almost be, that can be very scary to even suggest that you set aside some old idea because you're going to be damned and just all kinds of things. But what was suggested to me was, you don't have to throw anything away. Just put it on the shelf like you would your sweaters in the spring. You can pull them down later. But if I am willing to just set aside my old ideas maybe the consciousness of my own belief will come to me you know and it does and it continues to but it doesn't come because i sit and think about it and i wanted that i thought well if i just think hard enough you know maybe i'll understand god yeah it didn't happen that way for me if i will do exactly what's suggested and walk this walk, take this journey, I get to know a God of my understanding. I don't need to know about God. I need to KNOW God. And I get that through the steps and through this journey with you all. We agnostics, step two is not just for beginners. You know, it's deep and it's rich and it continues to just blow me open. You know? There's another question in here that talks about either God is or isn't. God is everything or nothing. What is your choice to be? I have a choice. Like everything else in life, which I never understood, I was driven. I was constantly driven by a hundred forms of fear, insecurity, selfishness, self-delusion. The book lists them all. I was driven by these things. I had no free will, plenty of self-will, but no free Will because I was driven by my emotions and in sobriety with these tools, I get free from that. I get Free from that and I am able to go where I am guided. And I have to be shoved and driven anywhere today. I can go where I am guided. But this question, is God everything or is he nothing? What was your choice to be? I don't know that there's a right choice, but I'll tell you the one that kills me is I'll tell you, oh, God's everything. God's Everything. But watch me. And the way I act is God's Every Thing But. God's Everthing But I'll take care of this. God's Everywhere But I better manage this. god's everything but and i die in the middle of the road spiritually i die in the middle of the road now fortunately we've got a ton of steps that help us see that identify that get free from that you know and just trudge a little further trudge a little further but it's uh it's a remarkable journey and regardless of length of sobriety there's such joy and there's such treasure yet to be discovered and the second step is one that the longer I'm sober the deeper my experience with it I think it's probably time for a break, there are a couple more things I want to say about the second steps but I don't want to run us over so is this a good time smokers to go take a short break when do you want to come back? 10 minutes? ok, alright, great see you in 10 Thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise. If you enjoyed today's episode, please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message. Until next time, have a great day.