Step 1 and Willingness – Herb K – Workshop – Part 21 of 25 – Herb

good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are in the world actively participating in this big book telephone step workshop or listening to it watching it at some later time my name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic happy new year welcome to 2020 I hope there is some clarity of vision for all of us I have for whatever reason a very optimistic view of 2020 maybe it's the numbers themselves or maybe it's that I'll be 80 years old July 1st and that certifiable there's no equivocation with the biology of that but fortunately I have energy and clarity and life filled with people like yourselves who are on this spiritual path that we share as a community so please again recommit to the open mind and the open heart knowing full well that we can't even do that effectively and so we convert our intention to a prayer a prayer that we send out to the universe at the very least it's our intention for our own positive confirmation of an open attitude and at the very most it's a plea for intervention so that we will be taken to a place taken to a place that we don't even know exists please join me in that set aside prayer god please set aside everything that i think i know about myself my brokenness my spiritual path and you for an open mind and a new experience of myself my brokenness, my spiritual, path and especially you. Please join me in the serenity prayer. God grant me the serentity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference. I have never memorized the set-aside prayer. I do have my own abbreviated version of it that I actually pray every morning at the beginning of my own meditation practice, and I ask the Holy Spirit to release me from up now and to detach me from after now, and to allow me to be fully present in the now. And then I say the third step prayer, a recommitment to that alignment that I I am committed to alignment with reality for the day so it's been a while since we've been on the call we've at least half a year I do believe six months um on this journey of looking at steps we spend a lot of time on step one because it's the foundation bill uses an architectural analogy an arch we're building an arch through which we walk to freedom so wonderful poetic metaphor we're building an art through which walked to freedom freedom from one well the first step tells us freedom from our addiction first half of the first step. Freedom from unmanageability second half of the first. The book promises and you know this I've commented on it many times but quite frankly I don't believe we can ever hear it enough as a reminder addiction is a problem the first half of the first step and it's a problem that we cannot effectively deal with you know I know you heard it correctly we cannot affect deal with our addiction we're hopeless and helpless and we completely implode in a puzzle of powerlessness based on our experience led through the steps out of the big book seeing that we're physically biologically different whether it be some organ or our brain dysfunction it doesn't make any difference the truth of our experience is once we begin we cannot stop and it applies to anything a substance or a process and the big book promises that at the end of the ninth step at the beginning of the tenth step we've entered into the world of the spirit and we've been placed in a position of neutrality with regard to our addiction Wow there's real hope there that's the vision he gives us very early on we're building an arch through which we'll find freedom the foundation he doesn't say it this way but it's implied because in the second step he says willingness is the cornerstone page 47 on this building of the arch willingness step two willingness to make the decision God is or God isn't power is or power isn't I need power or I don't that's the decision of step two he he says it's the cornerstone oh okay so that's the first stone that you place on a foundation obviously there's a foundation since it's the second stone obviously at the second step obviously the first step is the foundation that's why we spend three months at least on step one both to understand it in terms of the way the book acknowledges it an allergy in the first half of the first half the first steps what's wrong with our body and an obsession what's wrong with our mind first half of the first step but second half of that first half our body is just you know subject to an allergy meaning an abnormal reaction but our mind is also dysfunctional abnormal abnormal Bill says in fact he uses the word defective we're mentally defective I hate it but I've embraced it because it's true based on my history based on my actual behavior not in terms of the insanity of the psychiatric model or psychological therapy model no no no this is not DSM stuff diagnostic statistical manual this is just not science this is Bill's approach to say that we have a vulnerability to an obsession that's the function of dysfunction of the mind. He calls it insanity, coming from the Latin sanus meaning health, in sanus meaning unhealthy. That's all it means. The mental defectiveness is not a condemnation or a scientific categorization. It's kind of a poetic, artistic, experiential observation that there's something wrong with us. We don't learn from our experience. We don't connect the dots. We quit and we can stay They quit for a period of time, whatever it is that we intend to quit in terms of addiction. But we can't stay stopped. At some point he confirms it on page 43 at the end of his discussion. We have no effective mental defense against that first fill-in-the-blank connection to our addiction, du jour, because maybe it's changed. So the problem is addiction, but the problem is unmanageability, the second half of the first step. And in that space where he confirms that we've entered into the world of the spirit as he introduces us to steps 10 11 and 12 on pages 84 and 85 we've entered the world-of-the-spirit but he says we're not cured oh we're recovered our addiction has been neutered our addiction has been neutralized we've been placed in a position of neutrality here the words we didn't do it we have been placed in a position of neutrality that's the promise very specific sometime during or perhaps after you've concluded your ninth step and are practicing 10 11 and 12 on a consistent daily basis that will be your experience it's 100 my experience over 31 years of doing this work i'm sober 35 years but i didn't do this work until i was in my fifth year of sobriety this work up the steps out of the big book i did not have a spiritual awakening i did not change in my thinking and my feeling and my behavior until i did this work alcohol was removed february 21st 1984 I didn't even ask for it to be removed, and I didn t go to AA, and didn't pray. I was willing to make a decision to stop drinking to support my wife's recovery because she was in a hospital treatment program. And they asked me to stop drink to support her recovery. I said fine. I had stopped many times before for long periods of time so it was no big deal for me. my consciousness of course it was a huge deal for me in reality because I haven't had to drink in almost 36 years I went to AA after about three months I worked the steps after about four years I don't recommend those kinds of delays but it's just my history and that ten years of sobriety doing this step work for the third time and what I'm trying to illustrate here is a process and each one of ours is different each one our journeys is as unique as our fingerprint is as unique as are personal DNA well there's some general guidelines there's some general operating principles but each person's experience is going to be quite different each person path is going to be quite different that's why I recommend one of the first things for Sponsorship is meet them where they are not where they think they are Not where they want to be not where you think they or you want them to be no Meet them where are that's a discernment And that's where the set-aside prayer can come in very very handy Yours set aside and their set aside And once I see that in fact I am not cured that I have a daily reprieve from unmanageability, the bedevilments as they describe the behavioral description on page 52 and the exact nature of that reason and the source of those bedevilements on page 62 selfishness self-centeredness. It's the way I am human beings it's not again a scientific designation it's just an observation about human behavior. It's a survival mechanism that's built into us for good reason so that we will in fact survive and propagate the human race. That self-centeredness for survival purposes that manifests in instincts, fight, flight and freeze. Those are the instincts that we looked at in step four and are looking at right now through the lens of power because we made a decision in step two about power that it is and what it is no you made a decision the book has some suggestions but you each one of you on this call made a specific decision in Step 2 about power is it is it real and then what is it form your concept identify your words and phrases and then in step three another decision about a relationship again your decision about your relationship book will guide you it has five different relationships that it suggests we use as a model to prompt us to select our own personal based on our needs based on our hearts you're depending on our emotional and our physical and our spiritual evolution as to what you need at this particular time in your journey and each time you do this work if you do it more than once you will have different decisions and different needs and different words and and different relationships we made that commitment in step three and we made it publicly we prayed together the group on this call prayed together perhaps you did it out loud i had encouraged that in the privacy of your own room but in the community the universal community that we've established here on the call to pray out loud a commitment to turn acknowledging that you can't do that either we're powerless to turn and that in fact your hope your prayer is to be turned that's totally my experience and we looked at step four having three major parts in the big book resentment fear and sex i've made a direct correlation with those primitive biological physiological instincts for survival that bill refers to in the 12 and 12 in step 4 instincts gone awry he calls it fight flight and freeze i call it resentment our anger that's held as a defense mechanism against being hurt or every consequence of being hurt real or unreal it actually happened or it didn't happen and it was proportional or not proportional to our reaction and that's what we look at in columns one two and then we look our beliefs the source we're looking at beliefs the lenses through which we look the lenses that determine what we see those beliefs that we have that we don't know that we have a key to understanding or identifying them is using the word should feeling saying thinking the word sure I should you should they should the world should it reveals a belief now it might be quite healthy it might quite balanced it might be quite real on the other hand it may be just the opposite of all of that a total total lie which is what i discovered in many cases embarrassingly so and then we looked at the other side of the coin here the fourth column unpacking what is my motive third column unpacks my belief fourth column unpacks my motive coming from the latin movere what moves us what allows us to make a decision and take actions to move in a direction motivate what's our motivation five questions concerning self-centeredness that's the fourth column i've added a few items to enhance the experience next piece of work on fear or the work on the sixth step or on the eight step in preparation but essentially those are helpful variations and techniques in this fourth column to help flush out and flesh out what our role and responsibility is, not in the original event. We may have had no role or responsibility in the originally event, but in our reaction currently to the event, not yesterday not 10 years ago not 40 years ago the event may be those time categories but our reaction is today as we're sitting here I'm looking at you you're looking at me and if you have a list of resentments those are a list of resentment from your current emotional field I have anger about yesterday, I have anger about last month, last year or my early childhood which might be 40 or 50 years ago. I am holding on to a blame stance for my mother, my father, my brothers, my sisters my aunts and my uncles Not that they didn't do something that was in fact very dysfunctional and unhealthy and maybe even criminal We're not excusing that. We are observing it. But quite frankly, your history is irrelevant. Hmm. Boy, that's cold. Each one of our histories is irrelevant because it's over. Even yesterday. It's ancient history. over but not in your feelings not in your memory not in you're thinking sometimes translated into your behavior still reacting to yesterday hardly healthy hardly balanced hardly mature if you will and certainly not quote spiritual authentically spiritual close quote not not to guilt you or shame you but hopefully to wake you up today right now it's the only moment we have and to the extent that were buried in any feelings about ten seconds ago we're not living in the present moment I had a wonderful question given to me about the change in the fourth column format I used to on questions one through five have two perspectives the original timeframe then and the current time frame now and I found it a bit cumbersome burdensome and unnecessary so I have eliminated it except for question number five where I think that it can be revisited productively questions one through four self-seeking selfish dishonest and fear looking at it from right now evaluating those different perspectives right now in terms of my feeling my reaction of anger and then getting to question number five my role my responsibility the whole source of the reaction of anger to look back at the original event to see if there's some learning that we can do from that might be relevant might be helpful but mostly looking at right now what's the benefit to me what's this source of it in me right now but if people have found it helpful to do those two time frames and I believe it's cleaned it up in terms of making it a little more streamlined and not making it so cumbersome and burdensome not only to explain but also to do so thank you for that observation and that question so that I can clarify it for people here on the call we're moving on to the fear inventory and it's so straightforward resentment comes from anger which is our fight mechanism at the survival biological physiological level an instinct for survival. But if you can't fight, then you're going to run. You're going to hide. You are going to flight. Fight or flight. Fear. And so you've already looked at some fears in your third column. You made a list of seven opposite the seven variables of the third column in the fourth column you've made some observation about fear in the answer to question number four and eight but those are parking spaces my recommendation in the fear inventory is to make a list spontaneously without looking at those prior designations from your head from your heart from your gut just asking in the spirit of the set aside what fears do i have not filtering them just listing them don't be redundant of course but just list them even if the words are synonyms and it appears redundant list the different words so that you are not filtering out prematurely the ego is fighting for his survival here and it will be cunning and misleading so my emphasis is on allow it to be unfiltered and then take a look at column three and column four and if there are things that are substantive from those columns add them to the list and the big book suggestion is very simple make the list of fears and then ask why you have it i have a this is fictitious but as an example i have a fear of dogs because um i don't know why and so then i sit down and i think and then i remember oh fictitious now i was attacked by a very large dog when i was five years old and i had to have stitches so that excite that explains psychologically my trauma and my fear of dogs all right but there are much more sophisticated fears of course and much less uh available to our conscious interpretation it's not about analysis it's about feeling the fear and ask why do i have it an example would be i had a fear of not receiving the promotion well why was that well because i wanted the money and i also feared that if i didn't get the promotion that i would have a boss that would look at my daily activity well then the man asked me to unpack that why is that so well if somebody looks at my daily activity they would see that i'm not who i represent myself to be a man of fidelity and integrity and honesty i am a person who is totally self-centered and insensitive to other people Well, why don't you want them to see that? Well, because I represent myself as an evolved renaissance person and they'll see that I'm actually a bundle of lies and I'm a fake. Well, Why is that important? Well, Because eventually they would fire me. Well, Then what would happen? Well, then I won't have enough money to pay my rent. Well,Then what would Happen? And I'll be on the street and a homeless and then what happened, then I'll be hungry and miserable and and I'll lose my friends and I will be embarrassed and then, what would happen? I might drink again because of other suffering in the intention. Well all right, what will, what then would happen. Well then I may not be able to get back to AA. Well then what will happen? I will continue drinking, and then I'll die. Is the line of questioning over? Maybe, maybe not. Do you have a fear of death? I discovered I do not have a fear of Death. I don't know what's on the other side, and quite frankly, I don'T care, because there's nothing I can do about that. I will either know or not know when I get there but I really saw that my I'm terrified of the distance from here to there in terms of suffering I do not want to suffer I do not like pain I go to great lengths to avoid pain including having a disciplined and healthy life because I want to not have the pain of an unhealthy life. And then I reached the truth, so I went on to the next fear. Sometimes you'll reach the truth. Sometimes you just bottom out and you won't be able to go anyplace. Sometimes, you'll go in circles. Then each time, be gentle, go to the Next Fear and unpack that. This is beyond what's in the big book the big book says list your fear ask why you have it this man the second time I went through the work pushed it he said push at her ask the next question if that happens what are you afraid of if that happens what afraid of? If that happens, what are you afraid? Because the big books suggests in the introduction to the fourth step there on page 64 that we get down to the exact causes and condition the exact nature of the difficulties I found it very helpful I don't have a form for it although there is a worksheet in the way of life document they're in the fear section I'll talk about it next week it's not relevant to the big book process. It's relevant to a self-help and psychological process that I developed as the result of doing this work in my own personal background. So, I found it helpful, but I want to be very clear that I'm a big book literalist and fundamentalist, and this process I'm committing to you will be faithful to the big book so when I step outside the big book in any substantive way I want to be very clear about that with you. And that's all the time we have for today as I indicated continue doing column 3, column 4 work, begin to experiment with the fear inventory work, make sure that you've read and highlighted the fear material in the big book pages 67 and 68 and we'll be on the call next week talking about that please join me in the serenity prayer God grant me the serenite to accept the things I cannot change courage to change the things i can and wisdom to know the difference Thanks, everybody.