The Big Book and the Steps – FOTS Step 11 Workshop – Part 3 of 25 – Adam T.

alcoholic. You guys can hear me? Thank you. I want to thank the group, thank Ollie, thank Teresa for inviting me to talk tonight. It's an honor and a privilege to be asked to participate in Alcoholics Anonymous. It is a responsibility to give back what was so freely given to me. I was just talking before the meeting. There are a lot of people in AA that feel they act like they just had lunch with God, you know, and I am not that spiritual. This has been something that I have had to work at. And I'll tell you, I'm going to just bare my soul. I'm 22 years sober. I have not slept a full night since I got sober. That's just the kind of mind that I am. I, you Know, I have a almost like I don't have ADD, but I have very hyperactive. I just have a very hyper active mind. So I've had to really discipline myself especially in 10 11 and 12 i i stood up as a newcomer a lot of you guys have heard the talk uh for 17 years and uh our our beautiful friend clancy lives four blocks from where i live he just passed away last night i've known that gentleman for over 40 years those guys in that group saw me i mean i i had so many chips in aa i could have played poker with them And the reality of this for me is that until I got around some people that really understood what the problem was for someone like me, the solution didn't work. Fellowship driven recovery was not enough for me. I had to be taken through this process very, very specifically as it was outlined in the book. And for some reason, this thing happened to me, like, like it says in the spiritual experience. At the end of that, if anyone noticed, people ask how long does it take to go through the steps? And it says right there, what seldom could have been accomplished by years of self-discipline often occurs in a few short months. It's very interesting because it's almost like putting a car together and you learn about all the features of the car, the power windows, the power steering, the sunroof, the climate control, the cruise control. That was what the four-step was for me I started to learn these mechanics of what was blocking me from God from self and from others what happened in 10 and 11 was learning how to drive that car at 100 miles an hour and to use all those features on the fly and to then to do this nightly review and I you know I had gone through institutions also for 17 years for anybody that's new I know there's you know a lot of advanced recovery on this platform tonight but uh the talk is always towards the newcomer. It's always towards the person that's brand new, that's suffering, that's in emotional pain, that can't understand why it's so painful to not drink. And I've heard many people say it, that when a lot of us, when I don't drink, I suffer. When I do drink, you suffer.When I drink,I feel in control. When a normal person drinks, they feel out of control. Alcohol does something for me that is so powerful that unless I can develop that sense of comfort and ease that I'm seeking from alcohol through this spiritual process, a drunk like me will never stay here. And I started to really become aware of that in my home group. And one of the things my sponsor said to me, he said, how free do you want to be? You want tobe free enough to survive alcoholism or do youwant tobefree enough to chase your dreams, free enoughto have relationships that work, freeenough to learn how to navigate around the drama, free enoughtomatch calamity with serenity, to have a beautiful life. and I remember he said to me, going into this idea of 11, he said, Adam, what do you want from AA? You keep recycling through the rooms every time there's a crisis. And I said, well, I grew up in Malibu. I want a yacht and a Learjet. I live in a very successful part of the country. And he laughed when I said that because I thought it was about getting something. And what he said to me is, if you work steps four through nine and you consistently learn the discipline of 10, 11, and 12, what you'll get, because I'm a taker. I'm here to get something. He says, what You'll Get is a quiet mind and a loving heart. And I remember looking at him and thinking, what do I want that for? Because I had no idea. But what happens is the further I get away from the train, the more I start to understand a very different kind of unmanageability. And unless I really understand what the problem is, the solution's not going to work. And I'm going to say this again several times. If the problem is alcohol, the solution is abstinence. And the doctor's opinion is very, very clear that some of us are entirely normal in every respect. He says entirely normal, normal, able, friendly people. That's not who I am. I'm that restless type, and that restlessness is an undisciplined spirit. That's what it is, an irritability, a discontentment. And I want to talk a little about that. So what happened is I started coming to meetings drunk. You don't see a lot of drunk people in AA, but I eventually merged with this group of people that took the statements in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and turned them into questions. Dan S. was my original sponsor, very, very short lineage. He was sponsored by Joe Hawk, who was sponsored by Gary Brown, Paul Martin, Paul Stanley, Dr. Bob. It's a very short, short lineage, and I remember telling Dan Sherman, I said, you know, Dan, I went through residential treatment 28 times. I was really hoping that would get rid of Dan, you don't know what I mean, because he was so overzealous and enthusiastic about helping me because we'd grown up together. I had lived in Dan Sherman's family's building as a little boy, and I was abandoned there when my parents were in the middle of a separation. And what happened is Dan eventually, that's where part of the Fellowship of the Spirit and Big Book Awakening started, in that very place. And so Dan thought I was a project. He was picking me up and taking me to meetings drunk, and I was getting high in his car, and it was just shameful. It was so shameful. But he had said to me, how free do you want to be? And when I told him I'd gone through treatment 28 times, he looked at me and he said, Adam, that doesn't make you an alcoholic. And I thought, you're kidding. He says, no, it just means you paid half a million dollars for a big book. And i didn't think that was funny. See, treatment was a great place to fan me up for another run. Treatment has its rightful place in recovery. Even Bill Wilson had gone through treatment, and I'm saying this for a reason. Some people don't go through treatment. But treatment never solved the problem. And part of the problem for me, if I really don't understand what the problem is, the solution's not going to work. And that became something that I didn't understand. I remember someone saying to me, Adam, if alcohol is your problem, that drink, that shock less, that 12-pack. If that's your problem, you're probably not an alcoholic. And if you are in fact an alcoholic, the type that's described in the doctor's opinion, your problem is an alcohol. And it took me another decade to understand what he was trying to tell me. It was almost like some kind of cruel riddle. I drank over that for years. But what happened to me, and all of this will lead into the 11th step, is I got around a group of people in AA that took the statements in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, turned them into questions and directed them at me. It was an intrusive, confrontive way of looking at AA. Questions like, was I incapable of being honest with myself? Did I in fact drink because I liked the effect produced by alcohol? Was I restless, irritable, and discontent by nature? Was that my natural state? Was my greatest obsession that somehow someday I would control and enjoy my drinking? As I started to go through those considerations for the first time I saw the truth. And the greater truth for me as an alcoholic, the most obvious truth is that I was never really able to live successfully with alcohol. That was the obvious part. But the greater aspect of alcoholism for me is it's I started to discover that I wasn't able to live successfully without alcohol. And what it really meant for me to be an alcoholic if I stripped all of the outside circumstances away, is it somehow I had a mind that continued to take me back to alcohol. Every time I got released from a treatment center, an emergency room, a hospital, what it really means for me to be an alcoholic is I have this mind that continues to lead me back the booze. It's almost like my default program, like on a computer. And you know, I come from a mathematical background, a lot of math majors in my family. And, you know I've sponsored a lot guys that write programs and build apps for phones. And we talk about the language that Bill Wilson uses in 1939 and how really advanced it was for that time period because we use the word program today all the time. It's common vernacular. One of the definitions of a program, if you look it up in the dictionary, is a sequential set of instructions that brings about a result. That was in the language. What do you do when you get a corrupt file on a computer? It's obvious. You install a recovery disk and what's its function? It restores the software to an earlier point. That is the second step. It never occurred to me that steps 10 and 11 function very much like a viral scan. They are there to show me promptly how to be rid of the things in myself that are blocking me from God, from self, and from you. And if I do not catch that on the fly in that racing car at 100 miles an hour, if I can't see the selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear, do the corrective measure. Discuss it with someone immediately, if I cannot ask God to remove it at once, what happens is I end up with this review at the end of the day. And not everyone has to do this. But again, going back to this question, how free do you want to be? Do you want a quiet mind? Do You want a loving heart? Do You want this operating system to maximize itself so You can discover what Your purpose is. It never occurred to me that 10 is like a program. 11 is a power and 12 is a purpose. It gives me purpose. And I never saw how powerful this operating system, when superimposed over my emotions, normal people are intellect over emotion. They think they process and they act. People like me, I'm emotion over intellect. I act, process, and then think, oops, 10th step. I mean, we're the only people that burn bridges ahead of us. And if you don't relate to this, maybe you're not the type that I am. But what happens is I have to have a reversal. I haveと have a psychic change. And now my neocortex sits at the top instead of the bottom. The limbic system is no longer running my life. and you know the reason ollie i was so apprehensive about talking this is because like i told you i cannot describe or define this power we call god like the wind i can show you results of it but i would be a fraud if i were to tell you that i could describe it in the terms necessary to win the confidence of somebody else but i can guarantee you that like i had said before. Einstein had said it, and I'm going to read, I promised I wouldn't read out of the book. I'm gonna read a couple little things. Here's a little piece. It says, here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed, right? Successful, that flatly declared that since they have come to believe in a power greater than themselves, to take a simple certain attitude toward that power and to do certain things, which are the steps, okay? There has been a revolutionary change in they're living and thinking, in the face of collapse and despair. Are you, if you are new, in the case of collapse, and despair? In the face of total failure of their human resources? That means puke smells the same in a Mercedes. It means you can be at the gates of insanity and death even without a drink. They found a new power. Okay? Eleventh step. Peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. That's just one part and I'll simplify it. Einstein said, I would rather live my life pretending there's a God and finding out there isn't than live my light pretending there is no God and finding out there is. So this word sought to seek is a verb. I am going to seek God in the hearts of men. That is the hunt. You know, my friend, my new sponsor, and I have a couple spiritual advisors, Charlie is here. And we've talked about the wounds of wealth and the wounds of wealth. I live in a place called the Rehab Riviera, right? The only people we see at AA now are coming to keep their trust fund. And you know, the thing is they don't have a hunt. These kids are so sad. They're so miserable. They'RE so broken because everything's done for them. They walk out of a $5 hit crack house and three days later they're complaining because the infinity pool's not warm enough. But what this first piece is to seek God, I seek God in the hearts of men. And I never understood how powerful this beginning would be in that 11th step that I come to AA. And I'm gonna jump into this right now. There's a lot of judgment in Alcoholics Anonymous and I know I'm going to watch some eyes roll. You hear a guy say, my God is a doorknob, right? and we all start coming up with all this judgment about how could your god be a doorknob how is that possible and one day after all that judgment i hear sam shoemaker's poem i stand at the door and i am going to butcher this poem but this is the way it goes i stand at the door it's a door that men search for all over the world it is a door that they look for blindly and i'm careful not to go too far inside this door because if i do i get consumed with what's inside this store so i stand at the door i don't go too far outside the door because i get concerned with worldly clamors and i forget what's in the door so i understand at this door and it's really interesting because i have a print out of it just one of the lines in this door is it says, men die outside this door as starving beggars die on cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter. Die for what they want, which is in their grasp. They live on the other side of it. Live because they have not found it. It's so interesting because that door, he says he stands at the door because it's only their hand that can open that door. So he puts their hand on this door and then he reveals again, that it is the door to God. And if you read that poem, what's so fascinating about that is that is what we're given in AA. We become the ushers of a finger that points to a power, a magnificent, a magnificent way of life, which we cannot, we can describe it. Oh, I crawled out of a dumpster and now I'm running IBM. We can describe it in a lot of different ways, you know, and we could kind of hang that out there. My experience is not that my experience is purpose. It's, it's a program. It's love. It'S, it'S integrity. It'S, it'S self-respect. It''s respect for my family. It ''s, it''s a quiet mind. And it'' s going to be as we go along through this process tonight about having a design for living, a very specific design for living that is outlined here in some very simple instructions. And it's very interesting because in the, I have it written here somewhere coming out of the 10 step, it says, if we have carefully followed direction. So talking about what's going to happen as I do this nightly review and the upon awakening prayer, I've done a lot of work. I've don't know how to do it. And if you're new, you know, we all say that all six and seven is only a paragraph because, you know, built. The reality is if you've done the work the way that our home group does it, you're walking into your sponsor's house with like a volume of resentments. You got a bunch of stuff on relationship. You've got a list of fears and you're coming there for a long time. If you look at the end of chapter five, it says we've written down a lot. It says we have analyzed our resentments, we began to understand their futility, their fatality. It's giving me some very specific instructions. And I'm going through those instructions with a new person, because what that's doing is it's starting to set up a foundation of 10 and 11. And, you know, I will tell you this if you're new, to jump out of this idea, hope doesn't matter to drunks like us until we're hopeless. Hope doesn't matter to a guy like me when I got a half a million dollars in the bank, brand new sports car in a driveway, a little boat down in the marina. You wouldn't catch me dead in an AA meeting. And if you're new here tonight, God doesn't matter to people like me until my back's against the wall. And I'll tell you, I got shot. It was, I'm not bragging about this, but I was on this gurney and it just missed my heart. And I got the paramedics over me with these paddles and I'm looking up at them and I'll say, all I know is God. If you've ever been in a place where you're confronted with your mortality, there is two things men cry for mommy and God. You know, some people that have had this experience, a lot of couple of my friends that have been heart attacks, man, they're believers, you talk to people that are right on the edge. And it seems to be that they believe, you know what I mean? It's like that guy that went up, we got a friend in that was one of the Apostle, the Apollo space astronauts, boy, does he believe, You know what I mean? I can't name who he is, but we see all these guys, especially on the West Coast. But what's so fascinating is, you know, when I got my head in that toilet every morning, all I know is God. I mean, who prays more than drunks like us? I mean if you don't relate, go to Al-Anon. And what happens is I get a couple days away from that last drink and now you've got to write this elaborate chapter called We Agnostics, which I just read out of, to try to prove been established to me, there just might be a power. And one of the most wonderful lines that Chuck C had said, and I was just reading it in Sandy Beach's book that I was given by his daughter, Chuck C. had said the real problem isn't alcohol. The real problem is a conscious separation from God. And then he points to the 11th step which is the subject of this talk. Conscious contact with God. That's the solution, and the bridge from steps 2 to 11 is steps 4 through 9. Maybe what we should say in AA is rarely have we seen a person fail that's done steps 4-9. Rarely have we ever seen anybody do 4-8. I do the AA waltz, 1, 2, 3, drink, 1-2, 3 drink, and I'll do anything but that which will solve this spiritual problem. So I started to understand as I'm coming through this process, when I'm looking at my resentments, I'm looking at myself. Selfishness. I'm looking at my dishonesty. I am looking at my fear and I'm going through this process in a fifth step of admission, acknowledgement, and acceptance. I'm accepting some huge chunks of truth about myself. And in five, it's asking me the word attitude is very important to understand this attitude. Attitude is an aeronautic term like altitude attitude means positioning or point of attack. And I didn't understand that this is about a change in perception. So back to this point where I was understanding how close I am to this idea of God when I'm on my deathbed, and then the arrogance that somehow stands between me and that spiritual experience is astonishing. This ego rebuilds itself. Harry Thiebaud, who was in the third appendices, the appendices right after the one that we just read, who was a psychiatrist, a board-certified psychiatrist, a friend of Alcoholics Anonymous, and a major contributor to our literature. If you really find out that he was a contributor to some of the literature. Harry Thiebaud says the four qualities of an alcoholic are grandiose, sensitive, immature, and omnipotent, and those are our finer qualities. I tell people, stick that in your next Tinder ad. and I start to see what it is that's blocking me. What is it in steps four through nine that are blocking me? It's like when they asked Michelangelo, how did you make the Statue of David? Michelangela said, I never really made the Statute of David. I just chipped away everything that wasn't David, and there he was. So just to finish up this foundation, in 1939, the same time as the big book was published, the Oxford Group met at the Hollywood Bowl. A lot of us, I mean, that's very close to here. One of the ideas the Oxford group had is the word enthusiasm. It means Theos. Enthusiasm means Theos, it means God within. And they felt there were four things that blocked a human being from God, because we're talking about these things. We're talking about seeking through prayer meditation, improve my conscious contact with God. And I'm going to start to look at what it is that's blocking me. And this is the four things they felt blocked a human being from God. One, a dubious luxury I will not forego. Two, a secret I will not confess. Three, a restitution I will not make. Four, someone I will not forgive. And the idea was that if a human being was unblocked of those four things, the light of the spirit for the agnostics here or the light of God for those that believe in this power would shine through them like a beacon. him. And that's what Ebi Thasher had. Ebi Thascher had brought that to Bill Wilson. And when Bill Wilson said the boy was on fire and he said he was aghast, and he also said that his gin would outlast Ebi's ranting. And then he pauses and then he said, but there sat in front of me a miracle because he knew that Ebi lived like him. Evi felt like he did. Emi thought the way he did. Ebby drank the way he did, and that was one of the most powerful moments in my life. My ex-girlfriend had taken me to Bedford Hills, and you get to go to Stepping Stones, and you walk through this museum, which was Bill Wilson's home, and you know, you see the seance room, and all these different things, and there's a library, and then you walk into the kitchen, and the guy that runs the museum says, sit down at the table so you sit down to me and my girl sit down at the table and he walks the other edge of the room and then he says oh by the way you know that's the table and then he shuts up and all of a sudden he sees the tear coming down the corner of my eye and he starts laughing hysterically and he goes oh everybody does that he goes if you came all the way from southern california to bedford hills new york you read the story you read this story because it was it was like a tide at flood when Wilson said it stretched around him all around him that this feeling that got the presence of God of something that happened at that moment in that room and if any of those events didn't happen all the historical events that led up to that if Roland hasn't hadn't gone to Carl Jung and we just read it what we read in the spiritual experience is very much like Carl Jung had said. He said, you have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I've never, ever seen a single case recover. That's who I was. I went through 28 residential treatment centers. My mom moved and didn't leave a forwarding address. It was a death sentence for Roland Hazard. And then he tells him the solution. He says, ideas, attitudes, and emotions that are once the guiding force of these men and women are suddenly cast to one side, and a whole new set of conceptions begins to dominate them. And that is exactly what happens in steps four through nine. That suddenly I'm coming to this 10th step now, and this 11th step with a platform. I'm coming with some completely new conceptions. I am on new footing. And it begins by talking about we have entered the world of the spirit. Now, one of my friends, Verb K says, well, if you, you know, you've entered the World of the Spirit, what do you think you've exited? And then he shuts up and you think, well I've exitted the world itself. Selfishness, self-centeredness, that is the root. I don't think much of myself but I'm all I ever think about, right? It's not thinking about less of myself, but it's thinking about myself less. So I'm coming into 10 now with this idea, not everyone has to do this. You know, what's so interesting about Bill Wilson and this is where I really started to understand these functions. The function of the mind is to think. The functionof the body is to act. The functiono f the human spirit is will and my will will always choose me. The function o f the will. Now, what it's asking me to do is to align my will. with this power, to take this position that we just read in the agnostics, to stake a certain attitude towards this power. And suddenly like a fish that's dropped into water, my life works. All of a sudden, all of my life, I was in collision with people, places and things. I had this delusion that I could arrange life to suit myself. And what's happened as a result of taking these actions that I'm going to start to fortify and develop in 10 and 11 is it's going to it's going to manufacture a type of spiritual alignment that i can maintain and develop for the rest of my life and it's not only going to give me a program it's gonna give me a power and then it's gonna giveme a purpose praying only for knowledge his will for me i was thinking uh the probably the biggest failure of my experience with human beings is a misunderstanding of my will what is my will? Is my will to push paper for my boss, to drop off mortgage papers or to pay a mortgage? What I started to understand is what is my primary purpose? To fit myself, to be of maximum service to others. And from that, all the other things. One of my good friends in our home group was talking about the purpose of an apple tree. And the purposeof an apple trees obvious it makes apples. But there's all kinds of secondary and tertiary purposes that tree. The tree also provides um you know foliage it provides shade it provides food for animals uh it provides fertilizer it has a lot of other purposes but the primary purpose my primary purpose is to fit myself to be a maximum service and what my sponsor said because this is one of the pieces in that 11th step is he said if you were watching a bunch of kids playing in a playground and some are on the slide and some on the swings and, you know, somewhere on the merry-go-round. Would you care what they played on? Absolutely not. You just wouldn't want them extorting each other and embezzling or throwing each other off the line. So my question is, why would I ask God if he cares if I'm a stockbroker or a plumber? I'm looking at these fundamental internal ideas of love, compassion, support. The very simple idea that I extrapolate through part of the four step in the ideal and the relationship inventory was the question, if I had a daughter, what kind of man would I want my daughter to marry? It's so simple. I've taken those diabolical creatures through the steps, you know, four or five life sentences. And I've known a lot of real interesting people. And they're always the same. You ask them, if you had a daughter, what kind of man would you want your daughter to marry? Loving, compassionate, loyal, considerate, supportive, generous, responsible, steadfast, right? No matter who I've talked to, the fundamental ideas, the sentimental idea of this God is within every man, woman, and child. It's there. it's obscured by something there's a great story in AA about a little kid he's out on the beach playing in the uh beach and we have this thing called June Gloom or May Gray where we get all these clouds on the coast and this little boy is flying a kite and this old guy says what are you doing son and he says well I'm flying a kite he says how do you know you can't see it I don't see a kite he says yeah but I feel the pull of it all of my life I felt this pull not everyone does In fact, some people, like in we agnostics, will spend their whole life trying to tell me and you that we don't feel that full. That sense of what is right. The sense of kindness, of love, of being supportive, of Being Helpful. But what happened when I started to do this 11th step and this 10th step is it showed me how to be rid of the things in me that were blocking me from that purpose. so i seek through prayer meditation to improve my conscious contact by being rid of the things in me that are blocking praying only for knowledge of his will for me his will for me is to be kind it's to be helpful it's to be supportive you know one of the most evidentiary points in my life was i was standing at an airport and a guy comes running up to me in a slingshot t-shirt covered in tattoos and he says to me you don't remember me do you and I mean he's accosting me in the airport this guy looks like he just got out of prison and I'm I'm thinking no sir I don't remember you uh I'm figuring he's going to hit me up for money and then he points to these two beautiful girls these little kids and this lady that's with them and then he says it he said 15 years ago you spoke in a prison panel and something you said changed my life these are my amazing daughters this is my beautiful life we want to thank you something you said was so powerful that after three terms in prison, 15 years ago, I came out and I started doing recovery. And these are my dogs. Now there's five people in this airport hanging. Kids are hanging on my feet. The ladies kissing me and we're all crying in this Airport. And I'll tell you something. There's two dates in a human being's life. The day they're born, the day they find out why. If you don't believe in life after death, look around AA. I got here the day before I died. That's why it's so powerful for me and some of us. This thing of having that kind of purpose because I've done everything else. I know how to chase money, property and prestige. We talk about purpose. What Alcoholics Anonymous is asking me to do, not only to search for God in the hearts of men, but to live a spiritual life. And what happens is money, property, and prestige will chase me. It's an automatic thing that my table will be full. It is absolutely counterintuitive if you're new because it looks like it is through sacrifice, but it's not. It is by taking these fundamental actions over a long period of time that the whole world opens up to people like us. God's people. I couldn't understand what that meant, but what it meant is that I follow direction. I'm asking for three things in the 11th step direction, wisdom and power. These are the three things I'm looking for. I am looking for these things. So there's actually six prayers. I'm not going to read them all. But what I did is from from the 11 step when we retire at night, the word ask is used I think seven times, six of those times circle the word ask and look at it. It's asking for God's forgiveness. It's asking me for inspiration, for intuition. These are things that happen in the 11th step. I did not understand how powerful these ideas are. There's three kinds of prayers. This is what they're going to write them down. The first one is contemplative. The second is petitionary and the third is centering. These Are Three Types of Prayers That Involve Meditation So one of the things that happened to me, and I think this is very important. We all know that when I got out of my 28 treatment cycle, the guy that was running the detox said, come back to detox next week and tell everybody how you managed to stay sober a whole week if you can make it. And he was such a kind of like, he didn't care. So I got this big resentment and I kept coming back to this detox to help others. But I was tricked into service by doing that. Now, when Bill Wilson got out at Towns Hospital that third time, he gets an idea. Maybe if I go back and help some of the patients, I'll feel better. Now, we all know that Dr. Silkworth was a double board certified physician. He's got his certification in neurology and psychiatry. I don't care where you come from. That's a big deal. Even today, that's a great deal. It's a good deal amongst doctors to have those two credentials. And he says to Dr. silkworth, can I come back and talk to some of the patients? And we all now, I mean, so it's like you want to do what he said with some misgiving. We allowed Mr. Wilson to come back into our hospital with no credibility whatsoever and talk to some of the patients. But what he saw from 1935 to 1939, he said, was absolutely amazing. He was so amazed that if you look at that first endorsement where it says you can absolutely rely on anything these men say about themselves, was given as a letter of credibility to Bill Wilson, who had no credibility, right? I mean, he's a stockbroker, if even that. All he really knew was what Ebi had brought to him, surrender catharsis restitution and service and bill made that effort he was so impressed that that endorsement allowed bill to go into any hospital in the united states where they treated alcoholism but the reason i bring that up is because restless irritable and discontent what that is is the mind body and spirit and i never understood that the center of this is the body people will argue it might come up in the questions today the mind the irritability of the mind. The fault-finding mind is 10. The restlessness, right? 11 to center my body. It sits between the mind and the spirit, and the Spirit, the discontentment. 10, 11 are directly related to restless, irritable, and discontented. These remedies will center me. It will help me to contemplate and be rid of what's blocking me, and it will give me purpose. It'll solve the discontentment. If I follow these very simple spiritual instructions, and if you're new, part of the word spiritual is ritual. It's such a simple idea. How could I have missed it? With a college degree and all my education, I'm standing in a soup line in South Central, like South Chicago in the snow, freezing to death because I wasn't humble enough to hear this message. If you're new tonight, I hope you might be humble enough to hear this message of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's not my message. When I told my sponsor about that guy at the airport, he goes, you have a big mouth and a good memory, Adam. It don't mean anything. He says, you're just the entertainment. Don't let it go to your head. Your primary purpose, that purpose in that 11th step to be helpful. That's the purpose and the power to carry that out so they say if you can't find the temple in your heart you will never find your heart in a temple that's 10 11 is the power 12 the glory the kingdom the power and the glory i'm not going to get into all this stuff but we talk about where religious people are right and without going into other literature like i just did with i stand at the door these things line up very very succinctly with mind body and spirit the triangle mind body and spirit my head my heart and my feet need to be moving in the same direction so so really to understand this piece in 11 the centering prayer the contemplative prayer where I look and watch for the review where was I selfish dishonest resentful and afraid do I owe an apology it's a whole set of questions there and then upon awakening looks like Clancy our dear friend who just passed. He said, Adam, never leave a meeting without knowing where another one was, where your next meeting was. The shower I took yesterday won't keep me clean today. That's the one of the, there's prayers, promises, warnings, and directions. You can take four highlighters. I'm not going to go through all that because I was asked not to read out of the book too much tonight, but my whole book is highlighted with four colors, prayers, promises, warning, and direction. There's a lot of directions in this 11th step. Then there's prayers, there's promises, and there's warnings all set up here very methodically. If you're new, I would do it every day. I would go for those four, five, those actual six prayers every day and ask those prayers. Ask God for forgiveness. Ask him for direction. Ask Him for wisdom. Ask Him för power. And that purpose to help others will present itself in your life. Open for questions. constance come on up please hi my name is constance i'm an alcoholic i i come to this meeting every week i don't think i've ever shared at it i adam thank you so much you fed me i just was like oh my goodness so um because i'm a property prestige kind of girl and i thought that would make me happy anyway i had a couple of questions about what you said and thank you for breaking that down you can read the big book anytime i'm so for me i just wanted to you said there's three kinds of prayers there's the centered prayer there's uh what are the two contemplative and petitionary meaning asking questions prayer and meditation it's just that they're just different forms of it you'll see them in the 11th step where the asking is the questioning the centering you know there's all kinds of other stuff looking at a candle doing breath work all that stuff's great however my sponsor said you could meditate so much you're of no use to god at all he said anything more than like 20 minutes is like self-centeredness he said you know be careful not to overdo it because a lot of people that i've worked with we've lost them in uh religion's a great thing in addition to AA but not as a substitution for AA we're drunks this this is a very you know so anyway I since I've come to this meeting and I've been sober with untreated alcoholism for a lot of years since this pandemic I do my 11th step every day but the other question that I had for you was you said 10 is the program 11 is the power and it's 12 you said the glory purpose purpose purpose thank you yeah i mean these are just look they're labels all words are labels they just help to understand the ideas they're just labels don't hold me to it it might change my mind thank you constance thank you adam roya would you come on up please roya one more time yes can you hear me yes i can please go ahead hi this is roy i'm from toronto ontario thank you so much adam i have never shared in these meetings and i've been connecting to these meetings for months um i was very emotional um it's my first time i became this emotional thank you so much for this strong message um I try to be very quick um but why I'm talking about my my past for a little bit is because I need your help um I like my childhood was very tough but I recovered from that and I got completed with it but still I feel blocked um so like there was a reason why I connected tonight because um like the whole past years i spent to find my purpose like my life mission um i did two master degree i immigrated from middle east to this country on my own and i've been working studying so much um i had this sister who committed from like for a committed suicide and passed away this like parents and uh my brother died all that couldn't stop me um i know there is a purpose for my life but i cannot figure out I'm sponsoring. I'm doing so many different volunteering, but still, I'm not sure. I've been debating what to study, what to do. And so it is not a question. It's just only asking if you would ever be available to sponsor me. Typically, I've been cautious sponsoring females. I will do it in groups because you can't even walk into an AA meeting with a female without people, you know, having all kinds of opinions and ideas and scenarios. So I have to be very cautious with that. Talk to Ali and Teresa. Maybe we can do a step workshop and do the whole book in about 10 weeks. But in answer to your question, Bill Wilson talks about separating the spiritual from the material. The material purpose is very important to have that function. but the spiritual purpose, being kind, being helpful, helping to help other people to get what they want. Someone said in a meeting, he said, you know, I have no self-esteem. I have no self worth. How do I get it? And you heard all these fancy answers from the therapist. And then some guy in the back of the room said, if you want self-esteem and self-worth, help another human being find theirs. And my goodness, that was so powerful. You know how magnificent it is to see a sponsee become a good son or a good dad or a good daughter or a Good mom or go to law school or, you know, become a veterinarian. I've got a few that have become doctors and I'm not bragging. It's not bragging I just another like guy that's kind of pointing a finger maybe holding their hand and putting them on that door to a new life. So I don't know if that answered your question, but I'm available. I put my email up there, but you've got to find someone close to you to sit down with you and work you through the book and help you to discover what's blocking you royal i also put my number if you can look in the chat so you can we can always figure out please jot down my number thank you i think this spirit just answered you royal theresa is fantastic and obviously adam adam is amazing uh vanna please come on up please can you hear me come on out my sister yeah hi vanna oh you can't hey adam is that adam the one that i used to follow around like a little yeah it is oh you look different here too yeah hi hi i'm so um thank you for for share for doing your thing man i appreciate it i theresa's my sponsor now and she's been putting up with me for a while and it's nice so my question now you know when i ask questions it's not because i really want to know because i'm absolutely perfect but just in case i need to know what does accepting some big chunks of truth about yourself feel like to you like do you feel um and i'm asking you because you know i probably feel these maybe i don't know because I'm perfect but i may feel uh do you feel shame guilt or relief hope hopelessness like what what does it feel like when you accept these big chunks of truth um because a lot of the time I think when when my and I you know my character defects um that are these big chunks OF TRUTH that I'm swallowing about myself come up for me i feel such shame that i just want to like disappear and sometimes i feel hopeless about them and and i just i don't want to get out of bed i don' t and um and so i just wondering like one what does it feel like to you and do you remember early on in your recovery what you had to do to um pull to pull yourself out of that i'm asking for a friend i'm just kidding okay No. I realized my foolishness. One of the things was the realization how everywhere I had a resentment, I was capable and usually had done the same thing. I resent someone for gossiping. Did I ever gossip? I resent somebody for stealing. Did they ever steal? I resented my father for emotionally abandoning me. And then the question was, did I ever abandon anyone I loved when I was drunk? Absolutely. And then The Lie that backed that up was, I believe his love for me should have been more powerful than his alcoholism. What happened when I started to have these revelations is that I believe a person can't get to forgiveness without having compassion and a person cannot get to compassion without having empathy. And what happens in the fourth step, that big piece, the realization that the people who offended us were also perhaps spiritually sick And although we did not like their symptoms, it says, and the way they disturbed us like ourselves were also sick. When I proved those kind of statements through the exercises and inventory, it hit me like a hammer, man. I was just like, oh my gosh. I was brought to my knees. Again, I realized, like Bill Wilson said, I wanted and needed God. It's just like the bedevilment. If you go through the bedivulment and you predicate it with when I'm not drinking, am I still a prey to misery and depression? When I'm not drinking, am I still having trouble controlling my emotional nature? When I've no use to other people, when I'm still having trouble controlling emotions and relationships, I was forced. My hand was forced again. Just like my hand is forced to accept spiritual help or die, my hand is forced again towards a spiritual way of life because it's revealed to me that self-reliance is insufficient to give me joy. so that was the revelation foolishness that in and of myself i am nothing that's what wilson said some people could do this on self-reliance they just need a job a house a relationship in a car and they can somehow just come to meetings never work a step they've been serene since their ass hit the seat and a that's not who i am i have had to do all the work everything the big book said i had to and i have such wonderful wonderful results from that i don't know if that answered your question thank you thank you adam by the way there's a lot of interest in the chat for this step workshop that you just threw out there but if you could push your email people are looking forward to uh to this 10-week step workshop um i was just thinking about it maybe after summer it's too nice out right now when we go back into pandemic mode It's adorable. Everybody in here is ready to rock and roll. That's right. Maybe I'll do it with Teresa. I'll lock her into it with me. Now we've got to figure out something. We'll do it. They're going to fire it up, man. New York Eileen, come on up, please. Oh, there I am. I'm unmuted now. I might leave from Bucks County. And I'm such a happy alcoholic right now um i came into a8 in 1985 and it's only in the last seven years that i have done what adam's talking about the work um continuous work i was just i was just right before being started i was reading about the bedevilments and i'm like there you go again there it is again um because i had i had a wonderful experience yesterday my first grandchild was born it's a boy and i'M TELLING YOU IT IS LIKE IT'S LIKE SUCH A MIRACLE because, you know, this child did not want to talk to me for a long time. She was very angry about a lot of things. And I take making amends to people very seriously and I live amends to my children every day and to my ex-husband every day. And so it's a miracle that I'm involved in this life that she would FaceTime me six minutes after this kid's born to show me this beautiful soul that just came into the world and so when I heard that Clancy had died yesterday I was like wow you know because I'm really one of those believers and all that you know the souls you know one comes one goes it's all the way it should be right it's God's way um so that was pretty cool um and I also lost my mother recently so it's it's been um it just it just you know solidifies my, my faith and what I've been shown here that, you know what? Yeah. Things are taken, but so much is given like to us. And it has nothing to do with us. Right. I mean, all I, all I do is do what it says in the book, like you were talking about Adam and also I'm so in for a 10 week, you could make a 10 year step shop workshop and I'd be there every week. Right. Because I've done that. I've done the group workshop with just the steps and it's magical. And it's, I'm so grateful. I'm just so grateful to be here. This group is just amazing. And thank you so much for sharing. And I rarely meet somebody who has been to more treatment centers than me. My number is 13. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you, Eileen. Siobhan, come on up, please. you meet it yourself try again okay there we go hi i'm an alcoholic my name is siobhan um thank you trying to find you adam there wego hi um thank you so much for that um absolutely amazing talk you hit a lot of points that have been repeated to me from several different people the last couple of months and like with the mention of the bedevilments with the seeing God in every person all of that is just tying in so nicely and it was so wonderful to hear those reminders and yeah like wow I'm just blown away and I did have a question when i raised my hand but could i remember it no but i just thank you and everyone else for being here in your service thanks thank you thank you so much dominic coming up you guys hear me yes sir uh dominic alcoholic um um very new to aa um uh in general bag i've got about 25 days sober um yeah and i have a sponsor and um and uh that's that's going well so far um i haven't even even opened the book up for the steps right so i'm not gonna try and speak or think that like i know what you're really saying but what i'm hearing out of What I'm feeling is you're saying essentially to find a way to humble yourself, like the less – it's like for me, I find myself the more I stop thinking about myself, the better I start feeling. You know? That's it. You know, and but to keep that constant not thinking about yourself, You know what I mean? Like, how do you stay humble like 24-7, you know what I mean, to keep that and when you're trying to think of others and do other things and get out of yourself, right? Like, I guess your self just repairs on its own without you have to do the work like that. The work is, I Guess, is that like kind of how it is? You know What I Mean? like do you still have to work on yourself and give like that like you know what i mean it's hard for me to um get how i'm gonna improve like i might feel better but where like where other things improve like you knows that you get what i'm saying i i do i i don't mean to jump in but the line is when we straighten out spiritually first only then do we straighten our mentally and physically. It's our natural tendency to try to take 19 units in college, buy a Mercedes, and get a big house first. What they're saying is if we can do these spiritual fundamentals first, then the easy way to say it is our problems die from neglect. You see, if you give an alcoholic a problem, he'll water it. If you give me a rut, I'll furnish it. The self-centeredness somehow causes our life to implode, whereas service-centered is other-centered, is God-centered causes our life to grow so dominic if there's physical laws like inertia velocity centrifugal force and gravity why wouldn't you think take the leap why wouldnít there be spiritual laws what alcoholic anonymous has done is it's taken all these disciplines if you look at all the amazing books that bill read at stepping stones if you go to the archives you'll see buddhism and hinduism and christianity and judaism and there's all these discipline he kind of distilled these functions so that if I straighten out spiritually, if I'm rid of resentment, I'm red of selfishness, I'm read of fear and I'm ready to the lies. I tell myself automatically the ride becomes fun again. You're going to have an amazing ride here. I promise you, but don't deviate from the spiritual stuff. If God wants you to be a lawyer, a doctor, a truck driver, you'll find it, but you got to get out of the way first. Thank you, Dominic. thank you adam up is i sought my god that's a poem that poem yeah i'm sure that there's other people here who would touch i know it always touches me and i just thought it would be something to share with the others well it's another way of looking at god and and um bobby earl used to talk about it this is a whole nother talk but there's a palm in notre dame it says i sought my God, my God I could not see. I sought my soul, my soul I could not free. I saw my brother and I found all three. And that is the leap into the seventh chapter where it says, this is our twelfth and final suggestion, nothing ensures immunity from drinking more than intensive work with others. The word intimacy is into me I see. The most important words in our life are yeah me too. I felt like that too. If there's a name for it, someone else has done it. If There's a law against it. A lot of people have done it. A lot of these things that cause us shame in six and seven we discover are things that we all do. Put down the fork, pick up the credit card, put down the credit card, you know, pick up the fork put down the fork start acting out in the rooms can't go to that meeting again. So yeah that is the poem though. That was the one. Okay. Thanks. Thank you Kelly. Great to see you. You too. Jack W come on up brother hey I'm Jack I'm an alcoholic and a drug addict from Toronto thank you so much Adam that was amazing hi Jack you know I'm a low bottom type 3 alcoholic drug addict crawling around on my hands and knees looking for drugs that aren't there drinking rubbing alcohol you name it I've done it if they had scout badges for alcoholism I'd have every single one of them right and i'm saying that because this is this is what a real alcoholic looks like right it talks about in this way this is his program is not about you know it isn't about alcohol alcoholism as described by anyone else i've ever met in my life because everyone else throughout my life tried to tell me what an alcoholic was and no one except the members of alcoholics anonymous in that book were able to describe what i was what i'd gone through and what my alcoholism really looked like and you you know i we i have a connection you know with you you're on the other side of i don't know if you're somewhere in the states or whatever but i i know you have what i have and the thing is when my sponsor communicated that to me you know when he spoke my language and said this is why you've been sick all and i was finally he disarmed me and i Was finally able to acknowledge that that's when everything changed and he said if you don't do these things like your life depends on it if you Don't start praying and meditating and doing this stuff nothing's ever going to work for you and he won my confidence and i started doing that stuff in my experience today as i i work with all kinds of people i encounter all kinds Of people in the in the fellowship and at my work, I work at a treatment center now who have what I have and I can't convince them, you know, that they, some of them I can, but some of the might, I just can't. And they don't do this stuff and they go out and they stick a needle in their arm or whatever else and they die. And I know there are people on this call right now that have what is being talked about right now that has this thing and they might close their computer and go out there and use tonight or next week and they Might die. Yeah. and they might be you know somewhat sold on some of this stuff but what advice would you have for those people that are just you know at that precipice and when they close their computer they go on with their life like what can they start doing right now? What can they start building into their life right now to make sure that you know because if they have this thing they need to do something about it. Can you just share a bit about that? Yeah you know Jack I gotta to tell you i i am not i was in daytona beach visiting a friend over the weekend and i got uh joe c got me to talk at a big a pretty big meeting and uh the next morning when i woke up i got the first text i got is one of our members committed suicide last night right after your talk and i'm like and it brought me to tears and i's thinking what could i have said what could I have said how could I had given that guy hope that maybe the pain that he was in that night was going to change. And I don't know. I don'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS. When that woman said, if I could give you the gift of recovery, I was in the detox and a woman came in on the panel and she said, If I could Give you all the gift or recovery, wouldn't do it. And I thought what a bitch. And then what she said was the reason I wouldn't give you the gift to recovery is because I wouldn t rob you of the journey. There's something where this, this window, it's like guys identify as fully baked potatoes. Like, like if a person's in the fun with problem stage, it'S very hard for us to resonate with them. You hear what I'm saying? I became willing to do the work that Alcoholics Anonymous asked me to do. And somehow I was willing to doing it before I die, you know, before I died. I don't know what I could say that that's my hope my hope every day is that if i get the privilege of talking in a meeting that maybe i can turn one person away from that that war within them the greatest battle in a man or woman's life is not against their brother sister it is against himself and that self is what killed him okay it's not us but hopefully we can inspire the four eyes in 11th step our instinct the body, inspiration, the spirit, intuition, the mind. All of it is insight. Those are the four eyes that we develop in the 11th step. Somehow, we got to paint a picture for these youngsters that they can have an amazing life, that they want to go jump out of a plane or race motorcycles. I've done all that stuff. I am an adrenaline junkie. I love it. There's nothing better than lane splitting at 100 miles an hour behind a California highway patrolman and just evading death i still get a kick out of that i don't know why but i won't die with a needle in my arm and i probably if i keep doing aa i'm not going to die from this kind of alcoholism you know what i mean i'm going to have like a warrior's death i don'T KNOW WHAT TO TELL HIM MAN YOU KNOW WE ARE THOSE KIND OF PEOPLE THOUGH JACK RIGHT I'M NOT GOING TO BE HAPPY UNLESS MY HAIR'S ON FIRE AND THAT MEANS helping God's kids. Helping God's kids has an amazing, amazing spiritual gift. It really does. I hope that I can inspire someone tonight to trust us that they will have a life worth living. There's two dates in a man or woman's life. The day they're born and the day they find out why and if you can stick with us, I promise you, I can show you that why and once you show a new guy that why they will stay here and have a magical life. This is heaven on earth for some of us and i came from the gates of hell amen thank you jack good to see you good to hear you brother charlie come on up please charlie i'm alcoholic hi charlie and uh it's good to seeing you guys adam that was awesome you were on fire you're like just like abby was when he walked into Bill's table. I love you, man. That was one of your best talks I've ever seen. And, you know, it's... I teared up when you were talking about Ebi and coming in with that presence. And for me, the 11th step is all about empathizing with the presence. It's like you were telling me what you're talking about with the kite being pulled towards the light and that presence is here all the time it was here it's been the dinosaurs were here it was there before religion and i have to learn every day how to line up with even if it's only for a moment exactly get a sense of alignment with grace i heard somebody one time say when i came to alcoholics anonymous calamity collided with grace and uh i just love you man you're you're such an inspiration thank you thank you that's what clancy said clancy center was like the one of those old tv stations and like when we align all of a sudden the channel comes in it's like you know that fuzz that fizz that fuzzing all of a sudden it's like, like I said, when that fish hits the water, you see its majesty. And that's the glory and the grace and the power and the amazement of being human is once we align with these principles, it can be a pretty good life. It could be a Pretty Good Life. I don't, you know, I don' have a lot of stuff on the outside, but it's a Pretty good life, I wouldn't trade my life now. You know, the last few years of my life, these 22 years have been so good. Because of people like you thank you charlie for being in my life thank you chardy thank you adam my brother calvin come on up hello everyone my name is calvin i'm an alcoholic you know what's up ollie man adam i'm telling you man you really took me there tonight and i and i was thinking as he was talking and I got fed to me, I got fed. And I was thinking about how when I was a peewee in the program there was a guy who talked just like we talk tonight and I didn't understand nothing he was really talking about but I felt every word he said. And the spirit is strong like that even for new people when I knew back then that something went right by my intellect or a crazy thought or a good thought, it went straight into my soul. And one alcoholic can do that for another alcoholic and you did that for me tonight. And I was thinking about, I sat in that chair at Up and Stepping Stone with me and my wife four or five years ago. We sat there too. And I knew what she was saying. I felt every word she said tonight. And what really, really touched me tonight was you know a quiet a quiet heart a quiet still mind and a quiet heart or loving heart and and that's where i've come into it i didn't know how to put it into them words but my mind is quiet and when i first got here my mind was everything but quiet and man i just want to thank you man for what a strong alphabet thank you so much thank you guys thank you so much. So grateful to be here. Thank you, Calvin. Kwame, come on up, please. Hey, Ali and Adam and everyone who ran this meeting. This was great. I got, as Calvin said, I got fed. One thing that I got from this, and I'm an alcoholic member of Second Thirst Up discussion group was that my problem wasn't of course alcohol my problem was actually being sober my problem Was Being Sober My Problem Was Actually Having To Feel Stuff 100% So Me It Can Just Like Using All This Stuff Was For Me To Not Feel Yes Right And When You're Sober You Have To feel everything you have to roll with it and I really got that tonight I don't know the power your higher your higher power came through you tonight brother I love you I usually don't come up and say stuff but I was just compelled to do it love you love you guys love everyone everyone have a great 24 thank you for allowing me to share Ali thank you thank you the pain is built in for a lot of us like we don't have to find it on the outside if I don'T do the spiritual work the pain is already built into me i will suffer if i don't do this work kwame thank you please visit us next week too and last person sally come on up please hi adam i'm an alcoholic my name is sally hi sally uh i wouldn't have missed this for the world it was just awesome thank you but i would like to ask you um some hopefully some advice on i've been working with a woman for almost five years and just recently someone who's got about four months in the program both of them drink daily and the one lady is developing korsakoff right in front of me i have tried everything and i know i can't get her sober i get that but is there something else that i could do or say or well that's the million dollar question even harry tebow you know it's like couldn't he stop for her he's such a nice these are rhetorical questions that we can't the the teacher is alcohol they have to get to a place of humility which means suddenly they become teachable there's people on skid row that there's a saying god cannot use a man till he's come to the end of himself there's people on skin row that haven't come to the end of themselves they're living in a dumpster but the intellect is still running their life their emotions are driving them and we blame ourselves that's what al-anon really is all about think about the three chapters a chapter to wives the chapter of the employers the family afterwards those are the three entities that send people to aa the boss the family and the spouse right so i i'm not a is not about putting out fires it's teaching me how not to start them and i understand i've lost so many my mom's brother committed suicide drunk my father's brother committed suicidal i've got suicide mental illness and alcoholism every front on my family and I couldn't help them because they weren't like a fully baked potato. Even though it looks like a full baked potato, to be teachable and to be humble, there has to be that open-mindedness to our way of life. I don't know. It's heartbreaking. Push them into treatment? I don't now. I was willing. I just didn't know how to stay stopped until you guys helped me. you guys showed me how to stay stopped and from that I developed a love and a passion for AA it gave me a different purpose I would so I don't think that answers the question but my heart breaks for you go to Al-Anon check out at least one meeting a week might help all right that's it for the Q&A thank you so much everyone that came up thank you Adam Teresa you're up