Spiritual Experience and Spiritual Awakening – Step Study – a 12 Step Study – Part 6 of 6 – Local AA Speakers

I mentioned also, and I really believe that the 11th step is the powerhouse of Alcoholics Anonymous. I think that the prayer and the meditation that we all engage in provides the real power that runs our fellowship. And if the 11st step is a powerhouse, then it's the power of alcoholics. powerhouse of the program, I think the twelfth and final step is really two things. First of all, it is the result of the first eleven steps. The men and the women who founded our program said that having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps they tried to carry this message to the alcoholic and to practice principles in all their affairs so the first part the spiritual awakening is the result and the second part is very simply our instructions for the future how we are to conduct our lives how we ought to live we ought to carry this message and to practice principles in all our affairs. That term, spiritual awakening, was a new term to me. I had not been familiar with that prior to Alcoholics Anonymous. I mean, I know the English language. I know what the words mean. I just didn't know what it meant. What the term meant. And that's not unusual. And if you're new, you may have some confusion with it. When the book AlcoholicsAnonymous was first published in 1939, if you remember in the book which has not changed up to today after the forwards and the prefaces and all of that they have Bill's story and in Bill's story he recounts how when he was in his last hospitalization overcome with despair and having gone through what was then the Oxford program with Ebby that morning and after he had declared that he was powerless over alcohol and had gone through what basically the Oxford movement had to offer in those days, which was trust God, clean house, and help others. He was very despairing and he knelt down on the floor of his room and he said, if there is a God, because he was not a believer at that time, He said, if there is a God, let him show himself now. And Bill recounts that the room lit up so that he could no longer see the wall and that a wind blew through his room. And he said he was transported to another dimension. And he thought to himself, so this is the God of the preachers. and when he came back from that he called Dr. Silkworth and Silkworth assured him that he had not been hallucinating and he took it to be a sign that all would be well with him and when the book was circulated a lot of the early members wrote into the New York office and they wanted to know if it was possible to be sober if the room didn't light up. They actually wanted to know that. They said, we're out here in Garbageville, Indiana and we're having meetings and we've gone through the steps and all of that but the room hasn't lit up yet. Are we doing it wrong? So when they brought out the second edition of the book in the 50s they put an appendix in the back of that book which is in the third edition, the one we have now, Appendix A. And Appendex A makes the distinction between a spiritual experience, which is what Bill had, a one-time sudden phenomena and an ongoing and continuing spiritual awakening. And in the Appendax A, when they talk about the spiritual awakening, they say first of all it is of the educational variety you have it in the same way that you are educated from grade to grade, from year to year and therefore in our context from step to step they also say it is a profound reaction a profound change in our reaction to life we are somehow changed and transformed by the 12 steps and I think that pretty much expresses what happened I think happened to me in the 12 and 12 they say there are probably as many definitions of the spiritual awakening as there are people who have had them but in each spiritual awakening the one thing we all have in common is that we are able to do and think and accomplish things now that we were never able to do or think or accomplish on unaided strength alone. And that, I think, is what has happened to me in the period of time that I've been here. Things I used to think were very, very important are really not so important to me anymore. And things that I used to never, never think about I find myself thinking about practically all the time. The things that used to move me around and get my attention money, power, sex are still in my life but they don't propel me the way they used to. On the other hand, things that I never thought about, things that are expressed in the promises in our book, knowing a new freedom and a new peace, enjoying serenity, and trying to not be so self-centered, those things concern me on a daily basis. And I don't think that I ever was so really evil or bad. I did an awful lot of stupid things, the way we all did. But I really wasn't that bad. Trouble was, in my case, whatever good was in me seemed to be so covered up by my defects of character and my shortcomings that it took a gradual peeling back and unlearning before whatever good there was inme began to sort of surface. I think it isn't so much that we were so bad it was that the good in us was very dormant it was sleeping really and through this process of the twelve steps the spirit somehow or other becomes awakened and we see things or I see things very differently now than ever I used to I just see them differently I handle them differently I'm sometimes intuitively able to handle things that used to baffle me. And the one thing I do know is God is doing for me all of the things that I could never do for myself. And the drinking is only the beginning of it. The stopping drinking is just the beginning of it, there's much, much more to this program than simply not drinking. We are not a temperance society. If we only had a one-step program and it said stop drinking I don't think I'd be here for this period of time certainly what would have nothing to interest me what does interest me is this transformation from someone like myself who was powerless hopeless helpless into someone whose life is now manageable on a daily basis how could that happen how could I be taken from the terror in which I lived and put to a place where I am right now today what power is there that is capable of taking someone like me from over here and bringing me over there I can't even imagine such a power but it's here it's in this room it's in this group I feel it didn't come in here with me it's the it's in this group it's in the groups of Alcoholics Anonymous it's in the members of Alcoholics Anonymous it is the power of one alcoholic helping another and I am unable to make a definition of it I don't even know if it's necessary that there ever be a definition of it but it works in my life on a daily basis and I have seen it work in so many lives. And we have been together since June the 10th, 1935. In that period of time to now, 1987, millions and millions and billions of people have been saved from a life of this kind of life I had. Millions of homes have been restored and millions of spirits have been awakened and this is the result it doesn't say that it's a result i hear people sometimes reading these steps when they read how it works and they they misread that 12 step this is not a result this is THE RESULT this is what we get the spiritual awakening we don't get anything else i haven't gotten any taller since i got here i'm still irish that hasn't changed. But what hasn't really changed is it's an interior change. There has been a change somehow in whatever makes me go, in my spirit. That same spirit that separates me from my cat and separates me even from each of you, the spirit that gives to this particular form, whatever individuality or personality or character that it might have. And when I came to this program, that spirit was practically extinguished and I knew it and I was in big trouble. And when i grew up as a kid, I was fairly feisty, you know, I had a lot of spirit when I was a kid. I did a lot things that maybe I wasn't supposed to do and that spirit that I exhibited as a child, got me out of my neighborhood. It got me through the schools and it got me into a good way of living until I got into the disease of alcoholism. And the disease of alcoholismo took it away. And it was practically extinguished when I got here. And I really didn't think in those days that I was capable of being rejuvenated. but it comes back it comes back as the result of these steps it's the only thing that the program promises us when I first came my sponsor said to me you're going to have a spiritual awakening and I said I don't need one of those I need money he said hang on first you get a spiritual awakening and that has been my experience. My spirit has been awakened and I've learned that any power that can do that for me, any power of that can come into my life and bring me here has no limit. There is no limit on that power. It has very, very little to do with my not drinking. This power are so limitless in my life, it has given me things that were impossible for me to have. It has restored me to the work that I do. It has stored me to health and has given me really a life in the terms of our book that is happy and joyous and free. And the 12th step, they tell us the theme of the 12 step is the joy of living. it's good to be here I have a good time here I have good time at this group I have time when I go to meetings I didn't know I was having a good time until I was in about 5 years and my sponsor said you're having a great time and I said yeah I guess I'm having a good time what do I know but it's fun I like to come to meetings last night I was at a meeting and I got there a little early because I have to put the chairs up on Sunday night. I have a heavy responsibility at the Big Book meeting on Miami Beach. So I put up the chairs last night and got out the ashtrays. I had a good time. So this is what I have gotten from being a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous. My spirit is awakened and I enjoy what I'm doing. Step goes on and says that we are to try to carry this message and this is the message of Alcoholics Anonymous the spiritual awakening is the message this is the message we carry and sometimes I find sometimes I don't carry the right message I find myself saying to someone maybe you will get a job and maybe Mildred will come back and maybe the drunken driving charge will go away that's not the message of Alcoholic Anonymous who cares if Mildre comes back No one may come back today and be gone tomorrow. That's not a permanent thing. Your father, my father, we know. He knows you need a job and he knows you needs some place to live and he know you need whatever you need and all that stuff comes. The book tells us that material progress always follows spiritual progress and never otherwise. And it's not often in the book Alcoholics Anonymous unless you see the word never or ever, but they're very, very emphatic about that. Material progress always follows spiritual development and never otherwise. In another section of the literature, they tell us that the answer to all of our problems is more spiritual development. You looking for a job, bunkie? Develop spiritually. You'll get a job. you want mildred back develop spiritually maybe you'll get it back and the way to develop spiritually i think is to come here on a regular basis and to carry this message and i think the responsibility that i have as someone who has been here for a while is not to dilute this message not to make the message any less than it originally was this was the message that my sponsor carried to me he never once told me that I would be successful in a material way he says now that he knew I would but he never told it to me he told me I would develop spiritually and I had to learn from him about how I could do that. I had to accept adversity, and sometimes that's not always easy. I had learn that what I regarded as a calamity really turned out to be a lesson. I had learned that sometimes life is not always as smooth as I would like it to be. the 12 and 12 tells us that every experienced AA can tell you that when the hand of God seems heavy and even unjust new resources of courage are developed new avenues of strength are found and I am an experienced AA and I can tell it I can say to you that every time I've had trouble in my life I learned something from it as you know this Thursday I mean, the reason I'm doing this tonight and not Thursday is tomorrow morning I have to have a leather guy stick a knife in my eye. I don't look forward to it, but I know the result of it will be all right. I know The Result of It will be I'll be able to see better. And I accept that. It's just a little adversity. It's not the biggest deal in the world. It's part of what I have experience in the next 24 hours. I know that the power that is in this program will be with me at every minute that I need it and I need It every minute so things don't seem to bother me as much as they used to I think carrying this message the message of the spiritual awakening can be done in just an unlimited variety of ways there's no limit to how you can carry this message we don't preach you carry this message the way Bobby did tonight by setting up this room the way I did last night by setting off setting up a room what I'm doing now is carrying the message what you are doing now sitting and listening is carrying the message anything that any sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous does in the given course of a day is carrying the message of Alcoholic Anonymous because each one of us who are sober through the spiritual awakening as the result of these steps is himself or herself a message. We are the message. We are that message. People like us, like you and I, who despaired of life and admitted powerlessness can meet together on a regular basis and accomplish so much. We all accomplish so many things so much in our lives and we never know you never know who you touch or who's affected by your behavior clearly the people most close to you are but there's no limit to it there's absolutely no limit to what's going on here it never ceases to amaze me that I'm in the middle of it I just love it and that's why we have the joy of living that's how we can be happy and joyous and free because we're awakened now and we have something to do with our lives I have something to do I am a messenger if someone would ask me my occupation if I were to be truthful I'd say I'm a messenger is what I am I go around with a message and my message is very simple the message is that through this program and the steps of it the result is a spiritual awakening and that's part of the obligation I have is to carry this message and the power is here the power is in this program it's in no other program that I know about for the alcoholic, it's in this program and a step goes on to say that we carry this message to the alcoholic the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is for alcoholics the name of the fellowship ought to give you a clue as to what it is we do here. Anyone can come here who has a desire to stop drinking, but the power that I'm talking about and the spiritual awakening that I have experienced I think is reserved for the alcoholic. I don't know why this is, that this is a specific program. There are plenty of other programs for other problems, but someone who wanders in here because they eat too much chocolate cake I'm sure they'll enjoy the stay very much like the tourists who come to Florida enjoy their two weeks while they're here. But sooner or later, they have to go back to that world of chocolate cakes just like the tourist go and the tan will go away and they'll be back where they were. But the ongoing miracle here is for the alcoholic, someone who, like me, was powerless over alcohol and had an unmanageable life. The last part of the step says we are to practice principles in all our affairs. What an order. I can't go through with it. It really is a tall order, to practice principals in all your affairs. I know many, many people in Outroads Anonymous who had principals once, were raised with principals, tried to do the right thing, And then the alcoholism came along and their principles somehow became eroded and they just didn't have their principles anymore because of the disease of alcoholism. But then they came to the program and they enjoyed the spiritual awakening and they began to carry this message. And their principles came back to them, the principles that they had lost. That's not exactly my case. I never had any principles to begin with I was not raised on principle I was raised on expediency and need when I was told to go get something I went and got it I wasn't necessarily told to go buy it in a store she said go get some and then I went and got I thought that we had to do that because we needed it and I didn't have any principle Nothing I like better when I practice law than to have some poor, unsuspecting client walk in and say, this is a matter of great principle. I say, sit down, Herman. Open up that checkbook. Give me that traffic ticket. We'll take this to the Supreme Court of the United States. This is a manner of principle. Principle is what other people had so I could take advantage of them. I didn't have any. I really didn't. I was a man without principle. And then I came here. and I stayed here and I went to meetings and I would be with him all the time and I remember very well coming in to lunch one time and he and I were in the same work and I would tell him what I had just done how terrific I was and I'd tell him I was just in that courtroom and I took that other lawyer and I banged him from one side of the room to the other and I told that judge and I sat him down and ran, ran, run and he would say to me we don't do that I said what do you mean we don' t what the hell do we do he said we don''t do that he said we practice principles I say yeah but I he said there's no but about it practice principles that's not the way we do it so I watched him and I began to do things the way he did he told me that my approach to life was basically wrong I came to think life was an adversary proceeding life was me against them they, those bastards and if you want something you had to be big and tough and rough fight and scream and holler and yell and if it was tough enough you got it and if he stayed tough you kept it I had all of these things that I remembered from growing up and he said that's not the way we are I had learned principles here and I learned some of the obvious ones I suppose the principles that are so obvious to everyone honesty, open-mindedness, willingness I was not open-oriented when I came here I was closed-minded as you could get I had my position on everything my mind was totally closed on all subjects because I considered everything come to a conclusion and that's it close that door and I don't want to hear about it I didn't want to hear anybody else's opinion on anything. Trouble with all of that was that it was my very best thinking that landed me into a mental institution on my 35th birthday was my Very Best Thinking that kept me drunk all the time because I hated them and those and they and those rats and bastards and you can't live that way at least I can't love that way anymore I had to become open-minded and I'll tell you I've hung around here so long now and I've heard so many wild things I believe anything anybody tells me anymore my mind I think is wide open you can drive a truck through it and there's not much in it to begin with and it's fun you learn things that way at least I do I learned to be willing I wasn't willing when I came here I wasn'T even willing to stop drinking I wasn'T willing to be a member but I am now then I learned a great principle and there's no point in my discussing with you my principles these are my principles they may not work for you besides that I'm using them I need them find your own principles what works for me may not be the same what may not work for me I may be able to do things that you couldn't do and on the other hand you may be able to do things I couldn't based on your principles The wonderful part about Alcoholics Anonymous is that we are perfectly free to form our own principles as long as we are practicing principles in all our affairs. What works for me may not certainly work for you, so there's no point in my listing for you my little principles because these are mine and what the hell do you want with my principles? it's like my higher power you can't have him I'm using him get your own power greater than your own and you use them I discovered this one thing that really I suppose is the strongest principle I know right now and that is the principle of God dependence principle of depending upon God in every aspect of my life. And I can practice that principle by continuing prayer and meditation and simply by continuing to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. The last promise in our book that God is doing for us all of the things we could not do for ourselves is a principle of God-dependence and it is a principle of God consciousness people are fallible people let you down that's happened to you it's happened to me someone you admire someone you rely on lets you down and I've been guilty of that I've let people down people are fallible and if I'm forever leaning on someone else and trying to use someone else's life to support my life I think I might be disappointed I have been disappointed not only have I been disappointed I have disappointed other people I'm sure of it I regret it but I'm sûre of it but this power that I'm talking about the God of my understanding your father my father has never ever once let me down I rely on that principle with great confidence I know that there is this power greater than my own I know that this power comes into my life on a daily basis I look for it and I rely on it and this power I'm talking about is not something that came down from a cross or out of a cave or up from the bowels of the earth this is a power that comes into a gutter and takes someone like me from nothing and puts me to a place where I am something and I don't know how you can ever repay that and I'm a prime example of it every single thing that alcoholism took from me every single position title, honor dollar every single things that the disease of alcoholism took away from me this program has given back to me. I don't even know how to explain it anymore. Things just seem to happen. Every single thing that came away, that went away, came back. Everything. And I don' t really recall ever asking for it once. I don''t recall asking for it. But this power, my father, your father, our father, knew what I thought I needed, certainly knew what I thought I wanted and gave it to me. And if he can do that for me he certainly can do it for you. I think practicing principles in all our affairs if I could do it in a short way is simply going at life as though it were a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Just going at life as though it were an AA meeting. I find I'm fairly civilized in AA meetings. I mean, I'm a nice guy. I wouldn't steal your chair. You want a cup of coffee? I'll get you a cup. I'm not a nice fellow at AA meetings Maybe I should be that way all the time It took a while for me to learn that To be one person To be the fellow that was at the AA meetings There's no point of us sitting around here full of spiritual power and love and all the rest of it and then go home and start throwing the furniture around. You know, who cooked this shit? What's going on here? That's no good. Why not be as nice out there as we are here? I tell you it's possible. I tell ya it's impossible. It is possible. I was very tentative when I started to try to practice it. The step is very definite. It says do it. It doesn't say try to do this part of it. It says do it. One instruction I got, I've been sober about five years, I guess, and I have been invited to speak for the first time at an AA convention, a large meeting up in Connecticut. So I told him about it. I said, guess what? They invited me to speak at a state convention in Connecticut He said, don't forget to practice what you preach. That's practicing principles. No point in my sitting up here preaching if I don't practice what I preach. There's no point in me saying that I'm a member of this fellowship if I do not live like a member of this membership. There's not point in taking the benefits of Alcoholics Anonymous if I am not prepared to give it away. To be a member is more than simply to come around here and take out what is so freely given. It means to give back, and there's no possible way I can give back. No way that I possibly can repay this program for what it's given to me. And I'm not talking now in terms of progress materially. The fact that I am a professor of law and I am back in the one thing I always wanted to be back in. That's not what I'm talking about. And the fact that I am able to be with you, to be a member, and to share in this wonderful experience of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, that is the valuable thing. That is nothing I can measure in terms of the way the world measures things. It's just an ongoing process in order for me to keep it. Somehow I have to give it away. the book tells us at the very end the last paragraph of our book gives us these instructions it says abandon yourself to God as you understand God admit your faults to him and to your fellows clear away the wreckage of your past give freely of what you find and join us we shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny that's a great way to end the step series with these instructions and they're instructions to me really not to you abandon myself to God as I understand it clear away the wreckage of the past give freely of what you have found these are the real messages of Alcoholics Anonymous and this is really what the spiritual awakening means it means we are able to do that to clear away that wreckage to join humanity be part of something I am one of the members of Alcoholic Anonymous that gets around and everywhere I go I say the same thing we were talking before the meeting and I said I only have the one act I only have one thing I can talk about and that's the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and everywhere I go I say just about the same thing when I end I always say the same things and this is the way I'm now ending one of the pamphlets in our program that I enjoy very much and it's very dear to me is called A Member's View of Alcoholic Anonymous and in that pamphlet at the end the author takes a biblical turn and he recalls the time when John the Baptist was once again languishing in one of Herod's prisons and John sent two of his friends to inquire of his cousin Jesus as to whether or not he was the Messiah and these two men found the Lord and they walked with him a while and they stopped him and they said to him are you the Messiah are you the one that we have been waiting for for thousands of years or should we wait for another and the Lord really didn't answer that question but he said to these two men go back to John and tell him only what you have seen and only what your heart has heard what you've heard tell John that the blind see and that the lame walk and tell John that the deaf can hear and the sick are made well and tell john that the poor have the gospel brought to them in my early training I was told that the word poor in that context could mean poor in spirit and everyone knows that the word gospel simply means good news and so my dear brothers in happy meeting assembled if you will accept a report from me based upon my years in Alcoholics Anonymous I will tell you only what I have seen and only what I've heard and based on that observation it seems to me that the blind do see and the lame do walk and I know that the deaf can hear and most certainly the sick are made well and I have seen over and over and over again through the longest day and into the darkest night the good news of this program brought to the alcoholic who still suffers the poor in spirit thank you