Rigorous Application of the 12 Steps – Milestone Step Workshop – Part 5 of 5 – Chris

Hi everybody. Hello, good morning. Good morning, good morning. Thanks all for being here. My name is Nicoletta. I'm an alcoholic. I also work at the Milestone House. We're putting this workshop up together, one of many. Hopefully we'll have this happen every quarter. Chris and Marty, we're so happy you're here. Thank you for being a part of this and Marty drove all the way from Canada to make this happen and serve. They're both great friends and for me a wig means that inspire me and feed me throughout the years. Chris, I consider you one of my mentors one of the first people I met in my recovery back in 2007 early 2007 and I've just followed his footstep ever since and he's also a board member at the milestone house so if you really made this happen for us so with that we're glad you're here there's some breakfast there there's restrooms around the corner there will be lunch delivered here around noon we're expecting a lot more people to come after they wake up we invited a lot of newcomers and with that I give you Marty I'm really really happy to be here guys thank you so much we were told that we have to watch the podium it's being held by scotch tape yeah if you've ever heard me speak before you know that even a real podium doesn't last long so I am so happy to be here thanks for thanks for having me down some of the people in this room have become some of my closest and AA friends there's a communion here and when I came into Sonic letter and I thought like it was years ago that we met and but that connection has remained and my buddy JJ and Jack and Cleo and Dane and Chris, and I'm meeting some of you guys for the first time. I want to welcome you into my sober life. We've got a nice small group here. If you get pissed off or angry, you can say whatever you want. Just yell it out. Don't leave here upset, you know what I mean? I get pretty excited about this AA stuff. I get Pretty Excited About Being Sober. I get Really Excited about Spending Time with Alcoholics. And even when, you know, we watched 9.30 roll into 9.40 into 10 o'clock, I thought to myself, well, I'll just sit around here and shoot the shit with the alcoholics all day. Well, can I swear on your recording? Shit's not a swear word in Canada, by the way. Just letting you know that. I won't say any other stuff. But hopefully we'll get some of the new crew in here. I think it's really important that we get down to this, but you need to know a little bit about me. I'm an alcoholic, and I was raised in an alcoholic home. It was a violent alcoholic home, I took my first drink at 12, I had no idea how damaged and broken I was until I took that first couple of beers, and everything inside of me changed, everything that was in, I hadno idea how broken Iwas until I was fixed, just by a couple of drinks, and it was by myself in the basement ofmy parents' home, I vomited like crazy, I was so sick, and when I came to the next morning, all I could think of is I can't wait to do that again, that experience was probably the single greatest experience of my life second to getting sober and and then my the birth of my daughter is the third so that's the order of this stuff that revelatory change when i was 12 was it's i think about it today it was like it happened yesterday and so i sought that connection i thought that connection that alcohol a couple drinks alcohol gave me for the next few years i i would drink and i would get i would get violently sort of engaged with people and my life just sort of, and I started going to prison. And I'd get framed a lot, you know? I was always getting framed and I really didn't do anything. And I would go into custody and while there I would be told what it was that I was in custody for because I never knew. And I talk about jail, I'm never ever going to take jail out of my talk. And the reason is because that's where I met you. You guys that go to these prisons and institutions and hospitals and stuff, when you guys do that stuff, you have no idea. You get off your asses on a cold, blustery night thinking to yourself, I don't want to do this shit again. Nobody listens. These guys don't give a damn. A lot of you guys are working in the treatment sector. And you know how difficult it is to work with pinhead alcoholic addicts. It's tough sometimes. It doesn't look like they want any of this stuff, right? It doesn'T look like THEY want it. I had no idea at 17 that you were reaching me. And neither did you. But you were starting to grow inside of me. They talk about a seed being planted and stuff like that. I had nothing. I didn't even know I had an alcohol problem when the seed started to grow because Alcoholics Anonymous kept coming to me, and that's why it's no issue for me to drive down from Canada. I'll do that in a heartbeat. It's not just I like going somewhere to hear myself speak, although I do like that very much. I would go anywhere for AlcoholicsAnonymous. So, 17, I meet you guys for the first time. 19, I'm in a federal penitentiary and Alcoholics Anonymous is large and around and obvious. At 23 years old, I hit the mat. I was in a jail cell and I just sort of blew it up one more time. I just knew that I couldn't live like that anymore. July 16th, 1987, while in that jail cell, I dropped to my knees and I screamed out, I don't want to live like this. I don' t want to leave like this anymore. And I heard a voice say, you don't have to. You don't h ave to live li ke this. Beautiful. And every once in a while, I'm in a room like this, and somebody says, I heard the voice. I heard The Voice. Bill Wilson heard The Voices. Marty Mann heard The voice. I said, I don't want to live like this. I don' t want to li ve like this anymore. And I heard A Voice say, You don't have to. You don' T have to live Like This Anymore. And when I stood up, it wasn't that the room filled up with light. I filled up With Light. Everything that was dark and pissed off and angry and violent and heinous inside of me was gone. I felt like I was an inch off the ground. And it felt like I was floating. and I knew something profound had happened and I asked them to get the guards and the guards came and then I was out on the street I was back in the halfway house that I had been suspended from because I was going back to prison so I was blackout on the streets and my AA life took off it began then and the thing about this sort of like I have not had a drinking thought since then not a thought when I say the obsession no not even near the obsession I haven't had a thought of drinking since then I was 23 years old my life was ultra-violent street life in prison And that was how I was, and it, overnight. And I came to you with a vengeance. I loved AA. I loved meetings. I loved my home group. I loved what it was all about. For 14 years, I was right smack dab in the middle of AA. Service positions, hitting on all the chicks and relationships. And I was doing all the things that AA people do. I mean, you know, it was a beautiful way of life. I didn't work or I didn'T, you Know, I didn' t do any of that. I didn''t know how to do any Of that stuff. I blew up cars for money, and that's what I was doing. And my sponsors in your cars, and I was doing that for money. And it was a living. And I just loved AA. And if you asked my mom, my mom would be talking to somebody about our family, my younger brother, who's an absolute hero. He's very political. And she would say, oh, Casey's doing this, and Paul's doingthis, and Rhonda's doingthis, and she wouldsay to people, and Marty, he's got a car that has the same license plate on the front as the back. He really does. I'm serious. And so my bar was low. And in AA, I was having, like I said, I was Having This Love Affair with Alcoholics Anonymous. And I was big, big, big in the fellowship. And at nine years sober, I had a little girl and I started realizing that no, sobriety isn't about not drinking. Sobriety is about love. It's about love and I'm, you know, I got this little girl and I am looking after her with one of those AA relationships that lasted for four and a half weeks. and so I got this beautiful little girl and she connects to me and I connect to her and at nine years sober I realized that Alcoholics Anonymous is all about love and I started writing you hear my old CDs or tapes it's love, love, Love, Love you hear the talks I give and it's all about the love and then after a couple of years I started hanging and seeing some of those God guys the capital God guys the third step God guys I started hearing them sort of talk and oh my God it's not about not drinking it'snot about love this is about God this whole thing's about God it's been about God the whole time oh my god God that's been a boat God so I jump right into this God thing and we're reading books and we running through the woods naked you know Robert black yeah we're doing sweetgrass ceremonies and sweat lodges and and I'm into this god stuff right I'm into it and you know pointing my figure shamefully at the people that aren't you know I just discovered what 15 minutes ago I'm blaming everybody else or not no one ever and so I'm having this sort of AA life. It's all about God. Now, all the while I'm educated. I've gotten to work. I got a family now. I have four daughters. God has a sense of humor. I get this sort of I got this life built up around me and I'm living large. Speaking at conferences, closing conferences on the Sundays because I'm so above God. I'm the Sunday closing speaker. I'm sending you home with the spiritual message. If you can believe that after today, you're going to go, no shit. But quickly just talk about this experience is that I was at a conference, closing the conference and the main banquet speaker was outside having a cigarette and I joined him and the two of us started talking. And he was a big barrel-chested man, silver hair, silver beard a handsome guy. And he's smoking like four cigarettes at a time. And we're talking about fitness. We're both working out, we're talking about fitness, puffing away. And he says, you know, you're a sleep dream and you're awake. Right out of the blue. Uninvited feedback. You know how we get that uninvited feedback sometimes he says you're asleep dreaming you're awake and i says oh i didn't even know it was an insult i go really he says yeah you've been talking for 15 minutes about your aaa life and i can tell there's an experience in aa you've never had i said oh yeah well what's that big fella and he says the 12 steps you've ever taken the steps and if you guys were listening when i give a 45 50 minute talk people catch it when i tell it because i was smack dab in the middle of aaa for 14 years and had never taken a step in alcoholic sounds you didn't even qualify me i didn't i knew i was alcoholic only because you said it and then i said it sitting beside you that's the only way i knew as alcoholic is i sounded you sounded like i felt so i qualified myself in here that way nobody ever asked me if i was or i wasn't it didn't matter but what happened was this guy says i can help you with that experience now he took me up to the hotel and he took me through those first few steps in 15 minutes, 20 minutes and my change in life was revolutionary it's where I am today from 14 years sober till now that was sort of 22 years ago and it was Mark Houston and my life changed that day and has never gone back and so I come here with a message of the 12 steps I don't have another AA message You know, as sad and as much as I sort of protest against the common message in the area that I lived, which was don't drink and go to meetings. That's what I was for 14 years. It was my message too. Just hang in there. Just hangin' there. One day at a time. Just hanginn' there, you know? And then when people would get drunk, I would blame them, you kno? Because we would be sittin' around smokin' outside the meeting, 8 or 10 of us good ol' boys. And Joe would stagger up again to the meeting. And then we look at each other and say, he must have wanted to get drunk more than he wanted to get sober. Well, if there was a bunch of new guys in here, I'd tell you right now, this recovery stuff isn't based on whether you want it or not, and it isn't based on whether you need it or no. It's based on weather you do it or non. Which is what we're here to talk about today. We're here to talking about doing AA, right? That's what we are here to talked about, is doing AA. I'm not talking about the philosophical beautiful stuff that comes as a result of it, I don't think. And certainly we won't have time for that now anyway. What we'll to do is we'll try to demonstrate through love of aa love of one another there's some people in this room that i care deeply about and we'll trying to demonstrate that so so it can be infectious alcoholics anonymous properly executed and lived is infectious once you get a taste of it it's very hard to go back hey jade it's really hard to go back you know standing in the middle of the road all those years i had no idea what was available to me so that's who you got here presidenting today and talking about some of this magnificent stuff i'm going to be listening most of the day to this guy but thanks for letting me oh good morning everybody and my name is chris i'm an alcoholic and it is really really good to be here so so when when it was uh when it was presented that we wanted to do a workshop here i was i was offered the opportunity to to pick who i wanted to do it with and i wanted to do with marty he was my first pick i i just love this guy his infectious love for alcoholics anonymous is palatable and uh and i always i always get so much uh from when he shares so you know what i can tell you about me is um is i'm i'm an alcoholic i i'm like I'm like the kind of alcoholic you do not want over at your house, I park on your bushes, I burn a hole in your couch with my cigarette, you know, I insult your family, you just don't, oh he's here again, oh no, you know, and I'm, I'm that guy and I think everybody else is wrong and you know i i'm i think that i have this dark complicated artistic personality and i suffer the the pains of injustice at a deeper level than the rest of these scuttlefish so so so i you know i need to you know I I need to partake in you know something that helps me deal with this crap you And I'm drinking bourbon, I'm drinking vodka like for years. And if you had an Excel graph, you could plot just the destruction of my life, the quality of my life, the relationships, the jobs, the cars, you know, the police, everything is getting worse over time. And the milkman could tell you I'm an alcoholic and should stop drinking right but here but here's the thing here's the thing about me and alcohol marty talked about his first experience and what alcohol did for him which it finally made him feel free well that's what alcohol did for me i finally felt free i you know i was always uncomfortable with what that whatever the hell's going on i'm uncomfortable with it you know and and you know why don't you go ask her to dance i i don't know you know once you get a job well i try i don t know you i mean i'm i'm comfortable with all this stuff i've got like levels of anxiety and uh and i take a drink i take your drink and it's the best way i can describe it is like this you know all of us all of a sudden all that anxiety and all all the all the inner emotional turmoil that that i was suffering from is gone and and now i'm with my two best friends and this is so cool you know let's play let's put on a record let's see you know this is great let's trash the house you know what's making prank phone calls let's do it this is great you know and and uh and we're gonna do this again tomorrow and it was like i became larger than life i became larger than like this was this alcohol was freedom from the bondage of chris and that's what alcohol did for me and so immediately i developed a loyalty a loyalty that would that would you know outweigh a million other things that were important in my life a loyalty that was way more important than my marriage a loyalty that was Way more important the than my daughter a loyalty that was more important good God way more important in my job way more way more importance in my driver's license way more important way more than anything you know and and I know it's not like I consciously understood it that way but that's that's how I I behaved I behaved with this this loyalty to alcohol and you'd come up to me every once in a while you you'd make the unforced error of criticizing me about my drinking you know Chris uh I think uh you should you should look at your alcohol consumption you know and and I would not understand that I wouldn't understand that because because you don't understand you don't understand i you know this alcohol is all i got left and therein lies the delusion that i was under i was unter a delusion the the the that the the symptom of my alcoholism which is drinking that's the symptom o f my alcohol ism i was und er the delusion that's all I had left and and no one could get through to me the only thing they could get threw to me was was pain and anguish and as my life started to deteriorate in every way it could deteriorate I started to become violent when I drank I start I started too like I would come to and find out like something. Like, do you know what you did last night? What? You know, and find out that I did some just insane thing, some Charlie Manson thing, you know? And, and I've been just horrified with myself. And, so this went on and on and the emotional turmoil I was going through living this alcoholic life just got me to a point of considering that maybe alcohol is involved in all this mess, and maybe. And so I signed myself into a treatment center, and I went to a 28-day treatment center. I signed my stuff in. I'm telling you, I knew everybody that was in there that were co-guests of mine, and Every one of them was coerced in there one way or the other. I actually signed myself in. There wasn't anybody left in my life to do an intervention. You know what I mean? I love interventions. There wasn'T anybody left that would even bother. It was so bad. And so I signed myself in and I got serious about this not drinking stuff. I got seriously about this stuff. I'm going to go to treatment so I don't drink anymore. And I go off to 28 day treatment. They let me out. And they had suggested two things. They suggested that I should go to some AA meetings and do some outpatient So I started I go I go to outpatient. I'm going to some AAA meetings And if you ask me Chris, what are you doing today? Well today? I'm not drinking What are you gonna do tomorrow? Well, I'm planning on not drinking tomorrow I mean I was serious about this whole thing right And I'm on my way to an AA meeting and the thought crosses my mind mind that I'm not getting good grades in AA. I don't know that I really even enjoy it that much. A lot of knuckleheads and you know, it's been almost 90 days since I've been drunk. I'm kind of even forgetting what it's like to be drunk. And I don' think that's a good thing because uh because they they tell me i've got a i've i've gotta remember my last drunk you know i'm gonna hang on to that so so so here's what i'll do i'll uh i'll buy a gallon of vodka and i'll drink it uh now wait let me let me explain this okay i know it probably sounds a little weird but let me tell you my reasoning and then you'll agree with me uh i need to remember what it's like to be drunk, I need to remember my last drink and I need a shot in the arm I'm just sitting in the back nobody knows who I am in the meetings I need to do this AA stuff better so when I get really drunk and hung over and everything I'm going to come back I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna be the AA kid and so I drank a gallon of vodka to improve my sobriety don't you don't you love newcomer plans Marty aren't they the best they're the best we collect them so it didn't go as I planned what happened was when I started drinking that vodka I'm like this is a good idea I'm drinking this vodka it makes a lot of sense drinking the second drink this is such a good idea I'm going to go I'm going to go to the beginners meeting and share this and hopefully encourage everybody to try this. And I drink the third drink and intoxication starts to wash over me and I recognize the enormity of my mistake. I have opened up the cage door to the beast. The beast is going to shove his arm up my butt and move me around like a puppet for the next 10 months, right? And I'm gonna have nothing to say about it. And I realized this and so I want to explain something to you. The alcohol restored me to sanity concerning my alcoholism. I was insane to think that I should drink it because it would help. I became sane when I recognized the enormity of my mistake so I've got this whole thing backwards right so for seven months it's the most decadent most pathetic most lonely existence that I I ever gone through and because because I now really know better and yet I'm caught, I'm caught up in this thing that's bigger than me I'm going to the liquor store every day and I know I shouldn't and I don't want to and what this experience did was it firmly implanted in me a deep understanding of the first step alright, what the first step basically is, is this i have an allergy of the body uh the phenomenon of craving it's called okay how that presents in chris is like this the first drink asks for the second drink the second trick insists on the third the third demands the fourth and i want the 35th drink more than i wanted the 34th drink That's what's different about me bodily as an alcoholic, that phenomenon of craving. It doesn't happen to Aunt Fanny. Aunt Fany doesn't have a glass of wine at Thanksgiving and wind up in jail. You know what I mean? It happens to me every time I drink. It creates a craving. Now, that wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the second part of the alcohol piece of step one, and that is the obsession of the mind. This is a heavier lift for me. Because I'm the kind of guy who will always tell you, I know I got this. I know I got this. You're overreacting, Dane. I've got this, right? That's me. So the obsession of the mind, how it presents is I drink a gallon of vodka to improve my sobriety. So the book Alcoholics Anonymous is very, very clear. It says if you're an alcoholic, you have lost the power of choice whether alcohol goes in your body or not. It's not your choice anymore. It's alcohol's choice. And I just fully couldn't believe that. I couldn't belief it. That was too heavy of a lift for me until I signed myself into treatment. I was going to outpatient. I was gone and I told everybody that would listen. I stopped drinking and I drank. I started to get it. I started To get what I was up against. I was Up against alcoholism. All right. Now those two things are a death sentence, but it's even worse because there's a dash that my life had become unmanageable. My life had Become unmanangeable now that was also difficult for me. to really fully conceive because i had been managing it for 33 years i decided where to live i decided what job to get i decided where to go i decided when to wake up i was deciding everything in my life and that's just the way it was you're telling me my life is unmanageable what do you even mean by that and i gotta start looking i gotta start looking at some stuff that's in the book alcoholics anonymous that explains why is my life unmanageable because i'm managing it and here's the thing here's a thing it does not say my life is difficult to manage it says my life is unmanagable so so i'll give you an example of the difference between those two let's say you've got five acres of grass and the only kind of lawnmower you have is one of those push ones you know with the blades that go like this and that's the only lawn mower you got that would that would make it difficult to cut the five acres of grass but you could probably do it unmanageable means i don't have a lawnmowner you know Well, it's a whole different ballgame. My life is unmanageable. I've got to get fish food filled as a sponsor. And that's what I do. I get fish feed filled as the sponsor. And he starts giving me some direction. He starts giving this direction. He goes, you know, I go up to him after the relapse, after all the smoke clears and I've threatened my family's life and you know everything is in turmoil you know i come to it and i go off to an a.a meeting in the second a.m meeting i go to i see phil and i ask him i go i go phil oh i'm inside so i've been in hell i've ended up you can't get me out of hell you know he's like oh no oh no an uninterrupted series of phone calls like three times a day for the next two years sure i'll help you you And he goes, you are so damaged. You're so damaged, I'm only going to tell you to do one thing. Just one thing because it's just going to be too much. If I give you two things, you'll forget one of them. He goes, I want to see you at a meeting every night until I tell you the stop. And this was early 90s AA. That's what you did, right? A sponsor, a good sponsor was somebody who would pay attention to your consistency with meeting attendance. that's what they did and if they were a really good sponsor you know they would try to get you involved in a service commitment somehow you know like sweep up the floors take out the ashtrays whatever that's what a good sponsor was in my area so anyway I took it as a piece of business I took so seriously that I went to a meeting every single night for eight years because he forgot to tell me to stop Martin and and I did and what that did was that that firmly firmly planted me within the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous which is the fellowship is the best possible atmosphere you can be in to engage in the healing process of recovery and and so I'm going to meetings and I am no vision for you it these meetings that i i'm i hate people and and i'm critical and prejudiced and annoyed very easily and i misunderstand what you're saying what did you say what what did mean by that marty you know i was like that guy i was i was just a mess but i was going i was go into a meeting every every single night and uh it was not pretty but i was staying sober alcohol wasn't going into my body now i'll tell you right now what what marty and i are going to be talking about today is is gonna is gonna back up this statement but not drinking and going to meetings is not a treatment for alcoholism it is placing yourself in the best possible environment where that treatment can take place all right and uh and you know a little bit about how i discovered that and then i'm gonna hand it back to marty um so uh um i made this friend this guy radio shack mike uh that was my was my buddy uh and and him and i were were close he was crazy he became friends with me it was a bad move on his part and uh and we became friends and one day he he handed me a set of these 90 minute tapes and i said what are those he goes well there's a workshop i want you to listen to i'm like a workshop a workshop on what he goes uh the book alcoholics anonymous i go that book that was written in the 30s that they give you in treatment where everybody signs and he goes yeah i go i go okay i i'm doing the math like like eight ninety minute tapes that's 12 hours and uh and i go who's who's giving the workshop and he goes a couple guys from arkansas i go arkansas arkansas i'm from new jersey we get more thinking done by nine o'clock than somebody from arkansas but but he makes me he makes be promised you know that's the way that's what it was right it makes me promise to uh listen to these now now you got to understand the significance of my experience with these tapes these tapes what these tapes are is it's like recovery 101. this is how you actually take the 12 steps because we're great at talking about the steps and philosophizing about them and thinking about them and reading about them we're just not really good at doing them so so this set of tapes is basically making statements about you know how how you have to do this stuff and i'm not doing it so i'm pissed at these guys you know they're making me look bad and uh and and i'm like i get through this series of tapes and i i'm like you know maybe that's how they do it in arkansas but in new jersey we share you know and uh and some stuff hap so i put the tapes to the side some stuff happens in my life uh that's not good um florida catches up with me for fleeing to avoid prosecution or some misunderstanding like you don't know how they are um i lose my job uh and and the girl that i was dating that i that i met when she was coming to the meeting on the druggie buggy uh what could go wrong with that marty i just don't understand it didn't work out and uh and all three of these things happened in one week and i was a moat i mean you you know some people describe this as a jumping off place some people describe it as a sober bottom hell you could call it a nervous breakdown if you want but that's what i had and and i remember like going over to my sponsor's house like just distraught and emotionally in turmoil and i remember and he's he's like well i want to see you at a meeting tonight you know how they are and and then he asked me a crazy question you know he goes chris do you pray like what's that got to do with it you know you know i i you know I need guns you know i mean i just didn't get it i just didn't get it and uh and and i just for one reason or another i think there's the grace of god the grace of God manifests to us we each have our experience with it and it's it's varied and multi-leveled but we have these these spiritual experiences and and mine was to go back to these tapes now you've got to understand what was being discussed on those tapes was an Alcoholics Anonymous I had absolutely no experience with and if Joe and Charlie are right everybody in all my AA meetings including my sponsor is wrong that's what I had to come to terms with and that was not an easy lift right i mean you know i'm loyal to the meetings i'm i'm friends i'm dating some of them you know i got a sponsor how could how could all these people be wrong you know I mean it had to be black and white for me so I had to slowly come to terms with this stuff and and I started uh yeah I blew the dust off of my big book you know hadn't opened it since treatment I opened it up the first thing I see is where everybody signed it when you're leaving and the first one I see is chris you crazy bastard you're never gonna make it love harry you know and i blew the dust off of that uh uh i i started playing these tapes i got a notebook and a pen and and that was where my recovery experience started and i was about a year sober somewhere around there i was about a years sober marty talked about there's there's levels to alcoholics anonymous that many of us don't even recognize we don't know we don' t know because we haven't experienced them I'm telling you this thing is a thousand miles deep this thing is a 1000 miles deep and I don't want to bring Marty back up I was just getting comfortable settling in when we were hooking up there at the beginning Chris said yeah share a little bit about where you're coming from and your background and dip into the first step and thanks so much for doing that and and making it real when we uh um when i was coming here and i was thinking to myself we've got some recovery sort of milieu and there's going to be a lot of new people here and I get excited about that and in talking about the first you know powerlessness is the only issue and you either are you aren't there's no that's the place where you'll sort of hit a crossroads and and that's in sobriety that's That's what substance, alcohol, that's where you're either powerless or you're not. And it drives you into the idea about unmanageability and the unmanagability that my life... Like I wish it said my life was unmanable by me. I wish It said that there, by me, because a lot of people for a long, long time would talk about un-manageabiltiy as being this sort of difficult circumstances that would arise in people's lives or all the breakups and the financial difficulties that they couldn't manage their own lives and this is how it got out of hand. And that's not what they're talking about. They're talking about when I manage my life, like Chris said, bad things typically happen. And it just means about decision-making. It's a process. Now, that's a tough thing to swallow. First you find out you're an alcoholic or that you've got a problem with alcohol. And taking a drink sober every time I relapse or every time i go back to drinking, I'm doing it sober. I have to understand that it's the forces of my mind and my spirit that actually drive that powerlessness. Then it goes into this manageability piece where if my life is unmanageable by me, there's a natural sort of flow into the second step. When Mark put me on my knees in the hallway of his room for the third step, it was a flow and a conversation as I walked in about powerlessness and about unmanangeability by me and just a little bit that I'd shared with him on the thing. And within, like I said, seven or eight minutes, I was on my knee doing a third step with him. And so the second step that drives this unmanageability piece, drives it into the second steps. If my life is unmanagable by me, I need another manager. And all our literature says is that we just have to acknowledge that. It doesn't say we have to describe it. My workshop partner Brian says he didn't want this. He would read as much of the Bible and everything as he could so that he could go to the bar and argue about Jesus with whoever was to listen. You know what I mean? And he would learn as much as he couldn't about religiosity. His sponsor's telling him, you need this. And he says, no, I can't do that. And he said, you have to open yourself up to something. So he goes home and he thinks about it. He says, well, I know there's something. I don't know what it is. But I'll just do the rest of this and see what happens. And if we can convince new people or anybody around here for a little while of anything, that is often what it is that we need to convince them. It's just lay down your weapons and shut the hell up for a few minutes. Just be quiet for just a little While and let's see what happens here. And the idea that, you know, allegedly, for years from the problematic areas that were dark, I was accused of rushing people through the steps. And all I do is take people throughthe steps the way Mark did with me, and all Ido is takepeople through the stepsthe way the big book indicates, which is right now. We'll talk a lot about now later. Probably one of the most significant things in the entire process of recovery is now. And we'll talk about that in a bit, but the idea is that the experience you're going to have in Alcoholics Noms is only current. It's only right now. You'll never have it at any other time. You won't have the AA experience yesterday, you won't ever have it tomorrow. You'll only ever have this right now, so we have this window with folks that is occurring right now and again if there were new people in the room we would talk about laying down your weapons and a workshop like this when I get the markers or I get a board or all that kind of stuff that kind of stuff people are taking the steps out in the audience people are actually doing it right in the room I don't rush anybody through anything I just I give them an adequate presentation of the steps and they see if they're interested enough to not die they start actually doing at rate in front of you and there's power when one alcoholic gets together with another alcoholic on that second step the twelve and twelve says that's our rallying point it doesn't say our drinking stories because we can identify and all that shit is our rally in point it's the place where we identify and think oh my God, these are my people. But the rallying point for recovery is the second step. That's where we don't have people. It's like people come here and they stop drinking. You know, they have a half of a first step experience. Yeah, drinking bad, you know, but you got to get drinking bad God good at some point. You have to go to that mental shift has to happen. So this sort of acknowledgement in the first step has to be powerful enough to drive you into the second steps. And we're not talking about, like my experience was a 14 year sober. My experience was 14 years sober. It wasn't, and all the, like I got 14 years of nefarious activities and hurting people and lying and shucking and jiving and robbing and stealing and I was living large. I was living a good life. I hadn't gone to prison or accidentally robbed a bank for years. And that was my bar. That was the bar you know and and you guys you old guys not you old guys but the old guys would pat me on the back and say well did you drink today i'd come in and i tore another relationship apart and i treated her like maybe done some things i should have never done and i'm sitting outside of a meeting and the old guy's going well did your drink today no okay it's a good day and i'd walk away very confused by that it doesn't feel like it was a good day if the ice probably should have drank i drink alcoholically because alcohol treats my ailment and i'm suffering from the ailment and my you know instead of actually having something else to treat the ailments i'm walking away dejected and i got to tell you when old guys would say stuff like that you go to old guys and you'd say you know this is going on i lost my job i got no money and And they would say, well, you know, you just got to let go and let God. I'd say, pardon? Yeah, let go on and let go. Now, I would walk away feeling like a dummy. I'm walking away thinking, am I missing something here? Like, how come, what is he talking about? Now, if I had any of the insights that I have now, I would have asked the old bastard, what exactly do you mean by that? And you know what he'd have to say? uh I don't know that's just what they told me so we get this a lip flap and party line bullshit going here where we say these cute little things and and we think that that's actually going to help somebody and the idea is I can see this in reflection but I can't see when it's happened what I have to guard against is being that guy and offer a real solution something that's real which is embodied in our second step the only thing that happens in our second step it is our mind is pride slightly open the only thing that happens in the second step is that I ask a question do you now believe and half our fellowship says yeah yeah I do at this even a current this is still a current thing I can have 1400 people out there an asset it's split right down the middle do you know believe and oh yeah then the second part of the question is are you even willing to believe and I just gave you the language our book uses it's not like are you willing to leave this are you even willing to believe you dummy like look at the evidence of your life are you even willing believe that maybe there's something else and the minute that the person says yes I'm willing we emphatically ensure them they're on their way and you get to a podium and you're asked to share you ask to talk about it are you being emphatic I have been lit up by this stuff it would be ignorant of me to withhold the emphat nature of my excitement about where this is going because now I know I know nothing now I'm in the second step and that's the question we ask now for you people have been around here for a little while and most of you have is if you're not feeling AA if you not feelin that emphatic enthusiastic power-driven happy crazy wondering like Scrooge on Christmas morning wondering holy shit huh what's happening to me if you are not feeling that the question for you is is later on in the proposition. We call it the second step proposition. God is either everything or else he is nothing. God either is or he isn't. What is your choice? And when I'm working with guys and I see them backslide, that's where we kind of get back to things. Right there. And a lot of people say, oh you need to take another four step. Oh you need to finish your amends. It's usually right there. Is that God isn't everything. You might have family that are very important to you and you love them dearly and maybe you put them first. You might not have a sick family member. Or you might have a career or money or something. Maybe there's some things that come before God. But God is either everything or else he is nothing. And on that proposition, we can move forward into the third step. There is no place to sort of hover around there. There's no place for there to hover for me. And so when I'm on it, and Mark asked me the question. He asked me first question, do you now believe? And I talked to him about the Bush League pinch hitter God that I had. That when I got into trouble, I blamed God. And when I got out of trouble, I took all the credit. That was my relationship with God. And that was really all that was happening in my life. I was either getting into trouble or I was getting out of trouble. 14 years sober. Nobody else knew it. On the outside, it looked like, hey, he's doing pretty good. But on the inside, I was a candidate for absolute lunacy. Like, it was bad. Like, I knew what was going on inside and there had to be a spiritual shift. And so again, each step drives into the next step. Each step makes the next step, not even just possible, but necessary. If you don't, you can't start anywhere here else other than the beginning. It's not static. These are like flowing sort of things that go on. And that second step drives us into that third step. And that third set is like, how long can you have a person sit there and say like, even Chris, when he goes, I want you to go to a meeting every night. That was the message, right? And Chris is one of the sort of small percentage of people that made it that way But when you sit around and you have a community and you're taking guys through the work and sitting doing the book and coffee shops and all that kind of stuff and you take a third step with a man 50% of those guys recover I found that number to be actually true And if you're up in my community you'll see that that is actually true And that's what happens when you do this stuff Is that half the people get sober and stay sober This third step I'm kind of like a how-to guy But it's like I have all the experience that we're talking about in the literature. And, you know, sometimes when I have the time to share, I have all the experienced here. So Mark puts me on my knees and I start to weep because the second part of that proposition that God is either everything or else he is nothing. I said, he has to be. He asked me if that was the case in my life. And I said he has to be and I started to cry. And he said, would you say a prayer with me? He takes the coffee table and he throws it out, get down on my He's a big, hulking guy. And I'm underneath him. He's over top of me. And he says, God, I offer myself to thee to build with me. And I go, where is he getting this shit? I'm not kidding you. See, none of you guys, you guys read the book. I'm sitting there, 14 years sober, wondering where is he getting us from? And he sends his prayer and I'm repeating after him. And I get up and I got to tell you, my life changed that moment. And this is what happens. This is the interventionism of this power is that minute that i open up the door and it comes but it slams shut again by pomp calamity and worship it's slammed shut by what i think is important the manageability of my life is constantly beckoning to get back in there constantly getting trying to get in there and run this stuff and that i know better and that these are decisions that i need to make and and that's about parenting that's about money it's about all of it my relationship i get in here and i mix it up like i know better And I've got to tell you, at this position, which is a position we take, it says when we sincerely take such a position, what's the position? God is the father, I am the child. He is the principal, I'm the agent. He is director, I' m the actor. It's a subjective position. You see those bumper stickers at the conferences that said, God is my co-pilot. And then you see another one now going around that says, if God's your co-Pilot, you're in the wrong goddamn seat. It's like, it's a objective position. I am humble before this power. I am humbled before this power at all times. I get goosebumps talking about it because there's no other place for me to be. I can't give God my orders of the day and then sit there and wait for stuff to happen. I have to be an instrument in his beckoning. And so what happens is that I get into that position. The book says when we sincerely take such a position, that subjective position, we were reborn. Before you say the third step prayer, which people think is taking the third step, that is not taking the first step. The third step is taking the position. And you know when that happens. Because when somebody asks you something, you start to answer them. You know when it happens. There are humble men that I know in my life. Dane, you're one of them. You ask Dane a question, he doesn't always have an answer. Pause for a moment. Go into that place. Allow it to happen. Allow this spirit to live alive inside of you. And that's the third step. In the estimation of how we take that position is when I'm working with a guy, Like, you come by the Prince George group on a Thursday night, you'll see guys out in the parking lot on their knees beside the cars. You know, which is deeply weird. But, you know, it's true. You know? You're walking in the other room. What's he doing over there? Oh, shit, he's doing a third step. Okay. But this is... And it's about getting these people set on their course of action, four through nine. That's what we do when we're doing it with people. The idea is that I can be freed up when I put the responsibility where it belongs, on the director of my life, on the power of my life. That's how I can get freed up. Now, all of that stuff means nothing until I understand that there are a lot of things in my management that are blocking me from this power. I can have that experience with Mark in that hotel room and feel completely free just like I did when I was 12 years old and took a couple of drinks. I felt free for the first time. I felt like something had cleared up inside of me and the weight was... So I had the experience when I was 12, I had the experience in July the 16th 1987 in a jail cell where I was freed and I was light and Iwas emptied inside and in that hotel room on a it was a Saturday afternoon on that hotelroom on my knees I had this sort of incredible lightening of my soul and just it was emptied and I gotta tell you like if you've ever been a really good fist fight, like a good slobber knocker and you had a good time doing it, you know like all fights aren't bad right? And you come out of the other side it was like that's what it felt like banged and bruised and i felt good you know what i mean ajj we're done with that ice name so she just that felt really good like i had been fighting for so long i had no idea that i had the spiritual warfare going inside of me and that i had the that i have the sort of mechanism that would work to allow the power to flow in and when it did i couldn't be held back you know i had no idea about what was in what was coming for me in the fourth step and all that kind of stuff mark said set me up with the directions and i started to write and that's that's where i'll give it to chris and we'll go from there what do you like when do you want to take a break i'll do like another five minutes okay thanks guys yeah we'll break at 11 for 15 minutes but you know what i want to do is is i've never seen anybody do a four-step as well as marty so i just want i just want to preface it a little bit and then when we come back he's gonna he's going to do a little but of whiteboard stuff for us uh and i i guarantee you're going to enjoy it all right so so bill leaving aside the drink question let's look at after the dash a little bit leaving aside the drink question what is going on with us what the heck it what the hack is you know what the hackers does anybody ever ask you what is wrong with you Marty leaving aside to drink ice well what really is wrong and and bill bill gives us a ton of information on what's really wrong with us some of the information he gives us is this he goes selfishness self-centered That we think is the root of our troubles. We are self-will run riot, though we usually don't think so. Various manifestations of self are what have defeated us. And we must be rid of this selfishness, or it will kill us. So he's really, really, he points us right to the problem. and the problem rests in our thinking mind and in our behavior and our attitudes and our belief systems and and the crazy thing was I was so selfish and self-absorbed that if you told me I was selfish I'd have a problem with that but it wasn't the kind of selfish like if I had two dollars I wouldn't give you one It was more like a toxic experience of self-consciousness. I was always wrapped up in scenarios that were going through my head. I felt guilt, shame and remorse about the past. I had anxiety about the future. I was resentful at people that had done me wrong 10 years before. You know, I know what I should do, but if I do it, it's not going to work. So I had that kind of anxiety. I had an emotional condition that was blocking me off from being able to do what I needed to be doing where I neededと be doing it. I was just dodging and weaving all through life. And it was a calamity when I showed up in Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, just like the heavy lift of understanding that on my own unaided will, I cannot separate from alcohol. It's a heavy lift understanding that really my true problem is this self-consciousness and how it manifests in my life. It's very, very difficult for me to get there. what would it look like on me you know in between drinks leaving aside the drink question you know I would be at work and I'd just be thinking and I you know I'd get you know I can't believe those people that did that you know and I can'T believe he said that 10 years ago and then she left me when I needed her most and I never people don't understand and everything is wrong, and that's constantly churning through my head. And if I'm not caught up in that, it's like the anxiety of the future. Yeah, I'm going to go to work tomorrow just because I started the client's house on fire today. My boss is going to be really mad, and he's going to yell at me, and if he yells at me I'm gonna have to hit him, and if I hit him I'm gunna lose my job, and everything's gunna be bad. I mean, these are the thought constructs that are going through my head. How I label that is that is a toxic experience of self-consciousness. And that's what I'm suffering from. And that is what makes life so unbearable. I have to have anesthesia. So I freaking relapse. You understand what I am saying? I can't be that way anymore. There has to be recovery from that toxic experience of self-consciousness. And that is what these steps are about. They're about moving us from self-consciousness to what they describe as God consciousness, the fourth dimension of reality. You know, there's many, many ways they describe it, a new attitude and a new outlook. There's many descriptions in the book Alcoholics and Honest about moving through that psychic change. And if I don't do that, I am a drunk man walking. You know what I mean? The time and the place is going to come. And I'm just going to say to hell with it. And I're not going to have a defense against alcohol again. I must be restored to sanity. I must Be Restored to Sanity. And the first part of that restoration of sanity is what Marty is going to go over when we come back from break. Thanks.