Spiritual Awakening for the Real Alcoholic – Big Book Is Alive Workshop – Part 6 of 7 – Local AA Speakers

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to our seventh installment of the Big Book is Alive workshop. I'm a recovered alcoholic, and my name is Mike Chase, and I'd like to thank you for joining us. And I'm also a recovered alcoholic, and we're going to be talking about how to make the big book come alive. And I am a recovered alcholic, and this is Joe. Our spiritual duty is to put newcomers' hands in God's hands as quickly as possible. We have found this to be the most effective by doing our part to make The Big Book come alive, Speaking of that, as a disclaimer, we're not experts. We're just a couple of recovered alcoholics who really love The Big Books, The Process, and God. However, we have made it our utmost spiritual errand to become as familiar with the history and the facts as we can so that we may transmit only the pure message of God to the next untreated alcoholic. In other words, if we read from the big book, that means that we are reading from what we know to be a divine solution to alcoholism. In other times, we may share an opinion, an observation, or an experience. And we encourage you to investigate the history and the Facts of Alcoholics Anonymous for yourself. if what we do encourages you to do that then we're certainly achieving a goal of ours We hope to educate, challenge and invigorate your current experience with God Tonight we aim to continue with There is a Solution and we always appreciate spiritual consent for allowing God to lead us Passing out highlighters if we had some highlighters to pass out They would be going at this point Please join us for a brief two minute meditation In order to connect to God it and leave all forms of self behind joe why do we do this well basically whenever we're moved to study the big book we like to go into it to separate all forms itself and to really connect to a power greater than ourselves because what we do is important and we're going to go silent for about two minutes we're gonna invite the monks back into the room i heard them out practicing in the hallway again we'll bring them on and matter of fact we got the bell so let's just jump right and we'll see you guys in two minutes. Satsang with Mooji Choir singing. CHOIR SINGS God, thank you for a sense of humor. Dear God, please set aside anything I think you know about myself, about my disease, about the Big Book, the Twelve Steps, the program, the fellowship, and all spiritual terms, especially you, God, so that I may have an open mind and a new experience with all these things. Please help me see the truth. Amen. Thank you, John. Joe, do you want to give a quick tee up where we are tonight and what we've left off in the middle of information and what's going on tonight. Absolutely. We are actually on our solution page, but before we get back to that, we've been involved in this amazing process and quite a journey up to this point. We started off with the forwards to begin with, and we got a bit of a history of Alcoholics Anonymous with that and what AA is set up to do. Then we moved into the doctor's opinion, and we've got a definition of the problem surrounding alcoholism, this physical allergy that separates alcoholics as a distinct entity and different to other drinkers. Then we saw an application of that process in Bill's story, and we looked at the progression of his disease over time, the progression of His drinking and the troubles that it took Him to. And fantastically, after that, we have this chapter which gave us a solution to that which we suffer from and that solution is most definitely god um and we started to learn a little bit about uh this spiritual process which separates alcoholics from the obsession to use and it encourages a spiritual awakening so we're going to pick up on uh and by the way if you guys want to go click back to the web page we're actually uploading the pages that we're using And for reference, we have highlighting, underlining markers and boxes and information that we use so we can make a more investigative situation for you. So feel free to go download that. We'll give you a couple of moments. Okay, quick download. I want you to start on page 24 in the fact box. Let's wrap up what it is to be a real alcoholic. Not a problem drinker, not a heavy drinker. You're not a moderately accidental alcoholic getting into AA by a DWI drinker, but what is your real alcoholic? The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice in drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. We are unable at certain times to bring into consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer do not crowd into the mind to deter us. If these thoughts occur, they are hazy and readily supplanted with the old threadbare idea that this time we shall handle ourselves like other people. Green underlined there is the complete failure of the kind of defense that keeps one from putting his hand on a hot stove. We are incapable to bring with sufficient force the memory of suffering to prevent us from picking up that drink. So all the information we have whether it be self-knowledge or fear, at a certain point in time to a mental blank spot or just anger we will pick up as an untreated alcoholic. We're on that collision course with the first drink. The alcoholic may say to himself in the most casual way, it won't burn me this time, so here's how. Or perhaps he doesn't think at all. How often have some of us begun to drink in this nonchalant way and after the third or fourth pounded on the bar and said to ourselves, for God's sake, how did I ever get started again? Only to have that thought supplanted by, well, I'll stop with a sixth drink or what's the use anyhow this is where we get into the unmanageability the complete inability to manage decision whether we are stone cold sober or have the phenomenon of craving running through us uncontrollably a real alcoholic is not going to be able to prevent drinking now certain moments of grace where god comes in and gives us some time to get reconnected to god but as an untreated alcoholic which most of us are when we come to the rooms expecting somebody to beable to not pick up or call me if you feel like getting drunk is a pretty silly thing to even off-ask somebody to do. Absolutely, that would imply that the untreated person has the power of choice to choose to do those things instead of go to the bar. When this sort of thinking is fully established in an individual's alcoholic tendency, i.e., a real alcoholic, green underline, he has probably placed himself beyond human aid and unless locked up, may die or go permanently insane. These stark and ugly facts have been confirmed by legions of alcoholics throughout history. But for the grace of God, there would be many thousands more convincing demonstrations. So many want to stop but can't. Sounds pretty dire bleak for the real alcoholic, doesn't it? Absolutely. And in that lies the necessity of what we're dealing with here. But that's paralleled with a very hopeful paragraph here. and we've got some italics to set us up for this. Ooh, I love italics. Absolutely. There is a solution. Almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation. But we saw that it really worked in others and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it. Green underlined, when, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved. I.e., we see someone sick and suffering in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous that's not getting any attention, being left alone because he's like a chronic relapser. Perhaps one of us could go up and offer that person a solution instead of the non-alcoholic treatment is probably getting into a lot of the middle of the road. I want to jump really quick to page XVI and forward to the second edition. We just talked about the solution, and we want to go back to where the Oxford group actually had it. It's also been greatly helped by the late Dr. William Lee Silkworth, a New York specialist in alcoholism who now accounts as no less than a medical saint by AA members. If you go down a little bit farther, it says, we're talking about Bill W. here, he was convinced of the need for moral inventory, confession of personality defects, restitution to those harmed, helpfulness to others, and the necessity of belief in independence upon God. That's our solution. So, in other words, if we hadn't studied the Roman numerals, this would be the first time we would be reading about this. Once again, old information resurfacing, getting given to us in a different light to pound home the fact that there is a solution and it's God-based. When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. Let's not complicate this. Follow directions in the book, stick to what the book says and we will have a simple kit of spiritual tool laid at your feet. This is a cool gift. We have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence of which we shall never, not ever dream. Once again, there's that aggressive promise of recovery We rocketed, not slowly, casually over time. But when the process is fully in place and you're connecting with God, you are rocketed to a fourth dimension, which is amazing. And this next paragraph is extremely important. It's definitely in a box. This is the fact solution box. Can I read this one? Absolutely. Please. The whole thing is yellow. And this part is underlined. The great fact is just this, and nothing less, that we have had a deep and effective spiritual experience which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life, toward our fellows, and toward God's universe underlying. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do for ourselves. This is the first time in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous where they were actually ooh, we weren't really clear cut with something that we had originally put in the book. They had left it sort of for misinterpretation. If you notice there's a little asterisk there which we circled in blue and then down at the bottom of the page it says fully explained appendix 2 page 567. This is where what happened is a lot of guys were getting sober up there and they were getting confused because they had not had that white lie experience that Bill was talking about and mentioned a few times in the books so we're going to go into the actual reading of the spiritual experience to know what it is because if what we're shooting for is a spiritual experience i guess it's sort of important to know one look what one looks like because if you're having one it's nice to know you're having it and if you haven't had one well it's Nice to Know What You're Going to Get and we're going to find there's a couple of different ones and there's some great news in here and uh you know i've been to a lot of meetings where they just blow past that italics or that little asterisk and don't even pay attention to it, well we follow directions in the book and that one tells us to specifically go read it so we're going to have Joe read. There's a lot of highlighting underlying some really good information here. I want you guys to hopefully be able to go check that out on the webpage. And please join us on page 567 where we further explain this term spiritual experience Joe? The terms spiritual experience and spiritual awakening are used many times in this book, which upon careful reading shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms. Yes, it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes or religious experiences must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Happily for everyone, these conclusions are erroneous. In the first few chapters, a number of sudden revolutionary changes are described. Though it was not our intention to create such an impression, many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover, they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming God-consciousness, followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of alcoholics such transformations though frequent are by no means the rule most of our experiences are what the psychologist william james calls the educational variety because it develops slowly over a period of time quite late quite often friends of the newcomer are aware of the difference long before he is himself this is probably one of my most favorite sentences in the whole book green underline don't read this i love your back he finally realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life in his reactions like in my reaction to like this is what the big changes happen to me and such change could hardly have been brought about by himself what often takes place in here's a hint here a few months could seldom be accomplished by years of self-discipline with few exceptions our members find they have tapped an unsuspecting inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a power greater than themselves. Most of us think this awareness of a Power Greater Than Ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it God Consciousness. Most emphatically, we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience, Green, can recover, provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance and belligerent denial. We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program. Willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery, but these are indispensable. Just in case you didn't catch it, this part should probably be underlined. Willingess, honesty and open mindedness are essentials of recover, but these aren't indispensable. And we've got a cool little quote here from Herbert Spencer. And Herbert says, There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation. And in our books we have what if in quotations. Let's not shut our mind out to any spiritual concept. for gosh sakes we're just coming out of a death spiral this is no time to be setting boundaries you know it's like never never put boundaries on the mountain we drank so let's not put boundaries on the amount of god we're going to possibly bump into here right so that's going to give us a little bit of spiritual insight into now what we're gonna continue to study back on page 25 so let me read that solution box again so now that we have an idea of what a spiritual experience looks like the many varieties, the different ways that they manifest themselves. Let's do that fact solution box one more time. The great fact is just this and nothing less that we have had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life toward our fellows and toward God's universe underlined the central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves. Now, this is written with such conviction and such passion that you can't fault this group of near to 100 recovered alcoholics of speaking about this which they're certain about. That's what I was just going to say. When these guys are talking about the first 67, 72, 100 with family members and what not. This is the fact of their lives that they have a relationship with God and that's the brass ring of recovery developing and nurturing a relationship with God so we can continue on with life green underline next paragraph by the way I'm page 25 in case you guys get back there green under line, if you are seriously alcoholic as we were, we believe there's no middle of the road solution as a matter of fact it's pretty dangerous in the middle of alcoholics, you never know you're going to get run over by a beer truck or something absolutely We are in a position where life is becoming impossible. And we have passed through the region where there is no return through human aid, green. We had but two alternatives. Mind you, two alternatives, it's only two questions. And we can wrap that up, can't we? Yellow underline, first question, Joe. One was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could, slash. and the other to accept spiritual help. This we did because we honestly wanted to and were willing to make the effort. So, the first part about that question, I've got a little A up in the corner and down at the bottom where I'm going to have you write a word after I read it. A, one was to go on to the bitter end, blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best as we could. And I'm gonna have you right A on the bottom that says death, misery, destruction. and the second heart is B and the other is to accept spiritual health this we did because we honestly wanted to and were willing to make an effort that's going to be which is going to be happy, joyous and free a life of meaning isn't it amazing, you know, alcoholics are the only crowd where we can present them with slow painful death or happy, joyous, and free and with where we're at we'll be like, oh what else you got? We think about it is it going to me quick it's going to be high end or low end seriously, it's like we're dying and that's the cool thing about this part of the book you know, we're actually talking we're helping people decide whether you're a real alcoholic or not and if you're really an alcoholic you have one or two solutions absolutely so now we're going to get into our first information of how we stumbled upon the God concept in Alcoholics Anonymous you know a lot of people are sort of suspicious of AlcoholicsAnonymous' supposed obsession with God and where it came from and what's its main intention to be. You know, it's not like we intended to do this. We stumbled across the solution. Just a couple of situations that happened to happen that led us to the solution and we're going to find out about Roland Hazard who was just an extremely wealthy, comes from a family that apparently had invented the cotton gin owned half of New York City and they have this little son who was just a hopeless alcoholic. The greatest rehabs social therapeutic blah blah stuff was unable to get him sober sort of similar the stuff we get in rehabs today that works with problem heavy drinkers you know and really doesn't recover real alcoholics it helps us you know i'm not saying rehabs aren't bad they're actually they're not good they they just don't have the solution that we need so we're going to find out how we originally started to stumble on the god solution and if you pay attention you can clearly see God's hand in this process as it unfolds. It's quite amazing. So, page 26. A certain American businessman had ability, good sense, and high character. Now, I love how Bill introduces people. He builds them up to be these wonderful people and that's how he shoots them down. For years, he had floundered from one sanitarium to another. He had consulted the best-known American psychiatrist and he'd gone to Europe, placing him in the care of a celebrated physician, the psychiatrist Dr. Hume. who prescribed for him. Though experience had made Rowland skeptical, he finished his treatment with the unusual confidence that his physical and mental condition were unusually good. I felt like that every time I came out of rehab. Above all, he believed he had acquired such a profound knowledge of the inner workings of his mind and its in-spring triggers that relapse was unthinkable. We come out of rehabilitation, you know, Captain Recovery. We know everything. We've got our fellowship community set up. I've got my plan of action if I start feeling uncomfortable. And we do come out with that sense of victory. I know so much about this right now that it's impossible for me to relapse. But of course, knowing that you're insane doesn't stop you from being insane. And this is the cool thing is this is where Joe's got his PhD as in rehab. This guy has He spent a lot of time graduating from some of the greatest rehabs. And the great thing, though, he was never really given quote-unquote real AA. He was given a lot pseudo middle-of-the-road therapeutic share at meetings, and it almost killed him until we stumbled across each other and we both fell in love with this book. Very true. So let's get back to his story. This is in green, by the way. Nevertheless, Roland was drunk in a short time. more baffling still he could give himself no satisfactory explanation for his fault now this wasn't some 30 day government sponsor this was he had actually gone to Europe hoping to study or get treated by Sigmund Freud who was apparently on a quote unquote vacation at the time so when they got there he's like I'm here to see Sigmud and they said oh my god he's not here he's gone away again so it's sort of a second attempt let's go send him over to Carl Jung maybe he can work with him young was actually Roland's third choice and young was a student of Sigmund Freud the difference between Sigmud Freud and Carl Jung is that Sigmun Freud did not believe that spirituality he didn't believe in it at all and Jung accepted spirituality as a phenomena so imagine if Roland Hazard let's say Sigmut Freud was in and he actually fulfilled his commitment to be treated under Sigmunt Freud imagine what AA might look like you could walk into at just any meeting of AA and you'd sit down and they'd say, so does anybody here have a problem that we'd like to discuss? Or does anybody want to share about their day? Or does somebody have some issue that if they don't talk about, oh, gee, isn't that sort of what's happened to Alcoholics Anonymous today? The thing that was not really supposed to happen, we've turned into the thing through that article in The Grapevine in the 1960s that opened up open discussion and took recovery in AlcoholicsAnonymous from studying the big book and God and working one-on-one with each other through this therapeutic stuff we have going on today really wasn't supposed to happen. We were supposed to follow the teachings of Carl Jung, which is God and spirituality and unselfishness and service to others would be the solution. As recovered members of Alcoholics Anonymous, let's get back to the fellowship when it resembled the program around Forward 1 and 2. Roland Hazard was in treatment with Dr. Jung for a year So, listen, he had been a year with Young, you know? And he was on this train ride going to go celebrate back down with his buddies down in the south of France or someplace like that. And he Was drinking before the train apparently got too far away and he was just confounded. So, you imagine you just spent boatloads of money with one of the greatest psychiatrists in the world and you go back to his office and you're like, I hope I have some warranty here, right? So what did he do? He returned to this doctor whom he admired and asked him point-blank why he could not recover. Green underlined, He wished above all things to regain self-control. He seemed quite rational and well-balanced with respect to other problems. Yet, green underlined. Let's relate to this. Yet he had no control over alcohol. Why was this? This is where we start seeing whether different areas of information are going to come together eventually. Dr. Silke knew about the phenomenon of craving the physical aspect whereas Carl or Dr. Young knew about the spiritual malady part and eventually they came together and that's when we got our solution so he goes back to the doctor who he just loved and he begged the doctor to tell him the whole truth and he got it in the doctor's opinion he was utterly hopeless he could never regain his position in society and would have to be placed under lock and key or hire a bodyguard if he expected to live long. Wow, green underline. That was the great physician's opinion. He had just left a few days before on top of the world. I've beat this. I'm on my game. And he comes back and he's just, you know, slapping around with information that just drops him back down to the bottom of the heap again. And with that comes great humility. But this man still lives and is a free man. He does not need a bodyguard, nor is he confined. Now, that just didn't happen boopity-boop out of nowhere, some magical spell that appeared on Earth. He actually was able to get associated with the Oxford Group, which was really active in Europe in those times. And that's where he got his solution, where Dr. Bob got his resolution, and Bill W. got his solutions. I'm not really sure how he got from there, from Dr. Young's to the Oxford group, but thank God he did. He can go anywhere on this Earth where other free men may go without disaster. Yellow under lighted, provided he remained willing to maintain a certain simple attitude. And knowing that he was an Oxford group member and the importance of the four absolutes, I think that simple attitude is by living by the four absolutes as a guiding force in your life. Using that as your boundaries and your goals to achieve a better relationship with God. Some of our alcoholic readers may think they can do without spiritual help. Let us tell you the rest of the conversation our friend had with his doctor. perfectly normal question. I'm not really sure. Can't I just do it on my own? So, this is in green and this is from the doctor. You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I have never seen a single case recover where the state of mind exists that it doesn't you. Our friend felt as though the gates of hell closed on him with a clang. That was fact. That was fat. He said to the doctor, Is there no exception? Let me hear a little accent here. I'm doing a great English accent. And we've got God written next to that because this is going to become our exception, our solution. So he says to the doctor, Is there no exception? Yes, replied the doctor. There is. Exceptions to cases such as yours have been occurring since early times. And his situation is he's a chronic, untreatable alcoholic that pseudo-psychological, nutritional, life skills therapy does not help him in recovery. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. Now remember what a spiritual experience is. That's a complete shift in attitudes, ideas, and beliefs. And next to spiritual experiences, I've got solution written in red because that is what breaks the obsession of the mind which keeps us from stone-cold sober, like Roland just did, picking up a drink and winding up in the cycle again. If normal everyday casual mental psychological will help a non-alcoholic, it won't help us. To me these occurrences are phenomena. Green. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Underline. ideas, emotions and attitudes which for once the guiding force of the lives of these men, green underlined are suddenly cast to one side in a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them hold up, where's that you're doing a tic overnight so you can't get well overnight not hearing that in this hour absolutely, this is what a spiritual experience, spiritual awakening sounds like, feels like and how it materializes among us now this is from the doctor in fact I've been trying to produce such an emotional rearrangement within you pay attention with many of the individuals the methods which I employed are successful i.e. a lot of his patients were problem heavy drinkers and the alcoholic ones the pesky, just those chronic relapsers his stuff wasn't really working with them either green but I have never been successful with an alcoholic of your description? First thing that comes to my mind is like, well, Doc, you could have told me that a year ago. Seriously, right? But I've never been successful with an alcoholic of your description. Hopelessness, you know? Then after that, apparently he ended up going to the Oxford group to find a solution. We see that little asterisk, that fabulous little aterisk and it says to the bottom for amplification, let's go read Appendix 2 page 567 we'll see you there we're going to go read that again because if we're talking about spiritual experience and Phil doesn't do this because oops we might have forgotten to read it it's extremely important that we read this to know what we're getting if this whole 12 step process alcoholics anonymous is about having a spiritual experience getting reconnected to God we darn well better know what one is so can I use this one absolutely the term spiritual experience and spiritual awakening are used many times in this book, which, green underlined, upon careful reading shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms. Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes or religious experiences must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals happily for everyone this conclusion is erroneous it doesn't have to be the white light we have two types of spiritual experience we have the white light experience the spiritual experience which sounds like ahhh you know I had one in 1984 the white life experience the mountaintop just a life changing event and then we've got the educational variety which sort of sounds like oh yeah oh that that's what that is lots of little things in the first few chapters a number of sudden revolutionary changes are described though it was not our intention to create such an impression, many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming God consciousness followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook you can't imagine assuming something yellow underline among our rapidly growing fellowship of thousands of alcoholics such transformations, though frequent, are by no means the rule. Most of our experiences are what the psychologist William James calls the educational variety because they develop slowly over a period of time. Quite often friends of the newcomer are aware of the difference long before he is himself. You know you walk in the room, you haven't seen your family for a few months, you've bumped into somebody you haven'T seen for like a while and they just look at you and they just don't get it. There's something fantastically different about you. Green, underline. He finally realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life. He finally realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life. That such a change could hardly have been brought about by himself alone. What often takes place in timeline a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline. Get to work, work the steps, get connected to God. With few exceptions, our members finally have tapped an unsuspected inner resource which they presently identify with their own conception of a power greater than themselves. Yellow underline. Take it away, Joe. Most of us think this awareness of a powerful power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience. Our more religious members call it God Consciousness. Can we just take a moment and do a God thing? Absolutely. Let's do it. I love that never get enough God do we um basically that's the thing we do in our family it's sort of like a mini meditation it's a quick reconnect to God it's get reset believe me I get whacked every once in a while this gets me back in line I probably should have done this a couple pages ago most emphatically wish to say that any alcoholic capable i like this capable of honestly facing his problems in light of our experience can recover provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts he can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial he can Only Be Defeated By An Attitude Of Intolerance Or Belligerent Denial so you have somebody who's having a little bit of problem getting sober not getting it perhaps that has something to do with and how many people never probably read this they see the little asterisk and go like I gotta finish this I can tell my sponsor I finished the book that's why I love studying the book we don't let this stuff fall through the cracks absolutely we find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program which they went to great lengths to make it palatable to all denominations as many religious non-religious people It's just open to everyone. That's one of the greatest manifestations of this program. Underline, willingness, honesty, and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery. But these are indispensable. You must have them. And what does our old friend Herbert Spencer have to say? There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot help fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is? Contempt prior to investigation. Oh, come on. An alcoholic with that attitude? Boy, John Barleycourt will get you bad-banded. Absolutely. A couple of, you know, if you've been trying to quit and you've had no success for years and you come into these rooms and you're willing to do whatever it takes. Once again, the theme of this bottom of the page is in quotations, what if? What's it going to hurt? Try some open-mindedness. Let's get connected to God. So let's jump back to the page. Back to page 27. 27, let me find that. I found it. And just to recap, we're back at this place where Dr. Young says, you know, with many individuals, hard drinkers, non-alcoholics who haven't lost the power of choice, the methods which I employ are successful. Which really frustrates the giddles out of us because we're in rehab with these guys that have as many, if not worse, war stories than us and the junkie pride, you know how we get in there, and they're able to get out and come to the same halfway house and they are not doing the AA stuff well, they are going to meetings they are drinking our coffee they are hitting on our girls but they are NOT getting into the prayer meditations they are doing alright they are pretty happy so you try that route I try that rout and it's miserable I'm in an AA jail the stuff that works for non-alcoholics will not work on a real alcoholic And it will lead you to be one of those chronic alcoholics or chronic relapsers until you find somebody with a big book and solution. But I've never been successful with an alcoholic, of your description. About time you told me. Right, exactly. So upon hearing this, our friend Roland Hazard, in case you forgot who we're talking about, was somewhat relieved for he reflected after all he was a good church member. Oops. Green. This hope, however, was destroyed by the doctors telling him that while his religious convictions were very good, in his case, underlined, they did not spell the necessary vital spiritual experience. The Oxford group had this special fundamentalist extreme evangelical turn your life over to Christianity and it was just this intense thing. It's not the casual going to church and putting money in the basket which Roland was talking about. He says, I'm a good church member, you know, I give good money and I pray. You need a vital spiritual experience and you really just can't get that. If that was the case, there probably wouldn't be any alcoholic priest or minister, you know? And this is enlarging upon what we learned when Eddie was carrying that message to Bill and he changed the message from religious to spiritual and that was when Bill had a profound experience of that moment. In the bottom, I have written, if church would have worked, church would've worked. Do the work of Alcoholics Anonymous and then become a good church member and you will have a life beyond your wildest dreams. Or don't become a big church member and have a wife because there's a God in your life. Page 28. Here is a terrible dilemma in which our friend found himself when he had the extraordinary experience... I love the extraordinary experiences. And we're talking about the extraordinary experienced was his stumbling into the Oxford Group, which, as we have already told you, made him a free man. Now here comes a box. This is called a New Life Box. This has got some green and some underlying. So if you guys want to turn to the web page and see what this page looks like, you'll get a smile out of it. Read this one, please. We, in our turn, sought the same escape with all the desperation of drowning men. What seemed at first a flimsy read had proved to be the loving and powerful hand of God. a new life has been given us or if you prefer a design for living that really works once again a design for living that really works the distinguished American psychologist let's not this is some good stuff let's examine this box a little bit we in our turn sought the same escape with all the desperation of a drowning man you're an alcoholic you've been trying to quit drinking unsuccessful you're suicidal in and out of rehab nothing's worked and somebody comes across with a solution found in the big book and they're not afraid to talk about God because God is the solution but seeing the first of flims you read has proved to be a loving and powerful hand of God they didn't know what they were working with at this time then it was God inspired but it wasn't till I put this book together they actually were able to see this coming together and what it was going to be and you can see the language getting again very passionate around that concept read that sentence what seemed at first a flimsy read has proved to be the loving and powerful hand of god a new life has been given us or if you prefer a design for living that really works i was always looking for the directions on how to live i didn't know everything i had learned growing up didn't seem to fit and qualify and work for me i was always making the bad mistakes it's like i used to kid by saying you know if i only had an owner's perhaps i wouldn't be such a mess guess what god gave me an owner manual it's called the book of alcoholics anonymous and toss in some oxford group the four absolutes and boy diddly-doo are you going to be a happy little buckaroo so let's hear about william james uh in his book varieties of religious experience which is supposedly one of the most painfully difficult books to read the letters are like really really tiny and a giant and you really got to be like locked up to want to read this had nothing else to do but it has some great information and bill w actually was capable of reading it indicates a multitude of ways in which men have discovered god we have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired and when When I get to this point and I'm talking to my guide, I sort of give the analogy or the example that my job is to get you just sitting down at a coffee table with a conversation with God. Where do you go with that? What direction do you take that? Whether spiritual, religious, any way it's your relationship, go and run with it. The book has got one thing intended and one thing at all to just get you started on that relationship with God If what we have learned and felt and seen means anything at all, It means that all of us, whatever our race, creed, or color, are the children of a living creator with whom we may form a relationship upon simple and understandable terms. Now this is green and underlined and you'll understand once Joe reads it. As soon as we are willing and honest enough to try. Seriously, Joe, foxhole prayers. Was there any sincerity and honesty? Well, yeah, not getting arrested and not getting caught. But as soon as we got our gift or got through it, I was like, yeah. I'll get back to you on that one, buckaroo. You know, it wasn't until that last time that I dropped to my knees out in the parking lot of Panera Bread with two guys that I met and I begged God, you know, this is after my breakdown in the group where I just, you know... I need help. Put you... This non-alcoholic treatment you guys are giving me, you know? The don't drink between meetings with the plug in the jug if you want to. If you don't want to drink, you don' have to drink. It was killing me and these guys took me out back afterwards immediately. God desperately wants a relationship with all of us, and as soon as he can see that we desperately want the same thing from an honest standpoint, we commence to get results. And I'm going to take that one step. It's not him saying that we honestly want it. It's like, it's us honestly doing it. That was my problem. Actually, he's always been waiting there. God has always been there. Just a matter, am I really willing to follow through it this way? So those having religious affiliations affiliations will find nothing disturbing to their beliefs or ceremonies. There is no friction among us over such matters. It's like I have so many friends that are with all types of spiritual and religious events, and I just love sitting down and learning from them. I can't wait until I go to some temples and some mosques and experience other people's spiritual and religious experiences. This is what it's all about. We think it no concern of ours what religious bodies our members identify themselves with as individuals. so when you're like introducing yourself in a room of Alcoholics Anonymous you know and you have to introduce yourself however you do don't be doing you know a tagline for your favorite spiritual you know guru or your favorite prophet this is not the time to be chasing other people out with your brand of spirituality or religion we got these little guys that are just little shaky uncomfortable with the rooms in the first place and here we are you know praising our spirit our one one time good chance I'm going to chase somebody away from me they'll be back but do we really want to risk it? This should be an entirely personal affair which each one decides for himself in the light of paused associations or his present choice. Green. Not all of us join religious bodies, but most of us favor such membership. You know, my sponsor today, a few years back, I heard him talking about why don't you go check out your childhood church as an adult and make a decision whether you want to go or not because I wasn't going back to my church as childhood based on decisions of a seven or eight year old and the miscommunications and the missed ideas. And I've gone back and it's the greatest things that ever happened to me. I was able to start a relationship based from an adult. Isn't that interesting? In the following chapter, there appears an explanation of alcoholism as we understand it. Then a chapter addressed to the agnostic. Many who were once in this class are now among our members. Yeah, I got it. I always throw this in here. Every morning I wake just a tad bit agnostic because the information and knowledge and feeling I had to God yesterday was going to have to be start all over again today. So what I thought I believed yesterday is going to be able to change today. So hey, be an agnóstic a little bit. It's not that bad. Surprisingly enough, we find such convictions no great obstacle to a spiritual experience. Okay, this is going to get some people a little uncomfortable but this is green underlined I got sparkles on either side Joe would you read this with your greatest accent further on clear cut directions are given showing how we recovered further on clear cut directions are given showing how we have recovered the solution is in the book the directions are in the books if you want what they have which is what Joe a solution and a relationship with God the God of your own understanding If you just don't want to drink it one day at a time and be in AA jail and being miserable, go for it, dude. But if you want to have a life that's happy, joyous, and free, we have specific directions to get you reconnected to God. These are followed by 42 personal experiences. Imagine your Indian Joe living in Broken Town, New Mexico. The only guy in town who's got sober. That's why we've got the stories in the back. He's gotten sober. What is it like for other people who are on the same path? gives us an opportunity to grow in understanding what it is to be recovered and have a recovered lifestyle. Remember, this book came out. There wasn't 762 meetings in Broward County like we have today. There would be lucky if you could find five meetings in the state of, well, two meetings in Florida. So the book was a meeting. Each individual in the personal stories describes in his own language and from his own point of view, I love this line green and underlined, the way he established his relationship with God. You know, you go out and apply for a credit card. They give it to you based on some information. But after you put effort and proof and get some history, that's how you establish a relationship with your credit card company. You develop your relationship with God and then after a while, that relationship is established. Our job is just to get you started. These give a fair cross-section of our membership and a clear-cut idea of what has actually happened in their lives. We hope no one will consider these self-revealing accounts in bad taste. Our hope is that many alcoholic men and women, desperately in need, will see these pages and we believe it is only by fully disclosing ourselves and our problems that they will be persuaded to say, yes, I am one of them too, I must have this thing. I love the way that this ends. Yes, I'm one of him too, he must have his thing. You know, the whole part of sitting down in a big book sponsorship, one alcoholic working with another, talking, developing that relationship, we're starting, or, you know, the little guy you're working with is starting to like, yeah, I think I'm really one of these guys. You know? We come in here and, yeah, we're alcoholic, but subconsciously and deep down we're not really sure about it. And the whole concept of what this, you now, what the AA program of solution is is also very confusing to these people. We assume that they know what this is all about where in actuality, if you've been going to Contemporary Alcoholics Anonymous or not, you see multitude ideas of what recovery and the program is that sometimes don't at all look like we offer in the book. Joe, I used to see Joe at our old home group, you know? I used To think he was a recovering heroin addict because he kept nodding off. Little did I find out that open discussion meetings were boring him to tears and also almost killed him a few times. Lack of solution. Lack Of Solution. So this is why I always ask my guys, if we want to continue on once again, we finish this chapter, would you like to continue on this course of recovery? And they say, yeah. I say, look, give me skin. Skin in the game. Give me that. So that's called skin in the gain. Next week, we're going to be getting into more about alcoholism, which we like to call the chapter on relapse or, once again., untreated alcoholism. Just in case you're not entirely convinced, here's some more information for you. I like to called it the closing. When you go by a car, you got that really friendly guy out in the parking lot who's just got not much brain but just happy joy it's fun to talk to and then you get a certain sight on the car you want and then he takes you into the office and he sits you down at the table and all of a sudden the bulldog comes in this guy his job is to get you to sign and give me some money that's what moral about alcoholism it's going to kill any questions you have whether you're a real alcoholic or not and the great thing about it it's gonna call the herd the non-alcoholics are gonna find I'm not a real alcoholic I should go try something else get more involved in the church recovery try some of those church recovery programs get a life coach, get out of my life but if I'm not a real alcoholic I probably shouldn't be in here I might get in the way of somebody who really needs the solution and we're going to look at people from a teacher's standpoint being able to qualify our students and try and really assess what we're dealing with so you go to the webpage you will find page 25 to page 29 highlighted, underlined feel free to send us some emails if you've got any ideas of how we can modify that we'd love to hear information from you guys next podcast next week we're going to be doing more about alcoholism one of my favorite chapters I think we should probably end this with a moment of silence and we'll take it out with the fog light prayer let's just take a moment thank you guys for joining us tonight by the way God bless you let's take a minute and just get relaxed and reconnected God let your love shine through me like a fog light for those who are lost sick and dying can find your love through me Amen Go in peace God bless you guys Thank you so much