Theory and Experience – Retreat/Workshop – Part 1 of 4 – Rick

My name's Rick. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Rick. What I'd like to do before we start is I just want to read a few sentences from the foreword to the first edition. It doesn't matter if you follow it or not, I'm not going to read much of it. It says this is the forewords as it appeared in the first printing of the first addition in 1939. So this is what they wanted to tell us. It says, we of Alcoholics Anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. We've recovered. We're not recovering. We recovered from, we're no longer seemingly hopeless. Now, here's the point. to show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. So that's why they wrote this. They're going to show us precisely how they have recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. Okay, so we're going go through this line by line and through chapter 5, which will begin on page 58, and we're gonna try and see what they wrote. It's not important to find out what Bob or Rick think, okay? What we're going to do is try and get at what they wrote and what they're trying to tell us. Now, none of this is written from theory. This is all written from their collective experiences of what worked, the first hundred people, okay. They hammered out these ideas over the first probably three years of being together, and I just want to say something about the difference between theory and experience because it's really paramount. Give me an example. I was watching a video years ago when I first came into the program of a guy, his name was Arthur Young, and he had invented the helicopter. And he was talking about they had theories of how the helicopter should fly. He was an inventor. He Was an old man when this was aired. He was probably in his mid-80s or so when this happened. And he Was being interviewed and he said they had theories of how the helicopter should fly and this was typical when they would have an invention he said their theories were always based in logic okay so then they would take and build a model of the theory and fly it to see if it worked the way they thought it would he said often the model didn't obey their theories in other words it didn't work the way they thought but they didn't say that the experience was wrong and their theories were right they adapted their theories to the experience now any reasonable mind would do that wouldn't it not me you know what i was doing all my life i was trying to get the world to adapt to my theories see and i was pushing and shoving and trying to force solutions and things to problems and it wasn't working and that's literally how i ended up in alcoholics anonymous in the first place so what we're going to look at is their experiences not the theories much of what we are going to read may not make sense but i can guarantee you one thing if you'll try this if you haven't done it if you will take the action as we're go through this process in the next couple days here tonight and tomorrow you'll have your own experience it will induce the experience and that's what we're trying for here is trying to have the experience i've had lots of theories that made sense to me and were very logical but they didn't work and when i got sober i thought well i just gotta work it harder then i poured more energy into working something that wasn't working and guess what it got worse never did it occur to me to let go why because it made sense to me see and that's the problem that i faced this logical mind i couldn't seem to get out of my logical mind that's this is the problem i had trying to grasp an idea of god also it just eluded me i had to start to let the experience teach me not my theories so uh i think that's a big deal when we read the beginning of that uh uh it illustrates a number of things so So that's what we're looking for. What do you think? Well, I had some pretty good theories about what we are told culturally that if you have a lot of money and if you have a nice house and have a Mercedes and if your wife is a little bit older and if she has a trophy girlfriend who is a lot younger and really pretty and you'll have a big screen TV and you can sit in your house and just be as happy as can be. And you know what? I did that. It was the most miserable time I've ever had in my life. I hated everything couldn't stand it but I'm happy to say that because of this I have a lot less money I don't have a Mercedes anymore I don' t have the house anymore and my girlfriend is happily married to somebody else and my life is wonderful my life was wonderful that stuff just did not work see, I like to kid Bob he got to the top of the ladder and found out it was against the wrong wall and it's just the the experience that i have had with this material there's a lot of material in the book and i strongly urge you to read from the beginning of the book about how we got here and what this seemingly hopeless state of mind and body is all about but i have found i started to i went to a couple of workshops rick's been doing these longer than i have and i went to a couple of work shops that he was doing with another gentleman and i started to get a little bit of an inkling and how this happened i don't know but he asked me if i would do one it's about 10 years ago asked me if i'd sit in because the other guy couldn't make it and i had an opportunity to sit in and do this stuff now i was thinking about it i was going to the workshop and i was thinkin about all these great things that we talked about here and uh i finally when when i was asked to participate i thought well i haven't really been writing anything down i just been sort of thinking about it a lot and uh theory theory about it and if i'm going to sit up in front and tell people to write maybe i should write something before i start telling other people to write so i wrote some inventory and i got to tell you wham i've had that experience ever since it's just and it's we were talking earlier about i'm somewhat of a nicer fellow than i used to be i don't know if that's true or not but whatever it is this my life is is here and inventory is so so so important the reason we're ranting about the fourth step is because inventory is so important yeah and bob is kind of a different sort of guy he was uh i'll tell you something that's kind of interesting about him he was he came into his first aa meeting at his first aaa meeting bob got a medallion for 23 years sober he was an instant old-timer first amy you've been sober for 23 that was the experience he was talking about how he had achieved all kinds of things and was unhappy i was a dry drunk for 23 years i had an experience that caused me to stop drinking and the compulsion to drink was removed and I thought AA was where you guys went because you wanted to learn how to not drink anymore and I was not drinking anymore so I didn't bother to come to AA 23 years later I followed my son to a meeting, he was getting a medallion I followed him to a meet and I met Lenny who's been my sponsor for the last 17 years and he dragged me around with some stuff and I noticed that as I'm going around trying to be helpful to other people I'm feeling a little better and life's getting a little bit better and I'm not so concerned about having a lot of money anymore, and one thing led to another, and here we are. But I owe it to this. Absolutely owe it for this. So why don't we... And here, I'd like to say that if you have some questions, I would say ask them. Let's get some clarity on what the material is saying. If you're confused or we're talking, we're going to do this slowly, and we've done this long enough So we've got some pretty good ideas of where the questions are, and we'll cover it fairly well. But if you've got Some Questions You Want to Ask, ask them. What I would like to not do is argue about whether the book is accurate, okay? Because that's really counterproductive. I've been doing this a long time at the Union Gospel Mission in St. Paul, and these guys, the treatment program, and they used to gang up on me 20 years ago. Oh, yeah. I'm telling you, they'd be arguing about whether the ideas were accurate or not. It's really counterproductive to do that. Let's make an assumption here that these guys who wrote this book knew what they were talking about. Well, it's a very simple reason why it's accurate, because it's their experience. They're writing down what happened to them, so there's no conjecture here. I'm just simply saying when they wrote the book, they're telling us what happened to them. Okay? But I encourage you to ask if you want to get some clarity on something. It's really, I think, extremely important to get clear about what they're talking about here and not... But we'll cover it pretty well. So page 58. Does anybody need a book, by the way? I've got a few books up here if you wanna... Here. Yeah, it's very helpful to follow along with the reading. Okay, let's take a look on page 58, chapter 5. is titled How It Works, so this is how it works. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. You know, Bill was asked by Chuck C why they wrote rarely instead of never have we see a person fail. It came out in Chuck's book A New Pair of Glasses or maybe one of his talks I think maybe both but Chuck said that he asked him that question why don't you write never and bill told him there's always some drunk who'll prove you wrong if you say never i'm going to do everything you did and failed just to prove you're wrong now isn't that insane i'm gonna do everything uaa guys say because you say never will a guy fail i'll do it and fail just to approve you wrong and that was an actual experience apparently that he had so they wrote rarely so we could even bring that lunatic in No, it's true. We have a guy in our home group who did exactly that, and he talked about it after about five years of hanging around and being an AA, and, of course, it worked. He came in with resentments against his family. Against his mother and his brother. And he knew he was going to do exactly what AA said to do, and he was gonna fail. He knew it wasn't gonna work. He heard us talking about inventory a lot in our group, and he says, they ain't gonna works for me. So then he decided to try it just to prove that it wouldn't work because he had this case built and it was airtight, see, against him. And he wrote it, and it actually worked. It worked, and he didn't want it to work. So that's how effective this is if you'll try it. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves okay this this this was a point where I made some mistakes I I heard this as those who don't recover men and Women Who Are Constitutionally Incapable of Being Honest With Themselves you know how I heard that honest with everybody else okay and then I set out to become rigorously rigidly honest with everybody else and I stopped stealing because I'd been a thief I stopped lying so what are we talking about what they're talking about here as you get into this is you'll see it we're talking self-deception how I lie to myself now I if you'd have said this to me early on I said you're crazy I don't lie to my self I knew I was dishonest with others but I certainly tell myself the truth see I believe that with all my being self-deception now you might say well I don't have self-perception and I'd say how do you know well how do You Know isn't self-Deception the guy who's got it doesn't know he's got It you don't know you got it till you get past it and then look back on us have you ever been wrong when you were sure you were right I'll give you an example I was drinking with a guy in my living room when I was about 18 19 years old just me and And we got drunk that night, and I just met him that day. And the next morning, he's gone, and my money's gone. Stole my money. So I called up people who I thought knew him, found out he was just an acquaintance. He just kind of blew in and blew out, see, with my money? So I slammed him to everybody that I could find that knew him in any way. A couple of months went by. I found my money, I hid it when I was drunk, because I was afraid he'd steal my money see because i knew i passed out all the time see yeah i black out and that sort of thing so here it is i'm clearly wrong and i would have bet anything i was right okay so now if you ever had an experience like that then let's think through a little further how about this how many things could i be wrong about right now and i just haven't found out yet would you like to think about that i could be living under the illusion that i'm right about a lot of things and i just haven't come to the awareness yet that i am wrong i could be living under the illusion that people like me and they don't i could live under the allusion that people don't like me and they do i had an experience with that when i was about 12 years sober with a guy that I thought didn't like me, and I found out 10, 12 years later that he did like me. And it shocked me. Every time I'd see him, he'd walk past me. I'd say hello to him, he'd just keep going. He didn't acknowledge me, nothing. That went on for 10 years. And then one day I was asked to speak at a meeting. And I went to the meeting and I did this talk and I was talking to the guy who invited me after and I says, well Todd's here. He says, yeah. I said, you know, he doesn't like me. I don't think he likes me. He says, what are you talking about? And I told him. He walks past me. He doesn't acknowledge me. He doesn'T say hello when I say hello to him. You know what he said to me? Michael says to me, Don't you know? I said what areyou talking about. He's got diabetes and some other illness where his eyesight is real bad and he can't hear. I went for 10 years thinking this guy... Then he went even further. He says, Todd's the one who asked me to get you to speak at the meeting tonight. I thought, what a fool I've been, see? Here it was. I was living under the illusion he didn't like me and he did. Amazing. There can be a lot of this sort of thing inside of us and we're not aware of it, see. So what I would suggest, we challenge what we believe and we are going to get into this. They are going talk about this but this is the kind of honesty that we are talking about. Anybody can be honest with others, but can I start to spot my self-deceptions? You can if you learn to ask the right questions. And this is what alcoholics and honest will do. So we're talking about men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault. They seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. Some men say you don't have a chance, does it? Even if you're of that variety, they're saying your chances are what? Less than average? What's average? 50-50? What are you, 60-40? 75-25? 85-15? You've still got a chance if you are willing to look. There are those too who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest I used to think that sentence meant guys who weren't staying sober what I've learned over the years and you can come to my home group to verify this everybody in AA has grave emotional and mental disorders in one area or another come to me come to our own group I'll show you a bunch of them and they're staying sober and they are making it because they have the capacity to be honest Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps. So if you've decided now that you're willing to go to many lengths to get sobriety, then you're ready to do it. You're ready for me to take some steps. But unfortunately, at least around Minneapolis, I don't know how it is down here, But we get a lot of people coming in too soon. They're not willing to go to any lengths. I'm willing that they go to many lengths, and Bob is willing. We want them to do it, but they're not willing, see? The courts are sending them for whatever reason. They're just not willing. They're never going to do anything. They're probably not even ready to take certain steps. And I'll tell you how you can weed them out. Sit down and read inventory to them. And you won't waste a lot of time at 3 in the morning having phone calls from them. You'll simply weed them right out who's interested and who isn't. and it's okay god bless them you know maybe they got to get a bigger glass you know what i mean yeah the book pretty much says that yeah book doesn't say don't drink the book says drink until you're convinced you want some help so at some of these we bought we thought we could find an easier softer way but we could not you know how the original manuscript was written they wrote it this way originally and they softened it up we read it in our home group so i'm aware of the the original is in the back of these little red books by the way it says that some of these you may balk you may think you can find an easier softer way we doubt if you can you can see why they change that huh drunks hate to be told anything you know we doubt with all the earnestness at our command we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start pretty strong language we beg of you some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely kind of a funny sentence isn't it some of Us have tried To Hold On to Our Old Ideas is there anybody in this room who hasn't tried to hold onto some old idea I mean come on that's it's crazy of course we do now you know so what is an old idea you know i when i came into aaa i had ideas that i thought were good and ideas that i felt were bad and then i would try and choose which i should hang on to well this is exactly what i was doing before i got sober see and obviously i was confused about that i ended up in alcoholics anonymous because i couldn't seem to figure out which to hang on too hang on to the good ideas and let go of the bad ones yeah and one of the things i've realized is that what if we just challenge what we believe what if in the next few hours that we're together we examine what it is we believe not to judge ourselves over this stuff but literally just find out what it you might be hanging on to some of the worst stuff you can't lose the truth if your old ideas are good they'll still be true if you examine them the worst that can happen is you'll lose your illusions of what you want to be true and that can be devastating if you've been building a case against somebody for a long time and that's what happened to me when i looked at inventory it was devastating when i saw how wrong i was in certain areas but it was also very freeing at the same time time so if we can just challenge what we believe all of it all of everything examine it you won't lose the truth truth will still be true regardless remember that we deal with alcohol cunning baffling powerful without help it is too much for us but there is one who has all power that is God. May you find him now. Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care with complete abandon. Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. Humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings. Made an answer to God's question. Made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs many of us exclaimed what an order i can't go through with it do not be discouraged no one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles we are not saints the point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic? That's the first three chapters in this book where they describe what an alcoholic is. That's our description ofthealcoholic. The chapter to the agnostic? That's chapter four. It's written to the guy who doesn't believe or doesn't know if there's a God. The word agnostic comes from the root word gnosis, which means knowing. Agnostic means I don't know. Chapter 4 is designated to that person who's struggling with that. Read it. Take a look at it. It's just they're trying to open our minds up a little bit. We're making some assumptions when we're starting in chapter 5 here. A lot of places will start out and go right through at the very beginning of the book do workshops that way but uh for because of time restraints it's difficult to do in our personal adventures before and after make clear three pertinent ideas my life experiences up to this point a that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives that's step one isn't it the same way as saying we admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives had become unmanageable b that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism that's step two it's another way of saying we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity in fact a started on b when the doctors gave up on us literally that was dr silkworth giving up on bill and roland hazard was under carl jung's care in switzerland a few years couple years earlier and carl young said the same thing to him that bill wilson got from dr silkwood i can't help you and that's when bill had his spiritual experience was after getting that prognosis and see that god could and would if he were sought step two and a half right being convinced we were at step three being convinced of a b and c we were in step three which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to god as we understood him just what do we mean by that and just what do we do now they're going to talk about exactly what we mean buy that and exactly what we do okay so that's what we're that's the idea that's going to be on the table for the next probably three four paragraphs five paragraphs is just what we mean by the third step now when i first read this i thought this is awful i come in here as an atheist a militant atheist and i don't mean i was just sort of atheist i'm out converting people i'm dead serious i mean spirited i'm in the bars i'm hassling the christian anybody who was christian i would just go crazy with see so this was not an easy thing for me to even consider very mean-spirited with this stuff and i was not a atheist but when i first came to aa and i read this step off the wall my first thought was anybody share this anybody have the same experience i looked at step three and i said oh no no i have to give up stuff can't have fun anymore oh i have to go be good that's what it looked like to me i have to go be good don't you get that feeling when you look at it when it's written on the wall turn my will in life over to the care of god well if i'm catholic i can't have sex before marriage right if i turn my will in life well i'm serious you know isn't that the fear then i don't every time i go to church i'm guilty but you know so i just quit going to church that's the way you solve that problem and you do what you want not interested in god i got to lose something for god i really believe that i'm telling you this was a not an easy position for me now here's here's the good news because that's not what the third step looks like at all when we read this out of the book this is this doesn't look like i have to be good i think you're gonna like this i love this the first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success on that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody even though our motives are good okay these are sentences and i'm telling you when i first started reading this book i used to skip right over these sentences and not really look at it i had kind of a clue of what it said but i you know i was lazy intellectually is what it really was and i didn't want to think very deeply so i just slide past this stuff listen to what they're talking about here now the very first requirement of the third step is that i be convinced that my life run on self-will what does self will mean i want what i want i want things my way self-willed can hardly be a success now they're going to talk a lot about selfishness as we get into this and you could just as easily use the term selfish whenever you read self-will in this book that's what i've saw i've seen over the years as i've looked at this okay well i want to give you a dictionary definition of selfish it's really important if you can understand what the words mean now here's what webster's dictionary said selfish means It said, concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself. Seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without concern for others. The other definition was very similar and it said without regard with others. Okay. So, by definition then, I'm seeking or concentrating on my own advantage, pleasure, well-being, and in achieving that from life, I'm not concerned about how it affects other people. Now you say, well, I're not selfish, I care about other people, I didn't say you didn't care about others people, I cared about other ppl too, I didn' t even consider them. you understand the difference it's not that I didn't care about people I didn t even think about it I I just I was out look when you're concerned excessively or exclusively with yourself you're not thinking about anybody else you just want what you want and in getting that I ended up in conflict with people that's a really important distinction you could say to somebody know your conduct is very selfish you're hurting your family oh my i don't want to hurt my family it's the last thing i want to do i love my family it's not that i don t care about my family it's that i'm not thinking about anything except me because i'm concerned exclusively or excessively with me i want what i want i'm not thinking about anything else except what i want so you're not bad if you're selfish you're unaware is what it really is you're just unaware of others that's what a selfish guy is by definition in the dictionary okay so if you think of this in those terms the first requirement of the third step is that i be convinced that my life run on self-will or selfishly same thing can hardly be a success why on that basis of living that way we are almost always in collision with something or somebody even though our motives are good okay i had good motives i'm trying to keep a roof over my kid's head i'm going to keep food on my family's table as i'm lying and stealing and cheating you guys did you like it when you come in contact with a guy like me who's trying to manipulate you for his own outcome who's tried to get what he wants you know you're going to lose something when you come in contact with somebody like me you just know it you may not even know what it is but you just react kind of negatively to a guy like that see so what happens is i can have the best motives in the world but it brings me into collision or conflict with something or somebody and it doesn't matter how good my motives are you know the best motives in the world but i'm still in conflict that's the problem is and in the next few paragraphs they're going to give us an example of what this looks like an actual example and if when as we're reading this think of it in these terms the next couple paragraphs are going to be a description of how the mind builds resentment or how it becomes angry when it's playing god and trying to direct things the way it wants things to go see see the next sentence says most people try to live by self-propulsion so the rest of society does this it's not that we're so different from society in general but why do i end up in a treatment center or why do I end up in jail cells or what you know where we end up with alcoholics yeah you know what i've come to realize over the years we do it with enthusiasm you understand don't you drink enthusiastically you chase women sex drugs rock and roll whatever it is don't she do it with enthusiasm don't get here without being enthusiastic okay now if you're doing things that are hurting you enthusiastically guess what you're kicking your rear enthusiastically You know what I've learned here in AA, the time I've been sober? I've earned how to not hurt myself. Seriously, that's all I've learnt here, really. Everything else has been about unlearning. It hasn't been about learning. It's been about unlearning. And Chuck C. said it this way in a new pair of glasses in his book. He said, AA looked like this to him. He said first you uncover, then you discover, then your discard. card he talked of it as subtraction not addition you become aware of it first you uncover it then you discover it then you let it go that's the process of inventory that's what Chuck said and the book states it this way we're clearing away the junk that blocks us from the sunlight of the spirit yeah we're getting rid of the stuff that's blocking us from that power greater than those okay now if I'm doing things with enthusiasm that are hurting me if I can be shown what that is why wouldn't a guy be interested in looking at that see but if I am unaware of what I'm doing here give you an example what you're aware of you got a chance of controlling right what you are not aware of is going to control me what I am not aware will control me so the key is to become aware of what's going on it isn't always pleasant but it's very freeing once you start to see this so that's what now they're going to give us this description and use an actor as an example so most people try to live by self-propulsion each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show is forever trying to arrange the lights the ballet scenery and the rest of the players in his own way if his arrangements would only stay put if only people would do as he wished the show would be great everybody including himself would be pleased life would be wonderful isn't that what you think as you're trying to get what you want okay can't my co-workers see i know what's best can't make children see i know it's best camp my spouse see i don't if they just listen to me everything would be okay right let's do it my way and it would work out great isn't that true not what we think yeah and you're pushing and shoving and trying to force ideas onto and whatever it is see if they just do what i tell them everything will be okay that's what i think now in trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous he may be kind considerate patient generous even modest and self-sacrificing as long as it's going the way i want it right as long as i'm getting what i want i'll be kind considerate even be modest and so sacrificing i'll give a little on the other hand he may be mean egotistical selfish and dishonest that's one that didn't work the other way right didn't worth being nice i can fix that did you see the movie about ike and tina turner called what's love got to do with it oh if you haven't seen this is a wonderful movie uh ike turner in fact he just died recently uh he was a very talented musician and in in his own right he really was he wrote a lot of great good music he was very talented player when tina showed up it was dynamite and they took off and went right into the limelight it was just incredible see well he knew that and and he was dependent in a sense on her singing and and ike was really quite good to her as long as she played her role properly see and didn't cause too much of a fuss he wanted to screw around with other women and he doing all this stuff and finally after years of this crap tina got sick of it she says no more i'm not doing it see now he's afraid of losing her so he starts to beat her up to keep her and that's something scary you to stay with me hey he was kind considerate patient generous he was even modest and self-sacrificing as long as she played her role properly but when she said no more he went berserk and it was really something the movie is tremendous title is perfect what's love got to do with it nothing nothing but as with most humans he is more likely to have varied traits i won't be all one way or all the other i'll have a little of each of these inside of me i won' t be playing at all one way that makes sense okay what usually happens the show doesn't come off very well my life didn't come up very well i ended up in alcoholics anonymous i ended up in a treatment center he begins to think life doesn't treat him right you ever felt that way life's just not treating me right he decides to exert himself more going to push a little harder he becomes on the next occasion still more demanding or gracious as the case may be become more demanding to get what i want or i'll become more gracious to get what I want i'll buy her flowers this time whatever it is see still the play does not suit him admitting he may be somewhat at fault he is sure that other people are more to blame i wish i had a buck for every time i had that thought when i read that i thought man this is perfect i'm willing to admit i'm somewhat at fault but i'm sure you're more to blame do you see how the anger starts are you oh yeah he starts getting angry because he's not getting what he wants see he becomes angry indignant self-pitying what is his basic trouble is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind I'm a self-seeker even when I'm trying to be kind isn't that a sad idea and what about when I'm not trying to Be Kind yeah what am I in my worst I mean I'm A Self Seeker I'm seeking for myself I want things like even when i'm kind I'm like that wow and one of the reasons that I tell the story about being a dry drunk for 23 years is because that I the idea that getting what I want is where happiness comes from. The idea that happiness is having what I want was absolutely untrue in my life. The opposite was true. I was miserable and I had pretty much what I wanted, and I was miserable. So that didn't work. That's an illustration of exactly what we're talking about here. It's an old idea. Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? I'm a victim of my own delusion as bob was just referring to that happiness is getting what i want and i'm hell-bent on being happy so i'm out manipulating outcomes i want it my way right is it not evident to all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants and here comes the anger and do not his actions make each of them wish to retaliate snatching all they can get out of the show is he not even in his best moments a producer of confusion rather than harmony yeah think about this my actions i'm selfish my actions make others wish to retaliate because they know they're going to lose something when they come in contact with me there's always this manipulation going on see so they try and snatch what they can give out of the situation now you got two people trying to take from the same situation and guess what it's gonna be crazy it's always that way see well i'll tell you how this this this looks in a guy like my my life you know i'm selfish i want what i want i'm just out in life trying to get what i want from life okay i come in contact with you you will react to that selfishness depending on how aggressive i am and how i handle things but sooner or later you're going to start reacting to my selfishness then i look at you since i'm totally unaware that i'm selfish i look at your action toward me and i think what a jerk look at the way they're treating me right he's treating me bad so then i got a story of how you're wronging me right So I go to Bob, and I tell Bob the story in just the right way so he'll agree with me. You know how you do that? You exaggerate certain points. You minimize other points until you get the story just right. You leave relevant information entirely out of the story. You understand, don't you? Sure. Until you get it just right so Bob will agree with you. And then you agree with him. We join in the grievance and hate the other person together. have you seen this yet got it yeah very good this is called self-delusion in the book very difficult to hate somebody on your own you got to get somebody to join with you so you gotta tell the story to really don't we say in AA you can't keep it if you don't give it away well what do you think this doesn't work both ways these are double-edged swords you keep it by giving it away the more you give the grievance away the More You Hang On To It more you try and make others guilty the more you keep the guilt you don't get rid of it by doing that it's called projection okay the psychological term for it would be oh yeah you try and project it out on others and the more your give it away the more hurt yourself with it what an interesting idea huh so here it is uh i'm i'm living my life this way people are reacting to me i don't think they're reacting i think they are attacking me and guess what all my anger is justified and it's justified through the story i'm telling myself you understand you have to have a story of why you're angry or you'd have to say justifiable anger i'd have to say i'm mad at you but i don t have any reason to be of course you got a reason your story is the reason so you know what i'm angry but i have no reason to be angry what we're going to look at in inventory is the stories we're telling ourselves that justify our anger now why would i do this because the anger is hurting me not the guy i'm angry at it's like looking at my dad for example and being angry at my childhood and saying something like this well dad i see what a jerk you've been to me all my life and When I have this story of how you've wronged me, you know, I think I'm going to hold negative thoughts in my mind and hurt myself. No, isn't that brilliant? Do you want to tell me how that's less insane than I'll thoroughly follow your path and fail just to prove you're wrong? How's that different? I'll show you I'll kill me. Brilliant. Just brilliant. And I'll drink over it. This is the height of insanity. Height of insanity, right? But yet, you know, the alcoholic's creed, my life sucks and it's all your fault. And I got the stories to prove it. I'm filled with stories that justifies my grievances. This is a very important idea, talking about stories, because a little later on when we start to write, we're going to be writing down some stuff that we may delude ourselves into thinking is what really happened. We're telling ourselves stories. we're telling ourselves stories that justify why we're angry so keep that idea in mind and it'll come up in a little while our actor is self-centered egocentric as people like to call it nowadays okay i hear again this paragraph i used to just slide past kind of had an idea what it meant now they're going to show us illustrations of what self-centred egocentric looks like okay he is like the retired businessman who lolls in the florida sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation can you get a picture of that he's down in florida he's a retired businessman he's got a pretty good deal going you know it's nice and warm down there in the but what's he doing he's complaining of the sad of the what's complaining about he's got it pretty good he thinks he knows what's best for others he's going to tell everybody else isn't that something the minister who sighs over the sins of the 20th century oh look at what they're doing now sex drugs and rock and roll 20th Century right I'm gonna tell everybody how to live politicians and reformers who are sure all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave read the paper lately yeah self-centered egocentric the outlaw safecracker who thinks society has wronged him he's cracking safe justifying it by societies wronged me this is an important idea because once you start to look at your mind you'll start to see this is going on and that you have to justify whatever your anger is and you'll justify it through the story see he's Cracking Safe saying well Society's wronged Me I have every right to steal now why do have to tell yourself that story because your mind naturally wants to love and to get it to do something that you know is wrong or hurtful you have to Tell Yourself a story of why it's okay to do it this is the way it is it's just the way It Is You Have To Make It Reasonable somehow to justify your attacks it's Just The Way It Is and the alcoholic was lost all in his laptop whatever our protestations are not most of us concerned with ourselves our resentments or our self-pity so whatever I'm protesting about during the course of my day just start to examine yourself this way it'll astonish you when you start to look at it what do I protest about are not most of Us Concerned with ourselves Our Resentments or Our Self-Pity hey if I'm a Republican I'm interested in laws that are passed that'll benefit me and my interests if I'm a Democrat I want laws that are past that will benefit me in my interests it doesn't matter which side you're on that's irrelevant the fact of the matter is I'm self-centered and I'm egocentric and I want things the way I say they should be and I get angry when it doesn' go the way I want it oh I had to look at my politics a while back and I saw just how rageful I was had spent most of my life just angry about stuff i had but eight years ago i started examining that and i didn't think i was going to have a transformative experience like i had early on with inventory well i did around this one it altered me and i got to tell you i've never been the same since so a lot of the judgments had to drop it was amazing it was just very freeing see So whatever I'm protesting about, I'm concerned about myself. You can hide that one too because I may be concerned and in fact I am concerned about other people and the welfare of other people. Sure. But if there's an element of I'm worried or I'm not concerned about helping you because I know what's best for you. That's right. I know how your life should be run. I know the decisions that you should be making. That's selfish. You might even be right and very wrong at the same time. you can be right you know how you do it you can be very right about a situation and it's in the way you do it you're very wrong i've done that most of my life still do on occasion with things i might be right but i'm a big pain so listen to this selfishness self-centeredness that we think is the root of our troubles what happened to alcohol what happened drugs you mean alcohol is not the root of my troubles drugs aren't no no selfishness is really yeah selfish that's what it says yeah the founders of a group called alcoholics anonymous wrote a book called alcoholx anonymous and they just wrote selfishness self-centeredness that we think is the root of our troubles driven by a hundred forms of fear self-delusion self-seeking and self-pity we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate is that what's been going on in my life i've been driven by a hundred forms of fear what am i afraid of i'm afraid i won't get what i want i'm selfish i want what i what i'm trying to hang on and possess people in relationships and things like that see afraid of losing what i got afraid of not getting what i wanted i'm driven by a hundred forms of those of fear those two things then it says self-delusion i lie to myself or i distort the facts self-seeking i'm only concerned about rick and self-pity i feel sorry for myself when i don't get what i want what happens we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate there's the formula for how to fail in relationships sometimes they hurt us seemingly without provocation heavy on the seemingly by the way but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be heard i can give you an example of that because that's another one of those sentences that used to really bother me. I couldn't quite get my mind around it. I'll tell you an example from I realize this is Alcoholics Anonymous, but I want to tell you a story of something that happened to me with drugs because it was an important thing and it was about money, really. Some of us have outside issues. Yeah, well, it isn't the issue, it's how I manifested it, and it's a good example of this. A guy had given me some, or sold me some very good crystal methamphetamines Okay? I wanted some more because I could cut this 100% and sell it on the streets, and it was better than anything you could get. So I bait somebody with a little bit of it, see, give them a little taste, buddy or something, and then he comes back to buy something, and it's a different product. And I lie to him and tell him it's the same. And, of course, you've got a conflict now because you're selfish, see? Well, literally, I sold all that. said he wasn't arguing because it was still better than anything yet see so now I want more because I'm selfish I want More I can make money on this thing so I contact this guy again through somebody else had to go through somebody so he shows up he says yeah I'll get you some more give me 500 bucks and I never saw him again sometimes they hurt us seemingly without provocation now it seems like had nothing to do with that right but we invariably find now they're talking about inventory when you when you inventory this we invariable find that at some time in the past i made decisions based on self which later placed me in a position to be hurt i made a decision out of my selfishness okay i gave a dope themed 500 that i didn't know no who are you angry at when you do that yourself for being such a fool for what you did see now I'm angry at him and I pour energy into hating him for the very stupid thing that I did will you hate yourself who are going to forgive then yourself when you see it differently What I saw from that situation is, I put myself in a position to be hurt out of my selfishness. Does that say that it was okay what he did? Not at all. He was wrong. But it never could have happened had I not made a decision out of myself which later placed me in a condition to be heard. So that's an example of that sentence and what they're talking about here. and what you'll see as you inventory yourself. You'll start to see all kinds of things that will change how you view things. So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. That's what I found. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. I'm an enthusiastic example of Self-Will Run Riot. I want what I want. I'm trying to push and direct people And get what I want from life And guess what You end up angry And you end up resentful You ever see a two year old That just wants what he wants And he wants it right now And if he doesn't get it He's going to have a tantrum And make everybody miserable Well I tell you I'm doing that in my 30s And that's really ugly And I got a driver's license Yeah well 40s, 50s, whatever 60s Not so much in the 60s I kind of tapered down a little bit the last few years. Not quite so bad. Listen to this line now, this is amazing. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must or it kills us. God makes that possible. Above everything if you're fighting the booze it doesn't do any good. You've got to look at this. Now remember, this was the experience of the people who wrote this book the people that founded alcoholics anonymous this is what they're telling us above everything we've got to get rid of this selfishness there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without his aid without god's help god makes that possible many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to yeah i heard somebody from the podium this must have been 18 20 years ago she said something that i that i knew it was ridiculous when i heard it she said alcoholics don't have any moralities not true with me i had tremendous moralities and if you didn't live up to them see i wasn't living on myself but it didn't mean i didn't have moralities i go to the prisons on a regular basis twice a month i sit in the jails in the prisons with lifers who've been in there for their life and never are going to get out some of them in the a meetings and i'm telling you some of the guys who are new in there have tremendous judgments about certain things and if a guy comes in there with the wrong crime they'll kill them they'll literally kill them it's not that they don't have moralities they're tremendously judgmental about things so i had i had all kinds of morals and convictions but i wasn't living up to them but boy i would hammer on you if you didn't neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power we had to have god's help now that's bad news to an atheist i mean it really is how do you work this stuff if you're an atheist well i'm telling you i made a decision i was three weeks sober and i was lying in a treatment center and i said something i'd never said i was 35 years old i had lost my family i had been fixing things i was fixing my relationship with pam and she took the kids and left i was mixing my finances and i lost the business that i had i'd been moving it around town i finally had to auction it off because i couldn't deal with it i was fixin my other financial problems and i loss the house we were living in and lost some other properties every time i fixed something it got worse it didn't get better you start to become afraid of yourself when you have an experience like that and i'm telling you it wasn't pleasant see so i'm lying in a treatment center and i had just spent two and a half days hiding in the ceiling of the social security office from the police because i was burglarizing it and the cops came and i hid from them and i had gotten out of there without going to jail and i was in a treatment center because i knew if i didn't get off the streets i was going to prison for a long time and i'm lying in bed thinking about all these things and i've been going through withdrawals and all the trouble and i finally said something that i'd never said before i said i'll do anything not to live like this anything and i wasn't just talking about booze i was talking about the whole lifestyle that was around me at the time whether it was stealing whatever it was i can't stand my life i'll do anything as soon as i said that i had a significant experience i in fact i started feeling these rushes running through my body from head to toe it was just like somebody plugged me in a light socket and it was from the top of my head right through me waves of electricity run through me this sense of peace comes over me like i'd never experienced before with a sense of knowing that everything would be okay if I just stuck to the commitment I just made, meaning I'll do anything. Two words come in my head. I'm a militant atheist. And I get this. Jesus Christ. And it shocked me. And I went, whoa. No. I got all kinds of judgments against people who use terms like this. I'm so rebellious. I said, no, I can't handle it. And the experience ended when I did that. But I knew something happened to me that day. It didn't convert me. I was still an atheist. In fact, I entered into a commitment with God and I didn't even believe in God. But I made the commitment, see? You know, you guys who believe know that belief comes and goes. But that commitment has carried me when I didn' t believe. And I've never lost that commitment. That's still enforced. that happened over 20 years ago so here it is i've never had trouble staying sober since i made that commitment the compulsion to use was shut off like a switch and it's never come back but i came into alcoholics anonymous with all kinds of negative old ideas rebellious against god that didn't convert me it took me a few months before that change and i'll tell you how an atheist came to believe this atheist i took actions i didn't believe in and i got results i couldn't deny i did inventory i came to believe after i did inventory not before it's very difficult to find an experience of a power or of love when you got a head full of hate i had to get the anger out of the way first for me this is my experience but it didn't mean i couldn't apply these ideas so what happened is the anything started showing up in opportunities to help out go to a detox go to treatment center go to prison i just started doing what bob sponsored the dim brings them over to the workhouse takes them around we i started doing things not because i was trying to be good or i was trying to work a program because it made me feel better i wasn't thinking about myself when i was out putting meetings on with others and i saw the value in helping others and i've never lost that because i saw the value of it not in booze or drugs or whatever i saw the value in trying to help somebody else what was i doing a.a says the problem is selfishness right that's what they're saying i don't know how you can miss that now we've read through it if the problem selfishness my need to take from life get what i want what would be the opposite wouldn't it be selflessness or helpfulness decision to be helpful what if I actually and I believe me I did this I'm going to be helpful not because I was trying to be good because I I felt better when I was doing it nothing noble about this pure self-interest wasn't selfish because it wasn't without concern or regard for others but it was self-interest well I started doing that and I'm telling you what we're going to read in the next a couple paragraphs happened to me and I didn't believe in God that came later it literally I had this experience as an atheist so this is the how and why of it first of all we had to quit playing God it didn't work next we decided that hereafter in this drama of life God was going to be our director he is the principal we are his agents he is The Father and We Are His Children most good ideas are simple and this concept was the Keystone of the new and triumphant Arts through which we pass to freedom now I didn't feel that but I did make a decision I didn t want what my mind was telling me and I knew I couldn't solve my own problems I kind of turned it over to fate if you can understand that it somehow that made some sense to me under the circumstances then this next paragraph is exactly what happened to me and didn't believe in God. When we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new employer. Being all-powerful, he provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well. Circumstances and problems in my life started to unfold in ways I never could have imagined the solution coming from. In other words, I'm trying to get this job and a better job happened that i never could have considered i needed a car and a woman called me up my smashed my car up i was sober just a few months a woman that i knew from from years ago called me out she's a friend of mine i'd just been reunited with her in the program we weren't dating her and just a friend and she says i got a car that i can't afford to keep and i i'll sell you on payments i couldn't get credit my credit was ruined so i paid a hundred bucks a month for a car i i was hoping for a 500 car i got a 2500 car i didn't expect that solutions to problems started to unfold in ways i never could have imagined the solution coming from i didn's think i was doing god's will that's ridiculous i didn believe in god i was just out trying to help and put on meetings and doing things like that and it started to happen for me trying to give instead of trying to take reverse the selfishness established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves our little plans and designs that's a break by the way because depression is being interested in yourself and your little plans and designs if you don't believe that go think about yourself for an hour after this session and let me know how you feel there's nothing more depressing than thinking about yourself yeah more and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life what can i give to life as we felt new power flow in i did as we enjoyed peace of mind i felt that as we discovered we could face life successfully that started happening to me as we became conscious of his presence that didn't yet anyway we began to lose our fear of today tomorrow or the hereafter we were reborn that's an actual experience of what happened to me and as these experiences happened the roots of my atheist beliefs started to drop off because when you're an atheist like i was when good things happened i took the credit when bad things happened i gave you the credit you understand that's the way this atheist operated there was no god it was just me see and here now solutions are happening in ways i didn't even consider the solution coming from it becomes increasingly difficult to stay an atheist when you start having these experiences so i'm going to repeat what rick said because this phrase was extremely powerful to me he said he took action he didn't believe in he got results he couldn't deny couldn't explain the results away who did it where'd it come from who cares who cares that's what you know what happened i never found a concept of god in fact the more i tried to get a concept to god the worse it got what i found was experiences and the need for the concept went away i don't know what god is you know today i don t care anymore i used to think i needed a concept i don't care it doesn't matter i know there is i know where is today yeah i always felt that if i could understand god i would just fix it all myself that's what i was doing and see i got to a bottom because every time i fixed it it got worse we were now at step three many of us said to our maker as we understood him now bob we're going to take the these and those out of this not to be irreverent but literally to get to the meaning a little bit think of this prayer now in terms of reversing the selfishness and see if that isn't what it's saying god i offer myself to you to build with me and to do with me as you will relieve me of the bondage of self that i may better do your will take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of your power your love and your way of life may I do your will always we thought well before taking this step making sure we were ready than ourselves utterly to him now think about what this says it says relieve me of the bondage of self selfishness my need to take from life why that I may better do love's will you understand love gives it doesn't take if I'm taking I'm out of Harmony with love or God okay that's the way I see it today take away my difficulties for my sake no that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of God's power God's love God's way like not Rick's power Rick's love don't take the credit see the credit goes to God not me Jesus never took the credit if you read about him he always gave the credit to God whenever he healed somebody somebody says how'd you do that he doesn't say well I adjusted them here and I just he says God did it I don't know why do you call me good that sort of thing it's all over the New Testament why did he do that you know I'm going to build a big ego about it he knew he knew where the was coming from he had enough sense to not take the credit not me i want the credit oh boy but what is it saying i mean it's take away my difficulties so i can show others this works right that victory over this is what old-timers did for me in aa i walked into one of my early aaa meetings at 22 18. all these guys were 20 30 year guys there was about all eight of them in the room 10 of them as it wasn't funny i'm telling you it was tragic what had been happening to me i lost everything that i valued and it was devastating and i'm sitting in that room and i'M listening to these older men talk and they all got long-term sobriety they're talking and laughing about the things that are killing me and there's nothing funny about it to me and i'm listening to them and i am thinking how did you get from where i am to where you are and i got to tell you they were literally demonstrating the third step prayer god had taken away their difficulties and victory over that they were bearing witness to me that it could happen for me they were demonstrating it right in front of my face and i thought i want what they got in the worst way i will do what they did i'll listen i'll read this book i'll do what it says and that's what i did and it induced my own experience amazing just amazing this prayer is literally saying god help me to be helpful isn't it isn't the idea behind the prayer what if i made a decision as an atheist i said you know this sounds reasonable i'm going to make a decision to help out i'm gonna go put meetings on at the prison i'm to go to the treatment center i'ma help out wouldn't you be working the third step if the idea is to be helpful if love gives wouldn't you be in harmony with god wouldn't it would it matter what you believed at that point as a bare beginning of this of course you can go deeper with this i'm not saying that this is the best we got with it but i am saying that you can do this regardless of what you believe if you'll make a decision would help and i think you're in her i didn't realize it at the time but i started to feel better immediately why because i was giving instead of taking i heard it all my life what goes around comes around what you sow you reap in other words what you give you'll receive you know what i saw after i was sober a little bit i took and took and took until i had nothing left well you'd think you'd have something wouldn't you when i walked into alcoholics anonymous i had no family i had no money i had a house i had no business i had nothing my friends were gone everybody was gone that's the bad result from selfishness you gain by giving reverse the selfishness and you'll see it start to practice it do it it's like a friend of mine said it's nike not nietzsche just do it you don't have to philosophize about it take the action see what happens see so uh do you want to say anything before we well i'm going to read the next paragraph then we'll close this and get on take a break yeah we found it very desirable to take this spiritual step with an understanding person such as our wife best friend or spiritual advisor but it is better to meet god alone than with one who might misunderstand yeah if you go back to your families you say you know i've made a decision now i'm gonna turn my will in life over to god and help people and that they're going to look at you say you are nuts now in fact your aaa friends will say it to you you're going a little too far now you know why because it's a contrast to what they're doing see you know and they don't want to see that see yeah you got to get a job or go to school make some money just shut up about it and do it don't tell anybody if you're trying to be helpful and if you try to give instead of take people will notice it soon enough and it'll be obvious the contrast is tremendous the wording was of course quite optional so long as we express the idea voicing it without reservation yeah god help me to be helpful take away my difficulties so i can show others this works that's optional huh you're usually a little more optional than anything i'm being recorded this was only a beginning though if honestly and humbly made an effect sometimes a very great one is felt at once that's right that's exactly what happened to me and then i took inventory and we're going to get into that well come back after the break what do how long we want to take here about 10 minutes sure sure is that okay come back and we'll show you how to write this thank you for listening