Finding a Power Greater Than Ourselves – BB Study – Pasadena – Part 2 of 2 – Joe and Charlie

To be doomed to an alcoholic death, step one, or to live on a spiritual basis, step two, are not always easy alternatives to face. But it isn't so difficult. About half our original fellowship were of exactly that type. At first some of us tried to avoid the issue hoping we were not true alcoholics. But after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual base in life or else perhaps it's going to be that way with you. But cheer up. Something like half of us thought we were atheists or agnostics, and our experience shows that you need not be disconcerted. Whether you're atheist or agnostic, either one doesn't make a bit of difference. If a mere court of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, many of us would have recovered long ago. And I really do believe there's a difference between an alcoholic and a drunken bum. A drunken bun is about where they want to be, and they're really not too interested in changing the situation. But I've never met an alcoholic yet that didn't have a code of morals and a philosophy of life. And the alcoholic may be living with a drunken bum, but the alcoholic doesn't want to be there. And if our codes and morals and philosophies could have saved us, we would have recovered long before we ever came to AA. But we found that such codes and philosophes did not save us. No matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted. In fact, we could will these things with all our might. But the needed power wasn't there. Our human resources, as marshaled by the will, were not sufficient. They failed utterly. Atheist or agnostic don't make any difference. Our human sources failed us. Lack of power, that was our dilemma. And today I know that to be so true. You know, if you and I could have found the power in any other way than coming to AA, we wouldn't be here today. I've never seen an alcoholic yet that took a drink when they were 14, jumped up and down, shouted, hollered, hoot with joy, and said, oh my, my, I can hardly wait to be a member of AA when I'm 28 years old. Now, if we had found the Power in any another way, we would not be members of AA. We're here because we are powerless. We had to find the power by which we could live, and it had to be a power greater than ourselves, obviously. But where and how were we to find this power? Well, that's exactly what this book is about. It doesn't make any difference whether you're an atheist or agnostic or whatever you might be. The thing this book Is about is how to find a power. Its main object is to enable you to find the power greater than yourself, which will solve your problem. It doesn't say which will help you solve it or enable you TO solve it. It said which will resolve your problem, and up to this point in the book I've been looking at one thing and one thing only, sobriety, sobriery, sobpriety, and suddenly I'm faced with a, hell, this is not concerned with sobrietry. The main object of this book is to enable me to find a power greater than myself. And if I can find the power, then the power will solve the problem. From page 45 on, we hardly talk about alcohol at all in the rest of the book. Just about everything we talk about from this page on is one thing and one thing only, how do you find the Power? And if we find the power, then the power will solve the problem. Now where do you start at finding the power? You've got to have some place to start. Whether you're an atheist or an agnostic doesn't make a bit of difference. Where are we going to start? Page 47. Okay. We've got a starting point here. and it's just like any starting part of anything this is not only in the original everything starts in the human being the same way we need to ask ourselves but one short question do i now believe and the changes are the agnostics already believes in god and this is talking about the agnostic so do i know believe this is agnóstic or am i willing to An atheist has to become willing to believe either one of these two groups, but there is a power greater than myself. As soon as a man says he does believe, or that's agnostic, or is willing to be an atheist, we emphatically show him he is on his way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built. okay now he said believing is the beginning as soon as we can believe I become willing to believe and this is the beginning of anything not just everything that we humans do it begins in the mind every action and every whether it's good or bad the decision that we make is based on believing believing is a power that we have and it's how we use it believing is the beginning You know, this building began when someone believed they could build it. This is where the rockets begin. Everything that man has created begins in the mind of man or woman believing they could do it. Believing is the beginning of everything that we humans accomplish. Failure or success. So this is a basic principle. Now all we have to do on this God thing is to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Now, he's saying that was great news for us. And again, we see the yellow asterisk there where it says, Please be sure to read Appendix 2 on spiritual experience. Please read. He's begging us to read it. Now, He says, This was great new for us, for we had assumed, and I like that word, We could not make use of spiritual principles unless we accepted many things on faith. We seem disfulfilled to believe, and this is my confusion. You know, the preacher used to tell me, all you have to do is have faith, and God will help you. And, you know, it was hard for me to have faith. I just barely did believe. In AA, I could make it in AA because they said, man, if you believe or you just barely do believe, that's good enough. You know, belief is the state of the mind before you do something. And that's all you can have. Belief is up-front information. That gets you started. You can't... Faith is results of something. And you can't start off on faith the first time you can just believe or become willing to believe. You know? Belief isn't like being suspicious. That's all you've got to be is here a little. They'll put you in jail if they believe you did it, right? But if they ain't got the facts, they're going to have to let you go. Okay, so that's all we have to do is be suspicious. And it's easy to believe. How can we not believe? When we come to fellowship and see all these other people that are sober and say it works for them, this enables us to believe that we can believe through looking at them. What he really does here, if he begins to differentiate between two words, belief and faith. And all of us thought we had to have faith. But he said, no, you don't need faith. All you've got to do is believe. If you're an agnostic, you've always believed. If you are an atheist, you can become willing to believe. Now, upon this simple cornerstone, a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built. Asterisk, bottom of the page. Please be sure to read Appendix 2 on spiritual experience. This time he's referring to it in conjunction with the words wonderfully effective spiritual structure. What we're building is a personality change sufficient to recover. Step one was willingness. That was the foundation. Now then, believing or being willing to believe is going to be step two, and that's going to Be the Cornerstone of the Structure. So we're starting to build it already. We don't have to know anything at all. All we have to do is believe or be willing to belief. That's the starting point. Now, right after the break, we'll talk about how do you get from belief to faith? Right now, we're dealing with belief only. Let's take about a 15-minute break. That book that Thelma has with her is kind of a unique book. That's the smallest big book that AA's ever printed. That's The Wartime Edition, printed in 1945, and they cut down the size of it in order to save on paper. It's the eighth printing of the first edition of Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. That's a very unique book, you'll find very few of them floating around. What I love to see when somebody like Thelma shows up is it lets me know that if I'll continue to work my program and use my book, and if I live long enough, maybe I can have 42 years' sobriety too. Thank you for being here, Thelmo. We appreciate you. We love you. Besides that, those are the ones who put the program, kept it alive so we could have it when we got here, too. Thank God for them. We need more of them. Page 51. Belief. We found out we need the power. We found that the main object of the book is to find the power We found up at the beginning of the finding of the power is just to believe or be willing to believe. Let's see what we can do just on belief. It said, This world of ours has made more material progress in the last century than in all the millenniums which went before. Almost everyone knows the reason. Students of ancient history tell us that the intellect of men in those days was equal to the best of today. Yet in ancient times, material progress was painfully slow. Now about everything you and I use today in the material world has been invented within the last 100 years. And I used to think the reason those people that lived a thousand years ago didn't have the things we've got today is because they were dumber than we are. But the students of ancient history say, no, that isn't true. That people who lived a 1,000, 2,000., 3,000 years ago, their intellect is just as great as that of today. The spirit of modern scientific inquiry, research, and invention was almost unknown. In the realm of the material, men's minds were fettered by superstition, tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas. The reason those people didn't invent those things a thousand years ago is simply because they were not allowed to believe differently. If you dared to believe different than the rest of the people did, you usually got yourself in trouble. You know, not too many years ago in the United States, up in the northeastern part of the country, We were burning people at the stake because they dared to believe differently. We called them witches. Superstition kept everybody from believing differently. Tradition fixed ideas. The only way you can change anything is to believe. And if you don't believe you can changed anything, then you can't change anything. If you don' t believe different, you'll always remain exactly the same. So really belief is the beginning of everything. The reason we got somebody on the moon is because somebody believed that they could build a spacecraft That would put somebody onthe moon Now, we didn't know that Now, I remember back in the 1950s when the idea of sending somebody to the moon in a spacecraft That was absolutely ridiculous But there was a bunch of people out there believing they could do it And you know, by golly, they finally did it Based upon that belief If they hadn't believed, it never would have happened One of the best examples that I know of, period, is when he says some of the contemporaries of Columbus thought a round earth was preposterous. 498 years ago, there was a fellow named Columbus. And Columbus dared to believe differently than the rest of the world. Now they were trying to find a new trade route to a place called the East Indies. And the only way they had to go to the East End East was to sail to the east end of the Mediterranean Sea and then travel literally thousands of miles on land, foot back, camel back, however. And it took years to make the trip. And I had found gold silk spices and lots of goody goodies over there and they wanted to find a new trade route. And somebody said, well is there any way you can sail there? And they said, no, you can only sail to the east end of the Mediterranean. That's the closest point. Then you're going to have to go by land. And somebody said, well, could you get to the East Indies by sailing that way? And they say, oh, no. If you sail out there, you will sail right off the edge of the earth. 498 years ago, everybody believed that the earth was flat. And they believed if you went out there so far, you'd sail rightoff the edgeof it and you'd never come back. Now, I don't know why they believed that. I guess because some sailed out there and didn't come back, and they assumed that they had sailed off the edge of it. Everybody believed a lie. Joe said the other day, wouldn't it be great if the world was flat? We'd just take all this environmental junk, take it out there at the edgeof it, and push it right over and be done with it, you know. Now Columbus came along, and Columbus dared to believe differently. Now, if you're going to believe differently than all the rest of the world, you've got to be stubborn, you've Got to be bullheaded, and you've Got to have a lot of nerve. You know, we think Columbus had to be alcoholic. Who else but an alcoholic could dare to believe differently than All the rest Of the world other than The true alcoholic? Some of his words And his mannerisms indicated alcoholism. For instance, I believe we can get east by sailing west. Now if that's not alcoholic thinking, I don't know what is. When he left, he didn't know where he was going. That's alcoholic. When he got there, he Didn't know Where He Was. That's Alcoholic. When he Got Back, He Didn't Know Where He Had Been. That's Alcoholic. But what really made him an alcoholic is a woman financed the whole damn trip. A real classy example of the power of believing. Believing was where he started. You know, he didn't know. He didn't have faith. And he said, I believe the world is round. Based on that, this one man, and we can see the example of it, He changed the maps of the world, reshaped nations, changed the economics of the World and affected everybody's life on Earth at that time. And since that time, with one simple idea, he was big enough to believe different. You know, whatever we believe, we become. So if you believe the same, you will remain the same. I think this story demonstrates the only way you change is to believe different. If you believe different, you're going to become different. Now, Columbus didn't know. He didn't have faith. He didn' t know the world was around. In fact, Charlie and I always talk about it. We laugh about Columbus. He was one of my favorite guys. What do you think he hired a special sailor and put him on the front of the lead ship at night with a lantern? And he kind of took him over to the side and whispered in his ear, you know. He said, I believe this thing is round, but if you see the edge of it, you holler out. You know what I mean? So he didn't know. But the way he did was to believe. First thing, you now, to start off with, before he believed, they were willing to give up on their old way of travel. They weren't getting a job done. It was taking them too long to get there. They couldn't get the stuff back. So, number one, first thing you've got to do is be willing to give up on your old way. Okay, you don't have one of these sheets. You might have to copy this. So they become willing to Give Up On Their Old Way. That's the same thing we have to do with our way. We're trying to drink and we've been through keeping on with alcohol and seeing the truth, we become willing to give up that. And we do that through pain. We do that due to the problems we have. And once you begin willing to giving up on the old way of going to the East, then you begin to believe there was a better way. Now, believing doesn't change anything. It's just the beginning. Believing to be effective has to be followed by a decision. After a while, I believed in that. Some years went by. and Columbus made a decision that he was going to go find out and see if this was right. And this decision didn't change anything either because after the decision, there's no good unless it's followed by a course of action. So finally Columbus had to go down and get the ships. He had to get the money, hire the sailor, see the queen. He went to see the king. He wasn't giving the money so he went and conned her, the queen, into it. She gave him the money. He provisioned the ships, and he hired the people. And he set sail. And he sailed for 33 days. He set out west going east for 33 day. And finally one day he got results. They hit land. And once they got results, they came home. And when he got back, the queen asked him, said, Columbus, where is all my gold and treasures and everything you're going to bring me? And he's a typical alcoholic. Honey, I didn't find that. He said, well, if you give me some more money, I'll go back and bring them to you next Saturday. So he set out on the second trip. But on the 2nd trip, he was not believing. him. On the second strip, he went on faith because he knew the world was round. So we can see this is a basic principle in which steps are written. And success or failure is based on the same principle as regards to how we use it. And our steps are not new. We wish we could say the steps were new, but they are not any new. These principles, Bill said, are as old as mankind himself. And we can see that willingness, the change comes Once we're through step one, willingness is the foundation. And once we become willing to change, then the willingness, we have to believe we can change. Step two. After we believe we Can Change, we'll have to make a decision to change. Step three. And this decision has to be followed by a vigorous course of action. Steps four through nine are the actions to carry out that decision. after step 9 we get results which is the promises and after we receive those promises then we, at step 12 we know those of us who know the program works after it works for us we know it works after we know it works we can go back and help the new person if he's willing we can help him come to belief We cannot help him become willing. Booze does that. If you ain't willing to go out there and try to drink some more, you'll become willing But if he's willing, we can help him come to believe. Our faith becomes his belief. So we can see this is a simple process laid out step by step, a process for success or failure. We use this principle one way, any way we choose. What actually takes place is those of us who are willing come into AA and we see all these people in AA who have recovered and they're talking about a power greater than they are because of God as they understand Him and et cetera and etetera. It's almost impossible to be around AA today and not begin to believe something. Well, then after we believe for a while, then we can make our decision. And after we make a decision to turn it over to that power, then we're going to find that we're gonna have to have certain things removed from us that blocks us off from that power. And in the action steps of four through nine, we find and remove those things. Then we get the promises. Promises come at the end of step nine. And then after practicing 10, 11, and 12, having had the spiritual awakening, the personality change sufficient to recover, then we can go back and help the next newcomer come to believe, providing they're willing. I think one of our problems today is we're trying to help a lot of people recover who aren't willing yet. You know, we might be trying to help a lot of people recover who don't even drink alcohol. I don't know. But for those that are willing, we have the answer. And the thing that amazes me the more I look into it is the fact that it's not anything new. I've always heard there's nothing new on the face of the earth, and I guess that's true, because these spiritual principles have been used by humankind for thousands of years, and you'll find them at the basis of every true spiritual movement in the world today. And people say, well, how do you know a spiritual movement is true? Well, the answer is, does it work? And if it works, it's probably based on true principles. You'll find him in the Bible. You'll found him in a Koran. You'll find them in the Torah, and you'll find them in The Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. What they really do is put human beings back together as God intended for them to be in the first place. One, two, and three gets us right with God. Four, five, six, and seven with ourself, and eight and nine with our fellow man. And then we feel good after that. So these principles are not anything new, but they have been used in various different ways, forms, and words for thousands of years. And the thing that I love about it is I don't have to have that faith. See, that comes in step 12. All I've got to do is believe. And then if I follow the rest of the program, I will develop the faith. It's about this simple. You know, if I came into town from a little old country boy coming into town and I didn't know a good place to eat, and you might say to me, right over across that interstate highway is a good cafe. Go there and get you something to eat. Well, I look at all that traffic whizzing by there and I don't know whether I can cross that street or not. And I can stand there and be stymied because I don' t know whether I can do it or not." Now some little old lady, she comes walking up there and she just dances across that street, goes in there and gets her something to eat. Some old man comes by there, and he just dances across the street. And I begin to believe if they can do that, I could too. Now, I don't know that I can because I've never done that before. But if they cannot believe I can, I make a decision. I step out in the traffic. I dance across the Street, and I go over and get me something to eat. And then I know. And when I come out of the door, I look at that other guy standing over there, and I say, Come on, buddy, you can do it too. Now, what most people want is faith first. We agnostics said, yeah, God probably exists, but you can't prove it to us, so we're afraid to take a chance. We wanted proof that God existed and proof that He would do for us what we couldn't do for ourselves before we were willing to take the chance on it. An atheist always said God does not exist, so he couldn't use God either. But in either case, atheist or agnostic, a simple little formula that will lead us to the finding of the power greater than we are. You know, proof isn't always right anyhow. We've got a little example here on page 51, the last paragraph, dealing with proof and how it can be wrong. We ask ourselves this, aren't some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as were the ancients about the real world? The realm of material. Even in the present century, American newspapers were afraid to print an account of the Wright brothers' first successful flight at Kitty Hawk. Had not all efforts at flight failed before? Did not Professor Langley's flying machine go to the bottom of the Potomac River? Was it not true that the best mathematical minds had proved man could never fly? You know, in this century that you and I live in, everybody had been trying to build a powered aircraft. and everyone that tried failed. So the best mathematical minds got together and proved a lie. They proved that you could never build a powered aircraft that would pick itself and the weight of a pilot up off the ground and everybody gave up on it. Now here comes the Wright brothers. Always amazes me about Orville and Wilbur. These guys were not aeronautical engineers, They were not mathematical geniuses. They were both high school dropouts, and they were bicycle mechanics. Now how a bicycle mechanic could think that he could build a powered aircraft that would fly when the best minds in the world had proved you could not is beyond me. But they believed they could. And based on their belief, they emptied out their bicycle shop. They made a decision, emptied up the bicycle shop, laid out a piece of paper, and designed their own airplane. They said, it had no sense in using the others because they all failed. And they built that thing and they took it out at Kitty Hawk. And they tried to fly it, and sure enough, it crashed. I could just see Orville turn to Wilbur and say, Wilbur, I told you this damn thing wasn't going to work. Wilbur said, no, let's take it back to the shop, repair it and modify it, try again. And after some repeated efforts, one day that thing flew. And one of them was sitting in a pilot seat as the pilot. And somebody saw that, and he ran to the telephone. And he called this American newspaper man, and they said, Quick, quick, put it out over the wires of the world. The Wright brothers have successfully flown a powered aircraft at Kitty Hawk today. The newspaper man said, You're crazy as hell. He said, If I tell that lie, they'll fire me just as sure as anything. So if proof isn't always right, then why would we agnostics want to continue to wait for proof? All we've got to do is believe. And then decide, and then act. So along again comes we agnostics and see, we say, well, yeah, that's probably all true. Now, if I could just understand God, then I could use God's power. You know, there's lots of powers in the world that we use every day that we don't understand. And here in this book, in this chapter, it talks about electricity. You know electricity is a power greater than human power. We use electricity every day of our lives to do things we can't do on our own resources. Yet, we don't understand electricity at all. Even today, with all the smart people we've got, nobody knows where electricity comes from. Nobody can really explain it. Oh, we've Got theories about it. And we know that you can take an armature and spin it inside of a field and you can generate a power called electricity and then use that to work, but we don' t know why. If I had to understand electricity, I couldn't use it either. But I've got absolute faith in it, even though I don't understand it. When I turn on the light switch, I expect those lights to go on. When they don't, I'm absolutely amazed if they don'T go on! I don'T understand God's power either, but that doesn't keep me from using God's power any more than not understanding electricity keeps me from using electricity. If I could understand God's power, it would probably be too small to do me any good anyhow. And it probably would not be a power greater than I am if I could understanding it. Okay, I know I need it. I know how to start the finding of it is through just believing. Just believing, that's all. I know that I can find it if I will follow certain principles as we have them up here on the board. about the only other thing I really need to know in regarding God is where am I going to find him and this has been difficult for a lot of people now I grew up always believing in God but never really knowing where God was I know the preacher used to preach and every time he had preached and talk about God and talk he'd just point up there and I knew God had to be up there somewhere and therefore when I got to looking for God I looked up there And I thought he would be a tall gentleman on a white cloud, golden halo around his head, sun ray shooting out. I never could find him. I think what really confused me is when the preacher talked to God, he always looked down here. He points up there and no wonder we get confused about where God is. My book tells me where I'm going to find him, it's on page 55. It's one of the greatest things I've ever learned. Yet we had been seeing another kind of flight, a spiritual liberation from this world. People who rose above their problems, they said God made these things possible and we only smiled. We had seen spiritual release but liked to tell ourselves it wasn't true. Actually, we were fooling ourselves. For deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God. It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp, by worship of other things, but in some form or other it is there. for faith in a power greater than ourselves and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives are facts as old as man himself. We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our makeup just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. Sometimes we had to search fearlessly, but he was there. He was as much a fact as we were. We found the great reality deep down within us and the last analysis is only there that he may be found. It was so with us. I think my book is telling me that God dwells within me. And I think it's telling me in its own place I'm never going to find him. And today I truly believe that every one of us, man, woman, and child, somewhere deep down inside ourselves, we seem to have some form of basic knowledge. Some knowledge that tells us what we should do and what we shouldn't do. some form of knowledge that tells us how to live and how not to live and I'm sure some people would want to call that innate intelligence others might want to call it common sense others might wanna call it the conscience and I don't really think it makes any difference what we call it as long as we recognize that it's there and that knowledge has always been inside me and I've experienced it from time to time throughout my lifetime, even back when I was drinking. And there'd be times that I'd be getting ready to do something and some voice from somewhere would say to me, I don't believe you ought to be doing this. And I wouldn't pay a bit of attention to it. And I'd go right ahead and do it and I'd get in one hell of a shape. And then that same voice would say, see, told you not to do it, didn't you? Now if that's true, And if God dwells within each of us, then I've got my own personal God today. I don't have to worry about the God of the Baptist church. I don' t have to worried about the god of the Catholic church, the Hebrew religion or anybody else's religion. If God dwell within me, then He is my own Personal God. For me this is an entirely new understanding of God. Oh thank God this is in here. Because based on hellfire and brimstone, I could never have gone any further. But with a new understanding of God who's kind and loving, then maybe I'm going to be able to develop a relationship and find that power greater than human power in order to overcome my problem. Remember, in the appendix it says, we'll know we've had a spiritual awakening when we become aware of the fact we have tapped an unsuspected inner resource of strength that most of us will identify as a power greater than we are or God as we understand him. It's an entirely new idea for me. Oh, thank God for the book. Thank God for Bill Wilson. Now then I've got a God I can live with. I can go on for the rest of the program here. But without this chapter, I would have been absolutely stymied at the end of Chapter 3. Okay, now that we have finished with agnostics, and I love that chapter, as Charlotte said, it's very massively written. It's one of the best pieces of literature on spirituality I've ever read in the simplicity in which it gives us a complete new understanding of God that will enable us now to make this decision We can see how as Bill began the book in 1937 And as he wrote these chapters He was doing basically the things that they were doing You have to think about those times When they went out on a visit We call it a 12-step call to the new alcoholic They would sit down with the new alcoholic and they would tell him about their problem. And in telling their problem, the new alcoholic could find himself and his problem in their problem He could identify his problem as he heard about their problems. And that would enable him to take step one. And then they would say, well, can we come back and visit you again? In a few days, they would go back and tell him about their recovery, this power greater than themselves. and they would see if this person believed in God. And then once they established these two points, that this person could see he was alcoholic and that he believed in God, then they would take him to the Oxford group meetings. And the Oxford Group meetings would begin at step three. The first step in recovery was making a decision. This was the first step for the Oxford group so the first two steps were these things in which you qualified the person for the program and when this guy brought him in he says i have talked to this guy he believes he's alcoholic and he believes in god and i would like to sponsor him into the group that's what sponsorship meant and i've qualified him just like you know the lions club or anything else and then they would that sat down in the Oxford group. They'd take him upstairs, and sometime in the morning they'd say, Dr. Bob's, and they would all get down on their knees, and he would make his surrender, which was step three. So at this time when Bill was writing the book, he knew that he was trying to get these two things, the reader qualified for these two steps. He was tryingto get us the preparation for the program. Steps one and two is a preparation forthe program that begins with step three, So he's doing this with the book. In the doctor's opinion, he's got us to tell us about the problem. And in Bill's story, he told us his story where we identify with him and we can see the problem In chapters 2, 3, and 4, he talked about the solution. So he got us qualified us to believe we believe in God. And he has laid the foundation. Now as he was writing this, he said the time was going by. And remember, this is a year went by. And this is A Miracle. This big book is a miracle. Now, Bill wrote this book, and as he wrote it, he wrote in Hank Parkhurst's office over in New Jersey. He would go over every day, and he said he stood behind Ruth, and he would kind of talk and give her the material, and she would type. He liked to look over his shoulder and watch it come out on the typewriter. Then they would take these chapters and they would send one to a New York group and one to the Akron group. And then they held their meetings on these chapters. Can you imagine that? Can you reimagine? Now, the miracle is that we really got a big book. Now, these people were brand new sober, right? Two years and three years. Some of them just wasn't too many of them had a year. Now, can you imagine your group writing a book? I can't imagine my group writing a book. You know, we had a meeting there in my neighborhood a few years ago and we had an four-hour meeting trying to decide on a Coke machine or a Pepsi machine. Okay. Okay. Now he was in a... Ruth Hock says that she typed this manuscript 44 times and they would send a copy and they were set around and then they would bring these back to bill this had been a long hard task dealing with 40 people alcoholics putting these chapters together changing words fooling with them but bill said he'd come to that point that night where he felt like the preparation to the foundation of book had been laid really the first two steps There had been propositions that had been put out. This was sufficient, and now it was bound to the important part of the book, the beginning of the real important part, how to show these people how to recover. This was the main part of The Book, and this was what he was faced with writing. He said he knew that enough preparation had been done. It was now down to get to the serious business. He said he felt very inadequate to do this He had the little six-step program of the Oxford groups And he had an idea that these six steps contained As he's always said These six steps contain a lot of loopholes That alcoholics would jump through So he had a nice idea That they needed to be expanded But he didn't know how much they needed To be expanded And this particular night, as he laid in bed like he used to write with a pad and a pencil, he just seemed like he couldn't get started on this, on how it works. They say he laid the pad and pencil down and he prayed for a few minutes and he asked God for guidance because he knew that this was going to be the important part of the book, that this is going to show the new people yet to come how to recover. and he didn't feel like he had the ability to write it. So he asked God for some guidance and some help. And after a few minutes, he picked up the pad and the pencil and he said he'd begin to write. And as he described it, he said it seemed like the pencil itself had a mind of its own as it raced across the paper. And inside of 30 minutes, he had written the 12 steps in Hyde Works, which we read at our meetings. Now this was a... I know how he must have felt. He said he went back over the steps. He didn't know. He knew that the steps needed to be expanded from six, but he went over them a second time as he read them. He put numbers on them, and he found out there were 12. He didn' t know how many he was going to write, but he ended up with 12. And he said he always associated, come across his mind as the 12 apostles as he thought about these. Just about 10, just about, he just finished, I think it was a guy named Howard, one of the local New York guys who came by after a meeting. He had been to an Oxford group meeting, I guess it was. And he came by with his new... He had a pigeon with him to visit Bill. And of course, Bill was enthused. Here was a guy who was going to be able to show the first other human being the 12 steps, the brand-new steps. And Bill showed them to Howard. And Howard just hated the hell out of it. What do you mean, 12 steps? Now, you know, get all that God stuff in there. And they began to have quite an argument. Even the brand-new pigeon was jumping on Bill about the steps. He didn't know how to alcoholic it. Now, you know, we've got to think about Howard. You would have felt the same way. You were at your meeting the other night and they had 12, right? Suppose you went back and they hade 24. You'd be mad too, you Know. Bill had doubled his steps and this guy didn't like it. This began an argument there in the New York group and even in the Akron group. The Akron people were pretty supportive. But actually, there had been a lot of discussions over the material up to this point. But even though we revel in how it works, we read it at all our meetings, we can't imagine that all the brand-new people at that time in the program did not like it. In fact, I don't think they ever did like it for years. In fact there's a lot discussion and a lot argument about the steps and about this part of the book. And it almost stopped the writing of the books. They had total confusion, and the project stopped as a result of this part of how it works. Now, Charlie's going to read from the original manuscript as Bill wrote it that night, and it might give you some ideas of why they objected to it, because this is the way Bill wrote at that night. Remember, the Oxford groups had certain absolutes, and the drunks was having trouble with absolutes anything. They didn't like the absolutes in the Oxford group. And I think their greatest contention was that they felt like hide works sound like some of the absolutes. And they wanted, they were up to here with the absolute in the Oxford group at this time. So Charlie's going to read from the original manuscript of Hyde Works as Bill wrote it that night. What were those absolutes? Absolute honesty, purity, absolute love. I don't know. If you hadn't asked me, I would have rattled them off. Absolute love. Absolute purity. Absolute honesty. Absolate purity. and absolute unselfishness. And the drunks were having a lot of problems fitting in to those absolutes. As I read this thing, we'll try perhaps with the changing of the tone of voice or pausing or something to point out the differences. If you'd like to go through how it works with me, we will see what they did change. Rarely have we seen a person fail as thoroughly followed our direction. 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 there are such unfortunates they're not at fault they seem to have been born that way they are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a way of life which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders that many of them do recover if 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 that you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to follow directions. At some of these you may balk you may think you can find an easier softer way we doubt if you can with all the earnestness in our command we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely remember that you are dealing with alcohol cunning baffling and powerful Without help, it is too much for you. But there is one who has all power. That one is God. You must find him now. Half measures will avail you nothing. You stand at the turning point. Throw yourself under his protection and care with complete abandon. Now we think you can take it. Here are the steps we took which are suggested as your program of recovery. Number one, it meant that we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable. Number two, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Number three, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care and direction of God as we understood him. Number four, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Number five, admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Number six, were entirely willing that God remove all these defects of character. Number seven, humbly on our knees, asked him to remove our shortcomings, holding nothing back. Number eight, made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make complete amends to them all. Number nine, made direct amends for such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others. Number ten, continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. Number eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our contact with God, praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Number twelve, having had a spiritual experience as the result of this course of action, we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs. You may exclaim, 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're 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, the doctor's opinion, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures, the before and after, have been designed to sell you three pertinent ideas. A, that you are alcoholic and cannot manage your own life. Step one. B, that probably no human power can relieve your alcoholism. Step two. C, that God can and will. Still step two. If you're not convinced on these vital issues, you ought to reread the book to this point or else throw it away. I think it's very obvious what Bill has done. And I think it's obvious that he intended for this to be a set of directions to the individual alcoholic on how to recover from the disease of alcoholism. Because he used the term directions three times and he continually made it to you, singular individual, on how to recover. The other members didn't like that at all. They didn't like the idea of directions. They said, hell, you can't give directions to an alcoholic. They won't do anything if you tell them what they have to do. And they also objected to the words must. They objected to that word you, singular. And the fight was on. And they fought back and forth, back and fourth, back and forth. And Bill didn't want to change because he felt that he had written this after guidance from God. And the other members wasn't concerned about guidance from god. They were concerned about what they thought it ought to say. And Bill said, I'm not going to change. They said, you are going to change. And he said, no, I am not. And they said, yes you are. And finally after a period of time Bill realized he would have to compromise if they were to continue on with the rest of the book. And he agreed that he would compromise. And a non-alcoholic psychiatrist who was there said, why don't you change it from directions to suggestions? He said, probably more people will use the book.' He said,'Well, you keep saying you, you. Why don't you say we, we?' He said,"It's a lot easier if you say this is what we had to do than it is if you says this is going to have to do." And he said,'Why do you keep saying must, must, why don't you change that to ought, ought? And he said, I believe more people will use your book. Now today we don't know. If that hadn't been changed, if it had been left as originally written, instead of a million and a half worldwide today, we might have ten million. But also, if het hadn't been changed, instead o f a million an a half today, we might only have ten thousand. Who knows? Nobody knows. We just know this is the history behind this part of the book. But Bill was cunning, baffling, and powerful too. He said, okay, I'm going to compromise, but then you're going to have to compromise with me. And they said, what do you want? He said if I am to finish the rest of the Book, then I'm gonna be the final authority for the rest of it. He said I'm through fighting with you, I've fought with you all the way through the Book. He said he's tired, I won't fight anymore. And he said, you either let me have the authority to finish the book or you write the book yourself. Well, they didn't want to give him that authority, but they didn' t want to write the book either. So they very reluctantly gave him that okay. Now what Bill knew, but what they didn''t know, is two pages later he's going to put directions right back in the book. And all the rest of the way through the book you're going to see directions and you and must. The only place you find those easier, softer words is in the reading of how it works itself. And when they took them out of how It Works and then left it in the rest of the book, that ruined some of the continuity of the Book. But now that I know that, the whole thing makes more sense to me. Now, the other thing that makes sense to Me is this. What you and I know today as Steps 1 and 2, they did not have those as steps. As Joe said, that was done during the visit. They qualified an individual as to whether they're alcoholic or not and as to weather they believed in a power greater than themselves or not. And when they brought them into the group and sponsored them into the group, they said, this guy, we've been talking to him and we're convinced he knows he's alcoholic and he does believe in God. And the group voted whether to accept him or not, not everybody could join. that's what sponsorship was just like sponsoring into the Eastern Star or the Lions Club or whatever then after they voted to accept them then two or three members would take them upstairs especially there in Dr. Bob's house and they would all go down on their knees and that new person would make their surrender which was their step one which is our step three today and then after that person surrendered they would also vote on how well he surrendered And if he didn't do it good enough, he may have to do it again. But remember, they couldn't come out here in California and qualify the first person out here. The book had to do that. And the doctor's opinion and the first four chapters are designed to sell us on three pertinent ideas. A, that we're alcoholic and can't manage our own life. B, that probably no human power can relieve our alcoholism. And C, that God can and will. Now if we're sold on those three ideas, then we've already taken steps one and two. And it's time to get on with three. You see, there's no work involved in one and three. Those are conclusions of the mind based upon information presented to us in this textbook in The Doctor's Opinion in the first four chapters. When I make the statement that I'm powerless over alcohol and my life has become unmanageable, there's no work involved in that statement. That's a statement of fact. When I come to believe that a pen or a grave myself can restore me to sanity, there's not work involved there. That's just a statement. That's the statement of facts. Conclusions based on that information. And that's the proof in the pudding is when he says that those chapters in the beginning have been designed to sell you those three pertinent ideas. And if he's sold them to you and you've bought into it, then the very next statement says, being convinced we are now at step three. If not convinced, he said, you've got to go back and read the book again. You've missed something. And if you don't want to do that, then just throw it away. So we've already taken steps one and two today as we went through the doctor's opinion in the first four chapters. Now we're ready to start on step three, Phil. Okay. Okay, now we can see also how Bill, as we said, it's directly from where these things originated. That night as he wrote these, he began there really at the, they had a step in the Oxford group, as Charlie said, of the step called Surrender. Bill all had it was, as he broke these steps that night, he was thinking about the problem with the Oxford Group, and he had subbed up in the Oscar groups. The Oxford group, it was pretty hard for the alcoholics in the Oxford groups because these were people that were practicing first century Christianity. And you know how we alcoholics are. They had to really sit in there and listen to all the religious terms and expressions. And it was not God as you understand him. It was religious terms. And the youth alcoholics had a lot of problems with this. So Bill, they were already thinking, they Were already breaking loose from the Oxford groups because of this. And Bill knew that this program had to sound, well, he had to take the Oxford Group program and put it into language in which alcoholics could handle it. And this is all he did. You know, they had the little six steps that they had created out of the Oxford groups, and basically the first step was admit you licked, but this was one of the drunk things that they put on. Really, the Oxford group program began at step three, and the first stop in the Oxford room was a step called surrender. surrender your will to god now you know that's pretty pretty tough you know for any alcoholic to surrender to anything uh so bill in order to make this step more acceptable the surrender he said make a decision to turn your will and your life hold the care of god as you understand him which is more acceptable and it sounds better for alcoholics now the second step in the actual group was a step called examine your sins and this is what we see that in bill's story examining your sins is pretty tough for an alcoholic and bill turned this into make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourself same idea but said in a way that an alcoholic could handle it step five was called sharing and confessing in the outward groups and Bill turned that in to admit to God, to yourself, another human being the exact nature of your wrongs. The same idea was said in a way that an alcoholic could accept it. Steps 6 and 7 were not a part of the Oxford Group program but those were the steps that Bill added to close up some of the loopholes. Steps 8 and 9 was one step in the Oxford group called a process called restitution And Bill broke that down into two steps. Make a list and then make amends to the people on the list. Step 10 was an expansion step that he added to that night. It was not a part of the Oxford group to close up a blank spot that he saw exist. And step 11 in the Oxford Group was called guidance. They had practiced receiving guidance from God. It's hard for an alcoholic to be guided by anything. So Bill turned that in to sought through prayer and meditation to receive God's will and the power to carry that out. The same idea, but expressed in a way that alcoholics would accept it. On the end of those steps, he added the idea, the value of one alcoholic working with another that they had found this experience in the Oxford Groups. So the Oxford group program was expanded into ten steps, plan of recovery. And on top of those ten steps, he added the idea of powerlessness that came, step one, that came from Dr. Silkworth, and the ideaof power that camefrom Dr. Carl Jung. And it's become my twelve steps. The expanded steps, ideas of the Oxford groups, coupled with the ideas of Silkworth and Carl Jung." Now, just before we close for the day, just to kind of give us something to think on tonight, Let's look at step three for just a little bit. If we are convinced on those vital issues, if we've taken steps one and two, then we're now ready to start looking at step 3. And step 3 talks about making a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. And I think in order to fully understand step three and realize what we're really trying to do with it, we've got to recognize first, as the book says, that any life run on self-will can hardly ever be a success. Because under those conditions, we're always in collision with people, places, and things. Later on in step three, he's going to tell us we are selfish, self-centered, self willed human beings. And every one of us is living proof that any life run on self-will can hardly ever be a success. Because if anybody ever ran on self will, it was an alcoholic. Doing what we wanted to do whenever we wanted it and to hell with the rest of them. Satisfying our needs, our wants, and our desires first. and in the satisfaction of self, then we were in constant collision with people, places, and things. With our spouses, with our children, with OUR bosses, with our co-workers, with Our bankers, with THE police. And then those people, in turn, would retaliate against US. And that created pain and suffering for US. It's plain that a life run on self-will can hardly ever be a success. Because we're always in collision, and we're always experiencing the retaliation. We're always experiencing the pain. We're not getting what we want when we want it. And that makes us restless, irritable, and discontinued. And that makes us filled with shame, fear, guilt, and remorse over the things we do whenever we're drinking. And it seems as though that we're never going to have any peace of mind and happiness and serenity if we don't do something about this self-will thing. Now, nobody wants to get rid of self-will. But all we've got to do is look back in our own lives and see the result of self will. My best thinking is what got me to AA. My best thinking was what created all those troubles I got into and created a living hell that I was involved in. And if I'm going to have any peace of mind and serenity necessary according to Dr. Silkworth for sobriety, and I'm probably going to have to do something about this self-will. Now, I think there's three words in Step 3 that if we can really see and understand them, we'll know what Bill's talking about. The first word is the word decision. I hear people today say, well, I've been in AA five years. My life's still all screwed up. And I don't know why, because I turned it over to God when I took Step 3 two years ago. No, we don't turn it over to God in step three. We make a decision to turn it over to god in step 3. Step 3 implies further action. I think one of the best examples that I know of is my wife and I back 4, 5, 6 years ago. We made a decision to come on out here to California to Los Angeles and visit some of our relatives and we made that decision in the fall of the year. but we didn't do anything to carry that decision out so that year we didn' t get to Los Angeles next year about the same time got itchy feet made the decision again but we did' n't do any thing to carry out the decision so by golly we didn''t get to Los Angeles that year either the third year we made the decision but this time it was different I took the car down had it serviced Barbara Paxson clothes and some food, and we put it in the car. And we got in the car and drove from where we lived to Tulsa, Oklahoma, then to Oklahoma City, then Amarillo, Texas, then Albuquerque, then Flagstaff, then Barstow. And you know, by golly, we ended up out here in Los Angeles one day visiting our relatives. Not because we made a decision, but because we took the action necessary to carry out that decision. And as we progress through the steps tomorrow, we'll find that's exactly what steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 do for us. Carry out the decision that we're making in step 3. Now what is it we're deciding in 3? Well, we're decided to turn our will over to the care of God, and it used to say and direction of God as we understood him. Now, what is our will? Our will is nothing more than our mind. Our will is nothing more than this thing up here in my head, this thinking apparatus. My will is Nothing More Than the Thing It Tells Me What to Do. I was scared to death to take this step. And I went to my sponsor and I said, I want to be like and take step three. He said, why? And I said because I don't understand what God would have me be, and I don't know what he would have me be. And he may want me to be a missionary and send me to Africa, China. I don' t want to go there. And he just laughed. He said, Well, Charlie, at least it wouldn't be in the hands of an idiot, would it? He said let's look back in your life. He said you've always been a selfish, self-willed individual, and you've always done exactly what you wanted to do whenever you wanted to do it. And it's always thrown you in conflict with other people and you hurt them, they retaliated and that hurt you and your life became a living hell and the life of everybody around you became a living hell. He said just think, if God could direct your will it might become better but he said as long as you operate it, it can't be any better than it's ever been before Will Mind Thinking are all synonymous Now a good example of the word will today is if I'm approaching the end of my life and I've gathered up a few material things and I'm concerned with what's going to happen with them after I die, I'll usually go to an attorney and I'll say, I want my wife to have this, my daughters to have these, this is to be my sons, I want My brother to have his. And that attorney will take my thinking as of that day, put it down on a piece of paper. I'll sign it, maybe the attorney or witness puts it in the safe. Now, a year or two or three later, when I kick the bucket, they hurry me down to the undertaker's parlor. They get me ready as fast as they can. They run me out there and get me in the ground and cover me up and go right back to that attorney's office. The attorney gets that piece of paper out of the safe and reads to them my thinking as of that day that I was in the office two or 3 years ago. And we know they call that piece-of-paper a will. And it's not by accident. Will, thinking, and mind are synonymous. Okay, the other thing I want to try to turn over is my life. And what's my life? My life is nothing more than my actions. What I am today, right now, as of this moment, is the sum accumulative total of all the actions I've taken throughout my entire lifetime is what's made my life what it is right now. All action is born in thought. All action is born in thought It's not by mistake that it says will and life Some people read that step to say life and will though will comes first If my thinking is okay then chances are my decisions my actions my life will be okay If my thinking is lousy then chances are my decisions and my actions will be lousy, and it will lead to a lousY life. If God could direct my thinking, it might become better. If my thinking becomes better, then probably my decisions or actions will become better, and if they become better then my life is going to become better and not only my life but the life of everybody around me Is it going to become better? Because mine has become better. Left on my own resources, I don't stand a chance. A self-will will always take me back to what I want when I want it and to hell with anybody else. There's only two wills on earth as far as we know. One is God's will and one is human will. i cannot operate on both at the same time now those that have been operating on self-will and that's destroyed our lives and the lives of those around us if we could get off the self and start operating on god's will then things are bound to get better and if we don't do that then we're going to stay restless irritable discontented We're going to stay filled with shame, fear, guilt, and remorse. We're gonna continue to suffer pain as people retaliate against us for what we do to them. And eventually that takes me back to the idea of the sense of ease and comfort that comes at once by taking a couple of drinks and leads me right back to drinking every time. You see, that's what's wrong with fellowship only. Fellowship only doesn't bring about those changes necessary to get off on my will and on God's will. And until I get on God's will, I'm always in danger of taking a drink. Step three, even though it's only a decision, is the pivotal point of the program. This is where we stand at the turning point. You and I are faced with but one of two alternatives. Do we go on and drink until we die? Or are we going to make a decision to accept that spiritual help in our life? And if we make the decision, we're dealing with step three. And then we'll take action. Okay. This is real simple. Charlie said that I heard a guy say something a while ago. I think it's really true. I was listening to Charlie. He was talking about that. This is why the alcoholics don't want us to think. They say when we think, we are consulting with an idiot. How do we escape from this? We're getting ready to close, but I don't know how far we can get into this. But, you know, as Charlie said, there are two wheels on the face of this earth. I see that, you Know, we can see the void of this. We can see it every day. Now, we Can see that we humans have the right to make decisions in our lives. And if we look around us, we find that no one else can do this. Nothing and nothing else on the Face of this Earth can do that. that's living no other plane our animal has this ability uh they can't make a decision uh they uh they they seem to be god directed they don't they were not given this ability only we we are the only living thing on the earth even the planes they have a certain amount of intelligence to run their roots towards substance i turn their leaves their their ability is very limited dumb animals they don't have this ability and this is why god he says says they he said i will direct them but man i'm going to give you the ability to direct yourself so there are two wheels and we see god's will every day we see the planks of the green we see that we see nature that we'll see it rain we seethe sun we seethesun come up so we see god'swill and we seemanswill to human will There were two on the face of this earth. And we were the only thing that was given this ability. And in the beginning, as the story goes, God created this earth and He created all the things that He directed. He created the animals, the planks and all the dumb animals. They said He was lonesome. He wanted something of His own image. I used to think that meant we looked like God, but it seemed like God wanted something else with intelligence. He wanted something else that had the ability to make decisions. So he created us in his own image, and he gave us this ability. He gave us will. And it was a nice little place where we were in the beginning. John and I call it Serenity Park, you know, in the big, big book. Two people. They had a nice place, had a meeting every night, you now. Didn't have no police, no nothing. Man, it was great place. Serenite Park, great place, And they were in there with these dumb animals, and the dumb animals was God who was directing them. Now Adam and Eve was in there. They were new. So when they went in the garden, they went along with God's program. God directed everything else, so God directed them. Everything was fine. Man, they had it made. No work, plenty of food. No food stamps, unemployment, nothing. I mean, they didn't have none of them offices in there, no prisons or nothing. I mean, they had a mate. And finally, a snake come along. Now, the snake messed it up. Snake come along and say, Eve, one day he was walking out there and he said, Honey, I'd like to talk to you. She said, He said, Child, let me tell you something. He said、Eve, letme tell you child, what are you doing? He said,"I'm a snake and God directs me." He said.,But you and Adam got self-will. Y'all don't have to go along with this crap. Y'All can do what y'all want to do. You can make decisions. And Eve said, I didn't know that. I said, yeah, child, you can do anything you want to do. So Eve couldn't wait until she went and told Adam. Adam, Adam, we've got self-will. And Adam said, what's that? She said, shoot, Adam we don't have to go along with this stuff. Me and you can make decision. Me and me can do what we want to. He said, we can even eat that apple. Adam, he made a decision to eat the apple. It was a bad decision. But, you know, I don't know why we knock at them. That's the first one he ever made. He hadn't did it before. And God saw the apple gone and then he come by and he said, when he saw the Apple gone, I think that was the indicator. When the apple's gone, they have found out about it. You know, they haven't discovered it. And we discover self-will. Now Adam, you now, he was told he had to leave. He said, I take care, provide for those things in this garden that I direct. And he said, I gave you self-will and you have the power to direct yourself. But if you're going to exercise that power, you'll have to leave this garden. You'll have go out there and take care of yourself. I take charge of what I direct and if you want to direct your self, take care yourself. And they had to leave. But then he made a covenant. That's the same covenant we got today. It's been passed down to us. It hasn't changed. It was a covenant made. He told them, he said, but if you want me, if you, if you wanna come back under my directions and you want to come back, you want for me to direct your life? He said, you'll have to give self-will back to me. And if you give self will back to be, then I'll direct your live again and take care of you just like I do the other animals. But only you can give self well back to m. So that's the decision that we have to decision that we all humans have. Only we can make the decision to give God back what He has so freely given to each and every one of us, self-will. Only we could make that choice. So we stand at the turning point and as a result of these two conditions in our life, we are asked to make that decision. And this is the first step in recovery. We stand at that turning point and this is a decision that every human being has to make. I don't know how true that story is. Pretty good, John. But it fits in what we're talking about.