Self-will and Hitting Bottom – Big Book Study – Part 8 of 8 – Scott L and Matt C

I'm Scott Lee. I'm an alcoholic. Good morning. It's good to be here. I love this. When I got here, the few times that I prayed as I look at it now, I was really trying to be God's coach, His ally. Big fella, take a knee. And about that lottery ticket and let's do this, and then I was giving God his instructions. And I had an experience in my flying days we picked up a load of bad gas at a place called American Samoa coming back to Honolulu it's about an eight-hour flight and halfway across got into the the fuel had water in it and at 50 at 35,000 feet it's pretty chilly and they don't call it water they call it ice and it clogs the fuel lines and jet engines about this big around do what we call compressor stalls kind of like a backfire in your car only maybe just a little bit more serious and we couldn't maintain altitude we come down into warmer air and and we can make it the engines run good in warmer air but we don't have gas to get that far jet engines more efficient at altitude we're doing this which is the worst thing and it looked like for four hours one afternoon we were going to put a 300,000 pound airplane into the pacific ocean many of us have had the experience of thinking we're going to die in the next few moments we've wrecked motorcycles we've had head-ons we've run into trees we've looked down barrels of guns many of us have had that experience for a second or two let me tell you that four hours is a long time to think you're going to die today it's a long time and i promised god if he'd get me out of this and i was going to quit smoking quit drinking quit visiting ladies i wasn't married to uh i'm going back to church i might build some churches I'm going to memorize the Bible I didn't leave anything out and we shot a forced landing at Hickam and we turned final at 9,000 feet without getting into a lot of pilot talk I'll just tell you nine's a little tall for turning final and our theory was that we could at least crash on dry land we could have our bodies sent home for burial that's the conversation in the cockpit when you think you're going to die for four hours today we taxied that thing in they dip the tanks like you dip your crankcase see how much oil you got because we're showing empty we did not have sufficient fuel left on that plane to start four engines and just taxi back to the runway we did Not have that much left and I didn't even go to the quarters I went to the officers club and went into the stag bar back to The Crazy Section put my bags down on either side of the bar stool I said my tie the big one pack of Marlboro's and when I look at it I look out today this is my perspective is in those days when i prayed i was trying to make him my god and what i've been taught here is how to make me his man i had so many things backwards and that was just one of them i um i had an experience when i was put in treatment pretty much against my will by a business partner who wanted me to over correct yeah that's not why i stayed but it's how i got there And I didn't sleep the first three nights I was in treatment, and I was laying there the fourth night knowing I wasn't going to sleep again. And nights are long if you're not sleeping, you're nicht drinking. You know, it stays dark a pretty good while. And a review of my life happened, and not like I did it, but I saw my life like you might see a movie. And I got to the place where I began to look at the single worst thing I've ever done. and I have one that stands alone. And we're going to talk about it when we get to step nine. And I'd always been able to stop those thoughts. You know, six-pack will do that. Three double scotches, that baby's gone. And I'm laying in a bunk in the treatment center. It's lights out at 11. I've got to stay in that bed until 630 in the morning. Short potty breaks, but I'm stuck. And I can't get it turned off. It will not stop. And I reached what for me was bottom, and this is my experience. I don't see the definition of bottom in our literature. My experience is that bottom isn't on the physical plane. I know men serving long prison sentences who are, as a direct result of this disease, who are not at bottom. I have puked blood. I have been in lots of kinds of trouble. None of that was bottom. Bottom for me was in here. Bottom was when I was so repulsed by myself and what I'd done that I would have paid any price for relief from that. And at that point, this part of me screamed. And my roommate didn't hear it. It didn't happen up here. This all happened in my chest. Scream to a God that I don't think I believed in. Scream, God forgive me. Like that was very loud. And I'm laying on my back in this bed with my eyes closed. And in the next instant, everything I'm going to tell you happened. God forgive me. And suddenly there's this magnificent light shining just on me. With my eyes closed, I could see that room in more detail than I can see this one right now. I could See it all. There was a physical sensation at the same moment, similar to when you've had x-rays taken of your teeth and they lift that protective apron, that heavy thing. It was like something was heavy lying all over me that I was unaware of that flew off of me. And my body felt so light, I believed it was going to float off the bed. And I lay there in the presence of infinite love. I love telling that story because i get to see it again and i knew in that moment that there was a god that that god had the power to forgive me and i was forgiven and i used to say god forgave me then but i don't know that i'm not i don'T KNOW THAT HE EVER JUDGED ME I KNOW THAT I RECEIVED THE FORGIVENESS THEN I LIKE TO SAY IT THIS WAY I DON'T SPEAK FOR GOD AND I'M NOT COMFORTABLE AROUND PEOPLE THAT DO SO I DONT I CAN'T SAY THAT HE FORGAVE ME BUT I CAN TELL YOU I REceived THE FORGIVENESS THAN And I lay there in his presence for a while, and that's the best I can do. And I've talked to other people who have had experiences like this one who will also tell you that what we call time doesn't exist in that presence. It can't explain it to you. And I laid there in the presence of infinite love for a While, and then I must have slept because the next morning I woke up, and I hadn't done that in several days. And I wokeup wanting to be one of his guys, and it was my first cornerstone. And I believe that I took the first three steps in that moment. That was a beginning for me. For those who feel like they've been cheated because they didn't get one of those, this is Bill's story, page 12. Very bottom of the page. But soon the sense of his presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within myself. I'm not here to tell you what Bill meant, but that reminds me of the truth about me, and that's that I don't believe for a second that that event alone would have kept me sober 23 years and a couple of months. It was simply a cornerstone for a last gasper. I think I was maybe pretty close to death and I don' t think anybody knew it. That' s just what I think. Page 60. We' re skipping a lot, but we' ve got to keep it moving here. The perspective I'm probably going to use for the balance of our time together when I talk is how I take a new guy through the steps. I'm not telling you what to do. If your sponsor has you do something else, I believe your sponsor's correct. He's right and I'm wrong. She's right. I're wrong. I believe God bless his sponsorship. I think there are a lot of wonderfully right ways to do what's in this book. I've just got to tell you what I do currently, and I'm sure open to learn. I also want a constant search for people who disagree with me. And it's not to argue. I don't want to argue, but I'm holding what I now believe in an open hand. I'm willing to talk about it, and so if somebody disagrees with me, please talk to me. It might be a chance for me to learn something. You know, I really like what Scott said, and if I say anything this weekend that you disagree with, would you also please talk to Scott? Appreciate that, Bob. I'll pick it up now if you don't mind. Page 60. So what I like to do is to get a new guy to read the first 60 pages, to look up a couple of words on every page so we have something positive to talk about while we're in process here. And we get to the ABCs here. I like to sit down with him face-to-face. A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. Are you an alcoholic? The book gives two basic characteristics of the alcoholic. Like, he means to quit forever and can't stay quit. That's one. Or, not and, or once you begin to drink, you have little control of the amount you take. Do you have either of those characteristics or both? Give me some examples. I think the longer he talks, the better because he's setting his own cornerstones. And then the second half of this, couldn't manage their own lives. What happens when you manage your life? Divorce is final win? uh yeah the how much on the credit card tell me what happens when you manage your life what does it look like b and i want to hear as much of that as i can be that probably no human power could have relieved their alcoholism who tried cops courts judges wife oh forgive me wives um high school counselors, psychologists, psychiatrists, siblings, parents, you, who tried? Given the fact that those people were unable to relieve your alcoholism, and I guarantee you I can't, is it logical to you that no human power will be able to in the future? Is that true for you? And let's set those cornerstones. Let's let him tell me. Because if he starts wavering later, I'm going to need that ammunition. In the meantime, it makes a wonderful cornerstone. We're going to come back to page 60 later. We're gonna go to page 12 right now. This is a concept that I have found in two different locations in the book, and I'm not saying it isn't in some more, but I think it's one of the most powerful concepts we have and it's an easy one to overlook. And by the way, I would note that the sober alcoholic called the drunk one. One of the things that we do at my home group is we get newcomers' phone numbers. When I was sober 100 days, I bet I had 100 phone numbers You know how many I'd call, don't you? yeah and so what I do and I require the men I sponsors we don't give our phone numbers to new guys we exchange and we take responsibility for calling them a couple of times in the next three days when I'm gonna chase them a couple of funds nothing for me to pick up the phone say hey Stanley you and I swapped phone numbers at the back room yesterday I talked to five guys every day they're in recovery you're on today's list how's it going I'm going to the Nolan still road meeting tonight 8 o'clock once you meet me there I got a CD for you have a cup of coffee there's nothing for me to call him he can't call me this thing about the hand of aa always being there what would happen if we could reach it out a little bit further they're dying you know and we sure got precedent roland was sober and he went and kept ebby from being committed for alcoholic insanity ebbey was sobering called bill and went over and saw him bill was sober made the phone call that led him to bob so it's not like we don't have a little precedent on this And I don't believe in chasing them, but I believe that when that newcomer's shoes get through the front door of my home group, his responsibility is over. It's mine now. And forgive me, but they're dying. They're absolutely dying. So here is Ebby on page 12, and Bill has got this terrible problem with this God concept. About 10 lines down, it says, I didn't like the idea. I could go for such conceptions as creative intelligence, universal mind, or spirit of nature, but I resisted the thought of a czar of the heavens, however loving his sway might be. So he's got a problem with the God concept. And Ebbe says to him, I think the words that saved an awful lot of us, in the next paragraph, my friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, why don't you choose your own conception of God? He didn't say, what do you believe? he didn't say, what did they tell you? He didn't say, What do you hope? He said, Why don't you choose one? Why don t you actually make selections? Pick one. Page 93. The chapter Working with Others. About four lines down. Stress the spiritual feature freely. If the man be agnostic or atheist, make it emphatic. He does not have to agree with your conception of God. Here it comes, he can choose any conception he likes provided it makes sense to him. And so what I like to do with him if you haven't tried this is to sit down and say I want you now we're going to write down the God concept and I want it to be single words or short phrases, not this big flowery thing of not what they told you and not what you believe or think you believe. I'm going to ask you to slam the door on that for now. I am not saying we won't pick it up later but for now I want to lay that down and I'm going to ask you to choose characteristics that you would like for God to have. And it's going to be, we're going to have a conversation about this. I'm gonna make some suggestions. If you don't like some of these suggestions, don't take them. Don't let me sell it to you. But I may have some that you might find useful. So why don't you go ahead and start giving me some characteristics that you would like for god to have? And I want him to say, all powerful. I'll say, yep, okay. I think that's a good one. Usually they get to forgiving pretty fast. And I say, forgiving is great, but that was insufficient for me. I was too guilty. I had to have a God who was eager to forgive, not just forgiving. And sometimes they take it, sometimes they don't. Here's a big one. How about available to me? How about gentle? How bout loving? Howbout creative? about has a sense of humor? I've got to have a God that laughs. How about is not angry with me? How about a God who wants what's best for me and by the way, He knows what it is and I don't? Or how did I get here? And so let's lay these down and then I say to Him, I'm not going to ask you to believe that. Religious people all my life have been saying, believe this. Well, how? Well just believe it. Well how? I can't tell you how But in my home group, they say faith is really just hope with a track record. So I can ask you to have hope. You can look around and see it's working for some of us. Why don't you hope it will work for you? Back on page 60. And then what I'm going to ask you do is to apply it in all cases. It's what the scientists call a working hypothesis. What that means is that we have reason to believe something may be true. we are therefore going to apply it in all cases and just find out what happens so i'm not asking you to believe that and i'm and i hate fake it till you make it oh we faked it long enough don't fake anything for me what i'm going to ask you to do is act as if how do you think you'd conduct yourself if you believe that think about that conduct yourself in that manner and let's see what happensso when you and i use the term god this is going to be what we're talking about is this. And you are welcome to add or subtract to that list. I want to know when you do it, but this is your concept. It's yours, but I need to know what it is and ask them if they're willing to do that. And I say the reason that you have to believe that this may be true is that we've pretty well bracketed my concept of God, and as you've noticed, mine's working because you wouldn't ask me to sponsor you if you didn't think it was. So we have an excellent reason to believe this may be true. So I'm not asking you to believe it, I'm asking you conduct yourself as you think you would if you believed it. Page 57, very top, save for a few brief moments of temptation the thought of drink has never returned at such times a great revulsion has risen up in him seemingly could not drink if he would God had restored his sanity. I said last night that I can't find a place that promises me manageability here's one of the places that promises my sanity we'll We'll pick up another one later on today. It says, what is this but a miracle of healing? Its elements are simple. Okay, so what are the elements? It says circumstances made him willing to believe. Hmm. Yeah. That's my kind of thing. On page 53, and we're going to come right back to 57. Slightly above the center of page 53 a paragraph begins, When we became alcoholics crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade. that's my story right there postpone or evade right put it off till later lie about it head and shoulders fake something anything so back in 57 circumstances made him willing to to believe that means for me i could no longer postpone and i couldn't evade i got trapped it said he humbly offered himself to his maker then he knew he didn't say give me some help they didn't say, get me out of this and I'll never do it again. He said, take me. And whatever plan you have suits me. Mine's not working. And I'll take yours unseen. The words carte blanche mean white paper. So I'm offering God white carte blanch. I'm signing the bottom of the rest of my life and saying, fill this in any way you want to. It's very different from give me a little help and I will take it from here. Very, very different. It is this thing I said before about making me his man. There was a story that came out at the end of World War II, Douglas MacArthur was on the battleship Missouri with the Japanese delegation in their formal regalia to sign the surrender documents and the chief of the Japanese Delegation walked up to the surrender document and began to read and MacArthur said to him don't read it just sign it. Now think about that. That's what I'm asked to do here. I don't get to read it. I don't get any questions. I'm beat. I am just signing it. And it says, Then He knew. Even so, continuing on 57, even so has God restored us all to our right minds. To this man the revelation was sudden. Some of us grow into it more slowly. Here's a promise. But he has come to all who have honestly sought him. I like the analogy that God is kind of like the mother of a three-year-old playing hide and seek with her child. Where does she hide? She hides where the child can find her. That kid's only got to go looking, that's all. And this is my heavenly parent who hides only where I can find him. All I have to do is seek. And it says that in the next sentence. When we drew near to Him, He disclosed Himself to us. I believe that's what happens. Back on page 60. So having given now a God concept that makes sense to him. This thing about the doorknob and the light bulb shouldn't make much sense, but we found a couple of places where we've invited him to come up with the God concept. He's now got one down on paper that he's going to try and see what happens. We now take a look at C on page 60, that God could and would if he were sought. Well, let's see that God could. Well we've gotten him down as all powerful. Let's see he could do anything and would. Well let's see he's available to me he's eager to forgive gentle loving has a sense of humor and he wants what's best for me so i'd say he would and then it said if he were sought not found item one god is not lost does not require to be found but simply to seek that's all i have to do is simply to seek i wish when we read this portion of chapter five we could add this next phrase because I love it. It says, being convinced we were at step three. Convinced of what? How about A, B, and C? How bout A,B, andC? Are you convinced of A, two parts, B and C are you convinced? Welcome to step three! You have clearly done one and two. And it's really that simple. And I see people working awful hard on some of this stuff. When I was new, I used to say a lot of insane things. I said things like, I'm having a good day or I'm having a bad day. Isn't that crazy? If you think about it, when I say I'm having a Good Day what am I really saying? I'm saying Scott's will is being done today. I say, I am having a Bad Day. What am I really saying, Scott's Will is not being done today! That's exactly what I'm sayin'. If you had asked me my first day sober what kind of a day I was havin', it would have taken me a long time to tell you and And it wouldn't have been pretty. See, and I was wrong about that. I'm wrong about it a lot today. So I've got to get out of the judgment business of something being good or bad. I can judge whether it's the right thing for me to do or not. But when I start saying, Bob told the story about the farmer and the horse, I've Got to Hold That. When I do, I don't get angry very often. A gift from one of my sponsors said that in the history of this planet, no human being has ever been put in an insane asylum for being crazy never happened they put us in there for acting crazy and none of us have ever been out been let out for being sane they let us out for acting sane and that's important because on those days when I'm nuts if I don't act on it they don't know and I can just walk around like everybody else and I just fool them by the hundreds. And so I think it's important that I'm careful with my actions. This thing that we do, page 20. I like the way we come straight through the book, don't you? It just makes it so simple. About eight lines down. If you're an alcoholic who wants to get over it, that's a pretty interesting caveat. Do you want to getoverit? You may already be asking what I have to do. It is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically. We should tell you what we've done. I like to observe sometimes what it doesn't say. It doesn't saying what I'll have to know will teach you what I've learned. There are people that know this better than I do that are drunk this morning. I got a guy at my home group that's got a photographic memory. He read the big book his first three days in treatment and can recite it almost perfectly. He drank three more years. This isn't about what I know. And it isn't about what I believe. I mean, and I like to say this to a new guy, if what you believed was working, we probably wouldn't be sitting here. So let's not be too concerned about what you believe and certainly not about what you feel. It's always about what You do. And Bob was talking about that earlier. It is about what i do on those days where I don't feel connected. That doesn't matter. I still need got to read my two pages in the book. That's something I do. Read two pages a day in the text. I start at Roman numeral 11, I go through 164. I read the book about four times a year. I require that of the men that I sponsor. I don't have many requirements to require that. If you haven't got time to read two pages today in the test, I ain't got time to sponsor you. Can't work with you. It's a reasonable request. I must do those things and we'll talk about it when we get to step 10. But what it says here is what do I have to do? We shall tell you what we've done. What we have done is placed ourselves unreservedly in the care of sponsors who've already done the 12 steps out of this book. We have allowed those sponsors to coach us through actually doing the steps outof this book, and we've stayed active carrying the message. And everyone that I know that has done that has stayed sober. I've seen zero exceptions to it, not a one. Has anybody here seen an exception to that? No. We don't see people in and out of the program. We see them in and OUT of the fellowship. Programs are 12 steps, and the people that get in this thing or do this thing tend to stay sober. And I asked that question to an awful lot of AA members in the last 10 years, it's been well over a hundred thousand. And i've only seen five people say that they thought they had one. Four of them wouldn't talk to me. One of them did and she said that, I said you know somebody did the steps out of the book with a sponsor that's already done them out of the book? And he stayed active and drank and he said well he never did a four step. I said oh well forgive me. I hate to do this but I don't have to discount that. That's just a problem for me. Bob touched on something I thought he was going to do here earlier on page 52, these bedevilments. I'll do this and we'll take a short break. Yeah. Interesting concept here halfway down the page. We were having trouble with personal relationships. That should be familiar. Couldn't control our emotional ages, were prey to misery and depression, couldn't make a living, had a feeling of uselessness, full of fear, we were unhappy, couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. Have you had those experiences? You had some of that? Hang on to page 52 and let's flip back to 83. Don't lose 52. I'm sorry, 83 is where we're going. It talks about a new freedom. Alcohol gave me an old freedom. I had to have a new one. Bottom of the page, if we're painstaking about this phase of our development, we'll be amazed before we're halfway through. Going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we'll see our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We'll intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Would you like to have some of that? You got some of this over here? Like to have something over there? Then do what lies between. Don't learn it, don't believe it, don't trust it, don't interpret it, God save us, don' t interpret it. But actually do it. And that's not the whole program but that is how I personally went from living the description of life on page 52 to living the description of life on pages 83 and 84. It was by placing... I don't know of a single great coach in any game of any kind that didn't play the game. The great coaches all played. They may or may not have been a great player, but they played. I have got to have a player coach, a sponsor who has done these 12 steps. Absolutely the critical piece. And when I finally placed myself in his hands and said, whatever you tell me to do, I will do. And I'm currently in that situation. I am fully surrendered to my sponsor. It's the only way I know how to do it. When I did that, that's where my recovery began. Thanks. One little quick story before we take a break. A little over a week ago, I got the privilege of returning to the city of Florence. And I was there on a mission. and i'd been there a year ago and i went there specifically to try to find a statue that i'd heard about by an artist named donatelli and i we finally through a process of asking people we finally found out the museum where this statue was and i had the privilege of taking scott linda and a couple other people in a with me into this museum and and i broke away from everybody because I'm on this frantic search to find this statue and this is a big museum it's like three or four stories with just tons of statues and artifacts and paintings and I'm running from room to room trying to find the statue and I run into this one room and I look at it and I turn and it's right there and it just it just almost stopped my heart and it is a statue of the Mary Magdalene. And it's unlike any depiction of Mary Magdaline you've ever seen. I looked, as I looked at her, I realized that her teeth had been kicked out. She'd looked like she'd been turning nickel and dime tricks on the back alleys of Jerusalem for years. There was a hopelessness about her and a weatheredness. And there was just this pain. And you look in her eyes, her eyes were haunting. there were the eyes of absolute despair and she stood there and I looked at what she was looking at and there was a thing of Christ on the wall and she's looking up and her hands are almost like in a prayer position but they're not quite it's almost like she's afraid to approach this power and there's in this hesitancy See, I'm standing there looking at all of this and I'm crying because I get it. I get that that's the way a lot of us approach God with a tremendous sense of unworthiness as if she was saying, could this be for me? For me? After all I've done? And after the people I dimed out and what I did to my mom and my dad and the people i'd hurt and the guys stabbed and the lies I told and the people I disappointed, could this be for me? I believe that some of us never approach the light because of a conviction that's wrong. And the conviction is that we've gone too far, that we don't deserve the help. Let Alcoholics Anonymous show you how wrong you are about that. Take the journey. I'm going to take a nine minute and seven second break. And anyone's interested, I have a picture of that statue up here. I'm Scott Lee. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, you guys came back. All right. Hey. Good to see you. Nice party. We're having a ball. I'd like to take a few moments of silence here if we could and remember why we're here. For those who are comfortable with what I do, ask your God to join us. Amen. Thank you. If you use your cell phone, which I did and forgot to turn mine off. I hate it when it rings and we're up here. That's really bad. We're on page 60. And beginning Starting our journey through actually the sure enough how to go about the 12 steps that kind of works for us. Being convinced we were at step 3, being convinced of A, B and C, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. In the short form of the step it says over to the care of God. it says, over to God as we understood him. And I don't have an editorial on that. I just sort of observed the difference. But what I do like to observe is that step three is not where I turn my window life over to god or over to the care of god. Not at all. But it's where I decide to. And there's a huge difference between deciding to do something and doing it. My sponsor, and I'm sure most of you heard, he said there are three frogs sitting on a log in the middle of a lake. Two decide to jump into the lake. How many does that leave on the log? And I said, one. He said, no, no. Three, they've just decided they haven't jumped. So step three is where you decide to jump. And he said, so the directions for accomplishing that decision are numbered four through 12. And He pointed at the first line of step 12 having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps as evidence of that. Spiritually awakened sounds a lot like will and life turned over to the care of God. So that's how you get from one point to the other on that one. So step three isn't about me turning myself over to God, but deciding to. He said besides that, your life is ugly and it's a mess. Why don't you clean it up before you turn it over to Him? Oh, okay. So we've got some steps that'll deal with that. But continuing on step three, it says just what do we mean by that? Just what do I do? The first requirement, aha, there are requirements and there must be more than one if there's a first. The first requirements we'd be convinced in any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. How was your life run in self-wills? Was that a success? Is that you get to AA in the middle of a long winning streak, did you? No, sir. He said, have you ever seen a life run on self will that was a success I've seen that were financially successful, but I haven't seen them, I thought we're totally successful. I don't believe there are any. It says on that basis, we're almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives were good. The word collision is kind of power. Collision, bam, bent metal, broken glass, screaming blood. That's collision. Collusion is different from mild disagreement on rare occasion. collision and then it says even though our motives are good now that really struck me because i've been listening for over 20 years to people in meetings saying check your motives and right here it says that won't work we got a lot of popular things in aa that you hear that are in direct conflict with what the book says that's just one of them um and i want to tell you the story where i got that particular lesson i'm a uh commissioned salesman so what i do for living I call on major accounts. And there was a purchasing agent at a major account who represented about a third of my income, of the products that I sold through his department represented a third the money that I made. We were personal friends, our wives were friends, we were very close and he gave me a phone call one afternoon at home and his wife had just given birth two months early, and the news from the hospital was not good. And he said, would you come down to this hospital and pray over this child? I said, you bet you. And I hopped in the car and drove down there, doing what I've been told in meetings, checking my motives. And, I can't answer the question. I don't know if I'm going down there to pray over that child to bring spiritual relief to this family or to pray over this kid to pray for this child to look good to this guy so he can double or triple what I'm making because he was capable of doing that if I could have added a bunch of stuff to his department, which would have been very legitimate. And I cannot find my motive. And, I believe this, that when I can't get an answer, one of two things is in place. I've either asked the wrong question and the right question on the wrong day is still the wrong question or it's okay that I make a mistake here because I need to get a lesson from that mistake or maybe somebody else needs to see me make the mistake that there's a lesson for someone else that I need to go through. Because when I signed carte blanche, I signed on for that. I signed for me to live through some things that somebody else may need to watch and I never know who they are. I forget that. It's good for me tell you so that I hear it. And I did what I'd been taught. I pulled into the parking place and I prayed and said, God, I'm confused here and I can't find the motive thing and I really appreciate some help. So there's a prayer similar to that. I'm not asking you to believe what I'm about to tell you came from God. I want you to know that I believe it. And the next thing I got was a thought, a very clear thought in the form of a question and the question was does going into a hospital to pray over a sick child violate any of your principles? And the answer was no. No it doesn't. And what underlies that is there are no wrong reasons for doing the right thing. There are also no right reasons for the wrong thing. So this thing that we do here is not about motive. The book refers to motive a couple of places. It says to check them when you're going to bed with somebody. Are they selfish? It says, to check him when you are going where they're serving booze. Nowhere else does it tell me to check my motives and those are really principles anyway. All over the place it talks about principle. Here's a couple of the places. 12, having had a spiritual awakening is the result of these steps. We try to carry this message to alcoholics and to have good motives in all our affairs. It's not what it says. Page 42, last two lines. Quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems. I've got to get out of the motive business. I can come up with a good motive for absolutely anything. I'm fully capable of that. I have an example I like to use. There were these two married folks and they both got excellent jobs. got plenty of vacation, they've got plenty discretionary funding. Their kids both play in the high school band and have band practice this afternoon on a safe ride home. And they decide that they have lost the spark from their relationship and they think they might be able to reignite it by spending an afternoon in a, well we're in a Holiday Inn, and so they take some vacation and they set that up and their motive is to rekindle the spark in their relationship. And I think everybody here says it's a good motive. Everybody on board with that? Did I leave out the part that they're not married to each other? Did I miss that detail? Yeah. See, I am fully capable of that kind of thinking when I start operating from motive and this is just going to be analysis by me. When I operate from motive I'm really playing God. I'm deciding how it should come out. Another example, I'm I'm about to tell you a story out of my past. I didn't ask to be a teacher, but I'm in that role here. I'm going to tell you a history. I'm not going to give you a story to help you get a lesson. I'm gonna tell it out of my past and by the way it's not true. But my motive is for you to get a lesson which is a good motive, right? So I'm going to tell you a lie to help you. What's wrong here? I violated principle. And what it comes down to is that I don't get God's end using Satan's means. It isn't going to happen. Step one section b says i'm not in management so i'm not responsible for how anything comes out what i'm responsible for is the means the way i get god's ends as i use his means so i had the one of the ways i played god was i trusted my motives so i have to step out of the motive business and i put the principle and i hope i didn't drive that into the ground but it's one of those powerful lessons i ever got and i and i violated some i don't do this thing perfectly i don' t know anybody that does continuing each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show is forever trying to arrange the lights the ballet the scenery the rest of his players in his own way if his arrangements don't only stay put if only people would do as he wished the show would be great everybody including himself would be pleased did you notice that this isn't the director we're talking about that's really the director's job didn't say it was the star of the show didn't Say it was a co-star didn't says best supporting we're not sure this guy's got a speaking part. We're sure he shouldn't have many times a speaking part, wants to run the whole dadgum thing. Does that fit for anyone? Yeah, you betcha. Boy, isn't that fun? I'm going to skip a bunch of this because Bob is going to pick up here in a couple of minutes and talk some about step three. I'm gonna skip over to page 62 where my sponsor told me, he said, I'm about to give you the best news you're ever going to get in your whole life. Are you ready for some great do? I said, yes, give it to me. He said, right here in the middle of page 62, sir, our troubles we think are basically of our own making. Was that it? Yeah, that was it. I don't get it. He said, the good news, son, is that you're the problem because if it really is the cops, the courts, the Chinese, the blacks, the Russians, the PTA and the ex-wife, if they really are the problem, you're cooked because we can't do a thing about them. Nothing. The good news is that you are the problem, and if you'll bring a little willingness to this party, we can work on that. Oh, and it turned out to be some of the best news I ever got in my life. My immediate past sponsor had on his answering machine for a long time. He'd call in to go ring, ring, click, click. It ain't them. It ain't then. It aint them. Leave a message. And he finally said he had to take it off of there because too many times he'd have to phone people and say I didn't want to talk to you. I wanted to hear your message. So he finally had to take that off of there. But I used to call him with a question or a problem, you know, and I'd hear that it ain't them, it ain' them, it ain't theme. And I wouldn't leave a message, I got it. I'd just hang up, okay, okay. It it ain't them, that I am the problem. And that is the good news. And it says they arise out of, I'm in the middle of page 62, they arise out of ourselves, the alcoholics an extreme example of civil war and riot though he doesn't usually think so. It says above everything. I wonder if that's important. Above everything! That's somewhere right in the middle. Above EVERYTHING! Holy mackerel has that got to be important? We alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, oh or by the way it kills us, we're going to threaten your life a lot today. It says God makes that possible, and this is my belief. I believe that God will interfere in my life up to a certain point and no further, that I've been given free will because a guy like me with my history doesn't live to be 41 years old to get sober without some kind of help from the other side, but I believe that there's a limit, and when I invite him in to run it, when I say take me, When I sign the carte blanche, it opens that help up further. But I believe that God will honor my free will unto my death if I don't do that because I sure have seen it. I'm saying I agree with what it says here. God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without his aid. That's so important they're going to tell me that twice in this paragraph. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore. We couldn't live up to them either where we'd like to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help. That's so important they told me twice in this paragraph. I've got to have his help, or there's just no hope for me on this selfishness. It says, this is the how and the why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. I trapped one of my teachers in a hotel lobby for three hours one morning, and I asked him a lot of questions. And at one point, I think he became bored with it. And he said, let me ask you a question. I said, oh boy, all right. Here's my chance to shine. Sure. Ask me a question. He said on page 62, it says you agreed to quit playing God. I said yes. He says how did you play God? I said I don't know. And he said these are the ways that he had played God. That when someone died he became angry and that was him saying that he knew who should die how and when. Clearly playing God another one was that he tried to manage his own life and those around him. And the closer people were to him, the harder he tried their lives. Another one is that I judged people. And the way I know that, the evidence of that is that had a resentment. There's only one way to get a resentment, you must judge someone, find them guilty, be angry with them and then feel that anger again. By definition, that's what a resentment is. Resent comes from the Latin. Re, excuse me, the prefix re means again, like reread, and centuria means to feel. So in English we re-feel old anger. That's what resentment is. And the only way to get that is to judge them. So I judged people. Those are the ones he had. Here's some of mine. I already told you when I trusted my motives. That is me playing God and making it come out the way I think it should come out no matter what I have to do in the meantime. For me ends justified means. They don't anymore. Another one is that I needed to know, I just needed to know that I would ask the question why? And that's clearly me playing God because I don't need to know. It was needing to know that was making me crazy. Another was that I was absolutely certain that the things that I knew for sure were correct and if you disagreed with me you were clearly a fool. And among other things not only am I playing God but It blocks my learning process completely. That's a stone block. Another one is that I lie. And I just realized this actually within the last year was that when I lie, I'm actually playing God because once again I'm governing the results. I'm taking responsibility for how it comes out. So those are some of the ways. If somebody has another one, please talk to me at the break. I'm in a constant search. Because it says here, first of all, we had to quit playing God. And I've got to have his help to do it, it said. and it says next we decided so here's this decision referred to in the short form of the step and when i get a guy here i read this and next we decide that hereafter in this drama of life god was going to be our director he's the principal we were his agents he's father we were children and i say are you prepared to make that decision or would you like some time if you want a couple of days i'll give them to you take some time we're not messing around here we're nicht playing i want to know are you ready for that to be the case and if he says he's ready or if he wants some time whatever when he is ready i have him read that to me first person singular i have decided that hereafter in this drama of life god is going to be my director he is the principal i am his agent he's the father and i'm his child and i will say to him i think you've made an excellent decision and i want to make a pact with you and the pact is that that decision will stand until such time as you go nuts and decide to change it. And if you do that, then you will formally change it with me or with whoever my successor is at the time. Do we have a deal? And we shake on it. If I bring him through the steps again, I do not call for another decision. He's got a good one in place. We don't need to make any more decisions here. My decision in the third step stands. My implementation is better on some days than others but my decision stands that's important to me i'm gonna do one more little piece here and then i'm going to turn over to bob on the facing page in the prayer it says god offer myself to me that's that same concept we talked about not give me some help get me out of this and i'll never do it again take me it says to build with me do with me as i will build with me sometimes to build we're going to have to tear down something that's standing there right now I like to warn the new people. You pray this prayer, don't mess around here because your life's going to change and you are not going to like some of it. I think we do a great disservice not telling people that. You are not gonna like some things. Some things you'd like to keep are leaving. They are not coming back. Some things that you don't like are going to show up and they're staying. But it's a package deal. Look at two bowling balls here. My will, God's will, pick one. That's what we're asked to do here. Overall, the package is fantastic. Don't let me paint you a dark picture. But this isn't going to be skipping through the tulips. There's going to me some rough things coming. It's one of the promises is we're going to promise you some tough times. Two bowling balls, my will, God's will, pick one. I was always afraid I was going to work God too hard. I tell you what, I'm going to cover sex and money. He can get the rest. No, that's not the package. I think it's important that they know that. They do some thinking that this is not light-duty stuff. Let's don't go zipping past this. there's some powerful stuff on step three and I think I'm going to quit there and let Bob do some beautiful stuff on the rest of this. I'm gonna turn this over to him