Step 2 and Willingness to Believe – Workshop – the Lost Tapes – Part 6 of 8 – Mark H.

It's our individual responsibility to choose whether we want to do this work or not. And it just depends on how much truth you want to see and how free that you want to get. So we spent a lot of time looking at the first three steps, and I've always had the same experience at the end of that, and that is that I literally reached a place of desperation because I looked at my own experience and I saw that I have a disease of body, mind, spirit, and that no human power can help me with that. But that also then opens the door for what we're going to look at today, which is the second step. Due to the amount of material we've got to cover, I'm going to pick out selected paragraphs in We Agnostics that I want to talk about. And when you look at the second steps, there's really two parts to the second stuff. And once again, it's in the form of questions. And the first part is going to be, do I now believe or am I willing to believe there's a power greater than myself? And for those of you that have been sober for a while, and if you got honest about page 52 and see that maybe you need more power, another way for you to ask yourself that question is, do i now believe, or am i willing to belive there's a power greater than myself that can take me further in every area of my life than I've ever been? Is it possible, for example, if I'm in a marriage, that if I want to go back through this process again, maybe God can remove from me some defects which are preventing me from having the kind of marriage I really want to have. Or maybe, if I'm struggling in my career, God can take away some defects that make me want to love what I do and take a whole different attitude. Maybe if at times where I'm full of fear, God can remove that. So is it possible that he can take me further in every area than I've ever been before? So that's the first half of that step we're going to look at. In the second half, we're posed with another question. And that question is, faced with a self-imposed crisis, we've got to make a choice that either God is everything or God is nothing. So I'm going to throw out some questions and then we're going to pick up on page 45 in the big book, but here's some questions to think about as we're going to go through this on the first half of this step. First question is, am I willing to face my honest doubt and prejudice and the first of two alternatives, to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to facemy agnosticism? Second question is am Iwilling to consider that God is nothing? third question do i have any power choice of control over whether i'll die an alcoholic death next question is intention what has been my intention for god in my life and has it gone the way i intended and the fifth question is lack of power still my dilemma page 45 summed up for me that lack of Power is my dilemma in every area of my life the big book says it's going to tell me where and how to find the power. In the bottom paragraph, you're going to see where this prejudice prayer came into being in the We Agnostics. And they're going to use the word prejudice six, seven, eight times. Prejudice means a preconceived thought or opinion. And today, a prejudice that I have will keep me from growing. And in this chapter, they're gonna reach a place where they're literally going to beg you to lay aside prejudice bottom of page 45 talks about we know how he feels we've shared his honest doubt in prejudice doubt meaning god won't work for me and prejudice is i have this old ideas about god i read something to you yesterday about the man who died and the man was known for deep religious beliefs and shared with you my experience and the experience of a lot of men and women I've done the work with, is a strong belief in God does not spell the necessary ingredients for a spiritual experience. Something different has to happen for me and you. We have to gain access to this power. It goes on to talk about some of us have been violently anti-religious, and to others the word God brought up an idea in him with which someone had tried to impress him during childhood. And one of the things that I always do with the clients is we'll go around the room and we'll talk about the different religions that we've all been raised in. And one of the hardest problems for the alcoholic and addict is to lay aside all those ideas. For a lot of us, based on what we did behind alcohol and booze, the idea of a punishing God will not work for us. I mean, I remember going to my sponsor one time. Let me share a little something with you about sponsor lingo, those of you who are new. Because it's unlike other language. For example, when your sponsor says, let's talk, he don't mean let's talk. He means we're going to go out and you're going to shut up and listen. All right? I'm just telling you that. The other thing, whenever my sponsor used to say to me, is it possible, I knew I may as well just get under my chair because he was going to present me with a question which was going to challenge a belief system. And that was another part. But the idea of a punishing God is not going to work for me in the second step i shared with you i spent some time in vietnam i lived in the drug world for a long time and and played a very violent part of that i had done a lot of things and the idea of punishing god wasn't going to work because i had to get some forgiveness in my life for what i'd done i did i could not operate from the idea that i was going to burn in hell for the things that i did uh if you'll turn over to page 46 the middle paragraph talks about yes we have agnostic temper to have had these thoughts and experiences let us make haste to reassure you it says we found as soon as we're able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a power greater than ourselves we commence to get results and that's a great promise then it goes on to say even though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that power and they tell me what that power is which is God. I love alcoholics who want to define or understand God. I don't believe that that will ever happen this is my opinion the day that I get a chance to do that is the day I'm dead. I will never define or comprehand God while I'm down here nor do I try. It just says Mark do you now believe or you're willing to believe there's a power greater than yourself. I think the next paragraph is important. There's a little exercise I can give you, and that is that I was asked to lay aside prejudice and come up with my own personal concept of God. If you want to do a neat exercise sometimes, go through the agnostics, and every time you see a word that's in the middle of a sentence in capital letters, write it down because it's going to be a word in we agnosticks they use to describe a concept of god. And you're going to find 16, 17, 19, 20 different words that are pretty powerful about developing the concept of God. But I remember it was said to me, Mark, only an alcoholic or addict gets to do this. You get to invent God. What characteristics do you want your God to have? Because obviously, the God that you've been raised with is not working. So it goes on to say, much to my relief, I discovered I don't need to consider another's conception of God My own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to effect a contact with him. And I was stopped here, and I was asked, what characteristics do you want your God to have? And I said, I want my God to be loving and forgiving. He said, is there anything else? And I says, well, not right now. He said well then why don't you start praying to a loving and forgiving God. I've been raised with the Methodist God, became a Catholic to suit a marriage, became an atheist for a period of time, probably came in an A in agnostic. I always tell friends this. Alcoholics and addicts are intelligent people. I think most of them come from the place of being agnestic just to hedge their bets, which means, yeah, I think there's a God out there, but it's just not anything I've ever had anything to do with. And I think we do that so that if, in fact, we die and we get up there, we can say to him, look, I never said. I didn't believe in you, okay? Now, I know I didn' t follow your ways, but I never once said I don' t believe in you, all right? So I think most of us are agnostics. So it went on to tell me that if I come up with my own personal approach and I'm willing to believe there's a power greater than myself, I'll get results. It goes on to say, as soon as I admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence, a spirit of the universe underlying totality of things, I begin to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction. Now that's a promise. Page 46 of the big book, we've looked at the first step. I am willing to believe there's a power greater than myself. I have my own concept and the promise is I'll be given new power and Direction. And then I'm given a little warning, provided I took other simple steps. It goes on to say that God does not make too hard terms with those who seek him top of page 47 when therefore we speak to you a god we mean your own conception of god and this will apply too to other spiritual expressions which you find in the book do not let any prejudice you have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean and now i get another promise at the start this is all i needed to commence spiritual growth to affect my first conscious relationship with god as i understand you. The spiritual journey through these steps, here's how it goes. In the second step, I commence spiritual growth. When I have completed my fifth step, the book says I've had certain spiritual beliefs, but now I begin to have the spiritual experience, and by the time I get to the tenth step, it says I have entered the world of the spirit. That's the process, the spiritual journey that we're going to go through here. Now we see the question. I needed to ask myself one short question. Do I now believe, or am I even willing to believe there's a power greater than myself? And I was asked to answer that question. I said, yeah, I believe there's a power out there greater than me. Now you're going see in the book, and this chapter is going to use the word cornerstone, and you're gonna want to highlight the cornerstone because that's another crazy question on page 75. It says, Mark, after you do this fifth step and you spend this hour in review, the question is, Mark are all your stones properly in place? Well if you don't understand that the second step is the cornerstone to this spiritual archer building then that question has no meaning to you. Just like you're going to find out that the third step is The Keystone. And if you have a dictionary I'll give you the definition of cornerstone. It says it's a stone at one of the corners of a building's foundation. One set in place with a special ceremony. And the second definition of cornerstone is it is the fundamental basis of something. So now we've been introduced to the first step is my foundation, disease of body, mind, spirit. Second step is now going to be the cornerstone. Do I now believe or am I willing to believe there's a power greater than me? And for those of you who have been around for a while, add to that, who can take me further in every area of my life than I've ever been before? If you turn over to page 48, there's one sentence I want you to highlight. It's at the bottom of the page and it talks about its being constantly revealed as mankind studies the material world that outward appearances are not inward reality at all. Some of this information was important for me, and let me explain why. It was pointed out to me that one of the reasons I struggle with this faith in God is because I'm used to visual proof of things. But the truth is that visual proof is the weakest proof of all. Example we sit and look at a table or they use the example here of a prosaic steel girder and you look at it and say that's a piece of steel. scientists have told us, no, it's not. It's a mass of electrons whirling around at high speed. What I begin to realize is that visually, most of what I'd seen in my whole life was an illusion. And I needed to be able to understand that to be unable to start reaching out for a relationship with this power, because I can't see God. I can only experience and feel of god now if you look at page 49 a middle paragraph two years ago is the first time that i saw this sentence it says instead of regarding ourselves as intelligent agents spearhead of god's ever-advancing creation we agnostics and atheists choose to believe our human intelligence is the last word the alpha and the omega the beginning and end rather vain of us what i've never seen before, is the book is asking me to regard myself as an intelligent agent. And the word agent means I've been empowered, a spearhead of God's ever-advancing creation. Take that into meditation and ask God to show you what that means. Intelligent agent, spearhead of God'S ever- advancing creation. How many of you in here have prejudice against some kind of organized religion. Just raise your hands. Good, almost all of you. Bottom paragraph, page 49. I got free of that in this paragraph. We who've traveled this dubious path beg you to lay aside prejudice even against organized religion? I have learned that whatever the human frailties of various faiths may be, these faiths have given purpose and direction to millions. People of faith have a logical idea what life's all about. Actually, I used to have no reasonable conception whatever. I used to amuse myself by cynically dissecting spiritual beliefs and practices when I might have observed that many spiritually minded persons of all races, colors, and creeds were demonstrating the degree of stability, happiness, and usefulness which I should have sought myself. My ego was using my prejudice against organized religion to separate me once again from my fellow brothers and sisters, as well as God and as well as myself. I was judging them when in fact many of these people of different religious faiths were seeking God and had a purpose and direction in their life when I didn't. All I did was drink alcohol, lie, cheat, and steal, and harm everyone I ever loved. But I'm going to sit and condemn religious faith. I got free of that through that paragraph. Top of page 50, instead I looked at the human defects of these people and I sometimes use their shortcomings as a basis of wholesale condemnation. I mean it became clear to me one day the absurdity of me ever judging anybody based on how I've lived my life. Think about that. I mean any of you who have ever written an inventory and you get honest, truly honest and particularly if you've made amends ask yourself how in God's name can I ever judge another human being? In my meditation there's a statement on page 19 that gave me a lot of freedom from the judgmental piece of me and it says that Mark if Mark's going to be helpful to other people he needs to have a respect for their shortcomings, opinions and viewpoints. See I woke up one day in AA and realized something that my ego was using the very thing that got me to God as a means of judging people, i.e., I'm sitting in a meeting and I'm hearing middle-of-the-road solution, right? You know what my mind says? Don't go talk to him. He don't know what he's talking about. The very thing that got us to God, the work in this program, these steps, as it's told to me in the book, my ego takes and now uses as a mean to separate me from you. And I got free of that. Today, I come from a place of I'm undefended. Whether someone chooses to do this work or not doesn't make any difference to me. Whether Someone disagrees with me doesn't make any Difference to me I have respect for the opinions viewpoints and shortcomings of others because my goal is real simple I'm here to be helpful to everyone that I can and anything that I do that separates me from being helpful and a piece of that is I'll be judgmental. I can't do that. Middle paragraph on page 50 is where I'm introduced to the idea that I must gain access to God and then come to believe in it. It says, On one proposition these men and women are starkly agreed every one of them has gained access to and believes in a power greater than himself. I believe there's a reason the book puts gaining access to in front of believing in. I think the most important word in the second step is this, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity? I think it's important to believe I think that the most important word is that. Somewhere down the road, I had to gain access to God, feel God, experience God, see Him work in my life to come to believe in God. Most of us came to A with incredible belief systems around this idea of a God. I was talking with J.D. one day. He'd had three or four churches included in what? The Jesus Saves Tabernacle. He had more information to God that was designed to prevent him from knowing God than almost anybody I ever met. He needed the prejudice prayer. The bottom paragraph on page 50 in We Agnostics is one of my favorite in the whole book. I'm sitting in a meeting not too long ago, man 10 years sober says the only thing AA promises me is that I could get sober. I want to share this paragraph with you. This paragraph was written by men and women who've gone through and had this experience and here's what they say. Here are thousands of men and women worldly indeed. They flatly declare that since they've come to believe in a power greater than themselves which is step two to take a certain attitude toward that power, step two, and to do certain simple things, the rest of the steps. There's been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking. In the face of collapse and despair, in the face to the total failure of their human resources, they found a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. Look at the promise. A new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction will flow into me. Now I'm given a warning. This happens soon after I wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements. There is only one requirement to be a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. There are many requirements that I have to meet if I'm going to go through this work. Now, I don't know a good alcoholic or addict who's not interested in power. I hook a drunk any way I can. One of the ways I hook them is, you interested in power? Well, of course I'm interested in power. Well, good. Let's go through this book. This book is about power. It's about the power of God. I have a relationship with the loving creator. We're going to see in the third step. My third step decision is that I'm going to be his child actor and agent. And the word age, it means I'm empowered. We are empowered by the creator of the universe. This program is about power and it's about taking that power inside yourself out into every area of your life and being used by God for two reasons and two reasons only, I think. Dr. Bob said this. This whole deal is about love and it is about service. That's the whole deal. It goes on to say, and this is important. Once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence, Mark shows the underlying reasons why Mark was making heavy going a life. Well, look at the next sentence. Leaving aside the drink question, put your alcoholism and your drug addiction to the side. Mark tells the reason why living is so unsatisfactory. All the stuff on page 52 that we've talked about already. Forget your drinking, forget your drug use, Mark. Look at every single area of your life and ask yourself a question. Has living life been unsatisfactory based on your own power? Based on everything you know? And then it goes on to say they show how the change came over them. And the change happened when the consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives. now you've got a paragraph again talking about the mind of the intellect and the God of reason got a couple paragraphs talking about that if you turn over to page 52 again this is the paragraph where I use three words interchangeably the second half of the first step unmanageability, spirituality and untreated alcoholism or drug addiction And I've asked you this question, if you want to find out whether or not you need power, take these eight areas, say a prayer and say, God, help me be honest with myself about where I am with these eight ares. So here's what they are. How are you doing, Mark, in personal relationships? First area to look at. Where are you at, Mark? With controlling your emotional nature, with being a prey to misery and depression, with making a living, with having a feeling of uselessness, with being full of fear, with being unhappy, with being of help to other people. And I love the word the book uses to describe these things. It uses the word bedevilments. I got to this point in the work with my sponsor and every time through the work and when I get honest with myself through a prayer, I see that in every one of these areas I need power and I need help. Next paragraph says when Mark saw others solve their problems these eight things by a simple reliance upon the spirit of the universe Mark had to stop doubting the power of God. Mark's ideas did not work but the God idea did. Now I'm going to get over to page 53 and we're going to look at the second half of this step and I'm gonna pose some more questions to look at. having faced the doubt which is areas of my life I don't believe God can help me in my prejudice which is my past experience with God and my agnosticism am I willing to consider that beyond here that God has more for me see I think in Alcoholics Anonymous this was my experience my first time through the work I think I lied to Don when I told him I was willing to make God everything I think what I gave God was my alcohol and drug use. And I think I reserved the right to run all the other areas of my life. Here's what I do with God, and this is... I'm trying to share something with you so you don't have this experience. God comes to me. He did this with career. He did it with money. He Did It With Relationships. He comes to Me and says, My child, I've got a gift for you that I want to give you because I love you so much. But in order for me to give you that gift, you've got to let go of what's in your life right now. And I say to him, get away from me. I'm doing just fine. And he comes back the next day and says, my child, I love you so much that I have a... This is what happened to me when he moved me from Colorado to Texas. I went through this with him. Comes back to me again and says my child I love it so much that I got a great gift for you. But in ordered for me to give it to you, you've gotta let go of everything you're holding on to. And I said, no, I don't want that. Get away from me. I'm doing just fine, thank you. About the third day he comes down to me and says, my child, I love you so much and you're being kind of stupid right now. I'm going to rip it out of your bloody hands. And he does. And about six months down the road, and this is what happened to me when I got moved to Texas, because you've got to understand that my whole support system, everyone I'd ever gotten sober with, everyone I never knew, all the people I'd never worked with were all in Colorado. him. About six months later, six months to a year, I realized absolutely one of the greatest gifts he'd ever done for me was move me away from all my dependency and all these human people so I'm at a place where there's me, this book, and God. And the end result of that was my relationship with him reached a level I'd never experienced before. that's the way i am with the gifts that he wants to give me i let go of things through my bloody paws that's what happened to me around career around money around women around physical health every area of my life i did not walk into aa and i was not one of these i'd like to tell you the first time through the work with don i said oh yeah you got everything wrong i held on to every single piece until I got beaten to the state of, well, I guess the book says Mark had to be pretty badly mangled. I was talking to a gal tonight, five years sober, middle-of-the-road solution, relapsed, dying of untreated alcoholism, doing the work again. She's almost done with her resentment inventory, comes up this morning, stays up all night because she's in here, says, I've reached the place where I'm willing to let go of all that stuff. because she had many areas of her life where she still thought she could control the situation. Talking to another friend of mine who was doing the work, got real involved in his career. Talking last night, he said the same thing. It amazes me, Mark. I step away from this program and some of you have done this work and in three months I'm trying to run the show again. Praying all day and here's what my prayers are. God, give me, give Me, giveMe, give Мне, give ΜE. Now once as He saved God that thy will not mine be done, right? So, that's the question. When I became an alcoholic crushed by a self-imposed crisis, I cannot postpone or evade, I had to fearlessly face the proposition either God's everything or is he nothing. God either is or he isn't. What's my choice to be? Now here's what I did. Here's what my alcoholic ego did the first time of this question. You know what I thought the self-imposed crisis was? I'm going to die drinking. It's not. The self-imposed crisis is lack of power is my dilemma, and I can't do anything about it in every area of my life. See, my first time through the work, here's my first step. I'm powerless over alcohol, and that's why my life's unmanageable. Let me tell you, many times beyond that point, I'm powerful over alcohol and my life is unmanangeable with or without alcohol in every area of my life, and I need power in every area of mine. See, the freedom I'm talking about that happens for me through this process called the work is I get greater freedom and more power in every single area of my life. When I get to steps 10 and 11, I'm going to share with you what's been happening to me about the last year, and that is that I'm being moved through life with no effort on my own. The things that have happened in my life absolutely blow my mind. this is hard for the alcoholic mind to understand you got a problem and the problem's right out here example uh i'm struggling with a career i got a relationship problem the alcoholic and addict mind wants to attack the problem aa says no the problem is out here let's go over here let's work the steps what are you talking about mark i'm having problems in relationships i want to sit down and i want to get closure and i Want to do all this and I want to do therapy and no, let's go over here. Doesn't make any sense. You know what I found the last year? I spend all my time on that right relationship with God and he moves me through life. Absolutely moves me through life with no effort on my part. So, that's the second part of this step. I've got to answer a question. Don would never let me go on through the work until I answered the question. And he said, is God everything, Mark? Or is he nothing? Well, faced with that self-imposed crisis, I had no choice. The God of my understanding, which was going to be a loving and forgiving God, I chose to make that God everything. And now when I go back through the work, my choice, I add something to that. I believe that God can take me further in every area of my life than I've ever been before. I Believe That God Can Remove From Me Defects Which Are Creating Problems In My Personal Relationships With Others. And I Believe God Can remove from me defects which make me controlling my emotional nature a difficult time. And I believe God can remove from me defects which make be afraid of misery and depression. And I belief God can removed defects from me which create problems in me making a living. When I did my inventory in 93 and I got honest about me and making a live, you know what became apparent to me? They all talk about in a lot of corporations being a team player. You know what my team consisted of? Me. I didn't know that until I did the work. And I said to God, God, that isn't what I'm here for. I'm hier to be a service and help everyone and reach a common goal and a common objective. Will you remove the defects from me that are preventing me doing that? Full of fear. Are there defects in me that God can remove so that I don't walk around full of fear? I got more freedom from fear last year than I ever have in my whole life. God is truly everything or nothing. I do not worry anymore about whether I have a job or don't have a job, where I live or where I don't live, whether I have money or not, whether i'm in a relationship or not. I got free of all that last year. Incredible place to be. Absolutely. And you know what it does? I've never been more effective in the work that I do. See, the spiritual life never makes any sense. It's a paradox, right? If I have a fear that I'm bringing into the workplace about am I doing a good job, am I not going to do a job, do I have job today, do i have a job tomorrow? That fear prevents me from God using me and being useful. When that fear is gone, I show up and say hey God let's have fun. How do I help your kids today? How do i help the people I work with? See it's a paradox. It doesn't make sense. Spiritual life's a theory. I have to live it. I can't think my way through the process. Let's turn over page 54. This is always interesting. How many of you in here are struggling with the idea of a higher power or God of your understanding? Raise your hands if you're struggling. No one's struggling? A few people are, okay. Don did something here that helped me a lot with that. He said, I'd like you to make a list of the things that you've worshipped. I said, what are you talking about? He said well I'll help you with one. You drank alcohol for 20 years. You turned your life and will over to alcohol, didn't you? I said oh yeah, I wrote alcohol. He said, I know your drug history. You did drugs for 17 years. You turned your well-in-life over to them, didn't you? Yeah, right, drugs. You've been married and divorced three times, so I think you probably turned your will in life over to a few women, didn' you? Yeah, I wrote women, and I wrote money, and i wrote all kinds of things that I had been turning my will in wife over to most of my life and did not know it. Did not know. And he said now based on that, and based on you're faced with a self-imposed crisis, he said, are you truly going to balk at the idea of turning your will in life over to a loving and forgiving God? And I said, no, I don't think so. See what I'm saying? Look at what we've turned our will in Life Over to. I've done some work with some men who were married and struggling in the marriage and the process of that work. You know what we found out? We found out that the marriage was between them and God. What had to go is, the marriage had to go here, their relationship with God had to be clean, and now they can bring the marriage and put it right underneath. Wow! Think about that. Could my marriage be between me and God? Yeah, absolutely. Could my career be betweenme and God, yeah. I had to reach a place in the process of this work where nothing stands between me and my loving Father, and then you know what happens? Then every single area of my life, taking his power, love, peace, and direction takes off into dimensions that I never knew existed. It's incredible. So, page 55. We're going to find out something. You remember we were told lack of power is our dilemma, and this book says it's going to show us where and how to find the power? We're gonna be given the answer to that. Talks about actually Mark's fooling himself for deep down in every man, woman and child is a fundamental idea of God. This idea of God may be obscured by calamity by pomp or by worship of other things but in some form or other it's there it again means this fundamental idea of God books trying to present to me that the idea of god has been with me since the day I'm born but that I'm blocked from it by pomp, circumstances, and by worship of other things. It goes on to say for faith in a power greater than myself and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives are facts as old as Mark himself. I finally saw faith in some kind of a God was a part of my makeup just as much as the feeling that I had for a friend. Now I'm going to be told how I'm gonna find God. Sometimes Mark had to search fearlessly but he was there that's how i'm going to find god and the next sentence is going to tell me where he meaning god was as much a fact as mark was mark found the great reality deep down within mark in the last analysis it is only there that he may be found that was great news to me i thought i had to find God either in the bible in a church on a mountaintop doing peyote with Indians. Go to Nepal, be a monk. This book says, no Mark, God's deep down within you. And if you're willing to search fearlessly and get rid of the things that have you blocked, you too will now have a conscious relationship with him, gain access to him, be able to feel his presence 24 hours a day. I tell people this. I am in church 24 hours per day because I'm experiencing the presence of God 24 hours a day. That was good news to me, sitting in the living room of my home. I did not have to go off to some monastery and seek God. I could find him deep down within me if I was willing to search fearlessly. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous uses the word attitude a whole bunch of times. I'll give you an example. When you get to the 11th step, it talks about better men and women than you and i are using prayer and meditation and then it follows with a sentence it says it meaning prayer meditation works if mark has the proper attitude and works at it i've asked this of people now you've been sober for a while what do you think the proper attitude is to take into prayer meditation well i'm not sure the next paragraph tells me this attitude. It's one of the most powerful in the book. Here's what it says, and this attitude consists of three elements. It says we can only clear the ground a bit. Here is the first. If our testimony helps sweep away prejudice, enables you to think honestly, encourages you to search diligently within yourself, then if you wish you can join us on the broad highway, look at the next sentence. With this attitude, you cannot fail. Most powerful statement, one of the most powerful in the whole big book. If I take this attitude into every area of my life, into my relationship with God, I cannot fail, and it tells me why. The consciousness of my belief in my relationship with God. This is an attitude that I take into prayer and meditation every morning. God, I'm willing to lay aside prejudice this morning, think honestly and search deep within myself so that I can know you better. And I take that attitude into workshops and into meetings and into virtually everything that I do. Most of the men and women that I got sober with, This book and this work has been our foundation for our relationship with God. But all of us have gone way off on tangents, all seeking God. Example, I'm going to retreat next weekend in Santa Barbara, California monastery. And the man who's running that retreat is not an alcoholic. He studied with a man named Thomas Merton in a monastery. This man went on to get a Ph.D., and he's a psychotherapist out in California. He is not in recovery. What he is, though, is a man who's been seeking God with a passion his whole life. We're going to go to this retreat. Imagine this. Thirty drunks, and it's a silent retreat. Monks in a monastery believe in what is called contemplative seeking of God, which means they use a lot of silence and solitude. Here's his instructions to us. He will come and speak to us Friday night. We will spend all the rest of Friday night in prayer and meditation. He'll speak to a Saturday morning for an hour, the rest is the morning in prayer meditation. He will speak to was at noon the rest to the afternoon in prayer meditation. He will be to us at night the rest the night in prayer meditation he will speak with in the morning and up till noon in prayer and meditation. I'm willing to do that. I'm going to go anywhere and do anything to get close to God. That's one of the gifts that I was given in this program. Tom and I talked about this. This book tells me to seek out religious people, to go other places in terms of seeking this relationship with God. But this book for me has always been my foundation, allowing me to gain access to this God by being willing to search fearlessly deep down within myself and to let God clear away the things that had me separated from Him. Alright? Now, if you'll turn turn over to page chapter 5 how it works page 58 Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Now here's interesting We saw in the foreword of the first edition, the book says they'll show us precisely how to recover. A little bit further along, the book said we're going to show you specifically what we have done. A littlebit further on it said we're gonna give you clear-cut directions and now they say thoroughly followed our path. It says those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. I have never met in my 11 plus years a cannot in this program. I corresponded with a man 44 years sober in Minnesota, and in his 44 years of being actively involved in this fellowship, he has only met two cannots, and they both happened to be men who had fought in the ring and had some brain damage from that. The only people I meet in Alcoholics Anonymous who don't get this program are will-nots, people who will not completely give themselves to this simple program. Now, my experience with most of them is they've never been able to look at the first step. When you see your truth in the first step, I can't conceive of not being willing to go through and do the rest of the work. Because again, when I got done with the first step, I was coming from a place of desperation. I knew I had a disease of body, mind, spirit. And I knew I needed power. Goes on to say these are usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. They're such infortunes, they're not at fault, they're born that way. That's a great out for some drunks, isn't it? I'm born thatway, Mark, I can't ever get this thing. I'm going to continually keep relapsing. I've worked with some guys that said that to me. They didn't read all this paragraph. It goes on to say that these people are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Next sentence, their chances are less than average. Well, average is 50%. They still have a chance, don't they? They don't read that little sentence. The hook is, I'm constitutional and capable of being honest, therefore I'm going to keep drinking. No, I think it's about they're not done drinking. It goes on to say there are those too who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest. I have seen God take people who have all kinds of diagnosis and those people be healed. I think there's a reason the book says that there are people who suffer from grave emotional mental disorders. The interesting thing was, I have read this paragraph before and didn't think I was all those things. What I know today, I'm every one of those things, that I suffered from grave emotion. Emotional mental disorders, that I was inconstitutionally capable of being honest with myself. I have been everything in that paragraph. It goes on to say that our stories are closed in a general way, what we used to be like, what happened, and what we're like now. If you've decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, you're ready to take certain steps. My sponsor stopped me here and said, You've got to make a decision right now. I said, What's that? He said, We've done the work out of the book, 57 pages. so here's my question have you decided you want what I have and I said yes he said are you willing to go any length to get what I had and I yes and if you're going through the work for the first time you have to make the same decision and you have answer the same question and it starts out in the next sentence at some of these things we bought mean what the books gonna ask me to do here's why everything this book asked me to do goes against the root of my problem which is i'm selfish self-centered i played god i've ran my life on my will this book asked me to do everything that goes against my will that's why i'm going to balk at some of this stuff says mark thought he could find an easier softer way but we could not with all the earnestness at our command we beg of mark to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result's nil until we let go absolutely. When I go back through these steps again, my old ideas are everything I think I know about myself, my disease, these steps, and most of all, God. And I've got to ask God to help me set that aside. It says, remember, we deal with alcohol cunning, baffling, and powerful. Without help, alcohol is too much for us. but there's one who has all power, that one is God. May you find him now. Now I get a warning. Alcoholics hate this sentence. Half measures availed us nothing. Here's why we hate it. We've gotten by half measures in every area of our life, all of our lives. There is an alcoholic addict in this room who at many given times at best gave 50% to a relationship or a job or any other area. The warning in the book is, Mark, Half measures avail you nothing. I got a hundred amends to make, I make fifty, and I wonder why I'm not free. It's because half measures avail us nothing. Once again it says we stand at a turning point. Here's what the book means. I've done 58 pages in the book. Here's the turning point, I'm either going to turn toward that power which is God, or I'm turning back toward booze. That's why there's a prayer. Next sentence is a prayer, Every time through the work, I pause at this point and I say this prayer. Mark asked God's protection and care with complete abandon. Meaning, I need his protection and care as I go through the rest of the work. And in particular, step three through seven. Because I'm going to go in and look at some stuff that I'm not going to like looking at. I've also learned about running to a sponsor. This is more sponsor lingo. I went to Don one time when I was writing inventory and I think now before if a sponsor says to me you really want to know why I think before I answer that question now but I go running to him one time and I said Don I need to talk to you he said sure what about I said I'm feeling a lot of guilt and shame and I'd like to know why he said his eyes always get bright he said you really wanna know why you're feeling a lot of guilty shame i said yeah don i've been wondering about that my whole life he said you sure you want to know why and i said yes he said because if somebody did to other people what you did to them you should feel guilt and shame whoa so when you go to your sponsor and ask him why think about that before you do that okay so there's a reason i need to ask god's protection and care with complete abandon then it says here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery turn over to page 60 i'm not going to bother reading the steps many have exclaimed what an order i can't go through with it and what i found out is on my own power i can i'mnot going to go and look at the truth of what i'm going to see in here don't 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 we're willing to grow along spiritual lines the principle we've set down our guides to progress we claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection here's another old idea i had to give up i somehow got the idea if i did this work all my defects would be removed from me i missed this thing about spiritual progress i remember taking that idea to doubt one time he said listen dummy if god removed all your defects there wouldn't be a reason for you to be here to help the new drunk he said sometimes your defects god will use to help other people grow spiritually here's what i've learned sometimes yourself will run riots, God's will for me. Think about that one. Is it possible to reach a point where someone in your life who makes you real angry that you can actually go up and thank them for helping you grow spiritually? My experience is every human being God has put in my life for one second or 20 years has been there to help me grow spiritually period and some of them do that best who make me real angry right now says our description of the alcoholic and we read that in the doctor's opinion a couple other paragraphs the chapter the agnostic in our personal adventures before meaning drinking and after sober may clear three pertinent ideas a i'm an alcoholic can't manage my own life, step one. B, probably no human power could have relieved my alcoholism, step one C, God could and would if he were sought, step two. Now here's what the book says being convinced we were at step three. Being convinced to what? Mark are you convinced of the ABCs? I love the original manuscript you know what it said when you reach this point in the work here's what it said. It said, Mark, when you reach this point if you're not convinced of the ABCs, go back and re-read the book and if you are still not convinced, throw it away. See, I can't go any further in this work until I am convinced of these ABCs. This time through the work, I get to the ABC's and I once again see based on looking at steps one and two that I'm an alcoholic and I can' t manage my own life that no human power could have relieved my alcoholism. And I hoped God could and would if he were sought, and I had to add something, but will he for me? See, I see he does it for others, but I had the ad for will he do it for me. Now there was a question we asked in those 15 questions, and that is how many of you know that there's a requirement that I got to meet before I make the third step decision? The next sentence tells me what that requirement is. The first requirement is that Mark be convinced that his life run on self-will can hardly be a success. So there's an exercise in the next page and a half we're going to do which are going to make me answer this question, are you convinced of that? Because I can assure you there's actually, probably imagine this in this room, some of you who may not be convinced of That. There might be some of You who think that you can still run your life on your self-will. David and I spent a bunch of time last night, and he realized he was back in that mode again, running his life on his self-willed. So when I read this, follow along and read it like I am, which is I'm going to use the I word. Because I told you, my alcoholic ego, if it reads the word we or they, it thinks it's talking about you all. So I'm going to put the I word. So here's how I read this. The first requirement is that I be convinced that my life run on my self-will can hardly be a success. On that basis, meaning running my life on my self-willed, I am almost always in collision with something or somebody even though my motives are good. I try to live by self-propulsion. I'm like an actor who wants to run the whole show is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery, and the rest of the players in my own way. If my arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as I wish, the show would be great. Think about how this feels as I read this. Everybody, including myself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In trying to make these arrangements, I may sometimes be quite virtuous. I may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest and self-sacrificing. How many of you men like to send flowers to the significant other after you've been in a fight? Raise your hand. Several of you. Kind motive, isn't it? What's the real motive? Maybe she'll take me back. So it goes on to say, I may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest, and self‑sacrificing. On the other hand, I may being mean, egotistical, selfish, and dishonest, but as with most humans, I'm more likely to have varied traits. Well, what usually happens? The show didn't come off very well. I begin to think life doesn't treat me right. Here's how we respond when life doesn'Treat us right. I decide to exert myself more. Remember, we've got to hit the problem head on, right? Here's what I do. I become on the next occasion, the next occasionally is when you all ain't doing what I want you to do, Still more demanding or gracious as the case may be. Here's what we do. We go into our keen mind and say, all right, to get this person to do what I want them to do, do I have to be kind or do I just have to do it? Or do I simply have to just be a hard-ass? That's how we think, folks. So it goes on to say, admitting I may be somewhat at fault, just a tiny little bit, I am sure other people are more to blame. I become angry, indignant, self-pitying. What's my basic trouble? I get to answer some questions here. Am I not a self-seeker even when I'm trying to be kind? Am I now a victim of the delusion that I can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if I only manage well? Is it not evident to the rest of the players these are the things I want and do not my actions make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Am I not, even in my best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony? Man, that is me to the bone. Eleven years sober, me tothebone last time through the work. I was doing an analogy the other day because they worked for me. You know it talks about the actor. Here's how I want you to think about this. Steven Spielberg. Probably greatest director ever known. Assume he comes to you and I, and he cuts a contract with us. I'm the actor. He signs me to play this role. He gives me a script. Here's what I do with that. First day, maybe the actress is Marilyn Streep, right? Great actress. One of the best. And she reads some of her lines, and I stop her, and I say, You know, if you would just inflectuate your voice a little, and if you change some of your facial expressions that would have more impact right and then steven a little bit further on he's telling me to do a couple things and i go in and say steven i got some ideas for directing this movie i want to share with you and the guys who are doing the makeup and the lighting i say to them listen the lights are a little too intense could you back off a little biff and i looked at my life and i realized that's how i live life what i was hired to be by Steven Spielberg is I was tired to be an actor, but I want to tell the actress what to do, Steven what to doing, all the stagehands. Everywhere in my life, every part of my life I want to run the show. I myself will run Riot. Time and time again I see that's me. We're going to learn in the book, here's what it says. Mark is in the world to play the role that God assigns. Period. So maybe you what I need to consider is, God, what is the role you want me to play in this? Example, if you're in a relationship, husband and wife. The role is to be a wife, to not be the husband. Let the husband be the husband. You be the wife, right? Over and over again, I start to see where I'm hired to be an actor, but I want to be the director. I want arrange the lights. I want to run the whole show. And I do that at every area of my life. I do it at work, I do in relationships, I do at AA. Time and time again I see that's me. I'm self well-run riot. Goes on to say, I am self-centered egocentric as people like to call it nowadays. I am like a retired businessman who lolls on the fort of sunshine in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation. The minister who sighs over the sins of the 20th century, I commented about that the other day I love it when a minister sighs over the sins of the 20th century if there were no sins we would not need him right he sighs over the scenes of the 20th central I don't know about the rest of you but I'm as grateful for my defects today as my assets because they get me to God I've ceased fighting anything or anyone including my defects because they move me toward God It goes on to say, politicians and reformers who sure all would be utopia if the rest of the world would only behave. The outlaw safecracker thinks society's wronged him and the alcoholic who's lost all and locked up. Whatever my protestations, am I not concerned with my...