Going Through the Work – Big Book Workshop – Part 1 of 2 – Mark

time than that with them. But then we, I tell you what we do, we, if they come back and say yes this is what I want to do, I like to have them get a notebook and I like them write on this day I understand what willing to go down the links looks like and I am prepared to do that. And I have them sign it and date it. I also do that for another reason. They'll call whining about something and I'll say do you remember on this day you agreed to then they go yes well shut up and do the work click see a man named big Frank taught Joe and I about keep the monkey on their back you got one in yours already see I've done that if you if you're sober for wild sponsored people you've done that right taking on their sobriety right taking on their sobriety. Oh, it'll kill you. You can't bear the weight. So that's kind of how I work with people in the approach. So, that really for me lays a good foundation of where I'm going to move next, which is talk to you more about the doctor's opinion and some of that stuff. We take things for granted that people around the world have been searching for their whole life. You know, you're two years sober and you're finishing amends and somebody calls you and they say, what have you been doing the last two years? And you go, oh, forming a relationship with the creator of the universe. No big deal. So language, language is, you know, and we're also going to try to describe some things that can't be put into words. I mean, greater people than us have been trying to describe God for eons and, you Know, the unknowing noble, that which has no name. Language is a messed up thing. So you meet someone and they say, you know you share something in the meeting you talk about taking someone through the work. Well, they have a picture of that in their mind and you forget that sometimes. You actually think that they know what you mean when you say take someone through the work I know people that actually think they've been through the work because they went to a meeting where they read the 12 and 12 and they read through the 12 and they think they'd been through the steps. You don't know their reference remember they're insane and so are you I know people that have read the 12 steps on the wall and think they've been to a big book study or been on a weekend like this. Oh yeah, I went through the steps with Joe and Mark. No, no, no. You heard about it. You heard About going through the steps. Language is a very tricky thing. So I think it is important when you meet someone new or in between and they've asked you for something or you're asking someone for something if you're new and you've gone to someone to ask to be your sponsor or take you through the work. In Denver, they weren't so hooked into sponsorship. Everybody had a sponsor, but they also went through the work with different people. They weren't like possessed. They werenít not possessed in that way. They werenís just, you know, they didnít have a sponsor who said, ìDonít do anything with anybody else.î My sponsor has known for years that Iíve gone through the work with many people and heís still my sponsor. They didnít confuse that, but itís good for you to be clear on what they think you're saying, and you to be clear on what you think they're saying. So what Mark said is a very good idea. Give them an idea of what it's going to mean to go through the work. This isn't going to be a big book study. This Isn't going To Be Talking About The Steps Or Theorizing. The Spiritual Life Is Not A Theory. We're Going To Have To Live This. We're Gonna Have To Do This, This, And So I Would Basically Do The Same Thing. I Would Tell Them A Little Bit About My Story. I would Tell Them That I Would Ask Them To Share With Me Some Of Their Stories. Working With Others ask you to get an idea of behavior beliefs problems religious leanings the guide in there is great get an where they're coming from a thing that we don't do enough of is to find out what you can from their family or their wife or their husband invaluable because our group in Santa Monica is so incestuous not in a sexual way but in his stepway which is the same way I mean and you're going to get screwed one way or another. It's so incestuous that let's say so-and-so this year is going to ask so-an-so in our home group to go through the work, so-on-so might go back to the last two or three people that took him through the book and say, where's this person at? Or go to their sponsor. Find out what you can. Give them an idea of what it's going to mean. I ask people to read the first 164 pages and answer five questions. Is this work what you want to do? My Native American teacher, Don Coyus, who was invaluable and is still a great friend, always said to me, use what the person has. He came with a lot of hate. The guy that hooked him said, Native Americans don't get sober. He stayed sober just to prove that bastard wrong. Use what they have. Hook them with what they got. They got fear? Use the fear. You can only use what they had. so is this work what you want to do are you willing to go to any length to do this work do you know what that means yes I've just read the first hundred sixty-four pages this is what I'm agreeing to why do you want to do the work very important did you get my wife back sorry wrong guy I've never had one get a right job sorry wrong guys don't like working do well with work. Because the things I do, I enjoy and they're not work. I feel passionate about what I do in my life. So is this work what you want to do? Are you willing to go to any length? Why do you want me to do this work? If it doesn't have something to do with life and death, they've come to the wrong guy. Then the question I always ask myself, like what Mark said, because you get people just like you when they're leaving my house, I usually ask, why me? So I want them to tell me, why have they asked me? And then sometimes I'll ask someone to list the current dishonesty they're having in their life with themselves or others. Let's get it all out now. Get to the hard stuff now and the rest is all downhill from there. There's no great stuff to admit. Now what about morality? Language and morality we could have gone on the rest of the weekend. There is, I believe, a morality in Alcoholics Anonymous described in our big book, Beyond Right, Wrong, Good and Bad. Mark and I are not here to tell you what we've done is right and that what you've done is wrong or that what we have done is wrong and what you have done as right. There is a morality in Alcoholics Anonymous beyond right, wrong, good and bad and that is does it work? Anyone in the room see that movie Fight Club and Brad Pitt's on the plane with his his alter ego, and the other guy, Edward Norton, says to him how bright and witty he is. And Brad Pitt looks at him and says, how's that working for you? That's the question you have to ask yourself. Not is it right, not is it wrong, not ist good, not isn't bad. You can get free of those terms that separates us from so many other things and other people. Is it working? Are you happy where you're at? There's a spiritual principle. And it goes like this. If you don't care, I can't. Have you ever tried to care about somebody who doesn't care? I'm just talking about at a base level, living or dying. You can fool yourself. You can believe you care. Oh, I care about all mankind. Try to care About an alcoholic who doesn' t care. and conversely try to not care about another alcoholic who does care it's a spiritual principle, if you don't care I can't, and if you do care I can not care and the morality I believe that works best for me in my life today is because I'm trying to get free of duality right, wrong, good, bad this is spiritual, this isn't, that's retreat but this isn' t, this is meditation but sitting here with you isn' th it's all crap Does it work? Does it work? You discover the things in your life through four through nine that don't work. So what's going to work? Right, wrong, good, bad. Now, what about I know about a step that no one in this room has ever heard about, but you know it's there. You've never heard this step before. I'm just taking a guess, Because if there is a step one, there must be step zero. In our group we talk a lot about step zero Now what's step zero? What in the world is step zero Step zero is that wonderfully horrible period of time Wonderfully horrible That's a term only an alcoholic could understand You say that to a normal person I had a wonderfully horrible experience Oh no wonder she's an alcoholic She's out of her mind A wonderfully horrible period of time between your last drink and giving yourself to the first step in the recovery process outlined in this book. It could be six months, that's how long I made it before I was ready to die. It could me 16 years, it could be 6 years, 9 months, a year and a half. The time from your last dream till you give yourself to all three parts of this program, unity, recovery, and service. It's a three-part program. Bill gave us three legacies. The sad thing is, some of you haven't learned this yet, whether you're new, old, in between, I'm guessing here. Going to meetings and not drinking doesn't treat alcoholism. How long did it take some of us to learn that? Going to meeting and not drink doesn't teach you alcoholism and drinking doesnít treat alcoholics. And thatís when youíre in step zero. So what are you doing in step 0? And itís even appropriate itís called step 0 because itís an endless circle of eliminating other alternatives but the two that you need to be brought to to start this work And that is, do you have any other alternatives but to die an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis? Well, I certainly have from time to time. Die an alcoholic debt, live on the spiritual basis, or get that right girlfriend. Some of you guys have that alternative, the right boyfriend. Die an alcoholic debt, leave on a spiritual basis, and get the right job. You're eliminating them alternatives to bring you through step zero to step one. And step one, somewhere in the middle of that step you'll be convinced that to die an alcoholic death or live on a spiritual basis are not alternatives you've been able to pull off either. So when you finally think you've gotten down to two alternatives that don't sound so great because I'll tell you if you ask anybody in this room that's been trying to live on a special basis for a number of years it's not an easy alternative. But we will debate that from time to time and that's insanity. Now let's see. make amends or die an alcoholic death finish this inventory or die in alcoholic death now let's see I think I'll call my sponsor and debate that for a while there's another key when you're working with people when they want to debate I'll tell you something this is a secret agree with them drives me crazy they want a call I don't want to do this work I don t think I need to do this work and you say you know I think i've known you long enough to know to say to you I think you're right I don't think you need to do this work and it'll be like what drives him crazy agree with them when they want a debate what was the one I heard the other day some sponsor he didn't want to do what his sponsor was asking to do per these directions he said but my friend Charlie has a sponsor who said he didn t need to that well you know what the answer was go to charlie's sponsor then right find an easier softer way how many of us have thought we could find an easy or softer way but we couldn't you know why we couldnít this is the easier softer away doesnít always seem like it when youíre in the middle of it but when you're on the other side of it itís a motherís kiss compared to going back to the way you were living finish amends or go back to the way I was living now let's see and I want a debate I also want to talk just for a minute see here's the deal you get down to those two alternatives and here's what you realize after a number of years in this program you've realized this you can die with alcoholism free or from alcoholism bound we're all going to die Some of you younger folks, some of you newer in sobriety think you're going to get past that. But believe me, we're all going to die and we're either going to Die with it at peace or from it suffering. That's your choice. What is your choice to be? I want to talk about the... I don't want to do this but I think it's necessary. I wantto talk about The Fourth Edition. let's take um it what was the time i don't have that sheet we had we'll be back at 8 15 uh starts out with a story a man found an eagle's egg and he put it in a nest of a barnyard hen the eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them all his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did thinking he was a barnyard chicken he scratched the earth for worms and insects he clucked and cackled and he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air years passed and the eagle grew very old one day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings the old eagle looked up in awe who's that, he asked. That's the eagle, the king of the birds, said his neighbor. He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth. We're chickens. So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was. Astonished? At first I felt downright insulted. Was he publicly liking me to a barnyard chicken? In a sense, yes, and also no. Insulting? Never. But he was telling me and these people that in his eyes we were a golden eagle, unaware of the heights to which we could have soared. This story makes us understand the measure of this man's love is genuine love and respect for people will always tell them the truth. That's what his work is about, waking people up to the reality of their greatness, having awareness. That is what this book will do, making us wake up. Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, they are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleeping, and they die. They die in the sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and beauty of this thing they call human existence. All mystics, Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no mater what their religion, they are unanimous on one thing, that all is well. That all is welcome all of the time. Last year on Spanish television I heard a story about this gentleman. He knocks on his son's door. Jamie, he says, wake up. Jamie answers, I don't want to get up, Papa. The father shouts, get up. You have to go to school. Jamie says, I don' t want to go school. Why not? Asks the father. Three reasons, says Jamie. First, because it's so dull. Second, the kids tease me. And third, I hate school. And the father says, well, I'm going to give you three reasons why you must go to schoo. First because it is your duty. Second, because you're 45 years old. And 3rd, because you're the headmaster. Wake up, wake up. You're grown up. You're too big to be asleep. Wake up. Stop playing with your toys. Most people tell you they want to get out of kindergarten but don't believe them. Don't believe them. All they want to do, they want you to do is mend their broken toys. Give me back my wife. Give me back my job. Give me back my money. Give me back my reputation. Give me back my success. This is what they want. They just want their toys replaced or better toys that's all even the best psychologists would tell you the people don't really want to be cured what they want is relief because a cure is painful sounds like the steps waking up is unpleasant you know you're nice and comfortable in bed it's irritating to be woken up that describes me in a lot of my life um and some of my years in uh in the program of AA. I'm a little more awakened today. A couple things I want to talk about. I was talking to a lady at break who recently had gone through a relapse and she was in her first two years of sobriety and we got to talking about that and a typical alcoholic who's asleep, she had made enough commitments for nine people and then she went to a convention and at the convention she's overwhelmed she went and got drunk see I understood that when I came to you all in 1982 I had brain damage, kidney damage, liver damage and just about everything I own fit in a duffel bag in hindsight one of the greatest mistakes I made was I had no idea how damaged I was and one of things I was telling Joe not long ago in some respects I feel like I'm coming out of a 10-year blackout of still over committing on any given day not realizing how damaged I was from this thing in every sense of the word and that takes me back to spiritual living and why I do the things I do with the steps why I do I the things i do with disciplines of steps 10 11 is the awareness my experience is if you're a victim of the disease of alcoholism and do not have a revolutionary spiritual experience, you're probably going to die. We were talking about some things the other day, I think the average length of sobriety, the last information I had from World Service was, I believe it's 72 months. I believe our membership was a little less than 2 million people worldwide. Now a book was published in 1939 that gave us a solution. Those kind of things catch my attention and I always have to ask a question. What is going on? is going on? Because my experience has been very few people get sober, stay sober, and die sober. There's a gentleman in Dallas. His name is Searcy. Some of you may know him. I go to a meeting. I go To a group. He started a group called the White House Group. He's just celebrated 57 years. And I like to, you know, he's got a lot of history. I like to ask him questions. I'd like to get close to elders like that because they're not going to be around much longer. And he's one of a, he's very rare in that he had a personal relationship with Bill and Bob and et cetera. But I like to talk to him about that. And one of the things that we're in agreement on, because we're not in agreement on everything, but I'm like Joe, I have a tremendous respect for the length of time, but that doesn't, I'm not going to sell my experience short, but we're very much in agreement with this. If I lose my connection to my first step, my ego will take me right out of this program that's another reason that that joe and i continually go back and work and rework the steps not because i am fear-based but because i'm love based but you stay around long enough and i told you i work in the field of chemical dependency people still die they used to die in our groups they don't die in their groups now because there's a screen of hospitals and treatment centers between us and them think about this when was the last time a member of your home group died. They used to die a lot in our groups. Now they don't, but the death is still going on. I have this chronic fatal progressive illness that continues even when I'm not drinking. I don't ever want to lose my connection to this. Anyone who comes into my life, I get very clear with them who and what I am. We were talking recently, and I was talking to a friend of mine got about 18 years and recently started dating this woman who's not in the program not in 12-step I said well you have you told her about your alcoholism he said well kind of I said what do you mean kind of he said while I alluded to the fact that I I've had some problems with alcohol in the past and I'm still involved in AA and and I said well I would encourage you get just a little bit more honest with her he said why and I because she's shooting craps with you That's why she's shooting craps with you. Any person who gets involved with us, I don't care if you're 20 years sober, 40 years sober or two, you're shooting craaps at the crap table if you are going to get involved with an alcoholic of our type. I'm glad I know that. I'm Glad I still have a very current first step experience. A friend of ours likes to say if you've lost touch with your first step, You better go get some puke on your shoes and not lose that. I go down to a place in Dallas called the 24-Hour Club, and I go there because that's the last stop in Dallas, Texas. When you first go there at night, at 10 o'clock at night they pull out mattresses and sleeping bags and you start on the floor there. There's no money. There's nothing. And I go downstairs once a week to meetings, and I sit in there. amazing experience on a Tuesday night I went down there and spoke and then on Saturday night four days later I was a speaker in Malibu at a meeting that must have had 15 Rolls Royces, I don't know how many Jags, there were eight or nine well known celebrities in the meeting, catered food enough jury to retire forever and then And four days before, I'm in this dingy little smoke-filled room. As a matter of fact, one guy fell out with DTs. The woman there was enough scars all over her head. But I started my talk, and I explained to them that although the environment I was in was Malibu, looked a little different, we weren't any different than any of those people in that 24-hour club, and there was a very thin line separating the two of us. And I don't ever forget that. So I want to talk about this first step experience. maybe give you a little exercise you can all get a little current with your own life around this and I'm going to work it a little bit backwards but you look at the concept of unmanageability or the spirituality what you might consider doing is just kind of writing out some areas of your life that perhaps you're having some struggles with or that your consciousness is no longer comfortable with and I'll throw out some examples finances Are you comfortable with your financial situation? Are you a good steward? Do you have a sufficient amount of money in savings? Are you responsible with your bills? Physical health, how is that? How is it with your food? How is het with your health? How is et with relationships, significant others, work, within your home group, AA, the relationship with yourself, how es that? What kind of things do you say to yourself? How do you talk to yourself ? What kind of a relationship do you have with yourself? Take a look at all the areas of your life that comprise your life situation currently today. If you have some of those areas that are problematic to you and keep filtering through your consciousness, please remember that behind those is a drink of whiskey. Alcoholics, if I get in enough pain and suffering and I'm not in fit spiritual condition, my mind will remind me of something that will go treat that, and that's called a drink of alcohol. And nobody in this room is immune from that. So when I start to look at my first step, if you have time, this is one of the areas that I begin to look in. When I look at the first step in the big book, the forwards are general information about AA and there's some fabulous stuff in there. Matter of fact, when it comes to this first step it describes that when Bill and Bob met and it says something I think is very, very profound and what it says is that Bob, Dr. Bob had tried spiritual means which is our solution for many years but he couldn't stay sober until Bill brought him the problem and they go on and they describe why. Alcoholics are great sprinters right and a hundred yard dash for about 20 yards we're going to really give it a lot but from about 20 on we're not and what they tell in that short little two paragraphs is that because Dr. Bob never understood his first step, because Dr Bob never understood he was doomed to die an alcoholic death, it never produced enough willingness in him to consistently sustain spiritual living. But when Bill finally carried the message to him of the first step made him look at his own experience from that day till the day he died he remained sober and they go on to say and the reason is is his first-step experience brought about a willingness to go to any lengths to never take a drink again and embrace spiritual living. And that's why that first step connection is so incredibly important. Understanding that I am an alcoholic, that I'm a real alcoholic. That like Joe said, that either get to live on a spiritual basis or die an alcoholic death. I attract chronic relapsers. I've said this before, I assume if there's such a thing as reincarnation, I was not a good man in the last time I was here. and that this is my penance for living that kind of life. Because those of you who have worked with chronic relapsers, you know how much fun they can be. Their four favorite words are I know and yes but. Many times they know the big book far better than you ever thought of. They have a lot of religious beliefs. The list is fairly endless when you get to work with them. But I like to ask them a question. And the first question is, the last time that you relapsed, were you involved with that? And almost unequivocally, they'll all tell me yes. And I'll say, really? So you've been around AA all this time and you actually think you're involved in choosing to take a drink? And they'll go, yeah. And I said, really. And they'd go, Yeah. So where did you get that idea? Where did you Get the belief system that you've got the power of choice sober around a drink if you're a real alcoholic? because the big book is very clear with you and on page 34 that that's not true it says depending upon the extent to which you can recover on a non-spiritual basis depends upon the extent to what she lost the power to choose whether you would drink or not drink see when I was brought to you in 1982 I had lost the powder to choose over like a drinker not drink when I got up in the in the morning I didn't have a clue what was going to happen that day around me in alcohol. Now, the delusion for years was that I did. You understand what I just said? My experience is nobody can recover from alcoholism if you think you're involved in choosing whether you drink or not drink. When that lie finally got smashed, that produced a degree of willingness in me I never had before. When I finally realized the most insane act of my life, I was going to commit sober and I'm not involved with that decision, I assure you it brought about a whole different course of action, which is still going on with me today. That I had lost, completely lost the power of choice. So I go back and look at the first step, and I read from the doctor's opinion up to page 23. There's 33 pages of information in there, and we're doing that to answer one question. This is how intelligent we are. Here's the question. Mark, when you take a drink of alcohol, do you lose control? That's the heart and soul of those 33 pages. And I've often thought to myself, 33 pages to answer that question? Yeah, you know why? Because I'm looking for every reason in the world why that is not me. So they come at me every way that you can think of. And then they finally come back and they say, control. The issue is loss of control. Have you lost control once you take the drink? They take away this idea of how much I drink, how often I drink. Every reason that my mind wants to use me, why I'm not you, it strips me of. They don't care if you're male or female. They don'T care if YOU'RE YOUNG OR OLD. They DON'T care IF YOU'RE RICH OR POOR. They DONT care if You'RE SMART OR DUMB. None of that makes any difference. Those pages are about when you take a little drink of that alcohol, Mark, do you lose control? Is that your experience, yes or no? they don't care about anything else and they're kind enough to tell us why in the doctor's opinion they say that's because you you have you experience what's called a phenomenon called craving which means that i take a drink and the drink takes me and in reviewing my first step in this area many many times i see that that literally in my first year of taking a drink that i took a drink in the drink took me and i go back into my drinking and i begin to look at all the experiences. I see that when I'm 16 years old and I got three buddies with me, we buy a case of beer, I'm driving the car, I drink half the case, two of them are puking, and I'm driving the card want to go get more. I didn't realize that I could do that because I was having an abnormal reaction alcohol. I just thought I was a real man. The very thing I was bragging about little did I know was meant that I was doomed to die an alcoholic death. And that went on for many, many, many years. And so you go back in and I go back and I look at that experience. When I rework the steps as I did this time, I use meditation as a vehicle. God show me what would happen if I took a drink. Joe and I use what's called the path of consideration. If you begin a set of spiritual exercises with an answer, nothing new will happen. So here's my question. Am I still a real alcoholic? Am I still a real alcoholic? I don't begin a set of spiritual exercises firmly entrenched in the fact that I am. Maybe something's happened over these 20 years or in the last year. Maybe something has happened and then I go back and then I remember and I use meditation as a means of looking at that. And then some of my favorite pages in the book, pages 23 to 43 that I believe also are probably some of the least understood pages in the book. And here's why I say that. By the way, raise your hands if you have relapse history, would you please? Okay. My book in the 10 steps says that I am sitting here sober this evening for one reason and one reason only. Do you know what that is it says if i'm in fit spiritual condition that is the condition that if you do the work in the first nine steps being in fit spirit condition is the only reason that i didn't take a drink today that my mind didn't take me back to a drink to date there is no other reason if you believe the big book because i don't believe you can believe a little of it but not the rest of it. So let me hook these two together. Pages 23 to 43 are going to talk to me and you about when I'm sober. It's not about when i'm drinking. The big book does not talk to you and I about alcohol once you get past page 23, and the reason is, and they go on and they tell me why, it's because, Mark, if you never take a drink you'll never activate the phenomenon called craving again, but Mark, that's not the problem. The problem you have, Mark, centers in your mind and pages 23 to 43 are designed to make you look at this idea. Will you commit the most insane act of your life sober? And are you involved in that? And they describe what this is on page 24. It says, the fact is, and when I read the book, I like to put my name in because it makes it personal because I'm so selfish when I reading the word we, I think they mean you. So it says the fact is that Mark, for reasons yet obscure, has lost the power of choice and drink. Now think of it this way, those of you that relapsed. You're sober. The book is saying you've lost the Power of Choice and Drink, sober. And now it's going to be kind enough to tell you why. Choice, ladies and gentlemen, comes from will. Here's why we've lost The Power of Choose and Drink sober. Because our so-called willpower will become practically non-existent. Mark is going to be unable at certain times, highlight those three words, to bring into Mark's consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of a week or month ago. Mark is without defense against the first drink. Now here's a little litmus test to find out where you're at with this if you have some time sober. If you haven't been doing the strict spiritual disciplines of the 10th and 11th step as outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, Number one, do you believe you're in fit spiritual condition? And number two, do you think you know what that at certain time looks like when your mind's going to take you back to a drink? And number three, is it possible you're a lot closer to a dream than you ever could have imagined? That's why every day, 365 days of the year, I get my feet on the floor. I open my big book. I read the instructions in pages 84 through 88. I sit in meditation. I work with a 10-step all day long. I do an evening meditation. I do a evening review, and I get up the next day and do it again. And the reason is because I'm very clear about this thing I have about my mind, and I'm Very Clear About Fit Spiritual Condition. Let me tell you another trap I fell into for a while. Here's the trap. God keeps me sober. let me tell you why i say that's a trap if that was all there was to it this big book would be one page here's what it would say god keeps you sober have a good life it doesn't there's all kinds of work there's inventories to write fifth steps to do a lot of amends to make money to pay back sit with the disciplines of 10 11 step why because my actions better match god's power I stay sober based on fit spiritual condition and the trap I fell into, God keeps me sober. Guess what my mind does with that? Oh, I don't need to do meditation today. God's with me. I'll just say hello in the shower Now I come to meetings and lie to you and tell you the most important thing in my life is God but I don' t give God any time Do you see what a trap that was? Boy did I ever wake up to that one one day. Meditation will do some interesting things. Through meditation, it was when are you going to do your part? See, grace falls equally amongst all people. God don't have any grandchildren. I don't think there are any special people. What's the difference? My experience is this book outlined a program of action, not a program Of thought, not A program of study. Are my actions going to meet the power. See that became, that became the the crux of the issue for me. But pages 23 to 43 to this day and it happened to me again right now I'm taking five people through the book word by word sentence by sentence. Why? Because that's how it was done with me. We're gonna work the program not gonna work Mark's program not going to work their program, we're going to work the program out of the book and we discuss things as they come up so I recently just went through these pages with my sponsoring with all these people and I am once again literally overwhelmed with the grace and power love of God in my life when I look at these pages and they talk about all the different states of mind sober in which I would go drink and they use some examples they use this crazy jaywalker I understand the jaywalker I had a period of time where I had drank way too much alcohol, combining a few other substances with it. Wound up on a little flight for life ride. My heart stopped. Was in the hospital five days and left the hospital. And that night my mind said, you know, that was a pretty harrowing experience. We need to drink and I'm drinking and doing some more of that other kind of powder. Now you tell that to a normal person and they'll run from you because you are nuts. I wasn't choosing to do that. See? See, sober I sit and I look at all these examples. They give another guy, Fred. Fred's a high-bottom drunk, right? The day Fred drank, there wasn't a cloud in the horizon. I've seen as many people relapse when there wasn'T a cloud on the horizon as I've seeing people relapsed when behind pain and suffering. They also talk about the person that has a lot of self-knowledge. He believed the inner workings of his mind would prevent him from relapse, right. And what they do in those pages is finally they sum you all up in the bottom of page 43, and here's what they take you to. Once more, Mark at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink, period. They don't put a little caveat in there. Time gives it to you. Mark's defense must, M-U-S-T, come from a power greater than himself. See, and you begin to have an experience and see the truth of that. it is your experience that will bring about the willingness to do what the rest of the steps are going to ask you to do and Joe said something that I believe is so important die an alcoholic death do steps 2 through 9 and work with the disciplines of 10, 11, and 12 what do I want to do? I mean think about it it is only a first step experience that will brings about the willingness to do that the willingness to do it to move through the path How many get a book and then throw the paper cover away right away because you're more ashamed of being sober than you were of being drunk? I'm the only one that did that? A lot of people like that. You broke my anonymity. You told another member of AA. They're more ashamed of being sober than they were of being drunk. They grew up in a little town. Everybody knew them. They did outlandish things all over town, and now they don't want anyone to know that they're sober. Anonymity. At the level of press, radio, TV, and film, Dr. Bob wrote, it is as harmful to not use your last name in the fellowship as it is to use your last name outside the fellowship so I used to buy a book third edition that was when I got sober in the 80's and I would take the paper cover and I'd throw it away I put a leather cover on my first book it looked like probably a great novel that I had written or something right and I missed a piece on that paper cover written in 1976 and in the second paragraph it told me something I didn't know for a long time even though I was involved in it. And it said, notice I used the word said, the basic text page 1 through 164 remains unchanged. Sorry this is the third paragraph of the paper cover to the third edition. But the basic text, page 1 through 164, remains unchanged. This is the AA message, just as it was introduced in 1939. They tell people that the first 164 pages is the message. Any of you that have ever been in service, ever gone to a service conference, and they'll always say, Bill's definition of service is anything that makes carrying the message possible. And then at some point during the conference you have the nerve to raise your hand because they're talking about trinkets and money and stuff, and you say this is like dropping a bomb in a service conference. What's the message that we're doing all this stuff to carry? And the whole room just goes into a big uproar because our literature doesn't tell anybody anymore, well what is the message? now in the fourth edition they've made a mistake we're hoping that it'll be changed because of people that still care in the forward to the fourth edition in the paper cover that same paragraph now says the basic text page 1 through 164 which had been the foundation of recovery for many alcoholics remains and still remains unchanged you know what that makes our big book? A history book it's a history book, it's something that had been, page 1 through 164. Guy said to me, hasn't every other forward reflected the mood of the fellowship? Doesn't one of the forwards say that these forwards have been added to reflect the growth and the attitude in the fellowship. Well, that's the attitude in fellowship now and a lot of you know this as well as any of us. The message of Alcoholics Anonymous is no longer popular in most of Alcoholic Anonymous. You will be condemned, called names. I can't tell you the stuff that's been said about Mark to me and me to Mark and around the country and things that we hear and in our home groups or where we go to speak somewhere where we live. The message of Alcoholics Anonymous is no longer popular in the program of Alcoholic Anonymous because of statements like this. Page 1 through 164 had been. And with that attitude, the feeling I get when I read that is they might as well have said for those poor alcoholics that needed those one through a hundred percent. Those people. It was written by a woman who was given permission by the General Service Conference. She was the Director of Publications for AA World Service without having to bring it back to the conference for a reread or anything. In the real forward to the fourth edition inside, it tells me that a meeting online is the same as your home group around the corner now I've only been here a few hours but I'll tell you this I lived in India for five years sometimes that's all I had maybe a visitor always wet trunks I always had that but as far as members of the fellowship sometimes it was online I've only been from one for a little bit couple hours and looking in your eyes is nowhere near sitting in front of a computer screen now they've had to change this because of trustees and people that still care but to say that a meeting online is the same as sitting in my home group or looking in your eyes tonight and that they're only different by a screen or a format sorry that's a sad reflection on Alcoholics Anonymous we always wish we could spend more time on this this everything up to the doctor's opinion it's it's my experience that those pages should be looked at as great general information about our program the history of a will be laid out there for you in a general way there's a lot of other books that have been written that describe this history but I have to tell you because of another mistake or depending on how you want to look at it because they didn't want to fight trinket salesmen we've lost the circle and triangle on the title page that page changed my experience the first day I went to my sponsor's house because I thought I was in AA and all I was was a member of one third of the three-part program expecting their results from the other two parts because all I doing was going to meetings and when he talked to me about the three legacies you bring the body to the fellowship you've all heard it bring the buddy the mind will follow that's the that's the sad truth bring the Body the Mind will catch up to you and one day the spiritual malady is going to come to the surface and they're going to need to get involved in recovery three part program three part disease you bring your body to the fellowship you bring mind to the recovery process and you bring your awakened spirit into the world and back into the program to be of service until being in the world of being in a program or one I love when I hear somebody say outside of our program you guys are doing some of that kooky stuff outside of a a is there inside outside they refer to the mainstream What is this? We're like in the minor stream tonight? I'm involved in the mainstream. I tell people in L.A., if that's the mainstream, I'm sorry, I really don't want to see that as a reality. The mainstream is a little crazy right now. So there better be, I better become at one. That's the promise of the circle. The triangle describes the three legacies. So we have a three-part program. I went to my sponsor's house the first day, six months sober, dying of untreated alcoholism, to the man's house I heard in my first meeting, but I was scared to ask him for six months until I finally saw that my life is unmanageable further away from my last drink than I've ever been. Because, see, I wanted to rewrite the first step. I thought dash meant fill in the blank. I thought the dash was a blank. And it says, yes, I admit that I'm powerless over alcohol, and that's why my life is un manageable, so now that I am not drinking, everything should just be hunky-dory. But when the root of my disease comes to the surface, everything isn't hunky dory. And I went to his house. I called him, and I asked him for help. And I went to His house, and He shared with me just the circle and the triangle. You know what I saw? I'm not in AA. I'm in one-third of a three-part program. But you know what? There was hope in that, because maybe if I got involved in the other two parts, I wouldn't be suffering the way I was that day. I tried to get cocky when he asked me, are you involved in recovery? I said, no. I said I've got an inventory I've been lying about. I can't write the fourth column. I can't do it. I can' t see my part. That's as far as I got with my first sponsor. Are you powerless over alcohol? Yep. He didn' t know what I meant. I thought it meant where it takes me. Is your life unmanageable? Yep. I thought he meant when I was drinking. Do you believe in God? Yep, but he didn' T ask what kind of God. I believed in a God that was going to strike me dead as soon as I was a bad AA member or made one mistake. We did the third step prayer. I had no idea what it meant. He gave me a sheet on how to write inventory. Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you want to look at it, it had four columns. First column I could do all day. I've been a therapist. I've done doing it in therapy. I can tell you about who I'm mad at all day long. Why I'm that? Simple. How it affects me? Simple. I've doing it my whole life. What you do that causes me to feel this way, but then I got to the fourth column and I couldn't do it. And Harry would ask me, are you writing? Yep. I wasn't. Couldn't. Didn't have the power. The power from the first three steps was not there to do column four. That's the test. when truth is coming off the end of your pen in the fourth column that is not coming just from your mind something has happened in one two and three because you're getting to truth that an alcoholic can't get to everyone in this room has had resentments they could never see that their part that it wasn't even the first two columns that are true it's not even who they're mad at so when he asked me was i involved in recovery i said no he said what about service and i had to get cocky. I said, well, yes, I am. As a matter of fact, I take patients to meetings from where I used to go to treatment. He said, oh, you're carrying people to the message. There's a big difference. And I saw I didn't have a message to carry. I had a car to carry it to them. All I had was a car. That circle and triangle changed my perception of this program, and we lost that once again because of people that make money off Alcoholics Anonymous. we lost that circle and triangle because of one of our traditions but also on that page it says this is the story of how many thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism and they made that statement before anybody had more than five years you'll get a lot of information from 1939 to 1955 and how it grew there's a part in there when their success rate was 75 because they brought you to recovery before they brought you to the fellowship and somewhere after 1955 we changed it to where we bring them the fellowship before we get him to recovery. A lot of people went through the first eight steps before they were allowed to go to a meeting and their success rate was 50% right away and 25% later. Our success rate is not even 25% anymore. Oh, give me time to work the steps. Let them work the Steps when they feel better. No, I think it's the other way around. They'll feel better when they work the steps. I'd like to get a little more specific with how to use this section that Mark has begun to talk about, the doctor's opinion to the top of page 23. With the doctor'S opinion, we were given one of the greatest gifts you could give anybody with this big book. Somebody asked me once, if you were passing someone in an airport and you had like 10 seconds to hand another alcoholic the book and say one thing for them to do, it was a great question. It made me think. If I had 10 seconds to pass someone in the airport and I got to hand them of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, I would say turn every statement into a question and every direction into a stop. And don't go past any of those directions until you've done it. Because what we're going to find is the first three steps are a series of considerations, questions to fully concede to your innermost self, to come to believe and to make a decision that prepares you to be convinced of the ABCs. So really from the doctor's opinion to the first instruction for inventory, we're only asked considerations. Now these considerations should be looked at as a coin. There's two sides to every coin. For those that have been around for a while they pose a question. To go to the answer that you already know shuts off any experience. Isn't that interesting? That an answer stops experience. So for those that have been it's sometimes good to look at the other side of the coin. For example, does my experience abundantly confirm that once I put alcohol into my system something happens which makes it virtually impossible for me to control the amount? Yes. The experience is over. You answer the question, the experience is over. So you look at the other side of coin. Maybe my experience now, my mind is more clear, almost 21 years sober. Maybe my experience doesn't abundantly confirm that anymore. Maybe there's considerations for somebody who's been around for a while that aren't valid for somebody that's new. For example, my friend and I, Brian, got to a point in this book one time where it says he thought that his long period of sobriety had qualified him to drink like normal people. He said, you don't believe that, but you believe that your long periodof sobriete has qualified you to not drink like normal people. A normal person would just make up their mind and just not drink, no matter what. Smash their ego, work on their defects and bring about surrender. Maybe lurking notions change their shape and their color and where they're hiding in your mind after a number of years. So I say the prayer. I start to work. I come to stuff. This is one of those books I bet almost everyone in this room that's been around for a while, this is one of those books that changes every time you read it because it meets you where you are. It meets you where you're at. Where you are? With the doctor's opinion, we're going to turn every statement you possibly can into a question. We drink for the effect. Is that true? Bill's story you're going to use in two ways. I read page one, I read Bill's drunk log and I related to nothing. I've never been married, I'm not a stockbroker, and I didn't go to war. And an old-timer said to me, why don't you look for the similarities rather than the differences? And go through the first Bill's drunk log, page one through eight, and mark what you can relate to in three different areas or anything that you can relay to. Look at how he thought, look at how we drank, and look at how he felt. And all of a sudden I saw a progression of emotional sickness, I saw the progression of physical sickness, I saw that progression of the mental sickness and I saw progression of a spiritual malady. But it was mine not his. They didn't put Bill's story first just because it was to learn about Bill Wilson. Mark what you can relate to. I've seen women mark three-fourths of Bill's stories. Now what do you do with page 9 to 16? That's they're laying out the rest of the requirements, the rest of the steps in Bill's recovery. So it's an idea of what you're going to be asked but it's also a great time especially when you're just beginning step one. Mark anything in page 9-16 in Bill story that you're not willing to do that he did. And be honest and then check what you mark that you are not willing to do when you're done with step one and if there's anything left you probably shouldn't go on. To admit that in and of myself I am nothing and that without God I'm lost. That's one that always gets me when my ego has rebuilt to a certain point. You mean once again I have to admit that in an of myself, I am nothing and that, without God, I'm lost? Don't I have anything that's not from God? I've always had, when it's time for me to do the work, I've also had some stuff in 9-16 to Mark. And then 17 to 23, just continue to turn statements into questions. And I think from 23 to 43, they begin to help you get free of something that I didn't see for many years. And that whether we're talking about the craving or whether we'RE talking about the obsession, get free OF it having to do anything with circumstance or emotional state. For example, why do you think you'RE alcoholic? Well, because when I feel bad, I drink and it works. And you blame your alcoholism on an... Maybe you're just an emotional drinker. But now you have several years of sobriety, you've straightened out, you're not emotionally imbalanced anymore. Maybe now you can drink like a normal person if you're just an emotion drinker or maybe you drink when you're feeling bad. Maybe you drink when you are feeling good and maybe you really hate like most real alcoholics do that place where you're not feeling much at all. Alcoholics hate mediocre. Rage? Bliss? Fine. Anything in between? Sorry, I've got to do something to alter that. How many have realized there is a state that we hate? Not Texas. There's a state we hate. I got free of that in this current inventory. You said that place in Dallas was the last stop in Dallas? Dallas is already the last stop on the block. So now, maybe I'm an emotional drinker or maybe not. What about circumstance? Well, didn't you drink when things were going well? Didn't you drank when things we're going bad? Didn't she drink when there wasn't much going? What does circumstance or emotional state have to do with the craving or the obsession? And that sets you up for a real piece of freedom down the road when somebody asks you why do you believe God's working in your life today? We can come back to that. So you look at questions as coins. If your ego wants you to answer a question right away, sure I lose control once I start to drink. Catch yourself and look at, well maybe not. Maybe I don't believe that anymore. Maybe it's not true when I look at my drinking. Four types of alcoholics described in the chapter to the wives. I also think that those four types don't have much to do with where their drinking was taking them. I think it has to do with an internal condition of body, mind, and spirit. This is one of the myth questions I failed to ask. Is there anyone in the room that believes we suffer from a two-fold disease? Body and mind? My book says that I'm not only bodily and mentally ill but I'm spiritually sick and when the spiritual malady is overcome I'll straighten out mentally and physically. My mind won't take me back to the first drink, therefore I'll never get the physical craving. I suffer from a three-fold disease, body, mind and spirit. So in the first half of step one we admit that we're powerless over alcohol, we've got to look at that bodily and mentally. Two types of powerlessness. Bodily is once it's in your body you get a physical craving for more. Mentally is when there's none in your system at all, you commit the most insane act of your life. in this room like myself who thought that when people talked about alcoholic insanity they meant the crazy stuff that we do when we're drunk alcoholic insanity comes at your very best further away from your last drink than you've ever been stone-cold sober the best way I ever heard it put was in Australia a guy said I never took the first drink drunk that's the insanity of alcoholism my mother would do crazy stuff when she was drunk. All the normal drinkers you know, under the influence of the right amount, they'll do crazy things. Crazy stuff. The insanity of alcoholism is picking up the first drink without anything in my system, 28 days out of the Michigan State Penitentiary, with every reason in the world not to drink, they've just laid out the conditions for my parole, and I walk into a bar and break every condition in my parole and get away with it. And I do that at my very best, that first drink. The chapter to the wives describes four types of alcoholics. The doctor's opinion describes a few types of alcoholics