Why the Daily Reprieve Is Contingent on Maintenance – Bob

My name's Polly Pistol, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, everybody up and about. So, good morning. Okay, it's time for Step 10. So we just, last night we kind of finished up with Step 9, and we did some questions and answers, so we're going to move on. And the big book on page 84, I love to read Step 10 because I feel like it just says, it's just so, to me, so clear step 10 is. This brings us to step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. And one of the things that I do is I love this step because what happens is it keeps me current. and I try to do a step 10 every night and I don't always write it I will write it if I'm having a little anxiety because if I am having a little anxiety there is probably something going on and for me if I have that kind of stuff going on I probably owe an amends but I do a step 10 every night and we vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past which is why one of the reasons that I have only done and this is just me because if your sponsor says for you to do an inventory every year that's the right way to do it. That is absolutely the right thing to do. Or if they tell you to go every five years However you do it, that's the perfect way. That's what I love about Alcoholics Anonymous and the way Bob put it last night. He said, I've had three kind of different schools of learning in AA and there's really a lot. I mean, there's groups that are just so into the book. If it's not in the book, they don't do it and it's really, really intense and very, very structured and they don't deviate in any way and they don't do anything but the book. I tend to do other things. I tend to read other books and do some other stuff spiritually but that's not, you know, so there's all kinds of ways and Bob was talking about how he's done the book and how he'S done service and how HE's done action and with me, I've done pretty much the same thing except I haven't been that involved with a sponsor who was way into the service structure. So consequently, I haven't ever really been into the service structure and one of the things I want to tell you say about that is I think everybody finds their niche in Alcoholics Anonymous and when I go, I was at GSR once and I went to a GSR meeting and I couldn't deal with it. I just can't deal mit it. my husband and my son love it they just absolutely love it dave would not miss an area assembly he just would not mess it and i just go crazy when people stand up at those microphones for two hours till 12 o'clock at night it just makes me crazy but it's not my thing so but the people who are into service it is fabulous so one of the things a lot of you are new is that uh you see people doing different things in AA, and I believe that we find our niche. And one of the things that when it comes to Step 10, I was involved with a sponsor, and my sponsor, Dottie, is way into Step 10. And some people even have a little form that they fill out every night. I've seen those around Alcoholics Anonymous. I personally don't do that. I just answer the questions. So this way, I have only done, because of the way I was sponsored, I've done three inventories in my sobriety. So if you want to, you could say that's one every ten years. And that has been pretty in-depth. But for the most part, I do a daily inventory. And now that I'm not working, I talk to Dottie a lot about the tenth step. But also, let me just say this is maybe not a good idea, but if it doesn't concern my husband, I'll tell him what's going on. So I just want to be sure to share it with somebody because one of the things that I don't think is good for me is I can't keep secrets. I can. I have this kind of thing. I say I live my life out loud. There's not anything about me that I try to hide. Absolutely nothing. And my husband says it better than the way he says it is. I live my life so I can't do anything you can't watch. You probably don't want to watch it, but, you know, I can'T do anything you can'T watch. And if I live like that, then I don't have to worry about what I said, where I said it, how I did it, what secret I'm keeping. And the only thing that I'm really a stickler on is I do not like to hear gossip. I don't want to hear stuff coming back. I don' t tell people's fourth step or fifth step. I don''t do any of that stuff. So I just make sure that I keep my mouth shut on that. But when it's my personal stuff, you know, you're free to know it. Okay. We vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. So like I said, I've cleaned up The Past, so now I'm going to do it on a daily basis. We have entered the world of the spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. And I believe that with all my heart. What we learn here continues for a lifetime. I have learned a ton this weekend. This is the first time I've done this with Bob. I've listened to his tapes, but this is the first time. I've learned so much from him this weekend and I never, I mean, I love what he said, you know, some fairy came in in the middle of the night and put that in the big book. I mean I still have those experiences, those aha moments. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. When these crop up we ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately and I think that's the big word right there, immediately. And that's why I said a lot of times if it doesn't have anything to do, if it's not about my husband he's you know he's there 24 7 now so uh i'll just grab him and if not i i usually talk to dotty once or twice a week so i'll grab her or i might even tell a sponsee i'm pretty good about sharing my stuff with sponsees i'm i'm one of those alcoholics that do not believe that i am above my sponseese i totally believe what the big book says and that we walk shoulder to shoulder and make amends quickly. And to me, that doesn't mean two or three days later if I see that I need to make an amend, I immediately try to do it that day. If we have harmed anyone, then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code. And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol, for by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recall for a minute like a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. I can't remember, Bob will know this, but it's either in the book or in the 12 and 12. Sometimes I get the two of them mixed up. There's a little statement that says repetition strengthens and confirms, and faith then comes naturally. And that's what I like about this. It will just happen automatically. If we do this every single day, then we automatically make amends immediately, talk to somebody right away, and make amands immediately. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us had been given to us without any thought or effort on our part. And that's what I feel like. I feel Like here I was on one side, and I couldn't stop drinking no matter what. And then all of a sudden, I'm just no thought of it, can be around it. I just feel like I just stand in that place of grace. I'm protected. I'm absolutely protected from alcohol, and it's not that I'm not around it. I mean, I have women that I sponsor who are waitresses. I have quite a few women. I've got four women I sponsor Who are flight attendants, and they're serving booze all the time, and they are not affected by doing that, even though that's their job and they'RE handling it, smelling it, all of that stuff. So it's just like it's been lifted from us. No effort on our part. It just comes. This is the miracle of it, and it is a miracle. When you lay down on a sofa like I did and can't get up and you've got these little kids that need your attention and you can't do it, and it's not that I don't love them, I just can't doing it. And here, I mean, it's gone. It's just the miracle of being relieved of that. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. This is our experience. This is how we react so long as we keep in fit. There's that word again that Bob pointed out to you before, that we keep a fit spiritual condition. That means we have to do this work. In my opinion, and I think that it's consistent with most of the people in AA, I believe that step 10 is 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 all rolled up into one so that I can do those steps on a daily basis. we have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not even exist for us. Let's see. I've already read that. It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. And this is what I have to really be careful of is that I don't get to move. Today, when we get down to step 11, because it just kind of rolls into step 11 too, But I am not, sometimes I have to watch myself today because I'm retired. And I used to be on this very rigid schedule because I worked. And so I was always doing everything so rigid. And now that I'm tired, once in a while I can catch myself resting on my laurels. Oh, you know, I get busy doing something else. I love what Bob said about, you know, he gives himself two hours every day. And when we get into Step 11, I'll talk about that because that's my husband. And he does the same thing. He reads the Tao and he reads the – what is that one? It's the various kinds of religions by William James. Variety. Variety, yeah. The William James book. He reads all that stuff. I'm really of the mentality I need to stick with the big book. it's uh and that that seems to resonate with me better but what happens is is that i'll forget and not do these things like i used to do them very very consistently i used to go to bed pretty on a normal time and get up on a normal time even though sometimes i had to talk in an at an aa meeting somewhere in southern california But I was very rigid about how I did my life because it was so structured. Today, I may watch a TV show and we may watch a movie till one o'clock in the morning. I'm not on that kind of schedule anymore. So I have to be very, very careful because what used to discipline me because I was working, now I'm required to kind of do some self-discipline. And I'm a structured person, which is, I think, why I came from the military and then I came into AA really wasn't a far jump at all. It was pretty much the same and into that kind of community to do to follow a set of rules. I'm kind of one that always sort of obeyed the rules. I'm goody two shoes who just drank so much and terrified her children and all that kind of stuff. We are headed for trouble if we rest on our laurels we are headed for trouble if we do for alcohol is a subtle foe we are not cured of alcoholism and i want to just kind of talk about that especially for the new people uh the disease of alcoholism continues to it it is continuing to get worse and worse in my body the longer i have it, which is why I drank for 18 years. I have seen people drink at 30 years of sobriety and be dead in a week because the disease of alcoholism continues to progress in my body. And what happens is that it's not going to take me 18 years to get to the place I did to get here. It's going to happen really fast. You know the story in the big book that talks about the man who stopped drinking for 25 years, he worked hard and then he retired and he was dead in a week because he started drinking. And that's because the disease of alcoholism continues to progress in our bodies for as long, even though we're not drinking. It doesn't matter whether we're, that's the difference in alcoholism and just people who can stop drinking. The disease continues to progress in the body. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. And I'd like to point out the word maintenance. And the way I like to think about maintenance is that it's just like how I take care of my car. You know, I make sure that I take it in for regular oil changes. I have to maintain my spiritual condition. And what I get is a daily reprieve. And when I got sober in Texas, man, we had some old rednecks that used to sit on the back wall with the chair leaned back, you know, on two legs and their arms folded. And, you know, that's all they talked about, that you cannot live today's sobriety on yesterday's recovery. You've got to do it today. I get a daily reprieve. So I have to do the same things every day, that I haveと do today what I did yesterday. And I have то maintain my spiritual condition. And I read a few books in the morning and do the things that I do, and we'll talk about that in Step 11. But I have to maintain my spiritual condition. I can't just, you know, I don't know about people who go weeks without meetings. I don'T know anything about that. I'm not, I DON'T do, when I found out how many meetings Bob made a week, I almost fell off the chair because he does, like, a lot. What, eight, nine a week? Eight or nine a weak? I do four. Three that are, like. Consistent meetings but usually four. And I thought, gosh, I'm really doing good. I'm 31 years sober. I'm doing four meetings a week. I feel I'm way outnumbered here. But I feel like I have to continue to do that. I am always in a book study and a step study. always. Dave and I have a one o'clock step study in Bellingham, and we are always there. And it's also a tradition meeting. We take a tradition and a step a month, and мы do the step out of the book. We do the Step Out of the Twelve and Twelve, and then we do the tradition out of the book. And then we have just the last week, the last Wednesday of the month is a discussion on that step, and we stay to the subject. So it's a really structured meeting, and we stay with the big book and the 12 and 12. So I always try to stay in a step study, and that keeps me, that keeps the maintenance of my spiritual condition because I don't know. I think Bob said it great when he talked about women who have childbirth. You think about how terrible that is, and then we turn around and do it again you know we forgot about that and i think that that's what happens is we forget i need to be ever reminded what it was like i have to stay here so i'm ever reminded and i tell you i watch people go in and out in this program and i haven't watched one person go out and turn out to be a good thing so i mean it's just if they're an alcoholic of my type i have seen people come into Alcoholics Anonymous and go back out and find other things, you know, church and whatever, and don't drink again but don't go to AA. And all I can say is maybe they're just not an alcoholic of my type. They just might not be. I just can't not always be in this work. Some people can. I've seen some people that don't seem to have to work as hard as i do and i don't know what that's about but i i have i have a friend uh named carl m and i was in he's uh he's from southern california and i Was in um odessa with him not too long ago and i had a sponsee with me and he hadn't met her before and he said you know something polly has a reputation that she sponsors either the most gorgeous women and active women in Alcoholics Anonymous are she sponsors the sickest. And he looked at her, and he said, which one are you? But that's what I have to do. I get these women who are so sick, and it's like, I mean, I have to stay on board. I haveと stay on boar, because I'll tell you, they get way ahead of me if I don't, and I have to maintain my spiritual condition because if i don't if i if i pick up my cell phone and i see their number i'm like oh i don'T know if i can do this but but as long as i if I keep in fit spiritual condition then I know that it's not about me and I am just the messenger I'm not the message. And all I have to do is just stay focused on the material. And if I can do that, because I tell you, I sponsor a lot of wackadoos. And so I have to make sure that I come right back to the material and keep it in a really good structure. Because if I don't, they'll get me way off into the weeds, into something and I mean, you know, they can just pull me right out of what's going on and pretty soon I'm as a wackadoo as they are. So if you're sponsoring people like that, just go back to the literature. Just keep going back tothe literature and stay in the structure of the literature and I use a lot of theliterature because I love a lotof the books. I'm a really big fan of A.A. Comes of Age. I'm a huge fan of Pass It On, Dr. Bob and the Old Timers, and I'm an huge, huge fan of Language of the Heart. I use Language of The Heart for their traditions. I think that Language of THE Heart talks about emotional sobriety and also when we get to Step 11, Bill writes in the Language ofTheHeart about Step 11. So these are the materials and I use all those materials and I try to read those somewhere during the week. I'm in one of those books all the time just because I love it. I love AA Comes of Age because I am, I love our history. So, okay. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all our activities. How best can I best serve thee? Thy will, not mine, be done. I have a beautiful AA sponsor and what Dottie says to me and this is what she says to me and this is what I do but you don't have to do it but she goes to that line there about how I can best serve thee and DottIE says for me every day to pray for a servant's heart and if that if I pray for a servants heart then what happens is God gives me the willingness to want to serve and i've been doing that for over 25 years it's just part of my prayer is to pray for a servant's heart and because i am a selfish self-centered person and if i don't pray to serve i will get off in my own thing i'd love to tell you that I don't do that anymore, but I do. And I'm better than I've ever been before. And I're more focused on the people I sponsor. And I love being retired. I love it because now I can spend more time with the women I sponsor or I don'T have to make quick conversations either on my cell phone on the way to work or, you know, on theway home or try to catch them. I used to take calls starting at 5 o'clock in the morning because that's when I had to do it. But I just love that I now can spend more time with the women I sponsor and, you know, have nice conversations, really get to know them. And that's special. That's really special. Plus, when I travel, a lot of times one of the people I – one of The Women I Sponsor will travel with me like Sylvia has traveled with me. And Sylvia and I have done some really fun ones, though. So we've done some fun stuff together. There are thoughts which go through us. These are thoughts that must go on. Let's start over. These are thought which must go with us constantly. Now, I used to do a lot more praying all during the day when I was working. I really, I mean, I had a job where I worked for a health care company. And there is nothing more crazy than to work with a bunch of therapists. I mean it's just all that psychobabble of just, you know, some days I just couldn't hardly stand it. But I would have to pray constantly because I just would, it just made me nuts that everything is analyzed I just want to you know I just want to say go in the bathroom get on your knees ask God to take it and go back and stand at your desk because it would just you know it just seemed like too much head trip for me but I worked with a lot of those people and so I was and I had to have that all the time it's just you now let me be an example let me give me a servant's heart help love and tolerance, love and tolerance. I pray for patience, pray for patience. We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will. Now, I'm not quite sure what that is about the willpower, but what I do for me is I just bring my thoughts back to God whenever I want, whenever I start judging these people and getting irritated and agitated. And, and I can get really agitated with that kind of stuff. It just makes me nuts. And because I just think it's too much cycle babble and where is God in this? And I, you know, I can just get real judgmental. I can Just start spinning out and pretty soon I can't work because I'm so busy focused on these people who make me crazy so i would just constantly you know have to pray and i could not just go off in a cubicle by myself i was in you know it was a job that i had to be involved with these people so i was using this constantly and i would have i had a little uh little sticky on my computer and it said love intolerance is our code. Patience with my co-workers because if I didn't, sometimes I just judge them too much and what happens, we've already talked about that the more I judge you, the worse I feel You know, you don't even know I'm judging you so it's not affecting you and I'm sitting here just eating alive and you're just going on about your business and your day's fine and I'M sitting here all churned up and knotted up and, you know, a mess and can't even think straight. Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and direction from him who has all knowledge and power. If we have carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of his spirit into us. To some extent, we have become God-conscious. We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense. Those are fabulous promises. We have carefully followed directions. We have began to sense the flow of his spirit into us. And some of the things that I do is pause. You know, it talks in the book about us to just pause. And that's why I have little sticky notes. I use things to help me to get back into that God-centeredness. Take a deep breath. Visualize something, you know, really calming so that I can be in the day. So I can being the day and have that flow of his spirit into us. Because that feels so much better than all that yucky stuff I can get going on in my head. the other, to some extent we have become God-conscious. And one of the things that Dottie says is every time I mention God, it's a conscious contact. So what I try to do is I try and say that a lot because that keeps me remembering who's in charge, remembering that it's not me. and i have to do i have to keep the because i love the way bob said it is keeping the stuff cleaned up between me and god i really i'm going to steal that from him i love that i love that keep all that stuff that builds up out of the way between me and god and i can do that on a daily basis and then i don't have these horrendous big inventories to do because what i've done is I've just swept it out on a daily basis. Just kept it swept out on a daily business. And don't allow things to build up. We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense. I just love that. Things like that intuitiveness, you know, that sometimes you just get this strong feeling and gosh, that's, I truly believe that that's God talking. That feeling of what to do is just God talking, and that's better than any high I've ever had. That just feels so good. It feels at peace. I'm not alone. It's comforting. I am so grateful that I know today that I don't ever, ever have to do anything alone, that I've got God, I've got you guys. I mean, we have each other. It's fabulous. It's to know that you never, ever have to do anything alone. But we must go further, and that means more action. So, okay, Bob. Thank you, Polly. I'm Bob Daryl, and I am an alcoholic. Good morning. there are a lot of ways to do step 10 and 11 or actually a lot of ways to do a lot of the steps and what seems to happen to a lot of us is that we try a lot of different things and we end up kind of back at the book and it's just you put this process up against all the other stuff and this is the thing that seems to give me the best most balanced spirit um on page 84 it starts this process on uh step 10 and it uses the first paragraph uses the word continue four times like it's almost like okay stop i get it you know just continue to continue to watch continue continue i think i suspected when i was new that step 10 read continue to take personal inventory and if someday i know it's hard to believe but if i was wrong uh and it says when which means get ready you're going to be wrong a lot and if if you're new and you can't stand being wrong you're gonna have a hard time in recovery a hard time unless you i run into people every once in a while they say they say things weird to me and i understand why they're saying it i've even done a little bit this my first couple years they'll say things like well now i'm in a and work the steps i no longer ever angry or afraid or self-centered and i always want to look for the lobotomy scars you know how to you know How did you do that, you know? So why do we do this? Well, religious people, you know, talk of, one of the things that churches and a lot of religions talk about, and I think they miss, they miss the point. And they're big on sin. And we use different words. We talk kind of about the same thing. It's separation from God, separation from other people. We don't call it sin because some of us came from a background where that word just makes the hair on the back of our neck stand up you know but um it's really the same thing but most religions will hammer you and with this idea that you're going to be punished for your sins and yeah we don't we know that's not true you're not punished for your sense you're punished by them there's a world of difference it's it's the whole difference between my relationship with god it's just cause and effect uh god loves me you know a guy told me years ago something after a meeting he i was having a struggling with god and this some of my old prejudices and unworthiness etc and he said he said i want you to try a little exercise he said i want you to think of the worst most despicable shameful thing you've ever done in your whole life i had a couple of them so i got one i thought of the one thing and and he says you got that he said I don't want to know what it is just you got it in your mind I said yeah he said now I want you to think of the kindest most loving most spiritual thing you've ever done in your whole life and i i remembered a thing i did it was funny it was when i was a little kid i had a paper route there was a guy on my route that was an old man living barely on social security and i i just liked him i just loved him i guess and i took some money out of my paper route did something nice for him it's probably the only altruistic thing i ever did prior to how Paul is synonymous. But it really stuck out in my mind because it lit me up. It made me feel really good doing that. And then this man, he says to me, he says, so you got the worst thing? Yeah. You got the best thing? Yeah. He says, when you understand that God loved you equally when you were performing the worst as he did when you Were Doing the Best, you will start to understand God's love and 28 and a half, 29 years later I suppose from when Manny told me that I'm here to report that in my experience and I don't know that this is a fact but in my observation and experience I believe that Manny was wrong I believe God loved me more when I did the worst thing and I'll tell you why because I've watched God's love over the years work through the people in AA and how much it's poured on where it's needed, how much its poured on despair, how muchits poured on people who are broken and remorseful and hate themselves, how muchit's poured through thepeople in AA. God's Love works through us. It's like a plywood needed, and it was needed there I couldn't receive it that's the problem I love this line we've entered the world of the spirit and you know I think that a lot of us in Alcoholics Anonymous we enter the world of the Spirit but we're so diverted by the clamors, Bill used a term in the book i love worldly clamors you know the rent uh taxes traffic him her them worldly clamors that i'm not awake to it a lot of times i but i when you enter the world of the spirit something happens to you in here there's more of there's more unity between you maybe not even consciously between you and God but between life and what happens what surrendered people or at least if you're close to it and you're in that zip code and you are trying to live that way of life things click for you life works life works because you're not at conflict with life trying to arrange life to suit yourself and I the problem is is I I fall in and out of that that's why step 10 is so important to me and step 11 I have natural unremovable unremovable default positions one of them is self one of them is being the center of the universe one of him is being the guy who knows everything one of em is the judgmental guy who's picking everybody apart I'm not really judgmental I just see how stupid you are you become that guy right and those are default positions and unless i bring and continue to bring grace in my life that's just where i go it's not because i'm a bad guy it's just what it is to have a chronic spiritual malady a chronic i never get over this never and so i this is very important stuff for me to to continue to watch for these things in myself all these and they're all manifestations of self selfishness dishonesty i've lied a lot in my life but i've never lied because i'm a liar i lie because i am afraid and the 12 by 12 bill says that the chief activator of all my defects of character is self-centered fear it's always back to the default position of self and self being afraid self's not going to get what self's got to have it's always me and my way me and myself me and stuff that's the default position and right behind that default position is a more serious one and that's drinking drinking or suicide I mean when you think about it objectively if you've ever had suicidal thoughts could you imagine Could you imagine being more self-centered and more self obsessed with your feelings and your life stuff than when you're suicidal? I mean, that's, that that's brought on by extreme self, extreme self. so i must watch for these things and what happens to me uh it's such alcoholism when it says in the book that says alcohol is cunning baffling and powerful i think that this the ego is cunning baffled you know there i had a problem for years with what a lot of christians talk about when they talk about satan lucifer the devil but i'll tell you something if i think in terms of that as an analogy for my ego oh my god it all makes sense they one of the things that they say and this is so right on the money that the greatest trick the devil ever did was to convince people he wasn't there the greatest trip my ego has ever done is to convince me it ain't there i'm not egotistical they are assholes i mean right because it uses my perception against me and and i i have to watch for this stuff it's it because it's just it's i've no i've caught myself in these you don't care i don't catch it until it's told but till it's painful but it's like i'm over here i've i've applied spiritual principles of my life i've gotten off the default position of self i'm over here and i'm other centered and i i feel god's presence and i my contact with god now is conscious rather than unconscious i'm lit up i'm helping others man this is good and then it's like i just i got this little thing in my head it's it's a i call it the noticer the noticer comes on and i just start noticing little things that are wrong you know It's just little things, just little things that aren't right. And it just starts coming back and people are a little bit out of line and my God, look what's happening in the government and look at oh, and traffic nowadays and taxes and just next thing I know I'm back here. Right? Back here. One of my favorite it's all good now as a result of the steps I revisited a lot of my childhood religion. And it's funny how stuff I had a problem with, now I don't have a problem With it. The Bible makes sense to me now. But I look at it with different eyes than I've ever looked at it before. When I looked at It dogmatically, it made me nuts. You know, I'm going to... I mean, like, Lot's wife got turned into a pillar of salt because of curiosity. How do you... I mean, oh, God. You mean if I peak, I'm going to turn? I mean you know, come on. Right. But if I look at it as stories about spiritual states, it all makes sense to me now. It's right on the money and the light. And Bill says something in his story. He says from now on I will test everything against this newfound God consciousness within me. and I can test the Bible against that and I'll tell you it's right on the money it's RIGHT ON THE MONEY and one of the stories I'm getting around to is the one of Adam and Eve now I'm not a biblical scholar so what I'm about to share is very experiential against my spiritual awakening but I started thinking about that story in the Bible and I started thinkin' well, here's here's Adam and Evie God gave them heaven on earth He put them in the Garden of Eden. It was perfect, perfect heaven, heaven. He said to them, he made a suggestion. Don't eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Kind of like your sponsor says, oh, don't get involved with them. You didn't want to until he said that. And they can't eatthe fruit ofthe tree ofthe knowledgeofgoodandevil. You know what I think happened? I think they got exactly what the fruit promised. The knowledge, the discernment, the judgment. You know that mechanism in this that plays God rather than go with his flow? And I think what happened is all of a sudden Adam's looking around going, man, this was paradise yesterday. What the heck happened? There's crabgrass, there's flies, Eve's got cellulite. God, what are you thinking? This is crap. And what changed? Nothing. Nothing changed except he was heaven over here and he came right back over to self again, playing God being in charge being the one, the ego the one who knows so I have to watch for that it's my natural tendency it's not because I'm a bad guy these promises the 10th step promise I wish somewhere along the line we'd stop I understand why we read the 9th step promises they're very flowery you could put them on a Hallmark card in a recovery bookstore for God's sakes. New freedom, new happiness, not regret the past. But I didn't come here for that. I came here for the 10-step promises, to be placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We haven't even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It just comes automatically, the book says. We're not even cocky. We're Not Afraid. It's just been removed And it's almost a definition of grace. It just comes to us, an unmerited thing that we don't even deserve. But what we did is we've cleared up a channel between us and a power source that does for us what we can't do for ourselves. I think that this is why we come to AA. on page 100 it it says something and you know back on pay in the chapter three if we started friday night we talked about the delusion but here on page one hundred it the bottom of the page it's it talks about uh the really these same promises in a different way it says assuming we are spiritually fit now that's that means that we're continuing to watch for the stuff that gets between me and god that gets between my ability to carry out my primary purpose assumingly we are spiritually fit we can do all sorts of things alcoholics are not supposed to do people have said we must not go where liquor is served we must not have it on our homes we must shun friends who drink we must avoid moving pictures that show drinking scenes we must not go into bars our friends must hide their bottles if we go to their houses we must not think or be reminded about alcohol at all that's a great line yeah tell a newcomer that's in the obsession to drink oh just don't think about it our experience shows that this is not necessarily so we meet these conditions every day and here's the kicker an alcoholic who cannot meet them still has an alcoholic mind and there's something wrong something the matter with his spiritual status i used to i did do a meeting i've done it twice a week for forever and a detox in las vegas where people are dying of alcoholism and they they keep their so there's chronic chronic relapses in there and i used to say something i had to stop saying it in detox even though it was true what I would say to them if you get involved in Alcoholics Anonymous and you make it the center of your life and you devote yourself to helping other alcoholics there will come a time where you could be in a room alone with an unlimited amount of your drug of choice and have the freedom to use it and no one would know and it will mean no more to you than the furniture in the room and they'd look at me like I was from Pluto they can't imagine that they've never been free of the hook and they've tried some of them have had 10-15 rehabs some have been to therapy some have tried meds they've try everything to get free of the hook that eventually sometimes after years of abstinence eventually brings them back like a moth to the flame see they can imagine that and when you think of it objectively though for for those of us that are able to be comfortable sober decade after decade after decades wouldn't that have to happen i mean for god's sakes if we're fighting the bag in the bottle how long you think we're going to last 30 years 30 days maybe 30 weeks is pushing it It has to be These promises don't come true We're in a lot of trouble Because then we're just doing time We're just Doing time Fighting the bag and the bottle This Next paragraph Middle of page 85 I think I've thought about this paragraph a lot I've watched some wonderful wonderful men and women drink again commit suicide destroy their lives and it's all as a result and at one time a lot of these people they were in the door they were hooked up and it says it's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels we're headed for trouble if we do for alcohol is a subtle foe we're not cured of alcoholism you know it's so easy that we lose a lot of people and here here's what you know when you're when you knew and you just got out of a detox or you still don't know if your family's gonna accept you again you don't know if you're gonna go to jail you don'T KNOW IF YOU HAVE A JOB you your your emotions are and you just wacky, your mind spinning, you feel horrible. You feel pretty alcoholic. You got a bad case. But how bad of a case of alcoholism do you have with half a million dollars in the bank? With a big house? With respect in the community? With you haven't thought about taking a drink for 10 years? when everything in you feels like, and we're such feeling people, feels like there's no problem here. It feels like there's nothing to worry about. There's no problems. Everything's going my way. And what happens, I believe, is that I get seduced by the fruits of my own recovery into a false, illusionary state of security that doesn't exist having alcoholism having a chronic illness is that i will always live in the shadow of alcoholism always always and unless i'm diligent and maintain some sort of flow of power in my life it's just a matter of time before you know that's why we see guys all the time they yeah they're what happens is is that god's grace stops being what's supporting their sobriety now it's the family now it'S the business now IT'S all the other stuff it'S other illusionary powers move in and become the center i know i've been a victim of that in my sobriete thank god i survived it it moves in and then and then what happens you see this a lot is the house of cards collapses. Maybe you catch your person you're married to who's having an affair. Maybe somebody that works for you, that your key employee steals so much money from you, you're going under. Maybe they changed the laws, now your business don't work no more. Maybe the IRS is coming at you because you were a knucklehead and didn't dot all your I's and cross all your T's when it comes to them, and it doesn't take much sometimes. Maybe the house of cards you've built that has given you the illusion of security, that everything's fine here, starts to crumble. And if there's nothing to fall back on in here, man, you're in trouble. You're in travel. We lose a lot of people because they stop doing the things that gave them the great life. You know, I've been going to this meeting detox for years. Years ago there was a guy in there who was so funny. He was such a knucklehead. He'd been sober 17 years and he drank again. And he wants to share because he needs to enlighten the people in there that are 20 years sober and now he's got two days. he wants to enlighten us so we kind of he's one of the guys that taught us we don't let him share it's not good but he starts talking about his life in sobriety and how he had the big house and the wife and the three kids that adored him and the business where he was making the big money and he had two cars in the garage that were paid for and then he says something he talks about how wonderful his life is, and then he says, I don't understand why I drank. As if all of that crap was a treatment for alcoholism. If you ran into a diabetic that just came out of a diabetic coma and says, I don' t know why I was in a diabetic comma, I got a new car, you'd want to slap him, wouldn't you? You'd say, what are you, a nut? What's that have to do? and it's alcoholism is the same way right what do you think what are you crazy and yet in the alcoholic mind we'll grab on to think stuff like that they just we're knuckleheads man we think stuff like that oh god that's why i gotta have a sponsor oh man one of the greatest uh this this you know But one day at a time, the saying one day at a Time really I believe came from page 85 when it talks about a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. I don't know where one day at atime got turned into you just don't drink one day at aime. I don't have what it takes to do that. Unless I've developed some sort of power in my life, I'm dead meat. I will always go back to drinking not because I'm not stupid I'm just a bad guy that's just what it is to have alcoholism and so I have this daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition Dr. Silkworth in an article in the grapevine one of the first grapevines did a great thing on relapse if you ever get a chance to read it it's wonderful from a scientific point of view He talked about why people drink again. It made perfect sense. He compared it to heart disease, and he said that if you have a heart attack, it's like this 1,000-pound weight slams you in the chest, and you are in a critical condition. And if you're very lucky, they take you to the hospital, they'll take you the cardiac care unit, and they'll stabilize you. And then once you're stabilized, they will give you a program of recovery, And maybe it's no salt. Maybe it's exercise every day. Maybe it takes some blood thinners. Maybe it costs cholesterol medication. Maybe it is no more cheeseburgers. And what happens? You start the exercise and the diet that they are talking about. What happens in no time at all? Same thing happens to us that come in today and do this deal. No time at al you are feeling better and stronger than you have ever felt in your whole life. and one night maybe you're out by now you're jogging you're 20 miles a week you're all bowling with a bunch of guys at this bowling alley that has this reputation of having these amazing cheeseburgers and you're bowling with these guys and they're eating those cheeseburgners and you think to yourself I'm in better shape than these guys why can't I have a cheeseburger I'm going to have a cheeseburger and you have a cheeseburger, you know what happens? Nothing. And that's the worst thing that could happen. And then you open the door. Next thing you know, you're compromising your exercise and you're using salt and all that stuff and you feel fine. And then all of a sudden, one day a thousand pound weight slams you in the chest. And if you're really lucky, they stabilize you and save your life and you are back in a cardiac care unit watching Father Martin movies and stuff and you know or whatever the case may be right and it's very similar to alcoholism we get seduced by the fruits of our own recovery into a false sense of okayness let's take a 8 minutes 47 second break