The Difference Between Simple Belief and Access to Power – Joe H.

My name is Joe. I am an alcoholic. We do have a lot to cover tonight, and I'd like to kind of review what we've done so far. It helps me to be centered where we are. And I think everything we've covered up to page 43 is most of step one. And we talked a little bit last week about the second half of that step, the unmanageability of my life and different places where we find that in this book to help me look at the unMANAGEABILITY of my LIFE. I think probably what I'm most grateful for is that both parts of this step were not given to me based on my life outside here. the circumstances that we did not find my disease in the result of my alcoholism you know DUIs jail lost relationships that we found the disease within we found a disease in my body I can't control the amount that I drink once I start and we found my disease in my mind for some strange reason I can' t seem to keep myself stopped because I suffer from obsessions that get me back to the first drink. We began to look at what we are going to start to look later on in Step 4, the root of my disease which the book will tell me is a spiritual malady and that that's within. We looked at a guiding page for the unmanageability of my life which is page 52 where I find those things within you know so what i'm saying is i'm real grateful they helped me find that not only the disease but the unmanageability of my life within because if i couldn't find it within i'd have to fix everything out in the world to make to make me better and even when that happened in my past it still wasn't all right inside now don't take me wrong when i say this but i've never really had a problem with step two now i've had some old conceptions like of a punishing god and a god that was keeping score that i had to put aside that i did have trouble with but i've never really had any problem with getting to step two once i've seen the first step now i had a problems with step 2 when i glossed over the first steps and didn't really experience the hopelessness of the powerlessness and the unmanageability of my life, I had a problem with step two. But I've really never seen anybody really having a problem with step three. I've never had a clear first step because there's nowhere else to go. I think the miracle of these steps is that each preceding one opens the door to the next. And I think there is a door between the first and second step and if I can really experience the first step, it takes me right up to that door and it's open. and it's not about acceptance I don't think acceptance of the first step takes me into the second because if it is acceptable for me to remain powerless and for my life to remain unmanageable then there's really no need for me to go on to the second step to take it to God but the admission the experience of conceding to my innermost self the powerlessness and the unmanagability and the realization of that hopelessness took me to where there was nowhere else to go but to the second step if I wanted to continue to live. So I think there really is a second-step decision or choice made, do you want to live or do you wanna die? And if you've seen where your power has gotten you living, now where are you gonna get some power? I can't really see the insanity I can't really go to the idea of being the need for being restored to sanity until I see the insanity I can' t really go to the second step in a good mood and I'm not going to be open to the ideal to the idea of being restored to sanity and that I need a power greater than myself to do that until I see that I am insane until I see that I can't restore myself to sanity on my own power so we look at the insanity of each part of the disease what's the insanity of the body well the insanity of the body is that I think I can control the amount that I drink if I take a little bit see I think I can take a little bit this time it will be different I think i can have two drinks because i think i can control my body after i put some in it the insanity of my mind is that i can stay stopped i can keep myself sober now i can't control the stop the insanity of my emotions is that I think I can fix them I can make him better and the insanity of my spirit is that i think i can fix that too that i can self-will spiritual growth and that i can cheat i can treat this process i can make myself more spiritual and see all those things are insane i can't control how much i'm going to take if i take a little i can t keep myself stopped i can' t fix my emotions and i cannot self-rule spiritual growth i cannot make my spirit well we once again use page 52 to look at the unmanageability of our lives i have trouble with personal relationships and that really has to do with how i see them and experience them within not am i in one or is it going on or is this satisfying is it the way i want it to be can I control my emotions can I make misery and depression go away can I make that feeling of uselessness disappear can I make fear go away can I make myself happy you know we take we take those questions on page 52 and we we ask ourselves now that I'm sober can I can I sit in a chair and fix myself on my own power. And I was asked to look at what booze and drugs used to do when they were working. And believe it or not, when the alcohol was working, it used to make all those things in the paragraph on page 52 better. It made personal relations okay for the time being. And it made the emotions I didn't like go away. I wasn't so prone to misery and depression when the alcohol was working. The feeling of uselessness would disappear, you know. They asked me when we looked at the unmanageability of my life is, now that I'm sober can I sit in a chair and do what booze and drugs used to do with my own power? Can I fix myself? Can I stop those things on page 52 from happening? I heard a story about the way alcoholics think about this old guy on his deathbed. And he's been sober forever, and he's on his deathbed, and his wife is right there with him. And in his last breath, he looks up at his wife and he says, honey, do you remember when I was shot and you were right there and you stood by me? and do you remember that time when we lost all our money in business and you were right there and you stood by me? Do you remember when I had my first heart attack and you Were right there and you Stood by me and you're right here today and you've stood right by me and he said, after all this time I've realized one thing. You're a jinx. when I heard that I thought you know that's really how I think how I used to view the world so I need to see the insanity before I can go along with the idea of being the need to be restored to sanity I need to see that my mind is different when it comes to alcohol and drugs it thinks it can control how much I'm going to drink if I start and it thinks it can keep me stopped and it thinks it can fix my emotions and it things that can make myself spiritual and what that it is is ego I think my ego has been so strong at times that it thinks that it can exist without my body that I can die and it'll go on so I started I had to get a glimpse of that insanity before I could go along with the idea that yeah I'm insane and I need to be restored to sanity because I'm not you're not going to convince me I need to be locked up in the state hospital or I need a straitjacket or I mean I need Thorazine or shock treatment but I started to see that when alcohol and drugs are concerned and the way my mind runs my life that I'm strangely insane but I also needed to see that you take the alcohol and the drugs away and I'm still insane because that's when my mind is really going to get me that's when my mind is going to tell me i can drink again and this time it'll be different and that's where my mind will tell me you can run your life just fine on your own power and that'S WHEN MY MIND WILL TELL ME THAT IT CAN FIX ME AND THAT I CAN MAKE EVERYTHING ALL RIGHT ALL I NEED TO DO NOW THAT I'M SOBER AND THE ALCOHOL IS OUT OF THE WAY IS TO EXERT MY WILL A LITTLE BIT HARDER AND AND WORK ON THIS AND WORKS ON THAT AND MAKE MYSELF A LITTER MORE HONEST and make myself a little more unselfish and everything will be just fine and I needed some time to see that that was futile. You hear people talk about it all the time, hitting a sober bottom. So I hope if anything we have begun to see that lack of power is our problem. And we covered everything up to the question on page 47 where they asked me a short question which I was told is the first half of step two. And I believe if you have seen and experienced everything up to this page that the idea of being willing to believe that there is a power greater than yourself is more like a necessity rather than something that you have to work at. I think you're right there if you've really experienced this process up to these days. Up to this point. All I had to say is yes, I'm willing to believed. that there better be a power greater than myself i did not take my second step on on virtue i took it out of desperation and they tell me that as soon as i can say that i do believe or that i'm even willing to believe they assure me that i am on my way that it has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built see now we've put that first stone on the structure and the structure is the foundation that i have in the first step the knowledge of the problem and that i can't fix it and that first cornerstone like when they put a stone in a building and put the date on it that first cornerstone is willingness to believe that there is a power greater than myself we talked about a process to go from belief to faith and you don't just take the second step one day wake up the next day with absolute faith in this power that you really don't know yet or have had much experience with that it is a process. To go from a simple belief yes I'm willing to absolute faith and that that comes through the rest of the steps to make a decision based on this simple belief to take some action in 4 through 9 after making a decision in step 3 to take 좀 action in four through nine and get some results and then based on those results I'll have faith you know, I got to see it where most of us if you're anything like me we're hard-headed stubborn people that need to be shown I needed to be shone you take this and you put it in here and you mix it with this much and you chug it down and things straighten out you don't feel so weird not a place and you're not so afraid and you go out there on the streets and you become whoever they want you to be I needed to see that that was real I needed to get some results from booze before I had any faith in it well it's the same way in this program they start to ask me to put aside my prejudice and then I'm obstinate and I'm sensitive they hope it's not a tedious process like it was for some of them well for me i think if i if i look at my life and we all look at our lives that coming to believe that we can't do it and that we need some help has been probably a tedious process for all of us it meant jail and families and relationships and money and jobs it was a tedious process see i never thought that i looked at any of these ideas in the first two steps until i came to alcoholics anonymous i started to see that i've been dealing with the ideas in the first two steps if not all of them way before i ever came to aa i've been looking for power and ways to manage my life and i've come to believe in some some of the strangest higher powers you could ever imagine alcohol drugs women sex money they talk about this this practical individual of today like you and i and that i'm a stickler for facts and results That's exactly what we better get from this process of the rest of the steps. We better get some facts. We better gets something we can see and feel in our life. You know, don't just tell me nifty things in these meetings and then let me walk out of here and I can't put any of it to use. Something better happen in these steps to where I can see it and feel it in my life and then I'd better be able to direct it and use it. This power better be that practical and they give a description of that in this paragraph on page 48 simply because it is impossible to explain what we see, feel, direct and use without a reasonable assumption as a starting point so I ask myself what's the reasonable assumption the reasonable Assumption that we can use as a Starting Point is that God can and will and that I'm willing to believe that the next page they start to talk about the prosaic steel girder and that this is governed by precise laws and that these laws hold truth throughout the material world we have no reason to doubt it when however the perfectly logical assumption has suggested that underneath the material world and life as we see it there is an all-powerful guiding creative intelligence right there, my perverse streak comes to the surface and I laboriously set out to convince myself that it isn't so. Well, the same thing happened to me in this program when they suggested the idea that within me, within each and every one of us, we would find an all-powerful guiding creative intelligence. That brings up something in me that I needed to look at why that bothered me and it bothered me because of my old conceptions that I had been raised with. They asked me on the bottom of that page to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion. Now I saw that I couldn't do that and I was very grateful for a prayer and I can't stress the importance of what this prayer has meant to me each time I've gone through these steps. just the first time but from the very first time i was asked to use this prayer and i used it for several weeks each time and that prayer is please let me put aside everything i think i know about my disease these steps this program and especially god for an open mind and a new experience with my disease with myself with these steps and with you you know and the first thing my head wants to say is well you want me to throw all that stuff away you want m e to throw away everything I think I know and they didn't say that they said put aside that we would just leave the garbage behind and that whatever was true and whatever was of God would come back anyway and I've used that prayer each time i've gone through the steps and it's it's a it's a very powerful prayer the middle of page 50 they talk about one proposition that all these men and women are agreed on that every one of them has gained access to and belief in a power greater than himself this power has in each case accomplished the miraculous the humanly impossible well i think there's a key word there and that is access to you know how many of us in this room had belief in God power greater than ourselves different conceptions we came to this program with how many of us have had belief in probably everyone in this room in their own way at different times but how many of us have had access to you know I that's what this process is about you know I choose a simple conception at the second step and I think pretty much the rest of this work is about gaining access to that power so I can see it and feel it and use it and direct it. I know that I had belief in, even though it was messed up and it wasn't real useful for me. But I never had access to a power because those are the times when I'm really going to need this program. When that next obsession hits me, when I want to go do this or when I want go do that and I know it's wrong and I can't keep myself from doing it, or I get an insane thought or I want do something that I know is insane but I can' t keep myself from doing. Those are the times this work had better have given me a conscious contact that I can tap into and have actual access to some power that I don't have. So I think they're telling me that I need a little bit more than just a belief in. I need access to this power. Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed, they flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a power greater than themselves and to take a certain attitude toward that power and to do certain simple things there has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking. Well that's very interesting because we have done one of those three things at this point in the second step. Since they have come to believe in a power greater than themselves, we have begun to do that just by being willing. But what about this certain attitude? I think they give me that certain attitude on page 55 and we'll look at that. And I think after that it says, and to do certain simple things means the rest of these steps. In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of the total failure of their human resources, step one, they found that a new power, peace and happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. This happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements. There's another point in this book that tells me there's more than one requirement. Back in the chapter, there is a solution they said it would be about confession of shortcomings and a couple other things that were required for a successful consummation, leveling of pride and self-searching. Here once again they say that this will happen soon after I wholeheartedly meet a few simple requirements. Although there is only one requirement to be a member of the fellowship, there is more than one requirement to be a participant in this recovery process. Once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence, they show the underlying reasons why they were making heavy going of life. It doesn't say the underlying reason why I was making heavy-going of my drinking. They say leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living was so unsatisfactory. underlying reasons and we're beginning to get a glimpse of that root that they'll describe on the next page. The unmanageability of my life and the second half of that first step has very little to do with the first half unless I'm still drinking and drugging. They're asking me to look at the underlying reasons why I was making heavy going of life. You know, maybe some of those underlying reasons are lack of power and selfishness and self-centeredness and what they're going to describe on the next page. When many hundreds of people are able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith. It's interesting it doesn't say there that when many hundreds of people are able to say that the belief in a power greater than themselves is the most important fact in their lives. They say, the consciousness of the presence of God. There's a big difference between just having a simple belief and experiencing the consciousness of the Presence of God." Then they start to talk about theories and using my mind and how I used to be fettered with superstition and tradition, all sorts of old fixed ideas and they equate it to how people thought about Columbus and Galileo. They ask me, aren't some of us just as biased and unreasonable about the realm of the spirit as some of these ancient people were about the Realm of the Material? And I have to look at, has my mind been fettered by superstition, what I was raised with in tradition and all sorts of old fixed ideas about what spirituality and this idea of a power greater than myself meant? And I was. I'm held back by a lot of old ideas when it came to an idea that there might be a God personal to me that could be found within and work in every area of my life. Then I want to pull out the old tapes. He keeps score. He's unjust. He's punishing. He's keeping track, and he certainly gave up on me a long time ago for some terrible things that I did. And they asked me to start to lay that aside, to choose a new conception. we get to page 52 and I'm not going to go into this paragraph again but they really get me down to the root of my disease and the unmanageability of my life in that middle paragraph when we look at personal relationships and can I control my emotions and can i make misery and depression go away that feeling of uselessness the idea can i make fear go away on my own can i make myself happy they go on to say when we see others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the spirit of the universe we had to stop doubting the power of god our ideas didn't work but obviously for these people that some of us have seen in this program the god idea did and we all find our eskimos we all fine the people that that hold out that shining light for us in this program when we ask them how they did it and they and they tell us how they do they talk about the wright brothers beginning with a childish faith and that that childish face faith was the mainspring of their accomplishment i was told that i have just begun the same way that my childish faith is yes i'm willing to believe the next page they begin to talk about logic by the way i can also use that paragraph on page 52 for a guide today to see if i'm suffering from untreated alcoholism you know not only does that fit me before i ever took a drink and all the way through my drinking when the booze wasn't working but it's also another one of these pages that describes these symptoms of untreated alcoholism that I can look at today. Is that me today? They start to talk to me about logic on the next page and they say that I like it, I still like it. It's not by chance I was given the power to reason and to examine the evidence of my senses and to draw conclusions. You know, that's really all we've done in the first two steps. we've examined the evidence in step one we've drawn a conclusion I'm powerless my life's unmanageable we agnostically inclined would not feel satisfied with a proposal which does not lend itself to reasonable approach and interpretation I think step one gives us a more than reasonable approach and the idea that I get to choose my own conception in step two gives me an interpretation that's satisfying to me now the first step didn't satisfy me but it answered a lot of questions but the realization of step one made me real uncomfortable but it answered a lot of questions I had in the back of my mind for years but I was satisfied when for the first time in my life I was told at step two that I could choose my own conception I never went anywhere where they didn't say I had to believe the way they believed now for the first time I get to choose my own conception however inadequate it might be it would be sufficient to make a beginning. We come to the second half of the second step, the second major question in the second step, whatever you want to call it, in the next paragraph when they say, when we became crushed, when we became alcoholics, crushed by a self-imposed crisis that we could not postpone or evade, you know, when I really see step one. When I can't postpone it or evave it, You know, I postponed doing something about my alcoholism for a long time because I didn't think there was any hope and I was just ready to die until one day that that was not acceptable. The powerlessness and the unmanageability of my life for the first time was not unacceptable because I did not want to die. But when I experienced the reality of the first step, I could not postpone or evade. I had to fearlessly face the proposition that God is either everything or he is nothing. God either is or he isn't. this is the second step choice it's probably about the last choice you'll have you'll make but you'll see you you later will have more choices in your life than you've ever had and maybe you'll experience that there is no choice over alcohol when you're spiritually fit and i do have more choices in my life than i've ever but really since i've taken the third step it's not about making choices it's about asking for direction but here we are at a choice you're either going to choose that this power is everything and it is or that it's nothing and it isn't now the first time i took this it was god is either everything or i'm nothing god either is or i'm screwed because i really had seen the first step um the times that i have gone through this work since then the idea of god being everything has been both terrifying and also filled with a lot of hope because see i want to doubt god in other areas of my life today and i have faced my agnosticism each time through the steps well i know he can take my alcohol and drug problem but i don't know if he can work over here i don'T KNOW IF HE CAN WORK WITH BUSINESS I DON'T KNOWIF HE CANWORK IN A RELATIONSHIP AND I'LL JUST HAVE TO WORK ON THAT MYSELF YOU KNOW AND I HAVE HAD TO FACE THAT AGNOSTIC PART OF ME WITH OTHER STUFF EACH TIME I'VE GONE THROUGH THIS WORK but i've always had to come to this question when i've seen the powerlessness of it when i have been willing to believe that there is i've always hadto come tothis question next well is this power everything or is it nothing is it or isn't it and what's your choice i even i even know a guy in denver who went through this work and said that he took the he made the choice of the second step that god is nothing and went through the rest of the work that way but i don't want to do that that's that's terrifying but i also know if i'm willing to face that terror what if he doesn't work this time i did look at that idea this last time through the steps from a man who sat down with me who does this work on a regular basis for 26 years and he said each time you go through the steps you get to the second step do you always look for why there should be a god for you personal in your life and i said yeah he said well why don't you look at the idea that this time maybe there won't be maybe you've gone to the well one too many times and as i said with the first step if i'm willing to face that terror i will come out on the other side with a new freedom because he's always been there and it's just made for a new experience but the idea that god is everything or nothing the first time took it out of my head to see what i would like to do after saying god is after after saying this what i would like to do is then try to have them figure it out and put in a neat box and have it all wrapped up before i take the third step prayer because i think i have to understand god to take the first step but what i realized was if i can choose that god is everything there's nothing left to figure out intellectualize wrap up in a neat little box so i have it understood before i make a decision to turn my will and my life over to it there's nothing left to understand if god is and he's everything i can go on i don't have to intellectualize this i don t have to figure out god to go to him and if i could figure him out i'd be him anyway so that was kind of futile but there was some relief there for me intellectually there was also some uh some emotional relief i think the second step has always been for me about hope this is where they lay out the solution and then they're going to tell me in the rest of the steps how to find that solution they talk about arrived at this point i'm squarely confronted with the question of faith doesn't say i automatically have it they said i'm confronted with a question of fate i can't duck the issue i've already walked far over the bridge of reason my own thinking toward the desired shore of faith the outlines and the promise of a new land that i got in this program brought luster to my tired eyes and fresh courage to a flaging spirit friendly hands stretched out and welcome i was grateful that reason had brought me this far but somehow i couldn't quite step ashore perhaps i've been leaning too heavily on reason my own that last mile and i didn't like to lose my support you know am i really free to let go without understanding at first see that's my pattern i come up to something that's a risk i learn everything there is about it and then that takes the that gives me the control because i have it all figured out and understood but am i really ready to make a leap of faith even though that's just a small bit of faith that i have at this step and it's really just a simple belief but am i really willing to let go you know like that old story about the guy who jumps off the cliff halfway down he grabs onto a branch it saves his life and he's hanging there holding on to this branch and he he says a prayer to god and here's this voice from the clouds and and and the voice says let go of the branch and He thinks about it for a minute and looks back up and he says is there anybody else up there you know am I really willing to let go of that branch and and and fall without knowledge of what's down there this feeling is natural but let us let us think a little more closely they're asking me to let Goham I think in and they're ask you need to think a lot more closely without knowing had we not been brought to where we stand by a certain kind of faith for did we not believe in our own reasoning Did we not have confidence in our ability to think? What was that but a sort of faith? Yes, we've been faithful, abjectly faithful to the God of reason. So in one way or another, we've discovered that faith had been involved all the time. They're starting to help me see where faith and worship have been a part of my life. We found that we'd been worshipers. What a state of mental goose flesh that used to bring on. Had we not variously worshipped people, sentiment, things, money, ourselves? And then with a better motive, had we not worshipfully beheld the sunset, the sea or a flower? Who of us have not loved something or somebody? How much do these feelings, these loves, these worships have to do with pure reason? Little or nothing. Were not these things, these loves and these feelings these worships, were not these things the tissue out of which our lives were constructed? Did not these feelings, after all, determine the course of our existence? It was impossible to say that we had no capacity for faith or love or worship. In one form or another we have been living by faith and little else. Maybe I need to find a faith in something that I haven't tried, because I've tried most every kind of person or thing i think they're helping me look at the idea that no human power can relieve my alcoholism and that god couldn't would if he was sought imagine life without faith were nothing left but pure reason it wouldn't be life but we believe in life of course we did we couldn't prove life in the sense that you can prove a straight line is the shortest distance between two points yet there it was could we still say the whole thing means it was nothing but a mass of electrons created out of nothing meaning nothing whirling on to a destiny of nothingness of course we couldn't the electrons themselves seem more intelligent than that at least so the chemist said hence we saw that reason isn't everything neither is reason as most of us use it entirely dependable though it emanates from our best minds well the lack of power was our problem and that question is where and how are we to find this power and they said that's exactly what the rest of this book was about its main object is to enable me to find a power greater than myself which will solve my problems well i think this is the page that tells me exactly where and exactly how to find that power this is where the book answers itself and in these next two paragraphs they're going going to tell me exactly how and exactly where to find this power. My favorite two paragraphs in the book, I heard a Catholic priest from San Diego who used to teach priests and, you know, who I'm sure read a lot of religious books, and he said, don't ever let anybody tell you that this book or this program is not dogmatic or pragmatic. The next paragraph we're about to read is probably one of the most dogmatic things he'd ever read when it came to God. It talks about here we've been fooling ourselves. For deep down in every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God. Throughout my life that may have been blocked or obscured by calamity terrible things that happened by pomp and my ego by worship of other things but in some form or other it has been there. For faith in a power greater than myself and miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives are facts as old as man himself. We finally saw that faith in some kind of God was a part of our makeup just as much as the feeling we have for a friend. This next sentence will tell me exactly how and the sentence after that will tell me exactly where. Sometimes I'll have to search fearlessly. That's interesting, they use the same two words as in the fourth step. But he was there. He was as much a fact as we were. That's how. Search fearlessly where? I'll find that great reality I've always been looking for deep down within. In the last analysis it is only there that he may be found yet we're going to sit in meetings and hear people say they just find God in the group or they just find God comes through other people or they find him in a lamppost or a tree or a light bulb of course God's in the meeting of course God comes through other people but thank God some of those other people told me that maybe I should look within myself and find the same thing that they had and that the rest of these steps would be about searching fearlessly within myself to find this great reality I've always looked for and that I would find this power deep down within and they've answered themselves from page 45 they've told me exactly how to search fearlessly and exactly where deep down Within and in the last analysis it's probably only there that he may be found and they don't say probably I found a promise there because I'm tired of analyzing they said in the last analysis that was just a key word for me because I'd been in an analysis for so long and I wouldn't maybe have to keep on going on and on and on and on analyzing it trying to figure it out maybe this would be the last thing as far as my search and I would know where it was and then from there it would really begin. We can only clear the ground a bit, but if our testimony helps sweep away prejudice, enables you to think honestly, encourages you to search diligently within yourself, then if you wish you can join us on the broad highway. And I think that's the attitude they wanted us to find from page 50. Since they have come to believe in a power greater than themselves, to take a certain attitude toward that power and to do certain simple things. I think this is the certain attitude because they go on to say, with this attitude you cannot fail. So I ask myself, what's that attitude? If I can lay aside prejudice, if I can think honestly, if I've been encouraged to search diligently within myself, I can find God. They tell a story about a minister's son and his experience. It was sudden. It's a good story, and at the end of that story they go back to the same idea that was expressed in the story at the last chapter more about alcoholism. This idea of choice that we've talked about since a couple chapters ago. this idea of choice. The story at the end of More About Alcoholism on page 43 said, I wouldn't exchange its best moments for the worst I have now. I would not go back to it even if I could. Well, the guy on page 57 says, except for a few brief moments of temptation, the thought of drink has never returned and in such great times a great revulsion has risen up in him. Seemingly he could not drink, even if he would. There was no choice. God restored that sanity. What was this but a miracle of healing? Seemedly he could not drink even if he would circumstances made him willing step one he humbly offered himself to his maker then he knew and I don't think they meant that by circumstances from outside i think to me that means the realization of the first step and the circumstances that bring me to the second step even so as god restored us all to our right minds maybe there should be a question mark there rather than a period to this man the revelation was sudden some of us grow into it more slowly but he has come to all who have honestly sought him when we drew near to him he disclosed himself to us i've heard people actually have the arrogance to say as i reveal myself to god he will reveal himself to me and i think that's pretty egotistical i think what they mean there as i revealed myself to me he will reveal himself to me i mean when the world is there left to reveal to god i think it's as i begin to see the truth he will show me the way i remember somebody saying that if i've run from the problem i've also run from the solution because if the problem was within the solution is within there's only one must there's only one must in this chapter on page 44 after a while I had to fearlessly face the fact that I must find a spiritual basis of life or else