A Conception of Higher Power That Is Just Something to Play With – Don P.

Good morning. Bill carries us through the devastation of time and then brings us to a complete view of what's in store. And I love this portion of the book because if we could just get completely in his skin on page 13 the rest of it would be completely unnecessary. A couple things that I like to bring to your attention from my view because I tend to get arrogant and I need to remember some things. this is about people awakening spiritually Bill woke up dead drunk true, that's what it says here he was sitting there drinking gin with his old friend Abby to the point where right afterwards they put him in the hospital because he was getting ready to go into DTs that's pretty drunk at that point is when he woke up that's why that's not what he says Ebi had said why don't you choose your own conception of God and by the way the word is conception not concept a concept is a very rigid boxed in structure with no room to grow my sponsor destroyed all my concepts so I could have a conception just something to play with at 2.30 in the morning Dead drunk, that statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered for many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. And he's drunk. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make a beginning. And I need to remember that because I have, in working with others, have added requirements I know none of you have ever done that before they could make a beginning they had to meet certain requirements of my own making it's only a matter of being willing to believe that there is a power greater than myself that's where I make my beginning now I got that from watching I was fully awake when I got here I was five and a half months away from my last drink and fully awake and I believe anybody who gets here is awake or they wouldn't get here so at that point I need to make sure that my job is not to define their state for them it's simply to help them stay awake until they can clear away the stuff that keeps putting them to sleep the icy intellectual mountain my old ideas that's all that is Bill has some wonderful images and I have to sometimes translate them from my own head I was sitting doing a meeting in a reformatory one time and same thing I was just reading the big book to him and this kid mentioned I don't understand a word he just said his imagery didn't fit this boy so I sometimes have to run that through my head Dr. Silkworth's statement that it takes an entire psychic change for me that simply meant I need a new mind I could understand that conception but I was awake so was Bill they put him in hospital anyway what I want to do this morning first of all is let's have the entire experience of the steps. If you'll get completely in Bill's skin, you can have the experience. Then we can go through how you keep it. Because you'll notice if you're all experts, you know that you have a spiritual awakening before the third step. And the whole purpose of inventory is to find out what kept you from having that permanently. It's not so that you can have one. You've already had one. A spiritual awakening is any time, any alcoholic anywhere understands any part of the truth it's a spiritual event he knows that did you hear that he went that's an amen that counts at the hospital I was separated from alcohol for the last time Creven seemed wise for I showed signs of glurium tremens you ever seen anybody in DTs scary they die sometimes they have convulsions and break their arms and legs and throats all kinds of bad things happen or they go insane it's just hallucinations some of us used to live for that there I humbly offered myself to God as I then understood him to do with me as he would my life is no longer my business period the conduct of my life is certainly my business but my life is none of my business to do with me as he would without reservation I placed myself unreservedly under his care and direction I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing that without him I was lost I ruthlessly faced my sin I had a little trouble with that word all my troubles are with words I'm a word mechanic So I went to a priest to find out about it, an alcoholic priest. He said, sin is anything that separates me from God. That's all. We took all the other definitions off and that works for me. Anything that separates me from god. So I faced my sins and became willing to have my new found friend take them away root and branch and not had a great sense. There's a conception of god for you. A new found friends even in the midst of my sickness. What happens when there's a new found friend is I have hope and that's the only message I can ever carry anyway is hope you either hope you can get what I've got or you can hope you never turn out like me but I bring you hope okay doesn't matter my school made visits at me and I fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies we made a list of people I had hurt or toward whom I felt resentment. I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals admitting my wrong. Never was I to be critical of them. Let me bust a bubble for you. I keep hearing from my grandchildren and great-grandchildren when they do inventory that they go into the fourth column looking for their part. As long as I think you have a part, I'm not on the beam here I'm never to be critical of them I'm to set aside any wrongs they may have done entirely they don't have any part in this I'm entirely at fault I go look for where I was wrong I've seen it hold people back looking for their part okay I was to write all such matters to the utmost of my ability I like that a whole lot better than saying make amends because that gets messed up too. I can interpret amends to mean I'm sorry. My sponsor told me one time, he says you're never going to use that phrase again. You've been sorry your whole life. You get to say I was wrong. I wish I hadn't done that but I did. But you don't ever get to Say You're Sorry. And I'm to write all such matters to the best of my ability. I'm going to take some effort to try to straighten out what I did to you. I didn't get free making amends. I don't believe you get free making ammends. I got free getting willing to make ammendes. You better be free before you make ammens. Some of them take years. If I have to wait until they're all done, I'll die. I just have to be willing to put in the years if that's what it takes to straighten the matter out. I'm free of it. I've got to help you get free of it. We're going to explore all this later. I like making inflammatory statements on Saturday morning because it gets the deal going. I was to test my thinking by the new God consciousness within. Ah, please. we'll get to that I'm conscious of the kill people but that was different ways nothing so brazen is coming out from Phil Gutierrez that I knew was the kindest gentlest softest human being I've ever met he was a walking example of who I am and who at that time I I want it to be. He taught me how to touch physically in a penitentiary. Well, that's risky. But the quality of Phil's touching was one that we do out here if we're doing it right. We're all a bunch of puppies and we need that human contact. One of the greatest things you can do to heal somebody is just touch them, shake their hand. See, we all think we're alone. The minute you touch somebody, they can't be alone whether they want to be not you make a lie out of that just by touching them so we learn to touch each other with our hands and with our voices and with their eyes or their thoughts it's the same thing you're not alone what do we tell them when they come to us if we're doing it right welcome we need you you're important to us here let me get your coffee for you now we do it because because we know the poor guy's going to slop it all over the floor if he tries to. But the intent's the same. Why don't you come with us? We're going to a party. That's pretty important stuff to somebody who hasn't been invited anywhere for a long, long time. A bunch of you got to Fellowship of the Spirit this year out in Colorado. just before the little conference we have a potluck at my house and just whoever's in town just shows up and if you bring food you bring fruit it's just known you can come to my house i can't tell you how touched i was this year by the number of cards i've gotten not thanking me for the conference or anything wise i said they have all said thank you for opening your house to us strangers from a strange land see that's what you did you opened your doors to me before this has any meaning at all before this big book we must first set the stage it's imperative a man's mind be cleared so if they can actually hear our message so I watched these guys because I didn't believe him. And I watched Bruce walk what he talked. He'd tell us something on Saturday and Sunday, and I'd watch him all week. And he did what he said he was going to do. Spiritual people are really aggravating, you know. They tell you what they're going to, then they go do it. They tell what they won't do, and no power on earth will get them to budge from there. they're always on time just aggravating as hell i had some fun with one of the kids the other day since we're just telling stories our conception of god changes frequently and we all go through a period where god got me the parking space right like like he's gonna put the universe on hold to get me a parking place but that's a good place to be because at least you believe now you got something working so but from my viewpoint today it's a little different i took one of my guys to lunch i have some feet problems from time to time and we couldn't walk so we drove and we went to dario's which is a place for people who have a serious garlic deficiency they can fix it it's an italian restaurant where mama meets you at the door and you better eat everything on your plate never a place to park ever we pulled up in front car pulled out we parked he said to me isn't that nice God got us a parking place no he didn't we were on time have we been a minute sooner that car wouldn't apartment pulled out yet would have been too early had we been later the guy in front of me would have gotten it we were on time and that's what I think this business is about being on time the only time anything can happen is right now may you find him now not next week may you found him now I can't live on what I found yesterday it's a nice memory it stood me well I need to find him now. It's all about being here now. You can't love somebody who's gone. You can only love the memory. Well, that's enough of the sermon. Why don't you talk about something important? Do we have any but one here that's relatively new, let's say less than six months' sobriety? Have any newcomers? Great. Great. Don just mentioned it. You really are crucial to us. You really aren't. You're of great use to us, and you're being very useful just by being here. And I want to talk to those folks who are fairly new for just a moment. And, you know, I told you I managed to be given the gift of physical sobriety back in 1977 and up through late 1989 I managed to just basically hang on dry NAA. Not sober, not recovered, no spiritual basis for living. and part of the reason for that was that when i would hear people like don talk and some of the other old-timers god they just sounded so good they really did jesus christ they sounded good in fact they sounded so good that i drew a conclusion i can't do what it is they're doing and I sure as hell can't do it right. And there's a basis in fact for that. The fact is I have never done anything right my entire life. The fact is that I usually start to do something and if it gets a little bit top, I quit. So that's more truth. See, these are facts about my life. I sat in a meeting one night and I thought, God, I wish I had what these guys have. But I really did, and I was nearing that 13th year of sobriety, and there's just something dreadfully wrong with me. I'm incapable of doing what it is they're doing. And they began to tell a story about some rather shabby behavior that had just occurred. At that moment in time, I identified with them and thought, Wait a minute, if they can yell at their kids and do the same kind of things that I'm doing and still look like like they are right here in front of me, I might have a chance. What I'm suggesting to you, just suggesting, is that you're listening to a couple of real archies and we do some shabby stuff, and we have some shabbily thinking from time to time. We found a solution, don't get me wrong, it was one that was given to me, and I found out a way to get that thinking to change, and I found out a way to clean up the mess. But there's going to be times that I don't know of any other way to say this. There's going to be times that I'm going to sound a whole hell of a lot better than I am. Okay? Please believe me. Now you say, oh, wait a minute, I've got to have more than that to go on. I'll just tell you. Well, I've been doing this for a while. And a couple of summers ago, my lovely, sane wife, we were living in Cumberland, Rhode Island. And it was summertime and she said, boy, these kitchen cabinets need to be painted. And I said, well, honey, maybe they need to being painted, but I'm not much of a painter. And she said that's all right, I'll do it. and so i said is there anything i can do to help you and she said yeah would you take them down off the cupboards of the doors down so she could get inside the cabin i said you know again magnanimous guy that i am i said sure honey and so we got those doors down and over a few weeks time she got all these doors painted and by this time it's coming into july and it's starting to get pretty hot but she gets all those kitchen cabinets painted and those doors are all painted And we come home after an AA meeting, our little Thursday night group. And where I'm three feet above the ground, I'm just almost levitating. And I look at those cabinet doors there and I'm feeling about a half inch tall because she's the one that's done all the work. And I say, you know, and I tell you what I'll do is I'll put those cabinet doors back on for you right now. And she said, oh, she said darling, she says you're awful tired and it's awful hot tonight. Why don't you wait and do it in the morning? 9.30 at night, I said, I'm Alky. We're going to put those doors on now, tonight. Once again, sanity tried to prevail. And she said, honey, she said really? I can look at you, you're tired, why don't you wait and do it tomorrow? No, I can get it tonight. So I got out my electric screwdriver and as any of you who have ever hung kitchen cabinet doors know that some of the little hinges and little screws go way up near the ceiling because these that's where these get they went all the way to the ceiling and you know that you have to stand they're so high you have to stand on top of the cabinet but they're not high enough that you can stand straight up so you're hunched over and you're over in the corner trying to put that hinge up and that little screw in the right hole so that the door will still fit like it used to. And you also know in the summertime heat always rises, and in the summer time all that heat is near the ceiling, right where you're about half standing straight up. And you know those little brass screws that go on those hinges aren't very big, and they have a tendency to drop while you put them on the tip of the screwdriver and you try to get it in there and they fall off. See Don will talk to you about lofty spiritual shit, and I'll talk to you about what's this living really like. So I'm putting this screwdriver in there. I mean, these little screws and these little holes in there drop them off, and wouldn't you know, when they hit on the kitchen cabinet, they don't fall to where I can pick them up. No, where they fall is down the little crack between the cabinet and the stove, and now I can't retrieve it, and I'm running out of screws. Well, it's late, and you're tired, and I'll just tell you the rest of the story is it doesn't take long before the air is getting just a little blue. All spirituality has gone. My wife recognizes those storms as they approach the horizon and it's so bad she has to go off into another room and I'm thinking, Jerry, you're a spiritual giant. Straighten up. More screws drop, and the next thing I know there are cabinet doors that are being sent airborne with loving, kind words. After a number of failures, the thought crossed my mind, perhaps I should wait until morning. And meanwhile, I look at a dear, sweet woman who is not even comfortable in her own house because of a raving lunatic. I've not said a word to her, she just doesn't care for that kind of behavior. And I need a solution for those moments. See, the damage has been done, the damages have been done. I need solution. What was the solution? was the solution. I had to go to her and I said, you know, darling, you were dead right and I was dead wrong. I should have waited until morning, but my behavior is abysmal and I promise you something, I'll never do that again. And bless her heart, she's a sane person and she said, honey, you can't make that promise. And I said well, darling would you tell me what promise do you suppose I could make then she said you can promise me you'll try never to do that again and she was dead right again and that's the promise I made the good news is I haven't done that again I don't do cabinet doors anymore we need a solution to those moments where our mind just goes clear off into the sunset I I don't know where it goes, but it sure doesn't function like it should. And for those of us who are real alcoholics, we can't tolerate. Do you ever yell at your kids? No. And see, I've done it. I've started and I see what my kids are doing and I'm thinking, I'm not going to do that. And somehow you end up doing it. And then you feel again about a half inch tall. And I'm nicht sagen das okay, don't get me wrong. I do not use that as an excuse. Oh, that's okay. I didn't drink today. I can't buy that anymore. Truth of the matter is I need to have a solution to straighten that mess up and see is there any way that I don't ever have to do that again. So that little deal on the kitchen cabinets took some inventory work. And then I'll tell you what, you newcomers, you say, well, what good are we here? I'll show you what it is. I get to share that story with you. And that's a form of a fifth step for me. See? So you are being immensely useful to me, and you're letting me participate in this little spiritual journey by your all-being here. And we get to do this together. I used to a long time ago, especially when I was in a terrible spot during that thirteenth year of sobriety, I thought there were people in AA up here and then the rest of us were down here. Then I was way down underneath all that. Don has mentioned it already. we're a family. My family, I didn't realize this, my family has never been judgmental about me. I didn' t know that. I used to think that they were making terrible judgments about me, but once I began this little spiritual journey and began to get right and have a different mind and a different way of seeing things, I realized my family was never judgmental. There were times that they knew I was sick. They knew there was something terribly wrong with me. They didn't know what it was either. And that's what we get to do in here. Have any of you ever had the experience where somebody tells a terrible story at a meeting, and you listen to that story and you think, I know what they just told me about themselves, but God, I like them. See, that's still a miracle to me that somebody can tell me a terrible incident and I think, God, I still like them. God, they're a great person. See, I get to tell you stuff. Hell, you know, I just told you a story about airmailing those cabinet doors and I have a real strong sense that nobody's going to hold that against me. They probably think I'm weird but the hell, I know I'm word. See, those are the kind of little incidents that have occurred all throughout my life that have kept me apart from other people And ultimately, it makes it necessary to think in terms of taking a drink again because of a certain state of mind that exists when you have one of those little brainstorms. And if I have enough of those brainstorms, eventually I'm going to find living and waking up to them intolerable, totally intolerable. So I truly needed a new mind. not without a certain amount of discomfort. But the most important thing of all is that I really believed that I had to do this right, and I knew I couldn't do it right. I've always known that I can't do something right. I told you, I'm just a grand example of how not to do these things, and you'll hear a lot of that but i'll also tell you that i did it the best i could yeah i'm real strong on this don't get caught up in the methodology of doing it right i can't do it right and i know that i heard an old old-timer say one time he said i'm a born loser and i do i'ma born loser and when something works even though i don't work it right and it still works because i worked it in the spirit of the thing to the best of my ability and that was the best i could do i pulled out an old inventory one time it was one of my it was my it was an inventory i did 13 years sober but it was the first one i'd ever done the way it's laid out according to the book and i said i'm proud of that uh that i saved it not that the contents of it were so well but i thought i had really really done it precisely according to hall i mean i was positive that i had four columns and and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I saved it, and a few years later I had the very good fortune of getting to go through the book with a bunch of guys, and we were standing there, and I thought, you guys are having trouble getting these columns right, and perhaps I need to show you my first inventory. So they went home that night, and I went and dug it out the next couple of days, and I opened it up to see if I could make sure where it was, and I thought, it was garbage hell it just looked I don't know what it was but it sure didn't I didn't recognize it wasn't perfect I mean there's about 25 pages of nothing truly but whining and I didn' t know that I mean I really my memory told me that toward the tail end of that you could begin to see that there was a little semblance of following the instructions i'm going to tell you something i had the most marvelous experience through that because i was awakened to the truth about me which i didn't like and it was and it very clear and a great gift came out of that and i just did it in the spirit of doing the best i could do just doing the best they could do and that's been my experience throughout this whole thing god I'd love to say, I just stick to the letter of the law. And I have probably said that more than once. But the truth of the matter is I can't do it right. But I can do it. I can. I can and do it." I don't know if any of you have ever done it the way I've done it before in that you have a little checklist off the wall. You look up at the steps and, Then you'll run around whining, this doesn't work. Those are some of the fun things that didn't feel fun, but those are some of the little fun little things that I look back on. But again, I'll share with you one more time, Don's touched on it. As a result of what we do, I've discovered that I really can be okay. And I'm okay with you. There's the thing that I like. I'm OK with you and I'm not misleading you. And if there's any value to that at all, I'll share anything that I have, I will share any experience that I've had, strange as they may be, and I will hope too that you find what it is you're looking for and that's our whole purpose of being here getting a little late don what do you want we will start out in the morning with bill's initial experience then through the day we're going to share with you some things how we do some things here what we've done and how we we do them and how we see it. We just want to share our experience with you, but I want to offer you a caution, something I have learned that saves an awful lot of time. Somewhere along the way, I made a decision to turn my will and life entirely over to the care of God and live a spiritual life. From that point on, nothing else will work because of the choice I made so it's all or nothing nothing else will may work fine for somebody else who hadn't made that decision and it won't work for me and I've tried a whole bunch of other things I've never left this path but I've had occasion where I got convinced one time that I had been in spiritual high school and it was time to get on to spiritual college I may or may not tell you about that one i want to tell you what i found having made that decision and my approach to this is based on this i spent years with the mistaken idea that i was a human being trying to have a spiritual experience i had lots of the truth of my life is i am a spiritual being having a human experience. What time? 9.15 in the morning? No, it's 10.15 here. 9.30 tomorrow morning? Okay. Everybody through for the night? You have a question. Go ahead. Fire away. What is your question? Once you're on a spiritual path and you start making human mistakes, well that's because you're in the human condition but you treat it spiritually well we'll talk about that you aren't ready to go to bed and I am this the let me just expand on that just a little bit since you won't let me get up waking up to the fact that i am a spiritual being having a human experience has made me completely available to the entire range of the human experience there's nothing to be afraid of bottom line of the humanity believing i was a human being was the fear that i would die alone guess what everybody dies alone i don't care if there's 100 people in the room with you you're going to die alone okay and it ain't no big deal i've already died three times but i can remember okay it's just no big detail and quite frankly at my age and condition uh it's not gonna be a big deal okay i'm not afraid of being afraid anymore it's a passing thing okay great value of all of these contrary emotions that i feel is that i identify with you the essence of the spiritual awakening is one of unity i'm no longer set apart you are me and i am you and i know that okay and when you're hurting i hurt and whenyoufeelgood i feel good sometimes i don't even care please know that sometimes I just really don't give a damn how you feel I'm very busy feeling myself okay I just want to tell you get over it give me a break and then I write inventory and come back and say I'm sorry tell me about it in my human condition i don't hear anything because i'm busy when you're talking to me thinking about what my response is probably going to be so that you will respond properly to me so we will blah blah blah as a spiritual being i hear everything you say and i don t hear with just my ears i hear with all all kinds of new ways of hearing i pay attention to your eyes and to your body and to the inflection in your voice. Sometimes you'll ask me a question and I go, huh? Because I was busy hearing you not your words. Words are a good carrier for us. That's all. My wife and I I'm going to try to describe over the weekend my relationship with my wife because it's the same relationship I have with God. It's one of respect complete respect complete trust complete love one of the nicest things that she and I do together is nothing we spend hours just being together may or may not talk or do anything it's just nice when she's there if she's not there I'm still complete so is she but it's nicer when she is there I don't have to hook up with her there's no separation between us anyway same thing with god i hear people in a saying i don't feel connected connected to what is this is god some kind of a light thing that you plug into now and then no where i am god is that's the experience where iamgodisandidonthaveanyillusions but i know anything at all about what i just said if i can tell you who god is i don' t know what god is I can tell you aspects. Someone asked me a while back, and these are just meanderings of an old man. Someone asked Me, don't you believe that God is love? And I must tell you in all honesty today, I don't know for sure. If He is, and that's all He is. I'm in trouble because it'll be based on my understanding of what love is. And that's a very limited deal. But I expect that's probably a true statement that God has loved because from what I've seen, it just seems to be that way. But God is also much more than that. God is everything. And I have to accept that, knowing that I don't know what everything is. Give me an amen, brother! It's also a very practical deal. when i'm conscious of the presence of god there is no tension or stress well i i'm supposed to practice this in all of my affairs huh that's what it says and i was constipated one morning it's all or nothing and i Was busy trying and it occurred to me that when agitated or doubtful we pause and ask for the right thought or action. Now, when I pause, I conceive within me a garden and I go there and he walks with me and he talks with me and he tells me I'm his own. I carry there. I just hang out for a bit. You know what that'll do? That'll relax you. And it wasn't five, ten minutes. It was over. Okay? This is a very practical way to live. I used to go off into la-la land well still do I believe the communication between people is quite possible without using words and they can be hundreds of miles away but I can get locked on that and spend weeks trying to become a telepath I found that it's a whole lot easier to call home than to say honey are you there okay it's the same relationship i have with god i'm going to give you the in my opinion this is the perfect complete prayer and then we're going to go home i don't know of any prayer better or with more power than this one god that adds to it all you have to do is invoke his presence and he's there all this work through the big book is so that i can get to a place where i can actually do that it clears away the things that are distractions for me just saying oh you're here yes something to play with when you're wake up at 2 30 in the morning wondering why the hell did i go to that deal last night we'll see y'all about 9 30 in a morning