11th Step Workshop on Two – Way Prayer – Part 36 of 2 – 2020 – Father

to AA. I started attending meetings, staying sober. I then was on my way out to California. I was hitching out hiking out to california to do a workshop a three-week workshop with Carl Rogers pretty famous psychologist and I made a pilgrimage out of it and a guy comes along um in arizona and uh he says do you want to drink and it was hot and i said yes and he gives he gives me a beer and uh once i drank the beer it was it started all over again so i i went went inside uh tried to kind of forget that i'd ever been in aa um but i had told people so now i'm real secretive in my drinking. Again, long story short, I wind up in Cleveland, Ohio is where I hit bottom and I'm working at Case Western Reserve University out there and I am stealing gallons and gallons of wine and taking them back to my room and getting very, very drunk and in trouble and it was at that point that I'm thinking of going two places. I mean, it's getting hot, I got to get out of Dodge. Where am I going to go? Two places came to my mind. One was go to Australia and just stay drunk for the rest of your life because you ain't going to make it. And I considered that one. And the other one was go to India and join an ashram you know and so there's the split that's that's happening inside of me you know uh do good be good be the person you were meant to be all that all that nice stuff or go get drunk and just stay drunk and pull the covers up and make the world go away and and that's where i was and that was when I heard a voice and the voice was in my head and it said something to me. I never forget the words. It said, Bill, you are 27. If those are your choices, there is something wrong with you. If those Are your choices. There is something wrong with You. And I had basically lived my life up to that point on the basis of And it's kind of taking it out of our literature. If I am disturbed, there's something wrong with the people around me. And so I go change the people around me, but I don't change. And this time I knew the problem was me. If I went to Australia, it wasn't going to work. If i went to India, it wasn't gonna work. And I didn't know this at the time, but now I do. uh my ego at this point is cracking it it had kind of held together with lies and deceitfulness and uh and and madness okay insanity and now it cracked open well that was a blessing it sure as hell did not feel like a blessing you know it felt like and my world was coming to an end, and actually it was. I went back to the people who had tried to help me at that treatment center, and they asked me a question. I'll never forget the question when they saw me. They said, does it hurt more this time? And that was exactly the right question to ask. You know, if they had said, oh, poor baby, you know, Does it hurt more this time? And my answer was yes, it hurts more this time. And they said good! Imagine that! Good! Good that it hurts because now maybe you're ready to change last time you were not. Are you ready to change? And then they assigned me something terrible. I've never done this to another human being, but they did it to me. A guy said to me, and he's the guy who'd been my counselor there before. He said, listen, Bill, you're 27. You're not at a physical bottom. You can drink for 10 more years. And I knew he was right. I wasn't at a fiscal bottom. My liver was hanging in there. I could destroy that puppy for another 10 years or so. He was right. He said, but you are at a spiritual bottom and you are at a psychological bottom and you are not going to make 10 years. And I knew he was right again. He said are you willing to go to any length to get well? And for whatever reason, I think if you'd asked me that three days before or three days after, I wouldn't be having this conversation with y'all today. But at that moment, the answer was yes. I'm willing to go to any length. And he said, here's what I want you to do. He said, I want to go and I want you to live on Skid Row for one year. I want your to check into the Salvation Army. Check into the salvation army. And I want you to look every alcoholic and addict that you meet in the eye. And I want you to identify with them. I want you to say inside, there but for the grace of God goes I. There but for the grace God goes. And and I did it. The Jesuits gave me a leave of absence which is kind of unheard of but it was like okay son go find yourself this is this is good and and I checked into the Sally Cass corridor in Detroit and started working spot labor jobs and going to AA meetings and going with a real sense of desperation. And I did that for six months and then moved to kind of an AA halfway house. I told the Jesuits, I'm hiding here. No, I need to leave. And they blessed me and sent me on my way. and uh and i and i shifted over to a and um i i after a year the treatment center figured i was sincere and they hired me as a as a tech and i then began to kind of work my way into the into the field the addiction treatment field and um studied a lot and um worked my way i became a counselor long story short and uh and worked there for a number of years uh met my wife we got we got married uh and um kids came along working in the field uh counselor i think i was a pretty good aa member during that time I really tried to keep my AA and my work in addiction separate because that's the way I was taught, that they are separate and you've got to go over here for this and then you can be over here doing this. But don't try to mix those two. And that was some very good advice. So I did that for 20 years, and I'm doing pretty good. But at 20 years something happened to me. and this is this is really what i want to talk to you guys about today that's why my story not that important um but at 20 years uh i hit a wall and it was like uh is this all there is and and what uh what i knew inside was uh you know another 90 meetings in 90 days the way i was working it was not going to change me and another round of going through the steps the way I had worked the steps was not going to change me. I needed something new and I was ready and what happens and I really believe this when you are ready the teachers will appear they show up in your life and if you're ready for that then you really want it and I did um so uh i'm out in west texas and uh and i meet a guy who's in recovery he's sober longer than i am and i said listen listen i'm in aa i'm 20 years sober but damn i'm dry and i feel like i need something more and he said well let me teach you something about spiritual institutions and he tells me this story about the five m's it's one of the best stories i ever heard so that's why i want to share it with you uh he says this is what this is what happens to spiritual institutions and it can be the church uh it could be aa it could be uh your own group but any any group that's kind of spiritually oriented kind of goes through this process? I said, no, I never heard it. Tell me. He says, well, it starts with a man, okay? And so this is West Texas, ladies. So it starts With a Man. And the man could be Jesus, or it could be Buddha, or it Could Be Bill Wilson. And that man has a spiritual experience. all right he gets the message so for buddha it's sitting under a tree and uh contemplating pain and for um jesus the story is into the jordan and coming up out of that water and the sky opens up, he's in touch with another reality. It's conscious contact is what we would call it, okay? An experience of the presence. And it changes everything. For Bill Wilson, it was the fourth time in detox. And he says, God, if there is a God, show yourself to me because I'm done. and he has that white light experience so he comes back they come back with the message and the message is who you are who you are and I got to say this you know you are and I am a hell of a lot more than just an alcoholic I mean if that's your reality it's lacking and it's not going to satisfy you because it sure as hell wasn't satisfying me i needed more all right so the message the message is who you are and once you get a hold of that message so like bill gets a hold of the message and then it's a it becomes a program of attraction so for for uh for jesus It's the disciples who gather around him. I've been looking for this thing, and you got it, all right? The first 100 in AA. I've Been Desperate for This, and You Seem to Have the Answer, all right? The Buddha and His Monks. He travels around India and gathers those who are ready. so you have the movement and that's a very exciting time the original time uh the first 100 time you know and damn this thing is working and it's and it'S uh it's really good stuff you know i've been looking for this all my life as we have and uh but then the fourth M comes in the guy says and the fourth m is when we try to organize the thing and so we bring in the attorneys and we copyright stuff and we organize it you know and we decide who's in and who's out and who'S in control all right and this is the machine this is so the fourth M is the Machine as we try to organize it you know and uh so we have doctrines and dogmas and uh and all of this crazy stuff that um you know in the church uh and i i was really having i don't know that i believe this i don' t believe that well then you're not in or if you if you're in you better shut up about it you know uh and in in the church it's usually about power because the church is going to decide you're in you're out so the bishop is in charge my my church has got a big pointy hat and a big stick and if you step out of line i'm gonna hit you you know aa we get the central office and we get conference approved literature and uh and we organize the thing now i'm not against organ organizing things don't get me wrong all right got to organize but we'll get to this so so it's but it's it's relying on things instead of god it's and it and it loses the the message so so i mean i i tell a joke of uh you know flash forward 200 years and we're going to have an AA conference, and damned if someone isn't going to hold up the sacred coffee pot that Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob drank from, you know? And if you're new to recovery, you come up here and you rub this coffee pot, and it will heal you. It's going to heal you, and here are the ashes from the first 100 in AA. It's their cigarette ashes you know and you take these ashes and you rub them on your forehead and you're good you're going to get the power see this is this is the fourth m which is the machine we're going to grind it out we're gonna grind it up and see that's what i was doing i'm grinding out something for 20 years and i'm missing an experience all right because i'm taking it at the level of not transformation but at just a mechanical level. I hope you're getting that, this is important and then the fifth M is the mausoleum or the monument because it's dead and so I ask people when I give a talk have you ever been in a dead church and they say yes you ever been in a dead AA meeting yes it's not alive you see it's not alive the spirit isn't there we're going through the motions but it's not happening now not long after that I was up in Tennessee and I swear to God true story I went to a meeting AA meeting got there a little early it's gonna be a five o'clock meeting I I go in the back room where the meeting was going to be, and there's a woman playing solitaire. And she introduces herself, and I say, hey, I'm from Texas, and I'm here for the 5 o'clock meeting. She said, well, you just sit down, and we're going to get started in a few minutes. And I sit down. And three or four more people kind of drag in. I'm not looking very alive. I've got to say that. Not looking very live. And I swear this is true. she keeps dealing the cards and she says hi everybody my name is mary and i was an alcoholic and welcome to the five o'clock meeting and i said oh shit the machine is here this is what the machine ist about because we're going to go through the motions we're gonna look like we're having a meeting but there is not going to be a meeting now i grew up in an alcoholic home so i know about that bullshit i know what it's like that we're gonna we're going to sit around we're good we're going to pretend you know but we're not going to do and uh and i'm dying i'm dying at this point uh because i need i need some air i need some oxygen in my spiritual program and and i am not getting it So, it's after that that I'm out in Oklahoma and I meet a guy who is the archivist for the state of Oklahoma. And somebody says you should go meet this guy, and I do, and then I go to his house and he's supposed to be teaching people how to do a fourth step if you're in Oklahoma City at that time. This was 20, what, 28 years ago almost. But if you're going to do a fourth step, you went to Earl's house. Earl would teach you how to do it. And so I went and told him who I was and he said, well, I hope nobody comes tonight. And thank God for me, nobody came. And he closed the door and he shared with me for about three hours what he had learned about the Oxford group what he had learned about the history of AA and how it had changed his recovery. And so, uh, what I, what I experienced with him that night was like hearing the 12 step program, but in a different language, a very different language. And it w it was like the essence of, of what was there or meant to be there. and uh and it really changed my life and i left there and i i started studying the oxford group materials and um and as i studied them i i you can't do that without running up against this thing called guidance and two-way prayer. And I started doing it, and it changed my life. It was the thing that I was looking for and that was really missing in the program. Because what the Oxford group people believed, and this is what we're going to talk about today, was that if you are working the four absolutes of honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love, We'll get to those. If you're working those in your life, God is going to guide you. And it's in trying to live those that one develops a real personal relationship with God and finds a sense of meaning and purpose in your Life. So that's what we're going to focus in on. I'm going to give you some history on how all of that came about. We're going to look at how two-way prayer, which is their kind of version of our 11 step, how it works. We're gonna do a practice session on that. So I am going to ask people to, if you don't already have one, get a pencil and paper and have that when we are ready to go because we're gonna need to do a little bit of writing in our practice session. And then we're going talk about how to use it in your recovery, okay? so uh so we're going back to back to the history whenever a society or civilization fails there's always one condition present they forgot where they came from nice quote from carl sandberg so uh i think it's it's good to go visit this history to show that this is where our 11th step prayer practice came from two-way prayer is not some modern thing we've dragged out of california you know it's the latest deal no it's a very old deal but we need to understand it and I think we can modernize it a little bit I'm a great believer in that if it's uh if we can improve it go for it you know if it works great if you make it work better let's do it so that's what we're gonna be doing here so a little of the history we go back to a guy by the name of Roland hazard somebody may know these stories, so I won't spend too much time on it. He's a drunk, he's a rich alcoholic from Rhode Island and been in treatment all over the country, several drying out facilities. His family finally sends him to Europe and he undergoes treatment with Carl Jung, very famous psychiatrist, psychologist. He's talked about in the big book. Bill Wilson wrote to him thanking him for his contribution, called him one of the co-founders of the program. And he's been a tremendous help to me over the years as I've dug deeper into what is two-way prayer really all about and what is spirituality all about so basics on him uh roland uh receives treatment from him i'm not sure how long he's under his care but but here's the important thing roland is feeling pretty good he's feeling i got it i got het now and uh and he comes back to the states and uh and he falls flat on his face he relapses just like i relapsed uh you know uh we don't always get this thing the first time he goes back to jung a second time and and this is this is the important this story's in the big book he goes back and uh uh and and he sees jung as as his last hope that's an important piece you know because he's feeling hopeless and jung he sees as his last hope and and thank god jung says um i cannot help you uh put on my german accent you are an alcoholic of the hopeless variety and i gave you everything that psychiatry had to offer and it wasn't enough What you need, Roland, what you need is a psychic change, a conversion experience. You need to change at the deepest levels of your being. He sends him on a spiritual quest. It's really what he does. And I think that's really what AA and anybody who's going to recover from addiction is all about. We are sent on a spiritual quest. And what helped us in the beginning may not be what's going to help us in The End. In other words, you need certain things in the beginning, but if you're still trying to just do those certain things over and over and over again like I was. You know, one more time through the steps, 90 meetings in 90 days, get back on the thing. No, that's fine in the beginning. It's really helpful in the beginning. All right? But after you've got some time to repeat those things and to expect them to be giving you the results that they're not capable of giving you is really foolishness. Bill Wilson said, AA is a spiritual kindergarten. That's an important quote. It's a spiritual kindergarden. And Dr. Bob kept giving people books on spirituality and telling them, go learn some stuff. You know? And if we limit ourselves, I believe, you know, to, you Know, all I need is this. This is it. You know. Well, then you watch 100 years from now. We will have Chapter 5, Verse 27 from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And we will have turned it into a machine rather than using the book to launch us in spiritual growth. All right? That's where I come from. So I'm interested in going deeper. and I needed to go deeper. And two-way prayer was the thing that really helped me get that. So he sends him on a quest, tells him his best chance of getting this thing is to place himself within a religious setting because that's where you're likely to get it. I mean, we've been struggling with this spiritual awakening stuff for at least 10,000 years, maybe longer, and people have had some experience with it. You might learn a thing or two from them. All right. All right, what is this change? What is this transformation? What is the shift that has to happen? Now, in the chat, I'm hoping we will have given you some items to look at. Are they in the chat that you can download them if they are not we will get them to you all right nice if you can get them michelle did you are those on the chat line or the handouts yes i have them which one did you want me to share one now i'm sorry share the psychic change what's a psychic change okay sorry about that we're doing one at a time this is good all right so what's the psychic change. I'm going to jump ahead. You'll get it, so you'll have it. Try to listen. It's probably more important than having it. So here's William James in his book, Varieties of Religious Experiences that Wilson reads while he's in detox. He says, to be converted, to be regenerated, to receive grace, to experience religion, to gain an assurance, to have this psychic change, let's say, are so many phrases which denote the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self, this is the important part, a self hitherto divided. This is 1902 language. A self that is divided. And that's our problem. We are divided. There's a part of you that really wants to get well, there's a part of you that really wants to stay sick. There's the basic division, all right? So a divided self that is wrong, inferior, and unhappy becomes unified and consciously right, superior, and happy. How? In consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities. So there's a shift that happens from this way of being in the world to a very different way of Being in the World, and our center shifts. Big Book talks about it, and it talks about it in terms of being, what is it called, rocketed into a fourth dimension of experience of which we had not even dreamed. So how do I shift from this centeredness, self-centeredness in my own ego as the be all and end all and godlike experience to a different experience where I'm in a different relationship with the power, whatever it may be. That's the shift. How do I go from self-centeredness to God-centered? You know, that's the journey. So Robert Johnson has, he's a Jungian psychologist, or was, and in his book, he talks about what is a psychic change. And I think it's helpful sometimes to hear something in different language i mean the big book says big book is saying exactly this but i think sometimes if you'll hear it in a different language the light can go on you have a click so he's talking about uh how does this shift come about how do you move from this self-centered to being god-centered he says this for most people the transition from three-dimensional to four-dimensional consciousness is exceedingly painful. So, the way to get here is through pain. Did it hurt? That's the question they ask me. Did it hurt because maybe now you're ready to do something? Did it hurts more? Yes. Pain is a wonderful teacher, much better than 100 lectures, a good hurt. So for most people, the transition is exceedingly painful. Medieval Christianity called it the dark night of the soul. Dante called it The Journey Through Hell. It was 40 days and 40 nights in the desert for Jesus. It was a journey into the belly of the fish for many a hero. This is the hero's journey. The hero's Journey is to go on a quest, and to go on a Quest you have to travel away, and in some of the literature, it's you have to go down into the belly of the fish. So for Pinocchio to become a real man, he had to go into the belly of the whale and reestablish his relationship with his father. Beautiful imagery. Beautiful imagery for a modern man. It is a midlife crisis or worse, a nervous breakdown or still worse physical suicide, the problem we're hitting bottom. The problem can be summed up in one sentence. It is the relocating of the center of the personality from the ego to a center greater than oneself. So there's the shift that I'm not centered in me. I'm now centered in something else. And it's going to take you a while to readjust to that. This super personal center has been variously called the self. Jung calls it self with a capital S. The Christ nature, the Buddha nature, super consciousness, cosmic consciousness, satori and samadhi, different names for this state, this inner state. If you've had an experience of real surrender, You've probably had a taste of this state. You're willing to do anything. Why? Because your ego is now right-sized. It's not calling the shots, and I'm ready to learn. I'm teachable, all right? I'm coachable. This relocation appears to be death when it's viewed from the perspective of the ego uh and it can be viewed no other way as a total disaster and he goes on he says and death it is the ego loses its supremacy goes to a short time of violent suffering gets a little cute here he says when someone threatens suicide at this time and i think probably most of us either we we've contemplated suicide or we were on the slow course killing ourselves with the alcohol and the drugs. But addiction is basically suicidal, you know, at its real depth. When someone threatens suicide at this time, I caution him that he must be very careful to do it without harming his body. The relocation of the center of the personality is a form of suicide, and the ego must cooperate in this. A Zen master in Los Angeles once said to his client, why don't you die now and enjoy the rest of your life? Say, hey, why Don't you Die Now and Enjoy the Rest of Your Life? You know, I had therapy many, many years ago. Therapist. He was a tough-ass guy. And I go into the group. I'm new to the group introduces himself to me says, Hello, my name is Ted, and I'm going to kill you. Well, could lose your license over that this was this was 40 years ago, but his job as a therapist was to do what? To kill the self that was killing myself. Can you get that? I mean, because we are at least two. So to kill the cell so that the true self can come forward and you can be the person God meant you to be. And that's what recovery is about. And that's a lot more than just not drinking, a lot more. It's really discovering who you are. When the dark night begins to lift, one morning there is an unaccountable touch of joy in the air. This is the first contact with the four-dimensional consciousness and one can begin to live from that source of energy. Something of the subtle inner world becomes your center of gravity. Poetry, music, a new perceptiveness when you are jogging. Whoa, whoa, I'm experiencing life and it's good and I'm not drunk and something's happening and I am watching a bird or a flower or I am listening to some music and I come alive and it's beautiful and it is beautiful see but i'm drawing it from god i'm drawing it properly it's not it's coming from me this is the trick see the trick is uh and we get a lot of trouble in this in in aa we say oh ego i gotta get rid of my ego nonsense if you get rid of your ego you're going to be psychotic all right listen to me if you get rid of your ego you are going to be psychotic it's very good to have an ego you have to have an ego the question is what's the spiritual condition of your eagle see that's the question is it right sized or is it inflated is it blown up say is it blowing up too much godlike or is it right sized that's the question because if it's not right sized this new energy there there's different forms of a fanaticism dictatorial religious beliefs and ego inflations of all kinds. So this is where I think you can get, you know, some of our, in the religion, to me, it can kind of go to this fundamentalist sort of thing. And the preacher is just coming down hot and heavy, you Know, until two years later, we find out, you know, he's having sex on the side, you And the whole thing blows up because it was all BS. And we see this in our 12-step fellowships, people who can quote the big book backwards, forwards, left, right, and center. Go talk to their family, how they live in there. How's it like to live with this guy? That's where you're going to see it. That's what you're gonna see it if energy flows into such channels you are quickly sent back for further boiling in the oil of transformation all right so that's an important point uh if if uh we don't learn this thing right away it's and it's not a one-time lesson you see it it's it's your you got an ego i got an eagle uh now now we're trying to uh uh align it with god to be rightly related with God and you're going to stray you know, you ain't going to get through a whole day, I don't totally aligned with God and doing his will in all things you know not going to happen, you're gonna stray you know and you can learn from that you can learned from that or you cannot not learn from that, and then it's going to kind of stray so far that you lose your source of energy, your source of contact. And boom, I go back to drinking or drugging or whatever the addiction might have been. Okay, a little lesson there in depth psychology, but to me that's important. And when Wilson wrote a letter to Carl Jung, he thanked him for that. He thanked him for and said many people in AA at that time found his work to be very, very helpful. And I think Wilson was one of them because he went and he got therapy twice and the second time was with a Jungian therapist. So I just know that he's been dealing with some of these issues. Quickly back to the history. Ebby Thatcher is a serious alcoholic in New York, and he is helped by Roland. And Roland, when he comes back, let's see, Roland is sent on a spiritual quest. So he joins the Oxford group. He's sent back into a religious setting, and somehow he finds the Oxford. So then Roland finds Ebby. And Roland helps Ebi. And at 60 Days Sober, Ebi makes a call on Bill Wilson because part of their program in the Oxford group was that you go and you help other people. And we have a tendency to try to help people who are like ourselves that we can identify with. So Ebby's there in the Oxford group and he's 60 days and he is actually living at a mission in downtown New York. And thinks, oh, I wonder how my old friend Bill Wilson is doing. So we all know Bill's story. He is a stock analyst, chronic alcoholic. At this point he was detoxed three times before Ebby calls him. And he was declared hopeless by his doctor. Now, I'm going to encourage everybody when you get off this thing sometime next few weeks, go through the first several chapters of the big book and look for that word hopeless. And every time you see it, underline it. We're hopeless men and women. We suffered from a hopeless condition. The doctor said we were hopeless because I think it's extremely important. It is the first step, and it's not in the first steps. but it is what underlies the first step, see? It's that hopelessness. And one has to go to that sense of hopelessness to find the hope that is going to come from outside of self. This is the key, the hope. Since I am by my very nature stuck in a circle of hopelessnes, I'm powerless, I'm unmanageable. It's That Cycle of Addiction, I Can't Get Out of It. oh God, if there is a God, please help me. So tighten the screws. He's visited by Ebi and shortly thereafter has his white light experience that is talked about in the big book. When he is in detox, he is given a book called Varieties of Religious Experience by William James. And this played a very important part in the development of Alcoholics Anonymous. William James was a favorite amongst the Oxford group people. He's known as the father of American psychology. He writes this book called Varieties of Religious Experience, and what he does in there is he chronicles different cases of conversion experience looking for what is common to all of these. He's a scientist, and he wants to study this. And he wants to see, okay, so we got conversions, we got changes, we got psychic changes. What is common to these changes? And a couple of the stories in there are about alcoholics. And you know Wilson's reading this thing and he's going to zero in on them. James says there's three things common to these experiences. One is it's a calamity. Pain. This is the pain thing. You know? And what Wilson said, you know, when it comes to this point, there's no way over, under, or around the problem. We must go through it. It's a calamity. We're alcoholics, could not manage our own lives. James says the defeat was utter and absolute. Big Book writes probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. an appeal to a higher power must be sought that god could and would if he were sought so what excuse me what james is saying is is uh this self has got to get into a new relationship with a power greater than itself and allow the energy of that power to come through you you see so so it's an alignment thing uh i work work a lot with people who have trauma you know and sometimes surrender if you've been sexually abused in such surrender is kind of a scary thing um it's a very untrusting world out there but alignment i like that better if you can align yourself with this power and allow this the energy of that power to flow through you all right that's why i'm not too hung up on what our names are for god it is that power it isthat power of goodness and love and hope and trust and all of that stuff that is then going to flow through me if my ego is right-sized you see if it's right-sized so Wilson uh Wilson gets involved immediately the Oxford group joins it um starts attending meetings uh with them there in New York City the head of the Oxford Group in the United States is this guy by the name of Sam Shoemaker he's an Episcopal priest and um and what is not widely known is two two years before he meets Wilson, he had also been on a trip to Akron, Ohio. This is amazing. You know, if there is not synchronicity or God's hand, whichever you want to call it, at work in the development of this program, once you study the history, it just blows your mind. Something is at work here, You know, so two years before he meets Wilson, he's in Akron, Ohio, because Harvey Firestone's son had gotten sober through the Oxford group. The old man was really old man. Firestone was delighted with that. So he invites the Oxford people to come to town and and put on a show in effect. And so they're there for about 10 days. And it's like a crusade, a mission. And about somewhere between 30 and 60 of them came, including Shoemaker and the head of it, Frank Bookman. And who's in attendance at this? Well, but Dr. Bob's wife. All right. And she gets into it. I don't know if she dragged him to any of the meetings and such, or at least in the beginning. But she certainly was touched and influenced by it. And she brought Bob into an Oxford Group meeting that was going on for some time. The point I want to make right here is a quote from Wilson. This is important because he says he's really taking steps 2 through 11 from the Oxford Group. All right. He said, where did we learn about moral inventory, amends for harms done, turning our will and our lives over to God? Where did we learned about meditation and prayer and all the rest of it? He says, the spiritual substance of our remaining 10 steps came straight from Dr. Bob's and my own early association with the Oxford Groups as they were then led in America by that Episcopal rector, Dr. Samuel Shoemaker. So there are no steps in the Oxford group, but there is a process. There is a presence. wilson's gift was to take that process from the hospital and put it into steps in ways that sneaky alcoholics were not going to be able to wiggle their way out of that that's really what he was uh was trying to do and he actually kind of came up with them in a two-way prayer session uh which is which is fascinating um so henrietta cyberling is out there. She's kind of the head of the Oxford group in Akron after the team leaves. So Bob is attending these meetings but he's not getting honest. He's going to the meetings but he'S not getting honest. And his wife tells Henrietta that. No, he'S drunk. He'S going to the meeting. He's looking good. He' s doing the machine part, you know? But he ain't getting honest. He ain't telling the truth. And so she does, Henrietta, I like Henrietta. She's sharpie. She does, she says, she calls the people in the group, maybe there are eight, ten people in the group, and she says listen, when you come tonight I want you to share deeply. I want your name on it. I want for you to share something that you've been hanging on to, that you haven't been willing to share with the group. Right? and so that night they come to their group and one by one they go around the group and people start sharing and when they share deeply stuff that they'd hidden I hadn't told you that this had happened or that had happened my mother was this or whatever the heck it was that I was ashamed of when they share that it comes to be Bob's turn and he says i'm a secret drinker and he didn't want the group to know because there goes his practice he's a doctor and if you if you got a drunken doctor people are not going to want to go to him so he's he's hanging on to that secret but he shares it and and everybody in the group knew he was a drunk you know it's like it's such a secret isn't it nobody knew yeah they did uh so So, excuse me, they get him down on his knees and they pray for him and ask him to be relieved of his alcoholism. And a few weeks later, who shows up but Bill Wilson looking for an alcoholic to help as part of his program. And Henrietta puts Bill in touch with Dr. Bob. okay so there's kind of the excuse me the the history the linking at least from the aa perspective and uh and and now we're going to very quickly go through the oxford group perspective so you get an idea of that hopefully i can quit by about 11 25 11 30 my time. Oxford Group is started by this guy by the name of Frank Bookman. He's a Lutheran minister and working in Philadelphia and he has a board of directors. He's running sort of a group home for young men, unemployed down and outs and he's feeding them and helping them trying to get them back on their feet. his board of directors comes to him one night and they say, Frank, you're spending too much money feeding these guys. Cut back on your food bill, will you? And Frank has an ego, as we can all identify with. And his ego puffs up and he tells them, basically, go to hell. I'm not doing that. And he quits his job. I've done that a few times. right uh he quits his job goes over to england where he was he was scheduled to go for a conference over there and and and what he learns is what he learned going on the ship he hates these guys he's got a burning resentment what he learns is to the degree that I was going to use this later but I might just use it now there is blockage between him and God you see there's blockage in there why because there's blockage between him and these six guys on the board of directors hates them cannot experience this. It's like a mathematical formula that he figures out. All right? He goes, he's in a chapel, he's at a service. Some woman gives a sermon, said he'd heard it all before, but this time something clicked. This time he knew he was the problem. You know? It was him. Yeah, those guys did something bad but i did something wrong too and he has a conversion experience this is in 1908 he surrenders and then he goes and he makes amends to these guys writes letters of amends to them you know i'm sorry for the way i behave not for the way you behave the way I behave he starts witnessing about this chain and he experiences a change that's the important thing You know, feels God's connectedness coming in. Meets a guy the next day and he tells him his story and what happened. And the guy says, well, I got some people I hate too. I might try forgiving them, you know? And he does and he changes. Well, Bookman says, my God, this is some powerful stuff going on here. if people can change, maybe I can go change them. And he starts developing a group around him and they become one of their expressions was we are life changers. We are soul surgeons. We're trying to find out what's wrong with somebody by telling them what was wrong with us, remove that something and see if the flow doesn't start coming in. Bookman had a lovely expression. He said it's about blockages. He says, what's blocking me from God? There's something blocking me because I ought to be in relationship. And he said, I work with constipated Christians. I think that was a lovely expression. Constipated Christian. There's a blockage. Now, what the hell is it? You know, what is it?" He starts experimenting with this at some of the universities around the countries. And he's got an ego, and he's doing it at some of the best universities in the country. And he winds up over at Oxford changing people, changing young people. All right? And he is convinced that after World War I, if the world does not change, there is going to be another war. And there was developing at that time fascism in Spain and Italy. There was Nazism in Germany. There was communism in Russia. And his position was Christianity's dead. The churches are dead. And they don't have the power to change people. And if we just send them to that, it ain't going to happen. So I'm going to develop what he called a first century Christian fellowship. Let's get back to an experience, a lived experience of Jesus in my life. This is where he's coming from. All right? And let him guide me in going forward. Develops a program. And it's basically our program. Gain the confidence of a new person. confess your sins to them. Tell them your story. That's what's going to change them. Don't preach to them, tell them your storytelling, tell him what was blocking you. Leave it go with that, see? Conviction, the conviction, the the the awareness of i ain't right the the experience of of of uh of the inflated ego let's say you get to see that that that's the conviction of something something's wrong with me then comes the conversion the change the transformation that that we're looking for that the steps are supposed to lead us toward you know the whole purpose of the steps is to get to step 12 you know having had this spiritual originally experience and not just an awakening wilson wanted to change that back he said people talked him into changing it softening it up that uh it should be an awakening a gentle well you can go on awakening for 30 40 50 years but if you have an experience you have an experience, you can't deny the experience and he wanted to change it back but by that time it's a funny I have the audio of it from one of his talks he said by that time it had become holy writ, the big book had become sacred scripture we had made the change, you cant go back I kind of like that you know the founder the founder can't change it you know the guy who developed the words he's stuck with anyway continuance uh you got to go on because this is an ongoing process all right what are the what what is the heart and center of the transformation process it is the four absolutes the heart and centerof the oxford group program the four absence honesty purity unselfishness and love If you go to Cleveland, you will still see these on the boards over there. You'll hear people say it's not a part of AA, and that's true. Bill Wilson didn't like them. He thought he didn't Like the word absolute. But these are, to me, the guidelines that were so helpful to these people. Dr. Bob, in his last talk, said, you know, all we had in the beginning were the absolutes. And this is after several years with AA. And he says, I still find them helpful. wilson didn't want to use the absolutes in his program because people would know it was oxford group and so by and large he used the opposites we watch out for dishonesty we watch out for selfishness we watch out for fear well there's a flip to those and purity bill had his problems with purity. So he was not too keen on that one. But even on that one, it's not just sexual purity. It's purity of mind, purity of the body, purity ofthe heart, purity of the emotions. Purity means there's no contamination. And that's why these are very helpful because in my life there is contamination and if I am not looking for the contamination, I'm not going to see it. But if I am looking for the contamination, I'm more likely to see and and that's that's the heart and soul of it. And it's really the heartand soul of two way prayer as well. Two way prayer is not a gimmick for listening to God. And, you know, out pops an answer like in a fortune cookie. I went to see a guy who had gotten sober in Maryland the same day after Bill Wilson did, so back in 1934. And he stayed sober in the Oxford group. And he said, Bill, to understand two-way prayer, it's really all about the four absolutes. It's honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. It's keeping these in front of yourself. i recently did a fifth step uh with a guy and uh rather than using the big book thing it was just just go and look at honesty purity and selfishness and love and uh and see where the blockage is and that's the way they used to do it in the beginning anyway uh dr bob thought well enough of them to be buried with them so that's pretty good recommendation uh in my life so if You can see on the tombstone, you get Smith, he and his wife. But then in the flower pot right next to him, honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. So if you're in Akron for a Founders Day deal, go check that out. I think they are important. Okay. so it's kind of a quick review but it does kind of get us to where we need to be so what happened to the Oxford group why why did AA separate so these guys are getting sober in the Oxford Group Bill was never real comfortable in it after a while and they were not all that comfortable with him. He had a thing that he was only interested in. See, the Oxford group was out to change the world. And Wilson, from the very beginning, was only out to change alcoholics. I mean, that's one of the key central parts of the difference. So he only wanted that. In Cleveland, it was largely a Protestant organization. And in Cleveland, there were a lot of Roman Catholics starting to come into the program. And the church, the machine, was getting ready to say, if you are a Catholic, you cannot be in the Oxford. book. And so there was a push to take these principles and practices, refigure them in some way, write a book about it, you know, and then kind of forget that we ever came from there. So it really got sort of pushed down some of our history. And they didn't want to be identified with the Oxford group. So I had to do a lot of digging to kind of get back and see where this thing was coming from. And there's a real difference in the New York version of the program, where Wilson was the primary force versus Akron and cleveland where dr bob was more the primary source very different uh for some it's uh you know you know meetings meetings meetings and uh for bob it it wasn't that it was uh trust God, clean house, help others. You know, that's where Bob came from. New York was more the meetings piece. And I run into a lot of people from New York where meetings are not discussed. Excuse me, where steps are even not so much discussed. where the focus is just on the meetings, it's just on the fellowship. Well, I'm all for the fellowship, I love the fellowship I still go to meetings, I'm not against meetings but it's not in the meetings that the transformation is going to happen