Beginner’s Class 02 12 2009 – Part 1 – Sandy B.

So good morning everyone. My name is Mike and I'm an alcoholic. Before we begin, let's have a moment of quiet time to invite the God of our own understanding into our heart and ask for an open mind and the willingness to have a new experience, of course, followed by the serenity prayer. Serenity prayer. God, grant us the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things that we can, and wisdom to know the difference that I will not mind you doing. Okay, before we get into the first three steps, I'd like to first thank a couple people for coming bright and early this morning. As we know, it's kind of a rainy, dreary morning in Caboote at 7 o'clock. So I'd like to thank Kathy for coming and also Peter, who came all the way from Freehold. I believe Peter has to travel about 50 miles to get here. So Pete was here bright and early with me and helped us set up. So I would like to really thank you guys. So welcome to the Wednesday morning 7 a.m. beginners classes. During the next four weeks, you will learn how to recover from alcoholism by taking the 12 steps as outlined in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. The program of AA is a spiritually-based plan of action that will remove the compulsion to drink and enable you to live a life that is happy, useful, and whole. AA instructional meetings are said to have been started in Cleveland, Ohio, by Clarence S. in the early 1940s. After the publication of this Saturday Evening Post article about AlcoholicsAnonymous, AA started growing so rapidly it became impossible for the early members to individually take new prospects through the steps. These meetings were held for the purpose of acquainting both the old and new members with the 12 steps upon which our program is based, so that all 12 steps could be covered in a minimum amount of time they were divided into four classifications and one meeting each week was devoted to each of the four subdivisions now in front you everyone should have a pamphlet that's entitled a forgotten beginning the alcoholics anonymous beginner classes and this pamphet is actually a transcribed talk given by Wally P who's an AA historian and archivist from from Arizona and all this is is a transcribed talk of his and it has a lot of the information in history about AA beginners classes were which were predominantly popular in the early 1940s so when you get a chance try to review this pamphlet and hopefully we'll give you a lot of the history of this thing each group has developed its own guidelines for teaching the beginners classes however all these groups had something in common. They provide a safe, structured environment in which newcomers learn the principles of AA, take the steps, and have spiritual experiences. The book Alcoholics Anonymous is our textbook for recovery. Does everyone have a big book with them? Okay. We'll be using the big book extensively during the next four weeks. As the title of the book implies we are an anonymous society. You can be assured we'll protect your anonymity at this and any other meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. The big book was first published in 1939. It was written by several of the first 100 people to recover from alcoholism. Since then, alcoholics have used it all over the world as a program for recovery. So that we can complete each class within an hour and still provide ample time for questions, please write down anything that you do not understand or need clarified and save it until the end of the session. Questions can be answered at that time. The Big Book is the only book we will discuss during these sessions except for a possible reference to the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions or the Little Red Book which was at one time used in conjunction with the Big Book in meetings similar to this one in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Miami, Florida. If you cannot find something I say in our Big Book, consider it to be my opinion rather than fact. I'll do my best to keep my opinions out of these discussions. I'm here to pass on the AA program as written in practice by the early members. I am not here to present my interpretation of the program. Now in order for this process to work during the next four weeks, certain guidelines will need to be followed by the people that are going to go through the steps with us and for the sponsor. The newcomer's primary obligation is to be here every week for the next 4 weeks. If you do not have transportation your sponsor will help you make the necessary arrangements. It's our experience that this process works best when the sponsor and newcomer attend all four of these classes together. some of us have difficulties reading when we're newly sober I'll be doing the reading from the big book during these meetings if you brought your big book with you please follow along as I read sometimes we'll be going through the material rather fast if you're unable to follow along it's okay just listen the best you can remember we're here to take the actions that that the big book prescribed not just to study the book okay we're not just going to be reading the book we're going to be doing what the instructions say in it if you take the steps as described in the big book you will recover from alcoholism it is imperative that when writing your four-step inventory which will be beginning next week you'll receive help and guidance from your sponsor or members from this group there's a few people here that have been through this work in numerous amount of times and we can offer assistance to you. Many people try to do their four steps by themselves and wonder why many weeks or months later they're still not finished. It's very dangerous to go it alone in spiritual matters. That's why as part of our second week together, we'll be starting our inventories together in this meeting. We understand that this phase of our development can get quite personable. That's why the fifth step will, of course, not be taken in class, obviously, but should be completed between the second and third weeks. And the last guideline is sponsors should call or visit with the newcomers or those who are going through the steps frequently to see how he or she is doing and to offer encouragement and assistance through the work. Make use of the phone list that this meeting offers. a blank phone list by the coffee pot and if you'd like the people that have gone through this process before put your name on the list and this list will be going around throughout the meetings and if your name is on that list that means that you're willing to have people give you a call to offer encouragement while you go through this work it's kind of like a sharing network type phone list and it's quite different from the traditional phone list that most meetings use. Usually you give the newcomer the phone list and you say, call these people if you're having a problem. Well, this is kind of the opposite where the people that have been around the fellowship for a while and that have done the work, they'll call you to give you help. And that's the way it was done in the early days. The newcomer didn't go to the sponsor. the sponsor reached out to the newcomer and helped him or her. Okay, can I get a show of hands this morning on how many people would like to take the 12 steps with us during the next four weeks? Okay, great. Of those that raised your hands, how many do not have a sponsor? Okay, we all got sponsors then, great! If there is anyone here this morning that didn't have a sponsor, what would happen and this was done in the early days. After the meeting we would all hook up together and a sponsor would be assigned. Again, the newcomer or the person that wants to do the work doesn't go up to the sponsor and say I need your help. The sponsor goes to him or her and says I'm here to help you. The hand of AA is here reached out to you. Okay. It's vital that newcomers get a sponsor to guide them through the steps during the next four weeks. Now, let's start this session by turning to the forward of the big book, which is on Roman numeral page 13. That's XIII. Okay? We're going to start on the first paragraph. It says, we of Alcoholics Anonymous are more than 100 men and women who have recovered, E.D., recovered from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body. To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recovered is the main purpose of this book. So the big book tells us immediately that its purpose is to show alcoholics how to recover from alcoholism. until this book was written there is no hope for alcoholics now anyone who is willing to follow the directions they have provided can recover during this session we'll be reading through material in the big book and drawing from our own experiences to help us answer the following questions am i alcoholic do I need help and am i willing to take certain actions to receive that help okay let's keep those three questions in mind as we go through to work this morning. So let's begin our journey with the first step. Step one, we admit it we're powerless over alcohol, dash that our lives have become unmanageable. Surrender is essential in order to recover from alcoholism and the first 51 pages of the big book is devoted to the first part of the surrender process which is to admit we have a problem. It suggests that you read through these pages to find your truth with alcohol and the illness of alcoholism. The book begins by describing the physical and mental symptoms of alcoholism, later the book asks us to acknowledge that we're alcoholics. Before we can do this, we need to know what an alcoholic is, right? We'll be using information from the doctor's opinion, chapters 1, 2, and 3, and the first page chapter 4 to determine this. Let's start on Roman numeral page 24 in the second paragraph, that's XXIV. It's going to be in the doctor's opinion. It is actually a second page of the doctors opinion if you have a third edition. Okay it says the physician who at our request gave us this letter has been kind enough to enlarge upon his views in another statement which follows. In this statement, he confirms, we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as the mind. It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from reality, or we were outright mental defectors. These things were true to some extent, in fact, to a considerable extent with some of us. You're looking at one of them. But we are sure that our bodies were sickened as well. In our belief, any picture of the alcoholic which leaves out the physical factor is incomplete. The doctor's theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us. As laymen, our opinion as to its soundness may, of course, mean little. But as ex-problem drinkers, we can say that his exclamation makes good sense. It explains many things for which we cannot account otherwise. Let's turn now to Roman numeral page 26, XXVI, where in the first paragraph Dr. Silkworth further describes the alcoholic's physical reaction to alcohol after it's ingested into the body. And for anyone that's not familiar with our history, Dr. Silkworth is the physician that worked at Towns Hospital when Bill Wilson was going through his pinch, and actually Dr. silkworth helped Bill to get sober. Dr. Silkworth gave Bill the vital information that was needed for not only for Bill to get sober but also when Bill carried the message to Dr. Bob. All right? Bill told Dr. Bob what Dr. Silkworth had told him about how the alcoholic is different in the bodily and mental sense. Before this, nobody heard about this information. So Dr. silkworth says we believe in so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy. that the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all, and once having formed a habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. Notice that Dr. Silkworth referred to our physical reaction to alcohol as an allergy, and after one drink the phenomena of craving develops. At the time the big book was written, very little was known about why the alcoholic reacts to alcohol differently than other people. Since then, science and the medical community have discovered some things. We've learned that the body of the alcoholic is physically different. The liver and the pancreas of the alcoholic process alcohol at one-third to one-tenth the rate of the non-alcoholic's pancrease and liver. As alcohol enters the body, it breaks down into various components, one of which is acetate. We know now that acetate triggers the phenomenon craving. In a normal drinker, the acetate moves through the system quickly and exits, but that doesn't happen in us. In us, the acetate is not processed out. So by staying in our body, it triggers a craving for a second drink. We have a second drinking, putting in us two times as much acetate, and that makes us want to drink twice as much as the normal drinker. So we have another drink. Then having three times the craving as a normal drinkers, we have anther. You can see from that point how we have no control over how much we drink. The craving cycle has begun. Once the acetate accumulates in your body, and that begins to happen with the first drink, you will crave another if you're an alcoholic. And how many times did we think it'd be nice just to have one drink to relax, right? But you had more. Now you can see why. And this can never change if you are a real alcoholic. So let's go to the fourth paragraph on that same page. And Dr. Silkworth describes the common drinking cycle of an alcoholic and begins to describe the second factor of the alcoholic illness. We know the first factor is the abnormal reaction of the body, the physical craving. The second factor isthe mental obsession. Dr.Silkworth's going to describethe mental state of thealcoholic before we pick up the first drink. he says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol the sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious they cannot after a time differentiate the truth from the false to them their alcoholic life seems the only normal one now see if you can identify with this they are restless irritable and discontented unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks. Drinks which they see others taking with impunity. The word impunity means with no repercussions, no effects. You know the alcoholic sits there at the bar and sees these non-alcoholic drinking drinkers taking a couple drinks and these non alcoholics aren't going home crashing cars throwing the cats and beating the wife you know that doesn't happen with the non-alcoholics because the alcoholic reacts differently after they had succumbed to the desire again as so many do the phenomena craving develops the physical reaction of the body develops they pass through the well-known stages of a spree emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again this is repeated over and over and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope for his recovery if a mind didn't lie to us and tell us that it's okay to drink we would never trigger the physical allergy which produces the craving for more and more alcohol so we have an abnormal reaction of the body and an obsession of the mind, which dooms us to drink again. It is important to note that the body of an alcoholic can never recover, but the mind can. That was great hope for me when I found that out. If alcoholism were solely a physical disease, then we could just stop drinking, and that would be the solution, right? How many times have you heard, just don't drink, you know? Nancy Reagan had a solution back in the 80s. Just say no. Well, just say no doesn't work for a guy like me. Because when you tell me just say yes, I say yes. But the mental factor is why just quitting is not enough. That's why Dr. Silkworth says we need an entire psychic change. That's a change of our mind, how we react to alcohol. On page XXVII, Roman numeral 27, Dr. Silkworth says that all we have to do is follow a few simple rules and we won't have the desire for alcohol. We can never be cured, but the problem won't exist for us as long as we remain in fit spiritual condition. Those few simple rules Dr. Silkworth talks about are the actions we're going to take in the 12 steps to bring about the entire psychic change. Let's go to Roman numeral page 28, paragraph 1. Okay, he says, there are many situations which arise out of a phenomenon of craving which caused men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than the fight all right what he's talking about there is suicide god bless you you know he's talked about once the phenomena of craving develops you know and this happens over and over and again and we're doomed to keep on drinking and we are doomed to continue to start drinking because the obsession of the mind some of us have no choice but to make the supreme sacrifice that's why so many alcoholics drunk and sober commit suicide and that's what he's talking about in this paragraph this concludes our readings from the doctor's opinion during the next week please read chapter one bill story bill w is the new york stock analyst who is one of our co-founders his story is a perfect example of an alcoholic Some people have difficulty identifying with Bill because he was such a low-bottom, hopeless alcoholic. Here, as with the rest of the book, we ask that you look for similarities rather than differences. See where you can identify with Bill as he continues to use alcohol long after it has become a problem for him. Now, it would suggest it to me to try to identify with the way Bill felt, the way Billy thought, and the way he drank. If I try to identify with Bill in those three areas, there's going to be a lot of things in his story that I'll be able to identify with. Again, the way he felt, thought, and drank. The first eight pages of Bill's story give us an example of a problem of the alcoholic. The last eight pages describe the spiritual solution that Bill followed. The only thing I'm going to read from Bill's Story this morning is the first full paragraph on page eight because it describes so well what we alcoholics call our bottom. Okay, page eight, first full paragraph. Bill writes, no words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter morass of self-pity. Anybody identify with that? This is when Bill hits bottom. Quicksand stretched around me in all directions. I had met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master. Now, if you felt like this in the past, then you identify with Bill. If Bill says he's a real alcoholic, then he might be too. We're going to skip chapter two. There is a solution for now, but I urge you to read it during the next week. And the only reason we're skipping around like this is so we have enough time to cover all the information and to take the steps in an hour in each meeting. But it's imperative that you go from cover to cover in this book and read all the info and all the other information. Okay, let's turn to page 30 and we're going to read the first page of chapter 3 more about alcoholism. It says, Most of us have been unwilling to admit we're real alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday, he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this illusion is astonishing. Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death. Next paragraph says, We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost selves that we're alcoholics. This is the first step for recovery. The delusion that we are like other people or presently may be has to be smashed. Thanks for passing the basket, Kathy. We have a seventh tradition. There are no dues or fees, but we do need to pay rent for this church, and it covers the expenses for coffee and any other conference-approved literature. And if there were to be any monies left over after the donation to the church and for the coffee and anything, There would be a contribution donated to the two service entities, New Jersey Area 44, the General Service Office in South Plainfield and also the Intergroup Office which is nearby in Union. Okay, back to the book. So in these paragraphs, the book confirms that we are different from the average non-alcoholic drinker in both the bodily and mental sense they restate that we continue to believe in the lie that we can somehow control and enjoy our drinking this is why this is a lie that somehow someday i could control and and enjoy my drinking because when i was trying to control my drinking i didn't enjoy it and during the time i was enjoying my drinking I certainly wasn't controlling it you know think back upon your experience the book tells us again that if we continue to believe in the lie that our mind tells us and we continue to kill our bodies by drinking alcohol then we're either going to go insane or die the first step was stated in the second paragraph and we'll be getting back to that statement in just a moment now let's briefly cover the examples that this chapter gives us describing the mental obsession we alcoholics have when it comes to alcohol. We're going to start with the first full paragraph on page 35. First paragraph on 35. What sort of thinking dominates an alcoholic who repeats time after time the desperate experiment of the first drink? Friends who have reasoned with him after a spree which has brought him to the point of divorce or bankruptcy, excuse me, or mystified when he walks directly into a saloon. Why does he of what he is thinking? Now, the next few paragraphs and couple pages go on to describe a guy by the name of Jim, all right, and they give an example. Due to a lack of time, we're not going to read from the book, but I'm going to kind of encapsulize Jim's story. uh you know when you when you read through this you can tell that jim's a really nice guy he's well liked by his friends and family he inherited a car dealership and was pretty successful for a time jim started drinking at age 35 and a few years later was committed to an asylum he was in touch with aa and the old timers worked with him they shared their stories and told jim about the first two steps he made a beginning but he failed to go forward with the spiritual program of action described in this book he got drunk seven times in rapid succession each time the old timers worked with him all right back then they didn't they didn t leave you out there just because you you went in and out in and now you know they continue to work with the wet drunk. Jim described to the old timers what happened to him. Basically because he failed to go ahead with the rest of the program, he succumbed to the lie that he could drink whiskey safely and his trivial excuse was if he poured booze into milk it wouldn't hurt him on a a full stomach. Because Jim didn't continue the rest of the program and take the rest of the steps, he did not have the entire psychic change that Dr. Silkworth talks about and fell victim to the lie that he could drink safely. On page 37, our book describes that kind of thinking as pure insanity. The text says in the first full paragraph of the page. Whatever the precise definition of the word may be, we call this plain insanity. How could such a lack of proportion of the ability to think straight be called anything else? Now isn't that a perfect definition to describe alcoholic insanity? The lack of portion of the ability to thinks straight. We can't see the truth from the false when it comes to alcohol. The insanity of alcoholism is not all those crazy things we did while we were drinking, like crashing our cars, getting arrested, and hurting other people mentally and physically. What the book talks about insanity being is for us to believe in a lie that we can have that first drink safely. For me to believe a lie, that I can drink successfully. all right sure it's crazy uh those things that i did were crazy but the real insanity is thinking we can safely drink alcohol in the first place even after all the pain suffering and humiliation we've gone through like dr silkworth said the main problem of the alcoholic centers in the mind rather than the body let's wrap up our discussion of the physical and mental aspects of alcoholism by turning to the first page of chapter 4, we agnostics. That's page 44. In the first paragraph, four lines down, the big book gives us a statement that can be turned into a question for us to answer. Okay, so we're going to try to determine if we have the mind and the body of an alcoholic. And since we're so few this morning, rather than just asking each person, we're just going to kind of answer this question as a group. And a yes or a no will do fine. But we're going to read this paragraph. Go four lines down on page 44. If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you're probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. All right? So what I'm going to do now is ask this question. And this question is to help us determine if we have the mental and physical symptoms of alcoholism. All right. If when you honestly wanted to, could you quit drinking entirely by yourself? Yes or no? No. Okay. Or, when drinking, did you have little or no control over the amount you took? No. Debbie? I had no control, yeah. Okay. Let's go through the questions again. If when you honestly wanted to, could you quit drinking entirely by yourself? Yes or no? Could you quit by yourself even when you wanted to? when you were drinking did you were there times that you that you tried to quit before you came to aa were there signs that you trying to quit drinking okay were you able to quit on your own no okay now when drinking did you have little or no control over the amount you took while you were drinking? You said it before. You said you didn't have any control over your mouth. How many times did you go into a bar or liquor store or wherever you drank, and this is for everyone now, you know, and you said, well, here's my theme song. I'm just going to have a couple, right? What happened? A six-pack or two six-packs or a quart later, I'm beating on the bar. What happened ? I just walked in here to have a couple. I couldn't just have a couple, I had no control. So if we all answered these questions for the affirmative, you know, if that be the case, the book says we're probably alcoholic. And we may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer. Now let's take a look at the third factor involved in the first step. This is a spiritual malady. Are we all clear on the on the mental and physical factors? Okay. Bill, we quit? I absolutely quit. Okay. All right. All right, we're going to look at the spiritual malady now. And this is the need for the second part of the first step, which says that our lives have become unmanageable. On page 44, the book says when the spiritual Malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. Let's turn to page 52. Let's look in the second paragraph for symptoms of a spiritual malady. And that's what we alcoholics suffer from all our lives, alright? Let's turn these statements into questions that can be answered for ourselves. questions can be answered in the past tense when I was drinking or in the present tense now not drinking suffering from an unmanageable spirit because of untreated alcoholism as I read them answer these questions for yourself to see if you had been or presently may be experiencing these symptoms in your life first one we were having trouble with personal relationships and we include ourselves here does that apply to us okay we couldn't control our emotional natures ever have up or down days is that apply that is really identifying we were pray we were a prey or had bouts of misery and depression does that apply we couldn t make a living they're talking about we couldn' t have a a successful life, no matter how hard we tried. Does that apply? We had a feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear. Ever worry about things? Is that applicable to us? We're unhappy. We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. okay that's on 52 right in the middle of the page second paragraph down and all we did was turn those statements into questions to see if we're suffering from the second half of the first step the unmanageable spirit so several of those apply to you your life really is unmanagable and chances are you're suffering from a malady which only a spiritual experience or spiritual awakening will conquer back on page 44 in the second paragraph the book told us that we have only two alternatives first one is to be doomed and alcoholic death and the second one is the live on a spiritual basis so if your choice is to live on spiritual basis rest assured that not only is a spiritual awakening possible it is a guaranteed provided we keep an open mind and take the steps as described in the big book we're going to begin this process of admittance with the first step before we do that let's review exactly what we alcoholics suffer from all right if i can't drink safely because of the allergy of the body and that's the first factor and i can stop drinking because of the obsession of the mind that's the second factor then i'm powerless over alcohol that's the first half of the first step and if i suffer from symptoms of a life run on self-will uh that are described on page 52 then my life was unmanageable that's the third factor in the first set on page 30 let's go back now Now, the big book tells us exactly what we have to do to make the admission that we're real alcoholics. Remember when we read, we learned that we had to fully concede, we had the fully conceded to our innermost selves that we were alcoholics This is the first step in recovery. It said the delusion that we are like other people or presently may be has to be smashed. All right? In order to smash the delusion that we're not alcoholics, I'm going to ask each of you a simple question. Are you ready to concede to your innermost self that you're powerless over alcohol? In other words, are you an alcoholic? All that is required is a yes or no answer and I'm just going to go around the table. If you're not convinced you're alcoholic or that your life is unmanageable, please let us know. Your sponsor or any one of us We'll be willing to spend time with you this week to discuss your reservations. For those that are ready, let's take the first step together. Bill, do you concede to your innermost self that you are an alcoholic? Okay. And you? Debbie? Okay. Congratulations. Everyone answered yes and we have all taken the first steps together. Okay. It's that simple. Now that we admit it, we're alcoholics, let's look at what we have to do in order to recover. Just in case we're not convinced that we need a power greater than ourselves, the authors of the big book wrote this statement on the last paragraph of Chapter 3, more about alcoholism, and that's on page 43. From here on out, we are going to kind of breeze through the information. We are going go through it rather rapidly, and we did start a few minutes late, So we may run a couple minutes over at 8 o'clock, so if you have to leave, please feel free to do so, but hopefully you'll stick around and we won't go that much over. Okay, on the last paragraph of 43 it says, Once more, the alcoholic at certain times has no effect of mental defense against the first drink. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any other human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a higher power. Let's dispel the myth that's quite often heard in the meeting rooms of alcoholics and honest. Many well-intentioned people make the statement, when I feel like drinking, I remember where I came from. I think to drink through and keep my memory green. Well, that's good advice provided I have a mental defense against alcohol. The paragraphs we just read tell us that at certain times we don't have a mental defense against the first drink. That implies that sometimes I might. So sometimes I may be able to remember where I come from. Sometimes I might be able with think the drink through. Sometimes, I might be able to keep my memory green but the scary thing is sometimes I won't. The real scary thing is, I don't know when that sometime will be. Alright? So can you see how those neat little nifty things really aren't that effective? You know how at certain times, I can't keep myself sober. Me on my own power, I can't treat myself sober and if I knew when I was going to have the mental defense then I wouldn't be truly powerless over alcohol would I? Right? So So what this paragraph is telling us is that in order for me not to drink alcohol I must have a power greater than myself and that power, that power not my power, will provide my defense and keep me safe and protected from alcohol. That's guaranteed of course if I follow certain steps. So since we admitted that we're powerless and we have a need to find the power let's proceed to the second step, which is came to believe that a tower greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. Chapter four, we agnostics gives us a lot of information and direction for us to take step two. Be sure to read this chapter in addition to the other chapters we covered during the next week. To give us the basis for taking the second step, we're going to cover four main points. One, do you believe or are you willing to believe that there is a power that will solve your problem? Two, do you have a conception of that power which makes sense and works for you? Three, is that power, which the book quite often refers to God, is That Power Everything? And if not, is it nothing? At this point, we'll have to make a choice. And the fourth thing is, where are we going to find this power? So when you read through this chapter during the next week, try to look at those four different points. And that's what we're going to target right now. Page 46, starting with the third line in the first paragraph, it says, it explains what I'm going to encapsulize right now, all right? Due to time, we're not going to read those paragraphs. But on pages 46 and 47, the book gives us certain requirements for the second step. In a nutshell, they tell us we have to lay aside prejudice. We have to express a willingness to believe. We have come up with our own conception of God. We have admit the possible existence of that power, and we have honestly seek that power. So if we met these requirements, requirements let's look at the question on page 46 in the second paragraph we needed to ask ourselves but one short question do i now believe or am or am i even willing to believe that there is a power greater than myself as soon as a man can say that he does believe or is willing to believe we emphatically assure him that he is on his way it has been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone, a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built. There's a handout in front of you, and we can go over it after the meeting, or maybe I'll explain it next week, and it's entitled The Wonderfully Effective Spiritual Structure. And that's what that paragraph talks about when it talks about the second step and our cornerstone. okay let's see who's ready to proceed and take the first the first part of the first of the second step well uh all right i'm just gonna again ask the question um do you now believe or are you willing to believe that there is a power greater than yourself so i'm sorry i don't know you want Anita? Okay. Debbie? Great. Okay, now we can move forward. If we don't have a conception of God that makes sense to us, pages 46 and 47 give us some good ideas. The following are some of the words and descriptions that the old-timers of this fellowship used to describe God. They called it a power greater than themselves, all-powerful, guiding, creative intelligence, Spirit of the universe, realm of the spirit, supreme being, or simply power. Then later on in the chapter, they refer to it as the great reality, the presence of infinite power and love. Isn't that beautiful? Maker. You know, there's another book that refers to God as our maker. That's a real big, big book. And, of course, they prefer to that power as being God. So let us keep in mind that these are only examples of terms found in this chapter to describe God. Feel free to use these or any other conception that you may have, provided it makes sense to you. Remember, use your own conception, however limited it may currently be. The important thing is that it's your conception and that it makes sens to you Now that we believe or are willing to believe, and we have our own conception of God, we have to consider the proposition that many people call the second step choice. It's on page 53 in the second paragraph. it says when we became alcoholics crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade we had to furiously face the proposition that either god is everything or lt is nothing god either is or he isn't what was our choice to be let's take a moment and consider both sides of the coin if we believe what our book says and we believe the experience of thousands of recovered alcoholics that have gone through this before us we can easily answer this question in the affirmative but let's consider for a moment that we choose god to be nothing in our lives maybe a scary proposition and that he isn't a part of us where do we go from here well if that be the case we won't be able to go much further and if we're really truly powerless we need god now more than ever okay so are we ready to proceed okay i know i am the last thing we need to look at in the second step is where do we find god well we find our answer on page 55 and it says in the second paragraph actually we were fooling ourselves for deep down in every man woman and child is the fundamental idea of God it may be obscured and obscured means to be hidden or blocked alright so the fundamental Idea of God may be hidden by calamity by pomp or by we'll find out in our four-step inventories by resentments fears and the guilt shame and remorse of the harms we've caused others or by worship of other things but in some form or other it is there for faith in the power greater than ourselves and the miraculous demonstrations of that power in human lives are facts as old as man himself so now we know where to find god It's deep down within ourselves. At the end of the chapter, they tell a story of a man who had been relieved from his drink obsession and restored to sanity by the loving hand of God. The book says on page 57 in the first paragraph, it's right at the end bit of chapter, it says, what is this but a miracle of healing? Yet its elements are simple. circumstances and this man's circumstances of course were step one the pain suffering and humiliation of his drinking experiences those circumstances made him willing to believe and he humbly offered himself to his maker then he knew sounds like this guy took the first three steps right he experienced the pain and suffering of active alcoholism those things made him willing to believe and then he humbly offered himself to his maker we'll find out in the third step prayer it says god i offer myself to thee right even so has god restored us all to our right minds to this man the revelation was sudden and this revel this sudden revelation referring to as in a spiritual experience and that's like bill w had in town hospital Some of us grow into it more slowly, and I think in this day and age, more of us do, including myself. And that's a spiritual awakening, and that's described in Appendix 2. You know, we hear in AA the spiritual awakening of the educational variety. And that is what most of us get today as a result of taking the steps. So he has come to all who have honestly sought him. When we draw near to him, and that him is God, he discloses himself to us. So we've completed the first two steps in the program recovery. In order for God to disclose himself to me, we have to draw nearer to him. That means we have move forward to step three. Step three reads, Let's clarify a couple words that confuse some of us. us and certainly confused me in the third step. First, the word decision. The word decision implies that action will follow. All right? I'm sure we're all familiar with this story of the three frogs on the log, all right? One frog decides to jump off at a log. How many frogs are left? Three, right? Okay. So we all know how to make a decision good the one frog only decided to jump he didn't take any action secondly let's look at the word our will and our lives you know they made decisions to turn our will in our lives over to the care of god as we understood him i never knew what those were i never know what my will or my life was you know what is my will and how can we turn our lives over to something well my will is nothing more than my thinking and my life is an accumulation of my actions up until this point you know my life is my past present and future let's reread the step using these new words not trying to rewrite the big book but this this helped me to understand this step a a little bit more. We're going to decide to turn our thoughts and our actions over to God as we understand it. That's a little better easier now, right? Let's begin the reading of step three on page 60 after the ABCs. Let's go to page 60 in chapter five. And after the ADCs, it says being convinced we're at step three, which is that we decided to turn our will, which is our thinking and our lives, which are our actions over to God as we understood him. Just what do we do and what do mean by that? Well there are more requirements to be met. Be sure to read pages 60 through 62 during the next week. Unfortunately, we don't have enough time to read them together now. Basically, the book tells us the requirements of the third step are the following. I have to be convinced that my life run on my own self-will can hardly be a success. That's the first requirement. Second one is I have quit trying to run my life on my own self-will. I have to quit playing God. Why? Me trying to play God doesn't work. And the third one is, I have let God be God and I have him run my life. Now we're ready to make our third step decision together. In the next paragraph they tell us what our decision is to be. It says this as to how and why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our director. He is the principal. We are his agents. He is the father. We're his children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we pass the freedom again you can refer to this sheet here and here's the keystone way at the top which is going to hold all the other stones in the place in our spiritual structure okay so what this decision means is that first we have to quit playing god we're going to decide that god is goingto direct us we'regoingtodesidethatgodistheboss and we're his employees, right? When I go to work, do I tell my boss what I want to do? No. My boss tells and shows me what to do. Well, sometimes if you're an alcoholic running on self-will, you'll tell the boss what to go, but we try not to do that today. And the third thing is we decide that God is the Father and we are His kids. Have we all made this decision together? Is this all what we want to know? Debbie? Sure? Okay. All right. As a result of just making this decision, the book tells us we will receive several promises. They're listed in the first paragraph of page 63. It says, when we sincerely took such a position, all sorts of remarkable things follow. And when we read through these promises, why wouldn't we want to make this decision? Look at what we're going to get here. We had a new employer. Being all powerful, he provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well. Established on such a footing, we became less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. more and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute for life as we felt new power flow in as we enjoyed peace of mind as we discovered we could face life successfully as we became conscious of his presence we began to lose our fear of today tomorrow or the hereafter we were reborn all right so let's affirm the decision we just made by saying the third step prayer that's in the next paragraph together as a group all right it's on page 63 in the middle of the page and also there's some cards that should be in front of you in case you don't know it by heart so let's say the prayer which is nothing more than an affirmation of the decision we just made together. Many of us said to our maker as we understood him, God I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will. Take away my difficulties that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help.