Bill’s Story and Spiritual Awakening – Awakening Workshop – Part 12 of 18 – Local AA Speakers

My name is Leanne, and I am an alcoholic. How is everybody doing? All right. What is this, week five? Week five. Congratulate yourselves. Pat yourselves on the back. Good job for making it to every workshop. All right, so welcome to the workshop. Can everybody make sure that they silence their cell phones for the duration of the meeting? The bathrooms are located on this floor. I think there's only one bathroom that's open. Please make sure, no one's using that key, right? That key is, you can't use that key. You can't lose that key I should say. So make sure that that key stays up there. There's no smoking allowed on the premises including e-cigarette use. So if you need to smoke please make sure that you smoke across the street. I'm just going to do a quick little recap of what we've done so far and then we're going to say the set aside prayer for the mental obsession um just a quick recap this is where we've been we've covered the history in any in the um uh preface in the forwards we covered the history of alcoholics anonymous and where we are today um looking at the idiot's guide i'm sorry not the idiot's guy looking atthe doctor's opinion um oh i've got it on my oh thanks okay we'll do that um doctor's opinion i see that i'm physically sick i have a physical addiction physical allergy and i have to ask myself that question hopefully by this point all of us are clear whether or not we are physically addicted allergy whatever you want to look at it to whatever substance it is that you were taking whether it be heroin whether it'd be alcohol methamphetamine so is everybody clear what the physical looks like, that when you do it, you can't control. You think it looks like the mental, but it's not your mental state. It's your body, right? And ask yourself how that feels when you can'T put more than one drink or you can'T put more than one drug in your body. Ask yourself how That feels if you're able to control the amount. Those of us that were chronic, like myself, you know, that went through actual physical withdrawals. By the way, someone who's a normal drinker never experiences a physical withdrawal, right? Someone who, even if they drink a lot, they don't ever go through a physical withdrawal. Now, that's not to say just because you don't go through physical withdrawal symptoms that you're not the real alcoholic, right? There's different levels of alcoholism and drug addiction. So it just depends on where you are. I was borderline chronic. So I know what it's like to go through actual physical detoxing, where some people may not ever feel that. But remember, that doesn't, that's not what determines you to be the real deal, okay? Now we look at, we go into Bill's story and I think it's important that the first story that we read about, we see there's a lot of stories in the back of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, but the main story that we focus on is Bill's Story. And when I look at and when I read Bill's story, just by reading it, I think to myself, at least for me, I don't have anything in common with this guy. Right? He's a stockbroker. He's gin drinker. He claims he's faithful. He is a golfer. I've got nothing in common with this man. Right. But when I write in the margins and I write where I can relate to Bill, I see that I think, drink, and feel just like Bill. Right, and it doesn't matter whether he's a man. It doesn't matter that he lived in the 30s. It didn't matter what his circumstances were. Alcoholism hasn't changed. It looks exactly the same today as it did in 1930, as it didn't 1030, as it Did 2000 10,000 years ago, alcohol ism looks the same internally, not externally, internally. And I have to ask myself, do I see that? Can I write this bill story suddenly now Leanne's story and can I say that can you say that about yourself so the first half of the Bill's story we see what it was like for Bill and what happened and we see him in his addiction and and in his disease going in and out of the rooms trying different trying different things trying to different ways to to stop drinking and and not being able to figure out what's wrong with him going in or out of hospitals the second half of Bill's Story which starts on about page eight or nine we're going to see bill's recovery and pat and nancy you're gonna are going to talk about that so with that said let's go ahead and open with the set aside prayer and if you want to know which set aside pray are we still in physical craving okay so page 14 page 14 of your big book awakening workbook god please enable me to set aside everything I think I know for an open mind and a new vision. Help me see the truth about my physical craving after I start to drink. Can someone turn off those lights? Okay. All right, let's welcome Nancy. Oh, Pat. Let's welcome Pat. Hey, guys. Pat Alcoholic. Guys, I get so excited about this. You know what? I'm 14 1⁄2 years sober, and I love my sobriety more today than when I first got in the rooms and I didn't think that was going to be possible when God separated me from the drink in 2002 I thought God you've done the miracle that I could never accomplish and I've been trying it for the last 7 or 8 years of my drinking career nothing else is necessary this is cool this is great and then he removes the mental obsession oh my god another major mind exploding event and then i experienced for the first time in my life serenity another mind altering experience that i never got in all my years of drinking and so as i do this work and the more i do it and i'd encourage everybody here Don't ever stop with one time through the steps. The book's really clear. We've swallowed some large chunks of truth about ourselves. Not all the chunks of true about ourselves, we've overcome some of, we've identified some of the problems in our makeup, not all. And this is about more and more discovery. and the flip side is it's not about you taking your finger and shoving it in your chest saying I'm a bad guy, I'ma bad girl I'm apiece of crap exact opposite God has already you're chosen if you're in these rooms if you've made it this far God chose to make you sober that's the deal and there is a ton of discovery I'm just saying. So it's just on my heart. Just want to throw that out there, so don't ever, ever quit. Don't ever quit taking people through the work. Don't never quit your own self-discovery. Let it take you where it needs to go, and like it or not, all paths lead to God. So it is going to be an adventure, and, you know, content without investigation. You might want to separate out that thought because it is where we're going, and it's not a bad deal. It's a good deal. Trust me. okay so a couple things have happened along to prepare bill for that wonderful birth pains of aa in november of 1934 we have to go back a few years but i'm going to give you this in very short dose but if you want to read about it just pick up this copy of pass it on it's a approved literature and you can get it or at the serenity shop you could get it probably some of the home group a lot of meetings will have this book around but um there's a couple things i just want to bring to our attention bill is going to meet a friend of his that he hasn't seen in five years ebby thatcher last time we saw ebbey they're on a plane drunk with a pilot that's drunk flying into manchester airport to complete one of their drunk trips right they're they pass out when they get there the town band comes out and they can't even stand up i mean it's bad stuff so that's the last time bill had seen ebby ebony we're going to understand this book i'm gonna get into the detailing in just a moment in our in our big book in Bill's story, Ebby's sober. What the heck happened to Ebby? Two years previous to this event, EbBY's life is falling off the rails. And he goes to live in Upper State Vermont and he can't keep sober. And so I won't go into all the detail, but a bunch of people in his life say, hey, let's put you out to a work camp. You could build some trail called the green mountain trail it'll be cool there's no booze up there you'll stay sober ebby does for six months comes back down to manchester find some brew ebmy's not sober any longer they put him up into another place at this inn and he's sober for another two months and this is getting towards a time where he's getting really close to meeting bill and in september of 1934 ebby's on his last ditch effort he goes before the court and if he's convicted they're going to throw him into prison not prison but jail for six months for alcoholic behavior he was so drunk he's on he's laying on he sitting on his butt outside after it just got done raining and he's ticked off because he just got through this big project of painting his old family house had fallen into disrepair and there's pigeons up on the corner and so every takes a basically not quite a sawed-off shotgun but a double barrel shotgun sits on it on his on his butt outside in the grass and starts corking off shots to kill the pigeons the neighbors didn't like it so much so they bring him in for his third strike if you will back in the day and he's going to be carted off to jail enter in roland hazard zebra and shep three more guys right before ebby gets sober and they roland says and roland says to his uncle who's on the bench the judge presiding uncle you know what's happened to my life you watched me a year before went to see carl young over in switzerland i couldn't get sober and carl jung's only solution was you better join a vital spiritual group that could give you a vital spiritual experience if you don't lock yourself up hire a bodyguard go insane or you're gonna die here's your choices you're hopeless roland's not hopeless rolands a recovered alcoholic that never drinks again roland stands before his uncle and says uncle i vouch for evie let us try the deal and he explained to the uncle we're going to put him through the oxford group six steps and we're going to have a way of service and I'm going to teach them about the four absolutes of the Oxford Way absolute purity absolute love absolute unselfishness and absolute honesty and of these four, uncle absolute honesty is going to be the ticket for Evie and I vouch for him that's in september actually a little bit before that a little bit before september and he goes and lives with roland hazard for a littlebit and then he shows up at the mission of the oxford group in brooklyn in new york and there he stays with shep who was out there at manchester before and shep and ebby start working together and ebby's life turns around okay now if you got your book open up to page eight here's the other quick backdrop and then we're jumping into this pretty darn fast so hang in there with me we're gonna be moving quickly bill wilson is done with ideas he has been to the town's hospital three times the first time he goes in he comes out and he goes oh my gosh, I've got it I've Got It Silkworth tells me about what this disease is about, that's it knowledge, I understand I got it I understand that I'm an alcoholic that I can't drink like a normal guy and I can not think like a norma person, I get the mental obsession, I got him self-knowledge, I'm going to be okay now shortly thereafter he's drunk again they bring him back to town's hospital and this time silkworth's talking to him again what happened what happened and bill's telling the story say listen i had no defense i don't know what to say and silkworth in some matter of fact way is saying you know what i don' t know if i could do what you need to have done you need a vital experience basically and so bill walks out of there not quite as jazz about his knowledge the first time out he's going willpower i know now i've got to be on guard all the time willpower is going to take the deal did it work for bill not so well third time in he's basically got the story this is where lois is sitting down with silkworth what does silkworth tell lois any any ideas you're gonna die within a year lois i failed i couldn't get your husband sober i thought he was going to be one that we might be able to work with and i'm sorry to tell you darling but your husband's going to die of seizures during DTs, or he's going to go permanently insane with a wet brain. His myelin sheath around his brain is so saturated with alcohol and abuse that there's nowhere for it to go, and it can't be reabsorbed, wet brain, he's gonna die like a gibbering, jabbering little baby. Or we're going to have to lock him up permanently insane. Maybe, just maybe, he'll be lucky and he'll just die. Probably within a year. Third time Bill comes out of the hospital, he's not hopeful at all. Bill's going, this is the way it is. No hope. So he's abusing and thinking about his life, doing whatever we do, and near the end of a bleak november and this page at the bottom i sat drinking in my kitchen with a certain satisfaction i reflected there was enough gin concealed around the house to carry me through the night and the next day then it goes on my musings were interrupted by a telephone the cheery voice of an old high school friend old uh school friend asked if i might come over this is ebby in italics it was very expensive in 1939 to put italics into the big book they had to take they had a stop the press take all the 26 letters out clean off the press put in the italic 26 letters and the capitals and the punctuation marks and everything re-ink the press start it back up and then they have to write he was sober stop the press wow bills blown away then they take those italic letters out they put the block letters back in and keep on printing the big book in the first hundred didn't have a whole lot of money and they didn't have a whole lot of time and they get together and say how important is it to emphasize this statement and they agree it's vital it is vital so every time you see italics in this big book pay special attention just saying all right it was years since bill had seen uh remembering Ebby coming to New York in that condition. I was amazed. Rumor had it they had been committed for alcoholic insanity. That was the pigeon shoot. I wondered how he had escaped. Didn't know about Roland. Of course he'd have dinner, and I could drink openly with him. He's not too concerned about Ebby's welfare, is he? Unmindful as welfare, I thought of recapturing the spirit of another day. There was a time when we chartered an airplane to complete the JAG. That was when he flew drunk into Manchester with a drunk pilot. He's coming, it was in an oasis. This very thing in an Oasis, drinkers are like that. The door opened and he stood there, fresh skinned and glowing. This is Ebi. There was something about his eyes. Can you guys relate to that? When your eyes start clearing up? I don't know if you guys all can, but remember the jelly kind of look your eyes have when you're drinking all around the clock and they're sort of yellow because things aren't working the way they're supposed to be working and they start to clear up. Ebby's eyes are clear. Wow. He was inexplicably different. Can I expect the same in my sobriety if I do this work? Yes. do i need to be inexplicably different in certain areas of my life today yeah that's why we keep on doing this work what had happened well he's going to tell him first he's gonna try him out test him a little bit he pushes a drink over to abby what does Debbie do? I pass. You what? All right. Maybe you don't like the pineapple juice in the gin. Okay, all right. Ah, no worries. I got a lot of it tonight. Tell me your story, Debbie. Come on, what's all this about? He looked straight at me and he said, I got knowledge. No. I go to a bunch of meetings and hang out in the rooms and never do the work. I brag about how many years I have in sobriety but I still feel inwardly just as terrified as ever when he says I got religion that has a special meaning in 1934 it means I have a vital connection with a personal God of my understanding that's what that statement means it has nothing to do with a Catholic religion, a Protestant religion, a Jewish faith, a Hindu faith, or anything else. It's a vital spiritual connection with the living God of the universe. That's what ebby means. I was aghast. Bill's not having it very much. So what was it? Last summer, an alcoholic crackpot, this time a little starry-eyed with the religion? Yeah. Yeah, he's on fire all right. Well, my gin's going to last longer. And here is the most beautiful start of how we recover with each other. When you're as a sponsor taking a sponsee through the work, you're a step guy taking a step person through the world, it's not about lecture. It's not abut tantrums or tirades. It's no about your 12 requirements. You better call me at 714 in the morning or else you're out. If you call me at 715, don't bother calling. I fire you. No conditions at all. You know what Debbie did? He just shared his experience. Bill, part of my turnaround is that I give this away. And when I'm down at the Calvary Mission, they said, who do I need to give this way to? And Bill, I heard about what has happened to you and you're on your last ditch after trying to get sober. In fact, you've given up. And I thought just maybe, just maybe you might want to listen to what's happened to me. I'm just going to share my story. What did Bill do with Dr. Bob? He just shared his story. What do we do with each other? Heart to heart. The language of the heart. So here's what Ebi says. In a matter of fact, the way he told how two men that was Shep and Zebra had appeared in court, along with Roland Hazard, persuading the judge, his uncle, to suspend his sentence. They had told of a simple religious idea. Give your life to God in a practical program of action followed up by the six steps of the Oxford Tenets. And I'm just going to look at those with you for just a second. on page 263 of the big book if you have it in the stories he sold himself short is this title of the story the six steps at that time were number one complete deflation sounds a little bit like our step one dependence and guidance from a higher power that sounds remarkably close to our steps two and three moral inventory what step would that be right confession right restitution right continued work with other alcoholics that was the program that was the program simple religious idea and a practical program of action that was two months ago two months ago around alcohol around opportunity to drink on every street corner and ebby is sober bill is absolutely blown away the result was self-evident it worked he had come to pass this experience on to me if i would have it would i have it will i have it tonight what's my answer bill's answer was certainly i was interested i had to be because i was hopeless are there areas of our lives tonight that we're hopeless in that still are not in a recovered condition a spiritual emotional bondage maybe it's the drink or the drug tonight am i hopeless am i out of options for my well-being to find a way out unless god does something miraculous and i don't even believe god can do it that's where we get when we're hopeless am i right how many of you are going yep god could surely do it bill's not read on let's see what he says so ebby talks for hours in the book's pretty cool it says it's not important all the detail they don't tell us all the details there's a bunch of speculation about what ebony talked about but part of it in this next paragraph childhood memories Ebi's talking about places in his life where he had touched spiritual experience a connectedness to God and Bill is relating to that connectedness that Ebi had and he's feeling a little bit okay with it it touches a little bit on that religious component and he is going I don't think so my grandpa no one is going to make him believe a certain way no way he believed that the the planets and the stars they had a harmonic sound to them however that would work out in the universe with no air who knows but anyway that's what he believed and bill defended him to the very end my grandpa was a right my grandpa raised me my grandpa saved my life he could believe and he never signed that proper tempered tempered temprance pledge That's a hard one to say. And he defended his grandpa to have his own unique interpretation of who God is in his life. Ebby, you know, then he's thinking Winchester Cathedral, remember that early on in Will's story? I had always believed in a power greater than myself. He said, in his mind, he sort of played it out in his head and he said, you don't know, this doesn't make any sense to think that somebody's not up there or something. How in the world did the universe come into being if it didn't have something to start it? It can't have started out of nothing, a cipher. This couldn't be the universe originated out of a ciphers aimlessly rushes nowhere. My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the evolutionists suggested there are laws and forces at work. Despite the contrary indications I had little doubt that the mighty purpose and rhythm underlay all. How could there be so much a precise and immutable law and no intelligence? I simply had to believe in the spirit of the universe and knew neither time nor limitation. But notice, that's where he stopped. So what he's basically saying is that during this time in his life, trying to get recovered, trying to pull it together, he has no personal connectedness with god ultimate god ultimate power he might have an awareness right and what was roland's problem carl young tells him hey i'm glad you believe in god that's cool glad to go to church that's great you're gonna die you do not have a vital connectedness with god and unless you get it rolling you're going to die roland got it he got it through the oxford group these six steps ebby believed as a child in the fundamentals if you will of christianity but it long since passed without any power in his life had it kept him sober no because he had no connectedness in my own life early on from high school until 42 i had sought with all my might to connect to god through the christian faith it didn't work not because the faith didn't work, I was not willing to humbly submit myself to the faith. I was not willing, to humbling submit myself, to God. To put myself in a position where I had absolute surrender because I had a lot of horsepower left in my tank and I was not about to give up. Anybody ever feel like that? You bet! That's why I think you know the recovered alcoholics that I run around with we make some of the most in love people with God that you'll ever meet because we understand that God rescued us from the heap. I know that. As sure as I'm sitting here, it's as real as touching and seeing you guys. I know what God did for me. Wow, it takes my breath away. Bill starts into a contempt prior to investigation in the next page with ministers and world religions I parted right there when they talked of God personal to me a love, a superhuman strength and direction oh, I opened it with open arms no bottom of page 10 I became irritated and my mind was vastly opened up I was ready to do whatever nope My mind snapped shut against such a theory. A theory. Is your life a theory or are you real? God's real. Whether I believe him or not, God is real. And he doesn't get too upset if I don't believe in him. He doesn't change that. He doesn'T walk around in celestial fears going, Oh, Pat doesn't believe en me. What am I going to do? That's not the God experience. That's NOT who God is. God is ever drawing every one of us in this room to God's self however you interpret that to be for you to Christ I concede the certainty of a great man not too closely followed by those who claimed him and Bill his moral teaching most excellent for myself I adopted those parts which seemed convenient and not too difficult the rest I discarded because see Bill is still the principal of his life Bill is still the God of his wife of his life Bill is still the director of his life see when I surrender to whatever this power of God is this power greater than myself I'm not making conditions when japan's uh surrendered to the u.s in world war ii there is no conditions on the battleship you're defeated this is the way it's going to be that's it the difference with god is you've defeated yourself pat you have no more hope and i'm here to save you from yourself I'm here to rescue you out of your alcoholism that has killed you and people around you and it's not about religion Pat it's about a connectedness to me and I'm easy I'm easily connected easy to get to know nothing crazy just open your heart, just attend and I will show you my power through you later on the book it says God will demonstrate through us what he can do God will remove fear from our lives God will unblock us in our resentments God will restore our ability to have relationships that are vital growing and fruitful anybody like something like that that's the sex inventory in step four oh my gosh wow I sort of like that one then I'm going to close off with this and I'm gonna turn it over to Nancy actually two things Bill makes a sweeping indictment against all religion he said I honestly doubted on page 11 whether on balance the religions mankind had done any good at all he'd just gotten through World War I mustard gas tore up people millions died We don't talk much about World War I. That was an atrocity above all atrocities. Unbelievable. I'm not sure of my facts on this, but I want to believe that the number of lives lost in World WarI overtook what was in World Wars II and Korean War. Is that right? Somebody saying to me? I don't know if I'm right. My buddy over here says I'm wrong. That's good enough for me right now. That's great. Okay, so the last thing I'm going to read to you is, here's what Ebi says on page 11. Wow. And as I'm reading this, I want you to just say it silent to yourself. AA, this program is not a self-help program. Not all the knowledge in the world of going through the BBA and how we do this work is going to save you. because not all the experiences of everybody around you that's gone through the work and has had a spiritual, vital experience is going to save you. Unless you experience what Ebby experienced, what Bill experienced, what Dr. Bob experienced, what Roland Hazard experienced, what Bill Dotson, A number three, experienced, what countless of us in this room have experienced, you're going to miss out on the incredible joy that your life was meant to have so here's what he says last two paragraphs in page 11 but my friend sat before me, this is Evie talking to Bill and he made the point blank declaration no fancy talk, just straight up, give it to me straight Bill or give it to me straight God had done for him what he could not do for himself his human will had failed doctors had pronounced him incurable society was about to lock him up like myself he admitted complete defeat then he had in effect been raised from the dead you feel dead inside have you had deadness in your heart from what's going on in your condition right now suddenly taken from the scrap heap to the level of life better than best he had ever known. I wonder if God could take each one of us to a place we can't even fathom as far as being free and powerful and service-minded, contributing to others' lives and enjoying it beyond all enjoyment for ourselves. Wonder if that could happen. I think so. I do. Had this power originated in him? Obviously it had not. There had been no more power in him than there was in me at that minute, and that was none at all. That floored me. It began to look as though religious people were right after all. People had had a vital experience with God. Here was something at work, and this is the definition of the religion, folks. Don't make it more or less than what it says right here. here was something at work in the human heart which had done the impossible do i need that in my life today my ideas about miracles were drastically revised right then never mind the musty pass here sat a miracle directly across the kitchen table he shouted great tidings my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized He was on different footing. His roots, grass, new soil. Thank you. Nancy addict alcoholic recovered oh my god bills story okay so inwardly rearranged hmm interesting how does that happen so on page 12 bill admits to having old prejudice and that the word God still aroused a certain antipathy top of the page when the thought was expressed that there might be a God personal to me this feeling was intensified anyone feel ever feel like that I've worked with a lot of women who have felt like that and somewhere along the way and the 12 steps they didn't feel that way anymore imagine that okay so here's a few uh terms for god creative intelligence universal mind spirit of nature and then bill says but i resisted the thought of a czar of the heavens however loving his sway might be i have since talked with scores of men who felt the same way so then ebby says to Bill, which Bill thinks is a novel idea, which is simply a new idea to Bill, why don't you choose your own conception of God? So what statement or conversation might you have with your sponsor that allows you to have something hit you hard. He goes on to say that it melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. And one of the first experiences after the fact that God got me clean and sober which I had no idea how to do was um I was afraid at three years of sobriety I'd been to an NA meeting and I started talking about not trusting God and being real negative about God and it surprised me because after all I'm supposed to you know love God with all my heart and soul and everything will be great right but that's not where I was at so when I went home and my sponsor and I shared a house at that point. I was telling him I was having some trouble with this and so the next day we got together and he asked me if I had a conscious contact with God. And I kind of hemmed and hawed. I didn't, but I couldn't admit that I didn t because I didn d know what it was like to have one. So he handed me an empty shoebox and we had a whole bunch of dry erase markers because, you know, we used them on a whiteboard to illustrate different parts of the book. And he started asking me questions about, well, you know, where do you think you might find this contact with God? And I gave him all kinds of answers about, oh, go to the ashram and meditate for five hours or, you know, do yoga, work with others. you know, I didn't know but I apparently gave a number of answers to this question and every time I did he put a dry erase marker in the shoebox so when I was devoid of answers at this point he handed me the shoe box and he said what does what's in the box have to do with who God is and that for me was the statement that hit me hard because I had exhausted all of my ideas and I really had no idea who God was. And the tears just showed up. This, it melting the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I'd shivered and lived in for many years is what happened to me at that point. And it feels as though it happened ten minutes ago because it happens in meditation for me often and the realization that comes with it is that this power has entered into my heart and I love the line in the previous page where Bill says there's something here at work in the human heart that's done the impossible how sweet is that I hope each and every one here has that experience again and again and again because that's been my experience he says I had lived and shivered many years I stood in the sunlight at last especially in this kind of weather we're having and the sun comes and goes And, boy, when that sun comes out, it's like, oh, my God, everything's lit up. You know, who turned the lights on? So Bill's in the sunlight. And then he says, it was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. It's simple. It's just a matterof being willing. And what made me willing was the ass-kicking I got from cocaine and alcohol. That's how I got here, was not only were the drugs not working anymore, but it was really expensive, right? It took me years to get out of debt from that situation. didn't pay taxes you know IRS was knocking on my door had to sell my house I made a hundred dollars had to give the rest of them which wasn't enough so it took another five years or more to get all that straightened out and then my credit was terrible and you know they're telling me we don't rent to people like you I'm like driving around Santa Rosa crying going God I know I'm not my credit report my mom was about to move in with me I had to find a house oh my gosh so Bill says I saw that growth could start from that point upon a foundation of complete willingness I might build what I saw on my friend would I have it of course I would and that's that confidence that occasionally shows up for us, beaten up, hopeless, desperate people, where we have a moment of the confidence in life, in our own life. The fact that we're alive, you know? We have this hopeless condition that condemns us to drink and use against our will. And we're all sitting here sober, right? hopefully most of us thus was I convinced that God is concerned with us humans when we want him enough and it's not a condition when we want him enough it's a state of being at long last I saw I felt I believed Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes. A new world came into view. The real significance of my experience in the cathedral burst upon me. What happens in those spiritual moments, experiences, bursts upon us? We can't call it up with our mind. It just kind of happens. For a brief moment, he's reflecting back to just before he went to France to war. For a briefly moment I had needed and wanted God. There had been a humble willingness to have him with me, and he came. But soon the sense of his presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly within myself. You know, in a ten years of sobriety, my sponsor took me to this very sentence and suggested that this is perhaps what had happened to me. You know, I'd been taking care of my mom for a while and I wasn't working with anybody and I bought a brand new house and was not paying as much attention to my program as I needed to be. And the worldly clamors were starting to show up and he was going, mm-mm, you might want to look at this. And so it had been ever since, how blind I had been. At the hospital, I was separated from alcohol for the last time. Treatment seemed wise, for I showed signs of delirium tremens. There I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood him to do with me as he would. I placed myself unreservedly under his care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing that without him I was lost I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new found friend capitalized take them away root and branch I have not had a drink since and that was December 11th 1934 for Bill my schoolmate visited me that's Ebby again and I fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies we made a list of people I had hurt or toward whom I felt resentment I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals admitting my wrong and he of course had to find out what that wrong was first never was I to be critical of them I was to write all such matters to the utmost of my ability. I was to test my thinking by the new God consciousness within. Ooh, step 10. The ante goes up. Common sense would thus become uncommon sense. Oh, that's interesting. What does that mean? I was quietly when in doubt asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as he would have me. You know, I heard a quote this morning on a CD I was listening to and he said what good is my spiritual practice if I can't be happy in spite of my difficulties and that really nailed it on the head for me this morning it's exactly what I needed to hear never was I to pray for myself except as my request bore on my usefulness to others then only might i expect to receive but that would be in great measure and i love this next paragraph it's very interesting now see this we're reading out of basically the first edition because this has not changed even though it's the fourth edition this part of the book was not changed so he says my friend promised when these things were done i would enter upon a new relationship with my creator that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered some of my problems my alcohol problem my sex problem no? all of my problems belief in the power of God plus enough willingness honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things where the essential requirements those are the original essential requirements in the spiritual experience appendix in the back of the book which was added at the second edition it says that honesty open-mindedness and willingness are the essential requirements but these are the original ones and what's the first one belief in the power of god it's that reflection it's that spiritual that bit of spiritual experience we can all have knowing that the more we learn about what's wrong with us the more humble we become realizing that we're sober right It's pretty amazing. I didn't do this. Okay. Simple but not easy, a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self-centeredness. Imagine that. I must turn in these all things again to the Father of Light who presides over us all. Okay. I'm going to switch to this book Pass It On page 120 alright these were revolutionary and drastic proposals but the moment i fully accepted them the effect was electric okay so here's bill what happened next was electric suddenly my room blazed with an indescribably white light i was seized with an ecstasy beyond description every joy i had known was pale by comparison The light, the ecstasy I was conscious of nothing else for a time Then, seen in the mind's eye there was a mountain I stood upon its summit where a great wind blew A wind, not of air but of spirit In great clean strength it blew right through me Then came the blazing thought You are a free man I know not at all how long I remained in this state but finally the light and the ecstasy subsided. I again saw the wall of my room. As I became more quiet, a great peace stole over me and this was accompanied by a sensation difficult to describe. I became acutely conscious of a presence which seemed like a veritable sea of living spirit. I lay on the shores of a new world. This, I thought, must be the great reality, the God of the preachers. savoring my new world i remained in this state for a long time i seemed to be possessed by the absolute and the curious conviction deepens that no matter how wrong things seem to be there could be no question of the ultimate rightness of god's universe for the first time i felt that i really belonged i knew that i was loved and could love in return I thanked my God who had given me a glimpse of his absolute self even though a pilgrim upon an uncertain highway I need be concerned no more for I had glimpsed the great beyond Bill Wilson had just had his 39th birthday and he still had half his life ahead of him he always said that after that experience he never again doubted the existence of God he never took another drink um and then again and pass it on now doubt made its inevitable appearance typical alcoholic did that really happen no the experience had been too beautiful bill began to fear whether he had been hallucinating so he called dr silkworth silkworth sat patiently by the bed as bill told him what had happened it was so incredible that i feared to give it give him the full impact of it bill remembered but the essential facts toned down somewhat emotionally i did relate to him bill finally asked a question that was nagging at his own mind doctor is this real am i perfectly sane bill was always grateful for silkworth's answer yes my boy you are sane perfectly sane in my judgment you have been the subject of some great psychic occurrence something that i don't understand i've read of these things in books but i've never seen one myself you had you have had some kind of conversion experience whatever the experience he said you are already a different individual so my boy whatever you've got now you'd better hold on to it it's so much better than what you had a couple of hours ago oh I love that part thanks for your patience and listening to that okay so I'm not going to read the one in the big book you can read that yourself and then he says while I lay in the hospital the thought came that there were thousands of hopeless alcoholics who might be glad to have what has been so freely given me. Perhaps I could help some of them. They, in turn, might work with others. And I always write in my book here, Birth of AA, although it's not in the Big Book Awakening workbook. Okay, do I have time to read through this? My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs. Particularly was it imperative... Now, Bill is just newly sober, right? And he says it's imperative to work with others as Ebby had worked with Bill. Right? Right away. Faith without works was dead. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic. For if, and here's a promise, an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain trials and low spots ahead if he did not work he would surely drink again and if he drank he would die then faith would be dead indeed with us it is just like that so um lois uh bill's wife formed what is today called al-anon and um they had some joy of living together they made a lot of friends because they were so excited that bill had found a solution that they wanted to just like tell everybody and um at the bottom of page 15 it says there is scarcely any form of trouble and misery which has not been overcome among us. In one western city, which is Akron, Ohio, and its environs, there are 1,000 of us in our families. This won't beep at me, will it? Okay. We meet frequently so that we can talk about how bad it was. No? We meet frequency so that newcomers may find the fellowship they seek. That's why we're here, that's why we're learning what it is to be a real addict or alcoholic so that we can share the truth we find within ourselves and recover from the spiritual sickness that we came in with. That inner unrest that the book calls a spiritual malady. Thank you. let's give a round of applause to nancy and pat for that great last two weeks of just some great history on on bill's story so i'm really glad you guys covered all that because i learned something new um so we've got like uh 20 minutes or so one five ten yeah like 20 minutes where we want you guys to come up here 25 yeah yeah 25 minutes well you guys can come up here and we want to the last three questions in the how many people did the homework this week look at you guys so good okay all right so uh the last three questions 19 20 and 21 i think are significant and so when you come up if you want to read your answer read the question and the answer to each one of those so 19 is do you understand you can choose your own conception of God and I think this was really important that we read and what we heard about Bill that he got to choose his own conception of God which made it easy for him to believe in God. That it only has to make sense to you and you can share your experience with that. Also share number 20. Do you understand the price of freedom will be the destruction of self-centeredness? And then number 21. Do you understand the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all your affairs if you want to stay sober? Alright, who wants to be first? Yeah, you have a question? I have a questions and just an observation. Sure. Because we're talking about this cool white light standing on a mountaintop, all this fucking cool ass shit. I haven't ever had any of that. I haven'T either. wow has anybody had cool ass shit white light stuff okay i'm just wondering okay some people have yeah yeah some people some people have i've heard it yeah i would love to have that me too me too in the appendix on the spiritual experience okay in the first few chapters a number of sudden revolutionary changes i described though was not our intention to create such an impression Many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover, they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming God consciousness followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. Among our rapidly growing membership, most of our experience are what the psychologist William James calls the educational bride. So I just wanted to put that out there that we don't have to be floating and levitating and be really cool because I like to do that kind of thing. One of the things about that circle and the triangle, that spiritual side. That spiritual side, or that service side, I'm sorry, the service side is represented by the spiritual, right? And service isn't so much just like about making coffee or setting up chairs. I'm not saying that that's not important, but don't you think service of working with another alcoholic, that there's much more of a spiritual contact than there is just like setting up shares. You know what I mean? So, and Bill Wilson says something, it says, you know where he we always hear the term it's a design for living like we think that this program is a design for a living what he was talking about was working with another alcoholic you know and that that that part where it says um sometimes some this sometimes nearly drove me back to drink but i soon found that when all other measures failed work with another alcoholic would save the day many times i have gone to my old hospital in despair on talking to a man there i would amazingly be lifted up and set free on my feet. And maybe sometimes for some people, I know that when I work with another alcoholic, there's like a spiritual connection and a spiritual contact when I, and maybe even a white light, I don't even know what it could possibly be. But that to me is that spiritual side that I experienced through this program that keeps me sober. Yes? Well, I was just saying, Brooke, like we're both doing the work and we share a room together and like when we talk about this stuff it's i was saying it's just like that the light it's almost like an epiphany right like oh like we just like and when i work with camilla too like it's просто like like like the light turns on there's a god presence when there's two people that come together and do this work but what two people make a fellowship right and with that you know god didn't intend us to go through this work alone you know like we weren't handed a book and say you're on your own you know this was meant to be done together that's the fellowship of this program and that's where i believe that there's there's a spirit there's a spiritual sense to it all does that make sense to you oh okay you guys were you were just bringing up a point okay good all right so who wants who's going to be first okay come on up my name is bill i'm an alcoholic see if i can get through this without crying okay so uh it's 19 20 and 21 not 18 what's that no 19 20 yeah okay 19 uh do you understand you can choose your own concept conception of god that only has to make sense to you yes clearly like never before and uh all right so i just want to say real quickly that i had an experience on Sunday going through the book, and I didn't have any white flashing lights, but I had something happen to me that I haven't been in the same since, and I can't talk about it. So it's been pretty good, and it's good that I'm able to get this. Anyways, let me just say that I am really grateful to be here. 20, do you understand the price of free... Do you understand the price of freedom will be the destruction of self-centeredness? Yes, absolutely. And do you understand the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all your affairs if you want to stay sober? And I do. I know this really good because, well, for me I have always seemed to believe this and I have I think that working with others you know there's that story about Bob wanting to drink because of something happened bad business deal and he was stepping up to the bar then he said oh no I mean you called some lady you have an alcoholic at that hospital I gotta talk to him you know so it's like now I haven't had that experience because it's usually when the obsession hits with me is like a you know they say call your sponsor why would I call him I'm gonna call the connection yes you know that's how it's been for me in the past so I think that maybe I might be able to do what Bill did the way I feel today and you know I know that I was standing on the yard at Donovan and I was with a friend of mine and we'll call him Bob okay and he was on the he was in the reception center and I was on the one yard and this was back in 2001 and he had come in and he was doing a little violation I don't exactly but I was I was down for a long time and I stood on the yard with him I've met this guy in 94 at a meeting and we ran around I think I had like 20 days he had three we just ran around and went to a lot of meetings and and I noticed that job that I had at least attempted to fill my car with newcomers and take them to meetings. And he had never done that. And I told him, I says, you know what? We're hopeless guys. And the only way we're going to stay sober is that we're gonna have to go out there and we're just gonna start working with people and start doing things for other people. And I firmly believe that. And because we didn't do that, we both ended up going back to prison after that day. You know, we went out and got sober and then went back. You know? So I think it's definitely imperative to practice these principles in all of our affairs because the book tells us right there, I think, that we are going to drink again if we don't, yeah. So thank you. Awesome. We don't thank you for that. Yeah, come on up. He's coming up. Oh, he's coming. um my name is heather i'm alcoholic hi heather um so 19 do you understand you can choose your own conception of god that it only has to make sense to you i said yes finally um took way too long but it took what it took um i think i was trying too hard and like comparing it to other people's conception of god and um you know trying to figure out why i couldn't get it the way they did or why i didn't understand it all that kind of stuff but now i just keep it simple and i know there's a god and it's not me um to me like god is love and god is connection with other human beings um because that's when i feel that's what i experience god is when i'm connecting with another human being uh do you understand the price of freedom will be the destruction of self-centeredness. Yes, but I have to be reminded of this on a continual basis, you know? And do you understand the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all your affairs if you want to stay sober? For sure. And this has become abundantly clear to me over the last year as i've um like finally turned my food over to god because um that that was like my last thing like i don't drink i don'T do drugs i DON'T buy hookers or whatever you do with hookers i DON'T gamble i DONT whatever uh so if i want to eat a cupcake or 12 i'm gonna do it you know and it took me a long time but i finally realized you know like i never wanted to sponsor anybody or anything like that first of all because i didn't have a way to do it which is why i'm here um and the other reason is because i truly felt like um like i was full of shit you know because i wasn't practicing these principles in all my affairs because i was holding on to the food or because i Was holding onto that um and i just felt like incongruent um hypocritical and so i i guess to get back to the to the question if i want to stay sober i mean i have to be for me I have to be congruent, you know, in all my affairs. And that's pretty much it. Hi everybody, my name is Tree and I am an alcoholic and an addict and a recovered one. So, you know, as I was looking at this... Thank you very much. As I was looking at this question and listening to what you were sharing I was thinking about, you now, over the course of my 21 years of recovery and my conception of God makes absolute sense to me today. I used to try to figure out, was God inside or was God out there? You know, was he something I prayed to or was it something inside of me? And I get that it's really both you know because it's it's really you know my god is that big and um you know i had experiences way back in the past when uh i was um looking at you know going to prison and there was no way out of it i'd signed a plea bargain it was a done deal and i remember standing before the judge and having my sentence suspended and it was like it was moments like that what faith began to grow in me And I thought, there's something here that's working That's bigger than me Because I thought I knew And I don't know And, you know, I did the foxhole prayers And, uh, my, uh You know, it hit the bottom And then it had a trap door underneath You know And I got You know I managed to survive all of that But where was that God now in my sobriety? That was like a big question for me Because I was no longer coming from that Desperate place And so I felt myself, you know, taking control, taking charge. I know. And it wasn't until I sat in this room about, I don't know, five years ago, six years ago? And I was listening to things that at 16 years of recovery, I didn't have. I was like feeling this. I was sitting in the meeting crying and saying, I'm not feeling this, I am so disconnected. and so i've had to really work again at you know rebuilding that connection and um getting rid of the box of uh you know markers right because god's not in the markers and so today i know that i have that deep connection and i know that i must be willing to get rid of self-centeredness because you know i used to say um i don't think much of myself but i'm all i think about and the truth is that is it right but what do I really think of myself um and so if I'm always thinking about me how can I be there for you and so I've really come to this place of knowing that when I'm so concerned about me um that I'm not there's no room God can't get in there's just no space for it and so um to be a woman among women women is uh probably a uh you know that's my challenge to just you know like you know let that piece of cake go by like I don't have to take it like I do not have to always take care of me first like I could trust oh you know I have done that where I said no to something and then someone walks up and hands it to me like where is my trust that God will take care me you know so if I can trust in the little things the bigger things actually come my way you know the one thing that I did not do and I really appreciate the woman who shared about this early on was, the thing I really haven't been doing is working with others because, I don't know, a million different reasons, right? But I know that that's why I'm here is to learn to work with others and just get over myself. Thank you. Awesome. My name is Alfonso, and I'm an alcoholic. so so do you wait wait where am i at 19 do you understand you can choose your own conception of god um i definitely do um i actually feel fortunate that i was raised in a family that where religion was actually a big part of me growing up the only thing that i had to change was the way i thought about god because i i felt like um i was raise thinking that god hated me that God, and especially because of all the things that I had done during my drinking career, you know, I felt like there was no way that God would ever forgive me or he would ever hear my prayers. So for me it was, I had to change the way I thought about God. And you know when I first started getting sober, I was able to start seeing and be open to the fact that there might be a God. Then I started seeing things that were happening to me that I started right away relating to the fact that there was a God that loved me and that he wanted the best for me. So that's what I had to do. The standard price of freedom will be a destruction of self-centeredness. I definitely do. I know that my ego and my selfish beliefs have to be smashed. I had us start thinking of others instead of myself like I was used to my whole life, so working with others, volunteering. I volunteer on a weekly basis, and I know I have to do that all the time. If not, I know that my ego starts kind of rebuilding and then I start kind of thinking about myself again and it makes me want to drink again. So last question is, do you understand the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all your affairs? I put yes as this is a reminder to me that I'm no longer the director of my life. On my own will, I Know That I Will Drink Again. So thanks for letting me share. Thank you. don't you have to be somewhat self-centered in order to like be sober for yourself because i'm getting sober for anybody else it's not going to work like so yeah i guess self-preservation right yeah like don't have to have like an ego like say like when you're around other people who are doing drugs or drinking heavily and you're like yeah like don't you have to have like that ego like yeah i'm the guy who like i don't do that shit or like i know don't you have that's my confidence in your own um desire to be so right but i don' t think that comes from self centeredness as much as it comes from um being recovered you know not having an obsession to want to want things it's not it's not that you have your prideful because you say no but it's more because you're yeah because yeah because you are you're recovered and you don't have the desire to do it anymore without without the desire you're recovered right we've got that obsession right that temptations no longer there Does that make sense? Yeah. Okay. All right. Good question. Also, for me, I get so beat up that there's no way I've ever wanted to go back to feeling and experiencing that. My name is Tammy. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Tammy. So this, I love this question. And do you understand you can choose your own conception of God, that it only has to make sense to you? So this has been a real challenge for me over the years because I come from a family of atheists. And my father is very... Actually, he's a very well-known atheist. His last name is Ingersoll. So the Ingersols, a long line of Ingersolds, did not believe in God. and my father always said how stupid and how he was so judgmental about people that did believe in god so for all of my youth in most of my 20s and right into my drinking which he was an alcoholic as well but um i would always hear this voice in my head of what my dad used to say about people and i would feel stupid like i was afraid to tell him where i was going with this because now i'm an alcoholic and now i have a problem and now I need to solve this for myself so when I would I would like be embarrassed to talk to him about it because it was like oh my god she's going to be one of those you know people so I just want to share that that the conception that I have of God works for me I bring it into my life and you know it's it's little pieces for me it's not all at once because I all at ones is hard to swallow and believe me I have a family of Ingersolls all over the place that you know still believe that there is no such things so it's it's interesting from that perspective thanks for letting me share Jason I'm an alcoholic and so do you understand you can choose your own conception of God that it only has to make sense to you so when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous. The first time for real in 1991, I had come from a place of like no religion in my life. My parents didn't go to church. My family didn't going to church but nobody was anti-God you know nobody there wasn't we weren't atheists it was just didn't we didn't do it didn't practice it you know the only prayer I remember from childhood was that now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep if I should die before I wake I pray to the Lord and my soul the take and now it's horrible when i think about it now it's horrible it's like i went to bed every night thinking i was gonna die in my sleep and some guy was gonna come take me away you know so you know i mean it's ridiculous prayer but um but i you know I get it today but um so that's what I came to Alcoholics Anonymous with and and and um and I had tried you know. I lived grew up in PB so I used to hang out with higher Christians when I was a kid and I studied buddhism a little bit and I had Jehovah's Witnesses come over to my house for about six month period of time and I I studied with them for a little while until I didn't agree with what they said anymore, and blah, blah, blah. I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, and I read one line, and I'm sure we'll get to it, and it said, do you now believe or are you even willing to believe in a power greater than yourself? That's right. Changed my life. Absolutely changed my life when I opened that door just a little bit, and that willingness crept in, and I said, well, who am I? I mean, I have to at least be willing to believe. I don't have to believe, but I have to at last be willing to believe because I have no idea. I have not idea. And from there, you know, I read the 12 and 12, and it talks about in the 12 and 12, believing in, you know, the people in Alcoholics Anonymous, the group as a whole, AlcoholicsAnonymous as a hole. And I did that for probably a couple years. I prayed to you guys, you know? I would go home, and when I would pray, I would visualize Alcoholics Anonymous as a whole. And that's what I prayed to. And from there, it changed to the ocean. And for a while, the ocean was my higher power. And i'd go out, and I'd get in the ocean. I'd stand in front of a wave when I felt like I could walk on water. And I'd let it knock me down. And that was the physical, you know, representation of something that was more powerful than me. And from there it went to Native American, you know, spirituality and it's just progressed. And there have been times in my sobriety where I've felt really close to God and really connected and now is not one of those times, unfortunately. And it comes and it goes. And it usually depends on how active I am, not only working with other alcoholics, but in my entire life working with you know forming relationships with my family with my parents with the people at work with people i come in contact with on a daily basis how willing am i to let you get over in front of me and let you you know pass me on the freeway that's the kind of stuff that gets me closer to god is when i'm really willing to put myself out there and be vulnerable so anyway My name is Alex. I'm not a colleague. This has been a pretty amazing experience. So number 19 says that you understand you can choose your own conception of God. And what I've experienced is more than a choice. I mean, I grew up Catholic and then I became a Christian when I was 17. But more than a choice, it's been the experience that I've experienced in AA. You know, the God of my understanding has been through developing this new relationship and seeing him do in me and in others things that I didn't read in the Bible, you know, in a short way. and then I it was really cool how this came but says do you understand the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all your affairs and so under necessity I just put you know because for me the necessity is I need to be of service or else I am very self-centered so I need to work with others and that's part of that necessity do you understand the absolute necessity, what do I understand what's the necessity for me to be able to practice these principles to me it means I need a service I need work with other and stay in the program I'm Leslie I'm an alcoholic the podium I'm up here right okay so the first I know I'm such an alcoholic because in the beginning first getting sober um I just could identify with Bill in a sense that I did not want really I didn't want to be told what to do I didn' t want any rules and that's why I was so resistant with religion I just it didn't speak to me so when someone suggested that I find a power that I can identify with. My own conception of a higher power is that I had the melty armor, or the armor melted off and I just like okay this is a place I can start. And at this stage too I was still, I just had to have the openness so it was baby steps for me. It's like okay just keep an idea maybe there might be something And that was like, ah, okay. And it slowly got into something really big where I did all the work and it was after doing two weeks of just cleaning house, getting rid of all that junk, you know, from the time I was born, from The Time I Could Start Thinking about all these things I had done wrong got them all on paper I did have that um rocketed in the fourth dimension like it just it was this whoosh this feeling of something's got my back I'm right where I need to be and um and it changes now so I've had that spiritual wake I knew it took a lot of work I'm working with others I still have that when I'mworking with another sponsee I feel that connected it's actually the only time I feel peace I mean I'm always thinking about myself and that's where I think when I have to practice these principles in all my affairs I can get really self-centered and create and if I'm not honest with that then if I hold these grudges or if I've had two relapses since I got sober in 2008 and two relapses for just not checking in and staying close to the program. So I knew the last one was like, okay, I need to get this, it's not working at all anymore. So yeah, that higher power, and staying closed, I think it's just, that's what got me back and wanting that connection because it's something that just makes life worth living, and it makes me nicer and peaceful, and it's like I don't have to run the show. Okay, that's it. Thanks. All right. Everybody give yourselves a hand. That was great. You guys were so good. All right, we're going to pass the baskets at this time. And there was something I was going to say, and I completely... Oh, I know what I was gonna say. so next week is Valentine's Day everybody's aware of that we're all still going to be here right I know I've got a couple people who won't you won't be here bring your valentines here this is the best alright so we are still having a workshop here next week. All right. Can I get three people to help clean up tonight? Can I see the hands of three people? One, I need two more, two, three, four. Okay, great. So if you guys can help clean up, all we need to do is just make sure the chairs are nice and in order. There's no trash on the ground. All the trash is picked up and put away. And then we need help cleaning up the kitchen. Can I have some one another hand for the kitchen cleanup? All right, thanks, Pat. All All right, and Kent, is there any volunteers who want to bring dinner for next week? It's Valentine's Day. And you get paid back, by the way. Does anybody want to do it? I'll do it. Are you sure? I'll go. I'll give it a try. Do you want me to? I don't mind doing it. Did you guys like the dinner tonight? Yeah. Okay. All right. Good. Okay. All right, so next week we're out of Bill's story and we're in There's a Solution. Yay! Bill's Story was great though, right? Wasn't it great? I like that we divided it into two because there's so much history. All right. So we're on assignment five. Hold on a second. Okay, yeah, we're all done. We're on Assignment Five. We're doing the first half of There's a Solution. Shh, listen up everybody. Pages 17 through 22. By the way, how many of you are not getting the email that I send out in the morning? Okay, if you're not getting that email, you need to get that email. So what you need do to get the email is go to bbaworks.com, click on workshops, and then sign up for this workshop. When you sign up for this workshop, it's going to ask for your name and your email address. It's automatically going to put you on the list. Do it today or tonight before midnight tonight because I send that email out in the morning. It automatically gets generated, and it basically recaps what we talked about the night before. So it's good to kind of keep it all together. It's also good information for you so when you're taking people through the work, you just have additional information. It's great stuff to have, okay? So you guys are all clear on how to do that. All right. Yes? So I might be here next today, so that it will be posted by... Tonight. So tonight's recording will be online tonight, and then the email will go out tomorrow morning. So same thing for next week. It always gets posted like... It gets posted, like, tomorrow with the latest, but it'll be up online on the website. So every workshop is. By the way, if you have signed up online to get the email and you're not getting it, check your junk mail. I guarantee you it's in there. Either that or just you might have put in the wrong email address. All right. Any questions before we close? All right, let's go ahead and close with a serenity prayer. Yeah, serenety prayer. Okay. You bet. Hello.