Consciousness of the Presence of Higher Power – Bb Workshop – Part 3 of 10 – Local AA Speakers

Our guests for the day, here they are, Charlie and Katie. Good morning everybody. Let's start off again with the set aside prayer. Dear God, please set aside everything we think we know about ourselves, the big book, alcoholism, the steps, and especially you God. We ask that we may have a truly open mind so we might have a new experience with these things. Please help us see the truth. Amen. Why do we do the set-aside prayer? Because it opens me up for a new experience. I love to read the set aside prayer. I've been trying to read two pages a day out of the big book every day. The key word there is trying. As part of my disciplines, the idea is to read two pages a day. Well, we're at the end of February and I think I'm on about page 66, so I'm averaging one page a day, but it is amazing to me how if I do the set-aside prayer, new stuff comes off the page. Now, it's not asking me to throw away my old beliefs. It's just saying set them aside for the time being and see if there's something different on the page. And Karen and I were talking about it earlier. It's amazing that huge stuff will come off the page, not little stuff. I mean big pieces where I go, good grief, what did I used to do? And sometimes it's little stuff, and then we were saying how some stuff I'm convinced is only in the fourth edition. They couldn't, you know, because like just a current example was the other day I was reading in We Agnostics and it was talking about our experience with people that are from religion. And, you Know, it's funny because when you hear people talk about religion, they always say, they always reference that part in Step 11 where it says be quick to see where religious people are right. But there's a body of work here on 49 and 51 that really speaks a lot more to my experience with religion, where it says instead we looked at the human defects of these people and sometimes used their shortcomings as a basis of wholesale condemnation. That was exactly my experience, was I'd pick out one or two guys in the church that weren't doing it right and right off the whole fellowship. But as far as the set-aside prayer goes, for 20 years my book said, here are many hundreds of people who flatly declare that the presence of God is the most important thing in their lives. I'm sure that's what it said. I did the set aside prayer the other day and it says, when many hundreds OF people are able to say that the consciousness Consciousness of the presence of God is the most important fact of their lives. They present a powerful reason why one should have faith. I'm pretty sure that consciousness part is only in the fourth edition, you know? But I'm starting to see where the book talks a lot more about consciousness and the difference between a belief in God and a consciousness of God. And I'm hoping that's what we're going to get to talk about today. I failed to mention a few things last night. Our home group is the Primary Purpose Group in Austin, Texas, and I have a sponsor, and my sponsor has a sponsor. My sponsor is Mark H., who has been in Austin for a while. And if you're ever in Austin we'd love for you to come check out the Primary Purpose group sometime. You know, I said last night Texas is famous for our humility. My dad used to say you should never ask somebody where they're from because if they're from Texas, they'll tell you. And if they are not, you shouldn't embarrass them. And the other thing I was thinking, I thought of a story last night because hopefully what we're going to be talking about is our experience. I try real hard not to talk about an experience I've never had or give you my opinion on an experience I've ever had because in our book it says for the message to interest and hold an alcoholic, it has to have depth and weight. And for it to have that depth and height, it has be coming from my experience because a drunk can smell BS from 1,000 yards away every time. If I start coming from the ears up, there's something about it that just shuts everything down. And it reminds me of this guy that's driving along one day, and he sees a sign at this farm, and it says, Talking Dog for Sale. And he goes up to the door, and he knocks on the door. And he says, You still got the talking dog? The guy says, Yeah, he's around back. So he goes around back, and this hound dog is laying there. And he said, So you can talk? The dog said, Well, I certainly can. And he说, How did that happen? And he goes, well, I started picking up some words when I was a pup. And then I started developing the nuances of the language as I got older. And I've got to tell you, it's really led me into a fabulous life. I was involved with the Drug Enforcement Administration for many years. I was able to infiltrate situations that they couldn't get a regular agent. And he said I've been involved in some of the largest drug busts in the world internationally. And it's developed into – I've traveled all over the world. I've eaten at some of their finest restaurants. And he goes, but more importantly, some of my pups have gone into international diplomacy and have really, you know. But all in all, it's really just been a fabulous life. And the guy says, I've got to tell you, it has really been good talking to you. And he comes back to the farmer and he goes how much do you want for a dog like that? And the guys says, oh, I don't know, 20 bucks? And he says why would you sell a fabulous dog like this for $20? And the guy goes, oh, none of that stuff he told you is true. So in here, if it's a good story but it's not my experience, it doesn't really have a lot of weight. Well, I've got to get up again. I can't talk sitting down. Do you mind? You can do whatever you want. It was funny because we got back to the room last night And I looked at the schedule, and I said, well, we didn't do at all what we were supposed to do. We were supposed to do sobriety without spirituality. And I was like, did Chris tell him I was an expert on that? Sobriety without spirituality? But I think it segues real well what we talked about last night into spirituality and sobriete. And one of the things we were talking about this morning is when we talked about that step one experience and about being pulled into the work by that absolute hopeless condition of mind and body, there's a surrender. When I have that awareness of the hopelessness of my condition, there's a surrender that takes place that there is a willingness tied to that surrender that will pull me through the rest of the work. That's really what we're looking for in a step one experience with a guy is that willingness to do the work he's compelled to do, the work is driven into the work, he or she is driven in the work by the hopelessess that drives us here. I've said many times when I speak at treatment centers that, I said for years, I didn't come to AA to quit drinking. And 24 years is a lot longer than I ever intended to stop drinking. I really thought 30, 60 days would be enough. You know, my family would give me a key to the back door again. But I'd been saying that for a long time before I realized what did bring me to AA. And it's on page 152 in our book where it says, We know our friend is like a boy whistling in the dark to keep up his spirits. He fools himself inwardly or secretly. He'd give anything to take a half a dozen drinks and get away with them. Here's where it gets interesting. He will presently try the game again for he isn't happy about his sobriety. He cannot picture life without alcohol. someday he will be unable to imagine life either with alcohol or without it then he'll know loneliness such as few do he willbe at the jumping off place he will wish for the end that's what brought me to alcoholics anonymous was that that jumping off places that being in that place of i can't go on living the way i'm living i can spend one more day of this kind of living, but I can't imagine not being able to get loaded at all. If you're talking about nothing, it's inconceivable to me. So that's the dilemma that I think that drove me into that step one experience. It wasn't an academic decision anymore. It was I got no shot on my own. Well, we talked a little bit last night in that third step about the timing of where they put selfishness and self-centeredness. I said for a long time that I didn't really understand what step three was. But I mean, what we're talking about is that thing that Katie read last night where it says being convinced we were at step three. The first requirement is that I be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. I saw that line with a whole new depth way into the book, and I remember thinking, not only was I not convinced that my life run on self could hardly be successful, that line had never touched me. In my early experiences in the work, I got nothing. I missed the entire self piece. So I was living a program, a meeting-based sobriety program based on abstinence from alcohol. And then when you get over in here, what Katie did such a great job of describing last night of the self-will and the root of my problems, I thought what an interesting piece of that is is where it says above everything we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness and my sponsor looked me dead in the eye and said, what does above everything mean to you? you know when it says above everything we have to be rid of the selfishness it's placing it above vodka it's saying you know that i have to get rid of the selfish or it kills me but the interesting piece of that thing as i go through the work with more and more guys i keep looking at one of the things that's interesting to me to look at is the flow of the program and the way and and i've said many times that if katie and i or chris and i were to sit down and write the recovery program it looked like a world book encyclopedia you know i mean to try to describe this recovery program in less than 120 pages is phenomenal to me so you know what did they find important to put forth when they were doing it and why did they put selfishness and self-centeredness in the third step if it's obviously a character defect why didn't they put it in as one more of the inventories in step four and uh i think it's that piece that katie has said that's so easy to overlook that's not where it says above everything we have to be really selfish we must or it kills us god makes that possible so i can't just go by golly katie was right with everything she said i said i am going to go home and be less selfish it's my default reaction to everything comes out itself and i'm blind to it in myself god knows i can see it when i become aware of it i start to see it the first place you'll see selfishness when you start working on it is in others it's yeah i can really spot it in you know in in in you guys of course you know katie's beyond it but um but but you know and my sponsees or in people you know you just go oh my god he's so selfish and self-centered. Well, Katie's very generous with her input. And there were times where one time I had come straight from a fire. I dropped my daughter off at her mom's house. I get this hysterical call. I'm not a mile and a half away. And I spin the truck back around. I pull up. When I pullup, the entire kitchen is engulfed in flames. From outside of the street you can see that the entire kitche is orange. And i run in there and it's gone beyond control. And I had just been at Sam's Club. I go all the time. I love Sam's Clubs, but I go and I just happened to grab a fire extinguisher one day and stick it in the back of my truck. And I'm looking and I went, I got a fire distinguisher! And I race out to the car and I'm running and ripping over trying to get checked out on how to operate a fire distinguish at full run and I run in there and boosh! And the whole thing, and it just goes, and the fire goes out. And, you know, it literally saved this house from burning down. But the part of the story was I meet them for dinner afterwards. And her son is there. And if you want to see self-centeredness, you can look at a 16-year-old boy. And I'm telling this story. I still smell like smoke. I got black on me. You know, we're sitting in an American restaurant. And I'M TELLING THIS STORY. And when I finished the story, Sam goes, this is getting really big. And I said, what? And he goes, there's a bump on my chin. And I go, oh, my God. That's your reaction to that whole story? I mean, well, Katie, I told that story at the detox center the next day. And Katie goes, it's funny you found that story so interesting to tell. why don't you tell them the story about the red pickup truck? I said, I don't care for the story about the red pickup track because there was a time when her husband was going in for brain surgery the next day. And the way self-centeredness shows up in my life was I bought a new pickup truck that day and I went by the hospital and I insisted that Katie come from the room, this is when we were best friends, down to look at my new pickup truck. But that's the level of self-centeredness that I carry around in sobriety, you know, is that me, me, and that thing that she touched on last night, the story stealing, is unbelievable. You see that? That's a phrase that you'll start seeing now because story stealing is where she had to point out to me that I do this, is we'll be at a party and somebody will come up and go, Hey, man, how you doing? I'm getting ready to go to Costa Rica next week. Oh, Costa Rica. Yeah, Costa Rico is great. I've been down there twice. I went down there with about ten guys. You know, we were gambling and playing golf every day. We went whitewater rafting. And we really had a great time. We stayed at this place. And we ate here. And we went there. And we did this and all that. And then I finish and I go, see ya. And I turn around and walk away. And Katie's left standing there with this guy who never got to tell his Costa Rica story. And I do that all the time. And so she calls it story stealing, and it doesn't bug me so much when I do it, but boy, my sister drives me crazy with it now that I'm aware of it. But back to self-centeredness, when we're talking about an extreme – I remember the first time I read that line, it said the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run right. I remember thinking, well, I'm not an extreme example of self-willing. And then, of course, the rest of the sentence says, though he usually doesn't think so. But the reason they put it in there in the third step is that line, God makes that possible, and that there often is no way of getting rid of self without God's help. So if it's the root of my problem, and the only way I can get rid of it is with God's help, that's why they put it in the third step prayer. It's because I have zero, I can't wish it away any more than I could vodka. I can go, I've got to be less selfish. But it spends, I guess, when it talks about that self-peace, we're going to talk about step four and five later, But when we talk about sobriety without spirituality, I think one of the things that's interesting to me, and Ron and I were talking about this earlier, is am I convinced that this stuff, like these daily disciplines, have anything to do with whether or not I stay sober or not? If I surrender to this program, I was talking out at the ranch, and the ranch is not as glorious as it sounds. It's the men's 30-day treatment center that I go out to on Mondays and work with the guys. But I was telling you one day, and we were talking about the work, and this guy goes, wait a minute. I thought, he goes, you're telling me I have to work these steps to stay sober? And he goes, I thought we just stopped drinking. And then we worked the steps if we want to be a better person. And I said, well, I can understand how you'd get that idea, but we've got to work the steps in order for the mental obsession. If I have this hopeless condition of mind and body, am I convinced that on my own resources, living a life based completely on self, am I going to create enough discomfort over a period of time that it's going to rekindle the mental obsession to the point that I'm powerless over it, and eventually I'll drink again. One of the things that I like to talk to, especially at conferences, not so much in treatment centers, is I feel like there's plenty of the message of a hope of recovery for the new guy in AA. You hear that in almost every meeting. You hear it almost every time somebody talks. It's that we're here for the New Guy, and if you do this deal, it'll work for you. But the guys that I like to talk to are the people that have been around for a while, that have Been in the room for three years, five years, 10 years, 15 years, and they're not feeling what you're hearing people describing. Katie talks about when everybody's sitting around laughing in the meetings, if you look around, there's two or three people that are laughing. You know, they're like, this stuff is not funny. I'm not feeling a part of this at all. that was me for a long time and um my first seven or eight year about my first seven or years i was heavily involved in the program to the extent that i could understand it at that time and i was looking back on it there was a lot of meeting based sobriety but i was drawn to the big book i was drawing went to several joe and charlie uh big book studies and we went through the work with our best understanding of the work and and my firm belief is that god takes up a lot of slack when two people are giving it their best shot when you got you know somebody working with another person if they're both giving it they're best shot god takes off a lot of slack in there i've stayed you know bob bazon says any step worth doing is worth doing wrong if you know if i if i'm not doing it perfectly i really think that there's that God will take up a lot of slack in that. So, you know, people like Chris, a different Chris, Chris R is a good friend of ours, and he says that people aren't dying out there from doing the fourth step wrong. They're dying from not doing the fourth step at all. And so if we can get them involved in the work, but what's the difference between staying sober and staying sober with spirituality? And why should I be interested in it? You know, I mean, And is this really part of whether I stay sober or not? And I met my sponsor. Mark Houston's my sponsor, and I met him at a retreat kind of like this, and I'll never forget it. Katie and I are drifting around in untreated alcoholism in our mid-teens in sobriety without even knowing it. You know, what happens for a guy – the way untreated alcoholism starts to show up for me is after a period of time, I go – I start drifting away from the program. But the way it will come out of my mouth is I'll say, well, I'm not really sponsoring anybody or anything. I still go to meetings. I mean, I GoToMeetings and I'm Not Really Working With – I don't – I think I still have – I'm pretty sure the book made the move when I moved from Greenslope over to Valburn Drive. I'm not exactly sure where it is, and I'm not really working with a sponsor, but I'm not thinking about drinking. That implies a level of control over this disease that I don't have. I can't tell you whether I'm fixing to drink or not. There's some of that Texas term again. And what I keep seeing happening is I'm drifting along in that position, and I don't know how close to the edge I am. And you see guys many times, many times in sobriety. I can't tell you, as you go around the country, how many stories you hear that start off with, well, I had 12 years, and I went to the dentist, or I had12 years,and I couldn't sleep, I had 12 years and I had back pain. I had, you know, 18 years and I got a root canal. I had 22 years and I blew my knee out in a motorcycle wreck. And that guy that's walking around on untreated alcoholism, they hand him a bottle of Vicodin. He knows he can't drink, but he'd take those pain pills. It triggers that physical allergy, the phenomenon of craving that we talked about last night. And a few weeks later, he's going, what the hell just happened? You know, I mean, I had 15 years of sobriety two weeks ago. One of the things that's interesting to ask people when they come back from a relapse is to say, let me ask you something. The day you relapsed, when you got up that morning, did you think you were going to get loaded that day? And almost never do they go, oh yeah, I had my mind made up. the common answer is if you'd have told me I was going to get loaded that day I would have told you you're out of your mind so if I've really got this hopeless condition of mind and body I might be walking around in complete delusion about how much control I've got about whether or not I'm going to stay sober so that's when I've become back to actually pull this one back back to this conference that we go to I get a call from a guy and he goes Hey, man, I hear there's a big book study in Dallas this weekend or this month. And so I called some friends in Dallas and they faxed this thing down and they said it's a Big Book experience with Mark H. and Dave F. A lot of you guys know Dave. Apparently he used to live up here. I go to Katie and I go, I don't think this is what Dick was looking for, but it looks like something we might be interested in. Because I knew that Mark was Chris R.'s sponsor, and so I figured he's going to be doing this big book thumping style AA that I've been drawn to the last six or eight years. And we go up there, and you see that RCA commercial where the guy's sitting there and his hair is getting blown straight back by the – that's the way it was for the whole weekend. I mean, I felt like I was going to have to take Monday off. I was just a jellyhead on Monday. And he kept talking about the strict disciplines. And they were living within the disciplines of 10, 11, and 12. And when I practice my disciplines and when I'm living within the strict discipline of 10-11-12 and the strict disciplines of10-11 and 12 and the strict disciplines of ten eleven twelve and I was going, my God, I wish he would shut up, you know, because I'll never forget this poor truck driver. Thank God it wasn't me. He got this little truck driver up to the to the front table in front of everybody. And he says, so Bruce, do you pray and meditate on a regular basis? And the guy goes, well, I'm a truck driver. And he said, a lot of times when I'm in the truck, I'll meditate. And Mark goes... Makes me emotional. Now, Mark says two things. He says, first of all, when you're driving the truck, we want you to be about driving the truck. You know, we're talking about a tractor trailer rig. You know what I'm talking about? He's like, be about diving the truck when you are in the truck. And he goes, now second of all in the future when I ask you a yes or no question, I am going to expect a yes-or-no response. so I'm going to ask you again do you pray and meditate and I need for you to say no and I was like wow am I glad that wasn't me he called up there because I had zero disciplines going on in my life I was living in total meeting based sobriety and some work in the books but I wasn't really sponsoring people and so what pulled me out of that we talked a little bit about the plane crash that i was in and i don't have time to go into that but i was involved in a plane crash in 2003 where we crashed into the water at night and it was it was we were on cnn it was very dramatic and everybody survived but not by much and but it actually turned out to be part of a spiritual awakening for me the beginning the leading edge of a spiritual awakening for me. But the thing that I remember, tying selfishness into all of this, was what drove me back into the work was I called John Henry, who's an old-timer there in Austin, and I said, John Henry. My God, man. I am so self-centered that I can't even be involved in a conversation with somebody. I have to force myself to say, how are the kids? and act like I give a flip about the answer. But, you know, I mean, these social niceties are forced behavior for me. You know, how's the wife? Like, I care. Because I'm consumed with me. And I'm talking about mid-teens in sobriety. And John Henry says, come over to the office tomorrow and we'll go down to the ranch and talk to the winos. and i remember thinking that does not sound like a good idea you know service work never sounds like a big plan you know and because you know what's going to happen when we go to the ranch these guys are all new they're going to want to talk about themselves you know i want to talk about me and but it was the beginning of of changing my life you know And I said this morning, he wasn't asking me to go out to the ranch because I had a brilliant message to deliver. He was asking me To Go Out There because I was alcoholic and because I needed to work with these guys. And it was amazing. It was the beginning of setting my life on fire. I have been on fire with the program of Alcoholics Anonymous for the past six or seven years. And I didn't see that coming. I didn't know that there was this other level of AA involved outside of meeting-based sobriety. And when I started sponsoring these guys, there were times where I felt like I was literally a step ahead of them. You know, they would – I would say, go home and read the doctor's opinion in Bill's story. And I'd go home und read the doctors' opinion in bill's story, you know, or they would ask – It took me a while to figure out that saying, I don't know, was an acceptable answer to a question from a sponsor. But by God, I'll know tomorrow. And nobody else is going to ask me that question. My ego can really drive me into the work. If you ask me a question and I say, you know what? I'm going to have to get with my sponsor and get back with you on that. That's my ego going to work for good stuff. And it's been a beautiful process, but I've lived sobriety in the work. I've done meaning-based sobriery. What happened for me, I guess another part of the story was that what happened for me at about seven years of sobrietry, I didn't know that my problem was self-will. I was leading that program that was based on abstinence from alcohol, and the selfishness and self-centeredness was driving people out of my life. That was causing me a lot of pain. In relationships, I'd get knocked to the mat every time I stepped into the ring. I didn't know that I was intolerable. So one wife left. I get in another relationship. That one leaves. Now I've got two babies, two child support payments. And I hit the wall with self-will, but I didn' t know I was hitting the wall with self will. And at seven years, I turned the wrong way. Rather than saying, you know what? I am being crushed by selfishness and self-centeredness. I went, I've tried it your way, and I'm not getting what I need. And I turned further into self-will. And I went through a period of sobriety where I wasn't going to drink, but I was going to get mine. And I was gonna do the stuff. And I wound up in a phony relationship. up and a lot of stuff. And Katie's watching this stuff the whole time. I was a little bit shallow, let's say. So when I hit the wall again, it was shocking news to me that Alcoholics Anonymous would be the answer. And so to get set on fire is a real reprieve. If I had died in that plane crash on July 20th of 2003 out on eastern Long Island, I would have missed the whole deal, and I would Have thought that I had experienced Alcoholics Anonymous. It's funny because I real knowingly tell these guys at the treatment center, when you get out of treatment, if all you do, I tell them that going to meetings does not treat alcoholism. And if all You do when You get out Of here is go to a bunch of meetings and the mental obsession returns and You drink again, Don't go around telling people that Alcoholics Anonymous didn't work for you when you never tried it. Well, I didn't know how close I was to their experience, just at a little different level because I wasn't doing the entire deal. Working all 12 steps of the program has been a completely different experience, but it came from working with Mark and getting with some guys that are really into the deal. You know, and there's pockets of enthusiasm. We all came in, a lot of us came in during a period of time when the prevalent AA meeting was the open discussion meeting. And I think it was really easy to get drawn into what I called dollar an hour therapy, you know, without a facilitator. It's just, you Know, it's like the inmates are running the asylum. But to finish with what drew me back, one time I was sponsoring a guy. I'm hesitant to say that people weren't saying the message, you know, because I was sponsored by a guy one time and he had relapsed for 17 years. The same story we're talking about. And we were talking about the book and the solution and the precise instructions for how to recover. And he goes, man, I really wish there had been somebody around like 17 years ago that was coming out of the book and really coming with solutions and stuff like this. And I went, you know, there's a good chance that not only was there somebody and you weren't listening to them, you probably made fun of them. And I saw his eyes go really distant, and I went come on. And he goes, there was a guy. He said we called him Big Book Doug and we all hated him. Everybody made fun of him and he was the one coming out of the big book in every meeting. And I was like, well, so if we're going to grow in understanding and effectiveness, how can you be more effective than Doug was? Is there a way to deliver the message where the guy can hear that the answers really are in the book? You know, because I'll try anything but, you know, the actual solution there. You know? And that's, you Know, so one of the things I started seeing with Mark, and I don't want to get too far ahead of myself because, but going through the entire process is unbelievable. And actually living in those disciplines like you were talking about this morning has just been a really mind-blowing experience. So the thing that I keep seeing in the book now is consciousness, consciousness, consciousness, principles and consciousness are the theme I've been on the last couple of years. And having the difference between having a belief in God and actually having a consciousness of the presence of God is a completely different experience, you know. And so I think that's all I've got for right now. Thanks a lot. Thanks, honey. Oh, that's wonderful. Katie, I'm a recovered alcoholic. Hi, Katie. You know, Charlie and I share so much of the same experience. It's really, really amazing. You know when it – I love the way the book says when we look back because it's always when we looked back. I don't know what's happening today. I don'T KNOW FOR YOU GUYS, YOU KNOW, YOU MAY THINK YOU'RE HERE AND GOSH ISN'T THIS WONDERFUL AND GREAT WHEN GOD ALL ALONG HAD A PLAN FOR CHARLIE AND KATIE TO BE HERE AND YOU TO BE HERE AND US TO MEET CHRIS AT MARK. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? THE WHOLE ORCHESTRATE, HE'S JUST THE ORCHESTRATOR, RIGHT? AND WHEN WE LOOK BACK AND WE WATCH HOW WE FOUND MARK, YOU NOW, AT THAT PLACE AND IT DROVE US CRAZY THAT THAT WOULD BE THE DOOR THAT OPENED TO CHANGE OUR LIFE, YOU You know, who knows when that door is open? I personally believe the door is opened today all day long. I believe it's open tomorrow all day Long. It's when am I conscious enough to see it? I always believe God's got a, you know, that joke that Charlie clearly is the joke teller. Not me, but I'll attempt this one. You know the guy who's, there's a big flood and he's at the house and they come by in the truck and oh no, God's going to save me. I don't need the truck. And the water fills up, and they come by in the boat. No, no, no. I don' t need it. You know, and then he gets on the roof of the helicopter car. Oh, no ,no, no . . . I don''t need it . . ." God''s going to save me. And he drowns, and he meets God, and He says, What happened? He goes, I sent you three chances to get out of that house. See, and I believe that happens every day. It don' T happen . . You know . . I love Clancy says this. He says . . We use the term miracle too freely in this program. You know. And just to sit with that thought on what that really means to you. You know, I think everybody personalizes what a miracle looks like, and I don't want to say what yours could be, but I do like what he says. And I love this topic because untreated alcoholism, my personal opinion and my observation and experience in Alcoholics Anonymous is we're riddled with it. It's out there in full force. And the hardest thing in the world is that we don't know we have it. I didn't know I had it. Charlie didn't Know He Had It. I mean, I thought we were doing the deal. You know, we were just pissed all the time. You know what I mean? We were not getting our way and we're grumpy, but we're not drinking. I mean I cannot tell you how many times I hear that. Well, I mean i'm not drinking, I'm not thinking about drinking. And it is that level like we have some manageability over this thought. Well, we clearly know. We've already gone through steps one and two. We clearly know that we don't, but the delusion is we think we have it. And I certainly think it for myself. And I love, you know, Charlie and I, we're so darned opinionated and we're such judgmental, and I know you aren't. So I feel safe sharing this with a group who's so open-minded, and that is that, you know, how it works is read at every meeting. And to some degree I find that a shame because any time we read something often enough, we don't hear it. And it's such a powerful piece. And I'll never forget my sponsor saying something to me and I said, where is that in the book? And she goes, well, that would be read at everything. Every meeting and how it worked. And I went, shut up. You are kidding me. I mean, you know, 20 plus years of listening to how it works every day and I don't get it. And so it says, I love this part at some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. Absolutely. That's called untreated alcoholism. You know, we beg of you. Once again, he uses such powerful, we bag. Have you ever begged somebody? That's pretty hopeless spot to be in. we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely to me that just they should have a little parenthesis it says untreated alcoholism is waiting right around the corner for you dry, call it whatever you want malady the terminology can be whatever you're comfortable with but the bottom line is it's a very horrible place to be because you don't even know you're in it and uh and and one of charlie and i's experiences is the um the root canal the infamous root canal you know the majority of us are baby boomers i mean we're sitting on waiting for a root canal tomorrow you know what i mean i mean if you were born anywhere in the 40s and 50s you have all that mercury and root canal is happening you know and the next thing you know what the doc does is heck he's got a pad sitting there that's already pre-printed i don't know if y'all seen it but it freaked me out when i saw it and then he left the room and i was trying to figure out how to steal it and i thought that is a whole pre-rinted his signature is stamped on every one of those that is about 80 things of vicodin and i am sitting there sober going how can i steal that pad i'll just take half of it he won't notice half of it going this is 15 years sober because i'm not doing a doggone thing did i did i wake up that morning thinking that was going to happen no and when that kind of thinking happens it's paralyzing paralyzing who's going to help me now oh i'm way too deep i can't tell anybody i'm having these thoughts scared me to death well the needless to say the mental obsession came back For me, and I called it the monkey on my back, I was sitting in a very, very sick meeting that I was a very big part of because what I did was I set up my program that I would protect myself. Bob Zons is wonderful at the way he says, we run with the pack of people who will not tell us what's going on. If you're a liar, you run with liars. If you are a cheat, you are running with cheats. if you don't have a sponsor you run with people who don't have a supporter that's what we do and we don't of course know we're doing it it's not like a conscious decision that's the delusion of this disease and so I ran with this meeting and I went to this meeting every day five days a week for five years and it never grew that's never a good sign by the way when your meeting doesn't grow it's really not necessarily the time or the place and the meeting didn't grow And we would announce in there that we were grateful that nobody read out of that stupid book. And that meeting is still going on. And I'll be honest with you, I will not go down there to try to change it because it almost reminds me of the born-again Christian who's going to come in and save the sinners. You know what I mean? That's not necessarily always the best plan either. But I do pray a whole lot for that group. And that group is still meeting, you know, and it's still going On. And I was a big, big part of that. And if you'd have come in there, as a matter of fact, we had people come in with the book and they'd come and go because they couldn't take us. You know, we just run them off. And one of the things, though, about the whole level of untreated alcoholism is the way my world went and alcoholism or a program without spirituality is when I got into Alcoholics Anonymous, I hung with – Charlie and I met each other right away, and we're best friends. Joe and I are already together. He's six years. He's GSR at the Pacific Group in L.A. He moves to Austin, back to Texas, and he is huge in AA and a big book thumper, and here he's met this brand-new girl that's got no time, and that goes against everything he believes. But I am a powerful woman, and I convince him he needs to marry me and by golly we're married for 20 years go figure you know and I'm not supporting that although someone will hear that and go see I can be in a relationship right away no put your seat belt on let me tell you it was a rough ride but the thing is is that he got me so involved in service he got mean I'm running this huge chrysanthemum conference in Texas at two years I'm working at family house. I'm doing service. We start an AA meeting. I mean, it's big. And then everything got great. See, Charlie got beat to the mat and we're all friends. So I'm watching him get beat to the mat. And Joe and I's life has taken off. And here's the irony of the whole thing is our life takes off. We decide to enlarge our spiritual life, right? Things are going great. AA is wonderful. The desire to drink is gone. I'm completely now beginning to live in the victim of the delusion that I can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if I just manage well. And let me tell you, I am doing good. I'm having another baby. My business is going great. I love my husband. We're getting counseling. You know, it's just wonderful. Charlie, on the other hand, we're watching him pick the craziest women in Alcoholics Anonymous, and that's a whole nother topic. They were very pretty. Oh, they were very pretty. I'm sure they were all having a lot of fun. And so we're, and you know, we are all, I'm 26, he's 28, and Joe's 30, and then we have about another five or eight of our litter that we all run together. So we're all running together, and we're young and spry, very active. Andso Joe, I go out of town on business, I come back the next on Monday and Joe says I went to church this weekend my husband and I said church? And he said yeah Katie goes I think we're ready to go back to church. Well I am not ready to go Back to Church. I don't even know how I didn't even read We Agnostics. I was all about bashing religion. You know what I mean? The book clearly tells me I have no place in the world to bash religion. I considered myself a recovered Catholic. I'm sure you've heard that in meetings you know and all of this so I end up going to the church with him and I am not happy I'm a pretty outspoken little gal anyway and I walk in the back and I'm thinking oh I'm not really digging this and the next thing you know we become incredibly active in the church and I find Jesus and I mean I am all about Jesus Jesus this and Jesus that we need to bring Charlie to Jesus and oh my god But we're dealing with a heathen anyway. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh. And all our friends in AA have got to find Jesus. That's a little scary, you know? And if you've been around it and seen it, you know, that was me. And so for three years, I didn't walk through the doors of Alcoholics Anonymous, you know? And what ended up happening is little did I know that and Charlie says this beautifully he says the church sends their drunks to us is I didn't realize if religion was going to be a part of my life that level of spiritual growth on how you were finding it through church I also needed the 12 steps of alcoholic science. It's once again that balance it's not saying don't do church oh for heaven's sakes please don't hear that it's we went to church and did not do AA so we got that whole deal out of kilter so we're absolutely crazy we've run off every friend but Charlie Favela and another buddy of ours in the program because they Katie and Joe were well we were Jesus freaks and and so um and then we even have photographs of ourselves and it's scary it is scary I mean Joe's hair is parted to the side and flat I'm standing there in the smock and once again it's what we did with it it's not knocking religion and please don't hear me knock religion it's that it's why it's how it's what we did with it and so we ended up realizing that we were pretty crazy at the time and so we somehow we managed back to an AA meeting and I'll never forget walking through the doors. The old timer sitting there, Ed H., I just loved him to death. And he's sharing. And I leaned over to Joe and I said, now I'm at about seven years sober. Joe's always had six years on me. So I said oh honey we're home. We're home this feels great. And he said it does. And so what we didn't realize was happening is meeting based sobriety was getting ready to be birthed it never occurred to us to crack the book we were we we got that relief we didn't get the freedom so we went oh you know i needed to hear this person say this i i needed this over here i needed oh my gosh now i feel so much better so what we started doing is we felt great right we had relief we started feeling the 12 steps we're back with our people And so then we're tooling along for a couple of years, and we're starting to get irritable again. Nobody's picking up the book. I'm not using a sponsor. He's not using an sponsor. We're gravitating to people who don't have sponsors. We're gravitating to people qui don't work the program. And then Joe gets very, very sick, and w don't know what's happening. And, you know, people say, well, I understand that you wanted to use after he got sick. You're missing the point. it could have been a flat tire it was not the circumstance it was untreated alcoholism I could have had major engine problem in my car, my kid got suspended from school and all of a sudden somebody yelled at me I call it the perfect storm all it takes is that day coming together where it's just one thing after another after another after a break i just crack because what was the drink was coming long before the drink was common when we were looking for jesus you know if you really want to know the truth i had no 12-step program i had completely missed that i got to keep digging and looking at myself right and working with another drunk and doing all those things i was all about spirituality and and, you know, oh, this and that. Oh, it was really, really something. Well, then as we tool along, the sicker he gets, the crazier I get. And I can't tell you, when you get that driven by fear and you realize that it's you, to pray was not even an option. God was not, oh. He was just gone. I mean, my prayer was please help. Oh, please help, please health. You know, like I told you last night, I call that the drunk man prayer. because it's please help, but I'm not willing to change. And I started doing all kinds of things. I drove a school bus, for God's sakes. I drove the school bus to get the medical insurance because Joe was so sick and we both had catastrophic. And here I get, I'm in so over my head. Is that making any sense to anybody? I mean, have any of you guys just gone, get out of my way, I can do this. You know, and that was it. And guys, I cannot tell you. I mean, I was working five different jobs in my profession. You know, I'm in the fitness business and I was, you know, teaching kids. I was driving the bus. I was personal training. I was teaching my own classes. And, you Know, and I Was Making Plenty of Money. See, I had to make plenty of money because Joe was very, very sick, right? And that school bus driving almost killed me and it also brought me to a spiritual awakening that I didn't even know was possible. The moments in the morning, oh, it just makes me want to cry. The moments of the morning I had with God because it's such a beautiful time that early morning, you know, with the sun coming up and here I am driving a goddang gas bus. Go figure, you now. Sixteen years sober. Eh, I didn't see this coming. Eh, didn't get it coming. And I mean, I am a successful businesswoman. I make a lot of money. I just can't afford good insurance. Are you with me on that? You know, I can't get medical insurance that's going to cover a brain-damaged man without paying two grand a month. And so I drive a school bus. I get my school bus paycheck. It's 32 cents. You know? That's painful. But I did save them and pinned them up because they paid my insurance. That's how much money I made. I made enough money to pay $250 a month for insurance, and he was covered. and I'd drive that school bus and I would be in the morning with God and I actually planned his funeral because I knew he wasn't going to make it and I thought about all the music I could play and I never got mad at God it was very very interesting I never Got Mad At God because I Knew That This Kind Of Stuff Happens In Life this was not brought on by God it was a brain tumor you know what I mean it's like cancer why do we get it I don't know. We don't really even know. It just is what it is. It's just the way of the world. Why some people die in a car wreck and some don't. It's Just the Way of the World. And so, I'm going through this whole deal and these little kids are coming on the bus and they're saying things like, Miss Kate, look, I lost my tooth, you know? And I'd think, wow, that is so big to that kid. Or one would have a tangle in their hair and it's like, whoop! You know, and you'd think, man, I've got 70 kids on this bus and she is wigging out back there with the tangle in her hair. You know? And we'd come to the red light and I'd go, come up here, quick, quick. Trying to get through it, you know, and running her back to her seat. And then, you Know, and then I'd have these, you know, the middle school kids would be animals. They were just animals, those little kids. Oh, dang it. And I've come to find out there's 35 buses and my boss, when he interviews me, realizes that I can handle the hardest kid. thank you, thank you very much and so he gives me one of the top three toughest buses and so I'm back there with the children of the corn oh my god, just one chick spitting out the window and I thought I'm throwing you out the winder darling you don't even know who you're messing with I am crazy but I could go into a hundred bus stories but what ended up happening is and I drove that bus for three years see what I thought was going to be this little window why Joe got a little psychiatric help right get this little you know because I'm managing right see I'm victim of the delusion that if I rest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if I just manage well I'll get a bus job yeah that's what I'll do okay and then he'll go get that psychiatric help pardon me he's got what he's gotta brain tumor ooh I'm gonna be driving this bus a little longer than I thought I'm in over my head How many times have you ever said that? Ooh, this isn't working out quite like I thought it was. Wow, three years on that bus. That meant I had to get up at 5 a.m. You guys don't know me. I don't get up in the morning. I don'T do mornings. You know, I do 930 in the Morning. I DON'T do 5 a-m. So that itself was a little overwhelming for me. And so we end up getting through this whole deal, and Joe is sick and sick and sickness, and I am managing, and I AM managing, And lo and behold, you know, we go into the insanity and the compulsion to drink returns. And for me, when the compulsions to drink returned, I can't tell you how shocked I was. I was shocked. I was embarrassed. I couldn't tell anybody that, you knows, as bad as it was. So what I refer to it as is the monkeys on my back. I go to my sick meeting. I say, the monkey's on my bag. They say, keep coming back. They don't know because I'm at a sick meeting. I am a part of a sick meeting, right? There was nobody in there that could carry the message to me and Charlie, the best he had because he was just as sick as I was, he says, he always hates that, I don't even look at him because he's doing a lot of body language right now He hates to know we were so sick but, and I said to him, we go out to dinner one night together you know, we're best friends and he says I said Charlie the monkey is on my back again man I'm thinking about drinking and he said well you know just don't drink without me and I thought well that should work for a little while because really I'm telling you to lose time to Charlie Parker was not going to be good this was like having your brother have something on you you know what I mean how many of y'all were we used to call it you're a slave be my slave for a week You know, I mean no disrespect to that term in this politically correct day and age. But you know what I'm saying? You'd have to make their bed and you'd have to do everything for your sibling or they'd tell on you. And so that's what Charlie, you know, he had that on me. And the truth of the matter is, is that did keep me sober. Pride kept me sober for as long as till it was going to run out. I just didn't know when that day was going to be. And then, you know, long story short, fast forward. And what I had is I had long-term sobriety, I had untreated alcoholism, and I had so much pride and so much resentment that when Charlie was desperately trying to get us into big book work, I went in with such an attitude. We go into this meeting, he says, and he is such a camp coordinator. He's always been the camp coordinator, he's the one who's going to get it together. Come on Katie, we're going, we'll go, fine, fine fine, you know, and so he always did that with everything. He had bowling night, he had Miami Vice night at his house, bring your own steak night, you know, Charlie was the camp co-ordinator when we were all kids, and, and And so he says, we're going to go to primary purpose group in Dallas to this big book meeting. And I'm thinking, great big book meeting. You know, I always hated when the newcomer was the first person and everybody says, is there anybody new? And somebody would raise their hand and I'd go, great. It's going to be one of those stupid first step meetings. I'm going to get nothing out of this. I hear everybody's older drunk-a-logs. Where's my little pearls of slogan wisdom that I need here and that's what I did in untreated alcoholism and meeting based sobriety and so Charlie says let's go to this meeting and he goes did you bring your big book well I don't even know where my big book was and I said I did not bring my big book and he says well you know they give you a really hard time in here if you don't bring your Big Book and I thought well bring it on you know go ahead give me you know I'm ready for and I mean I am walking in all bowed up chest and Charlie goes I'm telling you Katie and I thought and I walk around that corner almost like this I got no book people and I just am so full of it a little scrappy here and nobody said anything to me but I was ready and we sit down at primary purpose group and wasn't it the forward we read wasn't just the forward Yeah, we were like in the forward, which I've got to admit to you, I have never read in my life in the big book. And I fell in love with this study. Two pages we read and discussed the forward for heaven's sakes. And I walked out of there and I told Charlie, I said, unbelievable. I said I'm hooked. This is it. I love this program, you know, this approach. So we decide we're going to have this meeting. Well, I left out a big piece of this puzzle. He'd already told you about us running into Mark Houston's meeting. And I ended up, when we drove up, we had, thank you, sweetie. When we droveup, he put Chris R on. Most of you may know Chris Raymer from down at the Texas area. And he put him on the CD. It's the first time I'd ever heard him. And I thought, oh, my God, he's driving me crazy. And I'm not kidding. Untreated alcoholism, you either love Chris or you hate him. this is no secret right and he is going at it you know and I keep pushing it off and I look at trying to go oh my god who is this guy you know and we're and he goes for God's sakes Katie can we just listen to his CD and I thought oh just really struggling but I mean it really really bothered me and the next day when I went to my open discussion meeting it was like somebody had pulled a curtain back, and all of a sudden I saw life. I never saw it the same. I went, my God, nobody in here is even talking about alcoholism. I mean, there might be three people, but the rest is story-based. How's your day? And it really did blow me away, and I love Chris. Chris and I are very good friends. Don't hear that wrong either. It's just that the very first time I'd ever heard anybody talk like that, I thought, who is this guy? And needless to say, you know, Charlie and I have gravitated to where we are big book thumpers. But what we are is we are people who live what we preach. I sponsor probably 20-plus girls. He sponsors about 15 guys. And I'm telling you, when people are – they gravitate to us because they want what we have. See, that's how I was in AA, right? Somebody had something wonderful. I gravitated towards them. Well, one of the things I tell my girls is, and I don't take everybody that asks me to sponsor them either. There's a lot of people that I just won't work with. You know what I mean? They're going to be too argumentative, too much work. I'm not going to work harder than they are. But I'll tell them, I'll say, you know, you want what I have, but you want to sit next to me to get it. See, you're goingto have to get out there and bust your butt, man. I mean, I want to see you taking meetings somewhere. I wantto see your service commitment. I want to see you sponsoring at least five girls, you know, because the bottom line is that's where the magic happens that I didn't realize is I'll do the work for you, but I won't necessarily do it for me. See, I really don't think that much of myself, guys. The truth of the matter, be told, is the delusion of this disease. There's a piece inside of Katie about that big that Katie hates Katie, absolutely hates Katie. because the way my disease talks to me, I would never let anyone talk to anyone like that. And this son of a gun, when I lay my head down at night, it can go ugly on me. What were you thinking? That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen for God's sakes. When are you ever, ever going to change? You know that voice. Everyone's got it. I mean, I'm in the room full of people that have it. And it's that little thing right there that just damn near kills me. And if you come to me for help, I'm going to do everything I can to help you. And in that, I am going to get helped. Right? See, and I don't see that. I keep thinking I am not going to be able to put that little flame out. Well, you know what? It says, it does say in the book we must be rid of this. But honestly, I Am not there. I am pretty close to being okay as far as long periods of peace of mind. Long periods of joy. long before it was like a day two days three days two bad days four good days two bad days one good day anybody does that sound familiar and now it's long I can't tell you bad days because they're just like that I see it and then I have that consciousness with God and it's gone it's just gone so it's really really fabulous but the thing that I think one of our largest point and to wrap this up is to just say that, you know, the truth of the matter is if you are not actively working with a sponsor, and I mean actively working mit the sponsor. I personally think you should be talking to your sponsor at least twice a week, that you're actively working wit your sponsor, that you are in the disciplines of 10 and 11, you know spotting it during the day, 11 doing your evening review, your morning prayer and meditation, and 12 actually actively working whit sponsees. You can clear away that debris, 4 through 9, right, and really work on a tough 9. You clear away dat debris, and then you stay in the disciplines of 10, 11, and 12. And I don't know about you, but I'm going to have to eventually get back and clear away det debris again because I am not debris free. And so, you know, I've got to keep doing that deal or else I block myself from the sunlight. And the way I can always tell is my sponsees start bugging the crap out of me, Every one of them, right? Every one of them is bugging me, which means I need to do an inventory. So that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Thanks, Katie. We've got just a couple of minutes left. I had a lot of recap yesterday, but I just What's that? Do you want to summarize the 1, 2, 3 that you missed yesterday? which basically means do you want to tell them your version on three I thought I did that I thought I did at the beginning of my talk today yes you did some of that well you know what we could we could ask see if anybody has any questions okay you see how well he did there doesn't need to be on