Emotional Sobriety as the Ability to be Usefully Whole — Michael M.

what we're doing today is we're going to look at the gift of Alcoholics Anonymous to the world and to me. Because we come in here and we have the inability to have one drink. We cannot control how much we drink. Anybody have that here? Now, that's a real problem once you drink. So, So the solution is very simple, you don't drink. The problem is that the disease centers in our mind and we cannot live sober successfully without seeking ease and comfort of alcohol. So the disease of alcoholism takes place when you're sober and sober you cannot keep from taking the next drink. You have no choice over drinking and since your body won't let you control how much you drink, you're in trouble. And there's no human power that can relieve that. You can try everything. But if you're a real alcoholic, like Stu said, there's no solution on your own. So the problem is that we're powerless over alcohol, but the real problem is that I cannot manage my life successfully so that I won't need to drink. And the reason I can't do that is because I've lived a life of self-centeredness and I've run the show and I'm in conflict with everyone and everybody I'm living in fear and resentment my conduct has harmed others and I am full of shame and guilt and then because of that I seek the ease and comfort of drinking now I don't go to the liquor store and say I want a bottle of vodka because I'm self-centered and I can't stand the way people are treating me and I feel a self-pity and please give me a drink see we don't know that when we come in here We just know that our lives are a mess, and we can't keep from drinking or using, and we need a solution, but we don't know what it is. And so we make a decision based upon our experience that I need to have a power greater than me, and I need the belief in that power. I don't have to know anything about the power. I can call it anything I want, but it can't be me. Now, I know there's a power at work in the room because I'm sitting next to Mark, and I know that he has told me he was a pretty much of a mess 19 years ago and look at him today and Ed told me he was amassed you were amassed weren't you and don't say your last name because it's on tape but there are a lot of us that I was amessed 15 years ago and it's a miracle that I'm sitting here today and so I made a decision not to play God I didn't want to run the world anymore I didn' t want to live like that anymore now that's good and it' s great but it won't help me. I need to take actions so that I can remove the things in me that are blocking me from the power. Now, I don't get powerful here. I don' t get smart. What I get is access to the power which is God, which is inside of me by letting go of all the things in me which are blocking him. So, I do not want to learn anymore. I want to know what I need to be rid of. And I do that in step four. I look at my life. I look at how it's run on resentment, fear, and my conduct, how it has harmed myself and others. And those are the results of living a self-centered life. And I was full of anger and fear. I don't know about you but there is no way to live. I made a lot of decisions based on self that caused me to harm myself and others. My troubles were of my own making and I could see that when I do step four. On step four, we learn how to be free of resentment. We learned tools and prayers to be free of resentments with God's help. We learned how to be free a fear with God help. How is that for a gift? And then we can look at our conduct and we shape an ideal for our conduct so we're not harming others. We admit this to ourselves into another human being in step five And when we do four and five, we see the self-centered character that I've become. And we don't want to be that anymore. We want God to remove all my character defects, all of them. And I'm willing, and then I humbly ask him in six and seven. So I'm going to practice this new way of living the rest of my life. And whenever I recognize the self‑centered character, I don't feel good. And I stop and I say, God, I'm being selfish or intolerant or judgmental or impatient. envious. The list is there, we have the cards. And I stop and I say, I'm seeing things wrong, I'm bothered. I don't want to be bothered anymore, I don'T want to BE disturbed. And God helped change me right then and see it differently. And whenever I do that, it works. It's a great gift. In eight and nine, I want to face the world. I DON'T want to be afraid of people anymore. AndI'VE harmed a lot of people and I'M willing to make amends and restitution to them so that there's no barrier between me and them. And I've said this, and it's true. I don't want anybody to walk through the door today that I'm afraid to see. I want to be willing to say, you know, I'm sorry for my conduct. How can I make it up to you? What can I do for you today? And that's a tremendous freedom. That's where we get fear of people leaves us. And so you have to do a fair amount of work, but it's not that complicated. and once you do that then you have the gift of what we're going to read today and if we do what we were going to read today every day we will live a spiritual life Alcoholics Anonymous is not how we learn how to live without alcohol it's how we learned to live a spirit a spiritual life and when we live a spiritual life like Ed says we feel good and alcohol doesn't come into the picture and so the whole point of this program is to be fit spiritually connected to god and it says as a result of the steps we have a spiritual awakening the the spirit is there but we are awakened to it and what it's saying is i was asleep to the power of god my whole life i was running my life and and i was plugging my life into the michael power socket and it's not pretty. And there is a socket that's available to us that's called God. And what we learned in AA is to unplug the Michael socket and plug it into God. Now, the only person that can unplug the socket is me. But once I'm willing to unplug it and plug into God, the power's there. And so we're going to look today on page 84, and we're gonna see the promises of recovered promises. Because it says in this big book that they were a hundred men and women who had recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. Now the first time I heard that, somebody to me said they recovered I said oh he's an arrogant, he's full of pride. But you want to be recovered. Now we're going to read that doesn't mean cured. But recovered is where you don't have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. And you have access to a power in your life that will keep you from drinking. Because remember, Dr. Young told Roland Hazard when he came back after a year of therapy and he knew himself so well that he left Switzerland in 1933 and he was drunk in three days. Some say two days, some say a few hours. But the problem is he comes back to Dr. Yang and Dr. Liang says, you have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I've never seen anybody recover except there's the phenomenon on where people have had rearrangements of their whole personality, where their outlook and attitude on life has changed completely. And he says that's the only hope for you so he says I'm going to go to church then. He said no we're not talking about that, we're talking about something that's going to change the way you see and react. And from there he went to New York, the Calvary Church, he eventually rescued and did the the Oxford Group steps, rescued Ebi Thatcher from going to the asylum. Bill W is drunk in his kitchen on November 1934, dying of alcoholism. Ebi's 60 days sober. He goes to Bill. He tells Bill about the religious idea and the program of action. Bill W takes the steps which you're going to read about tomorrow and then meets Dr. Bob and we're here today. So we've been given a gift. Now what are we going to do with this You have a choice. You can lead the spiritual life and do what's in pages 84 to 88, or you can live the way you were and see which produces better results. And we're talking now not about being physically sober from alcohol. We're talking about emotional sobriety, being able to be at peace with the world and be able to be usefully whole and a servant of God and his children. So on page 84, we've done all this work and now it says, this thought brings me to step 10. And the thought is that if I work the steps, the promises that are read at every meeting will materialize for me. And so the promises were read at each meeting and on page 83 and 84, those are the nine step promises that come true if you're living in the world of the spirit and those promises will come true and people say oh the promises are coming true but we want to keep the promises true every day and so we want a spiritual life so that they stay in our lives and it's a it's It's a constant program of recovery. What I did yesterday won't help me today. I have to do it all the time. And if I do it all the times, my life is going to change. And I will have peace and serenity which is all I ever wanted. And so this thought brings me to step 10 that if I do this work these promises will materialize and I will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what I could do for ourselves. Now, the promises used to come true when I drank. And that's why I drank, because drinking gave me serenity and peace. Drinking gave me an experience that I thought could benefit others. Drinking made me feel useful, and self-pity disappeared. Self-seeking slipped away. You see how alcohol was a power? It was a solution to the spiritual malady, to being separated from God. Now that I've done the steps and I'm connected to God, The promises are true without alcohol, and that's the key. Fear of people and economic security leaves me. It doesn't say you get money, but you won't be afraid of not having it. Some people would rather have the money. That's a different program. And you know how to handle situations which used to baffle you. These are great promises, right? Who wants to have this every day? Well, we're going to read in one paragraph. If you do what's in this one paragraph every day, the promises will always come true. And the other thing, if you do this next paragraph, alcohol will not come into the equation of your life. That problem has been removed. So this is step 10. This is the step of where we live with God each day. and it suggests i continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as i go along it doesn't say each day it means every minute and i'm going to inventory my personal my personality all the time and what they mean there is i'm an inventory my thinking and whenever my thinking is back into self and i've separated from god i'm gonna see it and I'm going to correct that mistake in my thinking right away. Now, I always thought before I studied the book and worked the steps that I would go around saying, I'm sorry all the time. Well, you don't have to do that as much if you're doing this paragraph because you're not in conflict with everyone and everybody. Now, we are going to see how if my behavior needs to make amends, I'm gonna do that right away, but I'm monitoring my thinking and I want to set right with God the mistaken thinking because I lived my whole life on a lie I would believe my mind I had a I thought it was true what I was thinking and I'd act on it they weren't true statements they were things created by my ego ego is a mind made false sense of self and I created this world in here that I believed and acted on and when you do your fourth step you look at it, you say wow where those thoughts come from and we don't want to do that anymore that's why I said the set aside prayer I want to live on truth I wantto act on truth I don't wanna act on lies and when somebody bothered me and when I got angry or I got fearful I was reacting to a lie and I don' t wanna do that any more so it says we vigorously commence this way of living vigorously so you don't wake up some day and say well maybe I'll work the step today I don't know. I'll see how it goes. Vigorously, everything you have, you're going to begin this way of living. Now we're goingto have a way ofliving now that's based on God-centered, God-directed and our life is going to be so different than it was when we came in here. Now if you're not doing this today, see how you feel. Are you afraid? Are you angry? Are Are you bothered? Are you irritable? You're having problems in relationships. Well, if you are, then you need to do the steps to get to this point and then do this every day. Working the fourth step won't help me today. I have to do this. Praying today, just praying today won't help me because I can pray at 8 in the morning and get back into self-centeredness all day. And then I'll say, gee, God, I prayed in the morning, what happened? well God went one way and I went the other and that's what we're doing so now we're going to see when I'm separating from God and I want to get back on the path and it says we have entered the world of the spirit it is powerful the world of the Spirit is in the now with God the world of the Spirt is where I have access to power the world of the spirt is where i could be of service to god and others the world of the spirit is where the obsession the drink has been removed the world or the spirit as well i can see the truth about alcohol so that's why one of them i don't want to live outside the world in this period now how did i get if i'm if i mean the world that god's everywhere everybody think god's every where god's anywhere and i'm in the world with god how do i get separated from the world of god in my mind i believe these lies and i and i and i start running my life and acting on them and i separate from god so the world of the spirit is in the now right now with god that's the basic scripture that's what it's all about how you live in peace right now with god and it says i've entered the world to the spirit now my next function once i've been in this world it doesn't say you wait a month it doesnít say take a year off working the steps it says next my function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness in the world of the spirit now it just occurred to me yesterday Iíve read this a million times Iíve done this meeting I donít know 50, 60 times but the the growing understanding and effectiveness of the worldís spirit is the next five lines and itís the next paragraph and it's the prayer meditations on step 11 so what they're going to do now is show me how to grow in understanding and effectiveness they're gonna give me specific instructions and they're not complicated and it says this is not an overnight matter it's gonna continue for my lifetime I noticed the word continues three or four times five times in this thing continue Continue to take personality. Continue to set right any new mistakes. Continue to watch, continue for a lifetime. So I'm going to be doing this all the time. It doesn't say one day at a time. It says all the times forever. It says now I'm gonna continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. I've watched for that in my fourth and fifth step. I'm going to continue to watch now for whenever I'm back into self and away from God. And when I'm away from god, I'm disturbed and I don't feel good and I'm gonna watch for that. I'm not going to wait till I feel bad. I'm watch for when i'm starting to get a little off the beat and I am going to watch for selfishness, society, resentment and fear And when these crop up, I'm going to ask God at once to remove them. Now, I've learned how to do that in step four and five. And we talked about it yesterday at the meeting when we were reading the book and Ed's shaking his head that when I ask God to remove him and I'm asking now in the tenth step in the world of the Spirit, I know he will do it. I have faith now. I have knowledge of God. He's done it for me in step 4 and 5. I know if I ask God to remove my anger it will happen but I'm asking now with faith and it gets back to the book of James which they studied and they incorporated that into this book that when you ask with faith it will be given to you when you ask without it won't be given you and you can't have faith and knowledge unless you've worked steps four through nine and so that's That's why step 10 is after those other steps. It's what you have achieved, a place where you can do this and you understand with faith. And when you take actions with faith the results are guaranteed. And it says when these crop up I ask God at once to remove them. I don't wait. I'm watching. I don' want to get angry, write the email, scream and yell for 30 minutes and say okay God remove it. No because I've already screwed up. I can avoid that as soon as I get bothered. I can say, God, change this. Take these thoughts away. Help me practice the opposite. Help me be love intolerant. You see how it works? Do this and see if your life isn't better. It says when these crop up, I ask God at once to remove them. And then I discuss them with someone immediately. Now you don't have to call me at 3 in the morning. You can wait until the morning, but you don' t want to keep them inside. You don't want to keep the lies going so when you talk to someone it gets them out and they can help you see things differently. And then I make amends quickly if I've harmed anyone. So basically you're doing steps four through nine in this paragraph all day long. And why do I keep going back to that? Step four is very simple but you're learning tools that are automatic. They're like this. I'm starting to judge somebody there you go again Michael, how's that working for you you're putting them down so you can have false self esteem so you could feel better, pretty sick stop it right now and then I say God save me from being angry give me love, patience and tolerance how can I be useful to them give me a kind and tolerant view I could do that in 10 seconds or I could stay disturbed for 5 minutes and plan their execution you know I don't know what works better for you, but for me, the execution, when I'm there, it's pretty bad. It's hard to give a stay of reprieve for them when you get to that point. And I used to live that way. And then I'd say, gee, why is my life a mess? Well, I caused it. But I have power now from God to change my behavior all the time. And this is the gift of Alcoholics Anonymous. Of course, the gift is we're not drinking. but the gift is that I've had access to these steps, these spiritual exercises of power that are guaranteed will relieve me of the obsession to drink and will make me usefully whole. And it says, I disgust them with immediately and make amends quickly if I've harmed anyone. Then here's a powerful line. I resolutely, resolutely turn my thinking away from me and my crap to someone I can help. I'm turning away from this mind-made sense of self that's got me off the beam, and I turn away to how I can help others. And when you do that, then you're out of self and you're with God. And so you resolutely turn your thoughts away. See, I'm the only person that could say I don't want to stay here. And when I resolutely turned my thoughts away, God gives me the power to serve others. and then it says love and tolerance of others is my code that's my code of living love to me as god if i bring love into every situation my life will be great sometimes i don't i start to get bothered i get irritated judgmental impatient intolerant uh i was impatient yesterday but only for 10 seconds because i had to go somewhere and meet somebody 10 30 and my wife told me to pick up the filter for the refrigerator so I said okay I'm going to stop there I had plenty of time and there's one guy who's there and he's in a meeting and they said wait a few minutes and I said well don't you know I'm Michael the Magnificent and I have to be somewhere at 1030 and how could you possibly make me wait now I don't know if I thought that but I was irritated see and then I said wow you know what if I got here five minutes earlier, then I would have had plenty of time. So I'm just going to wait and be patient. And it worked out. And I didn't get disturbed. Now you may seem that silly, but I lived my whole life like that. I went to Walgreens the other day. I had to get something, I don't know, shaving cream, I Don't Know, Tylenol. I'm there and there's a lady at the counter with a cart full of stuff and all these coupons. i said well doesn't she know michael the magnificent is here and i need to pay for this and move on i mean how could she be in my way isn't that terrible and then you know i said god you're doing this just to keep me on the beam and then i i just i said while i'm gonna wait i know where to go and then they opened up another they opened off another register you know and And then I said, you know, I'm so happy that she has those coupons because she probably doesn't have any money and she needs to save the money so she can buy these things. And I could do that like in 10 seconds. Now the old me would've been pretty disturbed. You know Walgreens is no good, they don't have enough help, why did they make a sweet line? You know how that works. That's alcoholism. I don't want to go there anymore. Now we're going to read the recovered promises. These are not read at any meeting. I don't know why, because the Knights have promises to read every meeting, and I don' t know why. Because they're not going to come true until you do the work. And the other thing is we pass these cards out at these other meetings so people who are new don't even realize they come out of this book. They think how it works is something people wrote. Oh yeah, let's read how it worked and everybody's on their phone. And the promises are in the book and they don't come true until you do the work on page 83. And it says, I have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. I'm not in conflict with the world anymore unless I choose to. Think about it. Is that a great promise? Ceased. I have seized. I'm the one that's seized fighting everyone and alcohol. I caused all that. And I've seized that when I'm in the world of the spirit. So how do you know when you're not in the word of the Spirit? You're fighting everybody at every one. and then if you do that you're going to be fighting with alcohol because alcohol is behind all of this I've ceased it isn't that great for this time sanity will have returned I will now have my mind back I can see the truth about things I don't have to act on resentment, fear selfishness, dishonesty I don'T have to say a drink's a good idea right now because I can SEE THE TRUTH and it says I WILL SELDOM BE INTERESTED IN LIQUOR it just doesn't come in into your life because if you stop at walgreens and you say well gee i'll just be patient wait a few seconds alcohol doesn't coming in when you start getting all upset the walgreen's is impossible blah blah blah how could she be in my way blah blah alcohol can enter into that because then you have you're separated from god you're irritable restless and discontented remember dr silkworth said that alcoholics seek the ease and comfort of alcohol when they feel that way it says if tempted i will recall from alcohols from a hot flame now they told us on like page 23 that we're insane because we keep putting our fingers in the flame when we keep drinking and thinking it's not going to burn us but now that i'm in the world of spirit and i have access to god i can see the truth about alcohol and and i don't know i burned my uh hand on a pan i can still remember when i was 12 years old and I don't put my hand on that pan anymore. But I lived my whole life putting my hand on the pan thinking it wouldn't burn me. It says I react sanely and normally and this has happened automatically. It's not something that I've earned, I don' t pass a test. What's happened automatically is I've taken the actions to be in the world of the spirit and my new attitude towards liquor has been given me. It's given me, it's a gift. Like Ed says he was relieved of the obsession to drink it's relieved it's just gone and without any it just comes it's a miracle it's an alcohol for an alcoholic to be able to see the truth about alcohol it's miracle for people to be live without drinking or using for us because we have no power in our own so it tells us that there is a power so if you're new here you get with this book you read it with someone you take the actions and this is going to come true it's guaranteed it says we're not fighting it nor are we avoiding temptation i feel as though i've been placed in a position neutrality safe and protected safe and protective for me because when i was at walgreens i could see the self-centeredness and i could stop with god and i was in a safe place so i didn't have to react like i used to do you see how it works safe and protected neutral i'm not i don't haveto be bothered anymore by things that happen i can choose to god says if you want to be back at self-will i'mnot going to stop you but i don' t have to i could be in a position neutrality to anything that happens to me how's that for a promise and it says i'm not even sworn off instead the problem has been removed it's removed when i don't react and i stop and i get access to god when i separate from god and i don'T have access i have a lot of problems but when i have access to God and i see something i only see a situation now i DON'T see it as a problem it's just a situation i say well God the lady's here she's got adq pods That's what I do. They say, just stand there and be nice. That doesn't occur to an alcohol hog. Remember I said the other night – it was a brilliant statement – I said there is no limit to what alcohol hogs can get disturbed over. There is no limit. Absolutely not. Probably somebody is disturbed now, am I ever going to shut up this thing? It does not exist. The problem doesn't exist unless I see it as a problem. I'm the only person who can decide that I have a problem. God's not going to say, you've got a problem God's going to tell you, you have a situation and then I can say the serenity prayer and what do I change and what don't I accept when you're in the world of the spirit the serentity prayer comes true when you are not in the word of the Spirit you don't know what to change and you don' t know what you need to accept and you're deciding with an alcoholic mind and you make a lot of mistakes you start changing things you should accept and accepting things you change and then it gets screwed up when you said, gee, God, what happened? Well, you weren't with him. And it says that is our experience. This is their experience. It's my experience. You can't argue with my experience, you may not like it and you may not agree with it but I'll tell you this is my experience when I do this. Now here's the whole deal. This next line is the whole program. This is it. It's not talked about much in meeting. It says this is how, and I've read this a long time And I saw a new word in there. It says, this is how I react. See, I always read it that I'm going to be in fit spiritual condition. But I react to things differently if I'm in fit spiritual condition and if I am in fit spiritual condition, I'm in the world of the spirit and when I'm in the role of the Spirit, I can react differently. I don't have to react the way I used to. Powerful stuff. Now, in the 12 and 12, there's two pages that I really like. And I've quoted them a lot, and when I first read this, I didn't like it. And this is step 10. It says it's a spiritual axiom. That means it's the spiritual truth. Now I always thought this was true for you, but I don't think it was true for me. That every time I'm disturbed, no matter what the cause, there is something wrong with me. I said, wow, that's true for Mark, but that's not true for me. But it's true for me once I realized this my life changed and I'm disturbed when I see what I'm full of fear, resentment, selfishness or dishonesty. I'm disturbed when i'm not in fit spiritual condition. So what does it mean? It means if I'm disturbed, what's wrong with me is I'm disturbed. I don't have to be disturbed. I'm sorry, Ed. I'm going to finish these next two paragraphs, and then we'll open it up. There's something wrong with me. And if somebody hurts us and we're sore, we are in the wrong also. Now here's this. Is there no exceptions to this rule? Here's a good one. What about justifiable anger? If someone cheats us, aren't we entitled to be mad? Can't we be properly angry with self-righteous folk? Anybody not have justified anger? It's always justified. and and but he says justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it and then i'm going to read this next paragraph we'll open up few people have been more victimized by resentments than alcoholics it mattered little whether my whether my resentments were justified or not it's always wrong to be angry remember that we've learned that in our fourth step a burst of temper can spoil a day a well-nourished grudge can make us miserably ineffective nor were we ever skillful in separating justified from unjustified anger. As we saw it my wrath was always justified occasionally that occasional lecture, anger that occasional lecture more balanced people could keep us on edge forever and then next week I'm going to look at the spot check inventory in the 12 and 12 and then I'm gonna look at the final two paragraphs on page 85 and then the following week we're gonna look step 11. So I hope this was helpful. Let me turn this off and then we can open it up. Sorry, I went a few minutes over. I've got to figure out how to do this. Uh-oh. How do I stop it?