Higher Power Consciousness as an Internal GPS – Alice M.

It's my privilege. My name is Marilyn. I'm an alcoholic. My sobriety date is February 26, 2013. My home group is New Freedom Zoom, which is located here in Gainesville, Florida. It meets every day, Monday through Friday, 1215 to 115. We have something different literature every single day. We have a speaker on Thursday. um it is i have the privilege of introducing today alice m of sacramento california and i already know that there are several people here who know her so they're here to hear her speak um i always like to have people with me too so it's it's good um her sobriety date is 10 15 2013 she's married and she loves fur babies cats just like so many of us today yesterday that have had our cats in the background so she is going to speak today on on step 11 god conscious ah there we go there's a little fur baby of hers thank you So she's going to speak today on God consciousness, and she says God consciousness equates to becoming her internal GPS. And I wrote that down. My God conscious is my internal GPS, and I can put that together real well so she can expand on that too for us. So without further ado, Alice is right next to me up here on page one. I'll turn it over to Alice. Thank you so much, Marilyn. I'm Alice. I'm a recovered alcoholic. It's really an honor to be here. And that's code for saying I'm really nervous. Alice, I love you. Oh my goodness. what a powerful talk that's so good um and you had to get up early too i'm glad you're in california now um i want to say up top and i and um i know this this isn't new information for many of us but since i introduced myself as recovered i wantto just share quickly what that means because i was confused by that word when i first came in i'm not cured i still have alcoholism i'll always have alcoholismo i'll never be able to drink safely but um but i have recovered from that alcoholic mind and what that looks like is what all is just described in the 10th step promises safe protected position of neutrality around alcohol um a sound mind around alcohol which means no no thank you i remember what that did you know it becomes like a no-brainer no thought or effort on my part and that's not it's not a personal accomplishment i did not restore myself to sanity it was all god um i'm going to talk about the 11th step what a gift and um i want to talk about the directions that we have in the big book but first i move to share some things um bear with me it's a little cringe right about the time Marilyn got sober um because she got sober um what nine months before I did in 2014 um I was trying to get myself sober and I was going to accomplish this by writing a book about all my troubles for real for real I believed in my mind that if I write a book about what it's like to be me and you know if you knew about my childhood and if you new this and that and how I'm going to make it through. I'm gonna stay strong and I'm Gonna Break This Cycle and all this stuff. And I was a bit of a wino. That was my jam. So this is how this wonderful book that will never be published, this is How It Starts. Chardonnay is necessary. It is water. It is air. It is sustenance. It is shelter. It overrides everything else. it is more important than friends work health love it is needed and it is necessary yes you're right to laugh like I was so full of it um but I really I mean that's that's how I lit like this is everything like I knew I needed to be without it but how and um listen to that comparison it's water it's air it's sustenance it's shelter and so I was shocked the very first time I read from page 97 and the 12 and 12 where it says those of us who have come to make regular use of prayer would no more do without it than we would refuse air, food or sunshine. I was like, what? See, I thought by coming into Alcoholics Non-Law you're just going to take my wine away. And that's it. Maybe I get new friends to sit with and coffee, but like, that's as good as it gets. And thank God I was wrong about that. You know, I had to reach that place of desperation coming to AA knowing I'd hate it, knowing it'd be miserable, knowing sobriety is going to suck, but there's nothing else to do. um and and you couldn't have told me this while i was drinking like oh no you know there's a solution and it's god you know i'd be like thank you you know but when i got to that place of desperation where i'm willing to come in anyway knowing that i'm going to hate alcoholics anonymous and i find out that i don't and today i would i would i wouldn't do without prayer any more than i would refuse air um i'm gonna read a little something else from this um wonderful book of mine when i was struggling and then i finally decided that the solution must be to lock myself up somewhere but it had to be fancy rehab with like facials and massage and walks in the woods and pet therapy. Oh, I had, I have a list. Like this is what I need to recover. Right. And thank God I didn't get, I didn'T get to go to any place. I mean, not talking bad about those places at all. It's just not what I needed. It's what I thought I needed and in my quest for a place to check myself into um there was a county place here locally that is there it's not fancy at all and i would have had to be there for 90 days that was the deal i ended up not doing it but in writing about it here's what i wrote okay i can do this i am attracted to the idea of being a puppet of just doing what I'm told, take my own desires and decisions out of the equation. I'm doing a piss poor job of taking care of myself. Let's let someone else take over. I was writing about checking into some facility where there'd be a counselor or house manager telling me what to do at every minute, give me a schedule because I didn't know how to live my life, even though I still had the career and the marriage and the home when I came in, any of it could have fallen apart at any moment. And I was, I thought I was craving just lock me up and give me a schedule, you know, in a, you Know, a uniform or something, you know, and really, I was craving God, I didn't know it. I was craving strength and direction. And yet at the same time, you couldn't tell me what to do. Isn't that a trip, man? Isn't That a Trip? I'm going to read one more thing while I have my 12 and 12 out. Just another thing that stood out to me in early recovery when I was trying to you know, figure this out. And there were so many lines that just blew me away with how connected I felt to this literature. This is from step 12, but it's referring to step 11. It says in this is at the bottom of 108 and step 11, we saw that if a higher power had restored us to sanity and had enabled us to live with some peace of mind in a sorely troubled world, then such a higher power was worth knowing better by as direct contact as possible. It's like, yeah, that makes sense. I want to know this power better. i want to be able to rely upon it um just my personal experience and um i truly believe that what our book says about lack of power is our dilemma is true for any alcoholic coming in the rooms whether they are a true believer or hardcore atheist the problem is exactly the same lack of power but i happen to come in without any belief in god um i knew an aa this is what i knew before coming in the rooms i knew that an aa they make you it's it's god or higher power but the higher power can be a doorknob so there's a ceremony where they make you pick which object you want to be your god this is i don't know where i got the idea from but I fully believe that. I'm like, oh, they're going to make me pick a chair or something, you know? Like, what? What? And I was like, ah, that's not for me. And I grew up in a religious household and I rejected it. And my parents, to their credit, I mean, they never really pushed it. They just talked about their own faith. And I knew it wasn't for me, and so I knew AA couldn't possibly be for me until, you know, again, I got to that point where I can't do this. I've tried everything. I don't know what to do anymore. And what happened was I found a little five-day detox, not rehab, but just a place where I could dry out for a couple days. And that detox was right next to an AA meeting, and I wasn't really expecting that. But it introduced me to you. and i had i had little spiritual experiences not fully awake you know still clinging to my self-centeredness and and um you know very very sick but i had these little spiritual experiences along the way that like i didn't earn i didn' manufacture them i couldn't make them happen. But oh my God, they happen. And the first one was the morning I was to check myself in to this facility. I was packing my bags and drinking because I thought they probably won't let me in if I'm sober. I better get some alcohol in me. It's like eight in the morning. And my husband walks in and he sees me you know drinking out of a bottle and he goes is that going to be your last drink I was still holding on to the bottle and I was like oh I how and I suddenly realized like oh my god I'm checking myself into this facility but then they're gonna let me out and then and then what you know I'm just gonna go drink again because I can't stop myself you know i have this this voice in my head that justifies drinking and i can't ignore it it's me um and so it suddenly i suddenly realized oh it's not just that i can'T control my drinking i canT control my sobriety either and that was the place of like zero hope that i needed to feel it did not feel good. It's really, really scary, but we get down to the detox center and they led me back to my room and there was a cat sitting on the bed and it felt like a sign. I'm supposed to be here now and something in me cracked open. And, um, I fell to my knees and I was like, okay, it was just something something shifted and and they and then they shuffled us on over to the AA meeting and I heard the word God with different ears for the first time in my life you know an hour prior I would have rejected it but you got me at the right time. And I just believed you, that group became my first home group. And what's interesting is a couple of days before the day I checked into that detox facility, I received an unexpected bonus in my paycheck at work that exactly covered the cost of the detox. and I didn't know, you know, and up till then, I really, I didn'T know how I was going to pay for it. I knew I was checking in, but I was like, oh, they're going to ask for money. You know, like I just, I could, you know, it's such a fog and I really figured I'll put it on some credit card and not pay. That's fine. You know? Like that's just kind of how I handled things back then. And then I get this unexpected bonus and, um, and this was me receiving it. Cool. that was a God shot. But I didn't receive it as one because I just wasn't open to it. So I really think that God was like, okay, I tried money, I better send her a cat. And the thing is that cat at the detox facility just lives there. Cats sit on beds. Was it a miracle? Yes. because I received it as one. I was ready to receive it as one. And about two weeks later, I was back at work and out of detox, back at work, still shaking. I'd gotten a sponsor. I got a sponsor on that first day and I was still drunk, still had the alcohol in my system. And a woman approached me, offered to help me take the steps. Thank God. Thank God she made that approach, just like the book suggests. But I don't remember what step we were on. We didn't go through the steps quickly. You know, I don' t know what my understanding was of any of this, but something internally has started shifting. But still, at that two-week mark, I'm sitting in my car on my lunch hour and I'm parked up against a brick wall. Cause I used to always park in this one little spot behind a building so I could drink at my lunch hour, you know, but now I'm not drinking. And, um, I was sitting there just, um, wanting to drink, but I don't want to drink. I want to, I don'T want to drink.I can go in that store and get a bottle. I DON'T want to do that, that really fun battle, right? I don't remember praying, but I closed my eyes and when I opened them, there were beams of light coming off the brick. I can't describe it but it was a it was a feeling of okayness you know and that night as I went to bed I thought oh my god I haven't thought about drinking since lunchtime like it just didn't even occur I didn't realize the thought was gone like it was you know how like the absence of something you don't always notice and you're like wait a minute and um and I'd had that constant thought for um a good 20 years you know it was just I'm just always there I didn't know it could be gone I hadn't read or heard of the 10th step promises yet but suddenly I realized like oh my god I haven't thought about drinking since noon. And I was like, what else can you do? You know, like, oh my God, I'm blown away. And when I look up, there's beams of light on my ceiling. I look over, it's my bedside lamp. But I'd never seen it do that before. It's still a miracle. you know and from that day to this um i haven't had a single doubt that this power exists and i haven'T had a SINGLE DOUBT THAT I'LL NEVER FULLY EXPERIENCE IT but i keep seeking it you know like um i hope it never ceases to blow my mind because it's pretty mind-blowing that we get, we get to tap into this power. And I wasn't, you know, like I hadn't faced all the obstacles blocking me yet. How did this power touch me? I was just, just open-minded enough in my brokenness. Um, and so, yeah, when I get to step 11, I'm like, Hey, let's go. Let's, Let's find out some more about this. You know, like I'm hungry for this now. And I'm going to read a little bit from the big book and share my personal experiences with it in the big book at the bottom of 85. First, I'm gonna go to the paragraph before. It says, step 11 suggests as much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration and direction from him who has all knowledge and power. Yeah. Man, you know, my sponsor, one of the best things that she taught me was to not rely upon her. She was not really available. she's she's retired she's always going on trips you know and she's like you can call but you know you might not reach me you know. And and it ended up being such a good thing because like she's not the source. I had to keep turning to God, keep turning to this book, keep returning to the fellowship like um it can't be about one person not me not my sponsor not any one person and um if we have careful carefully followed directions we've begun to sense the flow of this spirit into us yeah to some extent we've become god conscious began to develop this vital sixth sense vital i need this um but we must go further that means more action how many times does the book say that like there's more um step 11 suggests prayer and meditation we shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer better men than we are using it constantly constantly constant i wasn't using it constantly at first you know at first it felt like um even though i was blown away by this power and i'm seeing lights um my early prayers felt like you know like when i was in kindergarten and some of you will remember this um we would have to say the pledge of allegiance in the classroom and i didn't know what the words meant you know it's like pledge allegiance to the flag like i don't you know i don' t have really as a kid i don''t have a connection to what i'm saying and that's how my prayers were at first like like um grant me the serenity under god i don't one nation like i don'T you know i'm just kind of saying it but i donT know what i'M saying and i DON'T know who i'M talking to but i'M willing to take these actions i'M willing to to try because i know the power is there i know it exists i know it's available i DON't know quite how to reach it or how to um be step out of the way or how to face my self-centeredness but i'm willing to try and at some point along the way and this is not a um direction or requirement or anything like that but at some point alongtheway i just fell to my knees i didn't i hadn't planned on it I was just brought down to my knees and not in a um not in self-pity or you know kind of way just like I'm just humbled by God's presence um it works if we have the proper attitude and work at That's my attitude. You know, I think of the simple concept in step three that God is the father, the director, the principal. My attitude, the nature of my relationship is God is my employer, not my personal assistant, you know, notmy little taskmaster. i don't give god things to do throughout the day or try to change his mind imagine god here's something i need you to do oh my cats are fighting that's cute um you know imagine that like no i'm i'm just show up and ask him what would you like me to do today god i can't tell god anything new but the prayer changes me it would be easy to be vague about this but we're not going to be vague you know look thank god gives us these really definite and valuable suggestions sometimes i've heard like you can't tell another person how to pray it's like well no i I can't. But, you know, we have a framework here. We have directions here that really work. And thank God for that because left on my own, I would have been floundering, you know. When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Constructively. This is practical. this is constructive it's useful on my own when I would retire at night could destructively review my day you know like what did I do wrong or f that girl you know whatever I'm just replaying stuff like ah did someone smell my breath damn it what did i agree to do tomorrow well you know all that all that kind of stuff this is constructive and it's touching on those same things that all has talked about in step 10 our our 11th step nightly review is like how was my 10th step today god it goes further than that but the first part of the questions is just okay i think i was good in my 10-step awareness i think I caught stuff but was i resentful dishonest self-seeking or afraid See, I'm asking God these questions. I can't ask self. She doesn't always know. You know, but I ask God. Do I owe an apology? I think I did pretty good today, but maybe I do owe someone an apology. Have I kept something to myself which should be discussed with another person at once? God will let me know. and then here it's going to go further than my 10th step awareness throughout the day was i kind and loving toward all all yeah all it's my job to be a demonstration of god's love and power i'll never do it perfectly but imagine if i set out my day like i'm gonna be unkind to someone today you know, that's not what I want to do. That's never justified. What could I have done better? And see here, like especially these questions, I mean, I think they're all like I'm asking God these questions but if I were to ask myself that, you better believe I'm getting into the morbid reflection. What Could I Have Done Better? Probably everything, you know or I'm justifying something Like, no, I did that as perfectly as I could. You know, I got to go to the source. Was I thinking of myself most of the time or was I thinking of what I could do for others, of what I could pack into the stream of life? And again, this has to be God directed. If I am if I'm playing God, if I'M full of self and thinking of what I could DO for others. I'M doing it in that people pleasing, I need you to like me kind of way. That is not really God consciousness. I just want you to like Me and approve of Me. So I'm going to be kind to you or demanding as the case may be so that you behave the way I think I need You to, so I'll be okay. But when I'm God-centered, I can consider this thinking of what I can do for others in a loving way pack into the stream of life that used to scare me you know I used to get tripped up on like can't say no to an AA request so I'll double book myself you know like nonsense, right? Like, no, that's not what we're supposed to do. You know? And when I'm God directed, when I've got led, I, the answers come and the time is there, you know, like I would have things scheduled throughout the day and like, Oh my God, how am I going to pull that off? And at the end of the day, be like, it worked. It worked. It just flowed. You know, I can pack into this dream of life without being overextended. Because I'm not running the show. I'm nicht directing das. I can do a lot in a day. But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse, or morbid reflection. Why? Because then I would be uncomfortable. Just kidding. For that would diminish our usefulness to others. I want to be useful you know there's so many warnings through all throughout the book of like what we get in the way of our usefulness to others and this is one of them you know if I if I retaliate or argue with someone who is spiritually sick gets in the way of my usefulness if I'm intolerant of someone else's opinion or viewpoint it's in the away of my usefulness if I show intolerance or hatred of drinking as an institution gets in the way of my usefulness. I want to be useful. After making a review, we ask God's forgiveness, inquire what corrective measures should be taken. And I know there are different ways that people practice this. I personally do it in my head. I use pen or paper or an app and I'm not commenting on like that can be really useful. For me, I am asking God the questions, trusting that the answers will come. And then I get to go to sleep and I sleep so much better by practicing this. And then on awakening, God provides the answers and I will awaken with my plans for the day, the answers from the night before an apology that i need to make something i need to talk to somebody about um and on awakening the first thing i do is ask god to direct my thinking before my feet hit the floor and i'll tell you something um this is something I started doing years ago. It works, it's not in the book. But years ago, I realized that I was pretty good at practicing step 11 at night, the nightly review, I'm doing it. But then every morning, I'd wake up like, Oh, no, you know, hit the snooze? Or what day is it? What did I agree to do today? Can I get out of it? But you know some form of fear doubt in my head. And then every night I'd be like, you know what? It went fine today. All this stuff I worried about this morning, it went fine. Thank you. I thought, when am I going to connect those dots? Every morning I'm afraid and every night I'm like, it was fine. So one night in my nightly review, I just said, God, can you please awaken me with the same faith and gratitude that I feel right now? the next morning when i woke up the only thing in my head was god i didn't do that you know so ever since then i asked god to help me pray why wouldn't he you know like and and and it and it works and so my first thought whether i'm waking up with the alarm or not, or it's a cat crying for breakfast at 3 a.m., you know, whatever it is, my first thought is God. I mean, it's that simple. It's just God is. And that thought is enough to anchor me in some way, to bring some peace. I consider my plans for the day before I begin. I ask God to direct my thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. Those are the things that will get in the way. Those of the things that will get in the way of me being able to receive God's guidance. Under these conditions, we can employ our mental faculties with assurance where after all, God gave us brains to use. Isn't that cool? Like, yeah, God give us, I mean this is step 11 is prayer and meditation. I'm looking up something I want to read to you guys. Step 11 is prayer and meditation and it's Thinking. This is a thinking step all throughout, you know, let us think about the 24 hours ahead. God gave us brains to use our thought life. We place on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. And so I don't have to be afraid of my own thoughts today. you know sometimes we'll hear in meetings um first thought wrong i have a broken brain you know my head's a bad neighborhood things like that and there's some basis for that but if i'm living this god-directed life and i'll never be perfect at it but if i'M if I'M trying my first thought could be god directed now when i'm in panic when i'M IN FEAR WHEN I'M IN SELF I NEED TO BE REDIRECTED UM I'M JUST LOOKING UP SOMETHING THAT I THINK IS SO CUTE FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT UM okay from the original manuscript um this is in the step 11 um okay i'm just reading part of it but you'll see where it's different um okay consider your plans for the day before you begin ask god to guide your thinking especially ask that it be divorced from self-pity dishonor self-seeking motives then go ahead and use your common sense there is nothing hard or mysterious about this god gave you brains to use but there's nothing hard or mysterious about this it's almost like they're trying to be like this works you guys like for real you know and yeah it is it's not hard it feels mysterious but it's practical we know that it works from experience um in thinking about our day we may face indecision we may not be able to determine which course to take. Here, we ask God for inspiration, an intuitive thought, or a decision. Check it out. We relax and take it easy. We don't struggle. If I'm struggling, that's my voice. That's not God's. I'm still surprised how the right answers come after I've tried this for a while. I'm not going to read quite every line in here, but I want to share some personal experiences. Actually, I'm going to go down to 87 at the bottom where it says as we go through the day, we pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right thought or action. Constantly remind ourselves we're no longer running the show. You know, and here's where 10 and 11 are intertwined. and i'll share a recent experience and was it 10 was it 11 i was watching for self-centeredness i paused when agitated or dull the numbers fall away at this intersection you know because it becomes a working part of my mind but a few months ago and we've already established i'm a bit of a crazy cat lady and um our dear cat becky um little black kitty who would always some of you guys have seen her because she would always sit next to me in zoom meetings um she she lived to be we're 20 years old just a just a legend this little cat and um she spent all her time with me all her Time right next to Me when I'm zooming and um you know 20 her health started failing and it got a little harder for her to move around and one day my husband said I think it's time I think it's the time that we take her to the vet and put her down and I said no she helps other alcoholics on Zoom every day with her presence my husband's and Normie's like okay you know um that might sound a little weird but it's true she um you know she was a constant presence when I'm in a meeting or meeting with sponsees um and my husband said you know the last thing I want is for her to fall and hurt herself and die painfully at home and i'm like i know i get that i get that but no and he said i'll get your call and um a week later she fell and hurt herself and i am home my husband is at work and um I called the vet and they couldn't get us in for another six hours. It was like 10 in the morning and they had an appointment available at 430. And I'm crying and I'm praying. And I call my husband at work and he said, you know, this is what I was talking about. This is what i was worried about. And the words that came to mind were, don't say I told you so, honey. Just don't, not now. Don't say, I told your son. But I paused and the words that came out of my mouth were, you were right, honey? And in that moment, I realized how many times have he and I had a disagreement and um i win you know because whatever my opinion is is what we go with how many times have we done that it's my call we disagree on something we're not fighting we're just having a little disagreement and then the conclusion is we do it my way and i think i'm respecting his opinion how many times have i just dismissed dismissed him and i was shocked when i said you were right baby because i you know i wasn't planning on saying those words that was god and of course it it diffused everything you know my husband he was like he's like honey i'm coming home he didn't say i told you know he didn't say i told you so and he came right home and he and i got to um comfort her and we gave her three bowls of whipped cream and you know what she she acted like she wasn't in any pain her body was literally falling apart but she actedlike she was in no pain she got to meet with some sponsees that afternoon and um she was purring and she was like And we get down to the vet and she was just ready. She didn't cry. She even nuzzled the vet's hand, like, let's do this. And I got to be there for my husband too. And I realized, oh my God, there was a time that I would have just thought I'm the only one grieving. It just wouldn't even have occurred to me what any other human being is experiencing thing in this moment. And I got to comfort him, and my husband's a big guy. He's a big strong guy, and he did not like to cry. Gets really embarrassed. It's really uncomfortable for him. And i got to be there for him. Then i realized, oh my god, i have a speaking commitment at six o'clock. And my husband goes, you should probably do it. He's like, you should probably just go ahead and do that speaking. I'm like, yeah, I really should. There is nothing hard or mysterious about this. All I did was pause and look what God gives me. God gives us opportunity to be kind and loving and thoughtful and um where i would have made a situation worse and right about it you know like oh my god on my own when i think i'm right i'm making things worse thank god for god i'm gonna read another little part of um the original manuscript check it out um nevertheless you will find that your thinking will as time passes be more and more on the plane of inspiration and guidance you will come to rely upon it this is not weird or silly most psychologists pronounce these methods sound i kind of wish they left that line in right This isn't weird or silly. It's not, it's not. We never apologize for our reliance upon God. It's Not Weird or Silly, it works. It really does. I'm going to the middle of 87. We ask especially for freedom from self-will. Careful to make no request for ourselves only. we may ask for ourselves however if others will be helped careful never to pray for our own selfish ends so i pray for myself but it's always bearing on my usefulness to others and i'm careful not to tell god what to do about other people like this person's bothering me can you please make them understand that you know Oh, like, you know, and granted, there's some good places in the 12 and 12 that talks about this, how, you know, praying for another person, like oh my gosh, I hope Aunt Mary is cured of her cancer, for example. Okay, that's a good act. It says that's fundamentally good act, however, side by side with this fundamental good act can be a certain amount of presumption and conceit within us because I'm telling God what to do. As if I'm informing him, you don't know this, but there's someone who is sick and you need to fix it. Like, that sounds silly. But if I pray, God, how can I be helpful to Aunt Mary? I'm just sticking with the hypothetical I threw in there. How can I be helpful to her? God, save me from fear. Your will, not mine. That's a constructive prayer. And I do receive guidance. Because I have to rely so much on step 11 as I'm working with others, I get to work with a lot of people and people are different. And we have a set of directions in this book and we have wonderful guidance in chapter seven. And, you know, I'm a big fan of the clear cut directions that we have in here. However, when I'm face-to-face with another human being, there can be no script. I follow this guidance, but I rely on step 11 as I'm working with each person because situations will be different. The timing will be difference. Step 11 prevents me from playing God with sponsees. seems like it's the easiest place to continue to play God in our lives is with sponsees and family members you know and everyday interactions you know pretty good but then oh my god I want this person to recover or I want this person too you know whatever you know fill in the blank and that's not where my peace and happiness comes from my peace and happiness doesn't come from me trying to change you it has to come from the source but it can't even be what i'm seeking you know believe me i was seeking happiness before i came into aa did i ever have it no but if i seek to comfort another if i see to be useful if i speak to understand and grow more if i seem to know this power better, if I'm trying to remember my reliance is on God, that I'm not running the show as a byproduct. We get pretty happy. We're pretty happy, joyous and free. It just can't be what I'm seeking. You know, just like I couldn't get myself sober. I couldn'T stop drinking by trying to stop drinking. The needed power wasn't there. Sobriety becomes a byproduct, 10-step promises that all is read. I had it backwards for so long. I could never receive what I was seeking when I was trying to um comfort myself and be heard and be understood and and um so much energy wasted and trying to do that no i'm gonna say you know yeah wasted energy however i'm grateful for every drink i didn't want to drink i'm thankful for every mistake i'm Grateful for how painful self-centeredness has become because i wouldn't wouldn't be here otherwise you know seems that the spiritual awakening the um i don't know what word i'm looking for but you know we have that line pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth like yeah so i'm not so scared of pain anymore because it moves me. I'm going to read page 88, whoops, bottom of seven. We constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show. Was I ever running the show? I just thought I was. I tried to, you know, I'm no longer trying to run the show, humbly saying to ourselves many times each day, thy will be done. Then much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity, foolish decisions would become much more efficient. Okay, I'm stealing a line that I heard. Gosh, and I can't even credit her because I don't remember who it was. But I heard a speaker say once, saying that you don't have time for step 11 is like saying you don' t have time to get gas, so you'll just walk. Right? Right? This is my fuel, man. And when I rely upon it, I can fit so much more in the day than I ever thought I could. And I can also relax and take it easy. I'm not arranging things. I'm not seeking balance anymore. I'm seeking God. I don't tire so easily if I'm not burning up energy foolishly as I did when I was trying to arrange life to suit myself. It works. It really does. We alcoholics are undisciplined. Yes. So we let God discipline us in the simple way we have just outlined. I used to think, and I still kind of like have this word association that discipline means punishment. And the simple Way we have Just Outlined, I haven't read a single thing that's punishing. I'll share too, you know, in these passages is talking about meditation. I had this idea that meditation had to be timed. It had to Be quiet. I had to envision a leaf blowing by and nothing else. And those are wonderful practices. But it doesn't have to be meditation is not defined by time or quietness as instructed in this book in the big book but i'll share with you um something that really um it'll stay with me um in early recovery i started attending an 11-step meditation meeting where the format was we read 85 through 88 and then we have a timed 20 minute silent meditation and then we share. And this particular group, not in the best area of town, and we would often have people experiencing homelessness come into the room to get coffee or use the bathroom or just hang out or whatever and um at first I would get irritated I'm trying to meditate and then I realize my mind would latch on to something I regret from the past or fear in the future or I'm just trying to relax and I can't, you know, like I'm trying to meditate and this is still going. And when someone would enter the room and make a little noise I was brought back to the present and so I started saying thank you and not even from a yes there but for the grace of God go I but not from a place of pity or like oh my god that could be me homeless you know not nothing like that it was just you are me we are the same we are equals thank you for helping me my judgment and assumptions can get in the way of that but i truly don't think there's a human being on the planet that that um doesn't have something i can learn from and um and i only learned that through god's guidance when i came in here i didn't know what i needed you for thank you for teaching me um i hope i can continue to stay open-minded and grateful and um continue to rely on this power and these directions that are not weird or silly it really works i think um that's enough out of me i love you guys thank you so much for having me and looking forward to hearing chris coming up next thank you alice