Higher Power Shows Up as the Gap Between a Thought and an Action — That’s What the Sixth and Seventh Step Gave Me – Dave D.

God, please help us set aside everything I know about myself, my disease, these steps, and especially you. For an open mind and a new experience with myself, my disease, these steps, and especially you. Tonight, we have Dave D. from the Great Fact Group of Neptune speaking about the three legacies for the next two weeks. That is the introduction. My name is Dave. I'm an alcoholic. Thank you guys so much for having me out here. Thank Dave for inviting me to come. It's such a privilege and an honor to be able to do anything for Alcoholics Anonymous because three years ago I was dying and I really didn't think I was going to make it. I was in a whole lot of trouble and I was looking at some jail time. My life was completely in shambles and I was absolutely hopeless. To be able to come up here and sit at a table and do a workshop on anything is awesome. Very, very cool. I like it. I like this setting. I think it's very intimate. It's a nice small room. It's a good room. I like the way it feels. I always get really nervous when they put me in these huge rooms. It's terrifying. So I feel comfortable. It's nice. So we talk about the three legacies. Balance. How do I stay in a place of balance? I'm not the type of person who gravitates towards balance. I don't gravitate towards anything that involves balance. I'm extreme. I'm extreme high, extreme low. Upper. Downer. Blah, blah, blah. All over the place. So when we talk about the three legacies, we're talking about the three things in Alcoholics Anonymous that bring me to a place of balance, a place of stillness, a place of peace, a place where I can be of use to other people, where I can be of use to people inside Alcoholics Anonymous, outside Alcoholics Anonymous, and be of use to myself. My home group is The Great Factory Meet in Neptune, New Jersey. We are a speaker discussion meeting. We bring in speakers to speak on a chapter in the big book, to share their experience with the chapter. We're not a big book study, so they'll come in and share their experience with We Agnostics over the third step as it's outlined in the book. And then there's a little discussion that happens afterwards. My sobriety date is September 6, 2009. Absolutely, God separated me on that day. I would not have told you that on September 6, 2009, because I did not believe in God. But that is absolutely what happened to me. So I decided I was thinking about how to break this up, how we're going to do the three legacies. And I think the first, the easiest way to start, is with the recovery portion. So we have, if you guys who are familiar with our symbol, the symbol of Alcoholics Anonymous, it's a circle with a triangle in it. And the very, very center is a little dot. And the three legacies are unity, service, and recovery. And when we are balanced within unity, and service, and recovery, unity, service, recovery, parts of this triangle, there's a little circle around it. When I'm balanced on all three sides of this triangle, I'm balanced within God, and I'm balanced within myself, and I'm balanced within this spirit. And I can be of use to other people, and I can be of use to myself. It's really quite a gift, a gift. And I didn't really come into the three legacies kind of concept until about two years ago. I'm about three years sober. No one was really talking. It was, my first year was like recovery, and that's it. No one was telling me you got to look at traditions or anything like that, because it was like, you need to get physically sober because you're a disaster, and you need to get your feet on the ground. So I think the most pertinent place to start is with the base of that. That triangle, which is our recovery portion of the book. Unity has to do with the fellowship. Do I have a home group? Am I committed to that group? Am I of service? What do I do with that group? How do I interact within the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous? Am I a person who creates unity, or do I create chaos? My natural nature is to create chaos. I create chaos naturally. I don't need to do anything to create chaos. I do need to get grounded in a power greater than myself in order to be of any service in the area of unity. Because it is not my natural nature. Service is, how do I show up, what do I do for Alcoholics Anonymous, the fellowship that saved my life? Do I have commitments in my home group? Do I have commitments outside of my home group? Do I organize workshops? Am I a part of, am I working on a district level? Do I get up on an area level? What does my service look like? How do I show up to contribute? Do I put chairs away in the beginning, putting chairs away, setting chairs up, making coffee? This is all service. The greeter, greeter positions, you know, that was my first commitment that I ever had. I had no idea how to socialize at all, I was so completely socially inept when I got here. I couldn't complete sentences. And they would put me outside and let me shake people's hands, which is terrifying, is absolutely the most terrifying thing in the world for me. But it was a service commitment. So unity service, and then we have our recovery portion. The recovery portion is the 12 steps as they're outlined in the big book outline. The recovery portion is the 12 steps as they're outlined in the big book outline. The recovery portion is the 12 steps as they're outlined in the big book outline. The recovery portion is the 12 steps as they're outlined in the big book outline. And the recovery there, any specific, I'll take this as anonymous. I'm very grateful because when I came into AA, I was given a big book right away, and it's not a lot of people's experience. And I'm so grateful that that was my experience. Right off the bat, they said, you do it, if you don't go through this thing, you're going to die. And I was a little confused. I'm not going to do a lot of back stories tonight, because I don't think it's too pertinent. I'll spend just a couple minutes qualifying, but it's not too necessary, I don't think. I go a little bit further back. I was at the end, and we had a talk. So my story was done. in this type of workshop. It is necessary, but in this setting I think it'll be okay. We have a pamphlet, it's called Problems Other Than Alcohol, and I had a lot of them. I came into Alcoholics Anonymous with a lot more than just alcohol problems and I wasn't sure if I belonged here or if I would fit in here and when I was presented with the big book Alcoholics Anonymous I wasn't sure if it was going to have the solution for me and I wasn't sure if I was going to identify with it, despite the fact I had vicious alcohol problems. Some of my other problems were substantially worse than that. And I met a young guy he had come in, I was in a rehab, and he was 20 years old, he had been sober for 3 years. He got sober when he was 17 and I was like, what does this kid know? And he had a brutal story just a really tough upbringing, a really tough life, and he was ripping and running at a really, really young age. And he fell apart very quickly, he was in a lot of trouble by 17, and he came into the rooms and he got sober. And he shared his story in this facility, and I didn't think people like me got sober. I'd never seen anybody like me get sober, none of my friends none of them had ever gotten sober. I buried a lot of my friends. I'd been to 3 of my very close friends' funerals by the time I was 25 years old when I got sober. People were dying left and right acquaintances. So I didn't think, I didn't think that there was a way out. You know, when we talk about the first step, when we talk about powerless and unmanageability, and hopelessness, and, you know, to live on a spiritual basis, or to face an alcoholic death, there was no convincing that you needed to do for me. I knew I was going to die when I got the alcoholic son. It was written all over the walls in my story. So this young man shared his story. And I identified with this story, and he looked really happy, and he had this look, you know, this glow in his eyes. Bill talks about it in his story about Ebi. Ebi had this look in his eyes that was substantially different. And, you know, then he told him that he got religion, and Bill was like, oh, geez. And I'll let him rant, and I'll drink my gin. But this young man, he had this look in his eyes. And I asked him to sponsor me, and right off the bat, he asked me two questions. He said, are you willing to do whatever it's going to... Are you done? First thing he asked me, he said, are you done? Are you really done? You know, I meet a lot of guys in these rehabs, and I love you all, but I'm not... If you're going to go back out, just let me know. I'm not going to judge you. You know, that's fine. Just, are you done? Are you really done? And I said, yeah, I'm done. And he said, are you willing to do whatever it's going to take to get better? And I said, yeah. And I didn't understand what that meant at all. And he went to a cabinet, and he got out a big book, and he sat me down, and he said, I want you to write your name in there, and I want you to write your phone number, and I want you to write your sober date. And he took me to How It Works. And he went to the 12 steps, and he just gave me a little, really brief synopsis on each one of the steps. You know, we're going to talk about a couple things, and you're going to base some conclusions based on your experience in the first step, and in the second step, you know, we'll get there when we get there, but it's really not much more than being willing to move forward with this thing, and believing that it may work for you, and making a decision to do the work, and then writing inventory, and becoming willing to have God take some things from you, even though you may not believe in that yet. That's fine. And you've got to be able to go out and make amends for all the things you've done wrong, and you're going to learn how to pray, and you're going to learn how to meditate, and you're going to learn some mindfulness stuff, and you're going to help others when you're done, you know, and are you willing to do these things? And I said, yeah, yeah, whatever man, I'm going to die. And so, I started drinking when I was 12, blacked out the first time, puked all over the place, got dragged home, put in my parents' bathtub, and I woke up the next morning. That was the first time I drank. I was really uncomfortable as a kid. Not really, I was, I had a really fun childhood. Once I reached the age where it became important, and I'm not exactly sure when this happened, it was probably about third or fourth grade, where it became, it started to become important what you thought about me. And whenever that started to creep into my consciousness, I started to get very uncomfortable. And as I got older, that got worse, and it became so important what you thought. And it became so important that you liked me. And by the time I was 12 years old and I took my first drink, I was ready for it, and I needed it. And the first time I drank alcohol, it did something for me that nothing I'd ever experienced before in my life did for me. It set me free. It set me free from myself. It gave me the ability to be present to this moment, right here, right now, and my mind was quiet. You know, not stopped, but quiet. Like, it wasn't da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, because that's the way my mind goes. And still today, I have a mind that tends to go very quickly. You know, it's a I have, I was gifted in the area of being able to learn. School was very easy for me, so in that sense, I had a gift with my mind. But with that gift came this, like, incessant movement. It always was moving. So alcohol provided me with this, a level of relief that I'd never experienced before in my life. By the time I was 15, I was not doing well. By the time I was 17, I was in pretty bad shape. And I went away to Rutgers, to the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, to get a doctorate in pharmacy. And I was great at school. You know, I was the kid who'd be out, I would be in the woods at the cut spot, and I would come back in for calculus, because I knew I had an exam, and I'd be a little not sober, that's for sure. And I would take the calculus exam, and I would get a 98, and then all the kids in the honors class hated me. And I would go hanging out with the burnouts again, because that's where I liked to be, and that's where I felt comfortable. So I went off to the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy. I got into a lot of trouble there. I had a lot of fun there. My life was absolutely awesome. If you asked me that I was going to stop, if I would stop drinking, or if I wouldn't be drinking at any point in my life, I would say absolutely, there's no way that's going to happen. There's no way that I'll stop doing what I'm doing, because I loved it. I mean, it was essential to my survival, and to my well-being. By the time I was, I found my roommate dead at 20 years old, after a really long night of partying, and my whole life changed. And in the doctor's opinion, it says that we drink because we like the effect produced. I like the effect produced by alcohol. That's why I continue to do it over and over again. And in Bill's story, he talks about, he uses the word oblivion. And the final effect produced by alcohol is complete oblivion. Like, I don't want to experience reality anymore. I don't want to be conscious. I don't want to be stumbling around. I don't want to leave my room. All I want to do is sit in a really comfortable chair with my pack of Newports and my ashtray on a stand, and I don't want to move. And I don't want to go anywhere. And that's after my roommate had passed away from an overdose in college. That is pretty much where I spent the next couple years. I went to class, and I did what I had to do to maintain my grades, but I pretty much spent most of my time in a chair, drinking and smoking cigarettes. I got kicked out of pharmacy school. Not because my grades were bad, but because I got arrested for some things that you can't do, and be a pharmacist at the same time. They asked me to leave. They didn't kick me out. They very politely asked me to take a medical leave of absence and just take a break for a while. And if I can get my problems taken care of, I can come back. You know, you can't be a felon and a pharmacist. You just can't get licensed. So I had to take care of that, and I couldn't. There was no way I was getting out of what I got in trouble for. So I moved on, and I graduated school, and my problems got worse and worse and worse. By the time I was 25 years old, I was working in the pharmaceutical industry. I was making a lot of money. I was doing research and design on oncology and metabolic disease. I was very successful with the work that I did, and I weighed about 130 pounds. I took two-hour lunch breaks to go into Patterson every day. I was not in good shape. And eventually, my lifestyle caught up with me. I had been fired from many jobs. In fact, I don't think I ever left a job on good terms. Every job I've ever had, I was asked to leave up until sobriety. So they asked me to leave, too. I found myself in a small apartment in Garfield, New Jersey. I totaled my car that day, driving intoxicated. I was getting evicted from my apartment. I was sleeping on an air mattress, and I was making a lot of money. I just couldn't get the paycheck to the bill people. It would never make it there. I would sit at the ATM at 3.30 in the morning, waiting for the direct deposit with the bank card, swiping and swiping. And somewhere around July 2009, my heart stopped. I was brought back to life. Someone found me. It had not been the first time that that had happened. I remember looking at the ambulance driver, and he said, I shot up off the couch that I was on when they brought me back. And I remember just crying. Just bursting out in tears. And I'm like, why did you bring me back? Why? Why does this keep happening? I wanted to die more than anything in the world. And I was way too scared to kill myself. I thought about it, and I identify with Bill's story when he talks about swaying dizzily in front of the medicine cabinet where there was poison, and bringing his mattress down to the first floor in case he suddenly leaps up. I identify with that. Because I did not want to live anymore. And I tried for the last two years prior to getting sober, I tried really hard to stop drinking. I did not want to drink anymore. I was not interested in living the lifestyle I was living, but I could not get out of it. And we'll talk about that in the first step a little bit more. But I just could not get out of that. And basically, I knew I was going to die. I kind of wrote myself off. And my mom called me at 3 o'clock in the morning while I was sitting in the hospital bed. And she said, you know, I got news that you're back in the hospital. And I said, yeah. And she was crying. And I'm like, it's okay. I'm alright. And she said, no, you know. And my mom's an amazing woman. The most loving woman I've ever met in my life. Did everything in this world for me. And she said, you know, I wish that you had finally just died and this was all over. Because I can't do this anymore. I can't do this. And that hit me. That was my moment of clarity. That was my in the midst of all the fog and the chaos of my life, that was this moment where it was like, oh my God, if I die, it's not just me. Like, it's not just me that's being affected by this. It's not just me. And in the midst of my incredible self-centeredness, I had this moment of clarity where I saw all the harm that I was doing to these people in my life that I love and who loved me. And I went to rehab for them. I went to rehab for my mom. I didn't go for me. I knew I wasn't going to make it. Honestly. I knew I wasn't going to make it. Like, I'm not going to make it. And I remember getting there and the lady, there was this big lady, Barb, and she ran the facility and she was definitely one of us. And she gave me this big hug and I was crying. And she said, honey, do you think are you done? Are you done doing this? And I said, yeah, I'm done. And she said, do you think that you can get better? And I said, absolutely not. You'll get me better. I'll leave here sober. But I will not stay sober when I walk out the door of this place. I've been to a bunch of these places. I'm not going to stay sober. And into the facility I went. And that's really what my belief was. And it wasn't until I met that young guy, Brian, and he shared his story that I got even just a little glimmer of hope. And it was really the first gift that Alcoholics Anonymous gave me. The first gift that I got from AA was this little glimmer of hope that maybe people like us make it out. Like, maybe people like us get better. And we got into the big book. Which brings us to the bottom of the triangle. The recovery portion of our life. A healthy, balanced life within Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, in the big book, the first four chapters are designed to take you through the first step and the second step. The first step is a conclusion that we base on our experience. We look back. I have to look back at my life and say, is what this book is saying, what is written in here, is it what happens to me when I drink? Do I identify with the doctor's opinion? Do I identify with Bill's story more about alcohols and there is a solution? Do I identify with these things that they're talking about? And basically what it says the doctor's opinion opens up and starts talking about, introduces the concept of the physical allergy. And basically there's something going on physically with me that doesn't happen to a normal person. When I put alcohol in any form at all into my body, it triggers something that, they call it a phenomenon of craving. An allergy, they term it the physical allergy, the definition of an allergy is an abnormal reaction. So I don't react like a normal person to alcohol. And when I put alcohol in my body, it creates this phenomenon of craving and I want more. I want more so much that it doesn't matter what I have to do the next day or later on that evening or later on that day. It doesn't matter if it's my cousin's wedding and I play a really important role in it. It doesn't matter what I have to do. I'm going to continue to drink. This amazes me. Normal people go out to the bar on a Friday night. This really blows my mind. They go out and they start to drink and at some point in the evening they start to feel out of control. And they stop. That never has happened to me. I'm sitting in my house waiting to go to the bar and I feel out of control. And I get to the bar and I start drinking and I start to feel in control. And the more alcohol I consume, the more in control I feel. And I could be laying down next to the toilet puking, asking someone to bring me more because I feel more in control in the toilet puking than I did before I started drinking earlier that day. And that's not what happens to a normal person. So I have this physical part where once I start I can't stop. And then it goes into something called the mental obsession. And he alludes to it in different areas in the first couple chapters. But basically, in a doctor's opinion I love this paragraph so I'm going to read it real quick. Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious it causes me problems. They cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. To them their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable, and discontent. I totally identify with that and that's a spiritual malady and I absolutely have one of those. And unless they can again experience a sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks. I am so So the mental obsession is kind of for me has two different parts. I am completely obsessed with the level of ease and comfort that's provided by alcohol. I'm so obsessed with the level of ease and comfort provided by alcohol that when I have $20 in my hand and I get the liquor store is about to open, I already feel better. Like the shakes have gone away. I'm starting to feel more clear and I know it's coming and I feel better. And then I get the bottle in my hand and there's another level of ease and comfort. And then I take a swig and it's like ahhhhh. Alcohol has so much power over me that I don't even need it in my body to have the effect produced by it. I just have it and I'm like ahh yes. It's happening. It's going to happen. It's going down. So it's really got me. There's also the mental obsession involves this way of thinking. This disease that centers in the mind because this is truly a mind type of disease. If all that was the problem is that once I start I can't stop, then I just don't start. If you're allergic to strawberries you don't eat strawberries. You just don't. You don't eat them. Unfortunately when you have an allergy to alcohol that causes you to drink incredible amounts of alcohol and causes complete destruction of your life, why would you do it again? Because there's something that centers in the mind. It's another part of this mental obsession. I can't bring into my consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and the humiliation of even a week or a month ago. I'm without defense against the first drink. I can't remember the consequences with enough force to stop me from doing it again. It's a mental blank spot. I detox. I'm a seizure guy. I have seizures. I've had many seizures. I make it through that period. That seven day window where like death is possible. I start to feel pretty good. I'm like I should have done this a year ago. This is great. I got $20 in my pocket. I'm going to go to the deli and get a sandwich. Don't remember the last time I had money to do that. And all of a sudden the thought comes into my head like I bet your tolerance is down. I bet you can do it today and you won't do it again until next Friday. Because it's Friday and you gotta have fun, you know? It's Friday night. You're 23 years old. Everybody's going out. It's going to be alright. Now that's insane. If you look at my track record every time, I don't do it on a Friday and then wait again until next Friday. I've tried that many times. Yet I believe that thought. And I go to the bar and I have a drink. And for me they talk about sprees. The sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks. Drinks which they see others taking with impunity. Impunity is free from problems. So I see other people who are able to do this successfully. I see all my friends go to the bar. And they're able to do this. And after I succumb to the desire again, that insane thought, as so many do and the phenomenon of craving, the physical allergy develops, they pass through the well known stages of a spree. So I go into a spree. And my sprees last 6 to 18 months. I'm not the kind of guy who goes out for a little while. When I'm out, I'm out. You're not going to see me again until I completely destroy my whole life again. And then I come crawling back with nothing. I'm absolutely the kind of guy identified with this part in the big book where it says we build up this wonderful life for ourselves. And then we just tear it all down. And I've done that over and over again. So I have this mental obsession. And I identify with this. And the third aspect of this first step, this disease, is a spiritual malady. And a spiritual malady, I'll read something in the book, but just to be very personal and experiential with this. What does a spiritual malady look like for me? I'm not okay. In the simplest way I can say it, I'm not okay. I'm not comfortable in my own skin. I do not feel a part of unless I'm drinking. I feel completely separated from people. There's this movie Garden State. I love it. It's like a comes of age movie. And it was out when I was coming of age. And he eats an ecstasy pill. And he's sitting on the couch. And everything's moving in fast motion all around him. And he's just moving in slow motion, looking around. And like that's the way my life felt to me. Like everybody knew what they were doing. And everybody had a handle on this game. And I don't. You know? And I'm just this scared little boy trying to be a man. Trying to figure out how to live this life. And I don't know how. Unless I'm drinking. You see that drinking is the solution for that. Drinking was never my problem. My problem was being sober. My problem is that spiritual malady. That disconnect from God. That disconnect from you. That I don't know how to socialize with you. And I don't know how to be accepted by you. And I need you to accept me, but I don't know how. And this is complete uncomfortability. And on page 52 um, if you have a book if you want to look. You don't have to at all if you don't want to though. It's not that important. Because I'll read it. Um, we have something called the bedevilments. And the symptoms of alcoholism alcohol is such a small part of this. I mean alcohol is what gets me to Alcoholics Anonymous. But alcoholism is way bigger. Way bigger than drinking. Um, and I identify with this. And I identify with this drunk. And there's been a couple periods of my sobriety where this has gotten ripping again too. And it says we're having trouble with personal relations. I can't control my emotional nature. I'm a prey to misery and depression. I can't make a living. I have a feeling of uselessness. I'm full of fear. I'm unhappy. I couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. I identify with that. Like take alcohol out of my life completely. And I identify with that. I'm talking about waking up at two years sober. Riddled with feelings of uselessness. Riddled with feeling prey to misery and depression. You know? And I'll talk about this maybe, maybe I'll talk about it today. At two years sober I was so spiritually arrogant and self-righteous with the big book that I hold myself up in a corner. I thought I had outgrown my sponsor. I had outgrown many people in my network and I couldn't find anybody who was on as advanced of a spiritual level as I was. And yeah, a really awful place to be. And where I found myself was holed up in a corner, waking up having troubles with personal relations, unable to control my emotional nature, prey to misery and depression, and feeling useless. And being way, way too concerned about what you thought about me to tell you. And it came really close to taking me back out. Really, I'm so grateful that the obsession did not come back. And I met a man who could help me with this. A new sponsor. I was actually at the Roundup down in South Jersey last year and I heard Mickey up there talking about this in sobriety with many, many years sober and talking about this and I just started crying. And I walked out of there at the end and I met a new man and I asked him to sponsor me. But that was at two years sober. Alcoholism. I had not drank in a long time. I suffer from this though. I have a mind that takes me here if I'm not spiritually centered in a power greater than myself. So that's the first step. Do I have that? A conclusion I base on my experience. That's me. I got it. I got the bullet. Definitely an alcoholic. Second step. Can't believe that a power greater than myself can restore me to sanity. We Agnostics. Awesome chapter. I came in here an atheist, guys. This was a problem for me. This was not like a, yeah, we can work with this one. I'm like, no, God is not real. I'm really concerned because I'm going to die and the only thing I found that may be able to work is AA and they believe in fairy tales. So I'm gonna die. And I was really, I came here a few times to try to get better while I was in really bad shape and that was my perception of AA. The last time I was, I guess, beaten into a place of reasonableness. Beaten into a place where my mind was able to open up just a little bit. And what happened for me was I read the chapter We Agnostics almost every day while I was in rehab because I was having a very powerful experience with this chapter. I read this chapter before I read anything else in the big book. When my sponsor gave me this, I went right here because I knew this was my problem. I'm like, I don't believe in God. I know God's not real. I know. I'm a scientist. That's facts and stuff. And what Bill did in We Agnostics is he gave me, he slowly, it's designed to cast away old ideas. Not to come to believe but come to throw away that which is blocking me from being willing to believe. I had to take the concept I was given of God as a child and I had to put that off to the side. And We Agnostics helped me to do that. I had to take everything that I thought God had to be and put that off to the side. Everything. I read a book a great non-denominational spiritual teacher wrote an amazing book and in that book he talks about the atom. And he said the atom is a building block for life and everything is made up of atoms. And I've got this book at about 35 days sober. He said it's the building blocks for life. Everything is made up of atoms. I am, you are, and I know this. Science is my gig. I enjoy science. And he said the atom is made up of 99.99% empty space. Which means at best you are 99.99% empty space. So is this table and so is the air and so is this floor. And that's physics. That's concrete. That's the way it is. Can you wrap your head around it? And I'm like whoa. Absolutely not. I know that that's true. And then you kind of put it in that context of like I am 99.99% and I'm like I can't wrap my head around that. And he said well what makes you think you could wrap your head around something like God. Or a spirit of the universe. Or a power greater than yourself. Or some sort of creative intelligence that's making life be life. I mean you look at an ant colony function. There's some stuff going on there man. Those guys don't have much of any brains. But they have this amazing infrastructure that occurs. How does life work? And what makes me think that us human beings are the top of the totem pole of this whole deal. And what happened for me is it was just an aha moment. It's like oh maybe I don't know everything. Maybe I'm not right. And in the big book I love the line that says who are you to say there is no God. And that was my second step for me. I didn't come to believe. I became willing to believe. I became willing to open myself up and explore. To seek. I became open to seek. Now when I was reading. I took my first two steps of using sleeping medicine. I'm just going to be 100% honest with you. I had stopped drinking. But I was absolutely using these not soberly or in a correct way. And I read the first four chapters of the book doing that. And we got to the third step. We got to how it works. And we were reading the selfishness and self centeredness. You see because my real problem. Selfishness. This is on page 62 if you care to go there. It's going to be short though. Selfishness. Self centeredness that we think is the root of our troubles driven by a hundred forms of fear. Self delusion. Self seeking. Self pity. I step on your toes and you retaliate. Sometimes you hurt me. Seemingly without provocation which means reason. Seemingly without reason. But I invariably find that at some point in the past I made a decision based on me that faced me in a position to be hurt. And the third step is all about this realization that I am an incredibly selfish individual. I am incredibly selfish. I have this idea of how everything should go. And when it doesn't go that way I get frustrated. And I also like to tweak everything so that it goes the way I want it to go. And I know what's best for you. So if you just let me take control of this situation your life, I'll help you too. Because I got a really good handle on this thing called life. And it's going to work out fine. Now I'm talking to my sponsor and I'm like, well I'm a really nice guy. I take people out, buy them drinks, blah blah blah. I give things away all the time. He's like, well why do you do that? Why do you do that? And I was like, I don't really know. And he said is it because you need them to like you? Is it because you need them to validate you? Is it because you need them to love you because you can't love yourself because you absolutely despise yourself? And like absolutely. That's absolutely why I've been a nice person most of my life. It's because I need you to like me. So I could see the selfishness even in that. And it says whether our motives are good or bad, this is the deal. And what happened for me was I was in the rehab when I was reading this with my sponsor and he said, you know, are you ready to do this program? The third step, as simple as this if you're new is a decision to go through the rest of the work. It talks about will and life and we can talk about that all day long. The reality is you can't fulfill this decision in the third step. It takes four through nine in order to be able to live to be able to know what this means, to be able to live this way, this type of life. You can't do it in the third step. You can make a decision if that's what you want and that's where we are. I'm making a decision to go through the rest of the work. I'm making a decision to, to the best of my ability, allow life to do what life does and get out of the way. To be a part of life instead of trying to control life. To the best of my ability where I'm at in that moment. I got down on my knees with this guy and we held each other's hands and I've never prayed. Like I've prayed, but I've never prayed. I never wanted it. I never wanted a communion with God. I never wanted to talk to God. I didn't. And I got down on my knees and I held this man's hands and we prayed and I meant it, man. I meant it from the bottom of my heart and I had no idea what the prayer meant, but I meant I wanted God. I wanted God in my life. I wanted God to be real. And I got up off my knees and I flushed those sleeping pills down the toilet and I never obsessed about drinking ever again. And that's not everybody's story, man. And I was riddled with the obsession up to that day. You know, up to that day I was riddled with it. And so it's not, that's not everybody's story. It's not everybody's experience by far. But it promises us by the tenth step that this will happen. But for me it happened there. And what happened, I didn't realize it for thirty days. I didn't, you know, I didn't know that day that the obsession was removed. What happened was I became obsessed with the big book. And I became obsessed with figuring out what this deal was. What AA was. And what recovery was. And how to get better. And what God is, you know. I think too much. So I want to know, I want to understand God, you know. So I became obsessed with that. Which for me was good because it helped me seek. Today I don't need to know what God is. But then it sent me on this awesome journey of seeking. Brought me to a fourth step. Sat down. Went through the fourth step. Started to talk about this inventory process. And the third step it says relieve me from the bondage of self. The fourth step is about figuring out what self is. Because I can't let go of that which blocks me from God until I understand it. Self knowledge in and of itself avails us nothing. But self knowledge is a very important part of this process. Understanding why I am the way that I am. Understanding my character defects. Understanding how my mind works. Understanding how my mind pulls me into these situations subconsciously. Understanding these things puts me in a position where I can stop. Take a breath. Pray. And relinquish. Release the power of that momentum of my thinking mind. Previous to Alcoholics Anonymous I was controlled by my mind. Which means my mind thought and I did. My mind thought and I did. And I thought I was my mind. And I thought I was my mind. But it was my mind that was holding me in a position where I thought I was my mind. I felt like I was my mind. I felt I was my mind. You don't see it. You don't see it. You don't even see it. You see it. They're mirrors. Windows. They're things that we write stuff on and we turn them around and they show us us. Everything that I'm mad at you about is something in me that I don't like. There's some form of fear or some form of delusion that you touch. won't get angry i won't you know i've experienced that in sobriety where i've been centered in god and that feeling of inferiority was removed in that period where someone was talking about me behind my back and i found out and it had no impact on me whatsoever i've experienced that so anything that you do that bothers me there's something in me that's that i've created and that you've touched so you're my mirror and you're the way that i look at myself so i look at all that i look at my fear we really go into fear and fear is so important um i'm driven by it driven by 100 forms of fear um i'm insecure i have a yin yang this is me i have incredible feelings of entitlement and i'm incredibly insecure let's kind of fuel each other so all my character defects kind of come out of this yin yang um so i've uh feeling of commitment feeling of of fear fear of getting marriage you , fear of being alone i have a fear of not having enough money and fear of having too much money uh i have a fear of rejection i have incredible fears of rejection i care so much about what you think about me that it paralyzes me it literally paralyzes me from moving forward i fear failure to the extent that it will paralyze me from moving forward with my life and i see it in this inventory i see where my fear is paralyzing me or propelling me into doing awful behaviors that are hurting others and myself um so i see all this in the fourth step and it becomes really clear and for the sake of humility and for the sake of starting to come out to this world and show you guys who i really am i share this with my sponsor and i start to talk to him and he guides me i mean my sponsor i've had i've been to the war for three different men um they were all amazing i've had different experiences with the big book all of them had their own approach their own way of going through this book and it was very profound every one of them and they were able to guide me in these fifth sets to go deeper into myself to understand myself and then we come to the sixth step and this is really the big deal man i mean the sixth step is big big deal stuff um in the 12 and 12 it says this is the step that separates the men from the boys the ladies from the girls i mean this is am i willing to have god shape my life am i willing to let go of control i made the decision in the third step that this is what i wanted am i ready to have god come in and take the reigns man am i willing to let go why wouldn't i be i've just said i'm willing to let go of control why wouldn't i be i've just seen how much problems all these character defects cause why wouldn't i be willing to have god take these from way these are my defense mechanisms these what make me feel okay i character assassinate you because i don't feel good about myself and when i put you down it takes me up a notch just for a minute just for a few minutes i can feel better about myself by putting you down i need that i need it there's this fear involved with letting that go um so in the understand of the character defects, I can even begin to become willing to start to let go of these behaviors. And I pray for the willingness. And the book instructs to pray. And it instructs to pray in the fourth step. And I didn't mention this. The most important part of the fourth step is the prayer. The inventory, amazing. The prayer is so important. There's prayers for resentments. There's prayer for fears. There's prayer for writing a sex ideal and showing the truth. The prayers are so important. And the seventh step is as simple as a prayer. Six and seven for me, there's free will. You always have a choice. And the way God shows up in my life in the sixth and seventh step is a gap between a thought and an action. My whole life I've been controlled by my mind. Thought, action. Thought, action. All of a sudden, what starts to happen to me in this process is I get a gap. Where I think about doing something. And then there's this gap. And I'm able to choose whether or not I'm going to do it. And I've never had that before. I just did it. I've just done it. And I have a choice. God showed up. That's how God shows up. God shows up as the gap. And I choose whether or not I'm going to do it. And I face the consequences when I make the wrong choice. And the pain that results as a result of that consequences drives me to maybe make a better choice the next time. And that's the learning process. That's the process of life. And that's where I'm at with six and seven. Character defects are removed. Character defects come back. This one's not there anymore. Me and my girlfriend break up. All of a sudden, all these character defects I haven't dealt with in two years are ripping, ripping. And I need to really, really start writing inventory again and praying and becoming still. So this is this ebb and flow of life. Depending on what's happening to me, depending on what's coming into my consciousness, six and seven are beautiful, wonderful. Eight. I write a list. Become willing. Pray for the willingness. I'm terrified of making amends. Scariest part of this process for me was the amends process. Absolutely terrifying. Pray for the willingness. I was willing to make everyone amends. I didn't have anybody on that list that had done anything to me that was so awful. You know, like I know some people, some things happen when they were kids and stuff like that. There was, you know, like some things that were really traumatic in their life where they were unable to forgive. I didn't have too much of it. There wasn't anything that significant. I was willing to make the amends. I was just terrified. So we get into the amends. They have very awesome instructions on how to do amends. They pretty much cover most scenarios. It's essential to have a really good sponsor who's able to guide you through each one of your amends and say, like, all right, let's take a look at this because I'm really delusional. I can't see the truth about my life or what I'm about to do. I can't see where I may cause harm as good as someone else who's not emotionally attached to the situation can. And my sponsors have guided me through the amends process every time. For me today, the amends is... I look at the role. What role do I play in your life? So are we friends? Was I supposed to be a friend? Was I supposed to be a boyfriend? What was our role? And I try to keep it simple in the amends. I used to give the list of the harms I've caused to the person. And I don't do that anymore because this is how I make amends today. And there's no wrong way to do this. I just had different teachers who have given me different ways and I've found the way that I like best. And it is... So I'm making amends to an ex-girlfriend. I say, you know, I really didn't show up in that relationship the way a man should show up in that relationship. And you didn't deserve to be treated the way that I deserved you. And I know there's a lot of harms that I have caused you. And it's become very clear to me. And is there anything that you'd like to tell me that I've done that's caused you harm that you want to talk about, that you need to talk about? And is there anything I may have left out? Would you like to tell me how this made you feel? My behavior? And... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And how can I make this right? I've cut the list out because I saw and I was guided to watch for... It starts to cause harm to people. They get really uncomfortable when they start saying, well, I manipulated you and I lied to you. And I took all your money and I cheated on you. And people tend to start going, oh, and they start to feel that pain again. So I started to cut that out, not to cause harm. Just a suggestion of something that was cool that I learned for 7 and 630. Whatever you want. Okay. Uh-oh. So, it took me three rounds through the steps to complete the amends process. I was going around. When I was really spiritually arrogant, beating you over the head with a big book, I had unfinished amends. I'm not done. Let me be clear with my vocabulary. I am current on my amends today, which means that I make my financial amends as I'm scheduled to make them. I have made approaches to every single person that I owe amends to and made amends to everyone that I could, and there are still approaches that have either decided that they don't want to meet with me, that they're okay and they don't want to talk, or some that no matter what, I've sent out emails, I've made phone calls, I've looked from there on the Internet, and they've not returned any of those. So, I'm current as far as that goes. There are still some that when these people show up, I'm willing. I'm ready to sit down and we're ready to have a conversation. It took three rounds through the steps to get there. And my sponsor told me, you know, Dave, you haven't had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. You've had a major shift in consciousness as a result of eight and a half steps, and you've had a significant experience with this work as a result of eight and a half steps and some ten, eleven, and twelve in your life, but you will die if you don't finish your amends. You will drink again, I promise you, and if you don't drink again, you will experience the bedevilments. This is essential for your sobriety. It's vital. So, it took three rounds, and it took that last round with a... The last round was with a man with 21 years who had been working with the Big Book for a long time, and it was a very profound and a deeper experience for me. Because I'd worked with a young man with three years, and I'd worked with an older guy who had about nine years, and the last sponsor was a gentleman with 21 years. And each one met me where I was at so perfectly, which was nice for me, because I needed that young guy in the beginning. And I needed that guy with that experience of taking it a little bit further, and I need this guy now. God puts the teachers in our life who are necessary at certain times. And I had a spiritual awakening. A massive shift in consciousness as a result of this work. A massive shift in consciousness. Old ideas, attitudes, and emotions, which are once the driving forces of our life, are cast aside so that new ones can come in. Life is the life. It does what life does. But how do we do that? How I react to life today is substantially different. I can sit in traffic and crank up some tunes and just chill. Before, I'd be like, cutting people off, left, right, left, go. I can carry on a conversation with someone who doesn't particularly like what I've just said and not be angry or defensive with them. Not all the time, but it happens. And that's a spiritual experience for me. I could sit on the beach and watch the sun rise and cry because it is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I liken the spiritual experience, I like to compare it to when I was like five years old and I got my first bicycle and I learned how to ride it without training wheels. And I was able to just ride my bike through the woods, full speed, with not a care in the world. And how much joy I experienced in that moment and how much love I experienced in that moment and how much peace I experienced in that moment. And that's what the spiritual experience has been like for me. And that's what I'm experiencing today. When I'm in conscious contact with God, which is, let's say, 20% of my life. 20% of my life I'm present to this moment right here, right now, in conscious contact with God. And 20% of my life, I'm a scientist, so I always give numbers, I always have to add something in there. But I was driving out to a commitment out in Pennsylvania the other day and the sun was setting over Trenton and the sky was all pink and the light was shining up and there was nothing happening. There was nothing happening in my mind. All that was happening was this view and me driving this car. And it brought a little tear to my eye because it was so beautiful. And nothing was happening upstairs. And to me, that's the spiritual experience. That's union with God. That's me being right here, right now, one with my Creator. That's experientially what it feels like for me. And there's many times in my life, throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the month, that I get those beautiful, beautiful experiences. And I'm very grateful for them. Before I got, I came in here, I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't feel love. I couldn't feel fear. I couldn't feel pain. I couldn't feel anything. I was empty. I got goosebumps right now just talking about this because today I feel everything. I feel so much. I can open my heart up to other people. And even if you hurt me, I don't have to close it back up. You know, my first girlfriend left me for my best friend in 8th grade. And I was never, never let a girl get into my heart that far ever again. That came out in inventory. I learned that through the inventory process and good sponsorship. I'm able to love you today. And I'm able to let you hurt me without shutting down. You know, because I know that I'm going to hurt you too. And I don't want you to shut down. And I'm able to have real relationships with human beings. Really connect with other human beings. This is all the spiritual experience as a result of this work. And it brings you to 10, 11, and 12, which is our growth steps. Ten is being mindful, present to this moment, right here, right now. Continuing to watch life. Continuing to watch what's happening throughout my day. Watching for fear. Watching for resentment. Watching for all these things that I know are absolutely coming. Multiple times throughout the day. Multiple times these things are going to pop up because I have habit energy. I have spent years. I've spent years ingraining a way of life into my mind. It's going to happen. So when it happens, I stop. I breathe. I say a little prayer to have these things removed. I call someone if someone needs to be called to talk about it. And I turn my attention to someone I can be of help to. That doesn't always go that way. But that's the A student way. Like the best that I can do is that. I fall very short sometimes. I still fly off the handle sometimes. I still have character defects. I just spent the last month prior to yesterday, and I'm so glad this happened yesterday because I needed to come here today to talk to you, and I was out of my mind yesterday. I woke up. I met a young lady, and I absolutely love her. She fits my relationship ideal to a T. I've never met another human being like it. Unfortunately, she has a boyfriend, and I'm a recovered member of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm a responsible man today, and I'm not treading on someone else's ground. But it kills me. And I can't. And we had such a great friendship. And we actually had to stop spending so much time together because of this situation because we were coming too close, and we both were feeling the results of that. And I have not seen her in the last month, and I was dying, and I was unwilling to write inventory because I did not want to let go. I did not want to see the truth. This is all subconscious. I did not want to see the truth because I was scared that when I saw the truth, it would take that away from me, that I wouldn't be able to sit. And I was sitting in so much self-pity and so much just it was so heavy, that heaviness was back in my heart. And what happened yesterday is I woke up in so much pain with a racing mind over this situation that I was willing to pull out a piece of paper and write a 10-step inventory. I was willing to write a four-column fear inventory. This is the fear. Listen to how sick this is. Because the truth comes out as soon as the pen hits the paper when you pray. Fear of not getting her, not possessing her, not having her as mine. And immediately I'm like, oh, the sickness. And I start to write. And it's a fear. And the counselor's like, what are you scared of? Is it rejection? And I'm like, no, it's none of that. It's this. It's love. You don't understand. As soon as I start writing, fear of rejection. Fear of all this insecurity. I'm not good enough. You know, I'm not good enough for her to leave her boyfriend to come to me. It all starts to come out. This is all 10-step. Living in this. It took a month of living in hell to get enough pain to become willing to write that inventory. And I got a level of freedom. I'm not 100% free. But I got an incredible amount of freedom. I slept amazing last night. Amazing. I felt great today. It comes up into my head and I know the truth so I can laugh. I'm like, oh, I'm so insecure. And it kind of passes on. 10-step. Present to these things. To this moment. 11-step. Prayer and meditation. Working on becoming present to this moment right here, right now. Conscious contact with God. What does it mean? I have a prayer life. I have a meditation life. I sit for about, I'm blessed with a lot of time and meditation is so important to me. I sit for about 30 minutes to an hour in the morning. And I sit for about 20 minutes at night. And I breathe frequently throughout the day. I have a mindfulness bell that goes off. It's like bing. And I just stop and I breathe. Just one breath. One conscious breath. And all about being right here, right now. Being present to this moment. Being here in this conversation with you and not thinking. You know? Or when I meet that guy who I'm reading a big book with, I'm not concerned about that girl that I just, I need her. I can pray and every time I open the big book with a guy, we breathe for about five minutes. And those five minutes are essential for me, especially when I'm crazy and I've got something going on because it brings me to that place where I can be here with you. And I can have a conversation with you and I'm not trapped in here. So that's all the 11-step is about is improving my ability to be right here, right now. Because my relationship with you is my relationship with God. My relationship to this moment is my relationship with God. That's the only tangible things I have to show my relationship with God. Deep down inside every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God. You're God. Everything's God. That's just my conception. So you can take that or leave it. It doesn't matter because this is totally your conception program. But it also means that there's a part of me that's God. There's a part in my heart that that spirit lies to. To be able to touch that place in prayer and meditation. And it brings you to the 12th step where we work with others. Vigorously. I mean, it says intensive work with another alcoholic is the immunity, the immunity from alcoholism, the immunity from picking up another drink. I work intensely with a number of men. Some days I really don't want to do it. Two days ago was like when that thing was peaking and I was crazy. And I'm like, I don't want to do it. And I had a commitment from my home group. I had to go be the leader with my home group for this meeting. And I'm like, I don't want to go. I don't want to work with this guy. On those days, my phone seems to ring continuously for hours because that's God provides me what I need. And I need to show up and I need to answer that phone. And my phone was ringing all afternoon. I'm like, I just want to sit in my misery. That's the reality. I just want to sit in my misery. My phone keeps ringing. Intensive work with another alcoholic. Practicing these principles in all my affairs. How do I show up today? How do I show up at work? How do I show up at work? How do I show up at work? How do I show up at work? How do I show up at work? How do I show up in my relationships with other people? How do I show up to my family? How do I show up as a son? How can I improve my relationship with my father or my sisters? My sponsor asked me when we first started working, my current sponsor, he'd say, how is your relationship with your dad, Dave? And I'm like, oh, yeah. I'm like, it is great. It's great. He's like, really? Really? How's your relationship with your father, Dave? And I'm like, well, you know, we argue sometimes, and I still feel like he has these really high expectations out of me, and I don't meet him. And he's like, okay, how's your relationship with your father, Dave? I'm like, well, I guess it's better than it used to be. And he's like, how about we call it a work in progress? And how about we look at the areas in your relationship with your father where you can show up as a better son? You know, not with any expectations of what may happen, but how you can show up better in that relationship with your father and how you can let go of some of the expectations on how he should be. So this is practicing these principles in all my affairs. What does my life look like? My life's an open book. My current sponsor has taught me a lot about rigorous honesty and accountability, about being really, really accountable, like what's going on in your life. So my life has become very much an open book. It is very much an open book to anybody who wants to listen. I have no problem telling anybody about my personal stuff, as long as what I say to them may not cause any harm, because sometimes being rigorously honest with a person, gossip and blah, blah, blah, so you're conscious of some stuff like that. Like, I'm not going to tell everybody all my business, but I have a lot of people in my life. I have Fab Five, that's what my sponsor is. I have Fab Five. I have five people that I read my inventories to when my 10-step stuff comes up. I've tried to the best of my ability to practice these principles in all my affairs. I fall short consistently on a daily basis. I'm okay with that today, more than I've ever been. That is recovery. That's been my experience with recovery. The foundation of our triangle, the foundation with the three legacies. I apologize for going over. I'm very selfish. I like the dog to say that. So thank you guys so much for coming out. Thank you for staying with us tonight.