If That Works for You Literally Go On With Your Bad Self 😂 – Madeline H.

Okay. Based on the number of attendees here today, I can see word has gotten out about our guest facilitator for the month. So without any further ado, I give you our guest facilitater, Madeline. I'm Madeline I'm an alcoholic I have a sobriety date of January 23rd 2019 and for that I can take absolutely no credit whatsoever because of myself I'm restless irritable discontented and deeply selfish and self-centered I start everything with that I'm going to read we are here on page 55 this is the very first paragraph on page55 it said yet we have been seeing another kind of flight a spiritual liberation from this world people who rose above their problems they said god made these things possible and we only smiled we had seen spiritual release but we like to tell ourselves it wasn't true let me set my alarm i'm gonna have an alarm that's gonna go help me keep track do not be alarmed by it if it goes off all right yeah this is another great paragraph um i love these paragraphs and i love that it talks here about people rising above their problems, because this chapter begins by telling me that actually what I have is one problem. I thought I had many problems and this is saying like, you know, these people who, you know, this is like how I conceptualize it as all of these different problems. But actually the one problem that I have, is that I lack power, I lack the power to live. That is the fundamental problem that I Have. And it says earlier in this chapter, that's exactly what this book is about. This book is exactly about telling me how I'm going to get in touch with this power greater than myself, a power by which I can live because I'm unable to live on my own freely in this world on my own power. I drive my absolute everything into the ground. And that's why I'm an Alcoholics Anonymous. And I always love that. You know, when someone I'm sitting across another woman and she's asked for my help and she's explaining like these other ideas she has other than Alcoholics Anonymous to solve the problem. And it's like, if that works for you, literally go on with your bad self. If there's something other than a power greater than yourself that you're able to utilize to stay sober, we strongly encourage that. I'm someone who was not able to make use of human power to stay sobre and to live sane and to be comfortable. I require a power greater than myself that's what it means to be the real alcoholic is that I've placed myself beyond human aid and so I'm here seeking a spiritual solution to my problem because the other options are not available to me so if someone is thinking like hey I want to pursue this other thing I strongly encourage them to do so the funniest thing that I hear is when people say um like oh that kept me sober before it's like did it why are you in rehab like did to keep you sober before? Or were you sober for a period of time? Because this is what we do is we look at our experience, like what actually worked. Cause if I'm sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous counting days, nothing I've ever tried before has worked for me or I wouldn't be here. I wouldn'T be asking another person for help. I WOULDN'T have been in the adult daycare facility that I found myself in. I would be living on my own power freely in the world. So once again, we have this conversation about reason and logic. It's very logical why an alcoholic might open their mind up to a power greater than themselves when they have proven that relying on human powers has not been enough in their life. So it's not just this like airy fairy idea of a higher power, it's deeply grounded in the facts of our life and our experience. So it says we had been seeing another kind of flight and it's talking about this metaphor of the Wright brothers, which as I said last week, I'm a huge nerd for. I just think it's the coolest metaphor in the world. Just to recap very quickly, people had done very advanced math and science to show that it would be nearly impossible for man to ever fly and that it wasn't even worth trying anymore because of how difficult and seemingly impossible it would been. In science, we never prove things can't or never, just that they're extreme unlikelihood so it's like okay so this is very unlikely and the Wright brothers had extremely open minds and they had this idea that they were open-minded to and they tried it out and it was successful and they flew and so when it's saying we had been seeing another kind of flight it's picking up the thread of that metaphor so it saying like the Wright brothers flew so this literal type of flight airplane travel we experience a different type of fight a spiritual liberation from this world. The other phrasing that we hear later in the book to talk about that is very similar to a spiritual liberation from this worldview, I would say is the freedom from the bondage of self. So I would Say that those are pretty similar ideas because it's not that I literally defy gravity and start floating around. Although if I'm quite frank, like it did feel that in the beginning of my sobriety, I was like, whoa, but it's more about this bondage of self. And for me, what the bondage of self is, like it says here is my main problem. That was the problem that I needed to rise above as it says. And so again, I talked a lot about this last week, but that's probably what this month is going to be a lot about a lot of recap. So just bear with me. But the way that I think naturally of myself is what do I want? How do I feel? How am I going to get what I want what other people think about me? What will happen if I don't get what I would I want if I get what i want will happen when it gets taken away from me? And how do I get people to see me the way that I want to be seen? And if they don't see me, the way, that I wanna be seen, what are the actions that I can take to make that facilitated? Like this is just how I think. And it's how I've always thought. And it's the reason that I stop getting loaded because when I'm left with that thinking it's intolerable, I can't handle it. I need to escape from it. And I turned to that sense of ease and comfort that I get from getting loaded. And then the cycle starts all over again. And so it says people rising above their problems. And so what I'm going to do now is I'm going to give you all a few examples of the problems that I came in with that I was able to solve through this simple spiritual solution. So I care about four things more than anything else in this world. Love getting loaded, love getting loaded more than my friends, family, physical safety, health and well-being. But these four things I care about more than anything else. That is power, control, attention, and affection. Those are the four things that I am truly motivated by. And so from a young age, I realized that I could get that from sex. Now the big book makes a lot of mention of, of sex conduct and sex relations and how haywire those things have gone for alcoholics. And So I'm one of those people that it's talking about. I had a big issue with this and I had really extreme like sexual compulsion. I have the same relationship with it as I had, um, with getting loaded. I used it as a source of power. I used It as a Source to get out of myself. I Used It as A Source and A Site of Manipulation of Others. I Use It to Cause Harm to Others to Get My Way. And It Was Just a Big Old Mess. And So When I Came Into This Program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I Thought That That Was, You Know, One Of My Problems That I Had. And I Didn't Know What To Do With That. Some People were talking a little bit about these other 12-step programs that were more related to that. And I'm not in any way, shape or form advocating that people not find themselves into those programs if they feel that that is what's best for them. But my personal experience is that I applied this solution that's outlined right here in the first 164 pages of this book. And I had, you know, like it says, a miracle of healing. so um very simply I have you know acted out in this way in all my life and the book has very concrete and simple direction for what I'm supposed to do with this there's a part um in I believe it's on page 71 and it says to sum up about sex and it's very helpful and it outlines exactly what I am going to do when I have a problem in Alcoholics Anonymous so you can say to sum up about gambling, to sum up about body image, to some up about food sex money literally anything and I think it's very effective and what it tells me to do is it tells me to rely on a power greater than myself first it says hey if you want to consult with other people go ahead but like the ultimate authority is this power greater than yourself so it's like great alright and what I'm supposed to do is I'm suppose to pray for like this general ideal of what I am suppose to be doing in this area of my life, then for guidance in each questionable situation. Then it tells me to pray for sanity, which always cracks me up because once again, like this is the crux of the kind of the second step is that I'm insane. Like I'm sane when it comes to the decision to take the next drink, the decision, to engage with that next person, the position, to try to control the next thing in my life. Like, I'm in saying when it come to that cracks me out, you know, people are like the true, the definition of, you know, insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. The true definition of insanity is just being mentally unwell. So just if you want to know like the literal definition, and that's the case for me, I've heard somebody say something really funny though, that's really resonant where they said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing knowing you're going to get the exact same result. And that's the case for me is I knew what was going to happen. It always happened. I wasn't expecting a different result. I just kept doing it because I lack the power to live. I absolutely require a power greater than myself to live any differently than I will of myself. And so for me, I know what's going to happen. I know it's not going to go right, but I do it anyway. So anyway, that's the sanity part. So I'm praying for sanity, reminding myself that I have been insane in this area of my life. And then it gives me another very simple and concrete direction. It says to throw myself the harder into helping others. And I took that very seriously. So it's the same solution, no matter what we may apply it to these different problems, but the solution is the same. And so when it says here, people who rose above their problems by applying a spiritual liberation by applying us virtual solution, I just want to give some examples of what that looks like that it's not just you know, this kind of broad idea when we say like, this will solve all our problems, but that it's specifically applicable. So the pandemic hit and I was in a little bubble with my family. And so I had no access to this, you know, sexual part of my life. And okay, so that's a tragedy. Someone like me, how am I going to function? And I just applied this solution and I spent almost two years celibate. And I only share that just to explain what is possible. What's really important about that is that it wasn't this compulsion that I was fighting off, like white knuckling it. This power greater than myself by relying on it and by applying the solution to it provided this miracle where I just don't even have that compulsion anymore. I was able to go that time because it wasn't something that I had access to and I didn't have to like suffer through it. So that's just one example of what applying a spiritual solution looks like and why that's so important for here in this topic about we agnostics is because it's clear, I can't go into all the details of my experience, it would not be appropriate here in THISMIX setting, but like that's not of me. It is not of someone like me to be able to do something like that. So this is the type of evidence we have that a power greater than ourselves is working in our lives, is when somebody says something that I could never do on my own, that I ran my life into the ground because of constantly, all the time, caused harm to everyone, didn't want to engage with it that way, but kept doing it. And now I'm saying that I applied this simple solution that is based in the idea of a power greater than myself rather than doing it on my home. power. And I lived and acted and reacted completely differently than I ever have in my entire life. It's some good concrete evidence that this power exists, it is possible to tap into this power, and that this solution that relies on this power can be applied to pretty much any problem. The last example that I will give is that I have physical chronic pain, and I have had chronic pain since I was three years old. It is a direct manifestation of my alcoholism because basically the way that I think is so intolerable to me that I tense my muscles constantly in a way that is not good. And so I tense them so much that they don't function properly. So I have an entire musculatory system in my body that, um, is constantly spasming and tensing, and it doesn't relax the way That it needs to. So I have Had chronic, uh, constant chronic pain in that part of my body since I I was three years old. And so it's like, all right, great. So this is this big problem that I have. What am I going to do? First of all, I thought that I would always have to be somebody who was on something. I was always going to have to take some type of medication because how do you deal with pain other than medication? You know, and my doctors had been telling me stuff for years, like drink water and do this. And I was like, how dare you say that to me with the pain that I'm in? You better give me the pill that I am after or whatever, you know, I was just so I was indignant. They tell me to do stuff and I'm like, absolutely not. And that's really for me the most important thing to focus on is that I was given direction of how to help this problem that I had, that I Was asking for help with, but I couldn't follow it. Do you know why? Because I lack the power to live. I lacked power. So when I got sober, I was relieved of the bondage of self through turning my will in my life over to a power greater than myself and not controlling, putting my hands in every single little situation that I was in. And the general like relief that flooded in and through my body, that freedom, the spiritual liberation from the world that I experienced as described here in this paragraph, my pain got a lot better because pain and stress are like this. So they're intertwining. And so when you are stressed, you're in more pain. It doesn't even matter what type of pain you have. Mine is particularly like psychosomatic, but even if it's not, it will still be worse. So when I was relieved of the bondage of self, my pain got a lot better, but my muscles still were acting the way they were acting. They didn't just like stop doing what they were doing. They were left with, you know, like 20 at that point, it was like 21 years of constant tensing. So they didn't Just stop doing that. But what I learned from this program, this concrete solution that I could apply to anything in my life was firstly, I learned discipline. I learned to do, um, simple things on a daily basis. Um, and secondly, I learned how to do things that I didn't want to do. Cause again, I didn'T know you could do something you didn'T want to DO for me. It'S like, if I don'T want TO do it, how on earth is that going to get accomplished? And I learned How to do Things I didn'NT want to do. I Learned How to be Uncomfortable and to Know that IT'S okay to be uncomfortable in a moment, that IT's not the end of the world. I don't have to escape from that feeling. I can be present with feeling like that. But once again, that is not something that is within me. That is not of me that comes from building a relationship with a power greater than myself inside my own body, inside my head. When it's just me and me, it's a mess. But when that higher power begins to flow in and through me, because that channel becomes clear, I'm clearing that debris out that standing between me and a higher power. That's all the stuff that I did prior to getting in here on my character defects and that channel is flowing free and clear, then this power is flowing in and through me. And I'm able to do things that I don't want to do like drink water, hate it. Water is disgusting. I'm not, you know, it's just, it'S gross and I don'T like it, but it was very important to be hydrated for my chronic pain condition. And today I'mable to do that. The final way that Alcoholics Anonymous has helped me with my physical pain is that there's a part in the book, in The Family Afterword that says, we try not to manufacture misery, but if trouble does come, we cheerfully capitalize it on it as a opportunity to demonstrate our higher powers omnipotence. And what that means is that when bad things happen to me, I am able to carry a message to others about how I'm walking through it. And now it's not for nothing. Now I'm not alone. I'm sharing with others, I get to carry this message today. And I can say this definitively, it is possible to be sober with chronic pain. It is possible. I'm not a doctor to speak on anybody's individual case, but I am here to say that in my own case, I am completely chemically independent. I don't have to take any medications for my chronic pain and I can carry that message that it's possible. Also, when the pain is flaring up, instead of avoiding it or sitting alone with it, I can sit with it and say this is happening, this is present, turn that over to my higher power, and then get out of myself by being helpful to someone else. Once again, the exact same solution that I'm asked to apply to everything, I'm able to apply it to any of these problems. And for me, that's been very helpful. It has absolutely transformed my relationship to my own body, my life, others. And so just to give these examples to show that these were things that were not possible for me before. These are things that I have been able to do because I'm relying on a higher power. So this is all in this question of like, okay, we agnostics, do we believe there's a power greater than ourself? And sometimes this is what we ask the newcomer. Do you believe that I believe? Do you Believe the things I'm telling you that these things have been possible for me? And even if you don't believe yet that they're possible for you, if you believe they're possible for others, are you willing to give it a shot? Because that's what this is really about is just the willingness to open one's mind to the idea that some of these things are true, some of these things are possible, and that you could pursue it yourself. And you will experience it for yourself. That's the great thing about it is like, you know, do you have to come in with a clear idea of what a higher power is? Absolutely not. That power is going to reveal itself to you as you take this action. So what we know is that the super religious person comes in, they have a very clear conception of a higher Power, the atheist comes in and he says there's no higher power or there's no God or whatever. We all meet in the middle by doing the exact same direction. And so what we know is that it is the direction, what we do, how we follow this program that this power cares about, not what we think it is, not whether we can draw it on a piece of paper, not weather we think even exists or not, but just what do we do on a daily basis? because the evidence that it works in our lives will become apparent as we continue to do it. So this is saying, they said, God made these things possible and we only smiled. So if you're one of those where I'm telling you that God, power greater than myself, helps me with these problems that I just described and you're only smiling, that's totally fine. When it says we only smile, it's kind of talking about being dismissive. Like it's saying that as like, and we were dismissive, like we only smelled, like, okay, sure. we had seen spiritual release but like to tell ourselves it wasn't true so it's okay to be skeptical it's Okay, to come into this program nobody needs to buy onto it you know 100% I know many people in this program who tried it on the basis of proving that it wasn't going to work for them they said if I'm going to prove it doesn't work for me I have to put everything into it or it really won't be a good experiment they put everything they had into it. And I know many people who started on that basis who have been sober many, many years. So it really doesn't matter whether you are fully signed on to this, like where you want to tell yourself that this isn't true. If you're willing to give it a shot and you're willing to earnestly take this direction, earnestly set aside the ideas that you have had in the past, we can promise you that that is enough of a basis to start on. So my greatest encouragement to people who are new and are exploring this idea of a higher power is to just not worry too much about what it is and worry more, not worry, but focus more on what we can do on a daily basis to follow this simple direction. you absolutely do not need to know what you're praying to to pray. It's just not necessary. How could anyone fully comprehend what they're praying too anyway? So it's like, don't worry about it if you don't know what your praying to that prayer and meditation is still very effective. And that power will get in contact with you. So once again, my only job is to make sure that I'm clearing the debris out from this channel between me and a power greater than myself. That power is going to do the rest. Let me just stay focused on doing these simple things that I've been directed to do and when I'm willing to apply them to all of my problems, there is a solution to all of my problem. Thank you all so much for letting me speak to you today.