Knowing a Higher Power Rather Than Believing In One – Joe C.

Thank God for Chapter 4. Let's look at just a little bit of it, just before we go to lunch.\nYou know, Dr. Jung told Roland that ideas, emotions, and attitudes, that's what we're going to be looking at now.\nIdeas, emotions, and attitudes, which are the guiding force of the lives of these people, are suddenly cast to one side.\nAnd certainly the ideas, emotions, and attitudes that I had toward God were that of a seven or eight year old boy.\nI couldn't accept it then, I couldn't accept it later, and I couldn't accept it when I got here, and I can't accept it today.\nBecause I need new ideas, and emotions, and attitudes about this.\nNew information is what I'm trying to say.\nThis chapter, we agnostic. Just the word agnostic means something to me.\nGnostic means knowledge. You put the ag in front of it, it means without.\nThose are us who are without knowledge, and that was me.\nAnd the knowledge that I did have was not good.\nAnd Bill had the same experiences that we did.\nWhen Debbie presented him with a solution, he was aghast at that solution.\nSome of us are aghast.\nSome of us are aghast at that solution also.\nAnd Bill said that whenever they talked to me, of a God personal to me, he said,\nmy mind became irritated and snapped shut against such theories.\nAnd certainly that's the way that I did.\nLater on in the book it says to us that when the spiritual malady is overcome,\nwe straighten out mentally and physically.\nThe spiritual malady.\nThe understanding of God of my understanding.\nWhen that is straightened out, we straighten out mentally and physically.\nAnd this chapter here, we agnostic, is an attempt to do that.\nAnd as Father Bill Wilson, some of you know Father Bill, said to us many, many times, and I love it.\nHe said that this chapter is not put here to teach me that there's any particular type of religion or type of God.\nHe said this chapter is simply put here so that I might read, and question, and wonder.\nAnd get some ideas, emotions, and attitudes, new ones.\nAnd open up my mind to a point that God might prove to me there's a God.\nNow with that understanding of this chapter, it makes more sense to me.\nAnd becomes extremely valuable in my life.\nIn the preceding chapters, you have learned something of alcoholism.\nWe hope we've made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic.\nIf when you honestly want to, you can find that you cannot quit entirely.\nBecause of the obsession.\nOr if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take.\nBecause of the allergy.\nYou are probably alcoholic.\nGod, isn't that simple?\nIsn't that simple?\nYou see how people like to expand on things?\nThey took the two questions out of the big book.\nAnd some years later, they made a little pamphlet that had ten questions in it.\nAnd that wasn't enough.\nThey made another one that had twenty questions in it.\nHell, I think we're up to forty-four today, aren't we?\nThank God Bill, or Abby, didn't have the forty-four questions with him when he walked into Bill's kitchen.\nHe just said, Bill, has alcohol been bothering your reputation?\nHadn't had a reputation in years.\nThen he said, Bill, has alcohol been interfering with your sex life?\nBecause anything like I was, he hadn't had any of that in a long time either.\nThere's a statement in the forty-four questions that says, do you drink alone?\nWell, think about it.\nIf I'm buying, yes.\nAnd if you're buying, no.\nWe had an old friend that used to live in Tyler, Texas.\nHis name was Wine-O-Joe.\nI've always felt sorry for everybody in AA that didn't get to meet Wine-O-Joe.\nHe was a real character.\nHe's dead now.\nBut Wine-O-Joe had made up his own list to ask yourself to see if you're alcoholic.\nAnd the first question on his list was, has the roof of your mouth ever been sunburned?\nWell, I'll drink it.\nHe said, if it has, you're probably alcoholic.\nI think the second question was, have you ever been arrested for drunk driving from the back seat of somebody else's car?\nThe third one I love was, have you ever been arrested for public drunk while in jail?\nHe had a real list of them.\nWe only need these two.\nI use them all the time.\nPeople come to me today and they say, Charlie, you think I might be alcoholic?\nI say, I have no idea.\nLet me ask you a couple of questions.\nHave you been able to quit drinking entirely, left on your own resources?\nIf they're a real alcoholic, they've got to say no.\nAnd then I say, do you have any control over the amount you take after you've once started drinking?\nIf they're a real alcoholic, they've got to say no.\nAnd then I say, well, you're probably an alcoholic.\nAnd that's about as simple as you can make it.\nNow, if that be the case, you're an alcoholic.\nYou may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer.\nYou know, we are very unique people.\nWe number amongst a few people in the world today who suffer from a two-fold illness\nthat can only be overcome by a spiritual experience.\nWe also number amongst a few people in the world today who have a terminal illness\nthat we can come out of it in better shape than we were when we went into it\nif we can have this spiritual experience.\nWe are unique people.\nNow, to one who feels he's an atheist or agnostic, such an experience seems impossible.\nBut to continue as he is means disaster, especially if he's an alcoholic of the hopeless variety.\nTo be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis\nare not always easy alternatives to face.\nBut it isn't so difficult.\nAbout half of our original fellowship were of exactly that type.\nAt first, some of us tried to avoid the issue, hoping against hope we were not true alcoholics.\nBut after a while, we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life or else.\nPerhaps it's going to be that way with you.\nBut cheer up.\nSomething like half of us thought we were atheists or agnostics,\nand our experience shows that you need not be disconcerted.\nAnd I had to stop right here.\nAnd see, what is my belief as far as this God thing is concerned?\nAnd today we find there's only one of three ways that you can believe as far as God is concerned.\nOne way is to be an atheist.\nNow, an atheist says there is no God.\nTherefore, they have no power greater than human power to turn to.\nThe atheist would have to stand on their own two feet, run their own show.\nAnd I said, Charlie, are you an atheist?\nI said, no.\nI've always believed in some kind of God, so I'm not an atheist.\nI said, well, then maybe you're an agnostic.\nSo I had to go to the dictionary and look that word up.\nAnd like Joe said, the word agnostic means without knowledge.\nAn agnostic believes that there is a God.\nBut since we've never tried to use God's power in our life,\nwe've run our own show, stood on our own two feet.\nWe've never received God's power, so we don't know that God exists.\nWe believe in some kind of God, but we don't really know whether that's true or not.\nAnd I think that's what most of us are when we get here.\nMost of us get here with some belief in a God.\nBut we have never turned to that God.\nWe've been running our own show and standing on our own two feet and doing our own thing.\nEven though we believed in God, we acted as if we did not believe in them.\nAn agnostic is one without knowledge of God, just belief.\nNow, if you're an atheist or an agnostic,\nthen the question becomes, how do you become a true believer in God?\nA true believer is one that knows that God exists.\nDon't believe it, knows it.\nA true believer is one who has experienced God's power in their life.\nAnd God has given them whatever they need to have a successful life.\nI don't think any of us get here as a true believer.\nBecause if we knew God and experienced God's power,\nthen we wouldn't have to come to AA to solve our problem.\nMost of us come here as agnostics.\nNow, whether we be atheists or not,\nif we are agnostics, the question becomes,\nhow do you get from that stage to the stage of one who is a true believer\nand can receive God's power in our life?\nPage 45, first paragraph.\nLack of power, that was our dilemma.\nYou know, if we weren't powerless, we wouldn't be here, would we?\nLack of power, that was our dilemma.\nWe had to find a power by which we could live,\nand it had to be a power greater than ourselves, obviously.\nBut where and how were we to find this power?\nWell, that's exactly what this book is about.\nIts main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself,\nwhich will solve your problem.\nIt doesn't say which will enable you to solve it,\nor which will help you solve it.\nIt says the main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself,\nand then that power will solve the problem.\nAnd I find, interestingly enough, from page 45 on in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous,\nwe don't talk about alcohol anymore.\nWe're through with that.\nWe talk about one thing and one thing only.\nIf you are powerless, whether you be atheist or agnostic,\nif you are powerless, how do you find the power?\nAnd if you can find the power, then the power will solve the problem.\nOkay, we're going to go to page 46 in the chapter We Agnostics.\nAnd the book says that,\nYes, we of agnostic temperament have had these thoughts and experiences.\nLet us make haste to reassure you.\nWe found as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice\nand express even a willingness to believe in a power greater than ourselves,\nwe commenced to get results,\neven though it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that power,\nwhich is God.\nMuch to our relief, we discovered\nwe did not need to consider another's conception of God.\nOur own conception, however inadequate,\nwas sufficient to make the approach and effect the contact with Him.\nYou know, my sponsor at that time, George,\nsaw that I had a real problem with his idea about God,\nand he asked me about it.\nAnd I said, Yes, I am.\nI'm having a hard time trying to understand.\nAnd he said, Well, I've noticed that.\nHe said, Why don't you do something that helped him and maybe would help me?\nHe said, Why don't you go home tonight\nand write down on a piece of paper what you would like God to be?\nLaying aside all that stuff you think that you know,\nand just write down on a piece of paper what you would like God to be.\nAnd so I went home that night and I wrote down some things,\nand I'm not going to tell you what it is.\nIt's up to you.\nAnd I wrote down some things I wanted God to be,\nand I showed them to George,\nand he looked at them and he said, Well, that's good, Joe.\nSo you can begin with that.\nSee, I didn't know you could do that.\nAnd down in the South, you'll go to hell for making up your own God.\nTrue.\nAnd you had to believe as they believed.\nYou had to have faith in what they had faith in.\nIf you didn't, you was going to go to hell.\nBut George gave me permission, and I needed that permission,\nto sit down and to say, I would like God to be these things.\nAnd he said, That's good.\nYou can start with that and you can begin with that.\nAnd so that's exactly what I did.\nFor it says, Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God.\nOur own conception, however inadequate,\nwas that we had the permission to make the approach and effect of contact with Him.\nNow here's where we can cast aside the first old idea.\nThe old idea that I had was that you had to believe as they believed.\nAnd they had me convinced that if you didn't believe as they believed,\nthere's no way that you're going to get anything good when it comes to God.\nSo I was real pleased to find out that I can cast aside that old idea,\nand then I can have my own conception of God.\nAnd like we said yesterday or last night,\nI find that I've never had any problem with my own conception of anything.\nAnd you let me start believing in God the way I want to.\nThen I've got an entirely different idea.\nAn old idea cast aside, replaced with a new idea.\nIt begins right here.\nAnd the book says, As soon as we have admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence,\na spirit of the universe to underline the totality of things,\nwe begin to be possessed of a new sense of power,\npower and direction, provided we took other simple steps.\nWe've found that God does not make too hard of terms with those who seek him.\nTo us, the realm of spirit is broad, roomy, all-inclusive,\nnever exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek.\nIt is open, we believe, to all men.\nSee, all I had to quit doing was saying, No, there's not, no,\nand start seeking, start saying, Yes, maybe.\nAnd I started seeking.\nI said, George, you mean I need to find God?\nI said, George, God's not lost.\nDidn't take me long to figure out who was lost, but I mean.\nHe said, Is this like the book says?\nIt's in the seeking, it's not in the finding.\nAll I had to do was seek.\nAnd that's all this book is asking me to do,\nand this chapter is asking me to seek with an open mind and to wonder and to think.\nAnd eventually God will disclose himself to me.\nAnd that's exactly what's happened.\nI was told as a kid growing up\nthat the way to God was a very narrow path,\nthat if you strayed off either side of it,\nyou were going to get in a hell of a shape.\nI was taught that God was very, very exclusive,\nthat only those that believed as they believed\nwould be able to make any contact with God.\nThose were old ideas.\nNow, my book says we found that God does not make too hard terms\nwith those who seek him.\nTo us, the realm of the Spirit,\nthe realm of the Spirit is broad, roomy, all-inclusive,\nnever exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek.\nOld ideas cast aside, replaced with some new ideas,\nbeginning to find this power greater than human power\nby changing of the old ideas to new ideas.\nPage 47.\nSo when therefore we speak to you of God,\nwe mean your own conception of God.\nThis applies too to other spiritual expressions\nwhich you find in this book.\nDo not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms\ndeter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you.\nPrejudice is nothing more than old ideas.\nDo not let any old ideas you may have against spiritual terms\ndeter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you.\nYou see, at the start, this was all that we needed\nto commence spiritual growth,\nto affect our first conscious relation with God\nas we understood him.\nAnd then afterward, we found ourselves accepting many things\nwhich then seemed entirely unnecessary.\nWhich then seemed entirely out of reach.\nBut that was growth.\nBut if we wished to grow, we had to begin somewhere.\nSo we used our own conception, however limited it was.\nAnd that was a beginning for me.\nI needed a beginning place.\nAnd that's where I started.\nNow we need to ask ourselves but one short question.\nDo I now believe\nthe agnostic has always believed in some kind of God\nor am I even willing to believe\nthe atheist can become willing to believe\nthat there's some kind of God\nthat there's a power greater than myself?\nAnd as soon as a man can say that he does believe\nthe agnostic\nor is willing to believe\nthe atheist\nwe in fact assure him that he's on his way.\nIt has been repeatedly proven among us\nthat upon this simple cornerstone\na wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built.\nAnd again, the asterisks,\nplease be sure to read Appendix 2 on spiritual experience.\nAgain, they want to make real sure\nthat we understand what they mean by those terms.\nHe says it's been repeatedly proven among us\nthat upon this simple cornerstone\na wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built.\nAsterisk, bottom of the page,\nreferring to the spiritual experience.\nSo the wonderfully effective spiritual structure we're building\nis the spiritual experience or the spiritual awakening.\nAnd he said the cornerstone of that is to believe\nor to be willing to believe\nthat there's a power greater than human power.\nWe referred to that once before.\nThe foundation of that structure was step one,\nwhich is willingness.\nNow then he tells us the cornerstone of that structure,\nstep two, believing.\nSo we've already put two stones in place\nif we can say we're willing\nand yes, we believe\nor we are willing to believe\neither one of the two.\nAnd he said that was great news for us\nfor we had assumed we could not make use of it\nthe spiritual principles\nunless we accepted many things on faith\nwhich seemed difficult to believe.\nAnd there has always been one of my great problems\nwith this God thing.\nFaith indicates surety.\nFaith indicates knowledge.\nFaith indicates after the fact information.\nAnd one of my problems has always been\nthe minister would say,\nson, all you've got to do is have faith\nand everything will be alright.\nWell, I never could have faith\nbecause I had no knowledge of God.\nI didn't know for sure that God would do anything for me.\nThe best I can possibly do is to start with belief.\nAnd there's a big difference between belief and faith.\nBelieve me, there is.\nA good example of that,\nlet's say I moved into this area here\nand three or four months later\nI've got a problem with my automobile.\nI don't know a good mechanic anywhere in this area.\nBut we'll say that you've lived here for a long time.\nAnd I assume you'll know somebody\nso I come to you and I say,\ncan you recommend a good mechanic for me?\nAnd you say, well, sure.\nTake your car over there to John.\nHe'll do you a good job\nand he'll charge you a reasonable price.\nWell, I don't know whether that's true or not.\nThe best I can do with that information\nis if I believe it's strong enough,\nI'll take my car over there to John.\nAnd sure enough, he does a good job.\nHe charges me a reasonable price.\nWhen I leave there, I know that he will do that.\nWhen I went there, I believed that he would do that.\nNow six months from now, I have trouble with my car again.\nI don't ask you or anybody else where to take it.\nI take it right back to John.\nThis time I took it on faith,\ntook it on knowledge.\nYou can't start with faith.\nYou can only start with belief.\nAnd that's all we have to do.\nWe either have to believe\nor we become willing to believe\nthat there's a power greater than we are\nand we're on the road to spiritual recovery.\nWe don't have to know anything.\nThank God Step 2 says we came to believe\nthat a power greater than ourselves\ncould restore us to sanity.\nIt didn't say we came to know.\nIt didn't say we had faith in that.\nWe just came to believe.\nAnd I came to believe based upon what I've read in the book\nand what you told me\nthat there's a power greater than I am\ncan restore me to sanity.\nI didn't know that.\nI just believed that.\nNow if I know that the beginning of this thing,\nthe finding of the power is just to believe\nor be willing to believe,\nthen the next thing I'm going to have to know\nis what procedure am I going to follow\nin order to find that power.\nLet's go over to page 51 for just a moment.\nFirst paragraph.\nIt says,\nThis world of ours has made more material progress\nin the last century\nthan all the millenniums which went before.\nAlmost everyone knows the reasons.\nStudents of ancient history tell us\nthat the intellect of men in those days\nwas equal to the best of today.\nYet in ancient times,\nmaterial progress was painfully slow.\nThe spirit of modern scientific inquiry,\nresearch, and invention was almost unknown.\nIn the realm of the material,\nmen's minds were federated by superstition,\ntradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas.\nAnd I used to wonder why it is\nthat we today have cellular phones and TVs\nand automobiles and airplanes.\nWhy those people a hundred years or two hundred years ago\nor five hundred years ago\ndidn't have or admit those things.\nI thought we were just smarter than they were.\nBut come to find out,\nthey had the same intellect that we did.\nIntellect means the capacity to learn.\nThey had the same capacity to learn as we do.\nBut the only one thing that kept them\nin those dark ages, so to speak,\nit was superstition, tradition,\nand all sorts of fixed ideas.\nThat's why I say I need an open mind more today\nthan I ever needed an open mind.\nAnd I think we as a society have done that.\nRight here in the northeast corner of the United States\nsome 225 years ago or so,\npeople came over here for religious freedom.\nThey wanted to practice a religion\nas they saw, as they understood it.\nAnd as long as you agree basically with their religion\nand you practice your religion somewhat like they did,\nyou were okay.\nBut if you had any thoughts or ideas that were different\nand you expressed those thoughts and ideas openly\nand they didn't agree with what they had\nand what they agreed with,\nthey would burn you at the stake as a witch.\nRight here in America they did that.\nSo if you had any ideas like that,\nyou certainly didn't express them,\nyou kept them to yourself.\nSo superstition, tradition, and all sorts of fixed ideas\nkept people from growing.\nAnd I think we as a country have gotten over that today.\nOur minds are open to many, many things.\nHe said some of the contemporaries of Columbus\nthought of round earth preposterous.\nNow I think Columbus is one of the greatest examples\nof what you can do based upon belief\nif you're willing to change your belief.\nSome 500 years ago,\nmost of what they called the civilized world\nwas situated around the shores of the Mediterranean Sea,\nthe western shores of Europe.\nThey had found a place called the East Indies.\nAnd in the East Indies you could get gold, silk, and spices,\nlots of goody-goodies.\nBut it took literally years to get to the East Indies.\nSo they were trying to find a new trade route to the East Indies.\nAnd somebody said,\nis there any possibility that we could sail a ship there?\nAnd they said, well, no, dummy.\nDon't you know you can only sail to the northeast end of the Mediterranean Sea?\nAnd then you have to go by land,\ncamelback, horseback, footback,\nhowever they traveled.\nAnd that took literally years to do.\nAnd they said, well, what would happen if we sailed any other direction?\nAnd they said, well, idiot,\ndon't you know if you sail out there,\nyou're going to sail off the edge of this sucker?\nYou see, everybody in those days thought the world was flat.\nAnd they assumed if you sailed out there,\nyou would sail off the edge of it.\nNow I don't know why they believed that.\nI assume some people sailed out there, didn't come back.\nAnd they thought they had sailed off the edge of it.\nNow Joe said the other day,\nwouldn't it be great if the world was flat?\nWe could take all this environmental junk,\njust take it out there and go\nand push her overboard and be done with it.\nNow here comes Columbus.\nAnd we believe that Columbus had to be an alcoholic.\nBecause if you're going to believe differently than the world and everybody in it,\nand you're going to stand there and express that belief,\nyou're going to have to be tougher than hell to do it.\nBecause many times if you express a belief difference\nthan whatever everybody else believes,\nthey would burn you at the stake or hang you from a tree\nor cut your head off or something.\nAnd Columbus was tough enough and bullheaded enough\nto be able to stand there.\nAnd he said, I believe that the world is round.\nI do not believe it's flat.\nThen he made one of the most drunk statements the world has ever heard.\nHe said,\nI believe we can get east by sailing west.\nNow if that isn't drunk thinking, I don't know what is.\nMany of his mannerisms indicated he's alcoholic.\nWhen he left, he didn't know where he was going.\nWhen he got there, he didn't know where he was.\nWhen he got back, he didn't even know where he had been.\nBut what really made him an alcoholic\nis a woman financed the whole trip for him.\nShe did that twice.\nColumbus followed a little formula.\nYou want to write down these key words in this formula.\nHe followed a little formula that the world has always known.\nThat if you want to change anything at all,\nthere are certain things that have to take place.\nAnd the first thing you have to do in order to change anything\nis to be willing to do so.\nCircumstances are what make us willing.\nTrying to find the new trade route to the East Indies\nis what made him willing to change.\nThe second thing you have to do to change anything\nis to believe you can do so.\nYou know, he said, I believe that the world is round.\nIt's not flat.\nI believe you can get east by sailing west.\nBut his belief didn't do him any good either.\nBecause he's still standing on the shore of the ocean\nthe day he expressed that belief.\nSome days, weeks, months, years later, he did the third thing.\nHe made a decision.\nHe said, by golly, I'm going to go find out\nwhether this thing is round or flat.\nCan you really get east by sailing west?\nBut his decision didn't do him any good either.\nBecause he's still standing on the shore of the ocean\nthe day he expressed that decision.\nSome days, weeks, months, years later,\nhe did the next thing you have to do.\nHe started taking action.\nAnd the first thing he did, he went to the King of Portugal\nto get the money.\nBut the King of Portugal, being a very astute businessman,\nsaid, there's no way I'm going to let you have this money.\nBecause you'll sail out there and sail right off the edge of this sucker\nand I'll lose it all.\nThat's why he ended up with the Queen of Spain.\nSweet talked her out of the money\non the promise that he would bring back gold, silk, spices,\nand the goody-goodies of life.\nShe gave him the money.\nHe bought three ships.\nHe put provisions in those three ships.\nHe put crew members in those three ships.\nAnd they began to go east by sailing west.\nSailing west day after day after day.\nNow we don't know for sure.\nBut we have a suspicion that on that first trip\nhe hired a special sailor,\nput him on the bow of the lead ship at night with a lantern,\nwhispered in his ear,\nsaid, I believe this thing is round.\nBut if you see the edge of this damn thing,\nyou holler so we can get turned around in time.\nNow after having sailing straight west for several days,\nthey got results.\nThey found land on the other side,\nwhich was the result of the action that they had taken.\nNow we know that he thought it was the East Indies.\nIt wasn't.\nIt was the West Indies.\nBut he had proven to himself the world is not flat.\nIt is round.\nYou will not sail off the edge of it.\nTurned right around and came right back to Europe.\nWent right back to the Queen of Spain.\nAnd she said, Columbus, where's the gold, silk and spices\nyou promised you would bring me?\nAnd he said, sweetheart, I'm sorry,\nbut I didn't find any.\nBut he said, tell you what I'll do.\nIf you refinance me, I'll go back.\nTrust me, honey, please.\nAnd this time I'll find it.\nAnd she refinanced him.\nAnd he got some more ships, more provisions,\nmore crew members.\nThey began to go east by sailing west\nwith one big difference.\nThe second trip,\nhe didn't hire the special sailor.\nPut him on the bow of the lead ship at night.\nThis time he went back on faith.\nHe went back on knowledge.\nThe first time he went back on belief.\nYou can't start with faith.\nThe only thing you can do is start with belief,\nmake the decision,\ntake the action,\nget the results,\nand then you'll have faith.\nNow I would love to sit here and tell you today,\nand the decision we'll do,\nit's no good unless we take the action.\nAnd that's 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.\nAs the result of the action,\nthen we will get results too.\nHaving had a spiritual awakening\nas the result of these steps,\nwe now have faith,\nwe now have knowledge,\nwe no longer believe.\nYou see, I don't believe today\nthat God will restore me to sanity.\nI know that He will\nbecause He has done so.\nNow those of us who have been restored to sanity\nand we have the faith,\nthen we can go back and help the next newcomer\ncome to believe.\nThey can make a decision\nand we can take them by the hand\nand walk with them through the action steps.\nThen they will get results,\nthey'll have a spiritual awakening,\nand then they'll know,\nand then they can go help the next newcomer\ncome to believe.\nThere's only one thing you and I can't do for the newcomer.\nWe cannot make them willing.\nThat's a job they have to work on themselves.\nNow how does an alcoholic become willing to change?\nVery simple.\nDrinking lots of whiskey.\nI hear people come to AA and they say,\nI've been working on Step 1 for 3 years in AA.\nAnd I say, no you haven't.\nYou don't work on Step 1 in AA.\nYou work on Step 1 out there.\nAnd when you've drunk enough of that whiskey,\nyou just can't stand it any longer.\nThen you become willing to change.\nThen we can begin to help you\nby helping you come to believe,\ndecide, act, and have a spiritual awakening.\nSame formula that the world has always used\nto change the status of anything.\nNow if I know I need the power,\nand if I know the beginning of the finding of the power\nis just to believe,\nif I know the procedure to follow to find the power,\nthen I only need to know one more thing.\nWhere am I going to find that power?\nAnd I think we get here just as confused\nabout where God is\nas we were ever confused about anything else.\nAs a kid growing up,\nsomewhere I got a picture in my mind.\nNow I don't know whether I dreamed it or saw it,\nbut in my mind when I was thinking about God,\nhe was a tall elderly gentleman,\nstood on a cloud up in the sky,\nlong flowing white robes on,\nlong white hair,\ngolden halo around his head,\nand sun rays shooting out of that halo,\nand a big stick in his right hand.\nNow I don't know whether I saw that or whether I dreamed it,\nbut one of the reasons I thought God was there\nis because every time the minister talked about God,\nhe always pointed up there.\nSo I knew he had to be up there somewhere.\nBut then what really confused me,\nI noticed every time the minister wanted to talk to God,\nhe always looked down here.\nHe points up.\nHell, no wonder we get confused as kids\nabout where God is.\nAnd I looked and I looked and I looked and I looked,\nand I never could find God\nbecause I never did know where he was.\nAnd it took the big book Alcoholics Anonymous\nto tell me just exactly\nwhere I'm going to find him.\nPage 55.\nYou know, many years ago I was working for,\nnot working, but I was involved in a halfway house in Tulsa\nand I was heavily involved\nand there was this young man there\nwho had asked me to be his sponsor.\nAnd he said, well, what do you think I ought to do?\nI said, well, it would probably be a good idea\nif you had a job, you know,\nto start somewhere here.\nAnd he said, well, easy for you to say.\nI don't have any car\nand I can't get back and forth with no money.\nCan't even ride the bus.\nAnd I said, well, I'll take you around\nand help you find a job.\nAnd if you find a job, I'll take you around.\nIf you find a job, I'll take you back and forth\nso you can get a couple of paychecks\nand then you can buy a car\nor do whatever you need to do.\nHe said, fine.\nSo I'm taking him back and forth to work.\nAnd one morning he told me a story\nthat really helped me a lot.\nAnd he said, and this is the way the story goes.\nHe said there was three wise men of the East, he said,\nand they took from man the crown of life,\nthe thing that would make us the happiest,\nand took it away from him.\nAnd they said, well, now we took it away from him,\nwhat are we going to do with it?\nHe said, well, one of the guys said,\nI'll tell you what we'll do.\nWe'll take it to the highest, highest crevice\non the face of the earth\nand the highest, highest mountain\nand we'll hide it up there\nand he'll never be able to find it.\nThe other two said, yeah, but you know how they are.\nThey'll hunt and they'll search\nand they'll eventually find it.\nThe third one said, I'll tell you what,\nwe'll take it to the deepest, deepest crevice\nof the deepest ocean and hide it there\nand they'll never think about looking for it there.\nHe said, yeah, but you know how they are.\nThey'll hunt and they'll search\nand they'll eventually find it.\nThe third one said, I'll tell you what we'll do.\nWe'll hide it within himself\nand he'll never think about looking for it there.\nPage 55.\nFirst paragraph,\noptimizing it\nHe said, actually, we were fooling ourselves.\nFor deep down in every man, woman, and child is the fundamental idea of God.\nIt may be obscured by calamity, by worship of other things,\nbut in some form or other it is there.\nFor faith in a power greater than ourselves,\na miraculous demonstration of the power in human lives,\nare facts as old as man himself.\nWe finally saw that faith in some kind of a God was a part of our makeup,\njust as much as the feeling we have for a friend.\nSometimes we had to search fearlessly, but he was there.\nHe was as much a fact as we were.\nWe found the great reality deep down within us.\nAnd the last analysis is only there that he may be found.\nIt was so with us.\nSo we can only clear the ground a bit.\nIf our testimony helps sweep away prejudice,\nenables you to think honestly,\nencourages you to search diligently within yourself,\nthen if you wish, you can join us on the broad highway.\nNow with this attitude, you cannot fail.\nThe consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you.\nA God of your own understanding is sure to come to you with an open mind.\nYou know, it seems as though all human beings are born\nwith some basic knowledge deep down inside themselves,\nprobably lying at a subconscious level.\nAnd that basic knowledge seems to be able to tell us\nwhat we should do and what we shouldn't do.\nIt seems to be able to tell us how we should live and how we shouldn't live.\nAnd I'm sure a lot of people would like to refer to that\nas just plain old common sense.\nI think others might want to call it innate intelligence.\nSome might want to call it the conscience.\nAnd others might want to call it the soul.\nAnd I don't think it really makes any difference what we call it,\nas long as we recognize the fact that it's there.\nAnd if you're anything like I am, as far back as I can remember,\nI've always been aware of that knowledge.\nThere used to be times\nI would be getting ready to do something,\nand some voice somewhere from within inside me would say,\nCharlie, I don't believe you ought to be doing this.\nAnd I wouldn't pay a bit of attention to it.\nI'd go right ahead and do it, and I'd just get in one hell of a mess.\nAnd that same little voice would say,\nSee, I told you not to do it in the first place.\nNow if that's true, and if that's God,\nthen what that means to me today,\nif God dwells within me,\nthen I've got my own personal God.\nI don't worry anymore about whether He's the God of the Baptist Church or not.\nI don't worry whether He's the God of the Catholic Church,\nthe Hebrew religion, or anybody else's God.\nIf He dwells within me, then He's my own personal God,\nand He and I can come together in very simple, very understandable terms.\nThis is one of the greatest pieces of information\nthat I have ever learned,\nis that I can have my own God,\nand He dwells within me,\nand my knowledge comes from Him,\nand through Him, I'll be able to find that power.\nNow then, am I ready to make a decision?\nYou betcha.\nWhen He was the God of justice, when He was hellfire and brimstone,\nI wasn't ready to make that decision.\nBut throughout this chapter, my concept of God has changed entirely,\nand I'm beginning to believe He just might be\na kind and a loving God,\nand just maybe He'll start doing some good things for me,\nnot hellfire and brimstone,\nand now I'm ready to make a decision.\nAnd I don't think it's by accident\nthat the very next chapter is entitled,\nHow It Works.\n