Perpetual Quietness of Heart — Dr. Bob’s Desk Plaque on Humility – Sandy R.

Well, good morning, everybody. You know, I see that everybody survived the night and showed up sober. That's always good. I just hate to have a drunk at a retreat. There's no real protocol for handling that. But we'll dream it up, right, Bob? We'll have that ready for next spring. I work with that. Oh. Okay. I'm sure that most of you have seen questions and answers at various conventions, et cetera. And when someone answers a question, they're simply giving their perspective on what they think the answer is, given the perspective. They have on life and the program at that time. And so if you find that something I say is at odds with your sponsor or something like that, don't get too upset about it. There can be two different views on things. What you can do is when you get here an answer, you can consider it. And see if it's helpful in putting it into your package of information to help your perspective on the particular question. And the other thing is that when Jerry does it, he somehow gets all the easy ones. So it gives the perspective that he's smarter than I am. And I just wanted to tell you why this illusion occurs. Somebody messes with these things, you know, like, who was Bill Wilson? Now, there's a tough question. Yeah. So that's what he's going to be getting. I don't know which one to start. So I'll grab this great big one. Dear Sandy, I've been in AA over 25 years and have heard a lot of people talk about their relationship with God and how close they feel to him. In my time, I've had two or three instances where I actually felt the closeness. It seems that I have missed a lot of time of feeling close. Based on what I hear at meetings, what have I missed? Or am I just like the fish Chuck C. talks about that is swimming through the ocean trying to find water? I bet there's a lot of people that relate to that. There's a sense that they should be further along or that based on what other people are saying at meetings or wherever, that they should be somewhere different. I find it fascinating. I think what's wonderful about that question is that there is part of this person who wants to be closer. And that is a gift. A lot of people have to generate that. But when you start with, yeah, I got a job, I got this, and I'm doing pretty good here, I'm doing pretty good there, but I really sense that my life could be greatly enhanced if I could have more of this contact with my own creator. And so I don't know if we missed anything. I wouldn't put it that way. I would just take where you are today and look at it very closely and try to ask yourself why we can't move this up in priority. You know, over all the other things. Things you have in your life. And I just, I don't know why I always go back to Brother Lawrence as the simplest little book to motivate us. But for me, when all else fails, just a half a page in there brings me to the simplicity of maintaining contact. And there's a lot that happens when we make a decision, like the whole third step. I don't know if it's been explained to you, but the key word in there is decision. Like you decide that you, or you've been thinking about going to college. You've postponed it, postponed it, but you're thinking about it and you're, you talk about it, and yeah, I think it would be good to get a college degree. Blah, blah, blah. But when you decide to go to college, you go over and register, and you buy books. And a whole different thing happens when we make this decision. So don't treat it lightly. If you decide. You decide. You decide. You decide. to improve your conscious contact or to move closer, it'll start happening because it'll put things, a chain of events into place. That's why I like that page 25, whatever it is in the big book. God either is or he isn't. He's everything or he's nothing. And then it says, who is your choice to be? There it is. You make the choice. Well, I'm going to choose. As Chuck said, I'm going to choose God and live with the results or I'm going to not choose God and live with the results. It is similar to a decision. It is one of the great powerful things. So that didn't answer the question, but it gave me a chance to talk. I'm sure the writer's going, geez, that's not what I was after. When a new guy is quitting drinking for her. Okay, we'll throw this one away. Not himself. How much time do we give him to catch alcoholism for himself? Well, we all know, everybody knows this. You've either sponsored somebody or you were doing it. I am not going to go through the numerous times that that happened to me. Um, it's, it's such a powerful force, the man-woman relationship. And to a self-centered person who's trying to get the program, it almost looks noble to get sober for her. Geez, if I get sober for her, she'll see how much I love her. I'm sacrificing. I'm doing all these things. But what's really going on is. He sees her as the solution to all his problems. Just like alcohol was or God would be. And of course, if she says yes. And it gets all screwed up, which it will. There's a great deal of confusion. I sacrifice. I thought I was doing the right thing, et cetera. Um, sometimes even the best sponsor in the world can't stop this from happening. So you just have to wait for the crash and be there to support the guy. But it's going on all the time. All right. What qualities or traits do you consider to be the essence of a good sponsor and or sponsorship? Now, that's funny because if I had answered this question 30 years ago, it wouldn't be anywhere near the answer that I give today. My job, and I tell the person that I'm sponsoring. I said. My job. Is to guide you into having a spiritual awakening. That's what sponsorship is to me. That's how important a spiritual awakening is. Sure, we can give advice and we've been around a long time and we can, you know, don't say that to your boss. But I consider telling the person. That you we're going to work together until you have a spiritual awakening and it's going to be magnificent. It's going to be just beyond your wildest dreams, there's a sense that this is the flow of Alcoholics Anonymous. And as they're going through the steps they can see moving towards this one end result. And so that's what I do. And then, of course, there's all the. And then, of course, there's all the. And then, of course, there's all the. all different ways of approaching the steps, and those have changed over the years. When I talk about getting ready to do a fourth step or a sixth step or a seventh step, but probably about five years ago, I started saying, this is what's going to happen. And I haven't had anybody say, well, I don't want a spiritual awakening. I'm going to get a different sponsor. But I'm sure somebody's going to come along, and then I'll call Bob up and ask him what the hell I should do. Okay, well, we're doing all right here. I didn't see anybody leaving the room. If or when your sponsee, pigeon, as we call him, relapses and he's been through the steps with you, where do you start or restart step work with him? I don't know if it would be the same with everybody. I think I'd start and very quickly go through each step. And I think I would spend a great deal of time on step one. I would just go back and ask him to explain what powerless means so I can hear his interpretation of powerlessness. And I would ask him, why do you think there's so many pages in our literature before we get to step two? Because it just goes on forever. And a lot of times, the problems involve not surrendering 100% in the first step. And that'll come back to haunt anybody. Because you somehow left a loophole in admitting that you're 100% powerless over alcohol. Why? That you are as vulnerable or as bad as everyone else. And it's real easy to just carve out one exception and then that'll hang you two years from now. It's that failure to surrender 100%. So I think I mentioned this earlier. I think one of the things, one of the things that a sponsor does when doing the first step is to convince the person that things are 50 times worse than they thought they were. And just keep reviewing it. And they go, geez, I didn't tell them, whoa. And the worse it gets, the more they desperately need a higher power. So that's my thoughts on somebody who goes out, you've taken them through, you've taken them through the steps. A lot of times you'll have the sense that you're not sure that this is a full connection. And so the best place to start it up is the first step. That would be my thoughts. I know Jerry disagrees, but we're not going to ask him. Thank you. Did you write a question, Bob? Oh, good. Because I'd be able to tell it if he did. I would go, this is from Bob. Regarding the third tradition, I heard the story of the man who came to the group with a problem worse stigmatized than alcoholism was a black drug addict. And at that time, there were no African Americans or drug addicts. There were no African Americans or drug addicts in AA. Can you elaborate on this story, please? It's true. And the guy who called in from the New York group where this happened, in other words, this person showed up and they didn't know whether to allow him to stay there. Because, you know, you don't see that every day. And he was wearing a blonde wig and kind of carrying on a little bit and with a drug problem as well. And it's back in the 40s. I would think that that would be quite a first event. And so they called Bill and he said, well, is he an alcoholic? And they said, yeah, he says he is. Well, then that's it. That's the end of the discussion. Is he an alcoholic? He wants to get sober? There it is. So we had the pretty good example of membership requirements. Guy wanted to stop drinking. That's it. It's pretty simple. But I will point, while we're on this related subject, that once you are accepted as a member, there are other traditions that you are expected to go along with. And so then we get into primary purpose and anonymity and, you know, all of these other ones. There's no special exemption made just because you have, three or five other problems when you arrive. I would say almost every AA member has more than one problem. If you follow what I mean. You only have one, right Bob? Everything. But that doesn't mean that you're entitled to start a visa if you don't have a visa. You're entitled to start a credit card group. Of Alcoholics Anonymous, just to deal with your... You should sit near the back. That's what I'm... Don't you think? We have more fun doing stuff together. Met Jerry, same thing. And Scott Redman. Boy, I wish he was still around. Those of you that may not have met him, what an interesting person. He had different views than a lot of us and wasn't shy about advancing them. Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Ha ha! Okay, this is going along smoothly. The big book says, once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who seemed doomed suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol. The only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules. What are the rules? Whatever your sponsor tells you they are. In other words, there is no answer to this. It is, of course, referring to our steps. And I think in particular, step 11, maintaining the contact so that when we have suddenly feels himself easily able to control his desire, the only effort necessary would be to maintaining this spiritual connection. When all else fails, that's the bottom line answer to our whole program. It's the bottom line. It's the bottom line. It's not dissimilar with our disease of alcoholism. And when you go to the bar at night, there's eight or ten things that you just love doing. You like to shuffleboard, then you go over and talk to the gals over here, and then there's the guys from the softball team, and we've got to go over and visit them, and then there's the bartender, and we've got to talk to him. But there's one that if we don't, if we don't do it, the whole evening collapses, and that's drinking alcohol. If you went into the bar and did the nine other things, the shuffleboard, the visiting, and left out the drinking, you wouldn't have a very good evening. You would be wondering what the hell is missing. And the equivalent of that in AA is this contact with God. That's what's missing or present. And of course, like alcohol, it transforms everything else. So the shuffleboard is the most exciting shuffleboard machine you ever saw in your life. Because I had nine drinks when I went over there, and I said, God damn, this is, look at this machine. I'd like to meet the guy that made this machine. Look how beautiful it is. All the words are spelled correctly. This is, what an amazing machine. I mean, you just have a sense of the beauty of the world. Then you go in the throw-up, and some of that disappears, but. Yeah, where's the other example of this? This type of question. It involves the steps. Somebody will think of it. My mind is drawing a blank. To Sandy, please. Oh, I got the right box. I love your story about the Al-Anon woman at your first meeting. Ruth Houck, I think. No, I don't go back that far. I don't go back that far. I don't go back that far. I don't go back that far. I don't go back that far. I don't go back that far. I don't go back that far. I don't go back that far. Come back, everything will be okay. However, it's what you say after that, which has always resonated with me, and I believed her. What did you believe? Why was believing her so important to you in the moment that you decided to go back to the meeting? Can you talk about that moment in some more detail? What touched you? Um... Yeah, it wasn't Ruth Haug. We'll talk about her tomorrow. I didn't have anything to do with it. It was the same as when Ebi came to see Bill. If you recall that incident, Bill's drinking buddy calls him up and wants to come over and see him. And Bill's so excited because he has a bottle of gin that Lois didn't know about. And he invites him over and they're going to reminisce about their old drinking days. And when Ebi comes in, he's sober and there's something mysteriously wonderful about him. His eyes, the energy out of him. And he tells Bill, I got religion. And Bill goes, well, you can get rid of that. So the words mean nothing. I got religion. I found these people. The thing that Bill couldn't dismiss was this person was transformed. It was a different Ebi. And there was something coming out of him that stayed with Bill even after Ebi left. And it pushed his curiosity about this crowd that Ebi was hanging around with, which Bill eventually, went down and joined. So I would say the dominating force was the look in her eyes and the energy coming out of her whole being. That something very powerful told me everything's going to be all right. And I had no way to resist it. I didn't think about it. It just happened. It was just like making a connection and the lights go on. So it wasn't a thoughtful event. It wasn't anything. I didn't have nothing to do with it. I didn't choose to believe her. It happened automatically. It just was a done deal. And a lot of spirituality occurs like that. And as we talked about earlier, there's no way to do it. There's no way to explain that, which is, I think this question was trying to go, could you explain this a little further so that I can understand it? And I can't explain it any further. You just have to know that this is the experience that I had. And I had no choice but to have that experience. I couldn't have turned her down. It was done. And I very happily walked back in. But there was no thinking process. And a lot of spirituality is like that. You can't explain it. It's just you experience it and then you can report the results. That's a good way to live. Okay. Am I doing all right, Jerry? Slow? Slow? You know, you did way over half of them. Okay. Okay. At what point did you realize that you had established a relationship, active participatory relationship with God? I think I went through this a little bit. Obviously, at my first meeting, when this Al-Anon woman came up, there was something, a very powerful spiritual connection with some kind of energy. I didn't know it was God at the time. I just knew something significant had happened because I just turned around and walked back in. And something had caused me to get rid of a lot of my resistance. And, of course, this is the secret to a lot of things, is getting rid of your resistance to it. And then I mentioned that about six or seven months driving around Quantico and having that non-voice say that if I stayed in AA, everything would be all right. And fully believing it. I didn't, I think I'd mentioned it, I mentioned it to my sponsor, but I didn't need an explanation. I just went, wow, this is interesting. This is, these things happen as you go along. A different thing happened when many, many, many years later, I decided to become a seeker and get books and listen to people and put more energy into it. But the things, in the beginning, just happened. And sometimes we need our sponsor to point it out. They happen and we just aren't aware of it. Many times you'll, even in our literature, they talk about the newcomer is being transformed and they're not aware of it yet. But other people see it before they become aware of it. And sometimes, sometimes that's part of the game is to help the person you're sponsoring. Well, let's look, let's just review how you're doing. And then you just come along and say, you know, I think your connection spiritually is widening quite a bit. Don't you agree? And as they start going, geez, I hadn't thought about it, but I see that. It has happened. Okay, so this is going to be a short answer. What is the history of God as you understand God? Where did this concept gain roots in AA? Bill's talk with Ebby, varieties of religious experience, appease the atheists when the book was written, or something other? Bill says that this phrase came out of the heated debate that started when they circulated the drafts of the big book. He would be the primary author and then he'd send it out to Akron. He'd send it around to, to different AAs in New York. And he got different reactions from where he sent it. And even though, there's a funny thing about this, even though Akron and Cleveland had larger numbers, New York had more influence because Bill was writing from New York. And he was, he was answering letters. Nobody wrote to Akron when they had a question. So the influence of New York was greater, even though the numerical superiority was in the Midwest, which is kind of an interesting thing. And in New York were Hank Parkhurst and who's the other one, Bob? No. Jim Burwell. And they really felt that the God thing ought to be hidden. And that we tell people this is a psychological program, we're going to give you a different psychology about how to look at the world. And then after we had them hooked, we would reveal that God was also part of this, but it'd be too late for them to leave. rather than leading with God. They felt that that would drive away newcomers. So you can see there was this sense, not only of personal beliefs, but of the numbers game. If you mention God too much, the newcomers are going to leave. And you go out to Akron and Cleveland, and you can't mention God too much. You just go, God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God. Okay, that's the end of the meeting. We'll all go home. And that would be perfectly satisfactory. Well, guess what still goes on? New York? Who's from New York? Anybody? There's more than once at a meeting, you'll hear somebody caution someone else who's sharing. Don't talk about God too much. You'll scare away. The newcomers. And isn't that funny? 75 years later, we're still passing this on. It reminds me of, you're at a meeting and you mention page 56 in the 12 and 12, and somebody says, we don't talk about the 12 and 12 here. And you go, really? Did you read the 12? No. No. We don't read it here. So you were told not to read it ahead of time. Yeah. So this is the power of history. So we go back and we go from one sponsor, then the next one, and then the next one. And finally we get back to somebody who had 10 years sobriety when the 12 and 12 came out. And it wouldn't be unnatural for that person to say, what the hell do we need this version of the steps? I've got sober fine on the big book. I don't need this here. So what are they going to tell their pigeons? By the way, don't read the 12 and 12. And we have, there's some places in Tampa where you just, if you mention it, somebody will get all over you. So I love going there. And all I talk about is the 12 and 12. But it's not that somebody read it and didn't like it. It's not that somebody didn't like it. It's not that somebody didn't like it. It's not that somebody didn't like it. It's just that they were told they could get along fine without it. And when I first got sober, there was two guys, two old timers in Fredericksburg, Virginia. And they had a fight with each other. And one of them left and took 30% of the group and went over and started another meeting. And they both swore, they told the members of the group, do not go to that other group. If you go over there, we're going to be very upset with you. Do not go to that other group. And you fast forward 45 years and there's still some of that, no, I just don't go to that group. Why? I don't know. Somebody told me not to. So this argument between two guys is still, has its influence. And I'm sure all of you from different parts of the country know that. Can look back and still feel the influence of some of the early old timers in your area where they just had this thing that if we're having a convention, it better be this way. I mean, and it's still being carried on. I stretched that one out, Jerry. Question. What do you think, feel our purpose as human beings on earth in this dimension is? Now this, of course, is just my own personal. Obviously, there's no real answer to this. Myself, I feel that I'm on a prodigal son journey. And that, again, this is just me. It's not from our literature or anywhere. And you say, well, why bother? Why would you subject someone to that? Why would God subject someone to that? If we're in the light before we come here, and it's just wonderful. It's just heavenly. There's no pain. There's just this wonderful awareness of the love of the creator of the universe. How could you make it even better? Take it away and give it back. That's how you could do it. Take it away and give it back. So that, to me, the journey here is just serving that purpose. And if I can be useful while I'm waiting to go back, I'll be useful. But I'm not going to try and find any hidden meaning of this life here. It's an experience. And you have to... One of the things in spirituality, is settling for having an experience. Instead of ruining the experience by trying to figure out what it was all about. You know, what did it mean? What was that for? Why did this happen? You just experience it. And then wait and experience something else. It is a great exercise in self-restraint to not analyze it or think about it. That's where spirituality comes in, is practicing not thinking about things. And of course, I sponsor people all the time and I'll tell them something and they'll go, I've got to go home and think about that. And I'm going, oh, Jesus. I don't want to be there when that process starts. Okay. What's the difference between let go and let God versus turning your will and your life over to a higher power? Not much. They're both accomplishing the same thing. I'll talk about this more in the next lecture. But Ernie Kurtz, who's my favorite historian, called his history book Not God. And a lot of people don't understand the title. They're put off by it so they don't buy the book. Not God. I don't want to read a book that's advocating not God. He's not advocating not God. He's pointing out that you're not God. And that you are not God. You are not supposed to be in charge of anything. God is. And so, let go and let God and turning your will and life over to a higher power are, as far as I'm concerned, almost identical. Here's a, this is my own personal thing again. So, if I were that V.A. asked whether the universe or our lives are a question of predestination or free will, you know that old argument? Is everything determined ahead of time? Or, do I have free will and I can cause things to happen in certain ways? My answer is both. Both. Everything is, has been decided by God and is going to unfold that way no matter what the hell I do. So, that kind of leaves me out of it. No, it doesn't. Because every event that happens, I react to. I get upset by it. I, so, instead of a neutralist, a spiritual event happening, a shitty event happened. And then God caused a shitty event to happen. And then a shitty event was predetermined. No, it wasn't. There's a guy next to me, he's going, isn't this nice? So, his spiritual perspective is different than mine. Therefore, through my free will, I'm causing everything that happens with my perspective on it. So, there's the neutral unfolding and then there's our perspective of it and our reaction to it, which dominates everything. Oh, God, you're not going to believe what happened. What happened? Well, I was going to play golf and it rained. Really? You're going to commit suicide over that? That's amazing. But that's the power of our freedom to see things and to react to them. So, those are just my two cents worth. So, the answer would be to just keep track of the experiences as they come along. My sponsor tells me and others is that if you want what I have, do what I do and put God first in your life. He has 38 years sobriety. My question, why do you put God first in your life all the time? Why did you put drinking first in your life before you got here? Because of the results that you got. There was no doubt. I mean, you know, I started out I didn't drink until work was over and I'm on my way home. But as I got smarter and smarter, I started having to drink on the way to work. This added a great deal to my day. I mean, geez. I was starting to enjoy work. I was starting to enjoy work. And, you know, we start bringing drinking into everything because it looks like it enhances it and all that. The problem is we had the wrong higher power. But the same power is there to enhance each event as it happens during the day by making sure we're connected to this spiritual energy. How is that done? You could buy a million different books. One of my favorite is, and I think I've mentioned this, that for some unknown reason, the ego seems to allow us to take four breaths before it wants to know what's going on over there. Four meditative breaths. And you're at your desk and you just make a habit every 15 minutes. You stop. You stop what you're doing. You just close your eyes and you take four breaths. And no thinking is going on. You're just expanding the space that you're in. And you may get up to 10. And then all of a sudden, you know, hey, what? What's going on? When are we going, you know, blah, blah, blah. Well, if this is done a hundred times a day, it's the equivalent of sitting down for 20 minutes of meditation. It's the equivalent of sitting down for 20 minutes of meditation. There's no difference. And it just creates a cushion around us and the events of the day. And that's just a simple beginning of why to keep this connection. It's very similar to sneaking drinks at work. It just makes everything work better. And nobody's going to fire us for doing that. It's not the same as alcohol. All right, we're getting there, Jerry. There's two baskets and I'm just finishing the one I got. Sandy, Dr. Bob had a desk plaque on humility. I love it and read it every day. Do you know the author? And does it appear in any literature? I have to confess, this is the first I heard of Dr. Bob's desk plaque. Humility. So I probably won't be able to answer it. But this is the quote. This is nice. Now we're all going to get shared what was on Dr. Bob's desk. Perpetual of humility. Perpetual quietness of heart. It is to have no trouble. Wow. It is never to be fretted or vexed, irritable or sore. To wonder at nothing that is done to me to feel nothing done against me. We're talking about high-powered language now. It is to be at rest when no one praises me and when I'm blamed or despised. It is to have a blessed home in myself where I can go in and be at peace as in a deep sea of calmness when all around is seeming trouble. So this ties along with what we were just talking about. Maintaining this contact and humility is a permanent reminder that I should not try to go through life on my own. Never. And I'm glad this came up. Did everybody here already know about this? No, I guess not. Okay. Bob knew. He probably has a copy on your desk, right? How do you know when service work is out of balance with the rest of your life? What is God's will there? I haven't got a clue. Let's say the only example I can give is when I was new my sponsor and I went to a meeting every night no matter what was going on. Oh, I'd like to go to the church. High school graduation but I'd have to go to a meeting every night. I have to do, you know, and if I could go back and change anything it would be that. Putting my family up on a level that they belonged because this was you know, in the beginning it may have been necessary to get a few months on sobriety but after a while it was a pretty convenient excuse to get away from all the hassle and be out with the guys and go out to dinner afterwards talk about the Marine Corps talk about flying and then come home and go, well, I stayed sober another day so I would say that that's an example of it being out of control. And I don't know I would say the other time would be if that's all you talk about if every time you're sharing at a meeting you go yeah, I took a meeting to a jail last night just wanted everyone to know took a meeting to a jail the night before in case you're curious it's it's somehow using it to improve your self-image. You know, I'm every time I see one of those name tags that says former delegate I want to create one that says former coffee maker. Oh, I'm sorry. Are there any delegates here? Don't give him the microphone. Okay, last one. And we're on time and everything, Jerry. Sometimes we do better in the program and are better people. Why do we so often revert to the difficult and obnoxious persons we were when drinking even after 20 plus years? I don't know anyone who doesn't fit in this category if that makes you feel better. I think it's I think if it wasn't hard it wouldn't have any value. And that's an important thing to remember. If it isn't difficult I mean, if somebody could just go okay, for the next year the whole room will be serene. After six months of serenity you'd be just going so? Because you didn't have to struggle for it. There wasn't the series of failures and then you pick yourself up and you know that when you do achieve that sense of humility and serenity that it was worth the failures. That that's what it gave that its value was the struggle. So I think it's built in automatically to give your life value. And so then all we have to do is accept the fact that this is the way the ball game is laid out and try not to be that frustrated when we lose our temper or whatever the heck it is and have to go make an amend. Well, I'm back again. We're at the end of the time. We finished the questions and I thank everybody for your attention and Bob Bazans is next. Thanks for listening.