Queens Big Book Study – Part 3 – Gary B. – 2008

No business, huh, Tom?
I got nothing to say.
Write that down, somebody.
Good morning.
Excuse me.
Here we go.
We think we covered the first two steps last night.
Again, have we left anything out there that you would like to hear discussed
or comments on that that would be open to ask?
It doesn't have to be questions.
It could be sharing.
I guess not.
Yeah.
I have a quick question about the second thing.
I always thought, I always had like a quandary with like,
you know,
I've come to believe in Calgary and some of the stories of sanity.
And I always thought, well, that's probably in relation to alcohol,
but what about all the other stuff?
I mean, I always had like a quandary about that.
But is it really just about booze or is it just about, you know, craziness?
Like the insanity that lingers after a plug-in and joke.
Well, that's a great question.
I'm going to repeat it for the tape.
The question is about the quandary you have when looking at the second step.
Is it just about alcohol?
Is it just about alcoholism?
Or is it about all the other insanity we're involved in in our lives and that sort of thing?
And I can tell you my opinion.
I suspect there's two others here.
My understanding of the second step.
Let me back up again.
The most insane thing I do as an alcoholic, I do it stone sober.
And if you're a real alcoholic, you did the same thing.
We'd be stone sober.
And we would take the first drink.
And generally, we would take the first drink when we knew that the consequences of that were going to be bad.
We never had an experience that they weren't bad with that.
And so there was a time where I made that statement around some guys in Kentucky.
And there used to be a man in Kentucky named Carter Redding.
He looked like Ichabod Crane.
And he was tall and thin and just a little bit hunched over.
And, man, he was ugly.
But he says, you know, he says, I don't know if I'd have gone ahead with these steps, if that sort of thing,
if I hadn't have thought that there was a good chance I could be restored to wholeness.
Wonderful answer.
It really is, yeah.
Yeah.
So.
I'm talking to a new person.
I'm telling them the most insane thing you did, you did stone sober.
And that I really believe that's what Bill was writing about that.
But my experience is that some other things have come with that that I've found some peace from.
There have been, I know this sounds a little insane,
but there have been times when I have really wished that I was alcoholic.
Because there was a, there's a, there's a focus of your insanity on this particular area of your life.
I'm just generally insane.
And so, you know, sometimes it's really hard to catch that elusive insanity and, you know, pin it down and know what you're dealing with.
So I begin with that, you know.
Because I don't have the, the desire to drink, you know, I don't have the compulsion to drink.
But there, I am controlled by fear, which is where I really relate to alcoholics.
And, you know, there's, there's so little difference once you get past the, the initial drinking problem.
And that's why I'm attracted to alcoholics.
Because my personality is such that, that it.
Fits there.
So, you know, I know that, that when I get into many, many situations and I'm, I'm, I'm going to make a decision.
And, and I can see that I'm going to make a decision based on fear.
And I try with all my might not to make a decision based on fear or selfishness or dishonesty.
I say I'm going to be honest this time.
And I have no power to do that.
And.
I, I have not been restored 100%.
But I will tell you that, that those things are affected and chiseled away bit by bit by God in my life.
And so I know personally that, that I am a very, very different person than I started out.
I am not, you know, under the.
The heavy rock of fear, selfishness, self-seeking, and dishonesty, and resentment.
So it can change.
You know, I, I just have it built into my character to be obnoxious.
I apologize.
I just want to let you know I was, I was about to speak.
She asked, she says, let us.
No, you know, give me a heads up so I can throw the whole body into it.
But anyway, good morning.
It's so nice to see you this morning.
You know, that's like, in a lot of ways, the question.
And so I'd like to read again on page 52 what it says.
It says, and it goes through that, that laundry list again of all these bedevilments.
And then it says, was not a basic solution.
Of these bedevilments.
So we know already that they're really talking to us about the total disease of alcoholism.
Not just our relationship with alcohol and not just what happens when we're drinking it.
And then further in the next paragraph, it says, again, when we saw others solve their problems, plural.
By a simple reliance.
So that's why, for me, the title of that book, Your God is Too Small, doesn't mean you.
It means me.
Your God is too small.
It means that what happens is that I will exclude God from the things that I need the most.
You know?
And so what would happen?
Who gets hurt if I get saner?
Who gets hurt if I get safer?
Or I become nicer or a sweeter person?
Am I, you know, who gets hurt if I'm like the good news in somebody's life for a change?
I'll tell you one thing real quickly.
I came home early on in sobriety from a meeting over at the club that I got sober at.
And I told Marie that this earth-shattering, earth-shaking thing had happened to me.
I said, Marie, somebody apologize to me.
Okay.
Are there any other questions or comments that someone would like to make?
Oh, thank you, Jack.
I did want to, I had a comment of my own.
You know, I try to never take the kindness of others for granted.
And I thanked people, but I never thanked Joel.
Because what happens is that we are out-of-towners, obviously.
And probably obviously to everybody in Manhattan, but anyway.
And Joel took the time out of his life with us yesterday in a group.
To show us around town.
And I had a ball.
I get like a kid around that.
It was just so cool.
And Marie forgot her hat.
And we're down with these Chinese guys.
And we're buying her this knit hat.
You know, ten bucks.
Okay.
Somebody said, did you try to, you know, get the price lower?
I'm going, no, are you kidding?
Ten bucks.
I'll take it.
That was great.
Anyway.
And plus I got this authentic Scottish scarf.
For five.
For five dollars.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the guy offered me the Rolex.
And I really wanted it.
But thank you very much, Joel.
It meant a lot to us to be able to go around.
And I'm a history freak.
And what a beautiful city this is.
So anyway.
All the kindness.
You know what I mean?
And the fact.
And my last story on this.
But when I was in high school.
We had these.
This order of Swiss priests.
And these were the guys.
They were China hands.
They had been over in China when the communists came in.
So these are the guys that got tortured.
Their fingernails ripped out.
And so on down the line.
I mean, these people really earned their seat.
You know what I mean?
At the table of God.
But this guy told me.
He said in the village that he grew up in Switzerland.
There was a man who would go around.
And he would walk by somebody.
Anybody.
He would say good morning.
I mean, it's a simple little thing.
Good morning.
To acknowledge another person.
But anyway.
And he would walk across this bridge into another section of the village.
And so this day he said good morning.
And the next day he walked by.
And this man was on the bridge.
And he stopped him.
And he said, you know, I want to thank you.
He said, when you came by and talked to me.
As I was getting ready to throw myself off that bridge.
It's amazing how a little thing.
You know.
And the second half of that story to me.
As I read a book one time.
And it took place in Africa.
And it had pygmies in it.
And I don't know if this is a true story or not.
But I love what it says.
It said that the pygmy greeting is I see you.
You know what I mean?
And so I just think that that acknowledgement.
And so anyway, I see you, Joel.
And thank you very much for your kindness.
Okay.
I'm turning mine off now.
Yeah.
Many.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And we've been talking about page 52.
And just something that occurred to me.
I forget where I showed you this.
But it's right opposite page 52.
Directly opposite it.
There's a part.
There's a paragraph that's part of step two.
And something's going to affect that.
It's got to do with everything.
And there's nothing.
There's no choice but to be.
So it's obviously urging you.
It's your God to be big enough to handle your direct problems in life.
So if I'm applying that directly to the bedevilments,
that becomes a kind of prayer,
even though it's not an instruction directly out of the book.
If God is everything, if I'm the child of the creator,
obviously he can handle my little bedevilments no problem.
So if I create it like a positive affirmation,
my God is everything,
and he can help me with my personal relationships
and my emotional nature and my misery and depression
and my can't keep a job and not being useful to others.
It doesn't say to do that, but I forget where I got it from.
Do you have any reflection on that?
No.
Where I was going while you were speaking,
I'm sorry, that wasn't a cheap shot.
I know.
I can admit when I'm stupid, too.
I know.
Mostly I tell people I'm insane.
I'm not stupid.
The line he's referring to says,
when we became alcoholics,
crushed by a self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade,
we had to fearlessly face the proposition
that either God is everything or else he is nothing.
God either is or he isn't.
What was our choice to be?
And it's interesting that you say it like that.
The comparisons I hear with the bedevilments
and our healing, if you will,
is if you were to list the,
bedevilments on a blackboard,
and then when you get through your ninth step
and you're experiencing the promises,
you can list the promises on the blackboard next to them.
And you'll see that the promises effectively
are the answers to the bedevilments.
And I've said that.
Now, having said all that,
there's another place in the book,
I've been racking my brain to think where it was,
but I ran across it the other day and I don't remember,
where Bill Flatt stated that he thought the AA program
could help us with all of our problems.
Bottom of 42.
42, okay, thank you.
Bottom of 42.
Let's just look at that real fast.
Yeah.
Quite as important was the discovery
that spiritual principles would solve all my problems.
I have since been brought into a way of living
infinitely more satisfying and, I hope,
more useful than the life I lived before.
I think that pretty well touches.
Yeah, Jaime.
Could you read the second step again, please?
The came to believe that a power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity?
You all heard that, right?
Why would we miss all the time the word could in the book?
You read the second step and it says could
restore us to sanity.
Do I believe that?
Do you see the book?
Sure.
Sure.
I just understand to mean that he's able to.
Do you want to answer that?
Well, you know, I've seen it in myself
and I've seen it in a lot of other people
that there's one thing that we get offered, sanity,
and there's another thing to accept it.
Because, you know, I'll tell you, you know,
especially being from my side of the equation,
a lot of my defects of character are really encouraged
and thanked by people around me because, you know,
I give way too much of myself.
I'm, you know, too, I don't want to use the word selfless
because that's almost a positive thing.
It was not selfless.
It was selfish in my own way that really,
kowtowed to everyone and everybody likes that.
You know, they don't necessarily give me grief for that.
And so when I get offered relief from my dishonesty,
you know, I may show up to be a real pain, you know.
And so I am, many, many of my defects of character,
thank you, many of my defects of character
are not such that are going to put me
in a better light than when I'm deep in my defects.
So to accept the healing from that sometimes is,
is, feels counterproductive.
It's not, but, you know, I have to get out of my own
way of doing things and that takes courage
because, again, I'm not going to show up
quite as loving and selfishly,
self-giving and, you know, all these things
that I've counted on doing and looking like to get by.
I don't know if that makes any sense, but.
Just in a moment, you know,
and see that God could and would if he were sought.
So that's a two-part proposition.
You know, God could and would if he were sought.
So if God can and won't,
there might as well,
there might as well not be a God.
So it becomes, you know,
I'm not here to figure out what God can do.
Truly, it's the point where God and I meet
that I'm interested in.
So I go, I got 34 years sober.
February 12th will be 35 years without a drink.
I go to my home group a few weeks ago
and there's a guy celebrating six years of sobriety
and he stands up at the podium and he says,
my higher power,
we'll solve all my problems.
I sat in that room and it was like I was thunderstruck.
My higher power, he says,
will solve all my problems.
And I thought to myself,
do I believe that?
I'm not living like that.
I must not believe that.
Do you know what I mean?
Which comes back to that cockamamie book title.
Your God is too small, Mickey.
Your God is too small.
So I went out from that meeting,
walking on my way to my car and I had a conversion.
That guy, six years sober, saved my life
because it made me stretch out for a God.
And so, you know, it's like I've worked with people in here
whose God was quantum physics.
And I'm telling you something right now,
and God bless her,
but I'm telling you something right now.
At three o'clock in the morning when the woogies come,
I ain't going to a formula.
You know what I mean?
And what I am going to is I'm going back to this new mantra I have
is that my God will solve all my problems.
Right?
Because, look, I need help.
This is, right?
Because it's, I mean, we laugh about this with the people I sponsor,
but I say it's not really all that much fun to be mentally ill, is it?
Laughter
Laughter
Laughter
the last, the second to the last paragraph in the fourth chapter
is talking about the miracle of healing that seems to come about through this.
I'll back up.
The last paragraph, the last line in the paragraph,
the last paragraph above it says,
seemingly he could not drink even if he would.
God had restored his sanity.
I'm on page 57.
And then it reads on down,
what is this but a miracle of healing?
Yet its elements are simple.
Circumstances made him willing to believe.
He humbly offered himself to his maker.
Then he knew.
He didn't know before he offered himself to his maker.
Okay?
Even so has God restored us to,
excuse me,
even so has God restored us all to our right minds.
To this man the revelation was sudden.
Some of us grow more into it more solely,
but he has come to all who have honestly sought him.
When we do near to him, he disclosed himself to us.
So it's our move.
It's our turn.
So then when we go on, we're faced with,
with another question, you know,
just how are we going to do that and what's going to happen?
Many years ago, I was sitting in a room in,
in a little house in Denver on Goat Hill.
They call it Goat Hill because of the goats.
And, and a bunch of us had decided that we thought maybe we ought to be doing this thing together.
As a group.
We, we had gotten a 12 step call from, from a guy in Canada, if you will.
And, and, and so we just kind of started getting together to go through the book together
and try to throw out everything we thought we knew.
And, uh, uh, extremely difficult for me because of course I was omnipotent.
And, uh, I, uh, so we did,
we started this business of going through the book long ago.
Uh, uh, so we did.
We started this business of going through the book long ago.
line by line, paragraph by paragraph, page by page, and trying to do precisely what it says.
And at that point, we hadn't learned all the tricks you'll hear from other people doing it now,
to ask the questions and do all that stuff.
There's nothing wrong with that.
We just didn't know about it and hadn't experienced it.
But what we did worked absolutely without getting all sophisticated and nosy about it.
And I'm kind of phrasing that because I get a kick out of it.
Now, I'll go back and try it when somebody suggests they've been doing this and doing that,
and I go back and try them.
Sometimes I see an effect.
Sometimes it seems like it was redundant.
So anyway, we got in there, and we're going through this,
and of course we got through effectively the first and second step.
I had come to believe by watching God help others get sober, and their lives changed.
Some of them were growing right past me, so they must be gone.
Then later in life, they'd come back.
When God comes, there better be a God.
So anyway, we were reading after the fifth chapter,
and the being we were convinced of step three,
and we read about the actor, and we went through that,
and we get down to the prayer,
and I don't know what we were going to do at that point,
but we got down to the prayer.
And Lee, one of the guys in the group, said he had an idea.
At this point, that workshop, if you want to call it that,
that we had going through that, had dwindled down to 14 men.
And it started out co-ed, and we don't know what happened to the girls,
or why they left.
No, I didn't do it.
Don't look at me that way.
And Lee says he had an idea,
and he said that the last few weeks he'd attended several meetings,
and many of them were on the fourth step,
and he would ask people after the meeting
who had said that they hadn't written an inventory,
why they hadn't written an inventory.
And he apparently got some comments back
that some of them said they didn't take an inventory
because they had not taken a third step yet.
And so he said,
I think maybe we should all join hands
and read slash pray the third step prayer together.
And he says,
then the reason I want to do it,
is if you hear me at a meeting in a couple of weeks
saying I've not written an inventory
because I haven't taken a third step yet,
you can call me a damn liar because you saw me do it.
And this bunch of monkeys, we understood that logic,
and so we kind of agreed to do that.
And I guess in all candor,
I did it because they were doing it,
and I didn't want to be the odd man out again.
And of course,
I had to read it.
I didn't know the third step prayer.
But after some discussion,
we decided we were ready to do that,
and so we did.
I can remember all kinds of emotions going through me at the time.
Most of them was,
this looks real stupid,
but a room full of boys holding hands,
praying,
and I didn't know which was worse,
the holding hands or the praying.
But we did,
and I guess I need to back up.
At this point in my program,
I've been sober four years,
and that was as much pain as I'd ever had in my life at four years sober.
Go out and do four years making up your own program
and just see how much shit you can get into.
It's incredible.
And,
and,
and,
and I don't know what was going on.
I don't remember having any conscious thought
that I was going to do whatever I was told or anything like that.
All I knew is something had to happen in my life
or I was a goner.
I was going to go.
And,
and,
so I didn't.
And then when I left there,
I got in the car on the way home,
and I said another prayer.
Because I thought maybe just my attitude in that first prayer
hadn't been real enough,
so I asked God to make it,
make it real,
make that prayer real.
I said I really need it.
I can't stand this any longer.
Something's got to change in my life.
And,
I can't say that I saw any burning bushes
or I haven't seen one yet,
as a matter of fact,
unless I lit it.
And,
nothing really seemed to change that I could think of.
I had a couple experiences with,
during that time,
and I'm going to share one.
I don't share this very often.
I had done this.
I can't give you the exact chronological order,
but I had two experiences.
I went to a meeting on the south side
that I don't usually attend,
and the only seat in place,
have you heard this story, Mickey?
The only seat in that damn room was next to Frank.
Okay.
Now,
he talks about,
he talked about Frank last night,
this big white haired bully,
and,
and,
all he did was save lives and irritate everybody else.
It was great.
He was,
he really did.
I can't think of any way to describe it.
I watched him one time,
when a guy came back from a slip,
and he's in the meeting,
and Frank's trying to talk to him,
and Frank starts to cry,
and he says,
you take another drink,
I'll kill you.
That guy's still sober.
Yeah,
and Frank's dead.
Yeah.
So anyway,
I end up sitting next to Frank,
during the meeting,
and he was the most intimidating person I think I'd ever met.
His presence in the room would just,
you'd get,
my guy'd get squirmy sitting by.
And he,
the meeting is over,
and for some reason,
we'd stood up to say the Lord's Prayer,
as it was before you held hands,
and,
and then,
and he and I sat back down next to each other.
And we just sat there,
and didn't say a word.
And,
I told Frank,
I says,
you know,
I think you're all done pushing me around,
bud.
I'm tired of competing with you.
And,
I just want you to know that.
And,
he laughed,
like crazy.
I didn't know if he was going to punch me or what.
To make a point,
he'd hit you in the chest,
with his fingers.
He wore a size 54 ring,
I think,
you know.
And you'd get these little black spots.
And,
and he laughed like crazy and gave me a hug.
And I thought I was going to break my ribs.
I get in the car going home that night,
and something had changed.
I didn't know what it was.
And I was,
it's like I was riding in the car.
I wasn't sitting in the car.
My butt was not on the seat.
And I went all the way home with that.
And I got home and Julie had left early for an Al-Anon meeting.
She'd put the kids to bed and had to leave about five minutes before I got there.
And so I came in and I went around kissing the girls goodnight.
And the middle one happened to be in her room.
That was the last one I got to.
And she suffered from ulcer.
Do you remember how old she was about then?
No.
No.
She was seven or eight years old.
But she'd been diagnosed with ulcers.
And she was crying in there.
And I didn't know what to do about it.
And I asked her if she wanted a little milk.
And she said she did.
So I went down and got her for her and came back up.
And we're sitting there.
And I'd heard about people praying for other people that were sick.
I just heard about it.
And this God stuff and praying for people and all that was new to me.
And,
and so I didn't know what to do.
But I asked her, I said, would you like to pray?
And she said yes.
And so I held her hand with one hand and I put my other hand on her tummy.
And I said a prayer.
I have no clue what I said.
I don't have any idea.
And it's almost like I wasn't there, like I was observing this.
And when I opened my eyes, Patty was asleep.
And so I just kind of flew away.
And I was like, I'm going to die.
I'm going to die.
I'm going to die.
I floated back down the stairs and sat there above the chair for a while until I finally settled into it.
And months later, Julie cooks Mexican food better than a lot of Mexicans and talking about having dinner.
And Patty's older sister says, well, Patty can't have it.
And Patty said, I can too.
My tummy hadn't hurt for a long time.
Excuse me.
Now, why would I cry about that?
I'm going to tell my story pretty good without that.
So anyway, that's pretty much my third step experience.
And it came and we had read what it said and we tried to do exactly what it said.
And then we reread about the actors and put us as the actor and did it in first person.
And we did all that stuff.
But that's how it looked like when I did it.
And I think it's important that I share what this looks like when we're trying to give you what the book says.
Now, the rest of that third step story is I don't believe I have ever reneged on my third step.
Now, you're going to hear some really stupid stuff I've done sober.
But I've never given up on a third step.
It's a decision.
We made the decision.
We made the decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
Many years ago, I made the decision to get up at 5 in the morning so I could pray and meditate.
And most mornings, I do that.
But once in a while, I'm tired and I sleep in.
You know, I just blow it.
Some mornings, seemingly on a weekend, I'll just forget it.
I figured God took the weekend off, too, I guess.
And I'll just blow it off, not necessarily intentionally, but that'll just happen.
But my decision is still good, isn't it?
And it keeps me there.
And so that's pretty much my third step experience.
I think it's stuck with me for a long time now, about 40 years.
And I've never tried to define God.
I just haven't.
My concept of God is just this loving person who's helping everybody in the room.
And that's worked for me.
And I just refer to him often as the one who loves us.
And I converted to Catholicism a few years ago.
Mickey had nothing to do with that.
But I just, that's kind of what I, there's love there that I can't, it's beyond my imagination.
And it's been healing and powerful for me.
And I guess that's my third step.
Thanks.
I love that story about her stomach and being healed.
Mine is not quite as sweet.
My, you know, we always have to have a first experience with God.
And I, you know, I had him talking to me, but I didn't really know it was God.
But my first experience with God was, you know, I had him talking to me, but I didn't really know it was God.
And I, you know, I had him talking to me, but I didn't really know it was God.
And I, you know, I had him talking to me, but I didn't really know it was God.
And I, you know, I had him talking to me, but I didn't really know it was God.
And I, you know, I had him talking to me, but I didn't really know it was God.
And I, you know, I had him talking to me, but I didn't really know it was God.
And I, you know, I had him talking to me, but I didn't really know it was God.
And I, you know, I had him talking to me, but I didn't really know it was God.
And I, you know, I had him talking to me, but I didn't really know it was God.
And I, you know, I had him talking to me, but I didn't really know it was God.
And Mickey had gotten all the, you know, the stuff, the way to talk about this program.
And I was very intimidated.
And so, you know, he and I was also a really lousy housekeeper.
I mean, really lousy.
And so he came home one time and he said to me that, you know, your housekeeping is threatening my sobriety.
And I'm going to have to leave.
And I mean, you know, really, you have to know I'm a mouse, you know.
It's like, oh, my gosh.
And that was my intention to say because, you know, bag is good.
And but they had said, oh.
And over and over in the meetings, they said, when you don't know what to say, pause and ask God for the right thought or action.
So I paused and I said, you know, I don't know if you're there, God.
You know, I keep trying to connect with you, but I don't know much about you.
But if you have any words for me to say in this moment.
And I opened my mouth and I said, I am so sorry you have to leave.
It was great.
It was great.
And he didn't go anywhere.
His his control just, you know, went away.
It was wonderful.
I'm a little bit better housekeeper, but not much.
But some of the problems that I have had with the third step is that I am so other focused.
You know, I'm so focused on you.
I'm afraid of you or I'm trying to impress you or I'm thinking what you're thinking.
I'm reading your mind.
I'm you know, you're always in there.
Right.
And so when I do my third step, when I'm saying, OK.
God, I offer myself and, you know, the third step prayer, you know, I'm thinking, well, now, is he going to be impressed with how I'm doing this?
Or is this what my sponsor really meant?
Or, you know, I mean, always, you're always in there.
Usually a lot more than just one person is in there.
And what happened over the years was that I began to eliminate.
You and him and him and them and her from that relationship and from that turning my will and my life over to him until it became just he and I.
And when it became he and I, it was what I consider a real third step because it was no longer about how I looked, what it, you know, if I was doing it right.
If, you know, nobody was judging me.
It was just I was going to my higher power and connecting.
And that was that was really, really powerful.
And unlike Gary, I have taken back my third step officially two times, maybe three, but I believe it's really just two.
And it was a really good experience for me because it was so horrible.
And I said yesterday that the thought of having a companion, a boss, someone who was with me at all times was what really gave me peace and comfort.
And so when I got really, really mad at God because, you know, he wasn't listening to me and doing the stuff that I wanted him to do.
And he was challenging me much more than I thought I could.
Handle, you know, I mean, this stuff is way beyond my capacity.
I'm weak, you know, and and God, you have to be a little bit more tender with me.
And he he he was, you know, saying, no, no, you can do this.
And I'm going, well, I tell you what, go away.
And I really did.
Literally, I said, God, I am taking back my third step and I'm going to go do this myself because this is just much more than I can.
Handle and the first time that happened, I think I think it was about a week and I had been in the program for enough time that I had experienced him over and over day to day in my life.
And after about a week of being alone, truly alone with, you know, OK, you get to decide what you want to do and you get to run your own life.
And it just became horrible.
And and at that point, I I was beginning to become willing to to say, OK, whatever, whatever you want.
A second time was probably about 10 years later.
And again, I was on the firing firing front and I was I was challenged and I.
I believe it was probably over finances.
I think it was.
And and I didn't think that I could survive one more day with, you know, his his will for us in in that area.
And I said, excuse me, I said, God, you know, you're not doing very well here.
You you're not you're not this wonderful, loving thing that I that I thought you were.
And.
And I said, I take back my third step.
And that time it lasted an hour.
And when when I I got to the end of that hour and and I realized that.
That even if whatever his will was, was maybe a little painful, challenging, you know, not what I thought my life should look like.
To be without him was like it was so horrible.
Horrible.
That I think at that point I was willing to accept.
Whatever it was.
And and I had seen over the years I had seen that that everything that he took me through, you know, I got stronger and and it was never.
It was never what I wanted.
You know, I didn't come into this program thinking I want to be strong.
I want to be a faithful person.
I want to be somebody who.
Can stand up and and live, you know, I always had somebody to live for me, so it was not my goal, but every time I had come up against, you know, what he wanted for me, I became a person of integrity.
I didn't even know the word integrity when I got in here, but integrity is one of those things that is a good addiction, you know, to be addicted to being in integrity.
And so.
The hour was the worst that I had spent in a long time, and when I came back and did my third step again.
It was kind of wholeheartedly he's he's everything he knows what is good for me.
He knows how it should look, and I don't and he's that I remember one time Mickey came home and he was complaining about work and, you know.
And I said to him, this is, I think this was God talking, but I turned to him and I said,
have you ever thought about letting your boss be the boss?
And he didn't like that, but that's what I had to decide on.
You know, was I going to let the boss be the boss?
And I decided to let the boss be the boss.
My life does not look like what I think it should look like,
but what I think my life should look like is without problems, without challenges,
and I would, you know, probably sit and eat bonbons all day.
So he's not done that for me.
So that's my third step.
Thanks.
So there always comes the question, I love what Gary and Marie have done with this
because they're talking not about the mechanics of the step,
but they're talking about the effects.
Of the step.
And there comes a moment when I'm sharing with people when I have to do what I'm about to do.
And quite honestly, it's a beautiful morning and the sun is shining.
You know what I mean?
And we're all here.
We're all safe.
And it's nice.
We had a nice meal.
And here I go with this.
So this is Alcoholics Anonymous.
Nalanon.
We're not here.
We're – this isn't the field hockey association.
We are an endangered species.
And so I want to talk with you about exactly what Marie was talking about,
the idea of rescinding my decision.
So first of all, I'd like to talk about the – I'm really scared.
I don't want to talk about this, but I owe it to you.
We owe to Alcoholics Anonymous the truth.
So that's where our message has substance and weight.
But first of all, what does the word decide mean?
It comes from a Latin word which means to cut.
Like incision, decision, it means to cut.
So it means that I'm going this way and I'm going to cut that direction and I'm going to go that way.
That's what a decision is.
So I made this decision along with everyone else.
And I can tell you that, you know,
and I will share that with you, but I've taken that decision back,
but I took it back big time.
In 23 years sober, I laid down with a knife to kill myself.
How many people truly, truly want to have a life given away to a higher power?
God bless you.
I haven't met very many.
Because the stakes are that I lose my will and my life in the process.
You know, we have an adventure where the adventurer gets crisped.
How many people, volunteers do we have for the adventure?
Well, there are precious few.
If I get going on this.
And so what happens is we have these hidden agendas in our lives.
And the operative word may be hidden.
And what we're trying to do is what we've done is we've set the standard for what life is.
This is what life is.
This is what a good life is.
Okay.
And so the real politic of what we're doing in our program is that we're working our steps so that God will do our will.
Right.
And like I've told people, one of the great spiritual truths I've learned on this path is that God can hold his breath longer than I can.
You know, but it's like my agenda, my agenda, my agenda, you know, and I like hold my breath and turn purple and I'm waiting for him to pay off.
Right.
And it turns out that he's a genius.
And it's like it came to me one time in prayer, Mickey.
And this is the way he talks.
He talks to me.
Which is more important to contend with a problem or solve it?
It's the contending with it.
You understand?
Because that's what will strip me of the false self.
And so Marie and I have spent most of our marriage of 38 years skinned financially.
Financially.
Flat lined.
And it's like there's money and there's no money.
And that's the neighborhood we live in.
There's expectations.
There's all of that stuff that I bring to the party.
But what's the reality?
Well, the reality is that God will take me places that I cannot volunteer to go.
I'd like to repeat that.
God will take me places.
Places that I cannot volunteer to go.
But what about that beautiful house?
No, Mickey, that's really not what it's about.
It's about this beautiful house that I'm making inside of you.
But Father, this dream I have, and I'd like to have that dream.
No, Mickey, I'm going to make it so that what happens in your life is that
someone will come up and talk with you.
And they want to say to you, Mickey, you don't understand.
And I will be able to look at them in all truth and sincerity and say, I do understand.
I do understand.
And so not everybody has this walk.
You understand what I'm saying?
And so, oh, Lord.
And so I had this.
It's like, you know what a colander is in your kitchen.
It has the holes in it, and you can drain fruit and vegetables in it and so on.
Well, it's like I live with a spiritual colander on my head.
And I will only let in those things through those holes, you see,
that I define as the way it should be and the way it really should be.
And that's the way I live my life.
And it's like we had to quit playing God.
It doesn't work.
But I, you know, continue to play.
God.
And so I had this idea of perfect love, for instance.
You have to understand, I'd rather seriously.
You got it by now.
I don't want to talk.
But anyway, I had this idea of perfect love.
And perfect love is this.
You see, you put the rubber band around your bicep and you hold it with your teeth
and you inject the love in your veins.
You understand what I'm saying?
This skull.
This scalding passion in your veins.
And that's love.
I didn't know it.
Remember hidden agenda?
I did not know that that's what I was.
I had a hole inside of me.
It should have been a God-sized hole, but it was waiting for a woman.
Now, Marie and I have never had a sick relationship.
Can you believe that?
I wanted one.
You hear me?
I wanted a sick relationship.
I couldn't have defined it that way.
But it's like we see the movies and we hear the songs and it's all this romantic stuff.
Well, I met her about 11 years ago.
You understand that my wife is sitting right next to me.
I met her, this other woman, and I had an affair.
And I had an affair for about four months and it was not a sexual affair.
It was an affair of the heart, but it was devastating.
And I almost lost my life in it.
And the way I found out that I had that hole waiting for this was how I responded to her.
I was offered this opportunity for this towering passion, which, P.S., was four months long
and it was extraordinarily dangerous and it was not worth doing, but it did give me a course correction.
It gave me a major course correction.
And what?
What happened in this is that I came to my wife and I said,
My God, I've gotten involved in something and I'm way in over my head.
I've fallen down the rabbit hole.
And so what happened?
Well, watch this.
Marie had always had, and I'm speaking for you and please correct me if this is wrong,
had always had a reservation in our relationship.
You understand this?
It's a sort of distance we want to put.
I'm not all in.
I'm not all in.
Okay?
Now, here's her husband about to leave and she was either going to get all in or it was going to be all over.
What a blessing was given to us in our marriage.
Brutal.
It was brutal.
And I laid down one night at 23 years sober, not just because of the affair.
P.S., now we've lost our home.
We never had really any money, but one time we got all this money.
I mean, there was like money coming in down the chimney through the mailbox.
I'm going like, this is it right here at Hidden Agenda.
This is great.
We got an eight-bedroom, three-story Victorian mansion with a two-story carriage house in the back
and a courtyard and a swimming pool.
And like we used to swim in our swimming pool.
And say, are we going to go bankrupt this week or next week?
But anyway, so we lost a house and I had an office that somebody gave me.
I didn't pay any rent on it.
I had AstroTurf carpet on the, it was very, you know, in like a lower downtown section in Denver.
I had a telephone that didn't ring.
And I sat in that place.
And I would not have told you that I was identified with.
I didn't have any money because, please, I'm above that.
Hokey smokes.
Then we lost everything.
The phone's not ringing and it's like game over, dude.
And one afternoon as the sun was setting, I got down onto the floor and I had a knife in my pocket
and I couldn't take it anymore.
And if you want to know, a suicide is a person who eliminates options.
So that it becomes narrower and narrower and narrower.
And pretty soon there's only one option.
And incidentally, a suicide is not a person with a very flexible personality.
I just thought I'd, anyway.
So Mr. Inflexible is now on the floor.
And I have the knife and am I going to open my veins now or five minutes from now?
And I went through four hours of that.
And I watched the sun set.
And it got dark in the office.
And the telephone was right above me and I couldn't reach it.
I just couldn't reach it.
And if you want to define hell as the absence of God, which is a reasonable definition,
I went to hell for four hours.
And I, you know, if I could, if I had a magic wand,
I would love to tap anyone who ever gets trapped like that with that magic wand.
I'd say, please don't go there.
Just, you know, throw yourself at that telephone.
Do something because there's options.
And incidentally, I just learned that there is a Golden Gate Bridge Society
for people who have gone off that bridge and lived.
And it would be very interesting to see what they have to say.
Because apparently the instant they go off that bridge, they say, oh my God, this is the wrong move.
But I'm not here to teach about suicide or the,
prevention of suicide.
I'm here to share with you that life without God is not worth living.
And it is impossible to live.
And what happened through all of that is I got rid of that hidden agenda.
And I'm a very safe person with God around anybody's wife, around any human being that,
you know what I'm saying?
That's a course correction.
And the money, it's like we have a nice home.
We have a little two-bedroom home.
And we work in that home.
And we work together.
We always have.
Marie was my office manager.
I had my own advertising agency for 18 years.
And we had our own agency.
And we live together and we work together.
But we hear about the dark night of the soul.
And the dark night of the soul for me was course correction after course correction.
It was what it was.
It was the elimination of false confidence.
It was the elimination of false confidence.
When God and Moses talked, God said to Moses,
look, we're going to have a covenant between us, like a contract.
But it's bigger than a contract.
And in this covenant, we're going to have ten agreements.
And I will be your God and you will be my people.
And what's the first one?
I am the Lord your God.
You shall have no false gods before me.
So the covenant.
The dark night that went on was a process of being stripped of false gods.
And it lasted over 12 years.
Which is a long time.
Try holding your breath for like four minutes and you get an idea what 12 years is like.
And in that time, he started to just strip down these things, strip them down.
You would think the result would be.
Better.
Well, I'm just saying.
Anyway.
I would think the result would be better.
Maybe it's still going on.
Maybe it's but it's like it is a healthy thing.
It's a healthy thing.
And it's saying, look, Mickey, I'm not going to let you live your life on Earth chasing every one of your own dreams.
You're going to be my man.
And so I might as well throw in what I end up doing for a living.
It's just this odd thing.
Twenty five years in advertising, useless with my hands, useless with my hands.
When I was drinking, I couldn't drive a nail with a hammer.
And what I do for a living is I make custom cowboy boots.
And I work in leather and I can I stitch and I sit at a sewing machine and I stitch these elaborate eight row stitching patterns, multicolor.
And I do inlays, overlays, I do all this kind of stuff and I and I paint Russian icons.
And so I get to spend times where I will spend like a month with my nose that close to an angel.
And that's what I do for a living, and it's a you know, you'll never meet probably a rich iconographer or a bootmaker.
But I've learned so much being in my shop.
I am at my workbench and there's nobody but me and God.
And that's the way we get to live.
And Marie is involved in an ornament business and she makes leather cowboy boot Christmas tree ornaments.
And this is the way this is what we do.
This is our life.
And it's very monastic.
If you want to know the truth of it, we are in our home.
We get up and we have our prayer and meditation together and we start our day.
And I go in and I put my forehead on my workbench.
And I ask God to bless my customers and to bring the harmony and the
and the beauty to my work.
It's it's not like Donald Trump, you know, we don't have a gold bathroom.
You are our gold, truly, truly.
So what's the decision?
The decision is to cut going that way and to go this way.
And hereafter in this drama of life, God is going to be my father and I'm going to be his child.
And he's going to be the principal and I'm going to be his agent.
And he's going to be the director.
And I'm going to be an actor instead of the actor blowing onto the stage,
which I have done almost all my life and telling everybody what to do and where to stand in their lines,
which is the director's job.
Guy looked at me and he said, Mickey, he said, you've been a loose cannon on a rolling deck all your life.
He said, would you like a director?
I said, yeah.
And the director tells the actor where to go, what to say, when to shut up and when to leave.
I'll leave right now.
Break time.
We're going to start again at 20 after.
Let me just wrap up that discussion about the third step.
Those other men that were with me when I went through and said the third step prayer with them.
Let me tell you about those 14 men.
About two weeks later, after we had done that, Eddie Durkin went out and drank and froze to death.
And then the other 13 of us are either still sober or have died sober.
Of that 13, one of us became trustee at large and took AA into Russia.
And many of you know who I'm talking about.
But amongst the others, Jay did a great job carrying the message into the Jewish community in Denver
and touched many, many people there that way.
And he was the first one that was open.
He was actually a Jewish person, an active in AA.
And all the years I knew him, I never heard that he was offended at all by the Lord's Prayer.
Just thought I'd throw that out for the politically correct.
Nor did the other people I know that he sponsored in the AA.
And I guess we lost one recently.
But he just had a great impact.
Let's just...
We understood that we had discovered something.
And that's something that is if you sit down with somebody else and do this stuff with them,
go through the steps with them, not necessarily as a teacher.
If I'm taking people through inventory, I'm writing inventory.
And I share it with them.
Anymore, I don't care who I share it with as long as I understand what I'm doing.
So anyway, I don't know that you can find me.
I don't know that you can find a group that have done what we did or many groups around anywhere that...
What is it now?
I guess probably about 38 or 39 years later can talk about the record.
I just spelled out for you with all of that.
I was going there.
Mickey is wanting to know if we wanted to do the search that prayer together.
Okay.
And...
We can certainly do that.
I wanted to say...
Don would tell a story.
And as I remember him telling it to me, he didn't...
It's not one you...
He told it to me one-on-one.
There was maybe three or four of us sitting together.
But the time is in Moscow.
And he was attending a meeting.
And he said it was primarily a young people's meeting.
And to tell the story, you have to understand...
You have to understand...
You have to understand...
You have to understand that the men and women coming into A.A. in Russia back then
had been living in a pure atheist society for I don't know how many generations,
but a long time.
And so discussion of God, the idea of God,
very few people in Russia were even aware of it.
That was not a language you understood.
It was not a language they heard.
And they're sitting in this meeting.
And they're talking about this higher power.
And Don talks about this higher power.
This kid's talking about the higher power.
And he says, well, I don't know what that is really.
But today I got in trouble at work that I really could have lied out of and got away with it.
I've been doing it for years.
And this time I told the truth.
See, maybe that's that higher power that has us tell the truth.
So I contend that Igor probably had a better handle on God than we've ever had, if you will.
I just love that story.
So we'd like to offer the opportunity to you,
if you would like us to go through the third step prayer together.
And we'd be happy to do that with you if you're all ready to do it.
And there was a line in here that we thought well before taking this step,
before we abandon ourselves utterly to God.
What was that word again, Mickey?
Utterly.
Well, that's utterly the best word I've ever utterly heard.
You know that?
And I guess it's up to you if you just want to sit there and grab your neighbor's hand and do it together.
And it's perfectly fair to hold the book open if you'd like.
If you don't mind.
God.
God.
God.
,
Well, now it's stuck, because I knew I had to write an inventory.
And so I was doing everything I could do to delay it.
And I finally got it done, and I'm not going to go into all of that.
My first inventory, as inventories go, was
not very insightful.
It had followed the three-column example with none of the four-column work.
We hadn't found the fourth column yet.
And I had written down the things that I was probably the most ashamed of.
And I was afraid to write down the fear inventory because my fears seemed like kindergarten stuff.
There wasn't nothing macho in that fear.
I'm a big tough cowboy, and I got all these little wussy fears going on.
And I wrote them down.
And I think I lied a little bit on the sex inventory.
And I did that in one night.
I came home from a meeting after I heard somebody else share what had happened when they'd written their inventory.
and taking a fifth stone.
And I went home that night, and it had to have been an act of inspiration
because I hadn't been able to do that before.
I went home that night and opened my book and sat down with a pad and pencil,
and I wrote till sunup.
And the only reason I quit then, I was done.
There wasn't any more rhyme.
And a couple of weeks later, I find myself at a little AA conference,
I think it's the first one I ever attended, over in Lamar, Colorado.
There's nothing in Lamar.
You can't get lost driving to Lamar, but we missed a turn, and we arrived late.
And, let's see, it was Ernie and I and Mary was riding in the car there,
and there were only two motel rooms left, and so that meant one of us had to have a roommate.
And I was sure my roommate was going to be Mary, but I get Ernie.
And Ernie's a guy that he and I had had an experience in AA
where we truly didn't like each other.
And he had instigated a meeting I didn't know was going to happen with that.
And it was a racial thing, and it was one that was common out there.
He was a big, good looking Mexican guy, he still is.
And I had grown up on the side of town where what you did with Mexicans is you fought.
It was big.
with him. We ought to go fight and then drink beer and be friends for a while. And that just kind of was. But he showed up in my office one day and wanted to know what was going on. We were supposed to be in this fellowship that exudes love and caring and we really didn't like each other. So that was the beginning of us ironing out a friendship that goes beyond anything I ever dreamed of. And we chat today fairly often on the phone.
And see each other when we're out there. And we either stay at Mickey's or Ernie's house when we're in Denver. And anyway, he knows I have this inventory. And he's leaning on me to take a fifth step there. And he's telling me that there's probably a great opportunity to do it. But I took it with him. And that was the beginning of the life changing things. I can tell you that I had some relief there. That was.
Unheard of and beyond anything I did. It's the first time I started to feel a little impetus in the program, if you will. I had my experience with God in the prayer. But I had all this feeling that something's happening. That's what it was.
20 years later, I'm in trouble. It's a little flash forward here. And I had been carrying this message as we're talking about. And I took the idea of taking people to the big book when Julie and I moved to Indianapolis.
In 1977. They thought I was a complete lunatic. And they come down and talking about the big book and going through the steps together. And they're just looking at me. And I made some headway there. Finally, it took me three years to get the first workshop started. And that's how gun shy they were. And we finally did it. We get the first workshop going in Indianapolis.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. I hope not. But he disappeared. And then from that, those 13 guys went out and ones and twos and threes and carried the idea of taking other three other people through the book together on and on. And all these years later, not a long time ago, that would have been about 1980 when that happened. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. And then from that, those 13 guys went out and one and twos and threes and carried the idea of taking other three other people through the book together on and on. And all these years later, not a long time ago, that would have been about 1980 when that happened. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. And then from that, those 13 guys went out and one and twos and threes and carried the idea of taking other three other people through the book together on and on. And all these years later, not a long time ago, that would have been about 1980 when that happened. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.
14 men and we lost one. I don't think he froze to death. When the first one came about.