Sandy B. Shows Us How To Work The Steps

And I'm an alcoholic, and it's a pleasure to be back here after a good lunch.
I hope everybody had a good lunch, and this afternoon we're just going to spend some time
reviewing or going over our 12 steps.
Hopefully if there are new members of Alcoholics Anonymous here, perhaps this will put a
perspective on the program that will be useful to you but of course nothing replaces the action
that each of us does as an individual and so it doesn't do anything you don't get anything done
by listening to the steps you only get it done by doing them but sometimes we can be prodded along
by attraction by making the step sound exciting and fun or like myself your sponsor gets a baseball
bat, and then you do the steps. So one way or the other, we get involved in this new way of life.
I always like to describe the steps for myself as a game plan for living
that replaced the game plan that I had. And there's just, you know, AA has such a way of
explaining things like we've never heard him explain before. You know what I mean?
you ever have that where you've got an opinion on something, somebody goes through it, and you go,
well, if you look at it that way, you know what I mean? And I'm always doing that in AA. You know,
I go, you know, when you look at it that way, and that's what happens here. We get a different
perspective. And when you have that perspective instead of the old one, things really do look
different. And so I remember my sponsor telling me, why should I, I was going, well, why should
I try the 12 steps? And I was thinking he would say to me, well, look, let me prove to you
what they're going to do, you know, which had been every other program I was in. They would
explain the logic and the obvious conclusion that this was going to produce these results.
And his answer was, the reason that you should do the 12 steps is because your way stinks.
you're wearing a wristband from a nut ward you're about to get thrown out of the marine corps
your plan stinks nobody likes you your family hates you your plan for living stinks
on the other hand look at these people here in aa they got new cars they have jobs they have
business cards with their own name on them. They have people who are speaking to them. They have
money, checking accounts, all of this. And those are the results of this plan.
So the presentation is sort of done by comparing results instead of analyzing theories about whose
ideas are better, whose results are better. And AA is very result-oriented. You can look at AA
sometimes, a big show-and-tell operation. Hi, I've got three months. I'm from here. I'm a woman. I'm
this, and I have two kids, and I'm sober and happy. And then we parade up somebody else, and
we just get to take a look at the results of these steps. It's not a theory. It's real.
And when I came in, it was very, and I'm sure a lot of you had this same feeling.
You're going, what's the deal?
You know what I mean?
Here's all these people walking around high as a kite.
What are they, you know, when are they going to tell me,
okay, Sandy, here, take this, the AA pill.
That's what's going on, because I just couldn't believe that they were just this way.
But they were.
And so I like to think of them that,
And then out of the 12 and 12, Bill writes,
AA's 12 steps are a group of principles, spiritual and nature,
which if practiced as a way of life, will get rid of the obsession to drink
and enable the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole.
So there it is.
You know, what are the 12 steps?
They're designed for us to become happily and usefully whole.
And I was told a long time ago that if you've been in AA any reasonable amount of time
and you're not happy, you are doing it wrong.
You are simply doing it wrong because these steps are designed to put you in touch with a power that can transform your perspective so that no matter what's going on out there, you can generate inside a sense of well-being and an optimistic outlook on life.
And that puts all the responsibility on me.
You know, if I'm not happy, I'm doing something wrong.
It would be kind of like if somebody came up to you and said,
you know, I drink all the time and nothing happens.
You and I would be highly suspicious of that particular statement.
We would perhaps say, let me watch you drink.
And then we would find out what it was.
We had a sipper on our hand.
And we'd say, ah, you're doing it wrong.
we know the power of booze we know if they do it right something will happen they're not going to
just sit there and have nothing happen well the power of these 12 steps park sees the power of
booze and so if in fact something has not been transforming inside of us we're doing it wrong
because the power is there to cause what bill writes about in the forward to the 12 and 12
and so with that thought in mind that the deal is i want to replace my plan with this plan then
we're going to have to take a look at it and these are all thoughts of mine that might help new
people this is a spiritual plan for living so it's not what you've been used to which is
intellectual plans for living where they make sense you know what i mean like how to get
from point A to point B, and then you study it, and you can see it. You'll go here, turn left,
go 20, and you can see how it will, in fact, work. The 12 steps are not that way because
they're spiritual, so you're not going to be able to study them and see. Oh, yeah, I see.
Just from reading them, I can see that if I followed these, all the problems in my life
would be solved because I had a lot of the same problems you all had. I had no money.
I had a very insecure relationship, and I'm getting thrown out of the Marine Corps, so my job, you know, my all, everything, you know, the money, the job, the society, everything.
And someone told me, these 12 steps are the solution to your problems.
And I said, okay, I trusted them, so I studied them, I'm reading them, and I got about up to step seven, and I started looking ahead, you know what I mean?
I said, where is the money step?
You know, because so far I had read seven of them,
and they hadn't addressed any of the problems that I had.
I don't see job in here.
I don't see anything about meeting somebody.
I don't see, you know, I see a lot of nice words.
It sounds good.
It's cool.
But where, when do they get around?
And I got all the way to 12, and there was no job even up to 12.
No money, nothing.
And so I just never saw where these would connect with my problems as I saw them.
So if you're new and you're reading them and they don't seem to apply, that's right.
They won't.
Reading them causes nothing to happen.
You just are smarter but unhappy.
You know what I mean?
you know about those things.
And I know there's people,
if I got some real honest people to raise their hands,
there's a few people like me
who studied the steps
so that you didn't look stupid at the step meeting.
Oh, yeah, the fourth step.
Man, I'll tell you,
you got to get that personal inventory.
I'll tell you, it's really,
have you ever done,
no, I haven't,
but I read there that,
but at least after the meeting,
people came up and said, you know, I liked what you said. Thank you. Thank you. I feel a lot better
about that. So the truth is that the steps only become visible when we do them.
You know, then we can, quote, see how they apply in our lives. So I just make that observation
about this and there are several paradoxes and hopefully we'll talk about a few of them as we
go through the steps and spirituality is a very paradoxical thing and of course our first step
suggests that we win by surrendering you know which sounds i was in the marine corps and i
thought this was a communist plot you're going to win by surrendering hope that doesn't catch on
you know just the concept that someone could win anything by giving up i mean just think about it
It's just a contradiction in terms, and here it is.
So we start with this thing, and I think it's absolutely beautiful.
You know, the pamphlet, the member's eye view of Alcoholics Anonymous,
I'm sure people have seen this.
If you haven't read it, it's really a wonderful thing.
And in there, the author, his name was McGinnis,
and he was asked to give a lecture about Alcoholics Anonymous, too.
I believe it was some medical societies.
In other words, these were outside people,
and he was going to explain AA to them.
And he wrote this thing and sent it into general service.
They didn't change a word.
He really captured how you would describe AA to the outside world.
And he made three observations about the steps,
which are spiritual principles.
They've been borrowed, as Bill writes in the 12 and 12,
from religions, from philosophies, from medicine,
and from the early experience of AA itself.
So there's really nothing new in any of the steps.
When you really look at them, you've seen this stuff before in philosophies or religions,
you know, idea of surrendering and inventory, confession, you know,
and meditation, prayer, contact with the power, and so on down.
So how could this, why does this work?
Why does AA work so well with these principles that really are not new at all?
And he suggested that number one is the manner in which they are presented.
That was the number one thing he suggested.
They are presented as the result of actions taken rather than commandments, which we have been used to in the past.
People are always pointing their finger at us drunks.
You ought to, you ought to, it simply says, you know, we did this and we did that and you aren't even in there.
You know what I mean?
it never comes around and therefore you it just says we did this and we did that what a wonderful
way to have someone just look it's just sort of an invitation in and again is as it says in chapter
five if you want what we have the the program of result oriented your results are terrible here's
the results of this this is how we got there so the manner in which they are presented and then
the second thing was the people presenting them they were being presented on an absolute level
playing field one drunk talking to another not the vertical thing where the judge is talking to us
the doctor's talking to us our husband or our wife is going look you and there was remember how we
were talked to it was always poke poke poke you know here you now we're talking right eyeball
hi, I'm just like you. I'm an alcoholic. And here's how I got out of there. So there was that
old saying, you know, AA doesn't open up the gates of heaven and let you in. It opens up the gates
of hell and lets you out. And so we all shared the hell that we were in with the new person and said,
oh, you're in there? Well, I know how to get out of there. Please give me your hand and allow me
to share with you what has worked for me.
So the theory is taken out of it.
It's just here.
It's very practical.
It's very result-oriented.
And it is suggesting that you try something,
and when you really think about it,
you can study, study, study,
and it just isn't going to grab you.
So whether we realize it or not,
we are really taking a series of actions
that we don't believe in.
You know what I'm saying?
You don't believe in any of this stuff.
Do you really believe this, that a fearless moral inventory is going to straighten out your financial situation?
I mean, come on.
And so we take these actions, and then the results start coming in.
And the whole secret to this is in the first step where it says this is the nature of our problem.
Nobody ever explained the problem this way, that I was being overpowered by a situation that was too much for me, powerless.
I mean, just that rang so clear inside of me.
The fundamental nature of your problem is powerlessness.
You are being overpowered by alcohol.
There is no human power.
And so when we're powerless, there's no way to learn your way out of being powerless.
You can't study, study, study, and now you have the power against alcohol.
You just are a smart drunk.
You know what I mean?
You could get a Ph.D. in alcoholism, lecture all around about alcoholism,
and then we come to your house to attend the lecture,
and we have to wait for you to sober up to give us the lecture on alcohol.
You can have all this knowledge.
And Bill writes throughout our literature, knowledge avails us nothing.
It's just knowledge.
Our problem is powerlessness.
So we must find a way to achieve the power to enable us to be free from alcohol.
and that is the entrance into spirituality is surrendering i am powerless and it opens the
mind so the first step is not designed to make anybody happy it's kind of a depressing thing
we come in here thinking that we you know i got some problems here no the problems are much worse
than you thought you are powerless you're freaking powerless over this stuff baby there's no way that
You can ever stay sober by yourself.
You are powerless, hopeless.
Jeez, thanks a lot.
I've only been here 10 minutes and I've taken one step and I'm down there.
As a matter of fact, we're going to explain powerlessness to you.
It's much worse than you thought.
And this was one that I remember.
It just went, the real powerlessness over alcohol occurs when there's no alcohol present.
that's the fatal nature of alcoholism the part that kills us is when we are totally sober
we have all of our faculties we've been through treatment they explain that we're an alcoholic
if we ever drink again it's the end of the world we have all the knowledge about being
what the first step is saying is you will still take the first drink
you are defenseless against the first drink if our only problem was whenever we drank we got
screwed up we certainly wouldn't eat aa we would just it would be like somebody who's allergic to
strawberries and he goes you know i don't know what happens to me all the time every time you
know i keep getting this and he goes to the doctor and they finally go your problem is you're allergic
to strawberry geez i'm so glad to know what it is and he goes to the restaurant they say you want
some strawberry shortcake no no no thanks i don't want any strawberry shortcake that stuff screws me
all up he wouldn't be meeting with other people who can't eat strawberries and having a little
you know having little meetings uh what did you do today when that strawberry thing came around and
you know i was over in a strawberry festival and uh i couldn't even drive by it you know it's just
My car just pulled right in.
I had to go in there, you know.
So it's not the allergy.
If that's all it was, you would just not drink
and your problems would be solved.
You tell an alcoholic you don't drink,
his face drops 10 yards.
Why?
Because that's when my problem started.
I don't know about you all,
but my problem was, back in those drinking years,
I kept getting sober. I go, oh, jeez, I'm sober again. This is the condition I hate.
Everything frightens me. People intimidate me. Every time I'm sober, it's awful. I'm in
total pain. I hate it. I hate it. And I got to work till 4.30. Jeez, four more hours of sobriety.
I don't know if I can take it. It's killing me. It's killing me. Finally, 4.30, I'm in the bar.
Now, I didn't say these words, but my body was going.
Ask the guy if he has something to fix sobriety.
You got something to take care of sobriety?
Yeah, man, here you go.
And boom, boom.
So I had a problem that alcohol fixed.
Everybody focuses in on the problems that alcohol caused.
That's not the deal.
What makes us alcoholics is alcohol fixes something.
So the underlying causes of alcoholism, you know, irritability, discontent, insecurity, all of that,
those are what we have that has to be addressed in sobriety.
The thing that made us alcoholic was the fact that when we drank, it fixed those problems.
When non-alcoholics drink, it doesn't fix those problems.
Or they would be willing to puke and go to jail and do all that.
That's why they don't understand us.
Because they don't have happen to them what happens to us.
So they look at us and go, you must be crazy to do that.
I said, listen, if this stuff was doing to me, would do to you what it's doing to me,
you'd be willing to go to any length to get drunk and do all this stuff.
So that's what separates us from other non-alcoholics.
And it's essential to understand that.
Because sometimes we get the sense, I got it now.
I got it. I'm an alcoholic.
Jeez, drink is to die.
I'm through.
I'm never going to drink again.
But we don't understand that's not our problem, knowing that we're an alcoholic.
We're powerless over alcohol.
So you walk into a bar and you're explaining to the bartender, you know, I'm an alcoholic.
If I ever drink, I'm going to die.
My doctor, I'll tell you, he said one more drunk, that liver, he's not even sure I could get through a full drunk.
Maybe just, could I have a beer?
if i got through maybe a half a drunk i might get and then my boss said oh thanks my boss said if i
what is this what is going on that's alcoholism that's being powerless over the first drink when
we're totally sober our mind is working and that's why we die from alcoholism because of that
insanity because of that powerlessness and so that's why the first step is the only one that
can be worked 100%. We must accept 100% on powerless over alcohol, or we never really
enjoy the rest of the program. Because if you're semi-powerless over alcohol, you semi-need a
sponsor, you semi-need to do the steps, you semi-need God, and you get drunk. And so if you're
new, you really must look at this. You really must see what being powerless is. And when you do that,
we have an open mind towards the rest of the program, because now we need it. Until we
surrendered, it's optional. Oh, that might be nice, might improve my life a little bit, might help out
from here to there, and dee-dee-dee, make me a little better person. When we totally surrender
in the first step, the rest of the steps become absolutely essential, and we are willing to go
through the pain and effort of this transformation that occurs when we enter this spiritual life
and so that's why i spent so long talking about that step it is absolutely essential and our
literature says there are people been sober for years wondering why they're not happy in the
program and it turned out that they had some reservation in the back of their head about being
100 powerless over alcohol and once that could be gone they were open to the rest of the steps
so having set us up as being totally powerless life is just absolutely unmanageable they want
us to deal with a higher power came to believe that a power greater than i said don't give me
that god stuff now i just surrender i'm just feeling awful about that and so we have this
wonderful debate that takes place in the second step and in our chapter in the big book the
chapter of the agnostics it's a wonderful chapter i tell this story that when my sponsor gave me a
big book you know i wasn't you know i looked at it and i just didn't see anything in there for me
but i had to humor him and so i read the book and i got a marker and i went wow wow on a couple of
pages and i pushed the pages together and i even got a coffee mug and made some coffee stains on
different pages put up on the shelf you know so that it so that it looked like but as i was
scanning through i saw that chapter you know we agnostics and i said that's me i know when i
eventually get going that's where i will be guided because you know i'm not going to buy this stuff
and without reading it i knew what the chapter said anybody else here know to be able to do that
and just other people have to plow through but some of us with that gifted wisdom up here
we know what's in that chapter without reading it and i knew what was in there so it's how you
stay sober without god you know what i mean why would you have a chapter of the agnostic so
i said i'll be getting to that chapter eventually but i'm busy right now but i knew in the back of
my mind well if you're new and you haven't read it yet i'll tell you what the chapter says in
three words and summarize that entire chapter in three words change your mind that's what the
chapter says become a former agnostic that's what the chapter is suggesting and it suggests that
most of us come here. We got all these different ideas about God. They just didn't work. I was
brought up in this church, or I used to have that, and I tried this, and I don't want anything to do
with that. I'm intellectually self-sufficient. I have a great intellect. Man can conquer everything,
all those ideas. And again, if you have a good sponsor, he goes, yes, but you're wearing a
wristband from the nut ward, and I find it hard to listen to you. Oh.
That's the problem with sponsors.
They keep throwing results at you.
You're real smart.
You can out-talk anybody, and they keep mentioning your screwed-up life.
They just told me, never write a self-help book.
Nobody would buy it after they met you.
And I went, oh, well.
So we are confronted in this second step with changing our mind.
And the step, I think, is humorous.
came to believe that a power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity.
Well, I don't know if I can do that.
I've got a lot of previous ideas, this and that.
And there's a sentence in the big book
that always reminded me of Jack Benny.
There was Jack Benny on the radio show,
and he was known as the tightwad of the century.
I mean, parting with money was impossible for Benny,
and they said that the funniest radio show he ever did
involved a stick-up man.
And all it was was Benny's walking down the hallway,
click, click, click, click,
And then this voice goes, stick them up.
And Benny goes, yipes.
And the stick-up man said, your money or your life?
And then the silence started.
Ten seconds ago, the studio audience is starting to laugh.
The laughter is building just from the silence.
Finally, the stick-up man can't take it any longer.
Twenty seconds, he says, well, and Benny said, I'm thinking.
and we sit there we just go how could somebody stand there with these two choices and be still
thinking your money or your life and you know i'm reminded of the young man that was up in front of
the judge and he'd been arrested about 20 times for being drunk in public and the citizenry was
getting upset with the judge and so they said you got to do something serious with that he said all
right i'm going to come down hard on him and he liked the kid but he just said all right so he
We got them up in all the towns, people around, and the judge said,
all right, Jimmy, here's the deal.
We've got to do something serious here.
It's one year in jail or one AA meeting.
And again, we had the same thing Jack Benny was doing.
We had him out there.
One year in jail or one AA meeting.
And people are going, how could he be deliberating this?
I mean, what is the choice here?
And in order to know that, we had to get inside of the kid's head,
and he drank in bars a lot.
And people in the bars, they would once in a while go to jail.
And once in a while, some guy would go to AA.
And the difference was, the guys who went to jail came back.
And people who went to AA disappeared.
So he thought this was a very difficult choice.
So we're all laughing, you know, at these people.
How could they ever engage?
And we go to the big book, and here's the two doors that we confront in the second step,
right in the beginning of the chapter of the agnostic.
And here's the sentence.
It says, to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis
are not always easy alternatives to face.
So what is that saying?
They're saying, well, we've done the first step.
Here's the second step.
You ready?
die an alcoholic death
or live on a spiritual basis.
Wow, you talk about two tough choices.
Is there a third door somewhere?
Whoa.
Let me make a phone call.
Doctor, how bad is an alcoholic death?
I just want to get that.
Such is our aversion to the idea
of doing something that's involved in this thing.
And you know what it is?
It's something that we end up being very good at,
but this is the first time that we do it.
It's called changing our mind.
In order to take the second step, we have to change our mind
and admit some of our old ideas were wrong.
And the first time I ever told my sponsor,
you know, he was arguing about something.
Finally, I said to him, okay, okay, okay, you're right.
And he said, no, you're wrong.
And I said, hey, same thing.
He said, well, say it.
And I remember, I don't know about you, I was like, okay.
And it didn't even want to come out.
He said, I can't hear.
Okay, I'm wrong.
I mean, it just didn't come out for us to see.
Remember how hard that was?
Okay, I'm wrong.
I mean, I wanted to call a press conference.
I am changing my mind about something.
It was just this huge event that was going to take place.
Certainly it wasn't going to become a way of life.
And yet that's all sobriety is.
is finding one more thing to change our mind
and get rid of that wrong old idea.
And it begins here in that second step.
I like to think of a way of taking...
See, I used to be a flight instructor,
and I always had this...
I felt this would be a great way to teach somebody the second step.
So all of you, if you're new, just imagine this.
You're going to come over.
We're going to get in a little jet over here.
We've got two seats.
We're going to fly up to about 50,000 feet.
And I said, I need to teach you finally about powerlessness
and the transition into the second step so that you can visually get this.
Are you ready? Yeah.
So I just pop the cockpits open, upside down, pull negative Gs,
and you go out, and you have no chute.
But we can still talk into your helmet.
And I'm going, are you getting the feeling of powerlessness out there at all?
And you're going, he's probably going to fly back and get me any second, you know.
And if you're a cool guy, you're going, hey, 50,000 is going to take me minutes to fall down.
You're giving it one of these things, one of these things.
But you're getting a sense that you really are powerless.
You really are powerless.
And now getting around 4,000 feet, that relative motion starts picking up.
You can really see the ground.
And it's going, whoa, it's picking up speed.
And there's a truck out in the parking lot with your name on it.
And about eight feet from the truck, a big hand comes down from the sky and goes, and stops you.
And a voice from somewhere up there said, excuse me, we're conducting a survey.
Do you believe in God?
I mean
nobody would look bad changing their mind
under those conditions would they
no I don't but under these conditions
I'm willing to reconsider my previous position on that
and if you think it through
that's where you are
when you're powerless over alcohol that's exactly where you are and you're going
well i may believe in god i'm not sure this it's got nothing to do
unlike a religion aa does not try to convince anybody of god of the existence of god there's
no aa god if there's 300 people in here there's 300 higher powers and there's no teachings anywhere
this is what god is this is whatever it is what aa specializes in and convincing you of the need
for God. If there is no higher power, you're through. And so, well, maybe I'll investigate
this higher power thing. That's where we get an open mind, not from having something prove to us
that it exists, but by being convinced that it has to exist. And once we open our mind in that
second step, that is when our personal awareness begins. It was there all along. Bill writes in
the big book a fundamental idea of god was born inside of us much like the idea of a friend was
it's just through our denial and our old ideas we blocked it out we have the power when we look
start talking about the fourth step with all these character defects and everything block out
a higher power and when you block it out you can claim to yourself that you've never seen it you
i've never had any awareness of it that's right you are totally blocking it out it's like someone
who stays in a cave and is absolutely convinced there's no such thing as the sun although people
are coming in with tans all the time yeah i went out sat in the sun there's no such thing
he's never left the cave to go out there and so as far as he's concerned it does not exist
and he's telling the truth he's never seen it's never been in his life and so that's where we are
with this higher power with being spiritual if we have blocked it out it really does not exist for
us so having gone through this debate we're willing to change our mind and reconsider we
suddenly find the extreme measures that approach us in the third step not only are we going to
do something about learning or getting in touch with this higher power we're now we're going to
turn our entire life over you know what i mean made a decision to turn our will in our lives
over the care of god as we understood him i like to think about this as
there is a higher level of existence
that is being suggested in spirituality
and Bill calls it the intuitive level
or the fourth dimension, whatever you want to call it
so it's really still us, it's still me
it's not like I'm totally giving up
and I don't exist anymore
I'm being taught how to surrender
living at the self-centered intellectual level
and attempting to get in touch with a God-guidance system.
You know, and I remember when I was a kid, about 12 years old,
I was in the Boy Scouts, and they said to me,
and they gave a lecture one day, and they said,
this is a compass, and they held the thing up.
They said, this will save your life.
If you're ever lost in the woods, all you have to do is get this compass out,
and this little needle on the compass always points to the big rock at the North Pole,
and you can use that and navigate out and you will always be saved.
I don't remember saying to myself, big rock at the North Pole.
You come up with a story like that.
You want me to believe that.
I'm going to put my entire life on the line, on the theory.
There's a big rock at the North Pole.
You know what I did?
I just said, give me that compass.
I'm glad to have that.
And if I ever am lost, I will trust this with my life.
and then later on the marine corps same thing with flying airplanes you know they say well
we're going to come down between two mountains in total fog there's an invisible radio beam that
comes up to your plane all you have to do is follow it and at the last second you're going
to break out and the runway is going to be right in front of you i'm going invisible radio beam is
going to come up to me i'm going to turn my life over if it isn't there i crash into a mountain
give me a break. I want to go see the beam. I want proof of all this. I just jump in the plane
and go, boy, I'm glad I got these beams flying right down between the mountains. I'm willing
to trust my entire life to it. And then they go, well, there's a huge universal guidance system
called God. And you can, through these steps, establish contact with this and you can receive
intuitive guidance that will enable you to have a life you never dreamed of.
Oh, come on, universal guidance, and there we are.
The skeptics couldn't possibly be true.
And so this decision in the third step to turn our lives over
meets with a great deal of resistance because most of us want to be independent.
I want to be the real me.
I don't want to just be, you know, the hole in the donut as the 12 and 12.
If you think about it, this is another paradox in spirituality,
that true independence is achieved by becoming totally dependent on a higher power.
Because when we don't have a higher power in our lives, we are controlled by our emotions.
And we may have values, and we may have a moral plan for living, but we can never live up to it.
That used to just make me so frustrated.
I had the way I wanted to be, I had certain standards, and I never could live up to them.
And I think a lot of us had the same problem, and you know what we were trying to do?
We were trying to be spiritual without a higher power.
I'll just be my own higher power.
I will be good by myself.
I can just go out and do this.
And we come in here and find out that's not the way it was set up.
You're going to need a higher power in order to be spiritual.
You're going to need a higher power in order to do this.
and i was like a person who wanted to sail without regard to the wind i just said i'm just going to
aim the sailboat at the back of the room and to hell with the wind and of course i end up over
here i'm just not willing to not be in charge and so this was a tremendous step to become
god-centered instead of self-centered when we read this in our literature most of us agree
when it says, our problem was self-centeredness.
And you know what self-centered people, when they read that,
they go, that's right, and I'll fix that.
I'm going to stop being self-centered.
Oh, how are you going to stop being self-centered?
Well, I'll stand over there, and I won't be self-centered over there.
I mean, it's just the way you talk about it.
I will not be self-centered.
What the heck is that?
What are you going to be?
What's the opposite of self-centered?
Oh, un-self-centered.
Oh, that's helpful.
That's really helpful.
Now you're un-self-centered.
So we find out in AA, the opposite of self-centered is God-centered.
And since God is the real center, it transforms the whole world.
You know, I was thinking back when Columbus made the journey around the world.
You know who was a very unhappy person when that happened?
It was a map maker in Italy.
he had just cornered the map market bought every known map of the flat world
and was going to start jacking the prices up when columbus came back and said it's round
and he said if it's round i'm gonna i have to i lose everything everything about me is wrong
All this information is wrong.
And, you know, when we go from self-centered to God-centered,
every one of our ideas is possibly wrong.
I mean, it's a huge transition.
And so there's a lot of resistance to that.
And that's why the third step is a very hard concept to get.
But once we're willing to do that and have an open mind,
we find out something about the third step.
And that is that we don't get anything turned over in the third step.
We just make a decision.
I thought I could get it turned over.
I said, you know, you're right.
I am going to turn my life over.
And I ran up to the bedroom.
I always do spiritual things up in the bedroom.
I go up there and get alone, get a mirror.
And I get, you know, say the serenity prayer 11 times and just sort of get warmed up for this.
And then I just kind of went, okay, God, you got it.
And I didn't feel anything different.
I just felt just like I was before I gave it over to God.
You know what I mean?
So I went, I really mean it.
You got it.
And I came down and I just had the feeling he didn't want it.
You know what I mean?
I was like, what happened?
I failed at the third step.
Well, the third step is to make a decision to turn our will and our lives over.
And it really gets turned over in step 12 when we have a spiritual awakening.
and step 11, we have conscious contact, but there's a lot of things that are blocking me
from turning it over. I have a few areas of concern that need to be removed in order for
this contact to be made. And that's where character defects come in, an inventory in the fourth step
where we made a searching and fearless moral inventory. What are we inventory? We're inventorying
all the things that are blocking us from our higher power. That's why we can't have conscious
contact. You know, when you think of God, it's like an internal guidance system. The Bible talks
about the still, small voice within. You can't hear the still, small voice over the roar of
resentment. I can't stand the world. Here's this little voice. All is well. You are good.
Everything is fine. I'm in charge. You don't have to worry. You can't hear that. You're out there
You're going, I'm going to kill the guy, I'm going to kill him,
and you're just in a racket that's going on,
or that awful roar of fear.
You can't hear hardly anything in there.
So these character defects are blocking us from this contact,
and that's why they have to be inventory.
This has got nothing to do with bad or good or anything like that.
It has to do with becoming unblocked.
We have to get these out of the way so we can start inventorying them.
And the thing that made me feel so good,
because I was a guilt-oriented Catholic.
I had a paper somewhere about guilt.
If I find it real quick, I'll go into it.
Because there may be some other people
who have experienced this.
Advanced guilt and some of that stuff.
If I don't find it in the next couple seconds,
we'll hear about it at some other meeting.
This looks like it.
I must have done something wrong before I was born to upset God.
Or he wouldn't have forced me to be born.
My original sin was self-induced.
I feel very guilty about whatever I did, and I feel guilty about feeling guilty.
I feel guilty about the things I'm going to do in the future.
My birth itself makes me feel guilty.
Somehow I should have been able to spare my mother the pains of childbirth.
I felt guilty about not fulfilling the potential my parents and teachers said I had.
felt guilty about having the potential and guilty for not knowing what the potential was for.
I felt guilty for not having the courage to do certain wrong things that others enjoy doing,
and then I could feel some real guilt. I feel guilty because I'm always doing the things that
God doesn't want me to do, and that's because I don't know what God does want me to do,
which makes me feel guilty about knowing what God wants me to do. Therefore, I feel guilty about
having done whatever caused God to not let me know what he wants me to do. As a result, I feel
guilty that this can never be changed unless God lets it be changed, and he won't until I stop
feeling guilty, which causes me to feel guilty about feeling guilty, because I feel guilty about
wanting to get rid of this guilt, because I know that I'm supposed to have this guilt.
I'm supposed to have this guilt because I really am guilty. Guilty of what? Well, I'm guilty of all
of things that make me feel guilty why do you ask it's just so we had a hopeless situation in there
and i got into the 12 and 12 and it said let's talk about these character defects so what does
bill write in the beginning of 12 and 12 said these are god-given these are instinctual drives
they were put inside of you by god stop getting a guilt trip that you produce them yourself
these are the very forces that cause human beings to survive these are the sex drive and the
the desire for a place in society and a desire to feel secure in the world that you live in.
Those are the forces that are down there pushing us out into living and engaging in life and moving
ahead. That's the raw energy of us human beings, those instinctual drives. The process of balancing
those instinctual drives so that they simply supply us the energy are not in charge of us
as human beings is a very complicated process.
Most of us in AA don't know anything about it.
It's called growing up.
This is what that is.
That's what grown-ups have is the balance on that.
And not many grown-ups arrive in AA,
so we are the ones who have to work on this.
And so it helped me with my guilt
to find out that these were put there by God
and that I was going to have to use a higher power to balance these.
It reminded me of the fire in a steam engine, you know, that heats the boiler,
and that's how the train runs.
It's just that raw energy from that fire.
But if you don't watch that gauge, that fire can blow the boiler up and destroy the whole train.
So the very energy that runs the train could destroy it.
And the very energy that runs our lives can destroy us
if our emotions and instinctual drives are in charge of us.
And for most of us, that was true.
You know what I'm saying?
It was just like, well, I'm going to really walk the straight and narrow.
I'm not going to be unfaithful.
Uh-oh, well, tomorrow I'm not going to be unfaithful.
I'm really going to show up at work today, and I'm not going to cheat anybody,
but I need some spending money.
They'll never know.
I mean, it was just, you know, fear.
Well, I'm going on a job interview, and fear said, you're not going in there.
Okay, I won't go in there.
Well, maybe I'll go over here.
So we were completely driven by all these instinctual drives.
They were overreaching themselves, and alcohol would put them at rest.
The only time I had peace from those things was when I had a few drinks.
So the fourth step is simply saying, let's find out about these things
and how they're blocking you and how they're messing up your life.
and it's not your fault you have them.
Let's get off of that.
This is just a business deal.
We're inventorying just like we're doing a business.
So let's go in and take a look at this
and then we get finally free enough to look at
what are these things that are blocking us.
It turns out they're the same as everybody else.
It's just that we have to see them in ourselves.
In the fifth step, we get an interesting situation
where it suggests that we take this list
and admitted to God, to ourselves, another human being.
What's on this list?
The exact nature of these wrongs.
And what I found in here was a principle
that it's impossible to see the truth about ourselves alone.
When I just look at the fourth step,
I don't know about your fourth step,
but the top of my fourth step was rationalization.
I rationalized everything.
I mean, it was just incredible.
Well, if I rationalize everything, what good is this list?
What good is my fourth step if I rationalize all the time?
How do I know this list is anything?
Well, you know how I'm going to find out?
I'm going to take it with another human being.
I'm going to look at this step through two sets of eyes.
It reminds me of the aerial photos.
You had to take two photographs of almost the same thing,
and then the photo interpreters could look at it,
and they could see the third dimension of heights and depths there.
But with one photo, they couldn't do that.
And so when I come in with the four-step inventory to another human being,
it takes on the third dimension.
And for the first time, I'm able to put in perspective
the raw information about my own life.
And that's the value of a fifth step.
And that's why sharing becomes so important.
And the longer we're in the program,
we hardly take a step without bouncing it off of somebody else.
Hey, what do you think if I were to change careers and go, boom, boom, boom, we get to FIBA, we just welcome this, we still make the final decision, but we have learned the wonderful principle of going out and sharing with other people in order to see ourselves more clearly.
And this is proof because the first time we do it, it is very hard and frightening.
And it really is the proof that we are willing to turn our lives over and to really do this program.
Sixth step, and then we'll take a break because I know it's right after lunch and we could use a stretch break.
The sixth step, we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
has a small prayer in the big book a few little sentences and that's it and then you get um over
into the 12 and 12 and it talks about this is the step that separates the men from the boys this is
the big step this is the epic part of our journey and it's like wow this is huge and it always
reminded me i heard a minister one time tell the story of the chicken and the pig they're sitting
outside the farmer's home and the farmer's eating a breakfast of ham and eggs and the chicken said
isn't it wonderful how we serve our master and the pig said hey pal for you it's a contribution
for me it's total commitment you know what i mean and so we're finding the difference in the sixth
step between just coming to AA in order to not drink and trying to become ready to have God
remove every defect of character that we have. When I first looked at this, you know, it was like
I came into AA, all I want to do is not drink. And then after I'm here a while, my sponsor said,
you know, I think for your sobriety, you also ought to stop embezzling down at work.
I just don't think
it's going to be good
for your long term
so I said
okay
so now no drinking
no embezzling
you know
and then
it's something about
running around
he didn't think
that was good
for marriages
and I'm going
Jesus
now we got
no drinking
no running around
no embezzling
you know
and it was like
every time we turn around
there's something else
you know what I'm talking about
and I think he finally told me
this is actually
a two step program
all you do is
don't drink and change
everything there is about you
you know
And that was sort of where we're at because the more you study this step,
we're entirely ahead of God, remove all the defects of character.
That is perfection.
This step goes much to extreme.
You know what I mean?
This is way beyond what I was planning on.
I just want to become a pretty regular guy.
And we don't have a program for becoming a regular guy.
We're entirely ready to have God remove.
But it's such an extreme thing.
And I guess thinking about Mother Teresa and how, you know, that's kind of what I that step reminds me of.
And I'm going, gee, it's wonderful. We have Mother Teresa's in the world.
But, you know, like if I got transformed, if God did that to me, I'd probably have to give all my stuff to the poor.
I wouldn't have a car. I would like to be 50 percent as good as Mother Teresa.
it. You know what I mean? And I would like, and I sort of set intermediate goals of how good I
would like to get. And they were sort of around the 75% range. You know what I'm talking about?
And there's a sentence in the 12 and 12 says, we tend to settle for as much perfection as will get
us by. Now, isn't that an interesting thing? And so it's like, if you're in business, what you need
is the reputation for being honest.
You don't have to be honest.
You need the reputation.
So what you want to do is do enough right things
so that people think you're honest,
and then you can use your discretion.
There may be emergencies when you've got to stick it to them,
or you'd be out, you know what I'm saying.
And if you ever did this step, boom,
there goes the chance to stick it to them once in a while.
So you've got to sort of limit yourself in the sixth step.
this is what we all get
you know it's just like whoa whoa whoa
I don't want to go that far
and there's a little story
that I like to tell and then we'll wrap it up
about this six step and about
you know going all the way
as this suggests
and it's a guy who used to come from Washington
I've all heard a million times a little boy
who plays baseball he's in the
eighth grade seventh grade and he got the big game
and the coach told him you got to get
eight hours sleep tonight this one
you got to be on your toes this is the
game he goes to bed you know like nine o'clock and he wakes up at 10 30 with the beginning of
a little toothache and he knows if he calls his mother she will come in give him a couple aspirin
he's back to sleep and he gets the good night's sleep and he plays ball but he doesn't call his
mother he just goes yeah maybe it'll go away by itself and then he hangs around it's getting worse
it's midnight still doesn't call his mother and he just goes on and finally about 2 33 o'clock
He calls his mother.
She comes in, gives him the aspirin, goes back to sleep, and goes out.
He does terrible in the ballgame.
So the question is, why did he screw around until 3 o'clock before he called his mother?
And the answer is that he knew his mother.
And he knew his mother wouldn't stop with just giving him the two aspirin.
She would then make a dental appointment to take him into the dentist to look at that tooth.
And while he was there, he knew the dentist.
even though you just had one tooth that had a little thing he looked at all of the teeth he
just went while you're here and then he said oh here's something here here's something here and
then you get a series of appointments and you don't get out of it until you have perfect teeth
he didn't want perfect teeth he wanted two aspirin that's all he wanted
but the problem was there was no two aspirin help available you either get perfect help or no help
and that's our dilemma in a spiritual program we cannot sit down and pray at night god make me
semi-honest please please take away most of my lust please help me with
I remember the first time I got thinking about
what would it be to be lust free
and I said it sounds dangerous to me
I mean it's just
how about just getting most of it
out of there but
what would you be like nothing you just walk around
nothing nothing what is this
these are too extreme
sixth step is just too extreme
and there is the dilemma
of the third step
and so we are always
opening our eyes
to a new level of
willingness to leave
the material world
and spend more time in the
spiritual world. And it's a lifetime
journey. It's a lifetime challenge
to continue to develop this
willingness or to become ready
to have God remove these
defects. We're at the end of the time. Let's take a 10
minute break and we'll come back in and wrap it up.
Thank you.