Self-Will and Unmanageability – Herb K – Workshop – Part 4 of 25 – Herb

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. My name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our Zoom Big Book Workshop. Please join me in prayer for an open mind. God please set aside everything that I think I know about myself, my brokenness the 12 steps and you for an open mind and a new experience of myself my brokenness, the 12 Steps and especially you. Please join me in the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serentity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference. we've established a very firm foundation in step one excavating broadly and deeply both our understanding and our experience of our history initially our history with addiction looking at the problem of the body when I start I cannot stop. Eventually looking at the mind, when I stop, I cannot stay stopped. Powerless. We become so brain dead to that word that I try to stimulate a new experience by using the term no choice it's clear from the big book that no choice is the relevant language that's why it's in step one powerless a biological impediment when I start I cannot stop developing the craving that is that compulsive use of a substance or engagement in a process over which I have no control as I look back over my shoulder always excess and when I tried to stop and I do stop I can't stay stopped even if it was a year or two or ten if I started again it means I didn't stay stopped and that's a problem of the mind much more subtle much more subversive, much more difficult to get a handle on. And yet that's our experience. That strange mental blank spot. That insanity that it will be different this time. Meaning we hope it'll be better. Safer. Successful. And it never is. but it's also no choice when it comes to our own willpower in terms of our life and reality i do what i don't want to do and i don t do what I want to do unmanageability even with continuous abstinence that was my experience at 10 years of sobriety I had had 10 years of going to meetings every day talking to a sponsor every day working the steps right around my fourth or fifth year successfully out of the book with the book mechanic step guide and having a very powerful life changing experience an awakening that was profound and measurable you've heard me talk about it 1988 and again in 1991 and yet when I came to being ten years sober working through the steps with a new man a new mechanic none of them ever became my sponsor he introduced me to the set aside attitude and prayer and introduced me to the bedevilments on page 52. And that 10 years of sobriety with two previous spiritual awakenings, I began to realize in technicolor what unmanageability meant those bedevilements because we do not escape from being human. And I believe that's what Bill means in step 10 when he says you're placed in a position of neutrality with regard to your addiction, but you have a daily reprieve from your unmanageability. A daily reprive protected from going back to that obsession. You're not protected, I almost misspoke there, you're not protecting from unmanagability That is the daily condition, but it doesn't hijack to a place where we have the obsession return. Our life is unmanageable on our own willpower, he says. Bill does in the big book. And then it became my experience as I measured it against those bedevilments and I read the description of the underlying cause and condition in pages 60 to 62. And on page 60, it has that statement that I asked you to turn into a question for yourself and we spent some time on it. Are you convinced that your life run on self-will having nothing to do with addiction? Have everything to do your life and the reality of your life in abstinence? I do what I don't want to do and I don t do what i want to. And so at that level, at that experience with that knowledge we come face-to-face with no choice. No matter how smart and educated I am and no matter how strong my willpower is in lots of other areas i don't seem to be able to navigate reality very comfortably very successfully i'm hitting speed bumps that throw me off track all the time oh i don t relapse over it but i'm restless irritable and discontent the big book suggests and so both from an addiction standpoint having no power and from an unmanageability standpoint having know power step 2 introduces us to the search for power page 45 bill asks us a couple questions on page 45 where and how are we going to find this power and he tells us well that's what this book is about and at the beginning of our journey that wasn't the first question i asked you to ask yourself in step two i asked him to ask himself what you actually believe and to write it out not what you know or think or feel or read or have been told by other people none of that no what do you actually believe so I suggested that you look up the term belief in a dictionary so that you have a sense of where you're going at least with the dictionary definition. My dictionaries, and I have several, were very inadequate in looking at faith and belief and trust. Very inadequate. Most of them said something like, faith is belief and belief is trust and trust is faith. And I chased my tail. it did not answer the question when you define one word by another word and then by this another word you're going in circles and i was not clear as to what faith is and what belief is and what trust is as i approached chapter four what is faith how is it distinguished between that and belief and what the heck does trust mean i'm not going to answer that right now but we will over the time of doing chapter four which will take three or four workshops for sure and now the second question that I'm asking you it's not in the big book but it was the veil rending question for me as I was doing this work at 10 years of sobriety I did not know that I was an agnostic. I believed, I believed and I wrote a wonderful theological treatise on what I believe and the man said it was beautiful. Theologically quite inspirational and quite deep and quite accurate and even poetic. And then he sent me home with another question which is what i'm sending you home with i don't believe i've given it to you yet sometimes my notes are not that accurate you wrote out what you believe now i'm asking you to write out an answer to this question how do you behave in light of what you believed you believe That was really confrontational when I got to it in the set-aside attitude and the set aside prayer, because I discovered I was not behaving in the same way that I wrote out that wonderful theological treatise. I wasn't on a daily basis praying. I wasn'T on a consistent basis meditating. God was something I absolutely thought I believed in but wasn't very relevant in my life I was very self-reliant even at 10 years of sobriety the awareness of the presence of God was not my priority as the spiritual experience in appendix 2 suggests it will become with authentic transformation in fact it says awareness of the presence of God is the essence of a spiritual experience so when I wrote out the contrast between how I behaved measured up against what I believed I saw that I was an agnostic and I understood agnestic as a doubter coming from the greek word gnosis g-n-o-s-i-s which means knowledge and you put an a in front of it it means a doubter or not knowledge or not knowable in contrast to an atheist coming again from a greek world theos originally zeus which just means the divine whatever we're referencing as God, theos. And when you put an A in front of it, it means not God. An atheist absolutely rejects any immaterial reality. An agnostic just says, I doubt it and it's doubtful and by the way, it's not knowable. very different and Bill suggests here on pages 44 and 45 that half of the membership comes to AA with that problem comes to the 12-step program 50% of people with some doubt or disbelief or resistance I had you read chapter 4 from the viewpoint of just highlighting from your written statement about what you actually believe to read the chapter and highlight any word or phrase that spoke to you. Now I want you to reread it with a different color highlighter from the perspective of a question that I'm giving you. What do you resist when you read it? what do you not believe when you read it what word or phrase has a negative connotation to you when you reach after four with the different highlighter you may highlight over something you've already highlighted just because it's a different question in a different perspective and that's just fine these are mechanical methods to approach this with us set aside attitude in the set aside prayer and a set-aside experience on page 45 he talks about doubt and prejudice a particular idea and some people have abandoned the God idea entirely on page 46 he has many synonyms supreme being capital s capital B power capital P but at the bottom of that he's very comforting he tells us and this is the principle adopted in the 12-step culture it is impossible for us to fully define or comprehend that power. It is impossible for us to fully define or comprehensive. My approach of that is whatever I'm looking at to identify as this supreme being, this power is infinite by definition it didn't have a beginning and it doesn't have an end and even that concept I cannot wrap my mind around because i have a beginning and i have an end i'm finite by definition and whatever it is i'm thinking about here as a power other than myself is the polar opposite of who i am i'm fine it's infinite and i have no idea even what that means other than i know that that's the direction of authentic theology but he says our own conception however inadequate is sufficient our conception is inadequate I may have made the metaphor before about what I learned in the second grade where the good nun said God is like the ocean and we're like a bucket and you can't put the ocean in a bucket because the ocean is bigger than the bucket this is how you talk to second graders well this is how i talk to you this is how i talked to myself in order to really kind of wrap my mind around this whole contrast between whatever this reality is that we're attempting to grapple with a power other than ourself and that's one of the reasons that the big book is so magnificent where they captured the phrase as you understand it it would have been better actually if it said as i don't understand it god is i don'd understand it our own conception is sufficient to make the approach and to effect a contact with god as soon as we admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence capital c capital i a spirit of the universe capital s capital u underlying the totality of things one of my more favorite phrases we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction provided we took other simple steps provided we did the balance of the step work finishing the ninth step we found that god does not make too hard terms with those who seek god to us the realm of spirit another synonym is broad roomy all-inclusive never exclusive to those who earnestly seek it's a wonderful powerful positive phrase paragraph page 47 and i'm going to stop in middle of that paragraph page 47 when we speak to you we mean your conception of god your own step two let's be really clear listen to the step itself came to believe what does that ring true for me i was 10 years sober 54 years old when i really addressed my agnosticism and really began to connect to a power other than myself in any conscious intelligent way up till that point it had been robotic all given to me from the outside at this point at the end of chapter four it came from the inside do not let any prejudice you might have against spiritual terms deter you what do they mean that's why we use the dictionary so liberally at the start this was all that was needed to commence spiritual growth to affect your first conscious relation with god as we understood god afterward we found ourselves accepting many things which then seemed entirely out of our reach so we used our own conception however limited it is we use our own consumption Gandhi said our concept of God will change as we do 100% my experience and here's where i'll stop with this middle paragraph we needed to ask ourselves but one short question so another question bill gives us do i now believe well we're only a page and a half into chapter four we're Only a Page and a Half Into step two we've just begun step two which admittedly is a process so some of you may say no i don't believe yet i've come through this process i've come to this workshop with a resistance and even with some outright disbelief okay because he's got a fallback position bill is brilliant here he's leading us in program learning at its best do you now believe yeah i don't think so or are you willing to believe oh well look at that a pretty safe safety net What was your experience in step one? Well, let's see. Powerless, that means I don't have a choice. That means I need a power other than myself. So unless there is a power other than my self, I'm screwed. That's not in the big book. That's an interpretation. Are you willing to believe then? Are you will to believe that there is power greater than yourself? As soon as you can say this that you're willing to believe, you're on your way, he said. This is the cornerstone. He begins now to give us a metaphor, which he continues through steps two, three, and then completes it at the end of step five. He says here that willingness is the counterstone. A wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built in step three he calls it a spiritual arch and he calls step three the keystone he doesn't mention it again until at the end of step five on page 75 where he says we have now built at the ends of step 5 page 75 we have not built a spiritual arts through which we can walk to a new freedom. Step two, the cornerstone, the first stone placed on the foundation of step one that sets the direction of the entire arch. Step three, which is the keystone, that stone at the pinnacle of the arch, at the very top of the ark that holds the entire structure together. And then step five, he says, now we've walked through the arch. We've built the arch and we've He doesn't mention anything between step three and the end of step five. I have to assume then that step four are the building blocks of the arch. Resentment and fear and dishonesty and dysfunctional sexuality and secrets. All words that you'll become much more familiar with when we get into step four. He doesn'T say that, the book doesn'T, but it implies that. if here we have the cornerstone of willingness and in step three the keystone of a decision to turn and at the end of step five the arch is built and we're walking through it to a new freedom apparently step four are the building components in fact on page 75 he talks about those building components have you been diligent have you've been careful with detail look at all of that as we get through steps four and then step five the point I want to make here is that he calls willingness the cornerstone this is great news we can accept things on faith which are difficult to believe he's making a distinction here two different words two different concepts two different meanings it is comforting to learn that we can commence at a simpler level begin All right, so next week we'll take a look at the material from 47 to 53. And I'll have another assignment for reading. Pay attention to his variations on looking at logic, looking at science, looking at theology looking at common sense looking at pure salesmanship as he's trying to navigate people from their resistance into some type of acceptance it might help although the book doesn't say this it's my conclusion that step two is a decision step three clearly is a decision it's in the step itself made a decision to turn but step two is also a decision you might see that when you look at page 53 where Bill asks another set of questions God is or God isn't God is everything or God is nothing what is your choice he's asking us to make a decision there we'll talk more about that next week so I'd like to hear from you today on certainly any experience that you've had with unmanageability looking at the worksheet on the will as well as answering that question am I convinced and then whatever experience you might have had or questions that you might have had in writing out what it is you actually believe about God about higher power and your first reading from chapter 4 so I have a question about the developments and the unmanageability on what is that page 52 correct the things that are expressed in the bedevilments are gonna come up throughout our lives that it's and that as we but we work our program to deal with them so to read this and to say oh no i never have them oh at any point in time because that's what my perfectionist self would and of course that's when i read into the question and i thought um but what if somebody else in our group had the same thing um i mean all of us were like well yeah of course we relate to those things and so i was just asking what's realistic to expect that we have those of course but then we work our program and they don't stay we don't i don't live there yeah but of course i go there sometimes yes is that realistic it's totally realistic and it's an area that really needs a lot of clarification for many people in the program especially the perfectionists in the group yeah you know it's just there's about 30 percent of you that are just unfortunately in a very unhealthy way you're perfectionists it's okay to want to be better but it's impossible for us to be perfect because in fact we're creative beings with material reality and that's always going to be imperfect material reality is always going to imperfect having said that bill recognized that in step 10 in the big book he said watch for resentment fear dishonesty and selfishness when they crop up he doesn't say if so it's totally validating what your approach is here that i'm a human being i'm going to have my humanity manifest differently at different times for different reasons and he says in the 12 and 12 when i'm disturbed there's something wrong with me it's a spot check inventory when i'm disturbed step 10 says pause and pray talk to somebody about it make an amend if you've created some damage and turn your thoughts to helping somebody else but the key was in answer to your question is we never transcend our humanity in fact bill says in step 10 we're not cured we are not cured although we're recovered with regard to our addiction we're Not cured with regard to our unmanageability that's our state of humanity like you were indicating that's Our State of Humanity and we're going to be navigating life and my favorite images of speed bumps you've probably had and everybody on the call has had the experience that some streets have very large speed bumps and some have very small speed bumps mm-hmm you know and that's kind of like life life has speed bumps, and the better my shock absorbers the better I handle the speed bumps directly to your comment concerning using the tools I can navigate whitewater if you will with the what do you call it the canoeing down a stream sometimes this stream is very smooth sometimes it's rough with the waters and that's called white water and I can now the better I can navigate it the safer I am the better skills that I have the better I can navigate it and that's what is meant I believe by step 10 when we're disturbed it doesn't say if we're disturb when were disturbed then we have these tools and the more conscious we are that's why we do step 11 in the morning to become as conscious as we can and step 11 at night to see how well we did so that we're in sort of a constant state of improving our consciousness does that answer your question oh yeah very much yes yes thank you the question am i convinced that my life run on self-will has not been a success i am totally convinced you know i've told you before herb that um i've had years of sobriety and worked hard at sobriete and i've always loved it but i've had a lot of speed bumps along the way and i could never figure out i could ever figure it out you know I just thought you know what am i doing wrong i'm not doing enough i'm not reading enough i m not going to enough meetings i shouldn't be acting this way and when I first came into the workshop herb I really thought that well you know this is gonna be great I'm so drawn to this but a lot of this is just not going to pertain to my walk you know because I've done well you know I found out that's not true you know this your teaching on step one was fantastic and I definitely have a new experience of powerlessness when I look back on that part of the big book and the bedevilments you know herb I've read that before and I remember a guy talking about in the lead one time but I never really looked at my life in that in that light and and I truly think herb that I was just delusional about things that you know you sometimes you say that you you couldn't see that you didn't see or however you say that i honestly didn't see it herb yeah and i'm not speaking poetry no i mean i look at it now and i feel like for the first time i've been honest about it you know that i can actually say that i am unhappy you know i i am sometimes full of fear and before i would think with as much sobriety as i've had and meditation and centering prayer i couldn't say those things because it just didn't seem like it was a good fit for me i don't know right right right embarrassed that i even have these thoughts i i'm i should i should be way beyond that that is right you know my sponsor told me years ago herb that when you are sober through alcoholics anonymous there should be something different about you and you know i've really believed that herb and i've that's what i that was always my desire to be that witness but i would fall so far short sometimes with my actions you know it was mostly always with my wife she would get the you know the sharp tongue and you know you know how it goes i do yeah and uh you know so you move on to step two and if i could just briefly i want to talk about that thing about what i believe about god because um this is something i'm hoping you can help me with her i when i first came in um you know my sponsor talked to me about being willing to believe and and i did not resist that at all i was willing to do what my sponsor suggested and you know all through my years in alcoholics anonymous i just feel like i've been drawn by god i i've always felt like i have a good relationship with god you know my thing is i believe in the holy spirit that the holy Spirit lives in me and teaches me and counsels me but when i heard you talking tonight about the contrast of how i behave compared to what i believe oh my gosh herb there's a huge difference there yeah and you know the thing is herb it's not like i'm running around out they're misbehaving or being secretive or being dishonest to my wife or anything that's not it it's the bedevilments that are happening in my life and my behavior and unmanageability of and then constantly trying to fix it myself you know i'll just work a little harder i'll go to another workshop honest honey it'll never happen again you know how much i care about you and you know what herb those things are all true right it is yeah but you know left to my own power just not there and it is not happening well and that's the improvement in consciousness that comes when you're open and have a set aside attitude coming with the time and the beliefs and the experience that you've had and everything i'm hearing from you is now you're you're having new awareness and new experiences yeah what a gift yeah and thank you so much herb because you know you say you know through some of this devastation and hopelessness that there's a lot of hope there and you know what i believe that because it's, I feel so inspired by all this too. It's like answers to questions I've never been able to answer on my own. Yeah. And I'm going to push it a little bit further. I was given questions I had never heard questions about. They were not questions that I had. They weren't gifts of this new process that i had the questions like i've just asked about contrasting your belief as you really sincerely believed it with now this new question as to how do i behave and see the point counterpoint for the very first time yeah and i thank you so much for that herb i am so willing and so ready to go deeper and thank you so much yeah you're welcome and you will oh and by the way going back to the comment on the uh first step one of my good friends said the fourth step is the first step in writing so you will it's a spiral staircase you will come back to The First Step experience of powerlessness as you go through each component of the fourth step okay i'm gonna look forward to that promise well i don't know look forward might be the right term so yeah i did look at the question the definitions and i also wrote out what my belief was is my belief is um i want to talk i think a little bit about what my belief and that's part i guess part of what's difficult because um i'm still trying to get to the point where i'm not concerned about what you think in general about what i say about my belief yep um then that's the hard part i guess for me so anyway with that said um you know when i wrote this out i you know i i really went back to things that just seem to make sense to me about uh my higher power uh this this force um is just everywhere that's my belief it's everywhere um i don't you know and i see it as being in me and in everything else um it's like like say energy it's the thing that makes atoms move makes the electrons and the protons move and rotate there's something that's making that happen it's not me there's nobody else on this planet so it's got to be greater than me and so i see it really in at that level um i believe i believe that people punish themselves and i believe i'm a chief punisher of myself i don't think my higher power punishes me i think i punished me you know um and i i think that i also can can give myself joy um the joy is in staying in the flow in the stream of life in this in the flow of nature so to speak in the flow of that force that force when i go against it that's when i get the rub that's when i start to feel the friction that's when i know i'm off track so to speak um i i don't i grew up i definitely grew up in church um but i just don't have that concept of a being well a physical you described a a a reality though i mean i thought that was a very insightful description as you're talking about this permeating reality that i mean that's my term but i was i'm capturing what you said and um bill said it i read it tonight the spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things that's exactly what you were just describing yeah and that's actually when i read that that's where and i said yes yes that's it and then i guess the the the ego or whatever the other part of my mind are the teachings that i have is like wait a minute now that's you know because then i start getting caught up into everything i was taught you know and then how i process what i was taught i'm not criticizing what i was taught it's just how i processed it it's okay to criticize what you were taught okay you might have to do that to discover the truth this is true okay good good well that's what i believe i really i really do believe that i believe i'm part of that force yeah i think of it like the like if you took a bucket of water out the ocean yeah and that's the component of the ocean but it's not the ocean that's it leaned into that concept of flow i think you'll find it very productive for yourself as we go through this chapter okay thank you i have trouble taking the action to create the the connection with what i believe in you know and that is part of And what I've been working towards and part of what drew me to this group, that's a big part of the unmanageability for me has been being in recovery a long time and not being able to be consistent with prayer and meditation. So I guess in that way, I was kind of thinking ahead to the next part about like do I behave like i believe this and it seems like what i believe is i mean i still behave believe it i just i don't have the power to take the action to stay connected to it to really uh you know to do the things that i that are that will bring me connection and to not do the thing that cause a wedge between that connection right right that's a a careful consideration so where am i powerless and where do i have responsibility where am I powerless and Where Am I Careless Where am I Powerless and where is it that I really don't believe when I don't behave that way my biggest conversation the heart of my conversation with people who say they appreciate meditation and that it's really important but they don't have time to do it my challenge is well then you don't really believe it's important if you don't have time to do it because you do make time for the things that are important to you well I know I've been like seeing this struggle because I've been in recovery so long between my phone and the news and the New York Times and God you know as just like the New York Times which is in a way like my addiction to drama it's not the drama in my life but the world drama right you know it's like i'm addicted to that shit and and it's every morning my goal is to like just light a candle and be with god but this little like zombie box i'm staring at right now which is you know i have such a love-hate relationship with it you know i'm addicted to this little piece of technology yeah well bill uses the value proposition concerning meditation in step 11 he says as air water sunshine and food nourish and sustain the body prayer and meditation nourishand sustain the soul you have to ask yourself do you believe what he just said because if in fact you're not doing daily meditation you don't believe it right yeah that's all yeah yeah yeah i get it i know yeah and so then i try to help people try to get real clear about the value proposition of prayer meditation really what is the benefit to me what is the important import of prayer meditation to me not just as an addict not just a spiritual person but as just as a human being what is the importance of meditation for me as a Human Being and those are all nice rhetorical questions yeah it's giving me the pause between like yelling at my kid it's good you know what I mean and not no or the emotional reactivity you know are impulsively saying or doing things that I'm going to regret that's not cool not like who I want to be and with a daily practice of meditation you will have a bigger ability to pause and be kinder right yeah yeah so then that's the question of how important is it to pause them to be kind I think I want a drama free life I don't know if I really do here's how you can figure out the answer to that question ask ask your feet how they're moving okay all right all right i'll do some writing about that one tomorrow yeah yeah your feet tell you what you believe your feet tell you, what your character is yeah your feet tell, you what your motives are how you behave is who you are yeah that's very confrontational when i first heard that i had to sit down for a minute to hold on to that because that is very confrontacional my feet oh yeah the truth my head always lies to me it's true i i heard remember hearing someone early at a meeting say if you want self-esteem do esteemable things it's it's uh it's deep wisdom and yet it's so simple isn't it yeah yeah you know it's still don't have to let go one finger at a time you know pride you know um you know the whole let go or be dragged i mean i tend to get dragged around before i let go and then darn it i grab on again sometimes um so that's really kind of what i identified with is my actions not aligning to what I think I believe or what I know I need to do. Well, it sounds like that you don't really trust God. Yeah, I guess that's there. What does God know about a job and finances? I mean, you've got to do all that your own self, right? yeah and I had some things not to get dialoguing or whatever I had I saw my brother killed when I was nine and parents were kind of a mess divorce whatever it wasn't safe um really until I was on my own and I think that said six you know I wish it wouldn't stick so much should I think about 50 years old and that was the first 18 years so I've had 32 good you know whatever you're doing two good years then why is that still sticking um but that's one of the things that i have to continue to let go of you have to do what i actually continue to work on letting go of and healing um that dysfunction in the first 18 years i think a lot of my trust issues are around that that sounds like your trauma yeah yeah ever reached out for professional help yes a little bit in college history you said you're 50 and college is when you're 20 I know no I know there's a lot there to that but um I've worked through a lot of things in program but certainly I have to get down to fundamental like trust is a decision that I have too late and I have making a lot little ways i think that i need to start small and um at the same time if you had a broken leg you wouldn't go to church yeah you would go to a doctor for diagnosis and some healing one of the psychologists in san francisco dr wellwood David wrote a book on spirituality and therapy, and in that he said too many people seek out spirituality as a solution to emotional problems. He called it spiritual bypass. The program will not cure your diabetes. The program Will not fix your broken leg. If you have clinical depression, the program will not be the right intervention. All I'm saying is pay attention if this is a serious impediment in the quality of your life, this trauma, then you might need to seek professional help to just take you over the goal line. That's all. Right. you know being in the program for so long and you know still working with things that you think that you should have gotten past right but still thinking that we should be someplace where we're not right and i'm where god wants me to be you know this is the new experience that i'm having this is The Awakening that I'm having I'm right where God wants me to be I just need to accept that that this is where I'm supposed to be and not what I think you're at least where you want to be because if you wanted to be someplace else you would be right all right now maybe if you continue to become more conscious you'll improve on your decisions and the outcomes will improve okay good I mean I do yeah I think I'm still working with you know cuz you kind corrected me there and i i'm still working with the correction piece because i had said i said i was where god wanted me to be you kind of backed me up and said you're where you want to be so i think i was processing that yeah yeah well you are where you are but i'm not quite sure that i would settle for well that's exactly where god wants me to be if i'm if i was robbing banks that's probably not where god wants me to be that's where i'm going to be and that's what i'm doing right now but probably that's out of sync with the flood okay so um here's the real litmus test bill says in step 10 in the 12 and 12. it's a spiritual axiom when i'm disturbed there's something wrong with me so check out when you're disturbed that means you're out of alignment with reality or out of alignment God's will right oh the it's a wonderful question though that you're allowing us to have a conversation about is so what is reality what is the flow what is God's will for me right i think that sometimes you know just being in aa and you know just saying stuff that's been said over the years repeating stuff that you've heard people say you just say it but not really delve into what it means or is there you know more beyond that so that i'm glad you said that because that's all i was doing was mimicking something that i've heard and hadn't really given it any real thought and that would be a constant experience with the workshop because that attitude that you just articulated so well is what i challenge myself with all the time here's you hear so many things that sound pretty good but if i only repeat them i'm brain dead and i want to own it i want to make sure that it's my understanding and it's my experience because when i do that then the world opens up much bigger what do i actually believe about god unnameable mysterious undefinable i said it's all around covers all the world in creation with its love and compassion it is mother and father for me it's perfect love it cares for me and has provided protection for me all the days of my life um this never left me even though i have left it many many times i've felt god's presence and heard god's voice and i'm grateful for this love that's within me um but this i don't know what you call love grace i can't do anything to earn it i just need to be to be open uh to receive um i you know when i read some of some of the stuff in chapter four you know when they talk about that great reality down deep down within us in the last analysis is only there that he may be found and it was some other i wrote page 46 um something about god's uh being roomy broad roomy and all-inclusive that just that's how i feel um i yeah i sort of get i you know and this is today this is a completely different way of experience this presence this power um and i'm grateful for that wonderful thank you very much a very rich reflection and it'll be interesting now as you answer the second question yes so I looked at the definition of belief and faith so I had belief was an acceptance that something exists or is true especially without proof and then it had trust and faith of confidence in someone or something and then when I looked up faith it was sort of the same it said yeah complete trust or confidence in some one or something you know faith is confidence in what we hope for and the assurance that the Lord is working even though we cannot see it so I thought okay what do I believe and and what came up for me as I was sort of in quiet time and you know asking the question was I definitely believe that there's something there that created this world but I don't have confidence or trust because I don'T believe for me it's I say he, I don't believe that he's strong enough to take away my food obsession. I really believe that my food possession is so much stronger than anything or anyone. I believe that He can't give me the relief from my head and my negativity, my fears like the food can. And I read that to someone and she said, well, that doesn't make sense because the food doesn't really give you relief from the negativity and the anxiety and depression it actually causes it so i'm still believing that lie that's what came up out of i think it's a wonderful reflection and dialogue with somebody who has some experience that's great i'm just reinforcing i'm loving your conversation your exploration yeah So I took again to my quiet time, why don't I trust? What is it that I, why can't I trust? And then I started to have all these flashbacks of my past as a child. All these things that happened to me and I thought well if I couldn't trust my parents at the time how can i trust god yeah well but see you're in discernment discernment means thinking reflecting in the milieu of prayer in the environment of prayer and that's what you're doing your reflections are based on your experience and the knowledge that you're having here but it's also raising more questions isn't it well yes like i'm thinking how do i believe well no you you had more basic questions i heard what you said about your definitions the definitions were pretty good but then you said they all sound the same yes yes because they both have the same definitions under each one there well they're not quite the same they're slightly different but they don't really take you to an answer because in my dictionary i'll i'll be uh sarcastic uh in my dictionary faith was belief and belief was trust and trust was faith that's where i had two sort of similar yeah did that help me at all no it was like a snake eating its own tail it just led me in circles absolutely i'm going to take the group through the process of the big book chapter four where we'll identify and i'm gonna give you sort of a preview of that will identify that faith is a decision belief is the acceptance of the decision and trust is acting as if it's behavior now i'm going to show you how that works in chapter four because i think that's the way bill unfolds it and leads us but you see how clear that is faith is my decision god is belief is my acceptance that that's true and trust is i move my feet accordingly so when you say i move My Feet Accordingly do i just act as if right now because i'm thinking even my food stronger than God well but that's just a thought isn't it I thought and based on my experience of 14 years no that's that's your your conclusion based on your thought and perception so you think because you haven't had any power over food that God doesn't have enough power or just doesn't like you well I think he's granted people like yourself and others you know even abstinence and sobriety from the word go and then here are people like myself and lots of probably others on this call who are doing everything we're told to do yes and yet still picking up and I think well yes I see it with my own eyes I see see that why is that i know there's no answer so i don't i don well there's not a very satisfactory answer there's a satisfactory answer the answer that i've come up with because you're nailing it that's the bullseye question and quite frankly there's dark mystery here all right willingness and grace willingness is your willingness and you translate that into action grace is when in fact it becomes effective well mine has not become effective well and and and i'm going to contrast that just for a minute because it's so dramatic i didn't even ask for it and it was removed now i've got no more resentment towards god yes exactly i just made your list right yeah exactly but i didn t know i just was willing to stop drinking to support my wife's recovery i haven't had a drink or a thought about a drink since 36 years i know i mean i can't explain that i just can't but i can observe it and and and in the food program your experience is the majority experience whether it's fa or oa or faa or green sheet or 90 day or gray sheet or whatever there are so many different 12-step programs the experience is exactly what your experience is i'm doing i think i'm doing all of the suggestions and i keep relapsing i keep picking up i might get a day i might get a week i might get a month i might get a year and then wham i i'm back in it again i have no opinion about that i have lots of observations all right am i am i hitting the target with you yeah yeah yeah and and there's a certain amount of humility that that has to bring to you and frustration and maybe even anger and then you show up believing in the process believing in the process i mean that's why you're here and doing the work and believing that what the big book says on pages 84 and 85 that you will be placed in a position of neutrality sometime during and no later than finishing the ninth step. You will be placed in the position, hear the grace you will place this is not about you being empowered you will be placed in a position of neutrality and it's kind of like there's where hope comes in see there's a positive you're listening to me and you're i know you're thinking yeah well it hasn't happened herb and And I don't expect it to because, yeah, whatever, fill in the blank. But then going back to your concept of God, which is where you started, this is your challenge. Sounds to me like your God is too small. Didn't you just say my God doesn't have sufficient power? Yeah, that's my belief. And that's exactly what my feet are showing me. yeah well okay i hear what you're saying yes that is your interpretation yes i can't explain it i can give you a reasonable answer i can t give you a logical answer i cant give you an experiential answer i have no answer for you other than trust the process and hope for the outcome because i've never seen it fail this process never once have i seen it failed in the long run in the short run very cyclical but in the long run it's never failed i don't know what the and i'll use a term loosely i don t know what the magic is there's a mis it comes from the word mystery there's a mystery here god's grace my willingness and action but in the sistine chapel michelangelo left a space in the middle there's where the darkness is and that's where the mystery is and i can't explain it so how do i if i don't trust and if i how do i work through that wait wait how would you know if you're trusting by having so for example by when i'm have this is where i think and i'm probably wrong is when i really want to eat i should be turning to god more this is what i've been told in program and trusting that he will take that thought away, that he's stronger than the food. But I don't. I sort of pray, but it doesn't really come from the heart because I think you can't do it anyway. So I try to do it myself. So my head says if I trusted God, then I'd be abstinent. Maybe that's wrong, Herb. That is. I understand it. It's just not a healthy thought. You're not that powerful by definition. You're powerless in fact. and God doesn't respond to your prayer and God doesn't response to your actions oh my gosh we're in deep water now but didn't you just say willingness which is action is met by grace so doesn't God respond to my action I can't tell you that because if God would be responding to your action then in fact you obviously have some power and obviously then that whatever that god is it's not unconditional oh this gets pretty murky it's so confusing uh-huh yeah i don't know that's exactly right it's very murky here and that's why i say mystery i mean i'm not going to clarify it i can't i have been at this now for 34 32 years after i've had my own experience of walking through the steps i've been at over 30 years i've Been Attempting To Understand It And To Explain It I've Never Understood It Or Explained It So How Do People Find A Power If They Think There is no power well first of all in step two you make a decision that there is a power okay but what no but here and here here we go now this is really a good comment very deep conversation but a very good conversation what is faith faith is well I've wrote down he said is a decision that God is do you hear that so I just need to make a decision that's what the big book says that's all i have to do that's what he says on page 53 you god is or god isn't what is your choice now do you hear the emptiness of that i do because i started off by saying i do believe there is a god because something's created this universe so i must believe well okay so uh let's go with your definitions faith is the decision belief is the acceptance of that decision and that sounds just like what you said i made a decision god is i'm accepting it i really do believe that i accept it that there is a god all right yes so then what would trust be i didn't write that so i have to listen to it again can you say what trust these please oh yeah it's then you put your feet in action based on your faith and your belief. And what you said originally, I act as if. You don't know and you don't feel but your feet move. Faith is very empty. Faith is thin and dark. There's no substance to it. It's just your decision. and at the end of step two i'm going to ask you to make another decision based on the way i've experienced step two and that is what are the attributes and qualities that god needs to be and have for you now clearly one of the major qualities that this whatever this is that you're seeking this power needs to have sufficient power to relieve your problem yep i know yeah you're right on it and and i can't help you cross over i can only coach you and and hold up sort of the words and the vision and the hope you you've made the decision you say you accept the decision and now the only evidence that you that's all true is how you move your feet so if i make a decision that god is can i also make a decision even though i don't believe it that he's all powerful and then just act as if anyway that's it that's that's what faith is and you get to choose and this is them quite frankly this is the silver bullet of big book and 12-step is that you get to choose, and you get to describe, and you get to pick out the ingredients that you need this power this reality to be and to have. And then then you have to base your life on it. yeah and not just for today but on a daily daily daily basis I know and that's where in another area bill says people have faith people of faith have courage yeah takes a lot of courage to implement what we're talking about thank you so much for your work I I'm finding this workshop powerful and in the previous conversation very powerful I have a question about mental health all right but it relates to step two and what we've been talking about so um so my higher power has given me the grace I was struck sober 27 years ago something like that overnight overnight I don't just tell us a little bit about when you say struck what do you mean by that what kind of a little bit of a story do you have for us the little bit of story is I was drinking I knew it was a problem I tried to stop several times over the years somehow I got myself to an AAA meeting how did you know about AA oh because I called the Alan on hotline why would you call Alan on because I just that's the only thing I knew that had anything to do with alcohol got it all right you called the Ellen on hot line and and I described my issue and they said oh ma'am you need the a a number so I got the a number I went to my first meeting I cried the whole time yeah I left the meeting I cried and they told me at the meeting I had to believe in a higher power so on the way home when I was driving I said I don't know what higher power I don't where you are or what you're doing or if he can hear me and I was just crying and I woke up the next day and I haven't had drink sense yeah your your willingness to call Alan on and then to follow their direction my willingness to go to support my wife and to eventually do the actions that they suggested I think that willingness is the key and in the big book and we'll look at it next week on page 47 bill says willingness is the cornerstone for step two exactly yeah now willingness is show up talk about it cry about it do the dictionary work listen and sort of just like be open to this conversation which has got to be very very frustrating and there's probably very many people relating to it on the line yeah yes so I have had a similar experience with the food however in your questions on the will I think the two areas that I where I am asking God for help and I don't know if it well is the I'm very I'm I'm fine right now but I have had some issues with depression it's on and off I manage it but I know when I'm biochemically imbalanced and I have to work with that and I also have fear that I do work with but I have a lot of fear and so in terms of your question about do I believe I absolutely I've had I've hadn't my experience of my higher power doing what I didn't even ask for and I mean so this belief can is that appropriate for you know the mental health issues of having a predisposition to depression I'm fine now but once in a while it just pops up so as my higher power removed my desire for a drink will my higher Power remove my periodic depression and an intensity of fear at times It's possible. Underneath the fear inventory is prayer. Underneath the resentment inventory is Prayer. Bill gives us basically the assumption that we're as powerless over our resentment, we're powerless over fear as we are powerless over substance of addiction or process of addiction all right so we're powerless so he suggests prayer however there's a psychologist in san francisco who wrote a wonderful book on spirituality and therapy called dr wellwood w-e-l-l w-o-o d and uh spirituality and and in there he said too many people go to spirituality to solve emotional and psychological problems and he called it spiritual bypass if you had a broken leg Jennifer would you go to church or would you go to a doctor now some depression is clinical and biochemical as you're describing it some depression behavioral and emotional all right and can be corrected in different ways um i'm a total believer in medication to deal with biochemical imbalances whether it be schizophrenia diabetes or depression all right but that's where professionals come in and to do the evaluation um now here's a little more subtle of of an experience that i have A lot of depression and fear is relieved as we do steps four through nine, because we get underneath the sources of these emotions, these negative emotions. And as we identify it, it's very therapeutic. It's very healing. when we finish the ninth step there is a healing that takes place that can't even be done by a therapist certainly not by a medical doctor all right so there's a there's a tricky subtlety in here the answer to the question is if you have clinical depression literally a biochemical imbalance you probably are going to need medication if you have depression because it's of trauma or some other kind of negativity from family of origin or life experiences probably therapy will help without medication and certainly the steps will help in all of that but that's where you have a partnership with a sponsor a medical doctor and a therapist all three different people who have an understanding of the organic interaction of all of those parts a really really good question one of the people I work with he was my therapist Dr. Alan Berger back back in the day he says that when people work the steps they make much better patients do you hear that right yeah because they've opened themselves up there's a spiritual connection whatever that means and they're much more malleable and open to the therapeutic process so i've thrown a lot of experience and a lot of words at you um tell me what your sort of reaction or impression is of what i'm saying compared connecting to what your questions were well thank you i what i took from what you said is if i had a broken leg would i go to a doctor or would i get a church and that's wonderful that's very clear yeah and um i do happen to be on a very low dose of medication and it's fine and I have been fine there sometimes is it part of me that feels ashamed of that yes and other people will reinforce that shame unfortunately because they're ignorant so that's where you grow your own center of gravity deep inside yourself with your information and guidance from experienced people you can stand without shame and without guilt without defending yourself or trying to make them wrong in you right but you don't allow them to name you because they just don't know that they don't know and they're prejudiced yeah yeah and thank you because i i don't think i knew i had that much shame until i was talking to you so well there you go yeah yeah yeah and and when you talk to people who have information legitimate information and experience you will get the information that will help you balance holding on to your own experience my wife irish catholic very resistant prejudice about medication severely depressed and in a quitting drinking was the worst thing that happened to her because she got more depressed that her her medication had been taken away she had no way of dealing with her feelings finally because she suffered so much she went to a therapist and got medication and within three months she was feeling normal and better whatever that meant for her all right i mean she had sponsors she was working the program she was doing all the drill the medication made a huge difference after about three months she said okay i got this now i know what it feels like to be normal to not be depressed she went off her medication and within a month she was back in the toilet she learned that she was biochemically challenged and needed to be on medication the rest of her life so she never went off it again And I was very happy about that, of course. But again, you know, she had that shame. So I can really relate to it experientially. She had this Irish guilt and shame about it, which was reinforced by ignorant people in the program. But she then, you Know, between myself and other people who are professionals, she was able to get a balanced view on it and not only that it was her experience now yes all right so she had a legitimate experience that that she could hold on to yeah yeah does that help it does thank you so much yeah no it's um that's a very healthy conversation that we just had thank you for asking those questions and uh dialoguing with me about that yeah thank you i was another one of those people who was brought up catholic i remember at the time i was just beginning to experiment with alcohol and drugs and things like that and i've been brought up very strictly and i was very you know i said the rosary regularly i went to mass every day on during lent you know I was like, you know, real good Catholic girl growing up and I had this big faith in God and Jesus and Virgin Mary and all that kind of stuff. So, but when I got out into the big world I grew up in a small town when I get up to the big World then I started actually the thing that really shook me the most when I found out the Pope couldn't be a woman and that challenged my thinking. And I said, well, that can't be right now if that's not right what else is not right? And so I actually prayed this. I said, God, I wanna know from experience who you are or if you exist, not by being taught or told by somebody else. I said I want the experience. And until I get that experience I'm gonna suspend all belief. Set it aside. Yeah, I said no belief. I'm just a blank. Of course it's impossible to be a blank tablet but I was making every attempt that I could my 18 year old wow pretty conscious uh yeah yeah so and i never and then um it was almost eight years before i started coming into the program as a potential alcoholic and um also with food problems and i but at that point i had developed not because it hadn't been revealed to me, to my satisfaction. I was very hostile in that and I was hostile about religion. Matter of fact, when I first started coming to program I would not stand up during any prayers. Usually people they'll stand up and not say the prayer. Steve Winick Right. Anne McLean Holding hands. I was like off in the corner. Steve Winicks That's right. You have your integrity. Anne McLEan Hostile, angry, and defiant and so but one morning I would you know I was kind of waking and i was in a half sleep mode i had like my life flashed in front of me and i had been going to meetings and i loved them and i love that i loved addicts and alcoholics and i you know i loved the program i just it was that one hitch about the higher power but anyway so and i wasn't denial about being an alcoholic or an addict i just said there was a potential there and i was exploring it so i didn't become one but lo and behold i was already there right so um so in that half awake moment i had a i had to read you know my spiritual experience uh whatever it was but all of a sudden i was absolutely sure that there was a higher power no doubt about it you know just went from hustle like you know daughter to like absolutely there's a god also i at that moment i realized that my higher power had been taking care of me the best they could with the results or her whatever whatever it was that i was not trying to connect in any way and then the next thought is like i know what to do because i've been going to the program so i knew i had to do the steps get a sponsor you know go to 90 meetings a day you know whatever you know and i also at that point said i would be willing to do anything um to put my program ahead of everything but like now fast forward like 41 years um i sometimes think that um i don't know if my higher power is the same thing as god or an intelligent uh creator of the universe um i am questioning that god i know So, so somebody had to create this magnificent world and creation in life, you know, I'm just in awe of it. I live in a really natural world. And but I think sometimes that God is not perfect, much more powerful than me, much more intelligent than me and stuff like that, but not perfect. and that sort of human beings were an experiment and that uh and the reason i i think about the not perfect thing because especially now during it like you know the economy is tanking the plan is taking all these things are going awry and people are suffering being wiped out and then it's not because they don't have faith or connection to their higher power they're just randomly victims but a lot of people are suffering that have their wills wind up with the higher power well so you have a belief that if you're in alignment with your higher power you're not going to suffer no not going to suffer but the extreme suffering why would that be any different if there's a geological catastrophe or a mental illness or a physical illness or a pandemic why why would free will have anything to do with anything well why would god make the world that so that people would i'm talking about suffer unusually not like the humans suffering no you're just you're just making it all relative yeah what determines uh unusual suffering if in fact the tectonic plates were created by geology then when they move they're going to create earthquakes that's just what is and if human beings are created with free will but they're put into a body that has the potential of mental illness they're going to create genocide that's just what it is but why would god create the system like that well but you're you're saying why what is uh what is a what is free will if it's not free to be free then it's not free but so anyway wonderful questions we're going to stop here but we will have more of this kind of conversation because this is the kind of it's very relevant conversation in step two but you i'm asking you to challenge yourself with your concept of free will well i can see if they're free or it's not yeah but if i misuse my free will and i suffer because of that that's one thing but why is it other people would because you have free will and that's going to impact other people with free will that's why we have civilization and laws so anyway sometimes i think god made a mistake yeah i understand what you're saying experiment and we he needs to fix things anyway i also believe in more will be revealed all right excellent wonderful i see you're raising the the level of our conversation to these are very big questions and and that's very appropriate in steps two and step three all right and and you can answer them you you have to answer them yeah we'll be invited to answer then as we go through this process God just is, and I know that. And God created this world. I am part of it. I'm part of God. And God knows all the answers now. And I went on and on about all the things that God is, does initially i was saying a lot of he's and then i remembered really there is no gender um all the things about god and then in the middle of the week i started readjusting my beliefs were or are were and i really don't believe that um if i really believe that way i don't act the way god would want me to act and if i had all these beliefs why is it that he didn't spare me a little grief earlier in life and i was thinking it's the first time i could say it like this because wonderful these are really good reflections yeah yeah well it's taken a long time to even acknowledge that there was grief and acknowledge how i automatically act because of that grief and haven't changed so i'm a bit disenchanted maybe just enchanted with my all-powerful god or maybe disenchanted with your concept and not the reality so you make a distinction either your your reflections are wonderful just wonderful reflections continue that line of thinking and questioning and challenging it's just wonderful healthy for you but there is the word god and the word itself is just western civilizations symbol of the reality a reality by definition that can't be symbolized accurately because whatever it is that we're trying to figure out a word or phrase for by its very nature it's infinite having no beginning and no end that's what underneath the underneath the underneath value proposition is we can't even relate to that because we're finite we have a beginning and we have an end you cannot put the ocean in a bucket I'm a bucket God whatever that is is the ocean and it won't fit in my bucket now i can call it a bucket i can call it a barrel i can call it uh whatever thousand gallon whatever but it's also not never going to be big enough to handle the entire ocean by by by its own limitations i am limited and whatever this reality is that we're struggling to connect to is unlimited that itself is beyond our ability to adequately understand and that's what that's how the big book phrases it whatever our language is it's going to be inadequate but being human beings we choose a word we choose a phrase which are you we choose the concept and that says I call it the silver bullet of AA and the 12 steps is that it invites us to our own concept not Bill Wilson's concept not herbs concept what attributes and qualities do you need at this time in your life at this evolution of your own consciousness it's brilliant and then as Gandhi said our concept our concept will change as we do my concept has changed many times since 1988 when i began doing this work many times my concept of change gone from father to teacher to coach to healer to mystery currently the word i'm using is flow F-L-O-W. Just a very ambiguous term that captures for me what Bill is trying to say when he says the spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things. I mean, that's like a huge concept. The spirit ofthe universe underlyingthe totalityofthings. Goodness, what does that even mean i don't know but i spend some time meditating on it when i think of my different concepts i don' t know if the phone is right um my concepts don't work i have concepts they use i really want to think believe i have a concept that god's going to take care of me yeah well you know yeah you know right right there though there's trouble it's not god's job to take care of you it's your job to take care that's why you got free will nobody's coming god's not even coming god's not coming nobody's coming that was a sign over a psychologist's office here in los angeles nobody's coming how would you like to walk into that office yeah yeah because we're the ones each one of us are the ones we're waiting for god's not coming if there is this reality it is already here it's not coming. It's here. That's why Bill also says on page 53, God is or God isn't, God is everything or God is nothing. God is everything, or there is no God. Whatever this reality is, it's omnipresent would be the theological term. Omnipresent meaning all present that's why the step 11 doesn't say to reach out and make contact with god that's not what it says it says to improve our conscious contact we're already in contact that's that's the whole point of the decision here in step two a decision that there is this reality I think that I don't have enough connection with what this reality really is for me so I can make use words to describe what my concept of or what qualities I would like God to have at this time well let's challenge that what What do you need in a power other than yourself right now? A power to know that I'm loved and it goes back to being taken care of. Well, but love doesn't mean being taken care of my father and mother loved me in the best way they could, but they taught me to take care of myself. I was never really taught to take care of myself. And I also just don't have economic ability. The thing is, I just, I don't know what I want my God to have, what to compare quality. We're in step two. Again this is a teaching moment directly to you but for the benefit of everybody we're in Step 2 where did we just come from step one oh where I see all my unmanageability well so are you seeing I come from Step one where I don't have sufficient power in step two I guess one of the qualities should be sufficient power Oh right That I'd want God to have sufficient power. There you go. I want God to have sufficient power to be able to help me. Yes. And then in step three, what does it say? Made a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of God. So not only do I want it to have a sufficient power because of my experience with step two, but in anticipation of step three, I want it to be a caring power. yes what would it look like to believe that God has a power to take care of me what I'm grappling with that yes you are yes you're this is the line of reflection that I want to encourage everybody to have what it what does it mean care of turning my life and my will over to the care of God. When I get into my car, I know where I want to go. It's my car. I have the keys. I know how to drive. I know Where I want To Go, but I don't know how To Get There. So I put the address in the GPS, and then I listen to the GPS, and I turn over my directions to the GPS and I listen and take direction. Does that connect? It connects very much. Yes, my GPS is taking care of guiding me to where I want to go. and I connect, and then it goes into, so now what is it he is telling? God is telling me where to go. What is the response? God is giving me guidance, but if I'm low on gas, I better stop and get some gas. I have responsibilities to take care of the car. I have responsibility to know where I'm going to go, I have responsibilities to follow direction God's not carrying me to where I want to go the car is this is a pretty powerful sort of analogy and I'm really learning inside feeling now that there is that power certainly greater than myself so as long as I believe that then I could start believing the other it makes it more plausible to believe the other it makes it plausible and as we take the actions regardless of how we feel regardless of what we think as we take the actions following the direction we learn to trust it because we like the outcome and that and that then begins to give us confidence that our decision was accurate one of my teachers Richard Rohr says faith is the acceptance of that for which there is no evidence and once we accept it and behave accordingly the evidence appears yeah I know that's a lot that is a lot and we're going to spend several workshops going methodically through chapter four in the big book and revisiting all of these metaphors and and questions and dynamics that I've just discussed I've sort of given a Reader's Digest version of step twos process it's like all of these things because of our workshop is I'm becoming more aware of them I never thought about needing medication I didn't think about really being connected with myself or being connected with history and my which is why I was thinking well where have you been God now I have a different way to maybe he started I had kind of a conversation with somebody yesterday who really couldn't get the connection to God and suffering in the world. That's not the kind of God that she would believe there would be a God. There should be no suffering if there truly was a God, and we didn't have a lot of time to explore that but that's a huge question that's been posed by philosophers and theologians for centuries, and I have some experience or some thoughts on that at some point. We'll be talking about that during our journey in steps two and three. We're out of time now so I've got to bring it to a conclusion but it's been a wonderfully stimulating meeting. Thank you so much. Please join me in the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serenety to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and wisdom to know the difference.