Springtime in the Ozarks Big Book Study – Part 1 – Chris S. and Charlie P. – Eureka Springs, AR – 2010 — Chris A.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Chris, and I am an alcoholic. It's an honor to be here in Arkansas, and it's a special honor for me having the opportunity to participate in a big book workshop in Arkansas. And, you know, there's a reason for that. In my own personal experience, I truly believe that my life was saved by getting a hold of a set of tapes by a couple of people that lived in Arkansas back in 1991. And it changed the whole way I believed and the whole way I participated in my recovery. And so it's a special treat for me to be here today. And I want to thank anyone and everyone that was involved in making that crazy decision to ask me to come down here. Hi, everybody. I'm Charlie Parker. I'm a grateful, recovered alcoholic. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to be here with Chris. It's been interesting. Chris and I have done, Katie and I have done some big book study workshops around, and we've done a couple with Chris, but I've never done one with Charlie. And we're, he and I were doing the, usually it was me and Katie, and then Chris was giving talks on the nature of the disease. And so I'm really looking forward to this. I was originally slated to do this with my sponsor, Mark Houston, who passed away suddenly two months ago. For any of you that knew Mark, you know the kind of loss we're talking about. And it was a real blow to us and to the AA community because he was only 62 years old and had a, he had a stomach aneurysm. And I've never even heard of one before, but apparently when it happens, you've got about an hour to get your affairs in order, and that was the case. But he went out, he went out without a lot of fear. And the report I got was that he turned to his girlfriend and said, well, this is not the way we wanted this weekend to go, is it? And that was about the end of it. So that's the way this thing took, you know, it was going to be Mark, and then Mark, asked me to do it with him, and then Mark passed. And then, so I got to do it with Chris. And I'm very much looking forward to it. Chris, a lot of my learning, just like Chris was talking about, has come by way of CDs and workshops and listening to workshops and getting different people's takes on stuff. And I've spent a lot of time listening to Chris. And it was funny because we know each other pretty well, and we talk on the phone a lot, and I've listened to him on CDs a lot. And I was talking to him in the parking lot yesterday, and while he was talking, I remember thinking, you sound a lot like Chris Schroeder, you know, when you're here. But it's nice to be here talking. And Chris is from New Jersey, but he wanted me to tell you that half of his family is from North Carolina. So it feels like that gives him some street cred down here. He's not full-blown Yankee, you know, so go easy on him. What we're going to attempt to do is just go through the book and the steps out of the book and work in a program out of the book with some of our observations. My experience has been a lot. Katie is going to be speaking Saturday night, I believe, here at the hotel. And her experience is like mine, and we've had varying levels of involvement and understanding in AA. I've been sober. My sobriety day is March 22nd of 1985. I am truly grateful for that. I just picked up a 25-year chip a few weeks ago. And during that period, I've had varying levels of understanding and involvement with the big book and with AA and with what I thought AA meant. I've talked many times. I got to speak here last year and was able to talk a little bit about how there was a period of time where I didn't really understand that there was a level of AA going on out there that I didn't even know about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There was a lot more available in this fellowship than I knew about. So that's what we hope to talk about. One of the things I like to do, if you guys don't mind indulging me, I like to start off with a three-minute meditation, and then we'll start off with the set-aside prayer. So get comfortable. I want to reiterate, this is when we all join in brotherly and harmonious action, turning off our cell phones. So if your phone rings after this, there's a $1.46 fine, and Melissa will be collecting the fines and she doesn't make change. So, all right, here we go, three minutes. Let's just pause the CD. Please help us set aside everything I think I know about the steps, the big book, the fellowship, and even you, God, help me be available for a new experience. Please help me to see the truth. Amen. Amen. That's a little set-aside prayer that we work with a lot of times because sometimes, especially if you've been in this work for a while, sometimes what I think I know can stand in the way of the truth. I'll pick up my book and go, oh, yeah, oh, yeah, okay, yeah, sure. I like to read things and look for things that I agree with and then, you know, just kind of shine on the rest of it. But when I come across something I agree with, I go, oh, yeah, oh, yeah. See, I got that. I got that underlined and highlighted, you know, in my book. You can't tell me anything about that. And I think sometimes I've had, I don't know about you guys, but it seems like there's a lot of new stuff in that fourth edition, you know. They say they didn't change anything, but I've been seeing a lot of new stuff in there. And sometimes working with the set-aside prayer really helps me see that new stuff. Do you have anything before we get rolling? We're going to start off with, with step one. And we're going to bounce back and forth a little bit between the two of us. But, you know, and before we go any further, I just want to acknowledge the people that put this thing on. And if you've been around the country a little bit, you know that not every conference is like this one. There's something really special going on here. And the people that work to put this thing on, I know there's a lot of work that goes into putting a deal like this together. And. And if it's like the fellowship where we come from, there's also a lot of people that don't do a darn thing that have a lot of ideas about how it could have been done just a little bit better. You know, and they wanted me to tell you there's some committee positions available for next year. But I want to thank our host that picked us up at the airport. We've just had a great time. And we're really, really looking forward to this whole weekend. I was here last year and we just, this is a really special place. Well, Katie and I were very much looking forward to coming back here. And I'm going to wait until Katie gets back in the room to say anything sweet about her. The big deal that happened when AA hit the ground was, was three, a combination of three things, the way I see it. It was an understanding of the problem, an understanding of the solution, and a program of action that would bring about that solution. You know, and we've got a lot of examples of what happens when you understand, have the program of action and the solution, but you don't understand the problem, or what happens if you understand the problem and the solution, but you don't have a program of action that will bring about the solution. Page 26 and 27 talks about that a lot with Carl Young, where he said, you know, I've been trying to create this spiritual experience in a guy like you, but the big deal about AA was that we had all three things. And, you know, it's beautifully laid out in our book, this understanding of the problem, the solution. And the program of action. And we're going to try to talk a lot about our own experience this weekend. And before I go any further, I've got to, if some of you have heard this joke before, I'm going to go ahead and tell it because it's a good joke, and I like the way I tell it. But when we talk about telling our, coming from our own experience, it always reminds me, did I tell you last year about the guy with the talking dog for sale? This guy's driving along an old farm road, and he sees a sign. It says, It says, Talking dog for sale. And he can't stand it. And he goes up to the door, and he goes, You got a talking dog for sale? And the guy says, Yeah, he's around back. And he goes around back, and he says, So this hound dog's laying there. And he goes, So you can talk? And the dog says, Well, I certainly can. And he says, How did that happen? He says, Well, I started developing it when I was young. And as I've gotten older, I've picked up more and more of the nuances of the language. And he said, I've got to tell you, it's led to a fabulous life for me. And he said, I've had a, 18-year career with the Drug Enforcement Administration, and I was able to infiltrate some sites that no human agent could have ever gotten into. And beyond that, I've stayed in some of the finest hotels in the world. I've eaten in some of the world's finest restaurants. And even further, some of my pups have developed into international diplomats. And, you know, they're multi-language pups. But he said, All in all, it's just been a fabulous life for me. And the guy goes back up to the front of the farmhouse, and he goes, My God. And before he leaves, he tells the dog, he goes, It's been amazing talking to you. He goes back up front, and he says, How much do you want for a dog like that? And the dog goes, the farmer goes, I don't know, 40 bucks? And he goes, Why would you sell a fabulous dog like that for 40 bucks? And the farmer goes, None of that crap he told you is true. You know? Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha. So in AA, when we talk about coming out of our own experience, it doesn't really matter how good the story is if it's not my experience. We hope to not get up and say, Well, I don't have any experience with this stuff, but the way I've heard it described is, I don't know, I should get going. That's what we talk about, though. When it says for a message to interest and hold an alcoholic, it has to have depth and weight. That's a beautiful thing. The other thing that happens in AA is that identification takes place when one alcoholic talks to another one. On page 18, it says, Until such an identification takes place, little or nothing can be accomplished. It talks about, it lends some importance to that identification that takes place when one drunk talks to another. But all this problem-solution program of action is beautifully laid out in our book. What I'm going to try to talk about tonight, first of all, or today, first of all, is the problem. And the problem in alcoholism, the nature of the disease of alcoholism, and what we mean in step one. Because I spent a long time sitting in AA meetings raising my hand saying, My name's Charlie, I'm an alcoholic, and I really didn't know what it meant. I've stolen a lot of lines from Chris over the years, and one of the ones that I've used a lot is, he said, When I got here, I was in a lot more trouble than I thought I was in. And he said, And he said, And I had a lot bigger answer than I was giving him credit for. When I got here, I thought I was just in a little bit of trouble. I had to run a bad luck, and if I could just heal up for about 30 days, that would probably be long enough to get a key to the back door of my mother's house again. That would solve everything. Well, on page 20, and I'm going to do a lot of big book quotes, but I'm going to be hitting on them pretty quickly. But on page 20, it says, Doubtlessly, Doubtless, you are curious to discover how and why, in the face of expert opinion to the contrary, we have recovered from a hopeless condition of mind and body. When we talk about being a recovered alcoholic, I don't mean to sound arrogant. It's just the book uses the word recovered about 17 times, and it says it's not being immune from alcohol. It's having recovered from this hopeless condition of mind and body. So it might be interesting to talk about what that is. You know, my job, when I sit down with a new guy, and I love working with new guys. I love sponsoring people more than anything. My first job, when I sit down with a new guy that's coming into AA, is to give him what I call a fatal dose of alcoholism. I need to sit down with this guy and let him understand that it's not just about liking to party. You know, that what we're talking about is a serious fatal malady. And the book, the book does it beautifully. And, but you know, in Fred's story, up on page 42, there's a part where it says, they came to see him after a relapse. And he says they laid out the, they laid out the problem for him. What he says is they cited dozens of cases out of their own experience. And this, this process snuffed out the last flicker of conviction that I could do the job myself. That's what I'm trying to do with a new guy is have what I like to call a, I want to see this guy have what I call a step one experience. There's something that happens when a guy all of a sudden goes, or a person all of a sudden goes, my God, what you're saying makes a lot of sense. It explains a lot of stuff I've never been able to describe, you know, to explain before. What if I'm just a garden variety drunk? You know, Clancy likes to say that if he gave us all a flag the way, when we come in here, everybody's flag would say the same thing. It would say, you don't understand. My case is different. You know, and, and because we all have such complicated, complex stories, but there's something that happens when the person goes, my God, what if I'm a garden variety alcoholic? Because then this common solution becomes available for us. You know, the, well, the reason I say that is some of the, I like to go out to a treatment center and they're kind enough to let me come out every Monday and talk to these guys about step one. But some of the stuff you hear in treatment, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not a, I'm not a, but some of the stuff you hear in treatment centers gets me a little worked up. And of course, you know, I judge no man, but you know, but, you know, it's one of the things I heard a counselor say one time was that you, you work step one getting here, or you work the first three steps getting here. And that wasn't my experience. It wasn't Dr. Bob's experience. It wasn't Fred's experience or Jim's experience. I mean, over and over in the book it talks about them having to lay because we get here knowing we're in trouble. And we get here knowing that most of us don't show up here on a winning streak. But I didn't get here fully understanding what it meant to be alcoholic. You know, in the foreword to the second edition with Dr. Bob, it says he had repeatedly tried spiritual means to resolve his alcoholic dilemma, but had failed. He'd been in the Oxford movement for two years. So he kind of understood the solution. He had the idea that he needed a spiritual answer to this thing, and he even had a program of action, but he didn't understand the problem. And this guy was a medical doctor, but he didn't understand what we're dealing with when we're talking about alcoholism. And back in the forewords, it says, when the broker gave him Dr. Silkworth's description of alcoholism and its hopelessness, the physician began to pursue the spiritual remedy for his malady with the willingness. He'd never been able to muster. He sobered, never to drink again up to the moment of his death in 1950. This seemed to prove that one alcoholic could affect another alcoholic as no non-alcoholic could. This identification that takes place of one drunk working with another one is really significant. And we don't have a lot of time to get into singleness of purpose, but AA believes, and I believe in AA's singleness of purpose. And, you know, when I came in, I walked into a club that was having a big controversy over, um, drug addicts and alcoholics and that sort of thing. And, you know, it's, it's not that we're trying to exclude anybody. This identification is so important that we're desperate that this person find a fellowship that they're going to identify in like I do when I'm in a room full of alcoholics. Because if this guy never drank and I, and his counselor tells him, just go to AA and, and, and tell him you got a desire to stop drinking. He's never going to, he's never going to identify like I do in a room full of drunks. And without that identification, he may not be willing to take the, the, uh, directions and stuff that he may or may not yet believe in. But I like to tell stories. Um, you know, when I like to talk about what happens when that identification is not there. And when I was in treatment one time, I was in, I went through a treatment center and it was Christmas time. And this woman came, this, it was Christmas day. Now I'm a big boy now. I was even bigger when I sobered up, but, uh, it was Christmas day and they had this, they had turkey and dressing and cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and gravy and rolls and ha ha ha. And, and I got this plate of food and I swear to God, I was just sitting into my chair and the door swings open and in walks about five or six do-gooders from one of the local churches. They come to sing to us, heathen alcoholics. And, uh, you can imagine my excitement, right? You know, and, uh, and, uh, this woman, I see this woman and she's going along and she says something to this guy and then she leans over to this lady and she says something and then she leans over. She says something to this guy and I'm kind of watching her and she comes around to me and she says, um, are you a patient here? I said, yes, I am. She said, I know exactly what you're going through. And I said, really? She said, yes, I was once addicted to caffeine. And I said, Oh, ain't that a bitch? You know, let me ask something. Did you ever pawn your mom's sterling silver to get a can of Folgers? You know, I mean, I mean, bless her heart. She was trying to identify, but it just wasn't there. You know? I mean, and you know, so sometimes it's easier to see that identification when it's not there, but you know, If Silk Horse's definition of alcoholism was so important when they explained it to Bob, let's take a look at what Silk Horse said. First of all, I like to talk about what does it mean to be alcoholic? Does it mean I thought I was alcoholic because I'd been to jail, I'd had DWIs, I'd had relationships blow up, I'd been moved out of places I wasn't quite yet ready to move out of? You know, and all the things that happen to people that drink a lot, but it doesn't make me alcoholic, you know? I mean, I like to say that there's probably somebody that was at a party last night, had a few drinks, got pulled over on the way home. Is it possible that they could do that and get arrested for driving while intoxicated and not be alcoholic? Well, if that's possible, then it implies that getting DWIs doesn't necessarily, make me an alcoholic. That's just what happens to somebody that drinks a lot. My sister's not alcoholic. I could pour enough vodka in there to get her a DWI. I could, you know, but at the end of the deal, she would not be one of us because she doesn't have the two things that I have. I got two, I like to say I got two problems with alcohol. One happens to me when I drink it. One happens to me when I don't drink it. Other than that, I got a pretty good handle on this alcohol thing. You know? What happens to me when I drink it is this physical allergy. You know? I like to go about, I like to break down the book. And on Roman numeral 28, I say that because it's easier than saying XXVIII. But it's a heavy page. If you're doing a lot of work with new guys and treatment centers and stuff, this needs a page where we spend some time. Roman XXVIII. And it's a heavy page. And I believe it's XXVI in the third edition. But he says, So we're talking about chronic alcoholics, not little disco drunks. It says that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy. That the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class. What class? This class of chronic alcoholics, right? So it's saying that this craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. So if I've experienced this craving, there's one definition of alcoholism. It's saying it doesn't happen to regular folk. And, you know, but I like to break down what this said because a lot of this is strange language. I mean, I don't know about you guys, but in the bars I was drinking in, we never used words like manifestation. And phenomenon and, you know, that sort of chronic, you know, that sort of thing. But, you know, so really for manifestation, it just means the way something shows up. The book uses manifestation several times. The way something presents itself is this manifestation. And an allergy, for our purposes here, is just an abnormal physical reaction. If nine out of ten people take something and nothing happens, and that tenth person has a big reaction, that's an abnormal physical reaction. It's an allergic reaction. And then phenomenon just means beyond ordinary conception. Well, in the doctor's opinion, he says in this statement, we wrote back, it says in this statement, he confirms what we who have suffered alcoholic torture must believe, that the body of the alcoholic is quite as abnormal as his mind. It did not set, because we'd been kind of coming in thinking it was all kind of a mental moral issue. And still can't get it out. It's not. And so, you know, he says, and I think he was the first one to come up with the idea that we had a strange physical reaction to booze. And he says, it didn't satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking, just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from reality, or were outright mental defectives. That's my people, yeah. You know, but it says, this thing about an allergy interests us. It explains many things that we haven't been able to, to explain up to now. You know, because if you drink like I do, and had been for a while, you know, I grew up under the burden of potential. I don't know about anybody else, but I was told my whole life about all this potential I had. And my mother was a first grade school teacher. And so I did real well in first grade. But, kind of petered out after that. But I was told all this time about all this potential I had. And, you know, one thing I'll report is, 12 years of heavy drinking and use of outside issues will significantly lower people's expectations of you. You know what I mean? But by the time I got here, they were just like, just get a job, Charlie. You know, we don't care about an education or a career anymore. Just get off the couch, for God's sake. But if you drink like I do, you're used to people talking to you about your drinking. I had a lot of people that wanted to talk to me about my drinking. And, you know, they were, but it was never people that drank like I did. And it was never people that, AA was the first place I'd been around where people were talking to me about my drinking that understood the way I drank. And that knew, because, I think part of the reason we get here thinking we're moral screw-ups a lot of times is because I would always twist off at exactly the wrong time. Right when it looked like everything might be coming together, you know, and then just and the next day, people would say, you know, why did you do that again? You know, why did you start drinking again? And I didn't, I had the only answer any of us have when we get here, which is what? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. That's just what I do, you know. I just drink, you know. And I mean, well, this, that's what they're talking about when they say, well, it explains a lot of things we haven't been able to explain up to now because now, I understand it doesn't really help a lot, you know, if you relapse, it doesn't really help to go, well, Mom, it's like this, you know, I had a, I have a spiritual malady, you know, that, that has triggered a mental obsession, and, you know, but, let's just describe this allergy we're talking about, because, you know, I like to talk about poison ivy. Anybody else allergic to poison ivy? Me too. Me too, you know, and, and, and what's, so, how does my allergy to poison ivy manifest? Well, it manifests in a rash, and it itches like crazy, and if you scratch here, and then you scratch somewhere else, you got it somewhere else, and it itches like crazy, and that's, well, that's the manifestation of my allergy to poison ivy. Well, in alcohol, the way this allergy, my allergy to alcohol manifests is in a craving. In a craving, you know, in how many things? Let me work my way to feel like I can do this. I mean, in the hormonal world,이가 driving feel like you were driving that's the best feeling, you can take a sip, after I turn the apocalypse on. Eva has, this is the biggest. Effort we can work to the point that we lose this business. We'll go into the most advanced capacity we. There won't be a place under your name to buy a watch. You know? That's the revealing science of power. You're not going to get a watch, and if you don't, I ain't going to give you one. happened was I triggered this phenomenon of craving. And they call it a phenomenon because they don't really understand why it happens. They just know that it does. So when I go in and I have a couple of drinks, all of a sudden no matter what my plan was going in, I'm all about drinking. We'll drink through my paycheck and yours if you're in a good mood. Because what's happened is when I had a couple of drinks, it triggers a craving that's bigger than I am that I cannot overcome on my own power, this craving. Well, in the doctor's opinion again, he says men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. He says, I think that's a little understated. He says the sensation, the state of excitement is so elusive that while I admit it's injurious, because you're you're when it's elusive, you know, the quantity, when you get further down the road with this disease, the quantities and the qualities of alcohol start to move around a little bit. You know, I mean, it doesn't always do the same thing for me that it did last week, you know, and you know, you ever just have a few drinks and look up and you're falling down and you're going, my God, man, get up. People are going to think you're drunk, you know. You know, I can't always predict what's going to happen when I'm drinking, but it says after a while, I can't differentiate the truth from the false. Part of the way I can't differentiate the truth from the false is I'm the guy sitting in my sixth treatment center and I'm thinking in my mind that I'm fixing, you know, it's not like it looks. I know it looks like I'm alcoholic, but I've just, you know, been on a bad run and that snitch and that girlfriend and, you know, my real problem. And but I'm sitting in my sixth treatment center thinking that I'm fixing to get a handle on this deal. You know, even though I'm not drinking, I'm not drinking. I know there's nothing to indicate from my history or anything in the past 10 years that I'm fixing to get a handle on it. Y'all say fixing here, don't you? Okay. All right. It means we just talked in Vermont a couple of weeks ago and I had to go. That means I'm preparing to, you know, not not repairing, preparing, you know, not fixed doesn't mean to repair. It's to prepare. Well, but I mean, when I can't tell the truth from the fall, some of that, you know, is I usually don't see how far down the scale I've gone because it happens in little ticks. You know, I don't go from the way I was when I was 20 to the way I was when I got in here. It goes tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, downhill over a period of time. And over a period of time, I start compromising my values a little more. I started doing things that I didn't think I'd do before. And by the end of the deal, though, yesterday. Today looks a lot like yesterday and yesterday looks a lot like last week. And it and it just seems like I'm doing what I got to do to get by. But when it says my alcoholic life seems the only normal one, I love that one, because. When we talk about our alcoholic life being seeming like the only normal one, one of the things that one of the comparisons that came to me one day is here's a weird one. Did you know that most people live there? Entire lives without ever going to jail? Pretty strange. Is that strange? I mean, you know, I mean, if I was to call up my mother and say, oh, mom, I got to go take a U.A. because I, you know, for my P.O., because I got to do you. I she would have no idea what I was talking about, you know, for us. That's just. Oh, yeah, that's a bitch, man. You know. I say, you know, but but, you know, when it says my alcoholic life seems like the only normal one. By the time I get here, I just don't hang with people that don't drink like I do. And the other thing is they don't hang with us. You know, a normal drinker only drinks with one of us one time. You know, I mean, because we horrify them. You know, I mean, they're just. You're going to drink the whole bottle, you know, as if you'll hand it over. Yeah. Well, we're talking a lot about this physical allergy, but here's where it gets tricky. On page 23, first new paragraph on page 23. The book has been talking up to now about physical reaction to alcohol and the allergic reaction, the phenomenon of craving and that sort of thing. But he says these observations would be academic and pointless. And I like to translate academic and pointless to wouldn't mean squat. And. At the treatment center, I don't always say squat. These observations wouldn't mean anything if our friend never took the first drink, thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion. Therefore, the main problem in the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than in his body. Why and how? You know, this physical allergy, this this part of the disease, it's this one hand is a big problem. It's a it's a. Big problem. What happens to me when I drink vodka? But it's not my biggest problem, because if what happens to me when I drink vodka was my biggest problem, what would be my solution? Don't drink vodka. I mean, you know, Nancy Reagan's little just say no program would have worked great, you know. But for me. You go back to that in Roman numeral 28 again. Dr. Shookworth says that I am restless, irritable and discontented unless I can again experience the sense of ease and comfort. Which comes at once by taking a few drinks, drinks that I see other people taken with impunity. You know what impunity means? It means they don't get punished for it. You know, they get to have a couple of drinks. It doesn't cost them their car and their job and their wife and their house and their dignity. And their self-respect and all the values they grew up with. They just get to have a couple of drinks. And when I get that uncomfortable, sober, I start wanting to know where's mine. You know, I get to see these other people having a couple of drinks. I say I need some relief, man. You know, because and I start going, how come they get one and I don't? You know, when it says drinks, I see other people taken with impunity. That's a big deal. You know that that. Sense of ease and relief. Is the feeling I like to say it's it's it's the. Sensation that happens when this horrible psychic pain is leaving the body, you know, and that pain that I'm in happens stone cold, sober. This restless, irritable and discontent is not talking about when I'm drinking. It's talking about what happens when I stop. So now we're getting into the second part of this deal. My first problem with alcohol. Is what happens when I drink at this phenomenon craving. But when I don't drink it, I'm even in more trouble. You know, because when I stop drinking. My problems don't go away. You know, I mean, it feels like somebody turns the heat up on me. You know, and after a while, you know, because I like to say that my main problem wasn't that I couldn't stop drinking. I couldn't stop starting. Every time I would stop drinking, I would eventually start drinking again. And anyway, if you have. Had a hundred thousand foot view of me, you'd be able to predict within a day or two when Charlie's about to twist off, you know, just by watching, you know, where all of a sudden, you know, in trap, restless, irritable. You know, if I'm following somebody three miles past the exit to my house so I can tell them they're number one. That's not a good sign, you know, and, you know, because, you know, it was news for a lot of the guys in treatment and a lot of new guys when I say, you know, do you ever think about that? You know, I just every time I ever took that first drink that triggered that phenomenon of craving, I was stone cold sober. I make the craziest decision in my life. Stone cold sober. The decision to try to take another run at it, knowing that there's catastrophic results ahead of me. I make I get so uncomfortable sober that eventually that doesn't even seem like I'm doing something crazy when I do it. When I finally make that decision. That. To take that first drink. I'm in so much pain that it seems like a good idea. It may not even feel like I'm doing something crazy because by now my mind is gone. Come on, Charlie. It's not going to be like it was last time. And really, if you think about it, last time wasn't even really that bad. You know, I don't know why you checked yourself into that detox center. That was that was really hasty, you know, and, you know, you know, and that's, you know, that sort of thing. So, you know, what we're talking about is the second part of. Alcoholism, the mental obsession. The difference between my allergy to poison ivy and my allergy to alcohol is I have never one time in my 53 year life been out in the woods walking along and looked over and gone. Oh, I think that's poison ivy, you know, and off comes my shirt and just roll around in that poison ivy, you know, because. I don't have a mental obsession with poison ivy. In fact, if you show me what it looks like, I'll stay away from it. But but it ain't like that with alcohol, you know, because it says on page 24. The fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice and drink. I love in the I don't have written down in my notes, but in the paragraph above that, it says most of us reach a state where the most powerful. Powerful. Desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. You know, and most of us know, you know, the short form of the third tradition. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. It'll get me a front row seat in an AA meeting. A desire to stop drinking. But right there on page 24, it tells me it won't do a darn thing to keep me sober. There's a thing where it says the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. If you're a real alcoholic like I am, it doesn't matter how bad I want to stop. Eventually, I'm going to start drinking again. It says our so-called willpower becomes practically nonexistent. I am unable. This is key at certain times to bring into my consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of a week or a month ago. And it doesn't matter whether that's my suffering and humiliation or my family's suffering and humiliation, or anybody else's suffering and humiliation. It says I will not be able to call it to mind. I'm without defense against the first drink. We have lost the power of choice and control. There's a point in my drinking where I cross an invisible line somewhere where I've lost the power of choice and control. I can't choose whether I'm going to drink or not. And once I start drinking, I can't control how much I'm going to drink. I don't know when I cross that line. I think that's why they call it. An invisible line. But somewhere along the line, I cross this line. And I'm not going to tell the... I usually tell the pawn shop story when I talk about losing the power of choice and control. But the short version of the pawn shop story was that I used to love to pawn stuff. And usually stuff that didn't belong to me. And one of my plans was you had 90 days to get it all back out. And one day, you know, I went on a five... I got the money to get it all out. And I went on a five-day blackout. And I came out and I hadn't gotten anything out of the pawn shop. And I had to go to my father and say, Dad, if we act now, I can get you a pretty reasonable deal on most of your stuff. You know, but... But, you know, if we... And the point of the story is... It wasn't just going to the pawn shop. This was in Dallas. I live in... I live in Austin now. But we'd get in the car and we'd have to drive all over Dallas. You know, Buckner Boulevard, Beltline Road, East Grand, you know, out to Oak Cliff. You know, because stuff was scattered all over. And that whole time, I'd be riding with my dad, who was a good man. I mean, my dad was a solid guy. And I would have to say, Dad, I swear to God, I will never do this again. And, you know, a lot of us have had those days. And if I was lying to that man, I didn't know it. Because it felt like I meant it with every fiber of my being, that I will never do this again. But what I didn't understand was that I didn't have the power to make good on that promise. When we talk about... As far as I'm concerned, in the first step, as far as unmanageability, I like to talk more about general unmanageability in the third step. But... But in the first step, we can stop with just, can you manage the decision to stop drinking? Can you or can you not manage the decision to stop drinking? Because AA is not for people that can get in trouble and can make up their mind to stop drinking and pull it off. If you're a person that can say, by God, I have got to stop, and this time I mean business, and pull that off, you don't even belong in Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous is for people like... me, that swear to God I'll never do this again. And then I do it again. And I do it again, and I do it again, and I do it again. And I do it over and over and over. And that's what gets me getting here, thinking that I'm going to screw up. And I don't know about any of y'all, but when I first got here, I remember when they were talking about a disease, and I was like, it's not a disease, I'm just a screw-up. And if you don't believe me, that's my dad. You know? And... But this is starting to explain a lot of it. I could not manage the decision to not, to stop drinking. When I was promising him I'll never do this again, I might as well have promised him that I was going to stand up on this table and flap my arms and fly to the back of the room. Because I did not have the power, on my own, to make good on that decision. Well, let's go back to the... My life had become unmanageable at that point. Back to the doctor's opinion on Roman numeral 29. It says, After they have succumbed to the desire, again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, right? So the mental obsession kicks in, makes me powerless over whether or not I'm going to take that first drink. And then what happens when I take the first drink? The physical craving kicks in, and that makes me powerless over taking the second drink, and the third drink, and the fourth drink, and the fifth, and the next fifth, and the next fifth, you know? And what we're talking about is what the book describes as a terrible cycle. It says, And the phenomenon of craving develops. I pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution never to drink again. This is repeated over and over. And unless this person can experience an entire psychic change, there's very little hope of his recovery. When we're talking about this terrible cycle here, what I get into is I get into a place, if this is fully established, the physical allergy and the mental obsession, I'm going to drink until I have to stop. And then I'm going to stop until I have to drink. That's the terrible cycle we're talking about, is I get to a point where I can't stop drinking. I mean, I can't keep drinking the way I'm drinking, but when I try to stop, I can't handle the pain of that either, and I have to drink again. And that's the terrible cycle that the book describes, and it can go on for a long time. You know what I mean? Well, this is the first place in the book, where it mentions the solution. It says, unless this person can experience an entire psychic change, there's very little hope of his recovery. This is what we're talking about, this terrible cycle, when we talk about a hopeless condition of mind and body. It's those two things working together that make me alcoholic. And if I really believe in here, that I've really got that deal, then this solution gets really interesting. You know, it talks about the psychic change. You know, to close on step one, in my mind, step one drives everything. My step one experience drives me through the rest of my work, through the entire process. Twenty-five years later, I'm still driven by my step one experience, you know? And because we get into this place where, like, do I really believe that taking inventory has anything to do with whether I drink or not? Do I drink or not? Do I drink or not? Do I drink or not? Do I really believe that meditation has anything to do with whether I drink or not? Do I really believe that making these amends has anything to do with whether a guy like me drinks or not? And it drives me through the rest of the work. There's a thing that happens when a guy has what I call a step one experience, where you see it happen, where all of a sudden they go, my God, I think I've got it exactly the way you're describing it. And when it says it explains a lot of things that we haven't been able to account for, that's a big deal to that new guy. When I say my first job is to give this guy a fatal dose of alcoholism, there's no good news at the end of step one. I mean, you know, I mean, this would be a really sucky program if we brought a guy in and said, okay, here's the deal. Jay, you got a body that doesn't react regularly to alcohol. And when you start drinking it, you're not going to have any control over what happens. I mean, that's awful. But that's not the worst part. You've also got a brain that's going to get you drunk every time, every time, every time. Really sorry. Try to have a nice day. You know, I mean, but the book talks about the reason we can laugh about it is because we offer a solution. You know, there's no reason to lay out to a guy how hopeless his condition is if I can't give him a solution. But, you know. So what's happening? What's happening here is we rolled from an understanding of the problem, now we're rolling into the solution. But the thing about that step one experience is why would I give a flip about this power you're talking about if I still believe my power is going to get the job done? That's why it's so important to qualify this guy, to make, you know, talk to him about what it means to be an alcoholic and let him understand that he's got no shot at getting out on his own power. You know, on my own power, I got no chance. Trying to stop the disease of alcoholism with willpower and self-knowledge is like trying to stop a freight train like Chris is. It's like trying to stop a freight train with a butterfly net. It just, it's woefully inadequate, you know. So that's why the book, it's interesting that, you know, out of, all this is is the first 164 pages of a large print big book that a friend of mine gave me. And while I'm thinking about it, back in 93, they took out the circle and triangle out of the title page of the book. It's, nobody asked me my opinion about it at the time. But I wish it was still in there. And if you want, over the weekend, I've got a little rubber stamp here with the circle and triangle on it. I'm getting proactive here, you know. So. If you're bringing it to the table, you know, I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. I'm going to have to do it. Bring your big book up here. I'll, I'll, I'd be happy to stamp that in there for you. And one book at a time, you know. But, you know, back to what, out of the 164 pages of the big book, you know, really the, the bulk of the recovery part of the book is in the first 103 pages and in the doctor's opinion. And then there, you know, you've got the, the family afterwards, the chapter to wives, to employers, the vision for you. But out of that. The first 103 pages, the book spends about 50 pages talking about the problem. Because if you're a guy like me, you've got to come at me from every possible avenue of escape before, you know, I can't have any wiggle room. And then finally when I'm nailed down and I go on my own power, I got no shot. I got absolutely no shot. Then this other power gets real interesting, you know. And the book. The book gets interesting. The book gets interesting. The book talks about it in a variety of different ways. You know, it calls it a psychic change, spiritual experience, a change of heart at one point. It calls it a spiritual awakening. It calls it a personality change sufficient to overcome drinking. But what they're saying is that something big has to happen to a guy like me to remove this mental obsession. I don't believe that I'm recovered from the phenomenon of craving. I'm not, I love you guys, but I'm not going to perform the experiment. But if I was to drink four ounces of vodka up here, I think it would trigger the craving in me just like, you know, it would anybody else. But I have certainly recovered from the mental obsession to get loaded. I don't spend my days worrying about a pint of vodka jumping down my throat, you know. But I got to stay in this work, you know. But we're just getting into the solution and, you know, back one more time. I'm not going to do it again. I'm not going to do it again. I'm not going to do it again. Back one more time to Dr. Bob's story. It says, although he was painfully aware of being somehow abnormal, the man did not fully realize what it meant to be alcoholic. That's what a big deal it can be. When it talks about being an ex-problem drinker who's found this solution, who's properly armed with the facts about himself, can generally win the entire confidence of a new man in a matter of hours. Having an understanding of this deal can really help a lot when you're talking to one of us, you know, and we're going to spend, taking the time, and we're going to talk a lot about the chapter, working with others and that sort of thing. But it's not going to be interesting to me if I still think that my power will get the job done. But when I'm convinced, it gets really interesting. That's why it says, you know, they snuffed out Fred's last flicker of hope that he could do the job himself. So that leads us into step two and the rest of the work. You know, it just, because on page 24 again, it says, when this sort of thinking is fully established in a person with alcoholic tendencies, he has probably placed himself beyond human aid. So that's what we're going to roll into in step two. And I don't know, do we just roll right into it or do we take a little break? Why don't we take a break at, in about a half an hour. Can you all make another half hour before we take a break? I'd like, Chris is going to roll on into two and three. And for you smokers, I understand if you've got to step outside, but we've only got so much time to deal with this stuff. So I'm going to turn the mic, I appreciate you all listening so much. I'm going to turn it over to Chris now. Thanks. Thank you, Charlie. Step one is very, very difficult to fully understand. To fully concede to our innermost selves that we're alcoholic really is, it's biting off a big chunk. You know, in the mid-80s, I had recognized that alcohol was a big problem in my life. I recognized that it was causing a lot of trouble. I had many DUIs, many car accidents, families leaving, you know, friends saying they never wanted to be in my company again ever, you know, after last night. And, you know, all these other things. And I recognized that alcohol was a problem, but I only could recognize the tip of the iceberg. I just didn't, I couldn't fully concede to my innermost self that, you know, I was powerless over alcohol. I really thought that there were still choices available in my life. And, you know, just for me to share a little bit of my own experience and then move into step two, I want to just talk about, you know, about a typical day in, you know, somewhere in the late 80s, a typical Chris day. I would come to in the morning with the clothes that I was wearing the night before. I usually passed out on the floor. And the alarm would be going off. It's like 7.30, I have to be at work at 8. You know, I'd struggle up and, you know, go into the bathroom and do my vomiting calisthenics, you know, throw some water on my face and struggle out to the car. As I'm getting in the car, if I would have been pulled over driving to work, I would have blown the breathalyzer. And I hadn't had a drink in like 12 hours. You know, I drank so hard and so heavy, I'd usually be passed out completely by 8 o'clock at night. I'd get to work and I would be swearing I'm never ever going to drink again. Today is the day. I'm never ever going to touch this stuff. Again, I can't stand feeling this bad. And if you would have hooked me up with a polygraph expert, and hooked me up to a lie detector, and you would ask me, Chris, are you ever going to drink again? No. It would register that I'm telling the truth. Because I really, really was telling the truth. But what would happen is about halfway through the day, I'd get some, you know, I'd rehydrate a little bit, get about a half a gallon of liquid down, eat maybe half a sandwich. And as quitting time was coming, I would start to think, you know that decision I made earlier today about never ever drinking again? You know, that's a pretty strong position to take. That might even be an overreaction. I may have to modify that a little bit. You know, never ever drink again. As a matter of fact, you know, I should probably stop at the liquor store on the way home. And that's what I would do. I would stop at the liquor store on the way home and buy another fifth or another quart of vodka or whiskey, or whatever, you know, I was drinking at that point in time. And I would start drinking and I would get blackout drunk again. And this is the terrible cycle that Charlie was talking about. It's a cycle that some of us can't break out of. Some of us don't even know we're in it. Some of us are giving ourselves credit for decisions that we're really not making. You know what I mean? When it talks about in step two, it talks about restored to the spirit, restored to sanity. Now, the interesting thing is, is insanity, if you follow, if you study the root origin of insanity, you won't find it in the psychological or psychiatric, the mental illness. You'll find it in the legal. In the early, like 400 years ago in England, they came up with the insanity defense, basically because what was happening were people who didn't have the ability to have the mental capabilities of making decisions based on right and wrong, good or bad, were doing illegal things and then being put in front of the judge. And there were some real serious, you know, serious sentences that some of these people were being given. And the judges just couldn't, in good conscience, continue to do this because they could recognize that these people weren't capable of making the right decision. So the insanity defense was developed. And what it means is, it means you're not, you're not responsible because you can't make a decision based on sound judgment. And that's what happens with the alcoholic. They can't make a decision based on sound judgment because they don't have it, because they've got the obsession of the mind. And what that does is that, that looks like you're changing your mind and this whole not drinking thing is an overreaction. But it's bigger than that. It's bigger than that. An obsession is actually a thought system that goes to the top of the list. It goes to the top of the list. So if you have a thought system that says, I really shouldn't drink and, you know, get another DWI today, the thought that, well, I really should go to the liquor store and get some booze is going to go to the top of the list because it's an obsession. Now, almost invariably, alcoholics died, except in a few, in a few instances, in our history. There's been a couple of times where there's been types of solutions. There was the Washingtonians. But even more significant than the Washingtonians were the Oxford Group, the Emanuel Movement, the Jacobi Club. There were a number of these institutions around the turn of the century. And what they had in common basically was they were very evangelical in their operations. They were very, very fellowship-based. They were all about getting you involved and doing something every day, not just like going to church on Sunday morning. I mean, they really had you involved in community activities and prayer and Bible studies and just constant, constant activity. Now, a lot of these, a lot of these groups, like the Oxford Group, what would happen is if an alcoholic would stumble into one of these groups and get, get involved in whatever they were, they were asked to become involved in and really started to participate, they would sober up. And independently of each other, Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson were both going to the Oxford Group before they even met each other. Dr. Bob for several years, Bill for about, I guess about a year before they met. Now, the difference between these two was Bill Wilson was sober. Dr. Bob really wasn't. And if you look at the history, you'll see that he came late, he left early, he didn't share, and he didn't want to get involved. Okay, what, what does that sound like? Anybody in here sponsor? You know? And he wasn't, he wasn't staying sober. Now, Bill Wilson was a nut. He was up on the soap boxes witnessing, you know, out on Park Avenue. I mean, he was running around to the meetings, dragging drunks off bar stools, trying to drag them in. I mean, he was busy, he was active, and he was, he was staying sober. So these are, these are some of the things that they learned early on. Now, some, some of the people, some of the teachers that Alcoholics Anonymous have learned from, you know, one of them was, was Carl Jung. And when Carl Jung talked to Ebby, talked to Roland Hazard, he basically told him, look, I really think you're hosed. You know, you are an alcoholic of the type I was really hoping you were. If I was really hoping you weren't, you know, you, you probably better put your, get your affairs in order. You know, this is not going to be pretty. And, and he said, no, doc, you know, you got to have something else for me. You got to have something else for me. So, so Jung basically said, well, every once in a while, every once in a while, you know, alcoholics will wander their way into, you know, some really, really religious groups that are real participatory. You know, they, they draw you in. You know, and they get you really active. And every once in a while, you know, alcoholics will sober up. So really what I think you should do is find one of those organizations and join up. And that's what, that's what Roland did. He came back over to America and he joined the Oxford group and he was able, he was able to get sober. So, you know, we learned, we learned things from each of, each of these people. Now a lot of people, A lot of the spiritual processes, the religious practices of these groups, what happened in early AA was they started to recognize the things that worked, the things that worked and the things that helped to keep you sober. They recognized what those were, and the things that weren't really necessary, Bill Wilson and some of the other alcoholics kind of figured those out, too. And by the writing of the book Alcoholics Anonymous, they'd been able to take what was, in essence, a religious participation and turn it into a spiritual participation. And that's a good thing, because if the day I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous, somebody would have greeted me at the door and said, hi, my name is Harry, and the answer to that is, I'm a Christian. The answer we have in here is basically to devote the rest of your life to Jesus Christ or something. What I would have said was, I would have said, well, thank you for that information. That won't work for me. And I would have left, because I would have been absolutely convinced that it wouldn't work for me. Now, it very well could have worked for me and probably would have worked for me, but I would have been convinced that it didn't work. So they turned what really was religious practices and devotions, and they turned it into spiritual practices and devotions. And that really is a good thing. Now, the lack of power. Lack of power is my dilemma. Charlie talked a lot about what lack of power looks like. What lack of power looks like is the lack of power to be able to decide not to drink and have that really mean something. That is a problem. That's a lack of power. So I need to find a power. And it says in the book, we need to find a power by which we can live. We can continue to live. Now, how do we do that? How do we go about that? Much of the process of Alcoholics Anonymous is about finding that power. It's about accessing that power at a level that will enable us. To stay safe and protected from alcohol. That will enable us to be restored to sanity to the point where when we understand drinking is a bad option, we'll be able to act on that thinking and not drink. There's so much misunderstanding, especially in my area up in North Jersey. And, you know, I misunderstood a lot too early on. I really thought. That what Alcoholics Anonymous was, was it was a giant pep rally where we'd all get together and we would say, yay, yay, we don't drink today. Okay? And every single meeting is like a big football huddle where you get together and you huddle up and you say, okay, we're going to keep it simple. You know, it's first things first. It's easy does it. See you tomorrow night at the close minded discussion break. You know? And, and, and that's really what. And I think that's what I'm trying to do. And that's really what I thought it was. It needed to keep reminding me not to drink. I needed to be, I needed to be reminded. I needed encouragement. And you gotta encourage me constantly to not drink or I'll drink. Just keep encouraging me. Tell me not to drink, Charlie. I mean, I mean, that's really what I, I, I thought Alcoholics Anonymous was about because I still thought I had a choice. I still thought, you know, if you keep reminding me to choose not to drink, I won't drink. Until one day. I. I learned my own particular truth about, about my state of powerlessness. I had signed myself into 28 day treatment. Okay. Without any encouragement or pressure from outside. I really did it because alcohol got my attention and I wanted a lot of help. I got out of the 28 day. They said, go to AA. So I'm going to a couple of AA meetings. I'm going to a couple of outpatient meetings and I'm telling everybody I'm never ever going to drink again. Okay. I got this thing. I'm doing the AA. I'm doing the outpatient. I'm paying counselors. I'm, I'm in group, you know, sitting around in a circle doing group. You know, I mean, what more do you want from me? So, and one day I'm on the way to an AA meeting and the thought crosses my mind that, you know what would really help all this recovery stuff? For me to buy a gallon of vodka, drink it, it'll remind me just how bad drinking is. And I'll, you know, that this is, this is. This is good. This is going to really be great. So I bought a gallon of vodka and drank it to improve my recovery. And it dawned on me three drinks into this, three drinks into this. All of a sudden I go, oh my God, what have I done? I'm drinking again. You know, I opened up the cage door to the beast. I'm going to be dragged around like a rag doll for who knows how long. How could I have been so stupid? And the alcohol actually had returned me to sanity. The insanity was, was 90 days sober going to AA, going to outpatient, having put myself through treatment. The insanity was just, was, you know, putting the alcohol back in my body. Now I needed a power. You need a power that's greater than yourself if you're in this, in this kind of state. And I'm not saying that I'm not. I'm not saying that I'm not. I'm not saying that I'm not. I'm not saying that I'm not. I'm just saying that I am. And I believe, I believe that through spiritual living, through, through practicing these recovery principles and these spiritual principles, that leads us into a place where the power can manifest. And if I'm not participating in this spiritual living, if I'm not trying to practice these, these principles. the power doesn't seem to manifest. It's as simple as that. So what I did when I went back to Alcoholics Anonymous, I went back with a desperation, with a willingness born of desperation to do every possible thing I possibly could. And I got really, really involved in Alcoholics Anonymous. And then I was exposed to some people who talked about the solution. The solution is a relationship with a power greater than myself through the practice and the adoption of the spiritual living and instructions that are in this book. Now, okay, problem, alcoholism, solution, spiritual living, those really are the first two steps, you know, as simple as they can be explained. If I'm totally clear on I'm an alcoholic and I'm clear on what the solution is, the solution is participation in the spiritual life, then the next logical step would be to make a decision to engage in that spiritual life, to make a decision to participate in this work, in the instructions in this book. In this book, basically, is Spirituality 101, the main reason that I mirror the spiritual vision of spirituality. Now, at the moment that Holiday Island is going to end it is because it is so fast, it's so slow in making a decision to do. So that's the part where it gets going, and that what I've done with my audience, and that's how I've gotten over that adesso thinking. Let me propose that now. Let's troops it together. I think I'm really bright for what I'm doing, and to do what I'm doing, and to have that kind of life experience in life, and how do I make the decisions I'm making, where can I change them? But I'm not right. Sleep. My life's just confused. I know I need to engage in spiritual living at a really deep level, and I know I need to develop a relationship, a personal relationship with the power greater than myself. I know that I need to do that. There's a requirement that there's some things that I need to agree to as I move into the third step. One of them is to quit playing God. And another one really is to understand that by living from self, from living from a platform based on selfishness, self-centeredness, and self-seeking, I have created my own problems in my life. And I need to start looking at that. I need to start turning from basing all of my decisions and all of my momentum through life based on self. I need to start looking at that a little bit differently. So I need to stop playing God. I need to stop having an idea of what everybody should be doing at every given period of time in my life. What my boss should be doing. What my family should be doing. What my AA group should be doing. I really need to stop playing God like I have every single clue in the world. The funniest thing was I'm sitting in rehab thinking, when people start to understand how much I know about all this, they'll want to follow me. And I'm gathering troops together. I'm in a booby hatch. You know what I mean? And I'm expecting people to recognize the sheer genius of my perceptions about the world. And really, I need to stop playing God. And I need to start growing a little bit toward humility. And I see the third step prayer. You know, what I hear a lot of times in groups up in my area is, I do the third step every morning. And what they're saying is, they're saying that they do the third step prayer every morning. I believe that the third step is the decision to start living life along spiritual lines. That's what the third step decision is. And then the prayer is an affirmation. It's an affirmation that you've already decided. You've decided to live life along spiritual lines. And the prayer is an affirmation. And, you know, one of the things is, is we don't always do this whole thing really perfectly. And it's really great that we don't have to be perfect with all this stuff. Because if we needed to be perfect, there'd be a lot fewer of us in this room probably. But what we need to do is we need to keep trying. We need to keep trying. Now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, now, we're, we're alcoholic. We recognize the solution is spiritual living. We've made a decision, we've made a decision to go through the rest of these steps and to grow, and to grow and broaden and deepen our relationship with the power that's greater than ourselves, that has enabled us to overcome alcoholism and will enable us to overcome a lot more of our problems, if not all of them in the future. We're not going to be able to overcome alcoholism. We've made a decision to do that. The first place we really need to go then is to take a real close look at just what we're doing in our lives. We need to inventory our grosser handicaps. We need to identify the causes and conditions of our failure at life. Why have we failed at life? Why have we been coming from a place of selfishness, self-seeking, and self-centeredness? What is going on? What is this alcoholism? What is the unmanageability? What's the unmanageability inherent in alcoholism after the dash? What does that look like? How is that presenting? How is that presenting in us? We need to start understanding what's going on so that we can move forward. Should we? Should we? Should we take a break and then you can? I think we can stand. Our goal is to try to be through the first five steps by lunch. So this afternoon we can talk about 6, 7, 8, 9, and we want to spend a lot of time in 10, 11, and 12. What do you think? 10-minute break? 10 minutes. We'll be back in here. All right. Nice job. Started settling back in. What a bunch of drunks. That 10-minute break was what? 20 minutes? 20 minutes? You know, while we're settling back in, the thing about that circle and triangle, are we taping yet? Okay. The thing about, and that's the most business I've ever gotten out of the circle and triangle stamp. That was pretty cool. But, you know, there was a time, and I hope that we get to talk about this a little bit, but the other thing I've got to warn you is that I've got some pretty serious ADD. I've got some pretty serious ADD working up here, and when I tell you we're going to get back to something later, we're probably not coming back. You know, so I'm going to go ahead and say it now, but that circle and the triangle, you know, used to be the symbol of AA when I came in, and it's still used, but it's not as recognized, because they took it out in 93 because of some controversy, and they were suing some people and spending money they didn't want to be spending, getting involved in outside controversy they didn't want to be involved in. And there's varying levels of, you know. There's a conspiracy about how it happened or whether it should have happened, but that's basically the short version of what happened. But we use that circle and triangle a lot in my lineage as a way of checking in, because you've got unity on one side, which is the fellowship governed by 12 traditions. You've got service on the other side, which is service, and it's governed by the 12 concepts of world service. And you've got recovery at the base, which is governed by the 12 steps. So you have 30 steps. You have 36 spiritual principles governing all three, you know, that make up the circle around the triangle. And there was a time in AA when I was really doing one side of the triangle, but I was hoping for the results of doing all three, you know. All I was doing was fellowship. I wasn't doing any service. I wasn't really active in the steps. So in my lineage, a lot of times we'll check in with the circle and triangle. You know, if we sit down at the group sometimes, we'll go, where are you at with the circle and triangle? Mark used to, you know, when I'd call him, he'd go, So, sorry, it's only been a couple of months since Mark died. Part of the way he would have you check in was to say, where are you at with the circle and triangle? And in a very short amount of time, you could give him an idea where you're at. You know, I could go, well, in unity or in a fellowship. I've only been to about three meetings this week. And in service, I went out to AR on Monday, and, you know, I'm doing this and that. I'm sponsoring 15 guys or whatever. And then in recovery, doing okay, except for, if anything, I've probably only done about two or three evening reviews this week, and I'm a little short on that, you know, or something like that. And in a very short amount of time, using the circle and triangle, we could get an idea where we're at. So that took a lot longer than I intended for it to. But that's the whole reason I'm subduing. I'm not too big on the circle and triangle. And we're going to keep it up here. If anybody wants to get their stuff stamped here. Somebody left some notes up here. Oh, talking dog joke, it starts off with. Okay. Chris is going to continue with step three now. You know, it's just easy. The alcoholic is almost, you know, pre-dead.zdn to become lazy and to not be diligent about the disciplines that he currently has a task. That's the trick. Everywhere has got to be a little bit extra stuff. Tip number two, look at the screen. That's the book with me.