Step 1 — Powerlessness – Free D. – FOTS 2016

I'm Jeff I'm an alcoholic this is my favorite time of year every year and y'all have been like family to me for a long long time and you guys are certainly the bright spot of my life and I and I'm honored to be a part of this conference for sure hi my name is Jeff I'm an alcoholic and a member of the worldwide fellowship of um well alcoholics anonymous are we supposed to say the serenity prayer twice do we do we okay all right skip it um I want to remind you all that this is a family-centered conference uh that being so we ask that you refrain from using profanity while sharing by group conscience the fellowship the spirit conference does not close each meeting with the lord's prayer instead we encourage that the entire conference be tweeted be treated with an attitude of continuous prayer and then we will say the lord's prayer together at the close of the conference on sunday uh boy I'm yeah I'm not reading the right part of the paper so um uh what what I am supposed to read though is the anonymity I'm like I'm jumping all over it's cool it's cool I told Mike to fix any here thing here nothing really needs fixing except me so so we'll just we'll jump into the anonymity statement um there may be those present who are not familiar with the a's and alanon's tradition of anonymity so I'll read the following anonymity statement our anonymity like our sobriety is a treasured possession we ask the help of our guests especially those representing the press or broadcasting media in protecting the anonymity of all alcoholics or alanon's present and our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion we need to always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press radio tv and film thus we respectfully ask that no a or alanon speaker or indeed any a or alanon member be identified by full name or photograph in published or broadcast reports of our meetings the insurance of anonymity is essential in our effort to help other problem drinkers who may wish to share our recovery program with us and our tradition of anonymity reminds us of the importance of anonymity and the importance of a and alanon principles come before personalities we hope you hear something at this meeting which you can take away and use we respectfully request however that you eliminate any mention of names in reference to members of alcoholics anonymous or alanon and so the format for our step one panels we're going to have three speakers speak on step one and then we will take three minute comments from the floor when they're done and wrap up in the usual way and I'd like to introduce our first speaker um mike take it away I feel really tall up here I just want you to know my name is michael I am alcoholic and uh grateful to be here uh thanks for having me uh heather and and mary and jeff for putting this uh conference together and having me come up here and uh this has been one of those conferences that I always uh I wanted to go to is I've been hearing about the fellowship of the spirit for about seven years and I've been hearing about the fellowship of the spirit for about 16 years and and um so it's great to be here I guess it's uh better late than never and um my sobriety date we do this in texas uh is january the 15th of 2003 and since I had lost the power of choice I did not know that was going to be the last day that I would drink or use any other mind-altering substance um there have been many times that I needed to or wanted to but found that I couldn't on my own power do so um you know when when I was jeff finally informed me about uh speaking on the allergy I you know I didn't know I was going to be the first speaker but I guess that's the way the book goes right um goes in order um I think it's one of those things that is especially with our young people in recovery and there seems to be a lot I was a young person I was 24 when I finally I got permanently sober um I was 20 the first time I came into Alcoholics Anonymous I think it's one of those things that they just by sponsoring a lot of people and I think it's really difficult to grasp and comprehend and that sort of thing I think because um maybe it's just periodic maybe it's the time and the way it's changed but I find that a lot of guys um just kind of struggle with that allergy piece but ironically enough it was probably the first thing that I ever read in Alcoholics Anonymous I don't know if you had people around you in Alcoholics Anonymous like I did when I showed up here that kind of made uh my life and what was going on with me their business you know I mean it was just a very very long time ago and the biggest thing that I had to deal with was when I went to the doctor's office and they had to put some sort of a stop sign in it that said XBII and they would just put a piece of paper in it that said XBII and I couldn't use it because I was just so shocked I couldn't use it I could just use up and it tell me to get a sponsor and I finally realized what a resentment was it just seemed like everywhere I went they'd say you got a sponsor yet um but they had they would do things like crack open the big book and have me read and I remember them sitting down and having me read this part on xxvii and the doctor's opinion And when you talk about the mental aspect of alcoholism, there's another piece that threads into it that maybe I don't hear, but I feel like we don't talk about enough. And so it says, we believe, and so suggested a few years ago, 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 and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. And once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. And then at the bottom of the page, it talks about men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. The sensation is so elusive, while they admit it is injurious, they cannot after time differentiate the true from the false. So their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are restless, irritable, and discontent. Unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort, which comes once by taking a few drinks. Drinks which they see others taking with impunity. After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, the phenomenon of craving develops. They pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink again. This is repeated over and over and over and over and over. Unless this person can experience an entire psychic change, there's very little hope for his recovery. So, allergy. Um, along with the effect, I think, it's, I don't drink for craving, I don't drink for allergy, I don't, that's not the reason why I drink. I drink because the effect produced by alcohol is one that gives me satisfaction. It, it makes everything in the world really line up to the way I think it should line up. Um, it, it, and what happens is, is that I have this unnatural reaction to alcohol. That's really what that allergy is, right? Unnatural reaction. Unnatural reaction, which the symptom of that, or byproduct, or what have you, uh, is craving. And what is craving? Craving is that, which, when I start to drink, I can't guarantee how much I'm going to drink. So, you hear this thrown around a lot, and you hear this, you know, the term allergy or craving thrown around a lot. You hear it when people quit smoking. I quit caffeine about two days ago. Um, why would you do that? Um, and so, I have, you know, craving only begins. I think this is the other thing, because we hear it so much, and I don't know if it's, you know, I work in the field, so I can talk bad about it. But I don't know if it's the treatment field or whatnot that gets this idea in which that craving can occur when I'm five months sober, right? It's not one of those things. It, it, it says that the action of alcohol, the byproduct of that, which is this, this unnatural reaction, which is craving. Here's, here's my first experience I ever had at craving that, that I can recall. I had my first drink when I was six and that sort of thing, but that doesn't, you know, I didn't, it wasn't. It was a time in which I can recall where I was when I had it. I mean, I couldn't tell you what I got for Christmas or my birthday, but it was a significant place. And I believe that my life has changed since that time. But the first time I can really recall having craving was my friend David St. Pierre had some Kahlua, and his parents were gone. He was like, hey, man, I got this alcohol. It goes really good with coffee. We can mix Kahlua and coffee together and drink it. And so, we went downstairs. I remember we brewed a thing of coffee. And we put, you know, a bunch of coffee in it, put a little Kahlua in it. I tasted it and went back downstairs and put a little less coffee in it, a little bit more Kahlua in it, right? Get where I'm going? And then it became like, screw the coffee. Let's just, you know, have the Kahlua. And so, that in itself is that the effect of alcohol started to take place. I can't gauge how much of that effect I need. That's the thing. That's the thing about the allergy and the effect, you know, working hand in hand. And here, the other thing that... And I know this because I don't get it in other things that I enjoy, right? I could just say, well, I enjoy drinking and I want more of it, right? But I... And I don't do this any longer. My diet has kind of changed. But I grew up in New England and there's a thing called Dunkin' Donuts. I loved, at 9 o'clock in the morning, a bagel with cream cheese from Dunkin' Donuts. I mean, I looked forward to it every morning. But I never found myself locked up in the county jail with cream cheese all over my face, wondering how... How I've gotten there, right? Now, there are other 12-step programs where that may occur. This is not that 12-step program. So I can talk to my wife. She knows about those other 12-step programs. So it's one of those things in which I have no mental control over. I think I change my mind. When I'm going to go... Not everybody does this, right? When I'm going to go to the strip club and watch the girls dance and just have a couple of drinks, and I end up kind of having a couple of drinks and everything gets illuminated. And I get loose and arrogant, thinking they're staring at me, wanting to go home with me at the end of the night. There's that effect along with that. And I just kind of change my mind that I'll have more alcohol. No, that wasn't what was happening. What was happening is that I would start to drink, the effect takes hold, and I can't gauge how much of this effect that I need to continue that. Because I want to keep going. Now, I may... It's not like every single time I ended up in jail or any of that. Those are occupational hazards. Those are going on. If you live the way... If you live the way I lived and went to the places I went, that may happen to you. But that occurs. It's the thing that brings us together that's a common theme that doesn't matter if you're a weekend warrior or you hold down a job, a professional job, and you're drinking, and you're hiding balls all over the place and that sort of stuff. The way it manifests itself is different. But the key point of it is that I have this unnatural reaction to alcohol that allows me to not have physical control and that my mind is no way to talk myself out of it. I can think about it. I can know, you know, in times that it's probably not a good idea to go to the job interview at 7 in the morning, hung over and continue to drink. Like, I have that kind of logic that will occur, but I cannot stop myself or not show up at all. There were many times, and it breaks that down in the doctor's opinion, in which it breaks down different situations in which this kind of occurs. And it ends, and I'll end with this, that it says that there are many situations which rise out of the phenomenon of craving which cause the man to make... extreme sacrifice rather than continue to fight. And I think that this was, you know, it's the... At first, when this book was published, it was something that was theory, right? But our abundant experience in the rooms, we can put that together collectively and know that absolutely that Dr. William Duncan Silkworth was on to something when he talked about this craving and that the alcoholic picture is incomplete without that. But that in itself, again, and I say this to the guys that I work with, the allergy in itself, the craving in itself is not that which I go ahead. I just want to drink and not be able to control my drinking. No, there's an effect. There's something magical that happens with alcohol when I start to drink that goes alongside that craving, which allows me to go to places and do things that I normally would not do or don't want to do. That's all I got. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Aaron B., and he is from Tucson, Arizona. Please help me welcome Aaron. You've got to be timely with these things. Okay, here we go. All right. My name is Aaron, and I am an alcoholic. Aaron. Oh, it's good to hear that. It's good to be here. I am from Tucson, Arizona, but I'm also from baby land, where four hours of sleep and not smelling like curdled milk is a blessing. So, I'm just putting that out there right now. So, anything that I say up here, if it goes, if it tanks, it's not on Jeff, it's not on anybody here, it's the baby's fault. No, I'm just kidding. My wife and I are exhausted. She'll be speaking later this weekend, and that's her. That's her excuse, too, if it goes down, so. Anyways, all right. So, here we go. I was asked to pick a paragraph out of There is a Solution, and talk about it here with you today. And there's so many good things in there. I mean, there's two whole paragraphs that are italicized, you know, and I'm going to try to share about one, maybe get to the end. Maybe get to the other, but probably end up way over there, wherever the power would have me, you know? So, I want to read the paragraph that I chose, and that was essential in my sobriety for two reasons. It helped me identify as an alcoholic, certainly, like, for sure, without a doubt, I belong here. And when it finally hit me two years into my sobriety, I felt at home. I've felt at home ever since, you know? A little crazy sometimes, but I know that I need to be here. I know that I'm with my people. So, the paragraph is, The fact is that most alcoholics, for reason yet obscure, have lost the power of choice and drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically nonexistent. We are unable, at certain times, to bring into our consciousness, with sufficient force, the memory of the suffering and humiliation. Of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. Now, in my drinking, I started drinking when I was about 16 years old, and I got floored from the first time I loved it. But in that same chapter, they talk about a couple different types of drinkers. They talk about this moderate drinker, they talk about a hard drinker, and then they talk about this real alcoholic. And at some point in my drinking, from 16 to 24, 24 being when I got sober, finally, I crossed this line, and I became this real alcoholic. When I first started drinking, like I said, at 16, I'd maybe go a week, you know, and not take another drink. And really, it was just partying with friends. It was okay. You know, and that fast forward to when I was 21, and figured out that walking to the store at 6 in the morning, I was that kind of drunk. You know, it was much easier than going and getting these, I don't know, outside issues, drugs. I don't know what the right thing is to say in AA anymore. You know, it's like a new, it's a new kind. It's a new kind of word every few months here. But, you know, it was, it's much more simple to just go walk down to the store and buy a 40 and dip into the alley, like Mike here was saying, and just feel that breath of fresh air, right? But something wasn't adding up. You know, I knew that I wasn't living like everybody else was living. You know, I knew that, you know, my excuse, I was like, oh, I'm just taking a year off from college or whatever, you know, but I'm like 23. Like, everybody's graduated, you know. Everybody I told that to, they're all doctors now, you know, and it's like, there is a disconnect. So, not being stupid, I realized that there was something going on here, you know, and there was a time in my life where I looked in the mirror and I said, you have to stop. You must stop. It was fun, but this isn't fun anymore. I can't do this anymore. This is not who you are. Why do you keep drinking? What is all this? You know, and these type of questions. Look right in the mirror at yourself. You know, and I could never not take that first drink. Not one bit. The experience was entirely clear where, while I did not end up with cream cheese on my face in the county jail, I ended up in there for six months at one time. And my grand sponsor at the time, Leo, down at the little house, he put it perfectly. You know, he would tell this story. I think, you know, I even think I remember him saying his sponsor told this story. You know, we were just like the county jail crew or something like that. And, you know, I'd be sitting in there. I'd be sentenced to six months. I'd be playing my cards. I'd get healthy, doing my pushups. And it would be crystal clear that I was there because of my drinking. Without a doubt, that time and every other time I spent time in county, I knew why I was there. It was because I drank. And when I drank, as Mike put it, something happened. I couldn't stop drinking. I ended up all these crazy places. So if I just stopped drinking, everything will be okay. Everything will be all right. So I'd be in there, and I'd spend my six months in county jail over at the mission. Just like my grand sponsor told it, it was like walking through a magical vortex. You know, they would call my name. I'd go from the back into the front. I would go to my locker. I'd open it up. I'd take my dirty clothes. I'd put them on. And my buddy, Scotty Vickers, would come and pick me up. And the mission is on the west side of town. So I would get into the car with Scotty. And by the time we got to the east side of town, over at Broadway and Kolb, I was ready to have a drink. Something happened in that short ride where there was like a twist. I could not bring into sufficient force the suffering, the humiliation of 12 hours ago. You know, being in the county lockup. You know, so by the time I'd get to the other side of town, I was ready to have a drink with Scotty Vickers. And the thought, subtle, would be, you know what? Here's what happened, man. If you didn't roll through the stop sign, the cop could have never have pulled you over. And if he never pulled you over, he would have never found the warrants. And if you never would have found the warrants, you never would have had to run. And you know our stories never end. You know what I mean? They never end. They never do. And I could, the rest of the time, with just that one story. So something would happen. And I would go over to Scotty Vickers' apartment and, you know, drink High Life because we were fancy. And I'd take that first drink. And then I think Mike summed it up best. You know, what would happen next? You know, is that, well, I'd be off to the races again. And I didn't know where it was going to end up. And, you know, I had to have some sort of shift. My solution is a shift in Alcoholics Anonymous. Mike talked about a psychic. Psychic change. Dr. Young talks about the ideas, emotions, and attitudes being set aside. A completely new set of conceptions begins to dominate them. That's what he was trying to affect in his patient. You know, this emotional huge rearrangement. And I could never do that on my own. You know, I thought, see, I was like, you know, talking about school. I mean, I love math. I love equations. You know, but I could never make the right equation. I could never date the right girl, plus get the right apartment, plus do this exercise and stay sober. It never worked. The sum was always forgetting my consequences of the last time I drank. You know, and so, of course, how do we have this, how do we have this psychic change? Well, that's what the steps are all about. You know, that's what the experience is all about for me. You know, in different places, you know, things just kind of chopping off, chopping off. Get an experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. They call it many different things. A profound alteration in the reaction to life, a spiritual experience, a psychic change. It goes on and on. And a wise man once told me, maybe it was my grand sponsor now, he said, the big book doesn't say a million things a few times, it just says a few things a million times, you know, over and over and over throughout the book. It's like, look, this is who I am. I am a hopeless alcoholic. I need to have a psychic change. I need to have this shift. And then I go forward throughout the rest of the steps, which we'll be hearing about all this rest of the weekend. One thing I did want to share about this chapter and what I mentioned at first was my experience two years into Alcoholics Anonymous is when I finally realized, I heard my sponsor say that for the first time, that idea about walking through this magical vortex, you know, and me feeling like I was at home. But I was two years sober at the time. You know what I mean, I was sponsoring guys, I had been making amends. You know, I was doing stuff. You know, I was plugged in, you know, as we say. And so what's that all about? It's that Alcoholics Anonymous accepts me exactly as I am, exactly who I am on any given day, and it's absolutely perfect. There is nothing wrong with it, and there is always room to grow. Later on in the book, it says, you know, God is a broad room. The room is, here I go. I can't even quote. Can you help me out? It's on 47. Broad, roomy, and all-inclusive. All right. Okay, well, that's good. Okay, so it's broad, roomy, all-inclusive, right? And that's, see, baby land, right? I mean, come on. Baby land. So broad, roomy, and all-inclusive. And what that includes is my experience in Alcoholics Anonymous. It's okay to be two years sober and have that onion peeled back like that and still be sponsoring a guy. It's all right. It's okay. You know what I mean? And the last thing I'll say and kind of wrap up with is that, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous hasn't asked me to do anything on any given day that I couldn't do from the beginning, you know? And so what that looks like, whether it's reading in the book or getting into this, and the reason why I mention this is at the beginning of the chapter, it talks about, you know, alcoholism affecting people of all sorts of races and creed and social status and this and that, is that AA's never asked me to do anything. I couldn't do on any given day. You know, when I was at the Detox Center and I was first starting, the thing I heard was get to a meeting. And I was able to do that. You know what I mean? I was able to get to a meeting. They gave me a bus pass when I got out of there. You know, when I got to a meeting, I was fortunate enough to get around some good AA. I heard get a sponsor. And I got a sponsor. And then he told me to read in the book, Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. And slowly but surely, this sort of snowball effect started to happen, you know? And underlying that whole idea of alcoholism, you know, that whole thing, the totality of all that is that experience, that shift, and, you know, the psychic change, the ideas, emotions, and attitudes, which are the guiding forces of my life, were set aside and a completely new set started to dominate me. And those came from a power greater than myself. You know, we'll hear about that later on this weekend as well. So I think that's all I want to say. And I really appreciate being here. I've never been to Fellowship of the Spirit. This conference was so key for my wife and her. She came to us for early sobriety. And now we come to you with two children living lives we couldn't even imagine, you know? So thank you all for being here. Thank you for having the conference. And that's it. All right. And our last and final speaker on our Step 1 panel is Deb S., and I believe she is from Omaha, Nebraska. Am I correct? Okay. okay is this all right okay hi my name is Deb I'm a grateful member of Al-Anon my home group is Sunday night Benson and it's a big group full of recovery double winners and the big book is welcome in our meetings yeah and I think that's really important so I was I was asked to speak on the bedevilments and so what I was taught to do is if I don't understand a word is to look it up so I sort of thought I knew the word but here it is for those of you who maybe didn't look it up today in a dictionary it's a verb from British beginnings that means to torment or harass maliciously or diabolically as with doubts distractions or worries to possess as with a devil or bewitch so in our book it talks about bedevilments and the way in which it discusses them is to I did have them here just a moment I had this all worked out on my iPad and it crashed right before I came in here so I borrowed someone's book thank you so much and I am just looking for the exact wording in this book which I thought I had I apologize I know it's not on page 52 in this book though okay what I'm gonna do is not read it as it is in the book I did write them down so the first one is personal relationships I wasn't very good at that before I came to the program I grew up in an Italian Catholic family in New York we are not part of the Mafia and I'm usually asked that in the Midwest so and there was lots of physical and emotional abuse in my family and the result of that is that I didn't really have much self-esteem or self-worth and so believing that I wasn't good enough I spent most of my life trying to please other people I could tell you a different story but I didn't have much self-esteem or self-worth and so believing that I wasn't good enough I spent most of my life trying to please other people I could tell you a exactly I could make my father's coffee just the way he wanted it I could make my mother's coffee just the way she wanted it and I worked very hard to please other people and obviously when I was young it was my parents you know I became a very good caretaker at a very young age because I'm the oldest of three and if any of the children got in trouble it was always my fault so I tried very hard to kind of keep people in line so yes I'm a rule follower yes I didn't have nearly as much fun as many of you speak of as I was growing up so and I guess that's okay that's just who I am and you know my dad sat me down at a table and he said your mother and I are getting divorced and it's all your fault so that was kind of my life just so you know that that was kind of it everything was my fault so I naturally took on a lot of stuff that wasn't my business really and I didn't know that and I didn't learn it and I just thought if I worked harder or did things better then it would be okay so the way the disease of alcoholism manifests for me is it's a disease of perception I have every aspect of alcoholism except the physical craving okay chocolate sugar maybe but not alcohol it's just not there for me so my perceptions as I grew up were so skewed and I had no idea and I didn't know it until I was much older I'm a nurse practitioner and one of my first jobs I was a public health nurse and I didn't know until I was a public health nurse that what happened to my home was abuse I just thought it was normal it was natural I didn't know and so many years later then I'm trying to deal with the effects of this so what does that mean it means I'm not very good at personal relationships which is only the first bedevils so I'd better hurry me I absolutely could not control my emotion you know controlling my emotional nature I was very sweet around everyone and I was very nice and I was very pleasing I would very accommodating I wasn't dormant know and I didn't know any better and it didn't make me happy and I didn't speak my mind so when I had had enough I would have these huge emotional outbursts I would slam doors I would slam cupboards when I was married I would throw things not really at a person all the time but sometimes no really I never did throw anything at him I did however knock over his bookcase I mean because that made me feel better for two seconds that's all two seconds so I had to learn I mean I was seething inside and I had to learn what do I do with this you know how do I deal with this the next one is we were prey to misery and depression I was very very depressed for most of my life and I didn't even know it and there are people who believe that depression is a chemical imbalance there are people who believe that you know you can act your way out of it and I'm not quite sure what's going on and I'm not quite sure what's going on and I'm not quite sure what the best way to do that is but I need both I need to fix the chemistry and I need to act my way out of it I can't do one without the other so I was seeing a therapist early on and you know I have I have at the time a husband and two children and she was talking to me over and over and over again about I have the right to have expectations and then I would go to my Al-Anon meetings and they would tell me expectations are premeditated resentments and one should not have them so my choice was do I go to this therapist who the doctor sent me to or do I listen to what they're telling me in the rooms of Al-Anon because when I finally showed up there I had an hour of peace I had a glimpse of serenity and so my choice was get another therapist who understands the 12 steps and that's what I did and it it really helped me a lot the part about never um not being able to make a living that bedevilment was never mine because of course if I worked harder and better and you would all love me um so the only people who did are the husband I supported for a little while he loved me but the other one is um having had a feeling of uselessness and I'm not sure that I would use those exact words for me but I never ever ever felt good enough ever and I can't stress that enough because it's taken me I've been in the program um 24 years and I would say in the past two everything is sort of clicking into place and that's only because I did work with my sponsor went to meetings reasoned things out with someone else um paid attention to step work and it's taken me this long for it to finally click you know the 999,000 time I read it it finally clicked um I was actually inpatient for my depression at one point and there was this group exercise and I'm in this hospital looking fairly normal and just being very depressed that was my first time I was in this group exercise and I'm in this hospital looking fairly normal thing and I was in there with people who had a lot of other problems lots of them and I was the only person in the group who couldn't do the exercise and the exercise was go deep inside of yourself and find your loving parent and I didn't have one I didn't have one because I didn't grow up with one and I didn't know how to do it so recognizing that and trying very hard to to work my way through the steps of the program and with my sponsor this is the only place I got unconditional love no matter what I was doing no matter where I was this is where I got unconditional love so my son and his girlfriend had a baby a couple of years ago and it was a surprise to all of us and today is her birthday and I'm so grateful for her and I'm so grateful for this voyez C i got healing by talking to her every day since she's been born I'm blessed they live with me and I'm cursed however if we're talking about her its blessed and every single day I look at her you know one of the things that not only my therapist but my sponsor wanted me to do was this mirror work What supposed to be her life you know look in the mirror, say you love yourself, say you're pretty, say you like your hair, whatever it is. And I'm not minimizing that. I'm just saying I couldn't do it. I could not do it. But I could hold my granddaughter and I could tell her that she's good enough today just the way she is. God loves her. I love her. She can do anything she wants if she works hard. And if my son's not around, I tell her that she doesn't need a man to make her happy. So, so another part of my healing, because I was able to understand that my parents did the best they could with where they were, you know, and I have a good relationship with my parents. I just don't go to them for things that I know they can't give me. And in the old days, we used to say you don't go to the hardware store for a gallon of milk, but now you can get milk at the hardware store. So that's not a very good analogy for young people. Um, but I don't go to my parents for things, um, that they can't give me. And one of the most healing times for me is my brother had a little girl. There's three of us in the family. We all have boys and my brother had a little girl. And one of the most healing things for me was to hear my parents talking about my niece and talking in a way like, isn't she beautiful? She looks just like Debbie did. They never told me I was beautiful. I didn't feel beautiful. Look how smart she is. She's just like Debbie was. And hearing those things over and over helped me heal what was going on inside of me. And, um, I was taught in, in Al-Anon to be willing. Even the smallest bit of willingness. And knowing the smallest bit of willingness is enough for my higher power to sneak through. Um, I want to make sure, did I forget any bedevilments? I don't want to get too far off. Oh couldn't see. Let's see. Ok, so I was there with the not-good-enough feeling of uselessness. Full of fear. Always. Always, always. Fear that you wouldn't like me. Fear that I wasn't good enough. Not fear that I wasn't competent. Because in my profession, I'm very competent, and I get lots of positive, you know, feedback. Uh-huh. But I did it. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I really always felt like if you really knew me, you wouldn't say those nice things about me. So that is definitely a bedevilment. Unhappy. You know, life was gray for me all the time. I didn't see green. I didn't see blue. I didn't recognize there were multiple colors of the same. You know, green has lots of different greens. I mean, really, I mean, my higher power could have made the world just black and white. And it's not. And when I finally, when it finally clicked for me, it was great. I see colors, all kinds of colors, and I appreciate them. The last one of the bedevilments, which I'm sorry I didn't read to you, but you can check page 52, was couldn't seem to be of real help to others. Now, I'm in a helping profession, and so that was never a huge problem for me. But what is a problem for me, or was a problem for me, not so much anymore, was the motive in which, with which I did things. So in other words, I might not have wanted to do something, but I was doing it so you would like me. And. If you liked me, then this is good, right? Or because I wanted to manipulate you. And I have to say, it is so much nicer to do things I don't want to do because I'm being of service. You know, to do things that are inconvenient because I'm being of service to my fellows. I mean, that's why I'm here, right? That's why we're all here. So I have come from a bedeviled person. Who used to do, I was looking for something, because somebody said this, and it was so cool. Now I can't find it, but it's the four M's, which I'm not going to remember. Martyrdom, mothering, manipulating, and managing. And that was me. I mothered you to death. I was such a martyr. I manipulated you because I needed you to like me, or do it my way, because it's much better than yours, always. And managing. And managing. I mean, society reimburses you very well to manage. And if you're a good manager, you know, that's my professional job, is to manage things. And so what I have to remember is I only get to manage things in my hula hoop. Okay? And so I try really hard to do just that. And after the bedevilments in the book, we come to the recognition that God is either everything, or he's nothing. And so for me today, my God is everything. Thank you very much. Thanks to all three of our speakers. They were great. And we have about 15 minutes if there's comments from the floor that pertain to the first step. So if you'd like to come to the floor and speak, please keep your comments to about three minutes. Thank you. G'day, everyone. My name's Cheda. I'm an alcoholic. Looks like the Aussies have to go first. And... I wanted to share on physical craving. And I had a great experience with that when I was about three and a half years sober. I could never get it. I could never understand it. And someone sat down with me and explained that paragraph, you know, the alcoholic torture of the body and how it was like a cat on a hot tin roof all tensed up, you know. And I couldn't find my grog. I had no money or I'd hid the grog somewhere or the husband had emptied it at the car scout. So I'm like, you know, all tensed up. And then suddenly someone hands me a drink, you know, and I take a mouthful and I don't like the smell, I don't like the taste. But I feel it going down and I have more and I have more and, you know, this feeling is going deep down and there's something happening in the body. I want more. I can't stop. And that was the craving, you know. And I had to look at that experience. I had to feel it deep down within because I could never understand why I was drinking this stuff. It was wine out of a five litre cask and I couldn't stop, you know. And it was hot. It was hot wine on a hot day and it stank. And I couldn't understand, you know, why I loved it. I got an effect. And that was another thing I learnt too about the effect. My father was Aboriginal. He wasn't an alcoholic but he had a drink every night because he told me he got a nice effect from it. But I had to look at the effect I had was different to his. You know, I'd be saying, come on, have another drink, Dad. And he'd go, no, no, why do you keep filling your glass up? And we could never understand each other how we drank. But then, you know, alcoholics and non-alcoholics, the anonymous taught me it's something happens in my body that's called the physical craving. It's something I needed to experience to feel deep down within and how, you know, deep down within is where I found my creator as well. Thanks. APPLAUSE I hate talking at the mic. So I wanted to just say, no, I didn't want to say this at all. I knew I was supposed to, so that's why I'm here. But that's a lie that I wanted to. Anyway, I'm supposed to talk about the spiritual malady and, you know, the twist of character. I did not understand the spiritual malady. I mean, I knew... I had the craving. I never had a couple drinks. And I knew that I had the mental obsession that I kept going back to that. But the spiritual malady, I just... I was so... The evil and corroding thread was just shot through my life. I was my... I just was such an example of my twisted character and my defective character that I... I, for years, could not see that everything about me was manipulative and that I had this chronic malcontent and that I just couldn't be okay. I just couldn't deal. I just couldn't be okay. And nothing outside of me that worked for a little bit would... The shine would wear off. And I really... I couldn't stop laughing when you said I would not go for the bookcase. And I... I would enjoy it for about two seconds. I couldn't stop laughing because I was like, I want to enjoy it for longer than two seconds. But anyway. Because I'm not right. And... And... And... The only... You know, it's so counterintuitive that this darkness that lives in me and thrives off of this, you know, backwards living fear and it's counterintuitive that my mind tells me that I need to take care of myself and I need to do what I need to do and I need to... And my son, who's 22, we were just talking about this last week. He moved out about a year ago and he is not alcoholic. Not even close. But he goes, Mom, it's so interesting that the things that you think are going to help you actually make it worse. And the things... He goes, because I think, like, going out and helping somebody else, like, I need to just do what I want to do. And he goes, but when I do what I want to do, I'm not very happy. And when I go out and do something for somebody else, I'm somehow filled up. And I'm like, oh, my God, my kid's 22 and he, like, gets it. And I was, like, 10 years sober before I really... And I was coming here since I was a year sober to FOTS. And I just was so asleep to the fact that I was like, I'm going to do this spiritual malady. And I couldn't see it at work in my life. And so, anyway, spiritual solution to that with finding a safe energy is always here. Because I never wanted to be right here, right now. I never wanted to be in this body fully present. And that's what it's like to live in the consciousness of the presence of God. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. Wow. I can't believe I'm here. So, I don't obviously live in the physical hour. I don't experience that because I don't put alcohol in my body in any form at all. And I don't experience the mental obsession because I get to live in my 10-step promises as a result of staying consistent in the steps. But, those bedevilments, that spiritual powerlessness, I can still experience that. And I think that that's why I'm here. You know, getting to be free from all of this other stuff that I have suffered from, this amazing blessing. But there's always more. There's always more. There's always more growth. And that's why I came here today. I so appreciate that that was shared on. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you. Hi, my name's Buzz. I'm an alcoholic. And thanks very much, panel. I enjoyed everything that you had to say. And I didn't have much problem at all with the idea of being powerless over alcohol. When I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, I was quite a bit older than all of you who came in. And at the end of my drinking, it was pretty bad. And waking up in the morning with yellow eyes and yellow skin and liver failing and on and on. I know a lot of people. I know a lot of people do that and still have a problem. But I didn't. I knew something wasn't right with that. You know? That wasn't quite right. But what the other part of this first step is that life was unmanageable by me. And I was probably three years into Alcoholics Anonymous before that kind of struck me that there was that second part of the first step. And I had to, in thinking about it, I had to think about it. I had to think about that and I just said it. I said, my life's unmanageable by me. You know why I said that? Because I say that every morning when I'm down on my knees. That step talks about manageability. And it begs the question, manageable by who? You know? When you say that, life is unmanageable. Well, by who? Well, my life's unmanageable by me. And I kind of proved that. I was kind of fortunate. I wasn't one of those alcoholics who drank, stopped, drank, stopped, drank. I just drank. And there was only one time in like the last several years of my drinking where I stopped for three weeks. Something happened, just scared the bejesus out of me. I thought I was going to be living on the street, on and on and on. My wife wanted me to stop, you know. And so I did stop. And by the end of that three weeks, I stopped. And that three weeks, I was so crazy, I was just absolutely mad, insane. I was driving a tiny little car at the time. I got into it with a guy driving a semi. He was trying to run me over. And I didn't care. I just didn't care. And that kind of craziness, you know, proves to me that alcohol wasn't the problem. But, and so my life truly was unmanageable by me. And you know what? After all this time, my life is still unmanageable. And I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you. It's still unmanageable by me. Fortunately, we have a solution that's in the second step. We turn to God. And I ask God to manage my life every day. And I know this isn't the second step, but it's good to talk about a solution too. Thanks. Hey, everybody. Danny, Grateful Recovery alcoholic. Thanks for your service. You know, I remember. I remember nine years ago walking into my first AA meeting and loving God diligently hit me on the back of the head with a two by four. I was grateful it was on step one because prior to that, powerlessness just wasn't in my vocation. I mean, I've been to every motivational speaker there was. I'd gone to church for 22 years and just could not keep it together. So I never will forget that first meeting right after coming out of the hospital and I got that step one. Today I've learned I got that step one. I got busy 110 meetings in 90 days. I heard somebody with 20 years say, get a sponsor. I got one. I heard somebody say, get in service. I did. And my life has changed around. And today I understand. This is a nice statement. But in step one that realize that I'm powerless, there was that little slash for me that I'm powerless over alcohol and my life has become unmanageable. I've come to know today that it's the unmanageability in my life that drives me to alcohol. I used to think that unmanageability was going to jail or getting DUIs or arguments with the XXYs or whatever it might be. But. I've come to learn now that that was insanity. And so I'm grateful for step one, knowing that this book is a design for living. And here I am nine years later, standing in front of an AA meeting. Thank you very much. All right. So I started to read this before, but now is when it actually matters. So. All right. Thank you. Follow up by my marker. All right. By group conscious, the Fellowship of the Spirit conference does not close each meeting with the Lord's prayer. Instead, we encourage that the entire conference be treated with an attitude of continuous prayer. And we will then say the Lord's Prayer together at the bordériac corrections on Sunday. Please help me close this meeting by joining hands for a moment of silence. Let us share our spiritual experiences and strengths with each other so that we may grow Thank you.