Step 10 and the Promise of No Longer Fighting – George

We started touching on step one about unmanageability and powerlessness. I really didn't talk a lot about my alcoholism, my alcohol drinking part of it, because I believe that we've all got here the same way. We got drunk a lot, or we did a lot of drugs, or our behavior was very unmanagable. The vehicle that got me here really doesn't matter. Coming to believe in the power greater than myself can restore me to sanity. first thing I had to do was find out that I was really insane. I still question now whether I am or not but I must be because I stuck around a long time to find out my thinking wasn't working. I'd also like to bring in tradition there's a loving God who expresses himself through our group conscience a leader but trusted servant that's real important to me because my journey through the second step actually came through the second tradition and I believe traditions are very important and there's a couple of things we did last week. One of the things we did is we talked about in the old days from 1939 through the late 50s and still some days in places like Akron and Washington, they still have beginners classes before you go to meetings. We don't do it down here in Florida with a Bible belt. We do it a different way. We all have our own way. Hi, Princess. And in the beginning we read step two the step is described in the big book on pages 44 through 60 and the directions there are directions even in step two for taking step two are on page 47 and it's paragraphs two lines one through three and I'm just going to read it the old fashioned way they did it we need to ask ourselves do I now believe or am I even willing to believe that there is a power greater than myself as soon as a man says he does believe or is willing to believe we can empathetically assure him that he's on his way it has been replaced repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone a wonderful effective spiritual structure can be built that's the old-fashioned way you know when you got here did you have enough drinking and you believe there's something greater than you turn yourself over to it let's go to work and do the force thing pretty much how it was in the old days since the treatment centers since we learned more about about alcoholism since 15 years and have experience with the big book, we add a lot to it. We take the simplicity out of the words and the steps and we make it very confusing. I had a right on my first step. Some people do and some people don't. The journey for each of us is different. My second step, I always believed in power greater than myself. Speaking about that last week, that my belief system in power greater than myself was anything but God. and then I talked about at the very end of the meeting I think I touched upon there is a principle that keeps a man in everlasting ignorance and that principle is contempt prior to investigation those are things that I heard and learned real early on now when I walked into this program my contempt was tremendous I didn't know where it came from or why I had it I just knew that my life was different than most and the powers I believed in because I searched out all kinds of religious stuff growing up I did my original upbringing which was Jewish and then I rebelled before my 13th birthday and then I had a gibbon mission because my father would kill me otherwise real simple so I did that thing and I was rebelling ever since I was made a god from seven when my grandfather died that's when that started by 13 I was way out there I used to have these kind of things and I'm going to bring in religion and the book says that of matters of necessity we don't want to be controversial but because of what we are we do talk about religion psychiatry and all kinds of other things because it's necessary and you know I had friends that lived across the street they were Roman Catholics and I couldn't understand why on Friday well I couldn'T understand why they were allowed to have meat with milk and if I did it I was going to hell that was one of the religious operating the religious laws and I couldn't understand why their Sabbath was on Sunday and my Sabbath was onsite. I was all confused and I didn't understand when they did those things they didn't die but if I do those things it made no sense so I started to rebel against religion. Still had a lot of problems with God and I knew that when I became 13 God was supposed to make me into a man and it was all supposed to be figured out and it didn't work that way for me. I was very confused. Well, my journey in religion brought me to Eastern religions. I did TM, I did Est, I did all the, all those Eastern philosophies to find the God of my understanding or misunderstanding. I turned around from that and I read Seth, I believe, did witchcraft. I couldn't put a thing to this hole that I had that I didn't know what it was coming from. And I covered it a lot with alcohol and drugs because I was drinking when I was young and I was drugging when I was young so my spiritual journey was non-existent and it's real important that I remember where I came from especially for that second step now my second step today is nowhere it was the day I walked in these rooms but I remember what it was like when I first got here and that's the good news I said I was going to share my journey through the steps at the beginning I've taken many journeys through the stairs through the footsteps and each time God hasn't changed at all it's my perception God has changed which is amazing because I was very stubborn and adamant when I walked in these rooms. When I first walked in theserooms, I was in a treatment center in upstate New York and last week I shared that I wasn't powerless over anything. I believed in lots of powers greater than myself and I wasn�t turning my will and my life over to carry your God, my God or any other God. And I was that simple so I had one, two and three out of the way. They told me I had to find this power greater than my self. That was the purpose of the book. That was a purpose I was there for. I said no, I was going to get my kids back get warmed up deal with my ex-wife marrying the guy that I caught her cheating with and that was it I was going to get fat comfortable warm and go out and get loaded again along the way they told me they had me speak to a priest and a rabbi and minister and you know they quote one verse and I quote another I was good at that because when I was young I was born to be religious very I kept all the religious laws but I was not spiritual one of the things I tell a lot of my sponsees you know they tell me this is a Christian program well Christianity was the answer and that's not saying that it's not for some people then why do we have drunk priests or rabbis or any other kind of religion you can think of there are alcoholics among us all it doesn't discriminate in that area I can quote verses that my sponsor gave me to look at I went through the 12 steps through the Serenity Bible at one of my journeys through this desk to do it a religious way. I did it in the Oxford group ways. I've done it many different ways, but the beginning was the way that really still holds. I had a lot of contempt prior to investigation. There's a couple of things that I always like. In we agnostics, it's where you find God and he will help me, there's something I was told to ask myself. First of all, I had to believe that my drinking was out of control and that was my first step when I fully admitted to my innermost self that I couldn't drink safely. I knew I was one of you guys as much as I wanted to be something else. I finally woke up to the fact that I was an alcoholic. My behavior has already proved that but I didn't see that. In the agnostic, it says there are two questions I was told to ask myself. If when we honestly wanted to wanted to you could not quit entirely or if when drinking you had little control of the amount you take you're probably an alcoholic and it was real simple I didn't control my drinking very well sometimes sometimes I can have a drink the more I can drink ten bottles and be in full control but I never knew where I'd wind up and I always thought it was fun and you know what when I think back leaning over toilet bowls and hanging on to dear life it was that fun although I rationalized it as being fun so there's that delusionary thinking we were talking about in the first step that second step to be doomed to an alcoholic death or to live by spiritual principles was not easy alternative to face I still had that childhood dilemma you know now 44 years old I've been fighting God since I'm 7 years old I went tried religious things I married out of religion so my religion threw me out I never converted so the other religion never took me in so I'm still going through religious dilemmas my children were raised Catholic because my religion taught me that whatever the woman is, they carry the religion. So it was a real simple decision for me. My children, I'm Jewish, they're Catholic, they're Catholics. End of the problem. I never went to church, never did the conversion and I still didn't believe in God. Was I agnostic? Was I atheist? I really didn't try to figure that stuff out. I just knew I was having a hard time with that. I knew what the book said and I just didn't feel connected. I still did not feel connected I came into these rooms and I really Didn't Believe there was a God last week I was talking about those little things those little sign posts of people that are putting it bad well the priest couldn't convince me in treatment my counselor couldn't treat me couldn't convince me anybody that spoke to me couldn't convince me that there was anything greater than myself when I first got there I was there for all the wrong reasons and I sat down with a chaplain God I haven't thought of this story in a long time Joe his name was he was a Vietnamese war vet he was kind of impaled that's the only way I know how to say it he had a physical handicap from the war and we talked for a long time and he said you know and I couldn't believe in what you guys believed in anyway because it wasn't the way I was brought up so I had against that to start with so I still believed contentious and I remember him talking to me He says, you know, you don't have to believe in anything. Probably doesn't require that. He says but whatever is up there or whatever is in your heart why don't you just say help me. Start there. Because you know you guys were talking about getting on your knees and all kinds of things that was against everything I believed in and was willing to do. I wasn't willing to do any of that at the beginning. So he said he didn't care what we did as long as I did something and ask whatever was up there to help me not pick up a drink or a drug or want to. is a part of the there is a solution where it says if you're as serious alcoholic as we were we believe there's no middle-of-the-road solution we're in a position where life is becoming impossible and we have passed into a region from which there was no return through human aid we had two alternatives one was to go to the bitter end blotting out the consciousness of our intolerable situation as best we could that means my delusionary thinking the best I could was way whack or the other was to accept spiritual help this we did because we honestly wanted to or were willing to make the effort well I honestly didn't want to and I really wasn't willing to make the effort so I stayed pretty miserable and I didn't have any kind of understanding and like I said the second tradition is really what brought me here last week we talked about the first step the end of the first step really ties right into the second step and I believe like the steps are built one on top of another for a reason same as the traditions are built one on top of another for a reason I don't understand the reasoning but I know it works in order for a reason so somebody that comes in and does step 1 and then is doing a 12th step there's a lot in between before you really get to step 12 to carrying the message because you're not really carrying the message what you really do when I was told at the beginning is carrying the mess you need to have that spiritual experience and in here I'm going to read what a spiritual experience is. The big book tells us it's when we see, do and feel things that we couldn't see, do and feel before. It's really that simple. We rearrange our emotional size. What a concept. But in the end of the first step the answer is that few people sincerely try to practice the AA program unless they hit bottom. But practicing AA's remaining 11 steps means the adoption and attitude of actions that almost no alcoholic still drinking can dream of taking. Who wishes to be honest rigorously honest and tyrant who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for undone who cares anything about a higher power let alone meditation and prayer who wants to sacrifice time and energy and try and carry his message to the next sufferer no not the average alcoholic self-centered to the extreme doesn't care for this prospect unless asked to do these things to stay alive in yourself I still didn't believe I was dying that's why I had no second step and I still didn't believe I was a man that's the sad part I couldn't see what was really in that mirror you know everybody's telling me how bad I looked and how initiated my eye was it's 128 pounds and I thought I looked great and I let everybody know how great I looked but that was my insanity working in full force what happened was that paragraph about being a serious alcoholic and there's another paragraph that really brings it home for this alcoholic it says some of us have been violently anti-religious to the other the word God brought up a particular idea of him which someone had tried to impress during childhood perhaps we rejected this particular conception because we think it seemed inadequate with that rejection we imagined we had abandoned the God idea entirely we were bogged with the thought of faith and dependence upon a power beyond itself somewhat weak even cowardly pretty much tells you where I was when I got here I didn't believe in God. And I rejected the idea because of my childhood upbringing, because of what God did to my grandfather, then what he did to me, then how my sister died, then what He did with my wife. I was blaming God. Now, I didn' t see that until my fourth step. I can look back at it now and talk about it in a second. But it took me a couple of years being around to realize that God had nothing to do with any of that. It was my perception of what was going on that was walking twisted, not God's. God was doing what He was supposed to do. He was there listening. I was talking but I wasn't listening back you know and I look back in retrospect and I think about the people that were there for me or for my second step were really in my second tradition the loving God has expressed himself through because in spite of all my insanity as I walked in these rooms there were people in there that were sharing a solution one of the best ways I look at the second step is when somebody walks into the rooms I don't care who it is and they bring up a subject I don' t care what the subject is and they dump it in the middle of the room and they walk out the door and you watch a hundred hands go up and there's a hundred answers as soon as they walk back in the door that subject closed they don't hear it anymore they missed the miracle and I had a sponsor that taught me that that you know I used to come in and puke on you guys and walk outside for a cigarette because you brought up God that was the end of my end of my tolerance for the group I was not tolerant at all and my sponsor wasn't my sponsor he was my spiritual guide he became my sponsor Big Bob he used to sit down and say to me George I want you to watch the next guy that does what you do all the time I want to stay in the room and I want your I want the answer to come out see because there is a loving God and he's expressing himself in this group and you don't see it yet so any of you people who have a problem with a higher power you already got them you just don't know it yet and it takes time to get it one of the things on page 47 and it's in the beginning of a book that was asked to read which is A.A. literature believe it or not I found my higher power through A.I. literature there's a part on page 47 where it said the great news for us we had assumed we could not make use of spiritual principles unless we say many things on faith which seemed difficult to believe if you read came to believe that's one of the first things it talks about in the very beginning of came to belief came to believed was my greatest gift that was given given to me because without came to believe I had no power. The group of drunks was my first higher power. Good order, the left direction became my second higher power God was not there in my third step I did not turn my eye and I'm going to jump ahead because I need to because I didn't have a God in my 3rd step I still was defiant I remember my sponsor telling me if you think you're God, George why don't you go outside and move that tree I said, you know, that's impossible I'm physically not strong enough and he said, well, if you're going to build a mountain why don't you bring a shovel so you can dig yourself out and I didn't understand that at the beginning and then it still wasn't sinking in so he gave me a suggestion and he said I suggest this strongly I want you to go to the drugstore I want to buy a box of X-Lax I want yo to take the box of X-lax and then I want ya not to go the bathroom I said that's impossible he says well then you can't be God give up the job so that made sense to me because I knew I couldn't that really made sense so I was a little warped he told me You know, the light bulb theory doesn't work. The chair doesn't work. The ashtray doesn't work because, you know what? A light bulb burns out and it dies. So where's your God going? Had to be something bigger than me. And, you know, I used to think when I ran a head of a union, I used to tell people when we try to organize other unions to make coalitions that it was always better to go forward in force with a fist than it was just point the finger because you can always break one finger at a time but as a group you're always stronger so those kind of theories as a groove the we factor instead of the I factor became real important so what I started doing was borrowing your guide because I really didn't believe it was going to work for me what I did know is I didn't want to drink or drug anymore I didn' t know I didn''t even know I wanted to stay here at that point there's a bunch of things that the there's so many things that tells you where to find God and that's our third step Of course, it's deep down in each one of us. It's been planted in us before our childhood, as I was told. I don't understand that yet. I haven't gotten there. And I always hear that there's always a problem with the higher power. I was taught, and Bill Wilson talks about it in a couple of places in the big book. In the first pages on page 12, when he's sitting there with Abby, and Abby suggests that he can use his own conception of God. I was told to find out what qualities I wanted in a God and I was called to put them on paper my qualities of God when I got here were pretty simple they really were they're a lot more different today than they were when I came in like I said he hasn't changed you see the God I walked in the door the God that brought me in the Door I should say is the same God I have today it's my perception of that God that's changing constantly and that's the good news that the second step has given me I did not you know you go through all the different types alcoholics and there is a solution more about alcohol and we agnostics i fit into all the categories at one time or another in my drinking history or drugging history uh so i didn't really know i belonged you know because i had a little of this one a little bit that one so i took a little of your guy and a little yoga and that was the god i put together from you people because it was working in the rooms i knew i didn'T want to drink when i was here for an hour so the good alcoholic that i was instead of being here for now is i stayed here for eight hours a day That way I didn't have to drink. And then they tricked me into things like service. Those were the things that kept me sober at the beginning. I didnít want to go back to where I used to be. And they gave me little simple tools for the second step. Like, not today, maybe tomorrow. I wonít drink today or I won't drug today. Iíll do it tomorrow. It took me about three weeks to realize that tomorrow never comes. I had to sit there and say, you know, Iíve been saying this for three weeks. I want a drink. I still wanted a drink after the drink. I go can I change it to something else like not today maybe now so he said yeah and then he said if not this hour take it and every time it came to that hour it would be not this our it would be next hour that next hour never comes I had to learn to get in the moment and that was real hard and the second step in that second condition was the loving people in the rooms that brought me there see the guide of my conception my understanding today is that I don't have to understand it he does speak through people my second step is wonderful today I get to share my God with everybody in this room and my God is nothing like anybody else's God but it's exactly like everybody else's God I don't need to give him a name I don' t need to bring in my religion I always have a problem when I hear people mention God by name I don''t care what name it is it's going to offend somebody if you brought up Christian and you have problems Catholic church and somebody brings up Christian God you can have a problem with it if you brought up Jewish you can have a problem with it well what if you're an Indian and we're talking about those things. Well, what if you're an American Indian and you believe in the great spirits? So my sponsor on one of my many trips through the Big Book suggested that I circle the number of times God is in the Big Buck and for anybody's information in the first 164 pages God is mentioned over 200 times. 80 of them is directly in capital G and the rest of them the 130 some odd are in pronouns for the word God. That's because I didn't believe God was in the big book. So I guess I was shown that he is and I came back three times to wrong answers and he made me redo it until I got it right. I won't tell you what pages they're on, but if you ever look at one of my big books, you will find them because I have them circled in all my bigbooks because I need to find that power. Lack of power, that was my dilemma and I believed I was that power The power did not come from me. It was given to me graciously. The one thing I suggest to anybody having trouble with the second step is to read page 569 and 57 in the back of the big book. It's called The Spiritual Experience. In the first 47 pages, there's two little aristos, one on page 25 and one on age 47, that refers you to read it. They didn't put it in there because they didn't want us to look at it. They put it there because there are two types of experiences. One is the lightning bolt which Bill Wilson had, which I didn't. The other is the one that comes slowly over time through steps. somewhere in those steps I got a God of my misunderstanding today I understand I don't have to understand it's really that simple for me if that confuses you you ought to be in my head when I go through that but it works it works you know my God will work for me through you and I'm sure your God is working on me you know I was afraid when I first got sober I'm going to try and cut it down when I was first when I got sober I was scared to go into a temple because I was afraid that the building would fall. So I used to go into the church and I used to sit at the in the not in the pews, I do that too, but that's a whole other journey, we won't get to that one, but not today, we'll just say that for another time. But I used to sit in the where you sit and meditate? Oh God, directories were the quiet areas in the chapels, thank you God. In the chapals, I used to sit in the chapel and I used to say and there was a temple right across the street but I was afraid to go there, I used and say, listen, I know you can speak to my God. I can't. And that's really how it worked for me at the beginning. So I prayed to whatever was up there to help me. Just came away from a drink or a drug. The feelings didn't go away though. And we laugh about these things and the reason we laugh is not we're laughing at somebody because it brings back some memories of what we actually go through. And there's somewhere in this book that says our imagination will be fired. that's real important that we touch each other's heart this is the language of our heart I can sit here and quote the book to you all day long but if it's not my experience it ain't going to get through that's all many of us have is our experience I struggle in that second step I struggled in all the steps I surrendered and you know we talk about surrendering in the first step I believe in surrendering every step each and every step of the way we surrender sometimes we do it more easily than others like acceptance there's two kinds of acceptance the acceptance that I'm willing to accept and then there's the acceptance without approval well my second step was acceptance without approval I didn't approve any of this but I was doing it because I didnít want to go back to a cardboard box the God I have today is very loving and very understanding he doesnít ask too much of me I know what he wants from me the one thing he wants for me is not to pick up the first drink after that I have no idea I kind of walk into a wall today instead of going through it I either make a left or I make a right that's a lot of change for someone like me I don't have to run to a bottle where my feelings get out of whack I'm more interested today in my emotional sobriety now if you would have told me that step two where it says we'll be returned to sanity that journey from the second step to the tenth step because there's a promise in the tenth steps that I always love and then I'm going to jump way ahead right now and say it it says it's happened automatically we're not fighting anymore I had to cease fighting anything or everyone and that's where the second step started taking place now I didn't realize that until long after I was into my third and fourth steps see each step along the way in retrospect I realized I was doing what I was supposed to be doing and as I revisit the steps because I don't believe we do them once some people may believe that you know and some people can stay sober that way we all have a different journey as we revisit the footsteps or as I revisit the steps, my understanding becomes more clear. Just like as many times as I read this big book, there's always something that got stuck in there or somebody wrote the night before that I didn't see. There's something I want to report on you that's a little bit of history. It's a part in the big book where Bill Wilson talks about the spirit of the bells at the very beginning when he books about his grandfather in Bill's story. And it's based on Pythagoras, a 5,000-year-old man. I just heard this from you the other night. It's based on a mathematical because his grandfather believed the bells, the nature of the bells and it's mentioned in the big book in Bill Storia that everything had harmony in the world. And he fought that his whole life and he fought his upbringing, his religious upbringing but he did finally agree with his grandfather when he saw his way wasn't working and that's why when the concept by Ebi was put to him that he can choose any conception of his God the second step in 12 says no matter how limited it is I believe that you believed I didn't believe I believe. I believe that you believe though and that got me into my second step I saw it working in the groups I was there I just wasn't willing to accept or I wasn't willing to try or make an attempt I don't try anymore if I try I'm going to set myself up to fail on it I'll tell you how good I'm not doing something that's how I try I learn I can either do something or I don' and that second step was I had to become willing to read the King of Leeds I had to be willing to go to meetings and not walk out and listen to the group conscience as it was expressed at that particular meeting so the second step for me is a wonderful journey um you know that's how i found my second step i said i'll take you as i go through my steps and how i find them if i tell you how i do it today it's so different but truthfully it's not what's different is my attitude i go in there more open and mystifying uh and i practice it a little bit more by doing certain things certain simple things that put me in a position to receive this wonderful gift called sobriety sobrietry does not mean to do without drinking it means a happy contented life it's a lot more than not drinking enough out of me it's your meeting guys