Step 12 and the Mosaic of a Million Stories – Frank M.

Thank you. My name is Frank, and I'm an alcoholic. And I'm a member of the Lamont Oaks Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, which meets at 8.30 on Monday night in a junior high school auditorium which accommodates our 550 or 600 people. and I invite you to come there. If and when you're in our community and I'm a proud member of that group and I'd like to show off for you. I'd really like you to see that. And it's just like your group. It's just a bunch of people trying to figure out how to survive. it's kind of that simple, how to survive in a way that we thought was impossible and we band together one concerned about each other and stuff happens in that environment I'm pleased to be here I really am this has been a very comfortable weekend it has been low key, easy to deal with kind of program. The people who have participated from the podium have been electrifying and informative and comforting, and that is really neat. This is my third time at this conference and it didn't dawn on me. Remember when we walked in I said I recognize but don't recognize this place. There's something right about it but there's something wrong about it. Well, the right part of it is It was in Boca Raton. The wrong part of it is I'm in a different hotel. This used to be at the Marriott. And I couldn't, I just, the desk didn't look right and the courtyard didn't work right. And then I thought, wonder why we lost the Marrion. And that's really of no significance because the real miracle is that we got the Sheraton. I mean, just think of this. Do you think that the ownership and management of this hotel If it had any idea what singularly or collectively we're capable of, would let us be here? I mean, you know, oh God, that's really a surprise. It surprises that, but what we do is we leave behind us events like this. We've a new definition of Alcoholics Anonymous to the outsider, to the person who looks from outside and sees. We raise the bar of dignity. We raisethe image of what AlcoholicsAnonymous looks like. That's all they'll ever see is us. How we act and how we present ourselves is maybe the only thing they'llever see. and I'm happy to say we can stand tall here because we've put Alcoholics Anonymous up front in a dignified and adult mature manner and that's not always the case and I get around a lot in AlcoholicsAnonymous and it is sad to say that sometimes I don't know where I'm at and they call it AlcoholicsAnotomous And maybe it is, but it's not the Alcoholics Anonymous that I know. And I related to Clancy's talk on singleness of purpose, which there's just no question that no one can give that talk like Clancy. And often, Sunday morning, that meeting is programmed as the spiritual meeting. Or the speaker at the Sunday morning function is programmed as the Spiritual Speaker. I was pleased to see that's not the case here. uh however it's kind of a paradox uh if anyone speaks at an a meeting and tells the truth about what they were like what happened to them and one what they are like now they give a spiritual message because this program is in its entirely a program of spirituality and you know to talk about the spiritual part of the AA program is kind of like talking about the wet part of the ocean it is what it is it was designed to do what for us what happens to very few people in the world I've only known two people in my life I never met the first one I met the second but I was in the environment created by both Bill Wilson in his writings claims to have had a direct contact with a power greater than himself, a God, if you will. And Chuck Chamberlain sat in my living room many, many years ago with Clancy and Mousselin and explained to a bunch of young guys who I sponsored at the time when I was a young man myself the fact that sometime, and I can't quote this correctly, but sometime during a Christmas holiday season or thereabouts, that a voice or something happened and he was told to tend his sheep. And that has never happened to me, nor do I expect it ever to happen. And the truth of the matter is, it doesn't happen to many people. but the results of that are magnificent and what happens is there is a total transformation of that person in AA literature you'll hear it referred to as like a conversion a total upheaval of values and understandings and it would be wonderful if that could happen to me where all of a sudden instantly there would be this conversion and this upheaval of understandings and values insights and it doesn't happen for most of us and what this program was designed to do I think, was to get us to the same place through a process rather than through an immediate happening and the idea is to get to the same place to get to the same place, to have a spiritual awakening. And as a result of these actions, and that's really the purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous, it was designed to get to a reality of a spiritual awaking through which we would be freed from the obsession to drink and would be made once again whole. And that's what it's about. And so often you hear in Alcoholics Anonymous, it's about not drinking. And you heard it last night. For some of us, not drinking is surely not the answer. It is a painful environment in which I cannot live. A sober, simply sober me. I just can't live in that environment. I wish I could. It would be so much simpler just to be able to quit and live happily ever after. I'm one of those people like Clancy who when I quit I do not live happily ever after I just don't and I try and I want to and I pray to and I use every tool available to me and I'm a bright guy I am not an idiot I really am not I'm not an Indian I'm as bright guy as most of the people that I've met in Alcoholics Anonymous and I am a talented guy in small little ways in some ways I'm just an idiot but in a whole I'm good guy I'm not a bad guy and if I take all my resources and try desperately to just have it happen and just live happily ever after this happiness doesn't have to be exhilarating it would just be okay I can't do that for me it's a constant struggle living in life is a constant struggle, it's just ups and downs and ins and outs and alcohol makes it better for me and it did for a long time and then it didn't and then I hoped it would again and I just kept trying to do that and I don't want anybody to mislead anything or misunderstand anything I say you heard from the podium various descriptions of where we were from the exact who I was what happened to me and the dramatic sometimes in Alcoholics Anonymous we hear the most dramatic stories of what happened to individuals and I know that some of us say if he could do it, I could do It for example, not everybody lives in an abandoned car when they come here I'm not being cute, I want to make this point This is not said in any sense of disrespect. Please understand, it's very important to me that you do understand that. And not everybody comes here living in the penthouse with the curtains drawn. The vast majority of us come from a place in between. And too often, I think, when we hear these dramatic stories of prisons and murder and rape and pillage and abandonment and destitution rather than say, my God, if they can do it, I could do it. I wonder if sometimes it just doesn't reinforce the mindset that says, yes, that's right and that's why you have to do those things because your case is really different than mine And yes, you have to do all the things you say you do because that's your misfortune. But I have not sunken that low and I don't have those terrible, terrible, terrible things going on that you describe. Mine are bad, but they're not like yours. And therefore, whatever I have to doing it's surely less than you. And it's again another reverse situation of my case is different. I represent the people in the middle in the sense that I just come from an ordinary background, and nothing dramatic happened in my drinking career. I did not ever kill anybody. I never was arrested. I never were put in a hospital. I never lost a job. I never sustained a divorce. I never was prevented from seeing my children. It didn't happen. It didn' t happen. But I tell you that I am an alcoholic, and as a result of my pursuit of wholeness and happiness, I drank and drank and drink and drank until I lived in a world of terror, of loneliness, of depression, anxiety, and self-loathing. Each and every time experiencing those emotions, conjuring up every power I had or attempted to acquire a power to rid myself of those feelings. And I modified my drinking and I did all the things that you read about in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous to no avail. And I tell you that hopelessness in an average American family feels, looks, and tastes exactly like hopelessness in a Skid Row flop house. Hopelessness in a penthouse, which I've never lived in, nor do I deign to reach. I am sure feels exactly the same as hopelessness felt in the average American home. Hopelessnes is hopelessness. Self-loathing is self-loating. Regret is regret. Remorse is remorse. And guilt is guilt. Anger is anger. Frustration is frustration. How it's packaged and where it occurs doesn't lessen its effect on people like me. And sometimes I think that we lose that, sometimes. If you're new, and I know there are people who are here that are relatively new. They were here last night. How many people are here with less than six months? I'm not going to pick on you or talk to you. Good. Oh, there are still many of you here. Good. Thanks for coming this morning. Thanks for Coming This Morning. This is a tail end. This is easy to skip. It's easy to be here. You know, you heard the best, why hear the rest? You know what I mean? But I'm glad you're here. The wonderful thing about Alcoholics Anonymous is that it applies to alcoholics. And alcoholics are not on Skid Row. The vast minority of alcoholics are found in Skid row. Where we're found is in boardrooms, in hospital, in homes. Our members are women who take care of kids, who do laundry, who prepare meals for husbands. Our members are guys who go to work in the factory, who go into work in the office, who wear uniforms or suits and ties. Our members are people who haven't worked for a while and wonder if they'll ever work again. Our members are young and middle-aged and old. Our workers, our members, look around. These are our members. Backgrounds different, ages different, experiences in many cases different, history is different. Some of them are first generation, some of them aren't. Some of the first generation are tenth generation. Some of whom don't even know what generation they are. They're important. we're a cross-section of humanity you can't tell an alcoholic by looking at an alcoholic and that really is a fact that disturbs many people in Al-Anon laughter laughter well well, I'm not an anti-Al-Anon person. And maybe it's just the opposite. Maybe I'm a little angry, a little envious. You know, they can do stuff I can't do and we can't doing. The fact that sometimes they're embarrassed at open meetings when their alcoholic spouse is mistaken as the Al-Anons and they as the alcoholic, maybe that serves them right. anybody who can drink and take the steps deserves a little shot now and then I have a little hint for you there are people here who just are scared to death to get up in front of an audience an AA audience in particular, and talk to that audience. And people always say, well, how do you do that? And I get so scared. And years and years ago, I got some good advice. And the fellow that gave me the advice says, look, when you get up in front of the audience, look around and find a happy, friendly face and speak to that person. and excuse me and I said well what if you can't find a friendly face and he said then be brief and be gone and there are friendly faces in this audience they're people from my home group here and many people that I know from Naples and other people I've met at other AA functions and along the road. And so it's very easy to do this and to know that they come here not judgmental and not expecting to have their life changed in any way, shape or form by some magical words that this speaker might have because that's not the way it works. One of the magnificent things about Alcoholics Anonymous, we're in Chicago. I don't know where this talk is going to go, but I tell you what, it is goingto go and finish 60 minutes from the time I said my name is Frank and I want you to tell me because wherever I am, I'm going to quit. And I'll tell you why. This is the first time in my life that I will be able to have said I've given three talks and each one terminated exactly in 60 minutes. and I've never done that before and I don't care if I'm in the middle of a sentence I'm gone but it's from the time I said I don' t want those guys to have taken my time you just want to say so much there's a tendency just to when you've received as much as I have received you just wanna say And then, and this, and that. And it's not a matter of falling in love with the sound of your own voice or feeling some power or anything like that. It's just a tendency to say because you know it's so simple and you know its so available and you now it's affordable and yet you know that most of the people will never get it. Not because they couldn't but because they wouldn't. And it's a sadness. And there's a thing that you just, the more you have of it, the more your heart is in it. The more you want to just change that reality and you just want to find that magical place that just opens the door and you wantto shine that light in and say, don't you see? And I'm learning more and more that no, that can't happen. And in Chicago, We have a thing called a Chagall mosaic. It's in a bank plaza. You've ever been to First National Bank Plaza? It's just a big concrete square block, it looks like. And on it they glued, affixed, a million little tiles, all different shapes, all different sizes all different colors and when you see those million tiles they're just a bunch of tiles but when they're all put up on the wall they form a picture each individual tile has little or no apparent value But all together, they form a picture. Alcoholics Anonymous is just like that. And there are a million stories in Alcoholics Anonymous. And you cheat yourself if you only listen to a few. We are a mosaic. The important thing here when you're new is don't try to remember the words. There's too many words. You have heard hundreds and hundreds of thousands of words this weekend. You can't remember them. I saw somebody taking notes the other day. None of my business, but you can't capture the essence of what's said here. Don't try. Just listen for the music. You will learn the words as you go along. Listen for the music. Hum the tune when you leave here. Know that it'll be okay. Know that there's hope for people like us. be willing to take a chance on the unknown. It is so sad to see people like me hold on to a horrible gnome rather than trade it in for an unknown. and sometimes the only thing that motivates that is pain of such a significant degree that it just takes the resistance and for a short time maybe just is an antidote for that resistance I don't know, and I surely had that pain I mean, I ended up being what I never intended to be and doing things that were impossible for me to do. Degrading secret and dirty things that came in conjunction with my pursuit of wholeness and healthfulness. I'm not going to tell you what they are, we all have our dirty secrets those of us who are alcoholics of my type at least that's the way it is I never intended that to happen I don't know how and when it got interconnected with my pursuit of just being whole to have some sense of happiness If you listen to most people sharing Alcoholics Anonymous, there'll be a common theme. Most of the people will tell you in one way or another that from their earliest recollections they felt different. They felt less than. They felt incomplete. or they felt broken. And I did. But I've always felt that way. From my earliest recollections, I felt thatway. And it was always, even as a kid, I just wanted to be... I thought growing up would do it. I thought just growing up would do the same thing. I'd grow out of it. And when I was a man, I would feel like a man and I wouldn't feel this sense of incompleteness it didn't work that way it just didn't work thatway I come from very average simple kind of background my dad is going to be at my home when I get home today isn't that amazing I still have my mother and father I'm going tobe 60 years old and I still have my parents and they still are functioning my dad washes other people's windows and sweeps other people's garages out. And I'm proud of that. And that's the way it is. And I come from good, wholesome, hardworking stock. And he had two sons and what he wanted for the two sons was what he thought was the American dream and that is success and power, prestige and happiness. And he knew that the key to that was education which he didn't have and he assumed, of course, that if he gave his children what he didn'T have they would get what he didn't get. And so my brother and I were early on advised that what he wanted for us was to be somebody. And by the time I'm old enough to understand that simple statement, I want you to be somebody, by that time I already felt different and I didn't quite feel like I was anybody and being, I guess, an alcoholic thinker even at that age. When I heard him say, Frank, I love you and I work very hard so that you could someday be somebody, I heard Him say, Frank, you are nobody. You're nobody. You're nothing. He didn't say that. I heard that. It's the craziest thing in the world. And when I'm seven years old, he met a professional person the first professional person he ever met in his life was a lawyer he had bought a house my dad bought a little house right during the second world war and a little bungalow before that we just rented flats and he had to have a lawyer to close the real estate deal and he met this lawyer and he was captivated by this lawyer and he came home and told me I met this guy, and he's a lawyer, and I want you to be a lawyer. And I didn't know what a lawyer was, and nobody at seven years old knows what a lawyer is. It's just crazy. And I was terrified by my dad because my dad was a two-fisted. He was a mean drinker, and when he told you to do something, your life depended on it. At least I perceived that to be the case. And he said, you're going to be a lawyer? And that was my destiny. I didn't know what it was and when we went out and played with the other kids they didn't Know What It Was Either because when you ask and you're seven years old and you don't know if you ever did this but we used to dig holes and start fires and bake potatoes I don't Know If You Ever Did That those were wonderful potatoes if you've never done it just go out in a prairie somewhere and dig a hole and roast a potato and if you don' t get arrested you're going to really have a nice and the kids would talk we want to be when you grow up and they wanted to be race car drivers and policemen and firemen and there weren't astronauts in those days but movie stars there wasn't any television in those days there was no television but they wanted to be movie stars and they want to be quarterbacks and there wasn' t much in basketball at that time but baseball was a big thing and they wanna be pitchers in third baseman but nobody ever wanted to be a lawyer and when I would say well, I know what I'm going to be I want to be the lawyer they'd look at me like you know when people look at you like that all my life people were looking at me like that it started then and just the way it is for people like me people look at you in a funny way and it's not complimentary it's questioning and you know that you don't want to ask the question and you're glad they don't because you know you don' t have the answer but you're uncomfortable with their look. And so I started my life to be a lawyer and I say in comedy sometime because I remember it distinctly when I was about seven years old realizing from the very beginning that although I was going to be a lawyer and my dad told me that was the right thing and I had no choice, I learned early on that I didn't want to be one and I said, and I had a better idea. And it came to me one afternoon when the young little girl next door and I built a tent. You know, in those days you had clotheslines. I don't know if you have that here, but everybody had clothes lines, and that's where you hung your sheets and your pillowcases and your shirts and your underwear. I mean, that was the first erotic thing I ever saw. the neighbor's underwear. I mean, got me through the night. It was just... And what we do is we take a big blanket and you would take it and put it on the line and then you'd make, and you'd put rocks and hold it on to the ground and you just go in there and if you really want some privacy you do it right at the end of the line right next to the garage. So now there's only one entrance. You block the back, and now you've got a real private place, and we built a tent. And that day I realized that my destiny was not to be a lawyer, that after just a few minutes in that tent with her, I knew that what I should do with the rest of my life and what I desperately wanted to do was to be gynecologist. it is in any case I'm not going to do what I did before I'm going to say I'm not going do it and I'm not going to do it I'm not going to talk about a long career of drinking I don't have the time because I do want to get to the commercial and there is something I want to say and I have to get past this stuff to get to it. That's just the way it is. It's just people won't listen until they're comfortable with you or they give you permission to then tell them the rest of the story. It's like that Paul Harvey thing and now the rest OF THE STORY. You may not agree with the rest OF THE Societal History, but the rest Of The Story, just give me the opportunity to say it and then dismiss it if you will. If you're new, don't ever misunderstand. The people that are up here at the podium don't necessarily speak for Alcoholic Synonymous and you don't have to believe or agree with anything I say. It's just the accumulation of experience and observation that I've had in 25 years. I'll tell you two quick things before we get to the commercial. Number one, that last November, people threw a very big and outrageously embarrassing party for me. It was on the occasion of my 25th AA birthday. and it was wonderful but at the same time it's uncomfortable because you know that it's not what we're about is to celebrate and to perpetuate and to raise up individuals and into idols or prophets or whatever and what they did was meaningful and loving but while I was there I couldn't wait for it to be over although I honored their love and it was wonderful but the important, it suddenly dawned on me that here they were there were I think 500 people and some people came from Canada and it Was just neat and they were honoring the miracle and it seemed that what they said was the miracle was that somebody like me could be sober for 25 years. And it was like, that was what we were honoring. November 3rd, 1971. My sobriety date. And it came to me that we were celebrating the wrong date. And I didn't know how to tell them that death is not really the date of the miracle. I don't know the date of the Miracle. The Miracle is that one day I woke up and the fear was gone and I don' t know what day it left because I didn' t know it had left until long after it had gone. And I suddenly woke up and realized I wasn't afraid, nor had I been afraid for a while. The real miracle here in this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous is not November 3rd, 1971 for me. It's the day that the compulsion to drink left. And I don't know what day that happened because it was after the fact that I came to understand that I was so busy doing stuff like Clancy was talking about last night that I don' t remember when I last thought about drinking. One day I woke up and I didn't feel dirty. The kind of dirty that dirty people know and I don't remember when I washed that dirt away or when it was removed, whatever the case might be. Those are the days to celebrate and those are the ways and those were the days that are never celebrated. those are the days that too often people like me take for granted it's just supposed to be that's the way it's supposed to be well I'm glad there's it's supposed to be that way and I hope that it's supposed to be that way for you but those are the important days I'll tell you another story before the commercial is I came to Alcoholics Anonymous ashamed to be here and not wanting to stay and with no intention of staying and had nothing happened I would not be here I'm only here because something happened and it continues to happen and that's the only reason I stay when it stops happening I'm going to be gone I'm gonna go maybe tomorrow maybe today if it stops happening I'm going to leave until then I'm gonna continue to do the stuff that I do and maybe I'll continue to have it happen but I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I I'm not gonna do that George story I just no mood to do that George story and if you're new buy a tape and you can hear that George story I don't want to waste my time with that I'll tell you about a beginner's meeting that we have at our group and a thing that occurred somewhere around 1982 and when I walked into that beginner's meeting which is the largest beginner's meeting in the history of alcoholics anonymous and next tomorrow I'll walk in there and they'll be somewhere between one in two hundred brand new people sitting in that room brand new people and twelve to fifteen thousand of them have come and sat in those red chairs some of those people are here today and on that occasion I asked them to answer a question for me and that was to simply tell me what an alcoholic was and those new people did not know nor did they respond and I told them it was important that we could talk about and identify what an alcoholic is so that we would have a frame of reference to be able to compare ourselves and I challenged them with this wonderful possibility let's presume that we can identify and define what an alcoholic is then wouldn't it be neat if when we applied that definition to us. It did not fit, and we could then leave. Well, that stirred their appetite for further discussion, but nobody knew. Nobody ventured, and I challenged them to make an alcoholic in their laboratories of their minds, and what they did is they stared at me like some of you are staring at me, like, geez, this guy's really a freak all the way out, and see, I'm a guy who believes in limitless in imagination i have i have a wonderful imagination i really do sometimes it's scary but but it's uh it's boundless and uh and so for me to talk about imagination is easy and i said in the laboratory of your mind let's make an alcoholic and i held up an invisible test tube and i asked them to put in the ingredients that they as brand new people would could know about And I said, make an alcoholic. I mean, you cook. You know about recipes. You know About making stuff. Guys are carpenters and pipe fitters. You know, About putting stuff together. Ladies know about that stuff. We all know About Making stuff. And I Said, let's make an Alcoholic in the laboratory of Our mind and we'll make it in This invisible test tube and After a moment of silence and So forth, the little girl put in fear 16 17 years old she put in fear and an older guy 68 years old same class same group brand new to alcoholics i said put in depression and they filled the test tube one after another the arms and hands shot up in the air put in anger put in loneliness put in self-loathing put in guilt, put in remorse, put in negative self-image, put in perfectionism, put in ego, put in inferiority. Isn't that amazing? Put in perfectionist and put in inferiority as if they go together. And alcoholics of my type, they do go together, they're just present at the same time. I can do a lot of stuff that's paradoxical at the time, I can pray and think dirty at the other time. it's just the way it is I'm not proud of that it's part of the struggle and really I don't say that to be cute I live like that I live in that kind of that's me and it's difficult and it' s not a goal to attain I don' t hold it up say okay you want what I have then you can pray and think dirty no, no,no I can' t give you that anymore Clancy can give you a mission but the truth of the matter is and so they just they filled that test tube and I stood back in awe because it dawned on me that there was something they didn't put in they didn' t put it in and I was surprised they didn''t put in alcohol and I knew instantly that they knew what was in the book and they had never read the book. They knew that alcohol was but a symptom of their problem. And all my life in Alcoholics Anonymous I have been hearing and speaking as if alcohol was the problem. The first person in the world who ever pointed that erroneous thought process out to me was Clancy Emerson. it just happened that way if I had a choice to give credit to somebody else I'd be pleased to give credit to somebody that's what it is I'm stuck with it it's like a bad marriage but we're just not going to get a divorce no matter where he goes I'm not going to let him free and and I said that to them I said my God You didn't put it in alcohol. And they all looked. So I said, let's put it in. And so in the test tube, which by the way was me, they had made me, we added some alcohol and we just poured it in. Drip, drip, drip. And a magical thing occurred in the laboratories of our mind and experience. Here's what happened. The alcohol diluted fear. Just enough alcohol makes the shame go away. Dirty becomes clean slowly as you add alcohol in me. I don't know about you. Everything in the test tube, dirty and dark, became gradually white and bright. And for alcoholics like me, when that starts to happen and it gets better and lighter and shinier, I never think about saying, That's it. I'm there. i think this way more would even be better i have never been a social drinker i don't know what social drinkers do i didn't wouldn't want to be a social drunker you are two months over tell me the truth if i had a magic pill that could make you a social Drinker and it absolutely would work and you would absolutely be a social drinker and you will live with the lack of consequences experienced by a social drinker, would you take that pill? Sure you would. No, you would not. That's how sick you are. You think you would but you wouldn't. let's examine the evidence wait just for a minute let's see from the outside let's observe social drinkers social drinker social drinkars meet in the elevator leaving work and they say to each other let's stop your name is? Louie let's have a drink and Louie says okay, Louie the social drinker and we go to the bar and we have a drink and then we go home. What are you laughing about, Loui? How's it like to live like that, Louis? Social drinkers when they go to a bar and the bartender puts a drink in front of them. You know what they do, Louie? Stand back and buckle up because here's what we're going to say. They talk. Now, Loui, focus on that drink. It's there. And they are looking at each other and the drink is here and they are engaged in this stuff. and the drink is there. I was a beer drinker. You know what happens when they're talking? The head falls. Social drinkers, when they are in an environment of sociality, I don't know, are offered a drink and then a second. At some point, be it two or three or after one, they're asked, would you like a drink? Would you like another? And they say, no thank you. I've had enough. How would you like to live like that one day at a time? Louie, every human being that takes alcohol in their system, change occurs of some kind, some shape or form. And these people experience that change, whatever it might be, up, down, sideways, and they don't like it. They don't like it. And when that change starts to occur, they want it to stop. You know why, Louie? They don't like that change because they like how they feel and they like how they see their environment. When the change of how they perceive the environment how they feel starts to change that is a foreign and objectionable feeling and they say no thank you i'm starting to feel it i need that change i desire that change i pursue that change I require that change when that change starts to occur I say thank you very much, I surely will. And another and another and another and that's why I never could nor would I ever wish to be a social drinker. And you won't take the pill would you? No. Because that's the reality and it's time for people like you and I to really deal with reality because that'sthe difference of Alcoholics Anonymous and that is difference between spirituality and the other way in which we lived now be careful because here it comes although this is not stated to be the spiritual meeting or that i am not the spiritual speaker i'd like to share a couple of things that i have learned in alcoholics anonymous about that most of us waste our time seeking the spiritual way of life as if spirituality is out there someplace spirituality is like health we all have it it's either good or bad health but we all have it every one of us has spiritual it's either negative or positive it either leads to freedom or to isolation every one of us is more than flesh and bone and matter and hair substance every one of us has an aura or spirit that projects out from us some of us have powerful whatever they call this stuff but every of us had some of it everyone of us has it that spirit we look out all our lives to find it when in all sense of reality as We already have it to be discovered within. Alcoholics Anonymous is not a religion and is not about religion. It's for people who, I don't know, you can be spiritual and religious. I'm sure that's the case. But Ebi was spiritual. Ebi found religion and Ebi died destitute and drunk 30 years later. Bill Wilson never found religion. He just sought spiritual, and he died and will be remembered for centuries as a person who introduced to us the most phenomenal thought in the history of thought inthe 20th century. And that's quite a feat because this is the century of television, in computers, in rocket ships, in jet planes. but history will record the most important discovery in the 20th century, the discovery which affects more living and unborn people in a positive and hopeful way will be that simple discovery that was put together, written down, and published under the title of Alcoholics Anonymous. And there's a difference between religion and spiritual. It's somewhere between religion and irreligion. It's somewhat in-between. What Alcoholics Anonymous teaches, here's my... I wanted to be religious. I just can't. Here's what fends me off from religion. Religions have one thing in common. It appears to me, and God, I'm open to have my mind changed. And I hope as I mature that if that's not the truth the truth will be revealed but religions all seem to me to have the same thing in common and that is they're all absolutely certain that they're right and everybody else is wrong some of the worst things done by man have been done in the name of religion religion seems to me and I hope I find it that I'm wrong seems to be often to separate the good guys from the bad guys and it's us against them and i don't think that's what god intended and i'm sure you can be religious and spiritual but i can't be religious but bill wilson wrote unless i find a spiritual way of life i must die and i will surely die and he didn't talk about my heart stopping and then i wouldn't live anymore he was talking about the removal of quality from life so that life had no meaning and there was no hope or capacity to love or receive love. And I don't want that kind of life. Now, let me tell you that if you're having a problem with religion and spirituality to understand, I don' t know what, I can' t define spirituality for you, but I'll tell you that it's not about rights and wrongs, commandments and rigorous truths. It's not abo ut perfection. It' s not about answers in evil and good and punishment and reward. Spirituality is more about a process of a journey. It's more about questions than it is answers. It's mehr about experience than it ist dogma. It doesn't talk in the terms of sin. It talks in the term of shortcomings. It doesn' t talk in terms of being God. It talks into terms of accepting the fact that we are human and to be human is always to be broken. Always to be not whole. Always to be less than God, more than beast, and somewhere in between. When that man wrote that book and he called it Not God, it was like a revelation to me. The ability to live as a human and understand that's my destiny. The acceptance of being human is the acceptance of being broken. Incomplete, but striving and wanting to be complete. Being incomplete, but thriving and hoping and working towards wholeness. It's a process. You never get to spiritual. You can get to religious. You don't get to spirit. The joy is not in the getting. Bill Wilson said and I have learned this is true the human tragedy is trying to be perfect only God can do that this feeling of sin and dirty is conjured up in my mind and not in God's reality i twisted and misunderstood my humanity as being offensive to god as if my goal and what i should be is to be a perfect all loving all pure all kind bill wilson saw that it was called absolutes He says, we're out of here. My people can't live with those goals. They will soon understand they can't make it. They will look at themselves and they'll say, what's the use? And he says, We're outofhere. We're outtahere. And there's nothing about being perfect in alcoholics and addicts. There's nothing abut growing away from human. the message of Alcoholics Anonymous, the spirituality of Alcoholic Anonymous to allow you to take a deep breath and realize it's okay to be you. It's just okay to be you and if you have this internal yearning to be a better you, follow it. But when you fail it's not what's to use, it's Not I'm not worthy, it's not that I am nothing it's that I'm again reminded of my humanity and if you hear the voice that says try to be a better you follow it until you fail again and when you fail you don't have to kill yourself abandon these people run away just get up and try again it's just that simple I learned that in Alcoholics Anonymous they said it's about love and service but and it works something special happens something happens to me when I think about you instead of thinking about me something happens to me something happens to my problems when I concern myself with your problems when I concerned myself with my problems my problems magnify when I concerns myself with your problem and I say excuse me I have to go back to my problems they're gone the trick as you get older in sobriety is that when you turn around they're going they're not gone you turn back here instead of going for them and looking for them problem Clancy said last night God loves him God loves me God loves you But if you don't listen carefully, you think that God just started loving Clancy yesterday or five years ago. He liked him in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. And God has to have a sense of humor to put somebody in Eaud Claire, WI. I've been there. But we don't discover that. Some of us ever. but some of us later and later is better than never and it's here in Alcoholics Anonymous in the 12 and 12 it says the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are actions of a spiritual nature when practiced as a way of life will I don't know the exact words will remove the obsession to drink and render the sufferer happily, and usefully whole. Whole. And that's the promise of Alcoholics Anonymous. Not whole like a god, not whole like Swiss cheese. A block of Swiss cheese is the best I'm ever going to do. Whole, yet containing wholes. That is good. I never said that before. That is great. Every one of you, every one of you will have that experience when you're talking to a newcomer. Every one if you have had that experience. You're talking and you suddenly realize you're not saying that. You don't know that. You never thought that. And that's good. and you say to yourself, where did it come from? As you recover, you don't take credit for it. Maybe it's the grace of God. Maybe it is the voice of God speaking one alcoholic to another alcoholic. Maybe that's just my piece of the mosaic today. maybe I'll forget that and next week forget say jeez I said something I don't listen to the tapes so I won't remember from the tapes but I think I hope I remember it because it's a lovely word picture and it's neat and that's what we're there about we're about experimentation we're not about truth we're all about discovery we're talking about getting to a destination we're taking a journey we're trying to give reassure each other that it's okay to take a risk to let go I read a book recently and they had this little story in the book how am I doing? I gotta stop 10 minutes? 5? I wish it was 10 and in this book there was this story it's this silly little wonderful most precious book and the story in this book among other things is a story of a man leaning up against a fence at the edge of the Grand Canyon and as he leans to look over the Grand canyon the fence breaks and he tumbles into space down into the Grand Canyon and halfway down he hits his body in flight hits this old twisted old tree growing out of the side of the Grand Canyon and he grabs a hold of it and he looks up and he's hundreds of feet from the top and he goes and he looked down and he was hundreds of feet from the bottom and up there is sky and down there is death and he panics and he screams, God help me in their silence and tears are rolling down his cheeks and he's holding on as tight as he can and he says, God help me and a voice says, I hear you. It'll be okay. just let go he says God help me and the voice says it'll be okay just let go and he looks down and he says and he look up and he said is there anyone else up there one of the messages of Alcoholics Anonymous is trust in God and let go the greatest obstacle to my recovery in AlcoholicsAnonymous has been my resistance to let go my resistance to subject myself to structure I come from an environment of structure it's modeled after other environments of structure in my city my group is not favored or liked by everyone or most because there's something in the nature of structure that is abhorrent to people like me. It's as if when we see structure, we see someone robbing us of our power. And for alcoholics of my type, subjecting to power, to subjecting myself to the environment of structure enables me to find my power. It's like in Alcoholics Anonymous, strength comes from surrender first there's surrender and from surrender grows strength I'm in an environment in Alcoholics Anonymous that is structured and from that structure I receive power and yet there's people that look at structure and they see the people in the structure and they think they are thieves They are people who take other people's power for their own something or other. Not true at all, not true at al to the degree that we surrender our individuality, our judgments, our uniquenesses. We together, and here's a bunch of ladies from my home group, we have found our own individual power, and no one's taken anything from us. They've just freed us. We've just been afraid in some sense to go on happily ever after. No, just to continue the struggle of trying to make sense out of a world that doesn't always make sense. And AA is not always going to make sense and God will never be understood by people like me. But I don't deny he's there and I'm able now to distinguish between spirituality and religion and therapy. And AA's not therapy. Therapy's about cause and effect. It's about knowledge. This is not about knowledge. This is about experience. This is about living. Therapy is about getting well. This is about surviving. There's a little difference. Therapy explains things. They give answers. We don't give answers here. We just allow people to share questions. It's more about questions than answers, I'll call it synonymous. There's no cause and effect. There's no do this and that. It's just different. All we know is there are suggestions. There aren't commandments and there aren't rules. There are just suggestions. They seem to be, if followed, to have a valuable lesson. More often than not, people that do this get this result. But you don't have to do it and you don' t have to have the result. You can do anything you want and have whatever you want. but don't be like so many people like I was when I first came here don't cheat yourself for once in your life let go for once in your live take a chance it's just that simple let somebody else think for you for a little bit take a break let your mind rest let someone who you will risk with this sponsor person let them in life's stuff tell you what they see and why don't you just take a risk and do what they suggest your way is not working my way wasn't working there's really no risk What's going to happen? It's going to fail. I failed all my life. What if it didn't fail? What if you became comfortably and usefully whole? And what if, prior to that, the obsession to drink was removed? Wouldn't that be wonderful? Thank you very much. Thank you.