Step 2 and Conceptions of a Higher Power – Step Workshop – Part 1 of 2 – Ralph S.

all right the god of reason what is that for you and the other question i had was did you consider that it was religion that there was issues with as opposed to god itself none in the 12th in the big book it talks about didn't we look there was a time where we had this this um this concept of our idea of god that was pure and then it changed right in certain circumstances. So were you able to correlate that and get back to that original concept? Go ahead, Ralph. I'm going to take the second one because I touched on from my perspective the God of reason. I'll let you speak on that one, Steve. I didn't have an original concept, Teresa, so I didn'T return to an original content. I think for most people, I'm gonna try to be brief with this. I think one of the reasons why we talk about in that chapter so much, getting a conception prior to having a relationship is most people don't come in the world with a conception. Now it says most people deep down have a fundamental idea maybe of God, but not a conception. Most people have a conception that's from family, society, community, or when they go searching and most organizations tell you what God looks like he has these characteristics he expects this from his followers this is what you agree to do if you go and get down with us and in alcoholics anonymous you know and so I was raised in a religion that was my mom's and my granddad's and my grandmother's it and so i was raised church but I never had when you listen Ronnie's story, and I'm going to not make this too long. I want to hear Steve, and we want to get more. When you listen to Ronnie's Story, he'll talk about he wanted to have that feeling that he saw people get when they had those. I did not. It better not touch me. It didn't look attractive. It didn' t look appealing. It looked like it was for weaklings and for weak people, so I resisted that, but it's interesting, Teresa, when you say that deal because even though I did not uh most of my prejudice was from conceptions that have been given to me in religions but there is a part in the book and it talks about uh deep down in every man woman and child at the fundamental and he said it's almost like the feeling you have for a friend and when i was beaten the submission and it's very interesting it's because the second step doesn't take place in step two, but there is a lot that takes place in step two, even prior to step two. Something happened that when I wholeheartedly gave myself over and I did it pretty quickly in sobriety, what is it that makes standing in the circle at a meeting feel like being at home? I was different than Steve. I stood in the cycle. I felt the power. I felt connected. I felt a sense of coming home. So a long right way around the block is I don't know that I returned to any sense of God as much as form for the first time my own concept slash relationship for my own. and I had to abandon what I thought was prejudice, which was really prejudice toward what other people had said, not prejudice against God on my own. Sorry for the long answer. You know, Teresa, I think for me, number one, as I've already said, I kind of arrived without much. I had not had any bad religious experience. I had just not had a very impactful one. I'd gone to church as a kid, but as I often say, I enjoyed the stories. You know, I enjoyed, you know, Daniel and the lion's den and Jonah and the whale and Jack and the beanstalk. I mean, I didn't know the difference one from the other. And so I just didn't have an experience. And but I couldn't separate religion. And I also didn't Have any spiritual experience, if you will. I was that's not an area that I had that had interested me so I've been more often say I wasn't atheist or agnostic I was apathetic I was uninterested and unengaged I think the other part the 12 and 12 says that one of the the types of people that will have a problem with this is the intellectually self-sufficient which I think is the god of reason and I think that that's just when I and in this when Ralph said do I lose the second step where I lose it is substituting my thinking for God's thinking that I apply worldly logic to something that that is uh spiritual in nature and it's too big for me to reason my way through and so anyway that's the that's the briefest answer I have for that please Lynn come on up please hey um lynn alcoholic i think sorry um hey so um just loving this so much um and i love the way my concept of a higher power is is always changing and sort of growing as i go along i was wondering if you guys could speak a little more to um what you think about when you talk about, when they talk about sanity and insanity in the second step. You know, I think I mentioned last week and one of the things that I really focus on is in the big book right after Jim pours the whiskey in his milk, it says, what can this lack of proportion and the ability to think straight be called but insanity so what I view it as is I have gone through my life looking through uh looking through glasses you know through the filter of my self-centered fear of all of that bondage of self and it has colored the way I see the world and the way i experience the world and I see things out of proportion not in their right size and I think that the 12 steps Chuck Chamberlain talks about a new pair of glasses, I think that's very much what happens as I begin to get freer of self and spiritually connected that I begin to see things as they really are and I believe I think in eastern religions a spiritual awakening is often equated to seeing things, seeing the truth being spiritually awake and being able to see thing as they really are And Lynn, I want you to put that on the board and I want you to stay with us all throughout this journey because oftentimes, that's an excellent question for what I'm going to make. Oftentimes when I read a step new people especially, I will expect every word in that step to be addressed in that stuff. Let's listen to what the second step is. Came to believe. Okay, so I don't believe in the second step, necessarily. For many of us, it's a starving point. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. So something's going to happen as a result of relationship with a power bigger than me. I'm not going to have this relationship with this power in the second step. It's foretelling what happens and why it is that I would want to have the second step. Why? Because it's something when it comes to alcoholism, something strangely insane, you go to the strange middle blank spots, parallel with your sound reasoning. It's a trivial idea. We talked about that in the first step. And the reason I want you to put that word, which shows up in the second step, but which has little relationship to step two, I want you to hold that. And when we get to step 10, when we come out of step nine, I'm going to give you guys a preview of coming attractions so you can come back. But it's a ways down the road. And it's going to say, for by now, sanity has returned. so we're getting the first step on a journey. So you got to be with us, so you can come back and circle back to that question. The second step is like going on a blind date. Thank you Lynn for your question. Mickey, come on up Mickey please. Hi I'm Mickey, I'm an alcoholic. To be doomed in alcoholic death or to live on a spiritual basis are not easy alternatives to face you touched on it a little bit that your mind shut when it came to that i always like to play let's make a deal look for door number three but um you said your mind sort of shut to it i know you said that steve and i forgot what you said ralph if there was another if there were a door number would you accept it as easy as you would the higher power that you didn't want to accept i think if there had been a door number three i would have been willing to try it first and uh but you know in alcoholics anonymous i believe that i believe what we say and uh you know and we talk about these being suggestions right and and it and how it works it says following are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery and on page 164 it says you know uh we realize we know only a little our book is meant to be suggestive only but here's the deal it's the only suggestion we got there is no second set of suggestions in alcoholics anonymous so the only suggestion we got is to find a power greater than yourself and so that takes all the arguing away once i decide i'm in aa and and i become clear that the solution is a power greater than myself everything else i do in aa is about uh connecting myself to that to that power and building that relationship and then sharing that with others so that door number three question kind of goes to if that be the case uh that it's suffering from if that'd be the case, you may be suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience will conquer. If it's the case that you suffer from alcoholism, you maybe suffering from an experience only of spiritual experience to conquer. So you say try if there was a three, okay? What would a three look like other than a spiritual experience? Romantic experience, tried it, kept getting loaded. Making money experience, tried it kept getting load. Physical exercise, tried, it kept getting loaded acupuncturist that tried it kept getting loaded you know um um starting a family experience tried it to have been loaded falling in love experience tried they kept getting older tried all the door for us in chapter three it talks about every imaginable remedy ad infinitum for most of us we've tried door number three four five six seven eight nine ten you know we've tried ad infinitum so for me to play with is there a door i played with them already we called alcoholics anonymous last house on the block we are the people who've tried the doors thank you mickey marybeth would you come on up please hey mary beth alcoholic guys thank you so much for doing this and i apologize if you've answered this before i just i don't know i'm a little slow or dumb or something but um so like you like are you saying like if like we don't experience step two and step two we don t experience it till like down the road to step ten then are you saying i can't get restored to sanity like right at step two i gotta wait like i don t know i don t if that's dumb i m sorry just move on to the next one i just i don't know no that's wonderful marybeth because of course i would love that but guess what we'd have a two-step program maybe three we might go from one to oh now i'm restored sandy then i might start giving it away okay we might have a four cell program improve my relationship no no so instead of two oh no i'm not even going to tell you i'm going to tell you you have got to come back because guess what in step two i've just decided i'm willing to believe in a power steve already pointed out i'm blocked from that power i want to have relationship i'm looking at you on here mary but i would love to have a relationship with you you cute you strike my oh you strike my family. I'd love to, but that doesn't put me in relationship with you because I'm willing to. There are some steps to take. And so that is what, so yes, short answer, no, I'm not restored to sanity at the second step. I think, you know, there's Bill Wilson had a sudden and vital spiritual experience, but six months later he was standing in the Mayflower Hotel getting ready to go have a cocktail with the gay crowd inside the bar before making that phone call. So, in fact, any sanity that I'm returned to is a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of that spiritual condition. So let's all come back next week. I agree. Thank you for your question. anna come on up please my name is anna i'm an alcoholic um i just wanted to um ask you to comment on the last line in this chapter when we drew near to him he disclosed himself to us sounds kind of dramatic i wondered how you take that that's the whole deal that's the whole thing god don't make hard terms with those who seek him so when i come out of the second step and i'm like okay just where and how to find this power and there's a lion book that says well that's just what this book is about its main object is the introduction to but that will solve your pro isn't that big isn't it not a powerful promise i'm 33 you guys when i put it down there was still a lot of stuff it's a lot it's all out to being grown There's a lot to being grown in this life. It's a lot to having kids. It's a lot that people look at you and expect you to come up with answers. Life is big on a guy named Ralph. And so it seemed like when you get the gorilla out of town, everything should be cool in the gang, but oh, I need a power. And the interesting thing about just where and how to find you ain't gotta go, you know, it ain't a road to perdition. You ain't got you know the whole deal he says is the disclosure he'll be that whole grow god shrink right i say it all the time grow god shrink ralph whole deal i reduce myself you guess what's left he ain't no he's not steve and i are gonna have so much when we talk about this thirst of bondage yourself there the power ain't nowhere it's too much me in between me and the powers as we take the rest of these steps, these ego reducing series of spiritual exercises, what will be left is the power. You ain't got to go. People say, well, write letters and construct them. And all that's good stuff. But Alcoholics Anonymous is a program of reduction. It's a program of subtraction. It' s not a program of addition. All our adjectives talk about ridding ourselves, freeing, you know, abandon myself though listen to the adjectives and so all that has to do with full disclosing you know when it talks about that disclosure what is talk about is reduction of ego yeah and over my shoulder here on the wall there's a poem by william blake and uh and it describes my experience and i think to your question and it says i sought my god my god i could not see assault my soul my soul eluded me but i sought my fellow man and found all three and that's been my experience that that when when i said earlier that deep within every man woman a child is the fundamental idea of god then the way i get closer to god is to get closer you when as the other book says with two or more gathered what happens i believe that god god's presence is everywhere but for me but But I believe that I've become more aware of it when I am with you. And when we are gathered here together is when I am most aware of the power that's ever present. But my accessibility to that seems to be enhanced when I spend time with God's kids. John Pine, come on up, brother. Thanks, Ali. Hey, Ralph. Hey, Steve. Nice to see you, as always. and uh sorry if you touched on this i was late i was at my home group it wraps up at nine and had my mind blown last night on fuss toronto with don c from colorado and uh he said something that uh struck me uh i've always you know the bedevilments inventories and we agnostics and i've been always taught you know step twos we agnostic but he says he does a step one every, it seems like he does it every year. He said 37 out of 42 years in the devilman's inventory is how he goes back through step one. Just wanted to see what you guys had to say about that. I certainly can't argue with that experience. I think that the, I hope that I am continually examining my relationship to the first step and all the steps. I don't know if I think in terms of taking the step because I've never taken it back, but I think that I have a deeper relationship because I think these steps don't change. The information doesn't change, but since this is a spiritual program, the spiritual depth continues and so i am i am uh more aware of my powerlessness than ever i am more aware of the uh bedevilments as they present themselves in my life than ever and and they are not as pervasive as they used to be and they don't stay as long as they use to be but they are more uncomfortable than ever when they show up Ralph, did you want to? No, Steve covered that one. All right. Thank you very much. Nancy Bowling, come on up, please. Try now. Okay. Thanks. Hi, everybody. I'm Nancy. I am an alcoholic. And I just wanted to ask you a question. thanks for helping me do the hand raise without having to hand raise how come i don't know how to raise a hand um i'll learn but uh i just wanted to ask you ralph because you really struck me when you spoke for us at my home group about a month or two ago that um you said and i just wanted everybody to hear if i can say it right maybe you'll say it again and that is when you hit your knees and then i know that we're not here yet as far as making the connection but rather becoming ready and willing to find a power greater than ourselves you said something in the third step really that was to the effect that when you get there you're going to be able to do it when you hitting your knees was really your signaling your willingness to be ready every morning? I don't know if you remember that. I, well, I'm such a stickler, Nancy. Thank you for the question. You know, I am, and I'm not a rigid guy at all, but I am so excited to be going through this with Steve. I hesitate to go in the three when we're still in two you know and that really is so nancy you're gonna have to come back because we're going on we're gonna talk about going on our knees next week um so come on back next week and we're to talk about because that's that's the third step experience initially and then it also bleeds into my 11th step right now too so So I apologize for not answering, but Steve and I have really determined that we're going to try to stay each week in the step that we are doing, you guys. So I'm not going to be the first one to break the protocol. Go on, Tracy. I'm sorry, Nan. Go ahead. Go ahead, Tracy Hi. Thank you. i'm a grateful alcoholic thanks everybody for great uh meeting um my question is um it took me about six years to do step one and two and because i couldn't uh i just couldn't see it and it wasn't until there was a real hardship that um I was finally with I guess this is maybe step three then they're finally willing and I just wondered from your experience because I think people really struggle with one in two and that was my experience and I wonder if what you think about you know when people really are struggling that's when they're are willing. That's what I have found, but. Wow. Well, I can't speak to two people. I know for me a thorough enough one drove me right into two and I don't know that I'm sober without the second step. So as one who had relapsing experience, so I can speak to an extended, you know five or six years i'm not sober without the second step um that's been my experience and and i had had a couple of relapses before i finally um was driven under the lash alcoholism you know to run it as say candace calls it the soft blanket of the second steps and it's an inviting place we talked just a little earlier about going through that third door and as long as I think there's another option then it's awfully hard to stop drinking when I think maybe I still can it's hard to give up the management of my life when I think maybe i still can't who among us wants to admit complete defeat I mean I'll take a beating but not complete defeat and uh and it is just hard to submit myself to the second step if i haven't done that in the first and and typically i don't think again my own experience was the second step real i talk about that being hard but it wasn't it's the first step and then but but I'm usually talking about the second step when I still haven't taken the first