Steps 1, 3, 4 and 5 – Mad Dog Recovery AA Speakers Workshop – Part 1 of 2 – 1997 – Mark H.

I would like to take a moment of silence, each of us in our own way, as the God of our understanding, to be here so that we can have an open mind, a new experience, fulfill that promise that where two or more are gathered in his name, he will be there. And then let's follow that with this serenity prayer. Thank you. Serenity Prayer. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. I am going to move out here. I don't think you'll have any problem hearing me. Modulation has never been a problem of mine. I was laughing when he said dysfunctional family. A friend of mine used to say that he came from a dysfunctional family, and he said the reason it was dysfunctional is because he was in it. And I think that's true of a lot of alcoholics. I want to talk a little bit about my current experience and where I'm at. One of the things that almost killed me in Alcoholics Anonymous is telling you about when I used to come in here and when I use to come here and when i used to come in here. And telling you about the results of an inventory I did three years ago, and trying to live a life off an inventory that my ego generated three years ago. It almost killed me. Nine years sober, I went into a psychiatric hospital. It's a nice name for an insane asylum. I was in there because of severe untreated alcoholism. Last six months, I got a chance to experience a little bit more of that. Started to get moved into a depression. You know, it's the funny thing about speaking. When I speak anymore, all I talk about is my current experience. There's too many people I've seen speaking get real real sick a lot of them drink and then some of them commit suicide and do other things because they ask to speak a lot and all they talk about is an old experience they had we end every meeting with give me this day my daily bread where are you at today in seeking a spiritual experience because that's all it's about your body can't live off the food you ate a week ago if you're sitting in this room trying to live off an experience of last week let alone last year you're living in an illusion much closer to a drink than you could ever imagine so i'll bring you a little bit current last year i was talking with my friend troy he and i sat down somewhere around july we spent some time in the first step and the truth is neither he nor i did much with that thereafter what slowly began to happen for me last year I'd also started a group four and a half years ago I call steel on steel that met once a month and that was included to myself for men and women, and what that group allowed me to do is not get in self-delusion. And that group had stopped. And I look back, and what I see begin to happen is my self-will begin to come back and manifest. It's called reconstruction of the ego. You cannot beat it. Your self- will cannot beat your self-willed. You're up against something that is as powerful as God himself as far as you're concerned. Big Book says you better be convinced that any life run on self-well will not work, that only God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you from him. Your mind trying to treat your mind is ridiculous. If my mind could treat my mind, I'd be a lot better off than what I am today. So would you. My self-willed begin to come back and basically when self-well comes back, you aren't making choices, you're being driven. A lot of people sitting in AA and thinking because they're sober that they're making choices Now, if you believe that's true, you just go back to the last year of your life, look at some of the choices you made, and if you're like me, an idiot could have made better choices. Because behind those choices, you probably took some action that harmed you and harmed others, might have impacted you physically, emotionally, financially in your career, and you think that's a choice? Look up the word driven. And I began to get driven last year and basically what happened is I made some decisions between July and November that were extremely harmful to me in every single area of my life financially, emotionally tremendous heart pain tremendous suffering coming out of self-will beginning somewhere around basically what I did is I was taken to a position where I couldn't even call people who loved me and cared about me. Couldn't pick up the phone. Wasn't going to meetings, doing prayer and meditation. Did I wake up one day and say, you know, I think this is what I'll do? No. No, I didn't. And then somewhere around the middle of April, I was living in Motel 6 in Irving, Texas. I decided, let me tell you what self-will can do, right? I decided that what I would do is I would quit this career I was in, leave these two dogs I love and this house, and what I'd do is go over here and work construction and become a multi-millionaire. When I do Theater of the Lie, I'm going to do one on myself. You'll see the idiocy of that whole process. That was not a choice. That was driven by a state of being that I have that says I must have a lot of money to be okay. And I was out working construction for a couple months. There's nothing wrong with working construction. In fact, that's the last place God wants me. He has a sense of humor. Most of the time, I had to pick up and I had three Hispanics with me and they couldn't speak English and I can't speak Spanish. So I teach them one word of Spanish, they teach me one word in English or the other way around. Anyhow, it was amazing. But I'm in this hotel, it's about the middle of April, and I just reached another place to surrender and I took all my books and everything and I threw them aside and said, screw it, God, I quit. I can't, I just quit. Within about an hour, the phone started ringing. I got a job offer. I go down to Austin. Austin's hard to find a place to live and I'm driving into town. I'm going over to my friend Troy's to stay and my intuition, that inner voice when you're connected says, go down Manchaca come to a place called the forest go in here, go inside gosh I just have a place that's available the rent's paid up for a month and a half you can stay the first month and half free you can move in today coincidence right driving a big truck don't need a truck for what I'm doing now went up to the dealer and he said you know I just got this other car in I got a guy that's interested another coincidence so I'm still going through a lot of emotional upheaval a lot of pain in the heart. I put myself in a severe financial situation. So in that state, I know enough. I know that what I better be doing is I better do some real serious work out of the big book. So I wrote a couple inventories with a minor review of the first three steps and did fifth steps. And then about six weeks ago, myself and Troy and a man named Andy. Andy's got how many months you sober? Now some of you have been sober for a long time. This one's really going to be hard for you. I was willing to do a fifth step with a guy five, six months sober. Why, my God, he can't help me. The arrogance of that, right? And Troy, who's coming up on three years, two and a half. We spent five hours on the first three steps. Five hours. Current experience with step one. Not 14 and a halve years ago, not October the 19th of 1982. Where was I six weeks ago today with step 1? The hopelessness of step 1. And we spent some time on step two and step three, and then we begin to write inventory with an agreed-upon date for doing the fifth step. And Wednesday night in my house, over six hours, the three of us swapped fifth steps. And when you do fifth steps, having a solid chain, a solid foundation in the first three steps, and you write that inventory and do a fifth step, you begin to disconnect from self-will and from ego. And we left that night, and we were all exhausted, so the next day we spent that hour in review, answering all those questions. was our work solid so far? Did I know God better because I was disconnected from self-will as a result of that experience? Were my stones properly in place? Was my work solid. Was it so far my foundation? And then this time, then I went for a run and while I was running, I knew I needed to do something. And I made a list of all the things in that inventory that were absolutely objectionable to me that came from self will. there were 69 specific items now if I ask Andy and Troy how many were on their list they'd say only 10 or 15 probably but I've been doing this work and the longer you're sober the more you better be experiencing how much you fall short in thought, word and deed but your ego will go take you just the other way righteousness kills long term sobriety been around a long time to sponsor all these babies look at me hasn't made an amendment in years dying inside the longer you do this work I submit to you you will experience how much more you fall short that's called spiritual progress that's call humility and then I got down on my knees and I did the seven step prayer and I said God take all of me good and bad so that I can be more useful to you so this week our agreement is we will make our eight step list we have our inventory we have written and we will make a list, and we will pray and ask God to reveal any harm we have ever put out into the universe of any kind. Why? Because you will reap what you sow. I guarantee you, everyone sitting in this room has a bunch of harm you have put out in the universe, some of which you are aware of that's corroding and eating you and robbing you of your energy, and you haven't made amends for those, and there are some beyond that that can come to you. My experience is if I don't clean that up, I will reap what I sow. That's why, because that's the way the universe works that's why and when we're done with that eight step list our agreement is we're going to have about six of us in the ninth step at the same time and we're gonna meet once a week and we'll be accountable to each other for about making those amends i don't come from the school of well i'll make the amend when they show up in the elevator when you were screwing them over. That isn't how it works. You sought them out, right? You didn't wait. The guy that you owe money to, did you wait till he showed up in the elevator? No. You called him 19 times and ran down to him. When it comes time to amends, there's a line in the book, we hate this with amends. It says, I'm going to go to the utmost of my ability to make this amends." You don't think they meant the utmost of your ability you don't think they meant that do you so currently that's where i'm at i live in austin texas that was interesting too i heard rumors i was living about nine places at the same time so currentlythat's where i am in seeking god current prayer meditation has taken on a whole new dimension for me again because every time back through the work and again let me explain, let me correct myself the work of Alcoholics Anonymous is sitting down taking someone through the big book. That's the work of Alcoholic Anonymous. The spiritual exercises, the spiritual course of action is where I go through the steps. So again that's where I'm at. What I want to do here today is I want you to is I wanna bring all of you current maybe experientially with your first step and maybe open you up to some things in the second step and maybe have you consider some things in the third step and then we're going to do that prayer and then I want to do theater of the lie and what's great about the theater of a lie is hopefully it will make you experience inventory see AA's questions are not to be answered or concluded about they are to be experienced nobody's here today because you believe liquor would work for you you drank a lot you experienced drinking we must experience God we must experiment we must face the steps i fell into this this thing of you work one through nine and live in 10 11 and 12 now that i can't find that in the book as a matter of fact there's some interesting sentences in the books that would be very contradictory to that one of them is the tenth step is where it gives you a strong warning it's easy to let up the spiritual program of action well at that point in time in the book the spiritual program of actually has been the first nine steps there's another place where it's about progress and not perfection none of us can maintain say they knew some things in that book that I had to have an experience with that I almost died sober by that I wish I'd paid a little more attention to so I have learned the valuable lesson of continually doing 1 through 9 I had a little period of time in AA where I tried to use steps 4 through 9 to solve problems and all you do when you do that is you create a new third column. You create yourself in your own image. Let's say for example, you're having problems in a relationship. None of you have ever had that problem. And so you write some inventory because maybe she left or he left and so you see in the third column where you were a little selfish, self-seeking, dishonest, afraid. Without a solid review in the first three steps, here's all that's going to happen. You've now caught your ego and you say well, you know I was kind of a jerk and I was inconsiderate and I was this. So what I'm going to do is I'm gonna stop being that and I'ma start being this and you pull that shit off for about one month and then you're back to the old self again. I did that once and I made the decision I needed to become celibate in almost a month and I pulled that off eight months and the woman walked in one day and in five weeks I married her. I have experience with this. So let's talk about, uh, I want to read a couple things I found that were most interesting. When you buy a new big book, on the fly page there's a cover. Third paragraph down says, but the basic text pages 1 through 164 remains unchanged. This is the AA message. The first 174 pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous is the AA Message. And if you're working with anyone and you're sharing something outside of this please do that and please tell them that because this is the AA message right I want to read you something Bill Wilson wrote there's these little booklets what he's talking about is all these people that were coming into AA and a lot of them would go back out and drink again and he says we cannot well contend ourselves with the view that all these recovery failures were entirely the fault of the newcomer Perhaps a great many did not receive the kind amount of sponsorship that they so sorely needed. We did not communicate when we might have done so, so we AAs failed them. There are killing things going on in Alcoholics Anonymous. What do I mean by that? I mean that if you're a victim of the disease of alcoholism, if you do not have a revolutionary spiritual experience, you will die. That's what I mean. That is my experience. I work in the chemical dependency field. In the last three years alone, I know 40 men and women personally. Some of those men and woman, I've listened to Fifth Steps, who are dead from alcoholism. So what do I mean when I say there's killing things going on in Alcoholics Anonymous? I mean that when somebody's in a meeting and they're new and they want to help them, giving your opinion on how to recover is a killing thing. That's what I mean. so maybe what we need to do is spend our time in the first 174 pages of the book which is the AA message you start looking at statistics about this long term sobriety and you watch what's happening the number of people in this program who get sober or are sober 10 years or more is infinitesimal almost non-existent, why? because a lot of what I want to talk about today reconstruction of the ego whereby you go through the steps maybe once maybe you have a revolutionary spiritual experience there's a term in AA we use called pink cloud my experience is what that is is the glory of God you experience it we use the term pink cloud and we in that state what a state how many of you experience that the pink cloud wow and what happens is ultimately that's only the beginning and ultimately you stop doing that which created it to begin with and now you're left with knowledge of a past experience trying to recapture and recapture troy kept talking about bringing up in his first year see i've discovered today god will manifest through people sometimes brand new people and in troy's first year when he would speak the words of god would come right out so i got as close to him as i could then one day he realized it was happening then i got away from but there comes a time when that when that presence of that power begins to cease and we don't feel it anymore and it's more than feeling and at that point in time boy you better go to work and why does that happen the big book says why because we were blocked from experiencing god because of self-will self-willed has come back period end of statement now here's the dilemma you're in. You're being driven by self-will. You're in self-delusion. Don't think you're self-well. Self-delution. Look at what that means. You know, if four people tell you a duck, it's a duck and you think it's an eagle, chances are it's not. Chances are it says duck. That's why you've got to have people, I've gotto have people around me who know how I'm wired. So when I start talking about something that's an ego and they're looking and saying, you know, that guy's way out there. They come up and say, Troy caught me on the way down. I made a statement about I chose to smoke, right? He said, you need to think about what you just said. That was a dumb thing coming from you. I said, You know what? You're right. I didn't even have to think About it. But what happens is the ego begins to come back. Again, I'm getting back to why don't people stay sober. There's a line in the big book that says, If I'm not happy and contented with my sobriety, I will drink again. And you know what, that's the truth. if I'm not happy and contented. So how do I stay happy and contented? I'll tell you how you stay happy and contended. Self-will must die and continually die over and over and over again to then experience what it says in the tenth step. We've entered the world of the spirit along this line we can do anything the line of God's will. Peace. Peace. You know page 50 is one of my most favorite paragraphs in the whole book. Matter of fact I want to read it because it's kind of a theme, a little bit of what I want to do today. Talks about, it's the bottom of page 50. It says, Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed. These men and woman flatly declare since they've come to believe in a power greater than themselves, step two, take a certain attitude toward that power, step three, do certain simple things, the rest of the steps. Listen to this promise. There's been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking. You don't think they need a revolutionary chief, do you? I mean, that's an interesting... Revolutionary. In the face of collapse and despair, in the face to the total failure of their human resources, they found a new power. I want to talk to you today. I don't care how long you're sober. If you want to find a new power in your life, a new peace. Peace. Peace. A state of being inside. Peace. Happiness and a sense of direction flowed into them. True. puts chill bumps on me this happened soon after i wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements do you think they meant made a few sample requirements once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence sober i added that word they showed the underlying reasons why they were making heavy going to life i submit to every one of you if you're sitting in this room and you're suffering from pain guilt, financial problems relationship problems, anything you are making heavy going of your life you are making heavy growing of your light you are making heavy glowing of your like and that's the greatest statement I hope you'll ever hear from me because if it's anything outside you're screwed because it's got to change for you to be at peace and have power and happiness in the sense of direction we make heavy going a life life does not make heavy growing up itself Why do we do that? Because we're starting to live life in self-will. Life on life's turns and self-willed is miserable. Leave inside the drink question, I'm going to make an assumption we're all sober here. I mean, here's my question. After about five days, that's the most sober physically I'm ever going to get, I think, isn't it? Right? I mean how sober can you get? Physically, right? So leaving aside the drink question, they tell why living is so unsatisfactory. Living, life. Wow. They show how the change came over and then they describe the essence of the change. The consciousness of the presence of God. Most important fact of their life. That's why I keep doing the first nine steps over and over again to experience new power, peace, happiness, sense of direction because my self-will comes back and I begin to experience heavy going of life. I tell you I am still dealing with what feels like a broken heart in many areas of my life and do you know in the middle of that broken heart there is great peace within me we all suffer many losses in recovery you know that you can suffer a great loss and you can suffer with and for God with peace in your heart you know if you're in self-will you can't that's why I keep going through the first nine steps over and over again. The most exciting thing going on in my life today is seeking true self, child of God, and what that means. There's nothing more exciting in my whole life. You know why? Because there ain't no end to it. See, if this is all there is, then God isn't everything. There's more past here. There are dimensions available to us all we know nothing about. Dimensions of love, wonder, joy, being able to be a friend, we know nothing about them. and the first nine steps, continually working with the first nine steps allow me to experience it. I love people at a level today I couldn't even conceive of a year ago. Self-will has to go in order for that to manifest itself. So let's talk about step one. Most of you in this room have a sense of where step one is all about and where you find it in the book. You look at the physical craving from the Doc's opinion of page 23. So when I go back into step one, we say a prayer that God set aside everything I think I know for an open mind and a new experience. By the way, let me comment on something. You all know the line in the big book, the spiritual life's not a theory, I've got to live it? This is my experience in seeking God. Your opinion on an experience you've never had is useless to me. Here's what I mean. How many of you here have taken a piece of inventory and done multiple fifth steps with it? Raise your hand. okay so some of you have experience the rest of you don't have a clue what could happen to you if you took a piece of inventory and read it to six people do you right am i right see the spiritual life's not a theory i gotta live it so i have people call me all the time and say well what do you mean multiple fifth steps where is it in the book well the big book says do fifth steps with person or persons oh shoot and they'll want to give me their opinion i'll say wait a minute wait a minute write the inventory get five people go do a fifth step with everyone i'm with the same inventory call and every time they do they go oh my god i wish i had done this before so the point i'm really trying to make if i'm saying anything you don't have experience with the best your ego can do is giving you an opinion and it's not going to be a good one because it hasn't done it and anything i haven't done of course I've got to disagree with you, don't I? There's an attitude on page 55 of the big book. It's an Attitude I Hope I Have the Rest of My Life. You know what it says? It says if I'm willing to lay aside prejudice, you look up the word prejudice, it means preconceived thought or opinion. If I'm going to lay beside prejudice, think honestly, search deep within myself. It says with this attitude I cannot fail. Wow, that's a powerful promise. With this attitude, I cannot feel that tells me why I can't fail. The consciousness of my belief, my experience with God is sure to come to me so that's what I would hope some of you would do today be willing to lay aside what you think you know your knowledge of your past experience don't judge an experience you've never had be open minded get interested in yourself, your true self get interested a new power, a new peace happiness, sense and direction so we look at step one we use a prayer where am I today with this phenomenon called gravy my physical allergy to alcohol What would happen to me if I took a drink of alcohol today? And you look at that again. Am I a real alcoholic? Don't kid yourself. Very best 5-6% of real alcoholics who ever come to AA will ever die sober with any sense of peace in their heart. That's how fatal this illness is. I ain't talking about all the people who come into AA that are hard drinkers. I'm talking about real alcohols. That's why the big book uses the term real alcoholists because they talk in the big book about a hard drinker and a hard drinking looks just like an alcoholic except for one big difference it says a hard rinker has a habit it would impair him physically or mentally it would cause him to die a few years before his time or her time but there's one little difference between a hard drinker and a guy like me, here's what it is you give a hard drinks sufficient reason they can stop or moderate I had 9000 reasons and couldn't stop, stay stopped or moderate those of you laughing can understand because you're just like me It's called identification. What about the real alcoholic at some point loses control and I go back into my experience? And every single time I look at me and me taking a drink of alcohol today, here's what I come away with. I don't have a clue what would happen to me if I took a drink. I don'T have a CLUE. Would I make it back? I DON'T know. I wouldn't say no because that'd limit the power of God. But the truth is I DONT have a CLEW what would HAPPEN to me. Then I go to pages 23 to 43. That's where you look at a thing called the mind because the big book says our main problem centers in our mind rather than in our body. Long before we ever got to AA, every one of us was separated from alcohol for various periods of time, but we had a mind that took us back to alcohol. Why would somebody 12 years sober pick up a drink? 17 years sober, pick up the drink. Two years sober pickup a drink. The main problem center is in the mind because the mind tells them to go pick up and drink. Pages 23 to 43 describe seven states of mind, seven or eight states of mine that take me back to a drink and when you see the truth of these states of mind you're going to get a little uncomfortable here's one of them you've lost the power of choice in drinking I sit in meetings, I still hear this I got up this morning chose not to drink alcohol what in hell are you doing in AA are you a fool who wants to hang around with this awful bunch of people talking one time This lady talked about what wonderful, charming people alcoholics were. I said, you've been dropped on your head. We're the most healthy, self-seeking group of human beings on the planet. We are people of the lie. I just choose not to drink. If I'm a real alcoholic, I've lost the power of choice in drinking. Here's another state of mind. No mental defense. What do you think they meant by that? And they give a stupid example. The guy burned his hand in the stove, right? And I'll say to people, well, let me ask you, do you ever burn yourself? Yeah. Well, if you walk by the stove and the burner was on high, would you put your hand on there? No, are you a fool? I said, well why? They said, because I did that once, it really hurt. I said and that's right, you have a mental defense, you'll never do it again, will you? No. I said well, pretend the stove is alcohol. We're the kind of people, both arms, both legs are gone. I'm saying put me up there, it won't burn me. That's called no mental defense. And the book says, here's your problem, Mark. You don't know what the day looks like when you will have it. Whoa. Why do you think people go back after 12 years, 17 years, 31 years? Because there came a time when they had no mental defense, that's why. Here's another state of consciousness. That paralleled with my sound reasoning, there ran some trivial, insane reason for taking a drink. She left and she stayed. I got fired, I got the job. I got money, I don't have money. My sponsor died, my sponsor's alive. I don' t feel good, I feel good. It doesn' t matter. It' s insane, right? It' m like this arm' s gone and I go six years and the doctor has to see me because I put my hand on the burner. One day I put it on again. He said, why did you do that? I said, well, my girlfriend hollered at me. He would say, that's a somewhat insenial, terrible reason to put your hand on the stove, Mark. That's another state of mind that we get into. Here's another state of mine. It's called suddenly. You know the line in the book? Suddenly the thought crossed Jim's mind he'd like to mix whiskey with milk. If I knew what suddenly looked like, I'd call Gus and say, Gus, in two hours, suddenly he's going to come on me, talk me out of a drink. that ain't the way it happens suddenly give me the liquor I mean there's not a cloud on your eyes I mean my life is going great and I can take a drink and you get done experiencing 23 through 43 and here's what you get real clear on it sums it up at the bottom of page 43 once more, the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink length of time in the program, work you've done in the past, there is no effective mental defense. My defense must come from a power granted myself. When Troy and Andy and I went through the work six weeks ago, in the last six months, based on some of the pain that I was in, I should have been drunk 50 times. And I was sitting there sober that night and it had nothing to do with me. Man, do you think that don't produce a little tension? I don't care how long you're sober. if you're not looking at this you're so close to a drink it's incredible it's incredibly what's my current experience with step one not back in 1982 right it's like trying to tell you about a prime rib meal I had back then and how great it was right and then we get into page 52 the unmanageability of our life a condition that exists inside and they describe page 52 so let's all get current with your own life here's what it starts out with it says we're having trouble in personal relationships so as you sit here right now begin to think about the one you're having with yourself and then everyone around you how is it with the husband the wife with your group with your friends your male friends your female friends personal relationships how is a relationship i have relationships with everything my automobile the bed i sleep in how is it with all those produce a little tension in some of you cannot control my emotional nature what's he mean by that oh i mean do you ever rev up and down days we're off the charge right prayed misery depression see i never knew this when i'm in self-will the extra world owns me So something happens in my external world and my emotional nature goes all over the page. And something happens in my exterior world and I become afraid of misery and depression. When you're in self-will, your external world owns you. Can't make a living doesn't mean we can't earn money. Make a life. What's your life like? The time you get up until the time you go to bed. What's you're life like. Full of fear. What's he mean by that? You all know what I mean. The vulture sitting on the end of the bed. Hi Mark, I'm glad you got up. I've been waiting to talk to you you're gonna fail that job no one likes you you're going to die an old bitter man have a good day you're in the shower it's just the fear you're getting your card she's going to work and you just fear fear walking into meeting and got to talk to people you know how you do you know they call on you you pontificate about some experience you had 19 years ago get in your car and you're still back full of fear right goes on to say we're useless useless god i have worked with some of the most successful men and women that you could ever believe and inside you feel useless i gave an exercise that sponsored a woman wonderful woman 31 years old started working with her she was 29 years sober she her ego had taken her to a place she was sponsored all kinds of women and speaking all the time and doing steps and take her to her place where nobody in AA knew she was dying of untreated alcoholism and she was faced with taking a bottle of pills to commit suicide and no one no one would have known this or she had confiscated one of my tapes that one of her babies had but she determined what listened to it she took it from her she put the tape in and i talked about almost dying of untreated alcohol this has been nine years and she called me and she's been she's gone through the first nine steps she's on her fifth time in two years you wouldn't believe this woman you wouldn'T believe her she's like a little girl incredible change but feeling useless inside but i gave her an exercise a month ago it almost killed her here's what it was this i can't tell the number of people who love this woman. And the exercise was, I want you to go up to ten people and I want you to say to them, tell me how you perceive me and how you feel about me. She got so uncomfortable she almost came out of her skin. You see, this program is about making it as comfortable inside so that when you tell me I love you, I know that in you. And when I'm in self-will I can't get to that state. So I feel useless. Can't be of help to other people. And I get current as I am today with all of that. And see, what that does is produce a lot of tension. And I come face-to-face with something that without God, I'm lost. Without God,I'm lost 14 and a half years sober and I'm sitting there looking at page 52 and I'll take a look at how I've been doing with God's power grace up to that point in time. And now I come to my second step. Lack of power, that's my dilemma. I need new power, peace, happiness, sense of direction. so in my second step you know the first time through am I willing to believe there's a power greater than myself that was a tough one for me because I was pretty much an atheist so I'd like to add to that do I believe am I will to believe there's no power greater than myself that can take me past here past this block of my knowledge beliefs and past experiences past here into dimensions I know nothing about am I able to believe that and a little bit further am I well to choose to make that God everything? Because here's the self-imposed crisis we're faced with. Is we're here, we can't go past here. Am I going to make God everything in my life? Once again, choosing that. By the way, it's the last choice you make in the book. From that place on, you make one decision and then follow directions. So I made that choice. Now we come up to the ABCs. And now I have to make another decision. I'm sorry, I meet a requirement it before I make my third step decision. Here's what it gets down to. Am I convinced that any life run on self-will cannot work? Any life run on self will cannot work. You know the line in the big book that says selfishness, self-centeredness is the root of my trouble? It says I'm driven. Look up the word driven. When you're being driven you're not making choices. You're being driven. Driven. Lemo pulls up in front of the house, Jay walks out, gets in, driver turns around and says hi Jay my name's Peer and I'm going to drive your ass today. And he drives him all day long, lets him off that night and the next day he gets in driver turns around says hi Jay, my name is self-seeking and I am going to drive you today all day alone. The next day self-illusion, the next self-pity. is no choice when you're being driven by self-will again if you don't believe me just go back and look at the last year choices you think you've made and i submit to you you've been driven by self will last night we had a great meeting there were several people there and you know what a constant theme was well i haven't had time for eight because i've been real busy working do you think that's a choice no you're bein' driven driven gotta get more money, got to get up, got to go. I'm praying for meditation. Don't want to help me out. Go, go, go. Geez, we wonder if people show up at meetings and, whoa, I'm exhausted. About five minutes before the meeting's getting over though, the engine's cranking. Got to go, got to have more money. Let's go, crank it up out the door. Ain't got time to work. Go, go, go. Being driven. What the hell that mean? Driven by self-hidden. So I come face to face with that. All my troubles are my own making. Greatest statement of hope in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, the reason alcoholics don't like that line, though, is because it pulls you out of being a victim. Ha-ha! Damn it! See, as long as I can blame you for any trouble, I take no responsibility for my life. None. Terrible way to go through life. Terrible ways. All my troubles are my own making, and I don't care what they are. They are of my own make, and that's the greatest statement of hope the greatest statement of hope but goes on to talk about i above everything i got to get rid of my selfishness those you've been sober for a while you haven't done any work with one through nine i submit to you that what you're up against is your selfishness above everything i must be rid of her it kills me you don't think they mean it kills us do you huh gosh they didn't mean that what do you think they meant by that and hopefully in the end of life I'm going to show you why it'll kill you I'm gonna show you why it almost killed me six months ago bullshit three months ago says above everything I better get rid of myself he says or it kills me now let me hook you back to taking a drink of alcohol this selfishness it comes from self-will which you can't do anything about and so here's the way it looks if it doesn't go away the universe is not going to run according to your plan and when that happens you're going to become resentful and angry and you'regoing to get blocked from the only thing that provides you with a defense and page 52 will show up in your life and you will get so uncomfortable that suddenly the thought will come to mind it'd be nice to take a drink of alcohol to treat that and you'll take a break and activate a phenomenon called prayer that's why the book says above everything you better get rid of the selfishness or you die and then it presents me with something very interesting. It says, Mark, you have moral and philosophical convictions galore, but I'm sorry, none of those will help you, Mark. It says on your own power, Mark there's nothing you can do. Listen, I want to tell you something about mercy and grace. Thank God that's the truth. Every one of us in this room, I guarantee in the last month has harmed somebody or some buddies Yeah, you too, Troy. Because of self-will. Because of self-willed. Thank god thank god we didn't do that intention grace and mercy forgiveness so it says above everything i got to have god's help now i know why i'm going to make my third step decision you see this chain from the first to the second to the third step gets me clear where i have to have god's health says i got it then it tells me how i'm gonna get it i'm gotta quit playing god when you're in self-will you're playing God the bad news about that is we just don't have any power to pull that off she doesn't do what I want they don't pay me enough and there's people in front of me when I go down the road and I mean it's terrible I deserve an open road if she would only act different we're the kind of people who could be married to Joan of Arc and we'd be taking her inventory every day and you women alcoholics could be marrying to a saint and you'd be taking his. Why? Self-will. Self- will is never satisfied. Now I look at my third step decision and it's at the bottom of page 62 and here's what it is and I made this decision again six weeks ago that from here on out, God as I understand it is going to direct my life and I'm the actor, he's the principal, I'm an agent, he's a father, I'm a child. The keystone of that spiritual arch. Then it gives me my wonderful third step promises. Being all-powerful, he'll give me everything I need. The word want is not in there. I hate that part. I hate that part because my self-will is always about want. God's will is about need. If I stay close to him and perform his work well, if I'm blocked to him by self-willed, I cannot stay close to him and I cannot perform his world well, I will perform my work well. And the problem is that isn't how the universe works. Those of you who have some experience with the men know what I'm talking about. And then it comes up to that incredible third step prayer. The prayer is not the decision. The decision is on the bottom of page 62. The prayer is an affirmation of my decision based on what I saw in the first three steps today. God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and you do with me as you want. I forget that all the time. think of the implication in the words of that God I offer myself to thee to build with me and you do with me as you want who? relieve me of the bondage of self the selfishness that's going to kill every one of us in this room relieve me of the bandage of self so I can do your will because when I'm in bondage to self all I'm worried about is myself take away my difficulties the victor over them can bear witness to those I would help God of your power your love and your way of life that's all I'm doing here today I'm bearing witness to you of God's power God's love, God's way of life I told you at the beginning how my self willed how we did right and then I've been talking to you and bearing witness of his power, his love, his way of life. May I do thy will always. No amen behind that prayer. Why? Because steps three through seven are hooked, they're linked the steps are a circle the amen comes at the end of the seventh step prayer what time you got 3 what 3.20 I want to point out a couple things in inventory and then we're going to take a break and then come back in and have a lot of fun with inventory I hope that I can do a mind shift with some of you inventory is fun inventory is fine inventory is five we were talking about this talking with my friend mark got a great name he's got a better chance than some of you and here's what he said to me now he's made a decision to be an agent of god look up the word agent look upthe word agent it means empowered empowered we are made in his image you make that decision to do that work you are empowered by god you are an agent of god here's his belief system writing that inventory is a lot of work if he's an agent for god that will he will have to manifest that isn't that interesting an agent forgot if your belief system is and then then he said to me and i almost fell off my chair he said you know working these steps is really hard and I said, Martin, do you remember back when you were drinking a little alcohol doing a little dope? Yeah. That's hard! I don't know how the rest of you drank or did dope. I'll tell you how I did. I had a shrine. So did you. And on there was your drug of no choice that you think is your drug of choice alcohol or whatever else. And every morning I went up to it and I said holy whiskey take me anywhere you want i turn my will and life over to you isn't that the god awful truth we come into this program and we're shown a simple clear precise way to have a revolutionary spiritual experience and he says to me but there's too much work no ego going on in him is there see when you think you're god you don't have to do wow you see what he's up against do you see what he is fighting you follow me think about it anything this program has asked me to do is like kissing a baby's butt compared to what whiskey asked me too makes sense do you know what happens when you get moved away from step one looks like it's hard work right I mean inventory From start to finish, you'll be lucky if you've got 10 hours in it. That's one day of drinking. We drag it on for months. We go years and don't do it. It's hard work. Now, inventory is fun. Inventory is fun? InventORY IS FUN. Why? Because I'm going to face and be rid of the things that have me blocked from new power. Peace, happiness, sense of direction. That's why it's fun. That's WHY it's FUN! When I do Theater of the Live, I'm gonna show you how much fun it can be, But even more importantly, I want to show you what you're up against if you don't. You know there's a line in the big book. You've all read it. Alcohol is but a symptom, right? Then it says we're going to get down to causes and conditions. And then we're gonna close on this and we'll come back. Definition of causes. So when they say alcohol is but asympathetic, that means that alcohol is not my problem, right. Definition to causes. It's a person of better condition responsible for an action or result. and the definition of condition is the particular mode or state of being of a person. And I want to show you some different states of being when we get back that is what you're trying to look at in inventory that is ultimately what will take us back to getting drunk or create misery in our life page 52 so we'll look at that. So we'll see you in 15 minutes