The Agnostic Experiment and the Contempt Prior to Investigation – Jessica S.

good morning I'm Jessica I'm an alcoholic we're gonna start off this morning with the set aside prayer so please repeat after me dear God please help me to set aside everything I think I know about myself about my disease the big book the twelve steps and especially you God so that I may have an open mind and a new experience with my disease the big book the 12 steps and a specially you God please help me see the truth amen okay also this morning I would like to start off with two minutes of silent meditation and I will set the timer now you you Thank you. you Thank you. I feel much better already. So this morning we're going to start off by talking about two and three. Step two is came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. and the principle of this stuff is hope you know and the readings that cover this step in the big book or we agnostics the spiritual the appendix in the back about the experience and there as a solution and there's so much in these pages it's like hard to cover so quickly but we're gonna do the best we can and so I want to talk about we agnostic experiment here you know it starts off on in chapter 4 on page 44 and the first paragraph you have little you know if when you honestly want to you find you cannot quit entirely or with if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take you are probably alcoholic if that be the case you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer that was tough for me to hear when I came into these halls because like I mentioned last night i was a recovering catholic and i came in here and people would talk about god from the podium and my mind shut immediately because i felt like it was a cult and i didn't need to be brainwashed and i just wanted to learn how to drink like a lady you know and stop doing drugs and you know it was hard for me and they and the old-timers would say they just kept saying jess you just have to come and then you come to believe you know you just have to keep coming bring the body and the mind will follow you know and they had all these slogans i could keep here all day with all the slogans they would say to me and i you know again like at the time i didn't understand what they were saying but what happened to me is i just kept coming no matter what i wasn't the alcoholic that came to my first meeting immediately put down a drink and the rest was history that wasn't my journey you know i came and kept coming and kept relapsing. But the only thing I did right was I kept coming back, you know, and I was told like when the pain to remain the same is greater than the pain, to change, they'll change. And that's basically what happened for me was the pain got great enough and I couldn't keep myself sober that I had to surrender to the idea that there was something more powerful than myself, right? There had to be because I couldn'T keep myself sober. You know, I was talking about this last week at a meeting like my sponsor used to describe it to me as like you know I'm being the bus driver and I'm a terrible bus driver and I drive the bus right off the road into a ditch every single time you know and I needed to learn how to just get on the bus and take a seat and so it talks a lot about in this reading it starts to help you know. I think a lot of us come in here with all these preconceived notions of what we think a higher power is you know, and the great thing about AA is we don't really care what you believe in. You can believe in a rock or a tree or a Catholic god or a Buddhist god, whatever works for you. It doesn't matter. We don't care about that here in AA. All we care about is that it's not you. And that worked for me, you know? I was taught like, God, group of drunks. That worked for me because I belonged to a home group that had a lot of long-term sobriety. So these people were doing something right because they were staying sober. I was told that groups don't drink so stay in the middle you know and so you know slowly I started to believe like when I had asked my sponsor to spawn to me like she you would be outside in like the front entry vestibule of a building and hear that woman cackling in the back of the hall she had a personality that was just larger than life and she had an unbelievable belief and a higher power and I was like how do I get just an ounce of that you know and so how I made my start was I believe that she believed and that worked for me and she told me sorry she passed away years ago but thinking about it makes me emotional she had said to me until you can believe you can believe that I believe and that was enough of a start for me and so you know it talks a lot about here like this chapter tries to convince you like you either believe in something or not like make a decision you know we're not making a decision yet but we're coming to believe you have to open your mind you have be open-minded to this idea so it says like but after a while we had to face the fact that we must find a spiritual basis of life or else like that's one of the warnings we talked about last night like you won't stay sober if you don't open your mind to this idea that there's something more powerful to you that's going to keep you away from a drink or a drug and so you have to open your minds you know we had to find a power which we could live by and it had to be a power greater than ourselves and this whole reading it's a long chapter but it just hammers home that idea you know and it and it says here like I said like we mean your own conception of God do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honestly asking yourself what they mean to you and um you know when I came in here at all these funny ideas about what a higher power was and what it wasn't and you know I felt like in Catholic school it was like i had this punishing god and i remember you know i started drinking and drugging so young and i'd have to go to confession and i would lie a confession because my mom was basically like the pope she was like running the church you know and uh i was in choir i was at altar server and like i was there all the time drinking in the parking lot at night and in the choir during the day and like my mom's always there running the the church and we had, the priest came to our house for dinner. I'm not telling this guy anything like for sure he's telling my mom and I'm already grounded for life. You know, like I was so grounded that at one point I had like, they had taken everything out of my room, like from 12 basically till I got kicked out. And like at one moment, I, all I had left in my room was a clock radio. I was dancing in my home by myself to the clock radio. And my mom heard me dancing and came in and took the clock radio. And she was like, you can't have fun. You're grounded. And I was like this is such a sad situation that I can't even have a clock radio? So like there was no way I was getting honest with a priest in confession because I couldn't even have aclock radio in my room, you know? And so, you know, I didn't even know like, it's like you'd go to confession, I'd make something up and then they'd be like you know say five hail marys or whatever so i didn't understand like this concept of like a higher power personal to me within me like i didn t get it i couldn t even understand it and um you know what's changed for me as i've stayed sober like because i was taught to be a spiritual seeker i was thought like my sponsor used to say over and over and over if you want to stay sober all you have to do is continue to enlarge your spiritual life. If that's all you do, you're going to be okay. And so I've done that and I've tried like all these different woo-woo things, whatever. It doesn't matter what you're doing as long as you find something that you can believe in. And it says right here on 47, do I now believe or am I even willing to believe that there is a power greater than myself? It has been repeatedly proven among us upon this simple cornerstone, a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built and all you have to do is be willing right and um do you want to talk about the spiritual experience yeah well um church was interesting for me when I was growing up I grew up my mother was catholic so we went to this catholic church and it was a punishment for me. I had no idea what was happening at Catholic church. You're sitting, you're standing, you'RE kneeling. I'm listening to a priest that I have no idea what he's talking about, about something that they just read. You know, heptabismol pink carpets, natural wood oak seeds. I was so confused as a kid And then we'd go to CCD on Monday nights, and I was not interested in that either. Right? And I didn't really have a conception of a higher power or God or what this Catholic thing was or what religion was. I knew that my friends weren't going to church, and i had to go. But my father didn't go. It was like my mother and the kids on a Sunday. We'd go to church, and then we would go to my grandmother's house after, which was a whole other situation in itself that I won't get into. But I had no interest in God. I had not interest in this person Jesus or any of the teachings they were trying to tell me about. So, when I didn't really have an idea, I could take it or leave it, right? I wasn't interested in believing in a higher power or God and I really wasn't interesting in discounting it. I was completely agnostic in what I came to find out. And I didn' t even want to investigate it. I wasn' t interested in investigating it. And once I had the chance where CCD was over, I was completely content with never stepping inside of the church again. They had nothing for me. I couldn't learn anything. In the fact that I was running on self-will, God wasn't going to do anything for me anyways. So in the second appendix, it's on page 568, There's a quote here by Herbert Spencer, and it says, there is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. That principle is contempt prior to investigation. And I had that contempt throughout my whole drinking. I wasn't willing to investigate. I wasn'T willing to look at God. I wasn' t willing to look at a higher power. I wasn´t willing to look at any of these things. And I had this, I would come out to, I had This Uncle and I'd go stay at his house every now and then and he lived in Petersham so he would come pick me up in Grafton and on the ride out to Petersham which is about a 45 minute ride He would continually talk to me about God and Jesus and what I thought. And my answer was always like, sounds great, but I still have no use for this. I don't see how this is going to help me in my life. And all these teachings and everything that you're saying to me are wonderful. I'm sure they help people out, but I'm fine. I don' t need any of these things. and still again my my friends don't talk about jesus they're still not going to church and it's not something that that we did you know and um so it wasn't something that was going to happen for me and here on page 55 it says the fundamental idea of god may be obscured by calamity by pomp by worship of other things but in some form or other it is there for faith and a power greater than ourselves in a miraculous demonstration of that power in human lives are facts as old his man itself. We found the great reality deep down within us in the last analysis. It is only there that he may be found. It was so with us. And now looking back throughout my drinking, I thought it was just situations where it just turned out better than it had turned out in the past. Like, I just got lucky. You know, I just beat the cops that one time, you know, which just kept me going. I thought I could beat them every time now, right? It just gave me that little bit of cocksure-ness that I could keep going, you know. And these little things that happened, I thought were coincidences. And you know as I moved along in sobriety I can see now that they weren't coincidences. And there was a point where when I was starting to get sober, I had made the decision to accept the fact that they were no longer coincidences, all those things that had happened in those certain times. It was God working in my life, right? And there were a couple times, and I was sitting in jail this one time, And I had been sober in jail. And I was sitting there, and I had this new cellmate. And he came in. We knew a bunch of the same people. And he was like, hey, if I get something, you want to do it? And I'm like, I've been in there for a couple months. And I am like, yeah, sure, whatever, you know. and I'm sitting there in my bunk that night and I am just praying. I am like, God, I don't want to do this. Just anything. Please, I do not want to be this. And the funny thing about that is I was not like a foxhole prayer kind of guy. When I drank, if I got in trouble, I got into trouble. Like I said, I was completely agnostic. There was no prayer happening. It was like, I got myself in this mess. I'll get myself out of this mess, and that's just the way it was. You know, nobody was coming to rescue me, and so I said that, you know, and these are the funny things because anything could have happened. I choose to think that it's God, but it could have just been anything at that point. The cell door opens up the next morning. That kid walks out, sees somebody he doesn't like. And they get in a fight, and the kid's gone. And I'm like, praise Jesus. I'm going to be like, this works. It works. It really does. You know? And, you know, but even before that, because my story with a higher power really starts in that cell and on that block because I had two DUIs. Well, it was my second and third DUI, but I had them within two months of each other. So two DUI's landed me in that position and my arrogant alcoholic self told myself when I was in there, I'm going to beat both of these. They have nothing on me. I'm taking them to trial. and I'm sitting there with a court-appointed lawyer because I have no money for a lawyer. And he's looking at me, he's like, you really want to take this to trial? I'm like, yes, absolutely. He goes, they found you walking down the street a mile from your truck, and you were hammered. Yes, we're taking it to trial. Okay, great. So the first Thanksgiving that I missed with my family, I was sitting in there. My grandmother had wrote me this note, and it basically just said, we don't condemn you, we want you to get better. You know, and I was just like, wow. You know? This first Thanksgiving that I'm missing with my family, and my grandmother writes me this letter. I'm like, all right. you know that just like defeated that part of me, that arrogant alcoholic part of you and I went back to the court appointed lawyer I was like I have this grand scheme because I'm an alcoholic right I come up with schemes and I had this grand scheme and I want to I went back and I was like we're going to plea out and he's like okay great two months of this and we're gonna plea out now and I'm like yep we're playing out so we play out to that one and long story short I had to go back and forth between Westboro Massachusetts and Worcester Massachusetts and every time I went to a court they said no you got to go back to the other one because this is where the case is and so it's like a full-day event you know I gotta get out I'd go sit in a bullpen and I get transfer to court. I sit in that boat then. I go back, transfer them back and forth, back and forth between these two courts. And it's coming up on Christmas and in my grand scheme like I was out for Christmas long before Christmas. And it is a Friday before Christmas. Christmas is on Monday that year. And they I have court the next morning in Worcester and I am like great here we go again. You know, and I show up. My lawyer's there. The lawyer that I actually paid for for my second DUI had shown up, which was interesting to me because I hadn't really paid the whole retainer, you know, because I'm an alcoholic and I couldn't handle that. And he shows up. I'm like, wow, this is interesting because I get brought up to this back, like magistrate's office. and I don't know what happened but I got released you know and I was like wow that's God working in my life right there you know that great reality in the last analysis God can be found and I kind of knew what happened but not until my mother recently got sober a little while ago and I was listening to her speak And she said that she had had a friend who helped out with that. I was like, that stuff just doesn't happen. You know? That just doesn'T happen. That's not a coincidence for me. Things like that happen in my life when I'm completely broken down, I'm beaten into a state of reasonableness. That's when things like that, when I can notice things like happening. Because some things like that happened when I was drinking, but I wasn't ready to look at it and say, you know, something else is working in my life. And things really started to change for me at that point. I didn't stay completely sober because I didn' enlarge my spiritual life. But I could see things from a different angle. And I started moving from this agnostic state into coming to believe. You know, I wasn't in AA yet. I wasn'T here yet. But I knew there was something else working in my life, you know. And when I finally did get sober, I was searching for a higher power and any means necessary. I was going to different churches. I went on a mission trip down to Mississippi and helped some people rebuild for Katrina different churches here and there I was doing different spiritual stuff really trying to enlarge my life on a spiritual basis and seeking this thing that was a higher power because at that point like I really I still didn't really believe in this God of the heavens and different churches, and that's how you come to find a God. And I really still don't believe that today. My higher power has changed over time, and I really so don't think that's true. I still don' t believe that to day. But religion, I do take from religion what I use today in my belief in a higher power. and you know there's this one time I lived in Boston when I first moved to Boston and I got sober I would just take the train into Boston Common and I'd walk around because I was fascinated, I was from Grafton, Massachusetts which is like at this time when I grew up it was this little podunk town where like horses were still walking down people ride their horse down the road you know and now I'm in this huge city and I'm like oh let's go check out downtown you know I'm in this phase of searching for a higher power and there's some people on the common and they're like talking to me about this Bible and God and stuff and I'm Mike they're okay you want to come with us so we can talk about this I'm like yeah sure no problem so i get in this white van and and you know for a normal person getting that might seem a bit extreme right but my thought was these people have no idea who's getting into their band right and um so i hop in this band we go over to watertown we're in this building And I'm not even quite sure where we are because I don't even know where Watertown is at that point in my life. And they crack the Bible open and start reading through the Bible. And I am like, okay, yeah, this is all right. I can kind of get down with this. And then the kid is like, hey, we got a bathtub in the back. We can baptize you now. I am Like, that's all right, this isn't my style of higher power. I can leave this one. I can take it or leave it. You know, what's important for me is that God is or he isn't. Okay? You can take it or leave it. And I chose to leave that one alone. All right. But I can create whatever conception I want of a higher power. It doesn't have to be religion. It doesn'T have to BE yours. It can be this group of drunks. All that matters is that I believe. and that took a long time it took a very long time for me to develop that idea coming from that agnostic state where it just wasn't anything and that's really how everything was in my life I don't have an opinion on anything my opinion is whatever your opinion is because that's what's going to get me accepted that's what I that's my biggest fear in life is that you won't accept me so whatever your opinion is I don't care what it is I'll use that you know and so I think I'll kick it back over to you so I'm just going to give you one example so like I was probably like two or three months sober like when I finally got sober and I remember I was over it I think it was at Chosen Few in Hyde Park. And I was all fired up about something, you know? And I sit down with my sponsor. He used to sit with a bunch of old-timers, all the slogan throwers, you now? And I walk over and I'm sitting next door and whining about whatever nonsense is going on. And the lady looks at me and he goes, how's that higher power working in your life? And I'm like, and I was like, he's not. I can't find one. It's not working for me. and he's like let me ask you something do you have a brain i was like of course i have a brain i'm sitting here talking to you obviously i havea brain and he is like have you seen your brain and i waslike no he'slike have you touched your brain no he islike then how do you know you haveabrain and iwaslike i don't know they show you pictures in school like in textbooks i have no idea he islike a higher power is a similar concept just because you can't see it and you can touch it doesn't mean it's not there and I was like I guess that makes sense you know and in part of this we agnostics they taught they give the example of electricity they give example of love they give us lots of different examples that you might feel to sink your teeth into but for me it was Billy Dee humbling me in front of a table of old-timers asking me if I had a brain and that put into my brain that put into my like subconscious like I could let go of these these weird ideas that I didn't know what it was or what it wasn't you know and you know so that brings us to the second half of step two which is could restore us to sanity and then there's a solution it talks about like we were insane when we came in here and then we admit we're powerless you know and then become willing to believe that there's a power out there or within me that can restore my sanity that sounds great because i feel crazy all the time and what a relief to be able to have some kind of power that lies within me that can help me calm down the crazy you know and it talks about here on 24 the fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure have lost the power of choice and drink our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent we are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago we are without a defense against the first drink and this is when that trust and reliance like that i have to now have a higher power because this is going to happen if i'm truly an alcoholic this is gonna happen to me you know and and the only thing that's going to stop me is the willingness to believe in a higher power that's the only thing that's going to stop me and you know the most normal thing for an alcoholic to want to do is drink you know I used to think that I'd come in here and the obsession be removed and I would never think about drinking again but at six years of sobriety I almost drank like life got really hard for me I had a lot of death really fast like my sponsor had died when I was five years sober my dad died right after that like we had like two or three years that was absolutely insane it was like up down up down up down the life events you know because life on life's terms it is what it is you just got to buckle up but i can't drink no matter what that's the problem like life happens and i can'T drink to cope but i CAN start to believe that there's a higher power that's going to return me to sanity and it talks about it here on 25 there is a solution what a relief to hear that when I came in here like there this was like the last stop on the bus for me you know everyone was dying around me when I was when I finally got sober like I was going to funerals all the time I was like getting sober during that opioid epidemic that started in Boston and people were robbing pharmacies like that's when I was going to Cobra and I was going to funerals weekly it was crazy and you know it finally opened my eyes like I have to do this or I'm gonna die from this you know it says right here like there is a solution almost none of us liked the self searching the leveling of our pride the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for successful consummation but we saw that it really worked in others I could see that I could see that in the people that I chose to start surrounding myself with. And I was taught that if I surrounded myself with people that I want to grow up to be like, I'm going to be okay. You know, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it. You know and it says here, you know one of the promises, we have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence which we had not even dreamed. and then it continues with the second step promises where it says that we have had a deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life toward our fellows and toward god's universe the central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous he has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could not never do by ourselves. You know, what a promise to have right in the beginning of sobriety, right in the beginning. Of this like struggle, you know, how could I not be willing to start to expand my mind about what could keep me away from a drink or a drug? And I went on this retreat. So like I told you last night, how I got kidnapped and went on my first retreat at like two months over, I think Tracy was with me at one of them. And we were at like a Matt Talbot retreat. And then, you know, my sponsor went on like three or four a year, all different kinds. And I'll tell you, like it has been such a gift of my sobriety that I was taught to go on retreats early on because I get so much out of them. And so throughout the day today, I want to share some of the things that I've learned on some of these retreats and some of the exercises we've done because they've really changed my sobrietty. Andso I was on this one retreat I'm sure some of the people here were with me we were at this retreat at Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester and there was a sister putting it on and she had us do this exercise where it was all about this step and you know our higher power and what that looked like for us and she wanted us to take a minute to just write down right now currently today in my life what does my higher power look like to me what does it feel like to me? What does that relationship look like? And I'll tell you the funny thing is, like I did that in early recovery. And then I've been back to that retreat with that same retreat leader, I think two more times and she's had us do the same exercise. And when we were prepping for this weekend, I looked at the first time I'd written it versus now much later and sobriety and what it looks like to Me is so profoundly different. And so I would love for you to all take a minute to just jot down what you think your higher power is to you today and if you need a piece of paper we have paper and pens if anyone just raise your hand and they'll pass you out some paper before move to step three you So now that you all have pen and paper, if you could just jot down right now in your life what does your higher power look like to you? What do you feel like your concept of a higher power is? What does it look like? What does is feel like? What is that relationship like between you and your higher powers? you hear your higher power talking to you? What does it sound like? Where does your higher-power exist today? Thank you. and while you're finishing up i'm going to start talking about step three because we have a lot to cram in in a little bit of time so now we've arrived at step three which is we've made a decision to turn our life our will in our lives over to the care of God as we understood him and the principle of this stuff is faith you know and so over on page 60 we have the three pertinent ideas you know in how it works it talks about a that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives being that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism and see that God couldn't what if he were sought and being convinced of those three things we were at step three and those are really easily summarized for me like i'm the kind of alcoholic can over complicate anything so those are summarized from me as i can't he can i think i'll let him and once you've arrived at that point you're ready to start living a different life you know and so i i spoke on this the other night like step three is is such a huge step and i really didn't understand it when i was taking it you know like the first couple times i went through the steps I've been through the steps a couple different ways and the most recent last two times I went through like the first time I did it I didn't realize how important it was I didn't really understand like I just wanted to rush and get through the writing like okay whatever let's do this awkward pray together and hold hands and move on like I don't know what to do I just want to start the writing and the most recent time I Did writing my sponsor really made a point to explain to me like how important is that what this step is really about you know like I'm making a decision to turn my life which is chaos and insanity all the time to a higher power of my own conception and that means I'm not going to be the director anymore I'm gonna be the shot caller I'm NOT gonna be manipulating everything to make it work out for me all the you know because I'm selfish and self-centered in the extreme to the point where I don't even know when I'm being the director and it talks about it here at the bottom of 60 in the top of 61 the first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success well i knew that i could see that you know and says most people try to live by self-propulsion each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show if his arrangements would only stay put if people would only do as he wished the show would be great everybody including himself would be pleased life would be wonderful in trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous he may be kind considerate patient generous even modest and self-sacrificing on the other hand he may mean egotistical selfish and dishonest but as with most humans he's more likely to have varied traits i'm going to give you a real simple example of this i was multiple years sober when this happened me and Jeff were going to a meeting together and I had asked a couple of sponsees if they wanted to come and he didn't ask any of his sponsee's if they wanted to cum and I felt like why aren't you I said to him like why didn't you invite your sponseese you know what I mean like you should have invited them this is not of my business by the way I know this now but I'm like saying to him why didn'T you invite any of your sponcees he's like I didn't want to I was like okay you know so then we get to the meeting and I'm telling the story to Kathleen and like thinking she's going to co-sign my story you know what I mean like can you believe he didn't invite any of his sponsees and she's like sounds like you're being the director and I was like what do you mean I'm looking out for his sponcees like none of my business not my job you know What I mean? Like I don't sponsor those people and I'm not running the show and that's what like you know in early sobriety me being the director was like a whole another level of chaos like lying to get what I want manipulating to get what I wanted like being late and having some banana story for my boss as to why I couldn't get there on time and the reality is like I'm raging ADHD and time management is not a real thing for me and I'm not being able to be honest about anything so like my level of like manipulation when I first came in is so different from what it looks like today but it still exists today very minutely Like, I think I know what's best for you. I don't know what the best for me. And it's, you know, it doesn't matter if you're like two days sober or 20 years sober. This is something that you practice on a daily basis. And that's what my sponsor said to me the last time I did this formal third step with her was she was like, this is an everyday practice. Step three, you are constantly turning your will and your life over the care of God because you're human and you constantly take it back. And so she taught me that I needed to program in reminders for myself because my instinct is to always run the show. I'm in self-preservation mode all the time because I grew up in a house where I had to take care of myself and I had to protect myself. And it's really hard to change your mindset. Like, I don't need to do that anymore. I have a higher power today that's going to look out for me and take care of me no matter what as long as I seek the help. And today I believe that and I understand that and i don't have to worry but it but it's moment to moment you know what i mean and i i constantly have to do that so she when we took our formal third step she asked me like are you willing to continue to try on a daily basis to invite god in and to be the you be the student and he's going to bethe teacher like you have todo that every day it's not yes we're doing a formal third set we're going to get on our knees and pray together but this is like a lifelong journey this isn't one and done and I just it had never been broken down for me like that and it was a shift in my mindset when she explained it to me like this is you know moving forward this is this is a daily a daily reprieve you know we only have one day and um you know that I learned like there's no God for me in the situation and so that's like how she started to reprogram my brain am i thinking about it is i would call her with some resentment i was like talking about or whatever and she'd she'd say stop where's god in the situation i'd be like i mean not obviously and she's like that's the problem you're not pausing there's no god you know and so she taught me like she had me she had to baby step this step for me she had me um program a pause and pray in my phone at noon every day because i get like by noon at work like i'm on another level like i m 100 the cruise ship director whether i need to be or not you know what i mean i can't stay in my own lane i can t even do my own work but i want to micromanage all of your work even if i don't need to it's really hard for me to just mind my own business and um so I need that pause and pray and so she had me programming that in my calendar as like a daily reminder you know and then at one point I was doing some some retreat thing and the leader had said to put date like reminders everywhere in your life of your higher power and it doesn't really matter like what it is for you like I had a post-it on my computer screen that said pause by my dish like by my sink where I wash dishes somebody had painted this like little rock of an angel so that's there and like in my bathroom I have something by my nightstand I something like everywhere I am that I'm looking there's some kind of visual cue for me to remember to invite God in I'd like live this spiritual experience called Chrisio and they gave us these crosses for our you know to keep on your keychain and inside Christ is counting on you and um again just another visual cue and those helped me remember throughout the day as my will starts to creep up to pause and invite God in you like this morning I was like on another level of anxiety this is tough to sit up here on this platform in front of all of you and so i i was able to to go meet with a friend this morning and do this like workout thing that i love to do that just helps bring me back down to earth and remember like i'm just another bozo on the bus really i've just had a little bit of time practicing these steps and these principles in my life on a daily basis and i'm so lucky and grateful to be able to be, to share with you. Like I've been fortunate to have amazing people in my recovery teach me and help me grow and change because I was so, so different when I came in here. Let me tell you, there are a couple of people here that knew me when I came in. It was real different situation. And it was, you know, God putting the right people in my life at the right time and me just being willing to accept the help in the direction to get to where I am today um do you want to talk about the bondage itself honey so we made this decision and uh up until this point in time in my life fear had really driven every decision I made and I never realized how fear was affecting my life and what caused me to make decisions where I went who I hung out with why I hung up with them what I wore you know just so that I could have your acceptance you know and I would do anything for that. And it was all about self, so I could get what I needed in order so I could feel okay. And if I wasn't feeling okay, booze would do that for me. And self completely ruined my life. Fear completely ruined by life. And And making those decisions completely ruined my life. So what am I going to do about it? I talked a lot about what it looked like, this higher power that I had come to believe in and now I have this idea of a higher power and that's great. I have this huge concept. I've done all these things. I seek on a daily basis. I do all these exercises. I meditate. I do whatever it takes, you know, to know God. But I still haven't decided I'm going to let this thing that I know, that I think I know about run my life because from my perspective, I'm still doing okay. I'm still doing okay up until this point because everything's still at arm's length. I still can't get hurt by you. I'm Still doing those necessary things so I feel okay, you know, and I can't let you in. So I come to this point and I have to make this decision, right? What am I going to do? how am I going to live amongst everybody else it was when I really started because when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous I'm not the type of alcoholic I really don't, you know, I got sober and then I guess you could call it a relapse but I really wasn't in AA I really weren't interested in staying sober and I didn't really know what was going on in my life. So I really don't call it, like, I wasn't in, I weren't out, I just wasn't drinking, okay? And I just kind of came to AA. Really, I wanted, I really wanted to stop drinking and I really needed to stop. I really really wanted the pain to stop and I realized once before when I had stopped drinking, I was like very effective, I'm a very effective human when I stop drinking I go to work, I show up I work hard, I just show up to life and I can make things happen when I'm not drinking and I like that so when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous my life got better you know I can't say that I would have never drank again if I didn't come to the steps I can's say that things would have been different but I was never really interested in taking part of the steps I could see him, I had people talking to me about the steps. I just wasn't interested because I felt like my life was okay you know and I was still bound up in this thing called self because I didn't really want to reveal what I had going on with me to anyone else i was still closed off and um those decisions i was making whatever it could be it was just just said self-preservation that's what it was all about it was all about just me being okay you know me being all right and i showed when i was i was in alcoholics anonymous for a couple years they said got a group got a sponsor go on commitments so i got a group and um two years later i got introduced to a sponsor who became my sponsor just because i stood there with somebody else and they said this should be a sponsor and i said okay I never called him, except for a couple times. And he was dropping me off one time at this, I was in a relationship and I was living at this lady's house and he was droping me off and he said, my sponsor has a place for you to live if you need it. And I'm like, why? you know and a few months later I called his sponsor and I needed a place to live you know so I went and lived two years sober I went to live with the sponsor who became my sponsor he brought me through the steps and And I was just making all those decisions up until that point in time based on what I needed, you know. I wasn't – I had that idea of God and what I was doing, but I was making those decisions based on what I wanted to do. What I needed. You know, I wasn'T willing to turn my life over to a higher power. I wasn't really willing to turn my life over so that I could help another alcoholic out. And, you know, my higher power put me in the right places at the right time. It kept me sober long enough to bring me to this work. And he put people in my life that would constantly talk to me about this. It was the funniest thing because I heard about the big book for a really long time, a couple of years before I got into the work. And a lot of people were doing work a different way when I was getting sober, except for this group of kids that I was hanging out with in Dorchester and Hyde Park. And I just remember sitting outside of Bugaboo Creek in Dedham. and I had just got out of the gym because what I was doing is I was going to three meetings a day I was hanging out with this kid Joe C and a couple other people and we'd go to breakfast and I'd work every now and then so I could pay rent and it was like amazing early sobriety I couldn't ask for a better time you know, and I'm sitting, I just remember sitting outside this Bugaboo Creek and this kid's talking about the big book and I have no idea what he's saying to me and I'm like, I'm just thinking to myself this is great. Can we just go eat? I have no idea about these steps and about this big book. I get better when I stop drinking. But I couldn't see my nickname in early sobriety was Angry Jeff. And I thought it's funny right? But it's like, not kind of funny. Because like, I really need to work these steps in my life so I'm not angry. Because I can't run on self-will. You know, it leads to futility and happiness when I run on Self-Will. Because i'm not thinking about you. I'm not thinking what your needs are. I am not thinking about my children, my wife, how all that interacts in my life. I'm just thinking about what Jeff needs in order to feel okay. You know, what do I need to do to take care of myself? And all those people put in my Life at the right point in time, you know, so I could do this work and so I could relieve myself of being wrapped up in myself and that was the greatest part about this for me was that making a decision wasn't that difficult seeing where that fear ran my life and finally letting go of that fear so that I can let God in and it gives me enough space to step back and follow my higher power's direction. Because I really don't know what his will is. All I know is that when I get down on my knees in the morning, I can ask for him to show me what hiswill is. And that's okay with me. You know, it says here on 68, perhaps there is a better way. We think so, for we are now on a different basis, the basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We are in the world to play the role he assigns just to the extent that we do as we think he would have us and humbly rely on him. Does he enable us to match calamity with serenity? And that calamity with serenity was my life. I bounced off everything and everybody in my life, and I couldn't get out of my own way. My biggest enemy was the DMV. That was my biggest enemy in life. And every time I walked into the DMVR, I could feel myself just projecting onto them what needed to happen. And I had this, you know, I thought I was doing great. I lost my license for five years. I was sober for three years. And I was going through a lot of things. I was feeling fantastic. You know, I was working these steps in my life finally and I was looking for a Cinderella license and I got all these letters together. I did everything I was supposed to do and I went down and I'm inside waiting in front of this lady and I present her all this stuff and she looks at me, I'm like, I think I was like 28 at the time or something and she looked at me and she says, well Mr. Smith I guess a couple more years at your age isn't that long. And I'm I'm like, are you, like, I'm ready to explode. You know? I'm, like. How could you possibly do this to me? Can't you see what I'm doing? I'm so. You see the letter from my sponsor in there. Like, I am doing fantastic right now. How could tell me this? And it's just, like... I... You know, it is what it is. It is what he is. And I can't control anybody else and anybody else. in anything, you know, people, places, and things, and how I interact with them. And I just have to let go and let God today. My sponsor says funny things to me. He says these crazy things like Jess is talking about. And the guy says to me, Jeffrey, because he always addresses me by my full first name, Jeffrey, get in the boat. I'm like, get on the boat? there is no boat like I don't see a boat just get in the boat and I'm like what is this guy talking about man and it's like yeah you just get in theboat because you can't push the river and you can' steer so you just get intheboat and you go wherever God takes you you know and um it's just one thing I wanna end with I have it here and it's I'll just read part of it My Lord God I have no idea where I am going I do not see the road ahead of me I cannot know for certain where it will end nor do I really know myself and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so but I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you And I hope I have that desire in all the things that I am doing, you know. And there's always this question, right? Like, what's God's will? Coming to Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm like, what is God's Will? Where am I going? How do I know what God'swill is? And the fact is, like, all I know is it's not me. This is not God's well. What I need to do is to get on my knees, ask for a drink and a drug and the desire for that to be removed from me on a daily basis and to show me what his will for me is. And that's helping another person, whether it be an alcoholic or showing up to life on a day-to-day basis. And the fact that I'm doing that, I'm going to be following God's will on a daily basis you know and i may not feel that i'm following god's will on a daily basis but if i'm trying to do the next right thing i'm gonna be okay you know i've made this decision to turn my will in my life over to a higher power for today you know this isn't something that happens and I'm good, I'm all done made that decision because I take this back whenever I feel like whenever things aren't working out for me whenever I feels like God's timing isn't right I'm taking this back and I am going to make this work the way I want to make it work because I think I know what is best for me and you because if you did what I told you to do we would be ok You know, and by we, I mean I wouldn't be upset with you. Okay? So, you know, thanks for showing up today. Thanks for listening to us on these steps. I think Jess has one more exercise for us. So I just want to share with you one more thing that, so for me, I lived this experience, and they taught us. It really changed for me how I felt about turning my will and my life over to the care of God and, as Ms. Brenda says, my will in my life or my thoughts and my actions. And, you know, they had us do this exercise where you think about moments where you felt your higher power working in your life. And I'll give you a couple examples. so for me when I look back there were a couple like really tumultuous years and part of it was you know I got married and we got married in August um of 2012 and my dad had been wheelchair bound four years leading up to my wedding um just you know sick with whatever all the sicknesses he had and two weeks before my wedding all of a sudden he was like walking with a cane like feeling really good and like i got we got married on the vineyard and um he was able to like be there at my wedding he's able to walk me down the aisle he was unable to dance with me stand and um i'm so lucky because i'm the only one of my sisters that got to have that experience and um like literally a month after we came back from our honeymoon he died and so I could see like God working in my life because what a miracle that this man who was like literally in and out of rehabs for 10 years before we got married was able to not only be out of rehab for my wedding but be able to walk me and dance with me like what a gift and the fact that he didn't die while i was away and it was like a month after what a gift that's like a big example of where i could see my higher power working in my life a small example is like me and miss brenda this morning are doing this workout and she's talking about let me cue three words for you to think about today as you go throughout your day and it Was integrity and originality and humility. And I was like, who needs that more than me today? You know what I mean? And it's like, is it odd or is it God? It's one of those things that when you're aware of these little situations, how can you doubt that you have a higher power working in your life when you can see these situations? And so when I lived this experience, they had us take a minute and write down an experience where you felt your higher power working in your life. And so I want everyone to take a minute and just write something. It doesn't matter if it's something big or something as small as you were driving down the pike and someone paid your toll. Like, where did you see a moment where you thought you felt close to your higherpower? And then just look up at me when you're done writing it so I know when the majority of you are done. Thank you. So I now want you to turn to your neighbors in little groups of four and I just want you to share with each other your moment where you felt close to your higher power. And then when you're done, we can take our break.