The Bondage of Self – 12 Step Workshop – Cortez, CO – Part 1 of 2 – Clint H.

All right, testing one, two, three. How are we doing now? Or can you tell? One, two three, four, five. Are we all right? Okay my name is Clint Hodges I'm an alcoholic. I'm glad to be here. I really am and I'm sure we're gonna have a great weekend. That's my intention. My intention is to talk about the steps this weekend, and I am not here to do anything but share an experience with you. That's all I'm here to Do. And if your experience in the steps is different than mine, that's great. I'm not selling. I don't have any intention of saying this is the right way or there's another. I'm just going to tell you how it went for me. I got sober on August the 14th, 1966. I'm a member of the Pacific Group in West Los Angeles. Clancy has been my sponsor since sometime in early 1968, and I spent the first couple of years of my sobriety in Glendale, California. And we have kind of a format to follow here, and my idea of it is that I will tell you how I came at 23 years of sobriety to be dragging my fanny so bad that I had to get my sleeves rolled up and get into the steps. I had done them a little when I first got here and then got involved in things other than this, in AA, stayed in AA. and I think it's important as a backdrop that you know that I did not out of any kind of virtue suddenly turn my attention to these steps at 23 years of sobriety I did it out of desperation and absolute fear and I'll tell you that and then we'll take a break at 45 minutes and Don is going to give me a high sign at 45 seconds so we can kind of keep some kind of track on this thing because of the taping. And then we're going to, this weekend, consider the steps from the point of view of step 11. There is a kind of a goal, a spiritual goal to all of this. And the steps, surprisingly, are set out in an order that seems to be most easily adapted by our mind to do one and then two and so on. And when we get to step 11, there is a different way of living available to us. And I have on a couple of occasions started out on a Friday night and left them at step 1, at the end of step 1. And you go to bed with visions of powerless and unmanageable in your head, and everybody's grumpy as hell the next morning. I like to leave them on a note of rising hope, and so we'll start out with step 11. Do these steps from the point of view of step 11, and we'll do that second hour tonight, talk about step 11 and we're going to then start out tomorrow morning at 8.30 and we will have three sessions, three 45-minute sessions. I don't know if anybody is going to ring a bell and bring you back at the end of the 15 minutes of a break, but I've noticed that we do better if there's 45 minutes and then a 15 minute break and then we start. It just seems to work better. A mind needs to know when am I going to get a break and how much, because some of that information comes in kind of fast and some of it may be new information. And then in the afternoon on Saturday we'll go for a couple of sessions and there's a break and then an open AA meeting that you will have here all of you in some kind of a fashion I suppose participation I'm not sure what you're going to do and then there's the marigold festival followed by the dance and then did I say no I'm kidding about that there's and then on Sunday morning we'll come back in and do three more sessions and then we're that's how the weekend is as I see it and this is all subject to change except we will adhere as much as possible to 45 minute sessions with 15 minute breaks. We won't start each session with a reading, although I may ask if we could take a moment and say a serenity prayer or a moments meditation or something. And I hope that sometime this evening you form your purpose for being here. What you personally want to get out of the weekend. And if you want to let me know what that is, that would be great. and if you know yourself, you have a much better chance of achieving it. This is the first one of these workshops that has been done in Cortez and I really have to commend you for taking the chance and giving up a weekend to be here because there really isn't any history of that here and I want to thank Joe very much for asking me to come over here and to be part of this. There is a great—in the last ten years of my sobriety, I have developed a sense of usefulness in AA that I never had before. And I'm glad to be here and sharing this. If anybody—and we'll be working mostly out of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you hear me say anything that's inconsistent with what's in the big book, then I'm wrong. I don't intend to ever do that. It's not my intention at all. And it's either something I've expressed incorrectly or I'm just wrong. If you have a question, if anybody has a question as we go through the weekend, please raise your hand. Please call out the question. Ask anything you want at any time and we'll deal with it. And it's my pleasure. It's my treasure to be here. I want you to know that I got sober in 1966. I didn't intend to get sober. I did not have any idea that I could get sober I'm walking along a sidewalk in Glendale, California on a summer day over there, a hot day. I was living in a shed at the time I called it a garage for some years in Alcoholics Anonymous a double garage because four of us lived there and I'm sure it was a double carriage and a few years ago my wife and I were driving over there in Glendale and she said I want to see the garage and we drove down in there and she says is that it? and I said yeah she said that's not a garage that's a shed is what that is And I was shocked to look at that and realized that no car had ever gotten into that little building. I lived there, I lived here, and I hadn't intended to live like that. It was just a little room with a sticky linoleum floor and a light coming out of the ceiling on a cord, and I had nothing left really. My car had gone, they just disappear, you know. I had been saving up for an oil change, but it seized and they dragged it off. I don't know what happened to them. And I had none of my personal possessions except I had a radio, a clock radio. I don' t know why I still had that thing, but I did, and there was a troublesome aspect to it, and that is it would just start playing, and the damn thing would just play, you know. And I thought it was music from Del Rio or someplace. I thought maybe that bed was kind of an antenna, that iron cot. And I'd take it out and put it in the dirt and it'd still play. And that sticky linoleum floor, you could hear yourself walking on it with wine and whatever and the mattress was wet and I had a little sheet of underclothes, a little box of underklothes. I had a lot of terror in that room, a lot if absolute terror in the room. I was drinking as much as I could drink. Every once in a while I would decide to quit. This is going to be the last half pint I'm going to need, and then I'm gonna go get a job. That kind of thinking. Then I'd go get another one and I'd wind up and the next thing I know, I'm in jail, and it's a Glendale drunk tank. It's funny about jail. You wake up needing a drink real bad, and then when you realize where you are, you don't need a drink quite as much as you did because you know you're not going to get one, and there's something about... Then you do all of that. It's not... We kind of get used to the routine. You know, there's like they empty the felony tank, and then they come and get us and we line up in front of Judge Ken White who was calling the misdemeanor calendar in those days and you just listen to see what's going to happen and if somebody says guilty with an explanation you listen because if the judge likes the explanation it's goingto be my explanation too and it's mostly guilty your honor guilty Sometimes I got back to that room and sometimes I woke up in the park, sometimes in jail. There were warrants out for my arrest. I had some checks left from an account and I never got it through my head that those checks weren't good checks to write. And the account had been closed for a long time and there was that kind of difficulty. I had been married twice. I had three sons. They were gone. I hadn't seen them and I did not want to see them. I did no want to see them, I did know that I did not want them to see me. I had had a lot of opportunity in my life when I was 29 years old and I'm living in that little shed and I don't have anything but that, oh, I had an old copy of Playboy magazine in there, you know, my social life basically is what it was. Kind of like Honey, I'm Home, you know. I mean, that's, I would hear there was a shower there someplace. I would never visit it personally, but I could hear them in there. I had a visitor one morning about four o'clock. I looked over and I woke up. I was on the floor and I was under the cot and I overlooked over there and there was an animal and there's a rat in the corner and he's looking at me and God, he terrified me because I knew if I moved or tried to get up on, he'd rush me. And we both knew he'd win. You know, there was no question about that. And I just lay there and I lay there and that clock is barely moving. You know you hunker down and you think an hour has gone by in seven minutes on the clock. And I'm out of booze and there's no money and I am full of terror. And it's just like forever that night. And then the first light of day and I look again and in some weird way that rat had turned into a pair of socks laying over there in the corner and I had been held hostage by a pair OF SOCKS is there anybody here new in your first 30 days of sobriety say no I haven't forgotten those days I haven'T forgotten that day in July that I was walking along the sidewalk, as I started to mention, a car pulled up. A guy called my name and I knew his face. I walked over. His name is Don Armstrong. He's a bail bondsman and he and I had done some business together and he said, how are you doing? Something like that. And then he said I'm going to take you someplace today. And I didn't ask him. I didn' t ask him, I just said okay. I thought maybe we're going back to jail, maybe the Nuthouse, maybe General Hospital, County Hospital. It was all okay with me. Jail I can do. The Nuthous, maybe they'll find that brain tumor, you know. Yeah, yeah. That's such sweet identification. I thought maybe at County they'll give me some pills. To flash forward about seven years, a friend of mine named Sharon and I and thirty other members of the Pacific Group were sitting in a play on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon in some kind of a matinee performance by a famous actor who was the key guy that was getting sober. And the line on stage in this play, which was a major production in Los Angeles, was the guy picked up a pint and started to take a drink and then threw it down and said, it's empty. And I happened to catch Sharon's eye, and she and I are still good friends, and we both knew just that much in that thing, but it's not empty. It's not empty. And every time I see Sharon, I know she's an alcoholic of my type. A non-alcoholic says that's empty. Not me, not me. I know it's not empty. I don't throw it down. There's just enough to taste, but it's NOT empty. So when I heard this uh-huh over here, that's identification. There is, and that is such a precious thing that we have. That guy said at the sidewalk, that Don Armstrong, he said, I'm going to take you someplace today and I got in his car and he drove me across Glendale, which is not a very big town, He drove me across to a, we went over on Central Avenue and over a laundry, up a long flight of stairs into a room this size, a kitchen, chairs set up theater style with some tables like these tables in the back. And we walked in there late that morning and I sat down with you in that room. I was to be at two meetings of AA that day. That day. Didn't plan to go to either one of them. And I came back and came back and came three weeks I was there every day, every day. And I don't know my thoughts about it except it was like more of a tourist look at it. You know, I know that whatever is wrong with me is not wrong with these people. and they appear to have quit and they seem to be okay with that. And I'm not sure why they stay hooked up like this. And I know that I will not stay here. And I had some extraordinary luck. I came across a stash of cash and amphetamines at about the same time and that next two weeks was absolutely hideous, hideous. And I woke up on a Monday morning on the 14th of August and I walked over to that club that day because I had no place to go and I didn't really want to go there. And it was 10 o'clock or so, mid-morning and I came up the steps and the door was open. There was somebody in there doing his job in AA and he had the door open and a coffee was made and he recognized me from the other meetings and he said, how are you doing? No good, no good. He said, what happened? I said, I got drunk and let everybody down. He said oh are you alcoholic? And I didn't know. And I didn't want to lie to him. And so I said, yeah, I've been an alcoholic about a month now. Just a mild kind of case. And he said, and so you're alcoholic and you got drunk? I said yeah. He said oh, yeah. Yeah, alcoholics do that. He said something very precious to me. He said, if you're an alcoholic, you will drink, and you will drank no matter what. I heard that. I drank no mater what. I'll come home tonight honey I'll bring the check I know the kids want to I'll be there I promise I drink I drink I'll drink I'll get work in an hour I drink I drink no matter what I drink I tried to quit first time I tried to quit was maybe some three years before this day when I was on active duty in the Marine Corps. My wife had a lot to say about my drinking and my commander did, and I had a good job in the Marine Corps and I was stationed at Camp Pendleton. And I loved the Marine car. And I said, I'm going to quit. I told my wife, I told the minister, I told the chaplain, I called the psychiatrist. I called a counselor, I told everyone. I've told too many people is what I did. And I did quit, I quit for six weeks and I'm drunk or never. And And I tried many times after that to quit. And this guy said, you will drink no matter what. And I heard that, I heard it, I drink no matter what, I don't quit. He said in fact, good people in AA will tell you, don't drink no matter what, and you will drink no matter what. That's what you will do. And I don't know why he said that, and I don't know why I heard that, but I heard that. I got it. Now, I didn't know what would happen to me, and he would not talk about tomorrow. He said, stay here today. Just stay here. And I stayed there that day. It was the 14th of August 1966. So, Monday a week ago on the 14th, I called that bail bondsman, as I do on my birthday. I say, Don, it's Clint Hodges. Who is this? And I thank him for what he did for me. He doesn't get it, you know, but I thank him. The first year, I called him up and he said, yeah, where are you? Because he thought we were going to do some more business, I think, you now. And even after a year, I could tell him. You know, that's amazing. I knew where I was and I could say it. One of the promises in our group. Aaron knows this. We'll come to know our full name and address. Not everybody, but 34 years, and I never quit. I never quit. And I think that's a miracle for us. There are people that come to Alcoholics Anonymous, and they leave and they don't drink it, they somehow quit, you know. They're not alcoholics of my type. There are heavy drinkers that decide they're going to quit, and they quit. And they're not here. And they'RE not here because, well, because they quit, basically. They'RE out doing whatever they do on Friday night. I'm not in that category. I'M NOT one of these that can quit. Kenan read chapter 5 tonight. You'd think if it was about quitting, they'd let us know right away. Wouldn't you? I mean, wouldn't it go like this? Wouldn't he have said, step one, quit! Knock it off! God damn it! You'd say it, you know, just say it. And it doesn't say that. This is, basically it says you've got to get the UR toast. You know, powerless, unmanageable, that, that. And so a celebration is in order. A celebration is an order. We come together like this and the traditions, number two, promises us a very funny thing. it promises us that there is a loving God as our authority in the group a loving god now I had a god when I came here a god that I had been brought up with a god that was lurking around the church of the air in Billings Montana but mostly he was way out there some place way removed and he was mad he was really annoyed with me and I didn't want anything to do with him and he didn't want anything to do with me and my mother used to say things like what will you do when you meet your maker and I'd go oh ma I don't know apologize I guess Well, I know today the answer. The answer is we already met. We meet him every day. But that's because of these steps. And I didn't know that then. I didn' t know what would transpire. All I knew was that this guy said the truth about what was going on. and it gave me the simple dignity of the facts when he said, you're going to drink no matter what. And I got it. And he was not unkind about it. He just simply said it. And I had no idea what would happen to me. I certainly didn't sign on for 34 years. I just did not. And I guess if I'm making any point about that is that today I see that that's a miracle and I will also say that there was a time in my sobriety when I kind of began to take credit for that, for my sobriety. Which is a great way for me to miss the miracles in my life. Take credit for them. I missed that. I got it for a while and I remember at nine months of sobrietry I'm standing with my youngest son who I adore and we're at the beach in Santa Monica and it was the first time I'd been allowed to see him without somebody else present. And he looked up at me and said, Why are you crying, Daddy? And it had occurred to me that I hadn't had a drink in nine months. I can't tell you when that obsession went away. I can tell you the last time I wanted a drink. And I was sober. And I knew that I had not done that. I knew That. And I don't know what I said to him, but I knew THAT. And I continued to see him. He lived in Santa Monica with his mother and I would go over there and visit him and then go to a meeting. I got out of that little shed and lived in a little tiny place and got a job selling imprinted ballpoint pens and that kind of stuff, and it was fine. I didn't object to any of it. But I saw this group in 67. It wasn't even a group. It was just a bunch of guys milling around together at a meeting, and there was this loud figure in the center of the group. I liked him. He made me laugh. He was funny. A little abrasive, but he was funny and he had energy and he loved AA and I'm like hanging out with these guys. And I moved to Santa Monica as soon as I could to be with him. Hooked into him. And I've been there in that group ever since then. And Clancy's been my sponsor ever since. And that has been a remarkable relationship because one thing that I learned early on is that I have to change how I act. And I'll mention some of that stuff as we get into the weekend. And we flash forward and by the time I'm five years sober and somebody tells me I ought to go to law school and I'm nine years, which I thought was a stupid idea and I am too old and do you know how old I'll be in four years if I go to law school and the answer comes back, how old will you be in four years if you don't go to a law school? Not a bad question. I gave him the answer. They're so dumb, you know, you have to add it all up. I help where I can. And I'm 23 years sober and I got the house that I knew would make me happy. I got the I don't call it a relationship anymore but there she was funny what we'll call a relationship isn't it there's not a relationship it gives relationships a bad rap it was an arrangement there's a big difference maybe we'll get into that this way anyway she had left my law partner come to me and he said I don' t want to play with you anymore I mean, I was being a donkey of the first water. I was a museum-grade donkey in every area of my life. I was angry and flailing around and I'm practicing law and I am trying lawsuits and I was making money. You know what I was doing? Basically, I would be exercising my character defects calling it advocacy sending out a bill and that was my law practice. I mean you know just an ugly way to live. And I had gotten so far away from a spiritual life or anything like that. I was going to meetings and I was doing all of that and I'm in the group and so on and so forth, but I was just running my life and I can't do that and I had forgotten that and then the day came that several over a period of time, maybe a hundred days, I made a mistake. I'll tell you what I did. I decided that I was getting a little frayed about my relationship with AA and I decided to take the steps again. I decided that. And not to really take them, but to kind of fly low over them, maybe. And so I said that third step prayer. I didn't do step one or step two or any of that. I just did the third step. I just said that prayer. And all hell broke loose in my life. I'm 23 years sober. I said the third step prayer and within a hundred days the house is gone she's gone the car's gone the law practice is gone I am terrified terrified I'm living in a little apartment down at the bottom of the hill I don't know what's going to happen to me I've got to crank up a way to earn a living again and I'm still practicing law and all of that was returned but I was see, I thought I'd lost everything and was left with nothing but I didn't know the difference between everything and nothing because the everything that I had lost turned out to be nothing and the nothing I was left with turned out to be everything and that's what I want to talk about this weekend that's where I want to talk about. And I'll just flash forward a year. Because what had happened was out of all of that loss and all of that chaos and all that fear and all the pain and confusion, I ran across a guy in Little Rock who knew exactly what was wrong with me. He lived in Denver and I lived in Santa Monica, and he said, I'm moving to Santa Monica in January and I will take you through these tests. And I was frightened enough that I was agreeable to do that. I was lost again. So in the middle of that process, about a year later, I called Don Pritz in Denver, who is a sweet guy. He is my spiritual advisor. And I said, I can't figure out what happened. I'm going along. I'm really, you know, I'm no angel, but I wasn't hurting anybody. I was just doing my thing. And in a hundred days, I lost everything. And he said, how are you doing? And I said, well, it's coming back. He said, and you're in the... I said yeah. He said what were you doing when it hit the fan for you? And I told him what I just told you that I had felt isolated and alone and afraid and decided I should say hello to the steps and I said the third step prayer. He said oh my God, you did? I said yes. He said you didn't do step one or two? oh, no, no. He said, did you notice underneath that third step prayer where it says we thought, well, before taking this step, making sure we could at last abandon ourselves utterly to him? I said, I didn't really get that far. He said. Well, did You notice in the step it says, relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do Your will? And I said. Yeah, I noticed that. He said., well, what were You bonded to by Your ego? What was the bondage of self? And I had begun to wake up by this time, so I knew the answer. I knew I was bonded to my house, this lovely home I had. I knewI was bondedto my car. I knewi was bondedtothis, notthe arrangement so much as the imageof it because she was one of these striking-looking women. And I wasbonded to my image. I was bonded to that. in AA and out of AA. And he said, so you were bonded to all these things and you asked God to relieve you of the bondage yourself and it took him about a hundred days. Is that the story? Son of a bitch. That is how powerful this stuff is. And I got it. And we don't want to be trifling with it, you know. But it was another wake-up call. And I don't want to wake up. I laughed, I laughed. I heard a guy tell a story about a man that was sleeping under a bridge at the River Thames in London. And he began to dream. He just got his newspaper and stuff and a car, big chauffeur-driven limousine pulled up and a beautiful, beautiful woman got out. Walked over to him and said, My good man, why are you here? And he said in his dream, Well, I live here. This is my home. This is what I do. The mist and the cold rain was coming in and he was just laying there shivering trying to get through the night. She said, Tonight you're not going to stay here. I'm going to have my man take you out to my estate in London. I'm gonna give you clean clothing. I'm wanna have you fed. I'm Gonna give you a shot. You're gonna shake. You're Gonna, I'm Going to for one night in your life you're gonna sleep comfortably in a warm bed in a clean place with good food. And he couldn't believe his good fortune, and sure enough she did exactly what she said he would do, she would do and got him out there and he was just amazed at how lucky he had been that night. And about midnight she couldn't sleep and she decided to just kind of walk around the estate and she found herself, she had her little night dressing thing on and walked down that servant's quarters and noticed a light coming under the door that she figured he... She knocked on the door. He said, come in. And she walked in and she said, oh, you got a shave? She said, oh yeah, thank you so much. How are you doing? Fine. Did you get fed? Yeah. Give you clean clothing? Yeah. Yeah. You feeling good? He said I'm so grateful to you for this night. She said I was... I can't sleep and I was wondering if you would like some company. And he went, oh my God. And she closed the door and started to walk over to the bed and he moved over to make room for her on the exit and fell right into the River Thames. We don't want to wake up. You know, it's tough waking up. And so I got a wake-up call and I'm just here to talk about the wake-ups So let's take a break and come back at 8.30. As the second session tonight, let's take a look at, first of all, where we're going to be in the general AA outline and then at step 11. You may recall there is a triangle with a circle around it. It's an ancient spiritual symbol, and it represents AA. And we've got, let's put an S on that side for service, a U right here, and a R right there along the base for recovery. Unity is, who's got a comment on what unity is? Anybody? Traditions. Okay, good. We'll put the 12 Ts right there. And it's a sense, isn't it? It's like we're all in the boat together. Unity is a feeling. The feeling in the book says, the feeling amongst the passengers of an ocean-going liner moments after rescue from shipwreck. Not a week later, but moments after. Not a weak later when the resentments have come back, but moments afterwards. That feeling, that feeling we had here a few minutes ago. Feeling that we'll have over the weekend. unity, that sense that we have a common problem and a common solution according to what Wilson has to say, common problem common solution, both are important because in the church of the air there was a common resolution offered to everybody I didn't buy into it ever because I couldn't believe that those people and I had anything in common they're trying to get me to buy into a lot of beliefs and I wasn't going for it. And that's not to say what they were doing was not right. It didn't touch me. And sometimes, so the common solution alone doesn't work so well for me. And a common problem won't take me home either. I mean, if you're in the drunk tank, you and everybody has a common problem. But you don't ask somebody to be your sponsor there. You know what I'm saying? Because there's no common solution. So that's what the drill is here. Twelve traditions, unity, and it's a sense of bringing the body to AA. And AA is the body of this fellowship, the meetings and so on. Over here in service, service is a lot of things, but at its core it's doing something for somebody else or a group of people without any price tag on it at all. And that's the reason that we attach a sense of spirituality to it. That story in the book about Jim, he wouldn't take any steps to enhance his spiritual life simply means he was not into helping anybody. He's not into helpin' anybody. When I got off the plane and saw Pat, I just got it that she's into service i just got that sense of her and i loved what i saw and i got that from joe and the people here it's like we're signed up to be of service to somebody else it's the look somebody said of people that are consistently willing to give more than they get out of life it makes them quite lovely service then enhances our spirituality and the 12 service concepts are at the root of this service thing. So we have 12 service concepts. And we have recovery. And if service has to do with our spirit, and if unity has to deal with the body, recovery, of course, has to be done by us. It has to go with our mind. And the 12 steps outline precisely the path to recovery. Recovery from what? That's the tricky part that I had. Because I thought once that obsession was removed and I wasn't drinking anymore, I had recovered. And I had covered from a seemingly hopeless state of body. But I had a mind that lacked proportion and wasn't doing real well. And we'll talk more about that. It's like this. I stayed for 23 years in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't have a triangle because I hadn't really done the steps. my program would look more like this. That's not a very stable base, is it? That's no power in that kind of a triangle. The power comes in an equilateral triangle. And I wondered why I was edgy and grabby and didn't, you know, all of that. a lot of unity because it's in our group and like that's the group deal, unity and service, get a commitment get two, get three we used to drag people down to the blood bank on Sunday morning oh man, whether they wanted to go or not, it was a tough call it wasa tough call, you either had to claim you'd had venereal disease or give a pint of blood in some weeks it was pretty close as to which way I was going to go on alright so that's where we are we're only going to talk a little bit about unity I'm not going to try to say anything about service and we're going to spend our time on recovery on the 12 steps so that is where we start and we are going to start at step 11 step 11 has a lot of interesting stuff in it because it tells us exactly I hate to do that to that tape how the day is supposed to go and he's not easy to follow on page 86 when he talks about the day because he starts out in talking about and the basic step is not very tricky. but it's basically the principle behind this step has to do with spiritual awareness. The principle behind step 10 is perseverance, and we'll talk for just a little bit about steps 10 and 11, but I'd like to start with 11 because it outlines a day. Step 10, continue to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admit it. And step 11, how does that go? Who's got step 11 dialed in? Anybody read that? Go ahead. Got it. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for the knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. And each piece of that is quite amazing. For example, How often have I really known what God's will for me is and try to implement that? Let's say I'm going with the wrong person. And I know not to be in a relationship with this person. I know it's God's Will for me to let her go and to do something else. And I don't have any power. I don' t have any Power. I know I shouldn't be in this job, working on this deal, doing something like that. and I don't have any power. And I forget to ask for the power, praying only for the knowledge of His will for me and the power to carry that out. What happens when I try to exercise and act on God's will for my life without any power? Oh, it's a bloodbath. It's just awful. I say to her, I can't see anymore and I do not want to talk about my shot. It does not occur to me that there is a loving way to move on and free her up to move one. It doesn't occur to me that I could leave somebody working with me, move them on to what they should really be doing and love them and encourage them in that and be grateful for their contribution. But I can't do that from my own power. I cannot do that. I'm afraid I'll change my mind. I'm worried I'll look weak and stupid. I'm scared I'll do something. So I yell or carry on or get nasty or something like that. That's how it goes when I'm running the deal. and so that every piece of that step is important and he is never he's never at a loss for this things like meditation he'll tell you how to do that he's very specific I was somebody sent me something the other day on meditation that I thought was kind of colorful he said here's how it goes if I can find that little blurb they sent me oh here we go I have a little notebook with some stuff in it that I like. Here's how it goes according to this guy. He says, Picture yourself near a stream. This is meditation. Birds are singing in the crisp cool mountain air. Nothing can bother you here. No one knows this secret place. You are in total seclusion from that place called the world. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity. The water is clear. You can easily make out the face of the person whose head you're holding under the water. they're now feeling better so we're not going to talk a lot about meditation but it's an important practice and each of us does or doesn't do it and has our own way of doing it sometimes it's as easy as the surrender between starting out the morning with step 11 which is the very first thing it says to do The very first thing it says to do is ask God to direct our thinking. Now, why would we want to do that? Well, there's a notion that at any given point, we're either coming from a relationship with our ego, which means coming from fear, or we're coming from love. which is a relationship with God. That's all there is, coming from fear or coming from love. That's the way my construct is. And if I have... And we can move back and forth, but they don't blend. I'm either in one path or the other path. Now, if I'm coming from fear, one of my primary motives is to be right. I want to be right. I want a win. One of my primary problems is my notion that there's scarcity. There's not enough love. There's not enough time. There's not enough money. None of that. I mean, it's like I grew up with the notion that I did not get the love I should have gotten. Isn't that great? made me a joyous child I'll tell you that and I didn't really understand how that affected my life until I went through this process but here's how it affected me it's like I know you love me well as an adult I'm saying this I know you love to whoever and I'd like to love you back But you know what? I didn't get mine. When I get mine, when my mother, who'd been dead since I was 14, loves me enough, then I can love you. Until then, you're kind of on your own. Love me if you want to, but it's that. It's a scarcity mentality. it's a scarcity mentality there is I want to win I want to win if I'm over here gotta win gotta win I have a whole pride thing going on, I'm defensive I react you say something to me I'm totally out of choice as to how I'm like a frog in the road that you poke with a stick. I'm just going to jump and out it comes. I'm into blame and I'm in the guilt. I'm a good guilt catcher and a good guilty thrower. My perceptions are out. My main question in life is what's in it for me? What's in It For Me? That's the question. No matter what's going on, what's In It For me? You want me to be the secretary of the meeting? What's in it for me? Want me to go on a 12-star? What's it for you? What's what's in it for me? Oh, image. You know all this. We know how to play that game in alcohol. I was really pretty good at control. I need a lot of control because if my world gets a little bit out of my control so I'm always kind of managing everything that comes along. I'm great with shame. I have something called conditional forgiveness I'll forgive you but I'll never forget it and conditional love conditional love I mean what dress does she have to wear for my ego to calm down you know that and that's of course the tip of that iceberg I'm mostly into hope like I hope I'll be alright the final outcome is very much in doubt from my point of view. If I wake up and I am coming from a relationship with my ego, my ego keeps me in check with fear. And the fear is a lie and I never get that. I just go down this road. And if I am coming from a relationship with God, which apparently is the solution here because that's what they're talking about. And incidentally, I was laughing with Joe we were talking about somebody said well these are just suggested steps and I heard a guy say yeah but the book doesn't suggest anything else that's right it's all it suggests welcome aboard what if I'm coming from love how does it change it do I want to be right do I wanna be right no I wanna have I wanna to be happy and there's the choice isn't it Do I want to be right or happy? And you know, astonishingly, I want a point. I want it to be right. I want to be right. I got a point to prove by God. Get to happy later. When you shape up, I can be happy. Scarcity, abundance. I'll put an H for happy. Abundance. Abundant. There's plenty of love and there's plenty of time and there's plenty of material abundance. That's the way he made it. It's like the universe. I heard an interesting talk by a guy, a guy named Kennedy, about two months ago. His father was an important political figure and the Attorney General and this guy is an amazing guy about environment. And I've known and you've known that God loves us through people. Robert Kennedy Jr. says God loves us through the environment too and he's sworn to make sure that the environment doesn't go away but he had this he told a bunch of lawyers in Los Angeles two months ago he gave this talk and at the end of it he said whoever you pray to God loves you God loves through the environment He's given us this wealth of beautiful territory in these mountains that we flew over coming in here and the rest of it. And he will replenish this burn in no time and have it green and sweet. And even the burn is a way of replenishing it, as Joe told me. There is an abundance. Only the things in our mind keep it away from us. And we'll talk about those old ideas. I don't want to win. I'm glad to surrender. Somebody said if I could surrender 1% of my life every day, in 90 days it would be a whole different deal. Surrender it. Where did I ever get the idea that death has to be nasty? You know what makes it tough is my objection to it. I died when I was 23 years old. I lost my identity. I lost it. And God, it was so painful and I was so afraid of it. but I've died since then and it's sort of like here we are again. Okay, I'll let that... My wife woke up she and I on a rare Saturday that we had the day together. The other she said maybe a couple of months ago she said what do you want to do today? And I said I don't even have a plan except I want to spend it with you. What do you wanna do? She said let's give up an old idea today. What the hell is that? but since I'm a good AA and an old timer I said sure she said you want to and I said yeah she said you go first and you know the funny thing I'd been thinking about something I'd be thinking thinking about in the book it says that God will constantly disclose more to you and to others well I don't have a sense of constant disclosure so what happened to that promise how am I getting in the way of that and I had been thinking that I've got some rules about disclosure like the guys I sponsor can't make a disclosure to me you know I don't want to hear it from my wife I don'T WANT TO HEAR SOME TRUTH ABOUT ANYTHING THAT'S GOING TO PUNCTURE MY EGO OR MAKE ME FEEL GUILTY OR WHATEVER so I'm on my guard I'm a little defensive I can hear it from my sponsor but like on Tuesdays from 3 to 4 maybe something like that so I got all these rules about disclosure I don't want to hear it from the person in the next lane on the freeway in fact they're in trouble just being there because suddenly it gets to be a race into town and God forbid they jump into my lane and it is my lane I think we all know that you hear that ego talking it's my lane yeah and so I did give a I said I got it I have a notion that I can decide when and where the disclosures come from no wonder I don't get any disclosure and I kind of looked at that idea and I dropped it and they're easy to drop if you spot them and are willing to do it and it wasn't very long after that I'm driving into town and a lady cuts in in front of me and there was a message a disclosure on her bumper because it said relax it's just a lane change I went okay got it got it so instead of being got that pride going on there's a humility in other words I'm beginning to get the truth about myself instead of reacting I'm at choice I'm at choice. I can get. My sponsor's in a bad mood. Okay with me. I'm going to love him anyway. I'm gonna love him anyway because my purpose with him is to be of service, to be useful to him. I'm way past the point where I'm going to ask something from him. My question to him is what can I do for you? And once in a while, once in great time, he has given me something to do for him and I've loved that. Instead of guilt there's appreciation. Instead of blame there's responsibility. Instead of a perception, there is an intuitive thought that we tap into. See, my perception is I take yesterday's facts and project them into tomorrow and call that reality instead of being here today. Instead of being in here today with choice and intuitive thought. Instead of shame, there's acceptance. Instead of conditional forgiveness, there's forgiveness. and there's love. And it makes a big difference whether I start out, because if I start off the day coming from that thing with my ego, wanting to be right, it's going to be a long day for me and everybody around me. And I'm totally out of touch with the miracles in my life. And if I started out the day over here coming from a relationship with God, all I have to do, as step 11 says, is ask God to direct my thinking. And where is he going to put me? He's going to Put Me Right. That's the essence of the Lord's Prayer. Because this is where God is. This is where heaven is. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. We want to be over here on the right side of the page. The day just goes sweeter and easier that way. That's point of the whole drill. Because if I've done the first nine steps, I am at peace with my fellow man and with God. and I have a relationship going. And this thing, he leaves nothing out. He's not easy to follow in the sense that the sequencing is little because you don't get it until the middle of the step on what you're supposed to do on awakening. On awakening. We ask God to direct our thinking asking that it be divorced from self-pity, self-seeking and dishonest or self- Seeking motives. And then we consider our plans for the day. I have a notion that it's our plans for being. I don't think it's so much what should I do today, but what should i be? Oh, loving. Oh, honest. Oh, useful. And we'll get into that, but there's a point in the fourth step where he talks about fear. And he says, We ask God to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us be. Be, not do. It's not up to me to do something for God. I don't have the task of demonstrating to God what I can do for him. I always thought as a little kid, I got to, you know, they told me or I heard at the Church of the Unveiled, I gotto do something. I ought to be doing something for god. Like, and if I could just do enough, he'd help me out. But I couldn't do enough before I'd start having dirty thoughts, you know. And then you got to start over and it's all done and it is all kind of screwy. So I am in the middle of page 86 and you got it kind of sorted out but he says number one we ask God before we begin we ask god to direct our thinking and then we ask that it be divorced from those things and then consider our plans for the day. What do I want to be today? We ask god for inspiration we relax and take it easy isn't that something? Isn't that some thing? relax and take it easy. Ego does not relax and take het easy. Any archers in here? Anybody ever do any archery? It's an interesting sport and a very, very interesting sport because, and I don't do any archery and you know better than I do about this but basically you develop a lot of kinetic energy in that string and in that bow and you get it out here and what do you do? If it were up to me and I'm coming from my ego, I would take the arrow out and I would throw it. You ever try to throw an arrow? They don't really go that far. I'm using all my strength to throw that arrow. But here, here in this whole section, what we do in the morning is get dialed in for the day. We ask God, direct my thinking, divorce it from self-pity, dishonest, self-seeking motives. consider my plans for the day of what I'm going to be. Ask for inspiration, intuitive thought. Guide me all day long. Relax and take it easy. What's the relax and take it easy? Let go. Let go and that arrow goes a hell of a lot farther than if I'm throwing it. Maybe even hit the target. It's that. It's a spiritual thing. It's just the opposite of what my ego tells me to do. And how, and the how of getting there to even consider asking God to direct my thinking is the steps, the first nine steps. And that's why I wanted to start with that. That's kind of where we want to go to live a day like that. He says, I've made this little dotted line down here because let's say I start out on this side of the page on the right side where I'm coming from a relationship with God and things are going great. And I have asked him to show me all through the day what my next step would be and ask for freedom from self-will, careful to make no requests for ourselves alone. And then he says, as we go through the Day, we pause when agitated or doubtful and ask för the right thought or action. Now, I'm going down here. I call this thing the agitation and doubt line, right? because I'm going to go whoop when that car pulls in front of me or when that other attorney gets goofy with me because they do get goofy, you know. And I'm never wrong. Did I mention that to you, Gary? I think I did on the plane coming over. But it's not easy. I think it's just very difficult when I'm amped up to pause and ask for the right thought or action unless I have paused that morning. Done that first before there's any reason to pause except knowing the day will bring a reason to pass. And I want to be, have one pause in, I guess, just to kind of dial in for the day. And then I'm in, what does he say? Look at this language. We constantly remind ourselves we're no longer running the show humbly saying to ourselves many times each day, Thy will be done. Can you imagine living like that? Many times each Day, Thy will been done. Give it a rest. Are you kidding me? I decided to conduct an experiment. This whole thing is an experiment, you know. The whole thing is an experience. And basically, it's like we were talking, Rodney and I, about coming into AA and just saying, all right, I'll do everything he tells me to do just so I can prove it isn't going to work for me. I did that with these steps because they told me, they said, Hodges, you know, your deal with the steps has been very weird because you've kind of got a cookbook thing going on with the step. So I said, what does that mean? He said, well, you're like a guy that wants a chocolate cake and you go out and buy a box of cake mix and you bring it home and you read the directions on the side and you say okay where's my cake I read the instructions and you don't get any cake and so you say well alright I'll go where some other guys are reading the directions and we'll read them together that ought to do it shouldn't it and end it with the Lord's Prayer and go home where's mine where's your cake I know what we'll, let me see. We'll translate it into French and we'll all say it in French together. That ought to get you a cake. He said, you can't have cake that way. You can't have cake this way. You've got to follow the directions. And the better you follow the direction the better the cake. And I kind of liked that because I realized that all of that other was wonderful stuff except It's group events. And I had never, ever, ever said, all right, I'm going to do something. These guys, this bunch that wrote this book, this first hundred, whoever, these guys claim they did certain stuff and they claim they got certain results. I don't know if they did or not. I don' t know. But I'm 23 years sober and I better find out. Because if this ain't the answer, I'm going to need some deep psychotherapy and maybe a little Prozac. I'm the lab rat. I'm gonna do what they said they did. I'll do it. They even gave me a prayer to say. It goes like this. Dear God, please let me set aside everything I think I know about you and me and this program and the steps for an open mind and a new experience of you and me and the program and the step. Amen. And I needed a new experiment and a good experience because I'd been doing business on 1966 for a long time and I'd forgotten the miracle of that and I needed an open-minded boy because my mind slammed shut when you start talking to me. I've heard it all. I've read it all Oh, I'm very cool about it I don't act like that, but inside. And I prayed for an open mind and a new experience and I began to get them. But there wasn't any way that I could be at step 11 in those days. That's the goal. Step 11 is the goal We are then after we say thy will be done many times each day and start the day that way much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity or foolish decisions. and that seems to be the case. We become much more efficient, we don't tire so easily, we're not burning up. You know, paying attention to my ego burns up a lot of energy. It takes a lot of energy, but then he finally, before he says any of this, he tells us how to end our day. Now we know how to start it and how to go through it, and we go back to page 86, and he says when we retire at night That we constructively review our day. What does that mean? That means that I just kind of take a look at it. And notice how it went. This is a wonderful way to find out God's will for me. Wonderful way to do that. Constructively. Not destructively, not like, well he says it. We must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse or morbid reflection. And he gives me a few questions to ask myself. And he says when we retire at night. and I've noticed that for me it's when I am done with my day's work and before I leave the office is the best time for me to do this to turn back to this little piece of paper I have on my desk that has these on it before I go to the meeting or before I spend the evening with my wife the day is done for all intents and purposes now I may go to the meeting and come back to my office and do some stuff but at the end of the day I just ask myself these questions was I resentful was I resentful today no not today was I selfish yes sure was I dishonest no was I afraid yeah I was afraid sure I'm coming in here I want to do have a wonderful weekend with you I'm afraid it won't go well I'm afraid you won't like me. I'm worried I won't have any capacity to articulate these spiritual principles. Was I afraid? Yes. Do I owe an apology? I don't know. Gary, do I owe it? You traveled with me. Just to you? All right, fine. We'll take care of that. I shouldn't have made you carry me. I think making you carry my bag. Have we kept something to ourselves? No, I don't owe an apology. Have we kep something to ourself which should be discussed with another person at once? No. Gary and I had a talk and that took care of that. Were we kind? I mean about me, not about... Were we kindness? Kind and loving toward all? No. No. You know when I travel we're in kind of like out of control and in somebody else's terrain and those flight attendants I don't really care whether I want equal or sweet and low. They don't care. And I'm not mean to them, but I don' t give them my best. What could I have done better? I'll be courteous and loving to the people on the plane, to the ticket taker. Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time? Yeah, you bet. Were we thinkin' of what we could do for others? Somewhat. what we could pack into the stream of life. Isn't that wonderful language? Pack into the steam of life and Wilson knocks me out. It's like, the goose hung high. What the hell is that Bill? After making our review we ask God and it takes that long you know it's five minutes but it's something to pay attention to and I ask God's forgiveness. Alright, I peed in the Wheaties today Would you please forgive me? And then inquire what corrective measure should be taken. Show me what I can do to straighten that out. I was short with my wife. I was irritated and showed it. I had a tone with my secretary. I had to call up an attorney on the other side of a case a week ago and apologize for the way I spoke to him during a deposition, which stunned him into silence. I hadn't heard from him before. That is not easy to do, boy in a hot leaf. But I am so interested in my own relationship with God, I'll do it. I don't care. More important to me than my deal with Him, I'll tell you that. Inquire what corrective measures should be taken. When I wake up the next morning, I know, I know. I know what to do. If I'm looking at all, I know What to Do. Anyway, that's step 11. See, this is all that it is, but it is so much because it rests on and comes from a relationship with God. And that seems to be the whole point of the drill. It's like back in Bill's story, Ebby comes to him and then they have that little section where they discuss the steps and Ebby in this book told Bill something that was quite amazing and Bill reports it this way. He said, My friend told me when these things were done I would enter upon a new relationship with my Creator. Now, he could have said a lot of things. Like when these things, when you've done this and made amends and stuff, you'll get a great job or you won't have to drink anymore or you'll be able to or you're going to get back in the big bed or everybody will like you. He didn't say that. He said I would enter upon a new relationship with my creator. And we know that Wilson was very interested in that. We know that. In his story, he just kind of gives it a little pass. He's in London. He's at the University of New York. He's here in Winchester Cathedral. And he says, Much moved I wandered outside. And then there's the doggrel on the tombstone and Fetcher's grave, which is still there. much moved I wandered outside and at about page 10 he comes back to that years have gone by and much destructive drinking has occurred and he's in town's hospital he's not in town hospital yet his friend has come to see him in his home and they talked for hours and then he says that wartime day in old Winchester Cathedral came back again on page 10 about in the middle of a single paragraph now that's significant to me because this guy was in Winchester cathedral at age 21 something like that at the beginning of World War I and now we're shot ahead up to 34 and his friend is talking to him 18 years earlier he'd been in Winchester cathedral much moved I wandered outside, and now that moment is in his head again. That's a big moment that never quite goes away. And he says then in a couple of pages, page 12 at the bottom, the real significance of my experience in the... Thank you.