The Danger of the La Carte Program — Cliff E.

inviting me to participate today. I'm kind of a surprise for you all. If you're expecting Renee, I'm a poor substitute for that, I'll tell you right off the bat. You got that right. I know that's true. But nonetheless, I didn't want to put on the dress this morning, so I'm just going to go with what I got. And I really appreciate John asking me to come and do this with him. I love John, and John's one of my dearest friends. We talk at least weekly, and we exchange nightly reviews with each other. I've been doing that for a while, and it's an honor to do something with him, and so I'm really grateful to do that. And my understanding today is we're going to have a couple of topics to talk about. One of those came to believe and then the conscious contact. I think kind of what we're gonna do this morning is kind of bust that up, do kind of, I think we're doing two hours. First hour, we're kind of split it 30 minutes each and talk about came to believe and then we'll the second hour we'll talk about this conscious contact i came on here this morning thinking well there's going to be a bunch of canucks on here i'm not going to know anybody and about half of everybody on here I know so that's how that works all the new jersey crowd I was with them uh john too earlier this week in new york and and so it's exciting to see them here this mornin and my good friend cordy from tulsa who has known me almost my entire sobriety a good member of the outlaw family group and so grateful to see her this morning here and then people from just all over the country i think that's my friend leah i think on there i'm not sure but it is yes it is so leah it's good to see you honey it's really great to see you on here today and uh but just it's Really Good To Be A Member Of Alcoholics Anonymous Is Sober Today And I'm Gonna And Thank The Group Happy 11 Years I Mean 11 Years For Alcoholics to do anything i mean collectively or singularly is just a minor miracle uh and you know we get you get 11 years from a group it's fantastic what that tells me about your group is if you're a group that practices not only recovery but also practices traditions of alcoholics anonymous and probably the 12 concepts as well a real true three legacy group and that's the tale of that is, is the sustainability of the group that's been here for 11 years. Groups that practice all the three sides of our triangle generally have some stability and some longevity in Alcoholics Anonymous. And so I'm going to ask you to do something for me this morning. I'm gonna ask you to take a leap of faith with me, a little bit of a leap, a leap faith about, you know, we're supposed to talk when we do these at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, we're supposed to share in a general way what we were like, what happened and what we're like now. And I'm going to ask you to take a leap of faith with me and know that I'm the person that's described in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. When it talks about that, when Dr. Silkworth describes that position in the book of alcoholics becoming restless, irritable, discontent, and once again remembering or sensing the ease and comfort that comes with the first drink and entering then onto a spree emerging ever remorseful, making firm resolutions never to do that again. What I want to tell you is I want to ask you to take a leap of faith with me and believe me when I tell you that that's me. That is me. I am that guy. I'm the kind of guy that when I drink, there's only three ways that I stop. I pass out, run out, or blackout. that is absolutely me. So I can't drink because every time I start drinking, I can stop. And the other piece of my puzzle is that once I start or once I stopped drinking, I tell everybody that I hurt and everybody I love that I'm never going to do this again. Somehow or another, I have that what the book describes as a peculiar mental twist, I end up drinking again. And so what I want to ask you to do is just take that leap of faith with me this morning and believe what I'm telling you is that that's me. I'm the real alcoholic as described in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I'm that guy that when I start drinking on the middle of the week, I don't come home to the weekends. And my wife would send me to the store and get a loaf of bread and it would be six o'clock. She'd tell me dinner at seven. And I go to the story and get the bread and I run into John. And John says, what are you doing? I said, I'm getting bread because Lori needs it. I got to be home. We're having dinner in 50 minutes. And he would say, well, let's go grab a couple of beers before you get home. You can be there. And I've run it through the filter of 50 minutes, two beers, I can do that. And then Sunday when I get home, the trouble with all that is everybody's mad at me and I'm that guy. I just need you to know that's me. I'm asking you just to take that leap of faith because what I really want to talk about is this idea of step two and leading into step three, this idea of coming to believe. And, you know, if you look at the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous on any given day prior to coming here, those never look attractive. I mean, if you just look at The Steps of Alcoholic Anonymous and you look at them, they ask us to do some things that are seemingly uncomfortable. The first thing they want us to is admit some kind of powerless and begin to believe in some kind deity that's going to relieve me of this deal. But the rest of the steps are the ones that become really troubling and step four they want us to start writing stuff down now i'm a lawyer by trade that's evidence we don't write anything down you know once we start writing something down people use that against us then they want us to share that with somebody else well that's a no-go right there i'm not we got a code we don't tell anybody anything no way no how next thing they want to do is try to admit admit that We may have some problems, some defects in our life. Then go clean up our past. And I'm just telling you that on any given day, those steps never look attractive to a guy like me. I mean, those never look effective. That in no way on any giving day prior to coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, I mean it wasn't like one day I was at home and thought, you know when I saw the steps, geez I was just getting ready to do that moral inventory of myself. I was jut getting ready sit down and talk to somebody and share with them the deepest secrets of my life. I mean, that's just not me. I'm not doing that. But I want to talk to you about is in the chapter We Agnostics in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It has a paragraph in there and a couple of sentences that are really relevant to a guy like me. It talks about being beaten into a state of reasonableness. Beaten. And when I hear that sentence and when it really resonates with me because that part, that leap of faith I asked you to take with me this morning, this idea that I'm that guy. I'm the guy that starts drinking on Wednesday and runs away from home every time. I'm kind of guy that will give away families. I'm going to always tell people when I give a talk, I want you to always know that Lori, my precious wife, we've been together for 21 years this next month. We've been here for a long time. We've known each other for 25. I always like to tell people, particularly in alcoholics and amas, that she's my fourth wife. The reason I like to tell you that, particularly in Alcoholics Anonymous, I know how big you all are on the spirit of rotation. And it's important for you to know that I was practicing the spirit of rotation long before I came to AlcoholicsAnonymous. I know that impresses you when you hear that I know about the spirit of rotation and I need you to be impressed as well. But my sweet wife, Lori, who I dearly love, I mean, I just run people through the mill. I'm that guy. And the idea of coming to Alcoholics Anonymous and step two, when we get here, you know, first of all, we've had to admit this idea of powerlessness and unmanageability. I mean, I've been licked by king alcohol. I dragged my carcass in here. I'm sad, sick, and sorry. I's broken and shaken and I'm, you know rattling and rolling. And I come to Alcoholic synonymous and you know i'm so desperate that when you get desperate enough when you've been beat into a state of reasonableness which i like the next sentence equally as well where it talks about you know for some of us this was a tedious process which means i took a lot of ass whoopings before i was able to come to alcoholics anonymous and finally do what the book talks about doesn't talk about that but what i really had to do and what's required here is to begin this process and surrender. And on the day I washed up to the shores of Alcoholics Anonymous on August the 15th, 2001, which was not my first rodeo in AlcoholicsAnonymous. I'd been around Alcoholics Anonymous since 1988. And I got to tell you, on August 15, 2001, it wasn't like I threw a dart at a calendar and said, this is going to be the day right here. This is it. You know, I don't know of any, I've never met really anybody in Alcoholic Anonymous that I've met. And they said, And, you know, I knew on this day I was going to AA and get sober. You know, I think what happens for people like us broken people like alcoholics, we come here and we get a moment of grace. There's some kind of grace that happens. And I'm sitting in Alcoholics Anonymous on August the 15th, 2001, once again kicked out of my house. I've been detoxing with a buddy of mine's couch for two or three days. I roll back into AA. Dave. And I got to tell you, I come to Alcoholics Anonymous not because I believe you have an answer for me and not because i believe i'm alcoholic, not because i believe that look i really got a problem and you have an answer for me. I come down to Alcoholic Anonymous for one reason and one reason only and that's to get back in the house. And i'm telling you this, if you're new or you're nearly new here today it doesn't really matter what your motive is for coming to Alcoholix Anonymous. It has absolutely nothing to do with why i'm here. The fact is, and the greatest thing I think about Alcoholics Anonymous is when I'm sitting in an AA meeting, and on August the 15th of 2001, when I was in that AA meeting it was the only time that God ever had a shot at me. And more importantly, it was only time any of you ever had a shot. When I'm out drinking and doing what I like to do, God's never got a shot of me, and more importantly, you never have a shot at me. But I'm setting the meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous in August of 2015 to 2001. When I'm sitting in those meetings, all I can think about is how do I drink and how do I stay sober? Now again, if you're new or you're nearly new in Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm going to save you some valuable research time here. If you're newer, you're nearly new here, here's what you need to know. It's impossible to beat the laws of physics, although I'm the smartest guy in the room at any given moment, and I'm gonna figure that out. How do I beat the laws of physics? You can't, you can't drink ethyl alcohol and maintain sobriety. You can'T do it, but I'm going to figure it out. And I'm sitting in that meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I've been sitting there for 40 minutes thinking, how do you drink and how do your day stay sober? And that's all I thought about. And, uh, I don't know about what your head's like. I don'T know what it was like, you know, before you washed up here and sometimes my head can still get this way. But on that particular day, I've heard people talk about, you know, there was a committee in my head. If I could have got it to a committee, that'd been a great day. If i could have reduced it to the committee. This was a full-bore stockholders meeting. I mean this is something right out of the movie Wall Street, you know? I mean they're shouting and clamoring in there. They're yelling at me and they're just going and then the head's saying how do I drink and how do i stay sober? And there's 20 minutes left in that meeting of alcoholics. And my head goes stone cold quiet. Now I don't know if that's ever happened to you. I don' t don't know if you've ever been in the middle of your head like that and it just goes quiet but i'm going to tell you when that happens to me that gets my attention i mean i perked right up when that happened and then a thought came to me this is a new thought and i'm gonna tell you and share with you that i believe this was not a thought that originated with me and the reason i say that because the thoughts that i have at that time is how do i drink and how do I stay sober the new thought came To me was this if you don't do something different today you're going to die and I'm going to tell you what I believe about that. I believe that on that day, that's when grace entered my life. We talk here a lot about the gift of desperation, and I, I'm a guy that believes that all of us get that every alcoholic drunk or sober gets the gift and desperation. I can't believe in some kind of power that chooses me and doesn't choose anybody else because I ended up myself on any given day. I never believe that I'm worthy to receive anything. So I believe all of us get the gift. And here's what I also believe about that, because this is just based on my experience. The day that grace came into my life and this gift of desperation was laid at me, I absolutely believed that there was an expiration date tagged about. That there was a window that began to close. And my experience about that is just watching people in Alcoholics Anonymous. My experience aboutthat is my own career, my own adventures in Alcoholics Anonymous but I've watched people come in and you know they come in here sad sick and sorry just like I was desperate shaking rattling rolling and they say the same thing every time I'll do anything and then what we went what we see happen in Alcoholic Anonymous we watch people get their jobs back get to car back they get him they get her life suddenly gets good you know seven ten fifteen days and all of a sudden they get a good idea they get newcomer plans and they walk right back out the door. So I really believe that this gift of desperation, this grace that we are at, that's laid at my feet is tagged with an expiration date and the minute that happens, the window begins to close. I'm going to tell you about Don. Don was 10 years sober. He was 64 years old. He was a good member of Alcoholics Anonymous and every day I'd been coming to Alcoholics synonymous, he would stop me at the door and say, Bub, how are you doing? I would give him the same BS alcoholic answer every time, fine. And he would say, well, listen, if there's ever anything I can do for you, let me know. And He would step aside and He would allow whiskey to do its job. He left it friendly with me. And on August 15th, 2001, after having that experience with 20 minutes left in the meeting, the thought came to me, if you don't do something different today, you're going to die. You good people circled up, said your prayer. I broke for the door and for the 45th day, Don caught me at that door as he'd been doing for every day since I washed back up on June 30th, 2001. He had caught me into that door and said to me on August 15th, one more time, Bob, how are you doing? And on that day, I gave him a different answer. See, Don was a guy, a student of the book of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the chapter we agnostics it talks about we have a couple of choices we have this idea that the universe is nothing rushing nowhere turning into nothingness which has little hope for a guy like me but there's another line in our literature right under that and it says however we could consider that we are intelligent agents spearheading god's ever-advancing creation i'm going to tell you that Don, that's exactly who he believed he was. He believed he was one of God's intelligent agents and what he did on that day, and I believe every day when Don woke up, he did this whether consciously or unconsciously. When he looked in the mirror, he said, Good morning, God, Agent Don showing up for work today. And I don't know what assignment you have for me today. But I'm willing to leave here and go find whatever it is you need me to do on this particular day. And every day Don came to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because he was retired. And he came to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and he looked for guys like me. Guys that were broke, guys that were sad, sick, sorry, and guys who had entered the last stages of their life with active alcoholism. And on that day, I'm going to tell you I was out of plans and ideas. And it's my experience, the best time to catch an alcoholic in a spot. And I was at the spot that day. I'm gonna tell you if I'd had 20 bucks in my pocket, If I'd have had one more good idea, John would have had to make Renee come today because you'd have somebody else that wouldn't be me. But I had no more plans. I had more ideas. I didn't have anything left. And when Don looked at me that day and he looked at мне sincerely and asked me the same question he had been asking me those days before, Bub, how are you doing? I gave him a different answer, and I told him I'm not doing good at all. And what happened was one of God's agents got in the window and I believe to get in that window is critical for an alcoholic of my type and I'm the type as described exactly in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was out of plans and ideas and I've suddenly by being beaten into a state of reasonableness the steps on the wall and the presentation Don made to me that day of what he was like, what happened and what he's like now became attractive and when he finished that presentation knee-to-knee sitting in the room, the big room at the Western Club in Oklahoma City. You guys have all seen, I know those big poker tournaments were at the end. Somebody pushes all their chips to the middle and say, I'm all in. And at the End of Don's presentation, what you need to know is I went all in on Alcoholics Anonymous. And Don looked at me at the conclusion of his presentation and he asked me one question. Do you hope what's working for me can work for you? And I said, I sure hope So he said, we're moving on to step three. And I'm going to tell you, I can be real complicated because I like to think I'm always the smartest guy in the room and I can try to intellectualize and out-guess and outthink Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I kind of want to think that when the steps call for me to come to believe that, that I can always – I have to figure out something. There's something for me to figure OUT before I can move forward. But I'm also reminded of what Dr. Bob's last conversation with Bill W., When he left that day, he said, Bill, let's don't louse this thing up. Let's keep it simple. And I have to remember for me, the steps are designed to keep it simple for smart guys like me. You know, guys who think they're always the smartest guys in the room. And so it has to be really simple for me. In the book of Alcoholics Anonymous, in the chapter We Agnostics, and in that part that was read today back in the spiritual experience, It tells us over and over and over again about laying aside this idea of prejudice, which is just another fancy word for old ideas. Because I come here with ideas about what I think will work for me. I come her with ideas about what i think I need. I come hear with old ideas about what I think this power greater than myself look like. There's another insanity in Alcoholics Anonymous and that's the insanity that whatever power I thought I could use out there, I'm dragging it here and think suddenly it's going to work for me. And what I found for a guy like me is it had to be real simple, and really it is. It has to start with some kind of foundation of absolute and complete surrender for me there has to be a moment in my life where I put the guns down take the knives out of my pocket get on my knees put my hands behind my head and say what's the next indicated action? What's the direction for me? And when I'm willing to do that what happens this path that leads to a power opens up for me. You know, we talk here about this power greater than ourselves and step three goes right out and call it this God of our understanding. It can be really simple for a guy like me. I don't need to complicate it. It can't be this good orderly direction. We found in Alcoholics Anonymous, it can be a group of drunks, you know, because at any moment in a room of alcoholics, if they all make a decision to not let me leave the room, that's suddenly a power greater then me. Although I'll think from time to time there might be a couple of women I could take if it was really a tussle, but I'm pretty sure that the group decides I'm not leaving. I'm stuck there. That's a power greater than me. And whatever those people have going on in that room is working for them. You know, I sponsored a guy one time. He was a Buddhist and they asked him one time, a couple of guys asked him, aren't you Buddhist? He said, yes, I am. He said well at the end of those ANA meetings don't they say the Lord's Prayer? He said yes, they do. He said and you do that? He said absolutely I do that. He said, but you're Buddhist. He said listen, if at the end of those meetings people say we're going to do 100 jumping jacks and stand on my head, if I thought that's what it would take, I would do that too. It's not about what I absolutely believe. It's what I'm willing to believe. It's when I'm ready to believe that. You notice the steps don't talk about willing to be in. If I'm will to believe is internal and newcomers coming to Alcoholics Anonymous, we're not ready to do that. I'm not ready to believe in anything what I'm willing to do is become suspicious and that's what the step talks about I'm willing and I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to the idea that the first drink is never going to work for me again the book in the doctor's opinion talks about that we're alcoholics we can't distinguish the true from the false and the truth is I'm alcoholic the false is every time I'm I'm faced with a drink, I rationalize, justify, run it through the prism of self and think this time it's going to be different. And in that inability to distinguish the truth from the false, what happens is if I'm willing to follow this good orderly direction, this group of drunks, because this grace has fallen on me, because I've been given this gift of desperation, you know, the step, all it requires for me is hope, that I hope what you're doing will work for me. It doesn't require me to overthink it, overdo it, look for something, try to come up with something. What it requires me to do is to have hope, hope that this is possible. And you know how that hope comes is from the demonstrations in Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I often think about the guy that used to give the, there used to be a guy that did the commercials for one of those detergents. I could do late night commercials. I remember one time OxyClean. I I remember one night when I was back in my drinking days, I stayed up late a lot of times and I was watching those commercials. And Billy was on there pitching OxiClean. And he was talking. I was just amazed, quite frankly, by that. And so at the end, he had this dirty rag and he put it in his tub and he swirled it around and it came out clean. I was so impressed by that, I got on the phone and ordered some right then at 4 in the morning, just ordered some. Lori was not impressed the next day, let me just tell you that. I mean, he's talking about cleaning up and I'm looking around me thinking I live in a big bin, you know, so I'm buying in on Billy. And so I got it. And I watched Billy do that and I watched this demonstration he had. And because I watched his demonstration, you Know, I came to believe that that would work for me if I bought that. And so, I bought the OxiClean and I used it. Man, I was putting, I Was just, Iwas practicing Oxi Clean in all my affairs. Man,I was putting the dishwasher and the washing machine just everywhere. I've just oxy-cleaned up, man. And then one day I ran out. And I didn't need to see another commercial about oxyclean because this time I had some practical experience. I began to have some faith that this would actually work. I didn' t need to come to believe. I knew that oxyclin would work for me. I didn''t need anything else to order that stuff. Now, I'm going to tell you on that particular day, Billy had been out on a bender that night before And right in the middle of putting that rag in that tub, he'd have just puked in there. If he just poked in the tub, I'd have just changed channels right on the spot, man. I'd been on to something else. But see, Billy gave an adequate presentation. He gave a demonstration of what that would do. And I think about that often when I think About Alcoholics Anonymous. And I thank about going to a meeting of AlcoholicsAnonymous, and I think, what kind of demonstration am I being? Am I coming here, and am I puking the problem? and not making it attractive for new people? Am I coming here and puking what the problem has always been? Or rather, am I going to Alcoholics Anonymous and be what you good people were for me? Being a demonstration of the solution of AlcoholicsAnonymous. Being a illustration that this in fact works. That this in effect, if you're willing to surrender and if you'll come and do what we do, this will actually work. And so I want to say thank you this morning for having me And I'm really grateful and I'm anxious to hear what John has to say. So thank you. Thanks, Cliff. Great to be with you. John Edmonds, alcoholic. I am sad not to be there with you guys this weekend. I was really looking forward to that. I've had the pleasure of going to Calgary and to Banff a couple times. And I really enjoyed my time up there. It took them a while, but they taught me how to say A after everything I said, and I was hoping to come up there and impress you guys, but maybe next time. You know, I'm here in Frederick, Maryland. My sobriety date is July 5th, 1989. That was not the plan when I darkened the door of Alcoholics Anonymous was to be here 30 years later. I'll tell you that for sure. I love this topic. When Mike said, you know, just pick two things you guys want to talk about, But selfishly, I've given a number of talks recently on four and five. And I think God's telling me to do another fourth and fifth step. So I didn't want to talk about the fourth and sixth step again. I was upstairs getting ready and put this suit on that I haven't put on in 40 pounds. And I figured, well, it was my favorite suit. And I figure, well they won't know that I can't button the buttons, you know, so it's okay. And as I, you Know, whenever you put on a suit that you haven't had a long time, you dig in the pockets and you find some mystery stuff, you known, I pulled out a mystery stack of stuff. And in that mystery stack and stuff was the sheriff's business card. And I instantly thought, Oh boy, I wonder what that was about. But that I didn't have to think very hard when it was about thinking this, but there was a day when that was the case. Like Cliff said, you know, we're not here to qualify that much. And I wish we had even more time. But I certainly qualify for Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe I was born with this disease. Some of us, you Know, get here later in life. They seem to drink their way into alcoholism in 30, 40 years. They finally catch this thing and stumble in here from the boardroom. And I congratulate them for their persistence. But that wasn't my case. I was an instant alcoholic. I believe, you know, I qualified for AA before I even got here, before I ever took a drink. I had this spiritual malady. I had these restless, irritable discontent. The only thing I didn't have was the allergy to alcohol yet. And that was only because I hadn't introduced it. But as soon as I introduced that alcohol in my system, I had the allergy. Very first time I drank and, uh-oh, something happened. Brenda's screen sharing. Wow, what's Brenda looking at? All right. nothing she owes an immense for um that first time I drank I drank until I got drunk blacked out passed out threw up all the place ruined my sister's wedding and that was about um the scope of my drinking that's how I drank. I never drank to catch a buzz and and the first three chapters of our book and and The Doctor's Opinion are solely designed to help you figure out if you're in the right spot and I'm in the Right Spot and I think it all boils down you know there's a couple different kind of high watermarks where you can read this book and say yep this is me and this isn't me and but i think really the question of if we're in the right place is at the beginning when we agnostics this is if when you honestly want to you find you can't quit entirely or if when drinking you have a little control amount you take you're probably alcoholic and that was the case for me two was always 20 i did not have the power once it was in my system and if you tried to do that math uh being 30 years sober I am um I'm not I look 68 but I'm not 68 I I'm 48 um so I was a young guy when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous actually I was 17 when I when I get here and stay but I got introduced when I was 16 years old you know my experience is um a lot different than some people's and and but it's very common with a lot of at least you know the young guys that I work with when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous this this idea of an entire psychic change was just absolutely nonsense you know I mean I'm I'm like Cliff I'm a lawyer I mean I don't have a law degree and I'm not educated or you know trained in that at all but I'm a lawyer you know and so when I gotten here I quickly you know looked at the steps I listened to the meetings and I you know negotiated with myself what I was going to do what I wasn't going to do and and you know I was here just to get over one more time but the magic happened it didn't take long I mean I've been blessed I've always loved AA I never had to force myself to go to me as I knew I was in the right place from the very beginning but it was kind of just you know my mind was kindof temporary you know and I and I had this long list of what I thought were problems when I got here no job no place to stay no girl no car and if I could just figure those problems out I'd be okay you know if only if only and what I think it was Cliff pointed out to me one day that you know those aren't those weren't problems those are just consequences for the way that I was living my real problem was this seemingly being separated from the God of my understanding or any God you know and that if you're new here tonight tonight today um you know we're talking a lot about god don't let that word scare you out of here right we don't care what you believe alcoholics anonymous just doesn't care who you believe but we do care that you believe in something right all you know all the great religions uh christianity judaism uh muslims buddhists whatever they all have one thing in common they send their drunks here to alcoholics not us right and so we don'T you know WE DON'T care what you believe don't let that run you out of here i um my first experience going through the steps in this this idea of coming to believe and empowering myself could restore me to sanity was really brief a lot like what cliff talked about my my first sponsor said do you believe there's a god out there that can help you i said yeah he said all right let's go on to the next step and i guess that worked for a while um but it needed more examination you know as i said i was really young when I got here and um and I believed you when I when you guys said that half measures will avail you nothing I believe that you know and I'm a lawyer like Cliff so I negotiated 90 kind of participation rate will get me to where I want to go but I never as Cliff said metaphorically put all my chips in the center of the table said I'm all in I'll do whatever you clowns tell me to do took me a long time to get to that spot it took me to get through a second to surrender. 17, 18 years of sobriety, completely trained at 18 years of sobpriety. I keep wanting to move that date earlier so it doesn't look as bad. A couple of years may be like, I had five years of sobriete, but no, at 18 year of sobriety, I'd gotten so far off our path, our design for living, that I found myself suicidal at 3 o'clock in the morning after my wife had a nervous breakdown. I'm on the kitchen floor in the fetal position crying like a schoolgirl, no offense to schoolgirls. and the best thing I could come up with left to my own devices was right-floored shotgun. And I had to say, I had to surrender at a different level that I'd never had before. I think that's the only thing I've ever done successfully in AA in 30 years is I've made a ton of mistakes, and I've been willing to surrender. And I said the great AA prayer that we all have to say at one point or another, and that's God fix me or kill me. Just do one of them quick. A lot of us say that on day 18, 18 months. For this slow learner, it was 18 years. And I'm okay with that. And I am so grateful that I got introduced to a man that had this wild idea that our book was a set of instructions, that it was a textbook. I don't know. The area that I – and this isn't any blame – but the area I got sober in, there wasn't this technical approach to the book. There wasn't almost religious approach to our work as we've seen today. I mean, you know, it's just, it's amazing how we've almost institutionalized the 12 steps and not on the flip side of that. I believe our job as sponsors and as members of Alcoholics Anonymous is to understand the message and to continue the integrity as the, as the forward says. But the reason why that's so important to me is when i got introduced to this guy who is now my sponsor a dozen years later and since then you know i called this guy after this incredible surrender i said man i've made a mess of my life and i just you know I've heard you talk about the four step i gotta do a new fourth step i gotta do fourth and fifth step he said i hear you john you know but um i gotta i gotta have a notion the reason why you're in the spot that you're into is because you've been kind of working an a la carte program let's go back to the beginning let's let's go to the first page and let's read it let's follow the instructions when it says make a list we're gonna make a list let's just stop and pray we're going to pray when it says consider we're considering and let us just go through all the work I'm so grateful he did that because if he hadn't I would have missed the most profound experience I've had in Alcoholics Anonymous which is a transformation of a conception of the God of my understanding I love this chapter, We Agnostics. I am embarrassed to tell you, and I don't embarrass easy. I mean, I make a lot of mistakes, so I'm used to making a fool of myself. I'm embarrassed to tells you for the first 18 years I virtually ignored this chapter. It might as well have been to the wives. I don' t know if anyone can relate to having some spiritual arrogance, but, you know, if I look at the chapters, I'm not agnostic. I believe in God next on the next subject, right? I mean, chapter of the wives. You know, if I don't have a wife – so I'm not a wife, so on to the next chapter. But, I mean., don't get me wrong. I would read the chapter if I'm in a big book meeting with you guys, whatever. You know what? I'll play along. If you ask me to share something in here, I'll give you something intelligent that sounds pretty good. But I didn't buy that I'm a – you know, it just wasn't for me. what i've come to know is that um this is just my opinion and really i think uh my experience is that when we get to alcoholics anonymous we are all agnostics doesn't mean we don't have some incredible belief systems and some strong faiths let me let me explain that to you a gnostic is someone with experiential knowledge somebody with working experiential knowledge of that's agnostic and so as we trudged our path to get to alcoholics anonymous if we had a working effective relationship with the god of our understanding we would have tapped into that power and gone the other way right just we just said man this is getting out of control my wife's going to leave i'm going to lose my job i'm gonna lose my house i'm i'm to access this power i'm going to go the other away i don't i don' t need this uh a and a class but we didn't we didn' t have that effective working relationship so when we get here we're all agnostics and cliff talked a lot about that word prejudice my first sponsor in reading this chapter at one point i remember him saying john you gotta get rid of these prejudices and i and i in my just absolute ignorance um i said charles you know i'm i'm not prejudiced you're black i'm white obviously i'm NOT prejudiced he said uh dummy that's not what they're talking about seven times in this chapter, it uses the word prejudice. It might be important. And what they're talking about is these old ideas that I have to get rid of. It's been my experience that when I'm having a problem with a step, I've got to go back to the previous step. And so when a guy comes to me and says, man, I'm Having a hard time turning this over. I'm in a tough time with the third step. It's not really a third-step issue. It's a second-step issues. There's something about your conception of God that's blocking you from turning it over. if i come to believe in a god that wants me to be happy joyous and free if i kind of believe that god's got a wants more for me than i do i was about to say that if i've come to believe in god that's got to plan for me i stop believing that god has a plan for me and that's been one of my major conception changes in just recent years it may sound like i'm playing with words a little bit i'm going to go down a rabbit trail i don't believe today and i might change tomorrow today i don'T believe that god has a plan for me i believe that god has an opportunity for me right i believe that's the gift of of free will having the gift of freewill doesn't coincide with god having this this plan um for every moment in my life you know if i'm in one side of the country i'm trying to get and god wants me the other side of country there's many ways to get there he has a plan for him his plan for mary is to be united with you guys and consequently united with him my experience is that God talks to me in 90 degrees many times in early recovery I'd face some problem and I'd kind of go off by myself trying to figure it out you know I didn't have the courage or the willingness to be transparent with the men in my life or my sponsor but it's impossible right I can't get to God without you guys because as I said what was blocking me was these old ideas these 12 steps are divinely designed by God to remove what's blocking us from Him That's it. Each one is its own little piece of the puzzle. The first step is obviously, I can't have this relationship with him if I'm a slave to something else. Obviously alcohol and the fun stuff that comes with it, but even if I am a slave to anything else, I cannot have that relationship. I cannot serve two masters. But really what was blocking me in these old ideas was these kind of misconceptions that I had gained as a kid or TV or not really my parents. We didn't go to church unless someone was married or buried. I'm kind of grateful that I didn't have some type of religious upbringing. I had kind of a blank slate, but somewhere along the lines, I picked up these old ideas and it was impossible consequently for me to turn my will in my life over to them. Sam Shoemaker, one of our earliest friends, talks about in his book An Extraordinary Life, that we cannot do the will of God if we don't have some idea of who he is. And so I'm not talking about, and don't get me wrong, I'm talking about figuring God out. That's not the plan here. And I wasted a lot of time trying to figure God out, you know. About 10 years of sobriety, I went down this trail, and this is in hindsight, trying to figured God out right now. I thought I had to have a belief system. What I came to find in Alcoholics Anonymous, what I really needed was a relationship with him, not so much a belief systems. And I have a faith today, and I like it. But it's different, you know. And in that quest to figure this all out, you Know, that's my biggest holdup in the third step, right? Like, well, what's God's will for me? Like, I'm not really sure about turning my will in my life over. You know, I want to know – I'm a lawyer, right. I need to know the deal. And that's really what the third tip is. The third tip isn't contract. There is clear details in that deal, right? In how it works. 63 says a little bit before that, he is the father, we are the children. He is the principal, we're the student. We're going to be his agents. That's a pretty clear job description. And the second step is the prerequisites. They're the terms of the contract. But when I was going down this path to figure God out, I joined a faith. I became a Catholic and I'm a convert, you know. And in that process, I do a little microcosm of what that looked like. In that process as an adult, you pick a saint that you want to emulate. And I chose St. Augustine, not because he was an alcoholic and a womanizer, but that was kind of a coincidence. But he had this prayer that I loved. And this explains the first kind of 18 years of my sobriety. This was his prayer. says, Lord, please make me pure. Just not right now. I mean, I want to be a good guy. I wantto be a godly man. I wanna stop for that lady on the side of the road with the flat tire, but Jesus, I gotta get something. You know what I mean? And the problem for me was not the terms of the contract. It was the misconceptions in the second step that were killing me. I mean, seven times Bill says, we got to examine these old prejudices and get rid of them. At minimum, we have to be willing to set them aside. He says, as soon as we're willing to set aside these old ideas, we commence to get results. That's why I love that you started with a set-aside prayer. I've heard the set-a-side prayer a million times in Alcoholics Anonymous. I've never heard it called the lay-asides prayer. So I'm going to use that everywhere I go now so I can be different but if I if I think I you know I mean just look at your own experience one of my I've had four well I guess four and a half really impactful sponsors in my life and one of them said John you know you need to accept the reality of your own experiences and he wasn't talking about just drinking a drug and accepting I'm an alcoholic this whole set aside thing look at your own experience how many times have you walked into a meeting you're like oh there's cliff again right you just pick up your phone and you start flipping through it right or you know i don't do that in these i at least have the decency in a meeting not to not to flip through my phone but but mentally check out right you know we're on the grocery list the bills that need to be paid you know the chores that have to be done i've completely chewed up i'm completely unable at that point to have a new experience. I'm completely unable to learn anything new, and that's why I love that set-aside prayer so much, and my job is, as Bill says, to continue to grow in understanding effectiveness, and I can't do that if I don't continue to seek, and these old ideas that were blocking me that had to be set aside were that god was keeping score right i just i just knew that god was keeping like lady justice right the scales of lady justice and i was definitely in the negative you know and there was no way that he was going to fix a guy like me because you know i'm i'm 15 years sober and life's pretty good you know i hadn't train wrecked yet you know got the beautiful wife you know whole rack of kids every nine months and five minutes a new one would pop up and you know great job and just everything was beautiful you know and but I just kind of missing something I can't quite put my finger on you know I see these people in in these meetings and these groups that have this glow I'm like yeah you know it just wasn't glowing I thought well I guess as good as it gets for a guy that's as broken as I am and I'll take it far greater than any life I've ever dreamed of or deserved of so I'll take it in other words what I was saying is that you know God wasn't strong enough to fix me when I say fix me is to unify me with him and my fellows and you know I always thought that um this this was the big one that was blocking me was that I thought I had to be good enough for God right like that this idea of forgiveness was earned that it was a merit badge that if i can just you know if i can if i cannot gamble for nine months then i'll forgive me if i cannot drop the f-bomb or if i could not you know whatever it is that somehow god will turn this dial of god's love maybe up to a nine nine and a half or ten because you know it's eight is about all i'm worthy of it just it just makes no sense because when I got introduced to that sponsor we went back through this work he asked me to do just this he said set aside all your old ideas just just for the purpose of this work John I'm not asking you to believe anything I'm not going to sell you anything but set aside these old ideas and why don't you come up with five or six or seven characteristics of what you need God to be if you're going to turn your will in your life over to him Because clearly, you have not done that. It doesn't mean we don't at times give our will back. We all do. That's a lifelong battle, right, of this God's will, our will type of deal. They said, we're just going to set aside these old ideas. We're going to go through the rest of the steps, and we're going see if some of these things are true. And if they are true, it's going to build your relationship with God, not your belief system. Belief system is about little baby Jesus born 2,000 years ago a golden fleece diaper you know that's not we're talking about we're trying to have a relationship with and in our literature there's a uh one day i want to sit down and count how many adjectives bill uses for this god of our understanding but the ones that i needed were all inclusive all loving all powerful my famous my famous uh my favorite promise in the book is that god does not make hard terms on those who seek him and when we went through this and so i made my list of five or six or seven one-word characteristics of what God needed to be. That was important, the wording he told me, not what I thought God is today because what I believe today isn't as important as what I might learn. I'm after a new experience here, right? And so when I wrote down these words, those were the ones I came up with. I needed a God that was all powerful because if God's going to fix the mess that I've created in 18 years of sobriety, my wife's leaving, I've betrayed our marriage, I'm in bankruptcy. The house is in foreclosure. The lights are being turned off. I get arrested in sobriety. IRS garnishing my checking accounts. I could go on, right? So if he's going to fix that mess, I need him to be all-powerful. I need them to be All-Loving, not just loving to the people that behave, loving to people that are good, right. And this is the big one. I said, I Need God to Be Forgiving. He said, Yeah, I do too. He said、But how about this? He said،Consider adding a word to that. How about a God that's eager to forgive? and that makes a lot of sense to me and that's what i really needed because as i said i had this old idea that forgiveness was earned and this is another conception change that's come to me in recent years is um i used to share all the time for the podium that the people and god not an alcoholic synonymous that i have received their forgiveness i feel like i've received god's forgiveness. And I don't believe that anymore. I don'T believe that God has ever been angry at me long enough to need to forgive me. Does that make sense? That love meter has never gone from a hundred to 95 while I screwed up real bad or 55 when I screwed Up real bad, it's always been on a hundred. I believe that god loves me as much today when I'm working with the newcomer as he did that day when I would crawl across the floor and steal from my parents wall right the day that i i made a decision not to visit my hospital my dad in the hospital bed and make my amends before he died god loved me as much that day as he does the day i'm taking me into a treatment center it's just 100 on that's what that's been my experience that god is just love now that doesn't mean i can feel separated i can't feel separated right because that's with these things that i do create in my life i get this feeling of separation and so when i after we came up that list he said look we're just gonna we're gonna walk through those steps and we're going to see if these things are true is it's a lot like building relationship with the new girl in sobriety hopefully not a new new girl but a new girl right you're in the you're you're naa and you've been through the steps and you're gonna you're gonna enter the dating world you start dating a new grow and you's gonna youre gonna act as if some things are sure you're going hope they're true it's not faking it right it's not fake it till you make it i did that i did that for 18 years. These characteristics, I was going to act as if God had these characteristics until he proved me wrong. Just like when I got that new girl, I'm going to act as если she's trustworthy. I'm gonna act as is if she's honest. I am going to act as it she's got my best interest at heart and let's see. And every time that proved to be true, that experience would grow. And when I was able to come up with a concept that I was just being willing to see if it was true I commenced to get results just as the book saw it you know I'll turn my will on my life over to care of God that wants more for me than I do and that's what I found in here right by just going on with the rest of the steps and removing the things that have been blocking me from him has created a life that is beyond description I could run my mouth for next nine hours and I would not begin to do it justice and he said all right let's go and so after I did that he said let's go on to the third step and you know at the end of the day you know i love the description before i leave we agnostic bill says i think it's on 55 or something that you know the end of the way that's where we found god that where we find god is deep down inside you know it's not not out there not i don't have to hey i don' t have to say the right prayer at the right cadence for the first 18 years of my sobriety my sponsor told me to say in the third set prayer in the seventh step prayer every morning and beg god does uh keep me sober and i did that 18 years straight and it obviously worked but it became a such a routine to me it was almost like I was tricking God into keeping me sober if I just say these prayers you know like the puppeteer like that somehow I had this magic system if I say these prayer I'll get what you know what I want and that's really you know the difficulty with the third step I really turn my will my life over the care of god in this coming to belief process am i going to get what i want that's why i won't do it right because i have an old idea this old idea is if i get what I want I'll be happy and that's never and it's never been true I've turned the world upside down manipulated lied cheated connived in my sobriety to get What I Want to what I think will make me happy when I came to find out was that i had happiness and peace completely confused happiness comes and goes well what i really wanted was peace the the most elusive thing in my life is peace give you a little microcosm of my early third step i was uh um i spent 16 months in a six-month treatment program a little bit of slow learner i actually got sentenced there by the judge um he gave me the opportunity to go to the our states actually the country's very first recovery high school and i zip right through that program when i came out i was still restless irritable discontent i had nothing like a spiritual awakening i'd done some step work i had some pamphlets they They'd given me that looked nothing like our work in the book. And I was just dying inside, you know, I'm thrown to the wolves of this real world and got no skillset whatsoever. No spiritual awakening. And I'm a meeting makers make a guy and I'm just so terribly uncomfortable. I don't know what to do. And the first Gulf war broke out. So I got an idea. I'm going to enlist. So off I go. if anybody remembers the first gulf war lasted seven days so my vision of being a war hero was long gone by the time they got me to boot camp they marched me for 48 hours shaved my head sent all my stuff home and i got second thoughts so on the second day at boot camp THEY bring out all the recruits into one big room it's called the moment of truth day in the united states and some guy comes storming into the room and he says all right, if you tell us the truth, if you lied to get into the Navy, we're going to find out. And we will give you a dishonorable discharge. We'll stay with you for the rest of your life. You'll regret not telling us the truth. So but if you told us the truth today, we'll let you go. We're gonna let you know the general discharge. So if you lied about drug use going that corner, if a lot about being arrested and go into that corner, you've lied about psychiatric care going to that corner. You lied about being arrested going to this corner. Well, at this point, I got a question and you don't have to have been a boot camp to know the questions don't go over well but he was so amazed that i had a question he said what's the question so where do you go if you lied about all four he said will you come with me i tell you that to say that it was that's really a microcosm of my early sobriety because what happened was the first gulf war broke out i went i enlisted i went and talked to my sponsor and i asked him if he thought it was a good idea right after the fact just trying to align line god's will with mine you know so it's the best i can do of my own power of my own will because they after the two days they put me in the navy brig for 14 days so of my own will the best I can do by myself is 14 days it's best I could serve my country my entire life I've been putting triple-a battery into a double-a remote and in this third step what gets removed is this faulty detail in the contract that I want to submit, right? Because I got this idea of a third step that is, God, you handle the alcohol and the drugs and I'll handle the money and the women, right. Seemed to be a good allocation of responsibilities. But that led me to 18 years of sobriety getting ready to blow my brains out. And so the details of the contract have to be is that I'm all in. And after I said this third step prayer of my sponsor, he said, all right the rest of your life is none of your business right and if i if i'm if i'M holding back anything if I'm 99% surrendered I'm not surrendered that one percent's gonna kill me that doesn't mean that we don't take our will back at different times but that's really what the third set means it's just a contract and the details are that the rest my life is not in my business i love talking about two and three because this this conception idea for me continues it has to continue if i'm going to grow in understanding and effectiveness i have to be willing to learn something new it's just like this whole this whole zoom um you know idea when this pandemic first broke out i said one of the members of our home group was like oh we're gonna it was like right right when it broke out and we found out we couldn't meet at our at our church when the girls organized we're gonna have a zoom meeting tonight like yeah i don't need that you know i'll do it my way you know it's just i just had this built-in thing that my sometimes my first instinct is i'll be able to do it and i'm going to do what i want to do and i'll do it in my way i know better you know there's a lawyer in me and you know complete contempt prior to investigation and now i get to you know i love these zoom meetings get to see people that I normally don't get to see and experience things that I wouldn't normally be able to. So I love you. And I can't wait to hear what Cliff had to say about continuing to grow this understanding and effectiveness in this conscious contact. So, I'll turn it over to him for a while and I don't know if you guys want to take a break or not at what we were doing, but that's what I got on Cane to Believe. Thanks guys.