The Difference Between a Sudden and Educational Spiritual Awakening – Sandy B.

He said there is a solution, and almost none of us liked the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, the confession of shortcomings which the process requires for successful consummation. But we saw that it really worked in others and had to come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life that we'd been living in. When therefore we were approached by whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up a simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet. And we have found much of heaven has been rocketed into a fourth dimension of existence of which we had not even dreamed the great fact is just this and nothing less that we've had deep and effective spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude toward life toward our fellows and toward god's universe the central factor of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our creator has entered our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous he has commenced to accomplish those things for us which we could never do by ourselves and you notice up there it says the great facts are just this and nothing less that we've had deep and effective spiritual experiences and there's a little asterisk there referring us down to the bottom of the page it said fully explained on appendix two and later on we'll refer to it on page 27 it says for further application see appendix 2 and on page 47 referring to the asterisks says please see appendix too they want to make yeah must be important they're very important if they repeat it three times and they're talking about spiritual experiences and spiritual awakenings and in the first printing of the book they didn't have this little asterisk there and it didn't had the reference to the spiritual experience in the back of the books and a lot of people would write into that little office to Bill and say Bill what do you mean by spiritual experiences and spiritual awakenings we're doing the same things that you're doing but we're not having the same experiences that you have what doyou mean by that and it was very important for me looking back at it now that I know this because I had this spiritual experience mixed up with a bunch of things that I learned when I was seven or eight years old. Because when I Was Seven or Eight Years Old, I Told Myself. I said, Self, if I ever get big enough they can't catch me, I'm not going anymore to church, that is. And I got big enough, they couldn't catch my life. They couldn't touch me and I didn't go. So when I arrived at Alcoholics Anonymous, I had the spiritual knowledge of a seven- or eight-year-old boy, which was practically none. and that that i did have was all mistaken and mixed and messed up in lots of emotionalism things i didn't understand the times that they would catch me take me to that revival they had a revival there quite often in my area in the southern baptist southern baptists really southern and when i would get there and they would be preaching all day and singing songs and having dinner on the ground and prayer meetings all day long and church way into the night bored the heck out of me but one night my aunt much and she's a big woman aunt much that's the reason they called her that but aunt much kind of got in the spirit of this thing that night and she began to jump up and down and she begin to talk in a strained language that i never heard of before squealing and hollering rolling around in the sawdust scared the heck out of so when this book began to talk about spiritual experiences and spiritual awakenings i thought that was what i was going to have to have and i was dreading it i tell you i was But thank God for people like me who didn't know any better. They put this information in the back of the book talking about spiritual experiences and spiritual awakenings. And this is used all throughout this book. And they want to make real sure that I understand what they mean by that. So let's go back to page 569 and see what they means by the term spiritual awakening and spiritual experiences. so on page 569 the term spiritual experience and spiritual awakening are used many times in this book which upon careful reading we all know that alcoholics don't do careful reading shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among us in many different forms okay the first paragraph we see something We see that the term may be spiritual experience, or it may be spiritual awakening. And in either case, it's going to be a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery. Dr. Silkworth referred to this as a psychic change, a change in the way we think and the way мы feel and our attitude. So we could see several terms, spiritual experience spiritual awakening, personality change or psychic change all meaning the same thing. Spiritual experience happens suddenly, like it did with Bill and some of the people in the back of the stories in the first book. And then we have a spiritual awakening which develops slowly over a period of a long time. He said, Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes or religious experiences must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. Well, happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous. In the first few chapters, a number of sudden revolutionary changes are described, though it was not our intention to create such an impression. Many alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover, they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming God consciousness, followed at once by a vast change in feeling and outlook. Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of alcoholics, such transformations, though frequent, are by no means the rule. Most of our experiences are what the psychologist William James calls the educational variety because they will develop slowly over a period of time. Now, Bill's was a sudden spectacular change. Some of the others in the stories in the back of the book were sudden spectacular changes. But what he's saying here is that most of us, it won't happen that way. Most of us will have the educational variety and we will change as we learn and as we apply slowly over a period of time. Sooner or later, though, we awaken to the fact that we have changed also, and then we'll call it a spiritual awakening. So it really doesn't make any difference whether it's sudden and spectacular or whether it is a slow thing that involves over a time. Over a period in time, in either case, it's going to be a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery. Now I can begin to think with this. I can live with this kind of idea. But when you start talking about what Aunt Much had in the Baptist church, I couldn't live with that idea at all because I was raised in a Southern Baptist church too. And my idea of a spiritual experience was an entirely different thing. Thank God for this appendix that let me know what it really is, a change in my personality. My personality is made up by the way I think, by theway I feel, my attitude and outlook upon life, people places and things in general that's what determines my personality i come here restless irritable and discontented filled with shame fear guilt and remorse if i can change from that to peace of mind serenity and happiness i've undergone one hell of a change in my personality this educational variety the type that we're having this weekend right we won't be the same after this weekend none of us will none of this way no see quite often friends of the newcomer aware of the difference long before he is himself. He finally realizes that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life, that such a change could hardly have been brought about by himself alone. What often takes place in a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline. With few exceptions, our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource, which they presently identify with their own conception of a power greater than themselves. Most of us think this awareness of a Power greater than ourselves is the essence of spiritual experience our more religious members call it god consciousness but most in factly we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover provided he does not close his mind to all spiritual concepts he can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial we find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality the program willingness honesty and open-mindedness are the essentials of recovery but they are indispensable there is a principle which is barred against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. And that principle was contempt prior to investigation. See, I knew so many things that were not true when I arrived in Alcoholics Anonymous. Lifelong theories that were not true. I lived my life based upon those things, and they didn't work. And they were so true in my mind that it was almost impossible for me to learn something that was true. So I had to lay aside a bunch of old ideas to be able to accept new, and I needed an open mind. In fact, I need an open mind more today than I've ever needed an open mine because there's so much more to learn throughout life. Okay, now we pointed out the fact a while ago that Bill loves to teach by using examples of something we already know about to teach us something new. That's what he did when he used the great ocean liner. Another trend that Bill has and I think it's very important for us to realize it is like most writers he did repeat himself quite often. But every time he repeated himself, he would normally find a different word that means the same thing. And if you see what he's doing, you can understand him. If you don't though, you'll think he's talking about something different. There seems to be one key word in this whole thing dealing with spiritual experience and that is the word change. Let's see how many times he said change on page 569 and how many different ways he had a say in it. In the first paragraph, he talked about a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery. In the second paragraph, he again mentioned personality changes. But then he said in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals. An upheaval is to change something entirely. In the third paragraph, first sentence, he said sudden revolutionary changes to revolutionize something is to change it entirely third paragraph last sentence he said immediate and overwhelming god consciousness to overwhelm something is To Change It Entirely third paragraph Last Sentence He Said Vast Change In Feeling An Outlook fourth paragraph first sentence he Said Such Transformations To Transform Is To Change fourth paragraph about the middle of it he said profound alteration to alter is to change so the key thing here is to change from what we were when we came here to something entirely different up here in our minds to go from restless irritable discontented selfie self-centered human beings to go form that to one who has peace of mind serenity and happiness and the willingness to help others is an entire change in the way we think. That's a spiritual experience, that's a spiritual awakening, that' s a personality change sufficient to recover from alcoholism, that's psychic change. Now I can buy into that. To go from what we were to something entirely different in the way we think. Religion has nothing to do with this at all. We make the change through spirituality. It seems that's the only real way that people change is through spirituality they talked about change and i told you when i got here i had become everything i detested in a human being and i didn't like who i what i had become or who i was so they talked ABOUT CHANGE and i thought they meant for me to become something that i'm not so i looked around the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous and i found me some heroes some people that i wanted to be like and we need those heroes in the beginning i still need my heroes. Charlie was one of my heroes. So I set about to be exactly like Charlie. I didn't like me, so I wanted to be like Charlie and I almost made it. Thank God I didn�t. We don�t need one Charlie. But I tried to emulate and be exactly like him because I didn �t like me. And that�s good. I needed that. So the type of change I think they�re talking about today is to change from what I had become to that which God intended for me to be, just me, just me. And that's a marvelous experience in Alcoholics Anonymous and in life just to become who you are and what God intended for you to be only. And there's only one of those. Thank God. Now let's go back to page 25. It says if you're as seriously alcoholic as we were we believe there's no middle-of-the-road solution. We were in a position where life was becoming impossible and we had passed into the region which there's no return through human aid we had but two alternatives one was to go into the bitter end blotting out the conscience of our intolerable situation as best we could that step one remaining powerless and the other to accept spiritual help that's step two to accept the need for the power greater than we are so this we did because we were honestly wanted to and we're willing to make the effort Now, we saw where step one, the physical allergy, the obsession of the mind, we saw Where That Came From from Dr. Silkworth in New York City. Now, you would think that the idea of the spiritual experience would have come to us through religious people. Let's look on page 26 and let's see where this idea really did come from. Now, We're talking here about a certain American businessman. This is this fellow named Roland Hazard. He was the one that stepped in between Ebby and the judge. Said a certain American businessman had ability, good sense, and high character. For years he had floundered from one sanitarium to another. He had consulted the best-known American psychiatrist. Then he'd gone to Europe placing himself in the care of a celebrated physician, the psychiatrist Dr. Jung, who prescribed for him. Though experience had made him skeptical, he finished his treatment with unusual confidence. He didn't go there for a 28-day treatment program. He was with Dr. Jung for a full year. Dr. jung psychoanalyzed him one day a week for 52 weeks. His physical and mental condition were unusually good. Above all, he believed he'd acquired such a profound knowledge of the inner workings of his mind and its hidden springs that relapse was unthinkable. Nevertheless, he was drunk in a short time. More baffling still, he could give himself no satisfactory explanation for his fall. So he returned to this doctor whom he admired, asking point blank why he could not recover. He wished above all things to regain self-control. He seemed quite rational and well balanced with respect to other problems, yet he had no control whatever over alcohol. Why was this? He begged the doctor to tell him the whole truth, and he got it. In the doctor's judgment, he was utterly hopeless. He could never regain his position in society and would have to place himself under lock and key or hire a bodyguard if he expected to live long. That was a great physician's opinion. But this man still lives and is a free man. He does not need a bodyguards nor is he confined. He can go anywhere on this earth where other free men may go without disaster provided he remains willing to maintain a certain simple attitude. Now, some of our alcoholic readers may think they can do without spiritual help. Let us tell you the rest of a conversation our friend had with his doctor. The doctor said, You have the mind of a chronic alcoholic. I've never seen one single case recover where that state of mind existed to the extent that it does on you. Our friend felt as though the gates of hell had closed on him with a clang. He said to the doctor, Is there no exception? Yes, replied the doctor. There is exceptions to cases. such as yours have been occurring since early times. Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me, these occurrences are phenomenal. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Change. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side. Change. And a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them. Change. In fact, I've been trying to produce some such emotional rearrangement within you. Change. With many individuals, the methods which are employed are successful, but I've never been successful with an alcoholic of your description. Asterisk, bottom of the page, for amplification, see appendix two. Can you imagine this? This is the world's third most well-known psychiatrist at that time. It was Dr. Freud, Dr. Adler, and Dr. Jung. Roland goes to Dr. Young and is treated for a year. Goes out and gets drunk and comes back.