“The Fact That You Like It Indicates to Me It’s Probably Wrong” – Russell S.

Good evening. My name is Russell. I'm an alcoholic. I know a member of the Carl Gables Group of Alcoholics Anonymous, and it's good to be here. It's very exciting coming up here. We've got a little fender bender. Luckily, I had George to defend me. He spoke eloquently to the police officer, and when he was done, I was lucky I wasn't put in the electric chair. share. We'll talk a little bit more about that later on. I have some things I want to read. I like to sort of read some stuff, but I don't think, you know, these days in AA, unfortunately, I think, and I may be wrong about this, there's not a lot of there doesn't seem to be a lot of emphasis on reading the material. And I mean not only the big book or the 12 and 12 but Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers and Sermon on the Mount which was sort of like a choir meeting when I came in and I had a, the book I used 29 years ago was The Meditation is before we had that The Only Meditation, all my sponsors and old timers used the 24 hour book which is a combination of the Bible and I think the King James Version I think it's the New King James version and the book Alcoholics Anonymous and sometimes there's Love and Love or something like that and this is what I got sober on and this was what my sponsors got sober on, my sponsor's sponsors and things like that. And these days you're lucky if you find somebody that's actually knowledgeable about the big book, let alone the other books. So I like to read stuff from those documents and so I'm going to do, I have, I want to start off tonight though by reading something from as Bill sees it. It's on page 100. It's called The Forgotten Mountain. When I was a child, now this is from A Comes at Age, of Age, another big book, another conference-approved literature. There's not too many conference-disapproved stuff. When I Was a Child, I acquired some of the traits that had a lot to do with my insatiable craving for alcohol. I was brought up in a little town in Vermont under the shadow of Mount Aeolus. An early recollection is that of looking up at this vast and mysterious mountain, wondering what it meant and whether I could ever climb that high. But I was presently distracted distracted by my aunt, who as a fourth birthday present made me a plate of fudge. For the next 35 years I pursued the fudge of life and quite forgot about the mountain. So I want to talk about fudge tonight. What's your fudge? What's you're fudge, you think when you got rid of the alcohol, maybe you got rid of The Fudge. No more fudge. I don't know. We'll see. The Fodge of Life. So let me read a couple of other things from Bill Wilson's stuff and people's stuff. This is from some Bill Wilson writings, some stuff you won't hear around day and evening. It's too much. There's a little something about emotional sobriety. They asked Bill Wilson he called it the next step, the next step in outlaw synonymous, the next frontier. It's called emotional sobriety. Those adolescent urges that so many of us have for top approval, perfect security and perfect romance urges quite appropriate to age 17 prove to be an impossible way of life when we are at age 47 or 57. I could not avail myself of God's love until I was able to offer it back to him by loving others as he would have me. And I couldn't possibly do that so long as I was victimized by false dependencies. Bill Wilson said, after the alcohol, it's all about unhealthy dependencies. For my dependency meant demand. A demand for possession and control of people and the conditions surrounding them. When we talk about dependencies, I like to talk about idols. In biblical terms, an idol is something other than God. You know, in A, well, you may not realize this sometimes in fellowship. If you don't realize this, we talked about it last week, but if you read the big book, there's a lot in there about developing a relationship with God. As a matter of fact, on page 29 of the big books, when it talks about telling our testimonies. It says, further on, clear-cut direction are given showing how we recovered. These are followed by 42 personal experiences. Each individual in the personal stories describes in his own language and from his own point of view the way he established his relationship with God. That's what we talk about in Alcoholics Anonymous. That's sort of an A.H. story is about. You may think it's about getting drunk and falling down and drinking a lot and all the funny things that happen I mean, we're drinking all the terrible things out and we're drinking. But a true AA story what we share, what is our spirit experience, strength, and hope is not so much to drunk a lot, although that may be important before the beginning of the story. It's the solution that's important. That's where any important solution is. Solution in AA lingo has to do with developing relationship with God. So it says here in biblical terms, an idol is something other than God that we set our hearts on. A talks about God. we talked about developing a relationship with a higher power apparently there's dependencies in here that will sort of like deflect you away from that deal called idol, the fudge of life the fuzz in biblical terms an idol is something other than God that we set our hearts on that motivates us that masters or rules us or that we serve An idol is something within creation that is implated to function as God. All sorts of things are potential idols, depending only on our attitudes and actions towards them. Idolatry may not involve explicit denials of God's existence or character. It may well come in the form of an over-attachment or dependency to something that is in itself perfectly good. An idol can be a physical object, a property a person an activity a role an institution a hope an image an idea a pleasure a hero anything that can substitute for God. This is a great line I love from John Calvin. It says the human heart Art is a factory of idols. Every one of us from his mother's womb is expert in inventing idols. Cool stuff, I like that stuff. So next time you're in a meeting and you hear somebody complaining or whining or talking about anything that's bothering them, ask yourself this question. Is he talking about God? Is he's talking about the solution? Is he talk about what we're supposed to be focusing in here on, or is he talking about some fudge? Is he talking about the fudge, his own personal fudge is he taking about an idol, is there something going on in his life that he's talking about because he doesn't have control over it or he's worried about losing it that fits into one of those categories that's important to him and I say that as a person that has a lot of idols and a lot fo fudge and stuff going on and finally I want to read from this until we get into it, and that is It's from the book, Dr. Bob and the Good Old Times. Dr. Bob, you know, in my way of thinking, this is my opinion. I've been around 29 years in January was, I guess, what do you want to call him? The spiritual giant. He would have called himself the spiritual giant because he's a very humble guy. But whereas Bill Wilson had a lot of wonderful things to say, a lot of profound things to stay with. Luther Chaker, he's the one who wanted to, he wanted to make a like a profit organization, you now host hospital. he's the guy who saw himself, you know, really making a few bucks in AA. You know, and that's when Rockefeller said to him, but wouldn't money ruin it? Can you imagine? There's Bill Wilson. Think of, I'll be king of AA or something. Bill Gates of AA and hospitals, things all over the place. You know? And Nelson Rockefeller says, yeah, but wouldn'T money ruin this thing? Wilson probably probably wanted to slap him or something. But Dr. Bob was more or less sort of like the guy who was focused. You know, the whole thing started in 1939 out in Akron with Bob and Bill. Bill and Bob, they were the first two. And then they went out and met the guy on the bed there. You see that guy? Bill Dotson. You know? By the time Bill and Bobby met Bill Dotson, Bill had a few more months, six months more than Bob. and that was when Bill that's when Bill Wilson was looking at Bill Dodson and his wife Henrietta and saying you know the Lord's been so the Lord has been so wonderful to me curing me of this terrible disease that I have to keep on talking about it and telling other people. That's what Bill Wilson was saying six, seven, eight months over you know before he got cool Bill Wilson, I don't know how many people I don' t know if you know this and I love Bill Wilson I'm not putting him down, but I don't know how many people know this. Did you all understand that Bill Wilson was an alcoholic? Listen, you need to understand something about Bill Wilson. He was an alcoholic just like you and me. He wasn't God. You know, I love Bill Wilson, I look up to him, I read his stuff, he has a lot of good stuff, but you want to know something? He ain't my higher power. He was not God. Neither was Dr. Bob or anything like that. And he would never claim to be that deal. You know there's some things he did. You're going to hear about some stuff he did which is going to remind you a lot about you you. It's going to remind you a lot about what you hear in AA. You're going to hear some stuff we're going to talk about. So that's why I love this book, because this book talks about what was going on in AA between 1935 and 1939. It gives me a new perspective on things, because I heard so much. We talked about this last week, but I want to talk more about rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Thank God we have this book. What would be going on with AA today if we just went with the whim of the crowd or the lowest common denominator? Seeing as how we're all people that we don't want to be rejected, we want to do life, we want people to think we're cool, you know, what would happen to AA today if an AA rule was pretty basically you know just what the crowd wanted AA to be? Whatever you made up in your own mind, whatever Whatever you figured you wanted. And, you know, pretty much, quite frankly, in my opinion, that's sort of like the way it is. I mean, every once in a while you get an old-timer. Because it's gotten so large. There's so many people being thrown in here. You know? And maybe the old-timers, they might have thought that was the greatest thing in the world. You know what I mean? But it's become so huge with people coming in from... And there's nothing wrong with this. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. But they fly in from treatment centers. They fly in form court. They fly out from being ordered to be here. There are people that come in here and they don't think they should be here, There are people here that come here that want to be here. There are People that are desperate. You know, you can't rob a knockoff of all this stuff. It says in the big book, if you want what we have and you're willing to go to any length to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps. There are PEOPLE that are ready. There are Peoples that want what WE have. There's PEOPLES that don't even have a WE. They don't EVEN know what WE HAVE. And you want us in there, PEOPLES that not only don't want what THEY have, they want anything BUT what WE Have. They don'T even know what we HAVE. And there are some PEOPPES that want WHAT WE HAVE, they're just not willing to give up the fudge. They're just never... They're going to be ready. You know something? They're gonna be ready in five years. You know, in 29 years, in 29 just doing this stuff, you know how many people come up to me and say, you know, how many of you will come up and say how long have you been in A's while I've been around for 30 years? Now, I know what that means. That day ain't code, right? You know I went to my first meeting 30 years ago and you don't actually stay there after 30 years but I have six months now but this time I'm really gonna do it and they've been back and forth and back because they weren't ready they were like dilettantes coming into this thing sort of like testing the waters until it got too tough, you know, because they had their eyes on the... Sometimes it takes a long time. You've got everybody coming in here. Tons of people. Back then, in the day, the people that were coming in were incredibly desperate. They were so desperate they would do anything to stay sober. They had to prove. They had proof. Can you imagine that? If you couldn't get into... Imagine this. If you could not get into an A room unless you could prove to their satisfaction that you really wanted it. imagine what the Amings would be like what we'd be talking about, what you'd be acting like, who you'd Be listening to what you would be saying, if you would be saying anything, if You could not get in here unless You were sponsored in here and You could prove that You were acceptable that sounds kind of crazy to You but that's the way it was from 1935 to 1939 now We sit here because We're selfish and self-centered and we have a certain perspective and go to a lot of meetings that when we read in the big book, rarely have we seen the person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. You know what we think about? We think about ourselves. Because we always think about ourselves anyway. That's all we think about ourselves, me, me, me, me, me. You know, ourselves, it's like driving a truck and we just think about what we see. So when we see rarely have I seen a person fail who has totally followed our paths, our frame of reference is what we do. what we think, here's what we think. We think that they thought, the old timers thought, the guys who wrote this book, we think they thought like we thought. That they read the books or didn't read the books that we read. That they acted like we acted. Here's what мы think. Мы think the meetings they went to were just like the meetings we go to. And we think the things they were told told to do are just like the things they were told to do. So what we think is when we say rarely have we seen a person fail or thoroughly followed our path, we think if we're doing what everybody else is doing in the fourth dimension room, then we're going to be doing exactly what they were doing. And therefore, since rarely have we seen a person failed or thoroughly followed our path. If we're not doing what everybody else is doing in here or in the back on track group, we should be be getting and experiencing exactly what they were getting and experimenting. Right? That's what we think. But we don't know. But do we do in AA what they Were doing from 1935 to 1939? Do it. Do you? You'd have to figure that out. How would you figure that Out? You'd Have to read about It. Now, here's the deal. The big book was written. You can't say, well, they Were reading the big book. Even if you read the big Book. Because between 1935, because when When they wrote the book, when they wrote down rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. When they broke those words they wrote that in the big book in 1939 about what they were doing between 1935 and 1939, those four years so the one thing we know they weren't doing is reading the big books So we know there weren't reading the Big Book We know they were meeting. We know there was something about the Oxford Group We're not really sure what they're doing So I want to read you a couple of things from this you know I just want to do whatever I can to screw you up it ain't going to hurt but a second you know what I mean I'll be done in less than 10 minutes and if I can just screw you up a little bit it won't hurt it's no big deal you know but you see here's the great thing the great think about AA the way AA works is like this you hear shit you see the problem the problem you have this is the problem you have you see once once it goes in once it goes in you can't get it out you'll never be the same you could try to be the same, you could make believe you didn't hear it, you can act like you didn's say it but once it go in your change, it's like the hard drive is changed, you cant, its done you know what I mean, the damage is already done and then when you hear somebody say something at a meeting what will happen is you'll flip back to this deal, without even knowing it you'll start thinking about this deal. It may not be a bad thing, though. It may não ser uma coisa ruim, não. I caution you, though, you know, I'm a professional. Don't you try to do this at other meetings, okay? I don't want to see anybody injured, you know? We have like 28 years, so they're like maybe a little scared of you or something, you knows? They figure, well, he's an old guy. He's not going to be around very long anyway. So I'm just from Dr. Bob and the Good Old Times. I'm going to read just about four things to you, okay, You're going to like this stuff. This is fun stuff. You don't hear about this at meetings. You know, this will shoot you if you talk about this in meetings. Here we go. Page 71. According to Bill, Ann Smith... Now, there's all stuff that happened between 1935 and 1939 before the big book was written. This is what they were doing. According to Phil, Ann Swift had decided that practical steps needed to be taken to protect her husband's newfound sobriety. She invited Bill to come to live with them. There I might keep an eye on Dr. Bob and he on me, Bill said. The invitation came at an opportune time. Bill was about growth, even though he had received some money from his partners in New York and was again hoping to come out ahead in a proxy fight that had first brought him to Akron. For the next three months... This guy's only sober. He's sober less than... How many people have less than a year? He is exactly where you are. You get it? This is where he is. This is what he's doing. Now, I know all you guys are doing this. He's living with somebody else. It's not a halfway house, but it's sort of like he's living with somebody other. He's broke. He has no money. Okay? For the next three months I live with these two wonderful people, Bill said, and I shall always believe they gave me more than I ever brought them. Each morning there was a devotion, he recalled, after a long silence in which they awaited inspiration and guidance and would read from the Bible. This is what what he did for the first three months and would read from the Bible. Try that at your next A&A meeting. But this is what they did. Hey, listen. This isn't like satanic material. This is like conference approved. This was published by AA. Okay? It's the real deal. Each morning there was a devotion, he recalled, after a long silence in which they awaited inspiration and guidance. And would read through the Bible James, the book of James was our favorite if I was to tell somebody who I sponsored, they said what do you want me to do I'd say I want you to read the book of James there would be about 50,000 people in there and say what are you religious, what are this we're spiritual not religious and I'd says well that's the way you do it that's not the way I do it I believe in doing it the old fashioned way the way they did not the ways you want to do it just because you don't like it but I don't want to it, but I say, but the fact that you like it worries me. Because you're like into the fudge. You like to do things you're, you like the fudge of life. You like to do thing that tastes good. You like the Fudge. The fact that you like it indicates to me that it's probably wrong. James was our favorite, he said. Reading from her chair in the corner she would softly conclude, faith without works is dead. this was a favorite quotation of Anne's much as the book of James was a favourite with early AAs when they say rarely have I seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path part of their path was constantly reading and memorizing the book of James, they almost called us the James Club so much so that the James Club was favoured by some as a name for the fellowship Sue also remembered the quiet time in the mornings how they sat around reading from from the Bible. Later, they also used The Upper Room, a Methodist publication that provided daily inspirational message in its denominational and its approach. Remember, this is rarely how we've seen a person fail. This thoroughly follows our path. Every time you hear that at an AA meeting, you think about them sitting around reading the Bible Don't think about them sitting around doing what's going on in the 12-step room or in the call room or the 4th Dimension Club. They didn't do that. Think about what was going on back then. This is what they were doing. You know, if you start thinking in terms of that, then when you read this thing where you hear we've experienced much of heaven, we've been rocked into the fourth dimension existence of which we not even dreamed. There is one that has all power. That one is God. May you find him now. You know? You can't manage your own life. God couldn't. When you hear stuff, see that your relationship with him is right and great events will come, you'll have a different sort. You'll sort of understand it in a different way. These people were religious. They were spiritual. They believed in God as a deity. They weren't ashamed of it. They were into this stuff. And then you'll ask yourself, is this really what's going on? Is this really What the Deal is here? Or is it something a little bit different? Okay, now the next thing is on page 96. Dr. Bob, noting that there were no 12 steps at the time and that our stories didn't amount to anything to speak of, later said they were convinced that the answer to their problems was was in the good book. You understand that's the Bible. To some of us older ones, the parts that we found absolutely essential, absolutely essential. That means essential, but if you don't get it, like absolutely essential were the Sermon on the Mount. When I came in, it was required reading. You know, you could read from, or you could reach Sermons on the Mountain and at Fox. It was absolutely essential reading 29 years ago. Sermon on the Mount, the 13th chapter of the 1st Corinthians and the book of James. He said. This was the beginning of AA's swine blind period. They had the Bible. They had precepts of the oxen group. They also had their own instance. They were working or working out the AA program the 12 steps without quite knowing how they were doing it. This is AA back then. When you rarely have a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path they're talking about this. They're not talking about what you're thinking in there talking about. Okay, this is page 101. This is what they did if you wanted to go to an A&E. Let's say you wanted to go into an A & E. Let'S say you took you out of the hospital and you wanted go to an A and E. Okay? This is What You Did. Okay, page 101. On the other hand, we were taking them upstairs and getting them on their knees to surrender, which I felt was very important. The surrender was more than important. It was a must. It was A MUST. Bobby, who came to AA in February of 1937, recalled that after five or six days in the hospital, when you had indicated that you were serious, they told you to get down on your knees by the bed and say a prayer to God, admitting you were powerless over alcohol and your life was unmanageable. Furthermore, you had to state that you believed in a higher power who would return you to sanity. This is in 1937. Down on your knee. you know, you ever hear somebody say well you might scare away the newcomer you don't get any newer than get down on your knees off the hospital bed and say these things you know get them while they're weak there you can see the beginning of the 12 steps he said we call that the surrender they demanded it you couldn't go to a meeting until you did it if by accident you didn't make it to the hospital, make it in the hospital. You had to make it in the upstairs bedroom over to Williamson's house. Dorothy S.M. recalled the 1937 means when the men would all disappear upstairs and all of us women would be nervous and worried about what was going on. After about a half an hour or so down would come the new man shaking, white serious and grim. And all the people who were already in AA would come trooping down after him. they were pretty reluctant to talk about what happened but after a while they would tell us that they had had a real surrender I often wonder how many people that come in now would survive an experience like that a regular old fashioned prayer meeting said Dorothy who was then married to an AA member now we do that today did you know we do it today well we don't take them upstairs get down on your knees they start crying this is what we say we say does anybody want to white you well if you do skip I'll just sort of leave it right here and you can pick it up when we're not looking well you don't want to not looking actually we're lucky if they stand up they don't wanna come up they wanna sort of like hand deliver it like Domino's Pizza, you know? And you're not looking. There's a difference between what was going on back then and now. Isn't there? Gets better. Clarence Sess. Don't give up Clarencestide as brewmaster. He was like the fourth guy or something like that who came in his stories in the book against how he surrendered. He started the Cleveland Group. The Cleveland Group was the group that was indicated that had the greatest success rate in AA. As a matter of fact, it was so great it looked almost like the AA started there. This is what Clarence this is how Clarencediter was 12-stepped. I went into this last week and I want to do it again by Dr. Bob. Clarences was one of those who came from Cleveland at the beginning of 1938. Now this is 1938. This is the year before the Big Book. So this is consistent. This is What They Were Doing. To be fixed by Dr Bob. His wife who later became close to Ann and Dr. Bob had talked to a number of ministers and doctors before her sister Virginia in New York who was a patient of Bill Wilson's brother-in-law Dr. Leonard B. Strong told her about Dr. Rob I called Dr. Smith, this is his wife I called Bob Smith and I still remember my words and how gruff his voice was Darth recalled 1954 conversation with Bill he scared me to death I said Is this the Dr. Smith who helps drunks? When he said yes, I wept. I weped and said that my husband was an alcoholic. This is a scholar. She's crying on the phone. She's bawling. My husband's an alcoholic right away. He seemed to know how old he wanted to know how old Clarence was 34. I said, how many people here are 34 or less? Raise your hand. Okay, listen, 34. I said impossible. Possible, he replied. He hasn't suffered enough. There's never been anyone that young coming to fellowship and recovering. This is what he says. This could have been one of Dr. Bob's tactics at the time to suggest that a newcomer wasn't ready because of being too young or being a woman or not having suffered enough prospects were thus, ready for this? forced to prove that they were indeed ready and willing to accept the program. Nowadays in alcoholics synonymous, the program almost has to do double backflips and turn themselves into a pretzel to beg people not to leave because we might mention God. We have to prove to them that we need them. we're more worried that they won't like us than whether they're ready to come in here do you think the attitude of AA has changed at all you know, we're more ready to throw the program into the toilet, I mean God forbid there's some new guy with two hours sobriety who hasn't paid his child support in 16 years and has ripped the hearts out of everybody he knows what we'd like to do is say well how would you like this program to work and when he tells me he says let's just Just change the program to suit him so he won't be pissed off and leave. And then we might feel bad we're so codependent. Dr. Bob was about to hang up on me, Dorothy continued, but then he relented and said there was one man in Cleveland who might be able to help, Clarence. And he gave me Lloyd T.'s address. I went over to see Lloyd. He talked to me, but they were very secretive in those days. He didn't tell me what the solution was. I did know it was tied up with the Oxford group, said Dorothy, which is an evangelical Christian group. who describes herself as being bitter and skeptical at the time. In other words, she's saying she's bitter and skeptical about what? About religion. Who isn't? How do you think they handled that? Do you think они sort of backed down? Do you thinks they said, well, don't worry. We're spiritual. We're not religious or anything like that. She was desperate. I decided I would pretend to go along with it if Clarence took... You know what she's sayin'? Even though I hated religion, even though I was bitter, I decided I would go along with it anyway if only they would take him in and work with him. In other words, she would go along with him and be a phony because she was so desperate if they would work with her. So she brought her husband a bus ticket to Akron. There Clarence made arrangements to go to the hospital where he stayed for a week. Dr. Smith came in later and took over. He sat on the edge of my bed and said So, Dr. Smith sits on the edge of the guy's bed. He's sitting on the edge of your bed in the hospital. You're thinking about fudge and stuff. Fudge. Whatever your fudge is. Sally, chore, money, clothes, cars, houses. You know, whatever you're thinking about. He sat on the edges of his bed. Well, what do you think about all this? He's talking to you now. He's standing at the edge OF your bed. He's saying, what are you thinking about all of this? Then he paused and looked at me doubtfully. I don't know if you're ready yet. You're kind of young. I was down to 135 pounds, no job, no clothes, no money. I didn't know how much more ready I could be, recalled Clarence. Still, I had to convince them I was ready. You know, when they do the man on the bed, and Bill Wilson talks to Bill Dotson, he has this famous line Bill and Bob go in there it's really the only time in the big book where you see Bill and Rob sort of like double teaming the third guy in AA and how they're talking, this is what he says he essentially says something like this he says to Bill Doxley, he says listen we have a deal where we're trying to help people, it requires that they get this, they believe in a higher power not in themselves, and they pass on to other people, and this is What he says if you want to go along with this we're happy to try to help you but if you have a problem with this we'll not waste your time. We will not waste our time and we'll go looking for someone who wants it. And I've always thought that what they were really saying is we'll not waste our time and we're going to look for somebody who wants us. You know everybody here is so worried that an alcoholic will drink you know if an alcoholic is going to drink you can't rob an alcoholic of his desperation inspiration. You know, this is for people who want it, not people who need it. Then he asked, then he asked. Now here's Dr. Bob sitting at the edge of your bed. You're trying to prove to him you want it and this is what he does. He pulls this crap on you. How's this? You're coming in the door tonight to go to the meeting but you haven't done the knee thing. You managed to get out of the hospital without doing the knee things, the on your knees thing. So you walk into the the door tonight. You heard somebody speaking, you want to see it, you go to the meeting. And then the guy comes up, this is what Dr. Bob did to him, he says do you believe in God, young fellow? Do you believe en God, young lady? He always called me young fellow. When he called me Clarence, I knew I was in trouble. Then ClarenCE says to Dr.Bob, what does that have to do with anything? Dr.Bob says everything. Everything. He didn't say, well, it's spiritual rather than religious or Or, don't worry about it. You'll get it. Or, I don't want to scare you away. Or, you know, please like me. Please don't reject me. You know, don'T hurt my feelings. You know? He said everything. Then the guy goes like this. He does the Alki thing. He says, well, I guess I do. No, he doesn't want... That's the way Alki... You know Alki. Do you have a driver's license? Well, it's a long story, you now. Are you married? Well, sort of. Do you Have a job? Well, look, it'S like this, you Know what I Mean? There's no yes or no. It's like, you know, slide around, go around the corner, you know duck underneath the Chevy. He says, guess nothing. Either you do or you don't. Yes I do. That's fine, Bob replied. Now we're getting someplace. All right, get out of bed and on your knees. We're going to pray. I don't know how to pray, I guess you don'T. But that's all right, just follow what I say and that will do for now. Now, I did what I was ordered to do. Clarence said there was no suggestion. This isn't me saying this is the way AA should be. This is me reading from one of our books telling you what AA was. What it was. You don't have to like it. I'm just telling you that. I'm telling you about what it was? Dr. Bob was always positive about his faith. Clarenced said if someone asked him a question about the program, his usual response was, what does it say in the good book? suppose he was asked what's all this first things first Dr. Bob would be ready with an appropriate quotation seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you which is also in the big book along with a lot of other stuff in the early days she would call Bill said to me Henrietta this is your buddy Bill Wilson after all this stuff I just read this is Bill Wilson now a few months after the fact that he was because he was suggesting that he was cured because of what the Lord did for him, and he had to keep on talking about it. A few months after that, people started coming through the doors. This is what he says to Henrietta. Have you ever heard this around AA? Have you never heard anybody say this around EA? This is Bill Wilson, just a few months after giving his life to God. Henrietta, in the early days, you recall, Bill said to me, Henrietta I don't think we should talk so much about religion or God. He was worried that he might offend somebody. I mean there are only days he's run around saying God is, you know, I can't stop talking about it God has saved me now all of a sudden he probably said it to a couple people and they laughed at him that was enough for him I quit has that ever happened to you? have you ever been sitting in a meeting and you want to say something to God but you look around and say well they'll probably laugh at me you want us all to talk about God or you want me to say how is this going to play you know some guy talks about God you say man they're going to beat the crap out of him you worry about, you know, you're sort of watching everybody else you know you're a typical alcoholic, you just sort of watch everybody else see what you should say and what you shouldn't say so that everybody will think you're okay and not uncool. I mean I wouldn't say it would happen to you guys because you guys are obviously a cut above most people are like, eh, you probably don't think that way you're probably just going to let go, youre like leaders you know what I mean? You're not followers, you guys are there, but you know Bill Wilson was that way, that was part of his fudge that was part of his one of his part of His fudge was He needed people to accept Him and to like Him and to love Him and He needed praise that was His fudge and you didn't want criticism or judgment that was a fudge thing Bill said to me Henrietta you know the problem with the fudge it's like giving up the mouth when you do the fudged thing with like me like me then you don't get to live your life you just basically live the life that you think other people want you to live in order for them to like you and you sort of give away way basically you're integrity and then you live a life totally in fear all the time without even knowing about what other people like you when they like doing your judgment she always feeling crappy because you're always assuming also stop that over here that's one of the things it's on your mind it's like a bad deal you're hopping into a bad way of life instead of looking like the way you want to live your life and only be concerned about you and your relation with God you're also going to deal the people see whether you fit in and most of the time if you're an app off you don't think we do fit in you got to pull phone me up and figure out how to do the deal. So that's why you worry about money and cars and all that sort of stuff, and have that overactive deal with all that kind of stuff because you really want people to like you because God knows without that stuff you're a piece of shit and you don't like yourself. I'm not talking about you guys. I'm talking about the guys down at the car room. My group, you know what I mean? You guys are better than them, you know. Bill said to me, Henrietta, I don't think we should talk so much about religion or God. I said to him, well, we're not out to please alcoholics. They've been pleasing themselves all these years is we are out to please God and if you don't talk about what God does in your faith and your guidance then you might as well be the Rotary Club or something like that because God is your only source of power. Finally, he agreed. Do you believe that? Bill Wilson needed an old timer or some gal to set him straight because he was about to throw God under the bus. And had he done that by the time he wrote the big book had he not been corrected by somebody who loved him and said look look, this is the deal. This is why you're sober. We would not have a big book today. You wouldn't have a book saying... The book wouldn't be saying there is one who has all power. The book Wouldn't Be Saying that one is God and you find him now. He was ready to... That would have been out of the book. Forget about as you understand them. There wouldn't been any God at all. Forget about higher power. He was really going to chuck the whole thing because he was worried about how it would affect other people. He was going to water this thing down so that everybody would come in and nobody would be upset. The lowest common denominator. You know, there's an old country song, you've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything. There is no record, page 218. There is not a record of what happened at the first meeting except for the grapevine account. Years later, noted that it was led by Dr. Bob who put his foot on the rung of a dining room chair, identified himself as an alcoholic and began reading the Sermon on the Mount. That's Matthew 5, 6, and 7 of the Bible. That's the first meeting in the outfall of sin. That's what was going on between 1935 and 1939 when they wrote the book, Rarely Have We Seen a Person Fail Who Has Thoroughly Followed Our Path. Now how many of you guys are doing that at your meetings now? Zero. Nada. Forget it. So we just sort of walk around and cope. Not too many experiencing much of heaven is rocking in the fourth dimension of existence. Consistence. Not too much enthusiasm. Not too many, and we lose fear today, tomorrow, in the year after we were reborn. If you seriously do these things, all sorts of remarkable things will happen. All sorts of promises and things God is doing for us. Not too bunch of that stuff going on. Just sort of like, oh, hang it in there. Hang it in here. Don't drink and go to meetings. We're not even doing this stuff. You know what I'm saying? It's like a recipe. It's like a recipe for a chocolate cake. I give you a recipe for chocolate cake, two eggs, flour, milk, whatever it is, put it up in 365 days. You do it exactly. You do this, you follow the recipe exactly. Do you have a chocolate cake? Right? I've never made one out of it. Okay, so here's the deal. I say, well, listen, I don't want to wait 20 minutes, 40 minutes, 360 days. How about one minute at 2,000 degrees? you know, up on one or how about this I won't use eggs I'll use like egg beaters or you know you know what I mean I won' t use you know flour I'll us something sawdust I don't know whatever or you now I won''t use chocolate it's too fattening so I'll used you know whatever whatever you're going to use okay you won't if you don't you know listen my number is 305-442-0200 you dial 305 4420200 you get my law office you get me You understand what I'm saying? Now listen to this. If you dial 305-442-0201, if you're like one digit off, you don't get me. You can dial it a million times. You ain't going to get me, you understand? This is a recipe book. You don't follow the recipe. You don' t do the deal. You decide you want to change it because of the fudge or go here, go there. You ain' t going to gets the deal, you're going to something. It's going to look like, that's going to smell white, that's gonna feel white. You're gonna think you even got it. And you're gonna think you've got it because you don't know what it was they got. So you won't even know you're missing out on anything. You might say because you think this is what you got and your buddy Fred's got it and some other guys got it and that's what they got in New York and Milwaukee. So you figure this must be what it is. But then you read the book and there seems to be some sort of difference there. It looks like maybe they were a little more religious. They're using all this flowery language. And so you settle for this deal. and you think this deal is what you're studying for, and all you're doing is you're cutting yourself out of the real thing. Like coke, the real thing. And that's the deal. So I'm driving up here with all this wonderful knowledge I have, and I'm going to end it now because I've got to end it like Demetrius. So I'M DRIVING WITH ALL THIS WONDERFUL KNOWLEDGE I HAVE, AND I'M DRYING UP HERE, AND I GOT INTO AN ACCIDENT. Now, it wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault! It wasn'T my fault, but we step on the toes. Selfishness, self-centeredness, that's really the problem. Through about a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, we step on the toe of others and they retaliate, usually without provocation, but sometimes you see me He didn't think the path to put in a position to be hurt. But, since I knew it wasn't my fault and since I knew there was no question it was the other gal's fault, I got out of my car and I was rude. I was crude. There is no question of that. I was a rude. Okay? I did one of these things. Didn't you see what was going on? What are you doing? What, are you crazy? You know, one of those things. Because apparently I was with three other guys And I was trying to give them a lesson and prove to them that I was indeed an alcoholic. So now every one of these guys, when I say my name's Russell, I'm an alcoholic, they'll say, yeah, he really is. No, no, you've got to trust him on this. He really is." So, boy, I love being right. Oh, I loved being right! Oh,I loved being righ. I loved bein' right. Being right is great. And she was offended. And I said, offended? I said, let me tell you something. I'm calling the police. I'm callin' the police! You were right. No, I was wrong. I'm calledin' to the police and I called the police and George was my lawyer. He immediately spoke up in Spanish and English told him the whole story and they wrote me a ticket. And one of my buddies, you know, he's actually a co-deacon at the church and he said, you know I spoke to the lady and she says she wasn't even called to do anything if you weren't acting so rude. They had a little girl in the car. Nobody was hurt. It was like such a minor, it really was a minor thing. You know, it was such a major thing. And you know, the problem is, now I've got to be honest with you. I do believe it wasn't my fault. I go, you want to know something? I was so rude. I was wrong. I was just so wrong. I should have gotten out of that car. I should Have said, how are you? Are you okay? How is your little girl? Is everything, I should've said that. You know what I mean? I shouldn't have acted the way I acted. I know it. I know. And I've got to make amends for that. I've Got to apologize to this lady, you know, for I've GOT TO DO THAT DEAL. You know? You know, you see, that ain't fudge for me. That's bitter. That's a bit of... You see, I like the hating her and she was wrong and I was right and this is unfair. That's my fudge. That's My Fudge. Do you understand what I'm saying? Sitting there with a resentment saying the system's wrong, they were wrong, it's George's fault, I can't believe this it's all, you know look what happens to me no matter what happens life is unfair that's my fudge you know doing it my way listen I would rather think my thoughts and figure this thing out on my own than read the Sermon on the Mount the Bible or the Big Book because my brain and my thinking is my fudge this is not my fuge this is my thinking this is now my fude this is how my fudes The Bible's not my fudge. My fudge is the way I think and the way that's my fudge. The way I want to do things is my fuzz. It's very hard to break from that deal. Very hard to do it the other way. But if I don't, then I have that feeling of restlessness and guilt and irritability which I wanted to drink about. That's why we drink because we're restless, irritable, discontented. I've got to do this. You know what it says in the big book? It says we can't get rid of the fudge We're addicted to the fuzz it says God will get rid of the selfishness and then it says that's why we have God God will do that and very often it seems impossible to get rid without his aid thank you very much