The Higher Power-shaped Hole – 12 Step Workshop – Manor, TX – Part 2 of 2 – Chris M.

Welcome to Sober Sunrise, a podcast bringing you AA speaker meetings with stories of experience, strength and hope from around the world. We bring you several new speakers weekly, so be sure to subscribe. Whether you join us in the morning or at night, there's nothing better than a sober sunrise. We hope that you enjoy today's speaker. All right, I talked a little bit about the spiritual experience. Yesterday we did a four-step workshop. We talked about steps one, two, three, and four a little bit, just briefly. Step one, if you're an alcoholic or an addict, you are going to be subject to a mental obsession. That's the inability to accurately appraise the size of the mistake you're going to make by putting something back in your body. You don't have access to sound reasoning and sane reasoning. Once a substance is in your buddy, you have little or no control over the amount you take. You're in it for the ride, and it's going to drag you around as long as it needs to drag you around until you, you know, get separated somehow one more time. But then there's a dash that our lives have become unmanageable on a good day, restless, irritable and discontent. This is without any substances in you. This is in your brief period of sobriety, restless, irritable and content, prey to misery, depression, resentment, anxiety, shame, guilt, remorse all that self-centered fear that just binds you to self that's a normal day a bad day is terror, frustration bewilderment and despair pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization who wants to live like that? that's after the dash our lives have become unmanageable emotionally unmanangeable spiritually unmanegeable mentally unmanigeable we're a mess we're a mess that's step one some really really wise people have made the comment that the alcoholic is someone desperately seeking connection to the divine desperately seeking a connection to God it's been described to me like this as a God shaped hole that only God will fill we try to fill it with drugs we try and fill it without call we try it was sex we try to fill it with toys. We try, we try to fill it with food. You know, we're, we just want to feel better. We want to feel like right. We wantto feel connection, that connection to the divine that we, that seems to be absent in the alcoholic or the drug addict. We're desperately seeking a connection to the world and we're using substance, we are using things outside of ourselves to try to fill that hole. The problem is it's an inside job. It's an inside job, spirituality is an inside job. We need to participate in the recovery process and we need to let God fill that whole. The whole thing about recovery is being able to place ourselves in the sunlight of the Spirit. We can do that through participation in the recovery process asking God please give me the strength and direction to participate in this recovery process we can do that work and that translates into placing ourselves in the spiritual climate where god can come in and relieve us of our obsession to drink and help us with the unmanageability in life in step two we come to believe that there's a power there's a power because we see it in the in the rooms we see that other recovered alcoholics and addicts We know there's a power. We believe that there's a power, and we come to believe that maybe, maybe we can access that power too. It's certainly worth the effort, the time and the effort. Step three is, okay, I'm in. I believe that there's a power that I can access. I believe that there is a way to recover from alcoholism or drug addiction. I'm In. Tell me what to do. And you need to do that unreservedly. Unreserved. Please do not let your thinking mind try to figure out the spiritual exercise before you take it. OK, well, if I do this, this will happen and I don't know if I really need that, you know, because that's what we'll do. The ego is at war with the spirit. This is a conflict that goes back in time. I mean, I used to see it on the cartoons when I was a kid. There'd be the little devil on this shoulder and the little angel on this shoulder, and they'd be trying to talk the guy into doing something. You know, you ought to go do this selfish thing. No, you want to be really nice. I mean, there's a conflict within us just because we're human. It's a human nature. And we need to try to rightly relate ourselves to the spiritual rather than the selfish. And so in step three, we make a decision to do that. Just what do we do? What do we deal with that? Okay, I've made a decision. What do I do? We talked yesterday about inventory. We need to look at the things in our lives that have been blocking us off from effective relationships with God, our fellow man, and ourselves. We needと look at what's going on. And Bill was great. He picked three things, resentments, fears, and the harms that we cause. That's a great, great place to start looking at what is going wrong in our lives how do why do you know why do we keep shooting ourselves in the foot how does that work what does that look like and we start to inventory and really i think it's the for me it was the first time i ever tried to look at my own problems you know what where was i at fault i wasn't running around trying to figure out where i was at fault it was you you know you were at fault if it was my fault that'd be inconvenient you know i mean i might have to take responsibility for it if it's my fault i don't want it to be my fault so this exercise is basically an exercise at looking at how we're showing up in life and the things that we're doing wrong you know how we relate ourselves to the universe to ourselves and to our fellow man we need to look at that now we put that whole thing together uh we list out all the people were resentful at. You know, good four-column inventory. You learn it here. I know that. Fear inventory. Harms to others. Emphasis on sex. You, you, you learn, uh, you learn how to do that discipline here. Do you know what's crazy? This is, it's really, really rare to find a treatment or recovery center that teaches you how to do it. Yeah, they kind of leave it to you. You know? You should do a four-step. Okay! I mean, they leave it So you have a sick alcoholic mind, and you're going into this exercise with your sick alcoholic mind. Let somebody show you how to do this, and this is the right place for it. Now you have this pile of papers. It's the whole pathetic conglomeration of everything you've ever done wrong. It's like the whole magilla, and you are carrying it around I'm carrying it around like it's plutonium. I kept mine, like, underneath a spare tire in the trunk of my car just in case. I didn't want anybody thinking I was small, you know? I was thinking I Was so pathetic. And, you Know, My sponsor said, Well, You know, I Was worried about somebody finding out I'm in recovery. I'm trying to get better. My sponsor one time said, Because, You Know, I was worried about that I knew somebody at a meeting from outside. He goes, Chrissy, he's just going to have to figure out why you don't park on his lawn anymore. You know what I mean? Don't worry about him seeing you in here. Anyway, the fifth step is you take this whole treatise on your dysfunction and you share it with somebody. You get an opportunity to do that more than once. Here, I have personal experience with multiple fifth steps. uh the last multiple fifth step i did i did it with a peer one of his one of his prospects and one of my prospects and it was beautiful because here's what it did uh the ego that i talked about being at war with the spirit this was this just crushed my ego because you know i had to read that you know here i am you know, spiritual Chris as, you know. And I'm reading one pathetic thing after the other. You know, I'm going like this. My ego is just going like that. And when I got done with that, I had an accurate self-appraisal of myself. You know my ego wants me to think I'm such hot crap. You know what? Humility is defined best as an accurate self-appraisal. Exactly where you fit into the universe. You know, that's true humility. And the fifth step is really, really geared toward getting us right size. Some of the things that happened to me, some of my personal experiences over the years with this steps are like that. But my earlier experience with the fifth stop was I always thought I was an incredible scumbag. I mean, listen, I did some really bad things out there. When you put as much alcohol in your body as I did, you're going to do crimes, you're gonna take advantage of people, you're gunna use people for sex, you're gona do all these things that are gunna contribute to a lack of self-esteem, the shame, the guilt, remorse, all this, you know, you're afraid to walk down certain streets. And what the fifth step did was, The fifth step shifted my perspective from really thinking I was a scumbag. A special scumback, by the way. I was no run-of-the-mill scumbac. You know how the ego is. But it was a shift from being a scambag to maybe being a human being. When I got done with my first fifth step, my sponsor stopped me and he said, Chris, you know, that wasn't so bad. And I was thinking, that wasn't so bad. You know, and I started to think, you know what? That wasn't Sobad. And then he said, listen, I believe that you were an alcoholic before you put alcohol into your body. And truly, I'm in that camp today. I believethat alcoholism is much deeper and that bottles are only a symbol. I think we grasp for bottles because of our alcoholism, you now. We're trying to solve something deep inside ourselves that we just can't solve. He goes, I believe that you were powerless over alcohol long before you put alcohol in your body. And you were like, Chris, you were a campfire that had burning, had coals that were just red with heat. And when you took your first drink, it was like throwing gas on that campfire. All of a sudden it flamed up and it burned everybody, you included, around. he goes up he goes today you've recognized that problem and you're making significant efforts to become a better person lighten up on yourself a little bit you know because because he could he could tell that you know i was all yeah you know how we are you can't look anybody in the eye uh it's it's funny uh some some places you guys are looking me in the eyes i know there's something been happening here. I speak in places where I'll look at you and, you know, you can't even look at me. You know, I'm speaking around. I got an opportunity. I was the commencement speaker at the New Jersey Drug Court graduation. And I got to tell you, looking around, nobody was looking at me in the eye. I might figure him out. You get to a point where you don't care if somebody figures you out. And that's a very, very healthy thing. Anyway, the fifth step is an exercise in beginning to move from separation from everybody to incorporation with everybody. In other words, I'm starting to feel like I'm a member of the human race. All of the spiritual masters, all of the great spiritual masters believe that our perceptions of being separate from are illusions. They believe that we're all part of a Godhead or we're also part of something bigger than our specific personality or individual unit ourselves. And that's a healthy view to have. the fifth step was my beginning of getting away from separation into incorporation with other people and I had a spiritual experience because of that step now, because there was really no hardcore experienced recovery individuals that were working with me during my first time I took some time off to fix my character defects You know, to work on my character defects. Anybody have experience working on your character defects? That's a lot of fun, isn't it? I'm not going to be selfish anymore. Give me that! It lasts like two seconds. So I banged my head against the wall for several months working on my character defects, and I learned a little bit of this from God bless him, Bill W. in the 12 and 12. He gave me a consideration, and what the consideration was is how about going to God with the same sense of desperation and surrender with my character defects that I went to Godwith with my alcoholism? How about looking at powerlessness over character defects and needing to engage in a recovery process, to participate in a discovery process and have God ultimately be responsible for the removal of those character defects. I need to participate. It says in the 12 and 12 that God will not render us white as snow without our cooperation. So, if that's true, how then shall I cooperate? I needto cooperate by following spiritual principles, engaging in the spiritual life, working the rest of these steps. so step six become willing to have God remove these defects of character it doesn't say begin to work on your own character defects so that you can get more money and toys this step says become willing to have god remove these defective characters then the original reading of step seven is humbly on our knees ask god to remove these shortcomings holding nothing back that's an act of surrender, that's an act of humility humbly on our knees ask God to remove these shortcomings holding nothing back if we're not willing to let go of some things we need to pray for the willingness to let go of some of them a lot of us think when we head into step 6 and step 7 that we're absolutely yes take everything absolutely well how about lust well hold on a minute there you know if God removes my lust I may never get laid again you know I better hang on to that how about work I can't let God run my work I'm in sales I've got to be a shark out there so some of us it's human nature some of them are going to hold on to whether consciously or unconsciously hold on for some control over these character defects and the ones that we hold on to those are those are the ones that there's not going to be a lot of progress with i think it's an evolution you know it was in my case uh i you know today today i can sit here and i can say i am willing to have god remove all of my character defects you know because i've got i've got some experience with these steps i know today that living a spiritual life is going to offer me a lot more than anything i can design myself from from myself so i can say that, but it was an evolution for me. I had to go through the steps a number of times before I really got clear on some of these things. Now, going to God in an attitude of surrender and an attitude of desperation with our character defects, holding nothing back is a great place to be at. Now what about the removal of these character defects? How does that work? I believe that the best possible spiritual atmosphere you can be in for the removal of your character defects is to become willing to make amends to the institutions and people who those character defects have harmed. Our character defects cause harm to others. When we become willing to make direct amends to them, and we actually go out and make direct amends to those we have harmed, except when to do so would injure them or others. When we place ourselves within that discipline, that's the best possible spiritual climate for the removal of character defects. I want to share real quick a story, and this is a good example of that shift, that removal of characters and character defects through making amends. I sponsored this guy for about 10 years. Great, great individual. He was, you know, he was a city Italian tough guy, you know, mobbed up guy, just really, really tough. And he stole. I mean, this guy stole. He couldn't go into a 7-Eleven without grabbing a pack of cigarettes, a pack a gum. You know, and I saw him do that one time. And, you this is like five years into working with the guy. I'm like, what are you doing? You stole a packa gum. He goes, they got budgets for that. They write that off. What are you talking about? I'm like, you're not supposed to do that. You're stealing. It's just gum. No, youre stealing. Okay? Youre stealing! I don't care if they've got a budget. I don' t care if it's an insurance write-off. It's not your gum. So, we did an inventory on it. And this individual was willing to change his perspective. if he was willing to follow direction. I had him list out every single 7-Eleven, every single store that he ever stole gum or cigarettes to. He wasn't real happy about this, but he was willy. And he started going around and he came up with some amount of money and he started paying back the 7-11s in the stores that he bought. He'd get the manager, you know. Let me ask you a question. You think he still steals gum? You're damn right he doesn't. You know, it's not part of his operational methodology anymore. There's been a shift. There's Been an Awakening. There's Been a Recovery. I like to tell the people I work with to put actually in front of every step because I've got to tell you, there's a lot of 12-step meetings that you go to and the steps are on the wall and you go through the step meetings but no one is really sharing their personal experience with these things. They're sharing philosophically. Well, philosophically, you shouldn't steal. No, really, you should not steal. And if you have stole, you need to pay the money back. That may be inconvenient. It may be unfortunate. But that's what the recovery program, that's the disciplines of the recovery program. You know what I mean? So in step nine, we need to actually go actually go out and make direct amends to the people and the institutions that we've caused harm to. I've got some personal experience with this, and you know what? I was like, to my knowledge, I was the first person in my immediate AA area to really go out and, in a disciplined way, really list everybody out and start knocking them off and go and make direct amends to these people. And I got, you know, I got criticized in meetings when I was sharing about this. Oh, you don't need to do that. You know, that's pretty extreme, you know paying the money back. You just need to keep coming. No, I didn't just need to keep going. I was a real alcoholic and I had a spiritual malady that was inside me and if that gets unaddressed, that spiritual condition called alcoholism, if that goes unaddressed, the time and the place is going to come and I will put alcohol back in my body. And listen, I don't want to do that. Knowing what I know about life today, enjoying life the way I do, I'll tell you, making the most scary amends in the world is like nothing compared to putting alcohol back in your body. So another thing that I ask the people that do who are balking on amends that I work with and some of them do is, You need to be very, very clear about these amends. A, make the amends, B, put alcohol back in your body. You're living in C somewhere, there's no C, there' s no C. What is C anyway? You got some idea of some C? There ain't no door number C. Make the amens, put alchohol back in you body. It's as simple as that. And if you keep it that simple, you're going to get to a state known as recovery, which I can't even tell you the blessings of that state. All right, we've done our best with the immense process. We've knocked on a lot of doors. When we couldn't knock on doors, we've written the letters because there's people that have passed on or you can't find. There's ways to get the money back out into the universe. There's ways to set right the wrongs of the past. Find an experienced guide, a sponsor or spiritual advisor with experience. You know, don't pick the first guy at a meeting. My guess is if you lined up every meeting in the United States and you lined out everybody that goes to those meetings in the U.S., Maybe 5% of the people have true experience with the steps. Actual experience with The Steps. It's your responsibility to find those people. Don't shortchange yourself. Find the people with experience. Because there's a lot of people out there who you're going to come to some of these steps and they'll tell you you don't need to do them because they didn't do them. And they're still sober. And they might be suffering spiritually and emotionally and not even know they're still suffering from alcoholism. They're in that period of tentative sobriety. How free do you want to be? How good do you wanna feel? It's all contingent on how well you address these spiritual exercises, okay? Make all, the shift in perception from having unfinished amends to having no amends unaddressed that you can think of, that you're conscious of. That's a difference between night and day. It's a different between black and white. And for many of us it's a differnce between life and death. It just is. So be very, very disciplined about it. And now sitting in here you're going to be thinking well that means I've got to go make amends to Wally. Oh my God, I could never do that. Let me just tell you that right now, right now you don't have the power to go make that amends you get the spiritual fortitude to make that amends by doing steps 1 through 8 and then starting on amends and starting to feel the spiritual power comes in then you will have power to do those amends, so don't ever say no never I never will make those amens because you will have thepower to make thoseamends if you get busy about this recovery process You will be able to knock on Wally's door. You'll hear that sound. So the disciplines of 10 and 11, unbelievable, unbelievable. I take step 10 like this. It's a reactive step. It's walking around during the day step. It's a right now, in this moment step. How do I react to the environment? How do i react within personal relationships? How do we react? And because it's a reactive step, we need to use every single discipline of the steps that we've been taught and be able to apply them on a moment's notice. every day we're going to fall short in word, thought and deed we are going tofall short we're human beings I'm glad that we fall short every day because I don't like perfect people you know what I mean perfect people annoy me and every once in a while there will be a perfect person and society will nail them to a cross or something anyway So, you know, as a human being, I'm kind of glad that I'm not perfect. So when I act imperfectly, I can use the disciplines of the four step. I can inventory. Okay, I've got a resentment, a fear. I've harmed someone. Let's inventory it. Let's talk about it with somebody. Let's ask God at once to remove the character defect that caused that. Let's make direct amends. Let's seek through prayer and meditation to better and more rightly relate ourselves to our Creator. Let's go help somebody. And these are all disciplines that we can use in Step 10 in a reactive way. We need to become practiced at the spiritual life. We needto become practicedat it. And how do you learn something? You learn by doing. step 11 I like to look at it in three distinct parts upon awakening as we move through the day and the evening review this is another place where you're becoming disciplined at these things the spiritual life does require certain disciplines because we're undisciplined we're immature there's a number of things If you're alcoholic, you're undisciplined, you're immature, you'RE overly sensitive, welcome. You know what I mean? Welcome. So discipline is important. Discipline is important, it's very, very important. Any spiritual practice has with it discipline. I've had the opportunity to experience some wonderful spiritual teachers and they start you off with disciplines. And you think, well, why do I need to mop the floor? I'm pretty spiritually advanced. Well, you need to mop the floor because you have no discipline. Intellectually, you may be spiritually advanced, but look at your life. Look at the product of your life, so we need to become disciplined. When I wake up in the morning, there's a period of prayer and meditation that I use. I always ask God to give me the strength and the direction to move through the day seeking his will. There's a number of spiritual and religious books that I've been involved with. I have read mountains of books. Again, what really helps me is when I actually practice what those books tell me to practice. But irregardless, you know, I like to feed my soul with knowledge and experience from people who are more advanced than me spiritually. You know that hole that I talked about earlier, that God-shaped hole that I'm using drugs and booze and sex and running around and power and all that stuff? I need to constantly fill that hole with spiritual sustenance. I find it in a lot of books. Now I'm very, very comfortable in the Christian disciplines but I'm also I've also exposed myself a lot to the Eastern disciplines, Native American studies. There's a wealth of wonderful information that you can actually transmit that information into an experience. There's so much of it out there, it's unbelievable. And what I tell the people I work with is follow your heart with this stuff. I hesitate to tell someone they need to specifically be involved in the Christian tradition what I like to do is sometimes I'll recommend books but sometimes I like to tell them look just go to the religion philosophy sections of a big bookstore meditate a little bit and look at the covers pull them out read the dust jackets find out where you're pulled Find out where you're pulled. Because we have to have a serious buy-in with the spiritual disciplines as we move forward, the spiritual information and understanding. We need to have an understanding of what's going on in our lives. We need a personal buy-on to it. So a lot of times we can trust that inner guidance. It says that we'll be rocketed into a fourth dimension. It talks about a sixth sense. I like to look at that sometimes as being the realm of intuition The realm of deeply knowing, truly knowing deep down inside And if we can shove ego aside If we can shove that sense of self inside A lot of times we know And start to listen and trust that inner guidance Trust that intuitive part of ourself And we can do that as we move forward I love the 11th step because it opens the doors to spirituality so wide. I believe that I need to, as a foundation, this needs to be my foundation. I cannot move away from this. But what I can do is I can add unto this with other spiritual practices. So never be the type of person that gets so spiritual they disappear from the recovery process. I know a lot of people who've become so heavenly they're no earthly good anymore you can't call them up on a 12 step call I'm not really going to those AA meetings anymore, you know, I don't really like the people there you are the people there now you're going to criticize them all so always always the foundational text the foundational system of your spirituality really has to be rooted in this, if you're alcoholic or if you'RE an addict Now, that's not necessarily so for the rest of the world. They can go any direction they want. We need to stay rooted in this because we have an illness called alcoholism or drug addiction that can come back on us. It can comeback on us It's cunning, baffling, powerful and aggressive. So as long as we use this as our foundation we're going to be good. And then we can stretch our wings and we can really enjoy some of the stuff that's out there. There's retreats, and there's great churches, and there are a lot of things out there that we can enjoy and that will enrich us. Now, having had a spiritual awakening as this course of action, as the result of the 12 steps, we tried to carry this message to other alcoholics, other people was the first writing. what are they talking about there having had the spiritual awakening as a result of the steps we're going to carry this message what is the message the message is the spiritual awakening this has gotten so lost in oral tradition Alcoholics Anonymous that we talk about anything and everything but that we need to carry the message of a spiritual awakening basically like I've done here today and yesterday with you all. I've basically talked about the processes involved that bring us to a spiritual awakening. Tonight, I'll share a little bit about what the spiritual awakening has done in my life. But what is the message? The message is the 12 steps. The message ist consistent meeting, attendance, find a sponsor, a spiritual advisor with experience with the steps, actually go through those steps, always asking God for the power and direction to help get through that. And then carry that message to the still sick and the still suffering. To shift your... I talked about this earlier. As an alcoholic, when we end up in places like this, we have a foundation. Our life is built on a foundation of selfishness and self-centeredness. That's the foundation of our life. That's what we're here for. That's where we come from. We need to shift from that perspective to a perspective of love and service. That's the continuum of recovery. So in an attitude of love and service, what we do is we carry the message to the still sick and still suffering. It says in our book nothing will ensure immunity from alcohol like intensive work with other alcoholics. Intensive work with another alcoholics is not being the cookie guy at your group. That's a service commitment. I'm not knocking it. But if that's all you're doing is you're the cookie guy, you're going to be in it deep pretty soon. You need to get about the business of carrying the message of recovery. Listen, addictive illness kills a lot of people. 100,000 people a year die of alcoholism. 100,00 people a years in America die of alcohollism. They don't need to. there's even more people dying in AA and dying in NA because they're not addressing the recovery process they're merely hanging on to an almost unbearable sobriety you're looking for people to work with look for it there most of the people I end up working with are people who not drinking and going to meetings is not really working for them You know, they've still got an incredible slew of problems in their life. Most of them continue to relapse like clockwork. Those are usually the people that I personally work with. And I get them over to my house. We sit down. We open this book and I start to explain how I had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps and how I will be happy to help them do the same thing. I don't know another way. and I'm not going to hit them with a bunch of happy slogans because my experience is basically that most of the people I work with are real alcoholics and to slogan them to death and to just not get involved in the recovery process, you know, I might as well be guilty of involuntary manslaughter. You know, withholding information from people. now it doesn't always make me the most popular person at the AA meetings when I started really going into this I knew I was going to lose 90% of my friends and I did because I was in oral tradition fellowship AA lost 90%of my friends but the friends that I've developed over the years are much better than the ones that I lost you know, my life is incredible because I paid attention to this stuff Now, practicing these principles in all of our affairs, that's difficult at times. We need to ask God for help with that. We need the continually go back and do what Bill Wilson said was an annual or a semi-annual house cleaning. What I believe a house cleaning is, it's the steps. We need continually go through these. There's people who are going to tell you, all you need to do, kid, is stay in 10, 11, and 12. You do the four step ones. Well, there are probably people who've done such a great job on 1011 and 12 that they've not continued to make any mistakes in their life. Okay? Maybe. But the fact of the matter is every single time I've gone through the steps again, it's like peeling another layer of the onion back. I am now even clearer in my perspective. I'm even clearer In my self-appraisal than I was prior to. So every single time I go through, it gives me one more shot in the arm and my quality of life increases, my ability to be effective increases. And you know what? Very, very few people who have done multiple fifth steps the way I've done them are going to argue with me that they only should have done it once. You know what I mean? So this is a lifetime process. Alcoholism is medically described as a chronic relapsing condition. That's what the doctors call this. It's a chronic relapsing condition. You know what? You don't have to relapse, though. But we are in the minority. We are inthe minority. So the doctors continue to call it a chronic, relapsin' disease. You don''t have to relax. You're lucky to have the disease of alcoholism because you rightly relate yourself to God and your fellow man. You continue to participate in these spiritual practices. you then shift your attention to work and self-sacrifice for others you are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness a new attitude and outlook on life there is no doubt in my mind it has been an absolute pleasure to sit in front of you all and talk a little bit about my experience, strength and hope Mark thank you so much for inviting me down here it's been a great experience thank you thank you for listening to Sober Sunrise if you enjoyed today's episode please give it a thumbs up as it will help share the message until next time, have a great day