The Higher Power She Found Through Substitution and Redefinition – Lila R.

My name is Lila and I'm an alcoholic. So many people here that it's really good to see. I got a call that can't hear me. God forbid you cannot hear me How about now? Can you hear me now? Are you sure you can hear me? I just got back from Chicago last weekend. I had an extraordinary experience. I went to the 33rd International Women's Conference, AA, in Chicago. I've been sober over 27 years, and I never knew there was something called the Women's International AA Conference. And every year it's held in a different state. This year it was in Chicago, and next year it is in Cleveland, and the following year it will be in San Jose, California. And I had the opportunity on Saturday evening to speak to 2,400 women that were registered. It was powerful. I gave an extraordinary talk and perfectly frank with you I'm a little tired tonight I might have just shot it all off in Chicago it was really really great it was that much energy I don't know if You the women some of the women in the room know about this thing, but you're not doing anything next year in February They hold it in February every year in Cleveland, Ohio. I Think I might go again just for myself It's amazing to sit in a room and look at all of those people all dressed so lovely and nice and Imagine what they were like if it were their first night in a a I don't think it would have been as refined an occasion I got a call just a few weeks ago from somebody that left a message on my machine wishing me a happy birthday AA birthday and happy 25th AA birthday and then I knew that Lila my namesake in AA had 25 years it's really good to see you Lila I hope your health is great this year. And Dory, I mean, you know, we've had such good energy together. You know, one of the great things I think about staying sober is that over the years, you know I get sick of people who say, where are the old timers and they quote statistics to you that so many percent of people get drunk and Jesus if you don't do this you're going to get drunk and if you do not do that you are going to be drunk and no matter what you are probably going to go drunk and I have to tell you something I don't agree with those statistics at all because I don' t know what it's like for most of you but I will tell you what my experience is and my experience is that most of the people that I got sober with are still around they're still here and I run into them periodically and I am delighted to see them and it doesn't matter what happened over the couple of years two years three years four years six months doesn't mater what went on in their life the fact that I can look at somebody and see them and know that I have known that person for 25, 26, 27, 20, 19 years. It's extraordinary. Extraordinary. I don't know their last names. I don' t know what half these people do for a living. I don''t know anything about them really unless it's really bad news. In such case it travels really fast and we all know right away. But by and large I don ''t know everything. I only know that whatever went on in their life One day at a time, they stayed sober. Through whatever it was, good, bad and indifferent. And so did I. Now boy, it really makes it clear to me what they told me when I got sober. I got sore with the hole in the ground in Huntington Park. I too, Ursula, joined Alcoholics Anonymous with alcoholic paralysis. I couldn't move actually the left side of my body but that cleared up pretty quickly and I was just stuck with the inability to move my head for a very long time. Probably saved my life. If I had not been so physically in so much pain and so terrified that I might drink. I wasn't terrified that i might drink because I was an alcoholic. And no spiritual experience occurred for me when I joined AA. No god came out of the sky with 30,000 angels and tapped me on the shoulder. I had no spiritual experiences. I stayed sober solely and went to AA only. Because I was afraid that I would take a drink and I just couldn't handle it. at that time in my life I was too terrified it had stopped working for me I couldn't get drunk when I wanted to no matter how hard I tried and then the couple of times that I would have some success I would go out on a half a shot of scotch it was a humiliation to me almost I was the kind of alcoholic that drank anything that was brown if there was nothing that was white I drank anything at all and that's the kind of alcoholic that I was and when I got here they told me that I had to stay sober for the rest of my life they weren't kind and gentle and all that kind of stuff they toldme simply that I have to stay sober for the rest of my life how I was to do that was a day at a time for the rest of my life I mean somebody told me not too long ago if you tell newcomers that you'll scare them well then they're not desperate enough and if they're not desperate enough well hell, they're probably not going to stay anyway and besides I have learned the hard way in AA that I can't get anybody drunk and I can' t even get them sober interesting same person told me that I talk too much about God can you imagine can you reimagine it's getting frightening because the longer I'm sober, the more I talk, the more i talk about God, not the less. The more desperate I become to know and to reconnect myself with that conscious contact. The person that was talking to me had 40 years of sobriety. The person also said to me, you know, you spend too much time talking about the 12 and 12. I thought, now that's interesting because since I've been 18 years sober, I can't live without the 12th and 12th. I wouldn't know how. We all fit, don't we, in Alcoholics Anonymous. We all fit. We all find a way. And the only requirement is a desire to stop drinking. And I found out that the only way that I'm ever going to get drunk is if I drink. And if I don't drink for the rest of my life, well then I'm not going to gets drunk and I'm going to have to stay here. Because if I go on to 10 meetings of AlcoholicsAnonymous, you see I'm gonna get drunk. I know that. Now when they first told me that, I didn't believe it. But I began to notice really at the beginning that there was one consistent thing about people who got drunk. One consistent thing. And I have 27 plus years of sobriety noticing this same consistent thing, they always stop going to meetings, always, sometimes they may attend the meetings but they've stopped coming. No surprise to me that it's a disease of the mind. So I was the kind of individual when I got here that I was suffering from alcoholic paralysis a bad attitude. I was dying from potential on alcoholism at exactly the same time. I was only going to stay long enough to get myself together one more time and this time it was going to be different and this term I knew what not to do and I was going to get the hell out of Alcoholics Anonymous and while I was telling myself that the other 18 people were singing a little song too and one of them would be saying but you're an alcoholic and someone else in there would say, so what? And someone else would say well you can die from that disease and someone else would say you've never worried about dying before you've lived a year longer than you ever thought you were going to live so what difference does dying make? And someone also would say I kind of like it here and someone also beat that person up. I had all of that going on in my mind all of it going on all these conversations all this buzzing all this noise while I sat in that chair in total, absolute pain. Now, I'm not talking about psychological, emotional pain. I'm talking about physical pain. My eyelashes hurt when I got sober. My hair hurt. I could feel it growing in my head. I perspired green. I would go home after the meetings and everybody would have their little ice cream cake and pat me on the back and tell me, you know, keep coming back one more day, da-da-da, da-да. And I would come home and I would get home and that's when I had my worst DTs when I first got sober, worse than anything that ever happened to me when I was drinking stuff was shooting all over the room all the time now I know how to tell the newcomers I mean they're like there weren't a lot of hospitals then and treatment centers you know you kind of like got in there into the hole in the ground and they showed you where the room is where everybody else threw up and made sure that you kindof sat on that side of the room and everybody was moving and shaking and stuff was going on and they gave you this cup of coffee that knocked your teeth right out and told you if you smoked to smoke more and make sure you ate a candy bar every morning when you got up and eat the jelly donuts and oh my god and everybody was hypoglycemic going crazy and we're all nuts and they told you they couldn't die from lack of sleep and boy, I'm not sure if all that information is correct. Although I don't know any of us that died So, I mean, if I were to do now, today, all the sober things that I did to get sober at the beginning, God, I'd be hospitalized. I'd have been completely hospitalized. I can't believe it. And there we all were running around, shaking and moving and gray figures floating around. And I used to imagine people, I used think they were sitting beside me. There was nobody beside me, there was nobody besides me. Oh my God, what is it? And all these extra noises and all these guys named Tex. You know, and they'd wear these big, huge silver buckles with stagecoaches on them and horses and guns and crap like that. Big, huge buckles. I mean, flannel-type shirts. And, geez, you know. And then there's this guy, Duke Carson. Well, he was a friend of the family and kind of took me under his arm. And Duke wore a suit. Wore a suit that looked like he lived in this suit day and night. But thought he wore a suite and a white shirt and a tie. I've never seen him without a shirt and a tie. And, you know, Duke would grab me because at that time we had to go to the meetings early. I mean, the best part of my sobriety came for the few minutes ahead of the time at the meeting when they kind of told you what to do the day after, you knew, the next day. You got the message. And then you had to stay after the meeting and you were required to stay After the Meeting. You had to Stay After the meeting. They closed the door. You had To Stay. and then somebody brought in an ice cream cake or they took you to some old person's house that you just watched their lips move for 30 minutes and fed you ice cream cakes or another jelly donut that was left over from the morning that they couldn't shove down some newcomer's throat and sit you in there and then they would talk to you about how it works. Here are the four things that you have to do. Don't drink and they tell you how important that was. Don't drank, no matter what. No matter what. And then you have to go to meetings. No matter what. Oh. And then you have to read the big book. No matter what. And then you can't go anywhere you can bring your God even if you don't have one. Don't drink, go to meetings, read the big book, find God. Don't drink, go to meetings, read the big book, find God. Don't Drink, Go to Meetings, Read the Big Book, Find God. That was it. Now it came in all sorts of different words, language and from different types of people but basically the bottom line was don't drink go to meetings, read a big book find god. That was It. When I was 18 years sober I was in what I now feel was a spiritual soul sickness. They talk about it in the book, soul sickness I did not know what to do everything on the outside seemed fine God knows I certainly had done all the right things been going to all the meetings been successful in my life had all the stuff you're supposed to have everybody's patting me on the back isn't it great blah blah blah I didn't spend enough time with the God part of it I still believed in reward and punishment you know you clean up get sober good stuff is supposed to happen to you does right away doesn't it you get new shoes you kind of like start feeling better clean up your car suddenly you realize what color it is and you know you have instant immediate knowledge that things are getting better everybody goes around telling you about reward and punishment and if you don't do this it's going to happen to you but if you do that good things are going to happen i don't know i must have bought into that in a big way because i went out there with all my insecurities and just because I got sober did not mean that I changed one iota inside. All that happened to me was that I got sober physically I began to change, emotionally I began to get more afraid spiritually I didn't have a shot because I didn' t have a God and the God I had was not acceptable to me and that was kind of what happened to me and the only thing that was profound was that other people in that room like Duke Carson while they had something I wanted. I kind of believed that if I hung around these people, then I could sort of get it too. I could kind of feel a little bit better. I would be a little less afraid. I wouldn't feel as alone. And then when I would go home after the meetings, I would wonder, do they go crazy too? Did they go Crazy? I said to Duke once, you know, I go home After the meetings and I now have every light in the house on. I relocated all the furniture so that it was all facing the door. I had at no time ever in the first month of my sobriety did I ever take a chance that anyone was ever behind me. Never. I sat facing the direction, I sat on the toilet so that I could face the door I lived in a complete state of paranoia, sober. That's what sober existence was like for me. I must have wanted to stay sober really bad. now that I think about it. And I said to him, you know, all night long they're coming to get me. And he said, it's okay honey. You're just becoming sober. Your fears are just absolutely monumental right now because you're raw. He said, it happens to all of us. And I believed him. I believed that every other person in that meeting when they got sober went home sweated like I did shook like I did, couldn't hold anything in their hand like I could not, had complete paranoia. They were coming to get them, faced their furniture toward the door and turned every light in their house on for 24 hours a day. I really believed that. I was shocked when I found out maybe a year later that that's not how it is. You see, I believe that when you first get sober that you're under the grace of God, some kind of God. I don't know what that God is but there's a special kind of God for babies and alcoholics. And under that grace of God, marvelous things occurred for me in my mind. I really believed that everybody went home like I went home. And if they went home and came back the next night, well perhaps I could do it too. I also believed that everyone was as desperate as I was to find a seat in Alcoholics Anonymous and have something that they could claim was their very own. And Duke promised me that. You know, he said, there's a seat for you in Alcoholics Anonymous and it's your seat and no one's ever going to be able to take away from you. I have had the opportunity in my sobriety to travel throughout the world in many, many different places. And when I sit in the seat of a meeting with one person, two people or 200 or 2,000 people, I still feel like I'm sitting in that little hard chair in the hole in the ground in Huntington Park that's my chair. No one can ever take it away from me. It's extraordinary. all the things they told me at the beginning are more important to me now than almost they were then almost as they were then because when I turned 18 and my life was all together and something was wrong with me I couldn't understand I couldn' t understand why I did not feel this great reality deep within oh I certainly had a God by the time I was 18 years sober you know my God I think for me I found my God through a process of substitution and redefinition and oh God I did everything I mean I think if you're sober you're supposed to do everything I chanted I climbed mountains I blew out candles I read it all I mean you're supposed to do all that stuff I use batons I've been to therapy I mean if you don't do life then why stay sober and you know what does it all get down to a search for God a search for God a search for God that's all it ever meant to me it's all that ever meant to me and even in my own haphazard way you know I'd work the steps and I would work them whatever way I wanted to for many years because you know I worked them based on how people had taught me when I was in trouble I'd reach for that step or that step or this step and every now and then I'd have like a really difficult time or a really dark period of my life or somebody would die or there would be great grief or great sadness and oh God I'd hit those books and I'd get that 12 and 12 And I would have this resurgence of energy as I would rededicate myself to the search and to the quest and to the peace of the only place I have ever known to give me peace is a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. It opens the door to all my spiritual changes. That's what happened because when I said, go to meetings for the rest of your life, and I started to go to meanings knowing I was going to be going to these stupid meetings for the rest of my life. I kind of like got in the program. I didn't even think not to go to meetings. They said, if you don't go to meetings, you're going to get drunk. Oh. Never questioned it. Questioned everything else. Never questioned that. Never questioned us. Still don't question it to this day. I was sitting at the Normandy and Wilshire meeting on a Sunday night. I was a few months sober. I Was sitting there. I felt this sense of quiet for the first time in my life, in my life, all the voices like went to sleep. They all got sober for like a split second and they all stopped talking. And I realized I was quiet and I realized I Was safe and I realized that I had found my seat and the things were quiet. Things were quiet from that day forth. Every time I went into a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous didn't matter what was going on as soon as I put the personalities aside and the people began to participate in the meetings and I could keep the personalities out of there, it's been a real challenge, then I would feel some peace. I knew that for an hour and a half nothing would happen to me. For an hour and a have nothing would happened to me." All those old things, I suppose they're on my mind because there's nothing else to do now for me. That's how I live my life. That is exactly how I go to meetings. I don't drink, I go to meetings, I read the big book in the 12 and 12 and I practice the principles that are expressed in the 12 steps and I don't go anywhere where I can't bring my God. And I have had to change every idea I've ever had, every belief I've never had and everything I've ever wanted to do in my life and review it because when you start to want to not go anywhere you can't bring your God well you know you really have to think about where you're going who you're with what you're doing and what's you know what kind of life do you really have? when I was 18 years sober and that dark period happened for me and I went back to the beginning and I read the book from the table of contents through the 164 pages and I wanted the 12 and 12 and I wrote it from the 12 and I started from the table of content through the 12 and 12 and I thought it's about time Lila that you started to work the steps in order it's a good time that you start to practice these principles in all your affairs not talk about them not go to meetings and discuss them not learn about them not intellectualize them not even just read about them Stop talking about them. Why don't you start practicing them? Why don'T you start practicing it? And you know what, I found out the word practice is a huge big thing. It's a responsibility. It really takes effort. The practice of sobriety, the practice of the habits of sobrietty. I was just lucky that in the first couple of years I was surrounded with the right group and the right people and the write things and thewrite everything on the grace of God so that I could just practice learning to live as a sober person. But after you've done that and you're about four or five, six, seven years sober and you start doing life, I don't know what happens for you but my self-sufficiency came back in such a gigantic way. It's lucky that I had room made room for God at all. If it wasn't for the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and the fact that I have some ability to share with the newcomers and had always done that, I would probably have really forgotten about God. Really forgotten. So it is no surprise to me now in retrospect the greatest gift of my sobriety is the ability to look back and now I can see what happened to me and why when I was in that critical point of my sobriety seven or eight years ago that I looked and I could not have that great reality deep within. Oh, I had God and I had angels and I did not feel it deep within me and I heard people on AA talk about that great morality deep within and I thought what is wrong with me? I'm a regular attendee of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings wherever I am. I periodically read the book. I pray regularly why don't I feel that deep within why don'T I sense that friend they call God in the big book friend, spirit of the universe why can'T I have all of those things and it was as if when I asked that question one night on my knees by the bed how can I feel this thing deep within I don'T have that what'S wrong with me how could I be sober all these years in Alcoholics Anonymous and not have that the critical time for me was at that moment, and I got down on my knees and I said, I don't get it I am not happy I don' t understand my life I'm supposed to be happy I've got all these things that are supposed to make you happy half these assholes are patting me on the back and want my life read a magazine that says you should have this life then why am I alone at 3 o'clock in the morning in my bed unhappy and when I got down on my knees that one given night it was as if the whole of heaven the heavens opened up and yelled down to me get out of the way and make room for God Make room for God. You want to be happy? Make room for God Oh and I have come to find how much I had not made room for God In such a sophisticated and subtle way I had given my power to so many things sober And I went back into that book and I read about powerlessness and I realized that the big book in the 12 and 12 in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous was for the living not for the dying it was for the living, it was not for the people who drank, it wasn't for the people who wanted to stay sober. It was a joy of living they talked about in there and I thought oh my god how do I get that? I don't have that. My insecurities were such that they made me successful I was driven by my insecurities I don' t deny that I'm an intelligent bright person but believe me the fire on my heels was not coming from my own self-motivation and desire to do God's will. It was coming from a tremendous amount of insecurities that were pushing me forward and I would get to the day where I would not need to be close to you at all ever. I was going to be so self-sufficient, sober. The fantasy of my drunken dreams was coming to reality in my sober life. I had become powerless over people, places, things, money, envy, jealousy. unbelievable what I had given power to. Sober. I was shocked when I realized how much power I had given away. Powerless. Powerlessness over this life that I thought was going to make it okay for me. Powerlessly over this relationship and all of it. Powerless and my life had become unmanageable sober and I knew and I know now what unmanageable feels like. And I began to practice, recognizing the first step in my life. Practice it. When was I giving away that power? Oh, was I shocked the day that I found out I was giving it away when I judged you. Boy, oh boy, that laid me wide open for you to judge me back and for me to accept it and feel it. Unbelievable. Powerless over judgment. Powerless over jealousy. Powerless over envy. Powerless over my anger. Powerless over the darkness. Powerless over the need for power. Powerless over my need for money. Powerless over my own ego. Powerless. Some of that is good now I have come to find out you need a little bit of everything but you need it in balance. When I got to the second step and realized that I had to really be restored, come back to believing that I could be restored to some sense of balance. Take me back. Give me some sanity. Give me some peace of mind. I didn't have peace of mine. I didn' t have money to buy what I wanted and no peace of mind. That's not supposed to be how it works. And I believed then that I would be restored to some sort of balance I used to see Jules at the meeting at Sunday Noon Ohio Street and the guy was so calm and peaceful and kind of like a well he's a curmudgeon but aside from that he had this sense of peace about him i just think jeez i really would like that and you know i've been talking to the guy you know for all those 20 something years and we've been through a lot of changes together our lives sort of parallel he would say you know 15 years after he does it i do it and uh it's true that's what happened and and yet he he seems to have this sense at calm about almost everything and You know, this too shall pass and live and let live and easy does it and I wanted to have that and I knew that I could be restored to that because I had felt that in the first year of my sobriety and even though many years had gone by I wantedto have that back. I wantedtogoback under the grace of God and not under thegrace of my own self-sufficiency. I had to make that big decision again. I make it every day now that bigdecision to turn my will and my life back over, my thinking. God, when I found out what I thought, it is no mistake to me that this is a disease of the mind. It is no mistakes to me that I can poison my thinking and get my... Because if I may take a drink, I'm going to make that decision to take that drink stone cold sober. I don't know any member of Alcoholics Anonymous who's gone out who didn't make the decision sober. They made the decision sober. Their mind was already gone. already jaywalking its way through so I can make a decision to stay the way I was I could make a decision to try to fix it myself I could make a decision to go to God and completely turn myself over and find out and have the courage to look at the fourth step and find out what is in the way what is in the way And I took an inventory and I take one now that's based on today. I don't go back to the beginning and write my life story. I look and I say, what's wrong with me today? If I can't remember it, it's not bothering me. A long time since my past has bothered me. But my day can bother me. What's in the way of God? What's blocking me from getting that? Now that I've made the decision to ask for the help, what's in a way of getting the help? What's there in the world? What's out in the ways of getting help? how do I get myself out of the way this sober person with all this information, with all these years in AA how do i unlearn all these things i have learned and get out oftheway so that i can have a sense of peace similar to what i had in the first year of my sobriety, how can i get back to live and let live, easy does it first things first but for the grace of god how can I get back under that umbrella of peace gotta find out what's in the way I wrote an inventory once there was nobody on it but me it was profound profound I found out that there's a few people on Alcoholics Anonymous that had the same pain that had to do with the same soul sickness that read the book and seemed to hear the same or feel the same things that I felt. I talked to them about this thing. They said to me, yeah, I've had that too. They talk about it in the book. I said, oh yeah. And I began to see the book was for today. Not for when I was drinking, but for today I go to the bitter end in my negativity today. If I don't stop it and make the decision before I go all the way I will be in a depression today. Talks about all that stuff in the books today. Talks about soul sickness today. So I talked to people who had this similar experience and they said to me, you know, if you want to practice living a day at a time you have to find out what the hell is bothering you today. It was a fantastic experience. I can't even explain what's happened in the last eight years other than the fact that I know what's bothering me practically to the minute. I can like say, oh wow, I'm powerless. Something's wrong with me. I feel unmanageable. I must be powerless over blah, blah, bla. Oh, got to get back in balance. You know, a little bit of fear, a little but of anger, a little of everything is acceptable. But when I'm out of balance and my instincts are awry, when my sexual instincts, my security instincts or my social instincts are out of balanced, when I am letting you affect my life and blaming you for it, something's out of bounds. I've got to make a decision to get out of the way. Get out of way. Ruth King said years and years ago, Ruth K., excuse me, every problem is a spiritual problem, thus every solution is a spiritual solution. She said it seven years ago I have never forgotten it it became the sense of my life I realized that if every problem is a spirit then I am powerless over every problem every problem will make me unmanageable until I decide that I must make that decision to turn that problem over and the only way that problem is going to be solved is from a spiritual point of view and I cannot do that by myself anymore and I don't want to do that by myself and I do not do it as well as when God and I do it together so I have to say to myself what is in the way. Talk to somebody who can say specifically, this is what's in the way, Lila. You were a creep. You shouldn't have done that. Oh yeah, yeah, yes. Why did I do that? Did it again. Did it again. No, no, no. You didn't just do it again, you've been thinking about it for a week. Okay. It's been building up. It's been coming. And then I can be willing to be entirely ready because I can actually now say to myself for a week you've been doing this and you know what? It's okay because I'm just a human being trying the best I can and I love myself anyway even when I'm a creep. Took me seven years to learn to love myself when I was a creep and accept myself no matter what kind of thinking I have or no matter how I feel or no mater what happens to me accept myself for judging you accept myself for judging me doesn't make any difference. And when I found out that I could become entirely ready if I accepted myself, it was so easy to say help me and kick in that seventh step. I found about the seventh step that if I make room and I feel unmanageable and I believe that I can be restored and I make the decision to ask for help and I find out what the hell I'm doing wrong and I talk to somebody to make sure I can Be specific about that not a general huge giant thing. And I could say, gee, this thing is out of balance again. I don't care though. I love myself anyway. I accept that I'm that way. So this is the way I am. I'm still the best me I've ever been. Automatically the seventh step just rushes into my life. Rushes in. And as I began to practice that stuff it started to rush in. And you know when it started to brush in I started to feel something deep within me. And if in the time that I was being a little creep in that week that I was doing whatever I was doing I heard anybody along the way well hell I'd go out there and make an amend readily but most of the time well I didn't really harm you that much unless I took your time or your energy or stole your emotional space most of the time what I did is I have to amend my own thinking and say Lila it's your thinking you're killing yourself it's your fear you're killing yourself it's your worry you're worried what business do I have to worry about the results that are up to my God Haven't I learned by now? Forget results. It's not my job to worry about the results of my life. When am I going to? Where am I doing this? When is it going to happen? Blah, blah, blah. None of my business. For 18 years I made finding the answer my business it almost spiritually killed me. For the last 7 years I have made the question my business the question that I bring to my God the question on the 11th step when I go to sleep at night or before I go our dear great spirit and I date it 2-21-1997 what do I do about this? how do I handle this? what, when, where, how, why? will I, should I, can I? do you think it's time? I ask about everything I ask you I ask for monumental problems and I ask about the most insignificant thing you can think of. I ask everything, I put everything that troubles me in the form of a question I write it down, the question I say thank you for my sobriety help me to maintain it, I need and love you, Lila, scrunch it up and throw it in the trash I go to sleep and I expect a miracle laughter I've had them I'm used to them miracle, if a miracle is a change in perception then I've had a million miracles since I've been on AA and when I'm asleep I expect that whoever has gone on before me this is my spiritual thing well they're going to come and tap me on the shoulder and say listen to the answer to your question or you need more information and I'm going to get all the knowledge that I could possibly require while I'm sleep and if it doesn't come while I am asleep if they don't teach me, if the angels don't come and dance around the room or whatever, then when I go out the next morning, I expect that I'm going to run into one of you and you're going to tell me. Or I expect that I am going to read the paper and it will be there. I believe in miracles. I expect them. I expect that answer. It's happened to me so repeatedly in the last number of years that I don't know how not to expect the answer. And my God has never disappointed me. I expect an answer. my job is to get the hell out of the way so that when the answer is there I notice it and if I'm worried and I'm troubled and I am trying to figure it all out and I worry whether I am going to live or I am going to die whether I'm going to have enough money or I'm not going to have enough money whether my nephew is going to live or he's going to die whether this is going to happen or that's going to happen you know what that answer is going to knock on the door and I am going to not hear it I have been promised the answer. In the big book, they talk about the inability to receive, receive, receive. We run around AA, give, give give, I gave, gave, almost killed myself. Receive, receive Do you know how hard it is to receive? It requires doing nothing. The most spiritually profound thing I've ever done is nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Pray and get out of the way. I'm getting bored with drunkologues especially my own I want to hear about how to live sober when I talk now that's what I'm going to talk about people don't want to hear it they'll stop asking me to talk I'll talk to somebody else doesn't matter to me I have had a spiritual awakening as the result of working these steps in order every day many times a day I believe to pray is to ask and to meditate is to make room for the answer it requires the kind of meditation that can happen in a minute I have to do all of those steps by the time the guy cuts me off and I choose to kill him that's the tenth step for me, quick I'm powerless over this son of a bitch I'm going to kill them I better be restored to some sense of balance because right now my wheel is shaking in the car I'm going to turn this over right now because I'm out of control I'm disconnected from my God what is wrong with you Lila well damn it I'm late and a lot of other things are happening oh yeah ok, ok ok God I accept that I screwed up I got up too late I didn't plan blah, blah, bla, blah but so what I'm a wreck please help me seven step please help me please help me please help me please help me enough please help me the guy's gone and then I have to say I wish that son of a bitch all the health happiness and prosperity that I wish for myself then I'm back to ten and I can say okay what do I need to do to calm down how am I really going to handle this situation that I'm driving to that's got me uncomfortable What's really wrong with me? What do I do about this? Is it time to do that? Should I approach it this way? What do you think? And a thousand questions come into my mind. A thousand questions come into mine. And I stop all my own response. And I have another spiritual awakening in the car as a result of those steps. And I get calm and I believe that I have been restored to some sort of balance and that things are going to be okay. And that if I just go there and not worry about how it's going to work out and what the results are going to be and I put one foot in front of the other and show up that it will be fine and that in front of me will be a cast of thousands from the spiritual universe that I believe in and there'll be a thousand behind me and everything that I need will be presented to me and I will be fined because there is absolute perfect order in my God's world it is no negativity everything's perfect And when I go there, the answer will reveal itself. I just have to go say, how do I do this to make it be of service to myself and service to other people and do the best job that I can possibly do right now? Now, I don't know about you, but that's a spiritual awakening for me to even be willing to think like that. To get out of my car, dust myself off, go in there and just go in like another person. Not the way I did a few years ago with a cast of thousands out of a giant limousine. Power, power, power. It worked, let me tell you. People like that crap. Not anymore. I stepped off that world because I was dying. All the power I need now is deep within me. I was sitting in a meeting not too long ago. Kabi Selby said, I don't pray to God. I pray from God I started to burst into tears in the meeting from God I realized I'm praying from God I have it I have a deep reality deep within I got it I got through the steps of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous I have had a spiritual awakening as a result of what? The steps, not the meetings not the people, not the book not the bullshit. All that is just keeps me here. All that stuff just keeps my here. I have had a spiritual awakening as a result of the steps by myself with my God. Thank you for all the help but the bottom line is I did it with my god. If it hadn't been for you I would have died and I would've been a drunk and I probably would've lived a long time as a drunk but I wouldn't have gotten it. And in AA I would have had some sort of peace that I would been depending on you But you know what it didn't happen for me till I did the steps Till I made them my own till I wore them till I understood that stuff till I listened to what you said and said yes Does that apply to me can do as a result of these steps? And this is it carried this message what message not my drunk-a-log not all this wonderful shit that happened to me It's just carrying this message to alcoholics the message the message for me is simple is getting simpler every day. The message is, I figured out how to work these steps for me. They change every day, I could give you a whole new talk next year, it would be all different, but one thing will be the same, I'll be working the steps, I'll been figuring out a new way, I'll being getting a deeper sense of that God. That's my message. Practice these principles in all your affairs. What principles? The steps. The guy cut me off, I'm powerless. I mean, that's my life. I practice the steps in all my affairs, they have become the principles of my life. My life is easier. My life ist more comfortable. My life if far from perfect because half the time I take it right back. They used to say turn it over, turn itover, turn itoever, turnitover. I don't know when you got sober but I heard it a lot. Turn it over. You don't have to wait 18 years to find out how to turn it oever. and then you don't have to wait seven years to find out that God readily takes it I live in the question of life everything is a question I could care less about the results I don't know if you know what that means for someone like me but I was that kind of person that had to know I had to no when I was drinking I had no idea I had not to know where all the booze was coming from I have never related to the alcoholic who didn't know where their next drink was coming form how fucking stupid but to not know where your next drink is coming from. If you're an alcoholic, how can you not know where your Next Drink is coming From? If you are so remember of Alcoholics Anonymous, how can You not know where Your Next Prayer is coming Form? How can You Not know where Your next miracle is coming form? How can you Not expect a miracle? I live in expectations of miracles all the time. I don't care if I have good days or bad days. At the end of the day, I will have experienced a miracle. I am now in the practice in my life of noticing my miracles. I've seen yours for 27 years. I look at you, Dory, and I know what it feels like to have a miracle. I know we're sober and that we made it. I look up at you and I'm like, I look down at Lila and I see her go through all sorts of things and my heart goes out and we made It. I look to my friends and I get to know them better and I like them. That's a big deal. I see people that I know go out of their way to work with 12 step you know go outta their way beyond the call I see Francis give her time at these kind of meetings I mean I see all of these things I expect that I can count on you can I count on me to get out of the way and make room for God it's gonna be a lifelong journey and I'm glad to share with you thank you We hope you've enjoyed this recording. To obtain additional copies, receive a free catalog of A.A. and Al-Anon talks, or to find out about our Tape and CD of the Month Club, call Encore Audio Archives at 1-800-878-1308 or visit our website at www.12steptapes.com.