The Insanity of the Alcoholic Mind Wilson House Big Book Workshop Retreat – With Valerie D. & John S. – Part 2 of 4

You came in and missed last night, so you're like, oh my god, we're not here. We're not, you know. You can access that. And I think that is everything critical that I needed to communicate with all of you. So, I'm going to turn it over to Valerie and John. We're really excited to have them this weekend, so let's give them a warm welcome. Cheers! Warm. Thank you. Are we starting or am I starting? Ladies first, yeah. Morning. So I hope everybody slept well. Kelly came up to me because I'm a little tired this morning, so if I make no sense, it makes no sense. She goes, that'll make you vulnerable. On the inside, I'm like, yeah, you know what I think of vulnerability? Stick it right in the butt. Anyway, I'm not a vulnerable girl. So I am Valerie. I am still an alcoholic. Valerie. Glad to be here this morning. Glad we're over here. I like this room. This room has some nice juju. So we're going to talk about step two. You know, when John was sharing last night, one of the things he talked about was, and I don't know what it is about the three-year miracle, But for me, when I hit three years, my life was a train wreck in AA. No car, no job, no money, no place to live, all my stuff in little green garbage bags. I didn't have the current model year car or an apartment or any of that other stuff. And I was really wondering if AA worked and if all the stuff that I would hear in meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous and that my sponsor would tell me was really true. I was starting to have some serious doubts about this AA business. And I thought, honestly, that I was fully participating in AlcoholicsAnonymous as well. Through God's grace, I got to meet a woman by accident at a conference their regular speaker had to cancel for some reason and so they got this woman to come in and last minute they asked me if I would host her and I said yes and went and picked her up and anyway, I'm telling her my sad story because self-pity is my best friend as well and I love to play the victim and I was telling her my story of why AA sucks and why it doesn't work and why the people in AA are horrible people and, you know, judgmental people, which we are, but that's besides the point. But anyway, I was just really disillusioned. And she just, you now, listened to me and then she looked at me and she sounded like a bad Louisiana psychic when she said it. She goes, you're going to die. You're goingto die unless you get into all three parts of AA. You're just going to dying. And I'm like, well, I didn't know what she was talking about. I had no clue what she Was talking about her circle and triangle. And I had never heard that before. So anyway, she started talking to me about, let's talk about what you're doing in AA. Tell me about what You're actually doing here with the steps. How have you taken the steps? What have you done? what work have you really done and the answer was is this is the readers digest version because you know of course I spin a story to put myself in the best light what I told her as well on inventory there are things I've never ever ever gonna tell another human being ever and you know we talked through that and and she said are you current on your amends have you made your amens and I'm I'm like, well, no. And there are amends that I will never, ever, ever make. Ever. As a matter of fact, they owe me. And I'm certainly not parting with any money. That's definitely not happening. So she talked about, you know, we talked through that And she asked me about the 12-step prayer and meditation and all that other stuff. And I'm like, you know, I'll help another alcoholic when it's basically what I was saying is when it convenient. And then we started looking at my participation in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And she told me that AA was not my personal hunting ground, which I was deeply offended. And we talked about a home group, about being a part of an active home group. I was not a part of an act of home group at that time. AA was still very much about hanging out with my friends in some ways. It wasn't about having a commitment, having a job, being of service, any of that other stuff. And then we looked at service and I already told you guys last night what my version of helping others was. And the reality is that I didn't want to be personally inconvenienced. And, I mean, I've got story after story after story that I could share with you where I was not kind to people in AA saying I would show up to pick you up and take you to a meeting and I don't show up because something else came up or I just don't feel like it and you're a 20-minute drive away. Stuff like that. That's how selfish and self-centered I can be without a relationship with my creator. And that's how I treated the people in AA, and I was just very much a taker in Alcoholics Anonymous. And then I was wondering why AA did not work, and why I wasn't getting any better, why I felt suicidal, why I'd go from one end of being suicidal to just homicidal rage on me on the other side I would just go into just blind rages and and when I sober up I am angry and I am violent hmm and I've had the cops called on me in sobriety several times because if I get scared enough if I feel threatened enough I will come after you physically and I did it so I'm not proud of that that, but that's the kind of person that showed up to AA. That's what some of the brokenness looked like within me, just terrified of living, didn't know how to live, terrified of having a relationship with a God of my understanding. You know, I loved what John talked about last night. I mean, this idea of powerlessness is not a comfortable idea for me. It can be a really uncomfortable idea for me today and I know that I know and have experience with a spiritual way of life being my answer and will still be defiant about it and unwilling so when I first when I started working with her initially she said I asked her for help because I heard Hope, when I heard her tell her story, she talked about being 12 years sober in her house waiting for her old man to walk through the door. She had a shotgun and she was just waiting for the old boy to walk Through the Door because she was going to blow the old Boy away. I'm like, I love you. I relate to you. I mean, I understood that kind of, I understand that. I understood that kind of control anger fear rage I got it and not feeling like you have any other options so I asked her if she would help me and and that's when you know she said well this is if you want my help this is what it's gonna look like and it's you choose and there was no now this is what I needed. What somebody else needs is purely your experience. I needed somebody who was incredibly direct with me that was louder than my head. My head was very loud and very defiant, even though I had nowhere else to go because I was so scared. And I was so scared of finding this God thing. I really had a lot of old ideas about God. So what helped me and what has kept me sober and I love what John said about last night, you know, how much they spend so much time on step one. I mean more time on step one than they do any other step because someone like me just has to be level where every possible machination that my mind can come up with is met and questioned, and that's what she did with me. She sat down and thoroughly took me through that first step as it's outlined in the book and turned those statements into questions, and she asked me about, you know, my drinking and really had me think about my experience because for so long it was my consequences that made me alcoholic you know it was there was not a lot of talk don't move I'm not messing up your mojo yeah it's all right I'll take what restore the juju yeah pat me on the head again you're so pretty thanks I love you we just have the mutual admiration society he admires me it's good enough I give him some back so anyway but so she just took me through that process and I was you know and just back then just a lot of the you know the allergy in the middle of session was not described in a means is all about your consequences and how you felt and that's what made you alcoholic. So when I went through that process with her, it changed my life, changed my sobriety and literally like no later visistitude or life coming to visit in sobriete, and it has been painful at times in sobriet,y painful painful, has shaken my experience in alcoholics now. It's my willingness to be here, the knowledge that I'm an alcoholic, that I am beyond human aid, that there is nothing I can do to fix myself and I got that at depth, at that so it's so important I so agree with you know when people are struggling or if they're leaving you know they've got rigorous honesty stuff the lack of that's going on and they they forget their first step no I know I know and have surrendered to that in that process I really surrendered and knew that i was an alcoholic of the hopeless variety and that there was nothing i could do to you know rearrange my body chemistry so i didn't have that kind of response to alcohol and there was certainly nothing i can do about that mental obsession it was bigger than me because i had tried to fix that mental obsession many times and had brought lots of human power to bear on that obsession and my issues so it was I was it was smashed home so when I went into the second step I'm like there better be a God there better be one and I'm not you know on necessarily speaking friendly terms with that power right now? Because to me, when I looked at people in AA, what I saw was these people that were getting this spiritual thing so easily. Why was it happening for them? Why were they getting it and I wasn't getting it? And why is their life getting better and my life isn't getting better? They must have some kind of special connection to God. And then from there, my head's like, well, God must play favorites then. There must be the haves and the have-nots, and I'm always going to be a have-not. If you don't do this stuff perfectly, then you're not going to get yours. You're not gonna get any relief. I'm not gonna get any release from my mind. You know, God's got a, you know, the spiritual scorecard up there, and he's keeping track of who's doing it right and who'sdoing it wrong, and if you do it wrong there's no grace, and you're just screwed, andyou're gonna suffer. I mean, that was my idea of a power greater than myself, and those were all of my old ideas. And thank God for those prayers that they give us throughout. We agnostics about me setting aside what I think I know, that maybe what I think is true is not. And my God, we do a lot of that on the spiritual path. Like we hear so much in the rooms, you know, spiritual life is more about subtraction, not addition. and I had a lot of subtractions that needed to happen and I'm fairly intelligent I love stuff that satisfies the mind I would love to read a good book and poof myself I mean, I love this moral and philosophical convictions galore love that stuff but unfortunately for somebody like me it's like mental masturbation and you never orgasm you get real real close but you ain't coming baby I mean, it's awful. It's awful because I love stuff that satisfies the mind. I really want some power to fix myself. I really do. It's my dream. But, you know, that's not what we do here. You know, as Jerry would say, well, you can do that. it's not what we do but you can do that I hate that answer so but anyway I really understood this one of my favorite lines in the big book in We Agnostics is lack of power that's our dilemma we had to find a power by which we could live just live and it had to be a power greater than ourselves I mean that I held on to that Kind of like that flimsy reed. I was holding on to the words in We Agnostics and what they were sharing about that experience like it was a flimsey reed, praying that I was going to have this experience that everybody else seemed to be getting and I wasn't. So I was absolutely an agnostic and going through that process was hugely beneficial to me in setting aside my old ideas and identifying what they were and finding some hope in that, that there was hope here for me. You know, I had to let go of the idea of doing it perfectly. You know I suffer with that perfectionism stuff And all that really means is that, you know, I'm not teachable. Because if you're perfect, if you've got it down, there's nothing anybody can tell you because you've got it already. You're perfect. And that's kind of what I wanted. But, you now, it's not going to happen. So going through this process was just hugely, hugely beneficial. I'm going to pass it to you. Thanks, Val. I'm John Shires. I'm an alcoholic. Thank you, Valerie. Thank you. You know, that's great stuff. Something Valerie just said about perfection I just want to touch on briefly. Am I blowing it out too loud, guys? Should I make an adjustment over here? Sounds a little wacky. Wackaboodle. About perfection. And it's really easy to get in here and start doing this and maybe even get some good results, you know, and start to have a spiritual awakening and start the path is being walked and things are coming along okay and I'm good. And then you suddenly hit a brick wall, you know, and you do something really boneheaded and maybe really in a public way that everyone in your group sees, God forbid. That's what's supposed to happen. That's why I want to say about that. I get into self-pity. Self-pitty is so great. That feels good. It feels amazing. Because I kind of want to be a victim. I kind OF want it to be everybody else's fault but mine. And that's what victimization looks like for me. Victims never get well. I got to get rid of being a victim, I was a victim for a long time. But the self-pitty of, oh man, I'm however many years sober and here's where I go. I'm never going to get well. I've been well. I've done the steps. I've sponsored people. I've doing this, and now I'm right back where I always was. She left me, and my boss fired me, and I'm embarrassed. I embarrass myself. I said the wrong thing. I put my foot in my mouth in front of a bunch of people, and I am just an idiot. I am stupid. To me, that is normal. That is normal alcoholism, and I just want to throw that out there, and I will tell some stories on myself as we go through the weekend about things that I have done boneheadedly many years sober. But there is no magic bullet in this deal, right? We're going to talk later about the daily reprieve, you know? If I do the work today, I will stay sober today. Some days I'm going to stay sober and be pretty miserable, but it's sobriety that we're shooting for here. We do get well-er in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't think we get well in Alcoholic Anonymous, we get Weller. And I want to tell a story. A lot of y'all will know this great old timer we lost a few years ago sandy beach and alcoholics anonymous one of my personal aa heroes i listen to that guy all the time i've seen him talk 10 15 times over the years amazing amazing guy amazing man so i'm in an aa conference in florida and sandy is talking and he's uh the guy who's running the conference um has this uh he has this audio he's doing little audio clips these have like Clips from Bill Wilson and clips from Dr. Bob and stuff. Before each of the sessions starts, he plays a little two-minute long clip of some sort of AA history. It's a pretty nifty deal. And one of the things he played was this short clip. Some of you will know this. I Stand By The Door by Sam Shoemaker, who was one of those clergymen who was so close to their early old-timers and one of Bill's spiritual advisors. And he played this little audio clip of Sam Shoemer reading this kind of poem that he wrote called I Stand by The Door. And it goes like this. I stand by the door. I neither go too far in nor stay too far out. The door is the most important door in the world. It is the door through which men walk when they find God. There is no use my going way inside and staying there when so many are still outside and they, as much as I, crave to know where the door is. And all that so many ever find is only the wall where the doorway is. They creep along the wall like blind men with outstretched groping hands feeling for a door knowing there must be a door yet they never find it So I stand by the door and there's a lot more to it. It goes on and on and on and it's pretty nifty stuff to bring Jerry back at the spirit of Elkins back into it. So anyway, they played the audio clip of this thing. Sandy is probably 40 years sober, by the way, at this time. He's like sunday morning and so they played The audio clip in this thing and then sandy was going to speak and sandy comes out actually with saturday night because he apologized the next morning for what he what I'm about to relate and he got up there and he goes, I don't know where that came from. Don't stand by the door go all the way and that's totally stupid. And I guess he didn't know what it was. And then I guess someone enlightened him later that day about what it was the next morning, he got up and said, I just want to apologize for being such an alcoholic jerk last night, just throwing sham shoemaker under the bus. So we don't we get Weller in this deal. We don't get you know, we don' get well, we don't arrive, we never arrive, right? It's a journey, not a destination. That's one of those Hallmark greeting card things that used make me want to first came to Alcoholics Anonymous but I believe that that is true and I think that's what they mean when we say we have a daily reprieve based on the maintenance that we do today and we're gonna talk about that a little further I'm jumping ahead so you can dock me 30 days sobriety for that it's step two and like I said last night it's hard for me to talk about two without one and three you know and in the book like Valerie pointed out you know it's just it's so one one one 1 1 1 one one 2 and 1 1 one and two and two because they're kind of easing us into they could i don't know what you guys were like when you got here i was raised in the church i was reconfirmed in my church at the age of 13 and my mom said at that time now it's up to you on sunday mornings i'm not gonna like chase you out of bed and get you showered and dressed to get to church it'sup to you if you want to go and from that day to this i basically slept in on sundAY morning and i just i it was okay church was okay but I did not feel anything there like other people seem to feel there you know and I kind of had some judgments about it and I won't get into the whole thing I don't have time but but I stopped going and thought it was stupid you know. And so when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous and you know you don't want to be here long before you realize somehow somewhere somewhere or another this is about God and I just know that they're gonna come out with the pink pajamas and the tambourines any second. So I don' t want to join your cult is what I was, you know, thank you. Actually the first AA meeting that I ever went to in my life, one of my little brothers was on a pass from rehab and we have a big alcoholic family and he said, hey come to this meeting with me. You know, so I said okay, I'll go to this stupid meeting. So the meeting turned out to be in the fellowship hall of the church that I grew up going to. Okay, so i'm like great religion and not only that but it was actually a nun was telling her story. A nun wearing a black habit, you know, in a big crucifix was telling her story that night. And she was actually pretty funny. You know, she was smuggling booze into the convent and all this kind of stuff. Alcoholic nun, who knew? But whatever, it was in a church. It was religious. It was a nun. You know. I didn't know. You know I don't know anything about AA. So whatever. I was turned off by it. And I had a lot of judgments. I'm an intellectual. Okay. I have actually got credentials. I was an intellectual before I had credentials, but I actually have credentials today. So I overthink everything. I think way too much and act way too little. And having a high IQ is a major liability in Alcoholics Anonymous, especially when you're new. I love to think. I love To be philosophical and all this kind of stuff. Major liability. in a nutshell step two works like this for me I watch you guys and when I hear your stories and you are no longer where you used to be and where you use to be sounds a lot like where I was I think that's where step two starts to happen for a guy like me again the stories the power of the AAA talk the power our stories is what really turns the trick more often than not for the new guy you know if the fellowship is the first thing that i see it's the first thing that I'm attracted to um here's something about step two that kind of got baffled me um you know I'm going to be restored to sanity it says now when we talk about sanity and Alcoholics Anonymous and when we talked about insanity in Alcoholics Anonymous what you usually hear you know let's talk about the insanity of alcohol as well You know, you hear car wrecks and broken marriages and, you know, battered spouses and battered children and lost jobs and jail time and DUIs and all that kind of stuff. And we all have that kind OF stuff. Most of us have a lot of that kind Of stuff. But that's not the insanity, you Know, that we need to really understand. And I missed that for years coming around here. the real insanity is this based on my experience and my history for me to ever pick up a drink or any other mind-altering substance based on My History is completely and totally insane because every time I drink you know I burn it right to the ground and it might happen in very short period of time or slightly longer period of time but it always happens every time regardless so it's insane for me take a drink but I always take another drink why is that that's the real insanity that we, you know, so when we go through more about alcoholism and there is a solution, we talk about all this stuff about the mind of the alcoholic. You know, I remember what I'm supposed to forget and I forget what I am supposed to remember. You now, I don't have the power to bring into my consciousness the reasons for not drinking when I want to drink. You know matter of fact there's certain memories that come flashing back that are really killer ones you know like that party in 1986 you know where we had all of the money and we had all of it booze and we had all the girls we had although stuff and you know and no one got hurt yeah and that the power of that drink when you are in that place where you are totally sober totally dry and you want to drink and you take a drink and go man that's immense power that is immense power for an alcoholic you know from the first time i drank at 13 and had that experience right till the last now the power at the end was limited because really it was limited to about 20 minutes it was about 20 moments of relief maybe and maybe not even that you know before I couldn't get drunk and so when you can't get drunk and you can get loaded no matter how much you do that's a really rotten place to be and you go right to blackout you know and so all your money got spent for nothing you know when you wake up the next day broke and relief lists that's terrible terrible place to beat to not be able to get the relief. The one thing, power. Lack of power. That's our dilemma. Alcohol is not even my problem. Alcohol and drugs that I did were not my problem. The problem is that I don't have the power to live. And the thing that I used for all those years to make me, I could go out there and I could march through life. I want to tell you all something. I can go out here today and I can be okay. I've got some spiritual tools. I've gotta sponsor. I'm reasonably sponsorable, you know? I've Got Sponsees. I'VE GOT A HOME GROUP. I'VE GOT, YOU KNOW, I' VE GOT STUFF. I VE GOT SOME TOOLS THAT YOU GUYS HAVE GIVEN ME, THAT THIS BOOK HAS GIVen ME. I GOT A CONNECTION TO A POWER GRADER THAN MYSELF TODAY, AND I CAN GO OUT THERE IN THE WORLD, ANDI CAN BE OKAY. BUT THE TRUTH IS, I'M REALLY STILL NOT THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I'M NOT COMFORTABLE OUT THERE. AT WORK, OKAY, I WORK WITH A BUNCH OF REALLY NIFTY PEOPLE, I work with a bunch of cool guys and gals I'm a research scientist And I work for a bunch Of really bright people And they're goofy And they are science nerds And I am a goofy weird science nerd And nonetheless When we stand around the water cooler I cannot be myself with them The way I can be right here now In front of you You can't say stuff to them That we say to each other Like casually They would want to put you away you know I can say stuff to you guys and you just grin and nod uh-huh yeah yeah and you can't say that stuff out there you know so I know even today 28 years sober you know i'm still not i'm still alcoholic i'm still i'm still weird you know i'm a weirdo i'm square peg i don't fit out there i am capable of going out there you know girded up with the tools of this program you know and i can be fine I can be okay, but I'm still not one of them. I'm one of y'all, and we have this thing together, this shared problem, this shared solution, hopefully the shared solution too. But lack of power is my problem. And when I was talking last night about, and Val kind of mentioned it, about getting the stuff, mistaking sobriety for getting my external circumstances straightened out. You know, if I can get the legal stuff straightened out and the tax stuff straighted out and the money stuff straightend out and marriage straightened out and girl and the car and house and get all that stuff. And I got all that at three years sober, you know? My externals were good at three year sober but none of that stuff is a treatment for alcoholism. None of that's stuff is, there's no power in it. There's just brief senses of like good, feeling good. That new car smell. I said, I'll keep you sober for about seven days. you know that new car smell the shine wears off of all that stuff you know what i'm saying that new hot girlfriend that'll keep you sober for seven days you know but the shine wear is off you know doesn't matter how i mean it's kind of a crude thing to say but i'll say this anyway because uh y'all can relate to this um i don't care show me the hottest girl in the world and i'll show you at least one guy who's tired of being with her you know and if he's an alcoholic he got tired of dealing with her very quickly which is why there's so much infidelity in alcoholic relationships. We're insane, and I need something to make me right. And the thing that made me right for years was the bottle, you know, and that doesn't work anymore. So I've got to find something else. I've Got to find a sufficient substitute for what I gave up, for the power supply that I gave off when I came in here. And I only gave it up because I had to. It was because I felt the heat, not because I saw the light. you know I didn't come here and there's no virtue in you know an alcoholic coming sometimes people clap you know we say oh I'm John I'm 28 years sober oh my god 28 years you're sober honey that's amazing look at him you know but the God's honest truth is that clapping for an alcoholic who's not drinking is like clapping for a cowboy with hemorrhoids for not riding his horse It is totally, there's no virtue in that, right? And if just not drinking helped, it doesn't actually, my problem really truly begins when I put the bottle down. Okay? Because I put down the last, there is not much power left there, but it's all I know and I put that down. So what am I going to do? I got to find, in the next little bit in that paragraph says, I gotto find a power by which I can live. It has to be a power greater than myself, obviously. It wasn't obvious to me right away. It took me sponsoring, becoming sponsorable. And then the next bit says, well, that's what the book is about. That's exactly what the books is about, The whole object of the book, it's power. It's to enable me to find a power that will enable me to live. I got to find the power. Now that's terrifying. Even when you're desperate. Even when your desperate. Because on the one hand, y'all ever heard Ralph White talk? Some of y'alls might have heard Ralph Whyte. Ralph Whytes from Los Angeles. Terrific, terrific guy. Terrific AA member. And he says, there's that line, right? To live on a spiritual basis or die an alcoholic death are not easy alternatives to face. Well, if they're not easy alternative to face, it means you're an insane person. because for a sane person though given those choices alcoholic death or life on a spiritual basis it's not it's a no-brainer life on a spiritual base is clearly infinitely better than an alcoholic death right but we look at those choices and go you know and why do we do that because they I'll tell you why because they seem about the same don't they yeah seem about this or worse At least over here, I had the occasional 30-minute nugget of relief. Occasionally, I get a little bit because it's not necessarily every single time right away. I sometimes do get to lay back on the couch and go, okay, it's going to get better. But over here is spiritual unknown stuff, and we come in here with all these childhood experiences of different things, religion and stuff. My big thing, when I threw away religion at 13, so I turned 13 in 1982. And that was the era of the big time, the early televangelist era. You had Jim and Tammy Faye Baker. And remember those guys? Some of y'all, I'm dating myself, obviously, for some of the younger crowd. And what was the other guy? Jimmy Swaggart. Yeah. There were three or four or five of them, right? Yeah. And there was sort of this series of scandals. It came out that they were all sleeping with prostitutes and siphoning money away from their parishioners and just a lot of scandalous stuff. A lot of fun stuff, yeah. Oh, so much fun. And if I was in that position, I'm sure I would have done it. As an alcoholic, I know I would haven't. Especially the prostitues. Tell the truth. But I just lumped all that together. Okay, and you have disbelief over here, which is kind of where I think I was. You know, I wasn't really an atheist because you've got to study to be an atheist. You've gotto read books and have arguments and stuff. And I was agnostic because of laziness. All right. A lazy atheist. I'm a lazy atheist, and that's why I'm an agnóstic. Disbelief over there. And then over here you had crazy cult. And everything for alcoholics is black and white. but there's no gray areas you know it turns out actually this is my experience almost everything in life is gray areas and there's very few black and whites there's death and taxes and a couple of other things that are black and white but you know uh most of life where we actually live it is gray area there's just different experiences and different things but um but that's how it was it was like if i to accept any spiritual help was jim and tammy faye baker and crazy cult you know like Charles Manson and Jim and Tammy Faye and all religion was all lumped together in crazy cult for me that was my perception at the time and thank God for good sponsorship and thank god for the big book because my sponsor walked me through this book and said look man, all it says is here you've got to be willing to believe that there might be a power greater than yourself you don't even have to believe that there is just that there may be that's all I have to believe really? Yeah, that's what the book says which is why, one of the many, many reasons for me why the book is so critically important. That's, I need a broad door to walk through on this, okay? I need it. I need to have a really broad door. If someone had said, you know, you have to take Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal savior, I would have been dead today because that's how defiant I am. I'd rather die than buy into what I think is your BS, you know about religion. so yeah drink the kool-aid oh yeah and I don't know yeah exactly and I'm all about the Kool-Aid today you guys got some killer Kool Aid and I've been drinking it but um yeah so you became willing to believe yeah I think that's all I have to say on step two and we hadn't actually formally talked about it what do we go to what to 1015 in the session yeah so I think we should finish up oh no I was just gonna say you know my problem your problem you know when they talk about in the big book when it was explained to me I was like oh when they talked about the Alpha and the Omega I mean I really believed if I thought it it must be true that that's all there is because it's what I generated my reliance on my own mind even though it was faulty and insane was what I was terrified to let go of terrified and then you know they they talk about well now you got to turn your will in your life over to this care of this power that you're afraid of and And it's that, but do you have any other alternative? Is there an option C, you know, besides alcoholic death leading a spiritual life? Because, you knows, I like unspiritual shit. You know what I mean? And I was afraid of what God was going to ask me to do. I was really afraid of that. I don't want this, and I have an idea of what my life should look like. But now you're telling me I've got to abandon that, I've Got to abandon this, I've GOT TO JUST COME LIKE A CHILD AND VULNERABLE AND PITIFUL AND WEAK YOU KNOW, I CAN'T DO IT. WHAT AN ORDER. YOU KNOW AND I'VE GOT TO SURRENDER ALL THIS. I'M LIKE OH MY GOD, WHAT IF GOD WANTS ME TO BE A NUN IN SOUTH AMERICA AND NEVER HAVE SEX OR MONEY AGAIN IN MY LIFE? you know and thank God for sponsorship my sponsor said well if that happens to you that is infinitely better than what you got going on right now which was true I had no car no job no money no place to live all my stuff in green garbage bags my relationships were right yeah would have been infinitely better then what I had created you know with my best think it you know I love something that Don used to say and I think about it a lot in today too it's like you know i gave it my best shot my best shop the best I could bring to bear with my this is this power source up here between these years and I failed I gave it shot and I feel it and now I I relate to that of really having great ideas and great plans and it in not having the power to pull it off or it's not where I'm supposed to be but I want to make it fit because it's what I want and I'm afraid to surrender to a power greater than myself it can be terrifying to to let go just let go and trust trust that it's better than anything I can come up with I mean I can't come up with some pretty interesting stuff so it's hard to let go of you know and it usually involves you know hot men lots of money power prestige knowing everything designer label stuff I mean it's all outward appearance it's always stuff so letting go and saying alright I give up I'm in enough pain And I have nowhere else to go. And I love you people, like he was talking about. And you guys seem to have an answer that I will let go. And I'll let God be my director. I'll Let God Be My Agent. I'llLet God BeMy Father. You know, I had put a lot of human characteristics on my creator. You know? And lo and behold, God's not human. But all the characteristics of mean, vindictive, punishing, withholding, all that stuff were human characteristics that I'd put on that power greater than myself. And I had to let all that go so I could turn my will over to the, what do they call it, the care and love? Or what does that say? Third step. You should know this. What are you asking? In the third step. In the first step. Care and protection. Oh. I mean, those are nice words. You know? Those are nice things. I'm turning my will, my thought life, everything I hope to become, I'm putting that all in my creator's hands, saying do with this what you want. I let go of what I want now, of what it is that I want. Of what I think I should be, of what i think I need to do. Scary, scary stuff. because what if it's something I don't like and trusting that the power will be given to me to carry that out being willing to start taking some other actions to clear away that wreckage and the garbage within so it was a lot to surrender and that's why pain and desperation are such gifts for someone like me because it just makes me open-minded enough where I'm willing to consider another way, where I am willing to open myself to another answer. And that's what happened. I mean, I didn't know what it was going to look like. I was very afraid, but I did it anyway because I had nowhere else to go. There was nothing else. And every time I've done the third step prayer in sobriety, same situation nowhere else to go no other ideas I'm done exploring those and trying to make those work and getting some more experience with you know trusting my Creator letting my Creator run my life really is the easier softer way not that doing God's will is always fun or easy initially because it's not I used to hear that in meetings, like, oh, well, doing God's will feels good, and it's the easy thing to do. I'm like, what? Starts with an F, planet, are you living on? Because it's not the same one I'm running around. You know, living, this is something Don said to me one time. We're being recorded, so I can't say the whole thing. But he goes, the spiritual life is not for starts with a P, ends with an S. Has two S's in the middle. Spiritual life is for peace. It's hard. It's harder telling the truth when I instinctively want to lie, when that's my natural MO. I may lose something. I may lose your approval or attention or, you know, I'm afraid of a judgment. I don't want to tell the truth. It's hard to love somebody when they're not very lovable. You know, stuff like that. It's, it's hard for me to do that. It's so hard to live this way sometimes. It is not always easy to live a spiritual life because there's me involved in what I want. So I absolutely need God's help. You know, I love how it says getting rid of, you know, self. I can't do it without God's aid. I just can't doing it. And being self-centered sober is so painful, so, so painful. Because I'm so turned inward, it just hurts. So I need God to stay turned out. thanks Val a couple of things this is why it takes two people to do one of these I get inspired I hear things that you say it puts a thought in my mind there was a lot of stuff that I've come to believe in Alcoholics Anonymous over time that I absolutely didn't believe when I got here just a brief bit of my story so when I was almost three years sober and I was going to kill myself but I would go to meetings and genuinely feel like I had to put on a good face and try to be you know a pillar of sobriety by the way two and a half years sober I was the old timer in the meetings that I attended. So I really felt like I needed to look strong and good for these people but I was dying inside and I had not worked the steps I did not, I was not sponsorable. It's a quality that I think we all need to really strive to be. Sponsorable. Teachable. There's a characteristic that I had zero of when I got here was I was not sponsorable, I Was Not Teachable So I never really had a sponsor, I worked with this first two and a half years, almost three years, and when I finally I was, so I almost drank as I said last night, and when I say almost drank, I mean I literally made the decision to drink at a party I had no business being at, and went to take a drink, and at the very last possible second, had that briefest grace moment of clarity, and went to the bathroom, got on my knees and said a prayer, and I was stuck at this weekend-long fraternity party at a lake in North Georgia, and I had to kind of tough it out the rest of the weekend just on prayer. This was pre-cell phone, so it was just like me and my cigarettes, and watching a bunch of drunken frat boys, and And you can probably pick up on this already. I'm not really frat material. So why I was at this party is just a whole other retarded story. But when I sat, so I went to the meeting, back to my home group, Skyland Group at that time on Tuesday after that crazy weekend. And I was just really, I was broken, very broken in sobriety with almost three years sober. And I met the guy who was going to be my sponsor. I didn't know it yet. He was there that night, and I went up to him after the meeting. And this is a guy who carried a big book under his arm everywhere he went. He talked about how his dad was dying of cancer, and he had made amends to his dad so he was able to get up on the hospital bed and put his arms around his father and cry with him and tell him it was okay to go and all of this kind of stuff. And, you know, this is a guy who had 10 years before who had nearly been arrested for battery against his father. Had nearly beaten him to death in a drunken rage and so he had stories like this. He had a solution. He was armed with the facts about himself. And so I sat down with this guy and I said man I'm crazy and I almost drank this weekend and I act like I'm sober but I'm miserable and I just got completely honest with this guy and he busted open his big book just like immediately like okay here you are in terms of page 52 and some of you will have read this um he said john tell me if this describes your life he says we were having trouble with personal relationships you having trouble with personal relationship i was like you know me and the low-hanging fruit you know we couldn't control our emotional natures John are you able to control your emotional nature nope are you prey to misery and depression can you make a living do you have a feeling of uselessness are you full of fear are you unhappy oh that's true are you useful to others is not a solution to these problems the most important thing and it was just kind of crystallized I haven't had a drink in almost three years no drinks, no drugs, no nothing you know and I'm as miserable as I ever was drinking second surrender alcohol is not my problem trying to manage an unmanageable life is my problem lack of power i gotta get some power and i've given up the only power i ever knew you know well i didn't give up women yet at that point girls were a source of power for me for a while money was a source of power from you for a little while car guitar you know all those things i said last night all these external circumstances and getting them straightened out that was a sort of power you know getting into school after being a high school dropout scumbag was a power I'm still a scumbag by the way but you smell good now I do smell much better you know I have a really killer photograph I have to show you guys I carry it around with me because it's easy to believe that someone was just like they've always been spiritual and you know showered but it's not true we jump ahead up a little bit in the book and you know we get to this paragraph about selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of the problem and i want to tell y'all and let me i don't want to read this just the next sentence um this is the route right driven by a hundred forms of fear self-delusion self-seeking and self pity we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate the first thing they mentioned in those hundred forms is fear see i didn't think i had any fear really i think fear was a major problem turns out it's like the biggest problem that's why it's the first one they mentioned um but i wanted to say i don't think i bought that paragraph until after i had done my first inventory you know so it's okay if you don't buy into every single thing we're telling you and you're skeptical if you the definition of open-minded is that you're willing to listen anyway and you'll want to try something anyway because what i got's not working um and then even before we get to the third step prayer you know and on the bottom of 62 and this is something that I, we talked about continuing to have a new experience in here. This is something just in the last year or two that came up. Somebody else said it. Like a sponsee of mine or a grand sponsea of mine in our big book meeting. He said look, he said this is the how and the why of it. First we had to quit playing God. Even before I turned my will in life over to God, even before I've taken the third step prayer, even before i've asked God to take the reins, The first thing I've got to do first, I've Got to Quit Playing God. You know? Man, that's a new experience for me at 26 or 27 years sober whenever my sponsee brought that up in the meeting. Yeah, that'S right. I've GOT to Stop Playing God, you know? Do I play God? You know, I mean, what's God's role? If God was modeled in my image, He would be a mean, jealous, judging God, you know um i judge everybody all the time i am the most judgmental person you know give an example about 10 years ago uh had this momentary awakening one day i got on an elevator okay you never know when when a spiritual experience is going to happen to you sometimes it happens on an i got an elevator and another guy was on the elevator and uh i forget where we were going it was in i was in a hospital and uh he's going up up to one floor, and I'm going to another floor. And this guy's well put together. Okay? I'm dressed like I'm stressed right now. My loud shirt, my jeans, you know, um, and I'm just walking through life, whatever. And I get on the thing, this guy got a really nice suit on, really sharp, nice tie, nice shoes, you know. Uh, jewelry, ring, you know? He, uh, he's about my age. Just a well put together guy. You know? The thought that came into my mind is that he thinks he's all that in a bag of chips. you know pieces and then i immediately thought where did that come from this may be the it's totally possible and probably even more likely than not but i'm standing next to a guy who i knew i think he was great you know he might be the nicest guy on the planet you know i might have just missed the nicest man in the world and i'm like oh my god i'm going to be the nicest guy on the planet, right? My first judgment is always really negative. It's always really snarky and bad, you know? You know, but he thinks he's hot shit, you know? Why do I have this judgment machine, you know, that I'm, what I want you to know, I realize, and this is like 15 years sober that I had this realization. I've always been that way, you know? And I think anybody who looks even remotely more put together than I am is just a jerk um threatened easily threatened easily threatened fear fearful just all this stuff so i gotta quit playing god i gotta quit judging i gotta quit you know trying to run things it's not my place to run thing you know a little uh it's a little later uh the actor you know the actor right here's another thing i missed for 15 20 years in alcoholics anonymous it says everyone's like an actor trying to run the whole show okay when i read that for many years and sat in book studies, what I heard is he's like the director trying to run the show. Because it kind of makes sense for a director to run the show. An actor's not supposed to run anything, right? An actor is supposed to shut up and take direction, stand on, hit his mark, say his line, and then walk off stage left. That's what an actor is opposed to do. If an actor's trying to run this show, there's going to be major problems. I have a teenage son who's an actor, you know, and if he ever told the director what needed to happen they would replace him immediately with another actor you know the actors don't run stuff you want to be the actor who's the director yeah I want to do the director right after director director writer yeah exactly producer I want to tell people what to do you know that's the directors job to tell people what we do talk about how the show is supposed to go the actors not supposed to do that. You're actually supposed to take direction. Taking direction? Being sponsorable? Being teachable? These are things that are novelties to me now. I don't even know that I'm doing them. I doesn't even know that I am in the wrong. And I'm living that way. It's hardwired. It's second nature. I've been doing it forever. I don' t even see that there is a problem. So part of this whole deal is sort of realizing, hey, I have been playing God all of my life. I have been the guy giving direction and not taking direction all of my life. You know, I need to be a guy who takes direction. That's a big ask. It's a hard deal for me man, taking direction. I am almost literally unteachable. And the only thing that has made me teachable is having my ass kicked into the ground by alcohol. One of my favorite speakers says it takes a well whooped ass to do the third step. God, that's a fact. It's so true. A well-whooped ass. And the only way that that happens for most of us is repeated stumblings, repeated failings, multiple white chips many times. And I have so many sponsees. I have sponsee's who've picked up 100 white chips and who are now sober after 100 white ships because they come in 10% of the way into the room. you know, and they sit in the back and they drink their coffee and they're sober and they just judge us all and then they leave right as soon as the meeting's over. I get that. It's okay, you can do that, you know. And then they get drunk and they come back in and they came in 15% of the way because I'm going to keep going. There's an old silly joke, you now, about a newcomer who comes to the old timer and says, hey, how many of these meetings do I have to go to every week? And he goes, well, why don't you start at one a day and then back off, you're seven a week and then keep backing off until you get drunk. Then you'll know. And it's kind of, and that's stupid, right? That's tongue in cheek, but it's kind of like that for a lot of us, you know, how much of my character defects can I still get away with? You know, how little service work can I get away with, right, how many meetings, lazy, irresponsible, unmotivated, undisciplined, you know. I am a path of least resistance guy, okay. I am a corner-cutting path of least resistance guy and all of my life I have done as little as possible to get to the next grade the next pay scale the next what-have-you you know here's a spiritual law that I learned in Alcoholics Anonymous the path of Lisa resistance always leads down and that's dangerous and Alcoholics anonymous good down far enough and I'll need relief again you know and I forget everything I learned here because I have a mind that forgets what it's supposed to remember and remembers what it supposed to forget. And I will pick up again. You know, I want to just briefly tell you about this amazing sponsor that I have right now. And he's 20 years trying to get this thing. And he has a religious experience. He gets saved. And he's going and he's, he's on a run. He's stolen a car. He driving down the street and stolen car. Okay. It's out in California. And, um, he has a spiritual awakening. He remembers being saved week before. And you know what God needs me to do? God needs me to drive to the police station right now, turn myself in because he's been on this crime spree of breaking into houses and ripping people off and just robbing and just, you know, and he's in a stolen car. So he drives, he sees a cop. He drives up to a cop, he says, officer, this is a stolen card. I've robbed these houses on this street and he'd already had two strikes against him in California so he was going away for life. So if, you know, third strike, so he goes, they take him to the police station okay he makes a confession um and he's like i'm gonna i'm getting sober now i'm going to be you know i'm i'm to be god's man from this point forward i'm going to do whatever it takes you know he's not aa he's just kind of church and religion and and his own crazy inspiration it's all his idea so he does all that he gets saved he does all this stuff he goes he's in the holding cell and the guy in the holding cell says yo i got some dope you want to get high and he says yep but here's the funny part of that though so that was his third strike and he was out but they lost the video confession so he got put back on the street so he never got his third strike as a result of all of that but he also never got sober and he ended up in Atlanta five years later on AWOL from parole in California and that's where I met him but anyway I'm going to turn it back over to you Do we want to say the third step prayer on our knees? I don't know. What do you guys normally like to do? Do you guys like to say the third-step prayer together? It's always good to pray together. Yeah, I think so. I just want to be on my knees with a lot of people. Ooh, hot. Why is your head going there? Brown tickle brown cow. Well, 14 is my number, which is also my emotional age. Oh, look. There's your buddy. There we go, 14. we got to get together 14 all right well my butt just got tight hey where's number six we are cheating taking advantage of the microphones yeah so I will look so we're gonna now we're all going to get on our knees if you are have bad knees or you're simply uncomfortable and you don't want to do it, you want to sit in your chair no one's going to judge you. I'm going to get on my knees and we're going to say this prayer. If you don'T know the prayer by heart yet, don't feel embarrassed to look at your big book while we're saying the prayer. It's totally fine. A lot of us have done this a lot of times so we know it and one day you will too. Alright? Just get wherever you can man. What are we doing? We don't have to hold hands necessarily If you can't find a space to get on your knees, that's fine. Okay? Good? Got a bad knee, honey? No. I have back pain. Okay. You good? God, I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as Thou wilt. Leave me of the bondage of self that I may better to Thy will. Take away my difficulties and victory over them and bear witness to those I would help. Thy power, Thy love and Thy way of life may I be Thine will always. Alright, we'll take a 15 minute break. What's the second part? 15 minute break. Is this the same? I think so. Thank you.