The Original Manuscript Differences and the Evolution of the Program – Debbie D.

Yeah. Hi, everybody. I'm Debbie Davis, and I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Debbie. Hi, everyone. My name is Kent Davis, and I am an alcoholic Hi, Kent. And we are so happy to be here. Thank you, Tab, for making all this happen and the invitation. We're very excited. We want to just kind of... Many of you are probably involved with book studies and have been through the big book and so forth, And there's a lot of wonderful CDs out there and so forth. And speaking of CDs, this is being recorded this weekend. So be sure to see our Magic Man Taper over there to get a set. There will be seven CDs, and you can pick them up at the end of tomorrow night. And so there's lots to be done. And everybody, I love listening to them because everybody has kind of a different way of sharing their experience. what we're going to do though is we're not gonna do big book history we're not gonna do big book trivia what we're gonna do is to me the big book is really a book of life a book of how do I live said in a way that gave words to thoughts or feelings I had and when I read them it was like yeah that's it that's it yeah okay and it started to clarify things still clarifies things for me today. And what we have seen over the years is an evolvement. So my sobriety date is February the 8th, 1976, which means I've been walking with you for 41 years. It also means I got sober young, which it's kind of cool to be 41 years sober and 39 years old. You know, just pretty good math on that one, I'd say. But when I got sober, we find today, and I'd Say the last 25 years, it's grown actively, where a sponsor sits with you, knee to knee, eyeball to eyeball, and you walk and read through the big book. Well, that hasn't always been the way it has been everywhere around the country. I love that we've evolved to that, but that wasn't how it always was. I've had three sponsors and none of them were taken through the steps in that manner. And therefore they didn't take you through the steps inthat manner. It was here's the book, read it, we'll talk about it. And so how I've come to sponsor is the way I always wanted to be sponsored which as I do sit you know we have kind of a formula that we do about walking through the steps in the big book and I have something a little different when it's someone I sponsor who lives out of my area and we can are kind of limited to phone work. So I have that, you know, that experience. So I'm not sponsoring the way I've been sponsored. It doesn't make anybody right or wrong, good or bad, left or right. It's just how it was then and what we've evolved to now. So we're going to be coming from our experience. And as you know you can spend a whole meeting on a paragraph or a sentence, if you like, depending upon what the sentence is. We're not going to do that. We don't have the time, nor do you. And so we're going to kind of move through them rather quickly. Our focus is to go through the first three steps tonight and close with the third step prayer as we go through this um think about maybe there is a topic maybe there's something you're struggling with tonight maybe it's a personality maybe it'S a situation many times I have of course initially it was about my alcoholism that I was applying the steps but there become times later on in my recovery where there was just this nagging something maybe it's a resentment about somebody or situation i can't control i cannot seem to pray it away so instead of jumping into an inventory i took step one on it then step two then three then i was prepared to write that inventory it's been spiritually set up so maybe there's a topic you're struggling with. As we walk through these, think about each of those steps applying to that and let's see where it might go for you. So with that I'll pass it over to Kent for the next thing. That's very nice. Anyway, thank you very much. I just think that's cool. We have both been active in service our entire of sobriety. I got sober when I was a little over 18. I was really 46 when I got sobre. I got sore 8-8-88. I didn't have one of those sags in my sobriete, so I've been actively involved since that time. Debbie and I got together 16 years, 17 years ago and we had a whole lot of fun or at least I did in quizzing her about her philosophy about this and that and so on. And it turns out that we grew up in two different parts of the country and, of course, I assumed that she wouldn't be thinking like I am but our philosophy is so close to being identical it's frightening. But the weird part is the way we actually manifest that with those we sponsor is totally different. One of the things that we've both been exposed to is a lot of people's big book studies or because we do a lot of conferences and we hear a lot of ways other people have done it and from that we continue to adapt and change so what you're going to hear tonight is where we are tonight but if we do it again we will have transformed even from this event so what we're really trying to say is the two of us want to share what it is that we do with the big book in our life so it's a way of living that we have practiced which according to the 12 and 12 relieves the obsession to drink and enables the sufferer to become happily and usefully whole. I mean, that's really what is... We are the example of that has actually occurred. My... But my sponsors didn't literally take me through the big book. My first sponsor was the one that took me through the steps and I guided him in that sense because he said that for two years of his sobriety they didn't even see a big book and in fact for the first 20 years of his sobriety there was nothing mentioned about a big book study or anything of that nature so the program of Alcoholics Anonymous has morphed into what it is today and my best friend when I got sober was 41 years sober when I met her and I kept asking her what's different about the program today What is it that's better today than it was? Or what was better about the program when you came in in 1944? And Nancy always said the same thing over and over again. Kent, nothing was better then. Everything is better today. And we attribute that to a growing understanding of the application of this in a way that is functional, in a ways that we do that. And between us, we sponsored hundreds of people. Debbie will sponsor in a way, the way I describe it, you put Debbie up in front of a room and she just touches the hearts of everybody. Me, I want to go in the back of the room and sit down with a guy and get into the book. And so I'll go as far and as deep and as long or take as whatever you want to do and we'll apply this in every single conceivable way you can imagine. And Debbie is more like, well, she'll do like 50 sponsees. It's hard to take an hour a week with them because you can't do that. But I can do that with a sponsee. So the result is we have grown as a result of knowing each other and experiencing what each other does, but we still clearly have our own way of doing it. And that alone is just a joy. It's like you'll have to find your way and whatever works for you. And there isn't one way to do the steps. And if you hear anybody say that, take exception to it because it just was not produced in that way. If there was, we'd still be doing the same thing that we did when the book was written and we're not doing that oh and I don't know about your book but my book keeps adding things in there really it was not I was on the other way down here and I was reading something about this guy was holed up in a barn and he was drinking so desperate to die and I'm thinking when did they put that one in there because I don't remember that before but it's in the book and he's rescued and brought to this guy anyway so also I like to go through the book and when I'm working with somebody I'll ask them to highlight those things that they think are important or that they identify and relate to. I want them to, because I then tell them we're going to talk about what it is that you've highlighted. Well, maybe a couple that I've got in there that they forgot to, but we're gonna address those things that they identity and relate to and the reason I ask them to do that is I want them to get a program that is a part of their life and living. I'd like them to develop a way of incorporating this, what's in the book, into their life. So in my own book I have, I put in there information or instruction and I put a little eye just for myself because this is new information to me or it was when I first read it or this is an instruction that I need to pay attention to and then some of those things I feel are so vital I want to somehow make them more important and I actually put a v in there as vitally important and usually the things that are squiggly writing are the things that are, you know, typically in that category of, you know vital, you know so and then the other is I put my my experience, you know I have experienced what it's like when it says pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. I have an experience I can share with you about what that is in my life and I'm asking the people I sponsor to do that same thing. We're curious a little bit to know about who has been taken through the book. Can I just see a show of hands who has actually been taken through the books? That's great. And can I see a hand or a show of hands of those people who sponsor others? Wow. So when I got sober, that would not have happened. Just so you know. I got over 28 years ago that would never have maybe one or two people three people would have said they sponsored others but it was just not a common thing a lot of meetings sobriety how about the people who are here less than 30 days sober alright yay with less than a year wonderful More than a year and less than five years Great, alright Love it More than five but less than ten Yeah, awesome More than ten But less than twenty Wow What a nice distribution More than twenty Oh my god Yay So it's obvious what you are is an active part of Alcox and Honolulu. To be in this kind of environment is my heart's desire. I want to be with people like you who take this stuff serious and do this as a way of life so we're going to have the opportunity to just do a little bit of that i'm going to pass the mic back to debbie thanks kent and welcome everybody that was exciting to see how many people of all the different age groups because again we love being with the activists um he mentioned a phrase in the book I don't know about you but so many times I've heard the statement well it's in the book that says I don' t know about you but I'm thinking I'm not sure where in the book that is. That sounds a little wild. My guide on that for myself is if I cannot tell you what page it's on I shouldn't be tossing out in the book. Know where it is um be able to find it because otherwise what happens is a statement like that gives it it's like uh it gives credence to what i'm saying even though it it has no relationship to anything it's just a justification so just did a little encouragement too if you're going to say it know where it is so we're going gonna just start at the beginning so you know we talk about um the white page so I don't actually have a white page in my book I got my first big book when I was in the treatment center it was a second edition and about two years later I was on a 12 step call tried to do the perfect 12 step call left my big book for that person and when I went to go take them to a meeting the next day the person was gone and so was the big book so I decided at that point next time I'm bringing them their own big book. They don't get to borrow mine and so I've had my book since 1978 and it, I hope yours is too, Falling Apart, well dog-eared. That's a well-loved, well-read book and some years ago I heard if your book is falling apart your life probably is not. So that's a pretty good guide. So again, we're not going to page by page. We're going to also incorporate sharing our experience with you how we walk others through the 12 steps. So in my particular way of doing it, we start with the preface. I really believe whether the person is brand new sober or coming to me with a few decades of sobriety, I really feel how key it is that we walk through our history to have an appreciation for the men and women who came before us. Because when we arrived here, unless there's someone here sober before 1962, there may be. Is there anybody here sober Before 1962? Okay. All three legacies were in place for all the work was done so the question becomes how will i preserve that for the two people that are here in their first 30 days that becomes my responsibility as a member of alcoholics anonymous and so i like to share with them how did we get started where do we come from The signs of that time. So what I do is because I want that sponsee to have hands-on touching their book in addition to when we are going through it, what we do or what I doing is I give them little reading assignments. And then when we talk, we have a half hour time set aside and it's focused only on the book work we're doing, no upcoming chit-chat and I just want to catch you up to date. No, that's for another time. This is just focusing on our book reading. I want you to do what Kent was implying and saying, what did you identify with? What did you have questions about maybe? And I'll share what stands out for me. So they begin to have a hands-on, this is your go-to piece of literature. And so the little reading assignments I give them is the preface and the forward to first edition. There's no the in it. Forward to first addition. I like pointing out again that now most everybody's working out of a fourth edition, but in the forward-to-first edition, here was the launching pad of this book, simply called Forward, when it was first come out, because they didn't have to identify which edition. It was the only edition. But they launched out to explain to the world what this book is about, their experience, what they had found. And little did we know that this writing would be filled with a great majority of the spirit of our traditions that would come seven years later. I mean, nobody's thinking that we're even going to last that long or thinking in that sense, but they're already the spirit of our traditions are in that writing to forward to first edition. Then their second reading assignment is the second edition which really shows the massive growth we went through, the history, the changes. Then their next reading assignment is forward to third and forward to fourth. And so once again now we're bringing it closer and closer and closer. Their next reading assignment becomes the doctor's opinion split in half. But at this point, we're going to share a little bit of our experience and what, in the doctorís opinion, has really stood out for Kent and I. For myself, in The Doctorís Opinion, I love reading this. Some years ago, there was a fellow who is a doctor, was an er doctor in new york city and also um came out to the west coast and and had done a lot of research on dr silkworth and he began to talk about dr silk with this was a like a three-hour video and i'm thinking okay you know i'll give it a whirl oh my god i was so fascinated first of all he was a wonderful storyteller and explained a lot of things in English layman's terms grade level 101 for people like myself and he brought to life a real 3d of Dr. Silkworth the writing from this particular chapter um from Dr. silkworth eyes silkworth's eyes and how he was just as many of You know, he wrote so beautifully. While it's called The Doctor's Opinion, I almost think it should be subtitled The Doctor Experience because that's so what he's coming from in having worked with thousands of us prior to Bill Wilson's arrival in his life. He had seen us but missed the magic component which was the spiritual component slash the going out to help others. And so when I read the doctor's opinion, again we're not going to go through all of this, but I think the first thing that really stood out for me was if you're in the fourth edition on XXVIII which is Roman numeral 28 and he talks about the allergy, the phenomenon of craving and that he states real clearly that these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. And I take that very seriously. That to me means I don't have wine sauce with my meals, I don' t drink near beer, I don''t smoke near pot, I don't drink speed, you know, known as super high powerful energy drinks by the gallon. I don' t do those kinds of things because I do what he says at the bottom is that men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. Bingo. That was me. I took my first drink when I was 12 years old my parents are not alcoholic and I was an only child I'd been invited by the cool kids in school and I desperately wanted to be a part of that group he describes in here the mental obsession and the phenomenon of craving, the allergy of course I don't know anything about these things and that friday morning i woke up with good ideals in spot number one in my mind and the second thought was i'm going to get drunk tonight now i don't know how you even get drunk but by gosh i'm gonna do it because this is like my debut into the being accepted by these kids so i've already got the mental obsession going on and i don'T even know it we arrive at that party like many of you i remember my first night of drinking in my first drunk and they're passing around a bottle in a brown paper bag and when it gets to me I take a big old pull off of that bottle and I hand it to the next guy now I was not prepared for what that was going to taste like okay I mean it just ripped out my throat but there's this weird kind of thinking that come up behind that thought and that was that was don't worry about it you can always get another throat just keep going for it right don't worry it's gonna be fine and when it went down that first time there was this warm glow that three inches behind my belly button spot and i'm 12 years old and i am thinking oatmeal has never done this for me you know i don't know what is in there but i want some more now before i even took the first drink there was a mental confirmation there would be a second and more till i got drunk i don't even know if it's what it's going to taste like feel like but i've already before drink number one i'm going to get drunk i want more of this it comes around again i take another pull off that bottle gave it to the next guy now my throat's a little seasoned now so it doesn't affect me so much or feel so bad But when it went down the second time, this is the effect produced by alcohol. Actually, it was the first effect that launched into the second effect, which was I went from drink number one, please accept me, to drink number two, aren't you glad I'm here? You know? Bam-da-bam. How do you get there? booze was the factor and by golly I loved darling the effect produced by alcohol I no longer needed your approval in a treatment center when I saw that statement that could have been shown to me night number one of drinking I wouldn't have known what you were talking about, but that came alive that night. I would go on to think that I cannot differentiate the true from the false and I knew that because from that day I started lying and I believed the lies that I no longer could differentiate the truth from the false. I was not restless, irritable, and discontented prior to that first drink. We've heard many people i can't stand be in my own skin it felt like it dropped off from another planet i did not feel like that but saturday morning i did when i took that first drink i lit up alcoholism in my life the mental obsession and the phenomenon of craving i did Not know that i could not stop i just looked at it as i didn't want to stop that was the justification that I also experienced what we call and what we read on page, again, Roman numeral 29XXIX. He talks three times on that page of the word psychic change. That is what I had on February 7th, 1976. I had visited you for 10 months. I went my after treatment I was sent to an all women's halfway house I went to one AA meeting a month that's all I needed to go to according to their rules I relapsed again for the first time for a week and a half I had the attitude of I've learned my lesson and I ramped up my meetings from one a month to one a week sounded like a lot of meetings to me and so but i did nothing else i saw from the first time i met you i looked at all of our differences and i got a letter in the mail on that friday that had one joint in it and i decided to keep that because well you just never know when you might need something like that you know it was pretty shocking i needed it the next day as it turned out so uh wow what timing right yeah once again we talk in chapter three no i had no defense against the first drink and i call this my driest martini and i smoked that one joint and for me that is when i hit that bottom on the inside and the psychic change is what I experienced. It wasn't the result of my life blowing up in front of me or a horrific situation. It was this shift from my head to my gut to my innermost self that we talk in chapter three about. The psychic change in simple form for me was as I said I found all the differences between me and you and when I had my first real life zero level as zeroed out as I could possibly be ever in my life before that post experience that evening like being in a fog which you cannot fan it away you can't go and make room the only thing that makes that fog go away is the sunlight of the spirit and that night that fog that encapsulated me began to dissipate and my one degree change in my journey here was when I committed to Alcoholics Anonymous and that to me is my definition of that psychic change that happened when he mentions about on 29 unless this person can experience an entire psychic change well there's very little hope of his recovery and then once a psychic change has occurred that very same person who seemed doomed who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving them suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol the only effort being necessary that required to follow a few simple rules and i took to them as the steps and further down a little bit he goes one feels that something more than human power is needed to produce the essential psychic change. And that for me was that surrender that I don't want to keep living this more if this is the way it's going to be. And that, for me, was that psychic change very powerful to me. So with that, I will... Again, we could go through every line, every paragraph, but we're just going to, for time's sake, do some of our highlights on each of these chapters. In my sobriety, I've had four sponsors and my third sponsor no, second sponsor introduced me to the idea that that he didn't know who I was. I needed another sponsor. I went to visit him. He was from North Carolina. I met him in Ogden, Utah, in an airport, and I'm looking for a sponsor, and I think this is the best choice of sitting right in front of me, and he takes two hours of quizzing me about all sorts of things. I mean, he asked me about my family. he asked me what problems I've dealt with before I got sober he askedme what problems I've dealed with since I got sober what will my sponsor like what kind of step work and service I mean he went on for two hours and four different times during that two hour time I'm thinking well I actually said to him well if not you then who because I need a sponsor so I'm failing this test and he walks off and says he's going to the bathroom, but he's gone way too long to be going to the bathroom. When he comes back, he doesn't say, okay, I'll be your sponsor. He just simply says, so we have a couple things we need to address, like how are we going to communicate and how often we've got to figure out a solution to those kind of problems. Later on, I found out that that same man took the time after the interview with me in the bathroom to pray and his prayer was he was 48 years sober at the time so you would think that he wouldn't have to spend that much time I mean he should be but he did his due diligence before he entered into a spiritual contract it was a serious kind of decision and he emphasized to me that I don't have to work with everybody that asks me. In fact I don' t have to continue to work with those people that I am not comfortable with because they somehow I think that I'm failing them or they could do a better job maybe with somebody else or it's just not flowing as well as the way I describe it actually is like if you're on fire for this program you got me I mean I'm with you if you because I need that kind of enthusiasm so you've got that kind of enthusiastic count on me I will be there every step of the way but if that fire burns out I'm going to jump to the next fire and I so I found from my own experience that that's a way I currently decided that I'm not going to sponsor a hundred women like my wife. I'm going to sponsored just those people that I see have the potential of igniting the fire in others. And I heard it say, you know, that I don't sponsor sponsees, I sponsor sponsors. and I'm looking to work with those people who are really on fire to pass this program on and if they are it just delights me it's like where you all took me to tears knowing that's who you are that's what turns me on that's why I'm here that's my life full so I'm going to stay with those kind of people the weird thing about my sobriety was that I got sent to Alcoholics Anonymous by mistake. Really, I mean, there was a lot of insensitive people who just didn't understand a guy like me. And bad luck? I mean I really thought that if it wasn't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all. And I wanted to start Victims Anonymous. And what it turns out to be is that I'm getting my card signed and I've been going to meetings because they only let me work a day or two a week so I don't have anything better to do and some of your stories are pretty racy. It's interesting enough if you're not alcoholic like I wasn't just go to an AA meeting and so I'm going to sometimes two or three meetings a day and over a year my sponsor said I was educated far beyond my intelligence but I got degrees right and he says so does a thermometer you know where they put those so I really believe that there's a sense of how to help someone who's new and if I'm going to talk to someone I'm gonna want to know a couple things before I get too far along I'm Gonna Want To Know Whether That Person Has Experienced Some Kind Of Surrender And My Surrender Happened Before I Got To Alcox Anonymous Because I Was 45 Years Of Age And I Just Felt Like I can't do this anymore I've tried to do it my way and I actually felt like what I had done that day was made the decision that I'm going to die because I've tried everything else I've spent 45 years trying to make it work and I've been a failure so I'm convinced of one and only one thing and that's Kent's way doesn't work so it felt as though I had walked through death's door and I was waiting for it to slam behind me and I'm done I'm out of here and that was my surrender it was like I got to Alcoholics Anonymous what it says he frankly admitted and believed that for him, there was no hope. And for me, I got to AA, there's no hope The only reason I came to AA was there was this cute girl and it's amazing what a woman can do to a guy. I mean, I am now... I lost my family. I lost myself. I lost job. I moved into my office. They evicted me from the office and I moved into my car, obviously. I then parked my car out in the back of the church I belonged to and actually I called it my mobile home but it hadn't been mobile for a long time. But I came around the corner one day, came around to the church and I look in the parking lot and they've towed my car away and when you get to that place where this is after I want to die and now they've towed my car away and I'm just a blob. I have no thought, no objective, no desire. All the fight has gone and find a bush, sleep under the bush, get up in the morning, steal from... It was about the same time Safeway opened their doors 24 hours. It was wonderful. Actually, I still have my Safeway jacket. The Safeway jacket has got two big inside pockets and two big billowy sleeves. You can actually walk out of the store with four bottles and they don't clink. What a godsend. Then I meet this girl and I've got to go back to work and to get back to work I have to get permission from the state of California and they told me that you know I had to show up at AA and that's how I got here you know just totally I got a problem with authority and here's an authority in my life I got a problem with it so I have no desire to do anything they ask but it was nice of you and kind of you not to tell me like I don't belong here even though I know I don t but you never told me to get out Thank you. Maybe I had a little bit of a drug problem, but I never drank enough. That's a lie. I mean, I didn't think I drank enough, you know? So I end up with going to AA meetings for a year and two weeks, and there was a guy in the front of the room and he was describing what, well, it doesn't matter what he was saying, it was what I was hearing because we always argued about what he said but what I heard him say was that every time he'd gotten into trouble or done something he was so embarrassed about he was loaded and I don't know why after a year of all those meetings I heard what Pat said but it was like oh yeah there's this time and yeah there was that time and oh yeah Tijuana right and well we were out sailing on San Francisco Bay this will date me but it was when Alcatraz was still occupied and we heard that you're within the 200 yard limit and just about that time we put a hole in the boat and the Coast Guard made a big deal out of it but there was no alcohol on the boat by the time they got there but anyway you would so obviously I'm not an alcoholic right I mean it just makes sense to me so I'm now a year and two weeks of going to meetings and I finally realized listening to Pat like I actually own this seat I'm supposed to be here and I am now over a year sober and I'm finally coming so the whole thing that she did and what I did is so totally different But in reality, you know, it's that same thing. Did I surrender? Absolutely. Did God take the obsession away from me? Absolutely The two ingredients that I look for when I'm working with somebody new If you haven't got those two things going If you hasn't surrendered to the point where you're willing to do things That are totally unheard of And I always think of it as taking direction From someone that you trust but that you're willing to do something that you know this time he's wrong and if you're willing to be willing to do that then you'll find another life other than the one you had found I wanted to also go back just a little bit to the preface and forward in the In the preface, one of those things that I try and point out is it says in the preifice that because this book has become the basic text, for me, it's like, wait a minute. What do you mean it became our basic text? It started out really as just a story of a historical representation of what they did, but it's become a basic text. And a textbook is like a resource. You go back to that to find out how to do something. And so if you look at my book, and probably yours too, this is where you go back for a solution on how do you live life. So I'm going to pass this on to Debbie. So now we move on to Chapter 1, Bill's story. For those of you who are new, Bill is our co-founder who got sober December 11th, 1934. This is his story and again we're not going to there are several pages of him sharing his experience and the development of his alcoholism and how he had the message carried to him which was from his friend ebby now while for for a lot of years i didn't necessarily relate to bill but the longer i sober the more i read i i certainly didn't identify with the actions like the events that took place in his life but those feelings and those thoughts but for for myself for a long time i i kind of associated bill and his what we call his white light experience his hot flash experience whatever it might be called in your frame of mind but on page 14 he talks about the statement of you know that experience well i it almost sounded as if to me bill was in his little hospital gown one day sitting on the side of the bed kind of kicking his legs back and forth looking out the window and then kapow you know he has this wind coming through and this light right up and all this and and like he did nothing to get to that moment And so when I start to get a sense out of what he did, those prior few pages, it's uncanny to me and very interesting that he basically took the first 11 steps. even though he had not written them yet that writing of chapter 5 would come much later than the writing of his story while he had officially written in words he had taken the spirit of all of those actions in such a condensed way that when he gets to page 14 and shares with us about the destruction of self-centeredness on that that paragraph second complete paragraph he's talking about these were revolutionary and drastic proposals which is the prior spirit of the first 11 steps but the moment i fully accepted them which i looked at is way deep down inside of himself whoosh the effect was electric there was a a sense of victory followed by such a peace and serenity as i had never known there was utter confidence i felt lifted up as though the great clean wind of a mountaintop blew through and through god comes to most men gradually but his impact on me was sudden and profound and with our step 12 it says having had a spiritual awakening as the not a result the result of these steps which is what he had in a very profound way bill seemed to have need needed such a profound way because of his skepticism that had been with him the majority of his life as he describes that as it may be for some here too so having taken the spirit of those first 11 steps and having this experience we move to the bottom of the page where he reminds is reminded my friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs not just talking about them giving them lip service it's a good idea you all y'all ought to do it but the demonstration of those particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me faith without works was dead and he said and how appallingly true for the alcoholic exclamation point now this next sentence i would begin even though the words haven't been changed i did not see it in its entirety for quite some time every time or phase of recovery i'd be and i would seem to read more and so the first time i saw that sentence it was for if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life period that's all i saw so i'm like oh i gotta pray some more i gotta do some more you know it was like that then i saw to perfect an enlarged his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice period so i am thinking oh i got to do more self- sacrifice i got a work harder and so forth then i saw for others oh once again the picture just got bigger for others service to others was never in my world it was very self-service i got that one really good but certain for others he could not i'm going to put this in first person i could not survive the certain they are coming there are coming certain trials and low spots ahead how will i face those trials and low sports if i don't work to enlarge my spiritual life through service to others well the ones that didn't do that didn't make it through those trials and low spots they've been my example of what to do and what not to do in the next paragraph of course if he did not work he would surely drink again and if he drank he'd surely die and I've come to understand for myself dying isn't necessarily going to be that physical that comes first there's a lot of other dying that happens i just recently um heard a girlfriend of mine make the statement and it's so true we were talking about when when people have had a period of time here maybe it's even into double digits and they relapse she says what i've seen is that alcoholism starts to build scaffolding because you rarely ever see that person just jump back in and surpass that original time. It builds scaffolding, and the relapses are frequent. They never really get much time together. Now, this isn't a true formula. This is just some common experience that we have seen. and one of the people that i think about is a fellow that got sober when kent did they used to be in service together a lot of years he was 19 years picked up a drink now anytime i hear somebody pick up a drank it saddens my heart that's thought number one thought number two though is when you take a look at what where have they been the last few years service had tapered way down sponsorship non-existent didn't have one didn't do it meetings hit and miss so in a way not really a surprise because they stopped doing what had been successful he starts to come back to Alcoholics Anonymous it's 30 days it's then it's 60 then it'S 35 then it's for the next couple of years that he will struggle and I remember the statement he was in a meeting one night and a gal I sponsored at the time said Mike, Mike what happened you had 30 days and he looked at her and he said a statement that gave me the shivers because I knew this is what I would say he says Kim what's 30 days when you tossed away 19 years oh that is what i would say if i bothered to come back if mike's now got a permanent sobriety date he died four or five years ago now and oddly enough the woman he said that to struggles to stay sober herself she had over 22 years when she made the conscious decision to leave Alcoholics Anonymous, as she told me. So this is the kind of thing amongst the things that I know to do that if I want to stay sober, it's more than just about putting the plug in the jug. It's about perfecting and enlarging my spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others. In that next paragraph, when any of the gals are talking to me about being depressed or full of self-pity, I love referring him to this paragraph on 15. Bill reflects on his waves of self-pity and resentment, and we often, familiar with his story, waves of depression would plague Bill. But the statement, again, that I probably saw about 10 years ago that I just loved is about midpoint. It says, but I, this sometimes nearly drove me back to drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, So I asked myself, how many other measures do I do? Men, food, relationships, money, spending, debt. How many other mesures do I go to make me feel better, right? When all other measures failed, here's the success. Work with another alcoholic would save the day is the word I never saw. it was like just for that day it will help me to stay sober it's not work with another alcoholic and got another month built in it was just for the sake of it and some of you are old enough to remember Mighty Mouse and he came in with his cape and he'd have the song Mighty Mouse to save the day and I'm like yes there he is that's what it reminded me it was juste that episode It's just this day that helps me get out of the big I, the big self. And again, how the word did not disappear, but all of a sudden it just pop right off that page. And he says at the bottom of that, it is a design for living that works in rough going. So those are a couple of my shares that I love to do in my experience about Bill's story. Thank you. You reminded me of a couple of things, as you frequently do. In the foreword to the second edition of the second page, right near the bottom, when I am going through the beginning of the book, I start out by introducing the guys that I work with that they all know, like I'm going to try and encourage them to become sponsors. And it says it so many times right in the beginning that it's easy to get started on that. But here on the bottom of that page, second page of the forward to the second edition, it says this seemed to prove that one alcoholic could affect another as no alcoholic could. It also indicated that strenuous work, one alcoholic with another was vital to permanent recovery. We haven't gotten too far into the book and we're pretty much clear that it's vital to permanent recovery. I'm telling them that carrying the message they all say the same thing but I'm not capable it's not comfortable for me it's just not my way of doing things everybody says the same but it's just like anything you'll find there are people you can carry a message to that no one else can and so it's important that you leave that door open so that you can be available to that one person that you're supposed to help and what it's done for me it's kept my enthusiasm on the 4th to the 3rd edition, the last paragraph in spite of the great increase in size and span of this fellowship at its core it remains simple and personal each day somewhere in the world recovery begins when one alcoholic talks with another alcoholic sharing experience, strength and hope. And then again as Debbie just was commenting on, on page 14 of Bill's story, my friend had emphasized that absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles in all my affairs, particularly it was imperative to work with others as he had worked with me I'm not trying to put guilt on them but I'm, well yes i am because faith without works is dead and so i introduced them to calling other guys who are newer in the program so if you show up at a meeting and somebody raises their hand with less than 30 days there isn't anything wrong with you walking up and welcoming that person to alcoholics anonymous i don't see anything wrong in getting their number and asking would it be okay if i call you it's the only time I tell the guys I sponsor they can use my name I tell them if you have to tell the guy something say my sponsor makes me do this so if they need an excuse otherwise don't mention me and then on page 15 Debbie just quoted this sometimes work with another alcoholic would save the day so all through what we're talking about here is is working with others I mean true there is that absolute need when you have not been through the book you need to apply this to your own life but one of the classic differences between Debbie and I if you noticed she could identify with every single thing that was in the doctor's opinion and she said it actually gave words to her feelings and then you know she just kind of skips right over Bill's story and I'm thinking I fancied myself a leader that was me says the drive for success was on that was mean at one of my finals I was too drunk to think or write that was meaning I mean it just goes on and on that was the last honest manual labor I did for many a day yeah it was me for the next few years fortune through money and applause my way I had arrived that was so so even though the book doesn't represent equally her experience in the doctor's opinion is mine when we get to this part of the book it's like oh man I'm all over Bill's story. Just every single bit of that ego-driven personality was Bill. I came here with a bit of that. I've done much better with humanity since then, but it goes on. Was I crazy? I began to wonder when I got here. That's where I was. I'm just I'm just going to pass so we can keep moving because I think we're going to run out of time we're gonna take a break about 7.15 ish yeah so moving into there is a solution chapter 2 the men and women in the beginning of my sobriety said remember it's a solution not a cure we have a solution We have a plan of action that works for us. Of course, we're not going to really discover that until Chapter 5, but a few of the highlights for me in this particular chapter, again, showing me on page 18 over and over, it's an illness. It wasn't a defect of, you know, I'm not strong enough, don't have the, you pull up your bootstraps and fly right and all that kind of stuff. it was an illness that I didn't ask for I just had it it was going to be a part of my DNA but on 19 the first paragraph none of us makes us so a vocation of this work which is vocation being an occupation we're paid for this nor do we think its effectiveness would be increased if we did here's the sentence next two ones really i love we feel and i'm going to use first person again i feel the elimination of my drinking is but a beginning it's not the end i had the feeling i just put the plug in the jug and go to some of those meetings and you call it aa you throw everything in the pot and stir it up and you call at aa and this tells me oh no i don't think so this is a beginning i need to be physically sober for any of this to have a place to stick for any opportunity for this to make sense i have to be physically sober altered in any way i'm no longer in the present and this only can work in and get into my my being in a physically sober way and then a much more more important demonstration that's a word used a lot in this book and again it's it's an action word of our principles lies before us in our respective homes occupations and affairs i can't just give it lip service i have to be a demonstration of that that will speak far far greater than my words so when we look at that and at the bottom of of page 19 most of us sense that real tolerance of other people's shortcomings and viewpoints and a respect for their opinions and our attitudes which make me more useful to others i um i that is absolutely true i do not like being around people who gossip, who talk badly about other people, who criticize. They walked away and it's on. Maybe they have a different opinion than me on some things or viewpoints. But Alcoholics Anonymous has shown me in the world at large to respect those differences. Very important to me. and that I do not, by not engaging in that combative argument of any kind, that I can be a lot more at harmony. I want to be in harmony with the world around me. And I would like my positions respected if I feel the need. I have to tell them to you. But I also need to respect yours as well. the other things i wanted to mention of my that i love so much is on page 21 the first complete paragraph again the symptom he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption once he starts to drink we i may i am physically and mentally sober when i make the decision to pick up the first drink But I do not know that the decision is now removed from my hand because alcohol has taken over. I don't understand that until you start explaining to me it's the first drink that gets you drunk. No, it's not. It's about the eighth. You know, that's when we start the tip. No, its the first drank that sets the cycle in motion. And then it refers to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. when i saw that again i remember very early on i i related to that a lot but in reverse even i knew i was having personality swings especially that last year and we know the story dr jekyll is the nice guy everybody loves him he's got a curiosity about the dark side and he creates this potion that kind of relieves his inhibitions and has this new character he calls mr hyde and mr hyade kind of goes to that dark place in him but he can always come back but the day comes when he can't come back anymore and with even without the potion hyde takes over well i'm kind of in the reverse in a way in a strange sort of way physically sober I'm the dark side, I'm Mr. Hyde and I find a potion called whiskey and I become Dr. Jekyll I'm in love with everybody, the world's at peace but when I'm physically sober that's when I think about homicide I don't think about suicide, I think of homicide they've got to go they're in my way, they're on my world I don' t like them but that potion makes that personality change and there's very little in-between ground anymore that last year. It's really an either or the darkness or coming out in my own sunlight with a bottle of whiskey. So I really identified with that. And then in moving to page 25, the first complete paragraph starting with there is a solution, it tells about the things we need to do for successful consummation. and at the bottom it says we picked up the spiritual kit of tools laid at our feet the spiritual kid of tools they laid at my feet was the answer to the question I asked on February 8th 1976 when I came back into that meeting I'd gone to weekly and I asked with the most deepest humility and willingness at that moment what do you do to stay sober and they laid their experience in seven points in a way of what they did we get a sobriety date we get a home group, a sponsor we take the steps we apply the traditions in our personal life we be of service and we carry the message they didn't hand them to me they said here they are and one by one I would pick those things up. I had to take the action it wasn't just in away it was given to me but I had to go down and reach down and pick that up each time i was ready to move on to the next thing that's what i think about in this simple kit of spiritual tools laid at my feet the last paragraph talks about the middle of the road solution i didn't relate so much in the drinking years as that but i did when i was 6.9 years sober that I came to the middle of a road I had been self well run riot for a couple of years and I was extremely resuscitable and discontented and I came at 6.9 years crashing back into a physically sober but I was so miserable life was becoming impossible and I looked at this clearly in a sober way that i had but two alternatives one was to go on to the bitter and blotting out the consciousness of my tolerable situation which was eventually i will drink to take the herd away to get rid of the pain i will find an ulterior way to do that alter or to accept spiritual help which is what i did i returned and and committed to alcohol now i never left a but I was an attender for a couple of years. I was a visitor for a couple of year and I became a member once again when I started to fall in line with the seven things they had shared with me in that kit of spiritual tools. I'm going to turn it back to Kent. I have one more thing if there's time. If not, I'll pick it up when we roll into the next one. Thank you. When I get to there's a solution, you know, I'd like to think that they have an idea that there was a problem. And what I'm really thinking about in my own life is, like, I got here selfish, self-centered, self-seeking, and had no clue that that was the problem. the problem wasn't that I drank too much the problem was that I had a way of living which was to satisfy Kent and I did everything that I could to get for me and the solution just on top of that no one in my family is alcoholic number one so I never had a clue what alcoholism was and so not only that but no one in my family was very religious but somehow or other I came up with these couple of ideas number one is that there is no God I mean I will prove that and I spent my 14 years of college trying to prove the non-existence of God unsuccessfully But I mean, I got to Alcoholics Anonymous so anti-religious, anti-God that like do not bring it up because like it just it still has that tendency to fire in me this feeling of intense rejection. And so, again, thank you for not shoving it down my throat. But Bill shoves it down our throats so creatively. Really, he says there is a solution. And the way he presents that is like, in short, either get a God or die. But I mean, but the way Bill has put this all together is such a delightful way. He says none of us like the self-searching, the leveling of our pride. We're all, like, on board with what he's saying, right? Well, it's true. The confession of shortcomings was the process required. But we saw that it really worked in others. So we did what they did, right, and then a little bit further down. The central fact of our lives today is the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous. He has commenced to accomplish those things for us. And by this time, I have begun to accept and see and, you know, I take probably nine months to a year to help someone get through the book, through the steps. So by this Time, I've worked with somebody and there's been some signs along the way that, you Know, they got the job or the terrorizing girlfriend found another boyfriend or something where God has played a role, you know. You can actually see that and I tie that in that God has play a role in their life and that there is a spiritual solution and that the steps are going to provide a transition from how I got here to finding this source of access a source of power that makes my life work. So I think we're how much time do we have left? we're done we're going to take our break right now we'll be back in 15 thanks everybody