The Picture Puzzle Analogy: Unless You See the Whole Picture You Will Never Properly Connect the Steps – Blind Dave A.
About This Speaker Tape
Blind Dave A. speaks at the Beginners Group Anniversary in Lake Jackson, Texas in 2014. This is a step-by-step teaching talk that builds toward Step 11 as the culmination of the entire program.
He opens with the picture puzzle analogy: unless you see the whole picture, you will never properly connect the steps into what the program is intended to do. He then walks through the steps quickly, making sharp points at each one.
Step 1 has an A and B part: if I start drinking, drinking screws up my life, but if I stop drinking, life screws up my sobriety. Step 3 is a contract with Higher Power with clear terms — keep close to Him and perform His work well — and He does not respond to anything else. The program from Step 3 onward is designed to train the alcoholic to tune out the voices in the head and tune in the voice that wants to come through the heart.
He quotes Bill W.: it requires the destruction of self-centeredness. All 12 steps deflate the ego. Belief in the power of a Higher Power plus enough willingness, honesty, and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things are the essential requirements. Willingness plus honesty equals humility — and humility is what lets Higher Power in.
He describes the alcoholic mind as a committee of voices, each one driven by a fear. The alcoholic becomes an actor who wants to run the whole show, driven by selfishness, self-centeredness, and a hundred forms of fear. The solution is to let Higher Power become the director in the drama of life.
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