The Picture Puzzle Analogy: Unless You See the Whole Picture You Will Never Properly Connect the Steps – Blind Dave A.

So there were these three addicts, you know, they all OD'd on the same night and they appeared at the Pert of Gates all together. And St. Peter come and meet them and he said, Sorry boys, according to the record here, y'all don't get to come in here. They said, Oh come on Peter, come on. He said, No, no, I see here y'ALL are addicts. Y'ALL, you KNOW, the lifestyle you've been living. They said Yeah, but Peter, we're really not bad people, we are sick people. I'm sure they learned that at a treatment center. And they said, come on, Peter. And he said, no, I'm sorry, boys. And they did, come one, man, go ask God to have mercy on us. We're not bad people, we're just sick people. So Peter said, well, y'all wait here by the pearly gates and I'll go ask God. So he goes into the office and he says, hey, God, I've got three drug addicts out here that according to the record, they don't get to come in, but they want to know if you'll have mercy upon them. They say they're really not bad. They're not good people. They're just thick people. people. And God said, well, bring them in here and let me talk to them. So Peter walked out, and a minute later he comes running back and he says, they're gone! They're gone!! and God said now surely they didn't just up and leave he said no I mean the purdigate you're gone they're probably in the nearest pawn shop they didn'y want to go find them Very good. Well, I am Blind Dave. I am an alcoholic and I am an addict. I'm a member of both CA and a member AA. My sobriety date is July of 98 so I've got 12 and a half years at the present moment. And you know it has been a real journey. You know the big book of 164 pages ends by saying this in a vision for you Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to Him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit and you will surely meet some of us as you trudge the road of happy destiny. And we'll talk a little bit about that road because, you know, we all had a journey getting here. There ain't no friggin' leader. Yeah. Is that extra charity where y'all? Well, do we? There's an extra chair in here. Okay, so we all traveled various roads getting here. And many people spend much of their story talking about their road to get here. But tonight I'm going to talk a little bit about the road, the journey after we get here because really and truly the journey begins here. Here, that's where the real journey begins. In 07, a tragedy struck my life. The worst tragedy of my life, I would say. Some people say, well, what about your blindness? I forget about that sometimes. But my son was killed in a head-on car accident and he had just gotten in recovery and we were just beginning to maybe have a relationship and I was looking forward to that and suddenly, boom, he was gone just like that. And it was a tragedy. But what was amazing was that a year later I was speaking somewhere and opened up by saying, this past year has been the best year of my life. And then I stopped and thought, wait a minute. It's been the most tragic year of mine. It's the most saddest year of all my life and I thought about that for a minute actually that tragedy forced me to reach for God in a harder way and you know it says we stood at the turning point and asked for His protection and care with complete abandonment. I stand at that turning point in the face of every crisis. Are you going to fold? Are you gonna reach for God? And what I learned that year was the most tragic year of my life was that I reached for God and discovered the power of God in deeper waters than I've ever been in before and it turned out to be the best year of mine in my life. and I went back home and got out my journal because I keep a journal and if you're not you ought to because God knows I think God notices the people who keep a record of what he's doing and he goes oh well if you are keeping a record watch this and I discovered that along the way so I had this journal and I was I went home and dug out my journal because I frequently tell these great God stories and God experiences that I had along the way and I went back and looked them up and found out that nearly all of my great God experiences were attached to a near disaster. That is a common story. And so it's what are you going to do under pressure? Are you going to fold or are you going to find God in deeper waters than you've ever been in before and come out of it with wow this has been the best year of my life. Bill Wilson said the joy of living we really have even under pressure and difficulty and our program gives us the tools to convert any crisis into a God experience and that year was no exception for me you know I also keep a gratitude list my evening ends with my evening review and what do I need to write God a little thank you note for today it's a great practice same thing is true when I started noticing and keeping records God says oh hey God notices that and my gratitude list I'm convinced is a very powerful tool and you know Bill said that our evening inventory is a good time to realize that inventory taking is not always done just in red ink and so that's what I do with my gratitude list. That's where I write in all the good stuff that God used me to do today or used somebody to do for me today that I'm thankful for. So I keep a gratitude list and I keep it month by month and up until the time that my son was in that accident, my gratitude list averaged per month about eight pages. Now there was was one Christmas season, my wife and I get real big into the holidays, and we had just a phenomenal Christmas season from Thanksgiving to Christmas. And my gratitude list that year set a record. It was 12 pages. Now my son was in this accident on 9-11 of 07. And I'm glad I had a little bit of the steps behind me and some experience behind me because I I reached for God with them tools. And starting from that day on, my gratitude list started... I mean, I reached för God and He showed up. And He wrapped me in His grace. And I can tell you, I wish I could just read you my gratitude list for that month. I kept it. It's phenomenal what God did that month for me. And toward the end of that month, I sat down and started noticing, and God the stack of papers on my gratitude list looks kind of tall and I sat there and counted them at the end of September my gratitude list was 24 pages doubled my previous record tripled my previous average in the worst month of my life and since that time till now my gratitude list has never gone back to below 20 pages a month it took me to a whole other level of my spiritual journey. I sat down just last month. I've been really busy with a lot of stuff and getting home late at night and thinking I'll just write God a little quick thank you note and figured I ain't going to have much of a gratitude list this month because I'm just writing short sentences. And doggone if I didn't sit down the other night and it was 21 pages. That whole experience, that tragedy shot me into a whole new level with my experience with God. Now, it didn't have to. I could have folded under it. I could've went and drank. But I didn't. I sat in a meeting one day toward the end of that month with another lady who said, My mom died this month and I relapsed. And you know, she made it sound like she had a good reason to relapse because her mom died. And I said, Well, my son died this week and I did what the book tells me to do under such thing and I shared this story about my gratitude to this and I said, I'm sure glad I didn't drink and miss all that. Bill Wilson said this. He talks about when he went to the checked in hospital for the last time and the doctor finally decided you know, there's no he's hopeless and I might as well tell his wife he took Lois aside and told her that he would be dead within a year or go insane sayings, you'd soon have to give him over to the undertaker of the asylum. There in chapter one, Bill's story, y'all read that. He says, my weary and despairing wife was informed that it would all end with delirium tremens during heart failure. Or I would develop a wet brain. Perhaps within a year she'd have to get me over to the undertaker or the asylum." They did not need to tell me. I knew and almost welcomed the idea. There's a point at which death seems like your best option. He said, trembling I left the hospital a broken man. Fear sobered me for a bit. Then came the insidious insanity, that long arm of alcohol. It is insiduous. Don't underestimate alcohol. You drug addicts I'm talking to. Fear severed me for a bit. Then came the insidious insanity of that first drink and on Armistice Day, 1934 I was off again. Everyone became resigned to the certainty that I'd have to be shut up somewhere or I would stumble along to a miserable end. How dark it is before the dawn. In reality, that was the beginning of my last drunk. I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to call a fourth dimension of existence. I wish to know happiness, peace and usefulness And a way of life that is incredibly more wonderful as time passes Bill made it very clear that there's no ceiling to this spiritual experience We don't crest the top of the hill in recovery And start the downhill slide Into the autumn years It's onward and upward and onward and upward and it grows incredibly more wonderful as time passes and so I want to talk to you tonight about beyond sobriety the journey that begins here it says we feel that elimination of our drinking is but a beginning a much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes occupations and affairs it's carrying these principles into all aspects of our life our relationship, our career, our whatever, our tragedies. And the joy of living we really have even under pressure and difficulty. Notice it said a much more important than being sober is to go beyond that. A much more import demonstration of these principles lies before us. sobriety is not the end of our program it's the beginning and it grows incredibly more wonderful as time passes it can it don't have to if I'm a you know if I am just a sluffer it's up to you we stand at the turning point every day and under every circumstance what's my choice Fred said this in chapter 3 quite as important was the discovery that these spiritual principles would solve all my problems. Wow! What he learned was that the same thing that brought him back from the gates of death with alcoholism, the same program he could apply to all of his difficulties. Quite as important, he said, is when I discovered that there's much more than this. It don't end with sobriety. was the discovery that these spiritual principles would solve all my problems, would convert them into a God experience. And so it says in our book on page 51, when so many people are able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why we should have faith. Notice it did not say, the most important thing in my life today is not to take a drink. Now, it's okay for you to say that if you're new because the most importante thing in your life today is not taking a drink but get that nail down. Get through these steps and start that spiritual journey and somewhere down the road you're going to one day catch yourself saying the most importan fact of my life today is my conscious contact with God. I feel that I have become one of those Along the way It says in the 12 and 12 In AA we saw the fruits of this belief Men and women spared from alcohol's final catastrophe Not only so, we saw them meet and transcend their other pains and trials Seeking neither to run nor to recriminate This was not only faith It was faith that worked under all conditions. That's our program. A faith that will work under any circumstance. And I feel that I'm entering into that experience. I hope I'm not, you know, sounding too bold. But I read this just the other day. Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed, they flatly declare... Oh, that sounds kind of bold. they flatly declare that since they've come to believe in a power greater than themselves to take a certain attitude toward that power and to do certain simple things, there's been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking. A new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them and they were pretty bold about telling you that. And I have gained quite a confidence in the power of our program. And so step three I made a decision To turn my will and life over To the care of God As I understood Him And it says When we sincerely took such a position All sorts of remarkable things followed We had a new employer Being all powerful He provided what we needed If we kept close to him And performed his work well Notice it said When we sincere took such position What these steps do is they position me for the grace of God to flow into my life. Bill said in the 12 and 12 that we've received this gift of God's grace, but to some extent we had to prepare ourselves to receive it. That's what the steps do. they positioned me for remarkable things to begin to happen in my life it says they had a faith that worked under all conditions we soon concluded that whatever price we must whatever price and humility we must pay we would pay oh I guess them people who were flatly declaring they made the others feel like whatever price I've got to pay to have what you've got I'll pay so Bill said simple but not easy a price has to be paid it meant destruction of self-centeredness belief in the power of God plus enough willingness, honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things are the essential requirements. Willingness, honesty and humility those are ego deflating attributes. All of the steps the 12 in 12 says are designed to deflate my ego. And these are ego deflading attributes and as I deflate the ego I'll let God in. If I start inflating the ego I'll push God out. Easing God out It's the steps steps. The steps cultivate those attributes that allow my ego to deflate and let God in. And as you all know, step four and five, man, are pretty ego-deflating steps. We, you know, we're searching and fill this moral inventory of ourselves and then admit it to God, to ourselves, and another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. And it says almost none of us like the self-searching, the leveling of our pride, and the confession of shortcomings, which the process requires. We don't like it. We lose a lot of people right here. They bail out on us here. And, you know, so of course I did my fourth and fifth step and I had my list all ready. And of course, like most of you, I'm sure, I had one thing I left off. I kept it behind my back. And I wasn't about to tell him that. Surely y'all didn't mean that rigorous. And so I held one thing back. And so, I called my sponsor on a Friday and I said, hey, got my fifth step already here? And he said, Dave, I'm showing my house this weekend. And he says, can I meet with you Monday over at the group? And we'll go in the back room. I said sure, meet with me over there Monday. And the only problem with that was he left me the whole weekend. I hear a voice in my head that's going, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. We beg of your to be fearlessly thorough from the very starts. maybe that's this new God consciousness that's developing. Most of it was just hearing y'all read how it works. For a while, y'ALL are sort of the voice of God, you know what I mean? For me. And on Sunday night, I said, okay, okay, I'll write it. So I got out my little braille paper and I'm punching these dots, adding that one more thing on the bottom of this. And all of a sudden, poof, this little dude pops up. Y'all know him, I know you do. And he says, don't worry, he can't read that. And I thought, that's right, that's correct. You know, and so sure enough I went over there Monday and as I'm walking through the door at my AA group I thought ain't no way I'm going to read him that one. No way. And we went in the back room and we sat down and I unrolled my paper and I'm getting ready to start doing my fifth step and he said just a minute Dave and he got my hand and he says God I think you better Better help Dave be fearless and thorough from the very start. That melted me, scared me mostly, because I thought he was reading my mind. I'm sitting there going, I'm afraid to lie to him, he's reading my life. It was a God moment. It was an old wake-up moment. The things that occur as we come through the steps, you start beginning to feel like God's involved in this somehow. Y'all had them You know what I'm talking about You start becoming more and more aware Of God's working in your life And that was one of them for me It was like, whoa And so I'm reading my list And I get down to that last thing You know, I hadn't felt nothing yet I hadn'T felt a thing during my fifth step I got down to the last thing And I hung there a moment Oh God But I was too scared not to read it and so I puked out the last thing. And you know, nothing had happened up until then but that moment when I pjuked out the last things just like that I felt like that I had been living my life in a dark gray bubble. I didn't know it I just got used to it. And in that moment it just popped. And there was an inrush of the sunlight of the Spirit that took my breath away. Now not too many people have it exactly like that most of us get it in increments, you know. But I've talked to a few people who have had that happen after that fifth step where it's just overwhelming. And I ain't kidding. It stunned me. It's just like if you're in a dark room and someone walks in and flips on the light and you go, oh God, you Know. It makes you wince. I winced from that. Now, I can tell you don't feel bad if you didn't exactly have that experience because I can promise you if you do your fifth step right you will soon afterward feel the lights drastically coming up. Over the next few days or couple of weeks or so. And the fifth step promises to say that. We begin to feel the nearness of our Creator. We feel we're walking hand in hand with the Spirit of the universe. That's why our relationship with God is starting to get intimate. Hand in hand. And so we come to steps eight and nine, and of course if we lose a lot more people at steps eight и nine, don't we? That's right, because there's going to be a little more ego deflation right here. and steps eight and nine here's what's important about your ninth step I have people make their list and they say oh God Dave I don't know where should I start or what should I and I say don't ask me ask God did you know that if you're willing enough to be honest enough about your part and humble enough to go see them face to face if you step up to step 9 with willingness, honesty and humility God's ready to deal with you and you can ask Him what you need to know don't ask me this is where your sponsor begins to wean you off of Him onto God and I tell them you ask God He'll talk to you if you're willing if you are ready to step up to step nine and do this thing and it says on page 79 right in the middle of that step that although these reparations take innumerable forms, there are some general principles which we find guiding. Guidance begins to end our program here at Step 9. It says, reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any lengths to find a spiritual experience. Any lengths? Oh, you better look at that list again and decide you mean that. We ask that we be given strength and direction. Guidance. to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences might be. We might lose our job, our reputation, or face jail. That's a lot of willingness. I don't know what kind of God experience you want to have. A little one or a big one? But we are willing, it says. this is where the program you start finding God in deep waters and this is where I say don't ask me, ask God if you'll step up to the plate God will meet you there and walk you through this process and the promises it's amazing the ninth step promises say if we are painstaking about this phase of our development one of the promises says we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us I've begun to not only feel