The Self-Honesty Required to Admit He Was a Fool – Joe M.

My name is Joe, and I'm definitely an alcoholic. And through God's grace, because this program works one day at a time in my life, it hasn't been necessary for me to take a drink today. Now, has it been necessary to take or alcohol or any other mood-changing drug since March 1962? It's anonymous. It's the only book ever been written, and the only plan developed to recover from alcoholism. And when he says, rarely have we seen a person fail who's thoroughly followed this plan, We can see the perfection that's written into these 12 steps of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. In this program, in the first step, we said the program does three things. It shows the alcoholic what is his problem, number one, then next thing it does, it shows him the solution to his problem. And thirdly, and the last step that lays out a plan of recovery. And since this is the main purpose of the program, we have steps three through twelve. The main thing is the plan of recover. And each week we begin with the first step, and the first is to find out the exact nature of your problem. I think that we say over and over alcoholics and about the only place where an alcoholic can find out what his problem is and when I come to the program Alcoholics Anonymous I had the vague idea but that's not good enough. It was in this program that I found out in the big book and Dr. Silkworth's work in front of the big book it told me the exact nature of my problem. I found out I had a disease for a change you know people have already said I was sorry and AA members said I would sick and it sure better, it's better to be sick and sorry, so I bought into that. And I found out I had a twofold disease. I found out i had a disease which encompassed my body and my mind. I found out I have a physical allergy. And i found out that this allergy was manifested in me by craving for alcohol. An allergy is an abnormal reaction and whenever I took a drink I would always crave alcohol. So it comes to alcohol my book stress is over and over when it comes down call i am different than other people totally i'm different i react about it different and i think about it differently and i use it different once i take a drink this craving is initiated and i continue to drink and i drank to the point where i drank too much and the craving by the way is never satisfied And I would always drink to excess. And I didn't never know that I was abnormal because this was normal for me. I always did drink too much. I never could figure out why anybody would take one drink. And I really couldn't, see, but I'm different. I'm difficult when it comes to alcohol. And right today, I still can't figure out why people take one drink. And the most amazing thing to me is non-alcoholic. I just wonder why they drink anyway. And I watch them, too. I watch it. I had my wife on one the other day and they was in a place and I watched them and it takes them about every 45 seconds they'll do that and say damn. You watch them and time them. It takes forever for them. Whatever in the hell they're doing I don't know. But I don't drink like that, you know. And I think over and over our book, we as alcoholics don't realize how totally we are different when it comes to alcohol. And everything else, you now, we are like other normal people. We are totally different. We are totaly different when is comes to alchohol. We think about it different. We drink it different, it's all together different. And also we must realize since we're so different from normal people that's why they get so upset with us did you ever wonder why they'd get so upset and I used to say I'm just taking a little drink and they said the hell you ain't you know what I mean I just wonder how an alcoholic sometimes views his drinking as normal you know normal people never did drink like I did I like what Father Martin says You know, he said, if you got up in the morning and you seen your wife getting a quart of milk out of the back of the commode, you'd say that's kind of abnormal. You know? That would appear quite abnormal. We don't realize how abnormal we are. But, you know, we go in there and get a half pint of whiskey hit in the backof the commod and get it out. And when somebody says something, then we get mad. What you raising all this land about? But, you know, our drinking is totally abnormal. You know, everybody else gets up and get a cup of coffee, get some orange juice, and we get up and have a fine whiskey. You know? You know. That's just abnormal. And I wonder, you Know, if somebody went down tonight and stopped and had a hamburger and had dill pickles on the hamburger and they said, them dill pickle's are good. And then he went home at night and put something on his ice cream and got up some more and put some on his cereal you say, well, hell, he's abnormal about dill pickles. Well, we're very abnormal when it comes to alcohol. And we always will be. And we will never be able to drink alcohol like normal people. And when I drink alcohol, what's really abnormal about my drinking is once I take a drink, I crave a second drink. And if I take the second drink, then I will crave more and more and more. The more I drink, the more I crave. And this craving is abnormal and never occurs in the average tempered drinker. so it's something within the system that causes this so if you never take a drink we will never crave the second drink if you ever take second drink you'll never crave the third drink it's just that simple so this is half of my problem is that I have an allergy to alcohol and I can't drink because of that so we are we're totally abnormal in the way we use alcohol when we take a drink would continue to drink and drink and drank and drink normal people don't do that yeah And we will always be that way because of this physical allergy that sets us apart and puts us in a distinct entity. We are in a separate group when it comes to alcohol. And I will always be that weight. If I ever take a drink today, I will always crave the second drink. There is no way I can be treated. There's no way the medical science is ever able to treat this condition except total absence. If you never take the first drink, you will never crave the second drinking. And this is the way I've been having my allergy to alcohol for over 21 years, and it really does work. Okay, now the other half of my problem is in the mind, and we think the main problem of the alcoholic center is in his mind. Not in the body, but in the heart. Now when I don't drink, I have a lot of things go on in me. You know, I become restless and irritable and discontent, and my emotions go wild and I get upset. it. And once these things get out of control in me, it triggers in me the obsession. The idea to drink is triggered in me. And we know that all action is preceded by an idea. And so our body, you know, once we have the idea to drank then we drank. And you know I think it all my life. And this obsession was operable. I tried to quit and tried everything, but I never could get rid of that obsession drink. And so once I had this obsession, this obsession would make me take the first drink. The mind would make me take that first drink, and once I took that first drink then that craving in my body was triggered. And I craved alcohol and I continued to drink and I went through the well-known spree over and over again, this vicious cycle getting tighter and tighter, tighter and tighter. And because the more my mind made me take a drink, the more I drank and the more problems I had to start drinking from. And he says I become restless and irritable and discontent and all these feelings and the same feelings that other people have. So I mean, I'm not abnormal in that fashion. I've got the same things that make up other people. Somewhere along in my life, I learned by taking a few drinks that I could feel better. And whenever I get to feeling a little restless or discontent, I remember that solution. And this obsession makes me take a few drugs and as soon as I take a Few Drinks, it triggers a craving in my body. And it puts a vicious cycle over and over again because when I take the Few Drink, the craving in My Body starts and I drink too much and I get in trouble. And I do a lot of things that hurt my life. And then as soon as I get out of trouble, I'll be walking around one day after two or three weeks in that obsession and say, why don't you take another drink? And I reach over and take another drug again, and I go through this over and over again in my life." And so I had two problems. One was I couldn't—I can't drink because of my body. And in 1962, when I come to Alcoholics Anonymous, I couldn't quit drinking because of my mind. Now both of the things, you know, I think that's the most frightening thing was that I couldn t drink. That wasn't too bad. But the thing that was frightening to me when I realized I can't quit drink it and I think that's a point that most alcoholics don't see. Now, if you can't drink and you can quit, then you are powerless over alcohol. And this is where I was. And my life was unmanageable, to say the least. You might say, you know, if my life is unmanable because I was powerless over alcohol, I wouldn't turn that step around. My life became unmanagable. And if your life isn't unmanageable, if you part us over alcohol and keep on drinking, one day it will be unmanaged. My main problem is not the fact that I can't drink booze. My main problem was that I was always trying to drink it. There's a whole lot of things I can do. I never did learn how to swim. My brother used to go to the swimming hole and he was old and he would run off and go to this swimming hole and he would make me stay home because he didn't want me to go and tell on him that was i could see the reason but he knew i had a big mouth dead so he would take me stay at home and he learned how to swim and i never did learn how to play time i got big enough i was too scared to go still am you know i can't swim today but i'm not powerless over what i just don't get in the watch. And so I can't swim, but there's no fire, but I don't get no watch. But if I was going down the Arkansas River jumping in every morning and one of y'all had to come down and get me out, y'always say my life was unmanageable. but when it comes to alcohol I couldn't drink alcohol then and still can't drink it but I had an obsession to drink and this mental obsession and the doctor said I'd become restless and irritable and discontented it was all in my mind and I learned I learned to play this game one time back in my life I learned how to drink and it made me feel better so I started playing this game over and over again and finally I became obsessed and obsession is an idea had overcome all other ideas, when this idea would return for me to drink. And all action has started in the mind. And once the idea to drink become operable in my mind, it would make me reach over and take a few drinks, which I've seen other people taking with impunity. And once I took those few drinks the few drinks would trigger the phenomenal craving and I would continue to drink and go through the well-known spree. And I would emerge remorseful never drink again like every alcoholic and this obsession would take off again and i was repeated this over and over and always about 16 years of my life and i had two problems number one i had a physical allergy in my body and i had a mental obsession and because of the physical energy i couldn't drink and because of a mental obsession, I couldn't quit. And what we're saying, you know, total finalizing this whole thing, if you can't drink because of the body and can't quit drinking because of mind, then you're powerless over alcohol. And this was the exact nature of my problem. First time I ever knew what was wrong with me. Now, once I understood the exact nature of my problem, it was obvious that the solution would be in the mind. We know no way to treat this. You know, it says, come to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. That's the solution to that problem. I see I couldn't quit drinking, and I tried that. I tried to drink for many years, and I wasted a lot of time trying to drink, and I waited two or three years trying to quit. And I come to the conclusion I was just as bad at quitting as I was at drinking. And my problem wasn't really quitting anyway. The problem with the alcoholic, I always hung up on quit, quit, quick. The problem was starting. They showed me how to stop starting. And I think that this is a great gift that Alcoholics Anonymous gave to the world. This is a gift that is given to a million and a half alcoholics. It's given them the opportunity to understand what's wrong with them. And I thank you. We are very blessed for some reason. We don't earn the right to know. Well, there are many, many alcoholics all over the world tonight that was just as decent or better or just as shit. They've had the opportunity. But it seemed like I was chosen to have this great insight because most alcoholics see it today and never see it. They go to their grave and never know what's wrong with them. And, you know, that's pretty tough to be there out there in a graveyard and you don't know what kills you. That's pretty bad, you don' t know. But I was given the opportunity to learn about my illness. And my book gave me the exact nature of the problem. It did not almost, but I know what's wrong with me. When I say I'm an alcoholic, this is what I'm talking about. When I first come to Pro-Alcoholics Anonymous, I couldn't say I was an alcoholic. And I think if we look at that first step, we know that's why maybe the first step doesn't call us alcoholics. It says you don't have to admit you're an alcoholic until they admit you parted us over alcohol. And so I was able to, when these people sat down and showed me if I was able, I said, that's what's wrong with me. You know, that is what's wrong with you. That's what wrong with me. You know I have this physical allergy and I have this mental obsession. Now that I see what it is then they even talked about you know once I can deal with this maybe I can live with this. So once we see the problem the second step comes in with the solution. And I think you know we see that the solution is based on the first step now that we understand the physical allergy and the mental obsession and we know he said there's no way to treat the physical algae except but one way don't take the first drink and that's really you know i don't if you don't think the first drink you will never the allergy won't bother you but then he says you know we believe the solution is in the mind. But once we see the problem, the second step comes in with the solution. And I think, you know, we can see that the solution is based on the first step. Now that we understand the physical allergy and the mental obsession and we know, he said, there's no way to treat the physical algae except by one way, don't take the first drink and that's really, you know... If you don't drink if you don' t take the first drink, you will never, the allergy won't bother you. But then he says, you know, we believe the solution is in the mind. And he talks about come to believe that a part greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. And what he's talking about actually, you know, if you've got an obsession with drinking, you're not sane. Not all the time. He didn't say he was crazy. He just says you are not sane and we're going to get into that and And it talks about, in the page 17 of the big book Alcoholics Anonymous, it tells us there's a big old chapter, chapter 2 in the big book. And that's if you case y'all haven't read it, that's this book like this that's got a blue cover on it. And chapter 2 of that book it talks about there is a solution. And it's quite plain, you know. In the first chapter, it tells us about the doctor's opinion. This is my opinion of what the problem is. And then he talks about Bill's story. And Bill's stories are a classic illustration of the problem of alcoholism. And then he said, now that you see what it is, now there is a solution to it. And in Chapter 2, it tells us what is the solution to alcoholism and And the solution to alcoholism, you know, once you identify the problem, then the book writes a prescription. And the second step talks about it as a power greater than ourselves can restore society. But in the big book it talks about, it goes on to say that we are average Americans and we're talking about all sections of the country. That's what it is. You know, I look over at the people that are in this room and we were talking earlier about the people who are here tonight. or in any setting, anywhere. And we come from different social and economic and religious backgrounds. Different occupations are here tonight. Different races. Different nationalities. Different occupitions. Different social backgrounds. Different religions are represented here. there are many different kinds of people that are here tonight my book says we're normally people who should not mix and people you know most of us we should never mix with each other because we're such a different kind of people but if there exists among us a fellowship and a friendliness an understanding that it is indescribably wonderful we are very close although we come from different kinds of different backgrounds says we shouldn't have even known each other maybe now I wonder how many times the people in this room they drink coffee to help funny talk but during the last 20 years of Little Rock how many time we passed each other in the shopping center somewhere and we didn't even need to speak yeah we didn t even know each other we had no need to know each we're talking different parts of the city because some different parts different places and we were all different types. But see it, we're very close now. And it talks about that we are like the passengers on the liner. And this is, you know, people mix for all different reasons. Some people mix because they all have the same religion, same social background, the same job, and they mix. But we have none of those things in common. And it tells us about the people on the line. And these people were on the ocean liner and They were crossing the ocean, and they had a class system on the liners. The richest people were on the uppermost decks, and the poor people that were just traveling old from Europe, they were in the steerage section. There was a lot of difference between the steerish sections and the captain's table. So you had to have a whole lot of bread to be up there on the captain'S table. Man, you had a really heavy lay, didn't you? And, of course, that poor guy in the steering section, he didn't have nothing. And they said their pals should have never crossed in this journey But in a moment of disaster When they had a shipwreck They were cast into the water And once they were cast Into the water, they came together Through a common pearl In their lives There was no social meeting when they hit that ocean What? There wasn't no business meeting You know They was in trouble and you know when they hit that water these two people even though one had plenty of money and the other was poor that rich guy didn't ask that guy for no financial statement he didn't say where do you go to church they were bound together to save their lives and this is what is important to us here tonight we're not here for no other reason we're here for a common problem in our lives called alcoholism. And this is talking about the solution to alcoholism and what we're going to talk about you know that this is one of the this is a this is one element of the solution the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous the fellowship of Alcoholic Anonymous is a a group of people who suffer a common problem and the people the old people who have recovered these are the old timers and all of us like to call ourselves this after a while, those of us who have recovered the AA members who have recovered can offer support to the new member he gets hope through looking at any person who has been successfully treated for an illness any illness actually can offer hope to another person who has that condition So, the new member is supported by and gets hope through looking at the old member. And the old members get a certain satisfaction of growth of helping the new members. And so it's a support group. The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous was the old supporting the new because we all have the same common problem. Then why the new member is in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is why we tell you to go to meetings. If you're new in the program or trying to make this program, it's go to meet, go to meeting, go to meeting. You know, you can't see the new members at home on your TV, you know. Gunsmoke won't get you sober. But when you see other people, it gives you that hope. It gives you that support. Now, while you're in this particular position, then we're going to have a program of recovery. My book said that this is not... This fellowship is fine. The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. The fellowship is fined. But it says this would have not held us as we are now held. A new person just can't just live off of hope all his life. You know, he just can'T stay suspended. But why he's suspended there? that support group he's going to work some steps called three through twelve and they're gonna produce a spiritual experience and this is the other element this is another element in the cement it says this would have not held us as we're now held the fellowship is fine there's a warning in our big book it tells us something the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is a great thing for the new person but there's more to the program than that you know like to say you know you can't if you can set in a chicken house and become a chicken you know your guys should make some changes and the program's all about changing as we work these steps it talks about the real that these working these steps will produce in our in our lives their spiritual experience which will make bring about a personality change sufficient to recover from alcoholism and this is what he talked about in the second step when and it says, come to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. Personality change is sufficient to recover from alcoholism. We believe this is the solution. We believe you've got to change in the mind. Although our problem is physical, we believe that a power great than ourselves has got to work in our minds. And once this has taken place, you know, we can easily control desire for alcohol. So, you know, we come in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and a youth support CO. And then we've worked these steps three through 12, and it produces a spiritual experience. So the second step is, Paul tells us about this solution to alcoholism. And he says, come to believe that a part greater than ourselves can show us the science. And as we look at the steps within this word, words within this step, it says all we've got to do is believe, come to believe. And I think this is the beginning of anything in our lives. On page 47 in the big book, it says, As soon as a man can believe or become willing to believe, we emphatically show him he's on his way. Because it's upon this simple cornerstone wonderful effective spiritual structure can be built the beginning of anything in our lives is right here what we believe the power of believing and it's a as we learn about believing in depth and I did I roustled with this thing all my life and all my life I thought it was people places and things that control my life and I guess it's what this program is is all about learning how to live and learning how they live to me is simply learning how the handle your equipment now we all got it got stand equipment and how to use your standard equipment to live back and one of the basic tools of living is believing and believing is it's my belief. It's the force that I have, that how I can apply it and use it in my life. And this program taught me how to use this equipment. Now believing is we are, we say, and that's what we are. We are what we believe. And I am tonight, tonight I'm a result of something I believed in the past. You know whatever you believe you produce. And if you want to change what you're producing, all you got to do is change what your believe. And we can change what we believe and we can go to any heights in our lives. So if I want to tell you my life this is where I've got to begin and I think that we were very fortunate in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous because there's many many people somewhere tonight that don't, that haven't learned this key to living. You know I always thought maybe for years I thought I had to change the state I was in. I would get, I'd buy me a bus ticket and go somewhere else. And I had to make some more money. And i had to change my friends. And then I had to change what I was drinking you know. And I come to AA and I found out all I had to do was change what I was believing. Because see, you achieve what you believe. So if you want to go somewhere else all you got to do is believe something different. We're talking about become willing to believe different. You know there's many illustrations in our book about this power believing and I know I myself it talks about that we begin and anything that we do we believe first this is the once we see where we are in the first step we're going to complete a test first thing we do is believe and whatever we believe the believing is just the beginning and it's really of no benefits whatsoever, except it just gets us started. And once we believe, the believing produces decisions. If it's effective, it will produce decisions. And once the decision is brought on, the decision produces action. we act out the decision and once we have the actions we get results and once we get results then we know which is faith but we begin by believing and I think you know a lot of people have difficulty with this second step because they get believing and faith mixed up. They kind of say, well, I'm going to wait till I know and then I'm gonna try it. You know, that's what the forefathers of our program said, said this was great news for us because we thought in order to use things as spiritual principles, you had to set things on faith which were very difficult to believe. And this is where I was in the program. And believing is real simple. I mean, it's not like being suspicious. You know, the police put you in jail when they believe you did something, right? But they can't send you off until they get the facts. They can't hold you for three days on believing or less than that, you know. But if they know it, boy, they can hold you quite a long time, you Know. But what we're talking about here is all we have to do is to believe, is to become willing to believe. A lot of people have problems with this in the program and I get in a lot of discussions and most times we talk to a drunk he starts talking about what he don't believe in and this step don't say anything about what you don't believe in. It says what you do believe in because what you don't belive in won't hurt you. That's right. It's what you do believe in that's killing you. Because what you don't believe in, you won't apply. So it can't hurt you. It's what you do believe in. And so once we believe, and this is the second step, we're going to change these numbers. We'll just call this step two because that's what step two is, come to believe. And this is a formula of success in anything we do. This is a basic formula of life. This is the way you get up out of the chair you're sitting in. you will get up out of that chair believing you can get up then you'll decide then you act this is the way we perform any task that we accomplish as human beings so this is a basic this is why this program is so simple it's a natural way that humans function I came to me 21 years ago and I didn't know nothing I just barely did believe and so tonight you know I've been having this thing worked in my life I'm not talking about what would believe I know this works I know that's work because it works for me and if you but you cannot start off with faith if you a new person here tonight you will have to start off right here just believing so once we believe then we're on our way it didn't say we had to know didn't have to have faith just just believe and of course if take that first step in depth and see that you promise over alcohol your life is unmanageable you won't have no trouble believing that a part rather than yourself can restore its insanity once we see the desperation of our situation it's easy to believe now what does it tell us to believe uh you know i i i talk about this step so much and there's many great illustrations in this word. We could talk all night about believing, and I always tell the story. There are many, many stories in our big book about this. And they said, what about Columbus? And Columbus was a guy who believed different. He changed the world because he was able to believe different. And sometimes it's very hard. See, we're living in our world today, and we believe a lot of things that's not true. See there are many many things in our work. We are the smartest people ever been on the face of this earth, but that ain't so damn smart when you realize what we don't know. You know what I mean? But we believe some things. We believe some lies. We have some limitation on our lives because we believe something. Just like the people in the days of Columbus. They believed the world was square and they all lived on one side because if you go so far you fall off the damn thing. You could just see it. And they believed this so they all stayed over there and they were all limited and here was all the new world with all this wealth and all this expansion. It was here. The fact is it was here but they believed a lie and they say when you believe a lie the truth will set you free and it's been said that to hell is the truth seen too late and I think that's what's wrong with us alcoholics you know the truth seemed too late when you live in a lie always running into the truth and I think you know that's what the first step is you know once you you're always trying to drink but you really don't know but once you take the first trip you see the truth is if you apply you can't handle alcohol and from then in you can be free because that truth you say I can't have it and that and then you can find the way no the human mind is a fantastic thing and it's the greatest thing on the face of this earth. And once you take that first step 100% and dam up the fact that you can't drink alcohol, that your life has become unmanageable, then you challenge the mind and you just say, I believe that I can find a way to stay sober. And, once you block up the factor that you're part of alcohol and your life is unmanaged and you can drink booze, then your mind is going to find a way for you not strength that's what the second step is and choose to believe different change of the directions of our life this is what we required to do we got to change direction obviously you know we can't continue as we are and it talks about a revolutionary change the revolution means they turn around from one side to the other way and it starts right here here you got to believe different and you know this is not the easiest thing to do you know for now I forgot to believe difference and it says just come to believe and when we see the hope you some facility of life as we've been living it then we talk about believing something different and I think that there's something we should apply for the rest of our lives not just in this here but we as alcoholics constantly in the program we can always we will not here. You know, they accept our lives are not tied to what happens around us. Our lives are limited by people, places and things. Our lives, we are free people. We are free peoples. God's free people and we can go anywhere we choose. Our lines are limited but by only one thing. It is limited. It's limited to what we believe so we limit our own life but now you know we can apply this acid so brightly but right here we're just looking I can look at other people and it's easy it was easy for me to look at other people than believe I could say so and thank God for the older members in Alcoholics Anonymous because without them I think about somebody else without those other members of Alcoholics Anonymous it would have been hard for me to believe that I could say so. But looking at them, it was easy to believe. It says we cross over the bridge of reason to the shores of faith. I believe if they could do it, I believe I can do it. And I used them but they gave me the hope and support as I looked at them. They helped me literally to believe. Was almost impossible for me not to believe and it says what do I have to believe in a specific? This is a specific program. He It didn't say just to believe in God. It doesn't even mention God. It says believe in a power greater than ourselves. You know, and there's a lot of powers greater than me. You know. I, you know, booze was greater than I was. I just admitted I was proud or so of it, you now. And it says believe that this power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. Specifically, it didn't tell you to believe, you know. I didn't have to believe about Moses and all that stuff. Didn't have to believe, I didn't have to believe none of that. I didn' t have to believe about the angels. I had to believe do you believe a part where any self restores your sanity? It's specific, one thing. You have to believe the rest of it. If you want to believe the resto and lay down, that's fine. We don't want you to believe but one part of it Okay now He says restore me to sanity and I had a lot of problems with a lot of words and I I had a problem with the word parlous. I had the problem of the word believing. I didn't know what that meant. And I had an awful lot of problems with the words sanity because when I first come in, I didn' t like people to say I was crazy. I didn''t... Of course, the step didn' s say that, but it said restore me to sanity and that kind of suggests that you... That kind of suggest that you're insane Because, you know, you wouldn't restore a sane man to sanity. But, you Know, I had to look at it. You know, it didn't say in the word sanity. It comes from the word sanatoc, which means whole. And, you Now, I think about the book of books in the Bible. And there were a lot of people that came to Christ and asked to be made whole. To be made full. and so this is the way I look at it you know, it means to do you believe that a poverty of itself can make you whole and you know a whole man or woman that's whole wouldn't have to drink booze would now you know and he said restore me to sanity and I like what a good friend of mine says it doesn't mean make you a genius you don't have to be a genius to stay sober you know you really wouldn't have to be a genius to drink something that damn near kills you only thing you need to do that only thing you need to stay sober is good common sense and when people when alcoholics pick up alcohol, when alcoholics pick up alcohol at that moment that they pick up that drink they don't have good common sense because people with good common sense just don't drink something that hurts them see there's no way tonight that me and I after all God give us brains the book says that too as long as my brain is working and I got good common cents, I don't walk in the liquor store and say, hey mister, I drank some of that about 21 years ago and it damn near killed me. And my wife left in me and I ended up in that nut house out there locked up with bars on the windows. Now I would like to buy $10 worth of that stuff again. You know, it sounds strange, you know, but that's really insane to buy something to damn near kill yourself with. But in a moment, in a slight moment of insanity, and it talks about this, you know, our book says, it doesn't say we're crazy all the time, but that's the insanity. At any given moment, it happens in our lives. We are defenseless. And more about alcoholism, it talks about this moment of insanity. You know, where the guy was going on fine all at once, bang! It says he had an idea. He talks about this obsession, this idea that overcomes all other ideas. This obsession to drink and we are defenseless when it becomes operable. You know I knew at times of you know I didn't want my wife to leave me said if if you ever take another drink, I'm gone. Well, I didn't want her to go, not all the time anyway. And the boss said, if you never take a drink, I didn'T want to lose my job. But when that moment of insanity, when that obsession to drink come, it pushed out my wife's idea. It pushed out the boss's idea, and it was an idea that overcome all other ideas, and I drank against my will then it was after it was all over then I would say why did I do that? That small moment of insanity. That's what we're talking about this power greater than ourselves to act in our lives do we believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity can take away this and we can become whole We can become whole. We can make common sense decisions about drinking. You know, our book talks about the jaywalking in our book. And here's a guy that went through all that and he got hit by the streetcar and everything else. We would say this man was insane. And if we said, if we applied this to alcoholism, it would be the same picture. You know, I look, there's nothing insane about my drinking. I look back at it now, but I'm looking at it with a different viewpoint on it. It looks pretty dumb to me. And when I come in the A&A, they say, you are, you're, I said, well, I ain't crazy. They said, you ain't? I said no, uh-uh, I got, they said, You mean you've got, like I said, if you've been living, if you're not crazy, if your'e not an alcoholic, they told me. And if you been living off of sound judgment and that, and if your life is, you been running off of sound judgment, and that is your judgment, we can't help you. And just think about me. In other words, if, like the guy said, just take alcohol out of your life. if you're a new person here tonight and you have trouble with this second step take alcohol out of your life say you wasn't drinking and your life would be in the same position what's the explanation well I was glad I was drinking because if I hadn't been drinking and be in the same shape, they never would have let me out of that nuthouse. Alcohol was the only explanation for something like that. So he talks about restoring me to sanity, to become whole, to become wholesome. And I think that this is where, you know, everything in our lives is what we believe in. And we say we alcoholics, when we believe lies, When we believe lies, you make decisions based on a lie. And when you make a decision based on lie, you take an action based on the lie. And when your take an actions based on lies, you get bad results. You get bad result because you run into the truth. The truth will always be there. The truth never go. and we're always running into life. We're always run into problems. So what we have to do is we have the change, look at this guy do, change what we believe. Change what we're believing and I was very hard for me because I had a lot of things in my life and one thing about an alcoholic, an alcoholic he doesn't change what he believes so good. He believes a lot. He believes in a lot of lies and he's got convictions about what he believes. You know, they ain't good, they don't care, but he believes them hard. And, you know, what we need to talk about, keep an open book. Be open-minded. Be open for change and other possibilities here. But the second step says once we see where we are, then we believe this is solution. we believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. And if we look at these two steps, we've seen step one, we were powerless, and we've see the obsession. Then we look in step two, we believe the power greater then ourselves can restore it on the mental side. And once we restore it on the middle side, then we will not take the first drink, we will now set off the allergies of the body. We believe this is the solution to alcoholism. And we believe, we know that this has been the solution for about a million and a half people. And if you are here tonight for the first time and you're an alcoholic, we believe that this would be your solution. We don't know. We can't prove it, but we believe that this will be the only solution you're going to find. And we believe if you see this, the next week we're going to come to the plan if this program rather than yourself can restore you to sanity, then we've got a little 10-step program about making a decision and taking it. These are the action steps. And if you take these action steps that we're going to begin on next week, they are guaranteed to bring about the vital spiritual experience that will make the personality change sufficient to recover from on the mental side where you will never take the first drink and you will ever set off the allergy. Recovery plan is going to contain these steps, 3 through 12. It talks about how it works. and the step three is the first step in the big book. We talked about, you know, Bill wrote the first part of the big book, and that night he came to this point. He had these two steps done, and he came to step three, and he didn't have the steps. It was very peculiar. He didn't have the step written. He didn't have any steps when he wrote the first section of the book, and he felt very inadequate, so what we read tonight and how it work I was read here is how he paused at this point and he felt very inadequate of going on because he knew that just this thing had to be precise you know he had already from his own personal experience there from the experience of the first 100 people he had been working when he knew the conniving alcoholic mind and he said there were two six simple steps he had from the Oxford group and he know that these steps were insufficient this is inadequate and if the alcoholics of the future would make all kind of loopholes in that program he had. So he laid his pad on and he asked for prayer and direction and asked God to help him. And in 30 minutes, he wrote the things that we heard read tonight. He wrote how it works, which can explain the 12 steps of the program, How It's Anonymous. And we read it every week. And as he tells us about before we start this program, he lays the groundwork for recovery. Before we start on the plan of recovery, he talks about honesty. He talks about, you know, what you got to have before you can work this plan. There's a certain conditions in which this plan will work. And honesty, he mentions honesty three times, you know. And he talks about self-honesty. I didn't ever know much about that, you Know. Most alcoholics never look at that and I never had looked at self-honesty. I never evaluated, never looked at myself. I was always honest with other people unless it comes to something emergency-like, I'll drink. In fact, most alcoholics are basically, I would say, pretty honest people as compared to the general public because, you know, an alcoholic, if he's dishonest, it hurts him inside, and that's why he hurts anyway. So he'll hurt him. he'll be honest with other people to keep them hurting and sad. So he's basically, when you say honesty that's what most people think about being honest with the other people in that an alcoholic can evaluate himself pretty good in that area but we're not talking about being honest with other people, we talk about self-honesty. It talks about, you know, it's better to lie to other people or cheat other people but it says until our own self be true we got a little backwards we'd rather be true to everybody else than lying to ourselves so what we're talking about here is self-honesty and I never didn't realize you know how dishonest I had been with myself that alone could help keep me sober because if I could see the first step there's no way with honesty I could go take a drink I would have to tell myself a lie to take a drink. So after we, you know, after we see these things and he gives us the 12 steps, then I have to give us the twelve steps, he goes through the book and he says that our description of the alcoholic which was the doctor's opinion, the chapter of the agnostic which was chapter four, and this is a doctor's opinion that describes the alcoholic. Our stories before and after, that would be Bill's story, chapter one, and the stories in chapter three. These earlier chapters were designed to tell you three pertinent ideas that we alcoholics could not manage our lives. That's step one. And and that no human power could restore us to sanity. You know, this is step two. So what he's talking about, these first two steps, that God could and would if he were sought. The first two Steps are to show us, in the first portion of the book, are to shows us the first two Steps. And if you're having any problem with the first few Steps, study the big books through chapters one through four. and then we come to he says and if you're not completely convinced of this he said you ought to read the first four chapters or throw the book away in other words if you don't have the first two steps you oughta throw the books away read it and get them or throw it away because you can't go into the plan of recovery but if you have these if you had these two steps in place then it brings us to step three And we could say, really, that step three, as we say, is the trick of maybe trick of the words to throw us off or the numbers. But step three is the first step in recovery. It is the third step in the plan of recovery. See, there's no recovery by finding out what's wrong with you. See, you go in the doctor's office and you don't know nothing. And he says, you know, he makes a diagnosis. and when he finds out what you're wrong with, you're still sick, right? You ain't no better. But you know what's wrong with you. And then he sits down and he writes you a prescription. And you stand in there and now you done come out of the office and you stand out there with deception in this office. You know what wrong with ya? You got a prescription in your hand and you're $25 short. So you're really sicker than you were. Now, you are no better. You will not recover until you make a decision to go down to the drugstore and get that prescription and go home and start taking it. All the recovery comes through the plan. It comes through those 10 steps. So the third step is the first step in recovery. And it is based on the first two because it says, you know, we stand at the turning point. We stand at the turning point and I think that this is, you know, that each man, each man and woman in childhood, each man and woman is an alcoholic that one day, you know if they're fortunate enough to take these first two steps they stand at the turning point and it's like you know I think we run from ourselves and everything else in our lives but I think we are very blessed as individuals because of the condition of alcoholism when we come to this point we have to face ourselves and I think that this is we're forced through these two steps into this position of the turning point and I thank everybody you know, I was telling a guy the other day that everybody has a we go to a lot of meetings a lot or activities, a lot social functions and a lot things go on we get a lot invitations and we meet a lot of people and we go church and we got to school oh man in a lifetime you know you just go to lot of meeting and you do a lot thing with people but I think one of the greatest meetings that an alcoholic can ever have is one great big meeting with himself and this is the most important meeting I went in my life was this meeting that I had with myself when I faced myself, faced this decision that we're all talking about we're going to be talking about here tonight a lot of people avoid this stuff and it says you know once we with honesty you know we have established you're an alcoholic, you've got two alternatives. Throughout the first four chapters it lays that out four or five times. If you're a alcoholic, you've Got Two Alternatives. We have established these two. We can continue as we are, end results and sanity of death or life on a spiritual basis. No, there is not but two alternatives for the alcoholic. You know, we say an alcoholic according to the first step, they say he can get covered up I mean, locked up or sobered up. That's about all he can do if you're an alcoholic. That's right. That's what it says. It's that simple. And everybody's got a choice. And we come to this thing that says make a decision, and that's a choice, the word decision means to dissect or choose. Make a decision. Dissect. Choose. And that's a simple fact of our lives today, you know. This program teaches the basic principles of living. It says these steps, these are principles. And this is a principle, we talk about believing being a principle of life. Now we talk about decisions being a, decision is a principle, a foundation of life, it's a tool. Now, you know, everything that ever happened to me in my life I wonder why You know, I used to wonder why I was in trouble all my life My principles was all mixed up You know they tell me everything that happens to a man He chooses to have it happen I sure chose some hell of a thing to happen to me I had a bad chooser because all of our actions every actions that we take and we went through that in step two we talked about in step three we said we make a decision in four five six and seven okay and we're going to get into eight nine now we noticed that we said At step two, we believe. At step three, we decide. And four, five, six, seven, eight, nine is the action. Now that's just the basic principle. And this is the way we, whatever I did, when I got in trouble, I believed a lie. And I made a decision based on that lie. And I took some bad action. And I got into trouble. But I decided everything that happened to me, decided to let it happen I had to decide that if I took a drink you know there's the man has to give permission that decision the man have to give permission for everything that we do so with honesty you know what he's trying to do is to clear us up and with honesty now we've come to this point and we're going to choose and it says we stand at the turning point and here we are to make a decision based on these two facts I know when I came to probe alcoholics anonymous I didn't I didn' like being a but I found out I was an alcoholic I fought this step in this but I finally did and I had a hard I had a hard time with step one and I surely had a hard time except two and I didn''t like either one of them and I stood at the turning point, and I was wrestling with this step, and I talked to my sponsor. I told him I didn't like it. And he said, well, you don't have to like it." He said, there's nothing in there that says you've got to like It. You know what I mean? And he said, we didn't Like It. And they said, We balked at every step. Said, We didn't Like It either. And no alcoholic likes turning his will and his life over to God, if you understand me. No alcoholic likes being polished over alcohol. But we said, choose. Which one do you want? It's sort of like, you know, I got a bad tooth and I didn't like toothaches. I really didn't. They just, boy, I would procrastinate and put them off and wouldn't go to the dentist, go to my drugstore, get some of that stuff and stick in about half pint and drink on it, you don't wake up death, stay up all night with it, fool around with it for two or three weeks you know because I didn't I didn' like toothaches but I didn''t like dentists either. You know what I mean? I really didn't like dentists but you know pretty soon I had to get on it and I stood between those two things and I had to make a decision. I had the choose between the dentist and the toothache you know and the little pain wasn't near as bad probably it wasn't it was I made a lot more out of it but you this is the way I always operated and This is where the alcoholic gets to box himself in. With honesty, he hasn't got but two things. Anything that he thinks he can do other than that is disheartening. Maybe he thinks, well, I can get my wife back or I can give her a good job and everything. Well, that's a lie, you know what I mean? The chances are if he takes one of those roads, and if he lives, he'll come right back to the turning point again and those two alternatives will always be there because the truth is always there. And once he says the truth will set you free from the lie and once he stands at this point then he is to make this decision and now I've never seen an alcoholic that come to this point and chose this route we have got brains people say well why do people go back to drinking nobody chooses to go back to drinking nobody says I'm part of alcohol my life is unmanageable I'm going to go get me a drink you really can't do that Nobody can do that. And nobody can at the same time say, I believe that a part of me and myself can restore me to sanity. He can't say that and go get a drink either. When he goes gets a drink, he says he don't believe he's an alcoholic. See what I mean? So he ends right back up here. And there he is down to bitten again when them doctors stick him with them needles because he believed a lie. And he made a decision based on that lie. And he ran into the truth. The truth will always be there. So now we stand at this turning point and we know making decisions is a basic fact of life, everything that we do. The success is based on making decisions. I don't care if you're a farmer, dressmaker, cook. You know, the best cook is the one who makes the best decisions. Yeah. Everything we did today in our lives, we had to make a decision to do it. Everywhere we go. You know if we go from here to town, we got to make several decisions of which way to turn to get there. Everywhere we'd go, we'd get there as a result of decisions. And that's astonishing. So if you don't like where your life is at night, then you better change your decisions. because whatever you decide, that's where you go. You know, this whole fact of life, you know, I made hasty decisions. I made decisions based on my emotions rather than all my life, all my decisions were based off my feelings. And they say you should have made them based off your head, you know? Not your feelings, you now. So I know I made bad decisions because I didn't make them off my reasons, I made them off of my emotions. Make a decision to gather the facts. And we all, the program has given us the facts, these are the facts and then it says as you get the facts cut them in two. Get your head straight and look at them with honesty and cut them into two. And we can apply this to our everyday life, apply these principles to all our prayers. This lesson can completely change our lives. Regardless of the person, we can improve our lives a thousand times if we learn to make decisions and apply this principle to our work life and all our other lives. We could improve our lives if we learn to make decisions. In fact, that's the only way to improve your life is to improve you decisions because the decision is the choice that produces the actions and the actions is the life. Now, I stood here and looked at these two alternatives and it says once you get to the facts then cut them in half. Of course, once you do this, you choose this way, you immediately eliminate this way. You know, you got two ways to go. That's why when you're driving your car down the street, you come to two corners, you don't know which way to go and you look at your mind's on this way your minds on that way your minds on this where your minds are never as soon as you make a decision to go down that way, your mind immediately leads the old way. And that's what indecision does in our lives. So once I learned to do this, I know to gather facts and cut them in two. And I was a procrastinator too. You know, once I gathered facts, I had a big self-centeredness. I used to always have to, I had a lot of fear about being wrong because it hurt my ego. So I wouldn't, I then I wouldn't make decisions. Once I gather the facts, I just, I gotta be perfect, you know, and I'd put it off and put it off and play it out. And one thing about making a decision that has to be made in its time. As you get the fact, you got to make it before the facts change. So a decision has to been made in time. You can't make it before you get to facts, and as you get facts, you've got to make it for gets too late. But if you can't make it too fast you can't make it to slow and I think you know that here you know our program we can't no we have got the facts of program has given us the fact the fact is old as man alcoholics down through the history before us have proven that these two facts over and over exist there's people out there in their graveyards people sober and alcoholics anonymous people in mental institutions they have proven over and over and over that these are the facts about the end results of alcoholism and see yet people you know every alcoholic says I'm gonna be different I said go right ahead I'm going to beat the game I'm want to be first I'm going to change these facts you see them every day saying I'm going to do this to go right on him he's running into these age-old facts there is no escape you're an alcoholic here I mean you may be suffering from a disease which only a spiritual experience will come so I made this decision and the first thing we do it in the step he says we make a decision. And that means to cut the first two facts in two. Choose one. That's how I I mean. Cut the first two steps in two. Which one you want? Okay. Now, and besides there's some conditions of this it says, and this is a very complicated step, you know, we hear people, uh, we don't like you, I don't understand. You know, there's, there's multiple ideas of this stuff, you know, this is going through them like a bat out of hell. And they say, I went through this steps and I got drunk. Well, that's what happened. He didn't stop. You know, he went through the steps. It just said, these are the steps we took. They didn't say nothing about these are steps we went through. Like a damn car wash, you know. Okay, you take the step, Right? You take the step. Now, which of the first two choose one of the two? Okay you say everybody will choose two. That's simple. It's possible to choose one. Okay and this and what is there there are terms in this contract. There are terms it says to turn over the turnover you know I didn't say to ask God to help you you know all my life I always asked God to help me and that's pretty self-centered when this thing about a man life going to hell and I was asking God to helped me you know that's a hell of a thing and I think about you know how you know God in all his he's gonna help a fool like me and I'm running the thing in the ground. And they say, God, God wouldn't do it. I'd turn the drink over to him. I even turned my drinking problem over to it. He don't even drink. And they say God won't take the drink but he'll take the drunken. So turning over you know that's a different thing, not to turn over. And this is really a tough thing. This is the most difficult thing for the alcoholic because as a result from alcoholism, he has to give up the most precious thing in his life, you know, self-will. And we talked about it like last week about, you know, that's really what usually God demands from most people. The rich young ruler that came and asked how did he enter the kingdom of heaven? He said, well, take what you got and give to the poor. Well, that didn't mean that every rich man has to give all he has to the poorest. But to this young man, it was his most precious gift. The rich young ruler had to give up his most gracious thing. And that's about the way it is in our lives, the life of everybody that approaches God. See, if that guy was an alcoholic and he walked up to Jesus Christ and said, how I ended in the kingdom of heaven, he wouldn't have said give up what you have and give to the poor. He would have said, give up self because that's what would have been the greatest thing in that individual's life. The greatest, most precious thing in the alcoholic is self-will. See, that's the stuff that's got him keeping on trying to drink. And if he kept that, he'd kill his damn self. See what I mean? So we ask him to give up the thing that's killing him, self-will. The first step in the recovery is to get rid of the worst thing in the alcoholic. Self. So based on the first two steps, he's asked to turn over. Turn it over. now you know i always think about you know uh this when i come to this thing i think about that thing that said god is my co-pilot and i used to think about that that thing had me messed up a long time in my life god is not co-powered like me and you know god i mean that's making god second class i'm the pilot god's the co-power yeah now we ain't talking like that kind of race, but we're talking about turning it over to God, letting God be the pilot. And we'd be the co-pilot. So it means that that's a cold decision for an alcoholic and it's hard for an alcoholic to do that. And maybe that's why a lot of people can't make this step because they really ask God to help them. We make a bellboy out of God by ordering up the things we want. Now that would be easy But the tough thing about this is a turnover. So the second part tells us that if we choose step two, we have to turn over. And then it goes into telling us specifically, and this program says this thing tells us precisely how we have recovered. It says it's going to give us clear-cut direction. And if we say this step, it's totally impossible to confuse these things because it tells us to turn over, and it tells us what to turn away. Our will. And will's a little small word. A lot of people have a problem with it. I did. I never could unlock what is he talking about? Will. You know, self-will. Strong will. My dad used to call me strong will. He said I was hard-headed. You don't know that same thing. Alcoholics are hard-hearted. golly is he hard-headed but will means directions we turn over our directions you know when a person dies he leaves a will and this is I understand the written will that's a deceased person who leaves a wheel to get up to split up his goods or what he owns he writes this while he's alive by the way you know he writes it out The family insists that when he starts to get a little cough, you know, that he write down this will. And he writes it down and splits up all his possessions. And then after he dies, the family rushes him off to the graveyard next morning and they come home and they get out this piece of paper where after he's dead, this written will is a list of instructions instructions that he wants carried out to split up his his possession so the will is the directions of a deceit and it means the same thing here our direction and going back to my choice I'm gonna turn over my choice of do you know I take a choose and I always went the wrong way so it's asking me to turn them over. I don't know why I get so hung up about turning over my will. It wasn't worth a damn. I was sitting in the nuthouse, you know what I mean? Now if your direction has carried you to the nathouse, why should you be hung up about getting rid of you know that's something like a guy you know I tell that story might leave here going over to Memphis and you know you say Joe I want to give you some direction oh I look I know where I'm going I think I can find it all right well I've been there what I don't need it you know thank you appreciate it appreciate it don't eat you and I go on the Memphis and I'm going over here to this meeting and I cross that big bridge and I make a couple of turns and the thing looks strange. Well, I can't, you know, my will's still pretty good. I can' stop and ask nobody. I go on, yeah, yeah. Go on. And I look, look around there, my wife's getting about 7.30, you know now. And that meeting's gonna start and I get all upset, you know I'm lost and my will has gone to hell, you know. My directions ain't no good. Now I see a wino sitting on the corner with his pants unzipped shaking, you know, almost in DTs, you know, and I say, hey mister, will you please tell me? Well, my directions, you know, I got them in my, they as a whole lot different in my directions when I approached that man and asked him for help than it was when I left Little Rock. Couldn't nobody tell me nothing, you see what I mean? Couldn't anybody tell me anything because I had a strong direction. But after I got into trouble and lost them, this is what we hear, we're ready to turn over those old directions because they ain't no good. And you have to be careful too because after you get the wrinkles out of your stomach and get the shakes off, they're going to come back. You know, there are old directions that come back. But here we've made a decision to turn over our will. So my will, just change it into, for one thing, just thank it. And I had some bad thinking. So as a man, thank it as best as you can be because the thinking is what produces the action. The decision produces the act. So inclusive in that sense, we're going to take care of the actions too. Next thing we come to, the Lord talks about our lives. And you know, I don't think anybody's hung up about their lives. Everybody comes to Alcoholics Anonymous and wants to give up their life. You know, I didn't like my life. It wasn't no big deal for me. But I never did know how to do this. but when I first heard it in the steps they talk about turn your lives, I'm sure the steps were written the same way, I know it was they haven't changed the steps they really haven't changing but when i heard them, they said turn your life over to God it didn't say that, but you know I assumed it said that I always assumed and I said I'm not going to turn my life over because I've seen what he, I've heard about what God does with people you know, if you turn your life over to God. I knew he was going to send me to Africa and make me a missionary with my car turning around back. And I heard a guy, another guy talk about it. He went to church and I used to always, back in the old days, take up money to send stuff from the Red Cross overseas. And they needed a lot of bandages all the time in medicine. And he said he figured God was going sit him over there and he didn't want to go nowhere that needed that many advantages you know