The Strange Mental Blank Spot – Herb K – Workshop – Part 8 of 25 – Herb

Good afternoon, good evening. My name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our Big Book Telephone Zoom Workshop. This call is being recorded. Please join me in prayer for an open mind and open heart. God, please set aside everything that I think I know About myself, my brokenness, the twelve steps and you For an open mind and a new experience of myself, brokenness, the 12 steps and especially you. Please join me in the serenity prayer, God grant me the serentity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference. been deep into step one we spent quite a bit of time on and we do so because it's the foundation we try to at least from my efforts dig a big foundation hole to fill it with knowledge certainly but more especially experience I'm really stressing that part during this part of step one we've been looking at addiction as the first half of the first step the big book actually addresses alcohol because they had a limited view at that point based on their own personal experience and need and source of suffering it was alcohol bill wrote the book alcoholics anonymous that's the title of the book but he had the foresight really uh the prophetic insight in that preface to the first edition in 1939 april where in the very first paragraph he said our way of living may have its advantages for all oh he's writing it for alcoholics clearly but he had this instinct this inspiration this intuition from the depth of his literary writing as he introduced the big book but it is possible that this methodology of the 12 steps might have much broader appeal and effectiveness than just alcohol and that's why you're the invitation for these workshops is y'all come if you have any form of addiction this and even if you don't have any addiction if you any form human suffering y'al come participate in this work this workshop this methodology applying these personal steps to our individual lives and I've never seen it fail. Bill doesn't talk about, quote, foundation, close quote, as the first step. But when he gets to the second step, he says the second step is the cornerstone of a spiritual arch through which we walk to a new freedom. So by deduction in terms of a completion of that metaphor or that model. We don't build a spiritual arch through which we walk to a new freedom and place it on quicksand. We place it on a very solid foundation. The first half of the first step, as I've indicated, is about addiction. That's where we're at right now. We've looked at the first part of that, what's wrong with my body? When I start, I cannot stop. We're very clear from our own experience and an understanding of Dr. Silkworth's opinion that there's something biologically different for an addict. We're abnormal by definition. We're not normal. It's not a pejorative term. It'snot a put-down. It's not a moral judgment. It's no a judgment of any kind of negativity. It's an observation of fact. Normal people stop when they've had enough, or at least once they've had an experience of not stopping they're able to stop because they learned from it. And that brings us to the second component which is what we're looking at right now. The problem of the mind. A problem that, although we're able to stop and have stopped many times in some periods, long periods of time, we don't stay stopped. It's funny when I have conversations with people, they say, well, no, it was successful. I stayed stopped for two years. And I just point out, yeah, you're talking about past tense, so you didn't stay stocked. Well, I did for two ears. I know, I did is the key verb here. Past tense. It didn't work. I don't care whether it was two days or two weeks or two months or two years or two decades. If you didn't stop, you didn' t stop. Step back and get the perspective of your own personal history when you're looking at your journey not just a particular cycle or episode or period of time look at your entire life history and then answer the question did I ever stop and stay stopped for a period of time and start again so bill says the problem is in the mind and he gives us lots of examples on pages 23 to 43 then we've taken a look at the key example that illustrates obsession and delusion that fatigue the two key points here in this material he said there's something wrong with our mind and throughout this material we've identified two keywords obsession and delusion obsession is the thought it's a thought a special kind of unique thought that fills up the vision of our screen so that there is no other thought we cannot see any other thought because that's the only thought that we can see and we don't know it's the own thought because it's the only thought that's not I'm not trying to be cute or tricky I'm trying to describe this phenomena of an all-encompassing thought that is so prevalent that there is no other awareness and the problem with the thought it's a lie it's the delusion it's false many of you have talked about it it will be different this time and you truly believe it it never has been different in the sense that you meant it better or at least manageable it's always different in this of progressively getting worse but we don't connect the dots, we don't see the truth. We don't remember to remember. We cannot put the puzzle pieces together. We don't even know that there are puzzle pieces. We don't even know that there's a picture that we're not seeing. And I say it poetically trying to capture my own experience with it because it boggles my mind every time I talk about it. I didn't know that I didn't know. And I couldn't see that I didn t see. And Bill gives us the story of Jim the car salesman, pages 35 to 37. And we looked at his detail of the story. Six times he goes to the insane asylum when he drinks and he knows it. And he knows the problem of alcohol because a couple of people showed up and explained it to him. And in fact, explained it so well that he perhaps worked those steps and had the promises and his life was coming back together again. And he drank. And the reason in the book for his relapse was he failed to enlarge his spiritual life. And we looked at that in a different place in the big book, in Bill's own story on page 14. it says he failed to enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others and now we know what he meant we know then the rest of the story with regard to Jim the car salesman that put a little whiskey in his milk and Bill uses the term insanity it's worth repeating although I've talked about it at length it's such a key concept for step one but it's even a more key concept if you if that's correct English a more important key concept for step two where step two says we're restored to sanity what does that mean it just means that our mind is restored to a level of proportionate healthy thinking proportionate healthy thinking. And Bill defines insanity on page 37 as a lack of proportion and a lack of the ability to think straight, insanus, unhealthy thinking. This is the obsession. My mind does not work like it was built to work. To think in proportion, common sense, to remember, to remember to think in a healthy way for my own survival that's really what it is it's a survival tool of my mind as are my emotions as are our senses they're survival tools digesting our perception of reality so that in fact we can continue to live and discern threat and avoid danger but our minds as addicts don't work correctly i had a 502 in 1968 i'm 28 years old that's a drunk driving arrest in california three years later 1971 i had another one now fortunately i had good attorneys and some money and in those days it was very like a ticket and it was reduced and I paid no consequences other than money and a little embarrassment. They didn't do me any favors by that but I'm just repeating history and three years later I end up in a hospital in a single car accident due to alcohol so over a period of 10 years I had these three very visible, very expensive, very embarrassing connections to the source of alcohol. And I never once gave it a thought. And I have an academic background that's all geared to self-reflection. A graduate education in philosophy, a graduate education in psychology, a undergraduate education in theology. What's wrong with me? Well, even coming into the rooms of AA at age 43, I spent four years going to a meeting every day calling a sponsor every day and never figuring out the answer to that question. And in fact, never even asking the question. So even during four years of freedom from alcohol and complete immersion in Alcoholics synonymous I read the book I worked the steps on my own in that first year nothing changed I got no new knowledge I got no new information I got known new perception I got no change in my behavior four years sober with a sponsor that I called every day now of course there's no sponsored training camp is there he didn't know that he didn't know much about the big book or the step process or certainly about what is a spiritual awakening and how to precipitate it and I began to understand the problem of alcohol that first time in 1988 when I went through the steps with somebody who understood it themselves and then had the experience he explained to me what allergy and craving meant and then had me connected to my experience but that was it and i'm saying this because i really want to give you a sense of perspective on the process it's not an event it's not a task it's an experience and it's a process three years later in 1991 i did the steps again and this man took some time with me with what we're talking about jim's story and fred's story and we met three different times two hours each time and we went over the same material because he knew that i wasn't getting it oh i read the language i understood the words i had the knowledge and i could give you the definitions of obsession and delusion i could describe in detail the differences between fred story and jim story and how they were the same and what the purpose of them in the in the book were but i just wasn't connecting it to my own personal history when i stopped for 30 days when i stop for 60 days when I stopped for 90 days prior to coming in the program and I started again so after two visits in which I didn't connect to it the experience of it not just the knowledge but the experience of it this man spent the next third and the last meeting with me on this subject two hours asking me about my drinking pattern from sunday to monday to tuesday to wednesday to thursday no no drilling down bearing down as you know and probably have personally experienced me do very specifically bearing down on you with questions about specificity i do that because it's what precipitated in me the experience certainly a clearer understanding but then a connection to my own personal history that allowed me to in the deepest part of my soul to be stunned at the reality that I didn't know, that I didn't know. To be boggled by the lack of ability to connect the dots even four years sober, even in the program, even after doing the steps and having a spiritual awakening. I did not have an experience with this material that we're going to finish up with tonight until I was seven years sober and doing the work for the second time. we unpacked Jim's story last time and now we're going to take a look at Fred's story but there's such an important paragraph above that on page 39 the actual or potential alcoholic with hardly an exception will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge you see this whole exercise that we've been in for the last three workshops is about seeing that knowledge and self-knowledge is important it's just not effective it's important we need to know better before we can do better but because we know better doesn't mean that we'll do better think about the structure of step 11. the end of step eleven says praying for the knowledge of god's will and the power to carry it out two very different components I need to know that I know and then I need grace to be able to be effective in my exercise of my willpower the actual or potential alcoholic will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge it's in italics this is a point we wish to emphasize and re-emphasize hello I'm I'm following literally the suggestion of the book in the workshops that we've been doing. This is our third one on this material. I am emphasizing and reemphasizing, hopefully smashing home upon each one of the participants about their own personal bitter experience. Fred is a partner in an accounting firm. That means he's a very bright guy, very industrious, very disciplined. He's gone to college, and now he's done three years of graduate school or two maybe getting his certified public accountant license or degree. I'm not sure what you call it, training. And because of that, and he spent maybe 20, 30 years with an accounting firm, he's run his time. He's got a lot of skills. He's very competent. And he's making a lot of money. His income is good. He's got a home. He's married, family, children, attractive personality. Just like Jim, very successful. Here's the key to this story. We saw Fred about a year ago in a hospital. Okay. This is Bill and Bob maybe. I've got no evidence for the facts. But I never let the facts get in the way of a good story. All right? I like this story as I tell it. it may be apocryphal meaning a false story but the lesson of the story is the point they're visiting the hospital like with jim they visited the insane asylum these are proactive people going out into the field to harvest and heal think about that in terms of the profile of sponsorship far from admitting that he's an alcoholic he's here to rest his nerves and his doctor's not even going to tell him the truth he intimated so this guy really smart very determined very successful has very strong willpower he makes up his mind i don't need the spiritual remedy for my problem we told him what we knew of alcoholism well we know what bill and bob knew of a physical allergy and a mental obsession he was interested interesting information this guy's really smart he got it he conceded that he had some of the symptoms but is a far long way from admitting that he is one of them this humiliating experience and the knowledge that you guys have given me this is going to handle it the knowledge that you've given me and my determination to be never let this happen to me again that's going to be it i really understand now this guy really did understand in the second paragraph below that the second full paragraph in the middle of it it tells us how deeply this man understood the problem as bill and bob had expressed it i rather appreciated your ideas about the subtle insanity which precedes the first drink that's very sophisticated language i don't know very many people in the program today that could have articulated this sentence the subtle insanity obsession that precedes The First Drink that one to five minutes just before I relapse what is that I'm being hijacked by an obsession the subtle insanity unhealthy thinking in fact on the next page he coins a phrase a strange mental blank spot in contrast to Jim Jim had some premeditation he said I vaguely sense I wasn't being too smart he had some perspective on his first mixing of whiskey with milk and on the second mixing whiskey with milk this guy he didn't see the train coming at all in fact on the bottom of page 40 he says i'm going to exercise my willpower keep on guard and i have every right to be self-confident very resolute on page 41 it tells he's a year later he's in Washington he's dealt with the politicians he's negotiated on behalf of his firm and he's been very successful his partners are going to be very pleased when he returns home he goes back to the hotel it's a perfect day maybe it's June in Washington DC and if you've been there at that time the cherry blossoms are and it's phenomenal, balmy. And he goes back to the hotel and cleans up for dinner and it says on page 41, as I crossed the threshold, it's in italics, this is a very important piece of material, the big book's way of highlighting. As I crossed the threshold of the dining room, the thought came to me. Here we go. The thought came to me it would be nice to have a couple cocktails with dinner it's a year later of his humiliating experience and his meeting with bill and bob and his deep understanding of alcoholism the subtle insanity which precedes the first drink and he doesn't see this coming at all that was all nothing more i had a drink i had second drink fabulous i ordered dinner i ate dinner maybe i had coffee maybe i had dessert then i went out for a walk when i came back from that wonderful june evening smelling the cherry blossoms not a care in the world very successful day before i go to bed i'm going to have a nightcap just to cap it off well he stayed in the bar until it closed Then he got up, packed, checked out, went to the airport, flew home, stayed in a taxi for three days drinking and ended up back in the hospital. And that's when he meets these guys again. On the bottom of page 41. I went carefully over that evening in Washington. Oh, my God. how could i after a year of abstinence from alcohol and all the information that i had and all that complete commitment and conviction that i would be on guard and exercise my willpower and it says here i had been off guard i had not made any fight whatever the time this time i had no thought of the consequences at all there was no other thought on the screen of my consciousness then wow i'm very successful i'm going to have a drink that would taste really good and he says that's an alcoholic mind on page 42 what i had learned of alcoholism did not occur to me at all and here's the words my favorite because they describe me strange mental blank spot he's just observing it identifying it he's not explaining it there's no science here this is a metaphor a strange mental blind spot hopelessly defeated well if you paid attention to the story when And Jim said he was an alcoholic. They explained to him steps two and the balance of the steps, and Jim had a spiritual experience as a result of finishing the amends process. What Jim didn't do was continue helping others deal with their problem. but here because fred doesn't accept or concede that he has a problem they don't even tell him about the program they don'T even tell them about steps two or anything else but now it says they grinned and they asked if i thought myself an alcoholic there's two questions here pay attention if you're attempting to help other people. There's two questions here. Are you an alcoholic? Yes, by your definition. And are you licked this time? Are you surrendered? Are you defeated? That's a huge second question. Now he says I concede both and they shared their experience, hopeless condition. All right. Then in this last paragraph, once he's conceded step one, powerlessness, then they outlined a spiritual answer. God is the power and the program of action. Give your life over to God, the care of God, and do inventory and amends, which 100 of them had followed successfully. by the time this book was written there were about a hundred people in three cities that had six months of sobriety the program of action is entirely sensible but drastic it means i would have to throw several lifelong conceptions out of the window does that sound like the set aside attitude i think so the moment i made up my mind to go through the process i had the curious feeling that my alcoholic condition was relieved quite as important was the discovery that spiritual principles would solve all my problems this is where we're heading with this next assignment we won't unpack it for next week but you're welcome to begin it assignment number five we won t look at it next week assignment number five but you can begin looking at it it's worthwhile it's got very dense paragraphs in the big book in chapters four and five it skips around because it's not Bill's intention in structuring the big-book to do what we do with unmanageability that second half of the first step spiritual principles would solve my problem I've been brought into a way of living infinitely more satisfying and more useful way of living is a code word bill uses for steps 10 11 and 12 further down he says what you have said a general hopelessness of the average addict a 100% hopeless and then he concludes what Bill thinks is his concluding commentary and his instruction on step one this is the way the book is structured on page 43 bill concludes his approach to step 1 but as I'm pointing out and as you'll see later on it's really only a conclusion to the first half of the first step he says once more the alcoholic at certain times has no effect of mental defense against the first drink we need God we need a higher power but notice it's about alcohol it's about addiction it's a substance or process it's about the first half of the first step of body and a mind problem nowhere in this material that we've been looking at has he treated unmanageability not even refer to it the third time i went through the step work 10 years sober 1994 i engaged a man who had a different approach and he's the one that gave me this head of side prayer and he's the one that took me into a series of assignments on unmanageability so that at the very first time in my sobriety, I was able to have an experience with the spiritual malady, really understanding it for the very last time. For the very next time and understanding why Bill says in the 10th step, we enter the world of the spirit and we're placed in a position of neutrality but we're not cured and we have a daily reprieve. that information in step 10 is unintelligible if you don't know what unmanageability means if you do n't know that it's the spiritual malady if you d o n t know it's the human condition and most people don't kno w that they don't k ow that in the 12-step program we'll spend two or three workshops on the unmanagability but first we're going to focus on the problem of the mind if you haven't finished the worksheet on the mind now would be the time to be doing that by next week finishing it's not a test as I've indicated to be completed or to get right or wrong it's a springboard of questions to confront your own personal history a lot of them surrounding what were you conscious of what were you feeling what were aware of one to five minutes before you relapsed after a period of abstinence whether it's a one day or a week or a month or a year or a decade it doesn't matter take a look at the specifics on friday night i'm at the hula hoop bar and i've got 30 days of sobriety um in aaa or i'm not in aa but i didn't want to drink and i made a commitment not to drink but i'm going there to shoot some pool you see how specific i really mean that specific not a general acknowledgement of the blindness that you saw in fred or the semi-consciousness that you saw in jim no i want you to get real specific with your at least one and i hope you can identify three times either before you came in program or even after you came and programmed if you have relapse after you come in program and unpack it specifically i made it i i'm in oa and i've got 60 days of hard hard won sobriety abstinence by my standards and my sponsor's standards and i'm at a wedding and i have a piece of wedding cake and it was the forbidden fruit and they call that a relapse I'm saying it that way because I'm not in the program and I don't want to establish any vocabulary that isn't appropriate. Trying to parallel that with the drinking. What were you thinking and feeling and aware of just before you went for the cake? After you took the bite, it's irrelevant. and it's all a story at that point because the craving kicks in either then or later on so the point is not when you ate it the point is NOT when you drank it the point IS NOT when you injected it the POINT is NOT WHEN you were controlling no that's too late you're already in it the point is just before you engage in the process or ingest the substance one minute five minutes those instructions aren't in the big book they're my way of helping you tease out your experience with it all right so we're going to talk to some folks i had to really wrestle with what i was feeling so i've been sober 30 years but it's really in the food program that my addiction shows itself so here's i attempted to do what you said can i just read it to you okay i said i received multiple emails from my ex-husband i read the emails before you do that give us the context of it now the relevancy of this is a relapse so what are you relapsing from and what kind of support do you have and what consciousness and commitment do you have at this moment okay so i uh my conscious my intention was to not eat sugar wheat or flour i also have you in a program at this time yeah just at this in this story yes failing miserably but yeah still there I'm like gonna hang on no matter what so yes in a food program and so my intention was to not pick up of course and what I guess it would desert was so really what happened was what I what I when you asked specifically what I was feeling a few minutes before i picked up was sad angry that i read an email that assaulted you know it was very assaulting and what i did is what i do with my drinking also is i started eating at him to to punish myself like all right that's a conclusion what were you thinking I was thinking if I eat I'm gonna feel different yes and it's true what did you mean by that in your own but in retrospect it's hard to unwind it when you were actually there but when you say I'm going to feel I'm think differently what were you attempting to accomplish to to blackout to not feel anything okay all right to go numb yeah just like when I drink and use some correlation of the it doesn't it's when you talk now about it doesn' t matter addiction I'm the same human being with the same faults and frailties it's just showing its head this way the dynamic underneath is the same the context and the vocabulary is different but underneath it's all the same yeah yeah yeah so boy did it take me a while to sit with what I was really feeling before I picked up because I was really to be honest with you I've been sitting here for the last way out for many weeks we've been doing this going I've in sober 30 years it reminds me of that Jeff Redkin Scott Redkin who passed when he went to FA or he went OA and he was like 200 pounds sober and they're like yeah but your AA bucks don't count here you're fat sit down it was like oh so I'm finding knowing that I'm with everyone on this road I might just have the courage to sit and feel what it was what I was thinking or feeling yeah I didn't want to interrupt your uh your reading do you have more that you would like to share with us no i just basically it was the story of the emails and i was going to feel different yeah right right yeah well so you were sad so you had some type of a negative thing and you wanted to change that yeah and how much did you have any absence at that point I did I had then I had been almost 30 days again abstinent mm-hmm and when you what did you eat oh I ate a chocolate chip cookie good all right at least you have quality but anyway no so as you were picking up the cookie or going over to the plate even before you picked it up but as you're going over the plate what were you conscious of in connection to your 30 days of abstinence and or your commitment to abstinents and or your program conscious of my program nothing I didn't think I was obsessed by then I was I was drowned in the story of him a victim this is never gonna change see I think ground is a great word you're drowned in it and you can't see the truth but you are feeling the feeling and you know what changes that feeling yes then there's no real perspective on it there's not much thought on it and and it's only afterwards that you know you're you're eating at him you're not consciously eating at him right now you're just feeling this sadness and negativity and you want it to stop yeah yeah yeah and and so once you had that experience you never did that again right i never stopped doing that until i got honest again that's right i couldn't it was as if you know it's like i just couldn't stop after that i had let's but see what's wrong with you you seem to be a educated and bright lady and why don't you learn from your mistakes if it were only that easy and in fact it's not in fact impossible it's not just hard it's impossible what does powerless me it means I'm hopeless on my own power I'm helpless at least this is the tenant in the end though and the approach in the big book it's kind of like that's why Bill concludes on page 43 we have no effective mental defense we need a power other than ourself and then with regard to unmanageability on page 62 that second paragraph he said and we can't even reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power we had to have God's help from my standpoint that's when we're launched into step two yeah that's the conclusion I'm giving you kind of a peak preview of the conclusion to unmanageability the spiritual malady very powerful all right my story is also that I've got almost 17 years in AA and and I'm also working a food program and that's what I'm focusing on relating with this step one. Okay, and what specifically are we talking about in terms of addiction? Sugar and flour. Okay, so you're talking about an eating disorder kind of a fellowship you're in. Yes. Because you've said you're AA and I just wanted to know what perspective are you coming from? also how how long have you been in a 12-step fellowship for food at the point that you're going to give us one year one year okay and did you have any abstinence at that point i at that i only had a few days back well no no so the answer is oh yes i had i had a a few of abstinences yes all right i want everybody listen to my questions my questions are very specifically worded and i want you to respond in a specific way to my question okay it's a training thing that i'll be doing with you for a while okay thanks i appreciate it i was thinking my first abstinence was long and successful so that to me was the real abstinents and then trying to get back is just like failure after failure now are you saying when you say that are you seeing your first abstinence in your eating disorder program yeah oh okay so i'm i'm almost more interested in that than the example that you're about to read us but let's do this one first and see where it goes okay you're back in an eating program back in i have a sponsor i have support i've got three or four or five days of absolutely i've got three or four or five days i have to drive my son from flagstaff back to ucla sure i prepare my meals for two days i'm going to stay in la and um staying in a guest house have all my food takes forever to make it all and but it's done it's packed it's in a cooler i get to the guest house and the hostess says i'm barbecuing tonight will you please join us which in my first abstinence it would not have been a problem i would have said actually i have my own food i would love to sit with you got something it would have been okay but i just found myself people pleasing this woman and her 12 year old daughter sat down ate their dinner then the little girl comes out with her cupcakes that she absolutely is like i made these for you you know and it all went out the window herb right right so um how long had you been abstinent in the long period approximately eight months oh okay good a good long stretch of eight months and how long were you out of the program in real life three three months okay so a good long period in between and why did you come back to the program after three months of freedom i gained 15 pounds okay i saw i tried the controlled drinking controlled eating i gained fifteen pounds what what were you suffering in gaining the weight or you just weren't like the way I got scared because I saw the road I saw where the road was leading back to my original weight okay okay so if you were to give me one sentence as to why you came back to your 12-step eating program what would be that one sentence I conceded that I'm powerless once I start eating and sorry I'm trying that's great and if you were to give me one sentence as to the real motive for coming back to the 12-step program what was driving you what was moving you back to the twelve step program your pressure peer pressure meaning what does that mean all my support sisters and you know in the program we're like when are you coming back what i think no oh no that's not peer pressure that's outreach and your knowing they're they're the truth that's nothing okay i mean at the surface of it is but underneath it no that a wonderful that you you uh i hope are really grateful for their outreach yeah yeah all right but what i'm hearing is that you didn't like the way and you knew you could come back and do the right body size so it's really about body size and weight that's what I'm hearing on the surface of it right and but my mind my best thinking is you weren't 200 pounds overweight you were only you know 35 40 pounds you're not like these people you don't sit in a closet and eat you know i can manage this i got this little bit of help beautiful all right so you're back in a few days and you have a sponsor and when she said to you we're doing the barbecue what were you conscious of before you ever left your room after she gave you that invitation i just didn't want to i just i just wanted to go home i was i was i just I hate I felt like I had to make her happy and not make waves okay all right so there was a people-pleasing there in the same way that you talked about your community of people who are reaching out to you you there was a component of even people pleasing there in terms of peer pressure yes yeah okay all right i'm just looking i'm surfacing some of the dynamics here in your in your thinking yeah i didn't want to have a relapse with food with salmon and asparagus you know i didn't it wasn't something i wanted great to me but anyway it's delicious but it wasn t what i had so so as you're eating before you as you sat down to the table what were you thinking in terms of your sponsor your abstinence your relapse your commitment what were you thinking i just kept thinking about the phone call in the morning that i was going to have to make oh so you were conscious of the phone call you were going to make and you ate thinking about that instead of making a call first no you were lost you were last before that yeah no the trigger had been pulled the bullet was fired and anything else is just the rest of the story yeah okay that's i mean that's very specific all right so out of all of that and our conversation what's what's now your kind of experience with it it's exactly everything we've just read in the book it's all about the mental the the mind what i'm trying to tell myself and now i can't find in the book but it's everything you've said it is not your knowledge or your place in the book or a quote from the book i was asking you for your experience with this story that you've told us about it's real life for you you had some period of eight months you yeah three months you gained weight and you really were uncomfortable with all of that for lots of mixed reasons you came back to the program you got a sponsor you have some abstinence and you crashed and burned my mind is so filled right now it's hard to get the essence of what i'm trying to say but i understand now that it's out of your mind wait wait wait sorry for your experience not your knowledge very very different so what is your heart and gut doing right now other than panicking to get the right answer and there's no right answer it's my my my heart and gut says i've got to turn this one over to god because i'm not getting it on my own and it's becoming more confusing and more spiraling yeah yeah well if in fact you're becoming confused and a little boggled with even your work you're doing in the conversation we're having for me that's a sign of an experience and an open mind an opening mind because there's not a lot of clear this is subtle the subtle insanity but that precedes the blistering this is subtle it's so subtle no I've got about seven hours of absence seven hours yeah well you're down to the hours all right so what's the longest period prior to this that you had of absence about a year oh you had a year abstinence okay can you go back to the relapse and tell us about the context of that and what you relapsed with and what your thinking was at that time yes um it was around thanksgiving it's the end of november and that's the time that my father passed away and it's about two weeks before my mother's birthday and she had passed away as well so it's kind of like a time where i sometimes get a little sad thinking about both my parents all right um what i was thinking about what i ate specifically i know because i almost always eat the same thing i ate uh chips and pretzels well but but that's uh that's the conclusion and so i need a little bit more of the story that led up to that where wait wait where so where were you when you ate chips and pretzels I was at home and were you by yourself yes all right and at the end of the day or middle of the day or the beginning of the I don't remember specifically the time of the Day I'm retired so I don' t remember specifically I know that helps me you're you're retired so it doesn't actually matter um what were you thinking or conscious of or feeling a year abstinent before you engaged in the chips and the pretzels i was uncomfortable feeling uncomfortable missing my parents yeah i was also feeling uncomfortable because i have a tape recorder that plays in my head frequently okay you better not break this is down on a long time can you hold on another minute another day i have was thinking about and nervous about whether i could hold on in progress no that's where i got lost i guess hold on to what to the program itself why were you thinking that thought um the thoughts come in my head sometimes that this is going really well you're going to screw it up okay um did you that thought at that point yes all right all right and and and i'd had that thought for several days okay and you would talk to your sponsor about that i had talked to my sponsor about it yeah i did all right i did talk to my sponsor about it all right didn't like the response i got what was that um basically are you going to let that be the reason why you have a break are you gonna let that get in your way so you mean he he he called you on it yeah i guess he called me on it yeah because you were already warming up yeah i'm really sad it's an anniversary of two deaths and and uh i wanted some love and yeah yeah and i want some love from my sponsor and he just tells me the truth that i'm using that as a potential excuse right yeah and I don't like having my covers pulled back no nobody does by the way all right and so tell me where were the pretzels and chips in the supermarket oh you had to go out and buy it yes oh so were you at home when you have the thought yes and did you walk or drive right okay so as you got in your car to go the supermarket your intention was to get chips and pretzels yes that was my intention but that's not what i was telling myself talk to me about what you were talking to yourself about i was telling myself i'm not going to go get those things but i do need to get some fruit for tomorrow for my meal plan so i'm just going to grow and i'm going to get the fruit and i m going to stick with what's on my little shopping list i have a little and i m going to leave that's what i was telling you you're already conscious that there's a struggle going on oh the struggle is a light word there's an out out and out fight it's knock down drag them out right i got it i got yeah well of course that's the fight you're gonna lose every time right right okay all right and um prior to so this is now at the uh at the conclusion of a year's abstinence prior to having that year's abstinence, had you ever had that kind of dynamic and that kind thinking and that kinda struggle before? Before coming in the program, yes. Yeah, yeah, and how did that turn out? Any time that you... Yeah. Well I just went and got what I wanted to get because it didn't last very long because I didn't have a consciousness of it. It was like, yeah just go ahead and get this and eat it and be done with it. Right, right, right. all right so let's let's explore that for just a minute I don't know where this is going but let's explain that for a minute prior to coming into the program you would go get what you wanted to eat and eat it how did that turn out for you when you didn't turn out well okay all right so even more consequences very big-time negative consequences you've got a lot of information going for you after a year as abstinence a lot yes yeah so why did why didn't you go to the store and manage your list I gave up like just like your sponsor predicted yeah yeah all right so you purchased the chips and the pretzels and you got back in your car did you wait till you got home yes because I put him in the trunk so I had to wait all right oh that was my manageability moment Wow Wow help me see you're pretty conscious then at that point I'm always conscious yeah and you got home and you took him in and the rest is history right I can get in the house at that all right yeah the point of it is each of you challenge yourself with that level of specificity when you're coming to grips with what am i thinking what am I feeling because this man in my third visit to him on this very topic, we had spent two, two hour sessions beforehand. In this two hour session, he did what I'm doing here. That's why I'mdoing it because it was so effective for me. And I saw, I came to a point where I said, oh my God. On Monday, I said I wasn't going to drink Monday night and I drank. on Tuesday I said I'm not going to drink from Tuesday and I drank all the way through Friday and up till then I had the consciousness that I was changing my mind but I'm smarter than that I'm more knowledgeable than that I'm more disciplined than that so clearly I wasn't changing my mind, my mind was being changed and it went from my decision to a concession of my powerlessness it wasn't a decision i was being hijacked by an obsession i don't explain it i just observe it can you relate to that i'm still trying to understand when the you know we talked about that five minutes before usually for me it could be a half hour hour and a half two hours but I'm not I'm not attempting to have anybody understand that there's a time when you're conscious enough to manage your consciousness that's not it at all okay Neil this information that you have mm-hmm is useless okay when it comes to preventing the obsession right no no you have to really i know you're hearing it but everybody here this information is important only to tease out in you the experience that this information Is useless well what does Bill say at the page 43 there come a time and a place where there'd be absolutely no effective mental defense this information is useless as a protection against the obsession what it is useful for is to give me an experience of the powerlessness no choice so that I will put more energy into seeking power not seeking information not seeking consciousness but seeking a power other than myself because i'm hopeless and helpless in this area that's frightening for me that was my response to it i had 24 to 48 hours of abject terror and fear i was seven years sober and i had this sense this overriding internal sense of impending doom that's right yeah because i i just saw that oh my god all my step work all my knowledge is not going to protect me the only thing i can hope for is an effective relationship with god and i cannot produce that bingo yeah bingo i've been trying yeah my own spiritual director said herb you're he wasn't in a program we were talking about meditation he said you're as powerless over your spiritual life as you are over alcohol think this thought you're is powerless over meditation as you are over having no power at all sit in the presence of power humbled by your powerlessness and hoping for a connection with power it turned my whole meditation practice around he said I'm responsible for the effort and the results are none of my business yeah okay that's what we get to do is we get to show up and do the best we can knowing it's not the best weekend and doing it anyway. You shared you're as powerless over your spiritual condition as you are over your alcohol and I never heard you say that and if you could elaborate a little bit on in five-year-old English. Well no I understand what you're saying it was a startling moment for me I was five years sober 1989 I was sitting in front of a wonderfully spiritual man very experienced not in the program at all I explained to him 12-step program my experience with working the steps my experience with step one powerlessness over alcohol and that I worked the balance of the steps and I began to change and i came to step 11 and i understood it finally for the very first time and that i was practicing it every day now for a year i'm sitting in front of him because i'm bored with the practice and he said to me herb you're a task oriented person you can figure out how to do things and you've got a lot of discipline and energy and you wrestle it to the ground spirituality is not like that and neither is meditation you're as powerless over your spirituality as you are over alcohol he got the parallel he actually didn't know anything about 12 steps he didn't know anything but the big book or bill wilson but underneath the dynamic that bill understood and wrote about in the big book and the 12 steps underneath that dynamic the dynamics the same no matter where you are in spiritual tradition bill says you're powerless over managing your own life on your own power I mean that's the whole point of the second half of the first step we haven't seen that yet but we will in the next couple three weeks on page 62 bill says we can't even reduce it much by wishing or trying on our own power we can reduce our self-centeredness I relate that to spirituality so this man's insight and instinct from his own spiritual journey and experience and tradition was able to help me understand the 12-step experience and tradition when he said you're as powerless over your spiritual life as you are over alcohol having no power at all you're is powerless over meditation as you are over alcohol having no power at all sit in the presence of power humbled by your powerlessness your job is to show up your job is not to leave early your job is the effort and the results are none of your business it was profound it was life-changing because i am a task oriented person but spirituality is not a task i can accomplish I lean gently into the program. I lean gentley into the steps. I lean gently into the spirit. And the spirit, figuratively, poetically, places its arms around me and draws me forward. You see the cooperation there. You seethe collaboration there. I use the word co-creation. it's my job to show up and lean into the spirit the moment I do that the spirit draws me forward and I connect with lean gently keep on the path and be humble and well even even on that yes I can't keep on the path on my own power and I certainly can't be humble on my own power the moment i recognize my humility i am out of it so if i'm on my knees and get my face to the ground trying to be as humble as possible but still your ego is having so much fun with its with its power to assume humility look at how humble i am with my knees bent and my face to the ground oh my god i better get a special admiral's stripe for humility okay okay thank you no subtle subtle baffling and cunning and whatever the words are from the big book it talks about alcohol this that's really my ego there too yeah and it may may not be true for you no you probably nailed it i just wasn't aware yeah i didn't know what i didn didn't didn't you know teresa vabila is one of the catholic saints from the 16th century a woman a brilliant brilliant woman um wrote several books anyway she said humility is truth Humility is truth. Just accepting reality as it is. It's brilliant, it's so simple. Humility is truth, just seeing reality as is not as I project it to be or certainly not want it to be yeah and i had had months of abstinence i'm in a way and i had a big slip since the last session since last week and i can't get back on track okay and i feel like all right so um i don't want to interrupt your but i don't want you to focus i want you to focus so you had some abstinence before that how much time did you have this go around about two months wonderful two months of abstinance and this last week you broke your abstinences before one minute to five minutes before you picked up what were you thinking or feeling or aware of it's hard for me to remember I know what I thought only this week it's not hard for you to remember it's NOT hard get over yourselves I'm not going to allow that kind of talk it's Not Hard yeah it might take a little effort and reflection if it was 20 years ago I'd be a little easier but within a week no uh it is and I mean after two months of abstinence and you break I want to know what you were thinking and feeling or not thinking and failing one to five minutes tell me about the circumstances and what did you break with I it doesn't sound that bad I ate a frozen banana but it's not on the list right no it's not I ate it in the middle of the night yeah and what I was thinking yeah was I can't I can't stay in my skin I can live with this I'm uncomfortable yeah yeah that's it yeah what were you uncomfortable about dealing with intimacy issues in my therapy okay and and were you asleep and woke up or were you just not able to go to sleep no I was asleep and I woke up which is a pattern for me mm-hmm and you woke up and you're uncomfortable have you ever uh you say it's a pattern so when you have awakened before and being disturbed um how how how frequent is that in a in your in your pattern in your cycle right now it's happening several times a night oh when i started and was to have abstinent I would wake up maybe once a night but food was maybe a fleeting thought but I didn't entertain it okay no that's that's not evading that's a very clear and specific answer that's great so now that you've relapsed you're saying that you have very disturbed sleep yes yeah okay so before that though as you were having the two months of abstinence what was the pattern like of your sleep much more restful were you waking up with any type of disturbance yes i would wake up but i wasn't uncomfortable in my skin i knew that if i was anxious i could put my head back on the pillow and i would fall asleep okay so um this particular night this last week you were disturbed when you woke up and you could really feel the disturbance had you ever been that disturbed before in abstinence yes um was that a regular recurrence no no it would be very infrequent all right but let's assume that you had it infrequently did it always lead to relapse No. So what was different this time? Well, this is why I wanted to talk with you because I was explaining my relapse to myself as saying that my spiritual practice was weak this past week and why it was I was feeling pressure. I was becoming very obsessed with work and worried about it and i let my spiritual practice wane so and specifically what does that mean what does waning spiritual practice for you mean for instance uh last week first day back at a job meditating for 10 minutes but aware of i had 10 minutes and And I, I never kind of let myself be in the presence. It was like, um, okay, I've now check off the list. I did 10 minutes kind of thing and prayer that way very rushed. Not thinking about it really not being in it. And this is what's happened to me before when I've lost my abstinence. I get caught up in life crazies, and I forget that I need to be quiet. And if I don't, it seems like that's when I lose my abstinence. I live in a spiritual shield. If I, for some reason, if I slacken up, Bill calls it rest on our laurels. if i slacken on my spiritual practices the shield gets weak it's vulnerable not me my shield which is a power other than me and my relationship with it it gets weak it gets thin it drops out it becomes vulnerable and the obsession comes in and that seems like what you're attempting to describe here as your experience. So that you were giving short shrift to your meditation and prayer, I'm a little concerned about the conclusion because it's not about your effort and it's about your feeling and it is not about knowledge because it sounds like you were there doing the best you could in that 10 minutes but for some reason you also feel like you were becoming intentionally distracted with your work and allowed that to kind of hijack you that's a very good description that's exactly what i did well it's what you it's my words but it's what you said yeah i'm not sure i was allowing my conscious process oh well there is nobody i don't believe there's anybody on the call that would disagree that what i just said was just a repeat in my words of what you said no okay yeah yeah and so um it might be that you're judging yourself a little harshly and i'd be careful there but it's a possible explanation also um during this week are you calling a sponsor talking about your concern about work i did reach out i haven't heard from her so you called but you didn't talk to her no i did not and i emailed her yeah so that's another possible problem um you maybe you if if your sponsor is busy or periodically unavailable you might want to have a backup plan so that there is somebody else that you can have a literal conversation with in contact i did do that last night i did a mini fear inventory with a friend yep perfect wonderful and then um in this last week have you been helpful to anybody intentionally yes okay yeah so the one thing that may be the worm in the wood here is that you got you got a little bit lazy with your meditation practice it's a pattern for me oh well all right let's i heard that and i forgot that you had said that tell me about what you're seeing here as a pattern i have had abstinence one time for about two years and every time when i get comfortable in it i i pull back i don't invest as much and i start worrying about i donno life relationships whatever okay and i um um I feel like I put that between me and God or no you just said you did yeah yeah and you have a pattern of getting distracted and getting complacent I do yeah and that's again the big book on page 85 said we cannot rest on our laurels and what it means is our past accomplishments what is our yesterday's spiritual life we have to have a spiritual life today and although it's not black and white I don't want to give any anybody the sense that there's a formula here and I've got to do it perfectly by the numbers otherwise you know the hammer is gonna fall no I don t mean that at all but you have to interpret what does it mean rest on your laurels and complacency if if you have a pattern that you see then what is it that you could do differently well i wasn't being honest with you and myself just now okay i did do a mini inventory yesterday but i didn't do that last week when this first happened so when when at first when i had the first compulsion that was the time to pick up the phone and if my sponsor wasn't available to find someone else i did not do that yeah i just stayed in my craziness um yeah and then we're connecting to the tenth step when you're disturbed or in your craziness there's several items that need to be done number one is pray number two is talk to somebody That's the second item in the recommendation in the 10-step. Make an amend if you've harmed somebody, which doesn't sound like you did, and turn your thoughts to helping somebody else. So essentially those are the two questions that I ask people. How is your meditation practice? Three questions. Prayer. And did you talk to somebody and did you help somebody? those are the three basically building blocks uh to maintain your spiritual shield okay yeah thank you all right and and and so you're on a consciousness here aware of a cycle and a you called it a um what did you call it um a pattern no yes i did i called it a pattern all right um yeah and so you might want to really take a look at the pattern and see what was happening in the hour before or the day or the week before the pattern kicked in again because it's not about the one or five minutes by then it's probably too late but i want to make people conscious of it a good friend of mine said the drink is not the relapse the drink is the evidence of a relapse that took place yesterday or last week or last month and so when you have a cycle or a pattern like that take a look at the bigger picture on the pattern and see what your thinking feeling and doing thinking feeling and doing in the in the time before the cycle kicks in because there's something amiss there if it's a defined and definable pattern or cycle. Okay, thank you. That was a great conversation, thank you so much. I have many stories and so I was thinking about just one of them over the past week which was after I'd been abstinent for about 11 months I guess and I was I think on step nine at the time and it was Rosh Hashanah and I had gone to a high holiday luncheon which is like 5 p.m. or something and you know people said blessing over wine and then blessing over the bread and they were passing around challah for people to take a bite of and challah is not something I can eat I have many many many memories of binging on an entire loaf of challah you know in 24 hours and they're passing around the challah and I just remember really two things one was that I was very uncomfortable at the idea of being the only person not partaking right and then having the thought that it's only a bite of challah it's actually it's all me a bite like I'll be fine it's only a bite yeah and it started a six month long relapse you know that fortunately thus far has been my final relapse because I think I really got scared after the end of that binge but but it was it's just been interesting for me to think about like for so long I don't think I got the gym in the Fred stories at all and now I can see I have so many of those stories and they're so simple they're you know i just want to buy apollo or whatever yeah yeah and they're they're so uh they replicate themselves in different circumstances but underneath it's the same story oh i don't want to be seen as different or oh it's just not a big deal this time or i got this one oh my god i've heard that thousands of times those three little words and phrases so i just was grateful to have the opportunity to think about it as a hijacking that was just a helpful new layer of nuance for me that was really helpful well because the word is so dramatic and we today really understand that word in terms of the outside civilization or outside of ourselves um and when we bring that in it's kind of like oh yeah there are forces in me that i'm not controlling at all that uh i literally have no influence over yeah i just i need to have the spiritual shield i i just i've fallen in love with star wars and the image from um that movie uh hidden figures if you haven't seen it it's very worthwhile about three women who were basically anonymous at NASA and they basically rose up because of their competency to be extremely useful and helpful in the launching of in the satellite and all the rest of that but I got the idea well bill uses that in 1939 in on page 25 he said we're rocketed into a fourth dimension so we really can use the steps in an analogy of a rocket ship all right and and the Star Wars image is where the mothership the big starship has a protective shield around it and it's invulnerable to being attacked unless the shield is weak or down and I thought well that's just like us if the shield is weak we can it can be penetrated by the obsession if the shield is down well then hell I'm just you know I'm subject to being hijacked certainly you see what I mean yeah so it's images like that that helped me not only understand my own deficiencies but the motivation for some of aspects of my program but it also allows me to communicate it to other people so that they can kind of hear it differently that's really the point yeah yeah I love that shield metaphor thank you that's actually and what I heard it was like I need power it's done on to us, and my head is going, so what's the point? So what's to use? You mean there's nothing I can do? Oh, no, never, never said that. No, no. My head is saying. That's why I'm here. That's Why You're Here because there is something that you can do about your relationship with power. There's nothing that you Can Do About Your Relationship With Addiction. you hear the difference right no you don't okay come on talk to me some more i was thinking about what you said because then i also hear uh people in program for 10 and over years chronic relapses and um and i'm like i don't want to do that i don'T WANT TO BE THAT WHAT'S THE POINT OF DOING all this so that's where my head is like you know am i gonna be here in 10 years from from now well how about are you going to be here 10 minutes from now or 10 days from now or 10 weeks from now you don't know that but how do you want to live now definitely with power or free without addiction but i'm a chronic not chronic i'm a periodic binger yeah and so when it happens i feel bad and then i pick myself up and i'm fine for a few weeks you want to continue that cycle well you see i don't want to be a chronic relapser and i want what you have but then it's like when is that going to happen and you mean what did i say wait wait wait great questions when did i say it would happen step nine that's right you're listening at the end of step nine it's guaranteed that the when you finish your step nine amends it's guaranteed in the book it's and it's my observation a hundred percent people who finish the ninth step get free of their addiction stay free as long as they do 10 11 and 12 on a consistent daily basis so what about the people that have done the steps time and time again and they're still relapsing i i can't explain that i mean i would love to sit down with them and ask them the kind of questions that i ask specifically i bet you i find the worm in the wood someplace oh i've done the steps really let's talk about your fourth step did you actually analyze your beliefs did you actual identify your motives did you identify your deep resentments and form a prayer practice for the removal of your deep resentment and they're looking at me like a deer in headlights because they've never heard that language am i speaking greek or what no i'm speaking the process that you all are going to experience that are going to give you freedom from your resentment but the big book the big book doesn't have any of the words that i just said other than deep resentment because my my experience is all an interpretation and an expansion of a deeper uh experience with the the book this the the instructions in the big book the instructions in the Big Book are wonderful but they're not intuitive they're wonderful but They're not complete right yeah so going back I mean you're wonderfully conscious you're very much paying attention you're asking some great questions and uh you said I don't want to have you don't have to wait you can show up and do this work if you want what the book promises and what you see witnessed in my words and my behavior if you want that it's available to you but not by next friday maybe a year from today maybe six months from today i don't know when the gift will happen i guarantee you the gift will happen and i can say that now without any qualifications because i've got 25 years of experience of doing these workshops yeah because there was a lot of discussion about ego today and and as we're talking i i'm thinking is this now the ego trying to come in and he said you know what you better um i think you're just a smart person who's very reflective and you're challenging yourself these your questions are not ego questions your questions are really fundamental really solid questions they're not silly questions they're no they're really good questions and and you need to challenge yourself that way that's right and then then be patient with the fact that you may not feel satisfied with your answer or mine you may feel satisfied but you're going to have faith in the process and you're gonna have faith and hope in me okay thank yeah that's it's a leap it's elite but what do you got to lose exactly yeah you know show up for and do the work in between and see what happens in a year okay yeah if you might yeah this is my challenge I give every once in a while if you keep a calendar for next year already or make a note yourself and make a note in middle of February of next year Valentine's Day whoo perfect put on calendar Herb and I had a conversation on 9-11 2020 and he said by now February 14th of 2021 I will really appreciate the work that he suggested to embrace the mystery I was able to do that in meditation and it became such a beautiful thing for me to embrace the presence that I could finally call a mystery I didn't have to figure out what it looked like I didn' t have to figure out how it communicated I didn''t have to have an image of it nothing oh it was the most beautiful thing and to be able to go into that space and all I needed to do was feel the presence and do nothing or not feel the presence and doing nothing exactly because it's not about feeling it's great when you feel it but when you just say it's a mystery and i don't know it and i don't feel it it's a mystery, and I believe it and I'm going to sit here as if it's true exactly and really magic begins to happen by the way and it has I mean to just consent and say I am here I'm waiting i'm here and being open and and so because i've been able to do that what's transferred was i was able to embrace that my body is a mystery too and and that i can be in that space and have it be okay has been just the biggest blessing and and um especially especially if you're in oa i mean i heard that for the very first time from you just now and i love it because i've been exposed to the eating disorder programs there's eight of them i think um since 12 years ago and um i'm i'm experienced now from my exposure externally but it's still a mystery to me and so what you've helped me is that the body in this area is a really big mystery in the eating disorder i can explain addiction in in substance addiction and sometimes even in process addiction but when it comes to food addiction i i start losing words and losing confidence because it's just so tricky and it's so individual i love it there's a mystery involved with that that i don't have to know i don t have to explain i observe it it's mischievous mystery i like that well i wanted to i wanted to share an experience that i had over the weekend yeah um because while i have abstinence from googling anything i have absence from doing any of that for only about three weeks honestly that's good don't change it don't say only well it was incredible to to uh disengage from the behavior yeah yeah and the peace and serenity that came as a result from my standpoint that's a classic formula oh i surrendered i heard an accepted direction and i took action exactly and the dynamic underneath that is always a yeah right exactly I surrendered even though I was terrified and um that's correct by the way I surrendered even though I was terrifying yeah yeah I was really scared yeah and um and so I was free of the this obsession and it came up again this last weekend I was with my mom who has dementia i felt the feeling like i was irked and and then and then the next thought was it must have something to do with vitamins and minerals because doctors don't study vitamins and minerals so that was the first thought and i thought and thenthe second thought was she's probably low in b12 and then i stopped it i heard the b12and i just went oh my god oh my god oh my god i no no no you you stopped it because you're you're not responsible for the first thought but you are responsible for entertaining it but you've had the experience that that's a dark rabbit hole and there's nothing down there that's right yeah yeah that's right and i i just i'm just so uh grateful that i was able to stop it did you talk to anybody about this dynamic that was going on with you um well that evening i was out of town so i was kind of uh in my own room i was able to but it sounds like it was going on for quite a several days or weeks even this research mania that you had oh my god the research mania has been going on for years oh wow but so now you've unplugged from it and so i was wondering what were the ingredients that went into it was it just that you surrendered to the fact that you were compulsed and you were tired of it yes okay all right that works for me yeah yes yes and I said I think I increased my shield I know that that's what happened I increased that other area of more of what I want and I felt like I wanted and I set this very consciously I I want to go from form and feelings more to love and light and have, you know what I mean? Like from matter to energy. No, that's great. Yeah, yeah. And I'm just so grateful and so looking forward to this year of learning more. I'm so, so grateful to you and everyone who's shared on this class. The button you've pressed right now in my sort of my poetic and metaphor image is that if you want more light turn away from the darkness and walk toward the light that's what we're doing here that's What We're Doing Here Step 3 is about turning made a decision to turn from what to what to What is step two from what is one all right and the turning is step three we're gonna we're going to have big big time unpacking of all of that over the next several weeks and months I did this workshop and I've been to your live presentations in Maine and and I had a study a good study buddy that would work through steps 10 11 and 12 with me I i genuinely believe that i had given it everything i had and i still am struggling um and um i i hesitated to even get on the call because i i don't know what i i don't know what i want other than that i'm still hanging in there believe me this is the only direction the only thread the only salvation that i am aware of is um the work of the program but i feel like somehow or another i have just um oh i was going well obviously my my spiritual practice clearly wasn't good enough. The reason I wanted to come through it again was to deepen my spiritual practice because it was very fledgling last year. And I have hesitated to speak because i feel like such a freaking flop and okay um but isn't that the whole point that this isn't a gathering of saints this isn t uh this isn' t the mecca of enlightenment this is the outpatient department of the mental hospital yep and we're all inmates yep oh my god it's so true oh well i feel like i am having a crash course in helplessness i mean no what a gift no whata gift that you have that awareness and that experience. And and, and I it's like a whole nother level of helplessness. That's wrong lately. And I also in terms of looking at my thoughts just before and so forth, I'm finding so many uh what are excuses that i have been giving myself that i i didn't even know i was doing and i and i then i but see the set aside prayer and the work that you're doing is working because you're becoming more conscious that you were less conscious yeah that's really how this works you said you want more that's exactly you've heard my story that's actually my experience i i had this experience when i was four years sober but it took another 12 years going through the work three different times for me to get the what i consider to be the full enlightenment Now, I don't mean to discourage anyone. No, no, no. I'm glad to know that. But here's how it works. When you came in last year, you had this level of awareness. You did have some awareness, but it was at a diminished level. You did this work and your enlightenment, your consciousness went up a whole bunch. So now when you go through the work, you have more light to see the darkness and hello it's not fun oh it's not fun right exactly but it's so but it okay I don't know it's no it's a gift it's an answer to a prayer I'm not a sadist but I pray that everybody have this experience of helplessness and hopelessness and and a complete awareness that without a power other than ourself we're absolutely destitute and lost you got it i'm pretty confident you do and just again again the gift of awareness and sadness and tears and hopelessness and helplessness and i use the term gift i'm not being poetic no i'm being theological it's a gift of the spirit so you just lean into it don't don't get violent at all and you don't have to get dramatic at all just lean gently into it move forward in the spirit of the set aside yeah can do i know i know you can sure yeah thank you thanks very much we'll pick it up next week we're going to continue to be focused on the mind worksheet as you doing this kind of work hoping to kind of help people have or at least deepen their experience with this no choice an obsession and the insanity of it um go ahead with them assignment five gently and uh begin doing it um and then next week i'll give you more instructions on that please join me in the serenity prayer god grant me the serendipity to accept the things i cannot change courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.