There Is a Solution – Part 3 – Bob – 2004

And as I'm saying the message, the power of it is just lighting me up like a light bulb. I'm just sitting there going, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And when I get through, I go, jeez, this thing is amazing. This thing is amazing. And I have it for that day. And then my mind comes in, not as amazing as you could make it, not as amazing as you could make it. You ought to start your own program. But I can't say that to anybody. So I'm forced back to the message, back. It's so simple. It's just there. And it's simply an opening of the channel. So that this thing, I have to open the channel and let this come out. And it is in this flow of energy out from us that we can experience it. It's see this. Energy is already inside of us. This spirit is already there. But unless it flows out, you can't feel it. It's blocked. It's self-centeredness. Screw those people. I've got to take care of myself. And so now it's, you don't even know this power exists. It is in the release that you can feel it. And so that's why it's so exciting to sponsor somebody. Because you've got to go, oh, what are we talking about tonight? And, you know, some of you will call me up and go, well, tonight, I forget. I've got 20. 20 people or whatever. They're doing one step a week. And, you know, somebody's coming over. And I just go, now, what are we on tonight? And, you know, they have to keep track. And I go, step eight. And I go, oh, good. He's coming over to talk about step eight. And he sits down. And I'm all ready to go on and on and on and on. And so where have I been? I've been back in this damn thing. I've been back in there. And get this stuff. And it's there. And it's true. And it's real. How do you prove it's true? Results. That's it. No other proof. There's no other proof. Results. And look over at the AA. It's there. It's not a theory. It's real. You get to see it. It's not on a blackboard. You see step one, see step two. And now you can see, obviously, as a result of these, you have a spiritual awakening. Right? You can see it. You can see it. You can't see it. You have to do it. And then you see the results. And when I see, God, I'm taking up all the time. One more story. This is what it feels like sponsoring people and carrying the message. There's this minister who's walking along. He's been a minister for many years. And he sees this young boy kind of crying. He's really sad. And he goes up to him and he says, what's the matter, son? He said, I got my final algebra exam tomorrow. And I try as hard as I can. I can't grasp algebra. Even with the book open at home, I can't do the homework and get it right. I'm at a total loss. And there's no way I can pass this test. My parents are going to be disappointed. And I'm just so sad about everything. And the minister looked at him. He said, son, I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to tell you about the power of God. I'm going to tell you this. That if you get enough faith and you pray hard enough, you will pass that test. And the little boy said, what? He said, you trust me, son. If you get enough faith and you pray hard enough, you will pass that test. And they separated. And probably about a week later, the minister happened to run into him again. And he said, hey, how did you do? And the little boy said, I passed. And the minister said, you passed? He said, yeah. I cut all the faith that I could muster. And I prayed with all my heart. And I passed the test. And he ran off, whistling and happy. And the minister said, holy shit. And sometimes I watch what happens to new people. And that's what I feel like saying. I just go, how the hell did that schizophrenic, depressed maniac look at him up there? He's making sense. He's blah, blah, blah. I forget the power of this program. Anyway, that's it. Yeah. And I think everything in the world says to us that we have to be the source of our own power and what we are are channels. We're like sprinklers. You know, we don't look, you know, with very special designs. But we don't look very pretty unless water is going through. And most of us have our holes clogged. And that's one of the things that doing the work of the program unclogs the holes so that we can display the design. And your head does not see. All of us have this experience in meetings. I mean, it is, I guess we've got ten minutes. There's two things. One's a personal story. My son, Peter, I just talked to him yesterday. And he's in England. He's in England. Scared stiff. Peter was a guy who was just kind of a catastrophe. 60 miles an hour, head first, no helmet, spring loaded. He's now got 13 or 14 years of sobriety. And he just got accepted to Oxford Business School. 33 years, 32 years old. And he feels like he's way over his head. And he is. And, uh. Uh. There was a time in our lives when Linda and I, just to maintain our sanity, used to have to hold hands and pray every night for Peter. I mean, he looked like he was killing himself. Peter went to six colleges. He never got the concept of attending until he went to the fourth college. He got registry, but not attending. And so now, some of the changes he's made, he made late. But because he stayed sober. And because he matured. And he matured late. So many of these young people today, they're, you know, they're 30 years old, but they're like 20 years old. They aren't 30 years old, maturation wise. And, uh. It is so. Unlinear. That he is where he is, having the opportunity to do what he's doing. It is like impossible. If you could have walked in Linda's and our bedroom when we weren't tears. Praying for Peter. I said, stop worrying for God's sake. He's going to be at Oxford in 14 years. He's going to. I would have thought, without a second. Creighton sponsored him for a while. I would have thought it was the prison at Oxford, Mississippi. It would not have occurred to me. It would not have occurred to me. And one of the other stories I want to tell you is about Creighton. Creighton lived in Minnesota for quite some time. And now he lives in Tennessee, I think. Mississippi. And, uh. Creighton developed a health disease due to Agent Orange. He had a, he's developing a kidney issue and he's needed a transplant. And, uh. Creighton was on an airplane. I may not tell this exactly, but Creighton's on an airplane. And a stewardess comes down and said, would you like a drink? Creighton shows her his AA medallion. And said, I don't think I'll be drinking today. I have to be home on Wednesday. You know, that kind of a response. . . . And the gentleman sitting next to Creighton, uh, Ryan, uh, is a couple of seats away and he sees Creighton show the medallion and Ryan pulls the medallion out of his pocket and says to the stewardess, he doesn't think he's going to have a drink either. And those two started talking. Uh, three or four days from now, Ryan is going to give Creighton his kidney. . . . . . . Yeah, so Creighton, um, like all these doctors who have stood up in before yeah, how he became a real game changer hmm and oh yeah, but um, Chloe you were probably the kind of magician who uh gave Waylon his head like, tends to the top because he was the best off in medical education. So believe in me, part of that 걸� his way to society. And so, uh, really how it Samuel uh eats while Creighton hadACE was his healthy life. And I think this school doesn't want even the wordi only man to use ENT papers for ваш life. I think that was the best call for everyone working, right? So Creighton was. . . . He was sober about five years at that time, and I supported him for three or four months. I told him that I wouldn't do it afterwards, and he worked at the World's Fair. He needed a job, and he went and applied at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid, and nothing happened. Didn't get him a job. So he goes to an AA meeting in Madrid, and the man who interviewed him is at the AA meeting. Bill is now not in a three-piece suit. He's in a T-shirt and Bermuda shorts. And they go through the meeting. At the end of the meeting, the guy who interviewed him came over and says, I'm really impressed with you. Why don't you come over and interview? And Bill is wondering whether he should tell the man that he already has interviewed two days before. And Bill said, I have interviewed with you, sir. It was, you know. There are so many things happening in life that you can't see with your mind, that you can't feel with your fingers, that you don't know anything about, that you have so much power available to you in the living of your own life, and you don't get it. You are walking around with $1,000 bills crushed up in your pocket, and they're turning off your lights because you haven't paid your utility bill. You don't get it. I mean, there really is a solution. There really is a power. And that we're intended to be pipes, not the well. That when the power comes through us, we get to be the instrument. We get to play our music. And that each of us is an instrument, intact, fully constructed, nothing missing. And then what we've done is we've obscured that. We have added, you know, it's like we're a metallic instrument, and we've dragged it through the air. We've dragged it through the junkyard of life. And we showed up in AA, and it's a big metal ball with a bunch of metal that we have accidentally attracted, and we dragged it through the junkyard of life. And through doing the steps, we start to pry off pieces of junk. And little by little, we get to start to get closer to the source of who we be. And we'll talk a little bit more about that. Are we done with the hour yet? Yeah. 1230. 1230. I give you Sandy. I have to go to the bathroom. Well, I don't know. The stuff I have on my mind now, I'm saving for the afternoon. So I think I'll just... I'll tell you a couple. A couple stories, maybe. I'm going up next week to... Not next... Let's see. Next month, on November 17th, to Washington, D.C. And I had a compatriot, Hal Marley, who passed away a few years ago, who got sober the same year I did. And he and myself and Ed Chandler, who's down in Texas, now we're the class of 64 up in the Washington area. And we had dinner after we got to know each other for a while. We started having dinner once a month, especially in the years when we had 20 years to 30 years, somewhere in there. We had dinner almost every month. And Hal ended up... He was a retired Air Force fighter pilot and was an air attache to Poland in the... the Cold War and had very interesting careers, went with OEO for a while, but ended up at the State Department as the director of the alcohol programs at the State Department. He would be calling ambassadors back to go to treatment, you know, that kind of a thing. And so he loved to operate up at the super high level. I used to kid him and say his only resentment was there's no class above first class, so that he could be up there. And he was very close. He was close to Bob Pearson, who was the manager of the General Service Office at the time. And with his worldwide communication system at State Department, he was plugged in to every AA event on the planet. I mean, if I had a question, you know, do I know anybody in Peoria? And he would go, yes, Andy. Remember this Jack used to live here? Now he's in Peoria. And he'd have his phone number. And it was like the Internet in one guy, you know. LAUGHTER As far as AA, he was concerned. And he preached gratitude. I mean, there's people all over the country, they had attitude to gratitude pins. And he just would, Mr. Gratitude, Dr. Gratitude. February 27th in the reflection. Yeah, that was in the thing the day he died. But the story I want to tell you is about Hal, that he was so plugged in that nothing happened in AA without him knowing it. I mean, when they're getting ready to plan the international, he knew where they were having it first so that he could come around. LAUGHTER And, oh, the international's going to be in Toronto. It's going to be, you know, whatever it was. And it just had to be the first. And then we'd be at the dinner, Ed and I, once a month. And each guy would treat and go to their favorite restaurant. And then we'd talk about AA. And it was always about what's going on and this and that. Well, I was at an AA group one night and I took a chance, a raffle, and I won a 12 and 12. And I got home and I was just thumbing through. You know, I keep them and then I can give them away to people. And so I was thumbing through this thing and I went, God, look at this. What a weird thing. The thing had been screwed up by the printer. And the pages, some of the pages were out of sequence. They were back and forth and it's, I knew, something told me keep it, keep it. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I knew this thing was going to come in handy. And then it dawned on me about six months later and I said, I got to go find that 12 and 12. I want to see if in there, there's a place where, you know, on the pages, like a half a page where the step ends and then you turn the page and another step starts and it's out of sequence. So here was step eight followed by step 11. So I bring the book to the dinner and I put it on the table and Hal, which is, what's that? And I said, I'll tell you after dinner. It's a big deal, Hal. This is the first volume of the new 12 and 12. And of course, he's looking at me like, what, what? I mean, he's very suspicious. So we have dinner and we get through the meal and I say, you know, Hal, I've been doing this step class. I got, I don't know how I got into that, but I got to the table. But I did a Saturday morning step class for 19 years. And, you know, you do it week after week. And he was well aware of that. And I said, Hal, I'm doing this thing for 12 years. And I said, about a year ago, I started through them and it occurred to me they're in the wrong order. And it was like I was being blasphemous, you know what I mean? What? And I said, I know, and I knew. And so I suppressed it. I said, that's ridiculous. I put it down. But it kept coming back, Hal. Every time I went through, it was clearer and clearer and clearer that are in the wrong order. So I called Bob Pearson. Well, I could see the look on his face. You called Bob Pearson without checking with me first? You know? And I told him, I said, Bob, I'm having this crazy thing that's happening to me. And he thought it was, you know, he dismissed it. But the more I talked about it, he said, well, I'm going to, he said, well, I hear a few points over the phone. Could you type it up? Your rationale for all of this. So I sent him in about eight typewritten pages, Hal. And it's showing how the sequence should be changed. And he's still looking at me, you know, like, what, what, what? And you know something? They formed a committee. They ran it by the trustees. Like, what? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? This time we're not going to be in this. This time we're not going to be in this. And this is the new 12 and 12. And as you can plainly see, here's step eight followed by step eleven. And Ed and I swear that for a millionth of a see, second, there was fear in his eyes. And he grabbed the book away from me. So that's just an anecdote about how we're at the end of the time. We're there. We need to start, which I think is unfair. I have a quote from a meeting on Friday morning with a few of the guys in the audience. I just thought it was a great quote. Alcoholics, at our best, we are the elite of the mentally ill. Alcoholics, at our best, we are the elite of the mentally ill. And the other quote I just love, it said, the monkey is off my back, but the circus is still in town. I mean, where else would you go to get those kind of pithy, you know, sorts of things. I started, I don't really know where to go to this. Sandy and I didn't exactly have a path, but we were talking about the solution, and we intend to kind of end up with something that is more specifically spiritual. So what I'm going to talk about and see if Sandy wants to relate to it is what I started to talk about was problems in sobriety a little bit. That I said that many of us, when we first come in, get a real burst of energy, really like what we hear, get kind of on a honeymoon. We make a great, you know, growth period for the first two or three years. And by the way, these are obviously generalizations. I'm going to talk about people getting in trouble at five, six, seven, eight years, and not everybody gets in trouble at five or six or seven, eight years. These are just kind of, but I'm saying, I believe what I'm saying, in general, patterns that are fairly common. And Bill talks about some of this stuff in the big book. But when we talk about, you know, when he talks about, you know, now you've been sober long enough where you know that, you know, all your problems haven't been removed. You know, you've got problems other than alcohol, and that we're going to be doing these spiritual practices over our lifetime. But most of us kind of get on a plateau. So let's just say we go, you know, we've made great progress through the first two or three years. Is that for me? And then what happens is you start running into what happened to me as I started having problems I didn't think I should have. I'm an idealist. I came in, and you told me that you had an answer for alcoholism. You told me that the unmanageability, I thought you told me the unmanageability of my life was a result of my alcoholism, and alcoholism was physical but also mental and spiritual. If I took the principles of the steps, applied them to my life, and changed, I then thought, well, ipso facto, I can get rid of the problems in my life. All my life it seemed to me that everybody was telling me, Bob, you're fairly well equipped to live life, and I could do it for short spurts. If life was a sprint, I had moments of brilliance interrupted by long periods of mediocrity and failure. But I only looked at the moments of brilliance. People always said to me, you know, you're well equipped. And I thought, yeah, so if I got rid of the problems, I could get back on top and, you know, I'll start doing it. Well, I get sober. I think all my problems are going to get solved. They come up. I start working on them, and they don't get solved. One by one. I had an interesting issue. I went to a psychologist not too long ago with one of my sons, working on a father-son issue. And in that thing, he said, I work with a lot of upper middle class kids. And he said, one of the biggest problems I have is the problem they have leaving home. They're used to the family level of living, and they leave home and they go down about six stories. You know, in our society today, there's going to be lots of kids that aren't going to do as well as their parents. And boy, did I identify with that when I left home. I mean, this idea of now I have to buy toothpaste. You know, I mean, gas. You know, I mean, gas was what I charged to my father. I mean, I was so spoiled. And so I had, I was real immature. I came in when I was 23 years old. I didn't really learn how to work until I was 30. And I had a level of fear that I didn't even identify. So I had problems getting up in the morning. I had problems managing my money. I had gambling problems. I had anger issues as a father. Those sorts of things. One by one, they'd kind of come at me, and I'd try to take them on. And I was singularly unsuccessful at managing, at getting rid of my defects of character in my early sobriety. And at first, I thought, oh, I'm just not doing this right. I'll just jack it up a little bit. And I'm going to five meetings a week. I'm sponsored. I sponsor people. I'm starting to give talks. I do jail stuff. I'm doing institutional stuff. And I'm thinking, oh, this is just timing. I'll get it. You know, well, I didn't get it. Well, I can tell you by my fourth or fifth or sixth year of sobriety, when you still don't know how to work, you get an idea that something's wrong. You know, that you don't have a pass. You know, you're really going to have to get this thing handled. And if you don't get it handled, you're not going to have a very good life. And I didn't have an answer. And what happened to me is I got more and more scared. And I kind of thought, maybe this is just another deal where I can do a great start and poor finish. You know, I've done that one a lot. Now I'm going to do it in AA. You know, it works for other people. It doesn't work for me. And I really believe, without hesitation, that it worked for you. Now what I lost the belief in, believe it or not, was step two. I went back, so out of desperation, when my pants caught on fire between seven and eight years of sobriety, I'm thinking about suicide. Really thinking about suicide. Not just sort of thing. I'm not thinking about drinking, but I'm thinking about, you know, I don't want to go through this cycle again. And the answer was, you know, Sandy and I have been exposed to some of the great teachers in AA. And I've, in my home group, I mean one of them for me, one of my great teachers is Warren. And there are other models for me. And those people all had a level of spirituality that I did not have. But the problem that I have with spirituality is if I was going to develop spirituality, I'm going to develop a relationship with God, right? Well, if you develop a relationship with God, you do not have to be a rocket scientist to feel that. Well, if you develop a relationship with God, you do not have to be a rocket scientist to feel that. You have to figure out, he's going to want you to get rid of your subscription to Penthouse. You know, I think. I'm not positive. Or stop your gambling habit that's four or five hours a day. You know, and maybe get on a budget. Maybe, you know, stop spending 500 more bucks a month than you make. And, you know, stop being angry or violent with your children. I mean, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out. You've got three or four patterns of behavior in your life that are probably going to get right on the line as soon as you open up the relationship. So I thought, what the hell? What the hell is the use of... I've been trying to change those things for six years. What the hell is the use of developing a relationship with God if you can't fulfill the conditions of the relationship? So as soon as I clean my act up, I'll go put my application in. But putting it in ahead of time, it just isn't going to work. And I was stuck in that place for two and a half years. And finally, out of desperation, I went back to the steps. Step one, real easy. You know what I was missing? Step two. I lost step two. I believed it for us, but not for me. You know, I mean, crazy. I believed it. Without question, I believed it for us. I could tell you that this program of restorative sanity, when in fact, I was living my life with a level of unmanageability, and I didn't believe it for me, and I had to regain that. And out of the pain, the touchstone of spiritual growth and alcoholics, pain got me to a second surrender. And my ego got suppressed enough that I finally got to a point and said, okay, it's all got to get up on the table. Let's put it on the table. I'll put anything on the table. I'll put my marriage on the table. I'll put my business on the table. I'll put it all on the table. And I started to look around, and of course, when I extricated my head from my backside, I made a discovery that there were people in my own meeting with bigger problems than I had, with smiles on their faces resolving those problems with the steps. And I came to believe again that God was going to restore me, not us, me, even though us, to sanity. I did a third step on my knee with my sponsor in his office, and I went through and I did a fourth and fifth step. And after I did the fourth, it was my third, fourth, and fifth step. I'm seven years sober at this time. And after I did that, I had a relapse into my defects of character of some significance one day where, you know, I was going to be a doctor. I went to work late, left early, got in a backgammon game, won 600 bucks, came home, got in a fight with my wife, and slapped one of the kids. One of those days you'd like to have it videoed and sent to the general service office. To show what eight years of sobriety can do. And I said, gee, it happened again. And I'm saying, well, weren't you there? I'm saying, yeah, but it was so habitual. It's like I'm in a blackout. So I'm like a blackout. Out of relationship to my own life. I mean, that's how nuts it is. Okay? And what I realized in that moment of truth, when I came in Alcoholics Anonymous, when I took step one, I was stripped down and I stood naked in front of my alcoholism. At eight years of sobriety, I was stripped and stood naked in front of me. Out of the unmanageability of my life. Out of the powerlessness of my life sober. And I realized that I couldn't do it. That on my own resources, I was insufficient to the process. And then I got a second thought I hadn't had in a hell of a long time. You are right where you're supposed to be. And I was allowed to take the sixth and seventh step. Which I had not taken at depth until I was eight years sober. You know, I was trying to get rid of my defective character. I don't have the power to get rid of my defective character. And in that surrender moment. Okay? I. Took the sixth and the seventh step. And four of the major problems I was dealing with in my life disappeared that night. Okay? Now I. I had to put supports in. I talked to my sponsor and made appointments about when I'd go to work and how long I'd stay at work. I gave my wife the checkbook. I stopped gambling that night. So I had to do things that would help support that decision. Which I often had not done in the past. So this pattern. Where. Where. Fairly serious crap going on. Fairly long into sobriety. While it's an unattractive pattern and one that I'm not trying to advertise. I think it is not uncommon. I think it is that many of us end up in a plateau in early middle sobriety. Where we have fairly serious. I think our alcoholism goes underground. The physical part gets cured. And the alcoholism starts to express itself in compulsive and obsessive behavior in some other area of our life. Sexually eating, money. You know, whatever. Whatever. the hell it comes out. I was a generalist. I had two or three. There are some people who, some people specialize, you know, they just have one. And, but I don't, very few people are exempt from what I just described. And that you're, and that the pattern of your alcoholism goes underground and continues to express itself in your sobriety, in your life. And I'll tell you something. Those patterns of compulsion in my life, it was like drinking. It was like being on dry drugs. I had blackout-like moments. I had, I was hiding stuff. I had patterns of behavior that were very familiar to me in my sobriety. And, but when I took, when I, when I went in order through the steps and got to step six and seven and had started to have a second spiritual surrender. But the only reason I had that surrender, I think, is because I went through the, the only reason I was able to do six and seven at that depth is I had the first five alive and well at that moment. And I was in as much pain. But I told Warren, I said, I feel like I'm dying of thirst lying next to a lake. I said, I can pass the test. I know what to do. I just can't do it. I know what to do. I, I'm not doing it. And I'll tell you something. I think that a lot of us when I said we are not under equipped, I see people in Alcoholics Anonymous that I think are enormously talented people and whose lives do not seem to reflect that talent. And if I were to put it two places, one is I would, I would say it's, it's a type of, when you have unresolved problems, they are like miniature black holes. They suck the joy out of your life. They just drain you of energy that you need to live your life. And I think it's the unresolved, irresolution of those things. That drain us of that spirit that Sandy was talking about when he said, I get to share the spirit. Well, he gets to share it because he's open. His pipes unclogged. Okay. But I think, you know, certainly at seven years of sobriety, I had a little log jam in front of my pipe. There was no spirit coming out. There was a little pus leaking out the end of the pipe, but there was no, no great spirit, you know, out of it. And, uh, uh, so what I want to say is I don't think that's unusual. I thought it was unusual. I thought it was dirty. I was, I was ashamed and I did not want to share it. My sponsor knew about 60% of what was going on. I know that over here you tell a hundred percent. And I think that's terrific that you, that you do that. I was only telling myself 60%, by the way. So that's why my sponsor only had 60% of it. I wasn't strong enough to give myself the right truths and the, and the, and the level of honesty. Okay. But when I put it all in the line and I, you know, what happens is you die. What do you got to do? All you got to do is die and change everything. Other than that, there's not much left to do. But, but, you know, I know that one of the things that holds us back from really in an, in a open and willing way, offering ourselves to the God, our understanding is we think we're going to disappear. I mean, you take away my defect to character and you take away, you know, some of those things in my life. Where am I in that process? Okay. Well, I'll tell you something. You're going to be more there than you have ever been in a real and substantial way. You're going to have a chance to be in your life in a more powerful way than you've ever been. It is the opposite because you have now freed yourself with what's been holding you back. You have had, you know, all these layers of crud, you know, all these years you thought you were the Chevrolet. You've been putting new tires on it. You've been putting new hubcaps on it. You've had that son of a bitch painted eight times. You've got, you know, you're dragging up and down. You're the driver. And you've paid almost no attention to the driver. And so when we get out of the external solution, when we get out of painting the car and putting new hubcaps on it, when we get out of it, as soon as I get the next 50 grand, as soon as I get the next this, as soon as I get the right woman or man, as soon as I get a new breast job, as soon as I get, I happen to have a very good one, and you probably haven't noticed. But most of us, without even realizing it, are externally oriented. We're looking outside of ourselves for the answer. And we don't expect, and it's just the opposite. It is just when you find, when you start to find the answer inside is when you really can start expressing your life. So what I want to say is that I don't think it's uncommon to get stuck. I think the nature of spiritual walk, what did they always say? The greatest temptation is to get stuck. And I think the greatest temptation, I want you to have found God, is to be tempted with the removal of God. The dry periods are the toughest periods of time you will have. Maintaining a lifetime relationship with alcoholics anonymous is not easy. Maintaining a lifetime relationship with your sponsor is not easy, or a spouse. That is what life is about. It will put you in front of you. Long-term relationships will put you in front of the unworkability of your life. If you were going to be a 40-year member of AA, you're going to have to resolve relationship issues and life issues of some significance quite a number of times. You want to remain vital, active and important. And keep you program alive. The unworkability is not uncommon, there is a solution even though it looks like it is proving to you in the middle of your sobriety that it doesn't work. It is the opposite. I found in retrospect, what was happening to me is that my nose was being pushed in something more of a grounded state than just any place where I'm sitting and working. It was hard, in something more real. That there was a pile of manure, that my nose was being pushed in it, and rather than my life getting worse, I was simply seeing it as it was. I did not see it as it was at one year of sobriety. I did not see the causes and conditions. I did not see the level of unmanageability. And through the work and the steps, it was like God's hand was at my back pushing me a little bit closer to the reality of my life. And it felt like it was going backwards. It was the opposite. It was going forwards. I was moving towards what was in my way. And I think a spiritual journey, and you know what? What's in your way is an illusion. The path of spiritual growth is through the fire, not around it. The fire is an illusion. Everyone in this room knows that when they've changed a significant piece of unworkability in their life, it produced energy, not pain. It was an experience. It was a sense of joy, not pain. And why we resist, because we think we're giving something up and it's painful when we get close to seeing the truth. So I think our walk in Alcoholics Anonymous is that walk. And we're going to run into periods where it's going to be easier than other periods. And we're going to run into periods where it seems like it doesn't work. And that's the nature of a spiritual journey. And... Brilliant. Thanks, Bob. I enjoyed that immensely. What I want to talk about is going back to basics. But before I forget it, because I get these ideas that go in my head, I want to just make an aside about a phrase that we hear that I've been thinking about lately. Things happening in God's time. Has anybody ever heard that thing? Well, it's just happening in God's time. And... This is what I think about that. I think that's crazy. Let's say that you haven't had a job in a while and you're running out of money. And you're panicking over it. You're freaking out. You can't sleep. I mean, it's just got you. So you go to your higher power. And you decide to pray about it. And you pray, God, please find me a job. Please help me find a job so that I can systematically save a little bit out of my paycheck. And allow this money to build up. So that it'll take away this terrible panic that I have over this situation. The prayer is asking for something that takes a long time. We just prayed that our problem be solved in about a year. Instead of saying, God, could you please remove my fear over my situation now? And we get it now. And we get it now. So in other words, the timeframe that we established is what we got. And then we blame it on God. Well, it's just happening in God's time. Oh no, that's exactly what you asked for. Said I'd like a job. And then I'd save up the money. And then I'll do that. And then, because in our own mind, we think we see a solution, which is an intellectual solution instead of a spiritual solution. The spiritual solution is the closeness to the higher power where there are no problems. You see, they just get lifted out. When it's lifted out, and the fear is gone, your creativity rushes back and you suddenly dream up a perfect place to go look for a job that you wouldn't have been able to think of while you're in a panic state. I mean, it is so funny. So I'm throwing that out. Now I'm sure there is such a thing as God's time. But I'm saying a lot of times, we set the stage for something that's going to unfold. Or for a long period of time. And we're impatient. Well, we're getting exactly what we asked for. And so I just throw that out as something. Now, the thing about the basics. There was a story about people visiting a friend of theirs in the hospital who was in an oxygen tent. And they're carrying on a conversation through the plastic. You know, how's it going, Joe? Oh, doing good. I'm feeling good. Yeah. I'll be getting out in a couple days. Hey, can I get you something? No, no, I'm fine. Well, go help yourself to a banana. They're having this thing. And when the guy comes back with the banana, he's eating it, he steps on the oxygen hose. And as they're visiting, Joe is displaying some symptoms of not doing too well. He's getting shortness of breath. So they buzz the nurse. And she comes in. Oh, my God. Maybe it's his heart. Maybe let's take his blood. And they're thinking maybe we got to get him some insulin. I don't know. Get the doctor. Have you done his medication? And then somebody looks and goes, you're stepping on his oxygen hose. They step off and everything's straightened out. But for a while, there was a complete misdiagnosis of the situation. And I think that we can easily misdiagnose. We can easily misdiagnose our problems as they occur to us. And so I like to think about what is our problem. Now, before we come to AA, we were told about that all the time. How many of you remember what was their favorite thing that people would point at us? You know what your problem is? You're a lazy son of a . . . You know what your problem is? We were being told all the time. What our problem was. When we came to AA, they tell us again. And I'm going to get to that in a minute. But where did they get this? Where did they get this? This is what your problem is. And I like to think that, you know, what is alcoholism? Maybe we should all agree on what it is. Because there's many definitions. The American Medical Association, all kinds of things. And I'm sure if we went around the room, everybody here would have a definite, oh, I can't get alcohol. I can't get it. I can't drink safely. It's an obsession of this and a compulsion of the mind and an allergy of the boop and the beep. And they have all of those things that we could use as a definition. But here's where I like to go to establish, you see, because if you're going back to the basics, that is the basic. Right? It's an agreement of what the problem is. And I like to get Carl Jung back involved. When he sent Roland off. Now, the ending to that story, and Bob knows it very well, is that after AA had been around for a number of years, as a matter of fact, it was just about up into the 1960s, Bill Wilson realized that he had never given Carl Jung the credit that he deserved. Because he really had established the fundamentals of the surrender into AA. With Roland. And so he wrote him a letter. And every so often they'll have this exchange of letters between Dr. Jung and Bill Wilson in the grapevine. If you ever see him, you ought to read him. And Bill just wrote to tell him that maybe you don't remember, but Roland Hazard, you treated him. And as a result of what you told him, he went here. And then he came and we started this organization. It's now all over the world. It's Alcoholics Anonymous. And you played the key. And then Paulhing played the key starting role, in getting this all done. And then Dr. Jung wrote back and it was right before. And that's right. Now, these rest of the recipes are going to start to come back in places we would otherwise know without them, without you // Suffocation men YEAH?! DR. Y変了者 TÄ惑 THANK YOU TO YOU THANK YOU