Twelve Step Workshop – Part 3 of 6 – 2024 – Peter M.

All right, I don't know how I follow that. It's a spiritual weekend, right? You're telling sister jokes, okay. It's all different in California, yeah, yeah. In New York, they know the sister's name. Over here, we're not so sure. And then you marry her. My name is Peter Recovered Alcoholic. I think I'm grateful to be here. I'm not sure. Grateful to be alive and sober and part of a sacred place called Alcoholics Anonymous. And glad to be back here. A little bit more awake this morning than I was last... I don't remember last night, I'll be honest. We did a little bit of a blackout, but glad I got to suit up and show up. we have like four sessions i think today and one tomorrow and so i'll see how we can get you know experientially uh through this work uh and what does it look like i was sharing last night live what does this look like live um i have learned that i i did this by the way we can get into mechanics and some folks aren't into mechanics some folks don't even like the big but some folks just go to meetings and somehow they hold their breath for 20 and 30 years. I don't know how they do that. My experience is different. I was in here for six months living in Minnesota, and I was going to meetings, a lot of meetings. I wasn't picking up, but I found myself doing a lot of things that weren't so spiritual. And God gave me a sober day, the June 23rd, 1988, and I'm in Minneapolis. It was December 22nd, 1980. I'll never forget this and I am driving something called a rent-a-wreck. That's what you... It was like $2 a day for a wreck and, you know, and I' m driving and I'M lost. I don't know what I'm doing and I''m feeling really alone. It''s Christmas back home in New York and I ''m thinking of my family and I´m kind of reminiscing in my head a lot of morbid reflection and I ´m miserable, sober. I´M physically sober and I´m miserably and I basically holding my breath And as I'm driving, I'm going, the first crew on the corner, I see dealing something. Whatever they're dealing, I'M getting. Or if I see a liquor store or bar open, I've got to do this. This AA thing, this sober thing is not working. And I was in serious trouble. And it was a second bottom, if you will. And I'm driver and I don't see anyone dealing any narcotics. But there's liquor stores and there's bars that are open. And I'm not going in. I'll go to the next one, the next one, and I made a prayer as I'm driving, I'm talking to God like my life depends upon it and I thought of this guy Joe who lived in a town called Cottage Grove which was a long way from Minneapolis so I get into Cottage Grove it's a one horse town, really pristine but really farm country and I show up to Joe's house and knock on a door and he lets me in and you know when you're new you just purge. You know, if you're around here a while, the sponsor calls, you say good morning, and that's the last thing you say for the next two days because they just get all over the map, you know? And when I came up for breath, he stopped me and he says, and I'll never forget what he said to me. He says, let me ask you some questions. He said, where are you with God and the 12 steps? Yeah. And I says, well, when do you start the steps? Because I'm in going to meetings and I'm hearing step a year. Don't worry about the steps. Stay away from the fourth step. You don't need the steps yet. Get into them right away. And so I'm here in all these, I'm looking at a menu of 100 choices. And I know of this book, I was given one in treatment, but I never opened it. I'm basically clueless in Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't even know who who Bill and Bob was at this point. I remember going to a clubhouse in Wisconsin, there were two big posters, one of Bill and one of Bob. And I thought they were like union reps or agents, FBI agents, I don't know who they were. Who are these town guys? I don' know. And some old-timer says our co-founder is Bill and bob. And a couple weeks later I'm in that clubhouse and the new crew came into the sober house and I'm like big shot now and I says that's Bill and that's Bob and the old-timers tap me on their shoulders no, that's Bill and that's Bob. I don't know the steps. I don' t know anything. And so Joe asked me, where are you with God and the 12 steps? And I said to him, well, when do you start the steps? And I was really annoyed. And he says, when you stop throwing up, you're late. Now, I'll never forget that because it pierced right through. What I wanted or hoping for was sit down with Joe, you know have coffee that's what you guys do they drink a lot of coffee and just talk and talk and tell him how the world has wronged me and somewhere he was going to co-sign that and it was all going to go away but he didn't do any of that he cut right through and uh a lot if my uh in fact all my sponsors were more concerned about my life and my recovery than how I felt I had a sponsor Mark Houston he says sometimes you have to tell someone a sponsee something that hurts you to say and it hurts them to hear, but who else is gonna do it? With love, but we gotta give the truth. Can't lie that we're drunk and that's what Joe did and he kind of rattled me and I was annoyed with that but I remember that 35 years later and so here I was hitting a bottom in recovery physically sober and that you know, I can die with alcoholism or from it. I can die from alcoholism without ever putting a drink in me. And people around me will suffer from alcohols as long as I'm untreated, running around in this thing completely full of me, consumed with me and my little plans and designs, more interested in my story. And I continue to live my story while I'm sober, telling you about what it was like, and that's about it. And a lot of times what happened now looks like what it wasn't. It was like what was like which means nothing happened in the middle. And that's my shtick in AA. This is how bad it was, and this is how bad it is now. Because I'm an alcoholic. Oh, it's because I'm a alcoholic. And I never get to live the life that God has in front of me. I never get to experience his abundance, or AA's abundance comes stuck in me, and it says my story, and mine tells a world how the world has done me wrong. And the thing about going through this work, it is going to remove all of that. And I quickly saw how attached I was to my story. My mom was alcoholic and a narcotic user. My mom had mental health issues. She committed suicide when I was 14. I wore that right here. My dad was the poster child for Tough Guy from South Brooklyn. Remember that movie, Goodfellas? Remember Robert De Niro? That's my old man. And I grew up, I'm into hippies and music and bell bottoms and long hair. And my dad swore he picked up the wrong baby at the hospital. The hippies, they're all communists. Stay away from them, you know. And we just didn't get along. When he'd walk in the room, I'd just leave. And that, I wore that over here. And when I was a little guy around ages 8 to 10, I was being molested by some men. And I wore it on my head. I wore hat over here, again, I'm walking. So when I come into AA, here's my story. and i i would get resentful uh and not even identify with the folks who were talking about traveling light and this joy is happy and free thing in this world of the spirit thing and i don't get this how i'm going to meetings where's the magic potion here and it's right in front of me all the time the shades the 12 steps 12 traditions out of this book i i was blind to but I could not see. My mind would not permit me to see. And one of the things that I wake up to along the way going through this work is how I'm owned by my mind that creates my current reality, the thought life creates our current reality and depending on where I am spiritually will determine what I do with those thoughts when they come because thoughts are gonna come. It says, you know, relieve me of the bondage of self. We have to have daily dying for successful living. This mind that I have is not going to go any way because I'm sober a few years. It's till I take my last breath, this mind will be going live. But what am I going to do about it? How do I navigate? How do we create space through this? Because our book is as a clear-cut warning. The main problem for the alcohol centers in the mind rather than the body. And what we can do is pay attention to the body, I'm not drinking, I'm a winner. Well, let's take a survey. Let's ask the wife. let's call them in with the wife, the co-workers, the boss and see if your physical sobriety is working or not. Probably not if you're a real alcoholic. I got a lot of thought life, a lot of narratives, and I pay attention to all of them because they're mine, which means they're true, which gives them power. See, if you sat down with me and said, hey, Pete, I got some crazy thoughts going on and I'm listening to this and I would say to myself, well, that's delusional stuff, man. Don't you see it? But when I have them, don't tell me it's delusion. It's real. because it's mine and I buy it all the time last night I was sharing how I thought for the longest time I have thoughts but I don't I mean I have doubts but they really have me they land on me and I can't pull them off and the more I try not to think about this thought the more i think about that thought and it begets more and most of them if not all of them are fueled by fear the evil and corroding threat In fact, if I took every fourth step that I ever wrote and dropped it in a funnel, one word comes out as fear. It's the thing that drives most of us, if I can be so bold to say most of US. Maybe it doesn't. I've heard enough inventories in my life. I've written enough inventaries. Fear is a thing. What do people think of me? What are they saying about me? How do I sound? How do i present? I'm too tall. I'm Too short. I'm too fat. I'm Too Thin. I've got to work out. I've Got to Lose Weight. I'm Losing My Hair. I Need a Better Wife. I Need A New Girlfriend. I Needa Wife And A Girlfriend, But Don't Tell Anybody. It Just Goes On And On And On. I Live In California. I Should Be In New York. I Live in New York, I Should Be In California, This Stuff All Day Long. Of Course, I'm Embellishing And Exaggerating, But You See Where I'm Going With This. He's Shaking His Head, No, I'm Not, Good Man. And if we think about it, our book talks about unawakened and retiring at night. Those are two spots. Now they talk about the 11th step when agitated or doubtful. They talk about leaning back into God. But there's two spots in our book where they're clear about un-awakening, go pray. Retiring at night, go play. Go pray and meditate in a little inventory at night." We bookend the day. that's just covering our ass that's just doing the bare minimum but they make sure we get on awakening before I take over and retiring at night so I don't go to bed with all day all over me, the 12 in 12 talks about the emotional hangover, I wake up on Tuesday still wearing Monday, can't do that because it's plaque on the soul and I start to go dark so if I wake up at like 5am, that's usually my wake up time 5am in the morning and I go to bed around 11. So I can't, Matt, that's a whole bunch of hours during the day. And let's say I took one whole hour in the morning of praying and meditating. And lets pretend I took one whole at night, retiring at night of praying or meditating. There's a gap, at least a dozen hours that I'm going to work, I'm gonna lunch, I am going to a meeting, I taking phone calls, I'm with my wife, I'm with some friends. There's a lot of movement going on. What am I doing during that time? Well here's what most of us do. I pray with my mind, I think I'm Moses get up off my knees, I go right into Rambo mode and then I go out there and I do the whole day in self-reliance and my mind is filtering everything rather than the soul. I'm seeing through the mind I'm speaking through the mine, I're behaving through the line, the point of view the filter is the mind so really my unawakened retiring night has gone anemic because I'm not getting up off my knees and taking that spirit out with me and trying to do godly things there's something it just ruffles some feathers sometimes that will call to sanctity whether we like it or not we're born to be saints whether we like it oder not and I don't have to join a monastery or a church group to act saintly in my day we're going to screw it up. But what does it look like overall? If I'm in self-reliance, it's going to look pretty poor. Oh, and the other place I try to be angelic is my home group or an AA meeting. You know, I'm going to walk in and especially if we're in double-digit sobriety, we're sitting next to a newcomer, actually our feet don't touch the ground when we walk in the room. You get that low sponsorship voice. How are you doing today? But if you followed me home, I look like I got two minutes back. If you follow me to my house, it's like, what happened to that guy? So I got to do something about this because it's called untreated alcoholism. We can get, if we're in that place of being open, of coming to terms with, hey, I'm alcoholic. I got an idea what I suffer from. When I first got sober, I know I'm alcoholic, but I know the depths of alcoholism, that I can suffer from alcoholism without ever putting a drink in me because my alcoholism doesn't come in a bottle of whiskey. Seven treatment centers, I thought it came in whiskey or narcotics. I thought that's the problem. Well, it's a problem, but it's not the problem, so when I get presented with this information, and last time I believe, I don't recall, I may have said that the first 43 pages in our book are step one plus doctor's opinion. A lot of information coming at us as to what I suffer from and what am I going to do about it? In a nutshell, step one tells the guy to me, I don't care what you do, you drink and you're going to die from booze. You are going to drink. Step one says, you're drinking, Pete. The ego doesn't want to go near that. I feel good. I must be doing good. I look good. I must been doing good, So when I get in here and they start to explain to me about the nature of this fatal illness and this phenomenon called craving and this mental obsession, I got that. Experientially, I can identify with that. It's not new information. It says, well, how do I saddle up to that? No, they're talking about me. I mean, only in AA do we identify with, okay, a bunch of guys we're going to meet. We're going out drinking tonight. but before I go with them, I'm going to the liquor store to get a few with me to go out and get, I go drinking to go drinking. And when they call it a night, I'm still going. And I want to put the plug in the jug but that's not happening. The genie's out of the bottle. So I got all of that. The most insane thing I will ever do in my life is from a place called sober and that's picking up the first drink again. If we think about it, we never pick up the first drink drunk. I get out of treatment, 30 days out of training, out of treating, physically sober. What do I do? I pick up a drink. There's no withdrawal going on. Nine weeks in treatment, one time in my fifth treatment center, physically sober, in fact put on some weight and looked relatively healthy. Two days later, I got a drink, I got to drink. It wasn't a choice, it was getting too bad, I got zu drink. That's what the mind does, it takes me back to that which is killing me. And for some of us, I've done enough of these workshops and usually around, we'll see what happens today. I don't know. Usually around lunchtime, there's a break and I'm just sitting around having a cup of coffee and I get the guy walking towards me and I know to look now. They're kind of shuffling up and they can't look up and they say to me, you got a minute? I want to say no, but yeah, sure. Because I know where we're going with this conversation. It's always this. I'm struggling. What are you struggling with? It's sex. Whether they're single or in a committed relationship like a marriage, they're acting out. It's no crime. It's called alcoholism going underground and resurface in other areas. My first year in changing here, I had to go to another fellowship and therapy and go through the steps in other fellowships because I developed an eating disorder. I've been in seven treatment centers and everyone who would I saw in treatment who had eating disorders were women I never saw one guy in the eating disorder wing of the treatment center so now I'm thinking what's wrong with me I got like women issues here eating disorder I'm binging and purging I'm getting very ill from it it's showing on me and I'm eating late at night and binging on food and keeping it a secret and I'm puking when I didn't even have to feel sick. I just, that's what I was doing. There was stuff going on with me. So alcoholism goes underground and resurfaces in other areas. I get these guys come up to me and they're struggling and they are acting out in a lot of different ways. Whether it is going to places outside the marriage or pornography, whatever it is and they don't know what to do and they completely guilt ridden and shameful about it. And one of the things I present them with sometimes in life because I've experienced we have resentments, we have remorse, we have anger, we have guilt. We have a lot of stuff going on that enslaves us. But God liberates us. And so there's got to be another walk through the steps. Now some of those guys sadly don't want to do that. They just want a wave of magic, want it all to go away. It's just alcoholism showing up, manifesting in another way. Now if you have any of that here, please come talk to me. I'm only teasing about that. Like, don't come talk to me. We need to talk about that. Or maybe it's an eating thing or maybe it is a gambling thing. Maybe it is a shopping thing. Maybe it's an anger spray going on these anger binges or these fear I have been on fear bingers in my life. You know, no money in the bank and the wife of my first wife was alcoholic narcotic user it was just burning down in front of me and I roll up in a ball at night and just the night was too dark when does the morning come and I can't take this pain anymore I was afraid to tell someone about. And I go on these fear things. Thank God for Mark Houston. It's just alcoholism showing up in different ways. And what was revealed to me is that I don't have a connection with the God. I can talk to you about God, yeah? I could talk to a newcomer about what God's gonna do for you. I can tell you how many times God is mentioned in our book and I can do all this stuff, all the mechanic stuff, but I'm lacking a connection. Chuck Chen when he talked about conscious separation from God. We can never, I can never be, forgive me when I say we can include you. That's too arrogant. I'll use me. I can ever be physically separated from that power which I'm connected to. Here's my hand and here's my arm. It's like me saying this is not connected to this. It's just living in delusion. What happens is as I shed some skin here and God peels back the layers of the onion, or quite frankly, I start to experience the death of self. What happens ist we all wake up and experience the nearness of our creator. In the third step it says if we keep close to him and perform his work well. I don't have to get close to be close, but through the awakening I realize, oh my God, he's here all the time. I was just looking this way and he's standing right here. I'm looking out there to find God, and all I had to do was look in. If any of us, I'm sure many of us have been or have had little children, like when they're tiny, do you ever look into a baby's eyes? We all get goofy. We start talking baby talk. We start acting goofy. We don't care who's in the room. It's just you look into child's eyes, and you just dissolve. That's God. That's in his purest form. The journey for someone like me is back to that, not act like a child, but be that. The carpenter talks about this until we become like children who can't enter the kingdom of heaven. Not act like one, but that kind of innocence and moreover, trust, trust in a God. When you get a newborn, a new baby, mama, total trust in her. Total trust. or dad, they just recognize the parents. They smell. They can hear it. I'm here. I'm safe. I know I'm going to get fed, put to bed. I'm gonna be clean. You get it? Total trust. When a baby's afraid, they call for mom, knowing she's gonna protect me no matter what's coming at me. Then I become an adult, and God says, can you trust me like that, like you trust mom and dad? No. I mean, I'll trust you a little bit, but not that much. The rest I got. And I'm burning down my house, but I don't see it. It's back to what the Oxford talked about, purity, honesty, unselfishness, and love. Will I get there? Probably not in this lifetime. But the journey is towards that, to be able to increase trust with this power called God. I had a buddy of mine pass away. He said, God's got it. And the mind says, no, no. You don't understand. He doesn't. It's not going quick enough. Look at the state of the world right now. You know, we use worldly clamors as wholesale condemnation against God. Well, where's God here? Where's God there? That's the mind operating. Or I start to count other people's blessings instead of my own and I lose faith and trust in God. So that's the walk. It begins with literally the first step. of how unmanageable my life is while I'm sitting in a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous with 10, 15, 20, 30 years sober still looking for acceptance and approval of other people rather than God. I need to practice fidelity to God to experience God's fidelity to me. I need be faithful to a practice to experience that practice. Faithfulness to me You know, if going after praying, some of us maybe like to do gardening and we kind of commune. I had a grand sponsor, Don, who would say, go commune, commune with God. And maybe we'd like to garden or go for a nice walk. Not an exercise walk or watching the laps and just a walk with God If that's what you do, then do it every day. If gardening is your thing or listening to music, not Metallica, but like nice music, something inspirational then do that every time my wife my wife does that she we sometimes we pray together in the morning sometimes we pray separate and always meet and we talk about what happened in prayer meditation and we're catholics so we do rosary beads my wife does a lot of reading and she's always got something i said what is that it's it's some sort of christian not rock it's just something that you're walking or this is nice. But every day she does that. Every day. That's being faithful to a practice and she experiences the practice faithfulness to her because it starts to grow. I got a different GPS now. And instead of going through life listening to the mind and seeing through the mind, hearing through the brain, I'm operating out of the soul. When I start to operate in the soul, I am traveling really light with life. Nothing out there has changed. politicians are off the rail the world's off the mail the left is off the rails it's insane people in AA want to change it it's madness but if I'm operating out of here I don't have to go down that rabbit hole God always wins at the end of the day from the beginning of history God always wins we're here 85 years now we're 85 Dave 85 from the first time to where we are say this morning when all the stuff AA's gone through was still here God always wins but the mind doesn't tell me that sometimes life's coming at me and I'm trying to do the next right thing and chop wood and carry water I got to remind myself God always wins. Am I aligned with God or not? When I was a kid growing up and I was misbehaving, my dad, my uncles, the guys on the shoot say, hey, you're a little out of line. You're out of love. It's a warning. You are not behaving properly. You will experience consequences because of this. On the spiritual walk, am I out ofline with God? Or am I inline with god? I can tell you from personal experience, being inline is not going to make me popular some places. I feel like I'm standing on that firing line with no backup. I've gone to a lot of conferences over the years and listened to maybe half a dozen speakers and no one talks about God from the podium. I've gotten to a little bit of a lot of conferences all over the year and people are now, the new thing is they walk out during the Lord's Prayer. They got to go out and vape or get her number or whatever I got, what's so important but the people stand for the Lord'S Prayer like the third room's walking out into the parking lot. I've gone to enough conferences, very few people stand in line and thank the speaker anymore. Where are the sponsors? That's the erosion, not of AA. That'sthe erosion of me first and then my sponsees do that and their sponsee do that and then becomes the erosion of AA I want to walk a spiritual path. How about cleaning up? My wife always says, you want to be spiritual? When you come out of public shopping market or CVS, you get the wagon and you dump your stuff in the trunk, bring the wagon back to where you found it, that's a spiritual act. Rather than leaving it there, who cares? Somebody else will get it. So I'm looking for nirvana, but I don't do the little things. And something about being on a... When we're in the light, we seem to change. I can't leave the wagon there anymore and I drop some litter on the ground. I got to pick it up. Did you ever do this? You go to a doctor's office and they give you a little thing to fill out and instinctively put the pen in your pocket. And when you're leaving, you get into the elevator and go, oh, I got to bring it back. It's not my pen. And you go back to the receptionist, here's your pen. They kind of look at you like, what's wrong with you? But it's not mine. It's stuff like that. So step one, I can get it when I first got here about what they're talking about. And a sponsor walked me through this book. we're looking at pages 17 to 23. Hits the body pretty much. And 23 to 43, hits the mind. The doctor's opinion talks about this psychic change, which is a spiritual awakening. We're looking for the transformation, the revolution, the awakening via the 12 steps in order to combat this mind, which is the main problem. And so our step one says we admitted... And again, they're talking past tense. Hey, they're telling someone, hey, we admitted we were powerless over alcohol. Our lives had become imagined. We came to believe and that kind of stuff. We made a decision. So actually that gives the message even more depth and weight because they're not theorizing. This is what happened to us. We admitted we're powerless over alcoholic. And when I first come in here, I said, oh, I got that part. But it's interesting in how it works. It says, remember, remember we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, and powerful. Why would somebody say, hey, remember don't forget to call Joe because I might forget? So the book is saying, remember We Deal With Alcohol because you might, I might, forget that I'm dealing with alcohol as cunning, Baffling and Powerful. I might get so far away from step one that I think I got it now. we come in on the bottom we can go out on top I never want to get so well if you will so smart that I think I'm immune from the tactics of alcoholism how it tries to get me because it'll try to get me we admit it repels over alcohol it's a dash it says that Eliza become unmanageable so I get into Alcoholics Anonymous and I get in here by way of being homeless a bum and I'm in here a little bit and you get the little AA job and I got showering and shaving and getting a haircut get a little job got some money in my pocket when you guys go to the diner I can buy myself some coffee this is good putting on some weight I always loved to run so I got back into running I'm feeling pretty good about me and the old time has blessed their hearts with see me says, hey, you look good, you sound good, keep coming back. You look good you sound great, keep going back. So what happens to me I've got to make sure I look good and sound good and keep coming back. And I'm believing when I look in the mirror my life is now manageable. It was unmanageable because I was living in an abandoned building. I was panhandling. I couldn't get away from alcohol. I'm not drinking. I got a little sober job. The equipment is working. Women are becoming attractive. Get their little AA date. Oh my God you go to a meeting first then you go out to dinner. That's how we do it, right? and I'm feeling pretty good about me. There was a guy, Bill McNally in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I walked in one time and I had new jeans on and new shoes and a sport jacket for a meeting and he called me over. When the old timers do this, you're going to get it when they do this and he says, you look good, kid. I said, thank you, Bill. He says, new shoes? I said yeah. Sobriety is nice, yeah. New jeans, nice jacket? I said thank you. He says just remember one thing, you're still a drunken bum. now some of the nowadays because everyone's so offended over everything that would be like oh my god it can't be you spoke to you that way that was music he wasn't trying to attack me he was saying you got all the stuff remember who you are and so what I can quickly do is not pay attention to the first half of the first step and pay attention to my life looks manageable sounds manageable I need to do that which means I'm trying to arrange life to suit me I'm attached to external things. I've got to have a nice shiny car. I've Got to have money in my pocket, fresh haircut, clean shaven when I walk into the meeting. I can't show up a little scruffy. They're going to think I'm using. So my whole focus is on climbing the corporate ladder, if you will. And I get to the top and realize I climbed the wrong ladder that's over there. That dash becomes a wall. and I can't peek over and see the first half of the first step, which basically is my death sentence. I'm powerless over alcohol. I'm drinking. That's what it's telling me. Powerless over alcohol, no choice and no control. This is what's going on with me while I'm sober. Because I go to meetings doesn't mean I gain power and somehow I have control and I have a choice today. A moderate and a hard drinker probably can say, yeah, that's me, but not me. This is going on in the mind this predator before I even pick up a drink no power, no choice control and I think I could outrun that because it convinces me to go act out with sex, food gambling, whatever it might be if I don't go right to a drink or a drug first depending on what you do it always takes me back and so the real unmanageability my experience has shown is this the essence of unmanangeability in the second half for the first step is, I don't know what today's going to look like when I go pick up a drink and I can't stop it. How many, if you've been around here a while, how many folks we know pick up, go get drunk right before their first AA birthday? What do you mean they went out? They had 10 months. What are you talking about? Or they make the cake and a week later they're gone. What do you mean? They just made an AA birthday. It's not because they're bad people. They're alcoholics who never had soul food, never got the spiritual solution, never worked out in the AA gym. That's what we do to held their breath for a year and says enough of this. I convinced everyone I'm doing okay and we go. Can't stop that. Page 24 talks about this. Yeah. Page 24 says, at a certain point in the drinking of every alcoholic, I like to personalize, put me. I pass into the state where the most powerful desire to stop drinking is of absolutely no avail. It means nothing. Desire not to drink, come on in, doesn't mean I'm going to stay sober. The tragic situation has already arrived in practically every case long before it's suspected. The fact is that most alkies, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice and drink. Our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. I'm unable at certain times to bring into my consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago and without defense against the first drink. The almost certain consequences that follow taking even a glass of beer don't crowd into my mind to deter me. Why should it crowd into my mind? Because my mind's busy doing this. It's going to be beautiful. See, my mind tells me about the first drink and it really romanticized the whole thing. It doesn't tell me in three days you're going to get locked up. It doesn'T tell me when you get home tonight she's packing her bags and throwing you out or she's leaving. It doesn'T tell me the boss is going to say enough. You're out. You're fired. It leaves that part out. That's what it's supposed to do. So thinking to drink through, plate and tape to the end, keep it green. Remember where I come from. It sounds really nice. A hard drinker could do that. A moderate drinker could do this. But anyone who's a real alcoholic knows that doesn't work. Honey, I swear, I swear this is it. I'm going to change. I swear. I can't do this anymore. I don't want to be a good guy. Tomorrow, I sware I'm gonna be sober and tomorrow I don'T even come home. Because somewhere between waking up and on the way home suddenly showed up and I walked into the bar at a liquor store. And I wake up in Fleabag Motel with somebody, I don't even know her name. And sometimes when I was drinking with her, she looked like Bo Derek. I woke up and looked like Beau Diddley and I says, oh boy, I'm in serious trouble. So what am I going to do about this? And physically sober, while we're in Alcoholics Anonymous, I just want to read one more thing here on page 52 is the bedevilments. And a bedevilement, I didn't know what that meant. I didn' t go to college and my sponsor had me before we had computers get an AA dictionary and bedevillment is something that torments, frustrates and harasses me. If I live next door to someone who was frustrating, harassing and tormenting my family, I call the police. But when it's us in our mind, we invite them in for dinner. so bedevilments it says this we were having trouble in personal relationships they're not talking about an occasional spat with a friend or maybe the wife and i bump heads that night about something and then it's we we make up and we move on this is trouble and most of the trouble in personal relations that we have is inward it sometimes comes out we bark we're irritable but it's usually an inward condition sitting right up in here having trouble In person relationships We couldn't control our emotional nature. We were prey to misery and depression. I couldn't make a living, had a feeling of uselessness. I'm full of fear, unhappy, and I can't seem to be of real help to other people. If I'm visiting these spots more than once, I got an issue. It's called untreated alcoholism. Untreated alcohol is a means I have alcoholism even though I'm not drinking and it's active. It's not dormant anymore. And if it's activ, I probably have a lot of fear going on. and if I have fear and that I have some current agnosticism going on I know there's a God but he's not gonna fix this I gotta do what I have to do which means I'm in self-reliance and it's a vicious cycle and I'm circling the drain and I don't even know it yeah it happened to me with six months sober well I was married for about I wanna say eight years about and my wife was full blown alcoholic drug user, infidelity just it was messy and we finally get divorced and I remember the shame and embarrassment I felt as a man that I couldn't keep my woman like I had control of her using and the shame and embarrassment I felt about being an AA member I'm in AA we're not supposed to get divorced I've come to find out I think it's in the preamble or requiring for membership in AA you have to get one divorce. It seems to be that way. And I was really uptight about that. And how am I going to tell people that I'm going through a divorce or I am divorced or I'm a member of AA? I was full of shame. And one night, buddies of mine up in Jersey took me out for dinner. Have you ever been so depressed where you came and looked at food, there's no appetite, you just want to die? And I'm feeling this And she took the house and the money in the car and left basically unemployed with no money. I said, oh my God, this is not supposed to happen. And I called up my sponsor, Mark, and I says, here's where I'm at. I'm standing in a parking lot of this restaurant. My friends are in there eating. I want to die. I just want to roll up in a ball. I don't have a job. I have no money, took everything. He says, you need to go through the steps again. That's not what I wanted to hear. but I was in that place of and I got attached to the house and the car and the marriage but I wasn't I was not in that place of current agnosticism God's not going to get me out of this self-reliance what am I going to do to fix it I've got to figure this out fear is driving me and my life is unmanageable while I'm sober and no matter which one I hit it would be get the other three and I can't get out and God could and would if he was sought when we look at page 25 in the big book the great fact and essential fact that's pretty much the opposite of being wrapped up in untreated alcoholism it is the goal simply I know that I'm known by my creator that God's going to do for me what I can't do for myself so we begin the journey so here I am wrapped up in step one active and wrapped up in step two in step three sober what's the out how do I get out of this and we look at chapter two agnostics which brings us to step two it says that's what this book is about its main object is to enable me to help me to find the power greater myself which is going to solve my problem on page 43 it says a doctor from New York he quotes that we're 100 percent apart from divine help that's a powerful statement but it also says that spiritual principles will solve all my problems so it's the same thing over and over again step two is the point they're out of this you know before we had siri and the gps in the car used to write down directions and if you were lost good luck so imagine we're driving i'm from new york originally so i don't notice this terrain here I'll get lost if I walk 100 yards. I don't know where I am, especially at night. We were driving out here last night. Thank God Scott knows where he's going. I'd still be wandering. But imagine being out here on a cold, snowy night and you're trying to drive around. It's pitch black out. There's no GPS. And you're running out of gas and you are on some winding road. What do I do? The gas tank is on E. This is not going to end good. And as you're kind of driving around, you see lights from like a gas station up ahead most of us are going to go right there get some gas ask directions it's the okay i see light at the end of this tunnel follow that for me that's how i look at step two god could and would if he was sought it becomes god can and has because i sought him out came to believe that a power could restore me to sanity becomes king to believe in it's experiential so here i I'm stuck in alcoholism. I can't get out. They present chapter two agnostics to us and step two, there's the light up ahead. Do you want to go? It's the way out. And then we kind of back up as I did. The book talks about we bristle with antagonism. That's putting it mildly. I'm a cradle Catholic. I always believed in the carpenter. When you talked about spirituality, I heard religion. When you talk about God's will, I heard punitive stuff. Misperceptions and conceptions about all of it, starting with this guy called God. Well, how am I going to do this? In chapter 10, Gnostics, bless it. It says our own conception of God, no matter how inadequate was sufficient to make the approach, they don't care. If it's religion, go for it. I use the G-O-D for a group of drunks for good early direction. I can see you, I can hear you. We could shake hands. We could have coffee. That was tangible. so I kind of gravitated told the old timers in here you know when you're new and they call you over it's a big thing, hey kids sit with us then if they know your name Pete sit with Us, you're gold and they would say tonight you should get home and pray and meditate and read something spiritual before you go to bed those are my marching orders group of junks for good early direction our own conception no matter how inadequate was sufficient to make the approach I need to lay aside prejudice to roll ideas about this God. You know who does that for me? Step one stuff. I have no negotiating tools here. I have not bargaining chips. I have zero leverage. I got to do this or else go on to the bitter end and die. So if you said go home tonight and do 10 jumping jacks to keep you sober, I'm going home and do 10 jumping Jacks. I'm not gonna negotiate this. How many times my sponsor has told me, given me spiritual homework assignments, I'm going, this is a bizarro world. What are they talking about? How's making coffee? How's setting up chairs? How's breaking down going to keep me sober? Just do it. Just do It. It's the willingness that's the key. When we do a third step, the first time doing a third stop, as the sponsors, he doesn't care if you screw up the prayer so much. What we're looking at is, I got a guy here who's willing to do this walk. And the prayer is an affirmation of willing to go to this new meeting tonight and they show up. It's not that they got to the meeting, they were willing to come. Willingness, over and over and again. That's really the turning point. I'm willing to exchange what has not worked for something new which doesn't, I don't even know it. You're asking me to get on a road I never walked before, to take 12 steps into my life that I know nothing about and to experience a God I know less about. Desperation is getting me there because there's that fire in the soul that needs to know God. We don't know that then. It's just desperation. I do this or drink and die, I'm gonna do it. My sponsor said to do this, I am going to do it When I get guys and I'm sponsoring them and they start negotiating with me, there's a short leash for that. A couple of phone calls, I'm out. Get somebody else. We're not going to negotiate on this. I meditate while I'm driving. That's not good to do. More coffee right there. You know? So step two is a pointer out. It says, came to believe that a power greater than myself can restore us to sanity. It's an arrival at some point. Big Book says in chapter 6, the Wright brothers' almost childlike faith was the mainspring of getting the plane off the ground. Childlike faith. They believed. They had trust. They had faith while everyone around them was telling me, you can't do this. Impossible. We've tried it. My track record says there's no way you could get sober, Pete. It's impossible. I'm looking at the spreadsheet. Seven treatment centers. You blew up everything. You can't stop drinking. You can'T stop eating pills. You can'T. You can''t do this, it's impossible." Everything logical says, Pete, you're gonna die a drunk, and I'm not. I remember I had an... My uncle said to me, I was sober about two years and I was sitting in his house. And he says, you still go to those meetings? I said, yeah, he's like a crutch for you. And I didn't say anything. He says, one day you'll get to a point you don't even need that anymore. I'm still making meetings. I know what my truth is. I've been restored to sanity. So it's an arrival point that we'll get there. We'll get back to this place sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly, certainly by step 10 because they guarantee us that, that I'm going to get to this place called sanity which is wholeness of mind or living in the truth or one with God. I'm not buying the lie anymore. Not only about booze but depending on where I am spiritually I'm no longer I'm just not buying a lie about it's okay to embezzle it's Okay to practice infidelity it's OK to steal it's Ok to lie it's not OK anymore and it's not me coming to that conclusion it's the spirit screaming that at me we walk different not very popular in certain circles but I'm walking different right now if I can be so bold. God is not a popular word in the world right now. He's not popular in a lot of circles. I don't listen to that. The scripture says that God will give us each an equal measure of faith, no more, no less. And I need to act with that soberly, not to be better than anyone because I know I have that. But what I do with it is up to me, cultivating faithfulness. Bringing it where it's asked and being around people who talk about it and the naysayers, let them do it. God doesn't need me getting there so I'm invited in but I will never apologize for God. I will not do that. I will ever hide God in a closet. I will Never hide the carpenter in a closet. We have traditions here I need to abide by. Get that. But when we sit and talk and we start talking about God, I'm not going to say well he's only got 10 days. I'm Not going to touch that subject. No, you're going to hear it. the keys to the kingdom, I'll give them to you. Because they were given to me. Came to believe that a power grid of myself could restore me to sanity. God could and would have sought God's canon house because I continued to seek him. Do I want to go there or not? We look at how it works, it talks about steps three and four. Before I got there, my sponsor had me do a neat assignment. He says, I'd like you to write down your old conception of God. We're looking at step two stuff. He said, what's your old perception of God? Write that down. And like a lot of us, I was a cradle Catholic, and if you screw up, you're going to hell. And God's kind of watching in the heavens somewhere. You know, oh, there he goes again. That kind of thing, oh my God. And when you knew you sinned, you couldn't sleep at night. You're just waiting for the earth to swallow you up. That's not loving God. It's kind OF Old Testament stuff. And he said, I'd like you to write down your current conception of God. So I had a little bit more of a nicer God, but most of it was still you. The men and women in the AA who really, the old time is the women kind of mothered me when I got here. They were that way. They looked out for me. They helped me. And the guys were like, they were like the Marines. They saw me walking in the door. I'm not special. We got a new one. Nowadays we're looking at our phone on Facebook. we don't see the new people walking in the door. There used to be a time you walked in, they were sitting around having coffee, the door would open, who's coming in? You know him? No, let's go get him. Now we're doing this. Newcomer, you get him, I'm busy. I'm trying to get liked on Facebook right now. You ever see this? Just did my fifth step, hour quiet time, taking a selfie, you know. Sweet Jesus, where's the sponsor? And I wrote down my current conception, which was you. And a little bit of what I believed in. And he said, I want you to do one more thing. If you can write out what you would like to have a relationship with God look like in the future, what would that be like? Write about that. And he kind of forced me to open up and claim that. And I did. And he asked me, write down where you think God's working in your life. I said, well, I'm sober. I'm still alive. I'm healthy. I have a job. he's right there where you think God's maybe not paying attention or not working in your life I had a big list that's where I'm agnostic because if I don't get something now God's not working rather than it's not time yet or if I give you that, it's going to kill you people do that with their children I know he wants that motorcycle but he's six I know he wants to drive the car but he's five so when you get older I'll show you how to you get it then God's doing the same thing with me and I got to take a look at this stuff how many times I try to control and regulate my drinking and wound up drunk anyway how many time how many of these times I tried abstain from drinking I'm not going to drink I'm going to have another one that's all insanity how many things I walked out of treatment stone cold sober and within an hour I'm loaded again That's called insanity. Never picked up the first drink sober, drunk. Am I willing to turn everything over to this power called God? I'm back to step one again. I have nowhere to go. It's clear to me what I do with my life while I'm managing and controlling my life. I am not managerial quality. I will never be managerial quality. My ego tells me I am, but I'm not. To manage my life drunk or sober is not a good idea. I know I can't manage it while I'm using. That's an obvious one. I wind up in treatment and jail and homeless. But what about sober? I think I can manage my life now. I raised a family. I built a company. I got all this money. I'm doing a pretty good job with myself. God allowed me to do that. I my level for discernment is not on a spiritual plane it's on a me plane so I get to take what I want and leave the rest you ever hear this one in AA I'm asking a guy with three days back to take whatever he wants and leave he's taking her and leaving all of you here that's what he wants so we made a decision to turn my thinking actions over to the care of God as I currently understand them. It says, rarely have we seen a person fail or thoroughly follow our path. In some places it could really read, rarely have мы seen a Person thoroughly follow Our Path. Constitutionally incapable of being honest. We're not talking about just cash register honest here, a life which demanded rigorous honesty. We're talking about honest about what my condition is, my truth. in step 10 it says the problem has been removed but the truth is not removed once an alcoholic always an alcoholic I have a fatal illness which I'm going to die from it's going to take me back to that which is killing me or I'll off myself sober I want to do something about this I can't get away from that it says we have the capacity to be honest so I'll say this is about let's pretend it's about 8 ounces of coffee in here yeah styrofoam cup it tastes pretty good right now i put it down and i leave it here and come back next week i'm not going to drink that it's icky probably particles and dust and god knows what went in there and it's flattened out i might even get sick but i want a cup of coffee is the only cup in the house so what am i going to do Throw it out. Rinse it out and refill it. I have a cup of coffee, it's fine. Hot cup of tea. The container is just about a week old or a month old, whatever it is. What I need to do, we have, our book says, the capacity to be on. We have the vessel. It's just poisoned. A lot of plaque on the soul. It's resentments, it fears, it's projection about the future. I'm living in the future or the past, the future of the past all day long. That's why when you ask me how you're doing, I'm always tired. It's not from flying because I'm wrestling with later on and before all day long. I'm sitting in the meeting and my mind's like a ping pong match. Oh, my God, I can't believe this. What about that? When's this meeting going to end? Where are we going to go? They're probably going to want to go to that diner. I want to do that. That diner, I hate these people. I'm feeling romantic. When I get out of here, I want make love to the wife. She's probably sound asleep. Again, I need a divorce. We're sitting in a meeting. And it's the 11th step, and it's a go-around. I'm about to share really spiritual stuff. All day long we do this. The process of recovery is about removal, not addition. and so as I go to the work it kind of flushes a lot of squeezing out you get a sponge and you use it or you wash your car you squeeze out the towel and dry it again and squeeze it out that's what's happening here it's uncomfortable sometimes you get new folks and they're real enthusiastic how's that four step going it's wonderful I'm loving it you're not riding a four step I don't know what's going on it's not that much fun You're taking stock of me. Wow, I really screwed this up, you know? But it's about removal. Subtraction. God didn't leave me short a tool in the tool belt. I did. I took the toolbelt and start changing the tools. Like I use a screwdriver for a nail. It'll work. I think I need more tools than that. I got to get newer tools. And I screw up the whole thing. I screw up the ingredients. So this process of recovery is about going home to what God gave me, and I've got to get away, get rid of all the stuff that's in the way. Am I willing to do this? Am I unwilling to do it? I'm not there yet, but I'm in so much pain, drunk and sober, I'm willing to go. I don't care where you take me. I don'T CARE WHAT THIS GOD'S GOING TO DO FOR ME. I JUST GOT TO GET OUT OF THIS. THAT'S DESPERATION. THAT'S GOOD ENOUGH. IT TALKS ABOUT SELFISHNESS AND SELFSENDANCE. THIS IS THE ROOT OF OUR TROUBLES. roots on a tree or underground we're gonna have the trees out there some of those trees those roots will probably go across the yard that's where the illness for me lies so you can you know you can pretty us up get a shave a haircut put on some nice clothes a nice Armani suit and a big Rolex watch was still the same lunatic before we got dressed we're still untreated so what this is about to do is go underground and uproot everything root and branch I can be in AA I can be in AA and just look to trim off the dead leaves and present well yeah as long as everyone thinks I'm okay then somehow I'm going to be okay and AA the 12 said we're not doing that we're going to pull the whole thing out the destruction of self-centeredness the whole things got to come down and be rebuilt and we're gonna pull out the roots that are deep in the ground we're going to go, ouch, I don't like this. I don' t really want to go that far. How free do I want to be? Mark used to tell us, go to an ocean with a thimble, come home with a Thimble full of water. How free do you want to be? It's like I'm starving. Last night's a good example. I ate in the morning and thank you for a couple of oranges and an apple. That's what I had when I got to my room. That' s all I ate all day. When I get up this morning, I told Scott, I look like one of the Vikings in the lobby where I'm staying, eating breakfast. I was hungry. I didn't care if the bagels were old. They were going down. I come into Alcoholics Anonymous and I'm dying. And they say, look, we're gonna give you all of this and we have a little appetizer and walk out. I got enough God. That's enough. How free do I wanna be? go to the ocean with a thimble come home with a Thimble full of water and God's given us the whole thing it's the mind that doesn't want me to get involved with God I get distracted when the 11th step starts to be talked about when we're talking about meditation I'm thinking about this stuff I start to go off on a tangent somewhere it's this thing in the mind that doesn' t want any part of this God stuff I'm not talking about being a guru or some sort of enlightened being or anything like that. Got to start somewhere. How free do I want to be? So I can do a gut check and take a look at, peek inside. What does my prayer life look like as of this morning? What does it look like what does my meditation life look like as of the small? Do I really believe God's working in my life? Am I taking a little too much credit for my sobriety? As soon as I think I have sobriete I probably lost it. As soon as I think I got God, I probably don't. It's like the guy who says, you know, I'm a humble guy. He isn't. It's a walk. It's towards humility rather than the struggle towards perfection. I've been on that side. Got to do it right. Got to be perfect. Make sure the margins in the fourth column and the third column are perfect. Make sure you sound good. Present this book perfect. Make sure you don't misquote. A lot of us got into that when we got married to mechanics. And what we're seeking is a transformation. So my sponsor had me take a look at self-resistance and self-centeredness as the root of our troubles. I'm driven. Not led, not escorted. I'm given. I'm not driven by 100 forms of fear. And that's just a general overview. Self-resist, self-centred. self-seeking all the self and we need to be a reliever bond yourself and this had my now my visual for self so here i am remember the little uh the cartoons you had the little cloud over the person and then there was what they were saying i got the self guy right here it's an umbilical cord attached to me it's actually right from here self and it follows me around it takes inventory it judges it critiques not only you but me it's talking to me all day long it's selfish it wants more it's self-centered itself seeking itself absorbed it's about me all the time i give you a perfect example of someone who's completely in self it's a true story a buddy of mine tom from new york he passed on 9 11 happened and he was on The Jersey Turnpike heading to work. And we all know what happened that day. And the cars stopped, there was a shutdown and they're peeking across and they could see New York basically burning down. The towers are down, it was just bedlam. His daughter worked in downtown Manhattan. So not only he's watching this, he's in panic mode. My daughter, no one can move. Cell phones won't work and it was very frightening. So here, panic mode. And he hears in the midst of this confusion, hey, Tom, Tom. He turns around and this guy, we'll call him Bill, who was a relapser in AA, waves to Tom. Tom's like, oh my God, a friend from AA. You know, we kind of feel like a buddy in AA. He yells back to Tom, 67 days today. now we're in AA I got to clean up the language it was pretty much blank you and your 67 days we're all gonna die and my daughter's in New York that's selfish self-centered self-seeking the world looks like it's about to end this guy's young I got 67 days like okay that's all you're gonna get because we're all going to die in about an hour, you know? That's what we're talking about. Walking into a room, we've all done it. You ever walk into a doctor's office and it's crowded and you're like, I got to get out of here. Now we have cell phones. We make out with texting somebody. We'll walk in kind of casual or walk into A Meeting Late and everyone turns around and you feel mortified by that. That's, that's what мы're talking abоut. That kind of uncomfortability and it'S talking to me all the time. I need to cut that cord to be free of self. My little plans and designs, am I willing to do this? And we'll take a break in a minute. I just want to read this to you on page 63. It says, so our troubles we think are basically of our own making. Unmanageability is always an internal condition. I keep pointing, it's all up in here. My perceptions of a situation, what usually calls me pain and suffering, not always the reality of it. How I see things is how I react to things. How I hear things is how I interact with things. The filter is back up in the head. It'd be like if David came over and said to me, let's pretend, hey, nice jacket and walked away. Walking through the hallway and he'd say, nice jack and kept walking. I can say, thank you, Dave. Or I can say, what do you mean by that? Scott, does Jackie look all right? Why? Because that guy Dave says it's a terrible-looking jacket. And by the end of the night, he ripped it off me, you know, that kind of stuff. My perceptions of a situation cause me pain and suffering. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of selfishness. We must or it kills us, and God makes that possible. And the orphan seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without his aid. I need to feed the soul and stop the ego. There's not a commentary on anything, but lots of times I hear even guys I sponsor say, they told me to get a bigger God. I need a bigger god. No, you need a smaller you. I don't need a big God. I need small of me. And what this work is going to do is just that. I don't mean with insignificance smaller, but right size. We always hear that you need to get right sized in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm not the most important person in the room. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we cannot live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing and trying on our own power. We had to have God's help. And here's a third step consideration. This is the how and why of it. First, I had to quit playing God. Why? It didn't work. So I got to take a look at right now currently, where am I playing God? Sometimes it looks like this. I wake up in the morning. I know what today's going to look like. I know, say, it's work and some chores and some errands and group tonight, meeting tonight, home group, or I'm chairing a meeting. Okay, those are the to-do things. But I know the minutiae of the day. who's going to do what and who's going to say what and I'm already in lock and load for it I'm playing God I got a job interview it's never going to work I don't even know why I'm going this is ridiculous then we go to the interview and the guy's in AA we come back and say what a great interview you know we're playing God all the time we walk into a meeting the room is set up like this and maybe we'll come back tonight and it's in a circle so instead of going oh wow they put it in a circle someone's going can you believe they put it in a somebody gives a talk on step three and doesn't even cover step three they just give a qualification and you with your big book are irate supposed to be spiritual now but i'm out they didn't even cover the third step what kind of nonsense is this and a new guy goes up to the speaker and says that was the best meeting ever heard thank you so much it wasn't your night quit playing god It doesn't work. What do I know? I'm in AA a number of years, somehow became worldly, and I'm so insightful. No, I still have a sponsor and a wife. Next we decided hereafter in this drama of life, God's going to be our director. My brother's an actor, andI learned a lot from talking to him. The director's a boss. in fact some of the top actors the real professionals will lean to the director you know I don't like it this way I want you to do it this way okay you're the boss that's what I'm going to do God's the director it says he's the principal we're his agents that's a Wall Street term agents represent the principal sports athletes celebrities have agents that represent them yeah speak to my agent speak to the agent. We are agents for God. A book says that we're representing God wherever we go. Oh boy. It says he's the father where his children my dad, as tough as he was, always gave me and my brothers everything we needed. Food, school, clothes, some things we wanted but always had everything we need. We wanted stuff that he didn't give. purposely. If I got everything I wanted, I probably wouldn't even got sober. I would have been dead. And God operates this way. He's going to give his kids everything they need but not necessarily everything they want. I need to grow up spiritually. Bill talks about emotional sobriety to get that, to grasp that. That when God says no, it's not punitive, it's like it's our time. Most good ideas are simple and this concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch to which I pass the freedom. Right in the center of the archway, this is it, it's holding it together because if I make this decision I can go through four through nine, if not it's just a nice decision but nothing has happened. Kinda like I wanna get in shape and I decide I'm gonna join a gym on Monday and Monday comes and I don't go. I'm not in shape, I just talk about it but I don' do anything about it, yeah? When we sincerely took such a position all sorts of remarkable things follow. I had a new employer. Being all powerful, he provided me with what I need if I keep close to performers' work well. I'll get that if I do and if I don't, I won't. And it isn't because God's not given. I am forfeiting all his invitations. I can't hear it. I don'T have to get close to be close. I wake up to the nearness of my creator. That's what my book says. It goes on to say this. Established on such a footing, I became less and less interested in myself. my little plans and designs and more and more about what I can contribute to life. It's the opposite of page 62 here, where it's all about me. There's a shift in consciousness. More and more I became interested in what I could contribute to like. As I felt new power flow in, well thank God because chapter 106 says I'm out of power. If I got a glass full of water and I pour it in, it's gonna go all over the place. I need to empty it out. I'm being filled with God. as I felt new power flow in, as I enjoyed peace of mind, I discovered I could face life successfully with peace of mine because I'm starting to awaken here. And this is what's talking to me. These new conclusions of the mind are really awakenings of the soul. I could make a difference and face life successful as I became conscious or awake to God's presence, I began to lose my fear of today, tomorrow or hereafter. I was reborn. That's the third step consideration. There's no amen there. I'm about to go into this body of work. Then we have our third step prayer. It says, God, I offer myself to thee. My sponsor had me write out word for word and write out my interpretation of what I think that prayer is telling me. So when I said it, I heard it in my language. God,I offer myself to you to build with me and do with me as I will. God, take me like the wretch and the sinner I am. I'm not getting involved in a new remake. You know, relieve me of the bondage of self. Take away my difficulties, whatever they might be. Relieve me of this self thing. The bondage, I'm attached to it. And my difficulties which are all in the head, that's just something great. That victory over them may bear witness. I could be living proof for the next person of your power, love, and way of life. May I do your will always. There's no room for me in here. Am I willing to do this walk? And we get up off our knees and we launch on the course of vigorous action. Our book says that this decision could be permanent if I do the rest of the work or it's just a nice prayer I said and off we go. The intent at which I say any prayer for me has been most important. It says the wording was, of course, quite optional. So if you and I got together and I said, hey, I really want to surrender to God, but we don't know that there's a prayer. Now both of us kind of got down and we said the most sincere prayer, God, please just show us the way. And the intent was pure. It's just as powerful reciting this prayer. But we have a beautiful prayer that kind of streamlines everything as to what we're about to go do here. what this is going to look like. Am I willing to do that? I'm back to step one, the pain and misery, the emotional thing that's got me. I'm going to walk. I'm gonna get with the sponsor and do this. And that's the power that walks me through four through nine, which we'll talk about when we come back after a break. That's all I got. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this recording. If you are interested in other speaker tapes or CDs from AA or Al-Anon, please contact us at Sound Solutions, toll free 1-877-893-2777 or visit us on the web at soundsolutionsrecording.com. We are also available to cover your recording and sound system needs. Thank you for allowing us to be of service and carrying the message. Thank you.