Until You Have This Experience, Higher Power Is Just a Three-Letter Word That Rhymes with Odd — Sandy B. – Sandy R.
About This Speaker Tape
In this second session of a spiritual retreat, a long-sober Marine veteran and well-known AA speaker picks up where he left off, weaving together personal war stories, encounters with legendary AA figures, and a deepening exploration of how the stories we tell ourselves create most of our suffering. He opens with a hilarious account of how he first met Chuck C. — through Chuck's wife Elsa, who threatened Chuck with sleeping alone if he didn't invite the speaker to the Palm Springs Roundup — and describes sitting in Chuck's living room in Laguna Beach, overwhelmed by the spirituality but unable to understand a word of it until years of experience caught up.
The heart of the talk is Chuck C.'s premise that conscious separation — the perception that we are fundamentally separate from everything and everyone — is the single root of all human problems, and that conscious contact with a higher power would make it impossible to have any problems at all. He illustrates this with a stunning personal story: for 42 years he carried deep shame about losing his ability to fly during the Cuban Missile Crisis, believing his fellow pilots despised him. Then a former squadmate appeared at a meeting and told him the entire squadron had loved him and the colonel had fought to keep him. He had to go back and change his story about the past — which, he realized, was the same as changing the past itself.
From there he explores how we live almost entirely in stories about the past and future because we have no concept of how to live in the present moment. He discusses the moral law that C.S. Lewis described — an internal code we didn't put there and can never fully live up to — as evidence of something spiritual already inside us, connecting it to Bill W.'s statement that the fundamental idea of Higher Power is deep down inside of us. He closes with a candid admission about quitting smoking through sheer Marine willpower and how the resulting pride actually set him back spiritually, illustrating why Steps Six and Seven insist that Higher Power — not self-will — is the agent of change.
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Timestamps
Full Transcript
Okay, everybody, we're going to resume with our second session here.
You'll notice that we get half of the lectures out of the way the first day,
and then there's time for other activities with one lecture on Saturday and one on...
You'll notice that we get half of the lectures out of the way the first day,
and then there's time for other activities with one lecture on Saturday and one on...
Okay, everybody, we're going to resume with our second session here.
You'll notice that we get half of the lectures out of the way the first day,
and then there's time for other activities with one lecture on Saturday and one on Sunday,
questions and answers, plenty of free time, and the Chuck C. DVD,
which is those of you that never had the privilege of meeting him, he died in 1982.
It just gives you a glimpse of his energy, which I just still feel to this day.
While I'm on Chuck C., I'll tell you.
Chuck C.'s story.
I think I got invited to talk the first time out of town in 1970,
and I went over to some big deal in Baltimore,
and somebody from Indiana or somewhere like that was there.
And so they invited me out to Indiana.
And Wino Joe was the big speaker.
Here's another character.
Here's another character in AA.
He'd been around quite a while.
And myself and a guy who was a pig farmer were the two junior speakers.
And somewhere in my talk, I mentioned that it's very,
you want something that's not very comfortable, it's throwing up in an oxygen mask.
And then the pig farmer had a lot of stories about pigs, et cetera.
So now it's Wino.
And it's Wino Joe's turn as the feature speaker.
And he got up there and he says,
I'm Wino Joe from Tyler, Texas, and I'm an alcoholic.
This is the first time I've been on a program with a pig farmer and a puking marine.
And that was my entire description of who I was, a puking marine.
But I got to...
See Wino Joe a few times.
And what a character.
So probably about four years later, I was in the Midwest again.
And the Al-Anon speaker was Elsa Chamberlain, Chuck's wife,
who was just beautiful and wonderful and amazing talk.
And she heard me talk and thought it was great.
So she went back to Chuck.
And said, you have to invite this guy to the Palm Springs Roundup,
which is a big deal for the Californians.
And Chuck said, well, I don't know him.
I'm not going to invite him there.
I mean, my reputation is on the line.
Have you got one of his talks?
He doesn't have any talks.
Nobody taped him or anything.
And Chuck said, well, I'm not going to invite some guy out here without having heard him.
And Elsa said, well,
you'll be sleeping alone.
Now, I don't know anything like this.
I just know Chuck Chamberlain is like somebody.
So my phone rings.
Is this anybody?
Yeah.
Well, this is Chuck Chamberlain.
And I was sure it was my friend Hal Marley pulling my leg.
Yeah, sure, Chuck.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He said, no, this is Chuck Chamberlain.
And I went, oh, my God.
And he said, my wife said, I have to invite you to the Palm Springs Roundup.
And I went out there, and that's where Drop the Rock was.
And Chuck loved it.
If I had bombed, I never would have got to go down to Chuck's house and hang out in Laguna Beach.
But I was invited down there.
He took a liking to me.
So I got to experience.
So let's see.
I have 12 years sobriety.
At the time.
And I went there between 77 and 79, maybe five or six times.
So I'm somewhere around 13, 14 years sobriety.
And I'm sitting there, and Chuck is talking in his living room.
And I'm just overwhelmed with the beauty and the spirituality of all of this.
I just sat there just going, oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
But when I left, I realized I had no idea what he was talking about.
It wasn't until years later that I could fully understand what he was talking about,
because I started to experience it.
And that's where the rubber meets the road.
It's when you have the experience.
And while I'm on that subject, before I get around to this,
I want to say this.
One of the best ways.
One of the best ways to describe God to a newcomer
is to tell them that in Alcoholics Anonymous,
until you have this experience that's described in the spiritual awakening,
God is just a word.
It has no depth.
It has nothing until you have the experience.
Matter of fact, it's a theory.
You have this theory that if you ask God to help you, he will, but you don't know.
And in this experience, something happens,
and you say to yourself, oh, this is the God they're talking about.
See, it's quite different from a religion,
because we can't give you a definition.
We can't give you a history.
We can't tell you any background.
We can only tell you how to have this experience.
And then when you have the experience,
you can attribute it to whatever word you want.
But in the long run, I said higher power for five years.
Didn't want to get caught saying God.
And after five years, I said, you know, you could say God faster than higher power.
And who cares anymore?
You proved your point.
You proved your point.
And so.
So I just said, yeah, OK, God's fine with me.
But what do I mean when I say that?
I mean the experience that I had as a result of these steps.
So sometimes I think the step could say God as we experience him.
Because understanding God is impossible.
It's just way beyond.
It's a mystery.
And so mysteries, there's two things you can do with mystery.
You can try and figure them out, or you can enjoy them.
And it's suggested that you simply sit in wonder at this incredible mystery.
And I like magicians because they do things.
And I go, how the hell do you do that?
It's almost beyond possibility that could happen.
And I just thought I'd go over here.
Now he's over here.
The worst thing in the world would be if they showed me how it's done.
It wouldn't be much fun then.
I'd just go, I know that.
You go here.
There's a little tunnel.
You come over here.
Big deal.
Anybody could do that.
So the fun for me is not trying to find out how the trick works, but to just sit back and go, wow.
And while I'm on that subject, I think that's one of God's favorite prayers.
Wow.
Wow.
And you take a look at the world he created and the universe and take it all in and just go, wow.
I think he gets a kick out of that.
That you appreciated it and are in a position to reflect on things like that.
So that's off on the sidetrack.
But there seems to be more.
There seems to be more trouble with the word God in AA than there was 25 years ago.
I don't know why.
And so I think that if you're dealing with somebody new and you explain it to them, that they will have an experience.
And it's up to them how they explain that experience.
But most of us say, so that's the God they're talking about.
Up till then.
It's just a three-letter word that rhymes with odd that other people seem to think is great.
And we also differ in that we're not trying to impose my view of this higher power on you.
I'm just trying to show you how you can have this experience.
And then it's up to you to explain it to yourself and to anybody else.
So anyway, getting back to Chuck.
And his basic premise that there's only one problem that includes all problems.
And that is conscious separation.
Meaning in our consciousness, when we look around, we are a separate being from everybody in this room, from everything.
And because of that conscious perception, all the other problems,
all the ills that human beings have, come from that.
And if that was eradicated with conscious contact, it would be impossible to have any problems.
Isn't that amazing?
It would be impossible.
Now that's a pretty big deal, isn't it?
It would be impossible to have any problems.
It's kind of like...
When you experience peace of mind, there's nothing for alcohol to fix.
So it's real easy to not drink.
Because drinking was designed to fix the terrible problem of sobriety.
Every time I'm sober, I'm very painful.
When I look at the world, it's terrible.
And when I have a drink, it changes what I see.
And I want to get out of this world that I'm in.
And so I found alcohol.
So for most of us, it was very close to a spiritual experience
in that some power greater than ourselves was changing the world that we lived in.
So that after three drinks, we looked around and went,
Now, this is more like it.
I can still feel that in a bar.
And I come in there all uptight and all this.
And then I would look around.
It was the same motley crowd, same dirty, dingy bar.
But I would just go,
Yeah, this is more like it.
This is great.
How are you doing?
Great.
Any problem?
No, I'm doing great.
And in that particular time frame,
I just couldn't think of a problem.
Now, later on, after 12 drinks,
I didn't like the way that guy was looking at me.
And then we were into other troubles.
But there was that magic moment around the third or fourth drink
when it's about as good as it gets.
But it was hard to stay there.
So we had this.
We talked the last time about as we look around,
our character defects are based on stories and self-centeredness.
And that's a story.
And just that the whole construction of everything seems to be based on a story.
Now we get into why it's an even deeper problem than what we described the first hour.
Now we're getting into,
and the term that I came up with is describing.
You want to describe a new guy you're sponsoring.
Who really, you know, four DWIs, 10 arrests,
beating the crap out of this, you know, just right down the list.
We would say, he has a very storied past.
It was a polite way of saying, you're not going to believe this.
So we suddenly find that not only is the present composed of stories,
but so is the past.
And it doesn't take much imagination to realize, so is the future.
Since the only moment that is real is the present,
and we don't know how to live there,
because the stories have us all confused and we think we're self-centered,
I mean, all that.
Then the only two places,
the only two places we could go are the past and the future.
But there's no such thing.
So we have to make up a story.
And when people ask us about things,
well, tell me about grammar school.
Tell me about this.
Tell me about that.
And then we come up with our version of what happened.
Do you follow what I'm saying?
Our version.
We think,
this is it.
This is the gospel truth.
I'm telling you what really happened.
And I have lately had that great story about flying.
And at the end of the line, I couldn't fly anymore,
and I made a flight of four land.
I just had to get out of the plane.
It was just so awful.
And we did land.
And we,
I got some drinks in me,
and it felt a little better.
And then the next morning,
we went out to refuel and go back to Cherry Point.
And I told the flight leader I wasn't going to fly anymore.
And alcohol decided that was the end.
Somebody else flew back,
and then I spent three months waiting to get reassigned.
And I did the legal work,
and I had three months of shame.
And the other pilots just looked in the window of the office,
and I could just see them.
They were just going,
how did that piece of crap get in our squadron?
We're a very elite photo squadron during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Crusader was a hell of a good airplane back then.
What is this guy doing in with us?
And so I had three months of shame.
And I could relive it any time I wanted.
All I had to do was think back on when I lost,
you know, flying took away from me,
and then there I sat in that.
It was just heavy,
heavy-duty shame.
And a couple of years ago at Brentwood,
some guy came up and announced that he was in the plane with me
when that happened.
And he was.
And I didn't remember him.
So we had this long conversation.
He brought photos of the squadron,
and we did this and that.
And then he said,
did you know how popular you were in that squadron?
It was killing us that you were leaving.
And the colonel tried everything to keep you there.
He just, it was, it's just,
it was the saddest day in our lives when you left.
And I went, well, that's not how I remember it.
I don't remember.
That's not my story about what happened back then.
But the evidence was overwhelming that I was wrong.
So I had to go back 42 years and change my past.
Well, I didn't know you could change your past.
You're not changing your past.
You're changing your story about the past.
Which is the same as changing the past.
Do you follow what I'm saying?
Because that's the only thing you got,
is the story about the past.
So now when I think about 1962,
Cherry Point, I go, man, those, what a group of guys.
They were, you know, they're just trying to help me.
Nobody knew about alcoholism.
Nobody knew about AA.
Wow, I was really lucky to be with those guys.
Boy, if I'd been with some bad guys.
So I can just go back and have very pleasant memories
about a very horrible, formerly horrible thing.
So you can see that our past
and our ideas about it
should be suspect.
Perhaps.
Your version about your past
has some flaws in it.
Possibly.
Possibly.
And I always use this line.
I heard it from some speaker,
but it fits in perfectly with talking about this.
He gets up to the podium,
and, you know, I'm Joe, I'm an alcoholic.
My story is divided into two parts.
What happened during the years that I drank
and what I thought happened during the years that I drank.
And then everybody, yeah, that's funny, that's funny.
What happened and what I thought happened.
And it doesn't take a big stretch to realize
you could do that with your childhood.
You could do that with high school.
You could do it with everything.
My childhood's divided into two parts.
What happened when I was a kid?
What happened when I was a child
and what I thought happened.
What I thought happened.
What my story about my childhood is
with all the adjectives that I put in.
Rotten parents, I mean,
rotten parents come from beating you up
to spoiling you.
If they hadn't spoiled me,
I'd be much better adjusted.
So I was abused by my parents.
They gave me everything I wanted.
I've heard alcoholics say,
so I learned no responsibility.
I ended up, it's all my parents' fault.
And on the other side of the thing,
you know, my dad beat me up and whacked me
and threw me on the ground and blah, blah, blah.
So that's why, that's my story
and why I'm screwed up.
We never take responsibility for ourselves.
But you can see that the whole past
is built on a series of stories.
The first girlfriend, the this, the that.
And as we tell the story to ourselves,
we emotionally react to it.
You know, think back on the saddest day
when your girlfriend says she's leaving you for Fred,
the biggest jerk in high school.
If you really are good,
you can go back and almost suffer
as much as you did when you were 16.
If you're good at this,
if you're a good storyteller,
you can almost bring tears to your eyes
at age 53
for something that happened when you were 16.
Isn't that amazing?
And most of it comes
because we have no idea how to live in the now.
And we've got to hang out somewhere.
Since we can't hang out in the present moment
because we have no concept of it,
there's only hope.
There's only two choices,
and one is the past,
and one is the future.
Well, how could you live in the future?
It's not even here yet.
Well, I just make up a story about the future
and scare the shit out of myself.
We do it all the time.
Wow, that thing in Greece is looking bad.
I'll be on unemployment in about a month.
They're going to collapse.
They're going to collapse the world economy.
And I'm going to be in bad shape.
God!
And Bill used to call it,
remember his imaginary ulcers would kick in?
He had that story about
he would lie around worrying about things
and his imaginary ulcers.
He was always talking about his imaginary ulcers.
He was always talking about his imaginary ulcers.
I think the future...
And stories about the future occupy everybody in this room
a great deal of your time.
Just, if it's not worrying about the future,
it's planning for it
and setting a series of actions
that are going to finally make you happy.
I think we talked about the last time.
They're going to finally make you happy.
If you're working with a new person
who comes over and says,
I'm just not happy.
I just feel terrible.
What if you said to them,
what if you're wrong?
What if you really are happy?
They go, how the hell could that be?
Well, let's look at your life.
Let's take a look at it.
Let's see where you are.
What do you got?
Six months sobriety?
And they just ask,
you're the coffee maker now?
Half the people in the group are so glad
that you just have joined us.
And your parents like you now, right?
They invited you over.
They're happy to have you back.
Your family was...
And you keep on going.
I remember my sponsor did that and I went,
well, if you look at it that way.
If you stop looking at your story,
you find out that you're happy.
You don't have to wait to get happy.
You already are.
And very often when I'm working with people,
they have a problem
and they come over to talk to me about it.
My job is to convince them they don't have a problem.
They made a mistake.
And I joke around and I said,
we ought to have a panel in our home groups
of three elders.
And if you have a problem,
you go up and sit in front of the three elders
and tell them what your problem is
and they will consult you.
Consult among themselves
and vote on whether it qualifies as a problem.
Can you see a lot of problems just disappear?
Oh, come on.
You think that's a problem.
I'm sorry, get out of here.
That's not a problem.
And you go, well, geez, I thought I had one,
but I was outvoted unanimously
that I don't have a problem.
And the second you say I don't have a problem,
you feel better.
You see the power of stories?
It's just unreal.
And we could go on and on with this whole thing
that isn't real.
That's the thing that starts to sink in
as we move along in the spiritual program.
It seems that there might be something lurking
behind the story.
It seems that, and we just had glimpses,
we've just had little feelings inside,
that there might be something,
we don't know what it is,
that is more real than this reality,
the one that we made up,
the one that's our story.
And that's a huge turning point.
To have any sort of an awareness
that there is something beyond my story,
something beyond my mind,
something of an eternal nature.
And there's...
Howard and I were talking about this.
That science has advanced so far
that many of the mysteries
that we used to need God to explain
are now explainable
in pure scientific terms.
So we don't need God to fill in these blanks.
And therefore,
the ego is jumping on the bandwagon
that we are,
that we are it.
That we are it.
Which is,
it just makes it more difficult
for alcoholics coming in here
if they have that background.
And there's a lot of them.
I had a gal from Harvard.
She had an MA from Harvard
and she was terrified
that her classmates would find out
she was talking about God.
And she would be just
persona non grata.
Gratas or whatever it is.
And so I started looking at
authors and leaders
in this whole thing.
And there are top scientists
and a lot of college professors.
And it's kind of the new religion.
If you can call atheism a religion.
But it's kind of a new thing.
It's not a problem that I had
when I came in.
I didn't have any peers
that were going to look down at me
if I said the word God.
So it's an extra problem.
And the thing I'm leading up to is
amongst this crowd
are some top scientists
who are perfectly comfortable
with science and God.
Perfectly comfortable.
So I decided to read them
as well as the others.
And one that I'm going to share about
is his name is Francis Collins.
He headed the team
that broke the genetic code.
And he has a book,
The Language of God.
So I'm reading the book.
And I'm seeing how he's paralleling.
And this is how God did it.
He chose to go this way.
And it's just going along.
And then he mentions
that he was an atheist
for most of his life.
But something changed his mind.
It was C.S. Lewis.
And that's a book that we,
I mean,
all of C.S. Lewis's
just an amazing person.
Now, oddly enough,
Anthony H. played him in the movie.
And we've got Narnia.
We got this.
But the thing that changed him
was mere Christianity.
And for the last five years,
when I have people
who have a hard time with God,
I said, just read the first 31 pages
of mere Christianity.
And in there,
C.S. Lewis is,
just so a brilliant writer,
speaker, whatever.
And he was giving radio broadcasts
to the British troops
in World War II,
helping them with their fears
and trying to bring them
into contact with God
so they could have an extra
way of surviving a war.
And he did it
not by talking about anything,
not by pointing outside at all,
but only by pointing out things about them
in a way that they saw themselves
entirely different.
That's the ultimate.
And Bill writes that in our big book.
The fundamental idea of God
is already inside of us.
So if we had a skillful enough communicator
who could talk about what's going on,
we could come to the conclusion,
on our own,
with no external evidence.
That's a pretty good job.
And that's what this scientist did.
Now, I'm no C.S. Lewis
to try and duplicate
the way he went about it,
but he simply pointed out
that inside of you,
all by itself,
is some kind
of a moral law
that you didn't put there.
And it's inside of every person.
And if you go around the world
to various countries,
it's remarkably the same.
And it's
an internal code of behavior
that you can't live up to.
You fail.
You cannot live up to this.
And the people that deny they have it,
he says,
what if someone else
violates that code?
Aren't you the first to say,
hey, you shouldn't behave that way?
You shouldn't have done that.
Based on what?
And it's based on this same
pre-existing,
they used to call it the law of nature,
they call it the moral law,
that you can't live up to.
And the second thing is,
you just have this
uncanny sense
that something wants you
to try and live up to it.
And that that is there
and it's present.
And so if you think about
how
some creator of the universe
would want
to make us aware
of the spiritual nature,
this is not a bad plan.
It's just not a bad plan.
No matter how hard
we try,
we can't get rid of that
internal
invisible,
uncaused
laws,
moral guidelines,
whatever you want.
I remember when I was drinking,
I had no idea,
this is,
this is what my problem was.
I was trying to drink
and kill that part of me.
I didn't know what to call it,
but it was there.
And then,
I could sin guilt-free.
That was my goal.
Can you imagine having that for a goal?
If I could get rid of
whatever the hell this thing is
and eliminate it,
I could do anything I want
and have no repercussions later on.
Which is,
you know,
like trying to kill your soul.
If I could just kill my soul,
I could have peace of mind.
Total insanity.
But I can remember thinking that.
And it just ties in so well
when Bill writes,
the fundamental idea of God
is deep down inside of us.
It's only there
that he can be found.
We've been looking
in all the wrong places.
We've been listening to
stories that we made up.
When William James was writing about,
he did a lot of writing,
but he did write about religion.
In the varieties of religious experience.
And then he was commenting on
what was taking place
just as AA was being formed,
which was the new age,
new thought movement
that was occurring in the Christianity
and all around the country.
Kind of,
one of the first ones I remember
was Norman Vincent Peale,
The Power of Positive Thinking.
Think your way to peace of mind.
Think your way.
You can get these thoughts.
If you can control your thoughts,
you can transform yourself.
You can move on and all that.
And it was very popular.
Even Emmett Fox was into that.
I mean, it was really
a new version.
And both,
and I'll tell you,
Ernie Kurtz and his history of AA
and,
and William James
said that's not AA.
AA doesn't see
human beings that way.
Where you can,
everything is beautiful.
I just have these thoughts
and just follow them
and they'll take you
and you can be free from
any
negative side of yourself.
Kurtz says that we're neither
sane,
nor sinner,
but both.
And we have to be
comfortable
playing those roles.
It's as if our ego
is somehow
our enemy.
And I,
after quite a few years
of bad-mouthing my ego,
I got tired because that's part of me.
You know what I mean?
And I'm going,
oh,
you know,
oh,
oh,
oh.
And somewhere I've read
a wonderful way of thinking
about the human ego.
And it goes like this.
If you're learning
how to play basketball
and you've got a basketball net
out in your driveway
and you're making moves
and you have,
you've got shots
you can't believe
and you spin around
this and that,
you're getting pretty good.
I mean,
you're out there,
you just made
12 shots
from 25 feet
in a row.
Swish.
I mean,
you really are going.
But the only way
of knowing
if you're any good
is to get somebody out there
who's going to try
and stop you
from scoring any points
at all.
Competition.
Your brother
somebody who's trying
to block you
from getting the basket.
Now you're going to get
a lot better
than you could get
on your own.
So in order to really
make any progress,
we need a spoiler.
We need somebody
who's trying to
get in our way
and get in our face.
Whether it's by telling us
we're a piece of crap
or not letting us sleep
or whatever it is.
And somewhere along the line,
I was able to put
my ego in that role
and to come to the conclusion
that he wants to go home
just as much as I do.
And we're both on the same team.
He just has a hell of a
thankless job.
You follow what I'm saying?
Trying to ruin every day I have.
But it helped me
to get more comfortable
with
being divided.
And we can work
as hard as we want
to try and unite
ourselves.
And that's what that
new thought thing.
You can do this
and you can do it on your own.
And William James had,
I think he called it
new thought, new age
was therapeutic narcissism.
And his comment on
the philosophy of
everything is wonderful
was all sunshine
makes a desert.
Whoa.
So AA,
we talk about
defects.
We talk about
this side of us
and it's going to be there.
I think that's what
Bill said.
It was nowhere recorded
where anybody ever got rid
of all their defects.
So somehow
we have to come
and have absolute peace
with the fact that this struggle
is going on
and it's never going to stop.
Now we can have peace of mind
because we're not expecting
this struggle
to suddenly be
all,
perfect.
The way
that we
move
towards a more comfortable
is all through
what we're going to talk about tomorrow,
the steps to ensure
conscious contact.
So if I'm trying to work on
these two forces,
what I really work on
is conscious contact.
And then this starts
taking care of itself.
The struggle becomes
less.
But the solution is always there
instead of going after.
And that's why in the
six and seven steps,
who's going to get rid
of this stuff?
God.
And we'll talk more about that
tomorrow, which is
why our divided self
wants to fight
even letting God do it.
And tells us
you could do it yourself.
You don't need to involve God.
You can get honest.
You can do that.
You can do this.
And I remember one time
trying to disprove
that you need God
to overcome defects.
And I had decided
to stop smoking.
And everybody else said,
work the program on it.
Say you're powerless over cigarettes.
You want some God's help.
Go talk to somebody else.
Blah, blah, blah.
And I said,
no, I'm a Marine.
I'm going to freaking stop.
And I'm not going to let myself.
I'm going to say to myself,
if you freaking die,
you're not getting a cigarette.
Screw you.
And I did.
I just went,
bam, you ain't having
another cigarette.
Don't even talk to me
about a cigarette.
And as soon as I'd go,
I'm going to say,
screw you.
You're not getting one.
And I made it.
And I just went,
look at that.
I proved
that you don't need help
to make progress.
Now I'm going to ask you a question.
What do you think
that did to my pride?
Do you think it took up
about three notches?
Do you think I improved spiritually
by stopping smoking on my own?
Or did I take
ten steps backwards
by becoming,
by having a perspective,
look what I can do by myself.
Now I'll start working
on other things.
And I was deliberately
putting together a case
that I need God less
than I used to.
And so,
I remember that.
I ran around,
told everybody,
you didn't see me,
you didn't see me
working the program on that.
You just put your damn willpower,
you just go there,
you can do it,
you can stop.
Now,
did that enhance
my spiritual condition
or deteriorate it?
And I would submit
what it did to my pride
set me back a long ways.
Okay,
let me see if I had any other.
Oh,
there's one other conflict
that comes in
in the middle of this.
Knowing that we can't
win this struggle,
we have to constantly try
to achieve perfection
in this area.
Bill in the,
I think I mentioned this,
I don't know if I mentioned it
earlier,
earlier or not.
But there's one area
where Bill's a little bit different
in one place than another
and it's on this issue
of perfection.
He didn't want the
four absolutes
because he thought
that alcoholics would go nuts
trying to be perfect.
You follow what I'm saying?
Okay,
just,
we need you to be absolutely honest
and selfish,
loving and
pure.
That one bothers me
so that's probably
why I forget it.
I don't know why
they had to include that one
as a character defect.
And
in the letter
later on in life,
Bill wrote
that he disagreed
with Akron and Cleveland
that the four absolutes
should be part of the program.
And then he goes on to say
but I snuck them in
in the steps six and seven
and the twelve and twelve.
And if you look there
he says
we need to raise our eyes
towards perfection.
Raise our eyes.
Because the sixth step
really is talking about perfection.
We're entirely ready
to get rid of all defects of character.
All defects of character
would be
a perfect union
with God.
That's how they would be gone.
And so
he didn't want us
to settle
as he writes in the
twelve and twelve
for as much perfection
as would get us by.
there is a
it's human nature
to go
after we've worked hard
and we've done a lot
and we've done a lot
and achieved a certain level
in AA.
I think it's an exaggeration
to say rest on our laurels
but it's easy to say to ourself
I never thought I'd get this far.
This is actually
pretty damn good sobriety.
I'd really have a pretty damn good
life.
I mean
this is really something.
And Bill would go on to say
and point out
the biggest enemy
of the best
is the good.
That's the biggest enemy.
We just say
see when it's terrible
then we're willing to
do something about it.
When it gets up to good
to slightly better than good
or somewhere in this level
it's real easy to say
this is unbelievable.
Look what I
this is good
this is good
this is good
but it's not
good.
The best.
So the difference
between the men
and the boys
is whether you want to push it up.
And I think
by coming here
you're saying
I want to push it up.
I don't want to stay
where it's really pretty good.
I used to think
that would be good
but now I want to see
what's above pretty good.
I want to go
and get closer.
I want to find out
how close
I can get.
And now
we're going to be
tomorrow
shifting over to
conscious contact
and finding out
what is being
suggested
what is
what are the stories
about that.
And
and I'll give you a hint.
Oddly enough
the way to get out
of storybook land
the way to shatter
all these stories
that we're trying to
escape from
is oddly enough
by telling stories.
And we'll get into that tomorrow.
Okay we're at the end of the time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
You'll notice that we get half of the lectures out of the way the first day,
and then there's time for other activities with one lecture on Saturday and one on Sunday,
questions and answers, plenty of free time, and the Chuck C. DVD,
which is those of you that never had the privilege of meeting him, he died in 1982.
It just gives you a glimpse of his energy, which I just still feel to this day.
While I'm on Chuck C., I'll tell you.
Chuck C.'s story.
I think I got invited to talk the first time out of town in 1970,
and I went over to some big deal in Baltimore,
and somebody from Indiana or somewhere like that was there.
And so they invited me out to Indiana.
And Wino Joe was the big speaker.
Here's another character.
Here's another character in AA.
He'd been around quite a while.
And myself and a guy who was a pig farmer were the two junior speakers.
And somewhere in my talk, I mentioned that it's very,
you want something that's not very comfortable, it's throwing up in an oxygen mask.
And then the pig farmer had a lot of stories about pigs, et cetera.
So now it's Wino.
And it's Wino Joe's turn as the feature speaker.
And he got up there and he says,
I'm Wino Joe from Tyler, Texas, and I'm an alcoholic.
This is the first time I've been on a program with a pig farmer and a puking marine.
And that was my entire description of who I was, a puking marine.
But I got to...
See Wino Joe a few times.
And what a character.
So probably about four years later, I was in the Midwest again.
And the Al-Anon speaker was Elsa Chamberlain, Chuck's wife,
who was just beautiful and wonderful and amazing talk.
And she heard me talk and thought it was great.
So she went back to Chuck.
And said, you have to invite this guy to the Palm Springs Roundup,
which is a big deal for the Californians.
And Chuck said, well, I don't know him.
I'm not going to invite him there.
I mean, my reputation is on the line.
Have you got one of his talks?
He doesn't have any talks.
Nobody taped him or anything.
And Chuck said, well, I'm not going to invite some guy out here without having heard him.
And Elsa said, well,
you'll be sleeping alone.
Now, I don't know anything like this.
I just know Chuck Chamberlain is like somebody.
So my phone rings.
Is this anybody?
Yeah.
Well, this is Chuck Chamberlain.
And I was sure it was my friend Hal Marley pulling my leg.
Yeah, sure, Chuck.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He said, no, this is Chuck Chamberlain.
And I went, oh, my God.
And he said, my wife said, I have to invite you to the Palm Springs Roundup.
And I went out there, and that's where Drop the Rock was.
And Chuck loved it.
If I had bombed, I never would have got to go down to Chuck's house and hang out in Laguna Beach.
But I was invited down there.
He took a liking to me.
So I got to experience.
So let's see.
I have 12 years sobriety.
At the time.
And I went there between 77 and 79, maybe five or six times.
So I'm somewhere around 13, 14 years sobriety.
And I'm sitting there, and Chuck is talking in his living room.
And I'm just overwhelmed with the beauty and the spirituality of all of this.
I just sat there just going, oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
But when I left, I realized I had no idea what he was talking about.
It wasn't until years later that I could fully understand what he was talking about,
because I started to experience it.
And that's where the rubber meets the road.
It's when you have the experience.
And while I'm on that subject, before I get around to this,
I want to say this.
One of the best ways.
One of the best ways to describe God to a newcomer
is to tell them that in Alcoholics Anonymous,
until you have this experience that's described in the spiritual awakening,
God is just a word.
It has no depth.
It has nothing until you have the experience.
Matter of fact, it's a theory.
You have this theory that if you ask God to help you, he will, but you don't know.
And in this experience, something happens,
and you say to yourself, oh, this is the God they're talking about.
See, it's quite different from a religion,
because we can't give you a definition.
We can't give you a history.
We can't tell you any background.
We can only tell you how to have this experience.
And then when you have the experience,
you can attribute it to whatever word you want.
But in the long run, I said higher power for five years.
Didn't want to get caught saying God.
And after five years, I said, you know, you could say God faster than higher power.
And who cares anymore?
You proved your point.
You proved your point.
And so.
So I just said, yeah, OK, God's fine with me.
But what do I mean when I say that?
I mean the experience that I had as a result of these steps.
So sometimes I think the step could say God as we experience him.
Because understanding God is impossible.
It's just way beyond.
It's a mystery.
And so mysteries, there's two things you can do with mystery.
You can try and figure them out, or you can enjoy them.
And it's suggested that you simply sit in wonder at this incredible mystery.
And I like magicians because they do things.
And I go, how the hell do you do that?
It's almost beyond possibility that could happen.
And I just thought I'd go over here.
Now he's over here.
The worst thing in the world would be if they showed me how it's done.
It wouldn't be much fun then.
I'd just go, I know that.
You go here.
There's a little tunnel.
You come over here.
Big deal.
Anybody could do that.
So the fun for me is not trying to find out how the trick works, but to just sit back and go, wow.
And while I'm on that subject, I think that's one of God's favorite prayers.
Wow.
Wow.
And you take a look at the world he created and the universe and take it all in and just go, wow.
I think he gets a kick out of that.
That you appreciated it and are in a position to reflect on things like that.
So that's off on the sidetrack.
But there seems to be more.
There seems to be more trouble with the word God in AA than there was 25 years ago.
I don't know why.
And so I think that if you're dealing with somebody new and you explain it to them, that they will have an experience.
And it's up to them how they explain that experience.
But most of us say, so that's the God they're talking about.
Up till then.
It's just a three-letter word that rhymes with odd that other people seem to think is great.
And we also differ in that we're not trying to impose my view of this higher power on you.
I'm just trying to show you how you can have this experience.
And then it's up to you to explain it to yourself and to anybody else.
So anyway, getting back to Chuck.
And his basic premise that there's only one problem that includes all problems.
And that is conscious separation.
Meaning in our consciousness, when we look around, we are a separate being from everybody in this room, from everything.
And because of that conscious perception, all the other problems,
all the ills that human beings have, come from that.
And if that was eradicated with conscious contact, it would be impossible to have any problems.
Isn't that amazing?
It would be impossible.
Now that's a pretty big deal, isn't it?
It would be impossible to have any problems.
It's kind of like...
When you experience peace of mind, there's nothing for alcohol to fix.
So it's real easy to not drink.
Because drinking was designed to fix the terrible problem of sobriety.
Every time I'm sober, I'm very painful.
When I look at the world, it's terrible.
And when I have a drink, it changes what I see.
And I want to get out of this world that I'm in.
And so I found alcohol.
So for most of us, it was very close to a spiritual experience
in that some power greater than ourselves was changing the world that we lived in.
So that after three drinks, we looked around and went,
Now, this is more like it.
I can still feel that in a bar.
And I come in there all uptight and all this.
And then I would look around.
It was the same motley crowd, same dirty, dingy bar.
But I would just go,
Yeah, this is more like it.
This is great.
How are you doing?
Great.
Any problem?
No, I'm doing great.
And in that particular time frame,
I just couldn't think of a problem.
Now, later on, after 12 drinks,
I didn't like the way that guy was looking at me.
And then we were into other troubles.
But there was that magic moment around the third or fourth drink
when it's about as good as it gets.
But it was hard to stay there.
So we had this.
We talked the last time about as we look around,
our character defects are based on stories and self-centeredness.
And that's a story.
And just that the whole construction of everything seems to be based on a story.
Now we get into why it's an even deeper problem than what we described the first hour.
Now we're getting into,
and the term that I came up with is describing.
You want to describe a new guy you're sponsoring.
Who really, you know, four DWIs, 10 arrests,
beating the crap out of this, you know, just right down the list.
We would say, he has a very storied past.
It was a polite way of saying, you're not going to believe this.
So we suddenly find that not only is the present composed of stories,
but so is the past.
And it doesn't take much imagination to realize, so is the future.
Since the only moment that is real is the present,
and we don't know how to live there,
because the stories have us all confused and we think we're self-centered,
I mean, all that.
Then the only two places,
the only two places we could go are the past and the future.
But there's no such thing.
So we have to make up a story.
And when people ask us about things,
well, tell me about grammar school.
Tell me about this.
Tell me about that.
And then we come up with our version of what happened.
Do you follow what I'm saying?
Our version.
We think,
this is it.
This is the gospel truth.
I'm telling you what really happened.
And I have lately had that great story about flying.
And at the end of the line, I couldn't fly anymore,
and I made a flight of four land.
I just had to get out of the plane.
It was just so awful.
And we did land.
And we,
I got some drinks in me,
and it felt a little better.
And then the next morning,
we went out to refuel and go back to Cherry Point.
And I told the flight leader I wasn't going to fly anymore.
And alcohol decided that was the end.
Somebody else flew back,
and then I spent three months waiting to get reassigned.
And I did the legal work,
and I had three months of shame.
And the other pilots just looked in the window of the office,
and I could just see them.
They were just going,
how did that piece of crap get in our squadron?
We're a very elite photo squadron during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The Crusader was a hell of a good airplane back then.
What is this guy doing in with us?
And so I had three months of shame.
And I could relive it any time I wanted.
All I had to do was think back on when I lost,
you know, flying took away from me,
and then there I sat in that.
It was just heavy,
heavy-duty shame.
And a couple of years ago at Brentwood,
some guy came up and announced that he was in the plane with me
when that happened.
And he was.
And I didn't remember him.
So we had this long conversation.
He brought photos of the squadron,
and we did this and that.
And then he said,
did you know how popular you were in that squadron?
It was killing us that you were leaving.
And the colonel tried everything to keep you there.
He just, it was, it's just,
it was the saddest day in our lives when you left.
And I went, well, that's not how I remember it.
I don't remember.
That's not my story about what happened back then.
But the evidence was overwhelming that I was wrong.
So I had to go back 42 years and change my past.
Well, I didn't know you could change your past.
You're not changing your past.
You're changing your story about the past.
Which is the same as changing the past.
Do you follow what I'm saying?
Because that's the only thing you got,
is the story about the past.
So now when I think about 1962,
Cherry Point, I go, man, those, what a group of guys.
They were, you know, they're just trying to help me.
Nobody knew about alcoholism.
Nobody knew about AA.
Wow, I was really lucky to be with those guys.
Boy, if I'd been with some bad guys.
So I can just go back and have very pleasant memories
about a very horrible, formerly horrible thing.
So you can see that our past
and our ideas about it
should be suspect.
Perhaps.
Your version about your past
has some flaws in it.
Possibly.
Possibly.
And I always use this line.
I heard it from some speaker,
but it fits in perfectly with talking about this.
He gets up to the podium,
and, you know, I'm Joe, I'm an alcoholic.
My story is divided into two parts.
What happened during the years that I drank
and what I thought happened during the years that I drank.
And then everybody, yeah, that's funny, that's funny.
What happened and what I thought happened.
And it doesn't take a big stretch to realize
you could do that with your childhood.
You could do that with high school.
You could do it with everything.
My childhood's divided into two parts.
What happened when I was a kid?
What happened when I was a child
and what I thought happened.
What I thought happened.
What my story about my childhood is
with all the adjectives that I put in.
Rotten parents, I mean,
rotten parents come from beating you up
to spoiling you.
If they hadn't spoiled me,
I'd be much better adjusted.
So I was abused by my parents.
They gave me everything I wanted.
I've heard alcoholics say,
so I learned no responsibility.
I ended up, it's all my parents' fault.
And on the other side of the thing,
you know, my dad beat me up and whacked me
and threw me on the ground and blah, blah, blah.
So that's why, that's my story
and why I'm screwed up.
We never take responsibility for ourselves.
But you can see that the whole past
is built on a series of stories.
The first girlfriend, the this, the that.
And as we tell the story to ourselves,
we emotionally react to it.
You know, think back on the saddest day
when your girlfriend says she's leaving you for Fred,
the biggest jerk in high school.
If you really are good,
you can go back and almost suffer
as much as you did when you were 16.
If you're good at this,
if you're a good storyteller,
you can almost bring tears to your eyes
at age 53
for something that happened when you were 16.
Isn't that amazing?
And most of it comes
because we have no idea how to live in the now.
And we've got to hang out somewhere.
Since we can't hang out in the present moment
because we have no concept of it,
there's only hope.
There's only two choices,
and one is the past,
and one is the future.
Well, how could you live in the future?
It's not even here yet.
Well, I just make up a story about the future
and scare the shit out of myself.
We do it all the time.
Wow, that thing in Greece is looking bad.
I'll be on unemployment in about a month.
They're going to collapse.
They're going to collapse the world economy.
And I'm going to be in bad shape.
God!
And Bill used to call it,
remember his imaginary ulcers would kick in?
He had that story about
he would lie around worrying about things
and his imaginary ulcers.
He was always talking about his imaginary ulcers.
He was always talking about his imaginary ulcers.
I think the future...
And stories about the future occupy everybody in this room
a great deal of your time.
Just, if it's not worrying about the future,
it's planning for it
and setting a series of actions
that are going to finally make you happy.
I think we talked about the last time.
They're going to finally make you happy.
If you're working with a new person
who comes over and says,
I'm just not happy.
I just feel terrible.
What if you said to them,
what if you're wrong?
What if you really are happy?
They go, how the hell could that be?
Well, let's look at your life.
Let's take a look at it.
Let's see where you are.
What do you got?
Six months sobriety?
And they just ask,
you're the coffee maker now?
Half the people in the group are so glad
that you just have joined us.
And your parents like you now, right?
They invited you over.
They're happy to have you back.
Your family was...
And you keep on going.
I remember my sponsor did that and I went,
well, if you look at it that way.
If you stop looking at your story,
you find out that you're happy.
You don't have to wait to get happy.
You already are.
And very often when I'm working with people,
they have a problem
and they come over to talk to me about it.
My job is to convince them they don't have a problem.
They made a mistake.
And I joke around and I said,
we ought to have a panel in our home groups
of three elders.
And if you have a problem,
you go up and sit in front of the three elders
and tell them what your problem is
and they will consult you.
Consult among themselves
and vote on whether it qualifies as a problem.
Can you see a lot of problems just disappear?
Oh, come on.
You think that's a problem.
I'm sorry, get out of here.
That's not a problem.
And you go, well, geez, I thought I had one,
but I was outvoted unanimously
that I don't have a problem.
And the second you say I don't have a problem,
you feel better.
You see the power of stories?
It's just unreal.
And we could go on and on with this whole thing
that isn't real.
That's the thing that starts to sink in
as we move along in the spiritual program.
It seems that there might be something lurking
behind the story.
It seems that, and we just had glimpses,
we've just had little feelings inside,
that there might be something,
we don't know what it is,
that is more real than this reality,
the one that we made up,
the one that's our story.
And that's a huge turning point.
To have any sort of an awareness
that there is something beyond my story,
something beyond my mind,
something of an eternal nature.
And there's...
Howard and I were talking about this.
That science has advanced so far
that many of the mysteries
that we used to need God to explain
are now explainable
in pure scientific terms.
So we don't need God to fill in these blanks.
And therefore,
the ego is jumping on the bandwagon
that we are,
that we are it.
That we are it.
Which is,
it just makes it more difficult
for alcoholics coming in here
if they have that background.
And there's a lot of them.
I had a gal from Harvard.
She had an MA from Harvard
and she was terrified
that her classmates would find out
she was talking about God.
And she would be just
persona non grata.
Gratas or whatever it is.
And so I started looking at
authors and leaders
in this whole thing.
And there are top scientists
and a lot of college professors.
And it's kind of the new religion.
If you can call atheism a religion.
But it's kind of a new thing.
It's not a problem that I had
when I came in.
I didn't have any peers
that were going to look down at me
if I said the word God.
So it's an extra problem.
And the thing I'm leading up to is
amongst this crowd
are some top scientists
who are perfectly comfortable
with science and God.
Perfectly comfortable.
So I decided to read them
as well as the others.
And one that I'm going to share about
is his name is Francis Collins.
He headed the team
that broke the genetic code.
And he has a book,
The Language of God.
So I'm reading the book.
And I'm seeing how he's paralleling.
And this is how God did it.
He chose to go this way.
And it's just going along.
And then he mentions
that he was an atheist
for most of his life.
But something changed his mind.
It was C.S. Lewis.
And that's a book that we,
I mean,
all of C.S. Lewis's
just an amazing person.
Now, oddly enough,
Anthony H. played him in the movie.
And we've got Narnia.
We got this.
But the thing that changed him
was mere Christianity.
And for the last five years,
when I have people
who have a hard time with God,
I said, just read the first 31 pages
of mere Christianity.
And in there,
C.S. Lewis is,
just so a brilliant writer,
speaker, whatever.
And he was giving radio broadcasts
to the British troops
in World War II,
helping them with their fears
and trying to bring them
into contact with God
so they could have an extra
way of surviving a war.
And he did it
not by talking about anything,
not by pointing outside at all,
but only by pointing out things about them
in a way that they saw themselves
entirely different.
That's the ultimate.
And Bill writes that in our big book.
The fundamental idea of God
is already inside of us.
So if we had a skillful enough communicator
who could talk about what's going on,
we could come to the conclusion,
on our own,
with no external evidence.
That's a pretty good job.
And that's what this scientist did.
Now, I'm no C.S. Lewis
to try and duplicate
the way he went about it,
but he simply pointed out
that inside of you,
all by itself,
is some kind
of a moral law
that you didn't put there.
And it's inside of every person.
And if you go around the world
to various countries,
it's remarkably the same.
And it's
an internal code of behavior
that you can't live up to.
You fail.
You cannot live up to this.
And the people that deny they have it,
he says,
what if someone else
violates that code?
Aren't you the first to say,
hey, you shouldn't behave that way?
You shouldn't have done that.
Based on what?
And it's based on this same
pre-existing,
they used to call it the law of nature,
they call it the moral law,
that you can't live up to.
And the second thing is,
you just have this
uncanny sense
that something wants you
to try and live up to it.
And that that is there
and it's present.
And so if you think about
how
some creator of the universe
would want
to make us aware
of the spiritual nature,
this is not a bad plan.
It's just not a bad plan.
No matter how hard
we try,
we can't get rid of that
internal
invisible,
uncaused
laws,
moral guidelines,
whatever you want.
I remember when I was drinking,
I had no idea,
this is,
this is what my problem was.
I was trying to drink
and kill that part of me.
I didn't know what to call it,
but it was there.
And then,
I could sin guilt-free.
That was my goal.
Can you imagine having that for a goal?
If I could get rid of
whatever the hell this thing is
and eliminate it,
I could do anything I want
and have no repercussions later on.
Which is,
you know,
like trying to kill your soul.
If I could just kill my soul,
I could have peace of mind.
Total insanity.
But I can remember thinking that.
And it just ties in so well
when Bill writes,
the fundamental idea of God
is deep down inside of us.
It's only there
that he can be found.
We've been looking
in all the wrong places.
We've been listening to
stories that we made up.
When William James was writing about,
he did a lot of writing,
but he did write about religion.
In the varieties of religious experience.
And then he was commenting on
what was taking place
just as AA was being formed,
which was the new age,
new thought movement
that was occurring in the Christianity
and all around the country.
Kind of,
one of the first ones I remember
was Norman Vincent Peale,
The Power of Positive Thinking.
Think your way to peace of mind.
Think your way.
You can get these thoughts.
If you can control your thoughts,
you can transform yourself.
You can move on and all that.
And it was very popular.
Even Emmett Fox was into that.
I mean, it was really
a new version.
And both,
and I'll tell you,
Ernie Kurtz and his history of AA
and,
and William James
said that's not AA.
AA doesn't see
human beings that way.
Where you can,
everything is beautiful.
I just have these thoughts
and just follow them
and they'll take you
and you can be free from
any
negative side of yourself.
Kurtz says that we're neither
sane,
nor sinner,
but both.
And we have to be
comfortable
playing those roles.
It's as if our ego
is somehow
our enemy.
And I,
after quite a few years
of bad-mouthing my ego,
I got tired because that's part of me.
You know what I mean?
And I'm going,
oh,
you know,
oh,
oh,
oh.
And somewhere I've read
a wonderful way of thinking
about the human ego.
And it goes like this.
If you're learning
how to play basketball
and you've got a basketball net
out in your driveway
and you're making moves
and you have,
you've got shots
you can't believe
and you spin around
this and that,
you're getting pretty good.
I mean,
you're out there,
you just made
12 shots
from 25 feet
in a row.
Swish.
I mean,
you really are going.
But the only way
of knowing
if you're any good
is to get somebody out there
who's going to try
and stop you
from scoring any points
at all.
Competition.
Your brother
somebody who's trying
to block you
from getting the basket.
Now you're going to get
a lot better
than you could get
on your own.
So in order to really
make any progress,
we need a spoiler.
We need somebody
who's trying to
get in our way
and get in our face.
Whether it's by telling us
we're a piece of crap
or not letting us sleep
or whatever it is.
And somewhere along the line,
I was able to put
my ego in that role
and to come to the conclusion
that he wants to go home
just as much as I do.
And we're both on the same team.
He just has a hell of a
thankless job.
You follow what I'm saying?
Trying to ruin every day I have.
But it helped me
to get more comfortable
with
being divided.
And we can work
as hard as we want
to try and unite
ourselves.
And that's what that
new thought thing.
You can do this
and you can do it on your own.
And William James had,
I think he called it
new thought, new age
was therapeutic narcissism.
And his comment on
the philosophy of
everything is wonderful
was all sunshine
makes a desert.
Whoa.
So AA,
we talk about
defects.
We talk about
this side of us
and it's going to be there.
I think that's what
Bill said.
It was nowhere recorded
where anybody ever got rid
of all their defects.
So somehow
we have to come
and have absolute peace
with the fact that this struggle
is going on
and it's never going to stop.
Now we can have peace of mind
because we're not expecting
this struggle
to suddenly be
all,
perfect.
The way
that we
move
towards a more comfortable
is all through
what we're going to talk about tomorrow,
the steps to ensure
conscious contact.
So if I'm trying to work on
these two forces,
what I really work on
is conscious contact.
And then this starts
taking care of itself.
The struggle becomes
less.
But the solution is always there
instead of going after.
And that's why in the
six and seven steps,
who's going to get rid
of this stuff?
God.
And we'll talk more about that
tomorrow, which is
why our divided self
wants to fight
even letting God do it.
And tells us
you could do it yourself.
You don't need to involve God.
You can get honest.
You can do that.
You can do this.
And I remember one time
trying to disprove
that you need God
to overcome defects.
And I had decided
to stop smoking.
And everybody else said,
work the program on it.
Say you're powerless over cigarettes.
You want some God's help.
Go talk to somebody else.
Blah, blah, blah.
And I said,
no, I'm a Marine.
I'm going to freaking stop.
And I'm not going to let myself.
I'm going to say to myself,
if you freaking die,
you're not getting a cigarette.
Screw you.
And I did.
I just went,
bam, you ain't having
another cigarette.
Don't even talk to me
about a cigarette.
And as soon as I'd go,
I'm going to say,
screw you.
You're not getting one.
And I made it.
And I just went,
look at that.
I proved
that you don't need help
to make progress.
Now I'm going to ask you a question.
What do you think
that did to my pride?
Do you think it took up
about three notches?
Do you think I improved spiritually
by stopping smoking on my own?
Or did I take
ten steps backwards
by becoming,
by having a perspective,
look what I can do by myself.
Now I'll start working
on other things.
And I was deliberately
putting together a case
that I need God less
than I used to.
And so,
I remember that.
I ran around,
told everybody,
you didn't see me,
you didn't see me
working the program on that.
You just put your damn willpower,
you just go there,
you can do it,
you can stop.
Now,
did that enhance
my spiritual condition
or deteriorate it?
And I would submit
what it did to my pride
set me back a long ways.
Okay,
let me see if I had any other.
Oh,
there's one other conflict
that comes in
in the middle of this.
Knowing that we can't
win this struggle,
we have to constantly try
to achieve perfection
in this area.
Bill in the,
I think I mentioned this,
I don't know if I mentioned it
earlier,
earlier or not.
But there's one area
where Bill's a little bit different
in one place than another
and it's on this issue
of perfection.
He didn't want the
four absolutes
because he thought
that alcoholics would go nuts
trying to be perfect.
You follow what I'm saying?
Okay,
just,
we need you to be absolutely honest
and selfish,
loving and
pure.
That one bothers me
so that's probably
why I forget it.
I don't know why
they had to include that one
as a character defect.
And
in the letter
later on in life,
Bill wrote
that he disagreed
with Akron and Cleveland
that the four absolutes
should be part of the program.
And then he goes on to say
but I snuck them in
in the steps six and seven
and the twelve and twelve.
And if you look there
he says
we need to raise our eyes
towards perfection.
Raise our eyes.
Because the sixth step
really is talking about perfection.
We're entirely ready
to get rid of all defects of character.
All defects of character
would be
a perfect union
with God.
That's how they would be gone.
And so
he didn't want us
to settle
as he writes in the
twelve and twelve
for as much perfection
as would get us by.
there is a
it's human nature
to go
after we've worked hard
and we've done a lot
and we've done a lot
and achieved a certain level
in AA.
I think it's an exaggeration
to say rest on our laurels
but it's easy to say to ourself
I never thought I'd get this far.
This is actually
pretty damn good sobriety.
I'd really have a pretty damn good
life.
I mean
this is really something.
And Bill would go on to say
and point out
the biggest enemy
of the best
is the good.
That's the biggest enemy.
We just say
see when it's terrible
then we're willing to
do something about it.
When it gets up to good
to slightly better than good
or somewhere in this level
it's real easy to say
this is unbelievable.
Look what I
this is good
this is good
this is good
but it's not
good.
The best.
So the difference
between the men
and the boys
is whether you want to push it up.
And I think
by coming here
you're saying
I want to push it up.
I don't want to stay
where it's really pretty good.
I used to think
that would be good
but now I want to see
what's above pretty good.
I want to go
and get closer.
I want to find out
how close
I can get.
And now
we're going to be
tomorrow
shifting over to
conscious contact
and finding out
what is being
suggested
what is
what are the stories
about that.
And
and I'll give you a hint.
Oddly enough
the way to get out
of storybook land
the way to shatter
all these stories
that we're trying to
escape from
is oddly enough
by telling stories.
And we'll get into that tomorrow.
Okay we're at the end of the time.
Thank you.
Thank you.
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