Why the Big Book Says ‘On Awakening’ – Don M.

Hi, everybody. My name is Don Major, and I'm an alcoholic. I'm really, really grateful to be here for a whole lot of reasons. Number one, I'm grateful to being asked to do anything for Alcoholics Anonymous anywhere. Number two, I am grateful to coming here to Richmond because I've got so many good friends that I love to see when I come here. but if you get right down to it the real reason I'm grateful is simple and Bob, my friend Bob and Bob is one of our blessed messengers thank you Bob so much I just really always enjoy you so very much you get so much out of it but Bob touched on it you know, I used to think that my daily reprieve was contingent on my spiritual condition because I've got a problem when I read the big book I already know what it says. And for the first several years I was sober, I thought what it said was that my daily reprieve from alcoholism is contingent on my spiritual condition. Thank God it's not. It's contingent upon the maintenance of my spiritual conditions. And that was one of those things that when I realized that, and I'll probably talk about words some this weekend because words are important to me in sobriety. They are really important, because what I call something or somebody is pretty well what that's going to be to me. If I call you completely wrong, insufferable, your misunderstanding and misapplication of the traditions is going to destroy Alcoholics Anonymous, I will be absolutely miserable in your presence and even when I think about you. but if I call you a bit eccentric but lovable in your own way and AA's big enough tent to embrace all lovers then who knows, you may be helping somebody I'll probably enjoy seeing you just to get a kick out of what you'll come out with next so the words are important I'll give you an example that Bob mentioned, attitude when I first got sober October, all I heard, it seemed like, was change your attitude. And I tried to adjust every inside knob and toggle switch I had to do something about my mindset and the way I felt about people and things, and I couldn't change any of it. I mean, not a hair. And my original sponsor, sponsor, well, how you doing, buddy? God bless you. What a sweet surprise. Al got sober in Louisville and he and I have spent a lot of good time together. But my original sponsor, who was a guy by the name of Cherry Carpenter from Nashville, Tennessee, sent me to the dictionary which really ticked me off because I was clearly more intelligent and better educated than Cherry and that he would have the nerve to send a fellow to the dictionary that knew everything already was kind of overwhelming. But he sent me to a particular dictionary to look up the word attitude. And the first definition in that dictionary was, in fact, from geometry and aviation. It was angle of approach. And I want to tell you something. My angle of reproach toward anything or anybody doesn't have a thing to do with what I think and feel about it. My angle of approach toward anybody or anything is how I act toward them. And when I say that was one of those light switch experiences, my attitude went from something totally beyond my control to something totally within my control. And bringing that back into the maintenance of my spiritual condition, I've got to tell you, I'm not one of these guys that after being sober a while will, and by the way, my sobriety date's April 9th, 1981, will tell you I'm serene all time and I don't ever feel the hole in my belly and my brain never spins and I never get to the point where I'm so obsessed and or afraid of something I can't remember the last word I just tried to pray because that still happens to me from time to time. So if my sobrietty worry or my daily reprieve were in fact contingent on my spiritual condition condition. By my judgment, which is probably wrong, it usually is, but by my judgment there are days when I'm in mortal danger of dying from alcoholism. I'm in mortal danger of being struck drunk and in my case I'm real confident it'll mean dying a mad dog death pretty darn quickly. But thank God what the book says is contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual I drove a car over here today. It's up at Hotel. That car has a condition. There's nothing I can do to wave a magic wand to change that condition. Whatever the condition of that car is right this minute, it just is. is on the other hand there's a process of maintaining that automobile which is a hundred percent action and over which i've got total control so what that means relating it to my sobriety and wake up with the head spinning and wakeup feeling disconnected from you disconnected from god not wanting to get down on my knees not having time to get down on my knees being so scared i can't remember the last word i just tried to pray being in such a shape that when i look at the meditation books that i read i can t remember the last words i just try to read when i try to make a gratitude list i can think it takes me five minutes to think of my eyes you know and i have to make a list of things that if a fellow had any sanity he d probably be grateful for but if If I'll make myself do those things, and I get to the office and old Joe calls about the girl. Now, this is the eighth time Joe's called me about the girls in the last two days. And I told Joe, just like I tell everybody that I sponsor, that for me to give advice on either romantic situations or finances really ought to be a felony. But Joe insists on talking to me about The Girl. Well, I'm doing one of my big deals because I always have really big deals. See, anything's got anything to do with me, you know it's a big deal. If the same thing's going on with you, I'd be a spiritual giant. Oh, I'll just pray about that, buddy. It's no big deal, go to some meetings and it'll all work out. Let the same things happen to me. Oh my God, the sky is falling, see, into the world. So I'm dealing with one of my great big deals, which is always making a big deal out of me, anytime I make a big detail out of anything, and that includes my health, that includes my kids. That includes my money. That includes my sex life. Anytime I make a big deal out of anything that is not God and not these 12 steps, what I'm really making a big deal about is me. And when I do that, I'm back into ego and I'm back into alcoholism. But anyway, Joe calls and I am in the middle of a really big deal. This one really is a big deal. They always are. But instead of telling the receptionist, tell Joe I'll get back to him i say put him through and i run those 11th step prayers through my mind to cause the miracle to happen i run through my man that will be done i'm no longer running the show and lord please let me seek to love comfort and understand joe rather than to be loved comforted and understood by him and i keep running that through my hand and two miracles happen Number one, I've never had a single human encounter go badly when I've remembered to do that before and during the encounter. And the second miracle is it makes me a listener. And by nature, I'm not a listener, it requires divine intervention for me to truly be a listener and I pick up that phone and I say, good morning Joe, how are you buddy? What can I do for you? noontime rolls around there's a meeting that I go to some Al knows about the Lunch Bunch old Jeff Tolkien Club I know everybody goes there the acoustics are terrible in the room and I can't hear worth a hoot so I literally do not understand one word out of five that's spoken in there and that's okay because I've heard the same people say the same thing 50 times couldn't possibly get anything out of it far too busy to go to that stupid meeting but I'd make myself go to that meeting him. And I get there and sit there. That will be done. I'm no longer running the show. Lord, please let me seek to love, comfort, and understand rather than to be loved, comforted, and understood. And one, I kind of add to that, don't ask what you get out of it, Don. That's the wrong question. Let me tell you why it's the wrong questions. I don't care what it is. If I ask what am I getting out of this and contemplate it about 30 seconds, the answer is not enough. I don't care what it is, I don' t care who it is. So the answer is this just wrong question. The right question for me is what can I bring to this? And I get through the rest of the day like that even though my brain's spinning and I'm feeling all cut off, I have done the action that constitutes the maintenance of my spiritual condition. And the way I read this book today, I am absolutely guaranteed that on that day I will not pick up a drink. Guaranteed. So that's another light switch thing. My daily reprieve went from this vague thing that's dependent on this cumulative spiritual condition to the action that I take today. day went from something outside my immediate control to something absolutely within my immediate control today. And I took a long way around to get into the last reason I'm grateful for being here. I thank God that I truly can as easily imagine myself dying drunk as I can imagining myself dying sober, and I really thank God for that. There were years in my sobriety when it wasn't that way. I would always have given you the exactly exactly politically correct AA answer, and I probably would have passed the lie detector test. But some part of me had become unable to envision me dying drunk. And no event happened, but about 12 or 15 years ago God changed something inside me, and i really can see myself dying drunk as easily as dying sober. And if i pick up that drink and i die from alcoholism, it's not not going to be on a day when some wonderful folks in Richmond, Virginia have asked me to drive over here and share my experience, strength, and hope. So there's the bottom line gratitude. You guys helped me get my daily reprieve today, and thank you so much. I'm supposed to be talking to you about steps 3 and 11 tonight, and I'm glad to do that because I happen to love those two steps, but I want to take just a couple of minutes and talk about the steps and a little bit about myself. What's wrong with me is I've got an ego disorder. The book says selfishness, self-centeredness, that's the root of our troubles. The first thing wrong with мне is I'VE GOT AN EGO DISORDER. Without divine intervention, I'm so obsessed with myself. I'm So Obsessed With How I Feel. In fact, without divine intervention all of my life up to and including tonight, how I feel is the most important thing in the universe to me. And the result has been the only thing that, the only result that you can get from being like that is that all that obsession with myself has created so much pain and so much emptiness down inside me that I've never been able without divine intervention to stand the way I feel inside without either running as hard as I can and or stuffing something in there to try to get me, try to make me feel good enough that I can stand the away a feeling sign. My bottom on alcoholism wasn't the worst one in the world, it wasn't the easiest one inthe world. I was in the asylum 18 times in 2 1⁄2 years. I lived without an address for about a year and a half. I lost my license to do my business. I lost family. I most of my teeth. Ilost a couple of bodily functions. Had some bad things Things happened to me for a couple of years. I was convinced that I would die of alcoholism. I had, Bob was talking about the information about recovery. I had a head full of information about discovery. The 18 asylums I was in, at least half of them had treatment programs based on the 12 steps. And since I didn't have anywhere to go between trips to the asylum, sometimes I'd go to an awful lot of meetings. and despite the literary style which was obviously very poor I had read the big book three or four times and committed large segments of it to memory and so grateful that I know today that recovery is not a learning process don't buy that bill of goods psychotherapy and counseling are learning processes recovery is a doing process says. And this big book's not a philosophy book. There's nothing in here that we can learn that'll keep us sober for our heartbeat. In fact, the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is not the solution for alcoholism. The action described in the Big Books of Alcoholic Anonymous is the solution for alcoholics. In other words, another way I heard it put is that that the book's not the solution, it's the description of the solution. And I'm so grateful that I know that today. But at any rate, I almost died from a terrible car wreck. I finally got a bunch of gifts from loving God. Had no idea I had them. Unlike Bob and unlike Bill Wilson and loads and loads of people, I didn't feel any change of my thoughts and feelings whatsoever. In April of 81, I had no idea that I had any gifts at all. If I'd kept waiting for my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs to change, to start blandly doing what you guys in this big book told me to do, I would have been rotting in a pauper's grave somewhere around Nashville, Tennessee for more than 24 years. And I'm not guessing at that. The biggest gift that I Had, and I had No Idea I Had It, was the first tiny little bit of teachability or humility I'd ever had in my life. life. The first willingness, and for me what teachability and humility are is a simple definition. It's the willingness to do some things that are suggested about my life even though I don't understand them, I don' t agree with them,I don't think they'll work and I sure don't want to do it. Because you see if I am absolutely unwilling to do anything about my live unless I understand it, I agree with it and I think it will work, I've put the final say-so in the universe in my brain. And I've got an illness that talks to me. My alcoholism's been running its mouth at me all my life, and I've always had an old crazy picture show in the back of my head. And the most terrifying thing about my alcoholism to me is I don't believe it's ever tried to kill me. I've nearly died from it dozens, maybe a couple hundred times. But the reason I don'T believe it'S ever tried TO KILL ME is I don't believe my alcoholism cares whether I live or die. I believe my alcoolism doesn't care whether you live or die. I believe My Alcoholism is the perfect psychopath. It's only got one reason for existing and that's to try to get itself that next drink. And it'll tell me anything on the face of this earth in order to do it. Now, it tells me a lot of lies, inconsistent lies, back-to-back with one another. It doesn't care. It slings it all up against the wall and hopes some of it will stick. Recovery for me hasn't been all those voices and that old crazy picture show going away. Now recovery has been that most of the time now I can recognize that they're not reality and I don't have to obey them. But the key phrase is most ofthe time. Because my alcoholism I really believe that there's no story of Don Major except the story of alcoholism and the recovery from it i really believe that's all there is to me it's sometimes i say my alcoholism is a many-splendored thing and one one what one really big part of it is it's an illness of perception which literally means i don't always see things right i don'T hear them right i DON'T recognize them for what they are bottom line i put that final veto there i'm gonna wind up believing one of those deadly lies and i'ma pick up a drink so you see when i I put the final veto in this universe in my brain with what I've got wrong with me, I'm under death sentence. And I believe that with all my heart. But at any rate, I've had that wonderful gift and I began to get sober despite the fact that you guys were religious fanatics. It's ironic that I get asked to talk a lot on things in the program that have to do with God because when I got here the mention of God I'd made the little hairs stand up on the back of my neck, and you guys trying to soft-soap it and slip it in on me with this higher power deal made me even madder. I knew just exactly what you were talking about and still insulted my intellect and would still run me out of here. But at any rate, I've been given this gift I didn't know ahead, and I stumbled back to AA and I asked them if they'd tell me one more time what I needed to do, and they said, yeah, they would, because I was keeping them sober. And they told me not drink, not take, don't go to meetings. The first 60 days went over 150 meetings. It was clear to me during that 60 days that they weren't doing much good and that you guys were in fact religious fanatics. And the beautiful lesson out of that was it didn't make any difference what I thought or what I felt about the meetings. All I needed to do was go to the meetings." Then they told them I needed read the big book. I explained to them I had read it. They said they knew. That's when they had read it. I had been quoting it to them while I'd been dying. That's when they began to explain to me that it was all action, that it didn't have to do with learning. And they explained to me the steps are the prescription for alcoholism, that they work on alcoholism just like penicillin works on an infection, that if I've got an infection that's going to kill me if it's not treated but will respond to penicilin, I don't need to understand all the ins and announce my infection. I don't need to understand one single thing about how penicillin works in the human body. I do not need to believe that that little bottle of pills can take care of all these terrible things wrong with magnificent me, and I do no even need to want to take the pills. If I have got the infection and take the pills as directed, I will get just fine, thank And they explained to me that that's exactly the way that the action that these steps call for works on alcoholism. I don't need to understand it, don't want to do it, no need to believe in work. If I want to live, I just need to do It. They had finally got it through my head to get on my knees morning and night and ask God and thank God. I did it purely as acting to see if. And then the miracle of the second step began to happen. and I began to come to believe. And I started contemplating my third step. And I contemplated my third steps. And my third set was going to be a really dramatic big deal. I had a picture sort of like a Cecil B. DeMille movie that God and I would go in this great big ornate room and God would unfold the entire tapestry of my life, you know, past, present, and future. and God and I would walk up and down it and I really thought I'd point out a few things and make some suggestions and God would say, gee, I never thought about that, Don. That's good. We'll do it this way. And when we were done I'd have God's will all mapped out and I could go on cruise control and wouldn't have to be aggravated with these nagging little second-to-second decisions about doing the next right thing. Well, I would go to Cherry to discuss the finer points of that third step and cherry cherry would say really really insulting things you know insulting to my intellect he kept saying over and over again Don the only glimpse of God's will a human being ever gets is in the right now and I have well yeah no no no the only glimpse of her human being every gets of God will is what the next action for for them in the right now is. He said, if you believe for one instant that you know God's will for anybody else under any circumstances, call me because you're crazy. And he said, if you believed for one instance that you knew God's way and you knew what God's real for you at any time other than the right now, you call me because you are just as crazy. Well, it was kind of hard for me to get my brain around and then finally it hit me. You know, we all assume it's going to be God's will five seconds from now for me to be up here droning on and you guys out there fidgeting. But the fact is, in the next five seconds, any one of us could have a seizure. Any one of US could have an heart attack. The lights could go out. The sprinkler system could come on. The fire alarm could come on the police could come running in here with the warrant for for one of us that haven't quite finished our eighth and ninth steps. A wet drunk could come running in here causing a gap. We could go on till midnight with things that would absolutely change what I'm convinced God's will is going to be five seconds from now. And yet I want to waste all this time trying to think about and contemplate God's Will for tomorrow, next week, and five years from now." So Cherry finally got it through to me that the only glimpse of God's will I'm ever going to get is in the right name. And then he started talking to me about what the third step was and wasn't. He said, Don, in the first place, when you're sitting around a discussion meeting and hear somebody wondering whether or not they've done the third steps, don't worry about it because they haven't. Because the third stuff is not some sort of meandering process that happens to you. The third step is the first of the action steps. and you have either taken the action that the book describes on pages 62 and 63 or you haven't taken the action in fact he said if you don't know when where and with whom you did the third step of Alcoholics Anonymous you have not done a third step and I said wait a minute it says right here in this book that it's better to meet God alone than with somebody that might misunderstand I don't have to do it with anybody he said in the late 1930s he didn't Don because this book was written for two reasons it was written to make money as an experiment to see if the message of recovery could be carried by mail. And it was absolutely contemplated that this book would wind up in the hands of loads of people who had zero contact with another person that was on the road to recovery, and that's exactly the way it happened. Said in the world we live in today, those of us in Alcoholics Anonymous today, we have got a hundred understanding people at our fingertips with the telephone. So in today's world, the way our society is today, he said if you hadn't gone in a room with an understanding person and gotten on your knees and said words very similar to those on page 63 and intended for that to be the watershed moment, the moment when you tried to stop doing it your way and tried to start doing it God's way, you hadn'T done third-step alcoholic synonymous. And he explained to me that knowing the God's will in the right now, he explained that in In every one of us, there's a little spark of the divine. And that little spark of the divin never knows the pattern. All that little spark the divine knows is where to take that next stitch. And see, that's really important because without divine intervention my approach to life was, is, and without divine invention I'm sure always will be. I won't sit back and figure out the pattern so as I don't know where to start stitching. A fellow might stitch all over the place if he hadn't figured out a pattern before he starts stitching. A little problem with that. I'm 61 years old, and I haven't figured one single pattern of my life correctly. Not one single significant pattern in my life have I ever seen correctly. And yet I want to spend all my time figuring it out before I start stitching. you he said he said now um let's look at this book don and he took me to the big book alcoholics anonymous and he showed me where it says selfishness self-centeredness is the root of my trouble of my troubles he showed him where the book explains to me that this self-centredness is going to kill me if i don't get rid of it and then he showed мне where the book says that you know i may be well intentioned i may do stuff like pray my head off but I can't do anything on my own to get rid of this self-centeredness and that guys is a dilemma I got something that's going to kill me if I don't do something about it and I can' t do anything about it and then Bill Wilson does a couple of the literary devices that Bill uses over and over he waves a red flag and says listen up because we're going to tell you now just exactly what we did said we had to have God's help this is the how and why of it Says first, and the next thing he does is tell you the same thing three or four times in a row, one after the other in a little different language because Bill felt like it was so important. Says, first of all, we had to quit playing God. It didn't work. Well, playing God for me is trying to figure out the patterns. If I'm not trying to concentrate on my stitching and letting the pattern go, I'm trying to play God. And very interestingly, it doesn't say we had to quit playing God or we might get drunk. It doesn't says we had quit playing god or we couldn't get to a high spiritual level. It said we had quitted playing God because it didn't work. It's just an absolutely, totally impractical, ineffective way to run my life. You know, you don't even have to think of it in spiritual terms in a way. For me to try to ruin my life by figuring out the pattern so I'll know where to start stitching is absolutely ineffective. Next, Bill tells us the same thing. We decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God was going to be our director. Okay, I'm going to being a play. The director will give me a script. Well, the script is the equivalent of that little spark of the divine in me that knows where to take the next stitch only. I look at the script and say, man, that's not right. If I do this, the whole play will stink and my character will look terrible. And I start ad-libbing. there's only one possible result. I will have chaos until I follow the script. And then Bill tells us one more time, he's the principal, we are the agents. It's employer-employee. I'm working for a guy, a guy takes me out early in the morning, drops me off, says, Don, I want you to dig three holes over there, 12 inches in diameter, 18 inches deep and two feet apart right along that line. I'll be back and pick you up at lunchtime. Guy leaves. I get to look, you know, that's not where those holes belong. Sad said it's too rocky. I'm going to dig them over here. And I'm not going to take them to the dimensions that guy said. That's wrong. When that guy comes back at lunch, there's only one possible result. I will have chaos. And I will never have chaos until I dig the holes the way the boss said dig them for a real simple reason. The boss has got the power and I don't. Then Bill tells us one more time, he's the father, we're the children. Kid is not going to eat the spinach. Well, if the parent is firm, and I've found my heavenly parent to be generally real firm, the kid will eat the Spanish or the kid won't have chaos until the kid eats the Spanish for a real simple reason. The parent's got the power and the kid doesn't. And then Bill tells this, and you know it's so easy for me to read over words like this What have we got, Linda? It's so easy for me to read over words like these next words. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept, this simple idea of not figuring out the pattern, leaving the pattern up to God and doing the stitching, following the script, following the parents' orders, The boss's orders. This concept was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we pass to freedom, holds the whole thing together, the absolute most important part of the arch through through which we walk paths to freedom. Cherry was trying to get it across to me that this was just a decision, and I remember Cherry used the frog on the log thing with me, Bob, to get decision around to him. And decision is another word that has changed entirely for me in sobriety. and it's very, very helpful to me to keep this in mind and I do. Before I got sober and for the first few years I was sober if I had formed an intention to do something then I would tell you I had made a decision to do it and I thought I had make a decision to do when I formed an intention to do today I'm very careful not to call my intentions decisions until I have begun acting on them because I've never ever made a decision, my mind and my life. I form intentions in my mind, but I make decisions with my feet, with my actions. And he explained to me, you know, it was insulting to me that my third step was going to be this simple. It had to be more complex than that. So I thought I knew where the complexity was. So, I said, all right, Cherry, you win the war on semantics. So it's just a a decision and it doesn't turn my will in life over, but it's merely a decision to how do I implement that decision? Because I knew that's where the complications had to be. So that's just as simple. All you're deciding to do is the rest of the first nine steps the way this book says do them in order to reach a state of recovery. And then having done that, live on on 10, 11, and 12 to maintain your spiritual condition and keep your recovery day at a time and try to do the next right thing instead of what you want to when they conflict with one another. And he said if you'll do that, you won't have to worry about what your will in life ought to be because God will make it what you ought to believe. And then he took me through the third step promises and I really, one of my very favorite things in this book is where it says words to the effect that nothing would have pleased us so much as to write a book that caused no controversy whatsoever. And Bill worked really hard on that. For instance, the first 164 pages of this book, Alcoholism is Never Called a Disease. Did Bill believe it was a disease? Of course he did. But in the late 1930s, even more so than now, there was some controversy about that. Bill realized that he could make every point he needed to make by calling it an illness, a malady, a disorder, that it would add absolutely nothing except for him to get on a soapbox and say, by God, it's a disease, and I'm going to ram that down your throat. And how many tens of thousands of people would have died because they might have been turned off by that concept. So I don't want to be controversial in any way whatsoever. But what we get up and read in a lot of meetings, the promises of Alcoholics Anonymous, nobody ever intended for those to be the promises of Alcoholic Anonymous. They are some promises that are included in the big book. They're located at the eighth and ninth step. And I think probably somebody read them one time and decided you could argue there are 12 of them. You can also argue there 11 of them and you can argue there 13 of them . Now, if somebody asks me to read the promises at a meeting, I don't get up and get on a soapbox and explain that to them and straighten them out. I get up, say here are the promises, Alcoholics Anonymous, and I read them. But I would like to share with you this weekend that that's just a fraction of the promises in this book. There are promises all through this book, and there's nothing more powerful than these third-step promises. And I'm not going to spend a lot of time reading to you, but I do want to read you these promises at the top of page 63. You can't get any more powerful. When we sincerely took such a position, and that's the position we're talking about is letting God be the father and us be the kid, letting God take care of the patterns and us doing the stitching, all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new employer. lawyer. Being all-powerful, he provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work well. Established on such a footing, we became less and less interested in our little plans and designs. More and more, we become interested in seeing what we could contribute to life. As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as discovered we could could face life successfully. That was some heavy promises. New power, peace of mind, facing life successfully as we became conscious of his presence. And listen to this one. We began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow, or the hereafter. We were reborn. Now how do you get any stronger promises than that? That's just as strong as it can possibly be. As far as the wording on page 63 of the third step prayer, the book's very clear it says of course the wording was quite optional and the book says what it says and I stand behind the book but I also say this why in heaven's name would I tinker with it what on earth would cause me to believe that I could use my wonderful mind which is what got me here to improve on the third step of alcoholics and others what sort of insanity would would cause me to add something or detract something or change something in that prayer. As I started to walk out of the room from having done the third step of Alcoholics Anonymous, Cherry lovingly reminded me of a negative promise that is in the book. Not all the promises are positive. As I start to leave the room, he said, By the way, your third step's vital and crucial, but it won't amount to a hill of beans unless you start a fourth step at once well I got the book out and you know I guess I thought it said unless you a fourth-step when you think you can do it and not get drunk or when your group thinks you are ready or when you're sponsor thinks you already or when do you see a burning bush and know when it's time to do an inventory what book says is your third step just won't amount to a hill of beans unless you do a fourth step at once, at once. And I'll tell you, by that time, I had truly become teachable as only the dang can be. And sure enough, eight months later, I started a fourth-step at once! Now, I'm going to jump on and talk about the eleventh step a little bit here. Tomorrow, Al, I guess, kind of had this in in mind and setting up what we were going to talk about here, but I really, really love Step 6 and 7. And the last 15 years of my sobriety, Step 6 and 7 have been very much in the center of my sobriery in a lot of ways. But up until that time, it was Step 11 with me. And Step 11 hadn't lost a bit of importance Just because I got some new awareness with 6 and 7. And reading pages 86 and 87, the top page 88 has been a part of my morning meditation since the first couple of months that I was sober. And I love it. I love everything about Step 11. Now, to my knowledge, I haven't missed a day or night getting on my knees since sometime in April of 81. I'm not telling you all that to tell you how good I am. I'm telling you that, and I've already mentioned part of this all those thousands of mornings and nights at least half the time I hadn't really wanted to there have been a number of times when I could have gotten a doctor's excuse that I didn't feel like it I've had several major surgeries in sobriety I spent a long time single in sobrietty it can get kind of embarrassing oh honey, excuse me, I've got to do something there are a whole lot of times when I didn'T really want to get down there I could have gotten a lot of affidavits from a lot of judges, I didn't have time to get down there a lot times but I've gotten down there every morning and every night and something's worked every single day now I've probably done my meditation reading and my gratitude list and my list of things to do today 80% of the mornings in my sobriety 50% of the nights I've done my checklist for the day when we retire at night we constructively review our day on page 86 so most of the time I've had the morning and night covered what I've had trouble with is the other 98% of the day because doing what this book tells me to do in the morning and at night is truly about 2% percent of my time in the day. What I will overlook, and I'll sometimes go embarrassingly long periods of time without ever getting the focus on it, I'll overlook the fact that this book tells me that every day, all day, regardless of what's going on, it doesn't say I do it when I'm agitated or afraid. It says all day every day regardless of whatever it is that I'm doing. What's going to happen? I constantly remind myself I'm no longer running the show, humbly saying to myself many times each day in quotation marks that will be done and that is really really important and also that other little thing that I throw in most of you all know that's from the prayer of Saint Francis and you can find that on page 99 of the 12 and 12 which is where the 12th and 12th talks about the 11th step so I count the prayer for Saint Francis as another other part of the 11th step. Those tools are so overwhelmingly effective in my life. I already mentioned it, and it's true. In 24 years of sobriety, I've never had one single human contact go badly when I have remembered to be running those things through my mind. It chases away fear. It makes me a listener. Now, am I telling you that every single human contract I've had has has worked out the way I wanted it to work out? Of course not. But the negativity has all been diffused. The fear has gone away. The relationships with the people I was talking to were usually better and almost never worse after I'd had that contact with them. I'm talking about everything from waking my daughter up with a kiss to meeting with a man that may want to do something really bad to me and through my alcoholism I've given that man the ammunition to do something really bad to make I'm talking about I'm what I do for a living some lawyer I'm talk judges I'm talkin about clients I'm talked about opposing counsel it works everywhere when I remember to run through my head that will be done I'm no longer running the show and Lord please let me seek to love comfort and understand rather than to be loved loved, comforted, and understood. And let me tell you another piece of magic in the love, comfort, understand deal. What I have found is that as long as I am seeking to be loved, comforted and understood it is absolutely impossible that I can be loved comforted and understood to my satisfaction. As long as I am seeing seeking it it cannot happen it's never happened one time in my life. feeling truly loved, comforted, and understood is a byproduct of my praying to love, comfort, and understand you. That's the only time that I ever feel loved, comfortable, and understood to my satisfaction is when I do that. And what happens to me over and over, and I'm so glad Bob talked about this. Bob must be right because I agree with him. That's what Clancy tells me every time I'm with him, by the way. You must be right i agree with you uh but uh hey hey this deal is not about perfection uh i'm real wary if somebody gets up and tells me that they don't ever feel disconnected that they don't never fall away from the deal not do what they're supposed to do for a while because i want to tell you that's not the way it is with me but i also want to tell you this when i first became spiritually awake wake. And the word spiritual awakening holds no mystery for me. As far as I'm concerned, it means exactly what it says. Because before I got here, I was spiritually comatose. I truly was not conscious of a spiritual world around me. I was not awake to the fact that I am a spiritual being. These steps didn't make me a spiritual giant. They simply woke me up. They made me awake to the fact that spirituality is here and what it is. And for the first couple of three years that I was trying to practice this deal, and I want to tell you the best I've ever been able to do is stumble a couple of steps in the right direction, get knocked over by self-will. A day never goes by when there isn't a period of time when I am totally unaware that I ever did a third step, that I ever did a seventh step, that there's any such thing as an eleventh step to live on. I've never had one single day when that was in the front of my mind every second of my consciousness. I forget it. Some days I forget 50 to 100 times. And what happens every time I forget is I get knocked in the dust by self-will. And what I've been able to do, thank God, I've being able to get up and dust myself off and say, Mom, Dad, excuse me, I fell up again. Stumble another couple of steps in the right direction. Get knocked over by self-will. Do the same thing over and over. And I used to think that every time I fell down it was an interruption of my spiritual growth. But what I know now is that that process is the only spiritual growth of which I'm capable. It turns out that my God doesn't require perfection from me. He or she doesn't even really require consistency. My God seems to be tickled to death with persistence, with keeping on stumbling in that right direction. And as long as I stumble in that Right Direction, I believe that that is my spiritual growth and that I'm getting along just fine. By the way, when I approached Cherry about the 11th step, I wanted to know just how and when in the morning I should begin this process of trying to improve my conscious contact with God as we understood him. And by the way, praying only for knowledge of his will for us to be able to carry it out. I'm really jealous of Bob because Bob had the opportunity to get to know Chuck Chamberlain some and I never did. But if I'm an acolyte of any human being that's ever been in this program, I'm a acolyt of Chuck Chamberlin's. And my understanding, Chuck, was that he pretty well had his prayer down to just what the step says. You know, if I follow that step literally, the only prayer I'm ever going to say is, God, please give me knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry it out. And I don't have anything else to say about that because I haven't refined my prayer to that. But I do try to not pray for things that are results of things and that sort of thing. even for people that are in dire straits and so on, for it to work out a particular way. It's just for God to give me and them knowledge of God's will for me and for them and the power to carry it out. But anyway, I want to know when and how I'm supposed to start this in the morning. So Cherry said, well, let's look at the book, Don. She said, it's probably hidden in here. It says, On Awakening. Let us think about 24 hours ahead. We can set our plans today before we begin. We ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced of self-pity, dishonest, or self-seeking motives. Cherry said, now Don, if that had meant after we go to the bathroom, we ask God to direct our thinking. It would have said right there in the book, after we peed, we asked God. He said, it doesn't say that. It says on awakening. And he said, now there's a couple of really good reasons that you need to take take that quite literally. So number one, you need to follow directions. Number two, you are perfectly capable of getting crazy enough between the bed and the pot to ruin the rest of your life. So Cherry had me start trying to condition myself to the moment my eyes fly open for it to run through my head and God please direct my thinking, especially let it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self-seeking motives. And over the years, that has largely happened. I'm not going to say it happens every morning first thing, but many more mornings than not, it happens within the first five seconds that I'm conscious. And to me, that's exactly what the book says. The little inventory at night, and I had real issues with why this was in the 11th step instead of the 10th step, but 11th steps where it is, so folks, we're going to talk about it in the 12th step. When I do a fourth step, by the way, I am absolutely convinced where it's got the example on page 65, there either ought to be, I mean, it's just got to be. There either ought be a colon after the cause or there ought not be a column after I'm resentful that it affects mine. But when I do that, I put a colon after I am resentful at, I don't put one after the calls and I do put one after effects man because I got to tell you for me so much of my recovery is simply following directions um I respect the knowledge and recovery of Cherry Carpenter just just overwhelmingly and I'm so blessed that I just got thrown in that with Cherry Carpeter as my sponsor, because he had so much wonderful stuff to share with me. But as much wonderful stuff as Cherry shared with me, I am absolutely convinced that Cherry's great knowledge and spiritual erudition was about 1% of Cherry's value in my life. 99% of Chery's value in my wife was that I was willing to have a sponsor who had done the first nine steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which, by the way, are the entire program of recovery. Once we've done one through nine, the way the book says, we should be recovered from alcoholism. And they're living on 10, 11, and 12. And the value is me having somebody like that and my willingness to do what they tell me to do. That's 99% of the value. You see, it's not ever the great enlightenment. And Bob mentioned something about epiphanies. Let me talk to you about epiphany for a minute here. I call them burning bushes. I have never seen a burning bush in full conflagration, never ever. Now, I've seen a whole bunch of smoking bushes. I've had probably 1,000 of those head slappers. My God, that's right. That's life-changing. That's life-changing. That's the key. And most of those have been after I got sober in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and the process of reading this book. Out of that thousand or so epiphanies I've had, I probably remember three of them. Okay? Because those are the two or three where I got out my bellows and I fanned that smoking bush. bush, and it did in fact become a burning bush. You see, I am part and parcel, I'm involved in my epiphanies. And let me tell you, some of y'all are probably sitting out there thinking that's hypocrisy, and we alcoholics are really peculiar about hypocrisy. You know, after we've done our inventories and our men steps, we can actually chuckle about past larceny in adultery. And if a homicide was far enough ago and long enough away, we'd get a little tasteful lift to the corner of the mouth out of that. But by God, we don't want to be hypocrites. It'd just be awful to be a hypocrite. Let me tell you how important I believe that is. From my reading, and I'm not an AA historian, many of you guys probably know much, much more about the history of this than I do. But everything that I do know about that flash flashlight in the hospital room that Bill Wilson had, is that Bill Wilson didn't know what it was. He didn't know whether it was his brain synapses, you know, misfiring when he was shaking out that last drunk of his or just what it was or whether it Was the Angel Gabriel. He didn't have a clue. Dr. Silkworth came in the next morning and Bill told him, I don't know what it was. And Dr. Silkworth didn't know either. But what he told Bill was, I I don't know, Bill, but anything's got to be better than what you had. So if I were you, I would hold on to it. So Bill Wilson got out his bellows and he started living consistently with that being a burning bush for him. And he fanned that burning bush. And that, folks, is why we are here tonight. night. If Bill had let that fall into the category with those other 997 head slappers I've had and hadn't got out his bellows and started fanning that smoking bush into a burning bush, we wouldn't have Alcoholics Anonymous. So I need to remember that, that I'm not going to find any intellectual or spiritual awakening that without subsequent action on my part consistent with it is going going to change my life. Now, action based on having had my eyes open to something, the smoking bushes I call them, action based on it can change it and I'll talk about that more tomorrow when we talk about 6 and 7. Going back to step 11, I want to share the step 11 promises with you. It tells me, it's not talking about my morning prayer, not talking abut my morning meditation. By the way, I do want to say something about meditation because after I'd acted as if and I saw the prayer was working, I got okay with that fairly quickly. But meditation, man, meditation was something monks did, you know. It wasn't something for a man of action like myself, you know, a real soldier. Too impractical. You know, I thought meditation was contemplating my belly button and levitating and that sort of thing. like most things i was 180 degrees off what my meditation became is that in the mornings i make a gratitude list and then after i do my reading and draw out my keynote that's part of my morning for almost 20 years i've had six things written on the same little six pieces of paper those things are honesty humility gratitude that will be done i'm no longer running the show old help god's kids do what they need to have done for free and for fun and pray to love comfort and understand and every morning i pick out one of those and that is my keynote for the day now let me tell you the importance of that i have long known that it doesn't make any difference which one of these six things i'm trying to adhere to i will behave precisely the same way just precisely if I'm truly trying to adhere to those six or any other spiritual principles but it's just real helpful to my little weak mind to every day have one that I can say hey this is my keynote today I'm going to concentrate on gratitude today I'll try to help God's kids do what they need to have done my meditation wound up being making that list of things to do today and things that go on my list are not things like change my life change careers they're things like call LBAC write letter on such and such get car washed take cat to vet research such and such question I just sit there and write down the things that if I do them them i'll be more comfortable and if i don't do them i'd be more uncomfortable so bottom line my meditation wound up being the most practical thing i do all day and it works sometimes i think it doesn't work because i want to tell you about after about three weeks when you've been carrying the same thing over every day you get feeling pretty bad about yourself and about the whole process but i've kept those things for all these years i've got a foul cabinet nearly full of them and every once in a while I'll reach back and grab a handful of them. It works. It just doesn't always work on my timetable, but it does work. It gets it done. But these promises on page 88 seem to be connected with going through the day every day saying to myself that will be done. I'm no longer running the show. And it says that if we do that, we are then in much less danger of excitement. Now, it took about two years sober for me to figure out why in the world anybody would want to stay away from excitement. But I know that's the jagged edge. See, I didn't have any real joy, so I had excitement confused with joy. You know, that jagged age of tenseness and stress. Fear, anger, worry, self-pity, or foolish decisions. decisions, right back to the practicality. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily for we're not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves. And then the shortest paragraph in the big book going right back through the practicality, it works. It really does. And guys, it does work when I work it and I'm just so So grateful to be here this weekend. I'm looking forward to hearing what else that Bob has got to say and spending some time with some of you guys, and I just love you all. Thank you so much. Thank you.