Why the Big Book Says the Solution Never Fails – Steve M.

God, please help me set aside everything I think I know about myself, my disease, these steps and especially you for an open mind and a new experience with myself, my disease. These steps, especially you tonight we are on. You're going to cover part of a bill story and then go into action. Okay, so we're going to try and do what would normally be covered in two weeks through that Steve as soon as he walked through the door. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce Steve. Thanks. Hi everybody, my name's Steve. I'm an alcoholic. Hi Steve. Thanks to the grace of a loving God who I found out is crazy about me and has no taste. The 12 steps, the 12 traditions, strong sponsorship and active participation in our work. I haven't contrived a reason to take a drink since April 22nd of 2005 and I can assure you for that I'm never grateful enough. I'm supposed to flap tonight a little bit about some of the topics as it relates to the chapters in the big book one was Bill's story which I guess was covered during the snowstorm and then tonight there is a solution and you know it's funny I've always believed my alcoholism is a disease of perception and what that means for a guy like me is that the world is how I want to see it not the way that it actually is and I have been preparing actually to speak on I think the chapter more about alcoholism but it doesn't matter, I'm here and what I've learned in AA is that we suit up, we show up and try and let God take over because God knows you don't want to hear what I think that would get us all in a lot of trouble I'll share rather my experience I always get a little nervous whenever I speak at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous and I really think that's because I think some part of me recognizes is always the gravity of the disease of alcoholism and the potential for damage to myself and the people around me that it has in my life. And I know that, for me, the reason that I kept coming to meetings with Alcoholics Anonymous was because of what I heard you people share about yourselves and about your experiences in AA. And I noticed there's a book study, and I'm going to get into that, don't worry, but I just feel like it's a great honor and I also kind of feel like it's big responsibility to speak at a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous because there's a way out here and I never want to let that go by unsaid because I know that when I got here I felt the way that a lot of us do when we get here. Nobody gets here on a good year. None of us come in riding high on the wave of life. Most of us get washed up in the undertow and I was no different and I felt alone I felt full of fear and I don't even know if I was able to identify it as such I just, you know I felt like every part of me was trying to go in opposite directions and I had no peace, no serenity none of that stuff seemed even remotely possible for me and what I found through people sharing about themselves and sharing about the work out of these out of this big book specifically just this book the actions that they learned to take I found a piece of my life that I never knew was possible for a guy like me And that's a pretty neat deal. I think it's a pretty good deal. You know, the only thing I had to do was I sat through an entire meeting on the topic of surrender. I'm not a big fan of, well, whatever, that's my opinion so we'll leave that out. But anyway, I went to a topic discussion meeting and it was on surrender and I feel like the only thing I was required to surrender when I got to the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous were my ideas. It was just my ideas of what were right and wrong and my ideas of what I thought was good for me and just for a little while because i understood what you meant about surrendering to some sort of power greater than myself but to a guy like me when i was new what that looked like was um joining the priesthood i thought i was going to have to don a collar and a black suit and um i was gonna have to you know i wasn't going to get to have sex that was pretty much what i've seen and uh it's going to be celibacy poverty and no fun and um so i didn't want to have anything to do with the god thing But I understood the concept of surrendering to other people and Alcoholics Anonymous and letting them help me back to leading a normal life that was beyond my wildest dreams. So, I guess we'll get into it here. In Bill's story, you know, there were a couple things that I was looking at. I'm going to go through Bill's history kind of quickly because I guess, I don't know, in my experience, I just kind of went through it quickly. And there's a couple of things that I feel like were really, that really jumped out at me that I identified with in terms of my experience of struggling with the disease of alcoholism. So there are some things that even this old guy, however old he is now, or dead, right? Dead by a long shot. But I'm trying to think of how old he was when he was sharing this experience. Does anybody have any factoids on that? How old he wasn't? How old was when you was writing the book? No? No. Okay. So he was old. Anyway, so I, you know, originally going into this reading it, you know my first impression of the big book is like this doesn't, you know it doesn't sound current. It doesn't sounds like anything trendy or new or fresh but when I started to read it the ideas in there hit me right in the heart and I started identify with what was written in here and I really felt like I belonged for the first time in my life whereas before I never felt like it belonged anywhere and it made it a lot easier for me because if I can identify with the fact that you have the same problem as me then when you prescribe a solution I'm going to listen but if I think you're just talking at me and you're going well based on the DSM-IV here you're across X and Y axis and you are pretty screwed up so you need to do this that bounces right off of me but if somebody just sits there and tells me I've always felt like a loser I've never been able to really live my life and then they say this is what I did to get out of it I'll listen And so I feel like that's kind of what Bill's story hit me with. And some of the things that he goes through, and so, you know, Bill was a salesman, which I always keep in the back of my head because he does a great job at pitching himself and the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. And, you Know, one of the Things I Have Underlined on Page 3, where he says, drink was taking an important and exhilarating part in my life. there was loud talk in the jazz places uptown everyone spent in thousands and chattered a million scoffer could scoff and be damned I made a host of fair weather friends my drinking assumed were serious proportions continuing all day and almost every night throughout Bill's story we see this thread of like his progression with alcoholism and that's kind of what I'm going to try and hit on so you know we have him here drink takes a more important and exhilarating part of his life he suffers some uh, trouble with the stock market. And he says, you know, he, he didn't really identify with those who were killing themselves because the market was going to crap. He says that disgusted me. I would not jump. I went back to the bar. You know, I always remember feeling that way. It was like people, you cry babies, you Know, I'm just going to go and drink and then I'll cry later, you Now, but, uh, that was, I identified with that. But anyway, so he, um, it's, you know, at the top of page five, we see him talk about, he says, liquor ceased to be a luxury. It became a necessity. Bathtub gin, two bottles a day and often three got to be routine. You know, and you skip down at the beginning of the next paragraph. Gradually things got worse. And this next part jumps out at me where he says I woke up. This had to be stopped. I saw I could not take so much as one drink. So Bill's story goes on for another um 11 pages right and i kind of remember my drinking there was a point at which i recognized that i couldn't drink successfully that there was something wrong with the way that i drank you know and this is my favorite part because i really feel like this gets to the heart of if not the mental obsession but definitely you know the mental part of this disease because once i stop drinking uh i have a really hard time at staying stopped because i have this way of talking myself back into drinking, but in such a subtle way that I don't recognize that anything's happening. Now, I believe that alcoholism is incredibly devious or intelligent, however you want to discuss it. It creeps in and we don't even know what's happening, you know? We kind of... I know for me, I've talked myself in and out of the worst situations not knowing that it was working on me and we watch this, you know, in Bill's story, we see this happen and where he talks about I saw I could not take so much as one drink. I was through forever right this page five we got 11 more pages of this you know crap and he really was he was done and you know he said i had written lots of sweet promises but my wife happily observed that this time i meant business you know i mean how many times have we done that you know now this is it i'm done shortly afterward i came home drunk right this is like his next sentence you know so um i this to me this is just this rings true with everything that happened with me it was no more and then ah damn it um and this time he talks about there had been no fight where had been my high resolve i simply didn't know it hadn't even come to my mind someone had pushed a drink my way and i had taken it was i crazy i began to wonder for such an appalling lack of perspective seemed near being just that uh what i have marked in the little margin notes of my book whatever that's worse to you i wrote lack of power and i think that my sponsor pointed that out to me that this is just one of the ways in which um i lack power over my alcoholism is that i don't see it uh i wake up in the morning and um and i'll get more into this later when we talk about there is a solution i have one solution uh and it's a power greater than myself and i'm going to call it god because it's easy to spell and if that scares you out uh i understand but trust me whatever you discover out there is going to scare you right back in you know i had to come to terms of the fact that there was no human power that could relieve me of this sickness. And I didn't choose not to drink this morning. I prayed and I asked for help to stay sober today because if it's up to me, this is what happens, what Bill describes. I have an appalling lack of perspective when it comes to my alcoholism and I believe that that's what the powerlessness is. You know, I know that there's a physical component which I know was one of the first topics that you guys had, you know, the allergy that physically if I put it in me, my body craves more. I've got no control over that, no more than somebody who's allergic to shrimp, eating shrimp cocktail and breaking out in hives. They can't control it. You don't see people eating it and going, I'm going to break out in three hives, it doesn't happen, you know? Because that's insane, right? But that's what we do. We go, I'm gonna have a drink and I'm not gonna stop at three, right, and that's nuts. But of course we don't know that. And but there's that other part of it, the powerlessness with when I stop and the way I talk my way back into drinking again. So he says, renewing my resolve, renewing my resolve I tried again some time passed and confidence began to be replaced by caught shortness I could laugh at the gymno's top of page 6 now and now I had what it takes one day I walked into a cafe to telephone in no time I was beating on the bar asking myself how it happened as the whiskey rose to my head I told myself I would manage better next time but I may as well get good and drunk then and I did you know again this just we just watched this sort of progression of him trying to sort of and what I remember from my own experience, trying to sort this thing out by myself. Trying to outsmart my own illness. Trying to stop drinking by my own power and having no ability whatsoever. And then being baffled when I would put myself in a situation and I would drink and I'd go, how did that happen? What happened? You know? I just promised myself. I just compromised my girlfriend. I just pronounced my mom, my sister, my brother, my family. You know, the list goes on. And I didn't realize that I was struggling with something that I had no power over. So, you know, and he makes the good decision here. Same as, well, I think this is a great decision. You know, manage better next time. I may as well get good and drunk now, right? Because why ruin a good time? I've already gotten this thing started. Jeez, we don't want to be a sourpuss for the rest of the evening. Anyway, so then he gets into the sort of darker, this darker period, and this was something that jumped out at me in particular because I'll tell you what I thought AA was before I got here. I thought AA was filled with hobos, bikers, pirates, and vikings. You know, that nice guys like me didn't belong in Alcoholics Anonymous, that I just had a little bit of a drinking problem. I mean, maybe I was insane in some way because I was trying to go to therapists and psychiatrists at the time because I Was so uncomfortable sober. Now, I didn't understand that before I got to AA. See, I thought I had a drinking problems over here, and then I was a little insane over here and I didn't realize that the whole thing is just one big, you know, it's alcoholism. It's what it is. And near the end, sober was much worse than drunk for me. And then there was a time when there was almost no difference, where I was trying to drink away the way that I felt when I was sober and it wasn't doing any good because I would still feel like crap, but I kept trying. and near the end I really just wanted to kill myself because I felt like I couldn't live I couldn' t live sober I hated the way I felt sober I knew I couldn''t kept drinking and I wanted to die and I felt like I had no way out and Bill gets into this he says should I kill myself no not now then a mental fog settled down gin would fix that so two bottles in oblivion so and he goes on to say his mind and body endured this agony for two more years over the next couple pages again we have Another solution that Bill tries, he goes to the town's hospital where he meets Dr. Silkworth on page 7. The belladonna treatment, I forget, I looked that up at one point. I can never remember what the heck that was. What is that, hydrotherapy or something? No, belladona is a... Was that the shots? It's a root and it's a poison which induces psychological... Oh, there you go. See, that makes sense to me. because and I wasn't surprised to find out you know and you hear these rumors that like Bill tried LSD I don't know that I have no idea but it makes sense to me that if we're going to treat alcoholism you do it by treating our perception because that was always what was my problem and I found that out through going through the steps was that I have a disease of perception I don' t see the world right when I'm sober but you give me a couple of drinks and all you people are much nicer and a lot less scary and I'm going to buy you all rounds whereas an hour ago I wanted to kill you you know so anyway, sorry back to the book so he goes to the Belladonna treatment and he learns from Dr. Silkworth you know page 7 here, he says it relieved me somewhat to learn that in alcoholics the will is amazingly weakened when it comes to combating liquor though it often remains strong in other respects, my incredible behavior in the face of a desperate desire to stop was explained so he's got the answer And understanding myself now, I fared forth in high hope. You can almost hear that you know where this is going, right? If you're like me, because I did the same thing, you know. For three or four months, the goose hung high. I went to town regularly and even made a little money. Surely this was the answer, self-knowledge. Next sentence, but it was not. For the frightful day came when I drank once more. The curve of my declining moral and bodily health fell off like a ski jump. After a time, I returned to the hospital. This was the finish. so he starts he knows now that between the doctor and his wife they basically let him know that if he kept doing what he was doing he was going to die in six to eight weeks I think was the number that he was given and he wasn't surprised and he then goes into his last his sort of last days of drinking and there's one more thing what I found interesting about this was that he's tried self-knowledge. Before that, it was the promises, right? He made promises that didn't keep him sober. You know what I mean? Then he learned more about himself, self- knowledge, which you see happen to a lot of people who come out of rehab, unfortunately. They learn a lot about their alcoholism and then two weeks later they're drunk and they're going, What happened? You know? And then the last thing is he stepped from the hospital a broken man. Fear sobered me for a bit. and then came the insidious insanity of that first drink it was sort of the last so this is the last one you know that fear sobered me for a bit and I know for myself like knowing that I'll just tell you I mean I think the best way is to share my experience one of my last things that I remember from my drinking was going to law school thinking that getting a couple letters after my name would fix me you know I think a lot of people who grow up in this area suffer from that. You know, same thing because I was always a drinker who knew that if I kept the outsides nice and shiny, you would never know how crappy I felt on the inside. So I go off to law school and I make it through about a semester before having nervous breakdowns, we'll call it. You know? Hitting bottom would make it sound cool. I really had a nervous breakdown like, you know. Anyway, so... And the night that it happened, I was on the phone with a girl that I was seeing at the time and told her something about wanting to kill myself and then got drunk and passed out on the phone during an argument with my father an hour later. So when she tried to call the apartment to make sure I was still alive, she got the busy signal because I passed out. And I came to with two Milwaukee County police officers and my landlady standing over my bed and they had broken the door down because they thought I had killed myself And I hadn't. Right, yeah, obviously. And so, and I hadn'T even tried. I just did what I usually do. I drank myself into a blackout. The next day my mother and my girlfriend at the time flew out to Milwaukee to pick me up because they knew that I wasn't going to make it very long. And that morning I went and picked them up at the airport. I saw the looks on their faces, which if you have people who love you and were close to you at the end, you remember what it looks like when somebody has not slept in a week because of you and what that, the color drained from their face completely and the really big black circles under their eyes because they don't sleep anymore because they love you so much and they can't understand what the hell is wrong with you. And they get off the plane, they say let's get something to eat and I say sure and we go to a restaurant and we sit down and the waitress comes over and said would anybody like a drink and I said sure, I'll have a beer. I'm not even on the map. You know what I mean? The night before, all that misery, all the shame that involved with the cops and everything else And I knew that that night I was very close to maybe trying to kill myself and didn't fear self-knowledge. None of those things kept me from that day sitting down and going, well, have a beer, you know. So and I really believe to try to keep it on the rails here with the mental obsession. I mean, a very simple definition of an obsession. That's like if you broke up what you thought about during the course of the day right into a pie chart, you Know, whatever you think the most about, you An obsession for me was that if you broke it down, it would be like 90% of the day I was thinking about drinking or what I was going to drink next or whatIiwas going to do to shut this off. That's 90%. The other 10% was girls or money or something really profound, I'm sure. That's an obsession. Somebody else described to me... I'm not sure everybody has... Maybe not, I don't know. When I was in second grade, I wasin love with this girl, Jill Natal, who was in my class. She didn't know it, but I thought about her all the time. And later with my drinking, that's what I think of when I think of a mental obsession. It was all I thought about. Because for a guy like me as an alcoholic drinking is not... I am always hesitant to call my alcoholism a drinking problem because that doesn't do it justice because for me I was a solution drinker. I was an answer drinker, you know? Drinking did amazing magical things for me. It fixed all of my problems and so of course I'm going to think about it all day. Do you know what I mean? Because nothing that I'm going to experience in physical reality is going to come close to how I feel after two drinks. Nothing is going to satisfy me. Nothing's going to give me the You know what i mean? Where do you get that? They don't sell it. And I've tried it with money and with women and with friends and family and no physical interaction or human interaction of any kind can get that it warmed that empty, blank, dark whatever crap inside me or whatever I had left of the soul and it fixed it and so you know it made sense to me that I obsessed about it all day long anyway so Bill Bill in this desperate moment is visited by Ebby and I feel like this is where if any if I'm ever going to get a chance of recovering to the chapter that I was supposed to talk about this is what I'm going to do this is when I'll try and dovetail what Bill talks about with There Is A Solution because where he meets Ebi, bottom of page eight, top of page nine, he was thinking about if he had enough drink to get through the day. You know, he's at the end and he's just worried about getting from day to day with enough alcohol to fix him. And he said, my musing was interrupted by the telephone. The cheery voice of an old school friend asked if he might come over. He was sober. And this was Ebi. Ebi Thatcher who was somebody who got sober through the Oxford groups at the time, which was just basically a bunch of Christians who decided, I think, and this is my own knowledge, I have no idea, you can correct me later, but they were going to try to live as first century Christians did by some basic principles and absolutes and they felt that they should meet regularly and talk about how they lived by spiritual principles throughout the week. And I think that's the rough idea that I got of what the Oxford movement was. And Ebi, as a byproduct of having a spiritual awakening in that group by living by those principles, he got sober. So part of the requirement was that once you did have a spiritual experience, you had to go and testify. So this is Ebi going to testify. This is before 12-step calls or anything else. This is like, this is the 12- step call. Ebi goes to 12-stepped belt, right? It wasn't called that then, of course, but this was his testifying that the power of God had basically saved him, from what I understand. So, and Bill thinks his drinking buddy is coming back and he's dismayed to find out page 9 the first indented paragraph the door opened and he stood there fresh skinned and glowing there was something about his eyes he was inexplicably different what had happened I pushed a drink across the table he refused it disappointed but curious I wondered what had got into the fellow he wasn't himself I have that underlined three times I don't know if anybody else has experienced this but once you go through the steps and you find like maybe a little while afterwards after you've taken some action in Alcoholics Anonymous, people are complimenting you and you realize that you're not yourself anymore. And you're thinking, thank God. You know what I mean? Thank God I'm not myself anymore because what I brought you here with, I didn't want, you know? Anyway, so, come what's this about, all this about? I queried. He looked straight at me simply but smilingly. He said, I've got religion. I was aghast, so that was it. Last summer in Alcoholic Crackpot, now I suspected a little cracked about religion. He had that starry-eyed look. Yes, the old boy was on fire all right. But bless his heart, let him rant. Besides, my gin would last longer than his preaching. I'll just keep going. Sorry, I get excited about this stuff because I've had a damn good time in Alcoholics Anonymous. And if you're in your first year and they tell you that it's got to suck, tell them to F off and find somebody else to listen to because it doesn't have to suck. It really doesn't. I've Had a Great Time Here. Anyway, I wouldn't state because I like to have fun. Jesus Christ, right? We're not here because we like to, you know, sulk. Well, some of us. Anyway, but he did no ranting. In a matter-of-fact way, he told how two men had appeared in court persuading the judge to suspend his commitment. They had told they had told of a simple religious idea and a practical... Actually, I think one of the men that he talks about there was Roland Hazard, wasn't it? It was Roland Haasard. Yeah. And Roland's my... One of the guys that clicked with me and I hope I get to talk about him because they talk about him at the end of There is a Solution. Anyway, they had told of a simple religious idea and a practical program of action, right? Action. Not thinking, not pontificating, not, you know, understanding. Just don't, you Know, that almost killed me trying to understand things. That was two months ago and the result was self-evident. It worked. He had come to pass his experience along to me if I cared to have it. I was shocked but interested. Certainly I was interested. I had to be for I was hopeless, right, And that's crucial. So I want to try to get to the point where he says, so he goes over, Bill basically in the next page covers a lot of his own musings and prejudices about religion and what his own understandings of what God was up to that point in his life and talks about not quite understanding it and having his own judgments about Christ and all this, you know, his prejudices really. um uh and then we go on page 11 he says but right and the butt is to just interrupt all of his own crap but my friend sat before me and he made the point blank declaration that god had done for him what he could not do for himself his human will had failed right which goes back to what bill was starting to discover the promises the fear didn't keep him sober the self-knowledge didn't keep him silver his will was non-existent when it came to drinking so um and he sees he identifies with what Evie talks about here. Like myself, he had admitted complete defeat. Then in fact, he had been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of life better than the best he had ever known. Had this power originated in him? Obviously it had not. There had been no more power in him than there was in me at that minute and this was none at all. That floored me. It began to look as though religious people were right after all. And I just say a caveat about religion. Whatever ideas you have about religion or spirituality, just leave them aside until you've taken the actions that we recommend here and then you can revisit your prejudices later. That was kind of what I did and it worked for me. Here was something at work in a human heart which had done the impossible. My ideas about miracles were drastically revised right then. Never mind the musty past. Here sat a miracle directly across the kitchen table. He shouted great tidings. So it says, bottom of page 11, In that one sentence, I saw that my friend was much more than inwardly reorganized. He was on a different footing. His roots grasped a new soil. Anyway, again, more of Bill's prejudice. Skip that. My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, why don't you choose your own conception of God? My sponsor always reminds me that the whole thing about new idea, old idea. You know, we're in how it works where it talks about, you know, we just have to get rid of our old ideas. The result was nil until we let go, absolutely. Or somebody who I heard share it once, I held on until the result was null, you now, basically, to my old ideas and this idea of like why don't you choose your own conception of God. One of the things that my sponsor told me which I think saved me because it opened my mind just enough to allow what you people shared about an AA to get through and get me the help I needed. He said, I don't really care what you think about God right now or what you know about God or any of that. He said just leave it alone. It was on our second step. He said but do you think that if you called me regularly like I asked you to you go to some meetings with me and you go through the rest of the steps in the big book with me like my sponsor did with me do you thing that you can find a power greater than yourself that will restore you to sanity? And I bought in because what he really saved me from was thinking that I needed to know anything about what God was or what my relationship with him was going to be like. I mean, I came in here because I didn't have a spiritual life. I didn'T have a God in my life or a power greater than myself. I came here because l was soul sick. But my head being not a great source of information at that time and still isn't, was telling me, well, you need to know more about this before you can get better. You need to understand God more. But that wasn't it. What they were telling me was that we know that you don't have a relationship with God and that is the problem, so we're going to engage you in this process and then through this process you're goingto develop that power. You're goingtodevelop that relationship. So if you don'f feel like you have it now, good, you're not supposed to. Come with us and we'll show you the rest. And I feel like that's what saved me and I feellike that'swhatEbby said to Bill that he says, It melted the icy intellectual mountain in whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at last. When I got sober, I realized very quickly that all of my failures and all the chaos in my life was a result of me running my life by my own ideas and that when somebody said, why don't you just... This simple idea of why don'T you choose your own conception of God for me required, I think before that it was just this maybe I'm wrong and then I started to get better because I realized that maybe I was wrong about everything So anyway, and then he gets into it was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning like I just shared about with my sponsor. It was am I willing to maybe believe that something will work for me? I saw that growth could start from that point upon a foundation of complete willingness. I might build what I saw in my friend. Would I have it? Of course I would. And then Bill goes through what most of us. I don't think this is the common thing, but Bill had an actual spiritual experience instead of a spiritual awakening. Is that counting down or up? It's counting down. Okay, until the end. It's the doomsday clock. Got you. All right, good. That's good. I need that. All right. Is that a hint? It's a guide. Yeah, okay, thanks. We're so tactful in AI. Anyway, so he, you know, I think what he goes through here is he has the spiritual awakening of the variety that not many of us do, but the bright white light, the curtains blue, he felt like he was standing on the top of a mountain and all that stuff. But then he goes though, and what I really believe here, what I was shown and what... I talked to the guys who I go through the book with is that Bill, in this very brief experience, goes through all of the basic principles that are covered in the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. So I believe that here when Ebi said, you know, choose your own conception of God and prior to this where Bill talks about being hopeless and realizing that his human will had failed, that he sort of had some experience with the first step there. His second step when Evi asked him to choose his own conception to God. And then, you know at the top of page 13 he goes through and there i humbly offered myself to god as i then understood him um to do with me as he would i placed myself unreservedly under his care and direction right sounds like step three i admitted for the first time that of myself i was nothing that without him i was lost i ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my newfound friend take them away root and branch right sounds Like four six and seven or something and then um you know he talks about visiting when ebby visited him i fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies right sounds like a fifth step we made a list of the people i'd hurt toward whom i had felt resentment i expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals individuals admitting my wrong eight right and then um i was to write such matters to the utmost of my ability ninth and then he goes and goes into 10th step stuff and 11 step stuff but um you know common sense would thus become uncommon sense so sit quietly when in doubt asking only for direction direction and strength to meet my problems as he would have me. And then at the bottom here, I just want to touch on this because I've always believed this about Alcoholics Anonymous. AA and with the help of a sponsor, this book has the answer to all my problems. And I believe that it's because of my belief in that that it works for me. If you doubt that, it might not. But If you just believe, just keep it, whatever. Anyway, so my friend promised when these things were done, I would enter upon a new relationship with my creator that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. Belief in the power of God plus enough willingness, honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things were the essential requirements. So instead of going through the rest of Bill's story, I'm going to jump forward. I think I've covered enough in there. Good, all right. So now there is a solution, right? It's good news. Okay, so I'm going to do some cross-referencing. If you go back to... This is my favorite paragraph in the whole big book, so just bear with me. Go to the last paragraph of Dr. Bob's Nightmare. If somebody finds the page number before I do, please tell me because I don't know where it is. 181. Thank you. 181, right? So we're getting into the chapter there is a solution, right, and we just heard Bill talk about that he finds this newfound relationship with God and that seems to be the answer for him and then they kind of, they do a soft sell. There is a resolution there is no solution, you know. They're not going to tell us about God and even in the doctor's opinion you hear them sort of avoiding that. They do the soft sell because they know. They know how we are. You know, I have new guys who come to me and they go you know, I'm an atheist and I'm like well, guess what? you're in just the right place. Like, you know, they think that this is original. But anyway, like I did. I mean, God love, that's exactly the way I was. I thought every thought that I had was original and everybody was like, you're such a jackass. You know what I mean? You self-centered little crap. Anyway, so last paragraph of Dr. Bob's Nightmare. He says, if you think you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book, I feel sorry for you. If you still think you are strong enough to beat the game alone, that is your affair. But if you really and truly want to quit drinking liquor for good and all and sincerely feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you It never fails. Right? Never. So forget about the rarely from how it works, right? It never falls if you go about it with one half the zeal you have been in the habit of showing when you were getting another drink. Your Heavenly Father will never let you down. So, that gives me chills because I feel like that is the best... I mean, shit. You know? That's good. That's... Never fails. Never fails。 You know, all we ask is that you do this thing that he talks about. Atheist, agnostic, any form of intellectual pride which keeps you from just listening to somebody else's suggestions for your life. If you can put that stuff aside, man, you have no idea what you're in store for. It's only going to get better. Can you say that again? I have no idea what I just said. I really don't. That, yeah, I really don't... Anyway, you can rewind the tape. So, okay, so there is a solution. We at Alcoholics Anonymous know thousands of men and women who were once just as hopeless as Bill. Nearly all have recovered. They have solved the drink problem. I'll try and do like a... This is one of those chapters. There's this and the next chapter more about alcoholism. I have so much stuff underlined and written about, you know. This, I don't... I'm going to try to do a shorthand. What am I supposed to focus on? Spiritual now. You know, you don't rush through it. Okay. We can have Rob cover, you feel like you leave off. Oh, all right. I'm always in a rush when I've got nowhere to go. Anybody identify with that? Yeah. Okay, yeah. Good. So don't worry about it. Good. I'm gonna downshift for a minute. Just tell Rob when you see him. Okay. He'll be picking up where you left off. Got it. All right, we'll see how long this second gear lasts. So the middle of the paragraph, the second intensive paragraph, it says we are people who normally would not mix, but there exists among us a fellowship, a friendliness and an understanding which is indescribably wonderful. We are like the passengers of a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck when camaraderie, joyousness and democracy pervade the vessel from steerage to captain's table. joe and charlie talk about what those things mean in nautical terms you know what the steerage is which is basically like the cargo compartment you know where you're with the rats and then captain's table is you know the best that the ship has to offer anyway um it says unlike the feeling of the ship's passengers however our joy and escape from disaster does not subside as we go our individual ways the feeling of having shared in a common peril is one element in the powerful cement which binds us. But that in itself would never have held us together as we are now joined. The tremendous fact for every one of us is that we have discovered a common solution. We have a way out on which we can absolutely agree. A way, one way, upon which we conjoin in brotherly and harmonious action. This speaker, another Steve, this guy from Baltimore, talks about that when you put people together with a common problem and a common resolution that the bond that forms between them it's like epoxy do you know what I mean where it's just those two elements common problem common solution and you know people I don't know why they do but sometimes people ask me what to do about their problems and my first reaction because of what I learned in Alcoholics Anonymous is do you know anybody who's been through what you're suffering from you know because I just know that for me there's some something miraculous happens for me when I sit down with another alcoholic that has solved that has fixed my alcoholism or given me a reprieve or however you want to call it in a way that people who have not suffered alcoholism could never have given me. You know, that's why I... For me, working with other alcoholics has always, always saved my life. Even this morning, because I unfortunately, as much as I want to, I don't wake up perfect. It doesn't happen. I wake up and I usually have fear or some sort of mixed emotion that's uncomfortable in some way. You know? Just by default, I think, before my eyes are open. My head has already figured out what's wrong with the day and is trying to plan it and get it into the shape that I want it to. You know, and then I hit my knees and I pray and I get a little reprieve and then if I have time I try to do it probably at least six mornings a week I sit down and I do some reading and get my head screwed on straight. And I did all that but my head was still spinning, you know, and I called a buddy of mine from the program who I needed to get a phone number from and this guy had just gotten into an altercation physical altercation with another guy from aa and uh was feeling crappy about it and it was just like one of those things where man 15 minutes on the phone with him and i hung up and all of the crap from the morning was gone you know because i could identify with the feelings that he had when he got in the fight i knew what was going on with him you know and um he's one of Those people who i've known a long time in the program and this when it talks about this brotherly and harmonious action. Like, once I started doing the stuff that they talked about in this book and started working with others and running around in AA, the bonds that I form with people in these rooms have been, you know, as the book says, indescribably wonderful, you know? I hang up the phone with that guy who we would have never hung out. Ever. Ever. You know what I mean? And, you Know, and I'm telling him that I love him because he's like a brother to me. You know what I mean? And that's just one of the many things that AA has to offer us is these bonds. Anyway, so it says we've discovered a common solution and it talks about harmonious action. So top of 18. This one part... Did you want to put the book away? No, I just want to get the excess coughing off of it. All right. Where's that timer? Where's the doomsday timer? Yeah, about 21 minutes. Okay, great. All right. So an illness of this sort... All right, and we have come to believe it an illness involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can. I don't know if I was the only one, but I misread this the first time I read it, and when I said involves those above us, I thought it was saying that it affects us in a ways that no other person can. No other human illness can. But the point that it's making here is just about our self-centeredness, and it involves those without us, which is exactly the opposite. of what I thought it meant, that this hurts all other people who are close to us. If a person has cancer, oh, feel sorry for me, no one is angry or hurt, but not so with the alcoholic illness, for with it there goes annihilation of all the things worthwhile in life. You know? That's a pretty... That sucks. I mean, that's not a... I don't know. It's not like your hair is going to fall out or you might, you know, like those commercials for pharmaceuticals where they say it may cause like nausea or bad dreams. This is, with alcoholism goes annihilation of all things worthwhile in life. That's a lot. Engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferers. It brings misunderstanding, fierce resentment, financial insecurity, disgusted friends and employers, warped lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents. Anyone can increase the list. I, you know, even still today, my alcoholism, my inability to communicate with others because of fear or whatever sick emotion is operating at the time. This stuff, the things that I did to hurt the people closest to me because of my alcoholism. And when I say that, I want to clarify it. It's not just when I'm drinking. It's when I're sober, the way that I act, the way it hurts people around me. It's astonishing. Anyway, so then they go into talking about a little bit what I was talking about just a second ago. It says that highly competent psychiatrists who have dealt with this have found it impossible to persuade an alcoholic to discuss the situation without reserve. Because if you're like me, I'm not telling you anything unless I know I got some leverage. Do you know what I mean? I need insurance. You know, unless I got one of your kids locked up somewhere, I'm going to tell you I'm telling you the goods unless I can... Do you understand what I'm saying? Just like... I never was a criminal but I thought like one. Do you get what I am saying? like i understood the the balance it was like if i'm going to give you up something about me i'm not letting you know unless i know that i got the upper hand and um so of course i would never talk to psychiatrists i mean i did but i didn't you know i don't know what kind of story i told them uh strangely enough wives parents and intimate friends usually find us even more unapproachable than do the psychiatrist and doctor uh and then this part in italics and like they say that uh at that time when print cost something you know you can just blog for free uh putting things in italics was actually more expensive i believe and so when they used it it was something they were really trying to make a point when they put things initalics and then this 164 pages that we're reading hasn't been changed or revised in all the revisions of the book and this fourth edition so anyway so this is still the way it was in the original but but the ex-problem drinker who has found the solution who is properly armed with facts about himself can generally win the entire confidence of another alcoholic in a few hours until such an understanding is reached little or nothing can be accomplished that the man who is making the approach has had the same difficulty that he obviously knows what he is talking about that his whole department shouts at the new prospect that he is a man with a real answer that he has no attitude of folio than now nothing whatever except the sincere desire to be helpful that There are no fees to pay, no access to grind, no people to please, no lectures to be endured. These are the conditions we have found most effective. After such an approach, many take up their beds and walk again, which I think is a loose quote from the Bible, right? Something like that? Yeah. So the facts about himself. What are the facts? For me, it's the steps. Once I worked the steps, I feel like what I was taught in my sponsorship line was that once you've done a fifth step and you've learned just a little bit about how sick you are, then you have some facts about yourself. And I really felt that way because up until doing an inventory, my life was... I was making heavy going of life. That's a line from We Agnostics that I love. It talks about how a guy like me, I make life difficult. Life itself is perfectly fine. It's that when I get involved, there's something about the way that I go about it that makes it difficult for me. But I could never see why that was And it wasn't until, you know, like I said, alcoholics sharing with me the facts about themselves that they learned through inventory process of what are the patterns of behavior that I continue to do over and over and over again that don't work, that I don't want to look at because I just want to hide them away in a dark corner because of shame and guilt. But, you know, you talking about your own defects will shed a little light on it. Then I'll be okay with talking about it. But anyway, this, that's kind of the facts about them so that's what i think about because i remember that it was um people one-on-one sharing with me about how screwed up they were that was what got me to invest my confidence in the program of alcoholics anonymous it wasn't people sharing from the podium about how wonderful their life is and you know oh i've got this back and that back in this back in that i mean that sounded great but when i was new i was like that's not gonna happen to me you know i'm a loser you know what got to me would be people pulling me aside and be like, I felt like that. And not only have I done what you've done, I've done much worse. And worse things have happened to me. And they shared things that I was embarrassed for them for telling me. Do you know what I mean? And that was, I was like, whoa, that got my attention. Anyway, so, and then it goes on. It says none of us makes a sole vocation of this work, nor do we think its effectiveness would be increased if we did. We feel that elimination of our drinking is but a beginning, a much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations and affairs. All of us spend much of our time, much of our spare time in the sort of effort which we are going to describe. A few are fortunate enough to be so situated they can give nearly all their time to the work. And the work they're talking about is working with other alcoholics. I'd have to say that there is a solution. It's like A, higher power. Subpart B, working with others. And both interchangeable. But I feel like both are necessary because in my experience that's what's helped me. So... What else? so they they go on to talk about how they're trying to like how they are going to present this program to alcoholics and they try to they say that they want to publish an anonymous volume setting forth the problem as we see it which will bring to task their combined experience and knowledge and they they are gonna talk about things that are controversial they say and they the ideal is to not say anything that's gonna you know upset anybody but anyway they actually where is it right here okay so top of page 20 and I'm taking this out of context but I feel like this is still again just sort of something our very lives as ex-problem drinkers depend upon our constant thought of others and how we may help meet their needs and I am glad that my sponsor said it to me so I didn't have to feel like a jerk for thinking it, but he was, like, constant. And he goes, that sucks. Constant's a lot. That's a whole other thing. It's a little bit of a lot, that's like going back to, you know, the only other constants I know are the way that I constantly thought about drinking and the way THAT I constantly THOUGHT ABOUT, YOU KNOW, A GIRL OR MONEY, YOU KNOW? Constant thinking about what YOU need, you know. Not unless there's something in it for me. Anyway, so and then it says if you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it you may already be asking what do I have to do it is the main purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically we shall tell you what we have done and it again the word choice I think is significant because it says what we've done they're not talking about what they thought this isn't theory they're talking about what they did to recover you know so that's that's important to me because then I know well it's not they're not making it up you know then they go into this oh boy the real alcohol and stuff I don't want to touch that can we leave for Rob? yeah maybe or what do we have you want to wrap up now and lose some time for yeah we can we can do that I'll just I'll leave it off there yeah I think of yeah I'm good yeah how much time we have left like 10 a little over a little more over 10 minutes I'm good with that I'll let Rob know this is where I stop what was this page 20 yep alright perfect I hope I hope I did a good job but I did the best that I could thanks for listening to me elaborate thanks now is when we open it up for comments critiques questions queries you have a pen I'll take notes we don't have enough paper okay let's do it on my invisible pad so we're going to open it up now for anyone who has anything to share I'm Frank, I'm an alcoholic I'm in here Hi Frank Welcome Hi, this is Chris Glad to be here Thank you Thanks Frank My name is Mark I'm not an alcoholic Hey Mark Thank you very much for sharing You've articulated everything Very well Much better than I Could do articulate the word articulate but I this is the second time I've been to this and I was going to the set meeting in Broadway also a good meeting and I thought I'd check this out and saw it on the flyer from the air group and one of the things I you know I I went to rehab in 88 and, you know, first tried to read the book. And my counselor there said, you Know, it was written in 1935 and it's archaic language and I actually had a hard time going through it. And doing it this way is a great thing. And, you know, I have to say that I was listening to speeches of Dr. Bob in the early 50s where he was telling the story. And, yeah, I wish in rehab that they would have had these speeches because it really brought the story, his story alive. You know, it seemed like he seemed like such a regular guy that I don't want to say I could have sat down and had a beer with. But he seemed like, you know, just like me. And one of the things that sticks out in my mind, he kept referring to, you Know, we were talking about the spiritual awakening. He kept saying over and over again, but my modern education, you Now, got in the way. My modern education always kept... And I thought, yeah, that's the problem that I've had with getting with the higher powers, my modern eduction. and I really like how you talked tonight about what reminded me that it talks about when we conceive our own higher power and that's what I believe it done and I believe I've had a spiritual awakening and that's about it I just like the idea of getting back to the basics. I don't know if you can call this the basics because you hear the basics of don't drink, go to meetings and call a sponsor. Those are sort of the basics too but getting back to the original program it's really where I want to pursue at this point. Thanks again and thanks for wearing a tie. I know the last week, last time they got to wear a tie, that would be hard for me. I don't like wearing suits. Yeah, my sponsor told me I had to. He was the other guy in the tie. Oh, okay. John? Yeah, my name is John McGrath for Recovered Alcoholics. John, thank you so much for sharing your experience and I want to thank you so much for pointing out this page 181. If you think you're an atheist or agnostic or a skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book, I feel sorry for you. If you still think you are strong enough to beat the game alone, this is the weak part of it, that is your affair. But if you really and truly want to quit drinking liquor for good and for all and sincerely feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you. It never fails. That's just an incredible paragraph. It's hard to explain it to a newcomer. I understand why it's on page 181 and not page 18. I get that. I understand that. but you know like I was trying to explain to some people that you could be you know not drinking in AA you can have a belief in God but still be an agnostic you know and what happens is time to time people on Alcoholics Anonymous you know find themselves agnestic you know and a skeptic even though they think they believe in God or say they have a God in their life you know what I mean because it's contrary to say you have a God in your life and then still be doing things that harm yourself or others. You know what I mean? And that's not to mean that we're staying up from the hilltop or trying to preach to people. It's just that alcoholism is a cunning, baffling, insidious, powerful, deadly disease. And I know for myself I can't beat the game alone. you know I can't beat alcoholism alone you know and you know when you touched on a little bit on your story where you know if you're willing to set aside you know your prejudice and you're willing to take some type of direction you know you can find the solution that's in this book thank you thanks thank you thanks sir I just wanted to say about the part that you brought up that it always works I mean, I just want to say that it certainly worked for me and I've seen it work for others and it works every time if you follow the solution if you stick to the plan it's very effective the spiritual waking does happen as you work through the steps and it's worked every time like that or a variant of that and so it's not about coming to the meetings gaining strength at those times when we all go through, I mean it's not all the promises where everything is golden. There are times when we need to come back to the source and get renewed for another day and be able to go out there and certainly helping others is a way forward on that and they're clear about that in the book but sometimes you're just not there and don't have an opportunity to work with somebody else but you've still got to get out of your stuff or the mind is taking over everything again, yet again. that's where we get up again and fight for another day. That's all I've got. Thanks. Thanks, Tom. Hi everyone, my name is David Plowman I'm here for a cover of Alcoholic Thank you Steve for coming down I've known Steve for years and I've been very together in the rooms I like thank you for I threw it at Steve that we hadn't covered Bill's story last week because of the snowstorm and I want to thank him for picking that up on page 14 it says these were revolutionary and drastic proposals but the moment I fully accepted them doesn't say I partially accepted them It doesn't say I considered them. It doesn' t say I thought about them. It doesn''t say I discussed them with my therapist. But when I fully accepted them, the effect was electric. There was a sense of victory followed by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up as though the great clean wind of a mountaintop threw him through. I mean, you know, when you get to the nine-step promises, it talks about new stuff. Right? The new stuff you get. New freedom. These are things that I did not experience until having finished my amends or being well through my amens. And I look back on this now and he got this as a white light experience whereas I've had to constantly trudge to get it. I've got to work at it because my thought process gets in the way. And I thought when I first came here that people like you would have me selling pamphlets at the airport wearing a pink saffron robe and shaving my head. But the reality was guys were showing up time is done reality was that you guys were showing up here and saying listen this has worked for us and you can get it too you don't have to you can be as sick as you want for as long as you want but the bottom of page 14 is the thing that I cannot live without and it absolutely undeniably keeps me going on a daily basis and it's the thing that proves to me that God is alive and well and working in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous is that faith without works was dead. That means I have to be active. I have do things that don't feel natural. I have the do things that don t make any sense to me. I was speaking at Sing Sing Prison Thursday night, and I was talking about the AA math, about how in Dave s world, 1 plus 1 is going to equal 2, so Dave has got to snatch 1 from you and snatch 1 for you in order to get 2. And AA says, well, minus 1 plus minus 1 equals positive 5. Doesn't make any sens. You give it away, you give it way, and you get more in return. And I see guys light up, and it doesn't make any sense to me. You know, I take actions that don't make Any sense to Me, things that a therapist would never tell Me to do. But a man who drove a truck for 30 years will tell Me, I need to do this, and, you know, my life will change. And it just seems abnormal. But it works, and I see it work, and It's not something that I thought of. So thank you for your work tonight, and thank you For stopping by. it's been a pleasure seeing you again and unless anybody has anything else we have a nice way of closing Chris yeah I just said I thought it was a little important for me I'm Chris I'm an alcoholic when you first came in you said you had a disease of perception you know I mean you said you surrendered my ideas of what is right and wrong and everything that you talked I mean you couldn't rush Bill's story anyway even if you tried because there's just too much important stuff in it and everything that I have you know highlighted is everything that you talked about and even going into what you're saying about the new ideas when Ebi first came over I have that highlighted in the margin he had new ideas I saw that my friend was much more inwardly reorganized he was on different footing his roots grassed a new soil so he had New Ideas like you said this is not natural for us but it works and that one Dr. Bob's Nightmare I mean I got a few years but I'm doing it in a different way literally taking the book for what it's worth the solution based means and stuff and that paragraph is just so literal that's what it is and it's just all this I'm really glad it was pointed out thank you Thank you, Chris. Thanks, Rich.