Why the Central Fact of Page 25 Is the Crux – Mike S.

Good morning, everybody. Good morning. My name is David Marquez, Recovered Alcoholic. Hey, David. Derek, did you just want us to launch? Did you want us do a prayer or anything? Yes, sure. Maybe we take a moment of silence and... Let's do three minutes of meditation. Three minutes of mediation? I'm going to hear this leader. If we could, that prayer. And then the prayer afterwards? Somebody got a timer on this? Whenever you're ready. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Lay aside, prayer. God, please help me lay aside everything I think I know about this illness, These steps, this program, this book, this conference, myself, and especially you God So I may have a little of my own new experience with this illness These steps This program This book This conference Myself And especially you, God Please help me see the truth Amen Alright Alright, everybody here that's going to be here? Again, good morning. My name is David Marquez, Recovered Alcoholic. God-given sobriety date is May 9th, 1993. Mike and I drew it up in the dirt how we wanted to do this about 30 minutes ago. It took about two minutes. We're just going to go. We're going to flow. We want this, first and foremost, to be a two-way street. A dialogue. We want interaction. We don't in any way, shape, or form intend this to be a shotgun that's just pounding you with a bunch of information and experience and not being interactive. So we really want you to participate. And I love seeing a full room, so there's no reason why there shouldn't be a lot of participation. And one of the things I'd like to offer to you right from the get-go until the end of this thing when we book it for the airport is a little thing that I like to call spiritual consent. Which means that I will be open with you and you can ask me anything about my experience regarding alcoholism, recovery from alcoholism. Anything that I may share or like to elaborate on or what have you. Just keep in mind that that consent is reciprocates, which I may ask you a few questions as well. Okay? I know that having done this, been in a lot of these myself and done a few of these myself that there's things that come up inside me that I want to blame you for for what you said. But it's really something that you said that stirred something that was already there inside me. so you might want to keep that in mind, too. Last night Mike talked about intent, and the meeting after we all talked was also partially about intent. And my intent for this weekend, first and foremost, is to come to this thing from what is described in the foreword to the third edition is where recovery begins. At its core, it's simple and personal. And when one alcoholic shares with another experience, strength, and hope, not one or the other, all three, is where discovery begins. And I would like to enter in a relationship with you this weekend going forward in offering that simple, personal approach to recovery. The second thing is that, and I heard it a few times shared from a few people last night talking about feeling kind of like Lone Rangers in Alcoholics Anonymous, your group. Ten years ago in Fresno we were the same way by the book group. The original big book group that I was raised in in Fresno became a shell. And I had to decide, do I want to sit in there and change it? Try and change it anyway? Or move on and do something different? And me and a few guys that I would sponsor decided to do something differently. We started by the book group. And it was shared with us by a workshop that Bob had done, the first one that we had done with Bob was that if we just went out there in our AA community and shared in a clear, concise, understandable, unafraid message of what's in this book and our experience with it and really nothing more, nothing less. With no shtick that we could change the face of Alcoholics Anonymous in our community. So it's been about 10 years since that's happened, and quite frankly, I actually haven't been in the area for about four of it, the last four years of it. You can now go to Fresno and not only go to our meeting, but there's probably another half dozen meetings that have spawned from people that came into that group and didn't necessarily make it their home group because they left our group after learning how to do this thing out of the book finally and they went and started doing missionary work in their own home groups and from that spawned meetings and within their groups we have different structures in Fresno how they do meetings they call them fellowships and they have multiple meetings within the fellowship throughout the week in any event And then you can go to about a 30-mile radius, a little town called Visalia, Tulare, another one called Reedley, where other people have picked this up. And so we've watched over a 10-year period this thing, the face of AA in our community begin to really change. The truth is unstoppable, and real alcoholics will gravitate to it no matter where they are in their recovery because we have to. I was talking with a lady last weekend who actually helped start the By the Book group and she left after about a couple of years and felt she needed more of a mainstream AA. recently come back and she was talking about this alienation and ostracization that we experienced. She felt that we were still experiencing that. I asked her, have you ever started counting heads of people that have come through the group and are still doing this thing? We started talking about putting together a little AA family tree picnic next March year from now and trying to encourage everybody that is in this little sponsorship family that's come out of by the book group that has spread out in the 40-mile radius to include Santa Rosa San Diego and see if we can't all come together and especially in the AA Fresno community to see there's always of these guys don't know each other because they go back, like I said, they go back to the home groups. So a lot of them don't really know each other and they do feel kind of isolated in their own groups. I said if you start counting heads, I bet you there's about 150 or 200 people at least through generational sponsorship coming out of what we began by the book group. And so now they're talking about doing that. and I think if they see that and they see that unity much like having the first fellowship with the Spirit you see that there's not much of a minority as you may think and certainly not as much of a majority as it was ten years ago you know and there's real power behind that our topic this morning I understand is step one spiritual one of the things that I experienced as I began to sponsor people and go through my steps on a repetitive basis is the message of Alcoholics Anonymous is not a fear-based message. And I think probably the first five years, six years coming out of step one, I was always scared to death. Like, I better do the rest of this or else. The spiritual basis of life or else? And as I became to sponsor more and more people and go through the book more and More, I started realizing how early on in the book, how early in the steps, it starts talking about coming to this thing really from a place of fearlessness. Fearless about step two. Fearless without step three, step four, step five. Fearless inventory. The fearless decision that God either is or He isn't. being fearless and thorough from the very start. And I thought, well, how do you get there? I mean, how, how did you get to where you are now? How do you know when you get there? Because step one was it never really presented to me in a way of at least coming out of it with something to look forward to than scared to death of. and then I heard somebody talk about it sown in our A family tree at Don C and and I realized that the coming to believe comes to what the first step in our book is and I'm not talking about page 58 I'm talking about the first step on page 30. We learned that we had to fully concede to our innermost self that we're alcoholic. Is there anybody here this is their first shot at AA? Right here. Have you been to AA before at all? You mean like this retreat? No, the first... Oh, no, no. Okay. So if you've been to a month's worth of meetings you've probably heard someone say that finding God is somewhere down deep inside at some point. Fully conceding to my inner most self when I'm an alcoholic is concedING to that God that's down deep Inside. And that's not a fearless place. But how do you get there? So, I have to go down in layers. How is God involved in step one? How was God involved before I even got to step one, right? so very simply the book describes this craving that beyond my mental control to stop once I start how did I get a sobriety date May 9th 1993 that I wasn't looking for I wasnít praying wasnít asking for it I didnít want it I gave up on the whole sobriete concept right after a year and a half in Alcoholics Anonymous all the self-knowledge, everything. I ended up just cashing in my chips and saying wherever alcohol takes me. And on May 9th, 1993, I get a sobriety date that I wasn't looking for in the middle of a drink. Okay? How does that happen? So then the next thing is this mental obsession where I have no effective mental defense. No effective mental offense. the book talks about that the truth is and we might once in a while tell the truth about this thing about what gets us to the first drink and then the truth is that I don't know. Anything that I propose to you about I don' t drink because and it's other than I don''t know is propping up a mental defense that I really don' ve have. And the sooner that I can come to the truth about I don'T know the sooner I can get to brass tacks about fully conceding to my innermost self that I'm an alcoholic the sooner I can become unafraid of taking that next step and two, coming to believe in something it's much easier to come to believe in something that's already occurring at least to be aware and be willing to believe in something that's all there is that's always already occurring and so this concedering to my inner most self that I'm an alcoholic in stages as we move through the book. And I do this with newcomers. I don't hold back because I think it's so important to just follow the directions in the book to get to a place that the rest of the steps... And Mike, I am so on board with what Mike said last night about step two. You think you're having problems with people not getting through the steps is about step one? I don'T think so. I think step two is the crux of it. Step two will determine the focus in which the rest of the steps are taken. But I have to get to this place. It's much easier to come to believe in something that is already existing or is already occurring. So we have this litany of the descriptions of how the obsession takes place. It talks about the most powerful desire not to drink is not enough. It talks about lack of choice. It talks the memory and the suffering of a week or a month ago is not enough. That doesn't mean I have to remember harder. It doesn't have to be like Guy Pearce and memento and tattoo shit all over my body to remind myself not to drink or what happened. Or the certain consequences, the fear of. Bill talked about fear sobering me for a bit. that whatever your fear of is, I blew right by mine. And then it gets down to this place of talking about, on page 24, about taking drinks, really not thinking about it at all. Later on, it's described as a strange mental blank spot. And a strange blank spot, like Don P. used to say, can be the twitch of a muscle that fast. I can't keep up with that kind of cunning, baffling, powerful spiritual malady. I can'T keep up WITH THAT in a strange mental blank spot. And do I have experience with that? If I have experienced with that, it talks about that probably beyond human aid. It goes on to talk about in that same sequence, it talks about, and I'll read it because I don't want to butcher it. It's an open book test, right? I'm in the bottom of 24. When this sort of thinking is fully established and an individual with alcoholic tendency has probably placed himself beyond human aid unless locked up, may die or go permanently insane, these stark and ugly facts have been confirmed by legions of alcoholics throughout history. But, which means this is more important than the previous statement, for the grace of God there would have been thousands more convincing demonstrations so many want to stop but cannot you are those demonstrations we are those demonstrations we're here okay we're here unless locked up permanently right die but we're here I can't stop when I want to stop I can stay stopped once I am stopped under any circumstances and within the 30-minute period I go from drinking to die to stopped to driving my car to a place I swore I'd never go that has a has a solution for recovery from alcoholism and at insult to injury by time the noon meetings over I've asked I'm asking a guy to help me to walk me through the steps to have a spiritual awakening to recover from alcoholism. Like that. Like I was unconscious. Like an outer body experience. That is not what I was thinking about. I talk about 1130. That's not what I was talking about at 1127. Hey, let's just go to AA today. Just stop right now. It was not there. And my sponsor asked me if I was willing to believe that there was a God that could do and did do for me what I could not do for myself, even though I didn't believe in it or Him. That God didn't need my consent. He didn't needs my prayers. He didn' t need my petitioning. That at some point, God can just say, you know what? You're done. I need you to do something else other than try to kill yourself and everybody else around you. he didn't say do you now believe are you at least willing to believe that something happened and he left me with these questions how did you get this right how did it just stop if you didn't pick it and then later on down the road like I told you last night 14 months before I actually got to the steps so he posed that question again how did your stay sober what are you doing different you're doing everything wrong in the midst of these bedevilments because that's what I dove into in sobriety just full bore into these bedevillments how are you still sober you have no effective mental defense against the first drink how are You Still Sober 14 months later books has people like you can't stay sober anything like a year out of your room how'd that happen and so these questions started leading towards really one answer And that's this answer that's described at the top of page 25. I certainly didn't earn it, I didn't merit it, it wasn't a right. Am I willing to believe that that's what began to happen on May 9th? I can't produce a sense of ease and comfort powerful enough to keep me from taking the first drink. I mentioned last night also that the treatment facility wanted to convince me that alcoholism was a feeling disease. If I could just produce a sense or look to you to purchase a sense of ease and comfort from something other than alcohol. Which was easily squashed by just looking at haven't I really drank when I didn't want to under all emotional condition or lack of emotional condition? Because I like to live in apathy. Untreated, I liketo live inapathy. Okay? And then go down from there into sloth and paralyzing fear. But if you're apathetic to that, And I think I heard somebody, maybe it was you, Lindsay, you'll watch your life get torn apart brick by brick and you won't even feel it. And it's me, the first time that happened to me that Lindsay was talking about last night, the whole thing was collapsing around me, seven years sober, and I didn't even realize it had happened until it was all rubble. So how is it that in these periods of sobriety 20 years, no matter what I've felt, no matter What I've thought that taking a drink hasn't happened. I haven't been an all-star in AA. I've just lived as hypocritically to these spiritual principles at times on purpose and on accident as anybody I've met. And by all rights, by inventories that I write, I should be drunk because I don't know what the day looks like. I don' t know what it feels like that would take me back to a drink. I know what the book warns me about, and I've seen it happen in other people's lives. I've never had the same home group. I've not had the support from my family. I've been heavily involved in service. I've had all these things that people tell me is the deal. All of it has been variable. So I can't say, well, it's this, this, this formula and bottle it up and say this is what's happening. And then give it to you. Right? The only thing that's constant is the thing that I can explain. I don't need to explain or I don' t understand is this grace of God that came between me and alcohol. So then we get down to something else that talks about the spiritual malady. which drives the whole damn thing. Alcoholism demands to be treated. Alcoholism is something that we can recover from. It is the first promise in the book. Recovering does not have to stop at mind and body. The book will later on talk about being spiritually sick, and once we straighten out spiritually, we straighten it out mentally and physically. The book doesn't make propositions that can't come true. Just because I don't understand it It doesn't mean it can't be true or can't happen. It just means I've got to seek, okay? Alcoholism, by the best description I can find, is on 62. It's rooted in selfishness and self-centeredness driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self pity. It's driven by spiritual malady. So what's that look like to be recovered from alcoholism? maybe it's a life that's rooted in being God-centered and selfless and not driven by I know what driven by is because I've been in lots of cop cars that's driven by you get out when they say they want you out but rather a life that's guided by courage and faith Faith means courage, right? A life that's guided by being God-seeking rather than self-seaking. Happy, joyous, and free rather than Self-pity under all conditions. The truth and honesty rather than Self-delusion. Maybe it's something like that. all right and at least the people that I know up line for me down line from me in my family tree that do this when they're there in 10 11 and 12 that's what their life looks like it's not devoid of defect but their life My life is no longer driven by these things. Do I fall? Absolutely. Do I make mistakes? Absolutely Do I do it on purpose? Sometimes Do I get in an accident? A lot But there's a whole different universe to be guided by and make these mistakes that I catch in 10 and 11 than being driven around by It's a hole different universe especially when those mistakes can be turned into an opportunity to actually become more finely tuned into the spiritual so we have this alcoholism that demands to be treated once I take the booze away that's what I'm left with and it's going to be treated spiritually or it's gonna be treated by a drink or a bullet in the brain pan for both and so this alcoholism manifests in what we call these bedevilments page 52 so now I'm going down deeper where's the solution now I am faced with this spiritual basis of life where else right and if you're coming from where I came from initially in AA that's screwed because I don't think God wants anything to do with me and I don'T want to die an alcoholic death later on I come to find out that there's more a little deeper going down deeper into that statement about alcoholic death and spiritual basis of life the alternatives and the fact is I can't pull off either one and I didn't find that out until later we are all failures at dying an alcoholic death but if you're a real alcoholic or addict you didn't pull it off am I willing to believe that I'm a failure at dying a alcoholic death by God's grace there are people that cried more tears shed more blood drank more booze that are friends of mine that never even got a sniff of recovery. You would think it was a merit system or an amount you drank or misery that that would get you here sooner. That's not it. I don't know what it is. It's not my place to explain it. My job is to try and be willing to get on board with it. So we're all failures of dying this alcoholic death by, if you're willing to believe in the grace of God that came between you and alcohol. Whatever you want to name it, a higher power that came between you and alcohol and then you have this other thing, right? So for the first year at Alcoholics Anonymous I'm trying to pound my head against AA, the fellowship, everything but these steps and then I finally go through these steps and have a spiritual awakening and I'm still pounding my head with AA trying to save the world, right? And I'm in this fast lane of AA and just sponsoring people and all this other stuff And somewhere along the way, a God-willed program became a self-willing endeavor. And self-will in AA is no less dangerous than self-well outside of AA. So on each of those occasions, I come to realize that I can't make a spiritual basis of life happen no matter how much I try. Now, when they presented that to me, they had to support it in the book. I'm like that, right? And so I'm going to share that with you. It's on page 44. Bottom of page 44, page 45. But if a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism, let's stop there just for a second. AA by definition in its own book is a way of life, correct? We've seen that line, a design for living. So AA in itself is a philosophy of live on how life ought to be lived. If you look at dictionary definition and philosophy, it's an idea how life out to be live. so AA in itself is a philosophy it's just a spiritually based philosophy many of us would have recovered long ago but we found have I found turning statements into questions but we've found that such codes and philosophies did not save us no matter how much we tried there I am there's the rub I come in this thing and start pounding AA with me trying, my effort, right? We could wish to be moral. We could fish to be philosophically comforted. In fact, we could will these things with all our might. Here I come self-willing in a program, right, spiritual program. But the needed power wasn't there. Our human resources marshaled by the will were not sufficient. They failed out of it. I can come in here and get on board with this program and then short-circuit the whole thing by making it a self-willed endeavor. Something that I think I'm doing on my power. So that brings me to this place. Alcoholic death, spiritual basis of life. I don't have the power to pull either one off. And this brings me to this place I can't pick the Spritey day. I don' t know why I start. I can' t define what I'm thinking or what I' m feeling when I start and I have a spiritual malady that drives the whole damn thing and right underneath there I have to ask that question how is it all happening if all that present why is it that I'm still here sober 20 years 14 months dark night of the soul at 7 years at 12 years why is that I am still sober inventory says I should be drunk 11 steps say I should be drunk why am I still sober am I willing to believe that something happened on my sobriety date that involved a higher power doing for me what I could not do for myself, the great fact and the central fact. Page 25. I used to read that as something to look forward to so somebody presented it to me to look at it from a first step position since it was in the first step part of the book. And it talked about this spiritual experience that revolutionized our whole attitude towards life, our fellows, in God's universe. And in the blink of an eye, in a 30-minute period, I go from a wanting-to-die consciousness, drinking until whatever happens, happens, to going and checking into a place I swore I'd never go that has a solution to alcoholism. All of a sudden, I'm interested in a guy that I'm going to call sponsor who is an active minister in a local church of Christ with every resentment towards Christianity known to man. And I'm going to ask this guy to be my sponsor. And all of a sudden, I'm interested in where does God play in all this? And I realize that all these obstacles that I had been propping up towards seeking a relationship with God, coming to believe in a God that can restore me to sanity were the luxury of somebody that wasn't desperate. But at the same time, this fully conceding to my innermost self, I had to at least become willing to realize that something is taking place that I could not pull off on my own ever in my drinking history. And I had the concede to the innermOST self. I had it concede that the central fact did occur. The central fact that the innumerOST self did occur in me. that something entered into my heart that did the miraculous on May 9th has continued to do the miraculous doing for me what I can't do for myself when I wasn't looking for it, wasn't consenting, wasn't praying, doing all the wrong things. And that God can do that whenever He wants to. But I can't stay there. And we'll talk about that in the next session, I suppose. But at some point this has to transition from realizing that I've had my back to this thing that gave me sobriety in the first place to turning and facing and entering into a relationship with, which is what step two is really gearing us up for. Because if we don't do that, we may not survive this thing called alcoholism. Can I add something? You can continue. Can I adds something? Absolutely. Thank you. My name is Mike Shane. I'm an alcoholic. Dave and I are winging this man, so, you know. How are you guys this morning? Good. I love the way he talked about that, but I want to talk about something else. I wantto talk about the unmanageability. I wanttok about this idea of, okay, now I'm sober, now what? Let me tell you something, folks. When I came in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and after I came out of the DTs and I'm sitting there at 1311 York Street and I was about a week sober, there was one truth that I knew and that was I could not stay sober with the brain that I had. I had 25 conversations going on at the same time and two porno flicks. That's exactly what my brain looked like, okay? Scott understands this. All right? And there's others that do. You see, because I needed something to take me away from the here and now. One of the things that Frank had me do, and I was only sober about a month, he said, I want you to go down to Skid Row. And we all smoked back then, okay, all of everybody he smoked you smoked in your doctor's offices it was great he said I want you to take a carton of cigarettes and I want to go down a skid row and I wants you to go up and I just want you to talk to these drunks and I said yeah I don't need to do that I said I know I'm like them he said that's not what I'm that's not where I'm coming from that's what I mean going after and I I said, what are you going after? He says, just go do what I tell you to do. Frank was one of those guys that I really loved that way because he just wouldn't indulge my bullshit. And we all come in here with a whole lot of bullshit. See, we're the most important things in the world when we come in. All right? And Frank would just tell me things. I used to call Frank up and I'd go, oh, this is happening. He'd say, did you pray? No. Click. I mean, that's the way he handled me. And so I go down on Skid Row and I take this carton of cigarettes down and I'm talking to people. And halfway through this thing, I start to realize something. And what I realized was this. All of these people I talked to, every single one of them didn't understand the reality of their life. Not a one. They all had a game plan. They all were something better than this. They all had the next deal coming down the pike, right? And so all of a sudden I come in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and my life is absolutely 100% totally unmanageable. So I know I can't drink, right. I know that I'm powerless over it. I told you last night when I talked that my first step basically tells me what? I'm going to drink again. That's really what it says. But now I'm left with this insanity. Not just the insanity of the first drink. I became aware that I suffered from that. But then unmanageability creeps in. Now, the big book handles it in a bunch of different ways. And I love the way David approached this idea of trying to be a better person. Anybody here do that when they were out there drinking? and I'm going to be a better person. How many of you went to church? Yeah? You know, how many of you got up in the morning and you said God, I'm just going to go out there and I am going to just be a better person today and maybe God will have something to do with me. See, I didn't really doubt there was a God. What I doubted was that God would have anything to do with me. Okay? Because I had committed every sin there was in the Ten Commandments and enjoyed doing most of them. That was the problem. So all of a sudden, I'm left with this high manageability. So I want to direct you to page 52 in the Big Book. And I'm going to go forward and backward here real quick. But on page 52 in the big book, we have these things that Dave talked about, and it's called the bedevilments. So we had to ask ourselves, this is the third paragraph down, we had asked ourselves why we shouldn't apply our human problems, the same readiness to change our point of view. We were having trouble with personal relationships. Was anybody in here having trouble with personal relationships? How about now? Who's having trouble with personal relationship right here, right now? Now I'm going to tell you a trick. You want to know a real trick? This is a trick This is in the secret writings of Dr. Bob. God only works in the here and now. He doesn't work an hour from now. He didn't work last week. If I'm praying for my rent to be paid next month, I'm wasting my time. God works here. Right here, right now. This is all we got. Okay? So, I have to ask myself these questions like that. What about today? Right here. Right now. Am I having trouble with personal relationships? I thought I was really cool until I went out to dinner just two nights ago with a friend of mine and she brought up this guy and I got this hit in my chest. I had forgotten about it. And he and I used to be really good, not in the program, but he andI used tobe really good friends and all of a sudden we're not talking to each other. Am I having trouble with personal relationships? This is the best one of the bedevilments and I'll tell you why. We couldn't control our emotional natures. anybody have trouble with that today can you tell me Lindsay that you're gonna be happy all day long no matter what that's a joke right yeah now I don't know about you but when I was brand-new I was like this I mean when I brand new it was like I was I'd be you know is static and 20 minutes later I want to kill myself for you right all because somebody walked in usually a girl and she didn't say hi right I was I was broken I was literally broke it you don't mind me going off here did no no let's have fun with this thing we're afraid of misery and depression see these last two statements what they're telling me is I have no control over me right how many of you experience this since you've been sober who's lying whoever didn't raise their hand have you ever had this experience over everything out here is great and you're a wreck right we couldn't make a living I couldn't make a live when I came in but here's the here's the trick to that question can you make a living the way you want to make a living and I don't mean about amount of money I'm not talking about that I'm talking about can you follow your dream are you subject to the man right I got get the paycheck. We had a feeling of uselessness. Anybody ever feel that? Anybody in here when they were drinking feel like they're a waste on society? You want to know why? Because you were i was i sucked everything from society society could possibly give me right i love paul martin paul martin was one of my absolute favorite men he died with 62 years of sobriety he used to sit at the table with bill and lois paul would get up and he'd talk and he go well if you feel guilty, you probably are. Alright? We're full of fear. Anybody in here scared today? Anybody in her suffered fear today? Did you have any fear yet? I haven't checked it. He's not even awake to it. all right we're unhappy we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see news reels of lunar lunar flight of course it was when we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the spirit of the universe we had to stop doubting the power of God our ideas did not work but the God idea did one of the beautiful things that happened to me when I hit 1311 York Street is I would be whining about my life and they would look at me and say your best thinking got you here Mike maybe we got a little bit better way I'm going to tell you what I find I find personally is the crux of this book and that's on page 45 second paragraph this is the whole crux to the whole book to me lack of power that was our dilemma we had to find a power by which we could live and it had to be a power greater than ourselves, obviously. But where and how are we to find this power? Well, that's exactly what this book is about. Its main object is to enable you to find a power greater then yourself which will solve your problem. So I come into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'm sitting here with this blender brain. And we have a guy at Happy Way, his name is Gene. And Gene has one of the greatest analogies of getting sober and suffering from a spiritual malady. And his analogy is, have you ever gone in an outhouse? They smell bad. but all of a sudden we go in the outhouse and if you stay in the outhouse for a while it doesn't smell bad anymore then all of the sudden you stay on that outhouse you start to build a little house in there so that you can stay in there see how delusional we can get most people that leave Alcoholics Anonymous do not make a decision to leave Alcoholics Anonymous they don't go well you know this has been a great 15 years I think I'm going to go drink that's not how it happens usually when my life's falling apart it brings me more into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous what ends up happening is that I start to just drift out of Alcoholic Anonymous all of a sudden I don't need this meeting all of the sudden eh, I didn't like what Red said last night he pisses me off well Scott's his friend so guess what I better not go back there They're going to gang up on me. Well, I can't call Dave. He might tell me the truth. Right? And all of a sudden, what ends up happening to me, right? I start drifting right out of Alcoholics Anonymous. I know people that hide out in the middle of Alcoholic Anonymous I'm going to tell you something truthfully, folks. There's a lot of people at AA that know the lingo who are sicker than shit. Everybody knows the ligo. we've been so treatment-centered bastardized anymore that excuse me I do have opinions and I'm sober long enough to where I really don't care what you think when I talk about them but the truth is is what's happened is everybody knows the lingo everybody knows how to work the system we all know this stuff so we come in here and all of a sudden i've got this absolutely unmanageable life that dave was talking about at why at 20 years at seven years at six years at a month at a week am i so far removed from my own reality right lack of power that is my dilemma i had to find a power by which I could live. And it had to be a power greater than obviously. I mean, it is so stinking obvious. I got the AAA at 25. Come on, guys! It's got to be, I mean there's gotto be something better in this world than that, right? So, the problem is that I'm left with this mind that And I'm a firm believer in this. When I'm 30 days off of alcohol and drugs, my body's as clean as it's going to be. Right? What's left is this. What's going on between here and here. I love this. I've got to tell you, I looked at this when I got this last night and I'm not going to read it. You can read it yourself. But on the back page is my, I would have loved to have met Harry Thiebaud. I really would have. And he writes that we are a bunch of narcissistic, self-centered human beings. We are. The mind of a sober alcoholic, a sober alcoholic when they're new, is the same as an acute neurotic. You've heard that before. right how do i get from here to here that's what this god thing is all about i cannot i personally cannot take credit as dave so well said but what i can do is i can sign up to do this deal but not just do this deed there's a difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. I know step tacticians who have never changed. I know people in Alcoholics Anonymous with a lot of time who are still conning people, still lying, still cheating. I mean, everything under the sun. And if you ever sat down with them, they could draw a blackboard out of how to write an inventory that would blow you away. But they never changed. What does that tell me? That tells me that just because I worked the 12 steps doesn't mean anything's going to happen, does it? Could I lie through the whole thing? Can I do that and not even touch myself? What's the possibility? Anybody in here ever work the steps to try to manage your life? Did it work? Did it work? No. I have to find a power by which I can live, right? That power can't be me. I can also tell you right now, it can't be you. There has to be something out there bigger than me that's going to solve my problem. And the only reason for me to do this work is to get closer to him and let him take it over because what we're going to start talking about down the road here actually in the next session is coming to believe that there's this power how you do that how you lay aside prejudice and what does it really mean to turn your well-being life over to the care of god what does that really mean what does it? What does that look like? How many of you had a point in time in sobriety? I don't care if it was a week or 20 years where you wanted to kill yourself. Thought about it. It's all about my unmanageability. It's all about me it's all about finding a power that will change me right i i love and i've done this okay there isn't one mistake i haven't made in aa i'm going to tell you here right here right now i have done it all all right except drink i have not had a drink at 39 years as of last tuesday how many you know what ended up happening is i have tried to work these steps in order to change my life and it didn't work what ends up happening to me as i go into here to get closer to god and let's just say i have a marriage over here that's causing me a whole bunch of problems right and i want to fix this marriage and i go through the steps and all of a sudden I start getting sponsees. Marriage ain't fixed. I'm getting sponcees, right? All of a suddenly I start making a few bucks. But the damn marriage ain't fix because that's what I wanted to work on. And God's saying no. I'm going to tell you what I think this is all about for me. God has a plan. I believe this. You want to get down to core beliefs? I believe this. I believe that I was predisposed to be an alcoholic. I also believe that somewhere when I was very young, I have no idea when, I got a mental message that said, you're not good enough. You're not Good Enough to make it in this world. It ain't going to happen for you. You're Not Tough Enough. You're NOT Strong Enough. It ain't going to happen. So what ends up happening is I'll go see a movie, or I'll read a book, or I'm meet somebody that I think really has it and I try to emulate them. Right? Then all of a sudden I start to pour drugs and alcohol on all of this. and the real me gets lost and this fake me becomes the reality of my life and I come into the program of Alcoholics Anonymous with this drink problem and I'm living a lie in every way, shape or form I don't even know what the truth is after I get here I know that I got beaten up by alcohol right? Paul Martin used to say that surrender to alcohol lasts for a very short period of time it's just enough to sort of break us open so that we come into AAA or wherever you are NA or CA or whatever you're doing it breaks us open I would guesstimate if there's Al-Anons in the room they've had that same thing happen where life got too much and they had to do something about it right? but what ends up happening to the alcoholic is simply i don't even know who i am i'm totally lost out here i'm operating under what's called survival techniques that's all i'm here to do i realized when i was 10 years sober that i live my life like you were the enemy that's how I live my life because I was always looking for the next blow to come right so how do I get from there to here to where I can live in my own skin and be happy in this world in the here and now that's unmanageability and when I look at unmanangeability today I'm 39 years sober I just went through the steps I fifth stepped November I finished my amends in December. And when I look at my unmanageability, I don't look at unmanangeability from the place of where it was when I was drinking. I look to myself and I look back at it from the point of view of what's going on in my life and my un-manageable today. Am I having trouble with personal relationships? Can I control my emotional nature? Can I make a living? Am I prey to misery and depression? Do I feel useful to anybody? Without a purpose in your life, you're not going to be happy. I can guarantee it. I can also guarantee I know the secret to happiness. I really and truly do. You want to know what it is? It's not being in my own head. It's about being out this way. I have literally since I've been sober been in a buffet apartment where I had a 55 Plymouth Ferry with fur on the dashboard it was horrible I mean this was the bottom of the bottom and who a guy at York Street gave me at the car right I didn't know where the rent was coming from what time do we go to in this one okay I didn't know where the rent was coming from a long-term relationship for me was a weekend all right I was insane I had nothing going on and all of a sudden this guy says to me would you be my sponsor and it turned me. It took me from absolute insanity to, I care about you. And I was so happy that I got tears in my eyes. I've also been in this position. I had a house by Wash Park in Denver, which is sort of a decent neighborhood. A six foot tall, blonde, beautiful flight tenant wife doing commercial real estate downtown wearing Ferragamo shoes and new suits back in those days right and I wanted to kill myself I the secret to happiness is to not be in my life it's to be in yours it's to be a part of something out here how do I get from there to here that's what this weekend's about I'm done thank you yeah let's open it up soon gonna be a one-way conversation guys anybody want to say anything questions It seems to me like you did do something. You made an effort. You actually admitted that you were powerless, but you actually made yourself go to the meeting and learned something about it. I don't understand the distinction between the two, I guess. When? You mean like leaving the pool hall and going to the meet-up? Right. Was God doing that too? If you asked me then, I would have told you yes. That was me doing that. I realize that today that on my best day, five minutes after a ten-week binge, having given up on Alcoholics Anonymous, I would have not gotten to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. I would've done something else. When I got to Alcoholics synonymous drinking was not my only mode of self-destruction. Mike talked about every sin known to man. You know, I talked a little bit about the 12 and 12 where Bill talks about these seven deadly sins and he makes this qualifier in there and it says that most of us haven't taken them to these rock bottom levels. Well, when I look at that, I look AT it like a checklist. Yeah, all but one. and that on my will would not have me going to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous was I going is that me doing that yeah on my power on my will I would have been doing something completely different When I start taking the credit for the power I think I have in just participating in a spiritual basis of life, going to a meeting, denies the God that's down deep inside me. everything in alcoholics to me is counter to my will and contrary to how I've always lived my life and I remember my very first sponsor talking about it's going against AA is going to the spiritual place you're going to be going against the grain at some point you're no longer going against the grain I don't know when going against grains stops right it seems like it gets easier sometimes it seems like it's getting impossible but yes was I going yeah that's me in in in mind and body but my will would not have me going to leave our folks nuns my power would not have been going to me about folks not especially in that condition so I don't see it that way I would like to I would like to take credit you know I can claim it I can blame that power but uh I don't take credit for the fire and Roger I'm sure last night about really got to a really really really dark place and in this whole thing about just realizing now that is only God's just this grace thing that allowed me to you know just I guess God pull back the curtain and just see like Mike said is this just get a picture of this who this thing me that I think as me is and I think I'm trying to operate out of it I have to be this me and I had to get control of this thing and it's just like you know the reason I'm here right now is is to allow this complete deconstruction process of who the fucked up fucking fuck I am how just the fertility of just I mean just the reality of just like Michael shared just this whole process that I've been through for years and years and years of who I think I am and God allowed this process to see wow you know how screwed up is that and the only the only hope for me the only hope at all is to just recognize not just myself in a condition that we're all freaking born into and what we do with it just how screwed up life is and how screwed if I've screwed my life up and just, you know, it's like we're in a church setting so I can use something out of the Bible. It's like there's a real hard teaching from Jesus and people just said, God, I'm out of here. And he said that his core disciples said, are you going to leave too? And they said, where else would we go? So this whole process of this complete... I welcome the complete dismantling and deconstruction process that the steps brings about and that's why I'm doing it. And then the only choice is that. I don't have to turn my will over to God. I don' t know where that's going to go. I don''t know what it is. It scares me to death. It's like, how can I support my family? How can I do this? I've got to be in control of this whole thing, but me being in control has just wrecked everything. Anyway, that's kind of where I'm at and what we're sharing this morning. I've gotten a lot out of this. So thanks. Good. Thank you. trying you know I'm sorry but yeah I just wanted to say thanks for you guys Sharon and really touched me I'm somewhat I'm a little more than a year sober so I have a lot of studying to do and I and I read page 25 a lot it but I really appreciate what was shared today because you know that was my experience too and I have really hard time articulating that you know, the reason I'm sober is because of the grace of God. But when I read, when you guys shared on this today and I saw it, you know, what I see has happened for me is when I came in, it says on page 25, but we saw that it really worked in others. And I just have this picture, like, have you ever guys, guys ever walked in, like on your parents having sex or something like that? You see, and you can't take that back, you don't need to do that. And when I saw it, I couldn't take it back. The fact that I didn't know it was not up to me. You know, because I pursued it in so many other ways. I pursued in church. I pursued through spiritual books. I pursued for mentors. I pursued 17 years of meditation and spiritual studies. And I never found it. But what happened one day, I walked in here and I saw it, that when I saw it, I couldn't unsee it. And you guys always say, AAO really messed up your drinking. Well, God messed up my drinking because he allowed me to see the hope. And because I saw It, I was given It. And that, to me, is like we witness to each other what we see and we allow another person to see. That first person who saw, that that is the grace is God. That's unmistakable in my life today, and I'm just so grateful because a lot of people don't get that. And it's not for me to judge why some people get it and why some people don'T. But the truth is, a lot of people DON'T get to see it. But I did. And I'm grateful for that. Thanks for all your sharing. Thank you. I love page 25 in the big book. It's probably my favorite page the whole book and because it tells me that I'm not going to like this right a guy people that I sponsor don't ever call me and say I don't like this process they never do that because I tell them up front they're not gonna like it you know and this is a program that must be experienced and the hardest thing to do is try to tell somebody who's in the throes of alcoholism that you can walk around this world a free human being and not think about wanting to take a drug or a drink or anything because they look at you with this blank stare right it's like really you know i mean they think you're lying first of all then secondly they think that you're not like them because they think you have something that they don't have. You know, I came in here and my very first inventory and I fist up, I thought that I was big army ranger, tough guy, bad ass biker and you know what I found out I really was? Ten year old scared to death little kid trying to operate in this world with no tools whatsoever the thing is and your thing back there is i see god's grace in the details and i see God's grace in every little thing we're having a conversation out front earlier about some decisions that i could have made before i quit drinking that would have just changed everything and God got me arrested so i couldn't go do that this over here and it It worked out much better, you know. I believe that I signed up for this and I'm willing to do the action. There's a chapter in here that talks about into action. It says it right here. And please around me don't ever say, how does this thing work? Don't do that. There's an article in there and there's a whole chapter that says how it works. Read the black in the book. Well, I got if you want to close with prayers or do we just close these down and Okay with ending the session unless somebody else has something else Thanks