Why the Point of Sobriety Is to Be Undisturbed – Sandy B.

Huh? No, I'm all set. Well, are we on, Mr. Lee? All right. Well, if we can go get our seats again and get comfortable, we'll wrap up this program. My name's Sandy Beach, and I'm still an alcoholic. Hi, everybody. Well, I guess now I'll try to go through and share some of the thoughts I have on this path that we've been given. And for those of you that are new, So it is, there's a lot of hard work involved in making these changes, but it's really supposed to be fun. I mean, it really is. I love the words in the big book, God's will for us is to be happy, joyous and free. And in the forward to the 12 and 12, Bill describes what are AA steps? And he says, if my memory is correct, that AA's 12 steps are a group of principles, spiritual and nature, which, if practiced as a way of life, can expel the obsession to drink and enable the suffering alcoholic to become happily and usefully whole. And so that's the point. And early on in the program, people used to tell me that if you've been around AEA a reasonable amount of time and you're not reasonably happy, you're doing it wrong. Puts all the responsibility on me. I'm doing it wrong. Well now what kind of a statement is that? You mean you should be happy when something's going wrong, you just got fired, you've got a hangnail, whatever it is that you're upset about? And the answer is yes. Well, how is that possible? Because there's enough power available through these actions to be happy. That'd be like if someone came up to you and said, you know, I drink a lot, but nothing ever happens to me. Would you believe that? Or would you say to them, do you mind if I watch you drink? You may be one of those sippers. Now, why do we question someone who says, you know, I drink a lot and nothing happens? Because we know the power of alcohol. And we know if we could get the guy to sit still and pour 15 drinks down there, he's going to feel different. And that's the same thing with the power that stands behind our steps. Once in touch with that, the point of getting conscious contact or getting in touch with this spiritual force of the universe is to experience a sense of well-being. And so that's why it's fun to work on this. We have one enemy that stands between us and the 12 steps, and it's our ego. The ego is not interested in the steps I'm going to tell you that right now Because the steps are basically You know, the ego is fast It starts looking at these steps faster than you can And it's looking in there and it's going The way I read these steps From this day forward All credit will go to God and that's not the way I'm built. I want all credit directed to me. That's why I like doing things on my own. Then when I succeed, people say, he did it! And I get the pat on the back and it makes me feel good. So I want that. I want to nurture my pride. And pride is the word. I was in the Marine Corps when I got sober And pride was, I mean, that was just an alternate word for marine. Pride, pride, pride. And I came in here and they said, boy, one thing you've got to get rid of is pride. As a matter of fact, it's the worst character defect we have. It heads the list of the seven deadly sins. Pride. And I'm going, surely there must be a mistake here. it must be that there's good pride and bad pride good pride being my pride bad pride being your pride and a dictionary when it talks about humility said it's a total absence of pride. So there's no way to have any connection with this, and it all is coming back to our focus. You know, Chuck C.'s wonderful new pair of glasses sort of says it all, that it's not that anything changes, it's just that we get a pair of classes that are in focus, and when we take a look at everything through the spiritual glasses, we realize everything's been fine all along, that our vision was distorted and it was distorted because we were looking at everything from a position of self-centeredness. We're looking at the universe with us at the center and from that perspective everything was screwed up. It's kind of like the early astronomers when they had the earth as the center of the universe, I mean the center of the solar system, and they were studying the movements of the sun and the moon and the planets, and the couldn't make it work out right with their formulas. So they would distort them and rationalize and say well there must be some mysterious object that's causing some of these other planets to have this kind of an orbit when go around the earth they should have this kind so they rationalized in order to not have to change their formula and those alcoholics do the same thing we don't want to change our fundamental ideas we've had them all our lives they're ours we thought them up but eventually the mathematics was just too overpowering and if you recall the earliest astronomer i think he got was killed by the king for changing the perspective that had been there the truth about the universe said no that's not it the sun is the center of the solar system now when you study all this it really fits and so if we're the center the universe, and we are. We're self-centered. We came into this earth and we had these instinctual drives to make us survive as human beings. The drive that Bill discussed is in the fourth step, the drive for sex, the drive för security, and the drive für a place in society. And these forces are just put in us and they give us the raw energy to function as human being. And that's what jerks us around on a daily basis. We're sitting in the office, the boss has told us, look, I want you working eight hours a day, I want you staying here, no excuses. And we say, you know, I'm going to stay here, I don't want this job. And lust says, you know that blonde that you met last night? She said she was free this afternoon. Screw the boss. You're out of here. And a force took us away from the job and we got fired. And these forces are very powerful, but they're there to serve a purpose. But they're not in charge of us. And so we are trying to fight these forces by ourselves. We're trying to be a good person. A lot of alcoholics had moral codes that we tried to live by, but we couldn't. We couldn't live up to our own values. And I don't know about you all, but as time went on and my drinking got worse, the only way I could have any peace of mind was to lower my values. Then I could come closer to living up to them. And then when I couldn't come that close, I'd just lower them further. You know what I mean? I'd say basically a good man is someone who doesn't throw up in his living room. That would be about as... And then when I was throwing up in my living room, I would have to redefine it. He doesn't wear his straitjacket home, thereby upsetting his kids. And I'd go, yeah! And I would find some value in what I was doing. But you see, these standards kept going down, down, down, because there was a part of us that wanted to be good. There was part of US that wanted it to be a good father, a good worker, a neighbor, a citizen, a husband, a wife. But we couldn't. And we knew it and we knew we were falling short all the time. So we had to rationalize number one. Well, it's not my fault. This happened. I got a lousy mother-in-law. I got this, I got that. But we knew it. And so soon drinking became a way of shutting off that system that kept reminding us. And when I think about, you know, parties make the world go around. That's what I would do as soon as I got off. Let's get the party started. Let'S get the party start. You know why I wanted to get the Party started? So I didn't have to think. I wanted to be involved in the party. Party, party, party. And then I get up the next morning. Now I'm sober and my conscience is going, you, you. And I go, oh, I get through work and I can get the party started and I shut the conscience up. And party to me meant, okay, you don't have to talk about anything real. You can just talk about fun stuff. Because when I thought about what was real, I would think about suicide or something. It was just terrible. I mean, you know, I don't want to hear about my life. I don' t want to think about it. I just want to pretend that it doesn't exist. I want to pretend that I'm really not a spiritual being. And without realizing it, I was attempting to take and perform surgery on myself and remove my soul or whatever you want to call it, your conscience, the spiritual entity. If I could take that and get rid of it, then I could live any way I wanted, and it wouldn't be in conflict with anything. You see what I'm saying? There wouldn't be part of me that was going, you know, you really ought to go home to your kids, you really... I would be able to sin guilt-free. And so, you know, he's seen movies, The Pact with the Devil and all that. That's basically what the deal is. You give me your soul and I'll give you happiness. And the happiness is there won't be any part of you that is saying you ought to live better. And so I was willing to trade it off just to get some peace of mind because it was driving me crazy to having to keep lower those values down to the gutter. And that's where we come in, is at the guter. And The View is terrible and we're self-centered, and we made one fundamental mistake in our analysis of life. And the mistake was that we concluded that it would be possible to be a good person without help. And it turns out that the way the deal works is in order to rise above our instinctual drives, we need a power greater than ourselves. So it wasn't that I was a bad person by trying to live this life all by myself. I like the word that Bill uses throughout the big book. I was stupid. I see, your plan is to go through life totally on your own. That is a stupid plan. You know what I mean? It's just stupid. We shouldn't even be discussing it. It'd be like somebody learned how to flap their arms hard enough to get about this far off the ground. I mean, it took every ounce of energy like that. And some of his friends said, hey, we're going out to the Super Bowl in San Diego. You want to go with us? He said, I'm going to fly on my own. You're not going to take the jet? No. No, my plan is I'll fly there myself. I think we could all gather around and go, you know, that's a stupid plan that you just came up with. It is stupid. Even if you made it, it would still be stupid. Yeah, but I'd be able to stand there and go. I didn't use the plane. I'm one year late, but I didn' t use the plane. That's the ego. The ego's going, let those other jerks fly. I can do it alone. I don't need anything. So it isn't a complicated thing that needs a lot of psychiatry. That is a stupid plan to try and live all by ourselves. So we come in here and we go, all right, I'm an alcoholic. And most of us have hit some sort of a bottom where the pain and the reality of our own existence gives us an open mind, as Bill writes at the end of the first step in the 12 and 12. We become as open-minded only the dying can become. All right, all right. What is it? I'm willing to listen. And listening is one of the great arts in Alcoholics Anonymous. And in a way, I really wish it was like when I first got sober, which was, there was about seven speaker meetings for every discussion meeting, which meant that all you did at meetings was listen. You didn't talk. We had some discussion meetings. I remember talking to my sponsor. I said, when are we going to go to a discussion meeting? Because I had all this stuff that was really cool. And he kept going, they don't want to listen to a guy with the wristband from the New York. And what do you know? What do you note? I know a lot. I know, I know. I know it a lot and so discussion meetings and I can remember the first time I got there. Do you think I was listening? I was thinking up what I was going to say. You know what I mean? Somebody said this and I said, yeah, I could expand on that. You know, enough about A.A., what about me? So self-centeredness, that's the root of our problem. And how do you get out of self-centered? Well, the early astronomers figured it out. They changed the center from the Earth to the sun. And then everything looked correctly. So sometimes there's an academic exercise. What is grammatically the opposite of self centered? And you come up with some wild thing like un-self-centered. That's really helpful, right? Pretty clear now what the opposite of self-centered is. And you tell a self-centred person, You know, your problem is you're self- centred. Don't you see that? You just see everything in relation to you. You are totally... You know you're right. and I'm going to fix it. I'm going to fix it Is that self-centered? I'm going to become unself-centered Instead of standing here, I'm going to stand here Different center over there, right? So we find out that the opposite of self-centered is God-centered The real center We're going to take a series of actions that will enable us to see the human race, our lives, the lives of other people, the world, etc., through the eyes of its creator, which is the real center. And from that point of view, we get a different vision, that wonderful chapter, a vision for you. And we're able to see the world as filled with loving people, able to See ourselves as a child of this higher power with this wonderful spiritual center that we're going to cultivate and grow and nurture. And we are going to suddenly realize that we are inhabiting a wonderful place. Now that's a tall order for a scared little self-centered, self-sufficient alcoholic. and all that's required to get in there is to totally give up. Just give up, give up I surrender, I give up Anytime our old plan wants to reassert itself we have to fight it back and go no, I've made a permanent decision to follow the plan as outlined in AA That is my decision If we make that decision we're going to have a lot of serenity in AA You will find people and Bill writes about it in our literature who have been sober five, six, seven years and they're still not happy. They're working the steps. They're doing all this. And you know what the problem was? They never surrendered 100% in the first step. They almost surrendered. But they retained a small amount of control just in case. Like that $50 that I saved in my wallet. You know what I'm saying? That's $50 worth of not surrendering. I'm holding a lifeline out to the old way of life, simultaneously living the AA way. This is like having the worst of both worlds. So we have to really inventory and see, have you classified yourself as a slightly different alcoholic than the people around you? You know what I mean? Are you going to give lip service to the spirituality? Do you really need this program or are you goingto die? I mean, this surrender has to be white flag. Get a handkerchief out and just go, I don't get what you're telling me. You want me to stand on a tree for a week? Okay, I'm up there. Willingness. What happens when we get willing? We're no longer willful. That's the reward of being willing. You're no long willful, willful is so painful. All you do is just exert your way that everything has to beat. Ooh, the sun's too bright, it's too hot in here. It's too noisy. The sound system isn't just right. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Constantly keeping track of everything that's wrong with the system. Willful, willful, meaning I'm going to impose my will wherever I go. So anything that happens can upset you. I was so self-centered, I like to think of myself as having a radar of self-centredness that went out to the edges of the universe. And then I would read about astronomers and they had discovered a couple of moons going around Uranus. And I would read that and I'd go, Jesus! Two more moons around Uranos! I've got enough shit to keep track of around here. Why don't they stop looking? God damn! I'm tired, I'm tired of everything changing and God take your self-centered radar out to the end so that everything that happens is upsetting you you're getting a ping from 300,000 miles away. What was that? Something's going wrong out there and so we want to be just the opposite of that just pull that thing in and instead of being a big shot we want it to be small smaller than a mosquito we can fly right through a screen door there isn't anything that's going to oppose us there's nothing that's gonna stop us from moving forward we're like a spirit a whisper of air and we're just, so who are you? I'm nothing, man. God is everything. You got a problem that something isn't right? Talk to God. I'm just, I'm going through the screen door. I'm like a zero. I'M LIKE, WHOO! Nothing. Well, you see, that's appealing. Hey, look how efficient I'd be. I'd BE happy. I'D BE free to just, and the ego's going, and you'll be nobody. You'll be the hole in the donut. You remember that in 12 and 12? You'll be nothing. So it fights it. I want to be a big shot. And that's the struggle we have, this surrendering into a nothing. Just go down. How much can I get rid of and just be an instrument of this master. That's all I want to do, just be a servant. That's my job. I want it to become... In AA, when we're new, we can be a new servant. And then we go all the way to the highest hierarchy in AA, which is an old servant. We go all over the way up to there. And that's as high as you can go. His old coffee maker and our ego is going man i don't like this plan at all so we're trying to reduce these demands trying to reduce the size of our ego so the surrendering coming to believe that a power raised on ourselves can restore us to this soundness of mind. It involves changing our mind about a lot of things. And we don't change our mind because someone produces a higher power at a meeting one night, says, oh by the way, I know you're having trouble believing in God, so hey God. Hi, I'm God, you can believe in me now. And then you come to believe. No, that isn't how it happens. we come to believe in this because there's no place else to go. That's it. We finally have run out of alternatives. We've tried everything. Our ego has told us, don't do this. And one last plan. Up in Canada, they did some tests with rats recently and powdered carrots seems to be reducing the alcoholism amongst the rat. All right? Okay, instead of that spiritual stuff, I'm off to the health food store for a couple tons of carrot juice. So we finally explore that. And the point is you eventually get to a dead end and you reach a conclusion that unless something like this happens, I'm dead. And that's how we come in here and we use other people's higher power. We have a sponsor. We have friends at the meetings and they're going through problems and they are staying happy and they talk all the time about how life is going along and we start going, you know, I think I could believe in their God. You know what I mean? And so it's just a willingness to stop being self-sufficient and achieving that to the depth that we're willing in the third step to throw all our cards into this one. I'm going to make a decision to turn the whole package over to this force. And when we finish the third step, nothing big happens because we only made a decision to turn this over. We don't actually achieve the conscious contact until up in steps 11 and 12, because there's a lot of work. And as we described it earlier, in order to achieve this conscious contact, we have to get all the obstacles that are blocking us from this force out of the way. It's like the Suez Canal when they sank all those ships in it and anything couldn't flow through. So they had to get a lot of people in there. They had to put all the mine clearers and salvage vessels to go in and move all this stuff out of their way and then the channel could flow Like the prayer of St. Francis, Lord, make me a channel of thy peace. This channel flows from inside of me out. It doesn't come from out there. Each one of us, the fundamental idea of a higher power was born inside of us. As Bill says in the big book, much like the idea for a friend. So it already exists here. It's being blocked. and it wants to go out and share this love with other human beings. But it's totally blocked by the character defects and by our ego. No, we don't need to do that. I don't want to get in touch with that part. So we've got inventory. What are the blockages? And it's very well explained in the 12 and 12 as I said earlier that these blockages come about because of instinctual drive. So it's not even your fault that you have these blockage. but it would be stupid to not clean them out because nothing is going to flow until we open the channel and as Bill writes the spiritual life is not a theory it has to be lived so we've got to go in and do this looks like it's going to be embarrassing looks like its going to really hard but everybody has the same character defect that's why fifth steps are such a yawn could somebody do something different I mean, I've heard 150 fifth steps and everybody's the same. You know what I mean? It's just I divided the fifth steps into two categories. That's about that's the only difference I've ever found over all the years. There's the guys that have had sex with a donkey and those that haven't. That's about the only one. Other than that, everybody is pretty much the same. Can you get that off the tape? Okay. If my sponsor hears that. People look sleepy and I just thought we'd boom. So we're instructed, how do we look at these character defects? How do we identify them? Well, we look as to what are the things that are disturbing us. What have I got resentments over? Isn't it funny that we would go and look at the things... Well, a character defect is a disturbance. It's sitting in the channel blocking, and it's there where it sits. And we are upset. We're upset either sexually, we're upset because our ego got hurt, we're obsessed because we don't have any money, we're obsessive because we do not have this kind of security. And so we list them all. And we get through the list in the fourth step. There it is. We've laid out everything as we can see it to the best of our ability. And a funny thing, we get all through with that and you know what happens? Nothing. Nothing. Line out of the 12 and 12. Though recognized, they are still there. They're still there, we're no different at all. We're all down, there I am. I still feel terrible. Why is that? Because knowledge doesn't help. This is a very interesting thing. You know, we keep trying to apply intellectual rules to the spiritual program. Knowledge is useless. It's got nothing to do with knowledge. You can't learn your way out of drunkenness. You could study and become the leading expert on everything, alcoholism, know everything about the disease, and maybe even teach a class on alcoholism. But there'd be times when we'd have to delay the class until you got out of detox. and then you could give this wonderful lecture on alcoholism and character defects or whatever because knowing about everything doesn't help it doesn't say that we were ignorant over alcohol said we're powerless over alcohol so until we get this power involved in this process Everything stays the same. So nothing happens yet. I haven't done that. So when does the first time we get a power involved is in a fifth step? We're going to get God and another human being. Take a look at this. And on a fourth step, it's on a two-dimensional sheet of paper, and on the top of many lists is rationalization. Everybody in AA rationalizes. Well, if one of your main character defects is rationalizing, How do we know that everything that's written on that page isn't a lie? So we have to subject this page to a reality check. And that's what a fifth step does. It turns out that in order to see the truth about ourselves, we haveと involve someone else. And this has been around for a long time. Bill writes, people of very high spiritual development insist on checking with others the guidance they feel they're getting from God. Because our egos can jump in at any point. Hey, God just called and wants you to have a beer. Oh, really? I think I ought to check my spot. Have the beer first. You see what I'm saying? So boom, boom, boon. And this is why we get such close friends. Pretty soon. We're just anytime we have an idea Anytime we haven't some sort of a feeling we're not quite in control get the phone I'm convinced that aaa had to wait for the phone to be invented to get started Could have been possible I Think the last time I did this I was talking about you know, what advanced sobriety is and anyway I'm talking about old times, been sober for 45 years. You know how you spot them? You know what they do that new people don't do? Pick up the phone faster. Pick up the phone faster. Soon as I feel something that needs to be discussed. Hello. Oh, thank you. And it's very simple. It's the power coming from someone else. It's a power of surrendering. As soon as I pick up the bone, I've become willing instead of willful. I've said, I can't figure this out. I need help. I can get an answering machine and feel better. You know what I mean? Because I did an act of willingness and I feel better So I'm thinking, you know, the world's ending. I'm going to commit suicide. It's awful. It's rotten. I call up somebody, Bill, I feel like this. And he says, no, the word's fine. It is. And you don't have to commit suicides. You're great. I am? Oh, thank you. There it is. Or, instead of doing that, we can think about it for a week. I don't want to call prematurely. Maybe I can work this little suicide out myself. i want to be spiritually self-sufficient a real man could kind of ease god out and take over himself that's the ego it's always trying to wiggle back in so on the fifth step we learn that we can't see the truth about ourselves alone that in order to live to try and live with a plan where you don't check things out with other people is stupid, stupid plan. Don't check out with other people. Very stupid plan gets terrible results. So that's what happens in the fifth step. We take two-dimensional paper and it gets three dimensions. We now see a real perspective on ourselves for the first time. Things that we thought were bad really aren't. Things that had skimped on and rationalized, they come out a little more serious than we thought. That's a bigger blockage. I've got to work on that. I've got to do this, and it gives us a clearer view of ourselves and our willingness to understand that God and other human beings are involved in having a true assessment of what is going on in our lives. Then these middle little steps that in the big book you zip by so fast, it's just like, well, I'm glad there's an easy part of the program somewhere. The steps six and seven, right? I mean, boy, we come whistling into those and read a little prayer and move on. I'm willing, and I said the prayer. I've been completed, step seven, I'm out of here. And I think, you know, I think years later, like 12 years later Bill's writing to 12 and 12, and I think he said, I think I'll flesh this out a little bit here. All of a sudden we go from whistling by to this is the step that separates the men from the boys, the girls from the women. It's like this is The Big League steps. Oh, I thought I had finished them all. So we look at these things and let's just stop here for a second. We're entirely ready to have God remove all our defects of character and then humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings. what does that mean? We're entirely ready to have God remove all his defects of character. Do you know what that would imply? Perfection, right? All defects removed. That would be a perfect spiritual entity. And so we go, well, there's no way I can achieve that. So I'll shoot for semi-spiritual. I will come up with a goal. I'd like to tone my lust down to about here. I like to bring my greed down so I'm not grabbing stuff, but I'm still looking out for me. I'd love to be honest. I'd to be... What about honesty? You want to be honestly all the time? Don't you think in business sometimes you have to be prudently honest? wouldn't it be better to just have a reputation for honesty as much perfection as will get us by okay we take a look at that stuff and we go mother teresa did you ever look at mother teresas life i never saw her playing golf i don't think she has a boat Romance? I don't see any romance. So, I don' t think I want to go that far, God. Like Mother Teresa's cousin or something, you know. Just, uh... And besides, there's no perfect people out there. Nobody's ever had all their character defects removed. So don't you think this is sort of an abstract theory? We're entirely ready to have God remove all these things. Don't you Think that's an abstract Theory and then what does bill write in the 12 and 12? No, it's not You know regarding your drinking you became Absolutely willing to have it removed And guess what? It was Everybody in a can stand up and say my biggest character defect When I became totally willing to have it removed and humbly asked, it's gone. So we have absolute proof that this step works on the worst problem that we have. So how come we don't achieve the same degree of willingness on the rest of them? And Bill writes in the 12 and 12, this is the mystery of our lives. And he speculates that it may be that the other character defects aren't fatal like alcohol was. We could see that it was going to kill us soon. And so the rest of them look kind of optional. So the best we can do is to always try to improve our willingness to have something else removed. And every year, old-timers in AA talk, well, what are you doing? Six and seven, six and seven. And that's where we're going back. What else about me needs to be removed? What else about me? Am I gossiping too much? Am I polite to waiters? Am I a real jerk going through a toll booth? Am I rude to this person? What else, what else, what else can I find to get rid of? How many more things am I wrong about? What can I do to get out of this? How can I get rid off these things? And so this is the beginning of a lifetime job. And we're shooting for perfection knowing we're never going to get there. But we've got to stop. We can never stop growing. The reason for that, at least in my judgment, is when we come into AA, we're in the gutter. And the view from the gutters is awful. Then we get through detox and we start sobering up. We're going to some meetings. We're riding around in our sponsor's car. He's got a new car. Much better view than the guter. But after about six months, we start going, the view would be better if I had my own car. We're dissatisfied with that view. That was okay for six months. But you can never stay at the same spiritual level very long without it becoming old hat. So if it's a spiritual mountain that we're trying to climb and we bust our butt during the first year and we get up to the 800-foot level and we're astounded at what we can see and how wonderful the world looks, and then we stay there for a couple of years, then you'll hear us at meetings. You know, AA ain't like it used to be. When I first came in here, it was real exciting. Everybody was interested in it. It's just gotten dull. I don't know what people are doing, but it's dull. Well, if that feeling comes in, we've been at 800 feet too long. And it's time to grow some more. And this is how it's done. It is done by getting rid of unspiritual things. It is down by getting smaller. It is done by reducing our size so that we can then go higher. And it involves not getting our way. It involves trying to be a servant to a higher power. I think all pain, and we get into seven and we're talking about pain, all pain seems to me to be one-dimensional. No matter what your problem is, the fundamental pain that is being caused is you're not getting your way. Maybe in the job, it may be sex, it maybe money, it might be this, but the fundamental issue is you are not getting your way and so we look at this demand inside of us and say, hey, you don't have enough of this, I need this and the intellectual plan was to go out in the material world and gather enough resources so that we meet these demands. And we come into AA and they go, no, that plan will never work because no matter how much money you accumulate, your desire for more can accumulate faster. You will never achieve peace of mind trying to accumulate. Well, what's the other plan? Well, there's a way of spiritually reducing the demand so they're not shouting out for anything. Oh, really? Spiritually reducing the demand? Yeah, so that you're absolutely happy with what you have now. Oh, wow. Well, I guess technically that would work, but something about that plan I'm not sure of. You're saying you could just like take my lust and just totally remove it? Yep. Well, what happens then? Like what? Do you sleep alone for the rest of your life? I mean, you know, I get nervous with these extremes. And that's where this comes in. We want to retain control. We're sure that we should have some sort of say-so about what will make us happy. And the program is going, we know what will makes you happy. Getting rid of self-centeredness and achieving conscious contact with this spirit of the universe. You will then be happy no matter what is going on. You will be independent of the events of the world. You will have an inside pipeline to a steady flow of this type of energy that will sustain you through everything. And the need to have all these things will be gone, and then you can have them or not have them. It's just a whole different perspective. But to get there, we have to ask God to remove these because we cannot remove these blockages on our own. And the seventh step talks about humbly asking. And every time I talk about these, I always say, well, we're going to hand out a test now. And you've got a pad and a pencil in front of you. Write down what you think asking God to move your character defects would be like. So you write down, okay, I go up in the bedroom, say a couple prayers, And then I go, God, would you please remove all these defects? That would be asking. Now on another piece of paper, write what humbly asking would be. And now this page is blank so far, right? What is the difference between regular asking and humbly asking? And the best answer that I can come up with is if someone said, I'm going to ask God to make me a Marine. I was in the Marine Corps, so I'm picking the Marines. He said, fine, that would be asking. Well, now I'm going to humbly ask. Well, here's how you humbly asked. We're going to take you up to Parris Island. We're gonna let you sit there for 10 weeks and you're going to watch from one foot away a group of Marines go through boot camp and you can see everything that's going to happen. You're goingto see exactly what's involved in your request. So you look where you watch and you go, oh, I didn't know. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Oh, whoa! When you finish that, you can now humbly ask because you know exactly what's going to be involved and you still want to do it. You have now seen that what's involved in humbly asking God to remove these defects is I want to become totally unself-centered and I wantto become God-centered. I want to not get my way anymore. I want a race having a way about things. Well, that's a painful thing to take that away, to remove that. I want just stop being in charge of this. And all it is, it's the pain of ego puncturing. But as soon as we do it, we feel better. That's the point. If we're willing to go through this pain of change, we feel better. And when we start seeing every time we do this we feel better, our attitude about pain changes. It's kind of like you're out of shape, right? You haven't worked out in a year and you go, I've got to get back in shape. What happens the first month? Your muscles ache. You can't even hardly sleep with the workout schedule. But then as you get in condition you don't even call it pain anymore. Where are you going? I'm going over to work out. I like it. We've reclassified it as effort. Hey, I'm just going to put in a workout. And we maintain that. And that's the same thing with this self-centeredness. When we first go in to get rid of having our way, it's very painful. We're not used to that. But as we maintain it in the years ahead, it's much easier. We realize that this type of effort It brings tremendous results, and we can change our attitude about pain. Eight and nine have to do with settling up with the past, and I can kind of go very quickly. Making amends is fairly straightforward. Talk to your sponsor. Talk to this person. Wait on that person. Get some perspective on doing that. The biggest message that I get out of those two steps is in the eighth step where Bill writes that while making restitution is very, very important, of equal importance is learning about ourselves as we relate to other people. And he points out that a self-centered alcoholic goes around the world bringing out the worst in everyone they meet. You see what I'm saying? Because we keep people off balance. We're not reliable. When we show up in the room, they have that look of fear. Like, is he going to throw a hand grenade or give me a kiss? You know what I mean? It's like and we keep the world off balance. And so they are behaving in unusual ways. And as we study the eighth step, made a list of all the people we had harmed. We see how our behavior harms people and how it brings out fear or anger or a desire to retaliate or whatever. And think about it. If your behavior brings out the worst in people, you've created a hell of a world to live in. Wherever you go, the world is at its worst. And then you come home at night and say, the World sucks. And the guy next door is saying, the Word is great. Now why is his world great and our way? We live in the same neighborhood, run the same people, go to the same gas station, the same movie, the same restaurant. One person sees it as awful. The other person thinks it's wonderful because the other person is bringing out the best in people. The otherperson is spiritual. They're not self-centered, so they are welcome everywhere. People down at the dry cleaner love when Harry comes in. They just think it's great. Harry brings the laundry in. How you doing? But when Joe comes in, God Almighty! He's upset about this. He's upset about that. Last time you didn't. He just makes everybody feel rotten wherever he goes, and then he reaps the rewards of that. No one wants him around. Everyone treats him rudely. And so we create our own world. That's what the eighth step is showing us. You can transform the world you live in by transforming yourself. You can see where you are acting in an unloving fashion. Your job isn't to go out and get your way. Your job is to go out and create harmony. That's the point of a spiritual life, is how can I bring harmony? No longer are we taking from the world. As we reverse, we've got it all inside. All our needs are being met from the inside out. So now our job is to simply go out and spread this good because we're being taken care of from the outside out. And as we transform ourselves and bring out the best in people, then we come home and go, you know, this neighborhood is just the coolest neighborhood I've ever lived in. And a year ago, you were getting ready to move because it was so bad. That's powerful stuff that comes out of the eighth and ninth step. The tenth step talks about how to live a day at a time, and it centers in on the point of all of AA, which is to be undisturbed. Do you ever think that that's the point of sobriety? The point of all the steps is to be undisturbed. To number one, learn how to not get disturbed in the first place by praying for self-restraint and two, to learn how to get undisturb as fast as possible. The spiritual axiom in the tenth step says if something disturbs us no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with us. What's wrong with us? We're disturbed. That's what's wrong. We're disturbed. We have a resentment. We are frightened. We We're angry, we're lustful, we were disturbed. And when we're disturbed, we are not fit to do business with. So what this is saying is whenever you are disturbed, stop, time out and get undisturbed. Then proceed and you will have a wonderful life. Because people will respond to an undisturb person, a spiritually centered person in a very positive way. So we have these things that come up during the day. And Bill has a four-step thing in the tenth step. First, honest analysis of what's wrong. What is going on here? Well, she said something awful when I came in. Okay? That's it. If that happened, then we'd forgive her. Why? Because you want to get undisturbed. That's why. That's how you get unddisturbed, yeah, but I'm not sure I should forgive. You want to be forgiven. Do you want me to get un-disturped? It has nothing to do with right or wrong. It has to do, do you wantto get undesturbed? Do you wanna be happy again? Let her off the hook. I hate letting people off the hook. Okay, stay disturbed. I don't care. I'm never going to forgive that guy. Oh boy, I just sentenced myself to 20 years of resentment. I got him. I got that guy I got him. Let her off the hook. Maybe she had a terrible weekend. Maybe her husband beat her up. Give her some love. Maybe she needs some attention. That's it. Forgive. If it was our fault, make an amend immediately. Go over and say, Can we start the day over? Boy, did I screw up. I didn't mean to say that. Get back to undisturbed. This is the power of the 10th step, the spot check inventories. Undisturred, undistcurred, undisturb. If you're brand new and you don't believe me, try next week. Pick Thursday. Make it your undisturd day. Don't try to get your job done. Don't do anything. Just say, I'm going to be undistURBED. And the way to do that is to allow everybody to screw up all day. Thursday. Thursday is Let everybody screw up all day. They can screw up anything you want. Cut me off. Bye. I'm going to back off. Give me more room. Come on in. I'm letting everybody do their thing today. This is undisturbed day. You will be more efficient that day. You will get more done. It takes so much energy to deal with being disturbed. And you're cut off from your higher power and operating at, which the 11th step talks about, the inspirational level, the intuitive level. The point of being undisturbed and removing the blockages is to take us higher than the intellectual level to the intuitive label. The intuitive label is where you have a complex thing you've been wrestling with and you just put it down. You say, this is too much for me. And you go and you go to a meeting, you talk to your sponsor, you just get relaxed, read a little spiritual stuff, and you're sitting around in the living room and you go, you know, it occurs to me this is the answer. Where did that come from? That's the intuitive level. That's what we want to have happening as much as possible, is to just have a flow through of intuitive ideas. I think this would be the most loving thing to do. See, it's not selfish anymore. We're looking for what is the right thing to do as to what's going to benefit me the most. I don't need anything to benefit me because I'm being taken care of from the inside out. So now I'm free to look at what would be in the best interest of everybody. Well, I think this would be a good plan. Well, guess what happens when you suggest that plan that's in the better interest of everybody? People are going, wow. He's not just looking out for himself. He really cares. So this is what transforms us in this day at a time and a day well lived changes the past and changes the future. You finish a successful, undisturbed spiritual day and then someone says, does the future terrify you? And you go, no, it doesn't because I'm imagining thousands of days just like this one. See, the thing we worry about the future is we have lousy days and we imagine more of them. That's what's frightening about the feature. You mean it's going to be suck all the time? Wow. prayer meditation we could talk all night on or all afternoon i would say this prayer there are people who have thought up these wonderful thoughts like the prayer of saint francis lord make me a channel by peace where there's hatred i can bring love where there is darkness i can ring light what can i say about those words i can say they don't come to me naturally that type of thinking isn't me i don't get out of bed going oh lord make me a channel i go oh god what's gonna happen i'm in trouble i mean blah blah that's my dialogue that's me and that dialogue has center stage on my brain it's like a 24-hour show it just comes out we're bringing you to sandy beach show get scared we're worried you're nothing you're Nothing, you're rotten. You're rotten, people hate you. People, da-da-da, da. People really hate you, da, da-, da-, dah. And that show is playing in your brain as a little stage up there, and it's just going doo-doo-doo, doo-do-doo. Get the little prayer of St. Francis. Lord, make me a channel. Now, see, when I'm saying, Lord, meet me a challenge, you remember in the show business that great big hook that came out? You're nothing, you'RE nothing, YOU'RE nothing. That one goes off the stage, and we're left here with, Lord, make me a channel of thy peace. The weather is hatred. Hey, I like this show better than that show. I've changed what is being broadcast up there. It's not mind-boggling. It's just that simple. Why watch that show? Reruns of your own brain. That's going to go on until you die. He's saying, let's get that show off the stage and put this show on. Lord, make me a channel by peace where there's hatred I can bring love. You know what I'm going to do today? I'm gonna bring some love to the dry cleaners. You know What I'm Gonna Do Today? I'm Going To Bring Some Lightness Into The Office. You Know What I'M Gonna Do TODAY? And We'Ve Reversed The Whole Thing. I'M Going To Go Out And Give To The World Today. I Wish I Could Think Of That All The Time. So We Put The Little Prayer St. Francis Away. We Go To Bed. da da da it's back on the stage and if we don't get him off he'll be there all day we'll have a terrible day so when we get to those spiritual readings we get him out there we go Lord make that channel there he goes off the stage and we bring this in and that's what prayer is all about lifting the mind up to the much better place to operate from get up here at the channel of thy peace level instead of I'm nothing, I'm rotten. Bad show. Watch that all the time. So we bring these prayers in. Everybody has their favorites. It's just a new show to look at. And then we can start understanding that's who we really are. And we can actually meditate, which means we are sitting with an empty stage and we've somehow kept this show off to the side. And we get real quiet and start hearing the truth from our higher power. And it will slowly come in. It's a very quiet voice, and it can't be heard above the racket of character defects. It cannot be heard when we're disturbed. So as we get in this undisturbed state and we can start hearing, you're a wonderful person. I'm so glad you're here on earth. You are filled with love. You can go out and help that guy you met last night. You can do that. You can contribute so much to this world. You are a very valuable asset on this planet. And you're just going, me? Are you talking about me? Yeah, I'm talking about you. And when the truth about yourself is revealed, how magnificent a human being you really are, it just lights up. That's the transformation in spirituality. That's what an awakening is. It's the ability to see how wonderful you are. That's what it's all about. You've been wonderful all along. It's that damn guy on the stage. You're rotten, you're rotten. You're rotten, you'r rotten. He doesn't know anything. That's not the truth. He's gone. There's a new message coming in and it's called conscious contact. Start through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with this source of true energy. And in our 12th step, If we simply try to do this on a daily basis, these same principles, never stay disturbed. Make that a top priority. I'm disturbed. I shouldn't proceed through life. And then carry this out freely to the people around you. We're at the end of the time. I want to thank everybody for being here. I've enjoyed it. God bless you.