Why the Second Step is the Most Overlooked in the Program – Larry K.

A comment on water. I was driving, meditating for a long period of time and getting nowhere, and I suddenly started picturing myself as sober. Like walking across the water toward the Lord. There's a story in one of the Gospels, I want to get into that. But it was like walking across water, and this was in November, and it occurred to me, twelve years before this, I cried out for help. And I was sinking, I was walking on water, and I was drowning. I was drowning in alcohol, I was driving, drowning in emotional pain. Twelve years later I was standing on top of the water. What is alcoholism? It's like you're trying to walk across the gulf. It's impossible. It's absolutely impossible. I can't do it. My whole life tells me I can do it and the first step tells me it is impossible for me to stay, across alcoholism as it is for me to walk across the Gulf. This cardinal, that's a real big priest, was one of the most forgetful people ever as far as name goes and he was invited to give an address when a priest who had been a priest of his became a bishop at this big testimonial dinner And he was all upset. How am I ever going to remember the names? And one of his assistants says, real simple, write them all your lapel and just talk like this. So it worked. He stands up and he says, it gives me a great pleasure, a real pleasure to be here in this banquet in honor of Bishop McClonsky who was a priest serving with me and Father Thomas and Father Schwartz in the service of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. you don't have to necessarily know the name of your power to have your power really work. Actually, you don' t really need to know God's names. And so many AA's have trouble with this stuff. In one sense it surprises me. I hear people say that they have trouble believing. But maybe if you can follow this you'll see that the trouble isn't believing. It's not in believing. it's in the specific God that we think we have to believe in, a God that we somehow are bringing with us from our childhood. Usually a punishing, harsh, legalistic God. And most alcoholics have outgrown that kind of God and they don't want to believe en that God and I hope they never get back to believing in that kind o f a God. But if you're like me, you really had no problem believing. You had no problems believing that when you had pain, alcohol could solve that pain. If you've done drugs, you had no problem believing that when your body was in pain, when you have pain, drugs could handle that. It isn't a problem for us to believe. It's a problem for us finding the right power because when I believed in alcohol, alcohol eventually let me down. And what now can I believe in? What power is out there that I can kind of put my faith in that's going to be the answer that I'm going to need. If my experience is kind of general, the second step of Alcoholics Anonymous came to believe that a power greater than ourselves is the single most overlooked step of the program. Usually people work at once and then they think it's worked. And it's a step that again and again we really need. And when this step is most needed it's usually by sponsors who when somebody comes with a problem point out to them that they can't handle the problem so they admit that they're powerless over it and then we take them to the third step and we ask them to surrender to God. And I did this as a sponsor for a while until I had a gal come to me with a question or a problem and I told her to surrender it to God and she couldn't do it. And I got a little flustered until it occurred to me that you know she really wasn't any dumber than I am. She knew that she had to surrender and her problem wasn't with the third step. If she wasn't surrendering this problem into the hands of some power, it's because she wasn' t able to believe that this power would help her with it. Her problem wasn' T with the first step. Her problem was with the second step. And as a sponsor or as a helper, that' s more than anything else I needed was to take her back into the second steps. And since then, I' ve seen that countless times. If you' re having trouble surrendering something, it' s because for whatever reason you don' t really believe that your power can help you take care of that. And so if you're like me, what I think you might really need to do at that moment is go back and work on the second step and build up an active faith in that power. For whatever reason, I'm unable to trust now that there's a power that's going to help handle me. Now what does this step deal with? I hope you've heard, and if you haven't, it's nice always to see the breakdown that at its simplest first means we come. We come to and we come to believe you usually hear it taken that far I'm going to do it one more time with the next word because that's really a word that often we don't hear but it's a good approach we come physically we come into the program we come to if you're like me my head was so clouded I had so much trouble thinking that I had to start really listening and hearing and then I came to believe I came slowly to an awareness I sensed that you were sober that you had the problem that i had and that somehow there's an answer and so i came to have a hope i was present i began listening and noticing i saw your smile i saw you're peace and i've got my hope but also the step says we come to believe that and it's really interesting that's a lot easier than most people make the step it does not say we come to believe in you know I'm 14 years sober I don't believe in the program I came to the program as a failure remember I don t feel I have a right to exist and my whole life is a failure how can I believe that something is going to work for me I wouldn't work for m e I wouldn t do anything for me so how can I believe in this working for me every two years I update my fifth step every two years after I've done it, I've had a deeper quiet and peace in here. Every single time I've been convinced it isn't going to work. I don't believe in the program for me, but I take the steps, and that shows that I'm doing it. And I think this is a very crucial example because it confuses people. You don't have to believe in The Program to Work. I don't have to believe in electricity, I just have to flip a switch. Whether I believe in electricity or not is absolutely unimportant as long as I take the action. The lights are going to go on or off with or without my belief in electricity. Now if I believe that enough to take the option and flip the switch, write the inventory, share the inventory make the amends, make the amends list, go start making some of the amens, things are going to happen whether i believe in it or not and it isn't a small distinction because some people will have no problem believing in but people with emotional problems people who don't feel that they're worth anything they're going to have a lot of trouble believing in i wouldn't cross the street to hear me it absolutely amazes me on one level that anybody ever comes to hear one of my talks i wouldn t cross the streets to spit on me that's my feelings when they're down so how would anyone help me why would anyone like me why wouldn't anyone come to me why what a power that's perfect do anything for me why will perfection work for imperfection it doesn't make sense so I don't believe in in this way most of the time but I do believe that the program will work and the best proof of this was I believe it for you I absolutely 100% believe that no matter what crisis you're in you do what this step tells you you will get with this program promises and there are promises all through the book my book is underlined in red first 11 chapters every promise there's some negative ones there's a lot of positive ones they're worth looking at take the book and just analyze it get a new book and just read and see the book promises if we do certain things we will get drunk promises other times if we can have peace of mind this will happen we can look the world in the eye we'll feel the nearness of god our fears will pass from us there's all through book there's promises sydney i think was one of the first who pointed that out to me at one time and i kind of enriched myself looking for it that was years ago anyway i had this friend who was working one two and three and i knew she was and she called me at two o'clock in the morning one night nearly suicidal and i listened to her and i knew there was no fault in one two or three i said what you need is a crash step inventory i suggest you ask your sponsor if you can start one write it as quickly as you can come to me share the fifth step and i guarantee you'll feel better and i hung up not that fast but when i hung out i had a moment of panic because i knew her well enough to know that if she did four and five and felt bad she would have killed herself she didn't have the feelings i did so for about a fraction of a second or a little while just total panic she'll die if it doesn't work and then i just laughed she can't do it and it will not work it'll work and i just Had no problem. So I believe that the program will work, but I don't believe in the program working for me. All I have to do is look around. This is how the second step works. And to hear that you have the disease that I have and you're sober, so there must be some answer. That's all the second steps is. You heard me share my first step. I have a problem. I have nothing to drink. I'm powerless. I have no say. You have the same weakness, the same inability. you're powerless and yet you're sober and on top of that you're not biting the bullet you're in a straitjacket sober you've got a lot more going for you there's something else in you so there must be an answer to me that's as simple as that there's an answer it answers the terror of the first step with confidence there's a answer out there first with hope and then it builds up into confidence this is real important to see since early in the program many people have no god and want no god i didn't want there to be a god a lot of the money that i stole i stole for sexual reasons if there was a god i was going to hell the god that i had grown grown up with you know just one of the reasons i'd like to share this if you go to the bible paul says when i was a child i played like a child i thought like a childhood i acted like a job when i became a man i put away childish things the things of a child and that includes a child's concepts of god And I think we should be open to new experiences of God here. We come to believe that there is an answer. 52 years ago today, 53 years ago today I think it is now, if you hit bottom, so what? There's no answer. No, 52 I think it is. How old is AA? 51 or 52? 52 then. 53 years ago if you had bottom, there's no answer. So what? people hit bottom in a lot of diseases and there's no answer there's people hitting bottom with AIDS people hitting body with certain kinds of cancer and there is no answer for them hitting bottom doesn't mean anything it just means you've hit bottom and they went right on and they were below this there wasn't an answer for all of mankind's history certainly they didn't die right away it's a progressive disease the emotional pain only gets worse and you just go on living a long time but with alcoholism 52 years ago in May Bob and Bill got together and they were excited when they were able to stay sober and then later on they counted 40 people who were sober in the whole world and they wrote a book where's our excitement today you can go anywhere and find Alcoholics Anonymous. Where's our excitement? It's like we take our sobriety for granted, that complacency that I was telling you, AlcoholicsAnonymous is dangerous to sobrietry. Bill wasn't complacent. 40 people sober was such a medical miracle, alcoholic miracle in the history of the world that they wrote a book about it. We've got more than 40 people sober we've had here tonight. Ho-hum. that's where we came to believe that there's an answer to a disease i uh in one of my parishes all three of my parishes have tremendous they're very small one church has 100 people the other about 180 and the third 40 But they're very well decorated for Christmas. We had an interior decorator go down to market and buy things for us, and just super. Eleven trees, all matching decorations and lights on platforms and everything else. First year I just astounded. Second year they put them up with my perfection. Incidentally, I don't have this anywhere, so let me share it. You will find normally you do judge others the way you're judging yourself in any given time. and those of us who have perfectionist standards for ourselves are very critical of other people because we're very critical of ourselves and those you especially who can be very accepting of yourself can be accepting of other peoples and being a perfectionist I tend to look for perfection that's my first instinct and they put the Christmas decorations up and they just weren't perfect they were less perfect than I had dreamed them fortunately in the church we have a slightly retarded man and he came there was a weekday service he came in and he didn't know I was in the church I was up in the choir loft that's where I like to go to meditate because there will be something connected with the walking on the water I can use this image to picture me above it all and how you know it's really working it's a physical way of feeling I don't belong here and I'm here and it helps me appreciate where I'm at but I watched him and he come down and his mouth was open and he walked over down in front of the trees and oh he just had such childlike innocence and i certainly didn't pity him for his innocence i pitied me for my sophistication and that's how we have to come back and look at our sobriety we can come in here and just see all the imperfections you know all these people you've been around a while oh there's you know so what clancy gave a guess that you great to get the greatest enthusiasm in alcoholic synonymous around four years people gets over they get over the one year thing two three four there's growth and everything else that you've been around and we've got to come back and you got a look at us with the innocence of a child we don't belong here 52 years ago if we had all bottomed out we'd still be out drinking there was no answer and here we are sober we can be so happy so we look at other people and listen to them this is we're taking other people's inventory and hearing other people's inventory is so important here they got my problem they got my disease you got it and and you're sober and you're serene i had the pleasure of being down here i understand right after judy started her sobriety and i come down tonight she's kind enough to remind tell me about this and then i just see such a serenity i don't care about the sobriete in one sense much more important is the serenite to see the peace shining out of her eyes so first she's sober and then she's serene, at least tonight. There's got to be some answer. Something has to be there. And this can help me today build my second step. So I look at you and you're all sober. And then I look AT myself and I count every day of sobriety. God has been holding the mountain of alcoholism out of my life. And then i remember every growth in serenity, every nice thing that has happened. And i've had a lot. One will come out in a moment. When i first sobered up my first resentment list was 52 pages long there's only one reason for that I have a lousy memory and that's the truth eight years sober I did a list and it was 12 pages long anybody else would be upset I was happy at the growth I don't know I was really growing this is you know I think it was really important for me I've seen other things my last inventory I didn't resent a single person when I took it I quit smoking in a way that's disgusting to most people It'll come out a little bit later, how simple it had happened. Three packs of cigarettes and it's like I never smoked in my life when I quit. And God has touched my life in ways, sometimes with a lot of effort on my part, sometimes without it. But I could look at all the growth that's occurred in 14 years and I use this to build the second step today for the problems that I'm with and that tells me there is a solution. I think that's among the most exciting words in the whole big book. Before you read how it works, it's important for me to know there is a solution. And that's what the second step says. Came to believe that? There is a Solution. Solution for what? If you listen very carefully to most alcoholics, the second Step says there's Solution to drinking. That's not what the Step says at all. It so short-circuits this Step. Came to Believe that a Power greater than myself could restore me to Sanity. I had the pleasure of being invited to talk right before the 50th anniversary in the Akron area. And I got to tour all the places in Akron, and that was like walking on holy ground for me in a very real way. But when I went up there, I was thinking real heavily because they had a theme for the conference. And it occurred to me the worst thing that could have happened would be for someone, when I came to this program, to give me sobriety and that's all. now the longer you're sober I think the more wretched this will be for you picture yourself the day you stop drinking being put in a straitjacket and tied in a room and being left there and fed sober from then till now no alcohol the alcoholism untouched it hurts me even to say that inside because hurt that badly the second step doesn't say came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sobriety it says sanity and sanity starts with sobriete i can't be sane when i'm still taking alcohol and hurting myself but it goes so far more it's more than an assurance that i won't drink sanity to me means something that it doesn't to almost every speaker you're going to hear Sanity to me means I'm going to be perfect. I'm gonna be a saint. And I happen to know the word because I'm, as a priest, studied Latin. And sanus is off the Latin word for healthy, whole, entire. It means I're gonna be healthy, whole, entirely as a person. It's a challenge to believe I'm willing to be a Saint. Most alcoholics say the exact opposite. They really believe they're never gonna be saints. That's how they interpret it. I've got to share this. Why it's important for me to see it my way rather than their way. I could never accept this step their way Saint to me means to be perfect. Now a lot of people are afraid of being saints because they picture that to be a saint is to have a big head. If I were a saint I'd be so big headed I'd go drink. If I was a saint I'dbe so intolerable that nobody would like me. What they basically picture is being a saint as being perfect and that's getting rid of all the things they want to do. That's an unpopular idea. Now, my idea of being a saint comes from my idea of God. Your idea of God may be different, so this is going to be important. Please, I'm not arguing. I'm just explaining from my experience, and it'll come out a little bit more in a moment. My God is a God of love. Now, love not as a lump. There's a God. Love is a process. Alcoholics Anonymous says the Spirit of God in you loved me. You accept me. You help me. This is my God. now if I'm going to be perfect to a God who loves that means I will allow myself to be perfectly loved that's all being a saint is it's not being changed at all doesn't mean I'm gonna stop saying goddamn it means first that I will let God love everything that I am and I guarantee you this will come out several times in the sharing I'm gunna do when I'm perfect I don't need one of my defects they don't have to show and a person who allows himself to be perfectly loved doesn't throw... Nobody is intimidated by him. They're not people who turn others off. They're no big-headed people. The closest examples I know would be in the Catholic Church a man named John XXIII, a big heavy pope that just was so lovable about 20 years ago and Francis of Assisi, the one that had all the... There was nothing in him that repulsed anybody because he could accept himself completely in love. It means I'll be able to accept everything that I am. It doesn't mean I'm going to be a goody two-shoes or a spiritual wimp. It has nothing to do with it at all. And it doesn't means I'm gonna be one of these blue-lipped Puritans who's so bitter because I can't do all the things you're doing. It doesn' t have anything to do With that at all It means I'm gunna be love filled and if I'm going to be love filled if I am filled with self-love I'm gonna be loving now how many people who have been totally able to love you have you ever repulsed they're not unapproachable people the people who can love themselves as they are John XXIII this pope of the church he was a big heavy man he didn't have any pretensions of being more than he was didn't had any pretenses of being smart He accepted himself as he was. And he just loved other people. There's a magnetism to people like that. Think about it yourself. Think of the people you know who have this quiet peace inside them. And they're not fanatics. The true people that are filled with love, they're nothing against drinking and gambling and smoking and cursing and all this stuff. They're too busy accepting. Going out and letting people know I accept you for where you're at. I'm happy because I belong to a church that without knocking anybody else's church please hear that or anybody else is lack of church that does say it's possible for people other they're still alive to truly be saints and I interpret it in this particular way. Now let me tell you why it's so important for me to feel that this step says I'm going to be a saint because otherwise there will be despair and giving in and accepting faults despair is not having hope the longer I'm sober the harder it is to work the second step the way it is written the longer I'm so sober the harder it is to work the second step the way it's written if you've been around a while you'll I think identify with this I was about a year and a half sober when I went to Dallas and I met this very active couple in the program they were five years sober. And just in the course of talking, they told me how recently they had had a fight and he threw a salt shaker at her. And I couldn't believe it. You can't be sober five years and have a fight. It can't happen. Let me tell you see why. When I came in, such dramatic changes were occurring so fast in my life. My life just did make when I quit drinking and quit hurting myself in such extreme ways, my life made major improvements. And I could see God if he was going to continue working as fast as he was working. I mean, hell, I'd be perfect before I was probably two years sober. I was buying hardcore porno well past my first decade of sobriety, losing my temper and all sorts of other things. So I have long since changed my own view on this. As time passed some of my fault stayed others came back there's a story in the gospel about an evil spirit leaving a person and the house staying empty seven more come back gotta feel what you get rid of where things can come back anyway so when i was two years sober i really believed that there'd be no anger at five years when i was five years sober and saw that i had some problems because the quick growth stopped the way a baby grows so quick you know if you're going to grow that fast the first three years imagine how tall you'd be all of a sudden there's periods when you stop growing it seems and it seemed like i had stopped growing and then i started thinking this too will not pass and more and more air of my life areas in my life i started stamping that way i have efficiency that's my worst trait i can be involved in a project and treat you like a queen on sunday and walk over you on monday because i don't see you because i got to get this inventory done or get this outline done so i can go down and share this too shall not pass forty five years over sober I mean forty-five years old fourteen twelve years sober I find out I don't know how to relate with anybody that's too late to learn this too shall not pass I'm very vindictive in my thinking this too shall not pass ten years sober a resentment list eight pages long this too shall not pass and the longer you're sober the more easy it is to label more and more of your life, this too shall not pass. And each of those corrodes the peace. Each of those are just giving up a little bit more of the dream of being able to accept myself in peace. I can't live that way and I don't want to live thatway. Any one of those faults might be the thing I couldn't accept in myself and cause me to drink if I say this too shall not pass. Now for me, the second step simply means that someday the fault won't be there and it's not important when, it's important that. The second step is my challenge to believe that God's power guarantees that sometime in my personal existence this too shall pass and I'll be able to love myself even with this or in loving myself that'll be removed but I'll Be able to love myself. And this too will not be a barrier to my loving myself anymore. And see, as soon as I really believe that, then when isn't important? I'd like it gone now. But if you've never been there, it's a world of difference seeing this step as a guarantee that this too shall pass someday to the other side. This too shall not pass. All I need to really honestly in my gut believe, I just had a problem reactivate itself this morning and I was a little depressed in the plane. And the important thing in the plane was for me to just work the program and say, hey, I don't know God's timetable, but this too shall pass. And it will. Before or after I die isn't important for me. It may happen before. It'll happen when God knows is best for me because He loves me so much better than myself. It may happened later, but that's not the important things. The basis for this is that God's power is stronger than my weakness. And it's just that simple. That's what alcoholism our sobriety shows me look at the power of God in this room isn't it a mark of pride on my part to think that the power that is present here to keep us all sober is so strong but my lust or my grief or my dishonesty is so strong, God isn't going to be able to wash it away and my experience supports this. I've had moments when I have been fully able to accept myself in love flashes of total self-acceptance the traits didn't go it's a fault when I can't love myself if God wants me to be loved God doesn't love dreams my god loves people he loves me and I am Who I am he's loving me now with these traits and if I say I will not accept that love or love myself with this trait it's a fault because I won't accept it but I've had flashes when I've accepted what i am at this moment so i know it's possible and that's absolute peace for that moment now there's some alcoholics who have very few problems in their sobriety i have a very good friend seven years sober in my home group who has nothing that he's done sober that he's ashamed of i wish i were he many of us carry pain deeply into our sobriete we don't all start off from the same place and we can't judge ourselves against it many Many of us have grave mental and emotional difficulties. I chuckle every time I read that aloud, because that's me. A lot of us find ourselves doing things we don't like. Often they're in a sexual area. And we'll excuse it when we're new. Oh, it was okay to buy porno when I was one year sober. But ten years sober? Hell no. I'm supposed to be a super-efficient me. And it's deadly if we compare. Fortunately, I heard an example a long time ago. I don't know that I've ever shared this on a tape about a guy who was being given a tour through an experimental hothouse. And the guy comes on a plot of grass about the size of the table, and it's just lush as anything. And the man being given the tour turns to his guy and says, there is a seed you're going to recommend highly. And the guys says, no. If you knew how rich the soil was when we planted the seed, how well we've watered it, if you see where it is, it gets perfect sunlight, and how well it's been fertilized, that grass ought to be twice as high and twice as thick This seed isn't going to be marketed they go around again and come up to another plot And there's ten blades of seed coming up. That's all And the guy says here's another one you're not gonna market the guy. Says no from begin soil was totally barren We've added no moisture. There's nearly none in the air It's got no direct sunlight and has been fertilized at all None of that seed should have taken this seed goes out with our highest recommendation for marginal areas when you look at me you don't know what the soil was and when I look at you I don't know what your soil was like into which God's love was planted you don't know how well God for his own purposes right now has watered that soil and allowed the light of his love to shine and how well he has fertilized the growth so I can't look at you and see how fast you're growing and how lush you are and how green you are and how full you are and curse myself because I'm not that lush that full. There's a time. Another parable I really love is the, I call these parables, not out of the gospel, but the winter wheat. In Oklahoma they're putting the wheat in or they will be very shortly. It'll be harvested in late May, early June. It will be about three and a half to four foot tall, golden, coming to a head and full. If you go out into the Oklahoma wheat fields in January, the wheat's going to be about that big, exceptionally sparse and green and no head at all. Now I look at me and I curse myself because I'm green instead of being gold, because I am three inches tall instead of three foot tall, because I not headed out and I should be heading out because I sparse and not full. But if the wheat weren't where it was in January it would never get through the Oklahoma winter to be harvested in May and June. And the wheat is exactly the size it should be in the seasons of God's time to reach the harvest that He wants. And I'm not supposed to be at the harvest time now. I don't know why I'm supposed to have to be the size and the color and the fullness and the non-heading out that I am. But He's in control. And it's just that simple. And He's going to win. As I shared with you, i saw this in relationships my first inventory had a resentment list 52 pages long 12 years sober i had to did a resentment that didn't blame anybody else and that's why i was finally able to look at relationships for 12 years i thought that my relationships were a mess but i blamed you for it all this resentment went out to other people you were why my relationships were a myth i had do that to work the anger out finally i worked the anger out and I stopped blaming you and my relationships were a mess and I could see what I was doing wrong now at this point what am I going to do am I ever going to be able to relate am I gonna be a hermit the rest of my life am I gonna run over and touch people live with memories I don't want to do that I don't wanna I don' t want an eternity like that I don''t want a life like death and I need somehow to believe that there's a power that can help me and I believe this is just me what I don't expect God to change he won't force me to accept his changes and that's why it's important for me that I don t accept the second step the way other people do if I say this too shall not pass I think it hurts God but he'll accept my freedom and won't force his love and his changes upon me so I block his power in my life and so the principle of the second-step for me is confidence the despair in myself is mismatched by a confidence in God. Now, confidence isn't the despair is based on me and alcohol. The confidence is based upon God, and it's absolute. Step one demands step two. If you despair enough, you scream out for an answer. I could phrase this in the Bible word hope, but the Bible world hope is different from the English word hope. The English word hope means I wish that, and it's possible. When you hear a faith hope, hope in the Bible is something based on God. God is certain, God is unchanging, and he can't be frustrated. So it is absolute confidence. And like years ago there was faith, hope, and charity, but charity in English came to mean giving alms to the poor, and so they made it faith, help, and love. Today they really ought to trust in faith, trust in love, or faith, confidence in love. And that's principle of the second step. Absolute confidence that God will work this through. And carrying it the example that i used of walking on the water after i thought of this walking on the water but that's what sobriety was as impossible as that and yet i was on top of the water which means some miracle was occurring in my life i came to an aa meeting and before the meeting began there were about 80 of us sitting around in a big circle and i kind of just went off into a meditation i pictured all of us off in a lake it's one thing for me to be on top the water it's just so much more for 80 of to be on top of the water how much more that tells me about the power of god and i came to see that my god in my life was like a real stat there was a lamp a light up there with a hundred thousand watts and i had the real stats set on two watts and i'm walking around bumping into everything and hurting myself and i've got to see how much power is there now if god can keep me sober and you sober if god could give me touches of sobriety and have peace shining out through your eyes how How much more power is here? And when we look at each other and we see the growth, the early quick growth that newcomers have sometimes and then the long-term growth, the people with 25 plus years sober who breathe such a quietness and you pull all that together, God's got a mountain of power and I've got a mohill of problems. And it's going to happen. It's just so simple. As I go through the remaining steps, I'm going to add two things. I gave a workshop on this big book and I approached it with two clues one from the 12 and 12 where it says that every step after the third step has action and when I did this workshop I was surprised at the specific actions the big book recommends and I'm going to share those with you and I think you're going to be surprised please, when I get to a step and you hear what the book says and you haven't done it you did the step to the rest of your ability. Know that there is something else there that someday, if you want, you can go back to enrich possibly your understanding of the step. I am not saying if you didn't do it this way, you didn'T do the step As a matter of fact, that upsets me and I'll comment on that in a moment. So I'm going to look for the actions. The second thing that occurred to me was something I remember Joe and Charlie said and that is that every step has prayers and I started looking for the prayers and I'm gonna share with you the prayers of the steps and I start off my day running through first the first step quickly trying to see I'm powerless over whether I drink today hitting that despair like standing up in a choir loft and walking straight out I can't do it I can not stay sober second step confidence remembering that I think of people who died sober you know I told you about the priest that died drunk I have some tapes of Wesley Parrish who died Bob White who died sober, Norm Alfie who died sober and I balanced them. One tape tells me yesterday's program isn't today's answer and complacency doesn't belong. The second step tells me God does walk with people all the way through their life and if his power will keep us over to the end if we allow that power to stand between us in a dream and so I can walk through this but anyway so I do one and two and then I do each of the prayers real quickly and so when I go through the prayers from now on I will point out what the prayer is and do that the last thing I want to share if we wrap up the second this is in between two and the rest of the program is real controversial if you're a big book fanatic it's the big book the only way some hold that if you haven't done a step exactly the way it's in the big book you haven' t done the step I've heard people who have written rings on their inventory talk about it at a meeting I've heard of them I wasn't there and somebody will say well you didn't do it way the big book said, so you didn't do the fourth step. I'd like to suggest that Bill felt there are several ways to do a step and that Bill did not say the big book is the only way to do it. And the proof I'd like to offer you are two books that Bill authored, the big book and the twelve in twelve. And I want to offer you three points where Bill contradicts himself between the two books. In the big book in the fourth step bill will give you a specific way to do an inventory and i'm going to cover that and i think it can be very well done this way but if you pick up the 12 and 12 bill basically in the big book says you inventory resentment fear and sex being all relations you go to the 12th and 12th you may have missed this but from the third step on he divides life into three basic areas of problem. Security, emotional and financial material. Society, our need for companionship. And sex. I think that's the third. I don't know if the other. Sex, society, and security. And it comes up with an entirely different analysis that you can't fit into the fourth step at all of the big book. Now that one you might argue about but I don' t think you can argue about the eighth step. In the big book, it's very clear. You reach the eighth step. Bill says you got your list when you did the fourth step. It's done. You don't do an eight-step list. You got it already when you Did your fourth step now pick up to 12 and 12 and on the first page of the 12 and 12 on step 8 you will read bill say I didn't copy it all down here. You get it later on that Now that we did a partial list I'm going to refer to this I know when we get to the eighth step we did we got a partial list of people we had harmed when we did our inventory. Now the time comes to redouble our efforts and search much more diligently. Fifteen years after Bill did the big book, he no longer thought that it was adequate to stand with the inventory of the fourth step for an eight-step list. When Bill does the eleventh step, Bill says, start your day. Think about it. If you have indecision, wait. Wait for an impulse and act on it. Yes, you'll be mistaken, but it's good to act on it. Look at the 12 and 12. 15 years later, Bill must have seen all sorts of nutty things being done under the name of God's impulses. He specifically attacks that and says, don't do it. That much damage is done when we wait for God, listen inside ourselves and act on the impulses that we shouldn't do it. I'm not saying any of those are right or wrong. I'm saying if Bill could give us both sets of books, the important thing is that I write in inventory, not how I write it. I hope to give you the big book approach to each of the steps except for the eighth when I'm going to go off into the 12th and 12th and tell you why I think it's so important. But I would like you also to know that I personally think that Bill offers a variety of ways and I certainly do and I definitely hope if you want to do it the big book way you do it but please don't inject such fear into somebody it's like a sense of damnation you tell me i didn't do my fourth step and i'm gonna i'm programmed to listen i'm going to feel i'm to get drunk don't do that to somebody else you tell them you share your experience and that's all this is my experience this will be how i've worked the steps going on now to the third step first day of medical school huge huge huge group 500 students structure gets up and says now listen one year from now one fourth of you that's going to be here because you're not paying attention and you're not learning how to do things you've got to learn you got to pay attention every single thing that's done here you've to remember everything we do you've got to be able to walk through all the experiences now we're gonna start off and you don't have to do a lot of unpleasant things cut up dead bodies remember things in all sorts of things like this today you got to learn to see how exactly urine tests now i have here a bottle of urine i'm going to dip my finger into it and taste it i'm gonna pass it around i want all you to do the same and they started laughing he said i'm serious and he watched and they started passing it around and people would they were gagging some would taste it and he said you know this is part of your course you do it or you leave and some were gaggin and throwing up some would tasted and just run right out and got all through and he says now i want y'all to notice something when i picked the cup up I told you to be observant. I dipped in my index finger and I tasted my middle finger. The first thing you got to do is follow directions. Remember that for the third step please. There was a beggar who in his whole life had never done anything good. I mean there was a rich man, never done anything good in his whole life. One day he's walking down the street and a bum is pestering him, won't let him go. He's clapped around his leg, won' t let him go. And just to get rid of him, he reaches in his pocket, finds a dime, flips it to the bum and walks off. He dies and he comes to the pearly gate and Peter sees red, red, red, and black. Gave a dime to a poor man. Doesn't know how to handle that. He says wait a moment. Goes in, says Lord we have one of the worst people who ever lived out there. His book is all read except once he gave a dime to a poor man, what should I do?" And the Lord said, that's easy. Give him back his diamond and tell him to go to hell. I like both of these examples because to me the third step isn't patting God off and buying them. The first step is basically learning to follow directions. Now let me again go back to believing. During my drinking, I got my first car. I was about 28 years old. It was brand new and I smashed it. After I smashed it, I went into a deep depression and I turned my life and my will over to the care of alcohol. I had absolute trust that alcohol would take away the pain and it did. I got drunk. The only trouble was the depression was there the next morning and so was the smashed car. But I had no trouble turning my life in my will, over to care of a power greater than myself, believing that that power would restore me to sanity and it did. It took away the pain through that period of time. So I feel again, we who are alcoholic or drug addicted we have the ability to put our life in the power of almost every one of us. Again and again and again with full faith went to some power greater than us to give us what we couldn't give ourselves. Believing that it would take care of us What we need is a power that will work when alcohol has stopped working I want to first deal with a set of misconceptions because they're so important. What the third step doesn't deal with the third step of Alcoholics Anonymous for me now this is doesn't feel with feelings at all I don't think I have any control over my feelings I can stand up here and not want to be here I can stand up hearing feel hatred for every one of you I can stand up hear and feel greed and lust and the third step doesn' t deal with that in any form at all so many of us identify being religious with feeling holy, something we felt as a child. It isn't that at all. I've seen people who have had profound religious experiences coming back from treatment in other places and they were new people and they were drunk six months later. They felt wonderful but they didn't follow it up with any actions. I don't have much control over what I feel. When I walk into a room I automatically feel an attraction for about seven percent of the people, a repulsion for seven percent and no feeling for the other and it's because of program tapes maybe an uncle with your kind of glasses was nice to me or mean to me and I there's some some connection I can't control that the feelings are just automatic and our feelings are shared with animals animals have feelings I've had dogs as pets and every feeling I have I yeah I'm one of my dogs which is so naked in the feelings I spotted in their dog everyone my relationship with God isn't based on on the area of me that I share with pigs and hippopotamuses. It's based on something different. And it has no reference to my thoughts. I used to think I was very free with my thoughts, but with a lot of sponsoring in AA, I've learned that about, and this is my guess only, seven out of ten of our thoughts are rationalizations. They're my mind playing tricks with me to convince me, coming up with good reasons for a bad action and saying it's why I ought to do it. the way I like to describe this when you see a sponsor and you watch these idiots your sponsor running full speed off a cliff shouting ain't the view grand and you got to rub them for each other and grab them by the collar and pull them back down now I've been able to see that with my own sponsor I see him running full speed off a Cliff thinking the view is grand and his sponsor stopping him and I wonder why am I the only sane one just about then I feel a tug on the back of my collar and I look down. I always think I've got a good reason. The view is grand. I mean, I know the view is good. It just, it's going to be dumb. The third step deals with actions. Clancy shared this and I heard it very much. He says, you know, I can be at a meeting and I'm going to give the comparison and you can ask me to drive you home and I can feel a dislike for you. I can think, I've Got a Lot Better Things to Do Than to Drive Home a crud like you well one instance i saw someone in a club that i couldn't stand at all he was retarded he had the disease of epilepsy and nobody had ever helped him with it he had never been taught any social graces at all didn't know how to eat in a restaurant took him out for his first year birthday and he tried to eat a steak the way i could i watched him i shouldn't have taken there if i knew this i wouldn't have because it embarrassed him and finally he gave up and his way of eating steak was his hands were dirty he put them on the steak grabbed a fork and was chalking off chumps. I was dying there, prissy Easterner. Oh God, don't let anybody see me. I didn't like him. I thought I was better than him. I watched him and he couldn't stay sober. I walked up to him and said, I want to be your sponsor. I think I can help you. I can only control my actions. For a year and a half I sponsored him and he didn't take a drink. Briefly, God rewarded me. One day he read how it works and I saw the simplicity of God shine through his eyes more clearly than ever seen God's simplicity in anybody else. A week later I wanted to kill him again because I drive him home from meetings and he'd say the same sentence all the way home. I died. I can't control the feelings, I can' t control the thoughts, I can control the actions. Life and will. Made a decision not to turn my feelings and thoughts but my life and my will. That's the area where I think and where my thinking leads to the actions I should take, my judgment. The third step has nothing to do with perfection. So many people don't start their inventory because they're still lusting, they're stealing. I lied before my step, I lied after. I stole before my step from the church, I stole after. I hanky-pankied before, I harky-kankied after. It had nothing to do with the third step. If I become perfect in the third steps, I don't need the rest of the program. I'm perfect already. You don't eat four, five, six, seven, eight, nine if you're perfect or ten. They don't fit. It doesn't deal with that. The third step doesn't refer to God's will. Now that's a big shock. a year and a half sober there's a meeting and a guy who was in the program a month before me a doctor who can look so simple all of a sudden his face light lit up and he had this simple little view and he says do you know God's will is never mentioned in the third step it says made a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of God doesn't say anything about to the will of God the care of God and there's a good reason for that you ever hear the advice to a newcomer grab your ears with your hands and pull until you hear the plop means your head's coming out of your butt. Most newcomers have their head so far up their butt they can't see it and they're at God's will they're seeing, I'm telling you. It just isn't at all. I've seen tons of damage done by people who were sure they were doing God's Will and that's on the third step. They got all their flaws and their faults. One of the neatest ones, Sidney and I knew him, was a guy who felt he could drive anywhere in Texas at any speed to an AA function and God would take care of him. God did. He sent the sheriff after him. And the sheriff nailed him and he finally learned how not to speed in Texas going to AA meetings. And it was just that simple. It doesn't deal with God's will. So often God's Will ends up being what I lust for. Marriages are broken up. All sorts of things happen that way. Now, what is the step for me? It means I surrender my life and my will to a power. I didn't have any trouble with this because, see, as a priest, God didn't work. I was praying every day. There wasn't a God. I didn' t want there to be a God, so I didn''t believe in God. And I didn ''t come to the program first. I got to tell you what I did. I came to a person first. And I found a sponsor before I found the person. And I surrendered to the sponsor. And he took me to my meeting the next day. And for 14 years, I have done everything. I've had the best sponsorship available to me I've done everything my sponsor has told me to do and I haven't found it necessary to take a drink that's the third step to me just that simple I turn my life and my will over to God's power I found a sponsor I found alcoholics synonymous and through that I woke up one morning and there was a God that's still my chain of command though the sponsor is my chain of command, the God for me still I've down everything I've been told with the best Sponsor and I get only one and only one sponsor you might be different and there are different reasons But you see if I had two sponsors, I'd split my symptoms. I saw somebody doing that I give you half the symptoms and you have the symptoms And you both misdiagnosed my disease if I head to sponsors I would know which of you is more likely to tell me what I want to hear is the solution for this disease And I would go to you if I hit two sponsors I would play you off against each other and enjoy the game. I can't do that. I'll die when I'm playing those games the only thing I need a backup sponsor if I can't get to my sponsor in an emergency because I had that happen once I need to know there's somebody there that I can call with my sponsors permission and I need regular contact with my sponsor I call him once a week at a set time I kind of drifted into that I had somebody I sponsored start doing it and he just started growing and I suggested it to someone else and to somebody else. This was, I was 10 years sober and I began noticing half the people, all everybody I was sponsoring who called once a week at a set time was growing. All the rest were treading water. I still have one person who's not doing it and he's still treading water. All the other all the rest of them call at a certain time. 9, 30, 10, 1030 11 o'clock at night Sunday, Monday, Tuesday Wednesday Thursday 10, 30 and 11 There goes all that damn prime time television right out the damn window you sit there and you listen but I watched a lot of good programs and got drunk so and hell you hear a lot more exciting things you know when the full moon's out these damn drunks when three of them are going crazy at the same time as the world turns ain't fast enough for this crew I can share that because none of them aren't here sometimes I get embarrassed some of them around I just shared this I was asked to introduce somebody that I sponsored at a meeting the other day and I said well the first thing I can tell you is, he's sick. If you were healthy, would you ask me for a sponsor? Would you come up to me and say, I want what you have? The only way you're going to say that is if you're worse off than I am and look at me and know how sick he is. That's your speaker for tonight. Here he is! So, now watch this because this is the truth. I get everybody but two people I'm sponsoring to call in once a week noticing that everybody at a regular time everyone who's doing it is growing and those who aren't are not growing at that point I called my sponsor and I said do you think I ought to have a regular timeto call you I learned very slowly and he's commented on how much I have grown since I've been calling him regularly I call my sponsor at nine o'clock on Wednesday mornings I've done everything he's told me to do now Now, this is my advice for a sponsor. A sponsor should be someone who has worked... First thing I want to know, walk up and say, Who's your sponsor? If they don't have a sponsor, I don't want them to sponsor me. Ask them who they did their fifth step with. Because they haven't done the fifth step, I don'T want them To sponsor me They don't know themselves And they can't share themselves And then I want them TO know the eighth step I want Them to have done the eighth-step list And that will come out when I reach the eighth Step boy I've now started adding that and somehow or other I can identify with them and I'm able to talk with them my first sponsor was excellent but I couldn't share with him he didn't want to hear about sex and every time I'd go there I feel like I was imposing if I have the best doctor but I can't ever get him he's no good for me I need the best available for me and I have that today when I had hemorrhoid surgery I had the best Doctor in the Southwest think it brain surgery well i'm polish it might have been i deserve the very best now the surgeon that i got wasn't that funny we got a sick group back there that's what we've got the surgeon though i got had the worst bedside manner that i've ever seen he'd stick his head in the door say how are you before you can answer he was gone and somebody complained I didn't hire him for his bedside manner I hired him for his ability as a surgeon in periods of my sobriety my sponsor has been screwed up my sponsor has been moving around so much lately he's been in like eight cities in the last year and a half that somebody else he sponsored said he stopped writing his phone number down with ink and he used his pencil it's easier to erase it by the week when he has a new phone number but I've never gone to him with a problem that God has not given him the answer I need that's what I go to him for not for where he lives not for his bedside matter but for the way God is using him help me in my life and he's good for me see with my mind over educated my strong personality my profession i can come at some people who have three times my serenity and sobriety and i can just bowl them over i come full steam at my sponsor and bounce off and wonder what the hell i hit and that's what i need i mean he just doesn't understand me he walked up to to me once and he says you dress like a Pittsburgh pimp or a Philadelphia fag change he forgot how sensitive I am I was dressing in ways and you've seen people do it that was pushing people away I want to be accepted and I was rejecting people by the way I was dressed now I dress to be excepted not to be rejected and to fit in I've done everything he has told me to do not everything he suggested I do everything he's told me I haven't done it willingly. I've been angry and furious at him. I haven'T done it fast. I've waited six months to nine months and then asked myself, why the hell am I waiting this long? And saw that his suggestion was touching ground I didn't want to walk on. I've done things to prove him wrong. He told me to inventory my relationship with an AA club and I'd learn something. I knew there was nothing new I was going to learn. And I was happy when for four pages of writing nothing came out. Angry when I learned a little bit in the last sentence, paragraph. Then I went to share it with them and what I really was missing was right in there every paragraph I mentioned some woman's name. I didn't have trouble with the club I had trouble with a woman who was a strong woman like my mother and I missed that completely. And I learned and I was furious when he was right. I did it to prove him wrong. I'm angry when things work. The last thing he told me I went to him with a problem. I said, I'm cutting down my meditation time. I do all sorts of silly things before meditating and I end up either not meditating or with far less time than I need. He said, Larry when you meditate from now on write the whole meditation out as you're doing it. Now, that's silly I've never heard anybody give that advice to anybody. I don't know anybody who writes their meditation You know every so often you wonder is the damn guy going senile I came up with a problem on how am I gonna condition myself to meditate? I'm wasting time here He gives me a new technique of meditation Stupid I did it. It's worked I'm angry. I've had the best meditations and I've been more regular than I've ever been big things for me I haven't argued with them I don't get into what I call the asshole complex but but but you don't understand I gotta tell you a lot of Al-anons do this one I've given advice to a lot of Al-ans and they'll sit there and listen as soon as you're done but you don't I understand they agree but here's a big difference and I don t ask him to explain everything I just do it I fired somebody I sponsored who wouldn't do anything until i showed him why he was doing it i said there's a world of difference between surrendering and agreeing you want to agree that isn't my understanding of my step and i can't lead you down that road so you really should have someone else so it's just uh i haven't agreed i haven't but i i don't argue with them and i don' fight them i don''t even fight them passively and that's so interesting because i have a total hate of authority until recently i fought all authority everywhere but i did everything he told me i've just done it maybe i'm scared scared crapless of them that's one of the reasons but at the same time i stay a person he says you only do one fourth step and one fifth step he's one those you do one through nine once and then the maintenance steps when he's there every time i tell him i've updated my fourth and fifth steps every two years and he commented on this because that's a small point he doesn't object to my doing this he'd rather i say it's the 10 step but that's a small point and i'm staying alive and he has shared we have different understandings of the steps so i do what he tells me but i i i'm me i'm a person and even he respects this now this is just me but I believe that if you have the best sponsorship available you're using the sponsorship and you're doing what your sponsor tells you and the sponsor tells you to do this program you cannot get drunk as long as you're working on the step you're supposed to be working on. See, I don't care if people I'm sponsoring are doing their fourth step. I don' t care how long it takes. I don''t care how bad they feel. I honestly believe if they try to write 10-15 minutes daily God will not allow them to get drunk no matter what they think. Now, I buy that. You may not. This person I sponsored called me up 15th of December and says, I want you to know, drug addict I went out and scored some pills and I'm taking them December 1st if I don ''t feel better and don'' t you even say anything and hung up. I've told her this before, you know. If you buy pills and you really want to take them, who's the last person on earth you're going to call up and tell about it? But anyway. I panicked. And then I figured, no, she can't get drunk. She's doing exactly what I told her to do. She's writing an inventory. She's working with others. And she didn't. That was November 15th, January 15th. She had the highest high she's ever had in the program. She was so straight about seven, eight years. So high that she was in a church and the sermon was on prayer and she could not think of one thing that she wanted to ask God for. She had everything she needed in here. So it'll work. Let me comment upon God. I can't understand God. God is bigger than me. To understand something, it has to be my size. I can experience God. That's I know how he touches me or she touches me, or God touches me This is real important very important if you've heard it bear with me because it's worthwhile remembering Three blind men had never experienced an elephant or heard anything about an elephant they're privileged to tour a circus and they're taken into the elephants to attempt where an elephant is and one comes up and he Touches the side and he says an elephant Is an animal like a barn door? The other comes up and he puts his foot around the elephant's leg and says, an elephant's an animal like a tree. And the third has the elephant tail and says an elephant is an animal like a thin snake. They're all right and they're all wrong. They're alright if they say this is the experience I have had of what the elephant is. They're wrong if they said this is just what an elephant is. I experienced God. I can't tell you what God is. I was blind. I never saw him and he's allowed me to touch a part of him. I can not say that this is all that he is or this is what you are experiencing. It's not even what you should be experiencing. I think God touches me the way I best need to be touched because he knows me and I think he touches you differently Because you're different. We can't be the same or got to be wasteful in his creation So we can't have the same God that we're experiencing Therefore the God is bigger than what the church has experienced See when I first did the third step I eventually thought it had to be goddess of Catholic Church understood them because I know we had him And that isn't it at all is. I mean, good night. I wouldn't want them to be that small or any church. I think people in the church have an experience of God and I think a lot of them make the mistake of saying God is only the side of a barn. God is on the tree trunk. It's valid to say the God we experience is this and I can't say they're wrong in their experiences and I shouldn't. I can just say what I experience, the God that I'm experiencing. And along with this there's only one requirement in the program and that's honesty. And that's how I've got to experience my God and that' s how I got to express my God. I don't force a belief and when I'm angry at God I tell him off. I've cursed God sober. Told him to screw himself in the stronger terms. And I think it's one of the most honest prayers I've ever said because I got the anger out and his peace could flow in. So bride is a miracle. I believe. And if I'm sober then God's working a miracle for me. and if you're sober God's working a miracle for you I don't have to force my beliefs on you I don' t force any beliefs on you because see you're sober God's given you a miracle I don''t think he works miracles for his enemies so he's content with where you're at and our book says you either grow spiritually or you get drunk and if he wants you in some specific belief and in some church you're going to get there or you'll be back drinking but you won't get there until he wants you there and you shouldn't get there until he wants you you will feel uneasy. You will feel unsatisfied at some point unless you look for more. And I trust Him enough. And finally, this is for people who... You have people who occasionally feel they've got to preach God so strongly. It occurred to me that any God that needs me to defend Him is pretty damn weak. And my God doesn't need me to depend on Him. He doesn't want me to offend Him at any time at all. Now let me give you some comments on AA in church. again let's go to a disease if I had appendicitis tonight and was rushed on to a church and was operated on I'm not supposed to be in church on Sunday first let me go to appendicitIS if I have appendicitIs and you were taking me to church I hope I could punch you out I believe my God wants me healed but I believe God has given us medicine as the ordinary way to heal appendicitI and if I tell you to take me to church I'm telling God we're not going to do it your way I want you to do it my way and my God doesn't take orders. So if I go to church and order him to do it my own way, I'm going to die of appendicitis. God has given us a normal way to handle alcoholism and it's Alcoholics Anonymous. Church is an easier softer way for us. I hope you realize that. There's no 4, 5, 8, 9 in church. That's why we feel so good in church and counseling too. They're easier softer ways too. You don't do 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 in counseling. That's what alcoholics like these things. but God has sent me to Alcoholics Anonymous, and if I tell him to heal me in church, he won't do it. Now, some people God leads to church and gives sobriety. That's where God wants them. I'm spiritual director to a man sober one year shorter than me who in essence has never been to Alcoholic Anonymous but he stays active and he stays актив through a prayer group where he shares what God has done for him and I told him if he ever leaves his prayer group stopping to share what he's been given he's going to get drunk and I taught him if he switches to AA he'll get drunk because I believe you follow God's guidance and God brought me here. I had an abbot, a real solid intellectual deeply spiritual man say God took you to Alcoholics Anonymous and short of a direct message from God to the contrary you are never to put the church above AlcoholicsAnonymous because God took you first where you found him then you go to church to celebrate him and I follow the guidance of God. The other man that God took to church stays there short of an order. I can go like I have my regular meetings in AA, then I can do whatever I want in the church. So can anybody else, as long as I find him here. So that's the first thing. Secondly, if I'm operated on on Friday night, I don't go to church Saturday morning. My stitches are too weak. Most alcoholics who are Catholic and who belong to some other religions for different reasons, when they come into AA, their emotional stitches are two weeks. They go to Church, and it's not good for them. Most Catholics feel the catholic church says you're only supposed to be married once so a catholic comes into aa he gets sober takes the third step he's surrendering his life and his will over to the will of god in the third Step he thinks he knows what the will of God is that means he's got to go back to his first wife he looks her up throws her husband out and says we gotta live together i gotta stay sober so what happens he goes to church he gets hit with guilt A lot of other churches, you're not supposed to drink, gamble, dance, and smoke. And if you're like me, you bought the group package. It came a lot cheaper. I didn't do the gambling, but I did all the rest of them. And so you go to church, and you get hit with a ton of guilt. I think, for me, the best advice I give people is wait until you find God so solidly in AA that you can't say thanks enough. and at that time you go looking for the church they will let you just say thanks and you thank them there I made a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care I missed that word for months most people hear this step as made a decission to turn your life and your will over to God that stresses what I'm giving up that isn't the step the third step is what I get made a decisio to turn my life and my wil over to the care of God God's got to take care of me the third step for me are like the all state hands here I am in the middle of the ocean the water is all out there I can't swim I'm drowning and here's the power and I just climb up into the hands that's all and the hands have to take care of me I don't know how and so the principle is relief despair in my alcoholism confidence in God surrender to it and that means relief I don' t have to fight see I don''t fight alcohol I don't have to keep me sober I don' t fight drugs I don''t have to keep me straight I'm a compulsive overeater I don'T have to keep me abstinent God's got to that's his job and I've worked this I've work it in AA and in OA I had an alcoholic who was fighting sobriety fighting fighting fighting fighting to stay sober and I was his sponsor I said don't fight anymore that's my job from now on it's my job to keep you sober you don't have to worry about it. And he surrendered instantly. Now, I know I can't keep him sober. I can' t keep me sober. But I know what the power is inside me and he hadn' t found God yet. And so when he surrendered to me he was surrendering to God. And God had to keep him sobre. See, if I'm powerless over alcohol it's like being powerless over a tank. Why push a tank? You push it where it's going you're not going to get it there faster. Push it against where it' s going you're going to be pretty flat. fighting alcohol fighting drugs I like fighting over when I'm powerless it's God's job put it in his hands same thing with the gal who was fighting her compulsion to eat I just told her you don't have to worry about overeating anymore it's my problem you do what I tell you and I've got to keep you straight see both of them were able to relax not everybody will be able to do that but it worked for both of then and I do that with my problems I'll surrender them to my sponsor figuring eventually God's going to give him the answer that I need So that's basically the third step. I was at a meeting about five years ago in Pennsylvania, and somebody said, you know, there's religion and there's spirituality, and sometimes there's too much religion in AA. And I tuned them out and I started thinking, and I decided to do a study on it. And I started asking myself, what are these terms? Now this is my understanding, it won't be everybody's. But basically religion is preaching. And in preaching we're told what to do or not do. and that leads to pressure to do it and guilt if we're doing what we're not supposed to and the result of preaching is either therefore pressure or guilt spirituality for me spirituality is being spiritual spirit filled and it's God's spirit and my God is love now what is love? it's what you did love isn't a silly emotion love is acceptance I came in and you accepted me you gave me yourself you accepted me for what I was and to help me understand this you gave yourself to me that's spirituality you do get religion in most churches you're supposed to get spirituality in Alcoholics Anonymous we share our experience you're hurting I gift you with my love I reach inside and I tell you about how I felt physically ugly in so many areas so that if you have any of these you maybe will feel I'm not alone I tell you about how crazy I feel so that when if you had flashes of feeling you're crazy you can feel it can stay with sobriety and you feel you're not alone and I gift you with myself now you have a problem I love to do this this is my favorite example come to AA you've been coming three years you finally put your hand up three years I've got to tell somebody this there's like this many people in the meeting I've had sex with a shark this many people somebody in the corner says a white shark three times a hammerhead two of them over here and you know nothing has changed and everything has changed I come in I share my pain you don't tell me what to do you don' t give me pressure or guilt you tell me what you've done now you say this is what I did this is how i've handled it um the neatest example for this it's the most powerful is at a meeting when a woman comes in and usually it's a newcomer who's lost her children and she's just falling apart and the women will go around and they'll talk about how they had their babies taken away from them the ones who have had abortions one who had children die and you just watch them all cry and nothing has changed and everything has changed as you see love at its deepest There's been no pressure and no guilt put on that woman. And then maybe they'll suggest what they did to walk with the problem. That's spirituality. And at times there is too much religion at AA and I saw traces of it in one city. It's where I sobered up. I came back there four years ago and I started coming to a meeting. They call it a closed meeting, open discussion. No topic. The chairman would start the meeting and then he'd say, after all the introductions, now we wait for the big quiet. And he'd wait for somebody to give a problem and everybody else would then tell that person what to do. And I couldn't believe this. That's not Alcoholics Anonymous. That's playing psychiatrist in God and everything else and it's dangerous and it is loading the person with pressure and guilt. And then it occurred to me this comes out of treatment. This is small group. And I think without in any way critiquing treatment because it has its place there. This is not Alcoholic Anonymous And with treatment being as defeated it is and the reality that it is in our world We're likely to see a lot of this in meetings. We're constantly going to have to tell people you can't give advice You're supposed to share your experience strength, and hope tell me you're depressed I'm not supposed to tell you what to do to get rid of your depression that puts either pressure or guilt on you I'm supposed to you what I did to handle my depression that offers you a solution You can think I'm crazy, you can think it won't work for you, you can try it. You don't have any pressure on you. Spirituality frees. Religion minds the way most of us use the terms. What is the action for the third step? It's a little bit surprising. Most people would say it's making a decision but I used the clue that Joe and Charlie said there's a prayer in every step and I looked at the big book and the big books as having made the decision we are now at step 3 this is on page 63 and then it says many of us said this prayer God I offer myself to thee to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do they will take away my difficulties that victory over them may better help those I would help of thy thy power, thy love, and thy way of life. And then it says we may have said it well first we may Have said it in these words or some other words the wording is optional so long as the idea is expressed without reservation the action of the third step is the prayer and it also says we do it with someone else it says if we can't find the right person someone who will mock us then we do it alone rather than with the wrong person but remember the book was written without the word sponsor appearing in it you know the word sponsor is not in the first 11 chapters the reason I understand is that Bill insisted on calling Ebby who 12 step him his sponsor and when the book was being written I understand Ebby was drunk and Dr. Bob would not allow Bill to refer to somebody who was out there drinking as his sponsor. So the word doesn't appear. I like to come to a big book group when I'm asked to talk and say, I want to talk on something that's not in the book tonight. And they're all, talk on sponsorship. Okay, we'll buy that. But I would feel today if you can't find somebody to do the third step prayer with, you need a new sponsor. you know if my sponsor will not be understanding I don't my sponsor doesn't have to agree with it but if my supporter isn't understanding enough to know I want to do this prayer with him or her something's wrong but in any case that's the action of the third step what's its goal the end of selfishness people say this is a selfish program people who don't read the big book where on page 62 it says, we must be rid of it, selfishness, or it kills us. That's why we take the third step to get rid of our own selfishness. And you'll see how the rest of the steps are designed to help us often spotlight selfishness so we know what to get out of it. What do we get rid off? This isn't a selfish program. Not according to the big book. It's a program of getting rid of self. See, I'm the problem. God's the answer. What's the barrier between me and God? It can't be you. You really can't get in between me and God. The only thing that can stand between me and God is me and selfishness will kill me and I turn it over. I take the actions. Now please remember what I said if you haven't done the prayer if you have not done the action if you've never done the prayer with someone else that doesn't mean you haven' t taken the step but I would like you to know that the action of the third step in the big book is the prayer, not the decision. Look at it carefully. It says, having made the decision, we were now at step three. Many of us said in these words or others and it kind of all ties together. So, in the morning, final comment, after I have reviewed the first step and tried to capture the terror and then gone to God and got the confidence I start off my day the first of the prayers I do try to say the third step prayer every day and every so often somebody will come to me with you let's say I offer myself to you I hate the endow prayers they're not in our church anymore but I'm surrendering my life and my will and for a long time I made it a you prayer but I figure if I'm giving up my life and my well I'll do it the way it's there incidentally the seventh step prayer doesn't have thee and thy it has you so I'll do the third step prayer the way it is and just go from there see you all in the morning thank you