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Source: Cameron F – How It Works Group – St Catharines – 2008-07-25.mp3 File: cameron-f-how-it-works-group-st-catharines-2008-07-25.mp3 Duration: 00:35:55
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I want you to picture for a moment a hopeless, chronic, relapsing addict. This is the worst person you could possibly imagine. And he's dug a hole so deep he can't get out of it. And he's crying out for help. And a businessman happens to be walking by and he hears the addict crying out for help. And he takes pity on the addict and says, here, I have a solution for you. Take this ladder and climb out of that hole.
And the addict thanked him for the ladder, but instead of climbing out of the hole, he sold it for a 50-piece and went out on another run. One of my friends said, Cameron, you'll never get a 50-piece for a ladder. 20-piece tops. Of course, when he came out of his stupor, he realized he was still in the hole. So he's crying out for help. And a preacher strolls by. And the preacher hears the addict crying out for help.
And the preacher says, here, I have a solution for you. And he hands the addict a Bible. And he says, here, take this Bible, and I will pray with you a while. And he knelt with the addict and he prayed. And then the preacher had to go, but he said, keep the Bible. And the addict thanked him for his Bible, but he realized he was still in that hole. Time passes by, a doctor strolls by. And the doctor hears the addict crying out for help.
And he takes pity on him and says, here, I have a solution for you. Take these pills. They'll alleviate your pain. I think they were OxyContins. And he took the pills, and sure enough, the pain did go away. But then the pills ran out, the pain came back, and he realized he was still stuck in the hole. Finally, he's crying out for help. And the guru of all psychiatrists strolls by, Dr. Young himself.
And he takes pity on the addict who's stuck in the hole. And he says, here, I have a solution for you. How did you find yourself in that hole? Was it your mother and father's fault? Share with me your troubles and your problems and your issues about life in the hole. And so for a while, the addict shared about life in the hole and how bad it was in the hole and his issues about being in the hole. And then after about an hour, the psychiatrist said, well, I've got to go, but I'll see you next week.
And he was still stuck in his hole. Are you stuck in a hole you can't seem to get out of? My name's Cameron, and I'm a recovered member of Cocaine Anonymous. For 26 years, I was that man in the hole. Now, most of the time, I liked living in the hole. But I'm going to tell you, I like drinking bourbon, and I like smashing cocaine. It's my solution to a lot of problems. But after a while, it became so unbearable.
And I realized, I reached a point where I remember my son, he was four years old that day, and he had a friend over, and he's playing squirt guns with my dirty needles. And I'm sitting in a basement apartment sharing a dirty needle with a guy, and I'm sitting there, and I'm saying, I'm dying here. I'm dying. And I knew I was going to use again. Now, that's the horror and the hopelessness that an addict faces, to know that it's killing us, and yet I'm going to still use again.
And when I tried to climb out of that hole, and I would try to find some kind of power to stay sober and clean, I found that it kept failing me. My strategies failed me. And I could only stay sober or clean maybe a day, a week, a month. The longest I ever went in 26 years, and I did it once, was a year of sheer white-knuckling it, just for today, I'm not going to use, before I succumbed to the desire, and I went out again.
Today, I'm 51 years old. In the past few years, I reclaimed my relationship with my wife. Now, our relationship had been over, although we lived in the same house. Our relationship was really dead and done with. I reclaimed that marriage with her. We fell in love all over again. I have a tremendous relationship with my wife, although at times she feels like she's a C.A. widow. But I say, I can always go back to being the guy I was, and then she understands and sends me off.
I terrorized my son and daughter for 13 years, and they would run and hide, because I was this raging, insane man around the house. And today, my daughter is 22. She just graduated from university. She hugs me daily. She tells me she loves me. I have a great relationship with my 24-year-old son. I destroyed my business. I remember I used to go to my business, and I would always smoke these kick-ass joints before going into a suit meeting.
And I'd walk in, and I'd be reeking of dope, and I remember in one of my last meetings, one of the suits said to me, he said, have you been smoking marijuana? And I looked at this group of men, and I said, well, how the hell do you think I put up with you people? So needless to say, business wasn't going so well. And over the last several years, I've rebuilt my business. I've done so well that I semi-retired.
[00:05:00]
And last year, I went back to university. I'm doing a double major in world religions and anthropology at U of T. And I've had a stellar life these past few years as a result of working this program as it's outlined in the big book. I'm what's known as a big book sponsor. Some people call me a mucker. For those of you who don't know what mucking is, it's just a way of studying the book where we open it up, we work one-on-one with another addict.
The addict usually reads. We interrupt a lot. We tell him, circle that word. That's an important word. The alcoholic is doomed, right? Cameron is hopeless. And there's lots of different ways to study the big book. Mucking, or booking as it's called, is one way. There's back to basics where you can do all 12 steps in four hours over the course of one hour sessions over a month. There's the Joe and Charlie approach.
And they would work all 12 steps over the course of the weekend. There's primary purpose group. They have a way of studying the book. They have lots of questions at the end of every chapter. They learn their big books that way. But at the end of it, regardless of how one does it, the solution is in this book here, The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's our recipe. It's like baking a cake. If you follow the recipe exactly…
I like chocolate cake, by the way. So if you have a recipe for chocolate cake and you follow it exactly, what do you get at the end of the deal? You get a chocolate cake, right? And do you have to believe you're going to get a chocolate cake? If you follow the recipe, you'll get a chocolate cake regardless. Well, the program's like this, too. We've got a recipe for recovery. And the original 100 who wrote this book found the recipe to recover from a hopeless state of mind and being.
And by recovered, I mean somehow by working these steps, something happens, whether you want to call it a mystical experience or a spiritual awakening or an experience or being rocked into the fourth dimension. Something occurs and the obsession to use or drink gets removed. Now, I had the obsession to drink and use for 26 years. Every day I would wake up, the first thing on my mind is, how do I get high, how do I get loaded, and how do I stay that way?
And I haven't had that desire to drink and use now in many years as a result of working this program. I hit my last bottom in 2003. I came into these rooms and I met a man who asked me a question. He says, Cameron, do you want to quit for good? Because he saw I picked up my desire chip. And I said, absolutely. And we talked a little bit about that desire, whether or not I had the desire or the desperation of a drowning person.
And we talked a little bit about that and he was convinced that I really meant business this time around. But instead of going to another meeting, he took me to a coffee shop and we started reading the big book together and talking about our experiences. And when we came to certain instructions in the book, we actually took the instructions together and did our steps together. And as a result of that, some pretty incredible things happened.
The first thing we did was, of course, we looked at step one, powerlessness. You know, admitted that I'm powerless over drugs and alcohol and that my life is unmanageable. Well, what does that mean? One of the passages we explored, in every addict, I've worked with all kinds of addicts. I've worked with alcoholics. I've worked with drug addicts. I've worked with hopeless gamblers. I've worked with sex addicts.
I've worked with incurable codependents, self-harmers, self-injurers, and food addicts. And they all experience the same kind of pattern. And this pattern is very clearly outlined in the doctor's opinion. If you read the doctor's opinion, it says, men and women drink or use or act out essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol or drugs or whatever the behavior may be. You all like to smoke crack or do cocaine, right?
Right? We all like it. That's why we do it. We like the effect that we get from it. It's my solution to what ails me. It's my power. And it goes on to say that even though I admit it is injuring me. Now, is everybody here who's here as an addict, are you at a point where you can admit that the booze or the drugs is injuring you? Okay? But yet, after a certain period of time, we can't differentiate the true from the false, which means, I'm a liar.
My mind lies to me. It comes up with reasons and justifications and excuses as to why I can pick up a drink or do cocaine again. And that baffling feature, you know, I know I'm dying from this stuff, yet I know somehow, someway, I'm going to pick up and use again. It's the most insane thing I think a person goes through. My wife, who's a teetotaler, she just does not understand it. Her idea is, Cameron, just don't drink.
If it was that simple, I would have stopped years ago and had a much different life. But as those of you who know who are addicts or alcoholics, it's not as simple as just don't drink and go to meetings. Although some people can stay sober in meetings. I found that I couldn't. I needed something else, some kind of intervention. It goes on to say that we're restless, irritable, discontented.
[00:10:00]
I like to add bored. Boredom was my nemesis. I hated boredom. Paranoia, depression. I don't like being that way and I need some kind of relief from it. My solution, my relief, which comes at once, is drinking and smashing cocaine. I always remember, every time I would relapse, it was like an old friend returning home. Whether it was a bourbon or a hit of cocaine, that feeling would hit me and it was like an old friend coming home and I said, where have you been? This is exactly the way I like to feel. And then I'm off on that spree. Because somewhere in my experience of drinking and using, I went from it just being fun and recreational to it being an absolute necessity. I would panic when I would be running out. That's when the real problem of addiction came apparent to me. Not while I was doing it. It was when I was running out or had run out. And every addict goes through this pattern. We have what's called the spree. When I pick up and use, I don't ever want to stop.
This is what I want to be. This is the way I like to feel. And I don't ever want to stop and I just keep using it until I reach that point where I'm so messed up. Things are so unmanageable. I hit that period of remorse and I go, I got to stop. My God, what am I going to do? I have to stop. And then I make that firm resolution not to do it again. Everybody here has made that resolution? I'll never do that again? And does that work?
And then we take another lap around the wheel. Another spree. Another period of remorse. Another resolution. Never do that again. What happens? We succumb to the desire. Around we go. Every kind of addict experiences that pattern. Whether they're drug addicts, alcoholics, gamblers, sex addicts, food addicts. It's always the same pattern. And the book goes on to say that unless this person can experience a psychic change or a spiritual experience, there's very little hope of their recovery.
Meaning we're doomed without it. If you're an addict of the hopeless variety. He also took me through a passage that let me diagnose myself. He didn't tell me I was an addict. He said, let's find out if you're a real addict. And he turned to page 20 in the big book and it says moderate drinkers, moderate users have little trouble in giving up liquor or drugs if they got a good reason for it. They can take it or leave it alone. Does everybody here have a good reason for giving up booze and drugs?
You got a good reason for giving it up. Can you take it or leave it alone? I could always take it. I could just never leave it alone. So we were pretty clear I wasn't a moderate user. The heavy user. Now this person looks like us. He looks like the real deal. And they may have the habit badly enough that it may cost them years on their life. They may die before their time. But here's the kicker. Given sufficient reason, this person can stop or moderate.
Everyone here knows what stop means, right? We're talking about permanently stopped. And they give us a few of those examples of what a sufficiently strong reason is. The first one they say, ill health. How many people here have been really really sick from drinking or using? And did that cause you to sober up? I remember one year I was down to 120 pounds. I'm 175 on average. I was 120 pounds. [unclear]. I wasn't eating. Wasn't paying the bills. Wasn't paying the rent.
And I'm so sick. I've been kicked out of my apartment. I've got no place to go. It's the middle of winter. I've got walking pneumonia. I'm dying. And I sobered up for a week. I went back to mom and dad's place in another city. I was very disappointed to find out they had bars and drug dealers there. Which pretty much smashed out the other sufficient reason, which is a change of environment. That geographical cure. Anybody tried moving away or throwing your cell phones out with all your dealers numbers and that?
Never again. Never again. Don't go to those places. But we always find a way to succumb to the desire. Falling in love. How many people have tried to stay sober for your spouses, your kids, your mom, your dad, family? Does that work? I love my son. But seeing him playing with my dirty needles never kept me sober. My wife pleaded with me to stop. Threatened me with divorce. That never worked. The other one is warning of a doctor. I remember my doctor saying to me one day physically, he says, Cameron, what's going on?
I said, what do you mean? He says, well, your enzymes are through the roof. Your liver is all extended. You've got liver disease. I said, well, I drink every day. He says, well, this has got to stop. It's going to kill you. What did I do? I went drinking that night. These sufficient reasons to a normal person would say, hey, if I'm doing this, I better stop. But to the alcoholic and addict, it doesn't seem to be any sufficient reason. Now, my first wife was a hard user. We both did cocaine intravenously.
And she behaved the same way I did when I would do cocaine. But after a certain period of time and all the hell that goes with that lifestyle, she said to me one day, she said, Cameron, that's it. I don't ever want to do this ever again. And she stopped. And never touched it ever again. Now, I wanted to stop, but I couldn't, and then came the cheating and the lying and not, you know, not having the money and all that sort of stuff.
[00:15:07]
That's the difference between a hard user and a real alcoholic or an addict. Can you really basically diagnose yourself as an addict or an alcoholic by asking two questions? If, when you honestly want to, you never ever want to do it again, can you stay away from it forever? What's your experience tell you? And if the answer is no or maybe, the second question to ask yourself, if when I pick up, do I have any ability to control it when I use it?
And if the answer is no or maybe, then you've probably crossed over that line where only a spiritual experience is going to save your life and diagnose that I was a real addict and alcoholic. The second question he asked me, he asked me, do you think you're beyond human power? Do you think you're beyond human aid? And I thought that was a really odd question to ask. And we started talking about the different ways that I have tried to quit.
Now, the first way I tried was obviously the resolution, the self-will. I got enough self-will to stop. And now when you think about those points when you come off that spree and you make that resolution never to do it again, did you really mean it when you said it? I bet you if they hooked up a lie detector test when you came off that cocaine run and you said never again, it would show you were telling the truth.
Yet at some point, whether it's a day, a week, a month, a year, if you can do that, the hunger comes back, we succumb to the desire, and then we're off on another run. So that was the first thing that was smashed out of me, my own human willpower. I tried the exercise cure. Anyone try exercise? Keep them busy. I tried, my reputation is too good to be thought of as a junkie, as an addict. That didn't work out so well.
Thought the emotional appeals from my wife, my family, my kids didn't work. I thought sex. Good sex. That's the answer. Good sex, bad sex, it didn't matter. I just wanted to use. Remember when? Play the tape all the way through, think through the drink, or think, think, think. Just remember when. Remember what it was like. Remember how horrible it was. Remember the incomprehensible demoralization and humiliation that you experienced on your last run.
When do we usually remember when? After the spree, right? Anyone relate to that? After the spree, my God, that's why I shouldn't drink, that's why I shouldn't use, right? Never before. Usually when I get a call from one of the guys I'm working with, Cameron, I think I'm going to use, I don't worry about it. If you've got the power to call me that you're going to use, you really aren't serious about using.
Because the ones that are serious about using, they don't call. They're just out there. So remember when, you know, that didn't work. Church and prayer didn't work. I remember praying my ass off to God, please get me out of, just kill me, just kill me now. Prayer and church never kept me sober or clean. I started going to meetings. I do a lot of meetings, but they never kept me sober. Hugs, not drugs.
They were nice, but never kept me sober. I like going to meetings, I like seeing the friends that I know, and they're patting me on the back and blowing all that sunshine up my rear end, and I like that. But it didn't keep me sober or clean. You know, so we talked about all the different ways, and again, you can judge this from your own experience. Think about all the different ways you've tried to stay sober or clean, that have failed you, that fail to have the necessary power.
So once we ascertained that we were beyond human aid, that only left one option, and that was to seek a higher power. And you know, that's what this book is really all about. It's designed to show us how to find that higher power. The recipe is to a higher power. It shows us how to have that spiritual awakening, which brought us to step two. Came to believe in a power greater than myself that could restore me to sanity.
And I like the words, came to believe, because what it infers is that I'm going to go through some kind of process where I'm going to come to believe. I'm going to have some kind of experience. Because at that point, I didn't believe. I was raised an atheist in my family household. Religion was for weaklings. Our mantra was, if you want anything done right, you've got to do it yourself. So when it came to this surrendering to God, surrendering to a higher power, I remember saying to my friend, that's a hard leap for me to make.
Step two is a very simple instruction. And it says, we needed to ask ourselves but one short question. Do I now believe, or am I willing to believe in a power greater than myself? Well, after 26 years of being pounded into the ground, I was the nail and God was my hammer. I was ready to believe anything at that point. So I opened my heart and I said, I'm willing to believe. Now I still have no idea at this point what this thing called God or higher power means.
[00:20:00]
But I'm at least open minded enough to at least go explore and look for it. And that took us to step three. That if I could find this power, if I could go to this power, and ask for help, could I go to it without reservation and surrender to it? Could I take direction from it? To turn my thinking and my actions over to the care of this power? Because quite frankly, Cameron at the helm, Cameron as CEO of Cameron's life, was a dismal failure and any competent business board would have fired me long ago.
And that's basically what's happening in step three. We're firing ourselves as the CEO and we're appointing God or the higher power as our director. I still didn't know what this meant. All I knew was Cameron running the show wasn't very successful. And so I took the step three decision and I surrendered and we did the step three prayer together. And here we are in the coffee shop holding hands with donut jockeys all around.
It was a really weird experience. But I hold hands in coffee shops with more men and women these days. It's really quite an experience. We took the decision together. And what's great about the step three, once you've taken the step three decision, it says, next we launched out on a course of vigorous action. Now a lot of people translate this as easy does it. But the book says, vigorous action. Because even though this decision is a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed up by rigorous action, there's that easy does it again, to rid ourselves of the defects that have been blocking us from the sunlight of the spirit.
And so we commenced on that step four. And we did it right there. It wasn't like, go off and work your steps. It's like, we're going to work them out right now, Cameron. And he's drawn four columns. And he said, we're going to talk about your resentments, your fears, the harms, your sex conduct. Okay, resentments, this is good. I've got a lot of resentments. It's about time someone heard my bitch list here.
And so he says, tell me the first resentment. We started listing the resentments out. And then he says, now in column two, he says, explain to me the cause of these resentments. Great. Finally, I can really express, you know, why I've been such a victim in life and why everybody else was to blame. But he didn't want to hear a lot. We just made our list. But I wanted to explain. He says, no, no, no, we don't need to hear any more about that.
How do you play a part in this? What's this affect you? And we looked at how it affected my pocketbook, my self-esteem, my relationships, my sex relationships, my ambitions. And I started seeing how it was all about my fear. I was always living in this fear. I was always afraid I wasn't going to get what I wanted or I was going to lose what I had. And so when I was in that fear, my part started to become apparent.
And when I'm in that fear, I start to behave in a really obnoxious way. I get arrogant. I get dishonest. I get greedy. I get selfish. I get self-seeking. I get lustful, envious, hateful. And we started seeing this pattern come out with all these resentments. And the fear started eluding even more as to how these defects kept playing a part. And so we went through this process and it took about an hour to do a thorough step four.
Unlike today where there's so much fear and apprehension around doing a step four. It's like we're here to do an archaeological dig in your life and we're going to uncover everything. It is not necessary for you to look at every resentment, every harm, or every fear that's going on. To ascertain what your major defects are. What your root causes and conditions are. You can get down to that really quickly.
And for me, my big ones were arrogance. That's my false pride. Jealousy. I tend to be a very suspicious and distrustful individual. Selfishness, self-seeking. Dishonesty. And hate. And slander and gossip was another one. Now I also found out I had a few assets. I wasn't a greedy man. For the most part I found I was fairly generous. I'm not an envious kind of guy. Envy wasn't one of my big things. But I had these other defects.
And we looked at that. And so we took the step four and five together. And then we went right into step six. And step six is a very simple step. We looked at my inventory. I looked at that fourth column of all these objectionable things. And he asked me, he says, Are these objectionable to you? And I sat there reflecting on this list of these behaviors, of these causes and conditions. And I really felt humbled.
There was a humiliation that occurred for me as a result of looking at this stuff. And I really found them objectionable. And he says, Now Cameron, if behavioral modification was the answer, ten years in gestalt therapy, which was another way I tried to sober up, was gestalt therapy, and spiritual retreats was another one, would have solved your problem. But the point is, is you can't change it, Cameron.
[00:25:02]
You've been trying to change your behavior for 26 years, and it hasn't worked. We need the higher power to intervene and to remove them. And that led us to step seven. He says, Are you now ready to let God remove these from your life? And I said, Absolutely. I don't want to be this man anymore. And we took step seven together. And we got down on our knees and we got humble. And I asked my creator to come in and remove these defects of character.
And I listed those defects. God, please remove my arrogance. And remove this dishonesty. And remove my selfishness and self-seeking. And remove this hate. And it says also in the prayer, Grant me the strength. And what's really great about knowing what your defects are, in the same instance you find the way out. What's the way out of pride and arrogance? It's humility. What's the way out of hate? It's love.
What's the way out of selfishness? It's unselfishness. What's the way out of jealousy? It's trust. What's the way out of dishonesty? It's honesty. The way out of lust? It's intimacy. And I would ask God to grant me these assets. To grant me this strength. And we did this step seven prayer together. And then we moved on to step eight. Which says, Maybe we made a list. Well, we had my list from my step four inventory.
These were the people I had harmed. And now I need to go out there and clean it up. Which brought us to step nine. To make direct amends. I'll share one direct amend with you. This was a resentment. I had a lot of resentment towards this business partner. And I screwed this woman over pretty good, business wise. And then our relationship came to an end in 1998. And I refused to return any of her calls.
And then when the internet came about, I started publishing documents about her and her business online. And so whenever you did a search for her business or her, these slanderous documents would pop up. And I kept sticking it to her for years. And I really enjoyed it. But I drank a lot those days too. And I used a lot. So when we started doing this inventory, these resentments came up. We looked at how offensive they were.
And what kind of man I'd become. We prayed for the willingness to get to a place of forgiveness around this. And through my step four inventory, I could see my part in it. The book explains the futility and the fatality of this way of thinking. And so I got to a place of forgiveness. And the first thing that I did in my amend, was I went on the internet and I removed all these offensive documents. So when you do a search for this woman or her company, you cannot find these documents anymore.
And then I contacted her. And I went directly to her to clean up my side of the street. You know, in making a direct amend, you never know really how it's going to go. They could throw you out of the office. They could get angry with you. You never know really how it's going to go. And I remember talking to her, and I was telling her about all the things I had done wrong, my part in it, what I had done to try and clean it up.
And then I asked her, I said, what more can I do to make this right between us? And she said to me, she said, Cameron, she says, God bless you. I just want the door to our friendship to remain open. I was not prepared for what happened. I literally fell. I was struck so hard by this moment. And the only way I can explain it is that such an ugly piece of resentment, a block. Because in step three where I say, I'm ready now to invite this spirit into my life.
Please come into my vessel and separate me from this horrible obsession to drink and use. There's no room for God to dwell in me because I'm so full of resentment, and fear, and harm, and awfulness. And through steps four through nine is a process of cleaning our spirit up so that that spirit has room to dwell. And what I experienced was I had removed such a hateful piece of resentment from my life that it created a space and that spirit moved in.
And it brought me to my knees. And that happened many years ago. And I walk hand in hand with that spirit still to this day. That's truly the promise of doing step nine. Is when you invite that spirit and you do the work and it moves in. And you're literally rocketed into that world of the spirit. Steps 10, 11, and 12 are the disciplines that continue to help me stay connected to the power and to grow.
Step 10 says continue to take personal inventory. I do my personal inventory daily. I look at what liabilities I may have demonstrated. I look at the assets I'm demonstrating. I keep my spirit awake to where I'm at. Because sometimes I meet people, they have these powerful spiritual experiences and then they rest on their laurels and they go back to sleep. And if you fall asleep at the wheel of a car, we all know what's at the end of the road, right?
There's the crash. But for us addicts, it's a relapse. So I keep my spirit awake by doing the inventory. Step 11 says maintain conscious contact. Commune with God through prayer and meditation. Prayer is when I talk to God. I Talk to God Every Morning, My Step Three Prayer, When I Get to the Point Where It Says, May I Do Thy Will Always, I Then Turn It Back to God, And I Go, God, What Is Thy Will for Me Today?
[00:30:04]
Because It Says Also to Practice Meditation, And Meditation Is Listening to God, And Somehow I Think That's The More Important Part, Because If I'm Going to Take Direction from This Higher Power, I Better Listen to What It Is That It's Telling Me, And So Through Meditation, I Go Within Myself, Because That's Where Our Book Tells Us To Go, It's Deep Down Within Every Man, Woman and Child, I Think Of It As My Intuitive Voice, I Think That's The Voice of God, It's A Whisper of A Voice, But When I Can Tune Myself Into Listening To It, And If You Think, You Know, Whenever You Followed Your Intuition, Hasn't It Always Worked Out For You?
Whereas, You Know, Your Intuition Is Telling You Not To Do It, But You Do It Anyways, And A Mess Occurs, I Really Think That's The Voice of God, That's The Way I Interpret It. So I Use Prayer and Meditation To Keep In Conscious Contact. Step Twelve Says, And I Love Step Twelve, It Wraps The Whole Program Up, It Says, Practical Experience Shows That Nothing Will So Much Ensure Immunity Against Drinking Or Using As Intensive Work With Other Alcoholics Or Addicts, It Works When All Other Activities Fail.
Now That's A Pretty Powerful Statement, It Works When Other Activities Fail. In June Of 2005, I Started Working With Other Addicts, Now Over The Course Of The Past Three Years, I've Taken Almost 300 Alcoholics, And Addicts, Gamblers and Sex Addicts Through The Twelve Steps. Of The People I've Taken Through The Twelve Steps, 52% Of Them, And I Keep Track Of Everybody, Are Sober Today. Now That's What The Book Says, 50% Will Sober Up At Once, Another 25% Will Sober Up Or Clean Up After A Few Relapses, And The Other 25% Will Show Improvement If They Keep Coming Back, Not To The Meetings, But To Work The Steps.
To Seek That Communion With God, To Seek That Power To Separate Them From The Desire To Drink And Use. Now I Think In This Program, There Is A Really Well Kept Secret. Have You Noticed That Sponsors, I Know Sponsors Do Relapse, But For The Most Part, Sponsors Tend To Stay Sober, And Sponsees Tend To Relapse. So I Was Talking To My Friend In Hamilton, Tunisia, Some Of You Might Know Tunisia. And I Said, Tunisia, What Kind Of Recovery Rates Are You Getting Working With The Gals On The Front Lines?
And She Goes, Cameron, I Get 100%. I Said, Did You Get 100% Success Rate? She Says, Absolutely, I Am Still Sober. Now That Is The Best Kept Secret In This Fellowship. You Can't Get It Unless You Give It Away. Something Really Magical Happens When You Sit Down With Another Addict, And You Seek God Together. Because God Speaks Through You, And Through You He Speaks To Me, And Back To God. But In The Same Instance, God Speaks Through Me, And Through Me He Speaks To You, And Back To God.
I Am Convinced God Created Us So He Could Have A Conversation With Himself. Nothing Ensures Immunity As Intensive Work With Other Alcoholics, Other Addicts. Now How You Work The Steps With Another Addict Is Your Choice. I Believe God Speaks Through Us All In A Unique And Interesting Way. I Tend To Take People Through The Big Book In This Mucking Or Booking Style. And I Would Find When Going Through The Book It Would Take About 60 Days.
And A Lot Of Them Would Relapse. And Then I Met This Fellow Wally From Arizona. He Says, Cameron I Can Show You How To Take An Alcoholic Or An Addict Through The Steps In 4 Hours. So Now, I Thought Wow, If I Could Get Someone To The Power. Or Show Them How To Connect To The Power In A Few Short Hours. We Might Have A Chance At Licking This Deal. So I Started, What I Do Now Is, When I Work With An Addict.
If I Qualify Him, Do You Want To Quit For Good? Are You Beyond Human Aid? Are You Ready To Do Anything? And When I Say Are You Willing To Do Anything? I Mean Are You Willing To Follow The Instructions In The First 164 Pages Of The Big Book? Do You Have The Desperation Of A Drowning Person To Do These Steps? And If I Am Convinced They Are. I Outline The Whole Program Of Action In 4 Hours. And We Go Through The 12 Steps Together In 4 Hours.
And I Give Them A Lick Of That Power. Show Them How To Tap The Power. And Then I Work With Them One On One. Which Usually Takes About 60 Days. Working Together 2, 3, 4 Times A Week. And Then At The End Of The Deal. Once We Have Gone Through The First 103 Pages Of The Big Book. Which Is The End Of Chapter 7. Working With Others. We Then Go Fishing Together. And We Go Look For A Newcomer. That Was Just Like Him.
And As Desperate As Him. And The Two Of Us Work With That Person. And At Some Point I Back Out Of The Deal. And I Cut The Guy Loose. That I Had Just Taken Through The Process. And Then He Gives It Away To The Next Person. It Is A Heck Of A Way To Work A 12 Step Program. So If You Are An Addict Of The Hopeless Variety. And Looking For A Way Out. It Is In This Book. If You Just Follow The Recipe. You Will Recover.
I Guarantee It. You Will Have A Spiritual Experience. It Is A Recipe For Communing With That Power. So Here Is That Hopeless Addict. Stuck In The Hole. He Can't Seem To Get Out Of It.
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And He Is Crying Out For Help. And A Recovered Addict Is Strolling By. And What Does The Recovered Addict Do? He Jumps Into The Hole With Him. And The Suffering Addict Turns To Him And Says. What Did You Do That For? Now We Are Both Stuck In This Hole. But The Recovered Addict Turns To His Brother Who Suffers. And He Says With A Wink In His Eye. It Is Okay. I Have Been Here Before. I Know The Way Out.
Are You Looking For A Way Out? A Way Out For More Hope. Faith. And Courage. To Walk Hand In Hand With The Spirit Of The Universe. To Be An Intelligent Agent. A Spearhead Of God's Ever Advancing Creation. I Am For That. How About You? Thanks For Having Me Out Folks.