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Source: Scott L – Step Study (2003) – CD 1 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: scott-l-step-study-2003-cd-1-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 01:08:33
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It's wonderful to be here. It's truly moving. I'm crying this morning, some, and that's good. It means maybe you guys will get my heart instead of my head. I hope so. That's my hope. I'd like to open the meetings that I chair with a quotation from Lois Wilson. She was co-founder of Al-Anon, as probably most of you know. She was married to Bill, and she was asked one time what she did in the moment of silence before the serenity prayer, and she said, I invite God to the meeting.
It's not that I don't believe God's here. I do believe that, but I get a special gift when I acknowledge the presence, is what I call it. And so in a couple of minutes, I'm going to ask for a moment of silence, and I'm going to ask everybody here if you would please to invite your God or to acknowledge the presence of your God. And ask that this room be filled with love and that we all be blessed with open hearts.
I hope that you would hear through yours and me that I would speak through it, or even a better case, that God would speak through it. We speak in recovery about the language of the heart, and I'm learning to lay down the language of the gutter. I find them to be different. And it may be that there's someone here who does not have a God or you have one you're afraid of or something's not working for you.
If you happen to be that way, I'd like to invite you to borrow my God for this time we're together this morning. You can address him as the God of Scott's limited understanding. Just go ahead and get off on the right foot, and we're going to talk about that a little bit here in a few minutes. And I recommend him highly. He's been keeping me sober for what I think of as a very long time, and he has a great sense of humor.
And if you don't think so, look around the room. I think we're pretty funny, don't you? Good. So what I'd like to do now is to have a few moments of silence and each in our own way acknowledge the presence of the great good. And then we'll do the serenity prayer. Serenity prayer. OK, a couple of housekeeping details. First, I'm a former smoker, so I know what it's like. We will take breaks every hour, hour and 10 minutes so that because I usually start vibrating about an hour back when I was smoking.
So I won't stretch it too far. Also, if you have a cell phone or a pager with you, if you'd please get it out right now. Please, come on. Humor me. Get it out. Open it up and have a look. I'd like to offer you three options. You may set it on vibrate, you may turn it off, or set it on stun. And I really don't care which. Thank you very much. I'd like to say that we're here this morning to do a book study combination, big book step study, which is really, I guess, redundant.
And I'd like to tell you that I do not consider myself to be an expert. I am a student of this. I'm merely here to share my experience with this work. It may be that I'll say some things that some people disagree with. I will look forward to hearing from you, which would be different from talking to you. All right. I learn things that way. So if you disagree with something I've had to say, I will look forward to learning from you.
Please bring it to me. I would also like to put in a plug. I know it's popular at a lot of conferences for AA members not to hear the Al-Anon speaker. I'm married to the Al-Anon speaker, and she's one of the finest there is. And although you may not relate to the first half of her talk, she will give you things about recovery in the second half of her talk that you'll take home and start using and have the people you sponsor start using.
I guarantee it. Don't miss this one. Okay. And so that's the end of the commercial. We're going to begin. I thought it would be good to begin with a description, as the big book does. We don't seem to have a definition of alcoholism or alcoholic, but we have some descriptions. And what I'm going to do is to flip around in the big book. I'm working out of a fourth edition. And on Roman numeral 30, which if you happen to be from my home group, that's XXX, in the doctor's opinion, near the bottom of the page, it says, All these and many others have one symptom in common.
They cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy, which differentiates these people and sets them apart as a distinct entity. Page 21 in the text, in the story, in there is a solution, says, But what about the real alcoholic? He may start off as a moderate drinker. He may or may not become a continuous hard drinker.
But at some stage of his drinking career, he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption once he starts to drink. Page 24 describes this. You probably know it as italics. At my home group, this is squiggly writing. Top of page 24, the fact is that most alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure,
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have lost the power of choice in drink. Page 30. Therefore it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we can drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday, he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. I could do one or the other. I could either control it or I could enjoy it. I could not do both.
And I could not always control it. But I know that I couldn't do both of those at the same time. Page 39. Squiggly writing again. Someone who would close that door might be helpful. But the actual or potential alcoholic, with hardly an exception, will be absolutely unable to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. Listen to the power in these words that follow. This is a point we wish to emphasize and reemphasize, to smash home upon our alcoholic readers that have been revealed to us out of bitter experience.
Aren't those powerful words? Powerful words to smash home. Not going to stop drinking on the basis of self-knowledge. Page 43 at the bottom. Once more, the alcoholic at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first drink. And page 44 is where they got me. It says, in the preceding chapters you have learned something of alcoholism. We hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non-alcoholic.
If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. I am probably alcoholic. Because that's my story. I got here with no arrests, married to the same woman 26 years. I hadn't been in a fight since I was 12 years old. I didn't drink in the morning. I didn't drink every day. I didn't get drunk every time I drank.
I could quit for weeks or months at a time. Had no DUI. Never been fired from a job. But they got me here. If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, and I used to quit forever every time I puked. Anybody do that? Come on. Huh? Okay, good. Or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take, I'm not going to have a couple that should be home early this evening.
Wind up driving home drunk at 2 in the morning. Anybody do that? Okay, got drunk by mistake. Just kind of take drunk. That's what it amounted to for me. Okay, and then I think it might be good to define also, because we hear the word used quite a bit, program of recovery or program. I hear the word program all the time. And I find it actually defined in two places in the text. It's on page 59. It's a sentence before the first step where it says, here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery.
It sounds to me, based on that information, that the steps are not part of the program. They are the program. I think all of that other stuff is good and certainly helps. But the program appears to me to be 12 steps. The forward to the third edition, page Roman numeral 22, actually broadens that definition just a little bit where it says the 12 steps that summarize the program. So that means that the 12 steps I see on the wall, numbered 1 through 12, are a summary.
That's the cliff notes. Now, I used to slide on the cliff notes when I was in school all the time. Read the cliff notes. I'm just trying to get a C in this class anyway. I'm not trying to get a C in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm trying to get an A+, because I can't afford to flunk. When I was trying to get a C in an English course, I could afford to flunk. It wasn't going to be that big a deal. I was trying not to.
I can't afford to flunk this one. I need to win this one now. So I can't slide on the cliff notes. It says the 12 steps that summarize the program trace exactly the same path to recovery that was blazed by the earliest members of Alcoholics Anonymous path. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. And so there, for me, is the definition of the path. Once again, it's the 12 steps.
I heard an intentional misread that I loved on the first line of How It Works. It said, Rarely have we seen a person in jail who has thoroughly followed our path. I think that's right. So we have the definition of the program. It is the 12 steps, long form, in the big book. And that's what I'm going to operate from. Now, we also have, interestingly enough, on Roman numeral 22 and the 4 to the 3rd edition, what looks to me like the definition of the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Where at the bottom of the page it says, In spite of the great increase in the size and span of this fellowship, capital F, fellowship, at its core it remains simple and personal. Each day, somewhere in the world, recovery begins when one alcoholic talks with another alcoholic, sharing experience, strength, and hope.
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What we're doing here this morning is fellowship. It was pointed out to me, I've had the privilege of sitting at the feet of some people that I think are real masters of this thing. And one of them pointed out to me that there's a second fellowship. And it's defined on page 164, and it's different. I'm in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous when I'm Sam, and nobody can throw me out. Nobody. And I think that's great.
There's a second fellowship. And it is the fellowship of the spirit, described at the bottom of page 164 in the text, where it says, Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit. I'll read that part again and see if it doesn't sound to you as it sounds to me like the steps in narrative form.
Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Well, that's several of the steps. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. That sounds like four and five and partially eight and nine. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Certainly that's eight, nine, and ten. Give freely of what you find. That sounds like twelve. And join us. Certainly that is twelve. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit.
So there are entry requirements for the fellowship of the spirit. For the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, the requirement is to walk through the door and say you're a member. That's it. Fellowship of the spirit looks to me like it has entry requirements, and that looks like the steps in narrative form. I am trying to make a point about the steps, for those of you who are wondering. Page 96 looks to me like it has the definition of sponsorship.
It doesn't use the word. But this is in the chapter Working With Others. We've been going on for three or four pages about a 12-step call where someone said they wanted some help. Our member visited them, talked about his drinking, listened to them talk about theirs. We laughed a little. We cried a little. Guy said he still wanted it, left him the book. It says, suppose you're now making your second visit to a man.
That was the first. It says he has read this volume and says he's prepared to go through with the 12 steps of the program of recovery. That looks to me like the definition of someone who's sponsorable. They've read this book, and I love the language, prepared to go through with. It doesn't say he's eager. We don't see eager that often on the new ones, do we? No. But it says he's prepared to go through with.
I'll go through with it. Close enough. We'll take that. Because that's how we got here. That's exactly how I got here. It looks to me like the definition of someone who's sponsorable. They've read the book. They understand the 12 steps of the program. They're prepared to go through with them. Then, for me, it defines sponsor. It says, having had the experience yourself, you can give me much practical advice.
What experience? The experience of going through, working, taking, doing the 12 steps, whatever the action verb is. Action verb, the 12 steps. What advice? Advice on how to go through or work or do the 12 steps. Looks to me like that's what sponsorship is about. I also want to talk a little bit about willingness. Willingness, if my count is any good, is mentioned 36 times in the Roman numerals in the first 164 pages.
It's kind of an interesting number. 36 times. Important stuff. My sponsor, and I'm telling my story Sunday morning. I'm going to do as little of that as I can at this workshop. But this piece was given to me, the definition of willingness by a sponsor, when he told me to sponsor me that I was going to have to do the 12 steps. And I was rigorously honest with him. If you're new or if you're not, I want to recommend you be rigorously honest with your sponsor.
And I was honest with him. I said, Jerry, I don't want to do the 12 steps. And he said, that's okay. And I said, good. And he said, long as you do them. I said, Jerry, we're graduates of the same university, and I swear we are not communicating. And he said, we are communicating. That's the definition of willingness. Willingness is when I do what my sponsor says whether I want to or not. That, for me, is the definition of willingness.
So we're going to talk a little bit about that. My immediate past sponsor died eight years ago. And I got another one. And I asked him, I said, okay, Ice Cream Steve is what we call him. The ice cream man. I said, okay, what are my marching orders? And be careful with me. I'll surrender to you. Don't give me 125 hoping I'll do 100. You give me 100, I'm going to do 100. Because that's what I do. Because I don't know any other way.
I got two positions. I got wide open. I got down and locked. I don't have any other gears. That's all I got. And wide open is what I do on this. So I'm going to do what you tell me. So be careful with me. He said, I want you to open and close your days on pages 86 and 87 in the text. I want you to go into so many meetings a week. I want you in so many jails and prisons a month. I want you in so many treatment centers a month.
And he laid out this thing. He laid out this thing, and one of the things that he gave me was the exact opposite of what my former sponsor had me doing, exact opposite, and I had the privilege about a year later, and I didn't say anything to him, I just started doing it, and about a year later I spoke at a conference in Mississippi, and it was taped, and Steve heard the tape, and I had mentioned that in that particular talk, and he said on the phone to me, he says, I heard that I've got you doing something exact opposite of what Don Roy had you doing, and I said that's right,
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and he didn't ask me what it was, and I didn't tell him, and I'm not telling you, okay, because that's not the point, the point is that for me is willingness, is I'm prepared to do whatever the man says, because my disease continues to thrive right up here, and when I commit thoroughly, when I fully surrender to my sponsor, what I've done is I've taken my disease out of the decision making process as it applies to my recovery, my disease does not have a say so about my recovery, because I'm surrendered to a sponsor. I hope you're twisted enough to understand that. Okay, good.
Another concept that I'd like to talk about here is old ideas, and I'm going to start toward the back of the book and work forward on this one. This is on page 143, and I'm going to read four different places where it says to me the exact same thing, and I like to take concepts and sort of follow them through the book, and that's some of the format that we're going to use today. This is page 143 in the chapter to employers, and it says, though you are providing him with the best possible medical attention, he should understand that he must undergo a change of heart. To get over drinking will require a transformation of thought and attitude.
Same concept on page 58 in what we affectionately call how it works. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. Page 42 in the text, eight lines from the bottom. But the program of action, though entirely sensible, is pretty drastic. It meant I would have to throw several lifelong conceptions out of the window. Page 27, Roland Hazard has been having this conversation with Carl Jung, and he can't figure out why he can't stay sober.
And he's asking Carl Jung, is there no hope at all? Are there no exceptions? And Carl Jung says a number of things. I'm just going to read the pertinent sentence, two sentences. He says, they appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.
All four of those readings appear to me to say exactly the same thing. And what they say is, some of what I know for absolute sure and certain ain't so. It ain't so. Some of what I know for sure ain't so. And I believe that's true for me today. Some of what I know for sure ain't so. And so what I've tried to learn to do is to relax my grip on what I know, is to think maybe there are other ways. Even as I grab something that's new, and this is just a piece out of my own experience, I began with surrender. And I don't know about you, but my first surrender was in the military sense. That was after the battle and the blood and the screaming and the pain, and that was my screaming, blood, and pain, when I finally surrendered.
And I surrendered for a long time. I'd wake up each morning and I would surrender. And if I had closed my hand on that, if I'd become right about that, if I'd become sure about that, I couldn't have grown from that level. Because about two years later, it occurred to me that when I woke up each morning, I didn't surrender, because the fight was over. I don't surrender anymore. This morning I volunteered. It's the same result, but it comes from a different place. In my own enlightened self-interest, based on my experience, I did not surrender this morning.
I invited God in to run my life, because it's the best deal I ever had. That's not surrender. It's a different thing. And so had I closed my hand on surrender, I could not have built on it. I have discovered, since I began to volunteer in the morning, that there's a level above that. And I've had that off and on. And I have at those times actually glimpsed one above that. And I know people that are at this one, and maybe some above that. So I try not to close my mind on anything that I've come to know, because I'm convinced that the opposite of right is free.
There was a guy who was a psychiatrist or psychologist, and I'm not sure which, and it may have been both, and also was an ordained minister in one of the fairly mainline Christian faiths. And he was the chaplain of an insane asylum.
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And I read a book that he wrote, and he said he asked the inmates one day a single question. He said, would you rather be right or would you rather be free? And overwhelmingly, they said they would rather be right. And do you know, back when I was nuts, I would have rather been right too. And today I would rather be free. And I am convinced that they are opposites. Because when it's okay with me that I make a mistake, then I'm free. And it's not my job to be perfect. And when it's okay with me that you make a mistake, I'm free. If I have a string on you holding you in line, if you jump out of line, you pull me with you. That's the Al-Anon side of that, is I have to let go of you too.
So that's some of the old ideas that I had to let go of. Another one of my old ideas was that I could do this by myself. That self-knowledge was going to do it. Because I quit forever over 2,000 times. I'm a puker, and we pukers have a tendency to quit forever. This is page 61 in the text. Is he not a victim of the delusion? A delusion is a false belief. Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? The delusion, the false belief is, if I can get what I want, it will make me happy. Gee, I'm a poor observer. I got what I wanted lots of times, and I wasn't happy.
When you were a kid, you wanted a tricycle, didn't you? Didn't you want one? Come on, nod. I know you're out there. Did you get one? Are you happy? You guys wanted her and your girls wanted him, didn't you? Did you get him? Are you happy? Okay. And so what I had to do, I had to give up the idea that happiness was an item, that there was something out there that I could acquire, achieve, or attain that was going to bring me happiness. Because there wasn't. Because I had it all. I'm the guy that got here on the long winning streak. I really did. On the physical plane, I had it by the tail, and I was dying.
The day before I went into treatment, I couldn't name something I wanted. I couldn't name it on the physical plane. I would have liked for the voices to shut up or at least go one at a time. That would have been good, but I was still looking for something out there to make me happy. And all of that stuff's gone now, and I'm happy. And I think happiness is a side effect. It's a byproduct of having a healthy relationship with God and with everybody else. And that's at least in part what these steps brought to me and what, if you haven't done them, I'm convinced will bring to you.
I got here, and I heard those nine step promises, and what I wanted to do was to work the promises and hope the steps came true. Seen anybody trying to work the promises, trying to be that way? That's what I was doing, and take a wild guess how well that worked. There's another concept I'd like to talk about, too. This is page 46. Powerful, powerful information on page 46. About halfway down in the middle of a sentence, it says, it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that power which is God. That thing about God as we understood him really kind of bothered me. I had a problem in the first place with the concept of God's will. Let me try that again.
God's will. Mama, why'd grandma die? Well, it was God's will. I'm going to get as far away from that as I possibly can. Sounds like a bad deal to me. And I had to take my own concept of what those words, God's will, meant, break it into two pieces. This is just me. Red flags now. This is not out of the book. This is my own concept. I'll try to warn you when I give you just my experience or opinion. This is what this is. Here's the first piece. What am I going to be when I grow up? Where am I going to live? Who am I going to live with? How much money am I going to make? Do the communists eventually take over the world? What's going to happen to my children? All that stuff. You know, every bit of that violates one day at a time. Every bit of it violates one day at a time.
And I think of that whole concept as God's plan. Now, step one, section B, says I'm not in management. Not being in management, I consequently do not need to know what the plan is. All I need is today's marching order, so I must lay that down. And it leaves me with my own concept of God's will, and I know what it is. I know what God's will is for me today. I drive an automobile. Put your blinker on near me. I'll let you in in traffic. I've got some children. I'm trying to be a good dad. I'm married to a spectacular woman. I act like it all the time. I'm an alcoholic. I have a home group. I've done the 12 steps.
I read two pages a day in the big book. Just two. Beginning on Roman numeral 11 and going through 164. I read the big book four times a year that way. Keeps me current in the work. I have the privilege and honor of carrying meetings into jails and prisons. I do some treatment center work. I have a sponsor. I sponsor some guys. I'm a child of God. I pray. I meditate.
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And I try to walk through my life doing the things I think he'd have me do and not doing the things I don't think he'd have me do today. I try to treat his kids like siblings. I know what God's will is for me is this day to try to walk in his presence. One of my mentors touched my life deeply a couple of months ago when he said, it sounds to me like you're still praying to the God that's out there. That's not it. Wherever I am, God is. The 11th step talks about improving my conscious contact. There's contact all the time even when I'm not aware of it. I can't go someplace where God isn't and I believe that includes inside this head.
And so this thing is about practicing the presence of God. Presence is always there. It's about my awareness. When I have that awareness, I do good. I still make mistakes. I'll admit that. I still make mistakes. But I'm walking in the presence of God trying to live what's in this book. I make a much finer quality mistake than I've ever made before in my life. We got a name for that, right? We call it progress. That's exactly what that is. That's my job. That's my job. I'll talk about that some more.
So this page 46 says very clearly that I'm not going to understand God. That's not my job. I think if God were small enough for me to understand, we'd all be in big trouble. What they're saying here, and they go on to the bottom of 46 and 47, talk about the idea that it's not my responsibility to understand God. I very simply don't have to believe what anybody else ever talked to me about. I don't care who they were, ordained by some religion, parent, teacher of some kind. I don't have to believe what anybody ever told me about God.
And I try very hard. I do not tamper with the beliefs in God that the men I sponsor have. They and God will work that out just fine if they'll just do this work. That'll work out just fine. I don't tamper with it. Paragraph at the bottom of 46, one of the most powerful in the book for me. Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to effect a contact with Him.
As soon as we admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence, a spirit of the universe underlying the totality of things, as soon as, that means right now, as soon as, we began to be possessed of a new sense of power and direction provided we took other simple steps. I wonder what steps they're talking about. Other simple steps. This is powerful. We found that God does not make too hard terms of those who seek Him. I'm so glad to hear that.
To us, the realm of spirit is broad, roomy, all-inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men. This is page 20 in the text, and for me, sometimes what the book does not say is as powerful as what it does. About eight lines down, it says, if you are an alcoholic who wants to get over it, that's a pretty interesting caveat. You could be an alcoholic who doesn't want to get over it, but if you're one that does want to get over it, you may already be asking, what do I have to do?
It is the purpose of this book to answer such questions specifically. We shall tell you what we have done. I'd like to observe what it does not say. It does not say, what do I have to learn will teach you what we know. It does not say, what do I have to understand will educate you. It does not say, what do I have to believe will give you a new religion. It does not say, what do I have to interpret will help you delve deeply and have a wonderful understanding.
It says, what do I have to do? We shall tell you what we have done. I want to tell you what I have done. I have gotten a sponsor who has already done the 12 steps out of this book. I allowed that sponsor to coach me through doing, and I use these interchangeably, do work, take the 12 steps. Those all say the same thing to me. It's action verb. It's not understand or interpret. It has nothing to do with what I know, but what I do. Always about what I do.
A sponsor who has already done the work coached me through this work and changed my life. And now I'm okay. And it's just an astonishing thing. And I'm convinced that everyone who does that stays sober. I'm sober since June of 84. I have not yet seen one single individual do take work the 12 steps out of this book while being coached by a sponsor who has already done the work. Steps out of this book while being coached by sponsors already done the work and stay active carrying our message and drink again.
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I've not seen it once in 18 years. Has anybody here seen that? I didn't think so. Didn't think so. There's, what, 50 people in this room? Nobody's seen it. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Our path is through the 12 steps, doing the work. That's not a crap shoot. That's not some get it, some don't. This is some do it and some don't, in my experience. And I think we're committing murder.
I'm stepping out on the limb. I'm going to be real controversial here. I think we're killing people with this phrase, don't drink and go to meetings. They think that's our program of recovery. And they're dying from that. I'll ask you one simple question. I'll do this in my talk. This is one of the most important things I think I've ever run across. If sitting around with a bunch of other alcoholics talking about our problems is going to get people sober, wouldn't the guys under the Woodland Street Bridge in Nashville, Tennessee be sober right this second?
Wouldn't they? You bet they would. Because that's what they did last night. Right. But that must not be it. Here are the steps we took. All right. And I'm going to wear that out. Okay. Believe me, I am. For those of you who have your books, you might find this a fun exercise. Let's take a look at page 52 in the text. Paragraph begins a little above halfway down the page. We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems the same readiness to change our point of view.
If you're new or even if you're not, if this is how you were when you got here, here's a description. It says we were having trouble with personal relationships. You got that? We couldn't control our emotional natures. Got some of that? We were afraid of misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. We had a feeling of uselessness. I hated that one. We were full of fear. Absolutely. We were unhappy.
We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. Is that how you got here? Okay. Let's take a look at page and then flip to 83. Keep that one. Bottom of page 83 in what we refer to as the nine step promises, it says if we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We're going to a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. Our feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Okay. You still got page 52? Got 52? Got 83? Got what's on 52? Want to know what's on 83? Do what's in between. Okay. So the way you get from living on page 52 to living on page 83 is taking the actions prescribed in between. I kind of like that.
Wish I'd made that up, but I didn't. Page 30, I got to tell you this. A friend of mine reported this. Somebody, we in Nashville, we frequently at meetings read the nine-step promises as part of the opening or the closing. And somebody, by mistake, handed the nine-step promises to a girl who was still in treatment. And of course, she was as flaky as a bowl of Wheaties. And she starts reading this thing.
And she gets to this one point and she says, fear of people and of economic insecurity will level us. Isn't that a great misread? He said, everybody in the room went like this immediately because they didn't want to embarrass her. You know, if I'd done that, they'd still be laughing. They said, after that meeting, they were hanging on each other. They didn't want to hurt that girl's feelings. Page 37 in the book has something kind of interesting, I think.
Bill, I think, had a wonderful vocabulary. And he did his best not to be redundant with his words. The concepts are frequently redundant. But the words, he tried very hard not to reuse the same word. The word insane, insanity, insanely, appears four times on page 37. I think he's trying to make a point that I'm nuts. I'm nuts. That's what he's trying to tell me. And I don't know why I had so much trouble getting that.
But I sure did. Let's take a look at, I'm going to read and comment on, would you grab me a glass of water, please? Thanks. On page 58, probably the most read and least listened to and understood portion of our book. And I'm going to go through this piece and tell you what I see. Chapter five, how it works. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. We already talked about that.
Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to
[00:35:01]
the simple program. Completely is kind of a large word. Thanks, Tom. Completely give themselves to the simple program. Usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves, there are such unfortunates, they are not at fault, seem to have been born that way or they are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty.
I have trouble with honesty occasionally. Occasionally the best I can do is lie to him, all right? I mean that. That's true of me. And what I just demonstrated for you is rigorous honesty. Sometimes that's just the best I can do. I believe if it had meant perfect honesty, it would have said perfect honesty. It doesn't say that. Rigorous means the very best I can do. It means I don't take it lightly.
And when I discover I have done something like that, I must go back and repair the damage. We're going to talk about that a little bit later. Their chances are less than average. That's interesting. Less than average means they can make it two. Those two are suffering from grave emotional and mental disorders. I got here diagnosed, actually that was before bipolar became popular. I was manic depressive.
And they didn't ask me how much booze I was drinking or if I was doing anything else similar. And if they had asked me how much I was drinking, I would have told them that I have a couple of beers a couple of times a week, occasionally a mixed drink, and two or three times a year I get drunk. And I could have passed the lie detector. I had told that lie so many times I believed it myself. I could not see the truth about it.
And that's what this is about. It's the truth about me. Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you've decided you want what we have, there's that caveat again. If you've decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, I think it's really interesting that the book is now going to tell me what that any length is going to be.
I hear all kinds of things about what any length is, and I think the book's real specific. It says, then you are ready to take certain steps. I wonder what steps they're talking about. I suppose it's these 12 that are the only ones that seem to be listed in the book. That's the any length. It says that some of these we balked. Who balked at a few steps? Come on. Where are you? Oh, OK. Right. There are some of you who didn't put up your hands and didn't understand the question.
I know you didn't. We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not. Interestingly enough, if I can't find an easier, softer way than this, this must be the easiest, softest way. How about that? With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Very start of what? Well, the 12 steps. That's what we're talking about. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil, which means nothing.
That's zero. You spades players, you know that. Until we let go absolutely. Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful. Without help, it is too much for us. That's one of the old ideas that has to go, is that I'm going to be able to beat this by myself. But there is one who has all power. That one is God. May you find him now. What a prayer. May you find him now. Half measures availed us nothing.
I'm used to getting three quarters to 100% for a half measure, aren't you? That's what I've tried to do all my life. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection and care with complete abandon. Here's a prayer before step one. This is the pre-step one prayer. Ask his protection and care with complete abandon. And then the definition of the program again. Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery.
Before I start on that, I want to talk a little bit about my own story for just a second. When I started drinking that first time, I suddenly got taller. Who got taller? Come on. Who got taller? And better looking. Come on. Huh? My pimples fell right off, right? And a fantastic dancer. Huh? Any doubles on the dancer? Oh, yeah. Okay. Expert on many subjects. Did you get smart? Yes. Oh, heavenly days that I get smart.
Yeah. Is that proof? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Tall buildings in the single bound. The whole thing. Yeah. But the biggest thing that it did for me is it made me feel like I was as good as everybody else. I never had the experience before in my life. I became convinced as a very small boy that I was somehow defective. There's something wrong with me that cannot be repaired. And I became an actor. And the act was I pretended to be whoever I thought you wanted me to be.
And you is defined as the people immediately in front of me right now. Which means I'm a different guy to everybody. And the biggest fear in my life is that people from different parts of my life would be together at the same place at the same time. How would I act? Because I'm an actor all the time.
[00:40:00]
And I got that booze in me that first time. And all of a sudden, we went from I'm afraid you'll find out who I really am that I'm defective and you'll run me off. We went from that to you're all pretty lucky I'm here. That's what happened to me. Anybody else? You have that experience? Okay. Yeah. In the doctor's opinion in the fourth edition on Roman numeral 29XXIX, it says unless this person can experience an entire psychic change, there is very little hope of his recovery.
Because that's what booze gave me. It gave me an entire psychic change. And that's what I needed if I was going to get over it. So in the summer of 1984 when they recommended that I had better have had my last drink and my last what I like to refer to in AA meetings as alcohol substitute, what they were saying to me was not lay down your problem. They were saying lay down your answer. They're saying put down the only thing that has ever made your life work.
The only thing that ever made your skin fit. The only thing that ever made you as good as everybody else. The only thing that ever gave you the hope to just carry on. Lay that down. What an order. What an order. And when I'm asked to lay down my only answer, I am without an answer. That's why don't drink and go to meetings is killing people. Because it laid down the old answer. What I needed was a new answer.
The new answer had to be at least as good as the old answer. Had to be. And what I needed, I could go for periods of time, as a matter of fact, I could quit forever. I quit forever several thousand times. And as you know, forever runs anywhere from 20 minutes to about three weeks. The earth people are confused about this forever. But it's a nonspecific less than a month period of time as you know. Right?
Okay. And so what I needed was to become the kind of guy who not only doesn't drink but also isn't thirsty. That was the piece that I needed. I could not drink for a while. But I couldn't face life thirsty. Page 60. First line. Step 12. For me, the most powerful promise in the book. It says, having had a spiritual awakening as the result. Doesn't say a result. I hear it read that way all the time in meetings.
Not what it says. A is one of several or many. The is singular. We promise one result. Is a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. It is my experience that spiritually awakened people not only don't drink beverage alcohol, they're also not thirsty for it. That that craving is gone. I had my last one in December of 84, I remember it very clearly. I know when it left. I don't know when it left.
But I know when the last one showed up, when that last craving came. I want to talk about spiritual awakening and once again, this is my experience, okay? There was a moment this morning when I was asleep. And the very next moment I was awake. But three seconds later I was more awake. And when my feet hit the floor, I was more awake. And when I stepped out of the shower, I was more awake. The spiritual awakening, I believe, is a continuing process like that.
The other piece of spiritual awakening is for me that I awakened to two other presences. One was the presence of the real me, not this act I've been all my life. Because when I got here, I've been acting so long, I didn't have any idea who I was. I had not a clue who stood behind the last mask. And it was my belief that this loving, wondrous God was not having a bad day in the middle of a long losing streak when he came up with me or any of you.
Didn't happen that way. Didn't happen that way. And I didn't know anything about myself except I knew that this act that I've been doing was not working and I was going to have to lay it down. And it has been this journey through the steps that has actually introduced myself to the real me. I'm going to skip ahead a little bit. I said people are terrified by the four step. I think the four step is one of the easiest things that you'll ever do.
And I'm going to prove that to you this morning or probably be this afternoon by the time we get into that. Four step, very, very easy. It's kind of long. It's very, very easy. There are no surprises in the four step. There will be nothing in your four step you don't already know, OK? Just no reason to be afraid of that, OK? I think the other important piece and this was the one that helped me so much is all that garbage in my four step is not who I am.
It is not. That's who I am not. Because if that's who I am. So that must be who I'm not. And what you teach me here is how to receive the forgiveness for doing who I'm not, and how to stop doing who I'm not.
[00:45:08]
And who I really am will just kind of emerge from the ashes like the phoenix. And I hate to be poetic, but that is precisely what happens here. That is what this whole thing is about. It's about me to quit being who I'm not. Because I'm one of God's kids. And God's kids don't do some of the kinds of things that I did. And we're going to talk about some of that when we get a little bit further along.
So I needed, if I'm going to lay down the old answer, I need a new answer. And the new answer is I must be transformed. I must have a transformation of thought. That's what it said on page 143. I've got to lay down my old ideas. Now I got here suffering from what I call the John Wayne syndrome. Recognize it? At age 11, I got this mental image of what a man was, and I pretended to be that for the next 30 years.
And it was things like pull yourself up by your bootstraps. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Never apologize. It's a sign of weakness. Big boys don't cry. Never give up. Get what you want. It'll make you happy. Never ask a stupid question. Never let them see your weakness. Never ask for help. Never surrender, no matter what. Sound familiar? And that's the act I was doing. The truth is I was none of that. But that was the act I was doing.
And the act ain't going to get sober in my opinion. I haven't seen anybody's act get sober. Because I had to quit being the act and start being real. And I didn't know how to do it. But I knew you were doing that. And you convinced me that if I would do these things that you would lay out, that would happen for me. And that's been my experience with it. Because the act isn't genuine. For those of you who are wondering, they do rewrite the big book.
They come sneaking into your bedroom at night and stick something in that page that wasn't there before. Huh? Okay. Well, I got a friend at general service, and they told me, yes, they actually do that. They have people that sneak around and do that. And they recently rewrote page 164 for those of you who may not have picked it up. It says, still you may say, but I will not have the benefit of contact with you who write this book.
We cannot be sure. God will determine that. So you must remember that your real reliance is always upon him. Here it comes. He will show you how to create the fellowship you crave. That's the part they just wrote. They just added that maybe about six months ago. I'm sure. Because I've read this a lot, and it wasn't there before. The fellowship you crave. I did not know that. What I craved was fellowship. I craved fellowship.
And I couldn't have it, because the act can't have fellowship. And I was stationed in Thailand in 1969 and 70, flying a very highly classified mission. I had a flight crew that were all volunteers, and they volunteered to fly with me. I had a copilot. I had a navigator and a flight engineer. We were a unit. And any one of those guys could have gotten off of my crew by walking into the colonel's office on any given day and saying, I'd like to ride with somebody else. And they would have changed him that day.
And there were men lined up to take those three positions to ride on my airplane. And I never felt like I belonged. I never felt like I belonged, ever. I never felt like I was one of them. Because the act can't participate in fellowship. Because I can do the act, and I get to hang out with you, and it looks like it's working. But in here it's not, because in here I still know that I'm defective, and there's nothing about me that's really worth having or knowing.
And if you ever see through the act and find out who I really am, you will not want me around. So the act gets to play with you, but it doesn't get to participate in fellowship. And it's when I lay down the act and evolve into who I really am that I get to participate in fellowship. I can fellowship with you today because I am me now. The real me gets to participate in fellowship. They just added that in the book. I thought it was a really good addition.
Okay, back to page 59, first step, short form. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, therefore our lives had become unmanageable. I read it that way for a long time. I thought the word therefore appeared in the first step. On close examination, I have discovered that the word therefore does not appear in the first step. That was a big surprise to me. There's a dash there, or a hyphen, which, as I look up punctuation in my dictionary, connects two separate thoughts.
The reason I was confused is that on June 27, 1984, the day I had my most recent drink, the fact that I was powerless over alcohol and that my life was a disaster were related. Today, February 7, 2003, the fact that I am powerless over alcohol and my life is unmanageable are not related.
[00:50:08]
They're not related. I was confused, and I want to talk about that a little bit. It's a very powerful concept for me. I continue to be powerless over alcohol. My life remains unmanageable by me. My life's no longer insane, but it's not manageable by me, and I invited God in to manage my life this morning and amend it. I have fired me as general manager of my own life based on my performance. You would have fired me decades ago.
A decent manager would have fired me in the first 30 days. Because I don't find a place after this where it says on page 59, our lives have become unmanageable. I've read this book all the way through to the back cover more than once. I cannot find a place in there that says, congratulations, now having achieved this high spiritual level, your life is manageable, the tank's full, the keys are in it, get them.
I can't find it. If somebody can please quote me a page on that. I don't find it. But I do find a couple of places that promise sanity. So my life remains unmanageable by me. The third step promises say I have a new employer. I now work for God. I worked for me for a long time. It did not work. I was getting what I wanted the day before I got sober. There is some question as to how much more I could survive of what I want.
It was killing me. It was devastating everybody around me. So I'm not too interested in what I want anymore. Sometimes when I'm really crazy I go back to wanting what I want. Isn't that nuts? It is to me. But the book promises sanity in a couple of places, and I think that's pretty powerful. So my life remains unmanageable by me, but it does become sane. Because it says here in the second step, came to believe, and you've heard this I'm sure, came, came to, came to believe.
It's a process. That a power, capital P, power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. And the only thing I can say is look around the room. People in my home group are sane. It worked for them, and I listened to them talk, and they were as crazy drunks as I was. I'm not going to read the short form of the 12 steps at this time, but I am going to skip back to page 60 and maybe talk just a little bit more about step 12.
It says having had a spiritual awakening is the result of these steps. I think the rest of this step for me is more who I become than what I do. It's really sort of both. It says we try to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. It's what spiritually awakened people do. They try to carry this message. That's one of the ways you can spot them. They're showing up early at your home group and making the coffee.
They're carrying the meetings into the jails and treatment centers. They answer the phones at central offices. They're treasurer of your home group. They stay after the meeting and put the chairs away. They're taking meetings into insane asylums. They're sponsoring people. They're doing things to try to carry this message. That's one of the ways you can spot them. And to practice these principles in all our affairs, to try to do these things in all places.
I think the word try is real important because Bill is going to tell us later that none of us are doing this thing perfectly. They weren't, boy, I'm sure not. It looks to me if I'm going to try to carry the message that it makes me an apprenticed messenger. I figure it would have said I was carrying the message if I was a messenger. I think this makes me an apprenticed messenger. And that's a real good thing for me to carry in my heart.
I'm a messenger in training. And I hope I always will be. And it was my experience in the fifth step when I dumped my bucket the first time and somebody helped me fish through it. And having been through the ninth step and done the amends for all of that that can be done, that stuff got cleaned. It got absolutely cleaned. And I still have that past. And I still know all of those things. But they have no weight and they have no stench.
That began the day that I did my first fifth step. It continues, I believe, with my willingness for God to use those things whenever it seems appropriate to Him. And I just know when somebody new or whatever, sometimes a group, because I'll be doing that in a little while, talk about the very worst things that we ever did to people and talk about how we got free. And I think it's my willingness for God to use that ugly stuff from my past is part of what keeps it free.
So in that sense, I'm God's caddy. I carry these things. And I'm an apprentice messenger. When I hold those things in my heart, I do pretty good. And I would tell you, too, I took my shoes off up here when we did that first prayer. When we asked God to come here, I might be on holy ground. And I try to carry that in my heart. And when I speak, I always take my shoes off. And that's why. Because I need to have that connect.
Because I can get trapped up here in this head so fast.
[00:55:02]
Because I forget what I believe. They're in different places. I had a sponsor that told me I'm not responsible for what I think. I am responsible for how long I think it. It might have saved my life because I was getting a brain hernia trying to not notice how gorgeous you ladies are. And it was just making me crazy. And he said, I'm responsible only for how long I think it. I can't keep thoughts from showing up up here.
But when it gets dirty up here, I can sweep. And that's my job. That's the piece. That really brought me some freedom. Okay, on page 60. Many of us exclaimed, what an order. I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect appearance to these principles. I'd like to note it doesn't say motives. We are not saints. The point is we are willing to grow along spiritual lines.
The principles, not motives. Principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. Our description of the alcoholic, the chapter to the agnostic, and our personal adventures before and after. That's a piece they just added about a year ago. That after, that wasn't there. You know that wasn't there. So that means before I had my last drink and after I had my last drink.
Is that what that means? That my adventures today continue to make clear three pertinent. That means pertaining to the subject at hand. It means they're important ideas. When I coach someone through the 12 steps, I have the privilege I'm working with two guys right now. I like to begin here. A, that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives. If I were sponsoring you, I'd say convince me.
Convince me. Explain to me why you think you're alcoholic. What symptoms did you have? What did you do that made you think so? And you can't manage your own life? Why don't you think so? And I let them set their own cornerstones. That's what I'm doing. I'm saying this is what I do. I'm going to use the format quite often of how I sponsor because it's the only way I know how to do this. I'm not here to teach it but to talk about how I do this.
Maybe somebody's got some better ideas. I can't wait to hear them. B, that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism. Who tried? Did your parents try? Siblings try? Spouse try? Professionals? Treatment centers? Cops? Courts? Judges? Therapists? Psychologists? Psychiatrists? Who tried? Based on that information, does it make good sense to you if none of those people were able to relieve your alcoholism?
No other human will because I'm telling you right now I can't. C, that God could and would if he were sought. I'd like to observe it doesn't say found. Item one, God is not lost. Therefore, it does not require to be found. I think that's important. Could and would if he were sought. Does God have that kind of power? Page 57. What is this but a miracle of healing? Yet its elements are simple. Circumstances made him willing to believe.
In other words, he got fried. He got kicked. He finally enjoyed all he could stand. He humbly offered himself to his maker. That's interesting. He didn't invite God in. I think the 12 and 12 says he's a Bush League pitch hitter. Please help me get out of this and I'll never do it again. I found God to be very difficult to train. You know what I mean? The times that I prayed it was please help me pass this test I didn't study for and don't let her be pregnant.
Somebody else prayed that. Get me out of this and I'll never do it again. What I was doing in those days is I was trying to make him my God. I was literally praying to what a friend of mine refers to as the cosmic concierge. What I really wanted was to be God's coach. Hey, big fella, take a knee. I got a couple of things here. This is how I want you to do this. And I go with a shopping center. I was literally trying to train God.
I was trying to make him my God. And what you've taught me here is how to try to make me his man. I had that one upside down too. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas. And the idea that God is there for my use, I had that upside down. I'm here for his. The only difference in those two concepts is that this one seems to work and that one didn't. And so I asked him if God could and would if he were sought.
Does God have that kind of power? Talk to me about God. If you've got a God you're afraid of, we need to talk about this because some of this other work is going to be tough if you do. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. And then it says, being convinced we were at Step 3. Convinced of what? A, B, and C. If we're at Step 3, we must have done 1 and 2, and it seems to me that the
[01:00:04]
actions of Steps 1 and 2 are pretty well summarized in A, B, and C. If a fella can convince me that A, B, and C are true in his life, I believe he's at Step 3. Now I do a lot more work with him in the beginning of this book than what we've had to cover here. We only have a day, and I do not propose that what we're doing here is thorough. But it's going to be the best that we can do. Being convinced we were at Step 3, which is that we decided to turn our will and life over to God.
It's interesting, on this page it says over to God, on the short form of the step on the page before it says over to the care of God. I'd like to observe it does not say to the apathy of God. I think that's important. And I'd like to observe too that Step 3, it looks to me, is not where we turn our will and life over to the care of God or over to God. It's where we decide to. My sponsor gave the example of the three frogs sitting on the log and two decided to jump off.
How many frogs are left on the log? Three. It's because they just decided. They haven't done anything about it yet. That's the difference. The difference between an intention and a decision. An intention is followed by more intentions. A decision is followed by action. So the decision in the third step is my will didn't work. I can't stand it anymore. And I've decided to turn my will and life over to the care of God.
My biggest problem, number one, I was afraid I'd overcorrect. I didn't want to do more than I absolutely had to. And the other thing is you wouldn't want to work God too hard, right? So what I think we're going to do is I'm going to handle money and sex and he can cover the rest. Is that a good plan? Okay. I just want to make sure I was in the right room. For all the money up in here and what God wants.
Yeah, that's right. God can keep what he wants. Yeah, that's exactly right. Okay. So I had to face the great truth. I mean, because we were talking about over here on page 57 that he humbly offered himself to his maker. That's what this is about. That's the request here. So the third step, in my experience, is not where we turn our will and lives over to the care of God. It's where we decide to. And the directions for accomplishing the decision look to me like they're numbered four through twelve.
And I read the first line of the twelfth step and it looks to me like having had a spiritual awakening as the result. The spiritual awakening, I wandered off on myself before, I was going to talk about one more thing on spiritual awakening. I awakened to the presence of the real me, not this act I've been doing all my life, but the actual me. And also, I awakened to the presence of the real God. Not the angry one that's keeping score and I've been a bad boy and I'm cooked anyway.
But the one that's laughing and created the butterflies and the platypus. I mean, come on. And is mad at me? I don't think so. No. This loving, gentle God who's eager to forgive and just wants me to do good. So that awakening is awakening in the sense of was asleep and I'm now awake and continue to be more awakened and also awaken to the presence of me and to the presence of the real God. That's something I was trying to get to before.
I got two brain cells left. One's on a respirator, the other one flickers. And I think that one might have flickered. Okay, being convinced we were at step three, which is that we decided to turn our will and life over to God as we understood him. Just what do we mean by that and what do we do? The first requirement, there are requirements. The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success.
It looks to me like step three breaks down into about nine different items and I'm going to talk about those one piece at a time as we go through here. I'm a real literalist, by the way, and I don't apologize for that. I want to tell you this, though. I'm not near as hung up on format as I'm going to appear to be. But I think it's important for new people to believe this is set in stone. And I think content is a whole lot more important than format.
And so I'm really talking about content, but I'm laying it out as format. So here's a requirement, convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. Are you convinced? That's what I ask them. Are you convinced? Good. Well, you met the first requirement. It says on that basis, we're almost always in collision with something or somebody else. Collision? What word? Collision. Blam! Right?
Pile of junk. Big noise. Collision. Wow. I mean, that's not a misdemeanor. That's collision with something or somebody. Even though our motives are good, good motives are not the answer. I hear people in meetings say, check your motives. That's not what this says. The book does recommend you check your motives. It recommends it twice. It recommends it on pages 69 and 70 when you're getting into bed with somebody.
[01:05:01]
Huh? Where it asks, is it selfish? Recommends it on page 101 and 102 where you're going someplace where they're serving booze. But I think there are principles involved too. But continually, continually we talk about principle. I'm going to talk about where I got that lesson, then we're going to take a break. I had a customer, and I'm a commission salesman, and this guy was putting $50,000 a year in my pocket in commissions.
That's a pretty significant customer. If he bought all the items I wanted him to buy, he could have easily doubled that. He and I were personal friends. Our wives were friends. We were guests in each other's home. We had many spiritual experiences, many spiritual discussions, but never a religious one. He was a Lutheran, and I still don't know what that means because we didn't talk about religion. I don't, but what we talked about was spirituality.
I'm saying he was a wonderful guy. We had a great relationship. Their son was born prematurely, about two months prematurely, and was doing very badly. His life was hanging in the balance. This man called me at home one day, and he said, we're at the hospital. Would you come down and pray over our son? I said, yeah, I'll come down and pray over your son. I pulled into Vanderbilt Hospital's parking lot, and I think I can show you the parking place I was in.
I'm sitting there doing what I've heard in meetings, and people are telling me to check my motives. I can't. I can't figure it out. Am I going down there to pray over this child to carry spiritual help to this family? Am I going down there to pray over this child to get closer to this old man to make more money? I cannot figure it out. One of the things that I believe is that when I'm not getting the answer to the question, it's because I've asked the wrong question.
I went to God with it, and I don't say this comes from Him. This is just my experience. I said, I don't know what to … I can't figure this out. Please help me. This is what I got. What I got was a question. The question was, does walking into a hospital to pray over a sick child violate any of your spiritual principles? The answer was, no, it doesn't. Then go. Then go. For there are no wrong reasons for doing the right thing.
There are also no right reasons for doing the wrong thing. I don't care why you came to AA. I'm glad you're here. That continues to be that way for me today. How do I turn something over to God? I use His means. Step one, section B, says I'm not in management. That means I'm not responsible for outcomes. I've resigned from the results committee. It's not my responsibility. I'm not in management anymore.
How do I get God's outcome? It's easy. I use His means. I can't make up a story out of my past that didn't happen to try to teach you a lesson. It's a good motive. Violates principle. Violates principle. This continues to be about principle. Step 12, and practice good motives on all our affairs, it's not what it says. Practice these principles. Because I could come up with good motives for doing some of the ugliest things you can possibly imagine.
I think the underlying thing under all of this is I'm not going to get God's ends using Satan's means. The way I turn it over to God is I use His means. What I'd like for us to do now is to take about, what, a ten minute break? How long of a break do you want to take? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Somebody talk to me. Ten. Okay. We're going to start at 20 minutes after ten on my watch, and we'll take a break right now.