AA - Alcoholics Anonymous
August 8, 2024
(0:02 – 51:09)
Okay, well good afternoon everybody. Welcome to another Club Med Sober Vacations
workshops. My name’s Sandy Beach and I’m an alcoholic.
Why don’t we start this out with a moment of silence followed by the serenity prayer.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change
the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Well I want to thank Steve for
inviting me to do this.
This is titled Maintaining Our Spiritual Condition and I’m sure we’ll get something in that
neighborhood. I do these things pretty extemporaneously and then I find out later on
that it was close to the subject but I always find it entertaining for myself and I hope it is
for you all. For some unknown reason, what first comes into my mind, there’s a pamphlet
called The Member’s Eye View of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Been around for years. It used to have a big eyeball on the front and then general
service decided it needed a new cover so I don’t recognize it anymore but if you haven’t
read it, it was written by a guy named McGinnis who was giving a lecture to the
American Medical Association and they wanted to know all about alcohol, Alcoholics
Anonymous. And it’s a rather lengthy pamphlet but this is his talk explaining AA and it’s
the only pamphlet that someone wrote like that and then submitted to the general
service board for editing that was not changed in any fashion.
So it’s really amazing that if you want to read a very good pamphlet about describing AA,
that’s it. Now in that pamphlet, he has this very short section and it kind of made me
think about what I wanted to talk about today. He got talking about, it must have been
popular to say back then, that if you just attended a lot of meetings, something would
rub off and he said this is what rubs off.
Death. You sit at the meetings while mental, physical and spiritual rigor mortis sets in
because that’s a plan of no action. That is a plan of trying to survive and achieve
spirituality on somebody else’s work and so you go there and I think it’s possible to stay
sober that way where you have just allowed the excitement of the meetings and the
people in it and all of that to sort of buoy us up to a certain level and just coast along on
that amount of spirituality.
It’s almost like we’re riding on the shoulders of others but as time goes on, you might be
in the program and allow that to go on for eight or ten years, there comes a realization
that maybe we’re missing something that the fundamental program was designed to
give you as an individual. They say sometimes that all AA promises is sobriety. Oh,
really? How about reading the promises? What do they offer? Boy, you read those, we
read them at meetings all the time.
Wow, that’s like the world. You read those promises, that is like the world and so there’s
obviously a huge jackpot for each individual that becomes a seeker. You know when they
read chapter five, the last word in what we read is sought.
Remember it says A, we’re alcoholic, couldn’t manage our own lives. B, no human power
could have relieved our alcoholism and then I used to think it said and God would and
could and there’s three more words. If he were sought, there are four more words and so
seeking is a key word in achieving the rewards that alcoholics anonymous have in my
opinion and so seeking, what is seeking? What does that mean? The first time I came
across that word was in grammar school and we played hide and seek.
I think the first time I thought what does seek mean and they said well this guy’s going
to go hide, you hide your eyes and then you go seek him and I saw that I was very
excited by that game and I came out and they said ready, get set, go and my
enthusiasm would last about three minutes but if I didn’t find him in three minutes I just
said to hell with him, come on out. That’s about it, that’s my maximum seeking capacity
as far as this is concerned so you know now when somebody else hid then I was
renewed. My seeking was fired up again and it was good for three minutes and then it
was you know enough of the seeking, there’s nothing there to hell with it but it got
escalated later on when my mother explained Easter baskets and that they would be
hidden and there was a pound of assorted chocolate in there that would be mine if I
properly could find it and I think that seeking would sometimes go up as high as 10 or 11
minutes and then I’d be going am I cold, am I hot, am I close? I was starting to lose
interest even in this chocolate, you know what I’m saying? It’s hard to sustain a level of
seeking that is necessary to find the chocolate.
It would eventually wane and I would stop being a seeker and be looking for something
else to do but there was one occasion when I think I’ve experienced what this is talking
about here and that was I think it was probably about 12 or 13 years old and we had had
a golden retriever for four or five years that was worshipped by every member of the
family and he ran away and I remember coming home from school and asking my
mother where he was and she said he I don’t know he just ran away when it ran in those
woods and we’ve called we’ve searched and we can’t find him and so for the next couple
of weeks that every time there was a spare moment that family would get in the car and
we’d drive around looking for this dog and even after that I mean years would go by and
then when when I was home I would go over to those woods may have been a hopeless
search but I’d stand there going maybe he’ll come out my heart was seeking something
very very important obviously much more important than hide-and-seek or the
chocolates was I wanted that dog in my life I wanted what he meant to me and the
comfort and all of that and to me that is somewhere in the vicinity of what our higher
could mean to us to make a decision to be a seeker and to find that part of us that wants
to be found is screaming out to be found and that is missing and we know it’s missing
and it was fixed when we drank and it wasn’t fixed when we kept guts over and the steps
are designed to fix it and go into meetings and getting excited by other people’s
programs is a temporary fix but the underlying problem will only be fixed when you
personally make this connection that is described on page 25 and one I’m just going to
read a few excerpts as I go along but these sometimes we see these sentences I don’t
know about you but I guess everybody you know you read the big book again and you go
wow I didn’t see the significance of that and I didn’t see the significance of this and
anyway Bill is writing in there is a solution I can find the page here it is and he’s he’s
describing our resistance to the solution he said there is a solution then he says almost
none of us like the self-searching the leveling of our pride the confessions of our
shortcomings which the process requires for its successful consummation but we saw
that it really worked in others and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and
futility of life as we had been living it and that can apply if we’ve been around for a
number of years we suddenly realized we’ve been at the same level for a long time and
it’s losing its vitality so what is the problem we therefore when therefore we were
approached by those in whom the problem had been solved there was nothing left for
but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet and then the next sentence
we have found much of heaven and we have been rocketed into the fourth dimension of
existence of which we had not even dreamed the great fact so now what is the great fact
of Alcoholics Anonymous that we have conventions and meetings and celebrate now
that’s not the great fact is just this and nothing less that we have had deep and effective
spiritual experiences which have revolutionized our whole attitude towards life towards
our fellows and towards God’s universe the central fact of our life today is the and this is
my what I really want to emphasize the absolute certainty that our Creator has entered
into our hearts and lives in a way which is indeed miraculous he has commenced to
accomplish those things for us which we could never do for ourselves if you’re seriously
alcoholic as we were we believe there is no middle-of-the-road solution so I like to think
about that the scent that in other words what is the prize of Alcoholics Anonymous it is
the absolute certainty for us as an individual that our Creator has entered our hearts and
lives there in a way which is indeed miraculous if that hasn’t happened it may be that we
just haven’t sought enough and it could just be right over there I mean it may be just
one more reach for that actual experience to happen to us as an individual and so it’s in
that sense that when we talk about maintaining our spiritual condition that’s the
condition that we’re talking about and Bill calls it a spiritual experience of spiritual
awakening whatever you want to call it that is what we’re talking about so I guess what
I’m talking about today is when we look at the 12th step and it says having had a
spiritual awakening as the result so in other words what is the point of doing all the steps
to have that spiritual awakening so having had that spiritual awakening then we try to
carry the message to others and practice these principles which will keep enable us to
maintain that so I remember the question came up it was kind of an interesting thing
well where does the spiritual awakening occur you know where does it well I think it’s
described most accurately in the promises if you want to see what a spiritual awakening
is like just look at those promises because all of those verbs are spiritual verbs they’re
not something that a psychiatrist would say or a psychologist would say or a pragmatic
person would say in other words we go what is the core problem for alcoholics selfcenteredness self-centeredness the roots of all our problems self-seeking is the heart of
all our problems and then you look in the promises well how do we solve this self-seeking
oh don’t worry it’s going to slip away slip away what about my panic about money and I
feel so insecure oh don’t worry that’s gonna leave you fear of people and economic
insecurity it’s been with me all my life what do they do they have a little meeting some
night and they go we’re tired of hanging around this guy let’s leave and they’re gone you
see what I’m saying there’s no explanation they’re just gone so how does this happen
what is all of this it is a process that occurs when the steps are thoroughly taken there is
nothing beyond it or anything it is this is the process and there it is in the ninth step
when we finally have gone through all of the early steps and have come up and have
made that last amend so that the past is no longer one of our burdens we have dealt
with that thing to the best of our ability and are free to enter for the first time in our lives
the tenth step which is the now and we find out that this power greater than ourselves
well it says in the in the tenth step in the big book right after the promises is this
sentence we are now entering the world of the spirit we’re now entering the world of the
spirit and we start seeing spiritual release spoken I think the promises I was telling
somebody what have a sign outside of a a meeting spiritually spoken here because that
spiritual lease is self-seeking will slip away that’s spiritual leads you go slip away how
does that happen and then later on if I can find this page real quick Bill is talking about
our drinking now that we’re talking about it in spiritual release remember what it says
about our drinking in step 10 right up to the promises for by this time sanity will have
returned we will seldom be interested in liquor we will seldom be interested now is that
an unusual thing for alcoholic what does it feel like to be sober you’re going to seldom be
interested in liquor oh really I don’t think so I don’t think that’s going to happen to me I
mean how could I sell them be interested oh yes you will if tempted we’ll recoil as if from
a hot flame we will react sanely and normally and we will find that this has happened
automatically we will see that our new attitude towards liquor has been given us without
any thought or effort on our part see this is spiritual lease this is not where you can do
anything this isn’t you doing a thing it’s just been given to you it’s a gift that is handed to
us like the spiritual awakening but as Bill says in the 12th step when he’s discussing this
spiritual awakening we prepare ourselves to receive it that is what the steps do it
reminds me of somebody who moves out in the country and he goes to the post office
and he said I want to start having my mail delivered to such and such a street go well
out here you have to dig a hole in the ground and put a post in and put up this size
mailbox and then we will drive up and put the thing in the mailbox the guy said hey man
I haven’t got time to be doing that just throw it on the lawn and then he gets no mail and
if he’s in the self-centered alcoholic like the rest of us he thinks people stopped writing
him and he gets this rejection feeling and what he did he didn’t prepare himself to
receive the mail and so if we don’t prepare ourselves to have this spiritual gift given to
us it’s easy to conclude that there’s no such thing as a spiritual gift well I’ve been coming
around here a long time no higher powers come into my life and done any of this stuff so
as far as I’m concerned there’s no such thing as a higher power you see what I’m saying
I remember saying that I mean yeah I know you people may have had it happen but
hasn’t happened to me I knew God didn’t like me ever since I was a little kid the nuns
told me that told me I was a piece of crap and so it’s kind of bearing this out and I hadn’t
done the homework in order to have this awakening and these things happen so Bill
goes on to say we will find this has happened automatically it has been given to us this
new attitude without any effort on our part it just comes that’s the miracle of it so all of
this spiritual lease is miracle we are not fighting it neither are we avoiding temptation
here’s my one of my favorite lines we feel as though we’ve been placed in the position of
neutrality this is what you do you just been lifted up and placed into this position of
neutrality safe and protected we have not even sworn off instead the problem has been
removed this is all spiritual solutions that’s what it looks like the problem is just removed
it isn’t figured out there’s no revenge there’s no retribution there’s no nut it just is lifted
out when you have a resentment lifted out and you after it’s lifted out you go I wonder
why I was resentful in the first place you’ve been set free from it rather than a human
solution of getting even or whatever it is it is all spiritual lease instead the problems are
it doesn’t exist for us we are neither cocky nor are we afraid that is our experience that’s
how we react as long as we keep in fit spiritual condition and then he goes on to say it’s
easy to let up on this spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels we are headed
for trouble if we do for alcohol is a subtle foe we are not cured of alcoholism what we
really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition
and that’s what we’re talking about today the maintenance of our spiritual condition why
would that be hard if it is so enjoyable to have this freedom and to have this this way of
having problems just lift it up taken off our shoulders you know here I got this terrible
problem hey God would you mind lifting this off my shoulder be glad to how does it feel
oh it feels wonderful thank you why don’t we just do that all the time that’s why we’re
here to try and think about that why wouldn’t we do that all the time so I’ll give you an
analogy let’s suppose that instead of all the steps the program consisted of this you
come in here and you go you’re a bad egg oh yeah I’m a bad alcohol you do anything to
be oh yeah yeah okay well we have a path to happiness it’s a bike path and here’s your a
a bike and as long as you ride this bike down this a a path you will have one day after
another of serenity and your life is all planned for you by a power greater than yourself
that lays out the path every day all you do is ride that bike along and that’s your total
responsibility and you go good I love it what a deal this is the that’s freedom man now as
you’re getting on the bike it’s a two-wheel bike you notice it has training wheels bothers
your ego a little bit but you don’t say anything you go this is part yeah the training
wheels are part of the bike okay so you’re riding and you’re enjoying life it turns out it’s
it’s absolutely true what they told you that this is every day you ride the path and you’re
happy but have they been riding five or six years and you’ve never once lost your
balance enough for those training wheels to kick in they start to bother you you know I
look bad riding the bike with training wheels I saw those people looking at me said God
he’s been sober ten years he still got training wheels on his bike guess he’s not working
much of a program guess who gets involved now our ego our ego can’t stand God this is
this is the worst thing that could happen to our ego is God I don’t know if you’ve ever
had this happen but sometimes when I’m tired I’m exhausted at night and I was kind of
jump into bed without saying my prayers and then I’ll feel bad and I remember one night
my ego said listen go ahead and go to sleep I’ll say your prayers for you and I saw I
eavesdropped on my ego praying and this is his prayer he said God great creator the
universe source of all love divinity it was really cool I mean this guy was really laying it
on I ask that you make us serene that you make us totally accepting that you make us
totally understanding and giving and loving and kind and generous I ask that you grant
this to us I ask that you bestow upon us all your blessings I ask that you give this as soon
as possible because as soon as you do give it we’re gonna get rid of your sorry ass and
we’re gonna run this show on our own because ever since you moved in with that alcohol
deal I’ve noticed that you’re trying to take over the whole damn territory you’re muscling
into lust you’re muscling into greed you’re muscling into everything and it’s pretty
obvious for me to see that if you succeed I don’t exist so I’m not going down without a
fight I just want you to know that so we have been given the dichotomy of the human
existence which is the struggle between our material side and our spiritual side and I
was kidding Steve about this I said where are you going to find this struggle
characterized where do you see Bill right about it and it’s in the sixth step and it’s called
the riddle of our existence and this is what I think from memory what that what Bill
writes about I mean if there’s any place where the full impact of the program is laid out
it’s in the sixth step we were entirely ready to have God remove all our defects of
character now everybody who comes to that step goes and and if you were to ask him
would you like that we go yeah I mean God I don’t know anybody who hasn’t said yeah
then why don’t we do it why isn’t everybody in here character defect free well we take
back our yes when we get into the details it reminds me of the federal deficit would you
like the deficit gone yes okay we’re gonna raise your taxes got your program we’re
gonna oh on second thought let’s qualify this deal it’s in the specifics that we find the
problem of getting entirely willing to have God remove anything he says that the reason
we’re able to do this with drinking is that it’s killing us it’s fatal and even our ego has to
cave in to giving up on that one totally and so that gives us this is where the problem
comes in because we were able to get a hundred percent willing to have our drinking
problem removed and we humbly asked that it be removed it was which proves to us
that this works if God lifted away from us if our most serious serious problem was lifted
up by this process it proves to us that this works so we can no longer say well you know
if you got willing to get rid of all resentment it would be it wouldn’t be gone because
whoever saw that happen each one of us saw it happen to our worst problem so having
been given perfect proof that this in fact works that there’s it’s absolutely guaranteed
okay in the world aren’t we continuing and living these stress-free completely serene
lives well this is what Bill calls the riddle of our existence he says the answer may only lie
in the mind of God but he makes the guess that alcoholism is fatal so we’re able to get
the the willingness there and the rest of our defects we’re going to have to get more
willing and more willing every year that it is a very difficult job and the sentence that he
uses in there that I that applies to me and the people that I sponsor we only tend to
settle for as much perfection as will get us by guys you know it’s like would you like to be
totally honest yes I would because then you wouldn’t have that lies you would you
wouldn’t have these cover-up stories you would you’d be free everything you say is your
truth and you’re just at free with the world unfortunately I’m a businessman myself and I
don’t think it’s possible to succeed in business and be totally honest so what I’d like to do
I’d like to get a measure of honesty I certainly want to I want to make improvement in
the honesty area I am I am very interested in spirituality I love the idea the program and
I do want to make some progress in this honesty thing so what I’d like is an honest
reputation that’s what I’d like I’d like to be known by others as an honest person
reserving the right of course in rare emergency situations to screw a few people here
and there in order to support my loving family so put me down for 83% of honesty well
what about lust oh that’s a terrible thing haunts me haunts me it’s it’s I mean it’s sex sex
sex you know I’m having a hard time giving this lecture looking at the pool but so yes
that that that is definitely a strong problem for a lot of us well would you like it lift it out
like that remember we described we’ll put you in the position of neutrality it’ll be lifted
gone whoo not even part of your life anymore you mean like zero lust yeah yeah yeah
yes zero lust freedom freedom absolute freedom zero lust is that like being dead let’s
let’s try 50% let me see what it feels like and then I’ll move in that direction that’s what
I’d like to do I’d like to move in the direction of lust free okay okay well let’s let’s work on
some of the easier ones okay dr. Bob I think in his final talk was talking about guiding the
errant member of the tongue that gossip was tearing up the program so certainly
certainly we could very simply ask God to totally remove gossip from our hearts how
does that feel that feels wonderful I agree gossip is I mean it is just it is so so destructive
and so well what I’d like to do is I would like to never initiate gossip for the rest of my life
however if I am simply relaying something that has been started by some malicious
person I’m I’m just that I’m not judging I’m not doing I’m simply relaying something that
is passing through with no malice no nothing I may reserve if it’s especially if it’s juicy to
be a relay or once in a while okay so so gossip is what Oh 84% to take 84% just I’ll relay
at the most three times a year I’ll relay one little thing that’ll be it there and we could
just start in we could start in with anger like oh yeah yeah unless someone does
something that deserves anger then I want to be able to properly focus on that okay so
what do you want on anger I’d like a good 70% of my anger to be gone and as we go
through all of these defects that we’re eager to get rid of we start taking them back
because they give us pleasure they it’s almost like our ego jumps in and says who are
you except for your character defects you’ll be the hole in the donut if they ever took all
your to who would you be what would you be and so we have now come up against the
parameters of our lifelong journey which is to continually find something else to get rid
of as Bill writes it’s impossible to summon all this willingness at once and to have these
things lifted out and so we have settled in for the true nature that we have which is to
have this uncomfortability I remember reading the 24 hour day book one day and there
was a prayer in there and I remember going boy this is the opposite of a serenity prayer
it said I pray that I may be never satisfied with my material with my spiritual condition
now think about that I mean it sounds very noble I pray that I may be never satisfied
with my spiritual condition that means I’m gonna never be satisfied with my material
with my spiritual condition that means I’m always going to be restless and wanting to
move on I’m never going to be content perfectly with where I am and why is that that’s
because we have two natures the way I see it we have our material humanness and then
we have our spiritual side and they are at odds with each other that one wants to live in
the material world and one wants to live in the spiritual world and we are governed by
the laws of the material world and the spiritual world and I think that the transition in
Alcoholics Anonymous as we go down this path is to gradually diminish the power of the
material world to affect us and to greatly move ourselves into the spiritual world where
spiritual release is spoken and that’s why meetings and sponsors and close friends who
will go to dinner and instead of talking about the stock market are talking about spiritual
things geez I had another way of looking at resentment oh well tell me Joe that’s a
wonderful way I’m going to incorporate that and we are moving away from the power
that holds us in the material world to the freedom of the spiritual world and Chuck
Chamberlain I mean boy he just summed it all up uncovered discovered discard that’s
what he said for the rest of our lives what else can I let go of what else can I let go of the
ego I remember when you know when you’re totally self-centered this is what I
remember as a practicing alcoholic it was like everything that happened anywhere
bothered me anywhere as soon as I found out about it and didn’t approve and somebody
discovered a new moon around Uranus and I went a new moon around Uranus I can’t
even keep up with the moons that are there now why don’t they stop looking I know why
they’re looking just to bother me to give me another freaking moon to worry about you
know and it was like everything that happened anywhere was happening to me that was
how big my radar of keeping track of everything was and we come in here and try to
become as small as possible you know we’re big shots oh yeah I’m this and I’m that and
this and that and then we get in here and we want to become the point on the
instrument that God is using just a dot just a tiny dot so that nothing that happens can
bother us because there’s no there’s no us to bother someone once said that all
problems can be condensed down into one one thing’s not going your way that’s it it
could be health it could be money it could be sex it could be anything but the reason it’s
a problem is that it’s not going your way and from a purely physical point of view before
we get into the spiritual program if things aren’t going our way and that’s why we’re
unhappy then the only way to happiness is to control everything so it does turn out your
way which is very hard to do because we’re in a world with millions of other people that
are trying to control us so that their life will come out happy and there’s nothing but
conflict going on and a rat race as everybody is seeking the goal of happiness and we
come in here and um it said oh you want to solve the problem of things not going your
way well we’ll tell you the spiritual solution don’t have a way there that’s the end of that
story don’t have a way well how do i not have a way you got to have a way you have to
what do you mean don’t have a way well you take your way whatever that means to you
whatever that energy is where you are figuring out how everything ought to be and you
turn it over to your higher power and then you just do things his way now in order to do
that some people often say well what is god’s way what’s the next right thing what is all
that and sometimes the answer will be well there’s a certain code of moral values
everybody knows right from wrong and you just do that that’s not it at all that’s how we
would do it without a higher power this this this problem of a higher power it’s really
amazing right after the new year people make resolutions i still do it a little bit but not
like i used to and you remember how those resolutions would be you’d go i’m going to
take off 15 pounds i’m going to stop drinking cokes no more sugar i’m going to working
out i’m going to start doing this you know spend more time with my kids etc so the guy
goes to his sponsor and tells him about his new year’s resolutions and the sponsor said
well have you made up any spiritual resolutions you’re in a spiritual program now why
don’t you come up with a couple of those come on back and talk to me so he went home
and thought about that and he wanted to impress his sponsor you know what i mean let
him know what a spiritual giant he was so he started right jotting down on a pad you
know imagine that you’re doing this for your sponsor what would you put down there to
uh impress him so he wrote down three or four things and came back and he said you
got something yeah let me tell you okay well read them to me i said well i resolve to be
more understanding and a better listener with my wife and children and i resolve to be
more generous in my giving and to care about other people more and i resolve to read
more spiritual books and i resolve to try and live in harmony with the people that i
encounter in my day’s march he felt pretty good about that you know what i mean
sounded pretty spiritual to him and he read it off to his sponsor the sponsor said god i
hate to tell you this but that’s the exact antithesis of a spiritual resolution that isn’t even
close you haven’t even scratched the surface on it he’s going what are you talking about
are you saying that being generous isn’t spiritual oh yeah that’s very spiritual oh well are
you saying that be more understanding and a better listener oh that’s very spiritual well
oh i see it’s the word resolve that’s not a spiritual word you don’t resolve and no that’s
not it well then what’s the problem it’s the first word in your resolutions i am going to do
all these things you’ve entered the world of the spirit you don’t do the work anymore god
does the work so if you want to be more generous you ask god to make you be more
generous if you want to do more spiritual reading you ask god to help you read more
spiritual things you start all of your thoughts with we instead of i that’s the power of the
ego this is that sneaky guy who wants to keep god out of there and he comes up with a
list of things where we’re going to be spiritual on our own proving that we don’t need
god you follow what i’m saying boy i’m reading a spiritual book and i’m being generous
i’m doing this and all of that while it may look good on the surface is proving how much
how little we need this higher power to ourselves and alienating us from this higher
power in this wonderful show of self-centered spirituality i do this all the time you go to
meetings just listen to when somebody says well what do you do about this well i do this
and i do that here’s what i do here’s what i do i mean it’s we just talk that way all the
time and it is that is certainly not spiritual lease in the sense that we’re talking about
here what is the problem with getting god involved he’s too extreme that’s the problem
with spiritual solutions they’re too freaking extreme he wants to he wants to make me a
saint or something i just want to stop drinking i remember when i got here i said okay
i’ve stopped drinking and i’m doing all that and then my sponsor’s going oh sandy if
you’re going to stay in the program stay sober you’re going to have to give up that
embezzling at work you can’t be taking that stuff oh it’s a two thing in the aa it’s a
drinking and embezzling oh all right i didn’t know that you didn’t tell me you know and
the next thing he’s talking about what if you want to keep your marriage you’re going to
have to stop the affairs oh so there’s three things no drinking no embezzling no well
every month he had another thing and another thing and another thing went on forever
this isn’t alcoholics anonymous this is everything a hall that’s anonymous or so i mean
it’s like everything that’s what it says we want to turn our will in our lives over to the
care of this higher power i know sometimes people when they’re doing their inventories
they’re working steps four and five it’s it looks exhausting i remember talking to
somebody one time and it finally gave me reason why i thought it was so hard as you are
listing the character defects you feel the burden of the work that’s going to be involved
in dealing with these things and you want to minimize them because you’re so tired and
it’s because we don’t understand the process so if we took an analogy to the fourth and
fifth step and we said to you we’re not going to inventory you we have a new system
now now most alcoholics live in a pretty rundown house when they come into aa you
ever driven i remember my sponsor and i were going to 12 step call we forgot the guy’s
address in this neighborhood we knew the rough blocks we were going to drive around
so we drove around all of a sudden the two of us went that’s it you know what i mean
there was a motorcycle over on its side with one wheel missing car up on jacks two
wheels missing there lawn hadn’t been mowed the beer cans all over the house hadn’t
been touched in 15 years it was so easy to find this guy’s house it was a piece of cake
we just drove up so so instead of inventorying ourselves we’re going to inventory the
house and so that’s your new job the response is i want you to tell me everything that’s
wrong with that house and you go oh my god so you go back and you start inventorying
it and then you’re getting exhausted and a new roof and and and the exhaustion is
imagining the work that’s involved in fixing it all you follow what i’m saying that’s why
we want to keep that list small jeez this is too much the more i put on the list the harder
the job’s going to be so as we’re bogging down and our sponsor’s talking to us and he’s
going what’s the problem i’m just overpowered by what it’s going to take to do all oh i
forgot to tell you you just do the list we got a contractor that’s going to do all the work
you just do the list oh really now watch us go back we’re going to find about 800 more
things now the contractor is going to do the work you follow what i’m saying so now
we’re going well actually all the plumbing and the wiring you know this and that and we
well we finally list every single thing that’s wrong with that house that’s exactly how the
program works we list every defect that we have that we have god lift out there’s no
work in getting lifted out they’re lifted out we’re going to know a new freedom and new
happiness our drinking problem doesn’t exist for us you see the difference it is so freeing
when it is actually carried out the way the program has it designed but it leaves the ego
out god gets all the credit the ego is angry who am i i get to do something when do i get
to do something on my own you know it’s like when we’re learning a new sport or
something we can hardly wait for the teacher to go away so that we can go out and
finally be on our own and the sad truth is or the happy truth is that even with 40 years
sobriety you still have training wheels on your bicycle and we’re glad they’re there
because it’s going to come a day when we have no defense against our the first drink
what we really have is the daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our training
wheels and they’re going to stay there and they’re going to bother our ego till the day
we die we’re going to look back at those training wheels part of us and go god i can’t
stand those training wheels they make me look bad and the rest of us is going to be so
glad that they’re there because it isn’t us that’s doing anything it’s the power it’s the
creator of the universe that’s entered our hearts and lives in a way that is indeed
miraculous and we suddenly realize that god is doing for us what we cannot do for
ourselves that’s the end of the time it’s been wonderful to talk to everybody and i hope
you got something out of it and let’s have a great rest of the day thank you all very
much
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