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Episode 32 · 2 years ago
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Episode 32 · 2 years ago
Russell S at There Is A Solution group - Talk 3
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
This is. My name is Russell. I'm an alcoholic. I remember the South taxia group and I haven't found necessary of a drinks these January twenty pit one thousand nine hundred and eighty one. And yes, that's right, that's right, that this is going to be the tragedy that is my life. I we had a meeting before the meeting. Unfortunately, most of you guys missed it, and I did announce that I am going to sacrifice myself for you all and this will probably the last AA meeting I ever do on the planet, not because I want to be the last a meeting, but I ran my subject matter by New York, The New York office, and they're pulling my license. So it's been a forty year run, pretty good run, and I'm sorry we're going to have to end it this this, this way, but you know, you know, as they say in the book Manicus, themselves, alcoholics are men women who have to destroy themselves. So I got to do what I got to be the Julian assange about box I had they mean to John Deane aboutoholics, and I gotta I got to be the whistle blower. So I'm going to blow the whistle on alcoholics, an onnymous. I mean my goal is when they go to night. You know. You know, sometimes I meet people say Oh, I'm getting sick and tired of those meetings. You meet these people to say, Oh, they're so boring, I'm going to they're all the same, they never change. You know, I maybe we all go through that, I don't know. So I don't want this to be one of those meetings, you know, where you hear the same thing you've heard fifteen thousand times. So I'm sacrificing my life and my reputation, which, quite frankly, isn't much anyway, if your enjoyment in your amusements. So we'll see how that works. I'm going to talk a little bit about the third step and the second step and some sort of stuff. They'll be something in there for everybody and and so so let's go ahead and go. And so listen. I want to tell you first of all, this is I want to let I want to say this to you. This is my opinion. This is my opinion. You don't have to agree with me. You can be wrong if you if you want to. I mean it's it's a free country. You know still, but this is all my opinions. So like they take, take what you like and leave the rest. And if I disturb anybody, if I bother anybody, you know how much I hate to do things like that. You know, I asked my sponsor, Joe Snyder once the sizes that you have got resentments. He said get him. I give them, you know, and you know and the but the bottom line is you know what they if I bother you, you know what they said. You know, the spiritual axiom is whenever you're disturbed, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with you. So I'm gonna talk a little bit about third step of the second step and and the fraud that is alcoholics anonymous, the fraud that is alcoholics anonymous, and I'm going to talk to you about some I don't know whether I'm sometimes I come up with these ideas. You don't have this. I want to put it in chat, but I'm scared open up check. This is some sort of crazy stuff there. But there's this this one line I have that I I just love this like yeah, the Guy Still on. I just love this line. Let me read it to you and find that it's let me see whether I can find it. As you can see, I'm well prepared. Let me see it says. If I can find it, it was. I got it from the Oxford Group. You guys know what the Oxford Group is, right. So let me see if I can find this one line and this is the line. It says. This true. This, this is from the eight points of the Oxford Group, which was an evangelical Christian Group First Century Christianity. That a started in within that group. It says truly, a man may look at a thing nine hundred and ninety nine times and not see it once, and look for the thousandth time and see it for the first time. And there's another quote by Ts Eliott in the for quatrains where he says we will not cease our exploration and when we come to the end of our searching we will come to the place where we began, having known the place for the first time. So I think my experience with a a is that I don't know what this is your experience? As you know, we have different groups here, different people in for different times, different amounts of time. That whether I'm five years sober or ten years sober or fifteen or twenty, or twenty five years over, thirty, thirty, five years over, whatever it is. Along the way, all of a sudden open up the big book or hear something or see something and come to a realization of something that's important, that has been in front of me all the time. That ever, that ever happened to you, is sort of like you're moseying along, whether it's, I don't care what you want to call it, denial, delusion, whatever it is, and all of a sudden, at five years sober, all of a...
...sudden you come to some sort of incredible, profound realization of something that they've been telling you for the last five years and all of a sudden you just you've get to it like a new level and new situation. So I'm going to talk to you a little bit about that. As far as a third and a second step, I want to tell you, I need to tell you a little bit about my life, and one of the reasons I should say this is because in our big book and says, our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, what we are like now, and so I'm a great believer in not only the power of our testimony, the power of our stories, but I do believe they have power and I believe that's what makes us unique. We each have a different story. It's pretty much about the same disease in the same recovery, but but all our stories a sort of you meek and and secondly, I think that one of the reasons why a meetings, why we're attracted a meetings, is I like I like authenticity. I mean I don't want to be lectured to. And you know, I can get into a little bit like that because I am interested in a history and give an opinions and I'll get into a little bit like that. But Damn it, you better put a little bit of yourself into it. You know what I mean? You better put some skin in the game. You know, tell me about yourself. What's going on with you and who are you? And and you know, I'm seventy one years old, tourney and day county and married for thirty nine years. Got Married three months after came day a, got four kids, grown kids, raised them sober, seven grandkids and and I'm in my forty year now and doing my thing and I do a bunch of these meetings and I'm always grateful. I'm a Zumoholic. I become a Zumaholic. What can I tell you? I'm I've always been a meeting the haul, like I would always been a meeting sky. Of course I went through the phases we all go through, and you know how we got we rest on our laurels and you know all the phases we go through. I've been through that, the desert time and and I'm not going to go through all that because it's really hard. I want to talk about something else and it's kind of hard to slip in seventy one years of being an alcoholic and you know, thirty nine and a half years of being sober and everything that's happened and all the stories and all your testimony until like fifteen minutes and that's really all I want to take before I get into what I actually want to talk about. But but any that, that's that's a pretty much the deal. I I started drinking when I was at fourteen years old. I got I got drunk and I had sex and that was it for me, you know what I mean, and I and after that every time I was with a woman, I was drinking and I don't know. It's sort of went hand in hand. And they say whenever you use alcohol to allow you to do anything, you lose the ability to do that thing without the alcohol, whatever it is. And you know I if I was going to meet a girl, was going to be in a bar, if we were going to go out a job, was going to be drinking. And that's the deal. And so I've been addicted absolutely to two things in my life and that's alcohol and women and sex. And that's basically it. And I was allowing Lizard and I wanted what she had and I was willing to go to any length to get it. And and that's the deal with me. And and I'm an if only er and a yes butter. You know, I told myself all the time this is just the way I think. You know, my sponsor said to me, why do you say the things you say? Why do you do things you do? I said that's just the way I'm that's my personality. He said your personalities killing your Russell. I thought it was a booze, but he said it was my personality. You got to be sober for three or four or five months and realize how crazy you are before you really understand that line that they say alcohol is put a symptom of art disease? I came into a a when I was thirty one years old because I could not stop drinking. I don't have to explain that. If you're not coholsonoymous, you understand that. I tried to stop, I couldn't stop. My life was a mess. I heard a lot of people. You know, I have a first why. I walked out of a marriage for my first wife and a beautiful young child. I had a beautiful marriage, beautiful thing going. I had a nice house, I was the vision chief of the states attorney's office. I walked out of the marriage. I told myself it's not working. We got married to young blah, blah, blah. The stand of the up, the bottom line was, you know shit. She had lost the power and she I had a lot of higher powers of my life. I had tons of higher powers. A new car is a higher power. Money. I spend more money, I don't have to buy things, I don't need to impress people I don't like. You can't even imagine. Money's a higher power to me. Okay, women are higher power. Sex is a higher power. Cars a higher power, you know, prestige, titles, diplomas, anything that's material in this world has been a higher power to me, or a combination of them. I will whore myself for myself. I will, I will devalue and violate every piece of integrity I have in order to get something I think I need. I am essentially a material...
...whore, okay, and I'm not overstating that, because I know what my life is about and I know what moved me, and somehow I am a rationalizer. I have the way that I am. I am able. You know, when you're intelligent, you can tell yourself some real great rationalize to explain why you're walking out on a marriage where there's no reason why I should walk out on it. But unfortunately, becoming day you get so when you do much more steps, you listen to a bunch of people, and one day you realize that you left your wife because you wanted a date other women, which doesn't sound like a good reason to break somebody's heart and walk out on a child. I like the reason it's not working. We got married too young. That's my favorite reason. But the real reason was because I was an unpeaceful I was an unfaithful piece unfaithful piece of crap and I had no integrity. You know, I like the I like the reason where it makes me look like a superstar something, but the bottom line is, you know, I'm an alcoholic and that was my whole thing. I was addicted. I drank I didn't need it. I drank because I was awake. Awake was a good enough reason for me. I could I give you all sorts of read. I don't blame the things I did to people on alcohol. Many of the ways I hurt people an alcohol. As far as letting them down, most decisions I made I made them cold, stone sober. I heard just as many people after I stopped drinking the same way and for the same reasons them before I stopped drinking. So I don't. I don't fool myself and believing I'm basically a good guy, basically deep down inside, on selfish, on selfcentered. I understand what that's all about. It's not a bad thing for me to think that, because it's like like he explains to me who I could become and what I really am, and I got to live the reality. I'm selfish and self centered. I'm driven by a hun you're driven. I have no condi without this program, without God in my life, I have absolutely no control over the crap I could do, the things I could say, of the stuff I could do, because I have a disease that centers in my mind, not my body, and it and it actually continues after I stopped drinking, as a matter of fact. All the fears, all the self pity, all the blame, all the bullshit I was right inside me before I even took my first drink. So the bottom line is, I am an alcoholic. I've driven it. I'm driven by a hundred forms of fear, selfdelusion, self pity. I step on the toes of others, they retaliate seemingly without provocation, but ultimately I realize that I've made decisions. I make decisions driven by selfishness, which puts me in a position to be heard. So I'm self will and riot, though I usually, quite frankly, don't think so. Above everything, what I need to do is I need to get rid of this selfishness, a selfishness that I don't even know I have. I don't even know I have, and here's what's even worse. If you try to tell me. I'm selfish. I'm telling you to screw yourself, because my chief characteristic is on defiant and I'm arrogant and I'm a know it all. I must get rid of the selfishness. I must, or kills me. God makes that possible, because that's what the big book tells me, and because I'm I I've got thirty nine years sobriety. I now actually believe that I can say it, I can quote it, because it's not something I read out of a book. It's something that I'm so sure of today, that that I am selfish and I'm so sure I understand how incredibly selfish I am and I'm so sure I understand what God has given to me, where he's lifted me and where I am right now, that it's just part of my life, it's part of my existence. I need anybody to tell me. I need to read a book to figure it out. You know, I've spent forty years of repeated humiliations, the final crushing to my self sufficiency, over and over to make many, many, many different surrenders in my life. So I know who I am and what I am and what I'm grateful for it and whatever if you see anything in me that is attractive or you want what I have or anything like that, trust me, it has nothing to do with me. It has only to do like Phil Wilson said, the Lord has been so wonderful to me, current me of this troubles, these that I got to keep talking about and telling other people. And and that's the deally. There's been a lot of blessings in my life now. Took a long time to get it. Of course, the greatest blessing was one of the greatest blessings with not drinking. But the truth is the easiest, the easiest thing in my life was to not drake. Now it took fifteen years. It took fifteen years and I you know, they say don't robin alcohol in his last drink and don't robin alcohol his desperation. It took fifteen years, but I, in a real sense, became entirely rated to have God removed the alcohol from me. You know. And on December twenty five, one thousand nine hundred and eighty, Christmas morning to three o'clock in the morning, being all alone of my pot bachelor pad, when I thought my I was thirty one years old. That, though, my life was over. It was never to get better again. You know, I wanted to die. I I you know, I just I just felt terrible. I turned on to the TV. It was a preacher on Christmas morning. He was talking about the Gospel and everything, and I was so sick and so desperate.
He said, you want to change a life, set down on your knees and ask God. In July, if I got down on my knees, I said the sinner's prayer. I asked Christ to come into my life, you know, which is probably not a big thing for you, but I'm a Jewish kid from great neck Long Island. You don't need. Is a big thing for me. But it's hard to explain that unless you've been there, unless you've been to a point where you would do anything. You know, we have the thing in this book if you want what they had and you're ready to go to any like I was ready to do anything to change my life and I got down to my knees and of course I got up and I continued to drink. I thought nothing had happened. In and and in January of nineteen, you want to got into a bad car accent while I was on a Gurney and they were willing me in at tubes running all through me. I looked up. He said, God help me. Then something happened to me. I had a spiritual experience. I'm not going to go into that, but the bottom line is is that on January twenty two, one thousand nine hundred and eighty one, I pick up a white chip in alcoholics anonymous and I haven't found mess at I have a drink since that time. And I walked into alcoholics anonymous and then to eat the magic began. And I'm not going to go through all the magic and everything like that. It's the story of the the one year and the three years and the five years and every year, every decade, every everything. You get into situations and worries. That's the money. It's not a port is just right up day with oxygen, you know what I mean? And and somehow, some way, I guess. I guess the first ten years. I mean, how can I describe? It's really not even be a good description. I guess it's sort of like in alcoholics anonymous I've without even knowing it, I've always been you know, I accomplished a lot in my life I think mostly on sheer fear and worried, but I mean in alcoholics anonymous. I think what I would say about my sobriety is I want to say it's like good sobriety. I don't know what you mean by good sobriety. You know, I'd be I'd be scared, I'd be worried and my sponsor would say, you know, at one year and I my sponsor would say, have you had a drink today and I'd say no. He says you're doing great, you're exactly where you're supposed to be. So the bottom line is, no matter what was going on in my life, it was if I had five years and I was I was broke and I was worried and I was scared. My sponsor would say, what's the problem? I tell them all the promises, you're exactly where you're supposed to be. So I was always exactly where I was supposed to be. And all I can tell you is this. I know what it's like to be anxious and have anxiety and worry and fear when you're sober. I know what it's like to be up at three o'clock morning and at fifteen thousand voices, all bad shit about yourself and other people because you're worried there's not enough money in the bank. Why? Because you spend money you don't even have and you going to dead. You don't even realize that. I know it's like. I know it's like to have sober fear about everything. To me, I understand. I didn't understand this before. I lived a life of total fear, worried and anxiety about everything. I used to say to my sponsor. I said I staid doing. I remember we're talking about drinking a bar as I said, listen, yeah, I'm have any fear of I don't have fear of people. I don't have fear people at all. I could be with three in to be he says, he says. Well, he says, yeah, US good a boss. Well then, why do you always have to be drunk when you were around them, if you didn't have fear with people? Why, whenever you were in a crowd at a bar, at a wedding, why did you always have to drink if you were around I didn't have an answer for that one. You know. So my life. The problem is is when you live a life where you have this corrosive thread of fear and anxiety. I used to tell myself I don't give a crap what other people think about me. Now I realize, after many years sobriety, that people that constantly tell themselves that they don't give a crap what other people think about them, all they do is worry about what other people think about it, because people that really don't give a crap what other people think about them never say to themselves they don't give a crap what other people think about I used to turn to other people and say I don't give a crap what other people think about me, and I use I I could talk myself into stuff, tell him my stuff, stuff that wasn't true and believe it. But the truth is I lived a life where I was always worried about what kind of car I was driving, what I look like, what people were saying. Man, I'll tell you something. I can't tell you the Times, I'm sure I'm the only one stud that done this, that I sat at a table when I had to go to the bathroom, but I didn't want to leave because I was scared if I left it would talk behind my back, that somehow I can keep them from doing that, just like sitting at a tail. I mean you got to be really sick, and I didn't. But here's the problem. When you live your entire life in stark raving fear that something may happen to you so that could got to live your life watching out and controlling and watching and everything defensive. When you live to like that way, you don't even think there's anything wrong because you don't know of any other way of living your life except that deal. And that's the way I lived my life. Okay, now I came into alcoholics anonymous. I stopped drinking. You know, all of a sudden was money on the table. A lot of the consequences that happened as the result of drinking or in happening anymore.
But you want to know something, the fear was still there. The fear was there in five years, the fear was there in ten years. If you it was, here's what it was. An alcoholics anonymous. Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear that I was okay for an hour. Fear, fear. I go to me and I was okay for I would I would be out there in the world running around in fear doing the stuff, doing everything that you're supposed to do. Then I go to an AA meeting and all of a sudden after me and I feel good. You know what it's like to live your life and fear and then for an hour not be scared, feel safe. You know what it's like to to be scared and worried about things and then, for one hour, because you're out of meeting or because you with your sponsor or maybe you're helping somebody else, all of a sudden feel safe. I didn't realize what fear was until one day I felt safe. I didn't realize what fear was until one day, for an hour, I didn't have fear. Why? Why else would that? Why else would I have that? Explain why I would always want to go to I want to go to a meeting after I was done with a meeting. The meeting would be great. I feel great and then I get my car and I drive away. In an hour later I'm into the fear Bullshit again, I'm into the worry again, until I got to the next meeting and the next meeting in the next meeting. And so I guess. I guess. If I wanted to say what my wife was like, and I'm sure to should cutting this. It would be fear. The first ten years it would be fear, fear of fear, fear. Okay for an hour, okay for two hours, fear, fear of fear. I fear, okay for three hours, fear, fear, fever and okay for in such a way so that I managed not only to somehow feel better but also not drain. And that went on for what about five ten and then all of a sudden, instead of fear, fear of fear, of fear of fear, an hour of okay and then fear, fear of fear, fear of fear. Then it became fear, fear of fear, a couple of hours, okay, fear, fear, fear, a couple of that, and then it became fear that they maybe the next thing is it was like fear, fear and then you're okay for three hours and then fear, fear, then you're okay for two hours, and then one day it became okay, okay, okay, okay, fear and then became okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, fear, okay, okay, okay, and then one day I don't know when this was somewhere around twenty five years it just became okay, it came it became great. It became great. I want to tell you it's going to be great. You want to do this thing. You don't want to go to the a banquet and walk away with a ham sandwich. You want to be taste on the lobster in the chateaubriand you want to be going crazy. Buddy, don't leave before the miracle happens, you know, don't leave before the end. You I'm not saying you have to wait twenty five years. Actually believe you do, but I'm not saying you have to. I've never said that to you. Probably get upset, but the bottom line is it took me a while. I had to go through the desert time. You know, they do see in the big book the way we get a new perspective is by repeated humiliations, in the final crushing of our selfsufficiency. That repeated humiliations. I think that means more than once. You know, it does say in the big book. We learned the value of suffering, you know, and me we learned you got to go through the a boot camp, you got to go through the a car wash, you know, and that kind of deal. And I had to go through what I had to go through and eat every year, every decade you learn more and more and that kind of stuff. So That's enough out of me. I want to just I want to read you a couple of things out of the some of the literature, and then I'll ask you a couple of questions, maybe something you haven't heard before. So we're talking about the third step. So this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to read you this is this is what I'm going I'm going to read you something out of Dr Bottom, the good old timer. I'm going to read you two things out of Dr Bottom, of the good old timers that. I'm going to read you something out of the twelve and twelve, and I want you to think about what I'm I think you're gonna you guys look pretty right. I think you're going to understand this. Okay, so Dr Bobom and girl times I started really getting into around ten years sober, when I was really trying to get more you know, there's a line and alcoholics, anonymous number three by build dots, and I love this line because it's so true because it's my life. He was sober and he said I knew there was something more, something I hadn't got, something a person ought to have, some sort of a release, and I was trying to figure out what the answer to us. I used to go to meetings and meets at five years and ten years. I follow my sponsors around and people around that had twenty years and thirty years, because I knew I was sober, okay and actually doing better than I had done, but I didn't have what they had. You know I mean, it was sober and then there was sober, it was something called physically sober, and then there was emotional sobriety, and I was in if only er and a yes butter. If only I had the money, if I only had that car, if I only had that Gal, if I only had that job, I'd be okay. I...
...was always tell myself, if I only had something, I'd be okay. What I didn't realize is that whenever you tell yourself that you only have something, you'll be okay, but you're actually saying to yourself is you were just not okay. And I used to tell myself I wasn't okay, a thousand times a day. Every once in a while I'd be lathering up in the shower and I hear this voice that would say you're an Asshole, you ought to kill you. So I'd be driving in a car and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, it says you're a loser, you're never going to get this thing. What's the use? I turned around to see who was saying that to me. I was the only one in the shower. And you know what that is? That's my true reputation with me, about me, and that's something called, and you know that is that something called alcoholism. If that's ever happened to you, don't worry about it. Just means you're an alcoholic. It just means you suffer from disease. That said, there's in your mind, not your body. And you want to know something? The drinking goes away like that, right, but the I'm a loser, I'm Never gonna be okay, might as well kill myself. That's twenty five years. That's twenty years. That's real. That's serious shit. That's the real disease. That centers in your mind, not your body. That's the whole thing. Now here's a good news. It's a disease that comes with its own fellowship. You know, at least you don't have to feel alone, and you are not alone. You know I mean, that's the one. That's why they ask you a chair meetings. You don't ask your chair meetings to tell you how wonderful you are. They actually chair MES. So you could say I'm fucking nuts. You know what I mean. I'm not thinking about Susi you you believe it. A A isn't a great? You walk into a meeting, you know, the guy you guys says something. He says, I'm in love with a camel. Three guys get up by'm a cup of coffee and say yeah, they too are in love with camels. You know what I mean. No matter what you say, there's somebody who's got the same deal going on. So I'm going to read you now. You know, we read a book called and it says. This is what it says in the book. I think I'm doing this craft. It says, really, I've seen a person of fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Is Not UNM quoting that correctly. Okay, somebody give me a thumbs out. Okay, rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly fought. Thoroughly. It does say thoroughly right. Other ways. You do what we did, you'll get what we got. And here's what they got. They got rocketed into the fourth dimension of existence. They experienced much of heaven. Have you been rocking in the fourth dimension of existence? Are you experiencing much of heaven, or are you like most people? Tell me, I'm hanging it. Are you just how you doing? Hanging in there? Are you just hanging in there? That's okay. Well, you're exactly where you're supposed to be, you know any but not where you want to be. Not where you want to be. Okay, you want to be rocking in the fourth dimension and experiencing much of heaven. Well, you know, they say the great factor is this. Nothing less. You want that. You got to make God. This is your Creator, which could be a door knob, I suppose, if you created by a door KNOB. But you got to figure out what a door knob want you do. Because later on the book it says if you're serious about this deal. Also, it's remarkable things happen. Happened to you because because staying Moose to your God. I know God will give you everything you need if you stay close to him and perform the works he wants you to do. That's what it says in the big book. That's what the big books all about. So if you want to get everything you need and be rocking in the fourth dimension existence and experience much of heaven and and and remarkable things happen, you'll have to the bottom line. So give you that and you stay close to him and performance works well. So you got to know who he is and what his works are, and I've no idea, if your God is a tree or a Doorknob, what his works are for you to do. I don't know what a door KNOB wants. You know, I don't know. It's a mystery. You know, God's a mystery to me because I never worried about God. I don't know who god is or what God is, what this thing is. I only know about materials stuff, serial serious stuff like money. But apparently in nineteen thirty nine they were the books it called alcoholics anonymous, where they say rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. You know, that's what they say. They don't say, do whatever the hell you want to do and you'll get what we have. Don't say that, do that. They say really, I was seen a person of bail who has thoroughly followed our path, and they wrote that in nineteen thirty nine. The problem is a started in nineteen thirty five. So between nineteen thirty five and nineteen thirty nine they were doing something, but they weren't. And you ready for this, because I'm going to fifty and not on the big book. I'm not put it down, but I'm just telling you about the facts. You're in time at your own opinions, but I know that. But here's the thing. Between Nineteen thirty five nineteen thirty nine, they weren't reading the Big Book. Now, if you understand that, I can't explain to they were doing something, but they weren't reading the Big Book. Then they write this book and say rarely how we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our head. So I've got ten years recovery. Now I'm going to Bible study because apparently somebody told me how to go. I didn't want to go, I went, I met my third sponsor there. Then I read in the big book that we encourage church membership. I understand why now and all sort of stuff, as some do, with developing conscious contact and wanting to proven it and really wanted what they have and moving on, but that comes in the six step. Will talk about that...
...later, but the bottom line is, says so I, I. I. II. Then at that point in time I wanted more. I had read the big book, I had read it over and I was teaching, I was sponsoring people, I was doing the whole bit the service, and so I started reading Dr Bottom, the good old timers, which is specific details as to what they were doing between nineteen thirty five and nineteen thirty nine. So I want to read you two things about Dr Bottom, the good old timers. I'm not making this stuff up. Okay, now I want you to think about this in terms of the third step. What is the third step? Made a decision. That to to what made a decision? What are going to says, I forgot, I have to look it up again. I don't know. Make a decision for God turned out. Are Our lives over the care and of God as we understand them. So here's when you talk about the third step. I want to reach you what they were doing. And here's this is from one thousand nine hundred and thirty seven. This is page one. One of Dr Bottom, the good old timers. On the other hand, we were taking them upstairs and getting them on their knees to the surrender, which I felt was very important. By the way, how many people have ever heard anybody in a saying don't talk about God so much, you'll scare away the newcomer say've ever heard that? Yeah, as anybody ever heard people sort of like water down God and the meetings or, you know, just say good, orderly direction. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I was a good or direction guy for a while. Yeah, you know. Yeah, you ever reading chapter the agnostic? They say if a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life would have helped us, we've been sober long time ago. But such things didn't help us because we lack the power. We had to find the power greater than ourselves which would would help us. That's why we wrote a book. We're going to talk about God, which is not a mere code of morals and says this sort of thinking. It actually takes a stand against agnosticism. Chapter the agnostics is ready too agnostics and atheists. And you know what the you know what the bottom line of that chapters is. This sort of thinking must be abandoned. God either is here he is and what I mean. Listen, I'm just saying. I'm just saying. You have to get an ad of me just getting call up New York, tell them the rip that shit out of the book. have been bothers you. They take a stay. Okay, so here's the deal. Here's what they say. You in what don't, because here's here's here's the bottom one of them going to get to so you don't get all crazy about this. Aa is schizophrenic. Where's my I know we have a psychiatrist to your size. Second, it's what, I don't know. Maybe sounds on site. Wasn't. What happens? What you have like two personalities. Is that like Schizzo? I don't know what it is, but he's like that. Ay, it's like multiple personalities. There's two AA's. There's there's two AA's. I'm telling you. There's a second step Aa and then there's a six step A. There's two completely separate organizations within alcoholics. We are one room schoolhouse. I graduated college with Departmental Honors and mathematics. When you when you would take a mathematics you had what's called prerequisites. You know, I would start off with Algebra, then I go to trigonometry, then analytical geometry, then calculus on manifolds and then on and on, up and up and up the grade until until the deal is you couldn't skip. You how to take one and then the other. So you would have you would have people. When I went to school, we had people in the first grade, we had people in the second grade, with people in the third grade, fourth grade. Then I went to high school and I went to you know, I mean Aa is like a, what does it say? A spiritual kindergarten. But and it's not wrong, with nothing wrong being a special kind the good up. I mean like one day you really want to go to high school, one day you want to go to college. You know what I mean? Let me tell you something. There is a SEC and step a a, there's a kindergarten, a a, there's a college Aa, there's a post graduate day. There's other shit going on. Okay, what's good for Sam? And here's the problem. We all meet in the same room in the same school house on any particular day there's a guy there with thirty days, there's a guy there with two get days, there's a guy there with thirty years, there's a guy there with fifteen years, and they all need something. They all need something, and what they need maybe different than what the guy would one day needs. Might be different than what the guy need with twenty years needs the twenty night years going to I may need something. He may not even know what he needs because he has twenty years. That's another problem. You may not even know he's needing, but that's another deal. So here's what they say. On page one, one of Dr bottom the good old tigers and says, on the other hand, we were taking them upstairs and get them on their knees to surrender, which I felt was very important part the surrender was more than a point that it was a must. It was a must. Remember that. It was a must. You couldn't go to a meeting. Bobby, who came to a in February nine thirty seven, called that if, for five or six days in the hospital, when you had indicate that you were serious, they told you to get down on your knees by the bed and say a prayer to God. And maybe you were powerless...
...over alcohol and your life was unmanageable. Furthermore, you have to state that you believed in a higher power who could reach would return you to Saturday. There you can see the beginning of the twelve steps. We call that beast surrender. They demanded it. You couldn't go to a me eating until you did it. You couldn't go to meet until you don't. Don't talk about God. The newcome, you might scare you couldn't go to a meeting until you did it. If I accident, you didn't make it in the hospital, you had to make it in the upstair a bed room of the Williamson's house. DOROTHYSM recalled the nineteen thirty seven meetings when the men would all disappear upstairs and all of us women would be nervous and worried about what was going on. After about an hour or so, down would come the new man, shaking white, serious and grim, and all the people who already an egg would come trooping down after them. They were pretty reluctant to talk about what had happened, but after a while they would tell us they had a real surrender. Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. This is what they were doing. How about this one? This is Dr Bob. How he twelve step Clarence the groom after okay, this is how he twelve stepped Clarence. Okay, says Doc Smith. Take clowns was in the hospital. He's like a young guy in his thirty S. Doc Smith came in later and took over. He sat on the edge of my bed and said, well, what do you think about all this? Then he paused and looked at me doubtfully. I don't know if you're ready yet. I don't know, but if you're ready yet, you're kind of young. I was down two hundred thirty five pounds, no job, no clothes, no money. I didn't know how much more ready I could be. Recalled Clarence. Still I had to convince them I was ready. Then he asked, Dr Bob asked. This is the first question Dr Bob asked them, the first question. Dr Bob, the founder. You never, you ever think Chee. If I was only sponsored by Dr Bob and Bill Wilson, everything would be wonderful. No one wouldn't know what. Here's what the first question Bob asks them. Do you believe in God, Young Fellow? First question, right off the bat. You believe in God. You always hold me, ung fellow. When he called me clouds, I knew I was in trouble. Then Clarence says this. What does God what does that have to do with it? Anybody ever hear anybody in a say to somebody don't worry about the God thing? Yeah, we say every year, somebody in a say don't worry about the God thing, forget the God thing, don't worry about the God thing. Okay, here's what he says. He says, what does that have to do with it? Dr Bob, everything, everything, I guess. I do guess nothing. Either you do or you don't. Yes, I do, that's fine, Bob says. Now we're getting somewhere. All Right, get out of your bed and all your knees. We're going to pray. I don't know how to pray. Well, I guess you don't, but that's all right. Just follow what I say and now we'll do it. For now, I did what I was ordered to do. Clarence said there were no suggestions. Dr Bob was always positive about his faith. Clarence said, if someone asked him a question about the program is usual response was, what does it say in the good book? Suppose he was asked what's all this? First things first, Bob, be ready with an appropriate vocation. Should seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added. Unto you. I'm just saying rarely have we seen a person bail who has thoroughly followed our path. Okay, so now I think I'll tone it down. Only now I'm going to ask you this. Now, you heard all that. Y'All heard all that. Was Anybody paying attention? Is Anybody paying attention? You know what they were doing in the nineteen thirty five, the ninety thirty seven. You know what the word thoroughly means. You know the word means now where they say really, I haven't seen personel has thoroughly followed our path that you didn't get to immediately. She did the thirds. You didn't get to immediate unless you did the third step, unless you gave your life to God. They demanded it. No suggestion. When you went to Aa, you knew exactly what you were buying. into. They didn't trust the alcohol to float around for twenty years to try to figure it out right away. You had to know. You knew exactly you were coming into the priesthood. It was none of this I'm not religious ship, I'm spiritual, not religious craft. You know, you were going right in there. And, by the way, the books that they found absolutely essential according to this were first corinthians thirteen, sermon on the mound, you know, in the book of James. So there was none of this will, I'm not a religious guy, will find. We'll see you when you're ready. Am I saying that's the way it should be? I'm just listen. All I'm doing as I'm just giving a little history lesson of this way it was. Now I want you to listen. This is step to step too. Now the book is published. Now the committee gets together. Here step two, here's AA today. I'm just I just want to know when you see a difference. That's all. Step two, twelve and twelve. Okay, the moment they read step to, most the eight newcomers are confronted with a dilemma. They have a dilemma, a dilemma, sometimes a serious one. How often? How often...
...have we heard them crime. Look what you people have done to us. You have convinced us of that we are out closs of where our wives are manageable. Have we reduced us to a State of absolute helplessness? You now declared that none but the higher power can we move our obsession. Some of US won't believe in God, others can't, and still others who believe that God exists, have no faith. Whenever you will perform the miracle. Yet you've got us over barrel. All right, but where do we go from here? And then it says this. This is what it says. That agrees to the sponsor. Is a very good question indeed. I think I can tell you exactly how to relax. You won't have to work at it very hard either. Listen, if you will, to these three statements. First, alcoholics anonymous does not believe. That's not the man that you believe in anything? Alcoholics anonymous does not the man. Do you believe in anything? All the twelve cents are but suggestions. Now I'm just going to ask you this, as intelligent you appear to be, most of you, I'm not so sure about side, but most of you appear to be sober. I'm just going to ask you this question. Do you see any difference in the attitude what a was doing between thirty five and thirty seven and those statements? I'm not even asking you and listen and I'll listen. I'm just pointing that out to you because, you see, this is where I'm blowing the whistle on egg. Now we go to step three. Step three is talking about making decision, for God, getting down your knees, making so here's here's the thing. This is the way I see it in alcoholics. Anonymous. So what's with the change and everything like that? Apparently, what I found over a period of years, when I found over a period of years, is that if you hang out around a a long enough and you want to stay sober long enough and you link up with the right people, because the person will be in the next five years will depend upon the people you hang out with, the books you read. The books you read will depend on who you hang out with, who you listen to. And if you want what we have, you find people in AA thirty years, forty years sober and you want what they have, you want what we have and you're willing to go to any length to get it, any length to get that matter, no matter how you feel after you come day a. If you want more than just mere sobriety, if you want more than just, as they say in the sixth step, settling. You know, I'm doing great. I have a car, I have a house, I have a wife. Get off my ass, get off my back. I haven't had a drink in ten years. What are you giving me? I'm okay, I'm fine. If you if you find that you want more, if you find that you read things like you'll be rocket in the fourth dimension. You know you want peace if you start seeing things like the promises, like you lose fear of people and of economic insecurity and you find yourself you're always worried about money, you're always worried about when people think, if you want more, then you know what'll happen. You will find those people and you will do that stuff we're ultimately, you'll make that surrender to God and you'll land up in the place where a lot of those guys started before they went to their first day a me. You'll end up at a place where those guys and thirty seven started before they went to their first day a me. On your knees doing anything and trying to get God and trying to make God the central fact of your life. And if you don't want that stuff, you won't other ways, a has become has become the the the focus on a has become more like allowing you to hit bottom again or even drink, allowing you to figure out your own deal without any demanding anything. And here's the reason why I think, and I actually learned this from a guy I sponsor who might be on here. I'm not going to use his real name because one of the things he said, and he's got a lot of time. Quite frankly, he's got a lot of time. I sponsored guys that had twenty five years, twenty years, fifteen years, thirty years. Sobriety and they've got problems and then not being rocking in the fourth dimension of existence, you know, and they're not happy about this. Sobriety and their problem is not has nothing to do with drinking. Their problem has nothing to do with drinking and as everything to do and has nothing to do with not having a car or any of that stuff. It has everything to do with their relationship with God. seeky first, the Kingdom of God. See the WIG relation with...
...him is right. A great events. And you know what? They come to me and I work with them. You know what I do. We work on the God thing, we work on going to church. We work on going to church. You know, he says, I don't want to go to church. I said, so, let's look about the how's that working out? Weight? It's not. Will then let's go ahead and be open minded. And why do we work on that thing? We lose all prejudice, we lose all even against organized religion. We begin to see. We work on doing so. I don't want to know what you're doing. I want to know what you want with and not doing and why you aren't doing it and whether you really want to grow. Are you willing to go to any length to get you know, I'm not talking about getting on your knees one time. I'm not talking about, say, one time, saying the third step, prayer and the getting up and say I'm glad that's over with now I'll just run my life. So I work with them on the God thing. But here's the thing. Here's what's happened to a which is fine with me and I think it's a good thing. I know a guy in a that had such a difficult life before he came day a a horrible life of abuse before he came in Dout, all synonymous that he hated hated God, hated religion, hated religion. And here's what I think the deal is. The deal is the problem with us is that we love guys like that. We love guys like that. We've I don't know what to tell you. We love how crazy, unbelievably horrible, screwed up alcoholics that Hate God. We Love them, we want to help them. I think that's quite quite frankly, it matches my religion, because you know my religion. You'll leave the ninety nine. You go after the lost sheep. You go after the lost sheep. You know what I mean. You know I believe in the Prodigal Son Story. The guy went off and went with the horse and spend all his money, lended up in a pigsty and then he returned. His father game a party because he's alive again. You know, a lot of a goat a alive again. So you see, what the thing is is that we each are so in love with the guy who has maybe one day and can't handle the God thing and even hates to God thing. It says I don't want to hear it. That we say, Hey, you know something, we love you, don't worry about it. Come on in anyway. Come on in anyway, and you know something that's a that's a but what's good for the guy with one year? Come on in anyway. It's not necessarily the AA that the God with twenty years needs. It's not necessary. The guy's not necessarily with the guy with fifteen years needs. And you know the but you know. So there's let me tell you that there's a six step and that's the set. That the step that separates the men from the boys, and the way they describe it in the twelve and twelve, is the men of those who are trying their entire life to grow in the image and likeness of the their creator. They're not settling, they're shooting for perfection, even though they know they'll never get. Their constant that it's the motor that makes them run. The motor that makes them run is they want more God, more God, more God. And you know what? That is, that six step and it separates the men from the boys. And you know something you may find this hard to leave. Most people are not six step. They aims this. Those steps are like, you know why? We're already been to a meeting today. I've already done that. Get off my back. I'm not drinking, I'm fine, and that's nothing wrong with that, because some of those people ultimately become six step. But you know, there's a there's people that are in this. There's people that are doing the profession, you know, like there's the NFL. There's people that are hand doing the professional shit and they're amateurs. There are people that are dilettants. They came here that checking it out, you know, just to see what the works and you know you had to well do fast. They get their girlfriend back and their money back and everything like that, and maybe they've even done a third step. But what does it matter? They got all the stuff back. They don't want what we have, they want what they had and they're gone and they drink and twenty years down the road now they're really doing it seriously and there are people in this that are really hitting it hard. And we're all in the same room, we're all the same meeting together. So sometimes you get a guy who's real light on the deal. Sometimes you got anyot like me that's maybe a little bit more direct. I don't know direct. I know what you call it direct, but the bottom line is is that there are really you know, I used to. I never want to become like a bleeding deacon, you know, one of these guys that you know, even though I right now in my life are pretty much into the I guess you would call the old time way of doing things and the and working with guys that you know are maybe have...
...a lot of time and things like that. I mean, I'll work with a newcomer at the drop of the hat. The bottom line is is I understand. I never want to get into a situation where I've started saying, well, in the good old days, you know, I'm fine the way it is right now. I'm not looking to change a because you want to know something, the people that do it right, the people that do it the way they were doing it thirty five and thirty seven, not only are they going to stay sober, okay, but they're going to find incredible happiness. And the people that don't do it, they're not hurting, ain't anybody except themselves, and someone will drink again and come back now. Besides, we always have alcohol, right. Alcohol is the greatest thing we have, don't we don't have any police force and alcoholics anonymously have alcohol. Every year or so, alcohol comes through and cleans out all the bullshit, you know, all the guys that say I ain't going to do that, and I read that alcohol comes to a just sort of urge the entire deal, you know what I mean, and it does that about, you know, ten times a year. And because otherwise, can you imagine? The fat grinding was sick and crazy. We didn't want to do this thing. Stuck around. Oh my God, who would you like? Auntieth in here? You know, he craziness. And so that's the deal. So I don't know. I don't know what the deal is. So I don't know where you guys are. This guy's still in chat. He needs a meeting. This poor guy meets a meeting in an event. So let me see if we're going. A hundred and fifty seven, unbelievable, perfect. Okay, so thank you. That's it for me. Thank you very much.
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