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Episode · 1 year ago
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Episode · 1 year ago
Russell S. Step 1 at the Coral Room Zoom
ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Well, hi everybody, my name is Russell spats. I'm an alcohol can everybody hear me? You know, it'd be terrible to do this thing and then find out yeah, we we be good. So, as you could see who was it was Richard saidther's we can't start because it's only a hundred people. And well, we're gonna have a good time here. I want you to all the relax. I'm going to take this nice and easy, oven the same my first Rodeo. So, as you can see, I dressed up for the meeting. It's good for me to be at an a meeting. It's always good to me to do something like this. I am an alcoholic. I member the South Dixie Group and I'm grateful to God for everything he's done for me in my life, and it's always good to be here fully clothed and sort of like in my right mind. So let me tell you a little bit about what this first meeting is going to be about. I'm going to be doing twelve weeks of this and I promise you this is going to be based on my experience. I had a sponsor who wants told me when a man with experience meets a man with money. The man with experience will walk away with the money and the man with the money will have walked away with an experience. So I'm just going to talk about my experience and working these steps and turn into a man who I would like to think is working the life, living a life, the kind of life we're supposed to live when we get sober. And this is just a little bit about my story and what I've not only what I've experienced but what I've seen. I've done a lot of stuff in here. I've sponsored a bunch of people, I've done a lot of you know, I've done the thing you do, but I owe everything I have today, which is what would I have today. The only thing I have today is is a relationship with God. He's a central fact of my life, which is I read the big book. Is the only thing you need's only one thing that's necessary, only one thing that's necessary, and I know what that thing is. You find that one thing that's necessary and you hang on to that one thing and you have everything and you run around trying to get everything else except for that one thing and you've got nothing. Nothing works. Bill Wilson said when he was talking about emotional sobriety and I can promise you that. I'll promise you two things. If you stay for the twelve week shall hear. You'll hear me touch on every single step a lot of times. It just won't sound like it. I do things. I started doing step series when I was around seven years sober, if I I or six or seven years over. When I first started doing the steps, it was more mechanical. Was a lot of mechanical stuff. You know, this is how you do the fourth step. is how I did a third step. You know, and you know that kind of thing because you know when your first come in alcoholics anonymous, the steps are unusual, they're different. You know they're there. They run counter their counterintuitive. They run. You know, you walk around saying, Oh, I think I just did a third step. Oh that was coore step. Oh I think I just did a twelve step. You know, you just sort of they're discreet and there you're. You know when you're doing them, because you don't oh I just did a tensei you Wudn't. I did a ten step. Today I did a fourth step. I did a you know, it's like wax on and watch it wax off when you when you do the steps for two thousand and twenty five thirty years. You don't. I don't want to say I don't do the steps. What I want to say is I live a life of a recovered alcoholic. I'd like to think I live. I live a life of one of the men, not one of the boys. There's apparently a part, there's a place. You come to somewhere in alcoholics anonymous, with as a separation between the men and the boys, and the men, the men being those who are trying to grow in the image and likeness of their creator. They've quit the debating society, they've quit the half measures. They no longer worry about the Lord, it's prayer and where it comes from. They no longer worry about a lot of things that drive people crazy. And alcoholics anonymous, they you know you don't want to get involved. It's hard to even know when you're involved in half measures. What does that mean? Half measures? How do you know you're doing a half measures? What does it mean when they say it avails you nothing? You know, I don't think half measures of value, nothing in my way of thinking. And of course I have a disease that centers in my mind, not my body. So don't, don't trust my way, in my way. Of they can half measures. Should give you a fifty percent. Isn't it just success that I'm drinking? How important is drinking...
...versus emotional sobriety? What does it mean to be emotionally sober? What's the real problem with alcoholic skill? Wilson said the real problem with alcoholics is unhealthy dependencies. What's an unhealthy dependency? Do I have unhealthy dependencies when, when I stopped drinking and I'm no longer depending on alcohol? Are there other things? What if I spend money? I don't have to buy things, I don't need to impress people I don't mind? Is that an unhealthy dependency? What if I depend on judging myself and worrying about what other people think about me? What if I live a life where I'm always thinking about other people and what they think about what if I'm what if I still aft fear of other people? It doesn't seem like career of other people. I just worry about what they're thinking about me or what they're saying about me or what they're going to say about it. What if I worry about what I look like. You know, am I defined by my shirt? Am I defined by my hair? What if I worry about what if I get involved in vanity stuff, worried about my weight, my hair looks? You know the book, the Samuel, it says God does not judge you by your appearance. God judge a man, a man and woman by by the nature of their heart. My sponsor said, when you talk to people, just remember your you know, everybody has a everybody you talk to probably has a broken heart, so deal with them in that fashion. What does it say? What does it mean when the big book says we're selfish and selfcentered? What if you don't think you're selfish? What if you think you're just who should I trust? Should I trust my own thinking? I should I trust the big book aboutoholics, anonymous they you know, the one of the things that says. It says why all this insistence on hitting bottom? And they say because no alcoholic is going to do or believe the things we say unless they think their life depends upon it. I mean have to stop the the drinking. After you stop the drinking, you're sober from five years or ten years or fifteen years. Are you still negotiating the program what does it mean to utterly and absolutely give Your Life to God? What does it mean in the big book what it says you're going to be rocked in the fourth dimension of existence and experience much of heaven. What does it mean to be rocked in the fourth dimension of existence or experience? But how do you know you're being rocked in the fourth dimension of existence and Experience Much of Heaven? When they say the great fact is this and nothing less? What is the great fact and what does it mean? This or nothing less? Does it really mean it's this or nothing less? What if the great fact? What if? What if the great what if it means that the great fact is this and nothing less than this? What does it mean? Are you living a life where you're doing something less than the great fact? Are you like negotiating the program do you think like you're doing a program because you're not drinking? You think that's it, that's the program of recovering. Are you working your program? Is Program you where you work in your program? Are there a lot of programs? Is there only one program I don't know, but they said that in order to be locked into the fourth dimension of existence, what if they say existed. You have to make God the central fact of your life. What does it mean to make God the central fact of Your Life? Well, let me ask you this. How would you know if you made God the central fact of Your Life? How do you know when God is a central fact to your life? When it says God's got to be the central fact of your life and you have to be convinced that he lives in your heart and mind in a way which is miraculous. He's doing for you. What you can't do is a how do you know when you're convinced? You know the ABIES and sees says we're alcoholics and we cannot manage your own lives. No human power can get rid of this alcoholism. Only God couldn't would if he was saw it in the next line is being convinced. How do we know we're convinced? How do we know where not managed in our own lives? How do we know? After a meeting and we're giving our lives to God and I think about God them, we get in our part and all of sudden start thinking about our lives and how to manage things. Is that like manage your own life? You know when the big book says about everything, you must get rid of the selfishness. They're not talking about the drink. The same as selfishness. How do you know how to get rid of the selfishness if you don't know what the selfishness looks like? You know and you know what the big book says. Says God makes that possible. I mean there's there a way of getting rid of the selfishness without leaving God.
Now, how is God going? And then it says once we make the serious decision for God, all sorts of remarkable things happen. Would you like a room? Would you like remark? What kind of sobriety you like? You want to kind of sobriety where remarkable things are happening for you. Is it possibly be sober and not happy? Do you think it's possibly sober and not happy with your sobriety? You know a vision for you. It says here and they're a a drink and a problem drinker. Sober for a time. Doesn't say how long. It says says feel better, look better, I'm having a better time. You ever have a sponsor, somebody's sponsor? Or? Somebody say, do you get off my back. I'm not even thinking of drinking. I'm not worried about drinking. You think people think they're doing okay just because they're not drinking? Think people sometimes use the fact they're not drinking as an excuse for not shooting for more. So what it says? It says. He says we've I feel better, I'm look better, I'm having a better time. He says, we laugh at Sucks Salad. We know he's going to try the old game again because he's not happy with his sobriety. Is it possible not to be happy with your sobriety, to think and not know you're not happy with your sobriety? He says soon he'll know loneliness is for you. Do they'll be of the jumping off place. You know, the twelve and twelve, says, unless until him, not Bolten accepts his alcoholism, whatever that is. Whatever alcoholism is, apparently it's not the drinking does. The big book says the drinking is a symptom of the problem. It's a symptom of the alcoholism. The alcoholism, said US, in your mind, not your body. I guess that means you have the alcoholism before you started drinking during you're drinking, and he even after you stop drinking. I mean it is not. What does it look like when you find out what it looks like, when you find out what it really looks like, what it is, you know, unless until an alcoholic accepts his alcoholism and all its consequences. Are there consequences? To be an alcohol is sobriety be precarious of true happiness? So Fun and not at all. Do you want to just not drink? Join the not drinking club. We're all in the not drinking club right hey, by here want to pick up a white chip for not anybody here. WANT TO PICK UP A red CHIF for not drinking. Anybody you want to pick up a blue chip for not draft? I'm going to gold anybody's birthday to day. You know, Oh, you remember, they're not don't drink, even if your ass falls off. Is that what it's about? I'm not putting that down. I do believe what my sponsor says, especially with newcomers. If you go through the whole day and you fuck up everything, you screw up everything, but you haven't had a drink, your success. But is that what a is? Is that what sobriety is. When a guy with twenty, thirty, forty years says that guy's sober, is he mean? Does he mean the guy's not drinking, or is he talking about something else? Are there different perspectives in a are did the difference? You know, the big book says. It says the way we get a new perspective is by repeated humiliations and the crushing of our selfsufficiency. That's how we get a new perspective. Of Far as drinking, we hit bottom, we have new perspective. We think drinking is okay. Then we hit bottom. Are All of a sudden we you know, we sit there and we can't imagine a life without drinking and then we hit bottom and a week later we can't imagine a life drinking again. How does that happen? Is that a new perspective? Is that the only new perspective? It says repeated humiliations. Other words, is that the only hitting bottom when we stopped drinking? Are there other are there hitting bottoms as far as sex is concerned, hitting bottoms, as far as romance, hitting bottoms, as far as using people, hitting bottoms, as far as depending of bond people, hitting bottoms as far as worrying about things and worrying about stuff and money and property and prestige. Are there other bottoms? How many? How many times? Let me ask them, if you get a new perspective every when you're humiliated and you're crushed, how many times do you think a not oft can be humiliated and crust during the space of a year? How many times going to alcohol be a humiliate and crush sober and the space of five years? How many times can alcohol being humiliated and crushed and space of ten years or twenty years or forty years? If every time you humiliated and crushed about anything, you get a new perspective on things, things look different, you know. So as a guy with five years looking at things differently than a guy would twenty years looking different different with things that a guy who has three weeks or nineteen days or forty years. This meeting, everything I'm saying in this meeting. How many different meetings are going on here? There are a hundred people in here? Are there are a hundred? Are these there only one meeting, or they're a hundred meetings? Are there are a hundred meetings going on? Just one meeting? If I took an...
...indepth inter took interrogatories and asked everybody what you heard at this meeting. How many people would come up with the same thing. How many people are here in different things? How many people are hearing things that are going to change their life that I haven't even said? Do you think it's possible to go to a meeting and listen to a talk at a meeting and they talking to meet and come away and say, unbelievable, I never even thought about that, and then realize when you talk to person that the person ever said that. You just sort of like it. You just sort of like connected a couple of DOTS and all sudden came up with a thought and you go up to person. I'll never forget when you said that. You know what I mean. I said never said that. I mean, what's going on here anyway? You know what I mean. Does it have to do unlesson until an alcoholic except this alcoholism and alts const what's a consequence of alcoholism? So my first wife, lobably young lady. She only made one mistake marrying me, but I mean, other than that, should a sweetheart. So my first wife, one Friday morning said to me. I graduated with departmental honors and mathematics. I was going for a PhD and mathematics and Algebraic topology. You can't even add two plus to today. But so my first why and then I went to law school and became the division chief in the states attorney's office. My first wife, the lovely Ronie, says to me one Friday morning as I'm all dressed up and I'm a sober physically as I am today, and I'm third young, like twenty seven years old. I'm driving in the office, I'm a division chief in the state's Attorney's Office, I'm supervising attorneys, I'm trying murder cases, and she says this to me. I want you to listen to this is complicated. She says, if you come home one more time drunk, I'm leaving you everything that was important to me, my wife, my son, my house, everything is up there on the line, and she says this. It's twelve words. If you come home drunk one more time, I am leaving you twelve words. So I get in my car and I drive four blocks and I stopped at a stoplight and I say this to myself, what the hell did she mean by that? What the hell did she mean by that? This disease sends is your mind, not your body. You know what the cont you know what one of the consequences I have with my alcoholism is that whenever I see here or read something I don't like, it confuses me. I can have a hundred, forty six Iq you tell me. If you come on drop more time, I'm leaving you. I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. You ever, if there's anybody here, of response to people? You ever sponsor people who seem to be smart and there's sober and you tell them something and then they look at you and they say yes, but or you don't understand and you never get the feeling that they're not there's there's must be something wrong that the communication could you being as clear as possible, but it apparently they just not it's just not connecting. Most people like that end up an Alani, because alcohols can drive you crazy. That's just a consequences of being an alcoholic, because alcoholics do not understand English. They do not understand it when you tell them something they don't want to do. So when you have a book in the entire book and the freedom and the rocketed in the fourth dimension of existence and losing fear of people and losing economic in security and living an incredible life and the joy of living and God giving you everything you need, if you stay close to reformers, work well, doesn't work, doesn't work. God is everything or he's nothing. What's your decision going to be? A mere code of morals, a better philosophy of life doesn't work. Good only direction doesn't work. The next right think doesn't work. That's a mere that's what our book says. That way. We wrote a book where we're going to talk about God. And here's what the problem comes in. They say it in the book. It's a chapter to the agnostics. Listen to me, it's a chapter to the agnostics. They wrote it to the agnostics. There's what the chapter says. This sort of thinking has to be abandoned. You got to stop...
...it. You come home drunk more time. I'm leaving you. God is everything or he's nothing. And then it says here alcoholics hate that. The happles in our neck drawb. We don't like it. And so you sit in a mean with a bunch of people who are scared to talk about God because this to get it, other people get mad at them because they worried about whether other people going to get mad. And you have people say, well, I don't like the God were, I don't like the Lord Spurr, I don't like this, I don't like and for twenty five years people sit around sober, talking, bullshiting a meetings and they're not free and they're not happy. You know why? Because when a book called Alcoholics anonymous tells you God is everything, worries nothing, that he's got to be the central fact of your life, you got to utterly abandon yourself to him, they don't like it. So they don't understand that the pisses them off. They're confused. It's the same mechanisms. When my wife said you come home, dropping words on on leaving, and I go what the Hell you mean by that? God is everything or he's nothing. Half measures avail you nothing. You know you can't love God and that and you can't love God and the Gal and the world and the car. It's either all God or all world. Well, what happens if that bothers you? You know, so you just stay sober and you're not happy with your sobriety, then you're not rocking the fourth end. You're trying to figure out what's wrong with me. I'm twenty three years sober and you can't tell your group because they think they're sober dose not to do the a two step, you know what I mean. And you can't figure it out because now you've done everything you can do in Aa. You're sponsoring people and you're staying sober and from time time you feel relatively happy, but you feel your like at a glass ceiling and you can't get any higher. You know, and you are really trudge in the road. It's a trudge and can't figure it out because you think you're doing everything and the truth is you're not doing shit, because you're not. Because the giving up the drinking is the easiest part, the easiest part of this disease. That sentence in grants the symptom. The hardest part is giving your entire life to God. I know I have to is read the book. It says around a new basis of trusting line upon God is the father we have the children. You know, we never apologize for God. All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never he lives. Let me read this. Let me read this part. I mean we might as well start with the real stuff. You want to major on the mayor. You don't want to make you on the right hey, you know how you do the for first step. I'm going to solve this problem for you on the first time. Anybody don't want to know how to do the first step? DRINK, drink. I ain't kidding. Two rules in an only two rules. In order to get here, you got to drink. Don't be stopping prem with never rob an alcohol with his desperation. Let me tell you something. If an Alcoholic d never robin alcohol in his last drink. If an alcoholic has not been convinced, you know what they used to say. We don't argue without bolt. Who say tries some control drinking? Theast haven't get down on the knees and give their lives to God. And if you wouldn't do that and wouldn't get into the meeting, and you know who did that? The guys that were convinced because they were drinking the end of the Rod. Drinkers. If alcohol has not convinced you that your powers over alcohol if it hasn't convinced you, you may come in here and fool around with it for a year or two, or three, or five or ten, you know, but they listen, it'll be a temporary thing. So let me read this to you. This is on page sixty three, sixty two and sixty three. This is the how and why of it. This is the how and why of it. What Hell does that mean? The great factor is this and nothing less. What does the Hell does that mean? This is the how and what. You're talking to alcoholics. You're talking to alcoholics. Have you ever said to a sponsor? Have you never had anybody say to you you don't understand? You ever tell somebody you know when the guy says to you, my girlfriend is using cocaine and heroin and bring it in into the House and shooting up in front of me and you and you say to the person, listen, you need to break off that relationship, and then the person says to you you don't understand. You ever have that? I don't know. If you haven't had that happened to you. Ha Been sponsored enough people. You ever tell an alcoholic you know he really needs to start going to meetings? You know what I mean. If you want to stay sober, and he looks. He says you don't understand. I...
...mean, let me have some WHO's not understanding? WHO's the one who's not understanding? So here's this. This is the how and want. This is how a Wi you know something on every page of alcoholics and autost they say this is how and why would you just don't see. You know what it says. It says, but still, we will not know you. And this is what the book says. He says, we don't know whether that's true or not. He says God will determine that. So your real reliance must be on him. He will show you how to create the fellows. You be pray see to what your relationship with him is. Writing. Great, that of the best. You don't count this. Others. What the what can they mean by that? You know what I mean. What could that mean? What could all that stuff mean? So this is the how and why of it. This is the how why. It is a one page. You need have to read the whole book. You don't they do in the big book. By the way, let me tell you what they do in the big book. They repeat the same thing over and over again, threezero times. This is how it's I'll just sum it up, for it is that one wi of it. First of all, we had to quit playing God. Well, first of all, how do you know you're even playing God? I guess you need a sponsor, somebody to tell you that. And then, when the sponsor tells you you're playing God, you know you could say, well, you don't understand, it didn't work. Next, we decide that here and after in the drama of life, and if you're an alcoholic, your life is fucking the dramatic. I'll tell you that. God was going to be our director. It's going to be our director. He is the principle. We are as agency. Is the father and we are his children. That's what it says in the biginess, the big book, is the father, we are true, you don't like the idea, he's the father. Way, you got to get over it. Get over it. That's the alcoholism trying to keep you. That's alcoholism trying to keep you from getting fucking well, most good ideas are simple. Not for alcoholics they're not. Most good ideas are simple. And this concept was the key stone. This concept is the keystone. It's the great fact that this is the key stone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed the freedom. How would you like to be free? By the way, you know how I can talk like this at a maybe God, because I can, because I can. You can't talk like this if you worried about people what they think about you can't, because you you got to filter everything through. Well, what are they think of I say this, and what do I think about say that? When we sincerely took such a position? This is what happens if you really do this thing. All sorts of remarkable things. For how many people like remarkable things happen. How many people with like you got a choice. You can neither do the not drinking club or the rocket in the fourth dimension. Remarkable things happen to how many people want the remarkable shit? Okay, a few, three. Three. We had a new employer, being all powerful. Apparently he's not a higher power, he's the highest power. How many highest powers can you have? Only one? So only one highest power? Is that fifteen highest powers? Being all powerful, he will provide what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work. Well. Number one, how you, how do you keep close to him if you don't know who the hell he is. Now, listen, listen, this is this is like. I mean, I'm telling you DIS advanced, esoteric me, crazy shit. How do you keep close to God if you don't know who the hell he is? Now this, don't break your head over this. Don't think about it too hard. You just get pissed off or something. Is it possible to know who he is? Well, I know a couple of things about God that will tell you which is absolutely true. Number one, he's all powerful. You know how I know that? Because the big book says he's all powerful. He's not a higher power, he's all powerful. My God is all powerful. You See, I have really serious problems. My problems are like not the minicipal problems you have. I have major ship, you know what I mean. So I need the highest power, not in the universe, outside the universe. He created the universe. It's been a robby. So I got the highest power gone and I'll tell you about him sometime if you're really interested. If you kept you got to keep close to him. How do I keep close to him? Does it have some do with making them the central fact? And how do I make them. The central fact. Does there's have something to do with that thing in the big book where the bit with the founder said we encourage church membership? Is that a form of trying to keep close to him and increasing conscious contact? Could could that be why they say that? Yeah, but my group says I'm spiritual, not religious.
Apparently it's at a higher level of spirituality if you put down religion. But how come in the big book, How come all the fountain this, except for just a couple, belong to churches? How can they encourage church Medicare to place? How come they say we lose all prejudice, even against the organized religion? We begin to see what those people were right. WHO's the sober person in alcoholics? Is it sober to put down or have a resentment against religion, whereas the person who was sober, the person who has an open minded deal and even tries that? WHO's this so who's the emotionally sober one? WHO's the one who's free of the resentment? I don't know. I'm just hey, listen, I'm just reading from the big book. So I'm in. This isn't even me. Don't blame me for this shit. I didn't write this thing. You know what I mean. If I wrote it, we'd all be on the yacht with the playboy bodies. Let me tell you something, you gotta have a different program recovery. I can day that he provided what we needed if we kept close to him and performed his work. Well, what the hell does he want me to do? Apparently, someone the book he says he wants to be a maximum service to other people, into God, whatever that is. What is that established on this footing, we became less and less interested in ourselves and our little plans and designs. Is that what Surpris? Is that what sobriety looks like, that you become less and less interested in yourself and your little and your look in your and your designs, your little plans and designs. Well, if that's what real sobriety is that you're less interested in yourself and your little plans and designs, what am I supposed to think of all these people that are all they want to do is talk about theirselves and their problems? What about all these people that are always worried about themselves and their problems, the details of their lives and what's happening to him and what a sobriety look like, real sobriety. More and more, we become interested in seeing what we can contribute to life, as we felt new power flow in HMM, as we enjoy peace of mom mind, whatever that is, as we discover we could face life successfully, as we become conscious of him presence. How do you know you're conscious of his presence? How can you become conscious of his presence all the time? We began to lose fear of today, tomorrow, the hereafter we were reborn. What's that? All of that? What's that? rebordanse sounds a little churchy to me. I don't know. Well, I want you to report me now. This upset you. I want you to immediate reportment in New York. I want you to tell them that there's some guy in Miami, Florida, reading people excerpts of the big book of alcoholics, anonymous, and it's hurting newcomers. Because, haven't you heard, if you read the big book of alcoholics anonymous with feeling and you have you read it to him in a way that they can't avoid it, you hurt the newcomer. Didn't you know that that hurts the newcomer? To be told this stuff. You're hurting them. They're going to leave Aya and they're going to go. They're going to go. Well, I guess, drink, drink. I guess they'll drink and then they'll they'll drink and they'll get arrested though whenever, and then they'll come back to AA and won't be such a big deal. But listen, because they'll be crushed or they'll die, but so they died. Listen, Alcohol Hey, you know we're about it. Alcoholics aren't said Hey, we're like about this. Common as dirt. You know, alcoholics don't you know? Come on, alcoholics, if we die, it's an accident. Leave me. You know it's an accident. Most of the times we've done. Listen, where the guys that crash a car into a family of for at a hundred miles per hour and they all die and we walk away with the brutes. Alcohol let me tell you something. After the thermonuclear war, you know, when everything is decimated, the only other left is cockroaches and alcoholics. You know, what's that show? What's that show with the dead people walking around? What's that showcoling with the dead people, the walking dead? You ever see those walking dead guys. Those are all alcoholics that were in recovery at one point in time. Then get this thing. You know, Mike's laughing. You doesn't know what it's like. So so listener, I'm going to tell you a story. So you see, this is like going to be painless. Okay, Panglein now, here's the here's the thing. Let me tell you how. You know, they ask Jesus what. Why do you talk imparables? Why do you tell people stories? Why don't you just tell them straight out, and this is what he said. He said because you know they won't understand what I'm talking about. Those I talking parables. Let's I tell him a story. They would want of these do they won't really understand it because they're, you know what, because they're so defensive and they're on guard against everything. They won't accept somebody...
...talking to him, because the chief characteristic of alcoholics is defiance. They don't like people talking to him because when you let Carl Manager wrote a book called man against themselves, said alcoholics are men and when we're out of destroy themselves because deep down inside they think the pieces of Shit, they think they're unworthy. That's why they're always judging there inside, by the way other people look on the outside. They're always looking at other people, always worried about if you're an alcohol er, please love me. A haul it. Why won't you accept me? A haul it, I feel uncomfortable in this groupaholic. I used to say to my sponsor, I love people, I love being around people. I'm not scared of if me, since I'm why do you always have to be fucking drunk to be around them? Why do you always if you love them and you're not scared, why do you always have to be drunk to be around them? If you love women, you're not scared, but why do always have me drunk to ask them to dance? Why do you always have to be drunk to have sex if you love them? You know that is that's alcoholism. I mean we tell ourselves live we're delusional. It says we're delusional. We say things to ourselves and other people like I don't give a crop what other people think about me. What our whole life is about buying stuff and dressing ourselves up and put in accouterments around ourselves and trying to prove to other people that were better than them or good as them, and everything like that with the greatest thing we fear is being humiliated or people laughing at us, you know, and all we do is walk around tell on themselves lies. Whyes, you know, I don't give a proper they think about so I'm going to I have a story to tell you. I'm going to tell you a story. Let me see what time it is. I don't want to know. Okay, so I'm to tell you story. This story, by the way, you know, there were a bunch of steps. I just talked about a bunch of steps. Yeah, well, I'm going to let you're gonna Forget. You see, here's the deal. You'RE gonna have to connect the dots. I'm not going to do all the work on this deal. I'm seventy one years old, I'm old. I'm not gonna do all the work of this shit. You're going to have to connect the dots. I'm to tell you a bunch of stories. I'm going to tell you different things about this book and about Your Life, and you're going to have to try to figure this thing out. You know, some people are saying I think that's about the first step. Some people say it's the third step. Out of that's the ten step, thinking the other. That's that's the eleventh step. You know this would be. It's it's all there. You know why it's all there? Because I am a product of alcoholics anonymous. See, I'm seventy one years old and I've been sober forty years. In alcoholics anonymous, going to means doing everything. So, no matter how screwed up I look, no matter how crazy you think I am, no matter how to laugh, no matter how much you say this guy is off the wall, let me tell you something. I am a product of alcoholics anonymous. I am a sober alcoholic and I am a propt. This is what you get when you immerse yourself and alcoholics anonymous and you make God the central fact of your life. You got to guy. That all he want? You know, Bill Wilson said an alcoholics anonymous number three. Check it out. When when build Dotson, the man on the bed, said, I knew there was something more, there was something I haven't got, something a person ought to have, and I didn't have the answer. And one day Bill Wilson was my my house reading tuna, fish or something. He didn't say to t fish say. But then we're eating lunch and he said to my wife. He turned my wife and he said, Henrietta, the Lord has been so wonderful to me, sure me of the Stubil disease, that I got to keep talking about them and telling other people. Bill Wilson couldn't help himself from talking about God and the other people what he had done to him in his life and build dots and said I have the answer and called it the the golden text. Bill was very, very grateful to God for what he had done for him in his life and he gave all credits to God and all he wanted to do was talk to other people about that, about that, that one thing about what God had done from it his life being the central facts saving him convinced about God. And Bill and and Dr Smith was farther along than he was. And that's the one thing that they don't want. And listen, you belong to a fellowship where that's the one thing they don't want you talking about. I want you to get the G I want you to grit now. I'm not putting down the fellowship. I love the fellatim but it ain't well, people's anonymous. The fellowship is millions of people that want to stay sober and don't want to do any of this shit. Younger still. I'm saying. That's what you have to understand. You have to unerstand there's a big book that tells you what the pure program is and there's a fellowship that says don't fucking do that. You understand? That's why you sit in a meeting. That's why you read the Big Book and you see all that shit they say and you sit in a meeting and you're scared to talk about God and you're going to sort of look at a little schizophrenic. You know what I mean? You know one guy said. He said, I think you have a split personality. I said, I wish I could get a doubt to two. I'd be okay. You get a little crazy because the big book talks all about...
God and the means. They say, don't talk about God, you'll scare with a new polt. So no wonder we're confused. We're confused. It's confusing, isn't it? See what happened? They wrote one chapter in the Big Book, Chapter to the Agnostics, to tell people this is not the deal. A takes a stand our standards for God, and so they are now we allow agnostics in and atheists in, like we all once were, under the guise of being tolerant, because you want to be tolerant. And all of a sudden, seventy, five years, eighty years later, atheist is an atheism and agnostics have taken over Aa, and the thing they're intolerant of is God. And so you really have two as, who actually have three as. Anybody who gets my email read that, that essay have in the email that was written the s and you have actually out an a where it's like the old time, a where it's all about God, and then you have an AA of trying to stay sober based upon what they taught you when the treatment center, where you don't really need God. It's just an option and there are consequences. So I'm going to tell you a story which has to do by the way. Now this story is a true story. It's a true story. I was going to a Bible study once, is a weird thing, and the guy was leader of the Bible Study told this story, and it was a true story, to drive a point across, a point that's very important, than a a, and I was so amazed by the story and I didn't. I looked at it myself. I looked up in the dictionary and not to any encyclopedia. I Google did I will computed and it was a true story. And and so I went up to him. So I started using a because it is a true story. It tells you who's going to it's a story that tells you who's going to make it an a and who's not going to make it. Would you like to hear a story about WHO's going to make it a name who's not going to make it? I'm doing. Want to hear a story about WHO's going to make it who's not going to make it? I'll tell your story. So I went up to the guy by the way and I said, you know, I'm telling in the story and Aa that you told me five years ago. I'm telling you this story. It wasn't a FIDAY. It changed my life. And he looks at me and he says, I never said that story. I said, I read you said the stories is I never said it. I'm remember saying. So it's like an amazing things, like you got thing. But he said one thousand eight hundred and sixty three. You want to find out about what this deal was all about. We got to go back to eighteen may, twenty six, eighteen, sixty gree if you understand this story, you'll understand all about alcoholics. Anonymous, by the way, is there a part of the book my Miss Instance, says if you want when we have and are willing to go to anything, any lengths to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps. I am I quoting that right? You know I'm mad. Is that right? If you want we have and you're willing to go to any lengths to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps. That's right, Russell. Okay, thanks. So, in other words, what they're saying is, you know you're ready if you want what we have and you're willing to go to any length together. You know you're ready if you want what we have and you're willing to go to any length to get it. So a lot of what you so, a lot of this depends upon who your we is. You know who are you looking at? What if you don't want, will we have? What if you want will we have, but you're not going to go to any length together? What if you want we have and you're going at will we do like half measures or go to some lengths together. Does that count? I mean it's like all in nothing. Is there all another? I mean there is. You know, you got to get rid of the old ideas. Is it really the result is there, unless you got to go to any lengths to get it. You know what is any lengths? So in May of one thousand eight hundred and sixty three, there were these seven guys. I'm going to give me their names, okay, because you got to remember their names are very important. There was Thomas Kover, Henry Edgar Barney use, William fairweather, Henry Rogers and Bill Sweeney, and they were all in Bannock, Georgia. But bannock, where was it? It was bannocked. It was in Virginia City, outside of Bannock, Montana, and they were prospectors. It was a problem to us. The second largest gold it's so happens later on that there was gold and silver up there. Anybody ever saw remember the ponder Rosa and you know that TV show. You...
...know there was gold out there was the second largest gold stripe, you know, but this is really before they were golden. was in the Black Hills with the Indians and you're not allowed to go up there and get the gold. And all the miners were in Bannock, Montana, and they would go up to the hills and they would try to mind for gold, get the money, and the seven on that out in May of one thousand eight hundred and sixty three. This is after they found gold at stuttered mill. This is after, you know, California deal these seven miners. There was it was a whole bunch of miners that went up into the hills and these seven miners were like a day late and they started going up to the hills to the seven guys I'm talking about to get the to get the gold. Now, listen, trust me, this has everything to do with you. This is everything to do with your life. I'm giving you the secret. I'm giving you the secret of alcoholics and I'm gonna give you the secret of your life right now. And some of you are going to understand it and some of you are not going to understand and some of you are going to understand it and then you're going to forget it. Or you know what you're going to do. You're going to debate it, you're going to understand it and you're going to debate it, but a few of you are going to understand it and get it. You know what I mean. You'll see. So the seven miners went out to mind for gold and they got captured by the Endians. Now there was one of the guys was a half bread so he was okay. They captured them, but later on they escaped. Six of them escape. One of them stayed back and they were going back to bannock Montana. You know, they get resupplied and they camped at a particular place and build fair weather. One of the guys still fair weather and I think it was Henry Rogers. To Henry had go was. Henry had saw some Rim rock and he started hitting the Rim Rock, you know, while they were just there, and he found gold. And so for the next three or four hours they were hitting they they found. Imagine going in your backyard and you find fivezero dollars with the gold right there in the bat, I mean, and they start finding and they knew they had hit a major strike the mother low. They knew it. But here's the problem. They didn't have the tools. They didn't have the tools to mind the goal. And if they didn't have the tools, they couldn't work the claim and they were other worried about other people jumping the claim at that time. So they made a solemn pack that they were going to go with the town. They were going to sneak in the bag. You understand what I'm saying? They're going to get by the tools with the gold they have and everything like that, and nobody was going to say crap. Understand I'm saying? Nobody's gonna say nothing. You know what I mean, because they had hit the mother low. So they get they they get in the bannock Montana. They go to buy the stuff. You know what I mean. They go to buy the stuff. They get the stuff and the plant is they're going to meet out about two miles outside of town at the old oak tree. So they go about two miles out of town to the old old tree and they notice that there's three hundred miners following them. Three hundred miners following them. So they knew somebody had spilled the beans. Somebody had said something. So Henry fairweather went up to the leader of the three hundred people and said to them, I mean, who's spilled the beans? And they said this is what they said to him. They said nobody talked. He says we could see it in your eyes. We knew. We looked at you, we knew you had hit the mother loan. We knew you would hit the mother lode. We could just look at you and we knew that you would hit the mother lode. And the reason I'm sober is because I've been hanging around. I've been hanging out with the miners. I've been hanging the mid with the miners. You know, you don't have to be a genius, and alcoholics anonymous. You know, there's sobriety and their sobriety. There's being dry, there's not drinking and there's being rocked in the fourth dimension of existence. You know, thank God for some of the men I hung out I wanted what they had. I had no idea what they had, but I could see it. I knew they had hit the mother load. I knew they had hit the mother load. I hung out with Real Keith because I knew he had...
...hit the mother load. I hung out with Bob Salton I knew he had hit the mother load. These guys that hit the mother load and I hung out with them. The other guys are in the parking lot with the gals smoking your cigarettes, you know, trying to get laid, you know, whatever hell they're doing over there. I'm saying, I'm sitting with these guys are like sixty years old. They're fat like me, you know what I mean. They're chain smoke from camel cigarettes or something. I'm hanging out with these guys because I knew these guys had hit the mother load. I knew they had been rocking and I knew they had like Bill Wilson, they had something I knew a person should had. I knew there was something more, there was something I hadn't got. I followed these guys. I went to every step, mean this spot. They were speaking. I was there. They were speaking, I was there. We would get in a car, we would drive sixty miles. He said Joe Snyder's speaking tonight and for water to real keeps doing a step series tonight, you know, and Hi Aliyah, and we're up there. We were there. We would follow these guys around, like people would follow Bill Wilson around, the Bob Smith around here, whoever plans it, you know, hung out with the guys, or you know what I mean, because I wanted what they have and I was willing go to any length to get it because apparently, even at that point in my life I had hit bottom because I drank, because of drinking where I was willing go to any length, and that's what happened to me. I don't know I can talk about this stuff we're talking about tonight. I don't know how to instill desire into somebody who doesn't desire. I don't know how to force somebody to desire. I don't know how to force somebody to desire to be sober over a desire to have sex. I can't, I can't, I can't do that. I don't have the power to do that. You know I mean. I mean my whole life was about get any dressed about getting dressed up on a Friday night or Saturday night looking for her. I wanted what she had. I was willingly or any length together. My whole that's my whole existence, is chasing after women, getting cars, buying stuff, getting buffed, you know, everything like that so I could get that thing that would make me feel like a man and feel okay, and that was my whole life. Nobody, there's no person in the world that could taught me out of anything. I was so loyal to that life. Something had to happen to me. They had nothing to do with thinking. It had nothing to do with thinking. So I had to hit some sort of bottom or something. We're staying sober and more with these guys had was more important than sex, more important than money, more important. So I haven't listened. How do you do that? How do you how do you get an alcoholic to be I can tell you this. I have people in my life that I sponsored that have gotten there the easiest, that they're the easiest. People will roll the sponsor. They asked me a question. I tell them what I think and they listened to me. Sometimes they do a little you don't understand, and they got other people in my life. There ain't nothing to do. I'll give the answer and they'll sort of laugh, or they'll get another sponsor and they'll say, you don't understand. I don't chase after him, I don't try to fix some I'm trying to cure them, you know, because I don't have the power to do that. I'm not gone, you know. I don't sit there and worry about it, what's going to happen, because that happened. They put me an Alan on us. You know I'm going to have that happen. You know our ladies perpetual revenge. You know Julie's laughing shoes and know what it's like. But so let me sit a thirty five. I went five minutes over. You know I'll let you go for another three hours. We're not going to do that. Okay. So that's your rest for me at these prices, Norman. That's it.
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