Steps 1, 2 and 3 at the Road to Recovery convention

given a golf club kind of

hi everybody my name's Karen Norton alcoholic

I'm I'm from Minneapolis Minnesota and by the grace of a loving god through working the steps I haven't found it necessary to take a drink or anything else since December seventeenth nineteen eighty eight and for that I'm very grateful

and I'm very glad to be here thank you for having us

thanks

thank you for having us it's been such a pleasure we've met so many nice people we didn't get in a fight last night I want to clarify that

but we saw it we saw a great fight

so you know we can take that take that memory back along with all the the other stuff and you you all just been wonderful and

and the the US the the attack last night by Doug was great

everything's been great right up until now so

we'll see how things go my job this morning is to talk about steps one two and three I'm I'm also sharing my experience tomorrow morning so I'm gonna try this morning to

keep to the subject at hand but the only experience I really have to share on anything in Alcoholics Anonymous is my own so this you'll you'll hear quite a bit about meteo and I hope it's helpful I hope this is helpful to someone out there I'm first of all let's talk about powerlessness in on manageability is there anyone here who is powerless over alcohol and whose life is unmanageable the show hands

okay well that takes care of step one

I have to get done credit for that that joke we were we were talking about that earlier today so anyway I'm

to start out step one reads we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable I I mean you can leave a media at least until some some information about myself I was when I started drinking when I was twelve twelve or thirteen and I had I was in treatment for most of the next

god sixteen years you know a I was in thirteen treatment centers in sixteen years and I had so much information given to me in very by very good professional people and by with very is sincere and hardworking members of Alcoholics Anonymous you know I was the benefactor of I Tonya have information about Alcoholics Anonymous

and about alcoholism and

I couldn't get sober

I wasn't sober the longest I was ever I was usually only sober for as long as I was locked up some place and sometimes not even then but usually I usually manage to stay sober while I was institutionalized so

yes

I was most proud proud for my family and for everybody who knew me they were proud I'm

but I couldn't I it I could not stay sober and I finally did get sober when I was twenty nine in nineteen eighty eight and in looking back at my experience it seems to me that the central

other than the fact that I think everyone has their time and do you know your your time is your time your time is your time and your bottom is your bottom and that's all there is to it I'm the central difference with that last experience is that I was finally able to

truly grasp the concept of powerlessness

which I thought I had understood for years you know people would talk about powerlessness in these treatment centers and they talk about powerlessness at these analysts A. A. meetings that I want to I mean they talk about powerlessness endlessly at these endless a a meeting so

and I you know I thought I understood I would think you know yeah our list you know when I drink funny things happen I I often cannot predict what will happen and my drinking seems to have strange consequences that are peculiar to me you know

and don't occur to the average person when they're drinking you know normal people don't

wake up in different states than they

we went to bed and they don't drive actually drive thru McDonald's when they drive through you know they don't

you know they did did these things are not things that are explainable in north in to a normal it too under normal circumstances and they happen to me all the time you know all the time it wasn't just occasionally that was my life so I thought I'd that's powerless that's closeness I understand that sure I'm powerless is when I started drinking who knows what's going to happen in my life seems to have dreadful consequences and that's that was my thinking

and unfortunately

that always seem to leave me with room for another

attempt at working things out because of powerlessness is if powerlessness was the consequences of my drinking then all I needed to do was you know make a few minor adjustments to change those consequences you know a little more coke

I'm a little little heroin which you know

D. can cut down on your drinking

you know I mean just kind of mix it up a little bit too and maybe those consequences will change and and they sometimes did in you know the circumstances sometimes change the end result was usually the same so that's what I understood and as a result I could never really buy into the idea that I had to change everything in my life in order to get sober because

you know I didn't understand that the powerlessness that I was experiencing we had we went much deeper than the consequences of my actions you know it was it was it was a much more profound issue

so and for some reason like I said because I think sometimes we're just ready I was finally ready to hear that finally beaten up enough finally

tired and not finally hopeless enough I finally had lost my arrogance to the degree that I could hear finally in my last beginning in my last treatment and you know finally from my sponsor what powerlessness really was and what she directed me to was the doctor's opinion in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous which explains powerless to me in a way that was much better that was that was that was accurate so I'm just gonna spend a couple of minutes on this chapter and

before I do that I want to talk a little bit about doctor still growth and bill Wilson and some of you may know the story so feel free to you know just to me out if you haven't already just you know I'm

yeah and the reason I want to talk about this is because I know that that I can tell obviously a is really important to all of you and and this is clearly a growing and vibrant a a community and what my observation has been in the places I've been fortunate enough to travel is that the story of Alcoholics Anonymous is one that kind of plays itself out over and over and over again and it's often the story of amazing coincidences of people meeting when they're supposed to meet and finding each other when they're supposed to find each other and you know and and having these opportunities that just kind of follow you know upon us from a loving god so and that's always started to

it was a story of amazing coincidences and one of the amazing coincidences was that bill meant doctor Silber now doctor so forth was a a a neurologist and he put he had a very healthy practice in the nineteen twenties and he had no

no interest or desire to work with alcoholics there was no you know he didn't come out of middle school medical school and say I want to go work with drunks

nobody did actually there wasn't

their warranty there weren't people working with us they were probably you know a dozen people around the globe who were truly interested in in the plight of the alcoholic other than the folks involved in the temperance movements the if there wasn't a study around it there weren't psychologists who were looking into it there weren't therapist hanging out signs on every corner there weren't hospitals treating us other than sanitary items you know we were we were is considered to be hopeless so anyway and doctor so for that you know for whatever thought he gave it kind of share that opinion and that opinion of the day so he I'm here is very healthy practice no thought of alcoholics in his mind at all the stock market in the United States crashed in nineteen twenty nine he lost everything everything last practice lost its clients he was just like many other professional people out on the street you know

and the only place you could get a job in the medical profession was from a gentleman named Charles Townes who owned a hospital called the town's hospital that was one of the six or seven places in the US that treated alcoholics and drug addicts

and he went to work there reluctantly you know and the reason towns hired him is because he was a neurologist and like I said there really weren't very many psychologists there was Carl young in Switzerland there was this fried guy running around over in Europe you know in in Germany or Austria and dams you know did you know there weren't there weren't a lot there wasn't a lot of

attention given to that field and so neurology being a study of the brain and the nervous system is thought was thought to be closely related to psychology and psychiatry which is the study of the mind so towns said brain mind closely related and hired him and so forth went to work for towns and he

kind of slowly and I it from his own stories pretty reluctantly began to develop a sympathy and then an empathy and then certain very specific ideas about alcoholism because he watched all of these men

and they were all it was it was all man you know men didn't get treated for alcoholism often women didn't get treated for alcoholism period and you know they got locked up in the attic or you know shipped off some place by their family or it wasn't

it wasn't a good situation but he watched these men come into towns

successful people everything in the world going for them sincere desire to change their lives

doctor doctor I'm ready to do anything he would drive him up

with that you know that methodology the day which was a formaldehyde little belladonna you know nothing too dangerous and then you know

I try to practice what they thought of then as moral psychology which is kind of more or less from what I understand like up some pep talks you know to get him back up on their feet and then they go they leave with the you know their heads held high in and around the world in three four weeks later they'd be break back in just as racked if not more so than before and towns or a super is watch this you know over not just occasionally but over and over and over again you know this this place had a rotating clientele

and like many treatment centers do today you know this is a phenomenon any therapist could tell you about today and he thought this cannot be a moral issue this can not be a problem of the well these are not people who don't have enough discipline in their lives to correct this with discipline these are not people who don't have anything to live for these are intelligent well brought up

individuals and there's got to be something

to this other than just a failure of the will or a mallet jasmine to life

so I'm he started it putting together certain ideas as I said and when he came to kind of entirely through observation was the idea that

alcoholics are different from the average person and that there's a physical manifestation of that difference we're different in our bodies and we're different in our minds and as I unlikely as that sounded it seemed

based on the evidence that he had before him it was true in every instance

and basically that's what he talks about in the doctor's opinion there are and and it is in the American the English version of the big book there are sixteen references for the phenomenon of craving now this is another point when I was out you know doing my own field work on this subject before I got sober I thought that the phenomenon of craving was bad thing that happened to me after after not having a drink for about three or four days where I would start to think

you know I drink I drink would be in order right now I really I need a drink

I am I I'm I'm not going to be you know I and the I. D. the preoccupation with drinking would start to become a part of my daily life again any length of sobriety you know towards the end of my drinking a couple of hours of sobriety would bring on that sort of mental obsession and I thought when people talk about the phenomenon of craving that that's what they were talking about

they were talking about that I need to drink I need to have a drink I need to have something and and that that's that's what that was and what super tells me is that's that's not what that is that all the phenomenon of craving is that physical aspect of alcoholism that that

as yet

not completely defined set of consequences that we have physically where when we have a drink the drink

this tells our bodies that we need to have another drink and I had to I didn't understand I didn't

for some reason I never got that and that was my experience you know four of probably the last six or seven years of my drinking I wanted to stop drinking you know that most of the time anyway and I couldn't and I I definitely there were many times when I was drinking already that I wanted to stop drinking and couldn't I'm I don't know an alcoholic who hasn't had the experience of actually being physically unable to move

and still wanting to have another drink you know of being completely paralyzed and knowing that the there is no way for you to get any drunkard then you possibly are and you still think it does still have your body telling you buy another one

it would be nice and

you know that's the phenomenon of craving that whole status of it physical actions that takes place in the body of an alcoholic that sets up this desire for more alcohol and there's a whole bunch of people and I'm not one of them that can explain to you exactly what that's all about and

it is it's pretty interesting

there's also you know as it turns out some similar things that happen on at the brain chemistry level which was discovered much later which I think is very interesting you know that so forth did all of this work using this these old the old it diagnostic that diagnostic methods of just observing patients well now they can like do a cat scan scan and slice you know do slices your brain and slices to your body and show that this really does happen in both at that brain chemistry level and at the physical level and you know everything that's been discovered since nineteen thirty seven when the doctor's opinion is written has kind of supported this thinking so anyway so that is the phenomenon of craving and like I said it's just written over and over in the style of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous obviously written for me because like I said they mention it here sixteen times I read it for sixteen years without seeing it and every chapter has one or two central ideas like that and they are they are written over and over and over and over and over and over and we can't see them

it's a it's we're we're we're pretty special people

anyway

I'm still in this so that's the phenomena grading and then the mental obsession is that thing that I always describe this craving that whole thing that says if I had to drink it would be better and not even in that clear of a voice it's more of this constant kind of being being being you know in the back of my head that says drink you need to drink you you can't function this way you are restless irritable and discontent it unless you can experience once again the ease and comfort that comes from having a few drinks and that's the mental obsession that's the other half of the that's the other half of the story and it's the one that that silk worth was

completely baffled about how to address and this is where bill comes in

so so far it has this answer and he's got nothing to do with it you know he knows what the problem is but how do you combat a mental obsession that overrides all good thinking you know how do you do what do you what what what do you bring to that moral psychology is not enough

you know you can't keep a locked up forever

you needed and so forth actually identified this as a psychic change of of of of fairly high order of magnitude there has to be something to interrupt that cycle and it can't be interrupted

it can't be interrupted before it just before the first string because then we haven't dealt with the mental obsession and I think we all know people like that

that their entire sobriety is by the edge of their finger tips

and so Chris knew that was no way to live

so what he said is you can't give the alcoholic a new body we have to find a way to give them a new mind has the mind is the problem if the mind is an obsessed the body never takes the first drink

the phenomenon of craving becomes a non issue I still I still have the phenomenon of craving you know I could I took a drink right now we probably see another fight you know

yeah yeah and who are who knows it's been quite a while so it could be much worse than that

but that's a bad idea but I have a new mind so the fact that I also have a body that's different from normal people is not a cut is not an issue for me so anyway I'm

hello Matt so growth in in nineteen thirty one

and in the normal fashion of your average towns hospital patient he met him again in nineteen thirty two and again in nineteen thirty three and then again in nineteen thirty four his

so and so forth and bill had a real affinity for each other they just hit it off right away and they actually became friends and this was a particularly painful experience for so growth of course because he knew bill was going to die there was no question and the last visit the town's hospital that bill made was after his friend Evie Thatcher came to see him in nineteen thirty four

and Abby handed bill the keys to the kingdom you know he told him that he had had a spiritual experience

and that bill could find his own concept of god and have one as well and Abby had no idea what he was talking about he was so in over his head it was unbelievable you know by the end he well whatever for whatever reason it worked in bill believed him because I'm here drink with them and he could see that everyone's different so whenever he said he had found god of his understanding bill would cut could find one to fill on stock that Abby's Abby's roots had grasped new soil and

it was enough to get him back to towns hospital in he explained this experience with Abby to doctor self worth and doctor so growth began to get an inkling of what might happen and then bill had through working the first five steps with Abby which you know they also didn't really know they were doing at the time you know have you noticed everything that we do is kind of by accident all of the all of the good things that we accomplish we are we're way over in over our head and out of comfortable water and kind of just you know making it up as we go it's anyway so they did the first five steps and bill had his clean window on a mountain top white light spiritual experience so Chris said

why you got me but you know you're certainly better off than you were yesterday and

and that was it and the P. the puzzle pieces started to come together so

just a little a history there were a number of other incredible coincidences that followed but I won't go into all of them

I think probably the most amazing thing about that story is that is so forth as a medical man was willing to put aside the beliefs of his entire here community and trust in the spiritual experience of a man who was a hopeless alcoholic

and he sticks his professional reputation on it you know for him to put this in our book it was a

that's a pretty big deal

you know the depression wasn't over really yet he was still

struggling financially he still hadn't regained his own practice but yet he was willing to put himself out on a limb for us so

and thank goodness I also think it's interesting that the last word in this chapter at least in the English version is pray he says

though perhaps you hire earnestly advised every alcoholic to read this book through and though perhaps you can just go off he may remain to pray

you know again it's

I think I think he really set the stage for medical doctors all over the world finally beginning to see that there was a bridge between what they could do to help alcoholics and the work that we needed to do for ourselves so anyway

so that's that's pretty much all I'm gonna say about step one I think one of the no that's that's not true I'm gonna say one other thing when I I I didn't once I was beaten down enough to understand this concept of powerlessness and the fact that working the steps was worth it because the alternative was an alcoholic that

and there was no you know there wasn't there wasn't I wasn't going to be able to win this this battle any other way it was a fixed fight it with the train had left the station it was a done deal nothing about my condition was ever going to change once I understood that

you know between that and kind of being

faced with with a lifetime of consequences I was able to finally see you know maybe taking the steps isn't the radical solution that I thought it was maybe it's not as outlandish as it seems to me all these years maybe these people are not as crazy as they seem

you know given this choice so and I think every alcoholic has to make that choice there and there was a time when I wouldn't have to be doomed to an alcoholic after to live life on a spiritual basis you know as Doug said last night

I don't know

spiritual very

I'm very uncool very

yeah I don't know it doesn't really fit with my image of myself

so yeah anyway and then the other thing I'll say is that later and sobriety I I've I've been sober for almost fifteen years there've been a few times in my sobriety when I have been really faced with difficulties or or walked into areas of growth that were you know much much more difficult than I expected I've had wonderful wonderful times being sober and I've had some times when I've just thought

you know I I don't know what I'm doing I don't know what to do next I'm up against something I don't understand I the the light has gone out of this program for me I you know I've had some I've had some dark times and I think you know you have a lifetime commitment to something you're gonna have some tough times and I you know I didn't get here because I was really all that put together so the fact that I'm gonna run into some some issues that that that really bring me to my knees occasionally it's not a surprise but one of the things that I've discovered is as I've tried to work out my solution to these other issues

I generally need to go back to step one my inclination is to go back to maybe step six

yeah

because I'm a fairly advanced

do those sober person at this point you know I like to think I'm fairly advance so there's no reason for me to go all the way back to step one and

and my problems very rarely involve wanting to drink and step one seems to be pretty

but it's pretty locked in and around the idea of drinking you know even more so than any of the other stuff so I make this mistake every few years and my sponsor delights in reminding me that you know I've been down this road before a few years but what I found was step one or with going back with going back through the steps yes it's best to start at step one

and if I can't get past the language if I'm having trouble relating to all of the references about drinking then I substitute something that I'm quite familiar with like selfishness for example which is a you know has is no longer my constant companion but which I can still identify in my life certainly selfishness is our current problem of mine so is self centeredness so is dishonesty so if I can't if I can't get through the taxed and relate to the text then I just start crossing out drinking and replacing it with thinking

or selfishness or self centeredness or whatever and somehow it all just falls right back into place again so anyway step to

you know I used to think that the chapter that was on step two in the big book was we agnostics and you know it obviously is an it's a it's a great chapter in my opinion some of the best the the the the most compelling arguments towards living a spiritual life that's probably ever been written it's just beautifully put together

so

probably the best argument for the book being divinely inspired to because I don't think bill was really quite there yet at this time hi but it's been a great chapter and there are again in the English version nineteen references to being willing to be willing to believe

and as it happened for me this was important because I came to Alcoholics Anonymous anything yes I have been an atheist well

I started saying I was an atheist when I was six

when I first heard about atheism and I thought

that sounds cool that sounds very artistic and intellectual and I am both an artist and an intellectual and and and I'm going to embrace this as a lifestyle so I I but I really grew into my into an attitude that there was no god and it was very hard for me when I got to Alcoholics Anonymous to get past that I'm not because I wasn't and not because I wasn't willing to believe at that point I just thought that that it was too late

you know I could not change a lifetime of thinking and if there was a god this would certainly be a great opportunity for him to to really show me who was bus by saying

you know twenty nine years alright let's check in in another twenty nine maybe Allah yes so I just figured it wasn't going to happen for me and I thought at the time that I got sober when I finally did really want to know that I was going to have to be one of those people who just

hung on in a and because I could see that other people were having these spiritual experiences and I knew that that would never happen for me

so for me step two was a real process and I think it is for many people you know I came to meetings and I saw that that there was at least a belief among many of the people at the meetings that they had had a spiritual experience

whether they were right or not and you know that's questions kind up for grabs at this point but I knew they thought so so there's a door I mean that's been dead for me that was a an incredibly open minded way of looking you know because before that I thought you guys were just making it making the whole thing up so then I then I kept going to meetings I got a sponsor and I got to know my sponsor and I understood that she felt she also she felt she had a relationship with a higher power and after at some point I crossed over to realizing that she did

you know so now I actually know somebody who I believe has a relationship with a heart with the god of their understanding again you know it doesn't sound like much but for me an enormous breakthrough

and then I started to believe that if it were possible for my sponsor to have that that it was possible just barely possible that it might happen for me some day and from there it's an amazingly short walk to a relationship with god

and this is what we agnostics really this is the challenge that I'm given and we in the chapter we agnostics is I'm be willing to be willing if you can't be willing to be willing to be willing now

and

that's how it started for me and again I think that

the important thing is that today

and with all of the experience that I have in all of the evidence that's before me I still have to sometimes be willing to be willing

I'm not on the fundamental belief in god but on certain issues

of what god may or may not be interested in about my life

or what god may or may not be able to accomplish you know I still have to be willing to be willing it is my inclination to be very risk adverse and to limit what what my experience can be

and we agnostics step two it really is the beginning of changing

that thinking of beginning to think of life as something where there is a pleasant place where anything can really happen you know and like I said we are not six is the chapter that kinda wraps this all up nicely but again the the big book knows alcoholics well it's most of there is a solution and more about alcoholism are devoted to building this case

and yet some they built a pretty air tight case for sobriety and one of the things I like to do with the women I sponsor is challenged them to find me the central ideas in each of those you need to those chapters and it's amazing how often they can't you know and I would think that was I don't I can laugh at that because it was amazing how long it took me you know I'm it's we don't do we don't come to this stuff really easily well I'm in there is a solution it's the entire chapter is about the reader making a choice to continue reading the book you know that's the they built they put this case out there they tell you right up front there's a solution and here are all the reasons that that you that you should continue to read this and what and okay you know decide you don't need to go on that's fine it's all good we love you anyway but the whole chapters basically it's says provide you with enough information to decide if you want to continue more about alcoholism

the whole chapter is on at the progressive nature of the illness and the fact that left to our own devices we have noted mental defense there's no there's nothing I can Iraq that is strong enough left to my own devices to combat combat this and you know again this is just this runs through it so strongly and when I was lucky enough when I was new to be sponsored by someone who took me through this book

page at a time and explain to me from her own experience how this how how she how she had had this happen for her and I would it's something I would I hope that you all have a chance to experience if you haven't already but

yeah and and it was so organic at that time it was so much a part of my early sobriety that I didn't really even realize what she was doing or how powerful and compelling that the material was you know how how strong of a voice in spoken by later on in sobriety as I had to go back to the book and works that works through the steps to get through difficult periods in my life I could see that you know I could see the case being built and I could feel the walls coming down and I could tell hello impacted I was by what I had read and how how clearly written for us this material is

and what it's kind of designed to do now most of us experience this in meetings or with our sponsor we don't it's really experience it by reading the book the book kind of supports it you know but what we we see it in in meetings you know we the people make the case for us in meetings we hear about

all stories about the fact that the illness is progressive and that there's no mental defense we understand how people come to our relationship with the god of their understanding you know through a series of of decisions to believe a little more and a little more and a little more you know we get all of that through the experience of meetings but it's all here in the book and

you know that's pretty that's pretty amazing okay step three I'm

when I got sober I'm gonna skip all this tomorrow so

and I always forget to talk about it anyway so it's probably a good thing because it's important when I was first got sober like I said I've been in and out of meetings and a A. for half my life at that time more than half my life I knew more about Alcoholics Anonymous then do pretty much anybody I know you know I just I knew everything I knew every slogan I knew where every meeting was I knew what kind of people I could I could tell you at any given moment precisely what the right thing to say was in response to an a you know joke I knew everything about it except for how it really worked and how to get sober so

so high you know and I just I I I had more by its too much knowledge in many ways it and I had been interrupted too many times on my way to the bottom but anyway so I'm in a I'm finally ready to get sober and I've been institutionalized for four or five months I'm finally out released into the care of the community

and I'm staying sober for the first time and it two weeks ago by three weeks go by I'm running around with this group of women who were also institutionalized in the same place I was last and they start dropping like flies left and right none of us have sponsors because we're sponsoring each other you know who better to understand my experience than somebody who has had exactly the same amount of experience you know so it made sense to us and

it seemed like a real good plan until every single one of those women ended up drinking and one day the last one called me up and said I got drunk last night and I just

felt the I felt the hammer kind of

this far you know I was just like I was I was standing under

one of those things that that cartoon characters end up standing under a piano or something you know and it was gonna fall any minute and there I would be I'd you know I knew I was going to get drunk I knew it I thought I was crazy I was stark raving sober and I knew that too I didn't know what the solution was really

and I went to this meeting and it was this meeting I've heard a lot about and had been warned about she was full of very serious people who you know really just were obsessed with the steps you know that's all they ever tied there's just like

you know and drags newcomers in off the street ten you know

many people stay later you know and there was just one of those places you definitely want to avoid if you're trying to live a comfortable

the existence and yeah so and I am

I went because I was desperate and you the one that's what they were like and that became my first home group and I met my sponsor there and I met her on the first night I was there and she I I was in a group and it was the third step discussion and there were about seven or eight people around the circle we broke into small groups it was a big meeting but we broke into little tables and

people are talking about the third step and it came to my turn and I thought you know here's something I know just a little bit about

so because I have been I have been studying the will of god for a good six months at that time since I'd or for you know since I since I'd gotten sober I was actually I had a book about the will of god you know I had to study I was and my thinking was you know the third step says

you made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of a loving god as we understood him and I thought okay well I will find out what god's will is and then I will turn my life over to it

and the challenge was kind of finding out what god's will was you know that was and it was

it turned out to be much harder than I thought you know I had to do a lot of reading and I had a whole shelf full of books and and but I knew a little bit about this so I was telling this group of people about this experience and they were all like

interesting you know and this one woman this much older woman next to me just started to giggle

it's kind of like Carl this you know and she I'm not in a mean way you know I I she sounded very sweet but she could clearly just was this was really amusing to her so much that she couldn't stop laughing she we kept trying to and she couldn't and then when I was finished she said you just keep coming back

things are gonna get a lot better and I thought you know that's nice that's so nice

and

I asked you to be my sponsor and you know it the reason I asked her was first said that and then secondly when she was laughing I realized at some level what how ridiculous what I was saying was you know I thought this is ridiculous you know this is ridiculous this isn't gonna work I don't know what's going to work but this certainly isn't going to work and so after the meeting I asked you to be my sponsors she was my sponsor for ten years and she was she was wonderful and she she took me to her house the next night and for many nights thereafter and the first thing that she had me do was start a fourth step

and I'm not gonna talk about step four because that's Doug's job but