Big Book Workshop Weekend in Altamore Springs, FL

Good evening. My name is Scott Lee, and I am an alcoholic. And, very honored and thrilled to be here. I wanna thank Lee and John and everyone who was involved in putting this thing together. It's such a privilege for me to be doing anything with this wonderful fellowship and I'd like to open with a, quotation from Lois Wilson, cofounder of Allon.

Any Allon's here? Hands? Thank you for coming. Certainly honored by your presence. Thank you for coming.

And, your cofounder, Lois, was asked one time what she did in the moment of silence before the serenity prayer and she said I invite God to the meeting and that was powerful for me and it's not that I don't believe God's here, I do believe that but something special happens for me when I stop and honor that presence and that's what I do in that moment of silence. And so in a few minutes, I'm gonna ask for another one and I'm gonna ask you if you would to invite your God to join us, to fill this room with love and to bless us all with open hearts. Bob and I hopefully that he would speak through our hearts or in worst case that we would and knew that you might hear through yours. We use in, in recovery the language of the heart which I find to be different from the language of the gutter in my case. Yeah.

And, I can report progress not perfection but, it might be that there's someone here who doesn't have a god or you have one you're afraid of or something's not working for you And if that's your case, I'd like to invite you to borrow mine for this time we're together tonight. You can refer to him as the god of Scott's limited says, It says, it was impossible for any of us to fully define or comprehend that power which is God. So I'm comfortable not understanding. It's okay. So let's take a few moments if you would and, acknowledge the presence of deity and ask for open hearts.

Amen. Amen. Bob and I are gonna take turns tonight. He's actually gonna take the first session. He has opening prayer and, if he's gonna do about half of the first session then I'll be back.

We're gonna take fairly short breaks this evening, about 10 minutes, so that we can get our sessions in. There'll be longer breaks tomorrow. I promise. And, what an honor it is to share a podium with one of the great storytellers and teachers and, a guy that's touched my life a lot of ways and I won't go on about that but, my friend Bob. My name is Bob Daryl, and I'm certainly alcoholic.

It's good to be here. Would you join me in a prayer I'd like to use for these workshops? Lord, help me to set aside everything I think I know about you. Everything I think I know about myself. Everything I think I know about others, and everything I think I know about my own recovery, all for a new experience in you, Lord, a new experience in myself, a new experience in my fellows, and a much needed new experience in my own recovery.

Amen. Amen. One of the reasons I really like that prayer is that sometimes the things that are blocking me are the things from last week or last month or last year that worked to keep me close minded to learning anything new. Wanna welcome everybody here. I'm excited about being here.

We Scott and I did a workshop late earlier the year here, and, we're right in the eye of Charlie, the hurricane. We called it the, 8 grand, the wind stopped blowing workshop of Alcoholics Anonymous, And it was, it was kind of frightening. It was, and exciting at the same time. And I'm glad to be here and nothing's rattling and, you know what? It's good.

It's very, very good. What we're gonna try to do this weekend is really the only thing any of us can do in Alcoholics Anonymous, is is honestly as we can share our experience with this process in this book. And that's always been the the power of Alcoholics Anonymous is 1 alcoholic honestly sharing what he has done and what happened to them and how they felt so that another alcoholic can connect and and secretly inside themselves say, I'm like that. I'm gonna go that way. Experience or Scott's experience is beneficial to you, coupled with what we're gonna go through in the book, that's good stuff for us.

Then we get to feel useful. We're gonna I'm gonna talk a little bit about step 1. The big book of Alcoholics Anonymous spends more time talking about step 1 in the working text than any other step. And bills in the 12 by 12 says it's the only step that we ever have to take a 100%. It's a difficult step for guys like me.

It seems like there's everything in me is against the surrender to step 1. My absolute powerlessness and inability to manage my own life. It's such a difficult step for some of our it kills some of us. We can't get it. We can't surrender.

We can't really own the powerlessness. It doesn't matter what happens to us. We can't give up. And I'm gonna start talking a little bit about some of the stuff that Silkworth talks about. In the big book on page XXVIII in the 4th edition, and the page numbers I'm going to quote are going to be page numbers out of the 4th edition.

I know there are some discrepancies and you'll have to fend for your own if you're have a 3rd edition. I don't have one here to give you. It it may be one number off in the 3rd edition. I'm not sure. But Silkworth, at the top of the page, starts to talk about some information that was crucial to Bill Wilson's ability to be effective.

And as a matter of fact, until Bill started using some of the information that Silkworth talked about, he spent his first 6 months trying to help other alcoholics with no avail until wasn't until he met doctor Bob Smith, and he started talking about some of the things that Silkworth talks about to Bob that he started to make a connection. And Silkworth talks about how we're powerless over alcohol in ways that it never would have occurred to me. And he talks about things that I just I didn't get. I didn't get for a long time. In this first paragraph, he says, we believe and so suggested a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics that's me.

I'm a chronic alcoholic. I don't have acute alcoholism. I have chronic alcoholism and there's a big difference. Some people in Alcoholics Anonymous, I think are from listening to them have acute alcoholism. Their alcoholism exists only while they're drinking.

And then once they put the plug in the jug, they're fine. And they don't really even need AA. They don't really need the steps really. They're the person that it talks about on the bottom of page 20 and the top of 21 when it talks about the hard problem drinker. But I'm not that guy.

I'm the guy that suffers and will always have this thing called alcoholism. It will always require treatment. It's a chronic illness just like diabetes. It's not something like like pneumonia where you load up on the antibiotics and you no longer have pneumonia. It's a chronic illness.

And he says that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics, guys like me, is the manifestation of an allergy. And then he starts to he starts to begin to get into the description of the of this manifestation of this allergy. He says that it's this phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average tempered drinker. So what Silkworth is trying is trying to say is something that I couldn't get. He's saying that I have an allergic reaction to alcohol.

But unlike a lot of allergies, let's say if you're allergic to strawberries, you eat strawberries, you break out in hives. I don't break out in hives. I break out in a phenomenon of craving. And it's an allergic reaction, it's a phenomenon because it doesn't occur in most people. It only occurs in these chronic alcoholics of my type.

And I I can't started coming to Alcoholics Anonymous in the early seventies as a young kid in institutions, and I remember hearing members of Alcoholics Anonymous talking about this phenomenon of craving and sitting there and I don't get it. I mean, I drink and get drunk and I'm in a lot trouble. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's not a craving. I saw days of wine and roses in the last weekend. I don't drink and claw the walls for a drink. I don't get it. I don't it's not a craving.

But I'll tell you a funny thing about a craving is you don't realize you suffer from it until it's no longer satisfied or it's interrupted. Everyone in this room right this second is in the grip of a craving you don't know you have because it's satisfied and that's the craving to breathe air. But if someone were to slip up behind you and put a plastic bag over your head, you would instantly realize I got this craving to breathe air because you can no longer satisfy it. And one of the difficult things for me was to see the phenomenon of craving because I was the kind of drunk that avoided situations intuitively. Not because I thought I had alcoholism, but just an intuitive thing where I could only get 2 or 3 drinks and couldn't get anymore.

I ain't going there. Now I wouldn't have thought it wasn't because I thought I was an alcoholic. It was just an intuitive instinct. It was an instinct with I remember in junior high school being invited over to a guy's house to watch some games Saturday afternoon. His parents were gone.

He had a 6 pack of beer for a couple of us. I passed. If he'd had 4 or 5 cases, I'm I'm your man. I'm right there with you. Right?

And so I couldn't see the phenomena of craving because 99% of my drinking life, I was able to satisfy it once I started. And then I'm sitting in a meeting back in the mid seventies, and I'm listening to a woman share her experience that she had at a dinner party and all of a sudden I got it. And I remembered something that had happened to me when I was 18 years old. And what I remembered was an incident where I was dating this gal and she invited me over to her parents' house for the evening to meet her family for dinner. And I went over there trying to be a good guy, and I, you know, I've never liked being under the microscope.

I've always been overly self conscious anyway. Right? But I'm trying to be a good guy and go. And I I walk in there and I sit down at the dinner table and, you know, trying to be polite and everything, feeling that awkward apartness that guys like me often feel. They bring out a bottle of wine.

Now, not a big bottle of wine like I would have bought. They brought out a little bottle of wine. Right? And now I'm 18 years old. I want you to understand something.

At 18 years old, you could have put me on a lie detector and said, Bob, is there any way in the world you could possibly have alcoholism? I would have said absolutely not. And the lie detector would have said I was telling the truth, but I had alcoholism. And alcoholism doesn't care what you think. If you have it, you have it.

And I had it, and I sat at that dinner table, and they poured me a glass of wine. I drank that glass of wine rather quickly. I've always drank a little quickly. I think evaporation's a childhood issue with me or something. I don't know.

But I I've always drank quickly. I just that way, I drink with this little bit of urgency, and I've, I've got another glass of wine, killed the second glass of wine. They're still sipping on the first glass. The bottle's dead. Sitting there, I got 2 glasses of wine in me.

I don't know nothing about alcoholism. I I just sit in there and I want another glass of wine. I finally said to him, boy, that god, that was good wine. Do you have any more? And they said, no, Bob.

We don't. They went back to talking about Vietnam and sports and all this stuff. And I'm sitting there you know how you talk to yourself in your head? It's getting a little panicky in there, and it's just the chatter's getting a little more hectic. And I I finally blurted out.

I said, you know, I sure like beer. And they said, well, that's nice, Bob. We don't have any beer. Next time you come over, we'll get you a 6 pack of beer or something. They went back to talking, and I'm sitting there, and I'm spinning in my head.

And I don't know what's wrong with me. And I'm antsy, and I can't I finally can't take it. I excused myself from the dinner table. I I go off to their bathroom. I locked the door like a maniac.

I go through the cabinets, found a bottle of cough medicine that was 35% alcohol with codeine and turpent hydrate, which is always a bonus, And sat there on that edge of that bathtub and chugged that bottle of cough medicine and all the voices in my head went, and I could think straight, and I could sit there, and I could come up with a a reasonable story. And I went back out to that dinner table, and I explained to them about something that I had forgotten about that I had to take care of and I was so polite, so sorry I had to leave. And I went and got my car and drove down their street 20, 25 miles an hour like you're supposed to, and then I turned the corner and got out of sight and drove 70 miles an hour like a crazy person to get to my friend Brett's house who I knew had an open bar in the basement because I lit something inside of me that demanded attention. And I didn't know that it was a phenomenon of craving. I didn't know I had alcoholism.

I wouldn't even suspect I have alcoholism for several several years. But I was the only one at that dinner table that night with alcoholism. Those other people had alcoholism. We'd all been in that bathroom looking through those cabinets. But I had something that got touched that need needed attention, and I could I've had that all my life.

I have never not had that allergic reaction to alcohol. Never once. I have never once been sitting in a bar and and had the reaction to alcohol and drinking and the experience that a lot of non alcoholics have. The Al Anon in here have probably had this experience. I've watched my sister, who's not an alcoholic, have that experience.

I've been drinking for an hour, starting to get pretty good buzz on. Have the bartender say, Bob, would you like another drink? Never once sat there in my whole life and thought to myself, honestly, no, this is just right. Never once. It's always one more, one more, one more.

I used to sit in meetings and listen to all the people in AA talk about the different things that alcohol made them feel like. Some people have made them feel like Fred Astaire. Other guys made them feel like John Wayne. Some people made them feel like they fit. Some people made him feel funny or smart or invertible or bulletproof and and all of that stuff was true some of the time.

But there was only one thing that was true all of the time. Every drink of alcohol I've ever had has made me feel like I'd like to have another drink of alcohol, and that is the phenomenon of craving. My sister doesn't get that. When she takes about 3 2 or 3 drinks and the buzz starts to hit her, you know that feeling that warm glow that starts to come over you. In her chemistry, in her wiring that feeling goes woah.

This could get out of control here. And she shuts it down. I've watched her. She get I've watched her Her eyes get that look and she's feeling that buzz and she gets she she feels like she's losing control. I get that exact same feeling and that thing lights me up and in my wire me it goes, oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Come on. Come on. I can't get enough. Because I get a feeling like I'm about to get control.

I this this phenomenon of craving, I can't ever get enough of it. What it I used to think that it it got me there. You know, where there is That place where you fit the magic and you're part of and you're funny and deep and brilliant and all. But it doesn't really get me there. What it does is it gets me right to the edge of there where I can almost touch it with a sense and a belief that I'm about to be there maybe on the next drink.

So keep them coming. Keep them coming. And I never do really get there, but I get so close. It makes me crazy. I get so close.

I can feel like I'm about to touch some kind of level of magnificence that'll blow the world's mind. You know? I just it's almost there, and I never get there. And I can't drink enough, and I drink at that, and I drink away from me, and it's it's never enough. Silkworth goes on to say these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all.

Now this is a little controversial and Alcoholics Anonymous has singleness purpose. We are here for alcohol. But I'll tell you something that I've watched over the last 10 years. A lot of solid members of Alcoholics Anonymous who came here suffering from alcoholism. I've seen them die and relapse, and it started with other kinds of stuff, medications.

And I think it's important for every every guy like me to realize and and own what is this? What what are the things that will do the same thing for me that alcohol does? What can't what is Silkware says? What can I ever safely use in any form at all? What will also put me off on run me out of control in a run I can't get off of?

What will start me off? I can't safely use that stuff in any form at all. And once having formed the habit and found they cannot break it, once having lost their self confidence, their reliance upon things human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to solve. And that's really true. It's true almost to the point where the wreckage I incur from trying to juggle this stuff and keep the party going gets just buries me alive to the point where I would come as a as a perpetual newcomer through the early seventies.

I would come to meetings, and people would say, you know, your problem's alcohol and alcoholism. And I would think, yeah. But, man, I got problems everywhere. I got police problems. I got family problems.

I got emotional problems. I got mental problems. I got a head that won't leave me alone that just just just on me all the time. I got all kinds of problems and to the point where I'm up to here with all this other stuff, and the alcohol and alcoholism almost seems insignificant. I it's almost like if I could solve all of this stuff, the alcohol would probably go away.

And so what happens is I start attacking all this stuff and I never touched the alcoholism. I never worked the steps. I never access a power greater than myself. I never help others. I never make amends.

I never clear any of the wreckage out of my life. I never do anything except try to make myself better. And I relapse continually because I'm not treating I'm doing treating everything else other than my alcoholism. I think to go on a run if you're in the later days of alcoholism, for guys like me, it's almost like living in a station wagon 247. And you're partying and problems come up, family engagements, birthdays, funerals, court dates, too busy, throw it in the back.

IRS, too busy party and throw it in the back of the station wagon. A death, I should go to that funeral with the fan. Too busy. Throw it in the back. Christmas, I should get some present.

Throw it in the back. And what happens is when I get finally forced into abstinence, I get sober. It's like running that station wagon into a brick wall, and in slow motion out of the back comes all this stuff. And you're I'm 30 days sober. My mind's starting to clear up and it's like, buried alive.

Buried and you know, at least you talk to these old timers, they'll just say, get a shovel. And you start working the steps and starting to pick away at the wreckage that I've been incurred out of my effort to live on self will and run the show myself. Bottom of page XXVII, Silkworth touches on some very important things. See if it was just the phenomena of craving that that was the beast here, then then detoxes would turn out winners because they would educate a guy like me that I shouldn't pick up the first drink. I would get it and never pick up the first drink.

That Nancy Reagan just say no program would work for me if that was all there was. Amen. But I suffer from a spiritual malady and what that really means is that when I stop drinking, I I ain't too I ain't right. Now I don't know why I ain't right, but I ain't right. And Silkworth starts to talk about this at the bottom of the page.

He says, men and women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. I I drink because I need the effect produced by alcohol because without it, I I'm a bump on a log. That's my big secret. Is that no matter in the face of all the damage I've done, I still have always liked myself half lit up than I ever liked myself sober. I need the effect, and this sensation is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, as we sit in bar rooms for years going, you know, I really gotta quit this stuff.

While they admit it as injurious, they cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false. And then he says something that is carried through my sobriety and is always true for me. He says to them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. I always just adjust to wherever I am and think that this is status quo. Like this is right.

As if it's I'm screwed up as I am is normal. Right? And my big secret is that the only reason the only time I ever really felt normal was in the early days of my drinking when I was drinking. I'd never felt normal sober. I always felt like I was doing time.

I always felt like I was out of place. I always felt that there was something wrong with me that I just can't seem to put my finger on, and none of the psychiatrists could put their finger on it really. They could dance around it, but nobody could ever really put their finger on what was really wrong with me. So I drink. And then this is that this is where he hits me.

He says, they are restless, they were irritable, and they are discontented unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort, which comes at once by taking a few drinks. Drinks they see others taking with impunity, which means without punishment, without consequences. So for all practical purposes, my alcoholism begins where the bottle ends. I'm a member of Alcoholics Anonymous because of the membership requirement in the third tradition in the long form, Because it says in the long form, membership should include all who suffer from alcoholism. The short form it says, the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking.

I didn't come here because I had a desire to stop drinking. I had a desire to stay out of jail. I had a desire to not be sick. I had to do but not drink. You know what I really wanted more than anything?

If God would have come to me at 30 days sober and said, Bob, I'll give you anything you want. I think I would have said, God, could you give me 2 years of drinking like I had when I was 18 years old? Give me that, you can kill me at the end of that. But give me those 2 years. Give me those 2 years.

And the problem is I needed that so desperately because when I quit drinking I was restless, I was irritable, and I was discontent. And I suffered from alcoholism, my spirit got sick, and I I I thirsted for the effects I'd once found in 4 or 5 shots of Jack Daniels, where I my spirit would come alive. Scott? Thank you. I thought it might be fun to, to move on from where he was for we we don't seem to have a definition of alcoholism but we do have some descriptions of the alcoholic, and of alcoholism and I'm not gonna try to get them all but just to touch on a couple more that are particularly, poignant for me.

And again, I am in also in a 4th edition. Doctor's opinion, roman numeral 30, 3 x's. Toward about 2 thirds of the way down the page, all these and many others have one symptom in common. Count them. 1.

Cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. That's that just really wraps it up for me. Page 21 and what a friend of mine calls the American numerals. First full paragraph. What about the real alcoholic?

He may start off as a moderate drinker. He may or may not become a continuous hard drinker, but at some stage of his drinking career, he begins to lose all control of his liquor consumption once he starts to drink. This is one that's powerful for me. Page 24 in, italics. Squiggly writing in my home group, the back room in Nashville.

Fact is that for most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure, we have lost the power of choice and drink. So I don't choose not to drink. Apparently, I've lost the power to choose. Says our so called willpower becomes practically non existent. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago.

We are without defense against the first drink. Yeah. And, the one they got me with, I was captured and put into treatment against my will through a series of misunderstandings and bad luck in, summer of 1984 by a business partner who was a great communicator. He said, you're going to treatment right now. We're done.

And, I was sure I wasn't an alcoholic. Absolutely sure. I had I've had never had a blackout. I have never been arrested. I have no duis.

I never drank in the morning. I didn't get drunk every time I drank. I've never wrecked an automobile. Hadn't been fired from a job and married to the same woman for over 20 years. It was I was living in a 4000 square foot house in a real nice part of town.

I was making a lot of money. Had a boat on the lake. I was driving a flashy car. Pretty hard to find alcoholism in there. I could define myself out of it very, very easily, but then nailed my shorts to the outhouse door on page 44 on the 4th line.

If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely or if when drinking you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. I am probably alcoholic because that's my story right there. I lost count of the number of times I quit forever. I think it ran several 1,000. As a matter of fact, I'm sure it did.

And and interestingly enough, did did who quit forever? Can I see the hands of those who ever quit forever? Okay. Didn't you mean it every time? Think about it.

Didn't you actually mean it every time? I meant it every time. I meant it every time, Especially as we were talking at dinner, when the heat was on. Who who by the way quit forever a solemn oath on the bible in front of witnesses more than once? Yeah.

These are my people right here, Bob. I'll tell you. Yeah. Just for fun, who peed in the closet? Did you real?

I never did that. I'm really embarrassed for you. That's, I'll tell you what, there's a difference between the 5th step and sharing in a meeting. You might wanna consult your sponsor before you start admitting to that kind of stuff again. I, I I I never did that.

I will admit that I My first wife is still unhappy about that coffee table that used to be in the living room. Okay? I'll give you that. And, I did that gag in the jail one night a couple of years ago, about 25 inmates. And 1 guy put up his hand, and I did that to him.

And they they they laughed. They don't laugh in the jail much. They laughed that night. And when it when it finally calmed down, he looked up at me and he said, man, it wasn't a big deal. You know?

It wasn't my closet. It's a perspective thing. I had, I tell a little piece of my story. I got out of treatment in the summer of 84, and, within 2 months, I've done everything on my aftercare list except get a sponsor. Let's see if you can fill this in.

Two word fill in the blank. I was so insane. I was looking for a sponsor I could Relate. Relate to. Yeah.

Wow. I'm so grateful that I did did not find that, because I had a terminal case of newcomer thinking. And I couldn't have related to anybody except somebody else with the terminal case of newcomer thinking, and we probably would have both died. And, I was fortunate to have found a sponsor that I would obey which is what I actually needed. All I didn't realize it at the time, but I asked this guy because I wanted to feel like he looked.

And, he gave me an assignment which surprised me because I thought a sponsor is kinda like a big brother is going to show you the ropes and maybe fix your wife, loan you some money, that sort of thing. And, we're gonna talk about some of the things I was wrong about this weekend. That was one of them And, he told me I was gonna have to do the 12 steps and I said, I said, Jerry, I don't want to do the 12 steps. I'd like to recommend you be honest with your sponsor. And I said, I don't wanna do the 12 steps.

And he said, that's okay. I said, good. He said, as long as you do them. Jerry, I don't think we're communicating. We are communicating to that's the definition.

That was Jerry's definition of willingness. Willingness is when I do what my sponsor says whether I want to or not. Definition, I haven't found a better one. And, he said, do you ever try to get sober on your own? I said, yeah.

Well, a couple thousand times. He said that was doing what you thought you should do and not doing what you didn't wanna do. I said, yeah. He said, well, that didn't work. So maybe if you get sober you'll have to not do some things you'd like to do and do some things you'd rather not do.

Man was dadgum hard to argue with And, he told me I was gonna have to do the he's he said, he said I'm gonna give you the definition of the program. To the end of his life, he said it was the best kept secret we had. And the way we keep it secret, of course, we're reading it almost every meeting. It's on page 59. Immediately before step 1, it says, here are the steps we took.

Y'all fill in the blank for me, which are suggested as a program of recovery. Yeah. No steps. No program. Period.

The steps are not part of the program. Steps are the program. The forward to the 3rd edition romanembrill22xxii in whatever edition you've got. Actually, if it's a 3rd or 4th, this one's not in the second. Just before the 4th of 4th, just before the doctor's opinion.

A little past halfway down the page, the basic principles of the AA program, it appears, hold good individuals with many different lifestyles just as the program has brought recovery to those of many different nationalities. Here, it may be the most for me important phrase in the book. The 12 steps that summarize the program. I think that says that the 12 steps I see on the wall are a summary. That's what we called in school the cliff notes.

Right? That's that's for the guys trying to slide with the c minus and just get out of here. I'm afraid to do that. I must win now. I've got to win this time.

I cannot afford to not win now And I think what that's telling me that the 12 steps I see in the wall are summary is that the balance of this book, the rest of this is the full shot and that's what I need. I've got to strive to get an a+ and AA. I have to do that because I must win now. If I shoot for an a+ and get a c, I'm gonna be okay. If I shoot for a c and fall short, I could die.

I could go to prison for a long time. So that was important to me. Definition of the program. And And then it was this was explained to me by another one of my mentors. I think it was kind of interesting.

He said the book mentions 2 fellowships and they're quite different. The first one is mentioned at the bottom of the same page in the last paragraph says in spite of the great increase in the size and the span of this fellowship at its court remains simple and personal, each day somewhere in the world, recovery begins when one alcoholic talks with another alcoholic sharing experience, strength and hope. That's what we're doing here tonight. This is a fellowship. And you are in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous when you say you're in it, nobody can throw you out.

There is a second fellowship and it's described on page 164. And it has entrance requirements a good bit more strict. Toward the bottom of the page, abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past.

Give freely what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit. The fellowship of the spirit has different entrance requirements. I'm a read them again and see if they don't sound to you because they do to me like the steps in narrative form. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God.

Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. Clear away the wreckage of your past. Give freely of what you find and join us. We shall be with you in the fellowship of the spirit. They yeah.

They rewrite this book all the time. Do you notice that? There's stuff in there. Wasn't there the last time you wrote it? Yeah.

Last time you read it? Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. I wrote it too.

This is one they added last summer, by the way. If you haven't caught it, it's also on page 164. Paragraph at the top. Still, you may say, but I will not have the benefit of contact to you who write this book. We cannot be sure.

God will determine that. So you must remember that your real reliance is always upon him. Here's the one they just added. He will show you how to create the fellowship you crave. Crave is a powerful word.

Bob described it beautifully. I have craved fellowship all of my life, and I've never been able to have it because I don't know how, but as a small boy, I was convinced I was defective. There are things wrong with me that can't be repaired. I don't measure up, and I never will. And if you all ever find out who I really am, you'll run me off.

That's the only thing I knew for sure when I got here. And so I became an actor, and I pretended to be whoever I thought the people right in front of me right now wanted me to be, which means I'm a different guy to everybody. And the biggest fear in my life is that people from different parts of my life, because there's some parts that were very different, people from different parts of my life be at the same place, same time, how would I act? Right? Because I've been acting I'm acting all the time.

And it's because I know that if you ever get up close and really get a look at me, you'll run me off. Because a bunch of people like you who've got it together wouldn't hang out with a defective model like me if you knew. So I'm doing this act right here. Here's my act right here. I'm doing the act.

I get to hang out with you, but I don't participate in fellowship because the act can't because this part doesn't get to play. I flew a, a very highly class classified mission during Vietnam for the air force. I was a pilot and I had a volunteer crew. I had a copilot, a navigator, and a flight engineer that rode with me. There were 10 crews on that base, all volunteers.

Any one of the guys in my crew could have gone to the colonel and said I wanna ride with somebody else. They would have changed him that day. And there were men at all three of those crew positions bugging the guys on my crew to change so they could ride with me and I never felt like I belonged. I never had fellowship there because I was doing the act. I was doing the act.

The actors won't get sober and I think that's what it says down there. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God. Admit your faults to him and to your fellows. It means I got to come out and be real. And it's only the real me that can participate in the fellowship that I crave.

Because if I don't get real with you, I don't get to participate in the fellowship. And that's in part I think what the 12 steps are about. So anyway, my sponsor told me I was, gonna have to do the 12 steps and I told him I didn't want to. And, by the way, he gave me the definition of sponsorship. I'd like to give it to you.

The, the first 164 pages don't seem to carry the word sponsorship or I haven't found it, but I did find the description on page 96. Been talking for several pages about a 12 step call where you've talked about your drinking, somebody's talked about theirs, you laughed a little, you cried a little, you left them a book. Middle of page 96, suppose you're now making your second visit to a man, that was the first. Then it says, he has read this volume and says he is prepared to go through with the 12 steps of the program of recovery. I love the language.

Take a look at it. I'll go through with the 12 steps. Okay. We'll settle for that. We don't have a lot of people coming through eager.

You know, my life's running pretty good, but I heard you guys really had some great stuff over here. So I've come today for a little growth and development. Would somebody coach me through the steps? Y'all getting those at your home group? We're not seeing them in mine.

He'll go through the so for me, someone who is sponsorable has made an attempt to read this book and understands that the 12 steps are the program of recovery and he's prepared to go through with them. And then I think it defines sponsors as having had the experience yourself, you can give me much practical advice. What experience? The experience of going through the 12 steps. What advice?

Advice on how to go through the 12 steps. Step 1, section b says my life's unmanageable. If I can't manage mine, I sure can't manage his. I don't know if he needs to buy a dog, get divorced, move to San Diego, quit his job. How would I know?

I can't run my life. I sure can't run his. I do know that if he'll allow me to coach him through these 12 steps, he'll have a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. I know that. And I know that that will render him sober.

I know that. I have personally not yet seen anybody in and out of the program and I I'm not I don't mean to be controversial. I think it's maybe the most important thing you'll hear from me this weekend. I've seen him in and out of the fellowship a lot but I haven't seen anybody actually do the steps out of this book. Now I use all the action words interchangeably.

Do the steps, work the steps, take the steps, go through the steps, I really don't care. It's not learn the steps, understand the steps, interpret the steps, believe the steps, not that. Haven't seen anybody actually do the steps out of this book while being coached by a sponsor who has already done them and then stay active carrying our message as step 12 says and drink again. Has anybody here seen that? No hands.

Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Our path is the 12 steps. I didn't read it, but on Roman numeral 22 is gonna tell you that a little bit further down. One of the difficulties that I had was releasing my grip on what I knew when I got here. Old ideas is the category.

We'll go backwards from 143. They just added something on 143, by the way, about 2 weeks ago. I'll show you that too. And be careful with 143. You can smudge that ink may be wet if they just got to yours.

And by the way, if you're anybody here sober less than a year? Say hands. Wow. Thank you for coming. Is that fantastic?

And and congratulations to those of you who are involved in helping us folks get here. Good job, somebody. Wow. Anyway, if you're new and you haven't read the chapter to wives because you're not a wife and you haven't read the chapter to employers because you're not employer, do yourself a favor. Well, I asked your sponsor what they think about that.