The topic of Spirituality through the Steps

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 undrunk. How sober? Sober always precedes drunkenness. I always was sober before I got drunk. You gotta be sober to get drunk.

Right? I mean, this is not some kind of crazy metaphysics. This is fact. Now the perception of the alcoholic sometimes twisted around, I think, as if we're just drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk. I'm sober, then drunk, and sober, and drunk, drunk, drunk, drunk, sober, sober, sober, drunk, drunk, sober, sober, sober.

That's how my life went. Near the end, I drank a lot. Drunk a lot, more than I wanted to be, more than I hoped to be, more than I planned to be. Then I got sober, days, weeks. There are people who have had intermittent during their alcoholism of years of sobriety.

So AA was never intended to promise us just sober. They cheat us and they knew that. That's why in the forward of 12 and 12 it says this, AA's 12 steps are a group of principles, spiritual in nature, which if practiced as a way of life, can do 4 things, and I'm paraphrasing. It can, 1, expel the obsession to drink. 2, it can enable the sufferer to become happy.

3, And useful. 4. And whole. That's what Alcoholics Anonymous promises. The obsession to drink will leave.

You can become happy. You can become useful. And better than anything else, you can feel whole. That's Alcoholics Anonymous. I didn't make that up.

They tell me that before I even start reading this book. It's in the forward. It's the third paragraph of the forward. I didn't make that up. That's not my opinion.

The first step in the recovery process is not drink. Can't drink and do this. What is it? Very simple. The first step, young lady or young man, if you've had enough, if you're tired of living a life, if you've tried to do it a 100 times, a 1000 times, 10000 times, try to stop by yourself, try to change, and you fail, and you fail, and you fail.

And if you just can't go on, and you've reached bottom, you know what bottom is? My opinion, Bottom is not a place. It's not a jail cell. It's not a divorce court. It's not a treatment center.

It's not a basement. It's not no money. It's not no friends. It's not no job. It's not indictments.

It's not arrest. It often happens when those things are happening. Bottom is a feeling. It's a feeling that I can't live like this, and I know no other way to live. It's a feeling of hopelessness.

I can't live like this anymore. I can't live drinking, and I can't live not drinking. It's a feeling, not a place. So when we get in front of these microphones and we stop talking about all these places, we're cheating our audience, the newcomer, maybe. Because alcoholism isn't necessarily a treatment center.

Look, I'm gonna tell you. I'm as more as much an alcoholic as anybody who is in this room says they're an alcoholic. And I can't prove that to you because I can't prove to you that I'm an alcoholic. I could talk for hours about what I did and what happened to me. And that doesn't prove I'm an alcoholic.

The only way I can prove to you that I'm an alcoholic is a way that I'm I won't do. I won't do it. But I could prove to you I'm an alcoholic. The only way I know how to prove to you that I'm an alcoholic is to drink and let you watch how I live, And then get sober and let you watch how I live. And then drink alcoholic.

You have to take my word that I'm an alcoholic because that's the best you're gonna get. Think about that. Bottom is a feeling. What do we wanna do because we so often wanna help everybody? And it's so good.

And everything god, I'll tell you, once we find some sense of recovery here, we can't wait to share it with everybody. And when we see somebody who we see in their eyes, the pain that we knew were in ours, we want them to be well, and we want them to be comfortable, we want them to be happy. And sometimes, we want it so much for them that we lie about what this is about so they'll stay. And you know what? We can get them to stay sometimes for a week or a month or a year.

Sooner or later, they're gonna go. Because you can't build a house without a foundation. Because the wind is gonna come, the rain is gonna come, because that's life. And the name of the game, I was told when I not when I came here. I'll tell you what lies I was told when I came to Alcoholics Anonymous.

I had people who loved me so much that they said to me, look. All you gotta do is anything you wanna do. Just don't drink and go to meetings. You don't have to take these steps, you don't have to do anything. It's like a smorgasbord.

You like it, take it. You don't like it, don't take it. And they told all of us that came in in 1971 in my group at that time in Chicago. And in that group, over the course of the year, over a 100 newcomers came through that group. It's not the same group that I'm in now.

There's only 2 of us still in AA. They loved us so much. They diluted this so much that they took from us the only medicine that might have saved us. And they did it because they loved us. And they thought maybe that Alcoholics Anonymous is some kind of magic that if you just sit here long enough, you just get cured in spite of yourself.

Now, it is important that we try to do things to welcome newcomers. In my opinion, I don't know. Hey, I don't want anybody not to make them. I wouldn't have devoted my life to the beginners meetings if I didn't care. I don't need attention.

I'm a practicing lawyer in Chicago that has had a great deal of success. I don't need an audience. I have an audience every day of my life. I don't need to get dressed up. I get dressed up every day of my life.

I don't need any attention. Where I come from, I got all the attention anybody would need. The only reason that I do this, what I do there, is because it works. And if I keep doing it, I keep staying. That's the only reason I do it, and I want them to make it.

I sometimes want more from my newcomers than they want for themselves, and that's when I experience pain. When I want recovery more for them than they wanted for themselves, I'm on the wrong track. So I don't tell them this is a smorgasbord. I tell them, look it. I don't know what this is.

I'm not that smart. So what I did, young man, is I picked up a book that they told me contained the secret. And that book says, if I thoroughly follow the path that the people who made it took, I will make it. And they said, if I am hopeless enough, I'm ready to take certain steps. They said at first, I'm gonna block, and I'm gonna try to find softer easier ways.

And as long as I did that, the result would be nil unless I till I let go absolutely. And when I was done, and I felt enough pain, I would then, hopefully, take steps to alleviate the pain. See, that's why this is not an intellectual pursuit. Hey. You got these new people, I don't care if they're 17 or 70.

When we tell them don't drink, let me tell you a secret. Everybody in their life has told them not to drink. Their mother, their sister, their cousin, their wife, their kids, their bosses, the police, the cops, everybody has said, look at you. You're a nice guy. If you would just not drink, these things would not happen to you.

And in spite of all of those loved ones, we drink. Do you think it's any different now because we are members of alcoholics and lemon, and I said, you don't drink? Then I'm gonna help you by saying that. I say to you this, just read the book and do those things, and see what happens. It's worked for a lot of people, Freddie.

And it worked for me. I think it'll work for you. But if you wanna argue about whether you're an alcoholic or not, I don't know if you're an alcoholic. I don't want you to be an alcoholic, Freddie. You don't think you're an alcoholic?

Then, Freddie, you're in the wrong place. This is for alcoholics. This is for people who want it, not for people who need it. In the 12 and 12, it says a funny thing. Why all this insistence that every AA must hit bottom first?

The answer is that few people will sincerely try to practice the AA program unless they have hit bottom. For practicing AA's remaining 11 steps means the adoption of attitudes and actions that almost no alcoholic who is still drinking can think of taking. Who wishes to be rigorously honest and tolerant? Who wants to confess his faults to another and make restitution for harm done? Who cares anything about a Higher Power, let alone meditation and prayer?

Who wants to sacrifice time and energy in trying to carry A's message to the Next Supper? No! The average alcoholic, self centered in the extreme, doesn't care for this project unless he has to do these things in order to stay alive himself. I didn't make that up. I just read that from page 24 of a book called 12 Steps and Twelve Traditions.

This is not my opinion. This is the lifetime experience of the people who wrote this book. This is the experience of Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe they're wrong. We admitted that we're pilots over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable. And yet you'll hear people talk hours and hours to newcomers. I don't understand what powerless is. I have trouble with powerless.

And he'll sit in cars, and they'll stand on street corners, and they'll try to tell him what powerlessness is. Tell them, do you feel like you're powerless over alcohol? Well, let's see. I think they say something about that in the book. Let's see, Freddie, what the book says about that.

You don't think, you wanna argue and tell me you don't understand, you can't agree with powerlessness? I think they had that experience once here. Let's see. Where is that? It's on 21 on the bottom is right.

Oh, yeah, Freddie. Here's what it says. You don't know if you're an alcoholic. You don't know what power this is, and you're having trouble with unmanageable. Okay, Freddy.

Let's see. Here's what they did. Here's what they've been doing for 54 years, Freddie. This is the only thing AA knows, Freddie. Well, let's see.

Maybe this will work for you, Freddie. Freddie, we don't like to pronounce anybody an alcoholic. You gotta diagnose yourself, not argue, convince, debate. Go diagnose yourself. That's what we are, self diagnostics.

We diagnose ourselves. Here's what you do, Freddy. Step over to the nearest bar room, Freddy, and try some controlled drinking. Try to drink and stop abruptly. Try it more than once, Freddie.

I'm gonna do it for years, Freddie. If you're like us, Freddie, it won't take you long to decide if you're honest about it. And this may be worth a bad case of the jitters for you to get that knowledge. Don't drink, Freddy, and go to meetings, Freddy. Yes.

That's what we did. And if you want what we have and you are having no problem with semantics ready, you don't wanna argue about powerlessness. You don't wanna argue about unmanageable. Then you don't have to do this, Freddie. But if you wanna talk to me till 4 in the morning about what's manageable and what's powerless, we can solve this easier.

I'll go to sleep and you go to the bar. This isn't because I don't love Freddy. I don't wanna kill Freddy. I don't wanna dilute the medicine so it tastes so good to Freddie that it doesn't cure him, but slowly kills him. So that's all I think this book is is AA.

See, we don't have anything but this and what's in this and what's in our common experience. We are Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, you gotta remember how this all came about. Bill Wilson did not recover from alcoholism through the taking of 12 steps. Think about that.

There were no 12 steps when Bill Wilson got sober. He didn't take 12 steps and become sober. Bill Wilson had what he describes and what he believed to be a spiritual experience. I never had one. He had a spiritual experience, he says, laying in the hospital in a period in his life, about the 7 hundred and 82nd time this experience had occurred.

It was hopelessness, helplessness, desperation. And he reports and reported that something strange happened, that he saw a light and felt different. Now I think that's spooky stuff. And I don't know that if that ever happened or it didn't happen. It's not up to me to decide who am I.

He says, from that moment on, the obsession to drink left him. He didn't take any 12 steps. And he left that hospital like a man with a mission. For the first time in his life, he was on a mission. Instead of being worried about how much money he was gonna make, what kind of deals he was gonna make, how much money Lois was gonna make, where they were gonna live, what kind of big shot he was gonna be.

Instead, his mission was to talk to other alcoholics. And he went all over New York saying, I had a vision and I don't drink. And there's a power there that removes that obsession. And they said to him, no shit. Excuse me.

I wanna get to the bar. And nobody paid any attention to him. Do you think and we all know doctor Bob wasn't the first one he talked to. He talked to hundreds of drunks. He went into bars, into saloons, in jail, in hospital, and he laid hands on them, and he prayed with them.

And nobody ever got sober. Nobody. When he met doctor Bob, he met doctor Bob while he was in his missionary stage. But the moment that what got him to Akron was set was personal, goal oriented. He went there to make money, to get his finance back in shape, and to get back in the big time.

He was gonna get involved in this merger that when he made that work, he could go back to Wall Street and become a superstar stock broker. That was for him. He went to Akron, not save anybody or to tell them about God. He didn't walk in there and say, listen, I've been I you know, I saw God the other day. You ought to make this merger.

He didn't talk about that. He said, how much money is in it for me? And listen, let's put this thing together and we all get rich and we get the hell out of Akron. And that deal fell through. And the first thing he thought about when that deal fell through was drinking.

And he called doctor Bob, he didn't call doctor Bob, but he made the telephone calls that led to the meeting with doctor Bob. Because he had a unique thought that never in history had ever been thought before by anyone anywhere in the world. And there have been a lot of people in the world, A lot of them. No human being of the billions of people who have lived and died ever had this thought, and alcoholism has been with us for centuries. All recorded history records alcoholism.

The earliest writings find talk about people who have an obsession for fermented grapes and other things that seem to make them crazy, and no matter how crazy they get, they keep taking that stuff. We've always had alcoholism all shoot all eternity. But for the first time in recorded history, a unique thought occurred. And this is how simple this is. And that thought led us to be here tonight.

You know what that thought was? Maybe if I talk to someone like me, I won't drink. Not he won't drink. I won't drink. That thought had never ever been recorded.

He made those calls to help somebody? No way. He helped those calls so he wouldn't walk in the bar in that hotel that night or down the street to buy a bottle and drink it in that room that night. He made that call to save his life. That's why we make 12 step calls to save our life.

Somehow, somebody started to plant the idea that we make those calls to save people. That's not true. Because if that's true, what's wrong with us? Why are we waiting for them to call? We know where they live.

Why don't we go to homes? This is alcoholics and auto issues, swab. Why don't we go to bars? Say, hey. Look at that mirror.

Jesus. Look how you look. We have the answer. Why do we wait for them to call? Why don't we go out and help them?

Bill tried it. He went out everywhere to share this magic with him. It didn't work. Nobody paid any attention to him. Nobody paid any attention.

By this time, he's got some experience in a religious movement, a spiritual movement called the Oxford Groups. In the Oxford Groups, and they the Oxford Groups were wonderful. They were kinda like treatment centers are today. They're gonna save everybody from everything. Not they're not down in a treatment center.

It was like the Washingtonians. That was a movement years ago, prior to Alcoholics Anonymous, that brought through a spiritual way of life, we could save everybody and cure everybody and make everybody happy whole and useful under God. And that's what the Oxford people did. And Bill was introduced to the Oxford people. And you know what they told them?

You read the Bible, accept God, make confession, make restitution, admit your powerlessness, make a decision, and practice right living. Sound familiar? And doctor Bob had also had that experience. He was in that movement, and he never could stay sober. Now when he met Bill, Bill told him about Bill.

That so lit up Doctor. Bob that Doctor. Bob didn't drink. Doctor. Bob stayed sober on fellowship.

How long? Only long enough to get away from Bill. Doctor Bob, when he met Bill, said this man has something. God, I want what he has. And on fellowship and the strength of their their communication back and forth, doctor Bob didn't drink for a couple weeks.

And then doctor Bob got drunk in the worst place, at the worst time, in a medical convention that he went to show them his recovery, and to preach to them his finding of God. I'm a new man, he went to that convention to say. I got religion. I don't drink anymore. Me and this guy from New York, we found a way to help our dogs.

He's drunk for 3 days. He didn't have any steps either. He came back. He had hit bottom. Bill said don't drink anymore.

No way. Bill Wilson gave doctor Bob his last drink. I didn't make that up. Bobby, I didn't make that up. That's recorded history.

He said, listen, Bob. You better take this beer. Bob was sober when he gave him that beer. He said, you need this beer. He was sober.

He's gonna give it do an operation. He also took some pills. He in town don't drink and go to meetings. He said, you wanna drink when you're ready to not drink. For the meantime, you better have a drink.

And he gave him a drink. Bob went and did the operation. He came out. He never had another drink for the rest of his life because he had the desire to stop drinking. Bill Wilson never convinced doctor Bob not to drink.

He couldn't. Nobody has that power. It seems like we have that power, and he did have that power for a few weeks. And I personally kept people in AA for months. I know that.

Oh, I've given him so much love, and I've excused so much conduct. And I told him, I gave him so much leeway that they stayed. Sometimes for months, I had a guy stay for 4 years. I knew the last 2 years he didn't wanna stay. I knew he didn't even have a desire to stop drinking or stay sober.

He's just staying on the fellowship. I filled his life with so many activities and so much so many good feelings. The only reason he's sober today is he went out and got real drunk, and real scared, and real sick. Now we never talk about whether or not he's an alcoholic. See?

So it says here, we got here bound. That's ourselves. I don't know what parlors is, and I don't know what the manageability is. It's what you say it is. You know what it is?

It's called enough. Enough. Whatever you think enough is, that's what it is. If you haven't got enough, then go get enough. You have to.

Not because I want you to hurt yourself or anybody here wants you. You gotta do it. And the wonderful thing about it is you can make enough enough. You don't have to do those things to be enough. All you gotta do is be willing enough to surrender enough.

That's all. You don't even have to have a desire. All you gotta do is have willingness to have a desire. Willingness precedes surrender. If you're having trouble with surrender and you're new, don't worry about surrender.

Think about willingness. Are you willing to surrender? Once you're willing to surrender, surrender takes place. It's not a mental thing. It's not for smart people or dumb people.

As I see it, What do you gotta do to prove this idea of powerlessness and unmanageability. All you gotta do is cut the crap, I say to my people, and look at the videotape. I have a videotape of me. If you have a VCR or you've seen 1, you know it's you know, you go rent videos, movies, Plug them in? I have one.

It's here. I have permanently recorded the most obscene, the most painful, the most shameful, the deepest, most ugly secrets I have portrayed and captured me living that life. That frustration I have pictured and directed and captured on film. The tears, the hopelessness, the secret prayers. God, what's wrong with me?

And any time I want to think about unmanageable or powerless, I just sit back and watch my film. What's the argument? What is the argument? What's this deep philosophical conversation about? Powerless.

Only people who do not want to stop drinking wanna talk about what does powerless mean. I don't buy powerless. Know what they're telling you when they say that? I don't want what you have, and I'm not willing to go to any lengths to get it. And yet we spend hours and hours trying to convince them they're powerless over alcohol.

What's unmanageable? For me, I had enough. You don't think you had enough? Then you gotta have some more. And that's really all this book says about that stuff.

Nothing else. Any questions about that? Anybody. Or comments. Disagreements doesn't matter.

I mean, I'm hey. I'm not here to teach anything. It may I don't know if any of these things I'm saying are right. It's just how I believe it to be today. And I'm not saying you gotta agree with this.

It's just the accumulation of my almost 18 years, and maybe when I'm 19 years sober, I won't think this way. But I'll tell you, the only thing I got to hold on to, it got me here. You know, it got me from day 1 to day whatever that multiplication of days times years would be. And I'm not supposed to be here. You know why I'm not supposed to be here?

Because I'm too smart to be an alcoholic. I'm too intolerant to be a recovered alcoholic. I believe too much in the perfectionism. I want my way. I shouldn't be a recovered alcoholic.

I'm opinionated. I'm a fault finder. I see all the faults in everybody around me, and I know what they should do. I've always known. God gave me a special talent.

All my life, I've looked at you and been able to see your faults. Guys like me should not make it. See? So something happened. I got here, and I'm still here.

And all I did was accumulate these beliefs and act upon them. But maybe they're not true. Any problem with powerlessness or unmanageable? Let me tell you what I do with the beginners. Every once in a while, we have a big class like that, and I encourage them to say what they say.

Because you see, there's no right and wrong, and there's no good question or bad question. There's no dumb question. There's just an inquiry. So I say, were you having trouble with this idea of powerlessness? I'd say, okay.

Let's suppose you have a 4 year old little girl. 2 years old, 3 years old. I don't know. I'm not good with little kids. And this little girl, your name, Jerry?

This little girl, Jerry, has never seen a match before. And I call her up and I say, Betsy, come here. Come here, Betsy. And I like this match. I say, Betsy, get here.

Put your finger here, honey. Betsy won't know anything. She never had this experience before. See? Until you have this experience, you don't know anything about this.

I said, Betsy, put your finger here, honey. 2 days later. Hi, Betsy. Come here, honey. Here, Betsy.

What you figure is this? Play it. Betsy goes running away. Mama. You know why?

That's normal, controllable, experienced reaction. I'm an alcoholic. Oh. Oh. Oh.

Oh. Oh. I put my finger in the flame time and time and time and time again. No one intuitively would bet he knew that it burns, but I believe this time it'll be different. That's he never says, well, this time it'll be different.

She runs from the flame. That's called powerlessness. And when you're powerless, you are really unmanageable. In my drinking career and the drinking careers of others that have spoken to me, and I don't think this is unique and everybody shares this because I don't, that's what we have done. We have gone back to that flame in spite of all the burn, of all the injury, and all the pain that preceded experiences with that pain.

We keep going back to it. And that isn't unmanageable. That isn't powerlessness. What the hell is that besides goofy? You wanna talk about insanity?

You having trouble with insanity, Charlie? Let's do the little Betsy routine again. Maybe you didn't get it the first time. This is a simple, wonderful program. It's so simple.

It's laughable. And we make it such a big deal. That's the first step. Now we can approach it a lot of different ways, and we can read. And it's approachable and discussable in many different ways from a different point of view.

But bottom line, it's very simple. It's the heaven enough and not want to live like that anymore. That's all the semantics and definition we need. No? Does it have to be any harder?

See, alcoholics don't like simple solutions. They like dramatic, long, involved secrets. And you say, that's all there is. Oh, shit. Oh, that's all there is.

We're gonna argue about it. What do we resist this for? What are we trying to sell them? It's simple. That's it.

That's as easy a way to look at the first step as there could be. I can't think of an easier way. I can't even think of an easier way to look at it. I know there's a lot more scientific ways, and doctors and psychiatrists and psychologists and maybe greater intellect than I could think of more complex ways. But I don't wanna look at the complex ways.

I'll look at the simple ways. That's as simple as I can put it. And that little Betsy demonstration with that match drives home that point as clear as thousands of words that I otherwise used to say. And now in the beginners every year, I just do a little Betsy for them, and let them look at that. And they know they aren't smart as Betsy.

Something's different about them. She's only 2 years old and yet she was able to identify the pain and the flame. And once on And they spent their whole life putting their finger in the flame and knowing and having vivid vivid proof that it burns and it hurts and it's destructive. And they'll do it again and again and again. Alcoholics anonymous calls that, among other things, defiance and self centeredness.

And I'm gonna say this last thing, and then we're gonna break for lunch. Alcoholics of my type have a so perverse an understanding and justification system. I think this is best described this way: Tearful wife, tearful children, daddy, don't you see what your drinking is doing to us? Wife, we had a good marriage. Don't you see what your drinking has done to our marriage?

Boss, you are a good worker. Don't you see what your drinking is doing to your job? Policeman, judge, we can go on and on with that. Mother, sister, brother, priest, rabbi, you're a nice guy. Don't you see what's happening in your life?

Every area of your life is disintegrating. Your wife, your kids, your family, your friends, your job, your self image, your reputation. Can't you see that? You shouldn't drink. That's the facts.

You're the jury. I'm the alcoholic. You know my answer is? Yes. I see that job and that marriage and those kids and those problems and those failures.

I see that. You don't have to point that out to me. I know I'm unhappily married, and I'm not a good father, and my kids are out of control, and my job's going down the tubes, and I owe everybody money, and I've got all these problems. Don't you see I know that? Of course I know that.

Jesus, what are you telling me? Something I don't know. Well, they say if you see it, what's the answer? I know the answer. I'm an alcoholic.

Here's the answer. That's why I drink. And I believe that. That's called alcoholism. That comes with powerlessness and unmanageability.

What happens is our perceptions become upside down. We take the evidence, And we say, you don't understand. I'm drinking because I'm dying. Let's have some lunch. Well, Yeah.

You know, I took a walk at the during lunch. And the more I do this, the more frightened I become. No. I really do. And I I tell you this is you say to yourself, I hope they don't think you're telling them that you know.

I don't know. And I don't wanna make that impression. And if you have that impression, these are just what I think. I don't know that everything I say, and you don't have to agree with everything I say. This is just how I see it.

And what I'll call it synonymous is is the sharing of understanding. And this is my understanding. And if I'm wrong, I'll keep trying. And, I don't know. But I don't, you know, I don't come here as some kind of authority on anything.

And, I wanna get that impression because I don't wanna start to believe that. My god. If I ever started to believe that I was an authority on this, I wouldn't have to do this because I'm an authority. Then I get goofy. Then I get so goofy, I think I'm not, I don't need this anymore.

And that I'm a finished product. And I can get on with my life. Bigger and better things. See, I'm here because I'm an alcoholic and I owe a debt to Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous and the people of Alcoholics Anonymous literally saved and reshaped my life.

And I was told that if I didn't share that, I would lose it. And that's the only reason that I'm here in sharing those understandings or perceptions. Remember earlier, we talked about Bill Wilson had had this spiritual experience, and he went around telling everybody how he had this spiritual experience, and nobody paid any attention to him. And in the meantime, he's involved in the Oxford Movement which talked about spiritual way of life and changing. Doctor Bob had also been in that environment.

After they met each other, they continued to go to meetings, the Oxford meetings. There, they discussed the Bible and other things related to a search for a higher power and a commitment to change one's life. That's what they did. But they also started to share with alcoholics, 1 on 1. Over the long after a while, they became more uncomfortable at these meetings, and they noticed something started to happen.

Outside the meetings, alcoholic sharing without other alcoholic. They touched on what we now know is a miracle. Something special happens when an alcoholic talks to another alcoholic. There's a bond of trust. Now what they did in the early years is they it was a trial and error.

It was an experimental thing. And they went around telling everybody that they had discovered a cure for alcoholism. And Bill kept talking about having had this a spiritual experience. And, Bob, I think it was Bob. I'm not an authority on history, but the or the early people said, but, Bill, we haven't had a spiritual experience.

So this doesn't mean anything to us. Over the years that follow the next 2 or 3 years before the book Alcoholics Anonymous was published, what I think occurred was they had to describe what was working. And part of what was working is what they took or sold or sold, I guess, from the Axler Group. They knew that Bill had this experience, but they knew they didn't. Some people say that Bill Wilson was divinely inspired when he wrote the book Alcoholics Anonymous.

That may be true. I have no idea because I don't know much about divine intervention. And I don't doubt it, but I can't prove it. But I know that I met, before he died a man who knew Bill Wilson and was long, so sober and alcoholics, and I was 44 years about when he died. He said, Frank, Bill could not have written that book.

He said Bill was so crazy. Bill was so full of depression. Bill was such a womanizer. Bill got into such crazy things. He was so distracted.

He could not have written that book, but he wrote it. He says, I gotta believe that Bill Wilson was an instrument of God's grace. And when he said that to me, I says, oh, why did they say that didn't happen? What they did was they took all the combined actions of the people that made it and they put it in this book as steps. They said these people who made it have done this.

It's our observation. The result of which is not sobriety. The result of the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous is to effectuate a spiritual awakening. That's the goal of Alcoholics Anonymous. Adams.

It was a means by which every human being, me included, could experience and get the result of the experience of Bill Wilson's spiritual experience. There's a difference between spiritual experience and spiritual awakening. And the purpose of the steps of alcoholics and others, I think, is to effectuate a spiritual awakening. Now people say that there are this step is more important than that step and this step maybe that's true for them. I don't know that there's any step more important than the other one.

I'm surely convinced that unless you take the first, you can't take the second. I think the the steps are a chain. The chain is as strong as its weakest link. And the chain leads from there to here. And you can't get from there to here without covering that distance.

And the only way people like me can cover their distance is by covering the distance. And there's no shortcut. You just can't get to California from Chicago without going to Iowa or Missouri. It can't be done. You have to go through or over, but you have to pass.

And you can't get well in Alcoholics Anonymous by going from step 1 to step 9 or step 12. It's not even logical. It's kinda like a birth control pill. You just can't take the 3rd pill and the 19th pill and sleep good at night. You gotta worry.

It doesn't work. You gotta take them all. And if you get real worried and you haven't taken one for 10 days and you look back on your conduct, it doesn't help to take 9 the night before you go to sleep. Okay? I mean, I'm not necessarily on birth control pills, but and maybe that's a poor analogy.

Now the steps of alcoholics analysis are so simple. It's almost laughable. It's literally almost laughable. We talked about the first step. And the second step, I think, we don't take in a strange sense.

I know you hear, well, we take second step, and I'm sure that's true. But on the flip side of that, I think alcohol I think the second step of alcohol economics takes us. I really do. The second step of alcohol economics, very simply, society, a career started, and we came to believe. We didn't do it.

It happened to us. What happens, I think, in Alcoholics Anonymous is people like me come in, all kinds of denial and all kinds of resistance. And if we stay here long enough with an open mind with some willingness and some based on some fear, because that's the only time I'm willing is when I'm I've got fear or pain. See, I never react good to intellectual stimuli. I react best to pain.

K. I don't know how you are, but that's okay. Any big reformation that's ever occurred in my life has been right after a lot of pain. Never been after I read a good book. It's never been after I read some kind of self, help book.

I think those are good ideas when I read those self help books. But I'll tell you something. When I'm in the corner and all those dogs are there, they're at me. I never can remember what I read in the self help book. Alright.

I just can't. So in the step 2, when we talk about we come to believe, I think it's impossible to be here with an open mind based on desperation and watch the other people without having to somehow come to believe that there's a power. There's a power in these realms. And if you're troubled with God, they don't say in the first in this in step 2, they don't say came to believe that Jesus Christ is a power greater than yourself. It doesn't say Buddha.

It doesn't say Martin Luther. It doesn't say anything. It says, I came to believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. In the beginning, I had a lot of trouble with God. Remember I told you that I had I had envisioned and come to understand that God was a punishing, vindictive God that punish people who offended him or her.

Wouldn't that be something? Because he turned out to be a she. Knowing me, I think he was a transvestite. But but the truth of the matter is because I'm a doubter. Take off the address.

I wanna see who we are. But, god, I'm sick. Good. I'll tell you. I never like it.

That's one of the nice things about 8 though. You never have to get real well. It's a little better. I don't wanna throw out an old use and sneak it in, you know. Okay.

Oh, god. I forgot where it was. We've had everything in our meeting, but we haven't had a trans event site yet. Oh, god. I think I sponsored a couple of guys who'd like to volunteer for that.

Very good. Very good. Oh, god. Anyway, I had a lot of trouble with god when I came here because I really thought I was so I feel I was uniquely dirty. I remember when I was, before I got in the alcohols and before I got here, I really if anybody ever was able to open me up and look at me, I thought I had so many secrets.

I had done some thought and wanted to do and did and led a life that was so offensive to any kind of a power that would be greater than myself, namely God, that I, I was uniquely dirty. I really did. Anything that ever had to do with sexuality, I perceived as sinful. And since I seem to be attracted to that subject, I knew that I was uniquely or I felt that I was uniquely bad. Just bad.

And, you know, I had I had prayed. I I knew that, power greater than me wasn't the answer before I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. Because I'll tell you something, even at the worst I was able to pray on. That's how sick I was. I'm able to pray and think dirty at the same time.

Somebody else is that sick too. Well, I remember having a lot of episodes like that before I came into Alcoholist Thomas. I mean, I really get so frightened thinking and doing and being involved in some things that I really felt were so degenerate. So weird. And, you know, look at when I later on, I found out most of those things were just normal.

Not right and wrong, but human beings do those things. Human beings have always done those things. But I thought I invented perversion or something, and I was so hard on myself. I mean, I misinterpreted every I'm my own worst critic. See, I put myself under a microscope and I keep turning the power on higher and higher until I can turn a snowflake into a bunch of little monsters.

See? And that's what I do to myself, and I've always done that to myself, particularly before I came here. So judgmental of myself. I can find such unworthiness about myself. And when people talked about God, I thought, hey.

Give me a break. I had prayed. I cried. I did everything in my later drinking career asking help me. Do something.

What's wrong with me? You know, do anything. And I knew that didn't work. So when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous, and I started hearing about God, I didn't pay much attention. But I'll tell you what that word that bothered me was power.