The topic of Surrender at the CPH12 v8 Convention in Copenhagen, Denmark

My name is Bob Darrell, and I am alcoholic. Alcohol. Through the grace of a god that I was afraid to believe in, who I found out is crazy about me and obviously has no taste. The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as they were outlined in this book, good sponsorship, committed and dedicated home group, commitments in the fellowship in bushels, and loads of newcomers. I haven't had a drink or any mind or emotion altering substances since Halloween, which is the end of October 1978.

And for that, I owe a my life. It's good to be here. I am I am honored to participate in the meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. Wanna welcome all the people that are reasonably new. If you're in your first 30 days or so of sobriety, I'm glad you're here.

If you're in your last 30 days of sobriety and don't know it, I'm glad you're here also. And there's always a few in the room like that, unfortunately. And it's good to see people from other countries. I the 2 guys from Sweden, I hope they didn't follow me here because I was just there, and I probably stepped on some people's toes. I hope not.

I am delighted to talk about something that I didn't understand. I almost died of alcoholism because I didn't know what people meant when they said surrender. In 1977, my life, I had burnt to the ground one more time. And I came out off of a bad drunk, locked up in a jail cell facing 2 years in prison. I, think in the it's customary in the United States that when you're arrested, you get a phone call to call for help, and there wasn't anybody to call.

I was totally alone. And I don't know how that happened to a guy like me who at once once had great friends. I was the guy with all the potential. I was the guy who I had a family that loved me and would have done anything for me. But alcoholism will beat that out of people who love you eventually.

And I was totally alone. So I did something that I had done a 100 times when I was in trouble. I went to a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. But I did not go for recovery. I had by this time, I had been in and out of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for several years.

I I came to my first AA meeting before I was old enough to take a legal drink as a kid, and I had given up on Alcoholics Anonymous. I I I liked you. You were always very nice to me, but I knew that you didn't have anything for me, And I had apparent evidence, and the evidence was I stopped drinking and tried with everything in me to stay sober, and I didn't feel anything close to the way you looked. And there was something else wrong with me, and I didn't know what it was. And I came to a conclusion after after dozens and dozens of AA meetings that I know it looks like I have an alcohol problem, but it's really not an alcohol problem because when I get sober, it gets worse.

I suffer for and and and I go to meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I watch you, and you get sober, and you become wonderful. I mean, you're you're grateful for everything, for God's sakes. I mean, I don't I even like anything. Really? So I've given up on Alcoholics Anonymous.

You're nice people, but you don't have anything for me, really. And I had spent years with psychiatrists, years taking medications, years in treatment centers, long term, short term churches, everything there was to to do, and I I didn't know what to do. And here I am, I burnt my life to the ground one more time, And I went to an AA meeting, and I didn't go for recovery. I went for cigarettes. And that's the truth.

And I'm I'm in this meeting, and there's this guy who's a a solid member of Alcoholics Anonymous named Woody, and Woody's bringing a meeting in in there. And Woody I don't like Woody. Woody is one of those first of all, Woody is one of those guys that got sober and has the big house and the brand new car and the wife and the children and the great job. He's so happy. He's grateful for everything, and he just can't help but wanna rub it in my face.

And I don't like Woody. Woody is creepy to me. Woody is something I don't understand. Woody is happy and sober at the same time, for God's sakes. I don't get that.

I don't I don't even like people like that. They they creep me out because I stopped drinking, and abstinence feels like I'm doing time. And I put up with it until I can't put up with it no more. And here comes Woody with his minions to come in here. He's want with his pack of do gooders to try to fix us.

And I I I knew Wood, but I knew Wood, he had a lot of money. And I needed somebody to get me out on bail. And I I so I went up to Woody and started talking to him, and he was willing. He said he said, I'm here. I'm here to help you, kid.

So I explained to him I needed him to put his house up so I could get out on bail. And, you know, these people in a are hypocrites. They'd say they wanna help you until you explain it to them. And then when you explain it to them, you know, they don't wanna go. They wanna do something.

He wants to give me a big book and help me with the steps. I don't want a big book. I want out of here. They don't wanna get me out of here. So I got I got a little pissed off at him.

I, you know, I got a little bluster. I said, I don't need your help. I'm gonna beat this. I'm gonna get out of here. I'm gonna get in a good recovery house, not like that one that took advantage of me.

I'm gonna get a good one. I'm gonna get some of that government money. I I might go to school. I I might be a doctor. I might be a lawyer.

And what he's looking at me and he's shaking his head, and he's laughing at me. He's laughing. He says, kid, who are you kidding? You're not gonna do any of that. Kid, you're not even gonna stay sober.

You're probably gonna die of alcoholism because you haven't hit a bottom and you haven't surrendered. And I didn't say nothing to wouldy bitty. I was angry at him. I thought to myself, how dare you say that to me? That's the most negative thing I've ever heard.

Where's the a a love? I mean, the I don't need that negativity. I need positive reinforcement here. Haven't hit a bottom. You with your big house and your good job, You don't know nothing about me, Woody.

Haven't surrendered. Surrendered what? There's nothing left of me. A couple years before, I had things I could have given up. I I I had a good job at one time.

I had a pretty girlfriend. I had I had a motorcycle. I had a place to live. I even had it one time. I suspect some self respect, but I don't have any of that anymore.

There's nothing left. And I don't I didn't say any of that to Woody because I don't know how to talk to people when I get sober. I just get locked up in my head. But I thought all of that, and I I couldn't sleep that night spinning in my head the different things I should have said to him to make him realize how wrong he'd been saying that to me. And I had no idea what he was talking about when he said that I hadn't surrendered.

I thought, oh my God, you can't I can't lose it. There's nothing else to lose here. But Woody was talking about one thing. One thing that I have to give up, and I didn't understand what it was. I I I I couldn't I I couldn't I couldn't get my mind around what he's talking about.

And there is only one thing that any alcoholic ever has to give up. There's only one thing that stands before me in all the abundance and wonderful things that God would give me, and that is my judgment. You see, I fit the old adage, you can always tell an alcoholic, but you can't tell him much. I'm the guy, I I can go out. I can get sober, stay sober for 10 months, 12 months, 11 months, build up a great life.

I go back to drinking. I ruin my life. I burn it to the ground, and I end up back in Alcoholics Anonymous, and the first thing I get back is my opinion. And it is my opinion and my judgment that separates me from you. I can't I can't connect here with anybody.

I can't identify because I can't stop picking you apart in my mind, hoping because I really secretly feel so bad about myself. That if I can pick you apart and tear you down, maybe I'll level the playing field. Maybe I won't feel so less than if I can pull you down. But those of you who have lived that with those defense mechanisms, you know that it doesn't really make you feel more even. It makes you feel more separate and apart from.

And I I don't know what's wrong with me, and I I I wish I could tell you that that was my last drunk, but I I went before a judge and ended up getting sentenced to 2 years in prison, and the judge cut me a break, and I gave me a chance to go into a treatment center for the last time, and I couldn't stay sober in there, and I was gonna go to prison, and I was running from the police and living on the streets like an animal. And I went I went to a bridge with a bottle of that that kind of wine I used to drink. The kind of wine that has never been within a 100 yards of a grape. I mean, there's no this wine is like grain alcohol and flavoring, but it was the it was the cheapest kick for the least amount of money I could get. And that's what I that's I was an economy drinker.

I always was a little frugal. And I I go to this bridge with this bottle of wine to try to get up enough courage to kill myself because I am in a trap I cannot spring, and I don't know what's wrong with me. And people like Woody had been telling me things like, kid, you gotta surrender, and I don't know what they're talking about. I understand today exactly what they're talking about. I came, I could not kill myself, and I came off that run at the end of that drunk in a hospital with IVs, and I was so sick.

I was I hadn't eaten anything in about 10 days. All I've been drinking is cheap wine, and I had had the sores, and I was in really bad shape. And in that hospital, they they sobered me up physically and got me a little bit so I could get back on my feet and go to an AA meeting. And in that Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, something had changed inside of me, and I didn't understand what had happened. I I understood later when I heard a man named Chuck Chamberlain talking, but at the time, I just sat there for the first time in many years of attending AA meetings.

And you know the voice in your head that runs the critique about everything in the universe? It had gone away. I guess it had gotten beaten out of me. And for the first time in my life, I just sat there and I could hear you. And your message washed over me.

And I sat there and I started to identify with members of Alcoholics Anonymous. And as men as these guys would share, I found myself sitting there nodding my head and thinking quietly to myself. My god, I'm like that. I feel like that. I thought like that.

I I drink like that. I failed like that. I've experienced most of the things those people are talking about. And for the first time in my life, I could hear you. And I And for the first time in my life, I could hear you.

And I think I could finally hear you because there was enough of me kicked out of the way that I could finally hear you. See, the problem between me and you is I I always have too much me between me and you. Right? So and the problem I had with God is there's too much me between me and God. And I finally got just enough of me kicked out of me that I could hear you, and I I didn't know that that that I had been surrendered by the bottle.

I didn't understand that that had happened. But I think what happens when you get enough of you beaten out of you, there's a little bit of room for something to come in your life that you probably, if you're like me, don't even believe in. And that's the grace of God. Something I didn't believe in. But I had enough of me kicked out of me that there was a little there was a little bit of vacancy within me, and there was room, and God deplores a vacuum.

And something came into my life, and I didn't understand what it was. But all of a sudden, my perception was different. When people in AA said get a sponsor, I got a sponsor. When they said join a home group, I joined a home group. When they said start getting on your knees and praying every morning and every night, it was crazy.

I don't even believe in God, and I started doing that. And I don't even believe in God. But I'll tell you what what my experience is. And I I think I was surrendered by the bottle. But doctor Harry Thiebaud, who is mentioned in AA Comes of Age and who was very instrumental player in the early days of Alcoholics Anonymous.

He helped Bill Wilson a lot. And doctor Thiebaud talks about the amazing recuperative powers of the alcoholic ego. There's it it it's like you can be absolutely beaten to your knees. You can be completely surrendered to the point where I don't know anything. Help me.

I'll do whatever you say. And 3 weeks later, no. Thank you. I know what I need, and I know what's wrong with you. Right?

It it grows back like a bad tumor. I mean, it just it doesn't you you could have it beaten out of you, and it just grows back. And that was exactly my experience incrementally bit by bit. I started being consumed with myself again. And I don't even know that that's happening to me.

I don't even know that that I'm starting to suffer from untreated alcoholism, which which the book says this that that the root of of this trouble is selfishness, self centeredness. I don't know that I'm getting back absorbed in my self, in my feelings, in my life again, but that's what's happening to me. And I don't even know that I'm becoming the center again. And and it didn't happen overnight. It happened very incrementally and slowly, and I started to suffer again from depressions.

And they they look they look like clinical depression, but it's not. Even though if I was a psychiatrist and I was diagnosing a guy like me, I would probably come to the conclusion this guy's clinically depressed. But do you know why I know it's not clinical depression? Because the treatments that are effective for clinical depression don't work on me, but the treatment for spiritual depression does. And I didn't know that it was the depression of a person that just gets so much of himself on himself that I start to smother my very being, my spirit with myself.

And I'm I I suffered from terrible depression. The only thing that saved me from myself was a lot of 12 step work and a lot of activity in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And I want you to know that I got sober in a city and at a time when people were not into the big book. And that there was there was no one in Las Vegas back in those days that could tell you how to work the steps out of here, unfortunately. But the Buddhists say that when the student's ready, the teachers appear.

And I started I I was so involved in service in in in Alcoholics Anonymous and committees and conferences as if I could outrun my alcoholism. And in that, I was introduced to some some guys that had who understood this book. Guys like Don Pritz, who in my early sobriety became a close friend, and guys like Charlie Parmby and Joe McQueeney, and gentlemen who in the dark went through the dark ages of Alcoholics Anonymous when everybody was trying work the steps out of the 12 by 12 and had lost contact with the big book. Little pockets around the United States where they kept this alive. And they say the students ready, the teachers appear, and I I hungered for something different.

Because I knew that if something didn't change, eventually, I'm a dead man. I don't know how long I can suffer from untreated alcoholism until I drink again. I don't know. Chuck Chuck Chamberlain used to say that if you're a real alcoholic and you do not have a spiritual awakening, there will eventually come a time where you can't put anything between you and you. And you get to a point that 15, 20 meetings a week aren't enough anymore.

You get to a point where the only time you're okay is when you're on a 12 step call, and the minute that's over, you're back to being you again. There's a time where you can't the shine of everything that you've been using to fix yourself is worn off, and there's nothing left. And I was 4 years sober before I got to that place. And I didn't know that what had happened is that I had become unsurrendered. I I got a foothold in Alcoholics Anonymous by something that had happened to me.

I didn't do it. I had just gotten enough of me beaten out of me to have an infusion of grace that carried me for about 4 years in in alcoholics, and I was combined with a lot of 12 step work. But I had got to the place where I couldn't put anything anymore between me and me. But by this time, I had become friends with some people that had showed me how to do this process in this book, and I I had gotten humbled by the emotional pain of my sobriety. You know, one of the one of the great contributors to alcoholics 2 of the great contributors to Alcoholics Anonymous, one of them was a guy named Carl Jung, who was a great psychiatrist.

He's mentioned in our big book. He's the guy that Roland Hazard went to. And the other guy is the first book Bill Wilson ever read when he got sober was the varieties of religious experience written by William James. And both of those gentlemen said the same thing a different way. But what they both said is that spiritually ill people, ego driven people, have an absolute inability to observe or listen, to hear or see anything new.

They only are capable of observing or listening to see how they are already right. Right? And and that's the problem. My I'm I'm as I as I'm getting sicker and sicker, I'm more right about stuff. I'm more judgmental.

I'm more opinionated. And I don't know that that's the ego growing back like a bad tumor within me. But I had another surrender and I went back through this process. And, you know, oddly enough, I I spent from from the time I was about 10 men I I took my first third step when I was about 10 months sober. And I took it, by reading that prayer on page 63 out of the big book on my knees with another member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

But exactly what it talks about in the next page and a half was exactly what happened to me. It says that this decision in step 3 was a vital and crucial step, but it says it has little permanent effect unless followed at once by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things that are blocking me. The things that are blocking me from carrying out this decision I made in step 3. That's the problem. I can intend to carry out this decision as I did for for 3 years in my early sobriety.

I would get physically down on my knees every morning, and I would turn my will and my life over the care of god. I would say that 3rd step prayer. And 20 minutes later, I'm back in my head consumed with me and what you'll think of me. I'm thinking about I'm gonna go to work. My boss is gonna say this.

I'll say that. He'll say this. I'll say that. He'll say this. Then I'll hit him with this, and then you'll realize how wonderful I am and how bad how wrong he's been.

And and if you're like that and you're up here and you live a lot of your life up here in this unsurrendered control center, trying to run the universe, I'm telling you something. If you do that with the benefit of vodka or medication, it's not so bad. But when you do that stark raving sober, that anxiety just wears on a guy like me. Because what I'm doing, it essentially is I am trying to surrender my will and my life to the care of god, but I am retaining my will because I haven't done the work to dismantle this judgment machine, which is my will. And if you if you really essentially do what I was doing, which is to give try to give God your life, but retain your judgment of your life.

It's like saying, God, here's my life, but there's a list coming of how it better go. Right? And then what so what happens is I I suffer from the anxiety of not getting my way. I'm in my head spinning about my way. I I suffer the depression.

You know what depression is? That's when God stops doing your will. Right? Or the fear of God not doing my will. And I and so what what is happening to me is that I am absolutely blocked.

I'll tell you something I believe. I think you could keep your life if you could surrender your will. You know, I as a result of Alcoholics Anonymous, I've gone back and revisited the religion of my childhood. And what I've discovered as a result of these steps and the awakening that I've I've obtained through the steps is that a lot of things that never made sense to me start to make sense to me now. I am not the guy that's at odds with those religions anymore.

As a matter of fact, every every religion from Buddhism to Hinduism to to, Islam, I can look at their literature, and I can see pieces of my own spiritual experience in those ways of life. Because I've I'm I'm awake. And what I woke up to, I went I started looking back at my the religion of my childhood, and there's a story in Genesis in the in the Bible. And and and I am not a biblical scholar, so there may be people in this room that could that could fine tune what I'm saying or whatever. But most of you are familiar vaguely with the story of Adam and Eve.

And and God created the heavens and the earth, and he created, Adam and Eve and out of the his rib created Eve. And they were placed in this thing called the Garden of Eden, which was literally heaven on earth. It was paradise, and it was perfect. And they were given one suggestion, and the suggestion is, yeah, we probably shouldn't eat from this one fruit from this one tree. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

You know, like your sponsor gives you a suggestion. Well, you probably not shouldn't get in that relationship. You know, well the minute they tell you that it's like you're gonna go. I mean, you may you may not have even wanted to go until they said, thou shalt not and then it's okay here I go. I wasn't really thinking about dating her till you said that.

Well, okay. Well, it's kind of like that. So what I you know, according to the bible, they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge and good and evil, and they lost paradise. You know what I think happened? I think that they reaped the fruit of the tree of the knowledge and good and evil, and I think they got a judgment and they got opinions.

And I think all of a sudden, what had been heaven, all of a sudden they have judgment about I could just picture Adam going, God, what this was great yesterday, but today, it's there's there's there's flies, God. Eve's got cellulite. What were you thinking? I mean I mean this place is crap. What did I thought yesterday?

How did I ever think this was heaven? And what happened? What changed? Nothing. Except that their perspective became the perspective of the judgmental, and they lost heaven.

1 of my mentors was a guy named Chuck Chamberlain. And Chuck used to tell the story of sitting in this chair in his house after a long drunk. And he was married to this woman, and he was working at this place, and he felt like he was in hell, and he was dying. And years later, he sat in the same chair in the same house, married to the same woman, working at the same place with tears in his eyes because he felt like he was in heaven. And he said, what changed?

He said, maybe heaven's just a new pair of glasses. Right? What do I have what do I have to surrender here except my judgment and my opinion? I'll tell you something. This is this will sound crazy to if especially if you're if you're sitting here and you're in the middle of a lot of emotional pain, I will tell you something you're not gonna believe.

There is no pain except my resist that what comes from my resistance to accept life on life's terms. I have never had one problem since I've been sober. I have never had one difficult situation, but I've had a 1,000 that looked times it looked like it. Right? That it looked like it.

And what's really the problem here? The problem is me and my perception of things. That little voice in my head, something happens because, oh, this is awful. Well, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. Maybe it's not awful.

Maybe that's just my judgment of it. How many you know, what what's the worst thing that most of us thought could ever happen to us before we got sober? That we'd find out we were alcoholic. What's the second worst thing that we found out we ever thought that we'd have to go to some place like a and a? What are the 2 greatest things that ever happened to us that we found out we were alcoholic and that we ended up in Alcoholics Anonymous?

You see, I don't know. The Buddhists have a story that it's about the wisdom to know the most important thing is that you'll never know. And it's about this little old Chinese farmer who who's very poor. He owns he owns he doesn't own anything except a horse. It's his only possession, and he's allowed to live on this meager piece of ground in this hut and work the fields that are owned by a lord of the land who owns the land.

And he has to tie the portion of his crop and for the right to live there and work the soil. And him and his only son sit there, and they work these they work these fields day in and day out. And and one one day, his only horse, his only possession runs off. And now his friends and family come running over to console him, to tell him how terrible this is. You've lost your whole estate.

This is awful. This is bad. And the little old man just shrugs his shoulders and says, I don't know if it's awful. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.

And they think you're nuts. You've lost everything. And he just keeps saying, I don't know. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.

A couple days later, the horse returns right into the corral leading a whole herd of wild horses. And now his friends and family and neighbors come running over to congratulate him. You're the richest man in the valley. This is wonderful. This is great.

This is good. And he says, I don't know if it's good. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. And they look at him like, you're nuts.

You don't think that's good? He says, I don't know. A couple days later, his only son is trying to break one of the wild horses, and he's thrown. And he's crippled. And he can't walk, and he can't work.

And now his family and neighbors and friends come rushing over to console him, to tell him how terrible this is, that his only son is crippled. This is terrible. And the little old man shrugs his shoulders and says, I don't know if it's terrible. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't.

And they think, my god, this is your only son, and he's crippled, and you don't even think that's bad? And he said, I don't know. About a week later, the Chinese army came through the valley and forced all the young men to go and fight in a battle where none of them would survive, and they couldn't take the sun because of his broken leg. See, the little old man knew the most important thing he would ever know is that he doesn't know. And it is only when you think you know that you will never know.

And when you know that you don't know, and you can take the position of a little old man, then maybe you've surrendered the only thing you ever have to give up in order to approach life itself and god like a child. And I think that's the dilemma of Alcoholics Anonymous is for me to get my judgment and my opinion out of the way. You know, to my amazement, when I started doing the 4th step and I started following the outline in in the big book, You know, I thought and I did 2 earlier 4 steps that did me virtually no good. The life story, you know, the 40 pages of all your guilt and shame, and then I answered the either the second one was the 38 questions or whatever it is out of the 12 by 12. Didn't do anything for me.

But when I followed the process in this book, something happened to me. I've never been the same. And it started in the resentment section when I started to make a list of everyone I secretly thought owed me an amends. You know, these are the people that had really done me wrong and I had case files built on all of them. I mean, I could I could explain it to you where you'd agree with me.

Oh, you poor guy. Look, they did that to you, did they? And then the book asked me to do something that was very, very hard and yet very life changing for me. It asked me to look at these things from an entirely different angle. It asked me to realize how how perhaps the person who would harm me, how they might be possibly could be.

Could they be sick like I could be sick? In other words, could I get off my throne of judgment enough and get humble enough with myself and honest enough and other centered enough rather than self centered to see myself in that person and and realize, you know, I was wrong about them. They're not. That has nothing to do with me. That's me.

What I what I've built this case against is me, maybe me on a really bad day, but me. And what what started to happening is I started to get off the high horse of judgment, and I started to dismantle all these judgments that I had about everybody that had ever come in my path. And I had a lot of them. And I had all these judgments that were the essence of my fears. I had a picture of a universe that was I was in conflict where with and was very threatening, and I was wrong about all of that stuff.

And the exact nature of my wrongs, to my amazement, was not the people I hurt. It was how wrong I had been in my perception of life itself that I discovered that I was the source of all my conflict and turmoil because I had an ego centered perception of life. I was looking I was trying to run the universe, and there's some great analogies in the book about the the one about the actor running the whole show, and and that's the essence of what I must surrender here. But it the problem with me is that this ego just grows back so quickly. You know, in the 10th step, when it's there's a question in there that just bowls me over every day on page 86, where it's we have to add, we say, were were we kind and loving towards all?

All? Listen, god. I'm kind and loving towards the ones that deserve it. Doesn't say that. It doesn't say were you kind and loving to the ones you're kind and loving to or you will kind and loving towards the ones that are kind and loving to you were kind and loving towards all And what I realize is that every single day, I've unsurrendered myself to some degree and created conflict and judgment once again between me and some of the people around me.

That I haven't been, that I'm not always kind and and loving towards all. And I I don't know what a guy would like me would do if it wasn't for this way of life. I think Alcoholics Anonymous, the whole purpose of all of this is not to get me to quit drinking. I mean we can quit drinking. If you don't know how to quit drinking punch a policeman, you'll quit drinking for a little while.

It's it's somehow when I stop drinking and I stop medicating the disease of alcoholism, I get so self consumed and so judgmental and so conflicted with life itself that what eventually happens to me is that, eventually, abstinence and the conflict and separation that has occurred through my judgment become so desolate and so uncomfortable and so painful, and yet I can't explain it to you. I can't tell you why I'm uncomfortable. I can't tell you why I feel bad. But it is untreated alcoholism because my ego has taken over again. And I think the purpose of all of that is to allow me to better carry out this desperate, desperate decision in step 3.

You know, there's a delusion in the book that it talks about. It's the 3rd delusion. The first two, first one kept me from getting sober. The second one almost took me out after a long time in sobriety. And the third one has kept me from ever being happy here.

And it says, aren't we victims of the delusion that we can rest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if we only manage well. And the reason that that is a delusion is that there is I tell you something. I don't think there's a demographic, a group of people on this planet that have ever spent more money, more time, more energy, and more effort, and more focus on trying to make themselves happy and satisfied as we have. I mean, what do you let's face it. What do you think about the first thing when you wake up in the morning?

Me and my day. You know? Right? I don't it's not like we're and the end result of all of this f obsessive effort to make us satisfied and happy is some of us have been thinking about killing ourselves. Some of us are so uncomfortable on this planet as is that we have to drink or maybe go to a doctor and take something.

Absolute failure at resting happiness and satisfaction out of this world by managing well. And when I was brand new in sobriety, a guy came up to me and I after a meeting and he said to me, he says, Bob, he said, you you need to take step 3. And I said, I looked at this guy, and I looked at the step 3 on the wall, and I said, Joe, I said, Joe, I can't I I can't take step 3. He says, why not? I said, well, I don't understand God, Joe.

I don't even know I don't know if I believe in God. I don't know. I mean, I'm praying, but I don't really know. He said, you don't have to believe in God to take step 3. I said, Joe, it says on the wall, we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God as we he says, listen, kid.

In your case, if you'll turn your will and your life over to this chair, and he points to this chair, he says, I guarantee you an instant miracle. Really? I said, okay. I turned my will, my life over the chair. What's the miracle?

He says, well, the miracle would be your life would no longer be in the hands of an idiot. And I didn't I didn't even get my feelings hurt. I just thought, yeah, that'd be right. Yeah. Because if you would have followed me around the last couple years I drank and followed me around the 1st couple years I was sober and you were to watch me, The jobs I kept going through, the people I kept stepping on their toes and didn't mean to, the broken relationships, the financial disasters.

I had this knack for snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory every single time. If you'd have watched me over those years, you would have easily come to the conclusion that whoever is making decisions for this person is out to destroy him. And yet in here, where I live, all my actions make sense to me. That's this that's the frightening thing about alcoholism. I have a reason or a justification or an excuse for everything that happens, and it's and it's never really my fault.

If they wouldn't have, but it is. And I've had some great, great mentors. There was a guy named Dale who died of cancer back in the early eighties with long term sobriety. And Dale got in my face one day, and he said to me, he says, listen, kid. He's gruff gruff guy.

Gruff. No no appreciation for my sensitivities gruff guy got my face he says listen kid he says I want to tell you some couple things and if you can buy this it'll save you a lot of grief. He said kid if you're explaining something, if you're defending something, if you're rationalizing or justifying something, kid, I want you to know you're wrong. Because you never have to explain, defend, justify, or rationalize what's right. You know, they say the truth will set you free, but I'll tell you to ruin your day first.

And Dale was absolutely right. And it's been probably 28 20, 27 or 28 years since he told me that. I have never found us an exception to that yet. It's it's the same thing it talks about in the 12 by 12 in step 10. It says it's a spiritual axiom, which means something that is true under all conditions.

It's a spiritual axiom that when I'm disturbed at all, at all. Axiom that when I'm disturbed at all, at all, no excuses, no rationalizations, period, at all. No matter what the reason, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with me. Because I am the source of my separation, I'm the source of my conflict, and I am the source of my judgment. And I must surrender self, because what happens is I get too much of me between me and God's universe.

I get too much of me between me and life and I get too much of me between me and you. There was a guy named Don Don Williams, and Don, died a few years ago, long term sobriety, a wonderful man. And I was at a meeting one time, and and the meeting was on step 10. And everybody's sharing their different approaches to step 10. And some of them were out of the book, and some of them were out of the 12 by 12, and some of them were outer outer space.

I don't know where they were from. There's some weird stuff. I don't know. It's just crazy. You know, you can see sometimes in discussion meetings you can hear some you can hear stuff where you go, Oh yeah, that's right.

You hear other stuff go, What's he talking about? And Don cut through it all. He said he said, you know, all everything you're saying is all well and good. He said, but I don't really need to do a lot of writing or a lot of stuff. He said, I simply have to look around me where I work in traffic, out in public, in AA, and in my family.

And look around me. And if what I see is a lot of people that are struggling with a lot of the same stuff I struggle with, the insecurities and the fears and the frustrations of life, but I see myself in them. And I I I said, you can bet that I am in good spiritual stead. But if I look around me and I see a lot of idiots that need straightening out, he said, you can bet that I am spiritually sick. And I can measure my distance from God.

I can measure my distance from the decision in step 3. I can measure my distance from surrender by measuring my distance from you. That's why in in step or in, the big book, it's in Bill's story, he says something that's remarkable. He says unless the can enlarge his spiritual life, and he doesn't say through what you would think. You would think he would say through prayer meditation or through reading spiritual literature.

He says unless the alcoholic can enlarge his spiritual life through self sacrifice and constant work with others, he will never survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. Certain means you feel wonderful today and everything's going your way. The trials and low spots are coming. They're coming. And unless you can enlarge your spiritual life, and by by 2 things, self sacrifice.

In other words, I have to set myself aside to serve or surrender to a greater purpose than myself. We call it in Alcoholics Anonymous our primary purpose, number 1. And it's not me. It's to help another alcoholic who still suffered. In the long form of the tradition it calls, it says it's our primary spiritual aim.