Steps 1 through 3 at the CPH12 v8 convention in Copenhagen, Denmark

Good morning. My name is Carrie. I'm an alcoholic. Hi. Yeah.

It's nice to see so many wonderful faces this morning. Bob and I are, for the next couple hours, are gonna be talking about steps 1 through 3. And, it's been my experience and what I've been taught about how, the program of recovery works is that I absolutely have to understand my first step. I have to understand who I am, what my disease is, and exactly how it works in my life because I won't be motivated to do the rest of the steps if I don't thoroughly understand who I am. I came into Alcoholics Anonymous and I said that I was an alcoholic, but I didn't know what being an alcoholic was.

I didn't know what that meant. What does it mean to be an alcoholic? Well, it means, you know, I drink a lot and get into trouble. What I didn't understand was that that's not what made me an alcoholic. You know, I looked.

That's what made other people think I was an alcoholic. But what made me an alcoholic was that I have what's called a threefold disease. It means that I have a physical allergy, I have a mental, obsession, and I have a spirituality. Last night when I talked, I talked I talked a lot about the spirituality and I didn't talk too much about drinking Because it's been my experience and this is the thing is that if you're an alcoholic, you knew exactly how to drink. And that when I put down the alcohol, I'm still spiritually sick.

So as much as I might, as an alcoholic, know exactly how to drink, my spiritual sickness is a progressive thing that continues throughout my life. So I didn't want to be redundant and talk about drinking so much because that's what really what we are gonna talk about right now. We're gonna I'm gonna talk to you about exactly how alcohol or how I was taught alcohol works on me when I'm drinking and how I'm powerless over alcohol before and after I pick up a drink. When I was brought through the steps, you know, my sponsor started on page 1. I started with the, you know, the blank page that says, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous.

You know, how many thousands of men and women have, you know, recovered from alcoholism. You know? And And then as we gone as I went through the work with my sponsor, we went through the each chapter, chapter by chapter, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. I was taught to do the steps in a in a consideration sort of way. It means that when I come to a statement in the big book that talks about alcoholism, that talks about, you know, my spirituality, when it talks about, you know, any aspect of, you know, being an alcoholic, the question I'm really to ask myself is, does this apply to me?

Is this my experience? Is this true for me? So as we're talking about, you know, the first step, as we're talking about the second step, 3rd step, and then so on, I really want you to be sitting here saying, you know, is that my experience? Did I have that experience with that step? Did I have that experience with alcohol?

Did I think, feel, you know, react this way? You know, do I react emotionally this way? Did I drink that way? Or when I talk to you about a promise or a result that I get from doing this work, I want you to ask yourself, is that my current experience? You know?

So that you can hear what we're saying and then ask yourself, where am I at? You know, because that's the way that I was taught, that I was to look at this book and the way that I was taught to listen to people. Because for me, and this is just for me, I have to take these truths, these things back into my life, back into my heart and sit with them with God. Because that's where the real answer comes. It doesn't come from me telling you what your truth is, but for you to sit and ask yourself, what is my truth?

What do I know to be true about me? And what's true between me and God? Because for me, that's where my answers come from. That's how I know who I am. And that's how I know what my next step is to be.

You know, so we talk about the doctor's opinion. And we talk about, you know, a physical allergy. You know, my big book tells me that I have a physical allergy, that once I put alcohol in my system, that I react differently than other people. It means that, you know, my sister is not an alcoholic. My sister can have a glass of wine and she goes to sleep.

You know, and she doesn't understand why it is that I will have a glass of wine and I get excited. I don't get tired. It doesn't make me sleepy. It doesn't mellow me out. It fires me up.

Booze? More booze now. It's a completely different reaction than the average person. You know? And I you know, my my alcoholic mind tells me that my reaction is the way that everybody else reacts to alcohol.

You know, because I'm blinded by my own perceptions. And when my sponsor sat down with me and we went through the big book, she explained to me not everybody in this world reacts to alcohol the way you do, Carrie. You have what's called an abnormal reaction. You have an allergy to alcohol. And because I have this allergy, I I react to alcohol in the way that an alcoholic does.

And that means that when I put it in my system, I want more. Period. And if I don't have that more, I get something called irritable restless, and discontent. Do you guys know what that means? The way that I explain this to the women I sponsor is this.

I feel like I have no skin, that I'm a writhing bundle of nerves and there's nothing between you and me. You ever you ever have a toothache, you know, have, like, a really nasty cavity. And every time you touch it, you know, you're waiting to go to the dentist. And every time you touch it with your tongue, you get that jolt of lightning through your body. And it feels like the top of your head is gonna blow off.

That's how I feel when I can't put alcohol in my system. That's how I feel when I put alcohol in my system and then I stop. Because the whole thing is this. As an alcoholic, I could stop. But I can't stay stopped because I'm in that perpetual state of irritable restlessness and discontent.

And the only way that I can get a sense of peace, ease, and comfort is by putting alcohol in my system. So my body constantly craves alcohol. And once I start drinking, I find that I can't stop. And so I might walk into the bar and I might say to myself, well, I wasn't 21, so I really didn't walk into the bar. Let me this clearly.

When I bought a bottle of booze, you know, or I paid somebody to do it, or I went to a bar and I bribed some older guy to buy me booze, one drink. That's it. You know? I'm going to have one drink. I'm going to hang out with my friends.

You know? I'm gonna go to a, you know, a club or you guys call it a discotheque. I'm gonna go to this club and I'm gonna have one drink and then, you know, I'm just gonna have a good time. I'm gonna dance and then I'm gonna go home with my friends. But see that's not my experience.

I can't do that. What I do when I go to a club or discotheque is I have one drink. And then I have another drink. And then I have another drink. And then I have another drink.

And then I'm puking in the bathroom and I'm passed out. And my friends have to drag me out of the, you know, the bar or wherever I am, the the club. And I'm covered in my own vomit and urine, and I'm disgusting. And I wake up in the back of somebody's car the next day. That's my experience with alcohol.

That's my consistent experience with alcohol. And every time put alcohol into my system, just about, that's how I react. I mean, the the circumstance, the place, the thing might be different. But my reaction is relatively the same. Once I start drinking a fine that I can't stop, and that I have this constant yearning for oblivion.

I've heard a speaker and I I love the way he explains it. He says that he feels like he that he wants to get to the state where only the heart and lungs are working and nothing else is there. I love that because that's the state. That is my bliss. That is Carrie's heaven.

I'm not present. I'm just breathing. You know? And that's that's the state that I, I tried to attain regularly in my life. And, that's not normal.

That's not the way that the average person reacts. That's not normal at all. I thought it was. You know, my big book, and I love it, My big book tells me in a doctor's opinion I'm not gonna go word for word, paragraph by paragraph with you guys. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna talk about the important points on, you know, step 1.

And you know the bottom line is this, is there's no substitute for good sponsorship. You know, we're gonna give you some ideas. We're gonna talk about some important things. Hopefully, I can disturb you on your question of alcoholism. Hopefully, you're gonna hear what we say and hear what we're talking about and say to yourself, that's me.

I gotta have that. Or I had that. I gotta have that again. Or can I go can I go deeper? Can I go further in my spiritual experience?

Can I have more of God in my life and less of me? You know, but the bottom line is this, is there is no substitute for good sponsorship. And sitting here in this room today is we're at a pep rally right now. Our job is to inspire you about this book. And then it's your job to go out and get this experience for yourself.

Because don't take my experience with the big book. And my experience is my experience, but it's no substitute for yours. Because my job and my experience and what I was taught was this. It's my job to have a spiritual experience in spiritual awakening because there's nothing that is gonna cure my alcoholism or relieve my alcoholism other than experience with God. My experience is my experience.

You guys have to have your own. So don't let me read your big book for you. Don't let me and what I talk about be your ultimate authority. What you need to do is take what I'm talking about, what Bob's talking about, and bring that back to your life. Bring that to your sponsor.

Ask some questions. Be inspired. So we're gonna talk about it when we talk about, you know, the hopeless alcoholic. You know, throughout the big book, it talks about that. And then the question is, what is a hopeless alcoholic?

What does being a hopeless alcoholic mean? Does that mean that I'm consigned to die? Does that mean that I'm never gonna have any hope? That I can never stop drinking? Or does that mean apart from divine help, I can't stop drinking?

My sponsor told me that based on myself, my human aid, my personal self, my will, I won't stop drinking. That self, my will, I won't stop drinking. That with divine intervention, that my alcoholism can be arrested. So what that tells me is that anything or anything I do to try to control my drinking will fail miserably. I mean, have you guys ever tried this?

Have you tried, you know, you know, we heard we've all heard, you know, the geographic cure. Right? You know, like, I'll move somewhere else and I'll drink differently there. Or, you know, I love the boyfriend cure, which is my boyfriend sucks so I'll get a different one. And maybe this time it'll be different because I drink because of him because he doesn't love me enough or he loves me too much or he watches too much TV or he doesn't give me the mote.

So if I find a better boyfriend then my drinking will be fixed. Right? If I'm £10 skinnier, you know what? I won't need to drink so much anymore because, you know, skinny women are happy. Or how about this?

If I was just prettier, if I was just smarter, if I could finish that college degree, if I could change any one thing in my life, it would be better, wouldn't it? But that's not my experience because my experience is no matter what I do in my life, I bring me with me. And therefore, I bring alcoholism. You know, so my big book tells me that there's nothing I can humanly do to arrest my alcoholism. The only thing that I could do is look for a spiritual experience and come to this program and do what I'm told to do and show up and do exactly what my sponsor did and what her sponsor did and what her sponsor did and trust that this process will work.

So for me, that's what being a hopeless alcoholic is all about. It doesn't mean that I'm helpless. It doesn't mean that I can't get better. But it means that based on myself and my will, I can. That I need to follow the dictates of good orderly direction.

My big book tells me that I have to have an, a spiritual experience. The doctor's opinion talks about that. It says that, that we have to have to have an entire psychic change. What does that mean? What does an entire psychic change mean to you?

Does that mean that, you know, I go to the mountains and I go study with, Tibetan Buddhists? Does it mean that, I locked myself away in a monastery? Does it mean that, I learned to meditate and levitate and, you know, and what does that mean? In my experience, what I was told what that means is that everything that I think that I know about my life and you has to be rearranged. And that everything that I think that I know has to be opened up to the power of God for God to come in and kind of clean out the nooks and crannies of my spirit.

You know, so but I have to have that entire psychic change. I've had spiritual experiences my whole life. We all have. You know? We you know we're all spiritual beings having human experience.

So you walk through your life and of course you have spiritual experiences. You look at the flowers. You look at the trees, you see a bird, you know, you hear something, you're sitting in church, or somebody says something, somebody gives you a hug and you feel connected. Right? And then it's gone.

You know? Because for me, we I walked through my life and I had spiritual experiences all the time, but I didn't have an entire psychic change. You know, and the entire psychic change is what's necessary for me to recover from alcoholism arrests my alcoholism. You know, I have I have a spirit you know, I have that physical allergy. And I can't stop drinking once I start.

I have a mind that tells me that that's perfectly normal, that everybody else reacts just the way I do. I have a mind that tells me that this time it'll be different. That this time I will feel better. Somehow somehow I will manage to rest. You know, I will be able to drink like everyone else.

Or how about this? And this isn't the truth. I don't wanna drink like everyone else. I don't wanna have 1 or 2 glasses of wine and then go to sleep. What I wanna do is drink the way I wanna drink without the consequences for my drinking.

You know, the big book, it talks about the boy who whistles in the dark, who secretly would take, you know, would take 5 or 6 drinks. And the thing is that he wants to drink without impunity. That's what I want. I don't want to drink like a non alcoholic. I want to drink like an alcoholic but have non alcoholic consequences.

Those are that's the way that I wanna drink because that's the way that I react to alcohol. That's the way that I think about alcohol. Because I'm different than other people. And the idea that I will be like other people absolutely has to be smashed. The idea that I can drink, think, react, be like other people has to be smashed.

I have different rules that apply to my life. And I was taught that I was taught that I the idea that I can live like other people. That, that their that their rules, their moral things, the things that they have to do in order for them to be okay. That I can't do that, that I have to work even harder because I have this disease. And it's this disease that that is only arrested by having a spiritual experience.

It's only paused that I have you know, I have you know, I have freedom from alcohol today. I don't think of alcohol as being a solution to my problem. I don't think about about alcohol, period. I haven't had an obsessive thought about alcohol in over 10 years. Doesn't mean that I'm perfect.

It means that I'm just finally getting to be just like everyone else who's not an alcoholic. It gets me to the starting gate. I'm not a spiritual giant. I'm a human being. And all this all this step work, all these things, this entire spiritual experience that this big book talks to me about tells me that I absolutely need in order to recover from alcoholism, only gets me to the point where I behave like everyone else.

Period. So I have this this spiritual experience. I had this entire psychic change. And I no longer think about alcohol as being a solution to my problem. I recoil from it like a hot flame.

I'm safe and protected. Prior to that, you know, I either thought about alcohol as being a solution to my problem or I thought oblivion is better than this. If I could just not be present for 5 minutes, If I could just not be me for 5 minutes. If I could be unconscious because I think in my sleep. You you know what I'm talking about?

When you think in your sleep and you wake up more exhausted than when you went to bed And you wake up and there's bloody finger nail marks in your palm and your jaw hurts from clenching your teeth because even in your sleep, you're there. You know what I'm talking about? That's called spirituality. You know, again, I'm not like other people. And so what my big book, what my doctor's opinion, what my first step is all about is about learning that I'm not like other people, That I have a different experience.

That I bring, you know, this sick spirit. I bring this crazy mind that tells me that alcohol is a solution to my problem. And I bring this allergy to the table. And that with those three things combined, I'm a hopeless alcoholic. And there's no hope for my recovery but for a spiritual experience, which is a beautiful thing because it's accessible to anyone.

That's what this program is. It's called instant spiritual experience, instant conversion. Bingo. Do what this big book tells you to do. This is what my sponsor said.

She said, Carrie, do what these steps tell you to do. Follow my direction. And if you do that, you'll never be you again. You know, and, you know, I'm just I mean, I I think about it. I went through my entire life in the one thing I didn't wanna be I wanted to be you, but I did not wanna be me.

And I didn't wanna be having my experience with being me. You know? So my sponsor told me, she said, if you follow the dictates of this program, if you follow a few simple rules, you'll have an entire spiritual, psychic change. You will have a spiritual experience, and you never have to be you again. And more than that, you don't have to be a hopeless alcoholic or a helpless alcoholic.

You know, because the fact is and this is my experience is that lack of power is my dilemma. So the bottom line is this, is I have to gain access to that power. That's what being a helpless alcoholic is all about. I don't have the power to make myself recover. I don't have the power to stop drinking.

I don't have the power to get rid of that allergy. I don't have the power to get rid of my mental obsession. I don't have the power to stop being spiritually sick. But what I can do is turn to a power greater than myself and allow that power to work in my life. Very simple thing.

It's not complicated. It's not calculus. All it is is following the instructions of my sponsor and opening my heart to God. And and it's been my experience that when I do that, amazing things happen. I go from being a hopeless, helpless, disgusting alcoholic mess to being able to help other women not drink, to being able to experience god in my daily life, to feel connected to god and to to you and feel a oneness with my environment, my creator, which is something that I didn't feel before I had this spiritual experience.

I love in the first step, it talks about being doomed. And I love it when I when I sit down with the women that I sponsor and we sit at my kitchen table, you know, I like to use the doomed voice when we talk about it. He was doomed. You know, hopeless alcoholic. You know, I like to do like the voice effects.

I think it makes it a little interesting. You know, gotta make it fun. Gotta have fun, guys. If you're not having fun having a spiritual experience, then you're in the wrong place because this is fun. It's a little scary the first time through.

But it's fun. And if I'm not having fun carrying the message, if I'm not having fun working the steps up, if I'm not having fun having this experience that I'm having, then, I'm doing it wrong. So I, you know, I sit there and I like to use my doomed voice. Because the thing is is this, is that based on my own self, my human power, I am doomed. But with with the power of God, with higher power in my life, the power of the program and following the dictates of this process, I'm not.

You know? There's so much in these chapters. And there's so much that to talk about and things, you know, like, we talk about you know, I hate reading this book from the podium. I'm putting it down. Because I keep pulling it out and I'm gonna tell you some gems, some things, some line in this book.

And, you know, the fact is is that I had an experience with this book and this book come become a part of who I am. It's become a part of how I relate to this to the world. And when I am talking to you about the first step, what I am saying to you is simply this, is that if you're an alcoholic like I am, it means that you don't have the power to get yourself better. But you can gain access to that power through this program. So if you drank like I drank, which means that once you start drinking, you find that you can't stop.

You know, and I love this. I sponsor I got sober obviously. I got sober very young. I got sober at 18. And And I remember being about 5 or 6 years sober.

And there's this guy that helped me immensely, in the program. A lot of people know him as Dave F. But other people know him as Anal Dave. You guys heard of him? He's he's probably one of the most thorough step workers I've ever met in my life.

He's got lists and, you know, schematics for working the steps. He's amazing. And I remember calling him up in a panic because I was going through the first step and I said to him I said, Dave, what if I'm not an alcoholic? I hear all these things about the hopeless alcoholic, the real alcoholic. What if I'm not?

What if they kick me out of AA? I got sober at 18. I wasn't even legal to drink. And he said to me, he said, you know, he's like, Carrie, I want you to stop and I want you to ask yourself, did you ever have craving? And I said, well, yeah.

He said, I want you to tell me the story. Tell me the night the one incident that that the specific circumstance in which you experienced physical craving. And I said, okay. I was in Alcoholics Anonymous, not drinking but, doing do you guys have marijuana maintenance? Do you know what that is?

Okay. So I was in AA celebrating years sober while smoking pot. So I had about a year smoking pot and not drinking thinking I was sober. And I decided that I was going to drink. You know, because I was I had just turned 18 and I deserved it because I was gonna go to college, but I had just dropped out of high school.

And I needed to go to frat parties, but, you know, instead I was homeless living in the park, but I was going to drink. So I said, I'm going to go out and drink 1 night. I'm going to have 1 night of drinking. I'm going to drink. I'm going to get it out of my system.

And then I'm going to go back to AA. AI because I thought that was in my power because I didn't realize what being powerless was. So I went out and I drank everything. I mean, everything that I had missed in that year not drinking. You You know, I drank and drank and drank, you know, shots of tequila.

I was a mess. Right? I drank and drank and drank and drank and drank. Right? I drank my entire paycheck away.

You know? And when you're 18, you know, $200 is a lot of money. So I drank and drank my paycheck away. And, I woke up the next day and I had $5 in my pocket. I smoked at the time.

And I had $5 and I said, you know, I can go back to AA. Nah. I have $5. I can buy a bottle of cheap wine and a pack of generic cigarettes. And that's exactly what I did.

I had I had no intention of drinking the next day. I was just going out to drink for 1 night, and it was not within my power to stop. And I woke up the next day and I scraped the change out of my purse and the couple bucks I had in my pocket. And I went to the liquor store and I continued to drink. And I didn't stop for 4 months.

And I drank every day. And so I told Dave that. And he goes, well, welcome, Carrie. You're an alcoholic. That's what being a hopeless alcoholic is all about.

That I could wanna stop desperately. I could wanna put down the bottle. I wanna put the plug in the jug, but I can't because I'm hopeless. And so, for me, and this is my experience, that if I react that way to alcohol, that makes me a hopeless alcoholic. So if you can identify with that story and if that is your experience, that the most desperate desire to stop, that once you put alcohol in your system, you can't stop, and you have a mind that tells you that you can, then that's what if you experience that the way that I experience that, then that means that you're an alcoholic just like me, which is a beautiful thing.

Because if I'm an alcoholic who knows that I'm a hopeless alcoholic, that means there's hope for me. If I'm an alcoholic who thinks that I have power over alcohol and power over alcoholism, I'm screwed. Anyway, I think I've taken enough of your time. I'm gonna open it up for Bob. And thank you very much for listening.

Great job, Kerry. Thank you very much. If you would indulge me in a moment of silence, I'd like to open with a prayer. 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. Good morning. It's good to be here. I really was enjoying what Sherry what, Carrie was, sharing. On page 45 of the book, it says something that really cuts to the quick of the problem.

It says lack of power. That is our dilemma. Lack of power. I I was a victim of 4 delusions. And these delusions were all delusions of having power that I didn't have.

And the first delusion went something like this. It went, okay. I know I'm in some trouble here from drinking. But one day, it's gonna get a little worse and it'll be bad enough. And then I will make up my mind to not drink anymore and I won't.

And what happened is there came a time when it got so bad I couldn't stand it anymore and I swore to myself I'll never touch that stuff again. And I did, and I went back to it. That I didn't have the power to do what I thought I could do. This self delusion, this psychotic, wishful thinking that I'm gonna be able one day to beat this. And then the second delusion talks about in chapter 3.

It says that someday, someway, somehow, I will be able to control and enjoy my drinking. That even though alcohol has turned on me and I've wrung all the fun out of it, that I'm gonna be able to roller back to the days when it was magic. And have enough control, not not to get away scot free, but have enough control to keep the damage down to something reasonable. Right? Stay out of jail at least.

You know, something stay out of the hospital at least. You know, keep the damage down to something reasonable. And I couldn't do that. I I not from a lack of trying. And then the other delusion, it says, the delusion that we are like other people or presently maybe, the book says, has to be smashed.

I I went to psychiatrists trying to figure out what made me an alcoholic. I I I was convinced that this was something I could get over and put behind me. The idea I remember going to AA and people would talk about this disease as if it was something you're always gonna have. I remember thinking, that's that's just very negative. You know, I I you people are negative.

You keep telling yourself that stuff. You're gonna make it true. It's it's negative thinking. You need to be more positive. You can beat this thing.

And I went to therapy, and I muddled around in my childhood. Couldn't find what made me alcoholic. So I went to a hypnotist and got regressed through hypnosis back into my childhood thinking that maybe I was miss potty trained or something. I don't know. That something that made me weird and needed to drink.

And I never found what it was because it's it's not something that happened to me. It's something that is of me. And then the last delusion that I almost it almost ruined my life in sobriety Is that I was a victim of the delusion that I could rest happiness and satisfaction out of this world if I only managed well. If I learned the book? If I I was mistaking the process for the power.

I was mistaking the actions for the power. I was mistaking involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous for the power. But see, it doesn't say lack of a knowledge of the steps was our power. It says lack of power was our was our dilemma. And it doesn't say lack of faith, and it doesn't say lack of religion.

It says lack of power. I've had the privilege, I guess, or or misfortune. I don't know. I've I've sponsored a couple members of clergy. I gotta tell you, they're a pain in the ass to sponsor.

I mean, really. I mean, they're it's it's it's easier to sponsor an alcoholism counselor than a member of clergy. I mean, they're they're just know it all people, you know? And and it's it and I watched one of them literally drink himself to death. He called me a week before he died.

Frank called me, and he was weeping into the phone that he can't understand why he drank again after all he's done for God. He can't understand why he gets on his knees and begs God not to ever let him drink again, and he's drunk again. What's that about? But see, it's not lack of faith. It's lack of power.

And there's a big difference. You can have all the faith in the world, pray fervently, read spiritual literature, have the big book memorized, the bible memorized, and still die of alcoholism. That's why recovery from alcoholism sometimes in in workshops like this, the danger is is that we present this as if it's an academic process. And it's never an academic process. It's an experiential process.

That I must internalize this. It starts in a place that it talks about where step 1 is supposed to happen. It says that we learned we had to fully concede to a place most of us have lost touch with. We must fully concede to our innermost selves that we were alcoholic. This is the first step in recovery.

That's not up here. That's not up here. That's somewhere else. Somewhere that most alcoholics, myself for sure, was disconnected from. Not in in this disease of separation, not only am I separate from God and I'm separate from you and don't fit with you, but I am disconnected from myself.

I am not of myself, I am something other, and don't know how to get I can't get home. That's the problem. I can't get home, and I'm lost. See, lack of power is my dilemma. And Alcoholics Anonymous is really about a search for power.

It's a process that's designed not to find the power. I will tell you something. If you're new, you won't believe. The power's already in you. It's a process designed to remove the things that obscure and block you from that power.

That's the process. That spiritual growth is never never seems to come from addition or acquisition. It comes from subtraction. I must uncover, discover, and discard the things inside of me that that are aspects of self that are blocking me, blocking me from you. And in alcohol, we all know that feeling of anxious apartness, that separation, that feeling that sometimes overcomes us.

It's a it's a painful loneliness where it's all of you and then there's me, separate and apart from. I'm blocked from God, a God I can I can pray fervently towards and can't consciously connect with? And I am blocked from myself and lost from myself. The great, psychiatrist Carl Jung in the in the early 19 sixties wrote a letter to Bill Wilson. He said something that when I read it, it just hit me.

And I knew that this was true. Carl Young said to Bill Wilson that he always suspected, as a result of working with alcoholics over the years, something that he was afraid to tell Roland Hazard. And what he'd always suspected that the alcoholic's thirst for alcohol wasn't really a thirst for alcohol. It's a thirst of my being for unity, for connectedness or as in in religious terms, a union with God. I drank because of a yearning to return to that from which I came.

I drank because of a yearning to go home. A home that I could not find. Because I kept looking in the wrong places and it's really somewhere I would never look. It's in here. And I couldn't believe that.

And and in step 2, there's on on page 46, it it talks about just 2 very simple things. If I can do very 2 very simple things, I I will begin to head in the direction of this power. And the first thing it says it says we found as soon as we were able to first lay aside prejudice. I've never met an alcoholic yet that hasn't had prejudices. They're about and you know the sad part about that is that I don't know their prejudices.

It never occurs to me this is a prejudice. This is just the way it is. That's not a prejudice. That's just reality. And what what are some of the prejudices that that block block us from God?

I'll tell you a very common one that most of us seem to have. And it's it's an unconscious thought, but yet a motivating sense of reality, is that if there is a God, he probably wouldn't help me on a day that I just did something I couldn't stand myself for. On the day you've just done something you're so ashamed of, I secretly believed with every fiber in me that at those moments, God and his grace and his power was unaccept accessible to me. And I'll tell you something, If you have that prejudice, you were in a lot of trouble because it is in those moments that you need God the most. And God never turns his back on me.

What happens in those moments, I'm the one who turns away because of I believe, my ego tells me that I'm not good enough to receive God's grace at those times. And that's one of a lot a lot of old ideas that I had to uncover and let go of. And and it doesn't say that there we have to get rid of them completely. I can just lay them aside. And one of the reasons Frank and some of these guys that are members of clergy have a problem with accessing this power is that they believe that their ideas are the right kind.

And they don't have to lay them aside and become childlike. Get to that point of ultimate humility where you realize you don't know anything. And that is, I think, where it all starts. Is it from a point of brokenness where you know you don't know? And that's a hard thing to do.

And then the second thing it says is is express even a willingness. And it says if we can do those two things, if we can lay aside our prejudices and express a willingness, the book says we'll commence to get results, even though none of us were able to fully comprehend or understand that power which is God. This thing in me and in a lot of us that wants to understand God is just a phony seeking of power. Why do you wanna understand God? Why do you wanna read a lot of literature?

Why about God? Why would you wanna better know God? The same reason you wanna better understand your boss at work. Because if you can understand him, you're gonna get a little leverage. You're gonna get a little juice at work.

You're gonna get a little bit of manipulative power here. And I wanna I got some people that need straightening out. I got come on, God. I want God I want God to be my personal Santa Claus that I can give a list to for Christmas. And give me this, give me this, give me this.

So I can understand God never can. If he was small enough for me to understand, he probably wouldn't be big enough to help me. So they're they're telling me that I have to express a willingness. Well, how do we express a willingness? Well, a couple ways.

Now I don't believe in God and the old timers and they told me that I had to physically get down on my knees every morning and turn my my consciousness towards whatever was running the universe and ask for help. And I was living in a in a halfway house, down near Skid Row where just a lot of homeless alcoholics lived. And I lived there. And and I would go in the bathroom, and I'd lock the door, and I'd push the throw rug up underneath the crack in the door because I'm afraid someone's gonna peek under the door and see me pray. That's how it's that's isn't that crazy?

I would be that paranoid about praying. I would feel I'd feel awful about doing it. I'd feel like this is stupid. Oh, this is, but I'd do it. I'd do it.

I get down on my knees, and I'd I'd say that prayer, and get up off my knees, and go out the door, and go to work. And And something started happening to me. I started to experience a bunch of coincidences in my life and they were all in my favor. Out of nowhere, I got I got the perfect job. It got me out of a bad situation and into a better one.

I I can't tell you how many dozens and dozens of times I would be just insane. And my emotions are just just beating me up. And I don't know what's wrong, and I don't know what to do, and I don't even understand. I just why I feel so bad and I can't get out of my head and I'm so screwed up. And I would ask God for help.

And I would go to a meeting and there would be some strange, And I would go to a meeting and there would be some stranger in the meeting talking about what's going on with me. Exactly. In a way that it's like the lights go on and I go, Oh, my God. That's it. I don't have to go in and quit my job.

I have to make amends to my boss. Who would have thought? I would have never thought that. I'm all set to quit my job and I'm hearing some other guy talk about exactly how I feel and I'm going, yeah. Yeah.

Oh. Oh, yeah. Okay. And he had to make amends I gotta make I gotta make amends to my boss? That would have never occurred to me, never occurred to me.

And I started to see the hand of God working in my life from the moment I was willing to turn my consciousness towards him. Not from the moment I believed because I didn't believe. I didn't believe in God. All I believed in was my own hopelessness. I believed in my own lack of power.