Q & A session at the CPH12 v8 convention in Copenhagen, Denmark

Bob, I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Bob. We're gonna kinda go back and forth in each comment. Why don't you stand up here so we can we'll just kinda go back and forth. First question, why are Icelandic people more spiritual than Danish people?

I think Harder. That's not really a question. I'm just kidding. Here's a good question. It says, all this talk about being self centered, not doing for me, but for others.

How can I be helpful to others? How do you know it's not it's god's will or codependency? Still trying to people please to fix me from the outside. You You know, what I've what I've discovered is that if it has to do with if if you can attach the word your to it, it's probably not altruistic. In other words, if it has to do with your relationship or your family or your children or your friends.

It's an element of self. Real altruistic, agape love is about helping others for no reason at all. That's one of the one of the ways that a guy like me who's very self centered learns how to love and to be free of myself is to go out there and help people who can't do anything for me. Mhmm. They will it will never serve self to help them.

They're never gonna give me any credit for anything. They can't get me a better job. I'm not gonna sleep with them. There's nothing there that gratifies or does anything for me, and there's no reason to help them or do anything or even love them except in the process of doing that, I will learn how to love Mhmm. Without serving self.

You wanna comment on here? Sure. Have you guys ever heard of something called the 4 absolutes? I love the 4 absolutes. With any given circumstance or relationship, I tried to take these 4 principles and ask myself, you know, absolute absolute love, absolute honesty, absolute unselfishness, and absolute purity.

So it's saying here, how do I know that I'm not in codependency? Well, the fact is is is if I'm looking at a circumstance or relationship and I'm not practicing those absolutes to some degree, then I'm in codependency. I'm in self. You know, so when I when I'm looking at a circumstance and I say, well, how should Carrie behave? Carrie should be kind.

Carrie should be loving. Her motives should be pure. She'd be unselfish. I should be honest. If I Bob said it perfectly yesterday when he says if I have to explain or defend.

You know, my sponsor taught me. She said, Carrie, yes and no are one word sentences. There is no explanation needed. So but if I'm explaining in my head, I'm probably attached to the outcome. And I love it.

The you know, with the big book in the back, you know, it depends on your the edition you have and obviously the language it's in. But there's the doctor, addict, alcoholic, or now the newly titled Acceptance is the Answer. And it has this passage that talks about acceptances. This acceptance, you know, is, an answer to all my problems today. And in those passages, it talks about not being attached to the outcome, That I go into situations and I try to bring honesty, unselfish, love, kindness, tolerance, and I try not to be attached to how you receive that, to just bring it.

If you receive it and you love me back, wonderful. If I bring love just for the pure sake of bringing love, wonderful. Then I grow spiritually. So for me, in these circumstances, applying the 4 absolutes, really checking my motives, if I'm overanalyzing justification, rationalization, and just really being honest with myself about any given circumstance and asking God to show me the truth. I tend to be able to see the truth.

The The bottom line is if you think you're being codependent, you probably are. Because when you're loving, you're not thinking about how other people are receiving your love. You're just giving it, just like a baby gives you a smile just because. Anyway, that's my experience. My my sponsor is not an advocate of alcoholics going to Al Anon or COTA or ACUA, And he is one that believes that if an alcoholic is going to another one of those 12 step programs, it's because he there's something he doesn't wanna do in his own program.

And what I've discovered is a lot of guys that I've sponsored that wanted to go to CODA or Al Anon, it's really because they do not wanna surrender their relationships completely. They want to go there trying to find a way to manage them, trying to get information, as if it's from addition, that it's really a matter of letting go. And if you don't if you don't if you wanna learn tricks on how to better manage a relationship, that would be the natural play. That's where I would go, you know, if I don't wanna surrender it. Next question.

If I don't believe in God or a higher power, what can I do, for example, step 2 and 3? I don't know that you have to believe in God. I think there's a line in our book. It says that we it says before we ever come to believe in god, I think you believe in god later. Like, maybe somewhere in between step 5 and step 9 or some even maybe even up into 10 or 11, where you really start to know the presence of God.

I think all you have to do is you have to believe in the hopeless futility and hopelessness of your condition. In other words, if you just get that you're you are toast, if you just get that you are hopeless, if you just get and I think this power in this universe, whatever it is, deplores a vacuum. And if you just get that you can't, maybe you'll find something that can't. You wanna comment on that? Well, what I do with the women that I work with when they have a they have trouble believing in god or a higher power.

Oh, sorry. I have to get closer to the moke the mic. Stand on my tippy toes. When the women that I sponsor are having trouble believing in a higher power. For one, you know, Bob is absolutely correct that that that the steps don't require that.

They just require a willingness. What I tell them is, do you believe that this process works? Can this process, the 12 steps, be a higher power to you? If you believe in spiritual principles and the spiritual principles of this program, are you willing to submit to the process, follow the directions, and find out what happens? To me, it's a very simple bet.

The life, the way that I've been living it, has been very unsuccessful. Other people in AA who work the 12 steps get better. What are my odds? Well, if I continue to do what I'm doing, I'll die an alcoholic death. That kind of sucks.

I can work the 12 steps. And I might, just might, on the outside chance, experience what they experience. So really, the first time, and honestly, the first time I went through the steps, I didn't believe in God. I hated God. I wasn't giving God anything.

But what I was willing to do was to believe that this step process worked. And that willingness to believe in this process opened me up to a higher power. So good orderly direction is a beautiful thing. Thank you for letting me share. This is an interesting question.

Bob, what will it help, AA, if celebrities if celebrity Britney Spears got recovered in AA? Well, I know a whole bunch of guys that are waiting to sponsor her. I don't know how spiritual that'll be. I'll tell you something I've observed. You know, living in Las Vegas, we see some of this.

You see it more in places like California and New York, where, very famous people will come into Alcoholics Anonymous, and I'll tell you, they have a tough time recovering, and it's it's our fault. Mhmm. Because we won't allow them to be another member of Alcoholics Anonymous. We treat them special. They get sponsors that will not expect or demand the same thing from them that they would from other people because they're they don't we don't wanna hurt Britney's feelings.

Besides, she might get another sponsor, and then how would I look? You know, we treat them different. I've I've, heard stories of of people coming into meetings that are brand new. They're dying of alcoholism. They're very famous people.

And people come up and wanna give them scripts, you know, for things plays they've written, and they wanna offer them business deals, and they they wanna get their autograph. And those people never have a chance. Mhmm. I think this I think we have a responsibility of of, as members of Alcoholics Anonymous, not to treat anyone here any differently. That this in the back of the book, in the medical view of alcoholism, one of the doctors talks about one of the powers of Alcoholics Anonymous as it plays not only on the force, the spiritual force found in religion, but also on the herd instinct, that we must always be part of a herd.

That's all we are here. I I'll tell you something. I I think this dangerous in AA. I think getting up here and doing what we're doing is dangerous. I think it feeds something that should be starved.

And the only way I think guys like me are able to get away with this without imploding on our own wonderfulness is is that I I stay in the trenches. I go down to, Skid Row a couple times a week, and I work with the the lowest of the low. I go into jails. I go into a jail meeting once a week. I have a sponsor that will keep me right sized because every time I just start to puff up at all, he's always shooting me down.

Just I mean, just bring and it's not it's not out of what he's doing is bringing me back to reality. Reality. That I'm a guy who was I'm I'm under a death sentence here. And the worst I've watched guys in Alcoholics Anonymous. Some of them are not alive anymore.

Some of them are drinking again, who became who allowed what people said about them in the fellowship to go to their head, and they started to believe it. Because they spoke a lot, and they helped a lot of people. It's very, very dangerous. This should always be principles before personalities, before my personality. That's the only personality here that's out to get me, is mine.

Wanna comment on that? You actually went exactly where I wanted to go. You know, I was gonna ask anybody to consider whether or not they treat other people special in Alcoholics Anonymous. Like, you know, my sponsor has this thing where she asked me to be honest with her. She has some we have something called do you ever it's called spiritual license.

And it means that if I see my sponsor about to trip, that I have a responsibility as a fellow member of AquaX Anonymous, say, can you consider that there's a rock in front of you? You know, and my sponsees have the same. That my sponsees know that I'm human, that I have clay feet, that I am not perfect, and I never claimed to be. And that they have a responsibility as fellow children of God if they see me about to do something really dumb. To point out to me, Carrie, can you consider that's not a bright idea to do?

You know, and and it's something that a friend of mine talked to me about. I had this friend who was over 20 years sober and, he got sober about the same age as I did and we got along very well. And he spoke all kinds of places and he was a big shot. And he was slowly dying an alcoholic death. And all the rest of us around him Can you consider?

And we were all scared because this guy's the authority. He's the big deal. He's the show. And he almost drank. And when he was dying an alcoholic death, depressed and miserable in Alcoholics Anonymous, I went up to him one day and I said, what's wrong?

And he goes, no none of you guys really love me. You come to me. You ask me for advice. You come to me. You ask me what I need to do.

You know, you share your problems with me, but nobody except for you, Kerry, has ever asked me how I'm doing. And I only asked because he looked like he was about to cry. It wasn't because I'm virtuous, I just happened to notice that day. And I realized how incredibly selfish I was by treating him like an inexhaustible resource instead of a human being. You know, we're walking shoulder to shoulder, guys.

And, I'm as responsible to be honest with you about where you're at and listen to you. Ask your sponsor how she's doing or he's doing. Give a crap. Because we only have each other. You know.

So, like, we create celebrities and Alcoholics Anonymous just the way we create celebrities and personalities in the media. And it's my spiritual responsibility to put away my fear of looking bad, my fear of upsetting people, and honestly try to be a loving, kind human being and do for them what they do for me. You know? And my friend having almost having a nervous breakdown taught me that. Thank you.

Question. Once you've done the steps and surrendered, can you speak about how one lives in the space between consciousness of a higher power and the difficult decisions one needs to make on a daily basis? How do you know a decision is god centered and not more of me? Well, first of all, there is no surrendered once and for all. It doesn't happen.

As a matter of fact, there's a line in step 11 in the book that I didn't understand it for a long time, because I came here thinking that there is some kind of spiritual destination as a result of these steps. And the line says, we must constantly remind ourselves we're no longer running the show. And I'm sober, probably 15, 17 years sober, and I'm reading that one day, and I'm thinking, well, why would they say we must constantly remind ourselves we're no longer running the show? And I realized, oh my god. It's because I'm constantly trying to run the show.

That is what it is to be alcoholic. That is the nature of this malady. It's not something that you put behind you and never do that again. You're gonna constantly have the inclination, the propensity to play god. That's that's why alcoholism, this malady, this spiritual malady is a chronic illness.

It's not an acute illness like pneumonia where you can medicate it and put it behind you and no longer have a problem with pneumonia. This is more like diabetes of the spirit. Every single day is the day when I must adjust my spiritual blood sugar level, because my natural inclination is to unsurrender myself and play god. There is no destination. And there's there's a lot of things in Alcoholics Anonymous that that are views of spiritual of a spiritual path.

And one of them and this really helps me a lot with decisions in my life and my approach to life. On page 100, it says both you and the new man must walk day by day on the path of spiritual progress. Now that's a view of spiritual progress that where I'm not doing this alone. And any plan, I believe, for spiritual progress that's all about you and making you more wonderful or more happy, is not a plan for spiritual progress. It's one more subtle, self delusional plan for selfgrandizement, self self self self self.

I there's a thing in the book. It says when when when in doubt, will pause while agitated. You know, any I've discovered something else. Any decision in my life that I feel have that has a sense of urgency, the urgency comes from self will. There is no urgency in God in the realm of the spirit.

That is only the urgency in here from self. And I some of the one of the questions, I have to ask myself sometimes is, am I willing to live with this situation unresolved? And sometimes I'll go, hell no. But I'm if I if that's the answer, then I'm not surrendered. You know, and I shouldn't I can I shouldn't kid Bob about Bob?

I should realize that once once again, I'm in charge. I have the the words, what I want doesn't matter. I have them Well, I like to tattoo them to the inside of my eyelids. But, I mean, I have them written all over my house. I have them on my dashboard of my car.

I have it on my fridge. I have it on my my computer monitor. I have to remind myself all day long that what I want in any given situation doesn't matter. That it's my job to show up. That the outcome is none of my business.

You know, every morning in my morning meditation, I try and I say out loud, God I put my hand out And I say, God, I put out my hand. I outstretch my hand to you. And I ask you to take my hand and walk with me through my life. That I give my decision making. I don't make decisions anymore.

I give my decision making process over to God, and I let God make decisions for me. There are things or circumstances when I absolutely know in my gut what is right. And, when I'm fighting about something in my heart or my head, it's usually because I don't want to accept that circumstance, whatever it is. So that's why I have a sponsor. That's why I have a network.

That's why I have 10 step buddies that I can't wait to talk about. That's why I do written nightly review. And that's why I do a lot of those things. Because there are ways. There are things.

There are tools. That's why the big book talks about the kit of spiritual tools that are laid at that's laid at our feet by our sponsor. There are things that help me to understand, or to know what to do in my life. But in the end, the 4 absolutes, very simple: unselfish, pure, honest, and loving. If I can apply those, or a circumstance, a decision, something that, an opportunity, if those 4 absolutes show up or that the thing, the option that I'm going to take, whether I do a or b, apply the 4 absolutes are there and my and my motives are clear, then it's something in my heart and my gut that I know that I should do.

If I make a decision, take a job, don't take a job, move, don't move. If I'm under the delusion that I'm making a decision in the first place, but if I have an option like that and I'm not clear on those 4 absolutes, then it's probably a self decision. And then it's just my experience that I sit with my sponsor, and we say, is it a kind, loving, unselfish, honest, pure thing to do? And if it's not, then I don't do it. For me, it's just it's very simple I call it spiritual mathematics.

And if I use this formula it is yet to fail me. I failed it because I didn't use it. But if I use it, it doesn't fail. And this is my experience, but there's no substitute for good sponsorship. Period.