Steps 2 and 3 at the CPH12 v9 convention in Copenhagen, Denmark

And now we move on to step 2. Alright. Chapter 4, we agnostics. The first paragraph is very The first paragraph is very important because the first paragraph in Weed Agnostics kind of summarizes, the first three chapters. In the preceding chapters, you have learned something of alcoholism.

Again, when we ask somebody to identify themselves as an alcoholic, it's a good idea for them to understand what we're talking about. What is the definition of alcoholism? Now there was a problem years ago in Alcoholics Anonymous. We were we were involved in incorporating something. I don't remember exactly what it was, but, the lawyers had to get together and define what an alcoholic was, and they they had a hard time defining it.

An alcoholic is somebody that drinks a lot. Well, we're alcoholics and we don't drink anymore. You know, what so so they went back and forth with, you know, what is an alcoholic? A problem drinker? You know, somebody that goes into blackouts?

There was no real way they could agree on exactly what an alcoholic is. Well, the book Alcoholics Anonymous is very specific. They they give a description, not a definition, but they give a description of the alcoholic. So the more characteristics you have in common with the descriptions in this book, the the better chance you are of, of being alcoholic. And they sum it up here, we hope we have made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the nonalcoholic.

If when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking, you have little control over the amount you take, you are probably alcoholic. If that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only a spiritual experience can conquer. Now here's a lot of times where we also get into trouble in AA, a spiritual experience. You know, when I walked into, when I walked into AA, I'm kind of glad they didn't walk up to me at the door and say, hi, Chris. We think you're an alcoholic.

God is gonna be the only one that can help you. I'm kind of glad they didn't put it that way when I first walked through the doors because here's what I would have done. I would have said, okay. Thank you for the information. I'm in the wrong place.

That's not gonna work for me, you know. Because I thought if if there was an interventionary god, if there was a god that cared anything about me, why did, you know, why why was I living the kind of life I was living? Why was I crashing my car into block walls in front of the police station on Quaaludes and then asking them for directions. I mean, you know, why was why was why were these if there is a god, he's like a cosmic Alan Funt. And he's gonna pop out from behind the curtain at any minute and, you know, tell me the joke's on me, you know, because my life was just so bad.

So, in step 2, I like what it says in the step book. It says, the hoop that you need to jump through is larger than you think. There's a lot of really great things that it says about coming to believe in a power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity. Sanity being basically the inability to use, self will or rational thought to stay away from booze. You know, we're we're absolutely lunatic when we when we drink.

As an alcoholic, you don't make a decision to to order a drink and drink it or buy a bottle and drink it from a sane state of mind. Every one of you in here, if you be alcoholic, knows that drinking is really a bad idea for you because you lose all control and you wake up in the morning with a summons from the police in your pocket for a DWI, or, you know, you've found that you've been thrown out of your house, or I mean, anything can happen. So you know it's a bad idea. So any decision to drink, our ego likes us to think it's our decision. I decided to drink.

Well, think about this, it you can't make that decision you can't make that decision based on a sane state of mind. It has to come from a place of insanity. It has to come from a place whereby you don't know the truth from the false. It has to. So for us to be restored to sanity, it doesn't mean that we're paranoid schizophrenics, you know, with multiple personality disorders.

Some of us are, but not all of us. It means it means where alcohol is concerned, we don't act sanely or rationally. So we need to be restored to sane and rational thought. Jumping ahead very briefly to step 10 is where we've been restored to sanity. We think about alcohol safely and normally.

You know, if we see alcohol, near us, we'll react as if it's a hot flame. We we will, you know, I wouldn't sit there with my hand over this candle. Well, that's the way we'll react with alcohol. We'll we'll see it there, but we'll know that it will burn us. Now, when you're unrecovered, when you haven't had a spiritual experience, that's not how you can react.

You can react like, oh, isn't that nice, I think I'll have a toddy. Well, you've just gotten out of Happy Hills for the 4th time, you know, for alcoholic insanity and you're gonna have a toddy. Everybody else is looking at you like you're saying the milkman knows that you're out of your mind, and you're like, what? What what are you looking at me like that for? It's just a toddy.

You're not sane and rational as it concerns alcohol. So we need to be restored to that if we wanna have any chance of recovery, and we find that we can't get to that through human aid. Now what's human aid? Human aid is DAA meetings. Human aid is your therapist or your psychiatrist.

Human aid is your family. Human aid is you. All of those things are well and fine and can contribute to recovery, can contribute to sobriety, but they don't have enough power to be able to, place you in a position to be safe and protected. That power has to come, from a power, greater than ourselves, greater than our own unaided will. It has to come from a power greater than ourselves.

Many of us choose to call that power god, but there is one thing that you need to understand about Alcoholics Anonymous. We are not we are not at all concerned about what kind of a god you believe in, the attributes that you place on on your god, the religious belief, systems or practices that you have, we're we're that's really your business and not ours. If somebody in AA starts coming up to you and telling you that you must believe in their specific god or else you aren't gonna make it, then you've, you know, you're okay to have a problem with that individual. Because it's not alcoholics' job to tell you what kind of a god to believe in, it is our job to tell you if you don't find a relationship with god, you are going to die. You're gonna die an alcoholic death of one kind or another.

That we will tell you, but we're not gonna we're not gonna get involved in the attributes of God. You know, as I'm sitting here listening to Chris, I feel like I'm listening to my first sponsor because, we're gonna start talking about God here. And I was strong atheist, aerospace engineer by education. Math makes a lot of sense to me. I was able to prove to you that there was not god mathematically.

It was absolutely exhausting and amazing. And it states here, came to believe that a paraglider myself could restore us to sanity. And and I'm glad Chris, hit it right on the nose. We're not insane people and don't believe you're insane. Oh, I got this alcoholic thinking.

Everybody has that thinking whether you're an alcoholic or a normie as we call it. We're all humans and we have some just crazy thoughts sometimes. And so it's not just limited to us, the alcoholic. And I don't like when we put ourselves down because we have unlimited power. We actually have more power, if you can believe this, than the normies because we have tapped into this sense of power through the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Like, when I watch the normies go through pain, I feel for them. I have all you. I could go anywhere and it's it's amazing when I when I move to a new town and I'm walking with a with a friend who has been there for 20 years and I'm saying hi to everybody. They're like, how do you know all these people? Well, they're all AA people.

You know, I I get an instant 4,000 friends in any town I go to. So it's truly amazing. So when my sponsor brought me through this step and he says, if that be the case, because you just agreed that you are the real deal, the real alcoholic, if that be the case and only a spiritual experience will conquer that, what do you think? And And I said, well well, we're gonna have to change this wording a little bit for me because I don't believe in god. And he says, then you're hosed.

I'm like, well, what do you mean? He goes, you're gonna die. I'm like, well, there's gotta be an out. There's there's probably a lot of people like me. He says, yeah.

And they're all drinking and dead. And, so, I thought to myself, well, I'm gonna have to find this god, I guess. It's not good. It's it's not gonna work for me. He says, but you're only on step 2.

He kept reminding me that step 12 said, having had a spiritual awakening as the singular results of these steps. He says, so relax. And we kept moving forward, unlike those other traditional sponsors that said, just wait and and when you find God, and then we'll move on to step 4. Well, that gives them about 3 years. Right?

Which is Before they have to deal with me because I would have never found God. I mean, I'm walking through the woods looking for burning bushes. You know, where's this God? Yeah. Here God.

Here God. I couldn't find God. You know? Because I had to work the steps. After the 9th step which I'll tell you about my spiritual awakening which was on an airplane which is the most embarrassing moment of my life.

You're gonna love this one. But I found him. You know, it was 37,000 feet but you know, you're never gonna fly again. So just get ready for tonight. So that's how I got over that.

The thing is, came to believe and it's the sanity part. It's that sanity. I'm not insane. I found that out. I used to listen to all these meetings.

Oh, you know, I'm an alcoholic thinker. What what do you mean you're an alcoholic thinker? I I don't get it. I got these crazy thoughts and so does my sister and she's not an alcoholic and so do my friends and my wife and you know what I mean? So don't put yourself down.

You have a lot of power. And the next thing it says here is lack of power, that was our dilemma. Remember yesterday we talked about a purpose. The main purpose of this book was to show you precisely, exactly how we have recovered. Let's look at the object.

It says, lack of power that was our dilemma. To find a power by which we could live and it had to be a power greater than ourselves, obviously, but where and how are we gonna find this power? In the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous folks, whenever they ask you a question, they answer it in the next paragraph. This is the answer. Well, that's exactly what this book is about.

Its main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which will solve your problems. It doesn't say alcoholic problems, it will solve all your problems. Right? So we have a purpose. The main purpose is to show you precisely, exactly how we have recovered.

The main object, because the only way to get there is through a spiritual experience, so the main object of this book is to help you find that spiritual experience. So why are we not screaming this from the hilltops? It it it has the answers. It has the solution. And it's just because it's not that a a people are mean, it's just that they haven't been shown.

They only know this oral tradition, this speaking, and and you know how oral stuff comes. It just gets watered down and watered down and watered down to finally you're at the point where you say don't drink, go to meetings. And you're relapsing and the guy goes welcome back, we love you anyway. We love you to you. Love yourself.

You're the most important person in the room. Yeah. Let's talk about let's talk about selfishness. I'm the most important person in this room. Work a selfish program.

So as I keep drinking I'll be the most important person here. Yeah. And then we throw parties for you. I mean, anyway, I'm not gonna get into that. I'll go I'll go on and I'm gonna go off on that one.

Continue. I I love analogies because they're easy to remember and, sometimes we can make them our own. And I've I've heard this, I heard this one and and it's it's truly great. Let's say you're you're new in Copenhagen. You've just moved here from Iceland or something, a lot of you guys out there from Iceland, you just moved here, and you got a car that's not running right.

It's running really terrible. Now right down the street is a is a mechanic, car mechanic, who, who can help you, fix it maybe. You don't know because you have no experience, but you you believe that he's a mechanic, so he could probably fix your car. But you you don't have any you don't know whether he's a good one or a bad one. But you don't have a better option, so you take your car down to this mechanic.

And the mechanic not only fixes the problem, but but when you get it back, it's never it's tuned up. It's never run better. Everything's aligned. It's it feels like a new car. Now now you have experience with that particular mechanic, And the next time you need car work, you're gonna have faith in that mechanic.

Okay? So belief is maybe, Faith is I've got experience, and I'm sure. Alright? Now we are only asking you for belief in step 2, to believe that there's a power greater than yourself that can restore you to sanity because the the faith usually comes after you've given this a chance, after you've given it a shot. Once you start to do some of these spiritual exercises, once you start to gain experience with the practices in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, you're gonna you're gonna jump from, what does it say, the the the bridge of reason to the shore of faith.

You're gonna go from belief to faith. Now we're just asking you to believe. And another another analogy, that we're basically, is is a good one for this is, I learned this from one of my favorite speakers over in the states talks about this. Let's say that you are, were you work in a parachute factory making parachutes. And this is the the craziest cast of characters on the assembly line you've ever seen.

Not a one of them is doing their job right. They're not packing it right. It's the wrong material. You know? The ripcords don't look like they'll ever, you know, be able to take a tug.

I mean, this whole package is just bad, and these things are going out to the to the public, off the assembly line. You just there's not a chance these things are gonna work. Okay, you're on vacation, you take a vacation down in Bermuda or whatever and you're flying in a plane and all of a sudden the pilot goes, oh my god, oh my god, the engine's conking out, we're gonna crash, grab the put on a parachute quick, we're gonna have to jump, it's our only chance. And you reach underneath the seat and you pull out one of your parachutes. Like, oh, no.

Out of all the parachutes I can have, here's one that I made. And this is never gonna work. So you you put the thing on and you jump out of the plane. Now on the way down, are you gonna be so sure that it it's not gonna work that you're not gonna try pulling the ripcord? You're gonna pull the ripcord, right?

You got nothing to lose. You're going down. Now this is kind of what we're asking you in AA. You're going down. You know, on your own unaided will, are you going down or are you going down?

Every day it gets worse out there. So what we're doing in, basically, in step 2 is we're asking you to just believe that it might be a good idea to pull the ripcord. What have you got to lose? So let's let's consider some of these, some of these, possibilities as far as a power greater than our self is concerned. Are we so sure that God is not gonna intervene in our lives, that we're just gonna forget it all and go die, or are we gonna quite possibly decide to pull the ripcord because we wanna live?

That's the place that a lot of us get to. A lot of us just start start to come to believe that, well, maybe maybe this AA stuff will work. Maybe this god idea might offer some hope. So for you atheists out there, I was sitting in, my home in, Florida, and my sponsor said to me, came to believe a borrower greater than yourself can restore you to sanity. And I said to him, he read that little paragraph, and I said, I I can't do this.

He said, alright. He says, can you do this? Can you believe that for the last 90 days that the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous has restored you to sanity? You haven't drank. You haven't beaten anybody.

You haven't harmed yourself. You haven't harmed others. And I thought to him, I said, yeah. I I said, I could do that. I could do that.

And he just kept pushing me forward because he knew he knew in his heart of hearts that when I truly did the steps as outlined in this book, I would have a spiritual awakening, the obsession of alcohol would go away, and I would leave a beautiful life, which has happened to me. And so it says here on page 46 in the last paragraph, much to our relief, we discover we did not need to consider another's conception of God, And this is why we need to find people that know this book because as he's walking me through this book, he read that to me. I'm like, so I'm not the only one that thinks like this? You know? I thought I was tainted.

I thought I was the only one who thought like this, but I'm not the only one who thinks like this. So he says, our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make an approach to effect a contact with him. As soon as we admitted the possible existence of a creative intelligence, the spirit of the universe, underlying the totality of things, we began to possess of a new sense of power. So I'm not powerless. I'm getting more power as it says here.

All I have to do is just believe. So it says here I'm getting a new sense of power and direction provided, and they always have conditions in the big book, provided we took other simple steps. Other simple steps, meaning working the rest of the steps in the big book of alcohol and synonymous. And then it comes here and it asks us this question and this is step 2. Step 2 is on page 47, second paragraph.

We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. Do I now believe or am I willing to believe that there is a power greater than myself? And I stop. And I look at the sponsor and I say that. And my sponsor asked me this and I said, I do not believe and I am not willing to believe.

And he says, okay. He says, then you're dead. And he closes the book. And I said, will you stop this dead thing? And he looked at me and goes, well, why move any further?

I said, because you told me in step 12 that I was gonna get this, so let's move forward. And he looked and he goes, oh, so you have been listening. And he says, that's when he came up with, well, you believe that the rooms of Alcoholist Anonymous have kept you to sanity. I said, yes. He says, okay.

So in in in your own warped way of thinking, you believe that right now, the rooms of Alcoholist Anonymous will help you continue with the rest of the steps so that you can get a spiritual awakening which will relieve the obsession of alcoholism and given you in life that you cannot believe that you'll ever have. And I said, okay. We could do that. So it says here, as soon as a man can say that he does believe or is willing to believe, as I did, it says, we emphatically assure him that he is on his way. And that is a true statement to make.

And that's what happened to me. It says many of us have been so touchy about casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to be abandoned. So he says get over it. He says get over it.

He says keep an open mind, believe that I believe, and believe that by working these steps, you will receive the obsession of the mind, it will be relieved, You will no longer drink again, and you will help others achieve to be all they could be. It says, we who have traveled this dubious path beg. How many alcoholics do you know beg? We don't beg much, do we? They're begging.

Beg you to lay aside prejudice against organized religion. That was very hard for me to do. I'll read the, 7th, the, second step promises here in a minute right after Chris is done. Why don't we keep it this simple? Everyone in here who's either, who either believes that there's a power greater than themselves that can restore them to sanity or is willing to believe that there's a power greater than themselves that can restore them to sanity, just raise your hand.

Okay. That's practically everybody in here. That's pretty good. Let's hear the promises though. Okay.

So these are the promises. It says, and I love this. Here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed, they flatly declare. They flatly declare. They all agree.

I'm gonna I'll I'll take a survey. Us 3, let's figure out where we're gonna go for lunch today and not get in an argument and try to figure this out in 5 minutes. 3 of us couldn't figure out where to well, we'd probably go to that pork place again. God, that was great. How about sushi?

Or so we could do sushi. See, but I like Italian. So here we go. Okay? It starts.

But here are thousands of men and women, worldly indeed, they flatly declare that since they have come to believe in a power greater than themselves, which is step 2, to take a certain attitude towards that power, which is step 3, and to do certain simple things, which is steps 4 through 12, there has been a revolutionary change in their way of living and thinking. In the face of collapse and despair, in the face of total failure of their human resources, they found that a new power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction flowed into them. This happened soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements. And the few simple requirements are the 12 steps. And this is the proof.

When many hundreds of people are unable are able to say here they go again. When 100 of people are able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, they present a powerful reason why one should have faith. And that's it for me. I think, we got a break coming up here. Yeah.

That's it. Okay. We're gonna take a 10 minute break. Yeah. You wanna you wanna take us out, Eric?

Yeah. Hi, Eric. I'm an alcoholic. Alright. Not sure if this works.

Does it? Yeah. Okay. Let's see. Yeah.

10 minute break, and we're coming back sharp at 11. Just to let you know, we now have fresh sandwiches in the snack bar, and there's a sign up sheet by the bookstore for, for Doug's 12 step, worksheets. And that's it. See you in 10 minutes. Thanks.

So that worked out good. That's it. That worked out good. Yeah. Yeah.

That's it. Everybody back? I think, is the tape rolling? Tape rolling? My name is in Denmark on this chilly morning being from Florida.

It's just downright cold to me. But, it's absolutely beautiful. Beautiful country you all have here. As we move on, through step 2, just to recap step 2, On the worksheets, that that you all have been sending your email out to, I, I wrote up a step 2 worksheet. And I did this with, my sponsor who's a historian, from Sarasota, Florida, Doug Kaye.

And, what we did here is we, went through We the Agnostics. We wrote down the page number and the paragraph and we divide it into 3 categories. What the problem is of being an atheist. It's tough living life like that. The action is the 2nd column that you need to take to get to the 3rd column which is called the solution.

And the solution is, of course, finding a god, finding a a power of of your understanding. And, of which I found that power by, by working the steps. Now, what happens is you're gonna hear some sponsors out there saying, you know, tell me when you get the 3rd step. Well, I don't know how to get the 3rd step, but if if I was to be left in that second, 3rd step column, I would've been dead because I would I would've relapsed. There's no doubt in my mind I would've relapsed.

But by having a sponsor who knew the history of Alcoholics Anonymous, as Chris and I are teaching you today, this weekend, he was able to send me through the steps eloquently, quickly to find a power greater than myself which relieved the obsession of alcoholism, which means I no longer put alcohol in my body or drugs or any other kind of mood altering drugs, and I no longer have that obsession. Okay? And, he knew that I needed to move through these steps at a pretty darn quick rate. I was talking to somebody outside and they asked me about the speed at which I take people through the steps. That's always a question.

Are you missing something? The only thing I wanna do in the 1st round of when I meet with a is give them this solution. I give them a solution in 4 hours. I literally write their 4th step for them. I write it.

I don't wanna know the little things like my father slapped me when I was 4. Whatever. I wanna know the big meaty stuff. As we call it in America, the thing. The thing.

The thing that we're not gonna tell anybody, the thing that we're gonna take to the grave, that is what I'm trying to get out in the 4th step. And then I show them how to do daily inventory and I even have a sheet. Okay? With that daily inventory, you will then learn how to clean up your life and I give you a daily solution. I don't give it to you.

The big book gives it to you. I just kinda put it into forms to make it easier for everybody. Because not being very bright, I got very confused with this book. So over the years, I put it into this form. Okay?

So, just to reiterate, we have the second step worksheet. It shows you in the first column what the problem is. The second column is the action that you need to take to get to the 3rd column, which is the solution, which is God. Okay? Now we're gonna start talking about the 3rd step.

Alright. There's some information that's that's necessary, I believe, for us to look at, as a prelude to taking step 3. I think, the more convinced we are that we need God's help in our life, the better chance we're gonna really actively seek God and start living a spiritual life. Make no mistake about it. If you're alcoholic, alcoholism is your problem, and spiritual living is your solution.

I do not believe not drinking and going to meetings is a treatment for alcoholism. I believe that not drinking and go to meetings, will create a sober atmosphere for you, depending on how alcoholic you are for a finite period of time. Each of us has a grace period, whereby we we can we separate from alcohol, we'll have a grace period until we start to live a spiritual life before we drink again. And each of our grace periods is is different. Some of them can be 15 years, some of them can be 15 days, or even less.

It'll depend on how alcoholic you are. In this book, it talks about the scale of alcoholism. It talks about your your, your particular lack of control over drink, so you can be more alcoholic than somebody else. The saddest thing I see in Alcoholics Anonymous today is, sober alcoholics in the meetings giving somebody who's relapsing a hard time by saying, you just don't want it bad enough. You're just not being honest with your with us.

You you wanna drink more than you wanna stay sober. You know, people that say that are saying that out of a lack of understanding of alcoholism. They just are. If we're powerless over alcohol, we can we can have any kind of desire we want to not drink. If we're powerless, we're drinking.

So, so a lot of times, someone who is, has still maybe some power over choice in drink is looking at someone who has a complete lack of power of choice in drink and judging them as as somebody who is, not willing. And we see that a lot in AA in our area. And it's it really it's sad. It's sad. And and usually the people who are the real alcoholics end up in our group, or working with us.

Right? Right, Doug? Because people say, we don't know what to do with this guy. You know, go see Doug. Yeah.

And that's usually what happens. But, to get back to, the information I want to go over here, is the last person that took me through the steps asked me to do this. Now, you won't find the instructions for this specifically in this chapter, but it's a good exercise to do. In in the big book on page 60, it goes down, down the ABCs. Okay?

A, that we were alcoholic, could not manage our own lives. B, there probably no human power could have relieved us of our alcoholism. And c, god that could could and would if he were sought. Being convinced, we were at step 3, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood him. Just what do we mean by that and just what do we do?

Now, from this paragraph here where it says the first requirement, all the way over to the next page, 62 at the bottom, this is the how and why of it. This is a a really good description of an untreated alcoholic and how they think and how they act. And it's a good idea to translate this into a look at yourself. How we would do that is this. Chris is almost always in collision with something or somebody even though Chris's motives are good.

Chris tries to live by self propulsion. Chris is like an actor who wants to run the whole show and is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery, and the rest of the players his own way. So in other words, turn this description of the alcoholic into, a personal statement about myself and see if it fits, see if it's true. Chris is like the actor who tries to run the whole show. Let's look at that for a minute.

Picture that, you know, picture that there's a play going on up here, and I'm an actor. Chris is an actor. And there's a director and there's a script and there's, everyone plays their own part, but all of a sudden, Chris, the actor, wants to change everything because nobody's doing it right. You know, no no no no, you should be doing this, you should be doing this, And all of a sudden, I try to take over the direction of this play. All of a sudden, all hell is gonna break loose.

Right? Everything's gonna be confusion. Isn't that the way we live our lives? You know, I always had I always had instructions for the wife. This is the way you should do all this.

And, you know, my kids, well, you should be doing this. And my boss, my boss, no. You shouldn't be running the company that way. You should be running it this way. I had instructions and directions for everybody about everything.

I was like the actor trying to run the whole show. And you know what? It wasn't working. You know, my wife would say, you know, Art, you're trying to tell me what to do? I had to lift your head up and turn you over so you didn't drown in your own vomit last night, and you wanna tell me how to live.

You know what I mean? And my boss I tell my boss, well, well, if you'd ever show up for work, I might consider some of your, your suggestions in how I should run my company, but you just blew up a house and and missed 3 days of work. I don't think I'm gonna be considering your suggestions. I mean, it was we're the worst people in the world, You know? Or we'll give relationship advice.

You know? Well, what you should do I mean, you know, what kind of relationships do we have when we're out there drinking? It's tragic, isn't it? My god, it's tragic. I mean, the last girlfriend I had when I was drinking was was a biker old lady, and she used to carry a gun around with her and wanna kill people, and me included, she'd been she'd been an active drug addict for 20 some years.

And, you know, and okay. So I'm gonna get sober and 5 days later give somebody advice on how to have a relationship. Well, what I'd do, Chris, if I wanted your advice, I, you know, I'd go over to your mom's house where you're living, you know, and knock on the door and ask you, but I'm not real interested. So but so this this would really upset me because I I've got a better idea for all of you. And you know what?

If all of you would just do it the way I think you should do it, we'd all be more happy. This is what it says in this book. And it also says that we'll do it through, being nice, like we'll bring you flowers to try to make you do what we want you to do, or we'll do it with threats. I'll kill you if you don't do it. But you and and all this is is really unfortunate for the people that were around because they're like, this guy's crazy or, you know, who did I marry or we we gotta fire this guy, or they wanna distance themselves.

So so we're wondering why we're our life is a failure. We're wondering why we're not achieving the our our lofty ambitions. And this is a great couple of pages because when I first read this in rehab, I first read this in rehab, you know what I thought? Wow. Wow.

This is Harry. I didn't think it was me. I could I couldn't you know, this is my roommate, you know, the guy who's driving me crazy because he's not doing what I say. We have we have to personalize this stuff. We have to personalize this stuff.

Now here are some of the requirements, really, for the 3rd step. And everybody thinks that saying the 3rd step prayer is taking the 3rd step. The 3rd step prayer is an affirmation of a decision that we've already made. By the time we get to the 3rd step prayer and say the 3rd step prayer, we have to be convinced of a couple of things. Now, on the bottom of page 62, this is the how and the why of it.

First of all, we had to quit playing god, it didn't work. Now, that really means telling everybody around us what they need to do and how they should act and how they should live. One of the best things I ever heard in my life was there was this, this great guy, Chuck See from California, and he was huge in the in the sixties seventies. He was probably the most in demand speaker on the West Coast. And he talked about having a talk with his family after he got sober.

And this is what he said to them. I'm I'm trying to live a spiritual life now, and I'm never ever again gonna ask you to do anything. I never ever again will ask any of you to do anything or or be anything. I'm never gonna ask any of that ever again. There's only one thing I'm gonna ask you, and that is if there's anything I can ever do for you, please tell me what that is.

It's the only thing I'm ever gonna ask of you again. And that was a beautiful, beautiful example of the shift in perception that I'm not saying any of us are ever, especially myself, are gonna achieve that level of, of of release from, from from our ego. But imagine being that free, that we can just just let everything go like that and not be involved in all the minutiae of our family and and everybody else's life. Here are the three aspects that, the the 3 the the 3 relationship directives that they really want us, to become aware of with God. Now these are so broad that any religion that you're involved with, any spirituality you're involved with, this should not go in conflict with it.

Alright? These are just, relationship directives as far as your relationship with the power greater than yourself. God is gonna be our director. God is gonna be our principal and God is to be looked on as our father. Now we we, we should consider these things.

We should become comfortable with them before we take the 3rd step affirmation prayer. We should be alright with these. Now it's as simple as it's as simple as this. What's a father? A father usually helps to give, give life to an individual, tries to tries to create an environment where you're protected and safe and cared for, I think that's what God does for me.

What is, what is a principle? A principle think about being a a an insurance salesman or someone. You're an agent, and the principal is the home office. And as long as you as an agent follow certain rules and guidelines when selling the insurance, the home office is gonna back you up and it's gonna put, it's gonna put its weight and authority behind the the policies that, that you write. And the people that you write these policies for will be will be protected.

So as long as you're following the rules, the home office is gonna protect you. As long as we're living a spiritual life, we're we're gonna we're gonna have we're gonna have a sense of power come into our life from god. So god's the principle and we're the agent. And, and god is the director and and we are we're the we're the, we're the directed. We're to be directed.

So through prayer and meditation, we're to learn to develop the intuitive part of our our minds, so that we can get direction from God, from from our heart, so God can direct us. And we learn how to do that through practice with with meditation. It's a wonderful meditation, here this morning, You know, for for anybody that missed it, it was it was, it was spectacular. And, it was a guided meditation, and and the the guidance that led into the meditation were how how can we help the still sick and suffering alcoholic. And, you know, when we when we, when we think about things like that, we're gonna get the guidance, from god to do that, and we're gonna get the power from god to do that and go help the next alcoholic.

So these are basically some of the some of the attributes there is. I also believe that we're we're kind of being directed to take the rest of the steps too. Step 3, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood. So now we're back on the couch in my house, and my sponsor comes in and he gets to his knees. And I said, this has gotta stop.

You're embarrassing me. Get up, sit on the couch, and start Somebody might see. Someone might see this. Right? Falling off the bar stool and and peeing on myself is fine in public.

Getting on your knees is out of control. Embarrassment. Parking on the neighbor's lawn. You know, as I think about that, now that's crazy. That's insanity.

Right? So he wants to do the 3rd step. And the way they used to do it at doctor Bob's house is they'd bring you up to his room and they'd put you on your knees and you would say the 3rd step prayer. And if they didn't believe you, you just stay there and keep saying it until they believed you. That's not good enough.

That's right. Do it again. Yeah. Like the marines in the United States. Do it.

Turn it over. No. So, he said, he said to me, made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God as we understood him. Are you willing to turn your your life and your will over to the care of God? And I said, no.

And he said, then you're gonna die. And he closed the book again. So here he is closing the book again, he, he's doing this dying thing and I'm doing all this work he wants to go through and, I said, alright, well give me another analogy because I knew we had one stuck away somewhere. And he says, will you this changed my life. Will you make a decision to finish the rest of the steps?