12-step spiritual retreat in Santa Fe, NM

The end result has been the forced limited earning power of Joe preoc preoccupying most of his time to make ends meet. Furthermore, Joe's remaining free time is spent in his studies towards self knowledge. Luckily for Joe, he lives with a very qualified member of Alcoholics Anonymous who has been able to come to his aid and when all other methods have failed. Once again, please excuse Joe knowing that he now has proper guidance. Best regards, Brendan Daly, the number one favorite sponsor.

So what can I say? Right? Okay. Come on in. That'll work.

You can you you know, so you can show up with as long as you have an excuse letter, you can show up. So I don't know why I felt compelled to share that this morning. I just didn't wanna miss that. That is that's just such a treasure to me, this letter now. It really is.

And, on the second step, we won't read a lot of what what it says here, but they're you know, Bill writes in the second step that it's you know, there's, these things about the prosaic steel girder and that visual proof is the weakest kind. I mean, he really goes into it and then he really ends up saying, you know, sometimes we're at odds as to to really tell you why it's better to believe than not to believe. It's a difficult question. And, there's a place where they say where when many thousands of men and women, you know, can tell you that it's this power of god. It's the most important thing in their life.

You know, it presents a powerful reason why one should have faith. And more than all of the stuff that it said in we agnostics, that was the biggest thing for me was that I had people in my life, and I said this last night that I'm so happy that I got sober when I got sober and with the people that I got sober with because I had these examples in my life of these people who were saying that their life was like this and now it's like this, and I believed them. And that this reason was that this belief they had in this power greater than themselves. My first step sponsor, the first guy that ever took me through this book the way that it's outlined here, and it was the facilitator of that very first workshop that I went to, invited me over to his house a lot and and he eventually ended up becoming my sponsor and I did my first fist up with that guy and and, but he invited me to his place. He didn't have a car.

He had this little tiny apartment down in Fremont in Seattle and it was a real flop house. I mean, it was there was a lot of, you know, drugs. I mean, it was just a real cheap cheap place. Had a little studio apartment in there and then he cut mats for a living. Art, these art mats, you know, that people frame art things with.

And and he had a job where he was selling these mats to this frame shop. So we had this big machine set up in a little studio apartment. I mean, there was this bed. There was this big machine that he would cut these mats out for framed art for different 12 inch and all the way up to to big ones. And he would stack these things up and then he would take them down and sell them to these frame shops.

And and, you know, I mean, he just had this life and he was just beaming all the time. And he just told me one day, he just said, Kenny, you know, the sunlight of the spirit shines in my life every day since I've been doing this work. And I just really wanted what this guy had. And he would bring people in off the streets all the time and let people use his place for showers and there was always people crashing. I mean, this guy was, absolutely on fire with this idea of working with others and he helped hundreds of people.

He doesn't live in the Seattle area anymore, but he's and he's moved. And and, and he actually that little art thing he was working on ended up he kinda parlayed that into a career and he's, you know, a very successful artist now and and, sells his own art and somebody else is making mats for him now. But, you know, he had that that deal and that deal, that testimony, that was that presented the most powerful reason for me why I should have faith. And it's really about becoming open minded in step 2. This idea that I can look at step 2 from this place of knowing that, that there are these things in my life like I talked to you about with my my parenting and my finances.

There's things in my life years sober that I am still agnostic about. You know, agnostic is kinda not knowing. There's times when I don't really know is God gonna really step up to the plate here. If I, you know, if I come out here to do Mexico to do this retreat, is God gonna come with me Kind of stuff. You know, that's agnosticism.

Pure and simple. And, you know, the the the deal one of the best stories that they talk about in here is this idea of of being open minded to the spiritual life. Like I talked about that guy that taught me about meditation. I don't discount anything that he says now. I mean, I haven't had that experience, but who am I to say that, that what he wasn't talking about is real?

And I have come to believe that we really do shortchange ourselves in in the spiritual life. And, and the limited thing is is my own close mindedness. That's what limits me from going further. And, Jim and I talked this morning about that. You know, that that we were talking at breakfast and and Jim was telling me that, you know, he has a life today that he could never have even imagined in his wildest dreams.

No matter how much I you know, the biggest vision that I could possibly have had, I could never have had the life that I have today. You know, that came to me through open mindedness and being exposed to to a deeper and deeper level of living the spiritual life. And the the thing that, one of the examples that I've thought of, and this has just come to me recently as well, is this example of that, I was homeless as a teenager. I was homeless again, you know, off and on a couple of times as an adult. And, and I remembered I had this one friend, and his mom had fixed up this garage.

It was like a detached garage. But his mom had fixed up this garage for him and he kinda hung some blankets up and kinda turned it into a bedroom. It was a really cool place because there was no parents around. You could do whatever you wanted out there in the garage. And you know, I used to walk by these houses and I used to look and I think, man, would that be something if those people would let me live in that garage?

I'd put some blankets up. I'd hang some posters. Man, I could put some heat out there. That it'd be great if those people would let me live in that garage. And you know the thing the amazing thing about it is is I never saw the house.

Isn't that something? That just came to me like just a a year or 2 ago. I was thinking about that. I never saw the house. I never imagined in my, you know, my my greatest wishes was that maybe somebody would let me live in their garage.

That's where my mindset was. I never saw a past that I never, like, looked saw, like, maybe someday I'd have a house like this and maybe god would have a a bigger vision for me than that. That I would just that that it was this limited vision that I have. And we, agnostics, is so much about that. So much about our limited vision where the spiritual life is concerned that there, that we are stuck on all kinds of fixed ideas and superstitions.

And they use this example where they say that modern men, the men of today, are not any more intelligent than our ancestors. They they they, you know, people have ways of looking at these things and I don't know if I entirely agree with that, but they say, hey. They've looked back, you know, you know, 100 of years or even 1000 of years in some cases and found that these people had really extremely smart mathematical minds and astronomical minds and and, you know, they weren't. But what limited those people for making progress was and this is out of the big book, this description. You know, Bill says that there are a little bit at odds, but here's a few reasons why we think it's better to believe and not to believe.

And and they said what really fettered these people was these superstitions that they had that you can't do this or you can't do that or this is gonna make the gods matter. That's gonna so they really even though they had these great and wonderful ideas, they didn't really weren't really able to put it in to, they weren't really able to put it into, you know, a better spiritual life for themselves because they were stuck and it stayed that way for a long time. And, you know, there's there's these ideas that some of the greatest you know, movements in mankind and this is outside of the spiritual realm, but, you know, one of the greatest things was fire. They said that really changed human beings forever. You know, the discovery of fire and the control of fire.

That changed things forever. And then one of the big things was the wheel. You know, one of the really huge things was this industrial revolution and that's what Bill was talking about. You know, he was his his generation was right in the middle of that thing. The invention of airplanes and they use a description here written in 1930, 38, published in 39 that they use this description of, of, you know, ask any longshoreman on the street.

Not just me just ask any regular guy, uneducated person if you think that they can get to the moon by means of a rocket ship. And and and, of course, they didn't get there for 30 years. I think it was 1968 before they actually got to the moon. This is 30 years before and they're saying they're saying, oh, yeah. The longshoremen would say, absolutely, we can.

Absolutely. And this is in, you know, this is in the we agnostics is that, you know, Bill uses that description to show that what what times were like this industrial revolution that took place. We're currently in another one. They're saying that this current life that you and I are living now is another one of these huge jumps in in in mankind that will change the human race forever and it's called the Internet. And and, this is, this this huge tool that we're we're kind of a part of watching this.

Bill's deal was this industrial revolution, and it was typified by this open mindedness of being away able to throw away something old that doesn't work and accepting something new that does. And that's the you know, and all these are analogies for the spiritual life that we wanna be able to throw away stuff in the spiritual life that doesn't work for something that does. And if you get stuck on something that's, that becomes, dry or it becomes, stagnant, then this very thing that works so well for you is now the thing that fetters you. And and I believe, and maybe someone will look that up in this in this big book dictionary that but I believe that word fettered that they use in there, you know, it's the it's the ankle bracelets. Like, they'll feather a guy to a wall, you know, with an ankle bracelet and the other piece is, you know, tagged into a piece of cement.

And that's the word they use. We're fettered by superstitions and fixed ideas of all kinds. And sober 17 years, I am fettered by superstitions and fixed ideas. And and, my current sponsor, you know, he he told me to, like, put the big book away for a while. And he said, you know, you gotta be able to blow through that spiritually.

Like, get, you know, get to the other side of what the real means are in that stuff and look at this this bigger picture. It's been a really great experience for me to become open minded, more open minded in the spiritual life is better. You know, closed minded in the spiritual life is fettered. And, you know, there's that idea of, who am I to say there is no God? And and and that bigger picture is is, who am I to say that, you know, my God is is the one and only God or better than your God.

And and I I love that. You know, it's one of those perfect things about what we have here in AA is that I can take somebody through the steps, and I do have some deep spiritual convictions and ideas. But I can take people through the steps all the way and I don't ever share any of that stuff with them. And that's the beautiful thing. That's how I know that I am anonymous in this process because I will go through and these people will start coming up with this stuff on their own.

And it wasn't for me. They just did it through writing inventory doing the prayer and meditation. They start coming up with these beliefs and ideas. One of the very best analogies they give us in we agnostics is they give us this analogy of the Wright brothers. And and I just love that idea because the, you know, the the best mathematical minds of the times that these brothers lived at had proved that man could not fly.

They'd proven it. They had, you know, big sheets and here's why, and and they could write it all out and they could say, you know, this can't be done. So the men of science had firm convictions, can't be done. No use even wasting your time. And then the men of religion on the other side had looked at this deal pretty carefully about man flying.

And they had decided that, you know, God has reserved this right for the birds. You know, human beings shouldn't be doing this stuff. So they were fettered by their fixed ideas. And the men of science, you know, these brilliant minds were fettered and they said, hey. Look at professor Langley.

His flying machine went to the bottom of the Potomac River and that guy was brilliant. And if he can't do it, certainly, you know, our science is right. Man can't fly. The math is correct. So you had the men of science that said that they couldn't do it, proven it.

You had the men of religion saying, You can't do it. The Bible says so. It's a proven deal. Can't fly. But somebody forgot to tell these bicycle mechanics out in Kitty Hawk.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's the same thing. Somebody forgot to tell Kenny that you could have the big house and, you know, you don't have to to be fettered by this idea of somebody will let you live in his garage. And the same thing with Jim, you know, that in my wildest dreams I couldn't imagine.

And I absolutely believe that for me today, I'm probably have just barely scratched the surface. I've probably barely scratched the surface of what really truly is available in the spiritual life. And that's really that's really the the the the gist of the second step is just be open minded enough to admit that maybe there is something there. They go in in the second step. They take a pretty big leap here in we agnostics from, I think it's 46.

Let me just get a page number here for you. From 47, excuse me, they they bring us to this deal we call the second step question. Do I now believe or am I even willing? There's that willingness we talked about. To believe that there is a power greater than myself.

That's the second step question. We kinda talk to people about this. They give us some of these descriptions. Hey, all you gotta do is be willing. That's all they say is just be willing.

They say this is great news for us. And they say before that, they say it's been repeatedly proven among us that upon this simple cornerstone, a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built. So just that that cornerstone of willingness is really all you need here. But then they take us up, a few pages more. To page 53.

So, 6 pages later they're saying in one hand they say, yeah. All you need is willingness. And step and then they bring us up 6 pages later in step 53 and it's something we need to to rectify and they say, when we became alcoholics crushed crushed by a self imposed crisis, we could not postpone or evade. We had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or he is nothing. God either is or he isn't.

What was our choice to be? And that's a lot harder terms than, hey, all you gotta do is be willing, isn't it? Six pages later and it's, you know, I warn people. I tell them, you know, this book will back you into a corner where your spiritual beliefs are concerned. So you have to start asking yourself, what is it that I believe?

You know, what is it that I really believe? Because they come up and they say, hey, we're in this self imposed crisis, which is step 1. You know, that we've finally come to a place where we cannot any longer postpone or evade the question of God is either everything or he's nothing God, either is or he isn't. And I looked at this at one time as only one question. God either is everything or he's nothing.

I'd kinda back my into the god is everything corner. And and I've really come to look at this in a different way because it's not the only choice. There's really 4 choices there. God is everything or god is nothing. And if that doesn't work for you, they say you can go to the God is or God isn't deal too.

If the God is everything question is too much for you, you can go this other route and just say that God is. And, of course, when we're speaking about God, we're always speaking about your own conception of God. Tells us in here we don't even need to consider another's conception. Don't even need to consider it. And, and so the god is question is is a question that that can be answered as we're going through these steps, and it's a question that needs to be answered.

God is everything or he's nothing. And you can look at god is everything and then as god is everything that I live and move and have my being in god. That's a a common idea that there is nothing that is not god. That and, god is everything can mean god is everything to me because without God, I am nothing. You know, I will destroy myself without this power greater than myself.

And if any of those ideas are too much, you can go with just the God is. But any of those answers is enough to really propel you into this idea of making a decision to turn our will and our life over to to God. I don't, I don't talk about the 12 and 12 a lot when I do these these these workshops. It'd be kind of another and a whole another deal to to go through the 12 and 12. But I've been attracted to it more and more the longer I'm sober.

And and one of the things that you know, Bill was 3 and a half years sober when he said this, when he wrote this. And he was 20 years sober when he wrote the the 12 and 12. He had some new experiences. And one of the experiences that he shares with us in step 2 in the 12 and 12, he shares this idea that he said that, and I'm paraphrasing here a little bit. He uses the analogy of the sponsor talking.

He says, well, maybe we can imagine the sponsor talking to the sponsor having this conversation and there's this little conversation in the 12 and 12. And and, he says that that there was a guy who was the vice president in of the American Atheist Association who was one of our members. And it said that and the the bottom line here is what Bill ends up saying is he says this hoop that we have to jump through in step 2, he made the hoop kinda god is everything or god is nothing in in the big book. In the 12 and 12, he said 20, at 20 years sober, he said, you know, this hoop that we have to jump through and step to is bigger than we ever imagined. It's bigger than we ever imagined.

I just love that idea. It's one of the things that I really loved about about about that that that it it isn't a small little thing that we need to to get through. Once in a while, I'll quote scripture or something not because I'm endorsing any of this because it's, you know, part of my experience. And then usually when I do, I'm wrong about it and then somebody that actually knows what they're talking about will come up to me afterwards and say and say, well, Kenny, that's not exactly what they were talking about then. And and that was one of the the misconceptions I had.

There was this idea that it was harder for a person to get to heaven than it was to go through the eye of a of a needle. And and, you know, that was kind of this old conception. Now Bill's talking about this hoop is bigger than we ever imagined that we can jump through in step 2. Only thing really requires is willingness. And then, of course, somebody set me straight on that and they said, well, that's not really what it says.

What it says is harder for a rich man to get through an eye of a needle than it is, than it is to than it is to gain access to heaven. So it's it's, and the idea there is the needle was like the you know, in the towns in those days, they would build these gates around these cities. And then they would have a needle. And the needle once the gate was closed, you'd have to go through the needle at night. And the needle meant you had to leave all your stuff behind.

You have to leave your camel and all your crap behind. Well, rich guys didn't wanna do that. It's harder for them. And that's the idea in the spiritual life. It was just the spiritual axiom that, you know, if I'm gonna go through this, I gotta leave everything behind, Everything that I think I know about God, these steps, the disease of alcoholism.

I have to leave that stuff behind. That's the idea there of that. It it really isn't, a description of that it's really difficult to get to heaven. It's, difficult if I wanna try to bring all of my stuff with me. It's gonna be a little hard.

And that's really what the what the steps are about. The steps are specifically designed to bring us to a place where we can have the spiritual awakening as a result of this. The the the steps force us to leave behind our resentments and our fear and and to to go back into our past and to, set all of these things right. So so with that, let's turn to I know we're moving kinda quickly, but I wanna do this. Let's turn to, how it works to page 60.

This is the the description of the actor trying to play the director. So they say we got a little belief in God and let's now look at our life, you know, with this with this belief that we have in this power greater than ourselves, the actor and the director. And the actor and the director in my life, even 17 years sober, I look at all of these areas where I you know, it is the actor playing the director. That deal with my daughter is definitely, you know, an actor who's you know, I'm here to play a role that god assigns. And, and the craziest thing about this whole thing, we won't go into all of it, but that, they say on page top of page 61, everybody including himself would be pleased.

So that's the insane thing about this is that I'm not only convinced I know what's best for me but I'm convinced I know what's best for everybody else. I know what's best for AA. I know what's best for these people at work. I know what's best for everybody in my family. And it just drives people nuts.

It just drives people completely bananas that that I do this. And, of course, it says what usually happens, the show doesn't come off very well. And that's usually one of those things whether you're going through the steps for the first time or you're going through the steps again that will bring you back into a 3rd step and to start writing inventory again is the show's not coming off very well. The the the Kenny show is is like, you know, gonna close on opening night. I mean, this deal is gonna go down in flames.

And, and, you know, that and it's it's that deal of being convinced that I know what's best for somebody else that that is is really behind this. I know what's best for me. I know what's best for everybody else. If everybody will just be quiet and just kinda go along with my plan here, you know, and it says in your life will be wonderful. Everybody's gonna be pleased.

I become convinced of that. So, we come over on page 63, and we'll talk about the 3rd step a little bit. When we come back in, we're gonna do a little longer meditation, and, and we'll do a 3rd step prayer as a group. And and we'll, for those of you that want to and this is only voluntary and don't feel bad at all. If you don't feel like like praying, you don't feel like, holding hands.

My friend, Mike, in Seattle has a has a really great story. He said that he, you know, he was doing a 3rd step. His first 3rd step was with a group and they lit a candle and they turned the lights down. They played some soft music and he's holding hands with everybody and he's sinking in his mind. He's a new guy sinking.

He was he's thinking, I don't know what I got myself into, so I don't know if we're getting ready to pray or if we're getting ready to have sex here, he says. And so because they had all this mood music and everything. So, but we will will so but if that, you know, if lighting candles and music and prayer, if you're not comfortable with that, coming back in for the next section, you can stand and watch and and do that with your sponsor when the time comes. So, we don't wanna make this uncomfortable for anybody. That's certainly not what we're trying to do here this weekend.

We're gonna do this 3rd step then so we can get that behind us and and and and get to, talking about steps 45, the inventory a little bit, and move on to amends. And we're gonna spend a good chunk of the time we have here this weekend on 10, 11, and 12. 12. So, the I you know, a few ideas about the 3rd step prayer. Are most people here if if most people have done this 3rd step prayer before?

I think so with this group. And AA group ends with this prayer. Good. Good. So that's great.

The the idea here is that, and it's an idea that I've really got comfortable with and I like to clarify to people, like, make a decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of God and what does that really mean? It's it seems like a big task and it's one of these these things that are so perfect about the 12th step because I had spiritual experiences or I had spiritual, I had spiritual experiences that were valid experiences, but they were these experiences that kind of ended with that. And here in hey hey, this is where it kinda begins. You know, these experiences, ended with turning my life over to God and and saying a few prayers and then I was gonna, you know, miraculously, everything was gonna be fine. And I was I was in really bad shape at one time.

There's, they had this big thing called the harvest crusade at Memorial Coliseum. And and, and I went down to the harvest crusade and and they had this, you know, very famous, preacher that was there and he was from California, and he was doing the whole deal. And the stadium was packed. Somebody told me about they were handing out stuff on the streets. They said, yeah.

You ought to come. You ought to come. You ought to come. Well, I went in there and I went up and I kinda did a third step and and, in in their fashion. And and, some people talked to me.

Man, I had a valid experience with that. It was really, you know, a really nice deal. But at the end of the night, Memorial Stadium was empty and I was, back doing drugs, you know, within a few hours actually of that experience. And and I and I never followed through or called. They gave me phone numbers and I'm not saying anything was wrong with that.

But in AA, we have this deal where we make this decision to turn our will in our lives. It's not the action of that. So what am I really deciding when I do this prayer? The decision is to work steps 4 through 9. That is the action of turning my will and my life over to the care of God.

That is my experience. My experience is that when I wrote inventory and when I admitted all of these defects of characters and these faults and went through that inventory process in 5 and came out of that experience in 6 and 7 and asked god to remove those things and made that 8 step list and went out and repaired the damage done in the past in the 9th step that that I felt this presence of god coming in. And after 5, that's the promise. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs up to this point, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The spiritual experience actually begins after 5.

It doesn't begin after 3. 3 is a decision. And I had an experience in sobriety when these I told you these guys were kinda scouring the halls and I once in a while I break down in tears. That was one of them. You know, I was desperate and I was asking this guy how to meditate and I really was just doing everything I could to find an answer.

And I thought, well, maybe if I if I did a 3rd step and I read the 3rd step out of the 12 and 12 and I kinda did the best 3rd step I could. And and, Al, the car lot guy and I sat out there and we read the 3rd step out of the 12 and 12 and we did a serenity prayer. And I felt really elated and, like, a week later, I I I, like, broke a bunch of furniture and the the deal and I kicked I I I went to a meeting and I had, lost my key and I couldn't get in and it just sent me through the roof, you know. And I just kicked the door and broke, shattered a bunch of stuff and just went totally nuts. And, and this was like right after, you know, a few days after I'd had this great 3rd step experience night.

I was talking about this and one of these one of these step guys, you know, brought me to this part of the book and and showed me that, you know, where it says next we launched. Well, what did you do after you did the 3rd step? And it was one of those things that really hooked me into going down and doing this workshop that I thought maybe these guys had a little more something to it. So this 3rd step we'll be doing is just a decision. It's a decision to practice steps 4 through 9 and and, and then to live in this new way of life in 10, 11, and 12.

And that's the real decision in 3, I think. I really don't think there's anything more to it than that. I think it really is just kind of this this this commitment to go forward. And and as we're we do those steps, we are brought into this new way of living. So I think everybody's probably got a little coffee in them this morning and probably would like a break.

So, it's, it's almost 10 after 10 and, I will turn the recorder off. We'll take care of any housekeeping issues and we'll, and we'll we'll take a break. So, thank you. Okay. Welcome back, everybody.

We're here getting, in preparation for our 3rd step. We'll talk for just a couple of minutes, first, and then we will circle up. And I'm glad we've got this circle here. A really good friend of mine who's a nonalcoholic, but he's an artist and I've got a couple of his paintings in my house and he's just a really, he's a really spiritual guy, a really guy I really admire. And his, mother wrote a book called Ceremonial Circles.

And, and she's passed away now, but she was a very popular author and and, her name was Sedona Cahill. And, she wrote a lot of books, but she wrote a whole book about just this. A whole book, a couple hundred pages about people circling up all over the world. This is what spiritual people do, is they form circles, and share with each other. So, I always prefer this, you know, in a in a group if we can, you know, even at my home group, which we have a couple hundred people at my home group, we always try to set up the chairs so that there isn't, like, you know, a hierarchy with, you know, or it's just we try to form as big a circle as we can so it's kind of, you know, circles with other circles around them and aisles and stuff.

But we try to kinda use that idea that this that there is a a power in forming the circle. So we've so we've done that. We formed a circle. Somebody joked that it was, not the circle of love, but the oval of love. So, the a couple of things that, I'll share a little bit about my, you know, I I I had a couple of different 3rd Step experiences.

I had this 3rd Step experience, which was very huge and I had a very great spiritual experience around it. But it never amounted to a solution for alcoholism. You know, it was just kind of this 3rd step experience and I went after the 3rd step. We read that, that piece out of the 12 and 12 and and I I actually was left quite empty afterwards. I had a huge spiritual experience.

I mean, I just felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders. I remember laying on my bed back in my little apartment and and just, you know, I didn't wanna fall asleep because I was just felt so great after doing that. I really felt like something had happened. And and then shortly afterward, I was just as crazy as ever. And, somebody between the the sessions had asked me to know about the difference between a spiritual experience and a spiritual awakening.

And I don't think we need to get into too much detail there, but there is a difference between having a spiritual experience and recovery from from alcoholism. You know, they they talk in the in the, in the end of the the big book, in the section on the spiritual experience, they talk about this. You know, it was a it was an experience sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism is what they're talking about when they use those terms in the big book, spiritual experience and spiritual awakening. You know, it says those terms are used many times. What they're really talking about is, a personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism.

And so what they mean by that is that and I said I wasn't gonna get into that very much, but a couple things just occurred to me. But what they really mean by that is that what does a spiritual experience or a spiritual awakening is really more what we're talking about here. What is a spiritual awakening? What is it? Well, from the outside, it looks like, it looks like a personality change.

That's what it looks like from the outside. And I guarantee you that my personality has changed, in, you know, in every conceivable manner since I got sober. I'm just a completely you know, the person that I that came into the program, doesn't really even exist. And and quite truthfully, I have to get quiet today, and I have to get prayerful today to really remember what it was like to be a drunk. That's how far I know to really remember that.

Takes these weekends, you know, and and and some some time in prayer because my my life is so unlike that. I've had this huge personality change. They say that the essence of that, which means what it feels like on the inside, is this, you know, they say some of our members call this God consciousness. It's the awareness of the presence of God. That's what a spiritual awakening feels like, is that I am today, I'm aware of the presence of God in my life.

Like my friend, Jeffrey said, you know, the sunlight of the spirit shines on my life every day, he said. And, man, I I really wanted what that guy had. So, the the first time I really started getting into this book, we did this this this third step. We were kinda coming up on this third step in in my group, in my workshop that I was doing. And, and a couple things happened.

I'll tell you a couple of a couple of funny stories here. And the there was a guy that was named Patrick. He was one day sober less than I was. And and Patrick and I were gonna go up the mountain and do this third step. But we'd had some really bizarre experiences with the with the workshop.

You know, like I said, we were kinda going to the workshop every Tuesday, and then after the workshop, we'd kinda deprogram each other and tell each other, yeah, that guy's a nut. And this guy's, you know, trying to impress the chicks. And these guys, you know, I I he talks about spirituality, but I've seen him with that newcomer. And, you know, I mean, we just really hammered these guys. And and, but every Tuesday, every Tuesday, we were back at the workshop again, you know.

With our with our highlighters and our pens and everything. And, but Patrick had called me. We were getting up to the 3rd step, and Patrick had called me one night. He was at this boarding house. I was back in that back room at the car lot, and he called me.

And and he said, Kenny, I don't know what's going on, but he said I had this spiritual experience of some kind. He said, I was just laying on my bed and all this wind started coming out of my body, and and I just felt like I've been purged. And I wonder if that has to do with these prayers, you know, that we're doing in the workshop and the stuff about the 3rd step. And, and like I said last night, you know, Patrick was right off the skids. I mean, this guy was was right off the streets.

And and, so, you know, being one day sober more than him, you know, I had to kinda try to help put him in put this deal into perspective for him. So I told him, I said, well, let's think about this, Patrick. You know, what's, what's going on here? Alright. Let's let's kinda break this thing down a little bit because I'm I'm thinking in my mind, Patrick's going nuts and I've got to talk him down here.

And, and so I was just talking to him a little bit and this was the night, you know, this was late on a Tuesday night after the workshop. And I said, we finally got done. I said, Patrick, did you drink the coffee at the workshop? And he said, well, yeah. He said, I had a couple cups of coffee.

And I said, well, Patrick, I didn't drink any coffee at the workshop and I didn't have any such experience. So, obviously, what we've got here is we've got, we've come across a a group of people who are forming a cult within Alcoholics Anonymous, and these guys are putting drugs in the coffee to try to, and so, you know, we gotta be careful here because we could. And and I was, you know, the the the crazy thing about it, and this is really where my mindset was, the crazy thing about it was that, was that for 1, I didn't totally believe that. You know, I was trying to put this in, trying to figure out what happened with Patrick, and he was truly kind of freaking out. And, and so, you know, this idea that maybe somebody put some drugs in the coffee was the deal.

And still today, in AA, there was there was those people I told you about that are still very close to me that finished that workshop and are still in my life today. And they still tease me about that. They still will see me and say, Oh, Kenny, watch out about that coffee. They think it's really big joke around my in in my home group about, you know, Kenny, watch out for the coffee. And because I did, you know, I went back to the workshop and I and I would tell people, I'd say and that's the the amazing thing about it was actually in my mind, there was a part of me that believed that this could be possible.

It could be possible that we were involved with some kind of a cult within Alcoholics Anonymous. And that these people were putting drugs in the coffee. And then there was this other jail where they had planned to bring this big guru up from California, and we were all gonna do this retreat up in the mountains, and we would all do our 3rd step together, like we're getting ready to prepare here. So I was thinking, boy, this is trouble. And, and these, you know, these guys are after my earthly possessions.

Remembering, you know, not remembering that I'm, you know, by living by the grace of my sponsor in the back of a car lot, I wasn't exactly a prime target. So and then, but, you know, the thing about that was that I continued to go to that workshop. And I would tell people, I'd say, hey, watch out for that coffee. Or, you know, Patrick here had a hell of an experience on that stuff a couple nights ago. And I'd be careful.