Steps 1, 2 and 3 at the Brazos Riverside Conference in Lake Whitney, TX

So blind Dave, you're you're very seldom ever hear blind Dave that you don't hear blind Dave and Norma. We just we're joined at the hip. Norma would would you stand up or something?

Where are you? Yeah,

so if you ever get a chance to hear her, you don't want to miss that either. And so today I'm packing up, you know, putting stuff in the saddle bags. It's the weather's beautiful, going to ride the bike, you know, And I got all my bike stuff in the saddlebags and traveling light, you know, and nothing else is going to fit. And I get a call from Charlie, who says Dave Al says

a little jacket would probably be a good idea. And I said, well, I got on my Harley jacket and

is that a good idea? And he said I don't know Dave. Anyway, he he comes up with this jacket and so he calls me back and tells me he's got a jacket I can wear. And I said OK, OK, so he said it'll probably look real good with blue jeans. And I said I hope so.

This is a little bit out of my league, I guess. I don't know. But anyway, so I get here and Charlie takes me in the other room and he's putting the jacket on me and, and, and my, you know, I've got this thing and my wife says, good, that'll hide your wife beater shirt.

And so then when I go in the restroom and, and, and then Charlie says, oh, I said, man, Charlie says, you look really good, David, that jacket. And I said, you know, don't feel too bad, Charlie. I might have to get one of these, you know, go over to goodwill and get one or something. And he says, oh, just a minute here, you got something. And then he and then he turns me around. He says he gets a wet paper towel and he says you got a little spot right here

and you're going to get this. And I said, good grief. Now I know why I don't have one,

so I hope we can get through this. You know, Charlie was talking about him and Katie and being engaged and they've been together about five years. And I went to hear Katie speak. First time I ever heard Katie. And she was up and she was talking about La La telling her story. And she came to meet Charlie and this story. And she said they got to, you know, they reached the point in their relationship where they finally fell in the hay. And she said, and then one thing led to another and I didn't hear any more of her story. I just the rest of the night my head was running all the scenarios,

one thing leading to another.

So anyway, I'd like to hear your story sometime, Katie.

Very good. We're going to do steps 1-2 and three tonight, so let's take just a little moment of silence because I need it. If y'all don't, I hope I don't bite that or something.

Serenity, prayer. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Amen. Very good. So

we're just going to zip through this real quick because you don't do steps 1-2 and three very thorough and they're steps that need to be done thorough. So tonight we're going to be zipping through them pretty good to try to get it in this little short spot. You know, when they told me I was going to be doing a workshop, I thought this is going to be like at the man to man, you know where I'm sitting in a room in a chair with a few people sitting around me. So I wasn't quite expecting this, but here we go. Step one. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.

And so when I start out with guys doing step one, I tell them this. It tells me not to declare anyone an alcoholic. I've got to let them draw their own conclusion. That's in the chapter Working with Others.

What it tells me to do on page 92 is to speak of alcoholism as an illness of body and mind which accompany it.

So my job then is to present a model of alcoholism and let them see if they fit it.

So I went through the book and came up with the conditions of body and mind which accompany alcoholism, kind of looking at the, the, the characteristics of the illness. And I've came up with four common characteristics that I like to spotlight and we're going to call them ABC and D. So A, we're going to look at the physical addiction. There is a physical component to addiction to alcohol. And we're going to start with the doctor's opinion in the 4th edition. That would be XXV. I, I, I don't guess you all are flipping to that, Are you

OK?

It says we believe in so suggested a few years ago. This is Doctor Silkworth. We believe in so suggested a few years ago. That the action of alcohol on these chronic Alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy.

That the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. So we're talking about the, the allergy concept when we're looking at the physical aspect of alcoholism. And that was a strange idea. When I first come in to a, a, you know, I'm, I'm what they call a hypoallergenic person. I, I don't recall I've ever had a rash to anything. I grew up playing in the woods.

I've never had Poison Ivy. I, you know, I just don't get things like that. I've never broke out because of some kind of soap or And every time I ever go to the doctor's office and they give you these papers to fill out and they asked you to have you ever had, do you have high blood pressure? Do you have diabetes? You know, they ask you all them questions and then they always say, are you allergic to any medications? Now? I said, no, I've never had an allergic reaction to anything. Boy, my wife had an allergic reaction to some perfume I gave her for Christmas year before last, and

she put that stuff on. At the time we got her to the hospital, her feet were swollen. She couldn't get her shoes on. And, you know, we took her in the emergency room. They put his own New Year's Eve night

right after midnight in the emergency room was full, and they pushed everybody out of the way and took her straight in. They take that anaphylactic reaction serious

and so, you know, I am not one of them kind of people. And so when I came in day and they said, well, you see Dave, you have an allergy to alcohol. And I thought, no, I don't.

I'm not allergic to any medications or I couldn't wrap my mind around that. But if you've had a problem with that, all we're talking about here is the phenomenon of craving.

That's all. Doctor Silkworth wasn't sure what category to put that in, but he decided to put it in the category of being an allergy.

The phenomenon of craving is limited to these allergic types, and that's all we mean

by the allergy is that for some reason when I take the drink of alcohol, there's a few drugs that do the same thing to me. I kind of get an itch for some more,

and so that's all we mean by that. So moving on from that, it says on page 22, paragraph four, it says we know that while the alcoholic keeps away from drink as he may do for months or years, he reacts much like other people. We are equally positive that once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens, both in the bottling and mental sense, which makes it virtually impossible for him to stop. These observations would be academic and pointless if our friend never took the first drink,

thereby setting the terrible cycle in motion.

Therefore, the main problem of the alcoholic centers in his mind rather than in his body. So I don't spend a whole lot of time talking to people about the allergy because it's the lesser of the problem,

the main problem of the alcoholic centers. In his mind, if the allergy was all there was to alcoholism, all you got to do is, is get it out of my system. See, you know, people come into the treatment centers, they say with their ass on fire, actually the whole world is on fire. And some of them need some medical assistance to get through that detox process. I mean, you know, they could have a seizure or or some serious reactions

to detoxing. So some of them need medical assistance. Takes about a week to get them through the detox process.

And if that's all there was to alcoholism, was the physical allergy, then it would be over. You know, you pull them out of the fire, you put the fire out and, you know, give them a few meals and a few good nights sleep. And just like now, now don't do that again.

And just like they do, they say don't worry, I won't.

But you open the door and let them go and they walk right out and jump back in the fire.

And we have astonished society for centuries. Why, when they put the fire out and get us recuperated a little bit and back on our feet, we walk out and we have to and go jump back in the fire.

Why

the main problem of the alcoholic is in his mind.

So we're going to look at the mental obsession. This is B, the mental obsession, and it's on page 30. Starting at the beginning there, most of us have been unwilling to admit that we were real Alcoholics. No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows. Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The idea that somehow, someday he will control and enjoy his drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker. The persistence of this

is astonishing.

Many pursue it to the gates of insanity or death.

So we're talking about a mental obsession that hangs on to us long after the physical allergy.

But now, apart from the physical allergy, the mental obsession is not near so strong. In fact, it's just that little thing that taps me on the shoulder frequently and says, you know, your old lady's going to be out of town all weekend.

You know, that, that it, it just, it's just always there to tap me on the shoulder. And it's kind of funny. I was in a restaurant yesterday with a couple of buddies that I hadn't seen in a while. And we're sitting at this table talking all kind of a, a this and talking about recovery. And there's a couple of ladies a couple of tables over from me. Chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter, chatter. And I'm trying to block them out, you know, because we're, I'm trying to stay focused on this conversation. And all of a sudden, out of all that chatter, I thought I heard the word opium. And all sudden,

and now I'm trying to get these guys, you know,

just you just tap you on the shoulder out in right in the middle of a crowd, you know, and and that persists for a long time. But you know, all by itself, that's all it is, is a tap on the shoulder. A tap on the shoulder. I will say this about the mental obsession is that it is persistent

and but now once

I finally yield to that and pick up the drink and put it in my system, once he takes any alcohol whatever into his system, something happens both in the bodily and mental sense.

You see, when I get the allergy in there with the obsession, I create a cycle or a loop.

It's just like a feedback loop. If I got this microphone right here and went over and got too close to the PA speaker, what would happen?

Yeah. And feedback, you know, we'd get a squeal and it's a feedback loop. And the sound going in this microphone had come out that speaker and go back in the microphone and create a loop. And that loop is self-sustaining. It's not going to stop.

Sometimes it even grows louder and you know, and, and somebody's got to break the loop. You've either got to get me away from the microphone or shut off the PA

to stop this cycle once it's in motion and once I take any alcohol whatever into my system. And, and now it's like that little whispering voice that keeps tapping me on the shoulder. Now it's got a microphone and APA and, you know, and it's not just whispering about a drink, It's demanding another drink loud and clear.

And I've created a loop and I've got the cycle turning. And, you know, through the years, it gets harder and harder for me to break out of that cycle. In the beginning, it just took a hard weekend, you know, and, and a bad hangover and, and, you know, but before long it started spilling into the week and then into the next weekend. And many of us, people like Charlie over there, loved your story. Charlie,

you know, before long I've got to run out of money.

And then you've got to run out of money.

And then you got to run out of things that was left laying around.

And then the police have to start stepping in.

And then the hospitals have to start stepping in

to before the loop is broken.

Both of these, the allergy and the obsession, are progressive

features of the illness. It gets easier to fall into the cycle and harder to break out of it over the years. We're going to talk about the progressive feature of the illness just a little bit because you know, when I talk to the high bottom drunks and I mentioned the allergy, sometimes that's a foreign concept to people and they don't really identify with that. And when I talk about a mental, you've got this mental obsession, it's going to drive you right through the gates of insanity or death.

Well, some of these high bottom drunks I go, I don't feel so close to insanity or death.

They don't really connect with that either sometime.

So here's where I'm hopefully going to get the high bottom drunks to connect

and to identify with it. You see, because in describing progression, I'll say all of us, we probably had our first drink back in high school somewhere like Charlie says, these days, it's elementary school. But for most of us, it was probably back in high school that we had our first, you know, really good weekend of pulling a drunk. And back then it was, it was whenever we get a chance and, and it was just sex, drugs and rock'n'roll.

We were having a good time. And if my drinking increased, it was probably circumstantial. We're talking, let's talk here about the normal social drinker because he, at this point, he's just like us in high school, we were mingling with that crowd and just like them. But we graduated from high school, we went off to college maybe and, and we got into the college scene. We got away from mom and dad and we were drinking more

and the parties got bigger and better. And so even the normal social drinker went through a spell there where he was drinking just, you know, his his drinking increased also. But now here's where we part. See, at some point in the normal drinker's life, usually about his mid 20s, he's going to wake up one morning because he's graduated from college, he's got his career going, he's got married, maybe got his first kid,

and he wakes up some morning

and he thinks, man, this foolishness is going to cost me my career. It's going to cost me my wife.

I better cut back a little bit.

So he figures out what he can drink and everybody be OK with that. And he promises his wife and he draws a line in the sand and he says I will drink up to this line and stop. And that's what he does. He drinks up to that line and stops.

He may come vacation or Super Bowl Sunday or some special occasion. He'll he'll have an extra drink or two. The Big Book says he wakes up Monday morning, shakes it off and goes back to work. I wake up Monday morning

thinking of next Friday or looking for another drink. See, I don't shake it off as easy as him, but now I'm just like him in the sense that

got out of college, started my career, got married for the first time and,

and you know, somewhere about the mid 20s for me. It was 24 years old when I thought, man, I got AI got to do something about this

is going to cost me my, my career. It's going to cost me my, my marriage. And so I did the same thing. I figured out what would be a safe amount to drink and party and I drew that line in the sand just like him. I said I'll, I'll drink up this line and stop.

And from that day, the battle has been on.

I didn't know I had a problem until then.

Then I tried to not want to admit to myself that I had a problem

for him. He drew a line in the sand. That was the end of the matter for me. I drew a line in the sand, and that was the beginning of the matter.

The Big Book says that our life becomes characterized from that point on. Our life becomes characterized by countless vain attempts to try to be like him.

I was working with a guy one time. He talked about the allergy. He didn't quite relate. I talked about the obsession, insanity and death, and he wasn't quite identifying with that. And he said, Dave, This is why I'm not sure I'm an alcoholic. I said, why? He said, well, because all my life, every time I've needed to cut back, I've been able to do so. I said, really? Every time, He said every time. I said, well, the question is this. How many times have you had to make that decision?

He said. Oh,

over 100, I'm sure.

And then he almost fell on the floor laughing.

He said, I see what you mean. All of us felt at times that we were regaining control. But these intervals were usually brief and then inevitably followed by still less control, which led in time to pitiful and incomprehensible demoralization. We are convinced to amend that Alcoholics of our type are in the grip of a progressive illness. Over any considerable period. It gets worse, never better. It don't stop. Just brief pauses sometimes is the best we can do. You know, I like to when I talk about the progressive feature of this illness,

I say progression is a constant force pushing me toward a drink.

This constant force is like gravity. Gravity is a constant force.

See, if I, if I park my car on a hill and pull, you know, and I get out and I'm walking away and it slips out of gear and it's starting to roll down the mountain and someone says, Dave, your car's rolling. You know this is just an analogy y'all

I?

So I run, you know, I rundown and I catch up to that car and I grab it by the bumper and I, you know, and I strain myself with everything I've got and I managed to stop the car from rolling.

Is the crisis over?

No, I've just changed the nature of the crisis.

The crisis was my car is loose and rolling down the mountain. Now the crisis is I'm trying to hold the car from rolling.

All I've done is switch the problem from an external crisis to an internal crisis

the first time, and this is when I really connected in rooms of recovery the first time I heard somebody say if you're thinking about drinking or if you're thinking about not drinking, either way you're thinking about drinking.

Oh, I got it. Oh, I got it.

Whether the car is rolling or whether I'm holding the car from rolling,

there's still a crisis here. There's a constant force. And I can tell you that if I'm holding that car from rolling, somebody better come along pretty soon and say, Dave, let me hop in here and pull the brake for you. Thank you. If someone don't get in that car and pull the brake, I can tell you that gravity is going to win this one.

I don't know when,

but I can promise you it's going to win.

And you may be a little bit bigger guy than me and you may say, oh, I can hold my car. I mean, I'm grabbing here. I can hold it. And I say, well, if you don't let me get in there and pull the brake for you, you may hold the car a little longer than me,

that I can still promise you that gravity is going to win

and I can become just as miserable not drinking

as drinking.

I tell them at the treatment center, I say, people used to say don't go over today's house, he's drinking. Then they'd say don't go over today's house, he's not drinking.

I went through my two divorces in when I was trying to not drink.

So we got this analogy about gravity in the car parked on a hill. And that's just the way it is now. Here's so, you know, you're holding the car. You say, well, I'm just going to let it go. Well, here's alcoholism.

You're chained to the bumper of the car

and if you do, if your foot slips or you let go of it, it's going to take you down the mountain with it.

It's going to cost you your job. It's going to cost you your marriage.

It's going to cost you a lot of things. It's going to peel the hide off and use it, drags you with it, The Big Book says. Alcoholism annihilates everything worthwhile in life and engulfs all whose lives touch yours.

Before long you'll be dragging all them with you.

Really glad you Al Anands are here.

It takes something like Ellen on to teach y'all how to let go. What a painful thing to have to do without support.

SO

that's progression

and hopefully you can see it at the at the early stages. Does is there seeming to be a force trying to whether you're drinking or whether you're not drinking? Either way,

you're thinking about drinking.

Why should my life be so consumed? Why should so much of my energy go to this problem of whether I'm drinking or whether I'm not drinking?

I've never been able to direct my energy and you know, and, and experience my full potential,

as Charlie said, because this took up all my time, all my energy, whether I'm drinking or whether I'm not drinking.

And it annihilates everything worthwhile in life. And over any considerable period, it gets worse and never better.

So with all that, you know, a person say, my God, well, thanks for the warning. I'm just going to double up my effort and make sure I don't ever pick up the first drink and set the terrible cycle in motion. Well, you know, it doesn't matter how much I warn you about the woes of alcoholism,

I can also prophecy to you, just like they did to Fred in chapter 3,

that you will not be able to know. So we're going to look at Feature D. This is the mental blank spot. And looking on page 24, paragraph two, it says the fact is that most Alcoholics, for reasons yet obscure, have lost the power of choice and drink. We are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. Notice it did not say at all times.

Said at certain times.

Most times when I'm really determined, I can refuse a drink.

What I'm powerless over is when the time is and when the time isn't that I get to choose that.

So we're going to look at page 36, paragraph one, this is Jim. Jim was a car salesman, had a couple of months sobriety but failed to enlarge upon his program and he decided to drive out the edge of town one day where he thought he'd find someone interested in buying a car. And he stopped at a restaurant to have a sandwich and a glass of milk. Y'all know the story? And he says I sit down at a table in order to sandwich and a glass of milk. Still no thought of drinking. I just thought he said. I ordered another sandwich and decided to have another glass of milk. Suddenly

the thought crossed my mind that if I were to put an ounce of whiskey in this milk, it wouldn't bother me since I had a full stomach,

he said. I ordered a whiskey and poured it in the milk. Now see now the allergy, he said. And the experiment went so well

that I ordered some more milk and another whiskey and poured it into more milk. And that didn't seem to bother me, so I tried another.

Thus started one more journey back to the asylum for Jim

and OK then on page 37, paragraph 2 going on there, it says we have sometimes reflected on the consequences more than Jim did. But there was always the curious mental phenomenon that paralleled our sound reasoning there inevitably ransom insanely trivial excuse for taking the first drink. Our sound reasoning failed to hold us in check. The insane idea went out. So you see, when I was going through this thing looking for the the features, the conditions of body and mind, you know that a company alcoholism, I said, OK, there's an obsession and there's an allergy.

When I read stuff about the physical part, I put it over here in the category with the allergy. When I read stuff about the mental part, I put it over here under the category of the mental obsession. And then one day I'm reading along here about this mental blank spot and I'll start to put this in the category with the mental obsession. And I said, wait a minute, he's not talking about the mental obsession,

he's talking about something else.

There are two aspects to the mental component of this illness, the mental obsession and the mental blank spot

and the blank spot, the sound reason he's the there's the mental obsession and my sound reasoning or my willpower. And the blank spot doesn't occur in my obsessive thinking. It occurs in my sound reasoning, thinking.

And so the obsession, you know, it's it's thought counterthought, thought counterthought going on all the time.

Have a drink. No. Have a drink, no. I promised have a drink. No. The judge said have a drink, you know, and, and so you know this is going on. And if I'm an alcoholic, I do not know that there is a hole in my sound reasoning paddle.

And you know what? I may play ping pong just fine for quite a while with that rim of

paddle. In fact, you know, I'm, I'll make this feel like the ping pong champ. Yeah, I say, man, I got this in the bag and all sudden it goes right through the hole and I could swear I was on that ball,

the big book says. We find ourselves pounding the bar saying how did I get started again?

And if I don't go out deliberately to get drunk because the old lady made me mad or something, if then the blank spot will get me someday,

guaranteed.

So now we're going to look at Fred, page 39, paragraph paragraph two, and the last part of that paragraph, Fred, he says that Fred was an accountant. You all know, and that says we first saw Fred in a hospital about a year ago where he had gone to recover from the bad case of jitters. It was his first experience of this, of this kind, and he was much ashamed of it. Far from admitting he was an alcoholic, he told himself he'd come to the hospital to rest his nerves,

that the doctor intimated it.

It might be he might be worse than he thought. For a while he was depressed about his condition. He made-up his mind not drink anymore. It never occurred to him he may not be able to do so in spite of his character and standing. We told him what we knew about alcoholism. See, they told him that they told him the ABC and D of alcoholism. He says he was interested in the greedy, had some of the symptoms, but he was a long ways from admitting when they got to this part about the mental blank spot

that guarantee his failure,

he didn't believe that.

Picking up my page 40 paragraph two now Fred speaking. I was much impressed with what you fellow said about alcoholism and I simply did not think it'd be possible for me to drink again, especially after what y'all told me. See they should. They scared him with AB and C,

he said, I, I, I reasoned I was not as bad as you guys and I'd been successful in looking on my other problems and I'd be successful where you guys failed. You know, I, I, I, I figured I had every reason to be confident. It was only be a matter of exercising my willpower, keeping on guard. In that frame of mind, I left the hospital and for a time all went well. So in that what frame of mind? I'm going to exercise my willpower and keep on guard. I'm not going to go to sleep at the wheel.

And and he said for a time all went well. That means that he was having no trouble refusing

of a drink. It also means that they were tapping him on the shoulder,

but he was not having any trouble refusing it.

He was slapping him thoughts away and doing so fine with that rim of a paddle that he said. I began to think I was making a big deal out of nothing.

One day I went to Washington

on some government business and he said it was a successful day. I was pleased and my partners would be to the end of a perfect day, not a cloud on the rise. And I went back to the hotel and leisurely dressed for dinner as I crossed the threshold of the dining room.

Now that has been happening to him ever since he left the hospital. Tap on the shoulder, Tap on the shoulder. He's had no trouble slapping it away

on this day. He crossed the threshold of the dining room, tapped him on the shoulder and said a cocktail would be nice before dinner. So I sat down and ordered one.

Oh, by the way, Jim said. When he poured that whiskey in the milk, he said. I had a vague sense I was not being any too smart.

You see, we are unable to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force. Jim had a vague something, he just couldn't quite recall what it was.

Fred didn't even have that. He was totally blank. They tapped him on the shoulder and said order a cocktail with dinner. So he sat down and ordered one just like that.

Then he said. Then I ordered another one

after dinner and I decided to take a walk. When I returned to the hotel, it struck me that a highball would be nice before dinner. Notice it tapped him on the shoulder when he crossed the threshold of the dining room. But once he's had a couple of drinks, now it goes. Get me another one,

it struck him. Then say once you set the terrible cycle in motion, it don't talk nice anymore.

Get me another drink. Knock him out of the way.

It struck me a highball would be nice for going to bed, so I stepped into the bar and had one I had. I remember having a few more that night and plenty next morning and a hazy recollection of getting on an airplane back to New York and and meeting a friend of taxi cab driver that I thought was my wife who escorted me around for a few days. I'd like to hear that fist step.

He said as soon as I gave my he ended up back in the hospital. As soon as I regained my ability to think. I went over that day in Washington. Not only had I been off guard, I'd made no fight whatever against the first drink.

I remembered what them alcoholic people told me, how they prophesied that if I had an alcoholic mind, the time and place would come. See, it's at certain times that my best effort

or just misfire.

And he said just that did happen and more for what I had learned about alcoholism into ABC did not occur to me at all. I saw that willpower and self knowledge would not help in those strange mental blank spots. I'd never understood men who said that a problem had them hopelessly defeated. I understood then it was a crushing blow.

The idea that we will ever be normal has to be smashed in. D here. The mental blank spot is the crushing blow,

your best effort. And even when you're doing great for weeks or months, sometimes even years, I can promise you I can prophecy to you that you've got an appointment with a mental blank spot. And once you pick up that drink, the nightmare starts over.

And what I learned today is that I'm not powerless over every drink. What I'm really powerless over is my alcoholic mind,

and I don't know when that day is going to be.

Once more, the alcohol, the last of that chapter says once more. The alcoholic has no effective mental defense against the first drink except in a few rare cases. Neither he nor any other human power can provide such a defense except in a few rare cases at certain times. Say, I don't know when that's going to show up,

so even if willpower I can do pretty good 364 days out of the year. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link,

and his defense must come from a higher power. Brings us to step two. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. So we're going to be looking here at the chapter we agnostics. Now, even when I have people that say, well, I believe in God, I'm not having a problem. So you're going to go through this with me anyway,

because I find out that people who have prior religious convictions

have God in a box and are just as rigid and fixed about what they believe is about God as the atheist and the agnostic, but they're just as fixed on what they believe about God.

And for an alcoholic,

we can't have God in a box.

So I take them through this work just as much. Page 55, paragraph two, it says that for deep down, in every man, woman and child is the fundamental idea of God. Now the big book says it's down there.

So I tell them, I say this is not a question of faith. You have the faith you according to this book. I believe that, you know there's a God, you just don't want

to admit it.

I don't think so. Well, let's look a little further.

See, it's a question of willingness, not faith.

Page 46, paragraph one. Yes, we have agnostic temperament. Had these thoughts and experiences. Let us make haste to reassure you. We found that as as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a power greater than ourselves, we commenced to get results. So it's the willingness thing

that's the problem

because I think that deep down, if I will get in touch with that, deep down, I know there's a higher power.

So I will tell these atheists and these agnostics this. I said, suppose, you know, we got deer season fixing to open here. I say, suppose I'm going out in the woods deer hunting with a friend and, and we're in this cabin, we got our guns broke apart. We're cleaning them up. We're getting, we're going to get up early in the morning, go out and get in the deer blind, you know, and this is another analogy.

So I'm talking to this dude a little bit about God, you know, and he's an atheist or an agnostic. He's going, I don't know if I believe in God now. I don't know if I buy into that, you know. And so we're fixing to blow out the little kerosene lamp and hit the rack because we got to get up early. And I said, well, I say, listen, suppose there is a God outside this cabin who would like to come in here tonight while we're asleep and leave some evidence just for you

so you'll know.

Maybe some cookie crumbs

or some footprints or something.

And this atheist, this agnostic would say, well, I don't really think I believe in all that.

Just in case I'm going to lock the door.

Not going to have another atheist or agnostic, we say. Well, I really not sure I believe all that, but just in case I'll leave the door unlocked.

Both of them profess to be atheist agnostic, but their attitude is 100° apart when it comes to willingness.

And all I need in this program is to be willing to unlock the door.

Page 46, paragraph two. Much to our relief, we discovered we did not need to consider another's conception of God. Our own conception, however inadequate, was sufficient to make the approach and to affect the 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 be possessed of a new sense of power and direction, provided we took the rest of the steps.

Now notice this. So I always ask the the atheist or the agnostic. I say, listen,

can you prove to me there is no God?

I can assure you he's going to try. He's going to tell me about Darwin's theory of

evolution and the survival of the fittest and the fossil record and and and it's once you know, and. And I must just stick with my original question. So yeah, but can you prove to me there's no God?

Because those arguments don't prove.

So at best he'll have to throw up his hands and justice, say, OK, OK, I can't prove there's no God, but you can't prove to me that there is.

I said, well, I'm not trying to prove to you that there is.

I'm just trying to get you to admit that you can't prove that there's not.

Because as soon as I've got you to admit that you can't prove that there's no God,

I've got you to admit the possibility that there is one.

And that's all you need to do for Step 2

as admit that you may be wrong. Can you admit that you might possibly, maybe just one tenth of one thousandth? It doesn't matter what small percentage you're willing to admit that you may be wrong. That's all we need.

Some famous person one time said that from a speck the size of a mustard seed, he could grow the whole Kingdom of God.

So all I'm trying to do is get that speck of possibility based on the fact that you can't prove that there is no God.

So now if you if you didn't want to unlock the door just to see what would happen,

a lot of just giving you a good enough reason to unlock the door

and work the rest of the steps and see what will happen.

The 12 and 12 says all you really need is an open mind.

I just got to get them to unlock their mind, that's all. Once unlocked by willingness, it says the door seems to open almost by itself. God will just walk right in.

It's not up to me to prove God to you. It's up to me to help you just unlock the door to give you enough reason to do it. And then God will walk into your life and prove himself to you. And you'll have your own personal experience with God that nobody else can tell you that he is or isn't and talk you out of. And that's the only kind that an alcoholic can get sober on is a very deep personal experience.