The International Group of Stockholm's "12-Step Workshop Weekend" in Stockholm, Sweden

On page 46 and chapter 2, the agnostics.

Bless you.

In the second paragraph it says yes. We of agnostic temperament have had these thoughts and experiences. Let us make haste to reassure you. We found that as soon as we were able to lay aside prejudice and express even a willingness to believe in a power greater than ourselves, we commence to get results

even though it was impossible for any of us

to fully define or comprehend that power which is God.

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 and to affect a contact with Him. As soon as we admitted that the possible existence of a creative intelligence, a 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 other simple steps.

We found that God does not make 2 hard terms with those who seek Him.

To us, the realm of spirit is broad, roomy and all inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding to those who earnestly seek. It is open, we believe, to all men. I like that

when therefore we speak to you of God, we mean your own conception of God. This applies to the other spiritual expressions which you find in this book. Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms deter you from honesty asking yourself what they mean to you.

At the start, this was all we needed to commence spiritual growth, to affect our first conscious relationship with God as we understood Him.

Afterwards, we found ourselves accepting many things which then seem entirely out of our reach.

That was growth. But if we wish to grow, we had to begin somewhere. So we use our own conception, however limited it was. We needed to ask ourselves but one short question. 1 short question. Do I now believe,

or am I willing to believe that there is a power greater than myself? As soon as man can say that he does believe, or is willing to believe,

we emphatically assure him that he is on his way. It has been repeatedly proven among us that upon the simple cornerstone a wonderfully effective spiritual structure can be built. And they have a little abstract, a little star thing there, which tells me at the bottom of that page it says, please be sure to read the appendix

two on spiritual experience. Can we read that real quick?

Spiritual experience?

Yeah.

Where am I?

Here we are

spiritual experience they ohh, it's at the back, but if you have you have in the small addition in the little pocket, they have it. Yeah, the back of the book. I got 569 on the 3rd edition, 567 on the 4th.

Spiritual Experience

The term spiritual experience and spiritual awakening are used many times in this book, which, upon careful reading, shows that the personality change sufficient to bring about recovery from alcoholism has manifested itself among many different forms. Yet it is true that our first printing gave many readers the impression that these personality changes or religious experiences must be in the nature of sudden and spectacular upheavals.

Happily for everyone, this conclusion is erroneous. Meaning that doesn't may not be the case for many of us. The sky is not going to open up necessarily.

In the first chapter is a number of sudden revolutionary changes are described. Though it was not our intention to create such an impression, many Alcoholics have nevertheless concluded that in order to recover they must acquire an immediate and overwhelming God consciousness, followed at once by a vast change and feeling and outlook.

Among our rapidly growing membership of thousands of Alcoholics, such transformation, though frequent, are by no means the rule. Most of our experiences of what the psychologist William James calls the educational variety, because they develop slowly over a period of time. Quite often, friends of the newcomer are aware of the difference long before he is himself.

He finally realized that he has undergone a profound alteration in his reaction to life,

that such a change could hardly have been brought about by himself alone. What often takes place in a few months could seldom have been accomplished by years of self-discipline. With few exceptions, our members find that they have tapped an unsuspected inner resource, resource which they have presently identified with their own conception of a power greater than themselves. Most of us think this awareness of a power greater than ourselves is the essential spiritual experience.

A more religious members call it God consciousness. Most emphatically, we wish to say that any alcoholic capable of honestly facing his problems in the light of our experience can recover, provided he does not

close his mind to all spiritual concepts. He can only bend. He can only be defeated by an attitude of intolerance or belligerent denial.

That's a promise.

He can only be defeated if I can be intolerant and I can be belligerent. You know, about this. I really can't. But that's what I'm being.

I could be intolerant and belligerent denial, and you know what's going to happen? I'm not going to get nothing

is what it's telling me.

We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of the program as there's nobody

that's hope for me,

it says. We find that no one need have difficulty with the spirituality of this program. I am not exempt. I can't sit here and say I got so much baggage. This ain't going to work for me. They just took that away from me.

They said nobody need to have difficulty. I don't care what your background is. I don't care what religious background with no religion. No, it don't matter. It all help. It works for everybody.

How cool is that?

I couldn't even use that as a way out.

Willingness, honesty and open minded. Open mindedness are the essentials of recovery,

but these are indispensable. I know I have a lot of old timers that go what are the essentials of this program? I need to know what they are. They'll say to me what are the essentials of this program of recovery? And I have to say honestly, open mindedness and willingness.

What are the three essentials?

Honesty, open mindedness and willingness

takes me so many places.

I love this part.

There is a principle which is barred against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot, cannot fail to keep a man an everlasting ignorance.

That principle is contempt prior to investigation. I love it.

You want to stay ignorant?

Do contempt prior to investigation.

Condemned breakdown, Criticized judge

critique and you'll stay ignorant. That's what just told me.

Contempt prior to investigation. I am already condemning what you're doing and I haven't even investigated it yet.

Honesty, open mindedness and willingness allows me to investigate. It allows me to go. Let me see

what you people are doing. Let's see what's going on here. You say higher power. Hey, OK, let's check it out.

Let me see, let me see what it does. Let me see what it's doing for you. I need to find one of my own. How do I do that? I need to examine my relationship, how I understand God. Okay, let's do that. But the moment I go, I don't think so

I'm in trouble.

The answer to two is in three.

The answer to two is in three.

If I believe that there's the possibility

that I could be restored to Sandy by something greater than me, that it is possible. Why? Because it happened to you. So just maybe it can happen for me then I got no other choice but to go to three.

I have to go to three. I can't stay in two.

That's why it treats me and we were like I'm I'm still on two for years. How is that possible? How do you stay on two for years?

You still trying to come to believe?

Is that what you're doing? If you stuck on two, you don't believe yet, huh?

You don't believe you crazy.

You don't really know you powerless

cuz I'm I'm convinced that I'm powerless. I've got no other choice.

I want to be restored to sanity like you have. And the way you did it was you tapped into some source of power. How did you tap into it? You made a decision to tap into it. That's what Three says. Made a decision to turn my will and my life over to the care of God as I understood Him. That's what you did. That's what I gotta do. And all I gotta do is make a decision. Two birds?

No, three birds sitting on a branch. One decides to fly. How many birds on the branch?

Three,

nobody went anywhere. They just made a decision. You're not asking me to do anything on three, not doing anything. I'm just making a decision. I'm going, OK,

let's try this and we make such big deals out of all this stuff.

It's not a big deal.

It seems like it's working for you.

Something happening

with you? I can dig it. I'm tired. Let's do it.

We're going to take a break in a couple of minutes so we can stretch out. Everybody's getting restless.

How it works Page 60.

We read this all the time. Chapter 5

and all of our meetings. We read chapter 558 in the

in the 4th edition. Sorry 58

don't we love reading chapter 5? People just can't wait to go up and read.

I love to watch people, like, mimicking the words when they're reading Chapter 5. I'm like, I don't remember anything about this program telling me I need to memorize this stuff,

this is designed for living and have to sit here and run off my mouth and that I know A, the real alcoholic and B, that'll mean nothing to me. I've memorized a lot of things. I've taken tests in school. I've got diplomas. That does nothing for me today.

I know how to take a test.

Memories not helping me here.

Do I get it?

Am I applying it? Do I identify with it? Is that why I'm running it off and mimicking it with my mouth? I think it's gonna like go inside of me in some kind of way.

We read Chapter 5 in every meeting

in every meeting and what I love about it is afterwards it says

a that we will alcoholic and could not manage your own lives be there probably no human power could have relieved us of our alcoholism. Do we really agree with that?

I hope so.

No human power can relieve me of my alcoholism. Yes,

I have a question about A and do we say that we were alcoholic or are we always alcoholic? It says here that we were

alcohol. We admitted that we were. It's really that I am,

yeah.

I hear in the meeting of never asked anybody. Yeah, that it's really that I am. But I no longer necessarily stand in that.

I say my name is Teresa. I'm an alcoholic, right? Once a cucumber turns to a pickle, can never go back

right? I'm a pickle,

but I recover. I do recover.

They said that the very beginning of this book

and we are recovered.

Yep,

there are probably no human power could relieve of our alcoholism. No human power.

I've tried it based on my experience as an accurate statement. They're not lying. Unless your experience tells you that there's some human power that can help you, my hat goes off to you. Go forward, man. Have one for me. Do what you got to do. My experience tells me nothing. Has nothing. Nothing has relieved me, giving me that relief. Nothing.

No food, no sex, no money, no job, no car, no relationship, no family, no children, no friends, no brother, no sister, no nothing. No alcohol, No pills, no cocaine, no crystal meth, no heroin, no UPS, no downs, no Vicodin. Nothing.

Nothing has relieved me

that God could and would if he was sought. It's an interesting statement. Most of our meetings we repeat that stuff. I love it, everybody. God could. It would if he was sought. God could and would if he was sought. Don't even know what we say.

Like love. Are you repeating that? Do you believe it

that God could? Could he? How is that possible? He did it for you

and he would if I sought him. If I go to find him, I have to go find him now.

I gotta find him. He's somewhere. I don't know where, but he's somewhere. You found him.

Let me follow your road map.

That's all I'm doing is following your road map to find this thing that you found. As I saw the steps, it's a road map.

And then right after it says being convinced we were at Step 3.

You know what's so funny is they went through all the 12 steps, right? They read them right, all in 12. And then he goes, many of us explain what an order I can't go through with it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We're not Saints. The point is we're willing to grow along spiritual lines. You know how we read that? What an order, I can't go through with it. And right after that they go. You're at Step 3.

I've already done 2.

By the time I get to the chapter 5 I'm already done too. I haven't done it. Already done one and two. It was simpler than I thought it was.

It says being convinced you're at 3. How are you convinced?

I didn't even know I was convinced.

I didn't even know I was convinced.

Convinced is what? With evidence

and Vince firmly persuade.

Firmly persuade.

How am I firmly persuaded? Bless you.

My experience,

my experience. I'm convinced.

I'm convinced. I'm also convinced in you

y'all jacked me up.

I could no longer rationalize and justify my behavior.

I can no longer sit around and make excuses anymore. I can't do it. Not with you.

I'm convinced

that no human power is going to relieve me my alcoholism. It hasn't done it for you. It certainly hasn't done it for me.

I'm convinced

I'm not that confused at this point.

Nobody told me that was going to be fun.

What a humbling thing

to be convinced.

All these years I've been trying to work it out and I come to find out that I can't,

that I don't have not one else of power to do it.

That's why they say this program is not for people who need it. For people who want it.

That's not easy to take it Not an alcoholic.

Do you know that the persistence of that illusion is so astonishing, I'm willing to pursue it into the gates of insanity and death.

To drink like other people. That's how sick I am.

That's why most of us die.

The truth.

See, I see you. So I most of us die.

That's why most of us go in and out.

They say 50% of us stay who really try,

25% going and now come back.

There's a reason for that.

Am I convinced? I need to ask myself, am I convinced? If I'm not convinced, that's OK, go do some more convincing.

He had your hand up over there

wondering about that we were or are you say that you're covered alcoholic or that you're covering alcoholic and recovered. But I would say to say my name is I'm an alcoholic. Semantics. You say tomato, I say tomato.

Do you know what I'm saying? I say my next reason, I'm an alcoholic,

but I come to understand that I've recovered

as people get scared of that. But I've tapped into a source of power. I'm no longer powerless.

I'm an alcoholic though, because when I begin to remove myself to that source of power, I'm a drink again. And I would be just as crazy as a bed bug. And that we relapsed in our mind long before we take a drink. I've learned that from a lot of people.

I suffer from the spiritual mouth that kicks in first. Boy, I see a lie here. I, my sponsor, used to have me go to meetings and ask people who relapse. Excuse me? With a piece of paper and a pen. Excuse me, like a reporter.

I understand you've relapsed recently.

Can you tell me what you didn't do?

Can I write it down? Everybody say the same thing. Stop going to meetings, stop working with a sponsor, stop working on the steps. Everybody said the same thing. I'm like you'll need to get together because I have yet to get something different.

Why do we stop going to meetings? Stop working with a sponsor? Stop working on the steps? Something tells me you don't need to go to that meeting.

People saying the same old thing, same old boring people over and over again. What you need to go there for,

You gotta listen to them.

Stop passing it on

9 passing nothing on if I ain't going to meetings and working with a sponsor, No, but no, they don't say that because that's irrelevant now. There's no way I'm a passing. I got nothing to pass on. But you know what they do pass on? Toxic disease. That's why they don't say stop passing it on. Don't say that because they've been passing some stuff on

because they don't even know it. They think they're being of service,

but they're not.

I start thinking I'm running the show, I'm in charge, I don't need nobody, I don't need nothing I need to call my sponsor for. They going to say the same old thing. They don't have their life together. What they going to tell me why I got to call them for?

I have to call them. I can work this one out. This one is doable. I don't need to call them

steps. What steps? The same old steps over and over again.

I need to do those.

So what happens? And then eventually we start distancing. I see the person distance themselves and distance themselves and the behavior comes back.

Start acting out and get restless, irritable and discontent. You see it, they get restless, irritable and discontent and you can't do nothing else eventually but go get a drink.

So uncomfortable.

Recently, I remember telling somebody I I'm gonna be 19 in March. Yeah,

and I said, but it's one day at a time. Boy,

I don't know what's going to happen in March from here to March. It's January for goodness sake.

I said in that time I'm supposed to also go speak somewhere. People crack me up asking me to speak in 2010. I thought this was a one day at a time thing, right? That means I got to stay sober to 2010

and this man told me, oh, you know what, Teresa? I doubt it very seriously. If you're going to take a drink before March 29th,

you have a spirit that is so huge between you and the drink. I doubt it very much that you won't be sober March 29th.

Do you know that? I never thought of it that way,

he said. There's just no way

that you're gonna pick up a drink before March 29th. It's not gonna happen.

There is something bigger than you that is so huge standing between you and that drink. That is not gonna happen

unless starting right now, you begin chipping away at that light.

You begin chipping away, chipping away, chipping away. That brings you closer to the drink. But the more I'm convinced and continue to do the work and continue to do the work and stay in the core, there's no way this becomes further and further removed from me. That's what correctional people say. I'm just like the newcomer. Do you know what we're talking about? I'm just like you because I drink like you. I drank like you, I've used like you. I behaved like you. But no, you and I do not stand in the same place.

No, if I tell that to the newcomer, how do I give him hope? You and I in the same place. That means I'm just as miserable as your ass right now.

Because you're miserable and I am not.

That's why I want you to come here. You and I do not sit. She's 30 days. I have 18 plus years. We're not sitting in the same place.

I don't say that arrogance. I hope that gives you hope.

I'm saying people go over just one drink away from a drug. I'm just like the newcomer. No, I am not.

I didn't want to be just like the newcomers. Why I kept coming back.

I'm new. I'm like you because I'm a drunk. That's it.

I suffer from the same allergy of the body, but I have a relationship. I tapped into a source of power that you were beginning to do, that you were looking to do,

and I hope you do it so you can get what we have.

Be convinced that life run by you don't work.

I'm convinced. Are you convinced?

Can you believe in the possibility that a power greater than you can help you as it has helped me?

Could you

possibly believe that just maybe it can happen and if you do that, make a decision.

Just make a decision.

That's it. You ain't got to think too hard. You're thinking too hard. I could see it in your face.

I can tell people make a decision. What do you guys think? Make a decision. You just make one.

Yeah.

You make many decisions in your life, maybe previous years decisions similar to this one. And I'm conducting. That's fine. Why should it happen to me? The negative force. Come, come, come back. Well, did you succeed in that decision? No, I did not.

That's that's what reminding me right now. What's funny though, is those decisions that you didn't succeed in. Didn't you make a decision and do it anyway?

That's my yeah. But you see the insanity of our disease. There are so many decisions that I made poor decisions, and I did them anyway. And this decision is positive. And now I question it

does. It's saying we are, we're so crazy,

we're so sick.

We were willing to go to any lanes for a drink, for a fix, for a pill, for a hit, and then they come to AA and all of a sudden I can't do nothing.

Oh, riding. Oh gosh, no.

You mean to write will help me to be better, but I won't do that.

We're crazy, man.

We sit back and we go, but I've made some really bad decisions in my life.

Maybe I should make this decision because all my other decisions were so poor.

I went so crazy.

It cracks me up. It's like a defense for making me stay where I am, isn't it? No, we're just sick.

We're just sick. We're just on a destructive path. We like to do things that destroy us. How many relationships you got into make poor decisions and end up with the same person again? We fall in love with people's potential, you know,

different face, another day, new person, same thing. We stay in them bad decisions. We do it anyway. I mean, I took on the same attitude and Alcoholics and others when I got here. Okay, let's say this is a bad decision. So what I've made worse?

Do you know what I'm saying? What the heck?

Let it be a bad decision. What's gonna happen? I might just get sober.

I might get better. Oh, that's scary.

Don't want to do that. That's why I know that's my disease. My disease. Say stay sick,

stay sick. You need to stay sick because for some reason when something is introduced to me to get better,

I reject it and I find every excuse why that's a bad idea. That can only be insanity.

No, you're better off going to the bar and drinking. Don't. Don't find this higher power thing. God forbid you do this higher power thing.

Just go and stick a needle in your arm.

You know what I'm saying

we're going to take a break, but the simplicity of it for me was make a decision. It says be convinced, make a decision. How do I do it? Make a decision turn my within my life over to the care of God as we understood him. How do I understood stand him when I was on three very weird, but I had one. I had a lot of mixed feelings about this higher power. That's why I said fat tell dirty Joel, stick your finger up your nose. I don't know the group, the people. That's what I understand right now as well as I understand that I got old ideas and they might not seem to work. Maybe they do they don't. It doesn't

matter, I just need to know there is one. I'm not it. Let's go with that.

I was more actually thinking about how does it work in reality? If I decide to believe in something, you know, how does it work in reality? That's that's what I want to be thinking about. How does it work in reality?

Belief in this higher power and so on. I'm an agnostic guy. Whatever. I don't believe it or not that's

I was saying how does that work? How does that help me? I mean my sick thing, my allergy would probably convince me once again. Once again, have a drink.

But that's just

what do I do? When can I trust this high power? That's not what step three tells me to do. That's where we get confused. All it says is make a decision because the answer to three is a four.

That's all I got to do is make a decision

to the possibility that there is something out there greater and it seems to be working for you. Am I willing to do it? Let's just check it out. I know that what I've been doing, I've been working. What you're doing is let's just try it now how it plays out in reality. Well, people are saying they're sober. Let's start there.

Let's keep it real simple. They're sober and they seem to be happy. I can start there. That's how it plays out in reality. I know that I'm not sober and I'm not happy.

Who's the fool, them or me?

Good question, right?

Very cool. We're going to take a break for like 10 minutes, right? Take a stretch

cigarette

and we're going to get in the four and five. That's going to be good juicy. That's when we going to lose the crowd after four and five.