Big Book study in McKenzie Bridge, OR

Underline And he he brought that little ugly Bible with him on this trip and he helped me to get OK with Christ. Christianity and the word Jesus didn't shove it down my throat. He gave me an understanding of it. So I had a prejudice. You follow me. It was a prejudice that I had that made me uncomfortable in that setting.

I had a certain antipathy

in a preconceived idea that this allows new information.

It's kind of like when people start talking about Hondas. You get it. OK, good.

Abby, Abby. Abby, Larry. Larry drives a Nissan. Now, when the thought was expressed that there might be a God personal to me, this feeling was intensified, you know, when somebody pulled me aside and they suggested to me that Christian, you know, maybe you don't have a relationship that you want with God. You know, and Earl always has the great comeback. You know, he calls. He walks in to see his sponsor, Donald Madden, and

Donald looks right at him and says, Earl, you can't be mad at a God. You don't believe it,

of course. You turn around, you go home and try to figure that one out all night, he says. I didn't like the idea. I could go for a conception as a creative intelligence, universal mind, a spirit of nature, but I resisted the thought of a czar of the heavens, however loving his sway might be. I have since talked with scores of men who felt the same way. Now again, Ebby's walking in. He's he's bringing Shep Cornell. He's bringing zebra graves. He's got Roland Hazard. He's got this

contingency of of of 1st century Christianity and these guys are trying to force feed

the blood and power of the Lamb, the redemptive powers of the blood of Christ. They're trying to preach this to Bill and Bill won't hear it. He's puking it up because Bill's got an answer. Again, master argument. He has got an answer for everything. He's just about smart enough to hang in any setting. And he knows a lot about this because his teachers, Mark Whalen, his grandfather, everything he read in books, long windy arguments. He had everything figured out up here. But yet Abby, and this is the part that Abby that Abby did,

Evie brought the pain. Evie brought the truth and he laid it in Bill's lap and they're trying to get him to hear it. It's like you ever tried to help somebody who doesn't want help. You know they need help. They don't know they need help yet. And you're trying to convince them of the need for this. And and Ebby is preaching again what Oxford Group taught him. And then he basically does something that the Oxford Group does not teach. He says Abby suggested what then seemed a novel idea. Now he they make the sound like it's

very simple, like Ebby pulled Bill close over a cup of coffee and suggested this. That's not what happened. Bill would wear you out and piss you off because he you're trying to save his life and he doesn't want his life saved because he doesn't need it Now. He thinks he needs it, but he doesn't want what you got.

But Bill has something going for him. Bill doesn't want what he has either. So then Evie suggests this. He says why don't you choose your own conception of God? And that's in squiggly writing. And they later asked Debbie. They said, Debbie, where did that come from? He said, I don't know what had happened to Bill's bill warning down and he that was the only comeback he had and when he did it, it was argument stopped. How do you argue with that?

I mean, no, I won't do that. Fine Bill, choose your own conception that says that's

statement that I can choose my own conception of God Hit me hard. I love that when you suggest that to a new guy, listen, you don't have to believe as I believe, but do you believe that there's something out there? And they're like,

you can do that, you know, and then, of course, you get the phone call about the tree or the doorknob. And I always like the way Scott Redmond talks about the tree outside, you know, the leap of faith. You know, you know that. Oh, my tree, my tree, my tree. And then you wake up one morning and the city's cutting down your tree and as you're chasing the chipper down the road, you're like, God help my you know, it's that leap. So I've done a lot of H and I meetings, jails and and spend rising.

One time I was doing one at Charter Peachford Hospital in Atlanta. There was this girl sitting out and she had to arms crossed and just contempt and you could just see her bristling. The steam's blowing up and I started talking about God

and she stood up and said, where you headed, honey? She says, I knew you were going to bring up God. She says, my goodness. She says, can't you guys just get through one meeting without talking about God? And I said no.

And she said I'm out of here. I said whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I said, could I ask you one simple thing? She said arms are crossed and she just shaken. And I said, do you believe that? I believe

and she yes, I said cool, we got something to work with. Sit your ass down. You know, I mean, we got to start somewhere. Do you believe? I believe. And if you if you're in the room with me for three minutes on this gig, you there ain't no questions. I'm in, I'm all in. So we got to start somewhere. And that's what Abby did. He says choose your own conception of God. He found the hole in the argument.

We all got an argument. We all got our way of defending what we don't know.

And he hit Bill with a question that he couldn't answer. And it says that statement hit me hard. That statement melted that icy intellectual mountain and whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I see. It was a very cold place, not friendly at all. Intellectual mountain. I stood in the sunlight at last. There's just some squiggly writing now. It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a power greater than myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning. Second step. You want to write that in because Bill's about to

steps. And keep in mind, guys, Bill ain't got a year.

He's still freaking and shaking and snaking. So he's taking the first step. He's taking the second step. He says, I saw that growth could start from that point. You know, that the 12 and 12 talks about willingness being the key that opens the door. It just opens the door. It doesn't kick it open. It just merely unlocks it, you know. So he goes on to say, upon a foundation of complete willingness, I might build what I saw in my friend, what I have it. Well, of course I would. Then he goes on to say, thus

convinced that God is concerned with us humans when we want him enough at long last. Now Bill has an experience here. He doesn't have just an intellectual comprehension. He goes at long last I saw I felt I believed he has an experience on multiple levels. We're talking about this in your in your package. You've got this thing we call the arch chart. This is something that Joe and Charlie divide some years ago.

And what we're talking about here, this is the arch, the new and triumphant arch through which we're going to pass free men

and we're building this thing.

But over the next several hours, we're going to stay on step one. That's where we're at right now on step one. We were going step one last night. We got two more chapters on step one, Willingness.

This slab of concrete right here was poured many years ago. And I can assure you there's some guys in here in construction. When they poured this slab, they made sure that the weather was perfect. It wasn't raining, it wasn't too cold. Because this stuff won't set up. Because they knew they were going to build this, this fabulous structure on this thing.

It was going to house thousands and thousands of people over the years. So they made sure that the conditions were right, the proper ingredients were in place before the slap. Complete willingness was enough for me to make my beginning, he says. I saw and I believed. Step 2. Believe or become willing to believe. These are the cornerstones of this arch, OK?

He says. Scales of pride and prejudice fell from my eyes. A new world came into view.

The toughest question that I was asked, The most humbling question that I was asked, I didn't have an answer for.

And for me, my spiritual growth began when I uttered this three word answer. I don't know.

I don't have an answer. I ain't got to figure it out. I don't know. And there's something that happens when I set aside what I think I know in order to have a new experience. And that's all we're doing. And when we sit down with somebody suggested them that maybe their relationship with God is a bad relationship. Maybe they can have a better relationship. Maybe they can have. I have Roman Catholic mom in a Southern Baptist dad.

You can do that math real quick. And there's a lot of friction.

I knew everything I need to know about God by the time I was seven years old and knew his middle initial was H. And I, my parents religions frequently condemned one another, you know, and if you thought it, you might as well have done it. And you're going to hell for it. And I'm never going to be good enough because I didn't go through catechism. So I'm not going to be able to even go up and get that wafer and that little bit of juice, you know. And I just, I didn't fit in and I knew it. And they let me know that I didn't fit in, but yet they were unwilling to work together to come to some common agreement.

So I had this bad taste in my mouth when it came to religion. Anyways, so I can really hook up with all of this. And my first sponsor suggested why don't you choose your own conception. And he basically had me do a third step exercise. He had me ride out my own conception. A1 ad started like this. Wanted one higher power, must be all knowing, all powerful, all places. He suggested if I had put an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent in place,

my conceptions, I take him out of any box I will ever put him in,

and then I put some like parameters on them. I mean, how immature was I to start putting down some guidelines for God? But he suggested to me that my old conceptions were inadequate. They were going to fail me utterly. What he suggested to me is that maybe I could have a new relationship, one I'd never had before. And it's been since my experience. I sponsor a guy. His first higher power was Jerry Garcia.

That's right after Jerry died. And that was his higher power. And as far as he know, there was a purple bear up in heaven kicking around, doing the full kick, doing the dance.

Yeah. I mean, I've been to many a show, and there's some great, great examples of our fellowship running around here. And they got higher powers in all shapes, sizes and forms. It's it it makes no difference to me. But the evidence of that higher power in their lives

makes a difference to me. They're sober because they've tapped into that power, not because of what it's named or how it's shaped or where it came from, but the fact that they have it. That's the key thing here,

he says. A new world came into view and then he goes on to qualify it. The real significance of my experience in the cathedral. Winchester Cathedral burst upon me for a brief moment. I needed and wanted God. There been a humble willingness to have him with me and he came OK. This is the third time that Bill has made reference to his visit to Winchester Cathedral and the book Pass it on. On page 60, it says

an epidemic kept building. His regiment detained at a camp near Winchester in England.

The fighting was going on in France. The battle that he imagined was in his head. The explosions, the gunfire, the the, the wounding, the the dying was all in Bill's head. We're pretty good Imagineers, aren't we?

Says depressed, lonely and apprehensive about what lay ahead. Bill went to visit Winchester Cathedral. Inside the great cathedral, the atmosphere impressed itself so deeply upon him that he was taken by a sort of ecstasy, moved and stirred by a tremendous sense of presence. God was horrified. God was horrified. Bill was horrified

and he needed some confidence. He needed some reassurance. He needed God,

needed and wanted God, and God showed up, he says. I've been in many great cathedral since and I've never experienced anything like it, he said.

For a brief moment, I had needed and wanted God.

There had been a humble willingness to have him with me. And he came in that moment. Bill knew that everything was all right, as it should be. Bill never forgot it. So he was not an atheist. He was, he wasn't even an agnostic. But he needed somebody to come along and say, Bill, choose your own conception of God, ever. How inadequate it may be. It's a great place to start.

Have anybody ever seen the movie Field of Dreams?

Kevin Costner goes nuts and builds a baseball field in the middle of the cornfield in Iowa and all. Everybody who knows him thinks he's nuts. But his family, those close to him, they can see what he sees. And they're out there watching all these dead baseball players running around, throwing the ball, batting it, knocking it around, having a great time. But his brother-in-law,

he comes and he sees what's going on and all he sees is a field. All he sees is waste.

And there's some part in this movie, and it's a real neat experience to watch because I always go back to it because I think about this one experience. The girl falls off. She's choking on a hot dog. And a Doctor Who's a baseball player in his younger days, he was a baseball player, steps off the field and becomes real. All of a sudden he sees a doctor helping this little girl. And then he looks around and he's like, where'd all these baseball players come from?

They were there the entire time,

but the presence of them he could not acknowledge their presence. Bill recognizes and he says it here. He says, but the soon the sense of his presence like God ever leaves me, but I can't experience the presence of God when I'm caught up in what the Bill talks about it here. Worldly clamors, mostly those within myself. How am I experiencing the presence of God when I don't need God?

When it's just me running the show? When I'm inflicting myself upon the world,

when I'm the man now in the foxhole, when I'm rubbing that lucky rabbit's foot, I'm praying for God and I need his presence. But man, when I'm running the show, when I'm inflicting myself upon you and others, I don't need God. I got this. Larry talks about the guy in Vegas who just struck it rich. He's not in his hotel room on his knees going, God help me.

Where's the name of God? We've never heard of a guy that won the lottery and says, God, please help me. Bill was given a book, Varieties of the Spiritual Experience by William James and when he was laying in detox. And in that book, it suggests that one of the ways to come to a spiritual experience is complete

of ego at depth to where you are no longer the most important thing in your life. There's got to be something more important. And Bill experiences that, you know, we're going to go through that here in a second. Now. Bill Wilson. And it says he writes. And so it's been ever since how blind I've been at the hospital. This is his fourth and final visit. This is December 31st, December 11th, 1930. Four 1987,

1987 December 31st Yeah, whatever. Larry was wheeled into the hospital December 11th, 1934. Bill's last visit,

his final drink 39 years old. At 2:30 in the afternoon. Bill Wilson walks in. He says I was separated from alcohol for the last time. Now treatment seemed wise, but I showed signs of D TS. Now Bill.

Yeah. Now Bill was basically about four days into his detox. He could hold 1/2 cup of decaf without yipping it all over the place, you know, he says there I humbly offered myself to God as I then understood him. There's Bill's third step. Get your pins handy because Bill's about to get through all the steps here guys and he ain't got a year

to do with me as he would. I placed myself unreservedly under his care and direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing, that without him I was lost. I ruthlessly faced my sins and became willing to have my new found friend take them away. Root and branch, steps 4/6 and seven. I have not had a drink since. Now root and branch is a key thing. I used to do landscaping work which is a great way. Great place to hide out if

busy drinking. And I used to do this work and it was a hot August day and I got the my job assignment was to go to this one house and in the South they got these boxwoods. There's a decorative shrubs that go along the front of these houses. And the job was this dig up the boxwoods so we can plant something else in there in a couple of weeks.

It's hot, man. And I grabbed the loppers and I cut the box woods at the base, right? No harm, no foul.

I got a call couple days later. I said what did you do? I said, well, I got rid of the boxwoods. He said no, you didn't. They're starting to peek through that under that pine straw. Just removing the visual image of the boxwoods did not remove the boxwoods.

Just not acting out in my character defects removes my character defects. You take that old analogy, you've got to you got a drunken horse thief. You sober them up. What do you got sober horse thief? Bill had them removed root and branch. I usually want to remove just the branch. Get the root is where the problem is selfish and self-centered. That we believe is the root of our problems. And Bill's going to touch on that in the next chapter chapters. So he says, my schoolmate Abby visited me and I fully acquainted him with my problems and efficiencies.

We made a list of people I had hurt or tore whom I felt resentment. Step 8I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals, admitting my wrong Never was that I'd be critical of them. I was to write all such matters to the utmost of my ability. Step nine. I was to test my thinking by the new God consciousness, common sense, but thus become uncommon sense. I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as He would have me.

11 Never was on a pray for myself, except as my request bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive, but that would be in great measure all right. The 12th step is broken into three parts. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps,

we tried to carry this message to other Alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs. Here's Bill's first part of the of the 12th step, the spiritual awakening part. Debbie promised when these things were done, when the steps were taken, I would enter upon a new relationship with my Creator, that I would have the elements of a way of living which answered all my problems. Not some or your drinking problem, but all your problems. All of them.

Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and humility to establish and maintain the new order of things

were the essential requirements. Simple but not easy. A price had to be paid. It meant destruction of self centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides over us all. Now I've heard people sit there and say, yeah, four step is simple but not easy. It's not where it appears in the book. The book talks about 12th step. Simple but not easy. So it says. These were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully accepted them.

The effect was electric. What he's talking about here, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps,

the result was electric. We've heard about Bill Bill Wilson's white light hot flash experience. He was in town's hospital. He was coming out of D TS. He had a minor concussion where he'd run head on into a lamp pole. But he was sick and tired of being sick and tired and he invited God into his life and God showed up that night. His account was that the room filled with light

and

he said the the experience was electric because he had a spiritual awakening or experience, if you will, as the result of doing the work that Ebby had outlined for him.

Says there was utter confidence. He says there was a sense of victory followed by a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was utter confidence. I felt lifted up as though the great clean wind of a mountaintop blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but his impact on me was sudden and profound. And as we Alcoholics read this passage and we read this literature, we we live by comparison. And I invite you very strongly not to do that. I don't know what your experience is. I've got over 21 years, I've known

three people in my entire tenure here that had a profound sudden spiritual experience. And let me assure you, if you've ever met anybody that had that experience, you don't have to question whether they had it. You know it. Mine was educational over a period of time. I believe that you believed, but you needed to show me, not tell me what you did to acquire this consciousness.

You're with us.

Bill Wilson had a sudden and profound experience. And he says to most men it comes gradually,

he says, But to me it was sudden and profound. Back up in this paragraph, he says, I felt lifted up, as though the great wind of a clean, clean wind of a mountaintop blew through and through. He plagiarized that his grandfather Gilman,

one of these old Wilson boys that love to drink red liquor.

His family told him about the prejudices of drink and his family and his heritage and built a member earlier in the story says he didn't pay any attention to it. He didn't sign that temperance pledge. His grandfather liked to drink red liquor and show his butt on one Sunday morning and he stores at Vermont.

He was sick and tired of being sick and tired and being worthless, and he wandered up on a mountain called Mount Aiolus just outside of East Dorset. And on top of that mountain, he dropped down at his knees and he said, God, please help me.

And God visited Gilman on top of that mountain that morning.

He came down off that hill and he walked down Main Street of East Dorset and burst into the front door of the church where the preacher was giving the morning service. And he said, preacher, excuse me a minute. He went up to the pulpit and he testified and he told them people. He says, I just, he said God just visited me up on that mountain. And he says while I was there, I felt as though the great clean window that mountain blew through and through me.

He never drank again. So this story about the grandfather was told over family gatherings at Christmas and Thanksgiving, over dinner.

And Bill had heard that story from his mother, Emily, for years. So he plagiarized that part of the story. And it's OK because who knows? Something very sudden and profound happened to Bill that morning in the OR, that night in the hospital. Says for a moment, I was alarmed, and I called my friend, the doctor to ask if I were still sane. Silkworth listened and wonder as I talked. Finally, he shook his head, saying, you know, something's happened to you. I don't understand. But you better hang on to it. Anything is better than the way you were.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, says the good doctor, now sees many men who have such experiences. He knows that they are real. While I lay in the hospital, second part of the 12th step, he tried to carry this message to other Alcoholics. And that thought came that there were thousands of hopeless Alcoholics who might be glad to have what have been so freely given me.

Perhaps I could help some of them. They in turn might work with others. This is the first conscious thought of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill's laying in the hospital just coming out of DTS and he has the idea of this 12 step program that we're so blessed to be a part of today. Says my friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating these principles and all my affairs.

3rd part of the 12th step, practice these principles and all your affairs particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked with me. Imperative. That's pretty strong language. So when all the wheels are off, what's the best thing to do? Grab a wet one says faith without works was dead. And how appallingly true for the alcoholic. A book tells us here how to grow spiritually. It says for if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self sacrifice for others,

then it gives us a bad omen. We will not survive the certain trials in low spots ahead

coming, not if, but when they're coming. If we do not work, we would surely drink again. And if we drink, we would surely die. Then faith would be dead indeed with us. It's just like that, he says. My wife and I abandoned ourselves with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm EN with whose God? We abandoned ourselves with God to the idea of helping other Alcoholics to a solution of their problems. It was fortunate for my old business associates to remain skeptical for a year and a half, during which I found little work was not too well. At the time. It was plagued by waves of self pity and resentment.

Damn near died from depression. Yeah, he had it for over almost 15 years. The writing of the 12 and 12 was done during the writing of this. He says this sometimes nearly drove me back to drink. But I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would save the day. There we go. Many times I have gone to old hospital in despair. I'm talking to a man there. I would be amazingly lifted up and sat on my feet. Here's a promise. It is a design for living that works in rough going. You know, we read these. I don't know about here out here in this part of the country, but in the meetings back in Atlanta, they read

called The Promises and we sit in there and new guys, how many new guys we got here this weekend? There you go. You're going to hear this document they read around here, probably it's called The Promises. And you're going to ask yourself, what the hell does this mean?

Says if we are painstaking about this phase of our development, what phase are they talking about? And it says you're going to be amazed before you're halfway through. Halfway through with what? The meeting. The meeting

halfway through with Christmas.

Well, I get it, I get it. But why are we

back up?

They're reading a document that comes after the 9th step. We got a new guy that just walked in off the street. You follow the guy just walked in and he's going halfway through with, what was that, 45 minutes into the meeting that I'm going to have this painstaking about what? Go in and get a cup of coffee or not spilling it on the way back from the coffee machine. The point I make is this book. Here's the point, guys. I'm sorry about my little tirade. And you ain't seen the last of that.

This book is full of promises. Hundreds and hundreds of promises.

It just so happens the Fellowship chose the night step promises to read because it's pretty dramatic. In the at the beginning of a meeting, Bill Wilson wrote, and this is not my opinion, this is his writing. If Alcoholics Anonymous ever goes down the tube, it's because we did it. The Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is the worst thing that ever happened. Alcoholics Anonymous. We got our little designs and ideas.

Just don't drink and go to meetings. All right, let's go, the book says. We commence to make many fast friends

and a fellowship has grown up among us, of which it is a wonderful thing to feel apart.

I guarantee a lot of people have read this and I'm going to point something out that was pointed out to me that just blew my mind when I first read it. It says the joy of living we really have,

even under pressure and difficulty. Not the joy of living I think I got. Not the joy of living. I'm portraying to you the joy of living. We really have

really have tangible results. The joy is not indicative of the circumstance

because I used to dictate as long as I had all my ducks in a row, everything was great. But you've learned what they're not my ducks. And if you read Turks shirt you can find out who's ducks they are,

it says. I have seen hundreds of families set their feet in the path. That really goes somewhere.

Not this nebulous hope that it gets better. No true path to somewhere, it says. I have seen the most impossible domestic situations righted, promise and bitterness of all sorts wiped out. I have seen men come out of the asylum and resume a vital place in the lives of their families and communities. Promise. Business and professional men have regained their standing. Promise. There is scarcely any form of trouble and misery which has not been overcome among us.

Promise big a good example of that. I mentioned that last night. I got men that I sponsor that have wives and girlfriends and our wives and, well, wives and girlfriends. I don't have one of those either. Wives, girlfriends and children, I don't have any of those things. So when they come to me with domestic problems, I'm not your guy. I am not successful in relationships. I don't know anything about kids, don't have any.

So what I have to do is take them by the hand and sit them down in front of Bob Crawford, my sponsor,

and have him walk them through it. Because there are problems that I am not going to allow my ego to jump in and say, well, let me tell you what I think because I don't know what the hell to do with that. Christian's got a great example of of taking problems that a regular sponsor doesn't have the answer for that somebody else might.

I one of the first things I actually did right now, Alcoholics Anonymous, as I did that first year thing,

first sponsor Don pulled me aside. He goes listen and Don, you'd have to know Don. Don wore sunglasses inside. Don was a real smooth talking used car salesman and he always talked real quiet.

You got to lean in now. You got to hear what the hell you talking about. Don pulled me and he goes, listen, you're pretty sick and she's going to be pretty sick because you ain't going to be able to attract anything other than a sick woman. And of course my feelings were hurt. So he says suggested to me, why don't you work on your alcoholism the first year? Why don't you do the steps as outlined in the book?

Well, about nine or ten months into our relationship, Don was too busy. I was too busy and we I found another sponsor and on day 367, I went on my first date. We were engaged within four months. So you do the math right there. I'm not thinking right. She ain't thinking right. She ended up having a stroke. She was 23 years old and ended up having what they call Atia stroke. Little pieces of blood clot were breaking off and going into the back of her brain and she was suffering dramatic strokes and we thought they were seizures. We checked her into the hospital and within six

in the neurointensive care unit dying. We're not sure if she's going to ever live. We're not sure if she's, if she does live, if she's going to be a vegetable. And I'm a year and five months into my sobriety and I'm crumbling and I don't know what to do. And so I start reaching out to y'all and my sponsor does not pretend to understand what I'm going through, but he calls a guy out in Vista, CA, and he gives me a number. Mike Grande. I don't know Mike Grande. I don't want to know Mike Grande. But he suggests that

Mike Grande has the experience that you are currently going through. He can walk you through it. So I called Mike Grande and from 2000 plus miles away, a guy, a member of this solid member of this fellowship, walked me hand in hand through the other side. Now the story's got a happy ending. But the prayer was this. Instead of my selfish needs, he suggested that I pray for her needs. God help her

to walk away from this.

I can handle anything. And as I cried myself to sleep that night because this is my babe, this is my girl, this is my future, this is the woman I want to grow old with. And here's the prayer. God, if you get her through this, I can handle anything. And I prayed it over and over again. God just help her get through this. I can handle anything. God help her get through this. Well within a week she's outside of the hospital walking around laughing and cutting up. She comes back home and I open the door and I see her there fresh skin and glowing. She says I'm going back to school. I'm thinking, great,

she goes, and I don't want to marry you.

I will be happy.

She had second thoughts.

God get her through this and I can handle anything. I got what I asked for.

Now, the privilege of this is that I learned a lot over the last six years of my sobriety, you know, and I'm in the 1st and I use the word healthy in quotes.

What is a healthy relationship? And you go around the room, you're going to get a whole lot of subjective opinions on that.

But I'm in a healthy relationship. That's working for me today. But I wouldn't be in the relationship I'm in without having gone through the relationship I was going through. And I'm so grateful that my sponsor at the time did not pretend to have an answer. He came back to what the book suggests, reliance upon God instead of reliance upon things human. But he helped me walk from personal experience with a guy from 2000 miles away to walk through the other side told me the guy understood I was feeling what I was thinking and what I wanted to do.

He told me those things from across the phone. And that's a big deal because identification is crucial. I need to know that you understand how I feel before I'm going to follow what you do, you know, And that's a big deal. And it's just one of the examples. So says in one western city and its environs, there are 1000 of us in our families talking about Akron. Then a book says we meet frequently so that newcomers may find the fellowship they seek. Please highlight, underline bracket that sentence because of many of us think that we have

that we can use for a dumping ground. Go talk about her or it or stuff the weed eater. The book. The book says that we have meetings so that the newcomer can find the fellowship he seeks that he craves. That's why we have it so that we have that shot at that new guy that's vibrating coming in the door saying listen, you ain't got to live like this anymore because we have a solution. It's not about the huh,

It ain't about you, dude. Just lean back into the fire.

It ain't about you. It's about that new guy that had to get up the big balls to walk in the door in the 1st place because he heard something about A and A. It's about giving this guy we got one shot at him. Guys. If you keep telling him about the weed eater, he ain't coming back, is going to die in the street. This is the last stop we got to give him a solution, something he can get his teeth into. And you're going to hear me go on this tirade all weekend long.

I'm sick and tired of burying people because we let them slip out the door talking about our problems with her. It all the shit. And it has nothing to do with the treatment of alcoholism. It has nothing to do with the treatment of alcoholism. A guy, you see him raise his hand. My name is Bill. This is my first meeting. Meeting. Grab him. Tell him about the first step. Tell him about the spiritual solution found in the second step. Get him on his knees that day.

Make a decision to go through with the work.

If you got a damn weed eater, take it to the shop. It has no place in a A

We're killing people with that crap, he says. We meet frequently so that newcomers may find the fellowship they seek. They're seeking us. I don't know about y'all. We don't have the 12 step work and and opportunity, the privilege of going out and talking to a wet one anymore. The treatment centers have taken that out, that opportunity away from us.

So, boy, when that new guy walks in, you let him walk into glum light on Thursday night. My God Almighty, they get rushed, but they walk out of there with a sponsor and my guys will say, you got a sponsor yet? What's that? I'm your new guy. Here's my number. You can you lay it out? Yes, Sir. Go back to any hospital,

have Alcoholics.

Yeah, but yeah,

yeah. But they're my, my, my experience is they're not like they were in the day when I walked in here in 1987, man, my sponsor called and said get on your britches. We got a wet one over here, dog. Dogwood Motel. Hi, Almighty. Let's go,

lots of fun, OK Book says that these informal gatherings one may often see from 50 to 200 persons. We are growing in number and power.

The asterisk indicates in 2003 there's 103 thousand, 1985 is 58 five. Have you got any other numbers to throw out? 1989, approximately 7600°.

Wow. Yeah, See, we're growing a number in power. How cool is that,

106,000? This next sentence says an alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature. I ain't got to be drinking to be in my cups.

Screw it. Let my alcoholism rate raise up in me. I ain't, I ain't very fun to be around even to this day. Yeah. I mean, you know, people talk about, well, you know, it's just my alcoholism and I'm thinking, man, that's such a cop out. You know, I mean, oh, chalk it up to my alcoholism thinking, man, you know what? Let's work the steps and let's get past that. You know what makes me an alcoholic is my physical allergy to alcohol.

That mental obsession coupled with the allergy, That's what makes me an alcoholic. You remove the alcohol from me, my alcoholism kicks in.

I don't have to be drinking to experience alcoholism. You know, we're going to talk about that a lot more depth. But man, you remove the alcohol from the alcoholic, what are you left with? Man? It's that nasty. Why would you want to feel like this? You know, Kip talks about it so well. He says I ain't got out. I don't have a problem with drugs and alcohol. I just have this acute allergic reaction to sobriety. You know, I mean, that's a bad way to feel. And how would you want to do it? God says our struggles with them are variously strenuous,

comic, and tragic. 1 poor chap committed suicide in my home. He couldn't or wouldn't

see our way of life. Guy's name is Bill. He actually stayed with Bill and Lois for a minute. He had a gambling problem. He was a salesman and he had a he had this gambling problem and a drinking problem. And when Bill and Lois would go away to do whatever they were doing, they would come back to find their fine clothes missing. And this guy was stealing your clothes and Hocking them to go pay us gambling debts and buy booze. And he couldn't or wouldn't. And he stuck his head in the oven in her kitchen and turn on the gas. There is, however, a vast amount of fun about it all.

Now I suppose some would be shocked and are seeming worldliness and levity. You know, we're sitting here and we go, you know, I had 13 DUI so we got this.

Go do that down the street to Baptist Church. They'll drop on their knees and start praying for you. We laugh about it says, but just underneath there's this deadly earnestness. Faith has to work 24 hours a day in and through us or we perish. And then most of us feel we need look no further for utopia. When they had the original versions of the pre printed versions of this book, they would sending around getting different opinions. One of them came back from a Catholic priest and he said, you know, we've kind of cornered the market on this heaven thing. It used to say