The chapter How it Works at a Big Book study in Winston-Salem, NC

I'm really having fun with this commitment. I want to thank you for for asking me to come up here and coming out and listening.

We've, we've spent about six weeks on the 1st 4 chapters. We spent about

four of those weeks, five of those weeks on step one.

Again, just to recap step one, Step one is difficult for us to fully internalize, it says in the step book. Who among us wishes to admit complete defeat?

It says in the step book. Instincts block at investigation. We We don't want to be hopeless. We don't want to be powerless. We want there to be another option besides

spiritual living,

you know, we want to, we want to figure this thing out and somehow beat it. And that's just the way almost every alcoholic personality is. So there's a ton of material in the beginning of this book that paints a very, very dark picture for us.

It describes the alcoholic and then it says that we suffer from an obsession in the mind. And how that presents is is it presents in US drinking, We pick up a drink and we almost always do it from a place of sobriety. You know, I never took the first drink drunk.

So what that means is, is it means if we're admitting to powerlessness, we're admitting that we can't protect ourselves from the next drink. We, we don't have that power. It's, it's almost not up to us. It's up to the booze,

and the second part of step one is that once we start drinking, we lose control over the amount we take. We may plan on only having 2 beers at the bar, but we close the place and once we start drinking, we create an actual physical craving for more alcohol. It's mental and physical and it's very, very hard

to stop. It's very, very, I mean, how many, how many times have you had like 3 drinks and said, man, that's enough. I don't think I'll have anymore now. I used to drink with people that would do that and it would be like enough isn't even something that computes to me. You know, you've had enough. Are you crazy? How, how do you have enough? How do you, how do you do that? I I know more,

you know, and I know not done yet. And I know all those I don't know. I've had enough.

Because of that craving, I drinking. Usually I drink until I pass out, and you know I have to drink until I'm unconsciousness stops me from from continuing. And if that's not bad enough, you know that I've got a mind that's going to bring me back to drink no matter what,

and a body that's going to ensure I poison myself drinking. If that's not bad enough, there's a dash. And then it says that our lives have become unmanageable. And then you start to look into the material in this book to see what that unmanageability looks like. What is that unmanageable? How does it manifest in our lives?

And it manifests emotionally, mentally, spiritually. We, it manifests in defective relationships with other people in, in self pity and remorse and guilt and self-centered fear and just being totally uncomfortable with ourselves

and totally uncomfortable with our environment. Wherever we are, that's not where we want to be. And there's just massive amounts of emotional unmanageability. We're not in control of our emotional natures. We suffer from, from self pity. We suffer from depression. We have huge amounts of anxiety. We have an

utter lack of dealage most of the time. You know, I'm sorry, I'm, I can't make it. I'm going to stay home. You know, I don't feel like, you know, I don't really feel like doing that right now. You know, I, you know, when you can start to tell somebody'd recovering from alcoholism, they'll actually tell you what they're going to do and,

and then do what they tell you you're good. They're going to do, you know. So then you, you know, they're on the path to recovery because how many broken promises? How many times did we tell people, you know, we were going to show up and we and we just couldn't, we were drunk or we were hungover or, or we just, we just were so shattered. We didn't. We didn't want to deal.

That's the first step. Then, OK, that paints a really bad picture. But we then move into the second step, and the second step basically states that there is a power that we can access. We can actually gain access to a power greater than ourselves which will solve our problems,

relieve us of our burden of self and and relieve us of our symptoms of alcoholism. So this power, you know, who among us wishes to, you know, give ourselves over this power on like day two and a, a,

it's not great news to look up on the wall and see, you know, the, the power that's going to help us is going to be God. You know, that's not what most of us want to hear when we're brand new in Alcoholics Anonymous. We're figuring that's not going to work. You know, I've got real problems is, is what was what we're saying, You know what I mean?

But the only thing aggressive enough to be able to go after alcoholism is a spiritual awakening, is a, is a spiritual conversion experience. That's really your only hope if you've gone down the scale far enough,

if you're what this book describes as a hopeless alcoholic, it's a spiritual awakening or it's death or insanity. That's what they're offering you here. No, we're moving into Chapter 5.

I've gone to, I think I figured it out one time at around 6000 meetings. I've been to about 6000 AA meetings. You know, over the course of my, my, my AA history and practically at every meaning. You hear this red, how it works. Well, when something is red that many times, at least for me, it can become redundant. It can be, it can become that thing that they read that, you know, identifies the group as an, A, a group.

And, you know, would they please hurry up and get it done so we can get to the meeting. And you know who's gonna read how it works? I'll read how it works. And, you know, you get somebody to go up there and read how it works and somebody to read how it works. And then somebody raised their hand in the in the same discussion meeting where how it works was read and go and say something like, well, I don't know how it works.

It just works, you know?

Have you listened to anything? You know what I mean? You don't know how it works. They just read how it works. How it works is how it works. You know? There was an article. You know, because. Because I'm. I. I'm

work in the media. I gotta pay attention to some of these things. And there was an article on Alcoholics Anonymous that made, made wire Wired magazine. And, and, you know, it was sent out all over the place. Everybody's probably read it. And in that article, it says, you know, we still don't know why AA works.

Well, speak for yourself. OK, I know why AA works because these spiritual exercises lead to a spiritual awakening. That's why AA works. You know,

there's been there's been such a deterioration in certain areas. You know, you think your lucky stars, a A is so good in North Carolina. I'm all over the place in a A groups and I got to tell you that there are there are areas

that have so deteriorated that that you they would be unrecognizable as a A meetings to our Co founders. If they were if they came back to life and went to one of these meetings, it would be unrecognizable. It's it's almost like an anger management,

you know,

a group therapy session and send some of these groups. There was a there was a movie that was done. And again, I've got to pay attention to all this stuff. There was a movie done and Richard Lewis was involved in this. He's one of those sober actors out out in, out in Hollywood, doesn't mind breaking his anonymity as far as, you know, being sober.

But he did a film called Drugs. And the whole film revolves around a a meetings. OK. I mean, the whole film is, is, is people interacting in these AA meetings. And it is the absolute worst stuff I've ever seen in my life. I would, I would last 2 1/2 seconds in one of these groups.

You know, everyone is, is massively, insanely untreated alcoholism. You know, they're just crazed and like everybody in the group is like that. If you're and you know, this is this is what a lot of times this is what is portrayed as Alcoholics Anonymous and the movies and the media. You know, if you watch Rescue me, Dennis Leary is always going into the a a groups and talking to everybody into going out drinking, you know, like, like it's just, it's, it's unbelievable. What? What

people think Alcoholics Anonymous is like or should be? How does it work?

This is how it works. I'm I'm going to read this. This is this is how it works. And you know, I would I would really like our public relations people in Alcoholics Anonymous to remember this because they're doing a horrible job. When all you see coming out of Hollywood is the absolute worst kind of a a meetings that there are being portrayed as a a because there's people watching those TV sets going, you know, I I might have to do

about my drinking problem someday, but I ain't going to that, you know, and you know, we need to be just a little bit more responsible. How how does it work? How does it work? Rarely have we seen a person fail who's thoroughly followed our path. Okay, what's the path? Because I'm interested in in, you know, not failing.

I want to be, I want to be one of those people who actually succeed. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program. So it says it right there. If you don't completely give yourself to this simple program of 12 steps,

you can be in that statistic of people who fail,

usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. What they mean by that is remember this comes after some material in the book. Being honest with yourself is admitting you're a real alcoholic or not.

If you can be honest with yourself, with the material that they put in this book, whether or not you're a real alcoholic, if you're going to be honest with yourself, then you're going to realize you don't have any other way out

there. There ain't no door #3 it's, it's a spiritual awakening or it's death or insanity.

So that's what they're talking about with being honest with it. They're not talking about, you know, did you give the right change back at the cash register? They're talking about something much more fundamentally important. They're talking about. Are you being honest with yourself about your alcoholism?

There are such unfortunates. They're not at fault. I love the way Bill Wilson basically says this. He says it's a number of times in this book they either cannot or will not. Does it say they're losers? You know, one of the first things they told me when I, when I came in, up in the up in North Jersey was was kids stick with the winners.

Well, if you think about that, you know, stick with the winners, that means there's got to be losers. Who are the losers

and and why should I stick with the winners? This book is telling me to stick with the losers is what this book is telling me to do. This book is telling me to work with the people who are desperate and who need help. It doesn't tell me to go hang with the saved. It tells me to try to help save the people who need to be saved. You know, so stick with the winners. Only a loser would stick with the winners

anyway. I don't know if that made any sense.

They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those two who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.

What's going on today a lot of times is they're called, they're called comorbidities or Co occurring disorders. Like if you go to a treatment center and you know, or, or you get,

you go to get assessed, clinically assessed for what's going on with you. This happens to a lot of us when we show up at hospitals or treatment centers, they'll, they'll they'll try to assess what's going on with you. And more and more the diagnosis are coming in with comorbidities or Co occurring disorders.

A lot of us are being put on medication right out of the gate because of how we're showing up while we're being assessed or or, you know, clinically analyzed.

Now, what this book is basically saying is,

is if you, if you can be honest with yourself about your alcoholism, and that would mean accepting Step 2 and accepting step three and moving forward with the program of recovery, you two can recover even if you have grave emotional difficulties. So that's really, really good news. And and I have seen that time and time again. I've seen that time and time again.

Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened and what we were like. Now

I like to use that as an, as an instruction in how to tell my story. If I'm, if I'm asked to get behind a podium and tell my story, I'm supposed to tell you what it used to be like, you know, maybe 30% drinking career, what happened, talk about what was going on and what happened. That led me to make a decision to get involved in a recovery process

and then what I'm like now,

what that recovery process has done for me. This is experience, strength and hope. So often people get behind a behind a microphone and a podium and talk about what it was like, what it was like, what it was like, what it was like. We want them to get sober more than their family members do you know what I mean?

You know, please, let's, let's move on and, you know, talk how you know, how did you get sober? How did you recover? I wanna hear that too. I don't wanna, I don't wanna hear about how you ran yourself over with your car while you were driving it, you know, five or six times.

If you decided what you want, if you've decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps.

This is something that I ask people that I'm working with, I'll go through and I'll make sure they're clear on the 1st 2 steps and then I'll ask them, are you, are you willing to go to any length? You hear it a lot of times. Are you willing to do anything in AA? And people will ask you that before you know what any length looks like.

Has that ever happened to you, kid? Are you willing to go to any length? And you're thinking, what does this guy want me to do? You know, if I say yes, what am I? What am I locking myself into? Well, well, what I like to do is when I'm about to ask somebody this, I like to make sure that I've shown them

any links. Looks like any links is going to be to do the what's required in this book for a spiritual awakening. That's what any links is. Any links isn't isn't a lot of the crazy stuff they have you do in a a today. You know, there's a there's a there's a form of of a a that believes very, very strongly in sponsorship authority and Home group loyalty. And those are the two most important things

to those groups. And this book goes contrary to both of those.

All right, Our loyalty must be to God, OK. And our and and and the authority must come from God. And we can be loyal to AA, That's fine. But what this book, this book points us in in a different direction.

So if we're willing to go to anything like to get it, then we're ready to take certain steps. At some of these we booked, we thought we could find an easier, softer way. Let's think about what's an easier, softer way. How about don't drink and go to meetings? That's an easier, softer way. Okay, that's not going to work for a real alcoholic.

How about, you know, two or three meetings a week and, you know, do a step a year? OK, that's not gonna work for a real alcoholic. They're gonna be drunk as a goat in 5 minutes.

You know, how about, well, you know, I'm going to go to two meetings a week and I'm going to do therapy, then I'm going to do Primal Scream. I'm going to take some yoga, you know? And I don't, you know, Well, that's not going to not going to work if you're a real alcoholic. What, what you're going to need to do if you're a real alcoholic is meaning consistency. Absolutely

consistency, not like 5 meetings this week, no meetings next week, two meetings a week after 17 meetings because you got, you know, you got to do a jackpot, you know, and then no meetings for a month. I, you know, that kind of stuff will get you drunk too. But consistent meetings and working the steps with a sponsor or a spiritual advisor, you know, being being accountable to participation in your own spiritual condition by going through these steps

when when it's when it's time to do so.

With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start.

This book rarely begs us to do anything, but it's telling us that when we start to go through these, these steps, step three through 12, they're begging us to be fearless and thorough

that that's a lot. You know, I mean, we're, we really should, we shouldn't be called Alcoholics Anonymous. We should be called Half Measures Anonymous, you know, because so many of us really, you know, really,

you know, the first resentment I had was when somebody said, have you gone through the work yet? I'm like the work

work. I didn't come here for work. If I knew there was work here, you know I never would have come to a A well kid, you're assuming we care whether or not you're here. You know,

some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go. Absolutely.

It does not say some of us have tried to hold on to our bad old ideas. That says our old ideas,

we need to, we need to be willing to let go of all of our ideas. Our ideas are really what got us where we are. I, I used to hate it when my sponsor said, how's that working for you? You know, not very, not very well. Thank you. You know, well, how's it working for you? How's your life look? How's everything going?

You know, as everything roses. Or are you mad at half the world? Or do you have a laundry list of bad breaks and misunderstandings that have come your way in the last month or so? You know, how's it working for you? Sometimes we need to let go of our old ideas. I have really bad ideas,

but even my good ideas weren't that great. You know,

we need a clean slate sometimes for for God to be able to rebuild us. You know, sometimes we have to help with erasing the crap that's already on there. Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, battling, powerful without help. It is too much for us. But there is one who has all power. That one is God.

May you find Him. Now they're telling us what the answer is. The answer is

a significant

relationship with the power greater than ourselves, with God rightly relating ourselves to God, clearing away as much of the wreckage that blocks us off from the sunlight of the Spirit as we can. We need to participate in this.

There's a there's a place in the in the book, the 12 and 12 where it says God will not render us white as snow without our cooperation. And when I take that to mean is is God is not going to heal us without our cooperation. How then shall we cooperate would be the question we would need to ask and how we answer that. Is this half measured of measures available? Nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked his protection with care and complete abandon.

So moving through the steps, what are we supposed to do? There's a prayer directive here. We ask for God's protection and care and have a care for us. Protect me as I start to do these steps, especially in Step 4 where I'm listing every single bad thing I've ever done, every problem with somebody I've ever had, every time I've ever been angry or hurt somebody, I'm I'm listing it all. You know, protects me during that because that's not a great that that can be

very overwhelming to put all that down on paper. Protect me when I start to go out and make direct amends to people because that I'm scared of that. I have a lot of fear behind that. I don't want to call up, you know, Harry, you know, a hook hand Harry and you, you know, and tell him that, you know, I'm going to pay him back that that loan that I ran out of town on 10 years ago with the 50% Victoria every week, you know, and you know, I mean,

I don't want to do that.

Well, you know, God is going to need to keep me safe and protected while while I'm while I'm doing that.

Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of recovery. OK,

I

having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, that's very, very clear. We tried to carry this message to Alcoholics. What message? The message of what the steps have done for us, our experience going through the steps, that's what we're supposed to carry to other people now,

you know, to simply encourage somebody to stay sober is good. That's what we do in Alcoholics Anonymous. But remember, the good is sometimes the enemy of the best. The best thing we can do is offer them a path, a kit of tools to allow them to become free.

What would you rather do? What would you rather do? Have somebody encourage you to just stay sober a day at a time or offer you a recovery process that will allow you to be free? You know, that's the type of message that we need to carry, a message with depth and weight, like the doctor's opinion says. You know,

so often in the earlier groups that I went to, you know, they were very encouraging. Oh, Chris, it was great to see, you know, please come back. You know, here's my phone number. I'll see. I'll see it Tuesday night. Just keep coming. Just keep coming. You know, if somebody shared something stupid, somebody yelled, just keep coming. You know,

just keep coming. Well, encouraging me to keep coming is good. Offering me a plan of action that will lead to my recovery is best. So that's what we need to try to do. We tried to carry this message to Alcoholics and to practice these principles in all of our affairs.

It's a good thing that we're not graded on perfection in Alcoholics Anonymous. We're graded on effort and willingness. We stay sober on effort and willingness. I sponsored this guy. He came out of the, the, the inner cities

of Newark and Elizabeth and I sponsor this guy and this guy was murderous. OK, the first time he, he was brought out to a diner after a meeting, somebody started to tell him about how, how much trouble he's in with the with the first step and he took a fork and he jammed it into the guys forehead and that the fork was going like this. He didn't like to hear bad news. OK, You know, and I mean, I, I've literally seen this guy pick people up by the neck in a a meetings and take him outside

them up proper. You know what I mean? Now, now everybody's going, this guys going to get drunk. This guys going to get drunk. Chris, your guys out of control. Well, they didn't realize he was trying as hard as he could. He's got 18 years now sober, Okay. He was trying as hard as he could.

He came from way, way behind where most of these people came from. And, and he was doing the best he could. And if you look at his progress, you know, he, he, he, he beat up about 7 people the first year, about four people the next year, about three people the year after that. He was getting better, you know what I mean? And he hasn't beaten anybody up in about 7 years now and you know, hasn't taken, hasn't dragged anybody out of an, A, a meeting in a long time.

So we're graded or, or, you know, we, our paths fail grade is basically how much willingness and how much effort we, we put into this stuff. So you know, there's two things. You're you're you're four step is never going to be one of them is finished

and the other is perfect. We have to just do the ABS we could. We have to be fearless and thorough and we have to do the best the best we can. But there's always room for improvement. There's always the next time or there's always the action we can take now,

you know, that's going to keep us safe and protected.

Many of exclaimed what in order. I can't go through it. Do not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles. We all fall short in Word fought indeed, every single day we do. And you know,

that's part of being human. It's about having a willingness to move forward and try a little bit harder the next time. That's what we that's the attitude that we need to have. We're not Saints. The point is that we are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down our guides to progress. We we claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection. And knowing Bill

Wilson, you know, it's a good thing that that he wasn't claiming spiritual perfection.

Our description of the alcoholic. That's that's the chapter more about alcoholism and there is a solution. The chapter to the agnostic. We did that last week And our personal adventures before and after. That's the stories in the back are personal adventures before, when we were drinking, prior to a spiritual awakening and after, when we've recovered after having a spiritual awakening. Make clear 3 pertinent ideas

a that we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.

Be that probably no human power could have relieved their alcoholism and see that God couldn't would if he were sought. All right, that's a summation of the 1st 2 steps. We're alcoholic and could not manage our own lives

and probably no human power could have relieved us of her alcoholism. What are some human powers? Let's look at this is a sponsor of human power,

absolutely is a Home group of human power. I think God is in the Home group, but it's filled, it's filled with with human beings.

Is a therapist or a psychiatrist the human power? Absolutely. We,

we have to understand,

we have to understand that we need to access the Spirit, We need to access the power to be able to, to, to get out of this. You know

God could and would if He were sought.

Being convinced of these three ideas, we were at Step 3, which is that we decided to turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. Just what do we mean by that? And just what do we do? You know how many times in early AA was I told kid, just turn it over?

You know, if you ask them if, if they keep saying that to you, ask them how do you turn it over? More than likely they're not going to be able to tell you kid, you just got to let go. Well, how do you let go? You just got to hang on, you know, one day at a time, easy. Does it do some upside down thinking?

You know,

how do you turn it over? You turn it over by taking the spiritual exercises of steps 4 through 12. That's how you turn your will and your life over to the care of God in a A. If you've not done that, then you haven't turned your will and your life over and you're still hanging on.

The first requirement for Step 3 is that we be convinced that any life run on self will can hardly be a success.

How's that working for you? You know, how's it working for you? Your life on self will

so many times we're desperately unhappy, we're desperately lonely. We we we we have emotional

our our emotions are tortured when we get in here and we can be we can be making a ton of money. We can have a great family. We can have a lot of stuff going on in our lives and still be completely tortured. I was watching this thing on Eric Clapton this morning, and Eric Clapton at his height, 197172 I mean,

this guy had the women, he had the money. You know, everybody on the planet wanted to be him

and he was suicidal. You know, it's because he, he suffered from alcoholism and drug addiction. He was suicidal. I'll bet you any, any man, you know, between 15 and 30 would have traded places with him, you know, in a heartbeat. And he was suicidal.

Um, we're almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Here's another thing. We spend our whole lives expecting the world to judge us on our intentions. OK, My intentions are good. Yeah, but you just ran over grandma. You know, we don't care about your intention. We don't care that you were coming over here to visit.

You're in grandma over. You shouldn't be driving,

you know. We're judged on our actions, not our intentions. Most people try to live by self propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run The whole show is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the scenery and the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would only stay put, if people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. If you all would just do what I think you should do, not only will I be happy, but you'll all be happy too.

Chris, you're living at home with your mother. You're 32. You know why. Why in the world would I? Why be remotely interested in doing what you think I should be doing?

You know what I mean?

And trying to make these arrangements, our actor may sometimes be quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest and self sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish, and dishonest.

I'll I'll try to move you around the chess board and I'll try flowers. I'll try handguns,

you know, whatever it takes to move you around the stage, you know, because you need to be moving around the stage because this is not pleasing me right now. The way this is going, you know, this is this is alcoholism. This is how alcoholism presents. It presents in this crazy, self-centered, self obsessed worldview where where we think we're the center of the universe

and every everybody else is, is asteroids orbiting, you know,

planet Chris, You know what I mean? And every once in a while, you know, you'll come in for a landing as long as you know, it's, it's something good for me. You know, you're you're welcome here. You know, it's just absolutely insane. That's what that's the way we are. What happens. The show doesn't come off very well. Chris begins to think that life doesn't treat him right,

you know. Oh man, life didn't treat me right. You have no idea. He decides to exert himself more. He becomes, on the next occasion still more demanding, or gracious as the case may be. Still, the play does not suit him, admitting he may be somewhat at fault, you know? Okay, okay, I'll admit, you know

I showed up and maybe I shouldn't have been there. You know what Will will admit to like 5%. He's sure that other people are more to blame. He becomes angry and dignous, self pitying. What is his basic trouble?

Is he not really a self seeker even when trying to be kind? Is he not a victim of the delusion that he can rest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if only he manages well?

Is it not evidence all the rest of the players that these are the things he wants and do not his actions make make each of them wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony? Absolutely. Defective relationships are almost always the cause of our immediate woes, including our alcoholism. That's a line from the 12:00 and 12:00.

The first thing we need to do is start to look at how we're treating other people

and we don't see how sick we are. We are so sick we don't think we're sick. And as we start to get better, we're so sick that we think that these other people are sicker than us.

You know, we need, we need to start to get, we need to start to get perspective. And the genius of the fourth step really is that if you do the 4th step the way this book asks you to do it, you are going to see 100% that your problems are of your own making.

Your problems are not coming at you, they're coming from you. And this is a, this is a quantum shift in perspective. OK, when you, when you see this, after you write enough inventory, you, you go, holy shit,

I caused this whole thing

my whole life. And it's a quantum shift. And that's when healing can really start. Because if we think it's you, it's you, it's not me, it's you, then you have to get better for me to heal.

And we all know that ain't gonna happen. You know what I mean? People aren't gonna change just cause Chris wants them to. My whole problem is people aren't doing what I want them to.

So this is big. This is what we need to start to look at. We need to start to look at our relationships

playing God

playing God. Is it possible that playing God is bossing your family around, you know, bringing up every bit of minutia about the house and how the house system should work. And you didn't put the can on the garbage, right? And you know you, you know, your sock is in the hallway. I mean 10 playing God be

trying to direct all the other players. Is it possible

the greatest things I think I ever heard in an A, a talk was from Chuck Chamberlain out out in California. He was like this beloved a, a guy, you know who, who his funeral was twice the size of Bill Wilson. So I mean, I mean, he was he was beloved out there. He's telling his story and he's basically saying it's time to go make amends to his family. And how he made his amends was this. He went up to them and he said, look,

you know I'm wrong about this, this, this, this and this.

And I need to let you know I will never, ever, ever ask you to do anything ever again except for one thing. And that is if there's anything I can ever do to help you, will you please ask me? And then he followed that,

OK? He never, ever asked anybody in his family ever do anything ever again. Now that's a little bit too close to perfection for me. OK, You know what I'm saying.

But it's a beautiful example of understanding what this stuff is about. We are bossy, controlling, codependent, you know, insanely sensitive morons, you know, and the family puts up with us because we're so defective. We're lovable,

you know what I mean?

Our actor now we're the actor, OK? Our actor. We are self-centered, egocentric, as people like to call it nowadays.

We're like the retired businessman who lulls in the Florida sunshine and winter complaining about how awful everything is now. He gives a bunch of examples here. And then he nails us. Okay, Selfishness. Self centeredness that we think is the root of our troubles.

It does not say drinking a quart of vodka every day that is the root of our troubles, doesn't say that. It says selfishness. Self centeredness is the root of our troubles. It's what feeds the whole defective system, selfishness and self centeredness. Now we're so selfish and so self-centered,

we think we're generous, you know what I mean? We have to start writing inventory to see just how defective we are. I thought, I thought I was the sweetest guy in the world because I would lend you bail money to get you out of jail or something like, like the, the friends that I had left that didn't have any names. They were like Bear Man and Weezer, you know? And this one guy Rat, you know, he spelled it with two TS, you know, RATTS. And I'd have to bail these guys out every once a while. And then they, they disapp

because they didn't want to give me my 400 bucks and I, I have to go search them out and beat them up and steal their guitars or something. I mean, it was just insane. It was insane. But I thought, you know, here I am, you know, being a nice guy.

Driven by 100 forms of fear, self delusion, self seeking and self pity. We step on the toe

fellows and they retaliate. Let's look at the word driven, OK? Because I don't want anybody in here having the guilt and the remorse that you didn't do a better job. How can you be responsible for doing a better job when you were asleep? The spiritual awakening will awaken you up

you've, you probably did the best you could under the circumstances being spiritually asleep and asleep to this stuff.

Driven

this one time I was drinking with this guy. Bob Rademacher is dead now. Most of my old drinking buddies are, but we're coming back from the shore, the New Jersey shore. And he was in a Toyota Celica. And he was so drunk. He was like this close to passing out and I was strapped in and I was alone for the ride. And he, he just, he put it in in fourth gear and he put his foot down on the gas pedal. And we were going flat out as fast as this car would go. We were going up the Turnpike when we came to toll booths. We would just go through the toll booth at 115 miles.

Now I am being driven okay by the sky. I'm going, hey, do you think we should pull over? Hey,

how about if I drive? Hey, hey, let's, let's, let's stop at the next rest area. Hey, you know, and no, it's just, you know, finally he spun out on a corner and, you know, we ended up in a ditch. Thank God, you know, nobody was hurt. And because he had passed out and I was being driven by a maniac. OK,

now think about that when I read this sentence again. Driven by 100 forms of fear, self delusion, self seeking and self pity. We step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. If we're being driven by something, are we fully responsible?

You know, I don't think so. I think I think we were doing about the best we could, but we need to do better because, you know, we're not ignorant of this stuff anymore. Now we need to take responsibility and we need to start working a program and we need to start moving forward.

Sometimes other people hurt us

seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt

at. At best we Co create the problems in our life, at worst we cause them.

But only extremely rare circumstances are we not to blame at all. So

troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves. And the alcoholic is an extreme example of self will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we Alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. Why do you think we ask you to do service commitments?

Why do we think we, you know, we ask you to do certain things. We're asking you to do unselfish acts because we know you're dying of selfishness. Selfishness is going to kill you. So you get these sponsors that ask you to do good things.