Step 10 and 11 at a Big Book study in Winston-Salem, NC

Talam Ayam, I'm really having a good time doing this workshop. Next week is is going to be the last opportunity I have to to be up here. Ronnie has volunteered to finish up the book for us the the final four chapters, right? Ronnie?

Right. He's going what?

But I'm hoping to get us at least halfway through the chapter, working with others next week. Very, very important chapter. It's a chapter probably that a lot of people, a lot of AA members really, really don't apply

in their work with other Alcoholics. And I think if we did, we'd have a higher quality of Alcoholics Anonymous member. We may not have as many people in the meetings, but we'd have a lot more people that were really, really in, in recovery. So anyway, we'll, we'll talk about that a little next week. Where

we are this week is we're finishing up step nine. We're talking about the step 9 promises. Now I'd like to just go back to page to page 52 a little, just a little bit here. I'm going to read the bedevilments on page 52. We were having trouble with our personal relationships. We couldn't control our emotional nature. We are prey to misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. We had a feeling of uselessness. We were full of fear. We were unhappy. We couldn't

seem to be of real help to other people. OK, those are the bedevilments. Now think about those bedevilments when we go through the 9th step promises. And remember, we hear these promises at so many AA meetings, but they're taken out of context. When I first heard these promises, I thought they were the AA

promises and if I went to enough meetings I would get these promises. And that's really not what happened. You know, I went to a lot of meetings and I was restless, irritable and discontented whether I was going to meetings or not.

These these, these particular promises materialize if we work for them, if we are paying,

taking about this point of phase of our development, what does that mean? If we're painstaking about making amends,

we will be amazed before we are halfway through, Halfway through what? Halfway through our immense list we are. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.

No matter how far down the scale we have gone. We'll see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Say. The self seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.

We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves.

These are the antidote to the bedevilments.

Going from page 64, I'm sorry, going from page 5052 to page 84, we get a whole transformation in how we how we behave,

how we think and how we feel. It's a whole change in our attitude and outlook. And these promises materialize if we work for them. These promises are really are are really moving us into the spiritual awakening.

Think about a spiritual awakening for a minute.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these 12 steps, what would be a spiritual awakening? Wouldn't that be the awakening of your spirit? Well, wouldn't that mean that you've been, you've had a spirit that's been asleep.

If your spirit is going to awaken with these steps, wouldn't that mean that you've had a spirit that's been asleep? I believe it would. I believe that so often we are, we are asleep to our real nature to, to our, to our, our real, a real understanding of our place in the universe. And you know, our position as as children of God. I think we're asleep to that and we're walking around acting like we're awake.

And this, this spiritual awakening is just that

we, we become awake to the things that we, you know, we need to understand about ourselves. And you know, we, we shift our perceptions and our perspectives toward, toward much more healthy attitudes and, and outlooks.

That really is what the spiritual awakening is. And it only happens the spiritual awakening as the result of the 12 steps. That spiritual awakening only happens when you, when you actually take these steps. You can't have a spiritual awakening as the result of steps you've never taken.

So

at the halfway through the 9th step into into the the real heart of the ninth step, we're starting to change. You know, if you look at some of these promises, they're unbelievable. Self seeking will slip away. Well, we understood that selfishness and self-service was the root of all of our problems.

So self seeking will slip away,

fear of people and economic and security will leave us. We saw when we were doing our four step that we had so much fear that it was an evil and corroding Fred. The fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It caused it caused chains of circumstances that placed us in positions where where we we felt like the whole world

was doing us wrong and really it was our own fault. Though the problems were not coming at us, they were coming from us. And we start to see that self pity will disappear. A sense of uselessness will disappear. We will know peace. We will understand the word serenity.

These are all things that were outside of our grasp when we were being driven by bondage to self. We were being driven by our character defects. We were running around the planet just just shooting ourselves in the foot every chance we got.

And now, you know, we can we find that that even that experience of running around the planet, shooting ourselves in the foot all the time, we can even see that that that experience will be able to benefit others. So the worst things that happen to us in our lives, the the absolute low points of our whole lives, we can actually use that experience to be able to relate to a newcomer, to be able to relate to another alcoholic. And we'll be able to say, I know

you feel I've been there. You don't have to live like this anymore. There's a way out upon which we can all agree. And we can all join in, brother and Lee and harmonious action, you know, the 12 step process. And we can recover from this illness, alcoholism, and we can have a really, really great life

and will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. That is an amazing promise.

I don't know about anybody else in here, but but my vision of what God was doing to me when I back when I was drinking, I, you know, I thought, I thought all the, all my problems were because God was really pissed off at me. You know, today, I know today I know that the power that helps, that helps completely transform my life and gives me the power to, to, to move away from my character defects, that gives me the power to stay separated from alcohol.

That power is the power of God. And I feel, I feel it working in my life. I'm aware of the, the consciousness of the presence of God is something that goes with me everywhere I go. And that's an amazing promise. That means you're never going to be alone

again. The alcoholic is a person who can be a who can feel alone in the middle of a club, you know, in the middle of a dance club. We can feel alone and that the consciousness of the presence of God is going to go with us and we're just, we're not going to be alone anymore.

We're going to be able to move forward. We're going to be able to step out and do our job. You know, whether it be out as an Alcoholics Anonymous member, as a family member, as an employee, as an employer, as a, as a citizen of the community, we're going to be able to step out and we're going to be able to do our job because we're not crippled with fear and we're not in bondage to self.

And this is, this is amazing. The recovery process is truly amazing. The craziest thing in Alcoholics Anonymous is, is, is the amount of people who don't take these steps, who don't, don't get involved in the recovery process and they, they stay in that. They stay in that purgatory of sobriety,

you know, never really getting, never really getting better. When, when, when, what's available is just absolutely amazing.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They're being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. Every promise in this book, and there's maybe 200 of them, always materializes if we work for them. But that's the key. We need to work for them. You know,

I believe God's got a job to do and we've got a job to do. We need to participate in the recovery process. We need to we need to do some work. We're not going to be saved by faith alone as an alcoholic. Faith without works is dead. The early as found that out.

So what we need to do is we need to participate. There's a great line in the 12:00 and 12:00. I think I've shared that here before it's called it says God is not going to render us white as snow without our cooperation. So then how shall we cooperate would be the the right question to ask and the answer to that would be to participate in this recovery process. All right. This thought brings us to Step 10.

Step 10 suggests we continue to take personal inventory.

Step four, we continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. That would be step nine. We vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. So as we are going through our amends, we are supposed to be involved in Step 10.

We have entered the world of the Spirit. What does that mean to you? Remember, spiritual terms in this book, what we're what we're directed to do is ask ourselves what do these spiritual terms mean to us coming from our experience and I believe the world of the Spirit. And this is just for May

and, and you know, I, I, I hold on to the right to change my opinion at any time because hopefully I'm growing and understanding and effectiveness. And I might have a completely different idea about this. But I believe the world of the spirit is one of is one where we are aware of the consciousness of the presence of God, where we basically are, we basically seek direction from from God. And that intuition

becomes working knowledge. Intuition is to know without conscious thought, that intuition becomes a God sense. And a lot of times we are guided and we are directed. And this is really the world of the spirit. The world itself we know really well, you know, going back and forth to the liquor store, back and forth to the cop man, back and forth to the bar. We know what we know what that is like.

The world of the Spirit is a whole different animal.

You know, our next function is to grow and understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. Remember those those are basically four step things. We've we've seen those as character defects.

And this is asking us continue to watch. Now there's, there are certain spiritual exercises that I like to do myself. I like to task myself with certain exercises. And there was a period of time where every single day I made it my main obligation to watch for selfishness, selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. To watch for these things, to see them in my behavior and my attitude.

And when these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. That's a prayer directive. So as we go through the day, we're watching

for our character defects to raise their ugly head, and then when they do, we ask God at once to remove them.

We discussed them with someone immediately and make amends quickly. If we've harmed anyone

immediately, we we talked to somebody immediately. A lot of times it's good for us to have some phone numbers of some people that are that are in the fellowship of the spirit with us. What I mean by that is people who have step experience, who are going through the steps or have been through the steps, you want a couple of phone numbers on your speed dial that are for your immediately.

If you need to talk about something to for to somebody. Maybe you can't get your sponsor. You know who you just you need to talk, you need to talk to somebody. So you might have a couple of buddies that you've made arrangements that you know you're going to be each others immediately. You know, if I call you up, answer the phone, I might need to talk to you about something

and we need to make make amends quickly. If we've harmed anyone, why do we need to make amends quickly?

I'll tell you from my own personal experience,

the longer the longer I'm sober, the longer I'm in in this place called recovered, the weaker I get for my tolerance for doing things wrong. My first year in Alcoholics Anonymous, I, you know, I was still robbing Raven and pillaging. I, you know, I was still all over the place just just acting out, OK. And it was like, you know, it was like, that's the way it was

today. If I, if I lie to somebody today, if I do something wrong

or, you know, if I'm dishonest or I'm going around somebody or be I'm being selfish, it, it, it just comes right up in my face. I'm very sensitive to this now where like in my first year it was, you know, it was par for the course. Now I'm living, I'm trying to live a different life. So I'm very, very sensitive to these things. So

when I do something wrong, if I don't make amends quickly, it just erodes my emotional condition, it erodes my spirit. And I've learned that that's not good. That's not good for me. It's not good for my effective effectiveness for others. It places me closer to a drink rather than further away from it.

And I, you know, I just need to, I need to stay current on, on these things. So step 10 really is a way of staying current. Step 10 is a reactive step. It's a, it's an as you move through the day step. And these are these, it's basically laying out the the tools from steps one through 9

and 10:00 and 11:00. And it's telling you that on in a reactive way, you pick up these tools and you use them

because this is the way we need to live. The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. Step 10 is telling us we need to use these tools that we've learned and we need to live it in a day-to-day basis so that we can stay comfortable emotionally and spiritually, so that we clean up the past, so that we're not carrying around a bunch of garbage

with us and we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. And that's Step 12. Love and tolerance of others is our code. Now. Here are some. Here are some Step 10 promises. These are really amazing promises. You do not. Very rarely does this discussion meaning use as a topic the 10 step promises because they're controversial. Why are they controversial? They're controversial because there's not a lot of people in Alcoholics Anonymous who really have experience with the 1st 9:00

steps, the 1st 10 steps. They haven't really taken them. So they don't have experience with these promises. These promises haven't materialized. So if you use this topic in, in a discussion, meaning a lot of people will have, you know, they'll flip out about it because it's basically saying your problems with alcohol are, is, is over. Okay. And you know, a lot of people don't want to hear that. They, they want to think that we don't drink a day at a time. And you know, the longer I'm, I'm, I'm away from

and closer I am to my next one. And you know, all this other stuff that you hear in Alcoholics Anonymous that goes contrary to the promises and to to the directions in this book. But let's look at these promises and let's for a minute assume that they could possibly come true if we did the work in the 1st 10 steps.

We have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. How about that? You've ceased fighting anything or anyone.

That's an amazing promise right there. I don't know about, I don't know about anybody else in here, but for the longest time I had fights going on. I had fights going on at work. I had fights going on with neighbors. I had fights going on with the garage mechanic. I had, I had fights going on with family members. I, you know, I had fights going on. You know, I was always, I was always in collision

with other people. There was turbulence in my life on all kinds of levels. And and, you know, you did not get in my face

because I would freak out. And in the 10th step, it's basically saying we don't, we don't fight anymore. That doesn't mean that we don't stand up for principles we believe in. It just means that we don't fight. You know we don't engage in that unhealthy emotional activity called fighting

for by this time sanity will have returned. This is the first place in the book where it says that sanity is returned. And the second step it says you know that that we will be will regain sanity. But instead 10 it says we it has returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor if tempted. We

recoil from it is if from a hot flame. You know, I used to hear all the time in in the, you know, in the 90s in the AA groups I was going to you'd hear somebody with 15 years say, oh, you know, I went to a wedding the other day and there was there was alcohol all over the place and I just I had to get the hell out of there. And you know, I'm thinking,

I'm thinking, wow, you know what a program less, you know, person that is. I mean, we are, we're not, we're not, we're not in Alcoholics Anonymous. We don't go through these steps to to hide. We don't go through these steps to to be prisoners and not to be able to live life.

These steps offer us freedom, freedom from the bondage itself, freedom from that obsession of the mind that's that causes us to pick back up liquor. I'm around liquor all the time, you know, I am around liquor all the time. We, you know where we go out to eat, You know, if we go to a party, if there's, if there's, you know.

Family affairs is always wine or beer or some, you know, listen, if, if, if access to booze was what was going to be my problem and going to cause me to drink, I'd have been drunk a whole lot a long time ago. Because there's always a bar right across the street.

You know, it's not the access that's our problem. It's, it's, it's the mind.

We react sanely and normally and we find that this has happened automatically, sanely and reacting sanely and normally to alcohol would be no thanks. You know, I, I don't, I don't want it. And if they keep pressing you and keep pressing, you know, come on, have a drink, have a drink. You know, you know, I've, I've gone so far as as to say sometimes, well, you know, the last time I, last time I had a drink, I tried to kill my family, you know, and listen, I don't like you anywhere near as much as I like my family. You still want me to have that drink?

You you get you got to pay the bill when the smoke clears, you know, if I take that drink.

OK, OK,

I won't bother you anymore. I bet you won't.

We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been giving us without any thought or effort on our part. What does that mean? We've been busting our ass with these steps, haven't we? I mean, we've been running around making amends and doing fist steps and going to meetings. What do you mean no effort on our part?

I think what they're talking about here is what we're trying to do is we're we're trying, we're trying to work a spiritual program. We're trying to live spiritually. We didn't go head on against the booze. The problem was removed. And that happens with our character defects a lot, you know, trying to be, you know, trying to be unselfish.

If you just try to be unselfish, you'll never get it done. But if you do all of this step work, all of a sudden you'll find that that selfishness and self centeredness has left. You know, the problems get removed. We don't work on them head on. They get removed. It just comes.

That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it neither we are avoiding temptation. We feel as though we've been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. Use that as a as a topic for discussion at the next next discussion meeting. You go to our mom safe and protected from alcohol, you know,

see what happens.

Oh man, we've not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. My alcohol problems been removed. It does not exist for us. We are not a cocky nor are we afraid. This is our experience. This is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition. So that's the that's the,

that's the task at hand. We need to keep and fit spiritual condition. We need to participate in spiritual living. We need to take these steps. We need to become disciplined in 10 and 11. We need to work with other Alcoholics and we need to pay attention to the directions in this book. That's what we need to do.

If we do that, we'll stay in fit spiritual condition and we will be able to to to remain to remain sober.

It's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. Okay. What is resting on your laurels? Resting on your laurels is basically

expecting yesterday's accomplishments to keep you OK today. Listen, you know last week's food won't keep you alive this week. It's the same thing with the spiritual life. We can't rest on our laurels. Every single day is a day that we need to be practicing spiritual living. We need to be making an attempt to do the best we can every single week. That's our job.

If we do rest on our Laura's, we're headed for trouble, for alcohol is a subtle fog.

We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition.

The daily reprieve that we get is based on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. So again, it's telling us for the 5th or 6th time here that we need to be diligent about these instructions. Every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all our activities.

How can I best serve these? I will not mind be done. That's another prayer directive. These thoughts are these are thoughts which must go with us constantly. So it just said there that not my will, but thy will be done is something that needs to kind of be part of our thinking. It needs to be with us.

It's saying in here constantly. So we need to be remembering that our job is to participate. You know, it's really God's job to provide

the conclusions to all this, the results to all this. We need to start letting go of the results and paying more attention to the process. And that's, that's really a great way for your life to get a lot better. We can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish. It's the proper use of the will. It told us earlier in this book that willpower is of no avail against alcohol.

You cannot will yourself away from the next string. If you can, you're not alcoholic. They made that very, very clear in this book. It says basically, we hope we've made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non alcoholic. Well, the alcoholic is the person who cannot use willpower against a drink. It might work 99 times out of 100, but then that hundredth time, you know, you tried to stay away from booze and you couldn't. You ended up at the bar, or you ended up at the liquor store,

or you picked up that drink or you picked up that drug.

So we can't use willpower against alcohol directly, but what we can do is we can use our willpower to become disciplined, living a spiritual life. Much has already been said about receiving strengthened inspiration and direction from Him who has all knowledge and power.

If we have carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit into us.

To some extent we've become God conscious. This really is amazing language.

It really is. We've become God conscious. Some people would think that's a very, very arrogant thing to claim,

but how can we claim anything else after we've experienced all of the promises from these steps? What else can it be? What else can it be?

We, we have begun to develop this vital 6th sense, but we must go further and that means more action or what is that vital 6th sense again? I think it's the realm of intuition. I think it's, I think it's that sixth sense is what helps us

to understand what might be the will of God for us rather than the will of Chris. The will of Chris was a problem.

There was never enough for for me to be satisfied of anything

but. But we must go further, and that means more action. Every single time we're in the we're we're at that point between steps. It urges us on in a way that's urgent. There's a sense of urgency about moving from one step to the other.

There was a group up, up in my area in, in the early 90s who practiced as a group and as a sponsorship ethic that you go through one step a year

Now, you know, I, I, I'm God, you know, I'm glad I, that wasn't my Home group, you know, And boy, they hated it when I spoke there. I gotta tell you

if, if I, if I went through one step eight, one step a year, you know, I, I would have only started working with others in year 12. And I gotta tell you most, most of my really great experiences working with others were in between Year 5 and 10. I mean, that's where most of my really

good friends have come from, you know what I mean? I I mean, I've got an extraordinary life because of the relationships that were built, you know, in my first ten years. And I wouldn't, I would have, I would have been shortchanged on that if I was to do one step a year. So the book doesn't tell us to wait a year. The book says more action. We need more action, you know, immediately. Now, next. I mean, these are all words that this book uses. So

step 11.

Step 11 suggests prayer and meditation. We shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer. Better men than we are using it constantly. It works if we have the proper attitude and work at it. So how? What do we need to do? We need to have the proper attitude and we need to work at prayer. It would be easy to be vague about this matter, yet we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions

now. Step 11 is broken down into three parts, I believe

when we retire at night upon awakening and as we move through the day, each of those are kind of different disciplines. And, you know, to truly say we work a program to truly thoroughly follow the path, you know, so we can be one of the rare, you know, one of the people who who don't doesn't fail.

I think we need to understand how to do this. Now, the great thing about step 11 and the great thing about the spiritual process

is it's never ending. I mean, you can take this stuff and you can run with it. I can't tell you how many, how many people that I'm friends with who've become Zen Masters and

you know, they've gone, they've gone to back to seminary. You know, they're, they're becoming priests. I mean, they, they really ran with this spiritual stuff. They really ran with the prayer and the meditation. What they're giving us in these exercises is basically prayer and meditation. 101

Now we may have disciplines because many of us come from

vital religious practice. We may have disciplines, but what I would what I would suggest is if you're an alcoholic to do this and you know as well as not instead of, you know, to do your regular stuff as well as not instead of

this is important for us to be able to do to do this if we're alcoholic because it's going to, you know, we need to thoroughly file a path. So let's look at what we do when we retire at night.

We constructively review our day, constructively review our day. Like we're like we're trying to look it over to see, you know, how could we have? How can we do it better next time? Not beating ourselves up. You know, we are so good at beating ourselves up. I can't believe I said that to the boss. I can't believe it, you know,

I mean, we're always, you know, killing ourselves. This is supposed to be a constructive exercise. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid? These are four step stuff.

We ask ourselves. Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Where we kind and loving toward all? These are questions we're supposed to ask at night. What could we have done better?

Were we thinking our of ourselves most of the time? Or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what we could pack into the stream of life?

But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse, morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others.

After making our review, we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken.

That's that's the one we retire upon at night exercise very simple, just a handful of questions so that we need to ask and then a prayer directive, you know, asking God's forgiveness and and then asking to see what corrective measures should be taken. Is there some amends that I need to make? Are there some character detects I need to begin to let go of you know, and, and you know, is there is there a different way to handle some of the relationship stuff that went on today?

Because we're trying, we're trying to get better at this thing called life. We, we really are. We're trying, we're trying to,

we're trying to live along spiritual lines.

Now here's the here's the upon awakening exercise. Upon awakening, let us think about the 24 hours ahead.

So you think about what what's going to go on today? All right, I got to go into work. You know, I've got a report due. You know, there's a meeting at 3:00 with, you know, the sales team. You know, I got to get home. You know, there there's my kids got a, a basketball game tonight. I have to go. You try to see the whole day,

but before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that it be divorced from self pity, dishonest or self seeking motives. This is a prayer directive. You need to put this, maybe not these exact words, but you need to put this these thoughts into your morning prayers.

You ask God to direct your thinking. You ask that your thinking be divorced from self pity, dishonest or self seeking motives.

You know, the great thing about prayer is you know there's always an answer to a prayer. A lot of times it's not what we expect. A lot of times it's not what we want. A lot of times it's not on our timetable. But there's always an answer to these prayers. For the last 19 years, I've been asking this

in in my in my upon awakening and and looking at my life, my life is remarkably different than the way it was 19 years ago. I'm not even the type of person I would have liked 19 years old. You know what I mean? If I saw somebody like me up there talking, you know, you know, back when I had a year, I who, what horse's ass is this guy? I'm not even, I don't even recognize. I don't even resemble the type of person that I was in year one. And that's

to the good it really is, because I'm more effective. I'm more effective. I'm not, I'm not stumbling around, you know, blind to, to everything, you know, thinking I know better than everybody.

So this stuff works. These prayers work, especially the repetition of them. You change, you can change. The big human dilemma today is so many people can't change. You know how many self help books are out there and they're all about, you know, convincing you that you can change for the better?

How many people in here actually really benefited from a self help book?

Couple of hands, OK, couple of hands. I, you know, I read self help books till the cows came home. All right. The joy of resentment, you know, I mean, you know,

winning friends, you know, and influencing others through terror, you know, I mean, yeah, I mean you, you, you name the self help book, think and grow rich, you know, I mean, I, I read every one of those books and and they're all great books and they all work for like non Alcoholics most of the time. But what would happen is when they cast me with something, when they said, OK, put the book down, Now pull out a piece of paper and write this down. I never would.

Or the next time this happens, do this. I never would. I was trying to get better in, you know, I was trying to live a better life through intellectually learning how, but it's behavior modification. It's not intellectual.

Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with insurance. For after all, God gave us brains to use. You know our our thought life will be placed in a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives.

In thinking about our day, we may face indecision. We may not be able to determine which course to take.

Indecision is going to be part of our lives here. We ask God for inspiration and intuitive thought or decision. We relax and take it easy. We don't struggle, you know, Try that next time you're confused and you don't know what to do. Don't just do something. Stand there and ask God for an intuitive thought or or decision and then relax and take it easy

because it says we don't struggle. We were often surprised how the right answers come after we have tried this for a while.

So instead of freaking out and bearing down on something like we've done in the past, let's just step back

and let's, let's, let's see if we can get that intuitive process going on, which, which really I believe the intuition is close to the direction I can get from God that, that there is that intuitive thought or that intuitive action.

I see that working in my life, especially with working, working with others. I, I for many years, and I still do. I did a lot of wet drunk work. I did a lot of 12 step calls. I did a lot of sponsoring people that were new

and I was not smart enough to handle those situations. And yet, you know, I had done a lot of prayer work beforehand and all of a sudden I just kind of intuitively knew how to handle those situations with those other Alcoholics. Does anybody in here understand what I mean? Like, yeah, when you're when you're in there

working with somebody, you're not that smart. So there's got to be a power coming from somewhere else that's leading you and guiding you because you just, you're just not that good. And, and, and I, you know, I felt that. I know, I know what that's like.

What used to be a hunter, an occasional inspiration, gradually becomes the working part of the mind.

Being still in the experience and having stabbing just made conscious contact with God. It is probable that we're going to not be going to be inspired at all times. We might pay for this presumption in all sorts of absurd actions and ideas. Nevertheless, we find out our thinking will, as time passes, be more and more on the plane of inspiration.

We come to rely upon it. We come to rely upon being inspired by the right thought, the right action, and we continue to ask God for that and for the power to carry out some of these thoughts. And this comes, this is, this is what they talk about in this book. Being aware of the consciousness of the presence of God is something that goes with us.

It's it's it's an amazing revelation.

We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be that we be given whatever we need to take care of such problems. We especially ask for freedom from self will and are careful and make no requests, make

no request for ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that. It doesn't work. You can easily see why. So this is this whole paragraph is a prayer directive. It's it's aiming us toward the right types of prayer, an unselfish prayer.

It's not like, oh God, can I have that Hemi challenger, you know, or oh God, can I, you know, can I get that big promotion?

It's more about can I become more effective helping your children? That's, that's what it's really about.

If our circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in morning meditation. This was an Oxford group practice. The whole family prayed together. They did. And again, you know, it's a, it's a shame that in Alcoholics Anonymous, it's, it's, it's rarer. It's it's the exception and not really the rule

when when the alcoholic is doing their prayer and meditation in the morning. It's usually a solitary thing. But I'll tell you what you know, if you have a family that's amenable to it, a a wife or a husband or children, give it a try. Do some of this prayer meditation together in the morning and just just see how it works,

see how it works out. I know some families that do this and they get they, you know, they rely on it. They they actually absolutely love it.

If we belong to a religious denomination which requires definite mourning devotion, we attend to that. Also notice that it says also not instead of you know, as well as if not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. I've been doing that for about 19 years now.

There are many helpful books. Also, suggestions about these may be obtained from one's priest, minister, or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious people are right? Make use of what they have to offer. You know those are those are directives. I read a lot of spiritual books,

you know,

in the 70s and 80s. I read a lot of science fiction

in my first, you know, five years in AA I, I read a lot of crazy things. And slowly it just slowly my, my library started to shift toward more, more and more spiritual books. And lately, lately, probably in the last 10 years or so, I've gotten heavily into, in, into Christian texts, a lot of real historical work, a lot of,

a lot of critical work, you know, a lot of theology, a lot of church history. I just, I find it fascinating and I find, and I find it comforting. And that's really where you know, where, where I find my comfort in the, in the Christian traditions. But I've also studied, I've also studied Buddhist

pretty heavily. I've also studied Judaism. I've studied some, some Muslim stuff. I've studied some Hindu stuff. I've, I studied some, you know, traditional American Indian philosophy and spirituality. And I find a lot of interconnectedness with all

of it. I find that a lot of the spiritual masters, you know, we're basically saying the same thing, forgive and love, you know, it's, it's the same type of, of message. And I find that when my attention is drawn to those texts, you know, on a daily basis as part of my reading,