Step 1 at the Fellowship of the Spirit in Conyers, GA

All right.

Good morning everybody.

My name is Dave Marquez, recovered alcoholic

Derek, you just want us to launch. Did you want us to do a prayer? Anything.

Maybe take a moment of silence and

3 minutes meditation. 3 minutes meditation,

fearless leader and then the prayer afterwards. Somebody got a timer on this?

Whenever you're ready.

Layside Prayer God please help me lay inside everything I think I know about this illness,

this program, this book, this conference and so especially you got somebody to have my experience illness. He said this program, this book, this conference myself especially

all right,

everybody here that's going to be here right

again. Good morning. My name is Dave Marquez recovered alcoholic David God-given sobriety. It's May 9th, 1993.

Mike and I drew it up in the dirt how we want to do this about 30 minutes ago. Took about two minutes. So

we're just going to go, we're going to flow. We want this first and foremost to be a two way St. a dialogue. We want interaction.

We don't in any way, shape or form intend this to be a shotgun. And that's just pounding you with a bunch of information, experience and

not being interactive. So we really want you to participate. And I love seeing a full room. So there's no reason why there shouldn't be a lot of participation. And one of the things I'd like to offer to you right

from the get go to the end of this thing when we book it for the airport is a little thing that I like to call spiritual consent.

Which means that

I will be open with you and you can ask me anything about my experience regarding alcoholism, recovery from alcoholism,

anything

that I may share or like to elaborate on or what have you. Just keep in mind that that consent is reciprocates, which I may ask you a few questions as well, OK?

I know that having done this, if you've been in a lot of these myself and done a few of these myself, that there's things that come up inside me that I want to blame you for, for what you said.

But it's really something that you said that stirred something that was already there inside me. So might want to keep that in mind too.

Last night Mike talked about intent and the meeting last night after we all talked was was also partially about intent.

And my intent for this weekend,

first and foremost, is to come to this thing from what is described in the fourth of the third edition is

where recovery begins.

That at its core, it's simple

and personal. And when when alcoholic shares with another experience strengthen hope

not not one or the other. All three is where recovery begins. And I would like to enter in a relationship with you this weekend going forward and offering that simple personal approach to recovery.

The second thing is that,

and I heard it a few times shared from a few people last night talking about feeling kind of like Lone Rangers and Alcoholics Anonymous

your your group.

Ten years ago in Fresno, we were the same. We were the same way by the book group.

The original big book group that I was raised in in Fresno became a shell

and I decided do I want to sit in there and change it, try and change it anyway, or move on and do something different and

mean if you guys that I was sponsoring decide do something different. We started by the book group and

and it was shared with us by a workshop that Bob had done. The first one that we had done with Bob was that

if we just went out there in our A community and

shared in a clear, concise, understandable, unafraid message of what's in this book and our experience with it and really nothing more, nothing less

with no stick

that we could change the face of Alcoholics Anonymous in our community.

So it's been about 10 years since that's happened. And quite frankly, I actually have been in the area for about four of it, last four years of it, 3-4 years.

You can now go

to Fresno and not only go to our meeting, but there's probably another half dozen meetings that have spawned from it, from people that came into that group

and didn't necessarily make it their Home group. Because they left our group after doing learning how to do this thing out of the book finally.

And they went and started doing missionary work in their own home groups

and from that spawn meetings. And within their groups we have different structures in Fresno, how they do meetings, they call them fellowships and multiple meetings within the fellowship throughout the week

in any event. And then you can go to about a 30 mile radius, a little town called Visalia, Tulare, another one called Reedley, where other people have picked this up.

And so we've watched over a 10 year period, this thing, the face of a A and our community begin to really change.

Umm, the truth is unstoppable and real Alcoholics will gravitate to it no matter where they are in their recovery. OK, because we have to.

I I was talking with the lady last weekend

who actually helped start the For the Big by the Book group and

she left.

She left after about a couple years and felt she needed made more of a mainstream A A

she's recently come back.

You know, she was talking about this alienation in ostrich Austin that we experienced, and she felt that we were still experiencing that.

And I said, I asked her, have you ever started counting heads of people that have come through the group and are still doing this thing?

And we started talking about putting together a little. A family tree picnic next March

year from now

and trying to encourage everybody that is in this little sponsorship family that's come out of by the book group that has spread out in the 40 mile radius to include Santa Rosa, San Diego and see if we can't all come together. And and especially in the a a Fresno community to see is obviously I don't know each other because they're because they they go back, like I said, they go back to the home groups. So a lot of them don't really know each other and they do feel kind of isolated in their own groups.

We start, I said. If you start counting heads, I bet you there's about 150 or 200 people, at least

generational sponsorship coming out of what we began at by the book group.

And so now they're now they're talking about doing that. And I think that they see that and they see that unity, much like having the first fellowship of the spirit. And you see that there's not much of A minority, as you may say, and certainly not as much of A minority as it was 10 years ago, you know? And there's real power behind that.

Our topic this morning. I understand. Step one, Spiritual.

One of the things that I I experienced as I began to sponsor people and go through my steps on repetitive basis

is

the message of Alcoholics Anonymous

is not a fear based message. And I think probably the first five years, six years coming out of step one, I was always scared to death like I better do the rest of this or else, right? The spiritual basis of life or else.

And I began to sponsor more and more people and go through the book more and more.

I started realizing how early on in the book,

how early on in the steps,

it starts talking about coming to this thing

really from a place of fearlessness.

Fearless about Step 2. Fearless about step three-step four, Step 5. Pharaoh's inventory. The fearless decision of God either is or He isn't

being fearless and thorough from the very start.

And I thought, well, how do you get there? I mean, how do you get there?

Because step one wasn't never really presented to me in a way of of at least coming out of it with something look forward to then scared to death of.

And then I heard somebody talk about talk about it

sown in our a family tree at dawn C

and

and I realized that the the coming to believe comes to what the

first, the first step in our book is. And I'm not talking about page 58. I'm talking talking about the first step on page 30 we learned that that we had to fully concede to our innermost self that were alcoholic

unless anybody is there anybody who's just this is their first shot at AA right

here have been a before at all. You mean like this retreat No, the first. OK, so if you've been, if you've been to, if you've been to a months worth of meetings, you've probably heard someone say that finding God is somewhere down deep inside at some point

fully conceived commander myself and I'm an alcoholic and is conceding to that God that's down deep inside. And that's not a fearless place, but but how do you get there to get there?

So, so I have to go down in layers, right? How's God involved in step one? How is God involved? Before I even got to step one right?

So very simply,

the book describes this craving that

beyond my mental control to stop once I start.

How did I get a sobriety date? How do I get a sobriety May 9th 1993 that I wasn't looking for.

I wasn't praying, wasn't asking for it, I didn't want it. I gave up on the whole sobriety concept right after a year and a half. An alcoholic synonymous. All the self knowledge, everything. I ended up just cashing in my chips and saying wherever alcohol takes me.

And I mean 9/19/93 I get a sobriety date that I wasn't looking for in the middle of a drink.

OK, how does that happen?

So then the next thing is this mental obsession where I have no effective mental defense,

no effective mental defense.

The book talks about that. The truth is, and we once awhile will tell the truth about this thing, about what gets us to the first strength. And then the truth is that I don't know

any anything that I propose to to you about. I don't drink because, and it's other than I don't know is is propping up a mental defense that I really don't have.

OK. And the sooner that I can come to the truth about, I don't know, the sooner I can get to brass tacks about fully conceived by innermost self and I'm an alcoholic,

the sooner I can become unafraid

of taking that next step in two coming to believe in something. It's much easier to come to believe in something that's already occurring.

OK, At least to be aware and be willing to believe in something that's already occurring.

And so this conceding to my animal self that I'm an alcoholic

in stages as we move through the book, and I do this with newcomers, I don't like hold back because I think it's so important to just follow the directions in the book to get to a place that the rest of the steps and Mike, I am so on board with Mike said last night about Step 2. You think you're having the problems with people not getting through the steps is about step one? I don't think so.

I think Step 2 is the crux of it. Step 2 will will determine the focus on which the rest of the steps are taken.

But I have to get to this place. It's much easier to come to believe in something that is already existing or is already occurring.

So we have this litany of the descriptions of, of,

of how the obsession takes place, You know, talks about the most powerful desire not not to drink is not enough. Talks about lack of choice, talks about the memory and the suffering of a week or a month ago is not enough. That doesn't mean I have to remember harder. Doesn't mean I have to be like Guy Pearson Memento and tattoo shit on my all of my body to remind myself not to drink

or with what happened.

OK,

or the OR the OR the, you know, the certain consequences. The fear of I mean, Bill talked about fear so many for a bit. Whatever your fear of is,

I flew right by mine.

Right. OK. And then it gets down to this place of talking about on page 24, about taking drinks, really not thinking about it at all. Later on, it's described as a strange mental blank spot.

An estrangement of blank spot, like Don P used to say, can be the twitch of a muscle

that fast. I can't keep up with that kind of cutting back on the powerful spiritual malady. I can't keep up with that.

An estrangement don't blank spot. And do I have experience with that? If I have experience with that, it talks about that.

Probably behind Human Beyond Humanity.

He goes on to talk about on that same sequence,

talks about

I'll read it because I don't want to butcher. It's not. It's an open book test, right?

I'm in the bottom of 24.

When this sort of thinking is fully established in an individual with alcoholic tendency is probably placed himself beyond human aid unless locked up, May die or go permanently insane. These stark and ugly facts have been confirmed by lesions of Alcoholics throughout history,

but

which means this is more important. In the previous statement for the grace of God, there would have been thousands more convincing demonstrations. Somebody wants to stop but cannot.

You are those demonstrations. We are those demonstrations.

We're here.

OK? We're here

unless locked up. Permanent. Same. Right? Die. But we're here.

I can't stop when I want to stop. I can't stay stop once I am stopped under any circumstances

and within the 30 minute period I go from drinking to die, to stopped to driving my car to a place I swore I never go that has a has a solution for recovery from alcoholism. And add insult to injury,

by time the noon meeting's over, I've asked. I'm asking a guy to help me, to walk me through the steps, to have a spiritual awakening, to recover from alcoholism

like that.

Like like I was unconscious

outer body experience. OK,

that is not what I was thinking about. You know, I talked about 11:30. You know, that's not what I was talking thinking about at 11:27. Hey, let's just go to a today, you know, just stop right now. It's not was not there,

OK. And my sponsor asked me if I was willing to believe

that there was a God that we could do and did do for me what I could not do for myself, even though I didn't believe in it or him.

That God didn't need my consent. He didn't need my prayers, He didn't need my petitioning. That at some point God can say, you know what? You're done. I need you to do something else other than try to kill yourself and everybody else around you.

He didn't say. Do you do you now believe? Are you at least willing to believe that something happened? Any any left me with these questions? How did you get this right? How did you just stop if you didn't pick it?

And then later on down the road, like I told you last night, 14 months before I actually got to the steps.

So we posed that question again. How did you stay sober?

What are you doing different?

You're doing everything wrong

in the midst of these bedevilments because that's what I dove into in sobriety. Just full bore into these bedevilments.

How you still sober? You have no effective mental defense against the first string. Are you still sober 14 months later?

Book says. People like you can't stay sober. Anything like a year on your end?

How'd that happen?

And so these questions started leading towards really one answer, and that's this answer that's described in the top page 25.

I certainly didn't earn it. I didn't merit it. It wasn't a right.

Am I willing to believe that that's what began to happen

on May 9th?

I I can't produce a sense of ease and comfort powerful enough to keep me from taking the first drink. I mentioned last night also that the you know the treatment. So you want to convince me that alcoholism was a feeling disease

if I could just produce a sense of easement or look to you to purchase a sense of using conference something other than alcohol,

right? Which was easily squashed by just looking at. Haven't I really drank when I didn't want to under all emotional condition or lack of emotional condition because I like to live in apathy untreated, I like to live in apathy. OK, And then and then and then go down from there into sloth and paralyzing fear.

But if you're apathetic to that, and I think I heard somebody, maybe it was you, Lindsey, you'll watch. You'll watch your life

get torn apart brick by brick, and you won't even feel it.

And you know, and I, just me, the first time that happened to me that Lindsay was talking about last night, you know, the whole thing was collapsed around me. Seven years sober. I didn't even realize it happened until the IT was all rubble,

you know?

So how is it that these periods of sobriety, 20 years, no matter what I felt, no matter what I thought,

that taking a drink hasn't happened?

I haven't been an All Star in a A

I've as lived as hypocritically to these spiritual principles at times on purpose and on accident as anybody I've met. And by all rights, by inventories that I write, I should be drunk

because I don't know what the day looks like, I don't know what it feels like that would take me back to a drink. I know what the book points me about

and I've seen it happen other people's lives.

I've never had the same Home group. I've never had the same sponsor. I've never had the same vigor about the book or the steps I've been sponsored list.

I've been heavily involved in service. I've been in no service. I've had all these, all these things that people tell me is the deal. They call that this deal and where I live

all that has been variable. So I can't say, well, it's this, this, this formula and bottle it up and say

this is what's happening and then give it to you.

The only thing that's constant is the thing that I can't explain. I don't need this to explain it. I don't understand, is this grace of God that came between me and alcohol?

So then we get down to something else.

It talks about this spiritual malady which drives the whole damn thing. Alcoholism demands to be treated. Alcoholism is something that we can recover from. It is the first promise in the book. Recovery we recovered does not have to stop at mind and body.

The book will later on talk about being spiritually sick and once we straighten out spiritually, straighten out mentally and physically.

The book doesn't make propositions that can't come true.

Just because I don't understand it doesn't mean it can't be true or can't happen.

Just means I got to see

alcoholism

by the best description I can find is on 60 twos. It's written selfishness. The self-centered is driven by 100 forms of fear, self delusion, self seeking and self pity.

It's driven by spiritual malady.

So what's that look like to be recovered

from alcoholism?

Maybe it's a life that's rooted in being God centered and selfless and not driven by.

I know driven by is because I've been lots of cop cars that's driven by you get out when they say they want you out, right?

Uh,

but rather

a life that's guided by, by courage and faith. Faith means courage, right?

A life that's guided by

being God seeking rather than self seeking.

Happy choice and free rather than self pity under all conditions.

The truth and honesty rather than self delusion.

OK, maybe it's something like that.

All right. And

at least the people that I know

line from me down line from me in my little a family tree that do this

when they're there in 1011 and 12, that's what their life looks like. It's not devoid of defect,

right? But the life, my life is no longer driven by this. Do I fall? Absolutely.

Do I make mistakes? Absolutely. Do I do it on purpose? Sometimes

do I do an accident a lot

so,

but there's a lot of big difference. It's a whole different universe to be guided by and make these mistakes that I catch in 10 and 11. Then being driven, being driven around by. It's a whole different universe,

especially when those mistakes can be turned into an opportunity to actually become more finely tuned into the spiritual right.

So, so we have this alcoholism that demands to be treated. Once I take the booze away, that's my left with and it's going to be treated spiritually or it's going to be treated by a drink or a bullet in the brain pan or both.

And so,

and it's these, this alcoholism manifests in what we call these bedevilments,

right? Page 52

So now I'm going down deeper and I'm down deeper. Where's where's the solution in that? Right now I'm faced with this spiritual basis of life or else

right

if you're coming for I came from initially in a a that's screwed because I don't think God wants anything to do with me and I don't want to die an alcoholic death

later on. If come to find out that there's more little deeper going down deeper into that statement about

alcoholic death and spiritual basis of life, the alternatives.

And the fact is I can't pull off either one

and I didn't find that out till later.

We are all failures at dying and alcoholic death, but if you're a real alcoholic or addict, you didn't pull it off.

Am I willing to believe that I'm a failure at dying an alcoholic death? By God's grace,

there are people that

cried more tears, shed more blood, drink more booze. Our friends of mine that never even got a sniff of recovery. You would think it was a merit system or a mountain you drank or misery that that would get you here sooner.

That's not it. I don't know what it is. It's not my. It's not my place to explain it. My job is to try and be willing to get on board with it.

So we're all failures of dying this alcoholic death by, if you're willing to believe in the grace of God that came between you and alcohol, whatever you want to name it, a higher power that came between you and alcohol.

And then you have this other thing, right?

So for the first year, and I've called synonymous, I'm trying to pound my head against a, a, the fellowship, everything but these steps. And then I finally go through these steps and have a spiritual awakening and I'm still pounding my head with a, a trying to save the world, right? And I'm in this fast lane of a, A and just sponsored people and all this other stuff, right? And somewhere along the way, somewhere along the way

a God Will program became a self willed endeavor.

And self willing A is no less dangerous than self will outside of A.

And

so on each of those occasions and and I come to realize that I can't, I can't make

a spiritual basis of life happened no matter how much I try. Now, if somebody had when they presented that to me, they had to support it in the book. And I'm like that, right? And

and so I'm going to share that with you.

It's on page 44

bottom page 44, page 45.

If if a mere code of morals are a better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism and stuff there just for a second.

A A by definition in its own book is a way of life, correct? We've seen that line designed for living. So A in itself is a philosophy of life on how life ought to be lived. If you look at a dictionary definition of philosophy, it's an idea how life ought to be lived. OK, so A in itself is a philosophy. It's just a spiritually based philosophy.

Many of us would have recovered long ago, but we found

have I found right, turning statements into questions. But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried. There I am. There's the rub.

I come in this thing and start pounding me a with

with me trying my effort right.

We could wish to be moral. We could wish to be philosophically comforted. In fact, we could will these things with all our might.

Here I come self willing an A program right spiritual program, but the needed power wasn't there. Our human resources is marshalled by the will were not sufficient. They failed other

I can come in here

and get on board with this program and then short circuit the whole thing by making it a self willed endeavor.

Something about something that I think I'm doing on my power,

right? So that brings me to this place.

Alcoholic death, spiritual basis of life. I don't have the power to pull either one off

and this brings me to this place.

I can't pick this Friday day.

I don't know why I start

right and I can't define what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling when I start.

And I have a spiritual Mali that drives the whole damn thing.

And right underneath there

I have to ask that question, How's it all happening? If all that present, why is it that I'm still here, sober

20 years, 14 months.

Dark Night of the Soul at seven years.

At 12 years,

why is it I'm still sober?

Inventory says I should be drunk,

11 steps say I should be general.

Why am I still sober?

Am I willing to believe that something happened on my sobriety that involved a higher power doing for me what I could not do for myself? The Great Fact in the Central Fact,

page 25.

I used to read that as something to look forward to. So somebody presented to me to look at it from a first step position since it was in the first step part of the book,

and it talked about this spiritual experience that revolutionized our whole attitude towards life,

our fellows in God's universe.

And in the blink of an eye, in a 30 minute period,

I go from a wanting to die consciousness drink until whatever happens happens to going and checking into a place I swear I never go that has a solution to alcoholism

also. And I'm interested in a guy that I'm going to call sponsor who is a

active

minister in a local Church of Christ with every resentment towards Christianity known to man.

And I'm going to ask this guy to be my sponsor.

And also I'm interested in where's God playing all this. And I realize that all these obstacles that I have been propping up towards seeking a relationship with God, coming to believe in a God that can restore me to sanity. We're the luxury of somebody that wasn't desperate,

but at the same time this fully conceived Amanda most self.

I had to realize, become willing, at least become willing to realize that something is taking place that is, that I could not pull off

on my own ever in my drinking history.

And

I had to concede to myself. I had to concede that the central fact

did occur. The central effect did occur in me

that that

something entered into my heart

that did the miraculous on May 9th has continued to do the miraculous.

A

Doing for me what I can't do for myself when I wasn't looking for it, wasn't consenting, wasn't praying, doing all the wrong things, and that God can do that whenever He wants to.

But I can't stay there. We'll talk about the next session I suppose, but

at some point this has a transition from realizing that I've had my back to this thing that gave me sobriety in the 1st place, to turning and facing and entering into relationship with,

which is what Step 2 is really gearing us up for. Because if we don't do that, we may not survive. This in called alcoholism

my handsome.

Absolutely. Thank you. My name is Mike Shane. I'm an alcoholic. Dave and I are winging this man, so you know, how are you guys this morning?

I love the way he talked about that, but I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about the unmanageability. I want to talk about this idea of, OK, now I'm sober. Now what?

Let me tell you something, folks. When I came in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and after I came out of the DTS and I'm sitting there at 1311 York Street and I was about a week sober, there was one truth that I knew and that was I could not stay sober with the brain that I had.

I had 25 conversations going on at the same time and two porno flicks.

That's exactly what my brain looked like. OK? Scott understands,

all right. And there's others that do, you see, because I needed something to take me away from the here and now. One of the things that Frank had me do, and I was only sober about a month.

He said, I want you to go down Skid Row. And we all smoked back then, OK? All of everybody. You smoked. You smoked in your doctor's offices. It was great,

he said. I want you to take a carton of cigarettes and I want you to get on a Skid Row and I want you to go up and I just want you to talk to these drunks.

And I said, yeah, I don't need to do that. I said I know I'm like them. He said that's not what I'm. That's not where I'm coming from. That's not what I'm going after. And I said, what are you going after? He says, just go do what I tell you to do. Frank was one of those guys that I really love that way because he just wouldn't indulge my bullshit.

And we all come in here with a whole lot of bullshit, say we're the most important things in the world when we come in, all right? And Frank was just telling me things. I used to call Frank up and I go, oh, this is happening, he said. Did you pray?

No click. I mean, that's the way you handle me. So I go down on Skid Row and I take this carton of cigarettes down and I'm talking to people

and halfway through this thing I start to realize something. And what I realized was this,

all of these people I talked to,

every single one of them didn't understand the reality of their life.

Not a one. They all had a game plan. They all were something better than this. They all had the next deal coming down the Pike, right?

And so all of a sudden I come in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous and my life is absolutely, 100%, totally unmanageable.

So I know I can't drink, right? I know I can go out and get a drink. I know that I'm powerless over. I told you last night when I talked that my first step basically tells me what

I'm gonna drink again. That's really what it says. But now I'm left with this

insanity,

not just the insanity of the first drink. I, I, I became aware that I suffered from that. But then on manageability creeps in. Now the big book handles it in a bunch of whole different ways. And I love the way David approached this idea of trying to be a better person. Anybody here do that when they were out there drinking? I'm going to be a better person. How many of you went to church?

Yeah,

You know how many of you got up in the morning and you said, God, I'm just going to go out there and I'm going to just be a better person today and maybe God will have something to do with me.

See, I didn't really doubt there was a there was a God. What I doubted was that God would have anything to do with me,

OK, because I had committed every sin there was in the 10 commandments and enjoyed doing most of them. That was the problem. So all of a sudden I'm left with this unmanageability. So I want to direct you to page 52 in the Big Book,

and I'm going to go forward and backward here real quick. But on page 52 in the Big Book, we have these things that Dave talked about, and it's called the Bedevilments,

right?

So we had to ask ourselves, this is the third paragraph down. We had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply

our human problems. The same readiness to change our point of view, right?

We were having trouble with personal relationships. Was anybody in here having trouble with personal relationships? How about now?

Who's having trouble with personal relationships right here, right now.

Now I'm going to tell you a trick. You want to know a real trick? This is a trick. This is in the secret writings of Doctor Bob.

God only works in here and now.

Even work an hour from now, He doesn't work last week. If I'm praying for my rent to be paid next month, I'm. I'm wasting my time.

God works here, right here, right now. This is all we got.

OK, so I have to ask myself these questions like that.

What about today, right here, right now? Am I having trouble with personal relationships? I thought I was really cool until I went out to dinner just two nights ago with a friend of mine and she brought up this guy and I got this hit in my head chest.

I had forgotten about it

and he and I used to be really good. Not in the program, but he and I used to be really good friends and all of a sudden we're not talking to each other. Am I having trouble with a personal relationship?

This is the This is the best one, the bedevilments and I'll tell you why

we couldn't control our emotional natures.

Anybody have trouble with that today? The

Can you tell me, Lindsey, that you're going to be happy all day long no matter what?

No,

hysterical.

That's a joke, right? Yeah. No, I don't know about you, but when I was brand new, I was like this. I mean, when I was brand new, it was like I was, I'd be, you know, ecstatic. And 20 minutes later, I want to kill myself for you, right? All because somebody walked in, usually a girl, and she didn't say hi, right? And I was, I was broken. I was literally broken.

You don't mind me going off here? Dude? No, no,

let's have fun with this thing.

We're afraid of misery and depression.

See these last two statements. What they're telling me is I have no control over me,

right? How many of you experience this since you've been sober?

Who's lying? Whoever didn't raise their hand,

have you ever had this experience over? Everything out here is great

and you're a wreck,

right?

We couldn't make a living.

I couldn't make a living when I came in. But here's the here's the trick to that question. Can you make a living the way you want to make a living? And I don't mean about amount of money. I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about can you follow your drink?

Are you subject to the man?

I got to get the paycheck.

We had a feeling of uselessness.

Anybody ever feel that

anybody in here when they were drinking, feel like they're a waste on society? You want to know why? Because you were.

I was. I sucked everything from society. Society could possibly give me,

right? I love Paul Martin. Paul Martin was one of my absolute favorite men. He died with 62 years of sobriety. He used to sit at the table with Bill and Lois. Paul would get up and he'd talk and he'd go. Well, if you feel guilty, you probably are all right.

We're full of fear.

Anybody in here scared today?

Anybody in here suffered fear today?

Jeremy Faria.

He's not even way to it

right? We're unhappy

we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people.

Was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than whether we should see newsreels of leaner of lunar flight? Of course it was. When we saw others solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the spirit of the universe, we had it stopped out in the power of God. Our ideas did not work, but the God idea did.

One of the beautiful things that happened to me when I hit 1311 York Street is I would be whining about my life, right?

And they would look at me and say your best thinking got you here, Mike.

Maybe we got a little bit better way. I'm going to tell you what I find I find personally as the crux of this book. And that's on page 45, second paragraph. This is the whole crux to the whole book to me.

Lack of power.

That was our dilemma.

We had to find a power by which we could live,

and it had to be a power greater than ourselves,