Steps 2 and 3 at the Fellowship of the Spirit in Conyers, GA

OK, my name is Mike Shane. I am an alcoholic.

This says that we're going to do steps two and three now in about the next hour and 15 minutes. I

step two came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

Is the turn

from step one.

Step one is a very hopeless place.

If you get a first step, if you really do what the big book says to do, which is

concede to your innermost self that you have this, that is not a good place to be.

As a matter of fact, I think it's probably the loneliest, scariest, most desolate place I've ever been in my life,

which was when I finally it hit me that I have this thing and that there's no way out for me. Not.

Not another marriage, not a job, not more money, not a new relationship, not a psychiatrist, not a treatment center. Nothing's going to fix me

now. I got to come to believe that there's this power greater than me. OK, that's going to solve my problem now. I don't know what a A is like down here. I've been to a few meetings actually around

McDonough and Atlanta,

but when I got sober, these people didn't hide the idea that this was a God based program.

They just didn't hide it. So when they were talking to a new person like me and they enjoyed talking to me because I look so damn bad and I'm shaking

and beat up and especially when the bruises got yellow and big and and stuff like that, They didn't hide the fact that this is a God based program. And I remember looking at Frank and I said to him, I said, I, I can't go here. I can't go here. I, I, there is no God. That mean there can't be a God.

If there's God, he ain't gonna have nothing to do with me.

I remember as a kid laying in my bed trying to pray to God to kill my father when he was drunk.

Didn't happen.

I saw so many things in the military and so many things on the streets that there couldn't be a God.

I didn't believe in God. I did foxhole prayers. You know, I was raised to Luther. So we'd go to church, then we'd come home and my dad would get drunk and beat up on somebody.

Made no sense to me. So I come in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous

and I have this thing called the Gift of Desperation. That's what's been coined around a A for many a year. The gift of desperation. I'm desperate enough to do what? Open my mind to something different, right? That's what we've all been talking about.

So now all of a sudden I'm sitting here

and I'm having to read this thing called We Agnostics, and I'm not going to read your big book for you. All right? But let me tell you what it does say. It says lay aside prejudice. What's prejudice?

Prejudgment. That's all it is,

pre judgment. So I'm going to point at some of you and you're going to tell me what some of your prejudgments about God is.

Lindsey, what's 1 prejudgment you have

that got hypocritical, judgmental,

controlling

ventil?

If I believed in God, I'd be like a one of those television preachers.

He only works.

that Lady back there going like that.

What about, is this a prejudgment? I've been in church my whole life and I just really know there's a God.

Is that a prejudgment here?

But yet I'm drinking and doing drugs, doing this and doing that, I got prejudgment, right? I have judgments about what the spiritual life is, and I've got to go and find something that's going to get between me and the next drink,

right?

Isn't that what this is all about?

So here's what they had me do. They had me sit down and they they constantly like to remind me that my best thinking had gotten me here.

This was my best shot at life, right?

So all of a sudden this idea of what God is, I have all of these.

I had the very negative ideas and the book discusses this, that we thought we had neatly and avoided this whole subject. You know that's where I came from

until I was confronted with exactly what the book talks about. And I love the way the big book nails it. A self-imposed crisis we could not postpone or evade. We had a fearlessly face the fact that God is either everything or nothing. What's your choice to be

What that says to me, choice is it takes the feelings out of it.

Spirituality is not based on how I feel.

I'm going to tell you something

emotional maturity is about not living your life based on how you feel.

When I came in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I was a reactor.

That's what I did. I reacted to life, right? So if you threaten me, I reacted.

If you gave me what I wanted, I was nice to you,

right? Emotional maturity is not living your life based on how you feel around York Street. Dave just brought it up just before this thing started. That I know Dave believes is I was told when I was new. Fuck your feelings.

OK,

See, what is the idea of the sponsor? Well, I've got to believe that this person that I've asked to be my sponsor knows something

that I don't know, right? So lay my feelings aside. The book begs me throughout. The second step is to lay my prejudices aside. Now I'm here to tell you, sober as long as I am, here's my definition of God today.

God is.

That's it.

God is not a man.

God is not a woman. Thank God

or I'd be dead.

God is not human.

We Alcoholics want to put human attributes on God. Why?

So we can control it.

We are control freaks.

Dave talked in the last session about how we want to control us by taking credit for working all these steps and keeping myself sober. And aren't I wonderful, right? Guy came up to me in between the meetings and he goes, you know, I, I, yeah. By the way, if you talk to me, it's pretty much going to be out there for public record

unless it's in the content of a fifth step or you. You say don't say anything, but I'm going to tell you that because it's all of our experiences, OK? If you think that you're unique

because you're black, white, woman, coke addict, alcoholic. If you think you're unique, you're not.

We all suffer from the same stuff, right? So the big book says we must lay aside prejudice. How many of you have had this experience where you have written down with those prejudices are as you go through the steps

234?

I'm going to make a suggestion that the next time you go through the steps or the next time you take someone through the steps, have them right out all of their prejudices about the spiritual realm and about God, have them write it out. One of the biggest mistakes I have made in sobriety is thinking I know what the spiritual realm is all about.

This is what it's supposed to look like,

OK. And then all of a sudden I do something totally away from what this thing is supposed to look like and it works out just fine.

And I, I love the way Dave talked about it because I've had situations happen and, and I talk about Bob Olsen Why? And, and the, and the main reason I do is Bob and I have been best friends for 39 years. So I talk about him, he talks about me. But I mean, we have had situations and we've been ten step buddies and we talk on the phone a lot and

we finish each other's statements. It's like a marriage.

I mean, I call him and I go, hey, Bob, this is what he goes, yeah, I already know do this. You know, I do the same thing with him. And I've had situations since I've been sober in the spiritual realm where I know I'm not supposed to go do this, right.

Well, I'm going to go do it. Usually that has to do with the opposite sex, but you know,

and somehow, way, shape or form, sometimes it has, you see, two, 3-4 years down the road, that's exactly the way I'm supposed to go. OK, so I don't know.

So let me make a suggestion about Step 2. Coming to believe that there's this power greater than me is to have yourself or somebody else

write out what their prejudices are

and then do what the book says, the big book says lay them aside.

We don't attack them. We don't do anything with them. We just lay them aside. We put them off here to the side.

All right, I think that the biggest

influence on coming to believe in a power greater than myself is, is you. And that is this. If I'm truly alcoholic down to my core, and I've got the gift of desperation, and I'm presented the solution by somebody who radiates a different life than I do, what's my choice?

What's your choice? What do you do? Mama didn't raise dummies in this group. Trust me,

we're going to pick it up, right? Why do you think it is that some people who really and truly have a first step cannot move on to the to the to Step 2? Why do you think that? Is anybody

prejudice

besides prejudice?

Beer. Beer. It's a good one. What about the idea of giving up control?

We do not want to give up control.

So

my step two was this. I looked at certain people

and I said you don't drink anymore, you don't want to drink,

and you state that your sobriety is based on a power greater than yourself that you choose to call God. So therefore I'm willing to do that,

but I have to be willing to do the rest of the work.

And I said that to Frank. I said, I don't think I can do this.

And he said, you know, Mike, there's a couple of things that you need to realize about Alcoholics Anonymous, and that is, if you're in here,

we don't drink,

right?

And secondly, you do find a God.

You're going to find a God here, so you might as well find one that you sort of like hanging out with.

I'll never forget that

because I'm not going to spend time in meditation with something I think is going to thump me,

right.

So the whole idea, the second step is about changing my mind. Now let's talk about I talked about it being new, but before I asked Daves side of it,

how about after we've been sober for a while? Do you think we can get trapped in a mind? You guys say the set aside prayer, you know, all the time and I love this prayer. I've used it for many, many years and a different version of this also

because one of the biggest traps in being sober for a period of time is we think we know what we've got.

We don't think there's anything new out here,

right?

So

the whole idea of opening my mind is a concept that's very foreign to Alcoholics

because we need to be in control. We absolutely, positively need to be in control. And on the back of this thing again, that's exactly what Tebow talks about.

That's it for now. We're doing step three. We got to do Step 3 yet

so.

So I'm at this place and

spiritual basis of life or else,

and I'm starting to consider, well, how do I get there in the 1st place if it's if I can't pull it off

And

in the first thing that Step 2 is going to do and, and we agnostics is look at what, what it is. I don't believe. Why is it that when I start considering a spiritual basis of life, I start doing this with it, right. What is what is it that I where's that coming from? It uses these statements about

evade, ignore, honest, doubt, inadequate, impressed, upon. OK. I think that most of this room is familiar with the concept of term statements into questions.

OK. And

every time, every time I've turned myself into Step 2 and I roll through that,

I come to a bunch of external

ideas that are placed upon these statements. What is it about God I've I've been evading? What is it about God that I've ignored? What is it about God or spiritual face of life that I honestly doubt?

I doubt that he gives a shit.

How many times does that come up

right And and and and often times, especially in the beginning of of repetitive Step 2. It it, it came from ideas about God that were impressed upon me first religion. And I'm not down in religion. I'm just telling you where it came from,

OK? And then I got some sitting around. It means I'll talk. Synonymous.

That sounded really good because the one that the one that I heard and we talked about fuck your feelings, boy after a little while and I thought so I heard it so much, I thought, boy, if it feels good, it's gotten. If it feels bad, it's not. Boy, that sounds great.

You know what that does?

You're not going to do 11 steps anymore, I promise, because that feels like crap if you know it keeps piling up because you don't do the corrective measures right? So it keeps piling up. Well, I'm not going to do 10 steps either

because I don't want anybody making me feel bad because I'm in resentment, fear, saucy and selfishness. I wanted to make people on my covers, you know? I'm not going to do 4 steps. I don't want to write. That takes a lot of work and doesn't feel good either.

Where am I at? Right I'm right back. I'm just right back when I'm in step zero in effect, right? Doing everything in a, A but a A. And

so there's all this stuff, right?

And

and so it starts begging the question, where did I get it? It's external,

right? And

who gave it to me?

A book, a church, an individual? All this is important because where are we supposed to look for this this coming to believe in a power grid myself that's going to restore us to sanity down deep inside.

And and as I shared last night, I was born in a church

that was driven me to be a missionary. I mean, I went to seminary drunk,

right in that church. You start going to seminary soon as you hit high school. I stopped actually going on Sunday, but for because I'm a masochist. I show up for seminary,

right,

because I think there's something in the scriptures. It's just like this is sound familiar? It's the fellowship I don't like.

Does that sound familiar? I like the book. It's the fellowship I don't like. No, but

so it's,

you know, I, I have all this input

come from outside sources

and justice created this obstacle of never getting an opportunity to ask.

What does God honestly mean to me? Which is a consideration later on and we agnostics not too far later on. It's after the laying aside that Mike talked about

whatever your spiritual term is in the book actually says to look at the spiritual terms in the book and ask yourself what they honestly mean to you. And I've been given that exercise as a actual written exercise, not at any credit license to it. Pin paper and just write what comes in through intuitive thought as a as a exercise to start developing being able to listen. Just be able to listen to intuitive thought,

which is a foreign concept to me for the first 5-6 years sobriety.

I thought that was for other people. I thought that was for Saints in AI. Thought that other people could do that. Naa, outside of AAI, just

didn't think that was something that I don't think that was the kind of personal relationship got in the head. I thought I was just going to continue to muddle through the dark and just kind of get lucky once in a while, you know,

and,

and you know, in that laying aside, Bill makes a really

important disclaimer that

we are to get wrapped up in fully defining or comprehending, but that doesn't mean we throw the baby out with the bathwater. He's given this. Look, this isn't about fully understanding God, because if I could fully understand God, I would be God. Okay, that's the premise, right? But I have to start somewhere. And it doesn't matter how limited and it doesn't matter how inadequate I may think it is. You may think it is or anybody else,

but I got to start somewhere. I got to start somewhere on some track and some sort of

some sort of define some sort of box

and if you are a spiritually deficient, I was when when I got here, any box that God gives me is plenty of room.

I'm not going to be pushing the sides of the walls of that box anytime soon,

OK?

Where'd it come from? And when I sponsor people that come in with no God atheist,

those questions are those questions in the beginning of the agnostics are just as relevant because to a person,

their basis for the atheism is again, an external source.

It's an external source. I'm not trying to convince them of anything,

but they have to at least acknowledge that's all that is coming from some sort of external source.

I found it. I was equating religion with God. You throw out one, you throw out both, you walk away from one, you walk away from both. So when I walked away from the religion, I walked away from God. And that is not the truth

also had it. I also had a strong a strong prejudice because that could be good, it can be bad. I have strong prejudice about

my material life will reflect my the my faith.

And while that didn't materialize by being good LDS boy,

now I'm serious and I'm alcohol synonymous and I'm, I'm 10 years sober and I'm doing everything that God wants me to do and helping bring in his alcoholic kids to God and all this other stuff. And I'm taking a dive materially and financially and I'm going, well, where's mine God, I'm your boy down here doing all this work. You might showing up once in a while and give me throw me a bone once in a while. You know, where is that all wrapped up in

this idea that I picked up somewhere along the along the way outside said. Your material life will reflect your your faith,

your relationship with God.

And I can tell you when I was in Utah cutting my teeth, 12 stepping

sponsoring guys, I was

as holding a garage sale. My car got repaired

and a sponsored bunch of guys at this recovery house

and I was, I'd elevated myself above the group. I've elevated myself above the sponsor. I wasn't, I was too prideful to say what was happening and it was falling. It was just imploding and

couple guys showed up. I live way on the South end of Salt Lake City. These guys are way up in downtown and these guys show up and go my, my stuff's all on the lawn, yard sale sign and everything. And where's your car? Let's go repo. Where you going? Back to California and

oh, that's a bummer. I go, why? I go, what's what's going on? He goes, well, we were just coming down here. See if you get sponsors,

I'm going.

What do I possibly have that you could possibly want?

And out of the mouth of babes, they see it. They don't give a shit about none of that,

right?

So what does God honestly mean to me?

The book says that the answer to that question is where the first conscious relation occurs. And I think that's really important

because if it doesn't occur there in Step 2, if this willingness to turn, like Mike said,

towards a relationship with God and no longer taking for granted the God that's at my back

looking at him and like looking at it from the rearview mirror, start entering into a relationship with God that has a spiritual foresight

regards out in front of me,

then what kind? What kind of at least I'm just talking from my own experience and people have helped. What kind of faith can I really have in taking a third step

if the if some sort of relation or willingness to believe in a relationship hasn't already been established, some sort of trust.

OK, what good is asking God to remove my, my, my anger or remove my remove my fear, direct my attention to it. He had me being what? What kind of trust can I really have in that if some sort of relationship hasn't been already developed or at least a willingness to have a relationship or to become developed?

Asking God for a ride ideal. Taking a seven step prayer, all the prayers that are involved in the ninth step,

10:00 and 11:00, if a conscious relationship with God doesn't isn't established until 11 doesn't

brings into question, least in my mind, all the other all the other prayers I'm making. I don't have a lot of confidence behind that. I don't have a lot of God confidence behind that,

but if it's if it's true what the book says and I believe it is that the first conscious relationship starts with in willingness to believe in what God honestly means to me and asking after being willing to say lay aside all that stuff that's external and going down and saying God, what do you honestly mean to me.

Whatever comes, and I encourage too, especially been around a while, to take the look at the spiritual terms in the book to capitalize ones. Put them on a paper like this and on the other side in meditation, prayer, the pen, God, what is what is the universal You as universal might honestly mean to me.

What does he is love, infinite love, power and love mean to me. There's all kinds of capitalized terms,

right? And I watch what comes off my pin. Stuff I couldn't come up with on my best day.

Answers to terms that I wouldn't even consider. I still right here, Czar of the heavens. It makes makes my

this, you know, but I get answers from that if I in my way to trust the answer I receive.

And in the in the rest, the rest of and then the agnostics seems to challenge again and again some more prejudices, more prejudices and and and do I have them? And if I have them, am I going to be so am I going to continue to hold on to these prejudice and disregard this first conscious relation that I'm willing to establish now

is holding on to this and more important than moving forward with this, this conscious relation that's now becoming established?

This is all going towards what I was taught to be the second step prayer in on page

5859.

59

half measures availis nothing instead of the turning point masses protection care with complete abandoned

half measures on the turn right.

God wants to make a full 180° turn

to seek Him. There's really interesting terms in this week Gnostics thing

Approach, contact, seek, approach, contact, relate,

access, power, peace, happiness, sense, sense of direction.

I see feel use direct

right and entering into this first conscious relation.

See there's there's no there's no requirement for this thing that came between me and alcohol, this spiritual experience. But the spiritual awakening is conscious contact. This relationship with God is very clear. The book is very clear. This requires something. This is conditional. It requires seeking,

requires seeking, and God is all inclusive.

I exclude myself by not seeking.

It's just like an A

if I'm not involved in alcohol, it's anonymous. It's not your fault.

I'm talking about the program. I exclude myself

from that. It's not your fault. I exclude myself,

OK, and seeking God is no different.

I exclude myself and in this book this program talks about a personal relationship with God.

What leg do I have to stand on to take any other position?

Nothing else has worked

OK. A personal relationship with God that I can interact with. To me,

the God that I can't have a personal relationship with might as well be no God.

God that I can't access might as well be no God.

Isn't that where we get to develop the developments? Our ideas did not work, but the God idea did, and some point becomes our ideas again,

and when it becomes our ideas again. In all practicality, when I'm playing God, when I am the Alpha and the Omega,

am I not in all practicality living as this, there is no God. I can sit there and blow smoke up my butt in the mirror and say, oh, I'm an agnostic, I'm just struggling with my belief about God. But the truth is I'm living as if I'm as if there is no God because I'm God.

That's why the reworking of this program is so to me is so vital because that just rebuilds the spiritual malady, the ego, whatever you want to call it. It rebuilds and will lead me to believe that I need, that I now need to take over. And where does that usually start? Stuff that Mike talks about that this feeling starting to define what a spiritual basis of life is. What's base of life is supposed to look like was supposed to feel like was supposed to be like? You know what? That it's right at that moment where I begin

circuit it

in coming to this place of going God is,

God is,

and trying to stay there. That's hard. It's hard.

That's all I have great. Any questions? Anybody want to share anything?

Yeah, my name's Roger.

And the the wording in the second step kind of confronts me with a personal conflict. It's like there's a

there's a city and a Georgia city in Georgia. There's, you know, saying there's around, is it Albany or all Danny and I call it all. But no matter what, still the same, same same physical place in the state of Georgia. But this whole thing about, you know, turn my well, my life. I mean that

hanging blade paragraph in my shop

return vagus. I'm sorry, I'm jumping clerks that matter.

Made a decision to turn a Wheeler black, you know, care God as we understood him. And then, you know, for me it's like, well, hell, all that we've been talking about this right now, it's like all the stuff that you know, all the stuff I understood about God or thought I understood about God or all the stuff that didn't work about the way I thought about God or all the stuff that everybody else said about God. So this whole thing about as I understood them, well, they never freaking worked. So, you know, for me, it's got to be

I want to change the book to say, you know, maybe to as setting aside

anything that I thought I freaking do about what God was.

I had to get kind of, you know, maybe just manage. But I had to get past that to be able to get to the point where, you know, OK, well, I can do forward this round because I'm going to set aside all that stuff that I thought what God was or is or what he isn't. Anyway, that's

that's why I had to say thanks.

I just went through that. I just went through Step 2 and I brought a bunch of access to grind with God and I've been holding on to him for a few years. And on the backside of that, right when you were talking about something that I'd never seen before personally, was that this

turning the wheel in life for the care of God as I understood him. Also the other side of the equation is that actually willing to turn my little life over the care of God as I still don't understand them

and be willing to be open to be shown. This is the first time I came to Step 2

wide open the same. You show me this kind

because I felt like

I was not in good footiness with my relationship with God and doubting a lot. And I said

you show me this.

I don't understand.

OK. I think the M&M's are out too.

Well, that's a higher power in it. You see all that

Putting candy out of the A meeting is sort of like feeding the piranha. You know,

we don't even matter at this point. It's like, here we go, Skittles or Eminem. Skittles are all God. Skittles are out too. God, I gotta get my hands on some of those. All right, let's get back to the realities of what we're doing here. So the M&M connection, I want Skittles.

So anyway, yeah, I'm doing sugar this weekend. Dear God.

So if I go on rants, I can blame it on the Skittles, right? Yeah. OK, Yeah.

All right. So there's there seems to be two common denominators with Step 2, because we're going to move on to step three. One is we got to get hurt, don't we? We got to get damaged. We got to get hurt. We got to hit a bottom, right? I can't bring myself to a bottom. Life brings me to a bottom. You want to know what your life really looks like?

You really wanna know it's right in front of your nose.

It's right here, right now. No matter what you think is going on, look at your life the way it is. That's that's the fact. Because Alcoholics are the funniest people in the world as far as I'm concerned. Because we all run around and think we're better than everybody else, right? Or what's the other side of the coin?

We're worse.

We're a piece of crap, right? I got to tell you right here, right now, I'm setting you up for the 4th step. But it's both.

That's the double edged sword of the ego.

The double edged sword of the ego is I'm better or I'm worse. So when I walk around, I hear people doing this all time in a, oh, my real problem is I don't think I'm good enough and I don't deserve it. Bullshit. The reason you don't think you're good enough is because you think you're pretty hot shit and you should be able to figure this all out. That's why, right? So now the third step's going to line me up with what my real issue is.

Then it's going to say

you're going to turn your will, how I think my life, everything else over to the care of this guy. But I I'm here to tell you the third step is only a decision to do the rest of the work. That's all it is. The old timers back in the in the 30s and and early 40s, some of them have told me this, that they called 4 through 9 the surrender steps.

That's where I find God.

And Frank actually said to me when I told him I can't do this. And then we talked about it and I was such a chicken shit. I said, yeah, I'll do this and 'cause I had no other choice, right? He said, you're going to find a God somewhere between now and the time you are done with a ninth step. So the third step in this book sets us up for

one inventory, because

remember at the end of the third step, for those of you that have been around, what does it say? You think you're all done with third step, and then it goes.

We launch out on a course of vigorous action, right? I didn't get a break. All right, so I'd like you if you have a book turn to page 60

down here says being convinced we're a Step 3, which is that we decided

decision is that based on feeling

to turn our one life over to the care of God as we understood him. Just what do we mean by that and just what do we do?

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

Does it say my life

says any life? What does that mean,

exactly?

So I would sit there and I would look at people like Ted Turner. And while he's really successful, he seems like himself will run riot, right?

Is he really happy? I don't know. I don't even know if himself will run riot. I really don't know.

I got to play golf with this guy who is probably back in the 80s, one of the most powerful

multi. Back then it was multi millionaires, not multi billionaires. And,

and I, he invited me out to his Country Club where like there's three groups on the whole course, you know, and we're out there riding around the cart and,

and I just said to him, I said, I gotta ask you, I said,

how do you do this? I mean, you have not just success in business, but you have success in life and your kids love you and your wife seems to love you and all this stuff. And he goes, this guy, not a guy in the program,

he goes, you know what I do? I said what he said. Every morning I get up and I pray to God

and I asked him to help me. And then I go through every decision that I think I have to make that day and I ask, is this going to affect? Who's this going to affect and how's it going to affect? And I'm sitting there in my eyes about this.

He doesn't need a step number

to do the right thing, right? Any life based on self will and it's going to go on to explain what self will is. And if you understand what self will is, you're going to start to see that you can never be happy. And self will. And I don't care if you're alcohol.

I don't care if you're Bill Gates, All right,

On that basis,

OK, So they're talking about self will on that basis. We're almost always in collision with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Drunks don't get in trouble when they got bad motives. Drunks get in trouble when they got good motives,

right? I don't know a drunk. I don't know a drunk that's not willing to pay the price. I've done stuff that I know is a bad motive and I get caught or I, you know, whatever happens, I'm willing to pay the price. Here's where I get whiny is when I go into something with all good intentions, right? Good motives. Let me tell you one that's real prevalent amongst the work world nowadays. I'm just trying to put food on the table for my family.

But so many of these people are just running people over like you can't believe, right?

But then what ends up happening? They don't get what they want, right? But my motives are just great. Most people try to live by self propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants to run the whole show. Now what's what's wrong with that statement?

In the Alcoholics mind,

whose job is it to run the whole show? The director. I'm not the director, I'm the actor. The director tells me where to stand, how to dress, how to deliver the line, how to do this, how to do that right.

But no, I'm better than all of you.

I know better than all of you.

I'm sure I'm the only person in this room that has gone into a situation and not tried to control it, right?

We all do

all right? So each person is like the 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. This, I love this, I love this. If only people would do as he wished, the show would be great.

So we're so arrogant

as to believe that if Dave will do it my way,

I'm going to be happy and so is he.

Right Day's just going to be a happy guy.

That's why I don't go out May and pound on people and this is the right way to do. I just don't do it anymore. It doesn't work. It just doesn't work. Big Frank used to be able to do it, sometimes effectively. I saw Big Frank. I asked him to speak at a meeting that 200 people went to and half of them got up and left.

And he, he finally sat there with me one day, says what I do doesn't work. And I said, why is that? He says because this is about attraction. This isn't about promotion

because you think you have the answer out of the big book of AAA and you go out into your community out there and you go to these other meetings and they're talking about the problem of the day or whatever. I just don't choose to go to them. But

all I can do is speak my own truth and who's attracted to it is going to come up and talk to me. And half the people aren't going to like me because I'm not tell you something that I have really come to believe. And that is most people in a A don't want to get well.

They really don't. They enjoy staying sick. Have you ever heard this? Oh, I did that. I'm just a drunk. I'm just an alky

and want to stay sick. They really and truly do

so now. Life would be wonderful in trying to make these arrangements. Or actor maybe sometimes quite virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous, even modest and self sacrifice. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and dishonest,

but as with most humans, is more likely to have varied traits.

Most of us try to get by the nice guy way, and if we can't get by the nice guy way,

then we'll use the hammer. We'll bring the hammer out if we can, OK? I live my life in drinking through intimidation. I was a big tough guy. I thought, man, I was physically, I was somebody to handle and I used it. I used it big time.