The Fellowship of the Spirit in Bayside, Queens, NY

All right guys, let's start Mosey and back to our tables and getting serious again.

Yeah, that means you, Donny.

OK, So what we want to do is kind of finish up step one and talk a little bit more about that in Step 2, because I mean step one, Step 2 and step three can be boiled down to three very simple things. I have a problem. I need to seek a solution to that problem. I'm going to make a decision to start seeking solution to that problem,

but it's really important. And this is something that that really can't be under undersold is knowing the true nature of your problem.

And the reason for that is exactly what Chris talked about. He said that, you know, we have a mind that lies to ourselves. I'm a delusional person. I'm not in denial. That's what Al Anons have. I'm in delusion

because I truly believe with my brain says about says to me about alcohol what my brain says to me about you. My brain says to me about God and I can honestly, in my experience, it talks about it says the most honest desire to stop, right? And later it talks about in the book, and I love this. I mean the most beautiful description of the alcoholic. I mean, Bill spent five chapters essentially describing what it means to be an alcoholic. He described the physical allergy, meaning that when I put alcohol in my body, I can't control how much

I take, right.

He describes the mental obsession that says that I have a skewed perception when it comes to alcohol. So one of two things happens. Either I minimize the consequences of my drinking that I'm unable to think through

the the pain and misery that I experienced even a week or a month ago, right? That I might think about it, but not with sufficient force to be able to come between me and the bottle. Right? That it's hazy and readily separated by the threadbare idea that I can drink like other people,

right? And it says that I have a spiritual malady, meaning that I'm driven by fear, that I'm irritable, restless and discontent, and that basically carry without alcohol is an asshole.

It's very simple. And that in that state, there's something within me, the spiritual emotional state within me produces such incredible psychic and emotional pain that the thing, the drink looks like a good idea. And The thing is that in a book says it very clearly that it's not that I don't care is that I can't make myself care about the consequences of picking up the drink because what's going on with me presently?

Just put this very simply and sort of a cost benefit analysis right now. I told you I'm a paste eater, right? That I'm the shy girl. I'm like Allie Sheedy in The Breakfast Club, right? So I don't deal well with people like in kindergarten, like my my report card always said, did not work and play well with others.

OK, I was one of those. I was just one of those people that just felt like that there was something missing inside of me and that you all like had a book or had a handbook or had a way to get, you know, to navigate life. And that I like missed that day, you know, and something somehow like my instructions on how to like, you know, navigate breathing, walking, interacting with other human beings, like just was missing something, you know. So I was always comparing my insights to your outsides, and I was looking

at what was going on inside of me, which is full of fear, full of misery, depression in inadequacies. And I'm looking at you and you look fine. And I'm thinking there's something deeply wrong with me, that there's a sense of worthlessness and a sense of unworthiness that I can't get rid of on my own.

That state, right? Mental, physical and spiritual. Bill spends 4 chapters describing this, right? Five chapters describing this. And then after he goes through all of these things and he talks about all the ways that the alcoholic will trick himself into drinking again, right? He talks about Jim, the guy who had a resentment, who came to work on a Tuesday instead of a Monday, got into an argument with his boss, right? And then convinced himself that that, you know, drinking alcohol in a glass or drinking whiskey in a glass of milk sounded like a good idea,

right? You have the jaywalker, the guy who minimizes the wreckage of what happens when he drinks, right? You have the other guy, his name is Fred, the not a cloud on the horizon guy who thought that self knowledge, you know, would sit would keep him sober. So the Bill, Bill and the 1st 100 Alcoholics went through all of these different scenarios about the thought process that proceeds picking up the first drink.

And he says, he says to us very clearly, he says that, you know,

and I love this at the very end about more about alcoholism. It says once more, the alcoholic and note at certain times has no effective mental defense against the first rank. This is page 43, last paragraph. Except in a few rare cases, neither he nor any human being can provide such a defense. His defense must come from a higher power.

So my brain can't fix my sick alcoholic brain. That's why we put pen to paper, by the way. But we'll get to that,

you know, But the idea is, is that I'm a delusional person that what what I think to be true is often not, you know, that that I can't differentiate the truth from the false. And you want to know why the alcoholic can't differentiate the truth from the false?

Well, I talked about the cost benefit analysis, right? I said that we're in this all this emotional pain, the psychic pain, right? And I know that if I drink, if I take a couple drinks, that that's going to the volume on the, on the screaming monkeys in my head are going to get turned down just a little bit right

now. I know that that the, the, what I'm going to get from putting booze in my body will turn down the craziness in my brain. The possible consequences of that is, you know, well, I'm going to drink way too much. I'm probably going to do something stupid, wake up naked somewhere with somebody. I don't really know. I'm not really sure where I'm at

now that's a possible consequence of taking a drink. Let me weigh that out to the mental, emotional and psychic pain that I'm currently experiencing. Possible consequences, emotional help, possible consequences, emotional health. That's really a no brainer. I'm going to drink

because I'm seeking relief

on seeking relief from the spiritual malady.

So after describing all of these things, Bill at the very beginning of We Agnostic says a couple really, really awesome, totally cool, very concise things On page 44. It says in the preceding chapters, we you, you have learned something about algorithm. That's a consideration. Now, just about every single damn sentence in this book can be turned into a consideration.

You know, I read this book and when Bill makes a statement like you have or we have or I have experienced, I stop and say, is that my experience too? So have I learned something about alcoholism in the first four chapters? Says we we hope we've made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non alcoholic. Well, if he hasn't, he's going to in one sentence say it so clearly he could have just said that and we could have been done with it. He says if when you honestly want to, you can't quit

entirely, quit entirely.

Or if when drinking you have little control of the amount you you take, you're probably an alcoholic. So I can't control and enjoy my drinking. When I'm controlling my drinking, I'm not enjoying it. When I'm not controlling my drinking, I'm having lots of fun and nobody else is Very simple.

It says if that be the case, you're suffering from an illness that only a spiritual experience can conquer. So the idea here is that if I fit the earmarks of the alcoholic, if I read these chapters and I'm reading these considerations when we're talking about page 23, when it talks about not being able to think to drink through, how many times have you heard in a in a meeting, think the drink through, do it if you could drink the thing to drink through, find another club to go bowling. Goddamnit, get the fuck out of my readings. Seriously, if you can think

through, go home. Find something else to do with your time because you're killing people like me telling me to think the drink through because I cannot do that because I'm an alcoholic.

And guess what? The misery and the horror of even a week or a month ago doesn't mean anything to me in the state of untreated alcoholism when the monkey is on my back. So honestly, if you can think to drink through, if you could put the plug in the jug, dude. Find something else to do with your time,

You know, start crocheting. I don't know, but get the hell out of AA.

An alcoholic can't do that. That is the state of powerlessness. If I could do that, I would not be here right now. I'd be hanging out in my pool, Not in a dress in a church basement, man. But I'm an alcoholic. I can't. Only a power greater than myself would come between me and the bottle.

The only way that I gain access to that power greater than myself is by having a spiritual experience. My book tells me that I have to have a spiritual experience. It tells me and it says, it says the result of the 12 steps, not a result like when I read the steps, like sometimes, like my brain makes up stuff. Never do that. Like your brain lies to you, says, oh, a result of the 12 steps. No, the result of the 12 steps. The entire psychic change that's necessary to recover from alcoholism. What does entire mean

all

you know, not mostly, kind of somewhat, a little bit psychic change. No, an entire psychic change. The result of the 12 steps, Guys, you could have had a million and one spiritual experiences before you came to Alcoholics Anonymous. Only one spiritual experience that occurs through the through working the 12 steps is what we get to recover from alcoholism. I've had lots of spiritual experiences, rainbows and sunshine and all kinds of crap like that

that doesn't spell the necessary spiritual experience that I need to recover from alcoholism.

Life giving vital spiritual experience. It goes on to say at the very end of this page says of a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life is sufficient to overcome alcoholism. Many of us were covered long ago. I'm not a bad person. Like I didn't wake up in the morning and think, you know, I want to rob old ladies, You know, I want to just disappoint my parents. I want to set things on fire. Like that wasn't like my action item list of the day, you know, like I woke up and I'm like, I'm going to be good today and I'm totally not going to drink.

I'm gonna, you know, I'm not gonna cut myself and I'm not gonna like fall through windows and I'm totally not gonna throw up all over the place like that's,

you know, I'm gonna be good today. This it's gonna be a good day. And then by like noon, I'm like drunk, you know,

how did that happen? Well, of a mere code of morals are better philosophy of life are sufficient to overcome alcoholism. I would have done that a long time ago. My parents were churchgoing people. My mother's a Eucharistic minister. My dads an usher in the church. Like I was raised by very religious people. You know, if if going to church every Sunday, I mean my parents, like it was a requirement in our house to do charity and service. So no matter how hungover and drunk I was, my mother would drag my butt out of bed to go down to the Carmelite mission

and like, work in the soup kitchen, you know? So like, I was given values, I was given a spiritual way of life. I was taught charity and service, which, by the way, really served me well in Alcoholics Anonymous. But it wasn't sufficient for me to recover from my alcoholism because we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried. We could wish to be moral. We could wish to be philosophically comforting. In fact, we could will these things with all our might. But they needed power, wasn't there? OK, here's the thing. I didn't want to suck Dick before booze. I didn't want to do that. That was not my

plan or the person I wanted to be of a mere code of morals or better philosophy or life could have prevented me from doing that. I totally would have done something else with my time. I found a better, you know, hobby, I guess. You know, seriously, I don't mean to be like, I'm not trying to be naughty or anything like that, but let's face it, I mean, that's what alcoholism and reduces us to. I'm not going to pretend that that these things aren't real because they really are.

We're not going to pretty it up because this is a deadly disease and we do demoralizing and humiliating things

in our cups. So if I could have found a better hobby I would have. But that wasn't the case since my human resources has marshaled by the will were not sufficient. They failed utterly. My human resources,

my wishing of trying on my own power, the code of morals that my parents gave me, the religious education I was given, none of that stuff was able to help me to recover from alcoholism because I had lack of power. That was my dilemma. I had to find a power by which I can live

and how to be a power greater than myself. So there's two things there. Now, Chris talked a lot about treatment professionals and since, you know, I kind of am one, I'm like, hey,

that's mean because I actually work for a place that teaches the 12 steps, you know, and is very recovery oriented and likes to meld both, the both, both,

you know, how can I explain it? Who likes to meld both, both psychological and therapeutic techniques with the 12 steps? So it's sort of A2 fold treatment, spiritual as well as the therapeutic and the psychological. And you know, honestly, therapy is really useful. I mean, I mean, I wouldn't have dedicated, you know, 12 years of my life to studying it, deciding psychology. I wouldn't invested $80,000 in grad school like if I didn't

think it was a good thing. I mean, I'm sitting here a recovered alcoholic telling you that I work with people and I do this for a living. But what I will tell you is not, it's not, it's a human power. It's a tool in the toolbox.

You know, Prozac is a human power. You know, my therapist is a human power. That chair is a human power. And when you make your higher power a chair or a coffee cup, a therapist or a pill, that's not what's sufficient to overcome alcoholism because it's my higher, higher power has to be a power by which I can live and has to be a power greater than myself. So I always tell this to my sponsees because I'll get them to come out of like rehab and the rehab will tell them that like a coffee cup or like a chair or whatever can be their higher power. And I said, OK, this coffee cups

power, right? I'm going to take this into the bathroom. I'm going to take a big piss in it. I just peed on your God.

I think you should try to find a God or a higher power that's greater than yourself, because if your sponsor could take a dump on your higher power, you might want to try to get a new one.

Now, of course people pick something like coffee cup, a pill, a therapist or a book, you know, as a higher power or a human power, Higher power because it's tangible and to turn your power or to think about a God, that's something that's outside of us that we can't prove, we can only experience as a very scary thing, isn't it?

So when we talk about treatment and we talk about the things that are like shielding treatment, such as trigger lists, which whenever I hear that I just kind of like breathing is a trigger, man. Like, no, not fucking everything is a trigger, okay? Everything is a freaking trigger because the problem is me. I am my own trigger,

so you could put me anywhere in anything and I'll still fucking drink because I'm still me,

you know? So that's like the bottom line with that. So when I hear that stuff, of course, it makes my skin crawl. But what I do understand is that like anything, it's a tool in the toolbox. And so there are professionals out there who can be useful and we, when we're suffering from, you know, psychiatric illnesses like anything else, you know, if my tooth hurts, I go to a dentist.

I don't pray the toothache away. I use the tools that have been given to me and I access the things to treat it.

And it's the same idea.

But the idea here is that Alcoholics Anonymous is Alcoholics Anonymous and therapy is therapy, and we need to keep them separate. I do not walk into Alcoholics Anonymous and say I'm a therapist. I do not walk into therapy and say here's a big book, thank you for your $200.00 and go home.

And what we need to do is recognize what I need to do is recognize that when I'm here, I'm talking about God. I'm talking about the 12 steps.

And like anything else, the dentist, your therapist, your toothbrush, your car, there are tools in the toolbox. Use them appropriately, but don't worship them because our power has to come from a, like I said, a power by which we can live in a power greater than ourselves.

You want to

early on say from 1935 when Bill Wilson got got sober and he got ahold of Doctor Bob and they started this, this movement of, of, of sobriety and recovery. The first, the first four or five years

where, where they were, where they were operating was they were operating in a fellowship,

an organization called the Oxford Group. It's, it's funny when you, when you look back at the history of Alcoholics Anonymous,

you see some amazing coincidences. One of them is, is that Doctor Bob was in Akron going to Oxford group meetings, trying to get sober in New York City. Bill Wilson is going to Oxford group meetings and he's staying sober. And then you go, OK, well, why was one of them continuing to drink and one of them got sober?

And you look at their actions, you look, you look at Doctor Bob. Doctor Bob was coming late, leaving early and trying not to get involved. Bill Wilson was coming early, staying late and asking if there's anything else he can do. It was a completely different approach to it. And Bill was able to stay sober. But they learned, Bill Wilson learned in the Oxford Group the recovery process, how to treat

alcoholism. He learned this in a Christian fellowship

called the Oxford Group. And what he did was when he was compiling the book Alcoholics Anonymous, he kind of sanitized that. He kind of, you know, took took a lot of the, the, the the religious language out of it and, you know, left the spiritual in. But, you know, make no mistake about it. He learned how we must live to recover in this Oxford Group. Now there's this book,

this book that I, I drag around with me to workshops like this

because I think it's kind of significant just to, just to read, just to read the, the, the table of contents in it. There was a book called What is the Oscar Group? And to a degree, this book was basically the big book of the Oxford group. They would hand this book to New Oxford Group members and they would,

you know, read it and get an idea of what the Oxford Group is. And I want to just I want to just read the table of contents here.

All right. The the first, the first topic is sin. We could see that as character defects sharing for confession and witness is is the second chapter. We can see that as basically our fifth step. The next chapter is surrender. We can basically see that as the 1st and basically second step.

The next chapters, restitution, we can see that as our 8th and 9th step. And then there's a chapter called guidance. And you know, when you look at the 11 step, you, you basically understand that that's what we try to do in the 11th step. Now this is, that was the instruction manual basically for the Oxford Group. Bill took this and a lot of other things, and what he did was he put together a program of recovery

in the book Alcoholics Anonymous. He had a lot of help. It wasn't just Bill, but he was basically the principal architect. He assembled all of all of all of these things. Now,

how did he, how did he know? How did he know that this stuff would work? Well, it was funny in the Oxford Group, a lot of drunks got sober in the Oxford group. Believe it or not, Bill Wilson is in the isn't the only Oxford Group member to write a book about their experience who was basically an alcoholic. He wasn't even the first person to write a book. There's a number of books that preceded the book Alcoholics Anonymous that were written by Asher group members about getting out

of, you know, this, this, this crazy world that they were living in and starting to live a right life. So so when you look at Step 2, come to believe that there's a power greater than ourselves that could restore us to sanity. He kind of got to understand what that means. When I first saw that on the wall, you know, in the treatment center, I'm reading the steps and I'm like, wow, you know,

you know,

I mean, I didn't see the steps up on the wall and go that Eureka, I've found it, you know, I mean, I looked at the steps and I, you know, I'm like, no way, you know, maybe if you're some, some mid American scuttlefish with half a brain, but I got a real problem. You know, I mean, that's, that's how I, that's how I saw, when I saw it, you know, came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. What I didn't understand was I was bringing all my prejudices and all my preconceptions with me.

You know, there's a there's, there's pieces in this book. I love the set aside prayer, but there's pieces in this book that basically say we beg of you

to lay aside prejudice. We beg of you to lay aside prejudice, even against organized religion, because if you don't, you're probably going to die. You know, you, you, you best be, you know, laying aside some prejudice because here was my conception of God. My conception of God was a kindergarten kind of a conception. I, you know, it came to me from Sunday school and, and my own bizarre mind. I pictured God

up sitting on a cloud next to Saint Peter. You know who's playing a harp? And he's got a big Ledger

and he's keeping track of what the Schroeder boys doing, you know what I mean, a whole, you know, you know, backed into the neighbors car and didn't tell anybody, you know, I mean, and, and that, you know, if I believe in this spirituality, if I believe in this, this conception of God, then I'm going to have to deal with them someday. And, you know, as I as I grew older, it it even got got to be a more of a bizarre conception of God. I mean, I was getting into a lot of trouble. There was some really

I was having some really bad luck, you know what I mean? And I'm thinking if there is a God that's omnipotent and in control of everything, he's like a cosmic Alan Funt, you know, you know what I mean? He's like, he's like, hey, let's, let's, let's get Chris to do a whole bunch of Quaaludes and smash into the wall and ask the police, you know, how to get out. You know, I mean, because there's crazy things were happened to me. And if there was a God that was in charge of this whole thing, then I was his fall boy, you know what I mean? And, and, and I had all these crazy

conceptions of God. So I'm thinking, I'm thinking I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to develop a relationship with that. And that is going to going to help me. No way. So luckily, luckily the first day I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous, somebody didn't grab me and say, Chris, your problem is alcoholism. Your solution, your solution is Jesus or something.

Thank God that did not happen because what would have happened if they would have done that, What would have happened is I would have said

thanks for the information. That's not going to work for me. I'm going to have to look somewhere else. I would have known that. That wouldn't have worked. The Bible is not going to work for me. I would have known that. Now, I would have been wrong, but that doesn't matter because I would have known it wouldn't work. You guys fooled me.

You dragged me in and you, you made it about fellowship and, and you actually cared

about me. You know, I, I could, I could sense the sincerity when you were asking me how I was doing. And for once in my life, I felt like I was at a place where I belonged. And slowly, slowly, I came to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. I, it didn't just flip like a light switch. I started to come to believe and I started to work the rest of the steps. And by working the rest of the steps,

what happens is the steps are basically a connection to your higher power 101. You know, that's really what the steps are. So as I started to live a more spiritual life, as I made attempts to be a more moral person and, you know, try to cause less harm, what happened is my my conception of a power greater than myself

changed. Now you know, today I my conception of a higher power is always changing.

It's broad, it's roomy, it's all inclusive, it's never exclusive or forbidding, and it's always open to new interpretation, new experience, and new interpretation. I do not have the capacity to develop a specific set of attributes that God has.

I cannot box God in with the exact description of what my higher power is. I just, I just don't have the ability to do that. But some of the things that I believe today are this. I no longer believe in the God sitting up on the cloud with the with the log book of my deficiencies. You know, that's kind of a that's kind of a conception. That's kind of a noun.

My conception has changed from a noun more to a verb.

When you look in the book alcoholic synonymous, it talks about a power, it talks about the great reality. It it uses a lot of these wonderful terms for God. God is everything or he's nothing. Now those, those descriptives go against the type of conception I had and they're very, very modern, very progressive descriptives. You know, Bill Wilson was getting a lot of material from

from the Christian Scientists and some of the real progressive religious people

today. I believe, I believe in the God experience a little bit like this.

If you're a fish, you are in water and water is moving through you. I believe that like a fish, I am in God and God is moving through me. You know, God is either everything or he's nothing. And my experience of God is my experience right here, right now in front of you all. You know it there, there's no separation. There's no like God is in heaven way over there.

I believe that

its experiential right here and right now and that's the change that's happened and we each have our own experience and we each must have our own experience. Don't let anybody tell you what kind of God you have to believe in. We are not about that business and Alcoholics Anonymous. We are not about telling you what God to believe. We're about telling you if you don't get a relationship with God, you will die.

We'll tell you that. But we're not going to be about the business of explaining exactly what kind of a God for you to have. Each of us has our own experience

and that's what makes it meaningful. If it is ours, we are going to embrace it and we're going to own it. If it comes from a book that somebody said here, here's the answer and you read it, that's kind of it's kind of artificial. I think we need, you know, this is this is an experience that we need to survive and and and you know, to come to believe that power greater than ourselves can restore Soccerni is important. I believe that the first step is

problem statement. What is the problem? It explains the problem very, very well. The second step is a solution statement. It it, it explains the solution very, very well. The chapter to the agnostic I used to think was very, very clunky. Today I believe it is one of the best pieces of writing on spiritual experience and and consciousness of the presence of God that's ever been written. It is wonderful what it what it's about is it's about telling you not

get in your own way. You know, don't let prejudice in the way. Don't you know, you know, understand that it's very, very important to come to a, a belief in this because if you believe, if you believe that there is a power greater than yourself that can restore you to sanity. If you understand the first step that you're in real trouble and the second step that to get out of trouble you need to develop a relationship with God.

If you really understand those first 2 steps,

you're going to be about the business of moving through the rest of the steps. You aren't, you aren't going to be saying something like, well, for the last four years I've been on my four step. That's not going to be your experience. You're going to want to get to this stuff. There's going to be a sense of urgency to move through these steps. If you understand the 1st 2 steps, you know there will be a sense of urgency and and we are going, we are going to get going.

There's a, there's, there's another thing I want to read here,

uh, because we're kind of on the problem and the solution statement. This is, this is a, a great quote. This is a great piece of writing by Bill Wilson. It's on page 174 of the 12 and 12, believe it or not. So if you don't have a 12 and 12, don't worry about it. I'll read it. It says, it says this on page 174. Unless each AA member follows to the vest of his ability our suggested 12 steps to recovery, he almost certainly signs his own death warrant.

You know, I love that. I mean, Bill is not kidding around.

We don't address these steps to the best of our ability. We are signing our own death warrant. You know, it does not say do 90 and 90 here. You know, it doesn't say keep it simple. It doesn't say easy, does it? It says if you don't address these steps to the best of your ability, you're signing your own death warrant. And then I then I like, I like what he says here. He says it. Our drunkenness and disillusion are not penalties inflicted by people in authority.

They result from our personal disobedience to spiritual principles.

The next time somebody comes into your, your, your discussion meeting and raises their hand, says I'm coming back and, you know, here's the reason. You know, she left me or she stayed, or, you know, or I lost my job or I'm still in it or, you know, whatever excuse you're going to come up with, they're going to come up with. Remind them that you only drink

because of your disobedience to spiritual principles.

That's why you drink. You don't drink because of causal issues like Kerry was saying. You don't drink because it's raining outside or it's sunny outside. Listen, we we drink. We drink because we're alcoholic. We are. We are placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected from alcohol by establishing a relationship with God,

and our part is obedience to spiritual principles.

Basically what the second step is saying that there is a solution, that there is protection. And if you understand the work in this, in this book, Alcoholics Anonymous, if you understand it experientially, you will understand that it is about engaging in spiritual exercises that will prevent you from picking up the next drink. It's not a matter of choice, power and control. It's a matter of prevention.

The power greater than yourself

once you've experienced that relationship with and once you are connected back to is not going to allow you to put alcohol back in your body. And that's, that's really what I see Step 2 saying,

you know, as we were, as Chris was talking, I was thinking, you know, I, I had the same experience with we agnostics, You know, it, it's one of those chapters that really came alive for me. And part of it was actually was when I went back to school, I, I, I was a high school job. I told you I was like expelled from like 5 high schools. I'm really not kidding about that. And then like, I kind of decided since I really wasn't doing that all that well, I should probably just quit and stop going because apparently they didn't want me. But I was a high school dropout and part of my immense process was to get my

and go back to college because when I went back and made amends, which I'll talk to later to educators that I was verbally and physically abusive to,

I started to get this education and I started social science and I studied science and I began to learn about something called the scientific method. Who who's heard about that in like earth science in Lake 7th grade, right. Well, Bill Wilson, when he talked about the spiritual experience and that the seeking and he began to talk about it and we agnostics, he said he made this statement. It was, I was sitting, I think I was sitting in biology class or something and we were discussing the, the scientific method and,

and I and I remembered this passage from the big book and says the practical individual today is a stickler for facts and results. Actually it was biochemistry. Now I remember it says, nevertheless, the 20th century readily accepts theories of all kind, provided that they're firmly grounded in fact. We've had numerous theories, for example, about electricity. Everybody believes in them without a murmur of murmur of doubt. Why this ready accepted? Simply because it's impossible to explain what we see, feel and direct and use without a reasonable assumption as a starting point. So the reasonable assumption is that

plug the light into the light socket, it'll turn on. What's the reasonable assumption for for the 12 steps, that there's a power greater than ourselves, right, that can restore us to sanity? That's the reasonable assumption that Bill's talking about. When he's talking about this, he's saying, look, we have very scientific minds. We evaluate our senses all the time. So as a newcomer, I walk into Alcoholics Anonymous and this is what I see,

right? It says there is a solution and says,

you know, it says that I have seen when I was approached. But when we're approached by those with whom the problem has been solved, there's nothing left for us to do to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet, right? So when somebody walks up to me and the problems been solved in them, right? They're recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body and then no longer drink. They no longer think drinking is a good idea. And they're enlightened. They have this, this sense of peace, this energy, this light that comes within them. Everybody who has had that spiritual experience and has that

with a higher power, we recognize it in one another, right? Like it's almost like the God within us salutes the God within you. And there's like that thing like we speak the same language. We could just connect eyes. When I'm talking, I'm looking around the room and I'm looking for the awake eyes. I'm looking for the people who

are aware and awake to God's universe, and I'm looking at the ones who are asleep because they're the ones that are going to bother later. But just just saying.

But the idea is that so I come into Alcohols Anonymous and let's say in a perfect world, somebody, you know, people are actually working the steps and having spiritual experiences. And somebody approaches me and they say, you know, I've recovered from all this hopeless state of mind and body. I haven't felt it necessary to pick up a drink. I, I live in a state of happiness and freedom. I am in the fellowship of the spirit, right?

Well, my, my sense is my eyes tell me that this person is smiling. Their skin is clear, they're happy, they're confident, they're looking me in the eye, their body language. You know, Bill talked about Ebby said his roots, grass, new soil, right. So he recognized that there was something different about him. So the evidence of my senses say that there's something different about that person, right, different than me. I'm in I'm in the room, right? I'm sitting in the corner. They used to call me shaky carry for like the first two years of my sobriety because I I had worked the steps and I was going stark

insane. And so I used to, I used to sit in the back of the room and I like I would get up to like skulk to get a cup of coffee and I would walk back and my hands were shaking because you guys were thinking at me, even though I was in the back of the room. You're facing forward, but the back of your head, the eyes in the back of your head, you were thinking at me. And so I would like go back to the put my coffee cup down and be like, they're looking at me. Don't laugh at me. You know, this was what was going on in my head at all times. So they called me shaky Carrie.

Yeah, really not lying about that.

That was my nickname. Everybody's got an A, a nickname. That was mine. Now it's the bitch. But, you know,

anyway, so shaky Carrie sees somebody who's got this sense of confidence, this ability to communicate, this God, I evaluate my senses, right? And I say that there's something different about that person than me. I use that as a reasonable assumption on the starting point that whatever that person did to achieve that specific result, maybe I should follow

their path, right? Maybe I should do what they did because they said when they had that first step conversation. My first step is your 12th step. Your 12th step is my first step. If I'm in the 12th step, I'm always in the first step now, aren't I? Because it's a cycle.

So they sat down with me and they explained alcoholism. I identified with them. They shared things with me about their alcoholism. We're having that conversation, that ping, ping, ping. When Alcoholics recognize one another, we're speaking that same language and we're identifying the heads going up and down and like, yes, this persons like me, but they're not.

So the reasonable assumption is that an experience with God might might help me to recover from alcoholism. It says every day, right? Everybody nowadays believes in scores of assumptions for which there is no good evidence. No, there's good evidence, but no perfect visual proof. Does not scientific science demonstrate the visual proof is the weakest proof. It is being constantly revealed that as mankind studies the material world. I hate this. Mike, I'm sorry. I'm going to have to go like this.

And says the mankind studies the material world, that outward appearances are not the inward reality, right? So I can't prove I had, I didn't watch God knit that person together who put their hand out to me and said, look, you don't have to die in alcoholic death. I have a solution for you. I can't prove I didn't see it happen, but I can see something in their eyes, see something in their appearance. Their roots have grass, new soil. Through that conversation, we identified with one another. I know they know the pain that I'm in and I can use that

experience of seeing somebody recovered with an Ed

and use that as a jumping off place for me to have an experience with God. That's the reasonable assumption that Bills talking about. He's asking us to do the God experiment. He's saying evaluate, look at people who have spiritual experiences. He talks about, he said, he talks about

seeing people, he says thousands of worldly people, right, Having these incredible life giving spiritual experiences. He says, take a look at these people and ask yourself, are these people manifesting something in their life that you're not?

Is it possible there is something to what they're doing? So the experiment that I'm that I'm engaging when I'm working these 12 steps, when I'm at the second step, is I'm creating a hypothesis. The hypothesis says that there's something that these people are doing that this person may have recovered from alcoholism. And maybe if I do what they did, I might too.