Bob D - Surrender - Alcoholics Anonymous Speaker Share

My name is Bob Daryl and I am alcoholic. Through the grace of a God that I was afraid to believe in who I found out crazy about me and obviously has no taste, the 12 steps of alcoholics anonymous as they were outlined in this book, good sponsorship, committed and dedicated home group, commitments in the fellowship and bushels and loads of newcomers. Because I haven't had a drink or any mind or emotion altering substances since Halloween, which is the end of October 1978 and for that I owe my life. It's good to be here. I am honored to participate in a meeting of alcoholics anonymous. I want to welcome all the people that are reasonably new if you're in your first 30 days or so of sobriety. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here also. There's always a few in the room like that. Unfortunately, it's good to see people from other countries. I have two guys from Sweden. I hope they didn't follow me here because I was just there and I probably stepped on some people's toes. I hope not. I am delighted to talk about something that I didn't understand. I almost died of alcoholism because I didn't know what people meant when they said surrender. In 1977, my life I had burnt to the ground one more time. And I came out off of a bad drunk, locked up in a jail cell facing two years in prison. I think in the, it's customary in the United States that when you're arrested you get a phone call to call for help and there wasn't anybody to call. I was totally alone. And I don't know how that happened to a guy like me who at once had great friends. I was the guy with all the potential. I was the guy who I had a family that loved me and would have done anything for me. But alcoholism will beat that out of people who love you eventually. And I was totally alone. So I did something that I had done a hundred times when I was in trouble. I went to a meeting of alcoholics and on him. But I did not go for recovery. I had, by this time I had been in and out of alcoholics and on him meetings for several years. I, I came to my first A meeting before I was old enough to take a legal drink as a kid. And I had given up on alcoholics and on him as I, I liked you. You were always very nice to me. But I knew that you didn't have anything for me. And I had apparent evidence. And the evidence was I stopped drinking and tried with everything in me to stay sober. And I didn't feel anything close to the way you looked. And there was something else wrong with me. And I didn't know what it was. And I came to a conclusion after, after dozens and dozens of A meetings that I know it looks like I have an alcohol problem. But it's really not an alcohol problem because when I get sober it gets worse. I suffer from, and I go to meetings of alcoholics and on him is, and I watch you and you get sober and you become wonderful. I mean, you're, you're grateful for everything for God's sake. I mean, I don't, I don't even like anything really. So I've given up on alcoholics and on him is your nice people, but you don't have anything for me really. And I had spent years with psychiatrists, years taking medications, years in treatment centers, long term, short term, churches, everything there was to do. And I didn't know what to do. And here I am. I burnt my life to the ground one more time. And I went to an A meeting and I didn't go for recovery. I went for cigarettes. And that's the truth. And I'm in this meeting and there's this guy who's a solid member of alcoholics and on him is named Woody and Woody's bringing a meeting in there. And Woody, I don't like Woody. Woody is one of those, first of all, Woody is one of those guys that got sober and has the big house and the brand new car and the wife and the children and the great job. He's so happy. He's grateful for everything. He just can't help but want to rub it in my face. And I don't like Woody. Woody is creepy to me. Woody is something I don't understand. Woody is happy and sober at the same time for God's sakes. I don't get that. I don't even like people like that. They creep me out because I stop drinking and abstinence feels like I'm doing time. And I put up with it until I can't put up with it no more. And here comes Woody with his minions to come in here. He's one with his pack of do-goaters to try to fix us. And I knew what he had a lot of money. And I needed somebody to get me out of him bail. And I went up to Woody and started talking to him and he was willing. He said, "I'm here. I'm here to help you." So I explained to him, I needed him to put his house up so I could get out on bail. And you know these people in A or hypocrites, they'd say they want to help you until you explain it to him. And then when you explain it to him, they don't want to go. They want to do something. He wants to give me a big book and help me with the steps. I don't want a big book. I want out of here. They don't want to get me out of here. So I got a little pissed off at him. And I said, "You know, I got a little bluster. I said, "I don't need your help. I'm going to beat this. I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to get in a good recovery house, not like that one that took advantage of me. I'm going to get in a good one. I'm going to get some of that government money. I might go to school. I might be a doctor. I might be a lawyer." And Woody's looking at me and he's shaking. He's laughing at me. He's laughing. He says, "Kid, who are you kidding?" You're not going to do any of that. "Kid, you're not even going to stay sober. You're probably going to die of alcoholism because you haven't hit a bottom and you haven't surrendered." And I didn't say nothing to Woody, but I was angry at him. I thought to myself, "How dare you say that to me?" That's the most negative thing I've ever heard. Where's the AA love? I mean, I don't need that negative. I need positive reinforcement here. Haven't hit a bottom. You with your big house and your good job. You don't know nothing about me, Woody. It's having surrendered. Surrendered what? There's nothing left of me. A couple years before I had things I could have given up. I had a good job at one time. I had a pretty girlfriend. I had a motorcycle. I had a place to live. I even had it one time. I suspect some self-respect, but I don't have any of that anymore. There's nothing left. I didn't say any of that to Woody because I don't know how to talk to people when I get sober. I just get locked up in my head. But I thought all of that. I couldn't sleep that night spinning in my head the different things I should have said to him to make him realize how wrong he'd been saying that to me. And I had no idea what he was talking about when he said that I hadn't surrendered. I thought, "Oh my God, you can't lose it. There's nothing else to lose here." But what he was talking about, one thing. One thing that I have to give up, and I didn't understand what it was, I couldn't get my mind around what he's talking about. And there is only one thing that any alcoholic ever has to give up. There's only one thing that stands before me in all the abundance and wonderful things that God would give me. And that is my judgment. You see, I fit the old adage. You can always tell an alcoholic, but you can't tell him much. I'm the guy. I can go out. I can get sober. Stay sober for 10 months, 12 months, 11 months. Build up a great life. I go back to drinking. I ruin my life. I burn it to the ground and I end up back in alcoholic synonymous. And the first thing I get back is my opinion. And it is my opinion in my judgment that separates me from you. I can't connect here with anybody. I can't identify because I can't stop picking you apart in my mind. Hoping because I really secretly feel so bad about myself that if I can pick you apart and tear you down, maybe I'll level the playing field. Maybe I won't feel so bad. less than if I can pull you down. But those of you who have lived that with those defense mechanisms, you know that it doesn't really make you feel more even. It makes you feel more separate and apart from. And I don't know what's wrong with me and I wish I could tell you that that was my last drunk, but I went before a judge and ended up getting sentenced to two years in prison and the judge cut me a break and I gave me a chance to go into a treatment center for the last time and I couldn't stay sober in there and I was going to go to prison and I was running from the police and living on the streets like an animal. And I went to a bridge with a bottle of that kind of wine I used to drink. The kind of wine that has never been within a hundred yards of a grape. I mean there's no. This wine is like grain alcohol and flavoring, but it was the cheapest kick for the least amount of money I could get. And that's what I was an economy drinker. I always lose a little frugal and I go to this bridge with this bottle of wine to try to get up enough courage to kill myself because I am in a trap I cannot spring. And I don't know what's wrong with me and people like Woody had been telling me things like kid you got a surrender and I don't know what they're talking about. I understand today exactly what they're talking about. I came I could not kill myself and I came off that run at the end of that drunk in a hospital with IVs and I was so sick I was I hadn't eaten anything in about 10 days all I've been drinking is cheap wine and I had the sores and I was in a really bad shape. And in that hospital they sobered me up physically and got me a little bit so I could get back on my feet and go to an AA meeting. And in that alcoholics anonymous meeting something had changed inside of me and I didn't understand what had happened. I understood later when I heard a man named Chuck Chamberlain talking but at the time I just sat there for the first time in many years of attending AA meetings and you know the voice in your head that runs the critique about everything in the universe it had gone away. I guess it had gotten beaten out of me and for the first time in my life I just sat there and I could hear you and your message washed over me and I sat there and I started to identify with members of alcoholics anonymous and as many as these guys would share I found myself sitting there nodding my head and thinking quietly to myself my God I'm like that. I feel like that. I thought like that I drink like that I failed like that I've experienced most of the things those people are talking about and for the first time in my life I could hear you and I think I could finally hear you because there was enough of me kicked out of the way that I could finally hear you. See the problem between me and you is I always have too much me between me and you right so and that problem I had with God as there's too much me between me and God and I finally got just enough of me kicked out of me that I could hear you and I didn't know that that that I had been surrendered by the bottle. I didn't understand that that had happened but I think what happens when you get enough of you beaten out of you there's a little bit of room for something to come in your life that you probably if you're like me don't even believe in and that's the grace of God something I didn't believe in but I had enough of me kicked out of me that there was a little there was a little bit of vacancy within me and there was room and God de plores of vacuum and something came into my life and I didn't understand what it was but all of a sudden my perception was different when people in a a said get a sponsor I got a sponsor when they said join a home group I joined a home group when they said start getting on your knees and praying every morning and every night it was crazy I don't even believe in God and I started doing that and I don't even believe in God but I'll tell you what what my experience is and I think I was surrendered by the bottle but Dr. Harry Tibo who is mentioned in a comes of age and who was very instrumental player in the early days of alcoholics anonymous he helped Bill Wilson a lot and Dr. Tibo talks about the amazing recuperative powers of the alcoholic ego there's it it's like you can be absolutely beaten to your knees you can be completely surrendered to the point where I don't know anything help me I'll do whatever you say and three weeks later no thank you I know what I need and I know what's wrong with you right it grows back like a bad tumor I mean it just it doesn't you you could have it beaten out of you and it just grows back and that was exactly my experience incrementally bit by bit I started being consumed with myself again and I don't even know that that's happening to me I don't even know that that I'm starting to suffer from untreated alcoholism which which the book says the the the root of of this trouble is selfishness self-centeredness I don't know that I'm getting back absorbed in myself in my feelings in my life again but that's what's happening to me and I don't even know that I'm becoming the center again and and it didn't happen overnight it happened very incrementally and slowly and I started to suffer again from depressions and they they look they look like clinical depression but it's not even though if I was a psychiatrist and I was diagnosing a guy like me I would probably come to the conclusion this guy's clinically depressed but you know why I know it's not clinical depression because the treatments that are effective for clinical depression don't work on me but the treatment for spiritual depression does and I didn't know that it was the depression of a person that just gets so much of himself on himself that I start to smother my very being my spirit with myself and I'm I suffered from terrible depression the only thing that saved me from myself was a lot of 12-step work and a lot of activity in the fellowship of alcoholics and oneness and I want you to know that I got sober in a city and at a time when people were not into the big book and that there was there was no one in Las Vegas back in those days that could tell you how to work the steps out of here unfortunately but the Buddhists say that when the students ready the teachers appear and I started I was so involved in service and in alcoholics and oneness and committees and conferences as if I could outrun my alcoholism and in that I was introduced to some some guys that who understood this book guys like Don Pritz who in my early sobriety became a close friend and guys like Charlie Parmbian, Joe McQueenian and gentlemen who in the what through the dark ages of alcoholics and oneness when everybody was trying to work the steps out of the 12 by 12 and had lost contact with the big book little pockets around the United States where they kept this alive and they say the students ready the teachers appear and I I hungered for something different because I knew that if something didn't change eventually I'm a dead man I don't know how long I can suffer from untreated alcoholism until I drink again I don't know Chuck Chamberlain used to say that if you're a real alcoholic and you do not have a spiritual awakening there will eventually come a time where you can't put anything between you and you and you get to a point that 15 20 meetings a week aren't enough anymore you get to a point where the only time you're okay is when you're on a 12 step call and the minute that's over you're back to being you again there's a time where you can't the shine of everything that you've been using to fix yourself is worn off and there's nothing left and I was four years sober before I got to that place and I didn't know that what had happened is it I had become unsurrendered I got a foothold and alcoholics and I'm by something that had happened to me I didn't do it I had just got enough of me beating out of me to have an infusion of grace that carried me for about four years in alcoholics. I was combined with a lot of 12-step work, but I had got to the place where I couldn't put anything anymore between me and me. But by this time, I'd become friends with some people and it showed me how to do this process in this book. And I had gotten humbled by the emotional pain of my sobriety. One of the great contributors to alcoholics, two of the great contributors to alcoholics, one of them was a guy named Carl Jung, who was a great psychiatrist. He's mentioned in our big book, he's the guy that Rowan Hazard went to. And the other guy is the first book Bill Wilson ever read when he got sober was the varieties of religious experience written by William James. And both of those gentlemen said the same thing a different way. But what they both said is that spiritually ill people, ego-driven people, have an absolute inability to observe or listen to hear or see anything new. They only are capable of observing or listening to see how they are already right. Right? And that's the problem. As I'm getting sicker and sicker, I'm more right about stuff. I'm more judgmental, I'm more opinionated, and I don't know that that's the ego growing back like a bad tumor within me. But I had another surrender and I went back through this process. And you know, oddly enough, I spent from the time I was about ten, and I took my first third step when I was about ten months sober. And I took it by reading that prayer on page 63 out of the big book on my knees with another member of Alkaloxinonymous. But exactly what it talks about in the next page and a half was exactly what happened to me. It says that this decision in step three was a vital and crucial step, but it says it has little permanent effect and less followed at once by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things that are blocking me. The things that are blocking me from carrying out this decision I made in step three. That's the problem. I can intend to carry out this decision as I did for three years in my early sobriety. I would get physically down on my knees every morning and I would turn my will and my life over the care of God. I would say that third step prayer. 20 minutes later I'm back in my head consumed with me and what you'll think of me. I'm thinking about I'm going to go to work. My boss is going to say this. I'll say that. You'll say this. I'll say that. You'll say this. Then I'll hit him with this. And then he'll realize how wonderful I am and how wrong he's been. And if you're like that and you're up here and you live a lot of your life up here in this unsurrendered control center trying to run the universe I'm telling you something. If you do that with the benefit of vodka or medication it's not so bad. But when you do that stark raving sober that anxiety just wears on a guy like me. Because what I'm doing it essentially is I am trying to surrender my will and my life to the care of God. But I am retaining my will because I haven't done the work to dismantle this judgment machine which is my will. And if you if you really essentially do what I was doing which is to give try to give God your life but retain your judgment of your life. It's like saying God here's my life but there's a list common of how it better go. Right? And then what so what happens is I suffer from the anxiety of not getting my way. I'm in my head spinning about my way. I suffer the depression. You know what the depression is that's when God stops doing your will. Right? Or the fear of God not doing my will. And so what is happening to me is that I am absolutely blocked. I'll say something I believe I think you could keep your life if you could surrender your will. You know I as a result of alcoholics and on it was I've gone back and revisited the religion of my childhood. And what I've discovered as a result of these steps and the awakening that I've obtained through the steps is that a lot of things that never made sense to me start to make sense to me now. I am not the guy that's at odds with those religions anymore. As a matter of fact every religion from Buddhism, the Hinduism to Islam. I can look at their literature and I can see pieces of my own spiritual experience in those ways of life. Because I'm awake. And what I woke up to I went I started looking back at my religion of my childhood and there's a story in Genesis in the Bible. And I am not a biblical scholar. So there may be people in this room that could fine tune what I'm saying or whatever. But most of you are familiar vaguely with the story of Adam and Eve. And God created the heavens in the earth and He created Adam and Eve and out of His rib created Eve. And they replaced in this thing called the Garden of Eden which was literally heaven on earth. It was paradise and it was perfect. And they were given one suggestion. And the suggestion is you probably shouldn't eat from this one fruit from this one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You know like your sponsor gives you a suggestion. You probably shouldn't get in that relationship. You know the minute they tell you that it's like you're going to go. I mean you may not have even wanted to go until they said bell shout not and then it's okay. Here I go. Wasn't really thinking about Dayton or till you said that. Well okay. Well it's kind of like that. So what I you know according to the Bible they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge and good and evil and they lost paradise. You know what I think happened? I think that they reaped the fruit of the tree of the knowledge and good and evil and I think they got a judgment and they got opinions. And I think all of a sudden what had been heaven? All of a sudden they have judgment about. I could just picture Adam going. God what this was great yesterday but today it's there's there's there's flies God. Eves got cellulite what were you thinking? I mean this place is crap. What did I think yesterday? How did I ever think this was heaven? And what happened? What changed? Nothing. Except that their perspective became the perspective of the judgmental and they lost heaven. One of my mentors was a guy named Chuck Chamberlain and Chuck Houston. Tell the story of sitting in this chair in his house after a long drunk and he was married to this woman and he was working at this place and he felt like he was in hell and he was dying. And years later he sat in the same chair and the same house married to the same woman working at the same place with tears in his eyes because he felt like he was in heaven. And he said what changed? He said maybe heaven's just a new pair of glasses. What do I have? What do I have to surrender here except my judgment in my opinion? I'll tell you something this will sound crazy to especially if you're sitting here and you're in the middle of a lot of emotional pain. I will tell you something you're not going to believe. There is no pain except my resist that what comes from my resistance to accept life on life's turns. I have never had one problem since I've been sober. I have never had one difficult situation but I've had a thousand that looked times it looked like it. Right? Did it look like it? That's really the problem here. The problem is me and my perception of things. That little voice in my head something happens to go oh this is awful. Well maybe it is and maybe it isn't. Maybe it's not awful. Maybe that's just my judgment of it. What's the worst thing that most of us thought could ever happen to us before we got sober? That we'd find out we were alcoholic. What's the second worst thing that we found out we ever thought that we'd have to go to someplace like A and A? What are the two greatest things that ever happened to us? That we found out we were alcoholic and that we ended up in alcoholics and animus. You see I don't know. The Buddhists have a story that it's about the wisdom to know the most important thing is that you'll never know. and it's about this little old Chinese farmer who's very poor. He doesn't own anything except a horse. It's his only possession. And he's allowed to live on this meager piece of ground in this hut and work the fields that are owned by a lord of the land who owns the land. And he has to tie the portion of his crop and for the right to live there and work the soil. And him and his only son sit there. And they work this fields day in and day out. And one day his only horse, his only possession runs off. And now his friends and family come running over to console him to tell him how terrible this is. You've lost your whole estate. This is awful. This is bad. And a little old man just shrugs his shoulders and says, I don't know if it's awful. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. And they think you're nuts. You've lost everything. And he just keeps saying, I don't know. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. A couple days later, the horse returns right into the crowd leading a whole herd of wild horses. And now his friends and family and neighbors come running over to congratulate him. You're the richest man in the valley. This is wonderful. This is great. This is good. And he says, I don't know if it's good. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. And they look at him like, you're nuts. You don't think that's good. He says, I don't know. A couple days later, his only son is trying to break one of the wild horses and he's thrown and he's crippled. And he can't walk and he can't work. And now his family and neighbors and friends come rushing over to console him, to tell him how terrible this is. That his only son is crippled. This is terrible. And the little old man shrugs his shoulders and says, I don't know if it's terrible. Maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. And they think, my God, this is your only son and he's crippled and you don't even think that's bad. And he said, I don't know. About a week later, the Chinese army came through the valley and forced all the young men to go and fight in a battle where none of them would survive and they couldn't take the sun because of his broken leg. See, the little old man know the most important thing he would ever know as he doesn't know. And it is only when you think you know that you will never know and when you know that you don't know and you can take the position of a little old man, then maybe you've surrendered the only thing you ever have to give up in order to approach life itself and God like a child. And I think that's the dilemma of alcoholics and onumuses for me to get my judgment in my opinion out of the way. You know, to my amazement, when I started doing the fourth step and I started following the outline in the big book, you know, I thought, and I did two earlier four steps that did me virtually no good. The life story, you know, the 40 pages of all your guilt and shame. And then I answered that either the second one was the 38 questions or whatever it is out of the 12 by 12 didn't do anything for me. But when I followed the process in this book, something happened to me and I've never been the same. And it started in the resentment section when I started to make a list of everyone I secretly thought owed me an immense. You know, these are the people that had really done me wrong and I'd chase files built on all of them. I mean, I could I could explain it to you where you'd agree with me, oh, you poor guy, look at they did that to you, did they? And then the book asked me to do something that was very, very hard and yet very life changing for me. It asked me to look at these things from an entirely different angle. It asked me to realize how perhaps the person who would harm me, how they might be possibly could be, could they be sick like I could be sick? In other words, could I get off my throne of judgment enough and get humble enough with myself and honest enough and other centered enough rather than self centered to see myself in that person and realize, you know, I was wrong about them. They're not that has nothing to do with me. That's me. What I what I've built this case against is me, maybe me on a really bad day, but me. And what started to happening is I started to get off the high horse of judgment and I started to dismantle all these judgments that I had about everybody that had ever come in my path and I had a lot of them and I had all these judgments that were the essence of my fears. I had a picture of a universe that was I was in conflict with and was very threatening and I was wrong about all of that stuff and the exact nature of my wrongs to my amazement was not the people I heard. It was how wrong I had been in my perception of life itself that I discovered that I was the source of all my conflict in turmoil because I had an ego centered perception of life. I was looking I was trying to run the universe and there's some great analogies in the book about the one about the actor running the whole show and and that's the essence of what I must surrender here. But the problem with me is that this ego just grows back so quickly. You know in the 10th step when it's there's a question in there that just bulls me over every day on page 86 where it's sit we have to say we're where we kind and loving towards all. All. Listen God I'm kind and loving towards the ones that deserve it. Doesn't say that it doesn't say where you kind and loving to the ones you're kind and loving to or you will kind and loving towards the ones that are kind and loving to be kind and loving towards all. And what I realize is that every single day I've unsurrendered myself to some degree and created conflict and judgment once again between me and some of the people around me that I haven't been that I'm not always kind and loving towards all. And I I don't know what a guy would like me would do if it wasn't for this way of life. I think alcohol is anonymous the whole purpose of all of this is not to get me to quit drinking. I mean we can quit drinking. If you don't know how to quit drinking punch a policeman you'll quit drinking for a little while. It's it's somehow when I stop drinking and I stop meditating the disease of alcoholism I get so self-consumed and so judgmental and so conflicted with life itself that what eventually happens to me is that eventually abstinence and the conflict and separation that has occurred through my judgment becomes so desolate and so uncomfortable and so painful and yet I can't explain it to you. I can't tell you why I'm uncomfortable. I can't tell you why I feel bad but it is untreated alcoholism because my ego is taken over again. And I think the purpose of all of that is to allow me to better carry out this desperate desperate decision in step three. You know there's a delusion in the book that it talks about it's the third delusion. The first two first one kept me from getting sober. The second one almost took me out after a long time in sobriety and the third one has kept me from ever being happy here and it says aren't we victims of the delusion that we can rest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if we only manage well. And the reason that that is a delusion is that there is I'll tell you something I don't think there's a demographic, a group of people on this planet that have ever spent more money, more time, more energy and more effort and more focus on trying to make themselves happy and satisfied as we have. I mean what do you let's face it? What do you think about the first thing when you wake up in the morning? Me and my day and you know I remember it's not like we're in the end result of all of this eff obsessive effort to make us satisfy and happy. Some of us have been thinking about killing ourselves. Some of us are so uncomfortable on this planet as is that we have to drink or maybe go to a doctor and take something. Absolute failure at resting happiness and satisfaction out of this world by managing well. And when I was brand new in sobriety, a guy came up to me and I, after a meeting and he said to me, "Sis Bobby, you need to take step three." And I said, "I looked at this guy and I looked at the step three on the wall and I said, "Jo, I said, "Jo, I can't take step three." He says, "Why not?" I said, "Well, I don't understand God, Jo, I don't even know, I don't even know if I believe in God. I don't know, I mean, I'm praying, but I don't really know." He said, "You don't have to believe in God to take step three." I said, "Jo, it says on the wall, we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over the care of God." He said, "Listen, kid, in your case, if you'll turn your will and your life over to this share and he points to this share, he says, "I guarantee you an instant miracle." Really? I said, "Okay, I turned my will and my life over to the chair." What's the miracle? He says, "Well, the miracle would be your life would no longer be in the hands of an idiot." I didn't even get my feelings hurt. I just thought, "Yeah, that'd be right." Because if you would have followed me around the last couple years I drank and followed me around the first couple of years I was sober and you were to watch me, the jobs I kept going through, the people I kept stepping on their toes and didn't mean to, the broken relationships, the financial disasters, I had this knack for snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory every single time. If you would have watched me over those years, you would have easily come to the conclusion that whoever is making decisions for this person is out to destroy him. And yet in here where I live all my actions make sense to me. That's the frightening thing about alcoholism. I have a reason or a justification or an excuse for everything that happens and it's never really my fault if they would enough, but it is. And I've had some great mentors. There was a guy named Dale who died of cancer back in the early 80s with long term sobriety and Dale got in my face one day and he said to me, "Listen, kid, is Gruff guy? Gruff, no appreciation for my sensitivities. Gruff guy, got my face, he says, "Listen, kid, he says I'm going to tell you some couple things and if you can buy this it will save you a lot of grief." He said, "Kid, if you're explaining something, if you're defending something, if you're rationalizing or justifying something, kid, I want you to know you're wrong because you never have to explain, defend, justify, or rationalize what's right." You know they say the truth will set you free, but I'll tell you to ruin your day first. And Dale was absolutely right. It's been probably 27 or 28 years since he told me that. I have never found this an exception to that yet. It's the same thing it talks about in the 12 by 12 and step 10. It says it's a spiritual axiom, which means something that is true under all conditions. It's a spiritual axiom that when I'm disturbed at all, at all. No excuses, no rationalizations, period at all. No matter what the reason, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with me. Because I am the source of my separation. I am the source of my conflict and I am the source of my judgment. And I must surrender self because what happens is I get too much of me between me and God's universe. I get too much of me between me and life and I get too much of me between me and you. There was a guy named Don Williams and Don died a few years ago. In terms of a wonderful man. And I was in a meeting one time and meeting was on step 10. And everybody sharing their different approaches to step 10 and some of them were out of the book and some of them were out of the 12 by 12 and some of them were out of space. I don't know where they were. There's some weird stuff. I don't know. It's crazy. You know, sometimes it's a discussion. You can hear some. You can hear stuff where you go. Yeah, that's right. You hear other stuff go. What's he talking about? And Don cut through it all. He said, you know, everything you're saying is all well and good. He said, but I don't really need to do a lot of writing or a lot of stuff. He said, I simply have to look around me where I work in traffic, out in public, in AA and in my family. And look around me. And if what I see is a lot of people that are struggling with a lot of the same stuff I struggle with, the insecurities and the fears and the frustrations of life, but I see myself in them. And I said, you can bet that I am in good spiritual stead. But if I look around me and I see a lot of idiots that need straightening out, he said, you can bet that I am spiritually sick. And I can measure my distance from God. I can measure my distance from the decision in step three. I can measure my distance from surrender by measuring my distance from you. That's why in the big book, it's in Bill's story, he says something that's remarkable. He says, unless the alcoholic can enlarge his spiritual life and he doesn't say through what you would think. You would think he would say through prayer and meditation or through reading spiritual literature. He says, unless the alcoholic can enlarge his spiritual life through self-sacrifice and constant work with others, he will never survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. Certain means you feel wonderful today and everything's going your way. The trials and low spots are coming. They're coming. And unless you can enlarge your spiritual life and by two things, self-sacrifice. In other words, I have to set myself aside to serve or surrender to a greater purpose than myself. We call it an alcoholic synonymous, our primary purpose, number one. And it's not me. It's to help another alcoholic who still suffers. In the long form of the tradition, it calls it, says it's our primary spiritual aim. That means that's the target. It's to help another alcoholic. And I think every alcoholic that I have ever met, I think I am absolutely convinced that we are compelled to serve something. We will either serve ourselves. And if you've been doing that for a while, I have a one question for you. How's that working? Or we will serve a power in a set of principles and a purpose greater than ourselves or other than ourselves. But we must, the alcoholic must stop serving himself. And that's how alcoholics and oneness is how I've been able to actualize the surrender in step three. Is that I clear away the judgments, the resentments, the fears, the things that as it talks about in step seven, that stand in the way of my usefulness. It doesn't say, you were not asking God to take away the things that stand in the way of me being happy, that stand in the way of my usefulness so I can claim my purpose and surrender to this purpose. This is my primary spiritual aim is to help other drunks. It's not to help me. It's to help other people. And then oddly enough, when I claim that purpose and I live this ethic and I want you to know, I have never done this as well as I'd like to. But I am comfortable and secure in the knowledge that no one among us has been able to maintain anything like, with perfect adherence to these principles. But I'll tell you what I believe must happen. I don't know that I ever have to be surrendered completely. But I better damn well be in the zip code. What I'm saying, I better at least be in the area. Because what happens to me, if I'm not, is I get me back on me again. If I start serving myself, I will once again become the guy that's prone to depression and anxiety. I'll be back. be once again the guy that's judge metal and conflict with everybody else. There's a description of alcoholics anonymous in the back of the big book in a little obscure section called the medical view of alcoholism. And it's a description of AA that was coined an erudio address by a Dr. Bill Bear who was not an alcoholic. And in the mid-1940s, alcoholics anonymous has gotten a lot of notoriety in the United States. We were on the horizon for the last award which didn't occur for about a half dozen years, but we were, there was a lot of magazine articles about us. There was a lot of famous people getting sober in AA and we were getting a lot of attention. And so Bill Bear went to a few meetings of alcoholics anonymous and he read some of our literature to make an address about what he thought AA was. And part of that address is reprinted in the back of the big book in the medical view of alcoholism and I'll tell you something. I don't think there's ever been a description of us that is more accurate than what this non-alcoholic came to just visiting us. And Bill Bear in the back of the book says, he says, "We are not a temperate society." And that's true. We're not fighting alcohol. We know alcohol never was the problem. The problem was alcoholism. If alcohol was the problem, then everyone who drank would be ended up like we ended up. But we all know many, many people. We're actually a very minute minority in this world. Those who suffer from alcoholism. Most people, I know it's hard for us to think that because we think everybody's like us. But really the truth objectively is most people don't have alcoholism and they can have a glass of wine at dinner. It's fine. We're not a temperate society. We're not a temperate movement. And he goes on to say, "We're not crusaders." Well, that's mostly true. There is a phase some of us go through, but usually we get through that and become kind of more surrendered members of AA. And that's essential to get through that cruise, that crusader stage. You know that stage where you use all the spiritual principles and alcoholics anonymous to make you feel superior to everybody else. And hey, if a spiritual principles can't make you feel better than everybody else, what the hell good are they anyway? Really. Now, when we usually get through the crusader stage of that, and he says something very simple but important, he says that they are people who know that they must not drink. Oh, what some of us paid for that knowledge in the countless attempts to prove we could drink like other people. The countless chasing of that illusion that somehow, someday, some way will control and enjoy our drinking. That getting that knowledge, really getting it, almost killed some of us. We know we must not drink and then he says something that is, I think is the essence of alcoholics anonymous. He says that we throw ourselves into helping others with similar problems and in that atmosphere of me helping others with similar problems, he says that the alcoholic will often overcome his excessive over-concentration upon himself. And isn't that the deal? You see, I get sober and I get so much of me on me that this ain't no fun. And abstinence feels like I'm doing time and I get like a mule in a hailstorm, I'll just hunker down and take it, the emotions and the separation and the loneliness and the depression and the restless irritable and discontent until I can't take it no more. And then with the insanity that returns, that crazy thinking after everything that alcohol has done to me, that I could possibly think that it's going to be fun again when it, when it, all the evidence of reality is it hasn't been fun for years and I will try it one more time. Why? Because I have a yearning and the book calls it an insistent yearning to enjoy life as I once did. And then this heartbreaking obsession that some new miracle of control, this time it's beer only. This time I will use a little diet pills with the drinking so I won't black out or a little bit of cocaine with the drinking so I won't get as much trouble or I'm not going to drive over or I'm going to take Joe with me and Joe and watch my back that way I won't get in trouble or I'm going to drink on a full stomach or I'm not going to drink that place anymore. They're bad places to drink. And what I start to sell myself of Bill of Goods, are you know what happens today? In Alcoholics Anonymous in 2007 when I see a lot. Things of Alcoholics Anonymous sober, 15 years, 5 years, 3 years, 25 years, men and women who know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they can't drink. And yet they die of alcoholism because they will convince themselves that they can treat this malady of their being with other substances. I can't tell you how many real alcoholics I have seen die from alcoholism and they've never took a drink. It started with some medication, something to fix themselves. When objectively they've spent their whole life trying that and it failed, okay but this is a different drug than the other ones I tried. And I tell you I can't tell you how many people I've seen die today as a result of it. I have to have a spiritual solution. My being must become different and I can't do that. My only hope is to get enough of me out of the way that some power that's behind the curtain of the universe will come into my life and change some things in me that I cannot change, that no human power could change. And I know because I've tried. I've tried everything I was to try. And that is so that I can get up one more day and realize that it's not about me. I've been given a purpose. I've been saved from the abyss and I think to some of us much has been given but much has expected. And I have a contractual agreement with God. I formed it in the third step when I asked him to relieve me of the bondage of self and then I said to him, "If you'll do that, if you will take away these difficulties, take them away from one reason, God. Not so I'll be happy. Take them away so that victory over them would bear witness to those I would help." My primary purpose. That I would help with thy love, thy power and thy way of life. May I do that I will always.