# Big Book Workshop — 4

- Archive ID: `DP-1999-RICHMOND`
- Source: https://mikechase.org/AA_Podcasts/Media/AA%204th%20Don%20P.,%20BBW%20at%20Richmond%20,%20VA.%20AUG.14th.mp3
- Duration: 01:18:05
- Audio SHA-256: `8157c2936010878e067413accf3b088ed2bd5d4f353a6acdeeb52efad8b0da3d`

> Automated timestamped draft (faster-whisper base.en). Names, specialized terms, and unclear passages require human review.

## Transcript

**[00:00:03]** I know how to do that. Getting called many things, but not snack late anymore. I came to believe in the power of God because I saw it walking around in three men, Bruce and Phil and Roy. I came to believe that this could be useful for me by a little thought process. It was clear to me that these three men accepted me.
**[00:01:42]** Accepted me as I was where I was. It was just clear. And it hit me one day that if they could do that in as weak and as imperfect as they were and they really were, as I am and as you are, if they could accept me as it was where I was in this God thinking we're talking about, probably could too. It was the beginning of going down that path.
**[00:02:12]** I came to trust Bruce. The things I'm telling you I could not have articulated now. I've learned to articulate. If he said it, I believed it was so and I tested it on my own self.
**[00:02:29]** I have since learned to be very, very careful because when you get someone like that, they will do exactly what you say. They will believe anything I say.
**[00:02:42]** I have to be very careful what I say. So sponsorship gives me an edge. It forces me to be in the truth.
**[00:02:53]** It's a wonderful process we've got. When Bill was, I'm going to remember Bill Wilson awakened it spiritually while he was stoned drunk.
**[00:03:18]** At least that's how I read it. Ebby shows up and he sits there drinking gin with Ebby all afternoon.
**[00:03:25]** They talk for hours drinking gin to the point where immediately after the call, they take Bill to the hospital. They're going to DTs.
**[00:03:36]** In the midst of that, while Bill is drunk, despite the living example of my family, they remained in me some vestiges of my old prejudice.
**[00:03:48]** I've got one of those egos. The word God still aroused a certain antipathy because I have all kinds of images attached to the word God.
**[00:04:03]** Bruce is suggesting that I forget everything I think I know about anything especially spiritual matters meant that.
**[00:04:10]** Whatever I believe about God, forget it. That ain't it. Take all the prejudice off the name.
**[00:04:21]** When the thought that was expressed that there might be a God first on me, this feeling was intensified. Amen, brother.
**[00:04:28]** I do not like the idea that God already knows what's going on in my head because I'm already cooked. If that's the truth.
**[00:04:38]** I don't want to hang that close. There's a number of reasons. I also don't want to be like the people who tell me that's what's going on for them.
**[00:04:48]** I have this arrogant judgment about spiritual people. I was actually terrified.
**[00:04:58]** I believed enough and knew enough to know that if I completely surrendered, God had worked for me to do.
**[00:05:06]** I already didn't want to job because I knew what it was. He put me on the corner of Colfax and Broadway on a hot day in a brown suit and brown hat
**[00:05:17]** hounding out watchtower magazines and asking strangers if you can save, brother. That's what the job was. I knew it.
**[00:05:25]** I knew anything but that. See, I'd seen the guy in the brown suit and the brown hat and the brown shoes doing that we used to make fun of him.
**[00:05:35]** And I didn't want that happening to me. And I told Bruce about that. And he laughed. He said, oh, let's talk about that.
**[00:05:44]** Which is sponsor talk. If you get that from the sponsor, it does not mean let us talk about anything at all.
**[00:05:51]** It means you'll be quiet for a minute and we'll see if we can get past your thick head.
**[00:05:57]** Now, because he loved me, he did what would otherwise be really cruel. Truth without love is cruelty.
**[00:06:05]** And confrontation without a real answer is brutality. So I don't do any of those things.
**[00:06:11]** But he loved me, genuinely. He was far more concerned with my life than my feelings. And he had a real answer for me.
**[00:06:21]** So he went for it. He said, Don, do you suppose that the guy that's down there handing out watchtower today had breakfast where he wanted to?
**[00:06:30]** And I said, yeah, probably. And he said, well, you didn't. Do you suppose that that guy who's making a fool of himself down there asking people if they've been saved is wearing clothes that he picked out to do there?
**[00:06:44]** Yeah. He said, well, you're not. Do you suppose when he's all through humiliating himself and he gets to go home?
**[00:06:53]** Well, I didn't. Because of his great love, he hand carried me into my new mind and laid its foundation.
**[00:07:05]** And the foundation of my life is simply this. Anything at all that God has in mind for me is better than anything at all that I will ever have in mind for me.
**[00:07:16]** And that is how I live and have been living for a long time. And I'm imperfect and I'm weak, but I do live like that.
**[00:07:24]** Now, having come to that conclusion, I made a big mistake. I went back and told him, OK, I'm ready to hand out watchtower now.
**[00:07:36]** And he laughed at me again. He says, Oh, that's noble. But he's already got a guy down there doing that.
**[00:07:47]** He probably has something else in mind for you. He could have told me that before he went through all the agony.
**[00:07:56]** After me down to New York, one of his smart alley guys gave me three watchtowers the other day.
**[00:08:02]** And a little hand-scrawled note show up on Broadway, Son God.
**[00:08:08]** So Bill's fighting and he's drunk. And everybody says to him, why don't you choose your own conception of God?
**[00:08:29]** A statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain. A new shadow I had lived in shivered many years.
**[00:08:37]** I stood in the sunlight at last. That sounds like a spruce awakening to me. And he's drunk.
**[00:08:44]** I need to remember you don't have to be sober for God to enter into your life.
**[00:08:50]** I don't want to put any conditions on anybody about when you awaken spiritually. You awaken spiritually when it happens.
**[00:08:58]** Not before, not after. When it happens and it's not up to me to decide when that's going to happen or how it's going to look.
**[00:09:07]** I'd like to. But I know. And there's a key word here for me. And for all the other intellectuals in the room, it does not say concept.
**[00:09:20]** It says conception. And there's a very real difference between the two. A concept is boxed in, formulated, has nowhere to go.
**[00:09:30]** It's a set of rules. This is this, this, this, this. No place to go.
**[00:09:36]** That's part of my problem. I have a concept of God and there's no place, there's no movement.
**[00:09:41]** I'm tied to it. I'm in bondage to my own image. I have created God in my own image and boxed in.
**[00:09:50]** A conception. Think about the word conception. This sperm meets the egg and there's conception. New life is born.
**[00:10:01]** There's all the world in the world, all the room to grow. That's conception.
**[00:10:07]** An idea is the same. I get a new conception. Now it can grow and discover itself. More better. I go for that.
**[00:10:15]** So for the intellectuals like me, I'm a word mechanic. Don't get trapped by the words. I did for a while.
**[00:10:29]** Bill says it was only a matter of believing, being willing to believe in a power of better than myself.
**[00:10:34]** Nothing more would require it for me to make it. That's good. That's all it takes.
**[00:10:41]** So a willingness to believe there is such a thing, the pages that is.
**[00:11:13]** Do not let any prejudice on page 47. Do not let any prejudice you may have against spiritual terms.
**[00:11:21]** You deter you from asking yourself what they mean to you. That's been a real guide for me.
**[00:11:26]** I constantly ask myself, what does that mean to me? Not what does it mean to you. What does it mean to me?
**[00:11:32]** Because it has to be real to me. One of the things that I discovered about myself is that everything I ever heard was a lie.
**[00:11:40]** Not the people lied to me. I hear something that goes in past my filters.
**[00:11:46]** And it's your truth. It's not mine. I just pick the pieces that sound good, which makes it a lie.
**[00:11:54]** I've got to have my own experience as a truth. Which means I've got to forget what I think I know.
**[00:12:00]** It's what I think I know is a warped version of what you think you know.
**[00:12:05]** It's been a lot of night in the coffeehouses building the fantasies.
**[00:12:14]** At the start, this is all we needed to convince spiritual growth to affect our first conscious relationship with God as we understood it.
**[00:12:32]** Afterward, we found ourselves accepting many things, which then seemed entirely out of our reach.
**[00:12:40]** That was growth, but if we wished to grow, we had to begin somewhere. So we used our own conception, however limited it was.
**[00:12:51]** If they can accept me as I am where I am, perhaps they're God can too. It's a beginning.
**[00:12:59]** We needed to ask ourselves about one short question. Do I now believe or am I even willing to believe that there is a power greater than myself?
**[00:13:12]** But I even have to ask such a stupid question.
**[00:13:18]** I tell you how big my equal is, but I do.
**[00:13:21]** Do you?
**[00:13:23]** Are you in one to believe that there is a power greater than yourself?
**[00:13:30]** Very much.
**[00:13:31]** As soon as the man can say he does believe, or he's one to believe we emphatically share in his honest way.
**[00:13:42]** Wellingness is the key.
**[00:13:45]** The instant I'm willing, it has already happened.
**[00:13:51]** If at this moment I do not believe and are not willing to believe in the next moment I'm willing, I now believe.
**[00:13:57]** It's changed.
**[00:13:59]** It's wonderful. I don't have to do anything. Power is all in the willingness.
**[00:14:19]** Here are thousands of men and women over on page 50, worldly indeed.
**[00:14:25]** They flatly declare that since they've come to believe in a power greater than themselves.
**[00:14:30]** To take a certain attitude toward that power and to do certain simple things, there's been a revolutionary change in the way of living and thinking.
**[00:14:37]** So there's a question implicit in that.
**[00:14:40]** Do I want a revolutionary change in my way of living and thinking?
**[00:14:45]** If I don't, why should I pursue this?
**[00:14:47]** If I do, they must pursue it.
**[00:14:50]** It's a question that has to be asked, do I want that?
**[00:14:52]** In the face of collapsing despair and the face of total failure of their human resources,
**[00:15:03]** they found a new power, peace, happiness, and a sense of direction flowed into them.
**[00:15:09]** Is that a result I want?
**[00:15:12]** Power, peace, happiness, and a sense of direction. Yes, it is.
**[00:15:19]** Lack of power is my dilemma. There is no peace in my mind.
**[00:15:23]** I've become everybody I've ever met and they're all talking at once.
**[00:15:28]** Yeah.
**[00:15:31]** Committee, hell, we have a country here.
**[00:15:36]** Happiness, I wouldn't know what would happen.
**[00:15:43]** Jerry Lewis said the most profound thing I've ever heard about happiness.
**[00:15:47]** There is no such thing as happiness.
**[00:15:49]** You're just going to have to learn to be happy without it.
**[00:15:53]** Huh?
**[00:15:58]** It makes sense to me.
**[00:16:03]** In a sense of direction, I am sick and tired of lying blind.
**[00:16:09]** I don't know where I'm going, but I'm not lost anymore, because I know where I am.
**[00:16:17]** And it doesn't matter where I'm going, because I'm not going anymore anyway.
**[00:16:21]** Whatever's next, that's where I'll be.
**[00:16:27]** That's just one for 2.30 in the morning when you can't sleep.
**[00:16:35]** So do we want that?
**[00:16:40]** Power, peace, happiness, and sense of direction?
**[00:16:42]** It's a result.
**[00:16:46]** This happens soon after they wholeheartedly met a few simple requirements.
**[00:16:50]** Oh, we're back to that.
**[00:16:53]** Once confused and baffled by the seeming futility of existence,
**[00:16:58]** they show the underlying reasons why we're making heavy going of life.
**[00:17:02]** Leaving aside the drink question.
**[00:17:04]** Leaving aside the drink question.
**[00:17:08]** They tell while living what's so unsatisfactory.
**[00:17:13]** Now, who is they?
**[00:17:16]** They are the people in the stories in the back of this book.
**[00:17:20]** The purpose of the stories have been until recently,
**[00:17:25]** to show how each person approached and had an effective relationship with God.
**[00:17:31]** Not to help you identify your alcoholism.
**[00:17:33]** That's a face-to-face deal with one of us.
**[00:17:37]** These stories must be important.
**[00:17:38]** Would you say that?
**[00:17:41]** We have published a volume called the Alcoholics Anonymous book.
**[00:17:45]** We didn't have any stories in it.
**[00:17:49]** Did you know that?
**[00:17:50]** Where were you when that happened?
**[00:17:52]** I wasn't paying attention either.
**[00:17:55]** It's a little bit of a blue book called Alcoholics Anonymous
**[00:17:59]** that does not have these stories in it.
**[00:18:03]** And if I give that to somebody and they read this and go looking for all my goodness,
**[00:18:09]** I'm a hypocrite now.
**[00:18:12]** They're lying.
**[00:18:13]** They're not there.
**[00:18:17]** That's something to think about now, not at 2.30 in the morning.
**[00:18:21]** They show how the change came over to me.
**[00:18:31]** When many hundreds of people were able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God
**[00:18:35]** is today the most important fact of their lives,
**[00:18:39]** they present a powerful reason why one should have faith.
**[00:18:42]** And that's really all I can say too.
**[00:18:44]** It's the consciousness of God's presence.
**[00:18:47]** The whole idea of being hooked up bothers me.
**[00:19:01]** That assumes God's one place and I'm another.
**[00:19:04]** And I can plug and unplug.
**[00:19:07]** That distresses me.
**[00:19:09]** I don't do that.
**[00:19:11]** God is here now where I am, God is.
**[00:19:14]** That's all.
**[00:19:15]** I am more or less conscious of that depending on what's going on.
**[00:19:21]** But I can't afford to have to look out here anymore because God is not here.
**[00:19:25]** Well, God is.
**[00:19:26]** But I find it here.
**[00:19:27]** This is my experience here.
**[00:19:29]** I can see it out here.
**[00:19:31]** While power peace happens in the sense of direction are really important,
**[00:19:44]** the human condition has an interesting factor in it that I have to learn to live with.
**[00:19:50]** There are really good times.
**[00:19:55]** There are really bad times.
**[00:19:58]** Most of life is made up of flat time.
**[00:20:03]** There isn't much going on at all.
**[00:20:06]** And that's the one I don't deal with.
**[00:20:09]** I deal with real happy.
**[00:20:11]** I deal with real bad.
**[00:20:13]** But I don't know what to do with flat time.
**[00:20:17]** Well, this tells me what to do with it.
**[00:20:21]** Play.
**[00:20:23]** Have fun.
**[00:20:25]** Enjoy.
**[00:20:26]** Whatever he likes to enjoy, go enjoy it.
**[00:20:28]** I spend a good deal of my life talking about and working for and with God.
**[00:20:36]** I have a working relationship that is powerful.
**[00:20:42]** I really enjoy Hogan's heroes also.
**[00:20:45]** Yeah.
**[00:20:46]** Me too.
**[00:20:47]** And I collect Abbot and Costello movies.
**[00:20:51]** And when there's nothing to do, I put one on.
**[00:20:55]** That's how I learned to think.
**[00:20:59]** Yeah.
**[00:21:00]** That ensure a lot of poems.
**[00:21:02]** Because of that, I was able to establish a relationship with my stepdaughter.
**[00:21:09]** And she was fairly young.
**[00:21:12]** Because I think like Abbot and Costello, which means I think like a stupid child.
**[00:21:17]** No.
**[00:21:18]** Don't.
**[00:21:22]** Anyway, she called one day.
**[00:21:25]** It says mom home.
**[00:21:27]** And I said, who's mom?
**[00:21:30]** She said, well, my mom.
**[00:21:32]** I said, well, who are you?
**[00:21:36]** Well, I'm Kelly.
**[00:21:38]** I said, I'm sorry.
**[00:21:39]** Kelly's not here.
**[00:21:40]** No.
**[00:21:41]** She fell in love with me.
**[00:21:45]** She knew I could play.
**[00:21:48]** Okay.
**[00:21:49]** What do you do with the flaptime?
**[00:21:51]** Play an affron.
**[00:21:53]** It's what it says in this book back here.
**[00:21:55]** Each family should play as much as their circumstances warned.
**[00:22:02]** If newcomers can see no fun and happiness in what we do, they wouldn't want us to.
**[00:22:06]** Our fellowship is really important.
**[00:22:10]** Because that's where we play together.
**[00:22:13]** That's where the gang gets together.
**[00:22:15]** And I don't even like all the gang, but I can play with them.
**[00:22:23]** As long as God is present, I can handle good times or bad times.
**[00:22:26]** And one of the hardest times for me is an alcoholic.
**[00:22:29]** And many of the hundreds that I've talked with are the reasonably good times.
**[00:22:34]** Ultra highs are cool.
**[00:22:37]** But just the plain old good times after I've conditioned myself to think they're already.
**[00:22:42]** I don't do too well with those sometimes.
**[00:22:44]** I keep thinking something's about to happen.
**[00:22:48]** I'm going to screw this up.
**[00:22:51]** And it'll probably be me that starts it.
**[00:22:54]** It's just a vague sense that I have.
**[00:22:57]** Based on many years of truth.
**[00:23:01]** Okay.
**[00:23:05]** All I've got to do is get out of that.
**[00:23:07]** Something isn't left to happen.
**[00:23:09]** Enjoy the hell out of it because nothing's going to last.
**[00:23:13]** You know, all passes.
**[00:23:15]** Enjoy it while it's here.
**[00:23:17]** Because it may not be here tomorrow.
**[00:23:19]** It'll change.
**[00:23:21]** Because I will change.
**[00:23:22]** I remember Jack Brown one time and we were picking his brain kind of like this.
**[00:23:26]** And he said please listen closely.
**[00:23:31]** Because I will never be by this way again.
**[00:23:34]** And that struck me and I said wait a minute.
**[00:23:37]** We knew where he was going to be next week and we're going to be with him.
**[00:23:40]** And then it hit me when he really said.
**[00:23:45]** I will never be by this way again.
**[00:23:48]** And neither will you.
**[00:23:50]** If we get together next time we're all going to be different.
**[00:23:53]** So any business we have to transact with each other.
**[00:23:56]** This is the only time we can do it.
**[00:23:58]** It's not life shaking.
**[00:24:01]** It's not life threatening.
**[00:24:02]** It's just this is it.
**[00:24:03]** Now as a principle to life that means I owe it to you.
**[00:24:07]** To tell you each time all the truth of who I am.
**[00:24:10]** And take from you all the truth that you are.
**[00:24:13]** Because we may never meet again either.
**[00:24:17]** I learned about death from two A friends, dear friends.
**[00:24:20]** When I came out of the penitentiary they tried to send me to Howard.
**[00:24:24]** Because Howard didn't have the same penitentiary in the same group.
**[00:24:27]** And I was about a year and a half sober and Howard was about ten or eleven years sober.
**[00:24:33]** And they were sure we'd clicked.
**[00:24:35]** We didn't.
**[00:24:36]** It was not antagonism.
**[00:24:37]** We just didn't click.
**[00:24:46]** Kind of tentative around each other.
**[00:24:49]** But there was an old man named Red who was just an old bum.
**[00:24:53]** When he got here.
**[00:24:55]** And I adored Red.
**[00:24:58]** Red and I had sitting at the top for hours.
**[00:25:01]** I just loved him dearly.
**[00:25:04]** And as a result of some things Howard died.
**[00:25:07]** Ferret anditis.
**[00:25:08]** Just ran out of no water.
**[00:25:12]** And I went to his funeral and I was torn up.
**[00:25:15]** And I didn't understand it because I didn't even like him that well.
**[00:25:19]** It just tore me up.
**[00:25:21]** When I figured well it's just the first time I've been able to break loose and cry good.
**[00:25:25]** That's all it is.
**[00:25:26]** That wasn't it.
**[00:25:29]** Two weeks later Red died.
**[00:25:31]** And I thought I really am nuts because it didn't hurt a bit.
**[00:25:35]** I didn't have any reaction to it.
**[00:25:37]** So I went and did some praying about that.
**[00:25:42]** And it got clear.
**[00:25:46]** Howard's death disturbed me because we weren't through with each other.
**[00:25:51]** We hadn't done it.
**[00:25:53]** And now it's too late.
**[00:25:55]** With Red, Red had a knack of giving me everything Red was every time.
**[00:26:00]** And taking from me everything I was every time.
**[00:26:03]** There's nothing left to do.
**[00:26:05]** And so other than just kind of regretting that I would get to visit with Red anymore.
**[00:26:09]** There was no sense of law.
**[00:26:11]** I already had it all.
**[00:26:13]** And it changed my life.
**[00:26:15]** I will try to do that with you each time too.
**[00:26:18]** Whatever happens here this week, you're getting it all.
**[00:26:21]** And you'll never be this way again.
**[00:26:26]** Thank God.
**[00:26:28]** As long as I'm conscious of where I am God is, it leaves you in for all of that.
**[00:26:34]** It means I don't have any expectations of you.
**[00:26:40]** What I expect out of everybody I meet is the very best that they are.
**[00:26:44]** And I truly expect that.
**[00:26:46]** I also assume that whatever you brought to the table today is your best.
**[00:26:50]** And that's good enough for me.
**[00:26:56]** Who am I to judge anybody?
**[00:26:58]** On anything.
**[00:26:59]** And I still sometimes do.
**[00:27:01]** What do you think about the whole idea that the consciousness of the presence of God will become the most important effect of your life?
**[00:27:15]** So we're thinking about it.
**[00:27:17]** It'll come before a job, before a family, before any personal desire.
**[00:27:24]** It's sacrifice at the highest order.
**[00:27:29]** We tend to think because we're negative by nature.
**[00:27:31]** That sacrifice means kill something and give it to the gods.
**[00:27:35]** You know how far we look at it.
**[00:27:39]** Sacrifice means I take my most precious possession.
**[00:27:43]** And offer it up to God.
**[00:27:45]** And what's my most precious?
**[00:27:47]** My life.
**[00:27:52]** If God's present, you know God enjoys playing too?
**[00:27:55]** I'm supposed to turn to God in all things.
**[00:27:58]** That's what this thing says.
**[00:28:04]** It's ten years sober before this happened.
**[00:28:06]** Walking this path, rigorously.
**[00:28:08]** One night I'm getting ready to have sex with my wife.
**[00:28:11]** And it occurred to me, you haven't asked God if you go with you yet.
**[00:28:15]** Because I'm in a long way, if you have doubt.
**[00:28:17]** Take God by the hand and say, if I go do this, will you go with me?
**[00:28:20]** That's a good way to check things.
**[00:28:22]** So I did.
**[00:28:24]** If I go do this, will you go with me?
**[00:28:26]** And I had that sense come over me as, oh yeah.
**[00:28:29]** If I can't take God into that, then I'll not be doing it.
**[00:28:39]** Whatever I'm going to do, that's what the sense of God's presence is right here.
**[00:28:44]** I'm going to be part of this deal.
**[00:28:46]** I got to get rid of a lot of old ideas, or I can't do that.
**[00:28:50]** And that's why our inventory process helps with the methods to get rid of that.
**[00:28:54]** Talks about the things that block us are fixed ideas.
**[00:29:10]** I'd say it's a brilliant word.
**[00:29:14]** When you fix something, you attach it so it won't come loose.
**[00:29:19]** Fixatives are things that fix things through other things so they don't come loose.
**[00:29:24]** I can get fixed ideas about AA and about the big book can have.
**[00:29:30]** God help me whether I wanted or not.
**[00:29:36]** I went through a period of a while back where I was, that was a Nazi.
**[00:29:41]** I want a big book.
**[00:29:44]** I'm sure I was a big book Nazi.
**[00:29:46]** If you weren't doing it exactly the way it says here, you weren't doing it right.
**[00:29:50]** Not too much arrogance in that.
**[00:29:54]** Ten or eleven years sober. If you ten or eleven years sober and you're not doing that,
**[00:29:57]** you're missing a good trip.
**[00:29:59]** But then you know it all.
**[00:30:01]** And particularly about this written inventory, it had to be just really precise.
**[00:30:09]** So God sent me buddy and buddy can't write.
**[00:30:17]** Well, I'm a little waffle.
**[00:30:21]** I flew out to Buddy's place in Palm Springs and said, Buddy, you talk alright.
**[00:30:27]** And I found out Buddy was insane.
**[00:30:32]** He could not organize any of his thoughts enough.
**[00:30:40]** In three days we got a half of age inventory written.
**[00:30:43]** Because Buddy's off to Mars and then off to Saturday and I'm dragging you back and you're a bit of trouble.
**[00:30:49]** And I learned to lighten up a little bit.
**[00:30:51]** Six years before Buddy wrote a good inventory.
**[00:30:54]** But he stayed sober that whole six years.
**[00:30:56]** Doing his best to help other alcoholics and whining a lot.
**[00:31:02]** I took on the job.
**[00:31:04]** Go ahead and whine Buddy.
**[00:31:06]** I'm telling wild stories.
**[00:31:08]** I used to think he was kidding me. The stories would tell me.
**[00:31:11]** Tell I met the people.
**[00:31:14]** He was telling me about that.
**[00:31:18]** I mean, no more.
**[00:31:21]** Wild, man. I love him dearly.
**[00:31:26]** I went on a trust-up call with him, a multi-millionaire builder out of California.
**[00:31:31]** I went on a trust-up call with him, two another multi-millionaire up on the hill.
**[00:31:35]** Who couldn't seem to get sober because he hadn't lost anything.
**[00:31:38]** Tough, tough cases.
**[00:31:41]** And I'll just let Bud do the number.
**[00:31:44]** Because he does wonderfully.
**[00:31:46]** If you can stand F every third word.
**[00:31:50]** Bud's fun.
**[00:31:52]** After about an hour it was clear we weren't getting anywhere.
**[00:31:58]** Bud just stood up and says, well my friend it's clear to me you're going to die.
**[00:32:02]** And he turned around and walked on you.
**[00:32:06]** A brilliant move. He didn't do it as a ploy. He really saw that.
**[00:32:09]** The guy was right behind you.
**[00:32:11]** What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean?
**[00:32:15]** Bud sponsored him. The guy is still sober.
**[00:32:18]** He told him the truth.
**[00:32:20]** The thing I love most about Bud is that there is not a dishonest born in his body.
**[00:32:25]** Whatever is showing up, that's who he really is.
**[00:32:29]** And he's a joy.
**[00:32:34]** I'd have missed him if I was state rigid.
**[00:32:37]** I figured this isn't worth doing.
**[00:32:40]** And so long away God helps us when we want it or not.
**[00:32:44]** And really nice way.
**[00:32:48]** I met Bud on a cruise, a sober sinner's cruise.
**[00:32:52]** He was standing at the side of the ship and I told him my wife,
**[00:32:55]** that guy's getting ready to jump.
**[00:32:58]** I could just see it.
**[00:33:00]** So I kind of eased up on him.
**[00:33:02]** You don't want to move too fast when people are ready to jump off a ship.
**[00:33:05]** And just start visiting with him. Sure enough.
**[00:33:09]** He was getting ready to jump.
**[00:33:11]** He was down at his last million and a half and things just weren't right.
**[00:33:19]** You know.
**[00:33:20]** He said the only reason he hadn't jumped is that he didn't want the sharks to get the body.
**[00:33:28]** Like who cares?
**[00:33:32]** So we eased him off and played ping pong for a while.
**[00:33:41]** Mental hospitals know that.
**[00:33:43]** There's not much in any mental hospital, but there's always a ping pong today.
**[00:33:50]** Cuckoo's love, ping pong.
**[00:33:54]** So I'm easing Buddy down a little bit playing ping pong.
**[00:33:57]** And then we eased off and got into the pool where the water was warm.
**[00:34:01]** That's the second thing you always find in a mental hospital.
**[00:34:04]** Hot baths.
**[00:34:08]** And he and I spent the whole day
**[00:34:11]** doing mental hospital shit.
**[00:34:16]** See, I miss those kind of things if I stay rigid.
**[00:34:22]** If I don't let God guide me.
**[00:34:25]** I'm the only one on a whole ship that saw he was getting ready to jump,
**[00:34:28]** or I'm at least the only one who cared.
**[00:34:31]** And I want to stay that sensitive.
**[00:34:34]** And I don't know how to stop somebody from committing suicide,
**[00:34:37]** except to get into their life a little bit and say,
**[00:34:40]** would you rather play ping pong for a minute?
**[00:34:47]** Jump later, but man, I need somebody to play with me.
**[00:34:52]** She can't play ping pong.
**[00:34:55]** Got it?
**[00:34:57]** That's some fun.
**[00:35:02]** Fixed ideas.
**[00:35:03]** I just don't want any.
**[00:35:09]** Fixed ideas.
**[00:35:10]** I just don't want any.
**[00:35:12]** And for those who are not new and who have long-term sobriety,
**[00:35:15]** be careful with fixed ideas that come out of this book and out of our fellowship
**[00:35:18]** and they'll hamper you too.
**[00:35:20]** They hamper me sometimes.
**[00:35:22]** They can get in the way.
**[00:35:24]** Principles never change, but my application of principles can get me in trouble.
**[00:35:29]** So we had to ask ourselves why we shouldn't apply to our human problems
**[00:35:33]** in the same readiness to change our point of view.
**[00:35:36]** I'm on page 52 now.
**[00:35:38]** The last of the bill's depressive statements.
**[00:35:41]** She's got to bring us down to the bottom one more time.
**[00:35:43]** We were having trouble with our personal relationships.
**[00:35:49]** We couldn't control our emotional natures.
**[00:35:53]** We were a prey to misery and depression.
**[00:35:56]** We couldn't make a living.
**[00:36:00]** We had a feeling of uselessness.
**[00:36:02]** We were full of fear.
**[00:36:04]** We were unhappy and we couldn't seem to be a real help to other people.
**[00:36:08]** Whoa, there it is again.
**[00:36:11]** It was not a basic solution to these bedeville.
**[00:36:15]** It's more important than whether we could see in Israel's winter flight.
**[00:36:19]** Of course it was.
**[00:36:24]** There are among us those who must have some vision of the future in order to have the hope to go on.
**[00:36:31]** Well, there it is.
**[00:36:33]** Turn that over.
**[00:36:35]** What will it be like when these are gone?
**[00:36:37]** Oh, I won't have any trouble in my personal relationships.
**[00:36:41]** And I don't have.
**[00:36:44]** Partly because I have enemies now and I cherish them.
**[00:36:47]** If you're living in human condition, you're going to piss somebody off just because you showed up.
**[00:36:55]** It's just the way it is.
**[00:36:56]** You can't please everybody.
**[00:36:58]** And I sometimes have to judge my effectiveness.
**[00:37:01]** The only judgment I have is the quality of my enemies.
**[00:37:05]** I have some really high quality enemies.
**[00:37:08]** I can do them a job.
**[00:37:10]** But I won't have trouble with my human relationships because they will all be appropriate.
**[00:37:19]** There are people who like me no matter what I do.
**[00:37:22]** There are people who don't like me no matter what I do.
**[00:37:26]** There are several million people that don't even know my name.
**[00:37:31]** Don't give a damn if I ever show up.
**[00:37:34]** That's sanity.
**[00:37:41]** My emotional nature will be brought back into control.
**[00:37:46]** I will laugh at the right place and cry at the right place and be still at the right place.
**[00:37:52]** I do not control my emotional nature.
**[00:37:55]** It is now appropriate.
**[00:37:56]** One of the difficulties I had for my whole life and if I try to think about it today is still difficult.
**[00:38:04]** Most everything feels the same.
**[00:38:06]** If I start to figure out am I grieving or am I unhappy or am I touched?
**[00:38:15]** I'm lost.
**[00:38:17]** I'm just feeling it.
**[00:38:21]** What a glorious feeling that is.
**[00:38:23]** I don't know what's going on. I'm just crying like a baby.
**[00:38:25]** I get truly stunned when little kids do something right.
**[00:38:31]** They win.
**[00:38:35]** It just tears me up. I watch my seven-year-old grandson playing soccer.
**[00:38:39]** And bless his heart, his mother was drinking and using cocaine.
**[00:38:46]** His real mother's.
**[00:38:48]** My daughter's stepson.
**[00:38:50]** And he has some anomalies.
**[00:38:53]** Heads a little off, ears a little off.
**[00:38:56]** He sometimes gets a little freaky and he's clumsy.
**[00:38:59]** God love him.
**[00:39:01]** And watching him play soccer just breaks my heart.
**[00:39:05]** Because he falls down a lot.
**[00:39:08]** And when he kicks at the ball, it's here and he's kicking here.
**[00:39:12]** He falls on his butt.
**[00:39:18]** One day he got that ball dead off.
**[00:39:22]** Right into the goal.
**[00:39:39]** No longer afraid of misery and depression.
**[00:39:41]** You know, a prey is.
**[00:39:43]** That's that little monster student's best to get to the next bush before.
**[00:39:47]** Evil gets it and eats it.
**[00:39:51]** I'm no longer a prey to anything like that, particularly misery and depression.
**[00:39:56]** Depression comes on sometimes.
**[00:39:59]** When the hepatitis took me down, that was really depressing.
**[00:40:02]** It comes with the territory.
**[00:40:07]** What I've had to learn here is that since God is present,
**[00:40:09]** I don't have to be depressed about being depressed.
**[00:40:12]** That's the only time I get in trouble anyway.
**[00:40:15]** I've made a prayer from that.
**[00:40:18]** Dear God, please don't let me get screwed up about being screwed up.
**[00:40:25]** Don't let me be depressed about being depressed.
**[00:40:28]** It's a great prayer.
**[00:40:30]** Separate things into their proper place.
**[00:40:33]** You know what you do when you're really depressed?
**[00:40:36]** I know what I do.
**[00:40:38]** Go to bed.
**[00:40:43]** You see all the medication.
**[00:40:45]** If it's really, really bad, I pull covers on my head.
**[00:40:48]** I'm able to make a living now.
**[00:40:58]** I'm never going to be rich, because I don't care that much about money.
**[00:41:03]** It's a sad thing, but I just don't.
**[00:41:06]** I didn't marry a rich woman, because I'm not stupid.
**[00:41:14]** I found out just the other day she has two retirement plans.
**[00:41:19]** I can have fun in a couple years.
**[00:41:24]** I'm self-supporting by my own contributions and have been for years.
**[00:41:30]** I've worked so long, and I'm a former thief.
**[00:41:33]** I've worked so long, I'm able to draw Social Security benefits.
**[00:41:36]** I've been paying my taxes for a long time.
**[00:41:40]** In fact, I just had some fun with that.
**[00:41:43]** I found out that they'll pay me my entire Social Security benefit
**[00:41:47]** and still allow me to make $20,000 this year.
**[00:41:50]** So I resigned and gave myself $1,000 a year raise.
**[00:41:59]** Because the company will pay me the $20,000 and I'll stay around part-time.
**[00:42:03]** And that means I have to really watch the number of hours I work.
**[00:42:07]** It's terrible.
**[00:42:10]** Very careful not to make too much money.
**[00:42:13]** You must screw up my benefits.
**[00:42:15]** They're mine, dammit.
**[00:42:17]** So, this is a crazy planet, I'm telling you.
**[00:42:21]** Give yourself a raise by quitting.
**[00:42:24]** Had a feeling of uselessness.
**[00:42:29]** I will become useful.
**[00:42:30]** And for me, that's the most important benefit of this way of life.
**[00:42:36]** I died Christmas 967 because I had become completely useless.
**[00:42:41]** No human being can live in that state.
**[00:42:44]** I am now useful.
**[00:42:46]** On any day of my life, for the rest of my life,
**[00:42:50]** I can be useful because I'm willing and able to touch one other alcoholic
**[00:42:56]** and let them know if you're alcoholic, you don't have to die this way.
**[00:43:01]** And I can do that right to my deathbed because my friend John did.
**[00:43:05]** John Adams was a great joy.
**[00:43:08]** And he ended up with a bad cancer.
**[00:43:12]** Didn't want any of the treatment I needed it was time to go.
**[00:43:15]** Went home.
**[00:43:17]** Why should he die in a hospital?
**[00:43:19]** Went home and in his dying process, which was about a two month period.
**[00:43:23]** The neighbors, the top of the neighbors, they were just amazed at the number of people who came to cheer John up.
**[00:43:30]** They had no idea.
**[00:43:32]** These are the people John sponsored.
**[00:43:36]** He was 12 stopping and working with people, literally up to the moment that he died.
**[00:43:41]** One of them was with him.
**[00:43:43]** And he was beating him in the head with a big love.
**[00:43:48]** So I have an example that I can be useful to the very moment I go.
**[00:43:56]** And if I can do that, I can stay here.
**[00:43:58]** No longer full of fear.
**[00:44:04]** I mean, I don't get frightened now, man.
**[00:44:07]** There's a pretty scary planet out here.
**[00:44:09]** There's some shit going on that makes me nervous.
**[00:44:12]** So I go to bed at 7.30 at night.
**[00:44:17]** Oh, dude.
**[00:44:19]** If you know my wife, you knew why.
**[00:44:22]** We get up at 5 in the morning to go to work.
**[00:44:25]** I can get more work done between 5 or 9 and the rest of them can all day.
**[00:44:30]** And then I get to go home at 2.
**[00:44:34]** No longer full of fear.
**[00:44:39]** Would that be a nice thing to have?
**[00:44:41]** Yeah.
**[00:44:42]** When I'm frightened, it's appropriate.
**[00:44:44]** It's time to pay close attention.
**[00:44:46]** God gave me an instinct that says, the bears are on the loose.
**[00:44:50]** I need to pay attention to the rest of the time.
**[00:44:52]** What do I want to be afraid for?
**[00:44:57]** No longer unhappy.
**[00:44:59]** It does not mean that I'm supremely happy.
**[00:45:02]** All the time means I'm not unhappy.
**[00:45:06]** God, please don't let me get unhappy about God being happy.
**[00:45:09]** It's a great prayer.
**[00:45:11]** And I'm able to be of real help to other people.
**[00:45:18]** That comes with time.
**[00:45:20]** That's a blessing.
**[00:45:22]** I can only put it this way.
**[00:45:24]** By God's grace, I know people that are 8 generations from me.
**[00:45:30]** Because we do it the way this thing said.
**[00:45:33]** Bill's vision was not only could he help somebody, they in turn might help steal others.
**[00:45:39]** And that's the vision.
**[00:45:41]** If we do this right, people who come here 50 years from now, when we're gone, get the same shot we got.
**[00:45:48]** There's integrity all the way down the line.
**[00:45:51]** And it's really a joy to see that there's some real help to some people that I've never met.
**[00:45:56]** It's simply because we stay close to the big look.
**[00:45:59]** The truth is the thing.
**[00:46:02]** That's great.
**[00:46:04]** One of your great, great, great, great grandchildren comes up and tells you how much you've changed my life.
**[00:46:10]** That's bullshit, but I love it.
**[00:46:15]** Is that what you want? Because that's what's there.
**[00:46:21]** It's what I hear it for us.
**[00:46:23]** What a nice thing. Yeah, I'll take some of that.
**[00:46:25]** What do I have to do?
**[00:46:27]** Well, we saw that solve their problems by a simple reliance upon the spirit of the universe.
**[00:46:33]** I can believe in God and die.
**[00:46:35]** I can trust in God and still die.
**[00:46:40]** But if I rely upon God, then I get to live a full life.
**[00:46:45]** I truly expect to get answers when I ask for them.
**[00:46:49]** That's our deal.
**[00:46:51]** You run my life.
**[00:46:53]** I'll ask the questions on what I'm supposed to do and who I'm supposed to be.
**[00:46:57]** And you answer them for me.
**[00:46:59]** That's the deal. So I expect it.
**[00:47:02]** The Bible warms against repetitious prayer.
**[00:47:05]** I'm a child when I'm hungry.
**[00:47:09]** And so I tell mom I'm hungry and she's cooking dinner.
**[00:47:15]** When I come back in and tug again, I'm hungry.
**[00:47:18]** I know I'm fixing it. I'm hungry.
**[00:47:21]** I know I'm fixing it. I'm hungry.
**[00:47:24]** She has to stop fixing it and put me somewhere so I don't get hurt.
**[00:47:28]** I delay the whole day in process.
**[00:47:32]** I've asked once, I expect an answer.
**[00:47:36]** And I'm going to get on about the business of it.
**[00:47:39]** And the answer will show up.
**[00:47:40]** It may be a day or a week.
**[00:47:41]** It may be a matter.
**[00:47:42]** I don't know. But I'll get an answer.
**[00:47:45]** It usually comes from the source.
**[00:47:46]** I don't even think about it.
**[00:47:49]** You had that experience.
**[00:47:51]** It just comes right in on the wings of the dove.
**[00:47:58]** Our ideas do not work what the God idea did.
**[00:48:01]** On page 53 is a departure point.
**[00:48:04]** When we became alcoholics crushed by our self-imposed crisis,
**[00:48:07]** we could neither postpone the revenge.
**[00:48:10]** We had to fearlessly face the proposition that either God is everything or is nothing.
**[00:48:16]** God either is or isn't.
**[00:48:19]** What's our choice to be?
**[00:48:21]** And I must make that choice.
**[00:48:24]** Whichever choice I make, the battle will be over.
**[00:48:27]** If God is everything, what's there to worry about?
**[00:48:33]** If God is nothing, what's there to worry about?
**[00:48:38]** No matter which choice you make, which God make a choice, it says.
**[00:48:42]** Let's take a break and think about that one.
**[00:48:47]** Push on.
**[00:48:48]** So we've been promised or we've been told,
**[00:49:06]** and accepted, the lack of power is our dilemma.
**[00:49:10]** I've lost the power of choice of the drink.
**[00:49:15]** And for me, just about everything else.
**[00:49:18]** There must be a power of greater than myself, obviously.
**[00:49:29]** Because I can't do this myself and you can't do it.
**[00:49:40]** There either is or isn't.
**[00:49:45]** And despite my immense arrogance, I cannot say there isn't.
**[00:49:51]** A casual look around in my most idiotic state that says I didn't do all this.
**[00:49:58]** There must be.
**[00:50:02]** So if I'm willing to say, there is, God is.
**[00:50:06]** I have to say that without knowing what that means, by the way.
**[00:50:10]** I don't even know what all is.
**[00:50:13]** There is an existence of power greater than myself.
**[00:50:16]** I can also see it walking around in the people that are first began to,
**[00:50:24]** we're proclaiming this, couldn't deny it.
**[00:50:27]** So if that's true, where am I going to look?
**[00:50:31]** I've been looking out here.
**[00:50:33]** My whole MO for 34 years was take it from out here and put it in here so I get to feel better.
**[00:50:39]** I've always got temporary relief.
**[00:50:43]** Anywhere from a day to a month to a year, temporary.
**[00:50:48]** So this isn't it, I know it.
**[00:50:50]** From out here in it, I've tried it, that isn't it.
**[00:50:54]** Even my death was from out here in it and it didn't work either.
**[00:50:58]** Deep down in every man, woman and child is a fundamental idea of God.
**[00:51:07]** Oh, no frightening.
**[00:51:11]** Last time I looked deep within myself, I killed it.
**[00:51:19]** I took a look at what was there and could not live with it.
**[00:51:26]** Of course I hadn't looked far enough. I was only looking at me.
**[00:51:31]** So where am I going to look? Deep within.
**[00:51:34]** Are they going to show me how to do that? I presume so.
**[00:51:38]** They've told me they'll show me precisely how to do that and how to look within.
**[00:51:44]** It may be obscured by calamity, by pomp or by worship of other things, but in some form or other it's there.
**[00:51:51]** Do you believe that?
**[00:51:53]** Now over the years, like I said on the word mechanic, obscured.
**[00:51:57]** I get vague hints that it is there. I've always believed it, but it's obscured.
**[00:52:02]** By calamity. Now the truth is, your calamity is probably my entertainment.
**[00:52:11]** That's true.
**[00:52:13]** Most comedy is based on somebody falling on their ass.
**[00:52:17]** As long as it isn't me, it's funny.
**[00:52:23]** Calamity is a personal deal.
**[00:52:26]** For some people, I don't want to hang nails in calamity.
**[00:52:29]** For others, it's falling off a mountain before it becomes a calamity, otherwise it's just kind of an incident.
**[00:52:38]** So, my view of the world is going to need to be looked at. It's skewed somehow.
**[00:52:48]** My prejudice is particularly getting away.
**[00:52:52]** Prejudge, that's what that means.
**[00:52:54]** I make a determination about who you are without hardly any information at all.
**[00:53:00]** Your skin color is dark. You must be able to dance.
**[00:53:04]** What a stupid thing that is.
**[00:53:06]** That's benign. We didn't know what we do.
**[00:53:09]** Hers is also perfect. She's dark and you are.
**[00:53:13]** Can you dance?
**[00:53:16]** I will prejudge things like that.
**[00:53:19]** Anytime I hear all of any particular type of anything does this, I know it's a lie today.
**[00:53:28]** There is no way to generalize all of anybody.
**[00:53:34]** So, that will obscure. And that's one of the calamities.
**[00:53:37]** That's pomp. Pomp are the robes I wear so that it's clear to everyone around, but I am just a little better than you.
**[00:53:52]** My favorite ego role has been and still is pompous ass.
**[00:53:59]** If you want to know the truth about who I am left alone, I'm a pompous ass.
**[00:54:08]** I keep him alive so he can recognize his friends when they come by.
**[00:54:15]** By worship of other things.
**[00:54:24]** Sometimes worship and obsession look almost the same.
**[00:54:31]** I have worshiped money. Money was God.
**[00:54:35]** Whatever it is I'm going to put my faith in is my God.
**[00:54:39]** It is my power. It's all God is, it's power.
**[00:54:43]** Well, that's not all God is, but God is power.
**[00:54:47]** Money, prestige was a big one.
**[00:54:51]** Much, much power in prestige.
**[00:54:53]** That's the perceived impression that I am something.
**[00:54:59]** If I can get you to believe that I can pull something off, I have power over you.
**[00:55:08]** As long as you still need whatever you think I can pull off.
**[00:55:12]** And I encourage that. It's one of the tricks that I use along the way.
**[00:55:27]** There's a time in every little boy's life when he worships sex.
**[00:55:31]** That's where the power is.
**[00:55:33]** He feels it coming on him.
**[00:55:35]** It's genetic, ladies.
**[00:55:36]** We don't have any choice.
**[00:55:39]** I have a mandate from God.
**[00:55:43]** My job on this planet is to impregnate anything that stands still long enough.
**[00:55:53]** Good job.
**[00:55:57]** First time he hit me it scared me.
**[00:56:01]** So I asked my best friend about it.
**[00:56:03]** He said, yeah, that's it.
**[00:56:06]** Me too.
**[00:56:08]** Now I know that isn't right, but that's what it feels like so I get confused.
**[00:56:13]** I've talked to enough women to know that at about the same time,
**[00:56:17]** your job is to make sure that happens.
**[00:56:20]** Just to perpetuate the race.
**[00:56:28]** And it's not thought out.
**[00:56:30]** God help us we were thought that way.
**[00:56:32]** So for a time there's worship of that.
**[00:56:37]** That becomes everything I do from getting a car to everything else
**[00:56:42]** is designed to put two blondes in the back seat.
**[00:56:45]** Two.
**[00:56:48]** Never one.
**[00:56:52]** I'm going to do something.
**[00:56:53]** I'm going to do the whole job.
**[00:56:56]** It sounds funny, but it is funny because that's what we grew up with.
**[00:56:59]** Which series about this?
**[00:57:04]** We read books about it.
**[00:57:06]** We talk about it incessantly.
**[00:57:09]** We want to know better ways to do it.
**[00:57:12]** Build whole relationships.
**[00:57:18]** How silly.
**[00:57:21]** When those genes are running in a young man,
**[00:57:23]** no wonder a young marriage has seldom worked.
**[00:57:25]** His job is to impregnate everything.
**[00:57:32]** And so he's committed here to this lady.
**[00:57:36]** And his immediate fear is, oh my goodness.
**[00:57:40]** What if the right one comes by?
**[00:57:42]** Or what if somebody else comes by and is my job?
**[00:57:46]** No wonder they fail.
**[00:57:50]** We don't have any comprehension and we don't tell them about it.
**[00:57:53]** In our sex inventory, all we're inventorying is conduct.
**[00:57:57]** To take a look at selfishness, self-centeredness,
**[00:58:01]** inconsiderate behavior, to examine all that kind of thing.
**[00:58:06]** And it takes a little while.
**[00:58:08]** God gave us these powers.
**[00:58:10]** They're not to be despised nor used ridiculously or loosely.
**[00:58:14]** When we go into a sex inventory,
**[00:58:18]** I don't know whether God wants you to be a monk or a whore.
**[00:58:20]** I have no idea.
**[00:58:21]** We won't find out until we get into it.
**[00:58:23]** Same with me.
**[00:58:27]** I don't know who I am when I get here.
**[00:58:30]** I listen to everybody.
**[00:58:36]** You got to understand something.
**[00:58:39]** As you can probably tell, I love women.
**[00:58:41]** I hold you in a very high regard.
**[00:58:43]** I live in a matriarchy.
**[00:58:44]** I wouldn't change it for the world.
**[00:58:46]** I absolutely adore women.
**[00:58:49]** As I should.
**[00:58:51]** Hold a very high regard and respect them.
**[00:58:53]** But like an idiot, I learned most everything I knew about women.
**[00:58:57]** From men.
**[00:58:59]** Who don't know shit about women?
**[00:59:05]** It wasn't until I got sober and got smart.
**[00:59:08]** Now what I know about women, I learn from women.
**[00:59:13]** So I get along pretty good.
**[00:59:16]** I learned about men.
**[00:59:21]** From young boys.
**[00:59:23]** Who don't know anything about men either.
**[00:59:26]** I need to find the source here.
**[00:59:33]** Integrity.
**[00:59:35]** Intuition.
**[00:59:36]** Which this book talks about.
**[00:59:37]** Learning from within.
**[00:59:38]** I need to find out who I am.
**[00:59:40]** Not who the generality is.
**[00:59:44]** And in going through that, I made an interesting discovery about my own sex activity.
**[00:59:50]** There really are things that are almost as interesting to me.
**[00:59:54]** That I'd rather be doing sometimes.
**[00:59:57]** It is not to be all on end all.
**[00:59:59]** If God made anything feel better, he kept it for himself.
**[01:00:02]** But feeling good isn't what it's about all the time anyway.
**[01:00:05]** I found out that I am a family man.
**[01:00:10]** Through prayer and through our process.
**[01:00:13]** One woman at a time, that's plenty.
**[01:00:16]** In fact, I finally found out what my sexual preference was.
**[01:00:20]** Her name is Jackie and I married her.
**[01:00:23]** And that ends that.
**[01:00:26]** That's simple.
**[01:00:27]** The right one isn't coming by.
**[01:00:28]** The right one's already there.
**[01:00:31]** Because I found out who I am.
**[01:00:33]** I don't know who you are.
**[01:00:34]** We'll find that out.
**[01:00:36]** Through all this examination.
**[01:00:40]** I'm going on a little because that's America's big hang up.
**[01:00:44]** Either too much, not enough, wrong kind.
**[01:00:47]** Bill describes it beautiful.
**[01:00:49]** We haven't changed any.
**[01:00:51]** We don't want to shit.
**[01:00:52]** But it's a great power source and we tend to worship it.
**[01:00:55]** I've got to stop doing that.
**[01:00:57]** We'll stand between me and God if I worship it.
**[01:01:00]** So we'll examine it.
**[01:01:03]** What are some of the other things you worshiped along the way?
**[01:01:08]** I've made altars to worship you.
**[01:01:11]** You're handy.
**[01:01:16]** Glamour.
**[01:01:18]** Looking good.
**[01:01:24]** Can you expand on that a little bit?
**[01:01:35]** Yeah.
**[01:01:36]** And you get that by what?
**[01:01:37]** Going to a concert where they are?
**[01:01:45]** Oh, I don't want to do that.
**[01:01:50]** Right.
**[01:01:51]** Yeah, more better.
**[01:01:52]** I'll just fantasize about it.
**[01:01:53]** Yeah.
**[01:01:55]** Yeah, that's a form of worship.
**[01:01:59]** Well, Carl, it's your turn.
**[01:02:01]** What have you worshiped along the way?
**[01:02:25]** You're talking about all these things are people who have power.
**[01:02:31]** That's what we're really talking about.
**[01:02:33]** Whatever the dress may look like.
**[01:02:35]** These are people that have the power.
**[01:02:38]** They are movers and shakers when they want something they get it.
**[01:02:42]** I want the power.
**[01:02:44]** Because I don't have any.
**[01:02:46]** And I know it.
**[01:02:47]** I can see with a pen to tell.
**[01:02:54]** Can I try?
**[01:02:56]** Didn't work?
**[01:02:58]** Well, bad choice.
**[01:03:02]** Faith in a power greater than ourselves in the miraculous demonstrations that power in human lives or facts as old as man himself.
**[01:03:22]** My attitude about God when I got here was really simple.
**[01:03:27]** He had created the heaven and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh.
**[01:03:31]** And for me he was still resting.
**[01:03:33]** That was kind of a...
**[01:03:34]** There was nothing real.
**[01:03:35]** Nothing going on.
**[01:03:37]** It was all ancient stuff.
**[01:03:39]** I had to change some ideas and some of them...
**[01:03:45]** Oh, a bunch of us were talking one time with a spiritual guide.
**[01:03:51]** One of the guys who was still angry said, look, if God so almighty powerful, why don't he stop war?
**[01:03:57]** And the answer was, well, he didn't start it.
**[01:04:07]** How about these babies born with Down Syndrome?
**[01:04:09]** What a tragedy.
**[01:04:11]** No.
**[01:04:13]** Sorry.
**[01:04:14]** You haven't met Christopher yet.
**[01:04:20]** Yeah, you know Christopher.
**[01:04:22]** Down Texas, yeah.
**[01:04:25]** He's changed hundreds and hundreds of lives this young man.
**[01:04:35]** Got more love in his little finger than I'll ever hope to have.
**[01:04:38]** He's just a pure expression of God.
**[01:04:39]** Goofy as hell.
**[01:04:43]** Well, I gave a talk down in Texas one time and here's this.
**[01:04:46]** He's 24 at this time.
**[01:04:47]** Big Hulk of a kid.
**[01:04:49]** With about a four or five year old mind.
**[01:04:53]** Comes running down the aisle after I got off the podium and threw a big bear hug on me.
**[01:04:58]** He said, I so proud of you.
**[01:05:05]** I need to change my viewpoints and my judgments.
**[01:05:15]** What I see as a tragedy or what I'm worshiping is probably different than yours.
**[01:05:21]** And I need to open up to that.
**[01:05:26]** So we finally saw the faith in some kind of God as a part of our make up.
**[01:05:29]** Whether it be money or sex or cars or power or glamor or whatever it is.
**[01:05:35]** We had faith in it.
**[01:05:36]** We believed that that would bring us what we wanted.
**[01:05:40]** And there was the attitude of God that had to change most of all.
**[01:05:44]** What's he going to do for me?
**[01:05:48]** That must change.
**[01:05:52]** The spiritual life is based on what can I do for the self-interested life.
**[01:06:01]** What is he going to do for me?
**[01:06:03]** Boy, got to go.
**[01:06:09]** He's already done everything possible for me that can ever be done.
**[01:06:13]** That's the truth.
**[01:06:15]** He even left the knowledge of himself deep within me.
**[01:06:22]** So if I ran into trouble I could check it out.
**[01:06:25]** And ask for direction and care.
**[01:06:28]** It's there.
**[01:06:30]** What more is he going to do for me?
**[01:06:36]** Sometimes we had to search fearlessly but he was there.
**[01:06:39]** He was as much a fact as we were.
**[01:06:42]** We found the great reality deep down within us.
**[01:06:45]** And the last analysis, there's only there that he may be found.
**[01:06:50]** It was so with us.
**[01:06:52]** And I'm one of us.
**[01:06:53]** I can tell you bluntly that's where I found it.
**[01:06:58]** And I did it this way.
**[01:07:01]** Does that sound interesting to anybody?
**[01:07:04]** Would you like to have that close to contact?
**[01:07:06]** There's a relationship I can work with.
**[01:07:10]** I don't get up and pray in the morning.
**[01:07:12]** I pray.
**[01:07:14]** And then when it's time I get up.
**[01:07:17]** Prayer is an activity that I hate to say prayer because you have your own view of it.
**[01:07:25]** I begin my conversation with God the minute I'm conscious.
**[01:07:29]** And it's a conversation.
**[01:07:31]** Good morning.
**[01:07:33]** I don't move until I have that sense that where I am God is.
**[01:07:43]** There's a conversation going on.
**[01:07:45]** Don't move.
**[01:07:47]** It may take a second or two.
**[01:07:49]** It sometimes takes 10 minutes.
**[01:07:50]** Sometimes I get so into the conversation.
**[01:07:54]** I don't even want to go get up.
**[01:07:56]** I go back to sleep.
**[01:07:58]** Or I'll just lay there.
**[01:08:01]** I'm talking about a benefit of sobriety.
**[01:08:05]** To be able to lay still for 10 or 15 minutes without a radio or a TV or anything else going on.
**[01:08:12]** Just to lay there and be still.
**[01:08:14]** I'm not taking a chance on getting up on my own.
**[01:08:18]** Without first checking to make sure that my power source is available to me.
**[01:08:24]** By checking in.
**[01:08:26]** Don't elaborate on that.
**[01:08:28]** There'll be a different thing for everybody.
**[01:08:30]** But it's a comfort to me.
**[01:08:32]** Some mornings it's a good morning sir because that's how I feel about it.
**[01:08:39]** I don't think God cares what I call him as long as I do.
**[01:08:42]** What do I call him a bully?
**[01:08:44]** I've got to call him a God damn bully.
**[01:08:48]** I was really pissed.
**[01:08:50]** He had me doing things.
**[01:08:54]** Of course I'd ask what would you have me do.
**[01:08:59]** This is old.
**[01:09:00]** Well John didn't show up.
**[01:09:01]** You can do his job.
**[01:09:02]** Bob didn't show up.
**[01:09:03]** You can do his job.
**[01:09:04]** By the way, here's your job.
**[01:09:05]** I'm busy or hell.
**[01:09:07]** And I'm not feeling too good.
**[01:09:08]** I got my own problems to take care of.
**[01:09:10]** The phone keeps ringing.
**[01:09:12]** What's my turn?
**[01:09:13]** What's my turn?
**[01:09:14]** Where's mine?
**[01:09:16]** God damn bully.
**[01:09:17]** And it was almost like a chuckle.
**[01:09:22]** It ran through me as I realized he was talking to me.
**[01:09:25]** I'm the bully.
**[01:09:28]** I told him one morning I've had enough.
**[01:09:30]** I'm taking a day off.
**[01:09:32]** It wasn't can I.
**[01:09:36]** This is what it's going to be.
**[01:09:38]** I've been on a road for nearly four years and worn out.
**[01:09:40]** I'm taking a day off.
**[01:09:42]** When the phone started to ring.
**[01:09:46]** And I hadn't gotten to that place in my life where I can just let it ring.
**[01:09:50]** I answered it and rang and rang and rang and finally I said, okay, you win.
**[01:09:57]** Whatever you have in mind is fine with me.
**[01:09:59]** And the phone quit ringing and I got the day off.
**[01:10:02]** That's kind of my relationship with God, if you will.
**[01:10:07]** It doesn't make any sense or not.
**[01:10:09]** We can only clear the ground a bit if our testimony helps sweep away prejudice.
**[01:10:19]** It enables you to think honestly and encourages you to serve yourself.
**[01:10:26]** Delegently within yourself.
**[01:10:29]** Then if you wish you could join us on the broad highway.
**[01:10:32]** There's the good news. You don't have to go anywhere.
**[01:10:34]** What you're looking for, you're looking with, it's already all there.
**[01:10:40]** Which is a little frightening.
**[01:10:41]** As I say, the last time I looked there, it didn't look too cool.
**[01:10:49]** That's where it is.
**[01:10:54]** You don't have to go anywhere.
**[01:10:55]** You don't have to read any more books. You don't even have to do anything.
**[01:10:59]** Give in to the idea.
**[01:11:04]** God is or isn't.
**[01:11:12]** You discover how to relate, how to develop this relationship.
**[01:11:16]** Relationships indicate communication, don't they?
**[01:11:19]** Almost all relationships began at the same point.
**[01:11:26]** Whether it's business or personal or whatever.
**[01:11:29]** They began at this point.
**[01:11:35]** Dustin, it begins with an acknowledgement of the presence of whatever you're going to relate with.
**[01:11:44]** Good morning.
**[01:11:46]** High.
**[01:11:47]** Hey.
**[01:11:49]** It begins with acknowledgement.
**[01:11:51]** It isn't that interesting. Most prayers begin with the same acknowledgement.
**[01:11:54]** God.
**[01:11:56]** All I got to do is acknowledge the presence and then we can begin the conversation.
**[01:12:00]** Until I acknowledge the presence, I can't begin a conversation.
**[01:12:04]** I had one kid, he'd been sponsored through the steps, one of these intellectuals.
**[01:12:08]** God, I love him.
**[01:12:10]** Oh, Shelby.
**[01:12:12]** He's a bossing right now.
**[01:12:14]** He's got one of those minds that...
**[01:12:17]** He looked at the computer and programmed it.
**[01:12:21]** Hmm.
**[01:12:23]** What's that?
**[01:12:27]** And he did the steps the same way and he came to me absolutely out of his mind.
**[01:12:32]** He was dying.
**[01:12:33]** He was doing 10 steps every day, praying rigorously.
**[01:12:38]** He was doing, doing, doing everything possible.
**[01:12:41]** He was making it even nuts.
**[01:12:43]** He was examining every possible motive and every thought.
**[01:12:46]** Did you ever get caught in that?
**[01:12:48]** I don't know why I did that.
**[01:12:49]** It must be this.
**[01:12:50]** It must be this.
**[01:12:53]** So I said, I'll sponsor you on one condition, Shelby.
**[01:12:56]** The first thing you've got to do, stop praying.
**[01:13:02]** You've been talking, if you stop praying, you're going to die.
**[01:13:06]** And I said, well, tell me.
**[01:13:09]** You've been telling me about God.
**[01:13:11]** Tell me some more about God.
**[01:13:12]** And he described this really scary thing here.
**[01:13:19]** And I said, is that what you want showing up, Shelby?
**[01:13:22]** He said, no.
**[01:13:23]** He went and quit calling his name.
**[01:13:26]** Okay.
**[01:13:27]** Stop praying.
**[01:13:28]** The second thing I want you to do is stop writing inventory.
**[01:13:32]** He said, Shelby, what do you like to do?
**[01:13:39]** He likes to go to movies and eat ice cream.
**[01:13:43]** I said, go have an ice cream cone, lighten up, Shelby, first of all.
**[01:13:48]** Go have an ice cream cone, go to a movie, and go get laid, will you?
**[01:13:54]** But we did get down to, let's stop praying to this, because that's what we'll show up.
**[01:14:10]** He went through two weeks of lightening up a little bit.
**[01:14:13]** Went to some movies and had some ice cream.
**[01:14:15]** I don't know about the other.
**[01:14:16]** I just said that to shake him up.
**[01:14:20]** He called him two weeks and he said, I'm truly feeling much better.
**[01:14:24]** But I need to pray to something.
**[01:14:28]** I need to pray.
**[01:14:30]** And we began working on finding something he could pray to.
**[01:14:35]** Now he's in his evangelistic stage.
**[01:14:39]** He went down to Birmingham, Alabama to sit them straight.
**[01:14:43]** Got him all fixed up.
**[01:14:45]** He's fine in Birmingham now.
**[01:14:47]** Moved on the Boston.
**[01:14:49]** He's so wonderfully arrogant.
**[01:14:51]** I just love him.
**[01:14:52]** We put him in with a bunch of big book people in Boston and they're not doing it right.
**[01:15:00]** They're his grandfathers for God's sake.
**[01:15:02]** They're not doing it quite.
**[01:15:04]** He's wonderful.
**[01:15:05]** He's got to deal.
**[01:15:07]** He was worshiping process.
**[01:15:12]** And it was standing in his way of a relationship with God.
**[01:15:16]** He was using the steps to manage his own life.
**[01:15:19]** And it wasn't working.
**[01:15:21]** He was worshiping Shelby.
**[01:15:23]** In that mind.
**[01:15:25]** And we'll all do that.
**[01:15:26]** It's part of the deal.
**[01:15:28]** First time through if you don't get arrogant and get evangelistic.
**[01:15:31]** I wonder what we missed.
**[01:15:35]** And I don't worry about you.
**[01:15:37]** You will get yours.
**[01:15:39]** I'm not talking about the opposite of me.
**[01:15:42]** Is she doing that?
**[01:15:44]** She should.
**[01:15:54]** Carl is freaking out.
**[01:15:55]** She doesn't want to get like that.
**[01:15:57]** Oh, it only.
**[01:15:59]** Hey, you can get through that today.
**[01:16:01]** Or you can drag it on for a couple of years.
**[01:16:03]** After a couple of years you're dangerous.
**[01:16:05]** But you can do it all the day.
**[01:16:08]** Once you get to that place, just take the salvation out of your detox.
**[01:16:12]** It doesn't matter to save as many as you can.
**[01:16:22]** Better have that.
**[01:16:28]** So after I had waited for that flash of lightning,
**[01:16:38]** it didn't come when I'd gone back and bitched with my sponsor.
**[01:16:41]** And he said to be glad you didn't have a flash of light, dummy.
**[01:16:44]** It nearly killed you all your life.
**[01:16:46]** And we examined some of those.
**[01:16:48]** And then he spent a good deal of time with me.
**[01:16:51]** Just sharing.
**[01:16:52]** Just sharing.
**[01:16:55]** The gentleness of his discovery of God.
**[01:16:59]** He said, God knows in your present shape you probably couldn't stand one more big shock anyway.
**[01:17:04]** And he would probably come to you gently.
**[01:17:06]** And he described how he had come to him gently.
**[01:17:08]** This was the killer.
**[01:17:10]** And it took a long time to get some things passed then.
**[01:17:15]** And that has been my experience.
**[01:17:18]** It's always been a gentling experience.
**[01:17:22]** But I said to him, look, how do I make this real?
**[01:17:28]** I've been to the first day before the first day of creation in my head.
**[01:17:32]** I've taken the trips.
**[01:17:34]** How do I make this real?
**[01:17:36]** God has to be present when I go to work in the morning.
**[01:17:40]** Not just when I'm in church.
**[01:17:42]** How do I make this real?
**[01:17:44]** He said, Don, God will disclose himself to you as you disclose yourself to you.
**[01:17:49]** The big book on page 57 says it a different way.
**[01:17:52]** When we drew near to him, he disclosed himself to us.
**[01:17:56]** And I drawn near to him by going back into the mess and clearing it away.
**[01:18:02]** And that's what I did.