01 - Orientation and Assignments

My name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic. Welcome to our Big Book 12step workshop. And um we're on Zoom as you know because uh we're not going to have any physical meetings for a while. This meeting originally was in Culver City and uh the meeting that I had in on Monday night was in my area here in Rancho Palace Veries. Let's take a deep breath and get comfortable because we're going I am going to be here for an hour and a half at a minimum. That's my schedule with you tonight is 7:30 to 9 Pacific Standard Time. I'm here in Los Angeles. And let's pray the serenity prayer. A prayer that's so apt for our time these days. What can I influence? What can't I influence? And I need wisdom to navigate the difference. Please join me. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Um, just as a warning, this is the first time in terms of the weekly workshops that I will be recording it. Um, and at some point they will be edited and posted on my website. these weekly workshops. I have changed my approach this year. I'm always fine-tuning things to try to be more effective in terms of delivering the message. Monday and Tuesday, as I mentioned to you, I met in two different physical locations for 25 years in Palace Veries and for 14 years in Culver City. And uh because Zoom made them redundant, I've rethought the structure and the approach. And it's quite ambitious from my standpoint and it's quite ambitious from your standpoint. If you sign up for the whole deal, I have no rules about what you do. I have none. No regulations, no guidelines, no rules. I have some suggestions. I follow the culture of Alcoholics Anonymous. Bill Wilson said very bluntly and in black and white. We don't need rules, regulations, or laws. We need guidelines. The only discipline in Alcoholics Anonymous are two. One is alcohol and one is God. You're either going for one or you're going for the other. It's pretty stark. I like the image and the metaphor of the dimmer switch. We're going from the darkness to the light. And Bill had a light switch experience. He was taken to the top of a mountain, a mystical, phenomenal 20inut experience that changed his life forever. Most of us don't have that. That's what's called a spiritual experience. Something like a light switch. Bam. And it's on. and then click and it's off instantaneously. Most of us have what's called a spiritual awakening. More about that in a little bit. And it's very slow. It's very gradual. The light goes on with the press of a button at a very low voltage and the electricity goes into the current into the wire at a very low rate and therefore the light's very dim. But as you turn the dimmer switch up a notch at a time, the dimmer switch gets brighter. And what I found is this process, this 12step methodology turns the lights on. And then if we lean into the dimmer switch and push it up a click at a time, a step at a time, a day at a time, the lights get incrementally brighter. At some point, we realize that there's enough light to see that we didn't see. And then some more clicks and some more light that we can see that we do see. And that's the dimmer switch. It's on an infinite axle. Because we're in pursuit of a relationship with infinite light, there's no end to it. Many of you have done those steps many times. Many of you have done the steps in my workshop many years in a row or with some space in between more often than just once or twice because the next time you do it, you're different and therefore the experience is different. And so what I thought I would do this year is use the two nights but as a compliment to one another. You don't need to come to both nights. Uh if you have the time and the inclination to do the work, I would recommend it. You can come to Monday night, you can come to Tuesday night, you can come to both. You can come to none of them. And you can mix and match it as as your calendar and your inclination dictates for you. But I'm going to be here and this is going to be my schedule. On Tuesday, I will be conducting a class that will be recorded very different in the sense of the workshops that I've been conducting which would have a 15minute teaching and uh an hour and 15 minute dialogue about that with the participants in the room. That's not going to be Tuesday anymore. Tuesday is going to be an hour to an hour and 15 minute teaching with PowerPoint presentation. I might even attempt to do a little bit of that tonight with the PowerPoints. I'm not sure yet. And it will be recorded and then edited so that by the end of the year I I will have a library of the workshop in terms of the teaching for people who aren't able to attend the time slot and or are in different time zones and or at different times in their lives. over the next several years. Um on Tuesday I'll do the teaching and give an assignment and then the following Monday we'll unpack the assignment uh in terms of having a dialogue about your thoughts about it, your questions about it, your experience with it and we'll share with each other and it'll be cross talk so that people in the group can talk to one another in a respectful way and in a helpful way. Um, and I think most of you know that the constituency of the group is everybody who is in a in any 12step fellowship is welcome. I started out 25 years ago for alcoholics only. It wasn't my idea. My wife's sponsor, a woman said, "Herb, I know you don't work with women, but you have a real gift for delivering the message of the 12 steps, and the women need what you have, and so we need to get some of them experienced enough that they can then carry it on their own. Would you do a group of men and women in AA?" And we started with a group of eight. And it took two years because I didn't know how to bring the message to a group that I had been bringing to individuals for a long time. And it worked. It took two years to kind of get it all together. And the it was four couples, eight people um in AA, some of them also in Alamon. [clears throat] And every one of them finished the work and every one of them had a spiritual awakening. meaning broader and deeper change in their consciousness and in their life and in their behavior. So then I started doing it for AAS and of course the drug addicts heard about it and they were included the next year and because people in the group were excited about the experiences that they were having over the full year. It was 18 months at that time. And talking about it in the community, the Alenons asked if they could come and in prayer and in conversation with my wife and uh my sponsor. It was certainly uh worthwhile to experiment with opening it up to Alanon and then anybody in a 12step program. Eventually, I opened it up to anybody who's interested in a spiritual awakening through the methodology of the 12 steps. So, there may be even people here in our meetings that are not uh in any 12step program and don't have any addiction that they're aware of, but they want a deeper relationship with reality. They want a deeper relationship with power. They want a re a deeper relationship with the spirit and they are hear about it happening as a promised result of doing this 12step work in the workshop. So Tuesday will be mostly a teaching an hour minimum with some questions around the assignment and anything else that's relevant and then the following Monday giving everybody that week and the weekend to do the assignments and to do the reading and do the writing etc. Then we will unpack it as a regular meeting. So some people will come only for the teaching on Tuesday because that's what they they're they're there to learn more about the big book and the step process and it's about learning. It's not about applying it to themselves. That's okay. Many people will come to actually apply to themselves to have the their own new experience with it. Many people will come only to the Monday night because it's going to be one of the best meetings you'll ever go to because it's focused. It's got a topic. It's got a broad uh group of people with a broad uh experience in the various addictions and their recovery. Um and uh and we'll be at some point uh the group becomes very cohesive and very vulnerable and very safe for people to share in a very courageous way. Uh very lifechanging experiences right in the workshop itself. And some people will come periodically and some people will come Monday and Tuesday and they'll do all the work and they'll apply it. All right. All right. Then and I I pray that you find your own path to your commitment to this workshop Monday and Tuesday. If in fact you miss a Tuesday, it will be recorded. I'm going to try to make sure that that recording gets posted on the web very quickly within a few days, maybe certainly within a week after the Tuesday has been concluded. Again, I got sober in 1984. A story for a different day. Um the story that will leak out over the whole year that we will be together. Um, I became awake in 1988 when I met a man in a meeting who shared for five minutes. I had been going to meetings for four years every day. That was the instruction from my sponsor. Go to a meeting every day. Call me every day. Tell me what you're thinking, feeling, and doing every day. He wanted me to learn how to be honest and to be accountable. He said, "Get a big book and work the steps." which I did in my first year on my own without any direction without any direction. I did not understand the big book. I didn't understand that I didn't understand the big book. You'll hear it more often than not. My favorite phrase, I didn't know that I didn't know. And I couldn't see that I didn't see. And unfortunately, my sponsor didn't know that. He didn't know about the big book and the step process. He passed on to me what had been passed on to him. No fault of his. And it was good enough. I stayed around. I began getting a little bit better because I wasn't practicing my alcohol. I had been given the freedom from alcohol, a gift. Alcohol was removed in terms of my inclination even to it. I stopped drinking February 21st and never had a drink after that. Never had an inclination to have a drink. I didn't go to AA for another three months. But I didn't change from 1984 to 1988. And this man in this meeting sharing for five minutes talked about a change and and he manifested it and modeled it in his behavior. He walked with confidence. He had a bearing that was I mean it was magnetic and when he shared he had words that were wisdom words and I paid attention to that because that's who I am as a seeker. I listen for knowledge. I listen for experience. I listen for wisdom. But what really attracted me was the light in his eye and the tone in his throat. He resonated when he spoke with something deep inside of me. I have an extensive academic background and um education. I've met many teachers and facilitators, but I had never been uh impacted by any of them the way this man impacted me. And it was I I didn't know it at the time, but he startled me with his words and his tone. And it was like there was a magnet in me that pointed to him. And I introduced myself after that meeting because I didn't know who he was. His name is Jerry Rush. And we spent an hour talking about what he did. But he asked me first what who I was and where I was. And I told him that I was in the seminary studying to be a Catholic priest for seven years. Yes, I was a monk for seven years. A monk in a monastery that had silence from age 17 to 24. And I loved it. I loved the camaraderie. I loved the spirituality. I loved the whole environment. And yet I left because I was beginning to do non-munkish things. Again, a story for a different day. And I studied then to be a psychologist with all of the work that you do to become a psychologist. The graduate education, the personal therapy, the training to be a therapist. I did all of that over a five-year period. I didn't become a psychologist because uh probably alcohol was the worm in the wood both with regard to my vocation in the priesthood and my uh my re uh evaluation in my uh effort at psychology and then um I did all the human development things of the 60s and the 70s and the 80s transcendental meditation uh yoga uh Lifespring, EST training, Johnny Walker, Black Label, and a little bit of Mahiji Wana and LSD. I mean, I'm a 60s and a 70s child, right? I never went out of my way for drugs drugs. Um I'm not a drug addict, but if it was in the room, I would use it. I was given freedom from all of that when I uh was asked to stop drinking to support my wife's recovery in the hospital and uh I never had an inclination to drink again. Um this man agreed to take me through the steps. He said, "Herb, you have a lot of information." Woo, a lot of information, but you have no transformation. You have a lot of academic knowledge, book learning, which has never been filtered through your heart to your feet. He said, "You believe you're a Renaissance man. You're actually a Neanderthal." Yeah, that's the way he talked. He was like Black and White. He was the CEO of Black & Decker, a Fortune 500 company. He took no prisoners. He was very direct. my kind of guy actually, as you'll see as we go along. I'm probably a little bit more tender and sensitive than he is or was in in the workshops. He began taking me through the steps in February of 1988. And by the time I finished the year, I finished the ninth step and I was changed. I didn't know that I was changing during the year, but I was changed. When I came into 1989 and I look back over my shoulder, I had been changed. My thinking, my feeling, my behavior, it was all coming now from the insides rather than being managed and controlled from the outside. I had begun to thought out as a human being. The first four years in AA, I thought out physically with my step work in 1988, I began to thaw out emotionally and spiritually. And that was the journey that took 15 years. I did the step work again in 1991 with Rod Squires, a man from Denver who lived in our area at the time, the South Bay. And then in uh 1994 I did the step work with a fellow named Joe Hawk from Santa Monica. And in 2003 I revisited the step work uh again and did the complete work over a year period uh with Mark Houston um out of Dallas, Texas. My son lived in Dallas. It made it very convenient for me to visit with him as I was visiting with my son. And each time I did the steps, I had a broader consciousness. Each time I did the steps, I had a deeper penetration into the light and uh the darkness dissipated and disappeared and my life flourishes as a result. And as a result, I've taken the amalgam of all these men's step work, their step guide information as well as the information from doing the uh workshops since 1996. And that's what I'm delivering uh to the people today who are interested in working the steps out of the big book. The big book is the only book that is really required. It's the textbook that we use and I use the uh fourth edition. If you don't have a fourth edition, it was published first in 2001. Um I really need you to get it. Uh only because the Roman numerals are different in the fourth edition. That's the only change. But if in fact you don't have the fourth edition, there'll be some confusion when I'm talking about the Roman numeral pages that I'll be talking about. If you have any other edition, you'll you won't be able to find those pages. [snorts] And if in fact you have a fourth edition already, which you probably do, um if you have any markings in it, highlights, pencils, margin notes of any substance, you use your own judgment on this. Um put it on your shelf as a historical document and get a new one. I'm really suggesting to you that you uh make a commitment to set aside your old to knowledge and your old experience so that you can have new knowledge and new experience. This man said to me, "The consciousness that created the problem cannot be the consciousness that solves the problem." He was quoting Einstein. My broken mind cannot fix my broken mind. Any thought that comes out of my broken mind will have a brokenness invested in it, buried in it. And I'm asking you to uh take a look at the way of life document I've asked you in the instructions to download from the uh website. It's a 68page document, so it's awesome. It's a big document and uh find a folder for it so that you have it with you. We'll be using that document throughout the workshop all year long. I'll be referring to it because it has schemas and outlines and concepts that uh I'll be verbalizing but you'll have it there in hard copy. Um the uh set aside prayer is uh in that first page of the way of life document and it came from many areas in the big book. The primary one I'll uh talk to you about tonight on page 58. It says some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. And this man said to me, "Can you let go absolutely of your old ideas?" And I knew it wasn't a trick question. Absolutely not. I'm invested in my knowledge. I'm invested in my experience. And I don't even know that I'm invested. I'm willing, but I can't. I'm ineffective. I'm powerless even in that area. So he said, "Create your own set aside prayer." He gave me a sample which I worked on and it's [snorts] had several iterations since then. That was 32 years ago. Um and but the one in the way of life document is the current one that we'll be using to open up uh every workshop uh beginning next week. And I suggest that you pray your prayer, whatever it is, your set aside prayer, uh, every day, every day in the morning. If you don't have a prayer practice, establish at least that as a minimum to pray that set aside prayer. And it's not a prayer to change God. Prayer doesn't change God. God doesn't change. More about that in steps two and three. But it's a prayer about my willingness to change. And prayer changes me. Somehow I don't understand how it works. I just understand that it works. Come at this process with a clean whiteboard. You're inviting the spirit to write on the whiteboard to give you new knowledge and a new experience and to take you to a place that you don't even know exists. I can say that now in retrospect as I look back over my shoulder. I did not know that this existed. A spiritual awakening as described in the big book. I read it in step groups. I read it in big book study groups. I read it regularly. And I didn't understand it because I hadn't had the experience. This is a radical transformation change. This is the metamorphosis of the monarch butterfly. If you haven't had the experience, and I'm going to recommend it, of looking at the timelapse film on Google, of the monarch butterfly. It's a meditation. It's four minutes, four minute time lapse of the seed that produces a caterpillar. The caterpillar produces the crystallis. The crystallis forms and in there the butterfly is developed and when the butterfly breaks through the crystallis it flies off as a monarch butterfly. That's who we are. We need to die to our false self. And we don't even know that we have a false self. And if you're brand new in the program, it's so true. But it's even true for those of us who are in the program for years or even decades and we can't see that we don't see and we don't know that we don't know or we might even suspect it but we can't change it. And every time I've touched this process and applied it to my personal life with the guidance of somebody who knew what they were doing and had experience, I've entered into the crystallis and I've died again. But the false Hollywood storefront that I created for my survival has be has been deconstructed. It was a cinder block wall that I created to protect myself as a survival mechanism. Rightly so early on, but it became very inappropriate. In fact, the cinder block wall that I created to protect myself became my prison. And I didn't know that I was in prison. And that's what this is about. This is about freedom. Freedom from your addiction at a minimum. That's such a minimum. I mean for some of you it would be quite a gift and quite a grace. Not only a freedom from the using but a freedom from the inclination to use. Big difference. But that's the minimum. What I received was and what each person receives as a result of doing this work is a freedom from unmanageability. Bill says we enter the world of the spirit in step 10. We enter the world of the spirit in step 10 because in step one through nine, we're dealing with the world of self and we're turned. We commit to turn in step three, but we are turned by the end of step nine. And we're given the freedom from our addiction. It says we're placed in a position of neutrality, but we're also given freedom from unmanageability, but only on a daily basis. It says we're not cured. Oh, what does that mean? Not curing from unmanageability. My will, my free will is not free in some areas. My free will will always choose me. I won't know it. I won't see it. I won't feel it. I won't be conscious of it. But I suffer as the result of self-willrun riot. What Bill talks about were extreme examples of. And he talks about the proper use of the will, our way of living. Step 10, spot check inventory when I'm disturbed. Step 11, in the morning getting guidance, and at the night cleaning up what I didn't do during the day. And step 12, living on those organic principles inside of me, not coming from outside of me, from culture or regulation or any person, but operating out of principles that grow up inside of me and determine my thoughts and my feelings and my intentions and my motivations and my behavior. All the puppet strings with circumstances and people have been cut. That's emotional sobriety. That's the right of passage from the child to the adult. I began that at age 48. This man said, "I wasn't a Renaissance man. I was a Neandrithal." And I did the fourth step and discovered the truth of that. But that was the right of passage that kept on evolving as the dimmer switch. As the light got brighter, as the light got brighter, as the light got brighter, and I evolved into that Renaissance man. You'll also need the 12 and 12. Um, I believe there's only one edition of it right from the beginning. It was published in 1951. I don't think it's been revised. If you have it, terrific. If it's got a lot of marks in it, again, you might want to think about getting a new one. And I don't feel as strongly because we don't use the 12 and 12. Um other than after each step out of the big book, I make a recommendation that you read and understand the material in the step work in the uh 12 and 12. It's a commentary. There are very few instructions in the 12 and 12. I'm a big book literalist and fundamentalist. Meaning I read what's in the book and I try to understand it. The dictionary will be very important to you to try to understand the words that Bill wrote in the big book. I have a dictionary from 1920 because that was the environment that Bill was educated in. Those are the definitions that he used when he used the big book. when he wrote the big book. I have a dictionary from 1900, a very large Webster dictionary to do a little bit more work. I have a dictionary, a current dictionary, so that I see the the current connotation of words that were used in 1930 that we wouldn't be using them that way today. I'm not suggesting that you uh use an approach with more than one dictionary. I'm not suggesting that. I'm suggesting the importance of the dictionary in terms of understanding the words and I'll be giving specific assignments with regard to that. This is not a big book study and this is not a step study. [sighs] This is a workshop where we will apply the suggestions and the instructions precisely that are in the big book and interpret them precisely as in the big book and we'll be applying those to our personal lives. Now obviously there are some things in the big book that need interpretation. They don't have clear instruction. They don't have clear application. And over time and with the teachers that I've had, the step guides that I have um we've interpreted the big book and I'll be sharing that with you. This is not a 12step meeting. This is a gathering of people who are interested in working through a process to have a spiritual awakening. The process happens to be the 12 steps out of the book Alcoholics Anonymous, but I'm in I I am and the workshop is in no way connected to any 12step fellowship. I want to be really clear on that. Although I I attempt to adhere to the traditions and the spirit of the traditions. Um in Alcoholics Anonymous, the whole point is expressed in step 12. The point of the workshop, the point of the steps. Why do we work the steps? Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. That's it. That's the mission statement. That's the value proposition. Having had a spiritual awakening. So, we should know what that is. That's your first assignment. There's a re a suggestion that you download the assignments from the website. I've already talked about the way of life document. That's a resource manual for you. But now I'm talking about a probably a 30page assignment manual that has very clear defined assignments in it. 30 assignments. We'll not do one assignment a week. We're going to do pieces of assignments um over the time that we're together in the year. And this first page, this first assignment is one that I'm directing you to right now, which is I've already told you about the big book and the uh set aside prayer. The primary assignment is to read appendix 2 from the back of the big book. Read and highlight. It's a page and a half. It talks about a spiritual awakening and a spiritual experience. What how what are they? How are they the same and how are they different? How are they the same and how are they different? Build goes to a very wonderful level of detail to share that with us. the very first printing of the big book in 1939 step 12 read having had a spiritual experience as the result of these steps but then when he got a lot of grief from people who said we we we're not going to have your mountaintop mystical experience Bill that sudden white light experience that you had Bill understood that and he changed the step step 12 changed in the second printing of the first edition 1941 and it reads having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps. That's when he put appendix 2 in the back of the book in that second printing to explain why he made the change and what a spiritual experience and what a spiritual awakening are, how they are the same and how they are different. And we'll look at that next week. The following week I will be giving you the assignment on step 11 about meditation so that you have uh access to that tool of prayer and meditation in an understandable practical way and be able to use that while we're beginning our journey and throughout our journey. And then the following week I'll give you the instruction on step 10 and we'll unpack that. And you might notice I'm going backwards. Yeah, that's quite a innovative approach, Herb. You're going backwards in the steps. You start with 10, you excuse me, you start with 12, you go to 11, and you go to 10. That's very iconoclastic of you. Yes, it actually is. It happened three years ago when Hazelton asked me to write a book on meditation, which I did. And um in our discussion, we agreed that I would write the first chapter on meditation. The whole broad area of intentional consciousness, prayer, meditation, contemplation, transcendental meditation, mindfulness, etc. The whole genre of intentional consciousness in the first chapter so that we could understand the difference between prayer, meditation, and contemplation etc. But then to take a look at in the following chapters each of the steps through the lens of prayer meditation looking at step one through the lens of power looking at steps two and three through the lens of power. Bill calls it our way of living. Bill says this is the work that we do that is the daily reprieve that allows us to stay fit spiritual condition. What a better way to approach the each of the steps than with a fit spiritual condition. Oh, so right now I want you to um ask yourself a question. I've been talking for a while and give you a little break and pause here. Uh uh I'm going to ask you to ask yourself two questions. Now, there's a an approach to a question that one of my teachers gave me some time ago. He's a Franciscan priest, Richard Roar, R O HR. He's a prophet and a mystic and a prolific writer, one of my key teachers. And uh he said we ask a question in the meu of prayer and we hold the question an asked but unanswered question in prayer and allow the spirit to bubble the question and to take us to a place that we don't even know exists. very much in the set aside spirit. We ask a question, hold it. Not ready, fire, aim. Ready, aim, fire. Much more effective. Hold the question and then write an answer. I'm asking you to do that in the meu of the serenity prayer that we prayed at the beginning and maybe even some thoughts you had about the set aside prayer as I shared my experience about that. Two questions really simple. Number one, why are you here? Thousands of people got the invitation to flyer or were told by other people or were directed by their sponsors, but they're not here. You are. You had a very, very specific invitation that you heard and responded to at the very least to come and kick the tires tonight to see what this Herb K is all about. Why are you here? I want you to date it. I want you to write your answer once you've paused and held it for a little bit that question. And it could be as simple as my sponsor told me to or my good friend told me to or I came across it on the internet and it seemed like a good idea and I'll I'll I'll try it out tonight. I mean, there's no right or wrong answer. There's no right or wrong answer. But if you're with us 12 months from now when we finish, I'll be giving you another question to ask as you ponder looking back over your shoulder at the journey from January to December to see if in fact there's been that shift in consciousness that Herb talked about in that orientation meeting. So this is sort of establishing the base level for you to be able to use as a criteria in 11 or 12 months. [snorts] First question. The second question, what is your source of suffering? What is your primary source of suffering? Notice I didn't ask you what your primary suffering is. That's interesting, but that might be symptomatic. I asked, "What is your primary source of suffering?" Do the best you can. There's no right or wrong answer. There's just your thoughts and your feelings and your reaction to the questions that I'm asking. And write that also right next to the answer that you wrote for question number one. Why are you here? That piece of paper is dated. You might want to scotch tape it to the inside cover of your big book or your binder if you have a binder now for your [snorts] way of life document and your assignments so that you can find it in six months or a year. I'll be asking you to look for it in about 11 months. But it'll be very interesting to evaluate in 11 months if you do this work or merely just show up uh what your level of consciousness and your source of your suffering is in comparison with this January. I want to be very clear. I am not trained to do anything. I'm not degreed. Although I did the graduate work in philosophy and psychology and theology, I never completed the degree work. Alcohol probably was underneath all of that left turns. And yet all of that exposure is probably what built me and gave me had has given me the capability of doing what I do today. I don't have any certificates. I'm not an expert. I'm just a person who has some knowledge and some experience and I'm going to share that knowledge and experience with you. Uh my image is I'm a lantern that stands by the path that I walk. I shine the light of my experience on the path. I'm not the light. I'm a channel of the light. I shine the light on the path that I walked, the light of my experience so that you can walk the path in the light of my experience and have your own experience. I'm not interested in creating little herbs. I'm very interested in you recreating yourself, allowing the crystallis to form for you to die, the false you and for the real you to emerge and so that your you can say about your life that it flourishes. I've been saying it for 32 years. My life flourishes. Do I have problems every once in a while? Of course. I was married 52 years. My wife died three years ago. Big problem. These are speed bumps of life. This is reality. That's what that serenity prayer is all about. Dealing with the speed bumps. [snorts] This process gives us shock absorbers to be able to deal effectively with the speed bumps. I have we have three adult children and seven grandchildren. And uh as I say, I've been sober for almost 37 years and awake for 32. I do uh announce the pass the basket um sometime during the meeting and it's really part of the seventh tradition for regular 12step meetings. I do have expenses that I have incurred and will continue to incur. There are monthly expenses to support the work that I do both the technology as well as the equipment and the power for the technology as well as administrative support that I hire actually to support me with the technology. Um, so, uh, it's I don't have any rules or regulations about anything, especially about money. I'm not here to earn any money. I don't make any money from this. I do it as part of my uh, commitment to No, no, no. That's too cold. It's part of my passion. [snorts] I I was a seeker for 48 years, and I wasn't a finder. And I didn't know that I wasn't a finder. I didn't even know that finding was the issue. I thought seeking was the issue. And at age 48, I began to find. And over time, I I began to be aware that I now had found what I was looking for in the monastery, what I was looking for in therapy, what I was looking for in self-help, and what I was even looking for and not finding in AA. I mean, I found it eventually in AA, but I didn't find it for the first five years. And uh once I I I was lit up with the light, I cannot not share that light with you. Uh it's I retired in 2006 from a career I loved, but so that I could dedicate myself full-time to this. Not not because of the money. Fortunately, I'm in a position where I I I don't need the money, but I do want to offset my hard expenses um on a monthly basis uh for the work that I do. Um so, do it's not about the money. Do the best you can. If if you can support a dollar, terrific. If you can support the suggested $5, that's great. If you can do more, that's great. Um we it's a community and uh we had a tradition speaker uh probably 20 years ago. I used to do traditions workshops and retreats. Uh he broke the code for how to stay inflation adjusted with regard to the basket. It was brilliant. He said I just put in what the price of a drink is today. [laughter] [gasps] Well, I don't know what a price of a drink is, but I was at a dinner with some folks the other day and I did pay the check and they had what do they call that? Uh just a glass of wine was $12. I mean, it's kind of like, wow, glad I stopped drinking. I couldn't afford to drink today. But anyway, uh inflation adjusted. Figure out what it is that you are willing to support us with. That'll be great. And some people do it every week and some people do it once a month and some people do it quarterly. You'll figure out the rhythm if in fact you want to contribute. Next week I'll be giving uh the additional assignments. I want to be really clear on the assignment. Get a big book. Get three highlighters. Three different color highlighters. We'll not use them until we get to step two. But as long as you're buying a highlighter for the work that we do, because anytime you read, I want you to use a highlighter. Read with purpose. I found that a highlighter helps me unpack the words in the big book. Most of the time I'll give you a question like I did with the spiritual awakening appendix 2. I said, "How are they the same and how are they different?" When you read with that question in mind and you have a highlighter, you'll go, "Oh, that's an answer to that question. Oh, that's an answer to that question." You might even have a pen by you. It's the way I operate. And I make margin notes sometimes when I'm reading something and a thought strikes me or a feeling strikes me about what I'm reading. And so um I will be giving uh additional assignments next week but this one is of the big book and the set aside prayer and reading appendix to the spiritual awakening. That's the the total assignment for next week. Now, on Monday, I'm going to have a meeting with the people who show up, and we'll have lots of time for questions concerning the workshop and any other questions that people want to do. Monday night will just be a meeting with me and you, and we'll have an exchange of experience and and questions concerning the workshop. And then Tuesday I'll start formally with the teaching and the unpacking of spiritual awakening and giving the assignment as I indicated uh I would do with regard to assignment two. You don't need to look at assignment two right now. Assignment one is all you need right now. Um and then I'll do it I hope very uh incrementally so that we can begin to get some traction. [sighs and gasps] Many many of you have not been in a workshop with me. Many of you have not been in school for a long time. Um it's going to be kind of feel like that. Um my suggestion is that you do not wait until you have time to do the work in between the workshops. So on at some point I'm going to be unpacking spiritual awakening. All right. Uh after we uh teach it next week and um if you wait until the night before or the day of the workshop, you won't get as much out of it. If you wait until you have time in order to do the work, you'll never do it because all of us are really busy people. If you wait till you have time, you won't do it. So if you have a day planner or if you don't begin to have something that you can make an appointment with yourself from here till the time we meet again to look at the assignment and say okay on I can do 15 minutes a day or I can do an hour on Saturday and I can do an hour on Monday and make an appointment with yourself like you would with a Doctor, this is a planning your work and then you work your plan. But if you don't plan it, you'll eventually get behind sufficiently that you'll abandon the workshop because you'll feel that you're not connected anymore. Now, if you're here just for the meeting and the community and the exchange and the experience, that's just fine. That that probably doesn't apply as much to you. Uh, I'm going to stop in a little bit, five minutes, maybe 10 minutes, and and field questions from you concerning what I've shared or what I haven't shared so that you can ask questions about things that are of concern to you with regard to the workshop. I would rather not have questions concerning the steps themselves. Um, because this is an orientation and I want to answer people's questions about that. And so you could be thinking about that. Maybe you have some notes and then you will want to raise your hand and you're welcome to begin doing that. Now I will call on you in the order of the hands raised um on in the icon and uh Tanya had mentioned how to do that. The process is just like that. It's prayer that's set aside. It's a reading with a highlighter with a question in mind. um re reviewing the assignments that I give, reflecting on them, actually writing out your answers and then we get together to discuss them. It's really an important methodology that I discovered in the hospital when uh my wife was there for her alcoholism and uh they asked me a question. What is your relationship with alcohol? Well, I I was 43 years old. I had a wonderfully reflective background as I mentioned and I had never been asked that question. Oh, I've done a lot of autobiographies, but that's not what they asked me. They asked me to do an autobiography of my relationship with alcohol. What was my experience? When did I first have a drink? What did I drink? What was the impact? What was my behavior? What was the outcome? I was 12 years old and I drank a quart of whiskey and a six-ack of beer with my fellow from 8th grade and um I got knee buckling drunk. I blacked out. I passed out and I threw up. Oh, as I wrote that I hadn't remembered it for 30 years, but as I wrote out now in in bullet points my uh autobiography, I I went into the seminary, the monastery for seven years. There was no alcohol. I came out and I began drinking again and I drank all there was and I got knee buckling drunk and I blacked out and I passed out and I threw up. The pattern I could see writing it out that there was a pattern. I began connecting the dots. A DUI in in 1968. DUI is drunk driving arrest here in California. Another one in 1971. uh hospitalization for a single car accident due to alcohol in 1974. And and I'm writing this out and I hadn't remembered or or connected any of these dots for diver. And then I read it out to a group of inpatient men in that hospital and it exploded in me. Oh my god, I think I have a drinking problem. So, as I look back on that methodology, that's what I've incorporated here. And it's the way that Bill uh his literary style in the big book. He asks the question, he gives us some information. He asks us to reflect and pray about it. Then he asks us to discuss it with somebody. That's the methodology of the of the workshop as we go forward. And I'll point that out when Bill uses that technique in his literary style in the big book. You can only see what you can see in my image is I have lots of images because they really help me communicate as well as I think help you understand what I'm trying to get at in my experience [sighs and gasps] is to lean against the dimmer switch. Look at my hands. to lean against the dimmer switch so that as you lean against the dimmer switch you push it forward so that it doesn't go backwards. Dr. Tibo was a psychiatrist that was helping Bill both personally as a therapist but also uh professionally in structuring the uh the new um fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. And he said Bill got it right. Dr. Harry Tibo Bill got it right. The first nine steps are for the deflation of the ego at depth. The first nine steps are for the deflation of the ego at depth. But the ego has an uncanny way of regenerating itself. See, that's what Bill captured in step 10 when he says we're not cured. We can press against the dimmer switch and the dimmer switch will bring the lights up and there will be more energy, more current, more electricity in the channel and the lights will get brighter. But if in fact we let up, the dimmer switch is hardwired to go backwards. It doesn't just stay where we pushed it. It's hardwired triggered to go backwards. If I don't stay gently pressed up against it and the lights will go down and get dimmer, we won't know they're getting dimmer because it's so subtle and it's so imperceptible, but the darkness is descending and eventually there'll be sufficient darkness that we'll be back in our addiction and relapse and eventually death. That's the promise, isn't it? So I my image is no violence here. No. Oh, work, a lot of work, a lot of hard work, a lot of suffering as a result of the work because of the embarrassment and just the time it takes. But it's like soul surgery. The Oxford group, your predecessor group to Alcoholics Anonymous calls this work that we're going to be doing soul surgery because we're asking the divine surgeon to come in and cut out the cancers of self-centeredness in us. so that they won't metastasize and squeeze out our physical life, but more especially squeeze out our emotional and spiritual life. These are the clouds in us that block us from the sunlight that is in us. The clouds in us bring the darkness because they block the sunlight from having contact with us. And when the clouds are removed, the sunlight makes contact with us and then through us to other people. That's my image of how steps 11 and 12 work. Soul surgery. Great term. Step nine says that this is painstaking work. Some people interpret that as pain. And and I looked that up in the dictionary when I was doing this work. Painstaking just means careful with details, diligent, meticulous with detail. It doesn't mean pain at all. It doesn't cannote pain. It just means careful with the planning and the detail. Now, I mentioned that I didn't get all of this the first time. I got some of it. I'll talk about that the the incremental parts later on. That's not relevant right now. I got some of it in 1988. A sufficient amount that I was radically changed. And I didn't know there was more because I never had what was given to me in 1988. In 1991, as I did the work again, the lights got brighter. In 1994, it was a two-year project. It was a very contemplative project, and the lights got huge. which I'll talk about that later on. In 2003, it was okay. Um, it was a good exercise, but it wasn't as bringing as much light because there's it was more subtle at that point. Uh, the the point of all of that is not to impress you. The point of that is to communicate to you that this is a process. That dimmer switch that goes up a notch at a time reveals a little bit of light cumulatively over time. And one of the pundits in AA said, "You cannot make a tulip grow by pulling on it." Yeah. Yeah. You cannot make a tulip grow by pulling on it. There's no violence here. It's an organic thing. We do the best we can knowing that it's not the best we can and we do it anyway. And it works.