22 Step Three - Commitment to Relationship (BB p.62-63)

well good evening good morning good afternoon good day welcome to our big book 12-step weekly workshop my name is herb i'm an alcoholic this call is being recorded please join me in the revised set aside prayer god please set aside everything that i think i know about myself my unmanaged ability the 12 steps in you for an open mind and a new experience with myself my unmanaged ability the 12 steps and especially you please join me in the serenity prayer 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 my intention today is to take us through the final phase of step three to take a look at the answer to the question the way i posed it last time offering my interpretation of bill's big book description of the approach to step three was to take a look at pages 58 to 60 primarily as his warm-up to the his sort of a preface a forward to the third step and then he asks us the abcs and then he asks us two questions what do we mean by that turning our will and our life over to the care of god what do we mean by that and what do we do it's a similar literary style that we accom that we saw in step two on page 45 said we need power that's the lack of power is our dilemma and he asks us two questions there at the beginning of the forward two the introduction to step two well where are we going to find that power and how are we going to find that power and we navigated that material in chapter 4 answering that question finally on page 55. these are not throwaway comments on my part this is an effort to really delve deeply into an understanding of step three so that when we take step three next week it will have a profound meaning to you at the very least and it might even have some experience which is what bill suggests on page 63 and we'll get there today in step two we looked at our decision about power my concept that's the critical part my concept it's just a decision a faith decision an empty decision by all measurements but what's my alternative i've tried religion i've tried psychology i've tried self-help i've tried school and learning i've tried self-will it does not only not work with regard to my addiction it doesn't work with regard to my life and this willingness bill says to choose a power other than ourself in blind faith it really is he doesn't say that but he asks us on page 53 god is or god isn't what is your choice and he said that willingness is the cornerstone on a spiritual arch through which we walk to a new freedom it's a very important architectural analogy which he's going to reinforce in step three and we will talk about that tonight because it's literally referred to in pages 62-63 step 3 so misunderstood we had a robust discussion last night about people's understanding or attitude or or or habit conditioned response to step three and they were using words that they actually didn't really understand or they didn't know the meaning of or they had just heard them repeated that they accepted them as true and once i began confronting them with the meaning of the questions they were like deer in headlines which is a little bit of the experience we had last tuesday i believe with people and maybe more so tonight made a decision to turn there's no surrender here first of all the word surrender surrenders not in the big book not at all in the big book pages 1 to 164 the word surrenders not to be found now if i found it in step 1 it would make sense complete defeat i surrender but in step three look at it made a decision that's an active role on my part the use of my free will to turn that's an active decision to move my feet in a direction to move my attitude into direction to move my feelings in a direction to turn well now we get a little murky our will and our lives well what do we mean by that and and and and really what do we do those are the two key questions bill asks us that i prompted you with just a minute ago but notice it does not say over to god please this is not an accident it says we turn our will and our lives over to the care of god that word is the central word that signals the grace part the word turn made a decision to turn is the central word that signals the willingness part like step two there's a mystery here a connection between my willingness and action and grace i can't explain it i can only observe it it's not this clear in the big book because bill doesn't use this word but it is clear when you read and understand the big book and builds models and analogies and metaphors so i'm saying up front and then i'll demonstrate later on in my comments why i've come to this use of this word step three is about a relationship step two is about a concept my choice of a concept my decision for a concept step two an act of faith step three is my decision for a relationship bill said on page 55 this whatever this power is it's deep down inside of me so therefore it's available to me and i need to have a relationship with this power in order to deal effectively with my addiction and then to deal effectively with my unmanageability a relationship with power and you get to choose what that means the big book doesn't it has some synonyms it has some suggestions some words some phrases that you're welcome to use for step two and for step three that's why i i challenged you to challenge yourself with the question what relationship do you yearn for oh i love that word it's a juicy word not in your head and not in your heart those are good but i said in the bones in your cellular structure in the very soul of your soul at the deepest possible level that's the tension that yearning that led you to your addiction because you thought you could quell that yearning by alcohol or you could satisfy that yearning by drugs or you could complete yourself and have homeostasis a very fancy word for balance if you only had the proper relationship enough money enough reputation enough physical beauty or power and none of it ever works i quoted pascal in step two and i'll do it again here in the context of what i just said he's a philosopher but what he said is a poetic mystical statement the hole in us is in the shape of god in the shape of this power in the shape of this reality whatever it is this life force this organismic life force step three a decision for power my relationship i'm going to now next week say a prayer in community altogether that's a commitment a public witness commitment to my effort at steps four through nine that's what step three is there's no real action other than the prayer there's an understanding there's a decision there's a commitment there's a prayer the decision is a commitment to do steps four through nine four through nine remember it said on page 58 and we looked at at the very beginning of our workshop six months ago are you willing to go to any length and what does that mean on page 58 we decided that we would go to any length dash it talks about steps finishing the steps indicating the journey from step four through nine the journey to freedom from addiction the journey to freedom from unmanageability i say it those two ways because it's about the first and the second half of step one the minimum promise is freedom from addiction that first half of step one the maximum promise is the freedom from our unmanageability on a daily basis as long as in fact we live this way of life a life of principle a life of consciousness a life of compassion steps 10 11 and 12. bill says this is the keystone the keystone which is the building block at the very peak of the arch that holds the entire arch together my own sponsor uses a different word he's more mechanically oriented he uses the word lynch pin it's a mechanical device that holds a lot of moving parts together but bill uses in the big book staying with the spiritual arch through which we walk to a new freedom that he started on page 47. he uses the term keystone well let's take a look at the big book i mentioned that on page 60 he asks those two questions after the abcs being convinced of the abcs in the same way we asked at the end of unmanageability are you convinced of the need for power that's the foundation of this spiritual arch through which we walk to a new freedom that we're willing to make this ambiguous faith decision in step two and this huge commitment in step three to do steps four through nine that we decided to turn our will and our life over to the god as we understood god just what do we mean and just what do we do and i make the suggestion that pages 60-62 is the part that we looked at in unmanageability a a description of the underlying cause and condition of the bedevil months bill says on page 15 62 that selfishness self-centeredness is the root that's what we mean that we're extreme examples of self will run riot that's what we mean that we made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt that's what we mean that our troubles are of our own making that's what we mean we must be rid of this selfishness that's what we mean then he hammers us god makes that possible so he's going to tell us now in the same way he told us to think about ask yourself the question in step one and in step two in step one how are you doing are you powerless over your addiction are you powerless over your life in step two yes we're asking you to make a decision but do you really have the competency and the power and the adequacy to do that and now in step three he is intimating yes you make a decision to turn your will in your life over to the care of god do you have the power to do that there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of this self without god's aid he's setting the bar very high many of us had moral and phys philosophical convictions galore but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to we do what we don't want to do and we don't do what we want to do that was the bullseye target for unmanageability wasn't it but here's the nail in the coffin for step one unmanageability but it's worthwhile reminding us of that here because it's the launching pad for step three neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power we had to have god's help in the same way he framed addiction on page 43 there'll come a time and a place where we'll have no mental defense against our addiction here he's saying we have no no not just mental we have no power over our self-centeredness we can't even reduce it much by wishing or trying on our own power hopeless and helpless and yet fully responsible so this is the how in the hawaii but now on page 62 i'm beginning to look at some new material for us pages 60-62 was an answer to the question what do we mean pages 62 and 63 the balance is going to be an answer to what do we do this is the how and the why of it first of all we had to quit playing god oh yeah that's what the bedevilments were all about me and my self-centeredness the person suffering from the bedevilments from this self-centeredness not only believes that they are the center of their life they are they believe that they are the center of the world maybe not consciously but that's how we unconsciously operate and you may not be convinced of that at this point but the end of the fourth step if you've never done one out of the big book you will be convinced oh my god i thought i was the center of the universe and that my script is what reality should be and when it's not i have justifiable anger or some other negative reaction because life is not living up to my expectations that's the bottom line of step four so he tells us why why we need to quit playing god next sentence he says we need to quit playing god it didn't work well that's why we're here so next and here we are now going to take on some of the understanding of why i use the term relationship we decided that hereafter in this drama of life bill loves the stage the theater that kind of drama and i'll continue using that as a very helpful image and metaphor as we go through the various steps god was going to be our director well if god is our director capital d look at that that's a synonym for higher power what's the opposite a director is related to an actor remember the example he used even in pages 60-62 the actor that wants to run the whole show next line he is the principal he gives us the opposite here we are the agent our relationship principal capital p the person in charge the owner agent the duly represented person who's given some power to represent the principle god is the father and we are the children today it probably would be worded parent just to neutralize it but again it's about a relationship there's two more relationships as i've seen them on page 63 that second line he says we had a new employer oh employer employee i've heard people say my god my employer is god now my real employer is god so i'm here to serve god oh i work for a living but that's a second priority it's never been my relationship but i do understand it it has lots of implications for a very healthy life i'm talking about a healthy definition of a word not not something that has because every word has the negative possibilities and then in the next paragraph page 63 there's another term maker in that second line many of us said to our maker i don't actually like the word so i use creator in my translation of it it's the same word maker of a pottery creator of a pottery but the opposite of maker is made and of creator is created so again we're talking about a relationship all right so let's go back to page 62. most good ideas are simple and this concept was the keystone well what concept is that just have to ask myself what's bill talking about here i think relationship it's the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we pass to freedom freedom has two connotations i want you to really embrace that well or at least understand the way i say it whether you embrace it or not that's up to you of course but freedom has two major implications and that's why it keeps talking about the two halves of the first step the first half of the first step is the bondage of addiction the second half of the first step is the bondage of self unmanageability after step 9 in step 10 at the beginning bill says we enter the world of the spirit we are placed here the grace we are placed in a position of neutrality with regard to our addiction that's freedom from the addiction and later on he said we have a daily reprieve freedom from our unmanageability freedom from our self-centeredness freedom from the spiritual malady but there's a condition there and the condition is that we commit to and practice and embrace the daily way of life step 10 step 11 step 12 keeping the channel clear in step 10 spot check inventory filling the channel in the morning with grace with god with life with guidance step 11 meditation inventory at night in step 11 to keep the channel clear bill said inventory and meditation are hand in glove we need to keep the channel clear so that the channel can be filled with light we'll stay with that and then step 12 and practice these principles and all our affairs principles he refers to the steps as principles as we saw on page 60. these principles are guides to progress not perfection guides to progress handrails guardrails principles that's why in the back of the way of life document i've attempted to stand on the shoulders of other people who have made lists of principles and i've word smith them to fit my own knowledge and experience and you might find that helpful to see what the principles at least from my perspective are for each of the steps the definition of the principle the description of the action that comes from it the virtue that it represents will would make that page would make a wonderful source of daily meditation for a while and then make it your own in some way all right page 63. when we sincerely took such a position i'm a big book literalist and fundamentalist what are we talking about don't just read it and know the words and think you know what he's talking about what's he talking about what position oh this relationship with the power other than myself you might ask yourself even right now and i will ask you to ask yourself that as part of the assignment going forward for next week you made a decision about a concept in step two what concept did you choose and what is the connotation of that in terms of a relationship you might have chosen father or mother well then the connotation is a parent a child a protector a supporter a nourisher a teacher i used that term teacher or mentor once for my own relationship because i needed more information i needed knowledge i needed a guide a mentor at that particular time in my life and i chose that i was there to listen and take direction each stage of our life might dictate a different relationship with reality in a different relationship with higher power with god as we don't understand it when we sincerely took this position that has made a decision to have a relationship all sorts of remarkable things followed okay here's now he's going to articulate the third step promises right here he's going to give us the value proposition to try to motivate us that this is a good idea to make this commitment we had a new employer so we could just say relationship we had a new relationship brand new or maybe it's just a refurbished and polished relationship despite the fact that we've encouraged you to have a set-aside attitude which is the intention of having an open mind and an open heart it's not a throwaway prayer so if you have a relationship with a power other than yourself that is totally satisfactory to you i'm not asking you to throw it away or even set it aside as long as you've approached it with an open mind and open heart to see if in fact you're being invited to an upgrade a larger concept a larger expectation a larger hope being all-powerful well there you go bill is coming from a christian milieu let's be honest the oxford group was started by a lutheran and at the time bill was involved was being run by episcopalians definitely hardcore christian evangelical bible reading bible following ten commandments sermon on the mount eight beatitudes that was their grist for their mill is that one of your attributes for this power other than yourself all-powerful god provides what we need let's take a look at that it says god provides what we need it doesn't say god provides what we want bill is fabulous with his accuracy philosophically theologically psychologically god provides what i need and there's two conditions here this paragraph is a meditation and i'm doing it with you right now the two conditions are if i keep close to god and perform god's work well well let's take a look at that we could run by that and go yeah yeah i got it no no no god will provide what i need if i keep close to god well what on earth does that mean how do you keep close to god hmm step 11 sounds like that might be the ticket to improve my conscious contact with god sounds like the answer to me prayer in meditation well then we go on to the next phrase and perform god's work well what does that even mean perform god's work well what's god's work now every one of you might have a different answer to that my answer was the same as the ten commandments basically to have a contributing relationship with the humanity around me to have decent relationships as a social being to contribute to my community at least not to create any damage well that sounds like step 12 doesn't it practicing principles of civilization of decent human living carrying the message to other people what message is that oh that you can have a spiritual awakening that's the only message that's implied in step 12. there's many interpretations they're all healthy they're all fine my interpretation of step 12 is it's saying the message that we're carrying is that you can have a spiritual awakening you can have freedom freedom from your addiction and freedom from your humanity in the sense of the burden of your bedevils and your self-centeredness that's the message freedom so let's read it in the context of my interpretation being all-powerful god provides what i need if i do step 11 and step 12. that is not a stretch from my standpoint that's a promise and when i look back over the 32 years since i did this work i know the promise has been fulfilled sometimes slowly sometimes quickly now i'm 37 years sober i didn't do the steps the first five years i was given the grace of abstinence freedom from alcohol but i lived in technicolor those bedevils because i i was at that time an unrecovered unconscious narcissist because of the step work that has been modified and mitigated it's never cured all right let's go on with the promises established on such a footing architectural analogy again this is the foundation this is the keystone this is the cornerstone we became less and less interested in ourselves here the dimmer switch i had a conversation with somebody the other day who thought the dimmer switch was something negative that you had to deal with because the lights were always going down that's not the way i use the term dimmer switch it's the switch that goes up and down and i don't know what you would call it to connote that it's going up toward the light rather than going down toward the darkness so i call it the dimmer switch i think the official electronic name for it is real stat but that's just too awkward and clumsy so i'll continue with the dimmer switch but my imp the implication of that is that it it's we press it on with a little bit of light and a little bit of willingness and a whole lot of grace and the lights go on and then with the step work and our shoulder leaning into the dimmer switch we push that dimmer switch up a notch at a time and the i complicate the metaphor by saying that the dimmer switch is on a trip trigger to go backwards it is naturally pre-programmed to go backwards that dimmer switch toward the darkness dr tebow the psychiatrist that was instrumental in helping bill in many different ways back in the when they were writing the big book he said 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 death he said he got it right absolutely but the ego has an uncanny way of regenerating itself and that's why bill uses the term daily reprieve we're not cured and my image is that i lean gently now i'll use my hands here i lean gently i lean gently into the dimmer switch with my shoulder with my effort with my willingness with my action and i push it forward one notch at a time and the lights get a little brighter and the lights get a little brighter and the lights get a little brighter now the background to the dimmer switch is that it's an infinite power it's an infinite light that we're in contact with and we're becoming more conscious and therefore there is more light as the dimmer switch goes up a notch at a time established on such a footing we became less and less interested in ourselves so the dimmer switch is giving us a process reproval here all right more and more hear the turning hear the process as well as the promises more and more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life less self-centered more other centered in the healthy sense not in the codependent sense in the healthy sense establishing our true self in independence as claudia uh melody beatty says melody beatty when she talks about codependent no more and the solution is for the individual to become independent and then for the individual to become interdependent and she calls the balance between independent and interdependent undependent undependent it's a brand new word it didn't catch on but it's a great word that challenges us to think about that's the balance of being a decent human being holding on to yourself at the same time building healthy relationships with other people as we felt new power flow in i've adopted the word flow recently as i've mentioned many times for the concept of power flow with a capital f reality is a flow life is a flow evolution is the flow of life and reality as we felt new power flow in process promise as we enjoyed peace of mind beginning to hear the echo of the nine step promises as we discovered we could face life successfully as we became conscious of god's presence we began to lose our fear of today tomorrow or the hereafter today losing the fear of today losing the fear of tomorrow but i wonder what he means by losing the fear of the hereafter oh that would be death from my interpretation i don't have a fear of death i do have a fear not overwhelming or blocking me of the passage from here to there if there's suffering involved i just don't like suffering i don't know many people that do but then a very charismatic term at the end look at this phrase he probably picked up from the oxford group we were reborn now there's a promise we're given a new life we're given a new start in fact a little bit later on he says this is only a beginning see that's why i call it the first stage of the rocket launch steps one two and three we get in the rocket the rocket takes off and the rocket's gonna take us where it takes us but we know from watching film or documentaries that the people inside the astronauts they do a lot of work in there to keep it on path to communicate about the path and then once it's in orbit to keep it adjusted on a daily basis to keep it in orbit the the metaphor is magnificent for us that second stage being four through seven steps four through seven that second stage removing the obstacles in us so that we can have an effective relationship with power and with ourselves step one through three is a relationship with power steps four through seven is our relationship with ourself and then that final stage of the launch into orbit steps eight and nine which removes the obstacles in us to our relationship with other people so we've got the three relationships with power with ourself and with others and we're in orbit around the light and we stay in orbit as long as we make those daily adjustments that we talked about steps 10 11 and 12. bill calls it our way of life we were reborn okay so now he's be going to be very bold here he's going to give us a prayer i don't know the origin of the prayer maybe by the end of the year i will i'm beginning to read a book on the construction of the big book but bill's prayers have stood up over time over many people's scrutiny and in fact he says in a paragraph down below i'll read it in a minute that the wording is quite optional but this is the one he suggests as a result of that the wording is quite optional statement i've challenged you literally in the instructions to write your own third step prayer not to improve the one in the book that's not my purpose you might try it's your choice but to understand the one in the book because when you have to put your words on paper as synonyms for these words you have to understand these words the great exercise i'll do it again in the seven step prayer these were wonderful exercises for me that got me underneath the meaning of and the nature of and the phrases and the words i'm not going to spend any time on the prayer that's for you to do if you've done that tonight and we have time i think we will you're welcome to read your prayer for us so that we have a sense of what you did as well as maybe some things ideas and words that we could use many of us said to our maker so there's the fifth relationship at least the ones that i've remarked on creator in italics as we understood god once again it's your choice at the end of the prayer a little bit down in that paragraph he says we thought well before taking this step making sure we were ready he's got a lot of high standards in this section as i mentioned last week reminiscent of the absolutes of the oxford group he doesn't use that term the absolutes but he certainly has that mentality here in the step three ideals and and very high standards we thought well before we taken this step making sure we were ready that we could at last abandon ourselves utterly to god really no i don't think so i i don't think i'm ready to do that utterly abandoned utterly the last time i saw utterly is on page 45 in the context of unmanageability bill was starting out on step two we agnostics cha i took a little left turn there our human resources as martial by the will this is where bill is giving us his take on the construction of what makes us human he talks about the mind and he talks about the will he's talked about the mind is subject to an obsession and that's what's wrong with us mentally and now he's talking about what's wrong with us spiritually our will is defective our human resources as marshalled by the will were not sufficient they failed utterly so as we looked at step one our will fails utterly and yet in step two he asks us to use that will oh but not about our addiction and not about our life and manageability no we've already confirmed and got evidence and had an experience i hope that my will is ineffective in both of those situations but on page 53 he asked us for the proper use of our will god is or god isn't i can't make a decision about my addiction i can't make a decision about my unmanageability but i can make a decision about god or know god and then i can make a decision with my free will to have a relationship despite the smoke and mirrors because it all sounds smoke and mirrors but i can have a relationship and i trust that and i act as if it's true we thought well before taking this step i'm back on page 63 making sure we were ready that we could at last abandon ourselves utterly to god we found it very desirable to take this spiritual step with an understanding person such as a wife partner we would call it today best friend or spiritual advisor what a great place if in fact the word sponsor was in the culture to use the word sponsor so apparently the word wasn't in the culture this is 1939 12 or so years later on when the 12 and 12 was published the word sponsors peppered throughout the 12 and 12 in the step part so somewhere between 1939 and 1951 53 the word sponsor came into the culture but here he's saying take it with somebody you see he's very practical this was in fact part of the origin from the six steps of the oxford group they had a guide or a mentor or a spiritual advisor that helped them go through their six steps like ebby did with bill on page 13 and bill's story and you're welcome to do that with your sponsor and or step guide and or friend you choose at any time you are ready to do that next week after we have some dialogue we will take it together as a community and i will introduce you to an approach a prayer approach that comes out of my monastery background of antiphonal prayer praying back and forth i will lead you in the prayer you don't need to know it you don't need to read it you don't need to memorize it i will lead you in the prayer as a group we will be unmuted for that but i will lead you in a way that it won't be chaotic it won't be cacophony it will be hopefully a very sacred experience for us now in 1939 there were less than 100 people that had six months of sobriety which they considered to be long-term sobriety and so bill adds this next sentence then but it is better to meet god alone than with one who might misunderstand now that's just not the case today no matter what your fellowship is and especially with the zoom accessibility there's plenty of people maybe not in your fellowship but probably in your fellowship that you can take the third step with if you choose to as i say we'll be doing it as a community the wording of course was quite optional i made reference to that see bill has no rules you can use this prayer if you want it's kind of like my set-aside prayer well it's not mine it was given to me by joe hawk who was and it was given to him by dawn prince back in the denver days back in the 80s just a prayer that somebody constructed out of the intent of the words and the principles in the big book about an open mind and an open heart and setting aside prejudice and this developed over time and as i mentioned i haven't changed the prayer in 20 years and i have done so this time and it feels right it feels right for me i hope it works for you but again prayer is not about words prayer is about intention what's your intention i want to have an open mind and an open heart what's your intention i have a lot of information and a lot of it's really credible and really has been helpful okay and some of it hasn't been but you don't know what has and what hasn't been helpful and the whole point of the set aside is i'm trusting that that power that is leading me will open up the curtains or open up the doors or shine the light into the darkness so that i can see what i can't see now that i can know what i don't know now and that i can move forward and i trust that it's not a throwaway prayer it's a set aside temporarily for this journey the wording of course is quite optional so long as we express the idea voicing it without reservation are you kidding of course we all have reservation what does it mean saffron robes in a baking bowl in taiwan i mean that would be an old idea of mine going back to the monastery days no it doesn't mean anything along that line at all of course herb but we have these imaginations these prejudices these preconceived ideas what does it mean to turn my will and my life over to the care of god without reservation well take a look if you have any reservation you might want to revisit your step two decision if you have any reservation the god you chose isn't big enough if you have any reservations the god you chose isn't real enough if you have any reservations you're not trusting that power other than yourself and it might be all you can do is to be willing to be willing to trust and not have any real certitude or any real feeling about it and so i'm willing to have no reservations while i have reservations and meanwhile i'll take the actions anyway i have reservations but i'll take the actions anyway that's what step two is all about isn't it that willingness he said on page 47 that is the cornerstone this was only a beginning remember i suggested when bill said on page 63 that we were reborn that's a new beginning and he says it right here this is only a beginning this prayer though if honestly and humbly made and in fact sometimes a very great one was felt at once some people have an experience with it some people don't some people have a big one some people have a little one it doesn't matter about the experience it's just what is i was sitting with a fella named kevin and he was 24 years is 24 years old at the time he was 24 years old and this was his eighth treatment center i was asked to come in as a spiritual sort of help to help the patients understand this process and um i said i'm one on one with him and i could see the defiance and the hostility he's 24 years old his eighth treatment center inpatient and so he had told me very clearly he doesn't want to talk about anything to do with 12-step with spirituality with god or with meetings or with sponsorship oh okay you set the rules uh so i i said a quiet little prayer a little 30-second quiet time as we were sort of like looking at each other that i needed guidance because that's the only vocabulary i have at that time and i said so kevin do you believe in a life force in this universe something that is underneath all of this energy that's happening with universes and worlds and spinning and all of that do you believe in a life force yeah yeah there's something there's something that we don't know about but there's certainly an energy in the universe i said okay so there is this life force and do you believe that you have free will he goes well yeah i'm here on the i can leave any time i have free will um i can quit any time and i can i make a decision to start anytime he obviously didn't understand addiction but i didn't go there because i'm i got another agenda so you believe in this life force and you believe that you have free will but you see that you've used your free will to go against the life force because you're in a death spiral this is your eighth treatment center you can't seem to get it right you can't seem to control your life you can't seem to deal effectively with your addiction nor with your life you agree that you're really going against the against the motion here he said well yeah i can i can so the whole point of recovery is to find a way to turn this is it to be in alignment with the life force i'm not turning my will and my life over to the life force i'm turning my will and my life over to the care of the life force and then i use the term gps do you know what a gps is well yeah yeah of course i have one in my car i have one on my phone i said okay so when you get in your car whose car is it oh it's your car um do you have a driver yeah i have a driver's license do you have yeah i have insurance do you know how to drive yeah do you have the keys yeah is it full of gas yeah i've taken care of that do you know how to drive yeah well when you get in your car do you know where you're going well i have the address but i don't know where i'm going oh so what do you do he said i put the address in the gps oh then what do you do well then i follow direction oh yeah that's it so consider this life force as the gps that you need to listen to and follow direction we left it at that he went out and came back next week i'm with him and he talked differently he just talked differently and i knew i said kevin there's something that's happened here i said what is it he said i got tired of suffering i could see doing my autobiography i got tired of suffering i'm done i'm done with suffering i said well then what happened he said i quit resisting i said oh okay then what happened i was willing to take direction there it is he was willing to take direction i'm not turning my will and my life over to god to become one with i'm turning my will and my life over to the care of god like the gps and i listen to the direction and in step 10 when i'm disturbed because i've gone against the life force the principles dishonesty or resentment or secrets or inappropriate sexual behavior my emotions will tell me my conscience will tell me and i need to make a course correction and to be in alignment with the life force and so i'm going to go back to my slides now just because they were built this way and i'm proud of them this is a an illustration of that my self-will goes against the life force i call it higher power here and the whole point of step three is to make a decision to be in alignment with that's why i use the word alignment and my life is committed to being in alignment in the morning i sit in guidance so that i will be in alignment during the day if i'm out of alignment i i i will be disturbed meaning i will have an emotion that's negative i will have an awareness that something's amiss bill said it in the 12-12 whenever we're disturbed there's something wrong with us whenever we're disturbed that's a broad catch-all phrase for the step 10 inventory disturbed the step four inventory in the big book uses four categories resentment fear and sex we'll talk about that in a couple weeks but the step 10 uses the catch-all phrase disturbed whenever i'm disturbed i'm out of alignment with reality see there's pathetic herbie i didn't know i was an alcoholic until i realized i was a pr a story in a process that took too long and then i got into aaa and i spent four years in aaa it took too long a story for a different day but i was in the bondage of self alcohol had been removed i was given the gift of sobriety without even asking for it i have had no inclination no inclination for alcohol since the first day of my sobriety and i didn't go to aaa for three months after that first day of sobriety i quit because the hospital asked me to quit to support my wife's recovery but at four or five years of sobriety i did these steps and i saw that i was in the bondage of self and then i went through the steps three different times with three different step guides over about a 10 year period and i got free but notice the cartoon image is literally the same from a pathetic herbie standpoint but really herbie doesn't realize that there's no ceiling no walls and no floor as long as he's holding the bars in front of his face this reinforces what bill says on page 62 our troubles are of our own making and i needed to learn that i had bars in front of my face through which i was looking thinking i was a victim and through this process of of of of discovery and action in steps four through nine i was able to have those bars dissolve and or removed step three is a decision for a relationship and an alignment with that relationship an interesting comment at least from my standpoint interesting the step three prayer does not have an amen at the end of it that may or may not intrigue you but it intrigued me at some point as i was doing this work probably the third time i was doing this work all prayers that i know of have an amen it means so be it the prayer is done we've completed our petition or our thanksgiving or our worship whatever it is amen so be it that's literally the translation so why doesn't the third step prayer have an amen well i don't know i've never read anything about it i've never heard bill talk about it but my speculation is bill said it's a beginning it's not an end it's the opening volley and we do steps 4 5 6 and 7. to remove the obstacles in us that block us from that power and block us from ourselves and then we pray a prayer at the end of step seven ominously starting my creator in step six i see that i'm a mess and i need to be rebuilt i need to be remanufactured i need to be recreated and i address my creator and that prayer the seven step prayer has an amen so that stage is a stage of establishing a relationship with myself through the power that's in me that starts with the commitment to do that step those steps in step three the beginning so i found that an interesting take on it i hope it's of some value to you bill said on page 55 with this attitude you cannot fail step two with this attitude and then i defined attitude by what he has already said up above that that we need to think honestly and search fearlessly and search diligently not in the sense of a perfectionist but just do we do the best we can it took me three journeys through the steps with three very competent people over a ten year period from my standpoint to have the full experience of each of the steps and different experiences with each of the steps at different journeys i'll talk about my step 3 experience next week alignment is the word i use you could use a word like parallel or harmony or conform those were synonyms but i like the word alignment it just has a action component to it step three is not surrender step three is not passive from my standpoint it's a ferocious act of my will a ferocious act of my will to turn and to commit to turn and to commit to do steps four through nine takes every ounce of energy i have and commitment to do those steps not only because it takes time but because it's really painful in the sense of seeing the truth of the lie i thought i was a renaissance man until i did the fourth step then i realized i was a neanderthal it was very embarrassing all right so what i'd like to do now is to have some dialogue with you about any questions observations experiences resistances oh and before we do that finish assignment 9 whatever that means for you and mostly what it means for me is finishing by at least meditating on the prayer the step 3 prayer on page 63 perhaps even writing your own prayer on page 60 from page 63 and if you want to share it you're welcome to but i i have no rules about any of this and so you're welcome to do that but pay attention to the specific directions on assignment nine and uh then you might uh let's see yeah you might also because we'll i'll begin giving a small introduction to step four uh next week at toward the end of the workshop so you might want to take a look at the beginnings of assignment 10 where we're going to be starting to list our resentment so i would say read pages 63 at the the bottom of 63 um all of 64 and 65. just read and pay attention i'm not asking you to do any writing or any no no just uh pay attention because i'm going to give the initial step 4 assignment next week and i will be unpacking pages 63 and 64. i'm not sure if i'll go into page 65 or not so we'll we'll have we will begin doing the step four work next by the end of the workshop next week um when my when somebody especially the person in my home is continually misbehaving and acting out with attitude at all of the above yeah and i don't react 95 percent of the time but a couple of times i do it's just they just keep going and blaming them we got the situation what's your question what do you do i mean my goodness you know how's your allen on program well it's good we have it i i haven't been going but so you don't have one well not him no but but there's a lot of other things i do i mean i go to bible study twice a week you'll miss the point i wasn't being critical no no no no i guess it's about how you deal with people who have problems i wonder what it means wait wait wait i i i don't want the story because we already know more than we need to know all right we already do all right you've been very clear about that i wonder what it means in the 12 and 12 whenever i'm disturbed there's something wrong with me i'm not here to solve your problem i am just saying it is your problem your reaction is your problem 100 of the time all right so deal with it find a way to deal with it either resolve the misbehavior or get a better attitude about it i mean so i'm going to cut you no slack here all right it's okay i'm good with that i'm good yeah because and this is really where the rubber meets the road i mean where people talk about the story life is hard and what is the the road less traveled the very first line life is difficult yes it is absolutely so one last question you you mentioned earlier that you the first three years of your sobriety many moons ago you were um a unrecovered unconscious narcissist yes so how do i live with that how do i live with that person [Music] well there's a book called um the object of my reflection excuse me the object of my affection is in my reflection and it's how to live with a narcissist i recommend it so i remember i talked to you yesterday about about some resistance i was feeling about uh turning my will over to god and you said that's not what it says but then on page 60 that's exactly what it says well i know but the step doesn't say that i know i don't i i said it in my comments i don't know why bill left out the word god uh i don't know why he did that but this the step itself is what i focus on okay so so you said you were going to explain what the care of meant and i don't feel like i got it so can you be more specific so the the gps didn't help you if i thought a gps was caring maybe but well but wait wait what is caring me it supported me in what i wanted to get done okay so care support that's another word yeah so supporting your goals or supporting your better it's what i wanted to do i got support if i listened to it if i didn't follow the direction of course then then okay i would have yeah had some that's more helpful um and then you know i i think still some resistance because when i read words like you said abandoned ourselves utterly and without reservation a lot of those they just like get your hackles up it's like i can't go there no no but but i and i made that comment i can't do that yeah no i i literally i literally cannot do that now i said though using the set-aside attitude i said i'm willing to be taken to a place of approximation yes yes and that was helpful to me too because i i can't go there either and then my other question is you know my my uh perception of god is is very much like yours it's a flow it's an energy it's very immaterial yo yes so the idea of having a relationship with it it's hard so um about how about a relationship with life or a relationship with reality relationship meaning that i'm acknowledging life and reality and my relationship is i'm going to pay attention to try to be objective that i'm not going to impose my story and my script on how life should be or how people should be so like the the father child all those relationships what would be your rule you know in that dichotomy or that if flo is the god for you what would your role be my role is to be to acknowledge the flow and to be in the flow and not go against the flow so a participant a uh uh melting you know all those other things had they had the employer the employee the father and and in the beginning i chose father that was my very first relationship and then later on i chose mentor guide so i don't know if you if what i'm asking is clear but you know but it's the question you have to ask yourself what relationship asking your experience like if flow is your higher power then what is you you know you are the flowy you are the well i don't i don't have to think about that i'm in the flow i'm part of the flow you're a swimmer you're a swimmer in the field quite frankly i i do not do a dualistic thought okay i do not have a dualistic attitude that might be my problem because i i don't either this this is gonna sound a little strange but i'm gonna say it anyway i've never said it before but i i really hear your question all right this is what you see is god manifesting as herb yes that's exactly what i think all right that that's why i can't get the duality so there is this i i yes that's so it's just it's a subtlety until it's not subtle gotcha okay that that's why i'm struggling because it isn't possible with the way i think it okay thank you i got it yep i do have a prayer uh for step three and i wouldn't mind reading it i would love it okay great so god i'm turning to you to show me to tell me to whisper to me what you would have me be what you would have me do in each area of my life in my health my emotional well-being my love life my family life my friends my mission my experiences my spiritual journey my finances and my learning use me as the convict of your peace of your will build with me the life you would want me to live free me from my self-centeredness and selfishness clear my mind of all self-seeking motives have me learn the lessons you want me to learn i pray to be fully aligned with your will i pray that you remove all obstacles that stands in the way of fulfilling my divine potential for your glory may my life be a testament of your way of life guided by the principles of honesty hope trust courage integrity willingness humility compassion justice vigilance awareness and love amen well that's a lifetime endeavor isn't it no that's wonderful but you see you from my standpoint you built it on the two key things that are in the in the prayer itself one was to be who i am and to do what my destiny is inviting me to do and that's something i didn't see uh in the step until i was uh 10 years silver the uh that part of the or maybe even longer than that it's it's right here um to build with me that was a phrase that had eluded me for at least 10 maybe 20 years until i spent some meditation time on it and that phrase became a neon light to build me the way you want me yeah and to do with me of course then that's the thy will be done comment yeah so wonderful thank you very much like with that question you asked yesterday turn from what to what oh yes great question i loved it so is it like i'm i'm turning that self-centered me toward my god my care of my god yes and other people and and other people okay think steps 11 and 12 other with a capital o and other with a small o and so if you if you can see my picture on the screen normally i can do this when i'm standing up but my self-centeredness is both of my hands and my fingers pointing at myself and the turning that i experienced number one i made a commitment to turn and when i finished step nine i realized i had been turned hear the difference that's the grace and willingness alchemy that works that spiritual math i just talked about but i turn i make a decision to turn and i am turned i don't think it's any accident that i turn first in a relationship with power and then second in a contribution in compassion okay yeah yeah like that's great one more thing i heard i read i wrote this yesterday and i think i got it wrong step three is not letting go but somehow i wrote down attaching to god but it's more like aligning with god i would say aligning rather than attaching yeah i think that has some connotations that would not be healthy but aligning yes and it's not letting go in fact as i've said and i've used the word very intentionally even though it's got a lot of dangerous energy connected to the word ferocious it's a ferocious act of my will i'm going to do steps four through nine committing to do this horrible work that's going to be very challenging and embarrassing and life-changing and i have no control over the changes that are going to happen but i'm in i'm in with all of me right thanks a lot yeah so that's why i say it's not passive there's no connotation no passive uh there's it's a very proactive and active as if in fact you mean it many people have a wonderful experience going through steps one two three do the prayer get some assignments in the fourth step and you never see them again that's just what is yeah thank you so much um good evening herb um yeah i'm kind of struggling um and i was wondering if you could provide some actions or suggestions of things i could do so what's the struggle i'm struggling with depression and uh are you into the care of a medical doctor yes and it's just the the patients that requires to wait for the tests to wait for the you know appointments yep do you have a sponsor yep are you talking to the sponsor yep are you getting direction no oh then you might ask him for some direction not with regard to your depression because that's not any of our business that's for the professionals to deal with either a psychiatrist a psychologist a medical doctor you need to deal with your psychological emotional issues with professionals but ask your sponsor how what his suggestions would be in terms of your 12-step fellowship and the resources within that and what maybe his or other people's experience are with dealing with sort of depression there's two different kinds of depression as i understand it one is a clinical depression which requires medication and the other is an emotional depression which i have found very uh healed through the 12-step process the 12-step process will not fix a broken leg but it might it might help from a spiritual standpoint some emotional deviation well i i will say that it's definitely helped uh the at least approaching it with the third step has helped me stay out of the future in the fear of like and and being in the care of god it's like you know obviously you know in some sense like the the message i got was like um you know when i try to take care of myself how long have you been in the 12-step program uh over 10 years okay and have you ever done the steps before yes how long ago um probably five years ago okay all right so um it's time to do them again perhaps like you're doing that's wonderful um since uh you did the steps five years ago have you had a consistent practice of meditation no okay have you uh helped anybody or sponsored anybody in the in your fellowship with the their recovery and doing the steps um currently doing so yeah co-sponsoring someone oh that's nice good excellent does that do you find that helpful in helping somebody else does that help you sort of at least put your depression on hold for a little bit um no not really okay yeah yeah i mean the the the little bit every day yes but yeah yeah the 20 somewhat hours the one thing that you answered me is that you do have a sponsor you do talk to the sponsor but you're not talking to your sponsor about your your current issue and that's where i think you need to get some suggestions from your sponsor as assuming that they have some experience in this area or from somebody in your fellowship okay thank you yeah yeah breathe in breathe out come back let us know what's going on because uh this process will help you but as i say we don't go to a step meeting for our 12-step fellowship for a broken leg understood the question is why and i'm hearing some of the people here talk about power and flowing and all that stuff what about aligning ourself with god and the holy spirit well i mean that's your vocabulary that's not other people's vocabulary and bill never uses the term holy spirit in the big book so what is your real question well if some people are trying to find that why not mention it well you just did that's good that's fine that's your that's your concept um i i regularly refer in my personal intention and prayer to the holy spirit that's part of my belief system absolutely but i don't talk about it much in terms of it's not in the big book that spirit is with the capital s but holy spirit has a different connotation because it comes from a christian and or a catholic background and that's not necessary to be talking about you're blinking why what what is it that you really want to say no that was it i know i understand i get it okay cool all right good thank you yeah i'm glad we had the question because we've surfaced another word and having a couple people who use the word but it's not in the big book so that's why i don't emphasize it okay thank you for joining us i'm going to bring you back up to pray this prayer um one of my more favorite images of this flow i'm a channel i'm a conduit of god of grace of life of spirit and um i need to clean that channel on a regular basis so that the flow is there let's pray this prayer of transformation lord make me a channel of your peace that where there is hatred i may bring love but where there is wrong i may bring the spirit of forgiveness that where there is discord i may bring harmony that where there is error i may bring truth but where there is doubt i may bring faith but where there is despair i may bring hope that where there are shadows i may bring light that where there is sadness i may bring joy lord grant that i may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted to understand than to be understood to love than to be loved for it is by self-forgetting that one finds it is by forgiving that one is forgiven it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life amen