#83 Why God and How?

Weather in a Religion, 12 step recovery or A contemplative discipline. We all have the same challenge, establish a connection with what we profess to believe in! Set aside what we have been programmed to believe and launch out on a discovery process that will last a lifetime. Through the easy times, through the hard times, through all the times! This includes a rich discussion with the Gathering community as well.

Chapters

• 0:00 Roger's 46-Year Sobriety Journey
• 1:24 Higher Powers We Unknowingly Serve
• 4:47 An Atheist's Path to Spiritual Awakening
• 11:19 The Gun and the Question
• 19:34 Kirsten's Story: Redefining God
• 30:26 Allie's Committee of Higher Powers
• 36:07 Tom's Catholic Faith and Sobriety
• 41:20 Lori's Retirement and God's Purpose
• 48:12 Paul's Journey Through Fear to Faith

Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:04

roger alcoholic october 11, 1978, is when I started the journey, and and today it's, uh, 46 years past when I was supposed to be dead. So I'm I'm grateful, in a quiet way, very grateful and very moved. Um, so, before we start, I want to, for anyone listening, when you download a talk, there's a link on the top to send me a message. There's a link on the bottom to support what they call the show. I call the podcast. The show I call the podcast, and the idea with the support is you can sign up for as little as $3 a month, but what I'm trying to do is build enough support so this thing can be self-supporting rather than get sponsors involved, because I can't sustain it financially indefinitely. So we're at 8,500 downloads, we're in 54 countries and we're in 668 cities, and when I say we, that's you and me, because, as you know, we have the discussion. That's a big part of this whole deal. So, anyway, I just wanted to put that up front. So this is what's been coming across my path lately why God, why God? Why do I have to do this God thing? And the other part of it is and if I do have to do it, how do I do it? How do I do it? So I want to talk a little bit about that and my experience with that, because whether you are a faith-based person in an organized religion, or whether you're in 12-step recovery trying to find your way and the whole point of the 12 steps is to have a spiritual experience, which requires a power greater than me and whether or not you're an atheist, you have the same problem, because I need to find a power that I can manage my life from, and that power is embedded in our belief system and our principles.

Speaker 2: 2:18

Okay, so, even as an atheist, when I was an atheist, I had higher powers. I had higher powers. I had. Money was a higher power. Applause was a higher power. Praise was a higher power. Sex was a higher power. Power was a higher power. Argumentation was a higher power. Intimidation, information, knowledge all those things were higher powers. Those were the things I served to navigate what I called my life. So now I've taken the argument away. I don't have a higher power. I've had higher powers, you know, like the ability to reason, etc. So the question is not have I had or do you have higher powers? We do. The question is do they serve me or not? And that question is am I satisfied with my life experience? Right, because your life experience is the result of the principles and the practice you've done to this point in time.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Now, the same principles that informed what we call our addiction were in full force way before I ever took a drink or a drug. They were already there. So I got a problem. First, as an atheist, I just told you how I undid that. Okay, I copped to the fact that I did have some things that I honored, that I served, that, in a sense, that I worshiped, that I trusted, that I believed in, and those things that I believed in didn't work.

Speaker 2: 4:01

Now the person of faith has the same problem. The person of faith doesn't say I don't believe in God. They say I believe in God and they have ritual and they have prayers, they have dogma, they have scripture, maybe they have stuff, but they have the same challenge that you and I have, which is I still have to find a way to establish a valid and vivid context for that. It has to be alive to me. Whether it's a religion, whether it's 12-step recovery, whatever it is, it's got to make sense to me and it's got to be vibrant. It's got to have life. It's got to transform me instead of devolve me and destroying me. So it's a problem. It's more of a challenge than a problem. It appears to be a problem on the outside. When you get into it it's just a challenge. How am I going to navigate this? What is the truth? What is the truth? And when I was new in recovery, you can't have a spiritual experience when you're an atheist. It doesn't work that way, right? So things happen to me and I've told this story many, many times. But it's the path and we all have a path, and so in these discussions we share what our experience is, and that helps each other. Someone will have a piece for someone else. I might have a piece for someone. Paul might have a piece for someone. Tanya might have a piece for someone. Allie Kirsten.

Speaker 2: 5:47

Before I did about 10 years and I stole a book from his house. I read it. I didn't really read it. I scanned it and really I looked at the table of contents and it was kind of like this doctor's opinion. I don't need one of those. I already got one Bill's story. I should probably look at that right, because he's a co-founder. I got a page and a half into that. I can't relate World War, I soldiers, all that stock market crap, right. There is a solution. Not for me, because I read it and it's terrifying, I say, and I had to have an experience that totally revolutionizes the way I see and be in the world. But that's exactly what alcohol did. I've always said that I've already had that experience on the dark side. I've never had it on the light side, so I skipped that.

Speaker 2: 6:37

More about alcoholism I don't need to know anything about alcoholism. I know plenty about alcoholism. All I know about is inebriation and drunkenness. I don't know anything about the disease of alcohols body, mind and spirit. I know my body and mind are screwed up, but I have no concept of the spiritual part, right? So we agnostics, that wouldn't apply to me. I'm an atheist. Skip that Start with how it works.

Speaker 2: 7:02

That's a non-starter. That's a non-starter because everything after step one has directly or indirectly implicit in it the God idea or reference to it. So I got no program. I have a one-step program. I don't drink and I'm powerless over alcohol and drugs, right. I ignored the second after the first step for a while. So I have that information. I have a diagnosis from a doctor that I'm terminal and I'll be dead in 12 to 18 months if I don't stop what I'm doing.

Speaker 2: 7:38

I went back to drink until I died. That was my plan. And the last night I drank I stopped drinking because I couldn't swallow, came out my nose. Then I tried to take a handful of amphetamines to wake myself up, so I could drink some, and I couldn't swallow them and I walked out of this place. I've been drinking for years and I started crying. I haven't cried since I was a little boy, because men don't cry. That was the message and a thought came through me, and I mean it literally like that. This thought came through me. It didn't come from me because that thought didn't exist in my life, in my consciousness, and the thought was I'm done, I'm toast, I can't do this. Continue on, as I was not just drinking, living the way I was living, lie, cheat, steal, use people, abuse people, all transactional, very shallow, very usurious and I just broke down and started crying.

Speaker 2: 8:41

I went back to a flop I was living in. Two guys were babysitting me and I told them to take care of me and it took about a week. I was a musician. After that week I was back working in the clubs and a strange thing happened. I wasn't attracted to anything. I was right in my wheelhouse Free drugs, free booze and available women. No attraction.

Speaker 2: 9:07

This is describing the 10 step placed in a position of neutrality. But I can't know that because I'm not reading your junk. I'm just having this weird experience. I don't know what's going on. People are wanting to buy me drinks and I'm refusing. I go in the dressing room and there's a pile of dope and I'm refusing. And I don't know. I don't have a concept of never using any mind-altering chemicals the rest of my life. I'm just trying to get through the next hour, the next day, the next week, sometimes five minutes, but because I didn't know anything about the mental obsession, the beast that says you know, this isn't going to last. We are going to have a drink, aren't we? Just one? We're not going to get in trouble, we're just going to take the edge off. Anyway, then I got.

Speaker 2: 10:06

I started going to some meetings because I figured that was a safe place for me, because I had created quite a mess. I had warrants in a half dozen states. I hadn't filed taxes, federal state For five years, I had restraining orders, going both ways with my ex-wife and I, unfit parent, no communication, zero communication, right, about $12,000 worth of bad checks and I'd done some entrepreneurial work with a motorcycle gang around, some delivery service I had concocted and I owed them six figures. The reason I went to AA was not to get well, it was to hide because no one was looking for me there. Guys that were looking for me weren't going to AA meetings. Okay.

Speaker 2: 10:48

Now the other thing was you don't have to use your real name. You don't have to admit anything. You can say I pass. You can say my name is Paul. You can say I'm an alcoholic, I'm not. You can say whatever you want. Say I'm an alcoholic, I'm not. You can say whatever you want. But there was a sense of safety there because nobody knew me and no one was looking for me.

Speaker 2: 11:11

My dad was very active in AA, so I went up on the north side of Minneapolis and it was all black meetings and I'd go there because no one knew me there and I knew they didn't know my dad and so I could just be this anonymous dude and I didn't have to be Don's son anymore. So I'm doing this in a random sort of way and I don't know when this all went down. I don't know what I experienced walking out of that bar was grace and mercy, because those things weren't in my vocabulary or my experience. But I was placed in a position of neutrality with the substances. So that idea that God will remove everything that's impossible for me to deal with, right, everything is beyond my control. So God removed the drugs and the alcohol and left me right up to here in my mess and the message was I'm going to send you some angels Don't have to look like angels, but I'm sending some people to help you. And these guys were the guys in my first meetings that I went to, not the black guys. Later on, the way I got to regular meetings was totally accidental in my mind. Accidental In historical perspective was divinely orchestrated.

Speaker 2: 12:32

I had a bass player I grew up with, from third grade on, jimmy, and Jimmy was a horrible drunk and he knew I got sober and about every two months or a month he'd call me and say you're still sober, I go absolutely. Will you help me? Of course I'll help you, jimmy, I love you, and I'd go to wherever he was. Sometimes he was living in a hedge, sometimes he was in a tent, sometimes he was living in a car, sometimes in an apartment, and I would go give him an hour, hour and a half of my one-step program and we'd hug and cry and laugh and I love you, man, I love you too. Now, don't do that, I'll see you later. And he kept calling me and I had heard some things at meetings that I don't know. I heard and this is when it came out. He called me one time and I was exasperated with him and he said will you help me? I said, damn it, jimmy, I know what you do. You do regular meetings. You're coming with me. I went and got a meeting directly. They were printed those days and I picked two meetings Men's Step, men's Big Book Monday, wednesday. I said you're coming with me.

Speaker 2: 13:30

Now here's another example of me doing the right thing with the wrong motive. I did this to get him off my back and I went to those meetings with him and we sat there one month. Here's a medal. Three months, here's another medal. Six months, here's another medal. And I'm kind of rolling my eyes because I've got to drive him to the meeting or he gets drunk and we start all over again. I'm taking him to the meeting because I want one of you guys to pick him up and sponsor him At nine months sober. I realize they think I'm sponsoring it Because no one picked him up. So he gets a year and it's just oh, wow, wow. Isn't that beautiful, wonderful God. It's a miracle. It's just a miracle.

Speaker 2: 14:15

This guy and it was miraculous that he hadn't drank anything for a year but he didn't have any programs and he went back to college, got a grant and he majored in psychology and he was drunk in two months and I said goodbye to Jim at a nursing home. He died 42, 43 years old of cirrhosis and I stayed in those two meetings for 15 years. That's what I mean. So I got all this stuff happening because I'm still a pretty devout and loud atheist. I just want you happening because I'm still a pretty devout and loud atheist. I just want you to know I'm not buying any of your God stuff.

Speaker 2: 14:51

But I got a problem. What the hell is? What is keeping me going? What is keeping me straight? Because I'm watching guys come in and out of the meetings. They're on fire for God and AA and they're so grateful to be sober and they're drunk in three weeks. They're drunk in a month and a half and I'm watching this and I'm wondering, well, why the hell aren't I? I'm not doing this stuff. I'm not doing what they're talking about. I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid.

Speaker 2: 15:22

So I got a problem here because this starts out I got sober on the street, two guys babysitting me for a week and I kicked all the drugs and alcohol I've been doing for 15 years and out of that I wandered into some meetings to hide wrong reason, wrong motive, right place. And I heard enough stuff to say to Jim I know what you need, but I have no idea what I need, right? And then it just keeps rolling out. Jim's gone and I'm there and there were some guys in that meeting in retrospect that saved my life. I didn't know they were saving my life at the time. I was not very popular in the meeting. They loved me but they didn't like me. You know what I'm saying. I got to love you, but I don't have to like you. And so I've got this phenomenon.

Speaker 2: 16:24

I kicked all that stuff. I didn't go to the hospital, I didn't go to treatment, I didn't go to detox, I didn't go anywhere and I didn't hear that story in the meeting rooms and I'm wondering what the hell is going on. So for me it's a phenomenon, just like Silkworth when he was observing Bill. It's a phenomenon to me. I don't know what they've done, but they found something and they've changed and so I'm supporting whatever they're doing right. So I'm trying to figure out what this is about and I don't know. So it's a phenomenon to me. And now it's six months, it's a year, it's a year and a half. No return to drink, absolutely bad shit, crazy.

Speaker 2: 17:10

Because I had no recovery, I had no healing from my past, my amends were not done, so all that stuff was very vivid and alive and in three dimensions with me, alive and in three dimensions with me. And I put a gun in my mouth. Short story I just put a gun in my mouth because I didn't want to live anymore. In retrospect it took about five years of sobriety to realize that suicide attempt wasn't because I didn't want to live. It was because I was afraid to live.

Speaker 2: 17:43

The reason I wouldn't do the AA stuff wasn't because I didn't think it would work, because I knew it worked for my dad. It was because I didn't want to fail at one more thing. And if I don't participate I can't fail. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy I'm going to die. So I put a gun in my mouth and God started talking to me. He didn't recognize. God's voice Sounded like my head and the first thought was mighty small caliber. I don't want to die. That was a question on my mind. So I pulled the gun. I'm looking at it, I'm thinking 22 long hollow point. It'll work, it'll be fine.

Speaker 2: 18:19

I put it back in the second time and a kid I went to high school with came through my memory. His name was Patrick, tried to blow his head off with a shotgun in 10th grade, put the barrel in his mouth and when he pushed the trigger with his big toe he moved the stock and he blew his eye in the side of his face off and he lived, had about 18 reconstructive surgeries, then hung himself for Christmas at his parents a couple years later. That flashed through my mind. Then the gun goes back in the third time and a voice very similar to the one the last night I drank. A thought appeared and it asked me a question right before I was going to pull the trigger Are you willing to believe in the possibility that there is a power?

Speaker 2: 19:10

Step two it doesn't say I have to believe. It says eventually I will come to believe there is a power greater than me and it can restore me to sanity, to wholeness. I knew there were powers greater than me. I had no constructive power or positive powers greater than me. I had no constructive power or positive power greater than me, but I knew there were plenty of powers greater than me, just none that would be helpful.

Speaker 2: 19:35

That night I took my second step. I said I'm willing to believe in the possibility. The question was are you willing to believe in the possibility? And the answer was yes, and I don't know where the yes came from. Now the phenomenon has changed for me to a mystery, and all these things that I'm describing to you were all opportunities that God what I've come to believe is God was created for me. I created the lesson plan and God was trying to give me the direction, but I couldn't read the lesson, so I had to keep bouncing off these things until I finally got to what I just described to you.

Speaker 2: 20:12

Then the third step becomes a possibility. I can't turn my will and my life over to something I don't believe in, but I do believe in this mystery Because I'm having experiences that I shouldn't be having. I'm alive and I shouldn't be dead. Those are facts and I can't explain them. Can you make a decision to turn your life and your will over the care of that mystery? Yeah, I can do that. So you see, when we make these choices, decisions come to these conclusions. They have to make sense to us, not to someone else.

Speaker 2: 20:50

Is it God?

Speaker 2: 20:50

Is it Jesus?

Speaker 2: 20:51

Is it the Holy Trinity?

Speaker 2: 20:53

Is it the Buddha?

Speaker 2: 20:56

Yes, is it a higher power?

Speaker 2: 20:59

Yes, is it the Creator?

Speaker 2: 21:00

Yes.

Speaker 2: 21:00

Is it the Spirit of the Universe?

Speaker 2: 21:01

Yes.

Speaker 2: 21:02

Is it a life force? Yes, it's all those things. Call it whatever you want, but you have to find something you can call that you can hook your wagon to, to make a beginning, not to make an end. To make a beginning, I have to have a starting point that's authentic and honest for me, and from that I go forward and from that I go forward. So what I'd like to get into the discussion with tonight is you share now how these ideas of a power grading yourself came to you and what were the lessons that were involved in that, and how did it manifest and how is it today?

Speaker 2: 21:44

Because this is what it is, this is our addiction. Any mental obsession really is a disconnection from God, our creator, our source, energy. So what do I need to do to get reconnected? And one of the guys in our money mini just had his second baby and he's looking at that baby and that baby is perfect, no shame, no blame, no prejudice, no bias. How can I help keep him this way Right? So someone go ahead and start sharing, please. How did it come to me? Because all these incidents I described to you are versions of God calling me. Calling me through what? Through abject failure, through abject failure, so I can come to the conclusion. I need some help, more help than I have available to me. Go ahead, anyone. Those of you listening at home. It's just a big pause. The thing hasn't ended. Just waiting for someone to have the guts to be inspired to share their experience.

Speaker 3: 23:09

Kirsten, go ahead I'm kirsten, I'm alcoholic and, um, I was just reflecting on my my first exposure to AA and this whole power greater than myself and you know, put my life into the care of God stuff and I was just like there is no way there, absolutely not, I'm not going to. Because I began across the line in my alcoholism. Around the time my husband had a stroke. We were 44 years old and, and you know it was horrible I had two kids at home and I'm like no God that would do this to my family, to me, to my children. Do what I trust, period, you know, that would allow this thing, to this tragedy, to befall my family. We're broke, david's really disabled. I'm trying to raise my kids and I was losing my mind. So of course I drank I was a daily drinker before then easily on my way to active alcoholism, but that was a real turning point for me. So in the retreat where I went to treatment around seven months later, and in the retreat where I went to treatment around seven months later, the women's director said God didn't do that to your husband, kirsten. You know, it'll be revealed someday, you'll know why. And so I kind of cracked the door open a little bit that I might. It might not be God. After all, it was just a natural consequence of David being a soccer player, a hockey player, scar tissue in his brain, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right, because he had no predisposition to a stroke at all, like he ate his oatmeal, perfect health. Anyway, there was scar tissue in his brain, I suppose, but at any rate it was really difficult for me to with the God. The notion of God that I had in my head was punishing, vengeful. I was already not playing. I was already like kicked out of the game a long time ago. By the time I was probably 14 or 15, like I can't get in that game, I don't belong in church or with God or whatever. All that stuff was so fast forward.

Speaker 3: 25:12

A couple of years of white knuckling, sobriety, dry, drunking and a couple of relapses. I got a really good sponsor after a number of relapses and she said you got to name it. What is your version of creator, what is your version of God? She made me just say something. So I said oh, these sort of really big, invisible hand that's either holding me or pushing me forward but loves me better than I love my children. That's all I could come up with, and I and the the only perfect love in the world. So I was, cause I was real cynic about human beings and everything else. So, anyway, now, many years later, I, my version of the higher power in my life, has morphed many, many times, probably hundreds of times.

Speaker 3: 26:05

From someone I used to beg for favors, a being that I used to say, please, don't let me drink, please don't let me drink or please, please make this happen, or whatever foxhole prayers, all those things that we talk about, or whatever foxhole prayers, all those things that we talk about To now it's just gratitude. The creator is everywhere. I look everywhere, and structures and people and living things that's the easy ones, but just absolutely everywhere. If I look at a piece of furniture, some human being made that thing and had the gift, the craft, the talent, the whatever to take a living tree and build a piece of furniture that's beautiful and appeals to me. How did that even happen? You know, I mean there's just so much magic in the world and things are holy, people are holy. I get to live for a very short time, a blip on the screen in this universe that God created, the creator, and I can rest in that Life is really hard a lot of the time and things are unfair. Things are difficult, but with the faith that I have grown because I was allowed to create my own idea of a higher power and I have, since sobriety, since recovery for me, been able to observe the creator in my life and, um, give God credit all the time for almost everything. You know anything, bad stuff and good stuff. The bad stuff, I generally the credit comes way later.

Speaker 3: 27:44

Thank you for that experience so that I may help other people with my you know what don't to do or do or don't do or whatever. You know what I'm saying, but it turns out that the hard times and I'm having one right now you know, eventually I'll be grateful for this experience because we'll come out the other end and, um, um, it's, it's just, uh, there's just something about it that, um, I'm grateful for. Without going into too much detail, it's mental health issues in my family run riot and I'm getting really tired of it. But I have experience now, right, anyway, um, uh, that was a little bit of a ramble, but my, um, my concept of God is available to me almost anywhere. I look all the time and that's a practice and, um, it works for me.

Speaker 3: 28:40

When I get anxious or depressed or nervous or whatever fearful and fear enters in, I just say you got this right, and I know a creator does. I don't think the creator is going to answer my prayer the way I want it ever, because God's bigger than that. He's bigger than my small mind and my small needs and all of that sort of thing. I just have to trust that this is what I'm doing and I just have to do my best to harm people and things will work out and then I guess I'll pass. Thank you.

Speaker 2: 29:14

Thanks, kirsten. You know you're right, life is not fair, it's unjust, but it's not impossible. That's what we learn. It's not impossible, and in the struggle is the gift and the value. If you look back, I have lived through everything that this experience has thrown at me and I've learned from it. I'm stronger, I'm better. It's not fun. It's not fun, but it's doable. And I know that there's a prize on the other side. And every time we learn one of those lessons, we're a little more free, we're a little more and our belief is a little deeper. And I don't have to know the how or the why. I just know it's gonna be okay. So I gotta put one foot in front of the other and do what's required of me to do in this moment, not in the moments I'm imagining or reliving. But this moment, and right now, this moment, is quite doable, isn't it? It certainly is. Thank you, that's good. Who else?

Speaker 5: 30:26

Hi, I'm Allie. I'm an alcoholic Allie. Sorry, hi, sorry, I am on a bike, I'm not swaying to the music.

Speaker 2: 30:33

I was going to ask you are you pedaling?

Speaker 5: 30:35

I'm being responsible and doing my warm-up, so I'm sorry I'm training. This topic is obviously brilliant. I laugh because I only found out, gosh, probably six months ago or so, that for a long time my higher power was the group and it was sort of the structure of AA. And if you told me that it's like what it took me two treatment centers and more time to realize this was a spiritual program. And I also didn't grasp that you do the steps to get sober. I thought you did them after you get sober. I just missed the boat on all this stuff for a long time. But I think it was just something just sort of told me just keep going. I mean so I, the meeting, the meetings and just being around people in recovery, it sort of soaked in and I think that sort of allowed an opening of hey, maybe you know, maybe there can be a solution or maybe things can be okay, or just enough of a pause or grace to sort of think, okay, maybe I, you know, I guess I rely on this higher power. And we still struggled because my friends that came to visit me at the retreat we thought the higher power was Hewlett Packard. So for a long time when we talked about the HP it was just as very much like, yes, I put my faith in a printing company. Higher power was Hewlett Packard. So for a long time when we talked about the HP it was just as very much like, yes, I put my faith in a printing company, but anyway, and so it's just stuck.

Speaker 5: 32:12

And just one other thing on that I took home those CDs that, roger, you created from the retreat. So I laugh. I know your story better than you do. But one of the things that I love that you said was about, like you know, I wish God didn't have quite so much faith in me to like go through all of this nonsense. You know I could really be okay if you took it down a notch, but anyways, but I think I've in terms of what works for me, I mean, I think, the beauty to have recoveries. It opened me up to, you know, different ideas, my brother's a Buddhist and sort of an interest in different forms of Buddhism, and then you sort of get, you know from AA, a little more Christian like St Francis, et cetera, and so at the end I sort of and I'm a big, I love nature and exercise, exercise is kind of my higher power.

Speaker 5: 33:09

But I came up with a committee and maybe I've said it before, it's like I've got Buddha and Mother Earth and then divine spirit of the universe, because, like God even though it doesn't bother me at all and I do have an idea of God, but it's also the first thought is for me, again, it's like a Christian God and I'm fine with like a man with a white beard.

Speaker 5: 33:29

I mean that's kind of looks like Santa Claus, that's okay with me, and but what all three concepts have for me is like they're all basically similar concepts of like do the nice, do the next right thing, be a good person, I mean just and.

Speaker 5: 33:44

But they also give some actual practical advice and I have to write down every day next right thing and that'll come from. You know things I learned in AA. So when I think of a spiritual life in AA, it's just this idea of almost like a goodness or something that can be tapped into and again, that whole idea of like I'm not in this alone, that I've got somebody with me whether or not it's, you know, in person form or animal or nature, or just a higher power, so I don't feel so alone which provides a source of support and helps me pick up the momentum when the motivation's not there to do the next right thing, or even ask, or just to act and not get paralyzed. So anyway, sorry again for the movement here, but I have to get the training. But thanks for letting me share.

Speaker 2: 34:45

Thanks, sally. You know the oh, she went away. The question here we're supposed to have a spiritual experience. That is, I am getting exposed to the fact and the experience that I have a spirit and that is your conscience. That is that thing that's always told you. That's such a great idea when you study Sarah on the Mount and Jesus the great teacher talks about. We worship in spirit, we commune in spirit. God is spirit, is that energy? And my brain wants to quantify it and qualify it. It's ineffable. You can't. That's what infinity is about. You can't describe it or put it in a jar. That's what your faith is required. I'm going to take this leap of faith. I'm going to do this even though I didn't understand how it could possibly help me. So I take the actions. I get results I don't think are possible, but if you won't start by taking the actions, you can't have any experience. Who else, tom? It looks like you've got something on your mind. Unmute yourself.

Speaker 1: 36:08

Well, you read my mind and I didn't want to talk when I was so I couldn't find the mute button. You know, it's really interesting is that around AA, for a lot of years 30, 40 years I had a couple of really close friends who were very involved in the program, and so when I'd go to visit them, I'd go to meetings and they'd come visit me, we'd go to meetings, but I never needed that, you know kind of joke. I wasn't like those people, but yet I was. I was a drunk, you know, but I could hide it, I could control a little better. Maybe I'd do it within a certain amount of hours, do it from six to ten, and go to sleep and get up and look like there wasn't a problem. And yet I did it.

Speaker 1: 36:50

And I'm a very devout—my faith is very important to me and I'm a devout practicing Catholic, have been my entire life. But one of the things with respect to—and then I would do religious retreats, help people on weekends, on retreats, and we'd be, you know, not drinking for three or four days. I'd go home and get hammered as soon as it was over on a Sunday night. And then a sacrament of faith, sacrament of reconciliation or confession and I'd confess the sins. And then I realized that God, I've been doing that over and over again and I always joke about, you know. They say the Israelites couldn't get out of the desert in 40 years. And I said I'd get out, you know, but I was doing the same sins over and over and over again and it really um, I like it, it's just uh, I'm really grateful my nephew led me to sobriety and, um, getting ready to talk to him, kind of being a spiritual advisor I would be, you know, I'd aerate a bottle, a nice fine bottle of wine, getting ready, and I finally said something's wrong with this.

Speaker 1: 37:52

Then there was an incident that came up that we were out and I had a certain amount of drinks and I just was like hammered A little maitre d' at the club we were at and it helped me out. It was normally I think it's the amount that, but I really think that was God really. You know, in an embarrassing, terrible moment, but for the first time ever, even being around the work and around people very involved in the work, I said for the very first time in my life I'm powerless over alcohol. And I never said that. But I really never said. I never said it because I wasn't going to, I wasn't going to quit, I was just going to control it. Once I really said that I was truly powerless over it and I just, you know I can't do this, and I gave it up to God.

Speaker 1: 38:40

I did get sober and what's happened is that my faith in God has grown even greater and my spirituality has grown and my presence has grown. I spent so many years, you know, kind of being on the outside. I could really talk the game and, oh boy, he really is cool or spiritual or whatever. But you know then, but it was on top of being a, being a drunk. But now what I really can be is there's a sense of presence with, even though I haven't met any of you on the call, I'm connected to you, where for so many years you know, I'd be drinking and then I'd be. I wasn't connected. So the punchline with God. I was practicing my faith, living my faith. But then it wasn't truly. Up until that I said I can't do this, I am powerless, and I was the kind of person to say that I would never say I'm powerless over anything. High pride, high macho, arrogant, you know. But when I did that that gave me sobriety.

Speaker 2: 39:46

It wasn't truly that gave me sobriety, and the gift out of that is that I'm deeper in my faith. Exactly.

Speaker 1: 39:56

It's growing and more miracles, I think, are showing up. Yeah, you're very perceptive. My wheels are really turning from moment one, when you started talking, so I'll pass.

Speaker 2: 40:06

Thanks, tom. It's really important what Tom just was sharing, because when I work with a person that is of a faith, there's no contradiction in what Jesus taught you through Catholicism and what the steps are asked. There's no contradiction at all, and what I promised them is the experience you just described, tom. Experience you just described, tom. It will illumine your religious experience. It will make it come alive. Instead of being a spiritual hypocrite who's drunk, you can now be more Catholic than ever Right. More devout.

Speaker 1: 40:49

Exactly, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 40:52

And that's the deal. We've got to find a way to live that enlivens us, that brings life to us. So when life throws those unjust, unfair and sometimes tragic things at us, we have something to rely on lean on and push through with right, because it's going to happen. Thank you, tom. Who else?

Speaker 6: 41:20

I'm Lori and I'm an alcoholic.

Speaker 2: 41:22

Lori.

Speaker 6: 41:27

So I went through the steps in my first year but I kind of glossed over the third step. I was like God completely turn all my will and my life over to God. I was just. I was convinced that through my own self-will I could get a whole lot done, that God was a pinch hitter, that I only called on God when things really got tough. Otherwise you know what I'll handle it. I'll just call you in. You got bigger things to take care of, right, and that just it wasn't working.

Speaker 6: 42:15

And I went to a retreat and I did an exercise called a hot pen exercise and you take a piece of paper and just write about a topic for 10 minutes and then kind of think about it a little bit, and then a second 10 minutes and then a third 10 minutes. Well, by the time the third 10 minutes are done, you have exhausted every single excuse humanly possible and you're just writing nonstop. It doesn't have to make sense, it doesn't have to be complete sentences, but mine was on turning my will and life over to the care of God and through that process I realized God is going to use me to the best of my ability to do what I can to benefit God and my fellows. He isn't going to put in my life things that I'm not very good at. I'm not going to be in a developing country trying to, you know, convince people of I don't know whatever.

Speaker 6: 43:46

So I did get through that block that I was putting up and four years later so now I'm five years sober I retired, I moved to a city I knew no one in a city I knew no one in, and I just I felt I know a lot of people have a hard time when they retire. They don't know what their purpose in life is. I'm like you know what God is going to put in my life, what he sees fit, and I just have to open up my mind and just don't say no to anything. And God absolutely put in my life many things. I am full of purpose, I love retirement. I feel like I'm very helpful to not only to my AA community here, but also I found a spiritual community to connect with that I had never heard of before and it's just so powerful and I can rely on God and know that God will lead me and put in my life the angels that I need to direct me. So this is such an amazing program and I'm just so very fortunate and with that I'll pass.

Speaker 2: 45:27

Thanks, lori. You know it's the truth, isn't it? God will never lead you anywhere where God will not take care of you. So I'm confronted with some situation or challenge and the beast of Eden says I can't do this, and God says, yeah, just take my hand, we'll get through this, we'll be fine, let's just go forward. And you find out. That's how you find out. You have capacities you didn't know you had For commitment, for responsibility, for perseverance, for compassion, for love, for understanding. That's how you find out.

Speaker 2: 46:05

And the other thing that we all tend to take for granted when we're new is the second half of the first step. My life's unmanageable because I manage it, because it's my philosophy, it's my belief system that's made it unmanageable. It's not because of the parenting, it's not because of the drinking. My life was unmanageable from the gate. From the time I was a little boy, it was unmanageable. It was unmanageable when I drank. It was unmanageable from the gate. From the time I was a little boy, it was unmanageable. It was unmanageable when I drank. It was unmanageable when I first got in my early sobriety, because I was the power and the things that I aligned with were flawed and limited.

Speaker 2: 46:47

And what we're trying to do is hook up to something that's eternal, that's infinite. There is no lack. There's no less grace available for Laurie than there is for Paul or me, just because you got a big dose today or you need a dose. God's economy is always good, but I have to tap it. We have to participate, and the greatest lessons are the ones that seem, the ones that are impossible, aren't they? I can't do this anymore. I'm done, I'm broken, I'm worn out. Yeah, you can. I can't do this the rest of my life, but you can do it today. You can do it for one day. Can't you, kirsten, I tell you about this? You can do it for one day. Can't you, kirsten, I tell you what it is? You can do it for one day, okay. Yeah, I can do it for one day. Okay, let's just get it down to a manageable size, right? Anyone else? Kathy, paul, you're the only ones left.

Speaker 4: 47:42

I'll go. So, hi everybody, paul, alcoholic, and thanks for being here tonight and thanks for the shares and Roger, thanks for kicking it off. You know you started by, started off by, you know the why God and how does it manifest? And you know those are phenomenal questions to to, you know to consider, and I really appreciate everybody's. You know what everybody said around their own experience with that and for me it's um, the you know it.

Speaker 4: 48:20

I guess, before I got sober and before I started, you know God was just. You know I had no concept of God other than God to me was whatever it needed to be in any given situation for you to think that I was okay and that's essentially what God was to me. And I didn't, you know, I didn't have a and I didn't have a practice, I didn't have a faith, I didn't have anything, and it wasn't that I believed or didn't believe. It was just really difficult for me to understand. And what I've learned is that, you know, we're looking at a book now, one of the books by Keating now, and he has this term Program for Happiness, and we form a program for happiness. Each individual forms a program for happiness really at the very beginning of our lives when we're formative or just becoming formative. And my program for happiness really what it was was more or less a defense mechanism around lack, fear and shame when I was a little kid and those things were driving forces for me all the way through to probably middle school. I was just afraid of everything. I was felt unlovable, I didn't feel like I was worthy of anybody and it was you know. So I had to put on personas to to make you like me and to think I was, I was valuable or I was lovable, and that was, that was my program for happiness.

Speaker 4: 50:11

And then, you know, you introduce alcohol and drugs that you know, probably 50, 50, 51, 52, when the wheels really started to come off for me. And you know, what sustained me all those years was just the idea that you know, again, I didn't. I had no concept of of a God or a higher power. Again, I had no concept of a God or a higher power. And I think, roger, what you said earlier was we give ourselves to different forms of higher power all the time, and I was doing it not really knowing it. So as I got older, it was money, debt, my career, work, those things all became kind of my identity and, by default, my higher power, without me even knowing it. So this all is going on with just a real, there's just no real consciousness, or I hadn't a real no consciousness about it at all.

Speaker 4: 51:39

And then it comes to basically a period I woke up in a hotel in Chicago and I'm flat on my back looking up at the ceiling and and it was like all right, this. You know how it came through to me. It was this is it. I've had enough, I, I've had enough, and that's, you know.

Speaker 4: 52:05

That's when I turned to the program and and then began to form an awareness of, of, you know, these concepts of spirituality and the journey and what's really gotten me through and allowed me to to to go down the path is, you know, the how of it for me is, um, I can do this imperfectly, okay, because before I had to do everything perfectly. Um, the second piece of it is, um, you know, all I need is a little bit of willingness. I don't have to be like all in. And the third step for me was also really hard. It's like what are people going to think of me when I go to them and say, oh, by the way I'm turning my will and my life and my will over to the care of you know this God guy. You know they're going to think I'm fricking loony tones and that was really a big fear for me, you know. So I just. But what got me through it was I just had to have a little bit of willingness.

Speaker 4: 53:04

And you know, again, the idea I can do it imperfectly, the idea that you know I'm meeting some pretty cool people, you know, and those people that I'm meeting are appear to have, you know, a completely different life as a result of this and seem happy. And there's something going on here Like you can sense it in a room, like you can sense it sitting on the Zoom call, right, you can sense it in a room, like you can sense it sitting on the zoom call, right, you can sense it in our meeting last night. I mean, it's just, it's, it's the power and you know, um, as roger said, you can't really it's. Sometimes you can't put words to it, but you know it's, it's more of a feeling.

Speaker 4: 53:47

And then you know, kind of the other, the, the how piece for me is looking at spiritual readings, looking at the big book and realizing that, okay, the really what you know, I took everything literally like I just, you know so, whenever we, whenever I was in church or or reading the Bible, whether you know, in in confirmation, everything was literal to me and it made no sense.

Speaker 4: 54:16

But if you put it in terms of state of consciousness, right, and you start to take some of the readings now that I look at and it's just like, okay, this is my, you know where is my state of consciousness at any given point in time during the day, and you know I'm either in the flow or I'm not, and just that awareness alone again keeps propelling me forward. So it's a lot of things, but you know the how is a lot of things, but it's, it's just staying in it with a few of those things that you know I learned in the beginning and just you know, keep moving, keep moving forward with it, and the experience and the revelation and the manifestation of that power, you know, is evident everywhere for me. So that's all I got, thanks.

Speaker 2: 55:18

Thanks, paul. So, at the end of the day, we're presenting ourselves for change. We're presenting ourselves to be changed, to be transformed, to transcend, and we don't have the power to do that. And so we have this experience that's ineffable. I can't prove God, any more than I can prove the wind, but I can show you the effect, and we've shared this tonight. A lot of effect, a lot of change that was brought about, a lot of transformation. So, anyway, we're out of time, so I'll see you the first of the month. Thanks for being here. You want to close with a serenity prayer. Unmute yourselves, dare you. Come on, allie, tell your way to God. Okay, ready God.

Speaker 4: 56:21

God, god God okay, ready god peace, thanks everybody thank you everybody great topic roger, thanks everyone.