#91 Lay Down Your Burden

We are at a place where the world, and our circumstances are crushing us. Arrived at this point there is nothing (in mans world) that is giving any relief or pleasure. When you give up or let go you need something to grab onto. Starts with admitting my way and my will are insufficient. The failure of my self reliance and the beginning of the search . Acceptance , surrender then the search for a new approach.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Theme: Burdens
• 1:45 From Opinions To Beliefs
• 6:40 Dog-Eat-Dog World Or Helping Hands
• 12:10 Self-Reliance, Ego, And Powerlessness
• 16:55 Limited Beliefs And Lack
• 22:00 Watch Your Thinking: Steps 4, 10, 11
• 26:50 Past And Future Vs Finding Now
• 31:30 Seeing God’s Hand And A Higher View
• 36:20 People, Pain, And Perspective
• 41:00 Resentments Reframed: Perhaps They’re Sick
• 46:00 Fear, Faith, And What Works

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:01

Roger, alcoholic. Sober since October 11, 1978, doing uh these twelve steps imprecisely, imperfectly, and uh having learned to live it as a way of life. Tonight, some of you may know, some of you may not. Um, the topic of this thing is uh lay your burden down. And um this has been uh an interesting uh exercise for me because the title came to me after I was watching a movie, uh, Bagger Vance. Has anyone remember seeing that? There's a scene in the movie where he finds himself, his authentic self. The metaphor is golf, but his caddy is helping him find the field. Be the shot. The shot's in you, be the shot. And he gets in this groove and he has this fabulous experience, and then he starts getting sucked in by the crowd and the adulation. The ego starts to reassert, and he gets all full of himself again. And um he's fallen apart and he shoots his ball off into the trees. And while he's there, he's having a flashback to all these horrible things that have happened to him that he can't let go of. And he's literally sitting over the shot, shaking and sweating, saying, I can't do this, I can't do this. And the caddy says, Sure you can. Sure you can. Everybody has a burden to carry, and there's a time that you just have to lay your burden down. What do you choose? What do you choose? So um, it just ripped me up. It just ripped me up, and so I uh I thought it was a good topic. We'll see. So we all carry burdens, right? We all have had big and small things happen to us. We've had relationship problems, we've been betrayed, we've had financial reversals, we've had health crises, we've had people we love die, we've had people we love go away, we've had all those things happen to us. And um, depending on how we interact with that, that either becomes a lesson or a burden. And I was thinking about it when I uh first got sober, and the first years I was sober, I was thinking back, stuff happened to me that in the big picture is just insignificant as hell. But it wasn't to me. Val Bleckinger, tomboy, had a mad crush on her, third grade, and I got humiliated in front of her. A guy hit a ball and hit me in the nose, my nose started bleeding, I started crying, and she was laughing. And I'll tell you, it was just burned into my soul. It just hurt so bad, that humiliation. And uh I carried that a long time. When you had asked me, think of a think of a crappy thing that happened in your life, that was one of the things that came to my mind. Doesn't have to be crappy for you. It was crappy for me. And uh these things happen to us as we're going through this thing called life. Stuff happens. Stuff happens. And we interact with it or we react to it. What we do is we look at it, we have a perception, we make up a story about it. This is what it means to me. It's an opinion, not a good thing, not a good thing. When those opinions are practiced, they become beliefs. And all this is happening totally unbeknownst to me. I have no idea this is going on. But it goes on long before you have language context, long before you have an experiential base to interpret any of this stuff. Stuff just happens. And we end up with this pot of ideas that get reinforced. If you if if you've sometimes when I'm working with a guy, I'll say, well, what do you believe? And talk about a specific area. He'll go, well, I don't know. There's two ways you can find out what you believe. One is deconstruct from the act, which is you stole from me. I did, I stole. It's not a virtue. It's not even one of my principles. I stole something. What must I have had told myself to make that okay? There's the belief. Well, Macy's big conglomerate. They're not going to miss a$50 shirt. That's already built in to their profit and loss. I mean, you know, that's the rationalization, the belief that I'm entitled. And it's soothed by the fact that it's not going to affect anyone unless I get caught. And it'll affect a few people. So I have these beliefs. I hit it backwards. I thought life gave me my beliefs. Life doesn't give you your beliefs. I thought my parents gave me beliefs. I had a French, German, Norwegian, Swedish mix. And work ethic is big in that crew. You know, and I got this belief about work. And uh I didn't have any way to question it. It was just a belief that was given to me. This is what we do here, this is how we do it. This is what men are, this is how they behave, this is what women do, and this is how they behave. And these are all these are all ideas, opinions that I was given, but when you practice the opinion long enough, it becomes a belief. So one way is to go back from what you did and ask yourself the simple question, what the hell could you have told yourself to make that okay? And that will expose the belief. Another way is when you're driving down the road, for instance, um anything you're thinking, any opinion you have about something that comes to mind, and any action you take is always going to point towards what you believe. And it's totally subjective. Um, example. Um I I accepted this idea that it's a dog-eat dog world. You know, if you're gonna make it, you're gonna have to carve a piece out for yourself and uh have mercy on the people that get in the way. And so if that's my belief, there's a couple things beliefs do. One is it never encourages me to look beyond it because it's what I believe. And the other is it continually deepens and reinforces and affirms itself by confirming the belief over and over and over. So it's a dog-eat dog world. I look around, I read the paper, I watch the news, I uh and and I get all kinds of information that affirms that belief. It's a dog-eat dog world. There's nobody here that gives a shit about anybody. That's my belief. Now, another example would be Patty and I are out walking down the street, and across the seat we see Peggy getting mugged. And my perspective is what a shitty world. God, you know what, we gotta do something about this. Call 911, run over there, all that. But what a crappy world, you know? These thugs just run around thinking they could do anything to anybody. That's my perspective. Right? My belief is there's a lot of bad people in the world, and here's another one right here. The nerve. The nerve. Now Patty's looking at the same thing, and she's saying, Isn't that beautiful? I said, What? She said, Did you see all those people that ran to help her? Did you see that woman holding her head and comforting her? I didn't see any of that. So Patty's seeing one thing, I'm seeing another thing. We're both looking at the same thing. What makes it different is what we believe. So my thoughts and beliefs are what create reality. Reality doesn't create my beliefs. Stuff happens, I observe it, I make up a story about it, and then I practice the story. The ego loves us to do this because it keeps us stuck. It keeps us stuck in separateness, in isolation, in aloneness, in self-reliance. It keeps us right where it wants us. And it encourages us to keep thrashing about. Oh, it won't say thrash about. It'll say work a little harder on that. Try a little harder. Just I'm sure it'll be different this time. Try a little harder. Okay. Because I got nowhere to go. Because my belief is in self-reliance. There's another belief. If you're going to have it happen, you've got to make it happen. So I headed backwards. I thought I thought the news was giving my beliefs. I thought my checkbook was giving my beliefs. I thought the economy was giving my beliefs. I thought the current administration was making me feel certain ways. I thought the person I was married to or not married to was doing that to me. They were never. Never. It was me. The only thing that can give any of that information any power at all is me. What I think of that. What value do I place on that? And I'll know how well it goes with here, with my soul or spirit, by the emotions. It spins off. So also the beliefs become a filter. Once you have a set of beliefs, this is the way the world works, you don't ever consider what's on the other side of it. So not only is it filtering all the goodness out, but it's constantly reaffirming this idea. And we don't have one or two of them, we have thousands of them. Some of them aren't really significant. You know? I think anyone who eats vanilla ice cream without fudge is ridiculous, you know. Well, that's an opinion, that might even be a belief, but it really doesn't have any effect unless I start going around with a 38 to try and convince you that your vanilla infatuation is absolutely ridiculous. You know, not a problem. But what about some of these ideas? Um there is no God. Life isn't fair. I believe in God. But God doesn't believe in me. I've made mistakes. I've hurt people. I'm a bad person. That was a belief. And a lot of times you get a belief, and it's got a whole cluster of beliefs attached to it. So in our book, it says a bunch of things. One of the things that one of the lines that came to mind was setting aside the drink question, they tell why living had become impossible. Not difficult, not hard, impossible. And then before that, they told me something else. They told me that my main problem resides in my thinking. They tell me I'm the creator of my problems. They tell me I'm the author. They don't use those words. But they say selfish self-centeredness is the root of the problem. Driven by fear. Right? I go out to satisfy that need, and I'm I am just screwed. And you are too if you get close enough. Because you will be an instant casualty to my agenda, which is to try and find some peace, some sanity, some respite somewhere. And I've got it backwards. I think I have to manage all this well in order to have that happen. And as long as that's the belief I have, I am screwed. What do those steps do? They give me a whole new way of thinking. They challenge my beliefs. And you'll get right in front of them. So in step one, I admit I was powerless. Well, just over alcohol. Or I was sober for a while and I started thinking, I may have overreacted. I'm not sure I'm so powerless. You know, I'm doing pretty well. And frankly, I haven't done any of your stupid steps yet. So maybe the idea presents a belief. Maybe I'm not powerless. Ooh. Well, that taps into the drinking thing for sure. But if you're in Alana, it taps into the obsession thing. Maybe I can just manage him a little bit. Manage her a little bit. Not really manage. It's more help. It's more, not even help. It's it's it's more than help. It's kind of loving guidance. You know? Maybe I could just do that. And we just slowly, how? One idea, one little belief at a time, and we weave this nice little tapestry of crap. And all of a sudden we turn around and go, God, I'm back in it again. How did that happen? How did that happen? Because until I understand, this is in my thinking, it's in my beliefs, and I'm the creator of this. Until I get that, I am helpless. There's nothing I can do because I'm going to keep trying to satisfy. There's another thing these beliefs have in common. They're all limited. There are all beliefs in limitation. There are also beliefs in lack. I believe there's not enough time. I believe there's not enough sex. I believe there's not enough money. I believe there's not enough jobs. I believe these things. I got a guy I'm working with right now, and he believes he can't find a job. And he's damn right. He can't find a job. Because all he's doing is sitting on the couch going, I can't find a job. There's no job on the couch. Get off your ass and go look for a job. I heard a great guy talking about the depression the other day, and it was great. He said, I was never unemployed. He said, There's no reason for anyone to be unemployed. He said, What I did is I got a bucket of water and a rag, and I started walking down the block knocking on doors. I said, Hey, you need any windows washed? Hey, you need any windows washed? By noon I had a hundred bucks. This is in the 30s. That's big money. But my beliefs stop me from even trying. And then they do a really insidious thing. They confirm my deepest fear. I can't find a job. See? It affirms, reaffirms, and strengthens, and we get cut in this cycle, and it's just it's a mess. So I have to keep adjusting this lens. If I really believe it's in my thinking, I have to act like it. I have to find a way in 10-11, that's one way, to watch my thinking. It doesn't say to fix my thinking, it says to watch my thinking. What do we do in the four step? We look at our attitudes, our perceptions, how we see the world, our beliefs. What do you find in resentment? I believe that everyone's trying to hurt or threaten me. It sounds silly to say it out loud, but when you look at your four-step inventory, that's exactly what you believe. Everyone's ought to get me. And we all know the best defense is a good offense. Right? I'm not too powerless. I'm just a little powerless. So back to the woods. He reached a point where he could no longer go forward. Quite literally. He's hunched over this ball out in the woods, shaking, sweating, coming apart. The guy looks at him and says, You know, you can lay down your burden. You can lay down your burden. Remember it, let it go through and pick up the thread of your life right now. Be here now. Come back. Come back. You can do that. And that's not a belief that we have. I believe things like I'm damaged. You hear people talk about their this is how we identify with our circumstances. How you doing? I'm depressed. How you doing? Oh, my rheumatism. You see, we take ownership of it. My depression. I'm depressed. No, I have depression. I'm not depressed. I have depression. I'm not my cold, I have a cold. I'm not my rheumatism, I have rheumatism. I'm not my anger, I have anger. I'm not my fear, but I have fear. You see what I'm saying? And when we start talking to ourselves like I am this, that becomes our identity. We believe it. We act from it. I'm a loser. I'm a loser. I can't do anything right. Not enough time. Too late now. I don't know if this happens for everybody, but it's happened to me. It happened to me in my early sobriety. It happened to me, um, it's happened to me several times in sobriety where I reached that point where I could not take another step. I could not take another step on that shit I built of a belief system. I could not take another step. At one point, the step I couldn't take was I couldn't believe in God. I ended up with a gun in my mouth because I couldn't believe in God. There is no God. That's my belief. This says, well, you're going to have to come to believe that there is something better, bigger than you, and constructive in its nature. I can't do that. Can't do that. There's no way out. If you have alcoholism, there's no way out. You either drink till you die or you get help. Two options. And getting help wasn't an option because that was all spiritually based, and spirituality and God were synonyms for me. I mean, read it. Jesus, it says G O D all over it. I mean, Jesus, I'm not illiterate. So I'm impaled on this belief. There is no God. And you guys are the only game in town, and you're saying, the higher power is a way out of this thing. I'm going, well, I can't play. So now I got a gun in my mouth. Not because I want to drink. Because it's my best option. It's my belief. There's nowhere to go from here. So rather than ruin your sobriety, let's just blow your brains out. Makes sense to me. It only makes sense to you when you're having that conversation with yourself. If I said that to you, it wouldn't make sense. You go, excuse me? You're going to blow your brains out because you can't find a way to do these steps? Yeah, that's pretty much it. Huh. Maybe we should talk. Oh. No, no, no. Because I got another belief. I know better. I know better. I'll do this my way. That's another belief I have. And those beliefs have the power to kill you. It talks about it in the resentments, doesn't it? It says resentment, which is an emotion based on a perception that is past tense, has the power to kill me. It says, you need above all else to be free of this. Above all else. It doesn't qualify. Above all else, I take it literally. Above everything else, you got to get rid of this. But I'm powerless. How am I going to get rid of it? You're not. You're going to let go of it. So we meet the idea where we are. We meet it, the belief, with understanding. And it lets go. So to do this, I've got to know a couple things. One, I've got to understand that the problem is in me and what I'm telling myself I believe. That I'm creating this mess. No one else. Now there might be some people that are participating. But I've collected them. I've surrounded myself with people to reinforce my baloney. That's why we make such a big deal out of getting into a fellowship, get into some meetings. Why? Get in the herd, get in the we. And be picky about what herd you jump into, but get into it. Why? Because there's help there, there's safety there, there's numbers there, there's experience there. So I gotta buy this idea. This says this is your problem. You believe you have power you don't have. You believe you can manage your life and you can't. You're not willing to believe in a power greater than you. It doesn't even say you have to, it just says you have to be willing to believe in the possibility, for God's sake. That's pretty minimal. Okay, fine. I'm down with that. What else? But now you got the third step. And the G word comes right up front. How am I going to surrender my will and my life, my thinking and my actions to something I don't believe in? A little bit at a time. One idea at a time. So what are the biggest ideas we got? Well, then we do this four-step inventory and we look at it. And I find out that the way I see the world is everybody, everybody on my list that I'm pissed off at, and everything has frustrated my agenda. That's all. And I believe that if I don't get my way, quite literally, I'm going to die. That's the proposition I'm operating on. When I'm externally referred, if I don't get my way, I'm not going to exist. So we talk about these basic instincts that are being threatened. My instinct for security, for material comfort, for emotional security, for relationship, my ambitions and how I show up in the world. All of that stuff, it's like on the line all the time. And I see that it's how I'm looking at it. They tell me something really important. Because they know I'm kind of argumentative. And they tell me, real or imagined, it doesn't matter. So that completely eliminates months of debate. I don't know if that's really true or not. It's irrelevant. Because if I believe it's true, it's true to me. That's why we go out, we can twenty-five of us can see the same thing, and when we describe it, we'll have 25 different reactions. Because we all see it through the lens of our mentality. Mentality is a little piece of your consciousness. Mentality is my default setting. So my mentality, for instance, was everyone's out to get you. So anytime I saw anyone doing anything but giving me a standing O and throwing money at me, I thought, threat, threat, threat, you know, and the shields go up, and now where am I? I'm behind the shields. I'm isolated. It's perfect for the ego. It's perfect. So we find out that about resentment, real or imagined. One of the definitions of reality is anything that's believed. We got 30 people here. We got more than 30 realities, I promise you. I myself have several dozen a day. You know? Oh, that's good. Oh, that's bad. Oh, I like that. Oh, I don't like that. Oh, this is going to be hard. I think I'll think about it. While you're thinking about it, it gets harder. It doesn't get easier. So that's why we have to be so careful about our thinking. Because our thinking will also illuminate what the hell it is that is our approach, our attitude. So I perceive you all are out to get me. That produces some problems. Then we go over and we look at this fear thing. Jesus. And we start looking at these instincts. Did your need for approval create that fear? Oh, maybe. Did your need for prestige create that fear? Did your need to be needed create that fear? And pretty soon I'm going, shit. Now you see, the resentment keeps me living in the past. The fear keeps me living in the future. I am out of the game. I am out of the game because the game is now. The game is now. May you find him now. May you find her now. May you find it now. You're only going to find God now, in this moment. You're not going to find it tomorrow or yesterday. Gee, I'd like to have that the experience I had when I got sober the last time, before this time, before that time. Well, that's nice, except you know what? It might have been a lot of fun. It might have been a lot of fun, but you know what? It wasn't sufficient. It wasn't sufficient to sustain your recovery. So let go of it. But that's an example of going back into the past to retrieve something that appears to be positive. Oh, the first time I got sober, it was really wonderful. Yeah, but it wasn't. Because you got drunk again. It wasn't that wonderful. You just remember when everything was lighting up, when everything was expanding, where everything was going up and out, and you're going, oh, this is a gas, this is a thrill. But being the adrenaline junkies we are, you know, the ride dissipates after a time, and you have to get down to living. Oh, now I'm out of treatment. Now I'm out of my halfway house. Now I'm out of, you know, my 15-year term at Jellnik. And uh and here I am back with all of you jerks, and the world hasn't changed a bit. Belief. World hasn't changed a bit. Probably hasn't. It's not life that's changing, it's us. Life just is. Life just is. The perception is life is changing. No, I'm changing as I go through it. Example. Um I had a lot of stupid, painful, awful, usurious, crappy things happen to me when I was drinking and when I got sober. A lot of crap. Just not nice stuff. Not stuff you say, oh here, send a picture of this guy and his rap sheet to New York and tell him how good recovery is working. But when I look back on it now, I can see, this is what I do with it. I go, oh, I can see now. God's hand in the whole thing, even though I was an atheist. God's hand in the whole thing. And everything that happened happened for a reason. But it was not apparent to me what the reason was then, because I was locked in this selfish, self-centered, self-reliant, ego-based, fear-based, lack-based belief system. And it was just like living in a black hole. And every once in a while there was a little piercing of light that came through. Just enough to keep me wanting to try. So I gotta buy this idea that it's in my thinking. Then I have to try and understand it from a higher place. Understand it from a higher place. I got this problem. I don't like people. I don't like them much at all. And we start taking apart the beliefs under that. I'm terrified of people. They scare the hell out of me. Because I got this idea they're gonna hurt me. Not without my permission. You know, so I gotta get a higher view. Of this thing. I have this fear of people, so I get a higher view. You know what? Nobody can hurt you without you contributing to that. You can't hurt me unless I give you the power to hurt me. Back to perspectives and beliefs. You got an opinion of me, wonderful. You got another opinion of me, wonderful. You got another one, wonderful. Frankly, I don't really mean this in a negative way, but I don't really pay much attention to any of it. Because one guy hates me, another guy loves me. And the truth is somewhere in between. On a good day, I'm pretty lovable. On a bad day, I'm pretty easy to not like. All those things are true. There's a thing we learned playing in the bands, which is don't pay attention to your reviews. Because you get a couple good reviews and you're going, but it wasn't the good reviews that were the problem. It was that one thinking review. And you want to go meet that reporter and have a little conversation. Really, just kind of a consciousness-raising experience for them. You know, beat them about the head with a blunt instrument, get their attention, and then no. So I learned early on, it just not relevant. No, I'm not saying that I don't listen. But where my gut check is, is in 10, 11, and 12. That's how I know who I am and how I'm showing up. Not from your reviews of me. When I work with guys that I work with, um generally the word that's used is hate. It's a rather strong word, I think. How can you hate someone you hardly know? But they generally report a sincere and deep dislike for me, which I I don't see as an impediment to them making progress. And uh I don't generally like them too much either. But it's really not relevant. I don't have to like them, I have to love them. I have to care for them, I have to support them, I have to share my experience with what worked and what hasn't worked. That's what I have to do. That's my duty. That's what I'm here for. What you do with that is your business. And uh they tend to dislike me the most when we're talking about the truth. You know, I don't like that idea. Oh, the idea that you're a liar, a cheat, and a thief? That idea? Well, the police seem to think you are. Your wife seems to think you are. You seem to report you are. What's the problem? What's the problem? Don't like the idea. Pain. So I get this, I gotta find a way to look at this from a higher place. The big book gives you a great, great example of that in the resentment inventory. It says these resentments must be mastered, we gotta get free of them, but how? And it says, this was our course. This is how you do that. And the very first thing it says, perhaps this is a sick person. Perhaps this is a sick person. Never occurred to me. I thought this was an asshole. No, maybe this is a sick person. And maybe you should try and treat them as if you would a friend, if you had one who was sick. Or a pet. A whole new approach. And in embodied in that is, Roger, perhaps you're wrong. Perhaps they're not out to get you. Perhaps they're not, you know, maybe they're doing the best they can. That's a higher view. Maybe everyone's doing the best they can. Well, that's good, but I don't want to be around some of you. Because your best is kind of irritating to be around. But I don't have to judge it in a negative way. I don't have to put it on you. Because when I put it on you, I put it on me. So I I gotta find a way to look at these things from a higher place. The pain is a positive thing. I know it doesn't feel like a positive thing because what our ego says is run away. Don't even go there. Don't even lift that rock because you think it's painful now? When you lift that rock and look under it and you let that thing out, it's really going to hurt. Pain is just an indicator that I've run into a limited belief. A belief that can only serve me to this point. I need something bigger. That's why they say choose your own concept of God. And you can start out with whatever concept you want that makes sense to you. And that concept will grow and evolve with you. That's the promise of it. And here's I can tell this God thing does not give a rip how you approach it. Not at all. You can do it on your knees, you can do it prostrate, you can do it in the temple, you can do it in the mosque, you can do it in the church, you can do it in the alley, you can do it while you're walking down the street, you can do it any old time. God does not seem to have a preference. But the pain's just an indicator that I've run into a dead end. This idea can take me no further. And because it hasn't solved the problem, I'm thinking that hurts. No, it's just an indicator. False belief, limited belief, lack-based belief. And it's begging me, try and see it a bigger way. Try and see it a way that and when you do, that goes away. What is the book report? The book reports our fears fall from us. That doesn't sound like a wrestling match. Our fears fall from us. How can they do that? Because they're not real. You're not out to get me. Who knew? You're too busy thinking about yourselves to worry about getting me. Some of you may this experience just came through my mind. So here it goes. And the guy sitting with me, not liking the meeting, and he keeps reporting me. Do you see the way the guy looked at me? Do you see? Man, I don't like this. I don't like this at all. And and I'm talking to him, and he spent the entire meeting imagining what everyone's thinking about him. And I said, Listen, man, if you had any idea how self-centered these people are, they're not thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves. They're doing exactly what you're doing. Oh, what about me? Oh, what about me? Don't worry about it. Everyone's much too busy worrying about themselves to think about you. Relax. So that's why the fear falls away. That's why it disappears. It's not real. In the fear inventory, it says, it just helps me understand what I put my faith in. Put my faith in alcohol. Put my faith in intimidation. Put my faith in manipulation. Put my faith in encourage. Put my faith in money. Put my faith in sex. Put my faith in beauty. Worship, love, the whole deal. And it just says, hey, just an introspective question. Was it self-reliant or God reliant? What a stupid question. Never even occurred to me to be God reliant. What would that look like? Why would I want to do that? Well, for instance, your way has not worked. It's very simple. You got a belief? Fine. You can have your belief. But the question is, does it take you where you want to go? Do you get to be and feel the way you want to feel? It doesn't. When you're dealing with limited beliefs, they don't do that. They keep you uncomfortable. Now, not so uncomfortable that we do something drastic like surrender. Just uncomfortable enough so we'll keep trying. Read screw tape letters, it's a beautiful treatise on that. But uh we practice here a spirituality of imperfection. It's based on the fact that we're flawed and the flaws are used to find the solution. So I have to get rid of this idea that I'm broken and I'm no good. I mean redeemable. No. I've just got a few cracks. I've got a few things that don't work so well. And what this is saying is lay that down, try some of these ideas. You know, and then they have me look at uh my hurtful behavior to other people. And they ask me why I behave that way. And it's always because I'm selfish. And it's we don't ever do anything that we don't think is a good idea for us. It might look crazy to you or you, but I'm telling you, if I take an action, it's based on an idea or a belief that I think is a good idea. Because I don't go out deliberately to sabotage myself. I don't go out deliberately to hurt me or you, really, most times. Sometimes I go out to hurt you, and I can do that pretty well too. But you see what I'm saying? We don't do anything. Even when we're totally screwed up in our illness, whether it's obsessing about controlling someone else or trying to control a substance, we don't do anything that we don't think is a good idea. Now we may be totally insane. I think it's a good idea. I think probably what I need to do is more speed so I can stay awake to drink longer. That sounds like a good idea. That sounds like a solution. Well, in a very small world it's a solution, but in a much bigger world it's not a solution at all. So the burden that I'm asked to lay down are my limited beliefs. My life and its circumstances are reflections of what I believe. So we go to the higher place. I got to find a way to think more enlightened thoughts. I need some new ideas. That means that the boundaries on these beliefs are going to have to be put down. In fact, that means that A calls them old ideas. It means that I can set these things aside. I can abandon that old thinking and just practice some new thinking for a while. Oh, six months. Let's try six months. And if your life isn't better, then go back to your way. But I've got to get to a place where I realize that my way has not worked. It has not produced the quality of a life I want for me. And I've got some ideas now that are a problem. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve to be forgiven. I don't deserve to be loved. I'm broken. There is no hope. Get out the revolver. There is no hope. It is so lonely. It is so dark. And what the steps do is they incrementally walk me out of that darkness into the light. Into a solution. So I have to find a way to look at things differently. Until I find a way to look at things differently, I can't begin to practice different things. Once I find some things that work, I can go, oh, that worked. And I put that in the hopper and I start working that. I start exercising that. Well, prayer seemed to work pretty good on this powerless thing, and it seemed to work pretty good on this alcohol thing. I wonder if it worked good on my spending thing. You know, I wonder if it were good on my uh sex life. I wonder if we're good at work. And we just start trying this thing out. Very rarely do we just grab it wholesale and throw it into every corner of our lives and go, there, voila! Thank you. Move on, next page. We tend to do it incrementally. So I have to, you know, example that evolution of that idea. I didn't believe in God at all, then I was willing to believe in the possibility. Then I was sitting in meetings for years thinking this is bullshit. You guys are just Disney channeling me. And then I started believing it's it's it seems to work for him. Seems to have worked for her. It seems to work for you guys. Isn't that nice? This is working for you. But it can't work for me. Because you see, I'm a bad person. There's another belief. I'm a bad person. And that won't happen for bad people. It won't happen as long as I cling to that idea. And then pretty soon I start thinking, maybe this can work for me. And then I start doing it and I start having an experience of it. Now I get some new ideas, new opinions. You know, maybe there is some power here. There appears to be a power. I wouldn't call it God, but there appears to be a power. First place I see the power evidence is in the meetings. These guys are reporting, they haven't had a drink in, God, five years. Oh. Twenty years. Oh. They report relationships that work. They report getting through all this stuff, and I start thinking, well, apparently. Apparently this is work for you. And then pretty soon I start thinking maybe this can work for me. But I have to practice it. Because these what ifs have to become ideas to me. This works is much different than I wonder if this could work or this seems to be working for you. No, this works. This works. Because I know when I do it, I get something. I get a I get a response, I get a reaction, I get a an adjustment in my circumstances. Funny, that only happens after I adjust the way I see the world. It's the same world I grew up in that scared the hell out of me. I don't think humanity's changed that much, but the way I see all of you has changed and is changing, and it's necessary. So I go from there is no God to I'm a child of God, love, protected, cared for. That's a bigger idea. That's a higher place to look at this from. That did not come in a couple of minutes for me. That was a process that took about eight or ten years. To even be willing to even to me that was just, oh, that's just such a damn fantasy. That is just, how is that going to help? I haven't filed taxes in ten years. I have problems here. You know, and you're saying, pray. I mean, Jesus, I need money. Pray. See what I'm saying? So I have to build new beliefs. The only way I can build new beliefs, or one of the one of the only ways, is I need to know what beliefs are in the way of my new beliefs. I can't build a concept of God when I'm clinging to this belief there is no God. I can't build a concept of honesty when I'm clinging to being a pathological liar. I can't build an idea of integrity when I'm out of integrity. One day I'm acting this way, one day I'm acting that way. I got, I have no boundaries, I have no, I have no guidelines for a living. It's just what works best right now. And that might be a lie. That might be telling you what you need to hear. It might be forging a time card, it might be it might be anything. But it's critical, I think it's critical, that I get this in my head. It's me. It's me and it's my thinking. That's all it's ever been. Yeah, I've got some other conditions. I have a physical allergy with alcohol, for instance. That means I can't do that successfully. It doesn't mean I can't drink. It means when I drink, everything goes to hell. At a high rate of speed for me. And I'm it's like imagine being dragged behind the bumper of a truck, you know, and I'm going, just a minute, just a minute, I'll work it out. I can handle this. It's just insane. But it's the only thing I know because it's what I believe. So let's take a break, get some coffee, eat some sugar, and let's have a talk. Thanks.