OA BIG BOOK WORKSHOP BY

HARLAN G

APRIL 2020
FRIDAY 17TH TO
SUNDAY 19TH

KINSALE,
IRELAND
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Contents
OA BB Spring Retreat - Ireland ................................................................................................................ 3
Prologue .............................................................................................................................................. 3
Day 1: Friday 17th April........................................................................................................................... 5
Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Day 1: Friday......................................................................................................................................... 17
Part 1: The Doctor's Opinion ................................................................................................................. 17
Day 1 Friday....................................................................................................................................... 23
Part 2: The Doctor’s Opinion Continued ........................................................................................... 23
Day 1 Friday....................................................................................................................................... 39
Part3: Bill's Story .............................................................................................................................. 39
Day 1 Friday....................................................................................................................................... 60
Part 4: Bill’s Story (Continued) .......................................................................................................... 60
Day 2: Saturday 18th April ................................................................................................................... 81
Part 1: Step 3 ..................................................................................................................................... 81
Day 2: Saturday 18th April .................................................................................................................. 103
Part 2: Step 4 ................................................................................................................................... 103
Day 2: Saturday 18th April .................................................................................................................. 117
Part 3: Step 4 Continued ................................................................................................................. 117
Day 2 Saturday 18th April ................................................................................................................... 135
Part 4: Steps 5,6,7,8,& 9 ................................................................................................................. 135
Day 3: Sunday 19th April .................................................................................................................... 152
Part 1: Steps 10,11 &12 .................................................................................................................. 152
Day 3: Saturday 18th April .................................................................................................................. 167
Part 2: Steps 10,11&12 ................................................................................................................... 167
Closure ............................................................................................................................................ 182
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OA BB Spring Retreat - Ireland

Prologue

OA BIG BOOK WORKSHOP BY HARLAN G

FRIDAY 17TH –SUNDAY 19TH APRIL 2020
KINSALE -IRELAND

C ead Mile Failte(Irish greeting)! “Hundred Thousand Welcomes”

This is the edited book version of the OA Big Book Workshop, delivered
by Harlan during April weekend; the 12 steps of recovery as outlined in the Big
Book of Alcoholic Anonymous.
Harlan is a recovered compulsive overeater from Scottsdale, Arizona,
and he has been a loyal servant of OA (and “A Vision 4 You”), since 1979. Over
30 years he has shared his message of strength, hope and recovery to
thousands of compulsive overeaters.

OA Ireland had originally planned for Harlan to speak in person, however

the outbreak of the cov19, could not stop him from being here to share his
message. Curiously enough, the first wave of the pandemic diminished after
this retreat

What would have been a small handful of mainly Irish OA members

coming together for a weekend, turned into thousands of members from all
over the globe: from Greece to New Zealand, from Israel to Argentina, from
the United States to Australia ... our Higher Power always has a better plan.
The alive event in Zoom, happened with the joint support of OA members in
Ireland and England.

The text version (Is a non professional transcription) expanded frontiers

as members overseas in the other side of the Atlantic, joined in this service
that speaks the language of the heart.
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In a time of pandemic, helping others to put the food down, become

abstinent and find HP is the ultimate service that we can do carrying the
message of OA, putting in practice that Faith without works is dead.

The compiled retreat here, started in September, going thought the eve
of the second lockdown in Ireland. And other wave surge occurred while the
vaccine entered in circulation in December.

The BB readings are based on Big Book 4th edition (2001) and the editing
of the recording in the following order.

Friday 17th April

Introduction and The Doctor’s Opinion
Bill's Story

Saturday 18th April

Steps 3 and 4
Steps 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9

Sunday 19th April

Steps 10, 11 and 12
Closure

The text contains some Yiddish words and mention of our compulsive foods

In loving fellowship,

The OA BB Retreat Team,

December 2020
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Day 1: Friday 17th April

Introduction

I
am so honored to be here. This is not quite how I imagined I would be in
Kinsale, Ireland I must admit, but God had other plans so here we are all
together. I am practically in tears just listening to all of you and the chatter
before we started. What a beautiful, beautiful work of God that we are all here
together this morning in the middle of a worldwide pandemic.

Five hundred and fifty compulsive overeaters have found a way, a

method and a medium to gain any type of recovery that they can gain. This is a
vicious illness and this weekend we are going to talk about many things, but
the one thing I know that will stand out in my mind forever is how we all came
together this morning. It is morning for me; it is 6:12am here in Arizona but not
for you guys in Europe or on the East Coast!

I was born and raised in Chicago. My mother was mentally ill. She had
three very distinct personalities. She could be a screaming, raving lunatic, and
then she could just take a breath and become a three-year-old or two-year-
old. She could take a breath 15 minutes later, 7 minutes later, 10 minutes
later, and just become a very normal person. A person that you would never
expect there to be anything wrong with; you never knew who you were going
to get or how long it was going to last. I found myself trying to convince her
throughout our lives together to be in that normal personality and, not
understanding mental illness, not understanding what I was dealing with, I felt
very frustrated in my inability to do that.

My dad was 54 years old when I was born and so by the time, I entered
kindergarten he was 60. My dad was a survivor of horrible anti-Semitism in
Europe. I am not talking World War II; I am talking more the turn of the 20th
century. My dad came here in 1914 at age 14.He was the sole survivor of a
family of 40 people: cousins, aunts, uncles and brothers, sisters, nieces and
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nephews, all between the ages of a couple of weeks and five, six, eight years
old. And every one of them was obliterated off the face of the earth in a
murderous, murderous rage of anti-Semitism that occurred in the early spring
of 1914. He alone survived, and it marked me because he carried around this
tremendous survivor's guilt throughout my life. Now is this why I am a
compulsive overeater? No. No, we all come in and we have in our minds a
story of why we are compulsive overeaters and my favourite story in the back
of the Big Book is “Because I am an Alcoholic”. That is my favourite title, not
my favourite story: “Because I am an Alcoholic”. Why am I a compulsive
overeater? Because I am a compulsive overeater.

From the time I was three and four years old, there were a couple of
things that were very pressing in my life. The first was a feeling of alienation
from the people and the world around me. I felt scared of people, I felt
different from people, I felt like I did not understand them and they did not
understand me. I felt like I really could not connect with them; then something
happened. Some food would go in my mouth, not just any food; it would be
like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a cookie or a cupcake or ice cream or
something like that. And for a little while the world just fitted together
perfectly!

We will talk about this feeling, what Dr Silkworth calls “the effect”. For
me, as a little child, I also had something else that was very difficult for me to
deal with and that was: people. Well-intentioned adults, whether they were
friends of my parents, whether they were teachers, whether they were
neighbours from the neighbourhood, started screaming and yelling at my Mom
and Dad. The reason that they would start screaming and yelling at my Mom
and Dad, was because I was getting so fat and eating so much food.

From the time I was a child I got the impression from everyone around
me that, because I was eating so much food, existentially I was unacceptable;
that as long as I kept eating like that I was not going to be a person that could
dream the dreams or have the aspirations of the normal people that did not
eat that way. It baffled me as a little child how somebody could eat a half a
doughnut, somebody could eat a half of whatever, a half of a sandwich or
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something like that. It was just baffling to me. I could not understand it for the
life of me. When I got to be about five or six years old, they started screaming
directly at me. They would say things to me like “Do not eat so much, you will
feel better’, and I found out they were right.

When I do not eat so much, I feel anger better, I feel fear better, I feel
like killing myself better, I feel that social anxiety much better. I feel things
more acutely, much better, when I am not eating than when I am eating. And
although I did not know it, at the time from the earliest memories that I hear
food was more the solution to the problem than it was the problem. I just did
not know it, because everybody in my environment kept telling me food is the
problem, weight is the problem and so they taught me to clamp down on this
desire for food with the most useless tool I had: willpower.

From the time I was six and seven years old, when they started
screaming directly at me, what they did not know is that I would have given
anything to acquiesce to their demands. They thought that I wanted to be fed.
They would say things to me like “Oh, you do not care about your mother”,
“Oh, you do not care about your dad”, “Oh, you do not care about this or you
do not care about that”. And what I could not describe to them is that they
were wrong. I cared very much about all those people and all those entities but
what I did not know how to tell them was, no matter how hard I tried, no
matter how much effort I put into this, I could not for the life of me stayed out
of the food for very long. It was not within the realm of my little willpower, or
even when I was older, my big willpower and so, it became more increasingly
difficult to try to connect. I looked different, I felt different; things would go on
and it would just drive me crazy, always thinking, “When can I eat, when can I
eat, when can I eat?”

When I got to be nine years old my mother took me to the doctor and
started screaming at him in Yiddish and the doctor started screaming at my
mother in Yiddish, and before I knew it, I was on very heavy-duty
amphetamine. I was nine years old; I was on a very heavy-duty diet pills, and I
can still remember the temples in my head would just go ba-boom, ba-boom. I
remember (I still get accused of this now) I would say the same thing like five
 OA BB Spring Retreat – Kinsale, Ireland- 2020 Page |8

hundred times- I just could not stop myself. I was like a motor mouth. When
people would talk to me a lot of the time (and I know some of you have been
on these diet pills, I am sure some of you are my age and you've been on this
too), you cannot really hear what people are saying to you it sort of sounds like
Charlie Brown's teacher. You are not really hearing what they are saying, you
sleep about 15, 20 minutes a month, but you do not eat. Oh boy, that killed
your appetite; but when you come down from the pills and they wear off, you
eat Illinois and most of Wisconsin is just fair game. I mean you just go crazy;
you just go absolutely out of your mind.

I lost weight as a nine-year-old for the first time in my life with the aid of
these pills. I lost weight but the side effects were unbelievable because,
unchecked, the disease was having its way with me. Maybe I could not eat
because I had no appetite, but that meant all these feelings, all these
emotions, all these fears, all these angers, all these jealousies, all these feelings
were not getting sated, because I was not working the steps and I did not have
the food to kind of make me feel better. So, I was very edgy and crazy.

When I got to be about 10 years old, some of the information on the

dangers of these amphetamines started coming out and so they switched me
from one pill to the next, with the same exact result. Puberty for me was very
difficult. When I was in seventh grade, I remember going to something called
“fortnightly”, where we were supposed to learn to dance with girls and they
were going to dance with us and so on and so forth. It was really tough on me
because I was the fattest kid in the school and it became really apparent to me
that these girls did not want to dance with me. When they would be forced to
dance with me, because someone had to, they would ask me questions about
my friends. “Does your friend like this girl, does your friend like that girl, does
your friend ever think about me, does your friend ever talk about me?”, things
like that. My friends were telling me that when the girls would dance with
them the conversations were much different, like “When are you going to take
me out?” Just a much different conversation and it was very hurtful at that
age, because I could tell these girls wanted nothing to do with me.
 OA BB Spring Retreat – Kinsale, Ireland- 2020 Page |9

Even to this day, dancing always gets me: “Oh no! Anything but dancing,
please”. It is not just the physical part of it; it is like, “Oh no, I am back in
seventh grade!” and none of the girls are going to want to dance with me. So,
to this day the word “dancing” will get me a little crazy.

So, when I got to be a little older, and I got to be a senior in high school, I
really had a very hard time with all this boy/girl kind of stuff. I am glad no one
could tell me that, because I had this disease, I would not go on my first date
with a girl until I was 35 years of age. If I had known that then, I do not know
what I would have done. Because you see for me, I was 335 pounds as a senior
in high school. I could not fit in the desk, I could not fit in my clothes, I could
not fit in my skin, and long before I got to be a senior in high school I was
physically and emotionally emasculated by this disease. I could not prove to
you that I was male in any kind of setting; you can draw your own picture of
that. So, I knew that I was unacceptable. I knew that there was something
radically different about me and I did not like it and the world around me did
not like it. They reinforced the fact that I was unacceptable in harsher and
harsher terms as I grew older, and so the world kept slipping a little more away
from me. The more it slipped away from me, the more I ate; the more I ate,
the more it slipped away from me. The more I ate, things got worse; it is
almost like the Chips Ahoy1 cookies, the sugary cereals and the pizza it is sort
of like: “Buy this and have a worse life!” It is just crazy, the more I consume
these things, the worse my life got.

When I got to be that age where my friends were going away to school, I
could not go, because their parents were economically better off, but also
because I did not do well in school. I did not try really hard. I just thought I was
just going to die and I wanted to die and I did not dare try to do well. There
was a part of me that thought: “If you do not know something, you cannot be
taught it. You either know it or you do not.” I did not work hard; if I had
worked hard, I would have done fine, I am sure I would have done fine.

1
And any other branch (luxury for the normal people, no longer for us) of sweet, crispy, salty, starchy
farinaceous processed food, that trigger our disease, awakening the cravings like Taytos, Doritos, Oreos,
Pringles, Hunky Dory, take away French fries, etc.
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My mother was getting sicker and sicker, and my father was getting
sicker and sicker now too. I told you that my dad was older so when I
graduated high school in 1972, he was 72 years old and he was getting sicker.
My mom was mentally ill, but now her physical ailments were starting to take
their toll on her as well. My mother was a diabetic of the highest magnitude;
she took hundred units of insulin per day by injection. She was a sneak eater
and she would only eat when there was no one around. My dad ate wantonly
and smoked one cigarette after the other, after the other. I am trying to keep
them alive because they are all I have in terms of family. I do not have brothers
and sisters; I do not have aunts, uncles, cousins, anything like that. They were
obliterated off the face of the earth a long time before I was born, so I did not
have anyone else. And so, I am trying desperately to keep them alive, I am
trying desperately to keep things going as it was before and I cannot do it,
obviously. I cannot lose weight; I cannot do this and I cannot control the world;
the only thing I could do was eat. At that time, my food kept getting saltier and
saltier and saltier because my tears were rolling into the food, because I did
not want to be doing this.

When I got to be a sophomore in college, I was 500 pounds. When I got

to be a graduate of college, I was about 650 pounds.

My mother died in 1976, the year I graduated, and my dad died in 1978.
My life was completely and utterly out of control. I was not wearing
underwear; I was wearing towels shoved between layers of flab to keep the
skin from rubbing together, because contact dermatitis is one of the most
painful things I have ever experienced in my life. My lower legs had such
profuse oedema, such profuse swelling, that I had penny and dime sized ulcers
in the bottoms of my legs where the pus would run out. I had one pair of pants
that fitted and two or three shirts that fitted. I could not button any of the
shirts, so I would wear T-shirts. When I used to buy t-shirts in 1972, I would be
paying $30 for a T-shirt because it was 7XL and they knew that I had no choice.
I had cigarette burns and food stains on every garment that I owned. I looked
like a mess, I was a mess, I was filthy and dirty. I did not practice any personal
hygiene. I did not bathe or wash myself and there was so much fat in the folds
of my neck, which I do not even have anymore, that the dirt would run out on
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hot summer days in Chicago. I did not brush my teeth for years. It is amazing I
have a tooth in my mouth now. I did not brush my hair for years. I did not take
care of myself. I was throwing a temper tantrum with a knife and a fork
begging God to smite me and kill me because I did not know how to live in this
world, nor did I want to. I wrote bad checks to anyone that would take them.
My rent was not paid and I frequently drove without automobile insurance.

Frequently, people I did not even know, would come up to me and slap
my stomach and ask me: “When’s the baby hippopotamus was due?”I had to
pretend that it did not bother me; people would come up to me and say: “Do
you know how fat you are?” and I would often say: “No, tell me!” I could not
stand, I could not sit, I broke furniture, I got stuck in cars, I could not go to the
movies (I could not fit in the seat), I could not go to anywhere. I could not
walk… if I sat, I would fall asleep because the blood would not go to my brain. I
broke toilets that were made for someone that is 400 pounds. On two
occasions when I broke toilets, I had gashes in my back from the broken toilet
that were so hideous I required medical attention. After I broke toilets and sat
on that bathroom floor, I knew that there was no way that this was how a
human being should live. I did not want to do it anymore. I knew nothing but
pain, I knew nothing but fear, I was a laughing stock: children and adults alike
would laugh at me.

On more than one occasion I would be in a restaurant by myself and

people would come up and take the food off my table and give it back to the
waiters saying: “He does not need this. He is fatter than three houses!” I did
not even know them. I did not know what crime I had committed to deserve
this. But I knew it was pretty serious and it must have been prenatal because I
do not seem to remember what I did wrong to deserve this.

I was 22 years old when my mother died. In the last conversation I had
with her, she begged me to “find a way not to eat so much, you are going to
have to find a way for yourself”. When I was 24 years old, my dad died and he
said the same thing to me: “You've got to find a way not to eat so much
because otherwise you are not going to have any kind of life”.
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Now, whatever somebody wants to believe, the word God sometimes

arouses a lot of antipathy, it arouses feelings. I am going to use the word God a
little later. We are going to study the history of Step 2. We are going to study
how Step 2 came into the program. I am going to give you the entire
background but I am going to use the word God because it works for me. You
can substitute in your mind whatever it is you want your Higher Power to be
called. I believe that my father held great stead with the Lord, because he died
in November 1978 and in February 1979 two wonderful friends pushed their
way past the filth of my apartment where the rent was not paid and there
were pizza boxes, Twinkie wrappers, Chips Ahoy bags and Captain Crunch
boxes all over the place. I had mice in my apartment and I had cockroaches in
that apartment and they still pushed their way past this and dragged me on
February 2nd, 1979 to a meeting of Overeaters Anonymous.

Now the reason I got brought here is because I believe my dad must
have held great sway with God. I know he is in heaven, because he lived hell on
Earth. He knew; he did not think; he knew that they were going to come and
kill us at any moment and I could not convince him otherwise. He was scared
and he did not suffer so much from the feeling of “Why did they kill my family
when I was 14 years old?”, but from “Why did not they kill me too? How did I
get away?” And I grew up in this, it affected me then and it affects me today.
But I know he held great sway with the Lord because he did not know about
Overeaters Anonymous, nor did I during his life, but somehow God came and
found me.

Now I was not a willing participant. The only reason I went is because I
owed these people money, and they said I could owe them the money if I went
to the meetings. So, I ate my way to the meetings, I prayed for a Russian
airstrike during the meetings, and I ate my way home. I stayed for a couple of
years. I met Bill B, who was a big deal in OA in LA, and I met Fred Schneider,
the one that started the whole programme.

I lost some weight and I stopped smoking. You do not normally come to
OA to stop smoking, but that is what happened to me. I sat in those rooms and
I could not, for the life of me, understand why people were there; because the
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 13

faces and the bodies and the people that day, in 1979, looked very similar to all
of you, the people I am seeing on my screen in this Zoom call.

I was at least 300 pounds fatter than anybody in that room and thirty
years younger than anybody in that room. I was 24 years old and I could not
understand what these people were doing there. Then you started telling your
stories. I found a connection between you and me and it made me feel less
alone. It made me feel that maybe I am not the only person that has these
feelings. Because I thought the way I thought about food, and the way I
behaved around food were unique and secret unto me.

At the beginning, I left OA, I came back, I left, I came back, I left, I came
back. There were things in the Big Book that I did not see. I think you sneaked
them in there on me! On page 58 it says:

“If you have decided you want what we have and you are willing to go
to any lengths to get it - then you are ready to take certain steps.”

We are going to be talking about that this weekend; not just the
cessation of compulsive eating or the compulsive food behaviours (bulimia,
anorexia and so on), we are not just going to be talking about that. We are
going to be talking the humongous difference between dieting with group
support, which you see so much of in OA, versus real spiritual awakening in
recovery. We are going to talk about this difference.

It says on the thirteenth line of page 45 of the Big Book,

“Its main object is to enable you to find a Power greater than yourself
which will solve your problem”.

I had to come to grips with the concept of a Power greater than myself
that I was willing to believe in. That is a very important thing. That is where a
lot of sponsors fall down, in Step 2; we spend a lot of time on Step 1: “I want
your red-light foods and your green-light foods and your purple-light foods and
your orange-light foods, etc”. We do not spend time formulating an idea of a
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 14

Power greater than ourselves that is palatable to us. We see people in OA

today that struggle because their idea of a God, their idea of a higher power, is
cruel to them, it is not benevolent, it is not kind, it is not loving. And so, we
are asking them to turn their will and their life over to the power of God and
their God is a God I would not want to meet in a dark alley. These are some of
the ways in which we are falling down.

The two most underutilized steps are Two and Ten. If you have never
heard me say that before you are going to hear me say that a lot this weekend.
The two most underutilized steps are Two and Ten.

I saw on page xx of the foreword to the second edition that it says:

“Of alcoholics who came to A.A. and really tried, 50% of them got
sober at once and remained that way; 25% sobered up after some relapses,
and among the remainder, those who stayed with A.A. showed
improvement.”

That is 75% recovery. Now I have never been to Ireland or anywhere

else in Europe, but I have been to Jerusalem doing this and I have been to
almost all the states in the United States and a couple of provinces in Canada
and Alaska and so on. We cannot talk about 75% recovery, we cannot talk
about 5% recovery, we are lucky if we can talk about 2% recovery. Why?
Because we get away from the principles, which are the Steps.

We are going to talk about some of the myths that you have been
hearing in OA like “abstinence is the most important thing in your life without
exception”. We are going to blow that out of the water. It is not. These myths
may have been holding you back.

It is been a long journey and we have all weekend to consider it. I would
not wish being a fat kid on anybody, I would not wish being a fat kid on my
worst enemy, but “My God! it has been a journey”. The places I have gone and
the people that I have met have been unbelievable. Yes, I have lost a little over
500 pounds that is true, and I have 21 years of back-to-back, beautiful
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 15

abstinence and I am happy in my release. Of course, I wish I could tweak my

life in a couple of areas, you bet, I wish I could change a few things in my life,
but I have a life worth living today. I invite you this weekend to join us on that
road of happy destiny.

If you are struggling, if you are confused with any part of this, I hope
there is something we are going to say this weekend that will help. One thing I
can guarantee you I will not be talking about anything that is going to help you
stay on a diet; we are going to talk about recovery, we are going to talk about
having a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, not how you can
clamp down and stay on a diet.

Let us take a look at what we want to endeavour into now; for centuries,
going all the way back to the book of Solomon in the Old Testament: Solomon
philosophised that alcoholism was an illness but he could not prove it and he
had no cure for it. In the 1640s in England, there was a guy named Dr Trotter,
who believed and wrote that alcoholism was an illness but he could not prove
it and he had no cure for it. In 1790, Dr Benjamin Rush; the man who would
become the first Surgeon General of the United States and was one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence; published a paper in which he
thought alcoholism was an illness but he could not prove it and he had no cure
for it. Around the 1920s in New York City, there was a neurologist and his
name was William Duncan Silkworth. He had no interest in drugs, he had no
interest in alcoholism; he was a neurologist. On the 29th of October 1929,
black Tuesday, when the stock market crashed and the Great Depression
started, he found himself over invested in the stock market and lost everything
he had. He had a friend named Charlie Towns, who owned and operated the
Towns Hospital in New York City. At that time, it was the leading hospital for
the treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction in the country. In November of
1929, William Duncan Silkworth got a job from his friend Charlie Towns and he
became the Medical Director of Towns Hospital. He started to observe
hundreds of people; mostly men, but not all, who would come in and get fixed
up medically. They would sober these guys up, give them B12, give them food,
make them eat, walk them around and so on and they would leave. About 90%
of these people would leave and stay gone; they had been burned by
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 16

alcoholism. They had been burned by liquor and they had learnt their lesson.
They were done; they were not going to do this anymore. But about 10% of
these people would come in and they would go out and they would come back
in worse shape than he saw them in before. He started to notice that for this
10 percent there were some different factors at work that just were not
present in other people.
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Day 1: Friday

Part 1: The Doctor's Opinion

L
et us take a look at The Doctor's Opinion on page xxv if you are
following along with me. It says:

“We of Alcoholics Anonymous believe that the reader will be interested

in the medical estimate of the plan of recovery described in this book.
Convincing testimony must surely come from medical men who have had
experience with the sufferings of our members and have witnessed our return
to health. A well-known doctor, chief physician in a nationally prominent
hospital, (Towns Hospital), specializing in alcoholic and drug addiction, gave
Alcoholics Anonymous this letter:

To whom it may concern:

I have specialized in the treatment of alcoholism for many years. In

late 1934 I attended a patient who, though he had been a competent
businessman of good earning capacity, was an alcoholic of a type I had come
to regard as hopeless”.

Now, when I see this word: hopeless, to me it means that I am out of

ideas. You see, if I am harbouring an idea of how I am going to stay abstinent
six days a week, but on Sunday I am going to eat the buffet and I am going to
eat my neighbour’s cake or whatever it is; that is not going to work. If I think to
myself, “I have got a plan”. Oh Lord, if you have got a plan, we want to hear
your plan. We really want to hear your plan, but your plan is not going to work.
It is just not going to work. It is not going to be effective. You are either going
to do this or you are not, and if you are hopeless that means, hopefully, that
you are out of ideas on how you are going to work this your way. Because my
way sucks, my way is nothing but failure and degradation and pitiful and
incomprehensible demoralisation and a loneliness that I would not wish on
anybody.
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Now, we are going to learn in Bill’s story a little later that Bill will be
hospitalised for his alcoholism three times, but between hospitalisation
number two and hospitalisation number three some very interesting things
began to happen. In the course of his third treatment, he acquired certain
ideas concerning a possible means of recovery.

We are going to be talking about the Oxford Group a little later too. As
part of his rehabilitation Bill commenced to present his conceptions to other
alcoholics, impressing upon them that they must do likewise with still others.
This has become the basis of a rapidly growing fellowship of these men and
their families. This man and over 100 others appear to have recovered.

There is that word “recovered” that gets a lot of attention. I know in “A

Vision for You” (if you are not familiar with A Vision for You, it is just a healthy
OA meeting that is on the phone) there's a lot of controversy about this word
recovered. Can you recover? You cannot be cured, let me draw that line. Let
me make sure we understand that there is no cure for alcoholism. There are
three characteristics of alcoholism:
It is permanent,
It is progressive and
It is fatal;

permanent, progressive and fatal. There is no cure for it, but you can recover
if acted upon by an outside force, a Higher Power, then I do not have to
practice the disease and I can recover. I personally know scores of cases who
were of the type with whom other methods had failed completely.

I am going to make an assumption. When I see your faces on this screen

here, I am going to assume that the other things you have done, have failed
completely. Why am I going to assume that is? Because if the diets had
worked, if the operations had worked, if the pills had worked, if the hypnosis
had worked you would not be here.

When I was young in OA, people would go to an acupuncturist and they

would get staples in their ears. They were to pull their ear when they wanted
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to eat. I think a few of them forgot to pull their ear, a couple of times. I also
remember, probably more women than men, would go to the doctor and get a
jab of the urine of a pregnant woman. This was supposed to boost your
metabolism and kill your appetite and so on and so forth. We as a group did all
that. So, we have tried all these various things. Sorry but I am going to assume
that they failed or you would not be here this morning.

The Doctor’s opinion continues:

“These facts appear to be of extreme medical importance; because of

the extraordinary possibilities of rapid growth inherent in this group they
may mark a new epoch in the annals of alcoholism. These men may well have
a remedy for thousands of such situations.

You may rely absolutely on anything they say about themselves.

Very truly yours,

William D Silkworth, MD”

Now, I want you to appreciate something here in the history. When the
book came out in April 1939 April, it did not say William D Silkworth MD. Bill
Wilson approached Silkworth about writing this, and Silkworth says “I will do it
under the one condition: do not put my name in there”. Because in 1939, Dr
Silkworth’s opinion was not based on fact, it was based on observation. He
could not defend it to the American Medical Association or the American
Psychiatric Association. In 1949, 10 years later, a psychiatrist who treated Bill
Wilson named Harry Tiebout; he was also one of the non-alcoholics on the
alcoholic board of AA; he wrote a paper in which he stated his belief, that
based on his conjecture, alcoholism was indeed an illness. In 1949 the
American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association
accepted alcoholism as an illness. Silkworth said, in 1950, when the 11th
printing was about to go into the printer “You can put my name in there now”.
Silkworth died, in 1951, just one year after that, but he remains to this day our
great medical benefactor. I want you to appreciate how difficult it was for him
to write this, because when we walk into a meeting of OA, we are walking in
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on the shoulders of giants who went before us, and one of those giants was
this little doctor who loved drunks. He made it possible for us to have a
programme, because without this opinion that we are going to get into now,
there is no programme, there is nothing!

Reading from first paragraph page xxvi.

“The physician who, at our request, gave us this letter, has been kind
enough to enlarge upon his views in another statement which follows.In this
statement he confirms what we who have suffered alcoholic torture must
believe”; that is a word to pay attention to; “that the body of the alcoholic as
quite as abnormal as his mind”.

Historically, alcoholism was never believed to be a physical thing. It was

believed to be weak will, a lack of willpower, a lack of character, a lack of
concern, all the things we have heard our whole lives. Dr Silkworth is
introducing for the very first time a physical component. The disease is a two-
fold illness, it is physical and mental with a spiritual solution. Let us continue:

“It did not satisfy us to be told that we could not control our drinking
just because we were maladjusted to life, that we were in full flight from
reality, or were outright mental defectives. These things were true to some
extent, in fact, to a considerable extent with some of us. But we are sure that
our bodies were sickened as well. In our belief, any picture of the alcoholic
which leaves out this physical factor is incomplete.”

Wow! Do you see what is going on here? He is telling you that there is a
physical component to this. Continuing:

“The doctor's theory that we have an allergy (There is that word

allergy) to alcohol interests us. As laymen, our opinion as to its soundness
may, of course, mean little. But as ex-problem drinkers, we can say his
explanation makes good sense. It explains many things for which we cannot
otherwise account.”
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When they told me in 1979 that I cannot eat pizza because I have an
allergy to pizza, I thought they were crazy. What do you mean I am allergic to
pizza? I am eating four football fields of pizza a week and I am not getting
itchy, watery eyes; I am not getting hives; I get no itching in the skin; I am not
getting any of that! They would say to me “just do not eat pizza”, and I could
not understand this word allergy.

I went to a source of information that has never failed me, it is very

archaic, and some of you who are not older than me will not remember it. It is
called a dictionary. I looked up this word allergy and when I looked it up, I
found several different definitions to this word allergy. One of the definitions
to this word fit me perfectly. It said it was “an adverse abnormal reaction to a
food, beverage or substance”. Adverse means it is harmful and abnormal
means most people do not react to food the way I do. An adverse abnormal
allergy, yes! Now it makes sense and it explains many things for which we
cannot otherwise account. I wanted that first French fry, I needed that second
French fry and I would kill for the 87th French fry. The more I ate, the more I
want; in my friends and in everybody around me the more they ate the less
interested in food they became. The more I ate, the more interested in food I
became. My reaction to the food was physical and everybody thought I just
had lack of willpower. My reaction to food is an actual physical craving for
more of the same. I see some of you smiling. This is something that explains
things for which I cannot otherwise account.

Reading on:

“Though we work out our solution on the spiritual as well as an

altruistic plain, we favour hospitalization for the alcoholic who is very jittery
or befogged. More often than not, it is imperative that a man's brain be
cleared before he is approached, as he then has a better chance of
understanding and accepting what we have to offer.”

Dr Silkworth is going to tell us this three times. What is he telling you

here? He is telling you “Put down the food! Put down the food! Put the food
down!” Because while that effect is in place, and while that allergy is surging
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through you, there is nothing we can do. We cannot touch you. You have to
have two days clean. Is it going to be tough as a mother at first? Yes! You are
not going to have a spiritual awakening as the result of the steps just because
you did not need Chips Ahoy for 15 minutes; it is not going to happen.

You are going to have to lean on the fellowship, you are going to have to
lean on some tools, you are going to have to lean on each other, because it is
going to be one mother when you first start. The nausea of the withdrawals
when I would abstain from sugar; I would walk around with dry heaves all the
time for a whole week. It is tough, but we have to put down the food and if we
do not put down the food we cannot recover. You cannot work the steps while
you are eating. If you are getting the effect from the M&Ms, you do not need
the effect from the steps. It does not work that way. I wish it did, I wish I could
tell you that it did but I have never seen it work that way yet. The food has to
be put down. Dr Silkworth is going to tell us that two more times, so it is
pretty important.
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Day 1 Friday

Part 2: The Doctor’s Opinion Continued

"T he doctor write s(top of page xxvii):

The subject presented in this book seems to me to be of paramount

importance to those afflicted with alcoholic addiction.

I say this after many years’ experience as Medical Director of one of

the oldest hospitals in the country treating alcoholic and drug addiction.

There was, therefore, a sense of real satisfaction when I was asked to

contribute a few words on a subject which is covered in such masterly detail
in these pages.”

I want to look at the next paragraph twice. Let us read it as it is written.

“We doctors have realized for a long time that some form of moral
psychology was of urgent importance to alcoholics, but its application
presented difficulties beyond our conception. What with our ultra-modern
standards, our scientific approach to everything, we are perhaps not well
equipped to apply the powers of good that lie outside our synthetic
knowledge.”

I am going to change some of the words here. Silkworth is a

doctor, a man of science but I want to change some of the words and hopefully
it will amplify the meaning.

“We doctors have realized for a long time that some form of spiritual
awakening was of urgent importance to alcoholics but its application
presented difficulties beyond medicine’s conception. What with medicine’s
ultra-modern standards, medicine’s scientific approach to everything,
medicine is perhaps not well equipped to apply the powers of God that lie
outside our medical knowledge".
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What he is telling you there is the doctor is as powerless over the

alcoholic as the alcoholic is powerless over alcohol. When we were looking for
an answer to our obesity, we asked the medical profession, Big Pharma
(Pharmaceutical companies), the American Medical Association (AMA) and the
psychiatrists and psychologists to cure us and they could not. They can do
other things. When I needed my knee replaced or my hip replaced, I did not go
to a meeting, I went to a surgeon. When I have strep throat, I do not go to a
meeting, I do not call up and say I have strep throat, I need to do a 10-step; I
go to a doctor.

If I go to the doctor and say “doctor I have an eating disorder, I have an

allergy of the body and a twist of the mind”; that doctor is as powerless over
that, as I am over my own food, my own disease. Yet, we keep going back and
keep going back. It is akin to trying to buy a tuxedo at the gas station. They do
not sell tuxedos at the gas station and so we have to go to the proper place.

“Many years ago, one of the leading contributors to this book came
under our care in this hospital and while here he acquired some ideas which
he put into practical application at once.

Later, he requested the privilege of being allowed to tell his story to

other patients here and with some misgiving, we consented.”

They did not want Bill talking to the patients at Townes Hospital. Why
not? These people were paying for professional help, they were paying for
professional intervention. Bill was a layman. He did not have a doctorate, he
did not have MD at the end of his name, he did not have any credentials yet he
could reach them in a way that the doctors could not. Why? Because Bill
speaks and understands the language of the heart and that language of the
heart is the universal language. I do not care what language is native to you, I
do not care what background you are from. It does not make a difference
because we speak and understand the language of the heart. You cannot speak
that language nor understand it, unless you have lived it. We know the pain of
this disease because we are the only ones that have experienced it. We know
the joy, the euphoria and the power of the recovery because if you are in
recovery you are the only one that can bear witness to what you have
experienced. No outsider can bear witness to your life's path. No matter
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whether you are male or female, whether you are anorexic, bulimic or a
compulsive overeater, we understand. Nobody has to tell us what this means;
we understand. We can reach people. God has got a job for each and every
one of us and there is not one of us where God is going to waste the tears you
have cried and the pain that you have suffered.

They saw that Bill could communicate with these men and allowed him
to work with them but they were trepidatious about it.

“The cases we have followed through have been most interesting; in

fact, many of them are amazing. The unselfishness of these men as we have
come to know them, the entire absence of profit motive, and their
community spirit, is indeed inspiring to one who has labored long and wearily
in this alcoholic field. They believe in themselves, and still more in the Power
which pulls chronic alcoholics back from the gates of death.”

Notice “Power” is capitalized. Why is it capitalized? He is talking about

God. Reading from the top of page xxviii

“Of course, an alcoholic ought to be freed from his physical craving for
liquor, and this often requires a definite hospital procedure, before
psychological measures can be of maximum benefit.”

What is he telling you here? This is the second time he has tried to tell us
to put down the food. You must put it down. Are you struggling? Are you trying
to find your way? Are you trying to find that magic sponsor that is going to lead
you to the Promised Land? Every sponsor is fine, if you want to do the work!
None of us can help you, if you do not! When we talk about doing the work;
where does that start? It starts by putting the food down for two days, then
we can work with you.

How do you put the food down? You are powerless but you are not
helpless. There is a difference between powerless and helpless. You can put
the food down and you will suffer, temporarily. It is going to be tough but if
you will give the process a chance. If you walk to God, he will run to you. Give
God a chance! If you want to recover, a chimpanzee could sponsor you, if you
do not want to recover Bill and Bob could come back from the dead and
sponsor you and it is not going to make a bit of difference! It is not about the
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sponsor most of the time. The long journey begins with a single step. Put
down of the food! How do you do it? You do it by doing it!

You know yourself that your candy is killing you, your soda is killing you,
your cashews and pizza is killing you. It must be put down but there is more to
it than that. I consult a nutritionist, maybe which is what you are going to have
to do. There is also a great pamphlet out there called “The dignity of choice”
has three food plans. If it is not on the food plan, it does not go in your mouth.
There is no question about it. If you do not see it written down there it does
not go in the mouth. How do you put the food down? You put it down by
putting it down. Do not wait for willingness because willingness is not going
to come until you take the action. I waited for willingness a long time. When I
took the action, the willingness came. What I did first was I took action after
action I did not even believe in it yet, but I did it because I saw that it was
working in other people. I started doing these things almost as a way to prove
to God and others that it was not going to work for me because my ego was so
huge, and it still is, that I was somehow different. When it started working in
me, it fuelled me and I wanted to do it more and more because I actually did
feel better. Struggling? Put the food down!

“We believe, and so suggested a few years ago, that the action of
alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy; that the
phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the
average temperate drinker. These allergic types can never safely use alcohol
in any form at all; and once having formed the habit and found they cannot
break it, once having lost their self-confidence, their reliance upon things
human, their problems pile up on them and become astonishingly difficult to
solve.”

Of course, I lost my self-confidence. Nobody lied to me as effectively as

me. Nobody hurt me as effectively as I did. How was I supposed to maintain
self-confidence? I did not trust myself. I knew in the back of my mind that no
matter how serious I was on Tuesday night that I am never going to eat this
again; I knew by Wednesday or Thursday; I would be eating it by the gallon or
the truckload. I could not trust me, so I tried to get you to raise me. I tried to
get you to take care of me. That does not work either. God can take care of me
if I do certain things every day. Of course, my problems piled up on me. I used
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all my brainpower either eating or not eating, eating or not eating. I did not
have time to study in school. I did not have time to do anything. I was
consumed by the food. I ate the food and the food consumed me. It took me
to places that you should not ever want to see. This disease is horrible. I would
not wish it on anybody. Only the power of God is bigger than this disease, in
my life. I do not know how it is for you.

“Frothy emotional appeal seldom suffices”.

Frothy means without substance. I am not a beer drinker; I am not a

drinker at all. Picture the suds on a beer; it is very vapid, there are just bubbles.
If I served you a beer just like that you would complain. There’s nothing there.
So, bribing me, browbeating me, trying to convince me that I need to lose
weight is useless. The message which can interest and hold these alcoholic
people must have depth and weight. That is why a Ebbie was the perfect
messenger and we are going to talk about that later. That is why YOU are that
perfect messenger for somebody out there dying. You are that perfect
messenger.

It is up to us to be sponsors. You are scared, you do not know how to

sponsor, you are worried about hurting them? Let me assure you of
something, if they want to recover you cannot say the wrong thing. If they do
not want to recover you cannot say the right thing. I have a 100% recovery rate
in the people that I have sponsored; I recover 100% of the time but they do
not. If they do not want to recover there is nothing you can do. We have a job
to do. We will talk a lot more about this on Sunday. We have to be prepared.
This is not a program for people who need it. It is not a program for people
who want it. This is a program for people who do it! This is an action
program. There is no chapter called “Into thinking” or “Into wanting”; there
is a chapter called “Into action” and we are going to have to take that action.
We have a lot of work to do. We have failed the black community. Almost
every face I see at meetings is white. Does this disease only affect white
people? I do not think so. We have failed the Native American community. We
have failed the Spanish-speaking community. We have failed the gay
community. We have failed to adequately reach out to them and we need to
do a better job. I know I am part of “we”. We need to do a better job. It is
imperative for all of us to know that the message must have depth and weight.
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“In nearly all cases, their ideals must be grounded in a power greater
than themselves, if they are to recreate their lives.

If any feel that as psychiatrist directing a hospital for alcoholics we

appear somewhat sentimental, let them stand with us awhile on the firing
line, see the tragedies, the despairing wives, the little children; let the solving
of these problems become a part of their daily work, and even of their
sleeping moments, and the most cynical will not wonder that we have
accepted and encouraged this movement. We feel, after many years of
experience, that we have found nothing which has contributed more to the
rehabilitation of these men than the altruistic movement now growing up
among them”.

The next paragraph is the cornerstone of everything that we are going to

build. It is very important.

“Men and women drink essentially because they like the effect
produced by alcohol.”

It does not say men and women drink because they like the taste of
alcohol and it does not say men and women drink because they like the smell
of alcohol; it says they like the effect.

“The sensation is so elusive that, while they admit it is injurious, they

cannot after a time differentiate the true from the false”.

We know we are killing ourselves with our food obsession. However,

after a time we cannot differentiate the true from the false. What does that
mean? It means that every single time I sat down and ate ice cream, I knew in
the back of my mind, that I could not eat it moderately but I would convince
myself that this time I could; I never could. At no time could I control it. I just
kept eating it and eating it. Sometimes, I would eat vanilla ice cream because I
preferred chocolate ice cream more and, in my mind, somehow that made
sense; that this was the right thing to do because it was not my favorite flavor;
that is how crazy my brain is in this area. I am going to eat another flavor and
somehow that is going to make up for it. It is absolute insanity.

“To them, their alcoholic life seems the only normal one. They are
restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the
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sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks-drinks
which they see others taking with impunity”.

Impunity means that they are not getting punished for it. It means they
are eating but they are not getting punished, they are not getting fat, they do
not have to regurgitate, they are not exercise bulimics or laxative abusers.
They are not any of those things and we do not understand.

“After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and
the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known
stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink
again. This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience
an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his recovery”.

What does this paragraph mean? You have an allergy of the body that
makes it impossible for you to stop but you have a mind that is locked in on
that sense of ease and comfort that comes instantly by eating the food. Food
does something for me, which it does not do for the normal temperate eater.
Food instantly changes my perception of reality. When you get something that
does that for you, that becomes something that you do not want to let go of.
So, food is not the problem. Food is the solution to the problem. If food is the
solution to the problem, what is the problem? The problem is the buildup of
everyday normal human emotion.

All human beings have emotions: happiness, sadness, jealousy, lust,

regret, remorse. All of us have these emotions, whether we are addicts or not
but in the mind of a non-addicted person, they can assuage these emotions.
They can dampen down these emotions by doing very simple things; they can
play with the dog, take a hike, ride their bike, drink a glass of wine, make love,
whatever it is they do. They go to the gym and they come back and they are
fine. You see them every day. In our minds we cannot do that because these
emotions pinball around and accelerate at an amazing level. As they pinball
around, the pain of not eating is too much for us to bear. The pain of not
eating is so horrible that eating becomes a step up from where we are. We eat
the food in search of relief from the untenable, unbearable, unbelievable,
horrific pain of not eating. We cannot bear the pain of not eating and we eat
the food to give us relief from it.
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For about nine seconds when I eat a cookie, I feel fantastic. The girl that I
am sure will never go out with me, is going to be mine, the bank account which
does not cover my bills, is going to just rocket into existence; everything is
going to be great. Do you know that compulsive overeaters and alcoholics
almost never become psychotic delusional? Psychotic delusional is a state
where the mind cannot handle what it sees, so it flips into another reality. The
psychotic delusional never come back but alcoholics, drug addicts and
compulsive overeaters almost never become psychotic delusional and the
reason is the mind knows that if you eat your binge foods, your whole
perception of reality is going to change and everything is going to be okay for
about ten seconds. When I eat the binge foods, for about nine seconds
everything is beautiful; I want to buy the world a coke, I want to sit and sing
Kumbaya and everybody would be groovy. Then about ten seconds in, the
horror and the nightmare of what I am doing is upon me. Only by then, I have
triggered the physical allergy and I cannot stop. I want to stop but I cannot. If I
cannot eat because of the allergy and I cannot keep from eating because of the
twist of the mind, I am powerless over food and my life is unmanageable. That
is what that means.

Sometimes, when I work with new people and we get to Step 1 and they
have a little trouble with it. I say “I am powerless over my human emotions
and my food has become unmanageable.” It begs the question; what am I
going to do now? I cannot eat because of the allergy; I cannot keep from eating
because of the twist of the mind. What if I could find a way to live, where my
mind does not lock in on that sense of ease and comfort that comes instantly
by eating the food? What if I could find a way to live, where I already feel
better and the process of bringing a Higher Power into the equation to rid
myself of the toxicity of these emotions? It is called recovery. It is about
substituting the effect of the steps for the effect of the food.

Every day when I wake up there are two choices in front of me, one
choice is eating the food and that is going to make me feel better for a little
while. Food works. The food also has death-defying side effects; obesity, high
blood pressure, diabetes, heart trouble, kidney failure, liver failure, fatty liver.
Food has horrible side effects. The other choice is the Steps. The Steps require
work. They will equally make me feel better but for a longer period of time,
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with none of the devastating side effects. No doctor has ever said to me
“Harlan, I do not really think you should be going to so many meetings”. No
doctor has ever said to me “I do not think you should be sponsoring so many
people”, they have never said that to me but they have screamed at me and
yelled at me about eating Mars bars.

What I am endeavoring to explain is what we are doing; we are replacing

the effect of the food with the effect and the wonderment and the true
miracle of the recovery. When you let God whisper on the last ember of your
heart that wants to live, it will burst into flames and you will know a life behind
your wildest dreams; you will know what it is to have a life of fulfillment and
pure joy. The food brought me pleasure but the steps bring me happiness and
fulfillment and purpose. I would rather have happiness and fulfillment than
momentary pleasure. There is a time in life for pleasure, no doubt, but I much
rather in the long run, have happiness and deep-seeded fulfillment. Your
ability to understand and absorb this paragraph will mark the urgency with
which you will work the rest of the steps. If you do not absorb this into your
soul, Ghaderim in Yiddish, you will see no reason to work the rest of the steps.
That is why Step 1 is so vital. You have to concede to your innermost self, that
you are a compulsive overeater. If I do not work the rest of these steps I am
not going to recover. It is not going to happen.

Continuing on Page xxix

“On the other hand-and strange as this may seem to those who do not
understand-once a psychic change has occurred, the very same person who
seemed doomed, who had so many problems he despaired of ever solving
them, suddenly finds himself easily able to control his desire for alcohol, the
only effort necessary being that required to follow a few simple rules”.

What are the rules? There are 12 of them. The rules are the Steps.

“Men have cried out to me in sincere and despairing appeal: "Doctor, I

cannot go on like this! I have everything to live for! I must stop, but I cannot!
You must help me!

Faced with this problem, if a doctor is honest with himself, he must

sometimes feel his own inadequacy. Although he gives all that is in him, it
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 32

often is not enough. One feels that something more than human power is
needed to produce the essential psychic change. Though the aggregate
(aggregate means total number) of recoveries resulting from psychiatric effort
is considerable, we physicians must admit we have made little impression
upon the problem as a whole. Many types do not respond to the ordinary
psychological approach.

I do not hold with those who believe that alcoholism is entirely a

problem of mental control”.

This is not your fault, you did not cause it, you cannot cure it and you
cannot control it. This did not happen because you screwed up. I hope it helps
you to see that this did not happen because you screwed up. This did not
happen because of your mother or your father. This did not happen because of
anything that is of this earth. There is no earthly explanation as to why you are
a compulsive overeater and here is the other news there is no earthly solution
either. Money will not do it, sex will not do it, relationships will not do it,
prestige will not do it, fame will not do it, poverty will not do it, lack of fame
will not do it. The only solution you have is from a Higher Power. May you find
him now. Unless you tap into that power, greater than yourself, through the
steps, you are not going to recover. There is nothing here on earth that is going
to help you recover. It is not going to happen. It is not in other people, it is not
in money, it is not in fame, it is not in any of those things. It is in a relationship
that you have with your Higher Power that is established, deepened and
perfected through the working of the steps on an everyday basis for the rest of
your life.

There is another myth that we are going to dispel; you have been
hearing in OA that abstinence is the most important thing in your life without
exception; it is not true. Abstinence is vital; without it you will not have
recovery but abstinence is not the most important thing in my life without
exception. The most important thing in my life without exception is to perfect
and enlarge my spiritual life through service and self-sacrifice for others. As I
do that, I start to like myself, as I do that, I draw closer to God, as I do that, I
draw closer to my fellow human beings, as I do that I move away from the food
and toward the light of God. Therefore, the most important thing in my life,
without exception is to perfect and enlarge my spiritual life through service
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 33

and self-sacrifice for others and what this is telling me here is nothing that is of
this earth is going to help me.

“I have had many men who had, for example, worked a period of
months on some problem or business deal which was to be settled on a
certain date, favorably to them. They took a drink a day or so prior to the
date, and then the phenomenon of craving at once became paramount to all
other interests so that the important appointment was not met. These men
were not drinking to escape; they were drinking to overcome a craving
beyond their mental control”.

What were they thinking about this meeting? They were afraid that it
was not going to go their way; selfishness. They were lying perhaps; there is
some dishonesty there. These emotions started to build up and as the meeting
got closer and closer and as these emotions built up and built up, they
demanded a drink, because the brain could not handle not drinking. The
buildup of emotions was so toxic, that drinking became a step up from where
they were, so they drank. How many times has that happened to me? Would
anybody in their right mind, do with anything what we have done with food? I
have a friend of mine, Larry, who has a daughter named Beth and she has a
peanut allergy. She is so acutely allergic to peanuts that when she eats peanuts
her throat closes up. She has to be taken to an emergency room immediately.
She does not say “maybe if I ate them in the shell, they would be okay”. She
does not say “maybe if I ate them dry roasted, they would be okay”, or “maybe
if I just ate them with a salad, it would be okay” and she does not have to go to
Peanuts Anonymous. She does not have to work the steps because of her
peanut allergy because peanuts do not do for her what my binge foods do for
me. Peanuts are death defying for her, so she does not eat them! For me,
however, food does something for me. It does something for me that I crave.
What is it? It is the effect, that we learned about in that other paragraph.

“There are many situations which arise out of the phenomenon of

craving which cause men to make the supreme sacrifice rather than continue
to fight”.

Every one of you have buried people and lost people to this disease. You
have been touched by the nightmare of what this is. You cried for people that
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 34

died in their disease. Every one of us have and yet we are biologically so
predetermined to eat ourselves to death, that eating ourselves to death or
starving ourselves to death will seem like the most natural thing in the world.
Remember Dr Silkworth told us we cannot tell the truth from the false; this is
what he was talking about.

“The classification of alcoholics seems most difficult, and in much detail

is outside the scope of this book. There are, of course, the psychopaths who
are emotionally unstable. We are all familiar with this type. They are always
‘going on the wagon for keeps.’ They are over-remorseful and make many
resolutions, but never a decision”.

Later on, we are going to learn that Step 3 is a beginning and a decision.

“There is the type of man who is unwilling to admit that he cannot take
a drink. He plans various ways of drinking. He changes his brand or his
environment. There is the type who always believes that after being entirely
free from alcohol for a period of time he can take a drink without danger”.

It does not matter how long it has been, your disease gets worse every
day. Every single day that you are lucky enough to wake up, your disease is
worse than it was yesterday. That is why more and more effort is going to be
required of you. That is what I hear and sees so much of in OA today; people
resting on their laurels. They get to a point where they call the same three
people every day. They are not doing 10 steps, they are not really doing step
11, they are not really doing step 12 and they wonder why they go back to the
food. They wonder why! They just do not understand it. This is not anything
less than a challenge to work more and more every day and unless you are
doing that you are kidding yourself. Complacency is the disease in its active
form. This is a progressive illness, meaning it gets worse over time, never
better.

“There is the manic-depressive type, who is, perhaps, the least

understood by his friends, and about whom a whole chapter could be written.
Then there are types entirely normal in every respect except in the effect
alcohol has upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people.”
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 35

Many of you have accomplished great things in your life. If I got to know
each and every one of you, I would be astounded at what you have
accomplished in your life but I know you cannot control the amount you eat
once you have started and you cannot stay stopped because of the mental
twist and the physical allergy. It does not really matter how great your
character is or what your level of intelligence is. Some of you are astoundingly
accomplished people and some of you are not but it does not make a
difference. In your world you have accomplished much but you cannot control
your food and you cannot enjoy it and control it at the same time.

“All these, and many others, have one symptom in common: they
cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving. This
phenomenon, as we have suggested, may be the manifestation of an allergy
which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity.”

We are not like other people and we are also all different from each
other. Some of us, like me are compulsive overeaters to the point where we
will become morbidly obese. Some of us are anorexic; we get a high from
missing meals, from not eating. Some of us are exercise bulimic; we exercise to
an absurd level. Some of us are laxatives abusers, some of us are vomiters. It
does not matter. These are just manifestations of the same thing. Our defense
must come from a Higher Power. We are powerless. We must seek the power.

“It has never been, by any treatment with which we are familiar,
permanently eradicated.”

You are recovered you are not cured.

“The only relief we have to suggest is ENTIRE ABSTINENCE”.

This is the third time he has told us this. Put down the food! You have
got to put it down. You cannot work the steps while you are eating. It just does
not work. There is a sect of OA that came out of Southern California where
they work the steps while they are eating. You do not want their odds, they are
not good at all.

“This immediately precipitates us into a seething caldron of debate.

Much has been written pro and con, but among physicians, the general
opinion seems to be that most chronic alcoholics are doomed.”
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 36

Physicians do not even want to treat us. I go to a cardiologist I have a

condition called AFIB: atrial fibrillation of the heart. My heart beats irregularly
because of drinking so much pop and eating so much and gaining and losing so
much weight, I screwed up the electrical system of the heart. If I do not take
my medication I would die of a stroke because eventually I would throw clot. I
go to the cardiologist every six months and when I go, I bring OA literature
with me and he laughs he thinks it is a waste of time. He thinks it is the biggest,
stupidest, dumbest, waste of time he is ever seen in his life because he says “I
do not even talk to these people about it. I have people walking in here that
are 400 pounds. I have men and women coming in here that are so morbidly
obese they cannot even walk and they come in heavier the next time and
heavier the time after that.” He says “I think you are wasting your time with
this thing.” I said “I am going to continue wasting my time”. But that is where
the medical profession is in regard to this. A lot of doctors do not even know
that OA exists. They feel if you are morbidly obese, they are not even going to
waste their time with you. They just know you are just going to die. We have
the power through our recoveries to save lives. We need you! We need you!
We need you in your totality, in your struggles, in your pain. I know you are
scared but we need you. We cannot do it alone. We need to have you with us.
Please join us as we trudge the road of happy destiny because we need you!

Reading from Page xxxi

“What is the solution? Perhaps I can best answer this by relating one of
my experiences.”

This is about Hank Parkhurst.

“About one year prior to this experience a man was brought in to be

treated for chronic alcoholism. He had but partially recovered from a gastric
hemorrhage and seemed to be a case of pathological mental deterioration.
He had lost everything worthwhile in life and was only living, one might say,
to drink. He frankly admitted and believed that for him there was no hope.
Following the elimination of alcohol, there was found to be no permanent
brain injury. He accepted the plan outlined in this book. One year later he
called to see me, and I experienced a very strange sensation. I knew the man
by name, and partly recognized his features, but there all resemblance
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 37

ended. From a trembling, despairing, nervous wreck, had emerged a man

brimming over with self-reliance and contentment. I talked with him for some
time, but was not able to bring myself to feel that I had known him before. To
me he was a stranger, and so he left me. A long time has passed with no
return to alcohol.”

This is about Fitz Mayo.

“When I need a mental uplift, I often think of another case brought in

by a physician prominent in New York. The patient had made his own
diagnosis, and deciding his situation hopeless, had hidden in a deserted barn
determined to die. He was rescued by a searching party, and, in desperate
condition, brought to me. Following his physical rehabilitation, he had a talk
with me in which he frankly stated he thought the treatment a waste of
effort, unless I could assure him, which no one ever had, that in the future he
would have the "will power" to resist the impulse to drink.

His alcoholic problem was so complex, and his depression so great, that
we felt his only hope would be through what we then called "moral
psychology”, (a Spiritual Awakening) and we doubted if even that would have
any effect.

However, he did become "sold" on the ideas contained in this book. He

has not had a drink for a great many years. I see him now and then and he is
as fine a specimen of manhood as one could wish to meet.

I earnestly advise every alcoholic to read this book through, and

though perhaps he came to scoff, he may remain to pray.

William D.Silkworth MD”

As I said before, Dr Silkworth, did not want his name in there when it
was first published in 1949 because the American Medical Association,
American Psychiatric Association had not accepted alcoholism as an illness.
Then Dr Harry Tiebout wrote the paper in 1949 and they accepted it.

Your ability to absorb this information about the physical allergy which
makes it impossible to stop and the mental twist which makes it impossible
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 38

to stay stopped. Your ability to absorb this as Step 1 as who you if you are
will mark the urgency with which you will work the rest of the steps. The
only step that you are going to be asked to work perfectly is Step 1.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 39

Day 1 Friday

Part3: Bill's Story

W have been talking about the nature of this illness; the physical
allergy and the mental twist. We have established that the
mental twist is activated or irritated by the buildup of human
emotion. Human emotion is really the problem and what the steps are going to
endeavor to do, is make us right with God, right with ourselves and right with
our fellow human beings. Through the process of working the steps, they are
going to reduce the toxicity of these emotions so that the brain will not say:
“Oh! I need my binge foods’.

We are going to look at a man who had this physical allergy for alcohol,
he had this mental twist. We are going to look particularly at this story and
hopefully you are going to get a meaning of this amplified in your mind so that,
maybe, you will never quite look at this story again and think it does not apply
to you. We are going to look at the progressive nature of the illness in this
story. We are going to look at the nature of this illness; that it is permanent,
progressive and fatal.

We are going to look at Bill Wilson's story. Bill was born on the 26th of
November 1895, in East Dorset, Vermont. I have been there. Maybe some of
you have been there too. It is a very small town and out of it comes this
beautiful valley and on the other side of this valley is a town called Manchester
Vermont. Manchester Vermont is on “Green Lake” and this is where many
wealthy families had summer homes.

Bill had a little sister named Dorothy. In 1906 because of Bill’s father's
alcoholism, Bills mom divorced Bill's dad. In 1906, divorce was very scandalous.
It is not what it is today. When I was a little boy going to grammar school in
Chicago, called “Greene Grammar School’, we had three kids that came from
divorced families. Dare I say, if I went back to that school today, there would
be three kids who did not. That is how prevalent it has become today,
unfortunately.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 40

Bill was very ashamed to be from a fragmented family. Bill's grandfather;

his paternal grandfather Wilson, was also an alcoholic and his marriage to Bill's
grandmother, on the paternal side, the Wilson side, was very shaky. Bill's
grandfather, took a hike on Mount Elias in Vermont and he ended up getting
sober; he did not get sober, he got dry. There is a difference between a dry
drunk and a sober drunk. Dry drunk, is like dieting with group support. They
are miserable, they are angry, they are scared to death, they are judgmental; it
is hard to be around them.

Bill's father was also an alcoholic and in 1906, Bill's mom and dad went
their separate ways. Bill and Dorothy were told that daddy went to a business
meeting and he just never came back. He went to Western Canada to work in
the mines there. Bill's mother left East Dorset around this time and went to
Boston to become one of the nation's first female osteopathic surgeons. Bill
and Dorothy were left in the care of their maternal grandparents, the Griffiths,
who owned an inn in East Dorset.

Bill was a very smart boy; he passed the Edison test. For those who do
not know what that is; Thomas Alva Edison would give a test to boys when
they were a certain age and if you passed this test, made up of mostly maths
and science, you could actually apprentice with him. Bill passed the test but he
never did apprentice with Edison, because he just felt that Edison was always
going to be the number one man there, and therefore no real opportunity for
him.

Bill was a very tireless worker. When he set his mind to something, he
really achieved things. He found an old violin up in grandpa Griffith’s attic and
practiced tirelessly and became co-first chair of the violin section, the string
section of his school's orchestra. He also found an old baseball glove and he
worked and worked until he became the starting shortstop and co-captain of
his school's baseball team. He read in a book that only an Aborigine could
make a boomerang that would actually come back to you once it was thrown.
He cut a piece of his headboard off and the boomerang that he made actually
did comeback; it actually did work. He was very, very proud of himself for
accomplishing that. You can actually go to the house and see where he took a
saw and he sawed off a huge hunk of his headboard.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 41

He was a little boy who suffered from a lot of anxiety and he had an
anxiety disorder his entire life. He also suffered from depression and an
inferiority complex. He suffered from these things his entire life. When he was
just a boy, the love of his life was Bertha Bamford, this was before Lois, his
wife, came into the picture. When he was about seventeen, he was in love
with Bertha, who also lived in East Dorset. She was scheduled to go to New
York City to get a certain operation and it was described to Bill to be a very
simple, routine operation. But she died on the operating table. When Bill found
out about it, he fell into the first of his many deep, dark depressions.
Depression plagued Bill throughout his life, he needed to visit psychiatrists all
of his life. Bill was a person who had a lot of feelings of inferiority.

Now we are going to look at Bill’s story, and we are going to look at
some of the things that may be have got past us before this, so that we can see
it in a new way. Hopefully, what we can do is bring more of Bill's story to light
and why Bill's story in there? There is a reason that it is in here, so we can
identify with Bill Wilson, and through identification, we are drawn into the
book. So, let us look for the way Bill thinks, let us look for the way Bill drinks,
let us look at the progression and some of the other things that we are going
to talk about and see if we can more closely tally up with Bill Wilson in the
story.

Let us go to page 1.

“War fever ran high in the New England town to which we knew,
young officers from Plattsburgh were assigned...” Plattsburgh, is a state New
York, for those of you who are not familiar.

“...and we were flattered when the first citizens took us to their homes,
making us feel heroic. Here was love, applause, war; moments sublime with
intervals hilarious. I was part of life at last, and in the midst of the excitement
I discovered liquor. I forgot the strong warnings and the prejudices of my
people concerning drink.”

Let us stop right there; he has been told many times by his mother, “do
not drink liquor, look at your father, look at your grandfather, do not drink
liquor.” He has been told by his grandparents “Do not drink liquor”.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 42

“In time we sailed for Over There”. Over there, denotes World War I.

“I was very lonely and again turned to alcohol’.

Stop right there for just a minute, it does not say I was very thirsty, and
again turned to alcohol; it does not say I really liked the taste of these mimosas
and I turned to alcohol; it does not say I really wanted a beer so I turned to
alcohol. It said, “I was very lonely and again turned to alcohol” Notice how key
that is, that is a window into Bill's soul, that is a garage door opening up into
Bill's soul. Can I relate to Bill Wilson being lonely and using food to assuage my
loneliness? You bet I can, you bet that I can!

“We landed in England. I visited Winchester Cathedral. Much moved, I

wandered outside. My attention was caught by a doggerel on an old
tombstone:

Here lies a Hampshire Grenadier

Who caught his death
Drinking cold small beer.
A good soldier is ne'er forgot
Whether he dieth by musket
Or by pot."

Now, let us remember what he is seeing here. He is in Winchester

Cathedral, in England. This guy, named Fletcher died in the 1600s, and Fletcher
is a soldier who did not die in battle, he died because he drank too much beer
and this is going to have an effect on Bill Wilson. He sees that this guy died by
drinking. The way they drank beer in England in those days was in quart pots
and pint pots. You stood and you drank, you did not sit down to drink. It was
considered very bad manners to sit and consume liquor, so you stood. There
was a bar in the end that these guys would lean against. That is where that
name comes from. And as an homage, a bar stool is always higher up than a
kitchen chair, dining room chair or living room chair. When they would give the
beer to the guys, it would be in quart pots or pint pots and the guys would get
a little unruly. They would say: “Watch your pints and quarts over there”, and
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 43

when that situation came to the Colonies, to the States; it became “watch your
P's and Q's” and that is how that expression came into our language today.

Although the warning was there, he is going to drink anyway. Can I

relate to that? You bet I can. Many times, I would go to the doctor and the
doctor would scream and yell at my mother about how fat I was getting. What
do you think we did on the way home from the doctor? We went for ice
cream!

“Ominous warning - which I failed to heed. Twenty-two, and a veteran

of foreign wars, I went home at last. I fancied myself a leader, for had not the
men of my battery given me a special token of appreciation? My talent for
leadership, I imagined, would place me at the head of vast enterprises which
I would manage with the utmost assurance”.

Now, just remember, that he has very high hopes here, because I told
you we are going to look at the progression of Bill’s disease. We are going to
look at the progression of his drinking.

“I took a night law course, and obtained employment as investigator

for a surety company. The drive for success was on. I'd prove to the world I
was important. My work took me about Wall Street and little by little I
became interested in the market. Many people lost money - but some
became very rich. Why not I? I studied economics and business as well as law.
Potential alcoholic that I was, I nearly failed my law course. At one of the
finals I was too drunk to think or write.”

Now, let us look at what we are seeing here, alcoholism is starting to

have its way with Bill. Bill has aspirations but alcoholism is more powerful than
Bill's dreams. Alcoholism is more devastating than his talents can rise above.
Can I relate to Bill Wilson? You bet that I can, because this was my life. I did not
even dare dream, dreams after a while. I did not even dare try because I knew
that I was going to fail. I knew that I was not going to make the grade.

“Though my drinking was not yet continuous, it disturbed my wife. We

had long talks when I would still her forebodings by telling her that men of
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 44

genius conceived their best projects when drunk; that the most majestic
constructions of philosophic thought were so derived”.

What is the first victim of compulsive eating or alcoholism? The truth!

He is lying to Lois. He is lying to himself. He is telling himself that these
majestic instructions come from his inebriated state, when indeed they do not.
The disease cannot flourish in honesty but it will flourish in lies. Can I relate to
Bill Wilson? You bet that I can.

“By the time I had completed the course, I knew the law was not for
me. The inviting maelstrom of Wall Street had me in its grip. Business and
financial leaders were my heroes. Out of this alloy of drink and speculation, I
commenced to forge the weapon that one day would turn in its flight like a
boomerang and all but cut me to ribbons. Living modestly, my wife and I
saved $1,000”.

Now you have to remember, I am going to put it in perspective for you.

We are talking the 1920s. If you look at those thousand dollars today it
probably does not mean anything to you. A thousand dollars today is not a lot
of money but in the 1920’s you could get two brand-new cars; you could get a
Model A Ford for four hundred and ninety-five dollars, brand-new right off the
lot. You could get a house in Chicago at that time; a house in a decent
neighborhood. I want to put in perspective for you, that these thousand dollars
meant he was doing very, very well.

“It went into certain securities, then cheap and rather unpopular. I
rightly imagined that they would someday have a great rise. I failed to
persuade my broker friends to send me out looking over factories and
managements, but my wife and I decided to go anyway. I had developed a
theory that most people lost money in stocks through ignorance of markets. I
discovered many more reasons later on”.

Bill self describes as a stockbroker. He was not a stockbroker. What he

became, was a New York City stock speculator. He was very good at predicting
where these stocks would go, so people would come to him and he would sell
them on the idea that his information was good, his instincts were good. They
would buy these stocks and cut him in on the profit. He wanted more
information, because he knew that what goes up must come down but they
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 45

said no, we do not really need that. But he was cunning, baffling and powerful
too, and he knew that we did need this information and wanted to go around
the country to check things out for himself. How did he sell Lois on going with
him? Lois said to him “If I go with you, will you stop drinking?” and of course
he lied and said yes, “I will stop drinking”. Can I relate to Bill Wilson? You bet
that I can. I lied when the truth would have served me better. How did you
know I was lying? When my lips were moving; as long as my lips were moving, I
was lying.

“We gave up our positions and off we roared on a motorcycle, the

sidecar stuffed with tent, blankets, a change of clothes, and three huge
volumes of a financial reference service. Our friends thought a lunacy
commission should be appointed. Perhaps they were right. I had had some
success at speculation, so we had a little money, but we once worked on a
farm for a month to avoid drawing on our small capital. That was the last
honest manual labor on my part for many a day. We covered the whole
eastern United States in a year. At the end of it, my reports to Wall Street
procured me a position there and the use of a large expense account. The
exercise of an option brought in more money, leaving us with a profit of
several thousand dollars for that year”.

Bill was making very good money, they moved to Park Avenue. He
bought Lois the piano that she always wanted. He bought her fur coats and
dresses that the rich wear. Here is this kid from East Dorset, Vermont never
had a pot or a window to throw it out of and he is doing well in the Big Apple.

“For the next few years fortune threw money and applause my way. I
had arrived. My judgment and ideas were followed by many to the tune of
paper millions”.

Let us just consider this; you are doing whatever it is you do and people
are flocking to find out if they can do it like you. They want your input and they
want your advice. Think about what that would do to your ego. I know it would
do a lot for mine. Can I relate to Bill? You bet I can.

“The great boom of the late twenties was seething and swelling. Drink
was taking an important and exhilarating part in my life. There was loud talk
in the jazz places uptown. Everyone spent in thousands and chattered in
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 46

millions. Scoffers could scoff and be damned. I made a host of fair-weather

friends.”

People want to be around him; he is successful and they are hoping that
if they are around him some of this money will end up in their pockets. Bill is
drinking but let us see where he goes from here because remember that
alcoholism is a progressive illness.

“My drinking assumed more serious proportions, continuing all day

and almost every night. The remonstrance of my friends terminated in a row
and I became a lone wolf.”

What is a remonstrance? A remonstrance is when somebody is

protesting about your behavior, for example the boss saying “Bill, what is going
on? I am here to talk about the Smith deal and you are drunk. What is going on
here?” A row is a fight, a quarrel. “I became a lone wolf”. Bill Wilson had
everything he could ever have wanted; he was a big guy in New York. He was
one of the darlings of Wall Street but when it came time for him to choose
between liquor and friends or liquor and success, he chose liquor. How many
times did I choose food over what I dreamed about? Many hundreds of times.
He became a “lone wolf” because none of those people could do for him what
liquor could do for him. The people were fine but the liquor made it all okay.

“There were many unhappy scenes in our sumptuous apartment. There

had been no real infidelity, for loyalty to my wife, helped at times by extreme
drunkenness, kept me out of those scrapes”.

Now the liquor is starting to affect his domestic life. Like alcohol, food
does not just affect the person that eats, it affects everybody around us.
Some of us tell the lie “Oh, I am only hurting myself”. Not true! We are
hurting everybody in our environment. The closer you are, to one of us, the
more you are going to get lied to; the more you are going to get hurt; the more
you are going to get disappointed; the more you are going to get rejected.
Because we are going to choose food over people, even though it is people
that we know we should want, we are going to choose our binge foods. I know
that there is a word for that and it is “INSANITY”. Can I relate to Bill? You bet I
can.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 47

“In 1929 I contracted golf fever. We went at once to the country, my

wife to applaud while I started out to overtake Walter Hagen”.

Why were they in the country? Why were they in Manchester, Vermont?
Because Lois felt it might stop him drinking if he got away from the city. If he
started drinking in the country they moved back to the city.

“Liquor caught up with me much faster than I came up behind Walter.I

began to be jittery in the morning. Golf permitted drinking.”

Bill engaged in activities that rubber-stamped his drinking. I did the same
with food, playing poker, watching football or watching baseball; as long as it
was an excuse to say “Let us get a pizza”, I was in agreement. As long as there
was that moment where ordering a pizza or going for coffee was totally
natural, I would engage in that behavior. My coffee cost$17, my friend’s coffee
cost 89 cents. Why? My friend only had coffee but I had the whole menu. Any
activity that would excuse eating, I was in. Can I relate to Bill Wilson? You bet I
can.

“Golf permitted drinking every day and every night”.

Look at the progression on page 3, it says:

“my drinking assumed more serious proportions, continuing all day and
almost every night”.

Now, look at the top of page 4 he is drinking “every day and every
night”.

These are subtle, progressive, mentions and they can be missed by a lot
of people. A lot of sponsors do not even know to point that out. What you are
seeing here is the progression of Bill’s alcoholism; it is permanent, it is
progressive and it is fatal.

“It was fun to carom around the exclusive course which had inspired
such awe in me as a lad. I acquired the impeccable coat of tan one sees upon
the well-to-do. The local banker watched me whirl fat checks in and out of his
till with amused scepticism.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 48

Abruptly in October 1929 hell broke loose on the New York stock
exchange. After one of those days of inferno, I wobbled from a hotel bar to a
brokerage office. It was eight o'clock - five hours after the market closed. The
ticker still clattered. I was staring at an inch of the tape which bore the
inscription XYZ-32. It had been 52 that morning. I was finished and so were
many friends. The papers reported men jumping to death from the towers of
High Finance”.

Why is “High Finance” in capital letters? because for many, it is their

higher power. For many their God is the board, those stocks, those bonds,
those options. That is God to them. As long as, they had wealth, as long as,
they had a valuable portfolio, they were ok. When they did not, they were not
ok and many of them killed themselves.

“That disgusted me. I would not jump. I went back to the bar.”

Their suicide disgusted him; he went back to the bar. What he knew,
without recognizing it, was that whiskey would bring sweet relief from the fear
and the pain of that situation. He did not know it consciously but he knew it
subconsciously. Can I relate? Yes, because I would not have jumped, I would
have gone to the convenience store. I would have gone for all my binge foods
because I knew that it would make me feel better without knowing it
consciously. Can I relate to Bill Wilson? You bet that I can.

“My friends had dropped several million since ten o'clock - so what?
Tomorrow was another day. As I drank, the old fierce determination to win
came back.”

Liquid courage, is feeling courageous when drinking. In my case it was

chocolate courage, Pizza courage, cheese courage, hamburger courage,
whatever it was; give me enough of that food and I could face the world.

“Next morning, I telephoned a friend in Montreal.”

That is his friend Dick Johnson who told him things would be better in
Canada.

“By the following spring we were living in our accustomed style. I felt
like Napoleon returning from Elba. No St. Helena for me!”
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 49

Elba is an island Napoleon retreated to and there assembled his forces

and re-conquered France. But St. Helena was where Napoleon was sent to
later defeated and he did not return.

“But drinking caught up with me again and my generous friend had to

let me go. This time we stayed broke.”

I want to give you a little history here, before we read the next sentence.
Lois ‘father was a surgeon. He was a gynecologist and a genetics doctor. Dr
Burnham owned the home at 182 Clinton Street in Brooklyn. I visited it, with
some friends. You cannot go in but we stood outside. The Burnham's had
money. They had a home in Manchester. He was a doctor, he did very well.
He did not like Bill Wilson. He did not like that Bill was younger than Lois and
he never thought that Bill Wilson was much of a man. He did not like the way
Bill bragged. What made the relationship worse was that Lois had had a couple
of ectopic pregnancies. With the second ectopic pregnancy she was bleeding
so profusely she could not get it to stop. She called her dad to come over right
away.

Some of you may be too young to remember but I remember when the
doctor made house calls. The doctor would come to your house when you
were sick. Her father came over and at about 6 o'clock in the evening, they left
a note on the kitchen table, telling Bill that Lois had to go to the hospital and
for him to come immediately upon seeing the note. At 9 or 10 o'clock the next
morning, some 13 or 14 hours later, Bill arrived at the hospital. Dr Burnham
gave the nurses an instruction not to let anybody in to see Lois until he talked
to them first. When Bill comes in, he is stinking of liquor. It is obvious he has
pissed in his pants. It is obvious he has puked several times all over himself. He
looks like garbage; he smells like a garbage dump; he has not brushed his
teeth; he has not changed his clothes; he has not shaved. Dr Burnham said
“Where in the world were you?” He did not have to ask the question; he could
tell that Bill had been drunk.

The Burnham's had no use for Bill Wilson, they thought he was a bum, a
blowhard and the reason that I am telling you this is because I want you to
appreciate what he is walking into.

Let us read the next sentence

 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 50

“We went to live with my wife's parents.”

Oh, how the mighty have fallen! Here is the Prince of Wall Street. He
bought pianos and he bought fur coats. Bill had tried to tell Dr Burnham that
he should invest his money with him and how he would make him more
money. Now he has to move in with his in-laws.

“I found a job; then lost it as the result of a brawl with a taxi driver”.

Bill was drinking and he needed to take a taxi home. He has not got the
fare but he assures this taxi driver that there is going to be someone at 182
Clinton Street that will give him the money for the fare. However, when he
gets home there is nobody there, so he cannot pay the fare. The taxi driver
does not like that very much and he starts getting uppity with Bill. Bill is drunk
so they have a brawl. His employer found out about it and Bill lost his job.
What do you think the Burnham's thought of that?

“Mercifully, no one could guess that I was to have no real employment

for five years, or hardly draw a sober breath. My wife began to work in a
department store, coming home exhausted to find me drunk. I became an
unwelcome hanger-on at brokerage places.”

In 2020, we live in a more egalitarian society than was in the 1930s.

Then, it was expected that a man would go out and make a living and support
his wife. When I was young very few mothers worked outside the home. The
dads made a living and the moms stayed home and raised the kids. The
Wilsons did not have any kids but it was still disgraceful for Bill to have a wife
that was working. The reason I am telling you this, is not to judge it or to
comment on it; the reason I am telling you this, is I want you to place this in
the time in which it is happening. Here is Bill this Prince of Wall Street, yet his
wife is working at Macy's. She was an interior decorator; making $19 a week
plus Commission. Most weeks she made 26 or 27 dollars in total. Here is the
Big Shot, yet his wife is working and he is not.

“Liquor ceased to be a luxury; it became a necessity”.

I could do a whole retreat, just on that sentence alone. He is passing into

the arms of every day, every night drunkenness.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 51

"Bathtub gin, two bottles a day, and often three, got to be routine”.

Look at the amounts he is drinking; two bottles of gin, often three, got to
be routine. That is an incredible amount of liquor he was consuming at this
point. As I got older and the disease progressed, I started eating more and
more and the more I ate the more I needed because the food was not working
anymore. The food was just not doing it for me anymore and so I had to keep
eating more and more.

“Sometimes a small deal would net a few hundred dollars, and I would
pay my bills at the bars and delicatessens. This went on endlessly, and I
began to waken very early in the morning shaking violently.”

He had delirium tremens at this stage. The disease was progressing

within him. The disease was taking him out of it and he was shaking violently.

“A tumbler full of gin followed by half a dozen bottles of beer would be

required if I were to eat any breakfast.”

It was not even eight or nine o'clock in the morning yet and he was
drinking a “tumbler full of gin followed by half a dozen bottles of beer” and the
day had not even begun. You see the progression of his drinking. The disease
gets worse over time.

“Nevertheless, I still thought I could control the situation, and there

were periods of sobriety which renewed my wife's hope.”

There were periods of sobriety, he would hunker down on his own,

unaided willpower and on his own unaided willpower he would resist the urge
to drink for short periods of time. This is just like us going on a diet. Where
does he go from there? Let us see the progression of his disease

“Gradually things got worse”.

Notice it does not say “gradually things got better in my life”. In my life,
there were ups and downs but the disease kept making things worse and
worse. I have eaten rail road cars of binge foods to kill the shame and the pain
of eating railroad cars full of binge foods. I was eating to kill the pain of eating.
I was eating for oblivion.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 52

“The house was taken over by the mortgage holder, my mother-in-law

died, my wife and father-in-law became ill. Then I got a promising business
opportunity. Stocks were at the low point of 1932, and I had somehow
formed a group to buy. I was to share generously in the profits. Then I went
on a prodigious bender, and that chance vanished.”

This is a story, within the story, of business men in Cherry Hill, New
Jersey. It was 1932, stocks had hit pretty much a rock-bottom, so it was a very
good time to invest. Some of these men contacted Bill as they wanted his
opinion. They wanted him involved but they told him they had heard about his
drinking and were not going to do business with him if he was drinking. Bill,
was dry at the time, and did not know anything about alcoholism, and told
them they did not have to worry about that as he did not drink any more. They
met in a hotel in Cherry Hill, New Jersey and one of the guys there had a jug of
homemade whiskey, which he passed around. Bill did not take a drink but
when it was passed around again, he went over to Bill and he told him it was
called “Jersey Lightning” and that he had made it himself and told Bill that he
could try one drink. Without thinking about it, Bill tried it and his mental twist
was so active it set off his drinking again. It is the same as saying to ourselves
“this is kosher, this is vegan, this is vegetarian, this is homemade, this is gluten
free”. We fool ourselves into thinking that because some food meets a
particular parameter that we can eat it but indeed we cannot. There are things
in health food stores that would make me gain weight in leaps and bounds.
There are things that are vegan and things that are natural and things that are
organic and things that are kosher and things that other people can eat, that
would destroy my life.

Bill takes a drink and he does not come out of that room for three days.
He cannot stand up; he is so drunk and the chance vanished and he has got to
go home and tell Lois that once again his drinking made it impossible for him
to consummate his deal.

“I woke up. This had to be stopped. I saw I could not take so much as
one drink. I was through forever. Before then, I had written lots of sweet
promises, but my wife happily observed that this time I meant business. And
so, I did.”
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 53

What is he doing? He is back on his “diet” again. Can I relate to Bill? You
bet I can.

“Shortly afterward I came home drunk.”

What happened? I thought he was not going to drink anymore.

“There had been no fight. Where had been my high resolve? I simply
did not know. It had not even come to mind. Someone had pushed a drink my
way, and I had taken it. Was I crazy?”

Now he is starting to question his own sanity. He is starting to question if

he is insane. He keeps drinking and his life is falling apart. He loves Lois and
Lois loves him above everything else. They loved each other. He had some very
weird ways of showing it but they loved each other very much.

“I began to wonder, for such an appalling lack of perspective seemed

near being just that. Renewing my resolve, I tried again. Some time passed,
and confidence began to be replaced by cock-sureness. I could laugh at the
gin mills. Now I had what it takes! One day I walked into a cafe to
telephone.”

Stop right there! They did not have a phone at the clothing store? They
did not have a phone at the ice-cream shop? They did not have a phone at the
auto repair place? They did not have a phone at the funeral parlour? They did
not have one at the barber shop? He went to the cafe to make a call, why?
Because he has already got his excuse going; “Oh, Lois, I was just in there to
make a phone call and I ran into so and so and I could not be rude they bought
me a drink”. What caused Bill to take the first drink?

“In no time I was beating on the bar asking myself how it happened. As
the whisky rose to my head, I told myself I would manage better next time,
but I might as well get good and drunk then. And I did.”

What caused Bill to take the first drink? The mental twist. What caused
Bill to pound on the bar wondering how it happened and saying to himself: “I
might as well get good and drunk then. And I did.” The physical allergy. Bill is
displaying that he has both sides of the illness; the physical allergy that made it
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 54

impossible for him to stop and the twist of the mind which made it impossible
for him to stay stopped. Can I relate to Bill Wilson? You bet that I can.

My life was torn asunder. If you did to me what this disease did to me
you would be in prison. Society would not allow you to run around unchecked
in our culture. They would stop you in your tracks. They would never allow you
the freedom to be running around for fear that you would do it to somebody
else. Yet, there I was doing it to myself over and over again. My mind telling
me that the food made perfect sense, while the body ensured that it indeed
did not. Can I relate to Bill? You bet that I can.

What we are seeing here is the progression of the illness.

“The remorse, horror and hopelessness of the next morning are

unforgettable. The courage to do battle was not there”.

Do you remember back on page 4 he had this fierce determination to

win? Now the courage to do battle was not there. What is that indicative of? It
is indicative of the progression of the disease.

“My brain raced uncontrollably and there was a terrible sense of

impending calamity. I hardly dared cross the street, lest I collapse and be run
down by an early morning truck, for it was scarcely daylight. An all-night
place supplied me with a dozen glasses of ale”.

Remember on the page before he was drinking a half a dozen bottles of

a beer, now he is drinking a dozen bottle glasses of ale.

“My writhing nerves were stilled at last”.

What is this indicative of? Again, it is indicative of the progressive nature

of Bill's illness.

“A morning paper told me the market had gone to hell again. Well, so
had I. The market would recover, but I wouldn’t. That was a hard thought.
Should I kill myself? No - not now. Then a mental fog settled down. Gin would
fix that. So, two bottles, and – oblivion.” Two bottles of gin, plus a dozen
glasses of ale; he is drinking more and more.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 55

“The mind and body are marvellous mechanisms, for mine endured this
agony two more years”.

How did I stand the loneliness I felt? How did I stand living an asexual
existence? The only time anybody touched me, where it was not malicious,
was when I got my hair cut. How did I withstand the physical pain? I had
cellulites and got a staph infection one time. I almost died because infection
was coming in through the ulcers on my legs. I had cracked skin on the bottom
of my feet, they are called fissures, and it was like walking on glass. I had
towels shoved between layers of flab. I could not look good. I could not feel
good. I could not be good. I could not stand. I could not sit. I could not ever
rest comfortably. If I sat in a chair, I would fall asleep and I would be doing the
head bob because the blood was not getting to my brain. The pain from the
swelling in my legs was so profound, it was unbelievable.

“Sometimes I stole from my wife's slender purse when the morning

terror and madness were on me. Again, I swayed dizzily before an open
window, or the medicine cabinet where there was poison, cursing myself for
a weakling. There were flights from city to country and back, as my wife and I
sought escape. Then came the night when the physical and mental torture
was so hellish, I feared I would burst through my window, sash and all.
Somehow, I managed to drag my mattress to a lower floor, lest I suddenly
leap. A doctor came with a heavy sedative. Next day found me drinking both
gin and sedative. This combination soon landed me on the rocks. People
feared for my sanity. So, did I.I could eat little or nothing when drinking, and I
was forty pounds under weight”.

He is thinking of killing himself now. Remember when he was scoffing at

the people that were jumping off the building in the crash of 1929; he thought
they were foolish. Now, he is thinking about it because he cannot beat this
addiction. I could not beat my addiction either. I thought about killing myself
too. I did not want to live in this world. I cursed God. I cursed God every day of
my life for allowing me to live in this world. I did not want to live in a world,
where everybody is supposed to be in love and everybody is supposed to be
part of a couple and I was alone. I did not want to be part of this world, where
everybody has a family and I do not. I did not want to be part of this world,
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 56

where everybody has money and they are upwardly mobile and I do not. Why
would I want to be part of that world when I had nothing? I had nothing to live
for. Nothing. Can I relate to Bill Wilson? You bet that I can.

When it is darkest, that is when God starts moving in. That is why we say
in this program “Do not quit five minutes before the miracle”. You do not
know what is around the next corner. You cannot predict with certainty. In the
next paragraph we are going to begin to see the benevolent hand of God
changing the world forever, bringing heat and light into the shivering cave of
alcoholism and addiction. We are going to see that his hand will start to move
the constellations, move the solar system so that 20,000 generations from
now, people will build on what we are building today, in terms of the program.
They will be able to use this book (AA Big Book), they will be able to use these
steps and they will be able to recover from whatever addiction they may have.
The 20th century will be noted for three things, in the generations and
millennium to come. The first flight, Kitty Hawk 1903, the atomic computer age
and the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous; those will be the enduring gifts of
the 20th century, into the 30th and 40th and 90th century. They will look back
on the 20th century and they will say “Yes, this (AA Big book) was an enduring
gift”.

“My brother-in-law is a physician…”

Dr Leonard Strong was married to Bill’s sister, Dorothy. He stuck by Bill

his entire drunken life when other people would not. Leonard Strong is a nice
guy he is very important in the tapestry of this story.

“My brother-in-law is a physician, and through his kindness and that of

my mother I was placed in a nationally-known hospital for the mental and
physical rehabilitation of alcoholic’s.”

In April1933, Bill Wilson went into the Towns Hospital in New York City.
It was expensive to be treated there.

“Under the so-called belladonna treatment my brain cleared”.

 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 57

Belladonna essentially is a poison. At the turn of the 20th century,

Charlie Towns and another doctor discovered that they could use this poison
as an effective sedative that acts like Valium does today. It fools the body into
relaxing, thinking that it has alcohol in it. When it thinks it has alcohol in it, the
body does not feel the need to shake like it does with delirium tremens. Bill is
in the Town's hospital and he came under the care of the medical director
William Duncan Silkworth.

“Hydrotherapy and mild exercise helped much. Best of all, I met a kind
doctor who explained that though certainly selfish and foolish, I had been
seriously ill, bodily and mentally”.

Bodily the allergy, and mentally the twist of the mind. Silkworth
explained to Bill what he thinks about the allergy of the body and the twist of
the mind.

“It relieved me somewhat to learn that in alcoholics the will is

amazingly weakened when it comes to combating liquor, though it often
remains strong in other respects.”

One of the things that afflicts those who are affected by addiction to
food or addiction to liquor or drugs is how they can be successful in other
areas of their life and yet when it comes to combating their addiction, they
simply cannot do it. This is something that is just very baffling to these people.

“My incredible behaviour in the face of a desperate desire to stop was

explained. Understanding myself now, I fared forth in high hope. For three
for four months the goose hung high. I went to town regularly and even
made a little money. Surely this was the answer - self-knowledge.”

The phrase the “goose hung high” means prosperity. Here it means he is
sober. However, in April 1934, one year later, Bill was drinking again.

“But it was not, for the frightful day came when I drank once more. The
curve of my declining moral and bodily health fell off like a ski-jump. After a
time, I returned to the hospital. This was the finish, the curtain, it seemed to
me. My weary and despairing wife was informed that it would all end with
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 58

heart failure during delirium tremens, or I would develop a wet brain,

perhaps within a year.”

A wet brain, is really a dry brain. The brain and the liver cannot
rehydrate themselves and liquor sucks the hydration out of the cells. If you kill
enough of those cells, the alcoholic becomes unable to function. With wet
brain you could live like that for decades and it is just a horrible existence.

“She would soon have to give me over to the undertaker or the

asylum”.

That is what happened to people like Bill. Alcoholics would either go to

the insane asylum, die or go to jail. That was really the only three things that
would happen to them; they got covered up or locked up.

“They did not need to tell me. I knew, and almost welcomed the idea. It
was a devastating blow to my pride. I, who had thought so well of myself and
my abilities, of my capacity to surmount obstacles, was cornered at last. Now
I was to plunge into the dark, joining that endless procession of sots who had
gone on before. I thought of my poor wife. There had been much happiness
after all. What would I not give to make amends? But that was over now.”

He is sinking. He is sinking mentally. He has no more hope. Bill was a

fighter. Bill was a good man. He was a worker. I explained, at the beginning,
that he was a tireless worker but he is out of ideas now; he does not know
what else to do. He just cannot lick this alcoholism. He has accepted the fact
that it is his fate, as his father before him and his grandfather before him, to
live like an alcoholic and he just does not see a way out.

“No words can tell of the loneliness and despair I found in that bitter
morass of self-pity. Quicksand stretched around me in all directions. I had
met my match. I had been overwhelmed. Alcohol was my master.”

A very, beautiful description of the powerless condition of mind and

body; it is a very beautiful description of what this disease does to a person's
will to live. It just beats it out of you. For every one person in OA, there are
20,000 other people who should be in the programme as well. They cannot
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 59

muster up the courage. They cannot muster up the willingness. They cannot
muster up the desire to begin their programme. How sad for them. How sad
for us.

OA as an organization is shrinking. We keep yelling about how we have a

money problem, we do not have a money problem, we have a recovery
problem. If people come in and see more recovery, we will grow. However, if
they get distracted by other literature, if they get distracted by other things
and if there is no recovery in the meetings they go to, we are in trouble. That is
why it is up to you. That is why we are counting on you. We are counting on
each and every one of you. I see your faces; you think I cannot see you. I can
see you.

“Trembling, I stepped from the hospital a broken man. Fear sobered

me for a bit.”

This is now April 1934.

“Then came the insidious insanity of that first drink, and on Armistice
Day 1934, I was off again. Everyone became resigned to the certainty that I
would have to be shut up somewhere, or would stumble along to a miserable
end. How dark it is before the dawn! In reality that was the beginning of my
last debauch. I was soon to be catapulted into what I like to call the fourth
dimension of existence.”

There are three dimensions; height, width and depth. The fourth
dimension is the dimension of the spiritual, the dimension of God. This is one
of the most beautiful promises in the book.

“I was to know happiness, peace, and usefulness, in a way of life that is

incredibly more wonderful as time passes.”
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Day 1 Friday

Part 4: Bill’s Story (Continued)

N
ear the end of that bleak November, I sat drinking in my kitchen.
With a certain satisfaction I reflected there was enough gin
concealed about the house to carry me through that night and the
next day. My wife was at work. I wondered whether I dared hide a full bottle
of gin near the head of our bed. I would need it before daylight.”

Now, there are some things that are happening that Bill is only semi-
aware of or will become aware of after the fact. I want you to go in your mind
to Rhode Island and we are going to talk about Roland Hazard.

Roland Hazard is the son of a very wealthy industrialist and his family
had been in America since the late 1600s. They were in the carpet business.
They owned a company called Burlington Mills and if you have ever walked on
carpeting you have probably walked on Burlington carpeting. They were also
very big stockholders in a company called Allied Chemical Company which is
still traded on the New York Stock Exchange today. Their wayward son, Roland,
was an alcoholic. They had a summer home in Manchester, Vermont which
was near East Dorset in Vermont. Who was born and raised in East Dorset,
Vermont? our hero Bill Wilson.

The Hazard’s son wanted to stay sober. What he did was he had himself
sequestered on a Caribbean island. On this Island he had a quartermaster that
brought him his supplies. The quartermaster was instructed never to bring
Roland any type of liquor at all. Roland was on this Caribbean Island and he
stayed sober for a year. He got off the Island; he made it back to Miami and he
was drunk within a very short period of time. Roland decided that he was going
to look for help.

In the 1930’s one of the things that was in its infancy was the art of
psychiatry. He went to what he believed was the number one psychiatrist in
the entire world and that man's name was Sigmund Freud. Freud was not
taking on any new patients. Freud told Roland the number two man is Dr
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Adler. Roland contacted him and he was not taking on any new patients either.
Roland asked Dr “Who is the number three man in this world of psychiatry?”
and he was told that it was Dr Jung and that he was practicing in Switzerland.
Roland decided to go to Switzerland and contact Dr Jung. Jung treated Roland
for a year. He analyzed him, he medicated him, he took care of his needs and
Roland stayed sober for a year. Roland at the end of the year Dr Jung told him
that it would be perfectly okay for him to go home, at this point. Roland
decides he is going to go home.

In order, to go to the States from Switzerland you have to go to Paris

first and once in Paris you catch a steam ship to cross the Atlantic. Roland goes
to Paris and while in Paris he sees two very dear friends of his parents. They
are in Paris on vacation. They see Roland and they ask him “What are you
doing here?” He explains to them and they say, “We must celebrate your
sobriety; we must celebrate your health”. They order the best champagne that
the place has. Roland is drunk on the floor with in a short period of time. He
cannot even function.

Roland goes back to Dr Jung, with his tail between his legs, and he says
“Dr Jung I got drunk again. What am I doing wrong?” Dr Jung says “You know
Roland my boy, I have misdiagnosed you. You are an alcoholic and as an
alcoholic there is no hope for you. There is nothing we can do for you.”

Now had Roland went to Freud or Adler they believe that all solutions lie
within the mind, within the cerebral, but because he got to Jung (is it odd or is
it God?) and Jung believed that here and there, there were people who had
vital spiritual experiences (not awakenings- an experience is sudden and
profound) and he believed that there was something about this phenomenon
that could change your attitudes, emotions and behavior. He broke rank with
Freud and Adler. Is it odd or is it God that Jung was the one that Roland got
to? Now, Roland wants a spiritual experience, but he does not know how to
bring one about and he is not really that interested in standard religion.

In its infancy at that time, along with the art of psychiatry, was
something called the Oxford Group movement, founded by a Pennsylvania
Lutheran minister named Frank Buchman. Buchman had a resentment against
the Lutheran church and he believed that his mission in life was to re-establish
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enthusiasm for Christ and Christianity. There is a good word “enthusiasm”, it

comes from two Greek words that mean “from god”. He does not know how
he is going to re-establish this enthusiasm, but he knows that he wants to. He
has been sent to England to run a church near Oxford University so his
followers started to become known as “the Oxford Groupers” or “the Oxford
Group”. Buchman goes to China on a mission and while in China, he sees
Christians who are enthusiastic for Christ. They have a zeal that he only could
hope to re-establish. What does he see that they have? What does he see that
is rekindling this enthusiasm? altruism; service to another person with no
expectation or result. He is absolutely inspired that this altruism is bringing
about this enthusiasm for Christianity. He goes back to England and starts
preaching this altruism and his followers are preaching altruism. Altruism -
giving with no expectation of a result.

The Oxford Group movement was not engaged in any way with
alcoholism. It is not a temperance union or temperance society. It is not an
organization that was formed to battle alcoholism. None of that was true.
What they were, were people practicing first century Christianity to the best of
their ability and in doing so they developed a six step or six tenant program. In
working that program people were managing to stay sober, without knowing
what the problem of alcoholism even was.

Roland Hazard goes to New York City and he meets Sam Shoemaker. If
you go to Calvary Mission in New York City today and you make a right turn in
the door you will see a largest stained-glass window that says “Donated by
Roland M Hazard III”. He meets Sam Shoemaker who is an Episcopalian
Minister, and is the point man for the Oxford Group movement in New York.
Sam Shoemaker is going to introduce Roland Hazard to Shep Cornell and Cebra
Graves Jnr. What do Shep Cornell have in common? They are alcoholics who
are staying sober n the Oxford Group. They are not drinking and not drinking
happily. Roland goes into the Oxford Group movement.

This is now 1933. We are going to leave Roland Hazard in the Oxford
Group at the Calvary Mission in New York and we are going to take a little trip,
if you will. Come with me to Albany, New York. We are going to look in on
somebody named Edwin “Ebby” Thatcher.
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Edwin “Ebby” Thatcher's father had been the Mayor of Albany. Mayor
Thatcher was a wealthy guy and one of his golfing buddies was Robert Lincoln,
the son of Abraham Lincoln. They were wealthy people. They were very
influential people. They had been in this country for a very long time. Ebby
Thatcher was a drunk, he was an alcoholic. They had a home in Manchester,
Vermont. Who do we also know that had a home there? Well, Bill Wilson grew
up in East Dorset and the Hazards had a home there and the Buchman's had a
home there. Do you see where all this is coming together? Is it odd or is it
God?

Edwin “Ebby” Thatcher is sent away from Albany, New York by his family
because his drunken escapades are embarrassing them. He is asked rather
gruffly to go out to the summer home in Albany in Manchester, Vermont and
get it ready. So, in April of 1934 Edwin “Ebby” Thatcher is out in Manchester
getting the home ready. He is painting a wall and some pigeons land on the
gutter. He does what any normal person does that is alcoholic and drunk and
drinking. He goes in and gets a shot gun, and he starts blasting the wall. Of
course, the pigeons are long gone by this time and the neighbors are getting
scared, the neighbors are getting very frightened. They are saying “My God, we
are going to call the police”. The police come in the summer of 1934 and say to
Edwin “Ebby” Thatcher “Knock it off. If you do this again, you are going to
Brattleboro”. What is Brattleboro? Brattleboro is a City in Vermont and it is
also where they have the Vermont State Insane Asylum. They tell Ebby
Thatcher “You are going to Brattleboro if we have to come out here again”.

In August of 1934, Ebby is unrepentant about this episode and he is

driving drunk through the streets of Manchester, Vermont. He drives right into
the woman’s kitchen, right into the house. He destroys the wall, he destroys
his car, he knocks over her kitchen table, he knocks over everything on the
walls. He drives right into the house and does not show the slightest sign of
contrition. He does not care. He says, “Hey toots, how about a cup of coffee”.
The woman has had enough of him, not only is he driving drunk but he is rude.
She calls the police and in late August of 1934 they take Ebby into custody.

Meanwhile back in Rhode Island, Roland and Cebra Graves Jnr are
visiting the Hazard home in Rhode Island. Roland Hazard has been sober now
for about a year and a half. He does not know what the problem of alcoholism
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is, he has no idea. Neither does Cebra Graves Jnr. They do not know what the
problem of alcoholism is, but they are sober. The Hazards say to them “My
God, you guys are doings o great. Take a vacation. We will pay for wherever it
is you want to go; it is on us”. Cebra Graves Jnr says to Roland “You know, I am
from East Dorset, Vermont. I have met your family. I would like to go up to
Vermont. Labor Day weekend is coming up. Why do not we go up to Vermont.
We can go up to Manchester where you guys have a home, and enjoy
Vermont.” Vermont's beautiful in the fall, in the late summer/fall, it is
gorgeous. Roland says “Okay”.

In early September, 1934, Roland Hazard and Cebra Graves Jnr travel to
Manchester, Vermont and East Dorset, Vermont. While they are there, they
catch wind of what is going on with Ebby. They knew of Ebby and they knew he
was an alcoholic. They knew of his drinking. Roland Hazard and Cebra Graves
Jnr decide to talk to the Judge about releasing Ebby to their care. They make
plan to takeEbby back to New York to the Calvary mission to see if they can get
him to stay sober. So, they go to the judge whose name just happens to be
Cebra Graves Snr. Is it odd or is it God?

In September, 1934 Ebby is brought into Judge’s chambers and he is

offered a deal; he can sign the extradition papers and go with them to New
York or he can go to Brattleboro. The extradition papers state clearly if he does
not do what they say he will be extradited back to Vermont and remanded,
immediately upon arrival in Vermont, to the Brattleboro State Hospital for the
Mentally Ill. Ebby is either faced with Brattleboro or going to some evangelical
place in New York; neither of which is really that appealing to Ebby Thatcher.
He says he would rather go to New York than goto Brattleboro. Ebby was not
exactly a fireball of willingness or enthusiasm but he goes to New York.

September to October he stays sober; October to November he is sober

yet again. He has got two months of sobriety and they say to Ebby: “Ebby
you've got to go give testimony”. He asked “What is that?” They say “When
you give testimony you go and tell someone else what God did for you”. Ebby
said “I do not want to go give testimony. I will die of embarrassment.” They
say “Okay, well you do not have to go give testimony .I guess you can go to
Brattleboro and you can be in there.” Ebby says “You know, I think I will go give
some testimony.”
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Ebby thinks and he thinks, and he thinks, and he thinks who he could
give testimony to in New York City, where he will not embarrass the living
daylights out of himself. He remembers his good buddy, his drinking buddy, his
pal, Bill Wilson.

In late November of 1934, Ebby Thatcher armed with information from

the Oxford Group but no information about the problem of alcoholism is going
to go visit Bill Wilson who knows what alcoholism is but does not have a
solution for it. We are going to see the confluence of the two ideas. When two
rivers come together it is called a confluence. The two ideas are going to be
together; they are going to have a confluence. The problem and the solution
are about to come together. Is Bill Wilson the first person to ever have the
information about the problem and the solution? We do not know; we simply
do not know. What do we do know is that Bill Wilson will be the first person in
the history of humanity that will synthesize and allow this information and
bring it to the world. He will do that, and he will change the world for ever
more.

Let us see how that happened and let us see some of the common
problems that Bill has with this spiritually based solution.

Start reading from the bottom of page 8.

“My musing was interrupted by the telephone. The cheery voice of an

old school friend asked if he might come over. He was sober.It was years
since I could remember his coming to New York in that condition. I was
amazed. Rumor had it that he had been committed for alcoholic insanity. I
wondered how he had escaped. Of course, he would have dinner, and then I
could drink openly with him. Unmindful of his welfare, I thought only of
recapturing the spirit of other days. There was that time we had chartered an
airplane to complete a jag! His coming was an oasis in this dreary desert of
futility. The very thing-an oasis! Drinkers are like that.

The door opened and he stood there, fresh-skinned and glowing. There
was something about his eyes. He was inexplicably different. What had
happened?
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I pushed a drink across the table. He refused it. Disappointed but

curious, I wondered what had got into the fellow. He was not himself.

“Come, what is all this about?” I queried.

He looked straight at me. Simply, but smilingly, he said, “I’ve got

religion.”

I was aghast. So that was it-last summer an alcoholic crackpot; now, I

suspected, a little cracked about religion. He had that starry-eyed look. Yes,
the old boy was on fire all right. But bless his heart, let him rant! Besides, my
gin would last longer than his preaching.”

I did not want to hear about anything from anybody. I would rather have
you look at my income tax return then talk to me about my food. So, Bill has
got his defenses up. Can I relate to Bill Wilson? You bet that I can.

Ebby's not drinking now; he is evangelical; he is dangerous. He knew

that Ebby was a drunk, he had drunk with Ebby many, many, many times.
Ebby was the perfect messenger; Dr Silkworth tells us that in order for the
message to be carried it must have depth and weight. Ebby was an alcoholic,
Bill did not need to be convinced of the fact that Ebby was an alcoholic. He
knew Ebby was an alcoholic so that is why Ebby had that credibility.

Is it odd or is it God? There are so many parts to this that are fitting
together perfectly that it could only be God and not odd. You could not
orchestrate this if you were Steven Spielberg. You could not orchestrate this if
you were a Hollywood writer of the highest magnitude. You could not bring
this together in real life. It could not be done.

Reading from Page 9

“But he did no ranting. In a matter of fact way he told how two men
(Cebra Graves Jnr and Roland Hazard) had appeared in court, persuading the
judge to suspend his commitment. They had told of a simple religious idea
and a practical program of action. That was two months ago, and the result
was self-evident. it worked!

He had come to pass his experience along to me - if I cared to have it.”

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Some of you who are sponsoring are going to call me or others and say,
“I can't get Fred to stop eating; I can't get Mary to stop eating.” Leave them
alone. Support them as a friend; be there for them if they want you to, but you
cannot stand between someone and their ice cream. You just cannot do it. The
lure of that ice cream, the lure of that pizza, the lure of whatever - fill in the
blank - whatever you like. The lure of it, it is just too strong you cannot stand in
front of that train and think you are not going to get squashed. What does it
say? Leave them alone.

“I was shocked, but interested. Certainly, I was interested. I had to be,

for I was hopeless.

He talked for hours. Childhood memories rose before me. I could

almost hear the sound of the preacher's voice as I sat, on still Sundays, way
over there on the hillside; there was that proffered temperance pledge I
never signed; my grandfather's good natured contempt of some church folk
and their doings; his insistence that the spheres really had their music; but his
denial of the preacher's right to tell him how he must listen; his fearlessness
as he spoke of these things just before he died; these recollections welled up
from the past. They made me swallow hard.”

Grandpa Griffith was a real Vermonter. Grandpa Griffith knew that there
was a God, but he did not want somebody telling him how he must believe in
that God and that had a big influence on Bill. Had Grandpa Griffith not had that
idea, that he did not want somebody cramming a God down his throat, we
may not be here this morning. There are so many pieces to this that are fitting
together. Grandpa Griffith is part of the tapestry now. If you cannot get excited
about this and see the hand of God, I do not know what is going to get you
excited.

“That war-time day in old Winchester Cathedral came back again.”

He started thinking to himself “What about that guy that drank himself to
death?”

“I had always believed in a Power Greater than myself.”

Watch your capitals here. When he capitalises, he is talking about God.

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“I had often pondered these things. I was not an atheist. Few people
really are, for that means blind faith in the strange proposition that this
universe originated in a cipher and aimlessly rushes nowhere.”

He has got this idea “Yes, there is a God” but he is not understanding, or
not accepting, or embracing this idea that this God is somehow going to help
him. That's very common. Can I relate to Bill Wilson? Yes.

I read about the burning bush; I read about the splitting of the Red Sea; I
read that the cubs won the world series in 2016. There are many miracles out
there that God has done. I see lots of miracles. I am a lover of the OA Birthday.
It is in LA in January and it is one of my favorite conventions. There are usually
a 1,000 / 1,100 hundred people there that are compulsive overeaters. One of
the things I love doing at the OA Birthday is getting in a day early. There are
always people that want to go to the ocean, and they want to see the sun
come up. They come back and they say, “Oh the miracle, the sun came up over
the Pacific Ocean.” That is beautiful but that is not really a miracle. A miracle to
me is something that happens, it is an occurrence of which there's no logical
explanation and there is a very logical explanation as to why the sun comes up
in Los Angeles. Right here is the miracle; it is in the hotel. You have got 1,100
compulsive overeaters that are not eating (some of them not all of them); they
are not eating compulsively, and they are doing so happily. That is the miracle.
That is the miracle, in Los Angeles, at the OA Birthday; that is the miracle at
your house; that is the miracle at your meeting; that is the miracle where you
live too. It is an occurrence where there is no logical explanation.

Continuing to read on page 10.

“My intellectual heroes, the chemists, the astronomers, even the

evolutionists, suggested vast laws and forces at work. Despite contrary
indications, I had little doubt that a mighty purpose and rhythm underlay all.
How could there be so much of precise and immutable law, and no
intelligence? I simply had to believe in a Spirit of the Universe (capitals), who
knew neither time nor limitation. But that was as far as I had gone.

With ministers, and the world's religions, I parted right there.When

they talked of a God personal to me, who was love, superhuman strength
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and direction, I became irritated and my mind snapped shut against such a
theory.”

Can I relate to Bill? Yes. These are exactly the kind of struggles that I had
with God. I was raised by a man who was very upset with God. We would go to
the synagogue on Saturday. We would walk down the street, the Synagogue
was on the corner of my house, and he would be saying “Where were you
God? Where were you when they killed my mother, my father, my sisters, and
my brothers? Where were you when they killed my nieces and my nephews?
Where were you God? Where were you God?” What we have to come to
this; God does not put robots on the earth. God puts human beings on the
earth; human beings that make bad choices; but God was crying too. God wept
too. Holocaust Remembrance Day is coming up in a couple of days here. God
did not do that. He was crying too. There is not a person in this retreat or a
person on earth who has not looked up at God with tears in their eyes and not
asked “Why my mother? Why my father? Why me? Why them? Why us?”
We often do not understand the capricious and arbitrary nature of what
happens in this world. We just do not get it! But, if we have to come to if we
are going to recover, you have to come to whatever belief you want. What I
had to come to is that there are things in this world that I will never
understand. I am human. I am human and there are warehouses and ball parks
and factories full of information that I will never ever understand. If God were
small enough for me to understand he would not be big enough to solve my
problem. I need a God that is bigger than my understanding. A God that is
bigger than what I see with my eyes and that I cannot comprehend. Is this the
hill I want to die on? By limiting God and being angry at God - Is this the hill I
want to die on? That is the question I have to often ask myself.

Read top of Page 11.

“To Christ I conceded the certainty of a great man, not too closely
followed by those who claimed Him. His moral teaching-most excellent. For
myself, I had adopted those parts which seemed convenient and not too
difficult; the rest I disregarded.”

This next paragraph is timeless.

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“The wars which had been fought, the burnings and chicanery that
religious dispute had facilitated, made me sick. I honestly doubted whether,
on balance, the religions of mankind had done any good. Judging from what I
had seen in Europe and since, the power of God in human affairs was
negligible, the Brotherhood of Man a grim jest. If there was a Devil, he
seemed the Boss Universal, and he certainly had me.

But my friend sat before me, and he made the point-blank declaration
that God had done for him what he could not do for himself. His human will
had failed. Doctors had pronounced him incurable. Society was about to lock
him up. Like myself, he had admitted complete defeat. Then he had, in effect,
been raised from the dead, suddenly taken from the scrap heap to a level of
life better than the best he had ever known!

Had this power originated in him? Obviously, it had not. There had
been no more power in him than there was in me at that minute; and this
was none at all.”

Remember I told you the story of the OA Birthday in Los Angeles. At the
OA convention there are going to be people going to the ocean and they are
going to say “Oh, what a miracle the sun came up over the Pacific”. What is Bill
seeing? Bill sees a drunk; an alcoholic. He sees somebody that he knows is an
alcoholic and the guy is sober. The guy is sober. You cannot dispute that.

“That floored me. It began to look as though religious people were

right after all. Here was something at work in a human heart which had done
the impossible. My ideas about miracles were drastically revised right then.
Never mind the musty past; here said a miracle directly across the kitchen
table. He shouted great tidings.”

My ideas about miracles are done. I thought a miracle would be that I

would find a suitcase full of money or Charlie's Angels would knock on my door
in their nightgowns or whatever. You know crazy, crazy stuff, crazy fantasies of
a boy, an immature snot-nosed boy. God is not my bitch; God is not Santa
Claus; God is not the Easter Bunny; God is not the Hanukkah Angel. He is God
and he can make me whole. He can help me stay out of the food if I know in
my heart that he can, and I work toward it every day.
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We spend so much time on Step 1. We spend so much time on the food

plan. The food, the food, the food. You know you go to the same OA Birthday
or any convention where people are taking pictures of their food and sending
it to their sponsor. What about a picture of your spiritual life? Are we working
as hard on our Step 2as we did on our first? Are we working hard on a concept
of a Power Greater than ourselves that we are willing to believe in? that we
are willing to believe in because ultimately, we need to pass this on. We owe
the people that have walked before us a debt. We cannot be of maximum
service to God and the people about us if we are not in fit spiritual condition.

Reading from bottom of page 11.

“I saw that my friend was much more than inwardly reorganised. He

was on a different footing. His roots grasped a new soil.

Despite the living example of my friend there remained in me the

vestiges of my old prejudice. The word God still aroused a certain antipathy.”
(Antipathy means a feeling of dislike).“When the thought was expressed that
there might be a God personal to me this feeling was intensified. I didn't like
the idea...”

See he is still fighting this.

“…I could go for such conceptions as Creative Intelligence, Universal

Mind or Spirit of Nature but I resisted the thought of Czar of the Heavens,
however loving His sway might be. I have since talked with scores of men
who felt the same way.”

Now Ebby is going to open up the door to 20,000 generations of addicts

who are yet unborn when he says

“My friend suggested what then seemed a novel idea. He said, “Why
don't you choose your own conception of God?”

I cannot argue with my conception of anything but how many of us are

working on that conception of a Higher Power in a positive way? It is time to
let go of these resistances to God, these resentments against God. How
egotistical to resent God right? I had a woman call me up the morning after the
Presidential election last time. She says “I am never going to go to another OA
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meeting again. I'm never going to come to the program again. God let this
happen.” She was upset about the election, obviously. She must now be about
450 pounds. At this point she has gained about 175 pounds since the day that
the Presidential election was over. As I have said “God's crying too”. God did
not put a robot on earth. He put a person and she is making really bad choices.

“That statement hit me hard. It melted the icy intellectual mountain in

whose shadow I had lived and shivered many years. I stood in the sunlight at
last.

It was only a matter of being willing to believe in a Power greater than

myself. Nothing more was required of me to make my beginning.”

The beginning is Step 3.

“I saw that growth could start from that point. Upon a foundation of
complete willingness, I might build what I saw in my friend. Would I have it?
Of course, I would!”

How do you demonstrate willingness to believe? By taking action and

working the Steps. Do not sit there and pray; that is great that you want to
pray. Pray that is fine. There is nothing wrong with prayer but unless that
prayer gets translated into action you are barking up the wrong tree. Faith
without works is dead. We are going to get into that in a minute.

“The real significance of my experience in the Cathedral burst upon me.

For a brief moment, I had needed and wanted God. There had been a humble
willingness to have him with me-and He came. But soon the sense of His
presence had been blotted out by worldly clamors, mostly those within
myself. And so, it had been ever since. How blind I had been.”

Bill is affected greatly by what Ebby and him are talking about. He is
going to Oxford Group meetings but he is still drinking. December 11th, he
goes into the Town's hospital at about 6 p.m. He is waving a bottle of gin. Dr
Silkworth is propping up a patient who is very, very sick. He sees Bill Wilson.
He knows Bill and Bill Wilson says “Doctor I think I found something”. Dr
Silkworth sees him standing there, drunk as a skunk, boiled like an owl, and
says to him “It appears you have son, go upstairs and get undressed and get
into bed and I will be up there in a minute”. Bill stays sober on the 12th and
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 73

13th of December, two days sober, and on the 14th of December Bill will
awaken in the hospital.

“There I humbly offered myself to God, as I then understood him, to do

with me as He would. I placed myself unreservedly under His care and
direction. I admitted for the first time that of myself I was nothing; that
without Him I was lost.” This is Steps 1, 2 and 3 as we know them today.

“I ruthlessly faced my sins…” This is Step 4

“…and became willing to have my new-found Friend take them away

root, and branch.” This is Steps 6 and 7.

“I have not had a drink since”. So, he has worked Steps 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 7.

“My schoolmate visited me, and I fully acquainted him with my

problems and deficiencies”. This is Step 5.

“We made a list of people I had hurt or toward whom I felt resentment.
I expressed my entire willingness to approach these individuals…” This is Step
9.

“…admitting my wrong. Never was I to be critical of them”. Here is

Step 10. “I was to right all such matters to the utmost of my ability”. In these
two paragraphs we see Bill Wilson working what we know today as the first 10
Steps of what we call Alcoholics Anonymous.

“I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within.

Common sense would thus become uncommon sense. I was to sit quietly
when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems
as He would have me. Never was I to pray for myself, except as my requests
bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive. But
that would be in great measure.” This is Step 11.

“My friend promised when these things were done, I would enter upon
a new relationship with my Creator; that I would have the elements of a way
of living which answered all my problems.”

Now stop right there for just a minute. This is not just about food; you
see the food and the disease of compulsive overeating does not just affect
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 74

your weight; It affects all areas of your life; It affects everything. But when you
first come in here, if you are me, you get this boulder, this huge mountain,
drops in your lap and on the side of this mountain it says “Food and weight”.
For the first few years, the only thing I knew was the scale and the scale was
my report card. If the scale kept going down, I was doing fine. If the scale did
not keep going down, I was not doing fine. Does that make sense? Okay.

Now all of a sudden, I am abstinent for two years, three years, four
years, when all of a sudden, over here, I am co-dependent and I start to heal in
that area. Over here I am really scared of women because I do not have
experience with them and they are not going to like the way I look, and they
have never really liked me. I am really insecure about women and now I am
not real secure, but I am better than I was. Well that is getting healed over
there. You know I used to think what if a female got to know me, they would
hate me. Now I think if the female got to know me, they might like me. I am a
likeable guy; I am a good guy.

How does that happen? How do you transition? by doing self-

estimable activities for others, with no expectation of a return. The more I
do for others and the more I serve God, the more I learn to respect and trust
myself. I do not lie to myself anymore. I do not do bad things to myself
anymore. Yes, I make mistakes, because no matter how evolved my recovery
gets, I am never going to rise above the level of a human being. Yes, I make
mistakes, no question about that, but when I do, I can see how human I am,
and it makes me feel better about myself. I am just another bozo on the bus, I
am just another bozo on the bus.

Then over here it says social anxiety. Of course, I had social anxiety. I
was thumped by people who rejected me soundly because of my weight. They
do not do that anymore and so I fear people less in social settings than I used
to. I could not function in a social setting. I was too scared. Now I function
okay; maybe not as well as some, but I do better than others. Economically I
am doing what I can do. I have great credit. I own my house. I mean I have a
mortgage, but you get the picture. I do not rent; I own my house. I paid
$40,000 for a car, cash, that is not bad right? It is not a Rolls Royce, it is not a
Mercedes, but I paid $40,000 cash for a car. There were banks in Chicago that
would not have given me two dimes and a nickel for a quarter. I function
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 75

economically today. I pay my bills; I do not have to lie and I do not have to
steal.

When I go to the doctor, they do not raise their voice to me. My

cardiologist says, “You are the miracle man!” He said to me that the
mathematical odds of my still being alive are zero. The disease does not just
affect my food and my weight; the disease affects every part of my soul. The
recovery does not just affect my food and weight; It affects everything and
elevates it to a better life. The best is yet to come, as long as I keep working
the steps. The best is yet to come. I am human, there are things about my life I
wish were different yes, but I have a great life. He answers all my problems.
Not in the way I want, the timetable is not what I want, but everything gets
addressed.

Let us continue bottom of page 13.

“Belief in the power of God, plus enough willingness, honesty and

humility to establish and maintain the new order of things, were the essential
requirements.

Simple, but not easy; a price had to be paid. It meant destruction of

self-centeredness. I must turn in all things to the Father of Light who presides
over us all.

These were revolutionary and drastic proposals, but the moment I fully
accepted them, the effect was electric. There was a sense of victory, followed
by such a peace and serenity as I had never known. There was utter
confidence. I felt lifted up, as though the great clean wind of a mountain top
blew through and through. God comes to most men gradually, but his impact
on me was sudden and profound”.

Bill always said throughout his life that in the Town’s Hospital in
December, 1934, he had a vital spiritual experience, sudden and profound, not
like what I had. I had a spiritual awakening, slow, slow to develop over time
(the “educational variety” as referred to in Appendix II page 567). But the
bottom line is Bill, and I are different in that area, that is fine, but we can still
recover - we can still recover together.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 76

“For a moment I was alarmed, and called to my friend, the doctor (this is Dr
Silkworth) to ask if I were still sane. He listened in wonder as I talked.

Finally, he shook his head saying, “Something has happened to you I

don’t understand. But you had better hang on to it. Anything is better than
the way you were.” The good doctor now sees many men who have such
experiences. He knows that they are real.

While I lay in the hospital the thought came that there were thousands
of hopeless alcoholics who might be glad to have what had been so freely
given me. Perhaps I could help some of them. They in turn might work with
others”. This is Step 12.

Now you have got to remember something here, Bill Wilson was a
selfish, reprobate person. He was an alcoholic; he was a selfish unprincipled
person; he never gave two hoots about anybody else in his life. Now he is
laying in a hospital, thinking that there are other people that might benefit
from what had been so freely given him. That is God - and that is step 12.

Now the next paragraph will again dispel this myth in OA that abstinence
is the most important thing in my life without exception; it is not. It is a part of
it, a part of everything, yes. I brushed my teeth today, I showered today, I also
shaved. To be perfectly honest with you, I have not shaved for about four or
five days because you know we are on “stay at home” (lockdown), so there
was no reason for me to shave. But today, because I knew I would be on
camera, I made sure I shaved, so that is fine. But where was I going with this,
oh but these are things I do but the requirement is – well let’s just him tell you.

“My friend had emphasized the absolute necessity of demonstrating

these principles in all my affairs.”

What are the principles? The principles are the Steps.

“Particularly was it imperative to work with others as he had worked

with me. Faith without works was dead, he said. And how appallingly true
for the alcoholic! For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual
life through work and self-sacrifice for others, he could not survive the certain
trials and low spots ahead. If he did not work, he would surely drink again,
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 77

and if he drank, he would surely die. Then faith would be dead indeed. With
us it was just like that.”

You do not want a sponsor, but if you don’t work on 12 Step programme
you are going to eat again. I want to tell you I have a friend who lives in New
Jersey. Dear soul - I love her to death, she says “I would be afraid not to
sponsor”. If you are sitting here thinking “But I cannot sponsor anybody, I
cannot work with anybody, I do not have a PhD from Harvard in sponsoring!”
You have got a Big Book:

Step 1: The Doctor’s Opinion and Chapters 1, 2 and 3; go through them

quickly, no delay.

Step 2: Chapter 4

Step 3 and 4: Chapter 5

Step 5 through 11: Chapter 6

Step 12: Chapter 7.

You go through the chapters quickly; you learn more by teaching it

than you do by studying it. There are people who are scared to sponsor
because they are thinking “Well, what if I look bad?” You have got to let that
go. That is why we have Step 10 for you to do because if you are not going to
sponsor you are going to eat again. It is a certainty. Driving people to
meetings is great, leading meetings is great, doing other kinds of services is
great, but that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about
working with other people.

Reading from Page 15.

“My wife and I abandoned ourselves with enthusiasm to the idea of

helping other alcoholics to a solution of their problems. It was fortunate, for
my old business associates remain skeptical for a year and a half, during
which I found little work. I was not too well at the time, and was plagued by
waves of self-pity and resentment. This sometimes nearly drove me back to
drink, but I soon found that when all other measures failed, work with
another alcoholic would save the day.”
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Stop right there, you call me up and you are having a bad day. The first
question I am going to ask you is “What have you done today for someone
else? What have you done today to bring recovery into the life of somebody
else?”

“When all other measures failed, work with another alcoholic would
save the day.” The purpose of all of this is to get out of myself. I am obsessed
with self and the reason that it is imperative for me to do work, with no
expectation of a return, is it gets me out of thinking about me. This self-
absorption, this self-obsession is the disease in its active form.

“Many times, I have gone to my old hospital in despair. On talking to a

man there, I would be amazingly lifted up and set on my feet. It is a design
for living that works in rough going.

We commenced to make many fast friends and a fellowship has grown

up among us of which it is a wonderful thing to feel a part.”

Remember when Bill became the lone-wolf, he will never know again in
his life what it is to be a lone-wolf. He will always have people around him
because he is Bill Wilson in recovery.

“The joy of living we really have, even under pressure and difficulty. I
have seen hundreds of families set their feet in the path that really goes
somewhere; have seen the most impossible domestic situations righted;
feuds and bitterness of all sorts wiped out. I have seen men come out of
asylums and resume a vital place in the lives of their families and
communities. Business and professional men have regained their standing.
There is scarcely any form of trouble and misery which has not been
overcome among us. In one western City (Akron, Ohio) and its environs there
are 1,000 of us and our families. We meet frequently so that newcomers may
find the fellowship they seek. At these informal gatherings one may often
see from 50 to 200 persons. We are growing in numbers and power.

An alcoholic in his cups is an unlovely creature. Our struggles with

them are variously strenuous, comic, and tragic. One poor chap committed
suicide in my home. He could not, or would not, see our way of life.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 79

There is, however, a vast amount of fun about it all. I suppose some
would be shocked at our seeming worldliness and levity. But just underneath
there is deadly earnestness. Faith has to work 24 hours a day in and through
us, or we perish.

Most of us feel we look no further for Utopia. We have it with us right

here and now. Each day my friend’s simple talk in our kitchen multiplies itself
in a widening circle of peace on earth and goodwill to men.”

Bill Wilson died on January 24th, 1971. We study the life of Bill Wilson so
that we can identify in with him. My sincere hope is that by doing this work
this morning, we have somehow uncovered something in that story that will
help you identify with the way Bill thinks, and the way Bill drinks, and the way
Bill behaves. Bill found his solace; he found his relief through his Higher Power
and through the working of the Steps. Helping other people is the key to the
whole thing. He will never drink again as long as he lives. He will remain sober
for the rest of his life.

Bill Wilson was very human, very, very human. He certainly had an eye
for the ladies. He certainly had other human foibles, but he was sober. We
take from Bill’s story that faith without works was dead and how appallingly
true that is for the alcoholic. If we fail to perfect and enlarge our spiritual life,
through work and self-sacrifice for others, we will surely drink again. If we
drink, we will surely die and then faith will be dead indeed.

One of the things that Bill talks about in his story is what I heard on the
line when I first got in and that is the chatter, the camaraderie that all of you
have, whether we know each other or not. We know each other because we
speak, and we understand the language of the heart. We have been through
the shipwreck and we have been through the disaster. We have known pain as
few will, we have known loneliness and many of us have been dangerously thin
through anorexia. Some of us have been dangerously obese through
compulsive overeating and some of us have exercised ourselves into ill health.
Some of us have spent money that we did not have for health clubs and gyms
and all this kind of stuff. And some of us have had shots and pills in search of
some solution to this.
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Here is the solution (holds up AA Big Book). We are going to talk more
about it; we are going to amplify it tomorrow and on Sunday morning, but this
is the solution right here in my hands. This book that I am holding in my hands
has restored more drug addicts, alcoholics, compulsive overeaters, anorexics,
bulimics, gamblers, sex addicts, love addicts, co-dependents, more Al-Anonics,
more addicts back to society and back to a fruitful productive life than all other
measures combined. Did Bill Wilson pen this book? No, Bill Wilson was 43
years old when this book was written, with three and a half years of sobriety. I
have got 21 years of sobriety. I am lucky I can knock out a coherent text
message. This book is divinely written. He just used Bill’s hand. Believe what
you want. This book was written by God. It works and the most important
thing for us to remember is it works, it really does.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 81

Day 2: Saturday 18th April

Part 1: Step 3

H
ello, I am Harlan. I am a compulsive overeater and I live in Scottsdale
Arizona, although a lot of my story is that I was born and raised in
Chicago, Illinois.

We were talking about The Doctor's Opinion yesterday and from that we
understand what the disease of compulsive overeating is all about.
Compulsive Overeaters have two characteristics: firstly, we have an allergy of
the body, that is triggered when we consume certain foods or certain
ingredients of foods; secondly, we have a twist of the mind, that is triggered by
the buildup of human emotion. As we go through The Doctor's Opinion we are
told over and over again we must put down the food; is vital to our survival.
We cannot and will not have a spiritual awakening, as a result of the Steps, if
we continue to eat wantonly. It is just not going to happen.

Another thing we find out in The Doctor’s Opinion is that most men and
women drink essentially because they like the effect produced by alcohol. This
effect is so elusive that while they admit it is injurious, they cannot, after a
time, differentiate true from false. Their alcoholic life seems the only normal
one to them. They are restless, irritable and discontented unless they can,
again, experience the sense of ease and comfort that comes, at once, by taking
a few drinks. These are the drinks they see others taking with impunity
(impunity means that they are not getting punished for it). So many succumb
to the desire again. The phenomenon of craving develops, creating the
physical allergy they will experience. Then the well-known stages of a spree
result and they will emerge remorseful with a firm resolution not to drink
again; this is repeated over and over again. Unless this person can experience
an entire psychic change, or what we call a spiritual awakening, as a result of
the Steps, there is very little hope of his recovery.

We will have a quick review of Steps 1 and 2 to help solidify them and
that will help us to roll into the information of Steps 3 and 4 with a strong
foundation. Food for the compulsive overeater is never the problem. Food
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 82

becomes the solution to the problem, so if food is the solution to the

problem, then what is the problem? The problem is the buildup of everyday,
normal, human emotion. All human beings have emotions: fear, happiness,
regret, jealousy, remorse and anger.

For a very long time in my life we had German Shepherds and we had
lots of them. We had Honey-bear, Heidi, Heidi-bear was a Béarnaise. I can
look at a German shepherd and tell you if they are angry, jealous or scared. So,
if dogs have these emotions you can bet that we have them too. The fact that
we have them is not because we are compulsive Overeaters; we have these
emotions because we are human beings and as human beings, we are subject
to these emotions. Now in a normal human being, a non-addicted person,
when these emotions build to a certain level, they will take action. They will:
go to the gym, go to the driving range and hit a bucket of golf balls, make love,
play with the dog, listen to music, take a walk, whatever it suits them do.
When they come back, they’re fine.

With us, compulsive overeaters, these emotions will pinball around in

our brains and as they do so they will actually accelerate and notify the brain
there is intense searing pain in the heart and mind of the compulsive overeater
and the brain will give send out a thought “eat a chocolate bar”. The mind will
say “No, I am not so sure I want to do that” and then the brain will again say
“Eat the chocolate bar”. I am making a distinction between the mind and the
brain – which is really the distinction between the cerebral and the emotional.
You see, in a non-addicted person, the intellect will win out over the
emotion; with us the emotional will take precedence because we cannot
bear that pain. We cannot bear that pain and from where we are standing
eating becomes preferable; we eat the food in search of relief from that
untenable, searing, unrelenting pain of not eating; we eat the food because we
cannot survive without it; the pain is just too intense.
By eating the food, we get that effect Dr Silkworth has told us about and
for about nine seconds; we feel fantastic. For about nine seconds we get
complete relief from that pain. Oh, the world is a beautiful groovy place, I
want to sit by the campfire and I want to sing “kumbaya”, I want to “buy the
world a coke” and I want to hold everybody's hand and let them know that the
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 83

world is a beautiful place! We have relief from the pain but the problem is
that it only lasts about nine or ten seconds and then the horror of what we
have done overtakes us. Now we regret what we have done but it is too late;
we have triggered the physical allergy; we have placed stopping beyond our
reach.

We have placed the ability to control the amount of food that we are
going to consume beyond our human reach. We are eating more and more
and we know we are making ourselves sick. We cannot stand the fact that we
keep eating like this and we admit it is injurious. We know we are killing
ourselves but we cannot tell the truth from the false - in other words do we
think that we are on Mars? No, but we keep thinking we are going to be able
to get this under control, when indeed we are not. It is not going to happen;
not now, not ever! So, what is a fellow to do? If I cannot eat because of the
allergy and I cannot keep from eating because of the twist of the mind, I am
powerless over food and my life is unmanageable.

So, it begs the question “What if I could find a way to live where I feel
better, already? What if I could find a way to live where my mind does not feel
it is necessary to lock-in and hone in on that sense of ease and comfort, which
comes instantly by eating the food? What if I could find a way to live where I
already feel better?”

Lack of power is our dilemma and the process of bringing the necessary
power into this equation is simply called recovery - and that is what this is all
about. This is about a substitution that we are going to essentially embark
upon, we are going to substitute the effect of the food (which is killing us) for
the effect of the Steps. What we are going to do? I am going to repeat that
because it is vital information. We are going to substitute the effect of the
food for the effect of the Steps. The Steps are going to do for us what the
food did for us, with none of the devastating, death-defying side effects. That
is all we are doing. We are going to seek the same effect and it is going to
come from real happiness and we are going to trade. We are going to trade a
moment of pleasure for a lifetime of fulfilment and happiness.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 84

Step 2 asks do we believe, or are we even willing to believe, that there is

a Power greater than ourselves? One of the mistakes that I so often see in OA
is that we have sponsors and sponsees who rightfully spend quite a lot of time
on Step 1. They spend lots of time figuring out red light foods and green light
foods and purple light foods. I am not a believer in yellow light foods; you can
either eat it or you cannot. It works for you or it does not, but if it works for
you that is fine. It is not wrong. It just does not seem to work for me. So, let
us get back to the subject, do we spend as much time working on a description
of our Higher Power as we spend working out our food? Do we spend as much
time sending pictures of lunch to our sponsor as we do on our spiritual life?
What is our description of our Higher Power in our mind? Do we have a Higher
Power that is adversarial to us? Do we have a Higher Power that has
disappointed us? Do we have resentments against this Higher Power that we
are unwilling to let go of? These are the things that we need to work on
because I need a Higher Power that I am on good terms with. I do not want a
Higher Power that does not seem to be there for me. I do not want a Higher
Power that I doubt. Now how do you do that? You work at it every day. And
where does it start? It starts with a description of a Higher Power that I am
willing to believe in.

I told you yesterday that I really love the OA birthday and think it is
wonderful. I hope to see each and every one of you in Los Angeles next year.
Historically it has been in January but I am not so sure this year - the date may
change. I do not know, whether it is in January or in February, I want you to
come and one of the things that you will see are people going to the beach.
They will go out to the Pacific Ocean and come back to the lobby of the hotel
and clap their hands together and say “what a miracle, we saw the sunset”.
That is wonderful, but the biggest miracle of all is that there are compulsive
overeaters in that hotel who are not, in that present moment, compulsively
overeating. They are happy about it and that can only come from a spiritual
awakening as the result of the Steps.

Now let us embark upon the subject for today, we have reviewed Step 1,
the powerless condition. We have reviewed Step 2 - the fact that we have
come to believe that there is a Power greater than ourselves that can restore
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 85

us to sanity. Now I want to take a look at that word SANITY, because it is vital
to our understanding. Notice that the step is not limited, now what do I mean
by that? If the step said “came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves
could restore us to abstinence” or if the step said “came to believe that a
Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sobriety” then the step would
be very, very limited. What we have in this step is a Power greater than
ourselves and the recovery will improve every area of our lives, so the word
sanity is more protracted.

The word sanity is more open-ended and denotes that there are more
things that are going to heal and more things that are going to improve beyond
my consumption of food. So, the word sanity takes the bridle off the
limitations of the words sobriety or abstinence and that word sanity means
that we are going to practice the principles. What are these principles? The
principles are the Steps and the principles we are going to practice are going to
be in all of our affairs, my friend relationships are improved by the steps, my
work relationship is improved by the steps, my entanglements in romance are
improved by the working of the steps. These things are very subtle but the
word sanity is much more all-encompassing than the words sobriety or
abstinence. It is very, very important that as sponsors we point out to people
that the word sanity means that it is going to be our lives and not just about
our food that is affected. This disease has affected everything but the recovery
is going to improve everything, so let us not limit ourselves and continue to see
these things as being vital to our deeper understanding and that word sanity is
a key.

Okay now we have an acceptance that we are compulsive overeaters.

We have looked at chapters “The Doctor's Opinion” and “Bill's Story” and you
work with people on “There is a Solution” and “More About Alcoholism”.
These are vital chapters to Step 1 but we do not have the time to look at those
chapters in this forum. We are going to work with what is in front of us, Steps
3 and 4, the most misunderstood and underutilized steps. In our zeal to
overcomplicate things we take simple principles and steps and make them
complicated. We will now look at page 58, but before we do, I would like to
give you a little bit of historical background.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 86

Sam Shoemaker who was the rector at the Calvary mission in New York
City. He was the front man from the Oxford group movement in New York.
Sam Shoemaker saw Abby Thatcher, Rowland Hazard, Shep Cornell, Bill Wilson,
Hank Parkhurst, Fitz Mayo and Jimmy Burwell coming in and they started to
become known as the “drunk squad” of the Oxford group. There was no AA
yet - that was to come later. Sam Shoemaker was actually approached by Bill
to write the steps. He said “nothing doing”. Sam said to Bill “This book must
be for alcoholics, by alcoholics. I will not do it”.

What Sam taught the boys was vital to the understanding of where our
steps come from. Sam Shoemaker pointed out to the boys that there were
four impediments to God. What is an impediment? An impediment is
something that stops or slows progress and he believed that there were four
impediments to God, that must be overcome. Addressing these impediments
had to be part of the steps. Number one is a resentment that you will not let
go of, number two is a secret that you will not tell, number three is a vicarious
thrill that you will not stop and number four is a restitution that you will not
make.

Now let us review those; a resentment that you will not let go of is Step
4. A secret that you will not tell is Step 5. A vicarious thrill that you will not
stop is Step 6 and 7 and a restitution that you will not make is Steps 8 and 9.
So, the guts of the middle of the program are pure Oxford group. Step 1 comes
from Shoemaker, Step 2 comes from the Oxford group, Step 3 comes from the
Oxford group, Steps 4 - 9 come from the Oxford group but the bottom line is
that we have these impediments and as such we are going to have to take
actions to overcome them. The impediments and the actions that we are
going to take are much simpler than the way most of us have been trying to
take them for a long time.

Let us take a look at page 58 now. Bill Wilson wrote this in a very short
period of time, he said that it was like the pencil had a life of its own. He felt
the pencil running across the paper and in 20 minutes he wrote chapter 5.
Now they forced some changes on him and they did not like the fact that he
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increased the number of steps from 6 to 12. They did not like that at all. They
said 6 steps were fine so far, but he did not set out to write 12 steps - he only
set out to close some of the loopholes that the boys had been jumping through
for a very long time.

On page 58 of the chapter “How It Works”, it states

“Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our
path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not
completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women
who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves”.

What are we talking about when we talk about this concept of honesty?
Are we talking about cash register honesty? Yes, that is part of it? Are we
talking about honesty in our relationships? Yes, that is part of it. But what we
are really talking about is asking yourself if you honestly accept, to the core of
your being, that you are a compulsive overeater.

The behaviors of compulsive overeaters can vary and are not the same
for everyone. For example, my conduct took the following form: I ate and ate
and ate and ate and ate; the more I ate the more I wanted; the more I wanted
the more I ate; it was just endless. Some of us are bulimics, we eat large
quantities of food and then we regurgitate it back up. Some of us are exercise
bulimics and we will eat large quantities of food and then over exercise to
work it off. We harm our bodies that way, we harm our joints, our muscles,
our bones and we harm ourselves. Some of us are laxative abusers, some of us
are anorexics; we get a high from starving ourselves. So even though we are
all compulsive overeaters, we manifest in different ways. We manifest it in
different ways but whether we manifest it like me or whether we manifest it in
anorexia or bulimia we have to be honest with ourselves and ask ourselves if
we are compulsive overeaters?

Yes, I am a compulsive eater. Now there are people in this conference

that may not be compulsive overeaters. I do not know. I am not here to
assess you. I am not here to diagnose you; this is a self-diagnosing disease.
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Sometimes people will ask me “Do you think I am or not?” I do not know what
to tell you but here is what I do know: I am one, I am a compulsive overeater, I
cannot stop once I have started and I cannot stay stopped. That is all I need to
know - so either I am one or I am not. That is all he is asking us to be honest
about. Still page 58.

“There are some unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to
have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and
developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their
chances of making it are less than average.”

During the day I am going to be asked “Do I need a Step 10? Do I need
to call somebody? Do I need to do this? Do I need to do that?” That is what is
going to be required of me.

“There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental
disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be
honest.”

Honesty is the key. He mentions it three times here, it is important.

“Our stories disclosed in a general way what we used to be like, what

happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we
have and are willing to go to any lengths to get it - then you are ready to
take certain steps.”

What is it we have here? Do we have just a bunch of people that are not
compulsively overeating? They have that at Dunkin Donuts right now too.
There are people at restaurants (well not now because we are in a pandemic
and we cannot go to a restaurant - we can only carry it out!) But let us just say
that times are normal and there are people eating right now that are not
compulsive overeaters. But what we have here, hopefully, are a group of
people that are afflicted with a disease of the mind and a disease of the body
that is fatal. They have been released from that desire to kill themselves and
have been happy in their release, but freedom is not free. We are going to
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have to pay a price for that freedom and the price we are going to have to pay
is honesty and effort. Do you want what we have and are you willing to go to
any lengths to get it? Then you are ready to take certain steps. What are you
willing to do and when are you willing to do it? Freedom is not free, as my
friend in New Jersey likes to say. Freedom is not free. This is going to take
every single day and it is going to have to be job number one of the day, every
day, unceasingly for the rest of my life, one day at a time. There will not be
any days off as my disease does not take days off. My disease got worse as I
slept last night, my disease got worse as I am talking to you now. This disease
is permanent, progressive and fatal.

“At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier,

softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we
beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have
tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go
absolutely.”

In other words, we are being told something here – it is like a vending

machine. I know that is a weird analogy but it is the best one I can think of. If I
go up to a vending machine and there is a product in the vending machine that
I desire and the product costs two dollars and I put in a dollar ninety-nine what
am I going get out of the vending machine? Nothing. Nothing. I am either in
or I am out; I am either doing this or I am not; I am either in or I am out, and so
what I need to do is put in my two dollars. I need to do whatever it is going to
take to get the job done. I cannot think to myself that I am going to get half a
recovery for half an effort. It does not work that way and it is never going to
work that way! I am either in or I am out and I want to say that several times
because it is vital to my survival. I have to internalize this – it is black or it is
white- and some of us thought we could find an easier, softer way but we
could not.

“At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier,

softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command…”
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“With all the earnestness.” What is earnestness? Earnestness is another

word for honesty.

“… we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start.

Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until
we let go absolutely.

Remember that we are dealing with alcohol – cunning, baffling,

powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all
power - that One is God. May you find Him now!

Half-measures availed us nothing.”

Notice that when the Big Book wants to teach us something it uses
repetition. “Half measures availed us nothing” - half measures do not avail me
half a recovery; half measures do not avail me something; half measures
availed me nothing.

“We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with
complete abandon.” Notice that it says “complete abandon”.

“Here are the steps we took which are suggested as a program of

recovery...”

We are not going to read the 12 steps; you can read those on your own.
They have been read already this morning much more eloquently and much
more melodiously than I am capable of reading them. But what I am going to
give you is where we have come from. I am going to give you the six steps of
the Oxford group movement. Number one is complete deflation, number two
is dependence and guidance from a Higher Power, number three is a moral
inventory. Moral does not mean anything about morality - the word moral in
the 1930’s meant truth. A moral inventory means a truthful inventory, moral
means truth - for confession that is our Step 5. Number 5 is restitution and 6 is
continued work with other alcoholics. So, number one complete deflation,
number two dependence and guidance from a Higher Power, number three a
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moral inventory, number four confession and number five restitution. Number
six continued work with other alcoholics, that was the six-step program of the
Oxford group movement that we came from. Then they had their four
absolutes that were goals in their lives and the four absolutes were absolute
honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness and absolute love. Absolute
honesty, absolute purity, absolute unselfishness, absolute love and these
drunks were having a hell of a time being anything but absolutely drunk. They
were struggling and Bill knew that he had to close some of these loopholes.

Let us go to page 60 now.

“Many of us exclaimed, ‘What an order! I can’t go through with it.’ Do

not be discouraged. No one among us has been able to maintain anything
like perfect adherence to these principles. We are not saints. The point is, we
are willing to grow along spiritual lines. The principles we have set down our
guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual
perfection.”

That is the most misquoted sentence in the Big Book. People will say to
me “Oh, I ate yesterday. Oh, I guess progress not perfection” - it does not say
that. It says “we claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection” so let
us begin now by not misquoting that line. It is not an excuse to eat, it is not an
excuse to do whatever you like. It says “we claim spiritual progress rather than
spiritual perfection”.

“Our description of the alcoholic...” would be chapters “The Doctor's

Opinion”, Chapters 1, 2 and 3, Chapter 4 is “We Agnostics.”

“…and our personal adventures before and after make clear three
pertinent ideas:”

Now, before I move to the three pertinent ideas, I want to just bring in a
little history here. Why do we have the personal adventures in the back of the
book? Why do we have all these stories in the back of the book? You see
there were four books that were the main influence on this Big Book that we
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have in our hands right now. The first one was The Sermon on the Mount by
Emmet Fox, the second was the Book of James in the New Testament, the
third one was The Common Sense of Drinking by Richard Peabody and the
fourth one was The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James.

William James wrote a dreadfully boring book and if I ever hated you, I
would make you read that book. It is a book based on a series of talks given at
the University of Glasgow in Scotland and it occurred around 1902-1903. He
was a psychologist, talking to psychologists, but there are things in that book
that were very popular with the Oxford group at the time of the 1930’s.
William James's book The Varieties of Religious Experience was a book about
people who through tragedy and trauma discovered God. So, it was a book
about what these people were like, what happened to these people and what
they are like now.

When we read in Bill's Story, page 13, that Ebby comes to see Bill, he
says “I fully acquainted him with my problems and deficiencies”. Under Ebby’s
arm was a copy of William James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience which
was very popular with the Oxford group and Bill started reading it. That is why
you have these stories in the back of the Big Book it is because of William
James’ The Varieties of Religious Experience. Dreadful reading but there are
some of the stories that are quite interesting and it really is worth plotting
through it if you wanted to get a picture of what they were reading and what
they were doing back in the 1930’s. It is called The Varieties of Religious
Experience by William James.

The other one that I mentioned is by Richard Peabody. In 1931 Peabody

wrote a book called The Common Sense of Drinking, he had a lot of things
right, he said “that once an alcoholic always an alcoholic” and that “the disease
is permanent, progressive, and fatal”. Now Chapter 3 “More About
Alcoholism” is pure Peabody. It is a chapter very heavily influenced by
Peabody, the unfortunate thing about Richard Peabody is that he came right
up to a spiritual solution but never crossed the line. He died of his own
alcoholism in 1936, as AA was just getting started. But so important was that
book that Bill Wilson's copy of the “The Common Sense of Drinking” is in the
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AA archives as we sit here today. So, it was a very, very influential book and it
gives us the information of “permanent, progressive and fatal” and “once you
are an alcoholic you are always an alcoholic” and that comes from Peabody.
So, there are a lot of giants whose shoulders we walk on when we walk into a
room of OA and we need to remember that these giants gave us the
programme that we have today. So sometimes we have to have a little bit of
gratitude. The Book of James and Emmett Fox’s “The Sermon on the Mount”
were very influential as well.

Let us get back to page 60 that states

“… three pertinent ideas:

(a) “That we were alcoholic and could not manage our own lives.”

What does that mean? It means we have an allergy of the body and a
twist of the mind and the sidekick of the twist of the mind is the mental blank
spot - the built-in forgetter.

(b) “That probably no human power could have relieved our

alcoholism”.

Do not look at the world for reasons why you are a compulsive
overeater and do not look at the world for a solution. It is not there, there is
no earthly explanation and there is no earthly solution to what afflicts us that
must come from a Higher Power. Are you thinking that wealth, fame and
success would have altered your path? I am going to mention some names
and if you are too young to know these people you can Google them. I am
going to mention some names to you that will illustrate my point. I am sure
they would not mind. Mama Cass Elliot, Jackie Gleason, John Candy, Chris
Farley, Karen Carpenter, Fatty Arbuckle, President William Howard Taft. Now
what do all these people have in common? These people were at the top of
their game, famous, rich, successful and this disease struck them down. This
disease showed them no mercy, this disease took them out, it took them out
and their money did not help them. Their fame did not help them. Karen
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Carpenter died at 34 years of age, voice of an angel, anorexia so screwed up

her heart. Mama Cass died in London, England. She was scheduled to appear
at the Palladium. She died at about 400 pounds. Some of these other people
were lovely, beautiful, successful people and this disease took them out. What
it did to them it will do to you and me - there is no mercy in compulsive
overeating. This disease will show you no mercy.

(c) “That God could and would if He were sought.”

Do you believe in the core of your soul that God could and would if he
were sought? If you do not you need to contact your sponsor today, as soon
as we are finished, and say “I need to re-look at my idea of what my Higher
Power is.” God could and would if He were sought, believe it in your heart and
believe it in your soul. There is recovery for many and there is recovery for
you. If you walk to God then He will run to you. Believe it in your soul because
it is true, that there is recovery out there and there are miracles out there that
have your name on them. Maybe you have tried umpteen times and you have
failed, maybe you have tried a million times and you have failed. We need to
change, something has to change, we cannot continue to do the same things
and expect different results. It is not possible. But if we change those
activities and actions, we are going to get different results. So, we can walk to
God, we can recover, we can understand in the sunlight of the Spirit, it is not
just for a select few that does not include you, it includes you too, it is for you
too.

“Being convinced, we were at Step Three, which is that we decided to

turn our will and our life over to God as we understood Him. Just what do we
mean by that, just what do we do?”

When we turn our will and our life over to the care of God, we are
turning our will, which is our thinking, our life and our actions, over to the care
of God. How do you do that? You do not do that in Step 3 - you do it in Step 4.
So, what is Step 3? Step 3 are the formal terms of surrender; Step 3 means
that I am now going to do Steps 4 through 12 every day for the rest of my
life. If I do Steps 10, 11 and 12, I am going to be doing Steps 4 through 12
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every day for the rest of my life too. How long should Step 3 take? About 30
seconds; if it is taking longer than 30 seconds, we are probably not doing it
correctly. Let us take a look at this information now.

“The first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-
will can hardly be a success. On that basis we are almost always in collision
with something or somebody, even though our motives are good. Most
people try to live by self-propulsion. Each person is like an actor who wants
to run the whole show; is forever trying to arrange the lights, the ballet, the
scenery, the rest of the players in his own way. If his arrangements would
only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great.
Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Life would be wonderful. In
trying to make these arrangements our actor may sometimes be quite
virtuous. He may be kind, considerate, patient, generous; even modest and
self-sacrificing. On the other hand, he may be mean, egotistical, selfish and
dishonest. But, as with most humans, he is more likely to have varied traits.”

Now what we have just described are the character defects of

selfishness. Selfishness in the 1930’s had a little bit of a different meaning
than it has today. In today's language selfishness would mean that a truckload
of medical supplies just landed in our midst and I am trying to keep all of them
for myself - that is a form of selfishness. There is no question that it is. But in
the 1930’s what selfishness meant was I am trying to get you to stick to my
script. I am trying to get you to live life on my terms, rather than your terms,
and I am frequently guilty of that - just as we all are.

I have a 25-year-old who does not live according to my script, I know she
would be better off if she did. I have given her copies of my script for her life,
from time to time, and she seems to reject them summarily. As a matter of
fact, I will go one better. The more I try to get my 25-year-old to go North the
more vehemently she is going to try to go any direction but North. She seems
to have a will and a mind all her own. If you think you could get her to stick to
my script, message me privately. I will give you her cell phone, you can contact
her and tell her she should stick to my script but I do not think she will listen. I
also think she is going to use some very foul language that I guarantee she did
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not pick up from me! I think she picked it up from her mother - but she did not
pick it up from me! She will tell you in no uncertain terms, as she is hanging up
on you, that she is really not interested in your interpretation of what she does
or where she goes. Now why is that? Because she has a mind and a will of her
own. She will let you know it too, but the bottom line is that none of you are
going to stick to my script and that is a good thing, because my script is born
out of limited humanity and limited humanness. I do not see the big picture; I
do not know the big picture but God does. So, when we say selfish as a
character defect this is what we are talking about.

Now we are going to visit the character defect of self-seeking. (Page 61)

“What usually happens? The show doesn’t come off very well. He
begins to think life doesn’t treat him right. He decides to exert himself more.
He becomes, on the next occasion, still more demanding or gracious, as the
case may be. Still the play does not suit him. Admitting he may be
somewhat at fault, he is sure that other people are more to blame”.

So, we see very clearly that these other people are way more to blame
than us and that is one of the things we love to do. All addicts do four things -
we do them well, we do them automatically, we do not have to even think
about them. These are the four things that all addicts do all the time: We lie,
we assign blame, we keep score in our relationships and we fight battles that
just do not exist; we do them over and over and over and over again and this is
what we do.

“He becomes angry, indignant, self-pitying. What is his basic trouble?

Is he not really a self-seeker even when trying to be kind? Is he not a victim
of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world
if he only manages well? Is it not evident to all the rest of the players that
these are the things he wants? And do not his actions make each of them
wish to retaliate, snatching all they can get out of the show? Is he not, even
in his best moments, a producer of confusion rather than harmony?”
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You see the more I try to control things, the more I try to put my hands
on things, the more I try to get you to do what I want you to do, I am going to
kiss your butt or I am going to kick your butt, but I want you to do what I want
you to do. The more I try to exert myself in this issue, the worse it gets,
because you will resist me. You will get away from me and now I have to try to
find other ways to get you to do my bidding. We see right through that do we
not, but we think that others cannot see through us when we are trying to get
our script stuck to.

“Our actor is self-centered - egocentric, as people like to call it

nowadays. He is like the retired businessman who lolls in the Florida sunshine
in the winter complaining of the sad state of the nation; the minister who
sighs over the sins of the 20th century; politicians and reformers who are sure
all would be Utopia if the rest of the world would only behave; the outlaw
safe cracker who thinks society has wronged him; and the alcoholic who has
lost all and has locked up. Whatever our protestations, are not most of us
concerned with ourselves, our resentments, our self-pity?

Selfishness - self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our

troubles.”

So again, we are going to come back to self and one of the things that
the program will do is catapult me into positions where I am going have to
think about you and if I can get 20 minutes a day of thinking about you rather
than sitting and thinking about poor me, then that is 20 minutes where I
probably will not want to eat. This is a disease of self-centeredness, it is a
disease of self, it is a disease that afflicts the person who is constantly
thinking about themselves.

Come with me to page 570 please, Appendix III, “The Medical View on
AA”, we are only going to read one or two sentences there but I want to
illustrate this because this is very vital important information. We are going to
just look at Dr Bauer's section on the top of page 570. In the middle of the
paragraph, it says
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“They help others with similar problems ... In this atmosphere the
alcoholic often overcomes his excessive concentration upon himself. Learning
to depend upon a higher power and absorb himself in his work with other
alcoholics, he remains sober day by day. The days add up into weeks, the
weeks into months and years”.

Let us go back to page 62 now. There is a healthy way of thinking about

others and there is an unhealthy way of thinking about others. One is in the
throes of the codependency condition and the other is healthy. What is the
difference? The difference comes down to one word - results. If I am looking
to help you so that you will be my friend/buddy and if I am looking to help you
so as to get something from you, that is not healthy. That is the Al-Anonic
condition, that is manipulation in its active form. If I am looking to help you so
that you will go help others or no result is attached at all, that is okay. So,
there is a way of helping and there is a way of manipulating. You have to really
have a sponsor and you have to ask yourself at every juncture “Am I looking for
a result here?” Because if I am looking for a result, that is not okay. That is not
kosher.

I am on page 62 now in the first full paragraph.

“Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking and self-

pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they
hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some
time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us
in a position to be hurt.”

Poor me, you always hurt me and I did not even provoke you.

“So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise
out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot,
though he usually does not think so”.

Is not it funny how we just do not think so?

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“Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We

must, or it kills us! God makes that possible.”

My broken brain cannot fix my broken brain. I cannot overcome these

things by myself on my own. Lord knows I have tried! Lord knows I have tried
to discipline myself and willpower myself into being a better person and it
never worked. The results were terrible.

“And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without
His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we
could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could
we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own
power. We had to have God's help.

This is the how and the why of it. First of all, we had to quit playing
God. It didn’t work. Next, we decided that hereafter in this drama of life, God
was going to be our director. He is the Principal; we are His agents. He is the
Father and we are His children. Most good ideas are simple, and this concept
was the keystone of the new and triumphant arch through which we passed
to freedom.”

Now let us take a look at this paragraph and pull it apart, as much as
time will allow. I have a real estate license in the state of Arizona, I am NOT a
realtor. What I do is I use my phone skills and I get leads for a business broker.
If you do not know what a business broker is - here's what it is. A real estate
broker sells your house or your commercial property. A business broker sells
your business. So, I call owners of businesses and I ask them very frankly “If
the conditions were right, would you consider selling? Do you have a desire to
sell your business?” If they do, we go and see them and we see what can be
done. As a person that has a real estate license in the state of Arizona when
somebody is our client, we have what is called a fiduciary duty to that client.
What does that mean? That is a fun word to say fiduciary. That means that I
am legally bound to put their interests above my own.
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I have that same relationship with God. I am bound by my fiduciary

contract, that in exchange for losing 500 pounds, in exchange for owning my
house, in exchange for my car, in exchange for the air that I breathe, in
exchange for the fact that I have not done anything, said anything, gone
anywhere or done anything in the last 21 years that I would be ashamed, if you
found out about it. If I had everything I did yesterday, everything that went in
and out of my mouth, everything I said, everywhere I went, if it was on the
front page of the Chicago Tribune, am I okay with that? Yes. Yes, and as a
person that is okay with that, I am free. I am free. In my brain this morning,
there is a part of me that wants to eat breakfast and I am a little hungry. I will
get to do that in about 45 minutes or so and that is fine, that is normal. But I
am not looking to eat Peanut Butter Cups for breakfast. I do not have any
chocolate here in my drawers. I am sitting at the desk that I work at and there
is nothing in here that I would die of shame if you came in and saw. There is
my calculator, my spare glasses, my little phone book; there is nothing in here
that is edible. I put the needs of God first.

You know what I did before I came on here, why I was a couple minutes
late? I was taking a 10-step call from somebody. I did not say to myself “You
know I am going to be on the phone here for a couple hours and you know
blah blah blah blah blah. You need to call somebody”. No, I took that phone
call. Why? Because that phone call is a divine gift in my life. He is the Father;
we are his children. Now some of you had fathers that were great and some of
you had fathers that were not so great. Some of you had fathers that may
have done dreadful things, I do not know I was not there. I could not tell you
but this is the perfect Father, this is our Heavenly Father, this is the Father who
loves you, this is the Father who would never allow anyone to hurt you. He is
the principle; we are his agents. He is the Father; we are His children.

This is why I am a little wigged out. I got divorced 10 years ago, I did not
want to get divorced - I just did not. I am an old-fashioned Jewish guy from the
north side of Chicago. When you marry, you marry forever. There is no
divorce, you get married and that is it. We will make the most of it, we will get
counselling, we will do what we need to do. I love you, I thought you loved
me. Let us not do this - we have got a child. There is nothing I could do. If
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somebody does not want to be married to you, you do not have a lot of
options at that point you know. So, I cannot retire, my finances were
decimated. My finances were massacred. I am going to be 66 years old here
in a few weeks and I am still working. I want to be retired but I read this
paragraph every day and it gives me hope and strength. Maybe it will give
hope and strength to you too.

Top of page 63, the 3rd Step Promises

“When we sincerely took such a position…”

What position is that? The position that He is the Father, we are His
children. He is the principle and we are his agents.

“…all sorts of remarkable things followed. We had a new Employer.”

Notice that that is capitalized. He is talking about God.

“Being all powerful, He provided what we needed, if we kept close to

Him and performed His work well. Established on such a footing we became
less and less interested in ourselves, our little plans and designs. More and
more we became interested in seeing what we could contribute to life”.

I was always a taker, I wanted you to feel sorry for me, I wanted to
manipulate you. Now I contribute, now I can give and I know that in giving it
gets me out of myself and I do not give to go quid pro quo. Quid pro quo
means you do this and I will do that. I do not do that; what I do is I give
because that is my job and God takes care of me.

“As we felt new power flow in, as we enjoyed peace of mind, as we

discovered we could face life successfully, as we became conscious of His
presence, we began to lose our fear of today, tomorrow or the hereafter. We
were reborn”.
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I am not the person that I was, you would not be sitting around listening
to the person that I was. The person I was, was obnoxious, the person that I
was lied when the truth would have served me better, the person that I was
not a pleasant person - full of self-pity, lies, anger, jealousy, lust, rage. It would
not be a pleasant experience for you. I have the same name as that person, I
have the same background as that person and that is where the similarities
end. In every way, shape or form I have been reborn. I have let God into my
life in a very intimate way and I have been rearranged and reborn. If you
would like to take the 3rd Step with me and say the prayer with me you are
more than welcome to.

“We are now at Step Three. Many of us said to our Maker, as we

understood him: God, I offer myself to Thee - to build with me and to do with
me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy
will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to
those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love and Thy way of life”.

The Step 3 is not something that should take a great deal of time. It is
based on the conclusion of the mind of Step 1 and the conclusion of the mind
of Step 2. We are now deciding that we are going to do Steps 4 through 12
every day for the rest of our lives. And how do we do that? We do that by
taking Steps 10, 11 and 12 ultimately.
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Day 2: Saturday 18th April

Part 2: Step 4

A
nd we're going to now endeavour into Step 4.

Reading from page 63 paragraph 4.

“We found it very desirable to take this spiritual step with

an understanding person, such as our wife, best friend, or
spiritual advisor. But it is better to meet God alone than with one who might
misunderstand. The wording was, of course, quite optional so long as we
express the idea, voicing it without reservation. This was only a beginning…”

Step 3 is a decision and a beginning.

“… though if honestly and humbly made, an effect, sometimes a very

great one was felt at once.

Next…”

Next, not in a week, not in a month, not in a year. NEXT .

“…we launched out on a course of vigorous action, the first step of

which is a personal housecleaning.”

Why does it say the first step of which? The reason it says the first step
of which? Is this is going to be the first excellent step that we are going to take
in our program of recovery. Up till now everything has been conclusions of the
mind.

Steps 1, 2 & 3 are not action steps, but Step 4 is going to be the first of
the action steps, which many of us have never attempted. Though our
decision, Step 3 was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent
effect unless at once, there's your second time frame, at once, so you've got
next and at once.

I have gotten calls over the years from men and women whose sponsors
tell them you wait a year, you wait a month, you wait a week, you wait
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 104

whatever. What kind of information are some people tapping into, because
there is nothing in this book, there is nothing in these set of instructions, there
is nothing that says there is something that you wait on? There is nothing in
here that says that. It says next, and it says at once.

Continue page 64.

“Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and
conditions.

Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory. This was Step 4. A

business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking a
commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an
effort to discover the truth about the stock-in-trade. One object is to disclose
damaged or unsalable goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret.
If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about
values.”

Are your resentments working for you? Are your fears working for you?
Is your selfishness working for you? Is your dishonesty working for you? You
have to ask yourself these things honestly.

Now think of it this way. We're going to uncover, discover and discard.
We're going to uncover the things that have been blocking us. Notice there is
nothing in here about an inventory of our character assets; hat material that
came about as a result of the fellowship trying to complicate this step.

We are going to uncover the things that have been blocking us. We are
going to discover patterns in the way we interact with life. How these patterns
establish themselves over time and we are going to discard them. We are
going to:

Uncover,
Discover and
Discard.

Let us just say when my daughter was 7 years old, I said to her “Go clean
up your room Hannah.” She would not have done it, I doubt it, I doubt it.
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Now let us take that same scenario, “Hannah I want you to go in your
room, and anything in that room that you want a new one of, anything in that
room that you want replaced, anything you want in that room you want
updated, I want you to put the old one out in the trash and we're going to go
get you a new one. I have a MasterCard here with an unlimited budget and we
do not have to pay the bill.”

There would have been nothing in that room but two very confused
German shepherds and walls. That is what she would have done. That is the
deal God is making you; take whatever is not working, take your fears, take
your resentments, take your selfishness, take your dishonesty, your self-
seeking, take these things out to the curb, give them to the trash man. God is
going to replace these things with new beautiful things.

We are going to uncover, discover and discard.

“We did exactly the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly.
First, we searched out the flaws in our makeup ...”

Notice it does not say we searched out the things that had caused our
success. The fact that I am a decent public speaker, that I am a decent
salesperson are not the reasons I compulsively overate. I compulsively overate
because I am also a good liar. I impulsively overate because I am a
manipulator and I am selfish and I am self-seeking and I am dishonest and I am
afraid. That is why I ate because I have these defects of character and that
caused my brain to say “Eat the chocolate.” That is why. I have an allergy of
the body and a twist of the mind.

“…which caused our failure. Being convinced self, manifested in

various ways, was what had defeated us, we considered its common
manifestations.

Resentment is the “number one offender.” It destroys more alcoholics

and anything else. From it stem all forms a spiritual disease, for we have not
only been mentally and physically ill, we have been spiritually sick. When the
spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically.”

Now before we get into the specific instructions of Step 4, I want to just
talk to you for just a minute about why we love a good resentment. We love a
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 106

good resentment because when we resent someone or something, we do not

have to look at ourselves. We can shift the blame to this other entity and we
do not have to look at ourselves. We can convince ourselves that if they had
not done this to me, I would not be in the situation that I am in today and so
we love blaming other people. We love looking at other people, we love all
that stuff because there is a definite payoff to the resentment. The payoff,
again, is I do not have to look at me.

Now let us take a look very briefly at where resentments and fears come
from. Where do they emanate from? They emanate from an attack, or a
perceived attack on our three basic instincts of life. All human beings have
instincts, and these instincts have kept us alive through the Millennium,
through the centuries.

It is a proven fact that cavemen found that they could work more
efficiently by working together in groups. Cavemen found that they could
protect one another better. What is one of the most significant events in the
anthropology of man? I have a friend who's an anthropologist and she would
tell you what they discovered in the 1920s, in modern day Iraq. They
discovered a healed leg bone of a human being dating back thousands and
thousands of years. Now why is that such a significant discovery? You see in
nature, if an animal breaks its leg it will not survive. It will be eaten. An animal
breaking its leg is a death sentence. This discovery of a human being with a
healed leg bone meant that thousands and thousands of years ago they took
this person in and cared for them until their leg healed and they were able to
fend for themselves.

But the bottom line is that this is vital to our understanding of our
illness, that we can heal. Why do we love a good resentment and where do
they come from? They come from the basic instincts of life.

Now the social instinct that is what caused these people to rally around
the person that had broken their leg. If you would like a good illustration of
the social instinct, when this is all over with the Covid-19 thing go to any
middle school at lunch. When I used to pick up my daughter from middle
school, she and her partner Brooke would sit in the backseat of the car and I
would consider falling out of the car in the hope that a truck would come from
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behind and end my misery. They would sit and chatter on and on and on
about whose sleepover are you going to and do you like this boy, or do you
like, like, like him, or do you like him or does he like, like you? I considered
suicide on many occasions.

Thank God it was a short ride home, but the sleepover is a perfect
example. Before they would decide who’s sleep-over they were going to they
had to make a decision as to who was going to that sleep-over. Who's going to
that party? It is the cool boy or the cool girl or is it the nerd or are any uncool
people going to it? This is how they would decide where to go and I tried to
explain to her on many occasions, you cannot make decisions like that, and I
was resoundingly rebuffed, very soundly rebuffed. I was to stay out of it, okay,
so I did. Do what you want, go where you want it is not that important but you
consider all people well.

This is a good example of the social instinct, let me be part of the group,
let me be a leader in the group, let me be a follower in the group, give me a
job, let me be part of the group. You know what would annoy you, if all the
people here were invited but I said “Okay everybody except Fred come over to
my house and we are going to have a party but do not tell Fred.” That would
hurt Fred's feelings. He may not even want to come to the party but he
certainly would like to be asked would not he? He certainly would love to be
invited like everybody else. So, we have the social instinct and underneath the
social instinct we have self-esteem. What I think of myself is not always what I
think of myself it is what I think you think of me. So, I have self-esteem and
social instinct. Let me be part of the group for my ambitions for the future.

Let us say okay I am eating at the cool kids table, but now I am at the
cafeteria there are some more cool kids over there and I want to go eat with
them and I sense that you are kind of blocking me from being in that other cool
kid group. I am going to resent you because you are blocking my ambitions for
the future. So, if you tamper with what I already have in these areas, or my
ambitions for the future, I am going to resent you and fear you and I am going
to retaliate against you. You're going to create pain and suffering for me and it
is not going to be a good thing.
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The second instinct is the security instinct. Pocket-book. We are going

through a lot of that right now are not we. Are not many of us, do not we
many of us have interruptions in our income. I know I do. I have made zero
dollars from the month of April and it is it is not a very comfortable feeling. I
have made zero dollars for the month of April. I will be okay as long as this
thing does not stretch out too far but I do not like this feeling of making zero
dollars for the month. It is bothersome, so it is pocketbook. Anything I hold
now or my ambitions for the future, that is going to make me angry, that is
going to upset me.

Underneath the security instinct is personal security, my body, my

safety, if we were in a room and somebody came in and they were dangerous
my instinct is to get away from them. So, I have pocketbook, personal security
and then I have emotional security.

I have two friends of mine that are both very highly successful people.
We're all from Chicago and when they come out to visit in Scottsdale what are
the biggest fights that they have? What are we going to listen to on the radio
in the car? Why do they fight about it? It has nothing to do with music or
taste in music; they each want to have the emotional security that they got
their own way. They got to choose what we listened to. They fight incessantly,
I tuned them out, I have been listening to this nonsense for years. I do not
listen to it anymore.

So, there is personal security, there is emotional security and then there
is pocketbook security and the third instinct is the sex instinct. If you interrupt
what I already have, in other words you are making moves on my wife, or you
are making moves on my girlfriend or you are making moves on whatever, that
is going to make me upset, or I want to go out with this woman over here, her
name is Mary or Susan. So now I have designs on Susan or Mary and I see you,
a man, you are over there talking to her, making your moves on her. It is going
to make me jealous. It is going to alarm me and it is going to get me all upset
because you are now trying to interfere with my ambitions for the future in
this area. I hope that is understood. There are three basic instincts of life:
social instinct, security instinct and sex instinct.
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Read from bottom of page 64.

“We asked ourselves why we were angry. In most cases it was found
that our self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal
relationships (including sex) were hurt or threatened. So we were sore. We
were ‘burned up.’

On our grudge list we set up as in each name our injuries. Was it our
self-esteem, our security, our ambitions, our personal, or sex relations, which
had been interfere with?

We were usually as definite as this example:”

We do not really have time to go through the example, but I suggest you
do that with your sponsor, because it will help you gain some understanding.

Let us go to the bottom of page 65.

“We went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness
and honesty.”

What word is missing there, that we want to keep missing? We want to

make sure we understand that it is missing and that word is: perfect. A lot of
people overblown this. I will give you the Yiddish word of the day
“ungabluzen”, in Yiddish means overblown or overcomplicated.

It says “we went back through our lives, nothing counted but
thoroughness and honesty.” What word is missing? Perfect. We do not do a
perfect 4th Step and that is what hangs a lot of people up. They want to do the
4th Step perfectly so that that God will put their 4th Step on his refrigerator.
Very unlikely. We do not have to do it perfectly.

It is impossible to do it perfectly, just get it done. Do not spend more

than two, three hours on it. If you are spending more than two, three hours
on this endeavor you are probably doing it in a way that you do not need to.

You know who or what you resent. You know who or what you fear.
You know who you harm in a sexual area. There is no question on your 4th Step
that you do not know the answer to. And if something does gets past you that
is why we have Step 10.
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Two, three hours tops, STOP! “Ungabluzen”, overcomplicated!

“The first thing apparent is this world, and its people were often quite
wrong. To conclude that others were wrong as far as most of us ever got.
The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed
sore. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. But the
more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worst matters got.”

As in war the victor only seemed to win. Page 66.

“Our moments of triumph were short-lived.

It is plain and a life which includes deep resentment leads only to

futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we
squander the hours that might have been worth while. But with the
alcoholic, whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual
experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found that it is
fatal. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the
sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol return and we drink again. And
with us, to drink is to die.

If we were to live, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the

brainstorm were not for us.

The grouch is someone who is always mad. The brainstorm is not used
in the same way today. The brainstorm today means you get great ideas; in
those days brainstorm meant that you were a person, who from time to time
would get angry, but when you did it was tempestuous and crazy.

“They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics
these things are poison.

We turn back to the list, for it held the key to the future. We were
prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. We began to see that
the world and his people really dominated us. In that state the wrong-doings
of others, fancied or real, had power to actually kill. How could we escape?
We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? We could not
wish them away any more than alcohol.
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This was our course: We realized that the people who wronged us
were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the
way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to
help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would
cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended we said to ourselves,
“This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God saved me from being
angry. Thy will be done.”

We avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn’t treat sick people that

way. If we do, we destroy our chance of being helpful. We cannot be helpful
to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant
view of each and every one.”

Now before we read Column 4, I want to review the first three columns
because I did not do it, because we did not have time to go into the example.
Following the example on page 65.

I want to give you the four columns of the Resentment section of the
inventory:

Column 1 –Who or what do you resent?

Column 2 - What did they do to you?” in nineteen words or less please,

do not write me a book;

Column 3 – What basic instinct or instincts are involved?

Column 4 – Our own mistakes, page 67, we resolutely look for them.

Column 1 in the Resentment section “Who or what do you resent?” It

is not always going to be a who. I resented the fact that people said blood is
thicker than water. I have lots of friends, but I do not have blood relatives. So,
every time somebody said blood is thicker than water, I was left out.

I resented the fact that I was addicted to food rather than drugs or
alcohol. Now drugs or alcohol have their own hell, but when it comes to the
ladies, alcoholics and drug addicts do a lot better with ladies than do the Fat
Boys. I went on my first date when I was 35 years old.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 112

Many of you were married to and dated alcoholics and drug addicts but
you did not date fat boys. I guarantee you did not. But you flipped over, a lot
of you did, over the drug addicts and the trendy alcoholic boys.

So, if I was addicted to another substance, it seemed to me that life

would have been much better. But I happen to be addicted to the substance
that made the girls disappear. I call it the magic substance. It makes girls
disappear. So, if I was not a fat boy and I was addicted to something else it
seemed to mean life would have included sex, and it would have included
dating, and it would have included you know all that stuff that I completely
missed out on.

And there were other things that I resented too that had nothing to do
with a person. I do not know what you have but you all have some things that
you resent that may not be a person. I have had people through the years,
some resent the Republicans, some resent the Democrats, some resent a
newspaper. I had one person they resented a fast-food company because they
kept thinking that that is why they were getting fat.

I have had all kinds of situations through the years but the bottom line is
Column 1 - “Who or what do you resent?”,

Column 2 – “What did they do to you to make you mad?” 19 words or

less please.

Column 3 – “What basic instinct or instincts are affected?” Usually it is

going to be more than one instinct.

Now let us consider now Column 4. Now did I mention any downloading
of forms? No! Did I mention buying any books? No! Did I mention
downloading anything off the internet? No! You know why? It is not
necessary. You do not need to do that. It is absolutely not necessary. You
want to go do that? Do it. Make you feel better? Do it. Get it done, go for a B
minus.

Column 4 in the Resentment section. (I am on page 67.)

“Referring to our list again. Putting out of our minds the wrongs
others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Where had we
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 113

been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation had

not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved
entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other
man's. When we saw our faults we listed them. We placed them before us in
black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set
these matters straight.”

Now, the 4th column will be “What did you do? if anything, to bring this
resentment about”. And then, “What character defects are within you?”

So, what did you do if anything to bring this about, and what character
defects within you were brought to the surface? Is it complicated? Be honest
with yourselves. Did I ask you to do anything here that you need to study and
lament and philosophise about? Who or what do you resent? You do not
know? If you do not know, nobody knows. You are not going to get the
answer from me, I do not know.

The four columns of the Resentment section of the inventory:

Column 1 - Who or what do you resent?

Column 2 - Why do you resent them?

Column 3 - What basic instincts are affected?

Column 4 - What did you do, if anything, to bring it about? And what
defects of character were brought to the surface?

There is nothing here that is complicated.

Now I hear good and I hear some of you thinking, I have resentments in
my head and I had nothing to do with them. I know a little bit about that. I
see the statistics that come from OA. I know that a percentage of you were
raped. I know that a percentage of you were sexually molested as children. I
know that there are a percentage of you that were date raped. I know that
there were a percentage of you that were physically beaten and abused. I
know that there are people on here right now that have had horrible injustices
thrust upon them in their lives.
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 114

On behalf of the human race, I am sorry. I am deeply sorry. I am not

making a light of any of this. I grew up with a man who knew a little bit about
injustice. I grew up at the feet of the master of somebody who rehearsed
these resentments every day. And when I was a little boy, he would cup my
face in his hands and he would kiss me and say I am so glad you're born in
America because that is the best thing you can be. But he would cry into the
night, and he would weep at the side of his bed because of the murder and the
mayhem that he witnessed, and his only crime was the way he prayed to God.
That was their only crime and his mother and father were taken from him, and
his sisters and brothers were taken from him. He was expected to go to a new
country, at 14 years old knowing nobody and nothing. He went and he made a
life for himself in a new country and he was 14 years old.

Look at a 14-year-old today. How many of them could go to a new

country and make a new life for themselves? Not speaking a word of English. I
am living testimony to the fact that he did that and so is my daughter. She
never knew him, he never knew her, but you can see where we're going with
this right. And I know that some of you had things happen to you, which you
had no part in. At some point you are going to have to leave retribution to
God because you have been carrying around this resentment for far too long
and it is killing you. So, at some point you have to ask yourself, a question “Is
this the hill you want to die on? Is this the hill you want to die on? Have not
you been carrying this around enough? Is not it about time that you let God
carry this?

I used to go to meetings in Skokie, Illinois, right outside Chicago. There

was a woman there, her name was Shirley, and she had a daughter, and when
her daughter was 16 years old, she fell in love with Mr. Wrong. Motorcycle,
dropped out of high school, not a nice guy and she tried to break up with him.
So, he came to her house and shot her in the face and killed her. They found
her in the doorway of her home. Shot through the face, through the head
dead.

She is stopped going to meetings. We did not see her for three, four
years. It was front-page news on every newspaper in Chicago. At that time
there were four newspapers in Chicago, now there is two, and it was front-
page news. Headline news on every TV and radio broadcast in the city of
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Chicago for a long time. Skokie Illinois is not a place where violent crime
happens. It is just not that kind of place.

Several years after this occurred Shirley came back to meetings, she
looked like death warmed over. She sat in the back and did not share for a
long time, maybe for a year or two. We did not sit in circles in those days, we
set theatre style and to share you had to come to the front of the room. One
day she got up to share and she made her way to the front of the room. We
had not heard from her in years and she said “That son of a bitch took my
daughter and I spent years with District Attorneys, lawyers, judges, prosecutors
and reporters. This guy took years and years out of my life. I am not giving him
one more minute. I am not giving him one more minute!”

Is not it time to let it go? It is time to give it to God. It is killing you.

There are people dead and buried in the cemetery and they had me by the
guts and they were controlling my life. It is time to let it go.

Let us move on. I am on the bottom of page 67.

“Notice that the word ‘fear’ is bracketed alongside the difficulties with
‘Mr. Brown’, ‘Mrs. Jones’, the employer and the wife. This short word
somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and
corroding thread; the fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set
in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we did
not deserve. But did not we, ourselves, set the ball rolling? Sometimes we
think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble.

We reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper, even

though we had no resentment in connection with them. We asked ourselves
why we had them. Wasn’t it because self-reliance failed us? Self-reliance
was good as far as it went, but it didn’t go far enough. Some of us once had
great self-confidence, but it didn’t fully solve the fear problem, or any other.
When it made us cocky, it was worse.”

Now I am going to give you the four columns of the Fear inventory

Column 1 - “Who or what do you fear?”

Column 2 - “Why do you fear it or them?” 19 words or less please.

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Column 3 - “What basic instinct or instincts are effective?”

Column 4 – “What did you do, if anything, to set this in motion? And
what defects of character in you were brought to the surface.
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Day 2: Saturday 18th April

Part 3: Step 4 Continued

T he fear inventory is a four-column inventory. Write in

Column 1 - “Who or what do you fear?”

Column 2 - “Why do you fear it or them?” 19 words or less please.

Column 3 - “What basic instinct or instincts are effective?”

Column 4 – “What did you do, if anything, to set this in motion? And
what defects of character in you were brought to the surface.

“We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our Creator. We

can laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness. Paradoxically,
it is the way of strength. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage.
All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. We never apologize for
God. Instead we let Him demonstrate, through us, what He can do. We ask
Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us
be. At once, we commence to outgrow fear.”

It is not what he would have us do but what he would have us be and

what he would have us be, is a person that is of maximum service to God and
the people about us. Can I be of maximum service to God if I am full of fear
and full of food? No I cannot. I have to be free of the fear and free of the food.
Can I do that on my own? No I cannot. I need God's help every step of the way.

Now we are going to talk about the sex inventory. This is a way we hurt
each other in a very profound manner. I do not know of other ways we hurt
each other more than we do with finance and romance. Finance and romance
seem to be the deepest cutting behaviors from one person to the next. Do I
have to put down all the people I had sex with? No, what we are doing is
taking an inventory of the people that we have harmed in a sexual way. What
does that mean? Let me clarify by saying this is my opinion, this is not AA’s
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opinion. God gave us the sex instinct so that we could enjoy it and he also gave
us a way of recreating ourselves. I am making that distinction because I do not
want you to think that I believe we are only supposed to have sex to recreate
ourselves; to have a baby. That is not what I am saying. We can use it for that
(procreation) or we can use it for enjoyment between two adults. It does not
matter whether they are the same sex, it does not matter if they are the same
gender, it does not matter whether they are different genders, as long as both
parties in the equation have the capacity to say yes or no, I am good with it.
Not that you are waiting for my opinion or my approval but that is where I am
on things. If the capacity to say yes or no is there, then we should be fine.

Let us examine some of the ways that we use sex for something other
than what it was intended for. So did we use sex, for example cheating? That is
the most obvious one. We all cite that out there first. If I am in a committed
relationship, I should not stray from that relationship. My ex-wife was carrying
on with somebody. She fell in love with that person and that was a huge
catalyst for our divorce. That is when I knew that I was not going to get her
back because she was already in love with some other man. That was very
hurtful. Very hurtful to hear those words coming out of her mouth. I do not
know that there was ever any words that were more biting than that. Again
this next statement is my opinion, you can dispute, it is not verifiable in the big
book, it is not verifiable in anything, this is just my opinion. For me, I cannot
work the steps successfully while I am breaking one of the Ten
Commandments. So if I am in a committed relationship that is the end of any
looking around and seeing what is out there. That is what I believe for me. It
may not be the same for you. There are people who are polyamorous and that
is fine too. I am not here as judge or jury, I am just here to give you my hope,
strength and experience.

There are other ways we can hurt each other in this sexual area. Let us
just take for example that we are using our God-given sex talents or sexual
attractiveness to manipulate another person, without taking our clothes off.
For example, if you know one of your supervisors at work has a crush on you,
so you flirt back and give the impression that there is something going on
between the two of you. You know very well that there is not but you give this
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person that impression; you lead this person on. The reason you are doing that
is to fulfil your security instinct. In other words you are doing it because of
your pocketbook (money). You may be hurting another person but you do not
care because it is furthering your career.

Let us just take for example that you are in a committed relationship
with someone. We will call her Mary. She and I are in this committed
relationship and Mary's best friend is Cindy Lou. Mary and I are having
difficulties so I use my sexual powers to seduce Cindy Lou and I have sex with
her, not caring for Cindy Lou at all; I am doing it to get back at Mary. Is that
using sex for something other than what it was intended for? Of course it is. Or
in another example, maybe I am bored, maybe I just looking for a date, maybe
I just do not want to be alone on a Saturday night, so I ask out Susan. I ask her
out, not because I like Susan, not because I am attracted to Susan but because
I just do not want to be alone. Then the next Saturday night comes and I ask
her to come to a party with me, not because I like her, not because I care for
her but because I just do not want to show everybody that I am flying solo.
Now we have gone out twice so she may be thinking things that are very
different than what I am thinking. Is that harming another person? Yes. I need
to be above board with this person. I need to be above board with where I am
on things. You can see that we can use our God-given sexual powers for things
other than what it was intended for. Am I using it to make another person
jealous? Am I using it because I am lonely and I just do not want to be alone on
a Saturday night? Am I using someone because I could have sex with them, just
using them to feel better, caring nothing for them? Am I using them to get
even with another person? Am I using them to make another person jealous?
Am I using my God-given sex powers for something other than what it was
intended for?

I came into this program at 24 years of age but it would be eleven more
years before I would go on my first date with a girl. I had to lose 200 pounds in
this program to be a 500 pound man. I had to lose 300 pounds to be a 400-
pound man. I had to lose 400 pounds to be a 300 pound man. Do you hear
what I am telling you? I did not go on my first date till I was 35 years of age. It
was not her first date but it was my first date. I came to my sponsor and I said I
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should not have to do this part (the sex inventory) because I am a virgin, I have
never had sex. He laughed and said ‘we are going to do it on all the
relationships in your life. Are they selfish? Are they manipulative? Are you
friends with somebody because you think you can get something from them?
Are you friends with them so you can use them for opportunity? Are you using
your life, your story to manipulate another person?’ I do not know how many
of you are in the same boat, where you have had very little, or no experience
in the sexual area, but we have to look at some of these things from this
standpoint. Are you using your God-given talents and personality for
something other than what it was intended for? So with that in mind, let us
take a look at the sex inventory.

“Now about sex. Many of us needed an overhauling there. But above

all, we tried to be sensible on this question. It's so easy to get way off the
track. Here we find human opinions running to extremes - absurd extremes,
perhaps. One set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base
necessity of procreation.

Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex; who bewail the
institution of marriage; who think that most of the troubles of the race are
traceable to sex causes. They think we do not have enough of it, or that it
isn't the right kind. They see its significance everywhere. One school would
allow man no flavor for his fare and the other would have us all on a straight
pepper diet. We want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be
the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. We all have sex problems. We'd hardly
be human if we didn't. What can we do about them?

We reviewed our own conduct over the years past. Where had we been
selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate? Whom had we hurt? Did we unjustifiably
arouse jealousy, suspicion or bitterness? Where were we at fault, what
should we have done instead? We got this all down on paper and looked at
it.”

There are five columns for the sex inventory. You do not have to use
forms but if you are more comfortable with the forms then you can use them. I
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am not telling you the forms are wrong, I am telling you that you do not need
them. There were thousands and thousands and thousands of people that
recovered long before those forms were drawn up. Bill Wilson and Dr Bob did
not have forms.
The first column is who did you hurt?
The second column is what did you do to them?
The third column: what basic instincts of life were brought to the
surface? You would think they would all be in the sex instinct; not so.
The fourth column: what character defects in you caused you to hurt
that person?
Column five: what should you have done instead?

We are going to go look at the sexual ideal; “In this way we tried to
shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. We subjected each
relation to this test - was it selfish or not? We asked God to mold our ideals
and help us to live up to them. We remembered always that our sex powers
were God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor
to be despised and loathed.”

I am going to talk about my own experience here. I was in one

relationship for a year and a half, then I dated another lady about a year after
my first relationship broke up. That is the lady that I married. I married the first
girl that came along that did not use the F word ‘friend’. What happened very
soon after we started going out together is our relationship started to
deteriorate. I gave her every decision-making power. I tried to be what she
wanted me to be, to do what she wanted me to do and to answer questions
and live my life, not from my own perspective but from hers. If I thought she
liked red, I liked red. If I thought she wanted green, I wanted green, not
because I am gallant, not because I am wonderful, not because I am kind or
considerate but because I was scared to death of her. I was scared to the point
where if I disagreed with her, I was afraid that she would walk out the door
and that would be the end of everything. I became the child. I became the son.
I became the sycophant. I was not an independent adult in the marriage and I
learned because of my mistakes, that this is devastating. A marriage or a
relationship has to have two interdependent adults.
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Very soon into my marriage, I found our relationship was mostly

platonic. I am not saying that I am the sexiest guy out there. I am not saying it
has to be like the final days of Caligula. I am not saying any of those things. If
you do not know who Caligula was; he was a Roman Emperor that was quite
perverse. I am not saying it has to be like the set of a porno movie but there
should be a certain amount of physical activity between two married people. I
would say that part of our marriage was absent from day one. We did manage
to have a daughter but we got pregnant the only time we ever tried. The very
first time we ‘pulled the goalie’, we scored a goal. Seven and a half months
after we started trying for one, we had a baby, because my daughter was
premature. I would say from the time my daughter was born, we probably did
not touch each other more than two or three times unless we accidentally
bumped into each other in the hallway. I believe, in my life (maybe not in
yours) there has to be a certain amount of physical contact to keep a marriage
alive. I have gone without that stuff my whole life. I may be almost 66 years old
but I am not dead. Thank God for pharmaceuticals. Thank God for better living
through chemistry. I imagine some of you are laughing with me about this. The
bottom line is that there has to be a certain amount of that stuff and in my
marriage there was none of that stuff.

I was scared to death of this woman. Scared to death of her and it

showed. It reared its ugly head. It was not a marriage, it was roommates. She
wanted to get married and I came along. I was desperate and she came along.
The marriage gave me a membership card to the human race. What do I mean
by that? All of my life, I have watched other people in relationships, in
marriages, in families, in business, in jobs and I always felt apart from rather
than a part of. When I had the opportunity to marry, I jumped on it and it gave
me a sense that I was like everyone else now. When the doors were closed, we
had some good times and we had some bad times but mostly we had times
that were one person was giving orders and one person was cowering in the
corner.

Recently, I have just come out of a relationship and I have got to say I am
very proud of myself because in this relationship I spoke my mind. I spoke up. I
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was not the child. I was not shivering in the corner waiting for her not to be
mad at me. I really thought this relationship was going to be something more
than it was but it did not turn out that way. We had physical parts of our
relationship. I wish it was better, she had had a lot more success in that area
than I. She was younger than me. I was not as adept as I would have liked to
have been in that area but it was there, it was not absent from the situation.
There were times when we would laugh together and she still is a very dear
person. She is in many ways my best friend. I have a ton of friends but I can tell
her things, I can confide in her comfortably. That is very hard for me to let go
of. But the other part of our relationship, she does not want any part of that.
There is nothing I can do. I cannot make a person be in a relationship. This is
not like caveman days where you clunk them over the head and drag them
back to your cave. The police frown on that. You better not do that! Life will go
on. Do I wish it was different? Of course I do. Do you want to lose your best
friend, somebody you love very much? Of course you do not. I understand that
in order for God to serve lunch he has got to clear out the breakfast dishes and
then the lunch can be attended to. So I am willing to go along with anything
God wants from me today. Hopefully I will meet someone else; if I do I do, if I
do not I do not.

I am human. I have two fears. I do not want to live alone, especially now.
Doing online workshops are great, I have an audience of people from different
countries and it is just awesome but when the lights go down and everybody is
not on the computer anymore, I am alone. I wish that was different. I do not
want to die alone. I do not want to live alone, I do not want to die alone, so I
am hoping that God will bring somebody into my life that I am compatible with
and bring somebody into my life that is in this program. If they are not, I think
it would be very difficult for me as this is a huge part of my life and I want
somebody that speaks and understands the language of the heart. That
understands this way of life. That understands why this is so important to me,
so I do not have to sit and explain to somebody that when their aunt serves me
a cupcake, or their friend serves me ravioli, that I cannot eat that. I cannot eat
it; that it is not part of my life. I hope that I am not asking for too much and I
hope that I am asking God in his time, for whatever it is that he wants to bring
me. Hopefully when or if I meet that person, they will not be turned off by me
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because I have not had the experiences of some of these other guys. There are
two things in sport you cannot fake; speed and experience. You either have
them or you do not and I do not. I was in three relationships in my life, I was
with three people. I wish that I had a lot more experience because a lot of guys
my age have an experiential basis with which to draw from. They know stuff
about relationships that I am clueless to. There were things in my last
relationship that I think would have been better if I had a more experience,
that is just my opinion, maybe I am wrong, I do not know but I hope that my
lack of experience will not be a turn off for the next person.

The sexual ideal is not that I want someone to look like this movie star
and I want her to do this or that. That is not what we are talking about here.
We are talking about how I am going to bring the best that I can be into a
relationship so that I can be ready to be part of a relationship, as an adult, able
to have physical contact with a partner. I need certain things and I hope that I
will get them. I need I need understanding that this (OA) is a big part of my life.
I need patience because I am not as adept at certain things as other guys.

“Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow

toward it. We must be willing to make amends where we have done harm,
provided that we do not bring about still more harm in so doing. In other
words, we treat sex as we would any other problem. In meditation, we ask
God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will
come, if we want it.

God alone can judge our sex situation. Counsel with persons is often
desirable, but we let God be the final judge. We realize that some people are
as fanatical about sex as others are loose. We avoid hysterical thinking or
advice.

Suppose we fall short of the chosen ideal and stumble? Does this mean
we are going to get drunk? Some people tell us so. But this is only a half-
truth. It depends on us and on our motives. If we are sorry for what we have
done, and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we
believe we will be forgiven and will have learned our lesson. If we are not
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sorry, and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink.
We are not theorizing. These are facts out of our experience.

To sum up about sex: We earnestly pray for the right ideal, for
guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity, and for the strength to do
the right thing.”

If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping

others”.

Let me read that sentence again because that is how important that is:
“If sex is very troublesome” you can replace sex with the word food, you can
replace with the word fear, you can replace with the word anger if something
is very troublesome “we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We
think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves. It
quiets the imperious urge, when to yield would mean heartache.” That does
not just go for sex, it goes for anything. “If we have been thorough about our
personal inventory, we have written down a lot. We have listed and analyzed
our resentments. We have begun to comprehend their futility and their
fatality.”

If you want to hang on to that resentment. If you are not going to let go
of it. You are going to die over it. Is that what you want? Is that really what you
want? What is the payoff to a resentment? You do not have to look at
yourself! You do not have to look at you! Let it go! It is time to stop! It is time
to let it go!

“We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness. We have

begun to learn tolerance, patience and good will toward all men, even our
enemies, for we look on them as sick people. We have listed the people we
have hurt by our conduct, and are willing to straighten out the past if we can.

In this book you read again and again that faith did for us what we
could not do for ourselves. We hope you are convinced now that God can
remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him. If you have already
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made a decision, (step 3) and an inventory of your grosser handicaps, (step4)

you have made a good beginning. That being so you have swallowed and
digested some big chunks of truth about yourself.”

I want to talk to you about the step four inventory process. I cannot
count the number of people that I have talked to over the phone that were in
tears because they kept picking up the food because they have been working
on step four for God knows how long. It should be quick, fast, get it done, get it
behind you. There is no reason on God's earth why this process needs to be
protracted. A fourth step can be knocked out in three hours. You know who or
what you resent. Get it down on paper. You know who or what you fear, get it
down on paper. You know who you have hurt in a sexual way, get it down on
paper. Do not worry that it is not going to be perfect. That is why we have the
rest of our lives to do step 10. If you need to go back and do another fourth
step at some point, that is fine. But the bottom line is get it done, put it behind
you, do not allow this to be a stone in your shoe. I did a special edition a
number of years ago, you can still hear it on A Vision For You, this woman rang
me saying she had been working on her fourth step for a year and was in the
food for most of that year. I said ‘Oh my God, Honey you are not on step four,
you are on step one, if you are in the food you go back to step one.’ She told
me that her sponsor wanted her to wait several months before she began her
fourth step. What a ridiculous situation that is. We are killing people with
information that is not in this book. There is nothing in this book that says you
wait or you prolong this process. The book is very clear; you knock it out, you
get it done, you are done and you move on. There should be no question
about this, none whatsoever. There is no reason that this has to take a long
time.

Now let us talk about step 5. Finding somebody to hear your step 5 is
much easier today than it was when the book was written. When the book was
written it was not easy to find someone who fit the characteristics of
somebody who can listen to a fifth step. What are the two characteristics?
Number one, they must be informed, they must know what it is we are trying
to do. Number two, they have to be uninvolved. In other words, let us just say
for example that my friend Nancy, from my home town, is going to be the
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person that I share my fifth step with. Nancy and I have at least 25 or 30
people in common. We have common friends that we communicate with on a
regular basis. Is she a person that I should do a fifth step with? No, because
Nancy is not going to be impartial, she is going to be affected. So if I sit down
with Nancy and start telling her I resent so and so, even if I use their initials,
she is going to know who I am talking about. She talks to these people, it is not
fair to put her in the middle like that. Now my friend Maria, in Dublin, she
knew the person I was involved with and we also have common friends. Is she
appropriate to do a fifth step with? No she is not. However, I have a friend,
Fred, who does not know any of these people from Vision. He does not know
any of the people from my meetings. He does not know the person that I was
involved with and he is in program. Is he appropriate? Yes he is because I can
do my fifth step with somebody who was informed, yet uninvolved but I
cannot do my fifth step if they are also involved with the people I am involved
with.

When you listen to a fifth step, do not sit there like a bump on a log.
Quietly notice patterns. You are going to notice patterns. The people
themselves will not notice them but you will. You will see that most of their
resentments are about what people are thinking about them, or most of their
resentments have to do with money, or most of their resentments have to do
with sex, so you will see patterns and you can quietly point them out. ‘Did you
notice that this is the same resentment as you had against your cousin? Did
you notice that this was the same resentment you had against Cindy Lou? or
Betty Sue?’ This helps them to see that themselves. Do not just sit there and go
‘uh-huh uh-huh’. That is not helpful. They could read their fifth step to a wall if
that is what the listener is going to do. You have to subtly point out patterns
to them and those patterns are going to be what are going to get them in
touch with what is important to them. I had a situation not long ago where
almost every resentment this man had, was about how they felt another
person was interfering with what other people were thinking about him. I
asked this man ‘Do you know what most people are thinking about us most of
the time?’ He said ‘No.’ I said ‘Nothing, that is what most people are thinking
about us most of the time.’ He was very upset by that, because in his mind you
are supposed to think about him. I asked ‘Did you wake up this morning
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thinking about me?’ He said ‘No’. I said ‘I did not wake up this morning thinking
about you either, I was thinking about other things, not you.’ And it was like he
had like an epiphany and he was in his 60’s. That is what we do, we point out
patterns. If you want, you can sit down and say ‘yeah I had that same
experience too’ and share it briefly. It should not be a long drawn out process.

On page 75, last paragraph.

“Returning home we find a place where we can be quiet for an hour,

carefully reviewing what we have done. We thank God from the bottom of
our heart that we know Him better. Taking this book down from our shelf we
turn to the page which contains the twelve steps. Carefully reading the first
five proposals we ask if we have omitted anything, for we are building an
arch through which we shall walk a free man at last. Is our work solid so far?
Are the stones properly in place? Have we skimped on the cement put into
the foundation? Have we tried to make mortar without sand?”

So, the suggestion is we take one hour, then we are going to go

immediately into step six. This is a quick process. The process is best when it is
done quickly. There is no reason on God's earth for us to go and read another
book, there is no reason for us to take more than one minute to do steps six
and seven. What are steps six and seven? We have seen the terrible
destructiveness of our character defects in the fears, resentments and sexual
harms that we have done others. We have spent time writing our inventory
and talking about our inventory with another person. Steps six and seven
should be in taken in one minute or less. There is no reason that you have to
do anything but read these paragraphs and based on the conclusion of your
mind that your character defects have caused destruction, ask yourself if you
want to be rid of them. They are never going to go away completely. We are
asking God to help us, that is all we are doing.

“If we can answer to our satisfaction, we then look at Step Six. We

have emphasized willingness as being indispensable. Are we now ready to let
God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are
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objectionable? Can He now take them all - every one? If we still cling to
something we will not let go, we ask God to help us be willing”.

That may be harder for some than others. I own my own business. I am
in trouble. I have not made any money this April. I am selling a product and I
am in the business broker industry. You cannot be calling business owners now
and asking them if they want to sell their business. They are in trouble. They
are in big trouble. This is not a good time for any of that. Can I run my business
honestly, without lying and manipulating? Do I want to pay the full tax without
trying to cheat? Can I run my life without lies and deception? Can I do the right
thing to the best of my ability, in all situations? How is that working for me
when I do not? How is it working for me when I lie and manipulate and cheat
and steal? How is that working for me? I kept getting fatter and fatter! I do not
want that anymore. I want to live in the sunlight of the spirit. I want to be able
to walk among people and not worry about who I am going to run into. I do
not want to think that I told Mo I am a Democrat and I told Curley that I am a
Republican and now they are both here. I would mould myself into whatever I
thought you wanted me to be, so you would like me and you would not run
away from me. And you know it did not work out so well. It really did not. So
now, I am going to be myself is what I do not like. At least I am going to speak
up. In the past, I lied to myself, I lied to others and all I kept doing was
assuaging the feelings with food. I was having a temper tantrum with a knife
and a fork. I got to stop. Does that take reading another book? No. Does that
take a great deal of time? It should not.

Here is step 7

"When ready, we say something like this: My Creator, I am now willing

that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove
from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my
usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here,
to do your bidding. Amen."

By saying this prayer, I am done with seven. I am now going to do eight

but what I am also going to do is I am going to introduce ten and eleven
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immediately. Why? because without ten I do not have a way of putting out the
fire. I will talk about step ten later but right now I am telling you I would
introduce ten at this stage.

“Now we need more action, without which we find that "Faith without
works is dead."

Let's look at Steps Eight and Nine. We have a list of all persons we have
harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends. We made it when we
took inventory.” That is why you do not burn the inventories. For years in this
program we would burn the inventories, we would do them and then we
would burn them. But if you burn them, you do not have them to complete
your step eight and you need to do step eight to complete the process. There
may be people that you have harmed, that you did not have a resentment
against, or a fear against, or a sexual harm against so you add them at this
point. You do not limit your eighth step only to the people on your fourth step
but that is the basis of ninety percent of the information. We should start
working on step eight immediately. It should not take very long. You have
your fourth step, you know who you have harmed. If you forget somebody, it is
okay, you got the rest of your life.

“We subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal. Now we go out to

our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. We attempt to sweep
away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will
and run the show ourselves. If we haven't the will to do this, we ask until it
comes. Remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any
lengths for victory over alcohol.”

We got to be willing to do whatever it takes.

“Probably there are still some misgivings. As we look over the list of
business acquaintances and friends we have hurt, we may feel diffident
about going to some of them on a spiritual basis.”
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Diffident means timid or shy. That is why you need step ten. When you
go out to make amends it is going to start bringing up feelings. You are going to
be afraid, you are going to be shy, you are going to be scared, you are going to
be resentful. That is why you must have step ten as part of your arsenal. If you
don’t have that at this point it becomes difficult.

“Let us be reassured. To some people we need not, and probably

should not emphasize the spiritual feature on our first approach. We might
prejudice them. At the moment we are trying to put our lives in order. But
this is not an end in itself. Our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of
maximum service to God and the people about us.”

That is pure Oxford group. ‘Are you being maximum?’ That is what they
would ask each other in the Oxford group. They would tell Bill Wilson ‘bring us
in some Wall Street people’ and he would say ‘I have this feeling from God,
that I am supposed to help drunks’ and they would say to him ‘oh the drunks
are one thing, but you got to bring us in some businessmen.’ What did the
businessman have that the drunks did not? Money. Remember the Oxford
group was not AA. They wanted people to come in that had money, so that
they could keep the place going. They needed money. Bill Wilson was asked by
them many times ‘Bill are you sure you are being maximum?’ and he would say
‘Yes, I see this clearly from God that my mission in life is to help drunks.’ That is
what this sentence is telling the Oxford group “Our real purpose is to fit
ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us.” and
what he is telling himself is ‘Yes, I still believe that by helping drunks I am being
maximum!’

Let us talk about Step nine. Before we learn the history, we get the
impression that Bill met Bob and out of that meeting sprung AA. Then it was a
one-two-three process. Bill met Bob, they talked, I love you, you love me, let us
have a convention and 60,000 people will attend. It did not quite work that
way. Bill met Bob on Mother's Day May 13, 1935 in the Seiberling gate house
in Akron Ohio. Seiberling was the family that owned Goodyear Tyre company
and they were wealthy people. Dr Bob knew them through the Oxford group.
Bob was in the Oxford group longer than Bill but Bill was sober and Bob was
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drunk. and When they met on that day in 1935, Bob told his wife Ann that he
was going to give Bill only 15 minutes and then was going home because he
had been drunk the day before and was not feeling very well. Do you ever get
that feeling when you have been eating and eating and you have diarrhea. You
are ashamed because you cannot button your pants, you cannot fit in your
clothes. You know over the last couple of days you have gained quite a bit of
weight and your shirt just does not quite fit and you are just not feeling
yourself and you do not want to be seen by anybody. We compulsive
overeaters get the same feeling as Dr Bob had that day. Well when Bill met
Bob that day they went upstairs and they closed the door and it was just the
two of them. It was five o'clock in the evening they did not come down until 11
p.m. They were up there for six hours and Bob said something weird to Anne
and Henriette Seiberling. He said ‘My lord, this is the first man that ever really
understood about my drinking’ Why is that weird? Because Bill Wilson did not
talk about Dr Bob's drinking at all. He did not know anything about Dr Bob.
He talked about himself and through identification, Bob understood that Bill
spoke the language of the heart. He understood through Bill, that there were
other people in the world that thought about drinking like he did, that drank
like he did. And there are things that we as compulsive overeaters, anorexics
bulimics know, see, smell and feel, that other people just do not understand.
They just do not get it! It does not matter whether you look completely
normal, it does not matter what we look like. I have seen some of you at
conventions and some of you I have hugged. Some of you I know better than
others. Maria, from Ireland has visited Arizona and we spend a little time
together. It does not matter what we look like. When Maria and I came to sit
down, it did not matter that I am not from Ireland. We had an instant kinship
because Maria and I speak and understand the language of the heart.

Dr Bob did get sober instantly. However, in June 1935, Dr Bob went to
Atlantic City, New Jersey for a medical convention. The American Medical
Association was having its annual convention and Dr Bob always used this
convention as a way of getting completely drunk. Dr Bob was not going to miss
out on that opportunity and he was drunk before the train left Akron. He
stayed drunk the entire time he was in Atlantic City and he came home drunk.
He had an operation to do on the 10th of June 1935. He was a proctologist, I
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am glad he was not operating on my procto that day. He was shaking and he
had been home for a couple of days and he had been drunk as a skunk and Bill
Wilson did something for Dr Bob that a lot of AA sponsees wish that their
sponsors did for them. He popped open a beer and gave it to Bob so that Bob's
hand would settle down so he could finish the operation. They made an
arrangement that Bill would take Bob to Akron City Hospital, which is on Dr
Bob Way in Akron. The street is now named after him. Bill would then pick him
up when the operation was done.
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Day 2 Saturday 18th April

Part 4: Steps 5,6,7,8,& 9

H
ours and hours go by with no word from Bob. He is nowhere to
be found; he is not at the hospital; he is not in his office; no one
knows where he is. 11:45 p.m. on the 10th of June, 1935, on
Ardmore Street, who's coming up the street walking sober as a
judge? Dr Bob. Sober! You see, Anne and Bill thought that the beer had
triggered the allergy and that Bob was drunk someplace, in a bar or a gutter,
and they did not know where to look for him. Dr Bob was sober as sober can
be; never to drink again.

What happened? He went around Akron making his amends; now

amends is AA language and restitution is Oxford Group language so let us stick
with the language. He made restitution to the people in Akron that he had
harmed. You see, he was afraid that if he went around making amends or
restitution that people would find out that he was a drunk. There was only one
person in Akron that did not know Dr Bob was a drunk and that was Dr Bob.
He was the only one in Akron that did not know he was a drunk. When he
went around making his restitution, he was free; never did he drink again. He
died in 1950, November of 1950 with 15 years of sobriety behind him.

Eyeball to eyeball, face to face, restitute or amend; we do not apologize

to the Constitution we amend the Constitution. Amend means to repair,
change or alter.

In the course of my life I have taken a lot of money from people, lied to a
lot of people, written a lot of bad checks to people and engaged in dreadfully
shameful behavior. I have never kissed anybody's girlfriend. I do not have that
kind of amends to make. I never did that. But what I did were money amends,
so little by little, I had to write checks and pay back people that I had taken
their money and lied to their face.

I have one amend that I want to tell you about and this is an amends
that I had to make to an endodontic in Chicago. When I was younger, much
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younger, I am going back now 30 years or more, dentists did not do root canal,
today they do. Today, if you go to a dentist, they pretty much all do their own
root canal. They did not used to. You were farmed you out in those days; now
they do not. I needed a root canal so the dentist referred me to an
endodontic.

I came into the office, and I was five or six hundred pounds at that time,
and they numb you up and then the dentist comes in. First thing, he does not
say “Hello Mr. Grabowski”, he does not say “Welcome” or “How can I …”.
Nothing! He said “My god! How much do you weigh?” He said “You are the
fattest man I have ever seen in my life. What do you weigh about 600
pounds?”. This is the first conversation that I have ever had with this human
being in my entire life and he said to me “You have got to stop eating fried
foods. You have got to stop eating desserts. You are enormous!” Then he said
“I am really scared you are going break my chair. This chair is only designed to
go up to 350 pounds. You are almost double that are not you?”

I know, I learned at a very early age how to check out emotionally when
I am being attacked like that. I learned to just shut down and I do not usually
respond. Whatever it is I think you want me to tell you; I will tell you. Later on,
I will hit the ice cream or the candy to make the feelings go away. But I was
ashamed of myself when I was three years old and I was ashamed of myself
then. I knew inherently that I deserved this because I am fat.

He said “I am afraid you are going break my chair. I really do not know if
I should do this on you. All right, well, the chair seems to be okay. But man,
you are fat!” He starts doing the root canal and then he spins me around and
sure enough the chair breaks. My worst fear comes true, you heard this loud
crack and the chair was broken. Then, he starts screaming at me and he is
screaming at his daughter for taking the appointment. He said “How come
your dentist Dr Weiss did not tell me how fat you were? How come he did not
pass me the information on how fat you were? Why did he do that?” He said
to his daughter “You call Dr Weiss right now and you find out why he did not
tell me that this man is enormous”. He tells he never wants me back at his
office. He gave me a temporary filling and sent me back to the dentist for the
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treatment. “I never want to see you again!” he said. I am embarrassed,

ashamed and hurt. I leave the office.

My part of the bill was $62. Nowadays it would be probably four or five
hundred dollars but, in those days, it was sixty-two dollars. You know what this
guy can do for $62? I am never paying! He cannot see for his money! They are
sending me bills and I am wiping my butt with them and blah blah. Forget it
you are not getting your money!

A couple years go by and I come back into OA and I am in good recovery

now and I mean good recovery now. My sponsor at that time kept saying
“What about the doctor” and I would say “It is a dentist” and he would say
“Shut up”. I kept pushing other amends up to the surface so that I could avoid
this one. I did not want to do this one, I felt this guy did not deserve me making
amends to him, he had hurt me and embarrassed me.

It was a Thursday, I remember that, and I had to go make amends to this

guy and I went to the bank which was right across the street from his office. It
was a block from where I went to high school. I can see the teller putting the
sixty-two dollars in my hand; it was a fifty, a ten and two ones; I can see them
now; I can feel them in my hands right now. I walked across the street and I
saw that his name was not on the door. I thought “Maybe he is not here
anymore. May be I got the wrong office.” I go in and there is his daughter, I
recognized her. She said to me “Oh yes, I remember you and you have lost a
lot of weight and blah blah. She said “Yes that was pretty dreadful the way he
treated you”. So, I explained to her that I wanted to see him and she said he
passed away. I said “You know, I really need you to take the sixty-two dollars.”
She did not want it. She did not want the money. I said “You really have to
take the money”. Now there were other people who forgave my debt and I just
let it go. You do not want my money, we are good, bye. That is fine, it is your
choice, I did not bring up you letting me out of the debt, you are happy with
what I am doing with my life, fine. But, in this particular case, I knew that I
needed to give her that money. I knew it inherently and I said to her “You can
give it to charity or throw it out the window but I need to give you this
money.” She took it. My tyres did not touch the ground that day, I was
euphoric; I felt like I was in God's hands; I felt like God was in that car with me.
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I could barely eat my dinner, I had no appetite whatsoever, none. I just did
not feel like eating at all.

I went to the meeting that night and I got up to share. That night I could
hardly sleep, I felt closer to God than I probably ever had before that day.
This is the power of this program. This is the promise of what we are doing
here. This is what we are about here. This is what this is. There is something
magical about the process of recovery, it makes you right with God, it makes
you right with your fellow human being and it makes you right with yourself.

Now, I want to talk about some other amends that are a little different
and I want to give you a little history too. My mother died in1976, my father
died in 1978 but I did not come to my first OA meeting until 1979, February
2nd, 1979. My mother was mentally ill, she had three distinct personalities: a
three-year-old, a screaming raving lunatic and someone who was very
together. I never wanted to become my mother. I thought I hated her. My
mother shaped an enormous amount of my attitudes and opinions about the
world. She marched in the street with Mahalia Jackson to open up the
redlining in Chicago. Redlining meant if you were a black person or a Hispanic
person or a Jew or you were any type of minority like that, there were areas of
Chicago where you could not buy a house and you could not get kids into that
school. My mother marched in the street with Mahalia Jackson who was a
gospel singer but she was also a civil rights activist. My mother had a piss
bomb thrown at her and stuff like that but she knew and she believed that she
was doing the right thing. She taught me at a very early age you take a black
person, a white person, a Jew, a Catholic, a Protestant, an American Indian, a
gay person and a lesbian person and you dip them in Lake Michigan they will
be equally wet; dry them off and they will be equally dry and that is what she
taught me from the time I was a kid.

Now while that is going on, my father is teaching me that if you were not
Jewish, he did not want you within 50 miles of him. He did not want you
anywhere near him. You leave him alone and he will leave you alone. Do not
you come to me and I will not come to you because he feared you; he knew
you were a murderer; he knew that you were going do him wrong because of
his Judaism and he wanted no part of you. Once he got to know you, if you
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were not Jewish, then he would love you and accept you but until he got to
know you, he did not want you within 50 miles of him.

My mother was exactly the opposite and taught me that all people are
equally valuable and I became more like her than like him. She would say to
me, in her normal personality “If you think like him, you are going live like him
and if you live like him, you are going be miserable. You are going to encounter
lots of different colors of people, you are going to encounter people from
different backgrounds in your life, different religions, different walks of life.
You better get used to it now or you are going struggle. You are going swim
upstream the rest of your life”. She was right. She was right but I treated her
like crap. I treated her horribly because of her mental illness and resented her
because she was sick, mentally.

How do you make amends for being a despicable son? How do you
make amends to someone who is now dead? The only thing I could come up
with was to live my life according to a way that I know would make her happy
and proud. When I am helping whoever I can help, I know that she is proud of
me. I know she is proud of me now; I know she will be proud of me tomorrow
and the next day and the next day if I keep living my life according to the creed
of doing the right thing and living according to this book. I pray for my Mom all
the time and I know, very well, that she did the best she could. She had a
profound mental illness but she loved me very much and tried to do the right
thing. I never, ever doubted that she loved me.

Now my dad; I used to get so mad at him he could not say the word
vegetable he would say weg-table. I say “Damn it. Cannot you say vegetable”
and his answer was always the same “I did not go to camp mitta Superman
lunchbox”. What he was trying to say is he did not get to grow up in America,
he said “I never vent to camp mitta Superman lunchbox” that was always his
response and he would say to me “You vaunt to go to Lincoln Willage” and I
would kicked the ceiling and I would say “ If you can say vaunt why cannot you
say village, if you can say you vaunt, why cannot you say Lincoln Village. It is
Lincoln Village not Lincoln Willage” and he would say “I never vent to camp
mitt a Superman lunchbox.” I get mad at him because he did not know things
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but sometimes, he would really reveal things about his life that were so
touching.

I will give you one of them. Toward the end of his life when he was
deathly sick I was driving already, I was16 or 17 years old, and I would put him
in the car and I would sometimes take him up to Wisconsin because it is a nice
ride from Chicago to Wisconsin, you get out of the city and you go up and you
know it is beautiful scenery, beautiful. I mean now, it is all very urbanized, it is
very different now than it was you know 40/50 years ago but there would be a
sign that said “You are leaving Illinois. Illinois the Land of Lincoln” and then,
about ten minutes, later it would say “Welcome to Wisconsin. America's Dairy
land. Wisconsin welcomes you. Governor Tommy Thompson says welcome to
Wisconsin” and my father would start crying because there is no checkpoint;
there is no soldiers; you do not have to have papers; you could just go to
Wisconsin from Illinois because you want to. Here was a country that he was
not born in, where you could go from Illinois to Wisconsin. He could not say
Wisconsin which would always get me mad but he would say “go to
Vusconcen” and when you come back and it would say “You are leaving
Wisconsin” and then it would say “Otto Kerner Governor Welcomes you to the
Land of Lincoln, Illinois”. Otto Kerner has been dead for 50 years but you get
the picture and he would clap and he would say “What a country. What a
country!” Then, when I went to vote in 1972, he fainted, he passed out and
they had to revive him. He could not believe one person takes office, one
person leaves office, there is not a shot fired and no one died and his offspring,
me, I get to vote. He could not say vote. I do not know if some of my friends
think he was just messing with me but I would get so mad at him. He would
say “you go wote” and I would say “God dammed! It is not wote its vote and
of course he would say “I never vent to campmitt a Superman in lunch box”.
So, I am in there voting and the booths had curtains on them and then all of a
sudden, the firemen are working on him, he fainted because I was voting, his
offspring, me, was voting and he could not get over something like that. He
would look at pigeons and squirrels and he clapped his hands and he would say
“What a country. What a country. If this was Europe those pigeons and
squirrels, you would be eating them”. I would go “Eugh! I would never eat
that” and he would say “Yes you would. Yes, you would. If you were on the
run like me, you would eat them and you would be glad you had them”. I
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would say “There is no way” or I would say “I am hungry”, and he would pat
my head and say “mein Sohn” which means “my son, my son’, “You do not
know what hungry is.”

How do you make amends to them? You live your life according to the
way that you live it, with this book, that is how to make how make amends to
them. I give to charities I know they would support; my mother was a
supporter of equal rights; my father was a supporter of Zionism and I give to
the best of my ability to Overeaters Anonymous to help people out of the
morass and the hell of what this is. This disease is brutal.

Now, when we look at step 9 it is very clear: complete restitution,

except when to do so would injure them or others. We are not looking for the
person to forgive us, you can ask them to but they do not have to, we are not
here to make them like us, we are not here to impress them, we are not here
to anything, what we are here to do is to sweep off our side of the street, we
are here to make good on the wrong that we have done, we admit our wrong,
we give them complete restitution. If it is money and you cannot pay it back in
one lump sum, you will find that God will provide for you. I had many people
that I made amends to, where I could not give them all the money, I owed
them, I made payments and little by little, now I am even. I hope you will
know that feeling.

Now, I want to tell you a little story about a guy named Ernie Gerig.
There are two Ernie G's in early AA history. Ernie Galbraith married Dr Bob's
daughter. Dr Bob said it is very hard to give your daughter in marriage to a
person whose fifth step you have listened to. They ended up getting divorced
and Dr Bob's daughter, Sue, was very resentful at AA, for a very long time,
because they failed to sober Ernie up. But Ernie did get sober when Dr Bob
died, he came to the funeral sober and soon. The other Ernie G that is in early
recovery was Ernie Gerig and he was quite the drunk up in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
He was up there in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and he was getting drunk all the time
and he was also quite the ladies’ man. Ernie got a job in Toledo, Ohio and he
and his lovely bride went down to Toledo, Ohio. He was under no
misconceptions but his wife was hoping that by moving to Toledo, Ohio Ernie
would stop drinking; good luck on that one, right! Wherever you go, there you
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are. Ernie not only found liquor in Toledo, Ohio but he found women that were
very willing to date him and do all the things that he wanted them to do and
he carried on pretty good.

Ernie’s his wife found out about a doctor in Akron that was fixing drunks.
They were in Akron, Ohio so fast their heads were spinning around in a circle.
Once there, they ended up living with Dr Bob and Anne for months. Dr Bob and
Anne did a lot of service. Visit that home in Akron, it is part of our history for
everything started there. When you see how modest a home it is and how
small it really is. It will give you a beautiful picture of how willing these people
were to do service. I know that you like me and I like you but if I came to live
with you and your family for four, five months or six months at a time, I bet
you would wish I would hit the road. These people, the Smiths, they took in
everybody.

It was a Saturday afternoon and Dr Bob and Anne were out buying
groceries in the car. Ernie's wife had been living in Akron for a number of
months and she was sick and tired of his philandering with women, she had
had her fill of it and decided she was going get herself a boyfriend, so she did,
she got herself a boyfriend. Friday night, she had told the ladies in the Oxford
group what was going on and they said “You have got to tell Ernie” and she
said “Screw Ernie! He is been doing this to me for years. You think I am stupid?
You think I do not know that when he does not come home at night there's
some reason for it” and they said “Oh no, it does not make a difference, you
have got to tell Ernie What is going on here, you have got to give him the
information and you have got to stop it.”

So, she was a good little Oxford grouper, she went on a Saturday
afternoon, made sure she dressed herself up, and came out and told Ernie the
whole story, who she was involved with, what was going on, where she met
him, how she would sneak off to be with him and so on. Ernie grabbed a
kitchen knife out of the drawer in Dr Bob's kitchen and took off after his wife,
she is running around the house and he is running after her trying to kill her
when Dr Bob and Anne Smith come in with arms full of groceries. They tried to
hold him back from killing his wife, so he tricked chased Anne Smith with the
knife and then chased Dr Bob with the knife. Dr Bob finally got the knife away
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from him but he told them “You guys have to leave and you have to leave now.
You can no longer stay in our home”. They left.

Ernie Gerig came to Dr Bob's funeral in 1950 with a year of sobriety. Dr

Bob died after his wife, Anne. The kids, Susan and Bob Jr. Smith, saw Ernie
Gerig and Sue said there’s Ernie G. and he is sober. Ernie is a cautionary tale
that there are going to be times when you do not make an amends.

I want to tell you another story about my life, this is not actually about
my life this is someone I sponsored. You cannot harm another person with
amends; you do not have the right to involve another person. I sponsor a
guy who is in the medical field in Galveston, Texas. There were three doctors
who were in practice for themselves and one of the doctor’s wives ran the
practice. She set the appointments, did all the billing, was in charge of the
practice and they made money. This went on for several years everything was
great, then the wife got to the point where this was getting to be more of a job
than anything else and she just did not want to do it anymore. She
investigated and found a practice management company in Galveston that
comes and runs your practice for you.

The doctors start noticing they are making money in amounts way above
what they used to make. Now not that this woman was cheating them, they
all trusted her and they knew she was not cheating them but all of a sudden,
they are making a lot more money than they had before. This went on for a
few years. One of the doctors, the guy that I sponsor, found out that things
were not kosher, things were not on the up-and-up; there were payments
from Medicare, Medicaid and the state of Texas that were not supposed to be
in those amounts and that they were defrauding Social Security, Medicare and
Medicaid. He said something to the other two doctors and they said “We'll
buy you out. You keep your mouth shut. It is two against one” and he had to
leave the practice. But he could not make amends because he had no right to
involve these other people.

There are a few steps that require good sponsorship more than Step 9.
Do NOT go out making amends willy-nilly, on your own, rushing through the
amends. You are going to end up causing more problems than you are going
to solve. You need the guidance of a sober, informed sponsor. You have to
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run these things past somebody. Do not just run out there! Today, I often see
people work step 1 and they want to go work steps 9 and12 or 1, 12, 9. Do not
do that! You have got time, so do not do that. A clear informed sponsorship
is a requirement of the program. You are not going to get what you want just
going willy-nilly on your own; it is not going to happen. The reasons why we
have the program that we have; eyeball to eyeball; face to face; dollar for
dollar. If you have asexual amends you do not have the right to involve the
person that you were involved with, if the person already knows that is one
thing, if they do not know that you are there to sweep off your side of the
street, you do not involve anyone else. You do the right thing in all
circumstances as a recovered person. Key is the sponsorship aspect of this. It
is very important.

Let us do the promises on page 83 of the book starting half way down
the page.

The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. Unless one's family
expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles, we think we ought not to
urge them. We should not talk incessantly to them about spiritual matters.
They will change in time. Our behavior will convince them more than our
words. We must remember the ten or twenty years of drunkenness would
make a skeptic out of anyone. There may be some wrongs we can never fully
right. We do not worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that
we would right them if we could.

This might include people that you just cannot find but if you cannot find
them or they are dead or what have you, there is not much you can do; there
is really not much you can do. What you could do? What else do you do?

Now, I should have touched on this earlier but I am going to touch on it

now. What about a person who does not want your amends? I offered to
make an amends to my ex-wife I said “you know I'd like to sit down with you”
and she would not hear of it; she does not have any amends she needs to
make to me which is fine that is her business not mine; she did not want to go
through it; she just did not want to hear it; so there is nothing I can do. I am
ready in case she changes her mind. It is been, you know it is 10 years, I do
not know that she is going change her mind but if tomorrow or today she
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wakes up and said “you know I think I'd like to hear your amends” I am at the
ready to make them; I still remember everything; I mean it is not like I forgot.

The truth of the matter is that there are people that are dead or that
you cannot find or that do not want to hear your amends. There is no
requirement that they listen to you, there is no reason why they are
compelled to revisit these things, that happened a long time ago and maybe
too painful for them to remember it. There are people that forgave me and
there is people that did not; remember we are not in the results business, we
are not in the business of achieving or attaining a result; we are in the
business of doing what we need to do for ourselves; that is what we are in the
business to do; if they do not want to hear your amends or they are dead
there is nothing you can do.

Now here is what you can do for someone that you cannot find; you
can write a letter. I wrote a letter for the dead ones and a letter for my ex-
wife but I did not mail her the letter. I cannot mail the letter to my mom or my
dad or to certain other people that I harmed; they are dead. I explain in the
letters exactly when I am making amends for, that I am sorry, that I am
showing my contrition and I am asking them in the letter, as I would if I was
there in person with them, is there anything I can do to make this right?
Sometimes you owe them money; if you owe money then you pay the money
back, there is no question. When it is not a money amends e.g. maybe I said
something to embarrass them or maybe I did something that hurt them or
maybe I failed to do something that would have helped them then I am at the
ready to make the amends, should the situation should present itself.

The first couple of letters I wrote to my mother my sponsor tore them

up and said “This is not an amends letter; this is an indictment; this is an
indictment of her mental illness and an indictment of her behavior. You are
not making amends here you are just drugging up her faults”. It took me four
or five letters before I finally got it right and then he said “This is fine. This is
okay”. I have the letter. I write my parents emails, that I delete, but I write
them emails on my birthday and on their birthdays and I thank them for giving
me life and for the sacrifices that they made. Their marriage was not a happy
marriage; they were miserable with one another; they were mean and ornery
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to one another; I never even saw them be kind to one another. That is a
shame but out of it came me and here I am. I have a daughter that is 25, she
does not want anything to do with me; she does not like me; she does not
want me in her life. But the truth of the matter is I know she is okay, I get
information, I know that she is all right, she is fine, she is doing great, she is
doing fantastic. So, write those letters if they are dead; write those letters if
you cannot find them; if they will not take your amends; take some action.

Think to yourself, before you make an amends, what did I do to this

person. Now I get this question all the time “What happens if there is
somebody that we drifted apart from and we are not friends anymore. What
do I owe them in terms of an amends?” Nothing, that is a natural and normal
part of life. What happens if I had sex with so-and-so do I owe her or him and
amends? Not necessarily, if you harmed them then yes but if you just using it
as a way of enjoying it, there is nothing wrong with that, that is fine.

“There may be some wrongs we can never fully right. We do not

worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves that we would right
them if we could”.

So, ask yourself “Would I right this if I could?” I hope the answer is yes.

“There may be a valid reason for postponement in some cases. But we

do not delay it if it can be avoided. We should be sensible, tactful,
considerate and humble without being servile or scraping”.

In other words, you do not have to go into someone's home or office

and beg them to forgive you; whether they forgive you or not is not your
business, it is their business it is not your business; you are there to make
amends you are not there to get them to forgive you. Is that clear? I hope it
is.

“As God's people we stand on our feet; we do not crawl before

anyone”.

You are sorry but you are human; you made a mistake; you were doing
the best you could at the time; you were sick; this is a serious illness, this is
not something to be taken lightly; you did the best that you could with what
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you had at the time; you are not a bad person trying to get good, you are a
sick person trying to get well; you make mistakes you are human and as a
human being you are going to make mistakes again. I make them every day I
have challenges in my life, as you do, I have things in my life, as you do. We
constantly butt up against our own humanity; we butt up against fear and
resentment; we butt up against these things that is why we need steps 10, 11
and12. We are going to talk about that tomorrow but for right now let us
continue reading the promises.

“If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, will be

amazed before we are halfway through”.

Now what does “will be amazed before we are halfway through” mean?
Halfway through what? Halfway through the restitution process it is just
going to amaze us.

“We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness”.

I am no longer a slave to food; I am no longer enslaved by what you

think of me or by my desperate desire to control you; I am free; I have a life; I
have a god and I have a new happiness. There is a god and it is NOT me.
There are two things I need to know about God: one, it is NOT me and YOU
are not, and two I am NOT it for you; that is tremendously emancipating.

I want you to like me, I hope that you will like me but if you do not, and
there are people that do not, my life is going go on. In my illness, if there was
25 billion people that were wearing t-shirts it said “I love Harlan” and they are
carrying “I love Harlan” signs and there is one guy that is not wearing the t-
shirt, that one guy that is not carrying the sign and he is in Outer Mongolia I
am going be an Outer Mongolian working on this guy, to get him to like me
because my life cannot be complete until he likes me. That is simply not true. I
like me, I think I am a good guy and I do the best I can. Am I perfect? No. But I
like myself now and I know that God loves me, he loves us all equally, he does
not love me more than he loves you but he does love me. I have
overwhelming evidence all around me that tell me that he loves me and what
I do not have all around me now are candy wrappers and cookie bags. I do
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not have any of that stuff and I do not have letters here that say you have not
paid your bill; I do not have any final notices here.

“We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it”. I wish
things were different at times; I wish as I told you before that I had been
addicted to something else because I know that alcoholics and drug addicts
have their own hell but at least they get to go on dates where the fat boys do
not; I wish that I had been born to a wealthy family instead of a poor one; I
wish my dad owned a big business that I could have inherited and sat behind a
desk; I wish that I could have had that kind of life but I never did; I wish that I
could retire, that I had the money to retire; I wish I did not have to live alone
and I sure do not want to die alone. But I have a feeling in my heart that life is
very good, I have excellent friends and I have this program. My life has
purpose; my life has meaning; my life includes people; my life includes God;
my life includes service; my life includes recovery. When I get up in the
morning, I do not have to wonder what my purpose today is, it is to be of
maximum service to God and the people about me. I do not have to wonder;
this is the most wonderful way of life.

“We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will
comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace”.

There is a peace that comes from doing the right thing; there is a peace
that comes in the absence of the shame and the remorse and the horror of
doing the wrong thing; there is great peace and great serenity that comes
about when I do the things for my program that I know are correct; so that I
can live one more day with the barometer that was set up for me by a
sponsor. He said to me, long time ago, “If everything you did today,
everywhere you went today, everything that came in and out of your mouth if
it was on the front page of the Chicago Tribune are you okay with that?” and
today I am, today I am okay with that; that is freedom.

“No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how
our experience can benefit others”.

It is been a long journey and it is been fraught with shame, hurt and
loneliness; decades of asexual existence; decades of not being able to pay my
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bills; decades of breaking furniture and getting stuck in cars, not being able to
go to the movies because I cannot fit in the seat; not being able to go where I
want to go and do what I want to do. It has been fraught with all kinds of
humiliation and yet when I tell that to others it makes them feel less alone; It
gives others hope because many of us believed that the way we behaved
were secret and unique to us and that is why we need each other. God has a
job for each and every one of you to be that harbinger and messenger of this
recovery to go forth and to spread the word of the recovery to other people,
so that they will feel less alone; they will feel like there is hope; they will feel
like life is worth living and that they are not alone in this; that their struggles
are the struggles of many, not just them and that there is a God and that that
God will help them if asked. How do we effectively ask God for help? By
taking ACTION, after ACTION, after action this is NOT a programme for
people who need it; this is NOT a programme for people who want it, it is a
program for people who do it, take action.

Do not sit there! People are dying! You see on the news, every day
now, about the death toll from CORVID-19; every day more and more people
are afflicted; more and more people are dying. Well guess what? There are
even more numbers of people afflicted by obesity, anorexia and bulimia and
they are dying in much greater numbers. They need you; they need you
because you are the messenger, you are the messenger that can reach some
of these people. There are people out there dying. If they put the numbers
up of the people dying of obesity related complications it would be would be
a thousand times the numbers that they are posting for Coronavirus.

Every one of you have been touched by this disease; every one of you
have been touched by this; every one of you have buried people that were
good wonderful loving people that you put your heart and soul into and you
buried them; they are dead because of this disease. This is the most
unbelievable epidemic the world has ever seen. In 1995, not 1595, in 1995
something happened in the United States of America; not the United States of
Outer Mongolia; not the United States of whatever but the United States of
America. What happened in the United States of America in 1995? A
generation of Americans were born with a shorter life span than their parents.
Why? What is the number one assignable cause? The number one assignable
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cause is Type 2 Diabetes in people 0 to 19 years of age and the onset of

numbers of childhood morbid obesity that the world has never seen THAT is
the reason. Now those kids we may not be able to touch them, we may not
be able to get through to them but you can be that messenger that says to
them there is a way out of this and that way is through the 12 steps. Show
them what it does for you; be that teacher. We are going to talk a lot more
about that tomorrow.

“That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear”.

You want to like yourself? Help others. You want to get rid of self-pity?
Help others. You want to think less about food? Help others. You want to
think less about what is bothering you? Help others. When all other
measures fail work with another alcoholic will save the day.

“We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows
self-seeking will slip away our whole attitude and outlook upon life will
change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us”.

Now that does not mean that we are not going to have economic up
and downs but I know that I will be okay. One way or the other God will
provide for me. It is on the top of page 63 in the promises to the third step
that I have a new employer and he will provide what I need as long as I keep
close to him and perform his work well.

Page 84

“We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to

baffle us”.

I cannot begin to tell you the number of times that I just see solutions
whereas I could not before; I cannot begin to tell you that.

“We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us that we could not do
for ourselves.

Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being

fulfilled among us- sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always
materialize if we work for them”.
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Not if we need them or want them; if we work for them. That means
that this is a program for people who do it, this is an action program. This is
the greatest way of life imaginable; there is no way of life better than this. I
am NOT going to tell you that life is perfect. I am not going to tell you that I
would not change this, there’s a few things I would change, if I could. Thank
God I cannot! I cannot see the gestalt, I cannot see the big picture, I see what
my mortal eyes can look at and my mortal eyes are limited in the scope of
what they can view.

There are people, here today, that are ramparts of service. We have to
join that rank; I have to join that rank. You know thirty-five, forty years from
now, fifty years from now, most of us will be gone. What is going to happen?
That is up to what we do now. That is up to what we do now! What do we do
now? Now we need to do a better job of spreading the word and it starts with
doing a better job of recovering.
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Day 3: Sunday 19th April

Part 1: Steps 10,11 &12

T
hank you to everybody for attending so early on a Sunday morning I
can appreciate how difficult that is. I am so glad that we are all
together here it is just wonderful. Just hearing the chatter at the very
beginning of it, people saying “Hi” and “Good morning” it is just so beautiful.
All of us came here from Hell. Where did you come here from? You came
here from Hell. You did not come here on a roll, you did not come here
because things were going well for you, you came here because things were
not going so well for you. And as such, the beautiful camaraderie, the
beautiful magic, that is OA is so apparent; this is just a beautiful gathering. I
know tomorrow morning I am going to miss it and I know some of you will too,
but tomorrow morning we have our Vision meeting starting at 4:00 a.m.
Pacific time which is 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time at www.avision4you.info

We have been discussing the steps over the last couple of days and
found that food is not the problem, that food for the compulsive overeater is
the answer, the solution to the problem. If food is the solution to the
problem, what is the problem? The problem is the build up of everyday,
normal, human emotions. Now the Yiddish word of the day is going to come
at you earlier this morning, and I will use it again for some of the late comers,
but the Yiddish word of the day is not a word but it is an expression and the
expression is Ah Zoy Gay Tuss. What does it mean? It means it is always
something; there is always something out there that is that antagonist; no
matter how many toys, no matter how many whatever you have there is
always something out there that we do not have; there is always somebody
out there that has more than us; there is always whatever that may be for us.
The problem is the buildup of human emotion and a lack of power being our
dilemma. We cannot muster the power to control these resentments, fears,
jealousies, and regrets. Happiness is also an emotion many of us, including
me, have eaten railroad cars full of Chips Ahoy cookies when things went well
for us. Shakespeare said “there is nothing good or bad but my thinking makes
it so”. We have this tendency to think that we eat because things do not go
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well for us but I have eaten when things went really, well for me, you know,
not everything was doom and gloom.

So, food became the solution to the problem. We have these emotions
that when they run around unchecked, they cause such pain in us that the
brain will say “Eat the food!” and we try to resist that thought, sometimes, but
we know in our minds we are not going to be able to resist it for very long. We
know that eventually we are going to crave. How do we know that? Because
we have a lifetime of it to tells us it is so. So, we crave, we eat the food and for
about nine seconds or ten seconds the world is a beautiful, groovy, wonderful,
fantastic place; I want to sit at the campfire and sing kumbaya; I want to buy
the world a Coke; I want to hold everybody's hand, that was before a cov19, I
want to hug everybody, of course again, that was before Coronavirus, but the
bottom line is that for about nine or ten seconds when you load me up with
chocolate the world is a beautiful place. Why is that? Because in my brain,
unlike a normal brain, food does something for me not to me, that it does not
do for the normal, temperate, eater. It gives me what Dr Silkworth calls the
Effect.

What is that effect? The effect is a sense of ease and comfort that
comes instantly when I eat the food. It is beautiful and I will chase this effect
to the gates of insanity or death. The effect is so elusive, so fabulous, that I
will throw my life in the toilet in its pursuit. Now, that would be great if that
was the only thing that went wrong; that is not wrong, that is good, that is
bliss. But there is another part of the monster, it is a two-headed monster;
the mental twist and the physical allergy. So, when I eat that chocolate and I
eat that food, I also trigger an unnatural, adverse, abnormal, allergy; an
adverse, abnormal effect that causes me to eat more and more. If I did not
have the physical allergy, I would take a little change purse and I would fill it
with candy and if I saw something that made me mad or I heard something
that upset me or had a thought that upset me I would take a little piece of
candy from the change purse pop it in my mouth and I would be fine; It would
be like medicine. The only problem is that is impossible because of the
physical allergy. Now if I cannot eat because of the allergy and I cannot keep
from eating because of the mental twist, brought about by the buildup of
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these emotions, I am powerless over food and my life is unmanageable and

that is what the problem is.

Now, let us look again at something that we and I keep reviewing

because it is vital for our understanding. What if I could find a way to live
where I already feel better? What if I could find a way to live where my brain
does not lack the sense of ease and comfort that comes instantly by eating
that food. What if I could find a way to live where the thought of that food
does not enter my mind and therefore set the terrible cycle in motion? The
process of bringing the necessary power into the equation is simply called
Recovery and that is what this is all about. What we are doing is we are
embarking on a process, a series of actions, where we are going to replace the
effect of the food for the effect of the steps.

The food has death-defying side effects: hypertension heart disease;

skeletal problems; muscular problems; respiratory problems; blood pressure
problems; skin problems; mobility problems. We have lots of problems
associated with obesity so many problems that as I said yesterday in 1995 a
generation of Americans; not outer Mongolians; not people from some God
forsaken corner of the world; Americans was born with a shorter lifespan than
their parents. What is the number one assignable cause? The number one
assignable reason why that generation of Americans has a shorter lifespan
than their parents is the occurrences of Type 2 Diabetes in patients from 0 to
19 years of age and the rate of Childhood Morbid Obesity in patients from 0 to
19 is through the ceiling. It through the ceiling!

Let us get back to our subject at hand, we are substituting that (process)
for that same kind of deep-seated effect but we are trading that moment of
pleasure 8, 9, 10 seconds for a lifetime of happiness. I would trade pleasure
for happiness every day of the year! But the food is very alluring; some of the
worst ideas that I have ever had in my life were wearing the sexiest clothes in
my brain and they convinced me and they knew how to sell me on the idea of
eating food that I knew was killing me. Dr Silkworth says “Although we know
it is injurious, we cannot we cannot after time tell the true from the false”.
What does that mean? Do we think it is Wednesday? No. What it means is I
can convince myself, as you have done, that this candy bar will be ok; this fried
food will be ok; this bread; this whatever that may be for you will be okay. The
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truth of the matter is that food has never been ok; that food will never be
okay; there will never be a day when I can eat that food safely and that day is
not today when I can eat that food safely. When I eat that food, I eat way
more than I intended to and it causes me more problems than it will ever
solve, it makes me feel horrible about myself and it makes me fall into self-
loathing and self-doubt.

We have talked this weekend about liking ourselves and making

amends to ourselves. How do I do that? Specifically, by doing self-esteem
boosting activities; helping other people makes me like myself more so that I
have a good relationship with me. One of the things that we learn in OA is
that there is three other results from the steps in line with the spiritual
awakening. What are those three things that are going to happen? I will go
over them right now: we are going to get right with God; we are going to get
right with ourselves and we are going to get right with our fellow human
beings.

Now let us take a look at Step 10. What I am going to do, as best I can,
is try to smash the misconceptions of Step 10. I am going to try to smash
through some of the things that are not true about step 10 that you hear all
the time in program.

Let us take a look at page 84 paragraph that starts

“This thought brings us to Step Ten”.

We are going to see the word “continue” three times in Step 10; in 10
we continue, at 11 we improve and in 12 we practice; we continue, improve
and practice. One of the things I really do not like is people keep saying 10 11
and 12 are the maintenance steps. The reason I do not like maintenance is this
my disease while I was sleeping, since we last met yesterday, my disease has
gotten worse since we last were here because I have a progressive illness. I
have a progressive disease so if I maintain my level of recovery eventually my
disease will overtake me and when my disease overtakes me, I will be back in
the food. I like to think of this not as maintenance steps but as growth steps.
Growth not maintenance because every single day I expect to do just a little bit
more for my recovery than I did yesterday because my disease got a little
worse.
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Let us read on.

“This thought brings us to Step Ten, which suggests we continue to

take personal inventory and continue (second time in the same sentence) to
set right any new mistakes as we go along. (So, we are going to continue) We
vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past.”

Stop right there. One of the misconceptions that I want to smash today
is that you start on Step 10 after you are done with Step 9. Absolutely false, it
is a concurrent event. The steps had to have an ordinate path so there is
numbers on them but it does not say “we vigorously commence this way of
living after we cleaned up the past” it says “as we cleaned up the past”. I
cannot imagine doing Step 9 or doing Step 8 without Step 10 because as I make
a list of people that I have harmed, as I start to go about making amends to
those people, I am going to have fear; I am going to have jealousy; I am going
to have anger; I am going to have regret.

One of the things that gripped me when I went about to make amends
was a fear of financial ruin because I had taken a lot of money from people by
writing bad checks to them, in the late 1970s early 80s. I had a food habit; not
a cocaine habit; not a heroin habit; not a hooker habit; I had a food habit of
about a hundred to a hundred and fifty dollars a day and I did not have an
income anywhere near that. I was robbing Peter to pay Paul! I am a good
little liar and manipulator and I did a really good job of screwing my life over: I
have had my car repossessed twice; I have driven without insurance; I have
been evicted from my apartment; I have had my electricity shut off for non-
payment; I have had my phone shut off for non-payment; I have been through
the wringer of financial ruin. Thank God, every month when a bill comes into
my house, I pay that bill. I love the fact that a bill comes into my house and I
knock it out paid in full. I am so grateful that every month I can do that and it
means a lot to me because of where I have come from. I have excellent credit
today. As I said to you yesterday, there were banks in Chicago that would not
have given me a five-dollar bill for five singles that is how bad my credit was.

So, the first thing I want to smash through is we do not do Step 10 after
Step 9; we do it as we cleaned up the past. And what steps do we really use to
clean up the past? Steps 4 through 9. I introduce Step 10 after they are done
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with Step 5, that is when I really put the hammer down, after that hour we do
our Steps 6 and 7 which should take a minute, a minute, and then we do Step
8, we start on the instructions for Step 9 and then immediately we go to Steps
10 and 11. I mean immediately go to Steps 10 and 11. So, it says “as we
cleaned up the past” not after.

“We have entered the world of the Spirit”.

Now I want to talk about that for just a minute, you see the word Spirit
has a capital that means he is talking about God. Now what does that mean
“to enter the world of the Spirit”? Does that mean that I walk around day and
night praying or I walk around day at night seeing angels floating around my
bedroom with wings? No, it does not. What it means is by working these
steps, incessantly, throughout many years, I have become, in my opinion, the
man that God had intended me to become all along. I tell the truth; I speak my
mind; I am courteous; I am considerate; I can give with no expectation of a
return; I am a person who can function in the world; if there is a gathering, I
can attend it. I am finally a person who has cut loose many of the relationships
in my life that are very, very toxic and when a relationship, whether it is a man
relationship or a woman relationship or a relationship to a place or a thing, if it
does not work in my life, today, I have been able to cut it loose.

There are friends of mine who come out from Chicago that are very
wonderful and when they come, I am thrilled. There are other friends of ours
that when they come out from Chicago, I stay the Hell away from them. Why?
They are toxic, they are toxic human beings for me. I am not judging them,
maybe for other people they are not toxic, for me they are highly toxic; they
want to discuss racial things, political things and critical things. This is not for
me. I have become at many different levels the man and the person that god
intended me to be. What a beautiful thing to say.

We are all going to die that is an inevitability, the problem with this
disease is when we are afflicted with this disease we never really live. But
when you work The Steps, like your hair is on fire, when you work The Steps
incessantly, when you work them continuously and you try to do the best you
can to teach this to other people you become that person that God intended
you to be. What a beautiful thing that is. Does that mean I do not have
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challenges? No, it does not but what it means is I trust me and I have a better
relationship with me. I hope I am making sense because what I am trying to
explain is, we become that person that we were supposed to be all along until
we got altered by this absolute insanity. The insanity of what this is changes
us, alters us and not for the better, never for the better, we start affecting the
people around us in the disease. We start bringing something to the table to
the people about us when we are in the recovery, we change from drains to
fountains, we change from drains to fountains and it is a beautiful
transformation. Do not miss it!

“Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This

is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime”.

One of the things that I really hate is getting that phone call from a
crying person who is in the food and the reason that they are in the food,
when we start talking, is they never did 10s and 11s or they stopped doing
them. You see when we relapse the food going in the mouth is not the
beginning of the relapse it is the end result of actions that stopped happening
or never started happening. The putting of the food in the mouth is not the
beginning of the relapse, it is not the beginning it (The Steps) should continue
for our lifetime.

I am going to tell you a story about somebody I know whose name is

Naomi and she lives in New Jersey and she is my friend from Vision. I went out
to Mount Laurel, New Jersey a number of years ago to do a Big Book weekend
and she came up to me at the lunch break and she said to me, very innocently,
may I call you when I am done with the steps? I said “Nope” and she looked at
me like I had three heads because I said to her “when you are done with The
Steps you are going to be dead because we work The Steps every day for the
rest of our lives and if you want to stay in recovery you are going to work them
like your hair is on fire”.

“Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear”.

What step did we use to look at selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and

fear? Step 4. When these crop up not if these crop up remember that the
Yiddish expression of the day azoy gait es and azoy gait es means it is always
something.
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“When these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them”.

What steps did we use to ask God to remove defects? Steps 6 and 7.
Now we have done Steps 4, 6 and 7.

“We discussed them with someone immediately…”

Notice it does not say we discuss them with someone at night or early in
the morning it says we discussed them with someone immediately. What step
do we use to discuss something with another person? Step 5. What that does
here is it smashes one of the myths of step 10. You see there is a lot of people
in OA that say you do Step 10 in the morning and at night but that is not 10
that is 11, that is 11. Step 10s are done all during the day, they are an as-
needed prescription for sanity, as needed.

“We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends

quickly…”

What steps do we use to do that? Steps 8 and 9.

“…if we have harmed anyone. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to

someone we can help”.

Step 12.

“Love and tolerance of others is our code”.

So, in a little half paragraph what we have described here are the actions
of Steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 12. I dare you to do Steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
and 12 four or five times a day and eat the way you used to. You cannot do it,
cannot do it. You will feel too good. Your brain will not let you eat that candy.
If you put a candy bar on my table right now you could not shove it in my
mouth with a plunger. I do not want it, I seriously do not, I do not want it! As
long as I keep in fit spiritual condition, I will continue to be able to have the
same relationship with that candy bar as if you asked me to eat my water jug
it. I guess it does not enter my mind. If I stop working the steps then that
candy bar is not going to last very long, it is absolutely is not going to last.

I do not have the time, this morning, to go over specific examples of how
to do this quickly. I am inviting every one of you to go into the Special Edition
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archives of www.avision4you.info (Vision) and listen to “God's Cold Shower”

recorded date 05/12/2019. I have done several podcasts on Step 10, listen to
any one of them and I think you will benefit greatly. This Step 10 is a very
quick process, somebody calls me and they just give me the headline. What is
bothering you? Well, my wife did blah blah. You have to go through the whole
thing with them. You need to get it. What is the first defect? Selfishness - she
did not stick to your script. What is the lie you are telling yourself or
somebody else? Now there is resentment and there is fear. What is the fear
here? “Well, if she only loved me, she would not do this.” Well, she probably
does love you but she is got a script of her own, she is got a mind of her own,
so she sees something different than you do. Let us ask God to remove the
defects of character, let us make amends if we have harmed anybody, if you
were rude to your wife, whatever, clean it up.

Now let us resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. “Love
and tolerance of others is our code”. You are going to end up contacting me
or somebody, you are going to contact the person you have harmed, you are
going to resolutely turn your thoughts to someone you can help and not
mention anything about this. So, you are going to be contacting several people
very quickly with cell phones; today it is easier to recover than it has ever
been. I do not care where you work; I do not care if you juggle chainsaws for a
living; I do not care if you are a brain surgeon there are cathedrals in every
building, some are marked “Men” some are marked “Women”, go into one of
the cathedrals, make your phone calls and you are going to feel like a million
dollars.

We are inculcated with a Western culture of stuffing your feelings; of

not expressing yourself; not telling people how you feel because when you
have told them how you feel they negate your feelings; they tell you should
not feel that way, they tell you do not feel that way; they tell you; you are
stupid for feeling that way. So, we get out of the habit of expressing our
feelings and what happens is we start to try to listen to the people around us
and if they express that they have feelings like that we can chime in and say
“Me too” but we do not want to be the first one to bring it up; that is our
culture. I am telling you now, you have to express these feelings, you must
express these emotions or you are going to eat again because they are going to
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bottle up inside you and you are not going to be able to handle them; it is not
going to happen. You have to learn to express your feelings, no matter what
they are, and Step 10 is a perfect vehicle to get them expressed, to get them
out there. It is vital that you start to do this step and do it quickly.

There is no writing involved. You know there are people out there
ungabluzen (yesterday’s Yiddish word); they are going to have you writing;
they are going to have you charting; they are going to have you doing a whole
Step 4. You do not have to do that. Yes, it says at the beginning “we
continued to take personal inventory” that is a separate thing. It says “When
these crop up we ask” these are specific instructions. There is no writing; you
do not need any forms for your tenth step; you do not need to download
anything from the internet and you do not need to jump up and down three
times and cluck like a chicken. You really do not need to do that it is a fast but
very effective process.

Now we have this word “recovered” and you will hear this a lot in
aVision4you and you will hear it in some meetings. What does recovered
mean? It means we are in a state of grace because of the spiritual awakening
as the result of the steps. Here is the description of what that entails:

“And we have cease fighting anything or anyone - even alcohol. For by

this time sanity will have returned.”

What step do we first get introduced to the word sanity? Step 2.

Remember I talked, yesterday, about the fact that the wording of Step 2 is such
that it does not say “came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could
restore us to sobriety” nor does it say “came to believe that a Power greater
than ourselves could restore us to abstinence”; it says “came to believe that a
Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.”

Remember that the disease is unilateral; the disease does not just affect
your weight; the disease does not just affect your intake of food; it affects
negatively every aspect of your life from the fear that we have of taking off our
clothes and being physically intimate with another human being to the fact
that we do not want to go to the party because we do not like the way we look
to the fact that we do not want to walk down the street because we are afraid
of people and we are afraid of the world. This disease does not leave any area
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of my life unruined; every area of my life is ruined by this disease. The

recovery will leave every aspect of my life improved and beautified; it is a
reconstruction of the soul; it is a reconstruction of the spirit. And so, when we
read the words on page 63 “We were reborn” we can look at that sentence
and know, that in our hearts and in our souls, that there is very little in
similarity between where I am in recovery and where I was in the filth, the
degradation and the pitiful, incomprehensible, demoralization of the disease.
This is not a dress rehearsal! This is it!

Is it ever too late to do the right thing? While there is breath in you,
while there is breath in you, grab this, grab it, do not talk yourself out of it. I
looked at my life and I looked at my weight and I knew that it would be a long
time before I was 600 pounds or 500 pounds, it goes faster than you think.
Trust God, walk to God, he will run to you. Is it ever too late to do the right
thing for yourself and the people about you and God? This disease murdered
your character and it took your life and it dragged it through pitiful and
incomprehensible demoralization. What are we hanging on to? We like to lie
in crap because it is warm and we do not smell it anymore. There is a better
way.

Let us continue bottom page 84.

“We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it

as if from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that
this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward
liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just
comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we
avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of
neutrality - safe and protected.”

Like anybody, I have to go to the grocery store, I have to go to the

doctor, I have to go get gasoline for my car, I have to go to the post office, I
have to go to the drugstore, wherever it is, I have to go. When I go there, I do
not often think about this, but what I do not focus on and what I do not see
are the candy and cookie aisles and all the rest of it; I just do not see them. I
do not care; it is like feminine hygiene products to me it is nothing I buy; it is
nothing I care about; I do not care; it does not matter; I do not care; I focus on
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what I buy. I focus on what kind of apples they have or oranges or blueberries
or whatever it is I buy. What I see is what kind of apples they have; I do not
notice the Oreos and I do not notice all that; I truly do not. That is a gift from
God for me because once I start noticing that stuff, I am dead I am as well
might as well jump out the window.

“We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been
removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid.
That is our experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit
spiritual condition.”

Now spiritual condition. I walk three miles a day six days a week. I am
not exactly a marathon runner; I am 65 years old and I do the best I can. I do
half-hour miles; it takes me an hour and a half to do three miles. I am not
exactly a speed demon but I finish and I am proud of that. I think it is great.
Do I wish I was faster? Yes, I wish I was faster. I am 65 years old that is not
bad. But in order to keep in fit spiritual condition you are going to have to do
this every day.

Here is a conversation I have never had with myself ever “Gosh, it is cold
outside I do not think I am going to binge on food today. Gosh, it is hot outside
you know I think I am going to pass on those McDonald's fries over there.” Yet
every day I hear people calling or I hear people saying “You know I could not
get to the meeting yesterday I was so busy.” Really! I see you found the time
to eat; you found the time to get to the food; you found the time to practice
your illness; you found the time to yell at people; you found the time to judge
people but you could not get to a meeting. You could not do Step 10; you
could not do Step 11; you could not help the next person. Really? We have to
put as much effort into the recovery as we ever did into the disease. Every
single day, cold, rain, shine, snow or whatever I found the time to practice this
disease. I have got to find the time; I want to find the time to practice the
recovery.

“It is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our
laurels”.

I see lots of Laurels wrestlers in this program.

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“We are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe.”

Is alcohol the subtle foe? Do you know what is the subtle foe? The
subtle foe is the buildup of these emotions which will seem like the most
natural, the most normal thing in the world. Because you are angry at Fred
and nobody likes Fred so you are going to be angry at Fred. Great! But you are
also going to be eating Almond Joy bars before you know it. Is this the hill you
want to die on? Is being angry at somebody the hill that you want to die on?

One of the most pathetic dates in history is April the 29th 1865 about a
hundred miles northeast of New Orleans, Louisiana there was a battle in 1865
between Confederate soldiers and soldiers of the Army of the Potomac, the
northern soldiers, there were 23 men killed and 47 wounded not unlike many,
many other skirmishes between those two armies. Why was this one so
pathetic? Lee had handed his sword to Grant on April 9th 1865 the war was
over; those men died for nothing. How many battles like that are you fighting
today? How many wars are you showing up for today that do not really exist?
If not now, when? If not you, who? Let us try life without it. I challenge you,
today, to let it go, to let it go and try this way of life. You see these
resentments become a part of us; they become a working part of our heart
and mind. Let them go! They are killing you! It is not alcohol that is a subtle
foe it is the buildup of human emotion. In the buildup of human emotion, that
is where the disease lives.

Continuing to read page 85.

“We are not cured of alcoholism. What we really have is a daily

reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. Every day
is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities.”

Does it say most days or some days? No, it says every day.

“How can I best serve Thee - Thy will (not mine) be done.”

That is the Step 10 prayer and that is a prayer I probably say

conservatively 75 times a day, conservatively.
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“How can I best serve Thee - Thy will (not mine) be done.” These are
thoughts which must go with us constantly. We can exercise our willpower
along this line all we wish. It is the proper use of the will.

Much has already been said about receiving strength, inspiration, and
direction from Him who he has all knowledge and power. If we have
carefully followed directions, we have begun to sense the flow of His Spirit
into us. To some extent we have become God-conscious.”

That takes time, that is not something that is going to happen overnight
but you have to work at it; if I do not begin working at it, it is not going to
happen.

“We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense. But we must go
further and that means more action. Step 11 suggest prayer and meditation.”

Now the word meditation does not mean the same thing to you as it did
to Bill and Bob. When you think of meditation you think of your breathing and
you think of sitting on the floor or wherever it is you sit. I am amazed at
people that can just shut their mind off like that. I have never been able to do
that very easily at all. I have many people in my life that can just sit there and
just concentrate on their breathing; my brain is going 42,000 miles a second.
But the meditation that Bill and Bob were talking about is just being quiet.
Ann Smith would stand at the door and Bill and Bob would be anxious to go to
this Akron City Hospital and to see if there were any drunks and Ann Smith
would stand at the door and say “Stop. Did you boys take your quiet time
today?” and they would sit quietly and listen to God. There is a huge transition
that you can begin today of exercising your spiritual muscles so that you will
transition from telling God how big your problems are to telling your problems
how big your God is. You can begin that transition period today by practicing
these steps again and again.

Let us continue now with step 11. I wish I had time to do some
examples of Step 10. I do not so I am going to have to rely on you getting the
podcasts from Vision. I am relying on you to go into the Special Edition
archives of www.avision4you.info (Vision) and listen to “God's Cold Shower”
recorded date 05/12/2019. Step 11 suggests prayer and meditation.
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“We should not be shy on this matter of prayer. Better men than us
are using it constantly. It works, if we have the proper attitude and work at
it notice it.”

It does not say if we have the proper attitude and think about it; it says
work at it. How do you work at something? You do it. This is not a program
for people who need it; this is not a program for people who want it; this is a
program for people who do it. It is an action program. This program will not
come to you from wanting it or needing it, it works if we have the proper
attitude and work at.

“It would be easy to be vague about this matter. Yet, we believe we

can make some definite and valuable suggestions.”
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Day 3: Saturday 18th April

Part 2: Steps 10,11&12

W
hy is the night-time portion of step 11 listed before the daytime
practice?” That is because it is assumed that you have been doing
step 10 throughout the day ...that is why it is that way. Why is it
written that way? “we constructively review our day” Notice that word
“constructively” Listen to what I am about to tell you: a hammer to your head
is not one of the tools of recovery! If you are a perfectionist like me, you want
to beat yourself unmercifully because you were not perfect on any given day. I
was not perfect on any day! I was not perfect on any day. So “constructively” is
a word that I need to see and hear and internalize, because if I deconstructive
or unconstructively review my day I am going to come out of this feeling like
garbage. So, the word “constructively” is key. Be merciful with yourself.

“Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest or afraid?” There is Step 4 and

ten again.

“Do we owe an apology?” steps, 8 and 9, 10.

“Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with

another person at once?” Step 5.

“Were we kind and loving toward all?” step 10

“What could we have done better?” watch that question again it is a trick!
What does Admiral Ackbar say in Star Wars? “It is a trap! It is a trap! Do not
fall into the trap of beating yourself unmercifully about what you could have
done better. I do that too. You know I am doing the best I can this morning to
disseminate the information to you. Do you know that about 20 minutes after
this is over, I am going to be regretful I said this, and I should have said that
and I spent too much time on this and I should have spent more time on that?
There are three lead shares that you do. There are three big book studies that
you do…. the one you plan, the one you do, and damn it, the one you should
have done that you beat yourself up about on the airplane when you're on
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your way back. But it is just human nature, so go easy on yourself with that
question. “What could you have done better?” It does not say what should you
have done better it says what could you have done better? Remember that the
key word there is could rather than should. Very, very different. God wrote
the book! Do not you be fooled. You see pictures of Bill Wilson online or you
see pictures of Bill Wilson anywhere, he is wonderful, he is one of my heroes.
Trust me, I have cried at Stepping-Stones. I cried when I put my chip on his
gravestone at East Dorset, Vermont. Thank you to John K! John K is my
sponsor. He lives in Los Angeles and we were in Boston at the World
Convention, the world convention of OA… (You should take a trip to Los
Angeles and talk to the people that run the OA birthday event because the
birthday is the best-run convention that you will ever attend and every other
convention that you're going to attend is just an absolute fire drill. It is just
absolutely crazy but the people in Los Angeles have it down to a science
because they do it every year and… man that birthday and that vision!, that
birthday is like a well-oiled machine. Man! is that a well-run convention. I was
in the World convention once with John and we waited 20 minutes for our
registration packets that would never happen in Los Angeles -OA Birthday
event- no chance that would happen. Anyway I know I am going to get some
bad feedback for that but I had to throw it out there).

“What could we have done better?” is a lot more merciful than what
should we have done better and that is something that a lot of sponsors do not
really go over with people.

“Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time or were we thinking

of what we could do for others of what we could pack into the stream of
life?” You see I was always a taker, oh yes! … “but we must be careful not to
drift in to worry remorse or morbid reflection for that would diminish our
usefulness to others after making a review we ask God's forgiveness and
inquire what corrective measures should be taken”... again positively take it
easy on yourself, no matter how evolved your recovery gets you will never rise
above the level of a human being. We are all human. We are all subject to
mistakes. I make them every day. The only group of people that do not make
mistakes are people that do not do anything. They do not try anything. And the
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only group of people that do not have some problems are the people in the
cemetery. As long as there's a heart beating in your chest as long as there's
blood flowing through your veins, you're going to have challenges and you're
going to have obstacles.

These are the steps that can rise you above these things. Trust God.
Stop telling God how big your problems are... start telling your problems how
big your God is. This is the most glorious, the most fabulous way of life
imaginable.

“On Awakening” … this is the first step I do every day. Trust me. I cannot
prove it to you but “on awakening’? this is my step here. Let us think ….and I
do the one at night too but this is like one night... when I am conscious that I
am up, I am immediately going to this. This is. What step do I work on first
every day? Eleven.

“On awakening, let us think about the 24 hours ahead. We consider

our plans for the day. Before we begin, we ask God to direct our thinking,
especially asking that it be divorced from self-pity, dishonest or self seeking
motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental faculties with
assurance for after all God gave us brains to use. Our thought life will be
placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong
motives”.

Stop trying to arrange life so that you can get what you want. You know,
every single day I would just get exhausted, trying to out-manoeuvre, out-
manage, out-think, out-perform everyone in my environment so I could get
what I want. I do not have to do that today. I work hard. I do my job hard. I
attack it hard. I try to play hard. I do not always play as effectively as I should.
My sponsor gets on me about that, that I am not really having as much fun as I
should and I think he is right. I need to have a little more fun but the bottom
line is, that we have to clear out those wrong motives. When I got up this
morning I really thought this thought; “I want to do the best job this morning
that I know how to do in the timeframe that I have I want to do the best that I
can”...not because I want you to like me not because I want you to throw a
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parade for me but because that is my job. That is what I am charged with by
God Almighty.

“In thinking about our day we may face indecision…” (I am at the

bottom of 86). “We may not be able to determine which course to take here
we ask God for inspiration and intuitive thought or a decision, we relax and
take it easy” We relax and take it easy. It is not commentary, it is instruction!
Relax! and take it easy! “We do not struggle”, if this is really hard you're doing
it wrong. This is not a hard process. If it is really difficult for you to do this
you're doing it wrong. Reach out to somebody and talk to them about the
difficulties that you're having.

“We can share with you what we have found. We are often surprised
how the right answers come after we've tried this for a while. What used to
be the hunch or the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part
of the mind”. Notice it does not say instantly becomes a working part of the
mind. Be patient with yourself but be patient with the process too. So when
you're doing this, as you know while you're not hearing a Gregorian choir
chanting in the background with little bluebirds helping you get dressed in the
morning and Mary Poppins is singing in the background while you dress!
Understand that we are all works in progress that there's no instant results.
Here it says gradually becomes a working part of the mind. I am still working
on it and there are days I make mistakes and there are days I just want to
scream because I want the world to go in this direction or some person in it to
go in this direction and they want to go in that direction! So, I am human too.
No matter how involved my recovery gets, I will never rise above the level of a
human being.

“Being still inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with
God it is not probable we are going to be inspired at all times. We may pay
for this presumption with all sorts of absurd actions and ideas”.

I had a guy that I sponsored years ago; his name was Terry. And Terry he
had himself this big four-wheel drive. This thing in 1990, cost 50, 60 thousand
dollars for this truck. He knew that God “God wants me to have this truck’...
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“God wants me to have this truck’... and he bought it. Within a year they took
it away from him. He could not make the payments. He could not make the
payments and he was mad! Oh, he was mad at God. Did God tell him to buy a
truck that was over his head? No. Did God tell him not to maybe pick up a
second job and make the payments and keep the truck? No. How many of us
have done the same thing! We convinced ourselves this is what God wants for
us, when we are not considering just turning it over and letting him decide
what feels right, never! and these are absurd actions and ideas.

“Nevertheless, we find that our thinking will as time passes be more

and more on the plane of inspiration we come to rely on “'.

Now this next paragraph here is pure Oxford group... pure Oxford
group... “We usually conclude the period of meditation with a prayer that we
be shown all through the day what our next step is to be”, see we are working
steps all day long … “that we be given whatever we need to take care of such
problems. We ask especially for freedom from self-will and are careful to
make no requests for ourselves only we may ask for ourselves however if
others will be helped we are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends
many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it does not work you can
easily see why”.. Pure Oxford group; if you go back to page 13 you will see in
Bill's story exactly the same thoughts are going to be expressed. It says here

“I was to test my thinking by the new God-consciousness within.

Common sense with us became uncommon sense. I was to sit quietly when in
doubt asking only for Direction and strength to meet my problems as he
would have me. Never was I to pray for myself except as my request bore on
my usefulness to others, then only might I expect to receive but that would be
in great measure”.

Do you see the similarities here and when the big book wants to tell us
something it repeats it. Knowing that the purest form of teaching … the purest
form of instruction, is to spiral that information … that means to repeat that
information. Let us continue.
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“If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or friends to join us in

morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires
a definite morning devotion we attend to that also. If not members of
religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which
emphasize the principles we have been discussing”.

What are the principles? ...The principles are the steps

“There are many helpful books also. Suggestions about these may be
obtained from one's priests, minister or rabbi. Be quick to see where religious
people are right. Make use of what they offer. As we go through the day, we
pause when agitated or doubtful and ask for the right words or action. We
constantly remind ourselves we are no longer running the show, humbly
saying to ourselves many times each day Thy will be done”.

The sweetest words I can say today are “Thy will be done”. I am too
human. I am too broken. You have your way God and everybody wins. “We are
then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger, worry, self-pity or foolish
decisions. We become much more efficient. We do not tire so easily for we
are not burning up energy foolishly as we are no longer trying to arrange life
to suit ourselves”. This disease is the most exhausting existence I can imagine.
This disease tires me out. The getting of the food, the eating of the food, the
writing of the bad checks, the manipulation of the people, the isolating that I
need to do so I can eat the food and nobody will see me. It is exhausting, it is
absolutely exhausting.

Here's the most important paragraph in the book …

“It works, it really does.” Short. Sweet. Right to the point.

“It works, it really does. We alcoholics are undisciplined so we let God

discipline us in this simple way we have just outlined but this is not all there's
more action there's action and more action. Faith without works is dead”
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I do not have the time to go into the next chapter in its entirety so I am
going to talk to you about step 12. Step 12 is a definite three-part step and let
us smash one of the myths of step 12. You will hear this in a way that you can
sponsor up to the level that you are at … no you cannot! If you're on step 6
you cannot sponsor people up to step 5! Why do I know that? because
“having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps”... in other
words YOU HAVE TO HAVE HAD A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING. You cannot have
had a spiritual awakening if you are on step 4 and I am on step 1. You cannot
sponsor at that point. You have not had a spiritual awakening! You cannot take
English 102 until you take English 101; they won’t let you do that. Not at my
college, not in my school they do not. You cannot take math 1-1-0 or whatever
you know 2-1-0, until you have taken 1-0-5 or whatever it is that is a
prerequisite. This is a prerequisite! “Having had a spiritual awakening as a
result of these steps”.

We talked about the first 164 pages and we say nothing has ever been
changed; that is not true because the original book said “having had a spiritual
experience”. In the first printing of the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, there
were people writing in and saying “what are we doing wrong? we are not
having this vital spiritual experience”; and they wrote Appendix 2 on page 565
and they changed the wording of step 12 to include spiritual awakening rather
than spiritual experience.

“...We tried to carry this message to alcoholics”

We are all carrying a message whether we want to be or not some of us

are cautionary tales and some of us are harbingers of OA recovery. And it does
not always go according to what your body looks like or where your weight is.
You could be on the way down, you could be whatever, but people are going
to hear and see a message from you. They are instinctively in tune with what
they are seeing and what they're hearing most of the time. When I was in
complete relapse in this disease, complete relapse, and my weight was going
up in leaps and bounds I was living in Eugene, Oregon. I lived there for nine
years. My daughter was 19 months old when this occurred and it was a
hallmark moment in my life. It was a summer day, Sunday morning in August.
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My daughter was born in August of 94. I am in relapse at this time and my 19-
month-old was running around the kitchen in a diaper and my then wife had
just bought most of the grocery store that was on the corner where we lived in
Eugene, Oregon. She is coming in there and she is putting groceries away,
things are getting put away and I am sitting where I can see both of them.
We're having a conversation and my little precious daughter who looks like my
father -she got his mannerisms-, she speaks English where he spoke Yiddish
and she does not smoke Chesterfield cigarettes one after the other but she
looks just like him. She opened up the refrigerator door and she turned her
head to her mother and she said “shit Esther there's nothing in here!’. I
wonder where she got that from? And looks I would have been vaporized. She
got the message from Daddy that every once in a while, you open up the
refrigerator and you say “Shit Esther! there's nothing in here’.

Now I am going to fast forward several years. I am in a very strong

recovery now, very good recovery. I am working steps and I am sponsoring you
know half of Arizona whatever and there was a premiere of a comedy on ABC
and it was about a man and his brother who won the lottery. They are going
around; they had been thieves; they had been you know criminals and they
are going around apologizing for what they have done to people that they hurt
and she looked at the TV; this is at the premiere episode of this show; my
daughter looks at the TV looks at me looks at the TV, looks back at me and says
“Those guys are just doing 8 and 9, right dad?’; that is how far she came. That
is how far the message that I was sending her had transitioned her.

I knew a guy and he was a drug addict and an alcoholic. He was quite an
actor and he got himself a part in a play on Broadway. On Broadway not off
Broadway, ON Broadway, and he married an actress and they set out to move
to Los Angeles because he wanted to try his hand at getting into television and
movies or commercials or whatever. Any silly can count the seeds in an apple
but only God can count the apples in a seed and this is the magic of the
message.

This is the magic of what this is, that every time a message is given of
recovery it achieves instant immortality. There are things that we have said
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this morning, we do not know where they emanated from but they have been
passed from generation to generation. So, he goes out to Los Angeles,
California. He is very active in Alcoholics Anonymous and he is on the Service
Committee that answers the phone. It was a Saturday night and he and this
other guy go out to a motel in East Los Angeles California; not exactly the high-
rent district is East LA. They go out there and what do they find? They find a
man drunk with a bottle of whiskey sitting on the bed in the motel so they go
in. They say they start talking to this guy and they're talking to this guy for
about an hour and finally they realize he is asleep. He is sleeping. He is sitting
up but he is sound asleep so they say well he is not a danger to himself he is
not a danger to others and they let him sleep and they leave what are they
going to do?

Five years later five years later he is speaking at an AA in San Diego

California. He is the speaker before lunch. 11am to 11:50am was his lead.
11:50am in the morning a guy comes up to him and the guy throws his arm
around him and says “are you Scott?”. He answers “yes I am” and he hugs the
guy. The guy is hugging Scott and he says “you saved my life” and Scott says to
him “I do not believe I know you”, he says to him. “Do you remember when
you went to that motel several years ago and you were talking to a guy that
was sitting on the bed drunk” and he says “yeah, come to think of it; I do”,
so he says . “Well that guy died about a month or two after you were there
but I was hiding under the bed and I heard every word you said and I have not
had a drink since” Message? Any silly can count the seeds in an apple but
only God can count the apples in a seed.

You never, never know, there are going to be people that are going to
come to your meeting when this is over or they're going to come to the zoom
meeting or they're going to come to a phone meeting or they're going to
whatever they're going to do and they are broken people. They are people
who have been beat down by this disease and they have been to the
psychiatrist and they have been to the therapist and they have spent money
on Weight Watchers and nutria systems and everything you can imagine and
they have been absolutely ostracized by the world that they were born into
and there were people in their life sometimes their children, sometimes their
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parents, sometimes their bosses, sometimes their friends, who have ostracized
them and made their life miserable because of this disease. They are going to
come in broken and we are the last house on the block! I do not know why
this is but the ego has to examine every wrong answer before it will examine
the right answer. We are always the last house on the block and they are going
to come in and to the world you are a person to that person you can be the
world. You can light them up and you can give them something that they could
not buy that they could not get at the psychiatrist that they could not get at
the therapist. I am not knocking psychiatry or therapy; they have their place
but they cannot help you with this. You can give them hope and to the world
you are a person to that person you can help in the process of God, saving
their lives. There is a way out from the morass and the filth of this disease.
There is a way out and you can shine your Lantern and you can be the guide
and you can show them that if you recovered. Maybe you were molested, or
you were raped, or you have been abused, or you have been abandoned, or
you have had a hard life, and they can identify with you and you with them.
You can make a difference where no one else can. We owe the Giants who
have walked before us, some of whom choked to death on their vomit. As they
died, we owe a debt to the people that went before us and what Dr Bob
bequeathed us. He bequeathed us with an inheritance in Cleveland Ohio in
1950, he got up, when his body was riddled with cancer, and his son and
another drunk propped him up on the stage, and he said “my words will be
brief, excuse my brevity as I have been ill’, he says “let us not lose this up with
complexities that are only of interest to the therapist, to the psychiatrist’...
he says “LET US KEEP IT SIMPLE’, and in the end it is about love. It is about
service. We all know what love is and we all know what service is.

You're waiting to get your PhD in sponsorship? you're going to wait the
rest of your life. You have a book and the first step is the Doctor's Opinion,
Bill's Story and There is a Solution and More About Alcoholism. There are more
chapters on Step 1 than any other step. Step 2 is chapter four, steps three
and four are chapter five, steps five through 11, chapter 6 and chapter 7 is
step 12. Go through the book they will either recover or they will not. Dr Bob
said “no man looks as good in God's eyes as when he is bending down to help
the downtrodden alcoholic to occupy the rung of the ladder on which he now
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stands”. Oh, the places you will go and the people that you are going to meet
when you release the power of that recovery in your life! It is an incredible
thing. You owe! I owe! In 1935 an unbroken chain was struck in Akron Ohio
when a stock speculator met a doctor and began a process of one to the other
Doctor Bob and Bill passed the torch to Bill Dobson and Jimmy Burwell and Fitz
Mayo; and they passed it from one person to the other, to Clarence Schneider
and when they passed it enough times in 1955 in Los Angeles California there
was a man named Jim Willis.

Jim Willis was an alcoholic who had a gambling problem, and he started
an organization based on these 12 steps for people who were afflicted with a
gambling problem that were not alcoholics, so that they would have a place to
go where they could identify and heal. He started an organization in Oxnard
California called Gamblers Anonymous. Jim Willis and four other of these
gamblers went on a TV program called the Paul Koch show. The Paul Koch
television program was broadcasting in November of 1959. An episode was
broadcast where five members of Gamblers Anonymous - whose faces were
hidden- would be on television talking to people about Gamblers Anonymous.
While they were broadcasting this show in West LA, about a block from where
my current sponsor John Kay lives now, a Roseanne Scola, Roseanne S., was
watching the program. She knew that there was a friend of her husband
Marvin who had a gambling problem and this gambling problem was ruining
his life so she believed that she should help by taking him with Marvin to a
meeting in L.A. of Gamblers Anonymous.

In November of 1959 on a winter night, the three of them went to a

meeting of Gamblers Anonymous that just happened to be attended by Jim
Willis. At the end of the meeting Roseanne realized that what she was hearing
from these people resonated to the point where she could identify with them
all the way down the line, if you substituted food for gambling. She could
identify right down the line and she said to Jim Willis, “do you believe that a
program of these steps could help someone like me with food?” He heard the
pain in her voice and he said “you know Roseanne, I do not see why not’. On
January the 19th 1960, the very first meeting of Overeaters Anonymous took
place in Los Angeles California. That is why the OA birthday is as close to that
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date, close to that time, as they can possibly arrange it because that is when
OA way was formed (and hopefully you're going to be there and hopefully it'll
be you know at that time and we'll all be together then instead of zoom right
at that time now)

OA grew to 16 groups; 16 groups of Overeaters Anonymous in a place

called Luling Texas. There was a guy, and I can hear him now, I can see him
now, God rest his soul, AG Ainsworth lived and he was on a church retreat with
his friend Robert. They were coming home from the retreat, it was a silent
retreat, AG was a big believer in silent retreat. They were coming home from
the retreat and they were going to stop off at a bakery in Luling and get stuff to
binge on and AG had had it; he did not want to binge anymore. He said to
Robert, his friend Robert, “You're in Alcoholics Anonymous, are you not?’ and
he said “yes I am AG you know I am’, and AG said to Robert, and he tried to
make it so that it was almost joking, but Robert heard the pain in his voice. He
said to Robert “do you think a program like Alcoholics Anonymous with the
steps could help someone like me with the food?” and Robert said to AG, “you
know AG I do not see why not” and in Luling Texas an organization was started
called Gluttons Anonymous. There were five groups of Gluttons Anonymous.
AG and a woman by the name of Norma B started an organization called
Gluttons Anonymous. There were five groups of Gluttons Anonymous in Luling
once one day. AG decided he was going to call the central office of Alcoholics
Anonymous to see if anyone was doing, to their knowledge, was doing with
food what he was doing; working the 12 steps. They put him in touch with
Roseanne S. and on a Sunday afternoon the five groups of Gluttons
Anonymous gathered an AG's house and they called Roseanne.

It was like Stanley finding Livingstone!! AG was a highly successful

businessman and he flew everyone out on his private plane and they attended
what was to be the first meeting of the board of trustees of OA. The group
vote Overeaters Anonymous. There were sixteen votes for OA, five votes for
GA but there was already a GA (Gamblers Anonymous) so it was a little simpler

A guy by the name of Sandy; Sandy B, (not the famous AA speaker)

incorporated Overeaters Anonymous throughout the 50 states and ten
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provinces of Canada and made it so that we had our tax-free status and we
were on our way. AG became the first man in OA, not because he
accomplished anything so special, but because the charter of OA did not allow
for men. When he came in they changed it and he became the first man in
Overeaters Anonymous and we have survived thusly today.

We have challenges in front of us. We have schisms developing almost

every day in OA and mostly the controversy is about food plans. My sincere
hope to God is that one day we will let go and come and fly under the same
flag. We will march together under the same flag of Overeaters Anonymous
there is no reason that we have to have so much controversy over food plans.
In my opinion there is no reason for us to have all these various schisms. We
would be better off if we just flew under the same flag but Overeaters
Anonymous has no guarantee that it is going to be around in a hundred years
or 50 years. We need you. We in OA service, are calling upon you to join us in
trudging that road of happy destiny. YOU are part of our future, of where we
go from here. Are we going to further shrink or are we going to make it and
flourish?? I am sick and tired of seeing every year how the membership is
going down and down. Then they yell we have a money problem and they
cannot turn out the literature fast enough. We do not have a money problem,
we have a recovery problem! And if we solve the recovery problem and we put
asses in the seats that are recovering people, they will see it and they will
come and we will not have a money problem. We need recovery! That is the
problem! We need you! We need you! Do not make me come over there, I
will! Do not make me get tough with you!! We need you!

Lastly, the third part of step 12, is “to practice these principles in all of
our affairs”, everything that we do. You know I mentioned my sponsor John
K., before I go over to the promises and we are going to have the final
benediction soon. He is much more naturally given to service than I. If you've
ever been to the OA birthday or any of the places that he frequents, he is like a
pinball machine! He is like a whirling dervish! You cannot keep up with this
man even if you have roller skates! I have to really work at doing service. I have
to kind of push myself. He just jumps right in now.
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He told me about a week ago that he is kind of stepping back on the

birthday a little bit, or he is stepping back here and there. I do not believe that
for five seconds. That is, he is told me this a million times - He is not going to
do that. Some of us are a little - the reason I am bringing up John - is some of
us are a little more given to doing SERVICE than others but WE ALL MUST DO
IT. We all must and yes, running something like this is important, and I am not
diminishing it at all but we need more one-on-one sponsorship! Informed
sponsorship is where we're falling down! We have too much in OA of the
blind leading the blind and we have some non-compulsive Overeaters in LA
and they are telling the compulsive overeater that if you go to three meetings
a week make three outreach calls a day and call in your food you will recover.
And the compulsive overeater goes and calls in their food and the compulsive
overeater goes to three meetings a week and they make three outreach calls a
day and they are eating and they do not understand why! Because without
that spiritual awakening, without the working of the steps, people like me
that are compulsive Overeaters, have no chance! So in a way, we have a lot of
things that we need to look at. This is a very serious disease. Another thing
that we see too much of in OA is protracting out the process.

There is a wonderful (OA birthday on Sunday morning) sober eating

workshop I have attended it twice. I wish they could video that. That is one of
the most useful tools. It is called a sober eating workshop. It is on Sunday
morning every year. Trust me, this is one of the most wonderful tools that you
will get in establishing a food plan. This should be like part of what you have to
go through. It is just wonderful. It is well thought out, it is well balanced and it
is heavily attended. It is wonderful and we have to also understand that Step 2
needs as much attention as Step 1

A number of years ago, at the birthday, I did a seminar with John on

finding a Higher Power because that is so difficult for people and I wish that we
would do something like that every year in helping people establish a Higher
Power. The birthday is attended by a thousand.

Really and truly we have an opportunity here to right the ship and that
must begin with you. I cannot be everywhere. No one can be everywhere.
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There are people that you can reach that I could never touch. There are people
that I reach, I try to sponsor people that weighed over 400 pounds at some
point in their life 3-400 pounds. I feel that this is where I am best utilized. I feel
this is where I am best of service to God but there's people that you're going to
reach that I cannot reach so these are things to think about and these are
things that we need to correct. These are things we need to correct:
We need better sponsorship ….
We need more solid program ...
We need a quicker consummation of the process.

You only have to be sober a couple of days! When you look at page 13
of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous and you see there where Bill is, right,
as in going through the steps. He is sober for two days! not two months... not
two years. He is sober for two days and within one day he is going through
the steps. Then the next page, page 14, is the next day December 15th 1934,
he is working step 12 in the chapter of A Vision for You. On then to the chapter
of A Vision for You, we have Dr Bob and Bill going to visit Bill Dobson. Here on
page 157, it says, first paragraph, “two days later” that means that Bill Dobson
was sober for two days, Bill Dobson, a future fellow of Alcoholics Anonymous
stared at the strangers beside his bed. They were making a 12-step call on him
after two days of sobriety. They called on him on June the 26th 1935, Dr Bob
got sober on June 10th 1935 that means that he had 16 days of sobriety and he
is already doing 12-step calls.

So, do you see how quick the process should be?! There is nothing in this
book about people who take forever in a day to do the work. There is only
people in here verified in the first hundred and sixty four pages that did it
“schnell” that did it quickly (Schnell in Yiddish means quick, or fast) Nobody in
this book talks about a slow process. Yes in Chapter three you have got some
people who stopped the process. Chapter three is not a chapter about people
who were drunk and could not get sober it is a chapter about people who were
sober and picked up liquor and it shows the progression of the disease. It
shows a lot of that progression is and how fatal it is.
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Closure

W
e need you. We need you because you are part of this picture. You
are part of what we're building here. Let us go to page 100 and
then after the 12-step promises we will do the final benediction on
page 164. Before, I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to the people on the
committee, all the OA members that jumped on board with this service over
the last couple of days. Thank you so much thank and thank you to every
single fellow who showed up for this retreat.

I am on page 100. “Both you and the new man must walk day by day in
the path of spiritual progress. If you persist, remarkable things will happen.
When we look back we realize that the things which came to us when we put
ourselves in God's hands were better than anything we could have planned.
Follow the dictates of a Higher Power and you will presently live in a new and
wonderful world no matter what your present circumstances”

“Our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a

little. God will constantly disclose more to you and to us. Ask him in your
morning meditation what you can do each day for the man who is still sick.
The answers will come if your own house is in order but obviously you cannot
transmit something you have not got. See to it that your relationship with
Him is right and great events will come to pass for you and countless others.
This is the great fact for us. Abandon yourself to God as you understand God”
...steps 1 2 & 3 …

”admit your faults to him and to your fellows“ ....step 4 through 7...
“clear away the wreckage of your past”...8 & 9 …

“Give freely of what you find and join us”...10 through 12 … ”We shall
be with you in the fellowship of the Spirit and you will surely meet some of us
as you trudge the road of happy destiny. May God bless you and keep you
until then”
 O A B B S p r i n g R e t r e a t – K i n s a l e , I r e l a n d - 2 0 2 0 P a g e | 183

I want to thank each and every one of you you've touched my heart; this
is unlike anything I have ever participated in. I think it is wildly successful, it is
fantastic and I think that as the world changes and as we evolve, we may see
quite a lot more of this in the future . I know that this is a very good idea and
cuts down on the danger to the virus. I want to thank each and every one of
you for participating please do not cry because it is over please take this with
you and the joy is that it does not have to be over: you can continue it by
working in your life with the things that we have discussed here, you can give
this convention immortality, you can take this with you and spread this to
other people and save lives. You know it says in the Talmud in the Old
Testament

“Save one life and you save the world”... Save one life and you save the
world , go out there and do it