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WAVE: Big Book Study with Corey Session Eleven - How it Works Part 1 · The Daily Ripples Podcast

• 0:03
  Hey guys, this is the Wave Book Study and we are back and we are on How It Works, page 58.
• 0:12
  You know, in just the word, how it works, it's interesting because I've been around these rooms for quite some time and you'll hear people in these different settings be like, you know, well, I don't know how it works.
• 0:25
  Well, it is really interesting because I'll tell you, we are in the chapter of how it works.
• 0:31
  And that's really cool.
• 0:32
  Um,
• 0:35
  I'm not throwing shade on them or whatever you might say, but I do think, you know, if you ever want to know how it works.
• 0:43
  This is the chapter to know that. So we're not going to read that much, but I'm going to take my time through this because I think, you know, there's some really important things in here and I'm also going to kind of jump in the original manuscript as well because the original manuscript is more is what they, I believe, you know, I could be wrong, but I believe that they, uh,
• 1:09
  It was like Bill and, you know, Bill wrote it out and he was like, hey, you know, this is what I got.
• 1:15
  And they were like, and then, and probably Bill and the boys did that.
• 1:19
  They probably came together and they're like, we like this. And then they sent it to the people that I actually looked over and they're like, oh, this is a little much.
• 1:27
  But, um, so on the page of top page of 58, it says, rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path.
• 1:39
  And so, you know, coming in this place of like, so why do people fail?
• 1:43
  We'll do that.
• 1:44
  I usually at, so last guy, I, uh, he asked the sponsor, he asked me to be a sponsor, and he, he had 2 different times that he had 10 years of sobriety, and, The 1st question I asked him,
• 2:01
  I said, hey, did you ever sponsor any men?
• 2:03
  He said, no.
• 2:06
  So, well, man, like we just talked and I kind of just brushed it off.
• 2:10
  I didn't really say anything after that.
• 2:12
  And, you know, so me and him had talked a couple months or three, 4 months down the road, after that, he, and I said, you know, I asked you that question for a specific reason.
• 2:21
  And the reason is, is because, you know, following our path, is the whole path.
• 2:28
  You know, and it goes into, you know, my sponsor talks a lot about, you know, because he bakes.
• 2:34
  He, he, he has, uh, I don't think it's his, but I can joke about this because, you know, I think his wife has some paint baking utensils and I was over at his house one night.
• 2:45
  We were over his house for their house for dinner and he goes, hey, honey, have you seen the pink, whatever it was, and it was funny because, you know, he, and he come tries to come off of something like this real man, and I hope he's listening because, you know, I'm, I'm probably going to throw some bombs his way tonight, and uh, No, it was funny because he listened to some of the book studies, he was like, hey, you got to quit.
• 3:09
  You know, telling people where to highlight it.
• 3:12
  you know, anyways, but he doesn't know this is but this is my book study.
• 3:16
  And he when he wants to start his own book study.
• 3:19
  He could, he doesn't have to tell people where to highlight.
• 3:22
  But we might take, I might take a different approach on the next time we go through this thing.
• 3:27
  But that's just where I stand today.
• 3:30
  Anyways, so rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path in the whole path, right?
• 3:36
  So the basic white cake recipe.
• 3:39
  We got to go, we got to can't put the eggs on after we bake it.
• 3:43
  We can't put the milk on top.
• 3:45
  You know, we got to do follow the recipe.
• 3:47
  Anyways, and it says those who do not recover are the people who cannot or will not.
• 3:54
  I would highlight and circle cannot or will not completely give themselves this simple program.
• 4:01
  Usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable being honest with themselves.
• 4:08
  So, like, you know, and, you know, I guess if you're not honest with yourself, you're not going to be honest with somebody else, and as we go through, you know, you'll find that like, there's some places where I got to be honest with some people.
• 4:22
  that says there, and you know, really, you know, when you think about honesty and amends and all these things, and I know I'm kind of jumping into this, but I play with wires for a living.
• 4:31
  And if I open like a box and there's a bunch of wires just going all over the place crunched together and I want a more, like a more,
• 4:42
  I mean, you could say this a, you know, a more, uh, straight connection.
• 4:48
  Well, let's straighten out all the wires.
• 4:49
  And let's see, you know, and I kind of think about that as like, you know, honesty, amends.
• 4:55
  Because really, you know, what amends is me getting honest to you about what I did to you already.
• 5:01
  And making that right.
• 5:03
  And really that's just honest, you know, that's being honest too, you know, making those getting honest and making that right is pretty simple.
• 5:11
  It says, back to the text, it says, they're such unfortunates.
• 5:16
  They're not at fault.
• 5:18
  They seem to have been born that way.
• 5:21
  They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living, which demands rigorous odyssey. Their chances are less than average.
• 5:32
  So they still have a chance too, right?
• 5:36
  Because it says their chances are less than average.
• 5:39
  There are those 2 who suffer from grave emotional mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.
• 5:47
  Our stories disclose in a general way.
• 5:51
  And I think this is important, right?
• 5:54
  Because why do I tell my story in a general way?
• 5:56
  Because if I'm not general, you might take me as weird, because like already, you know, how whoever's listening to this, you've judged my ego, parts of my story, the way I've read the book, probably my way that I can't pronounce all the words, whatever it is, you know, you've judged me.
• 6:15
  And either, you know, in a less than fashion or, you know, less than or more than.
• 6:20
  And, um,
• 6:23
  That's important when I'm like, you know, when I come to this position, because I, uh, You know, If I'm a lesson or more than you, how am I going to listen to you? But see, you know, what I found is my ego's been blocking me off from you for my whole life.
• 6:40
  And some of this, I think a lot of this work is just for me to be seeing a level playing field with me and you. But in a general way, so I can find common ground with the new guy.
• 6:51
  So I don't separate my story with your story.
• 6:54
  If I, if I tell you, I've been to jail a 100 times and you, you just pissed off your wife, right?
• 7:01
  You're not gonna think you're anywhere near me.
• 7:04
  So I just try to stick to fine common ground, common problem and common solution.
• 7:10
  simple.
• 7:10
  It says in a general way, what we used to be like what happened and what we are like now.
• 7:15
  If you have decided you want what we have or been willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to take certain steps.
• 7:23
  And I just think for the purposes of everything.
• 7:27
  I mean, I would highlight that mill paragraph right there and maybe write. I would probably put page 76 on there because on 76.
• 7:40
  It says it says, remember, it was agreed at the beginning that we would go to any length for victory over alcohol.
• 7:49
  And this is where we made that decision.
• 7:52
  And if you flip over from there to 79s.
• 7:56
  It says reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any length to find a spiritual experience.
• 8:03
  So, right here, back to the tax on page 58.
• 8:08
  It says if you decided you want what we have or willing to go to any late to get it, then you're ready to take certain steps.
• 8:14
  And I come into this position with other men and I say, are you willing to get any links?
• 8:18
  And usually they say yes.
• 8:21
  And I find out usually they're not ready to go to any lengths.
• 8:25
  That sucks.
• 8:27
  Um, this says that some of these we bought.
• 8:30
  And be a lot of people, like, so, and this is cool, a lot of people in the rooms, like to hold on to these things.
• 8:35
  Like it says we balk, so we're going to balk.
• 8:37
  I don't think so.
• 8:38
  At some of these we balked.
• 8:40
  We thought we could find an easier, softer way, but we could not.
• 8:43
  With all the earnestness at our command.
• 8:45
  We beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start.
• 8:49
  Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was Neil.
• 8:54
  Neil is nothing until we let go, absolutely.
• 8:59
  Remember that we deal with alcohol, cunning, baffling, powerful.
• 9:04
  And you know, I don't if I don't know if anybody that's listens ever went back out and done that.
• 9:14
  and went through that, but you know what?
• 9:16
  In my experience, it is cutting baffling and powerful.
• 9:19
  It's cutting and it's, and it's patient.
• 9:24
  It's patient.
• 9:25
  It works over me for a long time, right?
• 9:28
  It's this thing.
• 9:30
  I quit doing this over here.
• 9:32
  Then I'll start doing this over here because whatever is going on and then I'll, you know, and I'll start changing my whole life up.
• 9:41
  The next thing you know, that delusion that I'm like other people is not a delusion anymore, and I feel like I'm like other people.
• 9:49
  And other people can have a couple drinks out at the bar with their friends.
• 9:54
  Other people can go to, you know, get togethers and, you know, have some drinks and play some games and do those fun things, right?
• 10:03
  But other people don't put their hands on people.
• 10:07
  Other people don't steal from people.
• 10:09
  Other people, when they get drunk, they don't act that way.
• 10:12
  none of that's a criteria to be an alcoholic, but other people aren't doing that.
• 10:16
  to go to any length to get to do what I want to do.
• 10:21
  And act like a crazy person, you know?
• 10:24
  And I, it's not, I, the real thing is, is when I take a drink, I want more.
• 10:29
  That's the thing that happens.
• 10:31
  And usually people go to bed.
• 10:33
  I stay up.
• 10:35
  I continue drinking.
• 10:37
  And I like that.
• 10:38
  Anyways.
• 10:40
  says without help, it is too much for us.
• 10:44
  But there's one who has all power and that one is God, may you find him now.
• 10:51
  Half measures availed us nothing, and my friend Mike, he's gonna like this, because, you know, he, I know, we talked about it.
• 10:59
  I think half measures availed us nothing.
• 11:02
  I think that means nothing, right?
• 11:04
  So, and we talk about that.
• 11:07
  You know, we have no middle of the road solution, right?
• 11:09
  So as we stood at a turning point.
• 11:12
  I mean, I've started at a lot of turning points in jails and treatment centers with girls, jobs.
• 11:18
  You know, I got this position.
• 11:20
  I got this.
• 11:21
  I was in a position.
• 11:22
  I've always been in a position where it's either go this way or go this way and I feel like I was making a choice, but I didn't go the way that I should have and because I'm powerless over alcohol.
• 11:36
  Yes, then it goes on to say, we ask this protection and care with complete abandon.
• 11:41
  Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as a program of recovery.
• 11:47
  One limited, we were powerless over alcohol.
• 11:51
  So that's the so that part of that step has 2 parts, right?
• 11:56
  Physical and mental.
• 11:59
  that are, and then our lives had become imageable.
• 12:02
  So that's a three-part step.
• 12:05
  It says, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore sanity.
• 12:10
  So, you know, I think in a simpler place,
• 12:13
  I can look at this and say, I came to believe that AA can restore me to sanity.
• 12:19
  Three made a decision to turn our will in our lives over the care gods, we understood him.
• 12:26
  So when I come into that, will is my thoughts and lives is my actions.
• 12:34
  So if I changed the wording up this way, made it a decision to turn my thoughts and my actions over the care of God as we understood him.
• 12:45
  And I don't know what this God, I understand, so maybe I could simplify that even and say, made it a decision to turn my thoughts in my, in my actions over this program as I understood it.
• 12:59
  For made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
• 13:04
  5 admitted to God, to ourselves, and another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. And so if you look at this and this is, you know, Bill's a good writer.
• 13:15
  He is.
• 13:16
  And so I like to point this out, exact nature of our wrongs.
• 13:23
  Defects of character and shortcomings are pretty much all the same thing.
• 13:27
  And you can go find that in the book to what we'll get to that, but, you know, they don't mean a little bit something different. You know, shortcomings didn't come after that. I did them and defects didn't happen before I did them.
• 13:39
  They're just what they are.
• 13:40
  Bill has a letter.
• 13:41
  that he wrote out and he said, you know, that it's all the same.
• 13:45
  And it shows that in the text a little bit further on.
• 13:48
  And seven, humbly asked him to remove our shortcoming, or I'm sorry, six, we were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character, seven, humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings.
• 13:58
  8.
• 14:00
  And this is a big, this is a big word right here.
• 14:03
  8 made a list of all.
• 14:06
  All persons we have harm.
• 14:09
  Not just some of them, not just the ones I want to, not just the ones that feel good, not the ones I just want to sleep with, all.
• 14:16
  persons we had harmed became willing to make amends to them all.
• 14:22
  No, I made direct amends, so direct, and that isn't say living, but made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others, and I am not others.
• 14:36
  tend continue to take personal inventory when we were wrong probably admitted it.
• 14:41
  11, salt through prayer, and meditation, and it's a big word right there, meditation.
• 14:47
  So both of those, to improve our conscious contact with God's.
• 14:51
  We understood him, praying only for knowledge of his wolf, crossing the power to carry that out.
• 14:57
  12 having had a spiritual waking.
• 15:00
  As the result of these steps.
• 15:03
  So a spiritual awakening is the result of these steps.
• 15:08
  It doesn't say having had a spiritual awakening in my defects of character removed as a result of these steps.
• 15:17
  It just says having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps.
• 15:20
  We tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
• 15:26
  Many of us exclaimed what in order I can't go through with it.
• 15:30
  Do not be discouraged, no one among us been able to maintain anything like perfect adherence to these principles.
• 15:37
  We are not saints.
• 15:39
  The point is that we are willing, willing is a big word right there, to grow along spiritual lines.
• 15:45
  The principles we have set down our guides to progress.
• 15:49
  We claim spiritual progress rather than the spiritual perfection.
• 15:52
  And I think the big word of the day right there is spiritual progress, not just progress over perfection.
• 15:58
  Because yeah, I'm not going to be perfect.
• 16:00
  But we're talking about the spiritual realm.
• 16:02
  Am I going to do the, the, and the, you know, I, I get calls and texts and people making excuses of why they can't do some, something here, do the work there, and they're, you know, they look at me, they tell me.
• 16:17
  They like, you know, progress over perfection, right?
• 16:20
  No.
• 16:20
  Yeah, for me, this is, you know, if I die or live, then, you know, I don't think I'm going to be running around balking on something that's life or death if it's a gun in my head.
• 16:29
  I think I'm just gonna do it.
• 16:33
  This is our description of the alcohol, the chapter to the agnostic, and the personal adventures before and after make clear 3 pertinent ideas.
• 16:41
  Hey, that I was alcohol, that we were alcoholic and cannot manage our own laws.
• 16:46
  B that probably no human power could have related our alcoholism and that, see, that God could and would if he were solid.
• 16:53
  And um, So when I when I read it from the uh, original manuscript, Oregon kind of go backwards.
• 17:02
  So the A, B, and C from the original was that you or alcohol can cannot manage your own life.
• 17:09
  And the B was that probably no human power can relieve your alcoholism and see that God can and will.
• 17:17
  And yeah, so I think that's important to the fact of like,
• 17:22
  It was more personal.
• 17:24
  When I'm reading with the dude.
• 17:27
  I try to make this more personal.
• 17:28
  I try to, you know, talk about them and read that way, but, you know, the way the book was, it was more personal.
• 17:34
  Now we put a bunch of weeds in there.
• 17:36
  Thats cool.
• 17:36
  Wei, wei.
• 17:37
  Um, but and right after they have the ABCs, it's cool.
• 17:42
  It says if you are not convinced on these vital issues, vital as life and death, you ought to reread the book to this point or else start away.
• 17:52
  I think, you know, be a little bit more used, you know, giving it to somebody rather than thrown away or keeping it for later.
• 17:58
  But, I know they were trying to sell copies at the time.
• 18:04
  Um... But it said, and then what else did they change?
• 18:11
  So if you go.
• 18:12
  Uh, it says, oh, well, 12, the step 12 was changed, and it, step 12 was having had a spiritual experience as a result of this course of action.
• 18:26
  Because this is a course of action, right?
• 18:28
  It says we try to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics.
• 18:34
  And to practice these principles and all our affairs.
• 18:37
  So that was one of the, that set 12 was the change.
• 18:41
  And yet, step 7 was too, because, and I like the 7th step, because when I'm going through the book with another guy, we go through the work, we do do a 7th step prayer, and we get on our knees.
• 18:54
  But step 7 says humbly on our knees.
• 18:56
  Ask them to remove our shortcomings.
• 18:59
  Holding nothing back.
• 19:03
  And step 3 was changed, and step 3 was made a decision to turn our will in our lives over the care and direction of God as we understood him.
• 19:13
  So even the steps were a little bit different, right?
• 19:16
  And that's pretty cool.
• 19:17
  Like, I, well,
• 19:20
  So if you go back up to the word, the half measures is, and half measures in your book would be right at the very top of the steps on page 59.
• 19:31
  So in the original version that says half measures avail you nothing, you stand at the turning point, throwing your, throw yourself under his protection and care with complete abandon.
• 19:44
  It says, now we think you can take it.
• 19:47
  Here are the steps we took, which are suggested as your program of recovery.
• 19:53
  You know, and then other, well, only the only couple do 2 different things was then how, in the very top where it says, really, have we seen a person fail, who has thoroughly followed our directions?
• 20:07
  I don't know what's the big fuss about these words.
• 20:10
  I think they're more important.
• 20:11
  I think they're more direct.
• 20:12
  And I find today that we're not.
• 20:15
  I don't feel like we're direct enough.
• 20:16
  This is a bunch of opinion now.
• 20:19
  Anyways, but, you know, in the next paragraph, it says our store is disclosed in a general way, what we used to be like.
• 20:25
  what happened and what we were like now.
• 20:28
  If you have decided you want what we have are willing to go to any length to get it, then you are ready to follow directions.
• 20:37
  But, and then, so, like, you know, what's really cool, and, you know, those are kind of a short deal, but, you know, it's cool too, to kind of get a better understanding, but, you know, the way I view these steps, and, you know, if you're listening to this, you might go to meetings, you might not, but, um, Usually when I go to an Alcox Anonymous meeting, there are the steps and the traditions up there.
• 21:00
  And the way I view these steps in the book and on the wall are, if you think about it like you have a vocabulary word.
• 21:09
  And then I kind of view the way that these steps on the wall and in this book right here, that's the vocabulary word.
• 21:18
  And when you read in the book, that's the definition of the actual step, because it's like the fine print, right?
• 21:25
  Because it's such a basic view, but there's so much more to this stuff than what meets the eye.
• 21:33
  And I can only hope that you go to the book rather than on the wall, because I don't know what a wall spiritual experience is, but I know what the book is, and it's indescribably wonderful.
• 21:45
  I love my life today.
• 21:46
  It's not always perfect.
• 21:48
  It's not always bad.
• 21:49
  It's not always good.
• 21:50
  But man, like, you know, if utopia is not here and now, what is?
• 21:55
  Um, I'm really grateful for this stuff and, you know, it's really cool to be able to read with through this and.
• 22:03
  Thank you and thank you, uh, thank you for my buddy, Mike, for always editing, editing them, and, um, yeah, taking the time to listen to me too, and, you know, doing all this.
• 22:14
  So, hey man, y'all have a good week and we'll see you next week.
• 22:18
  Goodbye.