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Came To Believe - Ch 2 · Sober Readings

• Scott Hayes: Came to Believe the spiritual adventure of AA as experienced by individual members. Hey everyone, my name is Scott and I'll be your host today for Spiritual Sunday on Sober Readings. Today we're gonna read chapter two from Came to Believe. Chapter two is titled Spiritual Experiences, and I'll read the intro now. It is certain that all recipients of spiritual experiences declare for their reality. The best evidence of that reality is in the subsequent fruits. Those who receive these gifts of grace are very much changed people, almost invariably for the better. And those are the words of Bill W. from a talk in nineteen sixty. All right, so let's get into the stories today. I'm gonna read the first three stories in chapter two. He had been listening. In my early youth I was confronted with a choice, what seemed to be a dull moral life or what appeared to be an exciting, adventurous life, after a few drinks of alcohol. I had been brought up in the tradition of a stern and vengeful god who was watching every move I made. I could not work up too much love for that type of deity, and I felt guilty about it. But after a drink or two I would forget my guilt. This, I decided, was the life for me. It started off pleasantly enough, promoting dreams of glittering fame and fortune, but this life gradually regressed to a constant nightmare of fear and remorse over my condition and resentment and anger at a normal way of life which went on all around me, but which apparently I could not enter. The truth was that I drank myself out of society and Coming by degrees to live in a mental state that sealed off any social or moral contact with anybody. But at that time I could not see my excessive drinking as the cause. I had become convinced that God and society had frozen me out, denying me the breaks in life. I could see no sense in living. I lacked the courage to kill myself, but I believed that desperation would have broken this barrier of cowardice. had it not been for an experience that changed my mental outlook entirely. This experience came about through the death of my father in Scotland. He had lived a good life in his community and was honored in his passing by all who had known him. I had received newspapers giving accounts of his funeral. That evening I was seated at a small table in a crowded tavern, drunk and brooding over what I had read. I felt no sorrow at my father's passing. Hate and envy saturated my mind, and I was muttering to myself, Why should he and other people get all the breaks in life while good men like me don't get a chance? What a rotten deal I'm getting. People would love and honor me too if I had the chances in life he had. In the tavern, the noise of conversation was deafening, but suddenly I heard a voice in my mind ring out loud and clear. What accounting are you going to give to God of your life? I looked around, astounded, for it was my grandmother's voice. She had passed from this life and out of my thoughts over twenty years earlier. This was her favorite quotation. I had heard her say it often in my youth, and now I heard it again in the tavern. As soon as I heard this voice, my mind cleared up, and I knew beyond all doubt that no other person nor any situation was responsible for my state. I alone was responsible. The effect was shattering. First I had heard that voice, and then my whole excuse for my failure in life, that I had never got any breaks, was wiped out of my mind forever. The thought hit me that if I killed myself, as I wanted to, there was a chance that I might meet up with God and have to give him an account of the life I lived, with no one else to blame for it. I wanted no part of that, and the idea of killing myself was dropped then and there. But the thought that I might die at any time remained to haunt me. All this was crazy, I thought, but no matter how much I argued with myself that I was having a hallucination, I could not dismiss the implication of the experience. I could visualize myself being brought before a stern looking deity who would coldly look down his nose at me with utter contempt and say grimly, speak up. That was as far as my imagination would carry me, and from then on, I I would get blind drunk, trying to blot out the whole experience. But when I came to in the morning, the experience would still be with me, strong as ever. I thought I had better quit drinking for a while and start to reshape my life. This resolution led to a terrible shock. Up to this time I had never tied in my troubles with alcohol. I knew that I drank too much, but I had always felt that I had good reason to drink. Now I found to my amazement and horror that I could not quit. Drinking had become such a part of my life that I could not function without it. I did not know where to turn for help. Believing that people thought about me the way I thought about them, I was sure I could not turn to them. This left only God, and if he felt about me as I felt about him, this was a slim hope indeed. In this matter, I was I passed through the three blackest months of my life. During that time, it seemed, I drank more than I ever had before, and I prayed to nothing for help to get me away from alcohol. One morning, I came to on the floor in my room, horribly sick, convinced that God was not going to listen to me. More on reflex than anything else, I got to work that morning and attempted to make up a payroll. Though it was hard to hold my shaking hands still enough to put the figures in the right place. After a great deal of trouble, I finally completed the job. With a sigh of relief I looked out the window and noticed a man approaching the hut I was working in. As I recognized him, hate surged into my mind. Seven months before, he had had the temerity to ask me in front of other men if I was having trouble with my drinking, and I had been deeply insulted by his question. I had not seen him for months, but my hatred of him was alive and vital as he passed by the hut. Then something happened that has never ceased to amaze me. As he moved out of sight, everything went blank. The next thing I knew I was standing before him outside the hut, hearing myself ask him whether he would help me to stop drinking. If I had consciously decided to ask any individual for help, he would have been the last man I would have approached. He smiled and said that he would try to help me, and he brought me to the AA recovery program. And thinking all this over, it finally became obvious to me that the god I thought had judged and damned me had done nothing of the sort. He had been listening, and in his own good time his answer came. His answer was threefold. The opportunity for a life of sobriety was twelve steps to practice in order to attain and maintain that life of sobriety, fellowship within the program, ever ready to sustain and help me each twenty four hour day. I hold no illusion that I brought the AA program of recovery into my life. I must always consider it as a gift of opportunity. In the use of this opportunity, the onus is on me. That was written in Saint John's Newfoundland. So the next story is titled A Presence. I am a radio officer on a tanker, and the final revelation of my condition and its cure came while I was sitting alone in my state room with my favorite bottle. I asked for God's help out loud, although only my own ears could hear. Suddenly there was a presence in the room, bringing a peculiar warmth, a changed, softer shade of light, and an immense feeling of relief. Though I was sober enough, I said to myself it. You're drunk again, and I went to bed. In the morning, however, in broad daylight, the presence was still there. I was not hung over either. I realized that I had asked and I had received. From that time on I have had no alcohol. Whenever I get the urge, I think of that which happened to me, and it keeps me straight. That is from AA Internationalists. And so the last story that I'll read today is titled Fresh Snow. Exposed to the fellowship of AA for over six years, I had known in that time three relapses, brutal and dismal episodes. Each increased my self abasement and hopelessness. Sober once again, settled into a minor job, I learned that there was satisfaction in the accomplishment of even menial tasks, and that humility, applied as teachability and the search for truth, could be a higher power in disguise. Then, unexpectedly, I was offered an executive job involving many responsibilities. I could answer only I'll have to think about it. Was I capable of staying sober? Was I really sober or only dry? Could I handle the responsibilities entailed and cope with renewed success? Or would God permit me to punish myself again? I called a woman friend whom I was sponsoring. We talked it over and she believed I could and should take the offer. Her faith reassured me. I knew the stimulation of being able to feel dignity again and gratification just to be alive. This newfound sense remained with me throughout the AA meeting we attended that evening. The subject under discussion was Step eleven, sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him. Praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out. Home in the privacy of my room, I had another shock, a letter from my sister. I had seen her last in a sheriff's office, where she had regretfully ended the family's long effort to help me. Even our prayers seem hopeless, she said, so I'll leave you to fend for yourself. Now came her letter, pleading to know where and how I was. Looking out the window at the soot and dirt of the rooftops and then inside at the meanness of my room, I thought with bitterness yes indeed, if only they could see me now. The saving grace was that I had nothing more to lose and naught to ask from anyone. Or had I. All my youthful ideals had been washed away by alcohol. Now all the dreams and aspirations, family, position, everything I had once known, came back to jeer at me. I remembered hiding behind the trees in front of my former home to see my children go by the window, phoning my family just to hear familiar voices say Hello, hello, who's there? Before I hung up. Sitting down on the bed, I picked up the letter and read it again and again. In my anguish I could stand no more. Desperately I cried, ⁓ God, did you desert me or did I desert you? How much time went by, I don't know. Rising, I seemed to be drawn to the window. I beheld a transformation. The smut of that industrial city had disappeared under a covering of fresh snow. Everything was new and white and clean. Falling to my knees, I renewed that conscious contact with my god I had known as a boy. I didn't pray, I talked. I didn't think I didn't I just unburdened a heavy heart and a lost soul. I didn't thank, I only begged for help. That night, finally at peace with myself for the first time in years, I slept the whole night through and awakened without fear and dread of another day. Continuing my prayer of the night before I said, I'll take the job, but dear God, let's you and I play it together from now on. While some days may offer only a modicum of frantic serenity, twenty six years later I still know the same inner tranquility that comes with forgiveness of self and the acceptance of God's will. Each new morning there is faith in sobriety. Sobriety not as mere abstinence from alcohol, but as progressive recovery in every facet of my life. With my AA friend, my wife for twenty five years now. I have joined my family for a joyous reunion. We know a contented and happy life, in which my sister and all the family share renewed and stronger bonds of affection. Since that day, I trust and am trusted. Edmonton, Alberta. And I'll stop right there until next week, next Sunday, when I read the final four stories out of chapter two. And so that's it for today's episode of Sober Readings. I hope you enjoyed that. Those first stories out of chapter two from Came to Believe. If you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket for today's readings, just go to my website, soberreadings.com and click the donate button. So thank you so much for listening. Stay sober, keep reading, and I hope to see you next Sunday for the rest of chapter two. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other, and remember, just for today, don't drink, go to a meeting, and keep coming back. Have a great day. And as my friend Larry says, best day ever.