Latest / Sober Readings / Came To Believe - Chapter 2 Stories of Hope and Faith
Transcript
- Scott Hayes: Welcome to a Sunday Came to Believe edition of Sober Readings. Today is the 5th of July. So this week we're gonna finish up chapter two. Chapter 2 was titled Spiritual Experiences, and I'll read the intro. 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 that was Bill W. giving a speech in nineteen sixty. So we've got four stories remaining in chapter four, so we'll start with this first one and it's titled I Wasn't Alone Anymore. I was in and around the fellowship for three years, sometimes staying sober, sometimes cheating, myself, of course, a little or a lot. I loved AA, shook hands with everyone at every door at all meetings I attended, and there were many. I was a sort of AA hostess. Unfortunately, I still had a lot of trouble with me. One member of my group used to say, If you would just take the third step, he might as well have been talking Dutch. I couldn't understand. Although I had been an honor student at Sunday school, I had gotten far away from anything spiritual. At one point I did manage to say stay physically sober for six months. Then I lost my job and at forty four was sure I would never get another. Very frightened and depressed, I just couldn't face the future, and my stupid pride wouldn't allow me to ask anyone for help. So I went to the liquor store for my crutch. In the next three and a half months I died a hundred times. I still attended a lot of meetings when I could, but didn't tell anyone of my troubles. The other members had learned to leave me alone because they felt helpless, and I understand now how they felt. One morning I awoke with a decision to stay in bed all day. That way I couldn't get a drink. I kept that decision, and when I got up at six I felt secure, as the liquor stores closed at that hour. That night I was desperately ill. I should have been in the hospital. At seven o'clock I started to phone everyone I could think of, in and out of AA. But no one could or would come to my aid. As a last effort, I phoned a blind man. I had worked and cooked for him for several years, and I asked him whether I could take a taxi and come to his apartment. I knew I was going to die, I told him, and I was afraid. He said die and be damned. I don't want you here. He told me later he could have cut his tongue out and thought of calling me back. Thank God he didn't. I went to bed sure I would never get up again. My thinking had never been clearer. I couldn't really see any way out. By three o'clock in the morning I still hadn't slept. I was propped up with my pillows, and my heart was pounding almost out of my chest. My limbs started turning numb, first my legs above my knees, then my arms above my elbows. I thought this is it. I turned to the one source I had been too smart, as I saw it, or too stupid to appeal to earlier. I cried out, please God, don't let me die like this. My tormented heart and soul were in those few words. Almost instantly the numbness started going away. I felt the presence in the room. I wasn't alone anymore. God be praised, I have never felt alone since. I had never had another drink and still better, have never needed one. It was a long way back to health and it was quite a while before people had confidence in me. But that didn't really matter. I knew I was sober, and somehow I knew that as long as I lived the way I believed God wanted me to live, I never need feel fear again. Recently I was told that I had a malignant tumor. Instead of being afraid or depressed, I thanked God for the past sixteen years of borrowed time he had given me. The tumor was removed, I feel fine, and I'm enjoying every minute of every day. There will be many more days, I believe, as long as God has work for me to do, I will remain here. And that was written by someone in Quebec. So the next story is titled A New Man. I tried to help this man. It was a humiliating experience. No one enjoys being a complete failure, it plays havoc with the ego. Nothing seemed to work. I brought him to meetings and he sat there in a fog, and I knew that only the body was present. I went to his home and he either he was out drinking or he sailed out the back door as I entered the front one. His family was beginning to enter a period of real hardship. I could feel their hopelessness. Then came the hospital episode, the last in his extraordinary record of hospitalizations. He went into DTs and convulsions so violent that he had to be shackled to the bed. He was in a coma and being fed intravenously. Each day that I visited him he looked worse, impossible as that seemed. For six days he lay unconscious, unmoving except for the periodic shakes. On the seventh day I again visited him. Passing by his room, I noticed that the restraints had been removed and the intravenous feeding tubes had been taken away. I felt elated. He was going to make it. The doctor and the floor nurse dashed my hopes. He was slipping fast. After I had arranged to have his wife brought there, it occurred to me that he was a Catholic and certain rites should be observed. It was a Catholic hospital, so I wandered down the hall and located a nun, the mother superior, it turned out later. She notified a priest and with another nun accompanied me back to the room. While the priest entered the room alone, the three of us decided to sit on the bench in the corridor. Without any prearrangement, all three of us bowed our heads and began to pray. The mother superior, the nun, and I, a Presbyterian ordained deacon. I have no way of telling how much time we spent there. I know the priest had left and gone about his other duties. What brought us back to the immediate present was a movement we heard from the room. When we looked in, the patient was sitting on the side of the bed. All right, God, he said, I don't want to be the quarterback anymore. Tell me what you want me to do and I will do it. The doctors later said that they had considered it physically impossible for him to move, much less sit up. And before this, he had not uttered a word since entering the hospital. The next statement he made was I'm hungry. But the real miracle was what happened to him in the next ten years. He began helping people. I mean helping. No call has been too hard, too inconvenient, too hopeless. He founded the AA group in his town, and he is embarrassed if you mention this to others, or comment on the amount of AA work he's doing. He is not the same man I was trying to twelfth step. I failed in all my efforts to help the man I knew. And then someone else provided a new man. That's from Barnardsville, New Jersey. The second to last story in chapter two is titled Figure of Evil. It happened about three in the morning. I had been in our fellowship slightly less than a year. I was alone in the house, my third wife having divorced me prior to my entry into AA. I awoke with a frightening sense of approaching death. I was trembling and almost paralyzed with fear. Although it was in the month of August in Southern California, I was so cold that I found a heavy blanket and draped it around my shoulders. Then I turned on the floor heater in the living room and stood directly over it, trying to get warm. Instead of getting warm, I began to feel numb all over and again felt death approaching. I had not been a very religious person, nor had I become affiliated with any church after coming into AA. But suddenly I said to myself, if ever I needed to pray, now is the time. I returned to the bedroom and fell to my knees at the side of the bed. I closed my eyes, buried my face in my palm the palms of my hands, and rested my hands on the bed. I have forgotten all the words I said out loud, but I do recall saying, Please God, teach me to pray. Then, without raising my head or opening my eyes, I was able to see the entire floor plan of the house, and I could see a giant of a man standing on the other side of the bed, arms folded across his chest. He was glaring at me with a look of intense hatred and malevolence. He was the epitome of everything evil. After about ten seconds I saw him slowly turn around, walk to the bathroom and look inside, turn to the second bedroom and look into it, walk to the living room and gaze around, then leave the house by way of the kitchen door. I remained in my original position of prayer. Simultaneously with his departure there seemed to be coming toward me from all directions, from the infinite reaches of space and A vibrating, pulsating, magnetic current. In probably fifteen seconds this tremendous power reached me, stayed for some five seconds, and then slowly withdrew to its origin. But the sense of release given me by its presence beggars description. In my clumsy way I thanked God, got into bed, and slept like a baby. I have not had the desire for a drink or anything intoxicating since that memorable morning twenty three years ago. In my years in our fellowship I have had the privilege of hearing one other member describe an experience almost exactly like mine. Did a departure from my house of the personification of evil symbolize the departure from my life of the evils embraced by alcoholism, as some think? Be that as it may, the other part of my experience symbolizes to me the all powerful and cleansing love of a higher power, whom I have since become happy to call God. San Diego, California. And last but not least, the last story in chapter two is titled Drowning. Before my commitment to a state alcoholic center, I had had a dry stint in Alcoholics Anonymous. I know now that I had gone to AA to save my marriage, job, and liver, though no one could have convinced me at the time that I hadn't sought AA with all the proper motives. In seven months my liver got well and I got drunk for six weeks, winding up at the center. On my eighth night there, I knew that I was dying. I was so weak that I could hardly breathe. My breath came in little gasps, quite far apart. If a drink had been put within an inch of my hand, I wouldn't have had the strength to take it. For the first time in my life, I was backed into a corner that I could not fight, cheat, lie, steal, or buy my way out of. I was trapped. For the first time in my life, I uttered a sincere prayer. God please help me. I didn't bargain with him, nor did I suggest how or when he should help. Immediately I became calm and relaxed. There was no flash of lightning or clap of thunder, not even a still small voice. I was scared. I didn't know what had happened, but I went to sleep and slept all night. When I awakened the next morning I was refreshed, strong, and hungry. But the most wonderful thing was that for the first time in my life, I was That dark, mysterious cloud of fear was gone. My first thought was to write to my wife about this experience, and I did. Imagine being able to write a letter after the condition I had been in the night before. I am sure that some would classify this experience as an example of letting go and letting God. Not this self willed character. I had held on to the thin strand of my will until it just snapped. And then I was caught up by the everlasting arms. I had to be rendered helpless, just like a drowning man who fights his rescuer. I returned to AA, but I was reluctant for a long time to tell of my experience. I was afraid that no one would believe me and that they would laugh. Later I learned that others had had similar experiences. A spiritual experience, I think, is what God does for a man when the man is completely helpless to do it for himself. A spiritual awakening is what a man does through his willingness to have his life transformed by following a proven program of spiritual growth, and this is a never ending venture. Raleigh, North Carolina. And that does it for chapter two, so I hope you'll join me next Sunday for chapter three, which is titled Prayer. And here's the intro to chapter three. In AA we have found that the actual good results of prayer are beyond question. They are matters of knowledge and experience. All those who have persisted have found strength not ordinarily their own. They have found wisdom beyond their usual capability. And they have increasingly found a peace of mind which can stand firm in the face of difficult circumstances. And that was written by Bill W and it's on page 104 of Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions. So that's chapter three. We will begin that next Sunday. So thank you so much for listening to Chapter Two. And thank you so much for listening to Sober Readings. If you'd like to drop a dollar in the virtual donation basket for this reading. Just go to my website, soberreadings.com and click the donate button. Hey, and if you're interested in helping me read chapter three next week, I would love to have you. Just send me an email at sober readings with Scott at gmail.com. And we can certainly make that happen. So again, thank you so much for listening. Stay sober, keep reading, and I'll see you in the next episode. Until then, take care of yourselves and each other. And remember, just for today, don't drink, go to a meeting, keep coming back. Have a great day. And as my friend Larry says, best day ever.