Position of Neutrality

What are the conditions of body and mind? Having a mental obsession that’s beyond my control—I just can’t get out of the loop. And then, when I finally do ingest it, I have a physical craving. So what should sedate me energizes me, and I need more. How many of you are opiate addicts? Had some clean time and then just went off the rails, OD’d first right out the rip because the craving doesn’t know I ain’t tuned up. They used to try and give me drugs, saying you won’t experience craving. I sai...

Search out another alcoholic and try again if you’re sure to find someone desperate enough to accept with eagerness what you offer. It’s a waste of time to keep chasing a man who cannot or will not work with you. If you leave such a person alone, he may soon become convinced that he cannot recover by himself. Spending too much time on any one situation denies another alcoholic the opportunity to live and be happy. We don’t have the right, because of our own pursuits, to deny somebody else the chance for recovery. Join us as we...

“It’s above your pay grade. Notice how these authors talk about going from Step 3 to Step 4, and they say, ‘next we launched.’ Everyone here will have to admit when they went down to write their inventory for the first time, they did not launch. What happened is they accessed power that enabled them to launch. It wasn’t because I made them do it or took them through it—they desperately wanted freedom from what they were going through and launched into a course of vigorous action. Join us as we explore the transformative power of Step 12 from the Big Book...

You’re going to feel this way and worse. You may not be drug sick, but you’ll be life sick. And that’s when you’re going to know that you need to claim the promises of this power you’ve gained access to. Because the trick isn’t getting sober, it’s staying sober and living spiritually awakened. If he’s not interested in your solution, if he expects you to act only as a banker for his financial difficulties or a nurse for his sprees, you may have to drop him until he changes his mind. Join us as we ex...

f I’m worried about how you’re thinking about me, I’m worried about the wrong thing because I cannot control how you think about me. I can’t even control how I think about me. But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse, or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. If I drift into worry, remorse, or morbid reflection, I’m less likely to reach out to you and humble myself by asking for help. Then I’m pretending I’m somehow superior to this manner of living, which makes me ineffective...

How many of you have had the experience of your thoughts actually working for you and things sort of went all right? How many of you have had the experience of you working for your thoughts and things didn’t go as well? ‘You’re not good enough. I bet he doesn’t like you. I bet they’re going to fire you anyway. Why go to work? You should stay home. You should just go get another bag. You’re ten dollars short on the rent—go get another hit. You’re going to need it when you’re homeless.’ You...

We discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we’ve harmed anyone. If you are suffering from an outburst, making it right sooner is better. Challenge yourself—not as a condemnation, but because you want to be free. How free do you want to be? Instant freedom is possible. When I take captive that thought, I am not that thought. I am the experiencer of that thought, and I’m going to submit it to the creator and move on into whatever He would have me be. Make sense? In this session, we explore the transformative power...

We’re all children of the living God. We have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. So, go to any meeting and when someone tells you how they’re just struggling and struggling, there’s the one you need to help. Because if you’re struggling, you’re doing it wrong. We’ve ceased fighting anything or anyone—even alcohol, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, fentanyl. I will lose that fight. It’s got to be removed from me, and it will be removed from me if I humbly ask and then go out and serve. Why do I know that? Because it...

So have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? Sean talks about it. He’s been doing this a long time. He’s heard a lot of phone calls. And many of you, if you’re working with people, you’ve heard them too. We’ve got to find somebody that we can tell them about our frailties because you’re going to need to at times overcome those frailties. And the only way that’s going to happen is to own them. And so if I can’t sleep because I’m afraid you’re go...

After making our review, we ask God’s forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken. I hear a lot of people saying, ‘Why would I ask for forgiveness from this power I don’t believe in?’ Well, first of all, you’re coming to believe. And second, you’re going to learn that forgiveness is a divine act, so it’s going to have to come from the divinity within me. Because the flesh says, ‘I forgive, but I don’t forget,’ which means I didn’t forgive anything—I’m just waiting for timing. But forgiveness from the divine means it’s...