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Rick Burnett: In Chapter 11 of the Possibility Living book, you share a process of detoxifying your habits through the "12 Steps."  I know you both believe that the 12-step program approach is one of the best ways to deal with our negative self-destructive behaviors. You've slightly changed the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-steps to a broader scope.  Let's review each of these steps and have you comment on them.  Let's start with Step 1: Recognize that you are powerless - "I will admit that I am powerless over my habit or hang-up and that my life is unmanageable."

Dr. Robert A. Schuller:  The 12 Steps have been used very successfully for numerous years to be able to help people address alcoholism.  What we've done is taken those same steps - many Christian organizations have done this as well - and broaden the steps to help us deal with all of our bad habits.  Basically, alcoholism is a disease for some people and for others it is a bad habit.  For those for whom it is a bad habit, they can usually address it without the 12 steps.  There have been lots of people who just stop drinking "cold turkey" and they never drink again.  For them it's not a disease, it's a bad habit.  However, for those who have the disease of alcoholism, they need the 12 steps.  I think that most of our bad habits are a disease.  Usually, those individuals who stop drinking "cold turkey" will trade that alcoholism addiction for another "ism"; i.e., another addiction, another bad habit.  I wrote an entire book on this topic: "Dump Your Hang-ups Without Dumping Them On Others."  In other words what people do is they trade one hang-up for another and they just keep dumping their hang-ups on others.  If it's alcoholism, we know the negative effects - it' very negative on the family, on relationships, on businesses, etc.  What needs to be done is to dump the habit and get to the root cause of the habit.  In order to do that we need the 12 steps.  Even if you feel you don't have any bad habits, the 12 steps are a very emotional and healthy movement to implement and integrate into your life.  They will make you a better person.  I would highly recommend people picking up my "Dump Your Hang-ups" book.  What we did in the "Possibility Living" book is to condense the "Dump Your Hang-ups" book into one chapter of "Possibility Living." 

Dr. Douglas DiSiena: What is wonderful about our Possibility Living book is that whatever the "hang-up" is, we've outlined a terrific way to get to the cause of the "hang-up."  We are always looking to the cause - if you can't get to the cause, then you're just treating the symptom.  We want to forget the symptom, get to the cause and get to the basic part of the problem.  I know when I talk to some people in my practice, many people who are able to stop drinking have done the 12 steps on their own  and they don't even realize it.  At first they recognize they can't do it on their own, then they seek help and guidance, and before they know it they're pretty much working through the 12 steps.  I think that for most people the 12 steps work best because they are done in a very logical and systematic way.

Rick Burnett:  Step 2 says: Recognize God's Power - "I will acknowledge that God is greater than I am and that He can bring restoration to my life."

Dr. Douglas DiSiena:   As we've mentioned before, God can empower us, and we have to reach out to God.  We are powerless in and of ourselves; we need to have the Lord work in our hearts.  When He is involved it's a winner!  This second step is critically important - the first step says, "I can't" - this second step says, "He can."  It's critical to realize that you can't do it yourself, but having Him work in your life, He can.

Dr. Robert A. Schuller:  If we're going to talk about the 12 steps I think it's important to realize there are 3 sections to the 12 steps.  The first three steps are a paradigm section where you change the way you view life.  You put on a different set of glasses.  For some people it will be easier than others.  So, the first three steps are what I call a paradigm step where you recognize you're powerless, you recognize God's power and you let go and let God.  Or, as I've summarized previously, I Can't, He Can, Let Him.  Then, from there, you go into action steps where you become empowered to take certain action in your life, where usually you would not have the ability to take action.  So, steps four through nine are the action steps - where you do things: you make a fearless inventory of yourself, you share that inventory with another person, you grow spiritually, you ask God to remove your shortcomings, you list all individuals you've harmed and you make amends with those individuals.  Those are the action steps - the part 2 of the 12 steps.  Part 3 would be considered the maintenance steps.  A lot of people when they get that far think they've "arrived" and they've succeeded and then they don't maintain it.  So, the last three steps are maintenance where we continue to take personal inventory, we continue to pray for God to help us, and lastly, we share the message with others.  Those are all maintenance steps and as a result we can stay on the road to success.

Dr. Douglas DiSiena:  Notice, that those steps illustrate the Above, Down, Inside, Out message!  We get God's help, we take are of ourselves, and then we go out and serve and help others.

Rick Burnett:   Also, in the second step it says to recognize God's power.  We know that this book is being sold not in just Christian bookstores, but in secular bookstores as well.  There are a lot of people who don't have a spiritual base.

Dr. Robert A. Schuller:  I would like to comment on the bookstore situation.  There are not a lot of Christian bookstores that carry the book, even though it is very much a Christian book.  The reason a lot of Christian bookstores don't carry it is that it was not sold in the Christian section, it was sold in the Health section.  As a result, a lot of Christian bookstores chose not to carry it.  However, Barnes & Noble has been carrying it and most of their stores have it readily available. 

Rick Burnett:  As I was saying, for those people who don't have a spiritual base, it would be beneficial for them to have a sponsor.  It's easy to recognize you're powerless when you've hit bottom, but a lot of people have a difficult time recognizing God's power and I would think being connected to someone who has already worked through the 12 steps would be helpful.

Step 3 is Let go and let God - "I will turn my life over to God." That is difficult for a lot of people, some people have difficulty believing there is a power greater than them.  Let's talk about that for a bit.

Dr. Douglas DiSiena:   That's the faith step.  It's about forgetting the anxiety that is within you and trusting Him.  You have to step out in faith.  Once you do, you realize that He is a much better pilot than you could ever be.  For example, I just flew back from Atlanta.  There is no way that I would get into the pilot's seat and try to fly the plane.  I know the pilot is much more qualified to fly that plane than I could ever be.  I would never try to fly that plane home with my family in it.  So, I obviously had enough faith in the pilot to get us home.  Well, how much greater is my faith in the Lord that He will control my life.

Dr. Robert A. Schuller:  You talk about it being a faith step.  But, in many ways I think it goes beyond faith and it's actually logical.  Recently, I listened to Lee Strobel talk.  He is a pastor now here in California, who came here from Willow Creek Community Church.  At one time, he was an atheist and a lawyer.  He took a look at Christianity and Jesus Christ from a pure logical standpoint.  One of the points he looked at was the possibility of Jesus being able to fulfill the prophecies.  What were the odds of that?  He started running the odds of Jesus being able to fulfill eight prophetic occurrences.  He did the mathematics and he said the odds of Jesus being able to fulfill all eight of these prophetic occurrences was one in so many trillion.  The illustration he used to explain that was he took out a one-inch tile and on the back of the tile he wrote an "X".  Then he said, he'd tile all of North America, all of South America, all of Europe and all of Africa.  You can go anywhere in the world and choose a tile.  If you choose the tile that has the "X" on it, those are the odds of Jesus fulfilling those prophecies.  The fact is that Jesus did fulfill those prophecies, actually he fulfilled either 42 or 43 prophecies - I can't remember the exact number he said.  What were the odds that Jesus would fulfill all those prophecies of the Old Testament?  The only way to figure that was to get down to atoms; he said he'd have to have one atom out of trillions and trillions and trillions of atoms that would fill the entire universe - you'd have to find that one atom!  If you found that atom, that would be the odds of Jesus fulfilling all those prophecies.  If his mathematics are correct, then you have to realize you'd have to go against absolutely unbelievable odds to say that Jesus Christ was not who He said He was.  If Jesus is who He says He is, then we have to trust that the words He gave us are true.  Therefore, our relationship with God and His ability to care for us and to love us becomes extremely positive and real.  Jesus told us that "God cares for the lilies of the field, how much more does He care for you?"  So, I think that if you don't have enough research to believe, then you just haven't done enough research!