The Steps as a Method of Living – Church Book Study – Part 5 of 5 – Bob A.

cover enough to see if we can do something here. Step six is where I'm entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character and the thing that I think is needed, at least was needed for me most all the time, regardless of where I was at, is that I'm in step six as far as learning a method of living now that means that it's not step six by itself because I looked at this year program recovery and I'll call it synonymous as each step individually and as I learned and as i went along each day when regardless of where i was at in the program recovery i always took it that i do one step then i do another step Then I do another step. Now, what I mean by that, I had the impression that as soon as I got through whatever step I was on, then that was over with. Now I'm going to have this step here and when I get past that, that one's over with And so I looked at the whole program like that as numbered steps Never looking at it as a method to live by daily Starting from the moment that I got here in Alcoholics Anonymous and was introduced to the steps and so then as I went along myself personally now I thought that what I was doing was right I thought this is what it meant this is the way you do it and so forth because I took it exactly the way that it was laid out and I never once thought or even referred to the other five steps when I was in step six as something that is there for my life as a method of living a method of living not my method not the thing I brought here but this here program recovery this was this was a concept that I couldn't get I just couldn't I couldn' I just didn't hear it and also what it meant is that I kept referring to me being here in Alcoholics Anonymous coming from the drunken world or coming from being drunk coming from alcohol and so on now I had to be shown by other alcoholics a great deal what I needed to know to be able to have something other than what I had and then when I was doing the steps in step three in page 37 12 by 12 and this is burnt into my brain see but it says in there that I'm willing to depend upon God I'm willing to do that for my alcohol which I came here because of that and I know that dependency because I was taught when I first came here even in step one what was wrong with me and then also about the unmanageable life and then two and so on but it was all connected to this here drinking alcohol life stage of life of drinking and so on so I was willing to let God or have God in my life or try to put a power in my life greater than me to take care of this here alcohol but then I left it there see and I wasn't willing to think in terms of maybe I need God in all of my affairs because I don't know what all of my affairs are as far as God is concerned or the power greater than meat and so on page 37 year 12 by 12 it says in there that the moment my emotional or my mental independence is in question how differently I behave how I decide all by myself exactly how I'm going to think and act for my life you see and so this didn't have no meaning behind it in fact I don't even remember reading or even anybody talking about it truthfully and then so when I get up into step six there's a process or a method that's been added and shown to me and I've also tried to participate in it trying to make it something that I would listen to and study and everything else like that and so when it said in step six that I'm entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character I'm thinking in terms of the defects of characters the things they're talking about are things that I did in four I listed them out and then five, I admitted to God to myself and another human being the exact nature of these here wrongs that are these defects that I used and now in six I'm going to be all right because six is step six only not five steps together to make the sixth step be there too although each step is independent of the other steps as far as success or as far als having them as a method or a way of life you see and I was not entirely ready to have God remove all my defects of character because I still carry even today this day today defects of character I had to learn a great deal about now defects of character we already went through it the quickest thing I could say about defects of character are there are always things I'm doing I should never do there are things I'm using in my life today I should never never use no way no way at all none there's no excuse to use defects of character positively none and yet though in six to be entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character in step six they give you a little leeway too they tell you in there that as long as you don't take an attitude of this I'll never give up but I'm not going to do it today I'll do it tomorrow maybe or something like that and that kind of thinking was alright because it's saying that you're not taking a position of saying I'm going to keep this defect from hell or high water, I'm only going to do nothing about it and so on and so forth so I didn't know though, see defects of character the main thing about step six is that my life as I live my life there's other things in my life far far removed from alcohol that I will use that I will keep that I will do today now these things at first I didn't want to look at them I said it isn't true it ain't me it doesn't pertain to this I gave all sorts of answers back about this but it states this in step six and I think this is really important because I found out in Alcoholics Anonymous that there's a lot of things wrong with me besides being drunk there's not a lot there's nothing wrong with my way of thinking my way on living my way doing everything it is totally, totally wrong and the reason why as it explains is that lack of power I cannot produce and I cannot do the things I should do and I just can't do them but I go ahead and I still struggle with them and I try to do them Now this might mean, is that, say I have, which I have had. I had a smoking problem some years ago. And this smoking problem got real bad. But I never hooked that up with Alcoholics Anonymous because it had nothing to do with alcohol. So it doesn't mean anything at all about that. And yet though, this very same thing is the thing that kept me in the world that I lived in. Now, that could go farther than that and go deeper for a lot of reasons. It could be eating even. I could do this. And that's also covered in Step 6. That's all listed out here now. But to read that for what is in there, it's real difficult to do. It wouldn't make any difference. In other words, if I say I had an eating problem, which I did, I want to lose weight. And I don't think in terms that Alcoholics Anonymous 12-Step Recovery Program can do this, I would have to go somewhere else other than this to do that but I still have to stay here because of the alcohol and that's entirely wrong because there's a method of living in here that will treat my brain meaning my life and in there I should be able to have the power and I will have the power that's needed for my life that day so that my mind wherever I go in other words wherever the disease of alcoholism goes is where my mind goes it can be treated it can and I'll guarantee this I'll even give it in writing and sign it because it has happened to me but it didn't happen overnight it didn' t happen because I read it out of a book it didn''t happen because I went to thousands of meetings or anything else like that it happened only when the action part was taken in the method of living which is the 12 steps now this isn' t a point to quarrel with because I'm already past step 2 I've already had the understanding the awareness of what's needed for me so that I quit arguing about which came first, the chicken or the egg. So I don't, in other words, quarrel with life, quarrel avec your opinion, quarrel ac your life, quarrel ace anything. I don' t need to. I have an open mind and it says I truly must have this. It will also say this again and again about how necessary it is for me to have open-mindedness. Open-minded means for my life. And so this is part of the method now that the steps are going to be introducing and showing me so that as each step comes along and as I go from one to the other it's not a matter now of getting past one step into another step it's a matter of learning principles to live by truths to liveby which will be a method of living because I have to look at the Alcoholics Anonymous 12-step program as complete you don't add anything to it, you don' take anything away from it it's like a closed circuit once I'm in there I have to stay in there for that reason and I have to be with that to have that I can't one minute I'm believing or trying to do something and the next minute I'm away from that method and I'm in my own method of doing something trying to figure out a problem a solution an answer or something by myself because I'm the one that wants to do this and I am the one that thinks I can do it and then I go ahead and tackle life again on life's terms and I can 't do that either what I'm referring to here is in step 6 I don't want to stay too long here either because of what follows it says in here when men and women pour so much alcohol into themselves they destroy their lives, they commit the most unnatural act, defying their instinctive desire for self-preservation they seem bent upon self-destruction they work against their own deepest instinct, as they are humbled by the terrific beating administered by alcohol While the grace of God can enter them and expel their obsession, here their powerful instinct to live can cooperate fully with their creator's desire to give them a new life for nature and God like for suicide. Now that's the part about alcohol that I agreed with, you know, is that that's why I'm here, period. But I'm not. I'm Here for more than that. I'm Hear for much more than That. Because drinking wasn't my problem, really. Thinking was my problem. but I can't put that I can not look at that as something like an answer or a solution because it is not it says but most of our other difficulties do not fall under such a category at all every normal person wants for example to eat to reproduce to be somebody in the society of his fellows and he wishes to be reasonably safe and secure as he tries to attain these things indeed God made him that way he did not designed man to destroy himself by alcohol but he did give man instincts to help him stay alive it is nowhere evident in this at least in this life that our creator expects us to fully eliminate our instinctual drives so far as we know it is no where on record that God has completely removed any human being all of his natural desires since most of us are born with an abundance of natural desires isn't it strange that we often let these fires exceed their intended purpose. When they drive us blindly or willfully, demand that they supply us with more satisfactions or pleasures than are possible or do us, that is the point at which we depart from the degree of perfection that God wishes for us here on earth. That is a measure of our character defects or if you wish, of our sins. Now what they're saying there to me is the same thing that I had to stop long time ago and go backwards now in the steps and learn about alcoholism ego self why the steps are there how I got this way the whole picture because what they were saying here now is that there's if I wouldn't do certain things certain things wouldn't happen because I go overboard I go to the extreme and this ain't drinking now this is nothing to do with drinking this is Alcoholics Anonymous this is going out that freeway out there and killing people this is thinking thoughts that totally destroy me today but these are the same thoughts that kept me drunk now these thoughts i'm talking about are they're in me in all of my affairs because i'm already sober and i've got what i thought i came here for and yet though the things that are going on i can't even have a relationship a partnership with another human being because of exactly what it says here and it also means including everything and anything that I as I live my life that could mean I could look at you and I could see you so wrong I could hear you say words that are so mixed up I could just run a rat race in my head about my day as I lived and I'm not even considering that a problem I'm not even considering that something I shouldn't do even until I've went and I've went so far with it that if somebody gives me a divorce paper or they give me a PD or something like that, and then I start thinking, well, maybe I'd better back off here. Maybe I'd rather not go so far this time and so on. But up to that time, whenever I start something, I seem like I want to finish it. So I can't quit in the middle of an argument. I can't say, man, you're right, I'm wrong and walk away feel good about it I just can't do these things so to be entirely ready to have God remove all these defects occur all of my defects of character which I have already identified accepted in five and now I should be able to see that this day today isn't a rat face that if I get in the ditch it doesn't make no difference how I got there and get me out of there And this is true, see. So to be entirely ready means a great deal. It does mean a great deal. It means that there's less of self. There's less of me in my life for me. That I can call upon something that has more power than I have. I can call upon something other than me. And this, to me, has already been established. I started out with another man's God, another man power and then I slowly by trying by being willing to try by using that power whenever I could or wherever I could it started to pay off it started to prove to me that what they're saying here they're writing about me man this is me in this book this ain't you no more and this became something now that wasn't a one-night deal it wasn't one hoping that I go to a good meeting here a good speaker and now I'm okay until next week and then we'll have a rah-rah meeting again and I'll get all charged up and I go another week but in that period of time of not going to a meeting I'm lost man I'm really lost and I don't need to be lost because this here right now step six is so to me is so darn important because it talks in here is that if we ask God will certainly forgive our derelictions but in no case does he render us white as snow and keep us that way without our cooperation. That is something we are supposed to be willing to work towards ourselves. He asked only that we try as best as we know how to make progress in the building of this character of what they're talking about now. And so I learned, now I learned a great deal that I have to know, but I can't do it without this. Even though I know it up here, I still can't doing it. The only way I can do it the other five steps that was already introduced is going to make this step possible to do although I have to go do this step to know what it's to be done the other five steps now are going to be brought into this year this way or this method of thinking living today I'm starting to change a character and it says that in here I'm start to change this character what's happening now it isn't a question now of knowing the right thing to say or do that isn't that at all it isn't like going out there and decide whether i should get angry or not get angry at something it ain't nothing like that it's going out there without self as the authority to do whatever i'm gonna do regardless of what it is i'm going to do so long as i have the authority from a power that can make it possible which i have learned now i was introduced now in step two that is part of what they're trying to tell me the book of how to how to live today where I don't have to drink how to live today by a method of living where it will treat my alcoholism my alcoholism isn't in a bottle my alcohol ism isn't is my mind that's in my brain it's my mind the book says so page 23 your big book that says it centers in our mind not our body this is all it's accumulation but the thing about it is it's not something to remember by pages it's not something you remember by lines or what they said these are principles now principles that I talked a little bit about it last week is that I had to learn principles exactly that because I don't know really honest to God I even today I can think real quick and I we got a brain that really goes 90 miles an hour but it can't go 90 miles an hour to think of a principle to act on because I already done it I really did it I'm real fast in other words I get mad so quick I never thought I'd get mad I'm mad I say smart things and they don't mean the same and I already said them I can't stop them because I already did it well see the idea behind this now is for me to try to see that if I will live by this method I don't I don' have that that mind it gets mad I don''t have that mind that gets abstract goes to limits of things I don ''t have the mind that thinks of self only I don'T have a mind that keeps talking me and I keep listening to it all the time and so it regulates my life I don´t do that I ask God I do I pray to God I ask God what should I do what should they say and I'm not saying this on my knees I'm saying this is I'm living I'm saying this as I'm driving my car I'm say this is that talking to you would Would you be with us? All of us. Would you help us according to your will? To hear your message. What is it that we need to know? See, this here is being receptive. This means that I'm not opinionated. This means I'm nicht closed-minded. This means that I can listen to you and listen carefully to what you say, sincerely say. And I can be helped or not helped. It doesn't make any difference. But so long as I don't have the door there shut down then I know that all things are well they have to be because my God my Lord says that but to make that relationship how can I make a relationship like that if I stay with me if I believe what I believe if I keep doing whatever it is I do and still get bad results I can't do it it's impossible this goes on to say a little bit more about step six and what it's saying here I think is pretty much pretty much the same thing it's like it's life I learned in the Sermon on the Mount by Emmett Fox a long time ago because as as I think I am in other words whatever is in my head will produce the life that's from that head from that thinking and I also learned that if the thought is right the deed cannot be wrong and see, them are principles see, dem are spiritual principles, but if you say spiritual truth or just say truth so that when I catch myself thinking thoughts that are disturbing thoughts that I keep alive that I bring something into my head that might have happened yesterday or last year even or whenever that I have not the right I do not have the right to allow any of them thoughts to give them energy any power any thinking process right or wrong I don't have that because each and every time I do that that's where the disease lies and that's when that's what the trouble comes from so I can learn now in step six is where I learned this now I can't learn to live by today's life now this is a bad concept I know a lot of guys will argue with it but you can't really argue against the truth and that means then what I'm doing today, the life I'm living today, the thoughts that I'm using today, the eyesight that I am seeing, and so forth, is wrapped up in only today. I'm not bringing in any of the yesterdays, how bad it was yesterday, and have that control me today. It's like when you're sick. You can stay physically sick. You can say sick forever if you keep talking about it, to keep living with you take it into every day it's the same thing as watching somebody and see somebody that's that's behaving differently than you want them to they don't have to be anything serious but the memory part of using that today when it happened yesterday will still give you an opinion today about that person it'll still you'll still think the thoughts today that you thought yesterday about that about that person even and this is a carryover thing this is something that I know damn well I got no business doing but how can I relate this here to my life from the book Alcoholics Anonymous when we're not even talking about anything to do with drinking drunk or anything else but you see it is it is all about this the whole program of recovery because if it was just a program of getting rid of alcohol the hospitals the jails you name it would turn out successful alcoholics but it's nothing like that this isn't a wasm this is an ism this is something that's happening this day today this is the this is something that's going on today regardless of what did happen yesterday and I don't even need to know what happened yesterday truthfully I don' t have to know because I got a mind that will tell me all the things they wanted to tell me to know about yesterday anyway because it evaluates things that way today's life is just most of my days of today are when they're kept in today they have to be there's a track record back there it's not a good track record and I don't mean it's a drunken track record it's just a track recorded to live in where there's adversity or trouble or anything else in there there's loss of property, money you just name it so why shouldn't I have a mind today according to the steps according to what the method is here for today this day today I can have this life today but only because of the method there meaning this is what God says I can have do it this way now this isn't my way I don't have a way and it's just like yours it's not your way either there's no way that I can change this print there's no way I can say something here that it means something else other than what they say and it talks in here about it says we who have escaped these extremes are apt to congratulate ourselves yet can we after all hasn't it been self-interest pure and simple that has enabled most of us to escape not much spiritual effort is involved in avoiding excesses which will bring us punishment anyway but when we face up to the less violent aspects of these very same defects then where do we stand we must recognize now that we exalted some of our defects we really love them who for example doesn't like to feel a little superior to the next fella or even quite a lot superior isn't it true we like to let greed masquerade as ambition to thinking to think of liking lust seems impossible but how many men and women speak love with their lips and believe what they say so they can hide lust in the dark corners of their mind and even while staying within conventional bounds many people have to admit that their imaginary sexist excursions are apt to be all dressed up as dreams of romance self-righteous anger can also be enjoyable in a perverse way we can actually take satisfaction from the fact that many people annoy us for it brings comfortable feeling of superiority gossip barbed with our anger a flight form of murder by character assassination has its satisfaction for us too here we are not trying to help those we criticize we are trying to proclaim our own righteousness this stuff here when I heard somebody talk about this when I heard you speak I said, well, when I was sitting there, I got mad at you. And I didn't like to hear you say this because what you were doing, you were exposing me to me. You were telling me all about me and how I think and act. And I'm sober and I'm going to Alcoholics Anonymous and I know what I'm doing and so forth and so on. And yet, though, this here is an individual. No longer is this a we or they or ourselves or anything else like that. This is something that's personal. it's an individual even though we're together at meetings we still have to apply it for each and every one of our own lives this is a hard nut to swallow because from this step here defects of character I had to have it pounded in me were things that I was doing that I should not do now that means in all of my affairs that means each and everyday as I breathe and live this life I live that means right now defects of character you know I got a brain you know that when I had guys hammer on me and teach me and tell me and show me me all the time I got so so conscious self-conscious about things that as I am looking at people I had to look through people I had a I had looked at you like a piece of glass because you know when I looked at You I don't give a damn who You are all I have to do is look at You long enough and I'm going to find something there that's wrong and I really mean this deep down this is self-honesty to self this ain't self-onesty to you because I just don't do this openly I won't talk about this openly but I have to admit that and I have to see that but I have to do it for me not for you and this I have to start doing exactly what the step says to do for me for me six steps the sixth step is so vitally important to know about defects of character because step seven step seven is a step that I had to learn over again I was taught one way in the beginning and then I had to learn from another alcoholic a different entirely different everything everything entirely different and humbly asked him to remove my shortcomings see and so I was introduced to step seven by another alcoholic this alcoholic said to me he said you know there's something missing in your life he says would you hear me out and don't quarrel with what I'm going say but just hear me out he said see if there isn't something here what I'm going to say that might fit you see if theirs is something there that you might benefit by don't quarrel with what I want to say he said to hear me up he said I'm gonna tell you now about shortcomings and he said shortcomings is exactly what they say they are their shortcomings there's things that are lacking there are things that being omitted there are things that should be there that are not there he said the wording alone will throw a lot of Alphys out of Kildare about this it says in there humbly ask God to remove my shortcomings it's like it's saying that I have a defect so take it God and that isn't what it's say it's staying there humbling ask God to remove things that are stopping me from doing something I should do and so he said if there's a toothpick on the floor in your own home especially he said pick it up and I said why should I pick a toothpick up he said if you don't pick it up somebody else will have to and what he was doing now he was introducing me into a world that I didn't know about there's other people live in this world I didn't know this see and so I would do only certain things for certain reasons at certain times for certain people even and so I didn't understand this now and so he told me this he said that defects of character were always things that you do you should not do shortcomings are things that you are not doing you should do them and it was an introduction now this was a beginning of a new world for me this was something now that I needed so badly it was something that I could not I just couldn't figure this out see I had to have great help here and I mean help and so it started out right away and I'll read a couple because this is the letter of the book here it says since this step step 7 so specifically concerns itself with humility we should pause here to consider what humility is and what the practice of it can mean to us indeed the attainment of greater humility is the foundation principle of each of AA's 12 steps for without some degree of humility no alcoholic can stay sober at all nearly all AA's have found too that unless they develop much more of this precious quality then may be required just for sobriety they still have a much chance of becoming truly happy without it they cannot live to too much useful purpose or in adversity be able to summon the faith that can meet any emergency so now here I'm coming into something now that you know I just don't know this this is something that's really strange but the man was talking to me and the way he was talking to me and theway he introduced this to me was the fact that I to hear him out not to quarrel with this to see if there is something there that I could benefit by see if theres something there that I can use in my life for my life and so this here started me on something entirely new different than I could even possibly imagine to do and it talks in here a little bit more about humility as a word and as an ideal has a very bad time of it in our world not only is the idea misunderstood the word itself is often intensely disliked many people haven't even a nodding acquaintance with humility as a way of life much of everyday's talk we hear and a great deal of what we read highlights man's pride in his own achievements and now this here started off now for something about character this started off now about something that I'm going to have to do, something that is there to do that I'm going to have to do it. To have humility and humbleness means exactly what it says. The performance that I am going to give today from this word here is going to be going to man and God not of self. This is going to be a total removal of self first, all about self.This is going to be something now entirely different and I'm gonna have to be shown how do this but that's explained too and this means now a great many things you know in each and every one of our lives today it is very sometimes it's very noticeable other times it's not it's the same thing as that why would you hold a door open for somebody if you held the door open for them and they went through it and you felt good about it that's that's that's something you do without a recognition maybe you did it to hold it open you didn't do it maybe for a pat on the back maybe you did but see what we're leading into something now about shortcomings now these shortcomings aren't things that will get you drunk these aren't character defects that you've used for your life to obtain and get and have things by different methods to the extreme these are not these these are they have nothing to do with anything like that this is going to be out of giving this is gonna be at a giving basis now, from self giving. Now this is where I found out that alcoholics like me all alcoholics are takers they're users of people situations, opportunities and this has nothing to do with being drunk. Now this I know for a fact, whether the shoe fits you or not, I don't know, it fits me but I know this that I've been a taker in sobriety, I know how to set things up, I now how to shoot angles I know how to take advantage of situations I know how to get covered well so you'll think me pretty good pretty good yeah this is a fact now this might not seem important to you right now, I don't know but believe me, this is a character change now this is vitally important this is where I learned how to look in a mirror and look in my eyes and see me for who I really am I never could even look in the mirror before I had to shave a face I couldn't even look at my eyes when I did it this is all about self now this isn't about anybody else at all not a thing now this is going to go real deep this is gonna go in places now in areas where I never dreamed it was possible that it would be needed there but yet though this very same thing that's going on now this is the opposite of defects of character this is a total reward situation for self this is all about me giving now instead of taking this is all about things that I'm doing only what you're doing and what you get out of it has not a damn thing to do with anything nothing it's strictly a character change a character change now I don't know how much of this here just them words alone because I had to go a lot deeper and I had to find out exactly what they're saying here because I'm sober and I know about defects of character and I know about a higher power I know about a God I know about a Lord that I take with me everywhere but I still don't know what's needed here so that I can have exactly what God wants me to have and so this is all about short coming time it says that all these strivings so many of them well intentioned our crippling handicap has been the lack of humility we had lacked the perspective to see that character building and spiritual values had to come first and that material satisfactions were not the purpose of living. Quite characteristically, we had gone all out confusing the ends with the means instead of regarding the satisfaction of our material desires as the means by which we could live and function as human beings, we had taken these satisfactions to be the final end of the aim of life. This lack of anchorage to any permanent values, this blindness to the true purpose of our lives produced another bad result. For just as long as we were convinced that we could live exclusively by our own individual strength and intelligence, for just that long was a working faith in a higher power impossible. This was true even when we believed that God existed. We could actually have earnest religious beliefs which remained barren because we were still trying to play God ourselves. As long as we placed self-reliance first, a genuine reliance upon a higher part was out of the question. That basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek and do God's will, was missing. that was me right to a T I'd get on my knees at night and I would talk to God about the whole day and I'd try to see the whole days in the morning I would get up and Iwould talk immediately to God again and then I'd go through this day and Iwould try the best that Icould do now in the day Iwas in and the very best that I could do is what brought me here and you see I did leave out I did believe in God. But I was calling the shots. I was actually, honestly, living that day according to what I could see, produce and have and do and change and everything else like that. Because I was worried about me. I was always thinking about me, me first, me first. Never once was I ever thinking about you, meaning anybody at all that I would come in contact with, regardless of who you were, including my wife. never once worrying about anything at all about you how bad off you are what your troubles might be what you need anything at al never once as long as I was satisfied then I might be able to look at you but I didn't know this though because you see in this step here this is a total reversal this is the opposite now this is giving this is actually honestly giving a self giving a itself means everything I can my thoughts my ideas my money my health even a kind thought is included here about you in regards to who you are this is a character change now character building started in six if six was not there if I was still selfish with self if I were still worrying about me what I'm going to get there ain't no damn way I can do step seven impossible how can I think of you when I'm wrapped up with me yet I can't even begin to do anything like that and that's why these steps are so important and that is why you build it isn't finishing one step and then thinking oh I better go back and do that one or better do this one or maybe today you happen to miss on the other step there is nothing like that this is a method of living which will treat the mind so the disease of alcoholism isn't there it's not functioning for that life this goes on farther I want to go a couple more places on here it says here when we are finally admitted without reservation that we were powerless over alcohol we are apt to breathe a sigh of relief saying well thank God that's over I'll never have to go through that again then we learn off into our consternation that this is only the first milestone of the new road we are walking still goaded by sheer necessity we reluctantly come to grips with those serious character flaws that made us problem drinkers in the first place flaws which must be dealt with to prevent a retreat into alcoholism again. We will want to be rid of some of these defects but in some instances there will appear to be an impossible job from which we recoil and then we can cling with a passion and persistence to others which are just as disturbing to our equilibrium because we still enjoy them too much. How can we possibly summon the resolution and willingness to get rid of such an overwhelming compulsions and desires? It says now this is really important and this here has to be considered it says but when we have taken a square look at some of these defects have discussed them with another and have become willing to have them removed our thinking about humility commences to have a wider meaning now what they're saying here it says but when me have taken a square look at some of these defects that's step four have discussed them with another that's step five and have become willing to have them removed that's step six are thinking about humility commences to have a wider meaning by this time in all probability we have gained some measure of a release from our more devastating handicaps but we enjoy moments which there is something like real peace of mind to those of us who have hitherto known only excitement, depression or anxiety in other words to all of us this new found peace is a priceless gift something new indeed has been added where humility has formerly stood for a force feeding a humble pie it now begins to mean the nourishing ingredient which would give us serenity so as I live this life today it would be the same thing for you if you're going to recognize if you are an alcoholic with alcoholism and if you were going to recognize shortcomings to be able to see something and then have the urge or the idea or the bright idea or the hunch or occasional thought or whatever it is and not pay any attention to it but just go ahead and ignore it is what they are talking about here because there's many times that somebody maybe you can relate this, I don't know but how many times has something went on that I have seen it happen I identified it as something to do regardless of what it was. Say a gal drops something and then right away I should run over and pick it up now I thought that but I didn't run over to pick it but somebody else picked it up and I felt guilty. I felt bad I really did but there's other things though that happened many many things that happened to each and every one of us as alcoholics so that as we live our life there's a world out there that we can benefit in there's the world out there that we can have far removed from any world I ever knew before and this is where the world is pleasing it's genuine it's really something that I need it's somebody will come up I worked downtown for a long time down central in Washington and Figaro and Hill and different street brands and all. There's a lot of street people around, you know. And so these street people would hit me up for money, you know, and at one time I'd say, you know screw them, they're going to use it to drink the wine or some damn thing, you Know. And I would just walk past them, see. And then, you Now, I got to thinking about this, you Know. Here's this Heavenly Father that I found gave me a job. He gave me an opportunity to have money in my pocket that belongs to me he gives me a situation that I can benefit by he makes it happen and I say no, no I ain't going to do that but I don't do that no more because the moment that I give it doesn't mean I'm going to give my paycheck or my wallet or anything like that but I'm gonna do something and the minute I do something I feel good inside what that other person does I have got no idea it's none of my damn business anyway but you see the character change that's needed for me so that I can have a mind that's pleased with my own thoughts, my own actions, that I could feel well today because I did something and nobody knows about it. And I'm not going to tell anybody about it either. But I feel good about it My mind slows down and I thank my Lord for allowing me to be with Him again. This is what I need in my life. This is a continuous thing now I could walk blindly like you can walk blindly it would be like passing somebody up that needs help and you've got the feeling that you should do something and you don't do it and then you go around talking about it kicking yourself in the hand then about it and you relate that later on to something that you wish you hadn't done shortcomings are things I should do that I'm not doing now this builds into a greater life than I can just tell you here I can tell you some things about seven and we ought to have a coffee break let me end it there and we'll talk about it in a minute here see if I can't get done within a short few minutes anyway there's an awful lot to talk about but certain ones that hit me at a certain time is that I can never see me really for what I am and what I'm capable of and what i do and everything else like that one night I was at a meeting a meeting and it was in Colorado, Denver. And it was snowing, you know, and it's getting around almost closing time, near 10 o'clock anyways. And so the phone rings and it Was my wife calling. And she wanted me to bring home some milk. I have two daughters. So she wanted Me to bring Home some milk and so I put The receiver down and as I put It down I was thinking, you know, damn it, you've been home all damn day, you know, and I worked hard and all that. Now I got to stop and get some milk and bring milk home, you know, all this here. And I'm running a rat race in my head, see? And so I went to stop, got the milk, came home with it, you know. And I didn't do that with any love, I'll tell you. And so shortcomings, I didn' t understand shortcomings at and I didn't understand who I am and what performance what I should do this day because I've been so programmed as an alcoholic specially with alcoholism is to do my thing do what I think is the very best next thing to do and that's all if you interrupt that then there's trouble well when she asked me to bring home the milk I immediately took a head trip on that figuring that damn it that's her job she shouldn't do this you had all damn day to do it and so on and all I had to do was just stop and get the milk and bring it home and shut my damn mouth and brain off and everything else like that and it would have been cool but instead of that I had her take it to bed with me and I had a look at her funny and everything like that shortcomings have to be identified as for me and so I have to start looking now at a performance that I should do now this performance that i should do has already got the basis behind it from the other six steps it's already got principles i've already started a process a method of living this isn't a method now just reading anything else this is a living thing this is already in motion this is all right this isn t something i'm going to do or wait to do when i get through with the 12th step then i'm gonna do these steps that isn't nothing like that and so there is a way so in step seven that I can have the shortcomings are not going to be there and you know it says this in here it says then in AA we looked and listened everywhere we saw failure and misery transformed by humility into priceless assets. We heard story after story how humility had brought strength out of weakness. In every case pain had been the price of admission in the new life. But this admission price had purchased more than we expected. It brought a measure of humility which we soon discovered to be a healer of pain. We began to fear pain less and desire humility more than ever. During this process of learning more about humility, a most profound result of all was a change in our attitude toward God. And this was true whether we had been believers or unbelievers. We began the get over the idea that the higher power was sort of a bush league pinch hitter to be called upon only in an emergency. The notion we would still live our own lives, God helping a little now and then began to evaporate. Many of us who had thought ourselves religious awoke to the limitations of this attitude. Refusing to place God first, we had deprived ourselves of his help. But now of the words of myself, I am nothing, the Father doeth the works, began to carry a bright promise and meaning. This is what I was... the man was talking to me and he was telling me and he would he was showing me things now to look at to see to see if I would benefit he says don't quarrel with it he says try it see if it does something to your life see if you benefit from it see if there's some thing some change going on now that you like that you want and so I found out that this is true this is when I learned about thinking thoughts because as I sit at meetings like you're sitting I'll sit here and I'll look at you and I can find fault with you I find fault with you so on but that's a hidden thing see it's a thing that's going on the character that I am is the character that I've always been I have not changed not a bit I'm still the same man sober as I was drunk and yet I've been years away from drinking but I'm not years away from thinking and this is the thing now they're trying to show me trying to tell me how to change how to have things now by direction by an actual doing thing so that it's not left up to me to discover it's not left of the me to decide how do you do this I'll have to go try this and that see if it works it work it all works my sponsor told me this is not a trial and error program this here think this works all the time this method of living will do exactly for you what he's done for me that's his words to me. He said, I'm going to take the bumps out of the road. I'm going to help you do this. I'll help you see these things so that you can have now a life that I have because the attraction was there. I try to thank him for the help he was giving me. I tried to thank him for all of the works he did for me by paying bills, put me in the hospital for getting my job back and wife back and all these kind of things. He says no. You see, I looked at him as an attraction and I I looked at him as a man. And he said, no, you're looking at me from the steps. A character change. You're looking that God's works. You're look at things now that you can have. And see, these were things that I never thought I could have. I didn't know what they were. I had no idea how you'd be kind to another person. I'd be trying to you would be an accident. You know, it'd be something that would happen out of the, you know, just by chance. See, I didn' t mean to do that, but it worked out that way. and here's a way now it shows me that I can start now giving a self and it says this here as it ends this it says it says it says here that each of us as we approach the actual take in step seven it might be well if we inquire once more just what our deeper objectives are each of us would like to live at peace with himself and his fellows we would like to be assured that the grace of God can do for us what we could not do for ourselves we have seen that character defects based upon short sighted unworthy desires are the obstacles that block our path towards these objectives we now clearly see that we have been making unreasonable demands upon ourselves upon others and upon God in step 6 they're talking in step 7 we went through this and it's on page 64 and they were talking in here it said in here that God has taken the fatal obsession away from us the alcohol and it says in here then why by the same means couldn't God take away any other difficulty or defect that we have it says that's the riddle of our existence perhaps the full answer lies only in the mind of God and then it says this is after this is step 7 now it says the 7th step is where we make the change in our attitude which permits us with humility as our guide to move out of ourselves towards others and towards God. The whole emphasis on step seven is on humility. It is really saying to us now that we ought to be willing to try humility in seeking the removal of our other shortcomings, just as we did when we admitted we were powerless over alcohol and came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. If that degree of humility can enable us to find the grace by which such a deadly obsession could be banished, then there must be hope of the same result respecting any other problems we could possibly have now, you know this here to me is a constant thing I read every day I have to read every día the reason I haveto read every dia is for my life because I have alcoholism too that it also becomes powerful it also becomes a way of thinking and acting and it becomes something that's there because it's an ism it's not a wasn't it's still in my brain My brain is still programmed from many, many years ago. And so then I must have the daily reprieve that they're talking about on page 85. But step seven is a performance. Now this performance, you as an alcoholic like me as an alcoholic, you're going to have to sincerely, honestly want more of a life that God will present to you but only through that way, only through his grace, no other way. it's the same thing as recognizing when you do something now whatever this is that you do personally do where you get a good feeling out of it where it makes you think well of yourself and your thoughts and your performance it's a quality change a character it's something that's personal it's not it's nothing you keep by yourself it's no something you go out and brag about or talk about because the rewards that you get are internal they're internal They're coming from a power greater than you. Now, this could mean, like I said, holding the door open. It could mean maybe helping somebody far beyond where you normally would help somebody and you did and you paid off like a million bucks internally, not externally. And so it's a building thing and it's the thing you have to go for. It's not something that's going to be handed to you again on a silver platter, but it's something that if you benefit, if it makes you think better of the world that you're in, if you see better you feel better and you recognize you can count your blessings you can see what you have when you're sitting healthy you've got a job you've gotta wife you've Gotta car you've Got a place to sleep you've GOT food money in your pocket and what could be wrong with the world now what could be wrong nothing no more than what your brain would tell you yeah it's a fact you know I could you know I felt cheated I really did before this I felt cheated all the time. I always thought that you had something better than me. I always taught that you have got something that I should have. And so this was a mind now, but there's a process here, a method here, that's so important it's never talked about. I never heard any of this before that man, that alcoholic, talked to me. And then even after that, I had to go into a period of time before it became something that was paying off to me, and then I realized that these are things that I have to go for there's no way I can pick one of these things up just because it's laying over there or something like that it's something I got to do and every time I do it it always is the same it's the principle behind it it's always thinking well of you there's a truth there all I have to do is think well of you and I think well period I feel better everything about this now is based on this You know, this is a far cry from talking about drunk-alongs. This is a fair cry talking about divorce, loss of money and property. Man, I could tell you stories miles long about this now what I'm saying. It has nothing to do with that. It hasn't got a damn thing. I went through a lot of adversity. But I knew behind everything. My Heavenly Father was going to protect me, take care of me. I knew the day I was in. It had to be through His grace. I had to talk to God because I was sick. I was sickness stomach and I was sickening head. Where can I go? What can I do? All I have to do, again, is be with God and I can perform going to you, whoever you are. And man, I'm telling you, I am all right. I am the day up. I've had another good day. And that could be a very, very serious day I'm talking about too. but this here is something that there's no reading we'll give it to you and this here reading is not in your big book it's only a prayer and there's no way a prayer alone by itself will ever do anything for me or for anyone I believe there must be more behind it than the prayer this is something that if you want to talk about later on we can identify a great many things even you probably can tell me a great much many things about shortcomings where you have succeeded feeling good about something which you didn't even believe or didn't even know what to do and you did it and it came out perfect it came out really good but you felt well about it and somebody else benefited by it that's a switch that's the big difference all Alfies I'll never forget this all Alfie's they're thin skinned and they're takers they've learned how to do that in the drinking years and then they carry it into the sobering world and they try to use it and I know I'm talking about me I'm not talking about you and then this step here now relieves me of the bondage itself so that I don't have to do these things no more you know, the next step step seven is you can go forever at step seven almost all of them anyway you know step eight made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends for them all that step I can tell you a great deal about it about not doing that step. I had a wife that I took through the drinking years and then I had three and a half years in Alcoholics Anonymous and I never did the eighth or ninth step with her and she got sick on a Thursday and she died on a Sunday morning and I've never, never did the eight step with here or ninth steps with her at all. Never. And I can tell you what will happen to you when you don't do it. And to make a list of all persons we had harmed I think for me anyway was the fact that I couldn't get too much out of what this here what this means here it says we might next ask ourselves what we mean when we say that we have harmed other people what kind of harm do people do one another anyway to define the word harm in a practical way we might call it the result of instincts and collision which cause physical, mental, emotional spiritual damage to people if our tempers are consistently bad we arouse anger in others. If we lie or consistently if we lie or cheat, we deprive others not only of their worldly goods but of their emotional security and peace of mind. We really issue an imitation to become contemptuous and vengeful. If our sex conduct is selfish we may excite jealousy, misery and strong desire to retaliate in kind. Such gross misbehavior is not by any means a full catalog of harms we do. Let us think of some of the subtler ones which can be quite as damaging suppose that in our family lives we happen to be miserably irresponsible callous and cold suppose that we are irritable critical impatient humorless suppose we lavish attention upon one member of the family neglect the others what happens when we try to dominate the whole family either by rule of iron or by constant outpouring of minute directions for just how their life should be lived from hour to hour what happens where we wallow in depression self-pity oozing from every pore and inflict that upon those about us. Such a roster of harms done to others the kind that make daily living with us practice and alcoholics difficult and often unbearable, could be extended almost indefinitely. When we take such personality traits as these into our shop, office, society, or fellows they can do damage almost as extensive as that we have caused at home. Now you know I think that's I think That probably is, to me it is anyway, more important because the harm I caused most people was always noticeable, direct. It was always something that was continuous. It was straight. Uh, it was absolute, uh, misbehavior and so on. But the kind of harm that they're talking about here, I never considered any of this kind of harm. And I certainly didn't consider it as something in looking backwards on my life or anything like that because this, this is so, this So what they're mentioning here and how they mention it there is something where I always put the blame. I always puts the blame on why my behavior was because of you. The way you acted is why I acted this way, why I wouldn't talk to you, because every time I talked to you it would blow your mind or something like that. See, I ain't going to talk to ya. I'll just walk around the house all the time and it's best not to say anything because I'll get into damn big arguments, you know. And so this here part now of behavior, looking back you know on everything the people that I that I always heard were always was always people that I was in contact with first starting out with my wife starting out with anybody close to me brothers or my father somebody like that and this kind of list that I made to me was very easy to make for what I could produce it wasn't until later on meaning after I was in the life and gone through the steps that I started reading this harm business here of the action that I gave or why I gave this this action and I didn't know you know that that the part now about this being step eight was that the the process that's been happening to me here in these here these seven steps before this makes this here very very I can do this pretty thorough I can do it pretty good if I have done this here if I've done these steps if I haven't done them and to make a list of all people I have harmed was very easy to do and the next step that follows was easy to use but it was only because of the ones that I was in contact with the ones I had to do this they were the ones that I Was facing every day they were still in my life they weren't people that I had used and did any harm to from time before, and now they're in another city or another state or anything else like that. I could very well do anything at all here. Like I was telling you with my wife there, I started working. I was working real good. I worked every day, and I immediately went to work, and I had the money in my pocket doing everything, and I thought that the mere fact of not drinking and the mere act of being able to buy a new house and cars and all that kind of stuff made it so that it was okay. I was all right. I don't need to do any of that damn stuff. You know, the only ones now I have to worry about is like my father. I beat my father up one time, you know, and then I have go and talk to him about that and all THAT kind of STUFF. So that was the only kind of harm that I ever thought I ever did was physical harm to fighting and raising hell when I was younger. And then when I started getting into this here it's a good thing I didn't have any kids or even dogs because I would have killed them probably and never would have made it you know but this here step though the important thing about this step is to be able to see like what it says in 5 the hardest thing about it in step 5 was I could admit something to anybody for reasons and the idea there was I could submit to God but I couldn't admit to myself the exact who I was and what this is all about. I could never honestly admit to me that this is me. And then here I am now, I'm up here in step eight now and I've got the same problem again now. See, you know, I've going to make a list of people I had harm but it's going to be from my harm, not from their harm or not from what they did. It's goingto be an honest thing about my behavior and about my life as I live my life so that I can straighten out and have something now so that it isn't going to sneak up on me and it's going to be clearing away the wreckages of the past so that I can live free today without being afraid of being found out, without being scared of like what step five says so that the day that I live in can be a clean day because the things that I did are going to come back and they're going to have to be from five they're gonna be exposed that's me, I did them and then eight I'm going to go to these people that I have hurt and I'm gonna go to them not the main purpose of going to them is the thing that I'm gong to have to know from step eight if i'm going to make a list of people that have harm why why should i have to make it listen to these people make a listen to people that i've harmed and became willing now see this year this year is something that i took as something that's going to hurt me it's going make me less than it's gonna keep me dragging down and in the barrel and all that and the harm part of it I got past this here when I came back to it the second time and the freedom that from from from of the life that I've lived the freedom of not worrying not sweating out not having somebody pop up or having you find out or anything else like that there's a process started here and this here to me is wasn't too big I didn't cover too many people there was a lot of bills that I had used people and money that I had no way of paying them back whatsoever there was no way at all but I at least I recognized it it's like knowing today that even if anybody at all would come in today after that many years that have gone by that I still am willing to make amends to them too and so that would relieve me again of a brain that would talk to me, that would tell me stories that would would describe a life or something that could happen something's going to happen tomorrow something's gonna happen later on or something like that and this was the beginning of the step now this the two steps go together eight nine do go together and so if I don't think it's a step that has to go to unless you've got some particular thing about it that's bothering you something that needs better explanation or something like that to get past it but to make a list of people of harm became willing to make amends to them all I think more there's more of an attitude and it's more of a list them of obvious things that are there I think that it's something that is something that's related to your life that's there buried there you it's not something this you can't find or something that hidden or anything else like that it's very obvious because them in step nine was says made direct amends of such people wherever possible except the when to do so would injure them or others and I think probably on that would would be more of each one that I have to make amends to I would go to him first and I would tell him who I am I'd tell him exactly what happened to me I tell him that I'm an alcoholic that I behaved a certain way because I got a brain this damage and then I'd have to tell them exactly what I'm doing this for and I'm doing it for me. I am not doing it for you. I'm trying to set the record straight. I'm trying to do the things now so that this here will at least show you and also me that the life that I did was under because of the alcoholism, because of the conditions at the time and the mind that I had and the life I had. I couldn't do anything else but that. Whether they accept that or not or whether they, whatever they do, it's not important to me, but what is important is the reason I'm doing it the reason I'm telling you the reason I'm doing it is because it tells me here exactly what's needed to be known what to do I went to my father I beat my father up one time because at a wedding it was my sister's wedding and he called her a name and he was drinking and I was drinking and I just wouldn't hold still for it and I really hurt him and it took me some time and it was probably it was probably you see it was probably four years later when I made that amendment and it was a good thing I did too because he died a short time later than that and at that time he wouldn't take it, he said no you don't owe me nothing, he says all you have to do is just continually go in with them people you go with he didn't say AA or alcoholics or Alcoholics Anonymous he just said just continually go with them people that you're going with and that's all he said and that was the end of that amends. And that's all I needed to do. That satisfied everything in my life anyway. The other amends that I made, I never made direct amends to my wife for the action, all of the troubles, all the crap I gave her when I was drunk. And then even I had two and a half years in AA without God. Then I had the last year which made it three and a halve years and then she died and I still didn't do it I still never once did it and I suffered from that I don't believe that any this is only personal but I don' t believe that I could write a letter and put it on a grave or anything else like that I still see the grave every now and then but I dont believe that I believe that that the program of recovery and the method of living and having a power using that power not to do and not to be who I was I think that's the amends that has to be made to my God I think that's right I haven't been bothered at all by that and it hasn't isn't anything at all that keeps me in a turmoil or makes me feel bad or makes be depressed or anything else like that and so this here this freedom that the step that I had out of step nine I believe it's there for that reason is to acknowledge it like it says in 5 not only to acknowledge it but also to acknowledge the best you can or I can to the people that were involved for my life today not for their life for my live today so that I can continue in the steps building a spiritual life from principles so that these here things whatever they are so they won't come in maybe later on sometime so they'll knock me down or somebody accuse me of something or somebody will think less of me something like that I don't think so so step nine would be I believe for each of each one of us as much effort as I give to clear away this here they actually do this is where the where the benefit comes from it's from the action place of taking it because to do this and with no with its with and I heard I heard this the other day so long as as long as I'm not using other people and hurting other the people so that I'd be free, so that I could have the stuff that I should have. I think that's the purpose of this step and I think the rest of us are too late. We'll run over time. Eight and nine, we can go back on a quick review on that if you want to. I think we can add more to it if you want to, but I really don't think that eight and nine are that difficult if you're willing. if you have the other quality about the steps, the principles, because it is something about what each one of us has to do. And we have to live each day with what's ever in here, what's never in there. And if there's something in there that you cheated on, something you left out, something you should do and you didn't do it, something you're looking at and trying to live a lie with, you'll never make it. And it says that in here. So we could wind this up right now if you want to. After a moment of silent meditation, close with the Lord's Prayer. All right, Father. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever Amen Keep coming back It works It works Right