The Dilemma of Making Amends – District 8 Twelve Step Study – Part 1 of 2 – Willye B.

Are we going to be so rigidly righteous about making amends that we don't care what happens to the family and the home? Or do we first consult those who are to be gravely affected? Do we lay the matter before our sponsors or our spiritual advisors, earnestly asking God's help and guidance, meanwhile resolving to do the right thing when it becomes clear, cost what it may? Of course, there is no pat answer which can fit all to such dilemmas, but all of them do require a complete willingness to make amends as fast and as far as may be possible in a given set of conditions. Above all, we should try to be absolutely sure that we are not delaying because we are afraid for the readiness to take the full consequences of our past acts and to take responsibility for the well-being of others at the same time is the very spirit of step nine many many times people have come and said you know we can't make amends what that it's impossible for us too and it keeps eating at me because i can't make amends to the mother and father that I hurt, that are now gone. They were dead before I could get to them and make my amends. And many times this is a time when you should sit with your sponsor and get all the experience that that sponsor has or a spiritual advisor and get the experience so that there will be some sort of a healing process that you can go through there's no pat answer for that any more than there was when i had to make the decision whether when i wanted to make amends to my mother now we were living thousands and thousands of miles away during all the time of my drinking being a spirit spree drinker it wasn't hard to when we came home on leave it wasn t hard not to drink no problem at all i just didn't drink while we were at home they had never seen me out of control with drinking they didn't have the faintest idea because as I say we were all over the world but my mother and mothers are funny this way she knew something was wrong she could hear the listlessness in my voice over that telephone when I'd call and she'd ask me, honey is there anything wrong I said no, what makes you think that well you don't sound quite right and when i'd come home you know i told y'all i had always been real outgoing and friendly and liked people and like to get together with the old hands at home and the ones i had grown up with and and see i quit doing that when i've come home because my whole personality had changed booze had taken away from me the real joy of being around other people because of all that guilt that i had inside of me they didn't know about it but see i did and it had but it had begun to change me and we'd be home and i know i'd on leave and and i'd catch my mother looking at me when she didn't think i was you know paying any attention and she asked me again you know on what is there anything the matter and one day she said to me you know how is the marriage is there anything wrong she really didn't know my husband too well I had had three dates with him in married him long courtship dangerous thing to do we only stayed married as I said for 45 years but she didn't know him very well and she said it you know is there anything wrong with the marriage as a practicing alcoholic what do you think i did i let her believe that she said you're not the same as you used to be now remember i was sober i hadn't had anything to drink i would be very careful to be so sober my hair hurt when i got home and i'd stay that way the whole time we were home but she could tell the difference in me in my whole personality i let that beautiful woman believe and see she sat back in texas and i was all over the country and she worried about me i had no right to do that but see it's so typical of what we will do to people and of course she told my dad and my dad worried too they didn't know what was happening in that marriage they didn'T know whether i was you know getting roughed up every once in a while because i was a very imposing man he i say he was a loner he wasn'T real gregarious and on the other hand I very much was an outgoing person I never was one to sit in a corner I was always one that was going to put on the war paint and go raid the village and see she saw that I wasn't that way anymore kids that I had grown up would come by and say let's go to a dance tonight and I'd say no I don't believe so I was turning into a different person and she knew that I let that woman for a long time believe that and that wasn't right I had done her a harm even though she was unaware of what the whole thing was all about now after I sobered up I had to stop and consider how can I make amends to her without hurting her more should I try to explain alcoholism to a person had had not the faintest idea I could have talked for one solid week without stopping and she would have never understood could I have explained this change of personality to her when she had no concept whatever of alcohol it had never been in her life it had ever played a part in her lie no I was advised by a beautiful caring loving sponsor just say Willie why don't you try this because she had already told me now Willie when you go to make your amends not only talk to the people and tell them but you listen to what they tell you back you listened because they're giving you a clue whether they're accepting your amends or whether they're rejecting it what they say back to you are going to give you a clue that you can work with in making yourself a better person so she said I believe Rose said that she said i believe i would just ask your mother just ask her a few questions and see what she really thinks and so i was talking to her about the fact i said mother you know there's nothing wrong with the marriage there never has been i've just been through some stuff that i created myself you know how impulsive i've always been and i created a lot of situations for myself that didn't make me feel good about me and i believe i got a handle on it now and i just i just wanted you to know and to be assured that i got a good man here and he takes good care of me so don't you worry about that anymore and she said honey you could see the relief on her face she said funny all i've ever wanted is for you to be happy i was her only daughter all i ever wanted was for you to be happy now what was she saying to me she was telling me how i could make amends to her and from that day till the day she died when i hit the front door of that house a happy daughter hit thefront door of thathouse i didn't care what was going on in my life or whether i felt happy happy happy i went in there happy happy unhappy i tried to to show her not tell her but show her in so many ways and to walk into that house with a good expression on my face I learned something from that I learned that the expression on my faith is the most important thing that I wear you can put a million dollars on your back and if you have that sour down on the world nobody is any good expression on your face you might as well have just gone in there stark naked and she gave me the answer on how I could make amends and I did it until the day she died and some people might say well, you know, it's phony to pretend to be something you're not no it was phony for me to let her believe that and it was harmful for me to let her believe that I needed to reassure her but I didn't have to harm her anymore by going into all the nitty gritty details of my alcoholism that would have hurt her terribly I finally after a while told her that I had the way I had gotten help was through an organization called Alcoholics Anonymous that dealt with people that had an allergy to alcohol and kept it as pure and simple as I possibly could and she was extremely proud of when I'd go off on a trip I'd tell her where I was going and I didn't have to give her all the details I just said I'm going off to be with my alcoholic friends and she would always so tickled and waiting at home to hear about what kind of trip I had and how many different people I met and excited about something that she was never harmed by knowing more than she needed to know about it and would only bring on confusion. If you give this thing judgment and if you listen to the people, they'll give you many times a clue on how you can make amends to them. Sometimes they don't want their money back. Sometimes they want you to do a specific thing with it. I had a woman that I had borrowed some money from one time and I didn't even really need it at the time but it was handier to borrow it from her so therefore I did and I used borrowing loosely but when I told her about it and tried to make my amends she said, Willie, I tell you what just put that in the plate of your next AA meeting and that's what I did but to listen what they say back to you I learned an awful lot Okay, we'll take a coffee break here and I'll get you back with a little ringing of the bell in a few minutes. We'll go on with step 10. Okay, 10 starts our growing steps. These are the ones that we grow on. And as I told you in the beginning, I hope I always stay green in this program because those green things do grow. Because Bill Wilson one time made a talk out in San Francisco and he said that better is the greatest enemy of the word best because he said people come in to AA and they get better and they settle for that and they never really get to know what their best is. And we see people, we see it all the time. They come in and they got better and that's it. They never really got to be their best. so sometime that better is an enemy of the word best and in our growing steps we've done a lot of footwork here but if we stop here and just lean back on all the work that we've been doing and do not continue to grow we're not going to have anything to give to anybody else and we're nicht going to continue to meet every challenge that comes up in our lives in step 10 the principle that we put into our lives and try to practice in all of our affairs and we need it need it needed and that's perseverance keep on keeping on no matter what keep on keepin' on get a little stubborn we were stubborn about our drinking why can't we take that stubbornness in fact we can take every defect that we have turn it in the opposite direction and do something for good with it we can take anger sometime i'll be watching that television and i see man's inhumanity to man dear god we've got stuff going on that we know about nowadays it's put up there on that television in the news and we see what one human being which I doubt whether they really are but they pose as human beings can do to another human being and the anger that would well up in me I would just almost want to kick that television clear just anger and rage at an act of inhumanity but see this program has taught me that I can take that very same anger and get me a sheet of paper and sit down and write my congressman. I can write to the chief of police. I can write to the courts. I can write to the specific judges. I can do something constructive with that anger instead of just letting it boil and boil and get down on everybody. Nobody's any good. And if I don't watch myself, if you watch the evening news, then pretty soon you think, are there any good people left in this world but when you take it and put it in perspective we have four million people in Houston Texas and on the evening news maybe they report five murders and when you think of it in that way out of four million people perspective when you put it down and think about it, then all the rest of those people they're pretty good folks. They got up they went to work they put in a day's work, they went home went to their families some of them strayed along the way but the majority of them were just folks and if I can take that anger and channel it, I can do some good with it I work real hard in politics I enjoy it,I love it I love all the giving take and I can hardly wait for the election to really get going because this just happens to be and has been a hobby of mine for years, and I love it. But the thing of it is, I can take that anger and keep after my Congressman and see at least if I can make one small imprint then that anger is of much more use than if I just let it see then get mad at everybody and get down on the whole world perseverance to keep on keeping on no matter what happens no matter whether it's revolting tummy whether I don't know and I don' understand the situation as I told you all about this morning but to just keep putting there some days that I call my breathing days I just breathe in and a breathe out and I breathe in then I breathe out as long as I don't get around and mess up with somebody else I'm doing fine with that day so that idea of putting this principle into our lives and using it in all of our affairs our family affairs our community affairs all of our affairs then this is where we can we can make some progress in this thing called living continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it what do you reckon my ring around where it is there promptly you let me fool around with the wrong I have done somebody for a little while and i'm not wrong anymore you're wrong if i don't admit it pretty quick then i'm going to change it up my mind will change it up for self-protection that's a human being trait in me if i won't take care of it real quick and that's why this step was put in here this was put into the book by a man named for a continuing inventory that we never get through with this is our daily thing it says as we work the first nine steps we prepare ourselves for the adventure a good word again of a new life but when we approach step 10 we commence to put our AA way of living to practical use because that's what we're going to live is in the practical world day by day in fair weather or foul then comes the acid test can we stay sober keep an emotional balance and live to good purpose under all conditions a continuous look at our assets and liabilities and a real desire to learn and grow by this means are necessities for us we alcoholics have learned this the hard way more experienced people of course in all times and places have practiced unsparing self-survey and criticism for the wise has always known that no one can make much of his life until self-searching becomes a regular habit that's what i was talking about prayer that just that whispered prayer that when he does miss me on the freeway that i can wish him well and god get him home safe don't let him hurt anybody it doesn't have to be any great formality of any kind a habit it's just a habit until this self-searching becomes a regular habit, until he is able to admit and accept what he finds, and until he patiently and persistently – there's our perseverance – tries to correct what's wrong. I've sat in meetings, and so have y'all, a lot of meetings, and some newcomer will say, I've heard y'alls use the phrase dry drunk. What are you talking about, a dry drunk? And we'll go around the table, and everybody will give their version of a dry drunk. And old Willie's sitting there patting her foot, just waiting, waiting for somebody to say, Willie, because I'm invariably, you know what I'm going to say? Let's turn to page 88 in the little 12 and 12, and let's see what a dry trunk is coming from our founders. Most beautiful description of a dried drunk that you'll ever see. And if the newcomer wants to know the answer, let's give them the right answer out of the book. It explains it here. When a drunk has a terrific hangover because he drank heavily yesterday, he cannot live well today. But there's another kind of hangover which we all experience whether we're drinking or not. And that's the emotional hangover. the direct results of yesterday's and sometimes today's excesses of negative emotions, anger, fear, jealousy, and the like. If we would live serenely today and tomorrow, we certainly need to eliminate these hangovers. Now this doesn't mean that we need to wallow morbidly around in the past. it requires an admission and correction of errors now our inventory enables us to settle with the past when this is done we are really able to leave it behind us when our inventory is carefully taken and we have made peace with ourselves the conviction follows that tomorrow's challenges can be met as they come it goes on in the next few pages here to describe the various kinds of inventories says although all inventories are alike in principle the time factor does distinguish one from another there's the spot check inventory taken at any time of the day whenever we find ourselves getting tangled up isn't that a good phrase tangled up because see so many times we don't know what's wrong but things are just sort of bonkers us gals understand that when we get a spool of thread tangled if we attack that thing and grab it and start gripping we're going to get into more tangles than we had to start with how about you men with your fishing lines you grab that sucker and really attack it you're going really have a messed up fishing line so I think tangled up is a very good expression here whenever we feel ourselves getting antsy that blah feeling up here that you know what and the tangled up expression appeal to me because sometimes that's how I get I'm not really upset about any particular thing everything is just not going too well with Willie that's the one kind we take it immediately when we feel that tangled feeling there's the ones we take days in when we review the happenings of the hours that just passed Here we cast up a balance sheet, crediting ourselves with things well done. I've heard people say, you know, no, we're not supposed to be giving ourselves any credit. Let's just, you Know, take a look at the things we've done wrong. That doesn't make sense. It didn't make since to me the first time somebody ever said it and doesn't makes sense to me now. i'm not going to be nearly as prompt about taking myself to task about something if i haven't i haven'T spent a whole day without doing something right and even if i can just say you know you breathe well today willie you can find something that you did right during that day and we need to to balance that up and chalking up debits where do then we can go ahead and put down what we could have done a little bit better what we would have been a little more careful about that's the other next kind of inventory then there are those occasions when alone or in the company of our sponsors or our spiritual advisors we make a careful review of our progress since the last time many AAS go in for annual and semi-annual house cleanings many are us also like the experience of an occasional retreat from the outside world or we can quiet down for an undisturbed day or so of self overhaul and meditation aren't these practices joy killers as well as time consuming mo at most a a spend most of their waking hours drearily rehashing the sins or omissions or commissions well hardly the emphasis on inventory is heavy only because a great many of us have never really acquired the habit of self appraisal accurate self-appraisal once this healthy practice has become grooved it will be so interesting and profitable that the time it takes won't be missed for these minutes and sometimes hours spent in self-examination are bound to make all the other hours of our day better and happier and at length our inventories become a regular part of everyday living rather than something unusual or set apart we become very alert and we know when things are are not going right and we usually can spot very quickly if we're trying hard to see you know what can we do a little bit different here why don't i back up and start this day all over again i got it started off on the wrong foot people kid me and say you know willie that's why you bought a round bed so you wouldn't get out on the right side before we ask what a spot inventory is spot check let's look at the kind of setting in which such an inventory can do its work it is a spiritual axiom that every time we are disturbed no matter what the cause there's something wrong with us man i didn't like that statement when i saw it and now wait a minute i said i told rose i said wait wait wait a moment every time i would come to skirt you know disturbed about something then there's something wrong with me. And she said, Willie, have you ever heard of contempt prior to investigation? Read on, hon, and see what it says. Maybe you'll understand that statement a little bit better. It says if somebody hurts us and we're sore, we're in the wrong also. But are there no exceptions to this rule? What about justifiable anger? if somebody cheats us aren't we entitled to be mad can't we get properly angry with self-righteous folks for us in AA these are dangerous exceptions we have found that justified anger ought to be left to those better qualified to handle it because we get justifiably angry and pretty soon we are ready to kill somebody but remember we call these excesses. And if we don't check right away and see, you know, did I put myself in a position to be hurt? And a lot of times I do. I'll ask for somebody, just practically beg them, hurt my feelings. Because you can actually walk around waiting for somebody to say something to you. Your day hadn't been going so good so far and you just wait. And when they do, then you get your feelings hurt. And that's exactly what I would do sometime. Said few people have been more victimized by resentments than have we alcoholics. It mattered little whether our resentments were justified or not. A burst of temper could spoil a day. A well-nursed grudge could make us miserably ineffective. Nor were we ever skillful in separating justified from unjustified anger. as we saw it our wrath was always justified anger, that occasional luxury of more balanced people I worried about that too here could keep us on an emotional jag indefinitely these emotional dry benders often led straight to the bottle other kinds of disturbances jealousy and envy and self-pity or hurt pride did the same thing a spot check inventory taken in the midst of such disturbances can be of great help in quieting stormy emotions in other words that little spot prayer to god to protect that man that has cut me off the freeway has been a lot better for me than if i you know call him every name i can lay my tongue to accompanying hand signals and all of that sort of thing and i'm you know like i say he's home drinking beer and i am still mad and he is still in the car with me and i go on to where i am going and iam still angry about that have i put myself in a position of anger yes he wasn't responsible for it i was because i knew how to do a spot check inventory right in the middle of getting all upset, I can say, God, look after him. Evidently he doesn't have the facility right now to look after himself. Please look after Him. Don't let Him hurt anybody. Don't Let Him hurt Himself. It's easy. It becomes a regular habit when you practice it enough. Because the other way can ruin my whole day. And I'm at the age where I don't want to lose any of my days. I want to hang on to as many of my days as I have left. I don' t want any of them to start out on something like that and put a taint on that whole day. Not only will it ruin my day but it'll make me less of use to any other living human being. Because if I'm not in a good place I don''t really care whether you're in a great place or not, do I? I'm so wrapped up in me said the spot check inventory taken in the midst of disturbance today's spot check finds its chief applications to situation which arise in each day's March the consideration of long-standing difficulties had better be postponed when possible two times deliberately set aside for that purpose. The quick inventory is aimed at our daily ups and downs, especially those where people or events throw us off balance and tempt us to make mistakes. In all these situations, look what we need. Self-restraint, honest analysis of what is involved, a willingness to admit when the fault is ours, and an equal willingness to forgive when the fault is elsewhere. God, it makes life simpler. It makes life so much simpler when even if somebody has wronged me, if I can say, you know, okay, maybe they're having a bad day. If the girl at the grocery store just sort of cuts me off short when I say, well, how are you today? Okay. I don't know what happened to her before she came to work she might have had a Elvin knockdown drag out with her husband one of her kids might have gone completely bananas that morning I don' t know what happened in her life so even though she was discourteous or a little bit rude to me then it's so much it's better for me to think you know gosh I hope her day brightens up than to star them out, you know, fussing about her rudeness. Like I say, we're looking after number one when all this comes down. We need not be discouraged when we fall into the error of our old ways for these disciplines are not easy. We shall look for progress, not for perfection. Our first objective will be the development of self-restraint. and if this carries a top priority rating when we speak or act hastily or rashly the ability to be fair-minded intolerant evaporates on the spot one unkind tirade or one willful snap of judgment can ruin a relation with another person for a whole day maybe a whole year and we can add maybe for a lifetime maybe for a whole lifetime we can spoil a relationship with one one blast of temper one wrong judgment nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen we must avoid quick-tempered criticism and furious power driven arguments and once again I'm gonna hone a little bit on the women because we know how to do this real good it's in our nature we sometime I think they ought to have a special kind of band-aid that we can carry around and just go won't because we can cut you up and spit you out and it comes real easy to us our tongues can really hurt people and we have to learn that the more restraint we can use in our judgment and in our criticism and our furious power-driven arguments beautiful woman passed on to me one time she said you know Willie I found that arguing with people is such a waste of time and this has come into it's come into play for me in all areas of my life but she said you know instead of just arguing with somebody that you disagree with just try it for a while and see how it works she said instead of keeping the argument going and everybody getting more upset and more upset then just say wait wait a minute I don't agree with what you say but I'm gonna think about it man that stops them dead in their tracks you've kept from losing a friend you've kept yourself from getting all worked up I don t agree with what you said but I'll think about it that gives them the respect that they that they deserved as a human being they're all God's children and I you know like I say working in politics I don't agree a lot of times when I'm in a discussion with somebody but I've used it over and over I don' t agree with that but I tell you what buddy I'm going to think about it and that really helps as far as human relations are concerned and us gals when we're tempted to really take somebody and cut them down to size it doesn't make any difference what circumstances we can do it real easy on the job cutting a man down to feeling about half like a man we can tell him off we can deal with that very easily too we can take him off before he even knows what he's done and this doesn't go for a healthy relationship the same goes here we go gals don't flinch too bad the same goes for sulking or silent scorn I know you men can do this real but you can't do it you can even cold a candle to the old silent treatment there ain't no way cause we can hold out a lot longer than y'all can we can drag days but see this is this is not good for us sulking is not good for US I'm not gonna speak to her anymore I don't care if she walks right past me I'm NOT gonna speak tour that's silent scorn that's no good cuz you're not gonna feel good doing it because that's No way that that's way to live these are emotional booby traps he says baited with pride and vengefulness now our first job is to sidestep the trap when we are tempted by debate we should train ourselves to step back and think that's something we don't really look forward to is stepping back and thinking but we can neither think nor act a good purpose until the habit of self-restraint has become automatic so many excuse me so many many people have given me so many things along the way that have helped me to reinforce everything is in our literature and in our books but to reinforce what has been what we do in a practical way something that I could take and use a beautiful canadian handed a little prayer on to me and i know that some of you are familiar with it because it's it's been spread around i've spread it as like a disease all over the place and suggested it to a lot of people because it made my life so much better it's enabled me to have this regular habit in my life of looking at the wrongs i have done and being a little bit more careful about stacking up those wrongs and he's handed me this prayer one day and he said willie to make it easier for yourself try this and he says make up your mind now that when you go to bed tonight you're going to utter this one little prayer after you've finished your other prayers or before you've said your other prayers and promise yourself that you're gonna do it every night for the next two weeks just try it make up your mind right now that you are gonna say it and then tonight when you go to bed you say this little prayer God let everyone tomorrow treat me as i treated them today yeah let everybody tomorrow treated me as I treated them today I'm going to tell you something it sure makes you careful what you do the next day real careful because you know you're going to say that prayer again tonight because you've made yourself a promise that you would it makes you real careful if you're going to ask god that night to let everybody treat you tomorrow as you treated them today it's helped me an awful lot to be careful about how i treat people so that i won't have to go back and say i'm wrong i know one time i went to rose and i was so proud of myself i told her i said rose i accidentally said a little snappy thing to a lady out at the club today and i said i really didn't mean it but i said it but i went back and i told er i was sorry and she said you did what and i said i told her i was sorry rose she said hon i guess we better go back and look at step 10 and see what it says here it says continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it it doesn't say go back and say you're sorry how many thousands of times did we tell people we were sorry that's such an easy word it just flows off oh i'm sorry i'm so sorry i'm very sorry but how many of you remember the fawns you know how hard it was for the bonds to say he was wrong he'd try to say i was and it just wouldn't come out and when you think about it that's one of the hardest words to say to another person i was wrong and to admit to your you know to admit out loud that we're wrong that's a lot harder than just saying i'm sorry because you can flip that off but to admit that you're wrong and she said maybe next time it'll make you feel better if you say i shouldn't have said that i was wrong and the more you do it the easier it gets to admit your mistakes promptly then you don't have to live with them see any of these defects as a human being they can come back and visit me but i absolutely refuse to let them unpack their suitcases and live at my house they can come visit so i've learned that this going ahead and saying you know i'm wrong makes the rest of the day a whole lot better at night we can cast up you know just how our day went and how we could have done it better how we can handle a situation how we should have just shut up and not said anything or how we could have given a good suggestion and put it in the form of a suggestion rather than a demand where we can cast our balance sheet up and look at all the things every defect we have if we practice the opposite we got it made we got het made if we've been dishonest all we have to do is practice just set that day aside and practice being honest as honest as we can all day long not hurtful honest we're not talking about being so honest that we hurt somebody you know if one of my friends walk in and she's just bought a brand new outfit and she said i just bought don't you just love it yuck i mean you know i have one gal that i sponsor that is weird i mean she is weird she came up during the hippie period and i don't think she's really all the way gotten over it i love her with all my heart and she knows it and i tell her all the time how in the world did you ever get that get up together but the thing but the thing of it is when somebody sincerely says you know don't you just love it I'm not going to be so rigorously honest that I say you know hon that color looks terrible on you because what I think is all not all that important it isn't that important to her she liked it she bought it and my favorite standard is on you it looks great and that's not being dishonest that's taking honesty and putting it in a real world so that our honesty won't be so brutal that it hurts somebody we can take every one of those character defects practice the opposite and pretty soon that defect is going to get further and further and further in the background then then god as we understanding can can get in there and really do some work with all the garbage in there he can't so continuing this inventory and continuing to be aware of how we can just be better people that's all i'm aiming for is just be a little bit better on page 92 there that second paragraph it says now that we're in a and sober and winning back the esteem of our friends and business associates we have found that we still need an act to exercise special vigilance as an insurance against big shot ism we can often check ourselves by remembering that we are today sober only by the grace of God and that any success we may be having is far more his success than ours as I told y'all last night we're not here by our own doing we're not alive by our old doing our own doings could have killed us God got us here that's a responsibility that we shoulder to see that we don't let this beautiful gift that he gave us that we didn't in our judgment didn't reserve didn't deserve but he did and he got us here for a purpose and it states it here that remembering that today we're only sober because he cared enough about us and wanted to use us not in big ways he doesn't use most of us in big ways because he doesn't need us in big ways he takes care of that but all the little things that kindly shown each other those kind of things we can take care of it says finally we begin to see that all people including ourselves are to some extent emotionally ill as well as frequently wrong and then we approach the true tolerance and see what real love for a fellow man actually is what it means it will become more and more evident as we go forward that it is pointless pieces to become angry it's pointless to become angry or to get hurt by people who like us are suffering from the pains of growing up given people room such a radical change in our outlook will take time maybe a lot of time not many people can truthfully assert that they love everybody most of us must admit that we have loved but a few and we've been quite indifferent so to the many as long as none of them gave us any trouble and And as for the remainder, well, we have really disliked or hated them. Although these attitudes are common enough, we AA's find we need something much better in order to keep our balance. We can't stand it if we hate deeply. It will eat at that soul we were talking about yesterday. That thing deep inside of us that we don't... We know it's there but we can't touch it but we could hurt it. And to hate will eat it up. The idea that we can be possessingly loving of a few and can ignore the many, and can continue to fear or hate anybody has to be abandoned if only a little at a time. We can try to stop making unreasonable demands upon those we love. can show kindness where we have shown none with those we dislike we can begin to practice justice and courtesy perhaps going out of our way to understand and help them that sounds like a goody-two-shoes type thing but it's not I guarantee it you'll get more out of it than you've put into it whenever we fail any of these people we can promptly admit it to ourselves always and to them also when the admission would be helpful courtesy and kindness justice and love can be the keynotes by which we can come into harmony with practically anybody when in doubt we can always pause saying not my will but thine be done leave that person to God he's God's child leave it leave it to him I've learned that you know that's not my business to get everybody straightened out just to be there is sort of a guide dog I try to treat the people as our sponsor it is just a guide dogs guide dogs don't knock their people down when they go in the other direction and they are trying to guide them to go they don't do that They nudge. Have you ever watched a guide dog with a blind person? A little gentle nudge here and there. But they never pounce on them and knock them down when they don't go in the direction they've guided them into. I try to sponsor in that same way, to not give a bunch of advice because they never have put in the preamble that we're to share our experience, strength, hope and advice with people. If New York has added that, we hear it real often, the advice. But I don't think they never have notified me about it anyhow. All of this advice that we hear given nowadays, we're to share our experience and our strength and our hope. We can often ask ourselves, Am I doing to others as I would have them do to me today? And there's where the little prayer comes in. If you really want to be careful about it, you can use that little prayer because that's what you're doing. You're asking yourself, you know, am I doing to others as I'd like them to do to me? Don't I enjoy people being courteous to me. Of course I do. Don't enjoy a kindness. Of course, I do! Do I enjoy going a little bit out of their way to help me out when I need some help? Of course i do! So why don't I understand that other people enjoy the same things? When evening comes, perhaps just before going to sleep, many of us draw up a balance sheet for the day. This is a good place to remember that inventory taking is not always done in red ink. It's a poor day indeed when we haven't done something right. As a matter of fact, the waking hours are usually well filled with things that are constructive. intentions good thoughts good acts are there for us to see even when we've tried hard and failed you know a man is never a failure if he tries and fails he's never a fail until he says that somebody pushed him he's ever a failure by trying to do something and completely falling on his face unless he turns around and says wasn't my fault I was pushed then he's really failed but it said to chalk up those good acts are there for us to see even when we've tried hard and failed we may chalk that one up as one of the greatest credits of all under these condition the pains of failure are converted into assets out of them we received the stimulation that we need to go forward someone who knew what he was talking about once remarked that pain was the touchstone of all spiritual progress sometime not intense pain but just a slight twinge of pain and when we take that pain and don't think that we've been singled out to be given that pain And you know, why is everybody always picking on us? And when we don't make a big deal out of it, then that pain can help us grow. How heartily we AAs can agree with him, for we know that the pains of drinking have to come before sobriety and emotional turmoil before serenity. As we glance down the debit side of the day's ledger, we should carefully examine our motives in each thought or act that appears to be wrong. In most cases, our motives won't be hard to see and to understand. When prideful, angry, jealous, anxious, or fearful, we acted accordingly, and that was that. Here we need only recognize that we did act or think badly. Try to visualize how we might have done better and resolve with God's help to carry these lessons over into tomorrow, making, of course, any amends still neglected. But in other instances only the closest scrutiny will reveal what our true motives were. There are cases where our ancient enemy rationalization has stepped in and justified conduct which was really wrong. The temptation here is to imagine that we had good motives and reasons when we really didn't. don't you love it when somebody comes up and says now makes a good criticism of you and says I'm telling you this for your own good yuck and really we can use that as a motive sometime to really see that somebody knows something that they're not aware of we have that happen many, many times luckily this program gives us a way out of that real quick by saying look at our motives when we constructively criticize it says someone who needed it when our real motive was to win a useless argument or the person concerned not being present we thought we were helping others to understand him when in actuality our true motive was to feel superior by putting him down I loved it one time and why no Joe was telling about this man sidling up to him after a meeting and saying hey Joe yo you know I heard old George was back drinking again I heard it was he was getting bad taking a few pills to know why why though said he just turned to him and said, you know, dadgum, I heard the same thing about you last week. That's a good way to stop a rumor, isn't it? And of course Joe just was laughing all the time. He said, I thought I heard same thing bout you last weeks. And that'll usually stop that rumor right dead in its tracks. Whether it's the truth or not, what's our motive in really repeating it? And if we have heard that they're drinking, why don't we go to them and see if we can help? Why don't go directly to them, get close enough to them to see if they're having any trouble, and then try to help. What good does it do to go tell somebody else? Our motives are wrong, and that's what we have to watch are those motives. We sometimes hurt those we love because they need to be taught a lesson when we really want to punish. We were depressed and complained, we felt bad. In fact, we were mainly asking for sympathy and attention. This odd trait of mind and emotion, this perverse wish to hide a bad motive underneath a good one permeates human affairs from top to bottom. subtle and elusive kind of self-righteousness can underline the smallest act or thought learning daily to spot admit and correct these flaws is the essence of character building in good living that's a nice promise an honest regret for harms done a genuine gratitude for blessings received you know we hold God responsible for all the things God why did you do this to me why did You let that happen but we never stop to think I use the example on the freeway because we were all out there so much but we ever stopped to think to thank God for letting Him miss us by that much we should also add that to our little prayer you know God I'm glad You missed me thank You and thanking him for all those little things we don't have to wait till it's convenient for us to do any kind of formal type thing we can thank god for any little blessing that we run across and we run cross hundreds of them every day every day and a willingness to try for better things tomorrow will be the permanent asset that we shall seek having so considered our day not permitting to take due notes of things well done, and having searched our hearts with neither fear nor favor, we can truly thank God for the blessings that we have received and sleep in good conscience. What a nice promise! I'll see you all in the morning, bright and early, and we'll shut it down. I'm used to all these long-winded people, you know, y'all. Good morning, I'm still Willie and I'm still an alcoholic. Real glad to see all your bright shining faces. Remember so many Sunday mornings when we looked like, you an old sick cat that somebody just dragged in out of the rain and i i know i avoided mirrors at that time didn't want any part of them it's good to feel good on sunday morning okay now this morning bins we're going to finish up in uh an hour and a half instead of the full two hours because of my airplane dilemma so So I'm not going to give you a break, but feel free to get up and go do whatever. And I don't, you know, I'm way beyond the thing of getting my feelings hurt when somebody gets up and leaves. I always realize that maybe they have something to do that's more important than sitting here. But you feel free. Feel free to move around, but I thought we'd go right straight on through this morning so that I can make it on over to Kansas City. Okay, we're going to start on our last two today, our last 2 beautiful steps. I'm always frustrated when I have to rush any of them. And having to zip through 7, 8, 9, 10 sort of is frustrating because I like to take a lot of time on each step, but always the time is limited. and i'm hoping that the parts that i have to skip that y'all will move on over and and just review them because i think maybe this weekend you might have realized that that reviews good it's good for any of us i know every time i go through this book it's not that i see something that i've never seen before but maybe the last time i read it i didn't need it quite as much as i needed at that particular moment so it's just good to to go back and all the places that i've had to hop skip and jump over then maybe if you can take a few minutes and and because i believe or i hope that you see what a valuable little tool this little book is when working with other people it's um it does not pretend to take the place of the big book and that big book is still our basic text this is our supplementary and i don't mean to say that we you know need to tell the people no don't fool with the big book let's go to the 12 and 12. no we can hit that happy balance and do both and everything that's in this book only reinforces what's in the bigbook so if we can get a happy medium like we're trying to in the rest of our lives we're going to be doing real well all right step 11 our principal layer suggested principle is awareness just like we are this morning we're aware of the fact that it's a beautiful day and how many days did we get up and not even be aware of what what kind of weather and who cared anyhow the day was going to be a total loss whether it was raining or a beautiful day like this and that's the first thing i did this morning when i peaked out the drapes was just say you know it's a beautiful day god and i sure do appreciate it it um this awareness of of other people's feelings other people problems even when we don't know what the problem is as i said last night you know so many times when someone is is rude or cuts me off at the pass it's it's good for me to be aware of the fact that they have problems in their life too i don't have the corner on that market we as alcoholics we don'thave the corner on that there's people that are in a lot more trouble than i'm in and the thing of it is if i can be aware of it and really look at people have you noticed how people don't look at each other anymore when you pass them on the on the sidewalk number one it's sort of dangerous number two it's just that we're all so busy aren't we busy busy busy but it's such a great joy to just be aware of the people that are walking towards me, coming out of a door ahead of me and just look. It's to look at their face and just smile. That doesn't cost one dime. And sometimes it can lift up their day just a little bit. Whether it does or not, that's all right. But I like to think that it does. That I saw a friendly face. Maybe they won't even notice at all. that's not there you know that's not my problem but just to be aware that there's a whole bunch of folks out there that we need to be looking at and thinking to ourselves that we're not we don't have a corner on this beautiful program we have the job of trying to give it away in every practical way that we can and this awareness this is a good principle to put into our lives and to practice in all of our affairs with the people that we live with to be aware that they have good days and bad days and that we don't have a thing in the world to do with it not one thing i remember when we first married i would if my husband was particularly quiet that day i'd say you know what's wrong and he'd look at me with this blank look on his face and say nothing i don't know why i expected every day to be you know just rosy for him when i had days that i didn't you know feel particularly friendly towards anybody it wasn't an anger or anything but there you know those days like i say i call them my tan days and i finally learned that they weren't he wasn't necessarily reacting to anything that was going on he was just being himself and to be aware of the fact that they that the people that we live with need as much courtesy good manners as as the people that we deal with an Alcoholics Anonymous I've seen people that come to meetings and they're friendly with everybody and go home and bark like a basset hound you know when they get in the door if the kids the dog the cats everything and the spouses we forget that all of this stuff we're supposed to back it up and take it on home and to be aware of their feelings and and they're being themselves in other words just sort of when Rose told me when I kept trying to get this man to stop drinking in front of me she said did one day really why don't you leave that man alone i thought what a good idea you know of course i was very belligerent still at that time and i didn't think it was a good idea at the time but when i started practicing that and being aware of the fact that i had put this man through pure unmitigated hell and to be aware that he was not paying me back he was just being himself and to be aware of the fact that a lot of the the courtesy that I was showing other people I wasn't showing him our step 11 sort of a booger booth for a lot on young people because they not necessarily young but new people because run up against the word prayer salt through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God now see there Bill's taken for granted that we have some already because you can't improve on something that you don't have that's a signal that we have done ten steps and as we have gone along we have gotten our conscious contact on on trail we have it and we're using it otherwise step 11 is not going to mean that much to us because we are to improve our conscious contact with god as we understood him praying only for the knowledge of his will for us and and the power to carry that out we have a beautiful man down in houston he's been the minister of the big big first methodist church down there in the center of houston and dr allen was so impressed with our program back in the 50s when he first heard about it that he wrote an entire little booklet on 12 ways to solve your problems the word alcohol isn't in there he preached 12 consecutive sundays on our program taking one step at a time and showing how you can take this program and use it in any area of your life it doesn't matter whether alcohol or drugs or any chemical is involved it's a beautiful little book if you get around the library look it up it's 12 ways to solve your problems by dr charles allen and he said so many good little things in there and when he got to step 11 he said you know prayer is not a method of using god rather it's a means of reporting for duty and that's true i think that's a beautiful statement because that's that's actually what we are directed to do in this step we improve this conscious contact and we pray only for his will so in the mornings it's good just to report it for duty and whatever that day brings then we handle it in a way that we think is right that conscious contact if we're doing what makes us feel good way down where no one sees no one knows about except us and that flag hadn't gone up then we have a good conscious contact as long as we're trying to do what's right there's no way that god's going to turn around and say, you know, you should have done more because he didn't create us to be perfect human beings. It says here, Prayer and meditation are our principal means of conscious contact with God. We AAs are busy folks enjoying the satisfactions of dealing with the realities of life usually for the first time in our lives and strenuously trying to help the next alcoholic who comes along so it isn't surprising that we often tend to slight serious meditation in prayer as something not really necessary. To be sure, we feel it's something that might help us meet an occasional emergency. That we're used to, aren't we? But at first many of us are apt to regard it as a somewhat mysterious skill of clergymen from which we may hope to get a second-hand benefit, or perhaps we don't believe in these things at all i'll never forget the the story that sister ignatius who was one of our beautiful beautiful staunch supporters in the very beginning because she had dealt with those drunks in town's hospital where bill kept being going in and sobering up and coming back and sober enough he had been in town so many times and sister ignacious was always there and she had to sort of quarter the drunks off she loved drunks she loved us and nobody ever knew why including sister she said she never didn't know why but she had a special love in her heart for drunks and hospitals really weren't taking too many drunks at that time happily so she had a little place where she'd special little ward where she put the drucks and bill had hit that ward so many times and she told this story on herself she said one night she was so tired she'd been fooling with them all day long and she was extremely tired and but she wanted to make one more pass through the ward before she went for a little rest and said as she came through and this was back in the days when the nuns wore the the whole habit the long black and the swishing big skirts and everything said one of the drunks reached out and and grabbed her habit and said sister pray for me and she said she didn't know why she said it but she shook his hand off and she says she said pray for yourself the Lord loves to hear from sinners and you know sometimes we do figure we go to a minister and we tell him to pray for us this conscious contact that we have we talked about last night we don't have to set aside a special time we can walk through this world with a mindset that we're not alone and that every time we start getting a little bit tangled up and even in between times when we stop and thank him for a beautiful day like this I'm going to have to get up there and you know that man's going to flap his wings all the way to Houston for me I love to see where they're like.