The Fifth Step and Ego Reduction – D. and Chris S. – Big Book Workshop – Austin, TX – Part 4 of 10 – Bob D,Tom I

boyfriend. What kind of employee was I? And I can't look at what they did. I was a selfish, self-serving, self-seeking guy. And all of a sudden, for the first time in my life, I looked at myself as an adult. Dead on. Without the justifications, without the rationalizations, just dead on. And I woke up. We must have ego reduction at death. I'm telling you, I can't imagine anything that a guy like me could ever do that would reduce and squash the ego more than listing every judgment I have in my life. Everything chase the ego is created, and then dismantling every one of them and seeing how I'm wrong in every single case. I can't imagine anything that would reduce my ego more than being wrong throughout my whole life. What a humbling experience. That's why some of us come away from this with a sense of peace because there's nothing to defend anymore. There's nothing to be right about. It does its own crap. Now, the ego grows back like a bad tumor. But sometimes after, I've had guys take a fifth step and they and I had the same experience after I took that fifth step and afterwards it was the weirdest thing There was no spinning going on in here. There was no insane... I'm used to kind of a busy... I'm not used to being on high alert all the time. I'm usually on a busy, dizzy mind. And for me it felt like something was wrong. I thought I wanted to go take a nap. I didn't know what was wrong with me. And then I saw the movie. I saw this funny movie and I got it. In this movie, a guy who grew up in the Bronx underneath the L train, right? And he grew up in an area where there were sirens and gunshots and hordes beeping and planes going by all the time, day and night. And he goes on a camping trip and he gets out in the country in the middle of the night and jumps up and says, we don't hear anything. He goes, I know! It's driving me crazy! I think some of us wouldn't know serenity if it bit us on the ass. I mean, intentionally in the look of some of us we've just adapted. Dr. Shookway says to us, our alcoholic heart disease is the only normal one. I think most of us just adapt to spinning in our head all, just a constant chatter. And you know, peace is at first very awkward. I just was listening to a friend of mine tell me about Katie was telling me about having laser surgery, and for the first time she could see clearly. She could almost not walk because she was so used to seeing clouded. It's funny how we address this stuff. Dr. Paul said one of the reasons we resist change is that there's a sense of security in the familiar. Even though the familiar may be horrible, it's our familiar here. The Irish say that the devil we know is better than the devil we don't. And some of us are terrified of change. That's why we'll spend decades, some of this in alcoholics and I'm just seeking relief who we don' t really want to change. And if you don't want to change, you have to build a life here that will give you a resistance to change and fortify you the way you are. So if you want to be X, Y, or Z. You've got to hang out with people that are X,Y, or C because then they'll never talk to you about X, Y, or Z They're a hostage in their own bad behavior. See, they'll never confront you about it. They can't because they're doing it too. So you have to create you have the you have create a harbor in your life safe harbor for what you don't want to change. And some of us some people they answer hard for me. I know guys that cheat on their wives so they hang out with guys that cheat on their lives. I know guys that do stuff with money that would make me drunk and they're able to do it because they hang out with other people that do the same crap with money. Do you want to gamble? You need a sponsor or a set of friends to gamble. We have to protect what we don't want to change and what we're looking here for ultimately spiritual growth. That means change. And change is often perceived as painful, but I've got to tell you change in and of itself is never ever painful. Resistance to change is brutal. But change is not painful. It's the process of letting go. The change is almost automatic I want you to let go. Chris, hit me off the hook. Thanks a lot. Where were we selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and afraid? We need to ask ourselves that question. I found through my own experience with these resentments was, I'm not going to get any freedom by becoming more clear on what the other person did to me. I'm going to gain freedom from taking responsibility for the things that I have done. Invariably, invariably in my resentments did I find where I was selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and afraid. When you look at this inventory in the book, and it's on page 65, it says Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, my employer, and it gives you the first three columns. And it shows a couple of things about this inventory. It's pretty simple, isn't it? Now, if I would have shown you my first inventory, it would have looked nothing like this, I've got to tell you. It had to be a narrative. It had the meaning like my story because it was so important for me to get across to you what I've experienced with this stuff because I was still tied very, very much into this fact that I was hard. But when you look at this inventory, it's very short. It's sound bites. It gets legs at a point. It talks about what the cause is. It talks abut the areas of self. I found, to make this very, very simple, sometimes I explain it to my spouses like this. Our instincts, our ambitions. Instincts can be looked at as the things that we have that we want to protect. Ambitions can be look at as things we want get. We don't want to have to deal with any interference yet. and our instincts, our invasions could be harmed, threatened or interfered with. I found when I was going through this inventory that yeah there were some harms but there was also some threats. In other words nothing really ever happened so much of the resentment was built up in my head so my instincts or invasives need to be harmed threatened or interferred with and what is this about? It's almost always about money, power or sex. So when my money, my power, or my sex, my instincts, what I have, my ambitions, what I want to get, when their hearts are interfered with, I am pissed. I can't be angry without perceiving a harm, a threat, or an interference to my money and my power and my sex. Now the alcoholic blows this up. It just makes it so much bigger than it really is. Remember I was talking about, you know, when I was first spinning dry, I really looked on it as a hostile universe. Like, I've got to dodge and weave, you Know? I've Got to operate out there so nobody can get over on me. I mean, that was my perspective. Today, I don't operate to keep people from getting over on Me. It's not an issue. That whole perspective has been removed. And so much of it was because I became responsible for where I was selfish, where Iwas dishonest, where Iwas self-seeking, whereIwas frightened. If I can take responsibility for that, this whole thing can go away. These resentments can be mastered. And they're mastered by this very, very simple formula. It's an amazing formula. You know, there are self-help books out there galore. I don't know about anybody else, but if you would have looked at me with like two years over, you would see I had about a thousand self-health books. I had them all. I had the Power of Now and the sequel The Power of Later. I had The Joy of Resentment and, you know, How to Win Friends and Intimidate People. You know, I ask every book you can imagine. And I remember my sponsor came over once. I mean, he's holding his chin. He's looking at all these titles. And he goes, I see you have a lot of self-help books. I'm like, you don't know? And he goes, where are your help other books? And I'm, like, what? You know? What? There's not a big industry out there of help other book. But that's what we need to be concentrating on. There are places in this book that says we need to put the welfare of others ahead of our own. I thought it was a selfish program. Well, that goes contrary to that belief, doesn't it? We have to put the welfare of others ahead of our own Look at the prayers. What is the third step prayer? It's setting itself up to be useful. It's not setting itself up to be able to score better. It's not even something to be useful. So I need to take responsibility for my part through the process of step five through nine. I can deal with my part, and I can pretty much put it behind me, and I can move on, and I'm not in bondage to these situations anymore. Resentment, not only does it kill us, which is not a good thing, important warning sign if you're new or coming back. But it also wastes so much time. It wastes so much of the seconds and hours that were given of this life. To waste them in resentment is to throw away one of the greatest gifts that is imaginable, which is an existence on this planet. This is really a cool place. And to be caught up, you know, in my stuff is a big waste of time. So I come to terms with where was I selfish? Where was I dishonest? Where was self-seeking? Where was training? After I've gone over that line of demarcation between the first three columns, there has to, and there has to be, I believe when I'm instructing people to go through these steps, there's a resentment prayer. And I have them say a resented prayer as they're moving into step four. One of the things that you see out there, there's a lot of guides. There's a million guides out there. There's the Hazleton Guide. Every book that's published on 12 Steps, every treatment center has their own guide. One of those things that the guides almost always leave out are the prayers. And that really is essential, I think, for this process, keeping us in perspective. Now, if you look at column number 3 of page 65, you'll see that fear is bracketed alongside every resentment. You cannot have a resentment, remember, unless you're afraid that you're going to lose something you have or not get something that you want. You can't, there's no room for fear in that. So we need to look at this. Why is fear bracketed along every resentment? It's because fear is such a motivator, such an activator of our character defects. When we become afraid, we go into modes that we've developed as active alcoholics. to protect fight or flight. And, you know, a lot of times it's inappropriate. These things are inappropriate. I had fears about everything, but if you would have grabbed me at my first meeting and said, Chris, you're full of fear, I probably would have hit you just to prove I wasn't afraid of you. I was looking at fear as fear is cowardly. I wasn' t necessarily a coward, but I was blanketed with self-centered fear. It moved me around like a chess piece on a chess board. There's no freedom when you're being moved around by fear. There's not rational behavior when you are being moved around by fears. it says in here that it's an evil and corroding threat the fabric of our existence has got through with it it set in motion chains of circumstances which brought us this misfortune we felt we didn't deserve but didn't we ourselves set the ball rolling I love Alcoholics Anonymous because it keeps it keeps the light on me I'm a light slayer If there's an issue or something like that, I like to swing the light on you. I like put the light on the things that are going on. I don't want the light on me. But this book, An Outpost Anonymous, always brings us back to our troubles of our own making. You know, this is a self-imposed crisis that we can either postpone or evade. So, I need to come to terms with this self-centered fear. I need, I need you to come to terms with it in a big way because it's causing, it's causing chains of circumstances that permeate out from me all, all over the place and I'm like a walking time bomb with this, with this self, with this self-centred fear and so much of it is a misperception. I'm misperceiving that I'm under attack I'm rarely under attack I gotta tell you that but on my own in an unrecovered state I'm perpetually under attack and again it's part of the misperception that we have to wake up from when we have to come to terms with our alcoholism sometimes we we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to cause more trouble. That was an interesting statement from me. I didn't really understand what they meant by that. Fear classed with stealing? Why would you class fear with stealing, and someone I worked with many, many years ago pointed out the fact, well, isn't stealing kind of like a conscious decision if you're going to steal something? Look, you're a kleptomaniac. If you're gonna steal something, isn't that something that's purposeful? Can fear be purposeful can fear be something that I'm losing I don't know, I can't really say I totally understand this statement I've got some more thinking to do on it but I will tell you this I understand the damage that fear has done in my life especially to my relationships Now, the instructions for the fear inventory is basically that we review our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper even though we had no resentment in connection with them. So, the ones that are bracketed in column number three, we list those. But we may have some other fears too. We may have a fear of heights. There's all kinds of different fears that we have. We need to list them out. We ask ourselves why we had them, and then there's a couple of redundant questions. Was it because self-reliance failed us? Self-rebliance, this is basically what the material in step three, preparing us for step three, was saying. Self-reliance has failed us. I came to the conclusion one time, and it was one of those great light type of conclusions, And it was a profound understanding that really helped me move forward with this fear, these fear concepts. And it's basically this. In step one, I understand that I'm defeated. I have lost the battle with the body. Step number two, I come to understand or come to believe that there's a power greater than myself that can restore me to sanity. Step number three is I do the internal work that I need to do to become willing to turn my will and my life over for the care of God as I understand Him. Now let's just say I've done that. Let's say that's a real decision in my life. I have made a decision and I'm following it up with action to turn by will and by life over the care of God. Now let us look at fear. If I've really done that, I'm part of God's team. I'm asking God to take care of me and to direct me and to guide me. What the hell is God going to let get through to me that's not somehow in my best interest? If I'm on his seat. And I came to this conclusion that so many of my fears are unfounded. You know, I'm not, I am trying not to operate from a selfish and self-centered platform. I'm involved today in many, many things that are about the business of helping out my fellow man. You know is that really going to end up in a disaster? I can't imagine that it would. So I have a lot less things for fear to attach to me. to me. It says in here that we begin to outgrow fear. I think fear is an instinct, and it's a useful instinct in that it's helped to keep many of us alive because there's dangerous situations that it makes a lot of sense for fear to manifest in us to get us out of those situations. Like if you're walking up on a rattlesnake or something, it's probably a good idea to be a little afraid. But what happens is like everything else in the alcoholic's life, we blow it out to such proportions that it becomes damaging. We start to become afraid of things that it doesn't really make a lot of sense for us to be afraid of. And I started to think about this decision that I made to turn my will and my life over to the care of God. And if that's meaningful, if I really mean it, I'm not operating anymore fully on self-centeredness and selfishness. That's not my platform anymore. Recovery is so much, it's like we move from one foundation to another. Foundation number one is active alcoholism, untreated alcoholism where your foundation is basically built on selfishness and self-centeredness and self seeking as you move through the recovery process it's almost like you're taking your house and you're putting it on a different foundation and the foundation that you end up putting it upon is basically one of love, service and compassion and you really start to think about the welfare of others sometimes even ahead of your own, which is a remarkable transformation for the alcoholic. And that's part of the shift in perception that helps us to outgrow fear. For now we are on a different basis. The basis of trusting and relying upon God. We trust infinite God rather than our finite selves. We're in the world to play the role that God assigns. Just to the extent that we do as we think He would have us and humbly rely on Him, does He enable us to match calamity with serenity? Now that's an important sentence, I think. The extent that мы do what we think God would have of us, To the extent that we do that and humbly rely upon God, we can match calamity with serenity. And again, that is not the way we normally handle calamity. How we normally handel calamity is, first of all, it's all about us. You know, how do we get out of this? How do I get out from this jackpot? How about being able to handle calamitiy with serentity? There's a lot of things that are going on in my life today. This is a year where there's a lot of changes. Not all the changes look good on the outside. There's financial issues. I've been bouncing around from one house to the other, employment stuff going on, trying to get paid from certain business that's been done in the past. I could make a great picture sitting behind this microphone. I could make a good picture of how much level I'm having right now. How many challenges have been laid before me? And if I was in an unrecovered state at six months over, I could make you feel sorry for what's going on in my life right now, but that's not the perspective that I have. The perspective that I have is everything is going to be fine. All is well. All really is well, and some of these challenges, I don't know, like the farmer with the horse. I don' t know how it's going to end up. So many times in the past, seeming calamity has led to forward momentum, positive forward momentum in my life like you wouldn' t believe. So a lot of times the fear and the anxiety is optional. You're wasting a lot of time and a lot of emotional effort, sometimes on fear, when that same effort can be put on moving forward and making some positive changes in your life. So to a degree, you know, I really have outgrown a lot of the damaging fears that I had in the past. And fear can be crippling and you cannot even know it's there. It can keep you from asking the boss for a raise. It can keeps you from going back to college. It can Keep you from making the tough decisions in your life that are going to end up being beneficial to you and your family and your friends. So it's not something to be taken lightly. It's something that needs to be outgrown, this damaging fear. And I've had a couple of thousand self-help books, and there's been nothing as dramatic as this inventory process and then the actions that follow this fourth step that have done anything in my life like this. I can understand something, but these actions and these inventories that they ask us to do are unbelievably productive. You know, one of the great things about alcoholism, well, oneof the bad things about alcoholism is it's mostly fatal. More people than not die of alcoholism. But the really cool thing is the treatment for alcoholism leads you to a more profoundly useful and enjoyable life. Think about any other illness that you could possibly have, and the treatment's boring. You know, it's not going to offer you a new freedom and a new happiness, a new outlook on life. You know? If you get cured of the chicken pox, You know, it's not going to be a highlight of your life, the recovery process. In Alcoholics Anonymous, we're offered an incredible way of life, as well as the treatment for the illness that's going to kill us if we don't treat it. And alcoholism is an unorthodox illness. Again, so many people misunderstand it and don't really know what it's all about what it's all about. And the recovery process is also unorthodox. It takes a little bit of faith. Prior to going through these steps, you're not going to understand the true value of them. If you've had some experience with these steps you'll understand just how amazing the process of recovery is. Thank you so much. Well, we'll take a break. I want to say thank you to all the people that have been here with us. Thank you to everyone that has been here today. I have a question for you. How long have you been here? I'm not sure how long. I don't think it's going to be that long. It's just a few minutes. So, I'm not speaking in a way that's entirely just to tell you how I feel about what I've been doing for the past few years. When it comes to developing this new type of business that we have, it's either just because we are in a moment where we're trying to do the right thing, or it's just because there is a need to do something, and that's what we do. I think it's very, very important to be successful in your direction. And what do I expect to learn from this? I think there is very little evidence that you can make a difference in the world. And no, we have not. We haven't. This is part of our mission. So, we all have to be able, all of us, if we don't want to lose hope in our daily lives, we can't do that. So, what I'm trying to say is, when you think that you're going to lose faith in God, it's not just faith in Jesus Christ, it's faith in the Holy Spirit. All faiths must have faith in Christ Jesus Christ. We've got to learn to trust him. That's how we're supposed to live. I think it's important to know that the first step you're going to take is to work with the first couple of people. It's not like this. You have to come up with a team of four staff members who are going to be working with these four faculty members. When it's time, just come up and talk to them. Talk to them directly. But make sure that you do all those things. How long do you want to protect your business? I don't know. I don' t know. You don't have to worry about it. That's the good news. Um, that's what I feel like doing. That's what you're supposed to do. That's just work. Um, I'm not sure I can tell you. But, um, if you don't trust me, I'll talk to you this morning. Of course, I don''t know if you like it that way or not. I don't know if you saw that, but I think that's a good point. I think it's really important to know what the technique for doing this is and how you're going to do it. And that's something that's just very important. Um, um, I think it's, you know, we've been talking about this, you know, for a long time, but it's really, really, very different. Uh, the problem is, you don't have to worry about it, right? You don't need to worry. You just have to be able to do what you're supposed to do. I want to say thank you to all of you who are here today. I always want to be so happy to do this, and that's what you're doing. You're inspiring me. And if you could do the same thing for a long time, it would inspire me a little bit more. I will work hard to support your efforts in the future as well. Thank you so much. So how about a question, Steve? Is it better to explore the questions I feel like it's a little bit like, you know, people are listening to you. And how does it make you feel? I'm very happy to be able to talk to you because I feel very lucky to have you here today. Thank you for having me. I'm excited about the future. I just feel really blessed to see you here together. And I just want to say thank you that we've seen each other for so many years. You're welcome. I'm going to ask you a question. What's your name? My name is . What do you want me to do? What do I want to do with my life? What do we do with our lives? Can you tell us what you want to be? What do people want to know about you? What do they want to hear from you? first. No, until you make amends, you're out of sorts because you're invested in making them be wrong because you owe them. If you were stealing from the boss, as long as you're stealing from the boss and say you paid back, you have to make your own to be wrong to justify your position. See what made amends to all these people on the list, and he had some relief from the resentments, except for two of them. And the reason is he's been regrounded with such deep fear that the fear was really the problem. See, if you're in a situation, I do think a lot of us might be saying, it's the kind person I am. I am the person that if I have any anxiousness or fear that you might not like me, I'm going to not like you first. And what will happen is I will alter my ego, will alter myself, so I will start creating reasons to justify my not liking you first See, what's underneath it all? What's the exact nature? The exact nature is I'm a Christian or you might not like me. And so my ego won't create and regenerate these three sentences, Jesus against you, you know, this answer. And I get rid of that and liberate it over. And I'll just make it, and you're free to liberate another one because it's all based on this five-night deal and what's really going on is I want to pray to you or like me And so I have to keep not liking you first because of the fear. And when you deal with, when you come back and deal with that, what's it say doing fear well? We ask ourselves, why do we have the fear? Sometimes there's a very good reason. Sometimes you answer that question and you point it out in the fences But she didn't make me. Why are you afraid that they don't like you? Oh, a couple years ago I talked some crap about them. I wonder if they found out. Or maybe, uh, maybe I'm afraid they don' like me because my track record doesn't make me look like a likable person. person. Maybe they've been around me too long, and everybody else in my past has been around me too along to eventually reach up to me. So what did he do? He says, well, the answer is entrusted into God rather than by ourselves. It says that when we're afraid, we ask God to remove the fear and turn our attention to what he would have us be. One of the great things that can happen as a result of trusting in God. And I don't want anybody else to think that I get this all the time, I don' t, but I do close some of the little periods where this is true for me, it's great and I believe in a lot of self-involvement, but when I'm really in the wheelhouse, when I really like what I'm doing, in God's hands, and I've never been able to stay a sense of that within God's But when I'm able to do that after it convinces me, there's an almost no fear in my life because there's nothing to defend or pretend because I'm taken care of. And since we ask God to remove the fear and turn our attention to what he would have us be, that's not even my deal. Remember what I said, there's, I said here, here I am, for you to build with me, and you to do with me as you go, I don't need your help, I think you can save my own personal spiritual growth. And that's why I think it's so crazy when alcoholics say things like, well, it's not crazy, it was my mistress. What do you research? When you just don't see these issues, or are there same values that you need to consider? In general, it's really the same values that are never forbidden. It's always for you. A little management is cool, but being smart, man, is smart. So what would that happy being do to you? Well, because you're both, we know a couple things. Your happy being has your choices free. Free from what? The bondage of love. I think it is. I think this is good. That is what we need to do. What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? I'm going to tell you how I feel on the first day of school. I was five years old when I was told that I was going to be a student in the U.S. I kept telling people that I wanted to go to the U of M, and I just realized I wasn't going to do it. I was like, what? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? I think that's what makes it so interesting and important to understand that there's actually a lot of difference between two types of human changes in the world today. The first one is, when you see that some people still believe in all sorts of things, like how to get rid of all the things that are going on in this world, So that's why we just wanted to talk about that. That's why I would like to speak with you today. Because it is the time of your life, the time for you to be able to experience these beautiful things. So let's start feeling God's love for you through your feelings and your love It was now that we listened to their answers. We were forced to listen to them. They took us to the room. We all looked at each other and said, what does this mean to you? What is this? What do you want us to do? What do we want to do with you? So I don't have to make sure that people will feel what we are doing, you know. Just like we should be, because we just need to accept our lives as a nation as well. So if anybody has any questions, please feel free to ask me. I think that's what it is to be a part of the process and to be involved in it. That's why we are so blessed to be here today. First, I want to say thank you to all of you who have been with us this morning. We really appreciate your time and your patience. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask them in the comments below. And we'll answer those as well. I think it's important to understand that there are a number of different ways in which you can do this. The first way is to use the technology that you have. The second way is that you can use the tools that you already have. There are a lot of tools out there. Some of them are very easy to use, but some of them aren't. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's a really good book. It's about how to protect yourself from the fact that you've lost what you've always wanted to do. And it talks about how you can protect yourself in order to be a better person. I mean, don't you think it's a surprise to us that there is such a great deal of history? We've all got to take a step back and look for those stories. But if we're going to go back in time a little bit more, I think that's something that we need to talk about. When I was a kid, I used to go to school with my mom and dad, and we would go to the park together every day. It was so much fun. I remember when I was in high school, I went to a park with my dad and my mom. I remember going there every day, and it was just so much more fun. It was really fun. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Thank you, too. Thank you all. Thank you again. Thank you everyone. Thank you! Thank you too. Thank you guys. Thank you everybody. Thank you to all of you. Thank you and thank you. Thank you thank you! Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you when we thought about all the different ways that we could do something that could lead to love. When you try to, try to have a reputation of non-selfishness, but this is why you don't want to leave layers to be undone. It was all about my security, my not wanting to be alone, my gratification was all about me. I was completely selfish. genuine agape love, genuine altruism, genuine concern. The ability as a tourist set of putting the welfare of another person ahead of my own, which is what it is. It's a real love. Love is a precision. And the problem, well, the problem isn't a self-centered guy. I think everything's appealing. I want to keep well-suited, keeping less hormones. Love is an action. It's a position. It's the way that you really got to choose. It's aware of how you feel. And so I think I'm involved in these in a certain way. Well, I'll just talk to you three or four times. I mean, it's not love. It's not necessarily bad, but it's But it's not love. It's good for a whole union, I suppose. But it is not love, it's NOT love. Where have I been dishonest? I've more harm all the time when I'm out speaking against my experience with myself and the people I sponsor than more harm is done through dishonesty in relationships than anything else. And from the distance, looking and understanding, look, we're compulsive liars. There's an old adage that I think you can always talk about when he's lying, his lips are moving. I don't lie because I'm a liar. I lie because of a frame. I heard that he didn't misrepresent me because I'm afraid you're not going to love me as he is because you know something? I don't. And what the hell would make me think you will? You looked at my track record, watched my actions towards myself and become very happy with a guy who really didn't like you so very much. so I secretly believe that you don't love me and so what happens I have to create a facade in an expressive place in the city right there there's probably a hundred million dollar plastic surgery industry there it's based on people that believe in old lies for the old wise and as he is, this doesn't mean you need a dog. And you feed this dog. The couple feed that dog. He said, dog, it's over here. I don't think you can feed that dog full. I don' t think you can have enough of a guy to have enough money or enough fancy cars or enough stuff to make him change the way he feels about himself. And yet, You know, we do change the way we feel about ourselves drastically. But it's not through self-enhancement. It's through clearing up the wreckage of our past and devoting our life in hope of God's kids and even no matter what your degree of self-loathing is, you have to consistently let somebody who's standing up and making your mistakes right and devoting yourself to help others, no matter how much self-loathing you have. Those actions in time, I guarantee you, will wear that away. Tom Chamberlain used to stand at the podium and rub his hands together and chuckle in that little laugh and say, we rub away our wreckage by good works. If you want to feel better about yourself, you have to consistently act like the person you would feel better enough. One of the things that just seems to be true a lot in my life is that everybody hits up on the same page about Bob. When I acted like a jerk, you thought I was a jerk and you know something? So did I. It was always a part of me to do what I was. When I was behaving inappropriately, when I was being selfish. That's the problem with alcoholism is that it causes crisis. And I always somewhere know where I am. When I heard one of God's kids, you know, I know it. I know. I can roll over and I can try to put as much stuff between me and that nose. I can turn to see if there's a rug. I think it's really important to understand that there are a lot of things that we can do. There are a few things that you can do, but there are also other things that can be done. I think one of the things that I would like to say is that if you want to do something I think that's a really good point. I think people who are starting first in business need to have a vision to help them save their money and make a difference. I can refer to one of the best companies in the industry I got to meet with many of my students who are new to this industry who have a passion for this company and they're interested in how to develop these practices so that when they come here So, I think that's what you said. You said we need to install the images in the form of a platform. So, how do we have platforms? How do we make sure that these things are effectively working? Very nice. So, this is a process that I think we have to do around the time frame on our screen. If there is no feedback, we can use this as a tool to get feedback from the audience and use it as a way to help them. So, the first thing we're going to do is just the state of the United States. One of the things that I think is most important to me is that we need to be able to speak with each other, talk about the needs of us as a community, and also have a community place where we can all participate in our own decision-making. Talk about what we will want to see happen in the future. If you're from Chicago or St. Petersburg, concept in the digital piece of art that has been preserved through pictures. And to me, it's a large concept. It's not just a visual project. What I do is not just go for images, but I want to discover more of the reactions that these people make. And this is really important as we realize that there's really no scope for it. So we do a lot of research in the first place to see if there's any perspective here that you should be able to take into account when you're doing this work. And I think that's what we want to do. We want to find how the project can help us to be more clear in the process, more realistic so that we can get better results than it gets. It's like this, you know, this is the greatest thing that I've ever done in my life. This is what I'm trying to do. And it's just like, I don't even know if there's anything else I can say. It's just, it's amazing. It's really, it really is. It really is, it is. I think it's great. It's a lot of fun. I love it. This is the first time I've ever seen this in real life. It's a very interesting experience. It's not just me, it's the students. It's the faculty, the students, and the students themselves. You start to see the difference. But you're not alone in that experience. It's so much different from what we're used to. Yeah. It's true. It's really fun. It is really fun, and I think it's This is all part of what has happened over the last few years. After the fall of 1917, this is how it's going to be in New York City. In fact, you know, it's just a little bit of work to get over there. And that's the way it is. It's not perfect. How can we address this kind of problem? It's really hard. I've been doing this for two years now for three years. I think there's a lot of opportunities to come up with all kinds of ideas that you could use as an example. And we know what it feels like to be able to do this in a different place and focus on a different subject. I'd love to meet people who have the passion, the courage, the patience to do these things and take the lessons they've learned. How do you see your desire to do it? Oh, Jesus. Who would I hurt? Did I unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion, and bitterness in myself because I had sex on my own insecurities and fears and hurts? or in you as a form of manipulation. I see this in me, Mr. Brady. I'm going to be cremated on scene. These people together. I don't know what you're thinking. You probably don't have this down here, but I had something in place. Some vlog, there's an opt-in guide. He can find his separate listing and hold it up with somebody And you see these couples get together, and all they're bringing to the table is just a massive vacancy. It's insecure. So they've got to be in peace together. What it takes on each other. The problem with this is why don't the two people have a sponsor? And their sponsor is making them do things like serve the city and they are talking to newcomers. I've seen this a dozen times. A couple of days ago, I'll be right back and I'm going to talk to these new guys. And you see it's the easiest way that I'm talking to newcomers and not giving her an invitation. So what happens? She arouses jealousy and she starts flirting sexually with one of his friends in front to bring her dissentation back on her. Now, the problem is that works. The downside is if you cannot get on the receiving end of that, that's a bad deal. That's a bad deal, and what happens is it causes a tremendous amount of disunity in an alcoholic synonymous group because now you can't be set with just sitting across a whole group That's why people are playing these little games, and it's a bad deal. Maybe I've been very fortunate. I've had some pretty good sponsorships from Russian people in my life that sort of see me where I'm supposed to be for the most part, 100%. And this is the question that I think is paramount of what's going to be in God's head. And I'll tell you why I think that's possibly the most important question, is that I'm going to say a prayer here. The prayer is just, I'm trying to get a vision here for my future sex life, and I'm gonna ask God to mold my ideals to help me to live up to them. So, if I'm going to get a vision of how I want to be in the future in relationships, I've got a vein that's going to be built primarily on what I don't want to be. It's gonna be built on my mistakes and what I could have done instead. And then, what I've experienced over and over again, in the realm of the Spirit, You're going to have to make a much-delayed decision in this very step. What do you think? This becomes a world of opportunity. It's amazing how God facilitates opportunity. He tells you, if you wrap up yourself in a state that most of them miss them with their competition, and you will get two overs. If you throw it off your first marriage, if your self-image is you're this, you're okay, you'll be getting two over. There's going to be another relationship. to be a different person at a different time, but it's a tool. And what happens if I don't have a piece of wood that does stand back there when my emotions are in play, it is natural to go back to what you did before. Because even though it didn't work, it's very old. It's almost like some kind of whacking wheel will eventually fall and start running the road. And like that kid, he'd always wind up doing the same thing over again. That's why you get sexually rejoiced, sometimes about halfway through, you kind of look at the skills, look up and go, this is the same thing over and over, and she's deeper. They see it as the same deal. I'm the rejector of the rejectee, and you're the rejecter, and now the rejecteem, and she hurt me, so I went and found her and hurt her. I went for one personal success with the Supreme Counsel or assisted me, and I could And so, once you got done with that, I see that there's so much mercy in this world. I do this universe. I watch some people who have been horrible husbands in their lives, and boyfriends and girlfriends get to become stellar partners because they didn't do it over. And they've grown from the experience of the past. And I've watched so many women who are just overwhelmed at times with regret because of the heartbroken parents they were. And against these elder grandparents, by these elder grand-parents, the kids go over. And what should we have done instead? Whatever our deal turns out to be, We must be willing to make amends when we have done harm or loss, but we cannot bring about still more harm in doing so. Sponsorship is... I don't think there's ever one place you need sponsorship more than anywhere else. I think it's a step eight and nine. Self-loathing. anywhere else. I think it's a step eight and I'm self-loathing all the time. You can hurt yourself. Think of the minutes on your own. You really can. I mean, I think once a guy's 90 days sober and he hurts himself, I think he needs to go give a message to their ex. No, you don't. Well, you said you do. If you go over there, I need to really tell her how sorry I am. You know, you want to go get laid. You just want to make a face. You need some child support. I don't like to talk about it to you. I don' believe it. And so I'm going to go make a verbal address for no child support at all. Well, I think you ought to do something else with her. Stay away from her. If you're not ready, let it light somebody with something going on. Be your child's support. Well, I love you, Lord. Come over and show her my deep spirituality and humility. Before my son can be a beast of self, There is an important thing in the ability to delude ourselves is amazing. I've watched guys put themselves in situations like that and you couldn't put them on a line detector, and they would have thought they were doing good. Oh, I'm not really going over there. You should lay here. I'm going over here to make amends. And the sad part is they didn't mean it. If we delude ourselves, sponsorships vary in the work we ask and meditation we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. I guess if I'm trying to carry out that decision in step three that would be true across the whole board in my life, but that I really should not be able to lead my life without I left without asking, at least thinking along the lines of what would God's will be here. So I had a tendency to want to do my will and then match it or pass it. And God thinks that's what I need. And I think that's great. And if you let us, if this is the proper use of the will, as I should try to align my will with God's, I thought that Chris used to say something that was very good. I'll tell you what he used to do in some places. He said, whatever you're doing in your life, wherever you're going to go, or whatever you're up to, ask God to go with you. I'll tell you, there's a lot of stuff if you don't have God to come with you on that one, he's going to go, ah, go on. The one thing I'm going through to make amends to your anger is throwing guns. I'll go with him. It's the most important thing. I won't go with over there. I don't see it. As we blessed to some of you about sex, you've heard us in prayer through our daily prayers. In each question we'll see each question. Plus then, unless you've got 20% of you young people sitting here and you don't know how that it's going to work for sanity and with strength to do the right thing, sex is very troublesome. We throw ourselves the harder into helping others. I just think it's a lot to wonder at some of the great properties of service that are going to be served by people who are not sick from this. But there's nothing that will get them off of you or help in another term. I'll take one more story, and then we'll turn it over to Chris. So, for us, it's not just a question of whether or not we're going to be able to do this. It's not a question that we have to trust God to make sure that we're doing the right thing. That's what we're here to do. And I think that's part of what we need to do is work with God first. And I know that we've got a couple of years over that people weren't able to focus on And I think that's a really good answer to my second question. That is, have you ever felt that your life is going to change? Have you seen yourself at the door that happens to be in a situation where you're not feeling like the next person to be there for you? If you do this, what would it mean to you to stay here? So I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts on that. It was nice that you brought it up. I have a question for one of the students, too, who is one of our students who is a student at the University of New York. For instance, if you had an experience moving to the University, how would you feel about this as a student or a faculty member? It seems to me that it is a very good question. So I'm going to stop there. And I'm just going to talk a little bit about my experience because these sections have a lot to do with it. Or, there are a number of areas where it's not really a good idea to be on campus. And that's why we decided to do this because we wanted to make sure that we were all in the same place. So that's what we're trying to do. That's what our students need to know. And we're going to try to do that. If you don't want to do it, then it's bad if you don' t want to take any seat on that. But that's how we do it. I think that's a very wonderful thing to be able to do. So I guess that's how it is. We've been doing this for over 30 years, and we've been trying to get people who really feel the opportunity. We're not going to stop. We're starting off with just a little bit more of these programs, and we're going to start to see some of the functionalities that we can use to make sure that we're doing this better and better in the future. And I think that's one of the great things about being a student. I mean, I just get to talk to people and see what they say about me. Just because all of them talk to me about me doesn't mean I don't have to be able to hear from other people. You know? It's not easy. It's difficult. It's hard. But if you have a place where you can just talk to each other and see how that person is facing it. I think that's a really good point. So I'm happy to speak with you today, but what I would like to ask you is, if you have any ideas or questions, tell us in the chat or on Twitter, and then we can go and talk about other things that you would like us to discuss. And certainly, if you don't mind, let us know in the comments what you feel they might be interested in. If there's anything else that you'd like I don't know if you can hear me or not, but there is a lot of noise in the background. I'm sorry. It's okay. It's fine. It's all good. It's just a little bit of noise. I don' t know what to do with it. I don''t know. I don ''t know what'' to do. It's not that bad. It doesn't matter. It doesn''t matter. It doesn' t matter. It doesn ''t matter'' to me. It doesn?t matter to me at all. It doesn?'t matter at all to me either. I don?t care about it. I don?'t care. I don ?t care at all about it either. I don'?t care for myself. I don'T care about myself. I don.?t care who I am. and see what's possible to do in the future. Just know that you have to take steps to make sure that you are doing the right thing for them. First, it's not so easy. It's not too easy. It's going to take a lot of time. But if you're good at it, then you can do it. And if you really want to do it, just go back to your car and get your car home. And if your life is a mess or poor, I'm just going to go over a few questions. The first one is, how do you manage your time? How do you measure your time in the office? This is my favorite question. And then the second one is how do you manage the time in your office? Is this something that you do on a busy day or something like that? And the third question is, how do I measure my time in my office? And the fourth question is how do we measure our time in our offices? And the fifth question is how can I measure the time Yeah, I think that's the argument. Is that the argument? I don't know. You're serious? Yeah. It seems truthful. And it's hard to agree with you. It's hard for me to understand. But I don' t think that that's good news. It's not. I mean, it seems nice to me. It's true. It's important. I'm sure a lot of media people would need to go home and thank I really need the partners to intervene in this situation. But you guys are brainwashed. You need to show up when you're supposed to show up and you are considering it's going to be early and I'm gonna be late to meet this guy. He's down at the SLS corner, constantly thinking of people starting, steps on his cross-country. I race down here and I don't want to go and he's standing out in front there And he starts to tell me, as he starts crying as he's telling me, that the horse had denied him again the ability to see his children. And I'm looking at him and he's told me that out of his pain and his tears I'm So I'm looking at him, and I'm thinking to myself, you're the only one that can stop you from seeing your daughter. And I remember, I'm look at him and I think to myself alright I'll go one more week, close on this weekend I'll see my daughter and I'll face that for you. And then I did it one more weekend, one more weekends I thought he was turned 20. He said, remember this, when she has been, Lisa's come and gone, that she is my daughter. And that new guy, he thought I was helping him. He's, God used him to save the most important thing in my life, his whole relationship with my daughter is saving me from being a true hero. And I knew I'm going to tell you something In my view, if you don't throw yourself into this primary number one first purpose that we have here, you will stay sober. But I think your giant God stands because He will work through the people you are out trying to help. The giver gets more than he gives here. And it's always been that way. It's been that since day one when Bill Wilson, in a moment of pain and desperation in Santa Monica, Washington. I'm an oncologist in Akron, Pennsylvania. I grew up in Ohio. Yes. Can you please talk a little bit more about the sex events? The inventory process for... The inventory classes for the sex event is very helpful for me. Well, I love the way it says that we need an overhauling as far as our perspective on how we operate. You know, with our instant releases, we need overhaul. And when you think about what an overfalling is, think about overhaul a new car and that's when you take it and you strip it down piece by piece and then rebuild it with new parts where it's needed. And that's really what I needed. I had the most bizarre perspective on, you know, what relationships were about. And I blew up a ton of, I met this girl in high school and she, for one reason or another, was attracted to me. I found out later it was because her entire family was alcoholic. And, you know, when we see, you know, they are going home. So we started doing our little dance at that and you know supposedly in a blackout most of our came out of this blackout in the stations room You know how we don't want to cause I guess it seemed to be, it was like six months out, we ended up getting married. It was one of the happiest months of my life in particular. You know, she's an athlete so nine months to this email sent you a video that we got married. My daughter was born. You know, that bit of saying, you know, I guess we just couldn't get that going right. We couldn't have started on the right side. Anyways, also to have a family. And I can't even take care of myself. I think she was trying to burden me with all of this responsibility, like coming home at night. You know? Just getting a job. You know, I was 100 light years away from being able to provide financial and emotional security for this family unit. And, you know, one day she came to me and I took like five minutes notice. She turned on the car and she took my daughter, my car, my dog, and, you know, the fact that he had a split. Now this old bitch hit her so resentment in one, you And this year was some horrific training. And I basically trained because she left me when I needed her most. You know what I mean? That's a good one to use. You can get some mileage for that one. The bartender sweet millions were playing with that one, right? And I, you know, so for that year, I lived off that. Now, I'm going through the inventory process. I'm coming to the inventory processing many years later after all this unbelievable suffering goes through the process. And I'm looking at what I did and how this whole thing was caused. And, you know, I thought that she left me. And I came to the conclusion during the inventory that I drove her away. You know, what did I do? Was it considering? How about threatening her with a knife? You know? She left me, right? And that's how crazy my life was, okay? So, you know, getting back to the nature of perspective is very, very important. Answering these questions honestly is very important, and then we get to the part where we're to put together a sense idea, you know, with God's help, we're going to put together a sex idea, and it is for this race of direction to basically answer that, to live up to that ideal, okay? You You know, for my first time exposed to this illiterate ideal, the energy cell center, it didn't seem to be overhead. I thought that the sex ideal was for me to describe the woman I wanted to miss out on. I was thinking about that idea. My best friends used to come up to me and say, you know, I broke up with a solicitor about the sex idea. Like, what? No! We're going to end it about then. This is about what you're willing to bring to the next party. party. What are you going to work for? You know, we attract basically what we are. So we need to be willing to grow. We need to being willing to head toward a more selfless perspective within these relationships. And it's through that change that enables us to be exposed to some really, really good partners. And I was under so many misconceptions with this. I saw what it has apart from me in a big way. There were challenges, and there were rewards, and it was a bizarre perspective. It was not a human partnership of coming together to be able to make something better than each of them separately. And this inventory process really cleared away a lot of the, a lot of the false belief systems I had with relationships. And I think we all have these when we come in. We're all following. We all have these.