Step 10 and Daily Inventory – 12 Step Workshop – Part 1 of 3 – Bill S.

All right, this is part four and the final three steps of our series of walking through the steps. Step ten, continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitting it. Not a complicated step, not at all, until an alcoholic gets hold of it. Until we start analyzing it and trying to take it apart. One of the greatest mistakes in my life that I ever made is when I opened my mouth and said to my sponsor that as I interpret this step, and he interrupted me right there and informed me that the step did not need my interpreting. Wrong word. By this point in our recovery, we have entered the world of the Spirit. By this time in our recovery, all that wreckage of our past, all of those wrongs of our path, we have taken care of with God's help. We have completed steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. we continue to watch for selfishness for dishonesty for resentment for fear and when these crop up we ask God at once to remove them that's on page 84 in the big book this is our seeking to continue to grow in understanding and in our effectiveness Remember the purpose that we declared that we have as our higher purpose is to be of service to God and to others. We can't grow in that effectiveness until we clear away the wreckage of our past, but when the wreckages are cleared away, what do alcoholics do? We start a new supply. We start some new wreckage, and we have to take care of that on a daily basis. when we were wrong promptly admitted it does that mean that we promptly admit when we've told somebody a lie and we go back and tell them that was a lie that was the that was not the truth here's the truth yes it does mean that in part but it also means and much more to the point it means we have ceased to lie to ourselves we have seized to con ourselves and we now when we have those insane thoughts when we do that when we don't have that insane behavior and I do my tenth step at the end of the day I know people that do it at other times and in other ways but I do mine tenth step just prior to hitting my knees in the evening and thanking God for the sobriety of that day I review my day I go through what has taken place that day. And I have a little notepad beside my bed on the nightstand. And as I review my day, if there is someone I have wronged, someone Ihave hurt, someone that I have been thoughtless about their feelings, that Ihave walked on somebody else's rights or someone else's emotions, then I make a note of that. And my priority tomorrow morning is to get on the phone or to walk into my office and face that employee or face that friend and to set the record straight. But the greatest admission when I promptly admit it when I'm wrong is the self-honesty. When I'm admitting to myself one more time, Bill, you are conning yourself. Many times I will share things in my 10th step with my sponsor that I'm confused on how should I have handled this or how should I deal with this? And the reason that I do that, very simple. Again, it's that thing of honesty and of the truth because my magic magnifying alcoholic mind tells me that truth is relative. No, it not. The truth is not relative. The truth ist absolute. It's only relative when it's rattling around in my head up here and without expressing it to somebody. I make it relative. How often have you gone to share something with your sponsor that is a dilemma to you and you've rattled it around in your head for a week and a half and you can't come up with an answer to it? And the minute you open your mouth and you start saying the words to your sponsor, you hear the answer coming out of your own mouth. And you get through spilling it out to your sponsors If you remember the little character on Saturday Night Live that God rest her gilder Radner used to play, Emily Littella. Never mind, because you hear the answer. And I'm very fortunate in having, just look at, when I look back at my last sponsor who died just last year, Dr. Paul. And Paul, when I would rattle off one of these things to him, these high and mighty cockamamie ideas, I'd toss it in my head. And if I didn't hear the answer, his dead giveaway that I was in trouble was he'd say, let's look at what you just said. That is an interesting concept. The second he said that, I knew I was In Trouble. And he would help me to see that. and then I would make the amends where it was necessary. To me, step 10 is steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 in one neat little package that I do on a daily basis so that I don't have to come back and do full-blown Katie, bar the door, write it all down four steps every time you turn around. you know I've inherited sponsees from other people that had sponsors who told them they had to do a full blown minimum of 50 pages four steps every year you may I don't do that I do every few years when I feel things are mounting up and then I'm going off in some directions and I have done more conning than I would like to admit I will do another four steps usually issue specific and sit down with my sponsor and go through it and get some guidance on it But if I'm working a good 10th step on a daily basis, I don't accumulate that wreckage. I don' t accumulate that garbage where I've got to go through and do that kind of heavy blown 4th and 5th step again. The steps tell us or the book tells us that we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. we have thief fighting you realize what a big deal that is for an alcoholic we have spent most of our lives fighting and where did it get us the longer and harder that I fought booze the more powerful booze became over me and that was a great red flag for me when I finally came to that realization. The truth of the matter is that anything, that anything I fight, I give more power to. The harder I fight the more power, the harder I fought alcohol the more power I gave it. How did I beat alcohol? I quit fighting. I surrendered. I gave up. booze you won and booze walked away with a very hollow victory because in reality I won for the first time in my life by ceasing fighting I won and I found out that there is so much in my life today so many of the so called crises of my life many of which I create myself I'm good at that that if I quit fighting them they evaporate if I quit fighting them they lose their hold on me and then we come I think to what I consider the key to sobriety on an ongoing daily basis and I consider it to be the most important line in the big book we all have our favorites We all have ones that we think are the most important, the ones that have been most meaningful in our lives. But I believe that right in the middle of page 85 that there is a line that if I forget, I can forget my sobriety because I'm going to lose it. Even my little AA cards that I give to Fonzie, I have this line on that card as a reminder. And that line, I think probably most of you know, is simply this. What we have, what we really have, is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. And then it goes on to say that every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all our activities. How can I best serve thee? I will not mind be done. You know, logic in early sobriety told me that as busy a person as I was that I couldn't go to 90 meetings in 90 days. I could make it 90 over the whole period but what I would have to do is maybe do six on weekends and then skip a few during the week. This line in the middle of page 85 that's not gonna work doesn't say you have a weekly reprieve doesn't they have a monthly reprieved it doesn't stay you can accumulate reprieves points by doing so-and-so tried that huh it's a daily reprieving contingent on the maintenance of my spiritual condition. Something very interesting I found out. In the 18 plus years that I have enjoyed this journey, I've had two weeks, two, one full seven-day weeks that I haven't missed going to a meeting at all. one time I did not get to go to a meeting for an entire week because I was too totally important I had too many unrelenting chores that had to be taken care of and it just was not possible to work a meeting into my schedule now what happened by the end of that week well what happened by the end of that week is I became judgmental I started taking other people's inventory I became argumentative most importantly of all I came to the conclusion that I was doing pretty good without meetings maybe I don't need that many the other time when I didn't go for a full 7 day period is I was home in bed flat on my back with pneumonia I couldn't go by the end of that week I was getting judgmental, argumentative, taking other people's inventory and deciding I was doing okay without meeting. You see, my disease doesn't care whether my motive is a legitimate one or not. It doesn't matter if I have a good reason or if I don't have a great reason. My disease simply wants to distance me from you and from recovery and from these meetings by whatever method it can and in so doing tell me I'm doing fine. And I believe that there is an exponential barometer or reasoning that happens that every meeting I miss makes missing the next one easier. and it doesn't take long at all for my disease to tell me that I don't need meetings. I don' t need to hit my knees twice a day, that I do' n't need to read those meditation books every single day, that I can get by without talking to another alcoholic on the telephone or face-to-face every day. My disease will tell me that in a heartbeat if I give it half a chance. And it is the experience of watching alcoholics come back into these rooms after trips back out there that that's exactly what happened to them. And that once the disease gets that hold, the next step, drink. Pick up the drink. By this time in our sobriety, if we have carefully followed the directions, we have begun to sense the flow of the Spirit into us, to some extent we have become God-conscious. We have begun to develop this vital sixth sense. We're told that on page 85 of our book. You know, I was taught in my first few weeks of sobriety by a wonderful sponsor that it is imperative that I hit my knee first thing in the morning and say please and then the last thing at night and say thank you. and I did that but I discovered that what I was doing was saying God and I'd go through the serenity prayer and I'll go through the third step prayer sometimes the seventh step prayer and I would get through with that and I wouldn't have to say okay God I'll meet you back here tonight have a nice day and I've launched off and do it my way all day long and then couldn't figure out why I got back and got down and got ready to do a tenth step at night. I had all this mess that I had done all day. And it took my granddaddy sponsor, a man of nearly 40 years of sobriety or he did have 40 years when he died to say to me, Bill, you need to learn to practice the presence of God. You need to learn when you get up off your knees instead of saying goodbye God, meet you back here tonight of come on God, let's go. And you know, since he told me that I have every day of my life tried to take God's presence with me into everything that I do and I can tell you today I don't go into a business meeting without saying God go with me. I don' t go into the church I don''t go into an event or a gathering having to do with life chores and not say, God, help me through this meeting to do my best. I don't say, help Me get the deal. I don' t say, Help Me make the clothes. I say, Go with Me, guide Me, show Me. And if I can go through the daily chores of my life and if I could do it in a way of perceiving God's presence, I picture you know looking over my shoulder tapping me on the shoulder from time to about time saying uh-uh just don't react to that listen to what the man's saying but listen to his words but don't don't act let's just wait that that little act alone of doing that has saved me so very much uh disarray in my life because you see I spent my life as a reactive person I reacted to everything this program has taught me to respond instead of reacting the program that taught me that I can take a moment to say wait a minute hold it whoa whoa whoa Bill do you really want the result of what you're about to say is the action you're about to take what you really, really want to convey. It's amazing how many times that a voice inside will say, not really. Then how about let's respond instead of reacting? How about listening to what this man or this woman is feeling instead of what they're saying and respond to that instead of reacting to the words that are harsh or whatever they're coming out of their mouths. It is amazing in doing this that I can avoid having to admit that I'm wrong because one more time I've reacted instead of responding and then we're led next to step 11 the most beautiful step of all I think so through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him praying only for knowledge of his will for us and the power to carry that out in step one we admitted we were powerless in step two we acknowledged maybe there is a power out there in step three we made a decision let's go seeking that power let's see if we can tap into that power but before we do let's get rid of some garbage first because we don't want to haul that into his presence then we do that and then we set up a mechanism on a daily basis to take care of the garbage of our lives and then were ready to meet him face to face and were able to say God my way has brought me nothing but pain and destruction I want to try your way in other words we've gone from powerlessness in step one into tapping into the infinite power of the universe right at our fingertips all we have to do is ask for it that's all not beg, not plead just ask for it and it's ours for the taking. What a beautiful and powerful step. Step 11 suggests prayer and meditation. We don't shy away from prayer, it's essential. We must do it on a daily basis if we're going to maintain that spiritual condition that will keep us sober. And we watch for the four blocks to God's will. Was I resentful? Was I selfish today? Was I dishonest today? Was I afraid today? Remember those defects of character? Remember, we ask to have them removed. And when they surface, we turn them over. I asked my sponsor one time how do you turn something over he said it's very simple son you rant you rave, you scream, you yell you whoop and you holler and you bang your cup on your high chair and when you get tired of doing that you let it go and he's got it and thank God he even showed me that I could avoid some of those steps by choice if I elected to do so. When we retire, step 11 tells us, we constructively review our day. I underline constructively because it does not mean we go through the day and we make a list of garbage to beat ourselves in the head with. It is a constructive review of the day. How could I have done it better? How could i have responded more responsibly to that person? How could I have handled this situation better? We do that at night. It's an evening inventory. It tells me where I came from, it tells me where I am, and it tells us where I'm going on a daily basis. It's clearly there. It's mapped out right there in that step. So simple, so easy for us to follow pick up the book and read it we're told that on awakening in the morning let us think about the 24 hours ahead if we consider our plans for the day we begin first by asking God to direct our thinking especially to keep us divorced from self-pity and dishonesty and self-seeking motives I've heard it said that if you want to give God a good laugh telling your plans. We don't go to God and say, God, here's what I've got for you today. This is my assignment and this is yours. You take care of yours and I'll take care to mine. Once again, God won't play that game. You can try it, but I've been there and I've done that. So that's the morning side of this step 11 equation. You see how simple it is? You see now? You see it mapped out for us? As we go through the day, we pause when agitated or doubtful and we ask for the right thought or action. Page 87. Remember I said earlier that if I could have that moment of sanity, that great wonderful word, that wonderful gift of sanity – if I have a moment of clarity, that pause to say God do I want the result of what I'm about to say or do is there a better response that I can give you know the other book puts it well when it says may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight O God but this is on a daily moment by moment basis practicing the presence of God asking for his guidance and direction not just first thing in the morning and last thing at night take him with you i'll give you a big wow god is portable he'll go anywhere that we're willing to take him but he will not run along behind us putting out fires for us after we've created them throughout the day we say to ourselves many times a day thy will be done we are then in much less danger of excitement, fear, anger worry, self-pity or foolish decisions we let God discipline us in other words good orderly direction G-O-D we have moved from the ego driven to the God directed life remember the chart that we looked at this morning we're then in a lot less fear of danger and excitement and all of these other things that rip us apart we alcoholics to cross into a new realm. Step three, step 11. The circle is complete. Step three. Step 11. Do you realize how closely those two are tied together? I like to call them the pillars of AA. The columns of recovery. The ones that hold up and maintain the rest of the steps. That without them, we couldn't survive. Step three. Step eleven. In step three, we gave up our direction. We made a decision. In step eleven, we completed that decision by receiving God's direction. Step 11, I believe, is the completion of step 3. It is the fulfillment of the decision that we made in step 3, but we could not complete it until we had done the steps in between to prepare ourselves to receive God's blessings, to receive His grace, to receive the gift of God, to receive good orderly direction. and then we are brought to the line that tells us that faith without works is dead and we're told that having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps we try to carry this message to alcoholics that practice these principles in all our affairs I like to hear this step read emphasized this way having had an spiritual awakening as THE result of THESE tests Not a result, not one of them, not some of them. It is the direct result of working these 11 steps that we have a spiritual awakening, a spiritual experience, whatever you choose to call it or whatever form it took in your whether it was a blinding light or a spiritual experience of an educational variety you know I've got to be a pain in the rear end some of the people around the meetings in Atlanta that I go to when when I'll go to them out here somebody say having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these that's I said, you didn't read that right. It's the result. We've got to keep that straight. We've gotta talk about what I like to refer to as the myth and the truth. The myth says you can't keep it unless you give it away. I think that's a myth because I think the truth is You can't get it unless you give it away. How many of you have ever traveled over to the Middle East? Are you familiar with the two seas that are over there, the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea? The Dead Sea, as I'm sure you've read about or seen about, they've done some wonderful documentaries on Discovery Channel and some of those, but the Dead See is a lifeless body of water surrounded by virtually no foliage or no grass, no trees growing anywhere around it. The water is so salty because the only outlet is evaporation of water and it's so salty you literally won't sink if you get into the water of the Dead Sea. And there are no fish, there's no life of any kind whatsoever. It is literally a dead body of water. Nearby is the Sea of Galilee, a beautiful, absolutely gorgeous sea with water flowing into it. I believe from the River Jordan. It flows in and there are beautiful trees, olive trees and olive orchards around the shores of it. It's abundant with fish and plant life. It is a beautiful sea to behold. The difference between these two seas, the Dead Sea the water flows in but there is no outlet. It has nowhere to go so what happens it stagnates and it dies and it destroys everything around it because there's no life there. The water flows into the Sea of Galilee and it brings with it life and it brings with its sustenance and it bring with it growth and when it flows out of of that sea it leaves behind freshness and beauty and life. And I believe that's the way it is with us, with these tests in this program. As long as we allow it to flow through us to other people, as long as we share what we found here, our lives stay fresh, our Our lives stay rejuvenated, and unlike the Dead Sea, we're like the Sea of Galilee. I hear it said to my great chagrin sometimes in this program of, oh, I can't go on a 12-step call. I don't have but eight months in the program, and my sponsor says you can't go on 12-step calls if you've got a year. Aren't you glad Bill didn't know that when he went to see Bob? Aren't your glad neither one of them knew it when they went to see Bill Dodson? I remember the first 12 step call I went on my sponsor called me and said, I'll be at your house in 10 minutes we got a wetman from the central office get ready. The ten minutes it took him to get from his house to my house I I grabbed my big book, opened it up to working with others, and I started reading frantically as I could. I mean, I had a full 35 days in the program. And I jumped into the car, and I said, Doc, what we're going to talk about, it says here on this page, it's so-and-so. He said, put the books down, Bill. How's your day going? I said that day was going okay, but what we were talking about is this guy. We've got to tell you, he said, Bill, we're not going to read to this guy, we're just going to share with this guy We got to the house, and we went to the house, we walked in, and Doc said, the young man, have you had enough? He said, well, I don't know. I think he said, well, that's an important question. If you haven't had enough, we'll come back when you have. He said. Well, yeah, yeah. I think I have. He said well, let's you got all the booze. Let's get it poured out. He said I've already poured out all the boos. He said what about the one in the closet in the hall? The guy looked like he'd been hit in the face with a broomstick. Sure enough he went out in the hall and got the one out of the closet in the hallway and stopped cooking into the kitchen and poured it down in the kitchen sink and we sat down in the living room, and I was ready to learn something. And Doc began to share with this man, and he began to talk to him probably much the same as Bill to Bob in that library so long ago. And the man interrupted a minute, and he said, Ask him how long you been sober? Doc said about 19 years. And he turned and looked at me and said, How long you've been sober?" 35 days we continued the conversation and that man kept turning and looking at me and asking me questions and i want to go ask him that guy he's got 19 i don't know from nothing you need that don't look i don't talk but you know what had happened this this young man couldn't conceive of someone not having a drink for 19 years but maybe maybe it was possible to go 35 maybe to 35 days and not have a drink and he wanted to know how did it happen You see, that young man understood me far more than he could conceive of this old man with 19 years of sobriety. Should I have stayed away that day? I tell the young people that come in from halfway houses to our Tuesday night big book meeting that we do every week in Atlanta of don't dare let a newcomer who picks up a white chip get away without your handshake and your telephone number. Because if you've got one day more than that man or that woman, you've gotten one day's worth of a message that they need to hear. And don't give in to this garbage that says you can't share it unless you do so-and-so. I also remind them as I was reminded that I am to share my experience my strength and my hope and I was encouraged to leave off infinite wisdom to remember when Bill preached they got drunk it was only when Bill learn to share that the miracle of sobriety occurs. And you know, I don't know about you, but I know when I have reached a point in sharing and I start reaching, all of a sudden it gets uncomfortable and you see the light starts to flicker in the other guy's eyes like they're going to go out. And I've got to pull it back to my experience, my strength, my hope, my answer that I found in this program. Not what I perceive might someday be if I pontificating the way I am. I've got to remember how I got it and that's the only way I can give it away is the same way I got it. I also have to tell you, I was determined to be when I inherited my first foncie at the age of seven months and 18 days of sobriety. The young man asked me to be his sponsor and my sponsor encouraged me to say yes. I made a decision that day that I was going to be the greatest sponsor ever known to the history of Alcoholics Anonymous. he was happy my wife was not that happy but she made up the guest room and he moved in a couple of days later we found him a job working at shoney's but he had to be at work at six o'clock in the morning he was 20 miles away so we had to set the clock for like a quarter to five in the mornings to get him up and get in his old rattle trap of a car and make it to show me time to be at work now he had some kind of little system in his head where he could tune out an alarm clock better than anybody i've ever seen so my wife took it upon herself to hear his alarm clock go turn it off wake him up make sure he was up before she went back to bed she wasn't thrilled with that choice he'd get up and go to of work. And then a couple of weeks after that, we discovered that his car, after the third blowout, realized the tires were not in that good of shape. No problem. I'll help you out with a new set of tires until you can get on your feet and get some money coming in from your job at Shoney's. Fourth week, he got fired from his job at Shoney. They repossessed his car with my tires on it. Fifth week, Ross got drunk and I went crying back to my sponsor i ruined it i blew it i screwed it up and i hope all of you know what his answer was ross may be drunk but you're not and with that went some very valuable lessons on sponsorship I have never bought another set of tires except for my car I have never moved anyone into my house and said stay until you find a place to live because you see Ross had found a place to live he wasn't looking anymore I've learned that I'm to carry the message not the alcoholic But I must carry this message on a daily basis, and I must remember that it all began with two men who were given a formula by God, and with God's grace and God's guidance, they forged into the greatest fellowship ever known to mankind. i don't know about you but i get goosebumps when i think about god's creation of this fellowship and the two men he used to do it now you can choose to disagree with me but i believe that if bill wilson alone had founded alcoholic synonymous by 1950 we would have been franchised into oblivion we would have been promoted into the 23rd century we would've had self-help courses and tapes coming out to yin yang if Bob Smith alone had been the founder of Alcoholics Anonymous it would still be well seated in Akron it might have even made it to Cleveland by now because he would have kept it so simple but the magic of these two men the huckster, the promoter the man who believed in keeping it simple and not screwing it up the magic combination of those two men God used to forge for us the most powerful fellowship in the world and when you tap that in with the 12 traditions that govern it. I don't know about you, but I, as an experiment, I took the 12 traditions and I handed them to 10 guys who are either president or chairman of the board of major corporations in this country. And I said, tell me how you see this as a governing set standards for an organization such as yours I took it also to ten organizations charitable organizations to some civic organizations and to tell us how you think these every single one of them ten and ten said they won't work they can't succeed and they proceed to tell all the holes everything that was wrong with it why it won't work why it couldn't happen why this this was self-supporting like no you can't depend on that no leaders come on you got to have some leadership you gotta have a president the vice president chairman of the board you got that and they go down the line if why they won't were why do they work I believe it's God's will I believe its God's gift to us. I believe that when those two men joined together under the will of God, there was no stopping the power of Alcoholics Anonymous and what it could do in the lives of millions of drunks. I believed with all my heart in the spring of 1935 that God looked down and said, the lowly alcoholic has suffered long enough. He's been the outcast of the world for long enough, I've got to give them a way out. Alcoholics Anonymous around my house is not an organization, it's not a club, it' s a way of life. And these steps are not an exercise. These steps are not a test. These steps are not a membership requirement. These steps are life-giving, life-changing. These steps are magic from the very inception and the power I'll have to let you know that when I cross over the last hurrah into the big meeting in the sky. Because the power of these steps keeps being revealed to me on a daily basis. And every time I read this book and I read about these steps, I find something, as I said earlier today, that I never knew was there before. May I always remain teachable. may I always remain a student of this book and of these texts and may they guide me and lead me if you're like me and other alcoholics lead us along that wonderful beautiful road of happy destiny called sobriety you've been a wonderful audience thank you for listening and I hope you got something that you might be able to use at least for the rest of the day today God bless