Step 10 and Personal Inventory – Sunlight of the Spirit Group Workshop – Part 1 of 3 – Tim M.

thanks my name is tim i'm an alcoholic and a member of alan on um date of sobriety 24th july 1993 very good to see lots of people here the more cameras the better if i can't see the people it's tricky to pitch so if you can turn your camera on that would be greatly appreciated um so we're on step 10 uh if you don't know what step 10 is uh well listen to the earlier recordings or go to meetings or read the big book um so i'm going to start straight in on step 10. um i think this is a good point to recall that the bigbook which is the basic text of alcoholics anonymous which is where the other fellowships take the steps from, was written by a specific bunch of people in a specific place at a specific time for a specific purpose. Namely, it was a small bunch of newly recovered alcoholics in 1939 who were frightened that they wouldn't be able to personally handle all of the requests for help and were worried also about how to carry the message so one-to-one is very difficult very time consuming if you write it down then you can provide the information to a lot of people all at once now what are the steps you it might be thought that the steps are the 200 or so words on pages 58 and 59 of the big book or in meetings when they say we're going to read out the 12 steps and step one we admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives have become unmanageable and then you go through to 12. Those aren't the steps because what those are is a summary of the steps. The book itself describes those as a summary of the 12 steps. So what are the 12 Steps? Unfortunately, the matter is a lot more complicated. It's essentially the contents of the big book up to around page 164 there are other things in those pages too but essentially it's the book up to that point so what is the status of the steps per pages 58 and 59 so the 200 or so words that get read out in meetings and are on the wall scrolls that's a little aid memoir to remember roughly what's in them and where they are uh the danger is to take those 200 or so words and say well that's the steps we needn't worry about what was meant by those words or what they signified or what their purpose was we'll just run with those and give them whatever meaning we like now the reason this is a good point to say this is because step 10 The little summary on page 58, which is 59 rather. So I mean 59 and 60, not 58 and 59. 59 and 69. The one on 59 continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. It's perfectly true. But there's an awful lot in step 10 that is not captured by that line Just as there is a lot in step four, we took a fearless and thorough moral inventory of ourselves. If you just went on those words, we take a fearless, thorough moral infantry of ourselves, you would not accidentally come up with the step four as described in the big book. You wouldn't get anywhere near it. um so the the full step 10 which is pages 84 to 85 of the big book contains a lot more material than just that continue to take personal inventory and the line continue to taking personal inventory uh covers more than just step 10 in the book and i'll explain what i mean To continue to take personal inventory can mean three things. First of all, as I go through the day, keeping an eye on myself. And as soon as I realize I've gone off track in terms of my attitude and my action, bringing myself back on track. so that's step 10 in the moment there's some kind of daily or very very regular practice of having a look at the day that's gone and say well what went wrong what needs to change and then periodically one does a more thorough extensive review of one's life maybe four times a year maybe twice a year don't do it less than once a year unless you want to die of Malcolm Henderson. And have a horrible time while you're doing this as well. One, my experience is I have to do inventory, I have to continue to take personal inventory at all three levels, I need to keep an eye on myself during the day, I need to do a review of some description, at least once a day uh to five minutes or so just to keep an eye on myself more generally to make sure i capture problems as they're as they've happened because i won't remember two weeks later and then also to stand back sometimes uh very often one's life shifts one's attitudes shift one's mood shifts without realizing that it's happening. If you've ever swum out at sea, you'll know or been in a kayak out at Sea. You think you're swimming or paddling along at a certain distance from the shore and you glance across at the shore. And you realize you're far further out than you've realized. And it's like that in recovery, which is why a periodic review of everything the first nine steps is required that once a year twice a year four times a year full survey i think is covered by step 12 when it says we continue to practice these principles in all our affairs to practice all the 12 steps in all our events the uh daily review nightly review is covered in the big book in the step 11 instructions there's a little bit of a mismatch there so that's fine i'm sure we're all flexible enough to handle that um so what we're left with is the contents of the bigbook pages 84 to 85 which is how to handle ourselves as we go through the day now the reason this isn't just an academic question When I got to AA, which was when John Major was prime minister, the step meetings were only ever 12 and 12 meetings. There weren't any big book meetings that I ever encountered in London. I first encountered them abroad and actually started a couple in the early 90s, mid-90s. And the Step 10 and the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, a book written 20 years later than the book, talks about Step 10 chiefly in the sense of some sort of daily or nightly review. Now that's very good, all very well. However, it doesn't talk at all about or in any depth at any moment about keeping an eye on ourselves as we go through the day. It does talk about a little spot check, but it doesn'T go into detail. The tradition in AA when I got sober was for Step 10 to be a daily or nightly written review. and the almost universal experience of this was writing down the same wretched nonsense day after day night after night and wondering if anything is going to change why because no one was paying attention to themselves during the day you just run through the day like the tasmanian devil or roadrunner or one of those other 1950s cartoons causing all sorts of havoc, mindlessly. And then you come to at night, survey the wreckage, write a very sort of pointless pile of verbiage, send it to your sponsor and think you're doing the steps. And of course, if nothing changes, nothing changes. Change has got to happen. Where does change happen in step 10 through a nightly review no not chiefly chiefly through how we get through the day so that's the intro so i'm going to read from the book um step 10 this is page 84 which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. So as we go along, if you're driving, you adjust the steering wheel as you go along, you don't crash the car and then try to adjust the steering wheel hoping that adjusting the steering will after you've crashed is somehow going to reverse the crash, you've got you've gotta adjust the steering when as you go along. That's what step 10 is about. We vigorously commence this way of living. As we cleaned up the past. What does as we cleaned up the past mean? Cleaning up the past in the book is steps four through nine. In other words, this method of living which is going to be described is started all the way back when we do step four. Now people in AA they're lovely but they say some very silly things sometimes. They're not silly people, but they can say silly things. And one of the silly things that is said is, the steps are in an order for a reason. Now, in a sense, that's quite right. But the reason is because in the West, we have a linear numbering system. If you have a list of items and you number them, they're going to end up in an Order. The mistake, however, is to think that step 10 comes after step 9 in the same way that 10 o'clock comes after 9 o' clock and that step 1 must wait for steps 10, 11 and 12 until step 9 has been completed. If you actually read what the book says, what it's suggesting is when you take step 3, which is the moment at which you commit to taking the rest of the steps, two train tracks immediately appear in front of you one train track is the train track of steps four five six seven eight and nine this long arc using which one surveys and rectifies the mistakes past and the second arc the second train track was the daily train track the little daily circuit if you think about steps four through nine is it work like a long train journey along a train track which goes off into the far distance and the second train track is a little loop which lasts just a day and the train comes back to the beginning and you reset and then you send the little train off on its little daily loop so you get to step three you don't have one train now up to step two you've got one train the train splits one train goes off on the track to the end of step nine the other one operates on a daily loop so if you are going to present the steps graphically you would have a single train track and then four five six seven eight and nine goes off like this and 10 11 and 12 goes in a repeating loop but our western numbering system doesn't easily allow for that which is why the steps are in the order they're in doesn't mean that 10 comes after nine. Ten is concurrent with four through nine and then continues in perpetuity once nine has been completed. I was mercifully encouraged to begin with steps 10, 11 and 12 as soon as the alcohol was out of my system if I was a few days sober I could help and encourage those who were just newly sober uh even just a few weeks in i was encouraged when sharing in meetings not to i i had someone say something a few years ago um that was it it was a it was an step meeting funnily enough but i can't remember what the step was because what i'm about to say doesn't bear any relation to anything but one of one of the the gentle participants they'd had a sudden realization it appeared and they said telling us their sudden realization is i've suddenly realized what meetings are for therefore dumping my toxic shit now that might have been what they were using meetings for which is fine you know we're very glad when everyone shares you get three minutes and you're done what you do with that three minutes as long as you don't have a pop at someone else or express a view on an issue in the news but then you're you're largely in the clear but i don't think that's what meetings were designed for and it's certainly not what traditions would suggest meetings or meetings are a venue in which we can carry the message to people by sharing our experience whatever stage one has got to one has experience and one can share it if it's if the experience is deployed in the service of god in order to help other people well that's what the sharing is for and so even a few weeks in i was encouraged to say what i had been doing in aa what problem i came to aa to solve uh what actions i've been taking in aa and what results i'd been getting i was to be careful about revealing very personal details in meetings i was to share in a general way but i could carry the message i could practice 10 11 and 12 maureen said to me you need to do daily inventory right from day one so i was set going on good practice right from the beginning So I get sponsees to do the same. The thing is, also, the only two guidance systems available are the higher power through whatever means one contacts the higher path. there are people who say they're atheists have no spiritual beliefs but when you ask them how they conduct their lives it is in accordance with higher values of selflessness and constructive action and common sense that's as close to a higher power as anyone can get really so just because one doesn't consider oneself to be running one's life under the guidance of a higher power doesn't mean one isn't but there's another voice and that's the voice of the ego most people find this was certainly the case for me if i don't deliberately place my mind under the guidelines of the higher power It will default to being under the guidance of selfishness, of self-centeredness, paranoia, suspicion, hostility, distrust, envy, jealousy, cynicism, scorn, contempt, deceit, conceit, vanity, arrogance. shall I carry on? That's a list. So, I needed to place myself at the mercy of the programme from the beginning. Now, the next line, we have entered the world of the spirit. Now that is a line in the book which does come at a specific point, which is after the completion of step nine um the simplest way to put that is when i completed my last amend i felt for the first time fully connected with the world and with the rest of humanity the second thing that i became aware of was that i was distinct from my body my material circumstances even my so-called personality um people would say for years you're a spiritual being having a human experience not a human being having a spiritual experience in other words my identity is spirit cannot be destroyed was never born will never die i happen to be operating in a physical form as bob bazans calls it the space suit and uh that was that was essentially the experience of and entering the world of the spirit now but one doesn't stay there automatically just a moment uh one doesn'T stay there automatic it takes quite a lot of peddling to stay in the realm of the spirit also the first time one enters it is quite a shock one is vividly aware of all that i've described that awareness naturally dims and in a sense you're back to normal after a while but when you stop to think about it you recall the truth of the higher state and it can be re-accessed at will but one doesn't go through life in this sort of blissful You have an ordinary life. You've now got insights which are born of experience, but nonetheless you have an ordinary life, you get on with it. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. Effectiveness is step 12. So once I've had the spiritual awakening or as I'm having it, I mean, the spiritual awakening starts right from the first few days of miraculously being able to stay sober. That's the beginning of a spiritual experience. Step 12, carry the message, practice these principles, the principles of the program in all our affairs. In other words, my affairs are no longer my business. it's the practice of the principles in those effects so my career would say it's not a career whatever you want to call it i don't like calling it my livelihood my occupation is not is not a carrier in the ordinary sense it is simply a venue to practice the principles what why i don t go to work every day i go to a particular place to practice the principles all day much nicer than going to work going to works horrible I don't know if you've ever been to work. It's the most dreadful thing. You have to sit there and you have to do terrible things for people you care little for, who themselves care little for the things you're doing for. Much more interesting to practice principles all the time. growing effectiveness the purpose of inventory um is not to sit there for decades in very intense meetings weeping about the past or weeping about the present now of course one weeps um as the circumstances allow and license uh but the purpose of my life is is not to sit staring at myself um uh carrying around uh trauma like bricks in a backpack and getting the bricks out at every possible juncture just to have everyone else look at the bricks as well the purpose of recovery is to and i say this as someone that's had quite to pass. I'm not going to rehearse the details in an exhibition's fashion. But put it this way, I'd give one example for years, there was a team of people on a rota whose job it was to monitor my state of mind and then report back to my family because there was significant concern about my ability to look after myself, to not harm myself and to not harm others. Okay? So I'm not saying this as someone that was tripping through the tulips before I got to A. I'm speaking as someone with a very hefty past. I needed to get over it. Now, that takes a long time. Fine. Takes a lot of work. one rinse cycle through the washing machine was not enough it took multiple rinse cycles through thewashing machine of the steps wasn't instant two steps forward one step back you get to 16 years sober a new situation arises in your life you realize the stuff that hasn't been dealt with fine that's all true but it is not the purpose of my life it's what needs to be gotten out of the way so that i can get on to the purposeof my life which is to live constructively and fully and enjoy myself that's what that's the point if if i'm a misery because i'm not enjoying my life no one will want what I have, and no one will ask me to sponsor them. And I need to be carrying the message of AA in order to be okay. I didn't make up those rules. I'm just observing those as the facts in my life. So the purpose of this continued inventory is to grow in effectiveness, understanding of what F I'm getting up to, and effectiveness in my, first of all, uh carrying of the message and secondly the practice of the principles the layers of the onion that people are always going on about onions and layers why that vegetable should be picked i don't know um c.s lewis says if you pick enough layers of the onion you end up with no onion and there's nothing at the center there's just the further you go down, there's just more onion. Very good observation. This is not an overnight matter. That's one of the great understatements of the book. This is not an overnight matter. And I'm going to say something which is, I hope this isn't disheartening, but But in my first 10 years, frankly, there were periods I was very depressed. There were periods. I was anxious. I mean, the sort of depressed and the sort of anxious, which if I'd gone prescription filler doctor shopping, I could have easily got some prescriptions filled on repeat. But I decided, you do what you want. Never advise other people what to do on this. I will talk about myself. I decided not to medicate myself or have myself medicated, but to walk through it and find out what was underneath. What I found underneath was selfishness and self-centeredness and all sorts of delusions about the nature of myself, the nature of the world, and my role in it. Unfortunately, the only way to find that was to sit with it long enough until I would rather face the horror than have another day of the depression. That's my experience, you may have other experiences. One cannot repeat enough that other people adopt different approaches to depression, to anxiety, to other disorders. This is not advice, this is me saying what I did. it has no authority one must decide for oneself one must consult who one wants to consult if one wants to get outside help one gets outside help whether that's psychotherapeutic or pharmacological whatever it's everyone's path is their own the reason why i'm the only one that has to live with the decisions that i make you are the only One that has To Live With The Decisions That You Make and you are responsible for the decisions you make. I'm not responsible for the decisions that you make, I'm one example. There are lots of other examples too. One needs to give this little warning because a lot of people in recovery will simply copy what someone says and then blame them, the person they copied if they don't get the results they anticipated or wanted. so i am not responsible for anything you do with any of the information or experience i'm sharing today you are responsible for doing your own homework and making your own choices boom there we go this is not an overnight matter so uh i've been doing this for decades and i'm not really finding anything new in doing inventory but i am discovering it's like the ego has been growing up side by side with me for the last 30 years my ego has done a course in miracles it sat there doing the daily lessons and assimilating the wisdom in order to pursue its own objectives um The ego keeps pace, which is why one isn't discovering anything new. I know my ego very well now compared to 30 years ago. But it doesn't mean it can't pull tricks on me. You know that game Othello with the counters, which are black on one side and white on the other? The journey with the ego, it's like an endless game of Othelo where you think you've got some victories because you've turned over the black counters and they're now white and you look back a couple of days later and lots of the counters have turned back in the other direction. That's what this is like, and it's fine. I didn't make up the system. I'm just reporting how it appears to me. Now we get into the substance of step 10. Continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Let's define those. selfishness is where i'm putting myself in front of others and i shouldn't be there are times of course i do put myself in font of others for instance the phone goes off at a certain time every day and doesn't come on again till the next morning is this putting myself in front brothers yes means others can't call at that time and i used to take calls i i remember once taking a call at three o'clock in the morning from someone never again um if someone needs to talk to someone at three O'Clock in the Morning they'll have to find someone who's awake naturally at 3 O'clock In The Morning I'm not so selfishness is about where I'm putting myself in front of others and i should be putting them in front of me dishonesty um again sometimes people will walk up to you in aa to make amends and they say it's a program of rigorous honesty and then they tell you all sorts of things you were not aware of that they'd done behind your back and then they say sorry for the things that you were unaware of two minutes earlier and the apology does nothing but by god the knowledge of what they've been up to for the last six months sticks with you um so honesty is about obviously telling the truth telling the proof as it is not with distortion and not concealing things but only where to tell the truth and the whole truth and nothing but the truth is the right thing to do you don't get onto a train carriage and announce your business to everyone. In failing to do so, you're not being dishonest. And it's a very curious thing. Sometimes have you noticed in meetings when someone shares a very harrowing story, they're thanked for their honesty on a very regular basis? If it's very upsetting to listen to, very distressing, several people will share back saying thank you for your honesty. When someone shares a story of hope and success, it's Very Rare for someone to say thank you for your Honesty. And I wonder what is going through the minds of the people who are saying thank you for Your Honesty when the darkness is shared. Do they not think the other things are honest? it's a very interesting question when people use the word honesty um people often scrub up better in meetings in their sharing than they do in everyday life and sometimes it's perceived that people in aa are hypocritical because there is a gap between what they present in meetings and what they're like every day i think frankly that gap is natural um there's a gap i'm sure you behave better at work than you think than it's going on in your mind thank god i do i don't let everyone know everything which is going on i think there's balance here um my when i'm sharing in meetings my job is to carry the message uh but without being without misrepresenting myself without pretending for instance that i never have difficulties or my character defects never manifest um but in order to give a true and fair view of myself i don't need to empty out the trash can when i go to a museum just a few references to put things in perspective it's sufficient so the question about dishonesty is really a question about gross dishonesty where the moral thing to do is to be open and candid and clear and to tell the whole truth and nothing but truth uh the other form of dishonesty which i think is worth bringing up is is connivance scheming plotting planning um secret i'm very cautious of my own secret objectives even if those objectives are for the good of others or for the good of all if I wouldn't want my objective to be broadcast the objective should be put away frankly I should be able to be upfront about what my objectives are. So that's dishonesty we've got selfishness and dishonesty down. Resentment and fear um resentment is a technical term in AA. If you want a full explanation of what it means as a technical term, look at pages 64 and 65. But essentially, it's about negative responses to things going on in the past or in the present. And the range of words the book gives includes feeling hurt, feeling threatened, feeling injured, interfered with, having a grudge, burned up, sore, angry. What I'm concerned with with resentment is any negative reaction which is recurrent, persistent or distorted in some way um there are things in society which other people can observe without getting upset whereas i get i get set off by them i start squawking those things where you're set off more than other people those are always very interesting So resentment is not just the grumbling grievance. It's all of those negative reactions. And fear is really the same, except it's cast into the future and usually more personalised. My resentments fall into two categories. Firstly, I will resent at times people or situations which interfere with my plans. Secondly, I Will resent anything which doesn't reflect my values if I'm not in a fit spiritual state. state. If I'm in a fit spiritual state, I can be tolerant and I can see things which don't reflect my values and I kann pass on by. If i'm not in a good state then those will irk me. Fear is my experience narrower and about specifically things which will interfere with my plans in the future. So these are the four things to watch for in my mind. Selfishness, dishonesty resentment and fear and the next line is very disappointing you see what i would want the next slide to say is having identified uh selfishness dishonesty resentment and fear we block out our our schedules we cancel everything and we sit at home thinking about ourselves we get our little phone we call down the list and we call as many people as possible and repeat the same sorry story to each one, embellishing the story with further and better particulars, with more lurid detail on each occasion until we're weeping at our evening meeting and can think of nothing else. And a little cluster of people forms around us, providing great comfort for our woes. That's what I want it to say. And it doesn't. I bet you want to know what it says. What it says is, when these crop up we ask God at once to remove them which of course spoils all the fun. The job is to promptly get back to the task at hand which is almost invariably dull, which explains why I'm so tempted to be engaged in selfishness, dishonesty, resentment and fear. Ask God at once to remove them. Now, as with everything else, the book is very big on, oh, God will do this, God'll do that, as though I've got no part in it. Of course, I do have a part in. Dr. Paul O talks about going to his sponsor, complaining about something his wife did and uh the sponsor said try not thinking about it for a couple of days and he said not think about it but then i'll forget all about it uh god will do god's part but i've got to do my part which is to refuse to dwell on those negative things and to get my action back on track doing the thing that i'm supposed to be doing on behalf of god god is not in charge of what i do with my mind i am god will not god can provide direction if i don't know which direction to point my mind in god will provide the direction and the strength to do it but i have to do the pointing if one is driving a car as it were uh god puts the petrol in the uh petrol tank and god will tell you what destination to put on the satellite navigation system but god won't manipulate the pedals or turn the steering wheel or pay attention to the other traffic for you my experience as an alcoholic and also as an Al-Anon is that I want everyone else to do something for me, uh, for lots of reasons. Firstly, so that I don't have to make the effort. So I don'T have to think anything through. And so thatI have someone to blame when it goes wrong. And it's easy to want to do the same thing with God, uh, to get, well, God's just going to do everything. I'm full of the Zen. I guess I'll pray to God yes but I've got to do my part which means stop thinking about it how do you do that you substitute something else the task at hand puppies whatever you want if you curate your Instagram account carefully enough you can manipulate it to present you only with rabbits and kittens very straightforward any any fool can do that and you look at the rabbits and the kittens until you feel better and then you send them to everyone you know they'll be so thrilled um so we ask all that wants to remove them brackets doing our part as well to refuse to engage in the nonsense um but it's so hard that's because you haven't developed the muscle one has to practice this for decades and then you get good at it but you've got to start somewhere it's no good to say well i tried it for five minutes so i'm going to give up you've Got to keep keep trying um if you've GOT the ability to keep drinking even though you keep throwing up i'm sure you've GOT the ability TO turn your mind to better things than you need to um if i show the same distance with recovery as i did with drinking and with other behaviors then dr bob said something if you put half the effort into your recovery that you did into your your drinking life and clearing up the messes that that entailed uh you'll do just fine um we discuss them with someone immediately and make amends quickly if we've harmed anyone Now, I discuss these things with someone else only where they require discussion because the situation is novel and I literally don't know what to do because it's complex in a way that I haven't encountered before. That's rare after the first year of recovery. Almost everything you've come across before, you've got the advice before, look at your notes, do what you did last time. so i i need to discuss things only when i need to discuss these and make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone that's plain go and go and say sorry there's a fashion in af so amends are not about saying sorry the book encourages the use of the word sorry there's nothing absolutely nothing wrong with it go and say sorry you regret what you did what can you do to set it right very straightforward then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. We resolutely turn our thoughts, not God resolutely turns our thoughts against our will. We resolutionally turn our thought. Love and tolerance of others is our code. Tolerance is saying, I'm not going to resist the things I find objectionable in the world i'm simply going to pass over them and go on to the next thing not going to dwell on them i'm not going fight against them love i think is most helpfully for me summed up in the idea of acting in the benefit of other people uh not about fluffy feelings what can i do that actively contributes to the welfare of others and now we have this the so-called step 10 promises and we have ceased fighting anything or anyone now these promises can be turned into principles to deliberately choose to live by which will accelerate the advent of these promises into one's life we have ceased fighting anything or anyone even alcohol many years ago i was legitimately ill treated by an employer and i could have sued and i this is not advice i decided not to i decided just get on with it sort my own life out get another job oh my god when i've seen a lot of situations where on either side people who work for employers where there are court cases and or other tribunal cases and people who've gone through them i don't envy anyone in any of those situations one of the best decisions i ever made was not fighting that and just moving on my bank balance is okay i don' t know what i would have gained i could have got some money but how much would i have lost again not advice you do what you want you sue whoever you want i don't care i the program suggests things that the world does not like that the people throw up their hands and say you can't do that you you've got to fight for your rights i don'T i've got a higher power my higher power seems to sort things out that's how i've chosen to live i like the results as i say i don't that i always go has it been a big thing in the last year this career question the world will tell you you need to be a motivated self starter you need zu know where you're going to be in five years time you need tu be passionate about perfection and about solutions and customer service and all of these wonderful things and you need to be constantly developing yourself continual professional development and you just keep a little record of all the things you're doing to develop yourself and oh it's very exciting and i know a lot of now to keep this to yourselves i knowa lot of people with careers in in the sense of a career in the ordinary sense of career and i see what it does to them psychologically. I don't envy any of them, but I trust in God. I seem to have an occupation. I seem a livelihood. My bank balance is okay. I do not understand it, but it seems to work, so I am going to keep going with it. What the programme, to me, suggests is very different than what the world suggests. If you have tried the world and it failed try the program um so cease fighting anything or anyone um several people again keep this to yourself this is just between you and me and anyone who listens to this tape in 30 years time a few people have had a bone to pick with me this week oh trying to start little fights sold them privately sold them publicly I won't play complete silence nothing to say and I never used to block people I love blocking people now it's my two favourite things cancelling things and blocking people i don't have to fight i don'T HAVE TO CRAWL THROUGH THE DESERT ON MY KNEES FOR A HUNDRED MILES REPENTING THAT'S MARY OLIVER WHO SAID I DON'T HAVE IT I DONT HAVE TO FIGHT COMPLETE SILENCE SAVES A LOT OF TIME AND A LOT of ENERGY i was in a bookshop many years ago uh this is 29 years ago so i was a year sober a year sober uh sober about it uh not necessarily not living my best life let's just put it like that and i went into a christian bookshop in batterson determined to start an argument with the woman behind the counter and I edged into the conversation very gently in a very polite and friendly and I started to crank the handle of an argument and as soon as she realized what was going on she said this conversation is not to the grace of God we are closed very good girl very well done um and that's what i do today if i sense the direction it's going in i've no no fights are never won um so i don't um i have occasionally sued monetary claims but i do it very much at arm's length it's just a standard procedure when customers don't pay so that i've got a standard procedure they get a letter on this date a letter on that date county court um small claims or small claims court form get sent off but it's like a standard commercial procedure it's not a fight in the sense of well a fight so it doesn't mean that i don't do what needs to be done but it is done with the same neutrality as buying an orange or something not fighting if there is any emotion involved um i've got a question why i'm doing it um for by this time the book says sanity will have returned Insanity is not drinking when I want to drink. There we go. We will seldom be interested in liquor. That means we will sometimes be interested in liquor, just note that. Seldom doesn't mean never. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. Now, that's not an instruction, that's a report of what will happen if we're in fit spiritual condition. So we react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. Now, footnote, the thought or effect is not the thought of efforts to fight alcohol. It is there is an awful lot of thought and effort for the thought and effect goes into the working of the other steps. and then out the bottom of that mechanism comes the ability to turn away from alcohol at the right moment in early days um i did also need to exert my willpower in order not to drink but it was in conjunction with the other um features of the program it was so rather than putting the effort into not drinking it was putting the effort in to go to the meeting and sit on the steps of the meeting until the meeting starts don't move so it wasn't don't drink it was sit on the seat stay here a minute at a time and then the meeting will start and then you'll be okay so the effort goes into doing the right thing not not doing the wrong thing i can't win the battle of not doingthe wrong thingi can win the battle of doing therightthingwithgodonmyside it just comes that is the miracle of it we are not fighting it neither are we avoiding temptation uh the book will say in uh chapter seven that until we're in fit spiritual condition in other words until we completed the first nine steps you want to avoid temptation unless you've got a very legitimate reason to place yourself in a in a questionable situation we feel as though we have been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected we've not even sworn off in instead the problem has been removed it does not exist we're neither cocky nor are we afraid that is our experience that is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition my understanding of fit spiritual conditioning is not got to do with mood um and it's also not got to do with spiritual insights um uh i know someone that went on a i think a very expensive note that you'll need that bit of information for later very expensive trip to costa rica where they were going to undergo a ceremony where they were going to take ayahuasca, something like that under the aegis of a shaman and they were going to get the most wonderful insight into the universe and this is a very common thing to happen in recovery um now if your friend barry from off the estate offered you some lsd around the corner behind the bins you probably have the same experience of you know the the boundary between you and the universe dissolving you see all sorts of colors but barry isn't a shaman it's not in costa rica you're not paying five thousand pounds for the experience if your sponsor came to you and said, my friend Barry, just been let out of prison got these amazing contacts. He's offered me some LSD. Does that sound like a good next step in my recovery? You know what to say. Sometimes people hesitate when it's all wrapped up in something else. But spiritual condition is not about mind blowing experiences where the fabric of reality dissolves and you see yourself as part of this cosmic expanse. The question is, are you honest when you fill out your tax return? When an unattractive, stinky alcoholic comes into your home group, do you go and talk to them or do you let someone else do it, hoping that someone else is going to get there first so you don't have to fit spiritual condition for me is about my conduct today and if i can be nice while i'm doing it then i get i get you know 10 points to slithery but the the main purpose of my fit spiritual position is to be useful today and i'm not if i feel it great but feeling is not the measure of this action is the measure of this it is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels we're headed for trouble if we do so for alcohol is a subtle foe that's another of the major understatements in the book alcohol is asubtle foe how does alcohol come back um in my experience and observation when it's been on the way back it comes through the form of uh or via where its precursors are trying to change my mental and emotional state other than by living differently doing anything which gives me a buzz or a quick fix uh something which changes me chemically or physically could be very very careful about i'm very sticky when it comes to addictions i need to i don't care about anyone else i need to keep off everything which affects me above the night. Because I just like the effect. Even if the effect is weird and horrible, I kind of like it. Part of me just doesn't want to be here. Fine. That part of me is not in the ascendant anymore. I place the world of recovery as centrally now as i did in my first year and the bulwarks against relapse i think are redoing the steps on a regular basis doesn't have to be a big production number and performance but it does need to be done uh trying to incorporate the traditions and concepts into one's life as methods of solving situations being sponsored sponsoring other people going to meetings telling the truth prayer meditation make your bed cook your dinner no funny business you're wondering what funny business is you know what your funny business is because it's just coming to your head that don't do that and you'll be fine um where are we we're not cured of alcoholism what we really have is a daily reprieve contingent upon the maintenance of our spiritual condition and now this is a bit you can implement every day is a day when we must carry the vision of god's will into all our all of our activities learn that line memorize it repeat it many times a day and let it become something which comes automatically into your mind when you're doubtful or agitated how can i best serve thee thy will not mine be done and when i'm uh when i am in a bad mood. I have to manually crank that up and just keep saying to God, show me the next thing to do. Go and get an apple. Good. I'll go and get the apple. What do I do now? Eat the apple? Good. I can do that. Do the next piece of work. Check that inverse. Find the problem in the inverse. Solve the problem. Life is made up of these tiny little insignificant things. my i keep my focus on that god what do you want me to do next if it is there for me to do it is god's will for me it doesn't need seeking god's will is not fancy i don't think um several times a week it's laundry several times a day it's doing the dishes do that not the other thing not the funny business and what i get out of that is is a frankly amazing life um these are thoughts which must go with us constantly um uh we can exercise our willpower along this line or we wish it is the proper use so there's a it's not i have no will um and god's will be done my will must be added to god's will. And the two together are unstoppable in my life. Just one last thing. There's a show which is on at the moment where there's a mother and a son, and they've got a rather disordered relationship. They kind of work, but they're probably a little too close, the mother and son and the son is an adult and they're in the same business they're a business together and um um the son says i've had the most wonderful idea and the mother says hurrah but better tell mummy just in case it's a stinker and i'm like that with god i have all sorts of good ideas but i need to Check them out with God, because a lot of my good ideas are stinkers. And ultimately, if I test my good ideas against God, something my sponsor would say is ask, is your intended course of action for the good of all? And that immediately, so often has revealed that I'm on a self-driven course. And if step 10 would boil down to something, it's that run it past God and run it passed a sponsor. That's all I've got. Let's move over to questions and answers. So you can raise your hands, your virtual hands. um if you can keep the question snappy that would be helpful and if you don't want to say the question out loud because this is recorded so if you say anything out loud it's partially recording we won't bleep you so no big reveals and don't tell us about other people um you can put the question in the chat uh pavel yeah thanks tim uh politics i want to ask uh when do you suggest to uh to introduce step 10 to two responses you said step four so is it the beginning when they started with step four or earlier or yeah that's it thanks um i as soon as someone uh as soon as i agree to sponsor someone i give them a daily program to be getting on with it's very simple very rudimentary to start off with but if someone like if i need to have a plan for the day and to examine at the end of the day what went well what went badly what needs to be done differently well that they're new they're going to need that as well they need a plan für die day if i can't wing it at 30 years and just make it up as i go along god you know god help newcomers if they're making it upas they go i was told right from the beginning have a plan develop the plan in accordance with the program and monitor what happens if things go wrong you've got to fix it straight away don't let things build up so right fromthe beginning havea havea plan have a program have a daily program any other oh here's a question if you have a fear and it's been the same fear for a long time and you've done step fours in many inventories and still have the same fear, what do you do? Well, that's a very common question. In A Course in Miracles, which is one of the books, it's not an AA book, it'snot an Al-Anon book, but I found it very helpful. I found doing what it suggests one does to be very helpful The book itself won't do anything. One's got to apply it. But it says in there, there's a sort of voice in there which is which uh is the really the voice of the higher power and the the line is this you are much something like this you are far too tolerant of your own mind one and it's as though god is saying i can't get between you between your thoughts and the consequences of those thoughts what does it mean to have a fear to have a fear means a fear thought comes into my mind and says here I am a very bad thing is going to happen and then your life will be terrible what do you think of that I don't think thoughts initially they think themselves at me i'm the recipient of thought offers they offer themselves to me there's the line the thought crossed my mind i don't cause it to cross my mind i it crosses my mind all by itself now what does it mean to have a fear uh the physical brain is going to pump out all sorts of funny thoughts all day long my job is to assess the thought that presents itself the thought of saying think me i'm a valuable thought believe me act on me i get to look at that thought say am i going to believe you or not some fears are are really um they're not fears at all they're prudence and caution and forethought uh so if you're anticipating a few let's say you're anticipating the week and you realize you've bitten off more than you can chew and there isn't enough time during the week to do all the things you said you were going to do. You might say, right, there is a potential bad thing happening. I might deliver some work late or have to cancel something at the last minute. So what I'm going to doing, I'm to go into the office today, let's say Saturday morning and get a few things out of the way. And then I can be confident that I will meet my debt that's prudence and forethought and being responsible now there might be a little stab of fear as you anticipate the week ahead but we're not talking about that here we're talking about essentially morbid fears those recurrent self-centered morbid peers uh you cannot stop your mind producing each fear in as it were um popping it through the letterbox of your mind what you can what i can control is what i do with it aside from those rare instances where i must exercise forethought caution planning with almost every other fear uh the answer is this uh if it's a fear it is coming from my ego it is therefore to be dismissed and disregarded i don't have to believe it just because i've thought it if there was a crazy person on the bus sitting next to you saying crazy things you wouldn't believe them just because they're next to me my thoughts are not my thoughts they are thoughts which are being had at me. They're next to me. I don't need to believe them. Why should I believe them? How did I pick me as the person whose thoughts are to be believed? I don'T readily believe anyone else's. I've got to do the job here. The inventory will reveal what the fears are. I've got to get rid of them now. Now how to do that is by doing God's will which is how the removal takes place. When I fully absorb myself into doing God'S will I haven't got time to be frightened and then behind the scenes below the surface all sorts of changes happen which i cannot affect manually they just happen god has to get me out of the way so that god can do god's side of it and then i find that those thoughts occur less often but i'm have i have sole responsibility for sifting which thoughts I'm going to believe, and which thoughts I'm going to dismiss, which thoughts, I'm going to dwell on, and which I'm going to disregard entirely. And the big book says there are many useful books also. On fear specifically, this is non-conference approved literature. So put your hands over your ears and make a screaming sound if you don't want to hear non-conference approved literature being plugged. Norman Vincent Peale, as unfashionable as he is. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Emmet Fox. I don't necessarily agree with their religious doctrine, but they've got very, very useful tips. So I can say when a fear thought comes, I can stay to it. I don' t care. I've got God on my side. God will enable me to handle any situation with grace and cheer and poise. So you, little fear thought, can go and F yourself. I don't care. Be gone before someone drops a house on you. Not interested. Go away. Go and bother someone else. Stand up to it. You can't, one can't be the victim of one's own mind. you've got to show it who's boss your boss it's not boss it that the physical brain is just electrical signals and chemicals pumping out random things which look like thoughts they're not thoughts really they're sequences of words and pictures The real thinking is the decision I make as to what to believe and how to respond to those things. That's real thinking. Any other questions, either hands up or in the chat? apparently not so jason do you want to uh close things up um okay no worries um no one has any questions we'll finish it up and thanks so much tim So in about a month's time, Tim will do step 11. We've got the group link there for you to join the group. Tim's blog's there as well. If you want to contact Tim, you can contact Tim through the blog. There's also lots of good information about good meetings that Tim attends there as Well and the 7th tradition. So it's just for the Zoom account because it's not a 12-step meeting. Thanks a lot, Tim, and thanks, everyone. So do you want to take us out with the serenity prayer? Thank you, everyone. Would you please join me in the serendipity prayer. God, grant me serenities. To accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things that I can't. And the wisdom to know that I have a purpose. Thank you so much, Tim. My pleasure. Have a good day. Thanks, Tim, thanks everybody. Bye-bye. Thank you, bye Take care Sarah Bye guys Thank you See ya Bye guys This was an awesome meeting Thank you so much Time to go Have a great day Elaine Thank you I'm so tired But I am so happy that we recorded it. Oh, dear. It's recorded, yeah. Please. Bye-bye. Bye.