The Dilemma of Lack of Power – Herb K – Workshop – Part 5 of 25 – Herb

Good afternoon, good evening. My name is Herb and I'm an alcoholic. Please join me in the set-aside prayer. God, please set aside everything that I think I know about myself, my brokenness, the twelve steps, and you for an open mind and a new experience of myself, my brokeness, the 12 steps,and especially you. Let's join me in the serenity prayer. God, grant me the serENITY to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and wisdom to know the difference. we've been looking at the first step for a long time the first half of the first step is about addiction it's important it is a problem it's not the central problem last week we warmed up on the central problem unmanageability a synonym for that unmanageability is the spiritual malady and I hope you can at least intellectually connect those two as synonyms unmanaged ability is the spiritual malody in the big book when Bill says in step 10 we're placed in a position of neutrality he is referring to the promised impact of the first nine steps freedom from your addiction and he very quickly says but we're not cured he's not referring to our alcoholic body or our addicted predisposition biological or psychological genetics in our body is not referring to our defective mind and emotions. He's not referring to the first half of the first step. At least by my understanding, he's referring to the way we deal in effectively with reality. He introduces the concept on page 45 when he's introducing us to step 2 by at least his intended structure he says lack of power is our dilemma our will is disordered our will is defective it's the first time he's ever been that clear about that part of our human functionality he was very clear with the doctor's opinion and his comments about that in terms of the allergy of the body that it's a biological problem in fact he expanded dr. Silkworth's allusion to a problem of the mind when he gave us his words about obsession and delusion and the two stories of Jim and Fred brilliant articulation of the problem of the body and them and the problem mind but now he's very specific on page 45 he makes that transition as we talked about last week our human resources as marshaled by the will he's never been so clear lack of power is my dilemma lack of willpower I cannot fix my willpower with my willpower so I need power other than my power something to supplement my willpower so that it will operate properly in that step 10 discussion it's such a dense discussion it keeps revealing itself over and over and over again he said it's the proper use of the will what does he mean by that what's the property to be in alignment with our understanding of the Will of God now those are terms he uses which we need to try to understand what does he mean by the will of God well my interpretation is reality reality as it is life as it manifests on a daily basis I use the word the word alignment it's not in the big book it's not in The Twelve and Twelve but it's the most fitting word at least from my understanding of words and my experience with it with regard to the third step made a decision to turn our will in our life over to the care the proper use of the will is with my free will to align it with God's will in fact at the end of the 11 step instructions on page 88 he gives us a very short prayer that summarizes that thy will be done with my free will I am choosing to align my freewill with my understanding of your will thy will be done it's my choice in steps two and three that step two is about a choice the use of my will to choose god or no god step 3 is about choice it's about decision it says it right in the step it's a relationship with that power a choice about a concept and the choice about a relationship steps two and three respectively the most formidable power that makes us specifically human is our free will no other reality no other sentient being has the ability to self determine and yet that's the very worm in the wood the crack in the being a defective will Bill suggests he doesn't say it as clearly as I'm about to say it my will on its own power will choose me he says it on page 62 that's what we are going to look at tonight as the silver bullet of unmanageability the exact nature of unmanageability, the spiritual malady, selfishness dash self-centeredness. You gave us a wonderful description of the behavior that comes from that on page 52. I asked you to read it and highlight it and then to reread it, replacing the I I, excuse me, replacing the we with I and the past tense with the present tense. And then to read it out loud. Maybe more than once actually. I have to ask myself why I shouldn't apply to my human problems this same readiness to change my point of view. I am 10 years sober having had two previous spiritual awakenings, one at four years and one at seven years of recovery. I'm still making progress at that time. I'm making progress this time. unmanageability is something that is forever with us i'm always going to be human therefore i'm always going going to predisposed to with my free will to choose me my will will always choose me that's the way we're structured it's not a moral issue it's It's not a knowledge issue. It's Not A Negative Issue. There's No Judgment Or Blame Here. It's An Observation. Oh, That's Why He Said We're Not Cured Because This Is The Way We're Built. But It Doesn't Heal. It's not cured, it's not fixed. Bill says we have a daily reprieve based on the use of the kit of spiritual tools. Steps 10, 11 and 12. Those tools that keep us in alignment with, in relationship with, and connection with, an effective relationship with power so I asked you to go then to chapter 5 and go to page 60 in the very last paragraph excuse me the first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success are you convinced maybe not at this point you've done the work of reading and highlighting you've don't know work of converting to personal pronoun and present tense maybe you've done the Work of the will worksheet which when you look at it of course is just the bedevilments put in full sentences a couple additional comments the bedevelments are the litmus test of the vitality of your spiritual life it tells you it gives you the temperature it is the thermostat on that basis we are almost always in collision with something or somebody even though our motives are good hear that that's not subtle even though our motives are good we live on self-propulsion he said we're the director rather than the actor whose job is it to run the whole show to arrange the lights the ballet the scenery the rest of the players it's not the actors job the actors job is to know their part and take their part and know their lines and stay out of the way of everybody else that's not how we live our life we're actors trying to be the director we have a script in our head about how i should be how they should be how life should be and this would rule our lives like puppets on puppet strings I love that image once I did the fourth step I realized that the puppet strings were cut I was no longer subject to people circumstances events as much it took a while over the next 12 years for the reaction to become a pause so that it was a response but it began that very first journey looking at my thoughts and my feelings and my behavior and taking responsibility for my reactions 100% I don't have a part in my resentment I do not have a part in resentment I have the whole thing 100% people and institutions and circumstances and events cannot make me angry or fearful or shame or guilt they just are what they are my perception of and my reaction to is what brings up my resentment and my fear and my shame and my guilt I am 100% responsible now you can hear those words and you can understand the logic of it you might even accept the psychology of it but once you do a fourth step you will have an experience in technicolor of what it means if only people would do as he wished as I wished the show would be great everybody including myself would be pleased life would be wonderful in trying to make these arrangements I am sometimes quite virtuous kind you can consider it impatient and generous even modest and self-sacrificing. Gandhi himself. And yet, if I don't get what I want, I'm going to be mean and egotistical and selfish and dishonest. Here's the manipulation. We all have varied traits, he says on page 61. The show doesn't come off very well. He's staying with the drama the theater analogy i begin to think that life doesn't treat me right i am a victim of my boss of my father of my mother of my wife of my circumstances i decide to exert myself more i can get up earlier i can run harder i can stay up later i can go to more classes i can hire better teachers and better therapists I become on the next occasion more demanding or more gracious here the manipulation again still the play doesn't suit me admitting I am somewhat at fault a little bit I am sure that everybody else is more to blame I was the perennial victim until 1988 four years sober angry indignant self PTA a self seeker even when trying to be kind of victim of the delusion that I can rest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if only I manage well rest wrest we don't see that word very often but you can see it in the word wrestle and i like to image arm wrestle most of us arm wrestle reality trying to make it fit my expectations it never works creates suffering on my part and suffering on everybody else's part because reality just is and we take it personal reality just is it's not right or wrong reality just is the sun comes up in the east and the sun sets in the west no matter what I want or think about and people just behave the way they behave because fill in the blank so many reasons but it's just what is mothers should fathers should husbands should wives should children should bosses should we have scripts everybody everybody without exception has a script has a story about life about themselves and about other people some people are more conscious of it some people aren't as conscious but to the extent that we operate in the realm of shoulds we're operating in the realm of Disney fantasy and we really do believe by our behavior in fairy godmothers and white knights and princesses and princess princes and princess and it's all a lie is it not evident to the rest of the players that these are the things i want and do not my actions make each of them retaliate passive aggressive behavior as we call it today am i not in my best moments a producer of confusion rather than harmony then he gives us some examples of self-centered egocentric behavior 1939 language it's still valid today and every one of them is about somebody who is a victim the business person who's retired and complaining but not taking any action the minister who is sighing over his pathetic flock but not not living the life and shining the light of his own behavior so that they can follow him the safe cracker the people in jail who think that they're in there for the wrong reason etc these two paragraphs now page 62 are the key to unmanageability selfishness dash self-centeredness exclamation point he uses the term root this is the root of our trouble if i had a tree here that was an orange tree you didn't know that it was an orangetree because there's no label on it but you look at it and you see little round balls on it and i asked you what kind of a tree it is you would see that it's an orange tree because of the oranges or the fruit on it but you don't what you do see is the fruit and the leaves and the branches and the trunk you don t see the root where the life comes from that's the same with selfishness and self-centeredness and when we get to the fourth step you'll see i have a design there that shows the fruit of the root of selfishness and self-centeredness are the constituent parts of step four resentment and fear and dishonesty instincts gone awry bill calls it in step 4 in the 12 and 12. fight flight and freeze and as bill names them in step four in the big book he calls them resentment and fear and dishonesty driven by a hundred forms of fear self-delusion self-seeking and self-pity we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate driven by see this is our motive coming from the latin movere to move what moves us what drives us underneath the underneath the underneath the underneath when we get down to causes and conditions the exact nature bill says the root cause is selfishness and self-centeredness and that's the premise and assumption of step four in the big book sometimes they heard us seemingly without provocation we don't know why they talk bad about us we don t know why the retaliate we don d know why their passive aggressive toward us or don t talk to us and snub us but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt we we take ownership of our thoughts and our feelings and our behavior so he concludes in this last final paragraph here so our troubles are basically of our own making it sounds very negative and yet it's a big promise of hope if my troubles are of janice's making, I'm screwed. Because Janice has to change in order for me to be okay. But if my troubles are of my making, oh, then all I have to do is figure out how to change so that I don't create trouble in my life. There's hope in this message. These troubles arise out of ourselves and the addict is an extreme example of self-will run riot. I make the distinction here. All people are self- will run riot, all human beings have free will, all humans misuse free will. The mature ones go through some form of rite of passage to adulthood, emotional and human adulthood and therefore reduce their own suffering and other people's suffering around them addicts don't we don't learn from our mistakes we just try harder we don't know that we don' t know and we can't see that we don't see boggling above everything we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness we must or it kills us god makes that possible and there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without god's aid that's pretty clear we're as powerless over our selfishness and getting rid if it as we are over our addiction having no power at all that's why it's under step one it's not connected to our addiction there's a dash not an end But it's under step one, because even though we get clear of our addiction through grace and perhaps some of the work that we did in steps one through nine, that's the promise by the time we get through step nine that we're placed in a position of neutrality. We can't get rid of this nor be cured of this unmanageability, he said. well he's he's actually going to drive it further down the hole into darkness many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore moral the sense of values in a sense of ethics right behavior philosophy a lot of knowledge and a lot of insight into human development but neither of those helped us become a better human being or have a life of happiness that we know is available at least by seeing it in other people but we could not live up to them these moral and philosophical convictions even though we would have liked to again powerless and then he puts a wooden stake into the coffin into the heart neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power not only can we not get rid of it we can't even reduce it. We can't even diminish it, we can't even change it a little bit. By wishing or trying on our own power the steps will not reduce your self-centeredness. Religion will not reduce your self-centredness. Therapy will not reduce your self-centeredness prairie meditation will not reduce your self-centredness human development and all your efforts and knowledge and fill in the blank will not reduced yourself centeredness so in the same way he ended the first half of the first step on page 43, concerning addiction. We have no effective mental defense against the first drink. We need God's help. Here, we can't reduce it much. On our own power, we had to have God's health. The same kind of structure, the same kind conclusion the same kind of application and implication on my own power I will fail my free will is not free in addiction clearly we're sure it were we've experienced that in the first half of the first step but our free will is not free in the second half of the first step unmanageability I cannot with my free will modify my freewill because it's not free to do that it doesn't have the power to do that it's a hell of a spot and if you've read the assignment assignment 5 which is now for next time to finish up with assignment 5 looking at the questions in the will structure that will worksheet and then the final assignment going back to page 60 and turning that first sentence in that last paragraph into a question it's a statement that last paragraph that first sentence the first requirement is that we be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success and i've asked you to ask yourself after you've done all this reading and all this reflection and all of this writing to have the meditation are you convinced that your life on the basis of yourself will will not be successful write a sentence about it write a paragraph about it right a page about it there's no rules no minimum no maximum it's a reflection it's a meditation after you've done all of this preparation because that's the launching pad for step two having an experience that I'm an addict and I need God but more especially I'm a human and I need a power other than my human power in order to be truly human that's the launching pad that's the springboard into step two so in assignment five that would be items number uh seven and eight as i just articulated them i also indicate in item six to read and highlight uh step one from the 12 and 12. if you haven't done that i put some suggestion about the 12-12 i don't have strong suggestions about it because there are very few instructions in the twelve and twelve but since bill wrote it published in 1951 he was 12 years more sober than when he wrote the big book you wrote the big book in 1939 he wrote The Twelve and Twelve in 1952 so he had 12 years of additional experience and it's a wonderful commentary on that experience but it's the final thing to complete if you plan on doing it and then we'll talk some more about that next week today we're going to talk to some people about their experience with unmanageability stay focused on unmanaged ability it's better if you don't connect it to your addiction because it really is irrelevant your addiction at this point is irrelevant whether you're in relapse right now or not if you're in relapsed of course your life is unmanageable because of your addiction but they're not necessarily connected and you'll see from or hear from the people who are fact in their abstinence for a period of time whatever that is a day or a year or a decade it doesn't matter everyone on the calls life if they're being honest with themselves is as unmanageable as their addiction now it's less today I don't relate very well to the bedevilments I relate to self-centeredness but not in the grossest of senses I experienced it 10 years ago or 20 years ago over 30 years ago we make improvements but I still have moments of meanness or unkindness or inconsideration or insensitivity unhealthy reactions to life fortunately because i have a vital consistent meditation practice and practice of accountability i stay pretty even i praise pretty i i navigate the the waters of life fairly easily so let's talk to some people today yeah i've got a question i can remember you saying once that our suffering is proportional to our self-centeredness all right and i really liked it this is why i remember it and um it seems to me now and i'm not sure about it but it seems like the obsession the mental obsession is um is related to unmanageability so do you all right tell me about yeah i think you're you're on to something here tell me your connection yeah i'm wondering if if that's proportional of um if the like when my life is more manageable i usually don't get obsessed with certain things and the more unmanageable it gets the more I need some kind of relief yeah yeah I think that's very connected and I believe that's why Bill says we're not cured of our unmanaged ability and in step 10 in the 12 and 12 he said when you're disturbed there's something wrong with you and you use the 10 step to bring yourself back into alignment to take away the tension otherwise we know how we take away and smooth out our attention right with our addiction yeah that's that is really the whole point of it the spiritual malady if if it's minimized we don't have the tension or disturbance in our life and therefore the obsession doesn't come back as the mechanism to smooth out the waters okay okay so yeah another question so when when you talk about self-centeredness I I can't remove my self-centeredness by doing the steps, by doing meditation and so on and so on. And I can really relate to it because you know, I wake up and I have all those good intentions of being a nice and kind person and I find myself being the opposite every two minutes of my life. So I feel very powerless over my character defects and over my self centeredness. So is it just being patient and waiting until my higher power decides better? Well, in a way, yes. But the 10th step is not about being patient, is it? It says when they crop up, we take these four actions. We pray, we talk to somebody, we make amends, and we turn our thoughts to helping somebody else. so it's suggesting that you can be patient and tolerant with yourself recognizing in compassion your humanity at the same time you don't have to continue to be disturbed you can take these actions to smooth out the disturbance because you see the truth of it you've created the disturbance Okay. But you think that still doesn't mean that I am removing my self-centeredness? The first recommendation in the 10 step of the four is prayer. Okay. You're connecting to power, but you're also human and therefore you got to take responsibility and be accountable so you talk to somebody which is the second piece. that's the beauty of step six and seven step six says i've got character defects you rightly connected them in your conversation a minute ago they come from these spiritual maladies your character defects but again step seven is a prayer because i'm powerless over the character defect but I'm wonder 100% responsible for the behavior that comes out of them so if I'm acting inconsiderate I can make a decision if I'm conscious to behave myself I still might have the inclination to be inconsiderate but i manage it with my conscious effort in co in collaboration with power or god to be able to act better than i want or act better than i feel and that's why most spiritual practitioners call it a practice we practice step 10 we practice step 11 we practice step 12 yeah and we get better at it as we practice it like if you go to the gym you get a coach and over a three month period you get better at doing what you do and you need less coaching and you are less sore because you've practiced right Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so God in collaboration with God, our character defects which cause unmanageability get less and less. So unless you know more and more freedom. That's exactly right. You're making wonderful connections, more and more freedom and the goal of the steps one through nine is freedom from addiction and the gold of 10 11 and 12 is freedom From Unmanageability yeah yeah okay all right thank you so much I'm in codependency that's my issue today all right um the last time we talked with september 9th to him and then i told him i didn't want to talk anymore because i had to figure out for myself the whole relationship so what happened is it's been really hard but i've been practicing what you said and i go to god i go my spiritual director i go to my therapist and i practice these to undo this codependency but boy i am not cured because i want you know i told them i don't want to talk to him i don't have anything to say but you know what i want to call him and but what i realize is the time i want a call him is when i'm working on myself and doing these homework and stuff and i don t want to do the work anymore i want a diversion you bet and but i have a relationship with god and he has helped me i haven't called i don't intend to call but i can't do it without god there's no way there's no way i've tried i've i've cried my whole life doing stuff without god yeah yeah yeah it we don't know it and we don t feel it but if we do it with the intention down the road when we look back over our shoulder we see that the results are way bigger than our ability to make it happen if we can just hold on and wait and well and that's really yes that i i tell people all the time breathe and lean gently into it yes yeah it's it's the key to success that willingness to just patiently show up and do the next indicated thing it sounds so simple no it's not and it doesn't sound very effective but it is incredibly effective and it is so simple yeah not easy no it doesn t yeah it's not easy but i have to tell you that really what helped me is i was on your another workshop that you had emotional sobriety and i said to her i have this god it's great but i want a bigger god and you replied he said well write a set aside prayer what do i believe about god and it's like that was interesting because you know i'm a catholic i've been going to church i love mass whatever what do I believe about God so actually I was surprised as I'm not a writer I did write it and then you said how do I behave in light of what I believe and it just opened up like beautiful light has shined on my whole life like i am doing what i want to do i do have this wonderful god i like my relationship with god because i get mixed up with the catholic stuff i i i go ahead i'm not putting the catholics down i like the catholics but i need my own relationship you do and that's what the set aside prayer opened up and i said i do have a relationship with god i'm i like my god and my behavior reflects them yeah yeah so thanks encourage me to do that as you're welcome it's the key to step two which we'll be coming to in another couple weeks i came to that assignment in my third journey through the steps the man gave me two things number one he gave me the set aside attitude and number and prayer and number two he asked me those two questions and what i realized like you're realizing uh at the end of that kind of reflection and process you know that i studied to be a catholic priest for seven years right my concept of god from my tradition was the very impediment to my relationship with the mystery so you're saying it was similar very similar no i'm saying it got in the way oh it got in the boy okay i misunderstood you yeah no i i was holding on to some stuff that was academic and theological but not experiential not practical gotcha yeah it's not your experience you you like the god that you have i love the catholic theology and the history and all the ritual and the liturgy and the philosophy behind it i love all of that i just wasn't living it i'm not that great at it well it's Not About Being Great It's About Just Like oh i actually didn't believe it as witnessed by my feet right right that's what i saw the witness what i'm doing it's very objective and it's sehr in your face well you said we'll see what your feet are doing what are your feet where are your feet taking you yeah that there it is right there that's right that doesn't lie to you never right yeah good good i'm so glad that it's been a good experience for you i am learning alcoholics learn by repetition and yes and i'm glad you're going slow well not only that it it's um it's the style of the book when bill enters into a new phase he always stands on the path that he's traveled and looks back over his shoulder and gives us a bit of a recap and I think yes it's exactly what we humans need that's why I give a context at the beginning of every workshop mm-hmm yeah thank you it's working it's working for me it sounds like it's wonderfully for you so stay with it thank you so much okay so this unmanageability piece was very eye-opening in what way so I really like this before we get to the bedevilments where on page 61 where it says being kind considerate patient generous modest all of that that kind of struck a chord with me because I feel like the root of my unmanageability is my expectation from being all of those things right When I don't receive what I expect in return, I feel like my life becomes unmanageable. My emotions just kind of take over. And it's really good to see that away from my addiction because, you know, it can be food. It can be codependency. It can Be alcohol. It can begin. It could be anything. I mean, it depends on the day of the week for me sometimes. Or the hour of the day. Right, exactly. but the root is really that i i have a lot of expectations when i do something for someone or something or whatever um so it really you know it's just i really am that selfish and i could never see that i always just thought like well but i'm doing so much for everyone else and not myself um so anyway that's thank you well that's the key that many of the alanons and the adult children of alcoholics or the codependents have a hard time with for the very reasons that you just talked about what do you mean i just spend my entire day trying to help people i'm thinking about others all the time but what you just said was yeah underneath that the motive is corrupt Right. And you realize that for me, I realized it as my life continued to feel unmanageable. It's like, well, why does it feel un manageable? I'm doing good things all day. I'm doing good things. Why do I feel like crap? Oh, because I expect something out of it. So, yeah. You get tired, by the way. Right. Oh, yeah, very tired. What I am worried about is how do you convert the information to the transformation right and i think it's in the practice you said um i just worry that my ego gets in the way sometimes and says you're good you say it's a legitimate concern yes it's how do i suppress it how do I keep it how about how about this you can't right god oh this is the point right this is the point this is the implosion that I pray you all have I need to but I can't therefore with a desperation I better connect to a power that's going to carry me down the field and across the goal line right now i don't mean to connote passive there because we're going to enter into steps four through nine which is very active so you will be doing a lot of training and a lot of work and a lots of muscle exercise four through nine all right but to answer your question now very directly you said so how do i deal with my ego certainly not with my ego correct you deal with it going through what are the manifestations of the ego steps four through nine and you connect to power and as the step five promises on page 75 say we walk hand in hand with the spirit see it's a co-creation and a collaboration those are my favorite words they don't come from the big book but the images do right yeah well let me just read the the page 75 the uh promise that just trips my trigger every time we feel we are on the broad highway capital b capital h walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe that's the image wow i know wow yeah okay all right so again going back to what we were talking about early with other people it's about patience it's about breathing it's about showing up and doing the next indicated thing yeah by Sunday you're not going to have this experience but three months from now six months from now nine months from no I don't know when it will happen I do know that it will happen and you're going to be sitting there with tears in your eyes talking to me about oh my god herb what you said was true and i'm going yep can't wait yeah you can actually and you have to thanks very much there's something about owning the selfishness and the self-centeredness of my disease and the underlying the permission to to go yeah i really had secret motives through all of that too and being a victim was so much more delicious in a lot of ways until it wasn't until it was because it doesn't it doesn t work when you become you know a little bit more conscious right and so there's this tenderness for me i mean i don't i did the boom well i did that homework the way it was to put in eye form and And, I mean, wow, a lot of the bedevilments didn't apply to me, which made me feel even more grateful because every single one of them did apply. Oh, you mean so you see the contrast? Very much so. And you're grateful and humbled by the contrast. Oh, I can't even articulate it. But there seems to be something very grounding about when I go to prayer meditation in the morning, knowing the root of what's what I wake up with every morning. You know, like a diabetic has to take their insulin, right? And I... That's a very good metaphor. Could you expand on that a little bit? It's really a good one. I feel like for me, it used to be like, for instance, I mean everyone, I've been sober 30 years which is fine. I mean that's like thank you God but what I mean is like I used to think prayer and meditation was something I could do if I was in the mood. If I was having a bad day, it was kind of like using how I use drugs and alcohol right? Or get me out of the scrape right? And it's like prayer and mediation is my insulin. I don't have another remedy at this point and I didn't know that till now yeah so it is with my cup of coffee in hand yes yeah then I go to my prayer place and I'm learning how to pray and learning how to meditate with your expectations yeah yeah just to tease it out just a little bit Marcus it's a very powerful image I have not used it before but as soon as you said it I related to it and that was if you're a diabetic You have a insulin imbalance, which at the best will just allow you to be tired. At the worst, you'll go blind and you'll begin losing limbs and eventually die. So a real diabetic has to do measurements on a daily basis and take their insulin either by pill or by injection on a day-to-day basis. So it's a matter of life and death. And so that's exactly the picture that you were painting about prayer and meditation. It's not a nice thing for spiritual people to do. No, and I thought it was. I'm not going to lie. You know, I used to think, wow, I'm so spiritual. I mean, I just get such a chuckle. A lot of people say Monday through Friday I'm really good because I have a work structure. But on the weekends I miss my prayer and meditating. i said oh yeah because on the weekends you're you you don't need god right no and that would have totally been my um i would have said the same thing like oh no i'm going to a yoga retreat so there you know we'll be doubly spiritual for monday so we need to do it monday there he goes yeah and then just the check-in with the like staying on the insulin metaphors like the 10th step keeps me in check you know you just i i can't articulate it yet because i'm well it's like the diabetic measure i know there's there's kind of like tests or meters and now i can see on the advertisements there's like patches that people wear or things that they wear that that signal to them as a meter as to their their level of insulin so that and and that's like the 10th step yeah the 10 step is a thermometer yes and it really still bugs the crud out of me that when i'm disturbed it's my fault so i'm like oh that is my first response but then of course but i love that that's my first because it's like ah i still ah okay good right yeah what i'm getting from a lot of this about the unmanageability is that my best self shows up I was writing as a mother, as a nurse with my patients, with my fellows in AA and FA, with my friends. And my worst self shows up with my partner. And now this is the third man in my life, two husbands and now my partner, who has told me that I speak differently when I'm speaking to my fellows or my friends than I do at home or that they're not following the right script. And I have made amends before. I have mad amends about expectations and not having them and how they can only fall short, and I feel hopeless right now. I feel like that is me, that trouble with my personal relationships, can't control my emotional nature, prey to misery and depression and full of fear. But if you asked anyone at work, they would never see that. That's never how they would describe me. but at home oh because you're a great actor oh my god and i'm aware of it too morals and philosophy do not help us no information and sobriety doesn't help us well i'm sticking with you because i'm on this train and this awareness and these writings i'm trusting this whole process yeah well you bought the ticket and you got on the train and there's things to do but the train's going to take you yeah destination that's a great image also yeah and i'm on it with all these other wonderful people in you so i'm i'm on it and in it and i am going to have to do a little thing to stay with the train get my ticket punched every once in a while train take me to the destination i can't get here from there yeah good stuff good stuff can't say that i feel great about it right now but in a way it's it's uh it's great anybody who feels great in the first step isn't doing it correct right yeah and i would say the same thing about the fourth step anybody who feels good doing the fourth stuff is not doing it correctly this is soul surgery i'm not kidding no because this will was developed very strongly for survival right at some point in my life it has not let me down it has oh no it has no but i mean like it's gotten me through you know what i mean through that program it got me to aaa yeah it's such a wonderful tool but on the other hand it was great because it put me through nursing school it helped me raise a kid you know like that part of it is great and then the rest is run riot and the promise of the steps is contentment joy and happiness and freedom on a constant consistent basis not fleeting it doesn't come up every now and then it's just being that we don't have speed bumps but we have the shock absorbers to handle the speed bumps and our life essentially is very smooth yeah that's a beautiful image well thank you and it helps me communicate to you what i'm what my experience is also so that y'all can sort of capture it with these pictures that we painted that's why i grasp onto something like the the insulin uh yeah and as a nurse i get that because it's not a moral judgment I just take your numbers I just check your blood oh if the numbers this will give you this much it's there's no like right wrong in for me it's just like let's just let's just do it yeah yeah yeah okay thank you so much thank you thank you the last time i talked to you you said to me well how's it how's working for you 80 of the time good but i what i omitted was i've had terrible relationship with my husband for years oh there you go and um You know, I just never ever saw my part in it. And I'm in the program, I'm an OA 40 years and then I went to AA and then I did Al-Anon and each gave me a little bit but I still kept feeling like I was locked in a room. Like you said, you don't know until you know. And that's really been my experience. I could not find the door or how to open the window. I knew all the answers and I felt like I always got to a certain spot and I was locked in the corner yeah so how you explain things has really really helped me and one of the things that I try to do as being I hooked on to what's my experience because I've been so good at accomplishing and doing and running my life that you know well whatever I did I did and was fairly successful at it and still ended up unhappy still I still ended up unhappy with this angst. Yeah, yeah, see but that's again, thank you for being courageous and vulnerable and sharing that with us because many people are relating to you right now. And what you're saying is despite, I think you said 40 years of being in the different fellowships of 12-step and doing lots of work and having lots of success because of your efforts and your fellowship and your sponsorship and whatever else, underneath there's a piece in your life that's very unfulfilling. Yes. Yeah. And now you're been given the gift to admit it to yourself and maybe it becomes a priority to take a look at. I don't know what the outcome will be or what even the problem is, and you may or may not know what The Problem is, and you absolutely cannot predict the outcome. Right. I started this step work in 1988 because I was losing a job that I'd had for 20 years, And I wanted to keep that job because I loved the company and I loved the job I had. At the end of the work, which I did in order to change, in orderto keep the job, I resigned. And I went on to another company, which I retired from after 20 years very successfully. But here's another story. Three years later, I'm married to this woman for 25 years, and I want a divorce. so I'm going to do the steps in order to leave her on a spiritual basis the white knight that I am so I did the steps and at the end of the steps I found out that I was the problem and before she died we had 52 years of marriage together in the last 35 were phenomenal just wonderful friendship all right so the point though just in case anybody missed the point because it wasn't maybe that clear I started the steps in order to keep a job and I lost it I did the steps again in order to lose my wife and I kept her you don't know what the outcome will be see what I mean now three years later I did two steps because there was no turmoil in my life I just knew that there was more and I had a powerful experience it took me two years to do the steps and I you know and what happened is what I was discussing earlier in that my whole spiritual life opened up now that I was I had dealt with the white sharks in my life my job and my marriage I was able to focus on expanding my spiritual life and and you just never know where this this journey is going to take you that was my point of that a long story for a very short answer well what you just said was the 12 steps aren't going to do it nothing will do it except your dependence and finding god and that really has been um i was aware that every time i i because i'm a chronic relapser i was a weird that eventually it was the problem that i i didn't pray enough it's more than just the praying I'm doing doing the work but not for the experience yeah what that out only yeah I'm so glad that you're helping us recap what I said because I like maybe I didn't bring it to the conclusion that you are bringing it to so clearly and that is there's only one solution our relationship with power and Bill said it clearly although we don't really appreciate it on page 45 lack of power is my dilemma I have to find a power by which I can live well that's exactly what this book is about its main object is to enable me to find the power greater than myself which will solve my problem lack of power yeah i was uh listening to everybody talk and thinking about um unmanageability i just have to say it it's very humbling and it's uh i i experience this profound sadness almost i it's a really difficult for me to um i think when i have to face the fact that i really don't have any power because then i feel like i don't know where to turn i know we're talking about spirituality and so that tells me then i have to work on for or pray for or lean into or find that power um it takes me back to a time in my life when i thought i had an understanding of spirit spirituality and did a lot of praying and nothing happened yeah I was aware of and I'm afraid that's gonna happen again there sometimes it feels like it's happening um I know this hope I believe this is working because I'm really thinking about things I really appreciate your expression of emotion and vulnerability you're not just thinking about it you're having an experience with it thank you yeah thank you yeah and so you know um i'm very selfish and self-centered i didn't have any problem admitting that when he said that so yeah that's me all over the place it doesn't work um and then the question is how do i you know how do I you know the question is you know for me i guess on a more positive or not a positive or the different where i recognized that this past week um i was definitely upset with with the situation on up on a condo board and i was upset with the situation and people were yelling and screaming and i just wanted to fix them all i just wanted to fit the situation not because i was so concerned i was more concerned about not having flashbacks of and feeling those feelings that i had when my parents would argue yeah so it took me back over i'm 62. it took me back over 30 30 or 40 years yeah and you know i'm pulling pulling emotions from 40 years ago and and recognizing that today i can sit in that discomfort i don't have to try to fix because i can't fix other people or situations all i have to do is show up speak my truth kindly and lovingly and then be quiet yeah just be quiet it's not easy but when i did that it didn't trigger other things that pushed me into my addiction i'll just put it that way yeah it didn t trigger me i had relief yeah so i have a good example of that yeah Yeah. The, the key to serenity is the pause, the ability to take a breath just for a moment without speaking and reacting. And if we can be a little bit conscious during that time, the longer the reaction, the better, excuse me, the longer the pause the better the reaction the more healthy it will be and many times no reaction is the healthiest silence is the healthiest very few people really are interested in your opinion yeah i'm always interested in my opinion that's that's about it because i'm not interested in other people's opinions most of the time well alanon has i think a great formula i'm not in alanon but i've heard the alanon speak and and and it i might not get it right but i get a lot of it is before you speak ask yourself is what i'm about to say necessary is it the truth is it the right time to say it am I the one to say it and I know there's more but those kind of pause questions will bring peace to you and the rest of the people in your life okay fair enough when I wake up in the morning I pray and I have good intentions to do good things and good deeds but it's like my ego and gets in the way and self-centeredness and it just doesn't work out that way i have to get if i get in my head before i try to get god in my end i'm really a mess yeah so i've got to try to Get try to get up and get God in there first and that's by praying first thing but you know it's another another thing too that i've been thinking you know i all these there's so many folks that have so many years and they're now just discovering things you know that i mean it's just for somebody who has just over a year that seems like can that happen i mean you know i want to know how many years it's going to take you know yeah i just know that it it's going to take the rest of your life to live your life but we don't know how many years or months it's gonna take to become more awake right yes yeah but it has to be kind of comforting to the newer people meaning anybody with less than 10 years to hear people with 20 and 30 years talk about wow i'm just getting this now yeah see that's what i mean and you just said the newer people under 10 years i did yeah the newer people are under a year that's why i look at it well i i don't very often talk about new or newcomers that kind of thing but quite frankly i was uh a newcomer for five years i didn't know that and i would have challenged you had you ever brought it to my attention within that five-year period yes i look back over the lack of awareness that i had i was a newcomer for five years wow yeah it took that long for me to thaw out yeah i'll just keep plugging away well what's the alternative right you know show up show up lean in breathe and begin to really enjoy this process of discovery even when it creates suffering it's really a signal that you're into solution yeah thank you very much thanks sir You bet. And this just totally intrigues me. I need an HP to be human. So could you put that, be more specific? Well, I don't remember saying the HP part, but certainly I would have said something like that and that is i think the human condition is such that we have this and i'm going to use a very large word existential yearning at the very deepest level of the core of our very being that's what i mean by existential it's something that's built into us like the threads of a shirt the color built into it that there's this gnawing feeling that something's missing most people pursue material satisfaction in order to try to satisfy that itch they can't scratch, that thirst they can slake, that hunger that they can't fill. Carl Jung wrote a letter to Bill Wilson in response to Bill Wilson's letter I won't go into the entire history of it although it is interesting Carl Jung said that most of the mystics meaning the highly developed spiritual people over the centuries have expressed this experience as a absence of spirit and they yearn for that as completing their being, completing their reality, completing their sense of wholeness and that's the context in which i mean it carl jung said essentially what i said about hunger and thirst that the spirit is the only thing that satisfies this underlying need for human beings and he said alcoholics are unusually spiritual people addicts I could mention then broadening it for our audience are unusally spiritual people they long for this connection in this Union in this unity not knowing exactly what it is most people are not exposed to the information the history the knowledge the philosophy the theology of what I'm talking about and they try to fill this human angst with material things and he said there's only one solution and that's a relationship with the spirit and then he said and a latin word spiritus contra spiritum the spirit with a capital s is the antidote contra is the antidote to spirits alcohol spirits with a small s and so I'm not sure that is a satisfactory answer that's a good beginning of a conversation from my standpoint but it gives sort of the context of it thank you well there's a question that's asked and you've heard it asked and maybe discussed in meetings or in literature are we human beings seeking a spiritual experience or are we spiritual beings seeking a human experience and after several weeks actually of meditation on that i was very convinced that the answer is yes see two sides of the same coin okay it's on the side of the coin you're looking at one side says heads one side says tail but it's still the same coin am i human or am i spiritual well by spiritual i mean relationship and in that context of definition as a human being i'm i'm needing a relationship certainly with myself it apparently history tells us that as a human being i need a relationship with other human beings in community we're social we're social animals but there's something bigger than that all the studying this all the study of happiness by positive psychology and the the scientists that are pursuing trying to codify what makes us happy have said the only thing that will make you a human being happy is a relationship of contribution in a world of meaning broader than themselves that anybody who wants to be happy that's their goal will never be happy because happiness is a byproduct not a product the byproduct of my relationship with meaning broader myself and contribution to the world around me and from my standpoint that makes eminent sense when I look at steps 11 and 12 what I call the spiritual coin our relationship with God on one side of the coin a relationship with people on the other side of the coin and Bill said in an also conclude with this he said someplace in the book I'm not sure I think it's maybe a hundred page 125 we need to keep our head in the clouds and our feet on the ground yeah that's perfect our head is in the cloud our feet the ground meditate in the morning to get guidance and then spend the rest of our day certainly taking care of ourselves but also how can I contribute to the world around me big that's a big question that you asked and I've given given kind of a small answer but the beginnings of a wonderful conversation does that does it help that's yes it does my whole my whole chest area just relaxed incredibly so thank you thank you thank you nice nice yeah that you heard it yeah and uh and now I will just conclude with a phrase from Pascal who captures what I just said in five minutes he captured it in five words the hole in is in the shape of god sure i've heard that yeah hole in us cannot be filled with power and money and prestige or activity but we don't know that until we suffer from trying to fill it with all of those things that's what addiction is all about and that's what recovery is all about material things never fill the hole my definition i wrote down for for willfulness is resistance to discipline stubborn intentional uh prone to disobedience lack of discipline and say out for instance last wednesday i i texted the leader and said i'm running late i'm not going to make it today and there was a lie it was because i hadn't done my homework and it was just like a a fifth grader skipping school you know i called my sponsor i discussed it with him and he said they're not gonna do anything till you get on the meeting you know so i got on the meeting i got honest about it i said you know i just need to fess up i lied said i wasn't coming i hadn't done my homework i i feel that i'm not good enough um you know i got the baseball bat out and was wailing away and uh and they all just said we love you and thanks for being honest quit beating yourself up and like that but i guess where where I'm going with it. I don't know if it's ADD, I don' t know if its procrastination. I don''t know fits the second half of step one my unmanageability. I graduated high school with a D minus. I'm a smart guy. I could have been a surgeon. I'm coordinated. I'm intelligent. I did the least amount. I knew what I needed to do to pass and that's what I did. was just a piece of work and i'm smoking dope and drinking and carrying on like an idiot then but i that's just been my pattern to to go into confusion to have this roadblock and then take myself down deep in the black hole and waller there i mean it becomes a delusion a one-track mind in this dark hole and i don't know i just was going to run that by you and see if you'd if you had anybody or experience with somebody with that type of personality or I would say 60 to 70% of the men that call me sponsor, you just described. Now maybe not as severe or just different in terms of the behavior and the outcome, but the underlying dynamic. Let me ask a couple questions. You use the term procrastination. What does that mean for you? that I'll put off a job let's say on my honey-do list I fix it around the house and then another one will pop up and then I've got two to fix and then uh it just could be my clutter in the garage not cleaning up my garage my closet you can hardly hang another t-shirt because of my food addiction, my size. I've got some medium, some large, some x-large. Just don't want to get rid of anything because I might need it. You know I'm a hoarder all this but instead all this stuff is like the dishwasher getting full and running over and that's an underlying issue that's eating my lunch too I'm sure okay okay so that really does answer my question and it prevents me from asking other questions that I thought might be relevant that are not let me pursue a different path with you have you ever had a discussion with a professional about this no I used to do group therapy no I don't mean that but it was yeah because a group therapy probably wouldn't get underneath this especially if you did it 20 years ago because people were not that knowledgeable my sense is that you probably have given the words that you used you probably have some form of brain dysfunction in the sense of add or adhd and And that would explain your attitude in school. It would explain the clutter. It would Explain what you call procrastination, I call distraction. Because procrastination really is fear. You get to the root of the procrastination. Usually it's a symptom of some form of perfectionism where people don't want get started for fear of failure so they actually don't start and they put it off or or fear of criticism i don't hear that in you um i heard distraction and um so that it's a systemic problem it is absolutely not a problem that you can address effectively with knowledge um or even the or a spiritual solution it really does take either medication or professional uh sort of fine-tuning some type of behavioral um tell me your response to what i'm talking about i uh you know i'm just 60 63 years of it's long enough I my response is I'd heard you share before in choosing a professional to to try to find an addiction ologist is that correct yeah that might be the case but I don't think that's the kind of professional that you want here I think you want a clinical psychologist that has a special specialty in evaluation so you can determine whether or not on the surface of it I'm not a professional I just have some information to determine the diagnosis before you begin any sense of pursuing a treatment you need to find out what the original problem is and my suggestion would be some type of a clinical psychologist that has a specialty in evaluating and testing uh or somebody that has some orientation and uh training in uh add uh there's a book there's series of books by an author i've not read the books but the title has always intrigued me and it's driven to distraction i believe it's dr amen a-m-e-n driven to distraction and that might be at least some initial exposure to their thoughts on it and their symptoms and if it felt like it was relevant then you might want to pursue that in your local community okay you know when you're aware of something amiss that's half of the battle isn't it because then you begin asking questions of people about people who have information and or are trained and so you're you're on the road it's not going it's not a simple problem to evaluate nor to find experienced and effective people to help you but be patient with it and and use your common sense all right okay yeah thank you thank you so much right uh you know one of the main reasons i joined this workshop is i feel that after all the time that i have spent in allen on um and like you know you've said i've got all this flipping knowledge and yet i'm still reacting instead of responding and ncn that's a pivotal distinction i'm reacting rather than responding mature people pause evaluate and then respond or not immature people just react the outcome of a reaction is hardly ever healthy yes yeah and that's what you're experiencing and so then we have to come to well So, with 36 years in Al-Anon and a really decent program by at least our superficial evaluation and an understanding of the steps and an experience with the steps, why don't you just get a grip and change that? Well, and you see, therein lies the problem because that's what I'd like to do. Why don't I just change that, you know? I have pounded on the bed God would you take this away from me you know yeah yeah this is part of you know you scared me a couple of weeks ago when you said you know well some people can you know do you know continue to make their conscious contact but that doesn't guarantee it happens although I have not thinking I think I'm still where I'm doing much better here but I'm still struggling with every single morning meditating you know I'm doing it like you're not struggling you're not doing it no I'm I'm not doing it every day that's right I'm doing it now I'm up to four to five days but not everyday convinced right you're not convinced that you need to you're not convinced that meditation is the solution. You're not convinced that there is a God. You are not convinced that God cares. You aren't convinced that God will be, in fact, an effective helper. There's so many things that you're not convinced of and I don't know that because you've said it. I know that because your feet have shown that to me. When somebody tells me, especially with some long-term acquaintance with an immersion in a 12-step program that they don't do it on a daily basis that's not a judgment on my part that's an objective evaluation well that's because you don't believe you're powerless on the daily basis so yeah you started off the conversation perfectly i'm not convinced that is correct yep so there's a even a broader uh question here because you said until i began doing this work i wasn't conscious that this was even a thorn in my shoe right just i i knew that i didn't even know that i was uncomfortable but now i'm conscious that i've been uncomfortable for years this isn't a new uh behavior on your part this is new awareness of all being yeah yes yes and that should reinforce the whole idea that you're not you're powerless that you didn't have a choice of knowing it and now that you know it you're coming to the group saying and uh i i don't like it and i don t seem to be willing enough to change it or able enough to when you look back over your shoulder of 36 years in a program doing the best that you could do you see that in fact you have had at least cycles of disturbances that you didn't know that you had and problems with people in relationships that you did address in any conscious way you just they suffered through it and you suffered through it I did try to address it through other means though I mean which again goes back to knowledge and education I can't believe the growth I'm experiencing I said it reminds me of like the first seven years you know when I was in Al-Anon and now it's happening to me again and I am I mean deep down inside I'm very grateful because I believe in lifelong learning and I believe that's why we're here to keep learning but geez you know it's like man have you been missing this okay so wonderful conversations exploring really deeply this whole issue of unmanageability and what does it mean what's the resonance of it once we get beyond the words on the surface of the bedevilments which you notice we haven't talked about at all we've gone down underneath that concerning the dynamics of it and you went right to it self-will and self-reliance and yet you were using the terms in a way certainly that are connoted in the book meaning unhealthy but i believe now as a result of this dialogue that you're seeing the tentacles of the unhealthiness much deeper than perhaps you did before yeah yeah no this has been helpful yeah yeah and so don't rush to judgment don't rush to conclusion don't rushed to an agreement be led to it all right yeah just lean gently lean gently into it and just be aware of what's happening when it's happening or after it has happened yeah thank you very much i appreciate it thanks for the dialogue probably helpful to you but i'm confident helpful to many many people thank you and i love being a listener where i can just listen and not do the guilt thing about whether i got my homework done i am i have progressed so much on the guilt and the fear and all of that kind of stuff. But you said to this beautiful woman that was speaking, you said, you said how much abstinence do you have from codependency? And I thought what? You can measure that? So I loved when you said something like my will was broken or I don't even know but then you said align my will with God and I've been doing that the whole meditation part is getting better and better for me the self-will the self will that there's a thing that goes around the athlete meetings a lot and it's would you stand if you had a date with God would you stand him up and the answer is yes not only would I but I've done it on a regular basis but back to what the subject that I'd like you to talk a little bit about is how do I measure my codependency so the question is about the measurement and containment of codependency yes please yeah um interesting question i actually don't know that much about codependancy i've read melody beady's book codependent no more two and a half times i'm in the midst of reading it for the third time and it's an area that i know intuitively will expand my understanding of the dynamic of addiction and addicts underneath because I think it's the underbelly of an awful lot of human misery my but I also understand that there's a like in food addiction there's variety of the manifestations of food addiction you know in alcohol that's just not true the alcoholic has one or two responses you either chronically lose control that means every time you use it or you periodically lose control those are the only two variations of a alcoholic for a food addict you can under eat that's an anorexic you can overeat that's a bulimic and or you can be addicted in the sense of the management of food without any type of a body weight dysfunctionality. So it really is very tricky, as I understand it. I think the same is true with codependency. So my the most grossest understanding from my standpoint, meaning the broadest not not negative, the broadest understanding of codependence is that I get my sense of value for how you perceive me yeah i mean that to me that's the broadest level that i operate to please you because if you're pleased with me i'm okay you've you've named me as valuable therefore i must be valuable or another variation on that is i'm not stupid i'm not smart enough or strong enough to make a decision about my life but i can depend on you to because you're smart enough and strong enough to make those decisions for me and i will depend on that it's kind of a variation on a theme the image i have that really captures that strongly is a puppet on string people and circumstances and events up till age 48 for me were all the puppet masters. I had attached strings to them for various reasons, and they were the ones that were determining my thoughts and my feelings and my behavior. I wasn't. I was reacting, I didn't realize, to their thoughts, their feelings and their actions, their expectations. Because I didn't have it deep down inside of myself. One of the if you were on the call on the workshop with Dr. Alan Berger and myself and Tommy Rosen, you might have heard Dr. Berger say, emotional sobriety is having the center of gravity deep down inside OF MYSELF. My center of Gravity is deep down within me, not in events, not in circumstances, and not in people. It's an organic development within me, so the center of me is in me, not outside of me. So how do you recognize whether it's contained or not is whether you are living your life the way you want to live it and it's not contained to the extent that you're living your life from outside influences and and he said in in one of our workshops her we're very spontaneous together that's what makes it very magical we were in an all-day workshop had been in a variety of workshops for 10 years so we were really used to one another interaction but typically he and And I, because we're so spontaneous, say new things at each workshop just because we are always growing. And so I learned to expect that and he said in this particular workshop, Herb, he looked at me, he was addressing me in front of 200 people. And he said Herb do you know there's only one reason to do anything? And I had never heard him ask the question nor have any comment on it before. i was a little stuck but i trust him and i looked at him and i said no i i don't know what the answer to that is he said herb there's only one reason to do anything and that's because you really want to now you might do something as a secondary preference because your primary preference is in fact to have a good relationship with your partner so you will compromise a little bit knowing that you're in your your intentionally compromising yourself to not do exactly what you wanted but what you really want more than what you wanted is a relationship with your partner that was a little complicated did you follow that i did yeah yeah i have trouble being able to help other people what is that but that's one of the bedevilments is uh i'm not able to help other people and it just hit me oh my gosh i've done it again i have helped other people to the point that she's right i shouldn't sponsor anybody right now and i'm finding i can hear better and i am growing better and my meditations are better and you know i it just it was very helpful yeah that's an experienced and wise sponsor that values you more than your appreciation of her she took a risk with that and that's really good i'm reminded of two things number one the flight attendant who says put your own mask on first oxygen right because you can't help anybody if you're unconscious all right put your own mask on first that's a priority take care of yourself but that's tradition one and tradition two notice the balance and that's what i saw in melody beatty's book codependent no more and she said maturity is the balance between independence and interdependence and she calls it undependent in other words um a bridge is built on a pilaster on one side of the river and a pilastor on other side of the river all right those are independent but the bridge is interdependent the island themselves are independent but there is a a conscious commitment intent to have a relationship with i'm talking about humans now all right so i'm i'm really independent my wife became really independent but we agreed to have our relationship and then we talked about so what are the agreements with regard to that relationship that allowed us to maintain our inter our independence as well as our interdependence melody beattie calls that undependent there's no dependency at all i love the term it's a brand new term and i just picked it up the last time i read her book i mean current the current time i'm reading the book for the third time that was very helpful herb thank you yeah you're welcome and continue pursuing that I will in the area of the codependency because I think there's so much it's a huge world and I think there is so much there for us to understand not only for our own balance Balance is the key to emotional sobriety, that balance where I have the ability to take care of myself at the same time I'm effectively helping other people. But it's very easy to get lost for lots of reasons in terms of helping other People. It just becomes another narcotic. as you said i got lost in the helping of other people and i lost my consciousness of taking care of myself yeah right yeah i did that really well well well a lot of people do with good intention because this unmanageability we're not cured of so if in fact we don't have balance in our life meaning the morning meditation, we will go to sleep. Gurdjieff, a Russian philosopher, said all human beings are asleep dreaming that they're awake. It's a huge, wonderful, wise statement. And our job is to, number one, wake up and stay awake and then bring some light to other people to help them wake up и stay awake. But the human condition, Harry Thiebaud, a psychiatrist that was helping Bill Wilson, said human beings can wake up. The ego will be deflated with steps one through nine. Bill got it absolutely right. Step one through 9 will deflate the ego. But the ego has an uncanny way of regenerating itself. and that's the not cured and that is the unmanageability and that the spiritual malady from which we have a daily reprieve that was pretty intense yeah it's the awareness that I thought I had that I didn't have and that that's it right there God is there if I invite him and how often have I gone into really challenging situations and it was like I was gonna I was like i was doing it so that later I could tell him any give me an a-plus no concept of the set up the fact codependency yes it is your reward your validation outside of yourself yeah we're trained by that just look at any adult looking at a baby and when the baby smiles what the adult does reinforce the smile the adult is training the baby how to behave and we were all babies trained how to be right thank you so much that was great thank you it's all the time we have so we're finishing up assignment five next week I would like to spend time with each of the people who haven't shared that are in the active group having them share about their experience with the manageability especially the will worksheet and any experience that you might have or reflection that you might have in doing that final assignment of turning the statement into a question am I convinced and next week I'll give you the assignment on step two so please join me in the serenity prayer God grant me the serenity to accept the things that cannot change courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference thanks everybody