Step 5 and Sharing Wreckage – Step Study – a 12 Step Study – Part 4 of 6 – Local AA Speakers

I'd like to remind you that this meeting and all of the meetings that I've been doing here are taped. And Jim McCullough is over in the corner, and we'll take your tape orders. There are two steps on each tape, and each tape costs $5. That's the commercial. My name is Ray O'Keefe. I'm an alcoholic. and tonight we're going to talk about the fifth step I hear people say oft times that they have a hard time with the spiritual part of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous I don't think there is any spiritual part of the Program of Alcoholic Anonymous, it is a spiritual program from its beginning to its end from the first word in the first step to the last word in the last step. It is spiritual throughout. There is no part of it that can be separated, I don't think. Take it out specifically and say this is a spiritual part of our program. The entire program is spiritual. Don just read from the fifth chapter of our book, Alcoholics Anonymous, and he read that rarely have we seen anyone fail who has thoroughly followed our path. And what is a path, after all, but the way made clear by the people who have gone before us? If one comes upon a path in the woods, what it indicates is that someone else has gone that way over a period of time and the people who have come before you in that path through the woods have set down a way to go. And if you follow their path, you will get the same results that they got. You will arrive at the same place that they arrived at. And the spiritual path in AA is actually very broad. It is a broad highway as the book tells us in another section. It is not a narrow path. You are free to do whatever you wish within the confines of that path. We have no really specific rules of how you are to behave other than our 12 steps and the experience of our members who have gone before us that form our program together with the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. Now, the first three steps of this program can do a great deal for you. First of all, it can save your life. That ain't so bad. The first three stops are really what gets you on your feet and keeps you going. When I came here to Alcoholics Anonymous for the second time in 1965, I was a person who had run out of options. I had nowhere else to go. I was down to no money, a very tenuous kind of a job, and no relationships with anyone, family, friends. I had been everywhere else. I had tried every method there was that I could discover in order to stop drinking, but I kept drinking. And it wasn't as though I didn't know about drinking. I knew about drinking I had personal knowledge about it. I remembered the family I had come from. I knew that the men, especially the men in my family, died of alcoholism. I'd seen it. I'd been to their funerals. I knew exactly what happened. I had grown up in an area in the Bronx in New York where there were a lot of alcoholics and I knew what happened to people who drank. I watched them. We knew in the neighborhood if he really went bad with the booze, it was all over for him. And we knew that there was no way back from the alcohol. And if somebody around got it and we saw it, we felt sorry for them, but we understood it was the boozes. And I had all that information available to me when I came here. And because of what I had seen when I was young in my own home, in my own family and because what I had seen in the neighborhood in which I grew up I really did not think that I would get sober either I thought I was just one of those people who was caught up in this thing I had been here before, I stayed ten months and then I went away from the power that is in the program of Alcoholics Alarmist and that's when I fell off the cliff Up to then, I probably could have been classified as a mild case. But in the next two years, I demonstrated the progression of the disease of alcoholism in my life. And I really, really did not think I was going to get sober. I really was concerned that the program might work for you, and I'd seen it work in the ten months I'd been here. I knew it worked for me for ten months. but when I came back the second time I didn't have that hope I didn' t have that initial enthusiasm that I had the first time I was here I was a man without hope really, I was in a state of despair but I didn''t drink I did a few things right I did not drink and that's rule number one don't drink that's also rule number ten don't Drink that's Rule 1000 and don't drink and it's also rule a million. Don't drink. Don't think if your ass falls off. Just don't think. Put that down. Don't put that stuff into you. It's difficult in the beginning. We know that. Everybody knows it was difficult for me. It's difficulty. For anyone who's ever done it will tell you those initial days and weeks are difficult. There is an obsession to drink. There is compulsion to drink there's a craving to drink but don't drink. This program replaces that. Come here, be safe. You're safe at the meeting. Nobody's going to sell you a drink here. You're among people who know, people who have experienced this. That's what I had to do. I did some things right. I got a group, became a member of a group. I went there on a regular basis. I went to meetings every night. I had a sponsor. I had someone to talk to these were not difficult things to do and if I thought perhaps I might drink I'd call up my sponsor I'd say I might he'd say you're not going to drink you wouldn't dare drink then he used to say something to me he used say to me all the time don't you remember what that was like and I did remember I remembered mostly the terror and the fear and whatever that was I just somehow I felt and I knew that I really couldn't go back there I would have jumped out of a window first I think because that happened so bad and he was so constant in asking me that do you remember why don't you think about that just for a minute do you know do you even remember what that was like do you really seriously think you could go back there and somehow exist the way that was I could not do that I just couldn't do it but then I began to see things here they were here I think the first time I came I really didn't see them as well I was talking with Ernie today and he said maybe he was hearing things a little differently and I think that's happened to me when I came back the second time they were still saying the same thing nothing had changed they were there still there. There were about eight men in that group and maybe one woman. They was still there. They were still talking about the same thing. They're still talking at the first step, the second step. It was a step group. The coffee was just as bad as it was first time I came. The bullshit was at the same level that it was when I first came. But I heard a little differently this time. They say that when the student is ready, the teacher of peers. Maybe I heard that a little better the second time. I sure heard them when they told me not to drink and go to their meetings. And they didn't baby me. He sure didn't baby me, he was even unpleasant lots of times. I would complain, you know, I don't like where I work. He'd say, you're lucky you can have a job anyplace. Who the hell would hire you? I said, I didn't like it up there. They should have thrown you out a long time ago. Nice, right? When am I going to get a good job? He said, you had one. You're out of good jobs. You don't have anything at all. I began to hear it a little differently. I really did. And I believed him when he told me something. Little things got my attention. When he said he'd pick me up at eight o'clock, he was there at eight O'clock. And I'd better be ready at 8 o'clock or he would tell me that being late was a symptom of an active alcoholic. That was one of his sermons. When you're late, he said, you might as well be drunk as be late. He said, late to a meeting? Are you kidding me? He said you were never late to any saloon you ever went to. You were the first one in and the last one out. Don't be running into AA meetings late and then running out early. I got a lot of instructions but I believed him. I really did. He sure was a power greater than my own. And I believe those other people, too. I hung out with a guy who was a mailman and another fellow drove a Schaefer beer truck. And they would sort of cart me around. I was like a mascot to them. And we had fun. We had good times. Because there weren't so many meetings in those days and in order to get to a meeting every night we had to travel. So we traveled all over the area where I lived and I'd be an hour with them in the car going in an hour, coming back in an hour at the meeting. It made for a full night. I believed those guys and I could tell in that car that they had been where I had been. I knew that they had lived the way I lived. I knew they were as bad as I ever was maybe worse and I knew that they didn't have the advantages that I had but they were sober they were sober and they would do anything for me. And I would do anything for them. Didn't change much. And I believed them. I came to believe them. And I saw people coming in here, just like me. And they started to look good. Soften up. Straighten up. Make sense. They weren't jumping up and down the way I was. They weren' full of hate the way i was and full of anger the way I was, and complaining and moaning and bitching. Something hadn't quite gone their way. And I saw them quiet down, just the way pigeons do. They quiet down. Thank God. Who could stand it? If all the pigeons stayed early like they were when they first came here, you couldn't stand it. The room would blow up with all the hate and all the anxiety and all of fear. And I saw that. I saw it with my own eyes. I came to believe that there was something going on here I wasn't exactly sure what it was but there was something going on, I'll tell you I knew I was on a path I knew I finally had arrived at a place where I belonged I had that feeling I don't know, I've heard it many times in Alcoholics Anonymous perhaps you had it I had a feeling from the time I was very, very young that I didn't belong i knew i was in the wrong family i figured that one out when i was about five i knew a mistake had been made that i was in the right place and i was in the wrong bunch i didn't belong with those guys and then i felt that way for for the rest of the time i really did i didn' t feel i thought i was in the wrong schools there's something matter with these schools i was getting a lot of trouble in high school all the time because i was playing hooky a lot i was working i had a job and i used to have to run out of school go to work I was forever in trouble and they didn't understand me and I would get all these lectures you know, you're very smart and you test so well and why are you such a jerk you're climbing out windows every day they didn' t understand me I was working I had a job they didn''t want to hear that I felt like I didn't belong all through and the odd thing about it was in my case at least I felt as though I didn'' t belong even though I was successful at what I did I was a successful kid I had a lot of friends. I was very good at school. I liked school. When I was there, I thought it was terrific. I liked to learn things and I did learn things. I learned things very fast. I was a good student. I was always my class president when I went to school. But I didn't feel like I belonged. I really had to force myself to go to things, you know, like go to a ball game or go to dance. I really didn't want to go. I don't belong there, but I would go and I'd feel stupid when I was there. I did well at work. I was good at what I did. I had a talent, a God-given talent for the kind of work I do. But I didn't feel right there. I just stuck there. I lived in the right place. I lived on a nice town. It's a town full of successful people like me. I lived at a nice house, a nice family. I didn'T want to go back up there. I'd go anywhere except go home. I went into 5,000 bars. I got laid three times. Now, what is that? They don't belong, you know. They don' t belong in my house. I don' d belong in the bars. I don't belongs at the school. I don''t belong at work. I don ''t nothing seem to make any sense. And no one seemed to understand. And the reason for that was that I was so full of these defects of character that I didn't know about. I was so full of them that as I was growing up and when I went into the full-scale alcoholism, what I did was isolate myself. I became isolated because of my defects of character. Every friend I ever had I used until he was no longer my friend. I treated people as though they were disposable. like an orange I would squeeze them get out the juice and throw throw them away on to the next one and you get isolated that way and there's absolutely nobody I could talk to I mean how can I talk to anybody what am I going to do go into a university school of law into the faculty lounge and say good morning professors I had an interesting morning I woke up I had pissed into bed last night so when I finished throwing up. I wanted to put on my sincere blue suit, and I found I'd burned a big hole in it with a... So I had to get, you know... But the bar at Grand Central was interesting this morning, and there were... I couldn't do that. I just couldn't. I couldn'T talk where I worked. I couldN'T tell them what I had done the night before. And I certainly couldn'T tell anybody at home what I was doing. My God, she would have had the sheriff and and the National Guard there. Get this adulterer out of here. So I couldn't talk at home, I couldn'T talk at work, and in the bar, another guy went to the bar. The nice guy went to the ball. The nice man was a nice guy who drank a little bit. The bombastic bullshit artist at the bar You remember? Have a drink, have one yourself. Your money's no good here. You're just in time Give that little lady a drink How's it going? The bartender would say Great Everything is great What am I gonna tell him? I'm terrorized I'm afraid, Charlie I'm in a state of terror Get him out of here We don't need anybody like that In a bar You hear about the two guys And you start Bar room I was fine there but that was bar room you don't have conversations in bar rooms you have a collision of monologues two guys talking it's just going this way and you're trying to leap in when your turn comes around and it's all lies it's not it's a lie so then you build up the isolation if they ever found out in the bar that I just got fired at the university that I can't pay my bills, that I'm afraid to go home, that I gave them a check that's going to leap as high as the Empire State Building when they put it through. And what are you going to say to a bartender? Why don't you take this piece of rubber and give me money in exchange for that? And the same thing at work and the same things at home and the end of it all. You experience that you've experienced as I've experienced And only alcoholics are able to share this with one another, the terrible, terrible loneliness of being an alcoholic. The isolation. Forget God. The isolation from your fellow man. And so you're by yourself. I enjoyed the best drinking I did was by myself. Give me enough booze and just leave me alone. Just leave me alone. I'll take care of it if you just leave me alone. Did you ever say that? What do you get excited about? Leave me alone! Now, I come here with all of these secrets and all of this isolation and all of this loneliness. I'm finally at a place when I came here where I can talk about these things. I tell you I wet the bed. Yeah, sure. Ha ha ha. You wet thebed. So what? Of course you went to bed, stupid. I threw up in the morning. Of course she did. What's new, you know? Everybody around, you now. Did we all throw up? Well, of course we did. But I got fired. Are you kidding? Jesus. Welcome to the club. And that was there the first day. I came tiptoeing in, mumbling. Right away it was there. And that's what the fifth step is about. admitting to God to yourself and to another human being the exact nature of your wrongs ending the isolation ending it you know it's not just coincidence that they say God yourself and another human being they didn't take those three titles and throw them into a hat and just pull out and see what order they're going to put them in they're in there in that order for a purpose this is the first time in a program of Alcoholics Anonymous It's practically the only time that they refer to God by his maiden name. This is not a power greater than your own, and this is not God as you understand him. This is God, his first and last name. This is the real McCoy. And they want you to admit to him that you have these defects that caused you to be isolated and literally, as I told you last week, as the book tells us, were the primary cause of the alcoholism. See, the basic message of the fourth step to me really is there's something else the matter. There is something else wrong because by the time I got to the fourth step and by the time you are on the fourth step, you will not be drinking. The drinking is gone. It's something else. The message of the fourth step is it's beyond the drinking. And the book tells us the drinking is just a symptom of the alcoholism. And the book tells us that the alcoholismo is caused primarily by the character defects. There's something else the matter. And we're required to admit this. We're not nice guys who drank too much. I thought that way of myself. You know, we all have an image of ourselves. I thought of myself as being smart, rough, tough, hardworking, hard-playing. That's not what was on my inventory. The person in my inventory, the three persons, the three people in my Inventory were people I hardly even recognized. If someone had brought me in this piece of paper with a description of me, I would have said, I don't want him anywhere near me. Get him away from me. because the image I had of myself did not include this terrorized, arrogant, lying, cheating, no good son of a bitch. I was a nice guy who drank too much. This dumb bastard on the inventory was a world-class asshole. And that wasn't me, pal. If you don't believe me, look, I had a wall full of these awards and stuff that I had. so I had to admit that to God I tell you my concept of God is the first two words of the Lord's Prayer our Father my Father your Father I admitted to him I know what it is to be a father I have children I have seven children they're all different they all have their little quirks they have character defects I know about them I understand that I use that when I'm dealing with them one of the kids told me something I said oh yeah this is the one that's a little greedy so you filter out you know what the kid is telling you or this is the one that's a little wacko and you know I know that these kids of mine have character defects six of them are in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous So you know for sure about them How we got one that's right on the edge Well, I like him He's a nice kid But he's got some He's got something to do He's just got some work to do And that's how it is with God We go to him and we admit it to him We say, look Or I said I don't ever mean to preach to you I say, Look You're my father Here's my problem It's in this inventory. I got these defects. I have shortcomings. I'm not what I would like to present to you. I really would not like to be this guy. But this is what I got to work with. And I'm telling you because you're my father, I have these defects of character. I'd like some help with these. I'd Like you to relieve me of my difficulties. I'm going to come to you two steps from now. I'm going to ask you to help with this. But in the meantime, I just want you to know this is what I am. It's not a big deal. It's no big deal at all. It's a big step. The rewards are great, but it's not a big thing. Then you admit it to yourself. You know, I kidded myself so long. I thought of myself the way I was maybe when I was 22. Not the way I was when I was 37. And when I was 22, I was a good guy to know. I was hardworking. I was ambitious. I was smart. I was all of those things. I didn't know then that I had this. I knew that nothing could stop me if I wanted something. I knew I was very strong that way. I had a will, boy. It didn't bother me if i ran right over you. You'd gotten away. and that worked for me for a period of time got me through the schools got me out of the neighborhood got me to Brooks Brothers all of that stuff but that was a long time ago I wasn't a guy that came here but I still thought of him that smart little kid from the Bronx he had gone away with everything else. I'd become dissolved in alcohol. I had to stop kidding myself that that was me, that was no longer me. Nobody could tell me anything. Very hard to tell any alcoholics anything. If somebody else had written my inventory and said, look at this, this is you, I'd say, that's not me. Who the hell are you to tell me that that's me? Don't tell me I'm a defective. You know who I am? But I wrote this thing. I couldn't use that argument. I did it. This was my inventory. I had to admit it to myself. I'd stop kidding myself. You're not much. I thought, well, I'm still alive. And that's the relationship. First God and then myself. Then I had a relationship with him. I had him bring it to him. Oh, he's so cute. I said, I brought you an inventory. He said, thanks a lot. Said, you want to read it? He said, I don't want to touch it. So what am I supposed to do with it? He said well, read it to me. He made me read it then. Everyone's smiling to look up and say, you did that? Did you really do that? You're a real winner, you are. It's a process. Now it was not just the question of God, my father and me, myself and maybe I could rationalize a little and maybe I could filter it out but I was getting it out and telling him about it. I have a lot of secrets. Loads as I was a man of mystery. I had to be mysterious because I was leading a trip of life. I couldn't tell him at work what I did at night I couldn'T tell him at night what I didn'T or I couldn'T tell him at home anything. You know you want to get in trouble you start telling the truth at home. man of mystery. And nobody knew what I was doing. I was very mysterious. If you brought some guy down here from Mars who had never even been on the Earth and showed him to me, he'd say, look at that drunk over there. That's how mysterious I was. But now I talk to him. My secrets were beginning to be published and they weren't secret anymore. We used to go to bed at night and think about my secret. Say, holy Jesus, you think they're going to find out about that check? Somebody's going to learn They're going find out about the money, about the women, about the rest of it. I better keep all of that stuff secret. It's hard to go to sleep if you've got a lot of secrets like that. You've got to run down all your secrets to make sure your secrets are still secret. Then you wake up in the morning with the terror and you say, oh God, more secrets. Did I really do that? I hope nobody finds out about that one. Then he had another secret. All the way down to work on the train, I brought my secrets. Oh, boy. Hope I got away with that. And then, of course, you put the alcohol into the system and who gives a goddamn? Ah, screw her if she finds out. I tell her... The alcohol dissolved all the secrets but now I gave them to him. He's got to let him work about it. Didn't face him one single bit. When I was all finished, he said, do you admit this? I said, yeah. He said, well, that's the fifth step. I said that's it? He said yeah. You admitted it to me? He said you want me to talk to you about it? I said yeah and then we had a good chat, good talk. I did the step with my sponsor. I would never contradict anything that's in any of our literature. Literature says you can do it with anyone. The step says another human being. I did it with my sponsor. And I'd like people to do it with me if I'm their sponsor. I knew about priests. I've been raised in that religion. I never even considered the idea of doing a fifth step with a priest. I see people in AA chasing the poor priests around I don't know what they want you know they want to be forgiven by the priest I didn't want to be forgiven I wanted information I went to confession all the time when I was a kid I don' t know how many thousands of times I went we had to go they beat you over the head and put you on the line you got a confession never once did the priest that I was confessing to say to me oh yeah you play with yourself like that I do that Never happened. And never identified, you know. That's not the way that system works. It's a different kind of a system. Yeah? I'm in there guilt-ridden because I'm doing something that everybody else is doing, including him. But he's not... You know, I'm not getting any feedback from him. I'm getting absolvote and I'm out of there with three Hail Marys and three Our Fathers. so why I don't understand that but you know the Catholics they think that's wonderful they bother the poor priest like being quacked to death by a flock of geese Jesus Christ go with your sponsor leave them alone what are you going to go to some psychiatrist and tell them all this crap book says fine what for so the guy says now let's talk about your mother or your father your sponsor says I'm same as you and look at me I'm sober that's the whole idea of a sponsorship to lead us who show us the path, put us on the path and keep us on the path and be with us on the path to make us members. And that's what happens when you take this step. You become a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. You get your ticket punched here, boys. This is where you join up. There's nothing now that's not something being done in your head. You're finished with that free ride that you get in steps one, two, and three. you're no longer irritable and discontent because you have gotten all that stuff out it's out now it's not in there bubbling inside it isn't causing you to self-destruct and that's what we do we destroy ourselves on the guilt that we have I said to him one time why do I feel so guilty he said because you are guilty he said being guilty engenders great feelings of guilt so thank you for clearing that up even now I don't know if this happens to you even now I'll be driving along and all of a sudden something pops into my mind that happened 25 years ago oh god did I do that oh shit that's terrible I don' t think about that anymore But when you are in the initial stages of Alcoholics Anonymous and this stuff is bubbling up inside of you, you're going to get drunk. You've got to get that stuff out. These character defects that we talk about, pride, envy, gluttony, lust, behind every one of those there's a drink. We're not trying to be good here. We're nicht trying to sein gut hier. don't sin trying to be people who don't have to drink and for other people who don't alcoholism they get mad so they get mad they yell and they scream they throw things that just act badly and that's all over now not us we get mad we drink at what we're mad at he did that to me that dirty son of a bitch here I'll have another drink what do you think of that I wonder how could she say that to me that pain in my give me another one of those you know what she said to listen to this oh she said that to you yeah give him another drink so you have enough drinks then maybe she didn't say that deal we drink at our character defects you get mad we drink. I got rich. No, I did a case. I did the case. You get business owners and you get money in big lumps sometimes. I mean, if you work. But I get lucky. All of a sudden I didn't have dough. I was rich. So I got drunk. Other people make money and they say, oh good, I made money. So they invest the money. They buy a house, a car. Not us. I got an extra $5,000. Give them all a drink. Ah, hey. How much do you need? Give that little lady over there two drinks. When you're poor, give me a drink, Lo. Boy, am I in trouble. Can I put this on the tab? Holy Jesus. When we're poor we drink. When We're rich we drink and when we're sad we drink, oh so sad. I used to listen to the Star Spangled Banner And after I was drinking all day long, go through all the program, I'd turn on the Star Spangled Banner and it would come on. I'd cry, oh, oh. What a country. Oh, and the Marines would be going up the mountain and the destroyers, and I'd be weeping and crying, oh-oh-oh. Then I'd go upstairs and wet the bed. The end of a perfect day. Everything was so sad, you know What am I going to do? Or if I was happy Ah, let's go You know, party time I wake up one morning I'm in Fort Wayne, Indiana That was some party Somebody better tell me about that Of all the places in America I'm on Fort Wayne I'm not in Indiana No idea what I'm doing In Fort Wayne Indiana. So I did the only sensible thing. I went down to the bar and hotel. There'll be a couple of those. It's a lovely town. Yeah, sure. I said, what are you doing here? Yeah, it's very nice. Lovely. About half an hour later, a guy walked in. A guy from New York. I says, Bill. He says, that was some party. I say, what the hell are we doing here. I found out, sort of weaseled around. I found OUT what I was doing. In Indiana, I was supposed to make a speech to the Indiana Bar Association. Oh, can you imagine? But see, all these character defects made me do that. I had to drink. That's why I had to come here. Maybe I didn't really want to come in. I had to come here. And when I was finished with The Fifth Step, I had a great feeling of relief. I really did. I felt like I belonged. It was important for me to belong. I got stronger with that feeling when I learned to pray and to meditate, which I'll talk about at another time. I really belonged here. There was no mistake. I haven't seen any mistakes in alcoholics now. If you want to belong here, if you really want to be a member here, if you want us to stay with us, it's warm here. It's safe here. It's comfortable here. People want you here. They like you. They love you. There isn't anybody here who hasn't done what you've done. We know about that. We know. We know you have that disease. We know it's going to kill you. Nobody wants that. We want you to be here. To want you to be one of us. The end of this is something I like in this book, 12 and 12, when it talks about this. It says, provided you hold back nothing, your sense of relief will mount from minute to minute. The damned up emotions of years break out of their confinement and miraculously vanish as soon as they are exposed. As the pain subsides, a healing tranquility takes its place. and when humility and serenity are so combined something else of great moment is apt to occur. Many an AA once agnostic or atheistic tells us that it was during this stage of step five that he first actually felt the presence of God and even those who had faith already often became conscious of God as they never were before. this feeling of being at one with God and man this emerging from isolation through the open and honest sharing of our terrible burden of guilt brings us to a resting place where we may prepare ourselves for the following steps during a full and meaningful sobriety thank you