The Second Surrender – S. and Charlie P. – Springtime in the Ozarks Big Book Study – Eureka Springs, AR – Part 3 of 5 – Chris S. and Erika – Chris Schroeder and Erika

It says, one object is to disclose damaged or unsaleable goods to get rid of them promptly and without regret. And it says, if the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values. Because when I'm inventorying all this stuff, this business that's taking regular inventory, if I'm not careful, I got the little store where I'm going, oh, we got these awesome 8-track tape players, you know, back here on the shelf. You know, and I can't fool myself that these are terrific, because nobody wants to buy them. And if I'm really all in on this process, there's no reason I wouldn't be delighted to get rid of the stuff that's blocking me. It's just that I can have false ideas about what we're doing. It's funny how you bring up in a regular discussion meeting, oh, I'm doing a fourth step, and everybody's like, oh, you know. But if I really believe this has something to do with whether I drink vodka or not, why wouldn't I be excited about removing what's blocking me from the power? Because that's what's going to send me back into that untreated alcoholism. And those bedevilments, have you all looked at the bedevilsments? They're on page 52. And they are available in sobriety. we were having trouble with our personal relationships it's the second new paragraph we couldn't control our emotional natures we were prey to a misery and depression we couldn'T make a living we had a feeling of usefulness we were full of fear we were unhappy we couldn' seem to be a real help to other people was not a basic solution of these bedevilment is more important than lunar flight. There it is again, a basic solution, an underlying foundation or principle that's going to take away that manner of living. It's a great deal. Chris is going to do six and seven now. Alright, we've Oh! On this one? Okay. I've got one more thing. The hour after the fifth step. Is it the hour? Is itthe fifth step? Is itthesixthstep? Isitbetween? I like to think of it as part of the fifth step. It's a powerful piece of work if I brought into this process some awareness of what we're really trying to do, and Mark did an exercise one time with this hour that revolutionized. I think it was amazing where he talked about going back and spending a 60-minute an hour you know thanking god from the bottom of my heart that i know him better that's a prayer you don't have i have i come out of this with a closer relationship with my creator carefully reading the first five proposals and considering all the implications of those first five proposals you know am i convinced you know you know do i believe that i've got this physical allergy coupled with a mental obsession do i Believe i've Got A Spiritual Malady Do I Believe have I got no shot of doing it on my own? You know, am I convinced? Am I convinced am I made this deal with God in step three where I'm no longer running the show? Do I believe the part of the deal where it says being all powerful, he'll provide what I need if I stay close to him and perform his work. Well, I'm considering these steps and all of their implications. What would it look like if I was convinced? What would my life look like? Because we are people that get out of treatment and we start acting like somebody that's almost powerless. You know, if I believe I'm powerless, you don't need to listen to what comes out of my mouth. Watch my feet and you'll see, does he act like a guy that believes that he's powerless or does he acts like a guy that still thinks he's got some power over the disease? Because I get out and after a little while, I start getting more interested in what we call the AA Holy Trinity. It's the job, the car, the girlfriend. And there's a cell phone in there somewhere. Or do I look like a guy that's convinced that if I don't stay in this work, I've got no shot? So I really think that that hour after the fifth step is not something we just phone in. We don't just go home and think about the book for a while. Now, I mean, there's real work. You know, have I omitted anything? For I'm building an arch through which I'll walk a free man. Is my work solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have I skimped? You know and there's a lot of masonry observations throughout the book. I've got them marked out but it's not worth going. I don't want to go into it right now. But that hour is a significant piece of work. And you know when the person has come right out of a fifth step, I like to send them home with a real exercise because if this fourth step process has been done in the fifth step, I do a lot of the fourth column with the guy in the sixth step because he may or may not be able to see his part in all this stuff. After pounding a few knuckleheads through this process, it's pretty easy to start seeing selfish, dishonest, inconsiderate, fearful, afraid. Well, he's going to carry some real awareness into the six and seven now. And that's what Chris is getting ready to talk about. You know, in that returning home, sometimes I'll tell the guys that I'm working with that I am available. I have my cell phone. They don't necessarily always return home. Sometimes they go to a shrine or a church or a meditation area upon returning home. But I always make sure that I'm available for them in case they do come up with something. Yeah, I did forget to tell you this. Or maybe they get a little bit more courage to be completely honest in the hour afterward, in the quiet hour. Another thing I sometimes do in a fifth step, if I see somebody's really nervous when they're coming over to do the fifth step. I'll basically say something like this. Okay, let's start with the thing that you're trying to figure out how not to tell me. OK, we'll do we'll start with that first. Anyway, we've shared this inventory. We've we've learned a lot in the fourth step. We've shared it with somebody. We've share it with God. We've admitted it. Now we're at a place where we need to become willing to have these defects of character removed. And at the end of the fifth step, it's a really good time. at the end of the quiet hour it's a really good time because I think you're as close to being willing to have these character defects removed as you've probably been in a long time you have seen how the manifestations of self have directly caused your problems in life you've noticed all this so basically you're willing to have these things removed from my experience From my experience, there's different levels of that willingness. There's different places that we come to. This is one of the reasons why I believe in multiple inventories, multiple fifth steps, because I think that we do get to different places in our lives at different periods of time. I could only see what I could see when I did that fifth step with my sponsor after going through this book. I could only see what I could only see you know I wasn't ready to see everything maybe and some of the things I might be fooling myself about I might not be foolin' myself because I'm trying to hang on to them like okay let's look at some of these defects of character you know do I want selfishness removed yeah sure I want selfishness remove well let's look at some of the other character defects well how about lust you want lust removed well hold on you know if If God removes lust, I may never get laid again. We need to back up here. Or how about if you're a salesman in a big company? Well, I have to be aggressive and I have got to be real pushy because I'm in sales. Well, maybe you're not willing or not ready to have God remove all of your character defects. I love the story that Sandy Beach talks about in this step because it makes so much sense to me. Little Johnny's, it's about six o'clock at night. All of a sudden he starts to get a toothache and the toothache is starting to hurt him pretty bad. Now, little Johnny knows that if he goes to his mother, his mother will crush up some baby aspirin, you know, have him take the aspirin and, you know the toothache will go away and everything will be fine but little Joey doesn't say nothing he doesn't want anybody to know what's going on until about 11 o'clock that night he's laying in bed and it's hurting so bad he has to go down and he has tell his mother and sure enough his mother crushes up some baby aspirin gives it to him and after about a half an hour the pain goes away and he goes to sleep now why didn't Joey go to his mother right away? because he knew that the toothache would go away, but a phone call would be placed to Dr. Mengele, the dentist. You know what I mean? And the next day he'd be in a chair with drills and smoke and suction devices and cotton and crying, spitting blood. So he doesn't want to say anything. Now, he just wants the pain to go away. He knows that tomorrow he's going to go to the dentist and he's gonna come out of there with perfect teeth. He didn't want perfect teeth, he just wanted the pain The issue is our willingness. we have to try to get toward perfect willingness because it's perfect help that's out there. It's divine help that is out there for us. I believe that these character defects are bigger than me. If I could have done something about these character deficits, I probably would have done a better job in the past. Now there is another line in the 12 and 12 that says God will not render you white as snow without your cooperation. So yes, I need to cooperate in the removal of these character defects, but that does not necessarily mean I have power over them. The book wouldn't say become ready to have God remove these defects of character and then humbly ask God to remove these defects of character if you could remove them. But you need to participate in their removal. OK, and step seven, it says the original reading of step seven from the original manuscript was humbly on our knees. Ask God to remove these defects of character holding nothing back. That was the original writing in the original script. And, you know, when Bill showed that to a couple of people, they said, you got to calm down, Bill. You know, that's that's pretty, you're going to have alcoholics throwing the book out the window. But I understand what he was saying. We need to come to this humbly. We need the humbly ask God to remove these defects of character. I want to tell you about my last detox. And this directly rolls into what I'm talking about here in 6 and 7. I had been on a blackout. It started somewhere before Christmas of 1989. I was drinking Johnny Walker Black because that was my Christmas drink. Did anybody have a Christmas liquor, you know, that they specially drank on Christmas? Mine was Johnny Walker Back and I drank a couple of bottles of it and I don't remember much because it was a multi-day blackout. I got very, very violent. You know, I was at my mother's house. My brother and sister were there, nieces, nephews, family animals. You know there were presents under the tree and Christmas carols, on the stereo and the stockings were hung by the chimney with care and I went into a violent violent drunken blackout where I threatened to kill my family. I was going to kill all of them I had a resentment I'm going to kill all you! And this wasn't the festive type of atmosphere they were all looking for. So they picked up their Christmas and they took it elsewhere thank you, and I came out of this multi-day blackout shattered just shattered you know I'm starting to go into the DTs and I wander into the kitchen there's a pile of vodka bottles in the sink like this high I don't remember buying any of them and I used to buy a bottle at a time so I must have been staggering you know up uptown like for three days buying bottles in a blackout must have been ugly and you know and I made a few phone calls and I found out what happened and then I started to go Into The DTs And I Had To Like Lie Down On The Couch Because I Was convulsing. There was maggots all over me and there was little animals running around and there was big animals on the outside of the house scratching to get in. It was actually tree branches, but you know, big animals. And I'm freaking out, you know? Just freaking out. This goes on for like two or three days. And the worst part was I was laying on the couch filled with maggots and all of a sudden a demon came out of the ceiling. And it was like one of those monitors. It was like a big bullhead with the big horns. It was the devil incarnate coming out of the ceiling, just coming down to eat my face, okay? And I'm conscious, okay, I'm like hallucinating. And I remember going, God help me! You know, like, God, help me from like the depths of my soul. And the thing disappeared. And I haven't had a drink since. You understand what I'm saying? I cried out from a place of humility and desperation, and I believe that that prayer was answered. I think that when we come toward our character defects, I think we need to engage a little bit of that surrender, a littlebit of that desperation, a littlebid of that humility when we ask God to remove these defects of character. because I believe prayers like that are answered. Now, how else do we need to participate in the removal of our character defects? You know, because I've got to tell you, if you're one of those guys that just want to... You're working on your character defects. You know I'm working on them. Working on your characteristic defects is like playing whack-a-mole. You ever play whack-o-moe? Like you've got the mallet and the mole pops up and you try to whack it and you're whacking one mole and another mole is popping up. You know what I mean? Working on your character defects is whacking the mole. All right? And my sponsor told me one time, Chris, you keep whacking the mole, you could go blind. So... Well, maybe one eye. Anyway. Anyway, I believe that we have to engage this power. It's all about the power greater than ourselves. Let's engage this Power in this lifelong job of character defect removal and growing in understanding and effectiveness and spiritual living and trying to become as effective an agent of God's will as we possibly can because therein lies the solution to our alcoholism and therein lives true happiness in our lives. You know, I've seen it a million times. And all we really need to do is participate in this stuff. It's the best deal out there. That's all I got. Well, that's great. So, you know, I'm going to let Chris continue with 8 and 9. But, you Know, the funny thing about having these defects removed And I don't know, am I the only one that thinks that God is going to jip me a little bit? You know, I mean, it's funny because I've got nothing to indicate that he's going to screw me. But there's just a part of me that thinks that I can get myself a little better deal than God's going give me. And so, you know, there's a part of me that just goes, oh, I can't let go of all dishonesty. You know what I mean? Because there's some, I mean, not with the IRS, for God's sake, you Know, or insurance companies. You know, I'm a little bit more of a conservative person. I mean this sort of thing. And, you now, about a while back, several years, I went all in on the deal because I was at 17 years sober. I had my most significant spiritual awakening around 17 or 18 years of sobriety. And I had hit the wall with self-will at four and a half years and backed off and ran back at self-well again. You know, when it says what usually happens is the show doesn't come off until he decides to exert himself more on the next occasion. And I hit the Wall with Self-Will at seven years and I thought I was up against the failure of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. What I didn't know was that I was upp against the Failure of Self-Well. And so what I did was I turned more into self-will, and I actually pulled away from the program for several years and thought, I've tried it your way. Now I'm going to get mine. And I started to forget rigorous honesty and that sort of thing and started doing some little things at work and some little thing with the IRS. And it was just years of those bedevilments being all over me in sobriety. And when I hit the wall again, finally I was in a plane crash in 2003 and I almost died and an experience like that will make you look at things differently. We crashed into the water at night out on eastern Long Island and it was no, I mean, Earl Hightower type of deal but it was pretty darn dramatic for me and I started looking at things different and I came back in and I took a new look at this work and I actually went where I was like, I am really going to do this deal where what if I tried really believe in the deal where it says being all-powerful, He'll provide what I need if I stay close to Him and perform His work well. I'm liable to cry like a little girl in a pink dress up here. I ride Harleys and all that stuff. But when I start looking back on the way God works, I mean, it's like I can't stop it. Ever since then, And when I say God's doing a pretty kick-ass job of holding up his end of the deal, it's an understatement like crazy because I'm flush for the first time in my life. I'm happier than I've ever been. I'm in the best relationship I've never been in. I used to spend all my time around work and trying to make money, and I was constantly overdrawn. Now it seems like I spend half my time working with drunks, and I'm plush for the First Time in My Life. Now I'm not saying that there's a direct equivalent there, But, I mean, it's going pretty darn good, you know. So you start developing more and more faith that God's really not going to jip me, you know. It's almost like God is up there going, dude, I got the Bellagio buffet ready here for you and you're down there fighting over crumbs, you know. If you would just get out of the way, you go over and work with a new guy long enough for me to do my work over here, you'll be amazed at what happens. But I'm over there like that, what is that little squirrel in Ice Age? The one that won't let go of that acorn, you know. And so getting to that place in 6 and 7 where I'm entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character. And why do we always go to, well if I do that, God's going to put me in one of those little white gauze outfits with a bullhorn down on the corner or something. You know, I mean, it's like, you know, and it's funny. I think there's two surrenders, just to recap a little bit before we roll this up. There's two surrender in Alcoholics Anonymous in my mind, at least two. The first one is a surrender to alcohol and whatever outside issues are killing me when I get here. And that one is pretty easy to make because it comes fresh off an ass weapon, you Know? I mean, when we show up here, it's not easy. It's not that hard for me to surrender. But the second surrender and the one that sometimes takes a long time or sometimes never happens is that surrender to self-will, that belief that I can get myself a little better deal than this power is going to give me. And that, a lot of us have to be beat up pretty badly, you know, and I love what Chris said about looking back at that marriage. I had a marriage blow up where if you'd asked me then what happened, I would have said, well, she fooled around on me and I don't roll like that or something like that. You ask me now what happened? I think I would say there was a level of self-centeredness in that marriage that would have driven anybody away from me. When you talk about being ready to look at it from an entirely different angle, it's amazing the growth that comes out of this stuff. And now I'm really looking forward to Chris rolling into the eighth step, But now, we've been going an hour. Can you all go a little while longer? And then we'll take a break after about another 20 minutes or so. I want to just point out that... Well, I don't want Chris to point it out. What were you going to point out? I'll point it up for you. Well, I just wanted to talk about how when you get into the amends process, the bulk of the advice you're going to get in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous, in my experience, is geared towards not having to make the amends. I agree. You know? I agree, sir. You know, I mean, you can get support out there for not making just about any amends there is. And we had an eight-step meeting at a group I go to at home, and I said, I've had a sponsor there, and so you watch this. At the end, he's like, I wouldn't have believed it if you hadn't told me. I mean at one point of the meeting, I was going, does anybody have any experience with Making direct amends to somebody. Because my faith, well, I don't want to go too far ahead. I'll tell you later about the living amends. What Charlie says is absolutely true. You want somebody to co-sign your participation in a half measure program, you can find it out there. One of the things that I recommend to anyone is when you're looking for a sponsor, Find a sponsor who really has actual working knowledge of the 12 steps, working experience with the 12 Steps. Now, I've got to tell you, this is what it was like when I started moving into my 9th Step after listening to the Joe and Charlie tapes and being in the North Jersey sharing your way sober meetings. There would be a 9th step meeting at a 12 and 12 meeting. There'd be a night step meeting. And somebody would raise their hand and they'd share something like, well, you know, I haven't done this step formally but I'm going to take this meeting hostage for the next 10 minutes sharing my opinion on what it might be like if I ever did decide to do this step. All right? And everybody would be like, yay! You know? I want him for a sponsor, you now? And then every once in a while somebody would raise their hand and say something like, well, you know I'm on my ninth step and I'm almost done and I just got back from California had six amends out there I'd like to share a little bit about how that experience went and everybody would go you know what I mean who's this guy making me look bad they were serious about this amends stuff when they put this book together a great word to put in front of step 8 and step 9 should be actually Actually became, you know, actually went out and made direct amends. You know, I actually became willing to make direct amens where we're talking about the removal of character defects. We were talking about that a few minutes ago. The best possible atmosphere to be in for the removalof your character defects is to become willing to make directamends to the people and institutions that those character defects have harmed. and then to actually go out and make amends where those defects of character have harmed. I'll give you a quick story. I sponsored this guy and he was great. He was from inner city, a tough guy, half connected and he's getting clean and sober and I'm sponsoring him and one day we're in a 7-Eleven and I see him grab a pack of gum and put it in his pocket. I'm like, you know we're outside and I'm like, You just stole a pack of gum And he goes, No I didn't I go I saw you take a pack of gum off the shelf and put it in your pocket He goes, That's all the stuff that's in front I go, What do you mean? He goes Yeah, that stuff's in front. They expect you to take it They've got budgets for that He's trying to tell me they've got budgets for it I go, how long have you been doing that? He goes, since I was a kid. I go so you've been petty thefting like every single time you go into a 7-Eleven. He goes pretty much. So now this individual went this individual the last week of his using he was drinking about a quarter whiskey a day and he was on literally 30 to 40 Percocets a day. I mean the guy was really in bad shape. It took like three months just to detox this guy so he was serious about the recovery stuff so i told him i go you know if you're working with me i'm going to expect you to make amends for that and what he did was he put a list of all of these 7-elevens and all of These these little stores together and he came up in his mind with you know some kind of figure about how much it could have or would have been and he had a lot of money. He was a petty theft big contractor, which didn't make much sense to me. The guy was making millions and he was stealing gum. But he went around and he started making amends at all of these 7-Elevens, direct amends. And he made 50 or 75 amends to these small store. Now, let me ask you a question. You think he still steals gum? He's cured of that. All right. The best possible atmosphere you can be in for the removal of your character defects is to become willing and then actually make direct amends for where those where those character defects have caused harm. Now another thing, another thing like we come into Alcoholics Anonymous with our world on fire. We have blown up our life. I do a lot of 12-step work. I, I do a lot getting people into detox, a lot of wet trunk work, a lot of work with relapsers. They're always, they're always being pointed to me. I even, I'm even doing treatment consultant work now, you know, so, so people that are looking for certain types of treatment centers or whatever are calling me because I, I know the difference between a couple of hundred of them. so I'm involved in this kind of stuff all pointed to me I'm even doing treatment consultant work now you know so people that are looking for certain types of treatment centers or whatever calling me because I know the difference between a couple of hundred of them so I am involved in these kinds of stuff all the time now we come in with our world on fire and we come and minimize like you have no idea alcoholism is an illness of minimization And when we look back on our past, we're at a place of delusion a lot of times. And either we're thinking that we were way worse than we were or we're thinkin' we weren't bad at all. We don't really have a true perspective on the damage we've caused in the past. But we come into Alcoholics Anonymous with all kinds of problems. I'll give you another story that'll kind of explain what I'm talking about. All right, let's say you're in AA a couple of months and you haven't been hitting on all burners. You're not on a winning streak and you need a little bit of money. So here I am. I go up to Charlie. I go, Charlie, can I borrow a couple hundred dollars? I've got some bills to pay. You know, Charlie's a really nice guy. So Charlie says, sure, here's a couple 100 bucks. So I take a couple 200 bucks. I'll pay you back in my next paycheck. I pay my bills. Now my next paycheque comes and I still got bills because I'm still behind. So it's a little bit more convenient. Instead of giving Charlie the money back, I use my money for something else. And now I'm wondering if Charlie's looking at me funny. You know what I mean? And time goes on and Charlie's a nice guy. He's not even asking me for the moneyback. He knows I'm an idiot newcomer. And he's not Even saying anything. But now I am starting to resent Charlie. You know, because I owe them this money and now I've got to go to a different group. You know what I mean? I've gotta go where Charlie isn't, okay? And you know, that Charlie, you know and does this make any sense at all? We don't come into Alcoholics Anonymous with like one little problem like this. We come in with hundreds of them. We get all these little packages of crap from our past that we're dealing with or not dealing with or guilty about or trying to repress. You know, all of these things we've caused harm out there and I believe the alcoholic is not evil. I believe that every bad thing we do we feel. We feel the pain of the things that we do. Whatever we give out into the universe we get back in one way or another. It's a cosmic principle. so the harm that we've caused out there that we have not taken responsibility for or tried to set right is going to continue to harm us it's going to continued to erode our spiritual condition it's gonna continue to erod our quality of life and we're gonna get to a point where we may not be able to stay sober if we don't address these amends now I've experienced with amends I've been through the steps about seven times in my 20 years. There was a period of time, I was doing them almost every year. And there was a time, and there was the period of times in the late 90s into about 2002-2003 that I had finished, completed to the best of my ability, to the rest of my knowledge, four sets of amends. And I want to tell you something, and this is from experience, this isn't from opinion. The difference in my spiritual condition from having unfinished amends that I hadn't taken care of to being at a place where I had taken care off all of the amends that I was consciously aware of was like the difference between night and day. You want to talk about being free. You wantto talk about the freedom that's available in Alcoholics Anonymous. Have nothing out there that you need to worry about. Now, a lot of people don't get this because the spiritual life is not a theory. It's something you have to live and you haveと experience. Now one day I was doing a talk actually at the Rutgers School of Alcohol Studies. There was a program for graduating alcoholism counselors. And this is a program where this was like their final phase and then when they graduate They're going to go out and get jobs counseling us. And my job was to give a talk on the efficacy of the 12-step process in alcoholism treatment, which you would think they'd do something like that themselves, wouldn't you? Being that it's the most successful treatment process for alcoholism there is. But they didn't have that, so they asked me to come in and give this talk. And when I got done, you know, I gave a very, very brief talk on each of the steps all the way up to step 12 and it took me about an hour and ten minutes. And this guy followed me out into the hall afterward and he wouldn't let me go. He was going, what about shame? What about shame?! Don't you have to deal with shame?! Now if you're around Alcoholics Anonymous long enough, you're going to hear that there's little buzzwords that come into favor every year or so. You know, there'll be a pill to cure alcoholism Or, you know, there'll be a DVD that you can get on late night TV. Or, or, you Know, there will be a wounded inner child thing that you can do or whatever. And a lot of it is very valid and very legitimate. It's just not an effective treatment against alcoholism. Okay? And this guy was running after me trying to convince me that you've got to deal with shame. And I pull him aside and I go, well, let me ask you a question. Let me ask You a couple of questions. I go, have you ever inventoried your character defects, resentments, fears, and harms? And he goes, no. And I go well then you've never shared that with someone obviously. And he says no. And I say then you never become willing to have God remove the defects of character that you've inventoried because you never inventoried, right? And he said no. Then you never humbly ask God to remove defects of characters that you don't even know you have because you haven't inventoried it, right?" And he went, that's about right. So then you never became willing to make amends for where your character defects have caused harm. And he goes, no. And I go, then you've never actually gone out and made amends for the things that you've done wrong, the harms that you have caused. And he says, no I go Well, how can you tell me you need to deal with shame? I don't deal with fame today I went back and I made amens every single instance every single person, every single institution that I could think of I've made direct amends and I don't have the guilt, the shame and the remorse that I came into Alcoholics Anonymous with. That stuff is gone because I've done my best now how I do an 8 step card is I do them on 3x5 or 5x7 cards. If you do them on a piece of paper or you've got some other form, you're right. That's a good way to do it too. But I do it on cards and what I'll do is on the front of the card I'll put the person or in the institution the harm that I'm clear on and I won't exaggerate. I won'T put something like well, I was never there or I was a jerk. I'll Put exactly I'll PUT as close to the actual truth as I can for the harm and I'll pUT that on the Front of the Card and then I'll POt where to find the person or the institution. You know, I might have to go on the Internet. I might have to do some searching. And then at the top right of the card, I'll put a plus if I'm ready to do that amends. Right now, today, I have the spiritual fortitude to do those things. If I have to go through that amens, I'll pull a plus. If I don't, if I still feel some hesitation or some reservation, I'm anxious about making that amend, I need to do a little bit more spiritual work before I can actually do it, I'll push a minus. Now, I'll pick up all these cards together and I'll share all this information with my sponsor or a spiritual advisor and we'll come to a consensus on the approach and the possible amends. I always want to do this with somebody so that I'm not allowing my motives to alter the right way to do it. I've worked with enough people to know that the first amends a lot of my guys want to make is all the ex-girlfriend amends, you know? They're thinking, well, I've got about 12 ex- girlfriends. Friends, I'll go make amends to all them. You know, we'll see what happens with that. You know that's not really the right motive. I'll probably have them do some other amends before they get to that. But anyway, another thing that I like to do on most of my amends, it's not always appropriate, but if I'm making direct amends I liketo use the three questions. These are three questions that came out of a Hawk in Houston workshop that I heard many, many years ago. And the three questions are this. You're in front of the person and you're clear about the harm. You're very, very clear about the harm here is what I here's the harm I've caused you. And then there's three questions that you ask. One of them is it. You know, is there any other harm that I'm unclear on? Did I leave anything out? And then you shut up and you let them tell you. Then the second question is, do you need to talk about this? Do you need to tell me how this made you feel? And then you shut up and you listen. That's a healing exercise for them. They can blow off some steam. And then the third question is very very important. What would you have me do to set right this wrong? What would I do to set this wrong and if it's legal, if it is ethical if it moral, if appropriate and they ask you to do something then do it and you've done your absolute best to set right the wrong. You can walk away from that never having to worry about it again. You can hold your head high. You bump into that person anywhere, anytime and you know you can walk right up to them without any reservation or negative emotional feeling. I don't know about you guys but I was afraid to walk up certain streets when I was drinking. I couldn't go to a high school reunion. There'd be people there that I had problems with. I couldn'T go to certain bars. I'd work my way out of bars. I'd always have to be going to different places. I couldn't go to parties anymore. Alcoholism was making my life smaller and smaller and small. Smaller and smaller every single day. And this immense process is about opening your life back up. It's about opening up the vistas that are available to us in the healing and being able to walk forward with good purpose and with dignity in our lives. And it's a very, very important step. Do not let anybody talk you out of this step. There are times when to make a ninth step will cause harms to other people. But I've found that there's a whole lot more amends you can do than ones that you can't. So that's all I have on this. I want to hit two things. one is living amends you hear it a lot in the rooms you hear a lot from the same people that are trying to say you don't really have to go make that amends in most cases what these people are calling living amens really are just practicing these principles in all my affairs they're not amends at all we were sitting in a meeting Katie and I one time and I thought I was going to blow my stack. Of course, I judge no man. But there was a woman that was shared. I swear to God, she raised her hand and she says, we're talking about amends. It's that same meeting I was talking about. She goes, I used to work for a company where I stole a bunch of money. I embezzled a lot of money from this company. She says, but I'm making living amends to them now because I'm working at another company and I'm not stealing from them. And I was sitting there going, oh my God. I was like, that's got to be really comforting to the company you stole all the money from. It's like Chris from Texas always says, the lady whose TV I stole doesn't give a flip that I'm not stealing TVs anymore. She wants her TV back. When it talks about making direct amends wherever possible, stopping stealing is not making amends. You know, that's just practicing these principles in all our affairs. Sometimes we'll touch on, you know, putting myself on the amends list. It figures that in a disease based on selfishness and self-centeredness, the first person I'd want to put on my amends lists would be me. That doesn't need a lot of discussion. But one exercise on a more positive note, I really do like, and my lineage really does like the index cards, the three by five cards, because, in my experience, a list has a way of finding its way to a drawer and out of my consciousness. But those stinking cards have a way OF speaking to me. I've got a stack of them on my desk right now. I've Got some that I haven't made yet, and I've GOT the stack over here of the ones that I've already made. But I really like the cards. But there's an exercise. We have a meeting at my house every Thursday night with me and my guys You know, all the guys that I sponsor used to be Mark Houston and me and all my guys. But we did an exercise that just kind of came out of nowhere one time. But what we did was we all made our amends list and we said let's meet back here next Thursday because we all have spiritual consent with each other. These are all guys that have established spiritual consent avec each other where you can call me on anything you see me doing. You know don't worry about hurting my feelings. And we got a pretty tight crew. There's about 15 of us. And we said, let's all meet back here next Thursday and read our men's list. That's not in the big book. This is coming out of my own experience. But it is an amazing exercise. If you've got a group of people that you're close with, and you get into this work, and you gets to this eight-step list, it's a very interesting exercise to sit around with people. We sat around with about ten of us that night reading our men'S list. And the thing I can tell you is you better keep your pencil handy because I'm sitting there with my little list and it comes to this guy and he says, I ate in a lot of restaurants and I ran out without paying. And I'm like, okay. And the next guy goes, I filled my car up and drove off without paying and I'm Like, oh, I forgot about that one. You know, put that one down. And the list got considerably longer as the group of us were throwing out what our amends were. The other thing that happens is when Chris, we have no idea what tax we're paying for suppressing all this guilt and shame. But when you get into this process, things start bubbling to the surface. When I'm in this, the biggest freedom I think comes from just being willing to make all the amends. But as I'm in the amends process, it's amazing how things start bubbling to the surface. You know, Chris was talking one time at a workshop, and he goes, he said, if I'd have known I was going to have to make amends, I wouldn't have stolen so much stuff. And for some reason, it popped into my mind that I stole a Volkswagen one day. You know? You want to hear self-centered? I needed a Magneto for my Volkswagen, so I stole the whole car. You know, and, you know, but I mean that had been blocked out of my mind for 35 years. And, you Know, same thing with other men. I'm walking along with Katie one time and I went, oh, she thought I had a stomach cramp. And she said, what? I said, I was riding my dirt bike past a golf course one time when I rode out on it and did a donut around the flag on the green and, You know,, rode off. You know, and I wound up calling that golf course back, you know, and saying I did that. It was Mesquite Golf Course there in Dallas. Yeah. And he says, when did that happen? And I said, 1972. And he goes, I'm pretty sure that grass has grown back by now, you know. So I just, going by what the book says, it said, you know, we tell these people we're sorry. So I said I'm really sorry, you And he's willing to forgive me, the little pro shop guy. But there is something about being, you know, I love what Chris says about actually making amends to all persons we have harmed. You know, it is an amazing process. You know and the first time I met Mark I was nuts with untreated alcoholism. And we sit down and he goes, same story, I had a guy come to me the other day. Katie was giving a talk in Oklahoma, and this guy came up. And he goes, I'm not doing very good. I'm Not Doing Good at All. He's 16 years sober. And I said, when was the last time you rode inventory? And he said, 16 years ago. I said I understand because his sponsor said you do one through nine one time and you live in 10, 11, or 12. And I rode that train for a long time. Now I'm starting to believe that the main people that say you should only do one inventory are people who've only ever done one inventory. I've never heard anybody go, I've done about five inventories over the years and I really wish I'd quit at one. But I believe in a business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. And I've been doing regular inventory. But I'm talking to this guy and he goes, I haven't really been thinking about drinking, but I have considered killing myself a few times. That's the way untreated alcoholism shows up in a guy like me, is I don't really think I want to drink, but I don' t know if I can keep going like this. And when we started talking, you know, it was like, when was the last time you wrote inventory? He said, 16 years ago. And I said, how are you doing with your amends? Well, they're all still there. You know, I just made amends to my wife and my mother basically, and that's about it. How are you dealing with the disciplines? Do you do any prayer and meditation? Do you deal with the morning disciplines? Are you doing evening review? No, no, not really. Are you sponsoring anybody? And he says, no. So he's going to meetings. And I went, this is all really good news because if you were doing all this stuff and this crazy, we'd have to get really creative for a solution for you. But we got something for this, you know? Let's take a little break and come back in and go a little further. Thanks a lot. Coming back in. What would you have me do? Larry wants to stand. You have to do to set right these problems. Some enchanted evening. People out in the lobby, get back in here. We can see you. I know. Really? You in the bathroom. We can see you. Really? Oh, that's funny. Well, I guess we'll go ahead and get started. I guess people will start drifting in here. Let's go ahead and do one more quick set-aside prayer. God, please help me set aside everything I think I know about the steps, the big book, the fellowship, and even You, God. Help me be available for a new experience. Please help me to see the truth. Amen. Alright. Here we go. Okay, this is our last session. I just want to say that we have really enjoyed this. And this is a great conference, and it's the first time Chris and I have done one of these together, and I really enjoyed it. I've enjoyed listening to him, and there's just something about the energy of this conference that is not common. You don't feel it at every place you go. All right, just to go back on the ninth step, we went over that pretty quickly. We went over the theory of the ninth step and a lot of experience with the ninth step, but there are more instructions on the ninth step than there are on all the other steps. I mean, in the big book, there's more instructions On the Ninth Step than there is for any other step. So if you go back through there, it's very interesting to go back through there and write, you know, creditors, when we owe money, domestic stuff, the man we hate. You know, there's all these each paragraph is telling me how to handle situation it tells me what kind of spirit to take into the amends and to take all that stuff now if you remember back on on the fourth step after the third step it said next we launched out on a course of vigorous action and that vigorous course of action in my mind is steps four through nine you know and what it has done is a pretty amazing thing but we roll over here at the end of um And you get over to page 84, we've just finished the ninth step promises, the ones that a lot of people like to call the promises. But this is interesting. When you get to the first new paragraph on 84, can you all hear me okay? It says, are these extravagant promises? We think not. They're being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them. this thought what thought this thought that all this stuff will materialize if i stay in the work this thought brings us to step 10 which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along it's going to say continue four times in this paragraph we vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past interesting question for a discussion meeting what is this way of living what is it we're continuing you know well it says we vigorously commence this way and it's interesting on the timing of the steps when does it say we start doing step 10 it says we vigorlessly commence this Way of Living as we cleaned up the past so clearly we don't wait till we're done with our amends to move into the disciplines of 10 11 and 12 or I'd be rolling around out here going boy uh I'm gonna start doing that spot check inventory as soon as i can find timmy from the second grade you know and make that last amends you know it's you know what's happened though is uh it says this is big stuff it says we have entered the world of the spirit our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness what we like to say is that this block of work in four through nine has removed enough of what's blocking me katie uses the flashlight i use a i use a pipeline you know where i show me on one end of a pipe and god on the other end and in in my pipe or fears and resentments and guilt and remorse and harms and shame you know that sort of thing and in this process we want to at least remove enough ofwhat's blockingme so that some power can flow through there between me and this power that we've admitted is my only shot well what mark used to say is that this body of work I've done has allowed me to put my hand on a doorknob and enter the world of the Spirit. My job now is not to back out of that room, not to fall off of this body or work to the point where self-will is going to rise back up and before I know it, I'm out of the deal again. You know what? Where's Paul? I told him I was going to quote the 12 in 12 once today. There's a line in the 12 and 12 where it says we can have faith in God but keep him out of our lives. And the way that works for a guy like me is I go, oh, yeah, God is awesome. God is, man, God took my alcohol and drug problem away from me. I mean, you know, God has spot on. I mean now I don't need him for this deal here. You know, I mean and I don'T need him FOR THIS DEAL AT WORK and I DON'T need Him FOR THIS THING WITH KATIE and I Don'T need HIM FOR THIS thing WITH MY KIDS. I got that. But, you know, if I ever run across a big problem, boy, I'm just bringing God right in, you know? And that's not the way, you Know, the book talks about God becoming a Bush League pinch hitter where I'm going really, God, you just take a knee right over there and I'll let you know if I want to call you in. But in the meantime, I got it. You know, that's the way self-will creeps back into my life. This book talks many, many times about God consciousness. There's places where it says the consciousness of your belief is sure to come to you. And there was one, one of those words, I talked about how they added a bunch of new words into the book. There was one back on page 49, I believe, where for years, I think it was 49, 51. I'm sure for years it said when many hundreds of people are able to say that the presence of God is today the most important fact of their lives, They present a powerful reason why we should have faith. I'll do the set-aside prayer one morning. I like to read, I picked this up from Scott from Nashville. I liketo try to read two pages a day out of the big book. If I get up in my morning stuff, if I read two pages a week, I'm going to be able to read two pages of that big book, you'd read the basic text, the first 164 pages four times in the course of a year. And most of us would be improved by reading the basic text four times a year or one day I do the set-a-side prayer and I'm reading my two pages And they put two new words in the fourth edition. It says, able to say that the consciousness of the presence of God is today the most important fact of their life. So this book is moving me towards God-consciousness, where it's not just this faith in God on a shelf over here. I've got a walking around relationship where I am conscious. God-consciousness just means being conscious of God, being conscious of this power where it's actually part of my walking around. It's part of my decision making. I'm starting to develop this vital sixth sense that the book talks about. God is a part of all this stuff that's going on in my life. It's a huge difference between just believing in God. It says our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. This is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. It's funny how many times if you go to a regular meeting and you say, we're going to talk about evening review today. Let's talk about the evening review tonight. And people will say, oh boy, I'm glad we're talking about the 10th step. You know, over and over. Well, evening review is not in the 10TH step. Evening review is in the 11th step, and we're gonna talk about that in a minute. But the 12 and 12 kind of muddied the waters a little bit on that because in the 12th step they describe all three different kinds of inventory that we take. If I don't read it real carefully, I could start thinking that the evening review is from the 10th step. But in the 10st step in the big book, it's a spot check inventory of going through the day. And it tells me to watch for four things. It tells me four things to do about it. And it's interesting. It says continue to watch for four things, selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Back to this self thing, What these things are is the reemergence of self in my life. This is how, if self is coming back into play, this is the way it reemerges in my life. Selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. Those are the four things. These ought to be automatic. And there's four things I do about it. There's nothing. See if you hear anything in here about waiting until the end of the day to do it. It says when these crop up, we ask God at once to remove them. I need to point out that we ask at once. We're not telling God to remove them at once, you know. It's like, listen here, God.