Step 4 and Personal Housecleaning – Lee and Ron F and Keith L – Big Book Workshop – Altamonte Springs FL – Part 1 of 2 – Scott L.

The first rule of sponsorship, if they're ready, I can't do it wrong. If they're not ready,I can'tdo it right. It's not up to me. And that was the only thing that made it possible for me to begin to sponsor. God forgives me for everything I ever did and he loved me while I was doing it. That's a quotation from my beloved back room. It's my home group in Nashville. And my God got bigger that day and I shared it with you in the hopes that maybe yours will. And it's been my experience that I don't have the power to do something so awful that God can't turn it into something magnificent. Not just fix, but turn it Into Something Magnificent. That's who He is. That's Who I am. I regularly, Keith's already talked about it, I regularly watch him use the very worst things I've ever done as tools to help other people. Powerful, powerful stuff. So here we are back on page 63. again the perspective is someone I sponsor and we have just come up off of our knees he's done all of these things that we just discovered in step 3 and I say to him you'll hear in the fellowship the discussion raging about when to do a 4-step and I've heard people say don't do a 5-step too soon you may drink I've never seen anyone do a 6-step too soon and drink I've seen a couple hundred thousand way too late haven't seen anybody do one too soon because the 4-stepp is terrifying as it looks actually brings relief. That's what all the steps do. So I was just wrong about so many things. I hear people say, do one step a year. They can't tell me what page that's on. I've searched. I can't find it. The book is not specific about when to do a fourth step. It actually makes two time references. And I give all the leeway the book does. So I figure if it makes two-time references, they can use either of those two or anything that lies between them. Seems fair. I explain that to them and say, let's begin reading. You begin to read at the bottom of page 63. you read, I'll interrupt. He reads next, I say wait, that's a time reference. Next that's the first time reference. Alright it says next we launch down on a course of vigorous action the first step of which is a personal housecleaning which many of us have never attempted. Though our decision that would be our third step decision is a vital, the word vital is from the Latin vita meaning life alright so this means this is only for the ones that want to live, everybody else dismissed. It was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once Aha, that's a time reference. So following step three, the fourth step is either done next or at once or anywhere in between. I give them all the leeway the book gives. I have this reputation of being a very hard-nosed sponsor, and I'm not. I'm a cake. I'm the easiest guy in the world as long as I'm getting my own way. At once followed by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of. Isn't that interesting? Be rid of is going to tell us twice on this page And in step four, we're going to be rid of. And I would observe that writing will get rid of time, ink, and paper. And none of those were my problem. So there must be things other than writing involved in step 4. And I want to talk, those other things are the life-changing portions. And I'm going to talk a lot about that today. It says liquor was a symptom. We had to get down to causes and conditions. We started on step 4, a business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. The businesses that I'm aware of do a computer inventory every night, an update, that I think of as the evening half of step 11. I'm going to talk later, probably tomorrow, about how I distinguish between steps 10 and 11 as far as that inventory is concerned. I'm not near as hung up on format as I appear to be. I think content's what matters. But for a new guy coming through the steps the first time, I set it in stone. It's going to be this way. That's how we're going to do it. But the regular inventory, most of those businesses take a full teardown inventory once a year. I think I've come through the steps right at 17 or 18 times in 21 years. I missed a couple of years. But it doesn't take nearly so long. My initial four-step took quite a while. I did my last one on an airplane, one flight in a fairly short time because I've stayed pretty well cleaned out. It's really more of a buffing up. But I'm surprised each time the things that I find. I'm going to talk about that in a minute. I'm skipping on down a little bit. It says one object is to disclose damaged or unsaleable goods, to get rid of. So there it is again. And step four, we're going to be rid of these things promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values. We did exactly the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. First we searched out the flaws in our makeup which caused our failure. There's the good news again. It ain't them. And being convinced that self manifested in various ways was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations. In my experience in the four-step and the big book, which for me is the powerful one, I mean, when I got out of treatment, they gave me this psychobabble four-stepped thing, and God bless them, maybe they're helping some people, I don't know. I mean it's fill in the blanks, multiple choice, do you still hate your mother kind of stuff. And I've cleaned up my language. I can't tell you what I think about that fourth step, but I think I'm making my point. This fourth step will change your life. But what that one did was get me to five where I began to get relief. This fourthstep out of the big book looks to me like we inventory three specific functions of self, and they are resentment, fear, and sexual misconduct. I claim there's not a sex inventory in this book. I don't find the direction of the book says, what did you do in the sexual arena that you thought was right and good? I don' t find that one. So we inventory only the negative side of that. That' s important to me. The format that the book uses is it is done as a series of lists, observations, and prayers. It has been my experience that the writing portion of the four-step has very little effect. The observations, not what you happen to notice, but the observations the book calls for and the prayers are life changing and that's what I'm going to emphasize in the balance of this hour so now we're going to look for directions it says resentment is the number one offender it destroys more alcoholics than anything else from it stem all forms of spiritual disease where we've been not only mentally and physically ill we've also been spiritually sick when the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physiologically gee, I guess the spiritual one must be the most important one If we get that one fixed, the others just fix themselves. Wow. It says in dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. That's a general description. They're going to tell us exactly how to set them on paper It said we listed people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry So at this point what we need is a list of everything and everyone you have ever been angry with Ever That's where we're goingto start And don't worry about how long the four steps are going to take You plan to live to be 150 anyway We've got a lot of time. It's just not a problem. At this point, I usually ask them, I say, now, you're probably wondering what color ink you should use and what color paper, aren't you? About half of them say yeah. I say if you turn the page at the bottom of page 67, it says when we saw our faults, we listed them, we placed them before us in black and white. That's not very specific, is it? It doesn't say black ink and white paper. That could easily be black paper and white ink. And I'll give you all the leeway the book gives and I sponsored a guy and he didn't believe this was going to work for him. And when I said that, he went to the art store. He bought an inch thick of black paper and two pens of old white ink. And today he's sober about 17 years. He took it in black and white. And whatever your sponsor says suits me. If I sponsor you, you're going to do it on white paper with black ink or black paper with white ink, I go either way. And I want you to know I know how ridiculous that sounds. It sounds ridiculous to me. But it's a principle. And the principle is I don't care what this book says, I'm doing it. Because the first time I let myself off the hook on anything, I could be letting myself off on the thing that would have saved my life. So I'm going to ask him to take it at that level. Black and white. I recommend a spiral notebook. It's an easy way to do it. This is mine. Most of the guys I sponsor get one with a black cover with white writing or a white cover with black writing. I don't require that, but most of them do. I recommend that inside the book you write something, the first page inside you write Something Like This Is My Four Step. Put it down. You won't like the results if I catch you with it. Something like that. And then we turn the page, and we're going to consider the two pages that we're looking at here as one page. I've cheated and looked ahead. We're goingto need a lot of room here. We're gonna write a 1 above the margin on the left-hand page, a 2 above the middle of the left hand page, and a 3 and a 4 roughly split in the right-hand stage. This is the format that I've been shown. and I'm going to ask them at this point for some time I want you to know that the two hardest things in AA recovery are thinking about doing a fourth step and thinking about doing an ninth step actually doing those steps is nowhere near as hard as thinking aboutdoing them so if you're thinking aboutdoing them quit that it's too hard and just do them it's a lot easier there are no surprises in step four I mean you did all of it right there's nothing to be afraid of You already know it. And what they told me was that all that garbage in your past is not who you are, that's who you're not. Because if that's Who you are and you're still out there doing it, it doesn't make you sick to think about some of it. And they told Me they would teach Me here how to stop doing Who I'm not, how to repair the damage for doing WhoI'm not. How to receive the forgiveness for doing Whom I'm Not. And Who I really am would just kind of emerge from the ashes like the phoenix. Awfully poetic is exactly what happened to me. And I propose that that will happen to you. Because that was my experience with it. There are 168 hours in a week. If you have a 40-hour-a-week job and a 30-minute commute either way, if you have an hour a week and a 40 minute commute, that's 45 hours a week, sleep eight hours a night, that's another 56. You go to seven meetings a week and get there a little early and stay a little late, that's 15 more hours. I want you five hours a day five hours per week on the telephone to me and to some of the other men I sponsor. I'll nominate them for you. Twelve hours a week for meals. Two hours a weak, mowing grass, paying the bills, doing the fix-up around the house. Four hours a wake, coach Little League, take your wife out on a date, have a family picnic or outing of some kind. One hour a week, shop for groceries, maybe buy clothing. Seven hours a weeke, prayer and meditation. Five hours a weke, reading the big book and other spiritual literature, which we will talk about. Three hours a wike, let's get some recreation in. Go for a run or a swim, play a round of golf. Six hours a wieke on television, that's plenty. that's two ball games. That'll be enough. Three hours a week, taking a shower and shave and doing your personal hygiene. If you add up what I just gave you, that's 165 hours. There are 168 hours in a week. You've got three hours left. I want half. That's the perspective that I start with. I sponsor a man who was a stay-at-home dad. He had about a one-year-old son. His wife worked. He was Mr. Mom. Kid took a nap from 1 to 3 every afternoon. I've got a whole different deal I want from him. So, I have to know something about his life. I'm a reasonable man. I don't believe that recovery from alcoholism should have a negative impact on any other aspect of my life. It should be inconvenient at times. Absolutely should be inconvenient at times, but it should not have a positive impact on my life at all. I generally ask for three 30-minute periods a week. I ask them to schedule them. Call me every Sunday. I want to know what your schedule is. And Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is not a schedule. Monday, 8 p.m. to 8.30 p.м., that is the schedule. And I want the schedule and I want you to work it. And okay, so you didn't know the kid had the Little League game and so you slipped it from Saturday at 2 in the afternoon until Saturday at 7? That's fine. I don't even need a phone call on that. But like anything else, it's important on your schedule and it's not subject to cancellation. Might have to move it. Not subject to cancelation. Let's schedule this thing. It's important enough to do. I want The 30-Minute Period to look this way. I want the first five minutes in prayer and meditation asking God for clarity of mind to find what I'm supposed to find and the courage to write it down and whatever other prayers you think you need to do. And after that, I want you to write. And I wantyou to start writing names. It's anybody, anything you have ever been angry with. Column one. Write a name, skip a line. Write a namesskipaline. Write a nameskipa line. Those were not estimates. Those of you who looked ahead and realized, okay, I'm going to put my dad down first. I'm gonna say four or five pages. Uh-uh. Write a name, skip a line. Write a Name, Skip a Line. Nobody's getting more. And we're going to talk about why here in a couple of minutes. When you get to the bottom of the page, you have to turn the page because we're gonna need, we got a two, three and a four. Write one, two, tree, four across the top and keep them coming. And just anybody, anything you've ever been angry with, even if you're sure you've already forgiven them, no problem. Put them down. The rule is when in doubt, write it out. These things will kill you. They will kill your. So what happens if you write one down, later we discover it's not a resentment? You have lost a few seconds, a little bit of ink, a little but of paper. Or you don't write it down, it was a resentment, it killed you. So choose your penalty. Which one do you like? I'm kind of into the few seconds a little bet of paper and ink. When in doubt, write it out. When they slow down, when you slow down. I work with a good friend today. He said, I don't think I got but two or three. I said, well no problem, just commit 30 minutes to it. He got 60 out of his first 30 minutes. says? Not uncommon. Bottom of page 65, when they slow down, when you can't think of one, it says we went back through our lives. So that indicates that we use a reverse chronology. We begin with today. I'm living in this place. I're married to her. I work at this place This is my home group. These are the people I have my recreation with. This is my church or whatever. So I think about all of them. But then eight years ago, I was living in the other place and I was married to, and I had all this other stuff in my life and then before that I lived there and before that I was in the Air Force and before That I was In College but in the air force I was stationed at five different places I got to do each one of those and go all the way back through my life searching for anything or anyone who's ever made me angry write them down write a name skip a line when we get to your earliest memory we are finished with column one is it complete no probably not at this point I want you to start carrying a piece of paper with you all the time and a pen because you're going to be walking through the grocery store You're going to see the cantaloupes. That sucker's head looked at you. Just write it down. Just write it down, we'll add it to the list next time we get a chance. Our mission here is not to do... If you give yourself the assignment of doing the perfect four-step, you can't do it at all. So you have my permission not to be to do it perfectly. As a matter of fact, we are not saving a special alcove in Akron at the AA Hall of Fame for your four-stepper. And to tell you the rest of the truth, our home group does not give a trophy every year for the best four-step. This is the trophy you are not going to get. For those of you who are too far back and can't see it, it says four-stepped trophy never awarded. You ain't getting the trophy. Because if I have to do it perfectly, I can't do it at all. So let's get in there and do an imperfect four- step as best you can. And when you get to your earliest memories, we are finished. I just had to bend one the other day on that. As he got to the earliest mirror, he says, yeah, I want to give it a couple of more sessions. I said, no. Let's take a look for direction two, bottom of page 64. Next sentence, we ask ourselves why we are angry. Let's takes a look at the page 65, the example. I'm resentful at Mr. Brown, the cause. His attention to my wife, told my wife of my mistress, Brown may get my job at the office. And I ask them now, and I'll ask you, begin with the word office and count backwards. those words under the cause. Nineteen. NineteEN words. Mr. Brown is messing with this guy's wife. He has told his wife about his girlfriend and is trying to get him fired. He got nineteen words. Alright, it's a summary. So in column two, we are not going to start out with a rainy Wednesday afternoon. Uh-uh. No, no. You got nineteen works. Nineteen words. And you have, and this is just the way I do this. I think there are a lot of great ways to do this, it's just mine. You've now got the space from the name over the spiral and the line beneath it in which you can write 19 words or less. It's a summary, right? Left me for another guy. Screwed me in a business deal. Left me für another guy next to high school football coach. Didn't play me as much as I deserved. Left me fur another guy something brief now I'm a reasonable man and I always tell the men I sponsor if you've got somebody who's done more to you than this Mr. Brown character has done to this guy and you feel like you need to write another word or two call me we'll negotiate I'll be more than happy I will tell you I've never given up the 20th word I'm willing to talk about it I'll tell you the rest of the truth I've been called you wouldn't call me would you they don't either no 19 words that's plenty because we're not trying to feed this resentment i said originally that first first column is a list a list is a series of words and phrases that run down the page i don't think i've ever seen a list that ran across the page so the book indicates that we're going to do this vertically i think the other reason is if you write across the stage if you now having given you all these directions that we'll do here if you work across the page, you'll find it will feed your resentment. They'll flare. If you work down the page it's very analytical. They don't tend to flare. We're not trying to feed them. We're trying to excise them. We are going to cut them out. This is the portion of the inventory where we are going begin to dig poison out of my soul. I'm not being poetic. That is precisely what happens here. And so when he has finished column two and people wonder how many resentments what do you see? The shortest list I ever saw that I thought was complete was around 40. It was very young man, and I think that was probably it for him. He just wasn't that angry. I've seen lists over 450 that I thought were incomplete. I sponsored a guy that hated everybody, and he wished there was more of them. This guy was in love with resentment. It was his favorite thing. Top of page 65. On our grudge list, we said opposite each name our injuries was at our self-esteem, security, ambitions, personal or sex relations, which had been interfered with five-part multiple choice, column three. Could get one, could get two, could get five. Could be that there'll be some you can't figure out. Do not give yourself a brain hernia trying to figure this thing out. Call your sponsor and let them help you understand why it's self-esteem because if this is your first one, that's what it is. Typically, my first 10 or 12 self-esteem got the most ink. My last one was security. It really surprised me. I only had five resentments on it. I was surprised that I had that many. But it was security that has been for the last two. It really surprised me. So it does change. And so that's column three. For me, the most powerful information in step four lies between the third and fourth columns. This is easy to miss. If you're just looking for something to write, you won't find this. Bottom of page 65, we went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. I asked them, were you thorough? Were you honest? Is this the best you can do for now? Okay. When we were finished, we considered it carefully. They're going to tell us how to consider it. Here's the first observation. The first thing apparent was that this world and people are often quite wrong. I don't let them spend any time on that. Been on bar stools for 20 years covering that one. We know you got that one, okay? And the rest of the paragraph says that that was a mistake and that it didn't work. I'm going to move on. Next paragraph. It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. It was plain to the people who wrote this. Is it plain to you? You're here doing these steps. My assumption is you want what the people who wrote this book had. And what they had was long-term, productive, happy recovery. Is that what you want? Then as we come through this book, if they say they wrote something, I'll ask you to write it. If they prayed it, you'll pray it. If they observed it,you'll stop and try to observe it. They observed that any life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. Have you ever seen a life that was full of resentment that was also happy, joyous, and free? I never have. Okay. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile? Did you ever sit in class and hate them when you should have been listening? Did you every lay awake at night and plan what you were going to do to them? Squandered the hours that might of been worthwhile. So you observe that that's true for you also. With the alcoholic whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience. Now let me tell you what your hope is. Maintenance means two things. The first one is that maintenance means I can't afford to lose anything I've got. Now, growth means what I've already got is insufficient. It means Scott's 2005 program just might not be good enough to keep him sober in 2006. That I must continue to be in the growth mode. The other piece of maintenance means is that I maintenance my spiritual condition in the same sense that I maintain my vehicle. I rotate the tires. I got the right pressure under my chainsaw while I wash it. I maintenance My Spiritual Condition. I pray each morning. I meditate each morning I read two pages a day in the big book. Just two. I've been reading two pages in the book for about 20 years. You'll get to where you can find what you're looking for in about 20 years doing that. I read some other spiritual literature. I let people in in traffic. Put your blinker on near me, I will let you in. It's a very spiritual thing for me because I used to be a very aggressive driver. I will Let You In. I do my best to tell the truth. When I've messed that up one more time, I say so. I have the privilege of taking meetings into jails and prisons. Anybody else doing that? Anybody take a meeting into the jail? Fantastic. Anybody else, by the way, if you're suffering from depression, get with one of them and take a meet-up in the jail. Boy, it will break your depression so fast. And unlike a lot of what's being prescribed for us, it won't have a negative impact on your recovery. Really recommend it. So that's how I maintenance my spiritual condition. I go to a lot meetings. I maintenance myself. That's my spiritual conditioning. It says this business of resentment is infinitely grave. Infinitely grave! I guess that's serious, isn't it? I think they threatened my life on that. That's once. Let's count them on this page. That's one threat of your life. We found that it is fatal. Oh, that's two. Tell the story. The fellow's name was Bill. Ron, who's going to talk tonight. Do not think about missing Ron's talk tonight because he's got such a powerful message. No one in this fellowship knows more about forgiveness than this man. You do not want to miss this piece. Fellas, I went to my sponsor, the guy that took me through the steps, and he had been my sponsor for a number of years, and I went up to him and I found him one time And I said, do you remember Bill? And I gave this guy his last name. And he said, if anyone you sponsor ever commits suicide, you will always remember them. And I says, and I said when I was sober two years, Bill and I had the same sobriety day, plus or minus a month or so, I'm not sure which. We had the samerome group where I saw him five or eight times a week. We had you, the same sponsor. And two years sober, he drove home from a meeting one night, pulled in the garage and dropped the door and left it running and took his own life, sober over two years. and I can't find the difference between me and Bill and I'm scared. And here I sit with a six-year chip in my pocket and I am scared. What was the difference entre me and bill? And he said, I couldn't get bill to do a four step and he died of resentment and killed him. And I thought about it and every time you saw bill he couldn't wait to run up to tell you what some SOB had just done to him. He was a victim all the time and in my experience the victims don't get sober. I have to step away from being a victim. We're going to talk about how in the next couple of minutes. And I look at it, and I agree with Jerry's analysis on that. Found that it's fatal. We've just threatened your life twice. For when harboring such feelings, it doesn't say when having such feelings. I love the language. Harboring means to give a safe place to, to nurture. I'm okay if I have a resentment, if I'm not harburing it. We're gonna talk about how to not harbor a resentment in a couple of moments. We're coming to it. When harbering such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns. Are we drinking again? Well, us to drink is two. That's three. If we were to live. Oh, okay. This is only for the ones that want to live, so there's another one. Four. We had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm are not for us. About the time this book was being written, a very creative man named Walt Disney sat around with his executives and came up with a way to write Mickey Mouse cartoons. And they all spit out ideas at the same time. And he labeled his process brainstorming. If you can find a dictionary from the 1930s, which I did, And in that day, the name brainstorm meant transient, violent mental outburst. We know it as rage. We know what is rage. It has nothing to do with the creative process. So there are two kinds of anger. There's the grouch or the slow burn or the brainstorm, rage. Nothing to do avec creativity. The grouch and the brainstorm are not for us. This is very thin, by the way. Listen to this. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men. But for us, these things are five. We turn back to the list for it held the key to the future. Oh, if I don't find the key to the futures, does that mean I don' t have a future? Yes, it does. That's six. We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. Different from what? Well, the last time we looked at the list was actually on the preceding page at the bottom where it said the first thing apparent with this world and people were often quite wrong. Now we're going to go back and look at the rest of the list from an entire different angle and I thought okay we're gonna look from my part Incorrect. We never look for my part. It's not in here. What we're going to look at next, it says, is we began to see that the world and people really dominated us. So let's go down your list one at a time and see how these things dominate you. My father, I'm going to tell my story now, and I love him dearly. I'm past all of this. Nothing's going on in here when I tell you this because I've been through the forgiveness process and the fourth step that we're about to talk about. Beat me down to such a level. the phrase I heard from him the most growing up was you're not worth the gunpowder it would take to blow you to hell I bet I heard that once a month from the time I was 10 until I was 19 or 20 and I know today he was trying to motivate me he was doing the best he could and I love him dearly I'd give a lot to spend an hour with him right now I lost my place oh yeah we began to see the world as people really dominated so let's take a look and see how these things affected you the way he dominated me What he did to me, to this day at 62 years old, I still have a problem with authority figures. I have a problems in tense situations that I tend to use very inappropriate humor because I learned to be afraid of tense situations. These things, some of them are still with me. So how did these things, let's take a look at how these things. A high school football coach didn't play me as much as I deserved. The guys on the first team were doing better with the girls than those guys who were on the bench. Let's take another look and see how did this stuff affect you? Did you plan your life so you'd be around these people that you hated so in case they screwed up, you could point at it so everybody would see it? Or did you plan you're life so that you'd never be around them so they couldn't nail you again? Let's have a look. Let's do some analysis here and see how these things affected you. And I don't want to spend a lot of time. A session or two on that would be plenty. And then it says, In that state, the wrongdoings of others, fancied or real... Oh, you mean some of this just happened in my head? had the power to actually kill. Seven. We've just threatened your life seven times on this page. How could we escape? We saw that these resentments must be mastered. Time out. They saw that These Resentments Must Be Mastered. We've Just Threatened Your Life seven times on this stage. Was that sufficient for you? Do you see that they must be mastered? I'm a salesman by trade, and this is probably the finest sales pitch I've ever seen. A good salesman will never mention price, ever, until he has already established value. You have to establish value before you can ever talk price. We just threatened your life seven times. Was that good enough? Are you convinced that no matter what the price is, the resentments have to go? And the reason I think we did it that way is because the price was very high. We're going to ask you to do some things you are not going to like. We hope you're convinced. And then it says, we could not wish them away any more than alcohol. This was our course. We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. One of my teachers defined spiritually sick for me. He said, spiritually sick is cut off from God. I've got something the angels don't have. I can turn my back on God and go right back to doing it my way. That's what I was doing when I got here. Spiritually sick. Spiritually Sick. Another one of my teacher said, realized. Look at me for a moment if you would. He says, when I realize something, it becomes real for me. I can know something, but when I realize it, it become real. It's what my wife calls heart knowledge. It comes at a different place. It's at a difference level. And I have to realize that the people who wronged me were perhaps spiritually sick. I'm not going to call on anybody. I want you to bring into your mind right now the one or two worst things you ever did. You got them? Weren't you spiritually sick to have done that? Had you been walking in the sunlight of the Spirit in conscious contact with this gentle, loving God that created the galaxies? Could you have done it? You wouldn't have done what I've done that. No. Probably wouldn't even thought of it, would you? No. You were spiritually sick when you did that. And these people who wronged me were also spiritually sick when they did the things that they did. And one at a time, I ask you if I sponsor you to go down your list and ask God. First, in that first five minutes, I want you to talk to God about the worst things you ever did and how spiritually sick you were to have done them and then let's take however long it takes to go through the list one time and first name on the list, Fred God help me see that Fred was just spiritually sick that he's not an SOB please grant me the gift of not hating Fred next name onthe list, whatever and let's just pray them all once for me this is the beginning of the forgiveness process top of the next page and that's going to take a while alright what I've just described is going to take several of those 30 minute sessions or whatever your sponsor says and we haven't written anything and yet it's powerful life changing stuff though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us they like ourselves were sick too the symptom of their spiritual sickness is what they did the way it disturbs me is my resentment and then the great truth the second time they like themselves were sick to and then here's a prayer we ask God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. And so I'm going to get God involved in this thing. A number of my mentors got sober on the second edition, and it has been very prayerfully that I just started not too long ago doing what I'm about to do now, and that's to take something out of one of the stories. This is, I call the stories the more will be disclosed section, and this story was not in the second edition. This is the story of freedom from bondage in the fourth edition. We begin on page 551 if you would please. Because I have found this in my text and it's something that I found very, very helpful. It sure helped me. The lady's talking about a resentment against her mother. And that's the subject. She says, one morning however I realized I had to get rid of it. That's the resentment. For my reprieve was running out. A reprieved by the way is a stay of execution. And if I didn't get rid of it, I was going to get drunk. Didn't want to get drunk anymore. In my prayers that morning, I asked God to point out to me some way to be free of this resentment. During the day, a friend brought me some magazines to take to a hospital group I was interested in. I looked through them. A banner across one featured an article by a prominent clergyman in which I caught the word resentment. I want to observe the sequence of events because I believe it's a predictable sequence of effects. The lady sees something about herself she does not like. She prays about it. And then she gets focused helping somebody else. She's taking magazines into a hospital. She is out of herself trying to help somebody else, and her answer falls out of the sky on her. I'm here to tell you I believe that's a predictable series of events. I'd like to add talk to your sponsor or spiritual advisor in there somewhere after pray, but that's an predictable series of events where you're talking about some events. You see something about yourself that needs some work and you pray about it and talk to you sponsor about it and get focused doing something for somebody else and you come out and your answer will be laying on the hood of your car. It'll be there. It's an astounding thing. Alright, and here we go on page 552. He said in effect, if you have a resentment you want to be free of. Aha! Do you want to be afraid and be free of it? Have we made our sale? If you will pray for the person or thing you resent you'll be free. If you'll ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them you'llbe free. Ask for their health or prosperity or happiness and you'llbepree even when you don't really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don't mean it. Go ahead and do it anyway. Alright, I'm not going to read the rest of that. It says it'll work in two weeks. That's not been my experience. If you start with 170 resentments. I don't think it's going to work in two weeks. But what I have discovered is that if I add that prayer to the one I found here on page 67, the one on 67, I'm asking God to change me. Ask God to help me show them the same tolerance, pity, patience, and a cheerfully granted sick friend. And now I'm going to pray for him. I'm gonna pray for both people involved in this thing. So if it's a guy, I'mma say, okay, God, and I pray that he has a great spiritual experience. And then he walks in the sunlight of the Spirit and that he gets promoted at work, that he wins the Tennessee lottery, that his kids go to school on scholarship, that his wife is a fabulous lover, that his lawn grows lush and green but it grows so slowly he only has to mow it once a year. I think the more creative you can be, the better. And at the end of that, all I have to do is ask myself a very simple question. Do I mean it? It's a yes or no question that's not an essay question. Yes or no? If the answer is no, I don't mean it, just go on to the next name. Don't stay there. If you do mean it, if something that says, you know, I really do hope that guy has a great life, then check it off. This is my experience. For me, resentment is like ice around my heart. And it has a thickness. You know how hail is formed? It starts as a drop of water and it goes up into cold air and it freezes. It comes down and gets some more moisture and it Goes up and freezes again. And it does that over and over again. That's what my resentments are like. And every time I feed them, they get another layer. And so what I'm doing here is I'm actually holding the icy heart up to the sunlight of the Spirit in prayer. I don't believe I have the power to forgive. I do not know how to forgive . In my experience, the English language has it wrong. Forgive isn't something I do, it's something I receive. I was talking about opening myself to receive the gifts. So what I am doing here, is I am holding the icey heart up into the sunlight of the spirit and based on the thickness of the ice which I guess has to do with how bad that stuff was and how thick it is and how long I've fed it, eventually sunlight will melt the ice. And I will find myself hoping that this person that I roundly hated has a fabulous life and a big spiritual experience and they just have a great time. And then I will have received the gift of forgiving them. Now that's my experience with it. And I keep them on this until it's done. And I don't care how long it takes. A young friend of ours took about 90 days, not too long ago. He didn't have a very long list. I don't know if there's something more important than we do, than getting God's presence to the point where we don't hate His kids anymore. I don'T know what it is. I DON'T know WHAT it is and this is my experience with this portion of it. And then it gives me my marching orders from here on. It says when a person offended we said to ourselves this is a silent prayer. This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry that I will be done. That's what I do from now on when somebody makes me mad. Because I'm supposed to pray, but I'm going right back to the source with it. And then, I'm gonna skip this next paragraph, I am so tight on time. Next one says, referring to our list again, putting out of our minds the wrongs others have done. Boy, it's hard to do if you still hate them now, isn't it? Yeah, it says we resolutely look for our own mistakes. It doesn't say I look for my part in it. My experience is when I finished that prayer part and I didn't hate anybody anymore, they don't have a part and I don't have a part if I say I've got a part somebody else has got a part I'm looking for my mistake that's what the book says what did I do wrong where had we been selfish dishonest self-seeking and frightened that list is all over the book and I'm not going to take the time now maybe catch it later on I can give you five or six other page numbers that have that list or one very similar to it and those things are all that self dishonest I want or selfish the price is self-seeking i want my way frightened i'm concerned i won't get my way in the future it's always about my way it says though a situation not been entirely our fault we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely that must have been important they just told me twice or are we to blame the inventory is ours not the other man's when we saw our faults we listed them placed them before us in black and white i think there are an awful lot of right ways to do this and i've seen a lot of them i like to use a fourth column and just let's write your mistakes in the fourth column because when we get to step eight all we have to check we got most of it done at that point i think there are a lot of other great ways to do it whatever your sponsor says suits me fine and then it says we admitted our wrongs honestly we're willing to set these matters straight sounds like step eight doesn't it and then um we're going to talk about fear for a couple of minutes this first paragraph says it's a bad thing turn the page says we reviewed our fears thoroughly we put them on paper even though we had no resentment in connection with them so i got two kinds of fears though to have a resentment connected those that don't I ask people to turn four or five pages in their four-step because we're going to need room maybe later for some more resentments. And dog ear one, and let's list your fears. And usually the fear list is a good bit shorter than resentment inventory. Not always. I got into a discussion with a fellow one time, and he said he looked both ways before he crossed the street because he had a fear of getting run over by a bus. He may have a fear OF buses. I don't know. I look both ways. Before I step off the curb because I intuitively know that's a good thing for me to do. It doesn't have to do with fear. Fear is in here. Fear is what grips you. So let's have a list of fears. Fear of failure. Here's a common one, fear of success. I was always afraid I was going to succeed and then they were going to expect me to do it again. It had to be dumb luck if a guy like me got away with it. So let us have a look at this. Let's have the list of the things that you are afraid of. Let's talk over the sponsor. And then it says we asked ourselves why we had them. I will be forever grateful that they told me why because I didn't have a hint. I didn' t have a clue why I had these fears. It says because self-reliance failed me. Go down to your fear list and ask yourself this question on each one. If I were totally God-reliant, would I have this fear? I think you'll find the answer would be no. Next paragraph, perhaps there's a better way we think so, for we're now on a different basis. The basis of trusting and relying upon God. Roman numeral 16, forward to the second edition. Powerful stuff in the Roman numerals, by the way. Bill Wilson is about to leave the Oxford groups, and he knows that he needs to take some of what they got with him. And this is his talk about it, about eight lines down on page Roman numeral 16. Though he could not accept all the tenets of the Oxford groups, he was convinced of the need for moral inventory, confession of personality defects, restitution to those harmed. That would be different from an apology, I guess. Helpfulness to others, here it comes, and the necessity of belief in and dependence upon God. I got here believing there was a God and not having a higher power because I had not learned to depend upon God that's what we're talking about here back on page 68 we trust infinite God rather than our finite selves we are in the world to play the role he assigns step one section B my life's unmanageable I'm here to play the roll he assign someone told me a story one time that God created this particular animal and he gave this animal a hunger and taste only for the leaves that grow at the very top of a particular kind of tree and he also gave the giraffe a long neck so we could get to them and i have a long nick for god's will for me i'm designed for it but i had to take out the trash first i had dig the poison out of my soul we began with the resentments now here we are exploring the fears page 68 just to the extent that we do as we think he would have us and humbly rely on him does he enable us to match calamity with serenity just the extent we do we think He would have us. I don't always know what He wants me to do. I don' t. But when I'm trying to do what I think God wants me zu do, I'm still making mistakes. But I'm making a much finer quality of mistake today than I ever made before. We have a name for that. That's called progress. That's right. That's progress. I don''t think it's my job to be perfect. I'm fully convinced I'm not supposed to be perfectly. If I'm nont supposed to beperfect, am I not therefore logically supposed to make mistakes? Sure. Sure. Progress is making a better quality mistake or making the same old mistake a little less often. That's progress. But it's okay that I make mistakes and I've heard all my life that I learn from my mistakes and I don't. Never did. I learn form living with the results of my mistakes. Okay? I'm like the dog that wets on the rug. What did he learn? Nothing. When he started learning when you rubbed his nose in it. Me and the dog have got that in common. That's when I learn. We have five steps that address me embracing the results of my mistakes. Four, five, eight, nine, and ten are about me living with the results of my mistake. And that's where I learn is by living with freedom. I heard this in a meeting a long time ago. Freedom is when I accept full responsibility for living with the results OF everything I do. I am today free to do anything that I'm willing to live with the result OF. That's freedom. That's how I get to be free is by taking responsibility. um 68 we never apologize to anyone for depending on our creator that concept is in this paragraph twice must be important don't need to be apologizing for god we laugh at those who think spirituality the way of weakness paradoxically it's a way of strength the verdict of the ages faith means courage all men of faith have courage they trust their god we never apologize for god there it is again instead we let him demonstrate through us what he can do We ask Him. Ah, that's a prayer. We ask him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us do. And that's not what it says. It said what he Would Have Us Be. I found that on page 133. What would God have me be? Second line, page 134. We're assured God wants us to be happy, joyous, and free. Yeah. My friend Ron, who I've had the privilege of sponsoring for a pretty good while, gave us this piece the other day. He said, Happy, joyious, and Free. He said, free has to come first. I can't get happier joyous until I get free. And the way I get freer is by actually doing the 12 steps. And I think anything that logically goes on that list as an addition is then God's will for me. Happy, joyous, free in trying to be a good father. Sure. Happy, joyful, free trying to become a good husband. Yeah. Happy, joys, free and cheating on my expense account. No. No. It's pretty easy really. I'm sorry to do that to you because, you know, knowledge is a terrible thing. Once you've got it, you can't put it back. You know, you cannot go back to not knowing. Page 68. So we've made the observation. We've had a list of our fears. We've observed how bad they are and what they do to us. We've absorbed if we were God-reliant, we wouldn't have them. We've preserved that we're here to play the role that God assigns. And it's okay for us to make mistakes by doing what I think He wants me to do. It's okay that I make mistakes. I can't make a mistake He can't turn into something beautiful. I'm not going to apologize for them, and I've prayed. and then here's a promise it says that once we commence to outgrow fear it seems to me that if I can outgrow fear, fear must be a lack of growth spiritual growth is my guess a fear inventory when we finish the resentment inventory the way I do it with somebody by the time he finishes those prayers we've done 90-95% of the time necessary the rest of the four step happens pretty fast that fear thing that I just described 30 minutes maybe an hour, that's done It says, now about sex. And I'm going to paraphrase a little bit. This next paragraph says we all need an overhauling and that that's not uncommon. Toward the end of the paragraph it says we All Have Sex Problems, We'd Hardly Be Human If We Didn't. And here's a great question. What can we do about them? So we're not here to beat ourselves up over what we did in the past. Our question is what can we doing about them. It says we've reviewed our own conduct over the year past. They're going to tell us how. Where had we been? and selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate. Whom had we hurt? Did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion, or bitterness? Where were we at fault? What should we have done instead? And then it says we got this all down on paper and looked at it. I think there are a lot of really good ways to get this down on the paper. Keith and I had a mentor in common, and he did it in sentence form. He'd do about three lines on each one. I've been doing column inventories. I like that. I like to start with whom had we heard for our first column. Selfish, dishonist, inconsiderite. For a next one, jealousy, suspicion, bitterness for a third. And where was I at fault? What should I have done for a fourth? I think there are a lot of great ways to do this. But it says to put them on paper. And I want to share with you, it's my belief that part of what keeps the ugly part of my past clean is my willingness for God to use it. I'm going to step on some pretty interesting ground right now. And I Want to Tell You Right Now That Nothing Happens In Here When I Talk About This. I've Been Through The Forgiveness Process. I'm really quite clean on all of this stuff. I'm sharing it for the single reason that maybe somebody else here needs to get free. I'm God's caddy. I carry this stuff from my past, and I'm an apprenticed messenger. It says we tried to carry this message. It doesn't say we carried it. It says they tried to care this message, and when I keep those two things in place, I'm a caddy, and if I'm apprenticed messengers, I do pretty good. If I get past that, I get into trouble. My fourth column, what should I have done instead, was fairly simple. it said I should have told her the truth or it says I should have left her alone or it say I should have told him no a gifted therapist friend of mine says that about 70% of adult heterosexual males have had a homosexual experience of some kind I've heard over 100 fifth steps and I'm going to say 98 is a much better number so fellas if that's the one you're hiding we already know we can talk about it and I shared that not to impress anybody but only so that somebody maybe will go ahead and do this thing and get free. I've gotten free. It doesn't make me sick to talk about that or think about it anymore. What a phenomenal process. Back to page 69, next paragraph. So what are we trying to do? It says in this way we try to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. So we're trying to figure out what does God want me to do in this arena from here on. We subjected each relation to this test. Was it selfish or not? And then here's the prayer, the first of several in this portion. We ask God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. And at this point, I ask them to pray that prayer and then I want you to sit down and write your sexual ideal. That does not mean that she's 5'5 and a size 6. No, no, no. No, this has to do with your conduct. It's a different kind of ideal. What do you think God wants you to do in this category given your current set of circumstances today? Like for example, we don't need to know what it would be if you're single now but if you were married but if you were temporarily separated but you weren't legally separated but you thought she had a boyfriend but you weren't sure we don't need that one alright let's don't chase our tail mine's very simple I'm married to a spectacular woman many of you know miss Linda she's supposed to get all my sexual energy mine is simple yours may not be but I think if it runs past three or four lines I don't think you understood the question. If I sponsor you, you didn't. And I don't require them to read that to me. I don'T have to know what it is. I'm happy to hear it. I like to hear it, but I DON'T need to. Because in the top paragraph, it said we DON'T want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. And I went to one of my mentors, real concerned about that one time, and I said, tell me about that. And he said, I can't tell someone what they have to do in the sexual arena, but if I get a new guy to sponsor, if I see him doing things I think are out of bounds spiritually, I have to tell them because they're going to die. But I can't make them do something or not do something. But if I sponsor a new guy and he's single, I recommend that he leaves the ladies completely alone. I say, I mean, as sick as you are, you have very little chance of attracting a healthy female. Healthy females run screaming from guys like you. Now, you may fool one for a while. All right? So it doesn't mean you don't have a healthy one. But if you do, she's going to be out here fairly soon. Now, there are two reasons. One is I want your time and energy for this four-step. The second one is when you get through these steps, you can get healthy yourself and have as a side effect the opportunity to attract a healthy female, which I recommend. I got one. I really recommend it very highly. Now, you can ignore what I've said and do it your own way, but don't bring me the problems you create for yourself in this arena. I've already told you what I think you need to do. See, it solves my problem. Isn't that great? Somebody told me when I was new that dating before you've actually done the 12 steps is like pouring Miracle-Gro on your character defects. They also said of the two newcomers who were dating, two ding-a-lings don't make a bell. Okay, next paragraph. Excuse me. Whatever ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it, to make amends where we've done harm. Gee, that sounds like step eight again. I'm going to turn the page they're telling us here for the next couple of paragraphs that we need to talk to people about, but God's the final authority. That you need to get into his presence about this thing and that if you continue to hurt people in this arena, you will drink again. And that's one of the promises. That's a promise. You'll drink again if you hurt people. And then it says to sum up about sex, we earnestly pray. So here we are praying one more time for the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity and for the strength to do the right thing. If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. Boy, that prescription is all over this book, isn't it? Get out of yourself and go help somebody else. Go help somebody other. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious urge when to yield would mean heartache. Listen, this paragraph is what pilots call a checklist. If you've done this four-step, an alleged four-stepped some other way, and you can't yet answer yes, you've don't all these things, you might want to try this one we just talked about out of the big book it says if we've been thorough about our personal inventory, we've written down a lot if you've written DOWN all the things we've talked about writing DOWN, you'll have written DOWN a lot we've listed and analyzed their resentments we did that didn't we? we had a list, ran down the page and we did quite a bit of analysis on them we've begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality yeah we threatened your life 7 times on one page I remember that I love that we have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness Yeah, we did that. We've begun to learn tolerance, patience, and goodwill toward all men, even our enemies, before we look on them as sick people. Yeah, real eyes. I remember when we didthat. We have listed the people we hurt by our conduct and are willing to straighten out the past if we can. We did that at the end of the resentment inventory. We did it at the End of Sexual Misconduct Inventory. So there's a sort of an analysis, a checklist you can check to see if you did those things. And then it says, excuse me, In this book, you read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves. We hope you're convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from him. If you've already made a decision, all right, that was third step decision, and an inventory of your gross or handicaps, you have made a good beginning. That being so, you've swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself. Oh, I studied biology. I know what happens after swallow and digest, right? That's out of here, right. And that's what step four is about. It's about taking out the trash. It's a matter of taking out It's all about digging the poison out of your soul so that you forgive these people and you don't hate them anymore. Your fears have begun to recede. You now know what God wants you to do in the sexual arena today and you commit yourself to doing it. You become a new person and that's what this thing is about We are going to take we're going to go ahead and do the Lord's Prayer we're gonna whisper it again and then we're gonna take a break and we start again at what time? Two o'clock? Okay one program says 1.30 and one says 2 o'clock the one I got in the mail said 1. 30 1. 3 ok if you would stand and stay in place for those who weren't here last night we're going to whisper the Lord's prayer and we're not going to chant anything after amen please don't chant and we'll have a moment of silence after the Lord and I'll let you know when that moment is over okay and I like to take that moment of silence and remember those that carried this message to me that are gone now Lord's Prayer Our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses Thank you. My name is Keith, and I'm an alcoholic. You know, I was reminded of this whole business of taking instruction. I fought it tooth and nail when I first came into Alcoholics Anonymous. And I remember thinking, they don't know what's best for me. My sponsor didn't know What Was Best For Me and all that business. And you know what I ended up doing was something I learned in philosophy classes called the prudent man theory. And the pruden man theory goes like this. If what they say is correct, if they're right and I'm wrong, I'm going to die. If I'm right and they're wrong, I'll save some money. and so I decided I was going to do the prudent man theory and I made up my mind at about six weeks of sobriety that I was gonna do everything that I told to do for six months and if my life wasn't significantly better at the end of six months I'd tell these people to take a hike so I had an academic calendar that goes from July to July And so I took it out, and I counted six months down the road. And it was in January 1974, six months. And I circled it with a red pen. And I did. I threw myself into this thing as hard as I could, and I did virtually everything that I was told to do. You know, I was sober about three months, and I got a letter from a man named Jerome Lejeune, who was probably the world's greatest cytologist, He also was the ephesian for Pope John Paul II. And he is a brilliant man. He was a physician and a geneticist and all this stuff. And he taught at the University of Paris Medical School and at the Hospital for Sick Children in Montparnasse. And he invited me to come and study with him. And I had figured sponsorship out by this time. because, you see, sponsors are people who find out what you really want to do and tell you you can't do it. And so I showed a letter to my sponsor, Dan, and he literally had tears in his eyes. And I said, You mean I can go? He said, Yeah, you have to go. He said this isn't about you. He said This is about Alcoholics Anonymous. He said The best you could do is dirty your pants over on Skid Row. He saidThis is about alcoholics anonymous. And then he said, look at me. My mother used to say that when she really meant it. And he said I want you to understand this. He said he said whatever you do you can do in Alcoholics Anonymous if you prepare properly. And that's the truth. He said we have four months to get you ready to go to Paris to study. And I'll never forget New Year's Eve, 1974. I'm glad I was sitting on the bulkhead side of the airplane because we're landing in Orly Airport and I'm overwhelmed with gratitude and the tears were running down my cheeks. I felt like an idiot. And here I am walking the streets of Paris a free man and seven months before I was dying in the basement of a house in the Skid Row section of Washington, D.C. And I immediately found a guy named Don who started AA in France and he was with the American Embassy and he traveled all around France and started meetings down in Bordeaux region everywhere and he invited me to lead a meeting at the American Church in Paris on the same river and he's a wonderful man and I just bumped into him a few months ago up at Hilton Head Island that's where he lives now he retired but and he remembered me and I told him you're doing better than me I don't remember you and of course I did because he was wonderful to me. And a guy he sponsored took me under his wing, a guy named Charlie B. He was an artist from Kentucky. And Charlie had an art studio in Montparnasse where I was living. The university had given me an apartment there. And it was two blocks away and at lunchtime I'd walk down and Charlie detoxified the street drunks on cots in his studio. And I'd go down every lunchtime and I'd feed him soup and I tell him my story. And he told me that I wasn't doing any damage because they couldn't understand English. But he told me, he said, it is the language of the heart. And you're feeding them soup and talking to them in a nice, quiet, gentle voice. And you know, one day I'm walking down the Champs-Élysées and I've wondered I said, do I have any appointments today? And I pulled out that calendar and I opened it and I saw that red circle and I burst into tears. And I sat down on the curb crying and a man came to me and said, sir, are you alright? And I said I've never been better in my life. You really can do anything if you prepare properly and if you're willing to do the prudent man or prudent woman theory which is to do everything that we're told to do. You know, I had so many experiences and having grown up in poverty I hated wealthy and successful people and I blamed them because they had mine and you know how crazy that is and my sponsor called me up one day And he said, there are two men speaking at the Fox Hall group this Monday. I want you to go there. I said, I don't go to that meeting. And he says, why? And I said. I heard there are a bunch of rich snobs. And he say, there's a bunch alcoholics. And he said, you go. And you know in the old days when we went to meetings. We dressed up nicely before we went into a meeting. And so I went through my closet. And I told him. I said, you know, they have little sandwiches with no crusts on them and all that stuff. And I said they don't even use styrofoam cups. And he said, of course they don'T. He said they decided to buy cups and they washed them. And he says, you just meet me there. And so I found the rattiest clothes I could find and put them on and I took my own styro Foam cup. and he looked at me and just shook his head we're going through the line there was a man there named Roland who was a professor of romantic poetry at Georgetown University and he later became a dear friend of mine I took his course but he had a handlebar mustache and he had handlebar eyebrows too I never saw anything like it and he said to me how do you like our meeting? and I said the Swedish meatballs stink and my sponsor hit me in the back and said get through the line and you know Hal M. and Sandy B. spoke that night and I didn't hear a thing they said and so my sponsor took me out into the garden they had a beautiful little garden in this church it was an Episcopal church St. Patrick's Episcope Church it's gone now but they had nice little garden and we went out and sat on a little stone bench and he said to me do you want to be poor the rest of your life? I said, of course not. And he said, you know, he said if you don't change your attitude about people he said then you are going to constantly struggle because he said when did you go to work? I said I was 12 years old and he said you have nothing. And I said that's because I'm divorced. He said if she has anything she didn't get it from you and that was true. And he He said, you know, he said, you've worked all these years and you have nothing. Why is that? And I said, I don't know. He said. I'll tell you why. He said it's because, he says, whenever you start to get ahead, you do something stupid because you have an opinion about people who are successful and have some material wealth. And he said you will continue to shoot yourself in the foot if you don't change your attitude. It was an incredible lesson, absolutely incredible lesson. And he told me, he said, I want you to come to this meeting every Monday night. And he said don't bring your own styrofoam cup anymore. So I didn't. But our past plagues us unless we're willing to change and to take on new ideas. you know I was I love what Scott said about the about the fourth and fifth step you know I couldn't get my head around those columns and you know I tried numerous times to do that but it just didn't register with me and I don't know what it was so Sandy B. was my sponsor And so I told him, he said, you're ready. We had done the third step together. He said, now you're already for the fourth step. And I said, I've tried to do this and it doesn't make sense to me. And he said to me, he says, you know, there's a spiritual axiom that if you have a yellow pad and a number two pencil, you cannot lie to yourself. And I say, Sandy, lawyers use yellow pads and number two pencils. He said, I said you can't lie to yourself. And so he gave me a yellow pad and a number two pencil. And I still have the yellow pad. And I've used up the pencil bit. But he wrote, he said, you don't get drunk by not doing it exactly the way somebody else says to do it. He said you get drunk for not doing It. And he said I'm going to show you a way to do It. then I expect you, when your mind clears up, to be able to do it the way they suggest in a big book. And I have numerous times. But he took the yellow pad and he wrote fear. He said, I want you to list your fears. He said I want to sit down every evening at a designated time and ask God to direct you. And then sit there for 15 minutes. He said if you don't write anything that's fine. He said If you do write something, that's Fine too. And he said to me, he said, I want you to list your fears. And I said, I'm not afraid of anything. And he said, you know, the other day we were running together and that big dog ran down the driveway and you pushed me in front of the dog. He said, I had a feeling you're afraid of big dogs. And he had me dead to rights. And I said, well, I'm afraid of big dogs, so I wrote down big dogs and I thought for a minute. I said you know I'm not crazy about little dogs so I wrote down little dogs and then it's like the lid came off and see I had been trained not to accept the fact that I was afraid. You know, I had this horrible fear of heights and I thought the way you dealt with fear was to be brave. So I volunteered to go to jump school. Now they couldn't get me into jump school so I volunteered to go mountain climbing school. So here I am out in the Sierra Nevada rappelling off the sides of mountains and the guy I'm climbing with says you've been drinking. I said, of course I've been drinkin'. And he said, I'm not climbing with somebody who's drunk. I said, you're better off with me drunk than sober. And so I thought that if I make myself go mountain climbing, I wouldn't be afraid of heights anymore. I came back from California more afraid of height than I was when I went there. And it wasn't until in Alcoholics Anonymous that I learned how to deal with that. When I was in France, my sponsor happened to come through Paris. What a coincidence. and we went down to the beautiful cathedral and we took a train down and we were walking across the square and Dan said to me you know there's a catwalk above the roof of this church he said we can go up there and look down and see the whole church and right away I start getting brave again but I've been sober long enough now and I said to him you know Dan I'm afraid of heights he said oh you got the old afraid of height problem he said a lot of us have had that he said we don't need to go up there or this is odd for an alcoholic we can go half way and he said or we can go until you're afraid and you can take my hand and we can get together and I'm half way up I said to him I'm feeling really bad and he took my hand and that strong hand and that wrong man I walked to the top now I didn't dance around up there but I was able to go places I never would have been able to go on my own because I took the hand of my sponsor. And so, I'm sitting there every night and these fears came rolling out. And what I discovered was that I didn't just have fears. I had fears that conflicted with one another. For example, I was afraid of failure. But I was also afraid of success. So whenever I'd start to become successful, I'd shoot myself in the foot. I was afraid of being alone but I was also afraid of the responsibility that went with intimacy and so I discovered that I had so many fears that conflicted with one another and I remember talking to my third sponsor Tom I about it and he said yeah he said you know it's like watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your new Cadillac And then Sandy skipped a couple pages and he wrote down anger and then in parentheses he put resentments. And you know, in the golden books on resentments Father John Doe describes, he says that resentment is from a Latin word which means to re-feel. And that's the power of resentment. That's why resentment is the most dangerous thing that we can be involved in because it's not just the event. It's every event like it. I was sponsoring a fellow who had come out of prison after many, many years. And I'm not one of these guys who doesn't call the people he sponsors. You know, if I'm driving along and one of my pigeons, now it's sponsee, we've gone French. But if one of My Pigeon's names come to my head, I call him. and I called this guy, I'm in Wilmington and I call this guy and he answered the phone and he's crying and I said what's the matter? He said my cat was run over by a car and I knew it wasn't about the cat and I immediately drove to his house and you know when he was 18 years of age he was drunk and he flipped his car over and killed his mother and his fiance and then he ended up in prison and he endedup trying to rob a bank and ended up going back to prison. And, you know, he had lost his dignity. He had lost everything. And this cat, it wasn't about the cat. It was about every loss he'd ever had in his life. And that's what resentments do. They line up one to another. For example, my high school sweetheart sent me a Dear John letter when I was in the Mediterranean. If you didn't get a Dear john when you were in the service, you didn'T have a girlfriend when you left home. and you know years later I'm married to another woman in everything and here I am sitting in a bar thinking about and I picture myself I'm in a tuxedo I look a little bit like Bogie and I'm at Rick's place and there's a guy playing a piano and I look across the room and there she is and her eyes meet and she knows what a mistake she's made and you know every rejection I ever had lined up one behind the other behind the others and that's the power of resentment they're all wound together and what the steps do is we separate them as individual events especially relationships you know in the 8th step 12 and 12 it says we glean every bit of information we can from every relationship we've ever had whether they're good or bad and this girl was on my amends list because she had never seen me drink I never drank until the day I joined the service and I go home on leave and I'm filled with rage about this I'm hurt and rejected and all that stuff and I called her names and she tried to come up to me and I pushed her and she fell over a chair and I called her names and I turned around and stormed out and she was on my amends list for years and she was my last name on the amends list and I finally was able to get up with her about five months ago and get rid of my last card my amens and and she said to me she said you were always a gentleman she said you were always the kindest and gentle man she said but that night you were a monster and her father had a drinking problem too so she was terrified of monsters and I was a monster and she said you had a total personality change but at any rate so then I'm writing down all the resentments that I have and then he skipped a few more pages and he wrote sex and he said write everything about your sexual behavior that embarrasses you, that you feel guilty about and all the rest of it. I recently had a president of a corporation that I work for tell me, he said, you know, the problem with you Catholics is that you're all guilty. And I said, he said why is that? I said because we have standards. He said we have very strict standards. And I say guilt's a wonderful thing. You know, if you don't experience guilt then, you know you don'T have standards And if you violate standards, guilt is a gift. And when I was new, I said to an old-timer, I said, I feel guilty. And he said, well, you ought to feel guilty, the life you've lived. And he says, if you didn't feel guilty you'd be dishonest. And I said well what do I do about guilt? He said well you could drink or you can do the steps. You know and I thought that's a pretty good alternative. and so at any rate I wrote down all the sexual behavior that I'd been involved with that was embarrassing that caused guilt that all the rest of it and I'm not proud of this but I got involved in a couple adulterous relationships when I was married and I had made a promise before God that I wouldn't do that and I did it and so sex is a very powerful motivating force in our lives and you know I was sober quite a while and I was still drifting in and out of these what we call relationships, you know. And my buddy old Mike Way used to talk about sex a lot, you know, and Mike said, he said, you always said, Needy Joe meets Needy Jane on AA campus. And he said...