The Fourth Step Inventory – AA Joe H Step Study – Part 8 of 11 – Joe

My name is Joe. I'm an alcoholic. Hello, Joe. It's always good to be here. Just to remind myself where we are, we've looked at the instructions for the three different parts of the four-step resentment, fear, and the sex inventory. And it's kind of hard for me to talk about what comes next And without talking about what we just did a little bit, it's really amazing to me again in my own experience, being in the middle of an inventory right now myself, that how I'm seeing once again that each step takes me into the next one. it's it's like a series of doors and as one closes there's really nowhere else to go like once i've really seen the first step you know it's Like the door is open to the second step and once I've looked at what I need to look at the second step it's like the next door is open um how these steps are were probably designed to take you to the next one and not only take you the next but give you the power to do the next because i know whether i'm new or doing it again when i'm in the middle of the first step i really don't have the power look at the truth of my life but it's amazing that when i get to step four that that comes uh or like when you're in the middle of an inventory and you and you look at somebody that you really harmed and and you know that amends are going to be down the road and i don't see the power to do that when I'm in the middle of an inventory but when I get to step 9 it's there I'd like to cover a few things that that I read in any step for guide from a workshop in Dallas Texas that kind of puts some of these concepts from the four-step into into perspective and give me some some help they talk about here that the instructions for the fourth step contained in the big book are sometimes confusing and complex and that these people wrote this to reflect their experience in writing an inventory from from this book those who have taken this step in accordance with the instructions given in the Big Book including the inventory and the analysis, the study and prayer suggested by the book had found it to be an exciting and rewarding experience. This experience is available to anyone who will complete each of the following steps to the best of their ability in the order in which they're given. Perfection is not required but a good effort involving honesty, open-mindedness and willingness is essential. The time and purpose of step four. Perhaps the greatest promise of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is that God, as you understand him, will do for you what you cannot do for yourself. This promise carries with it the obvious condition that you must do what you can. When you have made the decision required by the third step in the big book, there is a warning that though our decision is a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face and to be rid of the things in ourselves which have been blocking us from God. So we had to get down to the causes and the conditions. Therefore, we started on a personal inventory. The specific instructions for taking this step are contained from pages 64 to 71 in the big book. These instructions should be read carefully at this point. What do we seek from an inventory? The inventory is described as a fact-finding, searching, and a fact facing, fearless process. We are said to be seeking the truth about ourselves and to honestly take stock of our lives. We are to search out the flaws in our makeup which cause our failure. Throughout the book it is stated that self-selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of our trouble. being convinced itself manifested in various ways was what had defeated us, we will consider its common manifestations. These common manifestations are grouped in three categories resentment, fear, and sex relationships. Each of these common manifestations is treated separately in the inventory. Part 1 Resentment The number one offender From these thoughts or mental attitudes stem all form of spiritual disease we are instructed to list people institutions or principles with whom we were angry or had resentments those instructions are found on the bottom of page 64. i was told to go home and make a list people institutions and principles i had a hard time with principles and i think they'll talk about that here in a minute webster's dictionary defines resentment as indignation or ill will felt as a result of a real or imagined offense it then refers the reader to the word anger and gives other examples of this thought or feeling which include rage fury ear wrath resentment and indignition these words denote varying degrees of displeasure from anger strong intense explosive to the longer lasting resentment ill will and suppressed anger generated by the sense of being wronged or being wrong we're dealing with a negative or unpleasant thought or feeling caused or generated by the real or imagined act or failure to act of a person institution or principle persons institutions or principles may need some explanation remember you are a person and your action or failure to act may very well cause you to think or feel badly generally this is called guilt instructions are any group of institutions excuse me are any groups of people authorities companies governmental agencies or other organizations a principle is a basic truth or law many of these basic basic truths or laws have have and do offend us for example alcoholism is an incurable progressive disease honesty is the best policy as you give you receive each of us suffer the consequences of our own action there's no free lunch i find I resent honesty and dishonesty I was in selfishness and unselfishness I resent giving I resent taking greed those values and beliefs that were given to me as a kid sometime other later on in my life I found myself resenting those things and I usually find for each principle that i resented at some other time in my life i resanted the opposite of it unless you'd be prepared to the people institutions or principles which have or do cause you to have resentment i believe that writing a prayer at the top of the page and if you go into that list in prayer whatever comes should go down sometimes it's helpful to start at the beginning of your life with your earliest memory and come forward sometimes it'S HELPFUL TO START TODAY AND GO BACK THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE SECOND AND THIRD COLUMN ARE ALSO AT THE BOTTOM OF THAT PAGE and i was told when i was done with that list to start with the first one on that list and put it over on another piece of paper and put everything they did that ever made me mad and number those resentments so i'm going to have a name over here in the left-hand column then i'm gonna have a list of all the resentments i ever had for that person and then i was to take one at a time number one resentment when i Was done with all those and look at what of those seven things were affected. Self-esteem, pride, ambition, pocketbook, security, personal relations, sex relations, pride. And look at which one of those 7 things, if not all of them, were hurt, threatened or interfered with. I had a hard time telling the difference between self-esteem and pride and ambition and security. I was told there are some good guides to use for like, for self- esteem, the way I think of myself or want others to think of me. Pocketbook is simple as, did it affect my money? Ambition, what I want or need. Personal relations, I look at relations with my same sex, other men and also women that I'm not involved with in intimate relationships. And then sex relations, women that are not involved in intimate relations. Women that I am involved with. in intimate relations how were those hurt threatened or interfered with by by that resentment you also find pride in the example on page 65 now at the bottom pride is well what i think other people think you know you can have all the pride in the world if you're with a group of guys and they're patting you on the back and telling you you're cool and then and then uh go home and look within yourself and there's no self-esteem at all you know how you how you feel about yourself those can exist at different levels security is also what i what i need you know if if i look at that number one resentment i ask myself does what i need has it been hurt threatened or interfered with by that resentment did that person get in my way from what I needed and it's at that time I usually see fear I usually see some fear if one of those seven things were affected by somebody whether it was fancy to real I find that there was some fear because I mean they're not going to get something that I think I need or want or I'm gonna lose something that i already have and there's always fear and i was told to mark that every time it's just the word fear so i can come back and i'll find my fear list for my fear inventory between that third column and and what i write in the fourth column we talked about the um the fourth column which is not in the example on page 65 but the instructions for it are on page 67 when they ask you to refer to your list again what you've written and put out of your mind the wrongs others have done look for your own mistakes so I usually use another piece of paper because I pretty much filled up a whole page with the first three columns and i take each resentment one at a time again and i say to myself when so-and-so did this and this is how i was affected where was i selfish i was selfish because i wanted them to where was i dishonest i was dishonest because i didn't tell them i was self-seeking because i wanted what i wanted and i was frightened because i thought i was going to lose or not get and i answer those for each resentment on that whole thing that i've written to get free to get free when i move into the fear of inter i go back through what i've written i look at each resentment once again and from the third and fourth column where i wrote where i was afraid and when i see what was affected i get a list of fears now i don't have to repeat the same ones over and over because there will be there's only so many fears i'll find rejection and fear of responsibility and fear of commitment some real general fears repeating over and over now i dont have to put those each time but i should end up with a general list of fears that i see over and over and over and over through those through that resentment inventory so i'm making another list of fear of fears and the instructions for that inventory um are at the top of page 68. when they say to review my fears thoroughly i went back through my resentment inventory and i found those i put them on paper and list some that i had no resentment in connection with When I finish that list of the ones I get from my resentment inventory, I say a prayer and I ask, are there any fears that were not in my resentment inventories? Sometimes there are. When I finished that list, and for each of these lists I think what I was told is true, you'll know when you're done. I was then told to take each one of those fears and put it over on another piece of paper and answer the question, why did I, why was I afraid? and then if you need to write it, you don't really need to write it for each one but it should be obvious. I guess the realization for each of those fears when you write while you had them you need that you need see that self-reliance failed. Wasn't it because self-reliance failed? I didn't go back through my resentment inventory again and sometimes they're on there and they probably should be because if i was in a relationship with him i resented him and i'll find a list of uh relationships now i guess there's a lot of controversy about do you just put the people you had sex with uh i don't i put people that i've been intimately involved with uh i mean i've had relationships with women that didn't even know i was in love with them and we didn't have sex and i've I've had relationships with women where we were involved, but there wasn't sex because of my drinking or whatever it might have been. I think once again that list should be made in prayer. I guess it's between you and God. so i get a list of those fear of those relationships and i answer the the questions on page 69 to review my conduct over the years past i believe is to make another list and then take each one of those and answer those nine questions when i was involved with her where was i selfish where was i dishonest where was I inconsiderate whom did I hurt it could have been people around that relationship did I unjustifiably aroused jealousy suspicion or bitterness where was I at fault and then probably the key to the sex inventories what should I have done instead we got this all down on paper and looked at it in this way i'm trying to shape a sound ideal for my future sex life i think that's what the sex inventory is about it's about looking at my motives in relationships and and some healthy ideals for my future it's amazing to me sometimes what we hear people talking about why they think they're writing inventory and how they're writing inventory uh i guess when you're in treatment or you're brand new you know just to get something down on paper uh an autobiography is whatever it is but I believe if you're trying to work these steps and you're tryng to grow spiritually an autobiography is only going to show you your life and I think you've probably seen that long enough but I think if you do the inventory the way it is in this book you will be involved in a spiritual exercise to see what's been blocking you from God rather than your life and if you go into it with an experience from the first three steps that truth that you've run from that's in there in yours in your life isn't going to eat your lunch you're gonna be safe and protected and when you go into that fourth column if you if you have found the positive side to that statement our troubles are of our own making you'll be writing that fourth to get free not to beat yourself up so inventory this way becomes an extra spiritual exercise to face and be rid of the things that block you from God which you've admitted you need some power from and other people and and yourself I don't really write inventory to learn about myself my god that was such a relief to me I was in therapy for 12 years the last doctor that treated me in treatment my last treatment center told me i knew enough about myself to be dangerous to me and everyone around me that i had analysis paralysis and then i needed to start taking some spiritual action um my god i find more about what i'm not unless i want to beat myself up because the realization in my in my four steps has always been i'm not what i've become i'm i'm now what i'd become yes this is where my spiritual disease took me but i was born a pure innocent loving open child of god and somewhere along the line this disease took over and took me to a place where i'm seeing where my best efforts got me another one of my realizations from most of my four steps is my god i did the very best i could with what i had i just didn't have enough power to live up to what i wanted to you know i think there's a new word for me that's taken a lot of judgment out of this step and also some of things we're asked to do in 10 and 11 and not it's a real key word that takes a lot of judgment out of it was it good was it bad was it right was it wrong it's a real simple question did it work did it work I find I don't beat myself up so much with that you know there's really two ways to write inventory and it's kind of like a kid if he was told to go in the basement and clean his room and he thought all I could do was go down there and rearrange stuff and put everything where it belongs and then he's still going to be stuck with it he's going to think that's a miserable terrible rotten job and he's gonna he's not going to want to do it but if you told that same kid to go down in his room and throw everything away they did that he doesn't want anymore for all new stuff i mean my god he'd go down there and he would be real happy to do that um that's kind of the attitude i try to go into inventory with it's interesting from step four I'm gonna I'm going to have everything I need for five six seven and eight and nine in the fourth step now by that I don't mean I'm go have everything i need for six and seven so i can work six and seven but i'm going to have all the information that i need to take to god and all the inflammation i need for my eight step list and most of the information that i made from my ninth step the harm that i caused although it's very imperative that in the eighth step i i have somebody that i've worked with that's gone through this with me and we can sit in prayer and look at each of those amends that needs to be made in the on the eight step list i really think that the most important work with another person i used to think it was the fifth step uh i think the most important work that my sponsor ever did with me and that i've ever did done with anybody and it's really about prayer is is with the eighth step if we've been thorough about our personal inventory we've written down a lot we've listed and analyzed our resentments we've begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality have i have i commenced to see their terrible destructiveness have i begun to learn tolerance and patience and goodwill toward all men even my enemies for i look on them as sick people like me have i listed the people i've hurt by my conduct and am i willing to straighten out the past if i can in this book you read again and again that faith does for us so we can't do it for ourselves we hope you are convinced now that god can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from him if you have already made a decision and an inventory of your gross or handicaps you have made a good beginning that being so you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself having made your personal inventory this is in the beginning of chapter six into action what shall we do about it we've been trying to get a new attitude and a new relationship with our creator they once again remind me why I'm doing this work it's amazing that it doesn't say I've been tried to feel better or to fix myself or to analyze my character defects so I can work on them and to discover the obstacles in my path I have admitted certain defects and have ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is, and I've put my finger on the weak items in my personal inventory, now these are about to be cast out. It's funny, most self-help programs would say, now we're going to learn how to cope with them. Now we're gonna learn how deal with the feelings around this stuff whenever they come up. It doesn't say that. It says, now these about to cast out, and this requires action on our part, which when completed will mean that we have admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our defects. This brings us to the fifth step in the program of recovery mentioned in the preceding chapter. A friend of mine from Denver has gotten a lot of results with people he works with when he has them do that fifth step three different times to look it over themselves to look it over with God and then to share it with another person and I guess if you've written it and you've considered it carefully when finished as it said in the previous chapter and you take it and read it to somebody, you've done that this is perhaps difficult especially discussing your defects with another person I think we have done well enough in admitting these things to ourselves there is doubt about that in actual practice we usually find a solitary self appraisal insufficient I can't come to my fourth step in my head and I can just keep it to myself I mean I've done that all my life many of us thought it necessary to go much further. We will be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons why we should. The best reason first. If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Time after time, newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives trying to avoid this humbling experience they have turned into easier methods. Therapy? Drinking? almost invariably they got drunk having persevered with the rest of the program they wondered why they fell we think the reason is they never completed their house cleaning they took inventory all right but hung on to some of the worst items in stock I think that's probably why my sponsor told me when I was done with that inventory to write down any stuff that wasn't in there that I thought I'd take to the grave and I did that they only thought they had lost their egoism and fear they only thought they had lost there that they had humbled themselves but they had not learned enough of humility fearlessness and honesty in the sense we find it necessary until they told someone else all their life story more than most people the alcoholic leads a double life he is very much the actor to the outer world he presents his stage character this is the one he likes his fellows to see he wants to enjoy a certain reputation but knows in his heart he doesn't deserve it that's also a good guy to watch for today the inconsistency is made worse by the things he does on his sprees coming to his senses he has revolted at certain episodes he vaguely remembers these memories are a nightmare he trembles to think someone might have observed him as far as he can he pushes these memories far inside himself you see that's that's probably why a lot of that resentment and guilt and shame and dishonesty and selfishness if i've pushed it far inside of me no wonder it's blocking me because that's where god is that's like the mud that i put on the jewel he hopes they will never see the light of day he is under constant fear intention That makes for more drinking. Psychologists are inclined to agree with us. We have spent thousands of dollars for examinations. We know but a few instances where we have given these doctors a fair break. We have seldom told them the whole truth, nor have we followed their advice. Unwilling to be honest with these sympathetic men, we were honest with no one else. Small wonder many in the medical profession have a low opinion of alcoholics and their chance for recovery. We must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long and happily in this world. Now, I've seen people in the program that have never done an inventory 15, 20, 25, 30 years. But for me to judge whether they're an alcoholic like me or for me to judge how they're living or how they feel inside is too much of a gamble to get into that kind of judgment. It has to be, you know, what's working for me. And all I know is that I was dying inside until I started doing this work sober. Rightly and naturally we think well before we choose the person or persons with whom to take this intimate and confidential step. those of us belonging to a religious denomination which requires confession must and of course will want to go to the properly appointed authority whose duty it is to receive it though we have no religious connection we still do well we may still do to talk with someone ordained by an established religion we often find such a person quick to see and understand our problem of course we sometimes encounter people who do not understand alcoholics if we cannot or would rather not do this we search out an acquaintance for a closed-mouthed understanding friend that's a good guide for how to find somebody my experience is that each time I've done a four step I've balked at who I was going to read it to and wondered and was told to pray about who the right person was at the right time and um there was no doubt in my mind that it had to be with the person i'd done the previous work with because see i've never shared the whole thing with anybody i take a little bit over here a little but over here or a little bit to you and my first time through i absolutely knew somewhere before i was done with that inventory that it was going to be the man that i'd gone through those first three steps with perhaps our doctor or psychologist will be the person it may be one of our own family but we cannot discuss disclose anything to our wives or parents which will hurt them and make them unhappy we have no right to save our own skin at another person's expense such parts of our story we tell to someone who will understand yet be unaffected the rule is we must be hard on ourselves but always considerate of others there's a guiding principle i heard a guy one time that said that he was really resentful about his daughter now that he was sober because she was drinking and taking drugs and running around crazy so he wrote he wrote a whole bunch of inventory about her and somebody told him to take that inventory he had written about her and and take it to her and read it to her i thought my god and he wondered why she felt like committing suicide a week later notwithstanding the great necessity for discussing ourselves with someone it may it may be that one is situated there is no suitable person available if that is so this step may be postponed only however if we hold ourselves in complete readiness to go through with it at the first opportunity well i think that was probably for way back then when there weren't a lot of aa members everywhere and we we don't have that um luxury to postpone a fifth step anymore i mean my sponsor did his first fifth step in the penitentiary where you you don't talk about that kind of stuff with anybody and he found somebody that that to do that with um you know they give me an out though i mean they give me outs at different places in this program if you want to scoot out the side if you wanna find a way to postpone it we say this because we are very anxious to talk to the right person it is important that he be able to keep a confidence and maybe fully understand approval of whatever we are driving at that he will not try to change our plan but we must not use this as a mere excuse to postpone when we decide who is to hear our story we waste no time I've seen and in my own experience to finish an inventory and wait to do a fifth step you get crazy we have a written inventory and we're prepared for a long talk we explain to our partner what we are about to do and why we have to do it he should realize that we are engaged upon a life and death errand most people approached in this way will be glad to help they will be honored by our confidence that's the feeling i've had when i've been asked to hear fifth steps and i think if someone has not experienced that listening to another person's fist step it's an abs it's a it's an absolutely incredible experience because every time i hear one i see myself again and i get to share parts of my inventory with that person and um what about hearing a fifth step um i've heard people's experience that their sponsor helped them analyze it and uh let's get into the you know how how do you feel about that you know the the the sponsor kind of becomes a therapist and you're supposed to get into your feelings and it's supposed to be real dramatic and emotional and i don't think that i don't think that's what sponsors are for and i don t think that s what inventory is about some kind of therapy session because it's not a therapeutic exercise it's a spiritual exercise about facing and being rid of this stuff that blocks you from god i mean i would get stuck in the third or fourth column and my sponsor would push me along a little bit and share some of his so i didn't feel i was the only one that ever did that but um it sure didn't feel like any therapy session i'd ever been in and there was real relief and there was real freedom we pocket our pride and go to it illuminating every twist of character every dark cranny of the past once we have taken this step withholding nothing now we see some fifth step promises Now, my first inventory, I fist-stepped half of it one day. And I read for about five or six hours, and my sponsor had to go speak across town in Denver. And I was used to going with him. He was the state delegate at the time, and follow him around, listen to him speak. And I ran in the car. I'm reading the inventory, some more of it, in the column. We're looking at all this garbage. We get to this church, and I'd never been to that meeting before. we walk in there's about two or three hundred people and the first thing he says to me is oh i forgot to tell you you're speaking first and i thought my god i mean how do you do that after looking at all this stuff he said well what you do is you go in the bathroom you say a prayer and see what happens and i came out and although i didn't know this is what happened until i read a little further on the next day when i finished the fifth step but these promises came true that night i was able to look at those people in the eye and i wasn't afraid after i said that prayer in the bathroom and i felt like some kind of power was flowing through me and the words were coming out and when i finished i didn't remember what i said um and it talks about that here in these promises once we have taken this step withholding nothing we are delighted we can look the world in the eye we can be alone at perfect peace and ease our fears fall from us we begin to feel the nearness of our creator we may have had certain spiritual beliefs but now we begin to have a spiritual experience the feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly we will feel we are on the broad highway walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe i mean those are wonderful promises and they aren't on page 83. you'd think sometimes that those on 83 are the only ones i mean these are wonderful promises we covered some other ones that uh before the third step now i used to think that this stuff here returning home was about the sixth step and i realized this is the end this is what we do at the end of a fifth step this is still part of the fifth step it says returning home i find a place where i can be quiet for an hour carefully reviewing what i've done i thank god from the bottom of my heart that i know him better i've had that feeling after a fistu taking this book down from the shelf we turn to the page which contains the 12 steps carefully reading the first five proposals first five steps and ask if i have omitted anything for we are building an arch through which will walk a free man at last see now all of a sudden this arch becomes very important and if if somebody you know sort of kind of did what was in this book and a lot of the instructions came from the sponsor and then for some reason after the fifth step he said go home and read this and you hadn't really covered the stones or the cement i mean you would read these next few lines and it would be like spanish i mean, you wouldn't understand what they were talking about Are the stones properly in place? I mean, what do they mean? Have I skimped on the cement put into the foundation? Have I tried to make mortar without sand? I mean if I haven't covered that stuff I wouldn't understand what that means but when I had been taken through this book I knew exactly what they were talking about. We were given the two parts of the cement on page 17 what we find in the fellowship with what we find in this book equal parts a common problem the sharing and feeling of a common problem and a common solution and that was the cement that we were going to put this foundation in the first step together with the foundation in these first three steps at the second step they told me that the first stone I was going to put on that foundation was that was i willing to believe or did i believe that there was a power greater than myself at the third step they told me that the keystone the one up in the middle of this arch i talked to a guy when i was new about an arch because i didn't know anything about laying brick or cement or anything he said the cornerstone is the first stone that goes on the foundation you know they usually put a date on the building and if you were building an arch the key stone would be the one-up at the top of the arch that balances the whole thing and that was the decision at the third step that from hereafter in this drama of life god is going to be my director my principal and my father see now i can review that are the stones properly in place have i skimped on the cement have i put in more fellowship than recovery if i tried to make mortar without sand We will also find the other foundation stone in the twelfth step of this arch. If I can answer those questions to my satisfaction, I then look at step six, emphasize willingness as being indispensable. Question number one, am I now ready to let God remove from me all the things that I have admitted are objectionable and i answer that kenny now take them all everyone kenny that's kind of like the realization of the abc see god can and will and from the 12x12 my sponsor asked me to look at the idea not only kenny because i know that god can have seen him work the one i have trouble with that takes me from a way i feel after a fifth step real kind hey let's go to the first word of the seventh step humbly is a real simple question will he will he will he for me if i still cling to something that i won't let go of i ask god to help me be willing so far i've yet to finish a fifth step and not be willing to be rid of it all and another experience that i i can draw from is the feeling after a fifth step that i really don't know the difference between my assets and my liabilities you know a lot of the stuff i thought i was that was very good got me in a lot of trouble and caused a lot harm and a lot of the stuff i thought was very bad did some good um it's kind of like i don't know the difference between the good and the bad and maybe that's why they they put the good and the bed in the seven step prayer now i don''t see anything wrong with making a list of character defects but it seems to me if you've been thorough about your inventory they're obvious after a fifth step and i don't know why you need to make a list of defects anyway unless you're going to work on them yourself and i do not understand when i hear people talking about i'm working on step six i mean step six is a way to move from five to seven it's just a slight turn i mean I mean, it's just becoming willing. I mean I don't know how to work step six. I just know that there's a few questions to look at. And that's really where God starts to work. Probably the most powerful steps are these two, six and seven, when I'm out of the way. I guess this is one of those points where we can now turn and make it into a therapeutic self-help program now that we've done the work in the first five steps and we've gotten some power so we can solve our problems. But I need to be reminded back from the second step that the main purpose of the rest of these steps is to enable me to find a power which will solve my problems, not find some power so I can solve my problem. I read that to someone the other day and I read it both ways And he said, I don't hear any difference. But I need to be reminded again that I haven't done the work in the first five steps and then looked at step six so I can now start to work real hard on my character defects. When ready we say something like this. My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding Amen we have then completed step 7 I mean it doesn't say we now work harder on step 7 this is where you make the big bet that all this stuff you've just seen the fifth step that there's something to do with it and probably realized i i can't do anything with it i can t remove any of this stuff drunk or sober i did the very best i could but now something better come in here and take this stuff stuff or all i will be able to do is maybe learn how to cope and deal with it I think these two steps kind of knock those words out they're not about now that you've seen yourself and what you're like you're gonna get some coping mechanisms and tools to deal with your feelings I think it's about now that you're seeing what separates you from God are you willing to make the big bet in step seven and hope that that stuff can be removed so you can go on with your life i've also been told that it's a great place to balk it's kind of like an oasis because you will have some relief from the first five steps and then it's also a dangerous place to balk and that just as an as it as important as it was for me to at once start my inventory after a third step it's probably just as important to move into the eighth step and start an amenalist and i guess that's where we'll uh we'll start next Thank you.