Character Defects and the 7th Step – Blueprint for Receovery Big Book Study Weekend in Vancouver, BC, Canada – F20070223 – Part 4 of 5 – Chris R.

car and you're driving, you're feeling pretty like hot, you know, this is, you with us? Somebody pulls up in a blue one. Same model, everything. God, I should have got that blue one! God, there's no win people. Impatience. One of my biggest characters would be impatience. How many of y'all are like that? Sitting at an AA meeting and all god dang spiritual and everything's just wonderful. Get out and get in your car, driving home, you know, and somebody's driving 20 miles an hour in front of you. You know, it's like if you had a gun, you would shoot them. Get really quick. Impulsiveness. It's a great character defect to look at. Impulseness. How many of you guys are impulsive shoppers? Never give it a second thought. Look at it. Oh shit, I got to have that. Wait a minute. Procrastination Does that sound Worry It's a character defect Indecisiveness Perfectionism All of this stuff is the stuff That we're going to see in that fourth column When we're looking at our part Of that resentment This stuff is going to start poking to the top Our intolerance of other people All of that. And we're going to write that stuff down and we're going to look at that. An hour after we do that fourth step, we're gonna do the seventh step prayer. We're gonna ask God to remove these character defects. You with us? I spent years asking God to... How can I put this? Help me with... I wanted to be gentler. There was a therapist at work that I worked with him for years and he was just one of these kindest men and he would say, He was very soft-spoken and he Was very, very, very, very gentle. And I always respected this guy because he Was very direct and to the point but he Was very gentle and I always wanted to be more like him. So that was a big prayer of mine. You know, God make me more like this man because that's who I want to be. But the truth of the matter is my effectiveness from this podium although it may offend some of you, wakes up some of you. You follow? I had a character defect of my cussing at times. Some of y'all have heard old CDs of mine. I cuss like a sailor. I make no bones about it. I still cuss a bit. But the operative word is a bit'. I don't do anything. I haven't said the F word from the podium in a long long time. That was a direct result of going to God in 6 and 7 and saying, God remove this from me. because it may bond me with this cat, but it may offend the person in the back. So I don't need to do it. We watch a lot of people go into meetings doing this. I can say anything I want in an AA meeting. Of course you can. But will your effectiveness be diluted by doing it? You said some great stuff in the meeting, but every other word was F. Who did you push away because of that? Who could you have helped? Are you with us? It's kind of a catch-22, but if it's standing in the way of my usefulness to God and others, then I need to really watch what I'm doing. And I go to God in 6 and 7 and I ask Him to help me with that. I've asked Him to helped me with my shyness forever. And He has failed me miserably. Some of these character defects are not... I don't know. In God's time, that stuff will be removed. How many of y'all think I like to speak from the podium? I do it every weekend. Absolutely. I don't. Hate it. Would rather get an enema than speak from the podium. Probably shouldn't have said that. Seven-step prayer is pretty cool. When ready, we say something like this. My Creator, I love that term. I'm now willing for You to 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. Third step, fourth step, fifth step, sixth step, seventh step. Five steps should be done all in a row very quickly. You with us? Not this long drawn out way that we always talk about it. Joe and Charlie talks about this stuff nonstop. Joe McHugh did a book not long ago called On Sponsorship and it talks about working these 12 steps. It talks about it... Use the analogy of making a cake. You make a cake? Y'all know how to make a Cake? What if we put the eggs in a bowl and then two weeks later came back and added the milk? And then six months later we added the flour? You with us? What kind of cake are you going to get out of this thing? When you finally get it made, Get it in the oven. What's this going to look like, huh? It's going to be inedible. It's the same thing with working the 12 steps. You guys want to have a vital spiritual experience? Do this stuff quickly, rapidly. And you'll be blown out of the water. What happens? You will see the change in your life. You drag it out forever, you may not see it so drastically. Make sense? Guys, one of the character defects that most of us in this room face is a thing called laziness. We're just damn lazy. I'm going to put it off. Do you really believe that you're powerless over alcohol? The stuff that we talked about in the first step? If you do, and you truly know that the moment is going to come when the obsession is going return, you won't be dragging your feet on these 12 steps. Let's get it done, guys. Please. Y'all cool with that? Amends. You got your eight-step list. Somebody mentioned earlier a very valid point. everything that we got off of our fourth step is not going to be the only thing that we've got on the amends list there's going to have to be there's got to be some cats out there that we have absolutely no resentment in connection with but we owe them some amends anyway you with us? some people at work we just passed in the hallway said something to them whatever didn't make any difference they didn't say anything back but you hurt their feelings I get to go clean that nonsense up I'm telling you, 8 and 9, this stuff about making these amends is still to me one of the most powerful freeing steps there is. That needs to be done rapidly. Can I make all of my amends immediately? No. Because most of my Amends, a lot of myAmends were financial. And I didn't have any money when I got sober. None. But I could make my first approach. And that's what Bill Wilson talks about. In the few pages that he talks about, it covers just about every area that I can think about where we owe amends. Relationships, financial, legal. It talks about all of this in this book about what to do. I make my First Approach. I don't hide from this stuff. I owe the credit card companies a gazillion dollars. You with me? I don' t hide out. My ego, my arrogance wants to say I want to wait until I make a big killing in Vegas, and then I'm going to go pay these bastards off. Here, here's all your money. Well, that's nice, but it ain't probably going to happen. So what I need to do is call them and make the best deal I can. You follow? It's okay to negotiate. Don't have a problem with that. I did it with the IRS. Owed them a fortune. But I didn't let them hunt me down and wonder where I was. I got sober. My sponsor sent me down. I'm going to talk to you about it. And he showed me what to do, and I had to pick up the phone and call these guys and let them know where I was, what I was doing, what I wasn't doing, what I didn't get involved in, that I was willing, I was not running, I'm willing to pay you the money, I need to work the best deal I can. And they did. It still sucked, but I worked them a deal. And it took me years to get them paid off, but I did get thempaid off. It doesn't make a biggest splash when you go write somebody a $5 check You follow me? But it eventually gets the job done. See, what we're trying to do, guys, is set the universe right. That's what the amends process is about. It's not so that people will stop eating my butt and coming at me from all directions. It's so that I can set the world right. Set the universe straight. Some of you cats in this room right now, I can assure you, because you're like some guys I sponsor, are tormented at night. You can't sleep. That's why you end up going to doctors to get sleep aids because you can't speak. Why can't you sleep? because you're wracked with guilt. You owe everybody on earth. You with us? Because you haven't made the amends that you're supposed to make. It's not something we can dodge. Watch these cats that I sponsor. A guy comes in. We're working on amends and he walks in strutting around. He's got a $150 pair of sneakers on. What are you doing? Where'd you get these? They're on sale. $150. Uh-huh. You owe everybody. But you've got a $150 pair of sneakers. It ain't your money. It's their money. You follow me? It's an attitude shift. It's a perception here. You have to start looking at this. Until you've paid everybody back, you're using their money Everybody wants to get down on the credit card. I heard a guy in a meeting the other night. I ain't going to pay Ford credit back. They got enough money. That's not your decision. That's for you to decide. You borrowed the money. You didn't pay it back. Now you get a chance to. Make sense? You see, I want to be free in this earth. I believe the old analogy, what goes around comes around. I truly believe that. I've seen it in my own life. You start cleaning up the wreckage of your past out there in the world and watch the good stuff start to come back to you. Everybody thinks that's mumbo-jumbo. Oh, Chris, that's just new age spiritual crap. That's not true. Watch. You will be healthier. You will become a better person. You will get wealthier. You will gain more money. You will have more money to live for. Well, maybe not the third one. The first two for sure. What I do is this. I got my list. Y'all be fine. Absolutely. Pay the money back. Y'al got that? I got it. I got that. I got the eight step list. I've got my eight-step list, and I go down. Here's what I have the guys do when I'm sponsoring them. You could do this any way. It's pretty open. I get them to get four by five business cards, index cards, because you can carry them with you. Because I believe out of sight is truly out of mind. And I want to keep this stuff current with me. I'm not going to be able to make all these amends right away, but I'm going to being able to sort through this literature, this list, and figure out which ones are the ones I've gotta make right now, which are the one that I can go slow on, Which ones are the ones that I don't need to touch at all? Because that's the truth. We don't make amends to people where we're going to end up harming them or other people get involved. We can talk about that, but the general principle you understand. But we sit down with a four-by-five index cards, or you can do it in a notebook, and I have these guys go through every one of these lists, everybody on that list, and I haven't listed the person, who it is, what their address is, what their phone number is. and then I have them list specifically what the amend is. Making an amend is not going to somebody and saying, I'm sorry I treated you like shit. It's not. That's not an amend. When I said this, I was wrong. You with us? This I'm sorriest... They know. I've said it all. I'm so sorry. I'm very sorry. I had my first wife. I know you are. You're the sorriest I've ever seen. What are you going to do different? I was wrong, and this is what I'm going to do to clean it up. It works great. It works good. It works right. But you make a laundry list of what you owe them amends for. If you want to see an amend go bad, show up unprepared. Show up when you really don't know what you're doing there. I know I've harmed you some way, but I really don't know how. I'm sorry, regardless. And they will dust you. You with us? The idea is to make the relationship whole again. But that's not going to work if you won't own your stuff. So I try to get specific. And then I get the guy to do the paperwork on it and write down all of this. And thenI go over each individual card with a cap to make sure we're not heading in the wrong direction. Are they being too specific? Are they bringing other people in that they don't need to bring into the amends process? I don't want to have to make this amend again. This is going to be a tough enough piece to swallow. You know what I'm saying? Anybody could eat crow with enough ketchup on it. But I don'T want to HAVE TO DO IT AGAIN. And amends that go bad are almost impossible to repair. So you DON'T rush into this. I get with my sponsees, and I make sure that we're all on a clear path. You with us? I go to the cat. I call them and I try to set up an appointment with them. I don't just show up at their office unannounced. I make sure that they're willing to hear this amend. Because if they're not ready, I mean, how dare me? The book talks about, you know, I'm not going to make somebody else's load heavier by making my load lighter. And I've had people do that in this fellowship and it drives me nuts. People come up, Chris, when I first met you, I hated you. Oh, no kidding. Thanks. Up until this point, I thought you were a pretty nice guy. And now we've got a bone to pick. You with us? Why did they have to come up and say that? I'm feeling down today. I think I'll go make some amends so I can feel better about myself. Not considering who you're going to harm in the process. Let's go to an old relationship that we've tried to repair with us and let's just drag up a whole bunch of crap at an inopportune time so I can feel better. Uh-uh. We say some prayers around this, guys. We say Some Prayers. We ask God to show us the right way to make this amend. We go to them. Do you have time for me? I need to talk to you personally. People are always asking me that. Can you make amends over the phone? Did you harm the person over the telephone? Then go see them. Make sense? Could I make the amended email? Absolutely not. You know what they'll do with it? Delete. You've not made it right. Here's what I'm saying. Oftentimes in my delusional thinking, I think I know what I've done to you that's pissed you off. I tried to make amends to my first wife. I don't think I've ever talked about this before. I tried to make Amends to My First Wife. She split in the early 80's and I had about 5 more years drinking in me and she disappeared and after I got sober I tried to contact her so I could make amens for my terrible behavior and her family isolated her they did not want me near her she did not wants me near here just, you know with me they dropped through the crowd and I couldn't find her I couldn' get through to her letters were sent back to try to set this appointment up unopened phone calls were not answered and I just I became willing I knew she was in Houston or I suspected she was in Houston and I'd been there several times speaking and I tried on all of those occasions to call her brother and call her any number I could find her work number where I'd like to try and make amends And always at a dead end, dead end My sponsor and I were down doing a talk one time This was about 10 years after I got sober Almost 13 years And I said I'm going to try this one more time And I called this number that I'd called A hundred times And her brother Answered the phone And he said Chris I don't think she'll talk to you But I'll give her the message And I said that's all I can ask Thank you hung up the phone and we went and did our talk and I came back that's why I don't tell this story and I had a message and she called back and I called her and she was out with the girls and she just thanks for calling and I said can I get with you tomorrow night and make amends to you finally for the stuff I put you through would you be interested in talking and And she said, Chris, if you'd have called a week ago, I'd have said no. But yeah. So I went to dinner with her the next night and nervous wreck. She looked great, was making lots of money. I should have stuck that out. But we sat at this restaurant and we asked for a table where we could visit and off to the side and we talked. And I had a little old busted up 4x5 index card that I'd been carrying in my glove box for 13 years, you know, and I got it out, you Know, because I was ready. And I made my amends to her what I had put her through. And she looked at me with tears in her eyes and said, Buddy, thanks. Thanks for doing that. Thanks for taking the time to do this. She'd been in Al-Anon for years. I had almost killed this woman because everything that was happening bad in my life, I blamed her for. And I treated her like garbage. But I talked to her and she looked up and she said, but can I say something? Of course, I've been instructed by my sponsor. Now we let the person we're making amends to, we let them talk back to us. She said, Chris, the problem is you made amends for things that were very obvious. The money, the abusiveness. but there were certain things that you don't understand that you did to me and I need to tell you about that and so I got to sit there I would like to say for 2 or 3 minutes I got the chance to talk to her I got a chance to sit here for 45 minutes with my mouth shut shut and let her tell me what I did to her I had no clue. I had no clue We're so focused on the big stuff The stuff that mattered to me. I had no clue what I did to that woman She got to tell me And we went home that night and I got to hug her neck and I get to exchange some artwork and we've got to make the relationship right again. We've got talk about our lives again. She's in Houston, and if I need her, I can call her. We're not friends. We did not... I was remarried. But we've Got to put that relationship to rest. You're down with this? You can't force this. But you've got To be ready to do it. And if you ask God to show you, God will put these people in your life and then you've got to have the courage and it takes courage to sit there and go through this amends process. Everything she told me, I had a rebuttal for. But honey, you don't understand what I was going through at work. I mean, good gosh, that should make it... Shut up. Let them say what they need to say. Let them get it off their chest. We owe them that. And instantly I get to make that relationship livable again. You're down? I want to set the universe straight. When I first got sober, there were whole cities in the state of Texas that I couldn't drive into because I'd done so much damage in those cities. There were banks I couldn'T walk into because I owed them money. Make sense? We've got to get this stuff finished and we've got to get it knocked out quick. I had a friend of mine that had a chance, got asked to go overseas to do a talk. And this guy had been sober 30 plus years. Had to get a passport. Couldn't get a passport because there was some little stupid, stupid glitches on a police report that he chose to look the other way from instead of facing it, cleaning it up. You with us? And that little stupid speeding ticket 30 years ago cost him a trip to Iceland. Make sense? The stuff that you think nobody will find out about? This doesn't matter? God knows. The universe knows. We've got to clean it up Make sense Do I make amends to drug dealers? No. You better believe it. You damn right. You thief. You damnright. Do I go to the drug dealer and make the amend? No. Do I send him the money order? Guys, it's this. Who's the amend hurting? Who's this hurting? It's hurting me. This guy went out of his way Covered my butt Stayed up late You follow what I'm saying? He just did all he could do to help You may not want to do that But every time I laid down And thought about this guy I got real uncomfortable inside I left him holding a bag He got in trouble for the money I didn't pay him It didn't matter that he's a dishonest lawbreaker I harmed another human being I've got no right to do it that I need to clean up my mess make sense check with your sponsor they may disagree do it and do what your sponsor tells you to do I want to be free and clear in this world yeah like my sponsor suggests in that particular concept if you owe drug dealers money and things like that but you can take that money that you owe and you can put all that money into the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and that's a way for you to make amends because some people might get right fucked up and triggered over picking up as a result of making that amends. And my sponsor seen it happen. So he told me, he said, if you owe $10,000, then you're going to take $10k and put that into Alcoholics Anonymous. If I can't make the amend, that's what I'll do. I'm 100% with you if I can make that amend. I'll give you a classic example. When I was in the food business as a professional chef, I brutalized a certain segment of society called waitresses. You all down with this? If you were a nice waitress and you were bringing me beers under the table, buddy, your orders got out quick and on time and they were good. Do you follow me? If you said, no, I can't do that, I might get in trouble, we would back your tickets up and hold them until you got about a wedge like that and they would all come out at once and that would be the last night that you didn't bring us brewskis. Now listen, guys. I worked with hundreds of waitresses, hundreds of waiting. There were some specifically that I knew and that I could go make amends directly to. But there were lots of them I couldn't. So I can guarantee you what I won't do today. If I go into a restaurant and I've only got $5 in my pocket and that meal is $5, I won' t eat. I won''t go into that restaurant. I will tip enormously for the rest of my life to try to make up... It's the same exact thing what we're talking about here. If a waitress brought me a plate of dried cat turds, you follow me? I don't have to eat them but I will not send them back under any circumstances. I will NOT complain. I don't care how bad the service is. It's just my way to make it right to these poor waitresses that I've brutalized for years. Make sense? Again, it's about me trying to set the universe right. Y'all down with that? I understand the legal ramifications around this. There's a great line in the book that talks about making amends. What happens if I might go to jail making that amend? Then you need to talk to your family about it You need to let them know what's coming down the pike. Y'all figure out the best plan of attack, and then you need to go do what you need to go through. You need a good job. I'd rather see you do jail time than to see you squirm the rest of your life looking over your shoulder. That's not free. That's not free! I didn't get sober to be dry one day at a time, folks. I got sober so I could have a new life. A lot of people get tweaky with this, folks, a lot of peop- well, if I If I go to jail, I can't help my family. I'm saying, talk it over with your family. See what you can do. Get a good lawyer. Let's look at all of the ramifications of what takes place. But I guarantee you, I sponsor some men in jail right now that are freer than some people sitting in this room. They're doing their time. And they're going to get out absolutely free. A lot of us have a lot of wreckage, folks. But we don't get to just sweep that under the carpet because we're hip, slick, and cool today. And I have a desire not to hurt anybody else in the future that's not making an amend. Do you have a question? I kind of have a questions. You kind of asked it. Like an amend at work where if you were to make the amend, you'd lose it, same thing? Talk to your family first. Because see, here's the deal. I think, buddy, it's a great question. I think I know how this amend is going to go. It's like I knew exactly how that amend with my first wife was going to be. I'm going to make it. I'm not going to cry. I'm on a go-in there. I'm gonna make the amends. She's going to try. I'm going to cry. It's going to be great. We're going to go and that's it. Bum, bum. It didn't quite turn out that way. You follow me? It turned out better than I could have ever hoped. But it did not turn out the way I thought. It's like if I go in and make an amend and get canned from a job, could it possibly be that God didn't want me at that job anyway? I had a business partner in Kerrville in a catering company and I went to him and I made amends for the shenanigans that I pulled. I didn't steal any money from the guy but I was a piss poor employee. I guarantee you. I discovered cocaine by that time, and I was nuts. I was crazy. And basically what I did was I went back to Houston running from the law. I left him holding a bag. And so I went Back to this little town that I was never going to go back to, right? That shows me. You know, all of a sudden I end up moving back to this town. So I know it's a small town. I'm going to come face-to-face with this guy. Sooner or later, Walmart, you're going to run right into the bastard. You've got to go make amends. And I went to this guy, andI asked permission to sit with him and his wife and make amens. So I made amends. And it was one of those, it worked great. They loved me. God, they loved me and we hugged next and it was going to be okay and that was it. I said, buddy, if I could ever help you, if i can ever make this right, let me know how. You with me? Six months later, their son who was an alcoholic drug addict just like me was in major trouble down in another town south of us. And it just so happened I knew a bunch of people in the program And so they called and said, is there any way you can help us with this kid? And I was able to hook that kid up with some good sponsorship down there on the coast. And the little guy got sober. You with me? Had I not made amends to those people, I would not have been able to do that. I risk getting in some financial hot water around that company, dissolving of that company. But I screwed up my courage. I made the mess. I've got to go clean it up. You follow? We got a lot of people in this program saying I've worked all 12 steps, but half their amends are still not done. So you haven't worked the 12 steps yet. Make your first approach. Make sense? Oh, you ought to feel the temperature of this room. Buddy, because it does. It makes me uncomfortable. Every time I go back through a fourth step and a fifth step, again, I look at things. I had some stuff come up out of the clear blue sky that happened 19 years ago, for heaven's sakes. And now all of a sudden it came to me and it's like, now I've got to face the music here. I've Got to look at this. I'm not willing to carry this crap around and look over my shoulder the rest of my life. I cannot be an instrument of God's power if I'm doing that. I just can't. Good question. Mr. Koppel, I guess, says step nine, except to do so would injure them or others. And others is me. Absolutely not. See? And that's what you've been told. Everybody's told it. How many of y'all have heard that in meetings? I've heard it all my life. We are not others. My family is others. Make sense? I dated this attractive woman and treated her like garbage, and I really wanted to go make amends to this woman. But she's married to a very jealous man now. You with me? So now I have to be real careful about how I do this. If I go make amends to her, am I going to cause her more harm than good? You follow me? I sent a little feeler letter out through friends. She was not comfortable with seeing me again. I've got to let that die. I've Got to tear that car down. I've GOT TO BE DONE WITH IT. If it ever happens that I can make amens to that person, I will. But I'm not going to go in there like a bull in a china cabinet and make stuff happen just because I want to feel better about what's going on. I've gotta consider their sensitive feelings. Make sense? That's why we don't make amends until we talk to somebody about it, folks. We sit down with a sponsor in the fellowship with other people in the meeting and say, listen, this is what I'm considering doing. I'll give you a classic example to end this up. You remember recently on the Internet there was a bunch of stories that made national television about the guy that had quote-unquote raped the girl in college for some kind of deal. And years later, this guy's in the program and he emails this girl trying to make amends. He tracks her down through one of those little head hunting finding services and he tracks this girl down and he e-mails her and tries to make Amends to this woman. You follow? Ends up getting in trouble and going to jail for it. They arrest his ass. They prosecute him for doing this. And now he's got to go to jail. You follow. Now, there was other ways to do this amend than sitting on an Internet. Email. But I didn't talk to one person out there. I mean, I'm on a dozen chat rooms. Everybody wants it. This guy's a dumbass. This guy is a stupid fool. This guy, the book, this guy. No, this God was doing exactly what he was supposed to do. Whether this girl took it right or not. I mean she was a fruitcake. Luck of the draw. You follow what I'm saying? but this guy, albeit in jail is finally free from that that was the stuff that was affecting his life some of you I can see digging your feet in now I'm never going to make amends that's your right you don't have to make that amend if you don' t want to but I'm telling you he did the right thing I wouldn' t have done it through the internet that's called evidence you follow? he should have done exactly what I said in person one on one he wouldn't have gone to jail a little bit more of what you're talking about before you do it here before taking drastic action which might implicate other people we secure their consent if we obtain permission and consult with others ask God to help and the drastic step is indicating we must not shrink so a little big going on before you go ahead with it. That's all I'm saying. We do some footwork on this, guys. We don't do knee-jerk stuff. We don'T just go willy-nilly making amends. We think about what we're doing. Who else is going to be affected by this? We talk to the possibly affected partners, our loved ones, our financial. Can we afford to do this? And then we screw up our courage and we go do what we'RE supposed to do. I'M TELLING YOU GUYS, IT DRIVES ME NUTS WHEN I SEE GUYS THAT I'M WORKING WITH AND THEY'RE OUT THERE They want to get their life back in shape, and they're going to buy a new truck, and they are going to put a down payment on a house, but they owe everybody on earth. That is wrong. It's not your money. Get free and clear first, and then watch and see what happens. You get ready to make a big financial amendment, and I can assure you God will put that money in your lap. I've seen it a thousand times. Make sense? You'll be the absolute freest you've ever been in your life when you get this stuff taken care of. God dang it, it takes effort. It takes courage. Any of you guys want to further talk about this, y'all come see me. Everybody's different. Every story's different, that's why we've got to really look at each individual one as isolated cases. There's no black and white for everybody. Everybody's a little different, but trust me, God can take you to a different spot. My sponsor says it all the time, how free do you want to be? Yeah. How free do you want to be? Y'all cool? Let's go smoke. Smoke a big one. I, uh... God, y'all got some greatest questions. Make me think. All of this is not easy. None of this, when you start... But the book has kind of outlined a little plan of attack. nothing's etched in stone again, it goes back to the same old stuff whatever works, man, bop to your drop there's nothing etched and stoned but there's some really guidelines to do this in the 12 steps that's a given we've got to remember that we're not doing this by ourselves all of this stuff about making amends we think we're going to have to do by ourselves and the truth of the matter is all of this is spiritually guided. All of this is about God. If you're working the steps up to this point, you've been given some pretty strong power to deal with this stuff. And I've got to tell you guys, it takes so much courage to do what y'all are doing. Again, we talked about it earlier. The spiritual path, the road less traveled is less traveled because it's a bear to get there and it's not and it doesn't and it needs a bear to stay there and you've got to do things that are uncomfortable at times to do and that brings us to the tenth step short and sweet it's not a very complicated step i was sitting here thinking last night but i couldn't sleep uh i don't remember ever once in the 19 years that i've been sober ever intentionally hurting someone you know i really had a a profound spiritual experience 19 years ago but and because of that i my heart softened lots of areas and i really i don'T remember ever intentionally trying to hurt someone, but I do it all the time with my intolerance, with my quickness with my tone of my voice oh my gosh, you know, it can be so subtle you don't know the person from Adam and you use the wrong tone and instantly whatever you Seb just goes down the toilet. I do it from this podium this weekend, I'm sure, with some of you. It's like not wanting to do it doesn't stop me from doing it. And that's why the 10th step is so absolutely freeing for me. On page 84, we're going to read just a little bit here, guys. It's a page long, that step. There's not much to it. But it's a lifetime of... This brings us to step 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any mistake as we go along. We vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. You all with us? As we cleanedup the past, we don't start working step 10 after we do step 9. we start day one as we start cleaning up the past we start taking care of this current stuff too so we don't have a bunch of other stuff that we've got to take care of it's so much easier to take care of these mistakes when it happens that's what the book says we make a valiant attempt to take car of these mistake pronto, pronto, pronto I don't know about you guys some of y'all can probably relate but my threshold of pain I could take a lot of crap when I first got here. I mean, I could live in this very dirty, murky water that was called my life. And today, if it just gets a little dingy, I feel compelled to go clean it up. I've spoken from the podium, know I've stepped on somebody, and then got back off the plane back into Ingram and have fought to track that person down so I could clean up the wreckage of my past, my current past. Y'all with us? It's just you can't let stuff lie. And we get so callous in this sometimes thinking it doesn't really matter. I'm not hurting anybody but myself. I mean, that comment right there has caused me untold hours of grief. I want to stay current with the people I live with, with the People I work with, the people in my group. I want To watch what I'm doing. Sometimes I can't see it when it happens. And that's why this 10-step stuff is so many of us in my sponsorship lineage, what we end up doing is we take a moment on a daily basis to sit and take this inventory. There's some great stuff out there on the Internet. Forms you can fill out, check marks and little deals you can go over and do some detailed writing about the day. I don't do a lot of that. I'm pretty busy in my life, and I don'T spend a lot OF time getting too anal about this. But I DO make a point to make it happen. This is how I do my tenth step. People are always asking me, do you do a formal tenth step? No, in the light of I don't take a form and check a bunch of... But I do sit on the edge of my seat and I ask God, God, show me. Was there anybody today that I stepped on? Anybody I offended? I work at a hospital with a hundred very sensitive patients. Was I gentle? Did I watch my tone? Did I cuss too much? I know my character defects. I know what they've been. I watched for them to crop back up again. Was I intolerant of somebody? Did I dust somebody too quick? I've done it here today, trying to get organized for this and dusted some... I'm sorry. Tonight in meditation, it'll come up. And I owe you an apology. Oh, you know, man, as long as I'm breathing air, I'm going to make mistakes. It's a given. But what we have to do is clean it up promptly. Not next week. Promptly. I can't tell you how many times I've walked out of an AA meeting after eating somebody's butt in there or getting too quick with them. You know how I end up hurting people with me? Sarcasm. Now, I can be so witty, you know, funny boy, at your expense. And I have to really watch that because I can cut pretty fast. And words, guys, I'm telling you, you can make amends for slugging somebody in the nose, but those words you said, those are tough to take back. That's tough to deal with. I've got to stay on top of that so that I don't have a bunch of loose ends laying out there. Y'all follow? the things I want you to see real quick are the promises that we never read. And this is huge. If I'm working with a newcomer and they want to know what this program is about, if they wantto question me whether you can recover or not, I get that all the time. Chris, I don't know why you introduce yourself as a recovered alcoholic. After all, we only have one day at a time. You could get sick tomorrow. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Let me read you something. You with me? Guys, the book tells me on page 97 if you want to look it up, to introduce myself as a recovered alcoholic. If I'm still obsessing about alcohol, I shouldn't be telling you that life's all great and wonderful. I should just keep my mouth shut. But once the stuff starts to happen and my life starts to change, I'm supposed to bear witness to you that my life is changed, that I'm a better person for it. You'll follow? I don't mean to lie about it. I mean, if it's honestly true, then I need to share that with you. And the 10th step promises, I mean they'll take your breath away. And we've ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. What kind of a great promise is that? See, if I'm having to watch my triggers on a daily basis, I haven't ceased fighting anyone or alcohol, have I? For this time, bottom of page 84, guys, where we are. For by this time sanity will have returned. What sanity are we talking about, buds? Remember the sanity in the second step? God's going to restore us to sanity. The sanity around alcohol. The ability to differentiate that this stuff is poison for me and to stay away from it. That's the sanity we're talking about. If you're a fruitcake and you get sober, you're going to be a sober fruitcake. You with me? I'm going to tell you because a lot of people worry about that. That's what I hear in the 6 and 7 stuff all the time. I'm afraid of doing 6 and 9. I don't know who I'll be. You'll be better. Can we move on? You follow me? You're still going to be... We've got guys in my AA group with mohawks, hair out to here, green, tattoos and earrings. Just because you got sober doesn't mean you've got to change all that. Why should you? I hear people in meetings all the Time, you need to clean up your act. You look like you're living on the street. Why don't you mind your own damn business? The kid's being individual. He's being who he's supposed to be. I'm telling you, that's what makes this fellowship so wonderful is that we've got a wonderful bunch of people and we're all different. God damn it, you want to all be like me? Heaven forbid, no. You're not going to share the message of hope like I do. You're going to show it in your own way with your own personality. Get another tattoo. Do what you want and go do. The sanity that the book is talking about in the second step and the book that's talking about here in the 10th step is the sanity around alcohol and dope. You with us? By this time, sanity will have returned. We are seldom interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it like it was a hot flame. We react sanely and normally and we will find that this just happens automatically. You with this? It means you've either recovered or you haven't. We will see that our new attitude towards liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes. That's the miracle of it. We are not fighting it. Neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we've been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We've not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. This is our experience. This is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition. Make sense? I ain't going to go down and hang out in a bar tonight, folks. Unless some of y'all want to go downstairs and listen to some music and then I'll go with you because I've got every reason in the world to be there with you. Make sense. But I can go in there and sit in that bar and not obsess about alcohol because I have done the work. I have been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected. I was talking to an ex-patient from this hospital she had relapsed and she has called me on the phone to tell me about it. Excuse me. I said, what happened? She said, I was vacuuming. Oh shit, this is going to be good. Come on, give it to me. And she was vacuumed in her apartment. And she came across a little white speck in the carpet. I said what did you do? She knew what it was. What did you doing? She said well I turned off the vacuum cleaner and looked at it. I mean I can just see this woman. I mean, I've been there done that. She turns the vacuum cleaner off, and she sits down on the edge of the bed, and she just looks at it. And then her head says, there's nobody home. Nobody will know. I'm just going to do one. You with us? So she smokes it. She was not in a position of neutrality, safe and protected, was she? She hadn't finished the work yet. I ask her, she's been out of treatment eight months. Buddy, what step are you on? I'm still working on that damn fourth step. Oh, oh, like we told you at the hospital that you should have that finished like maybe two days after you leave treatment if you haven't already finished it. The cats in our hospital, we encourage them to finish a fourth step while they're there so they can just walk off campus, find a sponsor, dump this nonsense and get on down the road. But she's eight months out still working on a fourth set. What? I go back again. What's the truth, buddies? Lazy. What's true? truth. She still doesn't believe she's one of us. She still does not believe she is powerless. She still believes that she has all the time in the world. Just do one. If she would do one, she would get well. Guys, with the urgency, with an absolute stark terror of a death sentence called alcoholism and drug addiction, you will not drag your feet on these steps. You will get this crap finished. You will go to a sponsor and say, I am ready to do a fist step. Honey, I cannot do a fist step with you until next month. To heck with you. I am going to go find somebody else because there is a sense of urgency here to get it finished. We want you guys to get to this spot, this position of neutrality safe and protected. I know what it's like to be obsessing, like we were talking the other night, about to be obsessed about alcohol or dope. I remember that. I don't want to ever go back to that. I'm in a position of neutrality safe and protective. These are great promises. But guys, we have a tendency in our fellowship, we want to use these promises as a carrot. You want these? You want these? Come get them. You want These? What we need to be doing is using these promises like a ruler. The question is, why haven't you had these promises yet? Because the answer clearly rests on our shoulders. And that's the best news I can give anybody in this room, folks. No matter what I've said this weekend, the best new I can tell you is the responsibility for you getting sober rests squarely on your shoulders. Whether you're going to get sober or not. We were talking about the sponsorship and we'll talk about it later. What if you can't find somebody that understands this work? I'm sorry for you. Go find somebody. If I had a dose of cancer, folks, and the only person that could treat it was somebody in Seattle, I would find a way to get from Texas to Seattle because I knew if I didn't, I'd die. We all know people that have done that. But oh, this is just alcoholism and drug addiction, the most fatal illness on earth, guaranteed death sentence. But I'm going to mess around and wait for God to just have a sponsor drop in my lap. Some of y'all are going to have to go look for it. That's right. You're going to Have to call me. You're Going To Have To Stay In Touch With The People That You Meet At This Gathering As A Hotbed Of People That Are Doing The Work. You Guys Need To Be Getting Each Other's Numbers So You Can Stay In Touch. Y'all with us? 10 Step Stuff. Great Promises. Position Of Neutrality, Safe And Protective. How Cool Is That? Y'All Ready For 11 Steps? this will be quick we're going to take a break and I guarantee you we're gonna take an hour we're gunna talk about this 12 step stuff and then we're gunna go smoke big time I was reading that somebody I got a friend in New York if any of you guys want this email address I'll send them to you cause this guy sends out some the best stuff his name is Bill in New York A good friend of mine, he sent this out. It's a quote. It's not in the big book. Don't look for it. All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. The piece that people want to make exception with is this conscious contact with God. Because there's too many people out there that don't believe that we can communicate with God There's too much communication. Too many people are not communicating with God Prayer and meditation, folks, is real It's probably the least understood And the least focused on step of them all When you think about meditation What do you think? What do I think about? Sitar music? Lift candles? Sitting naked in the lotus position? That's a scary thought for me I'm going to tell you You with us? The problem is that what we're talking about Is a thing called discipline My sponsor Mark talks a lot about the disciplines of 10, 11, and 12. And that's what we're dealing with here. Can you discipline yourself to make these nightly reviews? To remember the people that you've messed over? Can you disciple... Because it takes effort. You've got to turn CNN off, click, and you've got sit on the side. You've gotta make a point to do this. Note bag in hand so that you can make some notes. Do you have the discipline to do the stuff around prayer and meditation? We all pray when our ass is falling off. It doesn't take much discipline for that. God save me. But about this meditation piece, nobody seems to want to do it. It takes effort. The book talks about on awakening and at night you spend some quiet time with God, but the discipline is to try to extend your time over a couple of months, years. The time in quiet stillness should get longer and it will with practice. Anytime you can get quiet with this power, you have more of a likelihood of hearing what God wants you to do. It's in the quiet, small, the stillness that you get to hear God's Word. God is not going to turn off CNN to tell you something. He's not going take the MP3 player out of your ears so that you can hear the guidance that He's given you. You've got to force yourself to get away from the noise, to get quiet. That's why they call it The disciplines of 10, 11, and 12. The discipline. It takes practice. The guys in my sponsorship lineage, a lot of these guys meditate an hour and a half a day. 45 minutes in the morning, 45 minutes at night. I wish I could do that. I wish i had the time to do that But guys, anything is better than what some of us are doing in this room right now which is absolutely nothing. It's like anything we do, it takes practice There was a comment made at the dinner table at lunch about my expertise with the chopsticks. You'll follow me? I still need a little practice with that, don't you know? I had that stuff all over me. But I'm working. You should have seen me when I first started using chopsticks. It's pretty awesome. That's how I lost this eye. I'm just kidding. Actually, I lost a sight in a rock fight, in case any of y'all want to know, when I was 11 years old. It was tragic. it takes practice for anything in quietness, in meditation we get quiet with God shut up here's what's going to happen when you start practicing this you're going to get quiet, sit comfortably I don't lay down in a bed because you may go night-night just sit up, feet on the ground you with us? get comfortable you may want to play some light music if you want to I prefer silence. That's where the discipline comes from. You with us? Then close your mind. Ask God to show you what He wants you to hear. Here's what will happen. The guy in the apartment next to you will flush the toilet. The dog will start barking. The freaking birds won't shut up. You with this? Somebody will be knocking on the door. The guy is mowing the lawn next door. 50,000 things will come into your head. Most every guy in here, somebody in your life will be naked in your mind That's a fact. Pamela Anderson walking by and I'm just, oh my God, how spiritual is that? I mean, that's terrible. Listen, don't fight these thoughts. Let them come in one ear and out the other. Let them pass through. You're not going to not think about that stuff, folks. It's an impossibility. With practice, it'll happen less and less. And what will happen is if you get you a little, what do you call those? A little egg timer. You with us? preferably one of the more expensive ones that don't make all that racket. The cheap ones are so loud it'll distract you. But when I sit down and meditate, especially when I started, I would touch my forehead and I would focus on my forehead just to give me something to focus on. And I would set the timer for five minutes and then I would try to sit there for five minutes in quiet. It seemed like ever. You know, it was like, oh my God! And I need to go to the bathroom and I needto go... Practice. By a few days down the path, what will happen is one day you'll set that timer. You'll get quiet and the timer will go off and you'll go, What the hell just happened? Where did that time go? I just closed my eyes. And at five minutes in stillness you hear this? And of course you'll be refreshed and relaxed afterwards. It'll freak you out. Then you edge it up to ten minutes. Make sense? Practice. Now here's the kicker Here's what so many people don't understand My My end result To meditation is not Leaving my body and going into some Astral plane I did that It was called LSD And I did a lot That's not why I did That we meditate So that we can get this conscious contact With God we practice and it's in this Quiet time that you're going to start hearing things, that you're going to start getting guidance. That's why that book I was recommending earlier today that Wally P. did. It's called How to Listen to God. And it's based on the studies that they did about the early cats from the Oxford movement. And they would get together in groups and do these group meditations. And I would get guidance. I might not get guidance about me, but I'd get some guidance about you. You might want to consider this. I don't know why this came to mind, but it came... You follow what I'm saying? It's a pretty amazing thing when you do it. We used to do a group and we We would call each other. We would meet at the same time at 6 o'clock in our own respective houses and we would all get quiet and we'd all meditate and it was amazing the stuff that would come up through these meditations. It may not have to do with me. It might have had to do with my girlfriend or the other guys I sponsored that were in this group for a period of time. It's pretty amazing what happens. God wants your attention. This is what drives me crazy when we talk about this stuff. I forget. Yes, you will. These therapists at work, everybody's trying to outline these guys' lives. You come to treatment and we're going to try to fix your life. Are you with me? But the truth of the matter is nobody in the world knows what you need to do. Only you need know what's right for you. Make sense? I don't know. That's why in sponsorship I don'T spend a lot of time telling these guys what to do, but I DO hold them accountable. If they're not living on spiritual principles, we're gonna have a conversation. You'll follow? God knows what YOU'RE supposed to do! That's where some of y'all... It's what we were talking about earlier. you're a dead sinner do I stay in this relationship or do I get out do I say in this relationship or do i get out years go by and you're still there God is going to tell you what to do if you'll shut up long enough