Four Column Inventory – 12 Step Study – Hofstra University – Part 1 of 2 – Joe H.

A couple of men's, right? So people are people. That's simple. You just go back through your life. Sometimes it helps to start with your earliest memory and come right up to today. Sometimes it help to start with today and go back to your earliest memory. I can tell you that during those weeks when I'm working on my list, it's nice to carry a 3x5 pocket notebook. You're in the car, you're at work, you'r e at a meeting A great place to generate some names for your list is in Medians of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's also a great place to find drunks dying of the disease of alcoholism. Old phone books. I keep a file of facts of everybody that's close to me in my life. I say a prayer, I go through my file of facts, names will come to me, I'll literally feel the tension, they go on my list. It's got everybody in my life in it. I don't have a lot of vague stranger people relationships in my life. I get mad at the people I'm close to. You work on your list. Now, what about institutions? It could be Hofstra University. It could do that. It could go to the schools you went to. It could the phone company, drug programs, any institution, the institution of marriage. It could groups of people. it could be groups of people black people, white people Mexicans, Polacks right it could be what about principles values and beliefs that you were raised with as a child or the ones that we're told in AA we need to live by that we sometimes resent I resent selfishness the funny thing about principles every time I find a principle I resent I at some time in my life have resented another one the opposite of it love You know, the kind of love that starts to choke you to death. What about hate? What about truth? What about lies? What about the truth will set you free? That's a principle. You open your mind and you ask God to reveal this list to you and you trust what comes. And if it comes, don't question it. Put it down. Question it when we get to the second column. We'll come back to this process in a minute, but let's look at the instructions for the second column. So let's say over here on about three or four pieces of paper I just have these lists. Now I take the first name. Let's say my list is on this page, and I don't worry about space, and I Don't Worry About Principles in One Column or Institutions in Another because one time you'll be thinking of a person and you'll think of a principle. He was real snobby. And then you'll thing of another person. Then you'll think of an institution. Then you're thinking of a principle just let it flow and don't worry about space But when the list is done take the first name off your list put it on a piece of paper Way over in the left-hand column Way over here and number it number one and then put their name Oh, I got one and then let it flow with letters. A, she did this. She told me I didn't know what I was talking about. B, stole $500. C, and you let it... ...until nothing more comes, working with one line from the book. We asked ourselves why we were angry. Draw a line, stop, that's the only instruction for column two. See how Bill did it? And you know how long it was reading this book and studying this book and doing this work before I saw that Bill gave us two ways to do the second column and you get to choose? Let's look under Mr. Brown. With Mr. brown he put three resentments. Pays attention to my wife, told my wife about my mistress and may get my job at the office, and then he did a third column for each second column and marked fear by each third column. With Mrs. Jones, he lumped about five resentments in one paragraph and only did one third column and marked the word fear. Same with the employer and same with the wife. I choose to do inventory bills first way where I do separate resentments and separate third columns for each resentment. So I like to number. if you put number one by Mr. Brown and you put A by his pays attention to my wife B by told my wife about my mistress and C might get my job at the office A, B, C that's how my first two columns look and I once again I don't worry about saving any space I just let it flow on that person until I'm done some people you'll have one he just did this he walked up one night and he punched me in the face That's the only resentment you ever had. Some people you got 20 or 30. Brothers, sisters, parents, people you've spent large amounts of your life with. You let it flow until you know the second column. You know, after taking the third step, you have to start to trust this power is going to reveal to you what you need to see and trust it. You don't want to be too general and you don't wants to be wordy. Here's what I mean by general. She's a goofball. No, I want to put what she does that makes me think she's a goofball. Or he's a liar. It's too general. He lied to me about the money. Be specific about what he lies about. He's a jerk. No, put what he does that made you think he's an idiot. He's not a jerk, but you don't need to be so wordy that you put... I was walking down the street on May 17th, 1987 and he walked up to me and he punched me in the face. You just have to put his name, Number one, Charlie A. Walked up to me or punched me in the face Not too general but not too wordy Just get to what it was they did that made you angry Now sometimes I come to a person in my life And this doesn't happen anymore Because I can't take too many resentments with one person But like you come in your first inventory to a mother Or a father or sister or brother or lover or husband or someone you were with for a long time and you come to their name and it just feels like a big glob of stuff in there about that person, I sometimes like to take a piece of paper and just write in paragraph form about thatperson and the relationship I had with them. And then when I'm done writing, pull out specific resentments from that relationship. She did this. She did that. She did she didn't do this. These can be things they did. This can also be things they didn't like with my dad. I'll write a piece of inventory with you all right now that was one of my biggies. And that was, I put number one, but I'll suggest to somebody in their first inventory, don't do mom or dad first. Do a couple simple ones to get used to the flow. But I put a number, whatever number I'm on, and I put my dad's name, and then I put A, was 57 years old when I was born. By the time I was 10, he was 67. B. Didn't come to the games. C. Yelled and screamed a lot. D. Told me I was worthless. Etc., etc., etc. And I let it flow on him until nothing more comes and I've lettered each and every one of them. Now, that's the only instruction for the second column. We asked ourselves why we were angry. So I've got these pages and I like to do one column at a time. Like I said, from here on in the book, I am not going to go to the next line until I've done what the preceding lines said to do. We now begin to use the book as check marks instead of just questions that need to be answered or considered. So I now have a notebook filled with pages that have names and second columns, but I haven't saved any space. So now I'm going to go to another notebook and I'm gonna take the first name off my list and I'm gonna put his name again, but on this page I'm only gonna do A. So what I mean by that is if I have A, B, C, and D, I'm gonna have four pages. I am now gonna do one second column per page and fill the rest of it up with column three and four. So I now have dad, and I have A, and it was he was 57 when I was born. I'm now going to look at seven areas of self. In most cases you will find that number one, mark this one, self-esteem, number one. Pocket book, number two. Ambition, number three. Personal relations, number four. Sex relations, number five. Now mark these two words were either hurt or threatened. So you were angry, you were burned up. Now the next paragraph is a little confusing because they repeat themselves. On our grudge list we said opposite each name our injuries. Was it our self-esteem we already have that. Now they throw in a new one, security, number six. Ambition we already have. Personal relations we already have. Sex relations we already have, which had been, mark this word, interfered with. Then all the way at the bottom under my wife you'll find he uses the word pride. That's number seven. So here's the seven that I found. Self-esteem, pocketbook, ambition, personal relations, sex relations, security, pride. And I list those words going down the page. Self esteem, pocket book, ambition security, personal relations sex relations pocketbook going down the page but I want to save space because I'm going to do column 3 on this side and I'm gonna do column 4 on this side now using those guide words you might keep a sheet of paper next to you when you're writing the first three columns that looks like the one in your booklet that says guide sheet for writing the third column. I know it's complicated, you guys. It's really not. You also find on your first page, not to go back, but you will find on your first page that says step four you will find something that says column one and column two and it gives you an example of two-column inventory. Then the next page you'll find where it says third column you'll fine an example of three columns. But on this guide sheet if you keep it next to you and you have somewhere near you when I resented blank and you put in the person's name over on your other page for doing blank, being 57 years old when I was born. Did it hurt, threaten, or interfere with my self-esteem? Don't look at the words, look at the definitions. Here's what I mean when I'm saying when I look at this. When I resented my dad for being 57 year old when i was born did that hurt, threatened, or interfered with how I saw or felt about me? Yeah. So I put self-esteem. Did it hurt, threaten, or interfere with my pocketbook? Probably not. Did it Hurt, Threaten, or Interfere with what I want? I'm sorry, let's do them in the order they are on this sheet. Did it Hurts, Threaden, Or Interfère with how others saw or felt about me? Sure, my friends saw an old man as my dad, so I put the word pride. What about what I wanted? Sure, I wanted a young dad, so I'd put ambition. What about when I needed? Sure, so i'd put security. What about how my family or friends saw me or felt about me? Sure, so I put personal relations. What about people I was involved with sexually? Sure,so I put sex relations. What about my pocketbook? Probably not. Maybe later on in the future. You don't always find all seven, but you put which seven you find. Before we talk about more work with the third column, let's turn the page over and go to where it says fourth column. Then we'll read it in the book. A lot of people say the big book does not say to write the fourth column My book says to write it in black and white A lot of people think if you find a little sheet and you can put a check mark by selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and afraid that you've done the fourth column. That's not what my book says. My book says, where was I selfish? And we write out explanations. Because I'll tell you how important this fourth column work is. Everything you need for five, six, seven, eight, and nine comes from the fourth volume. By that, here's what I mean. Everything you needs to be clear on the exact nature of your wrongs in the fifth step, comes from the fourth column. Everything you need to be clear to ask God to remove in six and seven comes from the fourth colon. Everything you need to be clear on the exact nature of the harm in step eight comes from the fourth column. And everything I need to be clear to come to you to make direct amends comes from the fourth column. And a check mark ain't going to get it for me. So I'm going to put on the back of this page and I'll read it to you once again I resented my dad for being 57 years old when I was born. It affected my self-esteem, my pride, my ambition, my security, my personal relations, sex relations, and my pocketbook. I found all seven. On the back, I'm going to put selfish, self-seeking, dishonest, and afraid going down the page all the way down those four words and I'm gonna fill in the blanks. I was selfish because I knew better than God how old he should have been. I was selfless because I was a man of faith. I was unselfish because I know how he should've been and what he shouldve been doing. I blamed him for the rest of my life. You cannot find fault with a 10-year-old kid resenting a man for being 67. But you know what you can find fault for? Holding on to it for the next 20 years and what I did against him. What was self-seeking? I only cared about what I wanted. I only care about how I felt. I didn't care about him. and then what did I do? I lied, I cheated I stole I criticized him I judged him I held it against him for the next 20 years blah blah blah where was I dishonest? I lied to him about how I felt I lied. I lied I lied myself thinking I needed him to be a certain age to be okay and if he was old I wouldn't be alright that was self delusion and I was afraid of looking bad I was scared of being rejected I was afraid of losing my father. I was scared of not having friends. I was terrified of pain. Under afraid, I just list my fears because I'm then going to come back and do a whole other inventory on fear. So, can we stop? Discover. This is where I discover the lies. Not the truth. So let me read the example that we put in here on the page that says example for Column 1, 2, 3, and 4. The finished product. Column one is Mr. Brown. Column two is may get my job at the office. He found self-esteem, pride, ambition, security, personal relations, sex relations, and what should be pocketbook rather than money were hurt, threatened, or interfered with. then he found where he was selfish and self-seeking he would drink at work and cause problems he would blame Brown for his problems when he was trying to help he lied about drinking he told untruths to hide mistakes he believed that he wasn't hurting anybody but himself, which is a lie he judged all these people and Mr. Brown badly, he was afraid of being unimportant, not good enough, not needed unrespected, unliked, untrusted irresponsible, financially insecure, and judged. He was afraid of being judged. Then he wrote about specific harm, which is always good to put down there somewhere at the bottom, that you've caused, Mr. Brown. But if you'll notice in the third column, he began to explore a set of beliefs that do not come from how we feel, but come from our ego. And this is the voice that talks to you when you're mad, not when you are in a fit spiritual condition. This is the voice that says, when Mr. Brown might get your job at the office, I'm the best. I'm a perfect employee. I'm not the only one. I'm going to be the perfect employer. I'm gonna be the most important employee. I'm also the perfect AA member. I'm like the perfect father. Whatever personality is hurt, whatever personality in that circle that we described is hurt when you get threatened by Mr. Brown maybe getting your job and you're angry. Pride is how others see this situation, this scenario. Nobody should see that I'm not important and that I might get replaced. Ambition is what I want. I want others to respect me. Security is what I need. I need others to like me, to be okay. My friend that taught me this told me with security you're always in a life and death situation where the ego is concerned. This is the stuff your ego tells you you need to exist to be okay. Personal relations is how your friends see you and what your friends should do is trust you. Sex relations is your beliefs about men and women, and my ego tells me men are responsible. And pocketbook is my beliefs about money, and no one should threaten my income, the perfect employee. So in every one of these one-act plays, if you got four resentments for Mr. Brown, it's going to be four pages that look like this page. A, B, C, D. We're doing one second column per page. If you get this idea about the third column, go with it. If it confuses you, then all you have to do is put the words and here's how it would sound. I resent Mr. Brown because he might get my job at the office. It affects my self-esteem, my pride, my ambition, my security, my personal relations, my sex relations, and my pocketbook. And here's where I was selfish, self-seeking, dishonest, and afraid with your explanations in the fourth column. But if you can grasp this idea that was shared with me, and I'll tell you where it comes from. It comes from people writing inventory in Denver, Colorado for 20 and 30 years. And they were sitting around somebody's kitchen one night and they saw the example with Bill Wilson gave us on page 65 with Mr. Brown, Mr. Jones, the employer, and the wife, and they read the next sentence which says, we went back through our lives, nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished, we considered it carefully. And somebody said, you know, the fourth column instructions are two pages away, and I don't think that's what they want us to consider yet. And all we've written so far are the first three columns. What do you think they want us to reconsider? Well, they said there's no one else I could put in the first column. There's noone else I can really put in a second column. Maybe we should start to ask why by the third column. And a friend of mine sat with me one night and he said write a piece of inventory. And I write her name in the first column, Sally. A, second column, left me. And it affected my self-esteem. He said, let's stop there. He said when she left you, why did it affect your self-esteem? And my ego wanted me to put low self- esteem because I'm a rotten piece of you know what who should be left anyway. He said no, if that was really true as she was leaving And you would have sat there like a lump and you would have gone, don't deserve you anyway, honey. But when she was leaving I got angry. This is about when I'm angry. And I got angry because my ego tells me I am above being left by anyone. No matter what I do. Why? Because I am the perfect boyfriend. and i see that i got angry not because of low self-esteem i got angry because of a just a little too much self-esteem so maybe and i know this is a threat to everybody who ever believed anything in alcoholics anonymous maybe when we're angry it's not because of lower self-estime and maybe we're not people that need to love ourselves a little bit more maybe we are people who need to love ourselves a little bit less. And maybe when anger is concerned, and remember we're talking about anger here, maybe when angry is in the picture it's not about low self-esteem. It's about a little too much self- esteem. And I write about what I am under self-esteem and I write about what i want, ambition. I want her to stay no matter what I do. Security, the biggest lie of all keep in mind this is not truth i'm writing in the third column this is what my ego tells me is true that's really a lie and under security comes the biggest lie of all off the end of my pen that my ego would like me to believe i need her to stay to be okay you know that stuff in the middle of the night your ego tells you you'll literally die if you lose why isn't it why is it in the middle of the night? It's never God. Why is it in the middle the night, it's always if you lose that money, you'll die Joe. If she leaves you, you'll no longer exist. If you lose That job, you will fall off the face of the planet and you'll just curl up and die. It's Never God. It is the things my ego wants me dependent on other than God. I really don't like going into that third column stuff that much, except it changed my whole perception of inventory because it's not necessarily from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. It's from people who have been doing what's in the big books and the big work of Alcoholic Anonymous." So, if you don't connect with those beliefs that come from your ego, just write the words that were hurt, threatened or interfered with. Self-esteem, pride. And I don't expect very few people to get that third-column stuff their first major inventory. But we will do some of it during the fifth step because it changed the way I see myself. Fourth column? Fourth column can be written by somebody from three days to 30 years with explanations, just like the people from the audience who read their examples, just likethe example we put in this workbook with detailed explanations next to the fourth column. just so you see where the instructions are let's look at what it says to do from finishing the third column to moving through the fourth column in the big book from the top of 66 to the middle of 66 to the word poison you'll find a series of questions that can be answered about what you've seen from the first three columns but at the bottom of 66 it's going to ask you to turn back to what you've written to find a key to the future. That sounds pretty important to me. That somewhere between column 3 and column 4, I'm going to find the key to my future. To freedom. So they give me an exercise to do as I move into the fourth column to look at it from the right angle and that's a prayer and a spiritual exercise to see that this person is perhaps spiritually sick and realize I can't master these resentments myself. So at the bottom of the page, this is our course. I realize the people in the first column who wronged me in the second column are perhaps spiritually sick. Though I do not like their symptoms in column two and the way it disturbs me in column three, they, like myself, are sick too. I think that's so important when the book says they, Like Myself. I feel sorry when I hear people in AA praying for somebody like they're up here and that poor sick person is down here rather than you just like me? Have you ever written about anybody that's done anything you really haven't done or thought of yourself? Perhaps this person is spiritually sick like me. You know, we're kind of like right here rather than like right there. Right here. So what am I going to do? I'm going to ask God to help me show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that I would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offends, I'll say to myself, this is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will, not mine, be done. Some people say to do that after every third column before you write the fourth column as a spiritual exercise to move into seeing your part. I pretty much do it nowadays when I get stuck and I can't see the fourth volume. But it sure couldn't hurt to do it for everybody before you move into the fourth poem as a spiritual exercise. Then it says what to avoid. We wouldn't treat sick people that way. We might destroy a chance of being helpful. We can be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one. Now the instructions. Referring to your list again, putting out of your mind what they've done, look for your own mistakes. Where have you been? Number one, selfish. Number two, dishonest. Number three, self-seeking. Number four, frightened. Selfish, dishonest, self seeking and frightened. Though a situation has not been entirely your fault, try to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were you to blame? The inventory is yours, not the other man's. You're taking their inventory in the first and second column. You're talking about the other people's inventory. You're saying you're taking your inventory as far as the lies in the third column and the truth in the fourth column is your inventory. When you see your faults, you list them. You place them before you in black and white. Next time somebody says it only says to write three columns because of Bill's example, show them on this page where it says when we see our faults, we list them, we place them below us in black. Before us in back and white, we admit our wrongs and become willing to set these matters straight. Can we stop there for a second? you take a hundred people from Alcoholics Anonymous you put them back in the bar God forbid here's what you find you find about twenty or thirty belly up at the bar wallowing in their beer crying in their whiskey because they don't know there's anything more to find than alcohol and some of them enjoy it wallowing in their beer crying in their whiskey then you find about 20 or 30 come into the bar sit at the tables in the middle of the room drink till they feel good then they go home then you find about 30 or 40 in and out of the bar will not settle for sitting up belly at the bar wallowing in their crap because they know there's more to find in alcohol will not settled for sitting in the middle the room drinking they feel because that's just where the night begins they're called mad dogs. They want it all. In and out of the bar, going here, going there, going for the gusto, doing it to the max, bop till you drop, mad dog alcoholics. Now take those hundred people, put them back in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous, and you'll find they settle for about the same thing they did when they were drinking. Those of us that stay this weekend are not the ones that settle for wallowing in their big book crying in their scrap, wallowing about their problems all the time. And we're also not the ones that come into AA and just do enough until we feel better and then go home. We're the ones who want it all. Going here, going there, doing it up, showing up early, staying late, bop till you drop, do Alcoholics Anonymous the same way you drank Mad Dog Alcoholics. Amen. Now we've got two more inventories. separate inventories. One is fear and one is sex. Let's go to where it says, notice the word fear. Notice the word fear in Bill's example on page 65 is bracketed alongside the third column. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. Here's the point. You know what every aspect to my life is? Self-esteem, pride, ambition, security, personal relations, sex relations and pocketbook. Those seven things cover every area of my life. Whenever one of those is hurt, threatened, or interfered with, I have fear. Fear touches every one of the seven areas of my heart. Every one of these seven areas are my life's. The fabric of my existence is shot through with it. It's an evil and corroding thread. Now remember I told you it's important in these paragraphs throughout inventory to know what it is. fear set in motion trains of circumstances which brought me misfortune I felt I didn't deserve but didn't I myself set the ball rolling sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing fear seems to cause more trouble than stealing now I'd like to pose a question to come back to based on the last two lines we read line number one didn't we ourselves set the ball rolling, and we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. I don't think they are writing this book to kleptomaniacs. I think they were writing this book to alcoholics. And when they say fear should be class with stealing, stealing is something that I consciously do. I make a conscious decision to steal. So here's my question. We'll come back to it in a minute. Is it possible fear is a conscious decision. Now the directions. We reviewed our fears thoroughly. Where am I going to find my fears? I've already listed them in the fourth column. Pain, rejection, abandonment, looking bad, being alone, drinking, dying. I find them by reviewing my resentment inventory and on another whole notebook I'm going to make a list of fears but no repeats. You don't need to put I'm afraid of being rejected by my mother and I'm scared of being I'm not afraid of being rejected by my father and I am afraid of being rejected by my girlfriend you will find rejection all the way through your resentment inventory you just put it on your list once we are just looking for a general list of fears found throughout the resentment inventory I have never seen anybody with more than 100 fears they just have different names we put them on paper. Some we had no resentment in connection with. So when I'm done finding the ones in my resentment inventory, I'm going to ask God to show me any other resentments that didn't make my resentment imagery because I'm afraid of some stuff that I don't resent. Snakes. Heights. A few more will be revealed to you if you open yourself up. Once again, I'm asking God to help me with this list. And I'm trusting what comes. Then there's only one other instruction. Column two, we asked ourselves why we had them. And then here's what we're supposed to see. Isn't fear because self-reliance fails? Self-rebliance is good as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. Some of us have had great self-confidence, but self-confidence doesn't fully solve the fear problem or any other. When self- confidence makes us cocky, fear is worse. perhaps there's a better way we think so for now we're on a different basis the basis of trusting relying upon god we trust infinite god rather than our finite selves we're in the world the world to play the role he assigns well you could you could spend a lifetime with that line in prayer and meditation i'm in the word of god world to pay the role that you assign just to the extent that i do as i think he would have me There's another line I could work with for a long time. And humbly rely on Him does He enable me to match calamity with serenity. Don't ever apologize to anyone for depending upon God. You know, I feel that way sometimes in AA meetings. Let me read that line again. Don't never apologize to anyone för depending upon God, your Creator. You can laugh at those who think spirituality is the way of weakness. You know, that kind of stuff goes on in AA. People put down by people who think spirituality is the way of weakness. Paradoxically, it's the way to strength. The verdict of the ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. They never apologize for God. Instead, they let Him, God, demonstrate through us what He can do. We ask Him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what He would have us be. You know why? Because we're not what we do. Notice it doesn't say, remove my fear and direct me to what you would have me do. Because I can't do anything to overcome fear. Why? Because self-reliance fails. I'm going to ask God to remove my fears and direct my attention to what he would have me be. At once we commence to outgrow fear. We started to see in two-column fear inventory, and this is how it used to look. We would take the fears from our resentment inventory and we'd put them on a piece of paper. Then we'd pray to God and ask Him to show us any other fears we didn't resent that weren't in our resentment inventories and we would add those. And we would work on the list until we know that we're done. Then we would put next to each fear why we have it. Well, I'm afraid of rejection because I'll be alone, it's painful, I'll drink and I'll die. I'm scared of pain because I'm alone, I'm not afraid of pain because I drink and die and I can't control it. I'm worried about looking bad because I don't want to look painful and I'm going to be alone and rejected. That's how two-column fear inventory used to sound. But we started to see that if you have 80 in the first column, and you do the second column, what ends up in the second column is 40 repeated over and over and over, approximately. And the fear inventory started to turn into a playoff chart like the NCAA basketball tournament where you start with 64 teams but you end up with two. And by the time we would do the fifth step, we would really see that all these fears really only come down to a couple. Living and dying. pain, pleasure drinking, not drinking and what the basic fear inventory started to come down to was whether to die an alcoholic death in pain alone, rejected looking bad drinking and dying or living on a spiritual basis with pleasure not alone the opposite of the other ten are not easy alternatives to face And the fear inventory used to come down to these two propositions. So we took it one step further when somebody said, why don't we take 10 or 20 fears and do four columns and not only see the beliefs behind the third column that have to do with self-reliance, but let's look at where fears cause harm. So let's go through these instructions on the page that says we reviewed our fears thoroughly. we looked in the book 67 through 68 we looked through the entire third and fourth column to list fears on a new page with no repeats list each fear only once then we looked at opposites like I'm afraid of being alone well, I'm also afraid of not being alone I'm scared of being with someone I'm worried of pain but I'm always afraid of pleasure somebody would say why in the world would you be afraid of pleasure because I can't maintain it or control it it happens by accident I'm afraid of love and I'm also afraid of hate I'm afraid of success I'm also afraid of failure so I look through my list and I see if the opposites are on there or if they're applicable and if so I add them to my list then I pray and I ask God to show me any other fears that weren't in my resentment inventory like snakes or mice or heights or bugs and pray until you know the list is done take the first name off my list and do the second column which is why I'm afraid of this do that with the entire list then read the second column to make a new list to make a new first column with no repeats. Example, 80 in the first column becomes 40 in the second. 40 in next first column become 20 in the second. Redo this process doing that two-column thing until you're down to 20 negative and 20 positive. 10 negative and 10 positive fears. See Fearless an example on the next page. See what they did in the first column? Then they asked why. Then they did another first column that they got from their second column and they did a third column and they ended up with a third list of fears which were about being alone and being in pain. We're going to break it down to ten positive and ten negatives. Pain, drinking, dying, being alone, rejection, looking bad, blah, blah blah, and their direct opposites. Take those 20. Let's see what it does. Inventory the final 20 like you did with your resentments with four columns. See the examples on third and fourth column. Go back through the fourth column fears in a margin and write about harm. When I'm in that fear, what do I do that causes specific harm? And who? If any names come to you. And my mind was blown because in three fear inventories, I never saw how my fears cause harm. From my first three fear inventories, all I saw was this. Behind every resentment, there's fear. When I'm showing you anger, I'm really afraid. And I really only have a couple fears. I don't have this big list. So now let's go back to my question from the book. Is it possible that fear is a conscious decision? and I look at this list and I say to myself, hey, I've never decided to be afraid of rejection. I've Never Decided to Be Afraid of Big Domineering Guys. I've Ever Decided to Be Affraid of Pain. I've Every Decided to Be Frightened to Be Freed of Heights and my friend says to me, what if there's one thing you've decided throughout your life on a regular basis that sets up every fear you've ever had and because of this conscious decision you've set up every fear you've every had in your life and I said, what's that decision? He said, to rely on self where fear is concerned. And you know what? My fears are a result of a conscious decision to rely upon self. And why do I have fears? The book says I have fear because self-reliance doesn't work. So the next page, they show you how they broke the list down. The next page they show me how they did a four column fear inventory. Like I said, I do not like to get into stuff that's not in the big book. My big book says to list the fears and ask why you have them. If you've done a couple of fear inventories or you want to try this and you can see where you've got basically 10 or 20 fears going on and you resent their direct opposites, you resent pleasure as much as you do pain, you resent failure as much... I mean, you're afraid of failure as much As you are afraid of success and you want To try a four-column fear inventory, check it out. That's how it sounds and I'll read one. I'm afraid of being alone because it's painful. Self-esteem, pride, security, ambitions, personal relations, sex relations, pocketbook. Selfish and self-seeking. I do anything necessary not to be alone, even at the cost of others, so I don't have to experience the pain. I use women, men, sex, food, etc., etc. Dishonest, I lie about my pain. I don' t talk about it. I suffer from the delusion that I can control it. I'm afraid I have no control. I'll stay in pain, I'll drink, and I'll die. This is the harm I cause. I promised my wife if she would stay I would stop drinking knowing I didn't mean what I told her and I continued to drink. What else do I do when I'm in the fear of being alone that causes other people harm? I engage in frivolous sex. It harms so-and-so, so-an-so so-unso, you can use a four-column fear inventory to help you on 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 just like resentment. Where the two-colmn fear inventory never really helped me that much. My first four- column fear inventory ripped me a new one. I can't really think of anything else that I want to say about the fermentory I do know this the only way you get 10 or 12 or 15 or 20 years experience writing inventory is writing inventory for 10, 12, 15 or 20 years you can't shortcut it and you cannot cheat this process and if you do not want to find out what you think is true might be a lie do not begin writing four column inventory because four column inventory will take what you put in the first two columns that you think is true about who and why you're angry and by the time you're through the fourth column turn the first two columns into absolute lies including the third column I write inventory to discover truth. I know a group that never writes the fourth column. They only write three-column inventory, and their behavior does not seem to change. They seem to continue treating people the way they continue treating them. They continue treating other people because they never write inventory to discover true. All they discover in the first three columns are the lies that you and I base our lives on as being true that aren't. So when I put in a four-colum inventory, whether it's fear or sex, that she left me. And then I'm given the grace to see where six or seven different areas of my life were hurt, threatened, or interfered with when she left us. She left me self-esteem, pride, ambition, security, etc., etc. and the beliefs behind those things and then under selfish and self-seeking, dishonest and afraid, how I literally drove her away, the first two columns turn into a lie. She didn't leave me. My selfishness, my dishonesty, my self-seeking, and my fear drove her away. And you know what? For me to get free, if my problems were of my own making, if I drove her way, she doesn't have to come back or see the light or do anything for me to be free. For me not to get away from her or for me not for me to get me to free, I have to go and I have to talk to her about what I did to hurt her and I get to get free of my resentment regardless of what she does. It's not logical action. Logical action that comes from people that say they're our friends and they love people in AA and all they do is love making money off us tell you things like you need to go back to her and confront her about how she made you feel when she did whatever it was she did to you and I continue to stay angry because all I'm doing is concluding that she was wrong and I stay sore and I don't get free I just feel a little better when I leave her house but if I can face my part take responsibility and see that my troubles with her leaving were of my making and go and do 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 and make my amends I get to walk out of her house free as a bird whether she ever comes back or not because my perception changed my focus changed how I see it changed by a very powerful four column inventory process that can trick an alcoholic See, I believe that if alcohol is cunning, baffling, and powerful, then God is more. Or everyone in this room would be drunk. ...four-column inventory process that can trick an alcoholic. See, I believe if alcohol is cunning and baffLING and powerful then God is more or everyone in this room would be drunk. Now about sex. Bottom of page 68. Many of us needed an overhaul in there. But above all, we try to be sensible on this question. It's so easy to get way off track. Here we find human opinions running to extremes. Absurd extremes, perhaps. Don't get involved with anyone for a year. My friend says nobody knows if that works or not because no one's ever done it. One set of voices cry that sex is just a lust of our lower nature and a base necessity of procreation. Then we have another set of bosses who cry for more and more, who bewail the institution of marriage and who think most of our troubles of the race are traceable to sex causes. They think we don't have enough of it or it isn't the right kind. They see its significance everywhere. One school would allow man no flavor for his fare, and the other school would have us all on a straight pepper diet. We want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. We all have sex problems. We'd hardly be human if we didn't. The question is, what can we do about them? Well, the first line says of the instructions, we reviewed our conduct over the years past, and I in the past have been told two things about that line. The first thing I was told was to make a list of relationships. And once again, I'm going to pray and I'm gonna trust God to reveal to me the relationships that I need to look at. Another time I was taught that means to review the specific conduct in that relationship. So now I do both. I make my list. I ask God to show me the relationships. You can't remember every one night stand. You're not going to remember the names. Ask God to reveal it to me. Use a prayer when you're doing the resentment list. Use a pray when you are doing the fear list. Use a praier when you write an inventory. And write it at the top of the page of every piece of inventory you are writing. I forgot to mention that. And you get to this one, you might say a prayer. Dear God, please show me every relationship you would have me examine through this sex inventory. Please help me see this list. Work on the list until you know it's done. Take the first name off the list. We're going to do this one in paragraph form. We're gonna put her name at the top of the list I'm sorry we're gonna take her name off the list and put her name at the top of a piece of paper and on the front and back and maybe a couple pages depending on how wordy you get write a history about that relationship from motives for getting involved to specific sex conduct to major events that went on in the relationship. She did this and then I did this and then she did that and thenI did this to whatever comes when you pray and ended up by writing about how it ended or where it is today. Then, in paragraph form, answer these next nine questions. Let's find all nine of them. Where was I selfish? Number one. That means with an explanation. Where was i dishonest? Number two, where was I inconsiderate? Number three. Question number four, who did I hurt? Make a note to look around the relationship. You didn't just hurt her. You might have hurt her kids or her parents or her father or mother. Did you arouse jealousy, suspicion, or bitterness? Question number five, six, and seven. Where was I at fault? Question number eight. And the only part of the entire inventory my sponsor warned me about doing if I didn't want to change, not to do question number nine, and that's what should I have done instead? And thank God it doesn't say what could I have gone instead. What could I had done instead was not much more than I did with the power that I had at that time. But there's a lot I should have done. find a way to mark question number nine in your paragraph explanation so you can easily refer back to it let's check the nine questions again where was i selfish where was I dishonest Where was I inconsiderate? Who did I hurt? Where did I arouse jealousy? Where did i arouse suspicion? Where did it arouse bitterness? Where was i at fault and what should i have done instead? And mark that question so you can easily refer back to it. Now, just to give people an idea in this room of how many have done this work, how many people have been through at least up to amends at least once from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous okay how many of you with your hands up have written out a sex ideal for your future okay among a lot of people around this country that do what's in the book this is probably the most overlooked part of the three-part inventory my book says that I'm doing those last nine things or ten things, I'mdoing what's in that last paragraph to shape a sane and sound ideal for my future sex life. I've subjected each relation to this test, was it selfish or not? I'm going to ask God to mold my ideal and help me to live up to Him. I'm gonna remember that my sex powers are God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised or loathed. Whatever my ideal turns out to be, I must be willing to grow toward it. I must being willing to make amends where I have done harm, provided that I don't bring about still more harm in so doing. In other words, I'm going to treat sex as I would any other problem. In meditation, I am going to ask God what I should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come if I want it. Mark that last line. The right answer will come if you want it. You know, I wondered for a long time over my first year and a half why this area of my life wasn't changing. And you know why it wasn't changed? I didn't want it to. And just so nobody thinks I've done this process perfect from the very first time, let me tell you what was going on in my life during my first fear inventory and my first sex inventory. I got through resentment by doing a little bit at a time for a couple months and then saying, screw it, I can't stand this any longer and taking three weekends and not doing anything but finishing the fourth column. And I stayed home and I wrote and I took a break and I did that, I think, two or three weekends until the fourth volume was done. Then I got to fear and you would have thought that I was probably ready to move on because it takes most people two weeks to do fear and two weeks To Do Sex and they're done and they are ready to fifth step. But I balked for a few weeks. And during my first fear inventory, I got a call that I was going to be arrested for some gambling that I had been doing earlier on in my sobriety. And I called my sponsor and I said, Don, they're going to arrest me. He said, what a great thing to happen during a fear inventory that you're unwilling to finish. And he hurt my feelings. Because you see, I'm extremely sensitive. not to how you feel, but to how I feel. You know, I didn't know that later on in this book, I can't get right to the page all the time, but in one of those chapters after working with others in the first 164 pages, it says that sensitiveness is a terrible handicap that we must outgrow. And he said, what a great thing to happen during a fear inventory that you're unwilling to finish. You'll either run or you'll finish it. and it got me off my ass to finish that fear inventory, and you would have thought I would have learned my lesson. And I got to sex, and I balked for another three or four weeks. And on the same day, two women called me, both pregnant, from some stuff I had obviously been doing a few months earlier. I called Donna, and said, I got two calls today from a couple of women that are pregnant that I was involved with a month or two or three ago, and he said, what a great thing to happen during a sex inventory that you won't finish. You'll either run or you'll finish. And I got off my ass and I finished that sex inventory. But when I was done with the sex inventory per se from that paragraph of instructions that we read he asked me to write out an ideal for the future. And whatever my ideal turns out to be I must be willing to grow toward it. and that God alone can judge my sex situation and counsel with others is often desirable, but I was going to let God be the final judge. And I realize that some people are as fanatical about sex as others are loose. So what am I going to do? I'm going to avoid hysterical thinking or advice. I'm gonna let God by my judge about sex matters. but suppose I fall short of this ideal that I choose of what I'd like to be in the future so I ask God to help mold it and I sit down and I start to write using question number nine from my sex inventory as a guide of what I should have done in the past might be a good guide for what I might want to do in the near future it's not about writing about the ideal woman although I will tell you my last experience with it in a minute it's about writing the things I would like to bring to my future sex life and it sounds like in the future I would want to be more understanding of how she feels I would love to be more open to share how I feel I would be more considerate of her needs I would maybe I'd like to be with someone for the rest of my life or maybe I'll be less selfish in this area of my life and ask God to show me who He might want me to be with. But it's mine. It's my chosen ideal. I get to choose it and I get the opportunity to ask God to help mold it. Now suppose I fall short of this chosen ideal and I stumble. Does this mean I'm going to get drunk? Some people tell us so, but this is only a half-truth. It will depend upon you and your motives. If you're sorry for what you've done and you have the honest desire to let God take you to better things, Isn't that amazing that in this area of my life, God could take me to better things? We believe you'll be forgiven and you will have learned your lesson. But if you are not sorry and your conduct continues to harm others, you're quite sure to drink. We're not theorizing. These are facts out of our experience. So to sum up about sex, we earnestly pray for the right ideal and I was told to write it out. For guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity and for the strength to do the right thing. They gave me a prayer for resentment. They give me a prayer for fear. Now they're giving me a prayer for sex. If sex becomes very troublesome, throw yourself the harder into helping others. Think of their needs and work for them. This will take you out of yourself. It will quiet the imperious urge when to yield would mean heartache. The only other thing I was asked to do after my sex ideal was written out was to put down on a piece of paper any secrets that didn't make my inventory that I thought I would never tell anyone that I would take to the grave. I guess in Denver where I got sober, they called take it to the gravestuff. And just to make little notes to myself so I could read them to you. And you know what I did? I had all... I wonder if anyone can relate to this. While you're writing inventory, you have this pile of papers and you want to lock them away and you wouldn't want anybody in the world to see them and you put them in your briefcase and lock them in the trunk and lock the trunk and no one's going to get at that inventory, right? Then a day after your fifth step you wouldn'T give a shit anybody inthe world who saw any part of it. That's freedom. And I've always felt that way after a fifth step. But when He told me to do these secrets I had my resentment inventory I had My fear inventory and I hadMy sex inventory I had my ideal for the future and then I took a little piece of paper and I scribbled a couple things on this little piece of paper and I hid it all the way back in the back of my book because I was not going to share those things with him at the end of my fifth step unless I felt like it and you know how I felt at the beginning at the very end of my first step how could I not how could i leave anything out and they were just silly anyway I sat with a guy once and this isn't I never have revealed anything from anybody's fist step by name but I have shared some of the experiences I sat with a guy one time and we read Resentment and it sounded just like mine petty little resentments against people and just selfishness and dishonesty and self-seeking and fear, and we read Fear and it sounded like mine and we got ready to read Sex and he goes I kind of need to tell you something now I know what he was going to say He says, I'm gay. I said, big deal. Let's read the sex inventory. Go on. Start to read. He said, but I've never had sex with an animal or a hmm-hmm. I said what? He said I need to tell you I've never had six with an anima or a hm-hm. I said so you've never have sex with and animal either have I. He said no, I've never had sex with an animal or a human. I'm 45 years old. And I thought, boy, what did you write about? He wrote about the sex life that had taken place in his head for 45 years. And I said, well then read me what you wrote. And about 20 minutes later we both paused in the middle of one of these fifth step moments and we looked at each other and he realized he was just like me and I realized I was just Like Him that just His selfishness took Him to nothing and my selfishness took me to everything. And we were exactly the same. And it happened in a moment. A very powerful moment. Not this current time through the work because you know I'm still in amends. I have ten amends to finish. Five in Denver and five in California. But the time before when I went through with this Native American man who's been doing this work for 23 years, he was real emphatic that I get specific writing out my sex ideal and for the first time in 11, 10, 10-11 times through the work I wrote about what I would like to do in the future and who I'd like to be with without being specific about who I'd likely be with just kind of generally and I wrote that I'd liked to after 10 years of what I've been used to in AA which is a couple long term relationships and a bunch of frivolous casual sex my first two years. I was ready to spend the rest of my life with somebody and I wrote that in my ideal. And I wrote that I would like that person to love God and do this work, but I didn't put be alcoholic and I thought that was interesting. And I put a couple other specific things about that person and about myself and what I'd like to bring to that relationship and I did 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 and I throw my inventory away when I fill up my amends cards, I don't keep inventories laying around. Because for me there's something to physically giving it to God. Whether it's burning it or on the beach or whatever is meaningful to you, after my amens cards are all filled out and I'm clear on the harm from that. I've heard some people say they did their fifth step and they were told to burn their inventory. I don' t mean at that point. I mean when you have everything you need from the inventory to be clear on the harm, I get rid of my inventory but I kept my sex ideal and I put it in a pile of papers on my desk and I let it be. See, this isn't something I write out and then I have to go make it happen like we're taught in self-help programs. See the vision and then make it happen called visualization. This Native American talked to me about vision rather than visualization. And vision has to do with asking God to help you see what you can possibly be taken to. And I put that sex ideal away on my desk and I started to make amends. and I had 30 or 40 amends and I started making them and I finished them and I got ready to go away on a trip one year ago this month to the 50th anniversary of AA in Canada where I was asked to speak in Toronto last summer and I had to go way for a few weeks because we were going to do a long trip and I didn't want to leave these guys I'm working with stuck so I met with everybody I was currently working with and several of them were in inventory and they were I was going to give them directions to finish fear and sex and write out the ideal and one of these guys is sitting in my house and I said oh I got one over on my desk I haven't looked at since I finished amends and I went over and I pulled out this sex ideal from the pile of papers on my deck and I read it to him and every single thing I wrote had happened the month I finished my last amends. And she's sitting right there. And I didn't have to make that happen. And I did not have to work on it. All I did was 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 focusing on seeking God. And specifically, she is someone that loves God who does this work but she's not an alcoholic and I wondered why I hadn't put that she be alcoholic because she didn't need to be alcoholic and everything I wrote there came true six months before I read it to this kid the month I finished my last amends from that piece of work what I'd like to do is stop here Good morning, everyone. My name is Joe. I'm an alcoholic. Don't you think the committee has done an absolutely fabulous job this weekend? I guess I'm kind of feeling like I did on Friday that I'm still real excited to be around people that are interested in the work in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and there's really it's always kind of exciting to me that there's as many here today as there was when we started on Friday If we pissed a few off, a few more came, and that's just about the way it goes in Alcoholics Anonymous. There'll always be a few new ones to piss off, right? We have spent about nine hours. Yeah, three three-hour sessions. to go from the title page of the big book to the last page of how it works. Which from my experience contains the first four steps. We've spent quite a long time on the first four steps and I believe this why we've been so thorough with 1, 2, 3, and 4 even though we still only had a limited time and there's a lot of work for each of us including myself to do in the future I believe if you do that work thoroughly and you've gotten some kind of an idea of how to go home even if it was by yourself maybe with these tapes maybe with somebody you sponsor maybe using the assignments from the workbook maybe all the above and it was just you and one other guy or a couple other guys or a few other gals or someone you sponsor or someone that sponsors you. Someone, if you had to go home all by yourself and start this process in a little more thorough way it would be ideal with one other alcoholic or one other person that has the same problem you have. It would be great to do it with a bunch. Anybody that's interested in going back to where you live and finding out about how to start a big book workshop You don't call it an AA meeting. You don'T call it an AA group. I'll talk a little bit more about it when we get to step 12, but you just call it a closed-step workshop and you go through the steps together as a group, whether it's five of you or 25 of you. It's a little unruly to try it with more than 30 if you haven't had the experience, but it takes about a year or 17 weeks or 35 weeks. It takes what it takes and you cover what you cover and you write inventory and you pick someone to do your fifth step with and you can do that in a bunch. You can do it one-on-one. I would feel totally fulfilled and rewarded for giving my part if one person left here that had never done this work and ended up doing this work one through nine and trying to live periods of time in the fellowship of the Spirit. I didn't know the big book describes two fellowships within one program if you remember back to page 17 in there is a solution and you remember back to how you felt at different times walking into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous where you experience the spirit of the fellowship of AlcoholicsAnonymous it's a wonderful thing to feel and most of us probably every one of us in this room have felt that spirit in the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. But then later on, all the way at the end on that page that they read sometimes at meetings where I go in California and other places in this country, when they read that last part of A Vision for You, our book is meant to be suggestive only. We realize we know only a little, etc., etc., ecc. In there it also says you join us in the fellowship of the Spirit, which is different than the spirit of the fellowship. The fellowship ofthe Spirit are people who can meet across a crowded room and maybe say one little thing or just their eyes meet and you look at each other and there's not much that needs to be said because you both know you've experienced the consciousness of the presence of God and that's a wonderful fellowship to be a part of in this fellowship called Alcoholics Anonymous. And I love experiencing both parts. I love experiencing the spirit of the fellowship in these rooms. And I love when I meet one of you guys or one of your gals where we get to join in the fellowship of the Spirit, rather than just the spirit or the fellowship. Anybody that hasn't been here Friday and Saturday with us this morning? Welcome. we talked about from the title page that there's three parts to this program and we asked ourselves what about our involvement in those three parts unity, recovery, and service we saw a three part program for a three-part disease body, mind, and spirit we saw a program with 36 spiritual principles rather than just 12 with the steps, the traditions and the concepts of service if anybody doesn't know those 12 concepts are found in a book called the AA Service Manual they're interesting principles we talked about where to find the first two steps and that we were going to use everything from the doctor's opinion up to where it says now we're at step 3 to look at steps 1 and 2 we talked about the preface and this being a textbook we talked about where it says the main purpose of this book is to show other alcoholics precisely how to recover and the first promise in the book from the title page that you can recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind and body and that you do not always have to stay recovering and you do no longer have to be sick in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous we talked about how to use the doctor's opinion and to look at it as rather than a doctor's opinion that none of us even know, this Silkworth guy, or to take his opinion for granted. We talked about looking at that chapter as a set of questions to examine yourself. And every time he makes a statement to turn it into a question. The number one thing I've ever been told about this book. If I could tell you one thing about thisbook, it would be start on the title page, go all the way through, turn every statement you possibly can into a question and answer them and every time you come to a direction don't go any further until you've done it and these great promises all the way through these steps will absolutely happen in your life I've never seen it fail I've not seen anybody do what's on page 1 to 82 and not get the promises on page 83 and every promise in between and even some of the ones after if they continued on with their amends those wonderful, absolutely fabulous 10-step promises that we'll cover this morning when we get to the 10th step. We talked about how to use Bill's story as a tool to identify your own drunk-a-log and see where you could relate to how he felt and how he thought and how she felt. And how he drank. We talked About using Bill's Story, page 9 to 16 as a way of looking at what's going to be asked of you to go to any lengths. So that statement, do you want what we have and are you willing to go to any length to get it does not have to be a mystery for you or something you need to figure out. If you have found someone that does what's in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, then going to any lengths is going to be doing what's on the Big Books of Alcoholic Anonymous. No more, no less. And if you think you've found a Big Book person and they start asking you to do stuff that's not in that book, I would really question if you'd found the right person or not if you want someone who does what is in the Big Book Of Alcoholics Aonymous. we talked about how to continue to use that there is a solution and more about alcoholism how far to go to continue looking at the craving to the top of 23 and not to go any further until you can answer that very important statement on the top of that page does my experience abundantly confirm that once I put alcohol in my system Thank you.