Step 4 and the Sick Man’s Prayer – Big Book Study – Bronx Big Book Study – Part 1 of 2 – Anthony A.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Anthony and I'm a real alcoholic and my Friday date is May 7th, 1996 and I am so grateful to be here and see so many of my good friends. Let's have some fun tonight. This is a beautiful part of the book and I understand that last night, you know, the paragraph before we are about to start just says that people dominate us, right? And the stuff they do to us, fancy or real, can kill us. And just before we start, I thought I came here to stop drinking, but it says on page 76, the reason I'm doing this fourth step is so that I can have a new relationship with God, with our creator. So we're on the bottom of 66. It says this was our course, the first 100's course. We realized that people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. though we did not like the symptom their symptoms and the way they disturbed us all right what is the 12 and 12 say it's a spiritual accident that every time we are disturbed no matter what the cause there's something wrong with us these people disturb us they like ourselves we're sick too it's the second time they're saying that they're sick right we ask god so here comes the sick man's prayer every time you see it says we ask in this book it's a prayer we ask God to help us show them the sick people you know and they're usually the people that are close to us show then the same tolerance pity and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend that's sick word again all right so three times already we're one paragraph in when a person offended we said to ourselves vick this is a sick man sick man's prayer four times now right how can i be helpful to this sick man how can I be helpful to him god saved me from being angry we asked god now i'm asking god to help me be stop being because it says a couple of pages ago we were angry and it's going to kill me right we were burned up we were sore we were angry we're angry thy will be done look i've been i've been angry at some people recently there's some people on here that know that because i share what's going on with me right so uh you know as we grow as we get on meetings with 239 people wow matt george all you guys god bless man i mean this is just just incredible but as we get on the meeting with 240 people some of those people might annoy us right don't don't don't take it too seriously but there's some sick people on here like me right so we'll get on each other's nerves i promise you it says we avoid retaliation or argument i can't do that myself right i know i gotta ask god for that we wouldn't treat there you go again five sick people that way anybody seeing a trend with bill over and over andover andover these words right that he wants us to make sure we know if we do we destroy our chance of being helpful so i guess this helpful thing's important maybe they'll say it again we cannot be helpful there you go to all people but at least god will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one of them So I'm really two paragraphs in and God's doing everything that I couldn't do for all the years I've been out of here. And a lot of times for a lot OF years that I've BEEN IN HERE WITHOUT A DRINK. Referring to our list again, this list must be important. I hope I did a good job on this list because it said on the page before, it held the key to my future. Slightly important. If it's the key to my future, referring to our list again, putting out of our minds the wrongs. Here we go. The wrongs others had done us. So the guide that we use, we use a fourth column and the fourth column. I've heard a lot of people say, where were we at fault? Right. Well, I'm sorry. Where what was our part? and i've been told and we were listening to uh chris raymer this weekend we did it was amazing we listened to chris and and my sponsors three of us um three of my sponsors and myself we got together and we actually asked him a couple questions and on the side and and and we found this whole thing here if if if i'm looking for my part then i'm assuming which i do so well that they have a part and that's not what this is about is what it's going to tell me uh we resolutely look for our own mistakes what mistakes did i make column four where had we been selfish dishonest self-seeking and frightened it's not asking about that other person right these are you know literally the same word that starts off our 10 step continue to watch for selfishness dishonesty resentment and fear is what it says same words right so a little hint there when we get to 10 we'll be continuing the fourth step right though a situation had not been entirely our fault not part fault we try to disregard the other person involved entirely now i went through all the pages on here there's like 10 pages you look like you guys are really good at doing that by yourselves without god or otherwise you wouldn't be hanging out with me at nine o'clock on a monday night right where were we to blame still not mentioning those sick people anymore we already prayed for those sick people. Now we're dealing with the real sick person, me, us, right? The inventory was ours, not the other man's, the sick man that they're talking about again and again and again. And I'm what, 70 words in 80 words in when we saw our faults, our mistakes, our faults our shortcomings right that's what they're talking about here they're not talking about the other man our where were we to blame what was our fault where's our mistakes when we saw our faults we listed them we placed them before us in black and white here's your column four guys people always say i only see three in a book or you know everybody gets it you know all the lawyers in AA. Ah, there's no step, and there's no fourth column. Well, it says right here, when we saw our faults, we listed them, i.e., the fourth column Don't get mad at me, I'm just telling you what it says Ah, you could get mad, I don't care We're honest, honestly, and we're willing to set these matters straight we want to set these things straight we put down our faults the things we did and now we want to try to make that better right and I Matt did this yesterday it says fear is bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr. Brown Mrs. Jones the employer and the wife so there's two people on this call people that have a lot of fear and liars right we're still feel we're filled with fear right it says here everybody's touched with it this short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives so that means like family friends work acquaintances aa whatever you're doing it was an evil this doesn't sound too good it was an evil and corroding thread so think about right a thread going through the fabric it says the fabric of our existence was shot through with it so just think about you're knitting a sweater and you have this evil thread going through the whole sweater it set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune and then the beautiful thing for the alcoholic which we felt we didn't deserve if i felt i deserved that i would have come in like 10 years before i got in here but i still don't know if i deserved it it says problems of my own making they didn't do anything they were just unfortunate because they chose to hang out with me but did not we ourselves here we go again right this self-will did we not ourselves set the ball rolling of course we did sometimes we think fear ought to be classified with stealing It seems to cause more trouble. So our fears cause more travel than the robbing, maybe even pleasure stealers. What does it say in our book? Stole pleasure. So now we're on our fears inventory, right? It says we reviewed our fears thoroughly. So, you know, the guide is it's broken down here. We do a resentment inventory with five columns. we do a fears inventory with five columns and we do a harms inventory including sex with five pounds it says we put them on paper just like we did our faults even though we had no resentment in connection with them we asked ourselves why we had these fears so we have these fears and it says these great words that it said on 62 Guys, if you're looking, self is bad in this book. Self is a really bad thing for alcoholics. Wasn't it because self-reliance failed us? Self-reiliance was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn' t fully solve the fear problem or we wouldn' t be here, right? or any other um when the fear made us cocky it was worse right so when that fear made me put on an evil suit which i thought was you know cool it made things worse perhaps there's a better way we think so the first 100 who've been through this that's who wrote this book and that's what's talking to us we thinkso for we the first one hundred are now on a different basis the basis oh i knew this guy was going to pie watch how beautiful this paragraph is watch how Beautiful for we are now on a Different basis the bases well hold on a second i don't want to read this yet hold on the whole thing got messed up by self selfishness self-centeredness that we believe is the root of our troubles driven by a hundred forms of fear to step on our fellows they retaliate self self self bad bad bad right and then it asked us just on the page before we say a little prayer for the sick person we ask god take that we ask them to take our stuff away and then it says we're on the basis of trusting and relying upon god right so we're on the fourth step beginners might be interested in the god thing right we'll we'll talk about one quick thing in a little while but if we're on the fourth step and we're supposed to do this right at the beginning i don't think the beginner should be told don't worry about the god thing in fact an alcoholics anonymous worry about the god because check it out we trust infinite god rather than our finite selfish selves right we are in the world to play the role he right every time you see he capitalized in here he him his thee thy they're talking about god we're in the World to play The Role He Assigns he is not Matt T from Bronx Big Book he's a cool dude but they ain't talking about him they're not talking about your sponsor they're Not Talking About The Group Chairperson They're Talking About the big guy you get to pick him we are in the world to play the role he assigns just to the extent that we do as we think he would have us and humbly rely upon you guessed it him does he i mean guys i could have read this and i was in a hundred big book meetings my first 20 years i had no idea they were talking about this stuff because i was thinking about my girlfriend my this my job my money my sports bet my this my coaching so i didn't realize that it just said hold on a second god god he he him he in one paragraph pretty beautiful actually and i missed it because i was distracted does he enable us to match calamity with serenity wow beautiful let's let's see something here we never apologize to anyone for dependent upon our capital i c creator god i don't know i was in a lot of rooms of aa and i still go to some meetings where they're apologizing for god and so the word is never and in most countries we have people that we know in most counties the word never means like never right we never apologize to anyone for depending on our creator they might say that again in this paragraph let's watch we can laugh at those who think spirituality is the way of weakness paradoxically it is the way of strength, the verdict of the ages so the verdict, the facts from all time is what they're saying is that faith means courage, all men and women have faith, I'm sorry, of faith have courage, so it might be something to do with that second step of believing having some faith they trust their god i don't know the god thing seems important dudes i guess that's why so many people skip this step and go for easier softer methods and get nil because this is god thing oh here it is i was right we never apologize for god why would he say that when he just said it three sentences ago we never apologize for god anybody ever see anybody apologize god in the meeting afraid to talk about it they might not like me like i said if i like get a few of you to like me i'll be happy but i'm going to tell you what it says in the book we never apologized for god instead we let him god demonstrate through us what he, God, can do. This is a great part here, is a prayer. We ask him, God to remove our fear which is the evil and corroding thread and direct our attention to what he God would have us be and then like it says so many times in this book bam at once fear is gone. this thing that was corroding my life if i do what it says here right it says that once we commence to outgrow fear the thing i could never do before if i due these steps as they're outlined in this book and i form a relationship with god and i ask them all this thing that they told me to do fear is going to go away i think we get this sex thing down now about sex many of us needed an overhaul in there but above all which means nothing's more above that like it's above all it's the most important we try to be sensible on this question guys i'm gonna say this kindly the fellowship the rooms of aa that i was in for the longest time and i still hear it so totally do opposite of about we're about to read so please try to wipe out anything you might have heard before if you haven't done this and look it's so easy to get off way a trick here we find human opinions right they had them back in the 30s 1930s human opinions except they didn't really let them talk about them so much and direct the new people that way, find human opinions running to extremes. I know you've witnessed it. Absurd extremes, it says perhaps. One set of voices cries that sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base necessity of procreation. Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex, who bewail the institution of marriage, who think that most of our troubles of race are traceable to sex causes they think humans think we do not have enough of it or that it was the right kind they see its significance everywhere one school would allow a man no flavor for his bear hold on a second they're not saying that you're supposed to say that anybody here no sex in the first year no relationships the first yearsh i don't know where that came from so it's so you're telling me that i'm supposed to listen to people that don't have good relationships give me advice about relationships hold on a second sounds scary it says no flavor for fair and other would have us all in the strep pepper diet listen to what the directions in the big book say all you sponsors or anybody like that thinks that they're supposed to tell it says here we want to stay out of this controversy not my job to tell people when to have sex who to have it with when to start having it in which ways to have it it says that here we do not want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex on it we all have sex problems we'd hardly be human if we didn't what can we do about them it says we reviewed our own conduct over the past uh oh these same words guys where we've been selfish dishonest inconsiderate afraid you know the same words as they're going to say in 10 again now now's the big thing right is anybody told to write an autobiography for their fourth step when they first came in imagine telling a real selfish person to go write a story about themselves and get back to me imagine that yeah write down all your crazy sex stuff it doesn't say to do that here right it says whom had we hurt here's our harms list guys whom had we hurt with our sex conduct in general and with our sex conduct did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy suspicion or bitterness so they're telling you who you harmed. If you're honest about those three things, where were we at fault? All three inventories ask the same exact questions, right? Where were we at fault and here's your fifth column, what should we have done instead? What should we had done instead. We got this all down on paper and look how many times did they They say we got this on paper, black and white, black and white. Black and white in this way, we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life, right? So they're not telling us not to have sex. They're trying to say, you know, with God, we asked him to be the arbiter, right. He's going to say it in a little while. We subjected each relation to this test. Was it selfish or not? Selfish still bad guys is not going to win. It's never going to be good in here. Was it selfish or not? Here we go, another prayer. We asked God to mold our ideas and help us to live up to them. We remembered always that our sex powers, check this out, if you're forgetting about the God thing, you're not going to do well right here. Our sex powers were God-given, not sponsor-givered or group-gived. They were God given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or, you guessed it, selfishly. nor to be despised and loathed. Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must, no musts in AA. I got to five minutes. We're going to get this baby done. We're getting it. Get it. We must be willing to grow toward it. Again, must. There's no must in AA, there's just two in this two sentences, right? There's like a thousand in the book. We must being willing to make amends where we have done harm or harms list, provided that we do not still bring about more harm the only time you're supposed to delay or not do is if you'll bring more harm right in doing so in other words we treat sex oh this is going to scare some people off as we would any other problem in meditation hold on i don't have to wait for 11 to meditate the book's telling me i can meditate when i'm doing five four it says in meditation, we ask God, again, we pray to God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come if we want it. Here we go again. Sponsors taking control. Look what it says. God alone. No phone calls in the middle of the night, guys. You don't need 100 quarters. God alone can judge our sick situation. Counsel with other persons is often desirable. So I want good people in my life to run stuff by but hold on a second it's desirable but it says again just so you weren't sure but we let god be the final judge we realize that some people are as fanatical about sex as others are loose sponsors we avoid hysterical thinking or advice opinions remember there is a solution, a common solution, a way which we can all agree in joint and brotherly and harmonious action. You know what, Maddie? 927, do we get another? I think that we said a lot here, right? We're not going to get through in the next little bit, so we'll let somebody else finish that up. Guys, I just had the best time that i've had in a long time and i like i really appreciate you letting me be here tonight peace and love thank you so much anthony that was awesome i really loved that that was that was great appreciate that you didn't scare anybody off by the way yeah no no not at all i'm not scared um okay so let's go this brings us to the share portion of the meeting and uh let's see here okay if you'd like to share