2nd March Through the Steps Workshop – Part 8 of 5 – 2022 – Scott S.

Alright guys, we're going to get started. And I've asked Lauren to come up and read something on Step 8 and 9. And as Lauren's coming up, I was just talking to Lauren real quick. I know her sponsor a little while ago. And I asked her how much time she had. She said like 60 days. And she told me even better. I said, where are you at right now? Because I know who her sponsor is. and she said she's made 25 amends already. Woo! So if that is what you want, keep it going. Hello. Lauren, I'm an alcoholic. Hello, Lauren. Steps eight and nine. Now we need more action, without which we find that faith without works is dead. let's look at steps eight and nine we have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends we made it when we took inventory we subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past we attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run to show ourselves. If we haven't the will to do this, we ask until it comes. Remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol. Let's get it. Thank you for that. Alright, and with that our speaker on steps 8 and 9 is Scott. Thank you. My name's Scott. I'm an alcoholic. Hello, Scott. Still grateful to be alive and sober and want to thank the group again for this invitation to be here. Earlier with the Step 1 talk, I had made a comment and so I'm going to be a little current here with possible amends. I made a coment about a men's workshop and what I think I said was that if this were a men's workshop there were some topics I could really get into but I'm not able to do that in mixed company now I hope I didn't say I wish this were a men'S workshop okay I just wanted to make sure because if I had said slip that it's because I don't feel that way I'm glad that this is just what it is all right I just wanted to clear that up all right all right no so i've been asked to talk about steps eight and nine which i certainly have not been able to perform perfectly but when bill says you know we must perfect it's something perfect our spiritual life with that that that's he's not saying act perfect spiritually but it's to practice because that's the spiritual life is about a practice and that's as good as it gets is to practice like earlier i said doctors practice medicine lawyers practice law we all fall short we make mistakes but steps eight and nine are something that i believe um chris had mentioned like a refusal to adhere to spiritual principles and disciplines would be the reason why we get loaded i believe steps eight nine falls right into that category i've heard a lot of people over the years say you know I've done everything that Alcoholics Anonymous has asked me to do and I got loaded and I beg to differ and I've heard if it's a man I don't if it'S a woman I'm not approaching a female I'm NOT doing that but if it is a man, I'll very kindly and gently approach him after the meeting point you get a little talk a little conversation going and one of the questions I would ask would be were you to the best of your knowledge current or willing to get current on on amends, and never once was the answer yes when they got real honest about it. But then again, I've also had guys that I work with where they swore they didn't make their amends right. I'm like, well, why is that? Well, I just still feel, you know, well, restless irritability and discontentedness comes with the illness. Like, you now, or man, I don't think I made that amends write, man. Well, why's that? Well, the guy, he don't talk to me. Well, you robbed him. You know, maybe he don' t like you. It's okay. I can get free as early as step eight. And I saw a friend of ours once say, amends is where the freedom happens, not for us but for them. And I thought, uh, nope. Now, if I harm you and the amends process takes place, you may get free of that harm. You may not. I have no control over that. I get free. Right? So step eight, we made a list of all people we had harmed that became willing to make amends to them all. Step nine, make direct amends wherever, not whenever, whenever's never, wherever possible, except when to do so would cause still more harm, right? But I need to get free of this stuff. I need the power to do it. I need it to get me free of all the baggage that I've been carrying around with me and I'm not aware of it. I am not conscious of most of it, what it's doing to me, how it's got me fidgeting my seat. I can't sit still. My mind's racing. So-and-so just walked into the room. I gotta go. I canít go here. I canít go there. You know, I grew up around a lot of legitimate tough guys. And, you know, I found out through Alcoholics Anonymous Iím not tough enough. You know, I'm just not. When it came to this stuff, practice and spirituality, like Chris had touched on it with the mystics he was talking about. Now, even just, and that's talking about the year 400, like 1,600 years ago, 100 years ago. If we were to decide to learn how to live a spiritually disciplined life, we would remove ourselves from society and we would go into a monastic setting where all our meals and housing all of our physical needs would be taken care of by someone else so that we could separate ourselves from society and have all that stuff taken care of to be free from distraction in order to learn how to live spiritually and prepare ourselves for a spiritual life and now Alcoholics Anonymous is asking us to do just that while we're living our everyday lives and we have jobs and children to raise so we can put food on the table. It's tremendously, it's a lot. It's a lie. And spirituality in my experience, getting free, and I don't mean free as if I'm free to do whatever I want because a man or woman who has sex when they want, eats when they wants, sleeps when they what and does what they want is not a free person. because then I'm prey to my whims and desires, and that's not going to be a very useful life. And freedom is not free. There's a price to be paid to live a disciplined life. Service, to be of service in Alcoholics Anonymous. Although I feel more free internally, it costs, it's inconvenient. anybody that has a few sponsees or a dozen can tell you that and if I'm not being inconvenienced perhaps I'm really not being of service but as far as amends go who came here to Alcoholics Anonymous to make amends I didn't come here to AlcoholicsAnonymous to make amends, I came here because I thought my drinking was a problem and I found out that alcoholism is not in the bottle and my efforts it's going to we're going to talk about that so now we need more action without which we find that faith without works is dead let's look at steps eight and nine we have a list of persons we have harmed and to whom we are willing to make amends we made it when we took inventory Now, I just want to say a great deal of my amends did not come out of my inventory as far as my resentment went or even fear because I didn't have – I did a lot of rotten stuff on the street. Now, I didn't have resentments against people that I robbed or stash houses where I kicked the door in and took what they had. And, you know, guys on the corner, I didn'T have a resentment against them. They were just part of opportunity. And I needed what I needed. They had it, and I knew they weren't going to call the police. So you're now a victim. So there's a lot more thought, and the guidance from a sponsor is going to help me with that. I mean, it wasn't hard for me to see that harm. I mean come on. What do we got? We made it when we took inventory. Now I will say that most of the people I did have resentment against in my inventory, I found out that I caused them harm. Legitimately. We subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal. Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. We attempt to sweep up the debris which is accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves. If we haven't the will to do this, we ask until it comes. You know, again, willingness. Chris talked about the importance of willingness. Like if I don't... Maybe I have some... Who was it that was talking about justified anger? Marion. Marion was talking about justified anger. If I have a righteous indignation about something, because, see, everything I feel about a situation is right and just. And I wouldn't have done what I did if you didn't have it coming. Right? Now, I need to be open to the prospect that perhaps I'm wrong about that. And if I need the prayer for the willingness, do that. Live our life unto the run of... If we haven't, we ask and talk. Remember, it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol. When I met my sponsor in Staten Island that weekend, there were some questions he had asked me, and I gave some pretty ridiculous answers to it. One of them was, tell me how you see yourself. Now remember, probably four years, this was about 14 years ago, so I'm four years separated from alcohol. I have a wife, I have an apartment, I have house, my son had just been kind of injected back into my life, Thank you, God. All right? And I have all these things back in my life that I thought would make me happy and I want to put my brains on the wall because I was suffering from untreated alcoholism. I hadn't gotten a sponsor yet and been through the steps. So my alcoholism was completely unaddressed, untreated. And he asked me a question. So I'm not the best husband, okay? He asked me the question, tell me how you see yourself. Now, you know how it is when you walk into AA. you kind of want everybody here to think you're okay you know that was my number one goal, was to get you to think I'm okay so that you'll like me and you'll date me see because it's like alright now that I'm not loaded anymore now I have a shot at money in my pocket and that relationship that's going to make me whole it's goingto make me happy and my efforts to be happy robbed me and everybody around me of joy I was incapable of experiencing joy in my life. And in my efforts to get happy, now I dump all these expectations into your lap. But I don't let you know it. I have a list of requirements on you that you are totally unaware of because for one, if you asked me what my requirements were, I wouldn't be able to answer the question because they're in my unconscious or subconscious. the same place where all these unfinished amends are eating away at me like crabs in a swimming pool in a baby pool they're on me I don't know why I'm so disturbed I have all this unfinished business but I remember when my sponsor asked me this question tell me how you see yourself I'm like I'm a happy-go-lucky guy I care I care about other I'm like the new guy who wants to sound good I'm asking this guy, I'm desperate. My life is in the toilet. Yeah, I have all these things that look this way to the outside world, but man, I'll tell you what. My first wife, my nickname for her was the ninja because, man, she would come at me and we would have these blows. It was awful. One day the door was cracked and we had this little dog named Handsome. I love this little duck. And it was her dog. and, like, he ran out of the house one day and up the street. Like, he was two blocks away. Suddenly, where's Handsome? And, man, I'm out there finding the dog because he was so afraid how we were arguing, you know? And now I go to this workshop and ask this man to sponsor me because my life's on the line. I'm on a life-and-death errand. Am I still on a death-and-'life errand today? Because my illness pursues me. I don't know about you. I can tell you what it's like for me as an alcoholic. Alcoholism pursues me, and it's always looking for a crack in the armor or an end around of any guards I can put up. And the more important you are to me, the more I want you to act a certain way. And it was no doubt that was what was going on in my marriage at the time. So it wasn't going so good. And here the guy asked me how I'm doing. I'm like, oh, happy-go-lucky guy. I want to be helpful to others, and I care about, it was all not. And he's like, what? I've been watching you all weekend. You look like a clenched fist. And he was, I knew he was right. But when it talks about going to any lengths, he said, are you willing to go to any links to win high victory over alcoholism? To be honest, I wasn't thinking about drinking at the time and it's not because I'm such a, I have any power over that. God is very kind to me. I'd said that earlier. I'm not calling you if I feel like drinking I can't think the drink through very effectively eventually I'm going to succumb to that desire to drink, so God kept me sober I won victory over that by just really not trying it was no effort on my part to stay away from a drink but what about all the other stuff in my life my efforts to feel safe cause harm whether it's through anger pleasure or apathy where I just can't care about you I can't get involved I can' t really care too much and I'm unable to keep myself safe I've been trying to keep myself safe my whole life I saw power out in the street then I found alcohol and that did what that did but now I'm back in Alcoholics Anonymous and I find out that even in recovery my efforts to keep myself safe may cause harm, does cause harm. And it's not the same kind of harm as when I was out there on the street like doing an armed robbery or getting into a fight or something like that or smashing a car and taking off. It wasn't that kind of arm, but harm is harm. I just can't continue to go out there and, all right, we start texting each other. Hey, what's up with you? Oh, hey, what is going on over here? Oh, well, hey, you want to come by and hang out? I think it's called, now it's referred to as Hang Out and Netflix. Chill and Netflix, is that it? Yeah, you wanna chill and Netflix? It's all cool. It's cool. And then because we both agree to it, it's gonna be okay. No strings attached. That's a lie. Get in trouble behind that kind of stuff. or I need my employees or my employer to treat me a certain way and I'll get righteously indignant because they don't. If my employer, you know, and I start robbing my employer of hours, how many of us are addicted to the screen time on these things? Anybody ever sit at their job and they're on the phone watching Instagram? My son does it. my son does it and he works for me I'll be in the I got a little office in my shop you know he'll be out there working on some moldings and stuff casting a mold and that I'll come out I think that's what he's doing I'll go I'll just come out and he's on his phone and I bite my tongue a lot because I'll tell you what I don't want to be a bully to him but I need to be honest with them. So it's like, all right, what's an honest way to address this? You know, I'll pull them aside at what someone did to me one day. You know? Just count up the hours that we would take on extra lunch. You know. The boss shows up and says, man, what time do you guys take lunch? Oh, 12 o'clock. Well, it's 1245. you guys do this every day how long of a coffee break do you take well we get 15 minutes but we take a half an hour alright so that's a half and hour every day we're beating them times that by four guys there's two hours a day that's ten hours a week and you calculate that up and by the end of the year you beat them out of like $20,000 little stuff like that that I'd be totally asleep to sober as I'm ever going to get you know what I mean so it's like do I want to live right or do I want to live right Peter says how free do you want to get now I still fall short like I've tried to muscle Melissa and I love Melissa we love each other but you know where we got that thing going on where it's like this struggle of wanting to feel safe in that relationship. And what we do is we come to terms with it and we discuss it and we make it right with each other. And to be a good communicator in a relationship is really important. And I don't have any hidden agendas. It's like we're more open in our relationship than I've ever been with anybody in my entire life, but it wasn't always that way. Like when I first went through the steps in Alcoholics Anonymous, I was married to a woman who was also practicing this program and a member of this fellowship. And going through the work did not save that marriage. And there was a lot of amends to be made. Both sides, but I'm not concerned about what she did to me. I had to stop keeping score. And I had to take a look at what I did, how I operated in that marriage, and it was horrific. It's funny, you know, after we got divorced we ended up dating for a summer. And it wasn't to reconcile our marriage. We found that out later. That the reason we ended up getting back together was so that we could reconcile our souls. And we got right with each other. And we get married. And we go right with God. and we have love for each other that has nothing to do with relations between men and women it's just our roots grasped new soil now I wasn't a good father when I was out there drinking and of course without guidance from a sponsor when I first got separated from alcohol I wanted to go out there and man I'm going to put my superman cape on and I'm flying in there I'm gonna make everything right And I drag everybody into court, her mother, her grandparents, or his mother, and the grandparents. You know what I mean? And it's set a court date, man, and I show up there in righteous indignation. I'm sober now, and i'm going to be the dad I always wanted to be so that I feel like a stand-up guy again. Now, I'm the same guy who time after time was supposed to pick him up on Saturday, like I had talked about earlier and I took a drink on Friday phenomenon of craving kicked in and here it is Sunday I'm down at Atlantic City out of my mind like the stories I would go down to Atlantic City and I was a loose cannon and the stories would make it back to the neighborhood before I did you know and of course she wasn't going to let me come near him she wanted to keep him safe safe from me who I couldn't see it I just couldn't say it all I could see was that I'm a father, and I'm this, and I'm that. And now I'm sober, and I'm an unguided missile now, no sponsorship, and I am going to fly in there with my Superman cape on, and he is going to be my son again, and I am gonna be his dad. And the judge says, well, he doesn't want to be forced into anything, so everybody can go home now. And I am like, what? What are you talking about? And I walked out of there totally defeated. And I remember some of the old-timers in the neighborhood saying, Scott, every son wants his father. Just kick back and keep doing what you're doing and things are going to work out. And I didn't believe it. It's like if I just keep following the yellow brick road and rely on God to put my life back together and to rebuild my life, play the role he assigns. Everything's going to be fine. But I have my own ideas about my role in my life and that's actually where all my harm comes from. My efforts to keep myself safe. Now what is my role? To be of maximum service to God and the people around me? Perhaps. But that's not what my book says. my book says that our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people around us not to be, but to fit myself to be so that means my real job is to be a student my real work is to my real role job is to be able to this book is not the power but it's my book it's where I'd be a student and then the rubber meets the road going out there into making some amends and I get to practice this stuff this is where I get to practice it in my life you know, I'm preparing in my inventory I'm comparing and looking at my alcoholism like after my first step rocketed me because I was so backed into a corner I was willing to do anything and when I met my sponsor I was willing to do anything and now I'm looking at going and making amends to somebody who the last time I saw them maybe I had a gun in their face or even more scary now I got to be a real dad now I am not too sure about these amends or my sponsor you know what I mean we start thinking that stuff or we just try to ignore it we'll just get to it later we'll stuff it down and we just wonder why we're not at ease. We got no peace or joy in our lives because we have all these unfinished amends, all this unfinished business. Now my entire life character defect is how I did business. So by the time I got sober I had a lot of amends to make from that and now I didn't get involved in any kind of recovery. I was just happy not drinking for a few years. Now I've accumulated all sorts of debris in recovery, not recovery in sobriety, in the fellowship at my work in my home and I had God is very kind. God gives me every opportunity to make the amends. I would talk about that police officer that I went bananas on on Kensington Ave. I've been driving around for years with an amends letter for him. I got a picture of the guy on my phone and it's not so I can give him the business if I see him so I can make an amends to him and let him know that he didn't deserve the way I treated him that day. And I try not to treat people that way and I fell terribly short. And how can I set this right? What can I do to make this right is there anything you need to say to me? Maybe give somebody their dignity back that I've robbed because I've robbed people of dignity. Even people I did an armed robbery on like regular citizen people It doesn't mean anybody who saw themselves as a gangster or something that I did that stuff to doesn't deserve an amends, or an amens doesn't need to be made in some way or form. There's always a way to put that back out into the universe and make it right. But like in the end, man, I was preying on regular people. And they deserve their dignity back. Because it's not just the money I took from these people, but about my son. I know being an alcoholic, and the guys I work with, I've never met an alcoholic that felt very much of him or herself. Typically we feel like throwaway people. I know personally me, I felt like a throwaway person all my life. Now I'm laying that on other people. How did my son feel sitting on the stoop waiting for me to pick him up? And I took a drink on Friday. I'm supposed to be there early Saturday morning, and I'm still drinking. Probably down in Atlantic City somewhere, and then by Sunday... Oh, sorry, man, I'm a little late. Late? I'm the day late. I was supposed to beat out the day before. Then the next time he hears from me, I'M DRAGGING HIS ASS INTO COURT! Trying to force my will upon him, even though my motives are good. Right? Self-seeking, even though my motivations are good! My effort to live life Really, self-will can cause harm even though my motives are good. I want Melissa and I to have a great weekend. I want to do this and I see something going on there. Oh, that's not going to be a great week. And that's it. And I start laying my will on her. Next thing you know, she's like, you know what I mean? And then with a big blowout and then I'm standing there like, what the hell? You know, because what I believe and what I want is right and just. how about I go into my home group and I start bullying people around there like I said earlier the more important things are to me the more I want to manage them and if my home group and the message it's putting out is one that I have constructed in my head to be right and just well man you better toe the line you know and if I'm the AA guy now I'm the leader of this group nobody appointed to meet a leader in a group, but I'll start swinging my spiritual bat around and clobbering people. I did that when I first went through the steps, living down in Rittenhouse Square. You know, I lived there for many years. I lived in that neighborhood, and I loved it. A lot of meetings around Rittenhow Square, and i would go around to all those meetings, and man, I had my big book on the end of a chain like a mace. It was like, wham! You know? And I went around to local AA, all the middle of the road meetings and I clobbered people with them. I would go to living sober meetings. Which God bless them man. That's their meeting. It's none of my business. But I would go there and start disputing the living sober and using the big book to do it. They didn't want to hear about the big boat. That is why it was a living sober meeting. You know? But I am in there. The big boat says this. Who is this guy man? Lord have mercy and I would call my sponsor if my appointment was 5 o'clock Friday night back then now it's 6.15 but there's dedication right there who makes an appointment with their sponsor on a Friday night unless you're serious but I'd call them up I'm like, Mick man, you won't believe this guy he said this and he just steered me to the truth okay, okay. Now another week goes by and here I am again with inventory on AA. It's not going according to me and my wishes. And finally he stops me and says, so what Scott? Now you're a spiritual thug. Is that it? And I put a stop to that. I had an immediate shift. He just put it in such a way that it clicked with me and I never experienced another dissatisfying really AA meeting again and I never have imposed my will upon any group since and I had a shift in the sense that I go to AA to serve and not be fed and I'd never go home hungry but if I come into a relationship to be fed I go hungry and I hurt you if I go into my job to be feed, I go home hungry and hurt my employer And I'm probably not very nice to be around. If I'm looking to get fed from my relationship with my son, I will hurt my son. In my relationship with Melissa, if I show up to be fed, I'm going to hurt that relationship. If I show Up to Alcoholics Anonymous to be Fed, I will go home hungry. I get my nourishment from working out of this book and from my God that this vehicle has taken me to. And making amends is part of that. Like I said, the rubber meets the road. how far am I willing to go. Now, I'm not saying we're very competitive in AA. It's like there was a monk on top of Mount Everest that I told to F off one day and I climbed the mountain to go make amends to him. You know, we get into that stuff. Who's sober the longest? Who gives the best talk? Who does this? Who does more service? All kinds of nonsense we get wrapped up in because of the competitiveness in here. I had an axe to grind about that stuff for a long time and I'm sorry anyway I'm going to talk you know I'd like to talk more about the essence of the step more so than all these mechanics and stuff, you know a black belt in process is not going to get me where I've got to go though I do need to know how to write inventory I need to know why I'm writing inventory I need the share it with someone I need say the prayers when that when it's time to say the prayers and my my motives my intent is very very very important I need know how to go out there and make amends I was instructed how to do so and just real quick I was instructive to take index cards and write the person's name out the exact nature of the harm as we could determine it with the guidance of my sponsor and what I was going to say to said person, this other human being that I tried to have my way with, whatever that may be and look like. Not that I'm going to read it from that card when I come see you, but just so I'm really clear on the language and the timing and my intent. My intent is to give you the opportunity to have a shift and to get your dignity back that I took from you whatever I took from you I want to make you whole again I want to be whole again now you can turn around I've had it happen hey I really appreciate this amends but and then tell me where to go with it you know I did that to my my mother-in-law on the beach because I saw an opportunity and it was like, oh, I didn't expect this. And I go over and we start talking and she was tolerating me for a minute and then I go into my amends because I felt like, oh, this is the right time and it'll sure feel good to me. And she started, you know, then I asked her, you Know, is there anything you need to say to me? Because I like to be thorough and very precise like that. And boy, she did. She started telling me, you Now, exactly what she needed to say to me and here comes the ego, right? Here comes the mind. Yeah, but, because I didn't pray beforehand. I didn' t really discuss it beforehand. I just saw an opportunity to be a superhero and I went in there and man did I screw that one up. Shooting from the hip. And before you know it she's like are you kidding me? And luckily she's a very kind-spirited woman I was able to get right with her and before you knew it Like, I would stop by and just visit if I was in their town. You know, and they weren't too big of a fan of Scott when we got divorced. But like I said, you know, her daughter and I, we had come together and we healed. And I've been able to do that many times in Alcoholics Anonymous. And some folks didn't want anything to do with me afterwards, and that's fine. I've gotten free of that like I said I can get free in step nine I mean step eight my willingness that police officer that I man that I give it to him and he had mercy on me that day he could have beat me over the head shot whatever I mean if he'd have blasted me what would have you know all he'd had to say oh he reached for my gun and it would have been believable by anybody standing on the street as a witness because I was a psycho I was unhinged operating out of my wounds trying to keep myself safe because i've been abused as a kid by people in positions of authority so if you're a person that's in a position of authority you're abusing me man look out you just stuck your finger in an old wound and to be honest if i want to stop creating the harm and the chaos in my life and for the lives of people around me I need to heal. I need to take and look at what makes Scott run so that I can get really familiar and I have to enter into the darkness I have to get familiar with my shadow side so that I can heal to enough of a degree that I know what I'm watching out for and I don't I hate to use words like triggered but like man when someone sticks their finger in an old wound it triggered sure seems to work man all of sudden, I'm like volcanic. And I don't want to be that. I mean, God forbid if I were to put my hands on somebody, I don' t even know how to do it. I don''t think. I just couldn''t even imagine it. I'd probably go drink. God forbid. But it's not that big of a deal, amens, is it? I mean, are there amends that I could be making right now that I'm not? Amends that I could me out there, set and write, that I am not? Like what makes me think that I don't have to do that? It's the mind. It's my mind. It tells me that stuff. How about these promises? I'm going to talk about some amends, you know, things that I've been able to make right in more depth. But before I forget this, has anyone ever been in a meeting where the promises get read at the end of the meeting and then everybody will hold hands and say, we think not? Right? When the question gets asked, are these extravagant promises? We think not. Oh, really? Really? All right, I'm going to read them. And you tell me if they don't sound extravagant. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, now if I'm painstakin', I'll be amazed before I'm halfway through and if I am not, I won't. So that's a question right there. Am I painstaken about this? We're going to know, here they come. These are the unextravagant promises. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace. Now I'm brand-new coming in here, but these aren't extravagant. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. I won't feel sorry for myself anymore. Be sitting home sad, listening to the Sad Songs CD. Julie had that. She had a CD that said Sad Songs. I said, what the heck's that? She goes, oh, I just listen to it and cry sometimes. I'm like, oh. Marry me. We will lose interest in selfish things, right? Which is the cure of my illness. Self-centeredness. That's the engine that drives the alcoholic. It's the Engine that drives alcoholism. Only God can arrest that. The caboose is everything that follows. the fear, the anger the resentment, all that that's all the caboose selfishness is the engine and I'm going to lose interest in that stuff self-seeking will slip away I'm gonna get more interested in my fellows and self- seeking will slip away our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change fear of people and economic security will leave us. Now, it doesn't say economic insecurity will leave me, but the fear of economic insecurity will leave you. And I can tell you right now, sometimes that's happened, sometimes not so much. We had a horrific accident a couple of days before Christmas. I mean, I can't believe we survived it. Now, I had a little cushion in the bank, which is nice to have, and, you know, jobs evaporated, i'm injured then we got covid christmas day all this crazy stuff and and now bang bang oh now i'm i'm experiencing economic insecurity where i look at my business account it goes from you know this down to like and i'm like oh my god i'd be a liar to tell you i didn't i didn'T have fear of economic insecurity at that moment then there's been other times where i had the same thing happening for whatever reason okay i know god's going to show up god hasn't dropped me on my head yet but for whatever region you know this past month actually was a couple weeks ago i it was on me so what did i do i responded to it i picked up the phone i called my sponsor he brought me right back and got me grounded again by bringing me to the truth about the whole thing and uh And oddly enough, my phone rings and boom, boom, boom, I'm busier now than I want to be. You know? You say a couple of potent prayers and the next thing you know, your life's either upside down because it's time to change something or you're busier than you want to pay. I mean, come on. I'm always looking for God to show up like a person. Like if I say, Pete, pass the salt. We're eating dinner, he passes the salt. You know. I ask God to pass the salt and here comes a ball of salt coming at me. It hides in a Buick. Anyway. This is great stuff. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. I'm going to tap into intuition. we suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. I suddenly realize the presence of God. I'm becoming God conscious, right? Which is, that's what we want. We wanna be God conscious so that I'm reaching for God instead of reaching for Scott's ammo box of self, right, where i load up on self and i start blasting you with that that's what we're looking for here that's what this is promising us and then there are these extravagant promises yes you better believe it what makes them not extravagent is that god is doing for us all these things if we just show up to this process and trust in him that's what makes them not extravagant but if I'm going to stand as a newcomer or even at any point prior to having done any of this work and stand in a meeting we think not and I was going to name my boat We Think Nots with a K just to get a you know what I'm saying because it would drive me nuts and then I would have to you know out would come the but now I can hear it doesn't bother me like that but I'll tell you what they sure sound like extravagant promises to me a person who was full of fear I mean full of it man fear stole everything from me it robbed me of making choices in my life If it robbed me of treating people with decency and dignity, if it would rob me of relationships left, right, and center causing more harm, I can't even... Words just can't do it. I would be so afraid of not getting the next drink that I was willing to walk in on a regular civilian and stick a gun in their face and take what they had and rob them in their shop. I was so afraid that this relationship wasn't going to go my way, I would walk out of it. I didn't care about the commitment that I made in that marriage ceremony. This isn't working. That's how I stay safe. I keep it to myself. You never talk about what you're thinking, ever. You wait until it's the right time to make your move and then you make it. And you really pull the rug out from under people. Now that stuff worked on the street, but how's that work in a marriage? How's that work? Suddenly, I'm gone. And it's like we didn't talk about anything. No. Because I need to keep myself safe. You know, I got to see how I keep myself save. Now why do I need to do that? Because I don't want to get hurt the way I did growing up. Nobody's going to keep me safe. I didn't learn that as a child, that I'd be kept safe, whether it be being parented correctly or putting myself into harm's way out in the street. You know, you get hurt. But I needed another drink. I was so terrified to not have that next drink that I was willing to go in and hurt somebody in that manner. you know my son I was so afraid to be a father and and he finally you know I get that phone call from his mother and she says he wants to see you now I'm afraid again I'm like oh my god oh my God I'm shaking I'm shaken all right what are we gonna do we get on the phone and I hear his voice and I'm just like I'm having a physical reaction listening to this boy he was 17 at the time and I hadn't talked to him in probably almost 10 years you know heard his voice where we're speaking to each other and I'm vibrating and I got anxiety and I said okay we're going to meet and we met outside of an ale house at a roast beef place in Montgomery County and I remember sitting in my car or my truck and I see him pulling in and when we lock eyes the smiles man it was like it was like the tops of our heads would have just fallen off we were smiling ear to ear I mean and then some and we just hugged out in a parking lot and it was like everything was forgiven if we went in and we had a sandwich and here's an interesting thing while we're in there having roast beef sandwiches and just catching up you know he was getting ready to graduate high school and I was able to go to that it was a couple of months away I remember going to a teacher's conference with his mother now she was the woman that would go to any lengths to keep me away from him if I came down the block she ran out with the phone in her hand ready to call the cops she was like nine one and if you don't leave I'm hitting one again and I'd be like I don't care what you do do whatever you want by the time they get here I'll be gone you know I just wanted to torture her I knew she wasn't going to bring my son out but I wasn't gonna let her get away with it without me sticking it in and twisting it a little bit and I didn't I wasn'T ready to be a father at that point anyway thank god that i didn't get to see my son when i tried because what i found was i had a lot to learn about being a father even when i did see him and we're sitting there eating these roast beef sandwiches and i look over at the bar and there's a guy liam sitting at the bar and i'm like oh no and now the book says we will not we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it I had an amends this guy had set me up in a deal with his boss and I beat the guy and he vouched for me so that's a big no-no I really put him in a bad spot like he vouched for me, I beat the guy and now you know, that could have really put him in a dangerous situation. And I just see him sitting there and I'm like, damn. And it was time to pony up and make a direct approach. And I said to my son, excuse me, I'll be right back. I need to take care of something. You cool? And he's like, yeah, I'm cool. And then I went over and I talked to Liam. I'm like, hey, Liam. And he looked at me, couldn't believe it was me. And He's like damn Scott, how you been man and i said i'm a lot better now i said but the last time you know i had seen you i put you in a really terrible situation man and uh you know I beat harry and you vouched for me and you didn't deserve that man and you know the way i live today is i'm trying to straighten out all this stuff and make things right i said uh is there i want to know how i can make it right to you and and you know the financial restitution it will be in order i'm sure and and he looked at me and he said scott you don't have to worry about that he says i'm just glad you were alive man we thought you were going to die and he goes and harry's dead anyway okay but he was just genuinely happy because they watched me go from a stand-up guy to a dirt bag you know where now I'm not you can't trust me which wasn't that wasn't my M.O. out there and then I go back he goes is that your son over there with you I said yeah and he goes man I'm so happy for you and he's sitting there drinking and I think he may have been alcoholic but it's not for me to judge but he was so happy that I was sitting there with my son and I go over and I sit there with my dad who was that and I said Scott that was just somebody to dad, an old friend that I needed to go have a discussion with. Now today my son's almost nine years sober thanks to our friend Pete and he understands that stuff now today but here's something interesting my son comes back into my life and he started working for me back then when he's 17, he still works for me now and there have been times where he frustrates me terribly because people frustrate me terribly and if i'm trying to direct you and i like my business it comes so very i know it's a gift from god because the stuff i get to create it comes så easy to me like i can walk into a church and there could be the big corinthian capitals all that stuff man and it could be half missing and what and can you make that yes yes i can make that yeah i can do that yeah and it just comes and it's not i'm not i know it's not me so it's not from any pride personal pride that i say this it's just it's a gift from god and not everybody has that i know guys that are excellent plasterers i mean they are technical then they but when it comes to that decorative stuff and the mold making and all that and thinking and figuring that stuff out they just can't do it and it is not because they are idiots it is just because it is a gift and now my son has it in the sculptor's apartment and sculpting stuff but man he takes forever and it's like I'm looking at him like man I would do that it's taking you two days to do what I would do in a day and and I know there were times where he wanted to turn around and be like well then why don't you do it then like what am I doing here and uh you know I've been a little bit abusive to him one time and this has nothing to do with work but um there are certain things that really make I've learned this. I didn't know why the wind bothered me so much. The wind. But I can't stand the wind. And the reason is I'm powerless over it. I'm 100% powerless over the wind now I lived on a boat for some years and I you know operate in a yacht and the wind is difficult you can't predict it it blows off a building and starts swirling and you think it's coming from here and next thing you know it's pushing you into somebody else's yacht and they're expensive and there's that thing going on and I'm trying to dock the boat one day and my son's on the back I'm like as soon as I get back into the slip you just hop onto the dock and grab that cleat and just hold onto the boat until I can shut her down and we start roping off and I am backing in and the wind is whipping and it's like the boat's not doing what I want so you know it's blowing into my neighbor's sailboat and I'm like no go over there no no go back over there and the wind's going this way and it swirling around off the bill and I am really abusing the living daylights out of my son now there is a shirt I have seen online that says I am sorry about what I said while docking the boat so it's a real thing people abuse other people but this is my son, and I'm blasting him. And man, he looks up at me like with tears in his eyes. He's like, what the hell is wrong with you? And it dawns on me like, man, this is My Son here. This isn't a dock hand. I wouldn't even want to talk to a dock, yell at a dock hand like that. And why was I acting that way? Because I was afraid. I was, I was scared. I was afraid I was going to smash into something with this wind blowing. And I wasn't asking God for help. That's how Scott was handling it. Now, yeah, they make T-shirts that say that, but, you know, just because it's a thing, people flipping out when they're parking a boat, I don't want to flip out. You know, and I had to make amends to my son. And the biggest part of making the amends is I don'T do that to him anymore. All right, he takes twice as long as I do to get the work done, so what? I try to factor it into the price, you know. And at the end of the day, the work's good. And, you Know, the criticism needs to be constructive because that's how I got better at doing what I do. You know, as far as Melissa and I and how we operate today in this relationship, you know, we may say or do things that we wished we hadn't or we find out that intuition that, man, maybe I could have said that differently. Not even that it was an argument or a blowout. A couple hours later, that intuition could come and say, you know what? We could have done that differently or maybe I shouldn't and we get to talking about it and I get to learn more about her and she gets to learn more about me and we come back together in our roots grasp new soil and then next week our roots will grasp new soil our roots are always grasping new soil and that's how I feel it needs to be in Alcoholics Anonymous but how far am I willing to go with these amends I need to be willing to go all the way I remember when I first went through the steps outside of my immediate circle those amends seem to be real easy to me the book also talks about I don't have the right perhaps we have committed a criminal offense which might land us in jail if it were known to the authorities I had a lot of that stuff and I was ready to put my superman cape on once again and just fly into the wind Which I hate, by the way. As long as it's blowing my way, it's okay. I'm ready to fly in there and right the wrongs and I'm going to get all kinds of spiritual juice from this stuff, right? Because I think there's a part of us that really thinks if we cross our T's and dot all our I's, man, we're going to get some spiritual power. Power to get what we want out of life if we do this stuff. And we get the power to get what God wants us to have in our lives. Okay? that's been made abundantly clear to me but I'm ready to fly in there and right the wrongs that Scott did and all this stuff my sponsor says you know Scott you got a wife at the time I was married he says you need to get permission from her and if I have any other co-conspirators I would need to get commission from them too because now I'm putting other people on the chopping block and I can't just run in there and do that and any of the guys that I did any pieces of work with they would have said absolutely not you know so it really got narrowed down to the stuff i did a solo and that's fine but i had to go ask my wife for permission and being on she was on the beam at the time she says yeah if you need to do this go ahead and there was a jeweler that had been really eating my lunch i couldn't go by there and it was it was in a neighborhood that i was familiar with i had friends in it I couldn't go by, and it gnawed at me. I had to avoid that, and I didn't want to live that way. So I knew I needed to go there to this man and make amends to him because I had robbed him at gunpoint. I remember how much I took out of his register, and I went there with the money. I didn'T want to keep showing up and expose myself to prosecution every time. I wanted to, but you know it doesn't have to be that way in the amends. What people want is for us to stop showing up and saying we're sorry. So if we owe money, it's not our money that we're paying back it's their money. And they just want to see something. Like I owed my son's mother $23,000 in child support by the time I got sober. You know. What she wanted to see was that I really meant business so I paid her that money. And then when my son was ready she called me and now like she she counts on me that's that that relationship has healed her parents my son's grandparents i can stop by there any day of the week and you know being from south philly his grandma man she'll cook food yeah let's come on in you got to eat notice and his grandfather he they love me and i love them that's been mended i got to go out there and try my best to make everything else right. And this guy that I robbed, I didn't plan on hugging and kissing with him, but I needed to make this stuff right. So I went down there, and I remember going to the door and he was there selling jewelry to a couple of women, and I opened the door and the man says, how can I help you? Alright, I've got a little time. He says, how can i help you?" And I looked, right away the mind comes in there and this is my, I'm a new guy at making amends at this point and right away the mind gets in there and says Scott he doesn't remember you, you don't need to do this but God moved me to go there and God moved me to stay there and I said, my response was it's a very private matter, I'd like to wait please if that's okay with you and he said okay and he went back to doing business they did their business and left and he looks up and he says so how may I help you? And again my good old pal comes in there the mind it says just throw the money on the counter and leave and I'm like well you know I go into my spiel what I needed to say to him because I knew just throwing the money on the counter wasn't going to do it it wouldn't have been complete and he deserved far better than that so I let him know that so many years beforehand whatever it was I can't really quite remember at this point you know I came into your store and I robbed you and the day that I robbed you I not only stole your money but I robbed your dignity and respect you didn't deserve to be treated that way and the way I live today is I try to right the wrongs that I've caused try to right the harms that I have caused the way that I was living when I was out there drinking and part of that is making direct approaches and trying to set that stuff straight and make it whole, make you whole and offer you the opportunity to tell me anything you need to say to me. Is there anything I left out? That sort of thing. I remember the guy looked at and make financial restitution. I remember he looked at me and he was just kind of looking like a, you know, he couldn't believe I was standing there and I probably couldn't believe I was standing there either at that point And he said, I remember that day. He goes, that day you robbed me. I went home and told myself that you were there to pay me back for a harm I had caused in a previous life. And that floored me because I knew I was talking to a spiritual man. Somebody who had deep spiritual beliefs. And he knew why I was there. it was the tears, just like now and then he asked me if I pray to meditate you know, and I perk up like yeah yeah I do and he says I'd like you to have something and he reaches under the counter and I'm like oh my god he's going to blast me give me the business and I did that's how I think and what he did is he pulled out a CD set of Tibetan meditation chanting for 25 hours a piece that he was selling and he says this is my gift to you I'd like you to listen to this while you meditate and the tears were just pouring out of my face I was having a spiritual experience with this man and the last time he had seen me I was cleaning him out threatening his life and we talked about spiritual practice and I honored his wish for one year, I listened to that CD I do contemplative prayer that's what I do in the morning it's like a prayer and a meditation all wrapped into one where you focus on a phrase or a word and I've been doing that for years but I went to make restitution to this man I said I'd like to make financial restitution to you he says I can't take that I can accept it and I said please I'm on a life and death errand but honestly if he would have refused it that ball is in his court you know I would have walked with that but he allowed me to make a very small restitution and I had some money in my pocket I went around the neighborhood and cleaned up some more business people that I owed money to and stuff like that small amounts it wasn't a whole lot I didn't have a whole lotta that stuff I didn' t borrow money from people and just one of my thing i just seen how much trouble people got into behind borrowing money not paying it back because that was my thing when i was out there but i was able to get clean with this guy and that's what i'm trying to do in the immense process is get clean so i don't have to drag all this unfinished business around with me swinging around like a pendulum and irritating me and making me restless, adding to the restlessness, the irritability, and the discontentedness. I can't say that Unfinished Amends produces all of my restlessness and irritability and discontentness because I had that stuff when I was this big. I feel like I was born with it. But I'll tell you what, it certainly adds to it and I'm not conscious of it. But the more I wake up, the more i see. Now if I were to tell you I am 100% current on all my amends and all that from some position of spiritual pride, I'm a liar because there's certain things that I was unaware of. And it just dawned on me, oh my God, I hurt this person. Oh my God. I hurt that person. I remember the woman I was living with when I was separated from alcohol. Her calling me one day in tears and I was walking to work and walking across Rittenhouse Square to go work in this guy's apartment. And I said, Gina, what's wrong? And she goes, oh my God, I feel so terrible. She goes, remember, of all things, remember that when you were locked up and I got that so many thousands or whatever it was to bail you out? I says, yeah, yeah. She goes well I borrowed that from a guy at the loading dock and I never paid him back. And I'm like, oh wow. I says all right, well who is it? What's his name? Where is he at? I'll take care of it. And I was able to do that. At the time I was doing really well in business. I said, okay, I'll take care of it. Where is he? And she told me he worked at a loading dock at Manny Yonk, at American Furniture or something. So I'm like, all right, I know where the loading dock is and this and that. And my friend Pete always says, don't go to make amends looking like you're dressed for a felony. And I'm, like, that part slipped my mind because I was, like... I had, like a cut-off shirt and my work pants and work boots and, I mean, I'm covered in tattoos. So I get on and I'm riding my motorcycle that day. So I go back over, I get on my bike and I fly up to this thing and I pull up out front, you know, all tatted up with the Harley with the ape hangers. And I go I go to the loading dock and the manager comes over and he says, hey, how can I help you? I said, I'm looking for so-and-so. And he looks at me and he's like, really, what's this about? And I said it's about it's a bit of a debt. And he goes, right. And He says, he says you're not going to hurt him, are you? I cried. I cried, I felt horrible about that because I lived like that and I said no, I said no, it's I owe him and he looked at me and he didn't believe me. I said I'm here to clear up my end of the debt and he said are you sure? I said I promise, I swear, I swore to all my children that's what's going on here he called the guy over and the guy came over and I paid him back that debt with interest and he cried he cried and said this is three house payments thank you and he never expected to see me he didn't even know me, I didn't know him but I had reached out when I was in a jam and somebody picked up the slack and delivered this bail money you know what I mean so like I'm always open to make the amends the ones I'm not aware of or whatever or I might just wake up enough that I notice an amends that I couldn't, I just didn't have the consciousness I just couldn't see it you know but anyway I'm babbling about all this stuff now enjoy your dinner Thank you for the opportunity to be here this weekend. I love you guys. Thank you. Thank you, Scott. All right, folks, we're going to take a break until 7 o'clock. There's more food in the kitchen if you want to help yourself or you can go somewhere else. we'll start back again at 7 o'clock with a talk from 7 to 8 and then May 15, 9.