Aaron M. on Steps 4 through 7, Co-Pain, and the Disease of Separation

So Rory came last Wednesday and he went over steps one through three and what really amazed me is Rory's from Austin. He actually goes to the primary purpose group in Austin and he's driving down here every Wednesday from Austin. They say when the hand of AA reaches out, you reach back. So come on up here. I'm Aaron McShane, I'm an alcoholic. I do want to clarify something. As wonderful an introduction as that was and it was good and I'll give you your $20 later I promise. So I was up here a few months ago my sponsor Bob D was speaking at the anniversary meeting and I had a couple of my sponsees with me right and I'm laying into this one guy he's got he's pushing two years now and he'd kind of been getting off the path a little bit and kind of getting not remembering his primary purpose a little bit and I'm laying into him I'm like you do anything AA asks anytime and Aaron from y'all's group comes up right there in between the two of us it goes hey Rory will y'all come up here every Wednesday in April and take us through the steps and I'm like yeah. Yeah. Goddamn. God. Fine right you know if I could have slithered out the back door I would have like gotten away with it but um how many y'all were here last week for steps one through three couple of y'all that was the only good week rest and we're gonna suck so be ready we're gonna talk we're gonna talk a little bit about about step four and five and maybe we'll hit six and seven just I never know what I'm gonna say I'm always excited to hear what comes out of my mouth when I get up here you know. Um. We're gonna talk a little bit step four and five and maybe we'll hit six and seven also and I want to start. I want to start by saying I didn't understand step four for for probably my first step four and five for probably my first eight years in Alcoholics Anonymous right because because it because up until that point I was doing maybe maybe my first six years something like that because up until that point I was doing a lot of off-the-wall AA right. You know I I was talking to a guy after the meeting and he and he came up to me he's got a few years last week he came up to me he's got a few years he's struggling and we were talking about his program and I said and I said well well how often do you do the questions in the eleventh step right there's ten questions in the eleventh step and he looks at the wall he looks at the steps on the wall goes ain't no questions in that step right and and and that was and that was the way I worked Alcoholics Anonymous for for the first many years of my sobriety right so I'd heard so I'd heard people around the rooms talk about well you can't have resentments because you'll drink over resentment you'll drink at somebody right I'll get all mad at Taylor for being cooler than me and I'll go drink right and and and that made enough sense to get me through my first couple of inventories but but as I later came to find out that's that's not really what we're talking about here right I'm stealing this completely and I'm sure I'm gonna butcher it the Hindus so so the the West of the Judeo-Christian way of thinking about it is that the the the the the idea of creation is that God made the earth in seven days right he made Adam and Eve and you know their progeny populated the earth the Hindus have a very interesting different story of creation which which it meets somewhat with my world with with with my view of my God is and their and their view story of creation is is that is that God existed un into himself for all time right and then God split himself into a billion pieces not remember that they were pieces of God. And the great cosmic game, and those pieces are us, right? And the great cosmic game is for us to realize that we are no different than the next piece, like drops of water in the ocean. Y'all with me? Chuck Chamberlain used to call this his disease of separation. You see, in chapter five, it says that resentment will shut me off from the sunlight of the spirit. And what does that mean, as I understand it, is resentment will shut me off. You ever pray when you have a real good resentment going, right? You're like, God, I pray for her. Maybe pray that she gets hit by lightning. I don't know, right? It's not, when I am separate from you, I am separate from God. When I am separate from, Chuck Chamberlain used to talk about how alcoholism in its very nature is this feeling of separation. And I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about how alcoholism in its very nature is this feeling of separation. I'm talking about how alcoholism in its very nature is this feeling of separation. And what I drank for was I drank for connection, right? Y'all ever go to the bar and when you get to the bar or the party or whatever, you know, you show up there and you don't like anybody there and they're all fake and they're all losers and they're all, you know, or they're maybe they're too nerdy, whatever, right? And then after a couple of drinks, you're like, you know what? These people are okay, right? A couple more drinks, you're like, you know, I kind of like these people. These people up here, they're all right, you know? A few more drinks, you're like, I love you, man. You're planning your vacations together, right? I drank for connection. I drank to feel a part of the world because when you live up here like I live, I'm not out in the world. So in the process of resentment, what I'm doing is it says in our book that resentment is the number one offender, but we have to look one line above that, right? It says self-manifested in various ways was what had defeated us. So we considered its common manifestations. Resentment was the number one offender. Resentment is the number one manifestation of my selfishness. And what is that? It's the belief that I am self-manifested. It's the belief that I am separate from you, the belief that I am different than you or better than you or even worse than you, right? Because sometimes I'll get those guys come up to me and they're like, Rory, I don't have a single resentment. I'm like, really? You're very spiritual there at 30 days out of rehab. Congratulations, right? No, I've just, I've done so much wrong in my life and everyone's wronged me so much in my life. I just, I just can't be resentful. Okay. Why don't you write a list of everyone who secretly owes you an amends? And we'll go over that. We won't even call it a resentment list, right? So, so thinking that I'm better than or worse than or whatever the case may be, but I am separate than, right? And that is the, and that is the nexus. That is the nexus of, of, of this, um, of this resentment. Um, and, and, and, and the book gives me two specific courses of action to take, right? It first asks me, it tells me four columns, right? And the first column, I write the name, the second column, I write the cause, right? I'm not looking for the life story. I'm looking for one of the key things that they did to me, right? In, in, in the book, it uses the, um, it uses the, it uses the example of, uh, of Mr. Smith, right? And Mr. Smith sleeps with his wife, tells his wife he has a girlfriend and gets his job at the office. And he only wrote 19 words about Mr. Smith, right? And, um, I'm sorry, Mr. Brown, I apologize. Uh, my favorite t-shirt in AA, I've got one at the house is Mr. Brown. I've got one at the house. I've got one at the house. Mr. Brown needs his ass kicked. Couldn't agree more, right? You know, told his wife he's got a girlfriend. Oh my God. Right. And that's never good news. And, um, and, and, and in the third column, I look at, I look at what are these things affect? Does it affect my self-esteem, my ambition, my sex relations, my personal relations, um, or my security? And then the fourth column, what I look is I look for, where was I at fault? Where was I dishonest, afraid, selfish, and self-seeking? And really what I'm doing there is I'm looking at where did I set the ball in motion, right? Where did I, where did I step on this person's toes that they have made it that they may have retaliated against me? I, um, and then, and, and sometimes the truth of the matter is in some resentments, there just aren't those, right? I think, I think in probably 75% of my resentments, I can find where I found where I stepped on the toes of another person. And a good sponsor's job is, is to help you see this from an entirely new angle, right? Like I was getting up from the prosecutor's table and I'm walking over to the defense attorney's table and sitting down and seeing how, how someone might, how the other person in the situation might see it. And they might see what I've done to them, right? I had this, this, this guy who worked for me for years, his vice president of my company, he made a ton of money and, um, and, and, and, and, and he left, he left the business and, and, um, took some clients, not, not the best way to leave the business. I was really resentful at it, right? And I, and I did some, and I did some inventory and, and, you know, one of my favorite questions asked guys in inventory, one of the favorite questions I get asked is, well, I don't like it when I get asked it, but it sounds nice, is what are the worst things you ever did to this guy? And I said, well, you know, I threw a chair at him one time. I was really mad at him. Threw a chair. Yeah, I threw a chair. All right, I'm sorry, I threw a chair, right? Well, keep going. What are some of the other bad things you did to him? You know, I really talked down to him a lot. Okay. We talked down to him a lot. And what are some of the other things? Well, you know, a lot of times if I'd be, if I'd be behind on a project or I wouldn't want to go travel, travel or something like that, I'd make him do it sometimes at the last minute, sometimes at very inconvenient times. Okay. I didn't do that, right? What about, what, what about some of the other things? You know, I really made fun of him around the office a lot. I really did that. Okay. Made fun of him around the office. So let's see here, Rory. We got a guy who's busting his butt for your business. You throw something at him in the office. You make fun of him to the coworkers and the employees. You make him take the crap detail assignments that nobody, wants to take. And you, my only question is how did it take him that long to leave? Right? So all of a sudden I've moved from this guy who's a victim, who's, well, he took my clients and he left my company too. Wow. If I was in his shoes, I would do the exact same thing too. And then ultimately I got to make amends to that guy. And we're very good friends today. We do a lot. Our two, he has a business now and our two companies do a lot of business together. And all of a sudden the separation between him and I is gone. And therefore my separation between me and God is gone. Y'all with me on this? I don't talk about, I've never talked about this at the podium before, but I'm going to talk about it. Um, uh, some of you heard me talk last week about how, from, uh, you know, how, from really years, uh, I guess it was year, year nine to, um, year nine to, to 11 of my sobriety. I was, I was in very untreated alcoholism, right? I, I started drinking, I started drinking, I started drinking, I started drinking, I started drinking, I started walking away from Alcoholics Anonymous as, as I started to get more successful in the outside world. And, and, um, and, um, you know, I never once stood up and said, I'm making a decision to leave AA. It just little by slowly, uh, I went from a guy who went to a meeting every day to a guy who went to a couple of week to one a week to once a month, right? I went from a guy who called his sponsor a couple of times a week to, you know, to once a week, to once a month, to once every six months. And little by slowly, little by little, I started to, uh, I started to, uh, I started to, uh, I started to sleep with my secretary and, um, this isn't a step on the wall, but I am going to say, don't sleep with your secretary. That's a bad idea. Um, and, um, and, and, and, uh, and she ended up suing me for a company and, and we settled an incredibly, a very, very large six figure settlement that I had to pay. And she had, um, and she had our daughter, she had a child and, um, and I was so angry at her. And I remember sitting down at, at, at IHOP for coffee with my sponsor. How could she do this? All this money. Right. All she had to do was ask. I would have taken care of her and the kid, all this stuff. Right. And he said, can you imagine how it must feel for a girl who's in her, you know, early twenties to move across the country, to work for a guy, fall in love with him, get pregnant by him and have him break up with her. Can you imagine how alone she must feel, how terrified she must've been, how she must've felt like she was thrown away. And I said, oh my God, I can't. And he said, he said, I want you to write a letter. And I want you to say in the letter that you have some small level of understanding of the fear and the terror that that must've been, that you can never understand it completely, but you're trying. And I want you to put some more money in the letter. I said, I could pay so much money. I paid child support. I paid this lawsuit settlement. I paid so much money. Oh my God. And he said, I, he said, you asked me to sponsor you, not the other way around. I said, okay. So I wrote the letter and I put some money in there and I sent it to her and I didn't hear anything back. And you know what? At that point, I didn't even blame her. If I treated, if I treated, if she treated me like I treated her, I wouldn't want to hear from me anyways. Right. I got it. And about a month after I sent that letter, I woke up one day to a text on my phone with pictures of my daughter saying, I got your letter and I'm going to pray, but I don't know what to do. And this past weekend, I came back from Florida where I spent a wonderful couple of days with them. And we went to the beach and we went to dinner and we went to the zoo. And it's not perfect, right? I literally talked to her five minutes ago. It's not perfect. But when we had our amends call, I said, I'm, I'm really trying to change from the guy that I was back then and understand. She said, you're really, really selfish. I said, yeah, just ask anyone in AA. They know that already. Right. And I said, I'm trying to not be that guy anymore. And I hope you can see that I'm not. And she said, I forgive you. And my great hope from this Rory is that in years from now, I'll be able to turn around and say, you know what? As angry as I was at you, you ended up being a good father. And because of that, I'm going to be a good father. And I'm going to be a good father. And because of that, I love you. You want to talk about a spiritual experience, man. Oh my God. Separation from one is separation from all separation from one is separation from God. See, if I can turn myself and I can see from the other person's perspective, then I can be free of these resentments. I had a situation it's hardest. It's hardest with the ones where I have no fault, right? It's easy to see that one. It's easy to see my fault in something like that. I had a, I had a situation where I had a situation where I had a situation where I had a situation come up about a year ago. I was at an AA conference. It was a good time. And we all go out to lunch and this guy shows up and he's, and he's just the rudest guy I've ever met. Right. And he's, he's making fun of everybody at the table and he's hitting on all the guy's girlfriends in front of them. And I'm like, I get in my truck after I'm like shaking. I'm like, I'm going to stab this guy. And I'm like, I can't stab someone in an AA conference. My sponsor would find out about that for sure. Right. And, um, and, and, and, and so I, so I quickly go to the inventory process. Right. And it's like, okay, I've never met this guy before. I didn't step on his toes, but then I go to the part in it books where it says, this was our course. Perhaps they like ourselves were sick too. Right. And I start to think about all the times in my life that I had to be the big guy and that I had to treat everyone like crap. And I had to put you down to make me feel up. Right. And I started thinking about these two guys came to mind, this guy that I used to push around in high school, hadn't talked to him in 15 years. And this guy used to sponsor years ago. I used to make fun of him and, and, and we were all out to dinner one time and he brought this girl he was dating and I'm ragging on him and everything. And before I even got out of my truck, I found the guy's contact information from high school. And I reached out to him and I said, Hey, I owe you this amends. I'd, I'd like to schedule an appointment. And I reached out to the guy I used to sponsor, man. And I'll tell you what happened by the time I did those two phone calls. Oh my God, I was free from, from reaching out to these two guys who had nothing to do with the lunch, who aren't at the lunch. We'll never hear about the lunch because all of a sudden I can see myself in that guy. Y'all with me? Separate from him anymore. He's me on a bad day because on a bad day, I'm capable of absolutely everything he's capable of. I can honestly say in my life right now, I don't have any resentments and that's a beautiful way to be. And I'd say, I'd say, you know, some minor ones crop up a couple of times a week and we take that into the inventory in the 11th step. Right. And they don't last very long, but I can say, but I can honestly say that everyone that I've ever met, I've ever resented. I can see myself in them. I had a sponsor. I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to talk about this. I had a guy, a sponsor. He's sober quite a while, sober almost 10 years. And he came to me and he said, Rory, I got one resentment I can't let go of. I said, what's going on, man? He told me he'd been sexually abused as a child. And that's a very tough thing. And I'm very grateful that that's, that's not something I went through in my childhood. And he told me about the situation. And obviously there's nothing he did to step on those toes. There's nothing he did to set the ball rolling. Right. And I said to him, have you ever had a situation where you were doing something maybe in your sex conduct that you knew was wrong and you felt huge levels of shame and guilt about it, but you did it anyways. You didn't have the power to not do it. And he said, yes. And we talked about times where he'd linked up with somebody where he'd gotten together with somebody he knew he had no interest in and he was dishonest about it and he shouldn't have done it. Or times where he went outside of a relationship he might've been in doing something he knew was wrong and feeling the shame and the guilt of that, but that not being powerful enough to stop him. And we got to sit there in my kitchen. As I said, is it possible that the person who did these things to you, they had all the shame and all the guilt of someone who behaved like that? They behaved that way, but they didn't have the power to stop. Yeah, it is. And is it possible that they on some level like us are sick too? Yeah, it is. You see the word compassion comes from the Latin co meaning with passio meaning pain. What I am looking for in the fourth column of the fourth step is I'm looking for co passio. I am looking for co pain. I am looking to find this person who I'm so angry at. And I'm looking for co pain. I'm looking for co pain. I'm looking looking for co pain. I'm looking for co pain. I'm looking for co pain. I'm looking for co pain. I'm looking looking for co pain. I'm looking for co pain. I'm looking for co pain. I'm looking for co pain. I'm looking to see what is the pain in their life that led them to this thing. And is it possible that I that I can relate to that? That if I came from where they came from, if I had the experiences they had experienced, if I grew up in that culture in that sort of way, that I may do the exact same things that that person did. Albert Einstein said the only lie is that there is more than one of us. Next, the book talks about fear. right? And it says that the fabric of our existence was shot through with fear. And for years, I, you know, I'm a, I'm a traditional Texan. I own guns and, you know, all that stuff. And, and, and for years I'd read that line where it says the fabric of our existence was shot through with fear. It was the evil and corroding thread. I just read that to think fear is like, you know, it's like shooting a canvas with a, with a shotgun and a can and the canvas is riddled with the holes of fear. Right. And, and, and somebody explained to me, that's not what it's talking about in that part of the book. What it's talking about is that shot is a sewing technique, right? And y'all remember that thing on the internet, on the internet that got popular a few years ago, black dress, gold dress, or whatever. And depending upon which way you looked at the dress, some people saw a black dress and some people saw a blue dress or gold dress. Y'all know what I'm talking about? Shot is a sewing technique where, where when used, the fabric will appear different colors, given my angle, given my angle of looking at it. Fear distorts my very view of reality. I was years ago, I mean, I was maybe five years sober at the time I was dating this girl, living out in Las Vegas. Wonderful, wonderful girl. Very, very, uh, sober, a little longer than me, very dedicated, alcoholics, anonymous. And, and we're supposed to go out on a Friday night. We're going to go to the Friday night meeting and then we're going to go out and then we're going to go out afterwards. Right. And I get to the Friday night meeting and she's not there. Doesn't show up for the meeting. Send her a text. Hey, he is still coming to the meeting. We're still going on a date. We're still going on a date. We're still going on a date. We're still going on a date. We're still going on a date tonight. No response. Call her after the meeting. Hey, you know, we still planning to go out tonight. No response. Go out with my buddies, hang out to Denny's after the meeting or whatever. And, uh, still nothing back. Talking to my buddy. I'm like, there's got to be another guy over there. I am certain of it. I am absolutely certain. I got to go over there. Rory. Oh my God. Don't go over there, please. Jesus Christ. Rory, don't go over there. But it, see, it says in the book, we are driven by fear and fear is a manifestation of my selfishness. So knowing it's a stupid idea, I'm pounding on her door at 11 o'clock at night, right? And she's still in her work clothes. She, she opens the door. She's like, oh, I'm sorry. I fell asleep on the couch after work. But also why are you pounding on my door at 11 o'clock at night? That relationship did not last. Because see, fear ought to be classed with stealing. It seems to take more from us, right? You ever get that job? Where you know where it's the perfect job on the first day, right? The first day it's like, man, this is the job I've been waiting for. It's the right money. It's exactly what I wanted to do. The people I'm working with are pretty cool. But then a few months into the job, you're like, I know these people don't like me, right? I know that I, I know Mary from accounting. She's out to get me. Right. And then I got to be on the muscle a little bit around Mary from accounting. Right. And I got to start to, I got to start to, you know, see what Mary's doing wrong. So I can get her in trouble with the boss man before she gets me in trouble with the boss man. Right. And then all of a sudden I've become a couple months later, I'm that guy who can't work with anybody. And then I get fired. So my fear of the job stole the job from me. Y'all ever got in that relationship where, you know, the first two weeks, oh my God, we're so in love. The air, the air smells better. The food tastes better to this, you know, this is just the love of my life. And then, you know, a month later, you're refreshing her Instagram page 200 times. Not enough people. I laughed at that either. Y'all aren't real alcoholic or they don't know what Instagram is. And then all of a sudden you become the person in the relationship who's driven by fear. You become the person in the relationship who's, who's driven by this terrifying, terrifying belief that you're going to lose the relationship. And therefore you become a person that, that you wouldn't want to be in the relationship with. And then the relationship is gone. Fear ought to be classed with stealing. It took more from us, right? The fear, the fear inventory, the fear of freedom, the fear of being a person. And it's got to be, it's got to be, it's got to be a form of fear. There's a specific kind of fear that you can get out of the fear that you're in and that you have to overcome, right? So, you know, what we're trying to understand is, you know, the fear of the fear. I mean, the big book is very simple. It's, it's, it's three, it's, it's three columns, right? The first column is what is the fear, right? Very simple. I'm afraid of death. I'm afraid of being cheated on. I'm afraid of being alone. I'm afraid of going broke, right? Why do I have the fear? I don't want to die. Sometimes we over-complicate the hell out of this, by the way. I've seen, I've seen some groups where And it's like, why do I have the fear? I heard a story one time. A guy's here in somebody's inventory, and they're out on the back deck, and they're here in inventory, and the guy who's doing his inventory is having a cigarette, right? And he's got this huge fear of cancer. And he says to his sponsor, I've got a fear of cancer. His sponsor goes, huh, why do you think you have that fear of cancer? And the guy's like, I don't know, man. I have no money. My family had cancer. My mom didn't have cancer. Dad didn't have cancer. Maybe I watch too many documentaries about cancer. Could it be because you smoke? What? If I'm afraid of being cheated on in a relationship, could it be because I've never been an honest and faithful partner? If I'm afraid of losing a job, has it been because I've, is it possible that I've never been the guy who shows up to go to work to be of service to his boss, to be of service to the customers, to be of service to the employees, because I've always been the guy who shows up to go to work to be of service to his boss, to be of service to the company? I see my great fear is that the lie is true. My great fear is that I'm going to walk in here and the buzzer is going to go off. Don't let him in here. Right? He's fake. That you all will suddenly see me how I see me in my head alone at 2 o'clock in the morning. Y'all with me on this? That if this job really knew how selfish I was and how I'm always trying to work the angle and I'm always trying to get it just a little bit better for me, that they really wouldn't know. They wouldn't want me working here. Right? But then what does it say in the next column? It says, wasn't it because self-reliance had failed us? Every single fear I have comes back to self-reliance failed me. If I showed up as the man in the relationship who treated the partner as God would have them be treated, not based on how they're acting, not based on what they do for me, as God would have them be treated, then I wouldn't have that fear because I would trust my third step contract that we talked about last week that God will take care of every area of my life. And to the wives it says this book will solve all my problems and that's my experience and that's my belief. If I showed up as the man at work who acted as God would have me act, no matter how the boss is acting, God wants me to show up to serve the people who employ me and serve the customers. I got a guy, I sponsor a lot of guys and I'm fortunate to get a lot of phone calls and I, and I, um, gosh, I get this one was just perfect. This guy, um, he, he'd quit his last job because he was afraid that they were going to, uh, that they weren't ever going to give him a raise and wasn't going to make any more money. Um, and so he quits and I said, you know, I probably wouldn't quit the job, but as long as you give two weeks and handle it honestly, you know, you do what you want to do. So he quits the job, right? He goes and gets a new job with a bigger company that pays more money. Okay. And then, and after he gets the, and after, uh, and during the interview process, right, they say, you know, you got to tell us if you got any legal problems. He did not. Right. So he doesn't tell him he's on probation to get the job. Then like a week later at, at then like a week later, they come in and say, Hey guys, just so you know, we're doing checks to see if anybody has any criminal issues. And you know, if you don't report them, you'll get fired. So he calls me terrified, right? So he left the first job because he's afraid he is going to make no money. He lied on the job. He's on the application at the second job because he's afraid he's not going to get it. Right. So where does, so, so, so where, so where does he, where does he end up? Right. In this place where self-reliance has failed him. I'm going to try and work the angle a little bit to get all the way around. And we got to have a wonderful conversation about what would a man who trusted God do here? My sponsor likes to say to me, Rory, I want you to act like a man who trusts God. Not like you. No, no, no, not like you. Think of a guy who trusts God. It'd be the best actor you can to try and act like that guy. So much so that people won't even know. No, you really don't. Right. But see, we talked about this last week. Trusting God is the process of taking the actions that I do not yet believe in until I will then trust God. It's the same way a parent builds, a parent builds trust with their child, right? The child expresses a need. The parent meets the need. And little by slowly, the child learns to trust the parent. My relationship with God is the same way. Little by slowly, I go to God with my needs and I take the action that he would have me take. And then little by slowly, I become to trust in the third step contract. Which is that God will meet all of my needs if I keep close to him and perform his work well. Y'all, I've never had a single fear in my life that hasn't been the, but that hasn't been the result of self-reliance failing me. And conversely, I've never had a fear in my life that wouldn't go away if I took the actions of a man who trusted God. I, uh, man, I'm saying some interesting stuff tonight. I don't know if I'm gonna like this. We'll see. I don't know. I got, I started dating a new person a couple of months ago and we were having a nice conversation and, and we're, and, um, and we're talking about our past and how we behaved in our last relationships and how we want to behave going into this one. And I said to her, I'd rather you cheat on me than I cheat on you. Right? Cause it'll hurt my, it'll hurt my feelings if you do. And it'll hurt my pride. And it'll hurt my ego. You go get with some good looking guy like Taylor, you go get with some good looking guy like Taylor, you know, but I will know that I acted as the man who trusted God. I acted as God would have me act. And I believe in trust my third step contract, which says if I keep close to God and perform his work, well, he will provide everything that I need. Money, relationship, place to live, companionship, friendship. I had a guy who's here at his inventory. He said, he's afraid he'll never have friends. I said, if we look through your history, how much have you been a friend? How much have you shown up? So we act as the man who is a friend. And all of a sudden I'm surrounded by friends. What I have found is, you see, fear is insatiable, right? There is nothing I can do. There is no amount of, money that I can make that will eliminate my fear of financial insecurity. There is no relationship I can get in, which will eliminate my fear of being alone. There is no amount of friends I can have, which will eliminate my fear of not being liked. Because the disease demands more, more and more and more. But if I am willing to trust that God, will solve all of these problems, if only I act like the man that he would have me act, and all of a sudden all these problems go, away. Now about sex. I, um, I, I, uh, I, I, I told one of my sponsors, he was about to go get into, he was about to go get into a relationship, right? And, and I said, well, what's your sexual ideal? Cause it tells us in the book that we write a sex ideal, right? And he said, I don't know. I haven't written one before. I said, okay, that's fine. Go to go to page 69, right? And read what it says in the book and then write a sex ideal, right? And we were all talking on text, but the problem is he has dyslexia. So he went to page 96 to write his sex ideal. Do not be discouraged. If your prospect does not respond at once, search out another alcoholic and try again. You are, you are sure to find someone desperate enough to accept with eagerness. What you offer. You know, it's funny. I've heard, I've heard enough sex inventory in my life. I would guess I've probably heard a couple hundred fifth steps, right? I've heard enough sex inventory in my life that no matter what side of these, cause it says, it says in the book, right? We are not the arbiters of anybody's sex conduct, right? It says, it says, we don't, we don't judge anybody. Some, you know, some would have give a man no flavor for his fare. Some would have us all on a straight pepper diet, right? Some of us are cool and out there doing it all the time. And some of us aren't right. Some of us grew up in situations where there were a lot of, where we watched our parents in a lot of different relationships. And, and some of us grew up in situations where we watched our parents be with one person for our whole lives. Some of us grew up in a very, I would say kind of liberal mindset around sex. And some of us grew up in churches with belief systems that sex was bad and evil and something to do in the dark. And, and pretend like you didn't know what it was, right? I have never, ever heard an inventory, no matter what side of that equation that somebody, that somebody comes from. I've never once heard an inventory where somebody didn't have shame and guilt in their sex conduct, right? Because y'all see my sex conduct touches every aspect of my life. Everything that I can list out, everything that I can list out in the inventory, right? My, my, my personal relationships, my sexual relationships, my security, my self esteem, my, my sex and relationships touch all parts of that. So it carries more shame and guilt than anything else, right? I tell you what though, sometimes it is really hard to, to, uh, not be the, not want to be the arbiter of someone's sex conduct just a little bit, right? You know, I was, I was hearing this one guy's inventory and, um, and he's just going and going and I'm like reminding myself I'm not going to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct, right? And I finally spoke up and I said, listen, I'm, I'm, I'm sorry to do this, but you know, I've been hearing this inventory. You have to stop masturbating. And he said, why? And I said, cause you're sitting in my living room. I'm trying to hear your inventory. If you do this enough, you get like a packet of lame AA jokes that you could tell him, you know, that's really the only entertainment a speaker gets anymore. Um, so it says, so it says in the, in the sex inventories, five columns in the book, right? The first column is the first column is, is traditionally as I do it as the name. And the second column is how did we hurt them? Right? And the third column is, is did I treat them with selfishness, dishonesty, or inconsideration? And in the third column, it says, or sorry, in the next column, it says, which would be the fourth column. It says, did I arouse, did I unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion, and bitterness, right? Unjustifiably meaning without merit, without warrant, right? Did it without, without merit and warrant? Did I make, make the other person feel jealous, suspicious, or bitter? And I gotta be honest with y'all. The first time I wrote an inventory, the idea that I had to be concerned about how the other person felt, that was like a foreign concept to me. But what we find is he, and then in the last column in the inventory is what would God have had us do instead? Right? And, and, and what we find is it, it talks to us about this at the end of how it works. It says very clearly, if our sex conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink. You know, it's, it's funny after, after, after, um, uh, I spoke up here last week, a few of us went out to dinner and, and a, and a guy who's an AA hero of mine, Ralph W came with us and we were talking to a new guy and we were talking about like what the best things to do when you're a new guy are. And, and Ralph started asking the guy a lot of questions, which I probably wouldn't have asked the new guy. And he said like, do you have a home group and do you have a service position and do you take out the trash after the meeting and do you wipe up the floors? Right? And, and, and those aren't my questions for a guy with 30 days normally. And I'm just, and I, and, and he's a guy that, you know, I have enough respect for when he talks, I'm quiet. And, um, which is a feat for me. That's a, that's a big thing. Um, and, um, and he said, see what we have to do here is we, what we are doing here is we are changing our mindset from one of self focus to one of other focus. And in the littlest and smallest ways, we have to do that from the moment we walk in the door. And my conduct around sex is no different. I have to change my focus around sex and sexual relationships from, from self focus to other focus. This cannot hide out as a separate area of my life. And I've paid a lot, a lot of dues in this area for being selfish, right? I've had, I've got kids with multiple different women. I've, I've got, you know, all, all that sort of stuff. And when you find, and when you realize down the road that your children pay the consequences for your sins and your selfishness, it hits you in a different way. I think, you know, this is a really perfect time to move in and talk about step six and seven a little bit. In the years I've been sober, in my experience, the, the, my defects around my defects around selfish sex have probably been, I know, I apologize. I know that was really brief, um, about sex. And I hate to be brief when it comes to sex, but there we go. Um, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If my girlfriend was here, she'd say, no, you don't Jesus. Um, I had an experience. So in this, so if I look at the seventh step, right, the seventh step is, is the shortest, is the short, are the shortest steps in the big book, right? It's literally, it's literally two paragraphs on page 76 talking about two steps, right? And there's some, there's some really good stuff in the 12 and 12 about step six and seven. And I, and I like reading the 12 and 12, but I, I, I'm trying to see the 12 and the big book, as I understand it is a roadmap, right? And what the 12 and 12 is, is the 12 and 12 are essays as to what I will see when I'm on the way there. And so the big book makes the six and seven step really clear. The, the six step is, is the six step is very simple. Are these behaviors objectionable to me? Right? Do I have any power over them? And if I don't, will I let God remove them from me? Because see, I don't have any more power over my character defects than I do over my drinking. Anybody, anybody here today drive up with a little post-it note on their car that said, remember, don't stop at the liquor store. Anybody show a hand because see, we're not working on our drinking. We're letting God have our drinking. And what we're doing is we're serving God to open a channel to God where we can have the power to not drink. Lack of power. That was our dilemma. And lack of power is my dilemma with every single one of my character defects. I'm not working on any of my character defects. The problem is, the problem with my character defects, right? Y'all, if you split open my head and looked at, looked at my character defects, you wouldn't see them filed under defects. You'd see them filed under assets because I'm convinced that my character defects are what kept what's kept me alive. If I can't just be a little bit dishonest, I might never close another sale again. If I can't just be a little manipulative, I might never get laid again, right? If I can't be a little bit angry than people might run over me. And what? And if I've come to the point where I have no power over these character defects, there is only, there is only one simple action to take, right? The action is the same action. I, the action is the same action that I took in drinking. I have to be willing to let God remove these defects of character. But the only way that he'll remove these defects of character as I understand it is if I am entirely ready. And I think that's what entirely means when we come into Alcoholics Anonymous, as much as we may have wanted to, we don't say, all right, God, please, help me stop drinking most of the time, except the weekends and you know, everything but light beer, right? When we take, when we take that desire to, when we take that 24 hour token, what we have, what we are doing is we're saying we are willing to at least not drink anything for the next day. And it is our hope that we can live our lives in this manner and not drink anymore. We are willing to let God remove alcohol from us from here on out. And that's the same thing that has to happen with these defects of character. I have to look at whatever. I think that defect is getting me. If it's dishonesty that might, that I think is helping me make a little bit more money. If it's manipulation that I think is helping me do a little bit better with the ladies. If it's anger that I think is keeping other people from taking advantage of me, I have to be willing to go to God and say, I don't care what happens. God, I tore my life apart for about 10 years around that defect of selfish sex, man. And I had an experience of over Lake Brownwood and I went out on the lake and I got down on my knees and said, God, I don't care if I never ever have sex again. I'm not willing to live. This way anymore. I'm fortunate to report that has not been the case, but that defect was removed from me. But see for a defect to be removed. My understanding is that I have to meet God halfway. I have to take the actions of a man who would have his defects removed, right? How do I take, how do I take the oxygen out of this water bottle? Anybody? I fill it up. I fill it up with liquid. The process of having my character defects removed is a displacement process. I can't not act on my character defects any more than I can sit on the edge of my bed and go, I am not going to drink today. I'm not going to drink today. I can't tell you how many times I said I am not going to drink today and I drank again. Sometimes it was like 45 minutes later, right? I swear I am not going to drink today and I'm drinking 45 minutes later. It's the same with the rest of my character defects. Once I've made the decision, I'm going to drink again. Once I've made the decision that I don't want to do it anymore, what I have to do is take the actions, take the actions to increase my relation, to increase my access to the power of God, to increase my consciousness of God. See, God is all around us. God doesn't go anywhere. We don't go find God at the meeting. God is just as much with it. It's like, it's like being on top of a boat looking for water. All I have to do is get out of the boat. So what I have to do with these defects of character is I have to take the, I have to take the, I have to take the opposite and contrary action. If my character defect is dishonesty, then I have to be honest even when I'm scared of what's going to happen. And that requires me to trust God. And I've never had an experience with a character defect that wasn't true of. The only thing that stops me from being free of my character defects is my lack of willingness to trust God. That one area of my life where I'm like, okay, God, I'll give up all the other ones, but this one, I don't know about this one. I kind of like, right? And that's okay because it says in the book, it says, it says in the book, if we are not willing, we ask God for the willingness to be willing. And I've spent a lot of time on my, on my knees in prayer asking for that willingness. I think these steps, the longer, the longer I stay in this process, I think these steps are really a trajectory change in our program, right? I think these steps are where I become the person who is at least first willing to live a new life. I be, I swear with the person I've lived as in the person I'm willing to become the first ever sphere, the first ever, my first inventory. I was about six weeks sober and I went over to my sponsor's house after the meeting. And so it was a Friday night meeting and on the East coast, most meetings are eight 30. So I figured we got to his house about 10 o'clock at night. Okay. And walking into his garage at 10 o'clock at night, I would have told you that I'm not afraid of anybody or anything. I'm the only white guy you'll find on Franklin town Boulevard in West Baltimore at two o'clock in the morning, unfortunately write a little inventory and probably about one o'clock in the morning, I'm coming out of his garage and I would have told you that I'm afraid of absolutely everyone and everything. And that fear is the only reason some soft white kid from the suburbs ever ended up in any kind of places like that. I begin walking out of his garage. I see that all these people that I've resented and I've, and I've been convinced to have done me wrong, that I've done the exact same thing to hundreds of other people. And I really have no separation from them. It says that we will be able to look the world in the eye and we will be able to be alone at perfect peace. And I'll tell you what I remember from that inventory. It is. It was many years ago. I remember walking from his house to my truck and it was thunderstorm and it hadn't started raining. It was, it was like that last night in Austin, the thunder was going, but the rain hadn't started yet. And I walked outside and had a cigarette and it reminded me of that night. It's thunderstorming and it hadn't started raining yet. And I, and I had this moment where I realized that for the first time in as long as I could remember, I didn't have the desire to pick up any drink or outside issue. That was a spiritual experience. As I understand it. Spiritual experiences. Those are the results of spiritual action and only spiritual action because spiritual action is what leads me to the consciousness of my God. They're what leads me to the feeling of power that I have that flows into me from the creator. And if that power isn't real, a guy like me has no shot. If that power isn't real, a guy like me would have been dead in a closet a lot of years ago. Because at two o'clock in the morning, when I woke up, I was like, I'm going to go to the living room. And I'm going to go to the living room. I'm going to go to the living room. And I'm going to be like, well, I'm going to have a chance to get out of here. And that's what I do in the morning when there are no more meetings to go to. And nobody's picking up their phone, man. And that voice in my head says you worthless abscess on the face of the earth. The only thing that I have ever, ever found that is more powerful than that feeling is the loving God that we talk about in these rooms. And I believe the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are a perfect process. If I am willing to take these steps and live my life by them, I can have access to that great universal power. That is all of us. Like. of water in the ocean we are all one part of it the power of one drop of water is very little but the power of the ocean is awesome and this whole process as I understand it is being one with that ocean I said this last week but I'll say it again because I think it merits it I heard a guy say one time he said God's love is like the Sun if I walk outside on a sunny day and I don't get any sunshine that's not the Sun's fault God does not have the power to not love me any more than the Sun has the power to not shine on me the Sun shines on me because that is the function of the Sun God loves me because that is the function of God but if I hide in the basement and I don't get any sunshine that's not the Sun's fault Alcoholics Anonymous showed me the way out of the basement they showed me how to live in the sunlight of the spirit if you're struggling tonight as much as I'm talking to the guy who's got 30 days and is about to write that first four step because I think that's so important and if you haven't written it get your pen and get your paper and get it and get it done man get a cup of coffee and write it I'm talking to the guy who's got five years six years seven years who's got some dishonesty going on in his life that's eating him alive the amount of people that I've known personally who had who were frontline dedicated members of Alcoholics Anonymous who later went back out many of them aren't with us now I can't count them on all my fingers and toes so as much as I'm talking to that new guy I'm talking to the guy today who hasn't written inventory in a lot of years and he's got some dishonesty going on he's got some character defects in his life and he's scared to talk about him I have been there I have been that guy but the steps will always lead me out of the basement and back into the sunlight of the spirit God loves you we love you and I love you thanks you