Action in Steps Six Through Nine – Big Book Workshop – Eufaula, AL – Part 9 of 11 – Jim P.

I talked last week about how Bill studied in engineering and he talked about foundations and he talks about cornerstones and he talk about arches and it says is our work solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have we skimped on the cement put into the foundation? Have we tried to make mortar without sand? Now we've just finished the fifth step. We've gone home, we spent an hour. We've reviewed the first five proposals. And then what do we do? We do not stand around waiting. We go immediately to page 76. If we can answer to our satisfaction, we then look at step six. We have emphasized willingness as being indispensable. Are we now ready to let God remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable, our defects of character, our shortcomings, our wrongs, Whatever you want to call them, they're all the same thing. Can he now take all of them, every one? If we still cling to something we will not let go, we ask God to help us to be willing. So step six is a prayer. It's a willingness to let God remove these defects of character. When ready, we say something like this. And it says it two or three times in the book. He's not telling you, Bill's not tell you what specific prayers you have to use. he's given you guidance on certain prayers that have worked for the first hundred my creator I am now willing that you should have all of me good and bad I pray that you now remove from me every single defective character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding amen we have then completed step seven they're wanting you to get through the 12 steps as quickly as possible. In 1939, they are taking people through the twelve steps either in three or four hours or in two day sessions. That's how fast because people were desperate and they needed help and this was the only thing that they found that could help them. Now I know there is a lot of different ways of doing it. I have to say that the way that I was taught to do it comes straight out of this book And so when I say that immediately, at once, now, those are all action words. Those are words that are telling me exactly what I have to do and telling me what kind of time frame I need to have. So we've completed step seven. But now that we, again, action. And we're into the chapter into action. I like to tell people sometimes when they're early on, well you'll find that in the chapter into thinking go read that and then they'll come back and say there is no chapter into thinking and I'm like no kidding this is not a thinking program it's an action program but here it is now we need more action without which we find that faith without works is dead now before and I've told everybody in here knows that I have nothing against religion I'm not religious but if you go to Dr. Bob's house which a friend of mine did recently and sent me a postcard of it. It's kind of a museum now. It really is a museum now. And in a glass case is a book that they used before the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous was written. Before they wrote this book they were using another book when they held meetings with the Oxford group and when they first broke away from the Oxford group, the three groups Akron, New York and Cleveland were using a book. and it's in a glass case it's open to a page and it is the Bible that is what they were using when they were first doing the six steps of the Oxford group they were used in the Bible now this book is not written from the Bible the Bible is one of the books that Bill used but there are 13 other books that Bill also used when he wrote this and like I said last week when he got to the how it works section he almost quit the entire program he almost quit writing the book because each time he would write a chapter it would be sent out to Akron and then he would have 99 other people say well you ought to change this you ought to change that you ought to change this and so 99 other alcoholics were changing what Bill was writing and when he got to chapter 5 he said y'all are going to give me the right because chapter 5 how it works was rewritten 44 times before it was published and bill had had it and he said you're going to give me permission after this chapter to write the book because they said bill you got to take the word must out alcoholics can't have must and and you got we don't follow directions real well so you can't Have directions. And so chapter five is written differently than the first four chapters and it's written from here on out. Bill is writing it in his own way. He's still sending it out to them, but they're not getting to make the changes because the ultimatum he gave them is either you all write the book or you let me write it. They didn't want to write the book and so they were just following him. When it says faith without works is dead, I think that's somewhere in the book James, I'm not sure. But it goes on immediately to say, let's look at steps 8 and 9. Not just 8, but 8 and 7. And we have a list of all persons we had harmed and whom we are willing to make amends. Where is that list? Thank you. When I first came into Alcoholics Anonymous in 1998, I sat in meetings and I would listen to people say, you know, after I did my fourth step, I burned it. You know, I got rid of all that stuff. I did my fifth step with my sponsor and then we burnt my fourth step. And I said, yeah, that way it's never laying around, right? And my sponsor told me when I finally got sober and started working the steps, you tell me in the book where it says you burn your fourth step because you're going to need it again. And I'm like, I am? He goes, yeah. And so we read this together and this is where he said, that's where your fourth steps come back. you took it inventory and not everybody going on my eighth step list or me making amends to them on my ninth step comes from my fourth step but it's a good starting point it's real good starting for it because I wrote down the people that I harmed but it also gives me an idea on okay what do I do from there who else can I add to this Because by now, from the fourth step to the eighth step, I've learned more about myself. I have gotten much more defogged. I have realized that there are other people that are going to have to be added to that step. Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. We attempt to sweep away the debris which is accumulated out of our efforts to live on self-will and run the show ourselves. remember we were the director if we have the will to do this we ask until it comes remember it was agreed that at the beginning that we would go to any length for victory over alcohol alright it also was agreed that we'd go to anything at any length to have a spiritual experience and not knowing I was going to get there I have another set of documents I'm going to hand out alright so it says on the top of it steps 8 and 9 And it says, where are we going to find steps 8 and 9? Well, we're starting to read in the big book. It's pages 76 to 83. In the 12 and 12, it's on page 83. All right? So what we're going to do is we're going to look at the list just like we did the other one. And what I have my guys do is I have them fill out the first two columns. Who did I harm? What did I do? And then I sit down with them, and we go through it, and we find out, asking God to give us guidance, you know, when do I make amends to this person? Do I do it right now? Do I make partial restitution right now if it's a financial amend? Do I defer it until a time when I'm more spiritually fit and these people might have a better chance of accepting the amend? Because the amend isn't saying I'm sorry. It's been saying I've been sorry all my life. there are some people that you should just leave alone just not have any contact with ever again that is the best amend you can make there are people in my life that I was told by my sponsor I put them down I did this person harm he was a friend of mine I went out when he was separated from his wife and she and I dated we hooked up for a while they got back together I wrote his name down and what I did now they had gotten back together they had reconciled their marriage they had a two year old baby girl and I felt like I needed to go tell him that I had an affair with his wife yeah isn't that pretty stupid it's all about me I want to feel better I want make myself feel better so I'm going to go harm them my sponsor said the best thing you're going to do for that person is you're not going to leave them alone you're not going to go around them you're never going to mention that you're ever going to bring it up and that is how you're going to make amends for what you did and I went gee that makes sense of course everything came out of my sponsored mouth makes sense after he explained it to me and then the final one is financial I don't know how many alcoholics have told me I don' t owe anybody any money and then I sit there and I smile and I go well you got credit card debt No. Did you ever steal from anybody? Well, yeah, well, you know, a little. Okay. And they go, but do I have to go give them my money? And I always look at them and say the same thing. No, absolutely not. It's their money. You stole it from them. You go take it back and give it to them and make amends if you can and it won't create more harm. Okay? Bottom of page 76. Probably there are still some misgivings as we look over the list of business acquaintances and friends we have hurt. We may feel different about going to some of them on a spiritual basis. Let us be assured to some people we need not and probably should not emphasize the spiritual feature on our first approach. I found God. Forgive me. you know what's that doing that's trying to take everything off of me trying to make all the responsibility away from me and saying oh it wasn't my fault that I stole all that money yes it was, it was your fault you stole the money but you don't need to go there to some people and say I'm practicing on a spiritual program alright we have a primary purpose in Alcoholics Anonymous remember what it is primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety now on page 77 it says we might prejudice them if we go to them on a spiritual basis at first at the moment we are trying to put our lives in order but this is not an end in itself now we go from a primary purpose to a real purpose our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us that is our real purpose and that is what we're trying to do now is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and the people about us. It is seldom wise to approach an individual who still smarts from our injustice to him and announce that we've gone religious. In the prize ring, this would be called leading with a chin. That's all you've got to do is just say, I've got religion, whatever I did to you, God will forgive me for it, I hope you will too. Stick my chin out there and wait for somebody to smack it off. We don't need to do that. What we need to go there and we need to make the amends the proper way. Alright? Why lay ourselves open to be branded fanatics or religious boars? We may kill a future opportunity to carry a beneficial message, but our man is sure to be impressed with a sincere desire to set right the wrong. That's the amend is to set write the wrong, not I'm sorry. It's this is what I did. I'm trying to live a different way of life is there something I can do to make this better and if I've hurt you in any other way would you tell me and then sit down and shut up and let them talk don't defend yourself don't try to retaliate because a lot of times when I start to make an amend I don't realize how many other things I hurt that person with how many others that that person has been carrying with them and if i only say well, I'm making amends for A and I've got B, C, D, E you know, I need to let them have the opportunity to tell me if I've any other amends to make. He's going to be more interested in a demonstration of goodwill I'm going to read this twice than in our talk of spiritual discoveries. He's gonna be more interested in a demonstration don't tell me show me A lot of times in families and in relationships, the best amend is what? A living amend. Demonstrate that I'm living a different way of life, that I've changed my way of life. Demonstration. And I am going to jump real quick just to read one thing because this is kind of cool. I've got it today in my daily thing for my sponsor. It's from As Bill Sees It. The Essence of Growth Let us never fear needed change. Certainly we have to discriminate between changes for worse and changes for better, but once a need becomes clearly apparent to an individual, in a group, or in AA as a whole, it has long since been found out that we cannot stand still and look the other way. the essence of all growth is a willingness to change for the better and then an unremitting willingness to shoulder whatever responsibility that entails alright now we don't use this as an excuse for shying away from the subject of God when it will serve any good purpose we are willing to announce our convictions with tact and common sense I'm not running around like a chicken with my head cut off saying, Oh my God, I've got religion, I have religion, forgive me. With tact and common sense. I'm practicing another way of life. Every time I've made an amend, I've brought in that I'm trying to practice a spiritual way of live when the time was right. And for me, it was when God was telling me the time's right to let them know that you're trying things. And I've told a couple of you in here, one of the people that I had to go make an amends to that I did not want to make an Amends to was somebody in a motorcycle gang that I stole a lot of money from and I thought, I'm going to die I'm gonna go there I'm gunna die. I sold $10,000 from Warlocks down in Central Florida from the treasurer and he knew it and I knew I was gunna Die but my sponsor said, because that was on your 4th step because you put it on your 8th step God's telling you you need to go make amends to this person. And so I knew where he lived, and I went and knocked on his door, and he came through the door, and he's still the treasurer of the warlocks. What the F do you want? And I thought, okay, he's just going to kill me right here. And I said, I need to know, I don't have $10,000, but I need you to know how I can pay you back. I'm trying to live a different way of life. I shouldn't have stolen that money from you. Will you take payments? and something amazing happened. The guy looked at me, this big beard and this burly body and tattoos all over and he said you're in that AA crap aren't you? And I went yeah I'm in AA and I am trying to make amends and he says the best amends you can make to me is just stay in AA you don't owe me anything. You know, that was unbelievable that was an unbelievable occurrence in my life because I'm projecting I'm going there to die I'm taking God with me and all of a sudden the guy knows about the program I don't know if he might have been in the program I have no clue we didn't talk much more after that because when he said you know just stay in AA I was like there's a good way of you know not getting beat up or killed ok we don't use this as a an excuse to shy away tact and common sense is what we use the question of how to approach a man we hated will arise it may be he has done us more harm than we have done him and though we may have acquired a better attitude toward him we are still not too keen about admitting our faults this is all about forgiveness right there nevertheless with a person we dislike we take the bit in our teeth it is harder to go to an enemy than to a friend and that was true for me but we find it much more beneficial to us when we go to him in a helpful and forgiving spirit confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret we are in forgiveness we are forgiving them for what we perceived all the harms that they've done to us but we have to do that if we're to receive forgiveness i said before when we say the lord's prayer one of the strongest words is just got two letters in it and it's a s forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us so i'm asking god to forgive me only as much as i'm willing to forgive somebody else alright under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue under no condition so there's not a condition there's a reason here or there's reason there Bill is saying under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue simply we tell him that we'll never get over drinking we'll never get over drinking until we've done our utmost to straighten out the past we are there to sweep off our side of the street our cleaning out our side of the streets Dr. Bob wrote on a prescription one time trust God, clean house, help others and that's how he broke down the program trust God first three steps clean house four through nine and then helping others ten eleven and twelve so you know Bob kept it as simple as possible we're there to sweep off our side of the street realizing that nothing worthwhile and we're on 78 now which is still you know in our inventory or in our amends can be accomplished until we do so we never trying to tell him what he should do his faults are not discussed we stick to our own if our manner is calm frank and open we will be gratified with the result. If our manner is calm, frank, and open, we will also be gratifying with the results. In nine cases out of ten, the unexpected happens. Sometimes a man we're calling upon admits his own fault. So feuds of your standing melt away in an hour. Rarely, rarely do we fail to make satisfactory progress. Our former enemies sometimes praise what we are doing and wish us well. The warlock, I do. Occasionally they'll offer assistance. It should not matter, however, if someone does throw us out of their office. If we go back to making amends and it's not accepted, it doesn't matter. We're not there to be patted on the back and say, attaboy. There are people that I have offended in my life that if I ran into, they would want to kick my ass. Those are the people that I'm not supposed to be contacting. Those arethe people that I've got nothing to make amends to them for. We just didn't like each other for one reason or another. And so for me to go there and if I do go there or do run into them on the street or in Walmart or something like that and that's the time whenever, wherever God decides that I need to make that amend and they say F yourself I don't ever want to see you again the answer is ok I accept that but I'm sweeping off my side of the street right there we've made demonstrations done our part it's water over the dam let it go if they don't accept it, ok it's on them now because we've gotten it off of us whoops here's the one I love when my guys say most alcoholics owe money so we do not dodge our creditors tell them what we're trying to do we make no bones about our drinking they usually know about it anyway whether we think so or not nor are we afraid of disclosing our alcoholism on the theory it may cause financial harm approached in this way the most ruthless creditor will sometimes surprise us alright I'm going to stop right there last July I was getting ready to go into bankruptcy I didn't file for bankruptcy but I'm going into bankruptcy and so I owe $20,000 to a credit card company I'm sober almost 12 years I know I'm not going to be able to make the payments and so I write them a letter with the last payment that I'm gonna be able to make for a while and I explain to them I have borrowed the money from you I owe you the money I'm willing to pay you the money back I don't know when because my job right now was not making any money i'm not borrowing any more money i've torn up my credit card i still had more money I could have borrowed but I wrote them a letter in advance of defaulting and I still defaulted and we still went through the whole default routine where they called me every day and harassed my brother up here in Georgia because we had the same name and the same policy and day after day I would take the call and say I told you I was going to pay you back I don't have the money today and the next day somebody else would call well do you have 350 today no i do not and that went on for months until it went to a collection agency and it's at a collection agency right now with a letter from me saying as soon as i sell the property that i own in the state of georgia the first check is going to be the twenty thousand dollar check or whatever you'll accept as payment because the next paragraph says what arranging the best deal we can we let these people know we're sorry now my drinking wasn't part of my credit card debt i paid off all my credit card debts when i got a divorce and got sober so this was over a period of time that i accumulated more credit card death because real estate bottomed out on me and that's my profession and so i had to borrow money to make child support payments to stay alive and it just rang up i owe the money. I'm going to pay the money." They know I'm gonna pay the money, so do I think they're gonna give me 50 cents on the dollar? No! I think they're going to give me a dollar on a dollar and I'm gonna pay them $20,000 and you know what? I got no problem because I borrowed that money. So whether it's you owe the money because you were drinking or you owe money when you're sober, it's still money that you have borrowed from from somebody else. A guy that I worked with for a while down in Florida said, Yeah, but you know those credit card companies are all run by banks and banks have this whole loss department. So they can just write it off and they really don't have to have it back. His sponsor told him, he said, I've talked with your parents. They're shareholders in Bank of America. So the money that you owe Bank of America, you really owe your parents. So if you're thinking it's just going to be written off, it's not. You have to pay the money back. And he owed $50,000 and it took him five and a half years and he paid it all back. When he wrote the last check, it was the greatest feeling he ever had because he felt like he was repaying his parents. He had already made amends to them, but this financial one, through a bank, through a credit card company, was still benefiting his parents in some way or form. So we can arrange the best deal and if it was our drinking that made us slow to pay, you know, we've got to let them know that. We don't have to write them and say, hey, I'm a drunk, you now. All they've got do is look at your credit card statement. Joe's Lounge, ABC Liquor, gee, you're having a good old time. You know, I know that's confidential information from everybody else, except for the people you borrow the money from. So, all right. We lose fear. We must lose another must. This book is full of musts. This is Bill writing again. He's put them back in. We must loose our fear of creditors no matter how far we have to go for we are liable to drink if we are afraid to face them. He continues to say that if we don't do these things and this is not just Bill sitting around saying I think this will happen i think this will happen this is an experience of three and a half years almost four years of working with alcoholics and then these first 100 stay sobered to write the book 79 to 100 however many but they were watching people that were afraid or wouldn't pay back their creditors and they're watching them go out and drink again and so he's not theorizing he's using he's demonstrating those and he's writing out exactly what they saw happening and this is is what they were doing now here's a great one perhaps we've committed a criminal offense which might land us in jail if we're known to the authorities we may be short in our accounts and unable to make good now we've already admitted this in confidence to another person but we are sure we'd be imprisoned or lose our job if it were known maybe it's only a petty offense such just padding the expense account. Most of us have done this thing. And I'm going to stop and use two examples right here. There was a guy that a friend of mine was working with down in Orlando, and he had gotten to this step. Now, he still had a warrant out for his arrest for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. And so his sponsor said, okay, we're going to go talk to an attorney. We're goingto talk to the DA. And it was something that was going to be somewhere between two and five years in jail. And he said, you know, would you rather drink or would you rather go make amends for this and see what kind of deal? He did 11 months. We visited him every week. We sent him material. He stayed sober. He helped other alcoholics in jail, God put him in jail for that 11 months to carry the message behind the wall he came out he's living a great life another example and I read this in a magazine that is absolutely the truth other than the book of Alcoholics Anonymous called the National Enquirer and it happened in the state of Alabama and a lady apparently because this is a story a lady in her fourth step told her sponsor that she had committed murder and her sponsor contacted the authorities and she's doing a life sentence in the state of Alabama prison system right now. Now, was that a very good sponsor to hold that in confidence? By playing God. Yeah, you think? You think? That one right there blew me away because I said to myself, that just couldn't happen and then when I realized it was in Alabama I said, well, maybe in Alabama. Sorry about that. Could have been anywhere. Could have Been Anywhere. But what we have to do is we have to make sure that we're doing the right thing. You know, am I going to go to jail needlessly for something I did and then my wife, my family aren't going to have any food? You know? Have I padded the expense account at my office? Well, then I'm going to goes to my broker and I'm gonna say, hey, you know on those trips I was out of town I really didn't stay in the Holiday Inn I stayed in Motel 2 and hung out with a bunch of people and drank and you know and I owe this money and I make amends for the money alright top of the next page how many pages do I have good I got plenty it says maybe we are divorced and have remarried but we haven't kept up the alimony to number one she's indignant about it and has a warrant out for our arrest and back then that's a common form of trouble too although these reparations are taking numerable forms there are some general principles which we find guiding guiding reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any length to find a spiritual experience we ask that we be given the strength and direction to do the right thing no matter what the personal consequences may be we may lose our position or reputation or face jail but we are willing we have to be we not we must not shrink at anything now maybe that lady needed to be in jail for what she did to carry the message behind bars it wasn't her sponsors job to go turn her in it was her job going after the fourth step through the ninth step getting guidance from God on whether she should go turn herself in and that's what it's saying to me we can't shrink at anything usually however other people are involved therefore we are not to be hasty and foolish martyr who needed to sacrifice others to save himself from the alcoholic pit. Now, what's that mean? Well, basically it means that if other people are involved, I'm not going to bring them down with me. If I have to go make amends, and I had to make a lot of amends. Most of you all know my early criminal days. I had a lot to make amens. And there were quite a few other people who went with me, but never once when I went to make an amend to anybody that I could remember that I did something to, did I ever bring along Bob, Bill, Jack, whoever else was there. It's me I'm trying to help. Besides, most of those guys died from alcoholism way before I got to Alcoholics Anonymous. We leave other people out. We don't sacrifice others to save myself from the alcoholic pit. A man we know had remarried because of resentment and drinking he had not paid alimony to his first wife she was furious she went to court and got an order for his arrest he had convinced our way of life a spiritual way of Life had secured a position and was getting his head above water it would have been impressive heroics if he had walked up to the judge and said here I am there is an arrest for me and we thought he ought to be willing to do that if necessary but if he were in jail could he provide nothing for either family the one he's remarried or the one that he owes money to we suggested he first write his first wife admitting his fault and asking for forgiveness he did and also sent a small amount of money he told her what he would try to do in the future he said he was perfectly willing to go to jail if she insisted well on that case you know of course she did not. She didn't want him in jail, but she wanted the money. And the whole situation has long been since adjusted. Let's see if I can stop here. Okay. Page 80. Before taking drastic action which might implicate other people, we secure their consent. If we have obtained permission, have consulted with others, ask God for help, to help, and the drastic step is indicated we must not shrink from it and this brings to mind a story about one of our friends while drinking accepted some money from a bitterly hated business rival given no receipts for it he subsequently denied having received the money and used the instant incident as a basis for discrediting the man he thus used his own wrongdoing as a means of destroying the reputation of another. In fact, his rival was ruined. He felt that he had done a wrong he could not possibly make right. If he opened that old affair he was afraid it would destroy the reputation of his partner, disgrace his family, and take away his means of livelihood. What right had he to involve those dependent upon him? How could he possibly make a public statement exonerating his rival? Well, after consulting with his wife and partner, he came to the conclusion that it was better to take those risks than stand before his creator guilty of such ruinous slander. He saw that he had to place the outcome in God's hands and that's where we place all the outcome. From step three on, all the outcomes are placed in Godís hands. Or he had stood and started drinking again and all would be lost anyhow. He attended church for the first time in many years and after the sermon he quietly got up and made an explanation his actions meant widespread approval and today he is one of the most trusted citizens in this town and that all happened years ago um tell you what let me keep going the chances are that we have domestic troubles perhaps we were mixed up with women in a fashion we wouldn't care to have advertised hmm you know we doubt if in this respect alcoholics are fundamentally much worse than other people but drinking does complicate sex relations in the home you think after a few years with an alcoholic a wife and i've got written in here a husband gets worn out resentful and uncommunicative how could how could they be anything else the husband begins to feel lonely sorry for himself he commences to look around in the nightclubs or their equivalent for something besides liquor perhaps he is having a secret and exciting affair with a girl who understands sure in fairness we must say that she may understand but what are we going to do about a thing like that a man so involved often feels very remorseful at times especially if he is buried to a loyal and courageous girl who's literally gone through hell for him what bill's describing right there is lois he's describing his own wife you know because bill was and it's in many books kind of a womanizer all right whatever the situation we usually have to do something about it if we're not sure if we are sure our wife does not know should we tell her well it says not always we think if she knows in a general way that we have been wild should we tell her in detail no undoubtedly we should admit our fault she may insist on knowing all the particulars that is not necessary they're going to tell us that she may want to know who the woman is and where she is and we feel we ought to say to her that we have no right to involve another person. We are sorry for what we have done and God willing it shall not be repeated. More than that we cannot do. We have no rights to go further. Though there may be justifiable exceptions and though we wish to lay down no rule of any sort on this, we have often found this the best course to take. Which was my case in point. I wanted to make amends to a friend but in doing so what would have happened? It would have harmed them. When I made my amends to my ex-wife I did it in a general way on this. I was unfaithful to you in the last couple of years of our marriage when we were having all our real problems and my alcohol is just out of control. I'm not blaming it on alcohol. I had a problem. I was looking for that understanding woman in other places and I just have to admit to you that I made a mistake and I'm not going to do it again with God's help. I am still not forgiven 13 years later and you know what? It's okay. It's Okay. Our design for living is not a one-way street. It is good for the wife as it is for the husband. Page 82 If we forget, so can she. It is better, however, that one does not needlessly name a person upon whom she can vent jealousy. Perhaps there are some cases where the utmost frankness is demanded. No outsider can appreciate such an intimate situation. It may be that both will have to decide that the way of good sense and loving kindness is to let bygones be bygiones. each might pray about it having the other one's happiness utmost in mind keep it always in sight that we're dealing with that most terrible human emotion jealousy good generalship may decide the problem be attacked on the flank rather than risk face-to-face combat you know instead of going at it face-To-Face it might be nice to come around to the side and just say you know I'm admitting my faults I'm amending I did this and I'd like to make amends and stay with you. And a lot of families stay together. Some don't. That's up to God. That's not up to me. Alright, one more paragraph. If we have no such complication there's plenty we should do at home. Sometimes we hear an alcoholic say that the only thing he needs to do is to keep sober. I've got one of my guys in Orlando right now. He's sober a year. He goes to a few meetings. He still gets in fights with his soon-to-be ex-wife. He still argues. And then he calls me and says, but I'm not drinking. You know, isn't that great? I'm Not Drinking. Now this guy had tried for 20 years and he never got a year. That was one of the guys that I drove down to Orlando to see get his first year because for 20 hours 20 years in and out of AA he couldn't do this deal. And yet he still calls me and says well, I'm NOT DRINKING. I said are you helping somebody else? Are you going to meetings because even just being in meetings is doing 12-step work? Well, my job, I don't want to hear it. I don'T want to HEAR IT. What I want to heAr from you is that you're holding the door tomorrow night at the 6 o'clock meeting and then you go back to your job because just not drinking ain't going to get it. Dry drunks, untreated alcoholism kills an awful lot of us. certainly he must keep sober for there will be no home if he doesn't but he is yet a long way from making good to the wife or parents for whom years he has shockingly treated, passing all understanding as the patience of mothers and wives have had with alcoholics, had this not been so many of us would have no homes today, would perhaps be dead alright we're going to pick up at the tornado in 10 minutes so I'll give everybody a ten minute break then take a smoke alright we're all back alright we are at the bottom of page 82 and it talks about the alcoholics like a tornado rolling its way through the lives of others hearts are broken sweet relationships are dead afflictions have been uprooted selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil and this is where I talk to my guy down there and I tell him to read this part We feel a man is unthinking when he says sobriety is enough. We feel the man is thinking and I have to look that word up. I'm thinking there's a teacher in here. What does unthinking mean? Very good. Unthinking means not thinking. It means you're ignorant. And that's what I had to learn is that you're ignorant if you think sobrietry is enough like the farmer who comes out of the cyclone cellar to find his home ruined to his wife. He remarks, don't see anything the matter here, Ma. Ain't it grand the wind stopped blowing? Jeez. And he's even sent me a text before. Ain't It Grand, Ma? And I said, get to a meeting. Oh, God. There are just some where you just have to keep beating it over their head. All right, top page 83. Yes, there is a long period of reconstruction ahead. A long period. Okay, and we must take the lead. A remorseful mumbling that we are sorry won't fit the bill at all. We ought to sit down with the family and frankly analyze the past as we now see it, being very careful not to criticize them. Their defects may be glaring, but the chances are that our own actions are partly responsible. So we clean house with the families asking each morning in meditation, asking each day in meditation. Each morning in medication. so it's giving us a direction right there that our creator shows the way of patience, tolerance, kindness and love patience, tolerance, kindness and love the spiritual life is not a theory we have to live it I don't walk around you know with a robe two feet off the ground but I live more spiritual life than I ever have today than I did when I was drinking I just didn't have any spiritual life at all until I got into this program and started doing this action unless one family expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles we think we ought not urge them we should not talk incessantly to them about our spiritual matters they will change in time our behavior will convince them more than our words we must remember that 10 or 20 years of drunkenness would make a skeptic out of anyone. I talk about it was ten miles into the woods, it's ten miles out of the woods. It's not going to be overnight. You drink for twenty years, you're drunk for twenty year, one year you're sober and you're like why isn't she all thrilled? I'm sober a year. It's because there's a long time for her to realize, or him, what it is. There may be some wrongs we can never fully write. We don't worry about them if we can honestly, that word again, honestly say to ourselves that we would write them if we could. Some people cannot be seen, we send them an honest letter. And there may be a valid reason for postponement in some cases, but we don't delay if it can be avoided. We're still doing the ninth step. We should be sensible, tactful, considerate, and humble without being in servile or scraping. As God's people, we stand on our own feet. We don't crawl before anyone. And then here we have what we read in a lot of meetings. Here's the ninth step promises. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, the ninth steps, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We're going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. this whole thing is just totally promises we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it i don't like some of my past but what i was told by my sponsor early on all those things you did in your past are going to be your greatest assets one day and helping somebody else all that time you did in jail and institutions somebody's going to come to you one day that went to jail and institutions and you're going to be able to help them with what you what you know you did so don't regret it it's the past and you don't shut the door on it we will comprehend i love that we will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace no matter how far down the scale we have gone we'll see how our experience can benefit others that feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear we will lose interest in selfish things me and gain interest in our fellows self-seeking will slip away doesn't leap away it slips away our whole attitude and outlook outlook upon life will change fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us intuitively know how to handle situations which you should baffle us. And we're going to find out how we're gonna do that in a minute. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Over and over and over in my story, God was working in my life without me even giving it any consideration. And the young lady last night said that probably three or four times that God was doing for her what she couldn't do for herself and then it asks are these extravagant promises and in a lot of times in big groups you hear everybody go that chant we think not i sit there and go hell yeah they're extravagance but they're real says we think that they are being fulfilled among us sometimes quickly sometimes slowly and here's the key right here they will always materialize if we work for them. So that's step four through nine daily if we worked for them and then what do we do? We sit around and we debate now that we've done step nine and done the best we can I'm still doing step nine you know, step nine goes on the rest of my life but I don't just stop there because I know who I'm making amends to and I have them on a list and I haven't been able to see to them we immediately this thought brings us to step ten which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set any new mistakes as we go along. We promptly omit them. We vigorously commence this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We have entered the world of the spirit. We have entering the world of the Spirit. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. Again, this is not an overnight matter. It should continue for our lifetime. Some of you all heard me talk before that I had a guy ask a sponsor one time what I do when I'm finished working the 12 steps, and he says you lie very, very still because you're dead. You don't ever finish working the12 steps. You don' t. If you're not working 10, 11, and 12 every day, if you've done all your amends, then you're working 10 and 11 and 12 everyday if you want to stay in this program and stay alive and be happy, joyous, and free which is what my God wants for me. Okay, our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. It's not an overnight matter. It should continue for a lifetime. Continue to watch for... Continuing. Here's four things we continue to watch for every day. Continue to look for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. When these crop up? It doesn't say if they crop up. Bill's telling us they're going to crop up you know, fear is going to crop up selfishness is going to crop up dishonesty I hopefully have gotten rid of that one resentment occasionally crops up when these crop up we ask God at once to remove them alright we discuss them with somebody immediately and make amends quickly if we've harmed anyone the tenth step promptly omitted and then we talk with another alcoholic or talk with Another Person about it. And we immediately make amends quickly if we have harmed anyone. Then resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Love and tolerance of others is our code. And that has to be, you know, Dr. Bob had a lot of input on this part right here because he was the kinder, humbler, more spiritually based man. Bill said, and as A.A. comes of age, that Dr. Bob was a more spiritually based man than he was. And so when love and tolerance of others is our code, it really was probably Bob talking about that. And here's the 10th step promise. And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. Alright, so now we're in the 10th step. For by this time sanity will have returned. The insane thought preceding the first drink. By this time if you're really practicing the spiritual principles of this program sanity will return. We'll seldom be interested in liquor if tempted we recoil from it as from a hot flame. we react sanely and normally and we find that this has happened automatically we will see that our new attitude towards liquor has been given to us without any thought or effort on our part it just comes that's the miracle of it we're not fighting it neither are we avoiding temptation we feel as though we've been placed in a position of neutrality safe and protected we've not even sworn off anymore instead the problem has been removed it does not exist for us we are neither cocky nor are we afraid that is our experience the people who wrote this book they're saying they're not cocky nor they're afraid that's their experience and that is how they react so long as they keep in fit spiritual condition now somebody who said that they were going to be here today told me that the past couple weeks they hadn't been here because they had been sitting on their laurels. And I looked at them and I said, you have laurels? They're not here today. So maybe they're sitting on their laurel some more. And it says it's easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels Everybody know what laurels are? Yeah, they're a plant. No. They are the hunters. Yeah, you can say that too. They're your past achievements. The achievements that you got, the laurels come from the Olympics. They used to give you laurels for being the best. Okay, so yesterday I was the best at running, so today I don't have to run. I'm going to rest on my laurels because yesterday I Was the Best. Well, if I don' t keep practicing, what's going to happen? I'm not going to be able to run . I'm just going to sit around doing nothing. And it says we are headed for trouble if we do, for alcohol is a subtle foe. We are not cured. Remember in the beginning weeks I talked over and over about how we do recover. How they wrote the book saying, here are thousands of men and women who have recovered from a hopeless state of mind and body. Recovered simply means to get well. But here it is on page 85. We are not cured. What we have, what we really have, is a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition. every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all all if you want to underline that our activities how can I best serve thee thy will not mine be done these thoughts must go with us constantly we can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish because it's the proper use of the will much has already been said about receiving strength inspiration and direction from him who has all knowledge and power to God as you understand Him. If we have carefully followed directions, remember the book talks about clear-cut directions, specific instructions. If we've carefully followed direction, if we begin to sense the flow of His Spirit into us, to some extent, we become God conscious. We've begun to develop this vital sixth sense. But here it is again. But we must go further and that means more action. My God! What do they want us to do? Just keep doing stuff? Yes, that's exactly. Step 11 suggests prayer and meditation. What's it say on the board? Sought through prayer and medication to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. Prayer and meditation We shouldn't be shy on this matter of prayer. Better men than we are using it constantly. It works. If we have the proper attitude and work at it, it would be easy to be vague about this matter, yet we believe we can make some definite and valuable suggestions. And so they're going to tell us what to do at night and what to doing in the morning. When we retire at night, we constructively review our day. Were we resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid? Do we owe an apology? Have we kept something to ourselves which should be discussed with another person at once? At once. Were we kind and loving towards all? In big letters next to my book, I've got two words. It just says, be nice. You know, just be nice, and I can go to sleep. If I've been nice during the day and I haven't tried to cause conflict, I haven'T tried to caused trouble, you know, just being nice, I can get to sleep really easy. I don't have to make a phone call. What could we have done better? Were we thinking of ourselves most of the time, or were we thinking of what we could do for others, of what мы could pack into the stream of life, because I sucked life for so long. But we must be careful not to drift into worry, remorse, or morbid reflection, for that would diminish our usefulness to others. After making our review, we ask God's forgiveness and inquire what corrective measures should be taken. and that's the 10th step as we go to sleep we review our day and it's followed by on awakening let us think about the 24 hours ahead and I tell people all the time I used to get up go to the bathroom make coffee light a cigarette walk the dog do all these things and then sit down and start reading some prayer and meditation books and reading these pages and then one day my sponsor says what is the first thing you do when you wake up. Why don't I get up and go to the bathroom? He says, why don't you start thanking God that he woke you up? Because he didn't promise you yesterday that he was going to. On awakening, let us think about the 24 hours ahead. I've still got to go to The Bathroom, sorry. I'm old. We consider our plans for the day before we begin our day. We ask God to direct our thinking, especially asking that we be divorced from self-pity, dishonest, or self-seeking motives. Divorced from self-pity, dishonest, or self seeking motives. Under these conditions we can employ our mental facilities faculties with assurance for after all God gave us brains to use. I abused him for a long time but he did give them to me for me to use in the proper way. Our thought life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives in thinking of a day we may face indecision and thinking about our day we may face in decision we may not be able to determine which course to take here we ask God for inspiration an intuitive thought or decision this is the first time that it says in the book we relax and take it easy it doesn't say it in step three step four you take it to easy easy does it It comes from the story in the back of the book. It has nothing to do with working these steps. We don't struggle, and we're often surprised at how the right answers come after we've tried this for a while. What used to be the hunter of the occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of the mind. Being still inexperienced or having just made a conscious contact with God, it is not probable that we are going to be inspired at all times. I assure you I am not inspired at all times but I don't act out like I used to because it says we might pay for these perceptions and all sorts of absurd actions and ideas and I have come up with some great ideas and my sponsor has this little thing I'll tell him I have a good idea he says well ok tell me about it and let's pray I'll say I've got a great idea you know what comes out of his mouth I'd like to see you over at my house right now before you act out on that great idea you know because your great ideas have gotten you in some awful big jams Jim and so you know I'm glad I've got somebody like that nevertheless we find that our thinking will as time passes be more and more on the plane of inspiration we come to rely on it and then we usually conclude this period of meditation with a prayer that we be shown all through the day what our next step is to be. That we be given whatever we need to take care of such problem. We ask especially for freedom of self-will and are careful to make no requests of ourselves only. We may ask for ourselves, however, if others will be helped. So if I ask God, God, help me today do something right for somebody else, I'm asking for something for me, but I'm askin' it so I can help somebody else. That is not a selfish prayer. God, would you bring somebody to buy this property today? I'm ready. That's a pretty selfish prayer, you know? I'm wantin' my way. We are careful never to pray for our own selfish ends. Many of us have wasted a lot of time doing that and it doesn't work. You can easily see why. If circumstances warrant, we ask our wives or our friends to join us in morning meditation. If we belong to a religious denomination which requires a definite morning devotion, we attend to that also. If not members of religious bodies, we sometimes select and memorize a few set prayers which emphasize the principles we have been discussing. There are many helpful books. Also, suggestions about these may be obtained from one's priest, minister, rabbi, sponsor, friend, you know if you don't have a priest, minister or rabbi be quick to see where religious people are right. Make use of what they offer. Okay I am going to read a prayer that is in the 12 and 12 okay and it's a prayer from somebody who wasn't an alcoholic alright but who became a saint and they call it the prayer of Saint Francis alright and it says Lord make me a channel of thy peace that where there is hatred I may bring love that where THERE is wrong I may BRING the spirit of forgiveness that where THERE is discord I may brING harmony that where thERE is error I may BrING truth that where there is doubt I may bring faith that where there is despair I may bring hope that where there are shadows I may bring light that where there is sadness I may bring joy Lord grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted to understand than to be understood to love than to be loved for it is by self-forgiving that one finds it is by forgiving that one is forgiven and it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life amen and that's what i'm wanting i'm wanting a new life and that' s what this program is designed for living is giving me is a new way of living and then it goes on to say as we go through the day we pause when agitated or doubtful we ask for the right thought or action remember in step three we turn our will in our life and I explained the will was a thought or yeah, the will was a though and the life was an action we ask for the right thought or action we constantly remind ourselves that we are no longer running the show humbly saying to ourselves many times each day thy will be done we are then in much less danger of excitement fear, anger, worry self-pity or foolish decisions we become much more efficient we do not tire so easily for we are not burning up energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange life to suit ourselves and this a lot of people say is one of the best sentences in the entire book and it's the shortest sentence it works it really does we alcoholics are undisciplined so we let God discipline us in the simple way that we've just outlined but this is not all there is action and more action, my god they're into action aren't they faith without works is dead the next chapter is entirely devoted to step 12 now the first four and a half chapters are devoted to step 1 and step 2 ok the next chapter, chapter 5 The second half of it is devoted to step three and step four. This chapter, Into Action, just took us from step five through step eleven. And now Bill's going to write an entire chapter on working with others. Why do you think that is? It was really important for him to sell us on the idea that we had a problem. We had an obsession of mine, and we had a physical allergy to the body once we put alcohol in there. And we had spiritual malady that we had to overcome before we could get clear mentally and physically. We had to get spiritually well first. He had to tell us that we have a problem, step one, and there is a solution, step two. And he continued to do that in the first four and a half chapters. And now he's getting ready to tell us how we should go about working with others. Step 12. He said his only thing kept him sober in the beginning. It was the only thing. Six months he tried and didn't get one person sober. For six months he went in, but he went into pulling people out of bars and saying, you've got to have this great spiritual experience. You've gotto have this great white light experience and you don't have to drink like this. And Dr. Silkworth was the one to say, Bill, what you need to do is talk to them about the medical part of it first and bring the spiritual part ofit into it afterwards. And that's why the program worked because Bill was willing to listen to outside people. Father Ed Dowling, who became one of his spiritual advisors, also helped him write The Twelve Steps and also helped himself say that you had to continue to work with other alcoholics if you were going to maintain sobriety. Because every time I work with a new guy, I'm going back through this book again. Tara, I think you're doing the same thing when you work with the new girl. I have guys, I see people, sponsor people. They hand them a big book and they say, read the first 164 pages and call me. And I'm like, if that had happened to me, you know I'd be drunk I would have never got this program I needed somebody to sit down with me who had a spiritual experience and walk me through these steps one by one one at a time and then his one requirement when he first started working with me was when we get through the 12 steps you're going to continue to carry the 12 step And that's why I'm here today. Because I want to continue to stay sober, and I stay sober by continuing to carry the message that there is hope. This whole book is written about there is Hope. And I think what I'm going to do is I'm gonna cut it short today because I don't want to start working with others with about 20 minutes left. So, I am going to read one more thing out of something else and we'll start chapter 7 working with others next week. And it comes from Pass It On. And it's talking about this book. And it said, recently we wrote a book. This is not Bill or Bob. It's one of the other first 100. Recently we wrote an article called Alcoholics Anonymous. It tells precisely how we all came back from living death. Working on that book made me realize how much other people had suffered. How they had gone through the same thing I did. That's why I wanted to come on this program. I wanted people who are going through that torment, if they sincerely want to, they can come back, take their place in society once again. Okay? So for today, we're going to end it and we'll pick up... Alright, let's go ahead and get started and we will open it with a moment of silence. Use your UC Fit. We'll follow it with Serenity Prayer. Serenity prayer? God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. And I'm an alcoholic. My name is Jim Powers. And we are going to be starting what I consider one of the most important parts of this program, and that's working with others. But before we do that, I'm going to go back over the first few weeks. I told you that Bill had written the book and the first four and a half chapters all the way through how it works, it was pretty much by group conscience. He would write and then he would send it out to the alcoholics, the hundred or so that were in the first writing of the book and then they'd get back all these different changes and people were wanting God taken out People were wanting God added in. People were watching Jesus put in and Jesus taken out and take out discipline, take out directions because alcoholics don't. He was just having a miserable time, and he almost quit doing it. And he gave the group the ultimatum that after how it works, he was going to write the rest of the book in the way he was used to writing it. And he wasn't going to change it. He was still going to send it around, but he wasn'T going to changed it based on everybody else's opinion. And so the first four and a half chapters and the doctor's opinion really are all about step one and step two. What is my problem? What is My Solution? Okay? And that's in the doctor'S Opinion also. And so what we did is we found that the doctorís opinion told us about our obsession and our compulsion and the physical allergy that alcoholics have, chronic alcoholics, not heavy drinkers, not moderate drinkers.