Character Building – Women’s Book Study – Part 13 of 13 – Bob A.

Yeah, what Nadine was asking is, when I work with someone, say we're starting out brand new. I'm going to be your sponsor. And I'm gonna start talking to you and teaching you all about the ABCs, what I call ABCs. The alcoholism, ego, and self. We did that Friday night to a certain degree. and then after that is done to where you know yourself exactly what the disease is and what ego is and who self is and then we go into steps we go in a step application the same way I said before by principles living in the day you're in but being taught how to read what the reading means what the words say and why they say what they say and then will go to step two because when we go to step two it's still, we're still doing the same thing. Now it could be in the same day or it could me in two days. There's not a time factor here whatsoever and so then I go to step three and the reason why is because this is the foundation. This is where you learn a great many things about the disease of alcoholism. You learn a great many things that are needed. You're also learning how to do it. How to do it? By principle. But then you see what I'll do to you then is I'll put you back in the ABCs. Now you tell me what you know about the ABC's. You tell me all about alcoholism, ego and self. Then tell me all about step one. Then tell me all about step two. Then tell me all about step three. And if it isn't there, let's go back to the ABCS and start all over again. Let's do this thing the way it should be done. Let's find out why you can't live in a day you're in, because there's too many other things bothering you. There's too many other that sit on top of your mind and stops you from having a life that's there for each one of us. The character has to be born on page 63 in the big book, and it says when I was reborn. Reborn is right before the third step prayer. It even says we are now at step three. You see, reborn is only reborn by character building. Reborn means the new character. What good would it be for you or I after you leave or I leave and then you have to figure out what to do, where to do it, how to do het right, am I doing it right? Is it taking place? Isn't it taking places? Why not learn that character building is a way of life that you use for your life and the day you're in. When you're standing on your own two feet, because you can stand on your own two feets, you don't need that extra help that you thought you needed from another human being. You always need God with you. But the other person that you depended on doesn't need to be there. Could be there but doesn't need to be there." This is something that for yourself to strive for, to look for. This takes self-discipline. This takes the idea, even for me today after as long as I've been here as much as I read as much as I prayed I still have to learn more and what I have to learn more is about me it's about the day I'm in it's a day it's all about an application you see this is something you don't get fixed with there's no way that you can get fixed this way this world that you live in out there there's too many variables there's two many things going on if it's left up to you to decide by yourself exactly how to live that variable you might not make it and two to one you probably won't but there is a way though so why you spend this time here and why you've been here this weekend why not use it why not see that this is for you like it's for me there's nowhere I can go in the day I'm in there's no where at all that you can't go because we both have to go there with the same thing a power greater than self my mind won't fix my mind your mind won't fix your mind either so what are you going to do are you gonna live with the old character are you're gonna bring up all of them yesterday and then they're gonna hurt you again today are you gunna do that when it's not necessary it isn't necessary but why not learn how to live so that you don't need to do that that's what this program now is about what you're asking about Nadine is the assurance always that God has taken care of me that anything and everything that's going by in my life as I live my life I'm going to be alright I'm protected my Heavenly Father I know takes care of me there's no harm going to come to me no harm no temptation will take me away from this is a character building character this is quality this is principles this is for you like it's for me that's why in an overview even though you heard me say this yesterday maybe you heard me say it Friday night maybe you heard me say it now and maybe you've heard me say it maybe you listened maybe you seen something now that you didn't see before maybe your mind is a little more rested maybe it isn't so full of hours of listening and now maybe it can receive what God wants you to receive see this overview I found out really is important it's very important for every one of us later on today later on maybe next week things will come into your mind you'll say something you'll think something you'll look at something and you'll see it entirely different and you find out the reason why is because something happened to you you allowed something to take place in you and when it was allowed I even asked God to help me read you don't think for one minute I read by myself I ask God to help me read to help me do and be who I should be through his teaching I have to have help reading you might not have to have it but I have to have it because you see sometimes I read and after I read I don't even know what I read and then I close the book and I forget about it it doesn't make any difference to me but it does make a difference to me because this is still a textbook this is still a book that I'm using today because this is the same book they printed back in April 1939 this is what my sponsor use. This is what I use. I use the 12 by 12 because all 12 steps are there in application. In the big book, they're not there in application They're referred to or inferred but they're never there as a direction There's too many of them missing in the big book. But in the 12 by 12, it'll show me exactly that this is what i need to do. When it says words like I told you before, the vocabulary. Try to remember these words and see if these words don't affect your life. See if these words, when they come up, all of a sudden it dawns on you. Man, I'm not even willing. I should be willing. Why am I willing? Why not be willing? Ask God. Help me be willing, God. And the minute you ask for help, the willingness is given to you. Just as simple as that. Because it's a power greater than you. It's because it's the principle you use. And it's a way of life that you must have. Otherwise, you're going to have to look again the same way you looked at everything else. It's not necessary. It is not needed. yeah alcoholism and what well them are all real good words them are words that I'm talking about to use the definition of what alcoholism is so it's not a word you don't want to know the word because the word itself, this is a word. It doesn't have any impact or no authority, no nothing. And so to learn what alcoholism is is why we started this out that way. Willingness in any words now that you can put down, the surrender of willingness, acceptance, alcoholism, any words at all, self-discipline, self-honesty, all of these, these are words that you should have in your mind because it's all about you anyway. It's all about your life. These are the things that you need in a day you're in so that you can stay where you belong. And where you belongs is with a power greater than you. That means exactly how you do it. Yeah? What's your definition of alcoholism? Definition of alcoholismo? Alcoholism has to be defined as what it really is. It starts in one, it gives you a pretty good shot at it. But it has to go farther than that. I believe it has TO GO FARTHER THAN THAT. Because what alcoholism is, alcoholism IS A WAY OF LIFE. And it's a way of life coming from a mind that's disturbed, a mind thats aberrated, a mind tha's hurt, a mind taht got, like it was, in such an authority that it rules your life, it governs your life. It means that you, yourself, whatever you think and whatever you do, you can do no more than what's there and what is there that's why you have defects of character you learn how to live because alcoholism made you think in terms of jealousy of anger of anything and everything you can have a list a mile long or you can Have a very short list but alcoholism you must look at it as a power don't look at It as a disease only because that's too easily whitewashed that's too easy but look at it as a power but it's a disease of the power that makes you behave makes you think it does not need alcohol does not lead to substance this is not an addiction this is an obsession I don't have to be drunk to act up I don' t have to have a bottle in me before I fight this is all about a mind function that's there that I can do nothing about. Now this is proven before AA because I told you, 98% of all people that were alcoholic with alcoholism had to either go to an institution or die. There was no recovery to speak of. There was occasional recovery, sure. But there was no method or no way of life to stop alcoholism. And alcoholism is a living thing. It's called ism because it never dies. it'll die only when you die because it's not a wasm you can't get rid of it it's just like when you had warts you got rid of them it was a wasom it used to be an ism now it's a wasim it ain't there but you try that with alcoholism you try it with your mind you try as hard as I used to try meaning well meaning well swearing to anything and everything that I would never do that again. How long do you think it took me before I did it again? Just as quick as that thought came, it came and so did I do it. Alcoholism, remember alcoholism is the character you represent. Everything about you when the alcoholism is not treated is there. So start looking at it. Start identifying it, recognizing that's what this is about. Try to find out why you act the way you act. Why you sit where you're sitting right now. And why your mind will tell you things. And why do you listen to your mind? Why do you Listen to it when it tells you? Who's the authority there? Who's telling who what? Start looking at this because it's your life. So that's why you need a living God with you because you have a living disease yeah you're right on there but you have to add a little more than that to it I can live today and I do have a living God with me today but I don't have to struggle with today I don' t have to call God in every two seconds say I'm up to it again I'm struggling help me it did start that way because I didn' t know how to build a relationship but you see the principles that I'm talking about in application for the character building today with God it is not needed it is no need it is just not needed for me to look at you and then kick out thoughts I can look at You and when I look atYou whoever You are I look look atyou with unconditional love in other words You're You and I'm going to leave You You You can be who You are and I'll love You for it I don't want You to change I don't want you to do nothing different before I wanted everybody to change I wanted everything my way so you see it is such a thing that the God consciousness goes with me but that's the living God that I'm talking about it's not a God I'm praying to all day by mumbling and talking and mumbling it could be it could happen that way sure but it isn't that way I can walk and talk free free of myself free of my old way of living, thinking, acting, being treating people when you first started to do this did you I mean that's what I do I literally talk out loud or I write or something just beginning to figure out I heard here that other people in my life are God they are put there by God I need these people in our lives when you first started doing this is that what you did when I first started I hit and missed some days I could do it some days I couldn't when I could I did it when I couldnít I didnít I took each day as it came and went I offered myself to God in the morning in the bedroom on my knees and I went to work and I did my very best whatever that was on the day I was in to keep reminding myself to talk to God praise Him thank Him not just petition Him not telling Him Iím in trouble but thank Him for allowing me to thank Him I donít know if God wants me to do that but every time I do it I feel better so why not do more of it Adriana but when you are we born with this does it matter I mean are we born as an infant do we have alcohol in them why do we have it I mean you know that That's another question that's asked all the time. Every one, every one, never fails. You know, when I was talking, you know, when I first started talking, I was telling about when I was about 15. The reason I said 15 is because 15 is when I started to go into a world that I was responsible in that world. there wasn't nobody taking care of me I was working I was going in bars I was with gals, I bought motorcycles I ran, I did this, I did that and as I started, I didn't start as an alcoholic I didn's start with booze but as I started living the life that I was living I started to learn that I could do certain things at parties I could drink and now all of a sudden everything was cool I started associating my life to booze but at the same time I'm still me, living me in the world I'm in responsible for me and as I did this I started to have defects of character these defects of characters were not in me until I put them there I built me now whether or not you accept that I don't know but I accept it because I had to look at my life I had a look at every situation that I went into I had to look and see how I had to outdo somebody. I had a beat somebody down on the ground, a windu or something like that. I had steal. I had get certain gals and I had act a certain way, ride a certain ways to get them in. I learned how to do things in the day I was in to satisfy my life, to give me all of the things that I thought I needed. And as I was doing this, I was building a character by a thought process of a mind that was me. I was producing the life that I lived. I was the one that was making this world a world that was a ratty world. It was a harmful world but it was a world I loved. All I had to do is just get with a bunch of whoever start drinking and man we're in hog heaven. There's no problems there's no worries I don't even think about my job tomorrow it hasn't got nothing to do with nothing. You see how could any one of us be born with defects of character that you use in the day you're in for your life. You mean to say that you were born with something and then you went through the whole childhood up until the day you got out in that world out there and you already come into that world and you've got all that anger and you got all of that memory and all of the hostility and all the desires and the pleasures you want to have. You mean a say you carried that through your life all the time and then all of a sudden they blossom? No. No way. No way Well actually it's not like you think it is the disease does not come in degrees the disease when they cross that line the disease of crossing a line is meaning an invisible line it's where you lose the power of choice it's were you cannot help yourself lack of power now is your dilemma before you cross that line it was possible for you to stop drinking from stop doing anything but once you cross that in line that's why it's called the disease of alcoholism a mind power disease you lost the power of choice this is in your book this is exactly what it's all about start reading in chapter 2 the solution 3 more about alcoholism start reading these to read them as they are now not don't read it just to read it see what it's really saying see your life there see you're thinking there because it's all there every bit of it you might not have done the same thing I've done but whatever you did hurt you the same way I hurt me because my mind got hurt your mind got her it wasn't just because of a behavior or because of another person. Hasn't got anything to do with it. Everything is in here. It's not out there. What about heredity, like an alcoholic giving birth? Does that make the child... Because there was nobody alcoholic in my family. For every family you show me there is, I'll show you a family there isn't. Yeah. Yeah. Two alcoholics. I don't really know how to say this. I'm glad that I came this weekend, and I've been to a workshop with yours, and it's still really new to me. What keeps running through my mind is that it's a simple program for complicated people, and I get so confused by listening to you. Although I pick up certain things that I can relate to and stuff, I just, I, it's very, um, I don't even know how to say it, but I just know that I had to say it. No, no, she said it. And, uh, like someone had told me, maybe there's other women that feel the same way. So, um. But what I do know is that I came here because I have, I thought I had an open mind. Listening to you, my open mind isn't as open as I thought it was. Which, you know, that, that was an awakening. because when you were talking about the fighting mind my mind was fighting you as you were saying that but I was open minded enough to see that so it's baby steps I guess and I could go on and on but my one question was you had said yesterday early on that step 1 and 2 are not really in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and it starts with step 3 and goes through step 12 where it actually says now we're at step 3 and on. So when I sponsor people, I take them through the big book about College Anonymous and I also have them read out of the 12 to 12 and that's how my sponsors pick me. But I have been confused about when we start reading from the very beginning up into step 3, I've always been a little bit confused in the big books about College Anonymity regarding that um you know i can see bill's story and i can be read Gnostic i can see step one and two in there but my question is what do you do for the people you sponsor regarding that one and to starting them off on one and when the big book was written it was written because it was it was the beginning it was a start and as it was a start. What was in there was necessary for what they believed then as far as the disease of alcoholism. The main purpose was always to stay sober. To stay sober was the name of the game, and that's all it was ever talked about. And that was talked about when I came in, same way. What I'm referring to is that in step application, there must be some kind of a direction. There must be something kind of a way in the day I'm in to build principles to be able to see something step one and two is not in the big book there's not you can't show it to me it's not in there I can show you in page 30 where a lot of alcoholics want to show me page 30 and it talks in there about this is the first step in recovery but that's not the step of application that's no that's the step of alcoholics and I'm at 12 steps that's a step like going through a doorway that's type of step step two is not there in numbered but it is there and I had to find it myself and I found it way back in the 50's and it starts on page 60 and it ends on the top of 63 and when it starts on 60 it starts where it says the first requirement is that I have to be convinced now that's step 2 now that will go all the way to the top at 63 look at the top of 63 when it says we were reborn now what does it say we are now at step three alright then when you go into step three you go in to a prayer this is a prayer this is not an application of explaining what to do with that prayer it isn't there because it immediately goes to step four and then step seven when it gets there step seven is a prayer and no more than a prayer and yet though if step seven is a step about humility and humbleness how can I learn or how can i see or do in the day i'm in the life that will produce humility and humble i must have something that's going to be shown to do it's in print what i'm talking about now this isn't my idea i lived exactly like you're talking I was taught exactly like you're talking and I had no success I went out in that same world I went into it was the same world drunk it was a same world sober because of what was there wasn't there I needed to have something so that at the day I was in I wasn't alone I wasn' t out there trying to figure out the prayer, I said the prayer why ain't the prayer working and this is true, this is my story but then I found that Through the Sermon on the Mount, I found in the Beatitudes an application that I could use in steps. Steps 1, 2, 3, all the way up. But I learned it through the Serman on the Mountain. Not the S sermon on the mountain didn't replace nothing. But what did do, it told me what I needed to know about a step. And as I need to know this step, I can start using an application now. not working it working it I don't even begin to know that word but application so that as I walked and talked the day I was in the application was there and I learned that from the Sermon on the Mount into the 12 steps because if you'll read the Serman on the Mountain and you'll see and you're reading the 12 Steps take a look at them and see what they're like my sponsor used the Semen on the Mound by Emmett Fox he came in in 1943 he read the big book and the big book was all that was out then. The 12 by 12 was reproduced or produced in 1953. What was what was alcoholics to do from 39 when the book was printed until 1953? How could you find what step one, step two, step three is about? How could I how could you find that? Can you read, could you read this to me right now out of the big book here? Could you tell me that step three says that I'm going to do this and I'm going to have to do that? I have to be a Christian. I have not to do this and they have to do that. It's not there. It is not there you see most Alkies at that time would defend themselves by saying that the chapter two the solution chapter three more about alcoholism chapter four the agnostic was the method to use that could be that was that's exactly what they had but I had to have more in the way I had to have Morris because I had live in a world sober did it was not happening it just wasn't happening I was so I was so locked into my brain that if I heard somebody like you talk I'd shut you down I'd pay no attention to what you said because you're quarreling you're arguing you see at one time I used to be like that I'm not like that now anything everything you say, I'll listen and I'll listen carefully. And I'll leave it wide open. And if there's something to learn there, God will teach me and show me how to learn it. I am receptive. I do not quarrel. I don't tell people, you're doing it wrong. How would I know that? All I know is my life, what I do. If you want what you have, keep it. It's fine with me. I'm not going to argue with it. I'm now going to prove you wrong. I'm not going try to say that it should be another way. How do I know that? I wouldn't know that. But I do know my life and I do know exactly what I've lived and how I've lived and why I've live like this. And this is the story about, I believe, that's necessary to talk about. Whether any and all of you have it or want it, need it, I have no idea. It's none of my business. But it is a business of mine to carry this message. From there, that's all God wants me to do. He wants me to be a messenger he's the message i'm not the message yep sure you know i have a it's about the alcoholism that's read anything i'm so confused on that because i come from a family of alcoholics and i can trace it back my mother is an alcoholic and one of nine children and out of those nine children i've watched and four have never touched a drop of alcohol in their life, okay? The other five at different stages from the time they were little until one of my aunts started drinking about three years ago. And I've watched every single one of them that ever started drinking has progressed rapidly, seriously, to the disease of alcoholism. And her father, you know, my grandfather was an alcoholic and I can trace it back. So are you saying that if it's not hereditary, because it never occurred to me that, in fact, you could find families that hurt them and there were no alcoholics. And if alcoholism is a way of life, is it then taught? I mean, is the thing sort of like they do studies and it's like rats in cages and they have a lot of tension or they have all that anxiety and these rats become a certain way emotionally and psychologically. So is it because of our mind, you know, that in fact the rage and all those other character defects, is that what causes it? I'm confused about that. Well, you're saying an awful lot of things in the first place is that every one of us that have what we have was put there sometime or another by somebody and it had to be considered for myself how I got like I was and I really had to go backwards into my life to see this and as I looked at this it didn't make any difference what my brother looked like or acted like or my sisters or whatever it didnít make any different what kind of bosses I had or my mother or anything like that there was something in me and as it was in me It could be my mother said something to me or wouldn't let me do something. And maybe I was young and I showed anger and I learned how to kick and scream. But that there isn't what it's all about, see? What it's about is even if that was there, when I started using my life for what was there in the life I lived in, that's the character I became. That's the characters that I used. I referred to me. The anger was never in somebody else. It was in me. The jealousy was not in them. It was en me. All of the impatience that I have, all of the... I have no compassion for my fellow human being. None, none whatsoever. Never did have. Before AA, me first and only me. But you see, all of these still isn't the alcoholism. This is part of what the character has to build on. be on it. The moment I took a hold of my life, the same way as you, nobody built you, you built yourself. I built myself. I went ahead and I did things in the day I was in, and some things I learned I couldn't do, but I also learned there's a way to do them if I look at it real carefully. I learned how to finagle, how to lie, how to cheat, how steal. At the same time all this was going on, there was being drinks. I was starting a party. I was starting to go out with people. I was starting the stay out all night. I was getting into the disease of the alcoholism by drinking it. I had an allergy and the allergy was in my body. The obsession got there because I needed the drink to make the world right because the world I come from was a wrong world. I would argue and I was fighting, I was hurting whether it was my mother, my father, my whoever. It didn't make no difference. But I found out, though, the life that I lived on my own with booze, that stuff was removed. It wasn't even there anymore. Didn't even bother me. But the life that i was going to did bother me because i had to act a certain way. I had to do things in the day i was in. And these things i did hurt me, hurt me. They were defects of character. But they were things i couldn't stop doing. I didn't know how not to do these things. It would be like being with somebody you love, and all of a sudden they say something or you remember something and you hate their guts. As simple as that. So it doesn't matter. There's a lot of talk about it being, there's a chemical imbalance in some people. No way, no way, no way. No way. No way! You know, I have to let go of that because it tortures me trying to figure out, you know, where... Why would you need to figure it out? Why not learn how to live and live the way you should live? Why remember a past? Why go into any drunk-a-lot or any harm or hurts? Why go in to any yesterdays? Regardless of when it was, yesterday years or yesterday what. Why not build a new character? The same way he's talking about here. Why not find peace and joy and happiness right here in Alcoholics Anonymous? I didn't come here to relive my life. I didn't come here to hear somebody else's life relived. I came here because it was a program recovery. I had to learn to get away from self. I'm so opinionated. I'm such an authority. I want to tell you you're wrong. I want To prove it. I can't live like that. Let me get Jenny first. Jenny, how's the knowledge? So what you're saying is that, okay, first of all it's not a personality trait we're not born alcoholics uh there are people that have gone through tragedy that have chosen not to consume their lives of alcohol and drugs that have made it past or whatever so at a certain age when i became responsible for who my life basically when my you know your parents pretty near you live under their roof and they pretty much you live with them and then when you become or whenever i chose to i was still living at home and chose to decide that i'm going to do it on my own then uh i started drinking and doing drugs now see all for for a long time i thought i drank and did drugs because i was trying to cover up feelings of pain and agony in the life that i had lived we all have a history we all have all that uh i didn't realize or maybe it was my personality i just love excitement you know i love to play a cell i think that's more that's closer to it but uh so what you're basically saying is as i started drinking and using drugs at that point i was starting to build a character based on a dependency for that, which I felt at the time I needed that to live my life. It gave me courage. It gave it a grain. It gave you the courage to do the things that... I mean, you know, my dad sat down with me and said, don't you do it until you're married. You know, that kind of thing as he's off whatever he's doing. And I'm like, this just doesn't make sense to me. Okay, so it gave me the courage to do the things that I wanted to do anyway. And so at that point, because when you consume alcohol, you probably go to the extremes of doing things you might not do when you're on alcohol or whatever. You start building a character of pushing and shoving and that's where the self-centeredness and all that stuff comes from. But you're building this character and you don't know at the time what's happening. So then it becomes the allergy. you know it's like there was the reason I came here because alcohol stopped working for me believe me I'd still be out there drinking and feeling that good feeling because I love that but I would drink and I wouldn't get high anymore I would drank and the fun stopped you know the fun stopped because I ended up in jail I've been in more jails than you can count so that then the fear and all that happens right so you start building this character you go over the fine line so you come here and what you do is you just give up the alcohol and drugs but you still have that same character right so what you're saying basically not basically what you are saying is that through the application of the steps through a power greater than ourselves we are actually being taught and learning how to with God's help to build a new character actually it would be the same character before we started to drink no no this is a completely different no no absolutely not well so we can start drinking and build this character i mean i i it's making more sense so then wait wait so then okay so you go on with the uh the new uh applicator or the new character starts okay and then what i talked about i have a question so that i used to steal in elementary school and that was before i started drinking and so was that starting Yeah, it could be, sure. Any of that could be. That's like a lot of people are born with certain traits and these traits are not defects of character but they will become that if they keep using them for certain reasons. For certain reasons, yeah. It sounds to me like there's three characters that we're talking about. The first character, well maybe even four. The first thing that you are born with, and then there's your parents and authorities lay over you because you don't know any better. And then you drink and you develop the character, your alcoholic character. And now we build a character based on principles. Yeah, but see, there's only really two characters. Okay. And the two characters are, is one has the disease of alcoholism and the other one has The Disease Treated in Alcoholics Anonymous. It doesn't make no difference really, honestly. What happened yesterday or yesteryears, that hasn't got a bearing on it at all. There are steps eight and nine in there to clear away the wreckage of the past so that you don't have the past all of a sudden springing in your face so that it's there for that reason. It's got to be there. but you don't have to relive your past you don'T have to go backwards there's no reason for you to even think of how you got your way because if you find this way of life I'm talking about this is the life that you live daily you DON'T relive them other lives what I was understanding from what you were saying is that the mind began earlier than before the drinking started and like for instance you were at 15 so when your character started getting built I think I was at around 12 when I loved isolation and I got into my creativity became a you know I started playing piano since 3 so I was loving the isolation more and more by the time I was 12 and getting into this artsy bohemian character you know I thought I knew that's where it started but I think what everybody else is curious about is the gene thing is there like an alcoholic gene thing Now, you know, this is what you're talking about right now. Now, You can talk this thing to death. You can go backwards to when you were in a cradle and you can go all through the years. You can just tell about all kinds of stuff and it hasn't got a damn thing to do with the program recovery. It does not. We come here for a reason. I came here because I lived in a world I couldn't live in. There was too much wrong with it. The world I lived in, it kept hurting me and I kept hurting him. And when I got here, I got there the same way everybody else gets here. There was no place else to go. I had went as far as I could go in my life, and now where am I going to go? I yelled for help, and I yelled for help from an Alcoholics Anonymous man who delivered ice. He started teaching me. He started talking to me about a program of recovery. He talked about today. He talked about application. He talked about things that I had to have in my life today. He started me out with ground rules, I told you about. So then I had the help of God. I had ground rules. The ground rules I had them have was like, never tell them a lie. Don't tell me a lie, he said. Well, that was a relationship so that we could start doing something now and have a purpose behind it. Then he taught me other things. But never once did he ever teach me, You're like you are because they did this to you way back then. And never once did he ever talk about, all of the years I rode motorcycles and all the years I piled them up, I raced, I wound up in hospitals, I damn near died, I hurt more damn women than any man on this earth. Never once did He talk about them things. They were not things to talk about. If the amendment step was needed to be made, when it got there, it was made. But the building of the character, The retreat here right now. This isn't here to analyze, this isn't here to think about way back when or anything else like that. Man, if you've got something in you right now, if you got something in you that stops the relationship with your husband or your boyfriend or whoever it is, you better start listening. You better start reading. You better started looking inside because everything is inside never outside. Everything is inside and when it's inside it's me when it's inside of you it's you you cannot look outside of you and blame anybody for any reason because of your ratty mind because of the way you treat people same thing as before we said it many many times And it's the character. The character's got a four-step inventory. And the thing that was left out was jealousy. It wasn't recognized. It wasn'T identified. It wasn' t put down. If you mean to tell me that every one of us, when we get here, that we have to be upset someday because there's something there inside of you waiting to come out, festering. And then as you go along in your years in AA, all of a sudden somebody triggers that if it's there they'll trigger it believe me and it's the same for you as it is for me how much happiness you want today how much satisfaction inside of yourself without criticism on somebody else there's a lot of you and there's been a lot in your life there's not a lot of you in AA I'm talking about that don't like me at all and it doesn't bother me one bit you're not my keeper my Lord is my keeper but you see I live exactly the way I say I live. I live because this is the good life. This is the life that let me have a relationship with another human being. It let me have a relationship with someone, someone like Sylvie, so special. There's not a girl on this earth as special as she is. How could that happen? Just tell me, how could that happen? Could I produce that? Could I supply that with money? Hell, I draw social security is the only damn thing I draw. that's a fact but you see my whole life is like that that's why all of you every one of you are special Jenny's real special Nadine's special every one of you guys are special the reason why is because it's my life it's where my happiness lies the relationships that we have the way you smile the way you want to sit down and have a picture with me I thank my Lord I praise my Lord for that because that's his doing, not my doing. You see, all of this is genuine. It's real. But if you don't want it, and if you still want to show anger, if you're still going to do it, if you want to remember somebody's behavior and then hurt them today because of it, go right ahead. But I'm not going to be able to do that because I don't need to do anything. There's nothing inside of me that needs to be fed that way. God is or he isn't. He's the one of the two. I had to learn to back down. I had to learn to back down a long, long time ago. Ordinarily, I'm a fighter. Ordinally, I'll fight anybody. I'm not scared of no man. I was younger and I was tough. But that doesn't help a damn bit. All it does is just make sure you're going to do more damage. This life I'm talking about, it's offered to each one of us. It's nothing you pay for. You don't have... Money can't buy it. you can have every bit of it every bit that I know and plus whatever you can have yourself that's an awful lot my whole life has run on self-reliance and even in AA I was running on self reliance and communicating with my parents and I was brought up to compete to be self reliant and it's just so great to be in this group because I have to surround myself with people who think the same way. And, you know, I know that God is my supply. You know, that I need to live in the moment and when I live in a moment, I'm fine. You know? If I'm right in the movement, then I'm open.