Forgiveness and Resentment – Wilson House Workshop – Part 4 of 5 – Dave F., Mark H., Chris R. – Dave Frederickson, Mark H, Chris Raymer

I'm in a weird place here, because there's people here that know the players. And I will not perpetrate harm in this deal. So I'm going to be talking in generalities. If it doesn't make complete sense, please forgive that. Bear with me on that one. I had an event occur, and I don't even understand what the actual event was that occurred. But everybody ended up with bad feelings, including myself. So what are the characters that came up within me? The judge, the jury, the executioner, Rambo, the spiritual man. They were all chattering at once. Big time was the traitor because these are AA people. These are my people and they're my close people. And I was feeling harmed by them. So it wasn't just that I had felt that I was hurt. I had thought that my spirit was crushed. So the traitor was out. And I'm very conscious of that. When I see the traitor, I know I'm in deep, deep, big trouble. So I write inventory. I write the resentments out. I do the things I have to do. I fifth step it. I have these harms. I know that I'm clear on some of these harms. So, I go through the process of trying to make these amends. But I know before I go to make amends, I have to forgive each and every one of these people by the instructions. I've been sober a long time. I knowthat's the deal. So,I go what I think to be the exercises I need to for forgiveness. I gothrough that process. All right? But in your heart, you know there's something not quite right. I know That I... I'm saying to myself what I say to everybody that I work with. If you're forgiven and you can't forget, then you haven't forgiven and that's exactly where I was and now I'm in this panic place because I've done the tools that I've got in my toolbox that I'm familiar with now I'm out what do I do so I start talking to people and everybody's going I've never been in that situation I don't know what to tell you and now the real panic starts to set in because I know that I am blocked and I know that if I don�t make these amends I may drink so what doI do so I turn to God and say God inspire me what am I supposed to do and I start naturally I start praying and meditating for these people. I started doing love light meditations. That's helping. And then I just got inspired. Well, let's go back and look in the big book in the 12 and 12 at everything that's in there about forgiveness. And there's really a logical process in there about forgiveness and what Bill tells us to do. And he talks in there about the need to forgive everybody before you start striking out and trying to make amends. If you're going to go ask for forgiveness from someone else for the harm you caused then you need to forgive them before you go but you have to be clear on the harm you caused. That was the first thing I was having trouble with. I thought in my mind they had done this to me you know but I still can't get free of this so obviously I know the promises, my problems are of my own making so I've got something wrong inside of me that I have to figure out so that's when I started looking at the emotional banker because I knew that the trader was around. Anytime the trader is around the emotional bankers around. So even though I could forgive the harm that they might, and this is all perceived on my part, they may or may not have harmed me. It's my perception that I was perceiving that I had been harmed. So I perceive this and I say, okay, I'm going to forgive them for that but that still left the emotional banker and that's what I was sensing. There's something wrong and I haven't forgotten because the emotional baker is still racking up interest. Until those SOBs come to me and make amends for what they did to me, I'm not going to forgive them completely. It's always going to be sitting in the back of my mind. Is that kind of answer where you guys are going? Okay, that being said, this is our course. That's the next thing here. The quote comes from the big book. This was our course, we realized that people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms, column two, and the way these deserved us, column three, they, like ourselves, were sick too. And here's the instruction that the big books gives us. we asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity and patience we would truthfully grant for a sick friend who am I praying for there? for me for God to come in and soften my golf ball to soften the crust on my heart for me to be able to find true forgiveness because I didn't have the power to kill the emotional banker of my own, I'm powerless that was going to have to be the grace of God which meant I'm going to need to have prayer, prayer, prayer and meditation, prayer and medication. And it took weeks and weeks and weeks of prayer and meditation every single day for my heart to soften, to cancel out the emotional banker. This is not one of those things where you do a fourth step, a fifth step, and boom, you're free. This was something that took me a while, a long while. Then the 12 in 12 gives us some more information. It says, when prideful, angry, jealous, anxious, or fearful, we acted accordingly. And that was here we need only to recognize that we did act or think badly. Try to visualize how we might have done better and resolve with God's help to carry these lessons over into tomorrow making, of course, any amends still neglected. Once I started entering into this prayer regime that I was doing then I needed to get a vision in my head of what was it that I did wrong. See, where I was taking offense for their behavior they weren't intentionally trying to hurt me. I was perceiving harm. They were reaching inside my wall and touching something they had no idea they were touching it. and I was reacting feeling hurt. Does that make sense? That's where the problem lay and I couldn't see that until I sat down and I'd softened my heart enough with prayer to be even willing to look and then try to develop a vision of what really occurred here. As soon as I could see that they weren't intentionally trying to harm me, then there was no conspiracy theory. It killed the whole thing and poof, there went the emotional banker. There was enough there just to say, get out of here. That's ego. You're gone. Next. Then I was able to start down the path of amends and truly mean the amends and going through. And that took God's time. And I went and I made the amens I needed to make. All right? So here's what I had to do. I had write out how I can be helpful to these people, right? That's what the instructions of the big book. How can I be helpful? What does it look like to be kind and tolerant to that person? The big book gives us a thing. It says God will show you how to take a kindly and tolerant view. Write it out. What does is look like for me to be kind and intolerant to the person that I absolutely loathe and can't forgive. All right? And that's what I had to do. And then here's the prayer regime that I used. I even wrote the prayers out. There's three sections there. Just fill in the blanks with their names. All right. Once that whole process was done, then underneath the line at the bottom of the page are the instructions that the big book gives you when you go to make the amends to these people that you can't forget. In the past, you were not able to forgive. Once you feel like you're spiritually ready that you've truly forgiven, the big book gives us and the 12 in 12 gives us some stuff it says if an enemy go to him in a helpful and forgiving spirit alright the reason I wasn't forgiving them because I felt they were an enemy confess my former ill feeling and express your regret that was a hard pill to swallow you know their faults are not to be discussed we stick to our harms very very difficult in my case just to sit there and bite my tongue and the actual amend I went and made this amend and the person sitting there was just unloading on me uh and 99.9 percent of what they were unloading i mean i felt was 100 distorted out of the box wrong wasn't even the right and i just had to sit there and bite my tongue and smile and and pray it was literally i was praying i don't even know how long it was it was at least an hour i was sitting there praying and when i got to the amends questions and i asked those questions they said sit there and shut up and listen to what I have to tell you and I had to get some more and I just listened but I was spiritually I was protected I was wrapped up I was bulletproof I would not have been had I not done this exercise beforehand and gotten myself so spiritually ready we ask God for strength and direction to do the right thing no matter what the personal consequences may be we are willing you know the personal consequences were I was going to look really bad because I realized in this process of making this amend And in order for me to forgive, I had to be absolutely silent. So for weeks, I hade to keep my side of this disagreement quiet and not say a word. Meanwhile, they're over there telling everybody in the world, I'm hearing all this stuff coming back to me about what I did and what a scumbag I was and how I'm not working the program and I'm no working the steps and I had keep my mouth shut. So my camp is quiet and their camp isn't. Very difficult to do. But let me tell you, it's one of the best growth experiences I've ever had in my life to stand on principle. We must not shrink in anything. We don't delay if it can be avoided. Right on down the line. Emmett Fox has got a great quote, and I won't take the time to read it, but he talks about it takes two people to create a prisoner. The prisoner and the jailer. The jailer is just as much a prisoner as the guy he's in charge of because he's locked in the same walls to make sure the other guy doesn't get out. The reality is there's an ancient Chinese parable about the man who gets thrown into prison and for 30 years he has no idea why he's in jail and he's falsely accused he has not no clue and every day the guy comes and opens up the door and puts in the food and the bread and the water and the guy's in there and he is marking it off and he ist praying and meditating he can't figure out what did I do why am I in prison but he never bothers to ask the jailer why he is in prison but every day at the same time the guy finally says you know what I'm going to kill myself but just before he gets ready to kill himself he says you know that before I do that let me talk to the jailor but he looks out the gate and there's nobody there up and grabs ahold of it, starts to shake it, and the gate just opens up. The door wasn't locked. He looks through it, he kind of walks out, and he walks up the stairs, and there's two guards standing right at the entrance to the door. He looks out, they don't react, and he gets out, he walks through the courtyard and out the main gate of the prison, and he's free. The whole moral of that parable is to realize the reason he was in prison was because he put himself in the prison. It was a self-constructed prison. Our problems are of our own making. I created the entire thing in my mind. Was I harmed? Who knows? Who cares? It doesn't matter. The reality was, if I didn't deal with that stuff emotionally, I was going to drink and die. You know? That was the deal for me. I've spoken enough. It's time for Mark to share. I'm Mark, alcoholic. Hi, Mark. Have you ever heard that quote, But forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. You ever heard that? That's going to tie into some things I'm going to talk about. I told you earlier, Dave's talking about some concepts. We've all heard over the years a lot of different concepts about forgiveness. The barometer for me is my own personal experience. most of the things that I have read or heard growing up did not fit my personal experience nor did they work for me i.e. I know one of the stories in the back is talked about a lot about you pray for someone for two weeks my experience is they don't need the prayers, I need the prayer that never worked for me a lot of that stuff never worked for me But I want to show you what has worked, and I'm going to give you some things to think about relative to this area of forgiveness, if you will, based on my experience. Go back to something Dave touched on, and you don't need to open your book up, but it's in page 66. Much like above everything, it's not talked about where it says I turn back to the list for it. This first three columns, this third column, holds the key to my future. I don't know. I think that's a pretty important statement. This list holds the key to my entire future. What are they talking about? I mean, you don't think they meant our entire future, do you? My experience is that's exactly what they meant. So it leads to a logical question. Well, why don't we talk about this? The key, a key to your whole future. And they're going to start to tell you and I about this key, and forgiveness is at the heart and soul of this. I'm prepared to look at it, these first three columns, these people you won't forgive, what you're angry at. It doesn't matter who and what they are. By the way, I hear there's sometimes varying degrees of harm, big harm and little harm. I think there's just harm. I think they think there's harm. So I'm going to look at this from an entirely different angle, and they're going to start to present the angle. I begin to see the world and its people really dominate me. It says in that state, it's a state of self-will, of selfishness. When I'm consumed with myself and centered on myself, remember, I'm getting my sense of who I am externally, so the world is people completely dominate me from the time I get up till the time we go to bed. so in that state the wrongdoing of others fancies the power to kill me I'm always fighting for my life well how do I escape from this it says these resentments must be mastered how do i do this i cannot wish them away it's kind of like my experience with forgiveness i tried to pray a lot didn't do much so this is my course now i need to realize the people who wronged me were perhaps i think that's a key word perhaps spiritually sick this is back to this idea that you're asleep dreaming you're awake or that you have no choice or no free will spiritually sick starting to introduce you to the idea that people do not get up and decide on this day to take a course of action to harm you nor did you ever get up one morning and say I think today I'm going to harm these three people the extent to which you do not understand that there is nothing but oneness and if I harm Dave, I harm myself if you do no harm if you don't understand that experientially then you're going to do things that appear spiritually sick you're gonna assassinate people's character etc, etc, ecc that's what the term spiritually sick means if you dont understand oneness in the fifth step you disconnect from ego Seventh step, you connect with God. Ninth step, you connect to God. You connect with your fellow brother and sister and you become one. To the extent to which you do not understand is the extent to which you will put harm out into the universe. It says, though I don't like their symptoms and the way these disturb me, they are like me or sick too. So here's the deal. I'm going to sit in judgment or not forgive or be upset with someone who's asleep, dreaming they're awake, can't do anything any different. Who's sicker? You follow me? You see, they did this. Then I'm sitting over here. This takes you back to if my arrangements would only stay put. I play God. You're sitting here getting upset with people who can't do it any different because their hard drive is their hard dive. Get it? Your hard drive is your hard drive. It's the same for you as it's the sam for them. Whether it's your mother or your father or anyone you can't forgive or anyone quote that you think has harmed you. And it's just every bit as true with regards to, quote, the people you've harmed. Your hard drive is your hard drive. Okay? You can't alter it. You can'T change it. Unbeknownst to me, the steps God reprogrammed me. I had a virus in there, if you will. We get reprogramed in this process. And so the book's trying to introduce us to a key to our entire future. And that key is waking up to this. It goes on to say that ask God, help me show these people same tolerance, pity and patience I would cheerfully check this out I would cheerfully grant a sick friend if you don't understand what it is I just said you can't do that because self is still intact see, self cannot forgive Dave came down he and I did some work around this piece he's talking about and I said Dave self can't forgive you can forgive well what do we do well we're going to do a fifth step in the process of that that part of you that needs forgiveness is going to die and then there's nothing that needs to be forgiven because self cannot forgive it's impossible that's really what happened in that process is the part of him that was injured evaporated and what happened I washed it I washed right in front of my eyes I watched him get taken to a place of love and kind and compassion because he finally understood. My God, none of this was being done intentionally. None of it. So when that happened, the issue of forgiveness was no longer there in this process. I've got to add something right there. It was absolutely critical that I was sitting across from somebody who understood and had been down the path. if I was sitting across somebody who had the exact let's say an old timer with 40 years of sobriety who had this same baggage, you never cleaned it up they would have looked at me and said ah, you poor kid, the same exact thing happened to me those dirty SOBs your feelings are okay go do a 90-90, you'll be alright you know and I'd have died it would have killed me there's a real importance on who is hearing the work that you're sharing because if they're going to co-sign it and talk you out of it They're signing your death warrant. It goes on to talk about we avoid retaliation or argument. Why? Because I wouldn't treat sick people that way. Now, I want to go back to this because I'm like Dave. I'm sure there are some of you in here that have this idea or there are Some people that you, I'm just not going to forgive or you have some ideas about yourself in terms of some things that you've done. what I want you to consider and maybe what I want you get over is that you have never intentionally chosen to do that nor did they they are sick spiritually sick the extent to which I am spiritually sick is the extent to which I live a life driven by fear self-delusion self-seeking self-pity and the more that that's going on in my life the more harm that I'm going to put out into the universe this is my experience with this whole area. I haven't had to work with forgiveness in a long time. In a long time. Why? Because this is all I'm going to get out of the Hewlett-Packard. That's why. Right? I understand the hard drive. Right? I understand there's no choice. Right? If you don't understand that, again, this wisdom of this incredible big book. Okay? Mark, once again, of course, we're so self-centered. We actually think people get up in the morning and we come up and they're harmed today. Nobody does that. The extent to which you feel separate from instead of a part of is the extent to which you'll still go through life creating harm, if you will, in the process of trying to get your own way. Always trying to defend. So again, avoid retaliation or argument. Why? Because I'm not going to treat sick people that way. If I do, I'm going to destroy my chance of being helpful I can't be helpful to all people but at least God will show me how to take a kind and tolerant view of each and every one and this is my experience a kind and tolerant review of each and every one I have through the years dealt with my share of character assassination if you will and I'll share a little story with you around this. I was asked to do the steps at a place called The Glass House in Fort Worth, Texas. So I go in there and about five minutes before I'm going to do this. Down there, they ask you to come into a group once a month, same time, same hour, so four times a month and go through the steps. Literally about five minutes before I'm able to speak, I'm handed this letter. This letter is about a page long and this letter proceeds to say that this individual who had a service position in Alcoholics Anonymous, was incredibly disappointed in this group that they would ask a cancerous member of AA called Mark H. to speak at their group, that I'd been ran out of South Texas and the list goes on and on and that I violated traditions and that, yeah, that i was a cancer in AA and that I was killing people in that. Now, I'm sitting here reading this, right? And I'm getting ready to go speak at a packed house. And toward the end he says, and by the way, I will be in there to ensure that he follows AA traditions. So I'm saying, well, now I know I'm Martin Luther Kingfeld. You see? So now I'm reading all this and I get, you know, I'm not even beginning to tell you what all the stuff that was in there. so i said okay well this ought to be fun so anyhow i go in and uh i give my talk and uh i didn't don't say anything to anybody oh i forgot to mention something while he was out front he took a time to pass out that paper to a lot of the people walking in there most who didn't know me so this is their first impression of mark houston right it's real good one isn't it you know and uh so i go back home and the second time i go over there i'm talking about the second third step And so I wrote some four-column inventory. And that four-kolumn inventory is on that set of tapes, and he was sitting right in the audience, and I walked it through all four. And I got to this forgiveness piece, but you get to the third and you get to the fourth column, and I talked about it. I said, if you're in this room tonight, because this man, I've told people, give him my phone number, and he's in the room every time I was there. I don't know what he looks like. He obviously knows what I look like. He described me in graphic detail, but I made a statement. If you're in this room, God bless you. God bless your life. I'm getting your best shot. Not a problem here. But that's how this works when you start to understand that. I'm just getting what he's getting out of his hard drive. Don't ask me why he's zeroed in on me. I guess it's a bullseye. Who knows? But that's how this deal works when you start to really understand that. You start to understand that you truly are getting people's best shot. And look at your own experience to see the truth in that. The only thing that happened to me, it changed over time, is as the book talks about we do a psychic change, correct? Well, as a result of the psychic change how we react and act in life goes through a dramatic shift and a change, doesn't it? Do you follow me? Well, it's true of every human being and some people aren't going through that. So I had a lot of stuff in this area, you know. I had 13 and a half months in Vietnam and some years of dealing drugs and the drug culture and some family stuff and I mean something had to happen for me in this era of forgiveness or I was never going to be at peace. What I did not know is the extent to which I was unable to forgive is the extent to which I never felt connected with you. See, if I've got one person out there I can't forgive, or let's say myself as well, if I got that out there, then I'm blocked. You see? Four-step, facing me rid of that which has me blocked from God. And as I begin to understand more and more and More about this issue of going through life driven with no choice, I begin To get free of all this remorse and shame and guilt and everything else around my actions and my behavior, and that I also really begin to understand that it's the same with you. And that in truth, that self that we can be rid of with God's help, the more that that self began to dissolve, if you will, the less there was this issue ever that came up of forgiveness. Because there's nothing to forgive. And again, if You break it down, why are You forgiving someone? because there's a part of self that is either hurt, threatened, or interfered with. Well, what if that part isn't there to begin with? So that's some of my experiences. You know, in the big book, in The Ninth Step and several places, it gets into this forgiveness and using the words, page 77, go to them in a helpful and forgiving spirit. You cannot manufacture a forgiving spirit, you know. I really think it's cute when the drunks get in this 90-10. Well, 90% of the harm is his fault and 10% is mine. And my response to that is good. Then you're 100% responsible for your 10. You know, it's just ridiculous. You know I think often of my parents and my brothers and the incredible stuff that happened and being able to love them exactly as they are. And this was more with, say, myself than so with them. But you get to this area of when you start to wake up a little bit and you start at these people that have loved you and cared about you, if you're like me, it just shook me down to my core because I sit there and I've thought of my mother particularly yet, but lays there for year after year and night after night and his phone's going to ring and his mark's been scraped off off the pavement somewhere. It's like, how do you set that right? How do you clear that up? How do YOU get free of that? Some of it is that you no longer do that and you're accountable and responsible and you call with a lot of frequency and there's a dramatic change in your behavior. The other thing is to understand that I wasn't waking up choosing to do that. And in those areas, I began to get free of that. And as that began to happen within me, then my ability to forgive, if you will, others reached completely new dimensions because I began To understand I did get my best shot from my parents. I got the best their hard drive could give me. That's the way it was. You know, it's not going to change. Same with my brothers. The list goes on and on and On. I'm a free man in that area there's nothing to forgive there's no one to forgive I can't tell you the peace in my heart behind that you follow there's a custom they do and I think it's in India it's one of the cultures but it's a great thing when they meet somebody they bow and what they say is basically as I forgive you before they ever meet you I thought to myself we need that in AA hi Dave I forgive you my name is Mark see because they understand human nature they understand that we fall asleep sometimes and when we're asleep or not feeling connected with God we'll do or say things that produce emotion make me feel hurt they understand on the front end anyhow that's all I got on that And there's the beauty of forgiveness, particularly the really, really, really deep harms in my experience is that they really are the diamonds that have been dropped into the manure. I've had the greatest epiphanies in my life and the greatest changes spiritually is when I can truly get to the core of what was driving me the worst and the things that were driving me the worst were the things that hurt me the most. some of it was the behavior that I exhibited when I was drinking. You put the central nervous system to sleep with alcohol and you're surprised why some of this bizarre stuff happens It's all the stuff that you want to take to the grave, you want talk about The bestiality and homosexuality and the gang rapes and all the rest of that stuff that happens The lovely nice side of alcoholism that nobody likes to talk about How do you deal with that? If you were the recipient or if you were the person that was perpetrating those harms? How do you deal with that? And if you can come to terms with that by using the tools and really truly get spiritually free from that, man, the hardest things in your life and just look around the program. The people that have gone through things like that that have had a child murdered by somebody and they go and they make amends to the person that murdered their child for the terrible insensitive feelings that they had and the hate and the true poison that was killing them. They're the freest people in the world. It hasn't been a downer, it's rocketed them into the fourth dimension. It's been a tremendously powerful experience. Two things I'd like to share. One is, if you have a harm that you can't forgive for somebody that's in these rooms, one of the tools that I used that I did not talk about was imagine if you went out drinking again and the person that you refuse to forgive is the person that shows up on your doorstep when you call intergroup for a 12-step call to come save you. Yeah. It hurts. It changes your tune. It really changes your tone. That's where the rubber meets the road. There's a guy by the name of Samuel Johnson who lived in the 1700s. He was a lexicographer. Anybody know what a lexicographer was? I had to look it up. Lexicographer is a guy who writes dictionaries. And he was witnessing, and he said, God himself, sir, does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I? When I read that, man, it touched a tone in me. Who in the heck am I? There's somebody else that's got a heck of a lot more power that's going to do the final judge. I don't need to do it. A guy by the name of Gerald Jempolski. Inner peace can be reached only when we have practiced forgiveness. Forgiveness is letting go of the past and therefore the means for correcting our misperceptions. Interesting. Our misperception. This came alive for me after I'd gone through this work. Our misperformions can be undone now and this is possible only through the process of letting go whatever we think the other person may have done to us and whatever we may think we did to them. Through true forgiveness, we can stop the endless cycle of guilt and look upon ourselves and others with love. Forgiveness permits us to let go of all thoughts that seem to separate us from each other. Without the belief in separation, we can accept our own healing and extend healing love to all those around us. Healing then becomes a thought of unity. As inner peace is recognized as our single goal, forgiveness becomes our single function. When we accept both our function and our goal, we also find that listening to our inner intuitive voice as the source for direction becomes our only guide to fulfillment. We are released as we release others from the prison of our distorted and illusory perceptions and join with them in the unity of love. It took on a whole meaning for me, completely different. 12 and 12. There's another kind of hangover, that which we all experience. Whether we are drinking or not, that is the emotional hangover. the direct result of yesterday and sometimes today's excessive of negative emotions of anger, fear, jealousy and the like. If we would live serenely today and tomorrow we certainly need to eliminate these hangovers it requires an admission and correction of errors now don't think that you can put this stuff off God's grace lasts only as long as ignorance you're going to get sick of hearing me saying that we've woken up the beast this weekend you thought we stirred the pot yesterday? Guess what? We turned on the blender tonight you know the time clock has started for you if you've got this stuff your life's on the line and it's been on the line it's nothing that we did to you it's just it's been on the line you were just blind to it now you can see that the tiger is ready to strike around the year with Emmett Fox here is a sublime precept that we call the golden rule because we are fundamentally all parts of the great mind because we are all ultimately one to hurt another is really to hurt oneself and to help another is really to help oneself the fatherhood of God compels us to accept the brotherhood of man and spiritually the brother hood is unity remember what I said God has no grandchildren we're all brothers and sisters we're always we're not all related and that really becomes true in the fellowship we're really a family of choice inside the rooms and the last thing that I want to share about forgiveness is a I forget whether it was Mike or Barefoot Bill that sent this to me a Native American tale told many times around the sacred fire An old grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice. Let me tell you a story. I too, at times, have felt great hate for those who have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do. But hate wears you down and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing the enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times. It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so and in the right way. But the other wolf, ah, the littlest thing sends him off into a fit of timber. He fights everyone all of the time for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing. Sometimes it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit. The boy looked intently at his grandfather's eyes and asked, Which one wins, Grandfather? And the grandfather smiled and quietly said, The wolf that I feed. Which wolf do you want to feed? That's the question for tonight. We've still got a few minutes. Let's open it up. Anybody want to talk unless you've got some more? No, we'd like to... Did you want us to do the God calling? Did you find that thing or no? Well, I did, but it happened to be the blank page. I'd like to hear from some of you all in this area do we have those mics anybody got something that they really couldn't forgive that they managed to forgive my sailor friend bring the mic it's not on let's try the other one is the other one on let's try it again nope nope there you go yeah you're on I'm Ron I'm an alcoholic. And this is a great thing, this forgiveness. I too knew nothing about forgiveness and I got divorced in 1978. I wasn't all that great about making my payments every month but I did the best I could considering everything and I kept receipts and what have you and I really wasn't, I was still drinking and I still wasn't close to the family at all But anyways, as years went on, I started in sobriety trying to get back with my son and blah, blah, blah, and trying to resume and get some kind of a relationship going. But he was on drugs, and I really couldn't get a good relationship going with either my ex-wife or my son, you know, as far as at least being able to talk things. But we did talk, and i did send money, and bailed him out of a lot of situations. Out of the clear blue in 1994, about a month after Christmas, I get a knock on the door and I'm sitting at my computer and it's a constable and I get hit with a summons and the two of them had showed up in Florida and they were suing me for support saying they had never seen or heard from me since 78. I mean, I just couldn't believe it. I mean I was just blown away. I mean I just I felt that like you said the betrayal the traitor I mean I was I just couldn't understand it. Well anyways I went down I had to go to court and everything and I I just was a mess of emotions. It was homicidal. I wanted to kill them. I mean, I couldn't understand why they would do this to me. Well, anyways, as the days went on, this thing ended up going a long time. And I would go to bed every night and toss and turn and twist and get up. Oh, man. I mean I can understand why people got people killed. I mean it was a mass. So then I realized in my program I was talking to people I started to kneel down every night, and I tried to do the 21-day stuff, you know, blessing them and everything. It wasn't working, you knows. My sponsor says, and meanwhile, I got a lawyer for $2.50 an hour, and I'm sweating this thing, and they're going after some big bucks. And I'm digging. I threw away most of my receipts. And it's really not looking good at all. And so I just, I continued this praying, and And I kept asking God, I can't forgive them. I don't even know how to start that process. But I said, I wish them the best. And I started going at it this way. I said teach me to forgive. Teach me to forget. Because I don' t know anything about this. I want to kill them, not forgive them." And I did this every night for about another 60 days. And finally, you know, the interesting thing is this. The last court date was July the 12th. This all started on February 1st. and I'm sitting in that courtroom not knowing that's going to be my last day and they're in front of me about two rows and their backs are to me I got there a little late but my case wasn't heard yet the judge was finishing on one before us and all of a sudden I could see the backs of them and this thing came over me honest to God as soon as I was sitting here and I says I'll accept anything this judge says today and in my heart I know that what they're doing They really don't understand why they're doing what they're doing, and I'm okay. And I just had, I was awash. Just whoosh. Just washed right out. Just the most wonderful feeling in the world. I didn't give a shit about the case. Couldn't give it a shit. The judge gets right into this thing and he starts hearing and rattling. He had already come to a decision. I guess that's what it was. And he's all through, and my lawyer says, pretty good, huh? I didn'T even know what he had said. I couldn't understand legal talk anyways. and anyways that's what happened he says you won he says he threw it out I said are you kidding me he says no he says you're golden you're alright he didn't believe him and you know halfway through that case my son even walked into an AA meeting in Stewart, Florida and I felt I wanted to kill him but I had walked out of the thing that day and I forced myself to walk up around walk up to him and I give him a hug and I squeezed him and I said, it's okay. I don't know if I meant it. I don'T KNOW IF I MEANT IT. BUT I DID IT. AND THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT WAS AFTER THIS CASE, TWO YEARS LATER MY SON CALLS ME. HE'S RUNNING FROM THE LAW IN MASSACHUSETTS. HE'S A BURGLAR. AND HE JUMPED BAIL. AND HE CALLES ME AND HE'S ON THE PHONE WITH ME AND HE IS CRYING AND HE WAS ASKING ME WHAT TO DO AND I GAVE HIM I TOLD HIM THINGS WHAT I THOUGHT HE WOULD DO And later on, you know, about two years ago, this is all three years ago now. Two years ago he calls me on the phone and he's talking about this whole thing. And he says, You know why I called you that day? He did go back and face the thing and go to jail and get it all done. But he says You know I called your that day. I said I don't know. He says You hugged me outside of that meeting that day He says, you hugged Me. And he said I couldn't believe you did that. You really hugged ME. And he says, I just knew that everything was going to be all right if I called you. I think that's what it's all about. I think we have to even do things that we don't understand why we're going to do them. I really didn't love him that day I hugged him. And I didn't wish him well. But something made me squeeze him and hug him. And I just did. I squeezed him. And I am. I just didn't know. But I think God works through us in wonderful ways. And I think the wonders we don' t understand sometimes. but I mean I just have to do what we think is the next right thing the ego is a killer my ego didn't want to hug him my ego wanted to kill him and I don't mean that literally but I felt so angry at him so God has this tremendous power with us I think that he can make us go through that and do things that even are beyond our capability I'm glad to be here thank you so much for that gift Wonderful story. Anybody else got forgiveness? Yeah, just hand her the mic. Hi, my name's Ann. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Ann. I have a story of forgiveness that really shocked me. Growing up, I was one of five girls and my mother is a heavy drinker an alcoholic. And I was the apple of her eye until I was like, I don't know, until I really was out of college and doing things that were getting back to her through my friends who would tell their mothers and really terrible, embarrassing things to a mother. And slowly she put two and two together and realized that I had been like cunning and deceitful and lying and over this was like 25 years ago now and she sort of cut me off and I got married and she was very cold and she never has liked my husband and then I had kids and she would be giving all kinds of things to the other grandchildren and furniture to my sisters and all kinds of things and I would always just get this coldness and I thought it was because she's the active alcoholic and she hates that I'm sober. And I once had said to her, well, when I was nearly sober and didn't stay sober, something like, if only you'd get sober. And I thought, well, my amend to my mother is my sobriety and my living a good life and a sober life and a responsible life. But slowly, I kind of just pulled away and she hurt my kids, I thought. So I wouldn't go and take them anymore and she was anti-Semitic to my husband. And so I just was, you know, I'm sober a long time and I thought doing the right thing. And in, I live in New York City and oftentimes at the end of a meeting people will say before the serenity prayer, let's take a moment of silence for the sick and sobering alcoholics. And it was like as if there was a pile of beans on one side of my real enmity for my mother. Maybe pity, but more enmity that I was so wronged. And I would just see her face filled with self-pity and remorse and all kinds of things. And during that time of that moment of silence after the meeting I would think of her and my heart would really think oh, I wish she could get sober. And little by little, over the period of a couple of years, something shifted in me. And I think my sponsor and I had a long talk one day at the beginning of this. And she said, if you have any hope of that inheritance for your kids, there's a little money involved, you better have lunch with her a couple times a year. Don't take the kids, don't take your husband, just you go by yourself. And so I started doing this and it was not great. It wasn't, you know, she saw I was making an effort, but it was very cold and very stiff. And, um, it was a day like about a year ago, almost a year, more than a year last spring. And it suddenly sprang into my head, all the stuff about my responsibility about my deceit and about the things that had come back to her, which I'd never really thought about, like that that would have hurt her. And I wrote her a letter and it was quite melodramatic and I wept as I read it. And then I read it to a couple of people and I rewrote it very simply, taking out all the drama. And I got a letter back from her saying that it must have been a very hard letter to write and that it moved her. And then the next time that I saw her And every time since then, the relationship has been like, it was like light speed. It was like 25 years or more than 25 years, 30 years maybe, of this terrible, sour, like tartness, like completely evaporated. And these loving phone calls, talking to my husband on the phone, like please give my love to the children and just like a shocking thing. And just because of me, it wasn't even that I really did anything. It was such a gradual process. It was like I didn't do anything. It was kind of done to me, I guess. And that's my story. Thanks. Would you hand the mic up in front of you? Hi, I'm Marianne, an alcoholic. Hi, Marianne. I just want to say a long time ago, my father drank for years and then all of a sudden he just stopped drinking. and at that point no program, so it was pretty bad. But anyway, I was a great swimmer, and for years I resented him. I tried to do some of the physical stuff he liked to do. He was very active that way. And I guess as a child, like trying to get his approval. But anyway through the years I never let him see my kids. I could never forgive him, and it was holding me and I was going through the steps and someone, and I do think God works with people, said to me, you know, I mean, why wasn't I in competition? I mean I really could have done well. And she said tome, you were not in competition because you're not in competeition because you are not in competition. I never signed up for it. I mean it's a small thing but it freed me of the resentment of my father And I blame my father for not doing this. I mean, he did the best he could with his hard drive, like you say, and his life was hell when he was young. But it freed me up. And before he died, we were seeing him and stuff, and a little reserved, but I opened the door. So thank you. Thank you. You know, a comment on there's nothing but love, And when you can get rid of that which blocks it, the rest will blossom. You know, I remember at times having to do some things in this program. It was this issue of, well, I think they might have done more. And I still remember this man saying to me, and I'd say, well why do I have to do that? And he said, because you can and they can't. Because they're sound asleep. You're close, bud. And see, that's the truth. That's why you reached out your hand. She couldn't. Your mother couldn't You reached out 25 years. Boom, just that fast. There's only love. The goal is, what do I do to get rid of that which is between that manifesting itself? There's a harm in each person's heart. You've got a harm in your heart and they've got a harm in their heart. The difference is, you've got both keys. You can unlock your heart and as soon as you unlock your hard, then you can reach out to them and unlock their heart? That's the difference. When you're spiritual in this program, we don't like to see the fact that we've got Both the Keys. That's particularly true in divorces. A lot of people have been talking about divorce in here. I've helped a number of people go through divorce. brutal business absolutely brutal brutal business 99% of the time there's unfinished amends involved in that once the divorce starts guaranteed there's going to be more harms that get occurred but before that before the divorce ever started there was unfinished amens particularly if there was sobriety around and you weren't practicing the principles at home I was helping one friend of mine and he came to me and he knew the divorce was on the horizon it was just a matter of time and then boom the divorce finally starts and he's like what do I do and he starts talking about money and everything. I said, well, wait a minute. There's a harm here, right? He said, yeah. And I said so do you want to be free? He didn't realize what a trap that question was. Well, yeah, I want to have I want her to be free. I said great. Give her everything. No matter what she wants give it to her. Give it to Her. Walk away. Ask for one thing. He goes, what's that? I said ask her to take your name off the mortgage. That's it. It's all you want. And he swore and stomped and carried on, but he did it. The divorce was over in like 30 days. I mean, it was like boom, boom, boom. She got his name off the mortgage. Literally within, I don't know, three, four months later, he finds this house on a lake. He buys it by himself because his name wasn't attached to the mortgage, so now he can buy a second house and they're friends today. They're not close friends, don't get me wrong, But they're speaking together. They're friends, you know? And what did it cost him? There wasn't that much money in the house anyway. It was all the emotional banker stuff. And when he walked away with love and said, whatever will make you happy. You want the house? It's yours. You want to go home? You want my dog? It's my dog, but yeah, it's yours, you knows? And he came back to me a couple of months later and he said, you-know-what? I went over and I saw her again today and she even said I could have the dog if I wanted. I said, but my life is so good. I can't have the dog all the time I got babes I'm checking out and he's doing all this stuff his life is great you know so your view through the pipe may not be what it's the best thing forgive with love and anything is possible there was another hand over here hi I'm Ken and I'm an alcoholic thank you you touched on something before about forgiving somebody in a program because they might save your butt, and that happened to me. Because today I have family members in recovery, but younger, I also was like the apple of my mother's eye. And when I got well into my disease at a young age of 13, I ran away or she kicked me out, and she was well on her disease, and there was pretty much no talk. We didn't talk. I was pretty Much disowned and I had a lot of anger, a lot Of hatred. I did manage to get sober and come into the rooms at 19 and at the time I think I had over a year I had found out that my mother had tried to commit suicide and that she was in a rehab and I did not want to go there and uh i wanted to go in there and uh you know i told her i loved her and i tried to forgive it the best of my ability at that time and um and i even went to see her at her first anniversary and uhyou know i wound up going back out and here again not talking to her for many more years I came back at 29 you know, I gave up with alcohol and I tried to quit drinking on my own and I couldn't do it after 8 months suicide was like a strong option and why I called my mother I don't know but she came and got me upstate because I was contemplating suicide and you know to this day Like I say, she gave me that second life. She came because she always says, like, you were there for me at my first anniversary. Nobody else in the family. You showed up and I knew that you were so angry but you tried to forgive me. And it's funny how it comes back to you. You don't know why you're doing it. Because at the time I did not want to forgive her. I was so angry. It was like you, you,you,you. You know, for all the things as a child growing up. So, you know, that's what, you stirred that up in me and made me remember that. because it brings tears to my eyes because I can remember her walking in the room crying and here's a woman that never cried and being like, please don't leave me. Please don't do this to yourself. And it saved my life. So just thanks. Thanks for welcoming. We've got time for one more real quick one and then we're going to wrap it up. This will be quick. I was taken through the book the first time starting in 1990 at four years sober and when I got to the eighth step We had a different thing we did with cards than what Dave's been talking about. But some of you probably know that exercise. And one of the people on my list was this ex-girlfriend that I've mentioned. And I got to the part where it's like, okay, what am I going to say to the person? And got clear on the words I was going to use. The book's pretty clear about that. We can't say anything that's going to imply that they have anything to do with what we're talking about, that they caused any part of it. So I went and made amends to this ex-girlfriend for the relationship itself, for the emotional harm that I caused. And left it at that. I knew there were some things that I couldn't bring up because it was going to cause her more harm. She was in the middle of an inventory and ended up blowing her sponsor off and drinking again. And what she had said that I wrote on the back of the card, she said, don't just check me off your list as another amend. Be a friend. If I need to talk to you, be my friend. So I would see her from time to time when we would talk on the street. And eight years later, she's coming off of heroin and withdrawing from alcohol. And I get to be one of the two people to go 12-stepper. And she was living in Chicago at the time. And I got her hooked up with my old grand sponsor, Paul, and his home group up there. And they're pretty fanatical. And she ended up finding a group of women that used the big book as their primary source material and was getting taken through the steps. She'd been sober three years last Christmas. and one of the hardest things for me is to maintain that posture of there are some wrongs we can never fully right but we would right them if we could to maintain that posture of readiness and she called me up and said I'm going to be in town can I talk to you about some harm I think I've caused you and it wasn't just psyched to hear the harm it's like I pretty well knew that because I'd written my inventory and I'm like okay this is it's more for her but what I was given the advice by that Al-Anon lady had talked about She said, if you're going to go make amends, you need to make amens for what you've done as far as the abortion. I said, I can't do that. I can'T bring it up. I can' t imply that she had anything to do with it. And I was given that direction. If she brings it up, you have the green light to address it all together. I need to tell you, it was midnight mass or go talk to this girl at an Alcaton. And she said, this is the only time I can really meet. I've only got a couple of days. And then I got to sit across the table from her. And when she said the actual words, then I knew we could talk openly. And within an hour, we were both weeping and holding each other's hands across the table because we knew that we couldn't have done anything different. I wanted to say thanks to Dave and Mark especially for being here this weekend, but there's that last missing piece that I couldn't get at until Mark said it. This lady in my group took away my right to judge myself, and that's a hard piece to give up. That third column is like that's the cross that I hang myself on, and it's hard to get free of that. But thank you. You know, there's this concept that life is a pool and you can throw a negative stone in the pool and the ripples will ripple out and they'll hit the sides and they're going to come right back at you and you'll feel the pain that you caused. Or you can through a positive stone in a pool and the riples go out and they hit the side of the pool and they come back. What kind of stone do you want to throw? I love doing the good deeds because not only does it touch everybody but it comes right back at you because of the spiritual mirror principle. We've stirred the pot pretty heavy. We've touched a lot of things that a lot people don't want to take a look at. You don't have any choice now, sorry. Don't be surprised if you have even more bizarre dreams tonight. Experience them. Let them be. Don't fight it. Just let it be. I think it's 7.30 tomorrow morning? Is that correct for the prayer meeting in the other room? 7.15. 7.15 tomorrow morning there's the prayer meeting we're back in here let's see at 9 o'clock tomorrow if you'd all bear with me for just one more second if we can do you have anything more or do you just want to close with a prayer yeah go ahead okay if we just get quiet for a second and I'll close take us out with a pray dear God we thank you for this wondrous opportunity to share your love and peace and serenity as we dredge this past together and we thank you so much for the grace that you've brought into our lives to take away the fear of seeing the truth we need to see and now that we've seen the truth Father I ask that you help us to face that truth. And until the spiritual body can again be together, I ask you to keep us safe and protected as we go out from here to do our best to live your will, whatever that may be. In your love, we ask. Amen. Good night, guys.