Joe C. – Step 4 – Pure as the Driven Snow – 1998

In the second paragraph on page 67, it says, referring to our list again. See, you've got to have a written inventory. This is the second time we've had to go back to it now. Referring to our lists again, putting out of our minds the wrongs others have done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Uh-oh! We've never done this, have we? We've always looked to see what they did. We've ever looked to do it again. We've not looked to look to see what we did. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened? Though a situation not been entirely our fault we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man's. When we saw our faults, we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly and were willing to set these matters straight. So we go to the fourth column. And if you'll notice the heading on the fourth column said, what did I do? Putting out of mind the wrongs others have done, I resolutely look for my own mistakes. What did I do, if anything, to set in motion trains of circumstances which in turn caused people or institutions to hurt me and eventually led to my resentment of them for doing so? So I went to column four. And I looked at this lady named Barbara. And I said, now Charlie, you forget what she did. You forget her filing for three divorces. what did you do if anything to set that in motion and it took me just about five seconds to realize that if I hadn't been out there screwing around she probably wouldn't have caught me and she probably wouldn't have filed for divorce in the first place took me another two or three seconds to say to myself well, if I hadn't been sneaking around behind her back lying to her all the time, completely dishonest with her, she probably wouldn't have filed for divorce in the first place. Another three or four seconds and I was able to say to myself, well, if I had not been blowing all of our money on booze and what I think was important, she probably would not have filed for divorce in the first place. And I began to realize why I loved that resentment. Because you see, when I could concentrate on her filing for divorce and play that over and over and over in my head, gradually distorting the picture every time I played it over, making what she did a little bit worse and what I did a Little bit less and let me play it long enough, I could gradually transfer all blame to her and make myself as pure as the driven snow. And it was all her damn fault in the first place. I thought, my God, Charlie, have you done that with any other resentments here? I looked at the Internal Revenue Service. I said now forget what they're doing to you trying to put you in jail what did you do if anything to set in motion the fact they're trying to put me in jail well it didn't take two seconds to be able to say if I hadn't been cheating on my income tax they wouldn't have been trying to Put Me In Jail anyhow and rather than look at what I had done to them I had played it over and over and over and distorted the picture transferred all blame to them made myself as pure as the driven snow that way I could continue through life doing what I wanted to do and never have to look at me because after all it's all their fault in the first place showing this resentment against Rose what did you do if anything to set that in motion Charlie was out there screwing around but I was committing adultery ok sneaking around behind her back and lying to her all the time and Rose finally got enough of it she said I'll show him and she went out and had her own affair and Joe had over a period of time played that resentment over and over gradually transferred all blame to him, or to her. Made himself as pure as the driven snow. I went down through my list of resentments. I never found a name on there that I hadn't done something to them to set this thing in motion. And I had resented it and played it over and over and distorted the picture, transferred all claim to them. made myself as pure as the driven snow. If you're a practicing alcoholic, you've got to develop these kind of skills. You know, we have a conscience. We're not drunken bums. We know the difference between right and wrong. And I don't think we could live with ourselves if we had to honestly see what was going on whenever we're out there doing our thing. But you see, we never have to see it because we've got this convenient thing called resentments that we play them over and over, distort the picture and transfer all blame to others. And we men go from woman to woman to women and you ladies go from man to man to man and we go from job to job to job and we go from city to city to city and we go from country to country to country and it's always their damn fault. That's the only way we could live the kind of life we were living by being able to transfer blame to others. And none of us realize how much we've been doing that until we take an honest look at these resentments and see the part that we played. Now in the fifth column, you see the major character defects talked about in the big book. Where had I been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, frightened, or inconsiderate? all other character defects stem from these. In the fifth column, I ask myself this question. Which of the above character defects caused me to do what I did or caused me not to want to hold on to the old resentment even though I may have done nothing to cause it? Now going back to Barbara again, if I hadn't been so selfish, I wouldn't have been out there doing those things that hurt my wife and children if I hadn't been so dishonest I wouldn' t have been sneaking around behind her back line to her all the time if I hadn't been so self-seeking and frightened saying to myself man you're getting close to 40 years old if you're ever going to do some of that you better go do it before it's too late fear drives us to do things like that if I hadn't been so inconsiderate of my wife and children I wouldn't have been taking the chance of hurting them in the first place I began to see in the fifth column the type character I had become through my years of living a life run on self will and when I saw it I didn't like it it made me sick you see I always fancied myself as a reasonably good person until I saw how I had become so selfish and so dishonest and so inconsiderate of other people that I was continually doing things that hurt others and they retaliated and I resented for it. I began to see that if I don't change those things in the fifth column, if I stay selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, frightened and inconsiderate that I'm going to keep right on doing the same old things I've always done, drunk or sober. I'm gonna keep right own hurting people and they're going to retaliate and I'm gong to resent and eventually it's going to block me off from God and I am going to get drunk over it. But just think, if I could become a little less selfish oh I don't have to get perfect I never will but if I could become a little less selfish if I could become a little less dishonest if I could become less frightened and self-seeking if I could become a little more considerate of other people and their needs and their wants maybe I wouldn't have to do some of that kind of stuff maybe I wouldn't hurt people and maybe they wouldn't retaliate and I wouldn't have to resent. And just maybe I wouldn' t have to get drunk over it. You see, what we're really doing here is step four. This is the resentment part of it. But out in the fifth column I now see the exact nature of the wrongs that I'm going to talk to another human being about when I take step five. The resentment is the wrong. That's what blocks me off from God. but what's the exact nature of it? That means what's the truth of it. What's at the core of it what's in the heart and what's the inherent characteristic of it that's what we'll talk about in step five you know when a guy comes to me and he's committed adultery 44 times I don't care about that all I want to know is what is within him that caused him to do it in the first place if he's stolen 364 times I don't care about that what I want to know is what's within him that caused him to do that that's what we'll talk about in step 5 in that fifth column I now see the character defects and I'm going to become willing to turn loose of in step 6 out there in that fifth column I see the shortcomings now I'm gonna ask God to take away in step 7 and in my case all the names from column one came off of this sheet to be added to the sheet later to be used for steps eight and nine because you see when i get to step eight it says i've got the list i made it when i took step four in mycase every one of those in your case probably some of them in mycase all of them now what i've really done if i have done this the way the big book says is I have prepared myself with all the information I need for steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 resentment wise. Not only have I gathered all the info that I need and the information I need for 4,5,6,7,8 and 9 well I've had a positive result here. Resentments have disappeared and they've been replaced with love, patience, tolerance compassion, and goodwill. Did we do anything to be afraid of? No. Did we make a list of dirty, filthy, nasty items? No. Did we doing anything that was too complicated? No. I've never seen anything like this inventory according to the big book. Now I hear some of you saying and I hear awful good. I've got good hearing. Charlie hears good. I hear some of you saying, well, Charlie, that's probably right on those that we did something to them. But how about those that did it to us and we didn't have anything to do with that? How about those who hurt us as kids growing up? How about Those that hurt us in our marriages that we didn' t do anything to cause it? Aren't we justified in having that kind of resentment? well, I guess we are if we want to get drunk over it. But you see, a justified resentment blocks you off from God just like an unjustified resentment does. When you've got a justified resentment churning around in your head, then whoever or whatever you're resenting is controlling your thinking. If they're controlling your thinkings, they're controling your decisions. They're controlling your life for you. And you have given them power to actually kill you because you've given thempower to cause you to get drunk again. Now, if you've got one of those resentments, and I don't care what it is, I don' t care whether it's physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse, or whatever. You know, I keep hearing in AA all the time this sexual abuse thing. and it usually centers on young women. But let me tell you something, men know about that too. I don't know how many fifth steps I've taken with men, and nearly every one of us somewhere in the background we've had that kind of stuff too. It's not just women, it's men. If you've got one of those kinds of resentments, and you don't want to get rid of it, knowing full well it might get you drunk, then we better get it on this sheet of paper and take a look at it and see what we're doing with it. We're probably using it for rationalization and justification to rationalize not doing things we ought to go do or just as importantly to rationalized and justified doing things that we shouldn't be doing in the first place. Oh, the greatest excuse in the world is if they hadn't have done that to me then I wouldn't have to be the way I am today. They call that victimization. I don't really think we've got any place for that in AA where all adults it's time for us to realize that whatever has happened to us in the past does not have to control what we do today. The only The only reason for that is to justify, rationalize, and etc. The woman in the book, she used her resentment against her mother to justify her lack of education. Bull. She could have gotten an education if she wanted to bad enough. She used it to justify your lack of knowledge. To justify her marital failure. Bull. Mama didn't have anything to do with her marinal failure. she even used it to justify her alcoholism mama had nothing to do with her alcohol isn't she became alcoholic because she drank whiskey and she drank enough of it she became alcoholic you know i think it's time for us to realize we are responsible for what we think and how we feel we are accountable we are responsible for what we do today mother and daddy and other people are no longer responsible for that maybe they were when we're little kids but we're not little kids any longer it really doesn't make any sense to let somebody hurt me 5 10 15 20 years ago and then let them hurt me every day for the rest of my life if i'm resenting them they've got me and they're going to kill me. I need to put them on this sheet. Put down their name. What did they do to me? What part of self is affected? What did I do, if anything, to set it in motion? In this case, nothing. But then let's look in the fourth column. Are we so dishonest with ourselves we refuse to see the truth? If you've got a resentment in your head today, it's not true. I'm going to say that again. If you've got a resentment in your head today, it's not true. Oh, it was based on truth and it's partially true. But if you've played it over and over andover, you've distorted it and it is no longer true. Can we honestly look at it and see the truth behind it? Let's look in the fifth column and see if maybe we are so frightened of facing life without it that we refuse to turn it loose. Because you know, after all, if we turn it lose, then we've got to take responsibility for our own behavior. It's a hell of a lot easier to blame it on others. Are we so afraid of facing life without it, we won't turn it loose? Are we still inconsiderate of another human being and we fail to recognize that people that do those things to us, they're not necessarily bad people, they're sick people. If they didn't necessarily do it to us they would have done it to anybody in that position. If we could even begin to consider that, maybe we can start a forgiving process. Maybe we could straighten up a relationship with another human being before it's too late. After they're dead, it's Too Late. I'll guarantee you it is. Maybe we can do it while we're all still alive. If we will do those things, I think we can get rid of that resentment too when we really see the truth behind it and what we're doing with it. if we can't get rid of it that way then we can use the ultimate tool by golly we can pray for them and if we pray for one of those people resent that doesn't mean that we approve of what they did that doesn'T mean we're going to take them by the hand and walk hand in hand with them for the rest of our life what it means is we're tired of letting them control us dominate us and rule us every day for the rest of our life we can get rid of those kind of resentments too and if we don't want to do that then chances are we're using it for some reason and we need to look at it very very carefully joe takes two people to make a prison the prisoner and the jailer have to turn them loose and let them out and turn them lose all those people that I hated had to turn them loose. Charlie said, I don't want to be a victim anymore. And I don�t think Alcoholics Anonymous may be the only association left on the face of the earth that won�t allow us to be victims. There�s victims going on all out there. Everybody wants to be victim of something, you know? But we in AA won�T let each other do that because we have a way out. When everything else fails, we can pray for them. They need their prayers and we need to practice. You know, I see in many AA meetings where we've gone into this group therapy stuff and we sit around the table and we discuss what those people did to us and we try to figure out why they did it. We'll never understand why they didn't do it. The thing is, they did It. Then we start trying to discuss and figure out why it made us the way we are. We'll Never Understand That. The fact is, that's the way We Are. the real question is what are we going to do about it are we gonna continue to let them kill us or are we gonna get rid of that jazz that's what AA's about it's not to sit around and talk about problems it's to sit around and talk about how do you solve the problems and resentment is the number one problem for every alcoholic and if we can get rid of them then we're peaceful happy and free until we do we'll never be free of it We went through a process yesterday afternoon, the first part of the inventory process. There we learned how to look at our resentments, to take an honest, truthful, moral inventory. And as we listed those resentments we began to see the truth about them really. The first thing we saw in column one is how many resentments мы really did have, how much that blocked us off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The second thing we saw in column two, it's not those people or institutions we resent. It's what they've done to us that we actually resent. The third thing we found out in column three, it' s really not even what they' ve done to us. It' s how we choose to react to a threat to one of our basic instincts of life which is going to determine whether we're resentful or not. So just in filling out those three columns, we learned some very valuable information. We also were able to see in the big book that resentments was an absolute waste of time. That whenever they're churning around in our heads, we're pretty well paralyzed from doing anything worthwhile. And we find that if we honestly look at them, most of us have spent literally thousands and thousands of hours in resentments. And as we look back at that time in our lives, we can see where they really never did do us any good. They never really straightened up a relationship with another human being. never made us feel better, only made us feel worse, never made us any money for sure and as far as we can tell it's absolute wasted time but we also said that's not the worst thing about a resentment. The worst thing is it very effectively blocks us off from God blocked off from god, we don't feel good we begin to become insane we beginto think about taking a drink next thing you know we end up drunk all over again And when we truthfully and honestly looked at those resentments, we could really begin to see how other people have controlled and dominated us throughout our entire lifetime through those resentations. Now, we always thought that we had it under control, that we determined what we said and what we did, but we suddenly realized that we really have done nothing but react to others through our resentment toward them. That looked so stupid to us that about 95% of those resentments automatically disappeared. The other 5% that was so deeply embedded we found through prayer that we could remove them also, so we could be resentment-free if we follow the procedures outlined in the big book. The real revealing thing is, though, the amazing thing is that after we became resentment- free, God wouldn't allow another hole in our head. it had to be replaced with something else the only thing that could replace it was the opposite of the resentment and where we used to feel resentment we now feel serenity a little peace of mind a little happiness compassion goodwill love those are all god's thinking rather than our individual thinking and we found that that came to us automatically those things had always been a part of us we just never could use them before now their resentments are gone then god's thinking automatically begins to replace the resentment and we're much less chance of getting drunk now than we were when we started the process. We went back to the resentment sheet and we looked at it from an entirely different angle now. We began to look at it to see what had we done to set that thing in motion or what did we do? We'd never looked at before and in our fourth column, we found that in almost all cases, whatever the resentment was, we ourselves did something to set it in motion and we hurt other people they retaliated we resented we played the resentment over and over and overdistorted the picture finally transferred all blame to other people a good practicing alcoholic has to be able to do that we just couldn't live if we didn't have that ability so we really in the fourth column really did begin to look at the truth of the resentment to see the part that we had played. And in most cases, we ourselves set the ball rolling. We looked in the fifth column to see the exact nature of that resentment. The resentment was the wrong but what was at the actual core of it or at the center of it? And in the sixth column, we found the type personality that we have developed through our years of living on self-will and living as a practicing alcoholic. And we found just about every time we had hurt anybody in the past, it was either through selfishness or through dishonesty or because we were self-seeking frightened or through inconsideration of other people. And we begin to see in the fifth column that if we don't change those things, we're going to keep right on doing the same things in sobriety that we used to do when drinking. We're goingto continue to hurt people. They're goingt o retaliate. we'll resent and eventually get drunk over it. And we begin to see in the fifth column the things that we will need to change in our personality if we want to live with peace of mind, serenity, and happiness in the future. We summed it up by saying we were in the process of doing the resentment part of step four. In the fifth volume, we now had all the information we needed for steps five, six, and seven. And then the names in the first column, those that we had harmed And they come off of there to be added to the list to be used for 8 and 9 at a later date. So we really ended up in this simple little inventory with all the information we needed for 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 resentment-wise. A very positive thing took place. Resentments disappeared, and they were replaced with love, patience, tolerance, compassion, and goodwill. So there was nothing to be afraid of. There was nothing too complicated. There was not a list of dirty, filthy, nasty items. Just a simple inventory. Now we don't want to give you the impression that you can always be 100% free of resentments. You know God never gave us anything bad. It depends on what we do with things as to whether they become bad or not. A resentment used right can be used for a worthwhile purpose. if somebody does something to me that threatens my self-esteem, if it would cause me to look at me and see some things that I need to change and I go ahead and make those changes, then that resentment can be used for a worthwhile purpose. For instance, if we're living in the neighborhood, all the old houses are run down. Mine's no worse than anybody else's. They all need painting. They've got broken windows, screens, and panes. And I sit on my front porch each evening. after work, and I rock, and I'm very complacent about that situation. One day I look up, though, and some idiot has moved in across the street. He's out there painting his house. Fixing his window screens and window panes makes my house look bad. I resent the hell out of him for doing that. I say, who in the hell is he moving in here and screwing up this whole neighborhood? Now if I use that resentment right, it'll cause me to look at my house and become a little bit ashamed of it. Next thing you know, I paint my house, fix my window screens and window panes. My next door neighbor resents me for doing so. Next things you know he fixes his house up and his neighbor resends him. And after a while God's got the whole neighborhood cleaned up like it should have been in the first place. That's the proper use of a resentment. But we alcoholics won't use it that way. We'll sit on the front porch and we'll rock and we will rock and we'll resent and we'll resent 30 days later we'll go over at midnight burn his damn house down we'll show him so it really depends on what we do with resentments that determines whether they're going to be for bad or good and if we use one rightly it's going to disappear anyhow the ones that kill us are those that we just leave in our head and it is fester and fester and fster and we get sicker and sicker until eventually it creates a real problem for us Joe This morning we're going to talk about fears a bit. And we're not going to psychoanalyze ourselves in any manner. We're simply going to do like the book suggested yesterday. We're going find the facts and we're gonna face the facts and eventually through this process we're gone accept the facts as they really are, truthfully. And it says also that when the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically. The spiritual malty not only is my relationship with God but my relationship with me, my mental attitudes, and my relationship with other people. So that's another form of spiritual malady that I had. And Dr. Jung said we're going to have a look at our ideas, emotions, and attitudes. And that's what we're doing through this inventory process. We're looking at ideas, emotion, and attitude and see where they came from. And if we will, we'll go back now to page 18 and I'm going to read this little paragraph that tells my whole story in one little paragraph he says an illness of this sort we've come to believe it an illness involves those about us in a way no other human sickness can if a person has cancer all are sorry for him no one is angry or hurt but not so with the alcoholic illness for with it goes annihilation of all things worthwhile in life and engulfs all whose lives touch the sufferers it brings misunderstanding fierce resentment financial insecurity disgusted friends and employers warp lives of blameless children, sad wives and parents, and anyone can increase the list. In other words, it's a family illness. It affects everybody in the family to some extent. And if you live with one of us very long, you'll be affected by it in some manner for sure. And as I look back in my life to see where these ideas, emotions, and attitudes that were to become the guiding force of my life started way, way back.