Justifiable Anger Ought to Be Left to Those Who Can Handle It 🤣 – Sandy B.

All right. Hey, Lancer. Well, good morning, everybody, and welcome to the Saturday Morning Live group of Alcoholics Anonymous. My name is Sandy Beach, and I'm an alcoholic. How are you all doing this morning? Great to see everybody here. We're having a little discussion trying to figure out what that bright object in the sky is, and I haven't seen it in so long. Somebody says it's the sun. Anyway, we'd like to welcome you here. If you haven't been to this meeting before... Why, we certainly want to extend a welcome here and hope that you get something out of it and find it useful. And if you're new to AA, you're just arriving in this fellowship. Why, everybody here knows exactly how you feel. We all went through that arriving in AA feeling like I don't really belong here. There's been a mistake. I think I better get out of here before they brainwash me and I don'T feel comfortable with this and I can tell ahead of time it's not going to work and all of those uncomfortable feelings. And all we can tell you is to just ignore all that and stick around because there's a lot of wonderful things in store for you here and there's also a lot more things in the future. There's a whole lot of horrible things in stores for you back out with alcohol. So please go against your better judgment and stick along and see what happens. You still are the judge of what happens, so just wait and put your arms back and take a look and wait a couple months and see if your life hasn't really improved, and we just want you to stick around. As customary to start our meetings with our preamble, Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The only requirement for membership is the desire to stop drinking. There are no dues or fees for AA membership. We're self-supporting through our own contributions. AEA is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution. Does not wish to engage in any controversy. Neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety. And you'll hear that read at just about every meeting that you go to and it really is good because it serves as a constant reminder of exactly what we're doing here this morning and about 250 other meetings today in the Washington, D.C. area. So every day there's a lot of meetings, no matter where you live or work or hang out. As the case may be, there is a meeting nearby. We got a lot stuff this morning, so I'm going to jump over to the announcements. One, we ask your cooperation. Well, if you haven't been here before, we always explain a few things. that this is a little different from most of our meetings in that it's conducted in a classroom-type setting, but we do have three or four of these in the Washington, D.C. area where we go through the 12 steps of AA. And they were started, I don't know, 25 years ago or so to have a place where you could go and know ahead of time that you're going to hear about our 12 steps and not have to be sitting there worrying about what you're gonna say when it's your turn to come around. and it worked out pretty good. I think all the other groups go through the steps three at a time and get through them, they just cycle every month but over here we go through them one at a Time around Step 10 this morning. Next week we won't have a meeting and then we'll be on Step 11 in two weeks and our format is to go through the 12 Steps and then have the Traditions and then a couple of weeks on the History of AA but this time for one time only see how it goes at the end of the Tradition Next week, we're going to have a question basket in the back. And if you want to ask a question, any question you've always wanted to ask about AA, put your name in the basket and we'll draw it out and you can ask that question during that hour and we will see if that's worthwhile or not. We'll try it one time. So let me make a few comments about the steps in general because there's always new people here in the program. the steps are what AA is I mean that's why we focus on these 12 steps because this is the AA program and that is what AA members do in order to get sober and happy and you have to do both I meanthat's what the stepsare for is to enable you to get sober and happy and if you don't do that you're not doing the program right because if you think about it, it's impossible to stay sober and miserable for any extended period of time. That's what you do without AA. You just try and not drink. You grit your teeth and you walk around not drinking and you can see your neck muscles popping and you are technically sober but you are a time bomb waiting to go off. We've all tried this. I'm not drinking and it's this huge sacrifice. So the steps are designed so that we are sober and happy with being sober. That's the miracle. That is something that you cannot give to yourself. We take these actions, all the 12 steps, and then we receive this gift of sobriety. And what that gift is, it's freedom from thinking about drinking. You can actually have a Saturday night and everybody else is going to be getting a lotto and all that and it doesn't even occur to you that you're sacrificing. You just go about your business totally free from having to think about alcohol. That's what sobriety is. That's the 12 steps are designed to do, and they will do it. They will do that anybody who will try them. This is the great gift of Alcoholics Anonymous. So that's what our 12 steps, that's the whole AA program. Now we have meetings and sponsors and cruises and conventions and all these wonderful things, but all of them are designed to keep reminding us as individuals to work the steps and to incorporate that into our lives. That's what sponsors are for, is to push you down the 12 steps. So you're not going to go there by instinct. Your instincts are going to tell you, I don't need the 12 step. I can do them later. I mean, believe me, your brain will not lead you down the 12 steps so you need a sponsor a home group the whole aa atmosphere and we need to remind each other constantly that this is the solution and we constantly have to go back to it because it's real easy to go Back and let your mind take over and start figuring out your own problems again and that's how you got here was on your own figuring out Your problems and what that what you ought to do with your life so this is a radical change in what we've been accustomed to when we arrived here and the reason it's such a dramatic change is this is spiritual solution and we've used the intellectual solution we've even used the problem solving so when we come up against these steps and read them our brain is not going to relate to them too much i remember reading them the first time I looked at the 12 steps and I said this looks very good I was sort of you know conceding that this was well written and these were certainly noble objectives but they didn't have anything to do with my problems today as I saw them especially and I say this week after week there was no step in there where you got two thousand dollar loans and it seemed to me that that was my top priority and the rest of this stuff could wait. And so I believe that Clancy captured my buddy on the West Coast what the steps are. There are a series of actions that we take that we don't believe in and that's really what happens. We end up taking these things even though we don' t believe in them and then afterwards when the results start coming then we believe in it. So there is this process of a leap of faith, but it isn't really that big a leap because of the fact that we have all these AA meetings. A lot of them are speaker meetings and it's a huge show-and-tell operation and one person after another gets up there and pretty soon somebody just like you gets up here and they go, if you want to get where I am, that's how you get there, is through these 12 steps. So you get to look at the results of the 12 steps before you take them. You've got all these AA role models wandering around with various amounts of sobriety and serenity and all of that, and you get to see what it looks like to try these steps. So it isn't that big a leap of faith. I say this ahead of time to all of you that are new. They won't look like they're going to work, so don't worry about that. Just follow them. You don't need to study and analyze whether they're gonna work. Just do them, and that's sort of what our program is. So the 12 steps are what I like to call a game plan for living. And the biggest thing that happens when you do the 12 Steps is you stop doing your plan, which has been taking you down the tube. But we hang on to that plan because we thought it up. That's why we hang onto a plan that takes us to your puking every morning, you're full of resentment, you're filled with fear. Someone says, why don't you let go of the way you're living? Oh no, this is my plan. I thought this up. And it's like, there's this great stupidity with hanging on to something that is working terribly. The worst results in the world. It may sound good. A lot of us, when we arrived here, sounded wonderful. When you talk to, you know, an alcoholic can BS as well as anyone in the World. And it just like, hey, blah, blah blah, next thing people are following them. You know what I mean? Even though they puke every three feet. You know, it's like, why don't we look at the results instead of the theory? And so each one of our lives and our intellect, we sounded wonderful. But we were the worst walking advertisement for our philosophy of life that you can imagine. So you'd have to hide us if you wanted to sell a book that we wrote so that no one could see how bad off we were. And I think what happens in AA, we stop talking about theory and we start talking results and we compare you with people who've been in the program a while. And we start out and we go, I understand you went to Harvard. I understand your... have a PhD. But you puke every day and you're wearing a wristband and your family doesn't talk to you and you are afraid all the time. I don't want to hear your plan. I don' t want to here anything about it. Our suggestion to you is you abandon that plan immediately and try this one, because here's the results of this plan. And that's what AA is. Look at all these results. So that's one of the greatest things that happens, is we are willing to let go of this other plan, and as soon as we do, it stops taking us under. Because that thing is just going to take you down. That's where it's been going. It has gotten terrible results. So if you wonder, if you're new, you come in here and you keep losing arguments, and You've been used to winning arguments. You know what I mean? You've done a real good debater. The problem in here is AA members will only talk about results. So they'll listen all along. Well, that's very interesting. That's very interested. That's pretty interesting. That's really interesting. But I don't think I'll listen to a guy wearing a wristband. You know What I mean. And we just throw the results of your life back and that's the proper thing to do. when we talk about a spiritual plan let me make one more comment about this in a spiritual plan there's one major difference from the one you've been your intellectual approach to life where you go out and solve problems whatever the problem is you're going to find in AA we talk a lot about various problems anger resentment all these various things that come in our lives and when you arrive here or if you're like the rest of us, what you did when you confronted a problem was you figured it out until you could analyze it and find a solution to that problem. And you're going to find in here we never do that. We never try to figure, for example, our alcoholism out. You will hardly ever hear a meeting where the topic is why are you an alcoholic? If you do, I'll guarantee you everybody will be walking out of there with a resentment. You know, because that's such a waste of time in a spiritual program. That has no relevance at all. And besides, you never get the answer. See, I worried about that forever. My mother did something and my uncle and da-da-da. And none of that was useful in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous because we're not going to solve problems anymore. We're going to surrender to them. It's a whole different ballgame. It's like, what? You're going to surrender? I mean, your whole being is going to go against the type of program that we're talking about where you say, well, your biggest problem in the world is alcohol. What you're going have to do is totally surrender to it because in the spiritual ballgame we have a lot of paradoxes and the first one is if you want to win, you must give up. If you wantto win, you mustgiveup. And it sounds like some mumbo-jumbo But that's exactly what a spiritual program is. You have to stop fighting it. You must surrender to this thing. The reason you're going under is because you continue to struggle. You're like a person who's drowning and sometimes the lifeguard has to knock them out in order to save them so that they'll stop struggling and fighting the whole thing and can be lifted out of the problem. And so, in a spiritual program problems are not solved. They are removed They just go away unsolved. And you want to know something? Some of us find that unacceptable. You may think that's funny. We'd be glad to take whatever problem you have and simply remove it. It'll never be figured out, but it'll be gone. I don't know. I think I'd like to hang on to it until I figure it out, you know. And this is the human ego that doesn't see that being free of something is the jackpot. Why does it have to be figured out? Why can't it simply go away? And we cling to this old way of problem solving, and it's very hard to let go when your mind is attuned to figuring things out. But that's what has to happen here because we'll never figure out our alcoholism and eventually we let it go and we do find that it gets removed on a daily basis which we talk about in the 10th step. Nothing is permanent. Everything in the spiritual program only happens in the now and we're only sober now and we are only happy now and if we can learn to be content with that then we can be content now and it's always now but our minds go beyond that and it is the human part of us that we understand this spiritually Yeah, I'm happy now, but could I also get a guarantee for tomorrow while I'm here? And, you know, the Lord's Prayer, give us this day our daily bread and about eight loaves in the pantry. Just in case this prayer doesn't work tomorrow. I mean, you've got to cover yourself. Higher power could be busy, and there I am trying to make a sandwich, and there's no bread. And so a prudent person would also be putting aside stores over here. And, of course, then we find that we are trying to turn our lives over and keep control at the same time. And that works very counterproductive in this type of program. So in order to get started on this whole spiritual journey that we're talking about, there's a doorway that you have to go through if you're new. And it's the first step. So even though we're on step 10, we always talk about the first step in order to get there because a lot of times there's new people that don't quite understand that this is essential in order for any of this to work. And our first step says you're powerless over alcohol and your lives have become unmanageable. And what that is saying is you must admit, acknowledge, your intellect must surrender to the fact that no matter The how hard you try, you could never get out of your alcohol dilemma. You and every human resource there is can't get you out of this alcohol dilemma because you're powerless over it. It is too much for you. Did you ever have the feeling that life is too must for you? That's what we're saying. This is too mush for you! It is like you're saying to yourself, life would be wonderful if I could lift a 747 with my own two arms. That is too much for you and you should surrender that idea. It can't be done. And that's what we're trying to say about alcoholism. You're powerless over alcohol. There's no way that you, unaided, can avoid taking that first drink. you will always take it and if you do then all the rest of the problems of alcoholism come in where you get sick and arrested and all the problems that happen when we get over served in various bars but when we say we're powerless we're talking about powerless when we're sober and it's very important to understand that the problem that we're talking about in Alcoholics Anonymous is not the problem that when you have one drink you can't stop and then you go on and have 50 more and you get in a lot of trouble. That's a serious problem but that's an easy problem to fix. It's say you had the problem if I brought you up here on the stage and I had seven pounds of chocolate and I just said keep eating them and I fed them to you and fed them too and after 73 chocolates you finally started puking all over the place and then we'd go I wonder what his problem is and we'd say his problem was he ate too many chocolates and your problem is you ate too much chocolate and all on your own you could never repeat that you could go through the rest of your life and never eat 73 chocolates again and just go on your way happily solving your problem which occurred because you ate to many chocolates you wouldn't have to get together with other people who like chocolate and have meetings in their homes and say, how did you not eat 73 chocolates today? You would just take care of it yourself. So if your problem was whenever you drink you get all screwed up, all you have to do, you, lucky you, because that's your only problem, is not drink. Just don't ever drink and you will be happy and your problem will be over. But as I look around the room I don't see too many people in that category. There's no happiness coming across your face when someone says don't drink. So what's the problem here? The problem goes way beyond the fact that when you have one drink, you get all these other bad things happen. The problem is you know that if you don't think something will happen, you will stay sober forever. You'll always be sober. And to a new alcoholic, that is not a comfortable thought. You know what I'm saying? Because sober was what I was trying to fix with alcohol. I don't know about you all, but that's why I went to a bar. Bartender, can you help me? I'm sober again. And I can't stand it. So isn't that funny? When you really think about it, wasn't your problem being sober? Isn't that what we were trying to correct with alcohol? So the pain of being sober, in other words, we were out there unaided and alcohol helped us with a problem. Sure, it caused some other ones. There were some side effects to alcohol but the fundamental reason for drinking exists without alcohol being there. So alcoholism exists without any alcohol. So it's almost a misnomer. Alcohol isn't the problem, alcohol is the answer to alcoholism. You walk in and you say, I need to fix this problem of sobriety. So our problem is, how do you not take the first drink? That's what we're powerless over. That's why we have meaning. That's how we get together and we say, you know, even when I know everything about alcoholism, Even when I have studied and my whole situation has been explained to me, and my boss says I'll get fired, and my wife says she'll divorce me, and my kids say they won't speak to me. And the doctor says I'm going to die in about a month. I still go ahead and have one. So knowledge doesn't help because we're powerless. So it's important to understand powerless. And if you're powerless, you finally have started a spiritual program Because you have said, whether you know it or not, I have a situation that only a higher power can fix. And it's called powerlessness. And you may not believe in a higher Power, but at least believe in your situation. Because if you believe in Your situation, it gets real easy to change your mind about a higherpower. If you really understand where you are in powerlessness, you are exactly the same as the guy who doesn't believe in parachutes because he saw the way they packed them and he watched them slump all this stuff together and he said I will never go up in an airplane and jump out in a parachute never, ever, ever however if someone took you up in a plane and threw you out with a parachute on just because you don't believe in them you might as well try it right what have you got to lose other than looking bad right hey I thought you didn't believe it what are you pulling it for so you're wrong and that's where we are with being powerless and not believing in a higher power why not change your mind now because you're going to hit you're going to crash you're gonna hit a terrible bottom in alcohol with alcohol you don't change your mind so you may look bad for a second but you're going to see what's going that's what happens we because we're powerless we're willing to change our mind about a whole bunch of things and that's how we get sober is by getting rid of old ideas you're not you're never you're ever you're always you're only you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're So character building is not done by accumulating anything. It's done by getting rid of things. So a spiritual journey consists of getting rid of things instead of getting anything. And I like to think of this beautiful spiritual person that is inside of each one of you will be revealed as you strip away the garbage. it's a beautiful, beautiful gift that each one of us is it's just been wrapped with a lot of garbage and that's our alcoholism and so when we come in here the whole spiritual program is to just take away all of this and what's left is a very beautiful thing I remember a sculptor once said that this beautiful statue that she had carved out of marble they asked her how she did it and she said I just took away everything that wasn't beautiful and what was left was this remarkably beautiful thing and that's exactly what's going to happen to each one of you in this program we're going to follow a process of stripping away what you think is the real you because that's all you've seen for a long time and we're gonna find out there's a magnificent beautiful creature inside that has never been fully allowed to radiate and to be out in its full glory. And that's what this journey is all about, is getting in touch with that part of ourselves. So being powerless is a very important thing to start us down. And the whole AA journey is finding an answer to powerlessness. That's the whole false step program is finding and answering an answer for powerlessness which is a higher power and AA does not have an official higher power because this is a spiritual program It's not a religious program, so we have no idea who God is as a program. Each individual in AA may have an answer and may be able to share it with you. Well, my higher power is Buddha. My higher power ist Christ. My higher powerful is some big third of the universe. My higher powers is my sponsor. Whatever it may be, each person will have their own definition. But the point is, if you're powerless, you need a source of power. That's why that first step is so important. If you don't buy that first step 100%, then you won't make the program, because you'll almost be powerless, you'll always need a higher power, and you'll also get sober. This close. Which is not worth anything. So this journey that we go down is getting rid of blockages to this higher power. And we talk about inventory and sharing with other human beings and becoming willing to get rid of these blockages or character defects. And then we go back and clean up the past in 8 and 9, making amends to people. And finally we get to the 10th step, which is our day-at-a-time step. And we can finally get there because we have settled to the best of our ability in steps 8 and 7. And we now no longer have a whole list of people that we're afraid to run into and a whole bunch of events that we're afraid to think about because they cause so much remorse and guilt and fear because we've done our best shot at settling with the past in Steps 8 and 9. So it says in Step 10, continue to take personal inventory and when we are wrong, promptly admit it. And this is how to live one day at a time. If you're new and you're wondering where is the day-at-a-time instruction while they're in Step10, This is how to get through a day. And notice, it's the second step with inventory. So inventory is clearly one of the great secrets of how to stay happy. It's by inventorying. And all we're inventorying is blockages. In other words, we're going along and we're reasonably happy. We come out of this meeting. Hey, man, I'm in a good mood. I'm really, you know, because our channel has been open and we really have good contact. and we get in the car and something happens and you can feel something being choked off and that's what it feels like when you try to look at human behavior from a spiritual sense we're being cut off from this flow of serenity that we opened up when we were at a meeting or when we Were reading a book or when We woke up with it or after some prayer or whatever we have a nice open channel and now it starts getting closed and we all know what it Feels like You get flushed You feel a choking sensation in your throat. You have uptight is a good way to look at it, or you feel a resentment starting as a heat disorder. You can feel that coming. That's what we're inventorying. That's What A Daily Inventory Is All About is to go, are you feeling any of these blockages occurring? And the whole point of taking inventory is to look and say, the problem is I'm starting to get blocked up and what I want to do is open that channel again and then go on with the day. And so taking inventory is a very, very positive thing to learn how to do and make it be second nature instead of inventorying the world which is what we did before. I know what my problem is. He did that and she did this and he did that and we inventoried all out there with the idea that if they would all pay attention and follow our plan and drive right and vote right and think right, then the world would be real nice according to my view of it. And, of course, nobody's listening. You're sitting in there just fuming and full of resentment and they're all just going their own way and having a wonderful day and all that. So we come down to the type of inventories that you can do when you're talking about a 10th step. and there's a couple of basic ones but probably one of the most important is to understand the tenth step is this spot check inventory which I was sort of talking about right there when we feel that we're losing it when you feel that you're starting to lose control or you're losing this conscious contact is really what's happening inventory though that's a spot check inventory stop hey I am starting to loose it so that's the spot check inventory you do it all the way during the day it's like constantly checking how you're doing spiritually as you go through the day the other types are taken at the end of the day or at the end of a month sort of review the bidding or get together with your sponsor or go to a retreat and just sort of take a broader view of how we're doing with the um perspective of how could i do better how could i what areas could i grow in so we're always looking how to keep the channel as open as possible that's what the whole deal is there's an axiom that is in the tenth step that is a very important thing it's called the spiritual axioms of the tenth set and it has to do with what our brain thinks about when we start feeling this choked up something has happened somebody does something and now we're not in that comfortable spot we were in five seconds ago and the spiritual axiom says if something disturbs us no matter what the cause there's something wrong with us notice that it says there's nothing wrong with and your finger is ready to point us and say well what do you mean what's wrong with me And the answer is, what's wrong with me is I'm disturbed. That's what's wrong. I may not have done anything wrong. Someone else may have done something very wrong. But my problem is I am disturbed. And the difference in the 10th step compared to the way most of us used to live is our top priority now is getting undisturbed. whereas our old top priority was getting even. You know what I'm saying? At least it was mine. Hey, you made me disturbed. And it ranged all the way from the bird to a punch. I mean, you know, depending on what your philosophy of life was in terms of interpersonal relationships. Or maybe you were a stuff-it and you just stuff the anger and then got them later, like a month later. Exploded all over the place. But whatever it was, we always focused on the outside world when we were disturbed instead of focusing on the fact that I'm disturbed and I have a program, I have an idea and I can become undisturbed. And remember what I was saying earlier where I said your ego sometimes will say, I don't want to become undisturbed until I figure this out. And that's the difference. What we have here is a plan, a little four-step plan to get undisturb before we proceed. And when you think about that, that's The Best Way. Bill writes in the 12 and 12. As soon as somebody sees it, if you ever read the way Bill writes, he was a drunk just like the rest of us and he knows our ratty little minds are going to question certain things as he goes along. And when he said this spiritual axiom, if something disturbs us, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with us, the next line was, well, what about justifiable anger? You know what I mean? Because that's what we're going to think because we don't want this to be an absolute axioma. It covers all situations. I just point at me and I don't like that. So what about, what if Hitler walked in here or, you know, try to think of some exception to this axiom so I don't have to follow it at all. And he said a very interesting comment. He said, Justifiable anger ought to be left to those who can handle it and there aren't any in this room. All of my anger was justified. I mean, that's the way I saw it. And so it was very important for me to see that the top priority was getting undisturbed and not worrying about whether I'm entitled to be angry. Why would I want the right to be angered? I mean, it's almost like somebody's taken away my right to be angry, I'd be glad to give that up. I'd Be glad to give up anger if I could get rid of it and never have any of it. I don't mean stuff it. I mean just never have it. I'd be delighted to get rid of it. But you know what's funny about anger? It gives you a feeling of superiority. It's a great ego trip to be angry. Hey! All those ideas are pissing me off. And we just get sort of self-righteous with our own anger. And so it's a trip, it's an ego trip to really get angry. And the idea of giving it up sometimes is quite foreign, even though it would be the most wonderful feeling we could have, to walk around anger-free. There's a lot in the big book that Bill writes several times. God help me from being angry. God save me from Being Angry. It's because of the emotional letdown afterwards. It's like a hangover. You go on these emotional binges where you just get off on a terrible resentment or a terrible outburst of anger. The remorse later on is almost like a handover. I mean, it's an emotional hangover So the purpose of this spot check inventory is to stop us and see as we feel this disturbance coming along. And then there's this little four-part plan for dealing with this. And the first one is self-restraint. And if you read the 12 in 12, you'll see that Bill writes in there, the top priority that we ask for on a daily basis is self‑restraints. I like to think it's self‑ restraints. My friend, Ed Chandler, talks about his approach to life is as he gets up in the morning and goes out the door, he, in advance, gives five people permission to be wrong. In advance. So he has a five-person cushion between him and the world. The first jerk does this and he goes, hey, I already gave him permission to do that. Two, three, four. If there's a five-person cushion, well, that's self-restraint. If you could have a ten-second cushion between you and the world so that when things happen, there's ten seconds before you do anything, it would be a whole different world. Because generally, somebody goes, bop! And we go, wham! You know, your boss comes in, he says, That's a lousy memo. Screw you! Shit. You know what I mean? it's just the words are just coming out and they're about to hit his ear and we go, God, I hope he doesn't hear that. And then he says, you're fired, out of here. And you go... Whereas if I had ten seconds, he'd go... Well, maybe it is. And I'd be back down here so then I wouldn't have all these things that have to be straightened out. I wouldn'T have to make amends to my children for giving them those dirty looks and you know that get out of here all the various things that happen so self-restraint is some top priority we want to have that so that we have we are not being jerked around by our emotions because when we react emotionally we're locked in to a stupid position generally we're blocked into something because we've already done something about it so if we have self- restraint that's what we pray for it's like a cushion between us and the world Well, then we're able to go through, as we feel these disturbances, the following three things. One is an honest analysis of what's wrong. Let's see what's going on here. And as we analyze it, we may see that Mary, who we came in and said hello to at work, must have had a terrible weekend because the more I look at her, she is totally bent out of shape and that's probably why she came off the wall with that remark. So now I've honest analysis. I took a look and I see that the conflict was caused by this other person. Now that I've had time to think about it and I can understand that she may have had a rough weekend, I can forgive her. I can just say, hey, I understand. It's cool. This will straighten out later on. I'm back to work. I'm undisturbed. And that's the end of that incident. Or in my honest analysis, if I look about it and find out that I was off the wall, that I came in you know, Mr. Big Shot and pa-pa-pa pa-pum sort of rolling over people and it caused them to react in time then immediately I can go back and make amends and I can just say, hey gang, why don't we go back and start the whole damn day over here's the problem, I'm going to lay it on the table, whatever so it comes up with a plan to constantly get undisturbed the day of time plan reminds me you know how in the winter time if you walk across a rug in your house and then you touch a doorknob and the spark comes out well, if you talk to the dog and you walk around the rug like 30 times before you stick your finger on it you get a good one you can just go whoa! you know well, what this day of times program is saying is let's keep touching every three steps let's just touch let's get rid of any build up that we are feeling rather than let it get gigantic so that we have to call our sponsor or something. It is a way of constantly throughout the day inventorying, is the channel open? Am I losing it? And if not, let's get it fixed. Let's get a fix. So it's a skill that requires practice but it is absolutely doable. It is absolutely durable. And I know some of you are saying, oh, I don't know. You want, just try this. make next Thursday your spiritual day just as an experiment just next Thursday just say next Thursday to hell with anything else even if I don't get any work done at work I'm going to keep taking inventories I'm gonna get up in the morning let five people be wrong I am going to go through next Thursday just as a experiment without getting disturbed once all I'm doing all I do is just be open I'm just gonna that's my whole thing that's all I am gonna think about and you'll be able to do it. I guarantee you will be able hour by hour with your top priority is not getting disturbed. Just be friendly. Just be, hey, fine with me? Hi, hi. Just be that way the whole day. Then you can join the rest of us in wondering why we don't do it all the time. That'll be the mystery of the rest if you're a sobriety is to wonder why even though we know how to do this that we don' t And because we're human beings and our minds take over and veto all of this and we go off with a better plan, ah, enough of that serenity. I've got to make some money. What do you want the money for? So that I can get serene. What the hell do you think? I don't want to be happy and not rich. Oh, okay. Doesn't that sound stupid? I don'T want to BE HAPPY AND NOT RICH. Well, why do you want to be rich? Because it will make me happy. Oh. But that's the mental games that we get in. So this four-part thing is just to get through the day undisturbed. And then the last thing, and then we'll wrap it up here in one minute. At the end of the day, it is suggested that we take a look at our day. Before we go into bed. And just look back over the day and see where we did some good things. See where we've made some progress in this program. and take note of it and be grateful for it. And then look at situations that if you could do over again, if you Could Do That Encounter in the Drugstore Over Again with a Checkout Clerk, how would you handle it spiritually? What would be a better way of handling that? You know, throwing the crap back in his face and storming out or perhaps having a little conversation about something. In other words, But visualizing how you personally could handle things better is a great step in causing our behavior to turn out that way. It is a marvelous thing, and it's not a waste of time. It's not just dumping all over ourselves. This is a very happy and productive type thing to do because it will end up freeing us from all the times that we spend resenting and pouting and being afraid it's a small amount of time that we take to inventory so that's basically what our big 10 step day at a time thing is don't forget there's no meeting next week if you if you would if you go to the Westside Club who are in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever Amen keep coming back it works if you work it