Making Amends and Clearing Wreckage – 20th Workshop – Part 1 of 2 – Local AA Speakers

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to our 20th installment of the Big Book is Alive workshop. I'm a recovered alcoholic, and my name is Mike Chase. And I'm also a recovered alcoholic, and I'm going to be your host for today's show. And I am a recovered alcoolic,and my name is Joe. Hi, Joe. Our spiritual duty is to put newcomers' hands in God's hands as quickly as possible. We have found this to be most effective by doing our part to make the Big Book come alive. As a disclaimer, we're not experts. We're just a couple of recovered alcoholics that really love the Big Book. However, we have made it our utmost spiritual errand to become as familiar with the facts and history as possible. In other words, if we are reading from the Big Book, it means that we are studying what we know to be a divine solution to alcoholism. At other times, we may share an experience, an observation, or an opinion. And we certainly encourage you to investigate the history and do your own research as you grow spiritually. Basically, we aim to reproduce what we do with our students in a one-on-one session, but here and with a much bigger audience. This, however, should not replace your own personal one-to-one work with your own teacher. That's right. This is just workshop-style study. It's our aim to invigorate your current experience with God. Tonight, we aim to get back into the chapter, into action, and start to take a look at steps 8 and 9 in the practical program of recovery. As we study tonight's material, please enjoy the pages we have uploaded to MikeChase.org. That's right. We have taken the first edition Big Book Alcoholics Anonymous. We've marked them up as our study guide. We highlight, we underline, and we put notes on the side referencing a specific structure that we are referencing as we study tonight. This will give you, when completed, if you like, a teacher's edition big textbook. You can take that information and copy it into your own big book. Before we begin our study of the big book, we'd like to invite you to join us in a brief two-minute meditation. We do this for a definite spiritual reason, and that is to allow God to remove all forms of self which might block us from the sunlight of the Spirit so that we may have a clear connection with God as we study. So in English what that means is we're going to turn down the lights, we're gonna invite the monks into the room, got some really nice chats for us tonight. At the end of it we got the harp that will bring us back out, and at that time we're Gonna bring into our lay aside prayer that Joe will be reading for us. you got the monks ready to come in they're all set here they come see you guys in two minutes © transcript Emily Beynon Satsang with Mooji Satsang with Mooji Please join me in the lay-aside prayer. Dear God, please set aside anything I think I know about myself, about my disease, about the Big Book, the 12 steps, the program the fellowship and all spiritual terms especially you God so that I may have an open mind and a new experience with all these things please help me see the truth Amen Joe would you like to tee us up from where we left off last week certainly last week we finished out with the 7 step prayer ending that work from within that we were doing um we uh actually started making inventory a little while back in the four step um and that was outlined for us in the big book in a very definite way aren't you glad we burned that after our fifth step oh we shouldn't have done that we shouldn'T HAVE DONE THAT good thing we did correct yeah another uh crazy thing that you'll hear in some of the uh contemporary rooms today um it's very very key that we have those lists and that inventory that we made from the four step we're now going to see that they're going to become absolutely crucial and vital for what we need in the in the forthcoming steps and and in the program of action so let's get a little tee up of where we started let's go back a few pages get these people in the mood of what's going on right now we started a few weeks back into the how it works section where we actually turned our will and our life over the care of god as we understood him uh and after making that crucial and important decision it was explained to us that actually means nothing unless we immediately jump into a course of vigorous action launched out on this course of vigorous action i love that word launched it's so fast absolutely absolutely and uh we had to go within we had two uh in a very definite way look at our resentments our fears, our sex conducts and our harms to others. These four crucial lists where we looked at where we've been showing up in life. What was blocking us from God, our character defects, our self-run, self-will run riot type stuff. And for the first time in many of our lives we were able to see this in plain black and white in front of us. And actually writing a fourth step is a very revealing and very special experience. But really, people like us, we've got to go a bit further and we follow the directions in the fifth step to then discuss this in the presence of somebody who has an awakened spirit. Great directions, specific directions. We just read that tonight. Specific directions. Precisely. precisely how we have recovered not in a general overall area but a precise way so we can follow what they did because we want what they had which is the a special relationship with god walking hand in hand shoulder to shoulder on a life designed to go and help other alcoholics who are dying um in no uncertain terms the book has told us time and time again that we need this vital spiritual experience you know you gotta really be digging into the four step and then You've got to have somebody in a fifth step who's actually got an idea of what this is all about, who can pull stuff out if need be. And that's actually why we need to do the inventory and seek counsel with someone else. The book tells us that a solitary self-surpraisal is insufficient. And we spent a couple sessions talking about the fifth step, didn't we? We did. That's an important one. And as a matter of fact, a couple of sessions we talked about Step 3, Step 4, Step 5, Step 6, and Step 7. And we spoke to them basically as one complete package. Earlier on, we were talking about three, which we included was going to be showing up in Steps 6 and 7. It was necessary to have a good fifth step, which is dependent on having an amazing good fourth step. So all this stuff is working together to get this symphony of recovery started. And we have been sharing experientially what we do with our students and how we found this to be most effective by applying it. And we had a few little anecdotes, a few Little Metaphors, and we've really hopefully thoroughly talked a little bit about what this four through nine movement is. We talked a little bit about that 5, 6, 7 glow that we have when we come out of a 6 and 7 step. And you're finally connected to God. And you look in those guys' eyes and they're just bright and they'RE clear and theyRE ready to move on. And if we find ourselves at 6 and 6 to be connected with God like we haven't been in a long, long time, reconnected. And this is just the beginning. Look at these guys and say, You feel good now? You just wait. This is nothing. this is wait till we get through the rest of this program which brings us to a point now if we go to the top of page 76 joe you want to read where we left off on six and seven just sort of get us in the mood again sure so this is actually uh after our meditation after the fifth step we we took a an hour it told us to spend with god as a sponsor as someone who's giving the fifth step i also went and did an hour with god so when i come back i'm just as connected and two two god guys getting together uh if we can answer to our satisfaction uh we then look at step six and of course the question that we were answering is are the stones properly in place have we tried to make mortar without sand have we skimped on the cement put into the foundation and it's asking us to look at those in the light of our own personal satisfaction this is our our relationship with god this is our experience our um you know we're starting to get some some spiritual awareness um we have it goes on to say we have emphasized willingness as being indispensable are we now ready to let god remove from us all the things which we have admitted are objectionable can he now take them all every one not just the ones that we want him to take or we think that he should take but this is us humbly offering everything to god saying i've made a mess of this you decide i give it all back to you we're leaving it up to him exactly if we still cling to something we will not let go we ask god to help us be willing sometimes you don't even know we're clinging on to this stuff it just happens to be something then it's going to be taken care of when ready we say something like this my creator i am now willing that you should have all of me good and bad i pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and to my fellows grant me strength as i go out from here to do your bidding amen we have then completed step seven this is a process that we've turned it all over to god we have our responsibilities you know at this point in time earlier on we would have taken the character defects list that we have and then we give them the opposites of what those are. And I tell my guys to go out and write some definitions and come back to me when we come back. So at this point in time, before we can get into the next step, we're sort of reviewing this and saying, so what are you going to do? How is this going to happen? What things are you gonna strive for? God's in charge of all this, but we have to help out here a little bit in our actions and attitudes and our daily prayer. Once again, if you look at the concept of sin as the dartboard or the arrow, we've got the bullseye and the arrows. We're shooting for this, right? But we're going to go off a little bit. So we're always turning this back to God, getting God to help us with this. And this is actually, with the amen in the seven-step prayer, the completion of the work within. And we've actually gotten good with God in this process. Now we're going to use that connection that we've actually enlarged upon in our work thus far and use that to get good with our fellows, to get me good with the rest of the world. Which means we have more work to do. Absolutely. Now I'm just going to sit back on my six and seven for a while. No. It says, as a matter of fact, in this next paragraph, now we need more action without which we find that faith without works is dead. Let's look at steps eight and nine. Yellow underlined. we have a list of all persons we have harmed to whom we are willing to make amends that was made when we made our inventory so that's a good reason why you don't put in a bottle burn it um definitely don't want to like pass around at your home group for people to read but this is yeah that's not a good idea isn't it funny we hear people sharing that some of those open discussion meetings giving their fifth step to a group of people that just and then they get upset when people talk about them right it's like excuse me have a room of untreated alcoholics and And you get upset when they act like what? Untreated alcoholics. Interesting philosophy. Yeah, but this is true. We have a list of all persons we have harmed and to whom we're willing to make amends. That's from our four-step list. And we're getting ready now. We're going to get some specific directions and suggestions on how to come up with your eighth step list. This is just a list. This isn't I'm going out, I'm gonna start doing these amends or you're gonna start playing how you're going do these amens. We just need to come up with a master list of everyone we've harmed, the harm caused. And then later on, we decide what that amends will be. We subjected ourselves to a drastic self-appraisal. Now we go out to our fellows and repair the damage done in the past. You got that. We attempt to sweep away the debris which has accumulated out of our effort to live on self-will and run the show ourselves. look at that word accumulation it's bringing on things and uh like we've said before we're looking at the process of getting rid of things um so we're actually trying to get rid of some more stuff by uh going out to our fellows and repairing the damage you know we're walking hand in hand with god right now we're comfortable with after the process we've come through now we need to clean up so wherever we go i look at it this way you know i should be able to walk down the street wherever i go and not have the fear of somebody tapping me under my shoulder and coming up and saying oh you know you owe me this or you did this to my or la la that everything that we do i like to say it's sort of an offensive part of the program we go out on the offensive to make these wrongs correct um you live in a small town let's say you've ripped off the banker the baker the candlestick maker the shoemaker um the car guy you know and and this is a small town you want to be able to walk around town you know with god shining through you but you can't if you got to be ducking around corners and hiding from people and it's like no we gotta make a plan get these people everyone here so very soon you'll be ableto walk down main street with your head held high proud with dignity and doing the next right thing because we're getting ready for some important work coming up here so this is the list this isthe important part i've got this yellow and underlined if we haven't the will to do it we ask till it comes remember we had agreed at the beginning we'd go to any lengths for victory over alcohol and this is one of those times where i get my guys to say let's go look at page two of the big book you know that's right two what does it say oh i'm willing to do whatever it takes to get and stay sober whose signature is that looks boring cool but you know it's so cool and big book sponsorship this 12-step program when you get these guys out of six and seven and you're working on eight they're eager there's there's this willingness to do the right thing which is the cool thing about now before we had the 12 steps when you had the oxford group stuff and they had that loophole of not six and seven you know i'll just hold off on this eight nine stuff and no we're just like trudging along doing what we need to do, making the best of what we can do. Probably there are still some misgivings. As we look over the list of business acquaintances and friends we have hurt, we may feel diffident about going to some of them on a spiritual basis. The theme of this part of the book I sort of call accountability. You know, that word we hate when we're untreated. And sometimes we don't even like it when we'RE treated to be called out on stuff, but it's that opportunity for us to grow and get better, And that's what we demand from people in our lives. This is the way we do it. A lot of people have different ways of handling this when it comes. Actually, you know, there's no really specific way to do this other than just jump in and do it for us to make it simple. I have my guys make four columns to start putting people's names and that we come up with. I make a master list of everybody. Right. and then there's certain things that well there's some that we can do now because they're like inexpensive she lives next door he lives next store it's my roommate my parents type stuff the maybes it's like hmm not really sure about that one so we're really cool between now and maybe we have a soon so it goes now in the soons you know i need to get take care of this one pretty quick because it's important which are all important so we got the now column the soon column the maybe column and the maybe column is those like ooh you know it's a lot of money I want to do this so but how am I going to do it I just got sober I'm selling hot dogs at hot dog heaven you know I really can't but you're going to so that's one of those maybe soon type things and then we got the nevers those are the people who've passed away those are criminal things that might get us in some criminal problems certain type things But I found that when I finished my now list, the soon slid into the now, the maybe slid into the soon, the nevers slid onto the maybes and vice versa until those nevers actually become done. So this is an opportunity for our students to look at that list that they created in the fourth step, the harms list and anybody who's pertinent from the other ones. But also this is an opportunity for them to figure out if there's anybody that they've missed, anybody that should go down here. This is that reassured second possibility to come up with anybody that should be on an amends list. And the way that I deal with this is I bring out the four step, give me a four step. Let's go. I take my list. I have my columns, my now, my soon, my maybes and nevers you know and then we have the master list and then we actually go through their fourth step we start in the resentment and we go through some names is there an amend that can be done here just all the way down what was the harm is there a man you know i love to do this i love it if something cannot be amended then there's really nothing for us to do um there's like well i want to go talk to my ex-girlfriend and try to make things right it's like hmm what about that little pesky you know restraining order oh yeah you know so there's certain things we need to deal with appropriately but this is just a list put it down on the list and we'll deal with it when we get into nine which is by the way teamwork right sponsor sponsee oh by theway if necessary accountant attorney right irs attorney you know all those things we just don't go up there and you know we we we're not idiots no Absolutely. It's a very good point. A lot of further and future damage can happen as a result of not really invoking a common sense plan. I like that common sense plan. That teamwork philosophy is absolutely essential. And this is where a good sponsor comes in to hold you accountable, to make sure that what we've done goes. But remember we're just still on the list thing. I love that about 8 and 9. We're talking about the list and we're always slipping into nine. We're talking about eight and then we're slipping into nine and by the way it says now we look at steps eight and nine. Once again these two steps are hand in hand like interlocking fingers they're dependent on each other as you're working your ninth step you're going to think of something later to put on your eighth step. It's like oh my god I forgot about that one or the judge points that one out to you all of a sudden that's a good idea before you go and talk to the judge about the parking ticket you might want to like run a little background check and make sure that there's not like a warrant for something you did on a blackout that you don't remember because we're going to talk about this in a minute the purpose of the amends is not to cause more damage it's to make right something that we did wrong and we really shouldn't take this too lightly because this is important probably there are some misgivings as we look over the list of business acquaintances and friends we have hurt we may feel diffident about going to some of them on a spiritual basis Let us be reassured. To some people, we need not and probably should not emphasize the spiritual feature on our first approach. This is not a great opportunity for you to go to witness for your new spiritual experience. This is righting the wrongs. We might prejudice them at the moment we are trying to put our lives in order. This is yellow. Actually, this is green underlined in red with sparkles on the side because it's important to read this. But this is not an end in itself. Our real purpose is to fit ourselves To be of maximum service To God and the people about us It is seldom wise I'm not going to fly by that one We just talked about that one a little bit But it's not an end in itself Our real purposes is to be of Maximum service to God And the people above us We just got some more marching orders haven't we Why are we doing this again It's reminding us why are we Doing this Not for selfish self-centered purposes But for the greater good a god-given purpose i got this written across the top it says change from a taker to a giver and by the way on page page 77 they gave me my purpose it is seldom wise to approach an individual who's still smart from the injustice and announce that they have gone religious duh but we have to put that in there because we get six and seven we're little god glowing things We're just like, we're just running the wall sometimes. We need some help. We need a lot of help from our sponsors in this direction. In the prize ring, this would be called leading with the chin. Why lay ourselves open to be branded fanatics or religious bores? We may kill a future opportunity or carry a beneficial message. Yellow, read. But our man is sure to be impressed with a sincere desire to set right the wrong. Underlined. He is going to be more interested in a demonstration of goodwill than in our talk of spiritual discoveries. Now, at this part of the process, our thinking should be starting to shift on the other people. Our thinking shouldbe on the plane of others. So if our thinking is correctly moving in that direction onto other people, it's telling us right here our man is sure to be impressed with a sincere desire to set right the wrong. It's giving us what that other person is going to be looking for and what is going to put this process into place. I'm going to date myself, but back when Dukakis was running for president, there was this commercial going on. Wendy's, this little old lady, she'd go up to like McDonald's and they'd give her the hamburger and she'd pull it. She goes, show me the meat. Show me the meet. You know, which is this is what this is all about. how many times have we walked up to somebody untreated and tried to apologize for a damage we've done basically with the intention that if they say it's okay, we can come around and screw them over again. We've got to show up there with intention and action. It's not just saying you're sorry. It's actually coming up with a plan right then and there. Don't go to somebody you owe money to without any money. Don't Go to Somebody to Try and Make an Amend when you're incapable of offering an amend to that. That's why we plan this out and work with our sponsees. So this is, once again, just the list. And also, by the way, what's the motive behind this, Amanda, right? Yeah, absolutely. We don't use this as an excuse for shying away from the subject of God. When it will serve any good purpose, we are willing to announce our convictions with tact and common sense. We're not there witnessing for our spiritual or our religious. We're there just to set the right wrong. And if they ask what's going on in their lives, then we can offer and tell them. But it's not a sales pitch. By the way, don't be using the fact that you've got God in your life as a manipulation, okay? That's not how that works. I like this one. The question of how to approach the man we hated will arise. Yep, going to have to talk to those people too. It may be he has done us more harm than we have done him. And though we may have acquired a better attitude toward him, we are still not too keen about admitting our faults. nevertheless with this is what this is cool by the way nevertheless with a person we dislike we take the bit in our teeth underlined in yellow it's harder to go to an enemy than to a friend but we find it much more beneficial to us this is a character building process we're we're setting the rights and the wrong but we're getting uh kindergarten first grade second grade third all those kindle this character building things that we probably didn't do and we're reliving them we're finally going to walk stand high and be a man of character integrity but you don't get that by simple situations you walk through a difficult situation you get maturity calluses you know the more difficult the amend is the better you're going to come out the other side because you're gonna have growth when we start reading the you know that the promises are the ninth step we're going find out that they just don't happen from just like writing checks to people you know we could do that while we're high um meeting somebody face to face eye to eye having a conversation going in that really sort of you know by the way we go to a man's we bring god with us but it's still you know it's till you working with somebody else and you come out with a skill with some integrity with with character and it's this is the greatness about the step we go to him in a helpful and forgiving spirit confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret you know chances are you may get a little um what do you call it bruised ego because they're gonna offer you a little of their opinion of what they think of you or it may turn out to be uh dude why were you so upset i was like you why do you think i was upsetting you i wasn't i trust god yeah absolutely oh by the way this is always with god steps eight nine it's like you and god and then others and uh it was an important thing that was brought up earlier that word sorry you know um the emphasis uh should never be on that word because people have heard that time and time again from from us and um it's gonna do no good to make that the focus certainly for certain situations it must be in there at some point but it's not the focus, it's not the emphasis. The emphasis is I was wrong and this is how I'm going to make it right. You know, I just realized this that remember we talked about Bill W. writing the original How It Works and how they were told you can't tell people what to do, you've got to use the, you know, you kind of, you got to, and Bill agreed to change it but he also said that for the rest of the book I'm just going to do what I need to do. This is one of those great things because remember earlier on in the book it says we don't like to tell we do not like to pronounce people alcoholics right but that doesn't mean we can't or we shouldn't but listen to the specific word in the center under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue it's not like we don't like to or you should you it's like no you don't see when you go in to make an amend with this man that you've done wrong who you may not like who's done you more harm or back by vice versa and stuff like that we're not there to make it worse We're there to make it right so both people can walk away. You may not like each other, you may not want to go have Sunday brunch with each other but if you get stuck in an elevator through the bells, if you get stuck at an elevator and you've got to spend some time alone in close quarters with this person, it's going to be okay because God has helped you guys develop a relationship that you're comfortable with each other simply we tell him that we will never get over drinking until we have done our utmost to straighten out the past we're here to sweep off our side of the street realizing that nothing worthwhile can be accomplished until we do so right right there it's like good luck running around town saying oh look at me i'm sober i'm helping the people i'm god's little warrior but everybody says dude that guy's full of doo-doo because he owes me this he's done that blah blah blah, blah. We really need to like walk the walk. Never trying to tell him what he should do. Green. His faults are not discussed. We stick to our own. If our manner is calm, frank and open, we will be gratified with the result. That's a theme that's going to come up in step 10 and 11, isn't it? If our matter is calm frank and opened, we'll be gratify with the results. In nine cases out of ten, the unexpected happens. Sometimes the man we're calling upon admits his own faults. So feuds of years standing melt away in an hour. Rarely do we fail to make satisfactory progress. Our former enemies sometimes praise what we are doing and wish us well. Occasionally they will offer assistance. It should not matter, however, if someone does throw you out of his office. We have made our demonstration, done our part. It's water over the dam. make sure you go in there able to follow up with what you promise yeah sure you go in if you're going to make a deal with somebody you stick to it because you're representing God now most alcoholics owe money no I got this one green just because it's like duh we do not dodge our creditors telling them what we are trying to do we make no bones about our drinking they usually know anyway yeah when you keep missing bills and stuff like that whether we think so or not this was dr bob's hang-up wasn't he didn't want to run around and tell people that he owed money that you know by the way i don't pay you because i'm a drunk it's like no way it's remember when bill in that cd where bill was hearing that evie's coming around and and he heard about you know evie driving into the house and shooting the birds and all these things and and when evie was sitting down there and he says you know bill i have a drinking problem and bill goes like no really abby and the first two i started like damn now i can't ask him about that time he drove into the house you know they know do telling them what we are trying to do we make no boons about our drinking they usually know it anyway whether we think so or not nor are we afraid of disclosing our alcoholism on the theory it may cause financial harm approached in this way the most ruthless creditor will sometimes surprise us arrange in the best deal he can to let these people know we are sorry i've heard some great stories of and even my own stories going up to people i owe money to and giving them a small amount and paying it off over time i i hear stories that uh you know joe and charlie talk about this one guy this guy ripped off like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars and he's trying to figure out how to pay this and and his sponsor told him he said you know you are smart enough to steal it you're gonna to be smart enough to figure out how to pay it back. And he did. For me, when I paid off my financial amends and I'm able to walk high, get credit cards back, have a credit rating again, what an amazing opportunity this thing has for us, correct? Correct. Our drinking has made us slow to pay. Or not to pay, yellow underlined. We must lose our fear of creditors no matter how far we have to go, for we are liable to drink if we are afraid to face them. Now imagine what it must have been like back in the 20s, you know? Bill lived in his neighborhood. The doctor, the lawyer, everybody he lived near him was people he owed money to. How was he supposed to get on with his life, you now? Right. We've got creditors that have creditors, that have creditors nowadays at banks that bought this, blah, blah. Does not give you excuse not to pay your debts. There's still debts you still need to pay them. But imagine what it was like when you went down to go get a pack of cigarettes and you had to walk by three people that you owed money to. So you walk a block, but for you to go, you had to walk three blocks around, you know, under a sewer over the train station, come in a back door, you know, crawl through a window just to buy a pack of cigarettes because you're running, you're so ashamed about the money you owe. Get this in, pay these people, arrange it. Perhaps we have committed a criminal offense which might land us in jail if it were known to the authorities. Okay, this is not where you go in on your own and just throw yourself at the mercy of a judge. You need legal counsel. The purpose of the amends is to correct the wrongs, not to create more wrongs. You have to take responsibility when necessary with the timing is right. But always listen to this. Get legal counsel for legal situations, for credit information sessions. get people who are familiar with credit problems. IRS, get people who are familial with IRS. I can read the book. I'm pretty good at this but I am not good at these kind of things. You need appropriate counsel. Once again we've got teamwork. And this is the perfect opportunity to involve the fellowship. The fellowship will present that common sense plan and way forward. These amends are always always um the result of lots and lots of preparation um and you're not gonna be the only guy in your home group that's had financial problems with the irs now you don't hopefully you're nicht going to raise your hand in the middle of the meeting say yeah and do a fifth step to your meeting now this is just something you can do on the on the download with your sponsee brothers with your other people you know there's no reason that they air our dirty laundry at a meeting that's not what meetings are really for that's why we at our home group happen to have a fellowship hour before and after so we can actually find some situations that need help. We may be short in our accounts and unable to make good. I just love how white-collar criminals like to soften it up, you know? We have already admitted confidence to another person, but we're sure we may be in prison and lose our job if it were known. Maybe it's just a petty offense like padding the expense account. That's stealing. Yeah, right. Really? Most of us have done that sort of thing. Maybe we've divorced. Now, this is cool. Maybe we are divorced and we have remarried but haven't kept up the alimony to number one. She's indignant. That is angry, upset, you know, about it and has a warrant out for arrest. That's common trouble for us too. Although these reparations take innumerable forms. Reparations take in numerable forms, always multiple ways to get to the end of it. There are some general principles which we find guiding. So go back to page two, remember what we wrote, green underline here, reminding ourselves that we have decided to go to any length to find a spiritual experience. The spiritual experience is a direct result of humbling, putting ourselves in situations, whatever it takes to get us to have a better relationship with God. Beat that ego down. We ask, and that ask means pray, that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing, no matter what the personal consequences may be. You know, you may have to go to jail. You may not have to going to jail if you just get the best legal counsel and do what you need to do. We may lose our positions or reputation or face jail, but we are willing. We have to. Green underlined. We must not shrink at anything. We must now shrink at everything. Theme of this page I've got written along the side in big letters. Make common sense plans. prayer include god once again get proper people to get you to make the right right plans usually however other people are involved therefore we are not to be the hasty and foolish martyr who would needlessly sacrifice others to save himself from the alcoholic pit yeah you know if you're involved with other people you really just can't go up there and throw yourself on the on the fire and expect other people to just go along with you um a man we knew was married no a man мы knew had remarried because of resentment and drinking he had not paid alimony to his first wife she was furious he went to court and got a court order for his arrest he had commenced our way of life meeting maker no 90 and 90 journeyman in the action in the trenches working with newcomers walking hand in hand with god worked through the steps had a life based on working with others had secured a position was getting his head above water it would have been impressive heroics if he had walked up to the judge and said here i am we thought he ought to be willing to do that if necessary but if he were in jail he could provide nothing for either family so once again we're going back on that theme we're here to correct the rights and the wrongs but we're not trying to make things worse if possible green underline i love this part we suggested he write his first wife admitting his faults and asking forgiveness he did and also sent a small amount of money he told her what he would try to do in the future in other words here's something this is my plan going forward this is something that i'm gonna make good with um and this is what you should expect for the future and this is something what did she want she wanted respect she wanted to be treated with dignity she wanted To Be Treated Like A Human Being She Wanted To Be Able To Provide For Her Kids She WantED Her Money Back Oh My God That'S So Radical You Know That'S What We Need To Do This Is Time For Us To Get Up And Start Doing The right thing time for us to put our need you know don't go out and get yourself a brand new car let's pay off her old bills let's let's get clean up the past so we can start off fresh he said he was perfectly willing to go to jail if she insisted of course she did not and the whole situation has long since been adjusted you know we're going to be reading on and on here about these wonderful common sense plans that we come up with you know where we're really smart people um my my report cards always said things like if mike chase only applied himself to positive endeavors or if he only did you know he spent this much time doing good stuff instead of like making trouble um we're really good at coming up with you know in our various situations and now we get to start putting that knack into doing right which is like wow what a gift the top of page 80 before taking drastic action which might implicate other people we secure their consent if we have obtained permission have consulted with others ask god to help and the drastic step is indicated we must not shrink this brings to mind a story of one of my friends while drinking he except uh this is one ofmy favorite stories and i can see that you know i live in florida and this kind of stuff happens quite a lot um matter of fact this might even happen back when as a self-employed non-conference approved kind of guy but that's not here or there we're talking about this this guy and set up some really well let's listen to the story this brings to mind a story about one of my friends while drinking he accepted a sum of money from a bitterly hated business rival giving him no receipt for it he subsequently denied receiving the money and used the incident as a basis for discrediting the man he thus used his wrongdoing as a means of destroying the reputation of another. In fact, his rival was ruined. He felt that he had done a wrong he could not possibly make right. Let's look at that situation. This is some guy who ripped off his business partner, went around and just slandered this business partner. Oh, he didn't give me the money. How dare he attack me? And stuff like, you know, this is just, and this is a small town. Right. And this guy's, it's apparently just ruined this guy. This guy's reputation. and nobody wanted to do business with him again. And that's a tough one to clean up. Yeah. It has to be done. Place somebody else in an unrecoverable situation. Wow. He felt he had done a wrong he could not possibly make right. He stuck between a hard place and a rock. If he opened that old affair, he was afraid it would destroy the reputation of his partner. Disgrace his family and take away his means of livelihood. That's right. Remember, we're not trying to cause more harm as we go on. We're trying to make things right and move on. So how can we, how is he going to, I love how this, how is it going to accomplish this and still make everybody walk away? What rights had he to involve those dependent upon him? How could he possibly make a public statement exonerating his rival? This is where we get really good. Green, after consulting his wife and partner, he came to the conclusion that it's better to take those risks than to stand before his creator guilty of such ruinous slander. He saw that he had to place the outcome in God's hands, or he would soon start drinking again and all would be lost anyhow. He attended church for the first time in many years. After the sermon, he quietly got up and made an explanation. His action meant widespread approval, and today he is one of the most trusted citizens of his town. This all happened years ago. The chances are that we have domestic troubles. perhaps we are mixed up with women in a fashion we wouldn't care to have advertised i can relate we doubt if in this respect alcoholics are fundamentally much worse than other people but drinking does complicate sex relations in the home we're just going to get some good reading here because this is great information um after a few years of with an alcoholic the wife gets worn out resentful and uncommunicative how could she be anything else the husband begins to feel lonely and sorry for himself. He commences to look around at the nightclubs or their equivalent for something besides liquor. Perhaps he's having a secret and exciting affair with the girl who understands. In fairness, we must say that she may understand, but what are we going to do about a thing like that? A man so involved often feels very remorseful at times, especially if he's married to a loyal and courageous girl who has literally gone through hell for him. This is off to the side i go yeah this is probably time to talk about sending her to alan on getting some help because if you're going to be putting these gals through what we put them through and they still stick around we have damaged them they need healing and we got to the wives we got other areas but yeah definitely so whatever the situation we usually have to do something about it if we are sure our before we this is this whole chapter this next excuse me this next paragraph the theme of this one is avoid the jerry springer show stuff you know seriously this is yeah definitely don't want to have a jerry springer episode in this if we're sure our wives do not know should we tell her not always we think if you know if she knows in a general way what we've been wild should we tell her in detail undoubtedly we should admit our fault she may insist on knowing all the particulars she'll want to know who the woman is and where she is we feel we have we ought to say to her that we have no right to involve another person. We are sorry for what we have done, and God willing it shall not be repeated. Yellow underline. We are Sorry for what We Have Done, and God Willing It Shall Not Be Repeated. Once again, we're going on that theme of healing and moving on, saving the relationship, healing and moving on. More than that we cannot do. We have no right to go further. Though there may be justifiable exceptions, and though we wish to lay down no rule of any sort, we have often found this the best course to take. We're not here to stir the pot. We're here to move on, admit our wrongs and try to move on yellow underline. This is such a cool sentence. Our design for living is not a one-way street. It is as good for the wife as it is for the husband. If he can forget, so can she. It is better, however, that one does not needlessly name a person upon whom she can vent jealousy. perhaps there are some cases where the utmost frankness is demanded no outsider can appraise such an intimate situation it may be that both will decide that the way of good sense and loving kindness is to let bygones be bygomes yellow and underline each might pray for it having the other one's happiness uppermost in mind repeat that one this is a theme each might prey about it having the another one's happy happiness uppernost in mine keep it always in sight that we're dealing with the most terrible human emotion, jealousy. Good generalship may decide that the problem be attacked on the flank rather than face-to-face combat. In other words, not a direct honey blah, but just on the side, let's just move on. If we have no such complication, there is plenty we should do at home. Now this is green and I'm going to swear, Joe. So, sometimes we hear that an alcoholic say the only thing he needs to do is to keep sober. Bullshit. Yeah. Absolutely. There is so much more to do in this next paragraph. The rest of this paragraph I've got it highlighted in box because that is such a crock of big horse doo-doo. Sorry for swearing. Certainly, he must keep sober for there will be no home if he doesn't. but he is yet a long way from making good to the wife or parents whom for years he has so shockingly treated. Passing all understanding is the patience mothers, wives have had with alcoholics. Had it not been so many of us would have no homes today, would perhaps be dead. This is a great time in big books study to say, okay, so who's helped pay your rent? Lots of hands go up. Who has not kicked you out of the house for not paying rent? these are people that we have put through the ringer there is a lot more than just i'm sorry i won't get drunk again and then we're doing this is time to act differently this is where we we start to realize you know the aa jail just doesn't work you know i gotta go to 90 and 90 i gotta go three meetings a day i gotta Go to two meetings a night and stuff like that what about our family that we've put through you know they're at home waiting for us you know yeah get through the steps work with your sponsor, get connected to God, work with sponsors, get to some groups. But listen, if you're blowing off family time because you have to go to three meetings a day or three meetings at night, you need to look at the quality of your recovery because you're not living life in recovery. You're hiding out in Alcoholics Anonymous and guess what? Your family is still suffering. We're not getting into this philosophy of using sobriety as a defense or as a weapon. There is plenty that we should be doing and sobriety is absolutely essential for alcoholics, but there's plenty, plenty more that we need to do. The alcoholic is like a tornado rowing his way through the lives of others. Hearts are broken. Sweet relationships are dead. Affections have been uprooted. Selfish and inconsiderate habits have kept the home in turmoil. Joe, are you pretty good at a hillbilly accent? I can give it a shot. Good. Green underline. We feel a man is unthinking when he says that sobrietry is enough. he's like the farmer who comes up from a cyclone cellar to find his home ruined to his wife he remarks don't see anything the matter here ma ain't it grand the wind stop blowing that was really good for an english man that was awesome seriously i call that un i call it selfish undrunk you know seriously look around and see the damage that we've caused we need to start making amends to family and loved ones along with banks and everything else but boy, we've got a lot of a lot to love to pay back. Yellow, underline yes there is a long period of reconstruction ahead, we must take the lead yellow lined, underlined, in quotations a remorseful mumbling that we are sorry will not fit the bill at all we ought to sit down with the family and frankly analyze the past as frankly analyzed frankly what does that mean joe uh frankly analyze um honestly take a look at um how things have played out good not an emotional roller coaster frankly you know this is let's just be honest and frank with this type of stuff the passes we now see it being very careful not to criticize them their defects may be glaring But the chances are that our own actions are partly responsible. So we clean house with the family, yellow underline, asking each morning of meditation that our creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindness, and love. The spiritual life is not a theory. We have to live it. Yellow underline. The spiritual Life is not A Theory. We have To Live It. Faith Without Works Is Dead. Are you walking the walk or just talking the talk? Boy, they can show up to a meeting and be really cool for an hour and look really great, but when they get home, kick the dog, hit the wife, cheat on the taxes, do all those things. No, this is something we have to live. Unless one's family expresses a desire to live upon spiritual principles, we think we ought not to urge them. Urge, what's another word for that? Force. Force put upon them. It's like, oh, enough of this talk. By the way, talk is cheap. Action speaks. That rhymes. Well played. Wow. We should not, speaking of that, we should not talk incessantly to them about spiritual matters. They will change in time. Yellow underlined slowly. Our behavior will convince them more than our words. Because what have our words been in the past? Blah, blah, blah. Wah, wah, wah. We must remember that 10 or 20 years of drunkenness would make a skeptic out of anyone. Yeah, so don't expect, look, honey, I'm sober 30 days. No, this next one is boxed. We call this the prayer to God box. There's some really good things we can do for people who've passed on and people we're not able to talk to. We're entering the world of the spirit, the fourth dimension. It's connecting with God. There's Some Really Good Things You Can Do. People Who've Passed On. One of the suggestions we get from one of our, We used to go to the Wednesday night study group, and one of the great things they taught me was the ability to have amends with people who've passed on in a spiritual, meditative state. Go someplace to a park, the woods, someplace to get really natural with God, and then sit down and just have a conversation with these people who have passed on. What if? What if. But the fact is I've done that. I've come away feeling great. Now, these people in the world that we have to talk to and that we're not able to get to at a certain time, Why not have a spiritual conversation with these people to get the ball rolling, you know? So when you do talk with them, what if? Now that doesn't, don't think that's an excuse. Oh, I had my meditative talk with him. The amendment is taken care of. No, this is just to put the spirit in action to get God involved with this. It's part of a prayer, you now. There may be some wrongs we can never fully right. We don't worry about them if we can honestly say to ourselves we'd right them if we could. Some people cannot be seen We send them an honest letter And there may be a valid reason for postponement in some cases But we don't delay if it can be avoided Underlined We should be sensible, tactful, considerate, humble Without being servile or scraping What is servile, Joe? Dishonorable The bell Oh my God, the bells But do not delay if we can be avoid it We should be sensible, tactful, considerate, humble, without being servile or scraping. As God's people, we stand on our feet. We do not crawl before anyone. Now, we're going to be jumping into the nine-step amends, which are the nine step amends or nine step promises. There's promises all over the book. This is not AA's promises. This is just nine step premises. And these are direct result of actually doing something. You get the little newcomer just getting out of rehab. They got 13 days. Oh my God, I got the promises. It's like, no, you're not hungover. You're not getting chased by the cops. You're just feeling a little better. The promises are direct result of going through a difficult situation and coming out the other side, walking closer to God, correcting the past, feeling better about yourself, stop buying things that you shouldn't buy, living in God's economy. All these things that the steps are starting to let us to come, they're starting to come to fruition here. Joe, would you read these? If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past, nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity, and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. they will always materialize if we work for them these nine step promises and eight step promises because we want to do a ninth of the direct result of action doing the right thing putting ourselves in difficult situations correcting the wrongs moving on being closer to god um these things are just amazing off to the side i've got this long slow recovery you know my brother he works in an emergency room and we had that conversation with him you know it's like So Joe, when you're working with somebody or Bill, when you're fixing somebody up and when does the recovery start for your patients? And he sort of looks at me with this look like, duh. He says, well, after the procedure's been completed, the procedures are starting to be completed here. So this is when we can start offering people a long, slow recovery because we're going through the work. Long, slow recoveries take your time. Don't work through the steps rapidly. It's After the work, enjoy. Continue to grow. Work in 10, 11, and 12. The four through nine is that stuff that just rips down, tears apart, as Clarence would call it, the deconstruction and reconstruction. Now we're going to get into the phases of 10, 11, and 12 where we now have a relationship with God. We have a relation to God. We have relationship now with mankind. We're walking hand in hand, right? We can go anywhere with our hand held high, just feeling, look at me. And it's just, this is amazing. You're doing right. how do we not go back to where we came from see that's the problem see i wasn't born a cheat i wasn'tborn a liar but i slowly became one because i wasnít paying attention i wasnís being i didnít have people that could call me on my stuff and hold me accountable and point out things that Iím not doing right so weíre going to be jumping into steps 10 and 11 next week which are just amazing we might even be able weíll just see how weíll leave that up to spiritual So, Grace, this has been amazing. The timing, just perfect. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. So, Joe, let's wrap this thing up. The reading is from The Doctor's Nightmare. From the first edition, which can be found in others' edition, but we like to read from the first addition. Dr. Bob writes, If you think you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book, I feel sorry for you. If you still think you are strong enough to beat the game alone, that is your affair. But if you really and truly want to quit drinking liquor for good and all and sincerely feel that you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you It never fails if you go about it with one half the zeal you've been in the habit of showing when you were getting another drink Your Heavenly Father will never let you down Please join us next week as we continue to study the big book And remember to download the highlighted pages from tonight's session found under the podcast link. We always enjoy hearing feedback from you guys, so don't be shy about dropping us a line. There's a little click on themikechase.org that's going to send us an email. As it has been a privilege to meet other alcoholics who are also on fire about God and on fire about this big book. And we're going to close down with our family's fog light prayer. Thank you for joining us tonight, you guys. This has been just a gift. We appreciate you listening to us and sending us comments. God, let your love shine through me like a fog light for those who are lost, sick, and dying can find your love through me. Amen. Godspeed, everybody. Sleep well. See you next week. Take care. Peace.