Powerlessness and Unmanageability – 2025 – Part 1 of 2 – Big Book Study

Good evening, everyone. My name is Ann Ram, an alcoholic. And it's really nice to be here this evening. I see some familiar faces and it's nice to see everybody. I understand the topic tonight is practicing the principles in all of our affairs. And as I was sharing with a friend of mine before the meeting, I was thinking how am I going to go and share about I'm practicing the principles in All My Affairs. And I honked at six people on my way home tonight in rush hour traffic. And when I honk, I don't just honk. I'm not like, you know, the little beep. I'm like the lean into it. like, get out of my way. I control the universe and you just got in it. Problem driver that I am. And a friend of mine actually said to me, she said, well, the fact that she didn't kill anybody is kind of practicing the principles in all your affairs. And I was like, I guess you could look at it that way. But before I get all the way up to step 12, and I know that you all have gone through the first 12 steps at this point, I just want to touch on the fact that i know for me that i am an alcoholic of the hopeless variety there is no doubt in my mind that i have the physical craving when i put alcohol into my body i um i've had experiences where i have said i'm only going to have one drink and next thing you know i wake up from a blackout i have had the experience of not being able to control my drinking because i have a mental obsession beyond my control. Um, I specifically can point to one instance in my drinking and really only this, this one was very, very clear to me where I, um, I was in this hotel room with my family and I went downstairs just to have a cigarette and that was the only thing I was going to do was I was just going to have a cigarette. It was like eight o'clock when I went downstairs to have that cigarette and I had, um a final that I was supposed to be taking in the hotel room with my mom. And a couple other really important reasons not to drink that night, one of which was too I was only by myself. And I went downstairs to have a cigarette and I came back up at 6 o'clock in the morning. I had drank God only knows what. The last thing I remember telling people is that my name was Mary and I was from Tennessee, which obviously both of those things are false. And it was a really good snapshot of my drinking because what happened with me is that so often I snapped into my life and I snapped out. And while we call them blackouts, which is for me what they are, the reality of describing them is terrifying. I literally am up walking around interacting with God only knows who saying God only know what and I am not conscious of this. And then all of a sudden I'll snap back in, just in the middle of a sentence. It's like all of a sudden I wake up and I'm like, oh, what am I talking about? Okay, and I'll just ask a couple questions to kind of get the lay of the land and then I'll keep going with it. It is not like I stop and say something must be wrong with me. My brain is like Swiss cheese. It isn't like I stop. I am such an alcoholic that I just keep running with it because somehow I needed to make that normal. And for me, that was the type of drinking I had. So I definitely ignited a physical craving. There were so many times when I would take a drink and I'm only going to have one, and next thing you know, like I said, it's 3 a.m. And I definitely have the mental obsession. For me, there you go, I'm powerless over alcohol. When I take a look at page 52 and my unmanageability is very, very clear. When I got here and somebody was like, are you happy? I was like are you kidding? Like that must be a joke right because why would I be here? You know AA was not something fun to do on a Saturday night. It wasn't my idea of a good time and it's not exactly what I thought I was going to be when I grew up. It's not like I sat around the family table and was like I really want to be an alcoholic that destroys people's lives when I grow up. That sounds like fun. That was not my intent. Um, and somebody asked me, was I full of fear? Of course I was, you know, was, I prayed a misery and depression. I sat in meetings and cried for the first three years, even when I was working the steps, I just sat there crying. You know, I have a different recollection, but the people that were around me for the First Three Years told me, no, all you did was cry. Um. I would've told you that I was fine and that I was working in the steps and I was good and I chipper and I happy and I whatever. And they They're like, no, no. You just sat there and you cried. But that's what I needed to do at the time. And I was just reading something today that was saying, you know, laugh when you want to laugh. Cry when you need to cry. Feel your feelings when you feel your feelings because simply what our point here is is to honor our truth because for me, I never knew what the truth was. Never knew whatthe truth was, and my unmanageability came from my spiritual malady. My lack of having any type of contact with a power greater than myself, my lack of really believing in anything really beyond my finite self was nonexistent. And I didn't even know that to put that into words. All I could tell you when I got here was that I wanted to die. That was the extent of my spirituality was I want to die, that was the only way I was going to explain it to you. and um and uh my last few months drinking i um i i got to the point where they said you uh basically i got into a car accident like so many of us do and then the law got involved like so many times does with us and umand the law said do you want to go to rehab or do you want togo to jail and i did not really know how to answer that question it seems like a no-brainer But as we all know, alcoholism does tricky things. And I was thinking, well, at least I can get high in jail. Can't get high and rehab. I know it's longer in jail, but at least I can go to rehab. At least I get high so that might be more manageable, more tolerable. And the Spirit of God came in and was like, you know what? She'll go to Rehab. And that's where I ended up going. But my last three months drinking, I was told that I wasn't going to get in any trouble if I could just get one clean drug test. I wasn't using drugs. This should not have been something difficult to get for non-alcoholics, but I got to the point where for me, and I know that this doesn't happen to everybody, but for me it's important to remember that even before I was 21, I was drinking when I woke up. I was drink when I got home. I was my way to pass out, to go to sleep. I would fall asleep in a rocking chair, drop a cigarette, almost set the house on fire, but not drop the wine glass. Never dropped the wine glass. And the way that I lived my life was it literally revolved around drinking, and it revolved about doing what I needed to do to get that drinking. And I had no idea how manipulative I was because for me it was purely survival. It wasn't a matter of I am trying to get you to do what I want you to be doing. That wasn't my way of thinking. My way of think was you have a fake ID. I need alcohol. Okay, let's see how I can get this. And that was my mindset. It wasn't that I understood all these things that AA was describing to me I was doing. I just knew that my life revolved around alcohol and I needed to do what I could do to survive to do that. And when I got to AA, I spent a year and a half in the rooms not working the steps, really just going to meetings and hanging out at the diner. And, um, and that was, that was pretty much it. I was dating somebody that I had come into the rooms with and it wasn't until he broke up with me and moved back to Texas that I was like, Oh God, I don't have a God, you know? And I didn't even realize he was my God until he was gone. And so I guess what I'm trying to highlight is that some of the things that sometimes we talk about in AA and a lot of times like trying to read the big book doesn't compute with me because I needed to explain to me from where I'm standing right now. I needed it explained to me from where you were sitting. I need somebody to very often interpret it for me to tell me what it means so then I can go out and practice it. Otherwise, there is no practicing the principles in all my affairs. There's no like, oh yes, let me just walk out now and start believing in a higher power. That's not going to work. I have to go through a whole bunch of stuff and I have relate to somebody and I need to sit down, teacher and student in order for me to get that experience, because this book is not about knowledge. This book is about transforming an experience so that we can recover from alcoholism, which is a fantastic promise, because most people die from this disease. I know I almost died while I was drinking and in sobriety from this disease. So it's a fantastic promise, so long as I can have this translate into an experience, and that's what practicing the principles in all of our affairs is about. But again, I need a teacher to do that. So once I finally realized that my higher power now lived in Austin, Texas and I was ready to go someplace and meet somebody who wanted to take me through the steps and I was no longer kicking and screaming my way over there, I found this woman who just dropped in my lap and she said, you know, I was at someone's home and we were doing a big book workshop and I had no idea what I was doing. I just landed there. And they said, you need three things to be here. You need to have been through the first 164, you need at least a year of sobriety, and you need to have a sponsor that works the big book. I was like, I haven't drank in a year. That's all I had. So I said, alright, I'm going to go ask the woman that's running the meeting to be my sponsor. Now she can't kick me out. So I did, and she just looked at me thoroughly irritated that I asked her, which I came to find out later that she hated young people. So she was really happy that I came to ask her. And, um, and I just said to her, I was like, well, you sponsor me? And she was like... I was, like, Well, you seem happy and willing to do this. And she said, Are you willing to go to any length? And I was Like, Yeah! She's like, Let's think about this. I'm gonna ask you again. Are you willing to get any length. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm really good at length. And she was like Alright, go home and call me later. I said okay. So I go home. The next I actually have this big family drama, and it's fantastic for me because now I have a reason to call my new sponsor with this big family drama. And so I call my Newsponsor, and I'm like, guess what my father just did to me? And I think I got three more words into the story before she was like, where is your big book? And I was like, I don't know. She's like, don't you have one? And I'm always like, somewhere. She's Like, go find it. I'm just like, all right. I lived with two other recovering alcoholics, and I went flying downstairs. I was like, who has a big book? And they all looked at me like, I don't know. And that's really sad, but that's the state of a lot of AA. And so somehow we found it. I don' t know. It might have been in the chimney or somewhere. So I have this big book, andI go running upstairs, and I call her back, and I'm like,I got the big book. And she tells me to turn to page 67. And 67 reads, Though we did not like their symptoms and the way they disturbed us, a.k.a. my father at that time, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended, we said to ourselves, This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done. That was my first exposure. to the big book. And she said, hang up, say the prayer, apologize to your father and don't call me back until you do. And I was like, okay, I am not an alcoholic who normally follows direction like that, but it worked because there was something inside of me that knew I was terrified if I did it. So I did. And my father came over and I apologized to him. And of course he was like, oh, whatever, no big deal. But what I experienced was the first release of what The Twelve Steps had to offer. It was the first experience of freedom that I was no longer holding on to this resentment towards my father, that I was no longer thinking that I was the victim of his incompetence, everything else that I was thinking of him. It was the first time that I got to experience the freedom that this book actually ended up giving me. And it was the second greatest feeling in the world. The first greatest feeling was at my first meeting with a friend when I admitted I was an alcoholic for the very first time. And when I made it, I was in alcoholic. I had this unbelievable sense of relief that even alcohol didn't give me and that relief just poured out of me with all these tears and I had no idea at the time what I was experiencing, but what I was experiencing was God. Because my first sponsor, that woman who kindly hung up on me told me that every time you tell the truth, you will have a spiritual experience and the reason is because no one expects at least of all you. You are a liar. As an alcoholic you're a liar I was offended at first, but then I came to find out she was right and what happens is that whenever I tell the truth, God comes in. And that's what happened in my first meeting when I admitted I was an alcoholic. It was the first time that God actually came into me and I experienced that relief that is necessary for us to overcome alcoholism. If I could not get something that was going to relieve me greater than alcohol relieved me, you know that feeling of when you take the first drink and you're like, you know that feeling? That was the feeling I drank for. That was a feeling that if I got it on the first Drink Fantastic, I just kept going. Or maybe it took the 65th drink. I don't know. But I kept looking for it. And I was going to get it that night and every night. If I don t get that feeling, if not better, I m going to drink. And the thing is, is that I get that feel ing every day I wake up now. And that s amazing. This is a girl who tried to kill herself numerous times while she was drinking, consciously and unconsciously. This is also a girl who was suicidal in sobriety. And I am thrilled with life today. So what happened was I ended up working the steps with her. And we went through step one where I realized a lot of the stuff I already told you about the physical craving and about the mental obsession and that was my powerlessness. And then I came to find out that my spiritual malady was really what was causing the unmanageability. And, okay, bam, there you go, step one, got it. Moving on to step two. And she said, you know, is God everything or is God nothing? I was like, God's everything, keep going. Ready for step three? And she Said, okay. We're going to go to page what used to be 449 through 452. It's now 417 through 420. But if nobody's read it and you're battling how to practice the third step, go there. There are a whole bunch of living skills there that we can actually practice in our daily affairs, and she told me to go home before I took the third step because I needed to decide whether or not this was the life that I was willing to do, and so I went home, and I had my list. My list was like no more gossiping, no more judging, no mehr criticizing. It was the world judging me by my intentions, or I judge myself by my intentions while the world judges me by my actions. It was focusing on the problem, not on the solution. It was get rid of all your expectations. That was an easy one. Ask yourself how important is it really? And to really start the concept of acceptance. And for me, the concept of acceptance was really about can I do anything about it? No. It is whatever it is. Keep going then. And I went home and I started practicing that. And I called her like a week later and I said, I think I'm ready to take the third step. And she said, okay, why? And I said I haven't spoken in a week. And she's like, why not? Because you told me I couldn't gossip, I couldn' lie, I wasn't allowed to have any expectations and I was no longer allowed to judge. So people in a meeting would even ask me how are you? And i was like, no, not good. Not even fine. I can't even say I'm bad. People just thought I was insane because I was sitting there trying to figure out how I was as they kept going. you know and i was like i don't know how i am that was that was the most honest i could get and um and so then we went into the fourth step and for the for me the fourth stop was um was the first time that i saw that it was actually freeing if i was part of the problem i uh i am the perpetual victim in fact it's my most favorite role in the world to play i love i love the fact that you do everything to me and i get really high off my self-righteous anger with it. And that is exactly, you know, where my alcoholism takes me. And the fourth step is really the pin that goes to the balloon. It's really like here, we're just going to poke it just a little bit so the truth can start to seep in and the ego starts to deflate because I was taught that really all the other steps are about reinforcing step one. My whole problem is really my ego just rebuilds itself and rebuilds itself and rebuilds itself, and I will grab onto anything to do it. So step four is about ego deflation. And I got to see the truth about so many things in my life, but specifically at that time I looked back on my drinking and I saw the truth that all these men that I thought broke up with me and that I was totally the victim of all these unfair breakups and I was this abandoned, scorned woman. Whatever. I've never been faithful in a relationship, I came to find out. I thought that they cheated on me. They didn't. I cheated on them. I thoughtthat they broke up with me. They didn' t. I totally manipulated the situation so they would break up withme because I didn't want to actually say the words. But really it was my decision. I'm trying to think of a couple other things I did. I always took the spotlight. I always did that. I made everything out about me. I lied about everything. If it didn't make me look good, I lied. If it made me look bad, I was bad. If it looked good, I lied to make myself even look better. You know, there was nothing about the truth that came out of my mouth. And I came to find out that all of this was really rooted in myself and selfishness and self-centeredness. Sometimes I hear in AA that, you know, the root of our problems is fear. And the big book actually says the root of our problems is selfishness, self-centeredness. That we think is the rootof our problems. Fear for me is selfish, self centered. It's not the other way around. And for me, selfishness was defined as I want what I want when I want it. Self-centered was definedas it's all about me. And self-seekingwas defined as what's in it for me. And all of a sudden now I had to go around. And the good thing about the four-step is that really it's the pin that hits the balloon. The bad thing about a four-stepped is that if you're not ready for it or you don't want to hear it, it's a pin that hit the balloon now you're walking around with all this knowledge and everything I'm doing. I'm like, I want what I want when I literally would even say the words like my mom would ask me to do something and I'm like, well, I don't wanna do that. Why don't you want to do that? Because I don' t want to do it. I want what I want when I want. Oh my God, I just said that, you know, and I found myself starting to use lingo going. oh, wow, that's selfish. Okay, so therefore I must be being dishonest. Okay, if that's selfish, then that must be dishonest and here's where I'm at in my fourth step and this is what it affects and this is why I'm reacting. And by having that tool in the fourth step it was like the balloon never got completely out of the balloon ever took off again. The balloon was always grounded. And I was also taught that before the fourth stop you pray to see the truth. Because I can sit there and in my head think I see the truth, but there's a reason we put it on paper. And the reason is that somewhere between my head and the pen and the paper, God comes out. I don't know if he lives in my right arm, but he comes out because when I'm in my head, I'll even go for a run nowadays and I'm like, all right, I have a resentment against my husband because he didn't cook dinner last night. Okay, the dishonesty is the fact that he never cooks dinner. never like why i expected him to cook dinner last night i don't know but he never cooks dinner in fact i don'T even cook dinner so why am i upset that he DIDN'T cook dinner you know we live off takeout so it's like all right fine that's that's the dishonesty keep going okay the fear he's not a you know he's NOT as good as i want him to be okay it affects my pride i'm i DON'T respect him because he'S NOT living up to my expectations okay now the selfishness self-centeredness how come this is all about me? There are two of us eating. Somehow, this all just became about me. He had a busy day. Did I take him into consideration? No, that's selfish. What's in it for me? I want him to serve me. You know, I do. I want to be taken care of. And bingo, I just hit all the main points on the fourth step. Problem, if I don't write it down, I guarantee you by the time I got back to my house after running, first thing out of my mouth when I walk in is, why didn't you make dinner last night? Because something happens when you put it on paper. You can actually see the truth of the fact and it becomes real. I don't know how, I don'T know why, I just know it works. Go into five. There is an intimacy that takes place in five. At first, it's absolutely terrifying. After that, it is fantastic. And it's probably one of my most favorite experiences in life, which is when I call somebody in my network and I'm like, all right, you got to listen to this inventory. You're going to die. It's pretty funny. Or I call them and I say, I just can't see it. I don't know what it is. I can't See it. And we go through it or something along those lines. And I even just recently was at a meeting where they came up with this great fear inventory and I was getting ready to go into New York City for a wedding and I have issues with panic and anxiety where I get very afraid of big cities or I get very afraid like being claustrophobic. And I was going to New York city for this wedding and I just kept practicing the principle that my first sponsor grilled into me which was always ask in any situation what can I do for you? That just boils the whole program down to if you have something that you are entering tonight or tomorrow and you don't know how to practice these principles in all your affairs, just stop and say, what can I do for this person I'm about to encounter? There you go. There's the AA program right there in one question. And then do it. It's not, what Can I Do For You? Oh yeah, that would be nice if I were a good person, but I'm not, so here I am, I'm going to gossip about you. You know, it's what can I do For You and then follow it through. And this alcoholic is not very good at following through, so this alcoholic needs God to help me follow through. So when I ask, what can I do for you? Before I walk in that room, I better say a prayer to ask God for the courage and strength to follow through with whatever he sends. And then I just go about doing what's in front of me. And I trust that that's God's will for me. A lot of times I can try and make this more complicated than it is. I can go into steps six and seven and I can be like, okay, well I have this list and this list, I'm kind of willing. And then I have this list and this list, I'm not really willing. And then this list I'm totally willing. And then there's this list absolutely not. I really like myself and I can have, I can make it complicated. I can go start reading spiritual books. I can Goz start reading new age things. I can Goz start reading everything except for here. And, um, and then next thing you know, I call my sponsor and I'm like, I don't know which way is up. And she's like, well, why don't you go back to, you know? Page a, what page is it on? What page help? It's like 78, right? You're not helping me. Nope, not 76. Oh, 76. I was very close. 76 is where 6 and 7 is in case anybody wanted to know. And as well as only two paragraphs, it has got so much in there. Because the first time I went through 6 and 8, and this was a helpful process at the time, but the first times I went though 6 and 9, I wrote down all my defects on index cards, and I wrote them down in such a manner where I had at least like 250 index cards. And I could not consolidate them at that time. I did not understand it. I did no know how. And it was good at that point. What I have come to find out now for me in 6 and 7 is that it really is all in the big book. And the 12 and 12 and 6 and 7 has helped me tremendously as well in terms of expounding upon it. But I need to become willing in step six, you know, become willing to have God remove all these defects of character. The question is if I'm willing. The question does not which ones do you want to go. The question says not, you now, how many do you wanna go? The question's not like, here, why don't you rank them? you know the question is are you willing and have all of them all all is a very interesting word it really does mean everything um in fact going back to the fourth step the resentment is the number one offender from it stems all form of spiritual disease all again everything you know my disease can come out in so many different ways yet it comes back to resentment even when I don't think I have a resentment, I have a resentment. And when I go through six and I ask myself, am I willing? For me, I need some quiet time to genuinely ask myself that. Because so many times I'm triggered by the resentment of, well of course I'm willing because this was painful. But the minute the pain's gone, so is my willingness. So when I sit with it now, I say, am I genuinely willing to envision life without this? And if I'm not, I still sit with it and pray for the willingness. And this is part of practicing the principles in all our affairs. This was not necessarily how I was taught in terms of going through the steps, but this is how I practice it now in all of my affairs, is that if I're not willing, I sit with it praying for the willingness until I am willing. And inevitably what usually happens to me is that same defective character comes up like 18 different ways in the next three days. And I get this experience of being powerless over the defect because again, the 12 steps are there to reinforce one. For me, I don't have the power to remove my defect. When I hear people say we work on them. Well, I try to be a good person. I also tried not to drink and that didn't work. You know, when I get up in the morning and I offer myself to God in step three, I'm telling God that I don't know what you want from me, but this is what I need to do. And I don' t have the power to be any different than I am. And in steps six and seven, I get to start becoming who God intends me to be. Whatever that might mean. And let me tell you, the last time I went through the steps, I was not all hopping like, yeah, I'm ready and willing to go. You know, so excited. Let's be somebody different. I kind of liked my defective character because they kind of worked to get me where I am in some ways on certain things, you know, in my job and stuff like that. And I was like, oh, I don't know about that. I don' t know. I' m not sure God is going to like me being in my work. I'm not sure He's going to make me move to Tahiti or something. I I don't want to do that. I don' t like planes. And I was a little nervous. But the fact of the matter is, is that it was actually more painful to sit there and to watch my pride act out like it did every day. It was more painful to sit there and watch my gluttony take over my life. And when I say gluttonry, I don''t mean overeating. I mean indulging in anything. Overindulging in anything. So self-righteous anger is a really fun way for me to express my gluttony, where I just keep going and going and telling five different people about the same resentment. That is a very good way to indulge in gluttoning, because really I only needed to tell one. You know? The fifth step's not about like go tell ten different people. No, that just crossed a whole new bridge. You know, my greed can play itself out where I'm not grateful for what I have. and I'm expecting everybody else to serve me and to be more than they are. And I can go through the entire list of defects of character, but I see how these things work in my life and I start to experience the pain of them. And as the pain grows more, my powerlessness becomes more obvious to me and the unmanageability can start to seep in. So when that happens is usually when I'm at step seven. And that is when I am truly humble on my knees asking for help. It is at that point when I'm truly humble asking God to remove the defects of character from me that stand in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. And the cool thing about seven is that I give up my right to decide what's good and bad. Things that I may think are bad may end up being good. Thought being an alcoholic was bad ended up being the greatest gift of my life. Things that I think are good might end up being bad. I had this one experience where my husband gave me diamond earrings for Christmas. Now, anybody who knows my husband knows that they almost fell out of the share when they found out I got diamond earrings because he's very, very frugal. And he gave me these diamond earrings. And it was at a time in our relationship where we were not communicating very well, where it was we just anything I said he snapped I snapped it was just we were constantly missing each other we were just not on the same wave and I couldn't I don't really know why it happened it just did and it was probably about like you know a few weeks of this and uh he gives me these diamond earrings and I am shocked and I put these diamond earrings on and two days later we go away to Providence Rhode Island and I go to show my friend my new earrings and she goes what are you talking about? I lost one. And I was like, what? I lost my earring? And here my husband is saying it's just a material thing, which again, if anybody knows my husband, it's like, who are you? Did you really just say that? But it was, he was trying to calm me down and I was upset that I lost this earring. And the reason I was obsessed with this earing was not because I liked diamond earrings. It was because I didn't realize at the time until I lost it that this earring made me feel beautiful. It made me feel like I was valued. I felt cherished. I thought like I could fly. I couldn't have told you that until it was missing. And what happened was, was that I went back to like the eight places I had just gone and no earring. That night he turned to me and he's like, are you okay? And I started crying and I said, no, I'm not. And he said, what's wrong? I was like, I can't believe I lost my earring and he was like, would you please relax about that? And then I said no, you need to know how you made me feel by giving me those earrings and I didn't even know that it felt that way until I got them. And I told him exactly the way that they made me feel, and I thanked him for taking the time to care about me like that. And the next day, I was like, can we just go back to this one place? I have a feeling. I go back into this one space. My feeling was wrong. Like, I'm walking into the train station. I was, like, well, it just goes to show you don't really know what God's will is now, do you, Ann Marie? I go walking across the street, and in Providence, Rhode Island, where it just rained for 24 hours, I decide to just look happenstance down where the sewer gutter is, where we had parked when I'd gotten out to go get my friend the day before. And I looked down and there was this shiny looking soda tab. And there's Mary. And it was sitting right there. And I couldn't believe it. And it was the greatest experience of not knowing what's good or bad. Because I thought it was the worst thing in the world. But it was a very good thing because it served to the usefulness of him and to the usefulness of our relationship. And that's how God can work in my life. He gives me these experiences where I have no idea what's happening, I just got to go with them. So when I move on to eight and nine, I have to make direct ments to such people wherever I have harmed, and I need to continue to do that on a daily basis. And what I do with that is when it happens and i take my inventory this kind of goes into step 10 i was taught that step three is a decision and you start acting on that decision but when people say turn it over that action of turning it over is in steps four through nine for the longest time i had no idea people are like turn itover what does that mean they're just say just pray turn it over like what is what is turn it over we'll just live and let live huh like I did not get it and I was I was not understanding at all I'm the type of person that if you draw me a map I'll follow it but if it's if I if I don't have a map you're speaking Greek so um so what happened was is that when I got to eight and nine I started making amends to these people in my life and um and I have had amazing experiences in making amens and probably the one that I'll share with you tonight is actually the one with my brother, and this has been kind of like an ongoing thing. And what happened was that the first time I made amends to him, which was after I had gone through the steps the first times, I had said to him I was selfish, I didn't take into consideration that you were in college and that Mom was asking you to come home all the time to deal with me. I was fearful and acting out. I never took you into account. I lied to you like I breathe you know I never took an interest in having a relationship with you whenever you called me from college I was like talking to a rock you know he's like how are you I was great well what are you up to nothing that's a fun person to have a relationship with and this is a man who was looking out for me because my husband my father lives in Florida and is drinking so he's not very good at looking out for me so my brother takes over And I did not have the respect of him, not only as my brother, but as a human being to even really talk to him. So I make amends for all of these things. And I ask the three questions, which I'm sure somebody went over here. But I ask them three questions. I say, is there any other harms I may have caused that I don't know about? He was like, yeah, you forgot. And he's like, you always took the spotlight. Always, always, always. Even on my 21st birthday, you got drunk and passed out. Everything that was supposed to be about me ended up being about you. He was like, and why don't you try calling me sometime without actually wanting something from me? And I thought about it. I was like I do always call you when I want something, don't I? And he told me a couple of other things. And that was the start of a new relationship that I was going to have with him. And what I can tell you about what happened with me was that that start, that opening of communication is totally what saved this relationship at this point because what I did after that was the poor man got married and I did not like his wife. And I pretended like it was my business to make sure that he knew I didn't like his wife, which is none of my business. And I also made it my business to assist my mother in ostracizing him from the family because of our dislike of this woman. And I did it in the name of helping my mom, of being of service to my mom. And I didn't do it because I was afraid of her. I did also in the game of protecting her. And this went on for probably about three or four years. And what I managed to do was I managed to, in sobriety, even after the steps, dismantle a relationship, any potential relationship with my brother. And, um, and again, this is a man that took care of me as if I was his own kid. And this is somebody who was always there for me. Never in a million years has my brother not shown up. Um, and I made him not part of our family and I was, I was instrumental in it doing it. And what happened was, was that I went through another pretty severe four step. And in that fourth step it was like almost a white light blinding experience that hurt like hell um that showed me that this woman was exactly like me and the whole thing was was that she was getting away with things that i was not able to do she was setting things with my she was setting boundaries with my mom i was too scared to set boundaries with her i was being honest about who she was. I was too scared to be honest about who I was to the family. She was you know, she was just being who she Was. I would have loved to have been who I Was to the Family, but I was too Scared. There are Rules. There's Protocol. You've got to Act a Certain Way in order to be Accepted. You know, and all these things that she was doing, I was Jealous that she Was doing them, and I felt like I Couldn't. I felt Trapped because my current Agnosticism at that time was that God was not everything when it came to my family because God either is or he isn't. God either is everything or he's nothing and what happens in practicing the principles in all my affairs is that I will be faced with that proposition in different areas of my life where I actually have to answer the question. First time I went through the steps, it was like, I know the right answer. God's everything. Moving on now. You know, of course that's the right answer. You don't ask you so you say no, God's everything. You know, that's the right answer. But, but the problem is, is that the right answer needs to actually fit. The right answer needs, you need to have an experience with it in order for it to own it or else God is nothing. You can't just tell you God's everything and you're like, okay, good guys, everything I'm going on my way now. You, if you do that, you're going to become the tornado they talk about in step nine that just goes around people's lives, totally destroying it, having no idea what's going on and wondering why all this damages around you. So what happened was that as I did that four-step and came to realize that this woman was actually a lot like me, and that I was not only jealous of her, but I had a level of compassion for her that I never had before. All of a sudden, this huge wave of compassion came in and replaced any anger I had. And I went to my brother, and instead of making a formal amends because I had no idea where this was going to take me. I went to my brother and I said, you know, I'd really love to come over and hang out with the two of you more often if that's okay. He was like, sugar, we've always been there for you. We always want you to come Over. And I was like okay well I'll come over. So I go over. My husband and I go out to dinner with them. I'm so nervous I'm going to say something wrong. So I sit down and I do four through nine because I'm turning it over. Go do four through nine. And um I do. I go through four through nine and I say a prayer and I go in there and I say to God you are everything at that dinner table whatever is going to happen let it happen and help me deal with it and it was a beautiful experience and this has managed to grow over time even so much so that they come over my house now and even so mucho so that I talk to them on the phone when I don't want something you know even so macho so that I even can talk to her and I now defend her to the rest of the family so much so that I even stay out of the gossip and I have not let that rule my family life at this point but I say I've done all these things, I haven't really done anything, I did four through nine and I decided God was everything and I asked for help, that's what I did and that's how God acted so that's one through nine and that is for me how I practice them in my daily affairs. I get to 10 and 11, and 10 is just you keep doing the fourth step over and over again. You know, for a long time I did the daily review, which is on page 86. For a long time I didn't do that. I did that at night, and I still look at it at night. But I consider that to be my tenth step. What I have now come to find out for myself is that the tenth step for me is just doing, staying on top of my inventory. I write out resentments when I get them. And if I don't, it's going to be a few days later, I can't even figure out what that resentment was until I'm talking to somebody and I'm like, oh, that's where that resentment came from. Because once I get one, they pile. And I define a resentment as anything that bothers you. Anything that you take beyond that second that you felt it. So I do a lot of inventory. You know, because for me, a lot OF the process starts with inventory. Because again, God comes in when the truth can come out. That's, I'll always have a spiritual experience with that. When I get the truth out, God will always come in. And that's the way my program has always worked. It's always started with getting honest. And for me, the tools and the four-step, which I continue to do in 10, are what releases that. And after that, I guess I'll just touch on the fact that I do a meditation every morning to the best of my ability. I am not fantastic at meditation. It is exactly actually what I'm working on now. I do show up every day because I was taught that, you know, for me, I try to simplify things. There was a time in my sobriety where I got really into all this reading extra stuff and it started to really bog me down. And what I started doing, which I didn't realize I was doing, was I started to rely more on that information than just on the experience I get in my gut because I Was trying to explain that experience. And so the simpler I keep this program, the better off I am. So now my meditation practice consists of me going upstairs, saying my prayers and sitting there for 10 minutes. I focus on breathing. If I can't focus on breathing, I focus, I'm petting my cat because for some reason she really wants to be part of this. I don't know why. Um, and you know, if she, for some reason forgot, I'll read something, you know? Or I'll just look out the window because I have a beautiful tree outside my window. You know, but the fact of the matter is that I'm showing up. I'm showing up for God. That's all God ever asked of me is just to show up. So that's what I do. I show up and I trust that whatever happens, it is his will. Whether I think it's good or bad, it doesn't matter. I just show up in my life and I show it up and go through it. And that has been an amazing, amazing way of life for me these past few years. And I'm really glad to be here. We have a few minutes left if people have questions or want to share, but that's been my experience on practicing the principles. Thanks. We have this light on you. Can you come up? Where do I? Let's close it. All right. We have a nice way of closing. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening.