Queens Big Book Study – Part 6 – Gary B. – 2008

So we were talking about the fifth step. And now the fifth step is daunting for everybody. I don't care how long you've been around or how short a time you've been around. This is daunting because we're going to take and we're going to open up our hearts to someone else, and that's sacred and it's tender. But let's see what the book has to say about doing such a practice. In Chapter 6 in the big book on page 72, it says, Having made our personal inventory, what shall we do about it? We've been trying to get a new attitude, a new relationship with our creator, and to discover the obstacles in our path. Now, I would like to point out at this moment that it doesn't say, Boy, we've really been gearing up for the most rigorous and brutal ninth step you've ever seen in your life, and that's why we're writing inventory. And fifth, It does not say that. This is for us, for our health, for recovery. It's saying we're trying to get a new attitude, a new relationship with our creator, and to discover the obstacles in our path. We've admitted certain defects. We've ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is, in a rough way. We've put our finger on the weak items in our personal inventory. Now these are about to be cast. Man, there's promises coming at us right now. This requires action on our part, which when completed, will mean that we have admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our defects. This brings us to the fifth step in the program of recovery mentioned in the preceding chapter. This is perhaps difficult, especially discussing our defects with another person. We think we have done well enough in admitting these things to ourselves. They're telling us, we have done well enough in admitting these things to ourselves. We think we have done well enough in admitting these things to ourselves. They're sharing with us. These are people who are standing sober, free from alcohol, and have a life that's being built for them, and they're saying, I want to share something with you. This is our experience. In actual practice, we usually find a solitary self-appraisal insufficient. Many of us thought it necessary to go much further. We will be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons why we should do so. The best reason first. If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. So there's a promise as well. So they're saying, like, this has got hair on it. This is serious. We need to do this thing. Like, it's not optional. It's not optional that we're going to go and talk to somebody. So I come from a faith that has a confession connected with it. But without the structure, you understand, and without the give and take, that happens in a fifth step. Because it's not just like talking to a wall. There's a human being in the room with us who has experience, and they're going to talk to us. And so there's a sharing that goes on. So I wrote down my stuff, and with much trepidation, this is my first one, I went over to see my sponsor. And I had a sponsor who was a defrocked Catholic priest who had killed two people in a blackout vehicular. He was a man-slaughter, but I mean, you know what I'm saying. There it was. And so he's no longer a priest, and he had these blue eyes that could look through a steel door. Scared the living daylights out of me, this guy. But he was a nice enough man. And I sat down, and I started talking with him. And I'm telling him everything except that I wanted to sleep with his wife. It wasn't a real serious thing, but she's a very attractive woman. And I was trying to be rigorously honest. I was talking about everything. And so I had to go fifth step. That was somebody else. And he said, yeah, I was talking to my sponsor, and I figured out Mickey wants to sleep with my wife. Oh, great. I mean, it was a passing thing. Anyway, I was very ill. But other than that, I was rigorously honest with him about what had gone on in my life, and I had a lot to talk about. I had a lot to talk about. I had been resentful at a lot of people about a lot of stuff, and I... I was scared about a lot of things. And I have a rule now that if somebody has a longer sex inventory than I did, I won't listen to their fifth step. No, that's not true. What? It's just a little AA humor there. I thought I'd just wake us up for... Anyway, it wasn't... Yeah, it was a pretty short inventory. I'm just saying, okay? When you're totally self-involved and drunk, it's very difficult to have a very active... Well, I... I found it to be that way. Anyway. But I shared all these things, and I complied the best way I could with everything I was asked to do. And they said in there that I was looking for my grosser handicaps. So I'm really looking for my grosser handicaps, and I'm laying it down. And I'm halfway in a fog. I'm pretty... I'm very new. And I'm in a new world. I'm with you guys. And it's a different society that we live in now. It's a different culture. And I'm now trying to just swing along with this culture. And guess what? I'm dry. I am dry. And so something is really working in my life. And as I shared and touched on a little bit earlier, what happened was is that I rejoined the human family. I was like I was... I was part of you guys. I was part of the world. And I wasn't like off so sick and so antisocial. I was really antisocial. I remember at the end of my drinking, I was sitting on my couch, looking out the front window and thinking, why aren't those people out there killing each other? Because there was such warfare in my soul. And how did society hang together at all? I mean, I know we question that sometimes anyway. But I mean, for me, it was just total chaos. So I did my fifth step and it got late at night. He said, was there anything else that I needed to talk about that I maybe hadn't written about, which is a question I asked the people that I work with. Is there anything you might not have written down that you'd like to get off your chest? Now, because this is a good opportunity for that. And I said, no. And I went out and I sat in my car and I forgot how to turn the thing on and I forgot how to drive. I'm sitting in this vehicle and I'm flipped upside down. I am really displaced at this moment. And really, the dialogue to me in sponsoring someone else is what is of maximum importance. And in talking with my sponsor, I want to hear what he has to say. Do you know what I mean? Not because he's going to fix me, but because I'm very vulnerable at this point. And you know, I don't know everything about Mickey. And maybe you have an observation for me that will help me get down this road. So other than that, I mean, it's pretty straightforward stuff. And it's not to be missed. And Gary touched on this earlier. I do an inventory. Every year formally, at least one. And so I get together with a group of guys in Taos, New Mexico, which is about a four-hour drive for me from Denver. And we rent a room at a lodge and we have a silent retreat. Now, it's not silent. I'm lying because I can't shut up. It's supposed to be a silent retreat, okay? Okay. And... And the idea is that we write, we meet in a circle. There's about 10 of us or 11 of us. And it's turned out to be sort of the same guys every year. And we meet the first weekend in January to start our year right, okay? And we write down our step. So we'll meet in the circle. We have somebody we call the bell ringer. And the bell ringer will go around the lodge. And, you know, because there's like a fireplace. Whatever. We might be in different rooms and ring a bell and just tell us to come. And so we come into the room and the facilitator that year will just sort of set the tone. And then we go off and write out our first step. And after a given period of time, we get back together in that circle and we read what we've written. And everybody in the circle reads it. Then we go do the second step and we keep going like that. When we do our fifth step, we fifth step with everybody in that room. And they fifth step with us. We cover the first eight steps. And we get ready to go out and make amends if we owe amends to anyone. We also do kind of a thing where we look forward to the year. And here's some things. They're not New Year's resolutions, but kind of in a way they are. This is something that I'd like to see. And we do it by doing a thing called a wheel of life. I'm not trying to deviate from the book. I'm just sharing my experience a little bit for whatever value this might have. And the longer the spoke of the wheel is, the more energy and time of my life I devote to it. So like I have a real long one for TV. And, you know, a real short one on like charitable. No, whatever it is. But you understand what I'm saying. And we look at that. And we also write down things that we'd like to accomplish in this year. And the value of going back each year together is that we can kind of look back on the year and say, how did we do? You know what I mean? Did we make any progress in these areas or whatever? So. I believe in frequent formal going back through this. There's not a day that I don't need a first step or a second step or a third step. I was told this is the only thing in my life I cannot OD on. And and the I and the notion of talking. If I sit with these things, they will fester and they can kill me. So I guess that's really all I have to share on the fifth step. Thank you. OK. That was a brief intermission and we're back. Talk about brief. So. Yes, Tom. Yes, please, Tom. Just. I was wondering if any of you three have a take on this. I've just recently heard some people talk about this. It's the line that says. What page are you on? OK. OK. OK. Thank you, Tom. Yes. Yes. Thank you, Tom. And Tom is from Santa Fe, if you don't know. And he and his wife Juanita are here. And we just love him. And if you get to know him, you will, too. Yeah. Now he's really screwed up our entire retreat. And we want to thank you for that, Tom. No, I think this is important. And I do have some experience that I'd like to share with that. And his question was on page 73 in the in the top paragraph. It says, but they had learned not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty in the sense. We find it necessary until they told someone else all their life story. And I have done this with with my sponsors. There is informal inventory that I can share. And it's the three part inventory we've discussed. And but they might not have a context on who I am and where I come from and what's important to me and what's not important to me. And those things are not always revealed. And in inventory, if you if you knew that I moved to a new school every two years, that might actually tell you something about me. You know, that's information that might be useful if you're sponsoring me. And it's also something that I might get a little bit of something out of time when I'm seeing my life myself. Is to understand that there is this chipping and chopping of my life might have some effect on the way I feel about people or about me and and and and just as an example. So that's my experience with that is that I do share all my life story eventually. But I'm not saying I sit down and do it. I have for me, I have not sat down and done it formally and laid that whole thing out. But I think it is important that we get to know each other. That's what I have. Marie, you've got a story. I get real bored with hearing myself talk. So sometimes I just hand a tape to my sponsors and say, here's my story. That's not with my sponsor, with my sponsor. I, you know, but but, you know, I mean, there's only so much I can hear myself talk. I mean, you know, really, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was what Marie had to say. OK, Gary. I think that much like Mickey was talking about, I've certainly done it with Paul. And it's pretty much been over the last. Four or five years, it's been very few times that he's had the patience to sit with me for much more than a couple of hours. But we'll get we'll get into stories and he'll ask me some very pointed questions. And those of you who know him don't have any trouble understanding what I'm getting at there. But he'll want to know how what my life was like and what I grew up with and all that. He's also also a writer and very gifted thinker. So he asks questions that we don't think about. Even if you've been as locked into the steps as we have, he'll get into some personal stuff like that. So today I would say Paul knows probably more about me than anybody alive other than Julie. And, yeah, I think that happened. I think that kind of. That kind of work with somebody is helpful for all of us. Very seldom are we fortunate enough to have a sponsor that lives long enough to listen to us get through the whole thing. And with that, I think that's pretty important. If one is finding a sponsor that cares enough to hear it as part of it. So anyway, go ahead. I have more questions over here. So many. I don't know. It strikes me that that morning sort of a word in a very general way, your entire life story. But I mean, the fact is that back then they take people who steps in a day and there's evidence of that in the story. He sold himself short. We're all treated like this. Mm hmm. Paul Martin's. Sponsor at one point. No, he wasn't. No, no, no. They knew each other. But Paul got his stuff from from New York. Okay. Anyway, so it says that Dr. Bob took him through the steps in like four hours. And so how are you going to put your entire life story in four hours? It becomes like it's sort of like relevant to the way they were actually doing it in practice. So if I with my outfall, like grandiosity, start writing a 2000 page inventory. Of. Every person that ever stepped on my foot and I wanted to kill him for two seconds, then that becomes like this kind of neurotic grandiosity. That's really more self-centered than anything else. Not really looking at how I'm blocked from God. So then there's some kind of balance you have to draw from all this instead of taking that morning literally thinking I got to write this 2000 page inventory and looking at what the really core elements that block me from God. Yes. No. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Actually, I, you know, after having spent all the time in advertising, I could tell you a life story literally in 30 seconds. I mean, literally, it would take probably a couple of months to put it together. But, but what I mean by that is, and, and I appreciate what you're saying. I know that I, I move people through the steps very quickly and when I work with them. But I think the idea is, is that there are pertinent points to that whole thing. We're not talking about if you ever want to freeze the blood of an, of a group that you're speaking to from the podium. Tell them, you know, when I was three years old, start with that one. You know what I'm saying. So anyway, but I think that we do need to tell people, as you have shared with me, for instance, this is where I come from, these are some of the experiences I have, I know some about your schooling, I know about you as a person, you know what I mean? And those weren't put in the inventory. I think we just need to share who we are. And I think that's what they're encouraging us to do. Yes, in the back. Actually, you know, if we were just taking that last sentence, it's just my perception, so I was just thinking, like, the whole pattern that says, you know, holding on to some of the worst items and stuff, and of course, you'll be able to do the rest of the program. And it's like, I started doing this path, and they were like, well, if you didn't share that. Someone else is going to want to go to the response as well. That restlessness that we're doing in that relationship between you and him, I know for myself, I have a problem with separation. And by not sharing that and keeping that underlying tension that he's going to find out, find out about it before, just like it says in the final part of it, it's almost like I have to be completely honest. And you know, with everything, this kind of, in my life is what I'm thinking of right now. Like my thoughts, I don't know what's honest and what's not honest and all that kind of stuff. I need to be able to expose that to someone who can give me clarity, who's not experiencing the emotional drama behind my thought process. You know, and I think that's what I was really trying to significantly implore because I have an experience of a very good friend of mine not wanting to share about being in pain because somebody might tell him not to take painkillers and that I love smoking or whatever. And my point is you could have any perseverance with the rest of his life but he held on to that. That little thought that you didn't want to share about it was something you might talk about. And I think that's what is really important is to be honest with him that we need to acknowledge our self-worth and that humility in some ways and not let ourselves have that solid kind of self-embracing that we're all carrying. You know, it's just like it was worth. I think that's an excellent take and I appreciate your sharing that and it's lovely. It's like even in this retreat you guys know that I was kicked out of every school I went to. Okay? What column do you put that in? But I can tell you that that affected me. You go home enough like that you think you can carry that load? I'm telling you after a while you just feel like giving up. You know, so that tells you something about me and we all have that stuff. So I think what they're trying to do is to get us to open up. And otherwise, and on the flip side of that, Clemente, I really believe that sometimes we can get this packaged so thoroughly that all we're doing is presenting the package and we're not presenting us. You know that it hurts. Or whatever. Or that we have great joy in whatever we just did. Whatever it is. Now, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on your golf handicap. Because whatever. I mean, but if that's joyful for you, great. We'll talk about it. We'll talk about that for a minute. Whatever that is. So, did somebody else have a hand up? Yes. Hi, Donna. I remember my first fifth step. I read it to a man. Before I read it, it was about two of my fifth steps that were all. It was coming into my head and I was like, oh my God, I got to go all. And I took a thorough and I remember when he asked me that everything and all was going to be okay. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And they said, I'm going to do it. And I said, I'm going to do it. And I said, or it's a result of that paragraph or whatever. But I think the point is well taken. I think you've addressed that really well, I mean, for my money. We just can't be secret. We're only as sick as our secrets, you know. And so here we go. And you know what? I may share something and I don't get the significance of it because it's back to this. Because I'm back in there and I carry this stuff, but I don't know what it means. And maybe somebody else can help me with that as well. So we are so blessed. Anyway, so shall we move to the sixth and seventh step? Is that okay? All right. Let me just make a real quick comment about that. What we just had happen here is the dilemma with workshops like this and the problem with taping a workshop. It's two people really shared a great deal of really good stuff and it doesn't hit the tape. And so very often the taper inhibits this rather than help them. Just want to throw that for you to think about. You're going to go home and want to share something you heard here and it won't be on the tape. And then on the other hand, there's going to be somebody sitting out here knowing that tape machine is going out there and they don't want anybody to hear it, but they'd love to share it. But later on it may get somewhere where they don't want to hear it. So that's the first step. And then the second step is they don't want it again. And I've seen both that. Just thought I'd throw that out. The love bill been around him for years, but the taper can sometimes make a problem for a workshop. This is why I didn't want him to be my sponsor. He just tells the truth like that and it's like, okay, no, I'm just kidding. No, I'm not. But anyway, yes. I just want to add something. It was very helpful for me, which is when I first came out of rehab and asked someone to sponsor me. I didn't trust anybody and didn't have any self-worth and was shocked that the first thing we did is we got together and shared stories with each other. Before talking about the book, I had already decided that I wanted to be a part of AA and go that first step, I guess. And couldn't believe someone wanted to sit down and listen to me talk about my life. And so that was crucial to starting that trust. Even before writing anything down, I knew a little about him. He knew a little bit about me and was what I needed at that time. Thank you, Zach. Over here. Yes. Yes, sir. Go ahead. Yes. Talk about holding something back. Okay. And, you know, take our experiences, you know, what do I do? trigger it on them, zero would almost say, hey, come on, stop. I know this is the real deal that's going on, or whatever it is, you know, something with your force, call them on it. I don't want to disrespect the guy, but do it in like a diplomatic way. But, you know, just to my experience, a gentleman I was working with, he's not really around anymore, and I don't know where exactly. And I know sometimes as a sponsor, I also have a gun in my hand, but I can't kill somebody who's being sponsored. They're not doing a proper job. It's kind of responsible for that. Do you have any answer on that? Yeah, and so the question is, thank you very much. The question is, if I'm listening to a fifth step with a sponsee, and I feel like they're lying, or, you know, from my experience, I feel like we've just wandered off into the weeds or whatever, do I have the responsibility to say something? Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, for my money, you bet. And it's not, it's not that we've got to shame somebody, and it's not that we've got to be obnoxious about the thing, and maybe sometime we do. I don't know. But here's what I know about it. When we sit down to do a fifth step together, this is the prayer I pray to God for both of us. Lord, thank you for bringing us here safe and sober. Help us to hear what you want us to hear. Say what you want us to say. Be who you want us to be, and do what you want us to do. We're no longer running the show. Thy will, not ours, be done. So in the course, in the course of this thing, do you know what I mean? We can't help each other, because it's, what am I going to do, sit there and listen to some guy blow himself up in front of me? That's kind of what, Yeah. I kind of like what would happen in a way. Yeah, on one side, I'm trying to be a little tactful, but you know, my little persona is, I'll just go right at it. And maybe that's what he needs. You understand what I'm saying? In other words, God made you the way he made you. He made me the way, right? Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. And I got to be in the course of that. And this is hard for me to this minute today to be who I am. It doesn't mean who I am. And I can take several layers off of you, because we don't have the right to get well at anyone else's expense. It talks about Gary. Yeah. Just a real quick comment about those kind of things. That's something that I learned from Frank that I talked about. He told me the truth, whether I was going to like him for it or not. And I think that's important. That's the real definition of a lover. That somebody will tell you the truth and not be too concerned whether you're going to like him for it or not. So if you love this guy and you want him to get well, you're going to tell him the truth. And you just got to tell him what it is. Fortunately, what happens, the longer you're in the program and the more you do that, the easier it becomes. Because you start getting real sick of that stuff. But it will. But don't be afraid to tell him the truth. Thank you. So. Six and seven. All right. The reason I keep like going back to six and seven like that is because. There are three steps in this program that just absolutely light me up. And six is one. Seven is another. And ten is another. Because it's like I just would invite you for a moment. To visualize the program of Alcoholics Anonymous without the six and seven steps. Just think about it. We're going to do an inventory. You go home. Okay, boom. Go make amends to people and make a list of who you've hurt. And we'll call it a day there. Now, here I've been carrying this weight. All this brokenness inside of me and all these things. And not just brokenness like passive. Brokenness like active. This. This stuff stalks me, hunts me, trying to run me down and kill me. And so I'm going to go, wow. All right. I'll take. I'll do all of this work up to this point. I'll make this great catalog in my fourth step of all the things that are wrong with me. I'm going to discuss it with you, which in itself has tremendous value. And then what? Mickey, stop doing it. Go home and be a good boy. I've been trying to be a good boy my whole life. And the newsflash is there's something wrong with me. You know, I don't know why anybody else does what they do, but I got help inside. I got help. Why don't you do this, Mickey? What? It's okay. Are you kidding me? And then I see the look of horror on other people's face because I do it. No. No. So it's like I was so excited when I saw that in the program, of Alcoholics Anonymous, because I had been in, what do you call it? Deep. Well, anyway, I had been in therapy. Okay, but like here's the kind of therapy I was in. I was in the Denver General Hospital Neighborhood Outreach Program. One more time, Mickey's skinned. I can't afford anything, so I'm going to go over and see the doc in the box over at whatever. You know. And what that looked like in my drinking. I was in the drinking days as I go in there, and I'm shake, rattle, and roll. You know, we get very quick. So I'm quick, and I'm talking to her, and she's going, yeah, uh-huh, you seem upset. Yeah. And I was coming unglued. And she says, well, first of all, you need some of this Librium. We'll give you some of that, and that will help slow you down. And we go on like that, you know, and here's my experience. After a few weeks, because we are alcoholic and we are impatient, yes? And so I go over to her, and I say, how am I doing? And she says, do you really want to know? And if they ask you that, say no. I said, yeah. She said, Mickey, you are the most negative human being I have ever met in my life. She says, I don't see how it's possible for you to be walking around the streets out there. Whoops, time's up. I'll see you in a week. Now, for me, six and seven are a beautiful substitute for that. Right? Because now I've got a place I can go. I've identified these things, and I've had even help identifying them. And I understand that these are the rails that I'm on. Now, I love it. What we do in the big book is that we look on six and seven, and they're right up in the big book. And it's on page 76 at the top. And we say there's not very much written there, so it can't have any weight. And we'll move on to whatever other book we can get our hands on. Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, because apparently if they write a whole bunch of words about it, right, it's got to have more impact. Okay. At the top of 76, it says, if we can answer to our satisfaction, and this is our going back and doing our review at the end of our fifth step. Have we left anything out? Whatever. If we can answer to our satisfaction that we haven't, we then look to step six. We've emphasized willingness as being indispensable. Step six is we're entirely ready to have God remove our defects of character. Now, think about that for a minute. 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? If we still cling to something, we will not let go. We ask God to help us be willing. Now, think about this. Here I am. Step six describes, I mean, I have just made a pretty good catalog of what makes Mickey run. Now, this is the way I do business. You understand? This is the way I live my life. And now, Mickey, would you like to let go of that? This is a great question and an unbelievable moment. That I get to sit there and I've got all the toys in my hand. And this is the way that I've brought my life to utter destruction. Am I willing to let go of this? There's no preview in this. If you let go of this, here's what your life's going to look like. I have no idea what my life's going to look like. But I have hope in my soul that it's not going to look like this anymore. Because damn near. Anything would be better than what I got. Because it's not working. When you're suicidal, homicidal, broke, relationships are shattered, this is not a great moment. Who wants to hang on to it? But it's the platform of my life. It's what I have made the platform of my life to get through. Because we have all these compensatory behaviors. That we say, hey, I'm getting away with it. Terry from Portland. Portland was asking me, what does the word congruent mean? It means being genuine. If I smile at you, it's because I'm happy. If I cry, it's because I'm sad. I'm genuine inside and out. That's congruency. And I didn't live by congruency. I lived by the shake and fake method. And I'm out there thinking that I'm like bullshitting you into buying my presents in the room. It's really a lot of work. Have you noticed? It's so much work. It's so much life energy being poured into my persona. Anyway, so here's my platform that I'm standing on in life. And they're saying, are you willing to get rid of your platform? Are you willing to have it taken away? Are you willing to let it go? The example I was given was a child with a broken toy in their hand. Standing there crying to their parent. My toy is broken. Fix it. Okay? What is like a necessary next step in that process? For you to let it go so I can get my hands on it to help you. Okay, so to me this is step six. And then step seven is this unbelievable moment where I stand in the face of God and I actually ask him to do it. And I've shared this in other places, but there's this movie with Tom Hanks called Joe vs. the Volcano. And in it Tom Hanks is going whatever through adventure he is. But at one point he is shipwrecked out in the Pacific Ocean. And he is on a bunch of steamer trunks, he and Meg Ryan. And they're just floating on these trunks. And at one point this big tropical moon comes up. And this is what I think about at the seventh step. This enormous tropical moon comes up. And the camera is shooting from back behind Tom Hanks. And Tom Hanks looks about this big. And Tom Hanks looks at that moon and he said, I forgot how big you are. You know, and so I'm going to stand, actually stand in the face of God. And I'm going to ask him to take away my shortcomings, my defects of character. A program without that leaves me no place to go for healing. Because I can't straighten up my own act. I cannot do it. One of the worst things I ever did in my life, and I have never gotten over it. I was standing on a street corner when I was a kid. And I was like a nasty little shit. I really was. And I'm standing with a group of us on the street corner. And a guy walked by with a club foot and curvature of his spine. And he passed us and I laughed at him. And he heard it. And I watched what he tried to do. He tried to straighten up. You know what I mean? But what it gave me, and God bless him, because he was congruent. He was who he was. What it gave me for the rest of my life is I have a visual representation of powerlessness. I cannot straighten up. I can't do it. You could want me to. I can want me to. The needed power is not. It's not there. So what I do is I go to God. And if there's going to be any straightness in my spine, any straightness in my soul, in my life, it's got to come from him. Six and seven. Not to be missed. And I don't need a whole bunch of words to let me know. And then the last thing I have to say, and again, please forgive my language, but I was three years sober and I was doing the six and seven process. And I was in real tight circumstances. I was working at this advertising agency that was just like, the end of all hope. They should have had a motto on the door that said, abandon hope all ye who enter here. And I mean, it was like, God almighty, it was like an orgy and a drunk. I mean, it's just terrible. And I'm three years sober and I'm standing in my office and I'm trying to do my seventh step. Now it's time for me to say my prayer. And here was my seventh step prayer because the seven step prayers, you know, I'll just read it just so we have it here. It says, when ready, we say something like this. My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me good and bad. And I'm going to, I'll come back to that. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character, which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen. So what I did with the good and bad is I walked over to the window and I stood and I looked out the window and I said, God, I know I'm an asshole. So if you got me, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. Why don't you work for an asshole? Give it to me. It's not very eloquent. But you understand what I'm saying? I can't clean up my act. If this program is dependent upon me, like that man, straightening up, I can't do it. So the only work I want from you, God, is the work that you would give to somebody who's bent over. Turns out he gave it to me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. So that's my job. Thank you. They know and they love me for that. And so it is a very difficult thing for me to come to a place where I'm willing to give up the pats on the back and the appreciation for how whatever I'm doing. And my defects of character did not show up as stealing or yelling or, you know, they were always very inner turmoil kind of defects. And so it takes me a long time to get to a place where I say I'm willing to give up myself, the good and the bad, because I have a really hard time. I have a hard time distinguishing between good and bad, you know. This is bad, but everybody loves me for it, you know. So it's good and, you know, and I have a real wrestling match. So I have to live in kind of a perpetual, you know, I'll give this up because I know God wants me to give it up. But, boy, the motivation fluctuates a lot. So when I finally... When I finally give something up, it's usually after years of battling with it. And my self-protective ways of doing things, you know, they were always for self-preservation. And giving up self-preservation means that you really, really trust God because he's got your back. And if he doesn't have your back, then, you know, you're unprotected. And you got to... We know we have to... We have to be protected. And so it is really a battleground inside of me for allowing God to make of me what he wants me to be. Because, again, I always have to go through a process where I become, you know, I like the pendulum image because, you know, I'm over here in my defects. I'm over here in my defects. I'm over here. And now I'm acting really great on the outside but dying on the inside. And I go over here and now I'm acting really shitty on the outside and, you know, going, wow, aren't I powerful on the inside. And it's very difficult for me. So the hardest thing I have is to let the image, the mask go. And I guess that says it. But, I mean, it eventually happens, but after a lot of battle. About the time the first one of these was coming up for me in my life, I was going to lots of meetings in Denver, and I seemed to go from a meeting of one kind where people would talk about they'd taken their sixth and their seventh steps and they were working on their shortcomings to get rid of them. And then I'd go to the other meeting where they said, I can't remove my shortcomings, that's why I give them to God. And what made me go with those that were talking about us being unable to do that was watching the people in the meetings. The ones who were talking about reliance, relying on God with the shortcomings and the defects versus the ones who were out there fixing themselves was a matter of confidence, and you could see it in them. Have you been to the meeting? And generally it's around a big book meeting somewhere where people are pretty sure what they're talking about. And inadvertently they're quoting the book because that's the way it was read for them and that's the way they understand it, and they kept going. They weren't quoting it to put it down, to put somebody else down. So by hanging around those people a little bit, I gravitated away from those that needed all the words to do six and seven. However, I did try reading those words, particularly in step six, and I was led in a circle I still haven't got out of, I don't think. If it helped anybody, here, more power to you, but it sure led me astray. I'm also always kind of interested in the person that has to spend a lot of time wondering about whether they want to get rid of their shortcomings or not. That always concerned me. Because I got to tell you, by the time I had discussed these with somebody else, I got a real handle on what a lowlife I was. I was pretty anxious to get them removed. I didn't see any reason to sit around and sit on them, and that was it. So that was pretty simple. Simply it. Now, one other comment. My first time I did, I did, I maybe, I might have taken a whole hour to do it, I doubt it, but I might have taken a whole hour to do six and seven, such as the way the book recommends. I really don't think I did, the more I think about it. I did it faster than that. A bunch of guys in Chicago I was telling you about, they believe in that so much that every once in a while, you'll have a conversation with them on the phone, and they'll say, before we hang up, let's say the seven-step prayer before we hang up. Let's pray the seven-step prayer together before we hang up. I never would have bothered memorizing it if I hadn't been digging for the book so fast when they were on the phone. But it's become part of their lives, and it goes that way. I've not gotten there unless I'm talking to one of them, but I just thought I'd share that along. Yeah, we'd better give them a break, hadn't we? Yeah. Some of them are getting kind of squirmy. Some of them are getting kind of squirmy out there, yeah. Like us. Yeah, like me. See you at 20 after. We're going to start then. Wait, Tom, hello.