Self-centeredness and Selfishness – Big Book Workshop Jan – Part 6 of 6 – Scott L and Matt C

phony when they share. Phony! And he'd always say the same thing. He'd say, you've got to quit playing God. And I'd think, I'm not playing God, I'm reporting accurate information here. I'm playing God! It's like I climbed up on the throne of judgment. Right? I'm like all the examples they talk about there In the state of separation, complaining over the sins of Alcoholics Anonymous and the people at work. And I'm in that state of seperation. The book says selfishness, self-centeredness is the root of our trouble. I couldn't see that I was that way. i i had some a lot of misconceptions of what things words meant and what things were about and and a lot Of them were ego driven so that i would be right and and one of the things i thought was that a self-centered person was a person who thought they were better than everybody else and i don't think that's me because i don' t have any self-esteem and i feel not very good about myself. There was a guy in my home group named Happy Jack, and he sold Cadillacs. He was the general manager of a Cadillac dealership. And he always wore like three-piece suits, lots of jewelry. And it was kind of a flashy guy. One day, he'd come to the noon meeting in a blue Cadillach, blue suit. Next day, she's got a yellow Cadillak, yellow suit. Next day she's a black Cadillack, black suit. And you'd always stand there and say, selfishness self-centeredness that's the root of our trouble I look at him and I think yeah I bet it is Jack but I didn't know what he was talking about in one day I'm sitting in a meeting it's one of those discussion meetings where they have a subject a topic a topic and they're going around the room and you know if you're in one of these kind of meetings you don't really start listening until it kind of starts coming your way and then you got to pay attention, right? So it's coming my way. And I'm starting to listen now a little bit because I'm going to have to formulate the real truth that I need to lay on these people. And so it's coming around. And this woman, she shares the subject is self-centeredness. And the woman says I've gone through life totally self-absorbed. And it just hit me. I'm sitting there thinking about what I'll say when it gets to me, what you'll think of what I'm going to say, how I should sit to look like I'm confident and know what I're talking about. I've been thinking prior to that about my sex life, my finances, my job, my emotions, me. I was totally absorbed in me, focused in me wrapped up in me and focused that self-centered simply meant that I have obsessively centered on myself i am dominated and owned by self-concern i don't know about you guys i wake up in the morning i don't wake up worried about you i wakeup worrying about me wondering about me i may think about you if you have something to do with me but it's pretty much about me and when you think about it what's what's the number one identifying factor that in alcohol alcoholic synonymous you'll hear this it's it's that sometimes it's one of the first things we identify with once you get past the drinking is the feeling that we don't fit out here in the world i heard that when i was new is one ofthe first things i connected with that feeling of not fitting. And if self-centeredness, internally focused people like myself, it makes perfect sense that I don't feel like I fit out here because the truth is I'm not out here. I live up here. I don'T live in life. I LIVE IN THE STORY OF LIFE that I tell myself up here and so no wonder I'm disconnected and disassociated from life itself. And the whole point of all of this is that we are trying to make a decision to enter into a process that will consequently surrender us. The word surrender comes from two Latin words, sur meaning above, like in the word surface is to go above. and the word render means to give back to or return to like a rendering plant renders something back to its original state and to give back to above and I think that's what the what the awakening is the awakening is to realize that we were always, we never were separate from you and from God It is the ego that has created the illusion of separation through the judgment. One of my favorite stories from Hindu is the story of creation. Unlike the Judeo-Christian story of creating where God creates heaven and earth in seven days, etc., they say that God existed timelessly unto himself. And he created a cosmic game. And the cosmic game was he would break himself into an infinite number of parts, and he'll give all the parts amnesia. And the game is which parts are going to wake up to the fact that they're not separate, that they too are God. And the Hindus call that maya, the great illusion, and the illusion is the separation. and alcoholics anonymous is is a program of restoration of community and and i it's a long time coming i i i think you can do a really great job of the steps and still be lost until you start giving it away until you starts sponsoring others it is is in the giving it a way of the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and listening to the fifth steps and becoming part of people's lives that as they tap into the power and are restored and as their separation diminishes so even more so does mine. You listen to enough fifth steps and you start to get it that they're the same person. It's the same thing. It's a different person. That's the sane person. There is no difference. I am you. And you are, and it's all, everything that we try to distinguish ourselves with are just trappings of the ego. That we are but one. It's the same guy. I haven't heard anything, I've listened to probably close to 200 fifth steps. I haven'T heard one, anything new in 29 years. I'm hopeful. i had something exciting you know i just this queen oil a vibrating lawn rake and some chunky peanut butter something interesting but it's never it's ever that exciting stuff that you'd imagine it's always the same pathetic vacant scared inadequate driven ego-centered person who's trying frantically and desperately to fill their own vacancies and fix themselves, and they step on the toes of everyone around them in the process and burn their life to the ground. It's the same pathetic story over and over and over and again. There is no difference. On the upside is in the recovery, our light shines identical to our darkness. Our darkness and our light are the same. there is no difference that's why we connect with so so amazingly with each other because we are each other it's a this for for those of us who've suffered the pains of anxious apartness from alcoholism and the loneliness of alcoholism the beginning of restoration to oneness and community is amazing i think it's what we drank for to be a part of and to be connected and to taste it in abstinence and sobriety and make it real is an amazing thing it's amazing thing i'll talk just for a minute do i have a couple minute or two about the third step prayer um i i got down on my knees with another member of alcoholics anonymous towards the end of my first year of sobriety and said the third step prayer. And I got to tell you, I thought I knew what I was doing. The guy had me read this part of the book over and over a couple times. I thought, the book says we should think well before taking this step, making sure we're ready. And, I thought it was, I thought well about it, and I thought i knew what i was doing, got into it, said the prayer. Well, within no time at all after saying that third step prayer, my life started to seemingly fall apart. In no time, right after saying the third step prayer, I lost my job. Not only did I lose my job, every single door was closed in that field. I put resumes everywhere there was. Every door is closed. Every floor is closed, every door is closed. I've not only lost a job, I've lost a career, seeming career. My roommate moves out. Now, with a job and a roommate, I'm living paycheck to paycheck. Without a job in a roommate to split the bills, I got homeless coming at me like a freight train. I had a girlfriend. She dumps me for somebody else. I started having these weird emotional upheavals that just didn't make any sense to me. I'd be sitting, just drinking a cup of coffee, watching some crazy movie on TV. Not even an emotional movie. Just all of a sudden, nothing to do with the movie. I'd just start crying. As if feelings and emotions that had been in me for decades started just coming out. And they're not coming out pretty. And I'm starting to get a little scared here. I'm thinking, maybe I'm gay. i go to my sponsor and i tell him what's going on and i said you know i get all this feelings and all this great my life's falling apart and he says oh you're right on track i thought for what a train wreck i mean what's he right on track and i what did i ask god to do i asked god for he i said here for you to build with me and for you to do with me. And God took that more serious than I did. And he just started building with me and doing with me, and I was like a burnt out building somebody's trying to rehab. You've got to tear a lot of crap out in order to make room for stuff new. The problem is I'm angst up in all this emotional pain and what is actually happening is not the source of the pain. It is my perception and judgment of what is happening that is causing me the pain? What is happening is spectacular. The problem is God did not call me up and ask for my approval on the game. If he had called me up, and said, oh hey Bob, we got to get you out of that job, Bob. That's a nowhere job for you. You're probably not even going to stay. So we're going to get you out of there so you can go over here and work at this one place for a while and learn that business. You're eventually going to own that business, Bob. You are going to do very well financially. You will retire young and you will be in a position free financially to explore music and TV and all the stuff you want to do for fun. Would that be okay for you, Bob? Well, yeah. Put it that way. But instead he just takes the job. He doesn't even ask. That doesn't ask my approval. If he had said to me, Bob, your roommate, get your roommate to move out because there's a guy from Florida who's moving to Las Vegas and he's going to need to share an apartment with somebody and you guys are going to be roommates for quite some time and you're going to do a lot of 12-step work together and you'll actually help start another fellowship in this town and you will do a good job, would that be okay for you? I'd have said yeah. but he didn't say that he just took the roommate if he'd have said that girl is that you're with you know she's gonna drink in about six months and the guy with her is going with her he said we got to get her moving on to somebody else i told you get her out of here but he just took her he didnít say why if heíd have said you know your spiritís blocked up because youíve got some stuff youíve never released inside you and youíve gotta get those emotions out. I just said, okay. And God was doing with me and building with me, and it was in perfect divine order. Everything that was taken had to go. Had to go! What is making me insane and emotionally distressed is not what's happening. What's happening is wonderful. What's making me crazy is how wrong I am in my perception and judgment of what's happening isn't that really what i'm trying to give up is not it's not what happens it's the judgment of what's happening if i could surrender my will i would end up the guy who just doesn't know and it would all be good it's all good if you don't know if you really know everything there's a lot that ain't good and to try to get that that's right sized take a break now uh i'll do a couple more little pieces okay cool a couple of uh observations here on the prayer go ahead yeah no go ahead one more thing as somebody reminded me this is a break i haven't talked about this in a long time you know this thing about self-centeredness i was in a treatment center one time and there was a therapist there that kept telling me that my problem was that i wasn't in touch with my feelings enough if i would have been any more in touch with my feelings i would have slit my throat the problem is that my feelings overwhelmed me they were on me like like i couldn't get free of them i couldn't breathe I was so in touch with them. The problem is I was obsessed with them and myself. And the seduction of self is so amazing. So I loved, that's why I was, when I had the money or the insurance, I was grateful to pay a therapist an ungodly fee to go into an office and talk about me for an hour. I never thought that we could ever talk about me or think about me enough. And AA wants me to put me aside and go think about somebody else. Doesn't seem fair. One of the guys I sponsor say he used to pay a psychiatrist $150 an hour to lie to him. Third step, prayer. I think the next part of the step is to understand the third step. I offer myself to thee take me. Now give me some help take me, build with me to build as Bob so beautifully said sometimes we're going to have to tear down some of what's already standing there. I think it's unfair to new people if we don't tell them that pray this prayer. I'm going to tell you a secret some things you'd like to keep are leaving they're not coming back. Some things you don't like are coming and they're going to stay but it's a package deal think about two bowling balls Scott's will, God's will. Pick one it's that simple I was always afraid I'd work God too hard I tell you what I'm going to cover sex and money he can get the rest no no package deal package deal and this is what I believe that if I will do this thing I'm not going to get what I want I'm gonna have to settle for a lot more it's going to be different maybe from what I would have chosen here and there I unconditionally guarantee you it's more. It sure has been for me and everyone I've ever worked with. Not initially. There tends to be a tearing down, and I wonder if that isn't an additional chance to fully commit to this idea, to this thing. And says, build what they do with me as thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage. I looked it up. It means slavery. Bondage means slavery of self. May better do thy well. I'll take away my difficulties, and it's for that same old reason, so I can help somebody else. That prescription is all over the book. Some friends of mine and I read two pages a day in the text. It's something we've committed to. And a couple of trips through the book ago, we looked for places where the text either describes someone else helping someone else or told me that I had to go help somebody other. We have found 62 in the early Roman numerals and the first 164. 62 play if that's interesting to you uh send me an email and my email address is on this handout i got down here and uh i'll bounce them back to you we've got i've got the quotation and the page number the prescription is all over the book i got a problem with me i go help you can't explain that and then it says we thought well excuse me before taking this step be sure that we're utterly ready could last abandon ourselves to him and he says we found desirable take this step with a friend or spiritual advisor so i need to plan to do this with someone i think having two of us together trying to do the spiritual thing is better than one and the men i sponsor are free to do their third step prayer with anybody they want to and me and it's because it's been my experience that somewhere between the beginning of the third step of prayer and the end of the ninth step somewhere in there typically something big happens maybe not always but it seems to me that always does i think someone who's been there needs to be there when that happens bob and i both have permission to tell the stories that we tell and i have had the experience of wrapping of a guy praying his third step prayer unable to come up off of his knees and wrap it in a blanket and hold him for 20 or 30 minutes while he bawled i'm good i'm real good i're not i'm not that good i can't figure that out and someone who've been there who's really trying to walk this needs to be there i believe for someone i sponsor i think they do and then it says um the wording was optional so that means it's an invitation to write your own third step prayer and uh boy i've seen some beauties i wish i had the one burke harland wrote it was a fantastic thing and i offer that to them rewrite write your owner if you like and uh one of the songwriters that i represent or not represent but uh sponsor yeah you can't get a five-year chip in nashville without sponsoring a songwriter. Somebody's got to take them, and they just won't. And my newest one, when he got to this, he said, oh yeah, I'm going to write Mel, and I said great, but I'm gonna read it before we pray it. I won't be surprised if you hear this thing on the radio. It was beautiful, and it rhymed and everything, but left out the part about God being in charge and that being okay with him. Sort of a detail, I think. And I pointed that out to him, and we wound up using the one from the book. Most of the guys that I see that make changes delete the thee and thou and put in you they're just uncomfortable with the old English but most of them say no no everything I've been touching turns brown and stinks I'm going to leave that alone we're going to use the one out of the book and then the last part of this step to me is to simply pray the prayer so I count about nine parts to step three I'm gonna go through them very quickly first on the bottom of page 60 the first requirement you're convinced that a life run self-will can't be a success And then the one here at the bottom of 62, to quit playing God, having acknowledged that I've got to have his help. And then The Decision, which is that next sentence. And then for me, the fourth piece is to read and understand the prayer. The fifth piece is To Think Well. The sixth piece is TO DECIDE WHO'S GOING TO WITNESS YOUR PRAYER AND MAYBE SCHEDULE A TIME AND PLACE. and you can count that as many as you want to. I think the eighth piece is to either write your own prayer or make the decision not to. And then the ninth piece is to actually pray the prayer. And I find that if I break it down a little bit of pieces like that, it becomes pretty easy. We're going to do that in these next few sessions with step four and we're goingto find about 26 directions on step four, little bitty pieces. And I think it's really easy if we do it that way. And I want to quote my early mentor and great good friend Ken again who's trying to hide back here in the middle, who I heard say one time, I worked this program to the best of my willingness. I don't think I've ever worked it to the rest of my ability. We're going to take a nice long break this time, nine minutes and four seconds. Listen for the bell. If you would, let's take a couple of moments of silence and invite God to get in here with us And can you spare that one? Uh-huh. Okay, thanks. Amen. Thank you. I need to start this session with a disclaimer, and I'm not near as hung up on format as I appear to be. I think content is what matters. But the new guy that I sponsored needs me to set this thing in stone. I think saying to somebody, go do a four-step is abuse. And he needs me to sit down and tell him specifically, exactly, precisely, this is what you do now, this is what You do next. And that's when I'm going to start on this piece. So now the picture is we're just coming up off of our knees, usually in our meditation room at home. He's just done his third step prayer. I say, okay, you will hear the discussion rage in the fellowship about when to do a four step. I've actually heard people say don't do a four step too soon you may drink. I've never seen that. I have seen several thousand way too late and I've heard people say do one step a year but they can't seem to tell me what page that's on and I will admit that the book is not specific about when to do a fourth step. It makes two time references and as far as I'm concerned if the book gives leeway I think it's a sponsor I'm required to give the leeway also. And the book makes two time references, so as far as I'm concerned, he can use either of those two or anything that lies between. Does that seem fair to everybody? So I say, all right, I want you to begin the reading. He begins to read at the bottom of page 63 next. I say whoa, that's a time reference. Next. So we've just prayed the third step prayer. Next. We launch on a course of rigorous action, the first step of which is a personal housecleaning, which many of us have never attempted. Our decision, that would be the third step decision, was a vital. Vital from the Latin vita meaning life. Vital means necessary to life. And crucial step, we're going to have a little permanent effect unless at once. Whoa, that's a time reference. At once. So the fourth step is either done next or at once or anywhere in between. I give them all of the leeway that the book gives. Yeah. Followed by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of. Isn't that interesting? Be rid of Twice on this page they tell me be rid of, and I'd make an observation. If in step four all I do is write, I will be rid of time, ink, and paper. And none of those things are blocking me. So it must be there are things other than writing involved in step 4. It says the things in our sales have been blocking us. Next paragraph. A business takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. The businesses that I deal with do a computer update every night. For me, that's the evening portion of step 11. But once a year, some of them twice, but at least once a years they do an absolute full inventory. That's the reference made here. And in 24 years I think I've done 21 four steps. I did my last one on an airplane in about 30 minutes. They don't take long if you stay current, but I think the full teardown is important. Now, I have some very close friends who have been sober a long time who believe you do the first nine steps once and stay sober and I'm not even going to use their word because they don't like it on the last three steps um and that's fine it's working for them if that's what your sponsor wants you to do it's okay with me but on my eighth fourth step I discovered resentments over 25 years old I've been unable to see until then so yeah so that's just how it is for me it says take a commercial inventory towards a fact finding fact-facing process effort to discover the truth about the stock and trade one object to disclose damage on saleable goods to get rid of. Twice they tell me here. It says we did exactly the same thing with our lives, took stock honestly. First we searched out the flaws in our makeup which caused our failure. There's the good news again. I'm the problem. Being convinced that self manifested in various ways was what had defeated us, we considered its common manifestations. I'm going to stop and do an overview of just my own perception, my current understanding of step four is that we take stock of three separate manifestations of self and their resentment fear and sexual misconduct and i say there's not a sex inventory in this book i don't see the direction in here that says what you do do in the sexual arena that was right and good we inventory only the dark side of that and i like to be specific I don't like the idea of sex having a bad name. It's my favorite toy. And it was created by God and therefore good, I believe is what the book says. So let's be honest about what we're doing here. So we're going to inventory resentment, fear, and sexual misconduct. The format as I understand it today is that it is a series of lists, observations, and prayers. Observations doesn't mean what I happen to notice as I go zipping by writing. It gives me very specific things to observe. Some of those are written, most of them are not. And the prayers, I think, are the life-changing part, certainly the observations and prayers. I don't know that the writing portion of step four has any effect at all. But the observations and prayers in my experience are life-changing. So what we're now going to do is we're going to start looking for directions on how to do a four-step. It says resentment's the number one offender. It destroys, okay, we just killed you. We're goingto kill you a lot. It destroys moral colleagues and anything else from its stem, all forms of spiritual disease. We've been not only mentally and physically ill, we've been spiritually sick. When the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically makes me think the spiritual one's the important one. If I get that right, everything else fixes? It says in dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. To me, that's not a description. That's a very general, it's not direction. It's a general description. They're going to tell me exactly how to set them on paper, it says we listed people, institutions or principles with whom we are angry. A list is a series of words and phrases that run down a page. I don't think I've ever seen a list that ran across a page, have you? They don't. Lists run down pages. So what I need is a list of people, institutions, or principles with whom we were angry. So what i need now is a List of everything and everybody I have ever been angry with. Now on ensuing four steps it's not necessary for me to get them all. but on the first one if you've never done a four step out of the big book which is to say if you have never done a four steps that's just my opinion then get them all and the format I like to say to them you are probably wondering what color ink you should use, what color paper some of them will say yeah the book is not specific about that on page 67 it says we placed them before us in black and white It doesn't say black ink, white paper. That could easily be black paper, white ink. And if you do a four-step with me, you will do it on white paper with black ink or on black paper with white ink, I'm willing to go either way. And I think that's ridiculous, and I require it. And it is because I want the attitude to be that I don't care what the book says, I'm going to do it. Because the first time I let myself off the hook on something, it might have been the thing that would have saved my life. so uh and i have had so far i've had two guys go down to the art store and buy an inch thick of black paper and pens i wrote with white ink i've Had two of them and they're both still sober and um But but that's that's fine. And uh, the easy way I think is a spiral notebook And um on the inside cover Uh, you write something subtle like this is my four-step put it down if I find you with it I will kill you and hide your body something subtle and yet clear and then by the way you begin to protect it if somebody else reads your four step probably in some way it was your fault so let's don't make that happen and now we need a list and this is what I have them take two pages here as one page write a one above the margin the left hand margin, a two in the middle a three and a four split the right hand page And I think we're going to do a four-column inventory. That's how I understand it. Because if you write on the right-hand page, you're not going to have room to do the other columns. There are 168 hours in a week. If you have a 40-hour week job and a 30-minute commute, that's 45 hours gone out of your week. Eight hours of sleep at night is 56 more. About 16 hours a week on meetings. That's a little driving time, a little bit get there early, a little bit stay late. Three hours a week for recreation, play some tennis or golf. Two hours to mow the lawn, do your melon list. Y'all know the melon list? Honey, do this. Honey, Do That. It's the melon listen. Five hours reading spiritual literature. If I sponsor you, you'll read two pages a day in the big book. If you can't do that as a permanent assignment, I probably can't help you anyway. So let's not waste each other's time. Three hours per week to bathe and shave, personal hygiene. Three hours every week for a date with your wife if you're fortunate enough to still be living at home, or maybe coach a little league team, something like that. Five hours a week on the phone with me and some men whose names and numbers I will give you. You don't need to pick them. I'm going to pick they for you as we get started. Twelve hours a weak to cook and eat. An hour a week to shop for groceries and clothes. Get a haircut five hours a weekend, prayer and meditation. Nine hours watching television. That's three ball games. That's enough, right ladies? That's 165 hours gone out of a 168-hour week. You've got three hours left on one half. I don't believe that recovery from alcoholism should have a negative impact on any other aspect of my life. It should be dadgum inconvenient at times. Our friend Mary Jane, who's a former trustee, says that 12-step work only accounts if it's inconvenient, and I think that's right. I think recovery should be real inconvenient at time, but it shouldn't have a negative impact on any other aspect of my life. So that's my rule of thumb. I want three 30-minute periods a week. Now, that varies. A marvelous guy that I had the privilege of sponsoring named Toby, and when he and I got to this portion of the work, his wife had a great day job, and he was a stay-at-home dad with a one-year-old, and his son slept from 1 to 3 every day. Well, I don't see why I can't have 10 hours a week from him. and he didn't see it either and that's what we did so we need and somebody else has got got a wife and five kids he's working two and a half jobs he may not have an hour and a half a week so i'm reasonable on the front end all right i'm a tiger on the back end what i've discovered is is when you call me up on sunday and say look my boss is coming into town tonight and we start tomorrow morning with breakfast at 6 30 through a three forker that's why the white tablecloth a three forker dinner and um and it's going to be all day all week and i can't work on my four-step you know what i agree with that i agree with that when you call me on saturday and tell me you couldn't work on your four-stepped last week i don't believe you because what i get is i get reasons on the front and they get excuses on the back end they're different and uh so i'm reasonable about it but only on the front end and then i expand so i want you to call me every Sunday while you're in four-step, and I want to know what your schedule is. And Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is not a schedule. Monday, 9 p.m. to 9 30 p. m., that is a schedule, and I wanna hear it every Sunday. And so your wife and the kids are going home to her parents in New York for the weekend, and you've got all day Saturday and all day Sunday. You wanna put in 10 or 12 hours? Great, I'm in. What a good plan. But let's talk about it. When I set out to do my first fourth step, I gave myself the task of completing a fourth step. And when I do that, I put myself in perfect position to hate me because I'm wrong and a bad guy until it's completed. It's the wrong result. What I do is agree with my sponsor on how much time I should spend each week on my fourth step and then I spend that time and I can feel good about myself while I was in process, and I felt bad about me long enough, and I suspect maybe you did too. I also give him his grade as soon as he starts on his fourth step. Here's mine. It's an F-, they're red. It's the only grade I've ever given. And that's part of the mindset that this is not your fourth step, this is your next fourth step and that our job isn't to get it all. See, if I have to do it perfectly, I can't do it at all. and so you don't for me you don' have to do a perfect four you have my permission to do a poor four step let's get anything worth doing is worth doing poorly as I learn to do it that was a new one for me because if I can't do it perfectly I don't want to do at all I'd like to play golf but only if I could break par the first time so I have to learn to and I like to tell them we are not saving a special alcove in Akron at the AA Hall of Fame for your four step In addition to which, my home group does not give a trophy every year for the best four-step. This is the trophy you're not going to get. For those who are too far back to see it, to read it, it says, Four-Step Trophy Never Awarded. This is The Trophy You Ain't Gettin'. And you can have your photo made with this at a break if you'd like for a very nominal fee. just for fun it's a lot of people like to have that anyway but but it's all in a mindset of let's get out there and do it poorly and so now we need a list of everybody and everyone that you've ever and i want you to spend the first five minutes in this um in this 30 minute session maybe it's 45 minute session whatever we've agreed to i want the first 5 minutes in prayer and meditation and among other things you ask god for clarity of mind and the courage to write it down. And then let's start with the first line on the left-hand column, write a name, skip a line, write an aim, skip align, write and aim, and skip align. When you get to the bottom of the page, don't write on the last line. Turn the page and write one two three four and keep them coming. Now for those of you who've looked ahead and understand already that the second column is what they did and you're planning to save 12 pages for your father, the answer to your question is write one name, skip one line. Those are not estimates. Those are exact numbers. And I'm going to come to why in a couple of minutes. And for the first few sessions, I want you to spit them just as fast as you can think of anybody and anything. And just all your family members should be just trust me, put your family numbers all down. There should be at least one major political party, at least one, some political figures, probably a religion maybe a branch of the military, some of your teachers, old boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever. Just as fast as you can think. Anybody and everything that's ever made you mad. Write a name, skip a line. When they slow down, when you can sit for 10 seconds and not think of one, let's take a look at page 65 below the example. It says we went back through our lives. So that indicates we use a reverse chronology. I'm going to begin with today, and I'm married to Miss Linda, and we live in this particular place, and this is my home group, and this is where I work, and this my recreation and so on. But 18 years ago, I was married to and we lived at this other place, and I worked for them, and then before that I was, and we're going to go back through my life a little piece at a time searching for anything and anyone I've ever been angry with, ever been. Even if you're sure you've forgiven them, put them down, and the rule is when in doubt, write it out. If you're not sure, put it down. When we do some of these later exercises with this, we will probably discover that some of what you have down is really okay. There's not a problem there. And so having written down something that wasn't a problem, you will have lost two or three seconds and a minuscule amount of paper and ink. Failure to write down one that is a resentment that will destroy you. So which one of those losses do you like? A little time, a little ink, a lot of paper, or destroy me? and so the rule is when in doubt write it out and when we get back to your earliest memories we are finished. Is it complete? Absolutely not but it's as good as we can do now and that is good enough because if I sponsor you sometime within the next six or eight months you're going to be sponsoring and when you take someone through this work yourself you're gonna go with them so you'll find some more on that process and you'll continue to find them but we're gonna dig because what i was told is that this garbage in my four-step is not who i am it's not that's who i'm not because if that's Who I really am I'm still out there doing it doesn't make me sick to think about some of it and what I would be taught here is how to stop doing who I'm not how to repair the damage for having done who I am not how to receive the forgiveness for having done who i'm Not and who i really am will emerge from the ashes like the phoenix that this portion of this work is about digging this poison out of my soul i said last night so i could stand to be in here all the time this is part of the cleaning up this is the taking out the trash from the trash can that jerry told me about and uh at the point that you get to the end where your earliest memories um at that point i ask you to carry writing materials all the times because you're going to be walking through the grocery store and you're gonna look at the cantaloupe say his head Just write it down. We'll add it to the list. So continuing on page 64, I don't give the second direction until they finish the first one because we're Americans. We don't work top to bottom. We work left to right. And I discovered years ago if I give them the first three directions, they work across the page. And there are two excellent reasons not to do that. The first one is the book says a list, and lists run down the page, and that's good enough. The second reason is that I've discovered if I work down the page, it's very analytical. If I work across the page it tends to make the resentments flare and we're not here to make them flare. We're here to cut them out. Second direction, we asked ourselves why we are angry. On the facing page on 65 I'm resentful at Mr. Brown, the cause. I listened to cause. His attention to my wife told my wife and mistress Brown may get my job at the office. begin with office and counting backwards uh give me how many words are under the cause that's what i ask him to do 19 words that's exactly right if you count forward you miss two and of and they you don't get the right count 19 words let's look what he did he's messing with this old lady has by the way told her about his girlfriend thank you very much and is trying to get him fired he got 19 words 19 is the limit and if you followed this you've got a list of names that run down the left hand margin and you have from the name over to the spiral and you Have the entire second line below that over the spiral where you can write 19 or fewer words if i sponsor you don't write the 20th word um now you may i do tell them this i'll negotiate if you have someone who's done more to you than this mr brown did in our example messing with his wife told his wife about his girlfriend trying to get him fired if you got someone who think you did more than that call me and we'll negotiate whether or not you can write the 20th work i'll be glad to talk about it i'll tell you i've never given up the 20 th word i'm willing to talk abou it i'd say what else too i've ever been called you wouldn't call me after this, would you? No, they don't either. You know, you want to write, it was a rainy Wednesday afternoon. No, no, no. I got a call years ago from a girl in my home group on a Sunday night. She was nuts. I said, what's the matter? And she said, well, I had a fight with my boss again on Friday. I've been forthstepping about it all weekend. No she hadn't. She'd been taking this, she'd been hating him on paper and it's killing her. This is a summary. So, so, you know, My second column says things like, left me for another guy. Screwed me in a business deal. Next to high school football coach. Didn't play me as much as I deserved. Left me for an other guy. Left me or another guy, they're patterns. You know it's just a little bitty idea what it is because we're not real interested in that. So we now work down the page on that. and now we go to column three on page 65 on our graduates who set opposite each name our injuries was it our self-esteem security ambition personal or sex relations been interfered with five part multiple choice column three some will only get one some will get two or three some we'll get all five some you may not be able to figure out call me i'll help you see why it was self-esteem because on the first one that'll be the vast majority of them or at least it's been my experience actually without fail my last three uh security has gotten the most ink i also have not turned the page on my resentment list on the last 10 or 15 of these because i stay pretty well cleaned out using the last three steps and when i have someone do one of these again well let's put down currently anyone that you have anger with and let's puts down the five or six that were the hardest for you to let go of last time let's make sure we keep them buffed off you know things like people who really harmed us as children former spouses former bosses some of those are really hardest to let go of you got to keep an eye on those because some of them have a tendency to come back you would naturally assume that what comes after column three is column four and that would be incorrect the for me and this is my passion the i think maybe the most important things we do in all of this work, in the digging the poison out of my soul, is what lies between the third and fourth columns right here. And this is what I'm going to cover now. Bottom of 65, we went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished, we considered it carefully. So here comes some of the observation I was talking about. And they're going to tell me how to consider it. I don't have to figure out how. They're going to tell us how to do it. The first thing apparent was that this world and its people were often quite wrong. I don't like to let him spend a lot of time on that particular one. The chances are he's spent the last two decades on bar stools with some of the other great philosophers of our era covering this exact topic, so he's got this one. Let's have a look. Let'S move on, and to conclude others were wrong as far as most of us ever got, and there's some other good stuff in the paragraph. I'm already tight on time for this hour, and so I'm just going to move on. Next one says it's plain that life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. They say that's plain, is it? Do you see it? Have you ever seen a life that was happy, joyous, free, and full of deep resentment? This is an important observation, so do you see it? Okay, good. Precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile? Squander means to throw away. Did you ever sit in class and hate them when you should have been listening? Did you every do that? Did you never lay awake at night and plan their demise when you could have been getting some sleep? Did you ever do that? Huh? Did you squander hours that might have been worthwhile? Is this true for you? It was for me. It says, well the alcoholic whose hope, now they're going to tell me what my hope is. The maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience. Growth I believe means that Scott's 2008 program just might not be good enough for 2009. That I can't ever get the last piece. I must always be in pursuit of the next one. And maintenance I think means two things. Maintenance means I can'T afford to lose something I already have in the sense of maintain. It also means I must maintenance my spiritual experience in the same sense that I maintenance my vehicle. I rotate the tires. I get the right pressure in them. I change the oil. I wash it. I maintenance my spiritual experience. I pray. I meditate. I read spiritual literature. I attend meetings. I take meetings into jails and treatment centers. I'm faithful to my wife. I say please and thank you. I try to treat you like brothers and sisters. I must maintenance my spiritual experience as this business of resentment is infinitely grave infinitely grave i think we just killed you i think we're going to kill you seven times on this page that's once we found that it is fatal we just killed you again and uh i hadn't seen jerry in several years and i ran into him at the 202 clubhouse one day and i said i said jerry i got to talk to you and he looked at my face he said wow what and i said do you remember and i named a guy and he said if anyone you sponsor ever commits suicide you'll probably always remember them and i'm scared when i was sober two years he we he and i had within a few days of the same sobriety date we had the same home group where i saw him five six eight times a week we had same sponsor you and he drove home one night two to two years sober drove home from a meeting pulled into the garage and hit the button and dropped the door and left at running and committed suicide sober two years. And I can't find the difference between me and him. What was the difference? Because I'm scared. And he said, I couldn't get him to do a four-step and he died of resentment. It killed him. I thought about it. I've talked to other people who knew him in that era and everybody agrees. Every time you saw him, he could not wait to run up to tell you what some SOB had just done to him. He was the perennial victim and it killed him. I stand by this line in the book. We found that it's fatal. I watched it. If I weren't being recorded, I'd give you this guy's name. I don't have permission to tell his story, but I'd tell you one-on-one. It says, for when harboring such feelings, doesn't say when having such feelings. I love the language. I think I'm okay if I have a resentment, if I'm not harbored. Harbor means to give a safe place to nurture. And we're going to talk about how to not do that in a couple of minutes. For when harboring such feelings, we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns. We drink again with us to drink his stew. Yeah, we killed you again. If we were to live, all right, this is only for the ones that want to live. Everybody else can take an early lunch break. All right, we just killed you again. And if we were alive, we had to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm went out for us. I did not understand that sentence. And I heard a series of tapes by a guy one time, and it really helped me so much with this probably the most creative one of the most creative men of the 20th century would sit his team down around a table and they would spit out ideas and you'd say something make you think of something you'd stay something you think is something and then you'd come up with the idea we were looking for and Walt Disney labeled his process brainstorming it has absolutely nothing to do with the word brainstorm as we find in the text I got a dictionary from 1932 I think I'm within a year or so and I looked up brainstorm and it says transient violent mental outburst that's rage that's rage so this word has changed in the english language i hope that helps so for our purposes here there are two kinds of anger there's the grouch or the slow burn and the brainstorm rage the detonation hope that helped me a lot the grouse and the brain storm are not for us And here's the thinnest sentence in the book. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for us alcoholics these things are poison. We just killed you again. We turned back to the list where it held the key to the future. Excuse me, I have a question. Does that mean if I don't find the key to the key of the future, I don' t have a future? Yes, that's what that means. We just kill you again, it was subtle this time, but you are dead. We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle and I'm going to leave that alone. Bob has this beautiful thing he does. you want to do that right now about the different angle or you want me to go on okay um it says we began this and i thought okay the different angle now we're going to look for my part i think that may be the most damaging misquote in that i ever hear never anywhere does it ever tell me to look from my part uh that is just so wrong and we're gonna talk about why in a couple of minutes but what it says is I began to see the world's people really dominated us so with my new guy I want him to take a 30-minute session and let's review this prayerfully five minutes in prayer meditation and for for the next 25 minutes let's have a look at how did these things dominate you did your father beat you down so hard that it that at 65 years old she'll have trouble with authority figures that's my story um did you did you plan your life so that you'd never be around this person because they really hurt you badly so that they couldn't get you again? Or did you plan your life so you'd be around them as much as possible so if they screwed up, you could make sure everybody knew? Did you lay awake at night? How did these things dominate you? Let's have a look at that for about 30 minutes. It says in that state, that's the state of being dominated by these resentments, the wrongdoings of others fancied are real. Fancied? You mean some of This only happened in my head? Yes. And we'll discover that as we go. Had the power to actually kill. Yeah, yeah, we killed you again. Are you getting tired of being killed? It says, how could we escape? Now there's a good question. Hope you're wondering that by now. We saw that these resentments must be mastered. That may be the most important observation in the book. They see that. Do you? We've just killed you seven times. I'm a sales rep. That's what I do for a living. A good salesman will never mention price until he's established value. We just killed you seven times. I hope that you need this so much that you'll pay the price because the price is high. The price is very high. It says we could not wish them away any more than alcohol. This was our course. We realized that people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick, and my great mentor defines spiritually sick as cut off from God. I'm not going to call anybody. Think, if you would, of the two or three worst things you ever did. You got them? Weren't you cut off from God when you did that? Had you been walking in the sunlight of the Spirit, of this laughing love that invented the giraffe and the duck-billed platypus? Could you have done that? Huh? Could you? I couldn't have. Probably wouldn't have thought of it, would you? I was spiritually sick when I did those things. One of my other teachers, watch my hands if you wouldn't, He said, I had two real eyes that the people who wronged me were perhaps spiritually sick. Real eyes. I can know something, but when I real eyes it, it becomes real for me. And also, I begin to see it through my real eyes. Not these that you can see, but my spirit eyes. And what I have them do is pray the list once. I don't ask you to mean this. I ask you To pray it. And let's change that first five minutes now. And the first five minutes of your session on step four, I want you to ask God for courage and clarity. And I want You to talk to Him about the worst things that you've done and how you were cut off by your own hand from the sunlight of His Spirit or you couldn't have done those things and how You crave His forgiveness. I think it's a great perspective to take into this. Let's pray the list. First name on the list, Fred. God, help me realize that Fred is not an evil human being. He was just spiritually sick when he did that to me. Second name on the list, Mary. God helped me realize that Mary wasn't an evil human being when she, well, I guess she didn't do it. I guess it was me. Third name onthe list. And let's pray the list one time. And depending on the length, people ask me how long is that list. I think the shortest one I've ever seen that was the first one was about 50 names. It was a young guy and he just wasn't that angry. The longest one I have ever seen was around 600 names. and it was incomplete. This guy hated everybody, and he wished there was more of them. I had never seen anyone quite as in love with hate as this guy was. I have a guy that I sponsor has reported one over 800 recently. It doesn't really matter. It doesn' t really matter because this stuff's got to go. Got to go, so we are beginning the forgiveness process, and we're starting to dig the poison out of my soul is really what this whole thing is about. That's precisely what we're doing here. So they've prayed that list once. Top of the next page, that we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us. They, like ourselves, were sick too. This is something I learned from Bob sitting here doing one of these things. We didn't like their systems The symptom is column two. See, I don't really resent the guy. I resent what he did. I don'T resent the woman. I resentwhat she did. I donT really resent the political party. I resent some of the individuals in it and what they did I always got to bring it down to individuals because it doesn't work for me if I don't do that but to separate columns one and column two powerful so I don' t like their symptoms and the way they disturb me is my resentment and here's the great truth again they like ourselves were sick too we ask God that's a prayer we ask god to help us show them the same tolerance pity and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend i have very prayerfully approached what i'm about to do because most of my mentors got sober on the second edition and this story wasn't in the second addition and i like to call the back of the book the moral be disclosed section uh i think my favorite of the misquotes in the big book is that moral be revealed i don't think you can give me a page number on that it's not hurting anything it's a it's kind of a misquote um but page 551 uh it might be 552 in your third edition but they didn't change much on freedom from bondage wonderful story and this this bottom of 551 she says one morning i realized however i realized i had to get rid of it this is the resentment against her mother that's killing her for my reprieve look up reprieved it's a stay of execution this is another death threat my repri was running out if i didn't get rid but I was going to get drunk and I didn't want to get drunk anymore. My prayers that morning I asked God to point out to me some way to be free of this resentment during the day. A friend of mine brought me some magazines to take to a hospital group I was interested in and looked through them. A banner across one featured an article by a prominent clergyman in which I caught the word of resentment. I like to observe the sequence of events because I'm going to tell you right now it is a predictable sequence of event. She sees something about her that needs some work and I don't say something wrong with her I don' t think there's anything wrong with us we're God's kids. There are things about us that could use some work. She sees something about her, needs some work. She prays about it. I like to add, talk to a spiritual advisor. And then she gets involved helping someone else. She's taking magazines into a hospital, clearly out of herself to help somebody else. And her answer falls out of the sky on her. That is a predictable sequence of events. I see something about me that needs work. I pray about it, I talk to my sponsor about it I take a meeting into the jail. I come out ofthe jail. I call my answering machine. The answer is onmy answering machine I go home, I open the mail the answer's in the mail it's predictable it will happen and I love to point that out when I see it in guys that I sponsor and then here we continue on 552 he said in effect if you have resentment you want to be free of did we make our sale do you wantto be free I hope you do I hopeyou do because my book says it's going to kill you and I know a guy that happened to if you ever if you've got a resentment you wanto be free of you will pray for the person or thing you resent you'll be free ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them you'llbefree for their health their prosperity their happiness you'll be free even when you don't really want it for them and your prayers are only words that you don t meet it. Go ahead and do it anyway. Now, it goes on to say that that will work in two weeks. You got 609 resentments. I'd be real surprised if it worked in two weeks because of the process. So this is what these sessions, we're going to continue with these 30 or 45-minute sessions, and maybe we're up to four a week now. And let's add when you're in the shower and when you drive in the car. And we're gonna pray the list. First name on the list fred so we'll add that prayer in the back to the prayer here in the front and pray for both people involved and the one in the background praying for him and this one on 67 in the third line i'm praying for me god asked god to help me show him tolerance pity and patience that i would grant a sick friend so this this is what it might look like first name of the list frid god helped me grant fred the same tolerance pity impatience i would cheerfully grant a stick friend and i pray that he has a huge spiritual experience and he walks in the sunlight of the spirit the sins are forgiven and that his kids go to school on scholarship and don't give him any trouble he gets promoted at work um that his uh his wife is fabulous in bed that yeah hey um that his lawn grows lush and green but it grows so slowly he only has to mow it once a year yeah and let's hang it right out over the edge and uh and at the end of that prayer a simple question non-essay question yes or no question you mean it or you don't yes or no. If you do not mean it, go to the next name. If you mean it put a check mark and go to the next name. The last guy I took all the way through this work was all the way through his list of about 400 and he had prayed it twice through and was halfway through the third time the first time he met one of them. This is my experience forgiveness is forgive the English language has the word wrong I can give you this pen I can't forgive you I don't have the power. It said I couldn't wish it away. I can't do it. I've tried. I can't give it to me. Forgive isn't something I do. It's something I receive. I get here to you locked up like this and what you've done is open me up to help me receive the gifts. It has never been God's unwillingness to give. It has been my inability to receive that has always been the problem. What I do here, I think of resentment as ice around my heart. These old anchors, ice around my hard and that ice has a thickness and i think the thickness is probably based on how severe the events were uh how long ago how much i've nurtured them and what i'm doing here is i'm holding the icy heart up to sunlight of the spirit and sunlight will melt ice it takes some time but it will melt eyes and uh because forgive us forgive isn't something i do it's something i receive and this is about me opening myself up to receive that it is the most amazing process and I'll tell you this too Jerry said to me he said what you really want is mercy for you and justice for everybody else and the package is mercy for everybody or justice for everybody and you are part of everybody and you can choose and I am not in a position to face justice never will be and I have chosen mercy for everyone no matter what they've done to me i have chosen mercy because i can't face justice myself yeah we pray a prayer at the end of all of the of the meetings in nashville and uh there's a phrase in that prayer says forgive us our trespasses as we forgive i think what that says is god if i don't forgive them don't you forgive me and yet i find myself unable to forgive and through this process i get to the point of having held the icy heart up to the sunlight of spirit long enough that it melts. And I can pray that prayer for people who have hurt me very badly and mean it. I wish them the best. I hope they have big spiritual experiences. I hope their lives are spectacular. I can't change me. I hear people in meetings say, The only thing I can change is me. If I could change me, I'd be watching the ballgame this afternoon. Can't change me. But what I can change are my actions today. And therein lies a tremendous amount of power. And as I go through this process, eventually I can check them off. And I think there's a, this is an important piece to me. Acceptance does not have to include approval. Not asking me to approve of what these people did. Not at all. Listen, if you were abused as a child, I want you to know right now, I disapprove of that and I always will. And shame on them. And I'm sorry that you had to go through that and as a child you did not deserve that. No child does. And that's rotten, bad, evil stuff. Very sick. And I am really sorry that you went through that. And that is my story. And I Am not mad anymore. That I can't afford the price of nurturing that hate. I have got to hold that sunlight up. Hold that up to the sunlight of the Spirit because it blocks me. come to me and tell me you want to be my very close friend and hang out together but by the way you hate my children does that make any sense to you it doesn't make any sense to me that's what I'm asked to do here and this forgiveness process is maybe the most powerful thing that I have ever run across you know I'll do one more little piece I'm going to give it to Bob I'm sorry I've run long I hold him there by the way as long as it takes and the last one took six months and I don't care this is just a little bit more important than life or death just a Little Bit and when he can check them all off then we move on so here are my marching orders from here on when a person offended I said to myself this is a sick man how can I be helpful to him God save me from being angry thy will be done so that's what I'm supposed to do when you guys do something that bugs me again so here's my marching orders from here on i want you to take it bob i've run low thanks scott i'm bob i'm still an alcoholic hey bob a couple things out of my experience on step four in the resentment section is one is a lot of guys have a hard time admitting to themselves that they have resentments because it means that somebody hurt you and I was sponsoring a guy years ago he was actually he was sober 23 years he'd never worked the steps he was so nuts that he was going to commit suicide at 23 years sober and before on his way to organize his suicide he thought to himself I need to drink because it might hurt and the obsession to drink returned uh now he doesn't care about the fact he's going to kill himself he just doesn't want to die and have the people in aa realize that he'd had a slip he doesn'T want to look bad he doesnT care about dying he just Doesn'T want to look people to think he wasn't right after he's dead right so he comes to me and he we start doing the steps. He does the third step. I tell him to get a tablet and to start making a list of his resentments. Well, he tells, he's kind of a blustery guy, an ex-Navy chief, you know, talks in a real gruff voice. Always like this. I said, I want you to make a list of your resentments, he goes, resentments? I don't have any resentments! Alright. right well now everybody who knows this guy knows he's uptight about a lot of stuff you could watch him walk across a parking lot from a hundred yards and know he's pissed at somebody you know just from his body language right i said you don't have any resentments nah just let it go all right doesn't bother me i said really yeah no resentments and i don't know what to say and then what came out of me next i think was inspired i said to him i said well, okay, in your case we're going to do something different. I want you to make a list of people you feel smugly superior to. And he gets this look like, oh, that's going to be a long list. He didn't even want to admit to anybody. And isn't this really a list of our judgments? Isn't it? If you're new, I hate to even say this because if you haven't done step four yet, it might ruin it for you. But isn't it really a list of people that you secretly suspect owe you an amends? Really? Isn't it? Now later you're going to find out that their name is on your list of amends. I know that's not fair, but it just ends up that way, trust me. so we're going to start looking we're gonna start dismantling the will if the judgment is the main exercise of the will how do you dissemble this in order to surrender it to break down this judgment machine that is the will I can't think of a greater way to do it than to list all your judgments and then to see through your whole life how wrong you'd been, how wrong he'd been in every case. Can you imagine anything more humbling? Can you reimagine any greater ego reduction, as Harry T. Ball says that's necessary at depth, than to go through your own life and everyone you've ever made a judgment against and see how you were wrong? On page... Scott touched on a couple of this stuff. You know, one of the things I didn't realize that I was doing, in Alcoholics Anonymous, in a sense we're building a weapon, a weapon that we don't even realize we need because things aren't that bad right now. I'm not in danger of drinking at this moment, but I'm a little uncomfortable so I'm doing these steps. And then all of a sudden one day something happens to you and you realize if you haven't done everything you've done in AA to this point, you would be dead. And you don't even know that until that day comes. And I've had that day come several times. I've been sober a few times since I've been sober when I've needed every bit of the weapon, every bit OF it. And if I had slipped at any part because I was, ah, I don't really need that, right, I wouldn't have survived. When I resent someone, I freeze frame them in that screwed up action that I imagine they might have done. And that's why it's when you often, when you go to make amends to someone that you haven't seen in 10 years or 15 years, you're imagining they're going to be like you thought they were 15 years ago. In other words, they haven't changed it a bit in 15 years. They're exactly the way you freeze frame them, which is silly. People are fluid. They change all the time. another thing the book says on page 66 a very important thing it says we are prepared to look at these from an entirely different angle well in the first three columns we've kind of looked at it from the angle of a prosecuting attorney so we build our case against them we've got their name down, we got their crimes, and we got the harm that hurt that was done to us. What was hurt? Our pride, our self-esteem, our pocketbook, our relationship. We got the case built. Now, if you're going to look at it from an entirely different angle, what would an entirely differently angle be from a prosecuting attorney? Wouldn't it be to cross the courtroom and to sit on the defense side of the courtroom and start pleading their case from that angle? how does it look to them if they were talking about what happened between you and them how would they be telling their best friend or confident a bet should be different than the story you're telling you can you can bet on that and so to look at it from their eyes and then the book says something interesting it says the wrongdoings of others fancy to real have the power to actually kill the implication there is that my man the story i tell myself in my head about what happened may not have been what happened now the ego doesn't like that the ego goes oh no that's what happened uh i had an incident happen to me when i was reasonably new i went out to coffee with a guy named billy billy taylor and billy was a good member of aa he He used to take guys like me out to coffee frequently, and we'd talk about AA. I got a lot of my AA in coffee shops before and after meetings. That was big back when I got sober. And we were sitting in a coffee shop one night. It was very late at night, and because he was easy to talk to, I ended up telling him those couple secrets that you want to take to the grave, you know, the things that you're the most ashamed of, the most embarrassed about. And everybody that I've ever met in Alcoholics Anonymous has something like that. And every case is a little different because of circumstances, but we all have those things. Maybe for some of you, you got drunk and went away partying with a bunch of people and you left your kids, and you didn't even think about them because you were so wrapped up in partying, and you shuddered to think what could have happened while you were gone. Or maybe in a drunken rage or hungover, maybe you beat your kids and that look of terror in their eyes, you can't really get away from it. Maybe you kicked or beat your dog because it loved you and you hated anything that loved you. Maybe you stole from someone and let somebody else take the rap. Maybe you had sex with someone you don't even want anybody to know you had lunch with. Maybe you Had Sex Outside Your Species. I don't know. I don' t know what your deal is. I don't know what it is. I don'T really care, but I know you have a deal. I know You had something that You're ashamed of. It's been a secret. You've swept it under the rug, and I told Billy my stuff, and he handled it, I guess, all right. You know, he didn't say, yeah, me too. That would have been better if he'd have said me too He didn't stay there. He didn' t say that, and it bothered me a little bit, but he didn' T reject me. He said, you know, I'm sure You're not the only one that's ever done that and and you're that experience will help somebody someday and I remember in the back of my mind thinking that's a little sounds like the AA party line but I didn't really say that and I he still seemed to like me and everything and I went home that night didn't think much about it I went to work um that week and had my shift changed and all of a sudden I'm working four to midnight instead of eight to four well consequently I my whole meeting schedule got turned upside down i started going to mostly noon meetings uh and months and months and months good part of a year went by hadn't seen billy and i went to a meeting i normally don't go to on my night off and billy's in the meeting and i was delighted to see him you know how you're delighted to See somebody who has meant something to you in your early sobriety and you haven't seen for a while well i see him across the room and i said hey billy how you doing? And he won't say hi to me. And he looks at me with this look on his face that was like pain disgust, kind of just like squint up look. And they turned away like he couldn't even look at me. Then he sat down and the meeting started. And I don't hear nothing in the meeting because man, I am hurt. Because I know what's going on here. I know that he's been judging me for that stuff i told him and you know something there's a part of me that doesn't blame him god knows i've judged myself harshly enough for that stuff and i have always secretly believed that if you knew about me what i know about me that you're going to feel about me the way i feel about me and that's not good and i'm sitting there and i i don't just get hurt i go right to i eventually go to anger right now i'm getting mad i'm getting mad about this hypocrite that's you know this this phony guy in aa and i'm starting to real my steam starting to cook a little bit i'm trying to get a little agitated and then i had this epiphany experience i i think to myself wait a minute oh my god the reason he can't even say hi to me or look me in the eye oh that sob's been telling people that stuff and all of a sudden it it was so clear to me there was a girl i had just asked her out to coffee she wouldn't go and he's friends with her i knew he had told her some of that stuff there's another guy he runs around with had been a little distant lately i knew his friend was going to be with him and now i am enraged and i am going to beat the crap out of this guy i am just i am cocked and ready man as soon as this meeting is over i'm going right to that guy and i'm gonna cut into him and tear him up man i am hot and i will be justified doing because if he's doing that crap to me he's probably doing it to other new people i'm doing a service good motive i'm ready well the chairman's about ready to end the meeting says anybody have a burning desire before we close the Billy raises his hand, tells everybody in the room that the tumor they found was biopsy came back. It's malignant. He has a very short time to live.