Selfishness and Self-Centeredness – Big Book Study – Part 4 of 7 – Don

I created a group of monsters, he and I, none of you, who've got everybody doing the work. Meaning the steps. The steps are not to work. The steps of the preparation for the work, the work of Alcoholics Anonymous and the work of members of Alcoholics Anonymous are to carry the message of Alcoholic Anonymous to those who don't have the message. That's the work. The steps get me fit to do that. If I want to play football for a professional football team, there are exercises I must do to get in fit condition to be able to play in that game. Well, this is my game. There are exercises that I must give to get fit if I'm going to carry this message I must be fit and then I must continue doing certain exercises in order to stay fit I can't get closer to God working the steps where I am God is I'm not going to get any closer than that all I can do is perhaps increase my effectiveness by getting rid of my reluctances which is what the steps are about the things that block me. We were at a retreat one time and it was small enough we were going around talking about agendas. This was two years ago. And I heard myself say everybody was giving us why they were here for the weekend and what they wanted. And I started off by saying I'm here to get a better relationship with God. Sure sounded good. realizes I said it. It's the most selfish thing I've ever said. The relationship that's formed between God and I, I don't form that. God forms that. And I conform. Those are the terms I understand. If I'm trying to get a better relationship, I'm saying I don' t have enough power. I want some more. and we're back into that kooky thinking God determines what the relationship will be and I conform I comply with the conditions and the conditions are really rough He wants me to be happy joyous free useful childlike I believe He likes me best when I'm goofy because His children laugh more when I am. Okay? Now, selfishness and self-centeredness, that we think is the root of our troubles. Do you believe that? This is a checklist. Do I really believe that that's the truth? Or do I believe that it was what somebody did to me somewhere along the way? Or do i believe that life is not fair? What do I belive? Do I believe anything but selfish and self-centeredness is the root of my troubles? Now, I may have some troubles on the branches, but the root is selfish and the self-centredness. Do I believe that? We don't move on until I do because there's no need to go on until I do. This is based on that premise. And if I don't believe it, why bother? Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. No shit. I got a picture of my ego one time when I was in a meeting and I was quoting this I've quit doing that by the way I said driven by a thousand forms of and after meeting one of our big book Nazis God bless him he said your ego is still clear out of hand you said a thousand instead of a hundred he was right I can't I'm even going to exaggerate the truth left to my own devices a thousand sounded better than a hundred I'm sicker than now I like the idea of being driven by my ego because that's what it does driven like a mule somebody pounding me in the back of the head with a two by four driving me down the road I don't want to go that's my ego Now, the main difference between living with selfishness and self-centeredness is that I'm driven by these forms of self-delusion and self pity. Living a spiritual life means I'm led. And it makes it a whole lot easier. The more you drive me, the more reluctant I am. I like mules are a good image for me because I come from mule country. A mule is a deliberate cross between a horse and a donkey, and it is sexless. That's enough to make you stubborn right there. They can't reproduce. They have bad attitudes. They're strong. They have all the good qualities. They're durable. They're dedicated. And they're stubborn. what I'm talking about a two before in the back of the head in our country that's sometimes what you have to do, you get started with that mule and the son of a bitch will just sit down and taunt you and look at you and you can smack him with a stick and he'll just look at ya pop him with an whip and he can just look at ya. What it takes to get him up is to hit him in the bag of the head a couple times with a two-before then he'll get up and walk but he's still looking at you and you do not want to get close I'm driven by these the delusion that somehow or another I can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of life if I only manage well drives me to try to wrest satisfaction and happiness out of my life what I've learned about happiness is real simple There is no such thing as happiness. You just have to learn to be happy without it. Got that from Jerry Lewis. Once you've got a spiritual mind, you hear stuff. Everything you hear turns spiritual on you. Do I believe that my troubles are because based on self I've stepped on somebody's toes and that's why they harm me? Yeah, pretty much so. There were some events as a tiny child that I'm not altogether sure of, but they didn't cause me any trouble at the time anyway. We just watched a phenomenal thing occur that I want to bring into this midst, in the midst of this. The little ones adapt really well. It's after we start thinking and reacting and begin to pick up rights and think, then we become victims, not until then. And our little grandson, how old was he, honey? About eight months? As a result of circumstances, he was staying at someone else's house and she had to go out so her husband was watching him. The next thing we know, we got a baby on the way to the hospital with all the skin burned off of his hand. Apparent accident until we all got to see the burn. There was no accident. It was just like a glove. This hand had been dipped in boiling something. Now, setting aside all that drama, which is not relevant to what I'm talking about, because we all were a little traumatized. The baby went through this. I'm watching this eight-month-old baby with his hands burned, and he's just kind of sliding through. And it's all healed up. There's not even a scar. And he's not the least bit traumatized by the event. I'm in awe until I go way back in and realize that's pretty correct. He's in the moment. And it hurt, and when it hurt he cried. And when it healed, he healed. and he didn't blame anybody. He has no reference for blaming anybody. Nobody did anything to him. It happened. We know, and by the way we're putting that person in jail who did something but the baby don't know that. Wouldn't it be nice to get my own mind back into that place? Well, that's what they did here was help me get back to where I can honestly say to you today no one has ever done anything to me. Things were done to the guy who used to live here, but no one's done anything to me, so I don't have to carry all that baggage. And that's part of what this process takes care of. This grandson of ours, by the way, I've got pictures and stories and don't get me started on his sister. But I wanted to tell you that because it just hit me how that correlates. The purity of this baby and his inability. Somebody has to teach me about blame and teach me a lesson. Teach me about being a victim. And I'm not saying that doesn't happen. I'm saying there's a time when it does I can get past that and then there's a time after I've learned too much where I can't get past that and this will help me examine that time that's what it did it helped me pick out all the lies in my life for what they were so our troubles we think are basically of our own making And we were, where were we Jerry? Well anyway, somewhere up north. Ruth was there. One of the girls, but I won't use her name because it's not appropriate, she was buttoned down at this weekend. This was, what, six, seven years ago. I mean button-down, combat gear, camouflage outfit, button up to here, button down to here. Boots, buttoned down to hear. You got within three feet of her, you got this. And she asked me a legitimate question at this point. She says, wait a minute. When I was five years old, my grandfather molested me. what the hell could I have done that brought that on? Nothing. That isn't what's causing the trouble. And she helped me walk through this and I'm going to share it with you because she helped my walk through it. What happened at five really happened and somebody ought to horse whip that old bastard. That's the first response. But that wasn't the trouble It's never the trouble with me when something happens. The trouble that comes later is what I did with it. First time I remember that, that isn't what happened at all. It's colored by my own pain and by anybody else I happen to talk to about it and their take on it. And 14 years of that is what's got me buttoned down. Fourteen years of rehashing it, the resentment that comes from rehashing it and changing it a little here and a little there. What do you think about this gets added into it? My response to my response gets added in. So now I'm all buttoned down by something that never really happened anyway. And if I'm ever going to be free, I've got to get to what really happened and do the most impossible job of all. Forgive them. That is what this says to do. Freedom comes from realizing that the people who harm me, like myself, were spiritually sick. There is no other freedom. I can write till doomsday and it means nothing until I've done that I can pray forever and until I've known that it means nothing so our troubles really are of our own making do we believe that let me take some processing but I want to plant that seed because this girl is no longer buttoned down and she and I walked through that and we both got the truth out of that and she processed that and I got to process some things that happened to me I've taken some meetings that I really ought not have had to take so I got to process it and she's not buttoned down anymore she does some incredibly magnificent artwork most painters take a blank thing and paint stuff on it. She paints this thing and then takes paint off and that's what makes the picture. Good stuff. Very loving, kind, sweet girl. So I'm inclined to think that what she walked with me through is probably true and that is what this says. That is another take on that. I'm still inclined to think somebody ought to whip the old son of a bitch but unfortunately I'm not there I've got to forgive them too it doesn't mean that they are right that's what my alcoholic mind says if I admit that there is no fault here then that isn't fair that makes them right no it doesn' it makes me free that's really all I care about I cannot be of help to anybody until I'm free of it ok I one of the things that came out of my inventory just a little piece in this area when I was 11 years old I got caught having sex and beaten really severely told it was going to be cut off next time I defended God and my mother. Took a looking with a rubber hose. You know, there was a lot of drama behind this one. I'm just a little kid. It kind of warped things for a while. But the thing I hung on to, the anger that I hung onto, the hook I had was that how unfair this was. At 11, what could I possibly have known about it being wrong at 11? Nobody told me anything was wrong. In an inventory, I got a clear picture. I knew it was wrong we were hiding, weren't we? I may not have known what was wrong, but I know you don't want to get caught doing this. Freed me up. The response may have been an over-response, but the response was one that was taught by those who went before. And if I don't like that response, let me get free then so I don' t pass it on. The buck stops here. Okay? The violence stops here . . . The lack of love stops here, okay? And all I can do is to forgive that, to understand there's sickness behind this. Well, people don't do things like that. Are you catching it? Are you catchin' the sense of freedom that comes from that? And it isn't fair. It's just awful, because it's not fair. Thank God. Oh my. They arise out of ourselves. What happened to me 40 years ago didn't happen today, and if I'm troubled by it, It's a rising out of myself. That's just the truth. I'm making it happen. They did a bad thing once. I do it damn near every day for 40 years. How many times is that? Now who's the idiot? Me. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. I have rights, I've been mistreated, that's the kind of selfishness. I am better than that, why did they do this to me? Blah, blah, blah. We must be rid of this selfishness, we must or it kills us. God makes that possible and there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without his aid. we have just entered into a prayerful time and so we can look at these things safely we're in the midst of a spiritual activity we are safe and protected we've just given our lives entirely to God and we're looking for the things that are killing us we're safe and protective I can go back and look at them now and not be totally terrified well this is how first of all we had to quit playing God that's a really unfair thing to say to me every time I rehash the deal I'm playing God saying you should have done it this way then I could have done it this day this way and then you'd have said and then I'd have says and then we'd have brought him in and he'd have gotten on my team and we'd have both said and then you'd have said. I'm playing God trying to decide what you're supposed to be. I don't know whether you're suppose to be loving and kind or a mean son of a bitch. I really don't. I want to find out quickly because if you're suppose to me a mean sumbitch I don' t want to be around you. But I don''t get to make that choice. So we have to quit playing God. The business of the actor on the stage is wonderful. I'm busy here assigning everybody a role. You like me and you support me and you... I was brought up that way. I'm supposed to feed this whole damn family. A wife and seven kids, I've got to provide for them. wait a minute that's a big load I'm supposed to provide what and all that stuff and I get caught up in that so I assign myself a role good father good husband good citizen and I can't pull any of them off what does a good citizen do Well, some good citizens join the PTA. Some join the Chamber of Commerce. Some adopt a street. And I'm an alcoholic. I don't pick any one. I've got to do them all. You too? Yeah. So I get busy. My sponsor one time said, you know, we're supposed to practice these principles in all our affairs. And that means we practice them at home too. And in order to do that, you have to be there once in a while. Revelation. Drop about 50 of these activities are making me crazy. They're none of my business anyway. My troubles are my own making and I'm busy assigning roles to you and to me. Kids are supposed to be seen, not heard. Well, you can have seven of them. Try that one on a house full of seven kids. They will be heard. And if you don't like it, you're dead meat. We had a set of twins that were little bitty ones. They'd bite you on the ankle. Drag you down to where the big ones could stomp you. That's what it felt like in that house until I got my head straight with it. And we had a group conscience one time over the noise. Because it really was a noisy place. We also had a dog and a couple of white Siamese cats. Jesus. So we had group conscience, formal group conscience. This was back in my legalistic days. To try to come up with a solution to the yelling and the screaming. And the seven-year-old had the best solution of all. It was the best. Nobody else could think of anything better than this. The screamer was to get on top of the refrigerator and jump off on her head. That was it. And no matter how long we talked, nobody came up with a better idea than that. Which brought us to the resolution and to the truth. If you live in a house with two adults, seven children, a couple dogs and a couple cats, it's got to be noisy. Learn to live with it. But learn to kind of take care of each other too. Maybe it doesn't have to be all that noisy. Maybe if we feel like screaming, we can go out in the backyard and scream out there. Maybe we'll be a little kinder to each other. It led us to some good stuff. Anyway, I get off track. So, do we all agree we've got to quit playing God? I'm just running a checklist for you. Rashid, have you ever, are you through playing God ? Ha ha ha! Yeah, I knew I'd pick the right one. Huh? You gotta be honest. Is it? Why is it a hard one? Because you're in the way? Oh. Who's your sponsor? I'm through worrying about you, man. You don't have a chance. We're going to be all right. Do you believe that that will be one of the conditions of continuing to build a relationship with God is that you quit playing God? That's a more appropriate way of asking the question. I don't have to accomplish this. I just have to be willing and look at the truth of it. Next, we decide that hereafter in this drama of life, God is going to be our director. He's giving us a number of images because Bill knew, in the human condition, we all need images. I've got to be able to relate to something, and I can't relate to God at this point. It's too big. He's the director. Well, I know a lot of theater people. I was raised with musicians and theater people, andI am a good actor. I'm not good enough to go on the stage, so I quit that. But I recognize them. Most good actors make very poor directors. There are a few that can do both, but not many. It's a pretty small number. Because one of the requisites of being a good actor is that you can become truly character-centered. We would call it self-centered, yeah? And once I'm character- centered, there is no question in my mind the center stage under the main spot is where this play works best for me. And all the rest of them are peripheral and they're feeding into my character who is the essence of the play. It takes somebody who can stand back and look at the whole picture to put the actors in the right place at the right time because most of us want more lines, better lighting, count the house first if it isn't full delay until they all get here and that's just the way of it and I can get a hold of that image I can work with that see my mind is going to think anyway my mind's going to work I might as well give it something to think about I cannot shut it off it's not built that way One of the places that took me, just for fun, because I really do like to think and try to see how this fits. One of most memorable lines in all of theater is not, Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well. That's pretty well known. Even better known is from, at least in my generation, is from a little English farce they had. Meaningless play. I don't even remember the name of the play. But most everybody remembers the idiot who comes flying in the French door from the outside in his tennis outfit and in the middle of a key dramatic piece says, Tennis anyone? the whole play pivoted on tennis anyone and it took a good director to spot that I wouldn't have spotted that I would much rather have been in the midst of a drama so I can work with this image he's the father and we're his children I had a little difficulty with that because of my own attitudes toward my own father at the time. See, he didn't give me what I needed when I was five. Nobody could. I need way too much for any human being to ever be able to give me what I need. Oh yeah, just truth. And I was really pissed at him because he didnít measure up. I know what Father is here. My conception of God, but I understand, Father, not as a gender thing, but as a principle. And my dad didn't match it. Despite the fact that he was always there, that he loved me, he took care of me, he took us on trips. This is a man who had worked really hard for three or four months at his own business. Really hard. So he had the luxury in the fourth month of taking two or three weeks off, taking us out of school and taking us on trips through New Mexico and Arizona and Colorado and Utah because he knew that's where we'd really learn about life. And school was important, but these trips were more important as a family. He flew a little airplane and he painted a big silver circle on the top of my mother's car and he put one of the kids in the plane with him. Mom and the other two kids had headed down the road And he'd come a couple hours afterwards and he'd fly until they saw that spot on the car. And then he'd land in a field somewhere and trade kids off. But I'm sitting there pissed at him. So I kind of got this eventually. He was a really good father. but no human being can ever match up to my understanding of what father reading means but I'd like to be a good father too so let's look at those characteristics and we can examine some of those later I can accept this he's the father and we're his children boy that's nice because that's all I want to be anyway I just want to become a little kid I want to go out and play I don't want to be serious my God this is a scary planet they got things on this planet that will eat you personally I just want to be a kid and have some fun and laugh and I'll be serious about things but I want to laugh and have fun No, I'm going to play. Mm-hmm. Yeah. We've done that. We? I must have overloaded myself. Haven't we gone for a little over an hour? Y'all want a break then? Let's take a little short break. Yeah, we're about to get serious. But let's take a little break first. As we look at this movement on toward some more action, I want to back up just a little ways on page 62. right in the middle of the page where it starts off, so our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. About halfway down there it says, and there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without his aid. And that suggests to me this is about getting ridofself. Which is to say if I follow that thought through, I don't need any self-esteem, do I? And I don' t even really need to learn to love myself. I really truly don' T. In fact the best thing that I could do I'll never achieve it in this lifetime but the best things I could be able to do The best thing I could go would be to completely forget myself. That happens to be true. And I've discovered that along the way. The real joy in much of what we get to do is getting to watch you all. It really is. And the last thing, I'll leave and then we'll get on to some specific instructions here. I've even had people tell me, by the way, if you have somebody tell you something and it doesn't create a resonance, Don't buy it just because they said it. I don't care if they have had 25 years or 25 minutes here. If it doesn't create a resonance with you, look at it very carefully. I've shared with you some of the things my sponsor told me, and I knew there was truth in them when I was told it, even though I didn't like it. But one of the things that I was told when I got early here was that I had to do this for myself. And way down deep inside of me, I truly knew that I wasn't worth it. My kids were. My mother and my brothers were. But I wasn'T worth it . I needed to be doing this to watch the disappointment leave their faces. and so that's the main reason that I ended up being here was I was tired of the terrible disappointment I could see that my kids were experiencing time after time after time and so you know I knew when I'd hear that people would say well Jerry you've got to want to do this for yourself no I don't that's my experience Okay? And I got the mic, so I get to share it. And if you have a different thought, there's a mic there. But don't you say a word. It says after we take the third step, next we launch on a course of vigorous action. The first step, which is a personal housecleaning, which many of us have never attempted. No, we really haven't, have we? What we have done, at least it's been my experience, is that we have all done the first three columns of this thing, of the resentment part of the inventory, and I'll tell you about those columns in a minute. We've been doing that first three column all of our lives. Well, we have. She pissed me off because she left me and it embarrassed the hell out of me and it affected my relations with her. That's columns one, two, and three. See, it's not complicated. Though our decision, meaning the third step, though our decision was a vital and crucial step, could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face and to be rid of the things in ourselves which have been blocking us. Our liquor was but a symptom, so we had to get down to causes and conditions to faceandtoberidof. That is, by the way, it's a very subtle little deal, but it'sa promise. See, one of thethings that frightened me about this spiritual path was people kept talking about this inventory, and I knew in the inventory process there was going to be some revelation and one of the reasons that I didn't want to do it is because I don't want to get down to that stuff. I don' t want to have to dredge all that junk back up. Don mentioned earlier, you don' T need to tell me when I've messed up. God Almighty, I know when I' V done the wrong thing. If somebody says we don' Te know the difference between right and wrong, that's incorrect. I know the different between right or wrong. I'm painfully aware of the difference between right and wrong. I don't need to dredge it up in the sense of dredged it up and then live with it. But I tell you what, it says here we're going to be able to be rid of it. And by now in the process, the very first time I was carried through this, I understood that I could not be rid of it on my power, but there was another power which has been added in. And that's going to be involved in this being rid of. So that's a nifty little promise. Like I say, it's one that I think is somewhat hidden, but there it is. We're going to face it, but then we're going to be rid of the things which are blocking us from the sunlight of the Spirit. And therefore, we start upon a personal inventory. I just want to jump in for a minute on this piece right here. That's what made it possible for me to look at what I had done to the people I loved the most. My kids, my parents, the people like that, because I could be rid of it now. That is why I came here, to be changed. This is not an effort for me to find out who I am. This is an effort to help me find out Who I'm Not. Then we can get rid of that and Who I Am will just show up. Much simpler. I couldn't face what I'd done with the children particularly. I didn't beat my kids or anything. Just a step on the road and me yelling at them that kind of thing. If it weren't that I had come to believe already, I could be done with that. The value of keeping it fresh and alive is if you've got one of those dark worms in your head and you can't get free because of it, I can tell you, you can get free of that one too. Be rid of it. Let whoever you are show up. So, along those same lines, just a little footnote. One of the things that I believe comes closer to killing more alcoholics than anything else is the idea of what they should be, and they damn near kill themselves trying to be that. I should not have a resentment toward my mother. I know that with all my heart. And because I thought I shouldn't, and the longer you stay sober and live around this bunch of folks, many of them who are doing inventory and have been freed of that and have entered that forgiveness state of spirit. And if you're around those kind of folks and you haven't been able to do that yet, but you know you should. And so you think on our own power I should learn how to forgive, and you can't do it. You just can't do it. And so that little thought, I believe, truly believe, it kills more alcoholics who believe I should be good now and I can't be. So as we move down through this, let me give you one little underlying thought or context, the fabric of what we're talking about here. I canít be good. Itís not in me to be good If I get rid of enough stuff, some good will begin to show up from time to time. That's the very best that I can do, and that's the power of the Spirit flowing through me. I am not a demonstration. In other words, I always thought there was a part of this little book that says we ask God to let us demonstrate what we can do. Is that what it says? No. we try to let God demonstrate through us what He can do entirely different deal the alcoholic mind gets a hold of a good deal and you twist it just a little now I want to be a demonstration this isn't about me being in demonstrations it's about the power of God demonstrating through me what He kan do so this is all about Jerry getting rid of Jerry and whatever shows up you'll get to see it and I'll get too see it a little bit of luck we'll both be happy I sure wouldn't have been happy to see what was there before. So, a business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking your commercial inventory is a fact-finding and fact-facing process. The people that come to my house that we sit down and talk to, that's something that they get awfully tired of hearing because I will tell them, let's take the drama out of this and let's get down to the facts. Isn't that right, Jackie? What are the facts? I mean, because the drama is all about, well, but you need to understand, Jerry, when he did this, and we go, and then we, in fact, we're all over the place. What are The Facts, darling? What are THE FACTS? Fact-facing, fact-finding process. You're going to hear something about columns, and I don't want to get technical here, please. In fact, maybe I should tell you a quick story of my own personal experience and going through this process the very first time, 13 years sober, terribly sick, alcoholically speaking. Been away from a drink for a long time. Mine was so terribly damaged with untreated alcoholism that I could barely make sense of out of anything. Couldn't have gone through this book on my own. Just couldn't do it. And yet on the outside, I look like a perfectly functioning individual. No, you didn't. See, that's... The truth, that's right, Scotty, the truth be told. In case you all haven't figured out yet, from time to time I will make reference to a son of a bitch who was my sponsor. He's sitting here. And I was on a roll, too. What's that? Yeah, put him on my list. Column one. Done. Kind of a little bit of fun along those lines. I liked what he had. I do what he does to the best of my ability. I've never had to put him on my last list. Anyway, I was getting the instructions to this very clearly. And I honest to God believed that I was doing this my first time through here. I thought, boy, I'll tell you what, now that somebody has shown me how to do this, I got it. And I'm doing this right. And I have a God-awful need to do things right. I mean, it's just way down deep inside of me. I've got to do it right. I've Got to Do It Perfect. And I honest to God believed that I did. A couple of years after I'd done that first inventory, done a number of inventories after that. But two years down the road, I was taking a bunch of guys through the book, and I said, I want you to understand this inventory process, and I want to learn how to do It Right. And the best way I can help you with that is to show you my inventory, because I got it from one of the best, and he showed me how to do it right. And so I'll get that out next week when we meet. I'll let you see my inventory. So they left that night, and I went in, andI saved my inventory, see? I've still got 10 years to go. So I pulled it out, and it's a spiral notebook. And I pulled that spiral notebook out and opened the first two or three pages, and that wasn't the right stuff. That was kind of garbage. So I flipped over some more pages, and that wasn't the right stuff either. I'm writing, I could clearly remember writing this stuff in perfect columns. I mean, perfect columns, and so I flipped over some other pages, it was still just garbage, and I went through that whole thing. Toward the very tail end of that resentment inventory, I began to see what loosely translated looked like columns. Very loosely. But I'll tell you a little something. I was doing it, and that's what this was all about at that particular point. So while I may talk about columns and so on and so forth, understand that this is a spiritual deal, and the Spirit is very forgiving. How do we do it? We just do it the best we can. And that's as right as you're going to get. So, it's a fact-facing and fact-finding process. Just one of the facts. I just want to back what you said. My very first inventory was a lie. It was. I had so desperately wondered what they had that I took a chance, did the third step and all that, and then ran off. When I didn't get the results, I thought, I finally asked him, what do I have to do to make this real? And he said, Don, God will reveal Himself to you as you reveal yourself to you. And I went off to do an inventory. And I did not take time to find out how to do it. I didn't wait for the school session. I just sat down and spent two hours making lists of some of the worst things I'd ever done. I thought that's what it was about. And I took it back to my sponsor two hours later. It took two hours to get it done. and he looked at it and said that's garbage you wrote that to impress me get away and this is the same guy that's been loving and kind to me but I'm alcoholic I found a guy that would listen I spent two hours trying to be honest somebody's by God going to listen and because this is a spiritual I don't the word process is alright but it's more than that we're in the midst of an active prayer God is involved here and all things work when God's at work it all works out okay and I would tell Leroy something I'd done LerOY would say Oh, that wasn't all that bad. Leroy was one of the politicians in our AA group. Why else would I pick him? He was the top dog. He didn't know anything about AA, but he was the top dog in the AA group." That wasn't that bad, and I'd tell him something else, and he'd say, "'That wasn't that bad.'" As I went over the list with him, I began to be aware that I was in serious trouble because some of it was that bad." And if what I had done is once again picked somebody who would tell me what I wanted to hear, so I didn't have to do anything about it. And then if I didnít stop that immediately, then I was going to die a very ugly death. And Iím not afraid of death. Iíve died three times I can remember. But to die an ugly death does mean that for some period prior to that, I will have to live an ugly life. and I can't tolerate that anymore. So in the midst of the lie, because I had brought nothing but willingness to be clear with it, God did His little magic thing and it all worked out well. I went back and learned how to do this thing the way it says to do it here and got it clear. But I had some spiritual events take place in the mist of the why. As long as you're in prayer, you're alright. It doesn't feel good, but you're still all right. We are safe and protected. So I just wanted to second that. This is one object here that we're, it's an effort to discover the truth about the stock and trade. Now, the truth of the stock is, the truth without the stock in trade happens to be our truth. It's my truth. You know, I told you here when we started out this session that one of my great difficulties, and I see some other people struggling with it a bit, is we have an idea about what we should look like after a couple of years of sobriety or after five years. We have this image about, well, by now I should be a lot more recovered than I am. What in the hell do real sick people know about what they should look like after certain period of time? I mean, is there a chart up on the wall someplace that I missed that said you you should look like this when you're five years and like this when you are ten, you know. But we conjure that up. See, we can take the truth and squirrel it all up. That's how weird we are. But the objective is to discover the truth about ourselves. Well, I don't want to have resentments toward anybody. That goes against the Spirit deep within me. But the truth of manners it did have. I really did. I had some serious, serious resentment. And I didn't know what to do with them. And we make this thing so complicated. I said, well, what do I do now? And I have a dear, loving sponsor who said, do you know, do you have any paper? I said what do you mean? What are you driving at? He said, well, doesn't it say we make a list? I said well, yeah I suppose, but what does that have? Well, he said, do you have any paper? I said, well, yeah, I have paper. You know, I don't have any. I have a streak of arrogance in me. I don' t know if anybody else does or not, but I do. Yeah, I ha ve paper. Well, they said, why don' te you get it? And I said okay, then what do I do? And he said well, are you going to make a list? And I sa d yeah. He said well why don't you get a pencil? Oh. Okay. I began to get the idea that I'm going to have to do something besides just dwell on this for a little while. This is a little action involved here. You have to get paper and a pencil and then start a column. And in the column, I think it's so neat, all you have to do, if you want to do it in the Column Format, I choose to because I have a tendency if I try it any other way, the odds are I'll squirrel it up somehow. I just will. But your columns don't necessarily have to go this way. I've seen people who write columns across. Do it, whatever works for you. But at any rate, he said we make a list of people with whom we're angry, doesn't he? No. And I said, well, listen, the alcoholic mind is a dangerous thing. My alcoholic mind knew that I was not supposed to be angry or resentful or hate anybody. So because I shouldn't feel that way, I made myself try to believe that I didn't feel that way. And it almost killed me. I said, God, you're going to have to show me whatever it is you want me to know because I can't see anything here. In fact, the matter is I don't think I'm like these other alcoholics described in the book at all anyway. You know, I've never known myself to get, you know, be kind on one occasion and egotistical and mean on the other. I don' t think I've ever done that. And all I could ever remember was just being kind. We have strange memories, too. But I really believe that. And so I, as in all things, as I've gone through this process and way of living, I had to come to discover a very difficult way. I have to rely intensely on prayer all the time. So I said, God, listen, whatever you want me to know about myself, you're going to have to reveal it to me. Because I can't just sit here and conjure up the people I have resentments toward, because I believe they didn't have any. And God has such a beautiful sense of humor. A couple of days after I had that prayer, I ended up in a laundromat where I was washing clothes, and I finished washing them, and I had waited too late to wash them. And I didn't start the washing machine until about midnight. And so they came out about 1230, and I put them in the dryer. And by this time it's going on 1 o'clock in the morning, and I'm tired, and I don't know what you guys do when you get tired. I get terribly grouchy. I mean just terribly gruchy. My whole perception of reality gets terrifically warped. So anyway, I put these clothes in the drier. Now understand, this is a commercial laundry, and there's a dryer up above and a dryer down below, and in the center row there are dual controls, one for the upper dryer and one for the lower dryer. So I put mine in there, I set my clothes, and I'm fine. I leave. And as I'm leaving, a woman comes in and takes a few little things out of one of the washing machines, and she puts it down below. And I see her fiddling with the controls, and something niggles at me, but I don't pay much attention in and I go on because I'm tired. I get back an hour later and my clothes are still wet. I couldn't figure out what happened. I looked down at the setting on my dryer, and it was set for no heat. She didn't need any heat for her stuff. I needed heat for my stuff. And at that moment in time, I took my laundry basket and I slammed it up against one wall, Box of soap and slammed it up against another wall. And I began to talk about them goddamned women. They have been jacking around with me my whole life. It was all of them. From the time I was a little kid in kindergarten, you women have been jacking along with me. You can't trust them. They jack with you in the laundromat, they jack with you out on the dance floor and they jack with you on the highway. God damn. Next morning when I got up I thought I could list one resentment. Women. Now we laugh about that, but I tell you that's an honest story. I believe that you all have been jacking with me my whole life. Meanwhile, I continue to pray. Slowly but surely it came apparent to me that my mother had kind of messed with me one time, and I wrote my mother down there. And as I paused a little bit, I thought, you know, she jacked with me one other time too. She's pretty damn abusive with me, blah, blah. And so my list began to slowly but surely grow. The point I'm driving at is that it came through prayer. I have to always rely upon prayer. And Lord, oh God, I know it doesn't take me very long to write down what they did to me. I mean, I could just say, name, they messed with me. It doesn't take a lot of writing to get clear about what they did to me. Now, I will qualify that and tell you that sometimes our mind is so damaged that we have to do a lot more than we think. We have to write a lot in order to finally get down to that little grain of truth. A grain of proof won't be more than about 12 or 13 words long. But you may have to ride a couple of pages to get there. I'm not recommending that. Don't get me wrong. I just know what us Aki's will do. The examples in the book on page 65, as you can see, column 2, the examples there are very, very short in the column 2 area. But we get a little long and a little... Well, we've been damaged, don't you know? So terribly, terribly hurt. It says resentment is the number one offender, and that's what we're talking about. Halfway down in that paragraph it says when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. Isn't that a hell of a promise? When the spiritual Malady is Overcome, We Straighten Out Mentally and Physically. And because I've had the opportunity to walk with some of you down this little journey, I know many of you who have begun to recover mentally and physically as a result of doing this. Now, it's in my mind that I need to be better physically and mentally, and then I'll do the spiritual stuff. I've always had a tendency to put things backwards. As soon as I have enough money, I'll go through the steps. As soon As I get my home life straightened out again, I'LL GO THROUGH THE STEPS. You know, as soon as everything in my life is okay, then I'LL GO THEROUGH THE STEPPS. Hey, listen, I'm an alchie. Once everything's okay, I ain't going through the damn steps. Do you have a thought? Viewpoint from my experience. Resentment is the number one offender. From it stem all forms of spiritual disease. Resentiment is not a mental or emotional problem. It is a spiritual disease and must be treated with spiritual means, which is very nice because that's what we're doing. From its stem all forms of spiritual disease, it says. It must be the granddaddy of all of them. Earlier on in this book I was asked as I set aside prejudices, particularly against spiritual terms, to ask myself, what does that mean to me? so I use that all through the programming what does that mean what is a spiritual disease what does that mean to me it means I'm cut off from my spiritual source I'm casting about trying to find power I'm caught cut off from my power The problem will be solved as soon as I find power. Simple problem, simple solution. He also tells me later that why would resentment be a spiritual disease? Well, anything that separates me from the children of God separates me from God. and I've already accepted the fact that I am you and you are me and we're all children of God and so what I'm looking at are for the things that separate me from you because they are the things that are separate and it's all self jealousy you have something I want that sense of lack all the things oh somebody I hope that's real. I've heard that kind of stuff when there wasn't anybody in the room, man. The whole idea of God is too big for me. I've got to get it down where I can deal with it. If my relationship with you is not right, I will try to fix it. And I will screw it up every time. But if I get my relationship with our Father right, ours will be right too because it will be based on this other one. I'm not looking to you to be the source of my well-being. I don't have those expectations on you so you can't fail me I don' t expect it a lot of things happen when I finally understand what that means to me it separates me from the children of God so that separates me from God that's complicated enough secondly if I resent you you own me we realize the world and its people dominated us. You can be dead or in another city and if I resent you, you are running my life. You own me. You own my mind. You keep me from sleeping. You keepme from dealing with anybody else that even looks close like you. Women. That's a lot of people, you know. I've got one set of jeans that says I need several. And then the resemblance is I'm messing with them, they'll mess with me. Okay? You own me and I am sick to death of being owned by the kind of people that piss me off. So I have some good solid reasons for wanting to deal with this malady and it is spiritual in nature. I am incapable on my own I'm not resenting you because I need you to be what I need you to do and you will never be able to fulfill that role any of you alone or collectively you can't meet my needs I can't meet yours either not on my own that's pretty serious malady isn't it we should have some some real high drama method of taking care of that, shouldn't we? It would be fair. It'd be right. What do we get to do with it? We get to put it on paper. Are you kidding me? Well, there's a good reason for that. I was in therapy when I was 19 and one of the things we did to help me overcome the anger I had toward my dad to get a picture of him on a punching bag and then punch it so I could express the anger? I don't know what the rest of them did with theirs, but I loved it. It didn't get rid of my anger. It helped me get involved in it. I don' t respond well. Not only is my body different, my whole makeup is different. I must be very careful not to express anger because I hook up to it. It's an energy source for me. And I get to feeling it, and the next thing you know, the bear comes out. And I'm off and running. I don't have time to stop at anger. Once I get a taste of it, it's like alcohol. I want some rage. So I go straight to rage. Fears for sissies. Pay your 50 cents, get on a roller coaster, wet your pants, go home. That's what fear is about. Me, I like stark terror. First thing in the morning, nothing like it. Gets you out of bed and on the way to work. I'm telling you, the world is mine. I have to be very careful with standard therapeutic techniques that just don't seem to work on me. Now we borrowed a lot from therapy and there's nothing wrong with it. I'm not trying to demean it. but I'm suffering from a spiritual malady. So psychological means are not going to be enough. They may help me identify some things or become aware of some things, but I can't treat my problem with my problem. And my problem is in my mind. I think it's my emotions. It's not. It's in my mine. My emotions don't come until my mind says, oh, react. and sometimes I'm busy being self-centered and I should be reacting with joy and I react with panic. I've laughed at funerals and cried at hockey games. It doesn't make sense. It's inappropriate. The message goes out okay, but it gets to the wrong place somehow. Now, I'm desperate to have Rasheed like me. And so he comes up and says, how are you this morning? And the message goes out, Rasheeds likes me, and it gets detoured to, I wonder what he meant by that. You do, huh? I suffer from a spiritual malady and it must be dealt with. So I don't need high drama methods of dealing with this because I will just love them. I'll get involved in them. I'll be good at them. Three weeks after I came into AA, they also put me into Senecor, which is another method because it said drug addicts on the thing, so they sent me over. This is games therapy and counter therapy. And after one meeting, I realized I was in great danger because I liked it. And I'd be running the group in six weeks because I am really good at encounter therapy. You've got to remember, I'm Zorro. I've been fencing my entire life with the forces of evil. By the way, are you aware that Mexico's new president is named Fox? That's Zorro in Spanish. Isn't that wonderful? He finally made it all the way to the top. Oh, my. So we set them on paper. And when I'm taking people through this, we stop at this point. First of all, do we believe all this stuff? Now, have we done that yet is my basic question for working inventory. We set them on paper. Have we done it yet? No, because we don't know how. You've got to constantly understand I don't now how. I may have done it yesterday, but today I don' t know how . . . If this is truly the book that it purports to be, they're going to show us precisely how to do it. So let's read forward a little bit and see if we get any directions. Why, sure enough. We list people, institutions, and principles with whom we were angry. Most new inventories don't have any principles on them because most new alcoholics wouldn't know a principle but hit them in the face. People, institutions and principles. Not people, places and things. That's a really lovely little warp. people, institutions and principles with whom I'm angry easy list to make that's what I've been thinking about for the last 30 years no trouble with that one and when I'm working with you go home now and when you're through with your list come back and when do you come back Now, we've had a regular appointment each week to this point. And I keep being asked, well, when shall we get together next? Just as soon as you're through with your list. Well, when will I know? You'll know. One name counts as a list. If that's all you can get, and that's truly all you Can Get, as soon As You Got That, come back and we'll do something with it. If it takes you three weeks to do your list, I probably will never see you again. You'll take yourself out of the game. You will. How long does it take to make a list? Even if you're one of those fanatics that hates everybody in the world, just bring me a phone book. Okay? I don't care. or we're involved in a spiritual activity, just keep moving. Do something. Pick one. Right, Fatima? Do something! Yeah. In most cases, we found that it was our self-esteem, pocketbooks, ambitions, personal relations, including sex, which were hurt or threatened. I was shown that and have found no better way. If I am having difficulty, it is always for one of those two reasons. Actually, three reasons. Some aspect of self is either being hurt, threatened, or interfered with. Nothing else causes me any distress whatsoever. If someone is interfering with your self-interest, I don't care. If you're interfering with my self-interest, that's when I care. If you mess with my family, I'll kill you. That's a different deal. Hurt or threaten. I don't have to have any fancy psychological stuff. I don' t use... What do they call it? An extended third column. Please don't show me what it is. I'm not even interested. I have done some things between the third and the fourth column in some of my own personal inventories in order to clarify things, but I try to keep it this simple. I don't have to know why that threatens me. It will be there when I need it. It will come out somewhere. So I tryと keep it simple. I just know something is either being hurt, threatened, or interfered with, and mostly interfered mith. I don't mind being hurt anywhere near as much as I dislike being interfered with. The only thing you can threaten me with is if you're going to interfere with me anyway. That becomes the big one. Don't get in my way. Do you hear that? Isn't that awful? But that's the bottom line. We go into this inventory looking for a till of the hunt. What I found was a little boy who wet his pants. A nasty little boy, screaming and ratting and raving to get my own way, and you're interfering. I want to go outside, but it's snowing. I don't care. I wantto go outside. Well, put on your coat. I don' t want to put on my coat. Get out of the damn door. That's what's going on. Stupid, silly little stuff. I'm being hurt, threatened, or interfered with. I've got something to share later, by the way. You'll see how stupid it gets at 32 years. My nobility was being here. We do have this image that we would like to be able to maintain about ourselves, that we're tough or that we are nobility and so on and so forth. But this inventory process will reveal perhaps a different truth. You may find something different. and one of the things that appeared on my inventory one time was a schoolteacher had really embarrassed me. And the deal was, and God I hated to write this down because that meant I was going to have to talk to somebody about it, but what happened when I was about 13 years old in the 7th grade, just starting 7th grad, yo-yos were very popular. And on this big-time operator, he was playing with Yo-Yo at the start of English class in the beginning of the seventh grade. And I was, about seven or eight of us were in the back of the rooms. And some of the guys were real good with these and I wasn't. But I was trying to become good. And so we were back in the Back of the Room practicing and the bell rang. And I vaguely recall hearing the door close, which means the teacher walked in. And somehow out of that entire group of 13-year-old boys in the back there playing with yo-yos, all of them except me got sat down and had their stuff put away. And I'm still standing there. I told you I'm just a notch off of normal. I'm not real bad, but I'm juste far enough to be bad. and she said, Mr. Elkins, would you please give that yo-yo to me? And in a heartbeat, I tell you, really a heartbeat I thought, lady, if you want this yo-Yo, you got it and I federal expressed that sucker to her from the back of the room I mean, in a heartbeat, I went from embarrassed to absolute rage. And it was a killing rage. My aim was a little off or I'd accomplished my purpose. I left school that day. You know, when you write that stuff down in inventory, I mean, you'd like to write down any kind of stuff but that. And you want to go talk to your sponsor with, well, I'm pissed off at my schoolteacher because she threw me out of class for playing with a yo-yo. That isn't what I want to writedown. And I could give you a whole long list of crappy looking stuff like this. It's all petty. But it's my truth. It's my proof. And I'm going to get rid of that truth once and for all. because, see, today I can talk about that and it has no hold over me whatsoever. It's just a story about a goofy little boy who just didn't have all the crackers he needed upstairs. No big deal. So, the book at the bottom of page 65 says we went back through our lives. Don mentioned to you back through your life may mean one resentment maybe that's all you have right now if that's all you have that's all you have if you have more some people they come to me and they say Jerry what does that mean go back through our lives does that mean do I start when I was a little kid and come forward or do I start now and go back God I don't know I mean at 35 years old I was going to be locked away in a nut house for the rest of my life what do I know I know what I have had explained to me and I know who I am I know how I know what I've done it says we went back through our lives I know whom I am pissed off at today in 1989 I was pissed off at women so I put that down then I got another one then I get another one pretty soon my list began to grow And over the course of that, I watched myself go back through my life. I didn't consciously sit down and try to go back to my life, I just found myself going back through me life. I believe that was the way I was guided through this little process. Because it seemed as though when I cleared one out of the way, then I could go back a little further to another. Again, that doesn't make it the right way, but the end result was I found my truth out of it all. And we'll get more to that later. Just went back through our lives, nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. Listen, none of us, I believe, are really red hot about being thorough and honest. Now, that just doesn't come quite naturally, does it? I mean, I want you to think I'm thorough and honestly. I want to cast an image of being thorough or honest. But when we're on the front end of this the very first time, that's not the way we think. But let me tell you a little secret. I knew somehow, way down deep inside of me, as a result of some of the prayer, I'm convinced now that that's what it was, that I had a chance here to get rid of all the stuff that had been troubling me for years and years and year. And I'm not talking about big immoral crimes. I mean, I did an immoral inventory too. I'm the kind of a guy who has to look up. The book says a fearless and searching moral inventory of ourselves. What's a moral inventory? Well, it's what's going on inside of me that you don't know about. That's what a moral imagery, an immoral inventory is every time I stole something out here. Every time I ran a red light. Who cares? What you need to know is what was going on outside of me that looks awful shabby when I lay it out here, at least it looks shabmy to me. But I knew that I was going to be able to get rid of this stuff once and for all, at least what I could come to terms with now insofar as being reminded by the Spirit. What do you want me to know about me? And I'm going to do my part. So I kept sitting down there writing this stuff, just doing the best I could, doing the rest of it, following the instructions as nearly as I could. And there's a little line over on this next page, the top of 66. It says to conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. And again, I'll tell you how delusional I was By the way, that's a word that I will use It's delusinal I hear the word denial You're in denial Denial carries with it to me a connotation That you are consciously choosing not to remember the truth And I don't consciously choose to not remember the true I suffer from a delusion The delusion is that I'm a swell fellow, and you should know that. I am honest to a fault. Well, I am. If you would have asked me 20-some odd years ago, Jerry, who's the most honest guy you know? If my mother as a kid, I started lying to her when I was three and a half, and yet if she had said to me when I Was seven or eight, Son, who is the most Honest Man That You Know? I'd have looked at the top of my shoes, scuffed my feet just a little, and then very modestly said, well, me. Pathological liar. I suffer from delusions. I can't get to the truth on my own. On my own, I can. To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Now, that's one element of psychic pain. We stay sore at those folks. But now let me tell you what happens if you hang around here long enough untreated. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. You will eventually get sore at yourself. And it'll look like this. What in the hell is wrong with me? Jesus, what in the hell is wrong with me? You'll come to a term, I mean grips with that at some point down the road that there's something terribly wrong with you and we'll no longer be able to point the finger at someone else. Part of our mind still wants to do that. But way down in the quiet recesses of our minds we know that there is something terribly long with us. I want to go on down just a little bit. With the alcoholic whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. Don was talking about this earlier. He says we found that it's fatal. I wantto bring to you an understanding that I've come to have as a result of walking this way for a while. I always thought fatal, they meant fatal as in physically fatal. We die. And I believe that eventually that's where we would get to. But I tell you what, there's something that's even more fatal as long as we hang on to this stuff, and that is the Spirit. We all have experienced, those of us who are real alcoholics, have all experienced that moment or time of our life where we just begin to retreat more and more and mehr from participation in the world out there. The world became less and less interesting to us, and we could no longer function. We were in a combination of resentment and fear or rage and terror. For many of us, that's where it ended up. And so that's what they're talking about. We find that a resentment is infinitely fatal. And it really is because it kills the spirit. And if my spirit's being killed, I only have one thing that I know how to do left to my own devices, and that is I want to kill yours too. Yeah, watch yourself. Any of you have kids? Many of us here have kids. We've done our part to kill the spirit of our children, haven't we? My son was about 12 years old, and he's a kid that is... He's a big kid physically. He's always been big for his age. And he's always had a big heart. He's been a big spirit. I mean, when he was 12 years older, he could have walked in this room and within seconds you would have known that there was a different presence in this room because that's just the way he's always been. And when he was 12 years old, the start of the sixth grade, I said to him as kind of a fun little deal, I said, son, it's the first day of school, sixth grade. Your last year at grade school. You want me to take you to school, give you a ride? And because children love their parents, he said, oh, God, yes. That was a big deal to him. And so I said zu him, okay, well, let's go. and so he was running around the house trying to get ready to go and I was beginning to lean on him a bit because you see I had plans to get out of the house at a certain time if I were going to take him to school now I understand I was self-employed and I didn't need to be at work whenever I got there it's whenever I get there but I'm saying well we need to go and he's still running around and he said what's going on he said I can't find my cap I said what cap are you talking about He said, my big ox, yellow and white cap. And I said, son, if you think you're wearing that goddamn filthy hat to school, you've got another thing coming now. Either get in the car or you'll walk to school. That's a nice way to talk to a 12-year-old boy who's real excited about getting a ride to school isn't it? I said to him, if he's wearing that hat, if you wear that hat. By the way, you need to know the history of the hat. I gave it to him as a gift to a twelve-year old boy at the beginning of that summer. He wore it that whole summer. We had a little farm in those days. He'd wear it out to the farm, wore it through the wheat harvest, and it just looked like he got drunk behind a truck for about 250 miles. I mean, that's what little boys do with their caps. They just look filthy, and they love them. That's what boys do. I said, you are not wearing that half to school. What in Christ's name would the teacher think about you? Sometime later in an inventory, she had killed a spirit. and I knew instantly that I'd kill the spirit. I knew it because of my own discomfort. See, I said to him, The biggest lie of all, what will a teacher think of you? What I was really concerned with, what's the teacher going to think of me? We can really create some confusion with our twisted thinking, can't we? And the lies that come out of our mouth. What will the teacher think of you? I'm not concerned about what the teacher thinks of him. I'm concerned about only me. So, for to live we have to be free of anger. The grouts and the brainstorm were not for us. Our book says they may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison. You know what? I suppose normal people have resentment once in a while, but I don't think they last very long. I've talked to normal people. I had a guy who was a contractor, and he used to come to me, and he was such a sweetheart because he'd hire alcoholics to kind of help us out. And old Dave came to me one day, and Jerry said, I've got to talk to you about this resentment stuff. And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, I think I have resentments. I said okay. So he said, well, you guys have them differently than I do. I said, what do you mean, Dave? Well, he said usually after I have a resentment, he said a day, two maybe, three tops, I kind of see where I was wrong and I forget about it. He said, I had one of your guys working for me and he brought up an incident that happened in 1973. And this was 1996. Yeah, we do look at our resentments a little differently. I believe the most important part of this inventory process is not the writing. There is a mental and physical change that occurs between the 3rd and 4th column, and without it the 4th Column is a lie, and meaningless anyway. I was told I could get a new mind, and on this next page in a little bit is what it looks like, and sounds like, and thinks like. Now, having said that, let me show you where I got that. We've got this list now, who I'm angry with, why I'm angry and what's being affected. So we turn back to this list, now that we understand that holding on to this is going to kill me. I'm going to go back to the list because it holds the key to the future. We are prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. My book says, look for it. We had a lot of fun in the young people's group. Some of us had looked for it and some of us hadn't looked at it. And we spent hours debating the merits of each. Of course, it doesn't matter. It was a printer's error. I'll tell you how funny we are. Once the printer's area was found, GSO put it back the way it was supposed to be and caught all kinds of hell because they had changed the big book. We are funny. I'm prepared to look at this list from an entirely different angle. Is that true, I must ask? Am I really willing to look at it differently because this will change my life? We began to see...