Springtime in the Ozarks Big Book Study – Part 3 – Chris S. and Charlie P. – Eureka Springs, AR – 2010 — Chris A.

Number nine? What number nine? Oh, what is it? Well, as a newcomer, you have to go around and introduce yourself to people. And I think I have introduced myself to every single person that I've had. Oh, well, you haven't introduced yourself. I mean, we met earlier, but now it's kickoff time, so I'm going to have to do it real fast. Do you want me to sign it after the deal? Yes, it is. Absolutely. What's number nine? Oh, you have to know who number nine is. Absolutely. I'm not number nine. You absolutely do. Are you going to talk about it with me now? I'm sorry we've been coming back to any of this. We might recap some of that intent. I think it's a wonderful idea. But I haven't really necessarily had you do the mantra. I haven't wanted to. Well, what I'll do is I'll talk a little bit about this. Okay. And then I'll move it to five. I appreciate that. Okay. Okay. Everybody back in here? I'll tell you what, Katie? Yes. I thought I was going to have to get you to whistle there for a minute. I did. Raise your hand if you're not back yet. Okay. Is everybody we see here? Yeah. Is everybody we see here? All right. I hope everybody had a good lunch break. We had a nice lunch. Went into town. It's just a beautiful area. Beautiful day. I appreciate you all spending it inside with us today. Chris is going to roll into – we finished the fourth step in the last one. And now we're going to roll into what to do with it and what to do about it. So take it away, Chris. All right. Okay. Just a brief word on the handouts here. If anybody did not get a handout, please do. If anybody has a handout after this session or during break, come up. There's a whole bunch here. And I just want to talk just real briefly on this handout. This – I put this together with some of my sponsees, and it's what I've been working with currently. I'm not attached to particular forms. I like what Charlie said about being able to do this with a big book and a piece of paper. I definitely believe in that. But this is what I've been working with currently and giving out to the people that I work with currently. I'm always open to better methods, and I'm not a slave to the actual hard mechanics. If you have a different kind of form that you use and, you know, it goes more across and, you know, you use that form, then that's the form that you should use. What's really important is answering. Okay. So, you know, we're going to be answering the questions that the big book poses to us and following those directions. How we do it is almost immaterial, but whether we do it is very, very important. So find something that works for you. If you like this form and want to use it, great. If you've got something that works better, that's also cool, too. Yeah. People aren't dying out there from doing the fourth step. They're going to be doing it. They're not dying out there from doing the fourth step improperly. They're dying from not doing it at all, you know. That's absolutely true. Okay. So we've recognized the fact that we're alcoholic. We've fully conceded to our innermost selves. We've come to the conclusion that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. We've made a decision to head toward that power however we possibly can in step three. In step four, we've inventoried where we've fallen short. We've identified the causes and conditions of our failure at life. We've pinpointed a lot of the manifestations of our alcoholism, how our alcoholism presents with resentments and fears and guilt and shame and all the other emotional things. We've recognized a lot of that in step four. The next step is to share this with someone. Now, I've got a couple of experiences. One of the first experiences was when I first went through the steps. Now, this is North Jersey, 1990. Okay. So that's all I'm ‑‑ that's the only area I'm going to be criticizing. But what was going on in that area in 1990 was there was no one with really any clue as far as the mechanicals of the steps. There were ‑‑ you know, there weren't forms like this. There was ‑‑ maybe there was a Hazelton handout or something, you know, which was generic. It was for sex addicts and tower snipers and, you know, everything. It wasn't necessarily an Alcoholics Anonymous four step. It was for anything and everything. And it was incredibly confusing and long winded. So I didn't use that. But when it came time for me to do a four step and then a fifth step, I didn't have much of a clue. I didn't have much direction. Basically what my sponsor told me when I asked him how do you do a four step, he said, Chris, you do it with a pencil. Okay. And I'm like, thanks for that. So what I did was I went home and I did the best I could. Okay. I realized later he didn't know how to do a four step. That's why he used a one liner like that on me. So what do you do? You go to the 12 and 12 because they have a chapter on step four. Don't they? Wouldn't that make sense to you to go to the fourth chapter in the 12 and 12 where they talk about the four step? So that's what I did. I read that chapter. And it confused me even more because it was talking about the seven deadly sins. And I know I had 14 of them. You know? And it talked about all kinds of other stuff. And what I ended up doing was the absolute best I could do, which was like a half of a life story with some of the dirty little things that I had never admitted to anybody. And some of the patterns of my character defects. And I went and I did the fifth step. You know? Called up my sponsor and said, I'm coming over. And I remember, you know, I was very ashamed of all this stuff. I had it, you know, I had a pile of papers. And it was underneath the spare tire in the trunk of my car just in case anybody would find it. And I remember, you know, I sat there and I read this stuff. I read this stuff to my sponsor. And when I got there. I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. And when I got done with it, it was probably the first time in many, many years, if ever, that I started to feel like I was a member of the human race. Up until that point in time, I really thought I was a scumbag. I was an unredeemable scumbag. Now, I wasn't just a run of the mill scumbag. I was a special scumbag. I wasn't a scumbag like you, you know. But I was. You know how you have this self-esteem, bizarre self-esteem stuff going on. And, you know, I really thought I was irredeemable. I mean, I had done some bad things. But by the time I got done reading them all to my sponsor and he was, you know, he was throwing sticks to his dog like it didn't even affect him. I started to think, you know, maybe this isn't, you know, maybe I'm not evil. Maybe I've just been caught up in something. And he verified it with me when he said, Chris, here's what I believe. I believe that you were an alcoholic before you even drank. You were like a campfire with like glowing red coals. And when you're 13, you get your first bottle of booze, it's like throwing gasoline on that campfire. It flared up and it burnt you and everybody close to you. And he goes, you've got to understand that right now what you're doing is you're trying to put that fire out. There's a whole lot of alcohol. There's a whole lot of alcoholics out there and there's only a small amount of them that are really trying to do something about improving their life. And you're one of them. So why don't you lighten up a little bit on yourself? And I started to feel like, you know, I was a part of the human race and I wasn't that bad of a person. And it was a significant event for me. Now, it was not a big book four step that I did that first time. The next time I did a fifth step with my sponsor, I had done a big book fourth step. I had gotten the Joe and Charlie tapes and I'd listen to them and I'd open the big book and I'd really tried to do it right. Still, there was nobody in North Jersey that was doing this stuff. There was one guy, Howard Gee. But because he would come into the meetings with a big book, people would like warn you away from him. Here comes Howard. He's got the big book. You know, like he's got the clap. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? And it was like, whoa, whoa, don't sit next to him. You know, I mean, it was just it was really, really bad. So he was like the only guy. But anyway, I did it the way I understood it from the tapes. I did it the way that I understood it from the big book this time. And I did the best I could. And I remember showing up at my sponsor's house and he takes a look at what he goes. What are all these columns for? Where's your story? I mean, you know, that's just. What was going on in North Jersey at that time? But, you know, I started reading and I started reading my resentment inventory. Then I read my fear inventory. Then I read my arms to other inventory. And that was a significant. The first fifth step I did was basically confessional. I confessed stuff I already knew. I didn't discover any truth about my stock and trade that I didn't already know because all I was writing down was stuff I knew. Because all I was writing down was stuff I already had and already knew in my head. But when I started to do the big book four step, I discovered truth about myself. I discovered what was going on. And that was a completely different experience when I shared that with my sponsor. It was freeing at a level I just I had never, never really realized. Now, one of the problems with the spiritual life is. We have attitudes and we have belief systems before we get into it. And we know. Okay. We've never done a four step, but we know what that's like and what that's going to do. We know. Okay. We've got preconceived, you know, prejudice, perspectives and opinions on everything. And it's very, very difficult to convince a newcomer that they need to move through this work because they know that can't possibly be the solution for their problem. Right. And, you know, for one reason or another, I just decided to do it this way, you know, and it wasn't out of any sense of virtue. I didn't want to be a better AA member. What I wanted to do is I wanted to stop feeling bad. Because one of the ways alcoholism manifests is it manifests in emotional pain. It presents with in depression, anxiety, guilt, shame, remorse, self-centered fear. That's how untreated alcoholism presents. And I had become convinced at least to a certain degree that the answer was in the 12 steps. And I found that that's absolutely true. The 12 steps treat the unmanageability. They treat the emotional, psychic and spiritual dysfunction that goes on in our minds. That's what the steps are for. And that's where the healing comes in. So when I get done with the fifth step, when I had done it the way it was basically instructed to do in this book, it was incredibly freeing. And all of a sudden, power started to flow into me. And I started to be able to do a whole lot of things. In a very short period of time, I was sponsoring like 50 guys. You know, I'm not recommending that. As a matter of fact, I had some bad experiences with it when I started to sponsor psychopaths. But I had four psychopaths in a row this one time. But, you know, be that as it may, they should have been in Psychopaths Anonymous, I think, is what their problem was. But, you know, be that as it may, what happened was all of a sudden, all of a sudden, things started to happen. I started to get promoted at work. My family started to call me up and ask me like, well, what do you think? It had been an awful long time since people in my family called me up to ask me what I thought. You know? They didn't want to hear from me. If I started to tell them what I thought, they'd just tell me to shut up. Shut up. We don't want to hear what, you know? You know what I mean? You're living in a car, you know? You know what I mean? So anyway. So anyway. It was a great experience. Now, here's the thing that a lot of people don't understand. Without a fourth and a fifth step experience, I don't believe recovery is possible. Not the type of recovery that's offered in Alcoholics Anonymous. Not the type of spiritual awakening that comes as the result of steps that you take. Now, if you've got a sponsee or somebody who's balking, or if you're balking on the fifth step, I don't see why I've got to do that. They told me never to admit to nothing, even if they got you on video. You know? I mean, if you're one of those people, I want to read some things in this book that you may find or you may not find convincing. There are unbelievable warnings about not doing this and not doing it to the best of your ability. All right. This is just some excerpts from Chapter 6. We usually find a solitary self-appraisal insufficient. So, if we've done a fourth step and we think we've got it now and we don't really need to share this, they found through their experience back in the day, a solitary self-appraisal was insufficient. Then it says, if we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. That's an important warning sign, especially for somebody like me, who to drink is to die. If I would have kept drinking another six months, I probably would have had a heart attack in the DTs. I would have had a heart attack in the DTs. I probably, I might have killed myself. Do you know that alcoholics are something like 40 to 60 times more likely to take their own lives through suicide than non-alcoholics? Why do you think when you're applying for life insurance, the first thing they ask you is, have you had treatment for alcoholism? You know? Because they know they've got to charge you a little bit more, you know, for the suicide part. Trying to avoid this humbling experience. They've turned to easier methods. Almost invariably they got drunk. What does invariably mean? It means like almost without variation. They had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness, and honesty in the sense that we find it necessary until they had told someone else all their life story. Okay, and what happens when we don't do a fifth step? He is under constant fear and tension and that makes for more drinking. Then it says we must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world. What if that sentence is true? What if that sentence is really true? Because I got to tell you, from my experience, this big book has a lot more truth in it than not. If we're not entirely honest with about everything with someone, we may not expect to live long. Or be happy in this world. Now here are some instructions. Rightly and naturally we think well before we choose the person or persons with whom to take this intimate and confidential step. This book was written when there really was only a couple of AA groups and they expected that this book would be mailed out and people would find mail order recovery from alcoholism. They really thought that when this was written. In actual experience, they found that alcoholism was a very common phenomenon in the world. They found that it's best passed on from one person to another. Because this is a textbook, it's important that it be taught rather than just mailed to somebody. There were recoveries from people getting this book in the mail, but they were very rare. Almost always one alcoholic would show up with this book or with the recovery process and take somebody through it for there to become a recovery. So it's important to have a group or an AA area or group to start. But what they're telling us in this book is who to look for. You want to find a closed mouth. That means somebody that will take this in confidence. You know, you want some, you want to, sometimes you even want to talk about it before you share this stuff. Hey, you know, this is a, this is a fifth step. This is going to be in confidence, right? This is between us. It needs to be somebody who will keep it in confidence and understand. And not try to change your plans. It talks about maybe going to your parents. Or maybe to go into a friend. Today, you can't shake a stick without being able to hit somebody who's experienced enough to hear a fifth step. So it's not really that much of a challenge anymore finding the person. I would say what you want to do is you want to find someone who's experienced with this. Who's done a fourth and a fifth step. Who's heard fifth steps before. And you want to do that because they'll be able to share in a unique way. An alcoholic who has a common problem and a common solution can be sometimes a little bit more helpful than maybe a psychiatrist or a priest. And, you know, it does say that, you know, if you have the type of religion where you have confession, you must share it with a priest. So I would say, I would say if you're a practicing Catholic, share it with a priest. Share it with a priest. And share it with a sponsor. Because it says, we think rightly about the person or persons we are going to share this information with. So you can share it with more than one person. I've got some experience doing a multiple fifth step. I've got some bad experience with it. And I've got some good experience with it. One day, I decided that I was going to share a fifth step with one of my sponsees, one of my friends, and one of his sponsees. And I sat down there. And I shared my fifth step with three other guys. All guys who had done this work before. And they literally beat me bloody. I mean, well, what do you mean by that? Isn't it true? And, you know, could it possibly be? And they just went after me. And when I got done with that fifth step, you know, I was chirping like a squirrel. I mean, they had roughed me up. And, you know, I was humble. I was right size. And it was a real honor. And it was a really, really good experience for me. You know, I recognize the fact that, you know, my mind is still trying to take control. My mind is still trying to minimize my alcoholism. And I'm still not really, really trying to the best of my ability to apply these principles in my life. And I recognize that from this multiple fifth step. And then one of the people that was in the fifth step started talking about all the stuff I was sharing. And one day my wife is getting her hair cut. And the barber starts talking about stuff on my fifth step that he had heard from somebody who heard it from somebody about some other woman. Which was not much to my consternation, you know. Oh, man. So, you know, I had some bad experience with it. And I had some good experience. And I will tell you this. The person that broke my fifth step confidence, it hurt him more than it really hurt me. Anyway, it says here that we are engaged on a life and death errand on this fifth step. A life and death errand. That's strong language. So I would pose this for your consideration. Is it possible that you are supposed to get back together? Is it possible that you are supposed to get drunk if you don't go through the first five steps? Is it possible that you are supposed to? You ever have somebody come into a meeting, a discussion meeting, raise their hand and say, I don't know what happened. I got drunk. You know, I stopped going to meetings and I got drunk. I don't understand. I don't know what happened. Well, you were supposed to get drunk, you moron. You know what I mean? You stopped going to meetings. You stopped working the steps. You have no service ethic. It's all about you. Everything is about you. And you got drunk. You're supposed to get drunk. You know, how about that? And, you know, sometimes we're just so, we worry about people's feelings so much. Like, oh, you know, you'll do better next time. Just keep coming. You know, sometimes that kind of stuff will kill people. I needed to get active. I needed to get busy. And I didn't need somebody minimizing my life and death errand, you know, by not wanting to hurt my feelings. You know, today, really, when I'm working with somebody, I would much rather step on their feelings than their grave. And you know what? I will tell them the truth as I see it. And if they are falling short on the spiritual program, I let them know it. And if they disappear, I let them know it. And if they disappear from meetings, they get an exit interview from me. What that exit interview is, is it's basically a phone call. And I call them up and I say, you know, you're not, you don't have any service commitments. Yeah. You know, you haven't been doing any step work at all. As far as I know, no prayer or meditation. Yeah. And you're not, I don't see you at meetings anymore. Yeah. Well, you do know you're going to get drunk. And alcoholism over any considerable period of time always gets worse. It never gets better. You do know that, right? Well, thanks for sharing that, you know. And I mean, that's my exit interview with people. Because, you know, people come and go. People come and go through this fellowship. How many people have you, especially the long timers, how many people have you seen cycle through Alcoholics Anonymous? You know, I save group membership lists from the home groups I'm at. And every once in a while, I'll pull them out. And I'll say, how many people are still around? You know, it's usually 5% of the people from the meetings back in the 90s are still around. And I believe, I believe that you can't, you don't have the power to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't think it's a choice. I don't think we consciously choose, I'm just not going to go to meetings anymore. I think it's a bigger issue than that. What I think is, is you don't have the power to stay in Alcoholics Anonymous unless you're participating in your recovery. Participating in your recovery process enough. In other words, you have to give, you have to give a lot to the Alcoholics Anonymous process to be able to get back enough from Alcoholics Anonymous to be able to stay. Does that make any sense? And if you're not participating at a sufficient level, you're not going to get enough power and enough enthusiasm from Alcoholics Anonymous to want or be able to stay. And you'll find other things to do. You'll find, you'll be back on prime time TV or something. And then, and then you know what? You get drunk and you come back into meetings, I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. And then somebody points you to like me or Charlie because you're hardcore. You're like a, you're like a multiple relapser. You should go talk to those guys. And then we get them. You know, right, right Charlie? The knuckleheads. No. We pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. And then there's a series of promises, a wonderful series of promises here. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Remember what I told you about when I was drinking by myself up in the room in my mother's house while I'm 32? You know, living with mom. I'm up there. I've got the TV on, the stereo on, a magazine in front of me. A guitar on my lap. You know, talking on the phone, eating. You know, I can't be alone at perfect peace and ease. I don't know what perfect peace and ease is. The fifth step gives us sometimes the first glimpse in a very long time or forever of what peace and ease is about. You know, you add up all these promises and you're going to come up with an absolute unbelievable deal. You know, absolutely unbelievable. You know, as alcoholics having a progressively fatal illness that over any considerable period of time gets worse, it doesn't get better, we get a deal like Alcoholics Anonymous where if we just do these wonderful God-given 12 steps, stay consistent with a fellowship of people that we grow to love and then find ways to be of service and service brings about deep levels of happiness anyway, that is the best deal that anyone would ever want. That's the best deal. That's the best deal that anyone with a progressively fatal illness ever is going to get ever. The crazy thing is that there are people who get exposed to this recovery process who walk away from it. Isn't that unbelievable? Before I go into 6 and 7, you want to share anything on fire? Well, he offered, Katie. Katie and I do some big, big workshops together and we are constantly fighting over the microphone. This is a conversation with her. The two of us started in the middle of the conversation. Oh, wow. I just want, I love what you said. That was great stuff. You know, and a couple of just little scatter shot points as we were going through. There's one line where it says, we explain to our partner what we are about to do and why we have to do it. For a long time, I had never given any thought to that line. What am I trying to do? And why, why do I have to do it? You know? that are blocking me from God. That's what this whole exercise is about. And I like taking that awareness into it. I'm going, what am I about to do and why am I having to do it? Because it's my only shot. I love what you said about, should I be drunk? There's a meeting I go to on Monday nights sometimes where they have the person close with a promise. They say, Chris, you're going to get to close tonight with the promise of your choice. Well, I started noticing that everybody likes all the little happy promises, you know, about we feel the nearness of our creator. Well, then I started reading ones. They called me. I was like, here's one. For if an alcoholic failed to perfect and enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice at others, he would not be able to survive the certain trials and low spots ahead. And it talks about, there's another place where it talks about the insanity of drink returns and, you know, alcoholism returns and we drink again. And I go, and that's a promise. You know, I mean, but it's like, the book has negative promises. They're more like guarantees. The book tells me what will happen if I take these actions. It also tells me what will happen if I don't take these actions. If I'm a real alcoholic, I don't get to just laugh off these little negative promises, you know. So I had a spot seek call just a couple of days and I had done three exit interviews where this guy, where I would talk this guy off the cliff, you know, and he'd lay there on his couch and he'd look and he'd go, oh, it's Charlie, you know, and put the phone back down. Well, finally he would answer the phone and I would go, you know, your disease, you know, I was like, it's all over you. You're just not drinking yet. You know, I said, the first thing it's going to do is separate you from your support group. It's going to take you away from your support fellowship. You're going to get away from any disciplines. You're not going to be doing any service work. You're going to stop talking to me and you're going to stop talking to me. You're going to stop talking to me. You're going to stop talking to our whole crew because Chad was calling him, I'm calling him, and he'd go, oh, man, you know, thank you so much for calling. This is what I always do. You know, thank you, and then he'd disappear again. You know, and we talked him off the edge of the cliff about three times and finally he'd get to the point where Mark used to say, I'm not going to work harder at it than the new guy's willing to work at it. And finally he'd get to the point where he'd go, okay, dude, why don't you just keep doing what you always do then, you know, and see if you don't get what you always got. And he left me a voicemail about, you know, the strangest thing. In fact, Chad sponsored him. And, you know, Chad sent it out in the email going, strangest thing, he stopped working the steps and he started getting loaded again. I've never seen anything like it. You know, but he left me a message going, well, I started, you know, last Wednesday. And he almost said, I don't know what happened. And you could hear him go, oop! You know, because that's the way I'm talking to Charlie. I know exactly what happened, you know. You know, I mean, but it's good. It's good to give him that clarity of like, here's what you're doing. You can't see it, but we can, you know. I think it's interesting to point out that we don't, this one promise here that Katie's fond of, it says we begin to feel the nearness of our creator. It doesn't promise me that after the third step. It promises me that. It says we may begin to have a spiritual experience in the third step, but in the fifth step is where it's saying we start to feel the nearness of our creator. That's, the only other thing, that I wanted to talk about is over on, when it says we're delighted, if you go back to page 64 in the first new paragraph, it says one object is to disclose damaged or unsaleable goods to get rid of them promptly and without regret. And it says if the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values. Because when I'm inventorying all this stuff, this business is taking regular inventory. If I'm not, I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. If I'm not careful, I got the little store where I'm going, oh, I got these awesome 8-track tape players, you know, back here on the shelf. You know, and I can't fool myself that these are terrific 8-track, because nobody wants to buy them, you know. And if I'm really cashed, if I'm really all in on this process, there's no reason I wouldn't be delighted to get rid of the stuff that's blocking me, you know. It's just that I can't have false ideas about what we're doing, you know. It's, it's funny how you bring up in a regular discussion, meeting, oh, I'm doing a fourth step, and everybody's like, oh, you know. And it's like, but if I really believe this has something to do with whether I drink vodka or not, why wouldn't I be excited about removing what's facing, what's blocking me from the power, you know. Because that's what's going to send me back into that untreated alcoholism. And those, those bedevilments, have you all, have you all looked at the bedevilments? They're on page 52. And they are available in sobriety. We were having trouble with our personal relationships. It's the second new paragraph. We couldn't control our emotional natures. We were prey to our misery and depression. We couldn't make a living. We had a feeling of usefulness. We were full of fear. We were unhappy. We couldn't seem to be of real help to other people. Was not a basic solution of these bedevilments more important than lunar flight? There it is again, a basic solution. An underlying foundation or principle that's going to take away that manner of living. It's, you know, this, it's a great deal. Chris is going to do six and seven now. All right. All right, we've, oh. When he turns up a little bit, there's something not coming through. On this one? Yeah, maybe you're not close enough. Okay. I got one more thing. The hour after the fifth step. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Is it the hour, is it the fifth step? Is it the sixth step? Is it between? I like to think of it as part of the fifth step. It's a powerful piece of work. If I've brought into this process some awareness of what we're really trying to do. And Mark did an exercise one time with this hour that revolutionized, I think, I mean, it was amazing where he talked about going back and spending a 60-minute hour, you know, thanking God from the bottom of my heart that I know him better. That's a prayer, you know. Have I come out of this with a closer relationship with my Creator? Carefully reading the first five proposals and considering all the implications of those first five proposals. You know, am I convinced, you know, do I believe that I've got this physical allergy coupled with a mental obsession? Do I believe I've got a spiritual malady? Do I believe I've got no shot of doing it on my own? You know, am I convinced? Am I convinced? Am I convinced? Have I made this deal with God in step three, where I'm not, I'm no longer running the show? Do I believe the part of the deal where it says, being all powerful, he'll provide what I need if I stay close to him and perform his work well? I'm considering these steps and all of their implications. What would it look like if I was convinced? What would my life look like? Because we are people that get out of treatment and we start acting like somebody that's almost powerless. You know, if I believe I'm powerless, you don't need to listen to what comes out of my mouth. Watch my feet and you'll see, does he act like a guy that believes that he's powerless? Or does he act like a guy that still thinks he's got some power over the disease? Because I get out and after a little while, I start getting more interested in what we call the AA holy trinity. It's the job, the car, the girlfriend, you know? And there's a cell phone in there somewhere, you know? But, you know, or do I look like a guy that's convinced that if I don't stay in this work, I've got no shot, you know? And so. I really think that that hour after the fifth step is not something we just phone in, you know? We don't just go home and, you know, think about the book for a while. I mean, you know, there's real work, you know? Have I omitted anything? For I'm building an arch through which I'll walk a free man. Is my work solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have I skimped? You know, and there's a lot of masonry observations throughout the book. I've got them marked out, but it's not worth going, I don't want to go into it right now. But that hour is a significant piece of work. And, you know, when the person has come right out of a fifth step, I like to send them home with a real exercise. Because if this fourth step process has been done in the fifth step, I do a lot of the fourth column with the guy in the fifth step, because he may or may not be able to see his part in all this stuff. After pounding a few knuckleheads through this process, it's pretty easy to start seeing selfish, dishonest, inconsiderate, fearful, afraid, you know. Well, he's going to carry some real awareness into the six and seven now, so that, and that's what Chris is getting ready to talk about. You know, in that returning home, sometimes I'll tell the guys that I'm working with that, you know, I'm available. I have my cell phone. When you go, they don't necessarily always return home. Sometimes they go to a shrine or a church or a meditation area, and they do the upon return. They do the upon return. They do the upon return. I'm not an attorney home, but I always make sure that I'm available for them in case they do come up with something. Yeah, I did forget to tell you this. Or maybe they get a little bit more courage to be completely honest in the hour afterward, in the quiet hour. Another thing I sometimes do in a fifth step, if I see somebody's really nervous when they're coming over to do the fifth step, I'll basically say something like this, okay, let's start with the thing that you're trying to figure out how not to tell me. Okay. You know, we'll start with that first. Anyway, we've shared this inventory. We've learned a lot in the fourth step. We've shared it with somebody. We've shared it with God. We've admitted it. Now we're at a place where we need to become willing to have these defects of character removed. And at the end of the fifth step, it's a really good time. At the end of the quiet hour, it's a really good time because I think you're as close to being willing to have these character defects removed as you've probably been in a long time. You have seen how the manifestations of self have directly caused your problems in life. You've noticed all this. So basically, you're willing to have these things removed. But from my experience, from my experience, there's, there's different levels of that willingness. There's different places that we come to. This is one of the reasons why I believe in multiple, multiple inventories, multiple fifth steps because I think that we do get to different places in our lives at different periods of time. I could only see what I could see when I, when I did that fifth step with my sponsor after going through this book. I could only see what I could only see. You know, I wasn't ready to see everything maybe. And some of the things I might be fooling myself about, I might be fooling myself because I'm trying to hang on to them, like, okay, let's look at some of these defects of character. You know, do I want selfishness removed? Yeah, sure, I want selfishness removed. Well, let's look at some of the other character defects. Well, how about lust? You want lust removed. Well, hold on. You know, if, if, if, if God removes lust, I may never get laid again. You know, we, we need to back up. You know, or how about, how about if you're, how about if you're a salesman in a big company, you know? Well, I, you know, I have to be aggressive and I have to be out, you know, I've, I've got to, I've got to be real pushy because I'm in sales, you know? Well, you know, maybe you're not willing or not ready to have God remove all of your character defects. I love, I love the story that, that Sandy Beetz talks about in this step because it makes so much sense to me. Little Johnnies. It's, it's about, it's about 6 o'clock at night. All of a sudden he starts to get a toothache. And the toothache is, is starting to hurt him pretty bad. Now, Little Johnny knows that if he goes to his mother, his mother will crush up some, some, some baby aspirin, you know, put it, you know, have him take the aspirin and, and you know, the toothache will go away and everything will be fine. But Little Joey doesn't say nothing. He doesn't want anybody to know what's going on until about 11 o'clock that night. He's laying in bed. And it's hurting so bad he has to go down and he has to tell his mother. And sure, and sure enough his mother crushes up some baby aspirin, gives it to him. And you know, after about a half an hour the pain goes away and he goes to sleep. Now, why didn't Joey go to his mother right away? Because he knew that the, the, the toothache would go away. But a phone call would be placed to Dr. Mengele, the dentist. You know what I mean? And the next day he'd be in a chair with, with, with drills and smoke and suction tubes. And he'd be in a chair with a lot of devices and cotton and, you know, crying, you know, spitting blood, you know. So he doesn't, he doesn't want to, he doesn't want to say anything. Now, why, you know, he just wants the pain to go away. He knows that tomorrow, though tomorrow he's going to go to the dentist, he's going to come out of there with perfect teeth. He didn't want perfect teeth. He just wanted the pain to go away. And so often that's the way we look at our character defects. We just want the pain to go away. We don't want to be perfect people. Okay? We're not, we don't, we're not running for saint of the year. But the, but the issue is, is our willingness. We have to, we have to try to get toward perfect willingness. Because it's perfect help that's out there. It's divine help that's out there for us. I believe, I believe that these character defects are bigger than me. If I could have done something about these character defects, I probably would have done a better job in the past. Now there's another line in the 12 and 12 that says, God will not render you white as snow without your cooperation. So yes, I need to cooperate in the removal of these character defects. But that does not necessarily mean I have power over them. I wouldn't, the book wouldn't say become ready to have God remove these defects of character and then humbly ask God to remove these defects of character. If you could remove them. But you need to participate in their removal. Okay? In step seven it says, the original reading of step seven from the original manuscript was, humbly on our knees, ask God to remove these defects of character holding nothing back. That was the original reading in the original manuscript. And you know, when Bill showed that to a couple people, they said, you got to calm down, Bill. You know, that's pretty, you know, you're going to have alcoholics throwing the book out the window. But I understand what he was saying. You know, we need to come to this humbly. We need to humbly ask God to remove these defects of character. I want to tell you about my last detox. And this directly rolls into what I'm talking about here in six and seven. I had been on a blackout. I had been on a blackout. It started, it started somewhere before Christmas of 1989. I was drinking Johnny Walker Black because that was my Christmas drink. Did anybody have a Christmas liquor, you know, that they specially drank on Christmas? Mine was Johnny Walker Black and I drank a couple of bottles of it. And I don't remember much because it was a multi-day blackout. I got very, very violent. You know, I was at my mother's house. My brother and sister were there. Nieces, nephews, family animals. You know, there were presents under. There were the tree and Christmas carols, you know, on the stereo. And the stockings were hung by the chimney with care. And I went into a violent, violent, drunken blackout where I threatened to kill my family. I was going to kill all of them. You know, I had a resentment. I'm going to kill all of you. Merry Christmas. And, you know, this wasn't the festive type of atmosphere they were all looking for, you know. So they picked up their Christmas and they took it elsewhere, thank you. And I killed all of them. And they killed, like, all of us. However, the 18 days and the praises, you know, of my mom at the time, 200 years, where I was 13 that we left home on sickness. 223 years and 242 years. Yeah, I tried to get up. So I disconnected. And I called my mom, my sister. And she said, well, I'm with you. And so I volunteered. My last each and verb may have been with police but it was when I was 18 and I was inل gates of jesu and bitch and funk about what was going to happen. I thought at the very moment I was plucked from a bar and she was exhausted. Yeah. because I was convulsing. There was maggots all over me and there was little animals running around and there was big animals on the outside of the house scratching to get in. It was actually tree branches, but, but, but, you know, big animals. And I'm freaking, I'm freaking out, you know, just freaking out. And this goes on for like two or three, two or three days. And, and the worst part was I was laying on the couch filled with maggots and all of a sudden a demon came out of the ceiling. It was like one of those monitor. It was like a big bullhead with the big horns. It was the devil incarnate coming out of the ceiling, just coming down to eat my face. Okay. And I'm, I'm conscious. Okay. I'm like hallucinating. And I remember going, God help me. You know, like God help me from like the depths of my soul and the thing disappeared. And I haven't had a drink. Since you understand what I'm saying, you know, I cried out from a place of humility and desperation. And I believe that that, that prayer was answered. I think that when we come toward our character defects, I think we need to engage a little bit of that surrender, a little bit of that desperation, a little bit of that humility. When we ask God to remove these defects, we need to engage a little bit of that surrender, a little bit of that desperation, because I believe prayers like that are answered. Now, how else do we need to participate in the removal of our character defects? You know, cause, cause I got, I got to tell you, if you're one of those guys that just want, want to, you're working on your character defects, you know, I'm working on them. Working on your character defects is like playing whack-a-mole. You ever, you ever play whack-a-mole? Like you got the mallet and the mole on your face. You know, you got the mallet and the mole pops up and you try to whack it and you're whacking one mole and another mole is popping up. You know what I mean? You know, working on your character defects is whacking the mole. All right. And, and, you know, my sponsor told me one time, Chris, you keep whacking the mole, you could go blind. So, well, well, maybe one eye. Anyway, I believe that we have to engage this power. It's all about the power greater than ourselves. Let's engage this power in this, in this lifelong job of character defect removal and growing in understanding and effectiveness and spiritual living and trying to become as effective an agent of God's will as we possibly can. Because therein lies the power of God. And I'm not saying that we can't do that. I'm not saying that we can't do that. I'm not saying that we can't do that. I'm not saying that we can't do that. I'm not saying that we can't do that. I'm not saying that we can't do that. The solution to our alcoholism and therein lies true happiness in our lives. You know, I've seen it a million times. And all we really need to do is participate in this stuff. It's the best deal out there. That's all I got. Well, that's great. So, you know, I'm gonna let Chris continue with eight and nine. But, you know, the funny thing about having these defects removed and I don't know. Am I the only one that thinks that God is gonna jip me a little bit? You know, I mean, it's funny because I've got nothing to indicate that he's gonna screw me. But there's just a part of me that thinks that I can get myself a little bit better deal than God's gonna give me. And so, you know, there's a part of me that just goes, oh, I can't let go of all dishonesty. You know, I mean, and because there's something, I mean, not with the IRS, for God's sakes, you know, or insurance companies or, you know, I mean, this was and, you know, about a while back, several years, I went all in on the deal. And because I was at 17 years sober, I had my most significant spiritual awakening around 17 or 18 years of sobriety. And I had hit the wall with self-will at four and a half years and backed off and ran back at self-will again. You know, when it says, you know, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna do that. And so, you know, I started doing that. And so, you know, I started doing some little things. What usually happens is the show didn't come off very well. He decides to exert himself more on the next occasion. And I hit the wall with self-will at seven years. And I thought I was up against the failure of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. What I didn't know was that I was up against the failure of self-will. And so what I did was I turned more into self-will. And I actually pulled away from the program for several years and thought, I've tried it your way. Now I'm gonna get mine. And I, you know, I started, you know, forget rigorous honesty and that sort of thing. I started doing some little things. And I started doing some little things. And I started doing some little things at work and some little things with the IRS. And it was just years of those bedevilments being all over me in sobriety. And when I hit the wall again, finally, I was in a plane crash in 2003. And I almost died. And an experience like that will make you look at things differently. We crashed into the water at night out on eastern Long Island. And I mean, it was, it was no, I mean, Earl Hightower type of deal. But it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was, it was pretty darn dramatic, you know, for me. And I started looking at things differently. And I came back in, I took a new look at this work. And I actually went all in where I was like, I am really gonna do this deal where I, what if I tried, really believe in the deal where it says, being all powerful, he'll provide what I need. If I stay close to him and perform his work well. I'm liable to cry like a little girl in a pink dress up here. You know, I ride Harleys and all that stuff. But when I start looking back on the way God works, I mean, it's like, I can't stop it. Ever since then, when I say God's doing a pretty kick ass job of holding up his end of the deal, it's an understatement like crazy, because I'm flush for the first time in my life, I'm happier than I've ever been. I'm in the best relationship I've ever been in. I used to spend all my time around work, I used to spend all my time around work, I used to spend all my time around work, and trying to make money, and I was constantly overdrawn. Now it seems like I spend half my time working with drunks, and I'm flush for the first time in my life. You know, now I'm not saying, you know, that there's a direct equivalent there, but I mean, it's going pretty darn good, you know, and, you know, but so you start developing more and more faith that God's really not gonna jip me, you know, it's almost like God is up there going, dude, I got the Bellagio buffet ready. I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna go to the gym, I'm gonna go to the gym, here for you, and you're down there fighting over crumbs, you know, if you would just get out of the way, you go over and work with a new guy long enough for me to do my work over here, you'll be amazed at what happens, but I'm over there like that, what is that little squirrel in Ice Age, you know, the one that won't let go of that acorn, you know, and, you know, and so getting to that place in six and seven where I'm entirely ready to have God remove these defects, the character and and and not you know why do we always go to well if i do that god's going to put me in one of those little white gauze outfits with a bullhorn down on the corner or something you know i mean it's like you know i just and it's funny i think there's two surrenders just to recap a little bit for me rolls there's two surrenders in alcoholics anonymous in my mind at least two the first one is a surrender to alcohol and whatever outside issues are killing me when i get here and that one is pretty easy to make because it comes fresh off an ass whipping you know i mean when we show up here it's not easy it's not that hard for me to surrender but the second surrender and the one that sometimes takes a long time or sometimes never happens is that surrender to self-will that that belief that i can get myself a little better deal than this power is going to get me and that a lot of us have to be beat up pretty badly you know and i love what you know Chris said about looking back at that marriage. I had a marriage blow up where if you'd asked me then what happened, I would have said, well, she fooled around on me, and I don't roll like that, you know, or something like that, you know. You ask me now what happened, I think I would say there was a level of self-centeredness in that marriage that would have driven anybody away from me. You know, I mean, when you talk about being ready to look at it from an entirely different angle, it's amazing the growth that comes out of this stuff. And now I'm really looking forward to Chris rolling into the eighth step, but now we've been going an hour. Can you all go a little while longer? And then we'll take a break after about another 20 minutes or so. I want to just point out that, well, I don't want Chris to point it out. What were you going to point out? I'll point it out for you. Well, I just wanted to talk about how when you get into the amends process, the bulk of the advice you're going to get in the rooms of alcoholic synonymous, in my experience, is geared towards not having to make the amends. I agree. You know? I agree. You know, I mean, you can get support out there for not making just about any amends there is. And we had an eighth step meeting at a group I go to at home, and I said, I had a sponsor there, and I said, you watch this. And at the end, he was like, I wouldn't have believed it if you hadn't have told me. I mean, at one point in the meeting, I was going, does anybody have any experience with making direct amends to somebody? You know, because my faith, well, I don't want to go too far ahead. I'll tell you later about the living amends thing. What Charlie says is absolutely true. You want somebody to co-sign your participation in a half measure program, you can find it out there. You know, one of the things that I recommend to anyone is when you're looking for a sponsor, find a sponsor who really has actual working knowledge of the 12 steps, working experience. You know, you're not going to be able to just do it with the 12 steps. Now, I've got to tell you, this is what it was like when I started moving into my ninth step after listening to the Joe and Charlie tapes and being in the North Jersey sharing your way sober meetings. There would be a ninth step meeting at a 12 and 12 meeting. There would be a ninth step meeting. And somebody would raise their hand and they'd share something like, well, you know, I haven't done this step formally, but I'm going to take this meeting hostage for the next 10 minutes, and I'm going to go on what it might be like if I ever did decide to do this step. All right. And everybody would be like, yay, you know. I want him for a sponsor, you know. And then every once in a while, somebody would raise their hand and say something like, well, you know, I'm on my ninth step and I'm almost done, and I just got back from California, had six amends out there. I'd like to share a little bit about how that experience went. And everybody would go. You know what I mean? Everybody would be like, who's this guy, you know, making me look bad. They were serious about this amends stuff when they put this book together. A great word to put in front of step eight and step nine should be actually. Actually became, you know, actually, you know, went out and made direct amends. You know, actually became willing to make direct amends. Where are these? We're talking about the removal of character defects. We were talking about that a few minutes ago. The best possible atmosphere to be in for the removal of your character defects is to become willing to make direct amends to the people and institutions that those character defects have harmed, and then to actually go out and make amends where those defects of character have harmed. I'll give you a quick story. I sponsored this guy, and he was just, he was great. He was from. He was from inner city. I mean, a tough guy, you know, half, half connected. And he's getting, he's getting, getting clean and sober, and I'm sponsoring him. And one day, you know, we're in a, we're in a 7-Eleven, and I see him, I see him grab a pack of gum and put it in his pocket. I'm like, you know, we're, we're, we're outside, and I'm like, you just stole a pack of gum. And he goes, no, I didn't. I go, I go, I saw you take a pack of gum, you know, off the shelf and put it in your pocket. And he goes, he goes, that's all the stuff that's in. Front. I go, what do you mean? He goes, yeah, that stuff's in front. They expect you to take it. They've got, they got budgets for that. He's trying, he's trying to tell me they got budgets for it. I go, I go, I go, how long have you been doing that? He goes, since I was a kid. I go, you, so you've been, you've been petty theft thing. Like every single time you go into a 7-Eleven, he goes, pretty much. So now this individual. This individual went, this individual, the last week of his using, he was drinking about a quart of whiskey a day. And he was on literally 30 to 40 Percocets a day. I mean, the guy was really in bad shape. He, it took, it took like three months just to detox this guy. So he was serious about the recovery stuff. So I told him, I go, you know, if you're working with me, I'm going to expect you to make amends for that. And what he did was he put a list of all of these 7-Elevens and all of these, these little stores. And he came up in his mind with, you know, some kind of figure about how much it could have or would have been. And he had a lot of money. He was, he was a big, he was a petty theft, big contractor, which didn't make much sense to me. The guy was making millions and he was stealing gum. But, but he went around and he started making amends at all of these 7-Elevens, direct amends. And he made, he made 50 or 75 amends to these. To these, these small stores. Now let me ask you a question. You think he still steals gum? He's cured of that, all right? The best possible atmosphere you can be in for the removal of your character defects is to become willing and then actually make direct amends for where those, where those character defects have caused harm. Now, another thing, another thing, like we come into alcoholics. Anonymous with our world on fire. We have blown up our life. I do a lot of 12 step work. I do a lot of getting people into detox, a lot of wet drunk work, a lot of work with relapsers. They're always, they're always being pointed to me. I even, I'm even doing treatment consultant work now, you know, so, so people that are looking for certain types of treatment centers or whatever calling me, because I know the difference between a couple of hundred of them. So I'm involved in this. Okay. Kind of stuff. All.