Step 10 and Personal Inventory – Big Book Study – Part 6 of 8 – Scott L and Matt C

Good morning. Let's open with a fairly long moment of silence and remember why we're here. Serenity prayer. God, And grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can't, and wisdom to know the difference. Let me invite you to stay here this morning mentally. Sometimes it's hard on the last morning and you've got thinking about what's going on in the afternoon and so on. I'm going to stay her as best I can. And sometimes being reminded helps that a lot. We're going to, this morning, I'm going to talk a little bit about Step 10, and then Bob's going to pick it up and talk about Step 11. Begin on page 84. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They're being fulfilled among us, sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They'll always materialize if we, interestingly enough, work for them. And says this thought brings us to Step 10 would suggest we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. And I think the as we go along is the active phrase here, and this is just how I see it today. I may disagree with this next week. To me, step 10 very clearly is differentiated from step 11 by the phrase as we do. As we go along and by the word continue. That step 10 is about me being present in my own life moment by moment. If we take a look at the short form of the step, it says continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong probably admitted it. I'm sorry, promptly admitted it . Okay, I just want to see if you were here. I can't very well promptly admit it if I wait until 1115 tonight to figure out I made a mistake at 7 o'clock this morning. That takes promptly out of it. So step 10 for me is about being present in my own life moment by moment, and for me there's a slogan that applies to that. And the slogan is easy does it. When I'm running Mach 2 with my hair on fire, I don't know when I make these mistakes going along. And I'm still going to miss some, which the evening portion of step 11 is going to pick up. But 10 is about me being here, and I think we're all pretty much aware that Bill worked really hard not to use the same words over and over again. We look at steps 6 and 7, et cetera, and we find the word continue four times in this paragraph. And I think that really tells the story on Step 10, continue. And then it says, we vigorously commenced this way of living as we cleaned up the past. We've entered the world of the Spirit. So you want to know where you enter the world of the spirit? It's when you finish Step 9. That's what it looks like to me. Our next function is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. Boy, we haven't asked me to understand a thing until now. And it's a good idea because I had to take the trash out. I had to get the voices to shut up, to get down to where I felt like I was pretty much alone in here having that committee up there meeting all the time, rat-tat-tat, tat-tat. Which my wife says that committee is actually the voices of my character defects. Yeah. Think about it next time the committee meets and see if they know who that is. Yeah, and it says this is not an overnight matter. It should continue. There's a continue again for our lifetime, continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. There's that list again. And those things are the, I believe, the earmarks of the reemergence of self, that this thing is about getting me out from under the bondage of self. And yet it has a tendency to return. So how am I going to know when it's returning? And the answer is, I'm going to watch for selfishnes. I want what I want, and I don't care whether it hurts you or not. That's what selfish is. Dishonesty, clearly that's me playing God, making the outcome come out the way I think it needs to come out. Resentment, which is just old anger, which is I'm judging people again. And fear, the concern that I won't get my will in the future. So those are the things I watch for that will tell me when I am dealing once again with the reemergence of self. And then it says if these crop up. And that's not what it says, is it? It says when these crop up. This is not an if question. When I was in treatment, I got a lot of help from a really gifted counselor and he said, you've been wondering what you're going to do if somebody offers you a drink, haven't you? And I said, yes. And he said it's the wrong question. It's not what are you going to if somebody offers you drink. The question is what are you going do when? So let's get out of the if business when there's a when coming. So this is when these crop up, what are my instructions? Ask God at once to remove them. Okay, I pray first. Number two, discuss them with someone immediately. That would be my sponsor or spiritual advisor, somebody else that's walking the path. Make amends quickly if we've harmed anyone. That quickly thing. Once again, we're in the present. And then sit down and beat yourself up for not being perfect. Oh, wait. No, I'm sorry. I'm Sorry. That's not what that says. As a matter of fact, I cannot find the direction in the book that tells me to thrash myself. And I think whenever I'm doing that, I'm making a terrible mistake. I believe that there are foundation lessons. And for me, one of the absolute foundation lessons is I got to quit beating me up because nothing good ever comes of it. It gives me the same prescription it's been giving me over and over and again. Then we resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help. Whenever I got a problem, I go back and help you." And then it says, love and tolerance of others is our code. So that's what I'm trying to be, is the guy who has love and tolerance of other. We have ceased fighting anything or anyone, even alcohol. Now that's interesting. Page 103. Last paragraph in italics. After all, our problems were of our own making. There's the good news again. Bottles were only assembled besides we have stopped fighting anybody or anything we have to. I got to get out of the fight. My Uncle Frank used to say, if you can't win, don't play. I can't win. I got to get out of the fight. Back on 84. We've ceased fighting anything and anyone, even alcohol. And then it says, for by this time sanity will have returned. So here's a place where we're promising me sanity. And it is when I have completed step nine, following these directions and am endeavoring to put step 10 into place in my life moment by moment. This, by the way, is what I do with this step when I take someone new through this work. When he's completed nine or he's done everything on nine that he and I both believe needs to be done, there might be we still got a former mother-in-law or somebody we don't think it's time to make that amend yet. I give him a two-week assignment on step 10. I don't like the idea of I'm on 10, 11, and 12. I think that's too blurry. I think these steps are way too important for that. And so I ask him to take a two week focus on step 10. I want them to read it out loud about every other day, look up some words. If you're in a meeting that calls for a topic from the floor, ask them to talk about step 10. Don't do that at the same meeting more than once. If you chair a meeting, topic, step 10, I ask them pick out five men who are not in our recovery lineage and whose programs they admire and go to them and say that, that my sponsor has given me this assignment you're one of those, would you take a few minutes and talk to me about step 10? So we take a two-week focus on this thing. And then at the end of those two weeks I sit down and review it like I'm doing with you here, maybe in a little bit more detail. And then I do the same assignment on step 11. When we get to step 12, I have them buy all the pamphlets. I want them to read all the Pamphlets and to read either AA Comes of Age or Dr. Bob and the Good Old Timers. Most of them read both but I ask them to read one of the AA histories and get a feel for what's going on. And we've got a bunch of pamphlets, let's know what's in them. Because these are things that we can use as tools to help new people. How are we going to help them if we don't know what is in it? So let's go find out. And I want to know what you think about some of those pamphets. There's one or two of them I'm not terribly fond of. I wantto know what they think about these things. So this idea of blurring these things together I think is a mistake and I'll get off of that. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom and be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. If you have my history with that stuff, that would be a sane reaction. We react sanely and normally and we find this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. And Justin came to me yesterday with a question on this. And it's a great question because I was troubled by that for a long time. Because if you've done the things that we've talked about thus far, you will made a tremendous amount of effort. The point is, to take this in context, that effort will not have been focused on your attitude toward booze. It will have been focussed on a spiritual awakening of taking out the trash, digging the trash out of your soul, doing all these other things. But we're not focusing on our attitude towards booze, that doesn't come up in meetings very often. We don't talk about it too often. That's not what it's about. then it says, that is the miracle of it. We're not fighting it. Neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we've been placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our experience. That's how we react so long as we keep AHA in a fit spiritual condition. It got me with a caveat again. And then it say, it is easy to let up on the spiritual program of action and rest on our laurels. The term laurels comes into the English language from, actually from ancient Greece where they, when they had an athletic competition, the winner of the race or the discus or whatever the event was would be given a wreath of laurel which is a vine-like plant and they would weave it and put it around his head and he would wear it as a symbol of his victory. So that's the reference we're making here resting on our laurels is that you know i've done so much good stuff in the past i can just cool it for a while but that won't work now here's another gift from my home group he said this guy my homegirl said now the laurels were worn on the head so if you're resting on your laurel guess where your head is good guess good guess i thought it was a good point um we're headed for trouble if we do for alcohol is a subtle foe we are not cured of alcoholism what we really have is a daily reprieve if you look it up you'll find a reprieves a stay of execution a daily reproof contingent on the maintenance of our spiritual condition i spotted that sentence when i was sober about six months and i thought aha this is the piece this is magic this is what i was looking for I'm going to find out what that spiritual condition is. I'm gonna achieve it and then I'm going to get to do what I've always wanted to do, which is to take the rest of my life off with pay, right? Then I won't have to do anything. I'm always looking for the peace where I won' t have to anything else. I used to find it all the time. I never have here. And I searched literally for months, I think right around six months, trying to find what was that spiritual condition and finally just by mistake I stumbled into it. It's the next sentence. I didn't look there. I was moving a little bit too fast. I was like the guy looking for the diamonds that Bob talks about. I was moved a little but too fast, it says, every day is a day when we must carry the vision of God's will into all of our activities. Every day, I don't get any days off, is the day when we must, there are no musts in the program, and here's another one, we must carry the vision, I think it's the best I can see, of God his will, what would he have me do into all of my activities, no exceptions, There aren't any holds. My mentor, Don, used to say that when he wasn't sure if he should do a thing, he would pray this prayer. God, if I go and do this, will you go with me? You'll get an answer to that one. Yeah. And then here's the second of two 10-step prayers. The first one was on page 84 near the bottom. We ask God at once to remove them. about 10 lines from the bottom and then here's the second 10-step prayer which is sort of a continuous thing it says how can i best serve thee thy will not mine be done and it says these these are thoughts so it's a silent prayer which must go with us constantly i wonder how often that is constantly yeah that's every few days um we can we can exercise our willpower along this line all we wish it is the proper use of the will much has already been said about receiving strength inspiration and direction from him who has all knowledge and power if we have carefully followed directions you know built like directions they soften that up if you've read the original manuscript the word directions appeared more often than here says here's a promise we have begun to sense the flow of his Spirit into us. That's maybe the most powerful promise we got. To some extent, we've become God conscious. We've begun to develop this vital from the Latin meaning life, so vital means necessary to life. For us it does. Developed this vital sixth sense and I sponsored a guy who had six months who said to me looking at that, he said, I believe if I continue to use my other five senses trying to get my own way, I won't develop this vital sixth sense. And I hope I can always hear the new people. Here's a little pearl. Don't let the things that AA brings to you take you away from AA. I'm seeing people do that. Bob's got a story about a guy like that. And this thing about if you spot it, you got it, that's on the positive side too you see good stuff in people maybe you got that too I had heard people talking about that for a long time and there was a guy in my home group that was just but he just grated on me I didn't like the way he breathed I mean just he just risked everything he did bothered me and I kept hearing this if you spot it you got it so I started paying close attention And when he did something that bothered me, I looked in me and found it. I was amazed. And I started following him around like a puppy. And I don't know if I bothered him, but every time he did something that irritated me, I looked at myself and found it. It was amazing how much I grew at his hands. I haven't seen him in a long time. I wish him the best. This is another little short one. I'm going to turn it over to Bob. Prayer is not an opportunity for me to change God's mind. it's not a sales opportunity for me to help God understand the big picture. It's a chance for God to change my mind. And I think that I talk about wanting to develop a relationship with God. If I want to develop an understanding of God, if I want a relationship avec one of you, what do I do? I commit some time to it and then I don't do all the talking. And I think that's one of the reasons meditation is so important. One more quick one, and I'll turn it over to him. For those who are hiding behind the idea that the steps are only suggested, we have good news and bad news. The good news is you're right, they're only suggested. The bad news is those are the only suggestions we got for you because that's where the program happens. Bob?