Step 4 — Moral Inventory – Donna – 2020 New England Big Book Workshop Weekend

we're going to move forward now with our step speakers and, um, Donna and Matt will be joined by Sarah and our first speaker on step four is Donna. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Donna, still a recovered alcoholic and I'm going to focus on resentment. And I believe, uh, Sarah's going to talk about fear and Matt's going to talk about our sex harms inventory because there are three inventories that we go through so that we can see the truth about ourselves. So in step three, I made this decision, um, because I want God to, I'm transferring my thinking over to God and, and in step 10, uh, sanity returns. But at this point I'm, I'm still pretty sick and I'm not clear, uh, of my truth. So I get to discover the truth, not just the lies that I tell myself, uh, all of my life. So I, I do a resentment inventory first and I get to see my belief systems. I get to see all of the things that are stuffed deep down within that are blocking me off from God and blocking me off from others. And when I'm, I was waiting for them to start fighting my two cats. Um, we get to see the things that block us off from God. And because of my controlling and my selfishness and my self-centeredness, um, I had assigned roles to people and I was angry if they didn't live up to them. Um, institutions, I always felt that I was wrongly accused on people were being unfair. So I get a wonderful opportunity and also principles. There are some principles that I couldn't buy into. Uh, I'm glad that Sarah is our Al-Anon speaker because until I went through the work, uh, for Al-Anon, I didn't realize how much a resentment I had towards certain principles. Uh, principles never came up on my hit list first and my three previous inventories. But I saw that I had a big resentment towards forgiveness. I had a big resentment against letting go. So in all things, this is, uh, spiritual, a spiritual exercise. I asked God to reveal to me what's blocking me from him. God knows what it is. And so I put pen to paper. After I say that prayer, I sit still and I write. And I know when I'm done, when the pen stops writing and I close out in prayer. As I go through my day, if something comes up, I don't put it on the list because I trust God to reveal to me what I need to see. And if there's anything else that needs to come up, it might come up in fear or it might come up in sex harms, or it might come up in 10, uh, evening review. And so what do I do with this list? Now I, this list that I'm seeing, I'm seeing stuff that I didn't even think that I had a resentment towards. And I had, uh, shared early on that, you know, kindergarten came up and this is where my willingness to believe turns into faith. Because what was coming down on paper, I did not believe came from my thinking mind. And so I get to look at all these areas of self where one resentment is blocking me off. And then for each person, institution and principle, I've got a number of things why I'm angry and see, I also, I just don't look at this and I know, I just tell myself, why am I angry? And see, I also, I just don't look at this, why am I angry? why am I angry? I can't do that. I can't do that. I cannot do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. I can't do that. don't look at the word resentment because I look at resentment and it just seems like there's a big old thing. But if I look at who irritates me, who agitates me, who I'm holding a grudge against, I can see a lot more. And so I've got this list. So what do I do with it? Well, I need to see how this person affected my self-esteem. The role I assigned myself, how did they affect that? And so I do a four-column inventory and I also see fear in my resentment inventory. I get to see how a person interfered with what I wanted out of life, my ambition. See, because I blamed everybody. See, that was the easy out for me. Because as long as I'm blaming you, that means that there's nothing for me to do. See, I took the path of least resistance, assigned myself the role of victim, and spent my life doing what I wanted to do. And so I get to see how a person interfered with what I wanted out of life, and spent my time blaming people. Some of my resentments affected personal relationships with other people. My pocketbook. My pride. Definitely my pride. Because I didn't want anybody to see me a certain way. And so I write that third column really angry. And because I don't really feel present, sometimes I can't hear it. And so I write that third column really angry. And because I don't really feel present, sometimes I can't hear it. And so I write that third column really angry. And because I don't really feel present, sometimes I can't hear it. And so I write that third column really angry. And because I don't really feel present, sometimes I can't hear it. And so I write that third column really angry. And because I don't really feel present, sometimes I can't hear it. And so I write that third column really angry. And because I don't really feel present, sometimes I can't hear it. And so I write that third column really angry. And because I don't really feel present, sometimes I can't hear it. And so I write that third column really angry. And because I don't really feel present, sometimes I can't hear it. And so I write that third column really angry. even read my handwriting because I'm not really focusing on penmanship. I'm not editing it. If a name comes on my list, I don't question it. If it comes on my list, it comes on my list. And that's what God wants me to see. You know, it says when we straighten out spiritually, we straighten out mentally and physically. So that spiritual malady is my selfishness, my dishonesty, my self-centeredness and my fear. That's what is my biggest problem. And so when I straighten out spiritually, I straighten out mentally. I'm operating under a whole new belief system now. And when I straighten out physically, my interactions with other people are in a different plane. My outlook is different. My reaction is different. And it all stems from what's going on inside which God shifts. That's a God job. My job is to be willing to see what I need to see and to write. And that's why I was willing to make that decision because without that decision, trust me, my mind will tell me that all of a sudden my life's too busy. I don't have time to write inventory. And this is about momentum. See, I used to carry my resentment sheets and all my inventory sheets. I'd put a few sheets in my purse. Because my way of looking at it, I would have a lot of hours. And as long as I bring those three things, remember I told you in the previous step, willingness, open-mindedness, and honesty, there will be pockets of time that I would be led to sit down and write. There was an office where I worked. There was a bench right outside my building. And I didn't even know the bench was there. And I didn't even know the bench was there. And I didn't even know the bench was there. But this particular day, it was in that moment. And I just sat there and I wrote. About momentum, I was doing inventory. And I remember Adrian had given me a different type of inventory to write, which tripped my ego up because I thought I was going to do the same inventory I did the last time. Whoa. See, I want anything that can possibly happen to trip this up. And I remember he had given me a deadline. I took a day off from work. I took a vacation day and I sat outside City Hall Park in New York and I finished writing that inventory. See, I always say I was given the gift of willingness and God had put too many people in my path for me to think that this was not real. And so it tells us that we turn back to the list when we do that fourth column, because it held the key to the future. I didn't exactly know what it meant when I was reading it. But see, it held the key to the future because I get to see the real truth. And that's that fourth column, which I never looked at. See, I lived my whole life in the three column inventory. I'm mad at you, what you did and how it affected me. And that's where I stopped. So now, reliance upon God, because this is something that my ego, doesn't talk about. It doesn't have me shed the light on me. It's all busy focusing on external conditions, convincing me that that's my problem. So when I do that fourth column, it says putting out of your mind resolutely what another person did. So I don't even look at the third column. I don't, because I know that. I know how my self-esteem is affected in my pride and my ambition and my personal relationship and my finances and my sex relations. That's my life, holding on to that lie of what was done to me wasn't done for me. So the first question in that resentment inventory is a realization question. That's the sheet, the inventory that I use. That first question nails it for me. I get to see I got a lot of nerve being mad at you because I do the same thing. If not to you, I do it to somebody else. I'll give you an example. I was pissed off because my guy would go out and he wouldn't tell me where he was going. The nerve in him. Well, I realized I used to do that as a teenager. I would do it to my mom. I don't need to tell you where I'm going. Forgiveness. This is all about forgiveness and love for God's children. If I love God's children, I love God. I cannot say the Lord's prayer. Forgive us our trespasses while I'm still holding on to what you did to me. I might as well not say the Lord's prayer. And so I get to see, my God, was I so manipulative? What was my thinking? What was my selfish actions towards this person? And see, the only reason why I'm mad at you is because I don't want to be a victim. at people because they wasn't buying into my stuff. Matt alluded to that script that we write, that we tell nobody what their part is. And I honestly wouldn't allow people to be. See, we're not the only ones running life on self-will. But see, as an alcoholic, you're supposed to think about me. I also didn't realize that other people are spiritually sick too. My heart started to soften. I realized what a selfish person I've been. See, I was so angry at my mother. But I never thought about what it was like having a child like me who was so disobedient. I remember one Christmas, they bought me and my sister bikes. It wasn't the kind of bike I wanted. I kid you not, I kicked the bike in the tree. So I get to see what it was like. For the first time, I thought about my mom. She's one of 13 kids. She was chosen to live with her grandmother. I wonder what kind of effect that had on her. Did she feel abandoned? Did she have a hard time connecting because of that abandonment issues? I never thought about other people. I saw how dishonest I was. Because of the belief systems about me, I couldn't be honest. And honesty is not just outright lying. It's what I'm not even saying. And delusional. I'm not looking at life in its truth. I'm only looking at it by what's true for me. And what's true for me is from a very selfish perspective. The world had power over me. See, the hope in this is I get changed. I don't have to wait. For people to be different for me to be okay. Because that's what I was waiting for. I was waiting for people to show up differently. Their actions affected me to the core. And I retaliated. Or they retaliated to me. So for the first time, I get to see that I'm not this big willy-bobo that I thought I was. I've been harming people. And so that softening of my heart was real. I've been harming people. And around one resentment, I get to see how that one resentment, how I caused harm. See, because I didn't think twice if a guy had a girlfriend and I'm mad at him because he's not spending enough money on me. Well, wait a minute. I don't care the lies he's telling me. But somewhere, there's a woman and there may be some kids in the picture. So my selfish demands on him, are affecting other people. So I see how my harms, how I may have harmed them. And I put them on that, that resentment, that fourth column. FaceTime video. I don't know how much time I have, Kelly, because there's three of us. I think we're ready to kick it over to Sarah. Thank you so much, Donna, and welcome back, Sarah. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. My name is Sarah. I'm a grateful member of Al-Anon. And I'm really grateful to be here this morning and talking about fear. Nothing like talking about fear and a four-step on Saturday morning. And, you know, the fear inventory for me is just so profound. The whole inventory process is just so profound. Because by the time I've gotten to it, you know, I've admitted some things about myself. I'm looking to a higher power for some relief. But I still am not fully armed with the facts about myself and my disease. And how I'm acting and how I'm behaving. And what these defects really look like. And that's what the four-step helps me do. It's just a fact-finding process where I get to see where my unfailable goods are. What I want to give over to God. And also where there are some good things about me. Which is not where I tend to go. I do not tend to go to the good. I'm extremely self-critical. I'm extremely self-judgmental. I want to just beat myself up. And that's why it's so important for me to do this work with a sponsor. Because left to my own devices, I will. I will just beat the crap out of myself. Pardon my language. But a sponsor reminds me to be gentle. Right? Fact-finding process. All that matters is thoroughness and honesty. And I've got to have God going into this. Because oftentimes I can't see the truth about myself without God. And so as I go through the resentment inventory, I get to see that fear is a crucial element in every single resentment that I have. Every single one. I've never done an inventory where fear doesn't have anything written next to it. And that's the thing about my fear. That fear is a chief activator of all of my defects. Right? It brings out the worst in me. Because typically I'm scared that I'm not going to get something that I want. That something that I have is going to get taken away. I get to feel really threatened. And as a result, I act out. And while it's so interesting to me, the first time I went through the steps, is that I didn't realize how much fear I really had. And yet I was brimming over with fear. And yet I was brimming over with it. But I didn't have that awareness. And a lot of that is just because of the fact that this disease with me, the denial, runs so thick. I mean, it is like a huge concrete wall where I just want to say, no, I'm fine. I'm good. Look somewhere else. I'm good. And that's not the truth. And what I've learned by doing these steps is that, you know, this goes deep. Like I said last night, these are some really, really deep grooves. These are some really ingrained storylines that I've had for a long time. And when I was growing up, I was taught that if you can control your emotions, you can control your life. So I learned at 12 years old. And I leapt onto that really quickly because I wanted to control my life. And when I was even younger, when I was crying or upset, my parents would say, go to your room and don't come out until you're not crying. And I got to say, they were doing the best they could with what they had. There was no malintent. But for me, what that led me to do is just completely suppress all of my feelings. I have no awareness of what it's like to really be angry, to be scared, to be happy. Just everything is pushed down. Because, again, I want to control my life. Control makes me feel safe. And that is the end goal of my life. And how I've been impacted by the disease of alcoholism. I just want to be safe. And the fallacy is that I start to rely on myself to do that. And that's what I get to learn and really uncover in the fourth step on the fear inventory. When I write down what my fears are, first of all, I make the list. And they just come pouring out. It's like, you know, they haven't seen the light of day and they're just coming left and right. And when I go to actually do the writing, I write, why do I have this fear? Taking an element and looking at that. Because there's always a story that's a layer deeper. Right? I could be scared that I'm going to lose my job. But really the fear is that I'm unworthy and I'm unlovable and you're going to find that out when I lose my job. Right? It all comes back to these central core fears. I'm not good enough. I'm unworthy. I'm unlovable. I'm bad and I'm broken. And nothing can fix me. That's what it all comes back to. And I get to see that when I put pen to paper. But more importantly, what I get to see is how self-reliance has failed me. Because with every single fear, my sponsor has me write, I am not trusting and relying on God to care for me and protect me. This is what it all boils down to. I want to be the director. I want to run the show. And I don't trust that something out there has got something better for me. I don't realize that and I don't get to see that until I come into the rooms of this program. And I hear other people telling their story. I hear them talking about the unmanageability, the powerlessness, you know, what this disease looks like. And they are okay. And that's what I love about Al-Anon. Our promise is that you can be okay and find peace and surrender. You can find peace and serenity whether the alcoholic is drinking or not. And so often, I can find that calamity when the alcoholic isn't drinking, right? I don't need that to create chaos and manufacture that misery in my own life. Because it's all about me. And it's all about survival. I think everyone is out to get me. And when I talk about this, I just can't help but be struck by how small that makes my life. Right? If I don't trust anyone, I'm scared of everyone and everything. My life gets so small. And I'm still scared, right? I don't have any solution for that fear. That is my primary problem. I don't have a solution. Because I want to be the solution. And the truth is, this disease, these character defects, the way I've been living, is way too big for just me. And through this program and through this work, I get rid of it. And through this work, I get redirected to this solution every single time, which is God. The book tells me that if I rely on God and do what I think it would have me do to the extent that I'm aware of, I can meet calamity with serenity. I remember the first time I read that was my sponsor. And my sponsor said, I want you to think about this really hard. Let's not skim over this. You can meet calamity with serenity. And that was such a profound and unknown idea to me, right? Because I always have calamity. I never have serenity without this program. Again, because I'm just running on a hamster wheel, trying to get what I can and get through the days and just be safe. And so as I've gone through this program and I've continued to go through the work, I get to see that promise come true. Right? And it's all from what I learned in this inventory. Right? I get to see all of my fears on paper. And I'm scared of so much. I'm scared of losing my job. I'm scared of being alone. I'm scared of speaking up in meetings. I'm scared of making a mistake. So many things. And I realize I want that freedom. I want that freedom. So I'm going to keep going forward with this work. Right? The book challenged me to trust in infinite God rather than by myself. Right? And so I began to take little steps to try and do that. Right? To trust God. And over time, what I get is I get this beautiful case file of all of these situations and circumstances that I'm walking through with God. And I make it through just fine. Right? I make it through my amends. I make it through a scary presentation at work. I make it through an interview. Right? I make it through a scary conversation with my sister. I'm okay. And that's what I need. That's what my brain needs. I need to see evidence. I need to see proof so that I can continue to trust. And that case file just keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And I'm still here. Right? I haven't been dropped on my head. I haven't been lost. God is always with me if I just invite it in. And that's what I have to remember to do. Again, I have to trust and rely on God to care for me and protect me. And yet sometimes what I see is that this fear is just so buried deep down. Again, I don't always have the awareness. Sometimes it really surprises me. I actually just recently finished another inventory. And I'm on step eight making that list. And when I went through that inventory, I got to see a lot of the things that are still there. Right? I still have that fear of being alone, of being unworthy, of being unlovable, of you finding out the truth about me. But then I find that there are some new ones that have cropped up along the way. Right? I'm scared of COVID. I'm scared of how it's impacting my life. I'm scared of how it's impacting my marriage, my well-being, and my emotional sanity. And I get to take a look at that again. Right? Because these weren't there. My last inventory. These are new things. And so I get to walk through that with my sponsor and see, okay, I have that case file. Now can I trust God to get me through these new fears that have cropped up? And I will be honest with you. I've had a lot of fear around my marriage in this time. I am working from home. So is my husband. We have never spent so much time together. And while I love him dearly, we're just kind of at each other's necks. Right? Our house is not huge. We can hear each other on calls all day. We're spending all this time together. I mean, it's just ripe as an opportunity for character defects to come out. Right? Us wanting to control and manage. And I haven't been terribly conscious of that. And so what I found was that on our weekends together, my fear would cause my defects to come out. Because ultimately, I have this fear that we're going to get divorced and I'm going to be alone. Right? Always taking it to the extreme. Always. Never, never like a middle ground. I go deep. I go hard. And what I find is that it's bringing out my character defects in just the smallest little way. Right? I'll get nervous when I think he might sound short with me. And I go deep with that again. And so then I react. Right? And that's what I have to be aware of. And that's what I have to take responsibility for. I react. I react when I'm scared. Even when it's not right here. Even when it's buried down a few layers deep. And I'm not thinking about getting a divorce while we're having a conversation that gets a little contentious. Somehow my brain is subliminally going there. And that's amazing to me. And I didn't realize that until three weeks of fighting later. We're talking. And I get to get real about what's going on. I get to bring it out to the surface. And that's where the beauty is for me in this inventory. We get to bring this stuff out from the shadows out into the light. When it's in the shadows, there's no God. There's no God. It is me, myself, and I. But as I talk to my sponsors, I talk to my husband, as I put pen to paper, it gets to come out and it gets to get realized. And then I get to pivot into the solution. In Al-Anon, we talk a lot about awareness, acceptance. Awareness, acceptance, and action. And until I get to the fourth step, until I get to doing this work, I don't have that awareness. So I can't have acceptance. And I can't take action. And that's what I get to see with this inventory. And I've learned over time what my behaviors are, what my go-to's are. And it becomes so familiar. But yet it still happens. And a great example of that happened for me this past week. I'm at my parents. I'm here to spend time with them. I get to work remotely. So I'm taking advantage of that. And I'm working one day and I get this email from a director that I do not report to from a different business unit. And he simply proposes having a biweekly performance review and us putting together a deck and doing all this work to talk to them and their team about what my team is doing. And I get straight up offended. I am mad. Because I don't report to this guy. And really, what's going on for me is there is fear. When all of this comes up, that fear is just a signal for me. It is a signal that something needs to be looked at. Right? God is bringing something to my attention. And I get to see, okay, where's the fear? Right? I ask myself. Because I know, again, every time there's a resentment, there is some fear. And I'm in fear or scared that I'm going to lose time. Right? I'm just going to have to spend more time doing work that I don't want to do. And where this takes me is sometimes, you know, I'm able to catch it and I can say, God, please help me be who you would have me be. And I get to walk through it. But this time, this week, that didn't happen. I got stuck in that fear. And what it does and what fear always does for me is that evil and corroding threat is it robs me of time being present. It brings me into the future. It brings me into the past so that I can control what I think is coming up or what has already happened. And I want to do damage control. And so in that moment and for at least an hour or two that night, I was just ruminating on this, completely ruminating on the fact that I'm going to spend time doing a presentation that, by the way, hasn't even been confirmed. It was just a question. Can we do this? And I can't be present with my family. I can't be present with my loved ones. Until I finally get down to the work and see, oh, this is what's happening. I'm just scared. When I invite God in, again, bring it into the light, back from the shadows. Then I get to trust that maybe I will have to do this. But even if I do, it's going to be okay. Right? And I laugh because this is just a work presentation. And yet I can take it so far. And so deep. And again, rob me of being present. Because I just have some fear of losing something that I think I should have. And so I'm just so grateful that I have this process to help me get that awareness, like I talked about, so that then I can get to some acceptance. It doesn't mean I have to like it, right? But I get to see, okay, this is true and present and real for me. And this fear is, again, just being evil and corroding. The fabric of my existence can be shot through with it. I love that line because I think it is so true. So true. Right? It can impact everything. But today I have a solution for that. Today I have a solution. And thank goodness. Because I want to be here today. I don't need to be thinking about tomorrow. I don't need to be thinking about last night or what happened weeks, months prior. I just want to be here today so that I can be present with the life that I've been so gracefully given. And the people who are around me that I can show up with love and tolerance and patience for because of this program. And so it all just starts with doing this work. So thank you so much. Thank you, Sarah. In closing out step four, we'll hear from Matt. Hi, everybody. My name is Matt. I'm a recovered alcoholic. Thank you, Donna. Thank you, Sarah. Those were powerful to follow. And so, you know, when we sat and we discussed what we wanted to kind of focus on for each of our shares, as Donna said in the beginning of this, Donna wanted to cover resentment. Sarah wanted fear. And so little old me gets left with sex. Right? Which is not true. That's self-pitying. I chose sex. And so this one. Right? So fear. So resentment. Right? As we explore resentment, we're exploring, like, feelings. Right? We're exploring how I feel about how people behave and act and principles and ideas and how they pertain to me. And these are all about feelings. Right? And my misconceptions about how people should and shouldn't act and all of these other things. And when we get to fear, we're talking about thought patterns. Right? We're talking about how I perceive the world. And my expectations or responsibilities that I place on other people that they can't meet. Or how I'm fearful of a future. I start future-tripping something I can't see or I'm unaware if it's going to show up. Or about my abilities or inabilities to do things. And then on the bottom of page 68, it says now about sex. Right? And as I read that, it sounds like something I would say after going... Because I've tackled resentment and fear, which I didn't understand until here. Right? This is... Like, this is the news cycle for me. Because I don't know any of this stuff when I get here. I don't know this. I think I have a drinking problem. I don't realize that I'm this selfish, self-centered person that is consumed by fear and resentment. And so I've explored all of those things. And now it's like... Now about sex. And in the sex and relationship inventory... I am now exploring my conduct, my behavior. And it's fitting because if in step three I'm offering my thoughts and my actions over to God... Then I should be exploring where my thoughts and my actions are being run by self. And so this is the first time that I'm starting to look at not just what goes on inside of here... But how it manifests itself in my behavior as it relates to people around me. Specifically, people who I love. People who I share relationships with. Right? And the sex inventory is not just a hit list of people I've laid in bed with. It is an examining of my relationships with other people. Right? And I subject it to the same rubric of ideas that I am the other stuff. In nine questions. Nine questions. And the questions are... Where have we been selfish? Where have we been dishonest? Where have we been inconsiderate? Whom have we hurt? Did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion, or bitterness? And what should we have done instead? And that's a lot of information that I have to gain from 32 years of navigating relationships on self-will. And so for me... Right? If you guys were here last night... You heard me tell you that when my old man got himself killed, he left me in a house with nine women. Right? Nine women. So I managed to like... To see all sides of how women will show up in life. Right? I had firsthand experience of navigating relationships with the opposite sex. Save the sex part of it. And so I went into like... Dating and... And friendships. Not knowing how to relate to men. Not knowing how to be a bro. Right? And thinking that I understood everything there was to know about women. Right? And as you grow up, you realize there is... That you will never know everything there is to know about women. I don't think women know everything there is to know about women. And so... And so... Like I... I behaved that way. And so what it did was it fed my ego in thinking that I can show up however I want to show up. That I can seek you for whatever purpose I want to seek you. And once I've reached... Once you've fulfilled that purpose, you're no longer of any use to me. And as Donna alluded to... Right? My heart starts to soften in resentment. Right? So I start to develop things as I'm writing this that I never felt before. I was so consumed by self and I was so selfish that I didn't have the ability to empathize. It never occurred to me to even try and put myself in your shoes and see what life might look like through the prism that is in your mind. And I'm starting to do that now. Because I'm seeing how utterly failed my will has... You know, how much my will has failed in the way that I think about it. In the way that I think about you. And how I'm reacting to life based on all of these ideas that I don't know. I think I can read your mind. I think I know what you're thinking. I think I know what you think about me. Right? I think you're always judging me and always criticizing me. Probably because I'm always judging and criticizing you. And so that shows up in my relationships. And I'm angry and I'm scared. And angry and scared are not a good foundation to build a relationship with anybody. Right? And so, of course, when I show up, I'm going to show up as a selfish man. I don't know how to not be selfish. And my selfishness, part of it is I was just this way from a very young age. Part of it was survival skills and defense mechanisms that I developed because, like, I felt I was always under attack. I felt the world was out to get me. I felt that you guys had information that I didn't have. Right? And so, of course, I'm going to worry about me. I got to worry about me. Nobody else is. Right? I show up dishonestly saying what I need to say to get what I want to get. But also because I'm scared. That maybe if you knew the real me, you wouldn't like me so much. Maybe I wouldn't measure up. For a kid who's trying to figure out what it means to be a man, I inflated some real stories at the bar. Or in the back of the firehouse. Or whatever it was. Right? My mom used to send me to these really nice camps as a kid up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. She did everything in her power to get me away from the street. And what I did when I went to this camp that my mom worked two jobs and overtime to pay for was I lied about what life was like in the Bronx. And when I came back from spending an entire summer in New Hampshire, I lied about what life was like in the Bronx. I lied about what life was like in the Bronx. I lied about what happened in New Hampshire. And not only that, I steered clear of people who could see through my BS. I was dishonest by nature. So where is it showing up? Because what I'm looking for and what I realize in this actor and director kind of portrayal that we talk about in Step 3 is that even with the best of intentions, I fail running on self. I fail running on self. And I'm not going to do that. I'm going to get a door open for the lady who walks in and when she doesn't say thank you, I shout, you're welcome at her. Because this is how I show up. It's about me. Don't you see I'm doing a nice thing here? Right? And so where was I inconsiderate? In all of my relationships I was inconsiderate because all I was thinking about was myself. I was in a relationship with this girl I talk about for five years. And I would show up one day and say, hey, I'm going to Joshua Tree, California to go rock climbing for five days. I'm leaving California. I'm leaving California. I'm leaving California tomorrow. Who gets to do that? When I show up in relationships, I am making a pact, a contract that we're going to both have responsibilities and expectations here. And the one of those is communication. Well, I can't spend all of the time talking about myself in my head about my little plans and designs and not share that with somebody who's agreed to share life with me. Right? So I asked myself, who was my little ratio? Whom had we hurt? And when we get into these kinds of questions, I can see, thank you, I can see that it's not just sexual relationships that should be subject to this inventory. Right? Because when I cheated on my son's mom, I didn't just hurt her. I hurt her grandmother who was helping us take care of my infant son. I hurt her brother. I hurt her brother, who watched his sister crying over and over and over again. I hurt my son. I hurt myself. Because I didn't respect myself enough to show up as the man that I needed to be. Right? I had a friend growing up. He's still my friend. This man calls me every single day, and we talk, we gossip like we're at the hair salon. And growing up, he was a little overweight, and he was always working, so he was always busy. The guy is a genius. He can take a computer apart and put it back together. He can break down any math formula he wants, but he's an immigrant. Well, he came from the Dominican Republic as a kid, and so he didn't speak English very well. So English and other things didn't come well to him, come easy to him. And so in school, he struggled with that kind of stuff and excelled here. So I got accepted. I got accepted to all of the good schools because I did well, and he didn't. And as soon as I did that, all of a sudden, I'm hanging out with these kids who are wearing the Cardinals Spalmer high school sweaters. And all of a sudden, I'm like, but we've been friends since second grade, Matt. What's going on? I'm making him jealous of these other guys. I'm hurting him. I'm being inconsiderate of his feelings. Fast forward to high school. He gets a little money in his pocket. He's got a car. I'm jealous. I start chasing the girls that he's chasing, and I get them. Well, where did I arrive? I was jealousy, suspicion, and bitterness. Right? Do I flirt? Do I seek attention and then disrespect the girls that I have at home, even if I don't cross the line into cheating? Right? Where were we at fault? Can I write down my list of my faults in this, putting outside anything that they did or didn't do? Right? To see honestly what my amends is going to look like going forward. This is the truth. This is fourth column stuff. This is where I can grab hold of the self-imposed crisis and the problems being of my own making, bring God into the equation, and come out on the other side changed and renewed and ready to show up in life as a sober man of God. It starts here in the inventory. It starts with pen to paper. And even when I'm done, I go. I go back. I go back. Because now this is the first time it asks me to say, this is what's wrong. What does it look like for you for it to be right? And as I start to project this ideal that I want, this conception of a sane and sound sex life and relationship life, as I start to write those things down, I just ask myself one simple question. Is it selfish or not? Because I spent so much of my life taking, taking, taking, taking. Am I showing up now to give? Am I thinking about what I can offer to the people around me? Am I leading with love? Am I empathizing and am I being compassionate towards people? Like Donna said, am I seeing your spiritual sickness? Because just because my spiritual, sickness manifests itself as alcoholism, we all have the God-sized hole, no matter what I try to fill it with. That's why there's 200-something 12-step fellowships. I might gamble instead of God. I might shop instead of God. I might eat instead of God. I might, I might sex instead of God. I might Amazon one-click to buy instead of God. It doesn't matter. There's something in my life that is, that is serving as my higher power. And there's something in your life that's serving as your higher power. Can I see that and apply the same love and tolerance that I apply to alcoholics and navigate my relationships with those kinds of eyes, looking through a prism of someone who has some semblance of God? And then I stand a chance. Then I stand a chance. Because it's like, because they told me really early on, they said, Matt, this is a mountain you got to move and you can ask God to move the mountain, but you better bring a shovel. And I'm digging. That's all. I'm just digging. And when I'm done with all of this, you know what it says? Surprise, surprise. You don't have to wait till step 11 to meditate. It says on the bottom of page 69 of meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come if we want it. If we want it. If my desire is to be willing. If my desire is to open my mind. If my desire is to be honest. If my desire is to be rid of the things inside of me that block me from doing that. Thank you. Thank you so much to our step speakers, Donna, Sarah, and Matt. We will now break for lunch and resume at one o'clock. Enjoy your lunch. Thank you.