Step 8 and the 28-Page Immoral Inventory – George

Last week we did the fourth step. We were talking about the inventory part of the step, and that took about the economy, especially other groups as a whole. In the 12 and 12, it's the right to be wrong is what it's about. The fourth tradition is very important. My inventory was my right to belong my whole life, and I didn't realize that. And the group can be wrong. They can do anything they want to do, even if it's not the right thing to do. Somebody asked me a couple of weeks ago about the promises we read at the end of the meeting. A lot of groups read the nine-step promise. There are many other promises. In this group I choose a vision for you because the group conscience gives me that choice as I sit in this chair. I would like to read the ten-step promises but it's part of the group so we conform or die. So, the fourth tradition, I can't be wrong. And my inventory, when I first did it, was wrong. It was an immoral inventory. So going from that point, at the very end of the fourth step in the big book, it says if you have already made a decision, which is the third step, and taken your inventory, which was the fourth steps, of your grossing handicap, you've made a good beginning. That beginning, that being so, when you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself. I was sorry, I used to say that a lot. And my sponsor said, you sure are. I couldn't admit I was wrong. That W word was a tough one to come along to spit out when I got here. But taking that inventory, you know, we come to that fifth step. And the fifth tradition is to carry the message. And if it wasn't for the people that carried the message to me, I wouldn't have been willing to sit down with somebody and do that fifth step. A minute to God, to ourselves, and another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs. You know, we've been talking at the beginning of this meeting about the beginner's classes that many, many years ago, and in some places in the United States they still have them, that they still do, and the beginner class, or the back-to-basics class as they call them, it says a minute to G-d, to ourself, and to another human beings, the exactly nature of wrong this step which is this step is described on pages 72 to 75 in the big book directions for taking this step of five on page 75 paragraph one lines 1 through 4 and paragraph 2 line wanting to and I'm going to read the directions that I've been doing that when we decided who would hear our story waste no time we have written an inventory and we prepared for a long talk we explained to our partner what uh we are about to do and why we have to do it he should realize that we are engaged upon a life-and-death area most people approach in this way will be glad to help they will be honored by our confidence as we clock it up try going to it illuminating every twist of character every dark cranny of the past once we have taken this chance withholding nothing we are delighted we can look the world in the eye that's a nice promise to be able to look the world back in the eyes because when I came in here I used to not look out I used to look down I never looked up I looked out and I was told if I stuck around long enough I would stop looking down and out and I would look in and up it made no sense but after my first step it made a lot of sense I don't hear that very often in the rooms anymore but it's something that I hold on to very daily you know to me I've been through the steps a few times I'm going to give you some of my experience with the first step the first my first fifth step I've done more than once I believe you do the steps more than one I'm not one of those that do them once and you're done with them I don't believe they're the graduation and something in the twelfth step always reminds me having had a spiritual experience as a result of these steps it's all the first eleven we carry that message of the eleventh step all twelve steps to others and practice them it means I've got to keep doing them that's first we work them then we start to do them then we start to live them when you start living them long enough I was told that they become second nature some areas of my life I still struggle with that step especially the first five the fifth step to me was power and I always wondered why I had so much problem with it Bob when he was alive and Larry also both my first two sponsors said to me best. We go to God for forgiveness, we go to ourselves for understanding, and we go to another human being for humility. That's the real reason we do a fifth step. And I had a problem with that because my friends knew what I was about. I didn't want you guys to know what I wasn't about. God already knew who I was about and we weren't on talking terms. He knew my fifth step, so I really...and for myself. It wasn't about me, it was about everybody else, how they affected me. Well, putting that fourth step down and putting it on paper, I started to wonder what I was going to do with it. And there's something in the big book that says it most. It says the reason we do this, the best reason first is if we don't do a fifth step, we're probably going drinking that's good and I have experiences with a couple people I work with that did one two three four out the door one two three four after doing everything first and they kept relapsing and wanted to know why there's a lot of things that the big book says in the 1212 said so you can go to your sponsor don't have to go to you sponsor find somebody you trust the thing is you have to do it I depart in the steps really from the big booking to this one it's because I like what the 12 and 12 says and I've got it deeper in when I got to that fifth step 12 and steps 12 and twelve hit me a lot harder than the Bigfoot did although I did my steps through the big books the first time I've heard different one-word meetings and there we go at those one word meetings about the principle the principle of integrity of courage I was told the principle is the step itself once I admit to God for myself in the exact nature of my role. That's the principle, to go to somebody else, to go to God, and to be a true truth with myself. Honesty I learned in each step. Awareness I learned on each step, surrender I learned up to the fifth step. So I was growing and I wasn't aware of it. The fifth step was kind of hard because I actually had to sit down with somebody and tell them the whole thing. See, I knew being I was a good dope fiend or a good alcoholic that if you got enough of my friends together each one of them would have a little bit of what was going on with me and put enough of them in the same room. Jay had the whole story already so I knew God already knew. It was just doing that with one other human being that I was having a difficult deal. So that word humility or humiliation to me that was a humiliation but the big book actually the 12 and 12 says it better than anything else because I had a lot of trouble with that word humility I knew a lot about humiliation that was a humiliation for me to sit with someone and tell them all my shit no other way of putting the word but all my garbage and cleaning it up and letting somebody know the truth about me scared me tremendous fear humility they told me is what I would gain out of it you know tough words to talk about especially with alcoholics because whenever we talk about humility nobody wants to talk abut it What is humility? Well, I had a problem with that word. I had a problem grabbing onto what it meant. So my sponsor at the time told me to read page 58 and 12 and 12. It says, Humility a word often misunderstood. To those who have made progress in AA, it amounts to a clear recognition of what we really are followed by a sincere attempt to become what we could be. Real simple. If I know I'm acting like an idiot then I better stop acting like an idiot. And I was acting like and idiot for a long time. I was blaming everybody. and it says in here a little later on that the reason we tell somebody people with long term why they relapse or short-term is that they thought they had humility when they had not. They thought they lost their egoism and their fear and their pride but they had now so that's this step is a key point in staying around there's some promises that are in here and I'm going to read some things out in 12 and 12 it says it says we have to quit living by ourselves with those tormenting ghosts of yesterday and it gets more urgent than ever we have talked to somebody about them when I first got here I had some secrets and I used to hear all the time I'm only as sick as my secret I almost lost my sponsor over my secret that I didn't want to share with anybody and it's not for the rooms. I have a sponsor to share certain things. Certain things do not belong in the room. This is not AA something ground. It's not a puke parlor party, I was told. But I had a sponsor that I needed to talk about an issue. If I didn't clear that issue, I never would have wrote my fourth set. And if I didn' t clear that issues, I'd never would've stayed in this program. There was a tremendous amount of guilt and shame and devastation from my earlier childhood but it was something that I need to work through. And so I was willing to be honest with someone else about what was really going on in my life, to put that boogeyman, as they say, or that chain that I had out on the table, there was going to be no growth. And if there was no growth, there's going to another drink or another drug. And I didn't want to do that anymore. I didn' t know how not to do that. It seems plain that the grace of God will not answer or expel a destructive obsession until willing to try this fifth step. I had plenty of destructive obsessions. It says, for one thing we shall get rid of the terrible sense of isolation we always have. To be amongst other people and not be apart from that isolation that I carried into these rooms even while I was here for a while. The feeling of that I was so different and you guys really didn't understand you just didn't know what was going on in my head until I heard someone tell my story if you sit in the rooms long enough you will get someone at least one person tell your story more likely you'll have many people tell different parts of your story when you stop trying to compare and start to identify that sense of isolation started to fall for me even though I didn't know that was happening and I did that four step and it says either we are shy and dread not draw and dared not draw near others or we would have to be noisy good fellows craving attention and companionship never getting it at least to our way of thinking there was always in that mysterious barrier that we can either surmount or understand that kept me stuck in stupid for a while and I think it keeps you out of this fucking stupid it says it was you know it tells us when we reached AA for the first time in our lives we stood among people who seemed to understand that sense of belonging was tremendously exciting. The first time when I was in these rooms, I knew I was not alone. I was fighting everybody and everyone. The book tells me I'm going to do that. I didn't believe that. Even alcohol. And that's a promise to the tenth step that we don't talk about. Sanity will be restored. I didn't have sanity when I got here. And my thinking wasn't sane at all. My attitudes were pretty wild and rotten, and my mouth had a stunk, and it was everybody else's fault I was here because of what everybody did to me as I went through the steps and I got to that point in that fourth step and I realized that it really wasn't everybody else but the problem wasn't the problem the problem was my attitude to the problem and my attitude is a problem was that I needed an attitude adjustment and I had a sponsor who told me put it on paper and my you know things would change I didn't see how they were going to change but I knew if I didn t put it out on paper I was not gonna have a sponsor that simple he told me, if you do it, we'll find somebody who wants to do it your way. So I did it. And I've got to share this before I go back to the book. I wrote my 28-page immoral inventory the first time. I didn't have a very moral inventory when I got here. And I had an abysmal book and I went to the bottom line, the old bottom line on Veritas on a Saturday morning because I was meeting my sponsor to go over my four-step. I wouldn't admit that I was at that point because I was still afraid of what this process was. And there was an old-timer in the room, Mike, and I said to Mike, you know, I'm going to meet my sponsor today after the 10 o'clock in the morning meeting and we're going to go over my four steps. He said, no, no, you're not. He said you're going to be doing a fifth step. I all of a sudden got very afraid and I was scared to death and I started sweating and I got nervous and he said, what's the matter? I said, I want you to go out and do an old timer and leave it for the old timer. Let's go over to the window on the second floor and he said, look down. He said, see any cops there? No. Well, there were no cops in line either. He said what are you so afraid of? I realized that there was nothing to be afraid of. There was something in my head that made me afraid to sit down with another person. Anyway, I met Larry that day and we sat at the Palmetto Park and the beach for five and a half hours. That was a wonderful experience. We talked about a lot of things. There was a lot of things he was not capable of doing for me or giving me. When it came to my children issues, he was single. He couldn't help me there. So he made some suggestions because if you don't have any experience in an area, you seek out someone who has experience in that area and you go to them with that part of your fish down. It doesn't all have to come from one person. I can tell you a story of somebody we know who had a jail experience and I was sponsoring him at the time and he came to me and I really have no jail experience so it's really hard for me to try and give I'm not a priest so I can't give absolution I'm just another drunk and I have no experience in the area so I suggested a few people for them to go to well they grabbed this tremendous resentment from me for over a year because they thought I didn't care about it. And they did go where they were sent to and then they changed sponsors in the L.A. They came back, they said, you know, I never realized how important it is now that they were sponsoring somebody else when you don't have experience not to make it up as you go along. And one of the reasons I continue to go through these steps is so I can learn more about my alcoholism. So that fifth step to me was real important. I have heard of this step from women I've heard from people who have different sexual preferences or the same sexual preferences I've had I've read from divorcees from divorced married single it really doesn't matter what it's about is to learn how to listen it was really good that I had somebody that really listened to me and was able to direct me in areas and in 12 at 12 it says a bunch of things we saw for example that we lacked honesty intolerances that we would be said at times by attacks of self-pity, a delusion of personal grandeur, though now recognized our defects were still there. Something had to be done about them, and we soon found out that we could neither wish them away or by ourselves. See, I knew I did some terrible things. One of the first things I cared with somebody is that I had a friend of mine, and I gave him a gun, and he put a gun to his mouth. My gun blew his brains out. I was like two months sober, and i felt terrible. I felt responsible, and my sponsor said, stop giving people, you'll come. Concept. That's a decision that when I meet my maker or wherever I'm going, that's between God and I. I did a lot of things when I got here in the sixth and seventh stamp to not have the behaviors I had at the beginning with those kind of issues. That we'll talk about later. But that was one of the things that in my fifth step, you know, I didn't know what to do with those things that I knew about myself that I didn't want anybody to really know. It says, If all our lives we had been more or less fooled ourselves, self-delusion, I was in that area for a long time in my life, how can we now be so sure that we still weren't self-deceived? How can we be certain that we had made a true catalog of our defects and really admitted them even to ourselves because we were still bothered by fear, self-pity, hurt feelings? It was probable we couldn't appraise ourselves fairly at all. Too much guilt and remorse might cause us to dramatize and exaggerate our shortcomings or angle and her pride might be a smoke stream on which we are hiding some of our defects while we blamed others for them. Possibly too we were still handicapped by many liabilities great and small we never knew we even had. You know those were major things for me when I died here though. I didn't know how to get out of that and I didn'T know how to practice that honesty with another human being. I didn'T know I didn't want to feel the way I was feeling and I also knew that I heard it many times in the book says if you don't do this then you'll drink you know say quite that way we're quite sure you're going to drink and that scared me so on fear I trusted someone else even though I didn t trust them but I was willing to do the process I trusted the process that entrusted people but I trusted a product that was something intuitive that I know today I know that it works and it says lacking and tells us there's a couple of difficulties in this is lacking both practice faith practice and humility they deluded themselves that they were able to justify the most average nonsense on the ground that was God has told them it is worth noting that people are very high spiritual development development always always insist on checking with friends or or spiritual advisors, the guidance that they feel they have received from God. Surely then a novice will not lay himself open to the chance of making foolish, perhaps tragic blunders in this fashion. My experience is all I have. My experience is that every time I hear somebody say they are speaking directly to God, I get nervous. I hear God speaking to others. But it was given to me and I like examples. you know there's a guy Bob's here right now hi Bob Bob used to say to me when he was alive he used to say to me it's like going to the Indian reservation and the guy goes in with a hundred dollar bill and fifty dollars and he puts fifty dollars in his pocket because he doesn't want to leave and he goes into his craft tables and he loses a hundred dollars and he's ready to get out of there on the bus and on his way out the door he hears God say don't leave it on his head and he's very neat. God said, go to the craft table and he was playing the tape and he goes to the craft table and says, well, I'll put ten dollars down and let me check with God and he talks to God back and forth and God says, not this table and he walks around for ten minutes looking at each craft table and finally he hears God say, this table. Okay? Okay, I'm going to put ten dollars down. No bet at all. Now he's having this conversation with God about betting it all and he says, okay God, I'll bet it all. I'll say, I'll play it down. He says, no wait for the dice to come around and he starts And just as he's got the dice in his hand, and he says, I'm going to put them in the white number of God. He says, seven. And he hears seven. And just when he lets go of the dice, he's going to say, whoops, I missed it. Now that's how my head works. God does not speak to me. Not that way. But he will speak to people in this room. And that was very important to me because my first step was a guiding thing. No coincidence the way it worked out. I found out on the day I did my first steps, my father's birthday and my sponsor's birthday were the same day and I had a tremendous resentment towards my father for many years and it was you know and he was just like my father and I didn't see that when I first met him and there was a lot of things that went on in my fifth step that were wonderful one of the greatest things that happened to my fifth step fear fell from me and that's a problem fear fell from me I looked at the world in a whole different light I was away from that isolation as promised in the fifth step. I did what I was told, go home, take that hour. We went out to dinner after I did my fifth step and it was a five-hour fifth step and I've done other fifth steps since then. I've many fourth steps, I did full fourth steps and I have done other first steps. I did one on my children because my sponsor wasn't capable of working that one with me and I did it with someone that I have a lot of respect for. I went to an AWOL group, and they told us not to use our sponsor. And I had to do another fifth step when I did an AWol group, and I went with someone because my sponsor Bob was dying and he suggested that I go to Ben Trostle, Ben Tate, you know, and Ben was busy so he sent me to Deion. So I got to do a fifth step on my being a roadie for 20 years because here was a man who worked in the rock and roll business who understands the road. So I've got to clear those issues up. by me constantly doing steps put someone in my club and that's why I don't believe we do the steps just once. And that's only my belief. There are people I know who did the steps just once and they've done them. We each travel a different journey but for this alcoholic I need to stay plugged in and staying plugged in means continuous work on the steps. The real test of your situation is are you willingness and full and the confidence to fully conceive your full confidence in the one whom you will share your first accurate self-serving even when you found that person it's frequently takes great resolution to approach him or her no one ought to say that a program requires no willpower because when you want to hear some go to somebody to hear you up this step you better believe it's the hardest thing you're going to do even if it's your sponsor because even though they already know you don't want to sit there and tell them and they already know I mean there's nothing my sponsor did not know about me but putting it all together at one time in one place in one city scared the hell out of me but when I did it it was a great deal and when I did it I can tell you that even though right after I did five six and seven was done almost immediately the way the book which said and then I went home and did what the book said and then we went back and formally whatever that means today because it's changed a lot formally worked at six and seven steps with exercise and things to do but actually when I did my fifth step I was very jumping into step eight so I did six and seven directly after he asked me the questions that are in the book he asked me if I was willing to have the defects removed and we sat down and we did the seven step prayer together he then told me to go back and enjoy my fifth steps for a little while and to just read the six steps in the 12-in-12, and we'll talk about it in two weeks. And that two weeks of... I thought I was getting a break. He then told me to log my defects and then to find what the asset was opposite. But the inventory wasn't all negative because one of the things that I had to do in my inventory was put down some positive assets that I didn't have. So my suggestion that was given to me by my sponsor at the time was to go into the rooms to the people I didn't like and ask them what they saw good in me. That was a tough assignment, but I did it. I did whatever I was told to do because I didn' t want to die. I mean, I was dead inside. And I didn''t even know that. Provided you hold nothing back, your sensibility will amount from minute to minute. The damned-up emotions of years break out of their confinement and miraculously vanish as soon as they are exposed. You know, we talk about promises. That is a promise that is there. But it's got to be given fully. No holding back. No secrets. That's a tough one. As the pain subsides, the healing tranquility takes place and when humility and serenity are so combined, something else with a great moment may occur. The feeling of being one with God and man is emerging from isolation through an open and honest hearing of our terrible burden of guilt. It brings us to a resting place where we may prepare ourselves for the following steps toward a full and meaningful sobriety, just not drinking enough anymore. Somewhere along these steps it talks about the joy of good living. not the joy of living the joy of good living those terrible defects that I carried from my previous life my life began the day I walked into alcohol it was phenomenal I don't believe that I had a good life until I started getting here and even when I was here I didn't think I was getting a good life I thought you guys just didn't understand but when I did the fifth step and I walked into my next meeting a bunch of people said welcome to AA and I knew what they meant that fifth step is a pivotal point in my recovery And I believe it is in anyone who sticks around for a long while of staying sober. Because without doing an honest fifth step, you're going to slip back into self-deception. And eventually, people who slip back to self-perception drink. And to me, drink was to die. And I didn't want the old behavior because I just didn't wanna go back to the cardboard box. So whatever would keep me further away from that cardboard box, I was willing to do. And that's enough on the fifth step. I don't know.