Step Workshop – Part 1 of 3 – 2022 – Mark T.

All right. Good afternoon, everybody. My name is Mark. I'm a recovered alcoholic. We'll start off here again with the set-aside prayer. Dear God, please help me set aside everything I think I know about myself, my disease, the big book, the 12 steps, the program, the fellowship, the people in the fellowship in all spiritual terms, and especially about you God, so I may have an open mind and new experience with all these things. Please help me see the truth. Amen. So good afternoon everybody. A little bit of a smaller group but not bad, not bad. What do we got here? 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21. you online so I think we started with 46 last week was was 37 and roughly about 25 now so it's about what we usually go through if we can end up with half the amount that we started that's actually not too bad today we're gonna do steps six seven eight and nine are a couple of new faces I'm going to do my typical disclaimers again and then we'll just go ahead and do a little bit of review some of the stuff we've already went through and then just get right into some of these action steps here first of all disclaims this is not a AA meeting this is a 12-step meeting this is a twelve step workshop this is workshop that can be used for all addictions so if your problem is not alcohol just sub in whatever your drug of choices and um and carry on uh this again is not meant as a replacement for one-on-one work with a sponsor okay uh we're taking a group through the steps as we go along here but again this was never intended to be uh meant as an replacement from one-one-one one-to-one work with a sponsored um again due to time constraints we will be cherry picking uh we got a lot of content to go through here today i this again is uncharted waters for me i've done a number of step one two three workshops um doing six seven eight nine as a group is uncharded territory i'm not sure i'm gonna really try to keep my eye on the clock i'mnot sure how much we can get through um and again you know we're gonna we're going to learn a few things uh that we may do again on the next one and may drop some things on the next one as well so um and again i'm not a uh an expert or a spokesman for alcoholics anonymous or any 12-step fellowship what i'm here is just sharing my experience again you may have done something different along the way with the sponsor you may have done something different in a different city and what i don't want this to be is a open forum of debate if you've got any questions or concerns or or some things that you want to discuss we'll discuss them at the breaker after the meeting um again i'm i'm not claiming i don't have the big book memorized i might get a few things wrong um again what i'm doing here is just basically sharing my experience and working with uh you know it's one thing i have done a lot is a lot of sponsorship right so i'll be sharing that experience as we go along here So we'll get right into a little bit of just a quick review of some of the stuff we've already done. Again, there's a few new faces anyways. In the first session, I said as much as anything, I really wanted to stress to everybody what it meant to suffer from the illness of alcoholism, the difference between an actual real alcoholic and a problem drinker, The three-part problem that we suffer from, the allergy, which is when, you know, when we start, we don't know when we're going to stop. The mental part, which ist when we stop, we can't stay stopped, right? That's sober blackout, that strange mental blank spot. And then the spiritual malady, which iis how I feel in a sober condition. You know, the restlessness, the irritability, the discontented. And that happens often for people well into sobriety, right? Again, the suicide rate for sober alcoholics is absolutely astounding. You know, and you see that a lot when people get away from working a good strong program, right? You'll often see, you know, you hear the term dry drunk or, you Know, you're often you'll see a lot of other addictions start to pop up along the way, right, you know so but we have a three-part problem and we got a three part solution I'm gonna draw this again and I want to stress over and over and over here the importance of the circle in the triangle and the three-party solution and again if you even if you've been around here for a long period of time and you're suffering from some depression or other addictions are popping up or you just find yourself arguing with everybody for wanting to control the entire planet me visit these circle in the triangle and just plot yourself on where you're at so just a quick review of the three-part solution the one part was new truck new relationship and a new job people new here going, what have you guys been talking about in the last sessions? My sponsor calls that the AA Trinity. You can't treat an internal condition with external stuff. A lot of people, that's what they think. I could only get the girl. If I could only get a new job. If only I had that new truck. Then you get old things and you're just like oh damn it, somebody lied to me. The three part solution. What is it again? Recovery. Awesome. Okay, recovery is the 12 steps. Again, if you're struggling in sobriety, even if you've been around here for a very long period of time, you know, recovery IS indeed the 12 Steps. So review. You know, are you waking up to prayer and meditation, right? Where are you at in your amends? You got unmade amends. When's the last time you wrote inventory? These are the kind of things that have to do with the 12 steps. The unity is the meetings and the fellowship. Are you spending some time around other alcoholics? Are you getting to enough meetings, right. Unity is a huge part and then service again is the idea of giving back right sponsorship or just get a job right and alcoholics anonymous give something back to a program that so freely gave to you what i have found in the past with most people that struggle in sobriety if they were to plot themselves it would be right here okay they're usually getting a whole pile of meetings um but they've You know, they've ignored the 12 steps. They're not doing prayer. They're Not Doing Meditation. They haven't wrote inventory forever. You know? They got unmade amends. And then the service side, you know, it's just getting busy and start helping some other people. Right? This is a program. You can't keep it unless you give it away. I did listen to the audio from last week. And there's a couple things that I wanted to emphasize a little bit more than I did in regards to steps four and five. And it's this idea of around forgiveness, right? We talked about it a littlebit, but this idea that people on your resentment inventory, resentment is the number one offender, right, there are a multitude of death threats in the big book in regards too resentment. Um, but what I have found in the past with working on with a lot of alcoholics and drug addicts and even with myself as well is alcoholics and addicts have deep, deep levels of self-hatred, right? Uh, sometimes they'll have that prior to the room. Sometimes they'll even keep it in the rooms, you know, and that's one thing that I, you Know, I've been, I'd been to counselors. I've Been to treatment centers. I've Been to doctors. I've BEEN to therapists and there was this one thing that was always said to me it's like you need to forgive yourself I'm like but how right you know that sounds good intellectually but how and here's my experience around this idea of forgiving yourself or maybe releasing some of the self-hatred that you have is if you can take the people on your resentment inventory that have harmed you the most, or that you hate the most or the ones you've had the most challenges with. And if you can see them as sick, which we talked about on the last meeting, if you Can see them spiritually ill, as opposed to evil, right? And if you can forgive them, I promise you, you will forgive yourself, it just happens. It's not something even need to do, right. It is part of the Lord's Prayer, right, forgive us our trespasses and we forgive those who trespass against us you know um i spent a lot of time again with tony robbins he'd tell give me positive affirmations in the mirror right i'm like you're a good boy you're a good guy and i'm going oh no you're not right you know it's like it just it wasn't effective cognitive behavior therapy was not effective for me you know this again this is a spiritual approach and over on page uh there was the resentment prayer on page 67 also an extended version of that over on page 552 if you want to use that one as well where it talks about praying for the person that you despise for two weeks right even if you don't want to do it anyways right that's what it says and what you'll come to find is not only will you start to forgive that person again see him as sick as opposed to evil you'll start to release some of that self-loathing you know if you can forgive the people that you resent the most it's just something in my experience that has just it just happens um also there's two things going on we're also you know we're taking people through the steps but we're also trying to improve upon you as individuals as future sponsors um when you end up doing enough step fours and step fives with other individuals you'll run across some really horrific things that have happened to people right that they've never certainly have never asked for you know and it's this idea of outside health I want to touch on this because you'll get some you'll gets some old-timers around these rooms and again most of them mean well they really do but there'll be very very critical of doctors and psychologists and again that's not what our big book says okay and I just want to take us over to page 133 and i want to touch on something here and again because me as a sponsor when we're doing a step four and step five it's a fact finding um fact facing uh an act basically to find out what your blocks are but as sponsors we're not qualified to deal with certain things we're Not qualified to handle childhood trauma we're, not qualified, to handle certain things right and i really want to encourage people that have been through some of this stuff to to seek outside help and if you hear some of the stuff around the rooms again we do have some members that are highly critical of the professional community and again that's not from our literature and i just i want to again reference the book rather than mark's opinion okay over on page 133 uh second paragraph on 133 but this does not mean that we disregard human health measures god has abundantly supplied this world with fine doctors psychologists and practitioners of various kinds do not hesitate to take your health problems to such persons most of them give themselves free give freely of themselves that their fellows may enjoy sound minds and bodies try to remember that though god has wrought miracles among us we should never belittle a good doctor or psychiatrist their services are often indispensable in treating a newcomer and in following his case afterwards, okay? I'm a big advocate of outside help. If you need some outside help, please go get it. If you've gone through some trauma, please get some help. But there's a key word that's said in here, right? It says we should never belittle a good doctor, all right? That means there's bad ones out there and there are. There's some ones that are not supportive of what we're doing here. There's a doctor right in our own community here that works with a lot of alcoholics and addicts that says there's no such thing as abstinence-based recovery and Alcoholics Anonymous or any 12-step fellowship is a cult. Okay, I wish I was kidding. So, you know, that's a doctor right in our own community here, right? So again, that might not be the best doctor for you to be seeing. Putting that out there, right. This is where the fellowship is important. You want to get around a doctor or a therapist or a psychologist that believes in what we're doing here the two can work together very well hand-in-hand right again this is an abstinence-based program uh this is not harm reduction and again get around uh and you know ask the questions around some of the members here hey who do you go see you know or do you know of anybody right there are some fine fine fine people in the professional community out there and again you know sometimes the professional community gets beat up right in our own rooms and that's that's not from our literature okay i just i want to hammer that home both as somebody going through the steps as well as a sponsor we are not equipped to handle everything okay so all right step six seven eight and nine so we left off over on page 76 i think it was actually bottom of 75 is where we left off so we've just done a fifth step with our sponsor or someone else a trusted friend and we're returning to home for an hour we can be at uh quiet carefully reviewing our first five proposals so again what's the minimum amount of time that we need to wait after doing step five before doing step six one hour right so again and i try not to wait too long usually within 24 hours i'm trying to do a step six with uh with the protege okay because if you just you've worked through the the um the character defects they're now listed you've got a list right and you don't want that person holding on to them for too long right? Because again, that's kind of like cruel and unusual punishment. You know, this again is a spiritual program. You want to take those blocks or those character defects to God as soon as you possibly can. Okay. So that takes us over to the top of page 76. We're going to do step six and seven. And this is where some of you might get a little cranky depending on what literature that you've used to go through the steps but step six and seven is a total of two paragraphs and 124 words okay this is a god deal this is not an intellectual deal now i know the 12 and 12 spends a lot of time on six and 7 some great language in there you know especially been around for a period of time and you're still struggling but again that's not how the first 100 did it they kept it simple. There's a great book called Drop the Rock, right? Great book. Again, it's about removing character defects, but it's a long book, right, again expanding on 124 words, two paragraphs, right? Again, if you've been around here for a period of time and still struggling with some character defects you know maybe look at some of that other literature, but first go around as going through this let's stick to the book okay let's keep this simple this is a spiritual program not an intellectual program so it takes us to the top of page 76 if we can answer to our satisfaction when they're talking about their our review of the first five proposals then we look at step six we emphasize willingness as being indispensable are we now ready to let god remove from us all the things we've admitted are objectionable can he take them all everyone all everyone if we still cling to something we will not let go we ask god to help us be willing so there's two main words in here willingness and objectionable okay so you've got this list of character defects and the question now is are you willing to let them go and the other question is do you actually find them objectionable and one of the things is like okay well you know for a lot of people anger shows up on their on their character defects well do I really want to let anger go completely because it's helped me get my way over the years right do I Really Want To Let Lust Go all of it because it's kind of fun you know i mean there's certain character defects that's like are you sure you want to let them go right and this is the question here and usually by the time we get to this point we've hit bottom we're kind of banged up pretty good you know um the idea of wanting to maintain these character defects is it's going to inhibit your recovery all right and what it does say is if you're not willing, you ask God to help you be willing. So if you're trying to cling on to a couple of things, whether it be anger or control or being judgmental because it's worked for you in the past, you know, by the time you get to the point of hitting bottom and having that profound step one experience, we're generally pretty wrangled up and ready to let some of this go okay so the question now is are you as individuals here by a show of hands are you ready to have god remove these defects of character that you find objectionable okay that's it that's all you need for step six if you find that you are hanging on to some of these ask god to help you be willing to let them go okay it doesn't have to be any more complicated than that which then takes us to the action step of step seven right step seven step six is about willingness to let the things go that we find objectionable step seven is an action step when ready we say something like this so is everybody ready okay from our knees as an act of humility We're going to do the seven-step prayer. Is everybody ready? My creator, I'm now willing that you shatter all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go from here to do your bidding. Amen. What's it say right after that? Wow, it's almost too easy. Okay. Let's just review that prayer. And here's what I do each and every day. I start my morning with the third step prayer. Again, bed floor, right? I don't spend any other time doing other things right from the bed to the floor I do the third step prayer and I do some of the prayers over on page 86 I end my day with the seventh step prayer that's what I do now the book is very clear the only thing it says for you to do each and every day is a step over on age 86 I also do the 3rd step prayer in the morning I'll end my days with the 7th step prayer that's why I find it works quite well okay says let's just review these seven step prayer and just the language about it just so that we have a clear idea what we just did and what may or may not happen in the future here it says me at my creator i'm i my creator I am now willing that you should have all of me the good and the bad I pray that you remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. What it's saying here is I don't choose what stays and what goes. I've revealed a lot of stuff through step four and step five. I got a list of character defects, but this whole thing is a God deal. I don'T choose what states and what goes. God might even leave a couple of character defect behind if it can be helpful to other alcoholics. Uh, for example, um, my sponsor is, was viewed at an early corrupt recovery as extremely abrasive, right? Some of his old talks are like when he was like 10, 11 years sober, we're just rough, right. And those would have been deemed as character defects, but those are the exact same defects that helped get through to some of the rougher members out there right um you'll find that a lot that some of these defects will be removed right away and some of them might be left behind if god deems them as being useful right sometimes a little bit of abrasiveness um might help you get through to to an alcoholic that's just a little rough around the edges or you know or maybe one of your character defects is people pleaser well maybe that's something that that's going to get left behind it's going to help you get through to some of the softer members in the program, right? Again, we don't decide what stays and what goes, right. Sorry. Right. Yep. So we, again, this is a completely a God deal, right, we do not choose what stays or what goes. Does that all make sense? just don't use that if you're a manipulator in your own mind right no I'm allowed to do this well true and this is why you should have a sponsor and this is why he should be writing inventory yeah exactly God chose me to be a dick because I'm helping people sure yeah we're experts at being dishonest right but I've seen that quite a bit where some of these character defects are left behind, whereas you might even be able to help somebody struggling with the same character defect. Maybe lust has been a problem all through your sobriety. Well, then you get a chance to help other people that are struggling with this. You can do the same thing through their sobrietry, right? Again, see these things quite a bit, right. So let's go back to the book. Page 76, third paragraph. It says, now we need more action without which we find that faith without works is dead. It's one of my favorite lines. It's in there quite a few times in our literature. Let's look at steps eight and nine. We have a list of persons we have harmed and whom we're willing to make amends. We made it when we took inventory. So what it's telling me is that I already have the list, okay? So basically, it's going to be the fourth column of my resentment inventory. it's gonna be everybody that I harmed in my sex inventory and then also it's going to be all of the innocent people that we talked about right all of the fallouts where I didn't have a resentment but yet I still harm them has anyone ever heard people talk about doing their four-step and having some big ceremony and burning it, right? Do not do that. Okay. Because you've just got rid of your eight step list, you know? So, um, protect your four step. I will tell you that. I've heard some horror stories of people coming across, uh, somebody's four step, it's up to you to protect your four steps. Um, but we don't go burn it after a fifth because then where's your list? It's gone. right you want to burn it maybe after you make your eight step list well then then so be it right but again the eight step list is based upon your inventory that you wrote in your number four okay so we have a list of persons we have harmed and who are willing to make amends we took it when we took inventory um and then down at the bottom of that paragraph it reminds us again because what's usually happening here is you've done some work with your sponsor, right? You've got a good idea what alcoholism is. You've surrendered that you're not management material. You brought in a new manager. You did some writing. You didn't miss that, right. You'd done six and seven. What's usually happening there? Well, you're feeling better. So you generally when you start to feel better, the desire to follow through with the rest of his steps with a level of enthusiasm tends to start to diminish. That's again why I truly believe that spiritual window for us to get through is small and not take our time. The longer that we take, the less likely you can do it. But it reminds us at the bottom of the page here, it's like remember it was agreed at the beginning we would go to any lengths for victory over alcohol, right? It's reminding us here for a reason because you're probably, you know, starting to get along with a few people again. You start to feel a little bit better and it's like, yeah, you don't want, I don't know if I really need to make all these amends. Right. I think it's, you Know, it might've been a little bit unreasonable with all this. I feel pretty good. People are talking to me again. Right? You know, I'm got back with my ex. Things are wonderful. You know whatever it might be, yeah so it happens a lot right debate whether I should go here or not today I think I'm gonna one thing that I do and again I will tell you what I'm about to veer off from the big book about the beer off in the big what I have people do my experience and this is purely off of experience my experience is that you write this long list of people that we've harmed right from your four step and it can be a little bit overwhelming and my experience is often that you'll get somebody new to the program they'll start reading the 12 steps they'll get the step 9 they're like oh I got to make amends to people that have harmed and they think of those one or two real uglies and they go screw it i'm out i'm not doing any of them right what i have the people that i work with do not always but typically i'll have them organize their amends into three different categories this is not from the big book if anyone remembers the joe and charlie tape some of the old timers around here might remember the joan truck charlie tapes right this is exactly where this comes from i'll help them organize there are men's in the three different categories kind of the low-hanging fruit which is i call right away all right those are the ones with you know parents or some friends or some people that you you know they're going to go pretty good right some of the lower hanging fruit and then the second group of people you know it might be a little bit more difficult but you know you're pretty sure that you can still get them done you know they'll go in the maybe column. And then it's like the no way in hell ones, there's usually one or two of those, you know, I'll usually put those into a column called never. It doesn't mean I'm never going to do them, but that's just kind of where my head space is at that moment. I'll put maybe one or 2 over there. What I find that if I can start getting, if I can get started on some of the low hanging fruit and gain a little bit of confidence on making amends that the ones that I know that are going to go well, the ones over that were in the maybe column become a little bit more attainable, right? And as I pluck away at the ones in the may be column, maybe the one or two or the three or whatever, maybe there's none in the column that was the no way in hell column or the never column. They don't look quite as daunting as when I first showed up, okay? does that uh does that make sense to everybody okay so let's just jump over we're flying through this a little quicker than i thought so um let's just jump right over into step nine i've cherry picked a few readings here step nine is again we lose people most people at step four and then the ones we didn't lose at step 4 we lose a lot of people in step 9 as well okay step 9 is where you've now started to involve the outside world everything up to this point has just been with you and your sponsor this is where i can't stress enough sponsorship is key a sponsor that has a sponsor that has the sponsor is key it's good to have some experience here when making amends all right what you don't want to do is go run out there and cause more damage is often you can see that a lot especially when the motives aren't exactly good you know the motives are trying to save your own butt at the expense of someone else or your motive might be trying to get somebody back into your life right you're really not trying to repair damage you're trying to resurrect an old relationship again sponsorship here is absolutely crucial the rule of thumb when making amends is you do not get to save yourself you don't get to go make an amend to save your own but when you're going to harm somebody else there's some very good language in our book we'll we'll cherry pick a few of the readings um and sometimes i'm always asked the question should i you know when this happens should i make an amend or not a lot you know a lot to do with infidelity or crimes or whatever it might be what i can say is the devil is in the details i'm not going to stand up in here say it's like when this crime is committed you should do this Or if you cheated on your wife, you should do that. The book actually leaves a lot here for interpretation. The devil is in the details, which is to be discussed between you and your sponsor. It's not always the exact same answer. All right? Let's cherry pick a few readings and then just see where this takes us, okay? Let's go over to page 77. I'm actually just going to read this whole page the whole page is really good page 77 right from the top we might prejudice them at the moment we are trying to talk about making amends we're trying to put our lives in order but this is not an end in itself our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to God and other people it is seldom wise to approach an individual who still smarts from our injustice to him and announce that we've gone religious in the prize ring we'd be called leading with the chin why lay ourselves open to being branded fanatics or religious bores we may kill a future opportunity to carry a beneficial message but our man is sure to be impressed with our sincere desire to set right the wrong he is going to be more interested in a demonstration of goodwill than our talk of spiritual discoveries so what it's saying here is you don't show up to somebody trying to go into making amends like i found god right um again that's they were referring to that like a prize fighter leading with the chin it's probably not going to go very well what it'S SAYING TO YOU and again one of the things that i'll emphasize when writing an amend is um what can i do to make things right there's uh there's been a few people within the programs like that's not in our literature well it is we just read it okay what it says here but our man is sure to be impressed with a sincere desire to set right the wrong what can i do to make it right all right this is not about saying sorry by the time we've got to this point we probably said it at least a hundred times i'm sorry i'm so sorry i don't want to hear that anymore first of all they don't believe you right we'll walk i'll walk through some bullet points on how to do an amend um but i have heard before it's like well that's not in our literature well it is and we just read it right setting right or wrong we don't use this as an excuse for shying away from the subject of god when it will serve any good purpose we're willing to announce our convictions with tact and common sense a question of how to go how to approach the man we hated will arise it may be he has done more harm than we have done to him and though we may have acquired a better attitude towards him we are still not too keen about admitting our faults here's the key part nevertheless with a person we dislike dislike we take the bit in our teeth It is harder to go to an enemy than to a friend, but we find it much more beneficial to us. We go to him in helpful and forgiving spirit, confessing our former ill feeling and expressing our regret. So what it's saying to me is, yes, that low hanging fruit that we're going to go make amends to, the ones you know that's going to do well, that's great. It's good to get some momentum that way. But the real benefit is going to be going to somebody that we still don't like, that we might even be enemies with, and we start owning our mistakes. That's what it says. We may find it more beneficial to us if we go to someone that we dislike or hate. Here's another key part with making amends. over in the bought of 77 under no condition do we criticize such a person or argue simply we tell him we will never get over drinking until we've done our utmost to straighten out the past we're there to sweep off our side of the street realizing that nothing worthwhile can be accomplished until we do so never trying to tell him what he should do his faults are not discussed we stick to our to our own if our manner is calm frank and open we will be gratified with the result all right so again what we're doing here is we're not going there bringing the attention of what this other person did we talked in the last session the language that's often often said around here is our part our part i'm here to own my part that's not in our big book it's Not in our language. You want to see an amend go straight sideways on you? You show up and go, I'm here to own my part. They're like, oh, how are you? So what are you saying? You're saying that that person's got a part too. It says to disregard the other person entirely and you're there to show up to own your side of the street. Disregarding the other's person entirely. Page 79, we're going to read a couple of paragraphs. And then we're actually going to take a live amend from the group here. Dan's been kind enough to carry on with that resentment he had last week. And we're gonna carry on with actually doing a live amendment here. But we'll do a couple more readings just to kind of set the tone. Over on page 79, second paragraph again what we're talking about here is people that have committed criminal offenses right second paragraph usually sorry first paragraph although these reparations may take innumerable forms there are some general principles which we find guiding reminding ourselves that we've decided to go to any lengths which reminds us again to find a spiritual experience we ask that we be given strength and direction to do the right thing no matter what the personal consequences might be we may lose our position or reputation or face jail but we are willing we have to be we must not shrink at anything okay again step eight was about the willingness to go make these amends. Are you willing to go make those amends? Now here's what it tells us though. Usually, however, other people are involved. Therefore, we are not to be the hasty and foolish martyr who would needlessly sacrifice others to save himself from the alcoholic pit. Right? So as a sponsor, those are some of the questions that I'll ask, right? Okay. if you go turn yourself in are you going to be able to provide for your family do you got kids involved right i don't know there's there's other questions that are again the devil is always in the details right we're not to be a foolish martyr especially if other people are involved i'm not saying you do turn yourself and i'm saying you don't turn yourself in depends depends on the crime depends who's affected there's a lot of other factors going here. Again, I can't stress enough the importance of a strong lineage here, okay? Experience is key, right? A sponsor that has a sponsor. I mean, there's been many a times, most of my contact with my, with my sponsor isn't again, phoning to talk about my feelings. It's usually around sharing a piece of inventory or I'm working with a newcomer and I've run across an amendment, it's Like, hey, this guy robbed a chain of banks, right? I don't know what to do with this one, you know? And sometimes you get some very, very tricky amends. Again, this is where I have a sponsor and sometimes I go to my sponsor who's like, holy crap, I haven't heard that one before. Let me make a call, right, you Know? We discuss it and then we go back to the individual. We give him what we believe that he should do and then ultimately we can't force anyone to do anything, right? So page 80, first paragraph. Before taking drastic action, we might implicate other people with secure their consent. If we have obtained permission, we have consulted with others asked God to help and the drastic step is indicated we must not shrink again other people are involved before I go make an amend the other people that will be affected, I'm going to go have a chat with them here's what I'm thinking I need to do are you okay with that I might be gone for six months, might not be able to provide for the family something might happen here, might have to go to jail do a little bit of jail time you know again we discuss it with the entire family we just don't show up and start doing things right again i really want to stress the importance of uh of sponsorship here and do one more reading and then we're going to actually get right into making an amend okay or the dynamics of making an amendment page 83 first paragraph and this you'll often hear the idea of um living amends um not a big believer in living amens well i shouldn't say that direct amend whenever possible okay but there's also a follow-up to the direct amend which then would be a living amend right which is really no different than a change of behavior the rest of it's just words right page 83 at the top yes there is a long talk about the family here yes there's a long period of reconstruction ahead we must take the lead a remorse a remorseless mumbling that we are sorry won't fill the bill at all we ought to sit down with the family and frankly analyze the past as we see it being careful not to criticize them Their defects may be glaring, but the chances are that their own actions are partly responsible. So we clean the house with the family, asking each morning in meditation that our creator show us the way of patience, tolerance, kindliness, and love. So what it's saying is that you've got a long road ahead. Usually a lot of damage that's done within the family. They want to see a change of behavior. They don't want to just see some words. so a few readings i'm just gonna get right into how we doing for time let's send this uh the basket around first because we do have some expenses to pay and while that's going around i'm just going to write some stuff up on the chalkboard here uh where's my brush oh yeah i don't know where it is but this works Thank you. Can I make a non-AA-related announcement? Yeah, go ahead. If there are any announcements, go ahead. Thank you very much, Todd. Those sliders were awesome. No doubt. Should we just Pile right through today? Yeah. Yeah? There's coffee out there. You just want five minutes? Okay, let's take a quick five-minute break. I'll continue to write here. Five minutes. Six minutes. Six minutes? Right here at seven. Yeah. I always say seven and it takes eight, so I'm going to say six and it's going to be seven. on here um i did i brushed over a little bit too quickly on step eight step eight itself was in the biggest question um step eight is about a list right we talked about making the list But the big question around step eight is willingness. Now, I've heard and seen of people getting free while in prison. They haven't had a chance to get out there and make these amends, but they were 100% willing to go make those amends. in their minds they were already done right so the question back to each individual here we're kind of going a little bit in reverse but based upon the inventory work that you've done and the list of people that you have harmed is everybody again willing to go make those amends okay all right and again what it says is if you're struggling about being willing you ask god to help you become willing right like i said i do organize the amends and it's not in the big book there is actually and i don't often make reference i haven't actually made reference to the 12 and 12 at all the 12-12 does talk about organizing your men's right i did get this idea from the old joel and charlie tapes i have found it quite beneficial so that people again the big thing here is a sponsor you want to keep your protege moving you want want to keep the feet in motion okay and often you'll start seeing them gain some confidence by going out there and making some some of these uh tell me the amends that are just a little bit more low-hanging fruit now me as a sponsor i'm just going to get purely into experience here i'm going to kind of go off script here now um when i'm working with somebody we've we've done the list we've got a list done right we've organized the amens what i'll have somebody do is go and write maybe about three to four amends letters now it's again we're not sending the letters but the reason we're writing the letter is so that they can have a rough draft and then we can now sit across from each other and go through it to see uh to basically just go through the content make sure that they're not making it all about them right uh what i've the biggest thing that I find with when people do amends or write amends letters is they are way too long, okay? Brevity here again is hallmark, right? They'll say, well it all started back when we were kids and if you wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't Have done that. Right? And then I wouldn't end up cheating on you if you would've ignored me or whatever, right, you know? All these, it's just, it's way, way too long. An amends letter is short, sweet to the point. Okay. Now if you have a discussion before or after then, then so be it. Right. There's a few things in regards to writing an amend that I try to touch on before I send somebody off to write a letter. And then Dan, we're going to go through your, uh, the one from your, it was your step-mom, right with the resentment from last week so a couple things when writing an amends letter and you can probably scratch one out here right now if you've got a bad resentment from last week that you're willing to make one uh an amend to first of all you state why you're there state why are you there okay so what i generally say is i'm a member of alcoholics anonymous and I'm on a journey of cleaning up my past mistakes. Or I can just say, I'm going to do this. I'm doing this. I'm taking on a new journey of cleaning out my past mistake. If you don't want to say you're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous, I'm okay with that. Why would that be a good thing to say you're a member of Alcoholic Anonymous? Attraction rather than Yeah? What else? Has anyone ever found that when you make an amend, if you say that you're a member of Alcoholix Anonymous they go, hey, I've got a relative. that maybe I can, that you can talk to. So by putting that out there... Sure, now they know you're a member of Alcoholics Anonymous. Who doesn't know somebody that's struggling with addiction or alcoholism? Right? So by puttin' it out there, right? You know, it often opens the door for them to say, okay, we're gonna go through this amendment. Do you mind talkin' to my brother? Do you have a mind talkin'? Do you want me to talk to my sister or my mom or whatever it might be? Right, again, you don't have to put it in there. i do it's like i'm a member of alcoholics anonymous and i'm in the journey of cleaning up my past mistakes done in person whenever possible right that's a direct amend now if there's somebody living in a different country that it doesn't like someone's in peru i own them an amend i'm not going to wait to for me to see them again to make that amend i'll probably there's a good chance i won't see them this is where i'm okay with the use of technology is purely when it just can't happen in person uh with facetime you can actually see people now right i mean a big thing with the direct amend is looking at their face looking into their eyes right but if i can't make the amend um directly i can do it by phone or even even better yet facetime because now i can see them face to face what i try to do is do it you know if i'm doing it using technology i'll try if given the chance at a later date where i actually do see him again well i'll follow up with it all right uh state are wrong so okay i'm on a journey i'm a member of alcoholics anonymous i'm gonna um sorry i missed one no one's gonna be able to see this so I'm going to get right into it, and I'm going to state how I harmed them. Okay? I'm on a journey. I'm cleaning up my past mistakes. I harmed you by stealing so much money. I harmed you by causing you years of emotional distress. I armed you by being unbelievably dishonest for a long period of time, right? I harmed you by, you know, uh, having them, whatever. Right? You're going to state how you harmed them. Okay? You are going to stay your wrongs, not theirs. You're not going to say, well, I did this but you did that. Right. Again, our side of the street only. You are gonna to state your character defects my actions were selfish self-centered and dishonest or whatever they are done period right doesn't have to be long and elaborate and drawn out and then you're going to say to them have i harmed you in any other way so other than what i just referenced have i harmed you in any other way uh my sponsor when he when his ex-wife finally was willing to to listen to him right for an amend it was like 14 years he he did this and he's like have i harmed you in Any Other Way because he stayed how he thought he harmed her and she's like buddy you have no idea do you you know i ended up in therapy for years because of you. You know, I went bankrupt because of you. He's like, oh God, I had no idea. Right? So a lot of this is taking the ball of control that we've often had and we're handing it over to the other person. We're allowing them to talk now and we'RE listening. We'RE shutting our mouth. Have I harmed you in any other way other than what I've mentioned? Okay. And here's what makes an amend an amend. If you want to say sorry in an amend, I'm okay with that if you think that the other person wants to hear it. But that in and of itself is not an amend right? It's just something that we've repeated over and over and now if you want here the if you think the other person wants the hear I'm sorry, you can put it in there or I regret my actions I'm ok with that and I regret my actions I'm sorry right but that in in itself is not an amend. What makes an amend an amend is what can I do to make things right between us? We just read it. It is in our literature. There's some people that say it's not. It isn't. Just read it, okay? And then we shut up and we listen, all right? Now they're going to tell you how to make thing right. When these are monetary amends, they're pretty straightforward you know yeah i owe you 500 bucks right and we're gonna make an arrangement how i'm gonna pay you back but a lot of these ones are where there's been emotional damage it's like okay what can i do to make things right between us and shut up and then you listen okay often the question comes up is well what if they ask something that's just so completely unreasonable and bizarre um drop dead or give me a million dollars or whatever right actually drop dead's not even a bad one i've been told that so or go go to hell i think it was but anyways um but what you might get one out of every hundred where somebody says something that's completely unreasonable and i have and i've heard that happen when somebody's i did have one um where a person made the amendment they say i need for you to quit aa their account they're polluting your mind right but that that's one that came back to them so what i encourage anyone to say is if something does again 99 out of 100 times nothing unreasonable will come back if it does to say thank you for hearing me out i'm going to have a discussion with my sponsor and get back to you right done okay but again that's literally maybe one of every hundred is something that's unreasonable right and then you do what they ask and here's the key part is be authentic all right we're writing amends letters i'm working with a protege or a sponsee we're writing the men's letters i'm going through them right i'm gonna scratch off anything that looks makes it look like all about them you know anything that's pointing out someone else's character defects i'm keeping it short but what you don't want to do is show up make an amend and reading from a piece of paper and monotone right you know it's all about being authentic eye contact sincerity right don't look like you're just doing this to save your own butt It does say in our big book that, you know, I'm, in order to keep my sobriety, in order for me to stay sober, I need to do this. I don't say that because guess who it looks like yet again? It looks like it's about you, right? You're trying to save your own butt, right, yeah? What do you see with people that have a lot of anxiety with that? What do they do if they can't, if they're not full of stupid people and not confident? The person making the amend or giving the amend to? The person taking the amend, like, what if they can't get that out, would they need that piece of paper? Oh, they can, if they can't, then you can still use a piece of paperwork. But I guess the big thing is be authentic. Right? I mean, if they're looking at it and they're going, I owe you an amend for, and they are trying to make out a word, right? And it's like, do you really mean what you're saying here? I don't know, I hear you on that. But I know a lot of people that I've worked with have so much anxiety i guess what i would say is ask god to go in with you beforehand yeah yeah so please god help me remove my fear to make this amend just another option there is to start out with uh i don't want to screw this up so i'm going read what i've written down here right so kind of you know you're authentic you don't fail you want to make it right so yeah i've seen that kind of people doing speeches so we did do a resentment last week where we took dan's stepmom who started with an eight right and then we looked at her as being sick as opposed to evil that eight went down to about a four and then Dan looked at his fourth column where his mistakes were and then that four went to about a two. Now he did write an amends letter last night and I didn't tweak it at all, I looked through it and I'm okay with it. Do you want to read it for everybody? Sure. Maybe say it loud there's a few people online. Okay my stepmother's name is Karen so Karen as you know I am a member of Alcoholics anonymous. I'm working the 12 steps again. It is essential that we try to clean up the wreckage and the harms I have done to people. Sorry, it's essential that I clean up the wreckages of my past and the harm I've done to the people. I wronged you by asking dad for money and manipulating you both by playing on your guilt and feelings. I've been selfish, dishonest, manipulative. Is there anything in addition to what I mentioned? How can I make this right by you? Yeah, exactly. Now there's going to be some dialogue in there, right? Yeah. That's the body of it, right. But again, you're going to state how you harm them, state the character defects at play. Have I harmed you in any other way? And then you listen and then you ask what you can do to make things right. And then we listen. Right. So question. She mentioned something in addition that has harmed her. And if you don't agree or you don' t remember or like it's just something that, yeah, you don''t, like you just have to take it for face value for what she's saying. So in this area, we're here to own our side, right? Yeah. and what it says is take the bit in the teeth and we listen, right? Now if something starts going a little bit sideways, just say thank you for hearing me out. I've already established that this is a sick person too, right, so anything that comes out of her mouth, I have to take at face value, maybe I don't remember, maybe I do not believe in it, but yeah, I am zipping it and just taking my part entirely. so it's just her opportunity to feel right yep and then we ask what can i do to make things right between us right now often you know here's the deal the other person this is where i hate that i hate i do not like the the term my part because let's say for example the other person has 80 to do with the conflict and i only have 20 to do with it right i'm already going to go in there abrasive defensive right i'm there to own that 20 i'm here to own 100 of my 20 and disregard that 80 completely so i'm not gonna say well you did this right and you did that that's why i did that and again that's we zip it we listen we thank them and we're done i don't want to justify my behavior yeah right so and again what i really want to stress is i don t want to blanket this is how an amend goes when this situation happens the devil is always always in the detail have a a good strong discussion with your sponsor have a sponsor that has a sponsor experience again i am totally cool if somebody getting out there and sponsoring with one month sobriety provided they've got some strong support i'm a big advocate of co-sponsoring we're going to really hit this hard on session four session four is going to be 10 11 and 12 they'll spend a lot of time on working with others the importance of having some some experience within your lineage the idea of co-sponsoring people right but i'm i'm totally cool if somebody gets through the work in one month two months and they're ready to go sponsor go for it again our founders 9 and 14 days they were they were doing it that's what kept them sober right none of this wait one year stuff that you often hear right big a big advocate of that kind of stuff but again it's the you know you'll Like, what happens if this happens? What do we do if that happens? It's difficult with the amount of time that we have here today. There's some general rules of thumb. Yeah, yeah. But again, you know, please lean on your sponsor and I hope your sponsor has a sponsor. Quentin, you had a question? I was just going to say, if the person you're making amends to, if they try to interrupt you and say, oh, well, I had my part, Or do you stop them and say, wait a minute, this is only about how I harmed you? No, you let them talk. Okay. Yeah, we're there to listen one way or the other. And that'll often happen. It's like, hey, you know what? And at the end of the day, and the book talks about that, the other person will often bring up their wrongs, but we don't bring them up. Right? And we'll listen to it and, you now, yeah, we thank them and then we carry on, right? So you said... Sometimes they use it as a vent thing too, like they really want to vent at you, so you just gotta let them go through that. Yeah, yeah, take it. Right now? My ex-wife vented for five minutes in the car. Wife's not bad, yeah. She's loud. So I wanted my own experience with my dad and tried to make an amends to him. He didn't want to hear any of it. So I had to respect that. Just say, okay. And a little later, but yeah. And actually, that's good. I want to touch on that is we never blindside anybody. Okay? We don't show up at their doorstep. I'm like here to make amends. You know, we always want to contact them. again a lot of this we're cherry pickings we're not able to get through everything here today right we don't blindside anybody we send them a message or have somebody send them a message if we're on shaky ground with them a third party and it's like hey i owe you an amend would you be willing to have a discussion with me and if their answer is absolutely not you shelve it doesn't mean we don't make it again my sponsor was 14 years sober before his ex-wife was willing to listen to him and he tried all along every couple of years he would try again hey you know how about now right no no okay 14 years over she's like okay you got five minutes right which turned into a much longer period so but we don'T blindside anybody we make arrangements and sometimes and here's what i often hear they don't want to hear from me how do you know did you ask or did you have somebody ask on because sometimes there there's a lot of tension between people use a third party right all of a sudden it's like go to someone else hey mark wants to make an amend to you he's quite certain you don't wanna hear from him direct would you be willing to, would you be willing to hear him out? And again, I'll make use of a third party. That third party will come back to me. They're like, they're going to give you five minutes, but phone only. Right. I don't get to choose. I'd prefer to make it direct. They don't want to see you in person. You have five minutes on the phone and make it good. Okay. That's what I do. Right? It's about the other person, not me. And the big rule of thumb is I don'T get to save my own butt at the expense of someone else, right? I'll use an example and it's years ago now. There was a guy that I was sponsoring and it was at a noon meeting. He hasn't had the discussion with me. He shares it with the entire group. He's like, yeah, I woke up this morning and I remembered waking up naked with my uncle's girlfriend years ago. I'm not sure if we did anything together but I'm going to go make this amend right after the meeting. I'm like, you're what? You're good at what? It's like, are they happy? Are they, you know, are they getting along and they're married? How long ago did this happen? I'm like, you don't get to go there and save your own butt at the expense of their marriage. No, you leave them alone, right? So yeah. Do you have any advice on making amends to those that have passed on? Yeah, good question. Thanks for that. And it does actually, it's in our literature here too, right. For those that Have passed on to the other side We can make those amends. Write a letter. And burn it? No, that's your poor step. You went and burned it. So no, write a letter and find somewhere special that's special to that person that's especial to you. Maybe it's out in nature. Maybe it'S a special pond. Maybe it' s at the grave site. Ask God for some direction on that. Write a little letter and then go read it go read it at the gravesite go read it at the pond again never ever underestimate the power of making amends to somebody that's passed on it absolutely can happen awesome question any other questions sure great question and again the devil is in the details but here's what i do and here's what was done to me um say for example you've done some harm to somebody or a group of people that you have no idea who they are they're long gone no idea of who they aren't no idea even what their name is you owe something back to the universe okay my sponsors had me do this before you owe something back to the universe you need to make things right with the universe our 12 step work is what we do that doesn't count but maybe I go make a donation to the women's shelter maybe I do something to give something back into the stream of life there's a way of making things there's a way to make it every amount the devil's in the details i want to be very careful here okay um if you know who the people are right you know so it depends on the person Well, and go back to that sex inventory. Yeah. Right? Yeah. The one-night stand is, were they two consensual adults having a good time? And then what's the harm? Now, was there dishonesty there? Was there harm there? Did you lead the person on thinking there was going to be a relationship? Right? Those are the things that you're making amends for. Just because you had a one-nite stand does not mean you own an end. Again, that kind of going back to our four or five, the sex inventory sometimes has very little to do with sex. It's just basically inappropriate behavior. And often if you have no idea who those people are, again maybe putting that out into the stream of life is I go out of my way to treat the opposite sex with respect. or go out of my way not to put myself in a position where that'll happen again. One thing I have come across is that financial events, quite often they think I own triples, but what do you do there? Again, the devil's in the details. If you owe somebody $500 and it's been a lot of years, you owe more than $500. what I do suggest is and what the book says is we negotiate the best deal it says that we try to work out the best deal possible, I owe $500 to somebody, been a lot of years ago I'll tack on some interest, I can't pay them the entire amount right now will $30 a month for the next so many months work for you, you work out the deal with them again, it's really hard to blanket you do this when this happens right um sponsorship sponsorship sponsorship is is very very important here right some experience within your lineage and here's what i can tell you though about amends or unmade amends the longer that you wait the less likely you're going to do it here's another some experience around amends and these character defects all right if you find the character defects are lingering on into sobriety whether it has to do with dishonesty or judgmental or lust or whatever it might be what i think this isn't in our literature but this is my experience is often there's unmade amends in that same arena if you're still struggling with lust you probably have unmade amends on your sex inventory that's been my experience yeah well said yeah yeah my my first real sponsor was another guy he had sponsored throughout when we were discussing the whole men's thing and he had said that uh it was based on our book talks about if we've got a family and we're taking care of family and there's jail time needs to be done he had that discussion and and he would have harmed the people in his life but what it was actually doing was affecting his sobriety so um he made a decision that um if he had to do jail time he would and it was just during robberies on the day he'd done a bunch of bne's on a block um and that that in amongst those people one couple actually had a family member like a son or daughter i think it was they were struggling and they actually thought that she was the one stealing all the jewelry um when he had done the vne so like he says you never know what's going to happen when you make these amends they'd always blame their their son or daughter for the missing jewelry and it actually wasn't them and that had been years before like years ago he'd done this b e and they never talked to that that's like the son or daughters after that so um the man's this guy made major changes yeah so yeah you don't know and again this is his whole idea of trusting in God or trusting in a higher power right and willing to go do what you need to do we have a guy within our own home group rate he's you know major crimes right but he went and made those amends when his kids when his kid turned 18 right not made amends what turn himself in right to the police so you know for some of these major crimes that here because he was done raising the pain for again that's what that's what he worked out with his sponsor i'm not saying that's the right way the wrong way that's what they decided on right um i do want to we're getting close to time here i do want to touch on the the nine step promises okay you'll often hear them called the promises. Archie, you want to read those? We are painstaking about the stage of our development and we will be amazed before we are halfway through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we won't know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves. Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. It will always materialize if you work for them. Awesome. So those are the The ninth step promises, you'll often refer to as the promises. They aren't the promises, they're the ninth step promises. There's promises throughout this entire big book and here's the cool part is there will be amazed even before we're halfway through. Well what do you think is going to happen when you're all the way through? Right? I mean if you're amazed halfway you know so here's the big thing in the step eight it says the word all. If again, you're struggling in sobriety, I'm going to visit these kinds of things. You have unmade amends, you know, you need to write some inventory. What do you do about restraining orders? Good question. So you respect this restraining order, right? So absolutely respect the restraining order so and um have a chat with your sponsor you know i i would say maybe a third party in a in a case like that it's like hey so-and-so wants to talk to you uh willing to make an amendment first of all you want to make sure the restraigning order is done yeah you know um maybe use a third-party and say, you know, so-and-so wants to speak with you. Are you willing to speak with him? FaceTime, phone call, right? Yeah. But here's the key. If that person does not want to see you, you respect those wishes. Right? You might try again a year or two down the road. Sometimes, honestly, people want to be a little bit of sobriety time before they're even going to buy into some of this stuff. Right? Especially some of the family. Yeah. So, but again, what I can really try to stress here is the longer that you wait to make an amend, the less likely you're going to make that amend. It reminds us, keep saying, remember when you agreed? Remember when you agree to go to any lengths? It keeps reminding you here because they know you're starting to feel better here. Okay. And then you're less likely to go make these things any challenges around making amends is what what's what problem step is that one any any problem with any step is a step one problem right so you believe that you're not you're no longer suffering from a fatal progressive and chronic illness yeah it could be but i mean if you're if you truly believe you're dying then you probably would have done step six you know with a level of honesty and humility right so um any other questions okay i think we'll we'll you mentioned before something about falling on your sword yeah so just expand on that a little bit more how do you how do you make sure you're not falling on your sword well what I've said is I'm I'm not always a believer of falling on the sword which basically means that I'm not gonna go make myself a martyr and say I'm gonna go turn myself in for doing this or that or whatever I need to make sure I see if other people are involved right and i'm also which doesn't mean you know again the devil's always always always in the details right but i'm not going to you know go fall on the sword when there's a whole bunch of other people that are being affected right so am i gonna go do something and not be able to provide for my kid don't know right you know that's kind of what i meant when i say that So you mean martyrdom, like you're not going to be a martyr? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So really take into consideration here other people. Don't do this stuff on your own. Run it by your sponsor. Make sure your sponsor has a sponsor, right? How could you do this on your life? Well, people tried. I know. Yeah. I fully tried. Yeah. And you're going to make some messes, you know. you show up and people don't want to see you and you're going to approach them when they don't want to be approached you know, you're gonna blindside them sure, yeah go make an amend, right so what is this whole thing doing for us, what was our dilemma lack of what all of this is opening up the channel between you and God, you and your higher power so that you can indeed become a recovered alcoholic the obsession will be removed you can walk around earth a free person they'll start talking about this in the 10-step promises which are my personally my favorite promises the 10 step promises we'll get into that in the next session where we can walk along the earth safe and protected right the problem's been removed but this whole thing is about access to power right the word powerlessness is only used once in our big book and it's used in the past tense We were powerless. 80 times it uses the word power over and over and over and you'll hear I'm powerless over people, places, and things. No, I'm not powerless over people, places, or things. I don't have control over people places and things but I get to choose who and what is in my life. Power, power, power. It's right through this whole book and again this is about taking actions which gives me access to power all of this works very very very well we're doing the steps in order for a reason and this is all about getting access to power and do does any of us do this perfectly absolutely not what it does ask us to do and i'll make reference to the 12 and 12 here but the only step that we need to really do do perfectly is step one. You need to know what you're suffering from. The rest of us, the rest of it, right? We try, right. I don't do this perfectly by any means. Anyone that says they do it perfectly, you know what? I've been around some speakers. They'll have this grandiose share in a meeting. It'll bring a tear to your eye and they'll get 50 yards away from the meeting and they're a complete idiot, right? Nobody does this perfectly. Trust me, right. But the only part that you really need to know is what you are and what you suffer from. I think that's it for today. Thanks. Thanks, Mark.