Steps 3 – 7 in Ixtapa Mexico – Sandy B.

We're alcoholics. You know what I mean? It's a fatal disease. So that we have a gun at the back of our head going, you're going to keep working on becoming God-centered or I pull the trigger. And that's our gift compared to the people that don't have a gum at the back of their head. I don't know how they get it done. They're doing it voluntarily. It just occurs to them, oh, to become spiritual. Whereas you and I, we're going to do this and we're gonna suffer dire consequences. There's a place in, I forget where it is in And the 12 and 12, we're going to fall by the wayside. You ever see that sentence? Sounds like a bad place to me. Also sounds biblical. I think Bill must have got that out of the Bible. Fall by the wayside. Like, oh my God, not the way side. Anything but the way. The way side? I'm not even sure what it is. but I know I don't want to be there so this is the struggle this is the decision in this third step and of course why are we trying to do this you know what I mean why are we trying to do this third step and then you look at that third step prayer so that I may achieve a victory and help others already the selfishness is going away. It's not even so that I'll be happy. It's so that my victory over myself, over my character defect will inspire the next new person to try it because this is so common. You know, sometimes we have new people come in here and they get sober and they immediately want to become alcohol counselors and we put it down a little bit. Oh yeah, everybody wants to become an alcohol counselor but you know what? there's something beautiful in that this is what bill wilson felt the second after he had that spiritual experience he wanted to run out and sober all the drunks up in the thing when spiritual transformations take place part of the transformation is a desire to give it away it's just it just comes with it it's automatic with the territory and you find that and um the oxford movement was the same thing that frank buckman had this big spiritual experience and he just raced around trying to give share it okay let's start little groups i got to share this i've got to show you i've gotta show you so it it it comes with the transformation it's a desire to pass it on so anyway why can't we just do it why can'T we just turn it over why canT we allow this transformation to take place well it turns out that there's some problems in accomplishing this and i like to think about them by using the prayer of saint francis let's let's just imagine that turning our will in our lives over the care of god is opening a channel like saint francise writes about make me a channel thy peace so that i can bring all these things you know where there's darkness i can bringing light where there sadness i can brings joy so where Where there's wrong, I can bring forgiveness. Where there is error, I could bring truth. In other words, I want this channel to be opened so that everything can flow out. And notice that when we talk about spirituality, we're talking about opening a channel so that things can flow up from us. Whereas intellectually, we feel, I need stuff to flow in. My problem is I don't have enough. Right? That's what intellect is. It's another one of those paradoxes. I need more money. I need, I need. And then we go, you don't need anything. You need to open this channel so that you can flow out. What you're experiencing isn't those things that you think it is. What you'RE experiencing is you're blocked. You're blocked from your true nature being able to flow out and it's like all of the water that flows into a dead sea. It's wonderful water. It's just the most wonderful water in the world. And if that was God's energy flowing in, if it doesn't flow out, it doesn' t exist. It doesn' d do anything. And we feel there is no God. I don' t feel it. I don't experience it. So this channel has to be open in order to allow it to go out. So what' s blocking it? Well, if you use the analogy of the Suez Canal. You remember when they sank all those ships in there and blocked it and do all that many, many years ago and then they had to go in and clear it? Well, think about that as your channel that we're trying to open is blocked with character defects. There's greed. Great big boulder sitting in the middle and here's lust over here and envy and anger and fear. So nothing can come through. And if nothing can comes through it doesn't exist. And that's why we have this hardest time. You know, I want to believe in God. I have faith. I can see. But until it flows through, it's a theory. It's just a comforting theory. But it hasn't penetrated yet so that we can go, now it's reality. It's not a theory anymore. This is a reality. So really, in the beginning, we really stay sober on other people's energy. You know what I mean? other people's spirituality, the people that came before us. And we get inspired by it and we just go, God, I know it's real. I can feel it from them. I can see it. I can still feel it. And eventually, we're going to have to rely on our own. So how are we going to open up this channel? Well, we're gonna have to find out what these blockages are and get them the heck out of the way. And that's the point of an inventory. And there's a whole bunch of sheets up here and we're not going to work on them or anything, but I want everybody to take one when you go. They're wonderful. Bob Daryl of Las Vegas prepared these and they're right out of the big book. Resentments, fears, sex relationships, the whole deal on the mechanics of a four-step inventory. In other words, how do I list all these blockages and how do i take a look at them and how do I get them ready to be lifted out? How do I mechanically go through this? And so be sure and take one of these at the end of the meeting. Be helpful with somebody new that you may already have them, but I highly recommend them, and I think we have, Fred was nice enough to make some more copies, and I thing we have enough to go around. So I want to talk about the dynamics of this. There's the mechanics. I'm not going to go through how to do a fourth step, but I want to talk about, because so many of us have guilt. Guilt, I don't know about you, but guilt was one of mine in the pamphlet, The Member's Eye View by McGinnis. I don'T know if you've read that. Member's eye view of AA with the eyeball on the front. If you haven't read that pamphelet yet, it's really cool. I think in the old days we had better pamphlets. Uh-oh, is General Service representative around? I DON'T know what's going on up there but I was at a meeting the other night and there were two pamphlets. Oh, I shouldn't be doing this. And here's what I... Swear to God. The first pamphlet said Is AA for you? You know what the second pamphelet said? Is AA for me? So I said, well, I wonder what the difference between is AA for me and is AA for you and is AAA for me. So I looked in there and there was no difference. It's just that one had a better title. Figure that one out. Oh, so the dynamics of this and the guilt and McGinnis' thing, yeah. And he says that guilt was the first to come and the last to go of character defense. And it's connected with pride. The prideful person is inordinately big and good. And the guilty person is inordinantly bad and rotten. But they're both pride. There's an arrogance to guilt. Real arrogance. Who are you to say you're worse than everybody else? Oh, you don't know me, man. I'm the worst. I'm terrible. I'm a rottenness, rottenness. No, you're just arrogant. You just think you're rotten. But you're not. You're just average. So there's a lot of things that have to be accounted for. And guilt will make it seem like it's our fault that we have all these things. And that feeling can be oppressive. And the 12 and 12 is really helpful to this because it says, guess where these character defects came from? Da-da-da da. They were God-given. That's where they came from. They came from instinctual drives that were born in us just like they're born in every single person. It's the sex drive, the drive for security, and a drive for a place in society. Everybody arrives on this planet with those drives. period. Nobody fault they got them, nobody's credit that they got it. That's what we arrived with and those drives are what cause us to go ahead and live, to reproduce to function, to become a society to grow, that's the energy the raw energy that causes us to be alive and to be human beings so their purpose is to supply us the energy to exist as human beings but they are not in charge there's there's just simply there to give us the energy to do this now for most of us since we don't involve we were self-centered we were trying to control these drives on our own and that is impossible as it said earlier we could wish to be moral i wanted to live up to moral standards and i couldn't i kept failing and the only way i knew to solve that was to lower the standards you know what i mean just keep bringing them down bringing them down bring them down finally i got down and i said at least i haven't murdered anybody so that makes me good and then if i had killed somebody i'd have to come up with something else you know What I mean because i couldn't get peace of mind i couldn''t live up to anything the problem was i'm trying to live upto them on my own power I was trying to be godly by myself. And then I could take the credit for it. Don't want to give God the credit. That's what an ego will do. So here, these character defects were born in us. And they take over our lives. And we end up doing terrible things. And of course, alcohol just lets all the character defects out of the bag unchained. You know, as soon as we pour it in, whatever control was there. before. Here we are. We're just out unleashing ourselves on the world. We do all these things and then we feel terrible about it. And it's just this cycle runs on and on. So I must be a terrible person. We come here and they go, no, you're not a terrible person. Here is the correct adjective. It's used throughout our literature. This is the type of person you are. Stupid. You're not a terrible person. You stupid. You look in there, you build right there. We were especially stupid in this area. Made a lot of stupid mistakes. We're stupid. The stupid plan to live without a God. What a stupid plan. That of you like deciding to drink without alcohol? Well, I got the glass. I got the bar. I've got the music. Hey, pal, you're missing the main event. So we had a stupid plan. The only problem is in order to change it, we've got to admit that it's stupid. That it's wrong. That this plan isn't working. And so we do that by, we don't convince you. We don't show you AA's theory and get it on a blackboard and then you intellectually see that it's superior to your plan for living we don't do that at all but we win the argument every time we get a new guy in here phd from princeton smarter than the whip and he keeps losing discussions with somebody who had a second grade education filled with street smarts just keep losing every discussion you know why because they don't discuss theory they only discuss results oh i see you went to princston you have a Ph.D. Well, you're wearing a wristband from a nut ward on your arm. Your family doesn't talk to you. Your mother hates you. You can't hold a job. I, on the other hand, have a third grade education. I have serenity, peace of mind, 23 years of sobriety. My family loves me. My children love me. My boss loves me so you want to talk? So we'll never compare theories we only compare results and if you're a new alcoholic you just lose automatically. So we've got to be willing to entertain this idea that we're not guilty none of this is our fault we had a stupid plan It's a mess. The channel is blocked. It's nobody's fault. Why don't we clean it up? Okay? You know what I mean? And we can just walk into this thing, no guilt, no nothing. It's just, this is the deal. This stuff is blocked here. There was a hurricane. I don't care what you want to say. It's blocked. Let's clear it up. As soon as we're willing to do that, we now can fearlessly go in, inventory this. This has nothing to do with what we did or anything like that. This is just how it is. And then we're able to fill out one of these sheets. We're ableto look at it in a little more relaxed fashion. Then we come, and now, what are we going to do with this information? We've got it all written down. We'vegot this thing. This is an accurate appraisal. This is what the channel is blocked with. Ready to go. Let's go. And we notice on the list that one of the things that shows up all the time is rationalization. rationalization we constantly explain things to our advantage where our ego jumps in and we have motives that are this way and that way well if rationalization is such a powerful force in our lives how do we know this thing is worth anything this could be all crap how do мы know that this is true how do WE know this is the real blockages we don't want to send all this effort in to clear this stuff out and it's wrong information well that's why we have a fifth step there's a spiritual principle that in order to see the truth about ourselves we run it by another human being we admit it to ourselves, to God and to another human being it reminds me of trying to see the third dimension in aerial photos so that you can measure height and depth and all that So you get two photos that are just slightly from a different angle. And then you use those glasses and then, boom, it jumps out and you can see it. In order to see the truth about ourselves, we need this second perspective sitting right next to us looking at the same sheet that you're looking at. And it can bring the third dimension out. And stuff that we thought was real serious turns out to be not so serious. the stuff we were hiding and minimizing will suddenly come to light and we have a wonderful picture and we suddenly are free to start forgiving ourselves and we're suddenly free to trust other people. We had secrets that we thought had to go to the grave with us and they held great power over us and we just walked around year after year with this secret knowledge that God, if anybody ever finds out, Oh, my God. And the only power that that junk had was that we hadn't told anybody. And that's where it got its power. Well, why is this stuff so powerful? Because I can't tell. What if you told? Well, then it wouldn't be powerful anymore. You see what I mean? As soon as it's out and the person you're talking to goes, oh, I did that about 12 times. Yeah. Yeah. And you go, well, I thought this was going to get me in jail. I thought this would be, nobody would ever talk to me. No? No? What else you got there? It's just, there it is. And I facetiously said one night that, and I've heard a lot of fifth steps over the years, maybe in a couple hundred, something like that, and I was trying to think if there's anything different. You know what I mean? If you really think about it, everything is almost exactly the same. and I think the only difference is there's two categories that I've been able to determine and that is the group of guys that have not had sex with cows that's about it that's above all that's the that's a bad ad other than that everybody's exactly the same I mean it's just it's remarkable how we agonize over these things. So this sharing in the fifth step is huge and we have a set of promises, we begin to trust other people, we beginto understand that living in isolation is the worst possible thing we can do. And what's our tendency? The next time something goes wrong, stop calling. Uh-oh, something went wrong. I guess I'll handle it alone. Okay, I'll stop going to meetings. Okay,I'll stop calling and that's why what Larry was talking about last night is so important to have a home group So you go there and people can see that something's wrong. Okay, what is it, Sandy? You're going to tell us now or when we get coffee afterwards? Nothing's wrong, don't tell me nothing's wrong I can see your face. What is it? What is okay, and I go, is that it? Yeah, oh, well let's go get coffee. You know what I mean? It's just, it's got to be shared and so this tremendous lessons in this fifth step about all the rest of our future that we'll never live alone again. That we don't want to do that. But why are we doing all this? It isn't so that we're more social, so that мы get along with people better. It's to open this channel. We've got to keep going back and keeping our eye on the ball. We already went to the end of the book. We already saw the ending. The ending is spiritual awakening, conscious contact. So this is what this is all building up to. This is how we get it. So then we finally do this. And then we sit down and we go, But man, wasn't that huge? I just went through the fifth step and now I can go into the big book on steps six and seven. Two paragraphs. I'm out of there. I'm almost on eight. Right? We go into this. Are you ready? Did you skimp? Did you do this? Did you doing that? I am now willing that you should have all of me good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defective character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding we have now completed step seven then about twelve years later no I'm going back in history now Bill wrote that in 1938 and then about twelve years later he's writing the twelve and twelve and guess what he says about step six this is step that separates the men from the boys This step separates the girls from the women. This step is huge. This step is the epic step in Alcoholics Anonymous. Well, I didn't notice that when I read those two sentences before. Didn't say anything about epic in there. Well, maybe we better go back and look at it. What does that say in there? It says we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. That's all it says. It's a pretty simple thing to me. You want to become a better person? You want that channel? Yeah! it's just like when you ask people you want the federal deficit to be removed yeah, okay we'll raise your taxes we'll take that deficit out and nothing flows whoa, whoa, well we'll cut your favorite program then we can reduce it it's in the specifics that we run into the problem you know what I'm talking about do you want to become a better person yeah, yeah, ok how would you like to get rid of lust all of it yeah 100% totally gone no kidding 100% totally gone lust free what does that mean lust free I want to do it but I'm just trying to get a thought is that like no sex I'll tell you what what I'd like to do is make some progress in the area of lust because after all and then we see this is where we grab something from another part of the book we claim progress not perfection so what I'd like is to get rid of most of my lust I like to get rid of most of my okay most of your lust yeah yeah okay how about gossiping you know you do a lot of that gossiping you know it ruins AA groups It's very destructive. It hurts the other person. What do you think? Totally lifted out of you? Yeah. Yeah, I'm tired. Well, but if there's a really good story... What I'd like to do is get rid of almost all of the gossiping. I'd love to practically eliminate gossiping from my life. That's what I'd really like to be able to do. What about anger? Yeah, that would be great. I'd also like to get rid off unjustified anger. but once in a while I mean you just got to vent your see who got it so I'd like to get rid of yeah if I can't get remote rid of most of that okay that's good how about greed trying to get more trying to fit yeah I think we should get rid of mostly that actually I should get rid of most of that greed. We can go through every character defect there is and we want to get rid of most of it. Isn't that funny? We don't want to get rid off all of it and Bill writes about why why not? Why do we want to get out of all of it? Because we like some of them a lot that's why and he writes an interesting sentence in there this is the riddle of our existence is knowing that this help is available we decide not to take advantage of it. Why? Why would we keep holding on to lust or greed or gossip or fear envy or laziness or gluttony? Why do I keep eating a bag of potato chips every night? A big one. Why do I keep doing that? Because I like to eat a bag of potato chips every night, okay? Makes me feel good. I like to chew. It just makes me feel better, you know. What's wrong with an occasional potato chip? That's a carton a week, Sandy. Okay, okay. So there's this interesting sentence in the 12 and 12. It says we tend to settle for as much perfection as will get us by. That's what we tend do. You're in business. You would like to be known as an honest man, an honest woman. I would like the reputation of being totally honest. I don't want to be totally honest, but I would like the representation. I want to reserve the right to stick it to them once in a while just to keep the business going. I don' t want to have the option stripped from me. You see what I'm saying? I remember looking at this and going, holy cow! The implication of step six is perfection. We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects here. I'd be Mother Teresa. if I took this step, I'd be Mother Teresa. And then panic started setting in. I think Mother Teresa's great, but don't you think that's a little extreme? I mean, does she bowl? What does she do? I don't want... You know, that's going too far. And so then I've got to make up a reason why I'm not willing to do this. Am I into this to grow spiritually or not? Yeah, I am. Well, why aren't you doing this? Well, I'll tell you. It's because I'm unselfish. That's why I don't want to do this. If I did this step and became perfect, you know what I mean, like perfect, and then I'm like living in my neighborhood. Well, the rest of the people aren't perfect and there I'd be, perfect. And they'd be looking over going, God, that guy is perfect. And we're not. And it would make them so uncomfortable to live next to a perfect guy. So for their sake, I'm going to stay an ass I've got to find a reason for not being willing to do this the ego is just going all over the place so you can see this step is pretty big isn't it we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character and so then our ego says hey that's just a theory have you ever met anybody that's perfect what do you mean God will remove all these defect have you seen God remove all these effects show me one example give me one example and the problem is every one of us has an example what was our worst character defect drinking did it get removed yes why because I got entirely ready to have it removed I was ready to have that totally removed I didn't want any reservations whatsoever so if you can become 100% willing and humbly asked it can be removed and so this is the struggle for the rest of our lives is to try and become more willing uncover discover discard Chuck Chamberlain what else can I inventory that's wrong about me that maybe this year I could become entirely willing to get rid of spirituality is like riding in a balloon and you throw over some weight and you get up to 3,000 feet it's the best view you've ever seen it's the most exciting thing you look around and say I never saw a view like this in my life but If you stay at 3,000 feet for five years, that view gets old. I've seen 3, 000. I've been seeing 3, 004 five years. Well, why don't we find a couple more character defects to throw over? And we throw over, we go to 7, 000 and go, yeah, that's more like it. And we're there for five year. And then we go 7, 006 just like 5, 000 sucks. But what else can I get rid of to get a better view? and so we look in inventory all right all right all right and over it goes see I thought we came here just to stop drinking I thought that was the deal not drinking it's the name of the game you know what's in the fine print and changing everything about you that's the other thing and so this is a huge step and the reason it's such a huge step there's a story that I generally tell with this and it came from C.S. Lewis so I give the proper credit and involves the story of the little boy with a toothache, baseball player he's supposed to go out and play his big game the coach said get eight hours sleep he goes to bed early and long about eleven o'clock at night starts a little tingling and he knows if he calls his mother she'll bring two aspirin he'll go right back to sleep he'll get eight hour sleep and play the ball game, but he doesn't call his mother. He sits there and goes, maybe it'll go away by itself. And you know, after two hours, it just tingles a little harder and a little bit harder and he's not getting any sleep. Finally at 3 a.m. he calls his mother, I've got a little toothache. She gives him the aspirin, he goes back to sleep, but he only gets four hours sleep, makes three errors, gets no hits. So the question is, what's going on with that kid? What the hell's wrong with that kids? Why didn't he get the two aspirin and get eight hours sleep? now we'll see what it is he knew he'd get the two aspirants see the problem was he knew his mother who's the supply of help he knew would get the two aspirant but he knew that his mother wouldn't stop there she would make a dental appointment you know what I mean to go in and check this little tingle in the tooth out and then when he got to the dentist office he knew as dentist and the dentist wouldn't stop there he would look at that tooth and then it say while you're here let me just look at oh here's one here and here's one here and here is one here. Let's make three appointments. Now he's going to have three appointments, three little fillings and when he finishes he has perfect teeth. He didn't want perfect teeth, he wanted two aspirin. You see what I'm saying? He did not want that kind of help. He wanted limited help. And this we're talking about in step six. I'd like to be semi-lustful. I'd like to be semi-honest. I'd love to do this. I'd want to almost get rid of this. I'd to get a little better in this area. Well, if you're going to do that, you have to do it on your own because the only help that's available is perfect help. You see, that's why this is such an epic step. Would you ever be willing to allow God to totally come into your life in this era and be totally free of it? Wow! This is hard. This is really huge. So to make this kind of a journey is remarkable. It's the biggest journey that human beings make. We're trying to move from the material world into the spiritual world. We're tying to live in this material world but not be affected by it, not be jerked around by everything that happens because there's something inside of us that tells us where we ought to be heading is towards this God, towards this higher power. Look what happened after the World Trade Center. The churches started filling up. In meetings, we're starting to get a little more crowded. It was as if I need something beyond myself. So this is inside of each of us, and the sixth step sends us there. And so finally we get this willingness, and we go, well, now I'm on my way. And then the seventh step is just as big. And very briefly, the rest of them go fairly fast, so we'll get through them. the seventh step is you don't think about it now here's what's wrong i finally got willing now i'm just going to ask god to remove them and it just goes like okay god please remove the following that would be asking god to move now the quiz for today is take out a sheet of paper and write down the difference between regular asking and humbly asking. And if you're new, you probably are sitting there with a pencil going, huh? The difference between regular asking, yeah, what is the difference between like just regular asking? Hey God, get rid of these. That would be regular asking. Now, humbly ask. And I remember when I tried that, I went, how do you humbly asked? Oh, you're probably getting your knees. No, you got to get humble first. What is humble? Well, humble is when you look like this. There's a look. There's an look that humble people have. So you probably got to do this in front of a mirror. Okay. Hi, God. What is it? And Bill writes, we don't have a nodding acquaintance of humility. We haven't got a clue what humility is. It has no place in the free enterprise system. Hey, drive a Buick. get humble it would sell nothing and we talk about pride pride pride and you look in the dictionary and guess what humble says humility says a total absence of pride zero pride all pride and i was in the marine corps and i'm going pride what is this communist organization Get rid of pride. Pride is a wonderful, powerful energy if you're not going to use God. You know what I mean? It'll motivate people. It'll get something done. But totally is self-centered. That's what you can accomplish on your own. And what this is saying is you can go way beyond what you're going to accomplish on your own if you involve God. Why just bring your power? Why not bring infinite power to everything that you encounter? and so humility is the awareness of me being nothing and God being everything instead of becoming a big shot I want to become a small shot you know what I mean I want it to be so tiny I can go through a screen door I don't want to be this big see, big shots have to push all that bigness through the universe they have to put it in into the shopping center hey, I can't walk through the mall oh, everybody's in my way. You know, we're so big going out there and everything goes against us and we feel the resistance as we try to push this ego through the world. And then we go, well, I'll just be nothing. And then мы just go through the World like, I'm not even here, man. I don't have a way. I'm just doing God's work. Nothing can go against my way because I don't have a way. Do you ever think that your only problem you ever have is not getting your way? You'd be a servant of God. Servant is the highest pay grade we have in AA. You know that? You can't go higher than that. That's the top. You've got to work and work and climb your way all the way to servant. And that's what a winner is, is a servant. And he said, I'm just out here just doing what God gives me this intuition to do. And so when this transformation takes place, our needs are being met from the inside so we don't have to go out and get anything to get fixed. We're already fixed. We already have everything that we need and we're simply moving through life. And so humility is an awareness that we want to go through whatever it takes to become God-centered. That means we're going to have to go through the pain of not getting our way in everything and so we're going to voluntarily go through this transforming pain um the story i always tell on this one is there was some horseshoes at bars of iron you heard this story i told it i'm sure and they were up in the horseshoers shelf and they've been there for 25 years hidden behind brown paper and they Were complaining up there they've Been 25 years ago this is it this is all there is to life it's hanging around and listen to all that damn noise out there and it's dusty. There ought to be more to life than this. It sounds like us on a bar stool in a bar, you know what I mean? And one day they ripped the paper off and the blacksmith said, my God, these guys, look at this. Where are you guys doing up here? You're not supposed to be on that. Yeah, I knew we weren't supposed to. You're supposed to wear a hat. You're meant to be a horseshoe. What the hell is that? Well, that's the most beautiful thing in the world. You're going to be around this great animal. You're gonna be traveling all around the world You are going to be the most useful thing. Oh, it's so exciting. You're going to become a horseshoe. Wow, we're ready. I want to be a horseshoe. Right then, they could ask to be a horseshow, okay? They just said, you want to become a horseshower? Yeah, yeah. Let me show you how you become a horseshower. They stuck it in the fire, cut red hot, put it on the anvil, boom, bam, bam. And they're watching. Their eyes are popping out. In the hot water, the steam's coming up and more banging, shaping, and then punching holes in and they held it up and said, there, that's a horseshoe. Now, if you ask, you're humbly asking. You know what's involved. You know that it is not going to be easy, but you want it anyway. Spirituality is changing our attitude about pain. It is looking through the pain to see the beauty of what is coming. it is this the transformation is just on the other side of the willingness to experience not getting my way and as soon as we go through it it wasn't even painful it becomes effort it's kind of like when you're out of shape and you want to get back in shape it's hard remember that first week in the gym and you go home at night every damn thing hurts everywhere and you say I'm dying but as you keep it up you know three weeks later You go in the gym. It's not painful. It's just effort. And it's wonderful because you know the results it's going to produce. And I love going down there and pushing myself through this because I get these results. And the same thing can happen in the spiritual world. I understand I'm not going to be comfortable, but I'm going to go through with it anyway. And that's really what humility is. Now, 8 and 9 are making amends, making a list of people we've harmed. And that is learning a new thing about harm. And harm, you know, is gossiping. Harm is withholding affection. It's not punching and all that. It turns out that us alcoholics, self-centered in the extreme, even after we get sober, until we work the program, have a very unusual talent. We can bring out the worst in everyone. We just walk in the room and da-da-da da, and people start fighting with each other and they start causing trouble and doing all this. And this is our secret talent because we've got to keep everybody off balance and we've gotta do that. So we do a lot of harm. I can remember coming to work Monday hungover and people would come in all happy with their weekend and I didn't think it was fair. They were happy and I wasn't so I would just be grump. I don't want to hear about your weekend. I wanted to bring everybody down to my level. You know, this is the type. So harm, harm, harmful. Well, that's fine. We're going to go make amends to those people but let's see and learn what it is that we do to harm so that we can stop it. Why would we want to stop it? So that people will behave differently when we're around. We transform the world this way. My parents were having their 50th wedding anniversary. My sister was doing the list of people that were coming, and this was quite a few years ago, and there was this one uncle, and I said, oh no, Sue, you're not going to invite him. No, no, no. God, God, he's so abrasive. If he's so busy, and it's just one argument after another. And my sister said, he only does that when you're around. What? Oh, no, everybody loves him. He's great. He's wonderful. And she had about 20 years in the program then, so I had to believe her. I hadと believe that this was true. And so I just pretended he was as great as my sister was saying. When I saw him, I went, hey, John, how are you doing? I'm so glad to see you. And I started shaking his hand, and he, hi, I'm glad to see you. You see what I'm saying? It was just transforming. And that's what step eight is. Learn how, what it is about us that is causing this in the other people. And once we do that, we now bring a program of attraction in. I'm talking about the dry cleaning lady. I'm taking about the gasoline station. I'm talking about the supermarket. The line is too long. I'm taking myself during the day's march. And as I take that old personality in and stir up every little pocket as I go around, I just come home at the end of the day and I go, Man, it's awful out there. Everybody's got an attitude. I say, this place sucks. I work this stuff. I start seeing my role in it. And I go out and I'm this different person. and I go from here, the dry cleaning lady and over here and over there and everybody responds to a different energy and I come home at night and I say, what a day. These people are great. Those people are great out there and it was all because of me. It all came out of this eighth step. This learning about myself and then we finally do make these amends in order to not drag the past with us. It's very hard to live a day at a time and drag the 1990s with us and all the memories and the people we don't want to run into. So we can go out and we can do this, but it's a bigger purpose than that. We're getting closer to God. All of this is designed to get us closer to god. About 15 years ago, I was sitting in a townhouse on Capitol Hill where I was living at the time. I was getting ready to watch the Redskins. I love to watch football on Sunday afternoon. I had everything all set up. I'm all excited. And I was just sitting there and this memory bubble came up right on the couch. And it said, back in 1954, in Pensacola, Florida, you borrowed $70 from Bill Marseille to pay your rent and you beat him out of it. You got transferred and then you forget and every time you saw him, you may believe you didn't remember, you beat them out of the 70 bucks. And I went, right, yep, I did. Now let's get the game on and we're going to watch the Redskins. and this energy just said no you're going to find Bill Marseille you got to pay him yeah I know but you know not now yeah now not during the game I'm not going to be calling I haven't seen the guy in 20 years how am I going to find him I can't find him I don't know where he is how amI going to find him on a Sunday you could try what what am I going to do how do I know this is me talking to me you know what I mean I want to watch the game I don' t want to call Bill Marceille I don´t mind 70 bucks I just don't want to call. You know, why now? It wouldn't let me alone. I'm just going and going. So I finally cut a deal. I said, okay, here's the deal. I know you like to ski. And I don't know where all the ski thing is, but I know Vermont has skiing. Here's the Deal. I call Vermont, ask information. He's not there. I watch the game. And it was like the other end, whoever's on the other side of the line, the other man said, OK. So I go to the operator. Hello, Vermont? Yeah. Have you got a William P. Martin? You do? What's his number? Okay, so I call him up. And I'm trying to get this all done. They're kicking off, you know. Hello, Bill? I've got to talk fast. So I get him on the line. He's thrilled to hear from me. Oh, my God, because we were close buddies and drinking and all that. And I said, Bill, Bill. Let me get right to the point. 1955, I borrowed $70. You remember that? We were in the apartment, my wife and I. And I never had the rent. Vaguely, I think so. Yeah, but I did. I did, Bill." And listen, I'm in AA and we do these steps. And your name came up. I've got to do these Steps. What Steps? Well, you know, there are 12 Steps in the program. So I started telling him how happy I was and all this kind of stuff. And he said, okay, okay. And I said, well, $70, all these years of interest, I'll send you $150. He said, Okay. I mail up the $150 A couple weeks later, he sends me back a box. He ran a gift shop at this ski resort. I must have had $200 worth of stuff in it. and wind chimes, and this and that. Then he called me a year later and he said, I'm moving to North Carolina. Here's my phone number. We've got to get together. Yeah, Bill, we've got to get Together. Now years go by and I'm speaking down in North Carolina after the meeting a lady comes up and introduces herself and she says, you don't know me. My name is Mary Marseille. Well, it's such an unusual name. I said, oh, Bill Marseilles' wife. She said, no, his widow. And I went, oh, God, I'm so sorry. When did that happen? Oh, it happened a couple of years ago. Oh, I'm sorry. And then I'm going, what is she doing here? And she's got an Al-Anon badge on. And she said, you know that day you called and you told him how great AA was? He joined the next day. And so this had nothing to do with the 70 bucks. This had nothing TO DO WITH working the eight steps so that I could get to watch the Redskin game. This had to do with, how do we get Bill Marseille sober? How do we cause that to happen? And so there's, we never know when we make an amend. When you make an amendment, you tell the person, I'm in AA and I'm trying to do this. How many times they will say, can you help my sister? Can you help me? Can you please help my brother? It's amazing what's here. It's so much bigger than we think it is in steps eight and nine. we finally finish with this settling of the past ready to live a day at a time in the tenth step and ten is I'm going to talk a little bit about in 11-12 it will be real quick and we'll be out of here day at the time is the tenth step how to live a day all it says is continue to take personal inventory when wrong promptly admit it so what does that got to do with living a day at a time well if you look at the 12 and 12 this is what I think spirituality is I think this one little sentence has the whole package in it and it's that spiritual axiom that's in the 12th step and it says whenever we're disturbed, no matter what the cause, there's something wrong with us. What's wrong with Us? We're disturbed. That is what's wrong With Us. We're disturbed. That is what' s wrong With us. You know where it says we have a daily reprieve contingent on our spiritual condition? Disturbed is a bad spiritual condition. That is a very bad spiritual condition. That is a non spiritual condition that is God is blocked off don't worry about you feel bad God is blocked off. The channel just got shut disturbance is shut no energy from God flowing through us we're blocked again we're alone we are out, just us against the world and we're overpowered because it's just us. When we have God with us, it's like having your big brother in grammar school. Nobody picks on you. You see what I'm saying? And so disturbed is the biggest warning thing we can get. That's why Bill talks about a spot check inventory. Uh-oh, disturbed. Time out. Why time out? I don't want to do things when I'm disturbed. Then I've got a lot of messes to clean up. The boss comes in and he said, Hey Sandy, wrote this memo about Congressman so-and-so. Yeah, it stinks. Whoa, screw you. I quit. And the words are going across the room to his ear. And I need the money. I don't really want to quit. And I'm trying to get the words back before he hears them. And he hears him and he says, You're out of here. Don't want to act when you're disturbed. So what can we do? What can we say? What can I do about that? Self-restraint. You know that right out of the 12 in 12? We pray for self-restраint. We pray for this wonderful gift. This is a five-second cushion around us, a time cushion, if you will, so that when events happen, we have five seconds before we do anything. And during that five or six seconds, we can allow us to come back down to a state of undisturbed. We can make an honest analysis of what's wrong. If the fault is out there, we can forgive them. If the fall is here, we can make amends and we can go back to being undisturd. And that's all there is to life. It's always going back to being undisturbed. Because if we're undisturb, we don't need anything. We're just existing. How are things going? Great, man. Well, I hear you don't have your job yet. I know. But right now, I have everything I need. It is absolutely wonderful. That's undisturd. So undisturned is the point. Because when we're un-disturbed, people react to us that way. We bring it everywhere that we go. And so this is what the tenth step is. Anytime I'm starting to get undisturbed, I want to go, time out. Time out. Call up my sponsor. What's the matter? I'm disturbed. Okay, let's talk about it and get you undisturbed. No, no, no. You've got to forgive him. But he did something that's unforgivable. It goes way beyond the limit. Did you ever set a limit on what's forgivable? Well, I let my sister do that, but holy cow, now she did this. So I was trying to think of myself Where do you draw the line on forgiveness? How far do you let somebody go? Where is the limit? So I was thinking of, do we have any examples anywhere of where the line is? Great spiritual teachers. And I was thinkin' of one who was around a couple thousand years ago and they were nailing him to a cross. And he said, forgive them! They know not what they do. So it appears that And forgiving goes up to and includes nailing to a cross. Now my problem is I'm always having stuff worse than getting nailed to a cross happen to me. See, nailing to a cross is happening to somebody else, but cutting me off in traffic is happening to me. So I have to expand forgiveness. Why? To let people off the hook? Is that what it is? It has nothing to do with them. It's to get undisturbed. It's so that I win. I want to be a winner all the time. I wantto be undisturbed. If I let you off the book and I get unddisturbed, I win! Who cares whether it was fair? Who cares? Fairness is a one-way street. It only goes out from me. It doesn't come back. It's not supposed to come back I'm supposed to be fair. That's what the spiritual program says. If I'm fair, the whole world will be fair. That's it. Because if I'm not acting fairly, if I don't trust, I'm my own role model. And if I do that, and if I trust, then nobody does. Because nobody's better than me. So that means you can't trust anybody. You see what I'm saying? And if i'm not fair, nobody is. Because nobody is better than me and I'm not fair. So that means Nobody in the world can be trusted. And nobody in the word will ever treat you fairly. So then we just, you've got the energy going the wrong way. Fairness isn't supposed to come in. Trust isn't suppose to come. It's supposed to go out. So now I trust people. I'm fair to people. And the world becomes a trusting place. And the world becomes a fair place. It just does. So I trust everybody that I talk to and I get taken for 50 bucks once in a while. So? So? What's that? You want the 50 bucks back and stay disturbed all the time? You want to not trust anything in the world and still have your 50 bucks? Would you pay 50 bucks to be free of all those insecurities? I'd pay millions. Boy, that's cheap getting hit up for 50 bucks every so often just because you're too trusting. It's just the dynamics is just huge in the 10th step. Undisturbed. Undisturb. remember that this that inventory the end of the day inventory how can i go through and do this better and then as we get into 11 and the prayer of saint francis which uh let me just read now that we can think about it we've been talking all about the jackpot we're right at the very end what does it feel like what did a saint think about what we're trying to accomplish as a human being what is your goals let me see he probably said yacht probably wanted a mansion probably wanted a big family and a lot of security and the president of the united states let's see what did he really want look what he wanted my god that doesn't look like anything make me a channel thy peace that where there's hatred i may bring love that where they're wrong i may bring a spirit of forgiveness that wherethere's discord i maybring harmony that where this error I may bring truth. That where there is doubt, I may brings faith. That where is despair, I may bringing hope. That where are shadows, I may brining light. That where sadness, I may be bringing joy. Lord grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted, to understand than to understood, to love than to beloved. For it is by self-forgetting that one finds. It is by forgiving that one is forgiven. It is dying that one awakens to eternal life. This isn't some abstract words that a saint wrote, this is us. Each one of us can look at this and go, hey, make me a channel. You know, hey God, cancel the yacht. Cancel the yacht I want to be a channel I'd rather be a Channel Forget the yacht Make me a Channel Make me bring harmony Let me flow through me as I go out Use me to sober this guy up. Use me to help somebody forgive. Please, let me use that. It's just a question, what are you asking for? See, I was asking for yachts. I was askin' that this stop and that this person be healed and this person do that. None of that's in the 11th step. Pray only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out. So I don't... Who am I to know if somebody should get well? Maybe it's God's will that they go up to the big meeting. I'm trying to block it. You know, God's going, Mary, I love you. Come on up. Come on. And I'm going, no, you know what I mean? This is so that's why this is it. Let me just do thy will. And so that'S the new thing to ask for. This is the end thing. It's hip. It's cool right here at prayer. St. Francis, let's become a channel. Let's become an example of the channel goes out and then in our 12th step and we wrap it up right here. Forget about we're going to carry the message. It just comes with the territory. It's hard to hold people back from carrying a message. They've been sober a week, man, they're out there. Hey, Bill, come here, blah, blah. They don't know what the message is, but by God, they are carrying it. And you know something? All they got to do is get that car and go pick that guy up or that gal up and put her on the front row. Okay, Mary, watch what happens. And that's enough of a message! I mean, we're there, we are doing it, we Are doing this! But what about... Now, having had a spiritual awakening, obviously we even ourselves will see this. We now see the world differently. We now, as Chuck Chamberlain says, we've got a new pair of glasses. We just couldn't see the World and now we see it clearly. We've been given a new vision as the energy from this channel is coming through and causing us to see everything differently. We see the Word as a wonderful place. We see human beings as children of God. we see that maybe we don't understand it right now, but it will all come about. And we'll see the answer later on. And this is very powerful stuff. But then it says, practice these principles in all our affairs. And it really means that. It doesn't mean just in AA. We shouldn't feel as safe in AA and not safe out of AA. Those are all God's children at the office place, down here, over there. I make everybody an honorary member of AA. I meet them on the plane, wherever it is. And boy, if I'm talking to a guy on a plane for five minutes, AA's in the conversation. Oh yeah, well, I joined AA 35 years ago. Saved my life. It's the greatest damn thing in the world. Yeah, I used to be a Marine fighter pilot. There's other things, but I always work that in. And guess what? One out of five. Can you help my sister? Can you helps my sister?" So I'm this way. Everybody sets their own. Comfort level in that area. But the thing I want to wrap up with, practice these principles in all our affairs. And my favorite example of this, and I use it in a lot of talks, is, let's see, I've been sober about two years, went to a meeting every night, the Marine Corps wouldn't promote me and they pushed me out. So I'm at home and I'm going, let's sea. What did God do for me lately? This great loving God that we got in AA. I go to a meet-up every night and now I'm out. I got no money. I got six kids. I got No Job. What am I going to do? I got a resentment. I can't stand it. This sucks. You call AA, a loving program. Anybody ever get that way? In sobriety? So I get to a meeting. I never do this. I never raise my hand. You go to meetings, you know, anybody got a topic? Anybody got a subject? I never raised my hand but that night I'm mad and I go, yeah, I got topic. Well, what's your topic, Sandy? Getting thrown out of the Marine Corps. Oh, I don't think that's a good topic for AA, you know what I mean, getting thrown out of the Marine Corps. Okay, okay, topic, getting thrown off the Marine Corp. That's the topic. Topic tonight, getting thrown on the Marine Corporate. And I figured this is an AA group. They love me. You know, God, everything will help. I figured the first guy is going to raise his hand. Sandy, you get thrown out of the Marines Corporate? That means you're available. I have a company, a large corporation, looking for a smart guy like you to come add to our corporation With $75,000 a year and a car and a new home, would that be good? Now see, that would be help. That would be health. Guess what I get? Oh, thrown out of the Marine Corps? Say the serenity prayer. You got thrown out of the Marines Corps? Double up on your meetings. You've got a lot of time in your hand anyway. Another guy says, you got thrown out of Marine Corps, help a new guy. Take your mind off yourself. What's wrong with you? The last guy said at prayer, St. Francis, he was a Marine. I went home that night and I said, I don't think I explained my problem very well. What was that? What was dat? I couldn't believe my ears what I heard there. So I never raised my hand again. and maybe seven years went by, and boom! 20-year marriage explodes like an atomic bomb. I'm gone. Another guy's moving in. There are kids like him. They don't like me. Wah! Wah! Wah! So I'm at a meeting. Anybody got a topic? Yeah. Getting thrown out of your own house. Another guy is moving in." Oh, Sandy, I don't think that's a good topic. All right. All right, okay. Topic tonight, getting thrown out your own home, another guy moving in". you know what happened the guy said throw it out of your own house serenity prayer you've got to say a serenite prayer throw it in your own house double up on your meetings you got a lot of time on your hand you've gotta throw it in your own house throw it out of your own house work with new people take your mind off of that just work with new people and the last guy prayer saint francis he got thrown out of many homes. Five more years went by, I'm in the real estate business, there's no mortgage money, everything's gone. You're not supposed to have all this sobriety and be almost broke. What is going on? So I'm at a meeting. Anybody got a topic? Bankruptcy. oh sandy bankruptcy is not a topic i mean with it i wanted to okay bankruptcy guess what happens we go around the room oh bankruptcy serenity prayer that's what you gotta do for bankruptcy double up on your meetings go to the eating meetings get free food work with the new people take your mind off of that take your line off of that. Prayer of St. Francis, he took a vow of poverty. Now why am I telling that story? You already know it and you can see it. What does it say? It says there's one solution for all problems. That's what it's saying. First things first, get right spiritually and see if there's any problems left. Just as we read in that wonderful chapter, It just happens. It's automatic. It just happens. We're freedom from all of this. Sure, those are problems. But if I'm close to my higher power, I don't care. You know, this will get straightened out. I'll get a job. I'll get back with this. I'll get that. But in the meantime, I'm relatively comfortable. So what is the wonderful thing that happens? And then this is the absolute wrap-up. There's a lot of pain that happens in life larry was talking about last night this is not a pain-free thing once we get sober but let's try to measure pain let's say that you just got laid off because of cutbacks and you've got four kids and you're not quite sure how you're going to feed them and let's all agree in this room that that is worth 2 000 units of pain okay that's that's A universally accepted standard. You have now been inflicted with 2,000 units of pain. Now we're going to add on to that the fact that you are irate over the fact that you got laid off. Matter of fact, you've got a resentment. You think you got screwed in getting laid off? You're going get your boss. You hate the fact that you get laid off Oh, this is 10,000 more units. now we're at 12,000 but the 10,000 is optional and the program can enable us to get rid of those 10,00 and always keep the pain level down at where it should be somebody dies there's a mourning period that goes through but we add on top of that because we're so self-centered they shouldn't have died to me they hurt me so much They did this, and I build it up so that I quadruple the amount of pain that is supposed to go with the event. And so it really feels like a wonderful world, even when the pain is coming because we don't quadrupole it with our self-centeredness. It is tremendous freedom. We just accept it. Acceptance is so powerful because God is in charge of this. So we just go, okay, so now I don't have a car. I accept it. Now I've got to deal with the anxiety of getting one instead of the rage that this happened to me. You all connect with that. That is what we get free from. So if you're new, I want to just wish you the best of luck. It has been an absolute pleasure to share with you. And as I said in the very, very beginning, that if one new person out of this gets motivated to take the action to get closer to your personal God, that would be the greatest reward I can imagine. We're at the end of the time. Why don't we wrap it up with the Lord's Prayer for everybody who would care to join in. Thank you.