Steps 4 and 5 – Step-Tember to Remember Workshop – Part 5 of 7 – 2025 – Chris S.

Joe alcohol once we have taken this step with holding nothing we are delighted we can look the world in the eye we can be alone at perfect peace and ease our fears fall from us we begin to feel the nearness of our creator we may have had certain spiritual beliefs but now we begin to have a spiritual experience the feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly, we feel that we are on the broad highway walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe. A.A., Alcoholics Anonymous page 75 Our next speaker is one of those teachers that I talk a lot about, being lucky to have had. He's completely changed the trajectory of my life without even knowing it until today. So please help me welcome Chris S. from Blairstown. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. My name is Chris. I am an alcoholic. because of the lineup i've been looking forward to this day for a long long time uh and you know i was telling my friend steve who was uh who was road dogging with me uh that this is going to be special special day and did it start off special or what oh my god those first two talks i i got goosebumps. You know, just remarkable. Thank you. Anyway, you know, it's my job to speak a little bit on steps four and steps five. And I think it's been pointed out very well by the first two speakers that really what I'm up against is I'mup against self. I'm against myself. Like, Like, you know, there was a comic strip way back when, like in the 50s, that were always around in my family because my family really liked it. And it was Pogo Possum. Does anybody remember the Pogo comic strips? Well, there is a famous saying. They made posters out of it. We have met the enemy and he is us. You know, that was the poster. And somehow, you know, my drinking experience is very, very similar to what's been shared here. I'll just briefly qualify so you know I'm standing in the right place. You know, I drank for about 19 years and the last four years of my drinking looked like this because it's progressive, right? The last four years of my drinking looked like this. I would come to in the clothes that I had passed out in the night before. I'd stagger up, you know, I'd go into the bathroom, and I'd throw some water on my face. I'd do some vomiting calisthenics. I'm just shattered, right? Just shattered. Like it's not even hangovers anymore for us. It's alcohol poisoning. hangovers are for the amateurs we poison ourselves and so I'm poisoned and I gotta go to work you know, so I like going out to the car now I'm telling you if you would have breathalyzed me at 7.30 in the morning going to work, I haven't had a drink since 8 o'clock the night before, I would have failed the breathalyzers just because You know, it's coming out of my pores and I'm driving to work. I've got like a hundred dollar Quaalude car. It's got like no muffler and no clutch, you know, like plates that I took off of some car at the train station, you Know, and I don't ever want to feel like this again. I'm dying, you know, and I got to go do electrical work on some poor person's house. And I'm saying to myself, I'm not going to, today, today is the day. Today's the day I'm just not going drink when I get home. I'm going to stop this nonsense. I got it. and I know I've said this like 742 times before but this time I I mean it you know I can feel it in my heart you know that I'm gonna quit this time. I'm going to quit and I get to work and I you know my boss sends me to do a bunch of things that I forget what he told me and I have to go back and you know on the message like god damn it I told you you know he's like yelling at me and I go off and I start somebody's garage on fire or something it's like a bad day and the whole morning I'm saying, you know, I'm not going to drink this is important I feel good about my decision and lunchtime will come right? Lunchtime will comes and I have to rehydrate you got to drink like a half a gallon or something And whatever you do, don't do it with grape drink because if you get sick and you projectile vomit grape drink, it makes your co-workers nervous. You know what I mean? But I'd get half a gallon of something down and somebody would go out and they'd get me a sandwich and I'd give like half a sandwich down and I start to feel a little bit, a little bit healthier than I did in the morning. And then in the afternoon this is what I start to think, I start to think you know that decision you made this morning to give up drinking? You know that might be an overreaction. You know we might have to reconsider that a little bit you know quit drinking forever you know like who you know that just doesn't seem to really make sense and on the way home from work I stop at the liquor store and I buy a quart of vodka or a quart of bourbon depending on the season and I go home with that quart of vodk or quart of bourdon I feel better walking out of the liquor store before I even open it now think about this I meant it in the morning that I wasn't going to drink anymore. You could have hooked me up to a lie detector and asked me, Chris, you ever going to drink again? No. And that lie detector would have gone right to true. I meant it with everything I had. But what happened was the obsession of the mind started to take over during the day and the thought came to me that I should stop at the liquor store. Now, that's the obsession of the mind. It happened every day with me. This is the allergy of the body. I would crack open that vodka or bourbon and I'd pour out a glass and once that stuff started to hit me, it always did one thing. The first drink always did 1 thing and it asked for the second drink. Second drink insists on the third, third demands a fourth. I would always want the 20th drink more than I wanted the 19th, because the more alcohol in my body, the more I want alcohol. So that's my physical craving. But the velocity of my drinking increased over the years as alcoholism progressed. And in the last four years of my drink, this is what my drinking was like. I would start drinking and within an hour I'd be drunk. Within two hours, I'd be in a blackout and within three hours I'd be unconscious. Try going out on a date. You know what I mean? It doesn't go well, you know? So I'm all by myself, you know, I'm all by my self. And alcoholism is an illness of isolation. We start isolating, because sometimes it's not even conscious that the alcohol is the most important thing. Sometimes it's like if you're talking to a therapist or something, you've got a whole different idea. But look at the behavior. The behavior is to push anything away that can interfere with the alcohol. And what happens is I am now caught up in something that's way bigger than me. And it was so well explained in the first two talks about really how much trouble are we in. If you're an alcoholic, you're always in more trouble than you think you are. Always. You know, I don't care how, I'm in more trouble than I think I am at 35 years sober. It's just, it's part and parcel, a characteristic of alcoholism. And, you know, I've got to start to come to terms with the enormity of alcoholismo And my participation in the work that can help clear away just enough self so that I can be exposed to the power. And the power can do what the power does. You know, Julie was talking about selfishness, self-centeredness. That's the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, all that stuff, right? that's a prelude to the conclusion of step three and the movement into step four. And if you look at the entire 12-step program in aggregate, what it is is it's an action program designed with specific spiritual exercises that move me away from this toxic experience of self-consciousness that I suffer from. And that's incredibly important because I'm in way more trouble than I think I am, and I think it's time to get out of here. I think if I can fix it, and I need to go over here and do this and that and the other thing and read this book and talk to this person and go to camp, you know what I mean? Like, I think I need to do all this stuff. And it's bigger than that. The problem is bigger than that. So let's say I've done the best I can possibly do at any given time with the first three steps. Let's just say that, you know, I've done that. The next indicated step is a moral inventory. now some of the language you've got to understand this was written in 1939 and it was put together by a couple of guys with like four years sober so it's still it's a remarkable text it's enlightened, it's transformational it's revelatory as a body of work for us to engage in But some of the language might be difficult for us to understand. That's why I think this stuff needs to be taught to us by someone with personal experience. That's really the best way. They kind of thought that this book is going to be on the bestseller list and everybody's going to get sober. That wasn't the experience that they had in the early days. This needs to be passed on from somebody with personal experience to someone who needs personal experience. But consider that selfishness, self-centeredness, resentment and fear are the things that they talk about in the body of work of step three. They talk about this as what needs to be treated, right? We don't treat alcohol. You know, a friend of mine is a therapist, and a lot of people come to him with drinking problems. And he'll do something like this. Well, you know, what happens before you go and you get alcohol? Well, you know, I leave work and on the way home I pass the pub and I see all my friends are in there. So I pull in and then it starts. You know, you don't get home until 10 o'clock. Well, this therapist guy goes, go home a different way. And it works for him. Go home a difference way. you know would going home a different way have tapped your brakes you know what I mean like like it's it's hysterical but but what I need to do is I need to understand I need to understand what I'm up against I'm I'm I'm again I'm against myself I'm up against the way I think. I'm up against the way i feel, my thinking and my emotions. I am up against a disconnection of any kind of adequate spirituality. That's what I'm up against because those are the things that are going to block me off from a power that can relieve me of this merciless obsession and enable me to become happily and usefully whole. So that's really what my problem is. And it's very difficult for me to believe that, you know? Like if I, let's say I was brand new and I walked through those doors and Shannon came up to me and said, hi, you Know, if you're an alcoholic, selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of your troubles. I'd say, you got a pamphlet or something? Thank you all, you know, this isn't going to work for me. That's not true. I'm not selfishness and self-centered. I mean, I would give people bail money. You know? Like, I wouldn't. It's something that's very, very difficult to understand. So this text kind of moves us through some very, very simple exercises spiritual exercises that enable us to to recognize the enormity of our selfishness and our self-centeredness you know step four is basically about selfishness dishonesty so so self- centered and fear and anxiety and resentment and step five is sharing that and Step 6 is becoming willing to have it removed. Step 7 is asking for it to be removed. Step 8 is putting a list of the people and institutions that all that stuff hurt. Step 9 is going out to make amends to the people and the institutions that those things hurt. Step 10 is watching for those things because they're not just going to go away. Step 11 is preparing my life in such a way that I will be awake to the manifestations of this toxic self-centeredness. And that's our recovery program, you know? It's not like, well, you know, I don't drink anymore because I go to 752 meetings a week. That's not our recovery program so so anyway uh i want to go over a little bit of the stuff in the book so you don't think i'm just winging it and uh i love i love this sentence this sentence is almost mystical it's been shared before but i'm gonna read it again because i like the way i read it being convinced that self manifested in various ways was what had defeated us we considered its common manifestation manifestations julie i think you said it i think bill wilson recognized the concept of self as something as something that needs to be recovered from now now say that to somebody with a deck like dude you know you got a concept of self and you gotta get rid of that all this all the stuff you think about yourself you know and everything uh you know that's got to go it's it it's deep this stuff this stuff is deep so he has to like spoon feed us this stuff so he's gonna spoon feed US a resentment inventory a very very simple resentment inventory like you see you see this resentment inventory here does anybody sponsor you ever have somebody come over with like 700 pages you know what i mean like like like we complicate one car funerals you know that's just us well you know it started it was a dark and stormy night you know when we first met and i'm gonna read all this stuff but then i'm going to explain why it's really not so bad, you know. This is really, really simple, but it's really pointed, and I want to show you how drastic this is. This ist a drastic recovery program. It's simple, but it is drastic. It is drastic because we're in as much trouble as we are in. Let me show you how drastic this is i'm just gonna i'm just gonna cover the resentment uh about mr brown everybody knows mr brown right why why is he mad at mr brown because of his intention to my wife so brown's hitting on the dude's wife okay told my wife of my mistress. That breaks every bro code in the man, you know? You don't blow up somebody's side thing. And listen to this. Brown may get my job at the office. So he's trying to get the guy's job. And down at the bottom, he's resentful of his wife because his wife likes Brown. And oh, she wants the house put in her name. Brown is moving in on this guy. Let me ask you a question. Has anybody ever come at you that hard? You know, half that hard. You're loading the gun, you know? So think about this. Bill is saying these resentments must be mastered. They must or they will kill us. So even Brown, even the resentment against Brown is bad news because I'll tell you right now, you would think this Brown resentment is justified, right? I mean, I could go to 20 people in AA and say, you know what Brown is doing? And they'd be like, yeah, let's go get them. But there are no justified resentments. There are only fatal ones. That's what Bill is saying. There are Only Fatal Ones. And these resentments must be mastered. That's how drastic this 12-step program is. you know it's not for the weak heart uh i believe i believe we need to be able to recognize how much trouble we're in to even move into this body of work how many if you sponsor in here how many people like pooped out in the middle of step four or never did step five or oh my god amends how many people have i'll tell you what when you when you come here to to something like this every i know every single speaker really well and we have we we have we recognize how much trouble we're in and there's a willingness there's willing to say we may not like it but there's unwillingness for us to engage in this program of recovery because we understand just what's going to happen if we don't now i'm going to give a couple of example i'm going to get at least one example of resentment and how resentment almost killed me i i didn't come into alcoholics anonymous and there were there were big book sponsors and groups and everything i i came into the closed-minded discussion era you know what i mean like like you know people sharing about their they're lawnmower blades not being sharp you know so so i'm sitting i'm sitting in these meetings and i'm dying and i i'm dying and and i joined this this group because my sponsor said i go to to this group i won't mention the the name of this group it wouldn't be a problem well all right it was morristown the morristow friday night group and And I was going to this group, right? It was a big group. There was 100 people there, three different meetings, and my sponsor was going there. And listen, I am experiencing the toxicity of my self-consciousness, right. I'm not talking to anybody. I'm sitting in the back hoping people don't look at me, you know. And I'm standing there for like months in this meeting, and I'm looking around, you now, and there's a bunch of young people. There were a bunch of transitional living places in that town. And there's people younger than me, like five, ten years younger. And they're all hooking up with each other on the way home. And then there's a bunch older people, right? These are the duffers who are just sitting around the coffee pot talking about golf. And I'm like in the middle. I'm not connecting with any of these people. And so I'm there maybe four or five months. Finally, I say, you know, these people suck, you know? I'm out of here, right? And I quit that group. Now, quitting that group, I could equate that to somebody getting upset with the pharmacist so they're not going to get their insulin anymore. You know what I mean? Oh, the pharmacist was snippy with me this morning, so I'm not going to go get my insulin anymore for my diabetes. I mean, it's the same thing. This Alcoholics Anonymous is keeping me tentatively sober because I'm going to all these meetings, and that's the only thing that's keeping me alive. So I'm like, well, the only things that are going to keep me alive and the only one thing that keeps me alive sucks, so see you later. And that was a resentment. Now, luckily, I went to another group, right? Luckily, I go to another group and I won't talk about what... Myersville. Myersville, New Jersey. It was a Tuesday and a Friday night meeting. And so this is what happened. All of a sudden I come in and everybody's my age and now I'm starting to date, you know, and all this stuff. I'm trying to come out of my cocoon a little bit, and I can pretend to be like human, and so, you know, I'm getting friends, and we're doing sober volleyball, and, you Know, we're going out to the diner after the meeting, and, You know, i'm starting to get back involved in societal stuff, You Know, been a long, long time, and I'm starting To feel better physically. Now, I'M still a lunatic, but I'M starting To feel better physically and there's a meeting you know it's about 80 people they all sit around this giant you know set of tables and on tuesday uh is is the meeting where there's the business meeting and so step meeting and that's really the home group piece of it and on friday the group has a has a speaker meeting so so all all the officer reports and everything are done on tursday they want to get to the speaker on Friday makes sense right now somebody comes into that group who only goes on Friday and wonders why there isn't a treasurer's report and he starts calling you ever go to like the slow painful root canal-esque business meetings that they have in certain groups group consciousness he starts to call these and he's so upset because because he doesn't know what's happening with his dollar right and the group is freaking out the group like start people start yelling and screaming you know it's just contentious and the Group went from like 80 to 60 to 40 finally there's about 20 of us left because everybody's just pissed off about this you know the dollar guy. And so finally, I'm like, I am out of here! I'm out of here! Yeah? And it would be like I don't need this iron lung, you know what I mean? I don' t need this oxygen. I'm outta here! Now what happens is I go and I join another group and should I, should All right, it's a Somerset Hills group in Baskin Ridge. Now this is the wrong group for me. You've got to understand, this is like the upper crust, the hoity-toit of AA. Like I'm sitting next to a brain surgeon here and a hedge fund manager. I mean, you know, all the Jaguars and the Mercedes, and I come in with my 1976 Ford Granada with no quarter panels, you don't have to park in it. And it was just a wrong group for me. But it was the only group left that I hadn't resented myself out of. Now, I start going to this group, you know. And at that period of time, I had discovered some tapes. Thank God for tapes. What had happened is I had recovered the Joe Hawk Salvation Army tapes. I just out of a whim I got a hold of this catalog and I wanted to see what an American Indian would have to say about the big book like Joe Hawk he sounded like he was Cherokee or something and I sent my money in and the cassette tapes came back and I started listening to this stuff and it infuriated me because it was so So, you know, the parameters were set. You know, this is how you do a step. This is what the step is about. This is why you need to take the step. This is how YOU take the Step. This is What's Gonna Happen After You Take the Step, and that's not the AA that I was experiencing. I was experience the wild west of alcoholics and artists. You know? Come on in! Bring your gun! You know, it just was crazy. And so somebody talking about specifically, you know, what I had to do was annoying to me because we don't tell other people what to do in AA. There's no musts in AA, but I got to tell you, it started to resonate with me that this person was talking with authority and experience, and it resonated with my alcoholism. That's what's so important about us identifying with each other. We ain't going to buy it until we identify with each. And I identified very, very strongly with this lunatic Joe Hall. And so I started to follow some of the directions and I put a fourth step together, you know, and I did a fifth step, and I'd put some amends cards together. In other words, I start to very, very imperfectly work the 12 steps. So it's like 1992, right? It's very imperfect. And here's my experience with that. I am in the worst possible group I can be in, you know? With brain surgeons and lawyers, You know, here I am. I'm a bad electrician that catches everything on fire. It's the wrong group. I stayed in that group for 20 years because resentments need to be mastered at least to the point where they don't kill us. You know what I mean? And that was my experience with the four-step. I've done many four-steps. I've probably eight or nine. some of my mentors were the type of people who believed that you do you go fully full blown through the whole 12 steps every year these are the guys that I learned from and for a while I was doing that. I recognize now it's time for me to go through the steps again when I start to get a little cranky anybody in here ever get a Little Cranky? That's an important warning sign. That's one of the first signs that, you know, self is rearing its ugly head in a very negative way. Anyway, the next part of the inventory is fear. Now, I'd like to talk about what this means to me. We ask ourselves what these spiritual terms mean to me? What does fear mean to make? When I think about fear, I think immediately when I'm, you know, on day one, I'm thinking about you're calling me a coward. If you're telling me I have fear, you're call me a coward. Let's step outside and I'll show you fear. You know, that's just my personality, right? So how am I going to internalize this stuff and really believe that it's a huge issue with me? I do it by calling it anxiety. anybody in here have anxiety you ever feel uncomfortable with yourself and your environment you know hello hello so so i need to i need the inventory this stuff what what what am i worried about what do i have anxiety about well i'm you know i'm a i'm afraid i'm going to be alone get married. I'm afraid I'm going to have to stay married. I'm afraid I'm gonna become unemployed. Well, I'm worried I'm scared I'm going to be stuck in this job. I mean, I've got anxiety about everything. You know what I mean? It's all uncomfortable to me because I'm wrapped up in this thing called self. The bondage of self they talk about. And that generates anxiety, it generates me just not feeling comfortable. So part of the inventory process that I learned through the Salvation Army talks and then the Hawking Houston workshops man I listened to those constantly for like 15 years straight I learned how to do fear inventory now here's how fear almost killed me i told you i was going to these meetings right and prior to doing this inventory this this was my experience i knew i had to go to meetings or i would die i was clear on that right if if i don't if i dont engage in this thing called alcoholics it's my only hope i'm a dead man if i do not do this i would drive to the meeting uncomfortable as hell about having to go circle the block about three or four times till i finally got up and nerfed the park get out of my car now you you gotta you gotta go through all the people having cigarettes outside the church right it's like a gauntlet you know and and i gotta like hi hi hi right and then and then you gotta then you gonna go down the stairs you gotta go down the stairs, because it's all church basements where I got sober, right? It's all a church basement. So you've got to go down The Stairs and it gets really bright, and then you walk out into the room and everybody's talking to each other, and you walk in like a dick. You know what I mean? They start looking at you and you know, should I get coffee? Should I not get coffee today? Should we go to the bathroom today? Not go to bed today. Oh, oh, oh. Sit over here. They're looking at me. Somebody's going to, he's not going to come talk to me. Oh no. This is my experience in early Alcoholics Anonymous in the fellowship. If I don't get rid of that anxiety, I'm a dead man because the time and the place is going to come where I'm going to say no more. I'm just going to be too uncomfortable to do it. So why do I need to do this inventory? Why do I need to do this inventory? So that life becomes a little bit simpler for me. This anxiety and these resentments are two of the main things that block me off from a connection to a power that's going to solve my problem, that's gonna enable me to not put alcohol in my body and my life will be able to change with this new set of behaviors, this new attitude, this new outlook and my participation in Alcoholics Anonymous. There will be healing. So is it important to do these inventories? I think our life depends on it. And the book says you know, many of us tried not to do this and we ended up drunker than a goat. You know, I think it says that exactly in the book, word for word. So yeah, I mean, you know this is really, really important stuff. Highly recommend that you seek instruction and help from someone who has experience with working the 12 steps out of the book Alcoholics Madness because there's a lot of really great stuff that comes from the therapeutic environment you can get like Uncle Harry's Guide to the Fourth Step and 50 pages on your sex behavior or something you can get those people handed them out all the time when I was over here's Gambler's Anonymous say here's this, here's that You know, I think it's essential to do it as close to exactly as this book lays out as possible because there's method to the madness. Remember I said that self really is our problem? You know there's a lot of answers for us out there that have to do with us staying concerned with self. You know what I mean? Like all the self-help books, anybody in here have like 600 self-elp books before you got sober? Oh my God. I remember when my sponsor shows up at my house, I'm sober about a year, and he knocks on the door. I'm like, oh shit. They come to your house. it's like the first time you shut up come on, come on in Phil he walks in we go up to my room and he needed to talk to me about something and he's doing this, he's looking at my bookcase he goes Chris got a lot of self help books here I feel a little proud yeah Phil he goes can I ask you a question and I go sure what Phil He goes, where are your help others books? And I go, I'm unfamiliar with that category. You know, what area of borders are they in? That's the problem! Self is the problem. We're going to get self-help books. That's insane. I want to more deeply understand the characteristics of my complicated self, you know? Get me some books. Dude, you'll be chirping like a squirrel. You know what I mean? So this whole process is pulling me out, pulling me outta self. So this is the text we need to pay attention to. All right, the third part of the inventory, he calls it the sex inventory, right? Again, you've got to understand that this was like 1939. Bill had just experienced the roaring 20s in Manhattan. Do I need to say anything more? You know what I mean? You know, we think we're wild. we're talking great gatsby crap you know what i mean like so so so he he calls it the sex inventory but but it's it's really it's about it's about how we how we comport ourselves in relationship you know we we really need to look at this does selfishness manifest any more strongly than when we get into a committed relationship or a committed friendship, does it? No that's where every red flag flies you know, when we're in these relationships now there's like nine questions, review every relationship ask yourself these nine questions, you know and this is the truth of the matter prior to doing this inventory if you would have come up to me a year or whatever before I went through the steps and said Chris what do you think of women oh you can't trust them you know they're nuts they're knee bags you know oh that's what I would have thought I do I do this I do this inventory, and you know what I came out of that understanding? I came Out of that Understanding. First of all, I blew up every relationship like the Hindenburg You know There were some really good women that really cared for me in front of me and I Rendered myself Absolutely incapable of being in relationship. I did that You know what I mean? And I come out of this today understanding the enormous, enormous gift of women. I can't even tell you what's changed in my life. The amount of love and appreciation that I have for women And it's a complete shift in perception. It's a completely change in how I view people and the world, you know? You are our best friends. I'm sorry if we sometimes don't recognize that, you now? I really am. Because I didn't recognize it. I didn' t recognize it So this inventory is unbelievably important. I believe instinctually, instinctually we are moved to connect. It's part of our humanity. It's genetic. It's a part of heredity. It's instinctual that we are drawn together. So wouldn't it be a good idea to be able to deal with that when and if it happens. You know what I mean? That's the value in this inventory. I do this inventory, so here's my experience in the 10 years prior to doing this inventory with relationships, okay? They'd usually be a really good month or two. You know, like that's about it. The last girlfriend I had while I was drinking was a hell angel old lady, a biker old lady who could remove her front key. I come from Basking Ridge, New Jersey. You know what I mean? It's like when she came into town because I met her during this prison pen pal thing, which if you're newer coming back, I don't recommend this. You can get a surprise. I sure did. She didn't get along with Mom. It went so south. Stolen cars, checkbooks. I'm not even going to go there. It was an absolute debacle. So, you know, I come into Alcoholics Anonymous, you know. I'm single. I've no vision for you, but... But I'm a single. And my first relationship in AA was I met this girl as she was getting off the druggie buggy from the rehab. And I remember telling my sponsor about it. I'm like, Phil, Phil. I met this girl she's up at the honesty house and he's like you should have seen the look on his face it was a look of horror you know he was thinking oh my god this is going to be a series of uninterrupted phone calls like three times a day for like six months, it's going to bad it's gonna be bad and he goes Chris I just want you to know that the chances of you and her having a significant relationship are about a million to one. And I'm like, but you don't understand. We connect. And it was just a debacle. It was a debuckle. I do this inventory. I do these inventory. And all of a sudden, I'm at least divorced from toxic selfishness enough that I can be in relationship and I can think about the other person's welfare. Can you imagine such a thing? Like in a relationship? Like, whoa, how do you feel about it? First time I said that, it just sounded like another person. Anyway. anyway I get through this inventory the next woman I date I marry and we were together for 16 years you know it ended up going a little south but but I mean we were both of sound mind you know I bought a house you know what you know when we got together like I used to sit in that meeting I told you about in Bernsville with all the high bottom people and you know I remember this this I'm sitting with a bunch of VA guys. I brought a bunch of VA guy's in from the homeless and we're sitting there and this lady raises her hand and goes, you know, I just bought a farm and I have my other house and my other home was supposed to sell and the sale fell through so now I've got my other big house on my farm and it's a real issue. Thank you for letting me share. and I'm like how do you get a house? You know like Mary two house has a resentment you know thank God gotta love those discussion meetings anyway anyway yeah I got a house I got credit card you know I got a job that I held on to for more than a month And I mean, you know, I started to become a citizen. And I got to tell you, it's not because I was going to meeting after meeting after meeting. There's value to that, folks. There's valor to that. But the fundamental transformational change came in this four-step. Now, one of the things that you're supposed to do in a four-stepped is after you get done with it, you're suppose to share it. with somebody. That's step five, right? I've probably heard, I don't know, 300, 400 fifth steps. And I want you to know, we are a lot more alike than we are different. We'll go into a fifth step thinking, oh man, this guy's in for it. He's going to hear it now. None of us want be run-of-the-mill alcoholics. You know what I mean? I don't mind being a scumbag, just as long as I'm not a run-to-the mill scumbags, you know, I'll be okay. You know, don't group me in with all these other people. But the fact of the matter is we all suffer from the same thing. We suffer from a spiritual malady. We suffer from alcoholism. We suffer from a spiritual malady and that groups us together that's what that's why you know like in this room I could talk about all the debacles that I had in my life and you'd all laugh if I did that in the Rotary Club they'd be calling the police you know we get it we understand we can we can relate you know so in step five I share all this stuff with my sponsor don't have to do it with a sponsor. You can do it with a spiritual advisor. They say that you can do with a priest or a friend or whatever, but remember that was before you could... Now you can shake a stick and hit somebody that can hear your fist out because any town with a thousand people has an AA meeting. But the instructions are find someone who's going to understand what you're going to do. Be closed-mouthed. Try not to talk you out of it when you start to get into something really serious and who will listen. And there's an enormous relief with many of us when we share this stuff with another person. I don't know about you, but my life was a facade. There was things that I wanted you to believe about me and there were things that were going on that I didn't want you to see. There was a lot of secrets, there was a lot of duplicity, there were smoke and mirrors. And the fifth step I believe is the first spiritual exercise that starts to break that stuff down and we start to see our humanity and we start to feel a part of this fellowship, this society called Alcoholics synonymous when we do this fifth step it's like getting your membership card almost and uh and and it's incredibly incredibly important um i think probably most people in here have done a fifth step if you haven't you know please uh please do so and the thing about this step work is there's two things that's never going to be one of them is perfect and the other is finished so don't hold back because you don't have the right notebook or you know what I mean like don't let anything stop you do it imperfectly god damn it there's nobody that's going to get drunk because they didn't do a four step exactly correctly there are people that are going to be drunk because they don't do a four-step you know what i mean so so in here uh there's a there's something that i want to cover um that sometimes gets missed um where the hell is it suppose we fall short of the chosen ideal this is this is the relationship ideal There's a really, really important warning in here. Now we have operated from a platform of selfishness and self-centeredness not even knowing that we have. That's just the way we are. That's the way life has been. And there's an important warning in here that says if our behavior continues to harm others we're quite sure to drink. And that's very important. And there is also the part in the fifth step about returning home. And this is a part I think that gets skipped. Someone will do a fifth step and then feel great and go get ice cream or something, right? Go back and brag at the meeting or whatever. There's a separate exercise in step five called returning home where you're going to We find a place where we can be alone for an hour, taking the book down off our shelves. We ask ourselves, have we omitted anything? Looking over the first five proposals, did we skip anything? And I believe this is really, really important because thoroughness and honesty are really important with this work. You know, if you decide to leave pieces of this out or you're disingenuous with any of this work, it immediately makes it null and void. so returning home we look over the first five proposals they call them you know have we fully conceded to our innermost self that we're alcoholic have we become willing to believe in a power greater than ourselves have we made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God did we ruthlessly look for our faults in a moral inventory, have we shared everything every nook and cranny of the past have we withheld nothing you know and if we can if we could ask ourselves if we Can Ask Ourselves uh answered yes I've been as thorough as I can possibly be you know right here right now I've Been As Thorough As I Can Possibly Be we've done the first five steps and we can continue to move on and and I'm not going to talk about anything with six and seven because I'm looking forward to the person who's gonna come up after me who's going to be talking about that you know what a what a great you know Todd thanks for asking all of us to come man oh man that's the second time I did that thank you so much for for asking of all of us to be here. This is going to be an important day. Thank you, everybody.