The Conduct Inventory – 4th Step – Part 2 of 2 – Local AA Speakers

We're going to get into the conduct inventory on page 69, or 68, bottom of page 68. And you'll see as we get into this how adamant they are about getting your reliance upon God, not people. They'll hammer this home to no end in this section. It's interesting that the way we're unstacking, because if you look at how this stuff progresses in my life, what we're looking at now is a conduct inventory. So my conduct, the fear that happens around that which leads to the anger and the resentment. So we started this inventory unstacking it the way, in reverse order from how it got stacked up. If I had to start an inventory looking at my conduct. If somebody says, sit down, we're going to look at your conduct, that's kind of what happens when they make a sin list. That's kindof what happens. I have to look at my conduct and I really don't want to do that. I'm really not very interested in doing that. I probably won't. Probably won't do it. That's why we start from the other end of the process where I can start looking at how I'm angry at other people. You take their ends in talk. That's easy. Been doing that for years. Yep. My stories about how my life sucks and it's all your fault. So we've unstacked that part of it now, and we've looked at where the fear generates that anger, where the peer is the cause of all that anger and resentment, and we're going to look at and we'll look at that a little bit. Now we're gonna get down to the basic my conduct. And it says now about sex, but it's really about my conduct which is a great part of the inventory. Wow, page 68. Now about sex. Many of us needed an overhauling there. But above all, we tried to be sensible on this question. Boy, that's a break, huh? Being sensible? Yeah. Especially on this questions. On this questions? It's so easy to get way off the track. Here we find human opinions running to extremes. Absurd extremes, perhaps. So he's acknowledging that it's easy to get way out of the track, so obviously they saw this in the early fellowship. Remember, they had a fellowship going for about three years before they wrote the book. So they had three years to hammer this stuff out. At least Doe was the longest one sober, and he was about four years. So all these ideas have come from their experience during that time. If you look at the history, you'll see that they made about every mistake you can make. They did everything wrong, and they played around and bumped into walls, and they finally came up with some things that worked. That's what they wrote down for us, the stuff they did that worked." So now we're going to look at the human opinions running through extremes. They're going give us some examples of what that looks like. One set of voice, lower nature, a base necessity appropriation. Okay, you should just have sex to keep the speech. Right? Well, I mean, there's that religious community of ours that that's the idea, you know, that that's the purpose of sex. It's not all this recreational crap that we've, you know, evolved into. That's the way they look at it. And that's fine. I'm not judging that one way or the other. But there are those voices who look at us that way, and that's fun. It's a necessary evil. Yeah. Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex. Yay, sex, right? Who bewail the institution of marriage. Ah, you don't have to get married. who think that most of the troubles of the race are traceable to sex causes. They think we do not have enough of it or that it isn't the right kind. They see its significance everywhere. One school would allow man no flavor for his spare and the other would have us all on a straight pepper diet. Okay, so those are the extremes that you'll run into well-meaning people in Alcoholics Anonymous If you really want to get confused, go out and ask a bunch of AA people about this topic. And you'll get so many opinions about this one. In fact, they'll say all kinds of absurd things. And I've heard it in meetings. I've read people say, and I've hear it put this way, AA says you got to stay out of relationships for a year. You ever heard that? I've attributed AA as if it was an AA idea. I've heared it from the podium, from circuit speakers. AA says you've got to stay out of relationships for a year. You want to hear what AA really does say? Listen to this. This is such a relief. We want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. We all have sex problems. We'd hardly be human if we didn't. What can we do about them? Now that's the right question. What can ?? do about them? So what are they saying? That we, of Alcoholics Anonymous, want to stayed out of the controversy around sex. I am not anti-sponsorship. Don't hear that from me. I love sponsorship, but sponsorship to me should be what we're doing today is helping people do inventory, bringing them through the process in the book, not telling them what to do with their life. Look, I ruined all my relationships. What would make me an authority on relationships for you? Isn't that amazing? A guy who destroyed all his relationships, now he's going to tell you how to have relationships? Running my life got me into Alcoholics Anonymous. Why would you want me to run your life? It doesn't make any sense. Nowhere in this book does it say you're going to run Your Own Life, let alone somebody else's. It's only arrogance that does that. And I've done it. I have done it! Believe me, I went through a period where I got real smart. And that's when I was particularly dangerous and I was telling people. Sure. Oh, I understand. The sponsorship thing has started to look rather silly. People controlling each other through telling them what to do and when to have stuff. I mean, it's just absurd. They didn't do that when the old-timers that I hung with, like this gentleman, they didn't know how to do it. They didn' t do any of that kind of stuff. It wasn't until later on in my sobriety I started to see this. Yeah, and you know what? On an individual basis, if there is somebody who's qualified to give that kind of advice, it might be good advice. We're not judging whether it's good advice or not. What we're saying is that Alcoholics Anonymous does not say you have to stay out of relationships or that you should get into relationships. We don't have any opinion about this. Okay, do you have something? Well, I would have somebody help me do inventory. I would help you go read the book with you. Go right through the process. That's all. So get some understanding of what... I let the book sponsor me early on. And I just did what it said, and it actually induced the experiences. I'll give you an example of this from my own life, because I think it's helpful to talk from examples. Now, I went through a period where I was reading the big book and I got real smart. Okay? I did. I'm not proud of it. I'm rather ashamed that I did this. But I did it. Now, I'm telling people what to do. See? So I understand that this is a process that some of us go through. Not all of us, but some of them. Now, I'm sponsoring a guy. Now, I've done the inventory, but I'm not... You see, it takes some effort to sit down with a guy and walk through the book with him. And I was lazy back then. I just wanted to talk. You know how that is, you know? I'm too lazy to actually help him go through the process. So I'm into the talking mode. So we'll get together and talk about his problems. and he's bringing this relationship into it. And I'm about, I suppose I was nine months over, talking about problems and things and I'm sick of it. Every time I meet with him, he's talking about this relationship with this woman and I am just, I am frustrated. And this is my problem, not his. This is me. So one day I said something particularly stupid out of my frustration. I said, something like, and it isn't exactly what it was, but it's close. Something like I wouldn't sponsor him if he was in that relationship. now here i am i'm trying to help a guy and i've just driven a stake between me and him because of what i just said to him in other words i don't want nothing to do with you if you're going to be in that relationship and guess which way he went he said see you later and i don' t blame him he was right and i was wrong now what would i do today i would sit down and help him go through inventory and just help him look at this stuff so he can make his own decisions not me making decisions for them. But I was too lazy back then, see? But I got caught. I got called. I'll tell you what I learned out of it. I want to stay out of this controversy. I do not want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. That's what the book says. And that's the way I feel today because of that experience. I had to learn that the hard way, okay? But i pushed this guy right away from me with that nonsense. And that was a mistake. So I've made some mistakes. I acknowledge that. I learned from it, and I've never done that since. So now I've learned to let's just help guys do everything. The word arbiter means literally like an arbitration in baseball. The guy who determines what's fair on the contract. I don't want to be the determiner of anyone's sex conduct. We all have sex problems. We'd hardly be human if we didn't. What can I do about these sex problems? That's a better way to look at it, this next paragraph. We reviewed our own conduct over the years past. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate? Okay, now we're going to look AT our conduct. What's my conduct been like around sexual relationships? If I've been married, have I been using sex as a weapon? You know, to punish if I don't get what I want. Or I'll withhold it. Or I will give it to get what I want, manipulate and control. Yeah, well, maybe. Maybe I just didn't care at all about whether she wanted it or not. I'd just go home and force it. That sort of thing. What's my conduct been like? How about this? I've been single and I've been fooling around with married women. What's been going on? Have I been screwing around with everybody. Didn't care if they were married or not. Didn't even ask. Didn't want to know. You know how that is, don't you? You just don't ask the question because you don't want the no. You just want to get what you can. Don't care anything about her. I'll lie to her. Maybe I'm married and I'm screwing around with other people. See? And I lie to these women and tell them, well, I'd like a relationship. I don't tell them I'm marriage. Or I say, oh, well, I'm divorced but I'm going to get divorced. We're not divorced yet but I'm going to get divorced. This kind of stuff. What's my conduct been like around sex in a general way? Okay, you got it? Pretty simple, isn't it? We reviewed our own conduct over the years past. Where was I selfish in my conduct? Where was i dishonest in my contact or inconsiderate in my contract? I'll give you an inconsiderant. Rick and I both happen to have exes named Pam. They're not the same Pam. And I was very happy with Pam, and I never, ever cheated on Pam. Never, never, never cheated. Didn't even think about it. We were sitting in a little restaurant on Santa Monica Boulevard enjoying the sun one day, and I'm a guy, and I look, and there's some cuties walking by, and I don't know what they're doing. And I'm looking, I'm watching them go, and finally Pam just says to me, you know, that is so irritating. Why don't you just go do one of them? What are you talking about? And it was making her feel like I didn't think she was good enough or something like that. I just had to be looking at everybody. And I had no consciousness that that would be offensive to her, that that Would be hurtful to her. That that Would Be inconsiderate of her. You know something? Don't think about it. Perfectly innocent act. I'm a guy. I'm looking at the chicks. Unaware. Not realizing that the way I'm doing it, because I guess I must have been pretty blatant about it. I guess I'm doing the that thing. She said, why don't you just go do one of them? That's how hurt she was by that inconsideration. So here's my conduct and I got a general view by asking these questions. Now if you look at the sheet, we put it on the sheets exactly that way. Where had we been selfish in our conduct, because we're looking at conduct, Where were we dishonest in our conduct? Where were wir inconsiderate in our conduct? So now you've got a general view of what your relationships have been like that were sexual. That's pretty simple, isn't it? That's not hard to do. You can write that out in ten minutes. Depending on how old you are. Yeah, what are you laughing about, Bob? This might take 20 minutes, he's older. Now, the question, whom had we hurt? Now, who did I hurt by that conduct? You know, AA does not state that because you had sex with someone that you hurt them. So it asks us to look at our conduct first. Then you'll know who you might have hurt by their conduct. But you can't write, who did I heart first? That's absurd. Well, there are some sheets floating around that do that, that use that same template and they start the sex conduct inventory with whom had we hurt. They put that as the first question just like it is on the front of this one. They start out with who am I angry at? They start off with whom have we hurt? We want to be really careful that this does not start with whom has we hurt You didn't hurt everybody you ever had a relationship with Dustin would say disappointed maybe, but not hurt. Actually I said that Did you say that? Yeah. So it's ridiculous to assume that you hurt everybody. So we reviewed our own conduct over the years past. Where have we been selfish, dishonest, or inconsiderate then? Whom had we hurt by that conduct? Now you've got a name or two or five or whatever it is. But it's pretty arrogant to think you hurt anybody. It's just absurd. Did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion, or bitterness? Okay, now some people are jealous, suspicious, and bitter long before I met them. They came to me that way, okay? So AA says, but let's look at this. Did we unjustifiably arouse it? So again, they're not making the assumption that because somebody is jealous, suspicion, and better that it's your fault. But let's take a look at it. And they worded this specifically. Now what would unjustifiability arousing it mean? I'll give you an example. Pam and I, again, we'd be out to the bars, things like it. Guys were always around her. So I felt, you know, I didn't like that sort of thing, see? Now, I did not do this, but I've seen a lot of guys do this because I did other things, but not this. Let's say I'm out with her at a party the next time and I felt hurt by what she did to me. I got anger about it. So the next day we're out somewhere, oh, there's some woman. I'll go talk to her and I'll intentionally do it in front of her to try and make her jealous, suspicious, or bitter. That would be unjustifiably arousing yet. Okay? Playing games. Have I been playing games? What's been going on in my relationship? Am I trying to show her how it felt when she did it to me? And we wonder why our relationships are so crazy. Well, no wonder they're crazy. Look at the way we treat each other. And everybody does this stuff around jealousy. It's just awful. It's absolutely awful. I wonder why I have trouble. Well, these are the games that people play with each other. So that's a question. Did I unjustifiably arouse that in somebody? Where were we at fault? What should we have done instead? We got this all down on paper and looked at it. That's an important idea. What should be done instead. Look back on your relationships. if you can see where you made mistakes, maybe you ruined an important relationship with somebody you really cared about and you feel bad and you can't fix it because you did some damage or screwed around with somebody else or her girlfriend or whatever the situation was and you felt terrible. What should I have done instead? Well, I'll tell you what happened. I'll give you an example of one with me. I was new in the program. I was about nine months to a year sober and I met a gal and I wasn't really all that attracted to her. Okay? But, you know, she liked me and we started hanging out a little bit and I had nothing else going on, so what the heck, you know? See, I don't really care too much about her. I just want to get what I want from the situation. I'm selfish. That's really the honesty around it, okay? So she wants a relationship with me, but I don' t and we're sexual and it's, you can have a little fun, but I'm not interested in her and she senses that. She's not stupid. So she feels bad about that. And I'm using her, and it's not good. It's just not good." So she starts to gossip about me when I pull away from her. In fact, she's pulling other women aside who come around the club telling them all about me and how to stay away from me. She was trying to keep other women away from you so I wouldn't be with her, see? And then she'd come around and do the dance, and then I'd fall for it again, and we'd back into action again, and then I got in more trouble and more gossip. She did this to me, and I'm stupid enough to go along with this. We had this dance going for probably a year, maybe a little longer. And then finally, I just, out of anger and seeing how dangerous this was for my reputation, which wasn't very good at the time, I can tell you, I stopped. I pulled away. I just said, no, I'm not doing this anymore. and I walked away from that club in St. Paul and I stayed at 2218. Next thing I know, she's over at 2219. She followed me over there. Now she starts it over there This went on. I didn't sleep with her anymore. I was done with that. This went one for about 14 years. He paid a price. When I first met him, I had heard all these stories and I thought he was the sweetest dude I ever saw. All the women would say, oh, watch out for him. He abuses women. Oh, this was awful. This was awful, and I brought it all on myself. What should I have done instead? I should have left that alone, and I'm telling you that I had to be beaten severely to get my attention on this one, but I learned my lesson, and I don't play those games anymore. I just stopped. It is not a good idea. I learned a very important lesson. so what should I have done instead stay away from her I shouldn't have slept with her in the first place I was trying to use her in a sense for sex and I got caught it was my own fault not her fault I'm not justifying that her behavior wasn't awful it was awful there's no question about it but it couldn't have happened to me had I not made decisions out of my own selfishness which later placed me in a position to get hurt another example of that see so there it is you You know, you get beaten until you stop. But life will get your attention. That's what I would have done instead. I would've stayed away from it. So we got this all down on paper and looked at it. Well, why are we doing this? Well, this is the idea. Why are we going to do this? Why are you doing all this? In this way, we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. Yeah, do you want to keep having that experience? No. We subjected each relation to this test. Was it selfish or not? Is what I'm about to do selfish or no? We're going to subject each relation to this test. We ask God to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. Notice it doesn't say we ask our sponsor to mold our ideals and help us to live up to them. Do you see that? They're going to do this over and over and over. I've got nothing against sponsorship. Don't hear this wrong. I'm not putting down sponsorship. I'm telling you that they are adamant about getting your reliance on God instead of people. We remembered always that our sex powers were God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly, nor to be despised and loathed. So it's not about hating yourself over what you've been like. Let's take some inventory, find out what the heck's been going on so we can make some adjustments. You form an ideal from taking inventory. You've got an idea of what didn't work, well now I know how I want to be. I don't want to be like that anymore, okay? Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it. Isn't that a nice way of putting that? You know, when I was a kid, I remember the religious people were always talking about what my ideal should be. They're telling me what my idea should be now live up to it. And what's AA doing? They're saying you determine your ideal based on taking inventory and what didn't work. you can see where the problems were. Okay? Once you get honest with yourself, you can say, you can't see it. So whatever your ideal turns out to be, you must be willing to grow toward it. You don't have to be willing to grow towards anybody else's ideal. You determine that with God through inventory. And that's what they're saying. We must be willful to make amends where we have done harm, provided that we do not bring about still more harm in so doing. Yeah. Once you see through inventory where you've made mistakes, there's a tendency to want to clean up your mess once you see you're wrong. And then you'll want to go back and talk to old girlfriends and maybe spew out things that are going to bring other people involved into it and cause all kinds of heartache with other relationships of theirs. Look, you can't do that. You can't get well at the expense of other people, and they're warning us here. They don't do any of these sentences without a reason. This is intentionally put in here because they knew that we would want to do that. Once you see where you are wrong, and that's when you can make a mistake and implicate other people and cause problems for other people and then feel more guilty and you might even drink over it. So they're putting a warning in here. We're not at the amends, but yet they're telling us, watch out, we must be willing to make amends provided we don't bring about still more harm in so doing. particularly because this is so volatile. This is so emotionally powerful, much more than I have to make an amend to somebody for stealing money or I have make an amendment for, you know, this relationship stuff is so powerful that it's very tempting to want. Well, tell a story about the guy that had to run to go tell his wife. I went to a treatment center with a guy named Don and him and his wife, I knew his wife too because I was talking to her about Al-Anon. I was involved in Al-A-Non. And he was the president of this alumni, and I was the vice president. And I took that position only because I figured I was lazy and I didn't have to do anything. Well, it's strange that that's the way I was. I was crazy in a lot of ways, intellectually and around doing things when I got sober. So we were a few months, two, three, four months sober, and he's screwing around with some woman at the treatment center. And he's got a couple of kids, and him and his wife are trying to put their marriage back together. He was a crack addict, and he'd been screwing along with other women. But she didn't know about that stuff. And I know this because I talked to her. She was a friend of mine, as an Al-Anon friend. So I'm talking to her and him, and I know him well. And he's fooling around with this woman at the treatment center now. And he says to me one day, you know, I feel so guilty when I go home. I can't stand to be around my wife. I looked at him and I thought, well, you are guilty. Of course you feel guilty. It's because you are. Stop doing what you're doing. He says, I've got to tell her. I said, wait a minute, Don. And I've been reading this part of the book. I don't think that's a good idea, at least not at this point, okay? Because you're going to lose your family. This is going to � she is already teetering. You've got children. This is a decent man. Businessman, got a house, gota family, two kids, couple years old. He says, I can't stand it. A couple days go by. I've got to tell her. Don't do it. Got to tell her. He went back and told her. She threw him out. That was the end of that. Lost his family. She lost the house, couldn't make the payments. He couldn't. He started to drink. It led him back to crack cocaine. I saw him five years later, and I know she lost the horse because I talked to her a few times, and I heard this story from both sides. I saw it from his side, and I hurt it from hers. She lost the house. The family was gone. He lost his kids. Five years later, he was trying to get sober and he didn't get sober. I tried to hook with him again because I knew him and I tried to help him. I found a poem back in. Couldn't do it. I heard a story about two years ago from a guy who went through treatment. I saw him at a restaurant who went through treatment with us. And he says, I just read something in the paper about him. He was going to prison for a long time for something he was doing. you know it all started because he made a poor decision and he wouldn't do inventory he started making decisions without following what they were talking about in the book see and he got caught with it and it cost him his sobriety it cost Him his family nobody won on this everybody lost the kids lost their dad she lost her husband they lost their house he lost his business And he never did get sober, that I'm aware of. Now he's in jail. This happened 18, 19 years ago. 20 years ago now. And he thought by being honest that it would help him feel better. It didn't work. And that's why they put this warning in here because this is such an emotional topic. It was such a sad deal. It'll talk about it later on in the book. Should we always come 100% clean about this stuff? And the book says not necessarily. There are circumstances where maybe I've got to live with my guilt sometimes. Maybe I've just got to take it on and move on with my life and realize that I've made mistakes and stopped making the mistakes. He thought he would feel better by telling her and resolve his guilt. He didn't feel better. He felt worse because he hurt her again, and it didn't resolve his guilty, and that's what he drank over. And I know that because I was talking to him at the time. So I saw this unfold. I'm not speaking from theory here about it. I watched this whole thing. Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow toward it. We must be will to make amends where we have done harm, provided that we do not bring about still more harm in so doing. In other words, we treat sex as we would any other problem. So how do we treat problems? In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. There it is again. Go inward and ask God, what I should do? What should I do about this specific matter? You talk to people. Believe me, you'll get so confused talking to people AA members are more than happy to give you their opinions about things I'm guaranteeing you that Just go ask, you will find out The right answer will come if we order Do I want the right answer? The right question is, is it selfish or not? That's the right question And the answer for me, if I had asked it with that gal Would have been probably, leave it alone Rick But that wasn't the answer I wanted. I wanted to do what I did and not have any problem. Well, guess what? You're going to have problems when you're doing that, when you'RE taking advantage of people. You're GOING TO HAVE HURT FEELINGS. IT DOESN'T WORK. God alone can judge our sex situation. Counsel with persons is often desirable. See? But we let God be the final judge. There it is. Counsel with Persons. Talk to your sponsor. to talk, whatever you want to do. But we let God be the final judge. Why? We realize that some people are as fanatical about sex as others are loose. That's why. That is the way we started this section off. Looking at the absurd extremes that Bill talked about at the very beginning. Yeah, that is why. Some people are fanatial about sex and others are loose so we avoid hysterical thinking or advice. Suppose we fall short of the chosen ideal and stumbled. Does this mean we are going to get drunk? Some people tell us so, but this is only a half-truth. It depends on us and on our motives. If we are sorry for what we have done and have the honest desire to let God take us to better things, we believe we will be forgiven and we'll have learned our lesson. If we are not sorry and our conduct continues to harm others, we are quite sure to drink. That's the way Don was. He wanted to have it both ways. He wanted to keep fooling around with this gal and he wanted to have his family. And it wasn't going to work. We are not theorizing. These are facts out of our experience. So if you're willing to change, I've made lots of mistakes. I've already told you of one that I made that was a serious mistake that I wouldn't do today. And it cost me. I didn't get drunk. I stayed sober. But I had to deal with that. I had a deal with the consequences of what I did. And it was unpleasant. And I'm telling you, I'm still dealing with some of that stuff. From years later, it still comes up once in a while where somebody's got some really crappy idea about me, you know, and it's based on something that happened 19, 20 years ago. Wow. Well, we're pretty good around AA about maintaining gossip and stories, and, you Know, we have long memories when it comes to that stuff, and the love is all over the place. Love, love, we love to gossip about each other. If you're going to gossip, why don't you talk nicely? I mean, if you have a need to gossip, that's fine. Why don't you use it in a positive sense and talk about the nice things about people instead of what's wrong with them? Use it for a positive thing, you know? To sum up about sex, we earnestly pray for the right ideal, for guidance in each questionable situation, for sanity, and for the strength to do the right thing. That's what we pray for. We're asking God to help us. Look, if I'm in the situation that's worthy a question, isn't it? Why don't I ask the question, is it selfish what I'm about to do? I'll tell you why you don't ask it. Because I don't want to know the answer. I want what I want. But when I started asking that question, it changed me because I couldn't play the game anymore. I couldn'T get away with that crap of not wanting the right answer. I knew what the answer was. I just didn't want it. I wanted what I wanted and that's selfish. Is that like I'll go home later tonight and then ask the questions tomorrow? That's right. Are you married now? If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves. It quiets the imperious urge when to yield with mean heartache. You see how that is? So if you're having a lot of trouble with sex, you might want to help people do 12-step work. Go out and put some treatment center meetings on. Bring guys with you. Make commitments. That's what I started doing because sex was very troublesome for me. I'll give you an example of a story. Something that happened to me. This happened pretty early, too. This was another one of those nine-month sober deals. Actually, when I was about three and a half months sober, Pam and I split up for the final time. We had been to counseling and were three months sober. She took the kids and moved right next door to me. Right next door. Right next store to me! A buddy of mine owned the duplex, and I was living in a place of another friend of mine that I was going to buy it before I went into treatment. I'd done a bunch of work on the place. When I come out of treatment, it was in foreclosure, so he had six months. So I was living in there for six months for free. Now she takes the kids and moves them to my buddy's next door right upstairs. And I am crazy because I told you, I didn't want to do to my family what my dad did to his. So I am just beside myself with this one. And I hate myself because I've ruined my family, and I got all this judgment toward my dad, and I'm frustrated. See, I'm in the process of doing inventory and I'm working on this stuff, but I'm not out of it yet. See? So I'm going to meetings all over. I'm trying to heal this stuff. And I'm taking inventory and starting to get some results. Well, you know, Pam's living next door. Our relationship is over. We've been to counseling. It's a dead deal. We've made a decision. We're done. It's over. It's ended. She's got the kids. My kids are four and six years old at this point. She starts dating other guys. Right away this happens, within a month or so. Now I see this guy coming. I'm living next door, so I see it going on. One day she's out there kissing him in front of my house. God, it's killing me, you know? And I'm doing things like I'm scaring myself with my thoughts. You know, I'll never have sex again. No woman will ever want me. Some other guy will be reading my kids' stories that night. What a bunch of nonsense. Have you ever dated somebody who had kids? The kids don't want nothing to do with you. It's ridiculous. So I'm telling myself stories and causing pain to myself, and I'm blaming her. Well, if she wouldn't have left me, I wouldn't feel this way. I mean, it's just ridiculous. I'm full of self-pity, so I'm doing a lot of 12-step work because I'm nuts. Well, I'm over on the north side of Minneapolis, and I go into a meeting, and in walks this beautiful young blonde gal that I... She's just very attractive. and I'm talking to her after the meeting and she kind of likes me and we go for a walk after the meet and we're talking and I mean this very sincerely I was literally physically shaking I was so afraid of her why? because I felt women could cause me pain that's not true by the way women don't cause men pain it's the way I was thinking about the situations that have caused me the pain she didn't do it I did it to myself you see But I didn't really have that awareness yet, not very well in place. So I felt very afraid of women. Now I'm excited about this and I'm fearful about it. So we're talking. She says, where did you hang around? I said, I used to hang around at the Chuggalug Bar on Lindale and Lake. She said, really? My boyfriend owned that. Wow, here she was. I remember her from the Chugglelug and she was gorgeous. And she was a hooker. And the guy who ran the bar was this little guy, kind of a squirrely guy named Jack. And nobody could ever understand why they were together. I'll tell you, maybe he was paying for it. I don't know what it was. But here she is now and she's interested in me and she still very pretty. Now, I tell you she was a hooker back then for a reason. And I'll try to remember to clear that up at the end of this. So pretty soon we're going to the meeting together every week and after one of the meetings we're walking, she starts coming on to me and she wants to be sexual. And I said, well, what's the deal with you? I said I'm out of my relationship. It's over. She says, well I'm living right next door to my husband. Yeah, it's a mirror image of mine and she's got the kids. It's like I'm interacting with my ex in a sense, see? Now her relationship with her husband is not over. They're separated but they're not divorced. Wow. And she's coming on to me, and in no uncertain terms, she clearly states she wants to be sexual. Now, you could look at this and say, well, she used to be a hooker. I can do anything with her, right? Don't have to worry about how she feels. You can justify almost any kind of crap with that one. No, I couldn't. I'm reading the book. You know what jumped out at me? I'm not reading the books. I was reading the text of the book at the time, but the thought that came to me at the times was we subjected each relation to this test. Was it selfish or not? Her relationship was not over with her husband. There was a man living next door to her who had a family and children, two twin boys, two years old. I knew what it felt when this man was coming and going in front of my house with Pam. Pam was doing nothing wrong, but I knew how I felt. Our relationship was over. do I want to be the guy to drive a stake between that man and his family who lives next door to this woman how could I how could i do that under the circumstances i knew i couldn't do that and i told her i said look your relationship isn't over is it she said no i said i can't do this and i said i had enough sensitivity or enough spiritual growth at that point to tell her why. I said, your relationship is not over mine. It's not a problem from my perspective, but it is from yours. And I can't do this with that knowledge. I just can't through it to your husband. I had compassion for the man, not her. She was more than willing to. Isn't that something? I changed. Something changed in me and I was only a few months older. I talked to her once after that on the phone. I never saw her again. I would have seen her and talked to Her. I wouldn't have knocked off the friendship. I don't know if she stayed together with her husband. I don' t know what happened. I only talked to her once after that. But I think I made the right decision. Now, I would love to tell you that I did that because I was trying to work a program and that I'm a good AA member. Oh, that'd be a nice way to put it, wouldn't it? But you know what the truth of the matter is, guys? Why I didn't do that? Because it would have brought me pain to do that. To act out of accord with my ideal that I had formed through taking inventory. And literally, there was nothing noble about what I did. It was pure self-interest. It wasn't selfish because selfish is without concern for others. I had concern for that man and his kids. But it was certainly self-interest. So, I think I made the right decision on that one. So, this was just an example of an opportunity to make a mistake. And when I read this sentence, it quiets the imperious urge when to yield wouldn't mean heartache. To yield to that would have meant heartache for me. So some of this stuff is not quite so noble as we'd like to make it look. I'll tell you that. I've learned how to not hurt myself. That's all. Nothing too noble about that. It's a spiritual program, but sometimes we forget this is one of the most practical programs there is. This is completely practical. This is, I don't want to live this way anymore. Here's some things to do to help me not live this play anymore. Here's what worked. Here's a bunch of other people did that work. Here's one I can do that works. It's completely practical Is it selfish or not? That's always the question. First question, is it selfish? If we have been thorough about our personal inventory we have written down a lot. We're going to write this stuff down. We have listed and analyzed our resentments. We have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality. We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness. We have began to learn tolerance, patience, and goodwill toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people. Yeah, that's a better judgment than he's a jerk. It's a beginning step to getting out of the hate, out of The Judgment. Yes, he's a sick guy is still a judgment, but at least it's a better judgment. It's just the beginning step, the way we start to look at it. But perhaps they, like ourselves, were sick too. Perhaps the judgment is about, is this guy doing the same thing I'm doing? Do I want a pass? Did I give somebody else a pass in order to get a pass for myself? Let's be practical. And they say, patience and goodwill toward all men, even our enemies, maybe especially our enemies, because what do you got when you love people you love? Anybody can love people you love, but can you love the most abrasive character? The guy that brings all your crap to the surface. Well, then you got something. When you get by that one, you've made some major strides. I play those jerks that are a lot like me. That's right. We have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct. That's what we've been looking at. And are willing to straighten out the past if we can. In this book, you read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves. We hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him. Isn't that something? My self- will is what's blocking me off from a relationship with God. My ego. My self. My human will. My selfish desires. If you have already made a decision, third step decision, and an inventory of your grosser handicaps, that's what we've been looking at, our grosser handicaps. You have made a good beginning. Isn't that something? You made a great start. You made it a good beginning. It's not the end. You've learned how to inventory yourself. Now you can apply this stuff and you can learn how to deal with things as they come up. That being so, you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself. Isn't dat something? Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous, huh? Isn't this amazing? What a process. You know, there's a little quote that I had written down here. It says, relationships are schools for enlightenment. Why would I tell somebody to stay away from a relationship? I wouldn't tell them to stay way from it. I wouldn' t tell them go toward it. I might be keeping them away from healing because I think I know what's best because I'm playing God again. I'm going to tell people how to live their lives What makes me an authority on relationships? It's so crazy. I have learned to shut my mouth in this area. Al-Anon has helped me a lot with that. Step back. I don't know what's best for other people. It's astonishing, but my ego thinks it knows what's best, I'll tell you that. That's tempting to do that with kids when you want... I don' t want my kids to make the same mistakes that I made, so I want to tell them how to live their life so they don't make the... How about if they get to go out and have their own experience? What, so we're doing sponsorship? Isn't that what we try and take people's experiences away? Let them experience their life. If the guy isn't ready to stop drinking, give him a bigger glass for crying out loud. My God, you know, the big book doesn't say don't drink. It says drink until you're convinced you want some help. Practice a little controlled drinking. Step over to the next bar. Read the early chapters. They talk that way. We're not against drinking. You know, when you got conflict going on in your head, you gotta drink. I don't blame a guy for drinking. I'm amazed when somebody doesn't. We need to help each other resolve these conflicts. That's what I think. You can be 23 years dry like I was and be so miserable that you're making a lot of money and you've got all the stuff you ever wanted and you're so miserable you can't stand your life. You could do that. That's really awful because then my medicine's gone. you know my medicine used to come in quarts and fifths and i don't have no medicine anymore it's awful transformation of mind that's the way this looks to me and i've had some of this so i i'm open to learning and i i had to start looking at some things i told you i started looking at my politics and things like that used to funnel all my hate into my politics and i was causing problems in relationships with people i really cared about because i thought i was right, and I said, well, maybe you are right, but why do you got to ram it up somebody else's or down their throat, you know? I mean, it's just crazy. Got to be right, got to tell everybody, show everybody how smart I am, or what an idiot I've been. You know, it is different today. I have taken a look, and found out I was brainwashed around politics. I grew up with communists. I had communist training as a kid. My dad was a Red, so was his friend Joe Stern, and then I worked for Joe at a lumberyard, And I sat in that lumber truck with him for years and he gave me all this communist crap, you know. And I listened to that and then I grew up and I'm spewing this crap as a teenager and I wonder why I'm in conflict with all my friends. Isn't that something? Can't figure that one out. I'm growing up in a capitalist system and I'M SPEWING THIS KIND OF STUFF OUT. Unbelievable, man. I just, I was nuts. Then one day I looked at it, I found myself in conflict with a real good friend of mine and I said, What's the matter with you, Rick? and I'd been sober a long time, 10 years at that point, 8 years. What's the matter with you? Why are you doing this? And I started to examine, what do I really believe? Do I really belief this stuff or is it just conditioning? Have I been brainwashed by a bunch of people? You know what I found out I was. I had a bunch brainwashing and I was ready to die for those ideas and they weren't even mine. And when I examined it, I realized I really didn't even believe in those things. And it started to drop. and then I started to realize what I really did believe in instead of what, who was talking in my head? My dad? Joe Stern? Who were these people that were talking to me that I was listening to and throwing it out there? Well, it's different today. Now at least what I believe in is mine. It's not somebody else's and I've got nobody else to blame for it anymore. But it did change me just by looking at it, just by being aware. It's a good beginning and I've learned how to inventory myself and that's the only thing I ever do with guys when I sponsor them is I'll try and help them go through the book as best I can. I don't know what else to do with them I don' t tell them what to do with their relationship I show them how to inventory them and let God deal with it It's very different for me and I'm very grateful for Elf House and I' m very grateful for the opportunity to be here for Doug and Paul to do this These kind of opportunities These are just a joy for me. So thanks a lot for the chance to come and do this. Thanks for sticking around through this because it's so amazing. Thanks for listening.