The Dilemma of Lack of Power – S. and Charlie P. – Springtime in the Ozarks Big Book Study – Eureka Springs, AR – Part 5 of 5 – Chris S. and Erika – Chris Schroeder and Erika

learned from. You know, one of them was Carl Young. And when Carl Young talked to Roland Hazard, he basically told him, look, I really think you're hosed. You are an alcoholic of the type I was really hoping you weren't. You probably better get your affairs in order. This is not going to be pretty. And he said, no, Doc, you've got to have something else for me. You've got have something else for me. So Young basically said, well, every once in a while, every once in awhile, you know, alcoholics will wander their way into, you know, some really, really religious groups that are real participatory. You know, they draw you in, you know, and they get you really active. And every once in a while, you know, alcoholics will sober up. So really what I think you should do is find one of those organizations and join up and that's what that's what Roland did he came back over to America and he joined the Oxford group and he was able to get sober so you know we learned we learned things from each of each of these people now a lot of a lot OF the spiritual processes the religious practices of these groups what happened in early AA was, they started to recognize the things that worked and the things that helped to keep you sober. They recognized what those were and the things that, you know, weren't really necessary. Bill Wilson and some of the other alcoholics kind of figured those out too. And by the writing of the book Alcoholics Anonymous, they'd been able to take what was in essence a religious participation and turn it into a spiritual participation that's a good thing because if the day I walked into Alcoholics Anonymous somebody would have greeted me at the door and said hi my name is Harry and the answer we have in here is basically to devote the rest of your life to Jesus Christ or something what I would have said was thank you for that information that won't work for me and I would have left because I would have been absolutely convinced that it wouldn't work for me now that's very well could have worked for me but I would have been convinced that it didn't work for me so they turned what really was religious practices and devotions and they turned it into spiritual practices and devotions. And, you know, that really is a good thing. Now, the lack of power. Lack of power is my dilemma. Charlie talked a lot about what lack of Power looks like. What lack of PowerPoint looks like is the lack to be able to decide not to drink and have that really mean something. That is a problem. That's a lack of Powwr. So I need to find a power, and it says in the book, we need to found a power by which we can live. We can continue to live. Now how do we do that? How do we go about that? Much of the process of Alcoholics Anonymous is about finding that power. It's about accessing that power at a level that will enable us to stay safe and protected from alcohol, that will enable us to be restored to sanity to the point where when we understand drinking is a bad option, we'll be able to act on that thinking and not drink. There's so much misunderstanding, especially in my area up in North Jersey. And I misunderstood a lot too early on. I really thought that what Alcoholics Anonymous was was, was it was a giant pep rally where we'd all get together and we would say, yay, yay we don't drink today. Okay? And every single meeting is like a big football huddle where you get together and you hudle up and you say, okay, let's keep it simple, you know, first things first, as easy as it is, see you tomorrow night at the closed-minded discussion break. You know? And that's really what I thought it was. It needed to keep reminding me not to drink. I needed to be reminded. I needed encouragement, and you've got to encourage me constantly to not drink or I'll drink. Just keep encouraging me. Tell me not zu drink, Charlie. I mean, that's really what I thought Alcoholics Anonymous was about because I still thought I had a choice. I still felt, you know, if you keep reminding my to choose not zu drink, I won't drink. until one day I learned my own particular truth about my state of powerlessness. I had signed myself into 28-day treatment, okay, without any encouragement or pressure from outside. I really did it because alcohol got my attention and I wanted a lot of help. I got out of the 28-Day. They said go to AA. So I'm going to a couple of AA meetings. I'm doing a couple outpatient meetings and I'm telling everybody I'm never, ever going to drink again. Okay? I'm not going to do it again. I'm doing the AA. I'm paying counselors. I'm in group. You know, sitting around a circle doing group. You know? I mean, what more do you want from me? So, and one day I'm on the way to an AA meeting and the thought crosses my mind that you know what would really help all this recovery stuff? For me to buy a gallon of vodka, drink it It'll remind me just how bad drinking is. And this is good. This is going to really be great. So I bought a gallon of vodka and drank it to improve my recovery. And it dawned on me, three drinks into this, three drink into this. All of a sudden I go, oh my God, what have I done? I'm drinking again. And, you know, I opened up the cage door to the beast. I'm going to be dragged around like a ragdoll for who knows how long. How could I have been so stupid? And the alcohol actually had returned me to sanity. The insanity was 90 days sober going to AA, going to outpatient, having put myself through treatment. The insanity just was putting the alcohol back in my body. Now, I needed a power. You need a power that's greater than yourself if you're in this kind of state. And I believe that through spiritual living, through practicing these recovery principles and these spiritual principles, that leads us into a place where the power can manifest. and if I'm not participating in this spiritual living if I am not trying to practice these principles the power doesn't seem to manifest it's as simple as that so what I did when I went back to Alcoholics Anonymous I went with a desperation with a willingness born of desperation to do every possible thing I possibly could. And I got really, really involved in Alcoholics Anonymous and then I was exposed to some people who talked about the solution. The solution is a relationship with a power greater than myself through the practice and the adoption of the spiritual living and instructions that are in this book. Now, okay, problem. Alcoholism. Solution. spiritual living those really are the first two steps uh you know as as simple as they can be explained if if i'm totally clear on i'm an alcoholic and i'm clear on what the solution is the solution is participation in the spiritual life then the next logical step would be to make a decision to engage in that spiritual life, to make a decision to participate in this work in the instructions in this book. In this book basically is Spirituality 101, the instructions in here. What they will do is they will bring you to a place where power can manifest in your life and I've seen it happen over and over again with so many different people I work with, and it's my own personal experience. So when you're looking at step three, you need to make a decision, and how I look at that decision is, I know I need to engage in spiritual living at a really deep level, and I know i need to develop a relationship, a personal relationship with the power greater than myself i know that i need to do that um there's a requirement that uh there's there's some there's some things that i needs to agree to in the as i move into the third step one of them is to quit playing god and another another one really is to understand that by living from self from living living from uh living for a platform based on selfishness self-centeredness and self-seeking, I have created my own problems in my life. And I need to start looking at that. I needto start turning from, basing all of my decisions and all ofmy momentum through life based on self. I needtostart looking atthat a little bit differently. So I needsto stop playing God. I needdostop having an ideaof what everybody should be doing at every given period of time in my life, you know? What my boss should be doing, you know, what my family should be doing, what I'm going to do. What my AA group should be doing, you know, I mean, I need to, I really, I need to stop playing God like I have every single clue in the world. The funniest thing was is I'm sitting in rehab thinking, you know, when people start to understand how much I know about all this, they'll want to follow me, you know. I mean you know and I'm gathering in troops together, you know, I'm in a booby hatch. You know what I mean? And I'm expecting people to recognize the sheer genius of my perceptions about the world, you know. And really, I need to stop playing God and I need to start growing a little bit toward humility. And I see the third step prayer. You know, what I hear a lot of times in groups up in my area is I do the third step every morning you know and what they're saying is they're saying that they do the third step prayer every morning I believe that the third step is the decision to start living life along spiritual lines that's what the third-step decision is and then the prayer is an affirmation it's an affirmation that you've already decided to live life along spiritual lives in the prayers and affirmation and I you know one of the things is we don't always do this whole thing really perfectly. And it's really great that we don'T have to be perfect with all this stuff. Because if we needed to be perfectly, there would be a lot fewer of us in this room probably. But what we need to do is we needto keep trying. We need to keep trying Now, we're alcoholic. We recognize the solution of spiritual living. We've made a decision to go through the rest of these steps and to grow and broaden and deepen our relationship with the power that's greater than ourselves, that has enabled us to overcome alcoholism and will enable us to overcome a lot more of our problems, if not all of them in the future. We've make a decision do that. the first place we really need to go then is to take a real close look at just what we're doing in our lives. We need to inventory our grosser handicaps. We need that. We need the identity and identify the causes and conditions of our failure at life. Why have we failed at life? Why have мы been coming from a place of selfishness, self-seeking, and self-centeredness. What is going on? You know, what is this alcoholism? What is the unmanageability? What's the unMANAGEABILITY inherent in alcoholism after the dash? What does that look like? How is that presenting? How is it presenting in us? We need to start understanding what's going on so that we can move forward. um should we should we take a break and then you can i think we could stand our goal is to try to be through the first five steps by lunch so this afternoon we can talk about six seven eight nine and we want to spend a lot of time in 10 11 and 12 so uh what do you think 10 minute break 10 minutes we'll be back in here all right nice stuff started uh settling back in What a bunch of drunks. That 10-minute break was what? 20 minutes? You know, while we're settling back in, the thing about that circle and triangle... Are we taping yet? Okay. The thing about... That's the most business I've ever gotten out of the circle and angle stamp. That was pretty cool. But you know, there was a time... And hopefully we get to talk about this a little bit. But the other thing I got to warn you is that I got some pretty serious ADD working up here. And when I tell you we're going to get back to something later, we're probably not coming back. You know, so I'm going to go ahead and say it now. But that circle in the triangle, you know, used to be the symbol of AA when I came in. It's still used, but it's not as recognized because they took it out in 93 because of some controversy. And they were suing some people and spending money they didn't want to be spending, getting involved in outside controversy they want to be involved in. And there's varying levels of conspiracy about how it happened or whether it should have happened, but that's basically the short version of what happened. But we use that circle and triangle a lot in my lineage as a way of checking in because you've got unity on one side, which is the fellowship governed by 12 traditions. You've got service on the other side, which is service, and it's governed by the 12 concepts of world service. And you've got recovery at the base, which is governed by the 12 steps. So you have 36 spiritual principles that make up the circle around the triangle. And there was a time in AA when I was really doing one side of the triangle, but I was hoping for the results of doing all three. All I was doing was fellowship. I wasn't doing any service. I wasn'T really active in the steps. So in my lineage, a lot of times we'll check in with the circle and triangle. You know, if we sit down at the group sometimes, we'll go, where are you at with the Circle and Triangle? Mark used to, you know, when I'd call him, he'd go. Sorry, it's only been a couple of months since Mark died. But part of the way he would have you check in was to say, where you're at with the circle and triangle. And in a very short amount of time, you could give him an idea where you are at. I could go, well, in Unity or in the fellowship, I've only been to about three meetings this week. And in service, I went out to AR on Monday and I'm doing this and that. I'm sponsoring 15 guys or whatever. And then in recovery, doing okay, except for if anything, I've probably only done about two or three evening reviews this week, and I'm a little short on that. And in a very short amount of time, using the circle and triangle, we could get an idea of where we're at. So that took a lot longer than I intended for it to. But that's the whole reason I'm so big on the circle and triangle. And we're going to keep it up here if anybody wants to get their stuff stamped here. Somebody left some notes up here. Oh, talking dog joke it starts off with. Chris is going to continue with step three now you know it's just easy the alcoholic is almost predestined to become lazy and to not be diligent about the disciplines that they have you know, it's just easy. The alcoholic is almost predestined to become lazy and to not be diligent about the disciplines that they need to be diligent with. We are all that way. One of the sad things that has happened around my area up in the Northeast is many, many groups have just become fellowship based groups they're very rarely uh participating in service functions it's more about you know you just you just go to the group and you have the coffee and you share and then you know we'll see you back here next week and and there's not a lot of involvement and the recovery the recovery stuff is ignored a lot at times also um they're they're you know for one reason or another, some groups have just gotten away from the circle and the triangle, away from a balanced program of recovery. And I'm not even saying that's necessarily a bad thing. There can be people who thrive on fellowship-based sobriety. But I know for a fact that there are people who need more than that. If they don't participate at a deeper level in the recovery process, if they don'T get active and develop a service ethic, what's going to happen is their spiritual condition is going to corrode and deteriorate to the point where if they DON'T pick up a drink, their quality of life is really in the toilet. I mean, I think we all know people who, if they would be doing more, they'd just be way better off. They'd have a higher quality of Life. You can recognize them up in our area because, you know, it's like the cranky guys, you know, in AA. You know, they've got the vein on their forehead popping out. They've got a resentment about something, you know, that they want to share about, you know. And, you know, those are the individuals who they would be thriving in a much more significant way if they had a balanced a balanced recovery program meeting step service um you know and sometimes it's very difficult to tell somebody that they're falling short you know you don't go up to that cranky guy real easily and say hey get a program you know they've been sober 30 years you know what i mean and so sometimes sometimes it can be uh it can b really uh really difficult But, you know, what we can do is we can take responsibility for our own recovery. Now, if you had diabetes, say, you are responsible for taking insulin. If your liver is giving out or something, You're responsible for going in and getting that treatment that you need to get. What is that? Interferon. Whatever. I missed the disease. It's your responsibility. If you don't, you're not going to say, oh, well, the Final Four basketball game is on tonight. I don't think I'm going to go in to get my chemotherapy or something. You're just not going to do that. You're going to take responsibility for your illness. And it's just so easy with alcoholism to be able to pass that on and to not take responsibility for it. One of the things we need to get diligent about is taking responsibility for our illness and participating in the meeting steps and service. It's not always about what we know and it's not only about what you know but it's also about what they think It's more often about what we do. What are we doing today about our alcoholism? One of the things that I do for a living is I'm in the media, and what I do is I interview people on a twice-weekly basis from the treatment fields. And these individuals who are the clinicians and they're the scientists and they are the people that own the treatment centers and they re the medical directors and the clinical directors of all of these really fine places. And they really do understand a whole lot, and the best of them understand that without meeting steps in service we get into trouble. And they understand that there is a scale of alcoholism. They understand that they re a heavy drinker. and that there's a real alcoholic. And they basically call that being an alcohol abuser, that would be the heavy drinker, and alcohol dependent, that would Be the alcoholic. You know, these clinicians really do realize it. But I was interviewing this guy the other day and he threw some statistics at me. And the statistics basically were that if you go in for treatment for alcoholism, there's a small chance that you'll be sober in five years, something like between 3% and 7% chance that you're going to be sober. However, if you do a fourth and a fifth step, your chances of being sober five years out are over 60%. And this is coming from like a clinical perspective. They've done these studies. Now, what does that say? What does that saying? It's basically saying we need to participate in our own recovery process. And step three at its most basic is, I'm all in. I'm okay. Show me what to do. Where are the four-step forms? I'm ready. That's basically what the third step is. I'm going to pass it over to Charlie. Charlie, do you have anything more on the third steps or do you want to go right into four? I'd like to touch on one little thing. I've had two levels of experience with the third step. And going to page 60 in the book, when we read that A, B, and C at the end of the most often read and least listened to portion of the big book, how it works, you know, we finish with that A., B., and C., you know what I mean? God could and would if he were something. Don't get me started about the chanting. I just want to say that it's optional. You know, if you're just coming out of treatment, you don't have to chant, God could and would if He were so. It's optional。 Same with keep coming back. It works if you work it, and you work this to work it. You know... Well, could I go on that one for a while? No opinion. I don't having any opinion, but of course, God knows I judge no man. But I worry sometimes about the new guy coming in and we're chanting like a bunch of kids at summer camp you know but there we go another topic um but back to this a b and c it says a that we're alcohol could not manage our own lives b that probably no human power could have relieved our alcoholism and c that god could and would if he were saw it in the next sentence says being convinced we were at step three It's being convinced of what? Of A, B, and C. So it tells me that A, B, and C basically contain a condensed version of one and two, that I'm alcoholic. By now I should know what it means to be alcoholic and what they mean when they're saying I can't manage my own life. But here's the piece. One of the things that I see that I think is a little bit of a mistake, it's a big mistake, that happens a lot in the fellowship these days, is taking somebody from are you powerless over alcohol? Yes. do you believe that there's a chance that this power might help you? And one of the things I say a lot is, I used to think if zero was there is no God and 100 was total God consciousness, I usedと think you had to get all the way over to 100 to strike step two. But all step two says is, am I willing to believe that possibly there might be something to the right of zero? Is it possible that there could be a power that can take me beyond where I am now? I think we can waste a lot of time in step two trying to define the power, trying to figure out exactly what the main thing I need to be convinced of is that my power ain't going to get the job done. And is it possiblethat this power you guys are talking about could do it for me? But the big mistake I see is if we take a guy right from that admission and say, okay, now let's pop down on our knees and do the third step prayer, I miss an enormous piece of work in pages 60 to 63, and I missed it for a long, long time in sobriety. And what happened was I worked a program based on abstinence from alcohol. It was shocking news to me to figure out that the problem with alcoholism is not alcohol. You know, and, I mean, I'm sober. Well, I used to be embarrassed to admit it, but I was sober 17 years, And I'm reading the book one time, and on page 19 it says, We feel the elimination of our drinking is but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations, and affairs. When you work in a program based on not drinking, how can anything be a more important illustration of our principals than the elimination about drinking? You know, I thought if you don't drink, you get an A. Now, don't get me wrong. It's a key part of working a program. It's really, really important. But it's not the finish line. And I sat there on this page where it says, is he not a victim of the delusion that he can rest, meaning seize by force satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well? I spent 17 or 18 years managing my tail off in sobriety, running up against the wall, blowing up marriages, overdrawn, you know, nutty, what we like to call stark raving sober. You know, and because I had missed this piece of work, and were you going to touch on the self-peace? No, go ahead. Right after that A, B, and C, it says, now the book earlier on has promised me clear-cut directions. It says further on, clear-cut directions are given showing precisely how we recovered. So it's not vague. It's going to really lay it out for me. And when it says we're going to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, I don't know about you guys, but that was a little heady for me It sounded like churchy talk, you know, just, you know, I mean, and it says, just what do we mean by that? And what do We do? You know, here comes those clear cut directions. And it says the first requirement is that I be convinced that any life run on self will can hardly be a success. The book takes a big right turn on page 60 where all of a sudden we're not talking about vodka anymore. And it says the first requirement is that I be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. I'm going to tell you, sitting there well into sobriety, not only was I not convinced of that, that sentence had never touched me. When I said that I used to like to read the book and look for things that I agree with, I don't know what I usedと do when I read these lines. But, I mean, it just kind of went zoom, and you know and i'm back to you know well i think they know that we're not equipped with the information at this point to be convinced that my life run on self-will can hardly be a success that's why it says we were now at step three twice it says that on 16 it says it right before the third step prayer but it spends the next two pages talking about what do we mean and then it switches over to what do We Do and when it talks about what we mean it says I got to be And I've got a question written in my book that says, am I convinced? I'm constantly taking myself and sponsees back to are you convinced or are you not that your life run on self-will cannot be a success because that is the natural tendency for an alcoholic. It's a drift away from God consciousness back into self-well, back into sepulcher. And before I know it, I've Got a Spiritual Malady cooking inside of me that I don't even know is there because I'm back to trying to run my life on self-will. It's a huge piece of the work. And I don' t know about you guys, but I used to get squat out of this actor. Did anybody else read this thing about the actor and just go, whatever? You know, I mean, am I the only one? Because I would read that, and I would go, but one thing I didn't understand for a long time is that this guy is just an actor. He's not the director of this play. And that's why he's causing so much chaos is because his job is to stand on the X. And when it's his turn, he's supposed to say, okay, let's go eat lunch or whatever his line is. You know, and we start the little scene, and all of a sudden this guy goes, cut, cut. This is all wrong. You know? I want more lines in here. Everybody needs to move over. Let me move to the front. I don't like the ballet, the scenery, the way things are running. And, you know, the director's over there going, who is this guy? You know, and all the other players are going, well, he's trying to get everything to go for himself. I'm going to get what I can for me. You know? And that's what it talks about is when it says, but the thing is, it talks About even though my motives are good when I'm trying to manage this thing. And here's the delusion. The reason I don't think it's self-will in me is because I'm operating under this delusion. It says, if his arrangements would only stay put, if only people would do as he wished, the show would be great. Everybody, including himself, would be pleased. Here's the delusion, life would be wonderful. Well, that's the thing, I don' t think it' s self- will because if you guys would just act right, it would be wonderful for everybody. I mean, you know, and it says in trying to make these arrangements, I might be quite virtuous. I'm the swellest guy, you've ever seen, unless what? Unless that ain't working. And then you get mean, egotistical, overbearing, but it's all about me trying to arrange things where everybody will make things go my way because I think that's going to be best for everybody, $1.45. Right there. That's it. There's our first customer. And if I can't get my way out of Katie, then, you know, if I can't do it, I can do it. I can get it by being nice. It says I have varied traits because I might be able to bully this guy, but believe me, Katie won't take it, you So I've got to be nice to her, and I can overbear on this guy. But you see how it's all me trying to arrange? And it says the show doesn't come off right. I start thinking life doesn't treat me right. And the next time I decide to try a little harder. I become more gracious or more overbearing, whichever the case may be. Still things don't go the way. And it's just admitting I might be somewhat at fault. Just, I mean, maybe this much. I'm sure other people are more to blame. Come on, you know. Because look at my sterling motives, you know. And it goes on and it says, I've become, and it's always in this order, angry. I can't believe these people won't do what I want them to do. Indignant. After everything that I've tried to do for them, they're going to treat me like this. And then the last stage is always self-pity. What's the use? You know, I'm surrounded by idiots. you know i mean and and so and and it goes on to say is he not a victim of the delusion that he can seize satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he only manages well see and it goes on and on the next page i miss this for a long time selfishness self-centeredness that we think is the root of our troubles driven by 100 forms of fear self-delusion self-seeking self-pity i step on people's toes they retaliate seemingly without provocation right i didn't do nothing and they just went off on me you know i mean she's crazy you know and but it says invariably i find it sometime in the past we've and then when it gets down here so this is one of the biggest promises in the book it says so our troubles chris talked about this earlier so our struggles we think are basically of our own making you know why that's a big promise because if my problems are of y'all's making the only way i'm going to be okay is if you all act right and i have very little experience with getting everybody to act right you know but if my problem is of my making me and this power you're talking about moving me towards have a chance of working it out and then it gets down here and it says The Alcoholic is an Extreme Example of Self-Will Run Riot. I love this. Katie and I worked out a little deal where we talk about if this was the whole population of the United States, right? Up on this wall. And right over here is a little group of people that are self-will run riot, right. And you know in a fight it's fun to watch. But a riot there's no safe place to stand. You know a riot can go anywhere at any minute. Over here are these people that are self-will run riot, right? Now, we're going to go into that area and we're going to pluck out the extreme examples of that group. Welcome to Alcoholics Anonymous. You know, I mean, and then it says, though he usually doesn't think so. You know? And the reason I don't think so is because all my selfishness and self-centeredness is filtered through my motives and my delusion right i got to have a sponsor to call me on my selfish just because i can spot it in y'all but i in me i'm blind to it you know still so i just i like to touch on that because it says above everything we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness what does above everything mean to you you know it's paramount importance it doesn't say above everything i gotta stop drinking vodka above everything you know this is above everything I got to get rid of this selfishness and that's going to be the basis of the rest of the work now because it's like Chris talked about when it says on that basis that I've been noticing the word basis in the book a lot and on the basis is the fundamental foundation the underlying principle anything And so if my foundation is on self-will, I'm in trouble. And that's what they're going to move me. If he goes on to say that, and then down at the bottom of that page it switches over to what Chris talked about, which is what we do. And that is when we quit playing God and we get over here. So by the time we get to the third step prayer now, we see this deal at the top of 63 where it says, being all powerful he provided what i needed under two conditions there's a place in the book where it says god doesn't make too hard of terms for those that seek him here's the terms it says he'll provide what i need under two positions if i stay close to him and perform his work well that's my job and he'll take care of everything i need and when i finally committed to the deal he's doing a pretty kick-ass job of holding up his end of the deal if i say close to him and perform his work well then we get down here and we get to the third step prayer and it says we were now at step three again but now we understand the deal so that now when i say relieve me of the bondage of self it doesn't sound like some churchy talk i understand what it means when it's saying that selfishness and self-centeredness is what's killing me And that alcohol never was my problem. Alcohol is what I use to treat my problem Alcohol was the only thing I ever found That would ease the pain of living a life Based completely on selfishness I got me on me like that For a guy like me to look for selfishness Is like a fish looking for water I can't see it because it's in my DNA You know, I'm immersed in it So that's our real work. And I think when I say the book takes a right turn on that, and I'm sorry, I took a lot longer than I intended to talk on that. Go, Chris. All right. Manifestations of self. Selfishness, self-centeredness, that is the root of our troubles. You could almost call alcoholism selfishism. I mean, really, because that's really what our problem is, though we usually don't think so. If you would have come up to me day one wandering into Alcoholics Anonymous and say, Chris, what's your problem? I would not have said selfish. I would have thought, I'm actually a very selfless guy. I'll lend you money to bail you out of jail. I had the whole thing wrong. So the way I look at it is selfishness is like anything I have, I'm protecting. Self-seeking is the things that I want, please don't get in my way. I'm going after them. And self-centeredness is everything's about me. All of my decisions, all of my perspective, the way i'm thinking is the whole entire universe, how it relates to me, How it's going to affect me and in what proportions. And that's the basis of my life system. That's how I come into Alcoholics Anonymous. And I don't even know that's wrong. You know, I don'T even know THAT'S what's causing me 99.9% of my pain. and causing me to co-create all the disorder, at best co-Create, at worst cause all the dysfunction and the emotional pain that's in my life and everything that's going wrong and why I can't get ahead in life and why am I misunderstood and all these other problems that I have. Now it's time to sit down and start inventorying this stuff because I need to see the truth in it. My perspective as an alcoholic, my perspective is skewed. You know, it says having had a spiritual awakening. What would that really mean? That means that spiritually I'm asleep until I do this work. I'm awake walking around thinking I'm awake. And that's really what's going on as an unrecovered alcoholic, as an untreated alcoholic. My perspective, the vision, The world that I'm seeing is colored in a tragic way because of my selfishness and my self-centeredness. I don't see things the way they really are, so I need to start inventorying. I needto start looking at the causes and conditions of what's going on in my life. And the first thing they ask us to do is list the people, the places, the institutions with whom we were angry. You know, as alcoholics, we're really upset with a lot of things. We're angry, we'RE disturbed, we'Re hostile toward. We have a lot Of resistance to the way the universe is presenting itself to us. you know what i mean it's not what we want you know everything's wrong you're not treating me right and we need to start we needto start looking at the truth we needtoknowthetruth without truth we can't really move forward with any of the other steps or any ofthe recovery program we need toseas close as we can the truth about what's going on in our life and it asks us to look at resentments, the number one offender. You want to do resentments and I'll do fear and harms? Sure. Go. Katie, he gave me the mic back. I did not see it. You know, last year I should tell you all, Katie's speaking Saturday night in this room, and last year, I was here with Katie Gordon, and this year, I'm here with Katy Parker. So we've been married for six months now. I like to think of myself as some of her best work. You know, when we roll into the fourth step, just to touch on this self thing again, it just blows my mind because I even thought I was a big book guy. You know, I had a Tuesday night big book study meeting I was going to. I'd been to three Joe and Charlie big book studies. I don't know how I missed this stuff. Maybe I was self-centered. But when we get down into this thing, look at what we're about to do in the fourth step. It says we did exactly the same thing with our lives. First, we searched out the flaws in our makeup which caused our failure. being convinced that self manifested in various ways was what had defeated us we considered its common manifestations so am i convinced that itself is what defeated me and if you look at it like that what the fourth step is is a consideration of common manifestations of self see if you bring me to this point and you go the problem is self and i go what are you talking about what does it look like they go well we're going to look at what how it shows up you know if my problem is selfishness because like chris said when you say selfish i thought you meant um stingy and when you said self-centered i thought you meant conceited and it's not that i think too little of myself or too much of myself i just think about me all the time you know you know ever driven by now they're building a new elementary school and you go what the hell good is that going to do me you know i mean you know my kids are grown i'm you know but you know when i was a kid all my memories are of me anybody got any memories of their parents struggles or anything like that you know it was all me you now well so how does self show up we consider this common manifestations and it says resentment is the number one offender This is on 64. It destroys more of us than anything from it, from resentment, stem all forms of spiritual disease. For we've been not only mentally and physically ill, we've also been spiritually sick. Here comes the third side of this disease. This is the first place in the book that it mentions the spiritual malady. It's talked about the spiritual solution, but if this mental obsession keeps showing up in me, what drives that mental obsession and i think it's the spiritual malady you know when you talk about that black hole that i've been carrying around inside of me since fifth grade to me that's the spiritual malody and that's what makes me so uncomfortable that the mental obsession returns makes me drink kicks in the physical allergy and that sort of thing so it's funny we don't address even though we have a physical allergy in a mental obsession we don'T address those it says when the spiritual malady is overcome, we straighten out mentally and physically. Pretty wild, isn't it? In dealing with resentments, we set them on paper. What if I want to do it on my laptop? Let's see. In dealing mite resentments we set then on paper Well, I've got most of it in my head. Let's say in dealing with resentment we set than on paper, you know. There's something magic that happens between pen and paper And I really love writing out a resentment inventory. And Chris has passed out a resentment that I haven't gone over this guide, but I'm just going to run through what it says here in the book. It says, you know, how many of you people looked at this three column thing here with Mr. Brown and Mrs. Jones? Am I the only one that looked at that and went, what? you know because i didn't understand it says when when we come to an instruction in this thing an action take that action right then and then when you finish that action take the next action it says we listed people institutions or principles with whom we were angry bam stop right there what i didn t understand is that when you do this it doesn t go across the page like that and it goes in vertical columns like this so the first thing i do is column one i write down everybody i'm mad at you know and and then it says we asked ourselves why we were angry column two right what they do and then we write down the cause you know left me for another guy left me für another guy left me för another guy you know i mean oh yeah and and it says uh in most cases it was found that our self-esteem, our pocketbooks, our ambitions, our personal relationships were threatened so we were sore. We were burned up. On our grudge list we set opposite each name our injuries. Was it our self esteem? Our security? Our ambitions? For ambitions I always look at that as how did I want things to turn out? You know if something they did affected the way I wanted, how I wanted things to turned out that affects my ambitions. Sex relations we were usually as definite as this example we got four columns we got six things we're going to look at but i love this when i do it i like some of the guys that are out there and this is a chris you know i have all the faith in the world in chris and we talked about this earlier he said he covers all this stuff but i also want to be sure that a guy can put somebody through a four-step inventory with a big book and a spiral notebook and the thing that i always like to point out with is that you can take an open a spiral notebook and put a line down the middle of each page and you got four columns there and you can start in column one and write a name and skip a line or two and then another name and skip one or two because we're not writing war and peace here we're writing you know because look at mr brown it says let's just look at mr one of my it says his attention to my wife okay he's hitting on the guy's wife. He told his wife he has a mistress, and he's trying to get his job at the office. One of the best AA t-shirts I've ever seen was one that said Mr. Brown needs his ass kicked. You know, I mean... But when you look at it, he's hitting on this guy's wife. He told his wife he's got a girlfriend on the side and he's trying to get his job at the office. He got 19 words. Out of all that stuff, he got 19 lines. 19 words just... You know, attention to my wife, told my wife I've got a mistress, trying to get my job. It's just a very short list. What we're looking at is bullet points. There actually is a dog back there. I thought I'd left my medication in the sunlight for a minute there. but um so we're going through here we're writing down who i'm mad at what they did how it affects me and it says we went back through our lives nothing counted but throwing us an honesty now when you look at back to mr brown hitting on his wife that's going to affect his his security for sure it's going definitely going to afect his ambitions probably not you know and telling his wife he's got a girlfriend was probably not the way he wanted things to go. You know, that affects his security, his sex relations, his personal ambitions, you know, all this stuff. That's how we list this stuff in here. And then it says when we were finished, we considered it third. And it says to conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. Because we've been doing these three columns for years on bar stools. I mean, I've been practicing telling you who I'm mad at, what they did, and how it affects me. You know, I mean I got long experience with that. That's just part of self-centeredness. But it says sometimes it was remorse and we were sore in ourselves, but the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seems. Now, the thing about resentment is it's about to threaten my life six times on this page. about what happens if I maintain deep resentment in the life of a guy that's trying to recover from alcoholism. It says, To the precise extent that I permit these, do I squander the hours which might have been worthwhile? But with the alcoholic, what is my hope? My only hope, it says, but with the alcoholic whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We've found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings, we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of spirit, the insanity of alcohol returns, and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die. If we were to live... So this piece of work is really only important for the ones of us that want to live. If we Were to Live, we've got to be free of anger. The grouch and the brainstorm were not for us. It's funny, it's a primary purpose group in Austin. We use a 1936 Webster's Dictionary to look up what words meant at the time they were writing the big book. And it's shocking sometimes how these words have morphed and changed over the years. Brainstorm, in the Disney era, they would get a group of guys together and they called it brainstorming. They'd come up with a bright idea for a new movie or something like that. If you look it up in that 1936 dictionary, it means, it says, a sudden and violent mental outburst. you know so brainstorming is rage right and it's saying being grouchy or rageful it says they're the doubtful dubious just means doubtful they're the doubtfulness of normal but for us they're poison so now we're going to go back to the list we're gonna look at it from an entirely different angle and i learned this from katie sitting there and going are you ready to look at this from an entirely different angle because I've been looking at it from this other angle for a long time and staying really, really drunk. And now it says are you ready to look at these resentments from an entirety different angle because this stuff is dominating me? How can I escape? I saw that these resentances had to be mastered but how? I couldn't wish them away anymore than I could alcohol. Once again we're up against the lack of power I don't have the power on my own. But it says, this was our course. Remember when we talked about clear-cut directions? We realize that the people who wronged us, this is funny. Out of most of the fourth step guides that I've seen, the writing exercises in the fourth steps are really some good work. And we get a lot. But there are about five or eight prayers, depending on how you look at it, that are really powerful. And that's where the real power takes place in the forth step. And here's one that happens to fall between the third column and the fourth column, or what I like to call the fourth colon. You can call it the fifth column or an expanded third column or whatever you want to call this piece of work on page 67. But what's going to happen now is they're going to take me. We're looking at it from an entirely different angle, and it's goingto start by saying we realize that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. though we didn't like their symptoms column 2 and the way they affected me column 3 they, like me were sick too now you hear a lot in the rooms about praying for the people I resent that's ok it comes from one of the stories in the back of the book but this instruction I've got to say two prayers because this prayer right here is not praying for them it's praying for me And it says, and I'll give you a clue. Any place in the book where it says we asked is usually a prayer. And if it says We Asked God, it's definitely a prayer! And here's one where it Says, We Ask God to Help Us. See, it says God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that I would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended, I say, This is a sick man. How can I be helpful to him? God saved me from being angry. Thy will be done. So it's restating the philosophy of step three again, taking me back to thy will not mine be done, I'm out of the God business. This is a management-level decision, and I am no longer in management. And this is we avoid retaliation argument because we wouldn't treat sick people that way. You know, I mean, if I think of that, when I screw up, I want a lot of slack because I know what's driving me. I know my situation, but I don't like to give other people that kind of consideration. Is it possible that these people that harmed me, when they did it, is it possible they've given their tools and their background and what was driving them at the time, is it impossible that they were doing the best they could on that particular day? And that maybe they weren't even trying to do this to me. They were just doing it. You know, and, you know, can I give – now we're talking about looking at it from an entirely different angle. And I don't want to take too much time, but I just – I want to tell one quick story about this guy that I was sponsoring that had a 40-year resentment against his father for coming home one day and saying your mom killed herself today. And he was so mad about the way his dad had presented that to him. And we were – I'm speeding this up, but we were in – and he's told me I can tell this story. we were in inventory and i said when we're doing this prayer i said you know how old was your dad when this happened he's about 41 i said did it ever occur to you this is a 41 year old man with three children at the house he's been living with a wife that's got some serious mental challenges now she's killed herself he's got to come home he's Got to figure out how to raise three kids and work a job um he's you know he's gotta figure he's gonna make funeral arrangements He's got to notify all the family members.