The Discipline Steps – FOTS Step 11 Workshop – Part 19 of 25 – Katie P.

thank you you want to say hi honey stick your big old melon head in here hi everybody hey charlie oh thank you theresa thank you ollie what a treat uh my name is katie parker i'm alcoholic and it is such an honor to speak at this meeting and i love the idea i love the concept i love to explain how misunderstood our 12 steps are uh i was a huge part of that movement of confusing you i've been sober since october the 28th of 1984 and i say that and am still shocked by that amount of time i have 35 years sober today i came into the rooms of alcoholics anonymous when i was 26 years old i had a daughter i know pitiful incomprehensible demoralization she was five years old i drugged that little girl in places she had no business being i was raised with values and i knew what i was doing was wrong i truly believed my problem was the outside issues i was doing i had no idea it was the alcohol i was drinking uh as a matter of fact when i came into aa i told him look it's these outside issues don't touch my drinking i've been drinking since i'm 12. i love drinking and i had no idea what i was in for, the ride that I was in for. I always like to qualify myself by saying when I start, I can't stop and I can't stop starting. I love that this meeting has a topic. I love topics. Is my story important? Of course it's important. It's important when I sit knee to knee with the drunk who's trying to get sober. That's when I like to talk to the new guy about my drinking. Other than that, I want to talk about staying sober. It's way harder to stay sober than it is to drink. i think drinking is the easy part of alcoholism and and we refer back to everything of when we were drinking when we were drinking but the truth of the matter is i misunderstood a lot of things in alcoholics anonymous no blame in my game it was all it just came into my mind i thought it and it was fact today i understand that the solution to alcoholism is not sobriety it's a spiritual awakening sobriete happens to be one of the many gifts that we get i love what bill wilson said he said uh with each passing year we increasingly realize the immense importance of adequately presenting the program to every new prospect who is in the the least inclined to listen imagine us least inclined to listen many of us feel this to be our greatest obligation to him and our failure to do so is our greatest dear dereliction how do you like that one teresa now that you're the scholar uh the difference between a good approach and a bad approach can mean life or death to those who seek our help and and it's an adequate presentation of our steps and one of the misunderstandings in our steps is we seem to think they're linear we we use terminology like well i've worked the steps or i've been through the steps twice and and there in itself is a misunderstanding right the steps are about understanding and surrendering to the first step second step then most our fellowship half our fellowship had trouble with it third step is not just getting down on your knees it's a real explanation of the many different ways that self shows up four step is my dna how i actually show up right four through nine is that vigorous course of action then 10 and 11 are the discipline steps and 12 we carry the message to the person that needs the help so these discipline steps seem to be the steps that we tend to lack on so when they asked me to do this i was so excited because i thought oh my god a meeting on the 11th step because i i understood the steps so differently i chased the boy into the rooms of alcoholics anonymous he had six years i had 10 minutes it was match made in heaven and thank god nobody was the arbitrator of my sex life and we ended up having a 20-year marriage now let me tell you something i had no idea that this was the wrong way to go about it i don't support you getting in a relationship right away but that's what most of us do you know they say wait a year before you get in a relationship i always like to say on day 366 you're just horny and that's what happens right then you're out there just attack seek an attack but one of the things i like to talk about is is really doing these steps what does actual practice of these steps look like well first we have to understand if the evening review begins the 11th step i misunderstood that right away i was taking the steps off the wall and hoping you were reading your books i really didn't want to read the book read the book talk about it in a meeting i'll get this by osmosis and we'll rock on but let me tell you that will leave for quite a half half measures program and i worked a half measures program for a long time i came in i did the heavy lifting that i was supposed to do right the uh four through nine i kind of did half my amends i did nothing on 10 and 11 and i sponsored people and then i rested on my laurels some people can rest on their laurels longer than others i happened to fall in love with the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous immediately when i walked in today i understand i was one of the lucky ones but what it did for me is it bought me some time and sobriety right there's many things that get our attention right duis take our kids lose our job possible divorce. These get our attention, but they will not sustain sobriety. So we have to look at the different inventories the book has, right? It's got the thorough house cleaning, the fourth step, right, and the fourth steps, remember, is three inventories. It's a resentment inventory, a fear inventory, and a conduct inventory with emphasis on sex, but it's still a conduct inventory. How do I show up as a neighbor, as a mother, as an employer, an employee and my buddy blind Dave you can never get your hands on some blind Dave stuff he said he said something in a talk that I just found fascinating he said imagine our life are these three tiers of a fountain and the top tier is the evening review and you do your evening review where you review your day and then that water floods over into on awakening right you take those corrective measures into on Awakening and that's your second tier and then the rest of that flows into the big tear which is the drama of life whereas the tenth step is where we're watching doing that spot-check inventory and he said the easiest way to make that fountain dry up is to stick your finger in the hole and never do an evening review something we don't speak of much I thought the evening review was the 10th step I wasn't doing it anyway but I'm telling you the evening review is a crucial piece of your work otherwise we do this morning time to where we read great spiritual literature. Oh, we feel so good. Chicken soup for the soul AA. Then we get out of there and we walk out of the room. We don't get down to the second stoplight on our way to work and we're pissed off at the guy in front of us, right? And this is where the misunderstanding comes. But you can't really do the 11th step without talking about the 10th step, right. The 10th steps says, you take the 10 step off the wall and I could get an off-the-wall program, I can tell you that. but the 10th step off the wall says to continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it. To me that looks like damage control. So I go through like sleepwalking, right? I don't realize I'm asleep, I'm sleepwalkin', I step on your toes, you retaliate, that startles me awake and I have pissed off somebody. Wow! So I'd go to someone because I've clearly made them mad. That's called the damage control, what the 10 step is trying to get us to is to watch and turn. It's an awake and turned step, right? And one of the key things about the 10th step, if it says to continue to take personal inventory, where do we learn about inventory? In four through nine. The four through 9 are the deep, deep directions. So the 10 steps says our next function, which means expected duty is to grow in understanding and effectiveness. I've never liked where so-and-so said, I called my sponsor and they said, have you prayed? And if I said no, they hang up on you. One guy started crying and he said his sponsor laughed at him. And I thought, wow, wow. I don't like that. I don' t agree with that at all. I believe it says we are to grow in understanding and effectiveness. So if I'm going to be understanding, I'm gonna let you talk. Oh, I' m gonna clearly hear when you've made decisions based on self. But I'm gona come at you with a little bit more of a gentle approach. Maybe I might even use my own experience to help you swallow and digest these large chunks of truth about yourself. Sometimes it feels like you're swallowing glass. It says, we continue to watch for selfishness, dishonesty, resentment, and fear. And when these crop up, we're to ask God at once to remove them. We discuss them with someone immediately, make amends quickly if we've harmed anybody, and then resolutely turn our thoughts to someone we can help, not our actions. So this is so important that we're doing this spot check inventory in the moment. And then what we do is we watch and watch, and this is for a 24-hour period, right? We're just watching, turning, watching, tuning, and watch your thoughts. You are going to be shocked at how judgmental the alcoholic is. We are such hypocrites and so judgmental. I always tell people, once you begin, once you understand that you're a hypocrite, you're going to have freedom. It is so much better. My very first thought I'm not responsible for, but I am responsible for thereafter. So this 11-step evening review, what exactly is it? It's me seeing how I did on my 10th step. It's kind of like remembering school where you'd have your paper and they say, hand it to your neighbor to check your work. I don't know about you guys, but my neighbor and I were always good friends, so I always pretended like I handed her mine and she handed me hers, but I kept mine so that I could change my answers. Just a little tip for you. I know we're all out of school. Oh, except Teresa. So that's how we did our work there back in school. Big fat cheater that I am. So the 11th step is the evening review. And then of course, in the morning time, it says then it goes into on awakening. But you must remember, the evening revue is so important. This may get some people's panties in a wad. I think it's more important sometimes than morning prayer and meditation. Why? Because we tend to do morning prayer in meditation where we just want to read good spiritual literature. There's nothing wrong with that practice, but that's not at all what our book is trying to get us to. It's trying to Get Us Unblocked so that the sunlight of whatever spirit I choose to call my God can shine through me. So listen to these questions that I think need some in-depth answer. I tend to write my evening review. I find it much more effective when we retire at night. We constructively review our day means to look at it with purpose. That's what constructive means. So if we are to look at this with purpose, were we resentful, selfish, dishonest, or afraid? Not just a yes. I like to say, where were you? So I go through my phone and all the people that I called, I write down their names because some of it was good. Evening review can be really focused on some good stuff that I've done. And then some of them, I don't know if you guys, some of your sponsees can bug the crap out of you, but that can be the definition of a sponsee. You know, oh, I just love all my sponsees. Well, I have a little trouble with some and I sponsor a lot. And so, you know, I need to, if I'm going to grow in understanding and effectiveness, they're going to make my evening review. I always like to say Charlie makes my evening review almost every night. Why? Because Charlie doesn't have the problem. I do. That's what it's about. Either my troubles are of my own making or they're not. Andso, I write that down. do i owe an apology somewhere very possible that i was a little curt a little sharp a little dismissive it can show up in many ways have we kept something to ourselves which should have been discussed with another person at once right there's the drunk trap so you should just say did you do a 10 step because if you didn't do a ten step and should have talked to somebody why they i can't see a picture when i'm in it i need my sponsor or my 10 step buddies to be able to give me my scenario through a different set of eyes we like to say we're looking at it from a completely different angle what angle is that the person that's bugged me or the fear or whatever that might be were we kind and loving towards all that's always a great one right there some people say i never get a yes on that i actually do i do these disciplines as if my next breath depends on them now i started it really working hard on my disciplines about six years ago as you know i'm 35 years sober so i believe spiritual growth is a lot like spiritual maturing right you can only be as far as you are experience is what's required you can't tell a seven-year-old to run to the store and get groceries they're not old enough a 20 year old's not old genug to understand what it's like to be 50. you know you're still bulletproof in your 20s i mean there's so many things that are going on in spiritual understanding and growth. What could we have done better? Oh my gosh, there's a lot of things. I don't know about you guys, but this current situation we're in, a little testy, a Little testy at sometimes. I hit a wall about three weeks into it. Did the work with my sponsor. I call her about twice a week anyway with 10 Step. Did the work behind that. Then I thought, oh man, we did some good work on that. And I hit wall the next night. I'm like, dang, Jana, I thought I was going to buy a little more time than that. Then we did the work on that. And then I bought about, oh, week and a half, two weeks. And I had three to four really, really rough days. I had to be very cautious as to who I was calling. I had be very conscious as to what calls I was answering. I was edgy, very edgy. And I'm assuming you guys were too. I Was talking to somebody a couple of days ago that was just happy as a clam just happy everything's been happy happy happy I just wanted to hang up on it so there you have it what could we have done better there's always room for improvement where are we thinking of ourselves most of the time why because we are an extreme example itself will run riot uh though we usually don't think so there it is it says that so many times in the book or were we thinking of what we can do for others or what we could pack into this stream of my god that's such a beautiful way to look at it there's so much out there in the world and it says a warning though but we must be careful not to drift into worry remorse or morbid reflection why because it's gonna make me feel bad no it would diminish my usefulness to others it's always talking about how we can be helpful to others let me tell you without this spiritual experience the spiritual awakening this constantly working towards others by nature the world and its people really do dominate me in that state the wrongdoings of others fancy to real have the power to kill i have to be so cautious i got to keep my finger on the pulse of katie all the time constantly asking god what grow in understanding and effectiveness says after making these review we ask god's forgiveness why because that's necessary i always look at it kind of like a parent and a child you know when your when your kid comes to you and he got all mad and uh threw something and broke it and then ran into his room and he comes out i'm really sorry i did that you know that's a good thing to do is to make that amends i think we make that immense for me to my loving father and uh why not and then it says and inquire what corrective measures should be taken so outside of all those names i write i wait until i've gotten through my prayer and meditative state and then i write the corrective measures and god just gives them to me have more patience pray for them thank goodness this person's getting it i do this in different colored pens because i like to write their names in black i liketo write what went down in red and then i write what god says in blue i'm a color-coded person and i like that then it goes into on awakening now this is where we can rattle some cages what you know I've had people say well what do you consider on awakening up on awakening so when I open my eyes when I lay my head down at night I always say the prayers of what the evening review looked like right lots of times I do them the big written part in the morning but I do the evening part the mental part you know that think about it and then write it in the morning if I don't write it the evening i just say just do the darn thing you know i don't care if you can't do it in the evening it's better to do in the evening but at least start your morning time with writing it but on awakening let us think about our 24 hours ahead so i've got my evening review pad and then i have my pad that's going to be about looking at my day and i write down what i'd like my day to look like right i've always written a list of what i've liked to get done and in the morning time god is so wonderful about how he just puts people's names on your heart you know call mary check in with john and you just write their name down because the still quiet voice is so quiet we can miss that sometimes that's important to have on that path i think sometimes people think our morning time is supposed to be silence and and silent meditation if that that's a great practice if you want to do that but there are clear-cut directions that that you are to do before you do that. I don't think Bill and Bob were all sitting around lighting incense and levitating. They may have been, I wasn't there. But you know, I think there was a lot more. The word meditation, we do a big book study and we use a 1935 dictionary and it says deep thought, deep contemplation and it uses the example of a general meditating the war. So he's getting ready to go into war the next day so he's making sure if he flanks his men on the left cannons are all working on the right you know he's thinking about his day that's what I believe we're supposed to do so I write down what I'd like in my day and later on in the 11th step it says we pause when agitated or doubtful I'm more doubtful than I am agitated right so I like to pause when I look at that list and go you know what I really like to be able to run to the gym and then go have lunch with my grandson but that's going to screw up me going to office max I don't know what I should do and I pause and I swear that that pause is spiritual in nature and you do this discipline long enough and all of a sudden God will say do Office Depot tomorrow and I'm like but see I'd like to do it all today no do it tomorrow which means God has something planned here for me I'm supposed to run into somebody at the school or run into somebody at The Gym or somebody needs a smile or somebody needs me to just kind of give them a kind word. I mean, can we look the world in the eye? Do we stop? We have, I could get off on a bandwagon about how we look at our phones. My God, people just walk and look at their phones all the time. You are missing so much of God's magic. You're not going to miss anything on your phone. What would happen if you turn to God as much as you turn to your phone? I was out on the hike and bike trail yesterday, and I saw about three people walking with their families and looking at their phone look and the trail is absolutely beautiful now granted the wife may have said hey have you seen if so-and-so's called I get it but you know me I look at every situation I know exactly what's going on that's the way I operate but I'm just saying if we can look the world in the eye stop and take this time this relationship with the creator of my understanding is unbelievable today I mean unbelievable I had no idea that I could actually have a conversation with God all day long I don't have to think oh I didn't pray I don' have to do anything it just comes naturally right and it's getting ready to tell me that here in a minute so I'm looking at my plans for the day so there's my to-do list and it comes it's one of those tablets where you take it with you says before we begin, we ask God's direction on our thinking, especially asked to be divorced of self-pity, dishonest, and self-seeking motives. Now, isn't that interesting that it doesn't say fear? It says first and foremost, self- pity. I really believe most of us wake up restless, irritable, and discontented. We either go up to happy, joyous, and free or down to the four horsemen. We are never stagnant. We're either going forward or we're going backwards. The illness of alcoholism is waiting to pounce on you at any time not necessary to pick up a drink to make you miserable miserable I lived that way for a long time in recovery then it says under these conditions what conditions this state of mind assuming I'm doing 10 assuming I am doing an 11 step evening review on awakening we can employ our mental faculties with assurance for after all God gave us brains to use and one person say well God gave his brains years i go after you under these conditions when was the last time you did a tenth step have you done a written evening review have you don't a written uh tenth step i have to look at my tenth step and i i determine two things i either get relief or i get freedom from my tenth step i call marty i tell her what the problem is she she gives it to me from an entirely different angle we we look at you know this was our course all of that stuff and then when i get off the phone it's my job to know did i get relief or freedom so if i got only relief in about 20 minutes i'm back thinking oh that's that sob you know or whatever the case may be and i call her back and say marty i gotta write inventory when are you gonna be free today she goes yeah i'm gonna take a lunch break in about 30 minutes takes me about six eight nine minutes to scribble out a four column inventory i call er takes us about 30 min to go through it i'm at freedom sometimes I can do a verbal 10-step and I get to freedom. That's what's so important, guys. We must understand this barometer in us. We can't just go, check, I did it off my list. So under these conditions, we can employ our mental faculties with assurance. It says our thought life will be placed on a much higher plane when our thinking is cleared of wrong motives. Who said anything about wrong motives. That is of our nature. Remember, hypocrite, judgmental. Now we go through life, we're good people. Oh my God, but are we an extreme example of self-will run riot? Though we usually don't think so. Yes. Oh, my God. Most of us haven't written an inventory in years. I think personally, we should definitely write inventory in your evening review. You may get some freedom from that but i think we should be doing two tenth steps a week and at least two written evening uh two um uh written inventories you know be it resentment be it fear whatever to where i'm taking it to my sponsor monthly uh i write inventory a lot i i don't think we write too much inventory in alcoholic synonymous but i i think sometimes people misunderstand writing inventory right And so it says, in thinking about our day, we may face indecision. Now, we're still in the meditative process, right? We're still looking at our day. Here we ask God for inspiration and intuitive thought or decision. Then we relax and take it easy, right, God? I'm not sure I've got this to-do list. I see what I'd like to get done. Now, the other part when I told you should I go to Office Depot or not, that's when we pause when agitated or doubtful. So remember, there's two different ways that we're constantly arranging how life is going to go here. The right answer will come if your own house is in order. What used to be a hunch or occasional inspiration gradually becomes a working part of my mind. What a promise. I mean, that's such a fabulous experience. But you must do these disciplines. It says then, I love this, being still and experienced and having just made conscious contact with God when? That morning. see we go to bed at night mark used to say Mark Houston was a huge teacher for me he's just say I die at night I am reborn in the morning I think you take a chill pill you know he would I died I'm reborn and I was thinking this is over the top oh my god do I get it today still being inexperienced and having just made conscious contact with God see it's like a it's like a cell reserve service on your cell phone you know all of a sudden you're calling somebody and then drop the call static on the call echo on the call let me call you back and then all of a sudden you hear them loud and clear that's what happens why because we get blocked it's the nature there's so many promises in our books some are really good some aren't so good and then it says right here it's not probable that we're going to be inspired at all times we might pay for this presumption and all sorts of absurd thoughts and actions i love that you bet we are yeah but then we become to rely upon it right that's the beauty of it we're going to stumble and get back up look at it differently take that back into morning prayer and meditation look at the evening review watch throughout the day this process of growing up is painful pain is the touchstone of growth we cannot forget that it is so valuable and then i love where it says pause ask remind and say says as we go through our day we pause when agitated or doubtful ask for the right thought or action constantly reminding ourselves we're no longer running the show humbly saying to ourselves many times each day thy will not mind be done we're then in much less danger of excitement fear anger worry self-pity or foolish decisions we become much more efficient we don't tire so easy we're not longer burning the burning up the energy foolishly as we did when we were trying to arrange lights to suit ourselves it works it really does and remember on page 62 it said it didn't work playing gone and this does now let me tell you something there's so much to look at in all of this stuff i also have another pad where i i love the oxford uh group's two-way prayer i love to start my morning prayer meditation with this beautiful paragraph to god i call the god of my understanding father god and he talks to me as my child and right when i finish up my whole morning time right i usually read a little out of jesus calling i like that book i've always leaned towards western uh religious teachers i don't agree with all the tenants but i do lean towards that you may be eastern native american you get to pick and choose whatever it is you would like but i love to if the end of my morning time which is it's a minimum of 20 usually no more than 48 minutes but i i love that morning time it is so special to me the the undeniable voice of god where he guides me into my readings where i need to read i always like to say i'd much rather ask for forgiveness than forgive i don't forgive well i keep score i get even i'm just not real big forgiver and so i do a lot of work in in um uh the sermon on the mount uh resist not evil uh forgive us our trespasses i study and how do we study you read a paragraph and then turn statements into questions go back through each paragraph and ask yourself what does each line mean to you get in depth go deep into this stuff when you find spiritual teachers that speak to you we must remain unblocked so that that sunlight of the spirit can guide me down that path but without the inventory process we are in real trouble guys and I like to read this this is really important I call it the man on page 73 I peeked into Steve's meeting and Beth was doing this and I just love this the man on page seventy three is in the fifth step right and it's talking about not completing your inventory right so what we've done is we've taken and done this major house cleaning, and then we rest on our laurels, and we don't write much inventory. There are some people that do, but 35 years of experience in alcoholics, there are way more people that are resting on their laurels. It said on page 73, many of us thought it necessary to go much further. We'd be more reconciled. I don't know why I can't read words today. Reconciled to discuss ourselves with another person when we see good reason why we should do so. The best reason first, if we skip this vital step, right? Talking to another person, it says to do it in the 10th step. In the evening review, we're doing it with God, right, that we carry that stuff throughout the day. It says the best reason first if we skipped this file, we may not overcome drinking. Time after time, we've tried to keep to ourselves certain facts about our lives, trying to avoid this humbling experience which it is you will use excuses like I know what my sponsor's gonna say she's too busy I don't want to call her it's not the right time they've turned to easier method now let me tell you what easier methods look like for women exercising more having you know dealing with your kids working too much spending money doing face work overeating with men it's usually overworking exercising gambling or sex these are easier methods to avoid doing this work most of us and I am NOT alone in this will 10 step I take it off the wall do it as damage control there there is no evening review and if I'm doing any prayer meditation it's opening up some sort of sweet little chicken soup for the soul book reading something sweet and closing it and we're done there. And what happens is most of us will do that for about three days because we're in some pain, we get out of pain, do it for three, four days, we start to feel good, then we quit doing it again. And I mean, we do that dance for a long time. Having persevered with the rest of the program, they wonder why they fail, right? That's like doing step one and step 12, resting on those laurels. We think the reason is they never completed their house cleaning. They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items and stopped. They only thought they'd lost their egotism and fear. They only thought they had humbled themselves. The word thoughts italicized because in this part of the book it's talking about the delusion. We don't suffer from denial. We suffer from delusion, but they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness, and honesty in the sense we find necessary until they told someone all their life story. All my life story is five minutes ago i am living my life story more than most people the alcoholic leads a double life he's very much the actor he's the actor right it's this stage character i'm a mother i'm neighbor i'm sponsor i'm an aa member you know i'm an employer or an employee these things are important to understand to the outer world he presents his stage character this is the one he likes his fellows to see he wants to enjoy a certain reputation but knows in his heart he doesn't deserve it you know who i'm talking to i have been this person the inconsistency is made worse by the things he does on his sprees now if we only are looking at this as our drinking we're missing the whole point of this spiritual literature this book goes so deep and meets me at so many places so i'll give you some ideas of what that's looking like flirting at work and you're married or flirting at the gym spending money we don't have losing it at the starbucks line driving like a crazy person screaming and yelling at your children we all know that and then after the spree coming to our senses he is revolted at certain episodes he vaguely remembers these memories are a nightmare he trembles to think someone may have observed him as fast as he can he pushes these memories far inside himself you see that's how we get blocked so this beautiful sunlight of the spirit cannot shine through and then we want to just heap some prayer on it you know somebody says well where's god and all that like we're supposed to just keep praying on top of this big big block we got it doesn't work that way we must get unblocked this is why this inventory is so crucial it says he hopes they will never see the light of day he is under constant fear and tension and that makes it says in here for more drinking and i say for more thinking i call it spiritual stagnant stagnation and sometimes we try to sit in quiet meditation please do not hear me say there is nothing wrong with quiet meditation that is not the practice we're hoping to get you to quiet meditation is a beautiful practice but spiritual stagnation is because we are blocked the book tells me in so many places we are brought says for if an alcoholic failed to enlarge his spiritual life through work and self-sacrifice for others he cannot handle certain trials in low spots that could be a flat tire or losing a job you see the key here is if we do not do the work and help god's kids the book also says on page 59 half measures availed us nothing we stood at the turning point we asked his protection and care with complete abandonment this is the surrendering to oneself using part of a prescription uh in that you get inadequate results. You only take half the antibiotics, you don't take them all. Then it says neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We cannot work on our character defects. It doesn't work like that. I wish it did. Like my golly, I'm just going to be a nicer person. Page 58 says if some of these we bought that means to stop suddenly, refuse to go on. We thought we could find an easier softer way. Oh let me tell you that's what i like see awareness is a small pebble in the path i thought awareness was the answer it's like once you tell me about me i'm gonna work on that defect it is such a small pebble and this path you gotta have the awareness but the rest of the work is watch turn watch turn evening review how'd i do with it today not so well okay take that into on awakening god we had a rough day yesterday take all that upheaval into an awakening because you're getting ready to start that day you're carrying all that stuff with you uh and then it's we hurl into life with resentment fear and self-pity and wonder why life was so hard see i thought life was coming at me it was coming from me my outward demonstration is always an expression of my inward condition now i'll tell you something this is really interesting pages 60 to page 88 is 24 pages this much is the action part of our our book that's it the action Part of our book and we will run from this we will hide from this and we don't even know we're doing that we'll do service we'll be more meetings we'll go to uh we'll start working more we'll Go to the gym we'll spend money we do everything says but we could not with all the earnestness at our command we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start It's very difficult to do that from the very start. This is not a beginning to an end, it should continue for a lifetime, it tells us in the book. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely. What are our old ideas? Well they're in the inventory process, right? They're not just four through nine. They're in my tenth step. They're my evening review. You must know your old ideas. They're necessarily the ones you had at eight years old. You have old ideas on what AA should be. You have old ideas on what politics should be, you may be ever changing with this current situation. We are constantly making old ideas. I'll give you two. Women are nags, men are shallow, right? I mean we will blanket that across everything. These old ideas are found in the third column of a four-column inventory and I see the fear inventory as a four column inventory so I find my old ideas in the third column and then the uh conduct inventory with an emphasis on sex it's my old ideas are all over that and i love what it says on page 44 it says if a mere code of morals or better philosophy of life were sufficient to overcome alcoholism many of us would have recovered long ago but we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us no matter how much we tried we could wish to be moral we could Wish to be philosophically comforted in fact we could will these things with all our might, but that needed power wasn't there. Our human resources as marshaled by the will were not sufficient. They failed utterly. So can you see this? If you are in spiritual stagnation and you're just doing your derndest in your morning prayer and meditation, but you haven't written an inventory, you haven'T gone back and made any more amends, you haven'T done all of this stuff, why you are feeling flat. And let me tell you, sometimes morning prayer and meditation just feels flat. It just does. I love to look at some of the third step requirements. We call it the second surrender. Sometimes when people have long-term sobriety, it's very seductive. And they have 25 years and they're still talking about when they were drinking. If alcohol is but a symptom, I'm kind of done talking about drinking. I'm talking about living. If that 10th step says that the problem has been removed, even alcohol, no effort on my part. I remember thinking, no effort on my butt. I have busted my butt with inventory. But we've not been talking about drinking. That third step takes a huge turn. It says the first requirement is that Katie's got to be convinced that any life run on self-will can hardly be a success. I don't know about you guys, but my self-reliant tool worked very well. I mean, I got a lot of stuff done. And in my drinking, I could list so many things that would make your eyes roll back what I could get done. And you want me to set that self-reliant tool down for this kinky toolkit, a spiritual toolkit? I'm not doing it. I'm Not doing it till I have my ass kicked. Then it says on the other basis, we're almost always in collision with somebody or something, even though my motives are good. What do you mean my motives are good? I will let you in traffic because I'm such a giver. Come on, come on. I need you to give me one of these. I am going to hold the door open but if you don't say thank you i'm going to figure out how to trip you see these are these are little things we do but we are in constant collision with somebody or something even though our motives are good i like to say it's easier to get an alcoholic to quit drinking than it's easy to get us one of us to quit playing god see selfishness and self-centeredness is the root of our troubles not fear see i'm driven by the self-centred fear i'm afraid i'm not going to get the job oh my god i got the job i'm not qualified i'm going to lose it oh my god i'm not going to get the boy i get the boy oh my God i'm gonna lose it we're playing this massive game of pong and i don't even know it and if you don't know what pong is for the younger generation you google it i google plenty of your stuff check it out then it says is he not a victim of the delusion that he can wrest satisfaction and happiness out of this world if he just manages well what i think that ought to be tattooed on your arm not acceptance you know uh let go and let god put that on your arm boy you'll remember that much more a victim means i'm tricked or duped by my own delusion right delusion means an impression that is firmly maintained despite being contradicted by what is accepted as reality typically a symptom of a mental disorder that's me i actually take a lot of pride in that i like being an outright mental defect full flight from reality and can't differentiate the truth from the false right and then we're going to rest at c's by for satisfaction being right and happy right it's in my dna i'm a self-seeker when even when trying to be kind a producer of confusion rather than harmony where did i step on the toes of my fellows where did I uh make decisions based on self see i'm gonna get angry and afraid i don't have the freedom to stay angry and afraid the book implies that it says it in three different places blot out the consciousness of our intolerable situation the best we can except spiritual health crushed by a self-imposed crisis i can't postpone or evade either god's everything or he's nothing then the deliberate manufacturer of misery god didn't do it but when trouble comes we cheerfully capitalize on it so he can show his omnipotence right there it's trying to tell us lack of power was our dilemma why dilemma because they both suck if i need 200 bucks five in four hours i don't think to go to prayer i'm gonna make phone calls i'm going to figure out what i can pawn i'm getting get the 200 bucks now today i go to prayer but it took me so long we had to find that power by which we could live and that power had to be greater than ourselves obviously but where and how are we to find this power well that's exactly what this book is about its main object is to enable you to find a power greater than yourself which can solve your problem not just your alcohol from your problem that means we've written books which we believe to be spiritual and moral it means of course that we're going to talk about God oh my gosh all we have is identification and power for heaven's sakes where in the world did we get off thinking we're coming too heavy on the God thing you know I was talking in Ireland yesterday and they said they said that we talked too much about God we gotta quit what all we have is identification and power it says in we agnostics more than half our fellowship had a problem with god that's still the same today trust me if you got somebody that's got a second step problem that keeps them from doing the rest of the steps it's not a second step problem it's a first step problem i'm telling you it says and working with others on the first visit stress the spiritual feature freely says our real purpose is to fit ourselves to be of maximum service to god and the people about us right we're we're here to play the role goddess signs my gosh this program is so full of love so full of so many things and then it just says it's easy to let up on this spiritual program of action and rest on these laurels guys i can't tell you how important it is to keep your finger on the pulse of that and then it says if we've carefully followed directions please understand that if when i came into aa if i gave you what what i was given you wouldn't be able to stay sober remember i love the fellowship of alcoholics anonymous i think that is so important i say look check it with the book if the book says to do it then i think we're going to be fine but if the books doesn't say to do i ask i question that why are you not following the clear directions in the book i'm telling you i didn't do it i almost drank at 15 years i lost my husband after 23 years of sobriety he went back out he died of a heroin overdose it was it was deeply troubling my world was falling apart at a rapid pace when we met mark houston because god does an amazing job at sending lifeboat after lifeboat and we don't even see him sometimes right we are so asleep i love where it says uh the terms of the deal he provided what i needed if i kept close to him and performed his work well in order to keep close to him i need to get unblocked and in order to get on block then i can stay close to her that's the key of this thing so in order to get close to them i must get unblocks then i can stay close to me and help his kids i was living in this bungalow and god had this incredible palace for me it was fantastic my pride thinks it's protecting me when it's really trying to kill me I'm almost out of time follow the dictates of a higher power you will presently live in a new and wonderful world no matter what your present circumstances are thank you very much for having me