The Fifth Step and Character Defects – Big Book Study – Part 2 of 8 – Scott L and Matt C

Get going. I'm Scott Lee. I am an alcoholic and let's take a couple of moments of silence. Amen, thank you. I left a piece out there that was talking about the homosexual experience and the men running in the 90%. I don't know what the numbers are on the women but I know there are numbers. And if any of you ladies have got that, some of the others do too. There isn't much new going on. Moving on into step five, and I'm going to be kind of brief on it. Bottom of page 73, bottom of page 72, about six or eight lines from the bottom of 72. We'll be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person. We see good reasons why we should do so. The best reason first. If we skip this vital step, we may not overcome drinking. Well, now there's a reason. I like that one. On the facing page, last full paragraph, psychologists are inclined to agree with us. We have spent thousands of dollars for examinations. We know but few instances where we've given these doctors a fair break. We haven't told them the whole truth, nor have we followed their advice. Unwilling to be honest with these sympathetic men we were honest with no one else small wonder many in the medical profession have a low opinion of alcoholics and their chance of recovery i got a friend that said he used to pay a psychiatrist just a hundred dollars an hour to lie to him and uh i got another friend that says he believes that we alcoholics shouldn't go to doctors we should be going to veterinarians and the reason is because veterinarians are used to trying to guess what's wrong with their patients and i think that's fair page 74 talks about selecting someone to hear your fifth step and i think it's important to put this in context this was written there were fewer than 100 aa members sober and nobody had over three years so so there weren't qualified sponsors on every corner um i am perfectly willing for the men that i sponsored to do their fifth step with anybody they want to and me because because i'm gonna have to help this guy with steps eight and nine and i'm going to hear things in there that he's not going to here in addition to which i have experience and he might choose another place and i had I had a sponsor one time ran a treatment center and I was down there doing some volunteer work and we had a devastated guy on our hands he had chosen to do his fifth step with his preacher and on a Saturday afternoon he did his fifthstep with his creature on Sunday morning, him sitting in the front row with his wife, his preacher delivered his fifthstepped to the congregation complete with his name yeah exactly and i have to assume he's not over that yet and that's uh so i think it's really important to be kind of careful on this one but the rule has said we don't have i know we don'T HAVE ANY RULES AND ONE OF THEM IS MENTIONED HERE ON PAGE 74 THE UM THE LAST PARAGRAPH BEGINS WE'RE NOT WITHSTANDING COUNT UP THREE LINES ABOVE THAT SAYS THE RULE IS WE MUST BE HARD ON OURSELF BUT ALWAYS CONSIDERED OF OTHERS THAT MEANS THAT MY WIFE DOESN'T GET TO HEAR MY FIST UP NEITHER DOES MY MOTHER These people don't need to hear things that will harm them. And it says here at the top of 75, when we decide who's to hear our story, we waste no time. We have a written inventory. We're prepared for a long talk. All I have to share with you is what my lineage has passed to me. And in my lineage, we don't hear fifth steps. We exchange them. If you do your fifth step with me, you're going to hear mine. It doesn't say a long read. I know there are people that read their four-step as a fifth step. That's not what my lineage has passed to me. That's Not What We Do. The next paragraph says, We pocket our pride and go to it illuminating. That means to shine light into. I love that. Illuminating every twist of character, every dark crane of the past. It's a confession. I will not let anyone schedule a fifth-step with me until he's completed four. I won't let him schedule a five-step so he bashes himself into finishing four. I want him to continue to work a schedule on it, and we'll finish when we finish. When we sit down to do his fifth step, we've got a place where we can stay. We've got Kleenex. We've Got Drinks. We've GOT bathroom facilities. We'VE GOT the phones turned off. We're here to play hardball. I ask him to begin with a prayer to invite God to join us, to ask for clarity of mind, to find what he's supposed to say and the courage to say it, whatever else he wants to say. I invite God in, and I ask Him to make me perfect for this time. And I find the instruction to do that on page 13 in Bill's story. Two-thirds of the way down, page 13. I was to sit quietly when in doubt, asking only for direction and strength to meet my problems as he would have me. Never was I a prey for myself, except as my requests bore on my usefulness to others. Then only might I expect to receive, but that would be in great measure. and I'm asking him to make me perfect not so I can be perfect but so I can be the tool in his hand here in this life. And as I said before we have permission to tell the stories that we tell, I wrapped a guy in a blanket and held him while he cried for about 45 minutes when he talked about his father in a fist step. I don't know to do that and I believe when I invite God in and ask him to made me perfect for this that he does so. And what I like to do now is when When we come out of that prayer, as I ask the guy, I say, I want you to now tell me the single worst thing you ever did. We're going to start there. I always like to ask him, too, beforehand, I said, are you nervous? If it's his first fist, if he's not, if it's not his first one, I don't ask. If it'S his first fifth step, I want him to be nervous. Because if he'S not nervous, we're wasting our time. He already knows what he'S NOT going to tell me. Right? He needs to be puckered. and uh because because if he is he's either going to tell me or he's not sure if he's going to tell me i'll i'll start with either one of those but if he're confident we're wasting our time and i shared that with a fellow i'm sponsored he's got about a year and a half now and he went in here a fifth step and he asked i said how do you feel i guess i feel really really good and he said well we're wasted our time you know what you're not going to telling me and this guy just came apart on the floor and they got the truth and they they both did great and so i think it's something that I've learned. I want him nervous. And then I ask him for the worst thing he's ever done. And he shares that with me and then I share with him when I did that. And the odds are I did. And if I didn't, then I asked either way, I asked for the second worst thing he's every done. Then I share what I did, that and then the third. And I do that until he runs out. And then, I like for him to review his four-step and let's look around and see if there's anything else. When he has completed that, I ask him a series of questions. Please hear very closely what I'm about to say. Please here the setup here. Part of what I am going to do here is a really political hot potato. Don't hear the political thing in this, alright? If you've done what I' m about to talk about and it's okay with you, it's ok with me. I'm not here to indict you. But for a lot of people, this is one of the things that they're carrying that's eating their guts up and they can't even talk about it. So I ask a series Here's the questions at the end of the fifth step, when I think he's finished and he thinks he's finish. And one of the questions is have you been involved in an abortion? Don't hear the political thing in that. Another is have had sex with an animal or a family member? Have you harmed an animal? Amazing number of us have beaten dogs. Have you physically hurt anyone? Is there anything that you had – oh, have you had a homosexual experience? if I've already heard one, have you had one I haven't heard about? And is there anything that you had decided not to tell me or you were unsure but I haven�t already heard? I'm picking the scabs. He's not going to be able to drive away saying well I just didn't think of that because I dug it out. And then I tell him the truth and that's that I forgive him and that I believe that God forgives him and I believe by the time we finish step 9 he will have forgiven himself because that's been my experience with this thing. And then I read him the fifth step promises in the middle of page 75. I'm not going to take the time. You can read them. And then, I explain to him that he's now completed the first half of step five. The second half is described at the bottom of page 65. Returning home, we find a place where he can be quiet for an hour. So, I want him to go home. Now, if he doesn't have a place Where he can go, the place where we have done his fifth step, he can stay there. and I will have that set up before we start this. If he does go home, I want him to go home. I don't want his cell phone turned on. I don'T want him listening to the radio. I don' t even want to listen to one of my CDs. I mean, this is commitment because I want to hold focus here. It says carefully reviewing what we have done. We thank God from the bottom of our heart that we know him better. If you have done a fifth step and have dumped your bucket, there is a relief that comes with that. that brings a closeness. And then it says, taking this book down from our shelf, this is another one of my ridiculous ones. You're going to need to go and put your book up on a shelf. You'll need to be shoulder high or higher so that you can take it down from the shelf. I'm going to want to know that tomorrow. I think it's ridiculous, and I insist on it. That's the way it is. Turn to the page that contains the 12 steps. Carefully reading the first five proposals, we ask, here's a prayer. We ask if we have omitted anything, for we're Building an arch to which we shall walk a free man at last. Is the work solid so far? Are the stones properly in place? Have we skimped on the cement put into the foundation? Have we tried to make mortar without sand? Bill is metaphorically asking, have you been thorough on the first five steps? You've got an hour. Hack a clock. Sit there for an hour prayerfully reviewing what you have done. Call me. Somewhere right around half of the fifth steps I've heard, I've gotten a phone call within the next 24 hours. and it's not that they weren't thorough. It's not that they didn't do the best job they could. It just didn't show up for them and I tell them that before they leave. I want them to be at peace if this happens. It happens a lot. Is half about right? Probably. Pretty good percentage anyway. Good third. So don't concern yourself if you're one of those and you do, oh holy mackerel I forgot to talk about. Don't worry about it. Just call me when you can talk. Strangely enough turning the page it says if we can answer to our satisfaction that's metaphorical question have you done a good job on the first five it says we then look at step six so i don't get a month off no step five and six are done the same day according to my book says we've emphasized willingness as being indispensable are we now ready to let god remove from us all the things which we've admitted objectionable can they take them all every one and here we have very cleverly concealed the sixth step prayer it says if we cling to something we will not let go we ask god to help us be willing so you sit down and ask yourself that question am i ready for him to have it all not can i personally commit to never sinning again or making any other mistakes for the rest of my life this is not the perfection step we don't have one of those it's about am i willing for god to have it and then interestingly enough says when ready well doggone i think five six and seven are taking the same day we say something like this and and i'm tell you right now they changed this prayer about two and a half years ago for those of you yeah that's just my perception of it it was probably this way all the time that's what i say when i find something new in the big book that i could swear wasn't there before oh that's that's What I mean by that okay they oh i think that's why maybe they did change it I'm not sure, but I know it wasn't there. My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me good and bad. Why don't we do that together for those who are so inclined? I'm going to read the seven-step prayer. And for those of you who would like to join, I'd love to have you. My Creator. I am not willing that You should have All of Me Good and Bad. I pray that You now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to You and my fellows. Grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen. That's the only amen I find in the basic text. With all of the prayers that we have, it's the only amen that I find. The piece that strikes me today, I thought for the longest time that I was praying here for God to remove all my defects of character. Clearly not so. It says, pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Maybe I have some defects of character that don't stand in the way of our usefulness. I had an interesting situation a number of years ago. Bob and I have talked about this, what we do here is kind of dangerous. We both speak at a lot of conferences, you've got people with tears in their eyes saying you changed my life and you're so great and all that, and boy that feeds something in me that needs to be starved and uh it's okay if you put me on a pedestal it's when i put me on the pedestal that the problem happens and i got up on one and several years ago and i almost did something that that would have been very ashamed of and what happened was that i came down off my pedestal i'm off of it now i'm just a puking drunk from tennessee who's been doing this a while who studied with the masters that's all i am. And what happened was that God used that character defect of mine as a tool, I think, to save my life. Isn't that interesting? That I've not asked him to remove them all, but only the ones that stand in the way of my usefulness. My sponsor, this is a gift from Mike. I've had a number of sponsors and I remember him telling me this thing. He said, my character defects are all self-centered. And the book doesn't say anything at all about me working on my character defects. When I work on my character defects, it's a classic example of living in the problem. And it'll make me crazy too, by the way. And I've got three that I call my spiritual barometers and they are lying. Well, they're not actually lies. They're improvements really on the truth. Lying, swearing and my attitude toward those of you who possibly got your driver's licenses out of Wheaties boxes. And if one of these gets out of the box, if I look they're all out. And I can't change, I can stop me from lying. I don't stop me from swearing. What I do is I review my conduct over the recent past and there's something wrong with my spiritual condition. There's something wrong with spiritual program because when I'm doing the things that you've taught me to do those things don't happen to me and so sure enough I look back I get mad at you in traffic and sure enough I looked back it's been over a month since I took a meeting into the jail I'm gonna have to use the speed dial on my sponsor's phone number because I don't remember it because I'm not dialing it often enough the big one for me is that morning prayer and meditation has become very brief that's the one that I tend to to slack and so i i inventory my my spiritual program of action and go back and repair the damage do the things you've taught me and three days later you can cut me off in traffic and almost hit me and i will smile from the depth of my soul i will smell from way inside and i'll wave at you and i wave my entire hand wave the whole thing and uh And I'll say, God, go with him. And thank you so much that I spotted that coming and was able to hit my break and was not in a wreck that would have been his fault, but I still would have been in a wreak. And go with Him today. It looks like He could use some help. I make mistakes like that myself. And do it just like you just heard it. And I can't change me from the raging maniac three days ago. But what Mike said was right. My character defects are all self-centered. And self doesn't have the power to push self out of the center, and if it did, it would leave a vacuum. So the answer to my character defects is not for me to work on them. It's for me do the things that you've taught me to do to lead a God-centered life. And when I do that, my character defect just recedes. I don't take power over them. I don' t focus on the darkness. I invite the light in, and the light comes and the darkness flees because it cannot exist in the light. And it's just that simple. It's just that simple. Our great teacher told me this one time. He said the alcoholic is like an electromagnet that's been dragged through the junkyard of life, and we've got all this rusty, nasty, sharp, jagged stuff stuck all over us. And what we do with these steps is we very slowly turn that power off, and as we do that, this stuff drops away. Most of that's defenses that aren't needed anymore, that are not appropriate, and they drop away and this beautiful thing that I've always really been just sort of comes out of that so it's we're not here to change me into something we're here to teach me how to quit being who I'm not and who I really am just kind of emerges from it and we're all beautiful souls I think we were created that way we just got some things to learn Bob