The Fifth Step and Rigorous Honesty – 18th Workshop – Part 1 of 2 – Local AA Speakers

Good evening, everybody, and welcome to our 18th installment of the Big Book is Alive workshop. Oh my God, we got the bells again. I'm a recovered alcoholic, and my name is Mike Chase. And I'm an recovered alcoholic and my name is Joe. We've got a very special guest in the room with us today. If you guys have been checking out mikechase.org for the past month, we've had another workshop going on that was, and Savannah Jay is here with us. She was leading along with her sponsee student, Kim. And Kim's not able to meet us here tonight. But Savannah is going to jump in and help. She'll read some prayers. We're just going to get it worked into the family. We're not really sure how we're going to work this. We intend to wrap this session up after we get to 103. We're also going to have a little bit of time where we're not sure if we're gonna incorporate the gals into our next round of Big Book Workshop or let the gales start and do one of their own. So any ideas that you all have out there, please feel free to send us in an e-mail of what you'd like, the four of us or just two pairs. I think it would be sort of cool to have a workshop just geared for the gals. Yeah, we appreciate some feedback and, you know, with that, welcome Savannah. Yeah. Hi, Savannah, recovered alcoholic. And it would Be really cool for the guys and the gales to read in a workshop together too because we are able to coexist together because we have recovered and we can handle practically all situations since we are recovered. But send us your feedback. Let us know how that's going for you. So getting back to what we're here for tonight, our spiritual duty is to put newcomers' hands in God's hands as quickly as possible. We have found this to be most effective by doing our part to make the big book come alive. As a disclaimer, we're not experts. We're just a couple of recovered alcoholics that love the big books. However, we have made our utmost spiritual errand to become as familiar with the facts and the history as possible." In other words, if we are reading from the big book, it means that we are studying what we know to be a divine solution to alcoholism. At other times, we may share an experience, an observation or an opinion and we certainly encourage you to investigate the history and do your own research as you grow spiritually. Yeah, we're challenging you. You hear something here that you're not sure about, please track down, go into the books. There's great books on history. Let's make sure that you keep us honest and we'll hopefully be able to stay honest for you guys. Basically, what we do is we aim to reproduce what we do for our students in a one-on-one session, but here with a much bigger audience if this is your first time joining us. This, however, should not replace your own personal one-to-one work with your own teacher or sponsor. Matter of fact, could you read that one more time? Because that's important, Savannah. This, However, should not replace their own personal one-one-one work with their own teacher. Absolutely. This is not to replace it. This isn't to enhance and help you to grow in your spiritual growth. That's right, this is workshop-style study and our aim is to invigorate your current experience with God. Tonight we aim to get into the fifth step in the program of recovery which is found in the chapter Into Action. It's not into rest on your laurels, it's not take a couple months and enjoy your fourth step, it's what? It's definitely in black and white, Into Action! Yeah, but we always appreciate spiritual consent to allow God to lead us. as we study tonight's material please enjoy the pages which have been uploaded to mikechase.org underneath the podcast there you will find reference to the specific highlighting structure that we are referencing as we studying this will give you when completed a teacher's edition toolbox it sounds so much more understandable than she basically what that means is that what we do is we put the pages from the first edition big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. We take in our highlighting, our underlinings, our boxes and we put notes on the side for you to read along with us or if you like compile your own teacher's edition. And we say teacher this in two blocks really because when you're finished working with your student they should feel like a teacher themselves having been through the process and copying this type of highlighting structure really sets them up for success when they do that. Absolutely. But before we begin our study of the big book, we'd like to invite you to join us in a brief two-minute meditation. We do this for a definite spiritual reason, and that is to allow God to remove all forms of self which might block us from the sunlight of the Spirit so that we may have a clear connection with God as we study. So did the harpist show up tonight? I reckon she's here. And I think the monks pretty had a crazy holiday because I can hear them out in the hallway like they're almost right in the room. So what we do is we invite the monks in and we set a timer in two minutes. We're going to give the harpist a little tap on the back of her head so she remembers to do the type. Actually, we don't. It's a recording. That sounds so much fun anyways. So everybody take a deep breath. Turn your lights off. Get comfortable. We're gonna set our timer for two minutes and we'll see you on the backside. © transcript Emily Beynon Thank you for watching. Satsang with Mooji Thank you for watching. She's beautiful, isn't she? I think we're all here. Savannah, are you with us? Yes. Okay. Joe, take us in to... Savannah is going to end that moment of meditation with a prayer at this time. Dear God, please set aside anything I think I know about myself, about my disease, about the big book, the 12 steps, the program, the fellowship and all spiritual terms and especially you God so that I may have an open mind and new experience with all of these things. Please help me see the truth. Amen. Yes, definitely. Thank you for that and thank you for joining us. We find ourselves into action which we're starting off here with the fifth step in the program of recovery. this has had an enormous amount of context to it though as we've been explaining in our previous podcasts we've met up with our students we've spent time with them we've gone through this highlighting and underlining the book and and really having experience with them we got information from the history of Alcoholics Anonymous in the forwards and we kind of learned about what this all kind of how it came together and how it kind of really took off so we actually knew and had context of what we would be studying. The doctor's opinion gave us the definition of the problem, it's imperative that any alcoholic knows exactly what is wrong with them so that they can seek a solution to that problem. And the importance of putting the problem first we got from the forewords, the doctor's opinions, and also we saw Bill putting his story first when trying to help other alcoholics. At the end of Bill's story it was apparent that he worked all 12 steps, and he was greatly helped by the Oxford groups of those days. He had a spiritual experience sufficient to overcome alcoholism, and he recovered. And then this kind of all took off. We followed that up with a chapter, There is a Solution. We talked an enormous amount about God. We got straight into spiritual terms and setting this up, that this is about God, God is the solution. This is what we should be seeking. We got the information about the vital spiritual experience from the doctor's opinion as well. So these guys, from day one, they've been praying and meditating with us. They've been studying, they're been reading, they have been having experiences with God. We've been sharing this with them. And we moved into more about alcoholism. Just in case we're not convinced, we got a chapter on relapse, what will happen to an alcoholic without a spiritual experience and then this really phenomenal piece of spiritual literature We Agnostics and it really challenges the way that we think things are and our belief systems and our values and how we might perceive God and all sorts of things that could be blocking us In the same context it does challenge us It gives us an opportunity to slide in and bring some new information into our lives look at honestly what used to be fact is now possibly not fact and that's the cool thing about that every concept, the spiritual the purpose of a man the purpose OF a woman, your place in society everything's up for grabs and it led with sentences like the realm of the spirit is broad roomy, all inclusive, never exclusive or forbidding and it told us the great news that it's open to all whereas the book, the program has precise directions. Exactly Pretty narrow. Stay within these guidelines if you want to have a vital spiritual experience. If you want just to have your casual daddy-daddy-do spiritual experience that will not recover you from alcoholism, do what you want. But if you don't want that vital one, we're going to stick to the book. And then we looked at how it works, the first part of which is very familiar from – Joe, ask me how it worked. How does it work? Very well. And that is a very apropos answer. You know, we hear how it works in meetings at the beginning every time. And I came in and out of the rooms myself – I can only speak for myself – hearing how it works, thinking I knew something about how it worked. But the real testament to this philosophy of big book sponsorship is that by the time I got to how it work, I had a resource of information to be able to make that third step decision. How it works? That was on page two, right? No, it was actually page 58. plus the roman numerals so there was a lot of information leading up to that it's a page in book that has context um and so when it came time to making that third step decision and taking that third-step prayer with um with somebody who was a leader and somebody who could tell me and introduce me to god it meant something and there are some amazing directions in there you know every opportunity to deal with this correctly is covered who when how why to take this particular step when to do this how to do the prayer suggestions for the prayer who it's just every every base is covered here absolutely absolutely and that really is a testament to the the spiritual way that this all came together and of course we got that from the context and the history but man you've been doing this for how long you've Been Doing Big Book sponsorship now um over a year over a year and you've had the opportunity to bring lots of women through this yeah and you found this part of the third step leading up to it how do you how can you explain that what you don't your gals well we've already explained how important this is what it actually means to turn your life over to God it's not just saying yeah I'm gonna turn my will in my life over we talk about thinking and action and what that's gonna look like and that how that should play out in their lives so they know what they're doing when they're going into this so you don't find yourself doing this like in the middle of a starbucks thing during the coffee this is a sacred opportunity sacred time for you guys gals absolutely this is extremely important extremely vital why treat it as anything less yeah oh i like that and that that i mean very well said that's exactly what we're trying to get at here is you know this this is vital this is important why treatit as anything else than the sacred connection with god which is supposed to restore me to sanity and help me recover from alcoholism so that first part of how it works was the leading up to i cannot obviously run my life because i'm a self-centered self you know self-serving inconsiderate boo-boo right you know and if i change my will in my life or to care of god is that just my thinking and my actions which when you think about it isn't that hard to do you know but we have to follow through with it. And what comes after that prayer? Well, we follow through by immediately getting into what the book calls a course of vigorous action. The first sort of sense of action that we greet that with is getting into a fourth step. And the remainder of how it works takes us through exactly what is expected of somebody who's performing a fourth steps. So paint drying, is that vigorous reaction? Paint drying. Is that vigourous? It doesn't really sound like it. Okay, rocket taking off, launched. So we get the sense that we're going to be looking at four lists here, and that's exactly what this inventory process is. It's a series of lists to discover the inventory of our own lives. Ironically, and important, we did this. You've just done a third-step prayer, which is you've invited God into your life, and you're more actively involved. god is working his way you've allowed him in given spiritual consent so when we do do this four-step inventory each time we start off with god prayer meditation after you finish the first resentment once you finish that one you got more god than when you started you work through the fears and you got even more god and then you get your sex and you get more god you get to the harms and you're just glowing, God. And you look at this piece of paper and go like, ugh! Who has been showing up? And everybody, you know, it's like, hi, I'm here. And they're like slamming the door in my face. Now I know why. I honestly see it. So we got a lot of information and description and detail and Bill gave us an example of a three-column inventory. He then explained the remaining two columns, column four and column five. And Mike Chase just went through the four lists that we were looking at. How it works concludes with this sentiment that's going to bring us into the chapter into action. What page are you on? I'm on page 70. The bottom of the last, the other bottom paragraph. That's right and it reads. Let Savannah read that. Go for it. I like her voice today. If we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we have written down a lot. We have listed and analyzed our resentments. We Have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality we have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness we have begun to learn tolerance patience and goodwill toward all men even our enemies for we look on them as sick people right there there has been major change in us correct absolutely the fourth step itself in combination with the third step major growth and this is where we come across our fourth inventory package we have listed the people we have hurt by our conduct and are willing to straighten out the past if we can boom bam on continue in this book you read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves we hope you are convinced now that god can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from him green and underlined if you have already made a decision and an inventory of your gross or handicaps you have made a good beginning beginning I like that. What do you mean by that? We've just started the process. Steps one through, one and two are conclusions of the mind. The third step is inviting God into your life. Now we're starting the actual work. Good. That being so, you have swallowed and digested some big chunks about yourself. See now, if we didn't have the fifth step, I don't know about you, I'd take that little fourth step and look at it and go like, yeah but, oh yeah, yeah but you know and by the time that afternoon rolled away you know i would uh i'd be back to where i was but the cool thing is we take this well what goes on what happens next joe uh we jump into action and uh we've got with god written in red uh below that just to kind of set us up for how this is going to unfold can i read please having made our personal inventory what shall we do about it this is yellow and underlined we've been trying to get a new attitude, a new relationship with our creator and discover the obstacles in our path. That's what we were trying for the whole time no mention of we were tying to stop drinking. Oh yeah we stopped talking about drinking that was gone and this is actually what we've been trying to do. We have admitted certain defects we have ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is. We've put our finger on the weak items in our personal inventory. Now these are about to be cast out and we've got that green and underlined because when you see the these are to be cast out once again that implies vigorous action you know it's like this we don't push it aside we just don't like hide under the bed take that thing we just throw it it gets cast out this requires action on our part which when completed will mean that we have admitted to god to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our defects green the exact nature of our defects. I thought it was wrongs. Well, it's a synonym, if you will. It's a word that is very similar to wrongs, so Bill, if guys haven't noticed this and we haven't mentioned it probably three or four times, Bill likes to use multiple words when he's trying to say the same thing. Yellow, underline. This brings us to the fifth step in a program in the program of recovery mentioned in the preceding chapter. This is perhaps difficult, especially discussing our defects with another person. We think we have done well enough in admitting these things to ourselves. There is doubt about that. Green underlined. In actual practice, we usually find a solitary self-appraisal insufficient. Hadn't we been doing that for years? Yeah. Hasn't that just been our modus operandi? Right. And like you said, we will sort of cost the inventory out and not even really take a look at what it's trying to tell us. Okay, that was good. The crucial part of this is that we need to – now we have this written down in front of us. We need to rebound it off of somebody who has an awakened mind in the presence of God so that we can really gain truth from what was going on. And this is where Bill uses his writing skills to sort of sneak under our attitudes and give us an opportunity and a reason to go take this to somebody else. We have this thing. We start getting some hesitation. We start to balk perhaps. Mind you, this was written for Indian Joe, right? In Broken Toe, New Mexico. He didn't have a sponsor. He didn'T have a support group. Unlike Broward County, which has 762 meetings a week, there was nothing. So this guy was getting sober on his own with God. So he had to go track down someone to do it with, and it had to be someone qualified, and it Had to be somebody who, well, we're going to find out some general rules for that. But yeah, he's going to start pushing us. We need a little bit of push here. Not much of a push, though, because we are walking with God a little Bit more. Many of us thought it necessary to go much further. we will be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons why we should do so green and underlined the best reason first if we skip this vital step we may not overcome drinking there it comes back up again i don't know where the drinking thing i guess the god thing will help prevent us from drinking doesn't it time after time newcomers have tried to keep to themselves certain facts about their lives trying to avoid this humbling experience they have turned to easier methods almost invariably they got drunk what we talk about i like to talk about my guys if i'm working with somebody through the book and we're getting prepared for this i'd like to mention you know some possible things that they might have been very embarrassing or shameful to them or things that THEY JUST YOU KNOW LIKE LET'S SAY THEY'RE CAT BURGLARS YOU KNOW THEY'RE BREAKING PEOPLE'S HOUSES AND THEY STEAL STUFF THEY THEY INTENTIONALLY LEAVE THAT OFF BECAUSE ALL I CAN JUST SORT OF TALK ABOUT ON THE OUTSCREWS ARE ACTUALLY GOING AT IT THAT'S ONE OF THOSE THINGS THEY'RE GONNA COME BACK AND POSSIBLY BITE YOU NOW IF HE'S UP front and he says you know i'm a cat burglar broken to people's houses and he's trying to write down everybody's house he broke down into you know if he misses a house or two because he forgot it he won't drink now that's not that's at the end of the world but leaving the fact that he's a cat broiler that's major and that brings us back to the two questions that we sort of left off last time with you know with writing this inventory assuming that you're praying and meditating and invoking god to help you come up with what should go down did i honestly do the best that i could with the where i'm at in the process or did i intentionally intentionally leave something out and sometimes subconsciously we can leave something up now here's the cool thing about this big book sponsorship we keep talking about i currently and i guess all of you have been working with your student up to this point we're on chapter six which means we pretty much did chapter five which means there's five six seven sessions right average two and a half three hours sometimes per session we're talking 21 hours before we even get to the fifth step one-on-one you with your student growing connecting god coming in and creating this relationship so chances are there's not much that you haven't already picked up on or spoke about or they've developed this thing called trust whereas the alternative is meeting somebody at a clubhouse you know and going out in the parking lot and doing a third step and giving a packet of paper and say come to my house in a week and we'll tell you you might be able i could see where people might not be willing to like divulge everything well they would if they wanted to get sober yeah but they're untreated you know we can't you can't keep treating untreated alcoholics as if they're treated you know but by us building a relationship through this type of one-on-one studying conversation yeah i think most things have i i don't i can't see leaving anything off you know absolutely having persevered with the rest of the program they wondered why they fell now this is green and underlined. We think the reason is that they never completed their house cleaning. Could you read the rest of the paragraph? They took inventory all right, but hung on to some of the worst items in stock. They only thought they had lost their egoism and fear. They only thought they had humbled themselves. But they had not learned enough of humility, fearlessness and honesty in the sense we find it necessary until they told someone else all their life story. And this is where we talk about what's in the four step to one another. This isn't Like, well, let's go write your life story. We hear people who have been advised to just go write their earliest memories right on. It's like, well that's great filling up time, but how are we going to find the exact natures of your wrongs? So by having an inventory that's specific in nature and takes us to these things, we can opportunity the exact nature of a wrong's entire life story Some of these things that we see in this previous paragraph, they only thought they had lost their egos and they only thought they had to humble themselves. I did that before I got sober. I only thought I was a nice guy. I only though I was honest. I only thougt I was being a good employee. That's the kind of stuff that takes us down fast. So if you don't have a sponsor that's willing enough to risk their relationship with you to be honest, you might want to shop around or give them spiritual consent one more time and say, remember, call me on my doo-doo. And remember the concept of this person thinking that they've lost their egoism and fear is essentially an unrecovered person who has not yet been awakened. What does that look like? I don't know, let's go to page 52. We were having trouble with our personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people that's recovering you know that's when you're in that that's that's just when i'm recovering that's where i'm at i can lie cheat steal a little bit but if i don't drink i'm okay recovered is the opposite of that yellow highlight this is mass our mask box uh joe want to read this one more than most people the alcoholic leads a double life he is very much the actor 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. Good luck getting through yourself that attitude, right? I'm not going to be happy at all with myself. The inconsistency is made worse by the things he does on his sprees. So, I'm already not happy with myself, I'm always happy with my self, I'm sort of noticing that I'm a cheater manipulator, I'm kind of a backstabber here and there, and then I go out and get drunk, and then we do things that we do when we're drunk and that's like taking a snow it's like that snowball thing you know making a snowman you start with a little snowball and just build it up and build it off pretty soon we got shame guilt and remorse we did that we did this and I was like you need a drink absolutely green these memories are a nightmare he trembles to think someone might have observed him as fast as he can he pushes his memories far inside himself he hopes they will never see the light of day yellow and underlined He is under constant fear and tension, and that makes for more drinking. Now, one thing, we've got relationships building in this process. You're with your students, your sponsees, you have a thing going on. When was the last time I went to therapy? Anybody else here ever go to therapy before? Pre-recovery therapy. What was that like? That was like a fictional story, wasn't it? You know, paying out good money for somebody to put up with our lies. Half-truths. Tell them just what we need for them to hear. you know that's and that could happen today in alcoholics anonymous but you know through the big book sponsorship getting close the walls hopefully have fallen down psychologists are inclined to agree with us we have spent thousands of dollars for examinations underline we know but a few instances where we've given these doctors a fair break we have seldom told them the whole truth nor have we followed their advice now he's just not throwing that in there because he's like a resentful therapist or a teed off psychiatrist. He's showing what's going to happen to us if we do not honestly go through the fifth step. You know, Bill is this amazing writer. He just keeps throwing the stuff at us. Continue to read. 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. And that's because they're continually seeing us relapse and continually seeing us back in their office with a news story. And basically what's happening there is that kind of came about because we weren't really giving them anything that they could use to help us. The therapeutic value of one alcoholic working with another alcoholic kind of takes care of that sacred trust. And somebody can gain your trust, like you explained, by going through the process and just letting God be the connection between the two. it also goes on to say we must be entirely honest with somebody if we expect to live long or happily in this world rightly and naturally we think well before we choose the person or persons with whom to take this infinite and confidential step stop hold on i'm sorry we missed something really cool here and this is the caveat love that word again completely mispronounced um we must be entirely honest with somebody if we are to live long or happily in this world you can have a half-measured fist up you can Have a half measured recovery program or meaty makers make it thing but are you truly happy do you see these people in the rooms that are you know not working the program is outlined in the book and are they when they leave the rooms are they truly happy are they going are they are they passing on God's love you know this is this is the cool thing about being recovered. We can be annoyingly happy, joyful and free because we've actually gotten the promise of Alcoholics Anonymous. Old school, 1940s, first time around AlcoholicsAnonymous when it worked instead of this modern contemporary pseudo-psychological babble crap where people are just like struggling through each day. And the disclaimer is absolutely important because if we expect to live long and happily in this world that's kind of like an affirmation i've admitted that i'm an alcoholic if i'm going to look at a happy life from this point forward honesty has to be a part and a vital part of that that's also a promise isn't it yes uh so it also started to talk about um how we are going to choose the person with which to take this confidential step whoa i can't this must have been really spooky in those days you know and that in today's is kind of like you know we're this far through the process with maybe some of this one of these guys whose eyes are just clearing imagine looking up being like can i do this step with you i mean that's the cool thing i've got we've got each all of us have like little young sponsees crunch monkeys out there working with other newcomers that have 30 40 50 60 days you now and they're doing this fist steps with these people who else but to call somebody else on their crap is somebody who's just come through someone of their same generation someone who's been through similar things you know you must have a sponsor who's got at least eight years of recovery great that's that's all good i guess but you know nothing beats somebody just fresh off the off a lion's spree and somebody who knows what's going on in modern day america you know these these kids that we have working with each other's just that's the miracle of alcoholics anonymous you know that's why we You've got these little buckaroos just staying sober left and right, making their lives better. And I go by that too. I mean I've had conversations with some of my guys to the nature of – okay, so I've Had The Privilege of doing this a few times, but you're more green in this process. You've just come out of it. You can relate to this guy or the next guy on an entirely different level. So enjoy it. See what the process can give. of course we sometimes encounter people who do not understand alcoholics oh yeah we come across those all the time you know and it's interesting you want to take this to an alcoholic you want to come on just do with your sponsor you know get your sponsors sponsors involved on this you know it's going to say later if you belong to a religious organization and you need to go do a confession go do it but don't expect to get what you're going to get out of here as a recovered alcoholic i know what we're looking for as recovery alcoholic i know how to talk to these people i know how to sit there and and help them to get through this we know what the end result is um other people may not get that a therapist yeah if you need therapy go see therapy but there's something magic about us knowing what needs to be done if we cannot or would not rather do this we search our acquaintance for a closed-mouthed understanding friend perhaps our doctor or a psychologist will be the person. It may be one of our own family, but we cannot disclose anything to our wives or our parents which will hurt them and make them unhappy. We have no right to save our own skin at another's expense. Such parts of our story we tell to someone who will understand yet be unaffected. Okay, now let's not just fly over this part either here, right? Don't be doing this with your family members. You know, I guess if you're the only guy in Broken Cone, New Mexico... I still don't... You know this is one of those things that are you serious? Can you imagine if your sister had to hold one of your deep dark secrets from the rest of the family that's going to cause her life to spiral and be miserable someone who's not affected non-family members wherever possible the world's not that small you know here we have no right to save our skins at another person's expense such parts of our story we tell the somebody who will understand yet be unaffected green double underlined the rule is we must be hard on ourselves but always considerate of others and that goes outside of the fifth step too doesn't it that goes into our day-to-day life as recovered alcoholics read that one more time the rule is that we must be hard on ourselves but always considerate of others I get this paragraph themed as honest at last you know there's certain things that I could not say to family members that I could say to my sponsor and it's just ah get it off my chest feel part of it and then they in their turn can actually go back and honestly evaluate and tell me what's really going on the stuff that i didn't see they'll see because they have no personal connection to this other than they want us to get well you know you want a sponsor that does not mind calling you on your doo-doo matter of fact it's imperative that you find a sponsor who can call you on you do you and also later on down the road if you've done a fist up with a sponsee now you can identify her patterns you can become more effective in seeing when she's falling off the path seeing her old behaviors pop up that you wouldn't be able to necessarily see if you hadn't gone through the first step with her and if you know what you're looking for and you you understand it and that's part of your job as a sponsor from this point down is to like pull them aside and say remember the thing in the fifth step with blah blah blah i said yeah it's like what's going on here. Oh, a lot of times they don't know it. They don't notice. Once again, you're seeing it from a different obstacle and sometimes they'll be really happy you pointed that out and other times they'll not so happy. But once again, eventually they will be happy. Now here's a bit of historical context for us. Notwithstanding the great necessity for discussing ourselves with someone, it may be one is so situated that there's no suitable person available. Broken to new mexico the therapist only comes through town every six months not even a therapist the the the minister or like somebody you know it's like somebody worthwhile only comes through once in a while underlined if that is so this step may be postponed only however if we hold ourselves in complete readiness to go through with it at the first opportunity Can I see a show of hands who give their sponsees more than a week to do their fifth step? Nobody's hand is raised in this room. How about a week? Yeah, everybody's hand. Seven days is enough? Absolutely. More than enough. More than Enough. And we don't want them sitting in that too long. We don't Want them like, let's move on. Let's get them on. And besides, you know, this is all about just getting to know God better. It's God for God's sake. How hard can that be? He's going to do all the work. We're just honestly doing what we need to do here. It's a spiritual movement, which implies that there should be no stagnation. It should continually move forward. Now, sometimes things happen, a holiday weekend, something like that, you can postpone if necessary, but jump right back in. Get that motion, as Joe said, moving. Keep it moving. We say this because we are very anxious that we talk to the right person. Considering it is important that we be able... What does that say? It is important that he be able to keep a confidence that he fully understand and approve what we are driving at, that he will not try to change our plan. But we must not use this as a mere excuse to postpone. This is a warning. And then he's going to give us a benefit or promise of what happens when we do actually go through with it. Seriously, don't give your guys or your gals more than a week. There's no reason to. I know guys that have three or four days, two days. It's a three- or four-hour process. Boom, as soon as you can get these guys. There's no farting fast rule to say drag it out. By the way, that I wish you a long and slow recovery. B.S. That has nothing to do with the step process. My brother's a surgeon, and I asked him, when does the recovery process begin? And he looked at me like I was stupid, which he does a lot. And he said, well, after the procedure's been completed, duh. What's the procedure in Alcoholics Anonymous? The step process. So yeah, let's get you through the steps, get you connected to God, get you doing your 10, 11, and 12, and then have a wonderfully long, slow recovery. Green underlined, when we decide who is to hear our story, we waste no time. Green underline, when we decided who was to hear us, we waste our story. We waste no times. Say that. When we decide to hear a story, We waste no time. Okay, just want to make sure you guys didn't miss that. And for me, it was the gentleman that had spent 21 hours with me and fully explained how to write this stuff down. And you called a couple times, I believe, just for a little information. What about this? What about that? And this is where the village... I had a few questions. Yeah, and this is Where the Village and the Herd come into play. Some questions Mike Chase handled himself, and some questions he gave me a bit of information and then referred me to one of my brothers. Mm-hmm. And I was able to gain more of an understanding as I was going through the movement with specific things that the jury was out on. So there's a couple opportunities to look at this, what's going to actually happen. He's given us reasons why we need to do it. He's giving us suggestions on who, when, and how we should do it, and now he's going give us actual directions what to do with it. We're here. So imagine, let's just say for argument's sake, that we're sitting in a non-sponsors of house, Somebody we selected, let's just say a clergy member. So we're sitting in the clergy member's house. So let's play this through as if we were at a clergy member's home for a minute. We have written an inventory and we are prepared for a long talk. We explain to our partner what we are about to do and why we have to do it. He should realize that we are engaged upon a life and death errand. Absolutely. He should recognize that we are engaged on a life and death errand. Most people approached in this way will be glad to help. They will be honored by our confidence. So there's probably a little conversation with this guy, what's going on, what you need to do. What we're trying to do is we're trying to look for the exact natures of my wrongs here. And I might have missed some of them. I need a different point of view, another angle looking at the same piece of paper. Oh, cool. And you give them spiritual consent. Listen, anything you see, anything you need, please talk about. By the way, this also goes with your sponsor if you're doing it that way. Green underline, we pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. Ooh, this is sort of scary now because we're actually going to be telling people everything that we never were going to tell anybody, you know? Thank gosh for us big book sponsors, we're already comfortable with the people. And this guy's just trying to get this guy he knows somewhat to honestly, he's going to be honest. We're not going to do this unless you give us something, you know. We'renot going to be 100% jumping into this, I guess, if you're living in Broken Tone, New Mexico, unless there's a good reason for it. And this is where we have the fifth step, promises. You want to know why you should be honest to the degree that you need to be honest too? This is why. Once we have taken the step with holding nothing, we are delighted. We can look the world in the eye. We can be alone at perfect peace and ease. Our fears fall from us. We begin to feel the nearness of our creator. We may have had certain spiritual beliefs, but now we begin to have a spiritual experience. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. We feel we are on the broad highway walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe. I don't know about you, but that's certainly a good reason for me to for once be honest with myself, you know? No matter whom I'm with. And any residual fear that we may have, the book's already told us that God takes care of that. We kind of got a sense of that when we were preparing our fear inventory. Absolutely. Do you have any stories or memories of your fifth step that you'd like to bring up at this time, Savannah? I think the coolest part of my four through nine process was when I was actually writing my fourth step. And I remember I tried to write it and I didn't pray or meditate beforehand and then I kind of lost it. I don't know what happened to it. And the second time around, I actually took the time to pray and meditate beforehand, actually follow directions. And like you said, it's God writing it through us. Things came up on that paper that I hadn't thought about. I'd blocked out for years. And coming into the fifth step, it was scary. But if you look at these promises, this is what we've been searching for the whole time. Every time we were getting drunk, we wanted to look the world in the eye. We wanted to be alone at perfect peace and ease. Now we're getting that through just simply sharing something about our lives that we've tried to withhold, and at the same time our sponsor is going to be telling us, I did something similar or I thought about that or, well, I did this. And it's just such a cool process to finally be getting all the things that we have been searching for without the drink. And it tells us that the feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. This is our first promised mini-spiritual experience. Without giving actual names and specifics, any being on the opposite side where you're the person giving the fifth step, sharing the information, taking what they're telling you and offering them some. What have you been able to garner from that in your past year? And Joe, you want to jump in at any time? Any of us can just jump in. Yeah, sure. I mean this is a magnificent part of the process. And I think this was, I can honestly say, when I had realized that I had a spiritual awakening was being a teacher on the other side of the chair. You know, lots of people and definitely within my family had told me that they noticed something different about me in that crucial four through nine phase. As a matter of fact, I think this is a very good opportunity for us to sort of shift gears and let's talk from the side of being the teacher bringing the people through this. I always tell my guys as we're going through the steps and you see the sparkle and they're glowing and they get in the God bumps and they are going out and they Are changing their lives in ways. And I just look at them and say, This is nothing yet. This is amazing and this is the magnificence. But wait till you're in my seat. Wait till you are the guy taking somebody through the book. That's when you feel the power of God rush right in and really take you to a whole new level. So being a Fifth Step participant, what a gift that is. Any stories you guys want to share about that, please? Well, my first Fifth Step as a sponsor was quite a memorable experience. And like I said, that was when I first felt that I definitely had that spiritual awakening. That's when I was absolutely plugged into the power of God because I showed up to that and I'd somewhat retreated back into self. And I thought that, you know, a lot of what was going to play out in the course of that room would have to come from me. And it was the next indicated action. I jumped into the process and I had this guy who was looking opposite me and he was looking to me. And all of a sudden, you know, something spiritual definitely happened. I felt an influx of energy and some rhyme and reason that I knew was not from me. By the way, little – some things that I've heard and learned over the years getting prepared for this. Schedule more time than you need. Absolutely. Also schedule time before the event so you can get centered with God. Don't be coming running home from work, running home from class. Oh my God, I'm running to a fifth step and then this is sacred. This is an opportunity you need to take a major prayer meditation leading up to this so when these people come in you're there with God. God's not going to...this is part of this whole thing being prepared. Have a room that's set aside. Make sure you have privacy. Make Sure it's comfortable. You can have a two hour. You can have an eight hour.You never know how long these things are going to go. One thing I learned recently is that when you're doing the fifth step have them joe just got scared by the cat which is oh whatever have guys come to the red room you know and i always say by the way don't be surprised if a cat jumps in your face um zero just got attacked by my cat um i'm okay and then the sponsors know that but um don't let them know when i'm when i'M doing the inventory and stuff like that um listening to them i try to stick to what they wrote because what they wrote down on their four-step that's the comment that's a communication from god you know short to the point and if you let them like go and talk that gives ego an opportunity to sneak in that allows the mind to come in and penetrate and you know stick with the honest written down say not what's the book say what you say in the fourth step what's this in the paper cut them down you give a little leeway if you have a question but direct that question because the longer you let them explain or come up with you know talk it down it takes it's takes away from the purity of it so keep it to the point do what they say have a comfortable room time takes time and we can explain that to them beforehand so they don't feel like we're being rude you know i always tell my girls like listen if i cut you off if i interrupt or tell you to stop talking i am listening i'm paying attention but i want to keep it TO THE POINT and and what's the point we're to find our exact nature of our wrongs yeah and we're looking for the patterns and we were so so once you figure it out you can point out to him as like next next one next you know and definitely by you know sitting on the other chair as well was when I first kind of felt the the phrase primary purpose ringing in my ears you know that the gift of being uniquely qualified someone who can actually do this and somebody who is tasked with doing this take lots of little god breaks yeah just sit back and get reconnected feel connected move on to the next um we pocket our pride and go to illuminate every twist of character every dark cranny of our past need to have a place that's sacred comfortable they feel trust and they feel comfortable For a lot of guys, I know somebody who can do this in the pickup truck in a park watching a sunset go down. I know people that can do it on a lakeside. I've got a room that's specifically set aside for that. Yeah, this is absolutely a sacred trust between a sponsor and a sponsee. And we've talked a little bit about this herd philosophy. As far as fifth steps go, nothing that is revealed over the course of a fifth step period, however long that takes, is ever shared with anybody else in the herd. And that is something that we have to make mandatory when you're talking to these guys. This is the stuff that doesn't leave this room. Certain things that you have in conversations, a bunch of you riding in cars and we tease each other and stuff like that. But the sacredness of the fifth step area never leaves. And that's, I guess, for having an older guy helps because they tend to forget more quick. At least the specific details on my part. You know, it's like, oh yeah, did you just sound like, yeah, okay, yeah. I've always found your memory to be quite acute actually, rat. Occasional ADD attacks that really are just intentional. But yeah, absolutely. This is something that is between you and one other person and it stays that way and that's a situation of permanence. As a sponsor, I spiritually cannot afford to break that And I make that clear to these guys before they start out doing this process. And, of course, you share something about yourself with them at this time that is also just as revealing. And, by the way, if they're coming up with stuff, feel free to jump in and say, yeah, I did something similar. I did this and stuff like that. Because you want to make them feel comfortable because we're all – listen, if there's a name for it, somebody's done it. And chances are we've all pretty much done the same thing, maybe a different outfit, a different location, different situation. But we're both similar. or it's the exact nature of our wrongs that we're shooting for. And a lot of times when I'm going through these things, it's like if I start seeing next, the same stuff over and over again, and I'm just going to say, I see a pattern here. Do we have anything on the next page that's different than what this pattern that's already going on? And if we see a patterns, we've already identified it, we can just sort of, okay, well let's, I guess, anything here that you need to talk about, let's end this package in meditation and move on to our next prayer. and the cool thing about this you're going to notice that that first resentment one the ice is cracked and then they come easier it's so cool also just like writing the force of having the force that put out the way the resentments we just love the bitch about our resentment we got those things out we got more god right we got so much more god because we've done a fist up then we go into the fears blah blah blah and then we have sex you know and then we go have a cigarette after sex i always like saying that you know And then we go back and we come seriously once again, look at the harms because that definitely takes to be a very serious look at because that's what would cause harm for people. We need to be willing to look at that honestly and take ownership. They need to take ownership, and we've got to help them feel comfortable with that. But this is not – you know, this is – we're looking for exact nature stuff here. Is there any sort of guiding advice that sponsors can kind of lead by while their student is going through this process? just trust god you know bring god into the situation um when the whole idea is when you when you've when you notice something you can move on don't drag stuff out don't let them talk too much about a certain thing um don't take this thing out you know i used to do these things you know we'd go out to let's go to public because i go we go buy you know like 60 worth of comfort food and we'd sit around and we it'd be like a 10-hour adventure you know and we didn't have blankets or pillows yeah like didn't we i think we did a couple times um and believe me and those things were magnificent i'm not saying there's anything wrong with that some of those were some of the most moving and honest situations that i've ever walked guys through but then again there's the ones i'm doing today where we just you know we get a couple give them a couple red bowls and we got some crackers you know and we just dive into it and two three hours boom we processed it the same but it depends on the person always just cater it to the situation the bells there is that spectrum of variance you know we have a variety of different experiences over the course of working with different people and uh it's always nice to kind of be awake as to where the spirit is leading you and to go with it and not resist i'd like to apologize for that That burring is on the air conditioner kicked in, so we'll work on that one next time around. Savannah, one last, anything else you want to share about one of your steps you want to talk about? Just a couple things. I feel like this part especially helps us make sense of our past. Now we see why we've gone through these things when you have a sponsee who's been through something very similar and we, again, are uniquely qualified to help them through that. I've found that taking notes is extremely helpful because I tend to forget things and, like, get lost in my mind. Oh, before we forget anything, before we even start the fifth step with the guides and we read up to this point and then we feel the broad highway walking hand-in-hand with the spirit of the universe, we put a line across it and we write stop. We're going to put the books away and they're going bring out their four-step packets and boom, the fifth steps actually begin. At that point in time, stop, close the book, say put this up on a shelf now this is something that we're going to talk about just a little in depth before we take out of here remember we started this as if you were indian joe and broken toe new mexico at some clergyman's house right you've been sitting there four five six hours right get out of the guy's house you know let him get on with his life go home and complete six and seven in the privacy of your home if necessary but see big book sponsorship we're in for the long haul we we stick around so in our family what we do is we just lock them in the room for an hour like the book says we're going to get into this next week i go into the other end of the house and i spend an hour with god doing meditation and prayer getting comfortable so when we both come back after an hour we're just like googling in the god stuff you know we'll get more into that next week um amazing opportunity savannah what a treat to have you here i hope you hope you can uh hope you can show up next week maybe one of these days we'll be able to get kim over here too and she's got so much amazing opportunity i like this yeah me too yeah send us some texts send us emails let us know what you guys think is your you're who we wanted to please here stay tuned stay tuned uh so this is a reading from the doctor's nightmare uh of the first edition of the big book of alcoholics anonymous speaking from dr bob's point of view If you think you are an atheist, an agnostic, a skeptic or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what is in this book I feel sorry for you If you still think you're strong enough to beat the game alone that is your affair But if you really and truly want to quit drinking liquor for good and all and sincerely feel that you must have some help we know that we have an answer for you It never fails If you go about it with one half the zeal You've been in the habit of showing When you are getting another drink Your Heavenly Father will never let you down Please join us next week As we continue to study the Big Book And remember to download The highlighted pages from tonight's session Found under the podcast link We always enjoy hearing feedback from you guys So don't be shy about dropping us a line As it is a privilege To meet other alcoholics Who are also on fire about God And on fire About the Big Books Thank you for that I just got a couple of quick wind-em-up announcements. We're starting to podcast these things and put them up online usually Sunday night. Starting this week, my home group, the Fort Lauderdale Primary Purpose Big Book Study Group, a few months back we voted to go current and do a podcast of that meeting. So on December 30th, we'll be wrapping up the big book session. So on January 6th, well, the next Monday, we're going to start on page zero of the big book and we're going to do the primary purpose big book study which is uh the joe and charlie and crusty cliff workbook that we're gonna be doing but if we're to have a celebration in our home group we got peter peter m gonna be coming to have special talk with us so if you guys want to stick around tomorrow i guess check out the web page mikechase.org and click the link aabigbookstudy.org um we're gona have our weekly podcast so that you guys can join us in that so But this is some exciting times we've got going here. We look forward to that. This is actually quite a unique experience. It's going to be a pep rally for God, and it's in the spirit of 10, 11, and 12 as we've just finished a session. It's also going to Be a Family Reunion. We're going to get all of our family and our generations and our multiple generations together. And Pete's going give us some special insight on how we, now that we've been through the book, how to continue carrying that on and I'm looking forward to seeing lots of her family there and hopefully you guys will be able to enjoy the podcast that we offer there so be prepared we're going to close out here after another moment of silence with our family's fog light prayer let's just take a moment of some silence God let your love shine through me like a fog light so those who are lost sick and dying can find your love through me amen once again we'll see you Monday night hopefully you check in and come check out the Fort Lauderdale primary purpose big book study group podcast we got a special Peter M. talking. Savannah, honor to have you here. We look forward to seeing you with us on the next one. Godspeed. Godspeed, peace. Peace.