The Fifth Step and the Right to Misbehave – 12 Steps by Sandy B – Part 1 of 3 – Local AA Speakers

so now we get to the fifth step where we share with another human being this myth that we have worked on and there's a great reluctance to do this oh you talk about not wanting to do a step if you want to see character defects and instincts get in the way you just check the average AA when you ask them about their fifth step and they say how long did it take you to do the fifth step oh about an hour, two hours whatever it was how long does it take to get ready four years five years eight years in other words you got the fourth step done but now we're going to go share this with somebody and it's just a tremendous feeling of I don't think I would do this today you just want to wait a little bit and then you get somebody that started a rumor about he heard about a guy about 30 years ago who got drunk right after a fifth step oh really I'm so glad to hear that run home and tell our sponsor you know the guy got drunk doing that no he got drunk from drinking oh that's right it wasn't the fifth step it was drank that was the thing okay well and so some of us came up with a plan this is in case If anybody knew and you've already thought up how to do the fifth step painlessly, believe me, there's people before you who have already thought about it. And the best technique of all is to just do your fifth step in front of a large crowd like an open meeting because that will make it even more valid, and you don't want to bore them. You don't wants to keep them there all night, and so you might follow this approach. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll take my fifth step here. I've worked on my fourth step for months. You name it, I did it. Thank you very much. And right about that time from the back of the room comes a voice, could you be more specific? No, I don't want to be specific. Why not? Well, I just don't wanna. And that's part, we just don'T want to. And I think part of us recognizes if we ever go through with this thing, reliable to get on the road here to recovery. Reliable to move on into a whole new way of life. And if we do that, we won't have any excuse for misbehaving. And it's almost like I don't want to give up my right to misbehave. I don' t know if anybody ever had that problem but it's like, I don''t want to get too good. I mean, gee whiz, what if being good is boring and it's too late to turn back? Just a small minority has that problem but the inner weird circle we'll meet later and we'll discuss this um but the fifth step is a very um rewarding moment in sobriety i brought along the 12 and 12 and i got a page out of the big book and you know you often hear about the promises in the ninth step, and I think there's a whole bunch of them in the fifth step out of the big book. It says, once we've taken this step withholding nothing, we're 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're on the broad highway walking hand in hand with the spirit of the universe and then about 13 years later when bill was writing the 12 and 12 he wrote provided you hold back nothing your sense of relief will mount from minute to minute the damned up emotions of years will break out of their confinement and miraculously vanish as soon as they're exposed as the pain subsides a healing tranquility takes its place And when humility and serenity are so combined, something else of great moment is apt to occur. Many AA, once agnostic or atheist, tells us that it was during this stage of step five that he first actually felt the presence of God. And so, the reason that this step and step nine produce such dramatic results is that they both involve other people. involves the sharing that we've never done before. And most of us have secrets and we have a feeling that they ought to go to the grave with us. There are certain things that we just ought to keep. It's our little burden to carry on through life and it's just too bad that it turned out that way but I've got this thing. And you know what it is? It's like a little pebble. it's just a misstep that took place 10 years ago that we forgot to throw away when it was a little pebble and we turned it into a huge rock and we just walk around this thing going what a burden I have and people are going why don't you get rid of that and you go it's the real me and with the fifth step goes gives us a chance we suddenly take this photo of ourselves that we have and it's only from our perspective and we run it through the processing machine which enables us to see the third dimension of it and we go, that isn't what I look like. And we suddenly see all of this from outside and we just start laughing. We go, what a joke! I thought that was a big series rock or it was just a pebble. And away goes that. And we see something over here that we had minimized. We go boy, I've really got to do something about that. And it just puts everything in perspective. we suddenly realize we have a much more accurate view, and it gives us the feeling we can get through that day in just wonderful shape. And we realize the power of the process. You see what happens in that moment is our faith has to triple because we actually see how effective this works. There is little doubt about the impact of a good fifth step. It is one of the great freedoms that we find in the program of Alcoholics Anonymous. Instead of trying to be something, we realize that we want to become part of something. And for me, that has been one ofthe greatest dreams that has set forth in me. I was part of that same syndrome that almost everybody is, that you've got to grow up and be somebody. And that can never be achieved in the sense that I was trying to achieve it. Whatever I got, I could just see, well, you still got 50 more miles to go. And when I got there, I saw 50 more, 50 more. And it's very frustrating. And then I found here that my goal was to be part of something. And that was manageable and it made sense. and all of a sudden it was as if I was reading some musical score and it all was quite harmonious and I just had my notes to play and somebody else had written it and I didn't have to write it. I just have to follow this thing and it just sounded great as I went along. I said, isn't this great? I wish somebody told me this was here before and it was there all along and I couldn't see it or hear it because my character defects were making so much noise I would hear a little signal, you ought to go over this way, and then the voice would go, no, you need a woman. I'd go, sorry? Go off and follow that. And so I could never believe in a power greater than myself. I couldn't believe that there was such a thing as principles that would work because I was not free enough to do it. And so it was alcohol that made me surrender momentarily long enough to try this. the last step that we talked about this morning the sixth step we're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character begins in the 12 and 12 where this is the step that separates the men from the boys I suppose that Bill has written it now it would say and the women from the girls I like to think about this old minister story that is told in churches a lot about the chicken and the pig that are looking in the farmer's window and the farmer is having breakfast of ham and eggs and the chicken says, isn't it wonderful how we serve our master? And the pig said, hey, for you it's a contribution. For me it's total commitment. And a sixth step is very close to that situation. What it does in the process of thinking about the sixth step We're entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. What it comes by in the first blood, it reminds me of the congressional budget process. Everybody want to reduce the deficit? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's like this is the sixth step. Does everybody want to get rid of all your character defects? Yeah, good. Which one do you want to start with? Lust? Well, I'm about murder. Let's start with murder. I'd like to give up murder. Okay, murder's gone. Now how about lust? No, bank robbery. Bank robbery would be good. We all agree with the principle of getting rid of character defects. The problem is when we get specific, and then even when we get specific we don't want to take such an extreme position. There's obviously been a mistake in the printing of this step. We're entirely ready to have God remove most of these characters. That would be more what we ought to adopt. A little moderation is what we need. Don't jump on the moderation bandwagon. We don't want to take extreme positions. Why do we have to set ourselves up for what is obviously going to be a lifetime of spiritual frustration? We're highly ready to help God to remove all these defects of character means perfection. And I remember a line in chapter five in the big book, right? It says something about what does that line say? You can't reach perfection. What is it? Progress, not perfection. And so there it is. Bill wrote it himself. We strive for progress, not perfection. So obviously this step doesn't say, you better read this step too. Because it says, yes, the clear implication of this step is perfection. and so we suddenly have a goal of perfection that we can never reach and this sounds like why would I be wanting that the 24 hour day book has an interesting line in it and this is in one of the prayers we have this little prayer thing that comes out and we look at each morning and one of lines in there helps understanding this step and the dilemma of this step the dilemma of spiritual program and the line says I pray that I may be never satisfied with my spiritual condition. Now, think about that. Why would I bust my rear end and just hope, please, may I be frustrated at all times? What the hell kind of a deal is this? Why would i be busting my rear-end for that goal? And that's the nature of this step. What am I trying to do? I think we're caught with the dealing with pain. I think that's what life is all about. We're caught in it, and we have our choice of the pain of growing or the pain of not growing. But either way, we're going to have that feeling because we will always have our instincts, and will always be self-centered. We'll always have our self-centeredness, and the process of life is how much of self-centeredness can you hack away before you finish and we always know how much progress we're making and if you bust your tail for a week or so and you're working on this and you working on that it's sort of an effort to get started but when you get into it it's not pain it is effort it's like getting in shape it's real hard to start with and then once you've got the thing rolling it's kind of an attempt to go out and put in the little routine that day once you get your meeting schedule going, and you get these things going, then you've made a commitment to it. It seems to roll along. It isn't a struggle every day, a debate over whether I'm going to go to a meeting or not. Then it's more of an effort than pain. But as soon as we relax and we cut back on it, then we go, geez, I've been really working hard on this. All life is this way. We go to an effort and then you take a little rest. You put an effort and a little rest. But when we rest too long, then all of a sudden there's this thing going, oh, I ain't going to sit here. You haven't made any progress in a month. and it's almost like a spiritual journey is mountain climbing and wherever you are on the mountain you can always see another 3,000 feet and you still can't see the top so then you climb 5 more thousand feet and then you take a look and you can still see the bottom but you can see 5 more thousands feet to go and you go why am I busting my rear end to do this when whenever I look like that there's still 5 more 1000 feet up there and I'm never going to get to the top why don't I just sit here And I'll still always see 5,000 feet above me. It will always be the same. You know why? Because the view is better from 5,00 feet higher. The view out this way. And to me that's what the sixth step is suggesting. It is suggesting that I never settle for the view from where I am. Because part of me is going to give me a needle. Part of me has got to say, great, I'm delighted you've got us to this level. but i'm getting tired of the view you've got to move on oh come on and the more i move on the closer i get to something that feels real good as long as i'm on this journey i can go to bed at night and say that was a nice day it's when i at the end of the day i know i haven't moved one bit in this direction of spiritual growth i know it there's an automatic inventory inside of me and you know what I try to do then? I try to shut up the inventories. We're quiet. We don't want to keep track of this. I don't need to think about the fact I didn't do anything today. Well, it's a good thing that part of me is in there. It's a good thing there's other people in the program that talk about these things. It is a great fortune that we have each other to keep moving us along either through example or through product. A sponsor giving you this or someone who goes through a serious situation we watch how they handle it in such good fashion, and they become a role model or a target. We go, yeah, I could get that. I could do it that way. And the more we move in that direction, the freer we are of these character defects. The closing story I would like to use on this step that has described it for me is the little boy with the toothache, and I think I've used it almost every time. And it describes the dilemma of a spiritual program to a T. And this guy goes at 3 o'clock in the morning. He wakes up a little toothache. And he's got a ball game the next morning, so he needs some aspirin and then he'll get his rest and he'll be able to do a real good job. But he doesn't call his mother and ask for the aspirin. He decides to wait and see if the toothache will go away. And so he waits two hours and then finally it gets worse and worse. So at 5.30 he calls out and his mother says, what's the matter? I've got a toothache. Oh, here's some aspirine too. But now he only gets about an hour of sleep. And the question is, why didn't he just call out and get the damn aspirin immediately instead of screwing around for two hours on the theory that a toothache might go away by itself. Very unlikely set of circumstances. And the question, or the answer is that he knew his mother. That's the answer. Just like we know our higher power and we know ours. He knew that if he called her, she would get him the aspirin. She had no doubt about it. The problem was she wouldn't stop there. She would go, well, what's the problem? Well, the tooth is hurting. Tooth is hurting? Don't worry. I'll call the dentist in the morning. And he knew that when she called the dentist, they'd get an appointment. When he got to the dentist's office, the dentist would look in and go, which tooth is this? It's this one right back here. It's hardly hurting. And he'd go, that's all right. We're going to check it all out. And while you're here, we're going x-ray all the other teeth. And then they x- ray all the others. They find 12 other cavities, and they make 14 appointments. and you don't get out of the deal until your mouth is in perfect shape. You didn't want to get his mouth in perfect state, but you just wanted two aspirin. And that's our problem when we come to AA. All I want to do is stop drinking. I don't want it. I don' t want to become a saint. I don''t want to have to try and become a better person. I don'T want to try with character, Billy. I DON''T want to trying to go, I'm sorry, the only help we got is that. You either have to take that help or do it alone. Oh, Jesus. And that's when we wrestle. Do I want that much help? It's the nature of the help that we are confronted with. The only help that's available is perfect help. You either get the whole deal or you do it along. And that' s the way each day is. You either want to get this spiritual help involved and sponsor your group or you just do it all by yourself. And to me, I'm so grateful that I've been forced to raise my hand and ask for help. Uh, because life has turned out a hundred times better than when I was doing it alone. We're at the end of the time. I would remind everybody that we have another meeting in 15 minutes and let's wrap it up with the Lord's prayer for anybody. Thanks for listening.