The Fourth Column – AA Joe H Step Study – Part 6 of 11 – Joe

my name is Joe I'm an alcoholic we are at step four it's kind of hard for me to talk about the fourth step without talking a little bit about the first three some of you have heard this for the for several weeks and I and I do want to move on but I kind of need to get myself centered with where we are. We've covered everything from the title page to page 64, which covers the first three steps. We've looked in the doctor's opinion and Bill's story and from 17 to 23 to look at the body of the alcoholic to answer a real simple question. You know, can I control the amount that I drink once I take it? Do I relate to the idea of the craving? if i put some alcohol in my system do i crave more am i powerless over alcohol after i put some in my systems over the amount that i'm going to end up drinking this time it'll be different what happened last time won't happen do i suffer from obsessions that outweigh all the reasons why i shouldn't am i powerless over what goes on in my mind when there's nothing in my system at all bone dry 28 30 six months mine usually caught up to me before 30 days because i was never away from alcohol for 30 days for 17 years we looked at the unmanageability of our lives which has very little to do with the first half of that step unless you're still drinking the idea that now that i'm sober can i manage my life on my own power and we found we found that the disease the body and the mind we found that within we didn't find that out here in the world based on circumstance how many times have you been to jail how many jobs have you lost how many wives have you lost how many treatment centers have you been to that's not the reason why i'm alcoholic all that stuff none of it's the reason why it's just the result of and we didn look for the reason why in the result of we found the disease within and we also found the unmanageability within you know can you make fear go away on your own power can you do this stuff that booze used to take away can you do that on your own now that you're sober that feeling of uselessness we looked at that paragraph on page 52 can you control your emotions Can you make misery and depression go away can you make that feeling of uselessness disappear? Can you yourself happy can you now that you're sober sit in a chair and fix yourself like booze used to We saw that the insanity is not what happens after I take a drink even though I do a lot of crazy stuff after I drink the insanity. Is what happens before I take it drink and the most insane thing i ever did every time i did it i was absolutely bone dry with nothing in my system supposedly at my very best and that's to pick up another drink and i do that with nothing my system away from it longer than i've ever been away from it supposedly in their eyes at my very best i commit the most insane act of my life we kind of started to maybe eliminate some of our options we looked at the ABCs when we got through the second step the second step we chose a simple conception each in our own way that will work for us to begin with what each of you choose is not important this program and this process and what's in this book allows you to choose your own conception based on some fundamental ideas from the first step that maybe lack of power is your problem and you need some power to live by. Just to live, I need some power. Not just to quit drinking. Not just a stay-quit. To manage my life because I can't fix myself. And I think in those first two steps we eliminated as many options as we still have and we all have our own number of options. One guy comes here and he's got 50 options left. Maybe she can save me. Maybe the job can save me maybe or the right amount of money can save me maybe if i move it will save me maybe i still have some human powers that'll fix me and another guy comes here and maybe he's just got a couple options left i don't know which guy is in worse shape but i do know that there is a process in the first two steps to help you eliminate those options within the work rather than going back out on the streets and having to eliminate those options through another spree or another six months or another year or another five years or even dying before those options are eliminated you know your ace in the hole the one thing you're going to hang on to that you still think you can do when you get out of here that's going to save you i think in aa they call those first step reservations see my ego has mechanisms it uses to confirm reservations today i called a hotel in san francisco to make some reservations they asked me would i confirm them with a credit card and i thought my god what did i used to use to confirm reservations that kept me out there for 17 years my ego used to present me with all kinds of stuff to confirm observations well you can make it what you learn in the penitentiary you should have learned your lesson now that you've studied all this stuff in college you should be able to keep yourself sober or maybe she can fix me or maybe if i move to florida and live on an island everything will be all right see i had a lot of reservations the 17 years i spent on the streets eliminated most of them but i was surprised when i got here as badly beaten up as i was i still had a few i still have a few reservations that kept me from seeing the truth and i think in the first step in a safe environment working with another alcoholic and using some prayer let everything i think i know about what's going to keep me sober and let everything I think I know about myself and let everything I know I know about this program because I've been here for a while but I've never really stayed sober let everything I think i know about myself this program these steps myself and especially God be put aside for an open mind and a new experience see I need to face the terror i need to face the terror i i know a friend of mine who for eight years in this program was never willing to face this the fear that came up at the first step his ego always took him in another direction and if any of you are open-minded enough to look at some of the ideas in the first Step and even in the second step and face the fear that comes up and watch what your ego will try to do see my ego will try to take me over here i come face to face with the fear but my ego says well you can go over here he's full of i'm not that bad what does he know your ego we'll try to take you right out of here but if you can face that fear that comes up like when somebody asks you or if you ask yourself maybe i'm really not an alcoholic maybe there is something that can work for me the fear that comes up when i think maybe you can take two drinks a day for 30 days the fear comes up see that's what i need to be willing to face to get free or i guarantee you will face it later on in the program see it's those kind of reservations that take people out of here 5 10 15 20 years sober because they don't face them in a safe process with someone else and in prayer they face them in their head and in their gut late at night by themselves and it takes them right out of here their ego does because their ego says well I don't need to do that and this poor guy this friend of mine he went around for 8 years in Alcoholics Anonymous not willing to face that fear that would come up when he would look at am I an alcoholic like, maybe I'm not. He would always skirt the issue and say, well, I'll look at that later or I don't really need to or yeah, because I got three DUIs or this or that. And at eight years sober, his life was falling apart. And he was writing bad checks and he was lying and he had to face those fears in this process and his life changed. If somebody would have said to me a year ago that faith can be detrimental and fear can be positive. I would have said, you're crazy because I was real black and white. I thought fear is bad and faith is good. But what I've seen this time through the work that if I'm willing to face the fear and the terror in the first and second step it takes me to a new place and it moves me on. I can literally let the fear and the terror that comes up when I look at the first step, I can actually let it move me through the rest of the work or at least into the next step. And that the faith I had a year ago can really be detrimental because it will hold me back from a new experience. See, if I just go back to the faith I had last year, God certainly can't do this new stuff I'm looking at that's unmanageable because that's as far as it took me. So if all I can go back is the faith that I've acquired in four years that can really be detrimental to move me on in the next year or this time through the work faith can be detrimental, it can hold me back I think one of the greatest statements Bill Wilson ever made was in the 12x12 when he said our human best can be the enemy of the very best that God has for us faith can hold you back faith is not always positive I had faith when I was new but I didn't have any faith that God could take my drug and alcohol problem my old faith was holding me back I had fear when I wasn't there I thought I had to run from it I thought i had to hide from it I get fear when i look at the first step now i see if i'm willing to face that fear it can be very positive and it can move me on we looked at a willingness to believe in the second step that there is some power because we started to see that lack of power is our problem we answered one simple question which is your choice at the second step is this power everything or nothing is it or isn't it what's your choice to be and then they told us exactly where and exactly how to find this power then we'd have to search fearlessly and it's interesting those are the two words we're going to talk about in the fourth step searching and fearless this book on page 55 said sometimes you might have to search fearlessly but you're going to find this great reality deep down within that's how and where how am i going to find these powers to search fiercely and where is deep down then we made a decision after we met a few requirements and after we were convinced of three pertinent ideas from the abcs that I am alcoholic and I can't manage my own life and that no human power can relieve my alcoholism and that I'm willing to believe God can and will if he saw it. And then the first requirement of the third step, that I need to be convinced that my life run on my will cannot be a success. We looked at the idea of how have I played God and I needと quit doing that and a decision that from hereafter in this drama of life God is going to be my director my principal and my father and we looked at a prayer and it talks about on the bottom of page 63 that the next thing we are to do is to launch out in a course of vigorous action the first step of which that tells me this is the first step of action is a personal house cleaning which many of us never attempted though our decision at the third step was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face and to be rid of the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. Our liquor was just a symptom. So we have to get down to causes and conditions. There's a lot there. My decision at the third step was very vital and crucial. but if i really want some permanent effect you know is that really what i want from this program or is it just another stop on my journey is it just another delay am i just here for a little while to to put some band-aids on my symptoms and get a year or so in a job and a little money and a new woman and a bank account in the car and then go off on my merry way or do i really wanna permanent it's interesting they use that word Do I want to stay well? Do I wanna stay sober for good and all? He says, I'm not gonna have that kind of effect unless I at once follow my decision with a strenuous effort to face and to be rid of. I think that's a great statement of hope. And I also think that is one of the statements that separates this spiritual process from a therapeutic process that Alcoholics Anonymous sometimes gets mixed up with. To face and to get rid of from some of the stuff I hear in meetings nowadays we're supposed to face this stuff in the fourth step to learn how to cope with it or deal with the feelings we get around that whatever it might be this tells me that the next thing i'm about to do is to face the stuff that blocks me from god myself and you to be rid of having been a therapist everything i ever learned the most that i could do for you was get you to do some nifty work about mom or dad or your wife or whoever and then congratulate you on the nifty work you did and then give you tools to cope with it and to deal with those feelings with your mom or your dad or your wife every time they came up coping skills i was never able to tell a client this stuff you've lived with for 30 years with your dad this hate this guilt all this stuff you know there's a way you can be rid of it i could never give that hope to anybody as a therapist without some kind of spiritual basis now i'm not saying there aren't therapists that use a spiritual basis of course there are but we see so many people that come to alcoholics anonymous and they might even look at these steps and they might even looked at this book and they might even admit their powerlessness and the unmanageability of their life And they might choose a conception at the second step, and they might make a decision to go for that. And they write an inventory and do a fifth step, and then I don't know what they do with six and seven. We usually hear them, and they're talking about, I'm working on step six. I'm having a hard time working step six because I think they think they're trying to remove their character defects. And then we see them, and they are always working on something. It's like they wrote inventory to discover their character defect and now they're going to work on their character defense really hard. they didn't face these things to be rid of they faced them so they could cope with them and deal with them continue to work on themselves my god at the second step they told me that the main purpose of this book was to enable it to enable me to find a power which would solve my problems not the power so i could solve my problems um but i think it's another point here this top paragraph that tells me the reason for inventory i'm not writing inventory to find out about myself i'mnot really even writing inventoryto find out what i am i'm writing inventory to find the stuff that blocks me from this power that i need to face it and be rid of it it's kind of like the thing in treatment my last time that the that the monk told me that was my therapist he's a monk at night in the monastery and he's a therapist during the day in a treatment center and he said he believed each and every one of us in this room was born with something whatever you want to call it and that day he called it a jewel and i could see that i could grab onto that i can see that jewel and he said he believe each and everyone else was born within and for 30 years i had thrown mud on that jewel in the form of dishonesty and selfishness and pride and ego and guilt that I blocked myself off from that jewel and that he believed there was a process I could go through to clear away the mud that blocked me from the jewel that had been there all the time and I found when I read this it was saying the same exact thing from page 55 we'll have to search fearlessly and we'll find that great reality deep down within because it might have been blocked it might have been obscured by calamity by ego by pomp by worship of other things but it's been there and here it says now i'm supposed to face that mud to be rid of it to clear it away the stuff that blocks me from god this power that i need because i'm convinced i need some power once again it says liquor is just a symptom now let's get down to the root what is the cause and the condition it's interesting that the inventory in the second column we're going to find the cause and in the third column we're gonna find the condition and when I really get into the inventory and I write a fourth column in the resentment inventory I'm gonna find out there's the cause what I want to tell you is what I'm going to put in the 2nd column all the reasons I was mad was the cause of my alcoholism but it wasn't it's interestng that this book has taken me from the body to the mind now we're in the spirit now we are looking at the root now we are looking to the stuff that was there before I ever took a drink when the booze and the drugs weren't working and sitting around this program waiting for something to happen by osmosis suffering from the root of my disease therefore will start on a personal inventory this is step 4 a business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking a commercial inventory is a fact-finding searching and a fact facing fearless process. It is an effort to discover the truth about the stock and trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsaleable goods and to get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful he cannot fool himself about values what is it worth we did exactly the same thing with our lives we took stock honestly first we searched out the flaws in our makeup which caused our failure because we were convinced that self manifested in various ways was what had defeated us we considered its common manifestations what are the common manifestations of self resentment dishonesty selfishness self-seeking fear and the way i treat people in my motives and relationships because i'm convinced that self manifested in these ways is what has defeated me so they get me to the number one the number 1 manifestation of self is resentment it's really the tip of the iceberg and it's what I show the world I hope if we see anything in this inventory process we'll see that resentment is what I show you but it's not really what's going on in here and then that will be the next inventory this book explains three inventories it's not a life story and it' s not an autobiography and it''s not to find out about myself it'' s to discover the stuff that blocks me from this power that I need so I can face it and be rid of it. Resentment is the number one offender. It destroys more alcoholics than anything else. That's interesting. Resentament destroys more alcoholcs than anything, even booze. From resentment stems all forms of spiritual disease. Now that's really interesting because now they're telling me that resentment is a spiritual malady. I always thought resentment was something I thought about and felt i thought resentment was mental and emotional because i do feel resentment and i do think about it but what i realize is resentment is much deeper than my mind or my emotions resentment is a spiritual malady because it shuts me off from you you do something to me all i ever see is what you did to me and there it is between you and i and i never really see you as you are i see you as that dirty so-and-so that did that to me And there's the resentment between you and I, like a wall. From resentment stems all forms of spiritual disease. For we have not only been mentally and physically ill, which these first chapters have broken down, we have been spiritually sick. Spiritually sick. You see, I want to make something heavy into that. A lightning bolt struck me when I was born and I'm damned to eternal damnation. That's what my ego wants to do when it hears something like spiritual disease. But when I see that I just suffer from resentment and fear and dishonesty and selfishness and these are the things that block me from you and myself and God and that that's a spiritual disease and it was there way before I ever took a drink and got into the mental and the physical part and now here it is again after we've broken down the mental and the physical part now we've gotten to the spiritual disease now the directions and they spoon fed me this inventory and they gave me one direction at a time after I had made this decision because they tell me the way you turn your will and your life over to the care of God as you understand him is to pick up a pen and then all of a sudden it's one hell of a commitment see I thought there was some lofty way to turn my will, I thought I had probably done it when I said that prayer. Or we were going to go up on a mountain and it would be the next part of step three. I said, no, the way you turn your will and your life over to the care of God is four through nine and once you've made that decision, that simple decision at the third step, it's one hell of a commitment like ham and eggs. And directions in dealing with resentments we set them on paper. How? We make a list of people, institutions or principles with whom we were angry. If I think I've worked through something with somebody and I'm doing this for the first time but I was angry at them a long time ago, I put them down. What I was told to do was to go home and make a list. They didn't get me into the next part of this inventory until I had a finished list of people institutions and principles that i was ever angry at with whom we were angry so i went home and they told me to say a prayer when i sat down and to finish it with a prayer and anything that comes in between is supposed to be there and that doing that i'd be safe and protected i remember my sponsor asking me do i know why there's no amen at the end of the third step prayer but there's an amen at the end of the seven step prayer and i said no i don't know why he said because everything you do from the end to the third step prayer to the end of the seventh step prayer is part of that third step prayer and you're safe and you are protected in that prayer so i go home and i write on the top of a page god help me to see what i need to see that blocks me from you and other people and myself and i found that a list just started flowing out of me people i hadn't remembered places i'd been values and beliefs that i was given as a kid that i resented and i'm finding i'm making a list of people mom and dad my sisters my brothers institutions those damn treatment centers and the driver's license bureau and the landlords and bill collectors and the methadone clinic and the cops and the feds and the narcs, the penitentiary and the jails. I know about resenting institutions. What about principles? See, I didn't have a lot the first time because I didn' t come here with a lot but I had been raised with some. I found I resented love at different times. It crowded me in. I found I resented hate my own and theirs I found every principle I came to if I looked at the opposite of it I sometime in my life resented that too I resent honesty truth dishonesty lies all those values and beliefs we were given as kids that ate our lunch while we were drinking and drugging so I made that list and I came back and I got the next direction we asked ourselves why we were angry that's the second column so I take the first name off my list and I put it over on a piece of paper in the left hand corner and that's the first column I put mom then they told me to ask myself why I was angry and I said I put every reason I was ever angry for some people there was 50 for some people there was five and i did that in prayer and every time i sat down to write i wrote i wrote a prayer at the top of the page number one when she did this number two when she did this three when she said that number five when they did this and i put all the reasons why i was angry you know these directions for the inventory are really hard to see on your own but when somebody sat down and broke them down for me they're simple make a list people institutions and principles take the first name off that list put it on a piece of paper and then write every reason why you were angry and then i go and i look at the third column in most cases when they did that i found that my self-esteem my pocketbook my ambition my personal relations my sex relations were hurt or threatened so i was sore i was burned up on my grudge list i said opposite each name my injuries wasn't my self-esteem my security my ambition my personal and sex relations which had been interfered with now there's some keywords there that i use as a guide when i look at mom and the number one resentment on my list even though i have 50 or 100 or 20 or 5 i ask myself when she did that number one did it affect my self-esteem yeah it made me feel like a piece of shit Did it affect my pocketbook? Not always, unless they took my money. Did it impact my ambition, what I wanted and what I thought I needed? Yeah, it held me back. Did it effect my personal relationship with her or anybody else? Yeah. Did it afect sex relations then or later on? See, I'm going to look at my belief system here. did it affect my pride what other people thought about me yeah because she said it in front of a bunch of other people and affected how i how other people see me what's the difference between self-esteem and pride i find that self-esteem comes from within and pride comes from out here what i'm hearing from other people you know the guys can pat me on the back and tell me i'm a wonderful guy for what i just did with that girl but i go home and i'm laying in bed and i look inside myself and i don't have any self-esteem i find self-esteem is what i'm telling myself about myself and pride is what other people are telling me about myself what about my security what about security what i need what i want yeah it affected my security pride I didn't find in those first two paragraphs pride I found down the bottom of the example with with the wife on page 65 and it's amazing the number of people that sell themselves short and think that's all that this book says to do you do a three column inventory you put down who you were mad at you put down all the reasons why and then you put which one of those seven things were affected self-esteem pocketbook ambition personal relations sex relations pride security and you just leave it at that and then continue to find out and blame the rest of the world for the rest of your sorority however long or short that might be the example on that page is a great example of the three columns that we have done so far the person in the left hand column what you think is the cause for the resentment in the second column what they did and what was affected in the third column if you want to save yourself some time they suggest that for every time you see some fear when when she did number one and when you were affected when those seven things were affected that you mark fear that'll save you some time for your fear inventory says we went back through our lives sometimes it helped when I started with today and went back through to my earliest memory. Sometimes it helped when I was making that list of people, institutions, and principles. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished with this part we considered it carefully. So when I'm done with the first three columns I read it. And I ask myself is it apparent that this world and its people were often quite wrong? And I go, yeah. I want to say that the world and his people were always wrong. That's why I turned out the way I did. To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse and then we were sore at ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our own way the worst matters got as in more the victor only seemed to win our moments of triumph were short lived there's a statement back a couple pages on page 62 that I think is the greatest statement of hope in the book of Alcoholics Anonymous and I was told not to go into the next part of this resentment inventory until I found the positive side to this statement and the statement is on page 62 and the statement is so our troubles we think are basically of our own making. The next part of this inventory is going to ask me to look at every resentment I've written about and see where I played a part, where I was at fault. And if I go into that part of the inventory without seeing the glory and the freedom of my troubles or of my own making, I will beat myself up with the fourth column until I'm just a piece of crap. See, that's the negative side to that statement. Oh, my troubles are of my own making. I brought all this on. What a rotten, terrible person I am. See? I'm good at that. But I needed to find the positive side to that statement and what I saw was that my old inventories, you know, the kind we used to do in our head where we knew who we were mad at and we knew exactly why we were mad and in our self-centered way we knew how we were affected my old inventories used to read like this this is who i'm mad at this is what they did this is how it affects me and if that person doesn't change i'm not going to feel better and here i am going through my life waiting for the world and all its people and these institutions and these principles i've resented that are timeless to change so i can feel better because i think it's about feeling better but i needed to find the positive side of that state because i saw here i was walking around on the streets locked up in a penitentiary waiting for the world and all these things to change so i could feel better now how do i find the positive side of that statement thank god my troubles are of my own making thank god because no one in that first column nobody that i've ever blamed nobody that I've ever been mad at has to change for me to get well half of them are dead half of my principles that are never going to change and half of him aren't going to thank god. My troubles are up my own, making and please let me see with every resentment i've written about so far where i can get free because if i gotta wait for them to change i'm stuck another problem that i had that i needed some clarification on was that third column when i looked at those seven things self-esteem pocketbook ambition personal relations sex relations pride and security i thought those were the seven deadly sins or something and those were the seven things i needed to get rid of and a guy said to me no no no no those are the seven things you absolutely need to get back based on anything other than what you always have you see i always gave my self-esteem to the people in the first column that girl and then she did whatever she did and it made me mad so she had my self-esteem she took it or i would give my ambition to them or i would give my pride to them and then whenever they made me man they they owned my pride they took it so i thought those things were bad or wrong self-esteem and pride and ambition and all that but i couldn't really come to terms with that until i saw no those are the seven things i need to get back based on something other than what i used to base them on people places and things i hope today that i can say that that most of the time my self-esteem is based on one thing and one thing only i'm a child of god and he loves me like nobody else was ever born and he love you that much too and i start to learn respect i hope i never put a personal relationship before my relationship with god because every time i do i lose it i hope that i can someday learn to have sex to give rather than get i hope someday i can put god before my pocketbook and find out i end up getting more than i ever dreamed of see i got to base those seven things on a power greater than myself i always based them on everybody in the first column and they always let me down the next paragraph on page 66 talks about and i use it as a question now is it plain to me that life which includes deep resentment led only to futility and unhappiness to the precise extent that i permitted these resentments did i squander the hours that might have been worthwhile now we start once again to learn how to use this book every statement as a question to see am i convinced but with me whose hope is the maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience is it is my hope the maintenance in growth of a spiritual experience do i believe this business of resentment is infinitely grave have i found that it is fatal do i believed when harboring such feelings of resentment that i shut myself off from the sunlight of the spirit And do I believe that the insanity of alcohol will return and then I'll drink again? And do I believe that with me to drink is to die? If I am to live, do I have to be free of anger? It says there I had to. The grouch and the brainstorm aren't for me. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for the alcoholic these things are poison. Now they use some pretty strong language for resentment. destroys more alcoholics than anything else futility unhappiness fatal poison kills but now it tells me the part of the inventory that i never saw on my own and i never saw because it wasn't in that example and i didn't know that there was another part but it says we turn back to the list what i've written so far for what i've written so far holds the key to the future i am prepared to look for it the key of the future from an entirely different angle you see and i don't think the people that wrote this book want the key in my future to be a self-destructive beat myself up what a rotten terrible person i am exercise i think they want it to be something i'm going to learn to do to get free like a key to the penitentiary i'm locked up in a key to the future and i'm going to look for this key to the future in what i've written if i can look at it from an entirely different angle if you have a new third edition or if you have pocket-sized big book look at the difference there in that the misprint because it says we were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle there's a big difference there between looking at and looking for they had me looking at something in what I've written this this this the way it was originally look written has me looking forward to the key that to the future I begin to see that the world and its people really dominated me in that state the wrongdoings of others fancied or real see most of what I write in the second column they didn't do or some of it was fanciED it was in my head the fantasy life that I had whether fanciEd or real had power to actually kill how can I escape have I seen that these resentments must be mastered but how I couldn't wish them away any more than alcohol yet I hear people all the time I'm working on resentment. This was our course. We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms in the second column and the way they disturbed us in the third column, they, like ourselves... See, that's a very important part of this prayer that's coming up that I leave out all the time because I want to put me up here and them down here. I need to remember they, just like me, are perhaps spiritually ill or spiritually sick we ask god to help us show them the same tolerance pity and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend when a person offends we say to ourselves this is a sick man like myself how can i be helpful to him god save me from being angry that i will be done this is great prayer for anger resentment and some people have had to use this prayer for each person as they go on to the next part of the inventory. We avoid retaliation or argument. We wouldn't treat sick people that way. If we do, we would distort our chance of being helpful. We can't be helpful to all people, but at least God will show us how to take a kindly and tolerant view of each and every one. Now I find the directions for the fourth column. Referring to my list again, putting out of my mind the wrongs others had done in the second column, I resolutely look for my own mistakes. So I either get another piece of paper and let it correspond with each resentment for each person, or I don't try to leave room on the page I've written. I get another notebook and I put the person's name again and I write down the number and I answer these questions. I look at the first column. When mom... I look a the second column. Did this... and it affected me like this and i'm just looking at that number one resentment i'm just looking across the page not down where was i selfish i was selfish because i wanted her to or was i dishonest i was dishonest because i didn't tell her where was I self-seeking i wanted Her to be where was i frightened i was frightened because i thought she would though a situation is not entirely my fault we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely where was I to blame this inventory is mine not the other man's when I saw my faults we I list them I placed them before me in black and white that's pretty plain that this is meant to be written we admitted our wrongs honestly and we're willing to set these matters straight so with resentment i have a four-column inventory i've made a list of people institutions and principles i've taken the first name off that list and i put it in the left hand column and then i've written every resentment i ever had toward them everything they ever did that made me angry and then I've taken each of those one at a time and looked at what are those seven things were affected when they did that the self-esteem the pride the ambition etc etc now I wouldn't suggest this for everybody but some people that have written this kind of an inventory before when they do another one they start to look at a detailed third column and ask themselves why was my self-esteem affected why was my ambition affected why were my personal relationships affected when they did that. And you really see your belief systems. You see my self-esteem was affected when she did that because I think I'm one hell of a, and my ambition was affected because I feel like I should get, but I wouldn't suggest that to someone who's doing it for the first time. So you look at those seven things. And then you go down and you look AT THOSE SEVEN THINGS FOR EVERY RESENTMENT WITH EVERYBODY THAT YOU wrote about and then you go into the fourth column with the right attitude please let me find where I played a part because if I can't find where i played apart with each resentment in my life I'm going to be stuck and I'm gonna have to wait for them to change thank God my troubles are of my own making thank God I can find where I play a part with every resentment I've ever had in my life. And I go into that fourth column and I look at the number one thing Mom did, and I ask myself, where was I selfish, dishonest, self-seeking or afraid? And then number two, and then number three, and I answer those questions for each resentment I have ever had. Now, sometimes somebody will say, it's really hard for me to find where I was at fault when my dad molested me when I was a little kid. Here I am, this 5, 6, 7, 8-year-old kid, innocent, strolling along, going through life, and somebody did something to me. You're not going to be able to show me where I wasn't at fault. And what we say to them is right. You were exactly right. You were not at fault that he did that when you were 5,6,7 years old. But what you've done with that for the last 30 years, what you've held on to and what it's done between you and him and how you've expected him to be anything other than what he was at the time has kept you from getting free. You know, what people did to me when I was a little teeny kid, I can't find my fault. But what I did with it for the next 30, 40 years of my life and how that blocked me is how I played a part, holding on to resentments. Because I want to play God and I want him to be anything other than what he was. One of the greatest freedoms I've ever had in the middle of a fifth step listening to someone else's is when a guy couldn't find where he played a party with his resentment against Hitler because he's Jewish. And to most people it would seem really hard. Well, I certainly can't help you find where you play a part with your resentment against Hitler. I mean, my God, he killed how many million people? But it dawned on me and I realized how selfish has it been of you to think that he should have been anything other than what he was. You want to play God. You want the world. You want history. I wanted to change my dad's age. He was 57. I wanted him to be 30. She was loving, but I wanted her to be a little more stern. She was stern. I wanted Her to be A little more loving. My God, I see all the way through the fourth column how I play God. How I wanted the world to be the way I wanted it to be. Sometimes it would be so silly, I'd be writing about a couple of girlfriends and I'd Be putting their names down and I'D put, well, she was too loving. She paid too much attention and it made me feel smothered. and then I'd get to the next girlfriend and I would be putting I was mad because she didn't pay enough attention she wasn't loving enough and I'd go to the fourth column and I saw how I played God with both of them I wanted one to be like the other and the other to be liked the other and even if they would have each been different I would have been mad anyway and I start to see that what I do in the fourth column was there before I ever met him most of the time it was there waiting for him to come along my selfishness My dishonesty, my self-seeking and my fear was just waiting there for people to come along and do anything so I could blame you for being angry. My fourth column set up my life. I had another guy reading the fifth step and he had the first three columns in one hand and he said, and he has the fourth column in another hand and about halfway through that resentment inventory he looked at me and he says, you know, these first three problems was all I ever had to go on. and you know what it's all a lie this is the truth the fourth column is the truth i'm telling you if you haven't had an experience with the first three steps and you haven't experienced the presence of god in whatever way you've experienced it and you don't feel safe and protected you can't go into that part of the inventory without being eaten alive because that's the truth you've run from for however many years you've been on the planet. That's the stuff my ego takes me away from and says, it's not my fault. I didn't play any part in bringing that on. And that's the part I got to be able to see through. And I believe that part of the inventory can only happen in prayer. That truth that I've run from for 30 years where I can really see with every resentment I ever had in my life I played a part there's two more parts to the inventory fear and sex and we'll cover those two parts next week