The Fourth Step Inventory – Chance for Change Workshop – Part 2 of 3 – Myers R.

Thank you, Jamie, for that stirring rendition. That was great. That was a funny thing. The worst thing that can happen sometimes is to sit in front on a day like this with the door open and you can feel the breeze and all the attendant, damn it, I need to be mowing the grass today kind of things that come with it, all the stuff that we need to be doing. I made an executive decision to shorten some of this stuff up a little bit so we still got some daylight left to go do some things and what we're going to do is we're gonna do this for 30 or 40 minutes and then if you guys have any questions, we're to take a few minutes at the end of this thing. You can either write them down and bring them to me or you can stand up and tell me and I'll repeat the question. We'll answer a few questions on the stuff then we'll take a little fast smoke break and then we'll come back and then we'll do a little deal on 12-step work and sponsorship which is really and truly the reason I came. It's this last little piece of talk that really needs to be dealt with. We need to talk about it and kind of see because it's the stuff that a lot of us sort of have sort of trivialized and we've sort of set it at a distance from our program and it causes all kinds of problems And so it's also the funnest part of the deal. It's also The Part that will enrich your life more than anything in the world, and so we want to talk a little bit about that so that it becomes easier to do. Before lunch, we talked about this third step stuff and about getting this thing set up, and we addressed this idea about inventory. Inventory is the bugaboo of AA. It's the stuff that either, it's no wonder that we sit in meetings for years talking about our inventory and how much we don't want to do it. And then once we do it, we talk for the next six months about how relieved we were that we did it. I mean, it just takes an inordinate amount of time talking about this inventory. And I don't know, I had two sponsors before I came to Primary Purpose Group and we did all kinds of things. There was kind of this free-flowing idea about inventory. And I was one of the guys that, well, my inventory took eight hours. I mean, I was One of those kind of guys that was allowed to just run roughshod through all kinds of stuff. And it was the interesting part about it is, is that in the end, when I was finished with a deal, I Was, yes, indeed relieved that I had done the inventory. I was glad that I got it. But nothing really got resolved. Nothing really changed in my life. It was just a process. There seems to be two schools of thought, and one of them that we see a lot in our neck of the woods is this deal about writing your life story as your inventory. I'm just going to write my life story, and then I'm going to read it to my sponsor. It doesn't seem the way that the book lays it out. The book seems to me in direct conflict to that. The deal with, or they just get real long and convoluted. I've got 60 pages of inventory and I'm going to read through the whole deal. But we don't put any emphasis on a fourth column in the deal, so we don'T really see any truth to the thing. It's like it becomes, the inventory becomes like confessional. I'll just dump it and that's what we're supposed to do. And again, that's not what the inventory said. That's not What they talk about. They talked about us getting more out of this deal. It was supposed to be something that was more... But the biggest single problem that I see, guys, is that it keeps us... If that's my experience, long-winded, protracted inventories, then when it comes time for this guy to say, hey, would you sponsor me? Would you carry me through this work? My mind's eye doesn't take it to a place where he's standing there, a shining beacon of AA. My mind goes to one day when I have to sit down and spend eight hours listening to this guy schlep through his turmoil. And it's, you see what I'm saying? So if you're sponsoring one guy every two years, it's not a big deal. It's a price you pay to play. But what happens if you'RE sponsoring five guys at once or ten guys at ones and you have to get... Or what happens then if you'Re in a treatment situation where you're around a bunch of treatment center deals like this and you're doing... I went five years listening to three-fifths steps a week. Every week. You can't do it. And so I'm thinking, well, am I just not doing what I'm supposed to be doing? Am I just selling these guys short by trying to shorten this thing up? And the reality of this stuff was is when I got over to Primary Purpose Group and I spent a bunch of time with men who had been carried through the work by Joe McQueenie of the Joe and Charlie bunch, then I began to realize that my ideas about this thing called inventory were completely off base. and some of you guys may be there it's not my goal to change anything you're doing, I'm not here to change anything, if what you did work, great but based on what I learned and based on What I Learned going back through this stuff, one of the things that I found real quick was, if you're looking at your book, let's turn over to the inventory real quick we're not going to get real bogged down in this, I'M NOT GOING TO GET REAL INTELLECTUAL WITH THIS STUFF, mainly because I'M TOO STUPID TO GET INTELLECTIAL WITH IT BUT SOMETIMES WE GET REALLY BOGGED DOWN in the minutia of inventory and it just gets real tedious and you're tired and you are full and we just don't want to do that. We are going to talk in bigger and bigger pieces here. I am painting with a big old broad brush and we are going see if we can move this around a little bit so that you look at the process differently than what you have been looking at it before. That is the important thing to see. whether you write this inventory out as you can turn to page 65 we can kind of start right there whether you're doing this as a written journal or whether you are doing this thing in a notebook writing four columns across the page or whether your doing it in sheets or forms or whatever the deal is I don't really care If you're using sheets or forms, I would prefer that you would be using things that don't add a bunch of stuff that's not in the big book. I like the idea of forms on the things because it keeps things really organized and it's easier as you're going through in a fifth step like this. But I've seen some that are so convoluted and so complicated that they just... There was one that was floating around out there that's still out there that there's 32 pages of instruction on how to do this inventory. And, you know, it's like... I got to tell you guys, after about five pages of reading just the instructions on how to do it, my little eyes glazed over and I'm just like, I tried it twice and I woke up in a little pool of drool. I mean, I just, I can't do it. I'm not smart enough to get my head around the abstract ideas that the inventory was supposed to conjure up. I can'T, I JUST CAN'T DO IT. And most of the guys, especially in those days, most ofthe guys that I worked with were street-level guys. These were guys brand new off the street, and God love them. They could barely put a sentence together, much less do what this inventory was asking us to do. So one of the very first things that Joe and Charlie and this bunch showed me, my sponsor was sponsored by Joe McQuainy for years until Joe died, and one ofthe things that he told me was this deal about a commercial inventory. Look on page 64, middle of the page. It says, therefore we started upon a personal inventory. Hmm. Tell you what. Let's back up one more paragraph. Look at the very top of that thing. At the bottom of page 63, we did this third step deal. We got this little guy. Remember in our illustration from before, we're still sitting in the same meeting. Now everybody's gone except me and another guy and this guy right here. And we're sitting at a table with cold coffee. Everybody else has gone from the meeting hall and it's just us. We've been there 25, 30 minutes working with this guy. He's already done step one and two. He knows his truth. He knows His solution. And we're going to look at this inventory deal. He's gotten on his knees. We did a little third-step prayer. He's ready to go do the deal. What does it say at the very bottom of that page? Next, we launch down on the course of vigorous action. Is there anybody in here that's never read that? This isn't new news to any of you. And yet, it's funny that within our fellowship, we just trivialize it and set it aside. This was just Bill Wilson being rhetorical in how he was writing this stuff. He didn't really mean next. Yes, he did. He did. He meant exactly what he said. Next we launch down in the course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal house cleaning. Interesting. Now, which many of us have never attempted. Now, though our decision was a vital and crucial step, the decision was this third-step decision that we just made with this little guy, it could have little permanent effect unless at once, followed by a strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things in ourselves which have been blocking us. Unless at once, you see, this is more declarative statement. Let's separate this thing. We'll take one little side trip here like this. Bill Wilson and those cats, when they put the book together, they're set up in two different styles. Bill Wilson writes in rhetorical statement a lot. I was born in a New England town. Bill Wilson's just painting a picture. It doesn't demand any real study and it doesn't command any real head scratching. He's just telling you where he was born. and then there is a declarative statement that Bill makes often over and over and over again, and in these statements what he's doing is he's giving us direction, specific direction, how to do this we must not shrink that's a declaritive statement that says what? We must not shrink Bill Wilson meant this stuff directly, what he was saying and if we look at it from that perspective then what we find is that there seems to be a degree of urgency in how we get guys through the work Some of you guys get appalled about the idea about carrying guys through the work first and yet tell me in the book where either rhetorically or declaratively they ever say, take your time. There's one place that it says, take our time and that's this third step piece we're going to think well before we go on. They talk about it in some... Yeah. This deal... But how many of you guys have not experienced this same thing of sitting in meetings with people who are two years sober and who have never, ever done an inventory yet? They've made a thousand excuses why they can't do it. And we as sponsors sit there and let them do it That's the part that always gets me a little goofy. Why do we do that? There's only one reason for letting somebody do this. We either don't fully understand the inventory process and there's not a dang thing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with it. You just got to fix it. You can't stay here and not fix it. Why would you want to? If you recognize the fact that you don't understand the inventory process, why would you wanna just stay and wallow in it? Why don't you just go back through it, gather up the pieces, learn it, and then all of the anxiety around that process goes away. It's the coolest thing in the whole wide world, guys. It really is. So we're gonna get this guy up and we get him in this deal. We go through the thing. I want you to flip back over to page 64, a third of the way down. Bill Wilson likens this thing to a commercial inventory. It says, a business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Now taking a commercial inventory is a fact-finding and fact-facing process, period. It is an effort to discover the truth about stock and trade, period." Here it is. One object is to disclose damaged or unsaleable goods and get rid of them promptly and without regret. Huh. Now if we looked at it from that perspective um this takes on a different different feel it takes on a different kind of urgency to it it's a commercial inventory we're looking at good stuff and bad stuff what's the biggest single problem with listening to a guy's inventory they get too wordy and it stretches out too long guys the problem that we run into that certainly for me for many many years the reason i didn't want to do inventory with people is because I got, I just, you just get, it was just a beating to sit there for eight hours listening to you ramble about all of the stuff that you went through. It was just a beaten, it's not that it's not important, it is just that it is too much my experience has told me this one thing you may or may not agree, it ok. My experience has been that if you spend a lot of time talking in an inventory you are basically spending a lot of time trying to justify your bad behavior. That's it. That'sit. What happens was, it is like, well see then I got busted by the cops. Well, let me tell you what it was like. It was Wednesday in the afternoon and I'd been really really tired and we were driving down this road and this cop pulls up behind me and goes, stop, stop. I don't need to know all this. We're in a commercial inventory. I just need to known the big picture about what's going on. The rest of this stuff is just you trying to justify why these cops were mean to you. You see? That's it. So you say, well, I don' understand the commercial inventory. Well any of you guys ever do any kind of inventory at the places where you work and this kind of stuff? It's like, put it in a little grocery store type thing. Let's just say you go in like this and you're going to go through the thing and you are looking at the milk and you go, Milk, huh, sour. We got to get rid of that milk. Milk, sour。 See, why do I need to know how the milk got sour? I don't. Well see, we usually get deliveries on Wednesday, but we didn't get deliveries for Wednesday. we've got deliveries on Tuesday. Now, the problem is when they put the milk here then they didn't put it back here and then we didn't. Does this sound familiar? It's the same kind of just and the guy that's listening to this stuff is just going like oh my God shoot me please it just gets but more importantly guys it has little to do with the big picture about what's going on. Do I need to listen to his deal? Yes but I'm the one that's in charge I'm not the one that's trying to direct this thing and keep this thing heading in the right direction You see, I don't care how the milk got sour. I have unsaleable goods in that cooler that I can't sell and I need to identify it. Milk, sour. Next? It's just like that. It's juste like that and as you get into it like this, there'll be certain things guys, we all know this, there'll being certain things, I mean when they start off, well, there was this sheep. No, y'all don't do that here but in Texas, In Texas, a lot of our inventories start out that way. Well, there was this sheep. You're going to need to listen to a little of this, okay? I'm not saying don't. I'm just... That was a bad one. Yeah. Let's look at the bigger picture. Let's take a step back and look at the bigger figure of why we're doing this anyway. This inventory is about what? It's about something to get my sponsor off my back. I'll hand you that. Check. That works. But in a bigger picture, this is about conflict resolution. This is about understanding why we do the crazy things that we do. The things that separate me from God and the people about me. So, anybody, any of you guys ever do anything really crazy let's say we're in a meeting and I have words with some guy across the table from me and it gets into a kind of a little more than just it's like hey you and then we start talking back and forth and a little cross-talking action and before we're finished with the conversation we're at each other's nose. It's almost like this. Okay, so what's the first thing you do when you leave? The first thing you do when you live if you're like me you get on your cell phone and I call my buddy who wasn't in the meeting and I go, you know what that prick did and I'm just like see, I'm telling him my story because I want him to see I want my guy, my buddy, my friend to understand what a victim I've been in this situation I didn't do anything and so what do we do? We maximize or minimize the story depending on what it is to make it the way we want it to be the way WE see it and then we buy into it and we hold onto it dearly And that's the story that we tell forever and ever and ever. I was talking to a buddy of mine just a minute ago before the deal. You ever notice that as you get healthier and you begin to look at some of these situations, it's like you talk to a brother or sister in the same family that you were raised in and you say, did you remember this? And they're sitting back there scratching their head going, I don't remember any of this, buddy. It's not the way it happened at all. You see, we make these things the way we want them to be to justify our anger and this. And so column one and column two on your inventory is simply that. Column one is who it was. Column two is what's the story you told all your friends? What did you tell your friends, you see? Because in reality, what I want to happen is this. I wantto tell Doug about what happened in that meeting so that he and I can hate you together. And if we can get Billy in on the deal too and we can get Billy to agree with it. Yeah, yeah, golly, I can't believe they treated you so shabbily. I can'T believe that. Now I got Dougie and Billy and me hating your guts. And we're just going down the road like this and if I can get a whole bunch of people doing that, that's the way we do it. These are the things that we're trying to clear up and see. We're tryingto identify them first and then we'retrying to get a pathway by which we canget rid of them and be done with it We want to see the truth about what happened. and that's the tough part, you see. Coming from ego, coming from my own personal ego, I will always be right, you'll always be wrong, I'll always by the victim, always. It's bad with guys, it's bad times ten with women. I've seen it time and time again. I'm fortunate to have some really, really, really, my best buddies in AA are women. And I'm telling you, we talk lots about that, about how a lot of women struggle with this victim thing. And there's something about staying a victim where there's some comfort in that. It's bad, yes, but it's better than trying to fix it because it takes a lot OF courage to get up there and fix it. It does. It does, and I'm not making light of any of that, guys. I'm NOT. I've seen it on both sides of the aisle. I've SEEN that. And so that whole process with this inventory is trying to get these things worked around so that we can resolve some of the conflict and see the truth about what really happened with our life. And it's fast. It's fast, guys. I have done, oh, I've listened to hundreds and hundreds of fifth steps, hundreds of them. And it is a funny thing is that as you begin to look at this thing, what you began to see is is that selfishness and self-centeredness as you begin to look at that inventory on the stuff, it says, referring to our list again, putting out of the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked at what? God bless you. Our own what? 99.999% of everybody in AA says just that. But it says our mistakes. Let me tell you the only problem about that idea, about our part, and I did it for years. Absolutely years. The only problem with the idea of a part is that there's an unsaid thing that denotes that somebody else had a part to play too. And you know what, guys? I stomped on some people and hurt some people and they didn't have any part to played. I made a mistake based on self which put me in a position to be hurt. When you look at the drama of your life, if we looked at it, we talked to everybody in here and we said, hey, what caused the drama in your life? Everybody will say the same thing. You'll say booze, drugs, booze. Drugs, just ad nauseum. And yet we start looking at the inventory and what's the very first thing that we see? The booze and drugs didn't have crap to do with my drama. It was there maybe, but it didn't have anything to do it. What had to do with it? My own selfishness and self-centeredness. My need to have what I wanted when I wanted it. Let me give you an illustration. The boss says, hey, can you work some overtime this afternoon? And you say, uh, overtime or strip joint with the boys? Uh, no, I can't work it this afternoon. I made a decision based on self. I want to be sitting in the strip joint with the boys drinking beer based on self which later put me in a position to be hurt. Now, six months later, raises come due everybody's there looking at the deal like this you don't get a raise and you spend the rest of your life hating that boss because he didn't give you the if I'd have got the raise I could have got that house that my wife and I were looking at and we'd have been blah blah blah you see what I'm saying? I maximize it or minimize it to make the story exactly the way I want it to be Never seeing the part that nine out of ten times when he asked me to work overtime, I said no. I said, no, because at that particular moment there was something else I would rather be doing. Whatever it happened to be, you see? You see why it's so important to understand that and see that? If you can see it with that kind of clarity and realize that I'm the one that set the ball rolling, 90% of all my drama was based on two things, selfishness and fear, which was a root, a manifestation of self. But it all came back from that. That's the reason why Bill Wilson was so clear in his deal that the root of our trouble lies in self. You see? So as we go through there, my job is to, as I'm carrying him through the work and I'm listening to his inventory and we're going through this thing, I'm trying to get him to see in every one of these relationships the mistakes that he made in the relationship. What is it that you did that put yourself in a position to be hurt? And after you've done a few of them, they become easier and easier and easy to do that. You see, fear plays a big part in a lot of this kind of stuff. Fear always comes in two forms. I'm either afraid that I'm going to lose what I already have or I'm afraid that I'm not going to get something that I think I want. Those two forms of fear drive me to make millions of decisions and I'm often just caught off guard. Why would they retaliate like that? Why would они так жалко меня? And once you begin to look at it and once you have somebody that's plugged into this little deal with you and me and God sitting in a room, it's pretty amazing some of the stuff that comes out of it and in the end what happens is is that you come out of it not feeling relieved because you did the inventory I mean there may be a little of that but what really who comes out of it is that you come out feeling exposed you come out feeling kind of caught off guard because the story you've been selling yourself all these years that you're a victim in this deal doesn't hold any water what you begin to realize is that that you've harmed lots and lots of people based on your need to have what you wanted when you wanted it. Right, and there's the problem. That's why we end up so dismayed. So if you can identify that stuff and you can see it, what you'll do is you'll stand up from that inventory glad to be done with it, but you'll also be going, now what? Cliff Bishop and I did it in that little parlor of that church and I remember standing up and I just looked at him and I busted out crying and he said, what's this about? And I said, buddy, I just didn't realize how absolutely off base I had been. I've treated people horribly based on what I wanted. And he said, I know. And I said, so what do I do? And he says, six and seven. This is what separates it. This is how you get it all gathered back up again and how you go on out from here like this. But you have to identify it. Let me ask you a question. This is an observation and this is an opinion. I don't have this as fact. Have you ever, like in a Sunday school class, have you ever said, you know, God, I just want to be a better man? And then wondered why nothing never seems to really come out of it. A lot of us do that kind of stuff. I sometimes picture God sitting back scratching his head going, a what? A better man. I don't quite understand. I'm not a better men. See, it's just big and vague and broad. Now, picture this situation. I have sat with my sponsor for a couple hours. We have gone through this inventory. He showed me the depth of my own selfishness, the depth that I had to take care of. The depth of how just inconsiderate I am to most of the people that I'm around to get what I want. And then he says, this is the specific stuff that I want you to take to God in 6 and 7. And so as I sit there quietly and take my hour and I'm all there by myself talking, just me and God talking like this, I can say, God, let me tell you what I just saw. I spent two hours in there with that old guy in there tonight and I realized for the very first time how selfish and self-centered I am. And I began to identify the things that separate me from God. And you know what? During that course of that conversation, I also identified the fact that I am defiant to a fault and that I'm full of so much pride that it is... You see? These are the things I uncovered as I went through this inventory. And now I can go to God and specifically ask Him to remove each one of those things individually. And there's where the power of this thing seems to be. That's why it seems to work so well. I am devastated by what I find. I don't want to be like I am. I don'T want to BE there. Another good reason to kind of keep the momentum gathered up on this stuff, we DON'T want TO sit with this thing for a long, long time. That's the reason I asked my guys that night, We're going to finish this inventory tonight. I want you to spend the hour by yourself and talk about this stuff. Call me if anything was omitted. You may remember something later, but there's a big difference between omission and just absolutely not telling me something that's there. I mean, forgetting is a different deal. But it's an amazing thing to see what happens like this. Have any of you guys ever done inventory with people and had them go do their hour and have them come back in or see you at a meeting a couple of days later and watched how they walked into the room? It's the most amazing thing in the whole wide world to watch physically how they stand taller, how they seem a little more focused on what they're doing. I've had two guys and I didn't even recognize them when they walk in they walked around the corner and they sat there and I'm still looking for them hoping that we have a chance to talk before the meeting starts I didn'y even recognize him finally I see a guy wave at me going Myers are we going to have time to do this before the holy cow I didn''t even I didn ''t even recognize you it's that it's the it's transformation of who we are we spend an entire lifetime beating people up and they they retaliate and we beat them up some more and they retaliated And this battle royale goes for years and years and we wonder why we can't look at anybody. Why our perception of ourselves is so crappy. Guys, I went years where I could look at myself in the mirror. Years where I just simply could not do it. I'd shave in the morning like this and I'd just like this feel and shave and feel and shave but I just wouldn't look it, you know. My wife would be looking at me and she said, well, you're doing it again. I said, what? She said, the beard thing, you like this. I'd have this one almost shaved off and this one up here like this but I never looked. I just couldn't stand the thought of looking at it, you know. And I'll never forget doing this inventory with Clifford that day and I got the thing done and I went and spent my hour and the next morning I got up like this and I'm standing in this bathroom and I remember just kind of looking and I am getting real emotional and I kind of like this it's gotten to be such a big thing for me and I just kind looked up and there I was I just looked in the mirror and I remembered thinking you are as ugly as the last time I looked at you And then the next thing I remember, I just remember that it was okay. I was okay with the man staring back at me. I realized that I have a lot of work to do. I realized there's a lot people that I owe amends to. And there are a lot things that I've chosen to ignore in the 10, 11, and 12 part of this program. But it was ok. I was fine. And being able to walk in like this. And I remember sitting in a meeting that night. The next meeting that we had, I was sitting in that meeting. And I remembered Clifford walking up to me and said, You know what Myers? He said, I don't know if I've ever seen you laugh since I've known you. And tonight, you didn't stop all night long. And it was the truth. Life stopped being a burden because I could kind of get into it and enjoy it. You see? I wouldn't. I especially see this in women, guys. I'm super sensitive to it because I have three daughters. And I watch how their perceptions of themselves seem to be based in who they're dating. Weird. Weird. if they're dating a nice looking guy they seem to walk a little taller if some bum kind of comes in to the picture and they seem to I don't know where they come from but they seem to then I watch them you know just looking at the floor just kind of you know they don't want to you understand what I'm saying it's just kind of weird how that stuff works out so it's we talk about mental health in AA the biggest thing we need to be talking about is how do we change everything in AA this idea that we're just going to change this stuff so that we don't drink anymore is laughable at best. It's just laughable. If you're not ready to change everything about who you are, I don't know. I mean, this could get real weird for you because you'll change everything. It's the coolest to know and understand when you get up in the morning that your self-worth doesn't depend on somebody else. The Al-Anons figured this out a long time ago. You see? Some of us in AA are just now starting to realize what's going on on that stuff. It's a cool deal. So as we get through this stuff, what you'll end up with is a list of stuff. Oh, I want to tell you something real quick. This thing about pride and defiance, I heard some guy one time say he didn't have anything to take into his 6th and 7th experience. He didn't Have you in AA ever said you won't do something? Uh-huh. That's just pure defiance. Pure defiance. Has anybody ever, have you ever been in a situation where you're driving into a gas station or a little 7-Eleven place like this and you're getting ready to pump some gas and you pull in with another guy and he's right there by you and he gets to the pump, he cuts in front of you? Have you ever stopped to look at how you react to the fact that he got to the bump ahead of you ? It's just, it's a great example of the manifestation of pride that I've ever seen in my life. My idea in my head that I have a right to be at that pump before he does, You see? And to the extent of my anger and to the extend of how I react to that stuff is the extent that I need to pay attention to this stuff. If I'm mildly annoyed, that's one thing. If I want to get out and take a rocket launcher and blow this guy into the next generation, there it is. You see, I'm more of that type. I just, I kept looking for a place to mount a rocket launch on my Land Cruiser. And it just left... I can tell you from personal experience It won't pass inspection, so you've got to be real careful about that kind of ideas. It won'T. We're going to do... I tell you what, this is a good place to... Anybody have any questions about the stuff that we've talked about? Or concern? Or any of that kind OF stuff? We're GOING TO talk briefly about a little amends stuff. Just a real brief. And then we're GOIN to take a little break and smoke real quick. And then WE'RE GOING to come back and WE'RE going to DO some work around this 12-step stuff. which I think you'll find interesting. Hope so anyway. Anybody have any questions? You can also catch me afterwards if you don't feel comfortable asking questions in here. It's cool. Or you can email me. I'll get 30 emails when I get back. And it's perfectly fine too. Sir? On the top of page 64 there, how come you left off the last two sentences of that paragraph? I'm apt to do that. Our liquor was but a symptom So we had to get down the cost of everything, didn't we? Absolutely. But that's too fresh a word to say. Absolutely. Absolutely. This deal that the booze caused our problem needs to be smashed quickly. We need to understand what the lowdown... You know, there is no such thing as an alcoholic personality. Nobody's ever identified it as that, unless they've come up with something new that I never heard of like this. We tend to think of it like that. But what we do have is a deal where some of us, as we grow up, just gravitate towards more selfish stuff. You ever stop and think about the fact that we're not born selfish? We're notborn bigots. We'renot born hateful. These are traits that we learn from day-to-day type stuff. That's the reason why in some situations you'll have guys that come through this thing and they're not that selfish. You'll have other guys that are just absolutely... That's why some guys have three pages of inventory and why some Guys have 60 pages of Inventory. To the extent that they tried to exert themselves, there we are. Yes, sir? What if you get somebody like that and say that they're not selfish to the extent of being a martyr? Well, that's a good question, and it happens. The question is what happens if you... What do you do if you get a guy who says that he's not selfish to the extreme, that he is trying to be a martyr in the deal? Self-delusion is a funny thing. With alcoholics, it sometimes gets tragic how the stories that we sell ourselves, that we buy into, and I did some of that, thinking that I was just a victim in the situation. I am giving and caring. I'm just a sensitive guy trying to do the best I can. You know what? We get in this inventory and we start looking at all the people that I'd stepped on and I stepped really hard on some of them. And that's the reason why this stuff is so important that we go through, quit all the chatter, quit allthe talking and stuff trying to justify things and let a sponsor who has had a spiritual awakening help me see the truth about that stuff. That's the region why it's so important to go through this work with somebody who's had that experience. It's an amazing deal. Any of you guys, in your experience, guys or gals, either one, Have you guys ever gone through an experience with an inventory where you walked out when you were done and kind of scratching your head went, where did all that crap come from? I mean, you're showing this guy stuff that he'd never seen before and you're showing him this fear that he's never dealt with and you are pulling out all this stuff. All of a sudden, this guy is going, I've been in therapy my whole life and I never saw this stuff. And you're all sitting back there hugging and clapping and you all are all happy with everything. And then you walk out and you sit in your car and you go, holy, where did that stuff come from? Did I just get smart all of a sudden? No. You didn't get smart. What you got was pliable enough and willing to be humble enough that God was able to point out great pieces of clarity to you that you needed to show this guy, that you needed to help this guy with. I'll tell you what, you go into an inventory and try to make it an intellectual exercise and watch your man disengage from you in a heartbeat. Watch him just disconnect and drift off into the ozone. You'll see it every time. Go in coming from the gut and ask God to be in the room with you and watch what happens to the deal. It's the coolest. It is the coolest Once you get all this stuff gathered up you go through this six and seven and you begin to make this list this eight step thing guys don't let these guys twist and turn forever on this thing stay proactive about this deal stay on top of them there is no reason to back away It's like, as long as I have a blowtorch on my butt, I'll stay motivated. The moment the blowtorche comes away from me, I'll begin to slow down a little bit and see what the deal is. I have spent days now getting everything gathered up into a big old heap. I'm looking at it with clarity that I've never seen in my whole life. I understand how I've harmed people, and it's ugly, and it makes me feel real uncomfortable. But given sufficient time, guys, I will always justify my bad behavior. In retrospect, I'll look at it and I'll go, well, he was pretty bad too. Yeah, he treated me bad like that too. And then by the end of the day, it doesn't take long, by the End of the Day, I'm standing over here going, prick deserved the whole thing. Won't I? I do that. I do dat. And I bet some of you do it too. It is. But so, that's the reason I'm saying, keep the blowtorch on the guys that you're sponsoring. Keep the blowtorch right up there next to their rear end and ask them. This isn't a deal that we're... You don't want a guy going down the list going, okay, I've got all these things and I'm going to call them right now and we're going to do this stuff. This thing needs to be directed by God. But remember, pain and suffering is a great motivator. And so we want to make sure that we keep doing this. If my guys that I sponsor know that every week I'm looking at their eight-step list, and I do, if they're looking at it and they go six weeks and they've never made another amends and they still got six names on there. We're going to have a little powwow. We're gonna have a little chat. Why aren't you doing this? There's two reasons, guys, why this becomes really important. One, you cannot fit yourself to be a maximum service to God and the people about you if you still have a whole bunch of unresolved conflict in your life. You can't do it. It makes you what? A phony. A hypocrite. Yeah, I cheated my boss and I cheated on my wife and I did all this other kind of stuff but I want you to be a spiritual giant. I know, I know. I want you to go make those amends, but I haven't made my amends. You see? It just puts us in a bad situation. And that may be the biggest part of it. How can I effectively sponsor somebody if I'm not willing to do what I'm asking you to do? I'm ask you to be brave. I'm asking you to take a walk on a piece of faith that is unique like nothing you've ever done before. I'm asked you to walk out there and try to set right some wreckage that you did. when everything in your being screams, I don't want to do this. Everything. I don'T want to go see that boss I stole money from. Everything. And once you do and you begin to see what happens, you're going to know that new freedom that they talk about. And it's fairly magic. It is. But you just have to stay on. If you're in here today and you've not resolved that stuff, if you still have names on your list that are getting you like this, make a commitment to go back in and make a new list. Just go back and gather it up and pretend like you're starting all over again and watch and see what happens. You'll be amazed at how much fun it is to go back through and finally, and when you make that amends that you've been carrying for 10 or 15 years that you never made, watch how tall you walk. Watch how you handle the people about you differently. It's good stuff. I want to tell you a fast story about amends stuff and I won't get into a bunch of other deal like this. Then we'll go smoke real quick and just take a second. There was this kid named Jim that I sponsored for a long, long time and Jim was the whacked-outest little kid you ever saw in your life. Real small, just a crazy little guy. And he was at a wind-up joint for indigence where I used to go for a long time and he was just a nut job. But he had this experience with his dad. Dad lived up in Lubbock and his dad used to beat him with this belt buckle. You know how in Texas they have all these great big old belt buckles? was dad used to beat him with one of these big rodeo buckles until this kid bled and then he'd hold him into a bath of salt water until this kids passed out. It was a horrible experience for him. It was bad enough listening to it, but it was bad when he showed me the scars on his body. And I'm telling you, this kid had been absolutely brutalized by this guy's belt. I mean, it looked like he'd been beat with a meat tenderizer. There wasn't probably two square inches on his whole upper body that wasn't beat with that dadgum belt and so we get through this work and we get to his inventory and we through his list and he gives guy in three weeks he'd made every men's on this list except this deal with his dad and he said I what I really like to do is kill the son bitch and I said I understand but we need to deal with this you pray for the willingness and we'll see what happens and he does and I out of the blue it wasn't a week later I get a call from this guy and he says hey I'm going to Lubbock and I'm gonna go make an amends to this guy. And I went, are you sure? I never thought I'd be in a situation where I'd be saying, let's take some more time, but I'm kind of saying, are You sure you want to do this? And he said, yeah. He said, it's time. I need to deal with this. And he says, I hadn't seen my dad in probably 15 years and it's, it' s time to go fix this. And I said, well, okay. So buddy, he calls me, he leaves Dallas and it is probably a five-hour drive to Lubbock from there and I'm like on pins and needles and I am saying you call me when you get to Lubbbock and we are going to talk about this thing if anything changes in your demeanor, in the way that you are dealing with this, you call me and tell me and I will pull the plug on this deal. And he said no, we will all be okay. So I get this call and I said where are you? And he says I am sitting in front of his house and I say let's just pull the bug on it right now. I am just feeling real goofy about this deal and he said, no, I am going to be okay I am okay and so he he hangs up and i said now call me as quick as you get out of this deal and i say don't hang around okay let's just get this done and get out of there okay and he said okay so anyway so he calls me about three hours later i'm suicidal i'm nuts i mean i'm just sitting here my wife is looking at me going what is wrong with you and i says buddy i just it's a long story but trust me on this i'm coming unglued it's like the first time your daughter goes out on a date and you're sitting there watching the clock like this And you just go, God, it's only been 60 seconds and it feels like an hour. I mean, what are they doing out there that could be so important? They've got to be out there for 10 minutes. I mean what is this? I'm going nuts. And that's the way I felt when this kid was out there talking to his dad. So he called me and he said, I said, you okay? And he's crying real hard. And I said yeah. He said, yeah. He said I'll call you back in a minute. I think he's got to get a hold of myself. So he calls me back in about an hour, thank you. I want to wring his scrawny neck and he calls me back and he says this is what happened I walked up to the house and I knocked on the door and this old guy came to the door and I mean old this guy looked like he had aged 100 years and he said the guy didn't recognize me and I talked to him and we kind of acknowledged each other and he wanted so desperately to hurt this man I wanted, I did not believe it was going to work. I just wanted to hurt him. And he said, Myers, I've got to tell you, in my back belt I had a gun. And I thought if this guy starts it, I'll kill him right here. And I'm going, you didn't, Jim. You didn't hurt him, did you? And he goes, no, no. No, I didn't. He said, but let me tell you what happened. He said I walked in and I kept trying to picture this guy being the man that he was and he wasn't that man anymore. he was different and I was different. And I don't know whether it was real or whether it were a perception of something I don' t really know. I just know that I looked at this guy and I could not bring myself to hate him. I could not. And even tried, at one point I tried to stir some stuff up and I just couldn't make it happen. I just could' t make it happened. It was like God had stepped in and separated us somehow or another and the pain and the suffering of all of that time when He did those things to me was gone. and he said look I'm not going to lie to you I don't think I'm going to be penciled in on this Christmas card list I don's think we're going to have a relationship together but I want you to know that for whatever reason my willingness to forgive this guy was all I needed to do for the miracle of reconciliation to happen and when I was leaving he waved at me and you know the damnedest thing he told me that he loved me and I thought how weird and so I'm sitting in this car driving out of Lubbock, crying my eyes out because this old fart finally told me that he loved me and I had no resentment attached to it based on the memories of the pain and suffering of all the abuse that this man doled out. You see? If you explain this stuff to anybody out there in normal land, anybody, everybody would look at you like you were crazy. And yet when you look at it, when you talk about it in the confines of our rooms and you see what's going on and understand the spiritual nature of what has happened to us, it's simply a day-by-day deal. It's something that happens all the time. The key to Jim's success in this was not that Jim was smart or that Jim wasn't smart or that he was this or that him was any... The key was that Jim was willing to submit to a process that the book asked us to do because the payoff was huge to fit ourselves to be of maximum service. It's good stuff. Let's go smoke a butt and we'll come in and finish this, okay? About 15 minutes.