The Inventory of Fear That Outlived the Drink – Joe B.

The following will be session number 11 of the 3rd Annual Northern California Big Book Seminar held on Saturday morning, September 24th, 1988. The subject is Chapter 5, How It Works, The Inventory Process, and Chapter 6, Into Action, Step 5, pages 64 through 75 of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous. The speakers are Charlie Parmley of Maysville, Arkansas and Joe McQuainy of Little Rock, Arkansas. The approximate listening time of this recording will be a total of 99 minutes on tapes 11A and 11B. I'd like to present Charlie and Joe. Good morning, everybody. My name is Charlie Parman. I'm a very grateful recovering alcoholic because I'm a member of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous and by the grace of the power that I found in the 12-step program of Alcoholic Anonymous, I haven't found necessary to take a drink for 6,905 days today, one day at a time, and for this I'm very grateful. I have noticed something about this drug-free side of the room. The numbers are just about equal this time. A lot of places you go, there will be a few over here and a whole lot of them over there. But gradually it's changing. I believe the non-smokers are going to outnumber the smokers someday. Okay. Now, since I stopped smoking eight years ago, I think that's great. Everybody get a good night's sleep? You ready to hear one little joke this morning? I always love to tell the story about the drunken burglar. He broke into the home at night and nobody was there, no lights on. He had a little pencil flashlight and he was working on the safe trying to get it open. And he heard a little voice say, Jesus sees you. and he jumped and he flashed that light around and he didn't see anything at all so he goes back to the safe and begins to work and the little voice said Jesus is watching you and he jumps and he flashes his light around and still doesn't see anything goes back to the seat and after a while the little boy said Jesus is going to get you and this time when he flashes his light around he flash it in the corner where it had not gone before and there's a bird cage with a parrot in it and he said Oh, you damn silly birds. You don't know what you're talking about. And as he turned to go back to the safe, his light went across the doorway. There stood a large German shepherd dog, lips snarled back, fangs showing, and the little voice said, Stick him, Jesus. Laughter That would be about my luck I imagine if I got into that situation. Joe? My name is Joe and I'm a real alcoholic. Through graduation because this program works, one day at the time of my life I haven't found it necessary to take a drink since March the 10th, 1962. And for this I'm grateful. It's good to be here this morning. It' s good to see a child who's talking about a resentment free. Both sides are resentment free. Not a resentment in the whole place this month. Good. Until we start talking about smoking. That's right. You had to break it up. Okay. We went through our inventory, we talked, we not dislisted, and I think so much we talk about in the inventory writing down something i think we put a lot of emphasis on listing our resentments but i think because we have seen the yeah we have seen the uh inventory process is not just the process of listing things it's listing and analyzing our resentment getting down to the truth of them as we said that we found out as we used these things, we found that they weren't true. They were false. I mean there were lies. We hadn't really seen the true nature of the resentment and through analyzing them we have gotten down to the root cause, the exact nature of these things in our lives. We've gotten rid of them as we analyze them out. We went over these things. We said as we completed them, we have found all the information we need in step four and resentments for the rest of the steps. We have the information for steps five, six, and seven in the fourth column. The exact nature of the wrongs, the things we're willing to let go of, and the things that we're going to ask God to remove. We've also found that some of the people we have resented, that we actually owe them amends. And they actually, we've been using that resentment toward them to put the blame on them and to excuse ourselves. And that's why we really need those resentments. And now that we have seen, gotten those things out of our way, we say that we are carrying out the decision because God can now direct that part of our mind which was being directed by the people we resented. Now once we have completed this, this brings us to the second phase of the inventory, the bottom of page 67. He said, notice the word fear. Look at his bracket along with difficulties of Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, and the wife. Now we're going to begin to inventory fear. And as we said, one of the second manifestations of self-centeredness or spiritual illness is fear, which blocks us from God's direction. As we said if you have fear then our mind is being directed by the things we fear. He said, this short word somehow touches almost every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and cordoning threat. The fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we didn't deserve. But did not we ourselves set the ball rolling? I think this is a very plain statement. Once we list it and analyze these fears, we're going to realize that these fears begin within us, just like the resentment. It is something that's within us that causes these fears. He says sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing. It causes more trouble. And now we're gonna begin a process of the same process that we learned in resentment. And I think that this is why we just have the instructions of airplane and resentments how to do this. And then we use them over, although he does repeat these instructions. And as Charlie said, he doesn't say anything the same way, but he gives us the same instructions. He said, we reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper, even though we have no resentment in connection with them. So we write down the first column, all of our fears, and we list these from top to bottom. Again, we emphasize over and over, do not go from left to right. You know, we're taught to read and write from left and right, and that's a bad, you know, we've got that habit. I think we'll find out if we will try to do that on this inventory, it'd be very confusing because you will have to change your mind three or four times on each name if you go across the sheet and it's very confusing. It will get you mixed up, particularly if you're just a new alcoholic. And this is written for new alcoholics. So it's very simple to go down from top to bottom because you have your mind on one thing. What do I fear? So we list all of our fears from top to bottom. Now many of us, especially we men, we like to say, well, hell, we don't have any fear. We're tough. We're macho. But we're not talking about physical fear. We're talking about all these fears in the mind. And I think any of us, if we'll sit down and carefully list our fears, we're going to be absolutely amazed at how much fear we really do have. Especially we men because we refuse to look at that in our mind and if we put it on paper for the first time, we'll be able to see it. Just like resentments, I didn't think I had but two or three until I began to fill the sheet out. And I found out my mind was ruled by resentment. And I find the same thing with fear. I'd only been able to see one or two or 3 fears in my mind, but when I started putting them on paper, again, I was amazed to see sheet after sheet after sheet of fears. We've got all kinds of fears! We're all afraid of what other people are going to think of us. We have fears connected with our spouses. We have tears connected with the economy. We have fear connected with internal revenue service. We have peers connected with a police department. We have fierce connected with federal government. We have fears connected with just about everything we do. Now, we're going to find out that fear is just like resentment. We're not going to get rid of all fear. Fear brings caution. Fear is the only thing that keeps me from sticking my rear end on that hot stove again. Fear isthe only thingthat allows me to be able to cross the busy street without getting run over. Fear is the only thing that really allows us to have this meeting here this morning. Now, if we were not concerned with what we think of each other or what other people think of us, we might really get to telling each other the truth about what we take of each another. Hell, this meeting would probably break up pretty fast. Fear used correctly is a good thing. But when it begins to drive us and dominate us like resentment's did, when it begins to determine how we think and how we act, then it also has control of our lives. And we've made a decision to let God be the director of our thinking and our lives, and if fear does it, God can. So we, to the best of our ability, make a list of fears. Column 2, we ask ourselves, why do I have the fear? Now this is not an attempt to psychoanalyze ourselves. I'm not going to say, well the reason I fear the dark is because mother didn't change my diapers right when I was a year old. Hell, I'm supposed to be afraid of the dark. I don't have headlights and I can't see at night. And that kind of fear brings the caution. I'm afraid of heights. Well why? Because I don' t have wings and I ca n't fly. I'm exposed to the sky. I'm opposed to be afraid of heights, that brings caution. But most of my fears, I'll be able to find a root cause which usually stems from me in some way. For instance, the reason I'm afraid of the Internal Revenue Service is because I cheated on my income tax. My wife Barbara's name was on this sheet. And by the way, I talked to her this morning. She said, tell everybody hello. It's raining in Oklahoma. We're glad that I'm not in Oklahoma and Arkansas. We're happy. We're very glad of that. I had her name on the sheet. I also had her on the resentment sheet. Now why do I have fears connected with Barbara? Well, if she ever really does find out all the things that was going on back there in those days, she's probably going to file for divorce again. I have affairs connected with my children. Why? Well, I used to think that I wanted them to turn out to be good and not experience and suffer the pain that I did, but that isn't true. The real reason I have fears connected with them is what are people going to think about me if they don't turn out okay? And I find that nearly every fear I've got, there is a root cause stemming from me which either puts me in a position to be hurt at a later date or which I'm afraid I'm going to lose something I've Got or I'm not going to get something I want. And I go to the third column, self, and see which part of self causes that. I can't experience fear unless there's some threat in some way to one of my basic instincts of life. You know, you threaten my social instinct, I feel fear. If you threaten My security, either emotional or material, I Feel fear. If you Threaten My sex life, either acceptable or hidden, I Feels fear. If you threatened My ambitions in those areas, I feels fear. So again, I begin to see where fear really comes from. Just like I begin TO SEE WHERE ANGER REALLY COMES FROM. I begin To SEE that it stems from the basic instincts of life. And if I can once see where it comes from, then maybe I can begin TO GET A HANDLE ON IT. And maybe I CAN KEEP IT FROM RULING MY LIFE IN THE FUTURE. The fourth column, what's the exact nature of the wrong? Well, the wrong is the fear. That's what separates me from God. But what's the nature of it? If I wasn't so selfish, I wouldn't have to be so fearful. If I weren't so dishonest, I wouldn' t have been cheating in internal revenue service in the first place. If I warn' d so self-seeking and frightened, I wouldn'' t be putting myself in situations where I have to experience fear. If I was more considerate of people, I wouldn '' t be doing things that hurt them and cause me to feel fear of what are they going to do when they find out. And I see the same basic character defects that if I stay that way, I will continue to put myself in those positions and experience fear for the rest of my life. But if I can become less selfish, less dishonest, less frightened, and less inconsiderate, then maybe I won't have to experience so much fear in the future. and maybe I can find a way to live and be sober and be peaceful and be happy Joe okay perhaps there is a better way we think so for now on a different basis the basis of trusting and relying upon God we try to trust the infinite God rather than our fire and ourselves we're in a world that play the role he assigns just to the extent as we do as we think he would have us and humbly rely on him does enable us to mescalomity with serenity. We never apologize to anyone for depending upon our Creator. We can lie to those who think spirituality is a way of weakness. Paradoxically, it is away of strength. The verdict of age is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. And again, we see the opposite. If we can stop fear, then we can start courage in our lives. they trust their God they never apologize for God instead they let him demonstrate through us what he can do and then we have the a prayer the next prayer is on fear now once we look at these, the same thing occurs that occurs in resentments when we get all these fears down and list them, analyze them and get down to the root cause of them and see where they're coming from most of them will disappear and just like the resentments most of em look pretty stupid the same way with these fears once we see the reality of em they leave us and there will be some deep fears that will stay and the deep resentments we use prayer on and we're going to do the same instrument we repeat the same process on fear so he says we ask him to remove our fears and direct our attention at what he would have us be at once we commence to outgrow fear. So, once we list and analyze these fears and get them out of our minds, then, as Charlie said, that same is resentment. When the resentments leave us, it doesn't create a vacuum because courage comes in. And we will have the courage to face life one day at a time. Now, if we have went through enlisted and analyzed these fears then we have the same results that we had on resentments. We have all the information that we need for the rest of the program. We got down to the third column which shows us which part of self is involved in these fears and the fourth column talks about the exact nature of the fears which will be listed in the fourth volume and the things we're willing to let go of and the things we're going to ask God to remove related to our fears will be listed in this column too. Also, once we list and analyze these fears, we find some of these people that we fear we have done something to them and that's why we fear them. So are some of These People in the first column that we Fear and some of the institutions or whatever it may be, we owe them amends. now he says that we should be making a list of amends while we're doing the inventory and there's a point in doing that you know if you list and analyze these things and see how you are involved actually that it started within you and you can see where it started within you then if you can analyze that then you should be willing and ready to make amends to that when you see your involvement. That's why we should make the list for step eight while we're doing the inventory because it's in the inventory that we see where the problem really started in us. And that enables us to become willing to make Amends once we see how we were involved in each of these harms. So that's why it's important that we make this list in step eight while we're lifting and analyzing ourselves in step four. I think one of the things that continually amazed me is I kept seeing the same names appearing on the fear sheet that I had on the resentment sheet. And I had simply used resentments to transfer all blame to them, made myself as pure as the driven snow, but I still had a lot of fear connected with that stuff. What are they going to do if they really do find out? Internal Revenue Service was on both sheets. Barbara was on those sheets. And I can name, name after name after named that was on both sheets, those I resented and those I feared. Now if we've carefully analyzed this, just like we said with resentments, 95% of these fears look pretty stupid when you get them down on a piece of paper. And 95% of them are going to disappear. And then those that don't disappear through this process, then we have prayer in the book to get rid of that also. So we can become reasonably free of fear except for what God intended for us to have. And we'll be able to live in the future reasonably free from fear except for whatever God intended us to do. Except for what He intended for use to have And if that's true, then another one of the damaged and unsaleable goods has now disappeared from my little business store up here in my head. Now those shelves are now emptied out, and they can be filled with the good things of life instead of the old things that caused me to drink. Now, if fear disappears, then God's not going to allow a vacuum in my head. It will have to be replaced with something else. And the opposite of fear is courage. And if courage is in my store, then I find that I'm able to do a lot of things that I could never do before. I also find that Iím capable of not doing a lot OF things that ìIî always felt I had to do because of fear. see fear really does rule and dominate and control us many things that i would like to have done in my life i didn't feel i could do them because of fear for instance a lot of us would love to go back to school but we're afraid to do that because we're scared we can't compete with the new younger people we're worried that we'll be a failure at it and people will laugh at us so that keeps us from doing that. All my life I wanted to build a set of kitchen cabinets. I was always afraid to build them because I knew they wouldn't be very good, and people would see the mistakes and they would laugh at me. And that fear kept me from doing it. Now after I worked the program for a period of time, I decided one day, what the hell with them? I'm going build myself a set of kitchen cabinets, and I did. And they don't look very good. And people laugh at them, but I really don't care anymore. But I could never have done that on my own strength unaided. There's no way we can do those things with God's help. Many of the things that I used to think I had to do, I don't have to do anymore. You know, people used to put me down in front of a group of people and automatically I had to stand up and fight with them. Because after all, if you don't, what are people going to think of you? All my life, I've been in actual physical fights that I didn't want to be in. Because I knew if I didn' t get into a fight with that guy, then other people were going to say I'm chicken and afraid and I didn''t want them to think that. Inside, I'm scared to death, but I don' t want themto see that. So hell, I'd get into fights I didn't want to get into. And I always got the hell beat out of me. Well, today I don't have to react to other people. I don'T have to do those things that I used to do because fear doesn't rule and dominate my life. This thing really does work. Now if fear is gone and courage enters, then that part of my mind has some peace of mind, serenity, and happiness in it. I'm in much less danger of getting drunk than I was before I started this inventory process. You see, this is not a negative thing. This is a positive happening. This removes the garbage. This gets stuff out of the way so that the good things of God can come to the surface. And by the way, I didn't have to go find courage. It's been here all the time. I just never could really use it in the way that God intended to use it because fear kept it repressed and it never could come tothe surface. but now it can. So two-thirds of my store is in pretty good shape now. I've cleaned out two-third of the shelves and threw the crap out and replaced it with good ideas. Now, the next part of our inventory... Are you ready? Are you? There it is again. Come on, Bruce. Come on over here. He says he's always ready. Now about sex. Many of us needed an overhauling there. Now you old fellas don't get your hopes up. We're going to be talking about emotional sex rather than physical sex. There's a difference between us and the other animals on the face of the earth. we're the only ones that have the ability to think about sex we're they only ones that have the ability to make decisions about sex we're their only animals on the face of the earth that can make choices regarding our sexual lives the other animals are purely God directed and when it comes time for them to have sex God determines when that time is. And in most of those species, it's a certain particular time of the year. And God will usually signify that time by some physical changes in the female of the species, whatever it is. And the male will recognize those physical changes. The male prepares himself. The two join together. And it's kind of like bang, bang, thank you ma'am. And when they're through with it, they go their separate ways. Now they don't think about doing it before they do it. And they don'T think aboutdoing it while they're doing it. And they DON'T thinkabout doing it after they'rethrough with it. They didn't have any choice as to when they were going to do it, who they were gong to doit with, what position they're going to do it in, how many they're going to deal with, or how many times they're gonna do it. Now I've never seen a cow on a psychiatrist's couch talking about sexual dysfunction. You see, since they can't think about it, They don't have any trouble with you. But God gives you and I the right to think about it. And that's probably where the majority of our problems come from in the human race. Not so much from physical sex, but usually from the way we think about her. Most of the troubles, sexual troubles of the human face, are centered right up here in our head. Not in our body itself, but in our minds. The book says, but above all we've tried to be sensible on this question. It's so easy to get way off the track. Here we find human opinions running to extremes, absurd extremes perhaps. One set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature, a base necessity of procreation. And we've heard that set of verses all of our life. They're the ones that say sex is dirty and you ought to do it at one time, in one position, with one person and the only reason for doing it is to reproduce the human race and to enjoy it as a sinful thing. I've heard that set of voices all my life. They are the extremes in one direction. Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex, who bewail the institution of marriage, who think that most of the troubles of the race are traceable as sex causes. They think we do not have enough of it or that it isn't the right kind. They see its significance everywhere. And we have that set of voices and we hear them today. They're the ones that say you ought to be able to do sex anytime you want to, anywhere you want too, in any position you want tu, as many times as you want thu, with as many people as you like. You ought to enjoy it every time and if you don't, there's something wrong with you. I think they call that the sexual revolution. The only thing I see wrong with that is it happened about 25 years too late for me to participate in it. I'm not sure I could stand that anymore. And I just love the way Bill writes. He said one school would allow man no flavor for his fare and the other would have us all on a straight pepper diet. Now then, he said, we want to stay out of this controversy. We do not want to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. We all have sex problems. We'd hardly be human if we didn't. What can we do about it? Oh, I read that with great relief because I just knew this book was going to condemn me for what I had been in the past and I just new it was going tell me what I have to do in the future and I'd already made up my mind before I ever got to this part of the book that I wasn't going to pay a damn bit of attention to it, that I was going to do exactly what I wanted to do. And I read with great relief that they're not going to be the arbiter of my sex conduct. That everybody has sex problems. We'd hardly be human if we didn't. The question is, what can we do about them? Now, the book is going to give me a way to look at my past sex life to see if maybe I have harmed other people through that kind of life and if in turn maybe they haven't retaliated against me and created pain and suffering for me. He's going to give me a way to look into my past life to look in my past sexual life and see if doing things that maybe I shouldn't do does not create some restlessness and irritability and discontent and shame, fear, guilt, and remorse. It's going to give me a way to look at what my past sex life has done to me in this business of staying sober. And it's going help me determine what my sex life should be in the future. There's no morality in this part of the book at all. It's not a question of what's right or what's wrong. It's nothing to tell me how I'm going to have to do my sex lives. The book couldn't do that anyhow because the book is designed to help alcoholics over the entire world. And sexual morals in one part of the world is different than they are in another part ofthe world. What's permissible in Maysville, Arkansas, that may not go at all in Los Angeles, California. And what's permissable in Florida may not be permissible in Mayasville, Arkansaw. and what's permissible in the United States may not be permissible in another part of the world and etc. So the book's not going to draw any moral issues. It's going to give me a way to look at my own sex life, determine where it has hurt me and other people in the past and then maybe determine a new way to do it in the future so I can be free of those troubles. Joe? Okay. And so we're going to look at the past to determine what we can do in the future. So we've reviewed our conduct over the past years. And he begins the instructions, and he begins for some reason or another, he changes it around. He begins in the fourth column. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, inconsiderate? Then he jumps to the first column. Whom did we hurt? We put down who did we hurt. That's the best way to go from the front. Did we justify our jealous, suspicious business? What was the cause? What did we do? The second column. We'll put these columns down one at a time. You know, as Charlie said, one of the things that really block us from God and this is what we're all about is the guilt and remorse that we have. You know? When we have guilt and commotion or remorse over something that we've done in the past, This blocks us off from God just like resentment and fear. And we can analyze it and get down to these things and list and analyze them. We can get rid of this with this process. So we put down in the first two columns, first column, who did I hurt? Second column, what did I do? And then we come to the third column, which we think is quite revealing. I think one of the amazing things about this as I started listing these things is I found that most of us in some way or other have hurt people in the past through our sexual conduct or misconduct. Many ways we hurt people. Sometimes we hurt them by perhaps demanding more than our fair share of sex, insisting and forcing them to have sex with us when they really don't want to and would rather not. Sometimes we hurt people in the sexual area by going out and doing things outside of our relationship at home, by going outside and committing adultery. And if I've done that and my wife has found out about it, most certainly I've hurt her, not particularly physically, but surely emotionally. And usually that creates disturbances in the home which results in harm to the children if we have children. If the lady outside of my marriage that I had sex with, if it becomes common knowledge, then surely I've hurt her too. And if she has a husband and children, then surelyI've hurt them also. Sometimes we hurt people in the sexual area by demanding that they do it in ways that they really don't want to do. That because of our own selfishness and the needs that we have, we demand they go ahead and do things with us that they would rather not do. And if we do so, then surely we've hurt them emotionally. Sometimes we hurt people in the sexual area by doing nothing. By refusing to give our fair share of sex. Maybe we become cold and callous and we just say, well, I'm not going to do that anymore. And ifwe've got a relationship with another human being and we refuse to give sex, then surely were hurting them emotionally? many of us have never gone out and done anything really wrong but I think all of us have created some jealousy and suspicion in the mind of another human being on purpose sometimes our spouse or our partner is not paying attention to us we say well we'll fix that up we'll start a casual flirtation with somebody else deliberately to create jealousy and suspicion so they'll pay attention to it and if we aren't careful we get involved in that and sometimes we carry it a little bit too far and we get involve in things we really didn't intend to in the first place. Now there's many ways that we hurt other people in the sexual area. By too much, too little, by the wrong way, etc. Now God really intended for sex to be used to reproduce the human race but He also made it enjoyable so we would do it. You know, we wouldn't do that if it wasn't for the joy involved in it. and if we're using sex for purposes other than what God intended, probably it's going to end up in some way or other hurting other people. And sure as anything, if it hurts other people, eventually they're going to retaliate against us. And even though we enjoyed what we did, sooner or later we end up paying the price because when they retaliate that creates pain and suffering for us. Even if they don't catch us, we've got to be afraid of what are they going to do if they do catch us. And if God dwells within each human being and we've done these things that we know to be wrong, then surely we're going to experience some shame and guilt and remorse. It's not a question of what's right and wrong. It's no question of morals. It's a question when I hurt other people in the sexual area, what does that do to me eventually? And eventually it blocks me off from the sunlight of the Spirit. And it may cause me to go out and drink all over again. So I carefully list these people I've harmed. In the second column, I put down what did I do. If I withheld sex, that's what I put out. If I demanded too much, that's why I put it out. If I commanded they do it in the wrong way that they don't want to do, that's if I committed adultery. That's what it put out and I put in what did it do. Into the third column, I look to see the part of self that causes this. And I think this is the most revealing thing that I've ever done in my own life. You would think that most of the sexual things that we do that are wrong that end up hurting other people would be caused by the sex instinct. And once in a while, that's probably true. Once in a While, to get the physical and the emotional gratification that comes with sex, we may be doing it to satisfy the sex instincts. I find in my old particular case and in 90% of the cases, that wasn't true at all. I found that I was doing sex at the wrong time in the wrong place with the wrong people to fulfill the other two basic instincts of life. You see, as a young boy growing up, I found at an early age you can use sex to build your ego. After all, the more members of the opposite sex you can attract to yourself, the greater man you really are. We boys call that John Wayne-ism. I don't know what you girls call it, but some of you tell me you have the same problem that you can use that sex with members of the opposite sex to build your self-esteem, to make yourself feel better about yourself. Now if that's what I'm using sex for, then certainly that is not to reproduce the human race nor to enjoy it either one. It's to build my self-esteem. Sometimes we use sex to buy emotional security or to buy a personal relationship. Now we found out that maybe we're just lonesome. Maybe we just want somebody to pay attention to us. And we found that a long time ago that if you give sex, then you can buy back a personal partnership with another human being. Maybe we're not even wanting to have sex, but we found we can use it for that purpose. Now, if that's what we're doing with sex, that certainly is not for enjoyment or reproduction. That's to fulfill one of the other basic instincts of life. Sometimes we find we can use sex to buy material security. Maybe we're in a sexual situation and we would really rather not even be in it. But we have become so overly dependent upon the other human being for our material security that we give sex in order to buy back the material things of life that we feel that we need. Now, if that's what we're doing with sex, that really isn't what God intended for it to be used for. Sometimes we use sex to get even with another human being. Oh yeah, we're in a relationship and our partner goes out and does something they shouldn't do and we say, by God, we'll show them. And we'll go out and do the same thing. Now, the fallacy in it is after we've done it, we can't afford to tell them. And if that's what we were doing with it, we were using it to get even with another human being, not to reproduce the human race nor for enjoyment either one. Sometimes we use sex to force our will upon another human Being. Maybe our partner isn't doing the things that we think they ought to do. And we say we'll show them. We'll just cut them off at the pass and we won't let them have any until they come around to our way of thinking. now we boys aren't too good at that we only last we only last about three days but I'll guarantee you you girls have honed it to perfection you know exactly how to do it and hell I don't blame you if I could get by with it I'd do it too but there we may be hurting another human being by withholding sex not because of sex purposes but simply to force our will upon another human being. My book suggests I look at these things and see what I've really been doing with sex in the past. And you know, this did two things for me right just bing-bang. First, a lot of guilt began to disappear because I began to realize that I'm not a dirty, filthy old man. That what I'm doing is using sex to build my self-esteem, to force my will on another human being. Those things didn't happen because I'm bad, they happened because I am a sick human being just like everybody else. And when I realized that, then a lot of that damn guilt began to disappear. Also, the desire to go out and do sex in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people became less and less and left. When I once saw what I was really using it for, then the desire to go do it in those places became less than left and I found that sex in the future was much easier to handle. You see, I always thought I was over-sexed. No, I wasn't over-sexed. I was under-secured. And I was using sex to build that security. And I didn't know that. I didn' t know that at all until I put it down on this paper and analyzed it. Then I go to the fourth column. Well, what's the exact nature of the wrong? Well, the wrong is the harm that I did to hurt the other human being. That's what eventually blocks me off from God's will. But what's the nature of that heart? If I hadn't been so selfish, I wouldn't have been doing those things in the first place. If I had not been so dishonest, I wouldn' t have been sneaking around behind my wife's back. If I haven't been frightened, I wouldn''t have been saying to me, Charlie, you're getting 40 years old. You better get out there and get it now or while you're young enough, you'll be too old someday. Fear drove me into some of those situations. If I'd have been a little more considerate of my wife and my children, I wouldn't have been out there doing those things in the first place. And I begin to see the same character defects. If I don't change that old personality, I'm going to keep right on doing the same old things and hurting the same Old People and suffering the same Ol' Pain when they retaliate against me. But if I could get rid of those, the selfishness, dishonesty, fear, and inconsiderate, if I could get rid of that and get it to the level that God intends, then maybe I could have a decent sex life in the future that I could enjoy and yet at the same time not hurt other human beings. And maybe I can learn to live with it. Joe? Now we see what he's talking about when he said once we lift and analyze this and get down to the truth of it, now into the truth set us free from the guilt and remorse of the past or we can shape a sane, sound idea for our future sex life. In this way, we can try to shape a same and sound idea for our feature sex life We subject each relationship to the test. Was it selfish or not? That's the key question in any sexual situation. Is it selfish? The book doesn't care how you do sex. If you want to do sex hanging upside down from a tree limb by your toenails, that's fine with the book. But if you force another human being to have sex with you hanging upside down from a tree limb by their toenails when they don't want to, then chances are it's purity for selfish reasons. And if so, you're going to be hurting somebody else. That's the main key question. Is it for selfish reason only? If so, I'm probably going to hurt somebody else." We subject e-relationship to the test whether it's selfish or not. and then we have prayer throughout here there's several prayers in six we ask God to mold our ideas and help us live up to them remember that always that our sex powers are God given therefore good neither to be used lightly or selfish despised or loathed whatever our ideas turn out to be we must be willing to grow toward it we must not be afraid we must also be willing to make amends where we have done harm provided we still not bring about more harm in doing so And right here already he's telling us, okay, we have to inventory this. But we might not be able, it relates to step nine, when to do so would injure them or others. We may not be unable to make amends, but we need to analyze it and see it for ourselves. In other words, we treat sex as any other problem. In meditation, again, we ask prayer. We ask God what we should do in each specific matter. The right answer will come if we want it. God alone can judge our sex situation. Counsel with other persons is often desirable, but we let God be the final judge. We realize that some people are fanatical about sex, others are loose. We avoid hysteria thinking our advice. And I think this is very plain if we see anybody. We hear so many things around the AA fellowship. God, I don't know how we people who have messed our lives up can give so much advice. If you, Willie says it all the time. I always, Willie gave it to him. I steal from Willie. Willie says this thing we say in the program we share our experience strength and hope and we have added advice. You can just walk into a meeting and they'll just give it to you. You don't even have to ask for it. In a sexual situation, this book says we avoid advice. We don't know who we're talking to. I hear so many ridiculous things. I talk to young people you know, ridiculous things we have just heard and passed on. Do you know what I mean? Like people say well stay out of sexual situations for a year. You hear that around you get that kind of advice. Do you understand? I'd tell them. They'd say, well, Joe, what do you think about it? My sponsor says, stay out of sexist situations for a year. What do you thing? I'd say to tell her, if she did it, you can do it. You know, we give away all kinds of advice, but the book says we just shouldn't do that in there. We don't know who we're talking to. Now, if you talk to enough people in the A.A., you can find a bunch of them agreeing with you anyway. Just keep on. This book says we're going to make mistakes. You know, I wonder sometimes, and I don't bring in controversy, but I wonder sometime if you stayed out of sexual situations for a year, how much were you learning that year? You know? You wouldn't learn a thing. You'll just be getting started after a year. You're probably going to make some mistakes. Each of us, let God be the final judge. This is what the book says. It says, the poor we saw fall short of the chosen idea. Joe and I both agree that we've never been in a sexual situation in the past that was wrong, that we didn't know it was wrong before we ever got into it. I never did need anybody to tell me how to conduct my sex life. I knew what I should do, knew what it shouldn't do. Now that didn't keep me from doing it, but I already knew. I didn't have to go ask anybody is this right or wrong. I think we all have that knowledge inside ourselves. You know, God is there and God does tell us what's right and what's wrong. And it's really up to us to decide whether we're going to act on that or not. I don't really need anybody To tell me what's wrong. I know that already. Now, that didn't keep me from doing it, but I always knew. I didn't have to have anybody else's advice for that. Supposedly we fall short of the chosen idea and stumble. Does that mean we're going to get drunk? Some people tell us so, but that is only half true. The book says we've got to make some mistakes. It depends upon our motives. If we are sorry for what we have done and have an honest desire to let God take us to better things, we'll be forgiven and have learned our lesson. If we are not sorry and our conduct continues to harm others, we're quite sure to drink. We are not theorizing. They are facts of our experience. You know, anything, we can use that guideline on a lot of things. A lot of times we don't really know what we're about to do is right or wrong in some other situations, but I think is a basic rule that anything that I'm going to do as a person is going to hurt another person that's wrong for me. That's the good rule with anything. To sum up about sex we earnestly pray for the right ideas for guidance in these questionable situations he repeated that again and for sanity and strength to do the right thing. If sex is very troublesome we throw ourselves harder into helping others we think of their needs and work for them this takes us out of ourselves as quiet and perilous they urge when to yield would mean heartache and now he finally gives us the ultimate weapon of escape from self if we're in self and that's what if this problem comes from self then we're going to work with another alcoholic there's one thing that's automatic with us and I think this is the ultimate weapon of escape once one alcoholic gets involved with another alcoholic. We get so involved in his life, it takes us out of self. God can work into our lives. Sometimes we can't seem to get outside of self, but that's the one way to escape self is to become involved with another alcoholic. Sometimes the only way God can get in my little store to clean it up is when I'm gone. That's right. The only time I'm ever gone is whenI'm trying to help another human being. and then I'm not thinking about me. That's right. That just happens. And we don't think this means help them in the sexual area either. Some people read that to mean that, but that really isn't what it's saying. Okay. Now we're going to summarize all this work. We're goingto summarize. We have done a lot of work here. Golly. If we have been through our personal inventory, we have written down a lot. we have listed and analyzed our resentments he didn't say it but we have actually through the process he gave us we have listened and analyzed our fears we have also listed and analyze our sex conduct of the past now Charlie and I we usually suggest it has nothing to do with sex but anyone else you have harmed in any other way just go to the bottom of one of these sheets harms, these sexual teachings whoever I harm put down who else you harmed in any other way if you stole something from somebody put his name down there put down what you did and then go and look at which part of self caused you to do it and then look at the character defect that was involved with that incident and analyze it out put down all your other harms at the bottom of this sheet that you have done to people and analyze each one of them out and see what part of self caused it and which character effect was involved as we said once you analyze it and see that you will be more willing to make amends when you see what was involved within you that caused you to do that and he said we have begun to comprehend their fertility and their fatality we have commenced to see they're a terrible destruction. If we have done it this way, we can see the destruction. We've begun to learn powers, patience, goodwill toward all men even our enemies for we look on them as sick people. Now remember, we didn't get anything out of step one. It was just that we got some information, facts. Step two, we arrived at another conclusion that we were powerless. One was power, step one, powerless. Step two power. And once we got into step three, we made a decision to choose the power. And that was just the beginning, so we didn't get anything out of step three. Now, we said we were going to have a personality change as a result of these steps, a gradual personality change. Now, how did we get that first personality change after step four? We learned tolerance, patience, and goodwill toward all men, even our enemies. That's a lot of personality change for a sick alcoholic. that's the first change that's taking place and we're going to see change coming in after all the action steps we have listed people we have hurt by our conduct and are willing to straighten out the past we have made the list for step eight and we have already become willing because we've seen how we were involved in this harm in this book we read again and again that faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves we hope you are convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from him you can see these things in the fourth column if you have already made a decision step three and an inventory of your grosser handicaps step four you have made a good beginning that being so you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself and here you notice he says our grosser handicaps and I think this is all we're supposed to do we're going to have another step step 10 which we're gonna get into to talk about how to continue to work on these things but we want to start off on our grossier handicaps that's what step 4 is all about now this is why so many people are waiting until they get well before they take this step But we just want to get our grown-ups handicapped. And that's what steps, we're going to be working on this for the rest of our life. So this all, you know, it sets us up for step 10. Because really, you can't really, we're gonna learn that you can really do step 10 effectively unless you have done step 4 right. Step 4 prepares us for step 1. Step 10. Because once we get into step 10, and we're going to look at the same information on a daily basis. The real thing wrong with procrastinating on four and waiting until you can do it perfect is day after day after today, you remain restless, irritable, and discontented. Remain filled with shame, fear, guilt, and sooner or later the day may come when we'll have to drink over that. What we can do in step four, and we can only do what we can at any given time, we'll never do it perfectly. But we can look at these grosser handicaps, get them out of our way, and let God start directing that part of our lives. And then maybe we can find enough peace of mind and happiness to continue on with the rest of the program and finish it up at a later date. We'll work at this forever. Today I think I realize in my life that this inventory, as the book says, for me is absolutely complete anyhow. As I look back in my past life, I've never had an emotional problem that did not show itself or manifest itself in one of three ways. I was either madder than hell at somebody, I was scared to death, or I'd done something that hurt another human being. I've Never Had an Emotional Problem That Didn't Revolve Around One of Those Three Things. And as I look ahead in the future, I don't think I'll ever have a problem in the future that will not manifest itself in one of those three ways. I'll be mad, I'll being afraid, or I will have done something to hurt another human being. So as far as I'm concerned, this thing is complete. I don' t really think I need anything other than this. And you know this thing in here dealing with sex, you know there's spirituality mixed with it. Hell, there's three prayers in here in sex. We've seen now at least five prayers in step four. God, we never talk about those. I don't know of anything any more spiritual than sex anyhow, you know. This will conclude Tape 11A of the third annual Northern California Big Book Seminar as presented by Charlie Parmley and Joe McQuainy. Please go to tape number 11B for the conclusion of their discussion of the inventory process in Chapter 6, Into Action, Step 5.