The Positive Cleansing of Step 4 – Charlie P.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Charlie Parman. I'm a very grateful and covering alcoholic. Because I'm the member of the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous, and by the grace and power that I found in the 12-step program of Alcoholic Anonymous have done this there to take a drink for 6,955 days today. And one day at a time, for this I'm very grateful. While they're thanking all these people, we need to thank you all for being here. We couldn't do this if you wasn't here. It's our great privilege to be able to do this, and we always thank everybody everywhere we go because if you weren't here, we wouldn't have anybody to talk to. And you're what really makes this thing and puts it together. You are a beautiful set of people this morning. I see you've been working on resentments all night long. Some of you look a little tired. We always like to tell just a little joke once in a while, just kind of livin' things out over here. I heard a strange noise in the room next to me this morning. Opened the door and Joe was doing hickory-hickory doctor. We heard a little story about the little Catholic boy who wanted a bicycle, and his dad told him, he said, son, I just don't have the money to buy you a bicycle. He said, Lord, we've got seven or eight kids in the family, and I can barely feed you much less by a bicycle The boy said, well, what can I do about it? And he said、Well, you might try to pray or write a letter to God. Maybe that'll help. And the little boy decided he would do that, and he went in his bedroom, and he got a pencil and paper out and sat down on his desk, and he started to write a letters, and then he said,"Dear God," I said, I'm a little Catholic boy and I'm 12 years old and I've never had a bicycle. He said, no, hell, that won't work. And he tore it up and he threw it away and he waited a little while and got out another piece of paper and a pencil and he said, dear Jesus, he said I'm an old Catholic boy and I don't have a bicycle and I said I've been 12 years older and I'll never have a bike stick on my seat. He said no, it won't even work and he tore up and threw it way and sitting there looking around he looked up on the dresser and there happened to be a little statuette of the Virgin up there and his eyes lit up and he got up and got the statuettes and he opened up his underwear drawer got out a roll of socks put the little statuette in the socks put them way back in the back of the drawer covered it all up with other underwear shut the door sat down got out piece of paper and pencil and he said dear jesus if you ever want to see to your mom. I'll bet he'll be one of us before you. My name is John, I'm a real alcoholic. Through God's grace and the power of this program I've worked one day at a time in my life. in my life. I haven't had a necessary ticket break since March the 2nd, 1962 if I guess I'm right. It's uh going to be back to finish up our big book study. It's a very fine weekend. John and I you know we we do this all the time and it's not a routine thing for us none of this is each of these big book studies is a special individual thing and And very sometimes, you know, we have a special weekend, and this has been a special weekend. And it's been a, you now, we look forward to this, and it's an exciting thing in our lives. And watch people grow in the program with Alcoholics Anonymous, and to think how many people that you're going to be able to help that are still not here this morning. This is the power of our fellowship. we went through an inventory of our resentments and I love the word we listed and analyzed got down to the truth and the truth will set us free from these lies, these things we put down on the first column the resentment and if you notice it's very important This first column is highly important, because if it's not in that first column, there's nothing you can do about it. So be sure to complete the first column from top to bottom. Now once the first columns is completed from top-to-bottom, then it is from the first column that we can extract the second. The cause comes from the name. So now we can look at the first column, and we can write down the columns beside each one. Now once we get the columns down, that's important, we're making some progress. Once we get to columns down then we can find out what did that column affect? Which part of self did it affect? Now we're getting down to the information we really want. the stuff column three comes from column two now once we get column three down and found out which part of itself was involved then we can then we could find the character effect involved that started to hold that is involved on our court so it's like you know each column unfolds to the next and once we've got this all down then then we read from left to right And for the first time, we get a true picture of each resentment. For the first time. We can analyze and get down to the truth. As we said as we went through here, we're carrying out the decision because as we do this, step four is not a negative step. Step four is a very positive cleansing step. Step four will remove these things. Once we see the truth of them, as we said, most of them look kind of stupid to you know and then the rest of them that the ones is a deep resentment so we all have some deep resentments we can use firm and we've done this then we can eliminate you know all of our our resentments and we'll carry out the decision because we're moving things that block us in God and if there is that was gone then this area of our minds can be directed by God we'll talk about those things those things are within us now we have love power patience understanding powers of other people so we have really done one third of that and now we're going to come to the next area the next manifestation we said there were three basic manifestations one was wrong judgment which is resentment we see now that then we look at these things and that it was wrong judgment on our part and now we come to the second manifestation, the wrong believing which is fear, which begins at the bottom of page 67. I think also all these resentments we need to recognize the final thing we did yesterday was be able to see where we have step 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 on that sheet And it would be impossible for me to even know my character defects without taking a step forward the way the book says. It would be Impossible for me to really recognize the people I've harmed and that I need to make amends to without a step toward the way that the book said. The thing that absolutely amazed me is how many of those people on that list that I end up owning them into. Because invariably, in all cases, in my case, it was the people i myself have done something to or set the ball rolling which ended up hurting them also and then they had retaliated you know that covered it i think that's the most revealing thing that can get out of this particular inventory is to see where we were involved and we see that then we're willing to make some amends okay well so we'll begin with the second phase of they would talk fierce notice that the word fear is back as i was just because of mr brown mrs jones and thalia and the wife this short word somehow touches almost every aspect of our life it was an evil and corny thread the fabric of our existence got through with him he said in motion trains were circumstances which brought us misfortune we didn't deserve but that did not we ourselves set the ball rolling sometimes we make fear out to be plasticity it causes more trouble and again that fear is just like a resentment sphere with no place in healthy role in our life certain places we couldn't live without fear we couldn t live one day without fear we have fear as a protection as caution Our lives are shot through and through with fear every day. But just like everything else, I look at these things that we have to have, but also if we don't control them they'll end up being our destruction. And I think that, you know, I looked at it just like this building we're in. We're in this beautiful building. It's a fine structure. but also within this building there are certain utilities. We've got to have electricity and gas and water. We've gotta have those things in here to make it livable. And they have to be here, to see that if those things ain't controlled they will end up destroying the building. And the same way about life. We have all these things. We have some things that are necessary for us to live. But sometimes this spirit gets out of control and it dominates us as he says in 12 and 12. well so what we're going to do we're going to review our fears again list them analyze each period and get down to the truth of it and use the same process that we used on resentment you can see basically the same instructions on page 68 to review fears that we had no resentments except worded a little differently he says we reviewed our affairs thoroughly we put them on paper even though we had no resentment in connection with them we in column one list our fears uh we men we like to say well we're tough we're macho we don't have any fear but we're not dealing with physical care as much as we are at the fears of the mind and we all have many different kinds of fears this little sheet up here just listed forward you know some others fear the internal revenue service some of us either fear our wives or our husbands. Somebody put Sue on this particular one. People in general. We have fears connected with our job. We have fear connected with the federal government. We have fierce connected with our children. We have tears connected with and we can just center and name fear after fear after fear after care after figure. And I think again, we don't really realize how much fear dominates our thinking until we put them all down on a sheet of paper. We can only see one fear at a time in our head, but as we begin to fill out sheet after sheet after sheet, we begin realize that fear really does control our thinking to a very great extent. If it controls our thinking, it controls your actions and our life, and we've made a decision to let God do that, and God can't do that if fear does that. Again, we're not going to get rid of all the fear. fear brings caution and I couldn't drive a car if I didn't have some fear I couldn'T walk across a crowded street if I DIDN'T HAVE SOME FEAR we probably couldn'T have this meeting here this morning if we didn'T have a little fear of what we thought of each other if we really told each other what we THOUGHT this meeting would probably break up in a hurry so fear brings caution that allows us to get along with other people so we're not going to get rid of all of it but just like resentments we're going to try to get it to the level that God intended for it to be. And then we can live with it comfortably and have peace of mind with it. As long as it's out of whack, it's going to rule and dominate our lives and we've made a decision to let God do that. So first we list our fears and then we ask ourselves why we have them. We decide of each name, always going from top to bottom, we list the cause of the fear. And, you know, for instance, uh i'm going to find that in most cases the fear will be because i myself have set something in motion i have fear connected with internal revenue service why because you cheated on the income tax that's why i had fear connected when my wife parted with wife because if she ever really does find out what i was doing 20 years ago she probably gonna file for divorce again today i have fears connected to my children why i used to think it's because i wanted their life to be better than mine i realized today that isn't true i'm worried about what people are going to think about me if my kids don't turn out okay and nearly every fear that i have there is some root cause for that based on myself based on self this is not an attempt to psychoanalyze now if i fear the dark i'm not going to go into some some analytic procedure trying to figure out the reason and I'm afraid of the dark is because Mother didn't change my diapers right when I was a year-and-a-half old. Now, some fears I'm supposed to have. I'm exposed to be afraid of dark. Why? Because I don't have headlights and I can't see at night. That's why. I'm scared of heights. Why? Because I have, I don' t have wings and I ca n't fly. See, those fears are good fears as long as they don't dominate us. But now if my fear of the Dark dominates me to the point that I'm afraid to go outside at night, then I've got a problem with it. Or if my fear of heights is so great that I'm afraid to ride in an elevator, then I've got a problem with it. But those kind of fears are the fears that bring caution and let me function okay. But most of my fears, I myself set something in motion. And I'm still afraid of the police department. Why? Hell, I'm always breaking the law. That's why. It seems to be impossible for me to drive speedily. I don't know why. When he was 55, I drove 65. Now that he's 65, I drive 75. And I'm never really comfortable driving a car out here on the interstate because I'm always looking to see if he's around that curb or looking to See if he is sneaking up behind me and that robs me of peace of mind when I'm driving my automobile. And I am the cause of that. If I didn't exceed the speed limit, I wouldn't have to be afraid they're going to catch me. And most of my fear is I am The Rift Columns. Column 3, What Part of Self Causes This Fear? You can't experience fear unless one of the three basic instincts of life are threatened. It's nearly always a fear that we're going to lose something we've already got in the social area, security area, or sex area, or we're afraid we're not going to get something we want in those areas. And invariably, we can pinpoint where that fear comes from. In column four, we do the same identical thing. and we look to see what's the exact nature of the fear. Now, the fear is the wrong. That's what blocks us off from God's will. But what's that? What's the nature of that fear? And I find the same character defense. If I wasn't so selfish, I wouldn't be putting myself in those positions where I have to experience that fear. If I weren't so dishonest, I wouldn'T be lying and stealing. And then I wouldn'T have to be worried about what you're going to do when you catch me. If I wouldn''t be self-seeking and frightened, I wouldn't keep doing things that I shouldn't do. And by the same token, I might be able to do some things that I should do if I wasn't so self-seeking and frightened. If I was more considerate of other people, I wouldn'T be putting myself in those positions that harm people and then they in turn are going to retaliate against me. I see the same basic character defects as the root cause of my fears as I do the root causa of my resentments. And if I stay selfish dishonest self-seeking and inconsiderate I'm going to keep on doing the same old things over and over keep on experiencing the same old fear over and over and then that fear is going to dominate my life instead of letting God direct my life okay as we go through here through these sheets we won't write them all out as we did on the first one we'll do the same thing what I'm hearing and listening and analyzing in these columns. When we complete this sheet, column four, we'll have the same information that we had on resentment. We'll have support of self is involved. We'll also have here the information for step five will be in the fourth column that we'll have the things in the room to let go of, and step six will be in the fourth column. Step seven will be on the fourth colon. We're going to also find that some of these people in column one that would fear some of these things or institutions, we owe them amends. And we won't see that until we go through our fears. So this is where again we'll be accumulating part of our list for step eight. on the fear sheet, some of the fears we hold amends. So we'll have all the information that we need laid out the same way on fear that we did our resentments. We complete the fear inventory. Now as we go and let's go through these fears and let us analyze them, just like the resentments, about 95% of them are gonna look kind of dumb for us. You know, we didn't know we were doing that and they will leave us. There will be some prayers that will remain, some deeper prayers. And we'll use the same instrument. He says we'll used prayer. And we hear about all the different prayers in the book three, and step three, and step-three prayer, and the step seven prayer. But as we said there are many prayers in this book. Prayer is used throughout the steps. Here's a second prayer in step four that was one of the resentments. he said we never apologize for anyone but depending upon our creator we can laugh at those who they experience out the way of weakness paradox is a way of strength the verdict of the ages is that faith means courage all men of faith have courage and trust their god they never apologize to god instead they let him demonstrate through us what he can do then we have a prayer for fear we ask him to remove our fears and direct our attention to what he would have us be at once we commenced to outgrow fear. Another deep fear is we use prayer and we constantly, you know there's no way that fear and prayer will exist at the same time within the same mind in the same individual. It says at once we will commence to out grow fear. Now, we have done this. We are enlisted and analyzed and got rid of our fears and used prayers on the rest of them. And then we can see this again. This is the process of removing the things that block us from God. When we do this, we're carrying out step three. We're carrying out that decision. We were removing the thing that blocked us from that decision because now God can direct this part of our mind that was dominated by fear. So we've got, you know, two-thirds of the process done once we complete list and analyze and get rid of the fears I think one of the things that amazed me as I did this particular part of the inventory is the same names kept showing up on those sheets yeah Barbara was on the resentment sheet and Barbara was also on a fear sheet Internal Revenue Service was on the resentment she they're also on the fear sheet police departments on the present machine they're all so on the figure sheet my employer was on the resentment sheet, he's also on the fear sheet. And almost everyone of them kept popping up on both sheets and I'd like to move my mind. I think the other thing that this revealed to me is how much fear really does control my life and how much it really does dominate my decisions. Now I think we'll find there's one or two or three fears that are really deep-seated. And just like those deep- seated resentments, we may not want to get rid of some of them because we find we've been using them for different things. See, many of us today would like to go back to school, but we don't go back to the school because we're afraid to. We're afraid we won't be able to compete. We' re afraid that people will laugh at us. We are afraid of failure and that fear keeps us from doing something we probably should go ahead and do. Also, fear can keep us doing things we probably don't quit doing. You know, that old fear that I was getting to be 40 years old and I better go do some of that while I could before I got too old to do it. That fear dominates a lot of people and keeps us doing the things we really shouldn't be doing. I mean, all my life I wanted to build a set of kitchen cabinets. And I never would build them because I knew they wouldn't look very good. and I knew people would laugh at the mistakes and it would embarrass me and I never would build a set of kitchen cabinets. After I worked this program long enough, I found enough courage to go ahead and build myself a set of kitchen cabins. Now they don't look very good and people laugh at them but you see I don't give a damn anymore. And that's what comes from using this thing the way the book says. It frees us from a whole lot of junk that has kept us doing things we shouldn't do and it's kept us from doing things we would really like to do. This is a very positive happening. There's nothing negative about step four. And as these fears begin to disappear, then that part of my little store up here, those damaged and unsavable goods have been removed and there's not going to be a vacuum left there. Those shelves will have to be refilled with something. and the only thing that can refill them will be the opposite of fear which is courage and now we find ourselves with enough courage to do many, many things that we could never do before and we find ourself with enough encourage to stop doing some things that we never could stop doing before and life simply becomes better and easier and more peace of mind and serenity and happiness and we're in much less chance of taking a drink. This is a very positive thing in step four. nothing negative about it at all okay now the last paragraph on page 68 now about sex many of us needed an overhauling there now you older fellas don't get your hopes up this is dealing more with how we think about sex than how we do it Sex in the human race is a little different than it is in the rest of the species on the face of the earth. The other animals on the face ofthe earth, when it's time for them to reproduce themselves, they do that strictly at God's direction. Usually God picks the time of year that they're going to reproduce. They don't have any choice in who they're gonna have their sexual life with. They don''t really have any choice in how many times they're going to do it. They don't have any choice in what position they're gonna do it in. They don't think about doing it before they do it, and they don't think about it while they're doing it, they don t think about doing it when they're through doing it. And then the rest of the animals on the face of the earth God usually signifies the time by making some physical change in a female. The male senses that change and prepares himself. The two join together, and it's kind of like bang, bang, thank you, ma'am, and when it's done, they go their separate ways. Now, since they don't have the ability to think about it and make choices and reason things out, you find very few sexual problems in the other animals on the face of the earth. I'm 60 years old, and I've yet to see a cow laying on the psychiatrist's couch talking about sexual destruction. And it's all bad, man. But when God gave us self-will, he gave us the freedom of choice. He gave us the ability to think about doing it before we do it, think about dealing with it while we're doing it, think about it after we're through with it. He gave us the ability to make decisions about who we're going to do it with, when we're going to it, where we're gonna do it, how many times we're gonna do and in what positions we're gonna do any. See the rest of the animals only have one position. We've got something like, I don't know what 64? I never could get in 64. I got 32 of them, but that's about all of them. I never couldn't fit in with those others. And I think most of the troubles of the human race sexually can be traced to the way we think about sex, not so much the way we do sex. Since we have the ability to think about it, then our emotions become involved in sex. And I like that's where most of the trouble comes from. The way we think about it, which in turn determines the way we do it, which in turn determines the way we remember it which in turn determines our emotional feelings as far as sex is concerned the other animals don't have those problems because they don't have the ability to think and reason so what we're going to look at this morning is not so much how we do sex as how we think about sex because that's what really blocks us off from the sunlight and spirit in the first place the way we think we've already found that out the book says but above all we try to be sensible on this question It's so easy to get way off the track. Here we find human opinions run into extremes, absurd extremes perhaps. One set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature, the base necessity of procreation. And you and I have heard those voices all of our lives. They're the ones that say sex is dirty and that you ought to do it only one time in one position with one person and the only reason to do this is to reproduce the human race and to enjoy it as a sinful thing. God, I've heard them all my life saying that. Now, that's a set of voices to the extremes in one direction. Then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex, who belittle 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 hear that set of voice as well. So they're the ones who say you ought to be able to have sex anytime you want to, anywhere you want too, with as many people as you want tu, in as many positions as you want to and you ought to be able to enjoy it every time and if you don't there's something wrong with you. I think they call that the sexual revolution and the main thing I see wrong with that is that it happened 25 years too late for me to participate in it. Whether I could have stood that or not I had enough trouble the way it was. One school would allow man no flavor for his failure and the other would have us all on a straight pepper diet. 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 that? And I read that with great relief because I just knew that this book was going to condemn me for what I had been in the past, and I knew they were going to tell me what I was goingto have to do in the future. And I'd already made up my mind that I wasn't going to pay a damn bit of attention to it, whatever it was. And when I read it, they're going to stay out of this kind of controversy. They're not going to try to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. I read that with great relief. Now, we've all got sex problems, so the question is, what can we do about them? And our book is going to show us how to handle this. It said we reviewed our own conduct over the years past. So we have another sheet to review our sexual conduct of the past, just like we reviewed resentments, just like мы reviewed fears. he said where had we been selfish dishonest or inconsiderate that is column four he said whom had we hurt that is volume one did we unjustifiably arouse jealousy suspicion or bitterness where were we at fault what should we have done instead we got this all down on paper and looked at it so we see the same basic set of instructions worded a little differently to look at our sex conduct to the past. And in column one, we simply list who did our harm. Not very simple. I think all of us know. I don't think I've ever done anything wrong in a sexual area that resulted in hurting another human being that I don' t know about. And we hurt human beings in a lot of different ways in the sexual area. Sometimes actually physically by maybe demanding too much sex or maybe by demanding sex in positions and ways that they don't want to. Or sometimes we hurt people in a sexual area simply by withholding sex. Maybe we become callous and cold, and we don't give our fair share of sex. If we've got a relationship going, and if we step outside of that relationship and have sex in an area out there, and our partner finds out about it, well then certainly we've hurt them by having sex outside of have a relationship. If I'm married and I go out here and commit adultery and my wife finds out about it, well, certainly I've hurt my wife. If i've got children in the family and it creates enough trouble, then surely it's going to hurt them too. If it becomes common knowledge, the partner outside of my relationship that I had sex with, it's going to her also. If she has children, it is bound to hurt her and her spouse too. Sometimes we don't really do anything wrong so much as maybe our partner is not paying any attention to us. And we say, well, we're going to create a little jealousy and suspicion there and we'll get them to pay attention to this that way and we will start a casual flirtation with a member of the opposite sex outside our relationship and sometimes we carry that a little too far. And even though we didn't really do anything right sexually, we created jealousy, suspicion, and bitterness in the mind of another human being. Now, there's many ways that we hurt people in the sexual area. And I think any of us that have done so know it and know what we did and we simply make a list of their names. In column two, we sit down, what did I do? Did I demand more of my fair share? Did I command they do it in ways they didn't want to? Did I commit adultery? What was it I did to hurt that person? Then in column three, we put down the part of self that causes it. and I think this is the real kicker in this third column you would think that anything we would do wrong in a sexual area that would hurt another human being would be caused by the sex instinct probably once in a while that's true sometimes to get the great physical and emotional release and gratification which comes from completion of the sex act we may be doing the wrong thing at the wrong time with the wrong person because of the sex instinct. But I think most of us are going to find that in most cases, it was caused by the other two basic instincts. You see, as young boys growing up, we men found out at a very early age that you can use sex to build your self-esteem. After all, the more members of the opposite sex you can attract to yourself, the greater man you really are, we thought. We called that John Wayneism. I don't know what your girls called it, but Some of you girls tell me you have the same problem. You found that if you could attract more members of the opposite sex to you through sex, that it made you feel better about yourself also and build your self-esteem. Sometimes we use sex to buy a personal relationship. Maybe we're just lonesome. Maybe we just want another human being to pay attention to us. And we found out a long time ago that we can give sex to buy back a personal relationship. Now, that's not to reproduce the human race or for enjoyment either. That is to fulfill part of the social instinct of life. And really, God did not intend for it to be used for those purposes. He intended it to beused to reproduce and to enjoy. You know, sometimes we can use sex to buy material security. Maybe we're in a sexual situation we'd really rather not even be in. When we become so over-dependent on the other human being for our material security, we find that we can give sex and buy that security back even though we don't want to do it. Well, there we're certainly not using sex to reproduce or to enjoy. But sometimes we can use sex to get even with another human being. Maybe we're in a relationship and we find out our partner's gone out and done something they shouldn't do and we say, by golly, 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 we did it. But there, we were not using sex to reproduce or enjoy. We were using sex to get even with another human being. Sometimes we use sex to force our will on another human thing. Maybe they're not doing what we think they ought to be doing, so we say we'll show them and we'll just cut them off at the pass and we won't let them have it until they come around our way of thinking. Now, we boys aren't too good at that. We only last about three days. I'll guarantee you, you girls have honed it to perfection. I'll play you. I would use it too if I could that way. But there, we're not using sex to reproduce or enjoy. We're using sex to force our will on another human being. And when I began to look at this, this absolutely amazed me. And it gave me two great things immediately. The first thing it gave мне is a lot of guilt began to disappear. You see, I thought I was just a dirty, filthy old man. But I find out I'm not. I'm a sick human being just like everybody else. And I was using sex, not because I'm a bad person, but I was using sex to fulfill the other two basic instincts of life. I was doing it for a reason. I was not using it for purposes not intended for, but I didn't know that. I was using sex to build self-esteem. You see, I always thought I was over-sexed. No, I wasn't over-sexed. I was under-secured and I could use that sex to build that way of self- esteem. And when I realized that, then a lot of guilt began to disappear. And also, when I realized that, then the desire to go out and do a lot of those things I was doing became less and less and less. Because when I saw what I was really using sex for, then my desire to get out and do those things outside of marriage and etc., became less, and less, and less. And I found it much easier to start getting a handle on sex. Of course, the fact that I'm 60 years old has something to do with that. But this happened to me several years ago when sex was still a real problem for me, and I began to understand what makes me tick. And I began being able to get a handle on this stuff a lot easier than I could before. I think this is one of the most revealing things you can do in a sexual area to first get rid of a lot of guilt and second, to be able to keep this thing under control when we want to see what we're doing with it. In column four, I put down the exact nature of the wrong. The harming of the other human being is the wrong. But what's the exact nature of it? Did I do it because I was selfish? Was it caused by dishonesty? Was it cause by fear? I found most of mine was caused by fear. Was it inconsideration of another human being? And if I stay selfish, self-seeking, dishonest, inconsiderate, I'm going to keep right on doing the same things. I'm going to keep right on hurting people and they're going to keep right along retaliating against me and they are going to create pain and suffering for me and even if they don't catch me God I've got a room scared to death of what are they going to do if they do catch me and also if God dwells within me which I know he does I'm gonna feel some guilt and remorse over these things too because we always know what's right and what's wrong you know this is an area where we don't need a whole hell of a lot of the dice if God dwells within us then we know the difference and when we do these things we shouldn't do invariably we end up paying a price for that in guilt and remorse the book doesn't question morality here at all morality doesn't enter into the picture what's right sexually in one area of the world is not right in another area anyhow what's acceptable in Maysville, Arkansas may not be acceptable in Little Rock, Arkansas what's accessible down in Frisco may not be acceptable up here in Portland Now, these things vary in different parts of the country, so the book doesn't try to draw any moral lines. It just gives you and I a way to look at our past sex life, see if we've been hurting other people with it, in turn hurting ourselves, and it gives us a way to get a handle on it in the future where we can start living with it with a little bit of peace of mind. It doesn't question right and wrong, does it? In this way, we try to shape the same inside idea about future sex life by looking at the tags that are going to formulate something for the future. We just have to be in relation to the text whether it's selfish or not. That's the key question. Whether it's selfish or not, the book doesn't care how you do sex and 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're forcing 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 probably that's for selfish reasons that's the key thing here we're going to see prayer throughout throughout sex we seek prayer remember always uh sex powers are god-given and therefore good needs to be used lightly selfish despised alone whatever ideas must be willing to grow toward it we must be able to make amends where we have done harm provided we are do not bring about still more harm in doing so. And we can see right here in step four, it's already talking about step eight and step nine when it comes to sex. You know, maybe we want to look at our past sex life even though maybe we can't make amends for them with any of your others. We still want to let go of that and analyze it. In other words, we treat sex as we would any other problem. In meditation, 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 sexist sex situation counsel with other persons is often desirable we let god be the final judge we realize that some people are fanatical about sex others are loose we avoid hysteria thanking our advice and he's very positive about that we have to be very careful about that i got a friend of mine that says she says that around hey we supposed to share our experience strength and our hope and most of us have added advice you know you can get a lot of advice around that we have to be careful here because i don't know who we're talking to and if you talk to enough people uh about sexual situations in particular you'll get enough you'll get a bunch of them to agree with you if you talked to enough of them but then god be the found judge and we all know when we're wrong in that area we'll have had it all our lives suppose we call charlotte the children idea and stumble does this mean we're going to get drunk some people tell us but this is only half true we might make mistakes it depends upon our motives we'll make mistakes if we are sorry for what we have done and have an honest desire that God take us to better things we will be forgiven and have learned our lesson if we're not sorry this is our moment and our conduct continues to harm others and this is the key if it harms other people we're quite sure to drink we're now theorized and these are facts of our experience I think anything that we use as a guide matter. If it's going to hurt another person, it's wrong for us in any situation. To sum up about sex, we earnestly pray for the right idea or guidance in each questionable situation for sanity and for strength to do the right thing. Sex is very troublesome. We throw ourselves hard into helping others. We think of their needs and work for them. This takes us out of ourselves in quiescent, imperious areas when you deal with being horny. Now he gives us the ultimate weapon. It's not only working on sex or working on any other problem. If you have a real problem in your life, work with another alcoholic. It seems that when we get caught up in our own selves, the only way that we can get out of that is to work with another person because we automatically when we work with, at the time we work with another alcoholic, we get so involved in his life that we automatically get out our life. And sometimes that's the only way God can get into our lives is find us meddling with another drunk, you know. While we're out, he can come in and straighten our mess up. He can come and sweep the floor and straighten up the shelves. He can get us out of the way. Now we have a summary here. We're going to summarize the inventory. If we have been through our personal inventory, we have written down a lot. we have listed and analyzed, as it were, our results. Now he does not say it, I don't want to add nothing to the book, but we have also in this process listed and analysed our fears, obviously. We have also listed and analised our sex conduct in the past. You know, we have it all down on paper. We have all the information down on Google underneath for the rest of the program. we didn't mention it but when we finish 6 we're going to have the same thing we had on the other sheets from now but we're gonna have all information in column 4 for 5, 6 and 7 we're not gonna have the exact nature of the wrong in step 5 we're never gonna have that exact nature of the sex harm, it's gonna be in the 4th column the thing we want to let go of is gonna be on the 4 th column the thing were gonna ask God to remove is gonna in the fourth column And quite naturally, we're going to have a list of people we abhor. Even though we can't make amends to them, we're gonna have them all listed and analyzed out. Maybe some of them are kin, but most of them, we don't have them. So we have got all the information for step eight. But I also recommend if you're working with somebody that you're doing this, it has nothing to do with sex whatsoever. Maybe we need a new sheet, but why complicate it? after you finish all the sex begin to put down anybody else's horn in any other way if you stole something from somebody put his name at the bottom of that list all your other horns underneath it, the sex horn put down and say I stole from so-and-so so-n-so's name, what did I do? I stole something from him, and analyze it out what part of self caused this and which character factor was involved put all the other harms down there and analyze them out and see what within you caused you to do this because as we said once you see your involvement in which part of self caused you do it in step four then you will become willing to make a more willing it's hard to make amends to a person when you don't see how you were involved after you see how you were involving which part your life did it then you're going to have to make this to me. So complete this and we will be all ready for step eight. He said we have begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality. We have commenced to see their terrible destruction. If we had worked at this the way we could see this, you know. We have learned that our intolerance, patience, and goodwill toward all men and even our enemies when we look at them as sick people. And we go back through the steps, you now. We didn't get anything out of step one. It wasn't an action step. We just arrived. We just solved the problem. You know, we didn't do anything. Step two is the solution, so we saw the answer. And we said step three was your first step. It was just a decision to do something. But step four is the first step of action. And now after step four, we get the first personality change. We didn't get any personality change out of step one, two, and three. But now we get personality change, and the first results come after step forward. He said, we begin to learn tolerance, patience, and goodwill toward all men, even if we look at them as sick people. And that's a lot of personality change right after the holiday. That's a hell of a change for now. After the first change, and we said this is a problem with his steps, the change, change, changed. The change starts after the start. So we listen to people we have hurt by our conduct and are willing to straighten out the past. We have the list made for Step 8. In this book you read again, and faithfully it is for us what we do for ourselves. We hope you are convinced now that God can remove what self-will has blocked you off of him. If you have already made a decision, this is Step 3. In the inventory of your grosser handicaps, this is step 4. You have made a good beginning. That being so, you have swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself. Yeah, we'll come this way. And here he says, remember, our gross are handicapped. I think that's all we're looking at in the inventory is our gross are handicaps. I think people are making a mistake, so many, many people. Constantly for years we've been trying to wait until we get well before we can take a step forward. And the process is to take the steps to get well. And all we got to do is look for our gross or handicaps now later on we're going to have another step 10 which we can continue to carry out this process and Charlie and I you know I don't think we're gonna talk about it when we get there I really don't so I'm beginning to see where a person cannot effectively work step 10 on a daily basis unless he's worked a good step 4 step 4 prepares us for step 10 and the deeper and the better we can ease it, the more depth we get into step four, then we're just going to repractice that on a daily basis. So step four prepares us not only for step five, six, seven, eight, and nine. It prepares us for step ten too. I learned a whole lot of things in this step four thing, doing it the way the book says. Again, what amazes me is the same old names keep popping up on all three of these sheets. Yeah, Barbara was on all free sheets. Internal Revenue Service ended up on all three sheets. What I did in Internal Revity Service was I stole from them, but I gave them a pretty damn good screw and while I was at it it ended up on the second sheet off. You know, I talk a lot about bargaining as we do this inventory because bargaining is such an important part of my life. Twenty years ago, we hated each other. Twenty years ago, she said, Charlie, you're nothing but a bad alcoholic. And I said, woman, you're Nothing but a crazy woman. When we came to A&A in Al-Anon, we found out we were both right all the time. Barbara got in Al Anon and I got in AA and she is truly a true black belt Al-Anon. She's a real fine Al-Alan. Barbara and I have a great life together today. But the reason we do because we both worked our program we've both been able to get rid of that crap from the past and see what caused those things and how to avoid it in the future and we did it through this inventory process this thing is really a positive happening it just amazes me that how it really works itself out i used to think well since it said grocer handicaps only that probably it really wasn't sufficient to cover everything We'd have to do something better later on. But today I realize that every problem I've ever had in the past, every emotional problem has centered around three things. I've either been madder than hell at somebody or something, I'm afraid to death of something, scared to death of it, or I've done something to hurt another human being. Every problem I ever had centered around one of those three things and I believe today every problem I'm ever going to have in the future is going center around one of those three things i'm going to matter in hell at something or somebody i'm gonna be scared to death about something or when i've done something to hurt another human being i think this is absolutely complete i don't think we need anything else you see joe and i were talking about this morning at breakfast i think the reason real psychiatry doesn't work for we alcoholics is because we're not crazy we are selfish self-centered human beings who have developed a damn bad set of living habits and if we want to get along in this world all we have to do is start changing those habits but we can't change them until we know what to change and step four shows us what we need to change selfish self-centered self-seeking inconsiderate attitudes now we could change those and we can start living peaceful see we're not crazy we don't need much standard psychiatry All we need to do is work on those human habits that we've developed throughout our lifetime as selfish, self-centered human beings. This shows me how to do that. Selfish, self‑centered human being will always have anger, fear, and harms to other people. So I don't really think I need any other inventory other than what's right here in this book. Because later on it's going to show me how To Continue This Same Process. Okay, on page 72.