The Primary Purpose That Got Lost in Open Depression Meetings – Tom

Hi everybody, my name is Tom Pickner. I am a recovering alcoholic. How are you guys doing? It's kind of in the face here. I've been sober since June 13th of 2005. I've be sober a little bit over a year. I'll talk a little about my war story. I won't even go into a war story, but talking about that stuff, it just bores me to death when I talk about what happened before I got to AA. Because it's really no different than anybody else's story. I don't have any cool stories to tell. I was never a big drug dealer. I've never been to jail. Never had a DWI. There's a lot of stuff that never happened. but there's some stuff that did happen that makes me eminently qualified to be in this program. I started drinking when I was real young. I was drinking on a daily basis by the time I was 12 years old, and it got so crazy and so out of control that by the times I was almost 15 years old I got sent to my first psychiatric hospital, and I was there for 16 months. I got out, returned to the drinking 11 months later I'm spending 20 months in another psychiatric hospital so from almost 15 to 18 I'm in hospitals as a result of my drinking now what they're trying to treat is depression and bad teenage behavior whatever the hell I had That's the angle that they're approaching me from. They're telling me if I just talk about all this stuff that happened in my past and resolve all these issues, you know, my parents' divorce and failing in school and my mother's alcoholism and all this staff that somehow it will get resolved and I won't drink anymore. i'm thinking yeah okay we'll we'll give this a try but you know i don't want to stop drinking so long story short you know I get out of this last one um I'm almost 19 years old uh it happened to be down in Austin Texas and instead of moving back to Chicago where I grew up I stayed in Austin which was pretty much uh you know the scene of the crime for me Things just got I mean, I had some catching up to do When I got out of that place And if I didn't get caught up It wasn't my fault Because I tried And things just got unbelievably nuts You guys know how it is You know, writing bad checks Losing relationships Losing jobs Losing money Emergency room visits The whole nine yards All that stuff That happened to you guys Happened to me too And I ended up in this treatment center Up in Chicago Because I couldn't get sober in Austin And I called my dad And he flew me up there And I went to this place And I spent 27, 28 days In this hospital up there And after a couple weeks I'm pretty much detoxed And I'm feeling better And I've got some strength My head's starting to clear up a little bit I gained some weight which at that time I needed and by the you know after a couple weeks we're having a great time in this place there's a big place about 100 patients and we'd play poker every night down in the basement it wasn't a basement basement but it was a finished out bottom floor of the hospital and we go down there and play cards and just have a great times and when I left there I went back to Austin Went back to my little apartment And my little job down there And started going to meetings And I loved the meetings You know, I got there And I'm feeling pretty good Full of piss and vinegar Real excited about life And you guys pretty much tell me The same stuff that I've told a lot of people Go to 90 meetings in 90 days Think through the drink Put the plug in the jug All this stuff that we tell each other That's what I heard and so here I am I'm relying on meeting attendants and thinking through the drink to stay sober which I'll explain later pretty much it works up until it doesn't work anymore it works perfectly until it stops working I had no idea what step one meant for 17 years in Alcoholics Anonymous I stayed sober 17 years and had a relapse back in 2004. So my understanding of step one is I've got a drinking problem, and when I drink, bad stuff happens. Well, I just got out of this treatment center. I hadn't drank in a month, and guess what? The bad stuff stopped happening. It was gone. I'm thinking, oh, this is great, problem solved. I'm not drinking, none of this crazy stuff is happening things are great and I like the meetings I like going in and hearing about everybody's problems and all the stuff that they're talking about at first it was kind of interesting because you never know what you're going to hear in one of these discussion meetings I like to call them open depression meetings because that's pretty much what I was jammed full of. But after a while, I got tired of this stuff. I got tried of listening to people talking about their cats dying and their divorce and Sally Sue's pool boy putting too much chlorine in the pool. You name it. I'm dying. I can't take this stuff anymore. And so I'm staying sober. I'm making a half-assed attempt at the steps. I was told that I had taken step one before I even came in, which wasn't true. I was called to stay on step two until I believe in God. Never happened. I had the obsession to drink and do some other stuff for 15 months in Alcoholics Anonymous it never went away, and I prayed about it I would leave the meetings thinking that I'm different than these people because I'm not getting it you know, I'm still thinking about drinking and these people are happy like, you know what the hell what's the matter with me I thought that I was really screwed up and you guys were just kind of, you know, disco drunks who had a few scrapes with drinking. But, you Know, once you quit, everything's cool. I'm staying sober and I'm getting worse. I'm going to talk about some stuff here, and I know this is tough talk. It's tough to hear when I was sitting in AA for 17 years trying to, you know, make it from meeting to meeting. Man, this stuff would have just made me nuts listening to this stuff. But what I learned after I got sober and hooked up with some guys that, you Know, really felt this big book and took me through the steps exactly as they're outlined in the book, I learned that there's hard drinkers And the book talks about on page 20, 21 And there's real alcoholics And I didn't understand what it meant to be an alcoholic The whole time I was here My flimsy definition of step one Is what I'm betting my life on To keep me sober And I'm betting my life On meeting attendants And thinking through the drink and I've got no clue what it means to be powerless over alcohol. I just kind of, you guys told me I was and I said, okay, I am and that was it and what I learned was that when we say that we're powerless over alcohol, that our lives become unmanageable means something way different than what I ever thought. See, I owned a big book I had a $10,000 one that's what treatment centers cost back in 87 and I had a couple. I picked up another one somewhere along the way. It was in my house. This information has been in my house for 20 years almost and I never bothered to pick it up. I read it once kind of interesting I had no clue what I was reading and nobody ever sat me down and explained to me exactly what we're talking about. Let me let me just kind of show you what I learned in this last year or so. In a doctor's opinion, and you guys know who Dr. Silkworth was, he was a Bill Wilson psychiatrist or alcohol doctor. Back then the only thing that they could do for people like us was to sober us up, try to make it comfortable, and then send us on our way and hope for the best. That's all they had going. And Dr. silkworth started seeing these chronic alcoholics coming back and coming back, and it was just an absolute revolving door. These guys weren't making it. And so he formed an opinion which has later been proven to be medically true, scientifically true. He says that we believe in some suggestion a few years ago that the action of alcohol on these chronic alcoholics is a manifestation of an allergy. All an allergy is is an abnormal reaction. Is anybody here allergic to penicillin? What happens when you take penicilin? You break out. If you come to my house and I've got penicillin in my medicine cabinet, do I have to lock it up around you? Most people don't react like he does to penicilin. He reacts differently than most people. It's an abnormal reaction to penocillin. It's the same thing with alcohol. Chronic alcoholics, real alcoholics. The way we respond to alcohol when we put it in our bodies is we crave more alcohol. It says the phenomenon of craving is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker. Normal people do not experience this craving for alcohol. What do they do when they put alcohol in their bodies? One drink, maybe two drinks, and then they start to say crazy stuff like, I'm starting to feel this, I feel tipsy, I think I'll stop now. And we're just baffled I mean, I cannot relate to I don't even know what tipsy is Tipsy is For me, tipsy was like A ten second period that I passed right through And You know, on my way to something bigger and better than tipsy But that's what happens to these people when they drink Alcohol is a poison They feel sick They stop drinking because it doesn't feel good For us, our bodies react differently. We crave more alcohol, which explains why I can't decide, okay, I'm going to go out and I'm just going to have ten drinks. I'm gonna have ten drinks and I am going to stop at number ten. It never worked for me. Even when I was young, it never worked. I could never control the amount that I took because of that craving. Once I've got alcohol in my body, I am craving more of it. And I just, I can't stop. In fact, I mean, if I didn't pass out or fall asleep or get arrested or something interrupt that process, I'd drink myself to death. If I could stay awake long enough, I would drink myself to death because of that craving. Says these allergic types can never safely use alcohol in any form at all. NyQuil, Listerine, Sterno, you name it, rubbing alcohol. Our bodies don't know what's on the label. Our bodies react to the alcohol That's it And once that has formed the habit You got to take that No Once lost Having lost their self confidence The reliance upon things human Their problems pile up And then become astonishingly difficult To solve I had problems pileup on me That were astonishingly Difficult to solve And these were small problems It's like, you know, I need to fill up my gas tank. I need To find a way to scrape together, you Know, a buck and a half for a pack of Cigarettes, which I'm kind of dating Myself. I quit smoking 15 years ago. I know they're like, what, $9 a pack Now, $80, something like that. Anyway, that's the first part of step one. We are powerless over how much we drink. We have no power over controlling our drinking. The other part, which really kind of shocked me when I learned this stuff and when I really thought about it, is that if it were just a physical problem, if it was just a physically allergy, the answer would be what I was doing. Just don't drink. if you don't drink you cannot crave alcohol it can't happen the craving that we experience is a physical craving no booze, no craving it's that simple the problem is how do I keep from that first drink I could never do that I could not I could ever decide I'm done drinking and stick to it what they're telling us here in this book If you guys have a book, no one does. I'll read it to you. There's some italic writing on page 24 of the big book. And if you guys don't have this underlined in your books, go home and look at this. It says, The fact is that most alcoholics for reasons yet obscure have lost the power of choice in drink. our so-called willpower becomes practically non-existent. It says we are unable at certain times to bring into our consciousness with sufficient force the memory of the suffering and humiliation of even a week or a month ago. We are without defense against the first drink. My experience is this is the most important paragraph in this whole book right here. This is the paragraph that saved my life this time around. The people that I made friends with and that I was going to meetings with and that sponsored me, man, these people all loved me. I'm positive of that. I love them. They're the greatest people in the world. I'm still friends with them to this day. They meant well with the help that they offered me. They thought that they were doing the right thing. But the truth is when they were telling me to go to a bunch of meetings and to think through the drink, I was getting some pretty bad advice. And when I was telling new people to do the exact same thing because I was told to just do what was done to me and teach people what I'd been taught, I was killing alcoholics. The truth is, right here in this paragraph, is that thinking through the drinking process and the drink doesn't work. I can remember all the crazy stuff that happened to me when I Was Drinking. it couldn't keep me sober. My own war story couldn't keep me silver. I could remember the stuff, but I couldn't remember it was sufficient force to keep me sober. When I learned this last year, it scared the crap out of me. Because I thought that if I just get clear of the booze, get detoxed, get a few weeks distance between me and the last drink, then I'd be able to think through the drink and remember how bad the relapse was and stay sober. This paragraph totally contradicts what we've been telling people in Alcoholics Anonymous for years. The truth is, the group I was going to, we didn't talk about the big book. We had three, four meetings a day, pretty much discussion meetings. We We had a big book study on Sunday nights. Our big book studies consisted of reading a paragraph out of the big book, closing the big books, and talking about whatever you wanted to talk about. You were asked to stick to the topic, but if you don't, that's okay because you can talk about whatever is bothering you too. It doesn't matter as long as you participate. That's what our big book studying was in my group. Our primary purpose wasn't necessarily carrying our message to the alcoholic who still suffers. Basically, we didn't have a message. Our message was go to meetings. If you have a problem, bring it here. We'll help you solve it. And our primary purpose was pretty much trying to find enough chairmen for all the damn meetings we were holding. We're sending a message by having all these meetings that the meetings are important and that you need them to stay sober and we're going to have them all day long so that whenever you need to stay sober, there's going to be a meeting for you. I've been studying this book for a little over a year and there's nothing in this book about AA meetings. Back in the day, what they were doing was they were working the steps and they were carrying the message to alcoholics. They didn't have AA meetings to start with And when they did have them, people had worked the steps before they got to come to the meetings. And so they were spending their time looking for people to work with instead of hanging out in AA clubs playing dominoes waiting for a new person to show up. That's just what was going on back then. That's when they had a 75% success rate. Today, you know, in Dallas, Texas, based on our chip sales, you know the desire chips one month, two months, three months and all that, based on those numbers, you've got about a 5% chance of making it a year. We tell people to go to 90 meetings in 90 days. You've got a 15% chance to make it in 90 years. Can anybody tell me what happens on day 90 or day 91? What's supposed to happen then? Is it just that we're used to AA or we feel comfortable? Back in the beginning What these guys were doing Is they were taking people through the steps Quickly One day, two days Dr. Bob was taking people Through the steps in a couple of days His second day sober He's out looking for drunks to work with Bill Wilson, would it take him Seven days, nine days, something like that All these guys You know, two weeks tops Maybe 30 days tops and then they'd had their spirits experienced, their entire psychic change and they're out carrying the message. It was the coolest thing. What are we doing today? I know what I did when new people came up to me. You know, I used to stand in the meetings at the end of the meetings with, you know, 14, 15 years sober and there'd be a new guy in the room because we'd ask at the beginning of the meeting if there was a new guys then he puts his hand up and then we'd tell our war stories for an hour thinking that we're going to scare him into staying sober. And then after the meeting, I'm standing there, I'm thinking, God, please don't let this guy come up and ask me to be his sponsor because we'd all gone around the room and given our sobriety dates. I happened to have a lot of time at that time and I was an easy target. Please don't allow me to do that. Please don' t let him ask me to be a sponsor because I don' d know what to do with him. But then there's that other voice inside me that says, well, never say no in AA. hey, if someone asks you to do something, you do it. So these people come up to me and ask me to be their sponsor. What would I tell them? Well, I'd tell them what was told to me. Sit tight, go to 90 and 90, and we'll take our time with this thing. There's no rush. It's not a race. It's a marathon, blah, blah. And the truth is I didn't know what to do with the guy. I didn'T know how to take these steps out of the book. and I was just hoping that he'd make it and he'd stay sober for that 90 days and forget about wanting to do the steps so that way I wouldn't have to admit that I didn't know what the hell I was doing and most of the time the guys didn't make it and shame on me for that but that's what I was done with me and the truth is that I didn't know it was in this book. I had no clue. No one ever sat me down in the beginning and explained to me exactly what my truth is. My truth is, is that i've got a mind that can't keep me from the first drink and i've gotta body that can keep me form the second drink. You guys hear any hope in that? There's no hope. If I had learned that from the beginning I would have had a reason to take these steps. But when I got out of that treatment center and I'm feeling good, there's no reason to do that. There's no need to take those steps. Why mess things up? Why inflict any torture on myself talking about my past and stirring up my issues and all this stuff? Why even bother doing that? There's a guy named Paul who I think he's from Arizona and he wrote this thing and if you guys want a copy I'll be glad to email it to you just get with me after the meeting I'm not going to read the whole thing, it's kind of long but it's called Reflections of Step 1 and what he's writing about is basically his experience with step 1 he says my experience and attitude with steps 2 through 12 is simply a reflection of what I experienced in step 1 If I am honest with myself in step one, I cannot escape the truth. I cannot escaped the reality that there is nothing I can do to keep myself sober. I will see that I am guaranteed not to drink again. There is no hope in step 1. I will digest the truth that I do not have the power to choose whether I will or will not drink. Relying on my memory of suffering to keep me sober is no longer an option. my better judgment and greater intellect will not produce a mental defense against the first drink as a result of experience the first step rather than it being an intellectual exercise which is what it was for me when I was told that I had already taken step one before I came in I'm in touch with my powerlessness at a gut level this tends to produce discomfort this discomfort is a gift This very gift promotes a desire to seek power, which I do not possess. This discomfort is not to be confused with fear being the motivation to stay sober. That's what I used to stay sobre. I was scared of all that stuff that I thought would happen again. So I'm relying on fear, meeting attendants, the suffering that I experienced at the end of my drinking. To rely on fear to stay sore is dangerous, for the day will come when the fear will disappear and then there will be no reason for me to stay sober that's some pretty tough stuff there I had 17 years and I remember sitting in a I had about 15 years and I'm sitting in a meeting it was a men's meeting, it was an discussion meeting Saturday morning, me and all my buds, there was about 40 of us, a bunch of us would always go out to breakfast afterwards. Great fellowship great guys, love them all and we're sitting in the meeting, the chairman starts with a topic I don't remember what it was, maybe gratitude or you know what she did over the weekend I don' t know and he starts calling on people and the topic kind of changes every time someone else talks because they're talking about themselves and it gets around to me. I'm like maybe the fifth or sixth guy and they're calling me and I'm thinking, I don't have anything to say. I hadn't been practicing in my mind what I was going to say in case I got called on. So I'm unprepared. But I've got to say something. And so I introduced myself, Tom Alcoholic. Hi, Tom. We go through all that stuff and then I tell him, I said, look, you know, I don't want to scare any newcomers, but I've got to tell you guys the truth. I am dying in Alcoholics Anonymous. I'm going to drink again. It's not going to be today, probably not next week, probably not even this month, maybe not even this year. But I am headed in that direction and I don' t know what to do. And the rest of the meeting they kind of shared it at me. You know, we don't cross talk, but we can sure share it, people, you know. We can reference what they're saying and make it sound like we're not cross-talking. Am I the only one that's ever done that? So that's what these guys are doing, and they love me, and they come up to me after the meeting and they're giving me hugs and tell me that, you Know, man, I'm glad you shared that and you know what you need? I said, What? Here it comes. You need to go to more meetings. I'm thinking, I'm screwed. I'm absolutely screwed. My meeting attendance for that whole 17 years was high. I never had a period that I wasn't going to meetings. Never happened. I was afraid that if I quit going, I'd drink again. So I'm going no matter what. No matter how much crap I have to listen to in our meetings, I'm there because I don't want to drink and these guys are telling me I need to double up and I'm like, if that's the answer I can't do it I can' t, I can''t double up anymore I can ''t take this stuff anymore I can?'t I just can'' t stand it the truth is when we're in meetings let me just I might lose a few people here I notice I've already lost half the room and that's okay we don't have a right to say whatever we want in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting we don'T have that right, our primary purpose is to carry the group's message to the alcoholic who still suffers and if I'm going to use up precious meeting time, precious time to help that new person talking about me, I'm being a selfish SOB And if you guys are permitting me to do that No one's cutting me off You need to take a closer look at the traditions And think about why we're really here Alcoholics Anonymous is for sobering up drunks That's it That is what we're here for We can't handle We're not equipped To deal with our everyday problems That stuff gets taken care of on page 84 in step 10 I've tried it It works beautifully. That's not why we're here. You know, over on... And I know you guys have heard this part a million times. It says selfishness, self-centeredness, that we think is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self seeking, self pity. That's what I'm doing when I'm dumping my crap in a meeting. Self pity. We step on the toes of our fellows. blah, blah, blah. So our troubles we think are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves and the alcohol is an extreme example of self-will run riot. It says above everything we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. Why? We must or it kills us. If we don't get rid of this selfishness in step four, five, six, and seven we identify it in four, we talk about it five, we get ready to ask God to remove it in six and we pull the trigger in step seven we die so what are we doing when we permit someone to come into our meeting and take up time from the newcomer who comes here looking for the solution and engage in selfishness and self-centered behavior by talking about themselves are we kind of permitting them to do something that can kill them think about it I did it I sat there for years never said a word to anybody never said hey man quit being a bogart with this meeting take the steps do something about this stuff you're wrapped up in yourself all you think about is yourself in this meeting and you think that we're here to fix your problems I'm an alcoholic I don't know how to fix these problems. The book's real clear on this stuff. If we do the work, God will solve our problems. I've got all sorts of reasons to go to therapy based on traditional reasons, childhood issues, all this other stuff. That stuff does not haunt me anymore. If you look in the promises in the ninth step and there's promises all over the book. What I've experienced as a result of working the steps is I don't regret the past. I don'T sit here in meetings perseverating on all this crap that happened to me when I was a kid and I DON'T wish to shut the door on it. That's been my experience. When I do the steps and I do this work and I'm carrying the message to other alcoholics, that stuff in my past that I need therapy for it's not bothering me it's just not holding me back from anything what happens is I've taken these steps and I've tapped into a power greater than me that not only doesn't let that stuff pull me back but it pulls me forward it motivates me to go out and carry this message the 17 years I was sober I spoke one time at an AA group that's it one time I was asked a million times and I always had some excuse for not doing it because I was scared that I would have to come up here and try to remember my war stories which I couldn't remember because I've got the memory of a crack baby or try to make you guys laugh for an hour and I didn't think I could pull it off one time I'm in New Orleans My wife and I went there to hang out, and this friend of mine, Danny from Austin, knew this guy named Michael from New Orleans. He says, give Michael a call and go to a meeting with him. I was like, okay. Gave Michael a phone call. Gave him a call. And Michael shows up with a bunch of his buddies, takes me to a meet-up. I'm the only white guy in this meet-u. And these people wrote me in. It was also my seventh AA birthday. And they pulled me in and I was just like, you know, they were glad I was there, man. They all came up to me and wanted to know how things were in the program in Austin and we're just, you now, they're just the coolest people in the world. And then they find out it's my birthday and they ask me to speak. and I'm coming up when you're at the meeting and they're asking you to speak you can't tell them that you've got something else you've gotta do it doesn't work I rode there in their car so I'm screwed and somehow I made it through that meeting they all clapped at the end I don't know what I said But I do know this. Whatever I said was just a bunch of horse crap. I was regurgitating stuff that I'd been picking up in the meetings, stuff that had read off the bumper stickers, that I had read on the wall, all this stuff, just trying to kill an hour in front of a bunch o' people I don't know. And it was the scariest experience of my life. What's different? Today, I got lucky enough to find a sponsor and to find the group that studies this book and lives and dies by this book. And my sponsor sat down with me, took me through the doctor's opinion, the first 43 pages, and explained to me exactly what my problem was, that I've got a physical craving when it comes to alcohol and that I'm going to die if I take a drink. And that I have got a mind that no matter what the reason, it doesn't matter if I'm going to die if I take a drink there's no reason strong enough to keep me sober and that is the absolute truth and unless I experience an entire psychic change like it talks about in the doctor's opinion I'm screwed and he didn't candy coat it he didn'T say anything about well since you showed up here you must be an alcoholic nothing happens by mistake all that other stuff we tell people he hit me right in the middle of the forehead with this stuff and he asked me are you a real alcoholic I said yes and he said are you willing to do whatever it takes I said yeah we started out with these steps and within it was less than two weeks I had the steps done I've told people to take their time with the steps other people told me that I hear it all the time in AA meetings take your time with the steps wait a year until you do step 4 because you can't handle what you're going to write down you can' t deal with it you got to let your head clear here's the truth if you're a real alcoholic your brain can't keep you from the first drink and your body can't keep you form the second drink working with others and tapping into a power greater than yourself is your solution, you've got a week or a month that you can rely on your own defenses. Buddy, we've got to get you to your solution quick or you're going to die. That's just the truth of it. So when we're telling people take your time with these steps, wait a year before you can sponsor anybody or two years, that's crazy. Our solution is working with drunks. In fact, the book tells us nothing ensures immunity from drinking as much as intensive work with a drunk. That means taking them through the steps. That's our solution. Why would we keep people from the solution? You know, what's the deal there? Because we spend our time talking about our problems. That's what we're doing in our meetings. That's where we did it in our meeting. I don't know about you guys, but in our group, that's all we did. once in a while someone would say something out of the big book it was usually page 449 acceptance is the answer to all my problems how did these guys stay sober before they had a page 4 49 acceptance is kind of a result of working the steps but I don't have an acceptance switch I don' t have an acceptence button when I get jammed up there's nowhere I can go flip the switch and all of a sudden acceptance occurs I've been listening to this stuff for years and I'm just thinking well, I'm Just Screwed because I can't accept things in fact, on page 84 it tells me exactly what to do when I get sideways with the world when I feel resentful or selfish dishonest frightened whatever it gives me exact instructions So that's what I experienced this last year With the steps in Alcoholics Anonymous Was anybody here ever told that For step four you've got to write this 40, 50 page autobiography Get everything out on paper All that good stuff I'm thinking, you know, when I was maybe 23, 24, 25, I'm thinkin', I probably oughta do this four-step right now. Probably oughta get it out of the way because I've only got 25 years of stuff to write down. And if I wait till I'm 30 or 40, I'm gonna have 30 or40 years worth of stuff to write it down. So just, you kno, for the sake of keepin' it short, I'll do it now. And I did it and I wrote down all sorts of stuff, just, I don't know what I wrote but I did this fifth step and it was really more like confessional the guy I was doing it with didn't understand that the whole purpose of this exercise is to identify the things that are blocking me from that power that's going to save my life in fact, the whole purpose of the steps the steps are designed to remove all the things that block us from God the selfishness the dishonesty, all of our character defects. We're not doing these steps so that Tom can turn into a good boy. That's not what this stuff is about or make up with everybody and everybody can be happy. The whole purpose of these steps are to remove all those things that are blocking me from God for my solution. And step four is no different. And, you know, if confessional were the solution, man, go down to the church, grab your priest, dump your stuff, and you're done. You never have to drink again. The problem is that's not what works for us. What works for uns is identifying what it is that blocks us from God and asking him to remove it. That's it. So step four, we kill a lot of folks with them because we overwhelm them with the steps. They think that they can't do this stuff and so they don't do it. Who the hell wants to fail at anything? It's a lot easier to not do it and not fail than it is to do it and fail. And what we're doing with folks is we're pretty much telling them This stuff is really, really, really, really hard and takes a long, long, long, long time and good luck and they just kind of sit in their meetings and do their thing until they drink again and then they die. Step four when I took it we used this this step four guide oh it's in here somewhere It looks like this. This is the Joe and Charlie four-step guide, if any of you guys are familiar with those guys. This is their guide. This is The Resentment page. All you do is write down who you're resentful at, what they did, why you pissed off. And then this part right here talks about the parts of self that were affected. Remember, self is something we've got to get rid of or it kills us, so we've Got to See What It Is about self that is getting jammed up here. And then column four, we look at the exact nature of our wrongs. When my sponsor took me through this and when I take people through it, I tell them do this column, do this column, give this column a shot. If you can't do it perfectly, fine. If your sponsor if you can figure out which box to check, forget about it. I'll do it with you. And then save column four for me because when we're doing step five. I can see this stuff there and you can, and we'll do column four together. And we'll point this stuff out to you. It takes it took me, and I'll be honest I was playing on the internet and watching TV. It took me an hour and a half to do my fourth step. Most people it takes an hour to an hourand a half. Does that sound better than a 50 page autobiography? Yeah. This stuff is doable. These steps were designed to be able to work them in a couple of days. These guys, when they started writing the steps and taking the steps, they didn't mean for us to take a year doing this stuff. They got it. They understood that our solution was something that we had to get quick, and that's what these steps are designed to do. So when I'm doing my fifth step, Am I boring my sponsor to death with all the details of all this stuff? Man, we're just banging through this stuff. All I need to get out of that is I need to see what it is about me is blocking me from God. That's all I got to do. And that's it in a nutshell. It's nothing. Step five, when I take a guy through step five, depending on how much I run my mouth, it takes an hour or two. I don't ever want to sit through an eight- or ten-hour fifth step like I've heard about some people doing. I mean, doesn't that just kind of make you sick thinking about that? Or, you know, thinking about the new guy going through that? It's not necessary. Get them to six and seven, send them right home. The book says we got quiet for an hour. We considered what we'd just been doing, what we've learned. You know, am I solid in step one? Do I understand what my real problem is? Do I believe that God can restore me to sanity? Do I, do I believe that these other people have gotten sober and stayed sober through a power greater than themselves? That's all you need. Step three, are we solid in step three? Do we understand if you look at the words in step 3 we're making a deal with God. Take away my difficulties so I can better do your will. It's not take away my disabilities it's we're telling him You do this, I'll do this. We're making a big deal with God in step three. And am I prepared to live up to the bargain I just made if he does this stuff for me? Hell yeah. Step four, have I left anything out? No, it's all out there. Am I real clear on what it is that's blocking me from God? Yes. Do I see if I don't get rid of this stuff, I won't get to God and I'll die? Yeah, it' s real clear in step one. Well, great, I'm going to do step seven and ask them to remove this stuff. Step eight, how long does it take to make a list? We pretty much got it all in step four. You might add a few people. Step eight might take you 15 minutes, 20 minutes. That's it. No big deal. Step nine. I thought, and a lot of people in AA think that you've got to finish your last amendment before you go on to steps 10, 11, and 12. It's crazy. Most of the power that we need to make these amends, because some of this stuff is tough stuff, comes from 10, 11, and 12. I can't believe how wrong I was about that. Page 84, and I'm going to show you where our ticket to do that is. It's right here in the book. Up to page 84, we've been talking about steps 1 through 9, the promises. Now we're bringing us to step 10. It says this ought brings us to set 10, which suggests we continue to take personal inventory and continue to set right any new mistakes as we go along. We vigorously commence this way of living, step 10, as we cleaned up the past. We're starting step 10 as we're cleaning up the pass. How many lives can we save if we get people to do 10, 11, and 12 while they're doing step 9? Where do we lose people? We lose them in the beginning. We definitely lose them with step nine because they just can't imagine themselves doing this stuff. And the truth is, they're right. Believe them. When they can't picture it, believe them. They don't have the power to do it. They're not feeling it. Most of the mojo from this program comes from the last three steps. I didn't know that. I had no clue until I did it. so that's you know that's what we got to point out to these people is you know these steps are not that hard to take and this is how you do it it's all right here in this book you don't have to make up your own four step guides or first step assignments or any of this stuff it's all right here and And I've got to tell you guys, I pretty much screwed myself for two decades in this program, missing out on the coolest stuff I've ever experienced in my life, working with other people. Like I told you, I was afraid of sponsoring people because I was scared of killing them. I was afraid of looking bad. I was scared of someone finding out that I didn't know what the hell I was talking about, and so I just didn't do it. Since I've gotten with these big book thumpers and I've taken these steps, and I understand what's in this book because I've spent a ton of time studying it, sponsoring people is so easy. it's the coolest thing in the world to watch some guy go from being a miserable wreck and a couple weeks later he still looks bad but he's got life in his eyes and he's prepared to sponsor other people he's had an entire psychic change by working these steps and he has a lot of and he've got a message to carry that is the absolute coolest thing on the world and it's not a big deal So I was thinking, well, if I start sponsoring all sorts of people, then I'm going to have to listen to a bunch of crap from people pissing and moaning about their day and all this other stuff all day long. My phone's just going to ring off the hook. Well, you know what? When you make the commitment on the front end and you get them through this work, I'm not hearing all sorts OF crap on the back end. The problems that they're having is, hey, I'm doing this fist-up with this guy. This is what he said. What do I tell him? these are the kind of problems people are coming to me with or when they get jammed up with a resentment or a fear or something we do a page 84 call they call me up hey this is what happened well you know what'd you do what's your part in this deal do you owe any amends no did you ask God to remove it yes great go help another drunk click it's that simple and if if you're not doing it try it just try it It's the absolute coolest thing in the world. You guys want me to go another hour? Thank you to those who stayed. I know this is tough stuff. I know it, but it's stuff that needs to be talked about, and I'm not sorry for that. I care about the people that come into our rooms looking for a solution and don't get it. It happened to me, it's happened to you guys, it's happen to all the dead people we know. It's just... This is serious stuff. Thank you for listening.