The Resentment Replay Machine – Joe M.

The first time I begin to see that this stuff really comes not from people, places, and things, but it comes from what they do. Later on, I'm going to try to find the best method of living that I can to be in peace of mind and serenity and harmony with my fellow man. And one of the first things is to start a forgiving process. and as I look at that second column and see it's really not them it's what they do that begins to remove names out of the picture and it's the beginning of a process that I'm going to follow all the way through I quit concentrating on them now and I'm concentrating on what they do. That's what's got me upset Okay Now we finish the second column Now let's look now at the third column in most cases it was found that our self-esteem that's a social instinct our pocketbook and that's material security our ambitions our personal relation another social instinct including sex were hurt or threatened so we were burned up we were so we Were Burned Up now we go and look at each. We don't even have to look at the name anymore. The name is out of the picture. We can look at the second column and develop the third column. Let's look at what they did and trace it over and see what did they hurt. What part of self did they hurt? You cannot have a resentment unless one part of self has been threatened or hurt. So now we can trace that column take the second column and find the third column we go to the self-esteem column working top to bottom and look at each cause and see if that's a threat to our self-esteem if so we'll put down a little check mark after we finish the self esteem column we go to personal relationships column was it a threat to a personal relationship when we finish that we go to the material security column then the emotional security then the acceptable sex life then the hidden sex life and then each of the ambitions keeping always in mind top to bottom while we got one thing only on our mind if we'll do that we probably will begin to see certain patterns develop maybe we'll begin to see that most of those check marks are falling under self-esteem, and that self-esteem is a real problem with us. Maybe we'll see most of them under material security. Maybe we're going to see some of them in the United States. Maybe we will see most have them under sex. It's probably going to be a combination of all, but one or two of those columns are going to predominate and stand out and begin to show us which part of self is really giving us a hard time. And if we'll carefully do that with this column, I think we will learn the most valuable piece of information we'll ever know. I know that I did. For the first time in my life, I saw where anger comes from. for the first time I saw that it came from a threat to one of my basic instincts of life. I've always had a problem with anger. I've also had a hard time with anger and I've never always acted and reacted in anger and it caused me to hurt people and I would say I'll never do that again but turn right around and do it over and over. I never knew where anger came from. I thought it was just one of those feelings that flits into your mind and you can't control it and you Can't do anything about it. In order to do anything about a problem, you've got to understand it. And for the first time in my life I saw that anger comes from a threat to one of my basic instincts of life, and it's how I choose to react to that threat which determines whether I'm angry or not. You know, I'm married to a lady who's... A lot of you know her name is Barbara, lovely lady, love her deeply. and if there's any such thing as a black belt ellen on barbara is it barbary's one of them she got 24 years and she got a fine fine program once in a while she gets out of culture too and sometimes she'll do something to me say something or take an action that really does hurt now if i'm right with god and my basic instincts are under control I find that I'm able to say well the poor old thing that's just the way they are they're sick also and it'll just slip off of my back and it won't bother me at all two weeks from now the same lady does the same thing and that day I'm not right with God and my instincts are not under control and I'll blow my stack and I will romp and stomp and raise hell with everybody around me all day long same lady did the same thing. The only difference is I choose to react to it in an entirely different manner for that particular given day based on my relationship with God. For the first time, I begin to see it's not them. It's not what they do. It'S how I choose TO REACT on any given day to a threat to one of basic instincts of life. Thank God I've learned that because you see, I can't do anything about her and I can do anything what she does. But with God's help, maybe I can do something about my reaction to that. I didn't know these things until I filled out these three columns. Oh, I've learnt three valuable things. First column, how angry I I really am and how much that controls me. Second column, it's not them. It's what they do. Third column, it's really not what they do. It is how I react to a threat to one of my basic instincts of life. And for the first time I saw where anger comes from. Very valuable information. Now let's see what we do with this information now that we fill these three sheets out, Joe. Okay, let's look at that. Let's look at what Bill put down in his third column. Mr. Brown is attention to my wife. I threaten his sex relations. Well, Brown gets messing around with my life. My wife threatens his sex relations and his self-esteem. What are other people going to think about me if Brown messes around with my wife? Told my wife about my mistress oh now that messed up his sex relation probably all the way around yeah okay now uh you know because uh his wife cut him off at home and then his wife probably called the mistress and the mistress didn't cut him out over there now he ain't got no sex relation self-esteem now what are other people gonna think about me when they find out about me and my wife and my mistress and brown and all this thing gets out after all you know i'm an outstanding citizen go to work every day work with the boy scouts go to sunday school every morning now they're gonna find out all this stuff about me you know that really that'll really mess up your self-esteem. You can ask old Jimmy Baker about that, he'll tell you. Okay. Brown may get my job at the office and this threatens my security, my material security, my income, and my self-esteem too. What are other people going to think about me when they find out browned and got my job. And we can see that we go on down and some part of self is threatened to evolve in each of these resentments. This is the root cause of these resentments." So he says, "...on our grudge list..." He repeats these instructions twice. "...on our grudges list..." That's column one. "...we said obstinate names are injurious..." Column two. And then he says column three again. "...was it our self-esteem our security, our ambition, our personal sex relationship would end up being interfered with. He'd give us instructions twice on how to fill these sheets out, real simple. And as we start, it sounded like a little computer. The first column comes first. Then from the first column you can see the second column. Then once you get the second volume down, then you can say the third column. Now we're getting down to the basic information that we want to do something about. We want to look at column three and then later column four. These are the information we have to analyze out to get. See, we really, the first and the second column is, we haveと go through those doors. We have to gather that information, but it's really useless. You know, there's nothing we can do about those people or what they do. We can only do something about ourselves. But we have то get all that information to get to the third or fourth column because this is really what we're going to go to work on. Now then, the bottom of page 65. We went back through our lives. Nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty. When we were finished, we considered it carefully. The first thing apparent with this world and its people were often quite wrong, and they are. To conclude that others were wrong was as far as most of us ever got. That's all I ever did with a resentment to see what those suckers had done to me. The usual outcome was that people continued to wrong us and we stayed sore. Sometimes it was remorse, and then we were sore at ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our own way, the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seemed to win. Our moments of triumph were short-lived. it's plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness to the precise extent that we permit these do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile and i stopped and and i tried to look back in my life and see how much time i've squandered in resentments i don't know about you guys but i know about me and i know that when i've got a good resentment churning around up here in my head. I'm pretty well paralyzed from doing anything worthwhile. All I want to do is run that thing through there and play it over and over and over and one of my favorite things when I was drinking was to get up early in the morning, have a drink of whiskey and a cup of coffee, and turn on my resentment replay machine and replay what she did to me yesterday and what he did to me last week and what they did to be last month and what the boss did to me a year ago and what somebody else did two years ago and what's somebody else did five years ago and then what they did 10 years ago and then find it back to what my uncle did 15 years ago and then back to what my mother did 20 years ago and as far back as I could remember I would dredge that up every morning and play that. It would take just about an hour for that tape to run out and then I would have another drink of whiskey and another cup of coffee and I would turn on my get even machine. Now by God the next time she does that, I'll do this, da da da, take another I've wasted thousands and thousands and thousands of hours in resentments I don't see where they ever did me any good. They never made me any money. They never made me feel better. They only made me feel worse. They've never straightened up a relationship with another human being, they only made them worse. Now today for the first time in my life I'm sober and I'm joyous and I am happy and I feel good. I've never had this feeling before and I love absolutely every minute of it. I have only got so many hours on earth to live and i've squandered about all of my want in those things that make me sick i absolutely refuse to waste any more time in resentments that is a bad bad deal but it's not the worst deal here's the worst thing but with the alcoholic whose hope is maintenance and growth of a spiritual experience this business of resentment is infinitely grave We found that it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings, we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The resentment blocks God out of the mind. With God blocked out ofthe mind, we don't feel good. And we want to feel better. And the mind remembers that sense of ease and comfort that comes at once by taking a few drinks. The next thing you know, we become insane. The insanity of alcohol returns. we think we can drink, and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die. That's what's wrong with a resentment. It blocks us off from God, and it causes us to get drunk. And it seems as though it doesn't make any difference whether it's a justified or an unjustified resentment. Both of them block God out of the mind. And we'll get just as drunk on a justified one as we will on an unjustied one. if we were to live we had to be free of anger the grouch and the brainstorm were not for us they may be the dubious luxury of normal men but for alcoholics these things are poison we turn back to the list people's always saying do you have to have a written inventory well the inventory itself is described as a written list of items and if it wasn't written we couldn't turn back to it now we're going to go back and look at it again. We were prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle. We began to see that the world and its people really dominated us. In that state, the wrongdoing of others fancied or real had power to actually kill. And I read that and I thought, oh my God, how stupid can you be? All my life I've been proud of the fact that I stand on my own two feet i make my own decisions i run my own show nobody tells me what to do and when i read that statement i suddenly realized that people have been telling me what to do all my life as far back as i can remember through my resentment toward them they've had control of my thinking and if they got control of our thinking they got controlled of my actions And they very effectively have controlled my life as far back as I can remember. And I always thought I did it, and hell, I never did do it. They always did it. And then I thought, you really are dumb because some of these people have been dead and buried for years. And they've been reaching out from the grave and they've had me by the yang-yang as farback as I could remember. And when I could see that, I said to hell with them. I'm not going to let them live in my head, rent-free any longer. I've made a decision to let God direct my thinking. And if other people do it, alive or dead, then God can't, period. Now how could we escape? We saw that these resentments must be mastered. But how? We could not wish them away any more than alcohol. They come from self-will. and only God has the power to overcome these things. This was our course. We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not like their symptoms and the way these disturbed us, they like ourselves were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience that we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended, we said to ourselves as a sick man, how can I be helpful to him? God save me from being angry. Thy will be done. You know what this is saying? This is saying we may have to pray for some of these people. Bill told us back before, simple but not easy. A price has to be paid. It means the destruction of self-centeredness. And for me to pray for somebody I resent is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. But if I want to get rid of them and if I don't want to gets drunk I may have to turn to God and ask for help in each situation Joe okay as we analyze these resentments get them down on paper get them done get them here in all three columns we begin to read them across now we can read them across and as we begin the read them across and get some reality to them they look a lot different and that's why we're putting them down. We can't analyze them in the head, but we can analyze them on paper in black and white. Once we get them down in black and white, we can analyze them. And once we look at them, I think that about 95% of these resentments will leave our minds because they really I think most of us, I think almost all of us most human beings, but particularly we alcoholics, we think of ourselves as fairly intelligent people. But you know, after you get your resentments and look at them on paper about 95 percent of them look pretty stupid especially when we see what they're doing to us that's right they look pretty dumb they look good in your head but they look dumb on paper and a lot of them will just kind of they will you know they will they will become objectionable they'll just we'll get rid of them now there will be some as he suggested that will deep be deep-seated resentments, and he leaves us a tool for that. He says we pray for those people we resent. This never fails to work. Now there's no way you can enter into communion with God and pray for a person's welfare, the deepest form of love that one person can show for another. There's no way you can pray for a person and continue to resent him. That prayer will overcome, that love will overcome the resentment. There's an illustration, and this is what it says, we pray for these people. Now, there's an demonstration in our book, how we like to go back to, it's the only time we go back into freedom from bondage, that a woman used this, and we usually like to see, it's a great explanation, as an example, rather, of using prayer on resentment. Look at 551 and dash through this before we close here. 551. Don't get too edgy. We're going to be through here in just a few minutes. About the middle of the paragraph on 551 and freedom from bondage, She says, I've had many spiritual experiences since I've been in the program that I didn't recognize right away. But I'm slow to learn and they take many guises. But one was so outstanding I would like to pass it on whenever I can and hope it would help someone else as it has me. As I said earlier, self-pity and resentment were my constant companions. And my inventory began to look like a 33-year diary for I seemed to have resentments against everyone I'd ever known. All but one responded to the treatment suggested in steps immediately, but this one posed a problem. In other words, she filled out those three columns, she looked at them, she saw what they were doing to her, and all but one of them disappeared. But one stayed. She said, it was against my mother. It was 25 years old. I had fed it, fanned it, and nurtured it as one mighty delicate child. it has become a much a part of me as my breathing and she said it provided me with excuses for my lack of education my marital failures personal failures inadequacy and of course my alcoholism I really thought I was I really felt I was willing to let it willing to part with it now, I knew I was reluctant to let it go. One morning, however, I realized I had to get rid of it for my reprieve was running out and if I didn't get rid, I was going to get drunk and I ain't gonna want to get drank anymore. In my prayers that morning, I asked God to point out to me some way to be free of this resentment. During the day, a friend of mine brought me some magazines to take to a hospital group I was interested in, and I looked through them, and the banner across the front was one featuring an article by a prominent clergyman in which I caught the words resentment. He said in effect, if you have a resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or thing you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness and you will be free even when you don't really want it for them. Your prayers are only words and you don' t mean it. Go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks and you will find you have come to mean it and want it for them and you'll realize that where you used to feel bitterness or resentment and hatred you will now feel compassionate understanding and love it will work it will worked every time on deep seated resentments if you've got a resentment you don't want to get rid of for God's sake don't pray about it because if you do you're going to lose it I speak from experience I had one against a guy and I hated him with a purple passion I think I'd have gladly put him away if i could figure out a way to do it without getting caught and i got into this part of the program and it began to bug me and like this lady i went to my sponsor and i told him about it and he said charlie you got to get rid of that resentment i said i don't want to get rid of this resentment he said that's beside the point he said if you don't it's going to get you drunk and in my smart mouth manner i said okay how in the hell do you do that he said let me show And he took me to this example, and he said, Now go home and do what that says, and you'll get rid of it. And I went home and got down on my knees, which I very seldom did in those days. And I said, God, I want you to give that son of a bitch everything he deserves. And that's the only prayer that I had for him that day. But three or four or five days later, I found myself saying something I really didn't mean. I found myself saying, God give to him what I want in my life. Give him the same peace of mind serenity and happiness that I seek for myself. And some three or four or five or six days after that I woke up one morning and that resentment was absolutely completely gone. It's never come back. The irony in the situation is that it was shortly after that that this guy turned out to be my next door neighbor. And for years we visited back and forth in each other's homes. We became good friends again. I'm glad that happened. About a year ago, he died with an unexpected heart attack. And I'm Glad This Thing Got Straightened Out Before He Did. This thing really does work. Now just think. If 95% of those resentments disappear automatically as we do the process, if the other five percent can be removed through prayer then that means that part of my mind these displaced cases that used to be filled with resentment have now been emptied out that damage and unsaleable goods is gone now there's another natural law that applies Nature abhors a vacuum. No such thing as a void. Something's always coming in to fill it up. God's not going to let those resentments disappear and leave a hole in my head. I've got enough of those already. If those resentents disappear, then they must be replaced with something else. And the only thing that can replace them is the opposite of the resentment. and automatically I begin to find that the part of my mind which used to be filled with resentment has now been filled with love patience tolerance and goodwill toward my fellow man and to my absolute amazement I found I didn't have to read any other books I didn' t have to go to any other fellowships if God dwells within me and I'm convinced that He does, then those things have always been a part of my makeup. I just never could use them before. In my chase for money, power, prestige, and sex, those things had to be repressed. But now that the resentment's gone, they automatically come to the surface and begin to fill my mind. And in that part of mine which used to be controlled with resentments I now have some peace of mind and serenity and happiness. I'm in much less chance of getting drunk than I was before I started this inventory process. And all I've done is look at resentments. There's nothing negative about step four at all. I didn't make a list of dirty, filthy, nasty items. There's Nothing Here to be Afraid of. all I did was look at honestly my resentments do something about their removal and I got rid of them now it would do me no good to get rid of them though if I didn't know how to keep them from coming back because the world is filled with sick people and tomorrow they're going to do it to me again and if I'm not careful I'll resent and I can't have one I'll have two then three then ten and the next thing you know, I'm a basket case all over again. We've got to do one more short thing and then we'll be through. Let's unfold your fourth column now and let's go to page 67 and let'S see the final thing that we need to do on resentments. Your fourth column says, What's the exact nature of the wrong, fault, mistake, defect, shortcoming, etc.? the wrong is the resentment that's what blocks me off from god but what's the exact nature of it and i had to go to the dictionary and look that word up i thought it dealt with birds and bees only but i find out the nature of something is what is the inherent characteristic of it What is at the core of it? What's the real truth about it? Now, on page 67, third paragraph. Referring to our list again, putting out of our minds the wrongs others had done, we resolutely looked for our own mistakes. Now, this is brand new information. I've never looked at my mistakes. have always looked to see what they've done. Where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, frightened, and we added the word inconsiderate because it's used two pages later? Though a situation had not been entirely our fault, we tried to disregard the other person involved entirely. Where were we to blame? The inventory was ours, not the other man's. When we saw a false, we listed them. We placed them before us in black and white. We admitted our wrongs honestly, and we were willing to set these matters straight. Now, in column four, we see the four basic character defects that all human beings have. All human beings who operate on self-will become very selfish people. they become very dishonest people they have to they become very fearful frightened individuals they become very inconsiderate of other human beings those are the only four basic character defects that Bill talks about in the big book now later on in a 12 and 12 he listed God only knows how many but all those in a twelve and twelve stem from these four Pride, greed, lust, anger, all that stems from these four basic character defects. All human beings have these to a certain extent. Now, I'm going to take each resentment now, and I can look at it honestly, and I kan look in the fourth column, and I ken see what's within me that created that resentment in the first place. and when I did this I was absolutely amazed for instance the first name on my list was this beautiful lady named Barbara that I'm married to today and if Joe will put her name down we'll list her as the one I'm mad at now we're going to do this left or right because we're just going to be we're only going to go up one or two otherwise we'd go up and down what was the cause of my resentment toward Barbara why, hell, she filed for divorce three times the last year I drank. She's spending more money on lawyers than I'm spending on booze and everything else. What part of self was affected? Well, that's a threat to my self-esteem. What's the neighbors going about this deal? It's a thread to my personal relationships, not only with her but with my children. It's threat to material and emotional security. it's a threat to my acceptable sex life it's a threat to all my ambitions she just damn near wiped me out right across the board and I was really upset with that lady until I read page 67 and I looked in the fourth column and I said Charlie forget what she did what did you do and for the first time I really looked honestly and I can see that if I hadn't been so selfish I wouldn't have been out there doing some of the things I was doing and if I had not been doing them I wouldn' t have got caught and she probably would not have filed for divorce I could see where if I wasn't so dishonest I wouldn'T have been sneaking around behind her back lying to her anyhow I could see where If I wasn't such a frightened individual I was approaching 40 years of age. And I was beginning to say to myself, man, if you don't get out there and get some of that now, it'll be too late. A real problem with some of us. I could begin to see if I wasn't so inconsiderate of Barbara and my children, I wouldn't have been doing the things I was doing, and I wouldn'T have put her in that position. All Barbara did was retaliate against me for what I myself had been doing. Now, for the first time I realized why I love resentments. Because you see, every time I played that over in my head, what she did got worse and what I did got better. And let me play it long enough and eventually I can make her the devil, make me as pure as the driven snow, and excuse me to go on and do that the next time. And I thought, my God, can this be true with any of the others? The second resentment was the Internal Revenue Service. God, I hated them with a purple passion. Why? They're about to throw me in jail, that's why. What part of self is affected? Oh man, that just wipes me out all across the board. If you throw me into jail, you threaten an ever-basic instinct to life. I looked at column four. I said, forget what they're doing. What did you do to set this thing in motion? Well, if I hadn't have been cheating on my income tax, they wouldn't have Been after me in the first place. I was so selfish that I was willing to take a chance and cheat them. I was So dishonest. I was SO frightened of facing life without that money that I cheated those people, and they caught me, and they retaliated against me. And then I played that over and over and over in my head. And every time I played it, they got worse and I got better. And finally I made them the devil, made me as pure as the driven snow and let me go on about my business. I did not have a resentment on my sheet that I hadn't done something to them in the first place and they had retaliated and then I had distorted it by playing it over. If you're a practicing alcoholic, you've got to develop these kinds of skills. I don't think we could live with ourselves if we had to honestly see what's going on in our lives when we're drinking, but we don't have to see it. Through this resentment process, we distort the picture, we transfer all blame to other people, make ourselves as pure as the driven snow, and then just keep right on doing what we've always done. Now I looked in that fourth column and I could see that old personality I had become. I had become that selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, frightened, inconsiderate human being and that's what caused me to do those things. And that's what caused my to hurt those people and then they retaliated against me. Now do I want peace of mind in the future? If I do I better start changing what's in column four because if I stay selfish, if I stay dishonest, if I stay self-seeking, frightened and inconsiderate, I'm going to do the same things I've always done. They're going to retaliate. I'm going to resent and transfer blame to them. And I'm going to block me off from God and I'm gonna end up drunk. For the first time, I saw the root cause of that anger. The root cause or that resentment. It's Not them, not what they do. It's not a threat to my basic instincts. It's my own damn fault because I made decisions based on self which placed me in a position to be hurt. It's just that simple. Now we're looking here at step four as we go through this thing. This is part of step four. Out there in that fourth column, we've got the exact nature of the wrongs that we're going to talk to another human being about in step 5 in that 4th column we've gut those things we're gonna become willing to turn loose of in step 6 in that fourth column we've cut those things we're not gonna ask God to take away in step 7 and in the first column many of those names and in my case all of them will come off of that list and I'll use it for eight and nine when I get there. The book says in step eight we have the list. We made it when we took step four. I cannot see anything in the world any more simple than that inventory. And it sets me up for four, five, six, seven, eight, and nine resentment-wise. now I think I hear some of you saying well yeah that's probably all true but how about those justified resentments how about those things they did to me that I didn't have anything to do with it sure once in a while that's going to happen but I think we better realize justified or unjustified it blocks us off from God and it's going to cause us to get drunk. And if we've got one of those resentments from way back in our childhood and we don't want to turn loose of it we better look in column four and see what we're doing with it. Maybe we're so selfish we're afraid of facing life without it. Maybe we are so dishonest with ourselves, we refuse to look at the truth. Maybe we are so frightened of living without that resentment that we simply refuse to turn it loose. Maybe were so inconsiderate of another human being that we fail to realize that they're sick. Those people who hurt us, they don't do it because they're bad. They do it because they are sick. And if they didn't do it to us, they would have done it to anybody in that situation. And, if we can once realize that and begin to consider that there are sick people also, maybe we can start a forgiving process and maybe straighten up a relationship with another human being before it's too late. You know, it really doesn't make any sins. And let somebody hurt us 10, 15, 20 years ago. Carry that resentment with us and let them hurt us every day for the rest of our life. They hurt us then, they'll continue to hurt us as long as we let them do it. As long as мы have that resentment, they've blocked us off from God and eventually they may cause us to get drunk. If we don't want turn loose of that resentment, we better look at it closely. Maybe we're rationalizing and justifying. Maybe they were doing like the lady in the book did. She blamed her lack of education on her mother, bull. She blame her marital failure on her mother, Bull. She blames her alcoholism on her mother, a bull. We're all grown people, we're all adults, and I think it's time for us to start taking responsibility for our own behavior the greatest excuse in the world is to say well i wouldn't have to do this if they hadn't done that to me or i'd be able to be this if it hadn't been for them no that's all excuse making that's old rationalization and as long as we're letting that resentment hold us back then they are controlling our lives i'm not going to let somebody hurt me 20 years ago and continue to control me for the rest of my life. I don't have to do that. I've got a process of getting rid of that. We'll never be free of the past until we can turn it loose, and as long as we carry one resentment from the past, then they've got us and they're going to hold us for the rest of our lives. We don't have to do that. I think we've got something going in AA today that's probably a bad thing. In too many cases, we're sitting around the tables and we're talking about what they did to us and trying to figure out why they did it. We're sitting here and we've been talking about sitting around this table talking about what they did and why it made us the way we are. We'll never understand. The fact is, they did it. It made us who they are or the way we are, but the question is, what are we going to do about it today? Are we going to get rid of it, or are we gonna continue to carry it and let them kill us? The choice is ours. And we're the only people that have that choice. Joe? Anything to say? All right, that's one part of the inventory. Now the second part of the inventory is going to be fear and then sex. Now we're tired today and we know you are and we both got a headache. We really don't want to fool with sex today. Why don't we get a good night's sleep and we'll have sex on Sunday morning? Is that okay? I've been asked to remind... 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 a 12-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous, I haven't found necessary to take a drink for 8,166 days today, one day at a time. And for this, I'm very grateful. It did a beautiful Sunday morning. God, you all look great this morning. I know you all went home last night and worked on your resentments and you're resentment free this morning, I can tell just by looking at you, you're a beautiful group of people. Not a resentment in the room today. Everybody knows how I love little stories and little jokes, and quite often when I get home from a big book study, I'll find a new one that somebody stuck in my big book. And not too long ago, I found one I'd like to share with you this morning you know they we've been talking about baptist preachers all weekend and this one is about a catholic it happened to be about a new priest a young priest and he was so nervous at the first mass he held he could hardly speak and for the second week uh to hold the mass he asked him on senior what he could do to relax and among senior said well next meet or next week it might help if you'd put some vodka in the water pitcher before mass and said after a few sips everything would be fine the next sunday the new priest put the suggestion into practice and was able to talk up a storm and god he felt great upon returning to the rectory he found a note though from the monsignor and the monsigneur's note said this one next time sip rather than gulp two there are ten commandments not twelve three there are twelve disciples not ten four David slew Goliath he didn't kick the shit out of him five we do not refer to our Savior Jesus Christ and his apostles as J.C. and the boys six next week there is a taffy pulling contest at san peter's not a peter pulling contest seven we do not refer to the cross as the big t nor do we refer to the father son and holy ghost as big daddy junior and the spook last but not least it's the Virgin Mary not Mary with a cherry that's probably about as spiritual as we're going to get this morning Joe my name is Joe and I'm a real alcoholic through God's grace and because this program works, I'm quite necessary to take a drink today. And for this, I am extremely grateful. As we completed the—I got into the real action of work, we began the inventory yesterday. We were able to list in through this process of the big book. With this process, I think it's the only process available to us to analyze our resentments. And we were able to analyze those resentments as we went through them to get down to the exact nature and isolate our character defects that was associated with our resentments. Not only were we to isolate them, but the inventory is a very positive step. We were also able to get rid of those resentions because when we looked and saw them and analyzed them and seen how stupid some of them were, they left our minds. And then the other ones we used prayer on. So we can see inventory is a very cleansing process. And we put these things down from column to column. And once we got the inventory on resentments completed, we had all the information that we have isolated the information in column four because this is where we have to go through three columns to get to column four. And this is what we are going to work on in Steps 5, 6, and 7. In 4, we're going to identify it. In 5, we've got to talk to someone else and find out we're correct. In 6, we become willing to let go of it. And I think that's very key. We're going find out that the key to this is all Step 4 because if we didn't see how ridiculous this was, this would not become objectionable to us in Step 6, and we wouldn't have had to remove it in Step 7. We also isolated some of the people in the first column that once we analyzed our resentments toward them, we found out that we had started the whole thing, that we have struck them first. So they go on a list for step eight and nine. Now not only have we prepared ourselves for steps five, six, seven, eight, and nine, we have prepared ourselves for step 10. you know we're finding that it's probably totally impossible to work a good effective step 10 unless you have a good foundation in step four now from now on for the rest of our lives when we feel a resentment the only thing we have to do is look at the third column each every day in our lives we can ask ourselves immediately what is threatened or endangered if you feel of resentment, you know, one of your social instincts is threatened or your security instincts is threatening or your sex life is threatened. You can spot it right away and then once you feel that, then immediately you can look and see which character defect has come back into your life and you can see that character defect. You Can look at it and ask God to remove it and get rid of it and that resentment will leave you. So not only does it actually teaches us and prepares us to work step 10 for the rest of our life resentment wise once we have completed step four so it's laid the groundwork for all the rest of our work as far as resentment is concerned now having completed that we're going to now look at the second manifestation you know we said that uh one of the symptoms of spiritual illness one of the second symptom of spiritual illness with people this matter that one of manifestations of self too is fear and now we're going to do the same job on fear we're gonna use the same procedure to analyze that fear to get down to the exact nature and isolate the things that is causing this. At the bottom of page 67, notice that the word fear is bracketed alongside the difficulties with Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, the employer, and the wife. This short word somehow touches about every aspect of our lives. It was an evil and corroding thread. The fabric of our existence was shot through with it. It set in motion trains of circumstances which brought us misfortune we felt we didn't deserve but did not we ourselves set the ball rolling sometimes we think fear ought to be classed with stealing it seems to cause more trouble now then bill gives us in the next paragraph a set of instructions on how to look at our fears and basically they're the same identical thing as he said for resentments except he words them a little bit differently which is his usual procedure for doing things. He's not about to repeat himself the same. He said, we reviewed our fears thoroughly. We put them on paper, even though we had no resentment in connection with them. We asked ourselves why we had them. Wasn't it because self-reliance failed us? Self-rebliance was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough. Some of us once had great self-confidence, but it didn't fully solve the fear problem or any other. When it made us cocky, it was worse. So all we did was take another sheet of paper and made up another little inventory sheet very similar to the one for resentments except we called it a review of our fears. In column 1, we list our fears, whatever they might be. Now we men tend to say, well, we don't have very much fear. After all, we're tough and we're macho. But we're not talking really about physical fear anyhow, as much as we are these fears that run through the mind continually. And all of us have a lot of fear. You know, I was absolutely amazed when I began to fill this sheet out at how much fear I really had, just like I was amazed at how many people I had. How much anger I had, you can only see one fear at a time in your head. And I don't think we'll really see how much fear drives and dominates us until we begin to put them down on a piece of paper so we go to column one and we list what do i fear all of us have fears connected with our jobs we have fears connecting with what other people think of us we have tears connected with our children we have fierce connected with are internal revenue service we have fears connected with the police department. We have fears connected with the federal government. We had fears connected with the church, and we could just go on and on and on and list the fears that we really do have. Absolutely amazing when we put them all down on a piece of paper. Column two, why do I have the fear? Now this is not an attempt to psychoanalyze. Now, we're not going to say the reason I fear the dark is because Mother didn't change my diapers right when I was two years old. Some fear we are supposed to have. Some fear brings caution. You know, I have a little fear connected with the dark. Why? Well, I don't have headlights and I can't see at night. And that brings caution I have some fear connected. I have an idea of a little bit of fear connected to heights. Why? Well, if I don' t have wings and I ca' n't fly, then that brings caution. but if those fears should keep me from going outside after dark or if they should keep me from riding in an elevator then I better look at them very closely and see what's going on most of my fears I find will be based primarily around one of three things I'm scared to death I'm going to lose something I've already got I'm scared to Death that I'm not going to get something that I want or I'm scared to death they're going to find out what I've been doing to them. Nearly every fear that I got is centered around one of those three things and it's very easy to see the cause of it. So we just simply write down why do I have that fear? I'm amazed how many names appeared on both sheets. Barbara was on the resentment sheet, remember, but she's also on the fear sheet. internal revenue service was on the resentment sheet they're also on the fear sheet police department was on The Resentment Sheet they're Also on the Fear Sheet and I was amazed how much this resentment and fear was really interconnected column three what part of self is affected I I cannot experience fear unless there's a threat to one of the basic instincts of life. If you threaten my social instinct, either my self-esteem or my personal relationships, not only do you bring resentment but you bring fear. If you threatened my security, material or emotional, that generates fear. If you threaten my sex life, either acceptable or hidden, that generates fear. If you threatened my plans for the future, my ambitions, that generates fear. And we begin to see the same thing in column three. We begin to See one or two of those sub columns beginning to stand out and predominate. We begin To see the part of self that really gives us a hard time. as we finish up the third column for the first time we see where fear comes from just like in resentments for the 1st time we saw where anger comes from it really doesn't come from them or what they do it comes from my reaction based upon a threat to one of the basic instincts of life for the 2nd column for the 3rd time I'm beginning to learn where some of my emotions come from. I always thought they just flitted in your head, you could do nothing about them. But when I see that they come from threats to the basic instincts of life and I begin to see they're really generated within me, then maybe later I'm going to be able to do something with these things with God's help so that I don't have to always react with fear and always react with anger. Column 4 What's the exact nature of the wrong? Now, the wrong is the fear. That's what blocks me off from God. But what's the exactly nature of it? And I'm going to see again in every instance. It really stems from one of those four basic instincts of life. If I wasn't so selfish, if I wasn'T so afraid I'M GOING TO LOSE WHAT I GOT OR NOT GET WHAT I WANT, I WOULDN'T HAVE TO FEEL SO MUCH FEAR. If I wasn't so dishonest, I wouldn't be writing hot checks in the first place. And I wouldn' t have to be worried about what the banker is going to do when it gets there. If I was' n't so dis honest, I would' n t be lying to you today and then have to worry next week about what I told you today and be sure I tell it to you the same way twice. If my character was not so frightened in the f rst place, I would n' t h ave to feel so much fear. if i was more considerate of other human beings more considered of these institutions i have to deal with i wouldn't have to experience so much fear but i'll guarantee you if i don't change column four if my personality stays selfish dishonest self-seeking frightened and inconsiderate I'll always experience an inordinate amount of fear and that fear will always block me off from God and just like resentment, sooner or later it takes me right back to drinking. Now we spoke yesterday of the fact that if you list these resentments, put them on paper and analyze them out, we talked about how stupid they really appear on paper and about 95% will disappear. well if you think your resentments are going to look dumb on paper why do you list your fears they look double double dumb when you put them down on a piece of paper we really don't like to be to look at us double double dum so a lot of these fears are going to disappear also as we list them as we put them down on the sheet of paper and take an honest look at them But again, there may be some fears that have been with us all of our life that are ingrained so deeply that we may find it difficult to get rid of them. If so, we're going to do exactly the same thing we did with resentments. You know, we hear all the time about the third step prayer, the seventh step prayer. We never hear about the prayers in the fourth step. We've already looked at the idea that we use prayer to remove resentment. Also, we're going to use prayer to remove those deep, deep-seated fears that we seem to be able to get rid of otherwise. Joe? Okay, on page 68, it says, We never apologize for anyone for depending upon our Creator. We can laugh at those who think spirituality is a way of weakness, Paradox is a way of strength. The verdict of ages is that faith means courage. All men of faith have courage. They trust their God. They never apologize for God. Instead, we let him demonstrate through us what he can do. And then we see a little short prayer here. We asked him to remove our fears and direct our attention to what he would have us be at once we commenced to outgrow fear. You know, there's no way that we can see, we can understand if we enter into communion with God about a particular fear. Just like we did that in resentment and continue to pray that we will receive enough courage to overcome that fear. A prayer will always overcome deep-seated fears. In a constant way, just like it was suggested, to continue to prayer about that particular fear and it will leave us. If we do this, we would effectively remove those fears. And as Charlie said, you know, once we analyze our fears and get down to the truth of them, most of them will look pretty dumb. And then the ones we do have, we can use prayer on. And if we have done this, then we have removed these fears. And we can see how positive step four is. It's not just identifying, but it's removing these fears. And as we said, you know, there's no void in the world. There's no vacuum in our minds. Once our fear is removed, then we'll find we'll have courage will take its place. And so the personality change has taken place already in step four as we work the action steps. The personality changes begin to take place. In the stock and trade, we're trading now courage to the places we trade fear. So the stocking change is beginning to take place right here. And we have also got all the information we're going to need for the rest of the steps regarding fear. We have analyzed our fears, got down to the basic information. This is step four again. This is Step 4 we're completing as far as fear is concerned. We have isolated the things in the fourth column, the exact nature of the wrongs that is causing the fear. And we're going to work on these things in step five. These are the things that we're going to talk to another human being about in relationship to our fears. Now we see how stupid these things are. They are objectionable to us. So we're willing to let go of them. And we've got to ask God to remove them in step seven. Now, we're going to also find that some of these people in column that we fear, institutions and people that we feared in column one, we feared them because we did something to them. And the only way to get over that fear is make go to these people and make amends. So they go on the list for step eight and step nine. So we have gathered all the information we need for steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 in the process of analyzing our fears. We have also prepared ourselves to work step 10 for the rest of our lives. Any time during the rest our lives that we've learned through this process, now that we experience fear and want to get rid of it, sometimes we just want to walk around with it but once we experience that fear and it's uncomfortable we can immediately look and say hey what's being affected here you can look at your own yourself and you can spot it right away it's one of your social instincts it's more your security instincts are as your sex instincts some part of self has got to be threatened or endangered you can spotlight it and then once you're able to see that then you can immediately to look at yourself and find out one of those courage defects that's come back in your life you can get rid of that and the fear will leave you so it not only prepares us for four five six seven eighty nine it prepares us to work step ten the rest of our lives and to handle fear on a daily basis you know we're all the time about the promises on page 83 and 84 but there's promises all the way through the book and And this little prayer that we've just used here on that third paragraph, we ask him to remove our fear and direct our attention to what he would have us be at once we commence to outgrow that fear. You just can't pray about the removal of one of these fears and continue to have that fear because fear and courage simply will not exist on the same plane. And as you ask God to remove it and it's taken away, it will automatically be replaced by the opposite, which is courage. And we'll find ourselves able to do a lot of things that we could never do before. Now again, I didn't have to go to any other fellowships. I didn'T have to read any other books to find courage. If God dwells within me, courage has always been a part of my makeup. I either could not use it before or I used it for the wrong things. But now that the fear is beginning to disappear, the courage automatically begins to come to the surface. And these file cabinets that I had over here in my head yesterday that were filled with fear, they have now been emptied out. That damaged and unsaleable goods is gone. And replacing it is this thing called courage. And I'm in much less chance of drinking now than I was before I started the inventory process. Two-thirds of my mind has now been cleaned up and I've got some peace of mind, serenity, and happiness where used to I was always restless, irritable, and discontented. This thing is so simple that it just absolutely blows my mind every time I take a look at it. But it really does work. Now we talked yesterday a little bit about the fact that some of those resentments that were so deep-seated that there's a possibility we might not want to get rid of them even though we could see what they're doing to us. And we talked about the lady in the story who used her resentment against her mother for rationalization and justification. Well, many of us do the same thing with fear. If we've got a fear that we don't want to be afraid or don't know what to get read of we better look at it very closely and see what we're doing with it. We might be using that fear to justify and rationalize the same as we do with resentments. I'll give you an example. How many of you in this room this morning would like to go back to school and finish your education? Could I see your hands, please? Oh, man, a whole bunch of you. Now let me ask you another question. How manyof you are really going to do that? A hell of a lot less number of hands went up. Why? Nothing in the world but fear. Fear that we can't measure up, fear of failure. That keeps us from doing some things that we really would like to do. All my life I wanted to build a set of kitchen cabinets. I loved to work with my hands. But I never would build them because I knew there would be a lot of mistakes in them, people would laugh, and I would be embarrassed by that. After I worked the program long enough, one time I decided to build a set of kitchen cabinets and I did. Now there's a lot of mistakes in them and people laugh at them, but I really don't give a damn anymore. It doesn't bother me at all. Now not only do we keep fear or let fear keep us from doing some things we want to do, sometimes we use fear to justify doing things that we know damn good and well we shouldn't be doing in the first place so if we got one of those fears that we don't want to turn loose of knowing it might get us drunk let's look very closely you know are we so selfish that we can't turn it loose are we så dishonest with ourselves we refuse to look at the truth are we zo afraid of facing life without that fear that we simply refuse to let go of it And, you know, if we are, then we better change some of that too. You know, it is absolutely amazing that we can get rid of these fears, get them down to the level that God intended. We'll never be completely free of fear. We're not supposed to. Just like we'll never become completely free from fear. We'll be completely fear-free of resentment. Resentment serves a useful purpose if used correctly. You know resentment brings competition. resentment may cause us to get off of our duff and do something worthwhile for instance if we're living in the neighborhood old houses all run down every one of them needs painting they've all got broken window panes mine's no worse than anybody else's i usually sit on my front porch and rock and rock i'm very satisfied because i'm in no worse shape than anybody else now the next thing i know some idiot moves in across the street and i look over there one day and he's painting his house and he is fixing up those broken window panes and i say who in the hell is he moving in here screwing up the whole damn neighborhood and i get mad at him now if i use that resentment right it will cause me to look at my house and be a little bit ashamed of it and then i'll get some paint and when the pains and fix up my house my neighbor will resent me and then he'll fix up his house the next thing you know god's got the whole neighborhood cleaned up now we alcoholics though won't use it right we'll sit on the front porch and we'll rock and we'll resent and we will resent 30 days later at midnight we'll go over and burn his damn house down that's the way we use it so we'll never be completely free of resentment or fear those are god-given things but we will be able to get them to the level that god intended so that we can live with them no peace of mind serenity and happiness and that's really all we're after joe as charlie said we we i like to look at the what we were actually doing here we hear so many things we say it different ways in the program we hear it different way and you get pretty confused like i did like all of us did you know you hear some people say well we got to get rid of this or we got to stop this and we got but what we're looking at is a book speaks of all the things we have we don't have any bad things everything that we have is useful where it should be no human being is ever been perfect with all these things but our book is talking about a program of rearrangements and adjustments putting some things where back where they should be not really getting rid of like resentments and fear they are they are healthy in the right place and we're going to put things back in their place then have a program continuing this is why we got to have a continuous program of monitoring these things making sure they're where they shouldn't be and it's a very simple thing of it says the whole idea is a cast to one side and you said of motive we're talking about moving some things around putting them back where they should be as charlie said resentments are not bad they're part of our lives and used right and constructively they're good that makes make us use our ability they make us successful when they use right if we use them wrong they become destructive in the same way with fear we all need fear we need fear to cross the street we can't remove the fear we have to we need fear we couldn't drive home today without fear i mean we wouldn't make it so it's in the right place it's right another place it can be it can be destructive and this is what we're doing rearranging these things putting them back where they should be and have a continuous program to monitor them on a daily basis okay bottom of page 68 last paragraph now about sex many of us needed an overhauling there you older fellas don't get your hopes up we're we're not going to be dealing with physical sex as much as we are mental sex bill says but above all we tried 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 and we probably do have more extreme opinions regarding sex than we do any other thing in our human lives you know sex with we human beings is a little bit different than it is with the other species of animals here on earth we are the only species that has this thing called self-will we're the only spaces that god gives a choice in the matter we're they only spaces that are able to make decisions regarding sex as we've talked before sex is a basic God-given thing, God gives it to all species so they will be able to reproduce themselves. Now the only difference between our sex life and the other animals here on earth is all of their sex life is at God's direction. Whenever it's time for them to have sex, God usually signifies so by some physical change in the female of the species. The male will sense that change, prepare himself, the two joined together and it's kind of like bang bang thank you ma'am and after it's over with they normally go their separate ways now they didn't think about having sex before they had it and they didn'T have to think about having sex while they were doing it and they DIDN'T think about sex after they were through with it they don'T have those abilities they DIDNT get to decide when they were going to do it and they normally don't get to decide who they're going to do it with and they usually don't get to decided how many they're gonna do it with and they can't even decide what position they're gonna do that's all done at God's direction I have yet to see a cow on a psychiatrist couch talking about sexual dysfunction they just don't have those kind of problems because they do not become emotionally involved in it. We human beings are different. You know, God gives us the right to choose and make decisions. We can decide when we want to have sex. Any hour of the day, any day of the week, any day ofthe year. We can decided who we're going to have sex with. We can decides how many times we're gonna have sex as long as we're physically capable of doing so we can decide whether we want it with one or more and we can even decide what positions we're going to do it in you know they tell me there's something like 64 different positions a human being can have sex in i have no idea what they are i only found three in my lifetime and I'll guarantee you two of them damn near kill me too. And I think most of the trouble that we have sexually as human beings comes from not so much how we do sex but it's how we think about sex because how we thing about it is going to determine what we do with it. and our book is going to give us a little way to take a look at our own sex lives and see what we've been doing with it, see how we've Been Thinking About It, see if maybe we've Been Hurting Some Other People With It, and then see if there isn't maybe a way we can shape a new sex life for the future where we end up being satisfied with it yet at the same time not hurting other people and it's a very very simple procedure and it is most certainly not a list of dirty filthy nasty things he said one set of voices cry that sex is a lust of our lower nature a base necessity of procreation and you and I have heard those voices all of our lives they are the ones that say that sex is a dirty thing that you ought to do it in one time in one position with one person only and the only reason to do it is to reproduce yourself and to enjoy it is a sinful thing i've heard that set of voices as far back as i can remember then we have the voices who cry for sex and more sex who bewail the institution of marriage you think that most of the troubles of the race are traceable to 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 them today you know they're the ones who say you ought to have sex anytime you want to anywhere you want with anybody you want in any position you want as many times as you want and you ought to be able to enjoy it every time and if you don't there must be something wrong with you you know maybe today they would call that the sexual revolution i don't know main thing i see wrong with it it happened 25 years too late for me to participate in it i know that one school would allow men no flavor for his fare and the other would have us all on a straight pepper diet well 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 them and i read that with great relief because i knew this book was getting ready to condemn me for what I had been in the past. I knew it was getting ready to tell me what I was going to have to do in the future, and I'd already made up my mind I wasn't going to pay any attention to it at all. And I'm glad to find out that they're not going to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. They're not gonna try to tell anybody what's right and what's wrong. I'm not gonna tell anybody I'm gonna try and tell anybody how to do sex. And I am glad that is true. You know this book is meant to be helpful to anybody, especially alcoholics, anywhere in the world. And if we started trying to draw lines on sex conduct and tell people what they should do and what they shouldn't do, most surely we're going to begin to alienate people. You know, what's sexually acceptable in one part of the world may not be sexually acceptable in another part ofthe world. And ifwe start trying to drawing lines on it, then surely we would alienate people. We're not going to do that at all. What we're going to do is look at our own conduct and then make our own decisions regarding our sex lives. Bill gives us the same basic set of instructions in the next paragraph to look at our sex lives as he does to look at resentments and fears. We reviewed our own conduct over the years past where had we been selfish dishonest or inconsiderate whom had we hurt 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've given you another sheet of paper called a review of our own sex conduct and on that sheet of paper again we've made it just exactly like we did the other two in column one we make a list who did we hurt now I doubt very seriously if any of us have ever heard anybody in the past through our sex conduct that we don't know who it is. That seems to be just a normal, natural thing that we know, and if we've hurt anybody I'm sure we know who they are. All we do is just make a list of their names. It could be there may be some question as to what you do to hurt people in the sex area, and there's lots of ways we do that. If I'm in a married relationship like I am, and I go outside of my marriage and have sex and my wife finds out about it, then most surely I've hurt her emotionally. If that creates a problem in our home and I've got children there, I've heard the children. If it becomes common knowledge and the name of the lady I had sex with becomes known, I've hurt her. And if she has a spouse and children, I've hurt them also. You know, one sex act could hurt many different people. Sometimes we hurt people in the sexual area simply by demanding more than our fair share. And rather than consider our partner's needs and wants, we may demand they have sex with us when they really don't want to. If we do so, then surely we've hurt them, if not physically, at least emotionally. Sometimes we hurt people in a sex area by demanding they have sex with us in ways they don't want to have it. And again, rather than consider their needs and wants, we selfishly demand that they do things with us that they really don't what to do. If so, we surely hurt them if not physically at least emotionally. Sometimes we hurt people in a sex area simply by withholding sex. Maybe we're in a relationship and we're really not too crazy about doing that anymore, and rather than consider our partner's needs and wants and desires, we selfishly withhold sex when perhaps we should once in a while give in more often. Many, many ways we hurt People in the Sex Area. I think we all know if we've done so. So we list their names. Column two, what did I do? Did I commit adultery? Did I demand they do something with me they didn't want to do? I very carefully, always working top to bottom, fill out those two columns. Column three, what part of self caused me to do this? Now, I think this is probably one of the most revealing parts of the inventory we can do, period. you know you would think that anybody i heard in the sex area it would have been done because of the sex instinct once in a while that's probably true sometimes in order to get the physical and emotional release that comes at the moment of successful completion of the sex act i might be doing the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place because of the sex instinct. But I think if we very carefully review these things, we're going to find usually the other two instincts are involved even more so than sex. Today I'm absolutely convinced that God intended for us to have sex to reproduce ourselves and I'm convinced that he made it enjoyable so we would do it. I don't think we would be able to do it or we would not do so if it wasn't. Now, if we're doing sex for reasons other than reproduction or enjoyment, then maybe we're doing sex for the wrong purposes. For instance, as I went down through that sheet, I found that in the majority of the cases, my sexual wrongs of the past stemmed from a desire to fulfill the social and the security instinct more so than it did from sex. You know, as young boys growing up we men learned a long time ago 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 and we call that john wayneism now i don't know what you girls called it but many of you tell me that you use sex for the same purposes now if that's so then that's not to reproduce that's not to enjoy but that's to fulfill part of the social instinct of life sometimes we use sex to buy a personal relationship maybe we're just lonesome maybe we just want somebody to pay attention to us and we found out a long time ago we can give sex and buy back a personal friendship now if that's what we're doing with it that's not to reproduce that's not to enjoy but that's to fulfill part of the social instinct and also to fulfill our emotional security sometimes we use sex to buy material security maybe we're in a relationship we'd really not even rather be in but we find we've become so overly dependent upon another human being for our material well-being that we give sex to by back material security Now, that's certainly not to reproduce nor to enjoy. That's to fulfill the security instinct. Sometimes we use sex to get even with another human being. Maybe we're in a relationship, we find out our partner's gone out and done something they shouldn't do, and we say we'll show them and we'll go out and do the same thing. And the fallacy in that is after we've done it, we can't afford to tell them. But there we didn't use sex to enjoy it or to reproduce, we used it to get even with another human being. Sometimes we use sex to force our will on another human Being. Yeah, maybe our partner's not doing what we want them to do and we say, well, we'll show them we'll just cut them off at the pass. We won't let them have any until they come around our way of thinking. Now, we boys aren't too good at that. We only last about three days. But you girls have honed it to perfection. You know exactly how to do it. And I don't blame you. I would, too, if it worked that good for me. But there we're using sex not to reproduce nor to enjoy but to force our will on another human being. This is absolutely amazing. Oh, man, as I did this, great things began to happen for me One of the first things that began to happened to me is a lot of guilt began to disappear. You know, I always thought I was just a dirty, filthy old man. No, I wasn't a dirty filthy old men. i'm a sick human being and i use sex for purposes other than god intended not because i'm bad but to fulfill those other basic instincts of life and sex really didn't have anything to do with it as soon as i saw that a lot of that guilt began to disappear i always thought i was over sexed no i wasn't over sex i was under secure and i used sex to build my self-esteem also when i saw what i was doing with sex saw that i really wasn't over sexed i was using it to fulfill my self-esteem it began to look kind of dumb to do those things and some of that desire to go out and do the wrong thing with the wrong people at the wrong time begin to become less and less and less when i thought i was really using it to build self-esteem and sex really did not have anything to do with it.