The Spiritual Malady – Wilson House Workshop – Part 2 of 5 – Dave F., Mark H., Chris R. – Dave Frederickson, Mark H, Chris Raymer

I'm still waiting to hear back. The schedule that I put together shows dinner at 5 o'clock. Sometimes on the weekends they do it at 5.30. There's some of us that are going to, right before dinner, we're going to run up to Bill's grave and do a little prayer meditation up there just a couple minutes before we come back. So if you don't have transportation, see us and we'll see if we can hook you up with some. but anybody that's interested, it should still be light enough to go up there and just thank Bill and Lois for the gift that they've given us. That's something I always do before I start a workshop. I try to do it in the middle of a workshop if I can find the time and then I always stop before I leave because I'm never the same person before versus after on this deal. So what have we done? Glenn, you're all set up? You're ready? Okay. We've talked about steps one, two, and three. All right? Hopefully, I know that 90% at least or better have had a shift in their consciousness. Something has changed here, and you're not quite exactly sure what. And if you're like me, you're feeling sort of like you're drinking from a fire hose. It's just coming at you, and it's an experience, and sometimes it's pleasant, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's not, and every once in a while you need to come up for a gulp of air, and you're just wondering who's got a hold of the spigot. I'd like to take a minute and kind of digress. Now that you've gotten some of the tools in your toolbox, I think we need to talk about and get a vision, a concept of how to work with these tools. We talked about step one, powerlessness. Mark talked about that beautiful sentence about above everything we must be rid of selfishness or it kills us as an AA topic, here's another one for you. And I've done this a number of times at meetings. I go and I talk to a meeting and I raise my hand and I say, you know, well, you know... I usually ask the question, is there anybody in here that's drank within the last week? And if there's no hands that go up, I'll usually say, okay, well, since alcohol is no longer our problem and AA is not about alcohol or our problems, it's about finding God, let's have a meeting about finding god. And man, you want to put a chill on a room? But that's really what we've been trying to introduce you to. AA is not about your problems. AA is nicht über Alkohol. If you've gotten away from the physical craving and the mental obsession, AA is about the spiritual malady. Long-term sober. If you're going to make it for long-term sober and ride this pony the whole race, it's about the spiritual maladies of finding God. The beauty is, the byproduct of finding God is, you don't want to drink and your problems don't exist and you get happy, joyous and free and all the rest. But how does one attempt to do that? We've given you some exercise to show you this truth but what more can you do about it? One of the things I like to envision is a golf ball. It's got the hard exterior shell on it. If you've ever cut open a golfball underneath there's a winding looks like a giant rubber band and you pull the winding off and you weed through that and I envision that as my character defects and my inventory and my four-step and my fear inventory and you pull it down. When you get down to the very center, there's a little teeny kernel. I have no idea what the heck it's made out of but there's like a little pebble inside there. Inside each one of us, we are the golf ball. You know how the golf balls got all those divots? That's our drinking. That's all the abuse we take. Those nine irons whacking on us until we finally make it to the cup. We finally get into the cup and then somebody plucks us out. God starts to clean off the dirt and the mess and then we've got this hard, crusty exterior and you've got to get down to the kernels. So we start peeling and you peel off the hard crust and you start on the unwinding process and that's working the steps and you get down what? What's the true core? The true core is love that's inside of us. And we talk a lot in here about a spiritual mirror. Each of us is just a mirror. If you can get that analogy in your head, for me it works wonderfully well. My character defects are just fingerprints and grease smudges on my mirror. you know and am I ineffective if I got some smudges no if you get to the right spot and get the right angle I can still reflect light out but you get too many smudgers on there and the mirror starts the vision gets kind of distorted you know and you start to lose that but it's the mirror is one of those mirrors like you see you know those security mirrors it's a one way mirror you know other people see what's going on on the outside but from you on the inside you're looking out through and you get this vision of what you see and what you think people see in the mirror and what they're actually seeing may not be what's actually there. They may not being able to see the true self. But when you clean off all the smudges and the dirt off, then it becomes transparent. If I reflect love out to you, it gets reflected right back to me which reflects back off to you which reflects right back off which reflects off to me. And it's an upward spiral. The same way that you can have a downward spiral. I get mad at you, you say something hurts my feelings, I say something bad hurts your feelings and you can just ask anybody that's married and they know about the downward spiral, there's also an upward spiral very important concept what we started you on here is an upward spiral, but there's exercises that have left incomplete to continue that spiral you're going to have to finish these exercises, that's where you're going to truly demonstrate your willingness if you go home tonight or tomorrow or next week and you finish these exercises and you ride this pony and you see where this actually takes you to there's a lot more to this I spoke earlier about a child. You look into the cradle and what does the child first thing to do? They smile back at you with unconditional love. That's the real goal is unconditional love. And what are the characteristics that little kids have? Our whole goal in life, to get closer to God, that's like as pure as you're going to get. A child that's a newborn hasn't been defiled yet by the experiences of life. Their ego hasn't built. They don't have that. What do they have? They have unconditional love. They've got the sparkly eyes. Every single one of them has the sparkley eyes, and that's what we're looking to get back to is to that child that's within us. All right? Every single one of them has this tremendous love, and everything is new. There's an excitement no matter what the scenario is. Oh, the diaper's wet. As long as you don't leave them in that wet and it starts to hurt them, they're just as... They'll play in it. It doesn't matter to them. Stick your hand... We can draw on the walls with it. And what do we do? We walk in and go, ah, what are you doing? Because we're judging that act. To them it's a new experience. It's a new experience, now who's to say whether it's good or bad? The closer, and I'm saying go back to becoming an infant, don't become immature, what I'm saying is get back, become more childlike is our goal, to get back to where every day, today's a beautiful sunny day, and I'm sure there's some people sitting here, man, I'd love to be on the ski slope. So they're unhappy. And tomorrow it's going to be a rainy day and they're going to sit in here going, man, I wish it wasn't raining. You know? Either way, sunny day, rainy day, they're still miserable. And what are they missing? They're missing the current moment. What else do little children have? Smiles. It is a pure, direct link to the human heart that cannot be missed. If I smile with a true, honest love, unconditional love smile, I don't care what mood you're in, it cuts through you like a knife. Now, you may be able to close that hole off really quick and get the armor back up pretty darn fast. But I've touched you. I've gotten inside your wall. Where did I learn that? Little kids. What else do they have? Laughter and happiness. What does our big book say? Happy, joyous, free. We absolutely insist on enjoying life. How many people in here felt that way when they walked into this workshop? you know oh the traffic I'm late what's this going to happen I mean there's been at least a dozen people that have shared man I came up here to relax and be slothful and I didn't know I was going to do work you know man there's been a shift in those people woo the magic is happening if you can be in the moment enjoy the magic right so the goal is to get back to the little kid the tools we've given you the second step proposition exercise and here's where I'm boomerang and I'm coming back to the second step proposition exercise. That tool will become extremely important in your life if you can use the tool. The first thing you have to do is be conscious enough to realize there's something wrong in you. It's great to write all this information down and have the card but if you don't use the card and it collects dust it's no good to you. You might as well not have even written it. As a matter of fact it's probably a detriment to write the card and not use it because now you've woken up the beast and you know what the real problem is but you're still not willing to face it. You're not willing to deal with it. And that will boomerang on you and kill you. So, watching is extremely important. Paying attention to the moment. What's really going on? How many people can hear that motor that's running? Did you notice it when it kicked on? Those are the people that are conscious, awake, and aware. Awake to the floor creaking. Awaken to the person coughing. Awaken TO the person whose nose is whistling. you know now they're self-conscious if you can be in the moment there's I'm taking off my A hat by the way this is my own personal concept and a lot of people tend to identify with it but it's something that's proven to be so true for me human being is made up of four things alright there's your physical body your physical presence the shell it's going to stay here when you die it's what rots it's it's your physical being all right second thing we all know we've all got is a mind all right there's part number two have you ever watched yourself think you know or you're doing a math problem one week and because i've had this happen when i was a kid i do the math problem on week and i had it man i knew that dang i got that teacher would give you the exact same math problem the next week you're looking at it you're going and you're you're watching yourself think what an idiot why can't you did this last week that little voice is going off in your head which tells me that there has to be two things up there. There's not just my mind but there's that part of me that can watch my mind. That's the ego. It's very judgmental. That's what I'm talking about That's a voice that goes off in our head. That's one that talks to us constantly. The ego's job is to get me out of the moment, to get away from the whistling noise, to get way away from that motor that's running, to the heavy breathing in the room, to the peace and serenity and it uses two tools, past and future. It'll drag me into the past or it'll drag my way into the future. What's going to happen in 30 seconds or it will take me back 30 seconds in the past? And the problem is that hopscotch is back and forth, back and fourth, back and fourth to keep me out of the present moment. Where is the only place that God can be found that you can be consciously connected to God is in the present moment. And the moment this present moment is over then you're in the next present moment and then the next present moment. And if something happens in this present moment and you focus on it and you've now gone to the next present moment but you're still back one moment ago you're not in the present moment again which means you can't be connected to God. Does that make sense? For a lot of people they're going to be like I've got an eyeball in the middle of my forehead. Alright? By the ego focusing on that ex-husband or ex-wife it's in the past. By the eagle focusing on And that next true love, it's in the future. If you can be conscious, awake and aware to that fact that your ego... Because your ego's whole job is to try to maintain control of the mind. So it's going to keep the mind thinking. It's going watch it and if it's not going in the direction it wants, it's gonna throw something out. Here's a piece of past. Go grab a hold of that mind and see if you can... And there comes the hamster on the wheel thinking about the past. And what that dirty SOB did to me and the divorce and how they took the kids and they took money. I had a conversation with somebody on the break and he's like, yeah and my wife she raped me she took all my money and I said whose money and he goes well mine in God's and I say whose money he said well it's God's but I had a good plan for it you know he was living in the past you know in that moment he was in the past or you can go to the same thing in the future that job or when we get out of here or when I go to make this amend or whatever past present past present excuse me past future key is to be in the present moment because that's the only place that God can be. Now, what does the voice look like that the ego talks to you? That's column three of inventory. That's what's really important to figure out and to be able to recognize. Because if you can recognize the voices as they go off in your head, you can say, whoops, time out, I know you, I've seen that voice. I recognize you. That's whoever the voice happens to be. If I'm hearing that voice, my ego must be afraid of something. What is the fear? And that's when you can slam on the brakes and go to the card. The card is a great tool, but if you can't watch and know when to go tothe card, it's no good to you. Does that make sense? Okay. Now, on step one questions, there was question number six. Does anybody in here have something written down for question number 6 that's willing to get up and for us to take a look at what they wrote. Matt, you want to give that a shot? I got a mic here. You don't actually have to get up. You can stay right there and grab this sucker. Yeah, I was going to say move away from that microphone. Move away from the microphone. This is where I knew I was gonna be a prop. I'm resentful of this lady that's running the post-abortion healing group that I'm going to. I thought she took a shot up last Wednesday. Okay, so this woman, does she have a name? Teresa. Teresa, okay. Teresa's column one and column two is she took a shot at you? Can you be more specific? I believe she took the shot at me trying to convince me that I chose to actually do that when I really didn't want to make that happen. Okay. So, does everybody understand what he's saying? Well, you're going to have to get into a little bit more detail about this. Which item, I'm sure, do you want to go there? Sure. Okay, great. This is the big thing that's dragging me around right now. All right, bring it out. Do you want me to... Yeah, the second column. What exactly happened? Because they're going to have to understand the story. I was sharing the grief and pain that I put my ex-girlfriend through and the child for going through with the abortion 10 years ago. Who's got the other mic, by the way, the cordless? Anybody know where that is? Oh, here it is. I got it. You want that on or off? Okay. Here, try that. Hello? There you go. Yeah, I was going through a little bit of catharsis emotionally about the pain that I put myself, my ex-girlfriend and the child through for the abortion 10 years ago with my girlfriend. So he's going to a post-abortion healing group where they deal with the fact that you were party and parcel to an abortion occurring. And the leader of this group, he feels, took a shot at him. That's his column two. That's what he's upset about. Something she said to you? Yeah, she had her finger pointed at me and she's like, I think you're believing you chose to do that when you really didn't have a choice. Kind of what you were saying before. Alright, everybody square with what column two is. Alright? So, what voice is the first voice he's going to hear in his head? You're bad, right? But who's the voice? Give us a name for that. It is ego, but ego has a thousand characters. I'm the judge. Ah, there we go. We got a judge. He's hearing somebody is judging me. Well, wait a minute. The ego is saying, I'm not the judge, I get to decide whether I had a part in this and whether I made the right decision or not. You guys see that? Very important voice to be able to understand and differentiate. He's here in the judge to the card who else is in there check this out this is the other this is a whole this is a great one to show the other side of the ego so this lady says to him that you weren't involved in the choice around this abortion 10 years ago right and what his ego's done is wrapped around that and i think the reason he reacted that there's a part of him that absolutely wants to believe he was associated with making a conscious choice around that event and he's pissed off that She thinks he didn't have a choice. She's taken away his power, right? She's in Al-Anon. She's really great. But he's pissed off at her, right. Pride. No one should see that I'm not involved in making choices in my life. Ambition. What did you want? I wanted her love and compassion and tenderness at that moment. I didn't want her to tell me I was in denial because I don't have that. Now what voice is that? It's a combination of the victim but it's really a child. He wants her love and compassion. She's like a loving mother and he wants her acceptance. Can you see that? If you can recognize that voice, he's already transitioned. The judge has already made a decision that this woman is off base but it is also threatening the fact that this feeling he's got towards her. That's where the real rub is in this deal. He's got her up on a pedestal. He's looking at her and he's like, wow, look at this and he want's her acceptance like a little child wants from a mother and all of a sudden she's going like this. You notice he said, she pointed her finger at me. That's the image I got in my mind whether she was doing that or not. You little bad boy. And don't you know, you dummy, you didn't have a choice in this. And she's scolding him emotionally. There's another character in there. So now we've got a judge, we've Got a victim and we've GOT a little child. Then security, what do you need to be okay? At that moment in time what did you need from her to be Okay? I needed reassurance, validation. Right. I didn't get that. See, in the third column is where you're literally fighting for your life. That's right. In that state, the wrongdoing of others fancy realized the power to kill. You're fighting for yourself. Which character was fighting for its life? The little kid, right? The little envious kid who's looking forward. His image is about to be shattered because here's his idol who's about ready to smack him. She's fallen off her pedestal. Either she falls off her pedestal or she's right and that goes directly and flies in the face of the judge. does that make sense anytime we get a judge we get the jury there's a quick little decision in our mind and we're the judge and the jury there's also an executioner now the executioner says she's guilty she doesn't know what she's talking about and now all of a sudden he's got to go and make up an excuse in his mind to prove why he's right and she's wrong but yet she's the idol can you see there's this huge conflict and what does it do it opens that little box I've been talking about behind the wall and out comes this stuff It starts to bubble. And what does he have to do? His ego is trying to control his mind. He's fighting for his emotional life. He doesn't know what's going on so he tries to slam the lid back down on the box but his fingers have little cracks between them and it starts to seep through and we call that submarining. You ever see the submarine movies where the submarine gets too deep and the pressure and all of a sudden you get a little water come sprays over here and they go running over and they put their hands over there and then comes over here and you run out of hands. That's submarining We do that emotionally and he's been submarining now for however long it's been since he got to here. He's been trying to keep, and he's been holding out his own. But what happens when there's more spray than you can cover up? Then it starts to manifest itself physically and you start acting out. You start doing things your character defects, what the ego's really got going on in your mind. You start saying things, hurtful things. So you may run into somebody that you really do care about but you're mad about what's going on over here and so you excoriate this person over here. You chop them to ribbons with sarcasm all because you're hurt over here and you can't be able to control those fear and the anger and those emotions over there. It's gotten out of hand. Can you see how that can occur? Where is the real key to this whole deal? Being able to watch and recognize the characters as they occur. That is crucial. There's a key piece in this that's into this self-loathing. is to pick up on that I've seen so often in my third step is this woman makes a statement to him which is that you didn't have a choice around that. It's a concept, right? Just like no free will. Well, that concept that he wasn't involved in a choice back ten years ago in terms of him and this woman and the act to bring about a child and then the abortion. What that does is, the reason he doesn't like that, a part of him doesn't Like That is because if that's true then he don't get to judge himself. She took away his capacity to play God on an action that he was involved with 10 years ago. And there's a part of him that plays God that doesn't like that. So there's such a strong judge associated with this piece and this particular piece that we're talking about. Real quick, I don't want to forget this. This is great. The ego soul function is that you believe that you're separate from everybody and everything. And some of its tools, its most predominant tool is judgment example a lady came up the break and she said it's a great question she said i really liked almost everything you had to say until you said that you were married divorced four times and i can't hear anything you said since then she said what is wrong with me and i said there's nothing wrong with you that's what the ego does to separate from truth. Judge, judge. Now if I'd have had more time because we were getting ready to start I would have asked her some questions like do you really believe I chose to get married four times and divorced? Because that's expensive, right? And it's painful. And it doesn't show well in public. And I could go on and on. Now here's the rest of the story. There's only the will of God. I and those four ladies, all of us in hindsight, benefited tremendously from those marriages and those marriages were supposed to happen. But what does the ego do? I mean there's some people in here... All I have to do is show hands. How many of you have been married more than two times? Okay. The path. We don't know what the path is but I thought what you said was so beautiful to lead into the fourth step because, of course, I've done that for years. I'll give you an example in reverse. The man that I call my sponsor right now has been married to the same woman for 28 years. You know what my head says about that? What can that man tell me about a relationship? He's been with one woman for 28 year. See, he can't help me. I need to find a man who's been married and divorced four times but don't do that anymore. You follow me? So there's two ways you look at it. The judgment still happens, see? I have a judgment about somebody that would be crazy enough to be the same woman for 30 years. You understand what I'm saying? Here's what you learn to do, and it's back to watch. The judgment arises, you watch the judgment, you don't get involved with it. And you say, well, thanks for sharing. And you just kind of... Because you're not involved because you see it's just another tool of separation, isn't it? Right? We've all got them and they happen. Our ego uses many things. It'll use age, it'll use race, it'll choose gender, I mean the list is endless of the things it will do to separate. It's constant separation then constant state of loneliness and not a part of those kinds of things. You had a question? To me this is a major question. Um, I've tried to do four step and, and as you know, I'm going to try to do it now, but the fourth step, I did column one and two filled them out. I had pages on one of those people. And, and then I'd be sitting at home, you know alone trying to do column three and four and went nuts and basically stopped. And I had a great sponsor, a big book something, and I'd go see her once a week and everything like that. And we're, you Know, hounding out and I quit. How do you sit at home alone in the middle of your disease, you KNOW, and do column three and five? for. I can't come up with conclusions. You're coming up and fill them out. For me personally, I don't allow that to happen. Until somebody's got some skills with how to do inventory, they need leadership. They need somebody to show them. Bill and Bob didn't say well here's the form, fill it out and come back and see me. They'd sit down and if you read our history books, Dr. Bob was very clear. He'd sit down and explain to you what your character defects were. He showed them to you and he'd say Now, isn't that your experience? I use the short form, which you'll find in your packet. There's one that's even filled out. I let the drunk fill out column 1 and column 2 and then he gives me the forms. And we talk, just like we're talking now. We talk about these resentments. We talk abut the areas of self, the seven areas that get affected and how did that affect you. And I do basically a verbal column 3 and column 4 and I'm filling out, I'm writing down the answers for the guy about column 3and column 4. And at the time I'm doing it, I'm showing him the characters you know when somebody hurts you the very first person for me that shows up if he's a man it's Rambo if it's a woman it's Xena the warrior princess you know and where does that go now that they're angry they know that they can't kill somebody so who shows up next the judge the judge is going to make a judgment as to whether this was really an egregious harm that occurred to me the judge judges it the jury convicts him then the executioner shows up alright just like he had judge, jury, executioner alright well you can't go ahead and execute somebody but Rambo's sitting there saying, kill him, kill him. That's not going to work. So he hires a hitman and that's the person that every alcoholic's got. The hitman will wait if it takes 25, 30 years I'll wait in the grass until you make the mistake and then you will pay. That's the hitman. That's what I'm talking about. That's how you get the voice of the hit man. It's the same guy. Anybody hear road rage? Guess what? Guess who the road rage is? That's The Hitman. If I come up on the right side and I cut over here and I cut in front of that little VW bug and then cut over here, I can go over there and slam on my brakes and man, I'll show him. That's the hitman. And all of a sudden, you're in the move and you're going up and you shift from the slow lane and you go across four lanes of traffic and now you're fast lane and you just get ready to slam on the brakes and the guy, the SOB pulls off the exit and you missed your opportunity. Oh, are you... Man, you'll be looking for the next three weeks. Every time you drive that stretch of highway, you'll been going, man, I wonder if I see that guy you know? Those are the characters. I mean, we could spend hours and hours and hours talking about the various characters. Everybody's got different characters and you need to know the characters. Here's my point. What I want to talk about is, and I'm leading into the forgiveness side because there's obviously some wounds in this room. He was talking about this event and he's been whipping himself. Mark talked about it. He's been using this abortion issue as a weapon against himself. he's got this hurt and this guilt and remorse over this event occurring whether he sees whether he had any power or not at all, he has been using it as a weapon and he's been flailing himself with it over and over. Anybody in this room that's got anything egregious that you have not forgiven, this is what your ego has been using against you the judge, the jury, the executioner are sitting there and they're whipping you with this saying they did this to you and until they pay, you're not going to be healed. You can't give them over to God because they would have gotten away without your justice. All right? Who is that? There's a guy inside the wall called the emotional banker. He's the guy that charges interest. Now, if that person came back to you and said, You know what? I'm really sorry I hurt you. That cancels the actual harm. But the whole time that it took them from... It may only be three minutes from the time they hurt you to the time he made amends, the emotional bankers started the clock. The interest was running. Until they pay off that interest, no matter what, you can say, That's where it comes from, well, I forgave them but I haven't forgotten. What voices that is the emotional banker. He's the guy talking. He's saying, yeah, I forgive what they did over here but for some reason I still don't feel it in my heart. It's because there's this emotional hangover that's left and it's the emotional bankers in there that's charging the interest. Does that make sense? Now, a lot of divorces in here, right? We've been talking about it all weekend long. When someone hurts you inside the wall, there's very few people you let inside the wall but when you let one of those people and it's usually a spouse or a child somebody that you're very close to that you have the ability to unconditionally love at some point in a relationship when they're inside the Wall and they hurt you, they wound your spirit for them to do that a character comes out called the traitor very important character for you to understand because anytime the traitor comes out there's the emotional banker right alongside with him and even if you forgive the trader well they're out of their mind they didn't know it particularly Al-Anon he's an alcoholic he was drunk maybe they can forgive the traitor but the emotional banker can't be forgiven until they pay off that emotional debt alright that's going to become into play as you go through your inventory the next time you write a four step I want you to think as you write column three what characters write them down in the margin What character is talking to me? Who is saying that nobody should treat me this way? I deserve better. Is it the victim? Is it a little child? Is it mother? Is it boss? Speaking of bosses, you can have traitors at work. If you have a partner or somebody that's at your same status and they hurt you, usually they're outside the wall. But if they're a boss and you work for them and they turn around and stab you in the back, guess what? Here comes a traitor. They shouldn't have done that to me. How dare they? And then the whole cycle starts. The whole idea about forgiveness that we're going to get to is to get rid of the emotional banker. It's to hopefully give you some tools, right out of the big book, for how do you get rid OF the emotional bankers. Because that's really what's wounded most of the people in this room. You're carrying around this guilt and this remorse. And if you can't turn it on the person who perpetrated the act to you, who are you going to perpetrate it upon? Yourself. because now we're spiritual beings, right? Now there's this spiritual guru inside of us. There's another voice of the ego. Well, I can't take it out on my wife and my kids and the people close to me, but it's okay. I can do it to me. Remember the question that I wrote down here that I gave you guys last night? Is there anything about you? Where is it? Number 21. Do you loathe, hate, abhor, despise or detest something about yourself? That should touch on the emotional banker and some of the harms that are inside you that you're whipping yourself with. And the question about forgiveness should also touch on the emotional banker from two different directions. Can you see that? Does that make sense? All right. Yes, ma'am. Give that woman a mic. Yeah. Which tape? There we go. Got it. hi my name is ann i'm an alcoholic hi ann i don't completely understand or even maybe i don't all understand why you're focusing on all these different characters it's i feel like i missed a chapter like you just launched into this and i'm in the dark here's the here's the the reader's digest version we all know what the problem is it's whatever they it's whatever in column two they harmed me right the whole point is to look at our side of the street. We do that by looking at the areas that were harmed, which is column three, the seven areas of self that can be affected. That should lead us to our behavior in column four. Where was I selfish, dishonest, self-seeking or frightened? All right. What I did with this second step proposition exercise is we circumnavigated that process because we didn't have time in this weekend to go through the whole, how do you do that in the form of resentments and then fears and then harms to others. There's a shortcut that you can get to. The real goal of all of this work is to get to the fear because if you can get to it, if you get to the fear and get rid of the fear, the fears are what trigger our character defects. So if you can get to the fear, then you can give the fear to God and get to what God wants you to be. So the second step proposition exercise was just a way to show you how you can come up with a list of fears in various areas of your life that you've been unwilling to give to God. Now that you have the card it's a tool in your toolbox but how do you know to go pull it out and use it? That's where the characters come in. By doing repeated inventories and writing inventory and doing any process of your fifth step you shouldn't just be looking for the harms you've done to others so you can go clean it up on the amends. You should be listening for what voices were talking to me. Why was I able to carry this harm for 5, 10, 15 years with me? who are the voices that were justifying this what I know to be inappropriate behavior now, what I'm talking about is advanced AA here I'm not talking about somebody that's new in recovery that's why we ask those questions I'm operating under the assumption that you've been through the steps before with a sponsor that this isn't your first set of inventory I would never take a new guy into this area because his ego will kill him it's an emotional minefield but if you've got a couple years of sobriety under your belt and your program is starting to get a little bit stale and you're going, ah, another inventory what's the point? What I'm trying to show you, there's a mother load here. And it doesn't mean some people are dependent on inventory. Some people, they can't get through their life without writing a formal inventory once a month or once a week. They're what I call inventory junkies. They've got to sit down and analyze and analyze and analyze and analyze. With the second step proposition exercise, you can shortcut the whole system. You've got the fears. If you can be conscious in a way that you can watch for the characters And any time by definition that you see a character, you must be in a position of fear. Self is threatened. Slam on the brakes and go to the card. Does that make sense? I think I can help you with this. Another definition of ego is a mind-made false sense of self. And I'll use the example of the lady who described the divorce. the sense of who I am gets dictated by external events, i.e., in that divorce, first of all, she thinks she's a wife. She thinks she're a mother, right? The husband comes home and she really thinks there's such a thing as a wife The husband becomes home and says, I want a divorce. What does a wife need to be, to exist, needs a husband. When the husband says, I want a divorce, how do you think the wife responds to that? She's fighting for her life. She's fightin' for her existence. In one simple statement of, I wanna divorce, and not only do I wanna divorce, I won't custody the kids, I would wager to say that most of your identity was tied up into those two states of being. Am I right? Not a job, though. Okay. Okay. She had a job. So you got a career woman. In other words, it defines her. I'm a wife, right? This is why I lovingly said today, you know, my wife, right? See, it's a way of defining who we are, but it's always coming externally. So in the big book, it talks about in that state, what state, i.e., he uses the word characters. When the husband says, I want to divorce and custody the kids, he just said that the wife doesn't exist. He just said the mother doesn't exist. I want to give you an example of how powerful this is. Because there's no reality to any of that. We're in the world to play the role of God of science. It's one thing to play a role of the God of Science. It's got a name to it, the wife, but there's another to be attached to it. I picked up an article in Houston, Texas. And there was a woman, socialite type. And the article said what she had done is taken a gun and murdered her two children and then killed herself. And the article went on to say, and here's why. Her husband who was a well-known surgeon in the Houston area had decided to divorce her with another woman and it went on and used these great words that she was a loving mother and a devoted wife. Oh, and he was going to get the house and he Was going to Get Custody. Everything that defined who this woman is when he said to her I want to be divorced. There was nothing left because she actually thought that's who she was. She was fighting for her life to the point of she killed her two children and committed suicide. This is the kind of stuff that you look at in inventory. This isthe tragedy of the ego. Thisis why you can't say things like, God bless you, go in peace, because you think something has now defined you. I'll give you an example. I'll use myself to use the ego state, if you will. I'm an alcoholic. That's one, right? I'm a spiritual mystic-to-be. That's two, right. I very much am Rambo. That's three, you know, soldier of fortune, stuff like that. I'm CEO of a company. That's four. I'm a jock. I lift weights. I run. You know, I am my body, right? That's five. I'm an artist. I'm not a writer. That's six. That's enough for now, right. Oh, I'm single. That's seven, okay. The more I am attached to self, self-will. Those are my seven areas. how do you think I'm going to respond if something hurts, threatens or interferes with any one of those seven areas because I think they define me then imagine this imagine this in one day the job's gone say you're in a relationship say you had that going on in one days here's what happens this recently just happened to a woman I know in AA you lose the job the relationship ends they take the house away they take the car away, you lose custody of the child. I mean, imagine that because a lot of times that's happened to different people. And this woman called me because that's basically what happened to her. It literally happened in about two days. She called me and said, I don't know who I am. And I said, fantastic, fantastic. What a deal. So I hope that could explain it a little bit more. So when I write inventory, like for example, under the question in there, who do you resent? I put column one, it's an employee that recently terminated. Her name would be in column one. Column two, why? Didn't perform to her job specifications. Which character is affected by that? The CEO. Because the CEO, what does the CEO of a company need to be to exist? Needs the company to be profitable. Blah, blah, blah. blah blah blah. So if you're an employee and I'm trapped in being the CEO and you're doing something that's not contributing to that, I see that as me fighting for my life and you are going to experience me. And not in a kind loving way. Therein lies the tragedy of the ego. That is a horrible way to live life because your whole day from the time you get up until the time you get home, your whole life is totally dictated by external events. So the purpose of inventory, when I write inventory now, I say to myself which stage character is mad? Which stage character has been hurt, threatened or interfered with? And as soon as I identify the stage character, it's so easy to write my third and fourth column. They just flow right off the pin. And let's throw a little twist on that. Let's say the person that he has to fire is a friend of his because they met in the program, he got her the job and now she's working for him. Now here's another twist. The CEO is fighting for his life and the friend is also fighting for his life, especially if she's in the program because now you've got this colluded relationship here. The relationship is clouded because you've got this program connection. You've got these fractured loyalties and who's going to win? If he's going into that asleep, I guarantee the right thing is not going to occur. But if he can realize as soon as those emotions start to rise in him and he can say, wow, the CEO is talking to me, the friend is talking to me, the program person's talking to me. I must be afraid. Slam on the brakes and go to the card that he can get free of that and be connected to God and whatever's supposed to happen will happen with love, kindness and compassion. There's a quote from a book that says, Be in the world but not of the world. I know what that means today. I'm in the role to play the role that God has assigned but I'm not attached to the role. You could take that all away from me. I don't care. It's not who I am. None of it is who I am. You know, I am followed by nothing. That's who I am I am and anything I tag on to that is who i'm not. That what my inventory has shown me So that's where you start to have peace and some ease and you know what was the other one wear the world like a loose garment. How do you do that? You cannot do it attached to those ego states i.e. inventory in that state the wrong doing of others fancied or real, has the power to kill me. I experience it as though I'm fighting for my life. You've heard several people around relationships and drinking and anger and rage. Why? Because they experienced it at that moment in time as though they're fighting for their life. Because it's to find who they think they are. It's a tragedy. It's sad because it's not who we are. That's right. Here's the deal. If you can be conscious, awake and aware that this is going on, you've got a new tool in your toolbox if you've done this work. So what do you do? You start to feel that tenseness in your chest. You can feel the agitation. You can see the tension in your heart. You can still feel the blood pressure start to rise. If you're conscious of it, now you've Got at least another chance before you open your mouth. Have I talked about the one-second rule here? Oh, it's a great concept. Great concept. People, I've heard this statement a lot lately. Time doesn't mean anything in AA. We're all just one day sober. Well, to try to pour a little oil on the water and settle this thing a little bit, I'm going to give you an out. It's called the one second rule. For every year of sobriety, you get one more second. So let's say I ask a guy with 30 days a question. Before I can even get the question out, He's already thought the answer in his head and his mouth is moving. Here comes the answer. Zero time limit. There's no second at all. A person who's got one year sober, they might actually think for a second but meanwhile their ego is still trying to formulate the answer so I'm 20 years sober. Hopefully I've got 20 seconds before I respond that I can be present in the moment. You get a second a year folks. It's a great way to look at sobriety. So however long you're sober, put it in terms of seconds. before you respond to anything. If somebody comes in to you and says, I'm taking your wife, your kids, your car, your house, all your money and pulls out a gun and says I'm going to take your life before you react count those seconds. Get centered. Be peaceful in the moment with God and the right answer will come. The 12 in 12 says nothing pays off like restraint of tongue and pen. It's in that order for a reason. We have a hard time biting our tongue. So now that you've got this tool of being able to recognize, because you're getting up on your 10th and 11th, we'll be talking a lot about this tomorrow, with that word watch, and you see the character, and you go to your second step card, your second-step proposition, and you say, okay God, I'm feeling this fear. Please remove it from me and help me to be this, this, this, and this. A lot of people then get jammed up if this, this, this, and this doesn't happen right away. And there's a tool that the old timers used. it was part of the Oxford group and it's called The Four Absolutes you almost never hear about The Four Absolutes anymore and we're going to take a quick break before we take the break I'm going to hand out The Four absolute exercise when we come back we're gonna take a look at The Four absolutes it's another four step tool once you get your uh once you're done once you've got your hand out then let's we'll take a 15 minute break alright good stuff great stuff I have been talking about the characters and want to know where they get the characters and the whole nine yards. You know me, I'm anal. Yes, I do have a list of characters on my computer. Unfortunately, I don't think I have it on my laptop in the other room, so you're going to have to email me. And if anybody does want to email me. My email address is aadave1 at aol.com I'll say that again. It's aadav1, that's the numeric one, numeric character 1 at aal.com. I always feel sorry for A.A. Dave because he gets a lot of bizarre emails. No, I don't know him. I wish I did. And I'd like to have a conversation with the boy and see what he gets. Anyway, that's the deal. Before the break, we were talking about characters and we were taking a look at the characters and we're talking about what goes on inside the mind and the ego and a couple of quick things that people came up and had questions. Somebody said I was started out by talking about four things. She said there's the body and then there'sthe mind and thenthere's the ego. well, where's the last one? And I said, well, you were so concerned about the body and the mind and the ego, you missed the last One, which was the present moment. The present moment is the only place that the Spirit can be. I know it went by fast, but that's number four. If you're in the present Moment, that's the only Place you can be consciously contacted to God is in the Present Moment. That's where your Spirit lives. It's kind of an interesting concept because for your ego to survive, it needs past and future. It doesn't survive in the present because it can't be in control in the present because that's where spirit is. And spirit doesn't need time. It could care less. If you believe like I believe, your spirit's going to go on forever. So it's timeless. It doesn' t care about time. Time means nothing to the spirit. That's why the question needs to be asked, where's the only place that time doesn' d exist? In the present moment. Because it's timeless. Because as soon as you get to this present moment, up. Now we're in the next, up, now we're in the last, up like that. Another woman came up to me and she said, you know, last night when you were talking, you said that maybe some of this would touch something and we'd have this experience and she goes I woke up horizontal across my bed this morning and I tossed and turned all night long. She goes, and then you made that, you started talking about crying and she says, and I was over in the back crying. And she goes, and now, she goes I feel like I've got a lump in the middle of my stomach. And I said, yeah? Oops, hello. I don't think that's the expression she was looking for. And I say, what's got you? And she said, well it's the job issues and she went on about a couple different things and I said okay, that's the area of your life you're not willing to give over to God is the job issue. What are you afraid of? Write out those fears and then look at what God wants you to be. then do what's on page 68 offer the fears to God ask him to remove those fears because you can get rid of your own fears ask God to direct your attention to what he would have you be and ask God to show you how to be that and then be it right now well if that doesn't do it for you and the fears continue to creep back and you keep praying you get into that cycle and you're wondering what's next there's more action that you can take and that's what the four absolutes come from alright I copied most of this from the there's a pamphlet that's put out by the Cleveland Central Committee Intergroup has a pamphlet called Four Absolutes. And I didn't want to reprint the whole pamphelet, but I stole parts of it from here. And it says what do the four absolutes mean to most of us? Words are tools like any other tools they get rusty and corroded when not used. More importantly we must familiarize talking in tongues again. Familiarize ourselves with the tools and understand them and ever improve our skill in their use else the end product if any is pathetically poor just like everything else we've been talking about you've got tools in your toolbox that you've known are there but you didn't know how to use them you weren't comfortable with them so you haven't been using them just like brushing your teeth with the other hand alright the next quote comes I put it in parenthesis anytime you see parenthesis in anything I write the parenthesis means that it's me speaking not something that I'm quoting from I said it's written about the absolutes but this is true of the principles of AA the steps, the traditions, the concepts, the absolutes, the ninth step and the family afterward principles. Any tools you don't use will get rusty. So why not use them? As Bill sees it from page 106, for myself I try to seek out the truest definition of humility that I can. Perfect humility would be full willingness in all times and places to find and do the will of God. Sounds like we've been talking about all weekend. When I meditate upon such a vision, I only need to dwell on the vision itself, letting it grow and evermore fill my heart. This done, I can compare it with the last taken personal inventory. When I get a sane and healthy idea of where I stand on the highway to humility, I see that my journey towards God has scarce begun and I thus get down to my right size and stature. My self-concern and importance become amusing. So if you're having a hard time and you're all verklempt about this deal and the hamster is getting back on the wheel and you've tried the fear tool and you have given the fears to God and you are saying, God help me to be courageous. Bill Wilson just said, get a vision of what that looks like in your mind. What does it look like? The true little that I turn to is the four absolutes. Absolute honesty, unselfishness, love and purity. If I can go out and take direction, what does the big book say? It says when all else fails, go out work with another alcoholic. Well, what are you doing? You're being honest to him. You're sharing the true nature of your disease, right? You're Being Loving because the guy's probably got puke all over him and he smells and you probably really don't want to do that but you know you need to but you don't really feel like it, all right? You're Beeing Honest and you're Being loving. You're BEING Pure to the true Nature of Integrity of what you know. You're Rising to the Occasion even if it's inconvenient. You're Living the Absolutes. That's why it always works. The Four Absolutes, in my experience, work under any condition But most people don't know what the four absolutes are. Absolute honesty. Here's a definition I took out of the dictionary. Candid, direct, forthright, open and sincere. It's there in the parentheses. And then I stole some of the quotes from the pamphlet from the four absolutes. Our sobriety is a gift, but honesty is a grace that we must earn and constantly fight to protect and enlarge. Over and over we must ask ourselves, is it true or is it false? For honesty is the eternal search for truth. It is by far the most difficult of the four absolutes for anyone, but especially for us in this fellowship. The problem drinker develops genuine artistry and deceit. Does that sound like anybody in here? You know, I used to think I had a problem with honesty. I have absolutely no problem with honestly. I have a problem mit dishonesty. I tell lies. I'm dishonest. But my ego had convinced me that I had problem with honesty. Honesty is easy. You get instant results. It's the fact that I don't want the results, so I'm not going to be honest. Control. Any intended violation of honesty stabs the health of not only the doer but the whole fellowship. Uh-uh. How's that for a powerful statement? Like sobriety, it's power of example that does the job. It's much simpler to appear honest than to be modest. Truth is life and falsity is spiritual death. It's an everlasting, unrelenting instinct for truth that counts. Honesty is not a policy. It has to be a constant state of mind. We must strive to be in reality what we appear to be. The real future in honesty lies in the persistent, dedicated striving for it. And once again, Asbill sees it from page 173. Sometimes we need to place love ahead of indiscriminate factual honesty. We cannot, under the guise of perfect honesty, cruelly and unnecessarily hurt others. Always one must ask, what is the best and most loving thing I can do? So, I'm going to let Mark talk about honesty and then we're going to sit down and we're gonna get a vision and we are going to write about what does it look like in my life for me to be truly factually purely honest to myself and those about me I have a question how many of you would attend a weekend workshop somewhere with the sole focus being the fourth and fifth step okay that's food for thought that came to me during the break. So the way you get experience with the fourth and fifth step is to do it. The way I got experience with inventory is I've written a lot of inventory. When I got out of the nuthouse in 91, my little sabbatical at 10 years, my truth was this I just saw that I had not made this a way of life the big book was very clear to me for example in the 10th step they're very strict spiritual disciplines I'm to do every day and they are laid out I'm supposed to pray and meditate every morning my book says right I didn't do that I prayed I didn'T meditate my first 10 years there's all kinds of 10-step practices that I wasn't doing and all kinds of 11-step practices that I wasn't doing. And so at any rate, having finally at 10 years sober made that third-step decision and really having a sense of what that was about, the willingness brought about by almost committing suicide at 10-years sober. Over the next two years, I worked and reworked the first nine steps four times and I discovered reams of unwritten inventory. And I discovered a lot of unfinished amends that I had never seen before as a result of not writing enough inventory. And then I also began to, it was suggested to me, our big book when it comes to a fifth step, it says do it with person or persons, plural. So it was suggest to me by a man long time sober that I consider doing what he called a multiple fifth step which is you take some inventory and you read it to five different people. and I begin to do all that and my life began to change in ways I could not believe because here's why it's in the fourth and fifth step that you get totally detached from ego that mind made false sense of self and you really begin to experience who you really are who you were before you came into this body and who you will be afterwards the sixth sense call it spirit, call it being whatever you call it and it's only from having conscious awareness of that part of you that you can begin to go through life with some sense of peace regardless of your life situation. We talked about that. You know what breaks, what drunks, what we always seem to be talking about is our life situation I know what it's like to be consumed with your life's situation and be missing out on your life. You understand what I just said? It's no fun. It's just truly not any fun because what I'm consumed with I can't do anything about even though I try. So a lot of work with the fourth and fifth step. I've been, you know, anyone says that to me, you know, what do you do? I said, well, I've done a lot of work with steps four through nine. I mean a lot of work. Last year, I don't know, I wrote inventory probably five times last year. And I stay pretty current, right? Well, we're into this year. I've already done one inventory this year and I just recently started a workshop and I'll be doing another one now. Why do I do that? Because I like the effect produced by it. So the key is to do it, though. You've got to do the writing. One other thing, and I'll talk a little about honesty. In working with some people in the East Coast, when they do column one, they call me and say, okay, I'm done, I've got 1,200 names. And I thought, okay. Here's what I've discovered. If you read the big book, it says that when you and I do a fourth and fifth step, what we're really trying to get at is the exact nature of our defects. It is not necessary that you write on 1,200 people to get at that. The ego only operates in a certain fashion. Example, the guy I'm working with now was in and out of AA, and I think he came to me. He had maybe 120 names in Dallas. I had him take 20 names. Now, we're going to keep the 120 because we're probably going to look at him for amends. I only had him take 20 names and I showed him how to write a four column inventory with 20 names. First of all, I'm not going to feed his ego that much by having him write a fourth column inventory in 120 names because again, the ego only operates in a certain fashion. The whole function of the four step is to find out the exact nature of the defects. I don't need to write on 120 names to find that out. 20 is probably 10 too many. we developed the fear inventory out of his third and fourth column and then I had him write a sex inventory I had Him take five or six relationships most current work back answer nine questions we did that something that in the past would have taken me probably months with Him you know He finished in about two weeks did a fifth step He's into amends now so there's been a real shift in me over the years but particularly and I suppose it's because y'all live in such close proximity to each other there's a lot of you around I don't know why these lists are so big but I met one guy out here who was three and a half years writing an inventory and nowhere in this book nowhere was it ever intended that this happened something's gotten missed in there so those of you that I'm just throwing that out there because I don'T go there anymore I'M NOT going to have you write 120 names now that's my concept it's what I work with And maybe other people here would like to write on the whole 120, but I'm just not going to indulge myself well to that extent anymore because it's not necessary. So those are some of my ideas. Now, honesty, some of us in here know a guy named Big Frank and a kind, gentle-loving man. Quiet too. Yeah. But you know the definition of honesty, say what you do, do what you say. and somewhere around, I guess, 14 years of sobriety. I really started working with that for two years. It took me two years to get even close to this definition of honesty. Here's what I mean. I'll simplify it in some respects. I say to you I'm going to call at 8. I call at 9.15. I didn't call you at 8 15 because I was late calling. I called you because I'm a liar. I said I'd call you At 8. Say what I do, do what I say. Bills, electric company. they make an agreement we're going to give you electricity we're gonna float you for 30 days we'd like our money in the fifth I'd send it and they'd get it on the sixth I wasn't late I wasn'T careless I'm dishonest and I begin to look at my life and it was absolutely incredible I'll meet you here and I'd cancel and I'D overbook and I began to see how my ego operated in that fashion every single area of my life from, you'd say to me, how are you doing? I'd lie and say I'm doing well. There it is. So that's my experience with this and I mean this, it took me every area of my life from my physical health to finances to relationships with others, I begin to see dishonesty at a level I just had never seen before. Now you learn some great lessons on the other side. One of them is, Dave will tell you when he asked me to come here and do this, I tell people, well, I'll consider that. Prior to working on this issue of honesty, oh, sure, I'LL be there. You know, and all of a sudden you wake up and your calendar's full and you're resentful and trying to do too much. And now there's a strange connection between working with this concept of honesty and how you feel about yourself and how your experience life. One of the things, the man that I work for, that he enjoys about me, we were talking about something the other day and I totally missed this one inspection we were supposed to have that's fairly important and just means our license, ability to do business, It's no big deal, but we were talking and I looked him dead in the eye and I said, man, I spaced it. I absolutely spaced it, you know, and he started laughing. He said, what are you laughing at? And he said, it's so refreshing that your ego didn't give me 92 reasons why they didn't come to do that inspection. You just simply said, I blew it, I didn't plan it, I didn'T write it out. But there's such a connection between trying to live, not trying, but living your life in that fashion and having a lot of peace and freedom in your life. And you begin to work in a lot ways, you know, in relationships, in which I have close relationships with males and females, to be honest in those relationships in a loving and compassionate way about how I think or how I feel or to be modest in this way. I have an agreement with people I call spiritual consent. Like Dave and I have spiritual consent, And what that means is if he's around me or we talk and he hears me say something that indicates to him I may be asleep to something, I've given him consent to point that out to me. Well, I don't go talk walking up to people who haven't given me spiritual consent, those kinds of things. So that's some of my experience with this issue of honesty, internal revenue service. The list is broad But it took me two years In all areas of my life To really look at this And I saw the quality Of my life improve dramatically As a result of it Because I'm not walking around trying to cover up something You know One time Like I said, I say I don't know a lot And I say, you know, I was wrong And the freedom in being able to do that Is a wonderful thing So that's really all I got. Same rules apply for this exercise. We're not going to have time to finish it, obviously. When I first wrote out my vision in my life for the Four Absolutes, I spent hours looking at it. For one, of delusion, you won't see it unless you really have... I prayed and meditated and asked God to show me first before I do any kind of step work. Open my heart and give me some vision to see the truth of what's here. and then remove the fear so that I can face the truth that I see. Sometimes I'll see it and I'm like, I don't want that. And once the bullet's out of the barrel, you put the pen on the paper, man, look out. You can't take that back. I use the tornado exercise. When I'm trying to get a vision in my life, what does it look like to be honest? Start with your immediate family. You can do this exercise at work, at all different areas. What I found to be the most effective is just do the people in your immediate family. you know if you're single do the people that are closest in your life if you've got a boyfriend a girlfriend or if you have some sponsees that little clique that you kind of hang out with you know your buds do that group but if you are married and you have got kids start out with your spouse relationship what does it look like to be honest with my spouse do I tell her about the extra 50 bucks that I skim off the paycheck she doesn't know about or do I tell her about the extra check they cut in february because uh it's a five week month or whatever you know there's those kind of dishonesties um i've run into all kinds of things with guys when i talk about this subject uh recently uh i ran into a guy who was he couldn't pay his bills yet he was spending 1200 bucks a month on or yeah 200 bucks a months on uh on hookers you know but in his mind he wasn't being dishonest and he was still married and it wasn't an issue. And he couldn't pay his bills. I know another guy who could pay his bill. He's making lots of money. And he was spending a thousand bucks a month on massages. But he didn't see anything wrong with that. That's the kind of denial and delusion that we can find ourselves in. Delusion at first because he didn'T see it and then once I show it to him, then comes the denial. I'm not looking at that. You don't hear from them for a while. That's when the Al-Anon side takes over, and they go off and they do their own thing. They spiral. So spiral yourselves. Take a look at it. We're only just barely going to scratch the very tip of the surface tonight on these. And we've got four of them to go. So this is definitely going to be homework for you. But let's give it a shot. Let's take a couple minutes and we'll start writing on honesty.