Twelve Step Workshop – Part 4 of 6 – 2024 – Peter M.

Peter alcoholic there's an old Rodney Dangerfield joke and he says he and his wife decided to cut back on smoking and he said we agreed to have one cigarette only after sex he says I got the same pack since 1987. She's up to three packs a day. Good night. It's timing, it's timing. Okay, a couple of things. I just want some notes I have here. Just some considerations. Am I in this, in the place of compliance or surrender? My actions will determine that. Am I a place of looking to feel better or get better? My actions would show that. Am I seeking comfort or am I seeking freedom? My actions we'll show that my motives will be revealed. And am I in a place of dis-ease and discomfort or I'm traveling light with ease and comfort? Am I in the place of struggle and resistance or open? Where am I on that? And what lengths am I willing to go to? And sometimes we have, are you willing to got any lengths? What we couple that with is going to be bad. It's punitive. It's going to hurt. Well, it might a little. and sometimes any lenses would you mind sitting here with someone no i'm only we're a team we're gonna do this yeah would you might just switching seats you know okay sure sometimes any lens uh-oh and it's just a matter of something like that the willingness is the key here the part of us that creates the product part of me i use me that creates the problem is not where i'm going to go to to solve the problem because i got this mind that keeps telling me it's going to fill that little hole in the ground while it keeps digging the hole next to it so i take the dirt and i throw it in there as it's full oh no i got one here, so I take it and put it in another's fold. They go back and forth all day long. And I start to get distracted from what's really important. God is always beyond my cleverest plans. That's why my book says little plans and designs, but God's always beyond my cleverest plans. What happened to me also going through this work, there was a point where, and I don't have any regrets about it, very structured sponsors, very rigid sponsors. And I love all the lessons they gave me. But what I fell into, I talked about earlier, being married to the mechanics and we can easily get programmed by the program rather than awakened or transformed. I was doing a talk, it was in Louisiana, and I was the Sunday morning speaker and that Saturday afternoon, they asked, said, hey, can you do a little 10-11, one hour little workshop? I'm telling them, sure. And so I got done sharing my 10 and 11 stuff. And a lot of what many of us do with step 11 is it looks like Eastern, sitting, breathing, posture, meditating, all that stuff. It's more Eastern influence, I'll say. And this guy got done and he had his big book under his arm and he went from the back of the room up to the podium and he was after me and he says, thanks for sharing. I said, you're welcome. And he says what you said is Eastern philosophy. That's Buddhism. It doesn't belong in AA. And he tried to read me. He went up one side, down the other on me. When he got done, I said thanks for caring and pissed him off even more. Sunday morning, I go to speak and give a talk and when I get done with the talk, here he comes, Mr. A.A., from the back of the room, Mr. Restless Room of Discontent that makes his way towards me and he comes up to me, thanks for sharing, you're welcome, can you sponsor me? Same guy. What changed? This guy, I tried working, we lasted about three months and he disappeared but he was in mechanics, and he knew his mechanics. But he was restless, irritable, and discontented. So I have knowledge of the work. I have information. I know the mechanics, and I become mechanical, and I'm sitting there judging and critiquing the misquotas of the book or people who aren't in the book. And really what I have found that this book should open me up to have a conversation with folks open me up to agree to disagree that's not my experience but if that works for you I'm not going to look to change that for you if you're telling me joy is happy and free because you do A I'm never going to say well you're doing it wrong I could isn't that a way of playing God but if you come to me and say Pete can you help me with this work can you sponsor me now I'm going to tell you what I did and I'm gonna expect you to follow that and you may stay with me for six months and find a new sponsor, that's cool. It should be easy, it should flow rather than getting so rigid with this work and really I've turned my will in life over to care of me rather than God. We often say we take our will back like I'm a God bigger than God, like I can take my will back from God. It's one big trick by the way. God gave us to free will and makes us believe like these alcoholics with their egos, let's pretend they're giving it back to me and just tap, tap, go on the top of the head. God gave me free will. Other than breath or life, it's one of the greatest gifts. It separates us from the animals. Free will, it' s a beautiful thing. But I take that running into the ground. So we kind of take God in giving you my will back. Like I'm a God bigger than God, God is going to say, okay, I'll take it back. Then we say, then I took my will back from God like I'm begging him to rip it out of his heart. It's all one big deception. What I need to do is just follow God's path, get aligned with God by shutting down this head. When I'm completely out of my mind, I'm doing absolutely wonderful. Now when we hear somebody's out of their mind, we think they're loony. And we use that to create a picture of John or married. I crave that. I lost their minds. What are you doing? Have you lost your mind? I'm out of my mind. We know what we're talking about, but the reality is when we're acting like that or I'm acting like dat, I'm wrapped up in my mind it has me. I've lost the GPS. I can't see. I can't hear. And my aliveness is now deadened because I'm paying attention to me.I know how this movie ends. Drunk disorderly in jail, dead, treatment on a good day. There's one more thing I wanted to share with you. Two more things. I chase a path that I think I'm on. This is Thomas Merton talks about this. the mind tells me I should be doing this. I should have this kind of money. I should all over myself all day long, by the way. And I'm pursued of that. And that mind, this mind that I have wants to, if it was possible, to operate outside of God. Because then it could play. You get the little God gaze and say, what are you doing? Where are you going? Why are you bothering the newcomer? It's got that gauge. The mind wants to operate outside of that and pursue its old dreams and visions and accomplish what it wants to accomplish outside of God's realm. And Merton says, God doesn't know that guy. And to be unknown by God is far too much privacy. It leads to sin and destruction. and the realm of despair is broad and inclusive, never exclusive, but the mind, that's not good enough. The mind wants to operate outside of that, and when I think about my drinking days and I was in that life, if it was possible to operate outside of God, I bet you we all agree with this. We were. Cheating on the girlfriend, cheating on the wife, not coming home, stealing from people, stealing from the boss, lying, cutting up, cheating, stealing. It was what we did. And you had the problem. The parents had the problem. They're the good wife at home. They were the problem that's operating outside of God. If we can literally do that, the mind doesn't want to come back in and conform to what God has for us. That's why lots of times when we hear do God's will, there's almost like a, well, how far, how much? Because it's, it's linked with, this is going to be painful, it's punitive. It's suffering. I'm not going to have stuff, I'm doing God's will. Sometimes they're suffering. Sometimes I'm not going get all those things I want. And sometimes I'm, you know, plowing the field rather than just coming in and reap the harvest. I am the farmer. Sometimes that's just God's work but if i'm right this is what i found if i am right with god i'm in line with god i love the farming and i love giving it away i couldn't see it any other way prior to that i'm not getting my hands dirty you do it when we think about what we do in alcoholic synonymous we have the folks on monday night there's a new guy there and they leave the new guy that because they're going home to watch monday football you get a bunch of us though when the new guys there well forget the football game we got a new guy here and we hang out for an hour after the meeting using the parking lot talking going through cigarettes like they're m&ms right well that vape guys looks like london outside the parking line we're hanging out we're just talking while we're going to the next meeting and we're doing all of that it's not 10 o'clock honey i'm with a new god be home a little bit okay fine she trusts we're coming home in an hour and you get home and like oh the football game is good but we got soul food we work with somebody that's really doing God's will that wasn't punitive because you can't get in a car and leave them there anymore you can not with an awakened soul there's something in scripture it says this part of turning it over use some scripture words is there's obedience, that I'm agreeing third step four through nine. And it says in Scripture, if I'm obedient, if I am willing and obedient, I will eat the good things of the land. That's what Scripture says. I'm willing and obeying. Now, that sounds like, you know, I'm in some sort of camp, boot camp, and I got to salute and stand with the sergeants. No, we're talking about it all. If I'm going to follow God's will and obedient to that, I mean, I'm willin' to be taught. I'm willing to listen to right from wrong, from treated and untreated. To eat the good things of the land, it doesn't literally mean eat. It will mean I will experience all of God's abundance. I won't go hungry anymore in the soul. My work will be better. My relationships will be bigger. Now, I'm not perfect at any of this and I make tons of mistakes at all of this, but I can tell you experientially that's very true. when I could be transparent with my wife and not have the male ego get in the middle of that when I can be transparent with some friends not cast my pearls before the world in a general way what we were like, what happened but I can sit down with a couple of butts and say I'm petrified about this I'm really nervous about that I'm very excited about this and get goofy and be okay with that you know why because i'm okay with god which means i'm okay with me which means I'm okay with you we may disagree on a lot of things but i'm really okay when covid happened and they shut us down i can read you all the image i wrote on those people who shut us down but that's a whole nother meeting but you know for me it was like i'm gonna go to this monday meeting i don't like that me i'm going to that meeting and uh that kind of thing i'm not crazy about this group i'm going to change groups and then they take this all away right before the zoom thing happened there was a little gap of what do we do and suddenly i was looking to go to any meeting anywhere on the planet just to be around you i don't care if the speaker doesn't cover the topic I don't really care, just I need to be around us. You start to see what we have when it's gone. So we make a decision in three. And the first thing I'm going to start to touch is my misdeeds that put me in a position with life that is painful. my poor judgments that puts me into position with life and others that is that is painful and what i'm gonna be forced to do here is finally you know hold the mirror up to me because for a long time it was like it's your fault well okay it i'll take the hit for this but if you didn't do that i wouldn't have reacted that way that's the negotiating one and the book says we're going to disregard everyone entirely which means the people on our list that outright wronged us and we have those folks the book is clear about that you're involved in a drive-by shooting you know you walk into work you're a faithful worker loyal worker for maybe 10 years and the boss says we got to cut back you're out or we got new equipment that you don't know how to operate we got these junk kids coming in you're out you're like you're kidding me so we can things like that happen but the book says what are we going to do about this I have to disregard them entirely the inventory was mine not the other man's this rubber hits the road here the bar is raised really high I cannot write that inventory with an ego in place God's gonna God's going to write the inventory By the way, I mean, we have a pen. I had a pen in my hand and a notepad and a big book. But the pen simply becomes a spiritual translator at this point. God's writing it. To be searching fearless and moral, I don't want to go there. I don'T want to be that searching. I DON'T want TO be that fearless. And I don' t even know what moral is about. And I'm an alcoholic. We're not going there. I'll cut corners. I'll lie and manipulate and cheat. I'll just conveniently leave stuff out. How's this going to work? I did a third step prayer. No way, man, we're going in. God's going to take me by the hand and go in that back room or the dark, dingy basement that I was always afraid to go in. And he said, you're coming with me. I'm going down first. I'm just going to turn on the lights. I'm gonna show you what's here. A lot of it is just boogeyman. There's nothing there. And a lot of its messy. You see all this stuff here? This has got to go. That's got to grow. This we're gonna tweak. I don't know. But he's taking me around. This is what's in the way. and so I make this decision by a third step prayer with the sponsor on her knees holding hands got up off the floor we sat down, it says next which means now we launched on the course of vigorous launched vigorous action three adjectives describe a moving launch like a rocket taking off vigorous I go to the gym, I don't lay around Action. I'm doing something. It doesn't say read the fourth step and analyze it. It's going to go to work. You're going to have to go into the gym and hit the treadmill when you're done with the treadmill. I just started CrossFit. My wife, I'm completely out of my mind, right? She's been doing it for about a year and a half. So I started doing this. It's madness. I love it when I'm done. but from the moment you walk in the first time I went it was like a 20 minute 30 minute workout and I said wow that was some work out and she says that's just a warm up it's vigorous it's action we're launching we're jumping it's nutso world that's a fourth step we're doing stuff mechanics but I can't pull this off on my own So as next we launched on a course of vigorous action, the first step, which is a personal house cleaning, which many of us never attempted. I've cleaned your house. I've taken your inventory. I've never done my own. And so what I had to do was, my sponsor gave me a little prayer to write. It's not in the book. It's just a little centering prayer. And it went, thank you God for allowing me to be searching fearless and moral. To remind me who's doing that for me. and then i was to pray before i begin to write and when i'm done writing for that session i give thanks so i bookend the writing with the prayer i shift in and then I need to shift out so I wrote this prayer and I sit quiet and I pick up the pen and it says we went back through our lives nothing counted but thoroughness and honesty say they don't really care I mean should give it some dignity by putting on a nice notepad or whatever but they don't care what you write the inventory on they don'T care if you got highlighters or pens or pencils they're not interested they're interested in what are you putting down are you doing it so we got a notepan and what we did was wrote up we went back to our lives uh we listed names people and institutions with whom i was angry so what do i do names the first time through i went mom dad brothers grandparents you get it schoolmates and little league play that kind of thing i just stopped putting down names and names were coming to me i i've kind of changed it because the first time i wrote a whole bunch of names and now it's like what i've learned even when i sponsor guys 50 names that's it we're done after that's just redundant now we just would i'm the common thread through all of it. And when I got done with the names, my sponsor said, put down two more names, put down your name and God. So I made this master list of names. And then I made a list of principles, ideas. Children should be seen and not heard. Real men don't cry. Do the right thing. 90 meetings in 90 days. Don't drink. Things like that we heard growing up that used to maybe frustrate us. I didn't like them. I hated the phrase when I was growing up, all the men in my family would say, do the right thing. I said, what the hell does that mean? It sounded good when you were saying, hey, do the Right Thing. I don't know what that means. Show me. And I put that down. Institutions, IRS, the government, medical religious community, treatment-centered business, politics, You know, whatever institution it is. I remember writing down about the religious community, the medical community, because they didn't save my mom. I wrote about institutions. I wrote down the government because I was angry because I saw, I remember the Vietnam War and what happened to those men and women. They came home, they were treated terribly. I was annoyed about really like, you know, fire about that. I always, I member writing about institutions institutions i put on the radical groups i put under that title whether they black white hispanic or had antennas coming out of their hair there's every you know these radical groups that were hurting people i wrote those down i was afraid of them really like what if i'm not part of the country and i see these people coming at me what do i do how do they exist i can't believe it gangsters i put that down as an institution because i don't like the way what they did to the Italian heritage. I had this stuff written down. As I'm writing, I'm really annoyed about this stuff. Justice shall be served as I got it written down and so I had a whole list of things that were just marinating in the pan and I could not see at that point that when I was around these people or institutions that I was annoyed with or resentful with how I would act towards it. I'd recoil or go on the attack if you are. Become defiant or rebellious. I was not doing God's work. Those things own me. I wrote about firemen. When I was about three, four, five years old, I lived, my family lived about maybe three or four blocks from a fire department, fire station. And when they would roll down in front of our apartment where we lived, we lived on the second floor. It was an old neighborhood and the house would actually, you could feel it shaking. And there was a poster out at the time, I remember seeing as a kid, of this scruffy fireman with a ladder, climbing a ladder against a burning building, holding a little baby. And it was obviously a promotion for these wonderful men who risked their lives you know pulling people out of burning buildings and it was a fireman saving a baby from a burning building get it but what i saw as a little guy three four or five years old was this scary looking man is going to pull me out of my house and set the house on fire so i would hear them and i would lay in bed and just oh my god i'm 16 years old hanging out i think i'm a little gangster hanging out on the street corner there was always these false alarms they would ring the firebox or somebody set a car on fire and here comes these firemen they look like the terminator they got these really weird outfits on they're all big guys and they'd walk over and I'd back up a little bit I don't want to piss any of these guys off and then I'm writing an inventory and what comes is because God's going to give us stuff we don't even know we know firemen they're going to take me away I was petrified of them 16 years old every time i see the fire truck go by here the thing i i just get really tight or if i would you know uh see them in the street putting out a fire and a car or going shopping they pull up and go into the grocery store and get their supplies i'd stay away from them i didn't trust them they're gonna hurt me that's how old that one was a bondage of self and so i take this master list and and uh i create these four columns the first one is taken name resentment mom alcoholic committed suicide addict dad gangster uh never knew sports never had the fireside chat with my dad only sort of bad you know my brother john went to college graduated school went to work on Wall Street made a lot of money I spent about 14 seconds in college and decided to go get drunk instead my brother Anthony goes to Hollywood to be a movie actor that kind of stuff always was babied as a baby got away with a lot of things I was the oldest the first born I paved the way that kind you know it's ridiculous and it went on and on and on and on and on to the bullies in the first grade and things like that and there it was we can easily if I'm not careful I can easily do AA living in a second column every time you ask me she has about what they did to me and so they push us into this third column which I get to see how this one person and the resentment I have with them and they're usually a lot more than one person and more than one resentment have impacted from one to seven areas of my life. My pride, my personal relationships, my self-esteem, my security, my ambition, my pocketbook, and my sex conduct. One resentment in one person can infiltrate, if not every area, a few of them, usually five out of the seven. Sometimes pocketbook and sex conduct don't go in every one. that's an awful lot of power that person has and now I'm a little bit in the shade from God and then I get another resentment I'm further in the shadow now I am dark now Iam in a tunnel and I can't see God when I am in that place I drink that's why resentment is the number one offender it's the number manifestation of self showing up and what's behind resentment is fear you know who is behind fear me driving it and then rubber hits the road with the fourth column it says where were we at fault now i know the book shows three columns but when we flip over i forget what page it's on i'm just trying to move here quick because i don't want to run out of time referring to our list again putting out of our minds the wrongs others have done we resolutely look for our own mistakes. Page 67, where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking, and frightened? There's my fourth column. And I write down, where was I selfish? Where was I dishonest? Where wasI self- seeking? Where was afraid? Next inventory. And I do this with resentments. It really pushes the envelope to take a look at where I'm at fault. because I'm starting to, what happens is I get clouded vision. I'm living out of a, I don't, I'm not even aware of it but I'm leaving out of resentment from 10 years ago. Joe pissed me off 10 years ago and now I'm in his company and I still got that thing going on and he's a wonderful guy but I remember that time I haven't even forgiven him yet. I get a bunch of those things and I'm really really got this huge wedge between god and i which means i'm completely blocked from you i'm going through the motions in life i'm not really experiencing anything and i know the world's gonna get me it always has there's no god in my life um go to fear inventory same thing i wrote a master list of fears and why i have them fear of living fear of dying fear of money fear of no money fear of being alone fear of being around people I did a whole fear of attorney this gentleman who passed on Joe H from out here in California says do the opposite of every few you wrote fear of no money fear of dying young fear of being sick fear of being healthy fear have plenty of money fear of having a long life I was the common thread through all of it it's the alcoholic hotel comes to me and says I keep meeting these crazy women they're all crazy and I said perhaps they are but you keep picking them you're the one involved. I ask myself why I have them, and I take a look at how I set the ball rolling. What do I do in the face of fear? Why do I buy into fear? It says fear ought to be classed with stealing. This is an interesting comment. It seems to cause more trouble. Fear classed with stealing. First of all, fear rips me off. I sometimes don't even know I'm in fear, but I'm starting to feel the effects of fear. And stealing is a choice for most of us. You know, when I was using and my brothers would come home and one of my brothers in school was a waiter at a wedding hall and he used to moonlight in a restaurant and he would come over with tip money from the restaurant and put it on a counter. hmm it's about a 520s there he's not going to miss one my dad would uh I always had before plastic was popular you know my dad's still old school he's got a big when he was alive he always had more money than plastic on him that was his way and he always has a nice nice roll and he would lots of times have this thing in the bedroom you kind of drape your pants over it's like a little kind of hanger thing and put your suit on it and I knew there was money in that occasionally he put his money on his dresser next to his jewelry but he always had money in his pocket a few hundred dollars in there probably more what's one or two twenties he won't even know it it's a choice am i going to go in and take it or not i would have the little debate that lasted about two seconds and i take it and i got away with it i did it again and again and again feeling uh stealing is a choice and fear is my choice i'm going to go with god now i'm gonna listen to me the evil and corroding thread the fabric of our existence since we're shot through with it. Yeah, it destroys everything. So I got to take a look at my fears. How I try to control and manage fears as well. What do I do in the face of fear? You know why? I'm not trusting, relying upon God to care for me and protect me. I'm that. It's my fear, which means it's gonna win and I gotta do something, but not God because God's too slow. He's busy with other things and he's not going to combat this fear the way I want to combat this fear. I want him to be Dirty Harry right now. And he's going to be more Dalai Lama with this fear, I don't have time for that, I've got to win. And then we get to the part that no one wants to talk about, the sex inventory. And in the inventory it's real, the book is saying not telling us how to have sex, the books is not saying how often to have sex. They really don't care. We're looking at conduct, how my conduct hurt other people or put myself in danger. And what it tells me here is, I don't wanna screw this up. We reviewed our own conduct over the years past. So I made a list of names and I answered these questions. Where had I been selfish, dishonest or inconsiderate, who did I hurt? I've got to look around the relationship. I can say, well, I hurt her. But maybe she had children who really took to me, and because a knucklehead had ruined the relationship, those kids are hurt, or her parents, or her friends, or my family. So I've gotta take a look outside the immediate relationship as to who I hurt because of my conduct. You know, when he gets caught cheating on her and they break up. Those kids are mangled in that. How come dad left? And he finds out, they find out, well, dad was a dirtbag and he was running around behind mom's back. That's why they're not together. That's damaging. And I'm writing the inventory and I say, well, I hurt my girlfriend or my wife. No, I heard the entire family. Now the in-laws and the family don't talk because of me. And it just, it's this ripple effect. Did I unjustifiably arouse jealousy, suspicion, and bitterness? You know what? She's not giving me enough attention. So if I flirt a little bit, I'll get her attention. If I come home late, she doesn't have leverage on me. I'll be a little rebellious. Anything to get, I'm trying to get what I want here. I'm not adding to a relationship. I's all about me again. And hopefully we don't do these things while we're on this sober path. This is looking back. You know, I grew up and a lot of us can identify with this. I think as men, it's okay if we run around a little but that's what men do but don't let her do it oh we're getting divorced we're breaking up but i'm with the guys you know what she don't know won't hurt i grew up with all of those and i lived like that dropped a girlfriend off honey i love you go meet the guys and go play around a little bit i had one girlfriend who used to check my mileage on the car she said what'd you do last night i went home really you left here with 100 miles the car has 3 000 miles on it now where'd you go and start lying. They want to look at that. That's the kind of conduct. And, you know, she's drunk. Instead of putting her in a cab, I take her home. The truth will always find me the same way sin will always get me. I can run around it as much as I want, but at some point I'm circling the drain again. I do not want to ever be the guy on that fourth step I don't want that guy around and I don' t wanna be that guy I don''t wanna be the guy on my last fourth step let alone the first one I don ''t wanna be that guy my mind says I can never walk in the sunlight of spirit yet God has many of us in this room there my mind tells me this is what the sunlight of the spirit should look like and feel like and sound like which means that's not going to be anything like that sometimes the sunlight of the Spirit is going over to a homeless person and giving them some money whether they use it to drink or drug is none of my business I'm not God but what I'm looking at is somebody's God's child and somebody else's child that at one point they would have cued his baby on the block when she had little Johnny or Mary in her arms. For some reason, this person wound up here. God doesn't have favor of one person over another. His heart breaks when he sees his kids like that. I'm supposed to be the instrument, the extension of God, if you will. That's who we are. We're God's hands and feet. Instead of walking by, get a job or don't touch them. They're dangerous. but we're not supposed to put ourselves in harm's way. But what I'm compelled to do is go over. I've done it many times with my wife. One time we rolled down the window, we have a homeless population in Fort Lauderdale. They're by the highways and panhandling. And some look dangerous. You got to be careful. One guy stopped pounding on the hood of my car one night. He was violent. But most of them are just homeless and strung out or alcoholic or mental health issues. And this guy came over to our window and I rolled down the window. Mary says, what's your name? And he stopped. His whole world just came to a stop for a moment. And he said, like, Michael. And she says, I'm married as my husband Peter. I said, what is going on? He said, you know, man, it's just tough out here. So as I'm talking, I gave him $10. I didn't say, here's $10, the big me. I just kind of gave him very casual. There was a few God bless yous that I exchanged. But what we did, what she really did was gave that person a little bit of dignity for a moment. When I was homeless, a lot of painful things. If anyone here has been homeless, you know what I'm talking about. It's just awful. But one of the things that's very painful is no one sees you anymore. You're no longer visual. I mean, they see you, but they pretend not to. They just walk past you. They walk by you. Storm versions won't let you in. Don't come in here. That kind of stuff. It's crushing. And in a moment to say, hey, what's your name? And they said, Michael, I'm Mary, this is Peter. It changed for a moment. That's living in the world of the spirit. Get up here and quote the big book for three hours. I think I'm in the word. I'm living in a world of spirit. I'm just full of me, maybe. So I write down the sex inventory. And what they tell us to do at the end of the sex inventory is create a sane and sound idea for our future sex life. Make a little prayer, that's what we did. It looked a lot opposite of my conduct. Not saying good, bad, up, down, left, right, just take a look at conduct here. And am I continuing to do that? Because they give me some very stern warnings in our book. If I continue this conduct and I'm sorry you know we'll get a pass if i change but if i'm not it says we're quite sure to drink so if i was a dirt bag bag out there and i'm coming in here and i'M STILL A DIRT BAG AND I'M 13 STEPPING LADIES AND I'm DOING THINGS THAT DON'T RESEMBLE A SPIRITUAL WALK MY BOOK GUARANTEES ME I'M GETTING LOADED AT SOME POINT AND IT'S KIND OF LIKE silly analogy I was a kid I used to watch these horror movies and there was a thing called the mummy remember the mummy back in the day and you got the couple running through the forest she always falls by the way you ever noticed that but they're running through the forest and running at a good pace and this mummy who's walking like there's always right behind them I can't even figure that out No matter how fast they ran, Lon Chaney was right behind them. Or Boris Kahl was right beside them. That's my addiction. No matter fast I'm running, it's over there and if I slow down, it gets me. So here I am, I'm acting out sexually and I'm behaving appropriately and if anyone finds out I'd be mortified, you can't get out, I got a little secret sex life going on whether it's be running around with women, going to places I shouldn't be going, watching things I shouldn'T be looking at and things like that. It goes on and on and on. As long as it's in this little container, I got the secret life going on. And God forbid it came out, everything stops. What am I going to do about that? God always wins. I can surrender this to God and lots of times it's a simple surrender and I share this so I get done with this inventory and it talks about our fifth step which is can be considered a confession but it goes beyond that because I go to confession the usual thing is I speak priest listens are you sorry for your sins and a little dialogue here's my penance God bless you what fifth step says I'm going to talk to a sponsor about my stuff not a life story but my resentments my fears my sex conduct things like that He or she's going to listen. In this case, he's going to listen, ask some questions, share some notes, have some conversation. But we're not done. Because when we're done with this process, we're going to extend this by going and look at six and seven. And we're going to push it even further by going back to those people and say nine. or most of them, and those institutions. Because the amends is I've changed, I'm changing out whatever I can do to change this and to repair it. It's a complete different person, complete shift. Fifth step, it says, having made our personal inventory step four, what shall we do about it? We've been trying to get a new attitude and a new relationship with our creator. we may have a good attitude and a good relationship with God but we're going to clean it up a little bit and perhaps we're brand new so I need this new relationship I've been idolizing everything instead of worshipping God I've be worshipping the part of me that thinks it's God instead of serving aa i'm looking for aa to serve me instead of being a servant to all in need i'm looking for others to serve me there's a shift there's a difference it says to discover the obstacles in our path we have admitted certain defects have ascertained in a rough way what the trouble is we put our finger on the weak items in our personal inventory thank you so much these are about to be cast out this is a pretty cool sentence i sat with the sponsors do you see what the book is saying i see i'm about to get cast out he's looking at again so he says mark what are you talking about what is he says about to being cast out he says if you were in a treatment center or you were sitting with a therapist or you were sitting your personal doctor or your psychiatrist and said hey here's all my stuff Cast them out. They double your medication. We're about here to sit in the fifth step with an understanding God's about to cast out. In other words, like the fist of Gulliver reaching down and pulling out all the poison. It's a very powerful statement. They're about to be cast out, so hold on. all the stuff that's been in the way is about to be removed in God's way, in God time as much as he wants but it's about to go and it can be very unsettling how do I operate without this defect when I was brought up I was taught don't trust anyone don't try to trust anyone don't never trust men and never trust a woman the only thing you trust is the money in your pocket I was told that over and over and over again by people who love me don't trust anyone keep your mouth shut and never trust a woman the only thing you trust is the money in your pocket now I come into Alcoholics Anonymous and they talk about trust God clean house help others you got to trust the sponsor trust the process trust God it sounds good but not too much I'm going to let go a little bit. I'm not letting go absolutely because I know I'm going to get hurt. I'll be deemed a weakling and a coward. Someone's going to come after me. I're going to get hurt, but I'm leaving myself wide open. I like having a little wall. That was a tough one to let go of, and it dictates the pattern of my life, the course of my life. A lot of us have stuff like that, and we're about to get down to cause and condition and see what's in the way, what's blocking me. Things I'm completely unaware of, but I have the, I experienced the effects of them. Yeah. And what great love that God has for us to get another drunk, not a doctor, a psychiatrist or a priest, although we can sit with those people, but it's usually another drunk hearing another drunk on a life and death errand. This was a blows my mind. We're engaged upon, he should realize we're engaged about a life and death error. And who am I trusting that with? A drunk who ripped up their life and got sober. Not someone with eight letters in front of their name who's on the board of medical directors at some fancy hospital. Some jolted drunk at the home group who's got 20 years. I'm going to entrust my life to him in his fifth step. And it doesn't make any sense. Alcoholics Anonymous makes absolutely no sense. The whole spiritual walk doesn't makes sense to a mind. it says if we skip this vital step we may not overcome drinking the old time you said you either do a fifth or drink one is this a life and death Aaron if I don't do it I'm going to drink back to step one I don' t want to drink I don''t want the pain okay I'm gonna keep moving the chop would carry water I'm doing it my hands are tired they're calloused I'm sweating I'm exhausted but I'm gunna keep plowing here Because the alternative is to drink and die. I'm starting to like the effects produced by sobriety too here. I'm not looking over my shoulder a lot. I'm sleeping a lot better. People say hello when I walk into a room. I'm getting the breath test for my loved ones either. Then I'm giving the eye test when I'm walking in the house. I've shown up for work every day. In fact, I got paid last week and I still got last week's money on me. my bank account seems to have another every month there's an extra hundred dollars that got in there somehow some way my bills aren't in the rear anymore I'm on time, in fact I insist on paying my bills as soon as they land in the mail and last week after home group I was in the parking lot with my sponsor and that new guy till 11 o'clock at night and I didn't regret one minute of it and I missed the whole football game something's going on I like this and so I sit down with the sponsor and we do this fifth step every time I've sat with a sponsor to do my to give I wish they called in sick because I'm still uncomfortable it's not I'll do a fifth step I'll tell my sponsor all the stuff and he'll give me some feedback it's gonna be great it's like I can feel the butterflies I'm a little uncomfortable. It's a crushing blow to the ego once again. The ego's kind of worked out a little bit. It's not glaring, it's not running the show, but it's kindof feeling itself a little big. And the fifth step, it knocks it right out again. And the part of me that's nervous is the ego because it knows it's about to die. That's what's getting uncomfortable. I'm gonna sit down and talk to you about some of my misdeeds here, my resentments about people you thought I loved. I had an inventory I shared with someone last week. We call them 10 steps. And the person I'm sharing with knows this person. And from outward appearances, it looks like me and this person are good friends. It's not violent, it's not bad. But this person has a way of being really irritating and saying things that are inappropriate. here. And you're like, you got to take it down a notch. And he was renting some space. And so I prayed and wrote out some inventory. And I called my sponsor about it. And he said, I want you to call, we'll call this guy Bill. He's called Bill. He says, you need to share this with him as well. And i called up his buddy of mine. And I says, I have inventory for you. We both know who this person is. He says, who is it? I just listened to the inventory. And I got, I just used a different name and he says, you're talking about Isaiah. But I had to read that. It was just, I don't want you to think less of me because I have this resentment towards this person for being such a knucklehead. But I read it to the sponsor and I read to this guy and they came from the same angle with the feedback And it was like, forgive them, change me. It was a spirit of forgiveness. And I realized my praying to forgive someone, I got to be careful because I could be praying, God, let me forgive Joe. Really, my motive is, look, I'm praying for forgiveness, but change Joe? No. Forgive them, changed me. so we like to pray before we do a fifth step get some meditation every one of my sponsors has a notepad and pen out because they tend to take notes while I'm reading and I do that with the men I sponsor I pray before they come to me with the fifth step to get centered this life and death era in this serious business and if while they're talking I might be inspired to take some notes on something they're saying so I can come back to you and say, look, we've been talking about this from day one. It's the same thing going on. Can you see this? Share with them some personal experiences. Be open. Let them trust. Bring a spirit of trust in there. They feel safe enough to reveal. Mark used to say, what's the worst thing you want to, on this thing that you don't want to read? Let's do that first and get it out of the way. It was always the sex imagery. Let's get that thing out of here. I'll show you what I did and then the rest of this will be a cakewalk. Where I want to go to is here, for the sake of time, on page 75. It says, we pocket our pride and go to it, illuminating every twist of character, every dark cranny of the past. Now we go in. We're going in. When we come out, whether it's one session, a few hours, or a couple of sessions, my attention span for one of these things. I can get near three hours and I'm done. Usually two hours. And then I start to go ADD. I start to, I think I paint the house. You know? I start to lose and I gotta stop. I can't do that to that person. So we'll shut it down. We'll close with a prayer and say, you come back tomorrow and we'll... I got a guy right now. This Tuesday I finish up. We started last week and I start to get that where I'm losing focus i'm getting exhausted so we shut it down and i told him that from the get-go i had some notes i shared with him and he says this tuesday we'll kick it off again so i'll be jet lagged as hell on tuesday night while i'm here this guy's fifth step okay so uh we come out and it says this once having taken this step withholding nothing take a statement flip it into question Have I held on to anything? To take it to the grave stuff? Here's our fifth step promises. We're delighted. We can look the world in the eye. I'm no longer looking at my shoes. By the way, this stuff may not happen right after the fifth step. This might happen, a lot of this happened to me in six and seven. Even further doing like an eight step list, this shift started to happen. so if you do a fifth step and this doesn't blast upon you you're okay I could be alone at perfect peace and ease the first time I experienced this after my fifth step I was watching it was a Nick game and we didn't have cell phones at the time so it was easy to be distracted but I remember I was excited to watch this it was Saturday matinee game from Madison Square Garden a lot of fun and I watched the entire game. Halftime, I had a little snack and the game was over and I realized I didn't go to the phone once. I didn'T go outside and see who's, you know, what's happening outside. I just watched the whole game and enjoyed it all alone. Now for a lot of folks, that's so what's the big deal? But for me, it was a huge deal because I realized that oh my God, I just, I was alone. I wasn't jittery. I wasn't uncomfortable, I wasn' bored. I was really into this game, what a great time. That was big for me. Walking into a store to go shopping alone was okay. I was living in Hastings, Minnesota and winter hit and my dad sent me some money to get a winter coat and there was a men's clothing store about a mile or two down this main strip in Boulevard in Hasting, Minnesota. And I walked it, you know, there was no public transportation. I remember you got in the car and you went. I walked, it was freezing out and I get to the store and I got some cash on me. My dad sent me, I have to get a coat. And I walk in, the salesman says, hi, how are you? How can I help you? And I says, I'm just looking. And I'm walking around, I am going, they know I am in the halfway house. They know I don't know what I am looking for. I don' t even know my size. I don''t know what, the clothes became a blur. thank you and I walked out the guy just he just looked at me I walked out and walked back when I got back to the halfway house it was a guy Eddie T who was like a big brother to me how'd you make out you didn't buy anything and I got a little emotional he's what happened I said I was afraid to go in there I didn't know what to do so we went into Sharon's office Sharon was my counselor she was a good old drunk who happened to be one of the facilitators there and we sat down she says what were you afraid of I was looking like an idiot she said do you think you're an idiot I said sometimes you're not an idiot when was the last time you went shopping for yourself I says probably never how long are you sober now 60 days that's a big order how about getting some support so the next day the druggie buggy drives up with 15 guys and me the poor store owner thought it was a stick-up, because you know how we are when we're new. Most of the guys were from New York, so they looked like criminals, and we all walk in. The guy says, can I help you? And he said, I remember you, and my friend Eddie says, this is my buddy, he needs a winter coat. We're not sure what size. Sounds ridiculous, but this is the steps I took. And the guy says yeah, what are you looking for? Three quarter, full length, you know. I said, I don't, I kind of like about here. And he goes, let's get your size. And he took my, there's a hook in his story that I didn't know. And he was really cool. He said, how are you guys doing over there? And we're doing good, you now. Day at a time and blah, blah, bla. And he gives me the size. I don' t know what it was. And he said, How about this one? It was a really nice looking one. He said What are you looking to spend? My old man sent me this much money. He said Oh, you're way under that. There's a little sale going on, and he put, you know, they put it in that nice little coat thing, you know, and I got back in the van. I had a coat, and I called my old man. I said, hey, I just bought a jacket, good, like this. That salesman was one of us. I never knew it. Sharon says he was one of us, or he is one of us. He was part of our home group. I didn't know that, so when he saw me walk in and walk out, he probably said, I know exactly what's going on with this guy. That's when I showed up the next day is, hey, I remember you. He was very embracing. He says, a new guy, petrified. I was afraid to shop. But I'm not anymore because I can be okay in my own skin. Not perfect. Some days I'mnot okay inmyown skin. I look at my age. There's a lot more wrinkles, more gray hair, and I got this thing that just keeps...I don't know what that's about. I go to CrossFit and I can't find abs I don't know where they went I left them in high school somewhere but I could be alone at perfect peace and ease that's an incredible statement it goes on to say this our fears fall from us we begin to feel the nearness of our creator we may have had certain spiritual beliefs but now we begin to have a spiritual experience It might be the infancy of one, but it's happening. The engine is running. The feeling that the drink problem has disappeared will often come strongly. This is a very incredible promise because I would hear someone think about a drink if you're an alcoholic. That's an entirely true statement if I'm untreated. But it says the feeling that drink problems disappear will come strongly in step 10. It said the problem's been removed. This is on a spiritual walk. I'm not even thinking about drinking right now. Oh, my God, I got six months. I haven't thought about a drink. I got one year. I don't think about drinking. I can't remember the last time I thought about drinking." I've been to football games. I've gone to bar mitzvahs and christenings and weddings, and there's liquor around me, and I'm out leaping over the table. I'm in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. We feel we're on the broad highway walking hand-in-hand with the spirit of the universe, oneness with God. Comes a point on this path where I start to realize who I'm praying to. I'm not treating God like a person and people like God. That I'm playing to the boss. And he keeps feeding me a day at a time. He's feeding me dignity and self-respect and respect for other people. compassion for other people. Prior to this work, I wanted moral and philosophical convictions galore but I couldn't live up to them even though I tried no matter how much I tried, I fall short. How are we doing on time here? Huh? Okay, I got a quarter after, huh? Five more minutes? Okay, don't you go to meetings it's over. okay so we'll just close this up the only time in the book it gives me a time to do something amount of time is right here it says returning home or quiet for one hour that doesn't mean the cell phone's on over near it the tv computer laptop uh earbuds quiet and i can be uncomfortable unsettling for some folks I'm really quiet I'm all alone but in that quiet time it's very fertile ground coming out of step five and sometimes we'll review the first five proposals have I been thorough here and sometimes I'll innocently say oh wow I just thought of something I forgot about and call a sponsor and sometimes say that thing I didn't want to tell my sponsor about I gotta call him and tell him we don't know I thank God for the bottom of my heart they know I'm about a little prayer and I go quiet reflective contemplate looking back some meditation one hour's up and I've had some experiences in that hour one was pivotal mark always used to talk to us about uh daily dying for successfully in the depth of self the depth itself he's always talked about that to be current self has to die intuitive thinking comes from being current so the self can't be there things like that i'm in this hour quiet time and um i start thinking who's this god oh my god what i've done where am i going and i'm getting really uncomfortable. And I don't ever, ever want to be that guy again, but I'm petrified of what God's about to turn me into. So I don'T know. I'm just really uncomfortable. I start to feel physically uncomfortable to the point where I break the hour and I go to the phone and I call up Mark. He says, Mark, I feel like I'm imploding. I don' t know what's going on. I'M in this hour of quiet time. I' m questioning everything. A lot of remorse and guilt. I am embarrassed. Oh my God, I FEEL LIKE I AM DYING. And he says, and I quote, it sounds to me like you're having an experience that hung up the phone. Now what? I go back to the hour. Well, he called me later, and he says, money, how long have I been talking about the depth of self for successful living? Is it possible that's what was happening to you? God was pulling back a big layer of you, and you felt uncomfortable and questioning, why am I doing this? I couldn't plan that. It just happened. That weekend, my ex-wife was out from Thursday and came home Sunday in the same clothes, tore up from the floor up, drunk and coked up. And when she walked in the house, this is after this personal experience with this work, when she walk in the House, prior to that I would say, why is she doing this? Why didn't she stop? I had a lot of Al-Anon issues. And when she walked in the house that day, I looked at her different. I was broken hearted. I knew the marriage was now officially over. But when I looked and I says, this is what we do. We ruin everything. And there was a part of me saying, she can't even stop this. It's pathetic. I just, I got to get out of here. This is bad. My marriage, everything is gone. but this is what we do and she can't even stop it. Now, any other day, the male ego had to make a stand here. I got to bark a little, draw a line in the sand, get a little John Wayne right now so he can go out with some dignity. That didn't exist. It was pity. I walked away from the marriage. I had to. It was gone beyond repairable. This was like the umpteenth time this has happened and when i called mark about he says you see what has happened as the result of this work god gave you a different point of view on everything you were leading with the soul rather than this thing that may have gotten really ugly and you walked out like a gentleman yeah when we come back we'll talk about six and seven we'll go to lunch We hope you enjoyed this recording. If you are interested in other speaker tapes or CDs from AA or Al-Anon, please contact us at Sound Solutions, toll free 1-877-893-2777 or visit us on the web at soundsolutionsrecording.com. We are also available to cover your recording and sound system needs. Thank you for allowing us to be of service and carrying the message. Thank you.