Why He’s Still Fighting the Need to Be a Number One Person – Mike

side California. Good morning, I might guess I'm an alcoholic. It's good to be here this morning and happy Mother's Day. Not to this side, to this. Well, maybe I'll include a couple of you. I'll have to call my dear little mother later. You know, first of all, it's been nice being up here. I saw some of you last night, maybe all of you, I don't know, but I enjoyed the meeting and being... Sobriety up here in Portland is good sobriety, at least with the groups that I, the people I've met up here so it's been really helpful for me and I appreciate it. You know when I was talking to Chris about coming up and he said there was a workshop and he said did you want to do one? And I said okay. I picked a subject that I may or may not even talk about today just to get him off my back and give them some kind of idea of what it was. Let's talk about me again. Let me just... I picked steps six and seven because there was a group down in Long Beach that meets called Under the Bridge, and they'd asked me to come down and speak on those steps a couple weeks ago. And not that I have any kind of problem with any mental thinking or anything, but I got off on that six and seven. Those are crummy steps to be asked to talk about, aren't they? I mean, come on. I want a cool step to talk abut it. There's some real ones. Six and seven, I look at them like orphan steps. Okay, they're there. It rounded out 12, but it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference. Let's get through them. And I'll tell you what my experience was with them and tell you why I thought that for a long time. And it's because you don't hear a lot about them. I mean... At least in the groups I attend, we don't talk much about that. That's just... Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've got defects of character and, okay, well, I've just got to take a boy. Now let's move on. How do I get rid of this pain? And then we talk about everything else under the sun. And in thinking about six and seven and getting ready for that talk that night, I really started to look at what do I believe about stuff. I mean, I think one of the fascinating things about being a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and once you get through a lot of just the living problems is, for me at least, is having to examine what doI really believe. What do I want to be the truth? with what do I really believe and how close are those things to each other because there's a lot of difference. For instance, if you just take steps six and seven, is there really some type of higher power that exists in the world that can take away a character defect? I mean, really? Oh yeah, I know, we all work toward that, but really? Do you think God takes that away, huh? I'm dishonest, so I recognize it, I make my amends, and then, oh, God's going to come and take my dishonesty away. Is he? Maybe. And I think Bill Wilson recognizes some things, again, in human nature that are just fascinating to me. When I was about 90 days sober, 100 days sober I had the urge to drink come back to me like it had not come yet in sobriety. It wasn't one of those where I was just mad or pouty. I was down at the beach. In fact, I was in Oceanside and I wanted to drink. And, you know, my family didn't know much about AA or anything else. If I'd have told them that every 90 days we drank, they'd have thought that was fine. You know, it's a lot better than it had been. And so, and I went into the house to go get a six-pack. And I'd been thinking about beer all day. I'd seen a young lady drinking a beer at lunch. And it was the kind that had that ice on the outside. I mean, I can still smell it. And so by 3 o'clock in the afternoon, I was going to go Get a Six-Pack. and I went in the house, got dressed, had been out swimming, got my money and the thought hit me and I must have heard it at a meeting in those 90 days or else I don't know where it came from but instead of going in an angry mood I got on my knees and I asked God I don' t know if I asked Him to take it away or just do something with all the pain and the tension. I don''t recall. And it wasn' t like a threat, like a baby threat like I will do maybe later today with God But it was a real one. It was a genuine one. Like, you know, I can't stand this. I just can't stay feeling this bad. And the obsession for drinking left me that afternoon. I've never had it again like that. Now, that is concrete evidence to somebody like me who's a lawyer that prayer does something. It causes some kind of a change. And I walked away sitting there thinking, what just happened here? I mean, I wanted to believe it was like a miracle, mystical kind of thing. but the practical side of me always brings me away from that and back to come on don't get caught up in that you might have a decent life if you get caught up in it too much you might actually be at peace life may be smoother better for you to figure out your own answers to everything what would I do with all the time if I let God really run my life sit and stare blankly at things I've developed a thought pattern that I'd hate to lose, you know, of panic and concern, self-concern. Anyway, so I was in that mood, and by October, the pain had come back again, not about drinking but about just being alive. I'd gone to a Halloween party with my then wife, and everybody was dancing and having a good time, and I was sinking, and, I mean, it just got worse and worse and worst, andI still remember sitting at the table, and they'd left their drinks because it was a regular party and the smell of alcohol hit me and i just felt so sorry for myself um it didn't feel that it was self-pity that night but it was and i went home and again went into just a rage of emotions and over the next couple of days i didn't finish my inventory and i did what for me was a thorough inventory i didn'T leave anything out and and uh the way my sponsor had me do it then was we had a list of things that were like the seven deadly sins and I had to go through them and write anything that came to mind. And I worried, of course, on how I did it. Did I do it right? Did I use the right... How do you want me to do it? Do you want paragraphs? He would say, like I told you last night, things like, shut up and just write it. And I go, I don't know how. And he'd say, it doesn't matter. Take a long pencil and a pad of paper and write it, follow the... So I did. What I'm getting to is this. After I did the fifth step with him that night, he told me, go home and get the big book down, read about steps six and seven and then you'll be done with those two steps when you've done what the book says. Take an hour and be alone. And I sat in my kitchen and it felt peaceful and I did that. I read it. I said the seven-step prayer and I moved on from those steps. Now, occasionally, I would think about them but they would be like quick little thoughts like, okay, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah? Okay. But I never gave them much exploration. When you look at them in the big book, when I look at him in the bit book, it seems this to me. Bill Wilson didn't devote a whole lot of space to them, did he? But by the time he was writing The Twelve Steps, The Twelve and Twelve, they got a lot of attention. And one of his themes that he seems to stress a lot in his writings is humility. A word that I have little acquaintance with and confuses me. I've looked it up a dozen times in the dictionary in different places because I don't really know. Intellectually, I know what it means, but I really don't know what it means. And I'm afraid that it means what he says it means so I look for other definitions, definitions that fit me a little better. In step seven, we're going to get to the point where he recommends we humbly ask God to remove our defects of character. And by the way, Chuck used to tell this story about the words defects of character and shortcomings. And he said that he asked Bill Wilson himself because he said he heard people arguing that defects of characters and short comings were different things. But that Bill told him that's not so. That I just didn't want to end two sentences with the same word so I just used a different phrase meaning the same thing. My understanding of defects of characteristics is that they're my instincts gone astray. my desires, my desire to be somebody my desire for sex my desire just to exist the natural kind of things that I was given that are out of control an interesting thing for me though I think is trying to figure out when they're out of control for instance there's a lot said about fear in the big book and and I've had I'm a fearful person fear based kind of a person but is fear always a defect of character? And of course, intellectually again, I can say no. It can't always be. Sometimes there's legitimate fear. So when I'm asking the higher power, when I come to a point to ask the higher powerful to remove a defect of character, I'm not real clear on what I'm saying. That's what I've been asking sometimes. I don't think that it matters. Let me skip ahead for a minute. I go through a lot of this intellectualizing and thinking about it and praying for guidance and direction, but the bottom line is I don' t think God cares if I understand it or not. if I know which is a defect or not. I was in a meeting one night, it was an Al-Anon meeting and I'll talk about it again in here it was before I actually joined Al-Alan I'd gone by to spy on a meeting one evening and I was sitting in there and they were talking about fear and a lady who had been around a long time and I knew her husband in AA said well fear's not a defective character we're supposed to have fear and it was the first time it hit me, I thought, well she's right I've spent my whole life trying to avoid all fear in sobriety. I've spend my whole lifetime, whenever I'm fearful, thinking I'm doing something wrong. I'm thinking that God has not removed that defect. When in reality, if it's an instinct, it's not going to go away. So here's what I've come to think about those kind of things. The whole purpose of me trying to be alive and sober is one, not to do any more damage to other people. and then, and quite honestly probably actually first for me to have peace of mind. For me not to be suffering constantly with my mind attacking me or other people. Bill Wilson writes about ego and pride pride and guilt and when he's talking about pride and guilty he says pride is being critical of other people it's a critical position of others when you're prideful and guilt is being critical of yourself and that both of those extremes keep us restless and irritable and discontent and I know that's true for me. So, I'm real new and I'm in AA and I've been going to meetings and I listen to those people in Southern California speak and Chuck C was speaking frequently then and we'd follow him everywhere he was and he told that story about how he'd gone into and I don't know you know the story he went into a treatment center down in Laguna Beach it was at the hospital there in South Coast And they asked him to sit in on a group session at the treatment center. And the counselor was telling people how to handle their defects of character. And he said that he shot up out of his seat and said, wait just a goddamn minute. We can't handle our defects of characters. If we could, we would have. And then he said he shut up and never invited them back. So I was thinking about it when I first heard it. And I thought, I want my defects of character to be removed. But you know what? There's a key portion in that sentence I just told you. It's what I want. Somebody asked me, we were talking last night after the meeting about God's will. One of the toughest concepts that I've ever dealt with in Alcoholics Anonymous since I got sober is, what is God's Will? I mean, I don't know when I have a major decision to make sometimes, like what job to take, whether to get divorced or not get divorced, whether to move or not move or even simple things I just bought a bed recently everything is in the same category with me there's no like I was worried that I wouldn't like it because I got it off the internet and it came and it was the perfect size and it wasn't it was exactly what I wanted to accept when I put it together I noticed one piece of wood was a little defective I've spent about a half hour staring at that piece of woods so far If you come into my house, I'd have to point it out to you. And if we got down low enough, you would see it. I hate decisions. Clint Hodges used to tell a story about when he was new about a lady who was at the supermarket. He said he identified with her and I identified with him talking about her because she said she had trouble with decisions too. And when she was in the meat department of the supermarket, but she wished there was just one more kind of animal to choose from. I understand that. So do I. I mean, who knows? Anyway, so I struggle with decisions about what God's will is, and Chuck used to also give his opinion about that, and that was if it's important to me personally, it's probably my will. Well, I used to hate hearing that because, of course, it's important to me personally. I mean, and yet that's the human ego, isn't it? That's the thing that keeps me in conflict with everything in the world. It's the things that keep me alive often, but the problem with it is my instincts do go astray. My need for security and for those kinds of recognition are such that I can't just be comfortable being the right size, which I believe is the definition of being humble. I mean, from everything I have read and studied and listened to people who are smarter than I am talk about humility. It always gets down to a definition that somewhere includes being the right size and not having to stand out in a crowd which terrifies somebody like me. I mean it really does. When I'm in a mess, I don't mind being humble especially if I've gotten myself in trouble I want to be real humble and not be seen anywhere. But when that's not the case, the fear of being the right size keeps me going the other way, I've realized, about me. They used to tell us that the key to happiness, the golden key, is rigorous self-honesty. And that seems like it ought to be a pretty simple concept, but it hasn't been for me. I remember asking some of the old-timers, what do they mean by that? And one of them told me, don't complicate this. but he obviously didn't know me. He said, you know what that means. And I went home and I thought, no, I don't. I really don't know what rigorous self-honesty meant and I think I have a pretty good grasp on it today. It means this. Let's say I'm going to give a talk and I'm afraid. It means I recognize fear in me but it goes a step further I think to where I then say to myself you know, you really are afraid it's okay you're afraid and what you're afriad of is this you're fraid you'll make a fool of yourself you're affraid people won't like you you're frayed of those kinds that's what this really is about or I'm trying for a job and I think I'm worried about X and it becomes a no, that wasn't it at all you wanted to be in a powerful position again you wanted this to happen again it's more of a state of consciousness, I think, than I ever realized. And I'll relate this to Step 6 and 7 in a minute. But I'll tell you a quick story. When I was... I told a little bit last night, after my first year of sobriety, I was allowed to change jobs and do things. I was told I couldn't make any major changes my first years. And I had applied for a job at this place that I thought was going to be the perfect job. It was a sales job with this big company, and I'd gone through the interviews, and they called me and said, you got the job. Come up on Monday. We'll sign the papers. And so my wife and kids and I went camping down at a place called Doheny State Park for the weekend, and it was nice, and it Was great, and I get up Monday morning, and I drive up to Glendale to sign the Papers, and when I got there, it was obvious something had gone wrong. And the vice president of the company came out, and he goes, we've been trying to reach you all weekend. I'm sorry, but there's a hiring freeze. There's no job. And it was like the last hope. I mean, I was broke. And I'm driving back down the 5 freeway down to Orange County and I was so mad at God. I said, what kind of God is this? Let's you have your hopes up. Let's make it look like it's all going to be okay. See, I trust God when things are working out. When I can see them working out and it has to be very obvious too. I don't mean just sort of. It's got to be like, No, this is working out. So I drove back down. I cried on the way down. I was so mad. And I got to the place and it was even worse. I got up to the camping site because my wife had gotten a cake and there were balloons and flowers and the kids were dancing around. Everybody was happy. It was a beautiful sunny day. I said, I didn't get the job. And it was like this. The air went out of a balloon. And I was like... And I hated Alcoholics Anonymous and I hated God and I hated the world again. And I told you guys about it with somebody named Jimbo last night. Out of nowhere, I hear this motorcycle and he's come down to mooch off me one more time. He wanted a free night camping. And he goes, what's going on? That's what I just told him. And he'd been sober almost a year more than me. And so we sat out there on the water's edge until the sun went down and he gave me the theme that people in Alcoholics Anonymous that are peaceful seem to really believe. God really is in charge. No, He really is in charge of us. You don't understand today what this is about, but you will understand later. And as you all know, I ended up getting a job that got me to become a lawyer and a district attorney and was the perfect job for me, but it took a lot of steps to get there. I just don't have the trust. Chuck used to always say, if I ask you in the room how many of you believe in God, probably get 90%. But if I asked you how many of you trust God to be an entirely different answer. And that's true for me. And the reason is because I don't understand God. I mean, I just really don't. I get angry at God sometimes today thinking, why didn't you just make this easier? Why didn't You just make life a little bit easier here? And I think the answer back should be to me is it is if you'll just stop. If you'll surrender. You complicate it. If I don' t like things the way they are right now and I'm living in the future worrying about what it's going to be like or regretting the past, I'm guaranteed to be miserable on a daily basis. Chris and I were talking last night after the meeting. I can be engaged in a conversation with you while the rest of my mind is still worrying about something else or talking to me about something other or criticizing something else or just it does not shut up. And my point of all of this is this. My experience is when I ask the higher power to remove that, to help me be present, to helpmebetrustful, when I surrender and let go and let God, I seem to get that peace of mind again. It seems to bring the calm back down. There's a guy named Eckhart Tolle that writes some books. He's not AA, so curse me. But he has a concept about God and about the higher power and about living in the now that helps center somebody like me a lot. It helps me remember that it's just an amplification of the fact that I cannot run my own life. So I go back, and when I'm talking about Step 6 and 7, I had to go back to Step 1 again. Because over the period of 26 years I've been sober, there are times when I am not sure I even believe that anymore. I mean, I have to sit down and ask myself, do you really believe your power is over alcohol? I mean that should be the given, that should by the easiest answer of everything. And yet, you know, given enough time away from it, or some circumstance. I was dating a lady one time who was a bad drinker. And I would go out with her and her friends and all of a sudden I wasn't sure I was alcoholic anymore. I don't know. It was torturous. Or even not that dramatic. I can just be driving along and have that thought. 26 years, you've wasted. You could have been... Look at all the bars you could have ended by now. And then I have to come to a meeting and have somebody say something to me that triggers again the memory of the way I really drank. I never drank well. I was not a gentleman drinker. But the second part of that's even bigger. Do I really believe my life is unmanageable? I guess not sometimes, if I was going to be rigorously honest. I must not. Because I have problems knowing what the footwork is. People at meetings will often, you hear somebody bring up a problem and all of us go, Do the footwork. And everybody goes, yeah, yeah. And I leave a meeting and I go, yeah, I'm going to do it. And I get in the car and think, I don't know what the foot work is. I would like to do It. I'm not sure where the foot Work ends. Well, you've got to be Responsible for yourself, don't you? My mind will say, well, yes. Well, then you need To do the foot Walk. And the foot walk to me Becomes achieve the result. Make it happen the way You think it ought to happen. And yet every time, and the only way I can Get to this point, I think is by practice every time I'm confronted with whatever the issue is when I surrender it all works out it always has and yet here's my biggest defect of character I can't trust I cannot trust that I'm correct in my own thinking that there is a higher power that really takes care of me the other defects of character that I think need constant attention you know Bill Wilson talks about if we're in the start of step six if we repeatedly try step six for me that means a daily basis pretty much if I can recall it and think I need to do it because I always flip back into those insecure feelings that I was born with or developed or have happened for me and when I'm in that kind of frame of mind I need to have things be the way I think they need to be in order to be comfortable. And Tolley says this about that, there's only two bad times in the world. One is when you don't get what you want and the other is when you get what your heart wants. And for somebody like me, I understand that I laugh when I hear it because I know what he means. Because it's always not what I thought. It did not fix it. I know it's not going to fix it intellectually while I sit here and yet when a new thought comes in about what it has to be my emotions have no clue. They buy into that story, that fiction one more time that if I just get this job, if Ijustgether, if Ijustcouldhavealittlepeaceofmind, everything will be all right and yet it isn't. Now, I don't see that as a negative. I mean, I could portray it as negative but there's a real valuable lesson for somebody like me in that and that is real simple. i can live my life as if god's really running it and see how it goes and if i can get my mind state to accept that then i don't have to be at war with anything that would mean that right now my life is the way it should be not that god chose it to be and again i want to make that distinction i talked a little bit about last night let's blame in god a lot for uh for horrible things in the world my belief about that is god never does anything harmful or bad to people period i mean there's no exceptions to that not to teach lessons not to help us learn about ourselves what i do believe happens is i put myself in positions where i can be hurt or nature can hurt me or whatever whatever my defects of character lead me into areas that are bad But I think if there's a value in having a higher power in life, the value has to be that God takes care of everything. That no matter how bad a situation really even is, not just how it looks, but how it is, it always is taken care of if I just allow God to do it. And God doesn't require me to do that. You know, the Serenity Prayer is a nice prayer and I've used it a lot over the years, but it even causes me grief if I think about it too much. if I have to accept the things I cannot change encourage to change the things I can that part's nice but I needed like another phrase in there I need to know which things I'm not supposed to try to change because I believe I can change everything I get caught up in I must believe it I spent a lot of time and effort doing that trying to make the world fit to my desire with good motives I'm talking about bad motives so I come back to this when the pain has been great enough in sobriety I go back to steps six and seven. And I have to take a real look at it. Am I willing to have God remove the defective character? In order to do that, it would be nice to know what the defect is, but I don't think I haveと know it. I just know I'm not okay. I know I am out of sorts. If I call by the wrong name, I don' t think God cares a whole lot. He' ll correct it. But in truth, often times I don'T want it removed. Not really. What I want is to have the defective character and have no consequences for it. That has really been my primary goal in life. And so the rigor of self-honesty has to come into that, and I've said to myself, no, you don't really want that. And I'll come back again, and we'll stop and take our break. Bill Wilson wrote an article in Grapevine, it's in the language of the heart now, that I read frequently, and it's on just the topic of humility. because he thought it was such an important concept for him. And he dealt with the things that I can identify with a lot, and those were the needs to overcome those insecurities and be a number one person. The need for attention, the need for success. Material, whatever, romantic, it doesn't matter. There's always been that need to win some way, to at least have a little respite from the pain and agony of worrying. and so here's my truth if I say to God look, I really want to have peace of mind I don't want to drink again and I want to live a good life I know I'm going to die anyway I'd like to at least have some good time and not always be having to deal with stress and worry and all the things of the world and if God said to me ok, I can do that but here's the deal you aren't going to get all the attention you've always demanded you're not going to get all the financial reward you think you may deserve you're no longer you're never going to get to date everybody I got a choice I can make the nice thing about AA I think one of the nicest things about Alcoholics Anonymous is none of us have to be members nobody has to come here and one ofthe nice things about the steps is nobody has to work them I don't have to do a thing about the steps if I don' t want to the reason I still try is because I've learned from experience I cannot remove my own defects of character. I have tried and tried. I can hold them in check sometimes. I can do a little bit here and there, but the reality is I cannot move them. Do I believe God removes defects of your character? Yeah. I don't think they stay away. That's all. I think opportunities come back for them to be practiced again or they just, they're like little separate entities. They just rise, bubble back up and they're there again and it's like I got to repeat the deal when I recognize what it is. So the process of surrender, I think, is contained in the two steps, six and seven. I believe that is real surrender because all the other stuff is necessary. But if I am asking God to make me the right size, to make me one among many, to put me in the middle, as some of the definitions are, to not always have to be on the top or on the bottom in terms of guilt or pride, if I'm just the right size and at peace, if God said to me, look, I can do this for you, let's suppose that speaking became overly important for me like it did one time. Yesterday. I'm just kidding. I'm Just Kidding. But I was being asked to speak a lot. I'll just tell you. I was getting asked to talk and I was asked to be quite a bit and then all of a sudden I wasn't. Now, it wasn't important for him to be asked until I wasn'T asked. Then it became very important. And I'm agonizing over that and as if it's some... It's pathetic. So in my pathetic state, I'm agonizing over the world. If God had stopped and revealed himself to me and said, look, I can do one of two things. I can get you some speaking engagements or I can take away that need. I'd have to have some time to think about it. Give me a day or two. Where would I be speaking? that's my pride and ego. And so that's why I've got to ask for knowledge of God's will and not my own, because I might make the wrong choice. And so to the extent that I'm willing, I ask God to remove my defects of character. I believe he could do it when I cooperate. And that's all I've Got to Say on this subject. Thanks. All right. Open up for questions and answers. If you have a question, raise your hand. and, again, make your questions brief and to the point. Mike? I look at Step 7 as sort of a holding tank, if you will, of my character defects. Like they never really go away. But you mentioned that act as if. Does that help you with faith? Or does that relieve you of some of the juice that some of the character defects have over you by just doing the active part? I think it does. I mean, I think let me think for a second. I'm not sure that defects aren't removed. In fact, I think sometimes they really are. My experience has been there seems to me to be a pattern with everybody I know in AA well And we have one area in particular where we're the worst, we have the most trouble in life, whether it's finances or relationships or something. And in that area they don't seem to ever totally go away. But acting as if always I think is a better choice than continuing to act out on the defect. Whether it helps me with the trust or not, I don't know. I tell you what helps me avec the trust is eventually the pain gets so bad I go back to something that's always worked and then when I'm doing it I'm thinking why didn't you just do this instead of going through all that other crap before you got here so yeah acting as if puts it on hold for a while but the only thing that finally takes it away for me is when I ask the higher power to remove it and even if that's just for the afternoon it's a relief yes Barbara when I first got sober I was kind of steered away from the 12-12 and in big books I haven't read the 12 and 12 now. You know, I find that an interesting thing, by the way, historically. When I first came into AA, there were certain people who would talk about the 12 in 12 as if there was something wrong with it. there's the big book the truth the Bible and then there's the 12 and 12 which is just made up shit for everybody I you know the same guy wrote them I mean it's like but you used to get a lot of that like you know well that yeah that's not in the big book okay well he wasn't smart enough then he was brand new writing the big book God maybe if God spoke to him once and you don't have to believe this or not but if God helped direct Bill Wilson's thoughts to write the big book, then I think he could have done it again in the 12 and 12. So yeah, no, I do. I have him read it because there isn't much in that other one. I mean, I remember that morning, early morning, it was about two in the morning and I was doing my sixth and seventh step out of the big book. It was nice, but I'm done. I didn't even, you know, it says take an hour. I had about four minutes and I'm glad. Now what am I going to do? What do you do the rest of the hour? I don't have any defects of character you have not listened I'll tell you how they show up in my job in different ways. I suppose a lot of ways I don't know. But the ones that are obvious to me were toward the end of my career there. I had a lot of success in my job. And I honestly didn't take much credit for the success. And I really, to the best I could be humanly, was grateful and humble about the fact, because I was embarrassed a little bit by it. I had so much. But as soon as it started to wane, all of a sudden I started to demand it inside. I don't mean outwardly. I mean inside. I needed it. I felt it creeping back up. I'll give you one. Somebody else would get a good verdict in a big trial and everybody's saying congratulations and so am I, but inside I'm thinking, hmm, you're not that good. if I'd have done it and while it's happening I'm ashamed of myself but I can't stop it or there's a position that I particularly want an assignment and somebody else gets it I'm jealous I'm envious that's how it creeps up and what those things make me do of course is then start being negative being angry demanding my way so those never left me But in the actual practice of law, when I was in court and stuff, it was the opposite from what AA gave me. I don't think I could have ever spoken in front of a jury except by the time I became a lawyer. I got my bar results on my sixth day birthday. On May 30, 1986. It was like one of those little things like, was that God? I mean, it came in the mail and I passed the bar. By then I'd been talking in AA for six years. And so people would say, how come you can get up and talk? And it dawned on me, it's because we talk. I remember how impressed I was when I first came to Alcoholics Anonymous to hear anybody share. I thought, God, people are articulate. They're not afraid? I mean, it turned out they were, but I didn't know it. So yeah, they came back, and they put me at odds with people. And one of the reasons I'm not there anymore is, and I don't know if it was a defective character, but I saw what I thought was a change coming there that was wrong. And I didn'T stay in tune with that. But what I had to then look at was, because it would be really easy for me to tell you why I think the new regime is wrong. But what I had to then look at is my own defective character. Okay, what in you can't accept the fact that this is the way it is now? What in you feels so threatened by this? Is it just justice, which would be the noble thing? Those are the kind of defective characters. I'm sorry I have that defective characteristic, but I like things to be just. But the reality is I was just kind of petty about some of the ideas. I didn't get my way. And so, yeah, they plagued me at work too. I think you went up first. I gossip about the person and say bad things. I try to ruin anything good that happened in their lives as much as I can so that I can feel better about myself. I really don't do any of those things, and I only pretended I had those defects. You know, here's what I do. I do what I was taught to do in here. I congratulate the person. It doesn't matter what I'm thinking inside. They don't have a clue. Well, they might because I glare at them and stuff. I try to hide what I'm thinking inside. And, you know, sometimes it would surprise me. I really did feel good. And again, it's like everything else in life, isn't it? If I liked the person, it was okay. If I felt competitive, whether I had been recognizing that or not, all of a sudden when they would get that, I would be like, oh. And I would go over like my sponsor taught me to do here. I'd shake hands I'd tell them thanks that's really great you did a good job and I wouldn't be phony about it because I don't think that's being dishonest they did do a good job I was just having trouble with it myself it wasn't about them it's a hard human jealousy is a terrible thing and it's a defective character that really can run astray for me at least so I've had to act as if in that area and not be a phony smiley kind of person but then go home or go to my office or wherever I am and just say what is it really going on here you're feeling bad about yourself again you got that damn low self-esteem still dragging on here you know that old saying they used to always say if you just treat me special I'll be okay I mean I understand that a lot and so that's a tough one but it does go away I remember one night I was at a speaker meeting at a banquet and a guy spoke and the audience was loving it. I honestly did not think it was a good talk. It wasn't bad. I was doing my talk in my head at the time and I missed his. And so Len asked me, he said, what did you think of the speaker tonight? And I said, yeah, he's okay. He tried. I didn't say that but I tried to give that impression. And he goes, you think maybe you're still competitive? Which embarrassed me. Of course not. Which I didn't say either because I was. I went to my room at night and I sat there and I thought, I'm not competitive in that area. And I thought oh yeah, there you are. Oh shit. And I was like oh no, don't tell God I'm competitive. It was embarrassing. But I had to, ever since then I've been much more at ease at meetings. because when I find myself reacting now if it's a bad talk we had one the other night the guy really was not AA and he shouldn't have been up at the podium talking but I have to look at those things and the same thing at work or anywhere else you know, I watch it and guys I sponsor they get their feelings heard if somebody else is asked to read chapter 5 and they weren't and you can tell and they're making little digs and I think I understand because that's the way I am You have a question? You answered it. Oh, good. My name is Patty. Hi, Patty. In regards to Step 6 and what you were saying about that man, about the person winning the case, and that he thought, well, I should have done better. And in regards to humbly asking for his life, in terms of character, And then in step four, it says you need to be moral. And then there's step 10, which says you have to be personal in this place. What is that in the... Somebody asked me to do that. It says in step seven, You know, if I understand your question correctly, yeah, I think it's a moral issue. Because it has to do with right and wrong. Not good and bad, just right and wrong behavior and so um uh i do a daily inventory and i do it throughout the day and i do it at night and by the way what i'm thinking of it one of the things i didn't pick up on that i'd read a hundred times until a year or two ago you know it says in there seldom is our daily inventory always in red we've done some things right even if we had the right thoughts or uh i've never paid attention to that i just dwell every evening on the mistakes i made for the mistakes I thought I made. And then I saw that one day when I was feeling really depressed and I thought, wait a minute, you didn't do everything wrong today. In fact, you did most things okay today. You had a couple big deals. But I look at those as inventory kind of items, whether I'm taking a formal inventory at the time or not. When I recognize that I'm jealous of somebody and I see it as that, by this many years, I just know that's what it is. It's my own self-ego again crying out for, what about me? Yes? Yes. First of all, thank you for your listening. You shared with us a lot of time today. The questions you mentioned, and I know that each sponsor has a sponsor they have a way of handling it. It's really easy to get a step-take taking about four minutes to go through. What do you do constructively with the efforts that you take from there? Plan my life. you know I actually tried I sat there that night I read again I tried to pray I tried to be quiet I daydreamed I don't think it requires an hour I mean you know what if it does that's great if it doesn't that's fine too sometimes I hear people at meetings talk there's a lady at one of my meetings my participation meeting who always is talking about she is working and then she will say one step for the last few weeks I've been working step three I have to work all of them all the time I mean they aren't gone whether I recognize it as a step six working or seven at the time it seems to me that that becomes a built-in habit for those of us who work the steps and so yeah, that first time from the big book I think it was important for me to stop and take a look at what have I done has the arch I've built so far been solid I mean, did I do a really good inventory? That's one of the things I did that night. It was more than four minutes. It was a neighborhood of six, seven minutes. I looked back and I thought, all right, did I leave anything out of that inventory? Which, by the way, I didn't. I wished I had later. When it dawned on me a few days later what I'd told him, I thought oh my God, what was the matter with me? Change the subject for a second. Honesty. Let me talk about honesty for a minute. Something I've had to deal with this year. more so. I think I'm an honest person. I thought I was an honest person. And then it hit me, the various forms of honesty that I'm not really that honest. I mean, I'm honest in most ways. I won't steal from you unless it's something I don't have. And I don' t often lie, but I lie. I used to tell juries that because everybody always acts so shocked in a court and I'm like, so-and-so lied. And so when I was picking a jury, I would say to them, you don't have to show me your hands, but do any of you still lie? And they'd be these nervous giggles. And I'd say, I do. Now, I'm not going to lie to you in this trial, but the truth is sometimes I lie. It could be a stupid lie, but I do it. So if somebody's up here and they have not told the truth, you have to evaluate whether it's an important not telling the truth or just one of those human kind of things about nothing. Because it was important for them to understand that, that people make mistakes and do things. But, and I'll use a dating situation. I'm dating a lady. This isn't taped, is it? I'll make up a situation. What's about me? I was dating Carl. It's not about you. I was dating a lady, and while I was dating her, I was having these little phone conversations with other women and stuff. It wasn't going out or anything, just a lot of flirting, a lot of how are you? Now, if you said to me, is that dishonest? I would say to you, yes it is. But when I was doing it, it didn't seem that dishonest to me. He's like, well no, you're just kind of seeing if you want to go out with somebody else. But I was talking to this guy who actually works as a therapist for a living one day and I was telling him about one of those things and he said, well what about so-and-so? And I said, yeah. And he says, does she know about this and that? And i go no, because, and i'm telling him some reasons, and he goes, let's just be real clear. And i say, okay. He goes, you are phony. That's an ugly word, isn't it? Very accurate word, but very ugly. And I went on that night and I thought, no, I am phony with her because I'm trying to make her believe life is a certain way when it isn't, when I've got this secret life going on. And then if I'm laying there in bed at night going, how come I'm tense tonight? I can't live in two worlds like that. I have a choice, though. I can still do that conduct. I'm not saying the conduct was wrong. But what I need to then be able to do is be fearless enough to say to her, while we're going out, I'm still kind of fishing around. Except what? Then she'd say, go to hell, I'll not go out with you. So I was dishonest in that area. The longer I stay sober, the more I can see defects of character taking subtler and subtler forms. Not gone. That's why I talk about them not being gone. Anything else? Well, I've enjoyed the whole weekend up here. Thank you very much.