Why Stinking Thinking Leads to Drinking – Charlie P.

And let's say we've done it, we've completed Step 3 to the best of our ability. The bottom of page 63 says, Next we launch down on a course of vigorous action, the first step of which is a personal house cleaning, which many of us have never attempted. Though our decision, referring to Step 3, was a vital and crucial step, it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by strenuous effort to face and be rid of the things in ourselves which have been blocking us. Our liquor was but a symptom, so we had to get down to causes and conditions. Now I know we've been blocked off from God's will. If we hadn't been blocked out from His will, we wouldn't need to be making a decision to turn it over to Him. So if we're going to carry out step three, we're gonna have to find within ourselves what it is that blocks us off from God's will and if we can find that and do something about its elimination then maybe we can begin to operate on God's will instead of self-will they also will notice there is a time element here between step three and four people today say how long should you wait before you do step forward. We hear people say 30 days and 90 days and six months, not too long ago we heard an AA member who is in the professional field counseling people to wait two years after you take step three. I think when we wait too long we're in bad bad danger. Remember we're trying to find a way to live where we can have peace of mind serenity and happiness and stay sober. And every day we procrastinate and put this stuff off is another day that we live restless, irritable, and discontinued, filled with shame, fear, guilt, and remorse. And another day we might be getting a little bit closer to taking a drink. The book says we ought to do step four at once after we take step three. And it does make sense, four always has followed immediately after three. And I'll tell you if we procrastinate it's dangerous for that. But many of us do tend to procrastinate and I think there's two or three reasons behind that. I think one of the reasons we procrastulate is we're confused and don't know how to do step forward. And in our attempt to be perfectionist we want to do anything unless we can do it just right so rather than take a chance on doing it just halfway if we put off doing it because we don't understand how to do it except for i think another reason we procrastinate is fear causes us to put it off because some of the old timers have said i got this leg you get stuck over now that's where it's really going to be something we tend to play king off the mountain with it. Somewhere we got the idea in step four, we're gonna have to talk about all those dirty filthy nasty things that we did while drinking and fear blocks us off from doing step four. So we tend to procrastinate, procrastinate and procrastinate and put it off. Many of us are not knowing how to do this. We read a little further in the book and something in step five said to something about all your life story and we said oh whoa that's what they wanted us to do in step four was to write our life story and many of us begin to take step forward by writing our life stories that's why i did it the first time because i didn't know any better and i sit down and i wrote my life story and i guess i must have thought i was pretty important because I had about 87 pages in one. Today, I'll be honest, I really feel sorry for the guy who had to read that mess. But I took it to him, and he read it, and he said, not very pretty, is it? And I said, no. And he tore it out and threw it in a waste paper basket, and he says, you'll never have to be that way again. Now, I didn't learn a thing by that process because everything that I wrote down, I already knew. I learned nothing new by writing my life story. and today as I look back at it I realize that 95% of the stuff I wrote down didn't have anything to do with my alcoholism in the end the fact that I was born in 1929 I don't think it's got anything to deal with my alcoholism the fact That I graduated from Webster High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma when I was 17 years old I don t think it s got a thing in the world to do With My Alcoholism the fact I went into service when I was 17 I don T think It s got A Thing To Do with my alcoholism. The fact that I married my first wife was a beautiful young lady named Maxine, I don't think it's got anything to do with my alcoholicism. 95% of the stuff I wrote down was just wasted effort anyhow. But what the 95% did, it effectively covered up the 5% that did have something to do với it and I was unable to see it. So I learned nothing by that process. So many of us in our desperation began to search for a different way to do step forward. Some fella in Minnesota wrote a four-step inventory guide, and we got that and we combined it with step four in the big book, and we've gotten more confused yet. A fella in Dallas, Texas wrote a 4-step Inventory Guide. We got it, the Minnesota one in the Big Book, combined them all three together, and then we got more confused, yeah. I don't know how many 4-Step Inventories Guides are floating around today, but you and I saw one not too long ago that had 26 pages to it. And I'll guarantee you, if you wasn't crazy as hell before you took it, you wouldn't be when you were preaching. Never sounded like it in my life. Now, I think what has created all this confusion is we didn't understand how Bill Wilson wrote. But if you can once understand this guy and see how he writes and get inside his head, step four becomes very, very simple in the big book. Step four becomes something in the big book that not only is simple, but it's not something to be afraid of. And I think if we could just all kind of relax, sit back, listen to Bill's words, and make a few comparisons, I think we can see how simple this thing really is and how it's nothing to be frightened of. The first thing we've got to realize is always Bill loves to teach with parables. you know we had another great teacher lived a couple thousand years ago and he was real good at this too and that other great teacher when he wanted to teach something to a shepherd he always told that shepherd a little story about sheep knowing that the shepherd would understand what he was talking about and he would get his point across now if he wanted to teach that same thing though to a fisherman he didn't tell about sheep he told the fisherman a story about fish and when he talked to the farmer he would talk about cattle and grains and he would teach them all three the same thing by telling a different story in a language that they understood bill does the same things we saw him do it with a great liner the moment after rescue from shipwreck and in 1939 the titanic was still fresh on people's minds and people knew exactly what he meant when he talks about from the captain's table to the steering section Today, that's not such a popular way to travel, and people maybe don't understand that, but they did in 1939. He does the same thing with the inventory. He's going to assume that you and I know something about a business inventory. And he's going tell us how to take a business inventory, and then he's going to say we did the same things with our own lives. and through talking about a business inventory he's going to show us how to take our personal inventory all we've got to remember is he loves to teach with parables and then he also loves to compare words he loves to use a word or a set of words and then use a different word and a different set of words that means the same thing we've seen him do that several times also so if we very carefully look at this and look at the business inventory, we will learn how to do our personal inventory. He said on page 64, Therefore, we started upon a personal inventory Now Joe has taken one side of the blackboard up here and he put the word personal on the left-hand side. He now said this was step four but then he said a business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke he jumped from a personal running to a business inventory and he said the business mistakes no regular inventor usually goes broke i think we all would understand that if you had a business where you were selling ladies watches men's shoes bicycles whatever if you did an inventory once in a while chances are you would go wrong. You would not know what's in your store at any particular given time, you will not know has been stolen from you, you would not know what has been sold, you were not know of what has become damaged and unsaleable and needs to be replaced with new items that will sell. You will not know what's become out of style and nobody wants to buy that. You're probably paying borrowed interest on borrowed money for those items in the store, and if they're not moving or sitting on shelves, taking up shelf space, they're costing you money every day, and you can't bring any new items in because the store is filled with this old junk that nobody wants today. And if you operated under those conditions, sooner or later, you probably would go broke. I think we could all see, doesn't understand that. I think his first comparison is this. You and I have a business, and to us it's probably the most important business in the world. And it is the business of learning how to live where we can be peaceful and happy and free and not have to go back to drinking alcohol. For us, going broke would be to go back to drinking. And if we don't take an inventory, probably we're going to go broke also. I think that's his first comparison. One sentence talking about a personal inventory, the next talking about business inventory. Now then he says, taking a commercial inventory, that burned him. He could have used the word business again. But he didn't like to do that, so he found him a new word and he used the word commercial this time. It means the same thing as business. He says, taking your partial inventory is a fact-finding. And Joe's going to write up here on the board under business the words fact- finding and a fact facing process. Joe's going to write the words fact-facing on the board. It is an effort to discover the truth, and Joe's gonna write the word truth on the board about the stock in trade. And he's going to write the stock-in trade on the book. Now we know that the stock in trade is what's in that store to sell. This is the lady's purses or the men's watches or the bicycles or whatever it is. That's what he has to trade off in his business. Now, one object of this inventory is to dispose damaged or unsaleable goods and to get rid than promptly and without regret. His good items in stock will probably not cause him to go broke. What'll cause him to go broken are those damaged goods, those unsaleable goods that's taken up shelf space, and he needs to get them out of the store so he can replace them with good items. If the owner of the business were to be successful, he can out-fool himself about that. He must be truthful about this. Now, the owner will tend to be untruthful because after all, he made the decision to put those items in there and now that they're not selling, he really doesn't want to admit that he made a mistake. He'd rather blame it on somebody else. But if he's not truthful and they're sitting on that shelf and they don't sell them, they're costing money day after day after way after day. So remember what he's looking for the damaged and unsalable goods and to get rid of them promptly without regret he's not looking so much for good items but good islands are not going to cause you to go broke now if the owner of the business is to be successful at this as he makes that inventory and by the way an inventory is a written list of items that's the way the dictionary defines it there's no other kind of inventory except a written list of items and as he makes that inventory he's not inventorying what was in his store 20 years ago that's not what will cause him to go broke tomorrow nor is the inventory what he intends to have in the store 20 years in the future and that's not what's going to cause him to go broke tomorrow what's going to cause him to go brook tomorrow is what's in his store today so he's going inventory what is in his story today not what used to be nor what we intend to have but what's there right now and the book says we did exactly the same thing with our lives now what he's going to tell us to do is inventory our buyers just exactly like he just told us to do it in a business inventory if we will look at step 4 the way it is written remember Bill loves to compare words step 4 said we made a searching and Joe's going to write searching up here across from fact-finding. Those two basically mean the same thing. He said we made a searching and fearless, and he's going to write the word fearless across from fact facing. They basically mean the same funny. We made a searching and careless morrow. And there's where we went wrong. We said, oh, there it is. God damn, there's that list of dirty, filthy crap. And we don't want to look at that and we sure don't wants anybody else to see it. Now I'm not sure what Bill Wilson knew. But I do know this. He understood the English language. And if he had wanted you and I to make a list of Dirty, Filthy, Nasty Things I believe he would have said we made a search again fearless amoral or immoral inventory. He did not say that. He said moral. and we go to the dictionary and look that word up and we'll find that it means the truth the real truth about ourselves he said we may be searching in fearless moral inventory of ourselves and we're putting ourselves across from the stock in trade now we are the only stock in trad that we've got in this business to stay in thought and we've already looked at the two sides of our disease one physical and one mental and we found out that we can do nothing about the physical the only thing we can work on is the mental so in the business of staying sober the only think we're going to be dealing with is our thoughts the way we think and the only stock in trade that we have in this business of stayin' sober is the way we think. So our inventory is going to be our thinking process, that part of us which blocks us off from God's will. Now just like the owner of the business, how I thought 20 years ago is not going to determine whether I'm going to stay sober tomorrow or not. And how I hope to think 20 years in the future is not gonna determine whether I stay sober tomorrow or no, but I tell you what will determine whether I stay sober tomorrow or not, and that's how I'm thinking today. Stinking thinking leads to drinking. If my thought processes are okay and I'm happy in my mind today, chances are I'm going to be sober tomorrow. If my thoughts processes are healthy and I're not happy today, chances are I might go broke tomorrow. See, I'm gonna inventory my stock in trade, my thought process as of right now at the present time. Now also, just like the owner of the business, I'm going to be looking for those damaged and unsaleable goods that would cause my failure. My assets never did get me drunk. My good thinking never did get me drunken. The thing that blocks me off from God's will is my lousy thinking and that's the kind of thing that I want to find and that is the kind that I am going to get rid of. He said we did exactly the same thing with our lives. We took stock honestly. We took stop truthfully. We took start morally. First, we searched out the flaws in our makeup which caused our failure. We didn't search out the good items. We searched out the flaws in our make-up which caused our failure being convinced that self manifested in various ways what defeated us we considered its common manifestations now we just looked at self while ago we just looked at itself while ago we looked at the three basic wrongs which stem from self the three common manifestations of self resentment, fear, and harms done to other people. And there's three kinds of illnesses in the world today that we human beings experience. If we become physically ill, we go to a medical doctor and we will display certain symptoms of that illness. And he will read those symptoms, make a diagnosis, hopefully prescribe for us, and then we can go get well. We can be mentally ill and for mental illness we usually go to a psychiatrist or a psychologist. We will display certain symptoms of that mental illness and that trained person will read those symptoms, diagnose the illness and make a prescription and hopefully we can get well and the only other kind of illness you can have is a spiritual illness. people who are spiritually ill are those who are separated from God spiritual illness will display certain symptoms also just like the other two and these three symptoms up here on the board are the symptoms of spiritual illness a person who is resentful is blocked off from God's will he's separated from god A person who is always afraid Is blocked off from God And he's spiritually ill A person whose always hurting other people Is blocked of from God And he is spiritually ill Now you and I are going to have to read our own symptoms And that's why we have to take our own inventory The book says Resentment is the number one offender It destroys more alcoholics than anything else from it stem all forms of spiritual diseases or disease for we've been not only mentally and physically ill we have been spiritually ill when the spiritual malady is overcome we straighten out mentally and physically in dealing with resentments we set them on paper so the first stock in trade that we're going to look at in our store and I like to view my mind up here as a store. And in that store, I've got some display shelves. I've got some things locked up under lock and key. I've got some of my items in a little file cabinet back here in the back. I've got some of them over here in the storeroom on this side. And let's face it, some of them are damaged. Some of them are sure as hell out of style. And some of them are really unsaleable. Now, if God's trying to get in there to replace that stock, he can't get in that because the shelves are full of these damaged and unsaleables goods. In order for God to get in there, we're going to have to do something about their removal. And the first common manifestation that we're gonna look at happens to be resentment. The book says that's the number one offender. You know, people say you get drunk faster over money and sex. I don't believe that. We get drunk faster over resentment than we do anything else. My God, we get infuriated. We romp and we stomp and we raise L and we block ourselves off entirely from God's will. Now, if we're going to do something about resentments, we're gonna have to look at it. But you can't do anything about a problem until you see the problem. And even the way you and I are ever gonna see our resentments is to put them down on a piece of paper. Because you see in your head you can only see one at a time. If I'm to see the full truth about my resentments and how much of my space up here is filled with them and how must they block me off from God's will, first I'm going to have to look at them. And the only way I can look at him is to pull him down on the piece of tape. So this should lay to rest forever whether we're going to take a written inventory or a mental inventory. if we're going to put them on paper we're gonna have to have a piece of paper a pencil, a pen, a paintbrush a typewriter, a computer some way to put these things down on paper he said in dealing with resentments we set them on tape now you have in your handout sheet a piece of paper we're gonna use called a review of resentments and we're gonna list them in just a moment but before we list them let's make sure that we understand what a resentment is Joe okay again another word you know I think it's left to get to the bottom of line of what these words are saying what is a resent first thing you know there's nothing we all have this ability so it's not anything truly bad it's just the way we use it throughout the program like I've been talking about not getting rid of these things but rearrangements and adjustment so there's a certain place somewhere where they're good and it's not by chance that we have each thing the word resentment understanding resentments word itself is self-explanatory once we understand it whenever we see re on front of a word is re and means again are like repeat replay that means again and they also come to the word centaur which means to feel so resentment needs to fill again feel something again and in life uh the biggest thing is as we really understand life is so simple everybody you know i have self in fact you know the big trouble is everybody's got one you know everybody's gotta sell and it's made up of those things that make up self and sometimes maybe they're security as instinct is out of control because security they they do something to me that hurts me they take something from me and it hurts me because of their self-esteem and this is a wrong on their part other people get sick and they will strike the other human being when they strike me they strike a part of myself and it hurts that's around we're gonna always have as soon as I'm wronged I hurt by another human being they hurt me one time and then I go over to next room and and refill that I played a whole scene out again act it out and then I re-hurt myself the second time and the second time and I feel the pain harder that is a resentment re-feeling something over again and what happens is the more that we replay it over the worse it gets as we refill these people hurt us one time and we replay these things over and over and over to where they don't even resemble what really happened Because every time we play it over, we don't know, but we kind of paint it up a little bit and change it around. You know, when we replay it over again, we make them a little worse. Make them a lil' worse. And make us a lil better. After about six months of playing that over again that person's a devil. And we was standing there like an angel. Doin' nothin'. Doin't nothin', but they didn't do it. The more we play it, we get started. We're gonna find out a reason now before we finish as to why we do that. There's a reason for it. There's sick reason for. A resentment is we play these things over they don't even resemble what really happens. And as the outlaw gets up every morning and this is like a football game we like to watch the football game this time of year And when a football game, when a guy goes out there and he goes to catch the ball and one of them little halfbacks hit him and it's knocking him up right, it's knocked the hell out of him. And it hurts at once, but the old announcer don't like that. The announcer ain't satisfied with that. He's got a resentment machine. He'll say, let's look at that again. And he turns on his replaying machine, and we see it in living color in slow motion. Now the guy, the guy that got his back in the game is still playing. Maybe. it. But the old ounces still bounced him off the ground. Look at this again. And he looks a lot worse the second time you look at it. And the more he plays it, the worse it gets. And I thought he gets up every morning and turns on his replay machine. Tunes it up in living color so you won't miss nothing. Shines it on the world all day. And He only records the bad stuff. You don't record no good stuff. But they did, because he's real sensitive to that. He comes home at midnight, and he turns it on, and he replays it, and makes himself sick. Now, he sees himself as a victim, and the whole world is after him. This is not true, but the truth is as we see it. It's the only thing we can live on is the truth as we perceive it. And then it produces one of the worst emotional illnesses that an individual can have because once we are sick, once people, once we resent other people, their resentment is a two-edged sword like a boomerang. It goes out and it comes back. Because we can't resent other evil unless we finally resent our position in life where we allow that to happen. And that's self-pity. That's probably our number one offender for the alcoholic. He seems to have a lot of self-pity, which is self-resentment. He resents himself for being in that position. You know, some days the alcoholic don't find nothing to report on his resentment machine. You know sometimes he has some bad days. He can't find nothin'. You know what he does on those days? He knows what they're thinking. Boy, I got drunk behind readers. You know, we know what they thinkin'. And once we've created self-pity, it's the number one offender because we see ourselves victimized. We see ourselves as failures. And that's the alcoholic's number one offense. He loves self-resentment. It's a way of excuse for not doing anything and everything else. And that's, you know, if you want to make an alcoholic man try to feel sorry for him, he'll tell you, that's my damn job. You don't get that job. That doesn't happen. Resentment is a failure mechanism. It's an escape, really. It's shortcut. Most of our problems are shortcut, baby. and I love the one the illustration about the guy said it's like a it's not gonna I'm good you know once in a while we have a shoot it's an ill-fitting shoe rubs up foot and he really does that when they shouldn't the foot rushes you nature has a protection as the foot becomes irritated nature puts a callus on our foot to protect us from the ship and then the callus becomes the problem They're saying, well, about resentment. Resentment is an escape mechanism to put blame on other people and to get it away from ourselves. And then the resentments can begin to eat our lungs, and the resentment becomes a problem. There's no way that God can direct a mind that's being controlled by resentments because if a man is dominated by resentments, our mind is being controlled by the things that we resent. And there's no way God can direct that line. There's no other way There's only one way that decision can be carried out in step three as long as we have resentments in our mind. And God has never given us anything bad. It's only when we misuse these instincts that it becomes bad. we'll never get rid of all resentment, but we can get rid of those that tear us up and kill us. If we use a resentment property, this will bring competition. This brings advancement in the human race. For instance, if you're living in a neighborhood, the whole neighborhood's all run down, houses all need painting, the window pane's broken, everybody's house looks the same, nobody pays much attention. And we sit there on the porch and we rock and we rock and after all our house is as good as anybody else's. And somebody moves in across the street and they buy that house and the next thing I know, they're out there replacing window panes, painting that house. And I say, who in the hell are they? Moving in here, screwing up the whole damn lake. I resent them for doing that. But if I use that resentment right, that resentment will cause me to go get some window panes and some paint and fix my house up. And then my neighbor resents me and he fixes his house up and the next thing you know God's got the whole neighborhood fixed up but we alcoholics don't use resentments right We'll sit there on the front porch and we will rock and rock and resent and resent and 30 days later we'll go over at midnight and burn his damn house down So, it is the misuse of resentments which gives us the problem. And that's what we're going to do. We're not going to be perfect. We're going try to be perfectly. But we're gonna try to find these resentments and see where they come from and see how they block us off from God's will. And then maybe, maybe we can see the need to get rid of them. And then we might even find a way to get them out of our life. and we may even be able to find a way to live relatively resentment free. If resentments can disappear then God can come in but if that old damaged stock of resentment stays on my shelves it can't be replaced with good items. I'm first going to have to do something about it through movement. Now the shoe paper that you have and we want to emphasize this is not anything new. God, we've got enough inventories already today. This is page 65 in the black form. If you would take that sheet you have and fold the fourth column, just fold it underneath where you can't see it. You would then be looking at three columns, and Joe's going to show the three up here on the board. Column one, I'm resentful at. Column two is the cause. Colum three is affects my. And the only thing we've done with column three is we've taken the very words that Bill has used and subdivided into columns. For instance, the first column under affects my is social instincts. Under After that we've got self-esteem. We've got personal relationships. Now if you do anything to threaten my self- esteem or my personal relationships, I get mad. I'm upset. I resent that. In the second column we put the security instincts. Material and emotional. Same identical words that bill uses in the paper if you threaten my material security or my emotional security you upset me make me mad in the third column we put the sex instinct we added two words one column we call acceptable sex now that's the sex that i have in my home with my spouse and society looks on that and says that's good that's okay that's that's we're supposed to be having sex there you threaten that in any way and you upset me but many of us also have what we call a hidden sex life and we've got something over here on the side now we really don't want anybody to see about that maybe we got a boyfriend over here or maybe we've a girlfriend over here hell I don't know maybe it's a pet monkey or a dog you take enough step times you will be amazed at what's over there and we'll be just as upset if you threaten the hidden sex life as we are the acceptable sex life then we took the ambitions that he talks about and put them under ambitions columns everybody's got ambitions socially, to be recognized, power, prestige, etc. Everybody's got ambitions in the material world, to have more peace of mind, to add more money, more material things. Everybody has ambitions and sex. If we didn't, we wouldn't fantasize about it as much as we do, and we all fantasize to a certain extent. Now if you threaten any one of those things. Whether it's something I've already got, or whether it's something I'm wanting to get. In either case you don't make me mad. So we've got page 65 in the blank form. That's the sheet of paper we're going to set it on. Now he gives us a set of instructions on how to fill this form out. Our problem has always been that page 65 is filled out and we didn't know for sure the procedure that he used so let's start looking for the instructions he said we listed people institutions or principles with whom we were angry period stop right there in that first column let's start making a list of first people that's self-explanatory institutions are those things like the police department the post office the Internal Revenue Service the federal government the church and God we can just sit here and name them all day principles our own old guiding I don't like to use the word law but it don't know anything any better old guiding laws that we have always known that's been based on truth. For instance, the Ten Commandments, that's a set of principles. Many of us didn't like those at all. They interfered with our style of living. Another old principle I never did like, still don't like it too much today, is what goes up must come down. I never cared for that one very much either. Another one is what you give out is what you get back. Another one is there are no free rides. You will pay for what you receive. And we can list a whole bunch of those principles that are old, old guiding forces based on truth that we alcoholics didn't like because we kept running into them and they kept interfering with our style of living. This is one of the most simple things anybody can do. You don't have to be sober very long to do this. You don'T have to have a great education to do this and if we can't write we can simply feed the names of somebody else and have them write them down let's work this column from top to bottom while the mind is thinking about one thing and one thing only I've never seen an alcoholic yet that does not know exactly who and what they're mad at my god we spend countless thousands hours sitting around in bars talking about these things. All we gotta do is take it out of her head and put it down on a piece of paper. Now Bill, in his particular case here, he listed Mr. Brown, Mrs. Jones, my employer, and my wife. Now I'm sure Bill had more resentments than that. I assume he didn't want to use any more space in the book. The sheet we have given you has room for eight of them on there. And I'm sure you can all get all your resentments on that one sheet. I found out I couldn't. I'm the guy that said, oh, I don't have very many resentments. You see, I could only see one at a time in my head. But when I started to write those down and I filled out the first sheet and then reached over and got another sheet and filled it out and got Another one and filled It out and Got another one long about number 82, I began to realize, my God, I do have a lot of resentments. For the first time in my life, I could see how much anger controlled my thought processes. For the first time in the life I could say how much time I was spending in these resentments and I was absolutely amazed that I had as many resentments as I had. Now, I've made a decision in step three to let God control my thinking. If resentment controls my thinking, then most certainly God cannot. And I didn't realize that until I wrote it down on this sheet of paper and made this list. I began to realize that resentment really is a problem with me that I could not see until I had written them down. So we have finished the first instruction. Now let's look at the second. Always, Joe says, always top to bottom. I don't think we can repeat that too many times. If we go from left to right, we're going to have to, with every name, we'll be changing our mind, the name and the cause and the effects of mine. We do that about three times and our head starts going in circles. But if you go top to button, it's a very simple thing to do. The second instruction we ask ourselves why we were angry column two what's the cause of the resentment you're not going to be mad at somebody unless there's some reason for it and i've never known an alcoholic yet that not only did not did we not know what who we're mad at but we knew exactly why we're not mad at them too and we spent thousands hours talking about that. And all we got to do is take that out of our head and put it on this paper. Talk to Bob. By the side of Mr. Brown, we're mad at Mr. Brown because his attention to my wife, told my wife and my mistress, and Brown might get my job at the office. I'd be getting upset with Brown too, I think, if I don't doubt Well, he's mad at Mrs. Jones. She's a nut. She stubbed me. She committed her husband for drinking. He's my friend and she's a gossip. He's mad to Jim Floyd. He's unreasonable, unjust, and overbearing. You probably said, where the hell were you from, the idiot? He threatens to fire me for drinking and padding my expense account. Now that's unreasonable as hell. He's also mad at my wife because she misunderstands and nags and she likes an old brown. and she wants the house put in her name now you tie together like an old brown wanting a house putting her name it's about time to get a little upset very carefully beside of each name we write down the columns i'm trying to see what joe has done here and i can't see i got to turn my head harry okay we've got mr brown on there that's the main one we're gonna do okay when we do that we finished column two the second instruction I think we're going to be surprised as we feel this call about. We're going start realizing it's not really them we're mad at. It's what they did that we're upset with. Because, you know, I can take Mr. Brown out of here and I can put Mr. Green in there. And I'll be just as mad at Green as I am Brown if he did the same thing. I can tell my wife off here and put my mistress in here and if she does the same things to me, I'll just as be mad at her. so i begin to realize in this column it's not really the people that's got me upset it's what they did that's going to be valuable for me to know just a little bit later on okay now we look for the next instruction in most cases it was found that our self-esteem our pocketbooks our ambitions our personal relationship including sex were heard or threatened so we were sore we were burned out on our grudge list we set off as at each name our injuries, what is our self-esteem, our security, our ambitions, our personal or sex relations which have been interfered with. You can't make me laugh unless some way you've threatened one of those basic instincts a lot. So I go to the first name, Mr. Brown, and I go into that first column under self, self-esteem. And I start working it from top to bottom. Is this a threat to my self-esteem, this idea I've told my wife and my mistress, his attention to my wife, Brown might get my job at the office. If it's a threat to my self-esteem, I put a checkmark there by it. Now what Bill did here, his attention to me, his interest in my wife, certainly that's a threat to self- esteem. What are other people going to think about me if my wife is fooling around with Brown and I don't to respond to that. I told my wife and my mistress, certainly that's a threat to my self-esteem. After all, here I am living in a neighborhood, go to work every day, make a living, pay my taxes, teach in Sunday school on Sunday morning, take the Boy Scouts on Saturday afternoon, and all of a sudden this little story about me and my wife and my mistresses is now becoming public knowledge. Oh, what are people going to think about me now. This is a hell of a threat to self-esteem. If you don't believe so, you ask Jim Baker. He'll tell you. A guy named Hart lives over in Colorado. He lets you know about that real fast. Brown might get my job at the office. It's a threat to my self-esteem also because after all I've been working for that job for years and now Brown's moving in going to undercut me and what are people going to think about me when he takes my job away from me. I go to each one of those names and each one of those causes, and I work that self-esteem column from top to bottom thinking only about one thing at a time. Then I come back to the second column under self, which is personal relationships. Is it a threat to my personal relationship? If so, I put a checkmark. And I follow that personal relationship all the way down, working top to bottom. Then I come back to the security column. Is it a threat to my material security? If so, I put a checkmark, working always top to volume. Then I go back to the emotional security column and then I go to the sex column. For instance, again we look at Mr. Brown, his attention to my wife, Is that a threat to my sex relations? You betcha it is Yeah, because if my wife is to fool him with brown and finds out he's better than I am she's probably going to cut me off at home Now that's a threat to my acceptable sex relations in my own home He told my wife about my mistress Is that another threat to sex relations you betcha Because if my life found out about my mistress not only did she cut me off at all she went over and raised enough hell with my mistress and my mistress has cut me off and I don't have sex left at all. This time it's a threat to my hidden sex relations. And I very carefully work those columns one at a time. And you know, we begin to see something happen here. We begin to se certain patterns develop. We begin t see that maybe self-esteem really is a hell of a problem with us. Or maybe material security is a real problem. or maybe this sex thing is a real problem it's more likely going to be a combination of all three but we begin to see one or two of them start standing out and we begin to see those things that really really create problems for us as we fill out that column when we finish it up we're going to be amazed we're gonna realize it's not them we're mad at it's really not what they did we're bad at but it's our reaction based on self our own basic instincts of life which has created that anger for the first time in my life I'm able to see where anger comes from I've always known I had a problem with it I've also known that I've been I've already known that I said and did things that created troubles for other people and I was sorry about later on but I could never get a handle on it because I didn't know where it came from but I see now it really comes from my own basic instincts alive a threat to one of those things. I know good and well it's not other people. I know Good and Well is not what they do. It's got to be based on my reaction. Because you see, my wife, when she does something I don't like, if I am spiritually fit and got my instincts under control and God and I are getting along okay, I can say with the poor old thing, you know, she's just sick. That's the way she is. and I can just let it slide right off of my back and no response to that whatsoever. But let her do the same thing two weeks from now and I'm not right and my instincts are out of control and God and I are separated and I'll just blow my stack and go through the roof and romp and stomp and raise out. It's the same woman and she did the same day and whether I got mad or not was based on how I felt about me at that particular given time. So I realize anger doesn't come from other people. It doesn't comes from what they do, it comes from my reaction based on my own basic instincts of life. And I didn't know that. I really didn't now that. I've learned three valuable pieces of information. One, I've learn how much anger does control me when I failed out column one. Two, I have learned it's not them that get obsessed with me, it's what they did. 3. It's really not what they did, but how I react based on my own basic instincts or not. And I'm not through with this yet. I've just filled out this sheet, these three columns. That's all I've done so far. Joe? No. It wasn't back to our lives. Nothing counted for the fairness and honesty. Now, we have gone back through our lives resentment-wise. You see, even though I am inventorying those resentments, that stock in trade that's in my head today, they didn't come in there just today. Some of them popped in there yesterday. Some of em popped in their last week. One of em last year. One five years ago. One ten years ago One fifteen, twenty, twenty-five and thirty And it's far back those things have been popping into my head. so I have gone back through my life resentment wise when I look at those that are in my head today we have no quarrel with us Satan at all nothing counted but fairness and honesty when we were finished we considered it carefully first thing in prayer was the world is people who are often quite wrong that's not any new information we've been knowing all along they consider the other wrong as far as we have forgotten, as usually all we saw out of them. The usual outcome is people continuing to wrong us, and we stay so, sometimes with remorse. Then we will show it ourselves. But the more we fought and tried to have our way, the worse matters got. As in war, the victor only seemed to win when a moment of triumph was shown there. It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. to precisely send them amidst these that would squander the hours of their might when men are worthwhile. I read that statement and I stopped. And I began to try to look back in my life and see how much time I squandered in resentments. Now, I don't know about you guys, but I know about me. And when I am really filled with a good old resentment, I'm paralyzed. I can't do anything worthwhile. That thing is just churning and churning and churned and churing. and I really can't get anything done. One of my favorite things when I was drinking was to get up early in the morning, have a cup of coffee and drink a whiskey and turn on my resentment replay machine and replay what they did to me yesterday, what she did to be last week, what he did to mean last month, what they didn't mean last year and what mama didn't need 15 years ago and what daddy did 20 years ago and what Grandpa did 25 years ago. And I could sit there and play and play, and I could spend a whole hour doing that. And God just loves to do it. But today, as I look back on that, I see that that time is absolutely squandered, wasted time. I can't say that it ever made me any money at all. It never made a nickel by doing that! It never make me feel better, it just made me feel worse. And it never straightened up the relationship with another human being. It only made those relationships worse and worse and worsen. And as far as I can tell, that time was absolutely wasted. And when I got in IA, I found myself doing the same thing. Getting up in the morning, having a cup of coffee, no drink of whiskey, turn on the resentment replay machine, and sit there and play it for an hour. Then when I get through replaying that thing, and that tape ran out, then I would have another cup of copy, and I would turn on my get-even machine. My God, the next time she does that, I'm going to do this, she's going to do that, I'm gonna say this, and fuck her, I'll put it on her. She's not going to treat me like that. I could spend an hour doing that also. And I did it every day. Day after day after day after day. Now as far as I can tell, you know, we're limited to the number of those hours we have here on earth. And frankly, I've wasted about all of them I'm willing to waste. I love to feel good. I feel good for the first time in my life i'm sober and i feel good at the same time and my god i love it i'm not going to waste any more of them in something that does me no good whatsoever and it's completely wasted time that's a bad deal but that's not the worst deal here's the worst thing with the resentment but where the alcoholic whose hope is the maintenance and growth of the spiritual experience, this business of resentment is infinitely grave. We found it is fatal. For when harboring such feelings, we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit. The insanity of alcohol returns and we drink again. And with us, to drink is to die. When my mind is filled with resentment, I block God completely out. I don't feel good and I won't feel better and my mind begins to think again about taking a drink. It starts looking for that sense of ease and comfort. And the next thing you know, insanity returns and I believe I can drink. And I drink again. And with people like me, to drink is to die. If we were to live, we had to be free-ranked. The grouches at the brainstorm were not for us. They may be the dubious luxury of normal men, but for alcoholics these things are poison. It doesn't make any difference whether resentment is justified or unjustified. Both of them block me off from God's will. And a justified resentment will kill me just as fast as an unjustified resentment. I just cannot afford those things in my life. Now that I know that, we turn back to the list for it held the key to the future. You see, this is why you've got to have written inventory. If you'd taken a mental inventory, all that stuff would be gone by now. but with a written inventory I now go back and look at that list again I am prepared to look at it from an entirely different angle we begin to see that the world and its people really dominated us in that state the wrongdoing of others fancied or real had power to actually kill and I read that on a stop and I thought oh my god I'm the guy that all my life I've said I've got to stand on my own two feet nobody tells me what to do I'll make my own decisions I'll run my life to suit myself and when I read that statement I suddenly realized that people have always been telling me what to doing through my resentment toward them if I am resenting them then they have control of my thinking and if they've got control of my thoughts they've gotta control my thinking they have controlled my decisions they have controlling my actions and they've had entire control of our lives and I always thought I did it. But today I realize all I've ever done all my life is respond to other people through my resentments toward them. And when I saw what I saw, I said, how stupid can you be? Hell, some of these people have been in the graveyard dead and buried for years and have been reaching out from the grave and had me by the yin-yang as poor back as I can remember. And whenI saw that, I thought, I'm through with that crap. I'm not going to let those people, whoever they are, dead or alive, live in my head rent free anymore. I've made a decision to let God direct my thinking. And people dead or live directing my thinking, God simply cannot do that. So now I begin to realize, I'm going to have to do something about this. How can we escape? We saw that these resentments must be mastered, but how? We could not wish them away any more than alcohol. Now, they come from self-will. God made self-willing, and only God can overcome self-winning. This was our course. We realized that the people who wronged us were perhaps spiritually sick. Though we did not collect their symptoms in a way these disturbed us, they, like ourselves, were sick too. We asked God to help us show them the same tolerance, pity, and patience, so we would cheerfully grant a sick friend. When a person offended, we said to ourselves, this is a sick man, how can I be helpful to him? God save thee from being angry. Thy will be done. I hear over and over andover about the third step prayer. I never hear about the fourth step prayer. It might be that if I want to get rid of these resentments I may have to start praying for those suckers that I resent so bad. Jesus this is hard to do. Dale said in his story, simple but not easy a price has to be paid. It meant the destruction of self-centeredness. And I just may have to start praying for people that i resent if i want to be free of that and i don't want to let them take me back to drinking then i become willing to do whatever is necessary to do so joe okay as we go through these resentments there's a key word in the back not only that we put an emphasis on listing our resentments we're talking a lot about we've hammered away at the word listing our resentment they're not a lot of good relief in listing your resentments there's another key word in this chapter said list and analyze our resentments i think that makes it a whole different picture analyze with these sheets with this inventory we can analyze our resentment and analyze means to get down to the truth and the truth will set you free from the lie because the resentment we're going to find is an untrue thing now if we can do that we will get rid of these resentments when we get to put these resistances down and list them all and look at them about 95 percent of them will leave us see step four is a positive step it's a cleansing step if we list and analyze we can get rid things in step four now when we look at our 95 of these as we get all these resentments down when we look at them about 95 percent of them are going to look too dumb for us to be doing it it looks stupid yeah i mean in reality in the light of the truth you say hey you know that ain't what we're doing this is dumb so you're gonna lose like 95 percent of them when you get them down there life and there'll be the rest of them that stay we got to use prayer on them so who it is we're going to get really going to be a hundred percent resentment free if we use this inventory there's a great illustration in the back of the book on how to use prayer how to process pray for those people you resent and there is no way that you can pray for a person and that's the deepest concern we can show up another human's life as love there is no way that prayer and resentment can exist in the same situation so there's a great example on page 551 to start back a book we're going to read this i think it's a classic illustration of using prayer on reset hello 551 freedom from bondage he says I've had many I've I've had many spiritual experiences since I've been in the program but I didn't recognize right away if I was loaded or anything they take many gases but one was so outstanding I would like to pass it on whenever I can and hope that it will help someone else as it has me because said earlier self-care were my constant companions and my average began to look like a 33 year diary before i seemed to have a resemblance to get everyone i'd ever known all but one was responded to the treatment suggesting the steps would meet with this one pose a problem all of one responded that she analyzed out but one in that one state she said it was against my mother it was 25 years old. I had fed it, fanned it, nurtured it, and once made a delicate child." She took care of that herself. She loved this one. It was as much a part of me as my breathing. It provided me with excuses for my lack of education. She was using this. My marital failures, personal failures, and adequacy, and of course my alcoholism. And though I really thought I was going to depart with it now, I was rather reluctant to let it go. one morning I realized I had to get rid of it for my free was running down if I didn't get rid of I was going to get drunk and didn't want to get drop anymore in my prayers that morning I asked God to pull out me some way to be free of this resent during the day a friend of mine brought me some magazines to take the hospital group I was interested in I looked through them in a band across front of the one region are combined from the third which I thought the words were separate he said in fact if you have a reason you want to be free of if you pray for the person I think you resent you will be free if you ask your prayers for everything you want for yourself to be given to them you will be free thanks for that help their prosperity the happiness and you will feel free even when you don't really want it for them your prayers are only words and you don t mean it go ahead and do it anyway do it every day for two weeks and you'll find you've come to meet it at one for them and you realize why they used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred you will feel compassion and understanding if you've got a resentment and you want to get rid of it for God's sake don't pray that if you pray about you on this I speak from experience And I got into this stage of the steps. I had one of those resentments. I said, I really hated this person with a purple passion. I believe I would gladly have put them away if I could have and not get caught in it. But this thing began to eat on me. And I went to my sponsor and told him about it. He said, Charlie, you've got to get rid of that resentment. I said. I don't want to get out of here. I don' t want to be rid of their resentment. He said. That's absolutely beside the point. If you don't, it's going to cause you to get drunk. I said okay. How do you do that? and he said, let me show you. And he took me to this example and he says, now read that go home and do what it says and you'll get rid of that resentment. I'll never forget it. I read it I went home and I got down on my knees which I very seldom did in those days and I said, God I want you to give that son of a bitch everything he deserves. That's the only prayer I had for him that day. But I prayed it again the next morning. And I prayed it again in the next morning. And some four, five, six days later, I don't know when, I found myself saying something I didn't mean. I found myself saying, God, give to him what I want in my life. Give him the peace of mind, serenity and happiness I seek for myself. And some four, five, six days after that, I woke up one morning and that resentment was gone. And it's never returned since then. And I think the irony of the situation is this. Today, this guy is my next-door neighbor. We meet and we laugh and we cut up and we have fun and we visit back and forth in each other's homes. This damn thing works if you're willing to do what it says today. Now, through these resentments, through this prayer, through the analyzing of the resentments on the sheet, I can become 100% resentment-free if I wish to. And all that area that was blocked off, all those damaged goods have disappeared. Now then, God can enter my mind and the new good stock in trade can now fill my shelves. There is another law of nature that says there's no such thing as a void or a vacuum. God is always rushing in to fill those things up. If it's true in the material world, it's also true inthe mental and emotional world. If the resentment disappears, God's not going to leave a void in my head. It'll have to be filled with something else. And the only thing that can fill the place where the resentment used to be is the opposite of the resentment. Love, patience, tolerance. goodwill toward other human beings. Now, I didn't have to list my assets. And I didn' t have to go find my assets If God dwells within every human being and I believe he does then all those good things of God are there also. They've simply never been able to come to the surface. Because in my search for money, power, prestige and sex fulfilling the basic instincts of life I obscured all of the good qualities and lived on the crack. Now that the resentments are gone, the good qualities of life can come to the surface. And I can find in that part of my head some peace of mind, serenity, and happiness. And I'm in much less chance of taking a drink than I was before I went through this process. But it would do me no good to get into these resentments today if I didn't know how to keep them from coming back in the future. Because the world's full of sick people And people are always going to be doing things to us that's not right. And we will always tend to want to resent back. So we're going to have to do one more thing to keep those things out of our head in the future. And I can't have one. If I get one resentment, the next thing I know I've got two and then three and then ten and then I'm a basket case again. So now we'll look at the fourth couple. If you'll unfold it and take a little look. and fourth column says what's the exact nature of my wrongs faults, mistakes, defects or shortcomings and the wrong is the resentment that's what blocks us off from God's will but what's it like what's in the nature of the resentment again I had to go to the dictionary and look that word up I thought nature dealt with birds and bees only but I find the nature of something is what's at the core of it What is the inherent characteristic of this thing? What is within me that allows its resentment to surface in the first place? And I began to look over in that last column, and I began seeing an old personality there that I didn't like. And what I really didn't Like about it was this. the resentment on my sheet really no longer resembled the truth what I had done with these resentments is I played them over and over and over and over in my head every time I played them that person I resented got a little worse and I got a little better and after a while I could make myself as pure as the driven snow and I could transfer any blame that I might have had in that situation to another human being. And I find that as a practicing alcoholic, that's one skill that we must develop. Because I don't think we could live with ourselves if we couldn't transfer blame to other people. And as I would play that over and over and transfer that blame to them, then I could free myself to go ahead and do whatever it was I wanted to do again. And here's what I did in column four. Referring to our list again. putting out of our minds the wrongs others have done we resolutely look for our own mistakes and we've never done this before in our life always it's been them, not us where had we been selfish, dishonest, self-seeking and frightened though the situation had not been entirely our fault we tried to discard the other person involved entirely where were we tonight the inventory was ours, not the other man's when we saw our faults we listed them we placed them before us in black and white we admitted our wrongs on us and were willing to set these matters straight now I have one name on here her name was Barbara and that's the lady I'm married to today and that' s the lady I was married to then too I'm going to tell you something I hated Barbara so I had her name on this resentment sheet what was the cause of it hell she filed for divorce three times the last year I drank she was spending more money on lawyers than I was spending on booze and all those things that go with it oh, that had me upset and in the third column I put down the part of self that was affected like this toy doll affected my self-esteem my personal relationships my material and emotional security my sex life my ambitions just wiped me out completely and I hated her guts until I looked at the fourth column And I looked to see, Charlie, what part did you play? Forget about what she did. What did you do? And I began to see that because of my own selfish nature, I was out there doing things I shouldn't be doing. And I got caught at it and she filed for divorce. Because of my old dishonest personality, I would lie to her all the time. Hell, I'd tell her a lie faster than I would tell her the truth, even though the truth might have been easier. i begin to see that because of my old selfish frightened nature i was out there doing some things and telling myself charlie you're getting close to 40 years old you better get it in now while you can or it's going to be too late for you to do it i began to see because of my inconsideration for my wife and my children i was up there doing things that a good father and a good husband wouldn't do in the first place. And I began to see where I put myself in the position to be hurt, and all Barbara did was retaliate against me. And that might have blew my mind because I had effectively transferred all blame from me to her. This guy that I hated so badly, why did I hate him? He and I went into business together. And one day he'd scalded with the fines and all of it infuriated me. That was a threat to my personal relationship, self-esteem a whole lot of those basic instincts alive but in the fourth column i looked to see what's the nature of the resentment charlie what did you do where did you put yourself in that position and i realized that that could not have happened to me if i hadn't gone to him to be a partner he didn't come to me i went to him now why did i go to him because he had something i needed he had some money I didn't have and he had some knowledge I didn' t have and I saw a way that I could use that guy for my own personal benefit yeah my own selfishness my own dishonesty my own inconsideration of another human being put me in a position to be hurt now that didn't excuse what he did but it showed me where I put me in that position he could not have done that if I hadn't have put myself in that position and what really blew my mind every damn resentment on that sheet I had done something to set the ball rolling I had done something to them they had retaliated and I had resented and I have effectively transferred all blame to them no wonder I love resentments no wonder I love resentment and I begin to see in that fourth column what I'm going to have to change because if I stay selfish I'm gonna keep doing the same old things if I stay dishonest if I stay frightened if I stay inconsiderate I'm going to keep making the same decisions I've always made I'm going to keep putting myself in positions where I hurt other people and they're going to retaliate against me and create pain for me I finally begin to see the old personality that I'm going to have to change from and it's in that fourth column and I think if you've never done this before you're most of those resentments are not justified at all. And even those that are justified, maybe the other did it to us. Maybe father did it too. Maybe brother or sister or the next door neighbor did it. But I wonder why we keep carrying that resentment today. If we can see that the resentment blocks us off from God's will and we're still carrying that sentiment, then there must be a reason for carrying it. this lady in the story in the back of the book she used her resentment against her mother I don't know what her mother did to her it doesn't make any difference but she used that resentment to justify her lack of education bull she could have gotten an education if she wanted to she used that resentment to justify her marital failure bull she even used it to justify her alcoholism bull there's a group of people today sitting around talking about these old things from the past rehashing these old resentments trying to figure out what made those people do that what the hell difference does it make if it was done and why they did it is not important at all and trying to figure out why that resentment made us the way we are well what the Hell difference does he make what made us the way we are. The fact is, that's the way we are! Now the question is, what can we do about it? And the big book shows me a way to get rid of every resentment from the past and get it out of my head and keep it out in my head in the future where I can be peaceful. AA is not to figure out all those things from the best. It is not to sit there discussing these problems day after day after day after day, AA has 12 steps that will show us how to get rid of those problems. And then we can be peaceful and happy and free. Why don't we quit discussing the problem and get sicker and sicker? And start doing something about the problem. That's what the book is for. I'm not trying to excuse people for what they did in the past. Certainly they did things to us that was wrong. Now, why are we still carrying it today? If they hurt us in the past and we're still carrying today, then that means they're hurting us today. They're still hurting us today, they've still got control of us today they still are determining how we think and how we act, they're still making us unhappy. We don't have to be that way if we don't want to. All we gotta do is follow this simple set of instructions and we can be resentment I'm free, Joe. Okay. Got me? Gotcha. I'm waiting. Okay. If we have went through resentments, we have cleared carrying out the decision. We have moved one part of this thing in our mind to block us from God. So resentment's blocked us from God, so we're carrying out the decision in our heart. And we don't think that territory is sheep the way the big ones are. We have all the information we're going to need on resentments. This is secret, this is inventory, so this is step four, right? Now over in the fourth column, we have the exact nature of the resentments What was the exact major of it? Was that selfishness? Something in us started it. So this is the things we've got to discuss of another human being in step five and to God and to ourselves. Also, this is the same thing we've got to become willing to let go of in step six. And the fourth column is what we're going to ask God to remove in step seven. Now also, once we inventory and get down to the truth about these resentments, we're gonna find out that some of these people in column one that we resented we all had a man and he started the whole thing so in the first column we had the people listed for step eight and nine this is why that we were asked to do this when we're down the inventory now if you can see what within you that caused you to do this in the inventory process if you can see that what within you caused you did do what you did then you are more apt to become willing to make amends to them if you could see your involvement in this so this is why we're asked to make the list of step eight while we're doing the inventory some of these people are resent resentment as we owe an amen so as we're going to get some of the people off our fear list that we owe it to me and we're gonna get some the people of our sex list that we already means so we have done step four like the big book says do it we have all the information for four five six seven eight and nine as far as resentments are laid out on one sheet there is nothing as simple and it's complete as the inventory in the big book this is simple it's factual information there is no inventory in a world like it once we've learned to use it you know John and I talked for many years and we worked on it and read all the other inventory guides that people have written and I tried to figure some up and out. And now I had a realization a few months ago that was amazing, looking at it from the light of the understanding of the big book inventory. I realized that everybody who has written a four-step inventory guide, and I don't know him, I have nothing personally against him, but I believe that nobody that has ever written a fourth step inventory guide has ever understood the inventory of the big book. Because if he had understood this, he would have never wanted to write one. I mean, it's superb and it's simple. And it's something that anybody can do with just a few weeks of writing. You don't have to be so able to do it. It's a very simple process and it is a thorough process. And we're not through with the inventory yet. There's two other sections to it. but if you've got a resentment or resentments in your head today please, please we beg of you put them on a sheet of paper analyze them out take a real close look at them because I'll guarantee you whatever they are, they're not true they are not true they may have some basis of truth but they are no what really happened whatever it was because we distorted them in our mind we use them to transfer blame or if we were not at fault ourselves then we used them to justify doing things we shouldn't do or use them to justify not doing things we ought to do if you've got one in your head I'll guarantee you if you haven't analyzed it out it is not the truth I think you'll be amazed when you look at it now the other two parts of the inventory is going to be fear and sex and we're tired and we've got a headache We don't feel like sex right now Let's get a good night's sleep And we'll have sex on Sunday morning Okay?