Why the Big Book Says We Don’t Have to Be the Arbiter of Sex Conduct – Scott L.

My name is Bob Darrell. I'm an alcoholic. Hi, Bob. A woman came up to me years ago and said something to me that just floored me. It took me back. I didn't know how to respond to it. I didn' t even say anything. I was sharing at a meeting. She came up after the meeting and she said, Well, everything you said is all well and good for you. You have a lot of self-confidence. And I went, Whoa! no i didn't say nothing about thinking no self-confidence no no no oh why would she think that i know me trust confidence in me oh no no not after what i've done in my life drunk and sober confidence in you know why would you say that why would he say that i started thinking about it And I started realizing that what she saw in my demeanor was a confidence, but it was not a confidence in self. It was a confident in Alcoholics Anonymous, my sponsor, and behind everything, behind the curtain of all of that, God's grace. That what happens after a while here of practice, one of my mentors kept saying, he said the word practice, practice, practice, practise, practise. is after a while you start living your life as if the power behind you will always be greater than the obstacles before you. You start to get that. I mean, get it. And you live it. It just becomes a working part of the mind after a While. But if you're sitting here and you're afraid and you can't imagine, that's normal. You don't get from – because alcoholics are thinkers. thinkers are not trusters thinkers are analyzers thinkers are figurers thinkers are controllers to get from that to a person that's in the wheelbarrow is not an overnight transition at all but keep on the path keep working with others keep helping clearing house trying to trust God clean house help others and I can promise you there'll come a day when you'll realize that you're walking through seemingly fearful situations with a comfort level that you would have never imagined possible. You can bank on that. The bottom of page 68 and all of 69, a little bit of 70 is the section on sex. If I get to meet Bill Wilson in heaven one day, I'm going to ask him, Bill, was it intentional that you put the sex inventory on page 69? I've got to know. Acquiring minds want to know? Or is it just a fluke, or is it God's putting on his bozo the clown nose again? As he does very frequently. God's got a great sense of humor. The bottom of page 68, now about sex. It starts this section, a couple points at the top of page 69. It talks about the two schools of thought, the guys that think that sex is terrible. It's a lust of your lower nature, a base necessity of procreation. Then you have the other group that thinks sex is the deal. It's everything. It's they cry for sex and more sex. They bewail the institution of marriage. And this, the book says we want to stay out of this controversy. And this is a controversy that's been going on with humanity for thousands of years. Do you ever watch Nick at Night, the TV station? You know, they have television shows on there from the 50s. Did you know in the 50S was an era of sexual demeanor in this country? In the 50 S is it in TV shows, they didn't even have bedrooms in the houses. I mean, it was like there was nothing even implying. And then in the 60s, when shows like All in the Family started, people were, you know, it was, like, by today's standards, it's nothing. And we swing right out of the 50s where that real puritanical deal was going on. Then we went into the 60S where free love, or at least reasonably priced. Where, like there were group orgies and stuff and communes where people are living and sleeping with each other. Just crazy stuff. And that didn't work any more than the other one worked. And people are still alone and they're still hurting each other in both deals. The book says we don't want to be arbiter of anyone's sex conduct. And do you know this? It's really unusual. No matter where you fall on the spectrum of sexuality, from the one end where you maybe had two people in your whole life on your sexual inventory and you had to be drunk for them. Or to the other end where, you know, you're the kind of person you don't want to be left alone with someone's French poodle. I mean, there's a list of 500 people on your sexual inventory. No matter where you fall on that spectrum, if you're an alcoholic, by the time you get sober, you're ashamed of yourself. The people on the one end of the spectrum are ashamed of themselves because they were so locked up and sex was so obtainable to them, they had to be drunk to have it, and they feel secretly there's something wrong with them. And the people on the other end of the spectrum that had sex so many, just so, it's the same deal. It says we all have sex problems. All. That's why we inventory it. And oddly enough, in the inventory, we're not inventorying sex. There's not a question in here about fellatio or position or anything. There's nothing to do with sex. It's about harm. It's a problem. The questions are, we reviewed our sex conduct over the years past. We make a list of, again, I'm a list guy. Some people don't do it in lists. I'm an honest guy. Where had we been in each instant where there's been sexual energy? Where had be been selfish? Where had been dishonest? Where'd we be inconsiderate? Whom had I hurt? Did I unjustifiably arouse jealousy? In myself or in my partner? Did I unjustifiably arouse suspicion in myself or my partner Did I justifiably arouse bitterness in myself and my partner Where was I at fault in a wonderful question What should I have done instead We got this all down on paper and looked at it And what I discovered is when I started looking at these questions I realized that I was selfish and didn't know it you know I'm one of those kind of guys that can I'll do something really nice over here and I'll shine a spotlight on it and keep the other stuff in the dark I'll make the light on the good stuff so bright that you're not seeing the selfishness right and in my mind I'll keep pointing to that what do you mean I'm not selfish look I bought you flowers for God's sake or whatever whatever the thing is I'm shining the light on to exonerate me But what I started discovering is that it was crap. It was a bunch of BS. The real bottom line was it was about me. If I was kind or giving or loving or affectionate, wasn't it really because I was afraid you would leave? Wasn't it Really all about me? Wasn't It really because i wanted your love, Your attention, Your companionship, Your sex, Your approval? wasn't it really because i was afraid of being alone wasn't it really all about me really and i dress it up make it look like i'm a great guy here but what's underneath what's really going on it's all about me and this thing about dishonesty i tell you when it comes to relationships there's a greater propensity for dishonesty in the alcoholic than any other area and I think one of the reasons that we have so much trouble with relationships is in the 12x12 they talk about the three basic instincts the instinct for sex the instinct for security both emotional and material and the instinct for a place in society it is only in the sexual relationship arena where all three of those instincts can be threatened. If you're in a long-term relationship and it starts going south on you, you know why it makes you so nuts? Because your finances are threatened. Your emotional security is threatened. Your place in society is threatened。 I don't know anybody that wants to go to their home group or their friends or family and tell them that they failed one more time in a relationship. I don'T know anybody that likes walking through that and your sex is threatened۔ three of those areas can be threatened. And I don't think there's another arena where all three of them are threatened like they are in this arena. And so consequently, there's a lot more self-centered fear that's generated. And one of the things about me is I discovered is I lied a lot in my life, but I never lied because I was a liar. I lied because i was afraid. i never lied because i was a liar i'm afraid i'm scared i believe a bunch of old sick worn out threadbare ideas and one of them is that you're never going to love me as is so what happens is have to be something better than me i have to create a facade that i put out i have to be the best lover, the most kindest person. I have to be all these things. And so when you meet me, you don't meet Bob. You meet Super Bob on steroids on his very best day, Bob. Because God forbid you'd see Bob on his worst day because Bob knows you wouldn't love him. Bob believes secretly that if you knew about me what I knew about my life, about me, you'd feel about me the way I feel about me. And let's face the truth, I don't feel too good about me. Not really. So I create this persona. And the problem with that is I'm feeding the wrong dog. The problem with that is every time I do that, what happens inevitably is you can't maintain the facade. You can maintain it for a year, ten months, a year and a half, six months. And then if you sponsor people you're getting a phone call the phone calls nine months into the relationship they're calling to say she's changed no that's the real her she just shows up now and her sponsor is getting the phone call he changed no that's him he just couldn't maintain the facade anymore but he used to hold the door for me every time. Now he slams it in my face almost. One of the best ones I've ever heard was years ago, there was a guy and a gal that were about a year sober. They got sober around the same time within a couple weeks of each other. And they had not been had any involvement, sexual involvement for their first year. I mean, they were asked to do that and it's hard to believe they actually did it i mean wow wow they actually had no sexual involvement for you but they've been making cow eyes at each other across the home group the last two months you know right and then one time at the coffee break they kind of meet at the coffee bar and they touch and start talking and they go into heat i mean i love being around people like that you can get a suntan going around people like that. And when you're in that infatuation stage of a relationship, it's a weird phenomenon. I don't know if it's hormonal or what, but it's like you took some kind of psychoactive drug because everything looks different to you. It's like putting on a pair of glasses that makes the world look oh wonderful it's just everything's great and oh she's so brilliant and oh the birds are the birds did you hear the birds they're singing and the sky is so blue and i mean it's just you're nuts i mean you're you're it's not a bad nuts but it's nuts because it's not reality and and they start dating and and one one saturday afternoon he he says to her He says, sweetheart, what are you doing tomorrow afternoon? She goes, oh, I don't know. What are you going? Well, he said the big football games on. I don'T know if you like football, but if you did, I thought maybe you'd come over if you liked to and we'd love we'd watch the game. She goes. Oh, I'd love to do that. Well, she hates football. Always have always will. But at that stage in their relationship, she had gone to a rock fight with this guy. You know what I'm saying? And you could have put her on a lie detector and said, do you like football? Would you like to see the football game? Oh, and it would say she's telling the truth. The self-delusion, psychotic, wishful thinking. She wants to be with him so bad she starts imagining she likes football when she doesn't like football. A year later, they're living together. Sunday morning, she says to him, sweetheart, I want you to come with me this afternoon to the mall to get some stuff for the apartment. He says, oh, not today, sweetheart. The big game's on. The big games are. We'll sit and watch the game. And she starts yelling at him. You still watching? I hate that football. And he's looking at her like, who are you? What happened to my girlfriend who liked the football? and you get enough stuff going on like that and what happens is all of a sudden the relationship falls apart because the people start thinking they can't trust each other they don't know who they're with and see the sad part about that is in the very beginning if she could have said to him I don't like football oh he'd go okay, I'll see you Monday and it would have been cool I know a couple that were engaged and they had the money talk. Money talk is an important talk before you get married. And the money talked is, have you ever had a bankruptcy talk? How are your credit cards? Are they maxed out? How debt are you? And she had heard him tell his sponsees on several occasions, I don't believe in carrying a balance on my credit card. It's irresponsible. I don'T believe in bankruptcies and AA. you can't do that, you just have to exonerate yourself with illegal technicality to beat people out of money she overheard all of that so what the deal is and she says oh I've never had a bankruptcy I don't believe in carrying balances on credit cards well if she doesn't marry this guy she's going to be in her second one bankruptcy her credit cards are maxed she can't even make the minimum payments right Right. And she and she tells him that. Why? Because she's a liar. No, she believes a lie. And what's the lie? The lie is if he knew he wouldn't love me. And you know why that's a lie? Because if she would have told him, he would have said, well, sweetheart, OK, we can work with that. We'll dig we'll dig that out. We'll work that out." And I think from now on, maybe I'll handle the money, but we're going to work that. I mean, there was options there, right? But instead, and then what happened when it all came to the surface and it ruined the relationship, the voice in the back of her head said, see, when he really knew me, he rejected me. No, that's not true. When you lied to him, and then he felt if you would have been up front with him right in the beginning. And one of the fear drives us to dishonesty. And if you can trust God enough, I think money and sex are the last two areas we let God have. Right? Why? Because there's the most fear in those two areas. There's themost anxiety in those 2 areas. And anxiety drives the alcoholic to control. It drives us. we don't want to like what you know because i here's what's my fear if i let god have my sex life i am absolutely sure his idea of a great sex life and mine are not the same thing you know what i mean right i want you know god's gonna i want i'm the i'm straight pepper diet guy he's more the the you know uh so i don't i don' t trust god don't do your fist up all right So I don't trust God. And then what happens? Burn a half dozen relationships to the ground in your sobriety. It's like you get like the rat. You don't want any more cheese. You want out of the trap. And what happens is we start to trust God, right? When I see guys running, you know, sometimes people at AA want to tell you to surrender. I don'T know. I see guyS running their life. I just, oh, yeah, do that. Oh, really? Yeah, do that. When you burn that one to the ground, you're going to be a real spiritual guy. We all have that path like spokes on the wheel. We're all going to the hub eventually, one way or the other. Where had I been inconsiderate? I've never been a consciously inconsiderate guy but self-centered self-focused self-absorbed people like me and I presume like some of you we're inconsiderated because we can't see past ourselves I can't see what's going on with you so I don't act accordingly and it looks like I'm inconsidered but it's not even about that I just can't get off of me I can't see past my needs and my wants and my things I'm scared about, the things I're worried about. And consequently, I get all of that right here and I can'T see that you're worried about something. I can'T see that your distraught about something because I can''t see past myself. And so we appear to be very inconsiderate but it's not inconsiderable. When it says in the beginning of this that we're looking for the manifestations Manifestations of self which had defeated us. These are all manifestations of self. Dishonesty from the self-centered fear, the selfishness, the inconsideration. Whom did I hurt? Because I remember we're building an eight-step list out of this. Did I unjustifiably arouse jealousy in myself by making myself crazy with my insecurities until I'm driving by her apartment in the middle of the night to make sure no guy's cars are there? Or do I unjustifiably arouse jealousy in you? I see something in my home group that just makes me nuts sometimes. And it happens a little bit with guys, but it's really more with women, I'm sorry to say. And what that is, there will be a couple that are hooked up. They've been dating about six months. They come to the meeting. The guy starts talking to his brother's sponsees or his sponsee or his sponsor, a bunch of guys, and she's not getting enough attention. and right in front of him, she'll start doing sexual flirtations with one of his friends to suck his attention back on her. Now that is a very disunifying force in alcoholic scenarios because resentments occur, problems occur. And if you've ever been on the receiving end of that, it's not that she wants to, she's not trying to sleep with this guy. She's just trying to get his attention. Back on her, but if you're ever been on the receiving end of that somebody did that to you what that's a bad deal that's a bad thing to have that done to you and sometimes now guys that were friends don't talk to each other anymore because he doesn't know what right it's a big deal unjustifiably aroused suspicion in myself or my partner or bitterness I think sometimes how often do alcoholics come home from work or maybe they've had a bad day with the kids or a bad date with the boss and then they get together with their mate that night and they take it out on the mate by just being surly and uptight and distant. And we're taking it out on the one person that didn't deserve it, right? Because we're too afraid to take it our on the boss so we take it on our mate. Bad deal. And they haven't done nothing. They didn't do nothing to deserve it. All aspects of self-centeredness. We got this all, where were we at fault? And here for me, this is the paramount question. What should I have done instead? And I'll tell you why I think this is the most important question because I am going to ask God for something in the next paragraph. I'm gonna ask him to mold my ideals and I'm going to be looking for a vision of my future sex life. And so I want to build this ideals, and this vision for my future sex life, I will build it on my mistakes. Because here's my experience, absolutely. In the realm of the spirit, in recovery, you get things come around again. Maybe it involves different people now, but it's a do-over. You screwed up five years ago in sobriety in some kind of relationship, I'm telling you somewhere down the line, you're going to be in the exact same spot again the faces may have changed the players may have change but you will be in the exact same spot again and if you don't have a vision of what you should have done instead back there it is natural human nature to fall right back into the same behavior again and the same reactions unless you have a vision of what you could have done back there that would have helped that would have been better and so I want to do that I want answer that question to the best of my ability what should I have done instead sometimes I should have stayed away from them sometimes I shouldn't have been pulled my head out of my butt and just paid more attention sometimes I wouldn't have done that sometimes it's a screwed up bunch of priorities with me first right so what should i have done instead we got this all down on paper and looked at it in this way we tried to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life we subjected each relationship each relation to this test was it selfish or not that's going to be the benchmark for my relationships from now on was it selfless or not we ask god prayer we ask god to mold our ideals and have help us to live up to them what is the good there's an old adage of having a great relationship is not about finding the right person. It's about being the right person. And this is, I'm asking God to help me mold my ideals for me. If you grow spiritually, you don't have to worry about who you're looking for. If you grow spiritually your taste in people, your chemistry is going to change. What's your attracted to is going to change. As you fill your vacancies, you're going to change. It's just the way it is. We remembered always that our sex powers were God-given and therefore good, neither to be used lightly or selfishly nor to be despised and loathed. This is an important area, not to use these things lightly, the cavalier attitude. There was a period in my sobriety where I had a cavalier attitude. I thought, well, as long as anything between two consenting adults. Well, that's great, except that people get hurt like that, right? And when you have that light of an approach to it, you're not thinking outside the box of you to think of could this person be harmed by this or what you know you got to think outside the box in the box the alcoholics in is himself you got to think inside the box or to be selfish you know this is sad it's pathetic really but there was I remember an instant in my first marriage I was probably eight years sober and my wife wasn't doing some things I wanted her to do so she got my back right and we go to bed she just like I'm going to withhold sex until she straightens up. I want to tell you something for a guy, that's a dumb move. It's a dumb, it's a duck. That's a knucklehead move, man. I'll tell you. And cause she'll last a lot longer than you. Well, that'S a knucklehed move boy. That'S like, that'S like I'm going to cut off my nose despite my face kind of move. Right? It is. It'S a knucklehead move. Whatever our ideal turns out to be, we must be willing to grow towards it. We must be willing to make amends where we have done harm, provided we do not bring about still more harm in doing so. Amends is very important to use your sponsor because you don't want to pick a scab off somebody who's healed when it's only going to serve you. There's a rule in the next chapter that it says, The rule is that we are to be hard on ourselves but always considerate of others. Remember, we're trying to move off of the self-centered position and into the other-centered position. So we must always try to be considerate to the other person. You never make amends where if amends is only good for you, don't make it. If it's only good free, any amends that just does good for you is not a good amends, because it's really about the other person. In meditation, we ask God what we should do about each specific matter. The right answer will come if we want it. God alone can judge our sex situation. Counsel with other persons is often desirable. We let God be the final judge. In the middle of the second paragraph, there's a line I want to touch on and then i'm done uh it says if sex is very troublesome we throw ourselves the harder into helping others it quiets the imperious urge the king urge i um i don't think i would i would be here today if it wasn't for the fact that i've done constant 12-step work for 29 years and i you know it's it's nice to be able to tell you that because i sound like an altruistic guy But it's really not that. This is survival stuff for me. Every time I've been married and divorced twice in sobriety, and I don't think I would have survived either one of them if it wouldn't have been for a lot of 12-step work. I'm going to tell you a little story about my – I was coming off my – I was recently divorced to my first wife. This is – I Was Probably 10 or 11 Years Sober. and she and my daughter had moved in with a guy who'd been one of my sponsees one of our best friends and they'd been having an affair for the whole last year of my marriage and I knew about it and I love my daughter I don't think I could ever be capable of loving anyone more than I love myself I was there when she was born I gave her her first bath I did the whole deal in the delivery room she took a piece of my heart and she ain't giving it back and I don't want it back and it's going to always be that way so I love my daughter but in order to see her I have to drive over and pick her up where they're living together and one Sunday afternoon I go over there and I get this knot in my gut and I walk up to their apartment and I ring the doorbell and the happy couple answers the door arm in arm and my daughter's there with them and i get my daughter and i take her and we go in my car and we drive off and i have this set up for we did a bunch of stuff that day but one of the things i had set up was to take her out to a ranch where a friend of mine worked and so she could ride some ponies and see the poniesand also the other animals that are out there and uh we had a great day she loved she just loved it she was about two years old maybe a little over two maybe somewhere around there just a little girl she was adorable and i'm sitting on the we're sitting on the picnic bench next to the corral and she's thirsty and there's a soda machine over by the stable so she's sitting with the gal that runs the place i said just i'll be right back just stay here kate and kate's here with the Gal and i go over to get her soda out of the soda machine i'm coming back across the yard and i hear the girl who works there say to my daughter kate she says kate here comes your daddy and kate looks up and looks at me looks at the woman says that's not my daddy craig's my daddy and it felt like somebody had stuck a knife in me right in my heart and just twisted it and i i just pushed those feelings down and i went over to her and i smiled i gave her the soda and we sat there for a little while then i got her in the car and it was about time to take her home I drive up to where they're living and I walk, take her hand, I walk her up to the front door and ring the doorbell and the happy couple opens the door and she jumps into his arms and I wave goodbye and I go and I get my car and I drive down the street and I'm about a block away and I pull over and I just come apart at the seams and I've sitting there on the side of the road I'm sobbing and I talking to God and I'm saying to God, God, I love my daughter but I can't do this. This hurts too much. I just can't do this and I look at the clock and I've got to meet this new guy down in front of one of the AA clubs and he's a, I don't want to go meet him but I've been brainwashed in AA to do what you say you're going to do and show up where you say you're gonna show up and I gotta meet him in front of the SOS club and we're going to go out to another meeting across town, so he's waiting for me. And I pull up in front of the club and he's pacing back and forth out there on the pavement and gets in the car. He's not even in the care of me. He's in the chair a minute and he starts telling me and crying, telling me that the courts had denied him the opportunity to see his kids again. And I thought to myself, I can see my daughter. The only guy that's stopping me from seeing my daughter is me. and I thought, I'll do this one more week and one more week and one more week. And I have never missed a week, and my daughter's just turned 20, and I've been in her life weekly, non-stop. Their relationship with him has fell apart, and he's not in her wife anymore. But I am. I'm her dad. She's the light of my life. You can't get that if you just sit in your living room You can't get that reading spiritual books. You've got to get that in action, trying to help others. And God will send you those angels. He will send me the angels. He will give you those people. Saved my relationship with my daughter. Scott? Yeah, thanks, Bob. Yeah, me too. Man, that one gets me. cover a couple of pieces on on this one some a gift from one of my mentors he said we do not wish to be the arbiter of anyone's sex conduct so i look at that and i say but well what do you do with a new guy and this is his answer boy sure has helped me a lot this is what i tell new men that i sponsor assume this guy is single um this i'm going to ask you to leave the ladies alone until i can get you through these 12 steps There's a couple of reasons for that. One of them is, as sick as you are right now, your chances of attracting a healthy female are not good. Healthy women run screaming from guys like you. Now, you may currently have one fooled. I'm not saying anything about when you may have one fool, but that's a temporary situation. The other reason is because I want your time and energy on this step work so we can dig the poison out of your soul and get you healthy. one of the side effects of that will be to get you healthy enough so that you'll have the opportunity to attract a healthy female. That's been my experience with it, by the way. You may choose to ignore my advice in this category, and I won't drop you for that. But don't bring me the problems you create for yourself in this category. I've already told you what I think you need to do. Solves my problem. And then the truth is, I handled the first one with them. and note what the situation is here. And then after that, I say, you know, I've already told you, son. Yeah, I think you got a little learning disability here. Let's start paying a little bit closer attention. It might be helpful. Page 124. For those of you who read the big book frequently will note that they rewrote page 124 about a year and a half ago, and they added some most fabulous stuff. Those of you Who Aren't Laughing, And if you read the book regularly, you'll find there's new stuff all the time. And this is new. This was just put in, I think, about a year and a half ago. I think this page was blank up until then. But boy, they changed it, put some powerful stuff in here. It says, Henry Ford once made a wise remark to the effect that experience is the thing of supreme value in life. That is true only if one is willing to turn the past to good account. We grow by our willingness to face and rectify errors and convert them into assets. The alcoholic's past thus becomes the principal asset of the family, and frequently it is almost the only one. This painful past may be of infinite value to other families still struggling with their problem. We think each family which has been relieved owes something to those who have not, and when the occasion requires, each member of it should be only too willing to bring former mistakes, no matter how grievous, out of their hiding places. Showing others who suffer how we were given help is the very thing which makes life seem so worthwhile to us now. Cling to the thought that in God's hands, the dark past is the greatest possession you have. The key to life and happiness for others. With it, you can avert death and misery for them. That is powerful, powerful stuff. Bob summarizes that in a sentence. He says if you want to get at peace with your past, make it useful. And I wanted to read that to you before I did what I'm about to do. because I'm going to share some of mine. And I'm gonna do it for that single reason, that there are probably, there may be women, there are possibly men in this room that we're going to carry this into the grave. And I do a column inventory. I think there are a lot of right ways to do what's on page 69 as far as to lay out the written portion of this. So just however you do it suits me fine. But one of the directions says, where were we at fault? What should we have done instead? I use that for a fourth column and my fourth column only had three entries And they were, I should have told her the truth. I should've left her alone. Or I shouldve told him no. Those are my three entries. I'm a heterosexual male, period. I had my last homosexual experience when I was 19 years old. I had been beaten down so far by my father that I couldn't tell anyone no for any reason. At 19, I could. And I never liked that. Now, Bob and I have heard between us probably over 300 fifth steps. We believe, we've talked about this, that in excess of 90% of adult males, heterosexual males have had one of these. We spoke with a woman who, in this fellowship, who's sober longer than either of us, who we just respect infinitely. She's heard a bunch of women's fifth steps, she said in women it runs a little better than 80%. so if that's the one that you were taking to the grave that's eating your guts up if you'll come see me after the meeting I'll be happy to talk to you about it and if you've got something else that's tearing you up I've probably done that too I'll share with you the 4 or 5 worst things out of my inventory do you notice nothing is happening for me when I tell you this we're also going to have lunch later it's in that category for me and interestingly enough I've sponsored some homosexual men And for them, the worst thing they did was go to bed with a woman. So, I mean, what I'm saying is, yeah, I think it's really important that I cover this. Well, I'm not judging that. But I'm seeing we've all got something we're hiding on this one. And it's just an amazing process. So I felt it was necessary to share that. I hope no one's offended. And if you are, I'll see you in your prayers. And then it tells us what we're trying to do here. It says, in this way, try to shape a sane and sound ideal for our future sex life. So that's the purpose here, not to beat me up. We're not here for that purpose. And then here we are praying about it. Now, it's okay to talk to God about sex. If you'll think about it, he's the one that invented it. Nice job. Thank you very much. Yeah, so it's OK to talk with God about it or talk to him about it? It's just not a problem. And to ask God to mold our ideals. And at this point, I ask the guy, having prayed that, having done this other inventory and looked at your mistakes from the past. Now let's pray about it. And now I want you to sit down and write your sexual ideal. And I want the word today in it. Let's don't chase our tail here. And the ideal, by the way, has nothing to do with how tall she is or what color her hair is. All right? No, no, no. That's not the ideal we're talking about. We're talking About ideal in the sense of your behavior. What do you think God wants you to do slash not do in this category? That's the ideal we're talking about. We're not talking about the definition of the ideal woman. That's not it. Please. And I say now if you're single, for example, we don't need to know what it would be if you were married but temporarily separated but not legally separated but you thought she had a boyfriend but you weren't sure. We don't needs that one today, son. Okay? So let's don't chase our tail. simply, given your current set of circumstances what do you think God wants you to do slash not do in this category mine's real simple I'm married to a spectacular woman she's supposed to get all of my sexual energy mine's easy, yours may or may not be but I don't think any of them need to run over two or three lines on a piece of paper and then if they want to read it to me that's fine, I'd be glad to hear it I don' t require that I don''t want to be the arbiter I'm going to turn the page here and just pick up a couple more pieces First full paragraph on page 70 says, if you continue to go to bed with people and hurt them, you're going to get drunk and it ain't maybe. If you make a mistake and you're sorry and you are trying to do the right thing, you will probably be okay. That's what it says. And when I see someone that is doing those things, I like to tell them, you are going to drink. Because it is that simple. Because I can't continue to do things that harm God's kids and expect to walk in His presence. It's just not possible. To sum up about sex, we earnestly pray. Oh my goodness, we're praying about sex again? For guidance to do the right thing. If sex is very troublesome, we throw ourselves the harder at helping others. That prescription's all over this book. I think it's in 30 or 40 places in this book where it tells me whatever's going on, I'm supposed to go help somebody else. And as strange as it may seem, that always helps me. And I can't explain that either, but I can absolutely report it. To think of their needs and work for them and Bob covered that. It was interesting, too, by the way. I'm sorry, at the bottom of 69, I missed that. Is that it said that paragraph against whatever our ideals turn out to be, you must be willing to grow toward it to make amends where we've done harm. Once again, it sounds like step eight. All right. On page 70, the last full paragraph at the end of the paragraph at the top of the bottom of the page is what pilots call a checklist. That says if we have been thorough about our personal inventory, we've written down a lot. Well, if you've written down all the things that we've noted of these last three sessions that called for writing and you've never done a four-step, you may have done something else but an actual four-stepped, probably you wrote down quite a bit. Then it says we've listed and analyzed our resentments. We covered that, didn't we? We had a list of them. We did a lot of analysis. So we've begun to comprehend their futility and their fatality. Yeah, we killed me seven times on one page. I remember that. That was really dead that day. We have commenced to see their terrible destructiveness. We covered that, didn't we? We've begun to learn tolerance, patience, and goodwill toward all men, even our enemies, for we look on them as sick people. I remember where we covered that about them being sick. Actually, I think we found that twice. Bottom of one page, top of the next one. We have listed the people we've hurt by our conduct and are willing to straighten out the past if we can. We found that at the tail end of the resentment inventory. We also found it at the end ofthe sexual misconduct inventory. And I always say it that way. It's a sexual misconduct inventory. I don't find the direction here that says what did you do in the sexual arena that you thought was right and good so we're inventorying only the dark side and I don' t want to call that a sex inventory I don''t like the idea of sex having a bad name it's my favorite toy thank you very much right? yeah, darn right so I don'T see any reason for it to have a bad name, let's call it exactly what it is so I would propose to you if you've done what somebody alleged to you was a fourth step and you can't answer that you did everything in that paragraph you might try the actual fourth step out of this book most of the other I heard this beautifully most of these books most of them will lead you to do a searchless and fearing moral inventory that's really what they come down to and they don't seem to make any changes which is the part that bothers me the most it says in this book you read again and again faith did for us what we could not do for ourselves we hope you're convinced now that God can remove whatever self-will has blocked you off from Him. If you've already made a decision, that would be that third step decision we talked about. In an inventory of your gross or handicaps, you've made a good beginning. That being so, you've swallowed and digested some big chunks of truth about yourself. Well, I studied biology. I know what happens after swallow and digest. The stuff's out of here. All right? Fourth step is about out of there. Fourth step is about digging the poison out of my soul. Our mentor used to say the alcoholic is like an electromagnet magnet that's been dragged through the junkyard of life. We got all this rusty, jagged, sharp, nasty stuff stuck all over. It's mostly defenses that we used to need. And what we do with this step process is we very slowly turn the power off. And as we turn it down, these things drop away. And this beautiful thing I really am sort of emerges. We're not changing me into something. We are teaching me to quit doing who I'm not and who I really am is going to emerge. So I got here, the core belief I came to you with was that God Almighty was having a bad day in the middle of a long losing streak when he came up with me. See, I thought I was bad and a mistake. I was wrong about that. You were too. Yeah, didn't happen that way. And I had to learn that these things didn't work and go through this process to lay them down to get comfortable in my own skin. I'll tell you right now, I hope you like me. I really do. And I am okay if you don't. And they didn't have that when I got here. Because if you didn't like the act I was doing, there was nothing because I thought I was trash. So I keep doing these acts trying to impress you, trying to get to hang out with you. And I'm learning here to lay down the act and just being who I am because the actors don't tend to get sober. Moving on. Page 72. Second paragraph. This is perhaps difficult. Count up three lines above that it says this brings us to the fifth step in the program of recovery all right so giving us the definition of the program against the 12 steps mentioned in the preceding chapter about four or five lines from the bottom it says we'll be more reconciled to discussing ourselves with another person when we see good reasons why we should best reason first if we skip this vital step we may not overcome drinking oh well now there's a reason Maybe that one will do. It talks again on page 73 about the actor, this reference back to the actor wanting to pretend to be somebody so you'll like him. Boy, that is my story. I'm really going to keep this moving here because we are so far behind. Page 74, it talks about who should hear your fifth step, and it's not your wife and it'S not your mother. there not really listed here well actually it is it says it may be that one of our own family but we cannot disclose anything to our wives or our parents which will hurt them and make them unhappy that's important stuff boy if you're new don't go out making amends it's not time they put numbers beside those steps you ever see that on the wall they've got numbers there that's so that we'll take them in order So, you know, if you're not at step eight, don't worry about step nine because you could get lucky and get run over by a train, never get that far. So just don't, don' t worry about it. Don' t Worry about it, just do the one you're on. We have no right to save our own skin at another person's expense. And Bob touched on it beautifully. I'm told there are no rules in the program and that's probably right. I've only found three. The first one here is on, at the end of that paragraph, The rule is we must be hard on ourselves but always considerate of others. And this thing about who's to hear your fifth step is kind of an important piece. I sponsor some fellows who are in a religion that requires them to go to confession on a pretty regular basis, and I'm quite happy with that. As a matter of fact, as far as I'm concerned, if I sponsor you, you can do your fifthstep with anybody you want to, and me. There are a couple of reasons for that. But one of them is that I'm going to hear things in this fifth step that you're going to need on your eighth step that you are going to miss. And I'll talk about some of the others as I talk about how I hear a fifth step. But I thought maybe we'd touch on these other rules just for fun. Page 118. Page 119. Paragraph begins halfway down page 118 with we women. count up three lines above that live and let live is the rule and I'm having trouble remembering where that other one is Bob where's the one about it's one about where you go into a place where they're serving booze oh the end of working with others 103 oh yeah here we go it's the bottom of 101 Thank you. Yeah, so our rule is not to avoid a place where there is drinking if we have legitimate reasons for being there. It goes on to say, and if you're in a good spiritual place. So that's the three rules I've found for a fellowship that doesn't have any rules. Just for fun. The first one is on page 74. The rule is we must be hard on ourselves and always consider of others. And I love the way Bob ties that into step nine because I think that's a beautiful concept. We talked just a little bit more about step five here. I don't find anything in the literature that tells me how to hear a fifth step. So all I can share with you is my lineage. And in my lineage, we don't hear fifth steps. We exchange them. And this is what I like to do. I will not let somebody schedule a fifth stop until he's finished four. I'm not going to let you on Monday schedule a first step with me on Saturday so that you can bash yourself into finishing the fourth step in the meantime. I'm not playing that game. I'm going to work 30-minute sessions. When it's over, it's over. Let's not worry about it. Let's don't work too hard on that. I want to schedule some time. We have a room in our home, an upstairs room. We call it the meditation room. It's heard a lot of footsteps. There's a kitchen adjacent to it. We've got soft drinks and water. We've go Kleenex. It's round. It comes on a ball. We've got blankets. We turn off the phones. We sit down. If it's a new guy, if somebody's first fist up, I want him nervous. And I ask, are you nervous? Because the fact is, if he's not nervous, we're wasting our time because he already knows what he's now going to tell me. And I shared that with a new guy that I sponsor just over a year. He sits down to hear his first fist step, and he says to the guy, are you nervous? And he says, no. And Rick says, well, then we're wasted our time because you know what you're not going to telling me. He said, the guy came apart, just bawled, and dumped the whole bucket right there. He said yeah, baby. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, what's on the lips, man? That's it. And so I want him scared because if he's not scared, we're probably kidding ourselves. If he's scared, he's either going to tell me or he's afraid he might. And I'll settle for either one because if you sit down with me, I'll extract it. And then I suggest to him what he's going to do is he's got to pray for God to join us and for clarity of mind to find what he supposed to find and the courage to tell it. and then anything else he wants to pray. And what I do is I ask God to make me perfect. Bob says he asks God to makes him of service. I ask god to make my perfect for this time. Page 13. Page 13 in Bill's story, on pages 12 and 13, if you look closely, you find the steps in narrative form. Last paragraph begins with my friend. Count up four lines above that. never was I to pray for myself except as my request bore on my usefulness to others then only might I expect to receive but that would be in great measure and that's precisely what this is about and so I ask God to join us and to make me perfect and I promise him that I'll trust whatever guidance seems to be coming I want to remind you we said it yesterday Bob and I have permission to tell the stories we tell up here I wrapped a guy in a blanket and held him for 45 minutes while he cried about his dad I don't know to do that I trust what I get Bob's story about asking the question going back did you ever harm those kids was a perfect example of that that you can just expect you'll just get used to the idea that stuff that's not of you but through you is going to happen in situations like this and then when we come out of our prayers I say okay tell me the worst thing you ever did I want the worst one first It's been my experience, if I let him just start rattling on, we could be here for days. Warming up to whether or not he's going to tell me. If I extract the worst thing he ever did first, we ain't going to be here very long. And then when he tells me the worst things he did, I didn't tell him when I did that. Because most likely I did. That's just been my experiences with it. Because in my lineage, we don't hear fifth steps, we exchange. And then I say, what's the second worst thing you ever did? And he tells them and I tell them when I do that. And we do that until he can't think of one, and then we refer to his fourth step. For me, a fifth step is not reading the fourth step, you're going to read your fourth step reading into the tape player, I'll listen to it on the plane. That doesn't work for me. I know some people do that suits me fine. To me, it's a confession. And there may well be things in five that didn't show up in four, it could happen. And maybe they were called for and you didn't get them down, whatever. When I start asking for the worst things you ever did, and when I did that here yesterday, didn't have any trouble thinking of them, did you? And I ask him for that worst one. He knows what it is. And if he drops it there, we move pretty good. The fifth steps are running about two hours. And I talked to somebody yesterday. I think Maureen said she'd heard one. It was 12. And that's fine. That's fine, I've sure done that, but I hadn't found it to be necessary. When he's finished, when he thinks he's finished and I think he's finished with this confession, I ask a series of questions. The questions are, have you harmed a human or an animal? It's amazing how many of us have kicked dogs or beaten dogs. Really, really it's amazing. I ask him if he's had a homosexual experience, even if he has already said it. I ask if there are any more of those. I ask if he had sex with a family member or an animal. Don't hear the political thing on this, all right? Don't here that. This is a political hot potato, but it eats a lot of people up pretty badly. Has he been involved in abortion? There are some people who think that's just fine and they've been involved with him and that's great and there are others that have done those and it just festers their soul. I'm going to ask him that question and then I'm gonna ask him if there's anything he had decided not to tell me or he wasn't sure if he was gonna tell me that I haven't already heard. and then we get the answer to that and I tell him this I forgive him I believe God forgives him and I believe by the time we finish the ninth step he will have forgiven himself because that's been my experience I then read him the fifth step promises off the middle of page 75 where it gives really what I see is the only direction on how to do a fifth step it says we pocket our pride and go to it illuminating that means to shine light into illuminating every twist of character, every dark crane of the past. I read him the rest of that paragraph and then I read in the next paragraph and tell him he's now finished the first half of step five. And here are the directions for the second half. Returning home and I say, I want you to go home in a quiet automobile. Don't turn your cell phone on. Don't turned the radio. Don't even listen to one of my CDs. I'm really committed to this. All right? I want to hold focus here. Find a place where you can be quiet for an hour. If you haven't got a home, you can go to and be quiet for an hour you can stay here it says we thank God that's a prayer from the bottom of our heart that we know him better taking this book down from our shelf I sponsor you I expect you to go and put your book up on a shelf it'll need to be above shoulder high so you can take it down from a shelf isn't that ridiculous I think it's ridiculous and I absolutely require it and I'm going to want to and I don't want to and I've got to and I want to know tomorrow that you took your book down from a shell That's what it says. Turn to the page that contains the 12 steps, and the balance of this paragraph says you read those and talk to God for an hour. It gives you a time frame about each of those and ask him if you've missed anything. And then Bill uses the reference to the arch again and the masonry. Are the stones properly in place? Have you skimped on the cement, put in the foundation? Have you tried to make mortar without sand? So he's asking those questions metaphorically. Strangely enough, as we turn the page, it says if we can answer to our satisfaction, we then look at step six. Steps five and six are done on the same day? Yeah, so it would appear. It says we've emphasized willingness being indispensable. Are you now ready to let God remove every single, all of the things, rather, which you've admitted or objectionable, can take them all, every one. And then here, very cleverly concealed, is a sixth-step prayer, if you need it. If we still cling to something, we will not let go. We ask God to help us be willing. So there's a prayer for willingness in step six if you need it. And then it says when ready, what? Steps five, six, and seven are all taken the same day? Yep. That's what my book says. See, what I know is when he finishes four, he's been three months on step four, right? He figures he's months and months from step nine. No, about a day and a half. But I don't tell him that. He doesn't need to know that information. And then here's the prayer which they recently changed. I don't know if you all caught the change. I swear they changed this wasn't here. It says, my creator, I'm now willing you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character. That's as far as I could see it until just recently. It says which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. It's a seven-step prayer. In the short form of the step, it looks like I'm asking God to remove all my defects of character, but in this prayer I'm not. I'm asking him only to take the ones that stand in the way of my usefulness. It had never crossed my mind that God could use some of my defects of character as tools to help me, and I had that experience a couple years ago. Absolutely used one of my defective characters as a tool to helpme, and I can't say any more about that in public. If someone really needs to know, talk to me at a break, and I'll be happy to tell you about it. And it says, grant me strength as I go out from here to do your bidding. Amen. So it's a surrender again. And we don't have a perfection step. Nobody's going to get perfect before here because we're asking them to take good and bad. Here's a gift from my sponsor. He said, six and seven don't say anything at all about me working on my defects of character. And when I work on my defect of character, it's the classic example of living in the problem. And he said, all my defects or character are self-centered by definition. And self does not have the power to push self out of the center. If it did, it would leave a vacuum. I've got three things I call my spiritual barometers. And at two years sober, I was working on my character defects. I was about to give myself a brain hernia. And working on My Character Defects, fixing, changing me. Oh, my God. And these three, what I finally noticed is if one of these got out of the box, they were all out. And the three are my attitude toward those of you who got your driver's licenses out of Cheerios boxes. They do that here, I know they do. Lying, well not actually lying, improving the truth actually is really, really what it is. Lying and swearing, and whether it's class A or class B profanity seems to be significant. But anyway, and if I look, if one of those gets out, they're all out. And I can't work on them. I mean, maybe duct tape, but I can'T work on him. And this is what I've been taught, is that the defects are all self-centered. And that the answer to me isn't to work on my defects of character, it's to inventory my actions over the last few days. My sponsor, I heard this at the Mustard Seed Club in Chicago, of this lady said, my priority isn't what I say it is. My priority is what I do. If I want to know what my priorities are, don't listen to my words about the future. Look at my actions in the recent past. The things that were accomplished were priorities. The things that weren't accomplished were not priorities and anything that I am saying to the contrary is a lie that I'm telling me. I hated that when I heard it because I was saying a bunch of things were priorities and I wasn't doing anything about them. Yeah. So if I'm angry at you in traffic or I hear myself swear, if I look back over my actions in the recent past, let's find out where the hole is. For me, it's typically morning prayer and meditation. I tend to cut short on that when I think other things are more important, and that's easy for me because I'm an idiot. And if I want to have a bad day, that's all I have to do is leave that out for two or three days in a row. Boy, I'll have one. And, or, I mean, how long has it been since I took a meeting into a treatment center or a jail? How long has there been sinceI talked to my sponsor? Am I letting people in in traffic? When's the last time I did something neat for my wife and didn't get caught? What's wrong with my spiritual life here? There's something wrong if I'm lying to you or swearing or angry in traffic. And I go back and mend that fence. And two days later, you can cut me off in traffic and almost hit me. And I will smile at you. And I don't mean face. I mean from in here. I'll glow at you and I'll wave at you and I wave my entire hand, the whole thing. And they don't do that here, do they? And I'll say, God, go with him. He's going to need some help today. And thanks, by the way, that I noticed that I thought he was going to cut me off when I got on the break and we weren't in a wreck. It would have been his fault, but I still would have Been in a Wreck. Thank you. And God bless that child. He's gonna need some Help today. Apparently, he's not doing too good. God bless him. I have days like that, too. And I cannot change me from the screaming maniac two days ago. Same situation. I can't change me. But I go back and mend those fences, do those things that you've taught me to lead a God-centered life. And when I do things that You've taught Me to lead, My character defects recede. I don't take power over them. They recede I don'T focus on the darkness. I invite the light in and the light comes and the darkness flees because it cannot exist in the light. So the answer to all of my character defects is to lead a God-centered life. And as I do that, I have more fun. The character defects recede and you cut me off in traffic and I'll smile at you and pray for you and I mean it. And we're going to take about 10 minutes.