Why the Ninth Step Ends the Hatred – Sandy B.

And there's never any rewards. You might look ahead and... Is there any reward after a year of endless pain? A hatch opens, the scrawny iron rubs on it. Here's your medallion. Is that all there is? That's all? So, that is not quite what I had in mind. That seems to work for others, but my case is different. I have more sophisticated needs than them. So the sixth step is a difficult step. I must become willing to have God remove all these defects of character. either I must become willing to do what is necessary to remove them over a period of time that's really what I'm saying am i willing to do what it's necessary am I again invoking the power of God to help me take actions that I'm afraid of and want to withdraw from so the sixth step is really not terribly complex but yet it's a great dividing point two great turning spots in all of a fourth step where I'd say 75% of people who come to a never take fourth or maybe higher in fact you only stop to think about it there's a film in the big book Bill talks about there's more people we talked about everybody some people up the street then a is my experience I I would bet today that, I bet there are 10 people or more who have been in AA and sober who are back drinking for every member of the AA that's sober. I don't know any long-term drinkers, for example on Skid Row, who haven't been to AA and been sober. I know very few old long- term drinkers who haven t been to AAA somewhere along the line been filled and come to the realization that a does not work for them and in almost every case they've stopped at one of two turning spots they've been sober but they have stopped at a fourth step or they stop to the sixth very few people have taken all the steps to the book back up quickly you can read your own time but you can take all these steps and eventually you go back up we know how that works but the actions I have to take actions now that don't seem to apply to my problem sometimes in these steps and they're they're frightening someone asked me do a briefly an analogy I used one time I was talking you know I thought I've used analogies that are so strange I can't even bear to think about them later but but this one was a good one I was using as an analogy about good and bad treatment centers. When I was new, there weren't any treatments. Sanitaria, trying out spots. Over the years, treatment centers sprung up and changed a little bit. Individuals and some of them were good. Most old-timers hated them. Yeah! Treatment center! Bah! Over the years went by. I noticed that people were doing quite well at a treatment center. Some word and good treatment centers are indeed a great help I think the tip indicates you've been to a treatment center go to AA your chances are considerably better than just going to AA or just going treatment center at least you're sober in some position your faculty's we get to AA you have some free learning but what's the difference between the two treatment centers and uh the analysis I use is like why would people want to go to a treatment center they went a is free and got thousand hours of treatment by going down here to the lake and want to go to Cleveland and there's a trimble yacht yes scooter called the SS treatment people in white clean white uniforms try to come with us coming off the minute smell of good food lasting out of the kitchen or the galley. It's just wonderful. Down the beach here, two guys kind of skulked around some tall grass and said, want to go with us? We're from AA. We've got invisible boats. There really is no great put-down to say I personally would prefer to get on the skip you know I wish a lot of your luck guys and you're the SS treatment center and it pulls up and it does exactly what it has to do if she warm drives you out gives me information like your problem feeds you well makes you well have interest only one problem he just gets out of sight land as well this is as far as we go. We're gonna go back to the next road. Well, what am I supposed to do? Swim like a thumb bitch. And you start swimming and here come these two fools by in their invisible boat. Do you want a ride? I'm not that sick. Pretty soon you're almost gone. and finally you're almost dead they come by again okay what do you want me to do get in the car and row you crazy bastard and the irony is as you start to row the boat appears but it doesn't appear until you start to row so you have to be kind of desperate and you start to row the boat appears it gets bigger and better Much finer than a little skiff. You don't even want to go to Cleveland. You just want to stay in the boat. Hell, let's turn this way. Hey, hey, hey! Great. And that's great. That's why we have sponsors. They come every once in a while. You slow down. What's wrong? You've got your oar upside down. Okay, so I have. One of the reasons we get together at these meetings is to remind one another to keep rowing. To keep rowING. That's what we do. There's no new information here after a while. You just keep rowIng. Reinforce that. Keep rowIing. God will help you row. Keep row Iiing. When you're tired and the rain is falling and you're cold, row. It's better. That's fine except for one thing. We see it around us. I hope it never happens to me or you. But you can stop rowIg and you run a great thing If you stop rowing long enough, the boat starts to disappear little by little. We've all watched old-timers who have had big ships and they're back in the water and they can't understand it. Jack and I were talking on the way over here from the airport about old-times we have known who have gotten drunk and couldn't get back. I'll tell you why they can'T get back They say, I would do anything to get back to my big ship but you can'T have your big ship back You've got to row and start with a little boat again. Don't want to do that. I know about that. I'll get back. And they die. That's why it says people, the usual rule of thumb, relatively accurate, I suppose, that if you've been sober over seven or eight years, you get drunk. The chances of you getting back are remarkably slim. Some people do, but it's very rare because they want to get back to a big ship and they can't. Now, what's this got to do with treatment facilities? Well, there are treatment facilities who, in my opinion, are almost literally killing people. As I said earlier, they have them take the 12 steps, they read international literature, they get psychoanalyzed, they get the bonding with their counselor, and they leave the facility thinking that they have recovered. And they now can do it. and if you have troubles call your counselor call aftercare I mean if you want to go to some place like AA that's fine but you have enough information to say so and they literally kill people like us the good treatment centers say look you got information you're dry you're feeling good now we'll leave you in the water for God's sakes when those two pukes come by on the invisible boat jump in right now you don't have to believe it just do it the ones that guide us into a are prized beyond belief the ones who for their own reasons from money-making or pride or ego would lead you to believe that your information will make use as well we'll kill I think most of the things we do and some of the great one of the great problems we have to face when you first get in the boat is rowing through a fourth step and doesn't you have any reason for doing it and rolling through six steps which he gets us apparently someplace we don't want to be but all the things here are designed to little by little bring about our goal we never could have conceived could happen based on our intellect talk a little bit more about it tomorrow morning but what is the goal of all these steps to make you wonderful no to make you above human no to make you without emotion no it's to very very slowly do what alcohol does fast too little by little take people who are not enough and make them feel most of the time like they're enough to take people who live with fear and most of the time live without being terrified too little by little take people who feel highly vulnerable and most to the time feel involved or at least not highly vulnerable. And it's hard to explain that to new people because there's just no way to get them here to there. It's hard to do that even in the sixth step if you're that far along but at least when you've taken the sixth step you have now accepted the premise there is a way for me to go and I'm in the middle of doing it and I want to keep trying and what we can do as individuals is remember to take those steps and what we can do with sponsors is to guide people into taking them love will not keep people sober spirituality will not keep people suffer not people not alcoholics of my type the other insight I mean these are all great adjuncts all with the interesting example that Bill Wilson and dr. Bob meeting on Mother's Day in 1935 and dr bob was already a spiritual leader in the Oxford group in Ohio but still was drinking bill wilson was member of the Oxford Group for six seven months in New York and they got together for two weeks in dr. bob's house and discuss spiritual values and spiritual breakthroughs and insights and God's will dr. Bob got drunk and when he sobered up this time they realized that is not doctor I don't know bill Wilson stayed sober he stays over by trying to help on the streets of New York so they went up went to the Akron Hospital and and found A.A. number 3 and the three of them found A., A., number 4 and they find our book, it says, action is the magic root, you must take the actions the spiritual adjuncts are what come with it but most of us would like to find a way to not do the action but to bury ourselves and say, well I'm just finding the spiritual concepts, I don't want to be done with that crass stuff that's meaningless that's just another nice way in my opinion of an easier softer self-obsession getting out of self self- obsessed people getting out of self people who have spent their whole lives trapped in conflicts between their inside and outside they got certain techniques and people don't like them but god damn if they enable me to survive now you want me to give up gotta be willing give it a try maybe it'll work Thank you. Do we have, do you want to come up and say a few words? What? I'm going to say a couple of words. No, I was talking to her, but if you want, let's go. Hi everybody, I'm Maggie, I am an alcoholic. Hi Maggie. I just want to thank Clancy for a beautiful morning. for beautiful sharing we're gonna have a little discussion of the step we were going to have a level discussion on the staff well that's what I was going to sort of do a group conscious about we were going to wrap up by 11 but I'm quite willing if you want to have about another 10 minutes of discussion is just fine discussion or sharing okay I want to get back to my room and worry. Who would like to kick it off? Tom. Okay, I'm curious. This is just a personal thing. Well, my answer to that would be let me talk into the microphone it may be deathless I'm not sure yet the question is why is it in the sixth seventh chapter we say we ask God to do these things and then it turns out we have to do them I think the answer to that Tom is this I have what I'm saying in effect is I have to do them but I have to do them by taking actions that I don't always believe in I am turning myself over to the care of God as I understand it I am taking actions that I would not take based on my own intelligence or self-evaluation. You understand that? I'm asking God to do it. What I'm saying in effect is, God, I'm going to take these actions of yours even though I don't always believe them. So, I've asked God to doing it, but I must do it by taking actions that I do not believe in sometimes. In other words, I am again asking God for something for me that I have to do for myself but I would not do without the security of his person, his being. Is that too abstract? Do you understand that? Let me put it more clearly. I remember having that feeling years ago. Why do you bring God into it? I just have to do it. I'm asking God, of myself, I would never ask anybody to remove all of my defects of character. Some of them maybe, but not all of them. I have to ask God, that is the surrender. I'm going to ask God to help me become willing to surrender my defects of character. Now, I would not do that of myself. I'm asking God to help Me do it. Help Me become willing. Because of Myself, I would never become willing and the seventh step which I'm gonna talk a little later about ask Him to remove these defects is I'm not sure that I want to remove but I'm surrendering to God. In other words, I'm asking God to do something that I'm afraid to do on My own and to bring this about I have to take actions it's just like asking God to get me God help me get to Toronto but I have to start moving but I'm asking God to help me ask me God I think one of the great prayers in the twelfth step or the eleventh step that I think is the most impressive prayer of all the prayers in Alcoholics Anonymous the one I've stuck with most praying only for knowledge of God's will for me and the strength to carry it out. Because otherwise I get into dickering and promising and manipulating. But that's what I'm doing there. I'm saying, God help me remove these defects of character. Help me to stay willing to do it. Help me to override my own damn selfishness and self-centeredness long enough to occasionally do something that'll get me out of it. Now, I am doing it, but I'm asking God for the power. Is that clear? Well, not to me. It is. Do you have your hand up? I thought you were getting your pulse. You have asked for it to operate in the way that we're doing. We use this defect type of sort of training method and treating people. And every time, this training method is not successful because we've had enough not dealing with all that. So what you're saying, what we have to do then is take away the defect. I don't want to put this concept of you know, I'm going to be doing this but this morning I said Therefore, I'm taking away these pieces which were my tools of dealing with the conflict. Not that you can tell the truth. Okay, now I'm starting to live. Now when I move this with God's help, the fear then is what I'm left with to deal with the conflicts. And then it comes to me then, when I have to change how I've done that As I understand, I understand the fear. It's the fear of the little boy. If I say I've got a toothache, I'm going to have to go to the dentist for the next 18 weeks. I would say that the defects of character we use as tools, in my experience, have been predicated on the fact that of myself, I am not enough. I always need a little edge to win. In other words, I cannot win based on myself. I've Got to have some extra going for me. So I use little tools, little shortcuts, little hustles, little deals and now they want me to give up those things and operate just normally, straightforward. And that is frightening to me because I don't think I'll be enough to do it. And that's what I think over a period of time you discover in age the best of your ability you try to give off those things as much as possible and you can, you operate straightforward and you operate without guile and it seems like you're just highly vulnerable. You know, it's like you say you're having a bad morning and I'll slip away to a noon meeting. But I know if I do that, that's the very time my competitor will get a big sale and I won't. I better sit here. And it's hard to realize that I'll give you an example of that. My sponsor, Chuck C., did you ever read this? He did this Polymaceous Retreat where he talked about it in a book called New Fair Glances. But that's a good example of it. Where he, after he was sober for a little while he decided that he would just run his business straightforward and honest and he would do whatever necessary to be a good business man. He designed the insides of supermarkets and he has a couple of examples where the guy said I don't like this. He said okay I'll do it again for nothing it's going to cost me thousands of dollars but I'll have to do it I want to make you happy and his fellows in the business were saying hey we're in you know you keep doing this Chuck and we're out of business we can't do it But as it turned out, he did it this way and he couldn't handle the business after a while. He was turning away business. He became a multi-millionaire by not having an edge. When you had an edge, you were just fairly well to do. When he became straightforward, he became a multi millionaire. Now I'm not saying that if you conduct yourself as an honest citizen, you become a multi millionaire. But I would say that being a multi milionaire was not as important to Chuck as sleeping well and feeling good. And that's what you get to. You sleep well and you feel good. I run a mission on Skid Row, as you know. Some years ago I resigned a job in Beverly Hills where I was quite successful and now I run an mission on skid row. I get paid considerably less than I might make in the real world. And it's a funny thing. People drive their Mercedes and their BMWs down to talk to me at the mission on how to feel comfortable. They can all buy and sell the mission I work in. But what good does it do if you can't sleep at night and you don't feel good? You feel terrible. what we have in common over the years I've had a chance to sponsor a lot of people guys put the flag on the moon movie stars and priests and psychiatrists and bums what we all have in common is that we've all come from a field where sobriety is untenable and drinking is untenible and we have to take tactics to get rid of it and stopping drinking is not enough so we have work on sobrietry as we've talked about the last few hours we have to give up things that seem to be the only defenses we have against the world and I don't think any one of us are ever in any danger of becoming perfect or wonderful I don' t think it is because it's just not the human condition but I must be willing to try to be straightforward to me as I mentioned last night briefly some of the greatest spiritual concepts I've ever learned in Alcoholics Anonymous the things that changed my life as much as anything I know are things such as do what you said you would do. Be where you said you would be when you said you would not be there or let them know you're not coming. Don't take out your pent up hostilities on people who can't answer back such as your children, waiters and waitresses employees where you just pent up most of us have been that haven't come home and it's been crap the other day you gotta take that crap Well, don't tell me when I can't. Get to your room. And you've got to try not to do that. I remember telling my sponsor on the kind of news. I said, yes, it's a foot today. I just, I'm going to. She said, I know you. She heard me take it out on the woman serving coffee at the club, and she just employed. God damn it, give me the coffee. You've got learn not to. I said why this? I've got get it out. He said, there's Mike Ross. Mike Ross was a guy six foot six. Big ex-football player. go over and tell that Mike Ross get out of the room I believe I can stuff it after all but it's so easy to slide into that cheap gratification of taking it out on people who can't answer back if you want to take it out, take it on someone you can answer back take it out on an equal or someone superior it's amazing how your attitude changes but these are the great spiritual values of me? Operating decently. Another thought, you know, trying to wish for people what you wish you had, could get. But all the things that go into it. I don't think there's any danger in the sixth step that you and I are going to become saints. We have to become willing to try to take care of these things as they crop up. I hope that answers your question. I'd love to know or any better way. I might as well go eat lunch after a while, huh? I welcome you back from your meaningful discussion meetings back to the droning harangue. Pay for your sins. Let's see, we've taken six steps. first to admit we're powerless over alcohol. Our lives have got a measurement that we might be a power greater than ourselves. Somehow they'll restore us to living without alcohol and in theory we're going to try to turn our lives over to that power even though we don't see how it's going to be done. First major steps are taking an inventory and exposing ourselves with fear and trepidation reading it to someone else and then that big step of making a decision try to become willing ask God remove these defects of character which brings us up now to step number seven which is the shortest step of all the steps only seven words but it has one of the great connotations one of them most meaningful of the steps humbly ask him to remove our shortcomings just in passing this kind of funny thing about alcoholics I, years ago remember going to a discussion meeting where they spent an hour discussing what's the difference between defects of character and shortcomings what is which and then I read in Bill's writing he just didn't want to be redundant in the two consecutive sentences that mean the same thing but we all like to argue we always like to find mystical things and very simple things there's something here we don't see they're keeping it from us that's the theory of some of these philosophers I see now in transactional analysis and so on, in my opinion because I have no opinion on this but they make millions of dollars by having people think the answer is just out of reach just come back again by the literature and can be hideous and if you ever listen to them they're just meaningless. But Alcoholics Anonymous isn't that way. AlcoholicsAnonymous Frank, no talking when you speak. If you must speak it's okay to loudly say isn't he wonderful but let it go I'm going to take out humbly oh I don't want to do that let's go on to the next step but humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings we're good now we became willing tried to become willing ask God to help us become willing then we become willing to do that and what we're doing that is the first place I think in the steps of course it is where we get into but humility humbly humility and humility is always one of our goals it's always a question what is humility is it Uriah Heep is it somebody just standing there saying oh you you ran over my shoe with your car hope I didn't hurt your tire mix it up with humiliation but it is little by little I've come to believe that humility is a very very it's an effervescent thing we after you've been around a while even when you got it you don't know you got you only know you haven't got it when you haven't gotten it seems to me humility is that rare ability of somehow being able to be yourself and figure that's enough just being yourself not having to have a front not having to have an image not having to have them think and nobody can maintain that very long I don't think but we sometimes talk about newcomers coming to AA and we say they're arrogant we've got to tear down that wall and bring them to humility and really you'll discover it's the other way around because this pride they have is nearly always an overcompensation for feelings of inadequacy of not being enough but you build up over the years this wall of apparent ego and arrogance and you can believe it sometimes yourself that you really are superior except when it's two o'clock in the morning and you gaze at the darkness and want to commit suicide but when your rational powers are going strong you tend to believe that I really am I'm too good for this stuff I don't know but it's been my experience that if you want to help people that humility you build up their ego. You build up their self-worth. You have them take actions that build them up. Because as they build up the compensatory wall comes down little by little. And little by Little you work yourself up to humility. You work yourself up to where you feel that what's inside of me is enough. It may not always very long you may think of that but that's what I believe humility is. or just being me is enough. I don't have to prove something or convince you or have an image or a facade. Of course, humans can't live like that because part of living in the world is living with a facade where you don't show your emotions as we talked about earlier or when you're angry you can't always afford to show anger and you can'T afford to sow sorrow and you CAN'T afford to show a lot of things. You have to live behind a wall but it's a nice few moments once in a while when you find that you can be yourself, that you don't have to have an agenda other than being yourself. And I think that's what refers to in this step, of course, as most of us know, Bill was so concerned about making sure that we did this in an imploring method to diminish that wall of arrogance that as the step was originally written, it was written, humbly on our knees ask God remove these defective characters and he shook him. But then in the editing before it went to press they took out the phrase on our needs because they thought it might sound religious and so they just humbly asked him to remove our shortcomings but that's what he wants us to do, humbling as ourself, putting down this wall of arrogance to live to ask for some way to take up and remove these shortcomings. Now, as we talked about this morning, there's no way human beings can't get rid of your shortcomings, you can't get rid off your defects of character all in one fell swoop. It would be nice to do it. We're talking at lunch. Unfortunately, we were talking while we were eating, so I lost a little something. I went to a different table. I didn't tend with my dinner companions. I went which are different, we talked about it. There is a concept, I don't know about it, and we were talking about it at the table, that cleaning up your defects of character you take care of them as they come up. You look at them as They Come Up. It's like clearing a cesspool or a septic tank. You take this out which enables some more things to float up. Oh, Jesus. it's just an endless job pretty soon you want to go in the house I think I'll get the rest of that next season or the season after that for sure which reminds me of something this is no time to say it but I know I'll forget it because other people in my room forget it if anybody knows where there's a plunger around here I can use it I asked one of my office mates, bunkmates, to get one for me. He went to the desk up here and said, I'd like... And he forgot what he was asking for and had to come back. And you have him defend you in court someday. See how that works out? Oh, I meant to say he's not guilty, Your Honor. I forgot. Well, he may like the penitentiary. Sure. We humbly ask God to remove these shortcomings to little by little work on the things and as Bill says in the 12 by 12, humility has not had an easy time of it. our society and it really has it because there's so many things that there's something emotions that we have to deal with the negative things that we the humility is always kind of put down she better the other seems like kind of a emotion we could believe in things like pride take pride in yourself and all of us can work on pride but most of us have come here with a great deal of pride and we've been destroyed by it I suppose but pride is even on the walls of clubs sometimes they put down things you wanna get rid of despair and gluttony and lust and false pride so that implies there must be some good pride somewhere you never see a sign saying get rid of false lust, false hatred. Pride is sometimes I think confused because we equate it with self-worth and I suppose in this sense it is but pride again is something where we try to pull ourselves to be just a little bit more than we are which I suppose is a very good thing but humility is that rare occasion when we try to be just what we are and if you are it goes back to this again if you know you're humble then you're not humble if you feel you have humility you don't have it it's something that comes from you don t even think about yourself you see in retrospect well I was had some humility I was myself I was thinking about others and not concerned with my image so the seventh step really is not terribly terribly uh complex it's quite simple but it's very difficult because I must I am now signing that agreement in principle I agreed to at the sixth step where I said yeah I'm gonna agree in principle to sell it and now or to buy it and other stuff that I'm gonna put my name on there I'm going to buy when I have people write an inventory, and I can take your fifth, sixth, and seventh steps. One thing I was asked to do, despite taking out the steps, I asked them to kneel in the bathroom or kneel in the kitchen or someplace where there's a hard surface and nobody can see them, and ask God to help them truly become willing to remove these defects of character, and the next day they can do that same kneeling and ask him to remove my shirt. I know no tongue of fire is going to come down and cleanse me, but I'm going to become willing to take that crap as it comes to the surface, at least give it a try. And a lot of it I may not be able to get in the first swing, but I'll get it little by little. And I've got to be willing to do it. That's the thing that's what they mean when they say, as the years go along, the road gets narrower. It really gets more comfortable, but you're picking up more crap and throwing it aside. You're able to, at last I'm able to get rid of this thing. And at last, I'm going to be able to get rid off this thing because I see how meaningless and how painful this has been and I thought it was bringing me happiness. And so over a period of time we do that. then we get to the end of that step and we've made a decision and decided to ask God to remove these defects of character and you get to a couple of the steps that I think are really the most gratifying of all the steps on this sometimes they're very difficult and that is the 8th step of course the 8-9th step where we have to make a list of all persons who have been harmed and become willing to make amends to them all. And that is easy for something. I mean, yes, there are some people here that I've hurt and I don't mind saying I'm sorry to them, but there's a lot of other people who have hurt me worse than I hurt them. Where's the step where somebody makes an amend to me? Where's this step where something does right for me? When some of these people I've got I can never I couldn't they've ruined my life something seems to me they're just a terrible thing there's an interesting concept in dealing with the eighth step and how you deal with all of these things where people where people have hurt you and you have to decide which ones you have taking them into and I think it's a it sounds difficult on the surface but whatever what a remarkable helpers if you can do it and that is to go into it by saying I'm going to start off by forgiving everybody who has hurt me forgive every user they're all forgiven and you could do that to a point easily except for four or five people that we're still going to get and some of these things have done are unforgivable I can't expect you to forgive those but you got to try to be able little by little to forgive everybody then you can look at the list consciously and say I have to make a list of people I've hurt now the question is what do you mean by hurt to me that has always meant they have felt worse as a result of me financially emotionally spiritually anyway if I had made them feel worse I have hurt them and they must certainly be brought up for review I think one of the good things about taking an eighth step with a sponsor for example is many times a sponsor can look at it dispassionately and say what seems to be the men that you need me to make here did not really amend unique domain but it seems to me a justified resentment is the one you have to make. It's always been my experience in making up this list of people that one group nearly always goes out there. And they are the group from the fourth step of people I resent. Nearly everybody I resent I feel guilty towards in some way, I discovered later. Through one way or another, one of the reasons I maintain that resentment is I think as good an example of that is in everything I've done with people who take an inventory. Now, it isn't always the case, but nearly always. That's the only thing I've asked them to save out of their inventory. Take the rest of it and burn it. But take your resentments and we'll talk about that later. The resentments should at least be very carefully analyzed. Despite what they have done to me, what have I done to them? Because as we said this morning, people aren't really against me. They are for themselves. And I'm interfering with them. Just as I am not against people, only if they interfere with me, with what I want or what I desire or as I perceive them doing something to hinder my wants. Now you're going to make a list of people you've harmed. It's quite simple. And the reason to do this is not to become good, but because we get tired of living in disharmony. When you're living with continual, ongoing resentments and feelings there's always disharminy, of course. So you've got to try to find some form of harmony. So you make a list I know on my list of my eight steps the one of the things I didn't have in my fourth step I had my resentments my sponsor met with my father and my father I always felt had partially ruined my life when I was a boy he had left my mother and I and he'd married another lady and I'd never seen a divorce before that there was such an insulated life and not only that but he always wanted to make demands of me he always was a he always wanted me to do more than I was doing always wanted me to I had all sorts of reasons why he ruined my life partially it was one of the reasons I could always feel victimized that's incidentally in passing one of those things that very cunning and baffling and powerful about this list, sometimes you have to put people on there who you feel have victimized you because you'll never get rid of the victimization unless you find a way out of this. In my opinion. My sponsor said, why don't you put him on your list? I said, because he has hurt me much worse than I've ever hurt him. He said, the point is that whatever he did, you were a rotten son. You were not a good son. He may have hurt you first but he may have had reasons for doing that, but you had no reasons to punish him. I didn't talk to my father for 10 years when I wrote this list. And I never was going to talk to him again. Why could I help him? Because I thought he made me put that down. He made me put down employers that had screwed me around that I had to go back. One of the things they've put on the list that's kind of strange is there are people I have hurt who I can't make amends to. I can make amens to my grandmother. She's dead. Can't make amens for an old guy that lived down the street who I hurt badly not really badly but hurt badly if it bothered me and I can get to but you put them all down set up a long list after a while and you must then you at least in theory are willing to make amENS to the ball. It's not a matter of some spiritual fervor, it's a matter of making an incident. And that really there isn't anything mysterious about the eighth step. You put down things the people you resent, the people you've hurt, all these things and we all know that. I mean there's nothing in a step seminar, all of us are knowledgeable enough, that's all there is to it. There's nothing spooky or miraculous about it. In the ninth step we we try to make these amends. And usually it's nice to have the help of someone like a sponsor to see what is meaningful and what isn't. Some of the difficult amends are for example not difficult but I mean they're mechanical but they're still difficult. It's like amounts of money that you can't pay. Call up that collection agency and tell them where you are. What's your real name? Because I've never had to deal with it. I've often thought, this is one of the examples why drinking was so good. I remember once upon a time in El Paso, living in El Caso, Texas. The household finance, who's the friend of every alcoholic, I just got another consolidation loan which buries you deeper. There's never any way out of those. and they were I was unable to make payments for a while because money had to be spent for other reasons for my indulgence and my wife and I were waiting around the house for them to call there was some talk about they were going to repossess some furniture and we had little kids and I was trying to hold a job and this would not look good for this executive to have his furniture repossessed and we were waiting for the phone to ring and my wife was just, and I was, I happened to think I had brought home some rum. One thing about living in El Paso, across the river from Juarez, you can get rum cheap and it's good rum. That's where the term rummy comes from. After a while you just kind of, you don't have to drink much anymore, you just kinda stay there. But I went and got some rum and I offered my wife a drink. I tried to be pleasant. She gave me that same intolerant, nastiest pasta! I did a couple drinks of rum and by the time the phone rang I was the only one in the house who didn't have any compunctions about answering it. Listen. You keep up this crap we're not going to borrow from you anymore. Now, stop calling me, goddammit. But now I'm sober, I don't have that way to go. Hello? I'm working 12 golden steps to recover. Will that work as payment? No, it won't. So if you're willing to go to people and say, I'll pay you $5 a week. And they say, that isn't very much, but if that's all you've got, we'll take it. I've never heard anybody send the $5 back. And make amends to people that sometimes it's very difficult because they don't... You'd like to make amens and have them say, you're so wonderful, you come here and made amends. it's just wonderful and sometimes they don't do that I went all the way back to Dallas to a big advertising agency and I met an immense guy I went to see him and I said I came here, I had a hard time getting in to see I'd been one of those better men at one time I thought I want to come in I've been an alcoholic I want make amends for the problems I gave you here He says, well, what are you doing in Alcoholics Anonymous? I said, I guess I'm an alcoholic. He said, that's not right. I never thought you were an alcoholic! I said well why do you think I did these things? You know this Stevie the company truck can reckon it. Little thing. He said I thought you was a son of a bitch and I still do. And I almost had a new amend to make. I was going to punch him in the face that's what I did I walked out you make amends like that and it's I remember my making making amends to my father oh my sponsor said write him a letter tell him you're sorry you're a bad son and you hope you wish him well and I wrote this letter and he did something I learned from and I've done it ever since He said, let me read it before you send it. And I read it and he said, no, no no, that's a revenge letter. Do it over. And so I did it over and finally he accepted it. I sent it. And I got no very little response. I guess I didn't get the response from my father. He said well, send him another letter and asked him if he got the first letter. And you just see this tall, strong, imposing, frightening man take my letter and rip me it up. I thought, that son of a bitch. I'll write him another letter. I'll tell him. Let me see it. So he sent another. And he wrote me back a letter. He said, yes, I got your letter. I didn't know what to make of it for his son because it sounded so unlike you. I thought maybe you were drunk. But he said, I hope you're doing well. I know we've had our upsets, but I hope you're going to be doing well." I thought, well that's nice, but it isn't much to show for the years he hurt me. And about a couple of years later, or a year later, my sponsor made me send him birthday cards and Christmas cards. and a year later I had to go to Minneapolis for a convention where I was working about two and a half years sober then I was at this big medical corporation and I lived 90 miles away from there so I made an arrangement to go down and see my father I said, I'm going to come down and show you and I just oh it was difficult I went down there there's this house I didn't like his wife I hated her And then this tall, imposing, threatening guy rang the doorbell and knocked on the door. The door opened, and there was a tall, threatening, imposing guy. There was a short little guy who said, Oh son, how are you? So glad you're feeling better. I thought, what happened to that big guy that used to push me around? But anyway, I was thrilled with my father but at least we talked. We sat and talked. And from then on we talked a little bit more and after a while I made a point. My sponsor suggests this and I do it to people too. Treat him like I was a good son whatever I think. Just act like a good son from now on. And there never was a week after that I didn't call him. Didn't have much to say sometimes. Whenever I got in that area I stopped in salt. Didn't like his wife very well, but she died early, so that helped. Get a break here and there, what the hell, you can't fight. I came home and was a source of strength to him at her kid. And we had to be quite close, actually. In fact, for declining years, she lived in our house. And we were closer than most fathers and sons I ever knew. And when he went back to Wisconsin, because he got lonely for his old friends and old fools that he was associated with, and old Norwegians and the old Norwegian church. When he died, I was holding his hand, and he gave my hand a little squeeze and died. That's just a nice wonderful thing, isn't it? But and all because I made an inventory to someone I mean I made the mend to someone who didn't deserve it I could have if I wouldn't have been forced to make that amend I would have made that in 10,000 years of myself then they talk about making amends to how do you make an amend to how do I make an amendment to my grandmother who's dead for 10 years by the time I start making amens and for taking her money the little money she had because I needed some money bad to get some to drink and treatyhood apparent love but always trying to worry how I could hustle her for something and my sponsor gave me an assignment on that which I in turn give to many people you have to spend a lot of time from then on you've got to look for little old ladies who are having a difficult time somewhere as you go around your rounds. And stop and help them. Again and again. Help some old silly lady out of the store with her bags. Here, can I give you a hand? Can I give your eyes? Can I do something for you? People I know, some people I don't know. I think of that in theory of making an amend to the world for what I've done to a lady I can't make amends to. So I make an amend to somebody else like her on a continuing basis. I've done that with old men and old women and sponsors and all sorts of things to make a special point of going out of my way to being of some sort of help for them to make an amend because I can't make the amend I should make so I make it to the world in her name, in other words I made a donation in my grandmother's name to that old lady or that old man, or that whole situation there's all sorts of amends you can make. And I'll tell you what, to me, one of the great realizations of amens, the great goal of aments, I have never made a sincere amend to anybody that I ever really hated afterward. I've made a lot of amands to people I've hated. And I was forced to do it. But after making those amends, I didn't hate them anymore. I didn' t always like them, but I never brooded about them anymore I never hated them it's the funniest thing in the world me making an amend to them enables me to stop hating them it's one of the strangest phenomena in all of AA that I know and so we go around making amends sometimes as you go along you find amends two years later that you had never thought about I should do this to stop and take the time to set things right as right as you can I don't know as I said this morning at the end of the fifth step and the end of this ninth step I think are the two great apparent moments of gratification of all the steps they all have kind of a spiritual growth but at the end of the fifth step there's a feeling of well-being and there's a great feeling of well being at the other end of the ninth step because they both consist of doing something outside of myself and making adding to the harmony of my existence and I think it is not a surprise that at the end of the ninth step is where Bill Wilson has put the promises in the book where he talks about if you do these things because these are the six steps, four, five, six seven, eight, nine the six steps where we try to clean up this crap that we agreed to do in the third step without knowing what we had to do and before we get into the things that we do on a continuing basis. These are cleaning up the cesspool and sweeping up the crap and dreadful little crappy jobs, but that begin to get the baggage out of the way. We talk about our life wanting to be one day at a time. It's kind of hard to live one day in a time when you're carrying 1972 with you too. And the fall of 1974 is what that guy said to me in 1966. Somehow these things ought to be cleared away so I can at least face today with today. And you can't always do it perfectly. Again and again I just always try to stress to people that remember we're not we can't ever do it perfectly and the irony of it is the great fault of alcoholics is that a perfectionist anything worth doing is worth doing to excess first of all like if I isn't perfect why you know I talk about alcoholics being perfectionist I've never identified didn't use to identify that I've ever been perfectionist. I just want things to be right and if not screwed. And it's a long thing to discover that we are not going to do things perfectly. We can't do it wonderfully. There's something in the 12 and 12 that's kind of funny, but it talks about spirituality, where it says we should never be satisfied with our spiritual condition. We shouldn't rest on our spiritual condition. Which gets back to that same old phenomenon in the book that sounds strange so you begin to realize what it means. The good is the enemy of the best. We stop halfway. As soon as the heat is reduced a little bit, we just by nature easy wayers and we stop a littlebit. It requires some use of a power greater than myself, of a God if you will that power to continue to do it. God works an example that I like is that when you're going to make an amend to someone that intimidates you and frightens you I can see it now in retrospect which I've known at the time but I can help other people with it sometimes or they're going to make a place where they used to work and you're going to see this guy's office and he's waiting for you you know he's going to grind you you're gonna go in there and say you're sorry I'll tell you an example of that when I was a senior at the University of Wisconsin I was in the first class after the war started in 1946 and we were steely eyed sex crazed veterans that's our image and we are wild and did a lot of things because we were scarred by the war we played that to the hilt I'll tell you and I was on probation several times but I won some trophies for the college. And when I was a senior, one night I was downtown drinking and I ran into this traveling sales lady with a magazine firm. I told her about the trophies I'd won and she didn't seem to believe it. So we went up to the university and I kicked open the door of the administration building and I went in and showed her the trophys. And I I was kind of drinking too much. I don't know exactly what happened, but apparently I felt she had a flat tire because I was pumping her up there on the floor when some policeman came in and illuminated this gory scene. I'll tell you something. If you ever want a quick cessation of sexual drive, you have a policeman's flashlight. quick detox quick detox and in 1950 of course in 1950 they were a little less free in social custom than they are now so they took us to jail, I was put in jail and so was she and the next morning she went to court and got a $150 fine for disorderly conduct and a floater out of town and I was held over the next day and the next day I got two things just before it's court I got a letter from the university saying from the dean of students this is your note of expulsion you're expelled then he had written in a hand letter I worked time after time to protect you all you had to do was go two more months and I begged you to take carry yourself but he told you not that drinking off and nonsense you would not do it you have broken your parents heart you've broken my heart you made me look a fool to this university you may look bad it's all over the papers I we could we could uh we could bring five we could file suit against you for breaking and entering in the night time to commit a felony to adultery but we're not going to do that just stay with this campus forever. Now, we'll jump ahead a few years. That was not an easy amend to go make I'll tell you. He'd become president of the University by this time. The same time I went to see my dad, I also went down there to see him. He would not see me. I'm not, I heard him say, I'm NOT in and tell him I'll never be into him. Well, that kind of cuts into your spiritual fervor, I'll tell you. I wonder what it's like. Oh, yeah? Are you into that? I'm here to tell you about God, you son of a bitch! But I came by the next time I was home. Funny, I still call it home. I was still think of his home and didn't live there all that long. But finally, after about three years of this, I called him on the phone and he agreed, from California, said, I'll be all clear. I wish you'd give me a chance to come and see it. I've really got something to say. I don't want you to come. Oh, alright. Because he was a very religious man. He disappointed me. Always had great hopes for me. And so when I went to office, I was literally sweating. I just, God, and the technique I know now, I didn't know then, but I'd recommend anybody in that situation, go across the hall, go in the washroom, stop for a minute. Remember that you're not going in there alone. You have God in your pocket. We are going in there. It can't be all that bad if we are going in there. I didn't know it then. So I went in and I told him what I tried to do, what I was trying to do. And I was working in radio and television in Hollywood by this time. And it looked like my wife and children were gonna move back with me eventually. And uh, and I'm very sorry that I know it caused a big deal of problems. Oh, that's very interesting. I wish you well. Thank you very much. I'm busy now. And that was the end of that event. Well, next time I was back, eight months later, I went down the same again. Poor bastard, he felt like a fawn in the forest fire. Every time he looked up, here comes this fool making amends again. Leave me alone. I forgive you, Jesus but that was really hurting me that had left a real scar and that's how I talked to him in at length and uh and then the next time I came I didn't come back to make an amend but I said can I just talk to you about something I have an idea so I'm really busy this was he six months later I said you know if it isn't too much I noticed terrible thing to ask you we're now in the 1960s I I said, but would it be possible for me to get the alumni news bulletin? I know technically I'm not an alumnus, but just because I really have a deep feeling towards the school. Oh, all right. So they sent me that. And I stayed. I stayed for most of the while. Most of the time. Now we jump ahead to 1976. I'd seen him several times. I had gone back to speak at the annual dinner in my hometown of Eau Claire. They had it started off, they called it the Eau Clair Annual Coon Feed. And I was back there at the 10th Annual Coom Feed. I looked forward to that with a lot of anticipation, too. They gave you beef, but they called them, because they started off with coon some years before. and you know when they changed the name of it? About two years after that, after I was there, they had a lawyer from Chicago, a black lawyer came up and spoke and he started off by saying, I don't know if you want me to talk or if you're going to eat me. But, I remember he spoke and he was invited. He was invited he'd never been to an A&E meeting and they'd invited it's kind of funny they'd invite the chief of police part of my talk I was able to say I was one of his first arrests when he was a rookie there's a feeling of continuity in that way I'll tell you something funny that may give you some hope if you're still going through any problems that I've discovered over the years if you turn out well all of those early things become amusing little legends remember that time if you turn out badly they're proof you always were a no good son of a bitch it just depends on how you turn up because I go back and people chuckle and laugh about things that 30 years ago they wouldn't even talk to me on the street because of those same things remember that times puts her arms around you and you feel like get your hands up now if there's some end to this story hopefully I've incidentally been I spoke at the 20th annual banquet the 25th annual banquet and next year I'm going to speak at the 30th annual banquet it's just just wonderful just a local boy makes good rotten, drunken puke for the first water. But anyway, 1978 I get a call from New Hampshire, Wisconsin from the dean and secretary we're having a big alumni get together scheduled in Los Angeles for the alumni that live in that area and the guy that was in charge of it has disappeared we don't know where he went but we have no arrangements, no accommodations and it's supposed to be in two weeks and the dean thought since you're kind of an operator. Me? Look at the holes in my palms. And can you get us something? I said, sure I can. I got friends. I got a I got in the Biltmore Hotel. Lovely lovely room in the Biltmoor. Call them. It was all set. Just tell them to come and they were enthusiastic. You did such a good job in this. Would you like to join us I said, yes, I would. So I came and mixed with all these old alumni fools and I'm glad to see all the members of my class look much older than I did. To me they did. And the dean was there, this now president. He said, why? I can't, you know, you couldn't see me several times but I understand you're really doing pretty good. What are you doing down there? He said I understand you're running some kind of a thing on Skid Row. I said yeah, I am. That's not like you, is it? If you're looking out for anybody else, what's in it for you? I said, well, just doing it. He said, come over and see it. I said okay. So after the thing we went over to Skid Row on Sunday afternoon we walked up through this clean sparkling place one of the few missions in the world that doesn't smell like disinfectant and urine it's clean and sparkling but deals with just dying men and women and he saw the whole thing all staffed by people who used to be classified hopeless people on the street. And he couldn't believe it. He said, I can't believe this. I know it's true that your name on your desk, but you've really changed a little bit, haven't you? Well, I hope so, Prez. I felt just like I was back in being intimidated again. I hadn't felt that way in years. Sorry, sorry. So he said, well, it impressed me pretty much. That was the end of that. Now we jump ahead a year, January 1980. Get a call from the University of Wisconsin. Well, this is Miss Carlson from the alumni office. President, the president is retiring this year, you know. He's retiring in his job. I know that nice man, glad to Bishop Monserrate, you want me to contribute towards going away present? What is it you want us to do? She said, no. It's a strange thing. He has recommended that you be named our alumnus of the year and come and speak at our commencement. I said, wonderful. Okay, I said that's wonderful. She said okay, she sent me all the data. It was 1980, May I was the distinguished alumnuss of the Year of the University of Wisconsin and I brought all my children with me and my parents were still alive they were very old they died soon thereafter but my mother and my father had lived together for many years but they came together and my kids were all there and I spoke at commencement on the benefits of living a decent life and I didn't want them to know that I had been expelled I must be we laughed about it later I must have been the only alumnus to see what's up in the history of the world that was expelled from the institution didn't even graduate just get out of here you son of a bitch you don't know that was really a touching moment my parents cried they cried when I got expelled and they cried when I was alumnused my children cried I cried I had a chance as I told them they didn't quite understand what I was talking about but I said I've made amends for many things in my life but this is one area I've never had a chance to make amends really. I want to make an amends to this university. So after that I got thinking about that a year later or so and then I started writing funny little letters to the new dean and president really appreciate this opportunity but isn't it kind of kind of bad to have a non-graduate be your alumnus of the year? And I did it in a joking way but I kept grinding. 1986, they said, okay, send me a diploma. So now I'm a member of the class of 1986. I by far look the oldest of anyone in that class. But again, that's a long tedious story but again, that's an amend I never would have made. I would have been ashamed to go back and face that old guy and the first time he saw me I never would have gone back, I'll tell you that. I don't mean that every time you go back and make an amend you're going to be in the alumnus of the year or you're gonna get close to your father but I'm sure that good things can happen and if nothing else happens you will lose the hatred for those people. You will lose the terrible separation. You in a sense take on you lose your sense of isolation. You rejoin much of the human race which is really what that steps about and I think it's most appropriate. I know you've all heard this a hundred times but in that context exactly what it says he goes into it by saying we should be sensible, tactful, considerate and humble without being servile or scraping as God's people we stand on our feet we don't crawl before anyone then if we are painstaking about this phase of our development we will be amazed before we are halfway through We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That is one of the great lines of all of AA. The very things that have made us guilty and terrible now are tools to help somebody else. You say you've been in the insane asylum? I have too. I'll follow you. The first guy I had sponsored that stayed sober I tried to sponsor several people but I increased their drinking as far as I could tell. But this first guy my two year sober he's at his first meeting he comes up to me and says I'd like for you to be my sponsor. Yes, sure. And he became my sponsor I became his sponsor he stayed sober later he told me why he wanted me to be his sponsor what do you think because he didn't have any front teeth and I didn't have any front teeth and I was sober two years without front teeth and he realized it's not necessary to have front teeth he understood you might say you may wonder how long I went without front teeth I shouldn't describe that when I was two years sober I got this job in the medical corporation and I said to my sponsor well got some money put aside now I'm going to be an executive I'm a writer in the advertising department I'm gonna get some front teeth he said for Christ's sake send that money to your kids in Dallas they have so little I said send them money every chance I get he said you just haven't sent them enough you got enough to buy front teeth he just thought they all got front teeth I'll show you their picture it's nothing to do with front teeth it's something to do with your attitude you're a selfish thing send them the god damn money so I sent them the money with graciousness and love of course I wasn't mad at them I was mad at that old fool I learned to carry my lip like this so I don't think anybody in that company ever knew I didn't have front teeth I guess they thought I was burned in the fire you know but I went to work every day and I did the things and eventually I got some front teeth. Now I tell newcomers that, I may have said maybe the provincial I don't know if I did that but no. I lost my teeth now I've like our book says we're like men who have lost their front teeth and never grow new ones. I often tell them if you're concerned about losing teeth let me give you some hope. Once you become like me spiritually transformed and almost holy they grow back. Thank you very much.